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Thoughts from Wonkfest 2010: Wednesday 6th

Tagged: Brooks Newmark, Conference 2010, Conservative Party, Owen Paterson, religion, Whiggery

00:00 Wednesday

On that note, we couldn’t bring ourselves to “Club Together” at Oceana on our last night out. I do not see how shaking bodies and drinking SoCo and Lemonade in a discotheque can possibly be ‘in the National Interest’. If I have not mentioned it before, I think the banners raise an excellent Cry (“Together in the National Interest”, beneath an oak coloured as a flying Union Flag). It is reassuring to hear the vocabulary of conservatism used to identify and motivate the Party.
                  We had our final event last recently, during which Mr (sic. Rt Hon?) Own Paterson MP made a last-minute addition to the panel alongside good ol’Two Brains and the ever-affable Mr Newmark. Mr Paterson reassures me for the look of quiet, knowing amusement that rests on his face, making it all the more alarming when he quotes how much we are borrowing each minute, or how much we spend on segregation in Northern Ireland. I do like Brooks Newmark, as a person, but I detected, unfortunately, his American extraction in his assertion that “we mustn’t be afraid to be Conservatives, to be pro-capitalism” as against Cable’s remarks. We must not let British conservatism be counfounded with American conservatism which, when considered accurately, is the conservation of a constitution & institution which are in themselves (classical) Liberal, Whig, Enlightenment-rationalist, & of course genealogically tied to the “American Dream” in which, when dreamt crudely, to be more means to have more.
                 Nevertheless, what might have been a dry and technical discussion on cuts and public service provision was reassuring, maybe even inspiring, for the unity of purpose displayed between the speakers, to be sure, but also in cutting and reforming: using one as an impetus to improve the other through decentralisation, accountability, competition ect. ect.
                The stage is set of the terms of debate to be changed such that “deficit-deniers” will barely have a platform. Yet ultimately all these grand ideas will mean nothing if growth (& its attendent jobs) are not forthcoming.

10:29 Wednesday

I realise that last night I was rather tired and was writing what probably amounts to “political commentary” on things which ministers said at Conference. I do apologise. Here, on the train home, I shall try to recall conversations I had with strangers, and what I thought of them. I shall try to be brief as Waverley beckons.
               I met a couple of TRG workers on our first evening, introduced to me by a big man in the UCLC I knew from what I can now refer to as my “undergraduate days”. Apparently the Tory Reform Group now has “no position” on the EU: probably A Good Thing. He seemed sympathetic to, if unconvinced by, some of the postures I struck in the Outset of this article – all in all, however, High and “Progressive” Conservatism will lead to the same policies (saving Coalition-induced attacks on the Church, which the Lib-Dems will hopefully not have time for): we must simply beware, by adopting Progressive (i.e. managerial/Levelling) vocabulary, of conceding the argument to genuine “Progressives”, with all their appetite for destruction.
               To some extent this brings me to an encounter I had, in one of my late flyering sessions, with a lovely ageing Irish couple. From their accents they can’t have been from too far north of the border, and they weren’t Protestants, so it was good to see them coming this far to support/investigate the Conservative and Unionist Party. They asked me how the Party would defend the practice of religion: I minded them of Baroness Warsi’s and Rt Hon David Cameron’s speeches before and during the Papal Visit. We have a government which at least understands that religion (and, one would hope, the organised institutions thereof) is part of the solution, not the problem. Then again, perhaps it is the reserved job of vicars and theologians to insist on Sola Christi salvatus est when the world is broken. They advanced that religion (and I suspect they would have liked to say the Church) was a necessary condition for civilisation. We must have more elderly people on television.
               The Campaign for an English Parliament made a persistent and irritating presence outside the ICC, one representative even coming to one of our meetings and asking the Minister for the Cabinet Office silly questions. Their position is a nonsense: as constitutional meddlers, piecemeal reformers, they are a continuation of the policy and attitude that caused the problems they wish to rectify (note upon re-reading: is it not interesting that the worst constitutional reforms are those driven by democratic principle, rather than economic or social necessity?). The Westlothian Question etc. occured because of constitutional vandalism: it will be a miracle if more vandalism can lead to a permanent Answer. Bad reforms are best dealt with by resistance to any further reform, whilst good people adjust to make the best of the mistakes and carry out silent reaction through market and cultural forces.
              A newly elected local councillor I met last night complained of an outside contractor whi had costed an Olympic sized swimming pool without thinking to factor in the tiles. We must remember not to let restructuring become enthusiastical: let the Suffolk experiment fail (quietly) so that other Councils are discouraged from other hairbrained, negligent saving schemes. Councils are serious bodies with a lot of real work to be getting on with.

All in all, there were lots of Sharp Young Men and Lovely Assistants, some more qualified and professional than others, so that any worry of an ageing Party does not seem necessary. The place was also fairly heaving: each night saw crowds stuck outside the lobby of the Secure Zone hotel, unable to find standing room inside. Supposedly there were 14,000 pass-holders. Teams and teams, too, of quickly recruited student interns flyering for the bigger Wonkshops and charities in branded polo-shirts. I know that, nationally, political Party membership is declining – but this cannot be easily seen from the outside-in: it is the local Associations, who perform the legwork, which need continued support now the Queen’s men are her ministers and the ’22 is on their proper side of the House. In May the ‘air-war’ was a disaster. Strategically, CCHQ should be looking to the grassroots, whose passions are ready for harnessing and whose instincts are at worst a little self-absorbed, at best very sensible indeed.

Thoughts from Wonkfest 2010: Tuesday 5th

Tagged: Conference 2010, Conservative Party, culture

14:30 Tuesday

Last night (the whole of our party not equipped with conference passes) we attended a Jazz Night at the Yardbird. It was all fairly easy-going blues and ragtime affairs for the middle-aged attendees. Really, all the music at Conference should be jazz or ‘party’ classical (Eine Kleine, Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, Sonata in G and such like): the kowtowing to popular (i.e. low) culture to make the Party look ‘in touch’ will suck out its life – remove its elite identity which makes it worthy of leadership.

Thoughts from Wonkfest 2010: Monday 4th

Tagged: Conference 2010, Conservative Party, strikes

8:30 Monday Morning

A terrible omen begins the day: I have misplaced my cornflower blue, and left my lilac (on the breakfast table), handkerchiefs and will have to settle for richer, darker, more garish shades. Mr Johnson’s additional bus provisions made it possible to reach Marylebone overground, so contributing, by my successful journey, to the eventual defeat of the Luddites who have stymied the flow of loyal workers ’round the nation’s heart.
              I wonder whether it would be legal (and, if not, whether it would be practical to make it legal) to introduce a form of “lifeblood” public service contract by which public sector workers who so chose could opt-out of union memberships, and vow not to work through their colleagues’ strikes, in return for incrementally higher pay & perks. Presumably the definitions involved would have to be subtle enough to uphold their fundamental right to strike, whilst preventing the barons from simply operation union strikes in a way that allowed “Lifeblood” workers to join them without breaching the special contracts.
             That appelation brings me to the second difficulty of the policy: portraying it for the move towards public-private solidarity that it is, rather than a matter of government ‘buying scabs’. Now, I do not understand where the term ‘scab’ comes from (perhaps a commentator could help me), but it seems to me that, by adopting this organic imagery, we may be able to invert the rhetoric of the Socialists. If a ‘scab’ is someone who prevents the capitalist parasite from bleeding his property back out to workers (and this explanation strikes me as somewhat tenuous), then to call our special contracts “Lifeblood Contracts” would be to emphasize the essential continuity and interdependence of the sectors. When Mammon is wounded, Leviathan does not feed and grow stronger, but is weakened too by the lack of a strong provider; when Leviathan is starved, Mammon is threatened, for its protector has no belly for the fight.
           The policy would need to be wrapped in the rhetoric of organic and established structure. London is the heart of the Kingdoms; the ‘public services’ their lifeblood, which carry and distribute the proceeds of growth, their meal. Just as it is the duty of every businessman and craftsman to use his gains for the sake of his neighbour, so it is the duty of every tube-driver to man the post the public purse had paid him to man. Economic policies of governments must be opposed at the ballot box, at the expense of the party that practised them: not in the streets and tunnels at the expense of fellow subjects.

16:45 – Not as many conference-goers seem interested in economics as ought to be, given our situation.

21:15

I attended a meeting with Mr David Gauke MP, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (i.e. Grand High Taxman), Michael, Lord Forsyth, and a very-well-qualified and insightful professional economist. What struck me was the realisation that the rift in the Party between Whigs and Tories (or Thatcherites and Disraelians/Cameroons) has been greatly amplified by our pernicious mediums. Lord Forsyth gave a cut-and-dried Thatcherite warrior’s speech about cutting top rates of taxes to raies the yield and increase growth, and so benefit the poorest – and Mr Gauke did not object: rather, in stressing the priorities of this government, welfare reform, despite its expense, was wrapped up entirely and wholeheartedly with the need for cuts.
Having said this, we shall have to see if Mr Cameron is, in the long term, upset enough with Dr Fox to consider bringing forward a repeal of the hunting ban to this Parliament (har-har).
I have just eaten a near-perfect gammon steak in the Holiday Inn. The house red is less good. Matthew and I will be, on a certain diminutive brunette’s advice, retiring to a reception with Open Europe. I shall try and keep my mind open, also – which is not to say the same thing as that I will try to pay attention.

Thoughts from WonkFest 2010

Tagged: Conference 2010, Conservative Party

Ladies and gentlemen, sistren and brethren, girls and boys, oi oligoi, oi polloi,

In the hope that some of you reading this will be new undergraduates, and because those of you who are will probably never meet me, I am going to begin what could easily become a very long article with a very brief introduction of myself. I graduated last June with a Bachelor’s in Theology (and “Religious Studies”, which is to say, the study of religions – I conducted no part of my tripos wearing a habit). I served as Chairman of this Association for a term, did a bit of dogsbodying one September for a Parliamentary Candidate who is now Member for Brentford and Isleworth (on the Picadilly, if I recall correctly), and am currently working for a think-tank in St James’ Park. From that last sentence you might detect some loyalty to the Party, and you would not be far wrong. Yet to finish this brief introduction, and to lend some coherence and foundation to the rest of the article, I shall define myself as a High Tory over against the Thatcherites and modern left-Liberals who have won the ascendancy (or, in Mr Osborne’s case, introduced the Ascendancy) in the Conservative and Unionist Party as it stands. This will probably do.

This week is the Conservative Party Conference 2010, in Birmingham – the city, as it happens, of my fathers, so I shall avoid complaining about its damp climes or unpleasant buildings – and as part of my duties in the aforementioned think-tank, I am bound to attend and organise our meetings at the Fringe. As such, I shall have a unique position as an observer. Unlike the many journalists attending, I will not have time to go to any of the keynote speeches, nor any but very few of the Fringe meetings besides our own. In the days I shall be out in the cold accosting middle-aged businessmen (and women, yes indeed, this is, after all, 2010) and upwardly-mobile hacks, wonks, SpAds and the like as they wander from meeting to meeting, to persuade them to wander into ours (we have some lovely flyers in three lovely pastel shades of blue, green and pink). In the evenings, I shall be catching up with the oh-so-cool-kids of Conservative Future and their allies in various bars. This position is unique and useful to a commentator because I will be isolated from the ‘actual politics’ going on: from policy announcements, resolutions, propaganda, ect ect. Indeed, I promise you all that I shan’t pick up a newspaper the whole time I am there. I will therefore be able to communicate to you an impression formed entirely on the basis of the Conference’s ‘atmosphere’, by which I refer not only to the cold Midland winds but also to the general chatter of the delegates as they wait in queues and prop up bars.

Ideally, I should like to update this entry as and when I have thoughts during my sojourn. Unfortunately, however, I am staying in a dorm and shall have no computer with which to do so. Instead, I will write entries in my pocket-book and, without edition, copy them into this article on Wednesday evening, when I have returned. I would like to believe that, having read this outset, you will all be eagerly awaiting this event. I am trying to like to believe this enough that my will may overcome the doubt of my intellect…I have done so…I am grateful that you will be awaiting eagerly my entries when they appear on Wednesday night.

All proper names will be ommitted, save for those which are on record (that is, speakers at certain events). They will be replaced by oblique references, hopefully intelligible only to those who know or know of the individuals so referred to well enough that any aspersions I cast will be unlikely to change my readers’ opinions.

I shall begin by describing my preparations, or, at least, my anticipations: company policies are for me to know and you to imagine. I slept until a quarter to two this afternoon, ready for the late nights and early mornings in the week ahead. I shall have to rise extremely early to reach Marylebone through the planned tube strikes in time to reach my 8:23 train to Birmingham. I have prepared in my living room an enormous array of flyers, banners, etc.; their multicolours and condensed-wooden weight serve as a physical manifestation of the combination of excitement and dread contained currently within my breast. Aiding me will be my fellow intern-trainee, a Bristol graduate and almost-Orientalist named Matthew, and an old friend and member of this Association who will be missing her first freshers’ week at LSE to join the Party.

Soon, I shall iron my three-piece woolen pin-striped charcoal suit (inside out, of course, to prevent any shine), my blue-and-purple tie, and my thrice-sky-blue-striped shirt and blue handkerchief for Monday, polish my Oxfords and go to evening Mass. All is ready: the red coats of Hanover wait over the hill of the dawn. We stand at a critical juncture in the history of the Party and Britain: Austrian Schoolmen believe themselves on the cusp of shrinking the “state” in the belief that their Enlightenment principles will “fix” (for this is all they can hope for) the nation. Arrayed against them and put on the back foot by our economic straits are the little-platoon-commanders of a New Generation of those who fight for national unity and the needs of the poor. We have yet to see whether fixing the finances at this pace will indeed create the prosperity they need, or whether we will sacrifice everything just to satisfy some economists’ pipe-dream. We have yet to see whether Blonde, Cameron, IDS et al. are the unifiers and protectors that they claim to be, or whether their Progressive (sic.) vocabulary betrays a capitulation to the forces of dissolution which the New Right and New Left have armed so well this last half-century. God save the (de facto) Queen and her poor subjects from the Whigs that creep ’round the “Freedom Zone”, God save the Establishment of the Anglican School from the “Conservative Humanist Association” (I think St Thomas More would have little time for what passes for ‘humanism’ in this beleaguered century), and Christ be in the heart and mind of the heir of the heroes of Killicrankie, the (de facto) Queen’s First Minister, when he addresses the Party.

Election Night

Tagged: Conservative Party, democracy, General Election, Photographs

I thought this looked quite nice.

Spare Some Change?

Tagged: Change, Conservative Party, David Cameron, Democratic Party, General Election, Left-wing, Lib Dems, Obama

Mr. Cameron, with the aid of Obama campaign staffers, has presented himself and our Party as the champions of “Change”. Whilst it is not yet clear whether this has succeeded in the face of resurgent Liberals, I would like to add my observations and criticisms to the mix.

Change needs to be Change

I would argue that the reason why the change message worked for Obama is that he worked very hard to assure people that he really would present a change. Ignoring for now the doubts many have about what he has and has not done, most people in 2008 believed that he was a chance to break with the flawed policies of W. That is one thing that got him elected.

Cameron, by contrast, sought for much of his time as leader to make the Conservatives for most purposes indistinguishable from Labour. The message of “Change” failed to stick because people found it lacked credibility – Cameron may have changed the Tories, but he changed them so as to provide less of an alternative to the Left. Little wonder, then, that anti-politics parties like the Lib Dems and the minor parties are capturing the change vote – they actually provide something different.

Of course, this does not mean that we should forget -

Change is not an end per se – it is a means to an end – nor is Change inherently good

The politician’s fallacy goes something like: “Something must be done. X is something. Therefore we must do X.”

This flawed logic leads to the incorrect conclusion that action is always better than inaction, that change is necessarily better than the status quo ante. Mr. Cameron seems worryingly close to seeking change as an end in itself, rather than saying why that change is needed.

Conservatism makes sense because we recognise that even the most intelligent of us cannot seek to approach the evolved collective wisdom of humanity. Our meddling may have effects beyond our comprehension – as the Democrats in the U.S. learned recently when dozens of companies that were supposed to benefit from Obamacare had to make massive writedowns to account for costs no-one predicted even days before – and therefore we should tread carefully. Things do need to change from time to time – but trying to achieve grand visions frequently leads to unforeseen and counter-productive consequences.

Mr. Cameron – Tell us that if it ain’t broke, you won’t try to fix it. Tell us that you’ve had enough with bureaucrats trying to deal with the picayune details of our lives. Tell us that you’re willing to see how things go, and only where the current system is intolerable (which in many areas, it is) will you make changes and then only the minimum intervention necessary.

When you’re backing a horse you know (or think you know) that it is more likely to have a favourable outcome than the alternative, but you take the risk that it won’t and you’ll lose what you put in. With Change, you’re taking a similar gamble, but in a world where even achieving your goal and ‘winning’ might lead to unexpected consequences. As Conservatives, we know that it’s not always worth that risk.

So, Mr. Cameron: go on TV on Thursday and tell us that you bring the change we need, not just change for its own sake and not just more of the same repackaged.

Hallelujah for CUCA

Tagged: Conservative Party, CUCA, Gordon Brown, humour, religion

Slightly off-topic, but a website has come out recently that uses online translators to translate back and forth repeatedly, usually creating a strange answer. It’s at www.conveythis.com/translation.php

I put in CUCA. The result, via Coca-cola, Porridge and Barley, was “The Messiah”

The Conservative Party came out as “special”

Rather strangely, Brown comes out as Messina, which is in Sicily. I therefore conclude that Gordon Brown is a mafioso.

We can also find an important message about the direction in which the party has moved under Cameron: Tory becomes Left.

The Delusion of Government as the Economy

Tagged: Conservative Party, economics, freedom, Labour, liberty, Silly Lefties, socialism, statism, tax

Yesterday, Alistair Darling and Lord Mandelson (on Today and Sky News respectively) both used the same phrase to explain their opposition to stopping the National Insurance increase. They both said that it would “take money out of the economy”.

Let’s examine that claim.

1. On what planet is giving money back to the people and the productive sector taking money out of the economy? Even Keynesians accept that taxes take money out of the economy. If Labour really believe that fiscal stimulus can “save the world”, why aren’t they applauding this fine action to stop money leaking out of the economy? Economy comes from the Greek οἰκία, meaning house. The economy is simply every household in the country put together. Put another way, the economy is the people.

2. Moreover, National Insurance is at heart an appallingly inefficient tax on jobs. We have very high unemployment in this country, especially once you take into account all the fiddles used to massage the numbers. What Labour proposed was to make it more expensive to hire people and keep people employed. Tory policy will now save and create jobs. Each of those people who wouldn’t have a job under Labour has income, and pays income tax. Each consumes more, and pay VAT. It’s entirely possible that even the Exchequer will benefit from this.

So, what does this episode tell us about Labour?

a) They are arrogant statists who believe that the Government IS the economy. Labour’s massive expansion of the public sector has made them believe that there’s nothing else out there, or that it doesn’t matter. They are no longer New Labour, willing to tolerate economic freedom for the sake of prosperity. They are now hard left Socialists – they extol central planning, compel private companies to go along with the plan (see the banks) and view the free private sector as a non-entity.

b) They don’t trust people to make their own decisions. People make mistakes – that’s the nature of freedom – but the failures of liberty are eclipsed by the failures of government.

c) They think that people are fools, and will be taken in by a claim that makes no sense even under lefty economics

This is why I am Conservative: I believe that the route to prosperity for all who want to attain it is through a largely unencumbered private sector, with government only intervening where an additional cost to wider society exists. I believe that people spend their own money in a way that’s better for the economy than central planning. I believe in liberty. Labour does not.

Completing devolution

Tagged: Conservative Party, growth, Labour, tax, UK, wealth, welfare state

Tony Blair’s “Clause 4 moment” was when he amended the Labour Party’s constitution to abolish their formal committment to nationalisation. A similarly significant moment for the Conservative and Unionist Party could be our renaming to just the Conservative Party.

There is just one Conservative MP in a Scottish constituency, out of 59. There are just three Conservative MPs out of the 40 MPs for Welsh constituencies.

Repealing the Union Act would significantly reduce Labour’s majority, significantly increase the forthcoming Conservative majority, and prevent Labour from governing England ever again. It would cause the centre-ground of politics to shift back to the Right.

Furthermore, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have more tax money spent on them than they pay in taxes. England would be better off not having to subsidise them. But Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland may well end up better off themselves. For example, half of all the money spent in Scotland is spent by the State, and one in four Scots are employed by the State. Independence could be the spur Scotland needs to become vibrant and productive again. It would also create tax competition, which would be beneficial for all. If they wanted, the Scotch could position themselves as a low-tax, low-regulation country and out-compete England.

The Scotch, Welsh and Northern Irish could be given the choice of whether to keep the Queen as monarch. Scotland could keep what’s left of the North Sea oil.

The principle is localism — that decisions should be taken as close as possible to the people they affect. Devolution is localist, but current devolution has not gone far enough, and has created problems like Scottish MPs voting on matters that affect only England. This is wrong. Furthermore, at the moment, the Scottish Parliament can spend money without electoral consequence. True devolution must put tax raising powers in the hands of those who spend the money, in order to make them truly accountable. Taxes should be raised locally. True devolution must give them complete control of their budgets and taxes. It should even give them control of the laws of the area.

And for it to really be effective over the long-term, it must not be reversible. The Westminster Parliament must not merely devolve these powers to the nations. Future Parliaments would always be tempted to overrule national decision-making about various things until, gradually, all decision-making had returned to Westminster. We’d end up back where we started. For localism to work, Westminster must give up the powers completely and irrevocably. Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England must become independent, and the Westminster Parliament should become the English Parliament.

That would be true localism, as if we meant it.

Independence for England would not make us weaker. How could it, when in the absence of the other nations’ draining the taxpayer, we could spend more on our armed forces?

Independence would make England stronger. It would also make Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland stronger. The Conservative Party should embrace it.

“Given the current economic situation, what Practical steps would your party take to help graduates find work next year?”

Tagged: Conservative Party, employment, TCS

As published in this week’s TCS.

We are portrayed as a ‘lost generation’ of graduates, entering the market burdened with personal debt and without the employment prospects to match. The outcome of the next election will be crucial for us. It will determine whether we finally have a government willing to free the economy from the burdens of punitive tax and ill-planned regulation, so it can offer us the opportunities we need.

The Conservative Party is calling for immediate action to help graduates hit by the recession. ‘Job Clubs’ will provide human support for applicants where bureaucratic job centres are failing. Postgraduate education will receive all the funding government can afford. Tax breaks on new jobs and proposals to encourage loans to businesses through a temporary National Loans Guarantee Scheme should also be crucial in preventing further graduate unemployment.

Ultimately, such proposals are constructive but limited by the state of the economy under Labour. With the next government facing a public debt of over £800bn, it is impossible for any party to realistically suggest it can bank-roll an expansion of public sector graduate jobs. The comprehensive and realistic plans for economic recovery proposed by the Conservative Party are the real solution to helping graduate prospects.

Our economy can be rebuilt and strengthened through greater fiscal responsibility in government, and greater international competitiveness. The debt burden that the Labour government has imposed on our economy is acting as a dead weight on recovery and expansion. The Confederation of British Industry, which represents a third of private sector businesses, has highlighted a balanced budget as a critical factor in achieving future growth and stability. With studies showing cuts of up to £96bn are possible through targeting waste, the Conservatives will remove the burden of debt from the economy while maintaining all necessary services.

In a fiercely competitive global economy, our graduate opportunities also rely on the creation of an attractive market for employers. The Conservative Party will overhaul our complex and expensive tax system, where so much is wasted on bureaucracy. In its place, straightforward and lower corporate taxes will restore Britain’s international competitiveness to ensure the best companies settle here.

The employment opportunities we aspire to cannot flourish in an economy burdened by debt, regressive corporate tax and knee-jerk over-regulation. Nor can they be conjured up with short-term, expensive government schemes.Only a Conservative government will restore the stable and competitive economy that will bring real, productive jobs to Britain.

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