It's commonly known I think by anyone that reads this blog that I swear occasionally, especially in the comments. Generally speaking I try to avoid it in posts with the exception of the odd "bollocks" or "shit". Today is slightly different though, because I've just read Caroline's post and the front page of the Daily Telegraph and it has become evidently clear to me, like a glass of mineral water, that Sir Michael Ancram is a fucking dickhead.Honestly, I'm actually holding back with the invective right now, but I have to say that I'm starting get sick to the back teeth of hearing different Conservatives (be they senior figures, or bloggers) going on about what I consider to be mythical "core Conservative values". What's more I find it even more idiotic when allegedly intelligent men talk about them in one breath, and then in the next say "we have never been a dogmatic party". Not dogmatic? Was he on crack when he wrote that sentence?
Ironically the most correct thing he appears to have said is that we're not a dogmatic party, as well as not believing in change for changes sake. But he's said it whilst maintaining that he wants to stick with dogmatic things like tax, crime, marriage and Europe, and he seems to be advocating change for changes sake (i.e. ideological reasons) in these policy areas (go figure!?).
However, the Conservative Party, the party of Disraeli and Burke is one that has always been about conservative principles (or means) rather then values (or ends). This seems to be lost on the old farts and some of the more arrogant Grandees for some reason.
The people that are standing up and demanding a "return to the core values" (which are so often laid out for us on ConservativeHome particularly in the comments) are not conservatives, they're mostly neo-liberal radicals or in some cases just idiots. Now I'm not saying that neo-liberal radicalism did not have a place in the economic decline that was the 1970s and 1980s. It was fundamentally required to inject health back into the nation.
However, ignoring its excesses, and, persisting in banging on about it as a desirable end, is without a doubt the most dogmatic unconservative thing going. It ignores it's own failing and fails to acknowledge that the country has changed in the last ten years whether we like it or not.
Conservative policy, and by that I mean conservatism, is not about ideological values. It is about taking an engineering approach to change. Identifying that which is broken, identifying why it is broken, and then making a proposal on how to fix it which is in keeping with the cultural reality that we find ourselves in and that mitigates risk from the change you are making.
It seems that those that continually whine on about "core values" are little different to those on the other side that see the political world as being all about "producer interests". They are lost in an ethereal world of ideology and take a reductionist view about the complexity of society. Frankly, they should shut the fuck up.
Update: Johnny Norfolk in the comments says that my swearing has detracted from the post. I have thus switched the picture back to one without swearing on it as an act of appeasement.
15 comments:
Hear hear.
I dont like swearing. and quite frankly does nothing to help your point of view.
There is no need for it and it has detracted from your post.
As folks hear from daft old duffers like Ancrim, who embody all the things they voted against for several elections, the more they will feel able to vote for us again in the future.
Oh, please. Disraeli ... about means rather than ends? That old crook? Which bit of the illegal purchase of Suez Canal shares was about means?
As for "Identifying that which is broken, identifying why it is broken, and then making a proposal on how to fix", fine, that's a perfectly rational position to take. Some of us would argue that whatever you choose to do needs to be underpinned by some set of values.
However, even if you disagree, that ain't what Project Cameron is about anyway. Project Cameron is about running around, large incompetently, saying whatever you think will get you elected.
Fixing something is underpinned by the problem you have identified. If policy X is meant to achieve Y, but in fact achieves Z, then the underpinning of your resolution is too achieve Y.
Now for me, there are two starting points, property and liberty. But those things are not in my mind values. They are absolute philosophical truths. The notion of values is something that stems form the intellectual Left and implies the notion of relativism between competing values. I don't believe in values.
I am still convinced some Tories don't want to win the next election.
Why do some feel they need to harp on about taxes and Europe when there are so many pressing social issues? Taxes are no doubt going to be dealt with in due course and suitable timing is crucial. Not now though in my opinion.
The core is now a realtively small number - certaibly not 40% of the elctorate. Don't the dinos GET that people actually LIKE a lot of what NuLabouir is, and has done Apparently not.
And yes, Anram is a dickhead.
If anyone reads the comments on Con home and decides that is how all conservatives think, then we'll never win another election. If half of them aren't completely insane then they are, as you say, useful idiots. Personally I think Tim Montgomerie should shut down the site til after we win the next election.
To be interested in politics, you have to have passion, at times the odd expletive does not go amiss.
Ancram and the lamentable Osbourne (of-any thing you can spend I will as well fame) just prove to me that the Conservatives are a lost cause, failing to oppose effectively let alone ispire confidence to govern.
Good post,enjoyed reading it.
Kinglear - I think they secretly like it and the old duffers are actually secret Labour infiltrators determined to keep the Conservatives out of power for the next millenia. Their reasoning I feel is that they don't give a crap about freedom of speech or civil liberties as long as they can lock up the local teenagers and slam ten year olds with as many asbo's as necessary. That's where Labour have managed to appeal to them.
Oh yeah and swearing detracts from nothing, good anglo saxon words just reinforce your points.
This is the problem with backbench MPs - they sometimes speak out at the wrong time.
Michael Ancram's obviously been working on this pamphlet for some time, when opinion polls were not so good. Now the Conservatives are levelling out, and there should be a poll with them ahead any day now, whilst Cameron et al have been very impressive the last few weeks.
Mr Ancram should have shelved his paper - and comments - as they are unhelpful and things are looking up again. There was a brief Brown Bounce but that hasn't lasted very long, as the post-Blair euphoria was just that -- Post Blair Euphoria -- and it didn't take people to twig, well actually Blair/Brown were a double act and it's more of the same from Brown.
An unhelpful intervention perhaps - but was it worse than agreeing to advise the Labour government?
"those things are not in my mind values. They are absolute philosophical truths"
Spot the semantics. 'I don't have values, I have absolute truths'. Personally I believe in life, liberty and property as the basis of society, but neither as values or truths, but as rights. In a philosophical debate it might matter, but in terms of Ancram's speech and its message, it matters not a jot.
"I am still convinced some Tories don't want to win the next election."
I want a conservative government, not a Cameron government. If Cameron is the choice, then it's not worth having.
"people actually LIKE a lot of what NuLabour is, and has done"
I don't care. I want a party that stands for what is right, not what is popular. I want people with principle.
Oh, and while I may belong to the FCS generation, I don't think that makes me a dinosaur yet.
I love the way people use "semantics" as a means to close down an argument. Liberty is not a right though. It's a reality of the universe thanks to something called motion. Rights don't exist.
If you want to get into a debate about rights, values, and absolute truths, then fine. I wasn't 'closing down the argument', rather just pointing out that it wasn't particularly relevant to the discussion about Ancram.
If you really believe that the conservative process is a purely mechanical utlitarian one, where individuals have no rights (where the innocent man can be hanged for the greater good, to take the classic example), then that's your right, but it's a conservatism I want nothing to do with. And of course, if you don't believe that, then presumably it's because you have 'values' of some kind.
Post a Comment