The conscience of Lord Ashcroft

Lord Ashcroft pontificates on why the Conservatives did not quite conquer the mountain of our electoral system at the last attempt.

Has he considered that the discovery of Ashcroft's non dom status before the election - and the constant references at PMQ's and other parliamentary business in the few short weeks that followed - might have impacted on the result?

Stand up IDS, your time has come.

Danny Alexander announces at the LibDem conference the spending of £900m by the treasury to introduce new moves to stop tax avoidance. He says the measures will raise £7bn in additional revenue over the lifetime of this parliament. Good news.

And as precedents go, havn't we heard somewhere else about arguments between the Treasury and spending departments looking to spend additional amounts up front in order to achieve greater savings further down the line?

Stand up IDS. Your time has come.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission

The words political honesty and Polly Toynbee have not been seen together for a long time. Today they made a brief appearance:

(the Liberal Democrats) can't forgive Iraq, or the 42-day jail without trial row, ID cards or what they see as crimes against liberty. They detest Labour's authoritarianism, its baronial fixers sliding favourite sons into warm seats, a thuggishness, a bossiness, the whipped-in policy uniformity. Just look at all the Labour awfulness exposed, partly unwittingly, by the shameless Blair and Mandelson memoirs. There is a lot not to like about Labour, seen from outside. Just look at some of the faces along their benches to be reminded that making Labour likeable again will be an uphill task for the new leader.

The authenticity of faith

We really should have known. If Stephen Fry and Peter Tatchell were the answer, then we're asking the wrong question. Just listen to the shrill braying of current media luvvies being buried by the deep authenticity of ordinary people, who gather impressively in their hundreds of thousands to celebrate their faith before the Bishop of Rome.

How easily a surging tide of belief deafens our political class. Once again the people speak - straddling pavements 10 deep, noisily determined in chant, banner and humoured determination to meet the living embodiment of their much maligned and widely ridiculed faith.

And in their authenticity, they naturally dictate the terms of media coverage. Funny how - now that he is here - the shallow waters of personalised bigotry give way to fundamental moral dilemma's. Have you ever seen a foreign head of state stand in the houses of Parliament, before our last four Prime Ministers and talk of 'the inadequacy of pragmatic, short-term solutions to complex social and ethical problems'? Nor will you again.

There are some amusing anomalies. The inappropriateness of the Duke of Edinburgh greeting the Pope with a military guard of honour complete with rifles presented for inspection. And the totally unmagical Popemobile looking strangely like a portaloo shoved on the back of a cheap saloon car with glass walls.

And the vast majority of us? Why do we find such faith so impressive? Precisely because we have none.

It must be Thursday

Andy Coulson seems to have slipped down the cold black shute of history. It must be Thursday. Or perhaps its the effect Keith Vaz and his extremely important parliamentary scrutiny committee has on its victims.

Thats not the Standards and Privileges Committee you understand. They of course censured him in March 2001 for obstructing investigations into financial irregularities. Mr Vaz that is. And again in December 2001. This time for preventing Elizabeth Filkin “from obtaining accurate information about his possible financial relationship with the Hinduja family”.  And again in 2002 when he was suspended from the house of commons for a month after making untrue allegations about a former policewoman, Eileen Eggington. Oh dear. It must be Thursday.

Cranmer on the Intolerance of New Labour

Some choice words from Cranmer writing this morning:

New Labour was so intent on legislating for ‘equality’ and tolerance towards every intolerant minority that they were incapable of seeing that they simultaneously legislated for the intolerance of the tolerant Christian majority. The United Kingdom has become a nation in which Christianity is an ‘eccentricity’ practised by ‘oddities’ ...united in their opposition to the ascendant secular intolerance which renders ‘equality’ an infallible dogma and ‘rights’ an immutable article of faith.



Is it not ironic that this Pope comes to defend those very liberties which his forebears sought to deny us?

...but the old theme of Church and State will not be indulged, because it doesn’t fit into a Tweet.

Newman always placed conscience above Pope, which makes him a rather fitting subject for beatification in a relativist, egotist and materialist culture.

You don't have to agree with him to know the blogosphere's a better place with him back...

Economic stimulus

Smart blog from Ben Brogan who quotes Matthew Hancock MP (formerly George Osborne’s chief of staff) in showing how 2 & 3 year interest rates have halved since the coalition took over in the spring. Even 

10 year rates are down from 3.96 to 2.91%  As Hancock says:

when a country has a debt problem, getting to grips with the finances will keep interest area lower for longer. This is just what’s happened since Britain elected a government prepared to clear up the mess created by its predecessor. Interest rates on borrowing for 2 years or 3 years – the sort of rates fixed mortgages are based on – have halved. That’s a huge economic boost to families and businesses up and down the country.

Low interest rates of course are the greatest economic stimulus that businesses and consumers need.  

Phil Woolas

Liberal Conspiracy - hardly a centerist or right organisation - is now calling for the expulsion of Phil Woolas following his court appearance yesterday on electoral charges - even if the charges are not proven.

The offending leaflets apparently included what they describe as "vile and disgusting racist filth". This from a former Immigration Minister.

Archbishop Cranmer

The Internet spluttered back to life yesterday afternoon as first a tweet, and then a familiar old blog came back to life. Archbishop Cranmer is back in the blogging universe and I have missed him. His blog is one of the most erudite, enlightening and amusing reads in the blogosphere. As he put it:

His Grace would like to tell his readers and communicants what he has been through, but you would not believe him. It is an episode worthy of Burmese justice or North Korean notions of truth. It appears to have passed, and His Grace has prevailed. He thanks God for his deliverance, and those readers and communicants who have prayed and occasionally enquired. Bless you sincerely for your compassion and intercession.

Welcome back your Grace.

Different religions, different standards

Just remembered an interesting observation from Dan Hannan on Sky News press review this morning.

Whilst the forces of political correctness deplore the threat of Muslims being upset by Qu'ran burning in Florida, those same voices attack this weeks papal visit without a second thought to Catholic sensibilities here in the UK.

'Oh! That hadn't occurred to me' commented fellow reviewer Jasmin Alibhai-Brown. I wonder why?

Twitteratti

Have to stop following Sally Bercow on Twitter. It's like 10 tweets an hour. She really needs to get a life. Come to think of it, so do I.

Minimum wage

Back in May I wrote about The Welfare Revolution, a subject Simon Heffer returns to in todays Telegraph. He suggests we need to reduce the minimum wage in order to stimulate jobs and provide growth. But this would serve only as a dis-incentive to finding work as welfare became relatively more appealing. A perverse scramble to the bottom.

There are ways in which the minimum wage could be lowered to stimulate job creation. Raise the tax threashold to this level first - currently £11,400. As I wrote at the time:

A permanent link between these two would provide the greatest incentive for enterprise generally and getting back into work in particular. It would also enable dismantling of the overly-complex and widely abused Tax Credits system, as well as providing a fairer and more balanced tax system which benefits all taxpayers.

Hypocrisy and the BBC

BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner argues on the six o'clock that most muslims live in 'authoritarian regimes' around the world and cannot therefore understand why the US government does not intervene (as their own regime undoubtedly would) and stop pastor Terry Jones from burning the Qu'ran in Florida.

No arguments are presented for the rule of law, democracy, freedom or individual conscience as we should expect from an unbiased media organisation. Once again the BBC uses its poverty of aspiration to justify appeasement and hypocrisy in the name of cultural relativism.

All we need do apparently is 'understand' islam and all will be well.

Burning the Qu'ran

Have to agree with Anna Racoon over the Qu'ran burning in Florida. Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Centre may be a fundamentalist nutter, but Islam must accept what it has thrown at other religions for many years.

We've all witnessed the street violence, provocative language and the burning of effigies and books (remember the Satanic Verses) by muslims across the world.

Chote gets OBR

Michael Crick writes in his blog about Robert Chote landing the OBR job "despite Mr Chote's appalling purple v-neck top". Ouch.

Ian Cameron

Very sorry to hear of the death of Ian Cameron this afternoon. I know from losing my own father in 2008 just how devastating a loss this will be, particularly for David's mother, Mary Cameron.

PMQ's

Five questions is all the opposition get each week at Prime Ministers Questions. Today Jack Straw used all of them on the NOTW/Coulson story which ran out of beef last week: a story that involves the political class spying on itself. 

Meanwhile 10,000 jobs appear at risk from the demise of Connaught, one in five tax records appear to contain errors,  and Bob Diamond is contentiously appointed Barclays Chief Executive.

Unbelievable.

Moral Hazard

No need to revisit old arguments, but the Deborah Hargreaves piece in the guardian really grates. On Bob Diamond's appointment to head Barclays she writes:

Diamond's rise to the top is a remarkable endorsement of his risk-taking: lucrative investment-banking activities now account for more than 80% of Barclays' profits. It is also a sign of an industry's renewed confidence in its ability to take on the government and face down cries for banks to be broken up.

Its really simple. If you bail out bankers with taxpayers money you create Moral Hazard. Why on earth wouldn't they continue to operate as if nothings happened and pay themselves huge bonuses when they know any mistakes will be paid by the taxpayer?

The loud and troublesome insects of the hour

Dan Hannan quotes a wonderful passage from Edmund Burke talking about the silent majority:

Pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field; that of course they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little, shrivelled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of the hour.

His point, as ever, the arrogance of unelected bureacrats who rule in our name.

Theresa Will

Cannot believe the sheer weight of media pressure building on NOTW phone tapping after watching Theresa May in the commons. I've never seen a more self-assured and perfectly pitched performance. New evidence will be investigated by the Met, whose independence from government will be respected. End of.

This Home Secretary is turning out to be one of the gems of this coalition. She may not be a great reformer, but what a safe pair of hands.

597 is a magic number

MP's have just voted in favour of the AV referendum & equalization of constituency boundaries. Interestingly, 597 managed to pass through the lobbies - just short of the number of MP's that will remain after the next election and well short of a full house.

Apology Mr Brown?

Michael White reports of the marked difference in future prospects envisaged by Gordon Brown (work for a number of charities with global reach for no financial gain) and Tony Blair suggesting

Not for the first time, I suspect, Brown's timing appears to be a calculated reaction to something Blair has done. It's a pointed way of contrasting his own view of public service – modest and austere – with the glitzy high-roller's approach adopted by his old friend and rival.

Or might it just be that Gordon Brown, like the disgraced Conservative minister from the 1960's, John Profumo, feels the need for contrition, forgiveness and remorse after inflicting so great a tragedy on the people of this country.

No. Of course not.

Much smoke, no fire

Zac Goldsmith MP shares his favourite anecdote from the campaign trail.

A policeman removed a roll-up cigarette directly from my mouth, and replaced it with one of his own less-suspicious looking pre-fabs, saying "we don't want any unhelpful pictures, do we?!"

Thanks to Conservative Home

Left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing?

According to an NASUWT spokesman Michael Gove's educational reforms have been a failure because only 32 additional schools have taken up academy status in the six weeks since royal assent was obtained.

Former Labour education Secretary Estelle Morris meanwhile criticises the coalition for giving too little time for debate of the new legislation.

They can't both be right. Perhaps the forces of darkness should begin talking to one another.

Blair's journey

Great contrast in today's Times(£) with the leader emphatically supporting Tony Blair's view of the Labour years whilst each of the five leadership candidates lines up to reject him.

Blair of course is the only Labour leader to have won three consecutive elections - albeit against  pretty weak opposition.

And watching Andrew Marr's interview reminded me why he was so credible. The honest and decent manner, the self-deprecating humour and the engaging focus on exactly what is most important.

The truth is that Labour lost the election the day Blair stood down.