Thirty Years On

It is now exactly thirty years to the day since Margaret Thatcher became the first female British Prime Minister after her Conservative Party swept to victory in the UK General Election of 1979.

During the past few days there has been much discussion of her legacy in the media and on the internet, with Boris Johnson in the Telegraph, the Conservative History website, and even the BBC getting in on the act.

However, with all the fawning praise and, conversely, criticism from the Left, very little in the way of analysis has been given to Thatcher’s Governments from a conservative perspective. How about the traditionally conservative argument that Thatcher’s governments did nothing to stop the social and cultural revolution that has been taking place in this country since the late 1950s?

Firstly, we have to establish the solid fact that Mrs Thatcher was certainly not a conservative – she was a liberal. Her free market ideology was influenced by the economist Milton Friedman and the author Friedrich Hayek, both of whom described themselves as liberals and explicitly said they were not conservatives.

Furthermore, conservatism has not traditionally supported the ideas of any particular type of economic system, free market or not. Traditional conservatism has sought to maintain social stability through maintenance and gradual progression, rather than rapid transition, of the current social order.

The market system which Thatcher imposed upon Britain radically altered our society in a very short period of time – some of the effects of which we are only just beginning to feel now. It was an economic revolution rather than a slow and gradual process.

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New Leader New Conservatives?

I’ve been rather busy with other commitments recently and have unfortunately been unable to update my website. This was because I was working on my Undergraduate Dissertation and towards my degree at the University of Bath.

The title of the dissertation is ‘New Leader, New Conservatives?’ The document was submitted for review on the 1st May 2009 and I will receive word of the grade in the middle of June. The abstract for the dissertation is as follows:

Since the election of David Cameron as Leader of the Conservative party, very little scrutiny by academics and the media has been afforded to the nature of its policies and the political agenda of the party leadership. This study argues that David Cameron has fundamentally re-aligned his political party, and attempts to rectify the notion that the Conservative party still pursues conservatism in any meaningful way. In doing so, this study shall highlight how the Conservative party in Britain has surrendered itself to the neo-liberal Leftist political consensus.

At roughly ten thousand words, it might take a little longer to read than most of my usual blog postings. I hope, however, that you will feel it is worth the time and effort. The content of the document has not been added to since it was submitted and therefore represents the dissertation in its original form.

Download a copy of the dissertation (.pdf – 487kb)

I would imagine that a number of people may not necessarily like my conclusions. However, I am hardly alone in taking this point of view. If you disagree with any point that I’ve made or have any remarks then please leave them in the comments area.

Undermining Parliament

In a Parliamentary vote held late last night, MPs decided to grant the use of the House of Commons chamber and its green benches to the UK Youth Parliament during the summer recess.

The motion was passed, in the final division, by 205 votes to 17, with the majority of those opposing the measure being from the Conservative backbenches, although there were a few opponents from the other parties.

Unfortunately, leading only rather minor opposition to the motion, Christopher Chope MP reminded those assembled Members of Parliament that, before they voted, they should remember:

The fact is that we have never used this Chamber for anything other than parliamentary debate. We do not even use it for parliamentary meetings or party meetings.

We should not abandon or abandon lightly the traditions of this House, which have meant that this Chamber is the one for those who have the privilege of being elected as Members of the real Parliament, not members of a mock parliament, whether it be a youth parliament, a Muslim parliament or any other parliament.

As Christopher Chope rightly says, traditions should not be lightly abandoned, whether in Parliament or anywhere else. However, this is exactly what we as a nation have been doing, right across the board, for the past sixty years – and to our great cost.

It goes without saying that allowing the Youth Parliament to use the Commons chamber would set a precedent, and demeans the role of Parliament. Having said that, over numerous decades our MPs have been doing a good job of undermining Parliament anyway, so, I suppose, why would they suddenly stop now?

Perhaps, in a few years time, when the Commons have finished the process of passing over our powers of governance to the EU, we could turn the Houses of Parliament into a Museum for Democracy? For a small fee, visitors would be able visit what was once the Mother of all Parliaments, wander its luxuriously panelled corridors and wonder how exactly it came to pass that hundreds of years of freedom and democracy were frittered away so easily and in such a comparatively short period of time.

Quote Of The Month

The insults have been flying thick and fast on ConservativeHome in the past few days since its editor Tim Montgomerie attempted to take a recent Peter Hitchens Mail on Sunday column, which attacked the Conservative party, to task.

Well, unsurprisingly Tim’s efforts at actually rebutting Peter’s article were somewhat poor to say the least. Again unsurprisingly Mr Hitchens took the opportunity to reply to Tim’s criticisms – and he did so in stunning fashion.

It is worth reading both pieces and the comments in the section below each one. Take note of the fact that those that disagree with Peter generally do not argue against his points but just personally attack him and then dismiss him. Very telling I think.

Anyway, here is my favourite comment from Hitchens’ reply. It’s perhaps just as good as his previous statement that ‘you can’t be in Europe and not run by Europe any more than you can be in Wormwood Scrubs and not run by Wormwood Scrubs’:

In my view, the word ‘Eurosceptic’ means ‘a person who adopts anti-EU rhetoric in opposition, and then surrenders to the EU in government’. This is inevitable. You cannot be in the EU and not run by it, any more than you can be a little bit pregnant. If you don’t like being run by it, you must leave, as all serious students of the subject long ago realised. I don’t think there’s any serious dispute about which side of this fence Mr Cameron is on.

If Tim at ConservativeHome started to regularly post more critical articles (which ConHome’s sycophantic pages currently lack,) in a similar thoughtful vein to Peter’s piece then I might actually be tempted to started visiting and commenting on the site again. Just imagine it – reasoned, reasonable discussion rather than mindless wittering and blind allegiance.