In the recent debate around Rory Stewart's proposal to reintroduce National Service, we were reminded that three categories of employment were exempted as essential services: farming, coal mining, and the Merchant Navy. It was recognised that domestic food production, domestic fuel production, and merchant shipping, were the three pillars of a proper economy that was worthy of a proper country.
Today, what do we see instead? 80 per cent of the candidates to become our next Prime Minister have taken illegal drugs. If they were representative, then 53 million people would have done so, with 20 million have taken Class A drugs, with 13 million have taken cocaine, and with at least seven million having done that repeatedly while well into adult life.
Margaret Thatcher herself was never a supporter of drug legalisation. But it has always been an article of faith among her strongest supporters. Thatcherism was not in fact a reassertion of the supposed respectability of the pre-1960s provincial and suburban middle classes, to which we now know that its archetype, Thatcher's own father, did not conform.
Rather, it expressed the desire of provincial and suburban middle-class boys, arriving at the swankier universities, to be allowed to behave in absolutely any way that they pleased, like David Cameron, George Osborne, Boris Johnson, and the rest of the posh boys whom they encountered there and who mostly went on to run their party over their heads despite having shown little or no interest in it when seen from the perspective of the bookish boot-strappers.
And here we are. You now have to go to China or to India to find somewhere where it is still recognised that domestic food production, domestic fuel production, and merchant shipping, are the three pillars of a proper economy that is worthy of a proper country. Meanwhile, 80 per cent of the candidates to become our next Prime Minister have taken illegal drugs.
Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare.
Margaret Thatcher herself was never a supporter of drug legalisation. But it has always been an article of faith among her strongest supporters. Thatcherism was not in fact a reassertion of the supposed respectability of the pre-1960s provincial and suburban middle classes, to which we now know that its archetype, Thatcher's own father, did not conform.
Rather, it expressed the desire of provincial and suburban middle-class boys, arriving at the swankier universities, to be allowed to behave in absolutely any way that they pleased, like David Cameron, George Osborne, Boris Johnson, and the rest of the posh boys whom they encountered there and who mostly went on to run their party over their heads despite having shown little or no interest in it when seen from the perspective of the bookish boot-strappers.
And here we are. You now have to go to China or to India to find somewhere where it is still recognised that domestic food production, domestic fuel production, and merchant shipping, are the three pillars of a proper economy that is worthy of a proper country. Meanwhile, 80 per cent of the candidates to become our next Prime Minister have taken illegal drugs.
Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare.
And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.
No comments:
Post a Comment