The news that the autistic Scotch control freak (who, like so many control freaks, has no control over anything) will very likely step down before the next election made me pause for this thought: never elected, never voted out. Levered into power and inflicted on an electorate that could never stand the sight of him. What pathetic and dishonourable men govern this country. I would have a smidgin of respect for Brown if his arrogance meant he’d go to a general election, took the humiliation and destroyed his party along the way. Great leaders need a touch – just a touch, mind – of Ahab. (Good album/blog/novel title, that: A Touch of Ahab)
And the Labour Party does need to be destroyed. As does the Conservative Party. The Labour Party’s policies have become antithetical to civilised life. Ditto the Tories.
Of course, there are fringe benefits from Tory rule: they tend to not want to interfere relentlessly with personal liberty, they are a little more empirical, something we badly need at the moment. Unlike Gordon Brown, they won’t go running down to Buckingham Palace to serve notice on sexist monarchical lines of descent just when the British economy is going into full-scale meltdown. A Conservative government might – might – just be able to save British pubs, for example, or at least stay the execution, by reversing the punitive tax and other regulations, which Labour inflicted on them and which are now destroying them as a result. The Conservatives might be more practical in matters of law and order. Labour’s interference in that area has been truly disastrous. But by and large, the Conservatives will simply continue Blairism, which was Thatcherism with socialist spending plans. The rich and privileged will continue to be pampered, and everyone else can just lump it. This was proved to me last week when Boris Johnson announced his idea for an amnesty on illegal immigration. Boris doesn’t know shit about London life, as was proved with his ridiculous booze ban on Tubes and buses (incidentally, I flout this rule whenever I feel like it). Boris doesn’t have to queue. If he did he’d know that the basic objections to his plan – London is hellishly overcrowded and its services, from health to transport, stretched to breaking point – are correct and moral. But of course the Tory fetish is always and at all times a quick buck, and big business loves an immigrant who comes cheap and, to quote Boris’s adviser Anthony Browne, “pays their tax”. Socialists love them for their demographic-altering properties, as a McGuffin for all manner of non-negotiable culturally Marxist civic alteration and for vague righteous notions of post-colonial guilt (even if the immigrants come from Turkmenistan).
I never had a problem with immigration until Labour had been in charge of it for a few years. I don’t know anybody who did. Now I know lots, including members of ethnic minorities.
I could see the way things were going nearly a decade ago. I knew the people who would be the losers would be the indigenous poor of Britain, a constituency held lower in esteem by Blair and Mandleson than excrement on the bottom of their very expensive footwear. Both those men, with crocodile tears flowing, would be most hurt by that observation. But always judge a politician on what he does and not what he says. On that basis my observation is correct.
One of Blair’s most audacious feats of chicanery was achieved in the field of immigration policy. He simply and repeatedly lied, while the evidence that he was lying was freely available and often published. In 2005 he made a speech at Dover on immigration that perhaps was the ne plus ultra of new Labour doublethink. He said that his government was working hard to create strict controls on asylum seekers, which would therefore bring down immigration. This gave the impression that the main cause of rising immigration would be checked. Of course, asylum seekers never were the cause of rising immigration figures; it was the government’s policy of issuing work permits for non-EU residents and their dependents that accounted for the huge rise in immigration. A full account of the nuances behind this policy can be found here.
In the light of the recent election of two British fascists to the European Parliament everyone should be reminded of the key Labour policies that put those two men on the Brussels gravy train. They were policies held dear by the money and privilege-loving ex-Marxists who constituted the Labour front bench in the middle of the decade.
Three years after Blair’s speech at Dover, and eleven years after Labour’s victory, the first of many reckonings on one of their most obstinate policies was published. Note:
The verdict of the committee, which boasts a brace of ex-Chancellors, a former Bank of England governor, sundry ex-Cabinet ministers and prominent economists, is unambiguous. The record levels of immigration since Labour came to power have had "little or no impact" on our economic wellbeing, while the Government's assertion that immigration is essential in preventing labour shortages is "fundamentally flawed".
I was talking to a girl at a party last week, and she took a sort of amused stance at my concern at the rise of the far-Right. “Oh, I wouldn’t worry. The BNP getting elected wasn’t about immigration, it was just the credit crunch. It’ll all blow over.”
This is exactly what Edward Balls would say. It is the orthodox Left’s comfy place of denial. Just as soon as we can get another credit boom going, everything will be all right.
I don’t agree. Which, to return to my original point, is why both main parties need to be destroyed and new parties emerge. I believe we are at a crossroads: one road leads to a balkanised and deeply divided society, the other to a civilised and free society. One road is easy, the other hard.
But enough of that; we know which road the two Etonian millionaires will be driving us down come next election. I had a week away from this blog to concentrate on Royal Ascot, where I picked up some small winnings and nearly won the Tote jackpot. I was not in a financial position to attend, but was quite happy to watch it on television – the most telly I have watched for a very long time. It was enjoyable: two of my favourite popular musicians were there: Mr Rod Stewart and Mr Charles Watts of the Rolling Stones (himself a noted horse breeder) and the racing was the best you can see in the world. The star of the week was undoubtedly Yeats, who made history as the first horse to win the Ascot Gold Cup four times. What an animal. Had Yeats the poet still been with us he would have written a poem about Yeats the horse’s performance. Someone was very confident in Yeats’ abilities because they had 25,000 on him to win. Which he duly did. You can watch the race here. Note Johnny Murtagh crossing himself at the end of the race. Although I am a non-believer I found this rather touching.
Although I didn’t win the Ascot jackpot, I did place a 62p trixie on three horses running at Goodwood on Friday night. I was most pleased when it won me eight hundred pounds, or the equivalent of 16 weeks’ dole money. Victoria Sponge 12/1, Yes Mr President 8/1, My Shadow 7/1. My hat is off to the horses and jockeys.
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