ANTI politics

Rhoda Klapp

We're right here. Didn't you notice, or do you need Tim Montgomerie to validate the idea?

Frank Sutton

I don’t see many political figures... who could speak to this group, and—on some issues—explain why they disagree with them.
This is getting it the wrong way round - the real worry is, why are there no politicians who agree with what most people are thinking.
People who feel unrepresented by mainstream politicians are far more numerous than the select group classed as 'ANTIs' in the Mail piece.

Edward Sutherland

James: This should come as no surprise to you Coffee House columnists- or do you just dismiss as the rantings of the deranged most of postings here on Europe, mass immigration, the European Convention on Human Rights and the threat of militant Islam in this country? You are right, though, coalition government has given Cameron the cover to drop a real Conservative agenda. I'm blowed if I'll be delivering "Conservative" leaflets and putting up posters come the next election. That 5 million of the disenchanted will, I suspect, grow much bigger.

dg

Call them what they are:- intelligent white men, and other people who think like intelligent white men. The people who have been the key to Conservative election victories since... forever!

Yow Min Lye

Come back Howard Flight, Patrick Mercer and Nigel Hastilow. All is forgiven.

Ah, well. We can but hope...

Cynic

"But there’s clearly something substantially wrong when such a large chunk of the country feel so alienated from mainstream politics." At last! I sometimes think nobody reads blog comments, here or elsewhere. Posters have been complaining about a lack of connection between the political class and the rest of us, together with an unwillingness to face up to what concerns us (Neather, anybody?) for a long time.

Dennis Churchill

The political class no more share the cultural values of the majority than a colonial administration does.
The question is: is this Post Democratic or just a phase before a popularist movement, such as the Tea Party, sweeps them away? It won’t matter to most politicians ,as they will just tack and rediscover their patriotism and traditional values...

TrevorsDen

You said it - UKIP or BNP. -
People too thick to tie their own shoelaces.

BNP speaks for itself but people who think UKIP are the solution clearly have not analysed the problem sufficiently.

http://critical-reaction.co.uk/2802/05-11-2010-ukip-treason-and-plot

Some people need to wake up and smell the coffee. The world is a complicated place. Some problems have no ideal solution.
In times past European politicians were so inept that we had two great European wars and before that further endless conflicts, yet to hear these sad inept and self indulgent moaners you would think the past was a golden era.

In short do not expect me to feel sorry for bleeding heart self indulgent numpties who do not have the brains to work out the difference between the duplicities that have been (once again) exacted by the Labour Party and the realism which characterises the coalition.

Frank P

Trevors Den.

I wonder if you would like to pop over and tie my shoelaces for me so that I can piss on your pomposity. Prick!

As for you, young Jimmy, I saw you 'performing' on Newsnight, or some such, just recently and it explained an awful lot of your posts - and the dire state of this magazine, in comparison to what it once was.
And Andrew Neil stumbling over the 'This Week' autocue, explains the rest.

Peter From Maidstone

Is James Forsyth really unaware that he, and the rest of the Spectator staff writers are also dismissed in the same way by the very large minority - much bigger than 5 million - who are sick to the teeth with the lot of them.

And we need to have it explained where we are wrong?!!! You people are so arrogant and self-absorbed. You really do all deserve to be swept away.

The Spectator - watching England sink beneath the waves and doing nothing.

Simon Stephenson

TrevorsDen : 8.41pm

"In times past European politicians were so inept that we had two great European wars and before that further endless conflicts"

Partially true. But there will be those who would argue that in fact we're exhibiting the same symptoms of ineptness now as we were in the countdowns to the two world wars. The problem is that to the majority, it doesn't appear to be inept. It's the process-driven approach to situations that is intuitively identical to the way their minds address situations at a personal level. Rock logic, as de Bono calls it - single-issue, front to back, trial and error - with no awareness of the ability of human minds to think in a different and more effective way.

Not all, but a significant number of the disfranchised 5 million are people who are hesitant about openly supporting any of the mainstream parties because none of them appear to be actually addressing outcomes - they're all thinking at Remove B level, and focusing entirely on processes.

pharbitis

"Obviously, politics can’t just be about these voters"
Politics had better damn well be about these voters.
The description is too narrow. There are many whose jobs are safe, are comfortable but have given up on the main parties. They might vote in their traditional habit but only to keep out the worst option. Do they trust/ like/ respect politicians? No. They are angry, taken for granted, milked and ignored. They quietly rage.
We know that politics is about keeping the mega-rich and powerful happy and resident in this country, bailing out the financiers who set up the house of cards and then brought it down, whatever the cost to the small joes. Political alliances are about Union power or Banker power.
The rest of us can see jobs lost, traditional values trashed,our pensions and savings devalued; we are ridden roughshod, ignored but the political elite gives not a toss while they wait for their Honours, claim their expenses, sitting in their chauffeured cars.
Angry? You bet.

Boudicca

Not turned on the doorstep eh? That's because they have principles. Something entirely missing from our political class.

I am now a UKIP member. I am flexible on many issues, but I have one absolutely fixed political belief and that is that the British people should have the right to decide on whether the UK remains inside the EU or leaves and joins EFTA.

The 3 mainstream parties are all pro-EU membership and have connived to prevent the British electorate from voicing their opinion on the EU in either the General Election campaigns or in a Referendum. At the same time they have been signing away our independence, Sovereignty and money whenever the EU Politburo snaps its fingers.

I am not negotiable on this issue. Someone on my doorstep could talk to me for 24 hours and I will not budge. We want, deserve and need a Referendum on the EU.

If AV is introduced, I will vote UKIP but no second choice. Cameron isn't going to recover my lost vote through the backdoor like that.

yank

Yes, this would be the "Tea Party" movement there, I suspect. As here, it's not partisan, and they don't care which elitist throat gets the blade dragged across. And memo to Dave: Stripping down to your shirt sleeves don't fool nobody. You're one of them, and everybody knows it, and these limey tea partiers are just patiently awaiting the day they can deploy the blade, on you and your lib/lab soulmates.

Lovely that you speak of "wooing" these voters, because that's exactly what Dave's yank campaign shysters are whispering in his ear right now... that he needs to somehow trick and woo these types into voting for him. Additional memo to Dave: These people are immovable, simply because unlike you, they are principled, and are looking beyond your near term electoral prospects, which is all you really care about, as they know full well.

You better plan on moving closer to them, Dave. You'd have better luck trying to persuade me. And don't bet on that either.

Nicholas

I bet there are more than 5 million. Relegating these views to a ranting minority is typical of the metro-liberal elite and no doubt New Labour's freedom of speech curbing mans there are probably millions more who dare not speak out.

ANTI

Only 5M? Cameron must be adding 5000 a day.

Anan

What a load of old rubbish. So they sat back and did nothing as long as they were given free handouts from the government, money stolen from the hardworking middleclass, while they sat around as lazy bums feeling it was beneath them to pick fruit or clean toilets - and prefering immigrants to do it. Now that their handouts have been lost, and now that immigrants are doing those jobs for them, they complain about immigrants and want to vote BNP? Racist idiots can go to hell, it is damned right that mainstream politicians give up on them. Who needs these lazy racists anyway?

Occasional Ostrich

Peter from Maidstone

And you're still reading the Speccie? Only online, I presume?

Fergus Pickering

Do you know what I see here? I see old people. Nothing wrong with that. I'm an old person myself. But I see NOTHING BUT old people. They look to a past that never existed, to a time when politicians were respected and trusted, to a time when a shilling was a shilling and a British car was a British car. When I look back I see the same villains. Somebody on a blog was lauding Gerald Nabarro. Are you having a laugh? British cars were crap for as long as I can remember because British workers were lazy assholes and British management were incompetent twits. I liked Mrs Thatcher but she screwed up royally over the Poll Tax. Every politician screws up in the end. Cameron's not superman but who are we comparing him with? Eden? Incompetent ass. Macmillan? Likeable charlatan. Butler, Home? Appeasers. Maudling? Crook. Heath? Words fail me. And I haven't even got started on the Labour party. Churchill was a good egg. Mrs Thatcher was a goodish egg who ended with delusions of grandeur. Cameron? I like him. I quite like him.

Gawain

The ANTIs are a sign of an ageing, decrepit culture. There are no politicians that represent them because they hate mankind. Their misanthropy extends to each other, which means that they cannot organise themselves. If the ANTIs were throwing fire extinguishers off buildings or trashing police vans every politician in the country would take notice !

Dixon

Far from being religious, I am anti-religious. But I find that at bed-time I almost in spite of myself pray to see the appearance of a charismatic leader from (thet is to say, within) our military, with the position, inclination and connections to do something to get rid of this lousy "democracy".

Major Plonquer 1

Wow! FIVE MILLION? And here I was thinking it was much, much more.

Lets see how we do with the change to the voting system. Any new 'proportional' system that is simply an excuse to further entrench the existing parties is simply not acceptable.

daniel maris

No wonder people are disillusioned about such things as mass immigration when even a "Conservative" journal fails to take the issue seriously, even when official immigration is running at half a million a year in the middle of a recession!

Did we build sufficient houses to accommodate them last year? Did we f*** - so that is just more of a burden on our infrastructure (plus it's probably another 1% burden added to our rickety transport infrastructure).

The truth is that mass immigration is destabilising our country. The effects may not yet be fully evident.

Of course we need to connect up people to government. But the elite (including nearly all Spectator writes) will not countenance the most obvious way to do that: referenda.

TomTom

Most wars in Europe have been to serve French interests, and when France cannot fight alone it ropes in the Idiots from the Offshore Island to fight for them. Until the 20th Century France could trample across the Continent but Germany was too big to roll over so the British Empire had to be sacrificed for French hegemony and then France created the EU to manage its conquests

Mike and Walter

This is an issue of the rise of the political class. They have watched the rise of a political class who made an early career decision to become politicians and define themselves in that language and thinking, who appear only to use voters to position themselves for political gain and will use a language that leaves no traces to do so.

They are also looking at people they have no respect for. I had the privilege to work in Parliament for 9 years a long time a go. We did have the career politicians of Livingstone and Banks etc at theta time but as a young man I saw people that had fought wars, run businesses and led Trade Unions in leading positions.

They may have been wrong but they had a right to make their decisions based on real experience. Now we have Ed Balls, Nick Clegg and Harriet Harman. Barely any experience outside the world they live in. How can anyone respect people who have been researchers, SPADS, MP's, Ministers and potentially leaders of the country?

Tiberius

Isn't UKIP the natural home of the ANTIs?

But it's a fact that there just aren't enough of them to have any significant influence.

And they are so bull-headed that they refuse to adopt a "my enemy's enemy is my friend", which leaves the door open to Labour, and denies the Tories a majority.

Any Tory leader attempting to move towards ANTI policy expectations would suffer the same fate as the last one to try. William Hague at least has learned to accept the British voting public's tastes.

Rhoda Klapp

Well, most of the comments are in agreement, although it seems Mr Forsyth will never read them. If he ever read here, he would know.

But for the comments about how we are all old, bitter, racist, whatever, I just have to say, my political opinion is as valid as yours (more so, because I am of course right) and it is completely and thoroughly disgusting that you should seek to invalidate my opinion, claim it as worthless, on these grounds. Basically to justify the fact that not only does the political class ignore us, it has a defence mechanism, seen in this last week, whereby anyone who articulates any of our issues is immediately forced to apologise.

I'm waiting for the Spectator to address the problem. Hmmmmmmm. Da di da. Whistle, Not holding my breath though.

2trueblue

I can understand the 'antis' but it is a wasted vote if the party can never get in. The BBC have a lot to answer for as the electorate are now given such biased information turning anyone is nigh on impossible. Andrew McNeil needs to get his act together as he is one of the few with a brain.
If those who voted UKIP had voted for the TOries the landscape would now be different. The 'All in this together' does not work for me as it is not true. Those who have paid their way and prop the system up for those who do not wish to participate in making the UK strong have been seduced with the idea that everything is free. 13yrs of Liebore has done untold damage and the dye they have cast has changed everything. If being an 'anti' fulfills that ache then there is nothing we can do, but there is more to life than 'venting the spleen' by giving power away which is what a protest that brings no beneficial change achieves. Change only occurs from within and that is why we must all stick together or we will end up out of the mix.

Edward McLaughlin

Fergus Pickering.

Your words are not failing you, but your eyes see less than is here.

I think we understand thank you, that the past was not in fact a paradise. There is no suffering under the delusion that there is a 'way back' to pink land masses and picnics in the Austin Somerset - yes, beautiful heaps of poorly constructed shit.

But just because there is the propensity in some older people, to live off memory and to gloss it; that does not mean that every note of discord which they sound, can be written off so comprehensively.

Taken to its fullest extent, your argument is purest nihilism: the past has so solidly been proven faulty, that there is no point in hoping to provide, in our present actions, a future of any more merit.

Such a mindset is the perfect vehicle for the satisfied achievement of nothing and provides a very efficient way of 'kettling-in' hope and realprogression.

If you find that acceptable then fine, dig out. Not for me thanks, nor I suspect, for many others 'here'.

wonderfulforhisage

Any chance the Spectator could become the voice of the five million? I'd renew my sub. were it to do so.

I voted UKIP at the last election after fifty years of loyal support and refused the renewal of my Spectator sub last September after 45 years of weekly reading. Judging by two phone calls I've had from the Spectator trying to woo me back my sub. is missed. Well now you know how to get me back in the fold.

Verityred

UKIP are nowt but an old folks home for neck vein twitching, drooling members of the dinosaur right. They are useful to Labour for skimming off a few votes from the Tories here and there.

Otherwise one track wonders with tiny fuses.

yank

"Isn't UKIP the natural home of the ANTIs?

But it's a fact that there just aren't enough of them to have any significant influence."

.

Au contraire, they can have great influence, far outsize to their numbers. But individuals have to reach that tipping point where they recognize that voting for Tweedledum is the same as voting for Tweedledee as there is no real distinction between them.

Once there, once they've kissed off the establishment's feckless and ineffectual ways, and are seen to have done so... they will have influence.

Frank Sutton

The 5 million (if it is that few) are the tip of an iceberg, the visible portion of deep seated discontent with a political caste which resolutely fails to represent the feelings of most of the country.
Below the waterline are the millions more who reluctantly vote for a mainstream party rather than cast a wasted vote.
The tip of the iceberg, of course, also acts as a lightning rod for those masters and mistresses of rhetoric who know that to characterise your opponent as 'drooling', 'neck vein twitching' (new one on me, that) or just plain old is to win the argument.

Norman Dee

it's not surprising that the comments section is populated by a majority of "older" people, they are the ones that have the time. They are also the ones with the biggest build up of anger and frustration because as I am discovering in my 4th year of retirement, they are also the ones who feel helpless, we have lost our influence, society has devalued us for many years, and we are now into a society that is run by 35 to 50 year olds. I was pushed aside at 59 for a younger man, who went on to close the factory only 3 years later. I get no satisfaction from that, the guys in the factory are the ones that deserve the sympathy.
Add to this my frustration at the way the whole thing revolves around London, and we are controlled and rely on recession proof people that continue to follow their own agenda regardless knowing it won't disturb their well oiled existence.

Fergus Pickering

Edward McClaughlin. You have no right to extend my argument and still call it my argument. It is now yours, an Aunt Sally erected for you to knock down. What do you mean by nihilism. Do you mean the Russians delineated by Dostoevsky? May I say I do not agree with those bomb-throwing blighters at all. Sinn Fein could be said to be nihilists. Not me. I just do not agree with you, that's all. I think Cameron and the Coalition will make things measurably better. Good for them.

Stuart Seacole Smith

Forsyth's blog may deliberately underplay the depth and breadth of the dysfunction of our society, but I for one very much welcome that he and Montgomerie are at least willing to put the issues on the table. That's a lot more than 99.99% of our journalists and politicians are willing to do.

TrevorsDen

No FrankP you are the prick. For not being able to see beyond the end of your nose. Fergus is right about people inventing the past - all to suit the chip on their shoulders.
Like the numpty blaming the French for WW2! The same numpty totally ignorant about the causes of Britain entering WW1,
Like thick Boudicca pursuing an ignorant policy which Labour themselves could not have designed better in order to suit them. That's like playing Russian Roulette with all the chambers full.

I have no time for the whining self serving 'pricks' who moan about how miserable their lot is and its all the fault of politicians.
Of course politicians are not perfect, sadly the world is a complicated place, but thick thousands, millions even, voted labour and kept on voting labour all the time they were screwing the country.

But then, Rule 1 - Never vote for a socialist.
No, the world and politicians are not perfect, but you can reduce the odds.

JohnPage

And right on cue we have IDS forced to postpone housing benefit changes even though they're popular:

The proposals have attracted widespread public support in opinion polls. However, the decision to stagger the changes reflects a growing realisation by ministers that Labour could exploit the changes to attack Tory and Lib Dem councillors in local elections next year.

The BNP are racist and stupid. And how grateful the Tories must be that Farage runs UKIP as his own fiefdom. So it stops any rival parties taking root, and it can't become a serious party itself.

When our own rising Tory MP is a longterm subscriber to FoE, where are we to go?

More widely, as our standards of living start to fall (as they will), what will Cameron be giving the ANTIs? Nothing that I can see.

Our gas bill will be going up 9.7%, but who in Parliament will speak out against the pointless 'green' fuel levies? No one.

No wonder we feel disenfranchised.

TGF UKIP

Yank gets close to the centrality of the issue when he mentions the Tea Party which identifies itself as an anti Washington movement. Similarly, the problem here is London or more accurately those parts of London housing the politicians and journalists including, without exception, the Spectator staff editors and journalists.

The whole PC lot of them bear their views like a uniform with barely a cigarette paper between any of them. The only exception who comes readily to mind among the non overtly Labour journos is Heffer, and I have the strong impression that he continues to avoid the contagion by living in rural Essex.

As for the now routine response to anything like this being the "old fogey" allegation and the one routinely used by the Camerluvvie gang, isn't one of the most alienated age groups the under 35s? Try asking some twenty odd year old C2s how they feel about not only immigration levels but the constant stream of PC London crap that emanates from all three main parties and Cameron & Co in particular.

The UK needs an anti London Tea Party movement just as badly as the US needed their anti Washington one and no point over here trying to do with the Tories what they are doing with the GOP. The Tories are beyond redemption.

Mkichaa

Anti-voters, 5 million whatever; I would say there is a much bigger group who have very little faith in our democracy and politicians who every 5 years feel compelled to vote even though they know deep down it is not worth the effort. These are the people that know that on the day big companies and wealthy individuals where allowed to pour money into the coffers of political parties, democracy for the common man fell over and died. Ever since then a succession of politicians have been banging nails into the corpse’s coffin. Blair banged in a few. Turning the election process in to a USA style expensive, hyped media event effectively killed the small hope that any other party but the big 3 could ever afford to participate in any meaningful way. Bringing in the EU HR legislation silenced another bunch of dissenters and pleased his backers…and so on. We have a democracy where the needs of the party backers are paramount, second in line are those of the most vocal minority groups. No more than a nod and a wink is given to the vast majority who vote (or not) and pay the bills. I would venture to say that the gap between the majority and the politicians and the lawmakers and academia and to a certain extent the media, has never been so great in a lifetime.

Rhoda Klapp

Trevorsden. You are apparently a tribalist tory, or should I say Conservative. You see this as Tory vs Labour, and Labout being evil, Tory is the way to vote. Some of us see it as the three main parties being far too similar in policy, leaving those not in agreement with a limited choice, every option being unsatisfactory. We see a political panto taking place, and we can't get into the spirit of 'behind you!', 'Oh, no he isn't', 'Oh yes he is!'. This is nothing to do with some idealised past, or lesson from history. It is to do with effective disenfranchisement. It is to do with being a citizen of a nation state, but deriving no advantage in treatment by the state by virtue of citizenship. Of having our sovereignty sold for a mess of potage. You really ought to be able to debate this kind of point without the abuse. Without assuming that any who disagree with you are Labour's useful idiots or see UKIP as a real party.

Paul Hughes

I joined UKIP after having heard a Eurocrat term a possible Irish GE as being "irresponsible." This is so Soviet a phrase that I decided to abandon the tories before such turns of speech could be levelled at us. We don't have time to wait for Cameron et al to free themselves from the constraints of coalition politics. The present Euro crisis is being used as a lever to force countries into an ever tighter and more undemocratic union. So, term me an idiot if you please but I will be able to face those who bemoan, in 40 years time, that the collective "we" did nothing to prevent the loss of our sovereignty to unelected bodies overseas.

So, I am an ANTI and am happy to be so. I don't suppose that I am the only one to have been "turned" by recent events.

stereodog

I have no sympathy whatever for these so called disillusioned voters. Politics is changed by those who turn up and most of these people never do. Case in point is all of those students who are moaning about the Lib Dems supporting higher fees. If more of these students had turned out to vote then the Lib Dems might now be in a majority government and thus able to put their plans into operation.

Don't like your politicians? Join a local party, slog through the meetings and change them. There's no iron law that seats have to be safe (ask Neil Hamilton). Choose your candiate and campaign smartly for him. The disillusionment with politics is a by product of our instant results age.

Tarka the Rotter

I am disillusioned with the political class, something which straddles all parties and shames our democracy. Parliament should, in my humble opinion, comprise of men and women who have contributed to our national life by working in our businesses, industries, shops, in academe and with experience of life in the forces: our MPs should not decide at 18 that theirs will be a political career - it should be a decision made after experience in other fields has been achieved. As for the House of Lords, what we have at the moment is a national disgrace - seats in the legislature should not be a political gift.

Verity's Kitchen Cupboard Where The Teabags Are Kept

Trevor's Den ... "Some people need to wake up and smell the coffee."

Strangely inept for a post addressed to the British. (Also, terribly dated in the US, the land of its birth.)

Verity

TGF UKIP - I agree with your post in the main, but on The Telegraph, do not forget the superb James Delingpole - articulate and uses the sword of wit with elegance and cunning accuracy. I've never seen him miss his mark.

Also, how could you forget the robust diagnostician Norman Tebbitt on the Telegraph?

Gerald Warner, too.

Rhoda Klapp

stereodog, is it your position that a local party has any influence over candidate choice? Won't they just end up being called, say, turnip taliban? Your suggestions are naive and they recommend dishonesty, in the it is not honest to hijack a party in this way. Not effective either, which is more to the point.

All we want is a real choice. How hard is that to understand?

Boudicca

Paul Hughes: Not only did the EU Apparatchik say an Irish General Election would be irresponsible, they were forbidden to hold one or the bailout might not be forthcoming (ie Blackmail).

In an address to the EU Parliament, Nigel Farage gave his comments on this piece of demagogary here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fyq7WRr_GPg

And all those thinking UKIP members are old; I'm not. I've probably got another 40+ years before I move on and I have made absolutely sure my sons (22 and 20) understand the issue!

Peter From Maidstone

Occasional Ostrich, I no longer buy the Spectator, or read it online. I participate at the Coffee House because there are people here whose opinions I value and find interesting.

Otherwise, I prefer Standpoint, whose latest issue has a serious and lengthy piece on the failure of multiculturalism in Germany, and the nature of Asian Muslims gangs in the North of England. Neither are topics that the Spectator will every seriously deal with.

Nicholas

Norman Dee thank you for your post. Men on the slag heap after 50 need to get together with some wealthy sponsorship to form a pressure group to attack the ridiculous dichotomy of an increasingly ageist Britain and a government bleating about the need for people to work longer. Your experience of being ousted for a clueless idiot who then buggers things up is a microcosm for what has happened everywhere in Britain.

Personally I think the size of this discarded generation is huge (and largely male) but their voice is not co-ordinated or being heard. I think there is more than coincidence between the increasing lack of value and respect for experience and the recklessness of the financial services industries.

Boudicca

TrevorsDen.

I don't think it's me who is thick. What a shame you have to resort to insulting someone you don't know.

30 years' of Conservative Euroscepticism has achieved precisely nothing. The Tory elite ignore the wishes of their membership just as they ignore the wishes of the wider electorate. They are pro-EU just like Labour and the LibDems.

In order to change someone else's behaviour you have to change your own. The Conservative Party elite will only change their policy towards the EU when they are forced to do so. Voting for them will not effect change; voting against them will if enough people do it.

And in the meantime, if we get another Labour Government that is the price we will have to pay to get our country back. At the moment, whether we vote Conservative, Labour or LibDem we get the same capitulation to the EU.

We are constantly denied a Referendum on the EU because, we are told, 'the time to vote on EU policy is during a British General Election.' Well you can't have it both ways. I want a Referendum on the EU; but if one won't be permitted I vote on the EU during a General Election.

All you Conservative die-hards who refuse to understand that the Tories don't have an automatic right to the votes of anyone who is not a Labour or LibDem supporter need to grow up. This is still, just about, a Democracy and I will vote for the Party which most represents my views and at the moment and for the foreseeable future, that Party is UKIP.

Edward McLaughlin

Fergus Pickering

I wasn't associating you with bomb-throwing revolutionaries. The word 'nihilism' refers to a mode of thinking which, to me having read it once again, underpins your initial comment which made the claim that any recourse to our past must admit a failure, the totality of which would suggest inevitability.

The debilitating charge that our past is one from which we can claim no credit whatsoever, can offer only a recurrent skepticism incapable of founding any movement into a future.

It's a curse which can only be broken by careful and honest appraisal of the past, sifting out the good from the bad, leading to informed and prudent action in our present.

Responsible old people are as eligible as anyone else to take part in such a process.

TrevorsDen

Dear Boudicca - 'if we get another Labour Government that is the price we will have to pay to get our country back.' ... and you wonder why I call you thick?

The EU is a joke (certainly run by jokers) and the Euro looking increasingly unworkable - but if you think I am interested in tearing 'my' party apart for the sake of a stupid uninformed political virility test and handing control back to Labour you are even thicker than I give you credit for.

But I grow tired of the nutjob squealing that thinks the EU is the source of all our problems. If the truth hurts so be it.

We face problems as a country - most of them self inflicted. 'Human Rights' is nothing to do with the EU - is the Council of Europe, and our real problems with that are UK judges.

If we left the EU we would probably enact ourselves most of its regulations - or our companies would independently follow them. And leaving the EU would still leave it there, presumably with no interest in agreeing anything with us or any concern for us.

The real problem from the EU is the insanity of absolute free movement of labour. Now quite frankly this is of some benefit to us since we get endless supply of hard working dedicated employees - and say who cares about the British deadbeats who cannot be bothered?
Well I for one do care about the sad state of all the NEETS and the benefit ridden underclass. Its something we should be ashamed of and what Labour blatantly ignored. Free movement of labour makes it more difficult to get these sad people into work and off benefits. That is a real issue and its one that we should do something about - if only for a 5 year period.

Commentator

Rhoda, not much point even attempting to debate with TrevorsDen, as he/she/it splutters into his G and T. Clinging to Dave's coattails is an identity-affirming experience for TrevorsDen. Very sad.

Tiberius on the other hand feigns the languid sophistication of one with the political consistency of a weathervane. No wonder he likes Dave: they are cut from the same cloth.

TGF UKIP

Perhaps Tiberius has absented himself from this thread out of sheer embarrassment. Not just Dave who can be judged by the company he keeps.

Verity, no argument from me on the supplementaries especially the great Lord T whose withering dismissals of Dave are always to be savoured.

Baron

I’m afraid you’re barking in the right direction, but at the wrong oak.

our key problem ain’t the sameness of the major political parties, the EU, the voting system or whatever, our core problem is that the individuals populating the ruling political elites of whatever colour, the MSM, the educational establishment, the whole of the top of the pyramid of power subscribe to a left leaning philosophy of life, a basket of deadly fallacies that sound noble, compassionate, heart warming but are, by and large, inimical to human nature, defy common sense and one’s first hand experience from life.

the spectre of PC, multiculturalism, moral equivalence and stuff which we all accept, willingly or reluctantly, are but the manifestation of those fallacies.

we aren’t all equal, but unequal in our physical and metal abilities, this inequality has bugger all to do with the notion that we ought to treat each other and be treated by those who govern us equally; the great unwashed don’t give a toss about the difference between the equality of opportunity and that of outcome; it’s the latter they’ve been conditioned to go for; we have no rights but only claims that we must negotiate between ourselves, what we do have are duties and responsibilities to ourselves individually and to others; happiness ain’t the purpose of life however much we yearn for it, pain and suffering are as much a part of life as joy and laughter.

those who governed in the past knew that if the unwashed were to be genuinely happy and content they had to be reconciled to the limitation of the human condition. The post-war lot of leaders has blindingly pursued policies designed to engineer a material aplenty as if obesity and useless trappings were a substitute for the inherent need of every one of us to be a part of a community where respect, common sense, tolerance and justice rule.

what we lack is a coherent right leaning philosophy debunking these fallacies, we are unlikely to get it until fate intervenes, I reckon.

daniel maris

I think all this bewailing of our elites' many failures to follow the people's instincts is beside the point. All it proves is that our political system is unresponsive.

We need to build in referenda into out body politic - it will be like reconnecting the main artery from heart to head. The change would be instantaneous.

christy

The oligarchy have got us scientifically over a barrel. voting against any of them will result in any of them forming coalitions with each other. The EU is the state & the three main parties are all pledged by the Lisbon treaty to put the EU above national interest. in another 10 years they will have totally colonised the country anyway so if the current nation continue playing their democracy game it simply provides them more cover & time to fulfil their federal ambitions without having to resort to violence.

normanc

I half remember reading an article recently and although I can't remember the figures it's absolutely astonishing the fall off in percentage of vote for the main 3 parties over the last 50 years. The numbers must have party strategists worried regardless of how many loyalists write the disillusioned off as swivel eyed cranks.

5 million does seem far too low and there must be huge numbers simply trotting out and voting for their party of choice simply because they/their parents/grandparents have always voted that way.

Others may vote for their particular candidate because he is worth voting for but don't feel that way for the Party as a whole.

I'd imagine you could easily double the 5 million if you were simply looking for people who would answer 'no' to the question 'Are you satisfied with the overall quality of the 3 main political parties?'

This trend will definitely continue, what we really need is a credible right of centre party, the Tories having moved to the centre ground and UKIP ran worse than a church fete (although their MEP's seem to behave a lot worse). This would not only force the Conservatives to up their game if they ever wanted to govern alone again (and that is a doubtful proposition) it would also force Labour to engage in an argument rather than just say 'We're not the nasty party' - that the Cameroons delight in the fact that they can call traditional conservatives nasty is another outrage, but I've ranted on for long enough, need to unswivel my eyes and wipe the flecks of spittle from the monitor.

yank

normanc,

It's a tragedy that the word "conservative" is to be considered a curse word over there on that pile of rocks. It wounds me, to think that it is so.

Here, the bastards sling those curses about (the leftists sling them, too), but over the past couple years or so, we've begun to kick the bastards in the head, and force them to begin to put conservative action behind the empty words that they mouth. We'll see how it goes.

The Cameroons are to be the head-kicked here. Break it down into the simpler bits, and that's what conservative thought will tell us, I believe.

Rhoda Klapp

Yank, you have Fox, we have the BBC. It is impossible for a conservative point of view to be expressed on broadcast media here, except prior to the resignation of the holder.