The lesson for the Tories from the wild colonial boy

Pedro

When Abbott became opposition leader the liberal media in Oz, and that's about three-quarters of it, had a lovely time ridiculing the new leadership. The Mad Monk is what they call him. He stated, on education, that all children should be made familiar with all the great texts that have shaped our society, including the Bible. The media reported him as calling for compulsory Bible Studies in schools. Later he told a women's mag that he would advise his daughters to be careful with their virginity. The media wrote that he wants all women to be virgins until they marry. The sisterhood had a field day of mocking. Yet the polls did not reflect the media opinion.The media expected the instant demise of him and his party. Since then he has continued putting views unpopular with the media and to their incredulity the polls have continued to rise for him personally. The Oz media are truly perplexed.

Michael B

Bingo. If genuine Conservatives and Classical Liberals (***) would venture some principled and vastly more serious intellectual and moral backbone, they would likely find themselves ahead politically as well. Instead, they have become accustomed to triangulations and tergiversations in the self-serving hope of maintaining a political career.

*** Classical Liberals such as Locke and Montesquieu in terms of their political thought, are certainly Conservatives by today's standards.

david elder, australia

Mel, I think you got a lot right about us here down under in Oz. Howard won four elections by governing the way the average voter wanted. To this I would add one comment: when Howard did get the boot, it was partly just a mood for change after a decade of Johnny H, a common kind of electoral behaviour. But it was also that Rudd was relatively socially conservative for his party. He regularly attends church on Sunday evenings and regularly gives impromptu press conferences there - crikey, imagine Blair or Bush doing that, the separation-of-church-and-state brigade would have kittens. Rudd has also vigorously objected to a pedophilic display of photographs by an Artist - shock! horror! threat to Freedom! said the trendies - well done Kevin, said the other 90% of Australia. Rudd by such moves has won back a lot of the Howard's Battlers types to Labor whence they came. In short, Rudd defeated Howard in considerable part by paralleling him. Successful Labor here is typically non-trendy Labor.

Also, Abbott has indeed thought outside the square with global warming and is rather sceptical about it. He has done quite well electorally for doing so. But he has also said he will do some precautionary emission reduction as insurance should AGW prove to be valid at some point. His electoral cut-through on AGW has depended in part on having this nuanced position. I am fairly sceptical myself about AGW, but would accept a precautionary cut done sensibly, which for me would entail going nuclear with Australia's huge uranium reserves.

Nicholas

Far too harsh, and somewhat hyperbolic, an attack on Cameron from a right wing columnist who ought to spend much more time using her literary skill to attack New Labour.

Australians for Non-Bigoted Thinking

TORY/LABOR ARE TOO SIMILAR:WHY?

The Right cannot articulate distinct Conservative values because in many ways they have become subsumed by the Left. This is due to the decades of liberal(small l) indoctrination through education so that traditional Conservative values have become diminished, moving to the left, and subsequently the pool of people with traditional Conservative values has become smaller.

The accomodative change to a liberal mindset is catalyzed by the herd instinct and human nature. People in general find it more advantageous to be liberal as conservative values continually become less popular. It gives you greater rewards, be it your job, social approval and harmony in relationships. Continued rewards accelerates normalization and the indoctrination process is complete.

In Britain this trend has been exacerbated by thirteen years of Labour's social engineering and law reform which embellishes and reinforces the educative process.

Collectively, education and New Labor has caused society's values to crumble. This fact in an ironic twist offers hope for Britain. The fact that so many Brits have been stung so badly means that they are now susceptible for a change, especially the older British who are too old to have been taught to despise their country and can remember a better time
when to be British was to be happy and proud. One can see this reflected in the changes of people's voting intentions as the general election in Britain draws nearer. The gap between Labour and Conservative is narrowing as people realize that the Tories are little more than a pale imitation of Labour - So why vote for them ? What is the difference? Not surprisingly the popularity of the British National Party has increased (BNP), a party with more traditional conservative values, which is however problematic as the BNP contains racist elements.

I would now like to say enter stage right for a Conservative leader that could take up the gauntlet. Alas, David Cameron is too much a 'me too' Labourite indoctrinated by the Left ideologic virus. Britain as you say Melanie needs an unapologetic conservative, a la Australia's Tony Abbott. I hope they can find one soon because if God forbid, there were too many more years of Labour at the helm, there will not be a Brit left that can say the good old days were better.

Nick

The English don't do God, Pedro. Any politician suggesting that the unwashed masses familiarise themselves with the Bible would be laughed out of town and pigeonholed as a weirdo, and rightly so.

De Rigueur

Step up Dan Hannan.

Lucid as ever young Melanie

John

Wonderful article, Melanie. It's time the West and its political leaders began to take stock of just how lax they have been in protecting the very values which made the west an attractive place for immigrants and a safe haven for those of us born and bred there. And for which many of our forefathers fought and died for.

Australia's Tony Abbott is a man of great moral courage and once election time comes around, there is no doubt he will be attacked by the liberals who either do not understand that they are undermining our traditional values, or who do so deliberately. Either way, Mr. Abbott will need the support of all clear thinking people if his views are not to be drowned out by propoganda, vitriol and insults which many of the totalitarian 'liberals' utilise, even while they deny it! The mainstream media has already wrongly reported his stance on some issues. If the people are to hear and know the truth, they must demand it. For too long, too many people have uncritically accepted what is dished up by the MSM. It's time we demanded the truth and it's time men like Abbott were allowed to speak their minds without falshoods and distortions being spoken, written and broadcast by the left liberals.

Norm

The huge advantage Australia has is it is not in the EU. Most of the problems we have here come via EU legislation which our politicians have colluded in. We need to get out of there asap and any politician who agrees gets my vote.

MikeS

Not at all too harsh, Nicholas. The Conservatives need a conservative to lead them not some milk and water principle-free liberal a la Cameron. Too much touchy feely cuddliness is not what this country needs just now, or ever.

Shaun Harbord

"he speaks from principle, and it is no accident that this is securely rooted in his Catholic faith. He is therefore clearly a leader." I was a Catholic. By this logic, does that mean that i am unfit to lead anything because I have lost my faith? Talk about simplistic!!

Fabio P.Barbieri

Shaun: it depends on whether you have lost your faith, or your principles. You are not the right person to tell us; your friends might.

Augustus

Tony Abbott does indeed appear to be an honest, forthright and dedicated politician. He has his own blog, which makes interesting reading because even as opposition leader he still tries to answer every commenter personally. On immigration of Muslims, he doesn't appear to be too concerned provided they assimilate into society and obey Australia's laws. Obviously he doesn't want boat people coming in through the 'side window', as he puts it, but through the front door, with a decent place to stay while they are waiting to become
an offical immigrant. He takes quite a firm line on the land belonging to the Aboriginees and wants it to become more productive and to help them into
jobs rather than on welfare. He is called the Mad Monk, and yet appears openly to classify sex as 'one of the great joys of life', so his public image regarding his Catholic belief probably isn't going to harm his popularity. And that is what
he does appear to be: Popular.
Tony Blair was popular when he started out. Gordon Brown isn't
and neither has David Cameron managed to really become popular
in the mainstream. Why is that so? It is because David Cameron has not really been able to set out a sincere group of values that can unite the British people.

We all know that a sea-change in the constitution of the population has occurred under Labour. You cannot at one stage in opposition say that arguments about immigration are very pressing, only at a later stage to say that such an important matter is amenable to rational discussion before anything is done about it. And when a party which is tradionally Euro-sceptic you cannot then simply sweep the relationship between Britain and Europe under the carpet and
continue along a federalist vision of the EU where policies which will have serious consequences for British society
will increasingly come from Brussels, by Eurocrats who have relatively little knowledge
or care for British society, and whose job is not to ensure that their policies fit into Britain's way of life. If the modern Conservative party in Britain really wants to convince people to vote for them
their first priority is to make it clear that they aren't in it for themsleves, but for what is genuinely and unquestionably best for the country. And what is best for Britain is core Tory values, anything else is self-defeating coming from a Tory opposition.

hippiepooter

Soon we Brits wont be emigrating to Australia, we'll be seeking political asylum there.

Boethius

Hippiepooter - and when that becomes the case, I hope the Australians treat the English the way the English treated the Australians when they set them adrift in favour of the EEC.

SimonP

"The English don't do God, Pedro." Nick.

If the English did do God, we wouldn't be in such a mess as we are in.

But it has to be the right God. Not the one who offers his followers seventy-two 'raisins'.

Jill

hello melanie,
i live in Australia, and i can tell you that the reason Abbott adopted the position against the ETS is because thousands and thousands of people wrote to his Shadow ministers, Liberal Senators and relevant Liberal types that they DID NOT WANT an ETS! Ministers reported tha they received seven thousand, eight thousand, ten thousand letters per office. they had never seen anything like it, they said. Not form letters either - these were individual, impassioned letters from concerned citizens who did not normally contact their representatives and did not want - and still do not want - their taxes wasted on a scientific lie.

Why was this? because the emails describing the incredible criminal fraud of Climategate emerged and the only journalists in Australia who linked to them were andrew bolt and Tim Blair, 2 conserbative journalists whom you are aware of i do believe :).

Yes, our pathetic media here declined (ha!) to reveal actual facts of the meials but behaved like a bunch of patronising jerks, leading people who weanted to know turning to an opinion journalist for links to facts on this scandal of science. Still, becasue of this, Bolt got 2 000 000 links to his blog over the two months or so of the blow-up and the MSM down here got laughed and wallowed in their discredited pomposity.

All power to Abbott for listening to his public however, and he adopted the policy and voted against the ETS just before Copenhagen.

But the victory was a narrow one indeed and we still have to keep an eye on these idiots.