Class war and scepticism on Conservative Home

Euroscepticism is dead, that is at least according to Richard North on the EU Referendum blog. However, do not despair (or indeed break out the bubbly) say the posters on C0nservative Home. Sally Roberts says;

"Euroscepticism is not dead, its just waiting for the platform of government to re-emerge. Eventually the UK is going to have to decide whether to adopt the Euro or not."

Clearly the posters are waiting for David Cameron to perform the role of knight-in-shining armour. Donal Blaney puts it thus;

"'hush now our little skeptics, all in good time, all in good time."

Littletwo also sees the role of a Cameron government as actively promoting euroscepticism;

"Assuming that an incoming Cameron Government remains broadly Eurosceptical, they would do well to expose, pointedly, every EU law which they have to enact......Honesty is what the public craves from its politicians. The measure would be popular and public opinion would swing, inexorably, to more active Euroscepticism."

Meanwhile, while the Conservatives made much of Labour's 'class war' tactics in Crewe but are busy fighting the class war for their own 'side' - against so-called 'liberal elites'. Conservative Home gives prominence to an article by Melanie Phillips' entitled 'Overclass values created the underclass'. Replying to a Sunday Times article by India Knight Phillips said;

"It was the champagne socialist intelligentsia which destroyed the traditional family, demonised men, incentivised mass fatherlessness and declared never-married motherhood an inalienable human right, emptied education of content and cut off the escape routes out of disadvantage by withering the grammar schools, declared morality to be a dirty word, paralysed the police through political correctness, enslaved the poor through dependency on the state and then finally destroyed their brains by telling them to eat cannabis cake while themselves showing the way by snorting cocaine on the Square Mile or in recording studios, or getting legless on Crackdaddy cocktails at Boujis nightclub."

So, on-top of contempt for lesbians, 'villain' bad parents, 'scruffy' teachers we have the carefully concealed attempt for Europe and the hatred of 'political correctness'. people who 'destroyed traditional family values' and so on; not much new about Cameron's Conservatives is there??

FIFA suspends Iraqi football team

CNN reports that footballs governing body, FIFA provisionally suspended the Iraqi national team from international football. The ban, which will last for one year, is due to a government decision to disband the sport's national organising association. A governmental decree last week dissolved the Iraqi National Olympic Committee and all national sport federations, including the football association.

The government now has until Thursday to reverse its decree. If this does not happen then FIFA has said it will present the one-year suspension to the FIFA Congress meeting in Sydney, Australia on Friday. Controversy over the decree has pitted Iraqi Vice President, Tariq al-Hashimi who has urged Iraqi President Jalal Talabani to annul the decree, against Iraq's Cabinet which voted last Tuesday to "freeze the work" of the executive office of the country's Olympic committee and all its federations.

According to a senior government official, who asked not to be named, talking to CNN the Cabinet's action was brought about because of corruption charges against the Olympic committee.

Government plans new anti-smoking measures

Health minister Alan Johnson has said that the government is considering a ban on cigarette vending machines, removing cigarettes from display in shops and outlawing the sale of packets of 10. He said that he would be launching a consultation paper on new anti-smoking measures next week.

In remarks quoted on Reuters he said that;

"Banning vending machines where you can't have any control over the age of the person who's buying it -- it happened in many other European countries a long time ago with startling results.

"Whether you should be able to buy 10 cigarettes or whether you should insist that you can only buy 20, that's an issue we need to look at very closely."


I have to confess a vested interest - I smoke. Politically smokers are pariahs subjected to heavy taxation and now their rights are increasingly under attack. It simply isn't fashionable to stand up for their rights and that is why it has to be done, besides Johnson's logic is fuzzy. Going from packs of 20 to packs of 10 is one of the ways that smokers cut down their intake as a possible step towards quitting so rather than encouraging them on that path the government now wants to outlaw the packs of 10.

It is true that vending machines can't regulate a person's age but they are generally placed in age-prohibitive places like bars - at the very least they should be allowed to remain there. Displaying cigarettes is neither here nor there, teenagers are more likely to be influenced by peers or parents rather than a shops display window. The government would be far better advised to spend it's time and money on serious anti-smoking programmes which are educationally preventative or else improving resources for services tackling the causes of smoking rather than drafting more socially authoritarian legislation.

No Johnson dynasty in Henley

Keeping it in the family didn't work for Labour in Crewe and Nantwich and it looks like the Conservatives have decided that a Johnson political dynasty in Henley wouldn't work either. The Daily Mail reports that Stanley Johnson, Boris's father, hopes of inheriting his son's seat have been dashed by David Cameron.

Following Boris's victory in the London mayoral race Stanley had expressed some hopes of being put forward for the seat. However, Tory strategists feel that Johnson senior entering parliament would be a 'complete disaster' and only serve to remind voters of Johnson juniors huge gaffe potential.

Celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson was in the frame but according to the report Cameron 'charmed' the local party into shortlisting three local councillors. A decision is expected next week with the writ for the election expected to be issued as soon as MP's return from their Whitsun break next week.

City cuddles up to Cameron

The Times reports that a growing number of large companies are approaching the Conservative Party looking for meetings in the hope of shaping policy. Alan Duncan, the Shadow Business Secretary, has recently met the chief executives or chairmen of BP, Shell, Vodafone, EdF and Total. The Tories have promised to cut corporation tax from 28p to 25p, although they plan to cut research and development tax allowances.

Some companies have started 'double briefing' - setting up shadow public affairs departments to improve relations with the Tories. For it's part the Conservatives have been busy building links over the past 18 months through Conservative Business Relations. Other organisations like City Circle and City Future seek to foster links between the City and the party that they obviously see as the next governing party.

I can't help but being struck how the two main parties seem to be returning to their traditional posture. Business is cosying up to the Conservative's and obviously receiving a rich reward in the promised cut in corporation tax, while Labour is increasingly financially reliant on the unions. This can hardly be a good thing for democracy as a whole.

The global game

The Economist carries an interesting piece celebrating the recent success of British teams in the Champions League. Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United have all reached at least one Champions League final in the past four years. If you add in Rangers making the UEFA Cup final this year then that is an impressive record. However, as the article rightly notes that is not due to the success of home grown talent - something attested to by the fact that none of the Home Nations will be present at the European Championships this summer.

The article lambasts the comments of Sepp Blatter, the president of FIFA, and his supporter Michel Platini, the head of UEFA, who have cited English dominance of the Champions League as proof of the need to restrict how many foreigners a team may field. In this I feel it is totally correct as it is when it cites the cause of the lack of home grown talent as being the inadequate training infrastructure. However, it stops short of recognising that the solution to that problem does lie in the Premier Leagues "financial clout".

Sport is not like any other commercial activity. In the season which saw plans for a money-spinning 39th game derailed there have been plenty of reminders that it is less a business in the orthodox sense of the word and more a community activity. If the Premier League was encouraged to plough more money into infrastructure then it would potentially reap the rewards in developing a rich seam of talent at a potentially much lower price than a given club would have to pay to buy a player in - so it would be a virtuous circle.

It is only a matter of time before the football bubble bursts with Manchester Uniteds debts presenting it with challenging times ahead. So, speculating to accumulate could reap rewards for us all; how clubs can be creatively encouraged to do that is another discussion.

FHOC Update - Lib Dems official oppostion

Well I promised the occasional update from the Facebook House of Commons so here it is. The Liberal Democrats have been made the official opposition and Nikki Thomson, the leader of the Liberal Democrat group is now the official leader of the opposition. The Commons itself now has 383 members with 115 of them are Liberal Democrats. Suspiciously the Conservatives seem to be almost entirely absent or inactive.

Currently the our position on Iraq is being considered for submission on Monday. Perhaps unsurprisingly this is not a particularly controversial issue. The question has been raised over striking a balance between opposing the government and not demoralising troops and slight skepticism about the viability of a full withdrawal. However, there is a clear majority in favour of a phased withdrawal of troops. More updates to follow...