I switched over to Sky News last night to wait for Boris's acceptance speech. I noticed they were reporting 300 Conservative gains in the local elections, rather than the lower BBC figure I had watched build until Auntie lost interest as the voters misbehaved. I checked the final figures this morning and the discrepancy is huge (see screen shots, click to enlarge). Which figures are correct?
Link: BBC NEWS | Politics | Johnson wins London mayoral race.
Congratulations, Boris. What a shame that the House of Commons will lose one of its few principled and intelligent members to a largely ceremonial post. It's probably worth it, to save Londoners the embarrassment of having a Mayor prepared to befriend totalitarian scum.
Does this mean Ken Livingstone will now have to get a real job? The shock may kill him. Boris, in his acceptance speech, was far too gracious about a disgraceful, despicable man.
Link: Iain Dale's Diary: Vote in the April Political Performance Index.
One of the most interesting initiatives in the blogosphere at present is Iain Dale's monthly "Politiical Performance Index." Why not head over there (follow the link above) to vote?
Link: Heathrow Terminal 5 fingerprint plans 'illegal' - Telegraph.
I was planning to assault someone I don't like tomorrow. Having been advised that this would be illegal, I have put my plan on hold.
Link: Why you can't believe a word Ed Balls says - Telegraph.
In politics, any truth the electorate would not like is only ever told by accident or indirectly. Ed Balls exposed the true spirit of the Labour Party this week in two telling ways. Firstly, his instinctive response to being told that the tax burden in Britain is the highest in history was to shout out "So what?!" Secondly, he went straight to the reporters of Hansard to have official history "corrected" to read that he shouted "So weak!" I wonder if the reporter who fulfilled that ministerial instruction has read 1984?
In his choice of lie, "Named by a just God" Balls may, perhaps, have subconsciously disclosed a third truth. The man thinks himself an intellectual. He is a fool; and a weak fool too (and Mrs Paine - a shrewd judge - thinks he has "mad eyes").
Link: 'Deadline to quit for NY\'s Spitzer'.
How ridiculous that the personal sexual conduct of a politician should be a matter of public discussion. Isn't that right, Mr Spitzer?
Link: 'Britishness' day and oaths to the Queen urged - Telegraph.
As a young lawyer in Nottingham, I administered the oath of allegiance to many a new citizen from the Indian sub-continent and was always grateful that - as an Englishman by birth and a republican - I did not have to swear it myself in order to be a citizen.
I have nothing against HM the Queen in person. She seems a charming lady and takes her "job" very seriously. But as long as the highest office in the land is hereditary, the first political thought an English child will have is that he cannot aspire to it. That gives rise to the very opposite of "the American Dream" - i.e. an understanding that personal merit is not of the highest importance and that many important goals are not worth trying for.
I am very much with my revered namesake on the subject of monarchs and it makes me laugh that the "right on" New Labourites are so desperate for votes that they are appealing to the inner peasant in every Brit. I am in republican France today and very much enjoying my liberty, equality and fraternity (as established, in part, by good old Tom Paine) in the sunshine of the Cote d'Azur. It's a hard life, but someone has to live it.
Link: EU Referendum: The death of parliament.
Dr. Richard North expresses how many of us feel today. One doesn't need to be a Eurosceptic to feel betrayed. One doesn't even need to oppose the Lisbon Treaty per se. This treaty is the EU Constitutional Treaty by another name. We were promised a referendum before that treaty was adopted. Here is the text from Labour's 2005 manifesto (not to be found on the Party's own website, interestingly);
The new Constitutional Treaty ensures the new Europe can work effectively, and that Britain keeps control of key national interests like foreign policy,taxation,social security and defence.The Treaty sets out what the EU can do and what it cannot. It strengthens the voice of national parliaments and governments in EU affairs. It is a good treaty for Britain and for the new Europe.We will put it to the British people in a referendum and campaign whole-heartedly for a ‘Yes’vote to keep Britain a leading nation in Europe.
That promise has been shamelessly broken. Most sadly of all, look at the list of Labour MPs who voted against the party line;
Colin Burgon (Elmet)
Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley)
Frank Cook (Stockton North)
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North)
John Cummings (Easington)
Ian Davidson (Glasgow South West)
David Drew (Stroud)
Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe & Nantwich)
Frank Field (Birkenhead)
Mark Fisher (Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Roger Godsiff (Birmingham Sparkbrook & Small Heath)
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall)
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North)
Lindsay Hoyle (Chorley)
Lynne Jones (Birmingham Selly Oak)
John McDonnell (Hayes & Harlington)
David Marshall (Glasgow East)
Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby)
Anne Moffat (East Lothian)
George Mudie (Leeds East)
Denis Murphy (Wansbeck)
Alan Simpson (Nottingham South)
Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)
Graham Stringer (Manchester Blackley)
Gisela Stuart (Birmingham Edgbaston)
David Taylor (Leicestershire North West)
Paul Truswell (Pudsey)
Robert Wareing (Liverpool West Derby)
Mike Wood (Batley & Spen)
One would like to applaud them as principled men and women who voted to honour their manifesto pledge. The fact is that they are losers, has-beens or never-weres. In no danger of promotion (and many in danger of losing their seats at the next election) they have risked precisely nothing to do the right thing. Every MP with aspirations has succumbed to the Whips and toed the line.
The same may be said of the Tory and LibDem rebels, with the possibly slightly honourable exception of those three LibDems who gave up the dubious benefit of a frontbench position. Most of all, doubts remain as to whether the Conservative line is a fraud. Absent a firm commitment to call a referendum when elected, we cannot be sure that David Cameron was not just playing a seedy game.
Nothing could better illustrate the horrors of professionalised politics. Members of Parliament should be leading citizens serving the nation - preferably after honourable careers in other fields - and voting their consciences. They should be an independent legislature, setting a framework of law and policy within which the Executive should operate. They should not be whipped curs obeying the leaders of their parties for fear of punishment or the refusal of preferment. Sadly, it is clear that most of them are precisely that. They have shamed themselves and shamed the nation.
Link: Government backs down over plastic bags | Politics | guardian.co.uk.
You have to laugh at the hypocrisy and idiocy of our rulers. What Mrs Paine and I don't understand is why it's better for retailers to charge for plastic bags than to provide paper ones, like those wicked un-Green Americans that the Left so hate? Will all retailers who introduce charges for plastic bags reduce the prices on their goods so as to achieve the same net cost to their customers? If not, what is so virtuous about them increasing profits on a moral pretext? Are they not simply emulating those governments who find global warming a very convenient "truth" when it comes to raising taxes?
Bernhard-Henri Levy is addressing the conference I am attending and speaking of the relationship between America and France.
He told an amusing story about flying with John Kerry's entourage with a view to interviewing him for a book. This was three days before Kerry lost the Presidential election. Time after time he was put off from meeting Kerry by the candidate's minders with such stories as "the candidate is sleeping, but will see you later."
Eventually an American journalist explained to him, laughing, that it would be electoral suicide for Kerry to be seen with a Frenchman at such a time, given how unpopular France is in the States. Only by threatening to issue a press release to Agence France Presse, saying that he could not meet the candidate "because he sleeps all day long" did he finally get his interview.
He then went on to explain that the feeling is mutual. Indeed he said that anti-Americanism is France's "last religion" and tried to explain why. He referred to Rousseau's observation that the citizens of the fledgling America were united only by "un chiffon de papier" (i.e. the Constitution). French thinkers of the time believed that if America were to survive, it would be only as a weak and inconsequential nation. When it became apparent how untrue that was, there was a reaction of anger. He said that the real enemy of the Nazis was America, precisely because it was a nation united by paper, not blood.
All anti-democratic currents in France (e.g. on the "extreme right") are fed by a hatred of America not as a geographical place, but as a metaphysical category. It is a reaction of "French fascism" (i.e. a vision of a nation united by blood ties) against "American populism" (and vice versa).
He said some other interesting and amusing things, for example that:
If there are two people who believe that God has put his finger on their foreheads to indicate that they are uniquely appointed to represent the best in the world, then one of them is a fake. This explains much in our relations.
He believes that the founding fathers of the United States intended, not merely to establish a country free from the tyrannies of the Old World, but to create an exemplar of all that Europe could be without tyranny. He compares that with the French sense of a mission to civilise, which is something they have in common. He quotes Malraux saying:
France is never so great as when she is great for everybody
In conclusion, he said that the tension in Franco-American relations; this sense in each country that the other embodies the worst of humanity - is really all a mistake. France and America share the same values and have waged the same fights, for example against Nazism and the "second fascism" of Communism. He said that France and the USA are now engaged together in the fight against the "third fascism; the fascism of today" - namely Islamism ("not Islam of course, which is a great religion") but the bin Laden perversion. In practice, he said, the "third fascism" makes no distinction between the New and the Old World of the West.
They have declared a total nihilist war, which we have no choice but to wage together.
How very French, that such a view can be spoken so fiercely after such a frank and elegant commentary. The applause was nervous, but I confess to being impressed. Where are such voices in England?
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