That went well, then

A couple of weeks after Dave heralded the coalition as a new type of politics and we're already hearing about members of the new Cabinet up to the same old tricks.

David Laws says it was because he wanted to keep his relationship with his partner secret - and in doing so decided it was OK to defraud the taxpayer out of £40,000.

This wasn't even a case of Laws working "within the rules" as it has been against the rules since 2006 to make payments to MPs partners. Laws tries to excuse this by saying that he didn't think it applied to him - a remarkable claim that suggests Laws is either very, very stupid or a lying, conniving git.

Either way, I don't think that sort of person should be serving in government let alone in The Treasury.

It'll be interesting to see what Dave will do now. After all, he's made a big thing out of cleaning up dodgy expense claims from MPs in his own party - except for close allies and himself of course - so it will be fascinating to see what he will do with an MP in his Cabinet from a different party.

It's crunch time for Clegg too. Laws is something of a rising star in Lib Dem world - which says a lot about the Lib Dem party - and Clegg will find himself somewhere between a rock and a hard place. Will he back the sacking of a Lib Dem colleague or will he defend the "next big thing" in Liberal Democrat politics? Either way he is going to upset some people in his own party.

Laws has been "credited" with being the chief architect behind the £6 billion of cuts introduced as if this is something of a good thing. Personally, I think that someone at such a high level in the government drilling down to such excruciating levels of detail is a signal that that person is too focused on micro-management and unable to see the bigger picture - something which is all too common in government today.

It's not surprising, though. I've been saying for years that the three main parties are the same in terms of overall policy and only differ on minor details - so it is likely that they will tend to focus on detail when they are in government.

New Model Tories

It's telling that the day after the coalition published its manifesto -which, incidentally, nobody had the opportunity to vote for or against - Dave has penned an article telling us that he remains a Conservative.

And I believe him.

The trouble is, the Conservative Party is a conservative party in the same way that the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea is democratic. - in other words, it isn't - and Dave knows this which is why he calls himself a progressive and has branded the coalition with the Lib Dems as a "progressive alliance".

Since Cameron took over the leadership of the Conservative Party he has pushed through the changes initiated by the likes of Howard and purged the Tory Party of any last semblance of conservatism. They are now the New Model Tories and they are not the party that the majority of people who voted for them thought they were.

Curiously though, those people who voted in this copy of Blair's "New Labour" are uncommonly quiet about the fact that they have been led up the garden path.

Where are all those people who were telling me "just wait till Cameron gets in" and "he has to do this to become PM"? Well, he got in, he is PM and he is exactly the same as he was before.

No - that's not fair. He isn't exactly the same as he was before because now he has thrown away any pretence at being a conservative. Now he's our Prime Minister he is all progressive this and progressive that - talking about "radical change" and "moving on" and other meaningless progressive phrases.

Almost eleven million people voted Tory at the election - they might just as well have voted Lib Dem or Labour because that is what they have got. And yet, for some reason, they refuse to admit they were wrong even though they privately know they were.

Give it a couple of years and I doubt whether you'll be able to find many people who admit to voting for Cameron in 2010 - just like few people admit to voting for Blair. It doesn't really matter - because those people know they voted for Cameron and they know that they voted for a fraud.

I did keep trying to tell people that is what they would get - because Cameron's whole campaign was built on a monumental fraud. The only thing we weren't sure of is whether it would be the fraud of pretending to be progressive when he really was a conservative or the fraud of being conservative when he is really progressive.

Well, now we know that it was the latter. You people voted for a man who was deliberately perpetrating a deceit in the vain hope that he was deceiving the enemy. He was - but his enemy was conservatism.

Men of no substance

It must be obvious to even the most ardent conservative pre-election supporter of David Cameron that the man is an unrepentant social liberal by now, but I wonder if they are now aware of just how ignorant he is too?

By ignorant, I do not mean uneducated - it is quite obvious that Mr. Cameron has had the most lavish education money can buy - but it is one thing to educate someone and something else for that person to be able to use that education.

And is only ignorant people who brush aside a centuries old constitution to introduce something as unconstitutional and anti-democratic as the fixed five year parliamentary term and the requirement of a 55% majority in the House of Commons to force an election before that time.

I've not mentioned this before, because it was always obvious to me that Cameron is no defender of Britain and therefore no defender of our constitution - I'm just keen to know what Tory voters who thought I was wrong about this think now.

I know that there are traditional conservatives who read this blog and voted for Cameron in the belief that he was only playing the social liberal game until he was in power - but the first thing he does when he achieves that power is jump into bed with the nearest social liberal he can find and embark on the continuation of the vandalism of our historic constitution begun by New Labour.

What do you people think now?

I'm not trying to say "I told you so" - even though I did - I just want to know that there are real conservatives out there who are prepared to say "this is not what I Tory voted for".

Otherwise, what is the point?

What now, conservatives?

This is a question for all those people who kept telling me that Cameron really was a proper conservative and that we'd all see his true colours once he was Prime Minister.

Well, he's Prime Minister and we've already seen him sell out to the Liberal Democrats. So what now?

Do you still think Cameron is a conservative or have you now realised that he really is the "heir to Blair"?

And do you now understand that the party you support is closer to the philosophy of John Smith than it is to that of Margaret Thatcher?

Cameron has pulled off one of the greatest coups in modern times - not by becoming Prime Minister, but by fooling the Tory party into believing they were still a conservative party and capturing the last free-thinking political party for the progressive left.

Now he's openly thrown his lot in with the progressive left and revealed his true colours after all - and they have turned out to be another shade of red, not Tory blue.

So what now?

More constitutional vandalism, a parliament ever more detached from the people and a ruling elite who sneer at the things you believe in and that you thought they stood for.

So what now?

Big state or "big society"? It's the same thing when government is involved

So Dave has revealed his grand plan and what makes him "different" from Brown. Dave's going to replace the "big state" with a "big society". Yay!

Oh dear, oh dear. Is that it? Really? Is that what all those Cameron supporters are pinning their hopes on?

Because, when you strip it down, all Cameron is proposing is a big state through different means. All he is offering is more quangos and more fake charities gobbling up government funding (our money) to pay for various government initiatives. In other words - it is exactly the same thing that we've been getting for the last 13 years under Blair and Brown.

Cameron claims that this is a "bottom up" process - but he is wrong. He is wrong for two reasons. First of all, in a bottom up process, the "community" decide what they want and decide how they will fund it. There is no government involvement whatsoever - but under his plan the community may decide what they want, but government will decide whether it is acceptable and will decide how it is funded.

Forget the fact that the decision may be made by some regional authority or "charity" and that the funding may not come directly from a government department - it is the same thing with a different name.

The second thing to bear in mind is that we do not have society because we have a government - we have a government because we have society. This is essentially the problem for the socialist ideology because they attempt to model society to what they want which, ultimately, can not happen.

A society is a group of people with shared values, mutual interests and a common culture. There are obviously levels of society - both geographical and class - but the ultimate conclusion of that society is the nation state. It can not go beyond that - as I have said many times before - because there isn't a group of people with the shared values, mutual interests and common culture beyond the nation state.

Government does not make society. It can not make society. All it can do is impose state directives on a society - i.e. big government. Dave's idea sounds different - but it isn't. It's the same thing with a different name.

Much like the Tory and Labour parties.

A man with no shame

David Cameron is quite right to suggest that public perception of MPs is that they are all out for what they can get - but I am staggered by the sheer effrontery of the man in his claim that they are not all like that.

This from a man who has a huge country pile in Oxfordshire within an easy commute to his place of work - a commute which many of his constituents make every day at their own expense - and a considerable personal fortune, but still took huge amounts of public money to pay for a second home.

If he really means what he says he can lead by example. First of all, he can pay back every penny he has taken from the public purse to pay for his homes and then he can sell his London home and give the money to charity.

Until he does that he will remain one of the sleazy, money grubbing, self interested, pocket stuffers. He's right - they aren't all like that, but his record suggests that he is.

Cameron should take heed

Suzy Jagger wonders what happened to the feminist parliamentary dream represented by the "Blair Babes" of 1997 over on The Times.

Are the likes of Caroline Flint and Theresa Villiers the true heirs to Lady Thatcher? What was the “outstanding contribution” to public life that Gordon Brown attributed to Hazel Blears when she resigned from the Cabinet last year?


In part, she answers her own questions. Even though there are more women MPs now than there has ever, the majority of them are neither heard nor seen while those that have been promoted to the front benches - on both sides of the house - have invariably been rubbish at the job.

That is inevitable when the decision on who should get a particular job is not based on whether they have the requisite experience, flair or capability - but simply the fact they are of the "right" gender (or religion, sexual preference or ethnicity).

If there is a lesson to be learned here (and let's face it - the liberals love to tell us how "lessons have been learned") it is that women only shortlists for prospective parliamentary candidates today will mean a dearth of seriously capable politicians available to hold high office tomorrow.

Merit is the only factor that should matter when it comes to choosing your candidate for a parliamentary seat - particularly if it is one you hope to take from the opposition and hold on to. Parachuting some dullard into place on the basis that they fulfil a quota is a bad idea.

Finally, you have to wonder about the hypocrisy of it as well. As a white, heterosexual male I've spent the last 40 years of my life being told that I'm a sexist, racist homophobe by the liberal left - but I'm not the one saying that women are more inclined to vote for women, blacks or more likely to vote for blacks, Asians are more likely to vote for Asians and gays are more likely to vote for gays.

If all that is true, then it is must be true also that women are more sexist than men, blacks and Asians more racist than whites and gays are more bigoted than heterosexuals. Either that or the really racist, sexist, bigoted bunch are the liberals.

Cameron can win - but he needs the BNP

Yesterday I was saying that I don't think the Tories can win enough seats at the next election to enable them to form a government based on the latest opinion polls. However, there was one factor that I forgot to take into account - the BNP factor.

After the last election, someone did an analysis of the UKIP factor on Tory results - I think it was over on EU Referendum. Their analysis suggested that there were a number of closely contested seats which , had the UKIP vote transferred to the Tory party then the Conservatives would have won the seat - and if this had been translated across the country then the final result would have been much tighter resulting in, probably, a hung parliament.

Of course, not everyone who voted UKIP would necessarily have put their X next to the Tory party if UKIP weren't an option - there are plenty of left wing voters who are EU sceptics too - but there is no doubt that UKIP are very much a party in the old Tory mould and much more likely to attract right wing votes.

Of course, there have always been minor parties on the right and the left which have taken small amounts of votes away from the two main parties. I don't include the Lib Dems in this as they basically inherited an established voter base from the Liberal Party. Yes, there were defections from both Labour and Conservative voters to the Lib Dems, but these were balanced out by defections from the Liberal Party vote to Labour and Tory.

However, the arrival of UKIP on the scene was a significant change. Although they remain a minor party, there is no doubt that the number of votes they are winning is enough to influence results - and generally this is to the detriment of the Tory Party. While this has been happening to the Tory vote there hasn't been a similar significant challenge to the Labour vote.*

Until now. The growth of the BNP over the last decade means that they are now at a point where they could become Labour's "UKIP" - a party which takes enough votes away from Labour to leave them short in marginal seats that could result in a Tory victory. Make no mistake, the BNP are a party which appeals primarily to working class voters who would usually vote Labour.

The BNP factor may be crucial in the coming General Election. Will it be enough to give Cameron's Conservatives an election victory? Probably not, but it may just be enough to ensure a hung parliament. What is certain is that the Tories are reliant on the BNP doing well to have any hope of forming the next government.

I wonder how they feel about that!

* Some might point to the Green Party as Labour's equivalent to UKIP, but I don't include them in this even though The Green Party is an ultra left party. They appeal, primarily, to middle class urban voters and are more likely, if anything, to be taking votes away from the Tories and Lib Dems in urban areas where eco-fascism is popular than they are Labour - and Labour are very strong in urban areas. Nobody who has a serious interest in the environment and rural affairs would vote Green.

Desperate Dave

Call me Dave sound increasingly desperate as he tries to bolster public support for the Tory party - and fails.

Ever since the Tories elected Cameron as leader we've been subjected to a sustained media campaign to get him elected as Prime Minister - even though we don't elect Prime Ministers in this country. We elect MPs and it is they who choose who will be PM - with the ruling party usually having the say so and choosing their esteemed leader.

Nevertheless, the media have been telling us for years that Cam's the man to lead us. They don't like Brown, the media. I don't either, but I have more respect for him than I do Cameron - not a great deal more, but you don't need much to beat absolutely none whatsoever.

Despite their best efforts - and the fact that Brown's tenure as PM has been one disaster after another - the media's love affair with Cameron has failed to catch on with the voting public if the latest polls are anything to go by.

The latest polls suggest - according to the experts - a hung parliament with Labour being the largest party. I disagree. Thanks to the distribution and makeup of constituencies, a Tory poll lead of a couple of percentage points won't be enough for them to overturn a Labour majority. If we went to the polls tomorrow and the result matched the latest opinion poll I would expect Labour to retain a slim majority in parliament - not much, but enough to enable them to form a government.

To force a hung parliament, the Tories need to be rating around 45% in the opinion polls. To win a majority this will need to be 50% or over - anything less will leave parliament hung or, at the very best, a Tory majority so slender that they would have to horse trade with minor parties to get anything done.

So why is it that the voting public remain unconvinced by Cameron despite the best efforts of the media? That's hard to say - whatever can it be about a man who has no firm political principles, flip flops from one point of view to another, promises one thing one minute then something else the next and hasn't yet managed to put forward a single coherent, solid policy on any subject whatsoever.

Beats me.

Cameron flip flops again

David Cameron has backtracked on Tory "policy" once again by saying that a government under his leadership will not make "swingeing cuts" in their first year of office sparking rumours of a rift between Cameron and the Shadow Chancellor, Boy George Osborne.

To be honest, it doesn't surprise me that Cameron has flip flopped once again as the man does not appear to have any strong convictions on anything with the exception of his divine right to be the national leader - and if there is one thing that is certain in politics it is that a man who believes himself to be born to govern the country will say and do just about anything to make that belief a reality.

It's not completely surprising to me that Cameron flip flops around like this - after all, he's been that way since he first became leader of the Tory Party - but what does surprise me is that he has bought into the socialist idea that government spending means more national growth. It doesn't - unless you include growth in welfarism, benefits spending, single motherhood, crime and violence as "national growth".

There is no doubt that targeted spending on income generating areas can produce an increase in national growth and prosperity, but that means spending money on making something that your people want or that you can sell abroad. In other words, manufacturing. It also needs to be money that is spent internally and goes to your own people and businesses - it's no good spending billions of pounds to support the car industry in Japan or Germany! The other thing that government spending needs to do in circumstances like this is to have an impact on the short term - although it is always a good idea to invest in the future when you have the money to do so, when times are hard you have to do what is necessary for the here and now.

But by declaring that his government will not make "swingeing cuts" in their first year of office, Cameron is saying that he accepts (once again) that all that this current government spends money on is necessary when it quite clearly isn't. Once again, Cameron is saying that he will stick to Labour spending plans as he did when he first became leader of the Conservative Party - a "commitment" he then backtracked on a year or so ago.

I know I've said this before, but I'll keep saying it until someone does it. There is an obvious and easy way to make significant spending cuts in the first month let alone the first year - you tell all the quangos and agencies currently running Britain that they must cut their budget by 20%. How they do this you leave up to them - but you tell them they must do it.

Quangos were responsible for £130 billion of spending two or three years ago - it's quite likely that they are spending anything upwards of £150 billion today, but let's assume they are still spending £130 billion.

A 20% cut in that budget next year will save the country £26 billion.

You can save more in that one simple measure than all the tinkering around the edges proposed by the Tories and Lib Dems manage with their ideas for saving £100 million here and £80 million there. You don't have to make changes to the taxation system, you don't have to decide what quangos and agencies to get rid of altogether (although, in future years, there is plenty of scope for a massive quango cull) and what you do will have virtually no effect on "front line" services. And you can do it on the day you take office.

But Cameron has revealed once more his true colours. He IS a socialist.

Promises, elitism and moral standards

I have to admit that I did laugh out loud when I heard that David Cameron was promising to make the teaching profession "blatantly elitist". As promises go, it is one of the easier ones to keep as the teaching profession has been blatantly elitist for decades - so he can tick off that promise as kept the minute he walks through the door of Number 10. It's a bit like promising to make the NHS blatantly bureaucratic.

The reality is that anyone entering the teaching profession will find their options extremely limited if they don't hold the correct "right on" world view on various subjects. The teaching wing has been the elite wing of cultural marxism since the 1960's and is quite probably the most elitist profession in existence today - even the SAS is less discriminating about who it accepts into its ranks.

On the subject of David Cameron, I noticed a couple of TV news reports over the weekend described his marriage tax proposals (which aren't proposals - just vague generalisations) reminded us of John Major's "disastrous" Back to Basics campaign. I think it was rather odd to focus on that for two reasons. First of all, Major's Back to Basics campaign as I understood it at the time was primarily about his government concentrating on the basics of government. It was turned into a moral campaign by the media more than the government.

More importantly, as a moral campaign it may have proved popular with voters if it had been tried - but what made it "disastrous" wasn't the electorate not liking the idea of good moral standards, but the fact that so many Tory MPs were indulging in immoral behaviour such as cavorting with call-girls in Chelsea shirts and taking back handers from dodgy foreign businessmen.

One of the main reasons New Labour won the election in 1997 was Tony Blair's (broken) promise that his government would end all the sleaze and be "whiter than white". As this seemed to strike a chord with voters - and following the recent furore over MPs expenses - it is apparent to me that the electorate would welcome a return to good old fashioned morality standards.

It is unfortunate that successive Tory and Labour administrations have proven to be so amoral and so self-serving that the electorate is now as cynical as the media - but for different reasons. The media were cynical because the industry is a breeding ground for amoral behaviour which it promotes incessantly, whereas the public are cynical because they no longer believe there is such a thing as high standards in public office.

Changing the guard

It's no secret that Cameron's mantra for the upcoming election will be "change". Why not - it worked for Obama so it should work for the Tories, right?

Well .... maybe. I'm not convinced myself that a Tory landslide is as certain as so many seem to think. In fact, judging by the sounds coming from the Cameron camp, it is apparent to me that the Tories are downgrading their expectations to a slim majority or even a hung parliament.

However, suppose that the change mantra does do it for Cameron and the Tories do succeed in achieving a working majority - what sort of change are they offering?

Well, on the face of it they are promising a different approach to tackling our economic troubles - but this isn't as clear cut as it seems. The fact is that whoever wins the next election will have to make significant cuts to expenditure at some point in the next couple of years - that or risk having our credit rating downgraded leading to more expensive lending and rising inflation. Even with significant cuts a change to our credit rating is possible - without them it is almost certain.

But leaving that minor squabble aside, the goals of the Tory party are not much different to the goals of the Labour party or the Liberal Democrats. Whether it is health, education, industry, environment, crime or what have you they all have the same aspirational aims for Britain. They all want to keep us subservient to the EU, they all plan to change the constitution in some way or another, they all want to keep the NHS intact, they all want to persist with the current education system even though it is a demonstrable failure and they all want to persist with the cultural cringing that is leading to the destruction of British society, tradition, heritage and history - and will ultimately destroy this nation.

The only change the Tories are offering is a change of face guarding the liberal progressive ideology. Like the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, the faces may be different, the uniforms might have minor discrepancies but the edifice they protect will be the same.

Polls, popularity and pictures

It would be nice if the recent poll that put the Tories just 6 points ahead of Labour could act as some sort of trigger for a proper political discussion in Britain today, but I fear it will not. Over the last couple of years, the mainstream political commentators have been telling us that Cameron's Tory party is now incredibly popular and that their poll lead was proof of this.

This was never the case.

The Tories held a significant lead over Labour not because the Tories were popular, but because Labour was unpopular - and the reason Labour became unpopular is that they were being led by a man that the media don't like. Gordon Brown's unpopularity had little to do with his policies which, by and large, are exactly the same as his predecessor who was very well liked by the press.

Gordon Brown became unpopular because the media decided this was to be the case and so began a long campaign of subtly drip feeding negativity about the man. They use tried and tested but remarkably discreet methods to do this - a favourite being a picture taken in an unflattering pose or poorly lit.

Throughout his time in office, hardly ever was there a poor photograph of Blair published -either in the newspapers or on online editions of MSM content. This isn't because poor pictures of Blair don't exist any more than good pictures of Brown don't exist - it is a deliberate policy by the MSM who employ experienced photo editors to ensure that the image of a person they publish conveys the image of that person they want to get across to the public.

Over the years they've got very good at this as they've had lots of practice - usually at the expense of previous Tory leaders such as Hague, IDS and Howard. Curiously, since Cameron became leader there seems to be a dearth of bad pictures of Tory leaders, but a wealth of damaging images of Mr Brown. This isn't a coincidence - the press like Cameron as he is considered the best man to continue the Blairite revolution which our press almost universally favour.

Unfortunately for the media, the electorate are not quite as gullible as they like to think so, despite their best efforts to talk up Cameron's Tory party, the Conservative party's share in opinion polls is little better than it was under Hague, IDS or Howard.

The MSM recognised this - and recognised the fact that even with a 15 point lead over Labour, the Tory share in polls was never going to be enough to translate into a victory at a General Election. Around 40% is nowhere near enough for the Conservatives. The first past the post system and constituency boundaries means that they would need to be polling somewhere over 50% to have a realistic chance of winning a decent working majority at an election.

So the MSM upped their campaign and became less subtle in their demonisation of Brown with daft stories about biscuits and then, critically, the overblown tirade over the letters to dead soldiers families. But this lack of subtlety has backfired - and rather than making Brown even less popular the electorate seems to have decided that it really isn't British to keep kicking a man when he is down. So Labour support has risen and Tory support has fallen.

I'm sick to death of a media which seems to think it has the right - as well as the capability - to decide who we elect as our leaders. Wouldn't it be nice if who we voted for was decided by the politics of the people and the policies of their parties rather than the elite of the MSM?

So who can you trust?

I suppose it depends on your viewpoint that decides how you would react to the fairly predictable news that the Tories are going to abandon plans to offer a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

There are people like me who were always sceptical of Cameron's pledge and never believed for one minute that he or his party planned to honour it - but then I think Cameron is a lying, manipulative populist who will say whatever those he is talking to at the time want to hear while meaning absolutely none of it.

Then there are those who still support the Tories and will accept the excuse that, once the treaty is ratified by all 27 countries there is nothing we can do about it. That same argument applied in 1975 when we last had a vote on our relationship with the EU, but somehow the promised referendum managed to be held.

But there are many who will see this as the final stab in the back. Once upon a time - quite a long time ago now, but still in my lifetime - a manifesto pledge was exactly that. If a party made a promise in its manifesto, then the leaders of that party felt honour bound to abide by that promise.

But honour means nothing to today's breed of politician. We're talking about people - like Peter Mandelson, Chris Patten and Tony Blair - who swear an oath that "no foreign prince, person, prelate, state or potentate hath or ought to have any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm" which they then ignore and, worse still, they then go and work for that organisation which they swore an oath to defend this country from!

So who can you trust? UKIP or the BNP? Not really. Both those parties claim they want to take us out of the EU, but they then stand for and win seats in the EU parliament. I'd have more respect for their position on the EU if they refused to have anything to do with it - but they take their place on the gravy train like all the others. If they were genuine then why do they feel the need to stand for the EU parliament?

I really don't think there is a single political party in existence today that I feel I can trust. Does anyone disagree?

Isn't that the most damning indictment of modern politics possible?

Absolute beginners

Benedict Brogan has an interesting comment piece in today's Telegraph suggesting that more than half of the current batch of Tory MPs may not be around after the next election.

[T]hose around the leader are talking about possibly 100 of their 193 MPs being replaced. No wonder, then, that the Conservative backbenches are seething. It is dawning on them that they are being culled, whether by the leadership or the public, and they do not know what to do.

It's worth noting that the "cull" has very little to do with the expenses scandal and a lot to do with Cameron getting rid of the kind of conservative Conservative that no longer fits the profile of the New Tory Party.

There is resentment at the way Mr Cameron operates. He is too aloof, some MPs say, and relies on a small inner circle for advice, leaving the rest to stew.

Hmmm - sound familiar? I seem to recall similar accusations against a certain Anthony Blair.

Some MPs also reveal a deeper unease about the party's direction. "But what do we believe?" they ask, reluctant to consider that the consistent double-digit leads in the polls are for real or that the public has taken to Mr Cameron as a prime minister-in-waiting.

What do they believe? The New Tory Party believes in power - nothing else. There is no "direction" other than attaining power. The last thing the New Tory Party wants to do is confuse voters who provide that "double-digit lead" with things like policy and direction. Nope - just stick to vague and grandiose sound bites. It worked for Obama!

While we're on the subject of polls - a double-digit lead is meaningless. The Lib Dems have a double-digit lead over UKIP but are no more likely to win the next election! To actually achieve a large enough swing the Tories need to be looking at at least 50% in the polls to have a realistic chance of winning a decent majority in parliament - and they are not even close to that.

But supposing they do and they end up winning a landslide with some 400 or so Conservative MPs. More than three quarters of those MPs will be complete novices while most of the rest will have never served in government. Their leader is a novice himself having never had a significant position in government before. The Cabinet will be stuffed full of New Tory MPs with little idea of what is required and even less idea about how to go about achieving that.

And all this at a time when Britain is facing an unparalleled economic and political crisis.

This does not bode well for the New Tory Party - but it is even worse for Britain with the country in the hands of absolute beginners.

Cameron supporting violence?

I've managed to catch up a little bit with the events outside parliament yesterday when a group calling itself "Unite Against Fascism" disrupted a BNP press conference. Not only did they disrupt the BNP with an illegal protest, but they also used violence to do so - throwing eggs, kicking cars and hitting out with their placards.

I've listened to a couple of interviews with protesters who were there and they didn't seem to think the violence was unjustified and were entirely unconcerned about the suppression of free speech. Not only that, but it appears this group are supported by the Labour Party, the Tory Party and the Lib Dems and funded with taxpayers money!

The Labour Party have a long association with groups prepared to use violence to pursue their goals - they're called "trade unions" - but as far as I'm aware, this is something new for the Tory party. How can Cameron justify supporting a group who are prepared break the law and use violence to obtain their ends?

I would urge any Tory supporter out there to call on Cameron to disassociate himself and his party from this bunch of violent thugs.

EU elections prove nothing

As expected the media have gone into a frenzy over Labour's dismal performance in the EU elections with many people suggesting that this could translate into a whitewash in a General Election. I'm still not convinced.

First of all, the "constituencies" and the method of voting in these elections are nothing like those at a General Election meaning that it is all but impossible to draw comparisons. As a rule, the Tories tend to do well in larger, more rural constituencies while Labour tend to dominate in large towns and cities. The only real place where you could make some sort of judgement is in London where the Labour vote held up surprisingly well all things considered.

Secondly, despite the Labour Party vote share collapsing, it was clear that the Tories were not the beneficiaries of defecting Labour voters - and nor were UKIP. It's true that UKIP tended to pick up seats that Labour lost, but on the whole it appears to me that the biggest beneficiaries of Labour disaffection were the Greens and BNP.

If anything, the results are as much of a body blow to Cameron as they were to Brown. There is no indication from these polls that the Tories will achieve anything near the required swing to gain even a modest majority in parliament - and if they want a working majority they are even further from the mark.

What is also clear to me from this is that it is highly unlikely now that the Labour party would ditch Brown. They could not possibly have a new leader and not hold an immediate General Election. I really believe there would be widespread revolt if they tried - and even if there wasn't, people would be so infuriated by such disregard for the electoral process that they'd give Labour an even bigger kicking when the election did come.

I suspect a lot of people will look at the way UKIPs vote held up and judge that these voters would normally vote Conservative in a General Election giving the Tories more than enough to achieve the required swing. Possibly, but the vote share of both groups is roughly the same as it was in the previous EU elections and that wasn't enough to defeat Labour in 2005.

I've no doubt that there is some serious soul searching going on at Labour HQ today, but if I was Cameron I'd be even more concerned and wondering what it is I need to do to convince voters to support the Tories - because on this showing the best he can hope for is a hung parliament.

Blair in a blue tie

Much is being made today on Cameron's speech promising to give power to the people.

“I believe there is only one way out of this national crisis we face," he said. "We need a massive, sweeping, radical redistribution of power.

“From the state to citizens; from the government to parliament; from Whitehall to communities; from Brussels to Britain; from judges to the people; from bureaucracy to democracy.

“Through decentralisation, transparency and accountability, we must take power away from the political elite and hand it to the man and woman in the street.”

Yeah, yeah - fine words, but with little meaning behind them. With as much as 80% of our laws originating from the EU Commission, rubber stamped by our parliament and implemented through the direction of a myriad of quangos and agencies with no public accountability there is no prospect of this happening under a Cameron government anymore than there is under a Labour or Lib Dem government.

As long as we remain part of the EU we can not change that and Cameron is committed to keeping Britain in the EU.

I'll give Cameron credit for being able to tap into the mood of public opinion as well as Blair used to do, but he also shares with Blair an empty void of principle behind the rhetoric.

Cameron knows he can't deliver the promise of moving power from "Brussels to Britain" without withdrawing from the EU - and without that first step he can not decentralise or reverse the corporatisation of government.

I'll now wait and see if anyone decides to challenge him on this. It should be interesting to see how he answers them if and when they do, but given the media craven acceptance - no, their preference - for Cameron as the heir to Blair I doubt that they will.

Leadership

There's been a lot of praise for Cameron in the press and in the blogosphere regarding his "leadership" during this expenses scandal.

Let's get something straight here.

Cameron, like Brown, has known for months that MPs expenses were to be published but was expecting that to be in July - and only after much of them had been redacted (covered up). At no time during this period has Cameron made any significant statement regarding these expenses - far from it, lots of people have remarked how odd it was that the Tories were silent on this issue ..... until the Telegraph published.

Only then did he come out of his shell and say or do anything.

All he has done is followed a lead by the Telegraph and only then after his hand was forced.

That is NOT leadership - that is reactionary posturing.

The definition of irony

If you've got kids, you'll know how they love to ask questions. I'm quite proud of the fact that both my kids are avid readers, but that does mean they occasionally come across the odd word they don't know which usually results in the question "Dad, what does this word mean?".

Most of the time I'm able to deal with these, but the other night my youngest asked me one that had me flummoxed. What is "irony"?

Have you ever tried to explaining irony to a nine year old? It's tricky to say the least. Contrary to what Alanis Morrisette might think, it's not rain on your wedding day. I still haven't found a good way to explain it to a nine year old - but I do think I've found the perfect example of irony.

It's the fact that after a long, inexorable drift over many decades the Conservative Party under David Cameron is looking like it might finally achieve its goal of becoming a social liberal party in power - just as the rest of the country is starting to turn back to social conservatism.

Isn't that ironic?