Bottled

out

Listen Gordon; Democracy is The Opposition

I was struck by an assumption made by someone posting a reply on 'rare steak, about to get rarer?' on this blog. They assumed that I would not print their reply because they made a case (a very reasonable case) against what I had to say.

Underlying this assumption was an expectation that all politicians have a yearning to eradicate any opposition to their point of view. To create an Orwellian 1984 where opposition is either distorted to agreement, or wiped out completely. Where all that is left of democracy is a rather pathetic and unsubstantiated conviction, held by a systematically brainwashed population who are pelted with a shower of meaningless language, that they are living in one.

When I was at the Conservative Conference, I asked a journalist ( who was definitely NOT a Tory) what the Labour party conference was like. I was amazed at his reply.
" It was sinister". He said.
" For the first time I heard a politician say he wanted to annihilate the opposition completely." He was referring to Gordon Brown saying that he wanted to wipe out the Conservative Party once and for all.

That is much more significant than just saying you want to win an election and beat the others. That is not saying you think you are the best party to run the country. That is saying you want power above all else. That is saying that Power for the Labour Party is more important than democracy. By implication, that is tantamount to a dictatorship.

I do not think that power for any party is more important than democracy. Annoying as it might be for a candidate, I am pleased that I have opposition candidates to compete with, and in the interests of democracy, I would never wish to see any party (except those inciting prejudiced hatred) 'wiped out'.

But that is why Gordon Brown rearranged his visit to Iraq - to 'annihilate' all coverage of his opponents' party conference. That is also why he made announcements on the NHS early. To drown out the voice of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition.

At the end of his conference speech, Gordon Brown said ' I will not let you down'. Remember, at a Party Conference, the leader is not addressing the country, (s)he is addressing his party. Gordon Brown was not promising to serve his country, but promising his party that he would give them unopposed power.

That marks a fundamental shift in the aims of our Government.

National Poetry Day

Today is National Poetry Day, so I couldn't resist having a small splurge. Below is one of my favourites. 'Nothing to be said' by Philip Larkin. With apologies for any morbidity.

I like this because in politics everyone always has so MUCH to say. All the time. And everybody charges around saying that they are more right than everyone else. But there are some things that really do leave nothing to be said, and this poem (and often poetry in general) gives a voice to this.

And perhaps the reason we all (politicians and non-politicians included) rush around so much, saying so much, so quickly and so loudly, pushing out newspapers and blogs like this one, is to make sure there is no empty space to think too hard about That which leaves Nothing To Be Said.

So thanks to poets like Larkin for some space to think in a frenetic world.


Nothing to be said
(Philip Larkin)

For nations vague as weed,
For nomads among stones,
Small-statured cross-faced tribes
And cobble-close families
In mill-towns on dark mornings
Life is slow dying.

So are their separate ways
Of building, benediction,
Measuring love and money
Ways of slowly dying.
The day spent hunting pig
Or holding a garden-party,

Hours giving evidence
Or birth, advance
On death equally slowly.
And saying so to some
Means nothing; others it leaves
Nothing to be said.

Blackpool Rocks

This year it was the 50th Anniversary of 'Crossbow', the magazine I edit for the Conservative think tank The Bow Group. So what better way to celebrate than with tasteful sticks of luminous blue Blackpool Rock?

Here we see myself and Boris anticipating the joys of Blackpool rock outside the conference venue.

If I can work out how to put PDFs on my blog, you can also read the 50th Anniversary magazine. I got Geoffrey Howe and Jilly Cooper writing in the same publication. That must be a first.

There's still some rock and a few magazines left, so if you'd like a souvenir from Blackpool, drop me a line.

Rock on.

Speaking at Conference

I don't know if anyone heard Iain Duncan Smith's speech at the Conference about fixing social breakdown? It was nothing short of inspired. I had the unenviable task of following on from that speech, with a speech of my own from the floor.

I spoke about boys - how the under-achievement of our young men is one of the main underlying factors behind the so-called 'broken society'. Over a quarter of boys don't get a single good GCSE, a fifth of them will have a reading age of half their years by the time they are 14, 80% of all expusions are of boys- and they will make up some of the 30,000 children who don't even get to take their GCSEs in an average year.

I called for a real technical, practical, manual curriculum for those who want it, so they can access good levels of literacy and numeracy through more hands-on means. I called for an unwrapping of the cotton-wool culture of health and safety from our school, I called for real competition to be allowed on the sports field and in the classroom.

I also pointed out the good work that Avonmouth National Smelting Boxing Club does in providing an alternative to hanging around on the street for young men in Bristol. I told the Conference they are in need of funds to expand - so let's hope that there were some rich donors in the audience who had not fallen asleep by the end of my speech...