Some Thoughts On Conway

The media will no doubt inundate us tomorrow with their analysis of this scandal just as they did with Peter Hain the other day, however, I thought I would point out a few things that others seem to be missing or not highlighting.

Now, this is not a new story. In fact The Times covered Derek Conway’s abuse of Parliamentary expenses back in May last year – therefore why has it taken so long for the Conservatives or the media to call him to account?

Well, obviously there is the fact that quite a few MPs have recently been caught breaking their own party funding rules or having their snouts shoved in the trough – so this is perhaps just another story to keep the bandwagon rolling. Yet, I also see on ConservativeHome that Tim Montgomerie is calling for Derek Conway to stand down at the next election, which he has now just done as I write this post.

What Tim Montgomerie says on ConservativeHome can sometimes provide a good insight into what higher echelons of the Conservative party are thinking. I suspect therefore that a number of higher ranking Conservative MPs are behind the scenes probably calling for Derek Conway’s resignation. Couple this with a recent increase in discussion on how to remove bed-blocking MPs from their seats and you begin to see that there may be something more to this than it would first appear.

No doubt some new, modern, liberal Cameron-clone Conservative was or is being lined up to take over Mr Conway’s nice safe seat. The latest media furore has no doubt given the party hierarchy an opportunity to achieve that aim.

More Political Opportunism

Well, well, what a surprise. The Mail on Sunday has revealed that Helen Grant, who was recently selected to succeed Ann Widdecombe MP, was actually a Labour party member in Surrey until only two years ago.

This sudden switch in allegiance, which Ms Grant attributes to her enthusiasm for David Cameron’s new Conservative vision, will mean that she will almost undoubtedly become the next Member of Parliament for Maidstone and the Weald in Kent which has a projected majority of 14,000 votes.

Intriguingly, in a press release issued in response to the Mail on Sunday article by the Conservative party, Helen Grant says that:

I was seduced by Labour for about 5 minutes but quickly realised what a complete shower they really were … The only party I have only ever voted for is the Conservatives.

This should lead us to ask two questions: firstly, what makes her so sure she hasn’t been ‘seduced’ in a similar manner by David Cameron and the Conservative party, and secondly, why is it that someone who claims they have only ever voted Conservative would join the Labour party?

Click here to continue reading the article…

Non-Event Alert

And the winner of this week’s non-event goes to the resignation of the Welsh Secretary Peter Hain, who is almost certain to be replaced by someone equally useless and incompetent.

Most people should have realised by now that many of our right honourable members are prone to corruption and breaking the laws they themselves created, especially with regard to party funding.

I explained back in December why this is really not as important an issue as it will be made out to be. Yet, unfortunately and without really surprising anyone, the British mainstream media will be on full alert tomorrow, ready to cram their papers full of pointless discussion and analysis on this non-event until everyone is completely sick and tired of the whole issue.

This will undoubtedly be at the expense of highlighting far more important issues such as a certain EU Constitution making its way through Parliament at the moment – though having said that, the British media were unlikely to have discussed that anyway - but there is even less chance of it happening now.

Listlessly We Drift

As the relevance of our Westminster Parliament subsides into mediocrity and the process of ever closer union continues with unrelenting certainty, our capacity to set right what once went so wrong recedes by the day.

The sad reality of politics in modern Britain is that parties, administrations, and the briefcase wielding faceless suits who aimlessly wander the corridors of power may seem with unwillingness and uncertainty to alternate or vary on occasion and from time to time - but the policies and outcomes which govern us remain ever constant.

We now reside in a world in which opposition is silenced, traditional freedoms are curtailed and the slow, quiet and subtle processes of our real government continue to go widely unreported. In fact so far removed are these events from the history of our once proud nation which was built on the values of freedom and self-determination; a country that once ruled the waves and on whose Empire the sun never set, that it is probably almost unrecognisably alien to those of only a few generations previous to my own.

Time and the collective stupidity and inadequacy of many politicians have taken its toll on the British people. Of what little national sovereignty our Parliament still retains – and there is very little of any real significance - is stifled by our governing political elite who have more in common with each other than they do the voting electorate. Westminster has become a hollowed out institution existing only as façade of accountability, as a playground for the metropolitan classes and its chambers are filled with empty dull husks who continue to linger in its stale air of unhealthy democratic decay long after they willingly and uncaringly voted away our rights.

In Europe, the EU Parliament remains as ever meaningless and verbose. It too has little power; real power and authority of course lies in the hands of the unelected bureaucrats and EU Commissioners over which the British people have no say, choice or control. It appears that slowly but surely we listlessly drift into an age of vagary and post-democracy, perhaps without most people even noticing. Has our indifference condemned us? Do we only have ourselves to blame?