The new politics of decline

Scott

Was glad to see so many saltires out at the Proms last night!

Short the UK

UK Boom - 1994 to 2007:

~Rising property prices.
~Rising government spending.
~Rising government employment.
~Rising retail spending.
~Rising taxes from The City.

UK "Shallow" Depression - 2007 to 20??:

~Falling/stagnant property prices.
~Falling government spending.
~Falling government employment.
~Falling/stagnant retail spending.
~Falling/stagnant taxes from The City.

I think the UK is in "skewflation" - falling/stagnant asset prices and a rising cost of living from higher taxes, little income growth and some imported inflation as Sterling reamins weak. The UK is adjusting to become a relatively poorer country. We will have structurally high unemployment, rising crime, social strife and many strikes in the public sector as the unions fight to save their last bastion of power.

From the Nice decade to the Nasty decade....

-----

Fraser,

Do we focus on the balance sheet and reinvigorate the private sector or do we pile on the debt and go to Event Horizon. Crucially the North Sea is abating. We are not alone in this decline, just look at America.

Moraymint

Yes, watching and listening to the Last Night of the Proms had much the same effect on me.

I realised that the people of this nation can and will recover from the trauma of spending 12 years suffering the stifling and now near-terminal effects of Gordon Brown's pernicious grip on power.

The scale of destruction wrought by Brown and his shameful political party has yet to be experienced by the British people: the next 5 years will be the toughest since the first decades of the last century ... so appalling has been Brown's mixture of arrogance and incompetence.

Of course, the Labour Party has all along facilitated and sustained Gordon Brown's destructive reign. For that reason alone, the Party does not deserve to survive.

As for whether David Cameron can lead us out of this, remains to be seen. Lately, things have been looking more encouraging, but I remain to be convinced that he has the steel needed to lead the nation to a standard that will probably have to match Churchill's wartime resolve.

Fighting the unions through what will almost certainly involve mass, public sector unemployment will make or break the Conservative Government. The unions must not be allowed to prevail ... if they do, we're good and truly stuffed.

paul holdstock

fraser,
you are as always, spot on. labour have reduced our nation to that of a 'banana republic'. although, until global warming kicks in,
( ie when hell freezes over) our climate actually makes us more of a, 'turnip republic'.

The Huntsman

". Trevor is, for my money, the finest columnist in the business. I suspect our magazine subscribers may not get their fix of his Monday column as often as Coffee Housers do."

teledu

"...is Cameron a Heath or a Thatcher? In the next few months, we’ll find out. "
A Thatcher? Not if he hasn't got the balls to give the people a referendum on the Lisbon Constitution regardless of its ratification or not.

The Huntsman

"Trevor is, for my money, the finest columnist in the business. I suspect our magazine subscribers may not get their fix of his Monday column as often as Coffee Housers do."

If, as is rumoured, you retreat back behind the Pay Wall, Mr Kavanagh and the rest of you will find that your audience is very tiny indeed and that very few Coffee Housers will be bothered to have their fix of him or of any other of your columnists.

Still, you can have a nice time emailing interesting articles around the office for your own delectation.

We, on the other hand, will look for opinion and news elsewhere whilst you become distant memories.

Irene

Thank you Fraser - for what it's worth I think Cameron will be a Thatcher, given the chance.

paracelsus

We need a definite sea change in this country, and a swift change of government is paramount.

Yet again, Labour has reduced the country to a shambolic mess. When will people learn that a Labour government, of any shape or form, is a disaster for this country. We need to kill off the quango state, and replace it with a sense of national pride, determination, and belief in the strength of the individual above the collective. The PC culture needs to be consigned to the dustbin of history as well.

Bring back Thatcher!

Jo

Sometimes I do think we are expectng too much of Cameron. The huge weight that's being heaped on his shoulders is breathtaking. He is not perfect, no-one is. He cannot turn the tide of what Labour have done to this country overnight, maybe not even in a Parliament life span. It's not just in the last 12 years that things have started to go downhill either. I believe it started after Thatcher left office. Major might be a decent man but he was not a good strong leader, he was not up to it. The Tory party after four election victories took the electorate for granted and thought they would always be in office. They became corrupt, self serving and lost touch with the electorate. Blair then promised a false dawn that has ended in utter failure. Labour have destroyed this country economically, socially and culturally. I really doubt if it can be turned around. People just don't seem to be bothered because no-one listens to them and there are not the mechanisms in place to get real change on particular policies. It is as you describe, thoroughly depressing.

Stan, UK

Excellent piece Fraser. You sum up the the state of the nation to perfection. When you think of all the pain and the battles of the 80's, it's all been wasted and we are worse off than we ever were.

Fed Up

I am not confident Cameron will be a success. I just don't see any signs that he understands the issues this country faces, in all areas of national life. He is too busy pandering to Guardian readers. Europe is at the centre of many of our probelms yet the Conservatives are not offering to do what needs to be done.

Tiberius

Fraser, your recently departed former boss is the finest columnist in the business.

Kavanagh is a johnny-come-lately critic of New Labour. If he and his ilk had not sucked up to Blair and Campbell in those early New Labour years, the very problems he highlights in his article may just somehow have been avoided.

I'd rather read Simon Heffer duffing up Cameron than Kavanagh trying to determine whether the Tory leader can save us from New Labour's legacy: the misguided over the revisionist.

I'm just beginning to realize the size of the hole Matt's departure has left (particularly as I've no idea where he going next).

David

Thatcher of course famously cut defence when she came in, one of the factors leading to the Falklands war.

Craig Strachan

He's not a Thatcher or a Heath.

He might be a Mulroney!

Raquel weald EDP

We know Mr Brown is going to stay as long as he can but when the election is fianlly called , there is a party who is willing to put England first lik ethe scots have the SNP and the irish and welsh have thier own parties England has the English Democrats , a party to put England first , and trying to make us equal within the Union , take us out of europe and out afganistan and save lives and millions of pounds.
Give them a chance to make England proud. an everyday party run by everyday working people

TrevorsDen

"I am not confident Cameron will be a success. I just don't see any signs that he understands " -- Strange Mr Fed Up - I think exactly the opposite.

Nicholas

paracelsus: spot on. Jo ditto.

Only when the majority in this country reject Marxism on every level and in every field and reject its activists from holding any kind of office or influence over the public narrative can it recover and regain its identity. Socialism is a pernicious ideology as the 40 year history of it in Eastern Europe demonstrated. Step just one pace to the left and you are on an inevitable escalator not on a staircase where you can just stop or go back down. The "soft" left, the centre left and the centre with leftist leanings are the useful idiots who have permitted this to happen. I hope they learn their lesson well.

Paul Hughes

You can take comfort in the fact that there is simply no choice. Brown might see his political survival as being more important than that of the country, but outside the close circle of the Prime Mentalist, everybody can see that we either sort this out now or are screwed for good. I have every confidence in Cameron, but even if I hadn't, there is simply no choice.

My only regret is that Brown will escape the punishment which his actions deserve. The fear of exile, prison or execution didn't stop the Wolseys, the Cromwells, the Colberts or Mazarins. High office holds great rewards for success. It is time, once more, that it entails great risk for the epic failure. Brown has completely screwed a nation of sixty million people. Is it fair that his punishment is restricted to being ejected from office?

Blair jets around the world, grinning inanely and making millions. He allowed this imbecile Brown to flourish. He should be punished too.

If anybody needs a man in a mask, you need look no further. Give me the axe, give me the mask and let me get on with the job.

I don't think I am the only person sufficiently angry to wish to see Brown's blood on the scaffold.

Carly

Is it any wonder we have lost our culture. It has been a deliberate policy of the left. They have allowed millions of immigrants into the country and call anyone who objects facists. Instead of creating an atmosphere of integration like America does we are just left with a multi cultural hell hole. No other country on earth would've put up with the huge population change that we have in the last 10 years. We only have ourselves to blame for voting Labour.

ad

"There is a feeling not only that Britain is in retreat, but that retreat is the only logical course."

It is. We have been ruined. We will not become unruined by electing another government.

Rhoda Klapp

The Last Night is always a little ironic now. The BBC's embarrasment at putting it on is palpable. Whatever happened to Wood's fantasia on sea songs? It used to lead in to Rule Britannia, but I haven't seen it these last couple of years.

As a point of fact, the failure in Basra was not of resources but the failure of both the Army and the politicians to get a grip of the situation when it started to go bad. Defeatism, really.

Hysteria

the other factor that gives hope is Wooton Basset. And yes in a way, the ill-formed opinions of the ELF.

there are stirrings of national pride and I do not think (yet) that all is lost......

TGF UKIP

Two cracking pieces by Trevor Kavanagh and yourself, Fraser, which I would suggest should be read in conjunction with Peter Oborne's excellent analyisis of the inadequacy of the Tory response which James linked to in the Mail yesterday.

Given your warm words, would it be too much to hope that you plan to bring TK permanently on board as opposed to being an occasional columnist.

In any case you do have a vacancy for a Political Editor and unless you plan to produce a surge of Coffee House coronaries, I can hardly think you intend to appoint a former Blair speechwriter to that role.

Meanwhile, Fraser, what of the dog that hasn't barked, or at least not so far on this website. I am of course referring to the detailed story in the previous edition of Private Eye that Gordon was using the libel law, Carter-Fuck and the proxy of Charlie Whelan to intimidate you - in other words giving you the Quentin Letts treatment but via Whelan, not Seedy Sugar.

While it is hard to believe that this is being done with a straight face, I trust you have given them the Pressdram reply (starts with "fuck" ends with "off" with nowt in between.) If it does go anywhere, though, I'm sure that as well as all your fellow journos, Coffee Housers too will not be slow in pulling out their cheque books in solidarity.

Carly

Tiberius
September 13th, 2009 3:08pm

Actually you should get your facts right. Kavanagh is not a late critic of New Labour. He actually tried to persuade Murdoch not to be hostile to the Tories in 1997 and not to endorse Labour but to stay neutral. Alas he failed. However if you read every article he has ever written in The Sun since Labour came to power you would not find one supportive.

Austin Barry

The plangent tones of Elgar already signal a lost England. The dystopian face of the new England was on display in Harrow yesterday. Probably it is best just to leave the armies of the night to fight it out and watch, horrified, from some more resilient, self-confident corner of the Anglosphere - Australia or New Zealand perhaps.

kinglear

Why is everyone astonished that yet another Labour government ends up leaving the UK on skid row?Never, in all the years of their existence, have they managed to make things better with OUR money, as they have no idea how money works, how markets work or indeed how people work - which is manifestly clear from the way Brown and his henchmen continue to lie to the elctorate

Moraymint

Like Hysteria, I'm smelling the first whiffs of national resolve, first to kill off Brown and the Labour Party (hopefully for good) and second to rally behind Cameron and work our way out of Brown's appalling legacy to the British economy and to our society at large. What a mess.

The "main effort" (as we military types call it) must be to release resources from our astonishingly bloated state and make them available to entrepreneurs ... whilst making it easy for those same entrepreneurs to build businesses, hire people, make profits and, er, pay taxes.

These absolute basics of schoolboy economics are unknown to Gordon Brown and the Labour Party. Hence, the astonishing mess that the Conservatives will inherit.

Frank P

So Matthew D'A, you've been using the sobriquet Tiberius on the Speccy blogs all this time. Can I claim a bottle 'Shampoo for the Drain'.

As for the LNOTP last night, I was appalled and sat in abject misery as the final stages played out. The effete Seppo conductor was patronising to the point of parody - and manifestly intended it that way. The contralto (?) who was dressed as Nelson appeared to be enjoying the cross-dressing more than the song and the audience looked like a bunch of lowly paid extras in a B movie about Ruritania. "And while you're you're standing up ..." said the man with the baton and proceeded into a version of the National Anthem by an assembled bunch of multi-cults who were smirking at the piss-take. What he really meant was -er- while you're down there, perhaps you'd like to suck this for me, too.

Once LNOTP was a question of deep patriotism behind a facade of fun - a tradition that renewed the faith in our country and gave us all a chance to glow a little with the stirring music of people who really meant the words and wrote the right music to express them. Now it exactly the opposite; a gathering of baby boomers and aged peaceniks who have systematically sluiced their heritage down the drain and are there to take the piss out of patriotism with an operatic parody of it. They would much rather be fawning over the Beatles (as most of them have been for the past few months in an effort to recreate the egregious Sixties, which most of them just experienced before their balls dropped). No wonder the the third world countries and the Islamic nutters think we're ripe for the taking - we are!

Yesterday I read that the SAS are training Gadaffi's storm troopers; yesterday I watched Robert Mugabe taking the piss out of "EU Delegation" to Zimbawe! Wtf were they doing there? To kiss his corrupt and murderous arse so that we can be frendz??

Then, finally to completely break the solemnity of the 8th Anniversary of the Crime of the Century and the due homage to the untimely deaths and unbelieveable bravery of those that attempted the rescues, WE marked it at the Albert Hall and in Hyde Park with the disgraceful pantomime of LNOTP. Ugghh!

Will the last true patriotic Englishman to leave turn out the lights before he steps on to the nearest raft.

This Royal Throne of Old Queens ... this Septic Island. This 'precious' stool, set in a pot of pee.

Fergus Pickering

Don't WORRY, Fraser. Twenty years of strong Tory Government wil sort it out. Pity I won't be around for the back end of it. It's just them demmed Socialists making mischief again, one of the drawbacks of democracy, don't you know.

drakes drum

Can Cameron end
Benefit Culture? Or Take on board all the suggestions of the Taxpayers Alliance?
(For instance ending Sure Start and the ghastly indoctrination of the very young into state dependency!)

Can Cameron cut, cut and cut again. Will he stop the outrageous payments to the EU as we need the money here. Charity begins at home!

Will he strip the unions of their power to hold the rest of us to ransom? Will he sack all strikers -as President Reagan did, I believe, for the Air Traffic Controllers that tried it in the USA!-

Can he restore our engineering base, our farming our fishing our self proficiency? Our pride and a true direction for this Country?

(Unlike Trevors Den, I doubt it. Indeed I am still waiting for Trevors Den to tell me what TORY policy Cameron actually believes in and why Boy George will make such a good Chancellor.)

This is a time for honesty. For realism and certainly not for gimmicks. A time when the economic situation should be treated as a war. If that means cutting back on everything so be it. We have got to get pride back into the Nation. Stop people closing their front doors, turning on their televisons and closing their minds to the woes of the country. It is time to roll up our collective sleeves. But we do need a leader. Where is he/she?

Sadly, Cameron has not got the guts to upset people!

Cameron will prove to be another Blair. All smiles and no backbone.

This Country desperately needs a Thatcher, a Churchill, a Cromwell!

I, sadly, see no politician capable of filling their boots.

Edward McLaughlin

Cameron is Cameron only, and may nibble at the edges, but he will be very hard pressed to influence the direction of the nation in any profound way.

Any appeal he might make to the British spirit is going to struggle when we are now comprised of a mixture of two dysfunctional types: those who are too newly arrived to feel party to such national pride; and those who, although from that stock which carved our history and tradition, feel themselves to have been discarded and pushed to the margin of any future Britain, and have thus taken refuge in the tools of despondency.

Land of doped-up ghorri.

oldtimer

I have come to the conclusion that we are living in a country where Animal Farm meets 1984 meets lunatics in charge of the asylum. Every day seems to produce a report that reinforces this view - the latest being the entrails of the Libyan affair and the absurdities inherent in the Vetting and Barring Scheme. Let us not forget that the Soham case occurred not because of an absence of relevant data but of the failure of the constabulary to do their job properly in the first place.

I agree with the analyses presented in the two articles. I also agree that it will be down to Cameron, and his cabinet, to show the necessary grit and steel, over a prolonged period, to tackle the enormous problems that now confront us. No one, not even the principals involved, know if they will be up to the task. We shall have to keep our fingers crossed that they are and that, if they fail, the Tory party is as ruthless as the Labour party is pusillanimous about changing its leader.

TGF UKIP

Tiberius, perhaps he's off to get his reward for his part in the coup, but rest assured he'll be shaking those pom poms for Dave somewhere.

Meanwhile, I hope you haven't hurt Fraser's feelings - not always as thick-skinned as they like to appear, these hacks.

PS I hope you're not intending to de-camp from the Coffee House, I would be desolate!

Verity's Fuschia Bougainvillea

TrevorsDen thinks Cameron is up to the job, but cites no reason for his faith. Everything we have seen and heard of Cameron would point in the opposite direction. You need to have enormous, and inexplicable, faith to believe the opposite of what the evidence indicates.

Suki

Land of Allahua Akbar
Grovel to the jihadi
Only Islam matters
How shall we escape thee?

The only way to get anywhere in Britain now is officially to convert to Islam:

"Judge Anthony Goldstaub QC sentenced Stuart Wood for seven years for a rape, then told him: 'You have turned to Islam and this promises well for your future, particularly as you are now an adherent of a religion which respects women and self-discipline.'"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1213157/Conversion-Islam-curb-rapist-says-judge.html

Tiberius

Carly: I don't read the Sun so I've no idea whether you're factually right or not.

What is fact is that Kavanagh has been a senior journalist for a newspaper which has helped keep the New Labour lie perpetuating for years, and which has contributed to the mess in which the country now finds itself. I call that guilt by association.

Frank P: you're not an admirer of Matt's writing, then?

Tiberius

Verity's Flora: TrevorsD is right. Read the speeches and consider the emerging policies.

TGF UKIP: perspicacious as ever!

It was shocking to see Kavanagh given his platform in the mag (I don't recall him writing in it before in all the years I've subscribed), and quite beyond belief to see Fraser lauding him above. I would much rather have seen a piece from David Starkey, Richard Littlejohn, or even Peter Hitchens which deconstucts New Labour, since they have always been quite honest about their take on it. I am surmising that Fraser is taking the advice he says he received from Peter Oborne rather too seriously.

Anyone got any inside information on the new Speccie political editor yet?

TrevorsDen

Even Thatcher was not a 'Thatcher'.

Correct Carly -- TK has been a long time critic of labour.

I see Drakes Drum is peddling his own brand of lunacy
and
Verity continues just to be dismissive. Both of them simply vent their prejudice. Drum can give no evidence for hating Osborne - he is clearly bigoted and prejudiced.
I do not believe any politician walks on water - that is not the point. I am a realist.
And to say the Tories are not prepared to face up to the realities of office simply shows them to be inadequate at understanding the realities of opposition politics.

Cameron is a conservative and that is a good start in my book. And most importantly he is not Gordon Brown which a) makes him normal and b) separates him from a man who has never made a correct decision in his life.
It gives us a good start.

But it is a decrepit tactic from these people. Set up an impossible task and then say Cameron will not and cannot achieve it. And then invoke the memory if Thatcher who didn't do it either.

Furthermore just what do Drum/Verity et al want?
They would simply bring forward someone who would not get the Tories elected in the first place. But, hell - thats what they want.

Jeremy

"There was something elegiac about the Last Night of the Proms last night."

There is always something elegiac about the Last Night of the Proms, precisely because it is the last night.

"...is Cameron a Heath or a Thatcher?"

If Cameron is a Heath, then we're sunk - simple as that. The Tories are currently this country's Last Chance - more by default (ho-ho) than anything else; and assuming, that is, there is still a chance left to us by the time they get into office. If Cameron lacks the stamina, the principle, the courage, the vision, the backbone or the depth to both see this and act upon it, then we will sink. But there will have been nothing inevitable about our sinking. It will not have been written in the stars, so much as written in ourselves. It was clear to me from last night's "Last Night" that the British people want their country - their nation - to be great again, and it can be. But only if they stop - and this time stop for good - voting for that type of politician who systematically and repeatedly betrays his own country. The price of success - the price of turning Britain away from Disaster and towards Triumph - is that the British people give up their addiction to voting for those who have, and will, repeatedly betray them. As I said, I think that we are down to our last chance, as a nation.

The real question is this: Are the British people themselves capable of seeing this and acting/voting upon it?

Flemingcrag

I suspect The Last Night of the Proms may soon be followed by the Last Night of Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

His reply to SKY that he would consider a Leaders' live T.V debate nearer election time looks like the usual evasion by Gordon but, I think it hints at something more.

Gordon does not wish to compromise his successor by giving an answer now that would commit he/she to something they may not be in favour of. My thoughts are that Gordon will resign shortly into the New Year on health grounds.

TrevorsDen

PS -
Tiberius
your latter comment just shows you to be totally naive about how the world works.

TK has been massively dismissive of Blair and particularly Brown. For years.

The NoW is allegedly from the Murdoch Stable -- and it employs Mr Nelson.

Go figure ...

daniel maris

Well nations go up and down even if they can maintain economic growth. Sometimes decline, relative or absolute, cannot be avoided - ask Poland in 1939. It would be surprising if we weren't declining relative to China and India, amongst other countries.

I'd rather see us try and change some of the rules of the game. Quality of life should become a much greater matter of concern.

I don't think mass immigration, PC ideology, a grossly bloated financial sector (itself employing a huge number of non-UK citizens) and dependence on overseas energy were much of a recommendation for the Thatcher-to-Brown project.

I'd like to see concentration on:

1. An end to mass immigration.

2. Energy independence through wind, wave, solar, tide, hydro, clean coal and natural gas.

3. A switch over to electric cars for personal transport (with quick battery-switching at service stations).

4. An end to the "NEETS" - let us have a pledge of proper paid employment for all school leavers coupled with a duty to be self-sufficient.

5. Start dismantling the "money for nothing" welfare state.

I think if we did some of the above we would greatly enrich our own country and secure full employment.

We should then look again at expanding the property-owning democracy with big tax breaks for first time mortage-holders and for employee shareholdings.

Verity

Tiberius - Yes, Cameron has given some speeches roughly echoing what research tells him people want to hear. Yet despite such attempts to ingratiate himself with the voters, he comes across as being disconnected from our lives. As indeed, he is.

He also gives the impression that he is willing to say anything to get his well-shod tootsies under that desk at No 10, and later on, under an even grander desk in Brussels. And for all his verbiage, you will note that he never addresses the threat to our formerly cohesive society presented by aggressive Islam and too many immigrants from a very backward part of the world. And, of course, the greatest threat to our ancient sovereignty for which uncounted generations have fought and died, the monster in the living room ... the EUSSR. (The two are connected by the way, with the EU intending to bring another 20 million followers of the prophet into Europe for reasons I cannot fathom given that there's no work for them.)

If he's such an effective Leader, btw, with the three revelations about the dishonour of our dealings with Libya - release of the Lockerbie bomber, our SAS training Libyan forces and now the fact that Jack Straw, may his soul rot in hell, knew who murdered WPC Yvonne Fletcher - why has he not made political hay?

If he wishes to exhibit a hitherto undetected streak of boldness, why, after these shameful revelations about Libya, does he not call for a vote of No Confidence?

Nicholas

Tiberius - yes, David Starkey's vitriolic dissection of New Labour and especially the constitutional damage they have wrought is right on the money. Would like to read something by him in the Speccie.

I agree also that TK seems a bit of a blunt instrument for the Speccie.

Verity

Fraser is a far bolder editor than Matthew D'Ancona. I'd have thought that, being Maltese, he would have been made of sterner stuff.

Derek

What we have to worry about this time is not just whether Elgar is elegiac (he always was of course), but what percentage of the new Britain created by the Labour Party will agree to sing along with "Jerusalem" - or indeed whether they will permit it to continue on the programme; this meant literally and metaphorically.

I am however heartened by the perceptions of those like Moraymint and Hysteria and by the resolve of such as paracelsus. We can put some trust in the 3rd Law of Motion as it applies to politics and other glimmers of hope can be seen.

Thus even this government is not entirely bereft of a concept of what is required for our future defence (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1213128/Revealed-The-awesome-aircraft-carrier-Britains-powerful-warship-actually-built.html); though it is a shame that they have chosen to debauch the public finances and waste our gold and oil wealth to the point that there are insufficient funds for a proper defence.

As Mr. Ganley throws his hat into the ring in the Irish referendum however,and Mr. Nelson nails "England Expects" to the staff of the Spectator, I look forward to the battles to come and only hope that the hiatus since 1st August in dispatches reaching me in the form of my overseas subscription to the magazine has only been caused by incompetence in Sittingbourne and not by enemy action.

Frank P

Tiberius (7.45pm)

You guessed! But each to his own taste, I suppose.

I will never forgive the slight to Paul Johnson. Even if D'Ancona was only the errand boy he should have told the organ grinder to attempt the impossible task (impossible unless one is a very supple contortionist, that is). The fact that PJ took it in his stride and moved on says much for him, but obviously a great deal against the idiots that disposed of his services.

I'm just amazed that you think D'A is the best columnist around. I had you logged as a shrewd observer. Far too much frippery, self-aggrandisment, arty-farty poncing around after he took over - the cost of which could hardly have been covered by the increase in circulation, but I suppose the ads more than covered the boondoggling. No longer a serious magazine written by grown-ups, imnsho.

The Coffee House isn't a bad boozer because of the punters; some of the barmen are okay, but it's time we had an English Landlord/landlady; Scotia Nostra will never represent the Tories, no matter how much they pretend. Not that there are many Tories left in the 'Conservative' party it would seem. If there are, they must have all had their tongues cut out by the Eton Evangelists.

Andrew Neil should have made Melanie Phillips the Editor when Boris buggered off to torment Red Ken. She would have knocked it into shape and the circulation would have not only increased but it would have attracted an adult audience for these serious times.

Dixon

This piece is twaddle. Unlike its author, I was actually alive in the Seventies and old enough to remember it as a young adult. Whilst for me, personally, I look back on it as the last decade of genuine freedom experienced in this country, the oppressive manifestation of decay and crisis was everywhere to an extent that I think Frasers parents must have shielded him from. Otherwise he wouldnt make such silly comparisons with today.

Lets just think back, those of us who were there, of having to cope with flash strikes ( "wildcats" ) in almost all services on almost a daily basis. Of having to walk around gigantic mountains of rubbish sacks accumulated in central London during the refuse strikes. Of having to rely on the Army equipped with forty year old "Green Godesses" to stand in for the fire brigade when they were on strike. Of having rotating scheduled power-cuts and being told to share our bathwater during a three day working week. Of continual rumour of an imminent military coup and waking up one morning to learn the Army had actually rehearsed this, sealing off Heathrow with armoured vehicles. Of para-militaries training and exercising on private estates around London. Of the Metropolitan police ( including one of my brothers among them ) being trained by the Army in what they were expected to do when a "state of emergency" was declared.

All these thnings happenned and all were accepted as a part of the fabric of life in a genuinely declining, indeed, almost disintegrating Britain at that time. To compare the present to that time is utterly fatuous. Even in the midst of this supposed "recession" the pitifully impoverished I see on the streets are vastly outnumbered by Bentleys and Jaguars. The country is nominally almost bankrupt yet conspicous wealth is everywhere I go. So far, "recession" is in my experience simply a word used by "cowboy clients" as an excuse to reneg on contracts.

What we DO suffer from is the stifling, oppressive, choking, monitoring and restriction of our every thought and deed. We cannot say anything freely except behind closed doors, in carefully evaluated company, or anonymously on the internet. And that looks like it may soon be an outlet denied us.

None of which is going to be alleviated by a change of government or leadership in any foreseeable future. Certainly not by putting that mirror of memes ( "climate change" and "multiculturalism" among them ) David Cameron in office.

Yes we need something new. No it wont come from any of the "respectable" parties.

Bring Back Mark Steyn

All you need to do now is bring Mark Steyn back and all the pieces are in place for me to reinstate my subscription which lapsed shortly after Matthew D'Ancona took post in that I found I was more annoyed than informed by each edition.
p.s. I am not Mark Steyn or his wife, if indeed he has one.

Verity

Jeremy writes: "The real question is this: Are the British people themselves capable of seeing this and acting/voting upon it?"

So who is your betrayer of choice, Jeremy? To which treacherous, self-serving individual would you accord your vote? While you still have one ... before the socialists decree that voting upsets the social order ...??

porkbelly

Cameron will stand for Blairism with a human face - that is all. Any expectation to the contrary is self-delusion.

TomTom

Time to watch the new movie "31 North 62 East" to see how far decline could go. A PM selling out soldiers in Afghanistan for an oil contract - hard to imagine our lovely government doing something like that...but 18th September release date makes it almost topical

colin

Carly--"we only have ourselves to blame for voting Labour'.
The percentage of the electorate who actually voted Labour was ,I believe,less than 35%.So our 'first past the post" system is to blame.

drakes drum

I have studied the explanation, by Trevors Den, as to the abilities of Cameron and my serious concerns, shared by many, of the capabilities of Boy George as a future Chancellor of the Exchequer.

His reasoned argument for Cameron boils down to the fact that 'He is not Gordon Brown'. I can agree with that but would counter that he IS a carbon copy Anthony Blair, late of this parish!

As for Boy George. Nothing! except that I, and others, apparantly, "hate" him. Nothing could be further from the truth. Hate is an emotional and mostly childish response. Hate closes its mind from opposite arguments. That I do not do. But I would like to read other arguments from Trevors Den. That you cannot speaks volumes.

I am still waiting for Trevors Den reasons why Osborne should be the next Chancellor of the Exchequer and not, say, Kenneth Clarke who has proved he is up to the job and has done it!!

What experience/ knowledge/work experience, ANYTHING, can Osborne bring to the job?

Trevors Den states that Cameron is a Conservative, yet has not answered what I have been asking him for weeks, what TORY policy does Cameron stand for?

Cameron is going to let a lot of people down.

But I do agree with 'Old Timer' that the Tory party would be far more ruthless and clinical if Cameron does prove to be the wet lettuce I believe he is!

As for Trevors Den rather juvenile remarks on me and Verity. He is reacting like this shoddy Labour administration. If they have no answer they become personal.

.

Roy

The most repugnant actions of this decline is stuffing the inner cities with Islamic immigrants on the premise they will vote Labour or at least the party showing suitable policy toward them. The next act of the most hideous dimensions is safeguarding these people by adjusting the law of the land, while spreading a vile propaganda campaign of lies and deceit regarding such peoples. These newcomers have more rights and special rules and privileges than the native peoples have ever had. To top all this up alternative party hopefuls are showing exactly the same pitiful reluctance to change anything.

Nicholas

I concur with Dixon @ 0149. This is not like the 1970's. There is a great deal of wealth to be seen everywhere, holidays are still supreme and Dixon is quite right about what we do suffer from. The situation is decidely sinister and we need a genuinely liberating force. Alas I fear that is not going to be Mr Cameron because I do not believe he appreciates the scale of the problem or the scale of the contest to be fought.

Major Plonquer

Who cares about the bloody Proms. Nothing but Elgar Louts.

Nicholas

@ Roy 08.41

I actually think New Labour's policies on devolution, immigration, multi-culturalism and diversity in England may be illegal:-

"UN Declaration of Indigenous Rights of Indigenous Peoples 
as adopted by the General Assembly on 13th September 2007.



"The Declaration establishes a universal framework of minimum standards for the survival, dignity, well-being and rights of the world's indigenous peoples. The Declaration addresses both individual and collective rights; cultural rights and identity; rights to education, health, employment, language, and others. It outlaws discrimination against indigenous peoples and promotes their full and effective participation in all matters that concern them. It also ensures their right to remain distinct and to pursue their own priorities in economic, social and cultural development.

"

Includes:

 Article 7.2 "Indigenous peoples have the collective right to live in freedom, peace and security as distinct peoples"



Article 8.1 "Indigenous peoples and individuals have the right not to be subjected to forced assimilation or destruction of their culture."



Article 8.2 "States shall provide effective mechanisms for prevention of, and redress for:
(a) Any action which has the aim or effect of depriving them of their integrity as distinct peoples, or of their cultural values or ethnic identities;

(b) Any action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing them of their lands, territories or resources;

(d) Any form of forced assimilation or integration;


Clearly the UN Declaration is not intended for the English but I believe New Labour have imposed forced assimilation and attempted to destroy English culture through their reckless, negligent or malicious immigration policies, through failing to ensure sufficient safeguards to preserve the English way of life, by deliberately suppressing the concept of English identity and cultural values and by deliberately disregarding our status as a distinct people within the United Kingdom.

We have been denied the right (as English people) to remain distinct and to pursue our own priorities in economic, social and cultural development. Those rights have been suborned to British priorities, the priorities of devolved governments and the priorities of large scale immigration.

I think New Labour's policies and actions have undermined and threatened the collective right of the English to live in freedom, peace and security as a distinct peoples.

I think a suitable organisation that represents the interests of the English people (English Democrats?) should lay a formal complaint about the activities of the British government and the EU to the UN, complaining that since 1997 New Labour and the EU have committed international crimes against the indigenous English people. Not because I think anything will be done but because it will up the ante about the situation. The English are too docile and apathetic and they need to rise up against the great injustices being done to them and fight back using the same weapons that are being used against them.

Nicholas

PS One thing I forgot to emphasise is that New Labour's devolution policies should, by natural justice, have recognised the English identity as distinct. They have not. It is impossible to conceive how recognising Northern Irish, Scots and Welsh identities but not an English identity can be just. We have just become the unrepresented, multi-cultural part of this island, held on a par with immigrant communities and religions, and ruled by a British government that does not recognise our right to identity and control of our own destiny. Their badly conceived and presumptive devolution policies are tantamount to committing the acts described by the UN Declaration. How can we pursue our own priorities without an English parliament and an English government? I want to see New Labour brought to account for this.

Frank P

Major Plonquer

"Elgar louts!" Wonderful word play.
What a variation ...

Roy

Well said Nicholas. It seems given enough rope the powers of subversion might just hang themselves. What a glorious celebration that would be.

Rick Hamilton

Colin, quite so, but thanks to a low turnout only 22% of the electorate actually voted Labour in 2005. Nevertheless our undemocratic FPTP system gave them 55% of Commons seats. In England alone, more people voted Conservative than Labour. Anyone who has lived long enough to remember Attlee and Wilson knows that Labour always wreck our economy and always will because they have no idea how wealth is created, only how to waste it. They represent an unproductive parasitic element dreaming of impossible utopias which unhappily has infested every corner of our education system as well as the BBC. The challenge is to kill the evil of socialism stone dead for evermore, starting by eliminating their unfair electoral advantage. Will the Tories do that?

johnny come lately.

Ukip. The English Democrats. should unite for the excellent observation made by Nicholas.

It should also be picked up by Mr Nelson for him to raise with David Cameron who, as a Scot, would want to ensure fair play for the English I would hope!

But the real threat of a complaint to the UN. and the European Court of Human Rights will, as Nicholas correctly points out, be a warning shot against these anti English bigots.

It will also wake up the English that not all is lost.

Miinnie Ovens

Moraymint

Well said.
I think Unions will be the small task if the new government has the balls.
I was impressed by the Quango article last week. I think that will be a real battle but really important to rid ourselves of the underlying political correctness and guilt of the entrenched left wing socialists and liberals.
I'm sick of being told to feel other people's guilt and pain.

Derek

Lord Mandelson has now decided what he will allow Brown to say he has decided to allow the Cabinet to say it has decided that the government has been authorized to say it has decided will be cut from government expenditure. This, it appears, will include the Trident. Will France be the only power in the EU with nuclear weapons? That will be lovely, no?

Tiberius

TrevorsDen: if the price of not reading redtop newspapers is naivete about the political leanings of their journalists, then I'll take it. Naivete about how the world works is a charge I won't admit to.

Frank P: I did explain my preference for Matt's writing on a thread last week, and hopefully said enough to show I wasn't his mom. Perhaps you missed it.

As for Paul Johnson, I either found him brilliant or too heavy, depending on the subject-matter. I miss Christopher Fildes much more as he was a must-read every week.

Jim

The thing people forget about Thatcher is that she benefitted from North Sea oil revenues, by 2012, half way through Cameron's first term, those will decline by 60%.
There is no sign that Cameron is intelligent enough to deal with the fiscal crisis this will cause, he is an image man. There is no sign that he has any courage, all his decisions are based on what focus groups tell him to say.
He is neither Heath nor Thatcher, he is a Spencer Percival. An innocent little lamb who is way in over his head.

Verity

Actually, I said what Nicholas said, although not as well and thoroughly-articulated, a couple of years back on some blog or other.

It occurred to me then that "they"| - the left and the UN - would not allow us to get away with this sophistry and would begin to drably trot out all the lefty arguments against our being indigenous. For one thing, only people with tinted skins and dark eyes can be indigenous. For another, we can't prove it. We really came from Germany or points north or south. Lefty anthropologists will declare that no one was actually born in Britain 5,000 years ago, and if they were, they were of an immigrant family.

All manner and level of trickery would be employed. These laws and conventions were arrived at as a rod for beating the backs of the white people and so they will remain, against all sense and logic. The left will not be disarmed of their hastily, and ignorantly, constructed weaponry.

Verity

Jim - I agree that we have seen no signs that David Cameron is intelligent enough to be a national leader. As you say, he is an image man.

There are also no signs of courage or boldness of thought.

He is a tragically wrong choice and I am still baffled about how an unknown came to triumph in a contest between him and the well-known and respected David Davis.

Andy

Vera Lynn is top of the charts so there's still hope for us! We need a Dunkirk spirit more than at any time since May 1940!

daniel maris

Yes, "Elgar Louts" needs wider circulation.

A less successful attempt:

David "Camera On".

hadrian

You missed out the essential element of decline in our national fortunes and standing- the spiritual. We are a nation divided as never before and our past history held in contempt by a substantial self hating chunk of the populace who've imbibed the propaganda of guilt politics and infiltration by our old enemies.
Return us to the high calling of the 'Protestant Isle' and you'd see gradual recovery.

Laban Tall

Those who hope for a new Thatcher should be careful what they wish for. The Thatcher years were the years when the economic wars were won and the culture wars lost - the years when the seventies graduates moved into the Civil Service and local authorities - the years that saw the massive expansion of the underclass and illegitimacy, and the destruction of the grammar schools. These already established trends took off in those years. For one example - before 1979, council estates generally housed working people - by the time she left, the expression 'sink estate' was in use.

I'm not sure her economic legacy wasn't the start of the process which culminated last year, either - but that's another story.