“The public is crying out for relief from the half-baked fascists and bureaucrats, box-tickers and politically correct clip-board carriers of Labour” 

Wouldn’t 2007 be wonderful if... this is the time of year for focussing our rose-tinted spectacles on dreams for the future. We can, for a short time, close our eyes and wish that justice be done, sense be seen, that logical arguments are miraculously accepted by the powers that be.

Top of my wish list is that the scales will fall from the eyes of the British people and they will see the Labour party in its true colours in 2007. (The same goes for Americans and the Democratic Party but one step at a time).  They would see that Labour’s class-war combination of greed, resentment and envy, coupled with seductive sounding but counterproductive solutions only leads to dead-ends.

Labour’s brew becomes the more dangerous and unpalatable because of the natural, in-the-genes incompetence of Labour politicians. Only those with insufficient brainpower could believe the nonsense, the history-ignoring garbage that is socialism, so when they reach the heights of government we shouldn’t be surprised that they can’t do the simplest things or display a modicum of common sense. Just think John Prescott. In what half-assed organisation could such a man reach the top?

“The electorate doesn’t give a monkies about how “nice” Tories are, it only cares how competent it is”

The Labour Party is a bit like the Church of England a couple of hundred years ago. If one of your sons then was a bit dim, the church was the place where a reasonable living, mainly inside and out of the rain, could be guaranteed. Now, a career in the Labour party beckons if, like Prescott, or Hain or Blears or Browne or Alexander or Miliband you are not too smart, but you’d like a job with nice pay and conditions. Nice pensions too, not least because Gordon (Bungler) Brown hasn’t turned his ruinous attention to public sector pensions yet, but give him time.

The only thing Labour operatives do well is talk the talk. They have done this so well that even a rotten, corrupt organisation like the NHS, is respected, even loved, by Britons. This despite daily headline news revealing yet more ways that state controlled health care hasn’t, doesn’t, and won’t work. Education too is cursed by the meddlers and fools of central government.

How is it that most Britons apparently believe that basic needs like health and education problems should be organised centrally by the state? The Labour party spin doctors have done their job so well that privatisation has become a dirty word. A concept which should mean freedom from interference and the chance to improve beyond many people’s wildest dreams, has been turned into a dirty word. Any attempt by Tories to learn from health systems in America, Germany or France, is immediately assailed as somehow undermining our precious NHS’s chance to consign us to some never-ending waiting list, or if we’re lucky, to gain a bed in an MRHA-infested “ward”. Labour never responds to arguments about the NHS with talk about the best way to deliver health care. It dives straight into the politics of fear, seeking to use a smoke-screen of obfuscation to frighten its hitherto natural constituency into accepting the status quo.

Try explaining a “ward” to Americans, where of course only the super-rich ever get any health care. “You mean that you have to share a room with strangers? That’s like booking a room in a hotel finding that there are 10 others there already, isn’t it? And the British accept that without any protest?”

I fear that this is the crux of the problem; a British fear of making  a scene, a blind acceptance of their lot, not wanting to rock the boat. During Margaret Thatcher’s revolution it seemed that this British disease had been exorcised. But I live in hopes that the Thatcher spirit is alive and kicking. Maybe the voters of Kingston upon Hull East will finally rebel at the next election and throw John Prescott out. Just what kind of people are they to have voted for this oaf since 1970? Maybe in 2007 Kingston upon Hull can lead the revolution. That’s probably a dream too far.

Come In David Cameron, Your Time Is Up

My second hope for 2007 is that Tory leader David Cameron will get his comeuppance. Don’t forget that Cameron only won the leadership race because he lied to the party. If he’d run his campaign on a platform of phasing out grammar schools, indifference to lower taxes and the ever-encroaching European Union, he would have been laughed off stage. He has since shown no interest in reforming the NHS and dumped the idea that tax-relief should go to those taking out private health care. No matter that this would be a great way of quickly raising funds for health care in this country. No, this would impede Cameroon’s misguided diagnosis about the “nasty” Conservative party.

“instead of a reforming crusade to set Britain back on track, we will have Cameron and his fellow hand-wringers like Francis Maude, Oliver Letwin, Theresa May, and Andrew Lansley emoting and worrying if people think they are nice”

This has meant much wasted time showing Britons that the party is in fact caring and sharing and can’t wait to do good. This is all wrong. The Conservatives were rejected in 1997 because the electorate had become chronically bored by them. Labour won because Tony Blair convinced them that the socialists wouldn’t tax them to death and that it had changed. Now we can all see the egregious failure that is Labour. The electorate doesn’t give a monkies about how “nice” Tories are, it only cares how competent it is. The public is crying out for relief from the half-baked fascists and bureaucrats, box-tickers and politically correct clip-board carriers of Labour. It wants sensible policies in education, health, transport, immigration, energy and tax. Cameron’s old-Etonian Conservatism is too cowardly and defensive. He’s a toff too concerned about his upper class image.

Conservatives need someone with no hang-ups; just a determination to right the wrongs of Labour. The tragedy is that Labour is going to lose the next election, but instead of a reforming crusade to set Britain back on track, we will have Cameron and his fellow hand-wringers like Francis Maude, Oliver Letwin, Theresa May, and Andrew Lansley emoting and worrying if people think they are nice. Cameron’s sophomoric embrace of “green” taxes will set us off on the wrong track, if he is allowed to remain in the leadership.   

On day one it was obvious that Cameron was going to be a disaster. The only question remained just how long would he be allowed to remain, given that the party would look mighty foolish if he was removed from the stage too early. Get out the hook now, and I can cancel my application to join the United Kingdom Independence Party.  

Arise Sir Bono

Tony Blair was feeling so smug about awarding a knighthood to the insufferable egomaniac and bonehead “Bono” of U2, he couldn’t wait for the regular announcement.

He had to leak this great news to the world early. Is Blair really that out of touch that he felt the rest of us would applaud this act of superficiality and patronisation?

“Bono” knows little about the economics of aid for Africa but plenty about keeping his band on the front pages. His brand of aid for Africa is the same supported by Gordon (Blundering) Brown that has kept Africans in poverty for generations but made sure there was plenty of money slushing around to equip all the corrupt dictators with bullet-proof S-class Mercedes limousines and bank accounts in Switzerland.

They make sure oodles of our money are available, but pay little attention to what actually happens to it. This feel-good charity leads to expensive, well equipped schools appearing in underprivileged towns, but which remain empty because nobody thought to train enough teachers. This top-down ladling of goodies from the Squire to his forelock-touching dependents makes the givers feel good, and allows them to strut about telling us how much more of our money they’ve given away, but which has a minimal impact on the problem.

African needs honest government, the rule of law, and the emancipation of the energies and skills of the people, not patronisation. Let’s hope some progress is made in 2007. 

BNP Is Socialist/Fascist Leftie Not Extreme Right Wing 

And here’s another plea for 2007 which will fall on deaf ears, but which I’ll make anyway. Could the BBC please stop saying that the British National Party is an extreme right wing organisation.

The BNP is of the left. If you look at its website, its policies are an amalgam of much stuff which nobody will find all that offensive, but if you try and find hints of an underlying philosophy it is unremittingly leftie.

The BNP is anti-globalisation, against laisser-faire capitalism and hates economic liberalism. In other words the BNP wants state-control of the means of production. This is what socialists say. In late December, on BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions, the panel was asked how it would combat gains from the “extreme right-wing” BNP. Former conservative MP Michael Portillo said the BNP was “vile” but offered no reason to back this up. I’ve not read everything on its website – life is too short to read it all – but so far I’ve not found anything “vile”. Leave the E.U., end multiculturalism, bring back the death penalty, no more mass immigration, even, most sensibly, urging the end of postal voting. I think that Portillo really means that it would be vile having to sit next to some tattooed skin-head BNP member at a dinner party.

It doesn’t do Britain’s political life much good if the likes of the BBC and senior commentators use plainly inaccurate abuse to describe a political party. The BNP is a left-wing political party. It is aggressive with it. That means it is probably best labelled a fascist party. Hitler didn’t call Germany’s Fascist National Socialist Party because he was trying to confuse people. Fascists are socialists on steroids.

 Neil Winton – December 30, 2006