Addressing the Annual Dinner of the
Streetley branch of Richard Shepherd’s Aldridge & Brownhills CCA on 22nd October
my theme is Tony Blair, the Revolutionary – overturning all our democratic
institutions, disorienting the populace by undermining all the fixed points in
our society and establishing alternatives to our traditional form of government
with his Community Forums, Regional Assemblies, devolution and in the context
of Europe, promoting the EU as the alternative to NATO and the WEU for Defence
and the Council of Europe as the arbiter of Human Rights respectively, all at
the expense of national Parliaments as representative of the sovereign voices
of the people.
When I meet Wm. Hague the following Tuesday
I run through the theme of my Aldridge Brownhills speech to which he listens
with great interest and is kind enough to say that I ‘always say something to make
him think’! I tell him that I am not intending to pressurise him on the subject
of agriculture in the same way that I have pushed him on fisheries because of
the proximity of the next election and he agrees that his EU ‘shopping list’ is
already long enough. As I am leaving his office William says that he hopes that
I have noticed how much of my advice he has already taken. In answer to that
very generous comment I respond by saying that I’ve got no complaints on that
score but that what I have had to tell him is, after all, only common sense!
When I bump into William’s PPS later that evening I make the point that a
counter revolution based upon common sense policies would, in my opinion, be an
effective antidote to the revolution being prosecuted by Blair.
The next day I attend the Conservative
backbench Defence Committee intent upon making a contribution based upon the
theme of my speech at Aldridge Brownhills. In the event the only other
attendees are Robert Key (Salisbury) and Richard Ottaway (Croydon South) – it
later transpires that Iain Duncan-Smith and the other officers of the committee
were, at the same time, sitting in a completely different committee room!
At the ’22 Executive meeting on Wednesday
27th the Chairman voices his concern about the Party’s failure to vote last
night against the abolition of hereditary Peers. This is fair comment but
symptomatic of the fundamental problem that is dogging the contemporary
Conservative Party i.e. the fear of standing up for traditional conservative values,
without which we can, of course, kiss goodbye to any prospect of winning the
next General Election. In a nation that is intrinsically conservative it makes
no sense to be tacking to the left – if the voters want socialism there is no
shortage of political parties offering them just that. Throughout the land they
can vote Labour or Liberal Democrat or, in Scotland, SNP and in Wales, Plaid
Cymru. The Conservative Party is the only party that could, if it was so
minded, offer a real alternative to this drab and dreary prospect but for as
long as it continues to ape the socialists and ignore its USPs (Unique Selling
Points) it will fail to realise its full potential. Why can’t the Party
hierarchy recognise that clinging to the concept of Economic and Monetary
Union, the concept of ‘ever closer (political) union’ within the benighted EU
and a host of other misconceived notions, is the way to political oblivion? The
answer to that question may not be so hard to discern. We have in our midst a
number of senior colleagues who are not conservatives at all. They probably
never ever were conservatives in the first place but attached themselves to the
Conservative Party simply because it offered ‘wannabee MPs’ their best chance
of being elected or, as seems to me more likely, for the enhanced opportunity
that it would give them to promote the collectivist agenda. Are these people
the latter-day equivalent of Burgess, Philby, Maclean and Blunt, infiltrating
arguably the world’s most successful political party so as to destroy it from
within?
Whilst Archie quite rightly raises the
question of our stance on reform of the House of Lords I for my part say how
disappointed I am that we did not oppose the Food Standards Agency Bill and
warn colleagues that others will inevitably raise questions at the next full
’22 meeting about our failure to oppose the Financial Services and Markets
Bill.
from CRACKING THE WHIP, the fast paced political memoirs of Christopher Gil MP
Book Description
Fast-paced political memoir by a former Conservative MP
charting the infiltration of the Conservative Party by non-conservative
elements and the subversion of a once-great political party. On 1st May
1997 the Conservative Party suffered a most humiliating defeat at the
hands of the British electorate and found itself in Opposition for the
first time since Margaret Thatcher swept to power in 1979. In this book
Christopher Gill follows the path taken by the Conservative Party after
that defeat. Many Conservatives, both in Parliament and outside it,
hoped that the spell in opposition would be spent analysing the reasons
for defeat, replacing those responsible and rejuvenating the party
machine for the battle to come. Instead those responsible for failure
secured their grip on power and moved ruthlessly to dominate the Party,
pushing aside those who objected and destroying all opposition. The
author traces the way this was achieved out of sight of the media - all
too enraptured with reporting the doings of the shiny new Labour
government. He explains how the decisions made then led inexorably to
the failure of the Conservative Party to achieve victory in 2010 and to
the dithering responses of a hamstrung coalition goverment. At what
point in time the Conservative Party ceased to be a truly 'conservative'
Party is a matter which might engage the attention of future historians
but the author clearly points the finger at those to blame and explains
how they achieved a spectacularly successful coup for the
'collectivist' infiltration which has left the Tory Party paralysed.
No comments:
Post a Comment