How British: a tea party

Vulture

Any 'problem for Cameron' is an opportunity for the rest of us.

I'm going to get up off my arse and go along to Dan's meeting on Saturday. We need to do something fast to rescue Britain from oblivion. It's not so much that I believe that Bruin can really win the election : its more that I believe that Dave will be the continuation of that ruin by other means. Cameron's Tea Party is characterised by chocolate teapots.

Two straws in the wind: James Forsyth's lead piece in this week's Speccie pitilessly analyses the stumblebum quintet who make up 'Team Cameron' ( as they idiotically and arrogantly dub themselves). Christ, they are still struggling to fashion a coherent election campaign slogan! (No surprise there, how do you encapsulate Dave's pink-green candyfloss mush in a snappy phrase?)

And in desperation they just called in some losers from Obama's collapsing White House to help them, so they will probably come up with 'Yes We Can!'. Except they can't.

James compares the Tories to a shark that's gone dead in the water. The shark also has rubber teeth.

The other straw in the wind was Nigel Farage's rude, crude and childish assualt on that nice Mr Rumpy-Pumpy in the Euro-Parliament yesty. Well, rude and crude it may have been, but none of Nige's charges were incorrect; it annoyed the hell out of the Euro-diktators; got Nige all over news bulletins today and yesty and generally stuck it to the people who need sticking.

Rubber-teeth Dave could and would never have made such a speech for fear it might win him the election.

Moraymint

I'm about to become part of Cameron's problem then.

Publius

Bravo, Dan Hannan. This on the day we read that the vile head of that vile Stafford hospital has walked off with a £400k payoff and a pension pot of £1.27 million.

strapworld

Vulture, please give my apologies but my full support!

I believe Cameron's election slogan will be
'YES, WE WILL' leaving it open for you to wonder just what!!

Bringing Americans here is just what the Ukip did last general election. some fellow who advised Clinton. That did it for them didn't it!

They need good British advice which Vulture, Verity, Moraymint, DP and others plus myself would gladly give him for free.

Then they wouldn't have to go to a private bank for a £5million loan. (I have heard that the nationalised banks refused!)

To end, I must relay a good joke I read on guido. 'My favourite sexual position is the Toyota, No matter how loud you scream I wont stop!'

strapworld

Just a thought, We can easily have county and country variations. The Cornish Tea and Scones Party. Devonshire Cream Tea Party. Cumbrian Hill walking Tea Party. The Welsh Language Tea Party. The Surrey Set Tea Party, The Essex No Knickers Tea Party, The Double Gloucester Tea Party, The Blue Bristol Tea Party, It can and will work. It is a winner dont you think?

stephen

This movement just shows how far our Dave and his Boy George have travelled anyway from the clear blue water. No coverage on the Coffee House of the Boy's speech last night -do the Coffee House feel it was so uninspiring that its not even worth cypber space? Until Cameron gets a proper experienced grown up advising on the economy movements like this and a hung parliament loom large. Sadly I doubt Cameron has the guts to dump the Boy, who is described in the FT yesterday as Dave's closest confident. Hung Parliament and run on the Pound here we come!

Jeremy

"...the British right has a growing fascination with its American counterpart."

In the same way, one imagines, as the dead rabbit had a "growing fascination" with the headlights of the onrushing truck.

If the "useful idiots" want a name - and I dare say they want for much else besides - how about "Libertea".

Harken to their little piping voices: "Libertea! Libertea! Give me Libertea!"

One lump or two, dear?

AdamR

Well said Jeremy. I am fed up of these stay at home moaners like Vulture who do nothing but yearn for a type of Conservatism that will no longer win elections.

If these 'tea party' people want to sit down for a cuppa whilst moaning that 'dave' has taken the party somewhere left of Mao then so be it. I for one will be out campaigning to win the election and get rid of Labour.

There will no doubt be some of the UKIP fantasists trying to go to this, even if it is at Spring Forum. Should make things interesting, especially when the realise that Dan Hannan is not mad enough to join Farage and Pearson's joke of an organisation.

Tom Burroughes

What iDave and his supporters do not realise is that quite a large slice of the electorate, who run their own businesses, for example, are in the mood for this kind of small-government politics. They are ill-served by the major parties, are obviously turned off by the BNP, the Greens. That leaves UKIP.

Edmund Jerk

Don't forget those other champions for liberty: Cobden, Bright, Fox and Wilkes!

I would definitely sign up to the 'libertea' movement.

Publius

@Jeremy and AdamR
Don't get me wrong (though I don't think you were referring to me). I shall be voting Conservative. But for a conservative to want a smaller state and low-tax regime is hardly extreme.

I suspect Dan Hannan would concur.

lifelong tory

I am sitting here holding my breath as I read, how long I have waited to read of something like this. I have never attended a political meeting in my life, but for the sake of my children and their children, I am going to Blackpool. The man says everything I want to hear and he does it with ease. His oratory is as matchless as his assessment of the political dangers we face. I hope one day I will be able to say with pride "I was there on that day"
If any of this gives Devious Chameleon a problem, then that is an issue for him and his associates. It is high time they woke up, stood up and showed some mettle.

Verity

David, the philosophers you mentioned above are indeed an inspiration, but it would take more work than most people are prepared to give it to apply their thinking to today's horrendous mess of governance.

The Americans, as ever, are a direct people. They cut to the chase without too much sitting around discussing.

As with Sarah Palin's question to the failing Obama: "How's that hopey changey thing workin' out for ya?"

Cameron's a failure. No one except his inner group seems to like or respect him. There's certainly no hunger for him among the electorate outside the Notting Hill postal code.

The Americans, as always, have translated thought into action, rather than into talk.

Vulture goes straight to the chase: "Any problem for Cameron is an opportunity for the rest of us." Correct. Let's roll.

Tim Carpenter LPUK

Libertarianism cannot be described as from "the right". Libertarians are, by definition. anti-Authoritarian and against coercion equally in social and economic spheres. The "nudge" Communitarianism of Team Cameron disgusts.

We do not ask someone to "give" us Liberty - it was ours by birth, yet it has been enclosed, leased out, stolen or sold on without consent and we shall get it back.

p.s. Tom, it does not just leave UKIP, it also leaves the Libertarian Party.

Anyone running their own business should take a look.

Vulture

AdamR:
If you think Dave's brand of limp-wristed, wet lettuce, pink-green politics is popular then you have clearly not been doorstepping as assiduously as you imply.

Such is the incoherence of Team Cameron that - six weeks before the election starts - we still don't know what policies we are supposed to sell on the doorsteps to oust Bruin. He is weak, weak , weak.

I may be a moaner, but I am not a stay-at-home moaner. I've already said that I'll go along on Saturday to support Dan Hannan's
(not a Ukipper) probably futile bid to insert a little lead in Dave's limp pencil.

Issues such as immigration, Europe, Islamification, crime, come up a lot more frequently than Dave's favoured tropes of workers' co-operatives, discredited AGW nonsense, and whether we have enough gasy and Muslim candidates. Get real!

Holly ......

Ann Widdecome on DP agrees & backs Cameron & Osborne and put Mr Andrew FIRMLY in his place,so they can't be too bad.
Watch the part,where Phil Woolsas replies to a viewers e mail.(about 25mins in,to get the jist).
If you think,"That pratt of a woman" was bad,this is astonishing.

lifelong tory

Having regained my composure, I find that I will be travelling to Brighton on Saturday and not to Blackpool.

Andy Carpark

'We're going down Blackpool, alright?
We're going down Blackpool, for a pint
We're going down Blackpool, to see the lights'

- The Macc Lads, 'Blackpool' (1983)

'We drove along the M6 chucking cans at other folk...'

oldtimer

@lifelong tory

...err the meeting is in Brighton, not Blackpool.

William Blakes Ghost

I'll have mine with milk and two sugars please!

Vulture

Ahem...guys...guys: don't get carried away. the Tory Spring conference (& Dan's mtg) is in Brighton, not Blackpool!

Though funnily enough the Blackpool Liebour MP, Gordon Marsden, shares your confusion. He lives in Brighton! How's that for local links/

Tiberius

Enjoy waving your fists in the air, darlings.

CH does indeed again fall short by providing no coverage of Osborne's speech, but there is an article on it in the DT (not that his reflexive detractors could care less that it was generally well received.)

Kennybhoy

"They need good British advice which Vulture, Verity, Moraymint, DP and others plus myself would gladly give him for free."

Ye gods what a roll call! Ideological masturbators r' us!

As the weans say, ROTFLOL!

Kennybhoy

Vulture wrote:

"Any 'problem for Cameron' is an opportunity for the rest of us."

I am sure Gordon Brown and co concur.

Verity

Speaking of Nigel Farage (and I am one of his biggest fans), this, for those of you who missed it, from today's Telegraph.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/belgium/7315555/Ukips-Nigel-Farage-faces-reprimand-after-calling-Herman-Van-Rompuy-wet-rag.html

strapworld

Vulture, Always remember the advice given to me by an old pal, when I told him I was going to a meeting in Brighton. "Stand wi y'back t'wall"

AdamR

Vulture,

I do not deny that Team Cameron need to be a lot more clear on clarifying and articulating their policies for the upcoming election. But your brand of 'last angry man' politics will get us nowhere.

Prime example, immigration. Cameron is the only leader of a major party to announce a cap on immigration (of around 50k) and to want to try and beef up the woefully inadequate UK Border Force, and to want to get some of its operations done at the entry points for migrants on to the transport that gets them here, rather than just at the actual UK ports, airports, stations etc. If this is not action on trying to end Labour's failures on immigration I don't know what is. Again, the message needs to be a lot clearer, and the policy needs to be articulated to the general public, but the substance is there.

Crime - The Shadow Home Affairs team is already moving forward with new policies on trying to get offenders off of the so-called 'conveyor belt to crime', whereby young people are sucked into ASB, and then carrying reoffending for much of the rest of their adult lives. These include schemes such as more effective rehab programmes and mentoring, such as those pursued by groups like the St Giles Trust, which have been shown to be effective. This, combined with tougher sentencing rules for offenders can help to reduce crime. We have taken the initiative from Labour on the issue of being 'tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime' as Blair would say. The fact that only recently they have decided to end early release (just before an election, surprise surprise!) when Conservatives have been calling for that for a long time just goes to show how far behind they are.

Again, I do not deny that many in the public will not know about these ideas. They definitely need to be hammered home much more effectively. Gordon Brown's strategy of endless repetition may be dull, but it helps him get his message across, even if that message is mostly lies about our polices (i.e. IHT).

Your anger over the vote blue, go green stuff is fair enough, but what precisely is wrong with publicising the fact that we are a party for all people, regardless of age, race, sexuality etc. The fact that for a very long time we were regarded as mostly white, middle/upper class people did us a fair bit of damage, not just with minority communities, but with many ordinary people who felt that as a party we were too narrow. A great example of this narrowness is the fact that Michael Gove, our education spokesman, and the man with one of the most radical and positive ideas to improve education in the UK in years was once rejected from candidacy for 'not being Conservative enough'. Thank god we have got back to the broad church philosophy that lets talented individuals like Gove and Hannan (incidentally someone who I admire for his force of conviction) exist together in the party.

Maybe my initial post was a little harsh in its language. I have no problem with structured criticism of the party, and yourself and other commenters (as well as writers in the Speccie) often do so. But it is clear that there are some who do nothing but groan on about what is going on in the party and offer no critique, just lots of hollow anger. It is them that I have a problem with.

Tiberius

Very well articulated, AdamR.

Andre

Strapworld could we have an Earl Grey section for those who wish to restore full rights for hereditary peers in the Upper House?

Verity

AdamR – with regard to your somewhat prolix post:

your brand of 'last angry man' politics will get us nowhere. I haven’t seen any “last angry man” writing. Most write with humour or despair.

Cameron is the only leader of a major party to announce a cap on immigration (of around 50k)… He may have been the only one to mention the figure of 50,000 (how did he come up with this number, I wonder?), but I think Labour has also begun whimpering about immigration. …and … beef up the woefully inadequate UK Border Force. I believe, after Neather, we have learned that the Border Force has been acting under orders. We don’t know whether they’re actually inadequate, or gelded.

If this is not action on trying to end Labour's failures on immigration I don't know what is. As above, as we know from Neather, there was no “failure". It was deliberate policy to open the floodgates to third world primitives and dilute the make-up of our ancient country and civilisation. You are beating the wrong drum.

Crime - The Shadow Home Affairs team is already moving forward with new policies on trying to get offenders off of the so-called 'conveyor belt to crime', whereby young people are sucked into ASB, and then carrying reoffending for much of the rest of their adult lives. Again, throwing away our own young men and women was deliberate Labour policy until they were found out. The disease was deliberately introduced to the system. It won’t be cured with medicated plasters.

Again, I do not deny that many in the public will not know about these ideas. They definitely need to be hammered home much more effectively. There are no ideas there that address the problems. It is all cosmetics and legerdemain.

… but what precisely is wrong with publicising the fact that we are a party for all people, regardless of age, race, sexuality etc.? It’s bloody patronizing; that’s what. A political party is a set of beliefs. Those who share those beliefs will be drawn to it. Their age, race and sexuality are their own business; not yours. Surely you don’t think that anyone who is attracted to a set of beliefs would imagine they would be rejected at garden parties and fund-raisers for not being a Anglo-Saxon or a Celt? And certainly, being gay has never stopped anyone from joining/supporting/standing for the Tories in the past.

Maybe my initial post was a little harsh in its language. No, it was a little wordy, especially given that it didn’t say anything.

Rhoda Klapp

"But it is clear that there are some who do nothing but groan on about what is going on in the party and offer no critique, just lots of hollow anger. It is them that I have a problem with."

I think the people you have a problem with owe your party nothing. The party produces a manifesto to get our vote. It seems likely that a tory manifesto will fail on certain issues. The usual ones. That the party does not want the votes of those for whom those issues are important. OK, fair enough, you don't want my vote. Why do you 'have a problem'? If you want the vote, do right on the five issues I care about. Don't act as if I am a traitor to the cause. Your cause is not mine.

2trueblue

AdamR Interesting points.

Vulture The only ones who can benefit from Camerons problems are Liebore. Fantastic, we can then have another term of Brown/ Mandy/Balls/Cooper/ Hattie/Straw/the 2 Millies. One things for sure you will buy yourself another unelected PM, I wonder who will take Browns place?

Chingford Man

AdamR (surely not Rickitt?)

Most of us refuseniks are actually interested in politics, not just climbing the greasy pole. We reject Cameron because we see New Labour Business-As-Usual.

The present Tory Party fulfils its historic role of existing only to provide a route to power for well-born young men and women. Look at the post-45 history of the party and all you see (with important exceptions) is a miserable failure to oppose the Left economically, socially and culturally. Partly it was because the Tory Party was often sympathetic to the Left (eg scrapping grammar schools) but a big reason was that it was stuffed with careerists who could live with anything so long as they were the ones that held office.

I can’t see why any genuine conservative would vote Tory, apart from living in a constituency (like me) with a Tory candidate deserving support. You know, politics is very simple when you decide to support only a party that shares your values. The Cameron Tories’ outlook to life is set at a leftist default position. You exhibit it yourself by echoing the strange obsession with minority group politics, pioneered by Red Ken at the GLC 25 years ago.

When it comes to pursuing conservative beliefs, the Tory Party isn’t the vehicle, it’s the road block.

Marcher Baron

Sadly, I'll have to send my apologies for Brighton, Vulture, but I wish you well.

I like the idea of regional tea parties - go to Lincolnshire and have an authentic Boston Tea Party!

No doubt, we'd also have the Rich Tea Party and what about the Lemon Tea Party?

I'd sign up for Libertea - Lord knows we've lost so many of our original, hard won liberties under Labour.

Moraymint

Kennybhoy says, "Ideological masturbators r' us!" and includes me in the roll call. That wasn't very nice, was it?

Look, if the Conservative Party could articulate an ideology then there wouldn't be so many of us crying out for one.

The Tories have reached the stage in their political evolution where it's incredibly difficult to distinguish them from the other lot.

Let's not forget that it's only a wee while ago Cameron was banging on about "sharing the proceeds of growth" on the assumptions that Gordon Brown's Alice in Wonderland school of fantasy-cum-Marxist economics would sustain us until eternity.

Where the hell have the Tories been for the past 13 years to have allowed the economics and politics of this country to have been reduced to rubble? I'll tell you where: they've been tucked up alongside New Labour's ideology because they thought it won votes. The Tories lost the courage of their convictions; indeed, they lost their convictions.

A credible ideology has to precede economic, political and social policies and strategies, otherwise we get the likes of the inconsistent, half-baked, unworkable drivel that continues to pour forth from Tory central.

Apart from Dan Hannan and a few more like him, the Conservative Party has lost its ideological way.

Daniel Hannan

David, where do you suppose the colonists got their ideas from? The American Revolution is part of the British tradition you mention. See http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100025633/time-for-a-british-tea-party/

Verity

When Cameron, in the House, declared himself the "Heir to Blair", I, for one, suspected that it was not a slip of the tongue in a dramatic moment. It was a signal to the left that they had nothing to fear.

I was still prepared to sort of give him a chance to prove himself a Tory, but frankly, his greedy personality and his fondness for NuLabour philosophy and pr tricks militated against my developing any confidence in him.

If the Tories put up Hannan or Hague today and either of those men promised three things, the Tories would have a landslide:

1. A Grand Repeal Act that erased every single act that the left had embedded in our governance;

2. Promised an immediate halt to all immigration, including families, and an immediate announcement that benefits would be issued only to people who had been in employed in Britain for five years. (This would include free treatment on the NHS. If they hadn't worked and contributed for five years, they'd pay for treatment. If they couldn't pay, they'd have to go back to their own country for treatment.) And a round-up, however many years it takes, of illegals. The children of illegals who were born in Britain would not be accorded citizenship.

3. And, of course, an announcement of an immediate rejig of our relationship with the fascist/communist monstrous EUSSR. Even an announcement of an immediate referendum on the EUSSR would do the trick.

Major Plonquer

We should all remember that Britain has been having a Tea Party for a number of years already. This is chaired by the Mad Hatter in Number 10.

Fergus Pickering

Blair moved his party to the right and won three elections from that position. Mrs Rochester moved it back again, leaving a gap which Cameron is trying to fill - in order to win elections, you get. I think we're all a bit OLD on these threads. Anyone talk to people of twenty/thirty? They are turned OFF by anti-poof noises, so stop making them. They LIKE green issues. Well, I think they are wrong there, but don't kick sand in their faces. Make nice noises but keep them to just noises. Devious? I should bloody hope so. Think of straight-from-the-shoulder politicians. Sarah Palin springs to mind. Barry Goldwater - you're old enough to remember. Oh, and from the other side, Michael Foot and old Wedgie Benn. Churchill not devious? Get a LIFE. And Mrs Thatcher was QUITE capable of indirection. Did she say what she was going to do tomthe miners before she did it. She did bloody not. In fact she gave in to them to buy time. When she went straight for it, no messing, what did we get. The poll tax and curtains for Maggie.

David Preiser

Mock the US Tea Party movement all you want, but the fact remains that we are a force to be reckoned with. Local and state-wide elections, as well as city hall vote results have been won due to support from local Tea Party groups.

Don't believe the BBC or any of the usual media about what's been going on. It's an ongoing, self-reliant movement, with hundreds of thousands of people gathering in local groups all around the country. It's definitely not an exclusively right-wing, Conservative fringe movement, or about the color of anyone's skin. It's much more about the center taking its rightful place again, putting pressure on Republicans just as much as on Democrats.

Mostly we're just trying to get our voices heard by autocrats and politicians who behave as a privileged, elite ruling class, line their own pockets, and push through laws and bankrupt our country and our future without our consent.

Does that sound familiar? It should.

Don't like where Cameron is headed with his policies? He hasn't heard your voice so far. Don't want your sovereignty taken away by Eurocrats? Neither your Government nor the probably future one have heard you yet.

Daniel Hannan and his colleagues deserve your support.

David Blackburn

Daniel Hannan,

Agreed, I was being slightly facetious; but I do think Ship Money is more evocative and relevant to Britain. It's only a name. Good luck with your admirable venture.

Bj

Terrific! Way to go UK. We must MAKE our gov listen to us. Tea Party is working here in US and it will work there too. Blessings!

Kennybhoy

Fergus!

Why are you giving the game away? LOL

Frank P

WTF happened at Brighton? Not a word anywhere on blogs or dead-tree media. Did they cancel it or something?