I laughed out loud at the sight of Lord Monckton, acolyte of Margaret Thatcher, flanked by placards reading "We Love Coal", "Coal Is Our Future" and "Save Our Jobs, Support Coal". But would it have killed the BBC to have interviewed, say, either of the two Labour Peers on the Board of the Global Warming Policy Foundation? They do not "officially" exist. Like Labour or ex-Labour Eurosceptics, like Labour or ex-Labour Unionists (apparently the only organised kind left in Wales, and possibly in England if it ever came to it), like Labour or ex-Labour social conservatives, like Labour or ex-Labour opponents of unrestricted immigration, and indeed like traditional Tory opponents of Trident and of the neoconservative war agenda.
I have absolutely no idea whether or not Anthropogenic Global Warming exists, whether or not anyone else really has any, or what, if anything, we could really do about it if it did. But this I know: unless the climate science lot can come up with a solution which does not destroy or prevent secure employment, does not drive down wages or working conditions, does not arrest economic development around the world, does not forbid the working classes and non-white people from having children, does not inflate the fuel prices that always hit the poor hardest, and does not restrict either travel opportunities or a full diet to the rich, then they are not really interested in the presenting issue, and cannot complain too much if the people whom they propose to beggar, sterilise, freeze, confine and starve become distinctly sceptical about the very existence of any question to which that fate is supposed to be the answer.
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When David Lindsay says "an unhysterical attitude to climate change", this is what he means. When he says "traditional moral and social values" or "traditional structures and methods of education", we all know whose traditions he means.
ReplyDeleteSo, when he says "a realist foreign policy", he means that Saddam should have been left in place because he had co-opted the Christians, plus abandoning Afghanistan, detante with China, active alliance with Russia, support for Iran because it has reserved seats for Armenians and Assyrians, support for a Hezbollah-led government in Lebanon because it has Maronites in it, using the Christian leaders in the West Bank to declare UDI for a state also including Jordan, and now letting the Muslim Brotherhood appoint 45% of Egyptian MPs so long as the Coptic church can appoint another 5%. Not to mention scrapping Trident, de facto withdrawal from the EU and de jure withdrawal from Nato. Classic FCO, MI6, High Tory enemy of America and Israel. Amazingly in recent years that has come to be treated as Old Labour. It is NOT.
In the light of that, read over the rest of his oft repeated "priorities" list: "the Welfare State, workers’ rights, trade unionism, the co-operative movement and wider mutualism, consumer protection, strong communities, conservation rather than environmentalism, fair taxation, full employment, public ownership, proper local government, a powerful Parliament, the monarchy, the organic Constitution, national sovereignty, civil liberties, the Union, the Commonwealth, the countryside, economic patriotism, balanced migration, and a base of real property for every household to resist both over-mighty commercial interests and an over-mighty State."
Under PR, he envisages a small party of MPs like that keeping the Labour Leader in Downing Street forever but always able to pull the plug if Labour threatened to go too Islington on them. Decent geographical spread by most concentrated in the north of England and in south Wales. Every year the Labour PM would come to their conference and tell them how an important they were as "part of the family", introduced by their Leader for life, a pinstriped, plummy son of an archdeacon, a politician and commentator with King Charles Steet Camel Corps running through him like a stick of rock, the pseudo-left's Peter Oborne or Geoffrey Wheatcroft.
Based on his views on Egypt, he would happily see a Labour PM give the same speech every year to east London's or Bradford's Muslim Brothers, so long as he also gave it to Lindsay's lot and the Muslim Brothers never moved to the areas where his own voters lived. Lindsay has until 2015 to heat up his political activities and he will. Ask yourself who is paying for them and who is paying for him. T.E. Lawrence has a lot to answer for.
Better out than in?
ReplyDeleteAll three MPs for Islington joined the SDP when it was first set up. All were Eurosceptics. One was a product of the London Irish machine. Another was probably the single most effective Commons opponent of Scottish and Welsh devolution. And the third opposed his new party's support for the Tebbit anti-union legislation, going on to work for his own union after he had lost his seat.
Now, on topic, please.