Monday 1 June 2009

Now Can We Talk About Politics, Please

Nothing, absolutely nothing at all, in this whole expenses business touches on a single policy.

All three parties should have suffered the collapse of their vote anyway, and were very largely doing so already. New parties should have been beginning the process of emergence anyway, as people moved beyond the mass abstention that has now amounted for some years to by far the largest bloc of the eligible electorate. Independent candidates should in any case have been preparing to contest the 2010 General Election, but, as some of us were already doing, on clearly defined political platforms; in my own case, a candidacy this time round and in this constituency has been gently coming to the boil for 15 years.

(I remain somewhere between baffled and really very angry that people came on here after I wrote that I would give away all of the salary above the national median wage to say that "at last" there was something to distinguish me from other candidates. I know that, for example, almost all of the Westminster press pack are not remotely interested in politics properly so called. But I really had expected better of the readers of this blog. Why else would anyone read it? And I am still not happy. In principle, I still believe in the rate for the job. I still feel very strongly indeed that this is entirely the wrong issue. But ho hum, I need to win for the sake of the right issues.)

Some of those Independents might have been celebrities anyway. Why not? But most of them would not have been. And the idea that that is what Independent candidates are pretty much by definition, as parroted by Roy Hattersley on Newsnight last week, would simply never have entered the debate. When it comes to someone like Esther Rantzen, grandees who do good works in certain fields are as necessary as nitty-gritty politicians. That is why there is a House of Parliament for each. And I think we can all see in which House Esther Rantzen belongs.

Furthermore, is every Independent going to be given a turn on Any Questions? Or are we looking at the Martin Bell situation, in which the media in general and the BBC in particular blatantly rigged an election? Rigged it, moreover, in favour of a candidate whose material was written by Oliver Kamm, "later" of the Henry Jackson Society and the Euston Manifesto Group. Isn't it funny how things are connected?

You see, these things really are about policy after all...

So let's talk about it.

Let's talk about how an entirely new movement is now needed to fight for the universal and comprehensive Welfare State. To fight for the strong statutory and other (including trade union) protection of workers, consumers, communities and the environment. To fight for fair taxation. To fight for full employment. To fight for co-operatives, credit unions, mutual guarantee societies, mutual building societies and similar bodies. And to fight for every household to enjoy a base of real property from which to resist both over-mighty commercial interests and an over-mighty State.

Let's talk about how, on that basis, that movement needs to make itself the voice of all those whose concerns are any one or more of rural, monarchist, cautious and organic in relation to constitutional change, Eurosceptical, Unionist, pro-Commonwealth, academically selective, economically patriotic, morally and socially conservative, explicitly Christian, conservationist rather than environmentalist, and foreign policy realist.

Let's talk about how the key to bringing about the emergence of that movement is the election to Parliament next year of candidates who are at least broadly committed to its principles.

And let's get those candidates organised and elected.

8 comments:

  1. Commenters on this blog have repeatedly tried to talk about these issues, and you have repeatedly failed to engage with them. They have repeatedly asked you to elaborate on your interesting policy ideas, and to answer legitimate criticisms of them, and you have refused to do so. You're not interested in discussion, you just want people to agree with you. And they don't, by and large.

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  2. What, "by and large" people don't believe in the universal and comprehensive Welfare State? In the strong statutory and other (including trade union) protection of workers, consumers, communities and the environment? In fair taxation? In full employment? In co-operatives, credit unions, mutual guarantee societies, mutual building societies and similar bodies? Or in every household's enjoyment of a base of real property from which to resist both over-mighty commercial interests and an over-mighty State?

    "By and large", people's concerns are NONE of rural, monarchist, cautious and organic in relation to constitutional change, Eurosceptical, Unionist, pro-Commonwealth, academically selective, economically patriotic, morally and socially conservative, explicitly Christian, conservationist rather than environmentalist, and foreign policy realist?

    Political and media class people, yes.

    But they (i.e., you) need to get out more. A hell of a lot more.

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  3. If you've been planning this since you were still in school why didn't you do a politics degree?

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  4. There can have been no better preparation (as far as academia goes - of course, I have been, and am still, preparing in all sorts of other ways, too) than Theology followed by its application to historical and literary material.

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  5. I agree with Paneg. Your repeated claims to want to talk about these issues would have more credibility if you didn't repeatedly:

    1. Not post on topic, polite comments (like this one, I fear)
    2. Roundly personally abuse people who raise legtimate questions and criticisms of your ideas
    3. Make factually inaccurate claims and do retract them when people point out you are mistaken
    4. Make spurious assertions and do not attempt to justify them when asked

    All of these are pretty shabby activities from someone who apparently wants a debate. Perhaps, in this new spirit of talking about the issues, you could publish this as a sign that you will allow free and fair debate?

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  6. "factually inaccurate"

    Like "spurious", this means "remotely critical of you and yours". To which you are so completely unused that you cannot begin to cope with it.

    Well, you had better get used to it now.

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  7. No - it doesn't. It means "based on matters of fact - that is to say reality, or truth". I would be more than willing to provide several examples, if I thought for a moment you would put them up and acknowledge them.

    And your response, sadly, conforms to point 2 above.

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