Dialogue at the breakfast table, with David Davis on Today in the background:
Tom: What are they talking about now?
Me: There’s going to be an election, and they’re talking to one of the people who’s in it.
Tom: Oh no, not again! (pause) Like in Vote for Duck?
Ten famous Belgians? Hah! Here’s twenty!.
The BBC recalls a pioneering programme aimed at South Asian immigrants, that aimed to explain to them the mysteries of British life, and how to make themselves feel at home. It ran from 1965 to 1979. Is something similar needed today?
Another election in Poland, this time for the presidency, and Le Figaro reports that support for dissidents in Belarus and Ukraine has become a campaign issue.
The Tory conference was way more interesting than normal this year, because they were trying to find a leader. What it most reminded me of was the last day of the Premiership season this year.
Readers with good memories will recall that Norwich City went into the day with their fate in their own hands – a win would have guaranteed they stayed up, no matter what anyone else did. However, they got stuffed 6-0 at Craven Cottage, and suddenly they were back slugging it out in the pack. Meanwhile, West Bromwich Albion, bottom of the table at Christmas, and bottom on the last day, scored an unpredicted 2-0 win at Pompey which – in combination with other results – kept them up and saw Soton, Norwich and Palace relegated.
So, given reports from the bookies, is David Cameron the West Brom of the Tory leadership race? David Davis is certainly the Norwich City, having gone down like a copy of the Morning Star after a lacklustre speech. David Cameron, after a storming Rob Earnshaw performance, is now the bookies’ favourite.
It’s up to Tory party members to make the choice, though their track record is not great. However, Cameron, for all his Eton-and-Oxford life, seems much more like a potential Blair figure than Davis, and doesn’t have the undying hatred of Tory party members to live with, unlike Ken Clarke.
So, is the Tory leadership race like the Premiership? Well:
More on that last point, a lovely quotation from Tom Paine.
Mr. Burke, on the contrary, denies that [the right to choose a government] exists in the nation, either in whole or in part, or that it exists anywhere; and, what is still more strange and marvellous, he says: “that the people of England utterly disclaim such a right, and that they will resist the practical assertion of it with their lives and fortunes.” That men should take up arms and spend their lives and fortunes, not to maintain their rights, but to maintain they have not rights, is an entirely new species of discovery, and suited to the paradoxical genius of Mr. Burke.
And of course, of Mr Leigh.
The ever-excellent slacktivist discusses the public response to a prison scandal in Delaware (summary of response: they were in prison, they deserved what they got). Slacktivist comments:
The attitude expressed in such letters is as popular as it is morally repugnant. This popularity is both dismaying and baffling. Letters like this express contempt for the Constitution as though such contempt were patriotic — as though the Bill of Rights were some kind of threat to the American way of life.
It’s not just in Delaware. The Cornerstone group (traditionalist Tories) have put out their platform, which includes not merely the repeal of the Human Rights Act, but also withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights. Because, of course, this human rights nonsense is just the invention of liberal elitist New Labour types, right?
Right wing buffoon Peter Hitchens is on Newsnight on the topic of capital punishment. He has been talking for perhaps 4 minutes in all, and his arguments have been, in chronological order:
1. Capital punishment is humane and cheap, and therefore should be introduced for murder.
2. The Government aren’t really tough on crime, and won’t introduce the death penalty.
3. Even though the Government has put in new and draconian sentencing laws, they don’t really mean it.
4. The Government shouldn’t have anything to do with sentencing, they should leave it to the judges.
5. The Government is authoritarian and just wants to tell us what to do.
6. The Government might introduce the death penalty for crimes other than murder, and that would be very bad.
So, meet Peter Hitchens, the anti-death penalty supporter of capital punishment, who wants the Government to get tough with criminals as long as it doesn’t, and wants to interfere with sentencing powers without interfering with judges’ discretion. Is it any wonder the Mail is a byword for intellectual honesty and clarity?