Dinosaurs Facing Extinction

Gerald Warner may be wrong about some things in this, but he is spot on in his conclusion:

"Mandelson plan to tear up new laws splits party" was typical of the headlines that dramatised the leaking of a memo from the Business Secretary calling for a moratorium on new laws to enhance maternity leave and the latest "equality" legislation. Right-to-roam laws and powers for local authorities to ban alcohol promotions are also likely to be shelved.

What has given this news added piquancy is the grandstanding of Harriet Harman on the issue. She is the sponsor of most of the demented sub-Marxist idiocy that is still being spawned by the Brown government, like oil spilling from a doomed tanker. Her allies are spinning that the Mandelson memo exposes a "deepening ideological divide" within Labour. What this is really about is the Harridan's deluded ambition to succeed Gordon Brown as Labour leader.

There is a curious congruency between the Mandelson/Harridan positions. Mandy sees realistically that it is insane to saddle businesses with extra burdens in the depths of a recession; but that hard-headed instinct is diluted by the fantasy that it is possible for Labour to survive the next general election. The Harridan, for her part, recognises that Labour will be defeated; but her fantasy is that she can then become leader of the opposition by espousing hard-left policies - a poor man's Michael Foot.

This dichotomy is reflected on the Tory benches too. David Cameron is almost certainly prime minister-in-waiting. But he and his colleagues daily provide evidence of the degree to which they have misread the signs of the times and the public mood.

If a Tory government is elected, will it hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty? Will it end massive immigration and expel all illegals? Will it repeal all the politically correct laws that oppress citizens and crush free speech? Will it abolish all the social-engineering quangos that promote the interests of fashionable minorities and provide comfort zones for highly paid busybodies? Will it sell off the BBC? Will it slash income tax, cut £30 billion off public administrative wastefulness, stop hoodwinking parents with Blairite "academies" and expand grammar schools?

You know the answers to these questions. That is why the next Conservative government may be the last of the old-style administrations provided by the alternation of the two major parties. Even Peter Mandelson recognises that a depression - for that is where we are headed - will sweep aside all the self-indulgent political correctness of the fat years.

It will sweep aside both Labour and the Tories too, along with the outdated system they represent and which they have abused by front-bench consensus since the abolition of hanging in 1965. The Tories are so marinated in Blairite "progressive" nonsense, they have lost all sense of philosophy and purpose. Unless they have a (very unlikely) last-minute change of heart, Cameron and his people are as doomed as Brown and his rabble.