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.

It’s Not A Job For Life

James Gray, Conservative MP for North Wiltshire, is once again facing a vote of no-confidence in his tenure as the party’s parliamentary candidate.

Despite surviving the previous de-selection attempt, local Conservative grassroots members are still up in arms over an affair he had while his wife was receiving treatment for breast cancer.

Though his act of betrayal was perhaps not necessarily political, it almost certainly betrayed Mr Gray’s demeanour and personal attitude to marriage – one seemingly at odds with Mr Cameron’s current media drive on family values.

Does Mr Gray deserve to be effectively sacked for having an affair? Put it this way; I think it’s worth comparing the treatment of wife-cheating James Gray and that of other supposed Conservative dissidents.

Remember Conservative MP, Howard Flight, who was deselected by Michael Howard for saying in a private meeting that a Conservative Government would be more likely to cut taxes than it was making out? Or Roger Helmer MEP, who had the Conservative Whip in the European Parliament unfairly removed after he robustly challenged the EU Commission over corruption?

In the modern Conservative party, it would sadly seem that it’s acceptable to cheat on your wife, as numerous Conservative MPs including Mr Gray and buffoon Boris Johnson have proven (the latter several times in fact) – but not to advocate cuts in taxation or display admirable and healthy scepticism towards the greater European Union bureaucracy.

Personally I hope that North Wiltshire Conservatives deselect Mr Gray – in part as punishment for how he has treated his wife, but also because it will send out a signal to other MPs that they owe their seat to the work of party members and the voters who elected them. Even in a safe seat MPs should think twice before acting with impunity and disregard; for that which the electorate gave unto them, they should also be able to taketh away.