Immediately upon taking office, Tony Abbott the Anglophile, Catholic, pro-American cannot
have all three of Britain, Rome and America on the issue of Syria. (He is in any case as much of a Cafeteria Catholic as if he were an economically left-wing social liberal.)
If he goes in, then he goes in with the President of the United States but
against the Pope and against the British Parliament, though not against the
British Prime Minister.
If he stays out, then he stays out against the
President of the United States and against the British Prime Minister, though
not against the British Parliament and not against the Pope.
His great new
electoral coalition, which would have been remarkable if he had pulled it off,
is already over.
Meanwhile, Western Australia has returned a member of the Australian Sports
Party to the Senate, and Victoria a member of the Australian Motoring
Enthusiasts Party.
But rejoice that Senator Jacinta Collins has been re-elected in Victoria.
And who were those 47,391 DLP voters in New South Wales, of all places? Mannix has beaten Gilroy in the end, it would seem.
And who were those 47,391 DLP voters in New South Wales, of all places? Mannix has beaten Gilroy in the end, it would seem.
David Cameron and Tony Abbott have absolutely nothing in common politically. But then, nor have Britain and Australia.
Australia has AV and compulsory
voting, and, as in America, her rural areas expect next to nothing from
government.
Whereas Britain has First Past The Post and voluntary voting, and the more
rural an area is here, the more it expects from the State.
Yet both parties that have hitherto done well in rural areas, and which have assumed
that no one else ever would, are cutting public provision here with gay
abandon. They will reap the whirlwind a mere year and a half from now.
If this election has any message for Britain, then it is that the political
culture of any of the Old Dominions is as alien to our own as that of the
United States or that of any country on the Continent.
First Lynton Crosby. Or
Mark Carney, for that matter. And now, this. Simply not like us at all.
Not even when, as in the case of Abbott, the winner is a British-born Rhodes
Scholar, although I am not entirely sure how he got away with that.
Anyway, it
illustrates the point: even that long ago, even Oxford regarded even an
Australian national who had been born in the United Kingdom as no less foreign
than an American.
"Rerum novarum is opposed to State control of the means of production, which would reduce every citizen to being a 'cog' in the State machine" - John Paul II
ReplyDeleteYou might gossip on Roman matters (not unlike your old pupil master Damian Thompson), but it's a good job you don't specifically use the word "Catholic" in any of your website's descriptive headers and leaders.
I dare say if you were important enough your local Bishop might come calling...
His Lordship and I are no strangers to each other.
ReplyDeleteAnd he is definitely a Mannix, not a Gilroy.
ReplyDeleteRichard Cotton of Labour For A Referendum writes in 'Labour List' that "most MP's supporting Labour For A Referendum are Europhiles".
ReplyDeleteHe adds that holding a referendum is "the best way to secure our future in Europe".
Quite so.
If Labour ever held one, it would be with the express purpose of keeping us in forever (like the last one it held).
That's why most Labour supporters of it, are 'europhiles'.
Only UKIP have the true solution-a policy of outright withdrawal.
Referendums are the tool of the anti-Parliament EU.
You don't know Richard. He is the most anti-EU person whom I have ever encountered, as has been ever since British membership was first proposed. Like John Mills, also of Labour for a Referendum, National Agent of the No Campaign in 1975, and now single largest donor to the Labour Party. His view has never changed. Nor has Richard's.
ReplyDeleteOh I'm sure he is.
ReplyDeleteI was simply agreeing with what he wrote in that article- namely, that the majority of Labour MP's who support Labour For A Referendum are pro-EU.
That makes perfect sense since a referendum is, as he rightly says "paradoxically the best way of securing our future in Europe".
As we saw in my parents homeland the Republic of Ireland, the EU uses referenda to circumvent Parliaments and Constitutions and, when it doesn't get the answer it wants first time around, it simply holds another referendum until it does.
Direct democracy is the tool of lobbyists, 'astroturfers and despots.
If Labour ever held one, it would campaign with the Lib Dems and the Tory leadership (but not membership) for a 'Yes' vote-just as it did in 1975.
And, with BBC support, it would win.
The only way out is for a Parliamentary party who actually supports withdrawal to contest an Election.
Peter Hitchens and others are working for the creation of such a party-which first requires the destruction of the two parties which have a stranglehold on this debate.