Tories. I’m in full agreement with Matthew here; I really suspect that the mood music about “austerity” (plays well with the demographics) and “IMF” is actually preparing the ground for the Conservatives to pull a deliberate financial freakout once in office. Osborne has been pushing a line that We Have No Idea How Bad It…
Read More Osborne goes cap in hand to the IMFI note that no-one has yet anonymously accused Ian Tomlinson of an indictable offence in a national newspaper. Are our standards in truly shameful, underhand, repellent duplicity slipping? However, a lot of Tories who were OUTRAGED about Sir Ian Blair‘s term as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police seem to be…how can I put this? frit…
Read More The Conservative Party in six links25 years; the strike was the first political event, indeed one of the first events, I actually remember. At least I remember power cuts and TV news broadcasts with the number of weeks the miners had been out counting up. After that, I recall Chernobyl – they set up a radiation monitor in the car…
Read More alternative YorkshireDespite the warnings, Donal Blaney is being an arsehole again. For some reason connected with her being 20 years old and female, he’s formed a creepy obsession with the Labour PPC for Skipton & Ripon; but a Straussian reading is worth carrying out. He’s very pleased by the fact she is unlikely to win; but…
Read More if I was a master thief perhaps I’d rob youKeep the shit and the drinking water separate, and you’ve gone most of the way from an average life expectancy of 35 to one of 75. Boris Johnson, famously, decided that replacing London’s water mains was a minor issue that could be thrown out as a sop to the roads lobby. So here’s the Borisfeed.…
Read More Civilisation is common defence and waste disposal. And drinking waterI’ve always thought Sir Nicholas Winterton (how on earth did he get a knighthood?) is one of the most egregious old farts in British politics; a pompous old buffoon of zero legislative achievement, a hard-right Monday Clubber and Rhodesia groupie, who despite representing a bog standard rural/suburban English constituency manages to be consistently one of…
Read More now is the winterton of our discontentSuddenly, an awful wet crunching and groaning and sick heavy breathing. It’s…huge…festooned in the rags of a once-respectable suit, waving a bladeserver torn from a rack like a child’s toy…dripping with stale blood. No! The NHS IT Zombie has escaped, and it’s fortified itself by eating BT’s brains. Now it’s coming for us. DAATA! it…
Read More brrrains!So Shriti Vadera thinks there are signs of improvement in the economy. The Tories have messed themselves, predictably. Hey, she rationalised the railways. But there are good reasons to think this: there are indicators. Notably, the spread – the difference in interest rates – between blue-chip and risky commercial paper is narrowing sharply. Similarly, the…
Read More reasons to be cheerful, part 3OK, the last post wasn’t totally serious. But is it too much to say that John Redwood is back? He’s been given a committee to chair, which sounds like a kick to touch, but we live in committee times. The Government is handling the economic crisis through a combination of outside committee-ists and a civil…
Read More the time has come to shoot you downThe perfect Tory would be: As competent as George Osborne As Eurosceptic as Kenneth Clarke As relevant as Norman Tebbit As normal as John Redwood As experienced as David Cameron As intellectually brilliant as Francis Maude As close to export industries as Stuart Wheeler As credible with the City as George Osborne As committed to…
Read More The Perfect Conservative