Tuesday 21 June 2011

ROUND AND ROUND AND ROUND THEY GO; WHERE THEY'LL STOP, NOBODY KNOWS



If Mrs Thatcher is actually aware of what is going on, she must be wondering what has happened to her beloved Conservative party.

For not only is the gentleman for turning, he does it so often I wonder if he knows whether he is coming or going. I can only imagine that in the expensive carpet that no doubt covers the floor of his office, there must be a worn patch like two “U”s, stuck together end to end!

He came to power on a promise that Cabinet Ministers would be allowed to develop their own policies without the constant hand of number ten guiding their every move, something he had criticised roundly when Labour was in power. There would be no spin doctors, no Alistair Campbell figures dictating what was right and what was wrong.

Well that didn’t last long. The foot in the mouth epidemic that afflicted Labour carried well into the Tory cabinet, and soon advisers were dispatched to each department to ensure that a sensible line was taken.

Today there has been a U-turn on “intelligent sentencing” (most of which I agree with, copied as it is from Scotland). I just wonder if it is to be replaced by “daft sentencing”. I feel sorry for Ken. He should have known that letting rapists halve their sentences would go down like a lead balloon, and he should have handled it better, but the rest of his policies seem to me to be sound.

But we have had Caroline Spelman and her English forest sell off, not sell off, sell off a bit; then there was Gove and his wrong-minded withdrawal from English School Sport Partnership programmes, which tied in with the English hosting the Olympics, and the legacy thereof, only to have suddenly found £112 million which he had carelessly left at the back of a drawer, and withdrawing his withdrawal.

There was the English Health Minister’s programme for cutting school milk (who did that before? Oh yeah Thatcher the Milk Snatcher), which was reversed within minutes by no less a personage than Cameron himself!

There was the cut in forces which went too far, and about which Fox leaked his letter direct to the PM, to the press, but which, after a call to No 10 from Mrs Clinton, bit the dust.

The brave Scottish Labour-type Tory policy of a prison sentence for anyone caught carrying a knife, which was in the manifesto (which of course would have included fishermen going about their business) was also ditched, along it seems with the repeal of teh Hunting with Hounds legislation in England.

And of course the piece de résistance is the humiliating climbdown over handing the English Health Service over to GPs, most of whom didn’t want it. If only they had listenend before they acted.

In light of this, I have hope that the Finance department may soon decide that raising VAT was a wrong move, penalising the poor disproportionately, and that taking money away from the poorest pensioners (after announcing how generously their government was going to restore the link between earnings and pensions) was plain wicked. They need to look too at their policy of paying a French company by result for getting sick people off Incapacity Benefit to save money, and apparently being indifferent to the fact that some of them are dying in utter poverty while waiting for appeals to be heard.



9 comments:

  1. A French company Tris? Tell me more.

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  2. tris

    I heard Cameron even rides his bicycle in reverse now and keeps away from roundabouts when out as once on one he cant get off he just keeps Going round and around and around. he he he

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  3. The company is called ATOS Subrosa:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atos_Origin

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  4. Tris

    Just in case you missed it last nights Newnicht North Briton was worth watching as it has a full analysis of the May 2011 election results done by some academics.

    It really is great viewing. So good I wonder how it passed Pravdas censors.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0126b3t/Newsnight_Scotland_20_06_2011/

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  5. Probably true Niko. He's making a virtue of it now. It seems it shows strength of character or some such thing, which might be true if you did it once, but it's hard to find a subject he's not U-turned on

    That's not strength of character. That's getting your policies all wrong.

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  6. Ta Dubs, will watch it later... :)

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  7. Dubs: Just watched it.

    Excellent. I thought, just based on common sense, that there were a lot of different reasons for our great success. not just a love of us.

    I reckoned it was down to: Liberals having commited suicide by becoming Tories; Iain Gray and his disastrous campaign; a record of 4 years in government.

    It seems though that I might have been a bit off with the Liberals, some of them went to labour... We had Tories voting for us, and amazing 1/3 of labour’s support voted SNP.

    After Gray ranting about SNP broken promises, we were seen as the safest pair of hands, and most likely to keep our promises; we were also seen as united, which, in a party which genuinely draws support from all areas of the population, is surprising. Strong, positive, competent, well led and most likely to look after Scottish interests.

    And for all the people who say that it’s a one man band it was good to see that the SNP is more popular than its leader (as is Labour). Tories (Cameron) who have been gagging to get rid of Annabel should note that she was more popular than the party... and Willie should note that Tavish was more popular than the LDs.

    In the popularity stakes:
    Liberals: -48%
    Tories: -33%
    Labour: -10%
    SNP: +36%

    Still we have a long way to go on independence. I wonder what part of strong, competent, well led and most likely to look after Scotland’s interests sits ill with the population.

    Instead of this bunch of overgrown schoolboys and playboys from London making an infernal mess of our country, we could have a proper government led by serious people who THINK BEFORE THEY PUT A POLICY IN PLACE, not AFTER and have to change it... and then make some stupid claim (that everyone can see through), that this is some plus because they are listening. Listen first muppets.

    I really wish they would all erm.... go away.

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  8. Tris

    I was going to say I look forward of decent analysis of this in todays papers. I should know better, it looks like The Herald has ignored it completely and The Hootsmon is going big on the independence bit.

    Has it never crossed their mind that four years of competent government made a huge difference to how voters who used to support all other parties voted this time. A further five years of competent government from the SNP along with all the help that Cameron, Clegg and the coalition of the useless will bring, we should be able to build a strong case for independence.

    Just think if we are really lucky Boris may be PM by that time, Andy Murray winning a major and a good Commonwealth games and we will be well on our way. Bring it on as someone once said.

    P.S. I think this highlights that Labour need to improve 100% just to stay a distant second. Happy days.

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  9. Yes Dubs. I'd have said that a respectable analysis by respected academics on a country changing election should have merited coverage, at least by the country’s broadsheets. Of course Cheryl Cole went out without makeup on to buy a packet of fags, so that would knock it from the front pages of some papers. Actually it would keep it off pages 2, 3 and 4 as well.

    We would seem to have a fair wind behind us and it’s ours to lose. There, by happenstance, is a collection of events that together could make a change: First we have a First Minister who’s as sharp as a tack, and a prime minister who seems to know little about anything, keeps changing tack, and has no grasp of details. We have a Tory prime minister and a deputy who is as good as a Tory. Tories are, thanks to Mrs Thatcher, still toxic in Scotland. We’ll have a few more years to add to 4 years of competence. And the people...actually people all over the world are looking to become independent of people ruling them who know nothing and care less about them.

    We must avoid the traps we will be set... and the first amongst them is getting too big for out boots. We were competent because we are good, but we were competent because we had to negotiate, take on advice and ideas from other parties... and the public liked that.

    Now we can tell them all to get lost...let’s try to remember that that’s NOTwhy we were elected.

    We must beware of hubris.


    But yes, happy days. Something to look forward to.

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