Saturday 2 July 2011

Ah, but we would be talking here about democracy, honour & principle

Iain Martin, Mail-on-line, has a comment piece entitled: "Why half of all Tory MPs want to pull out of the EU", an article that does contain one or two salient points which are worth further examination.

Querying why Cameron and Osborne are no longer Eurosceptic, Martin has a very telling quote:
"The answer is that Europe has never been a great issue of principle for either man. A colleague explains: "David and George are pragmatic politicians. They like power and the fact is that they enjoy being members of the club of European leaders"."
The accusation that Cameron's principles are debatable is beyond question - if he believed in his nation state he would not accept subservience of that nation to another foreign body - and the same accusation can be made against every MP holding a Cabinet, Ministerial or PPS position. Each and every one of them enjoy their sense of power, the 'perks of the job', of being someone who 'matters'; and as a result they debase the honour of having been elected to represent their constituents. They have likewise debased any sense of principle that they previously held, another accusation that can be levied at politicians in the Lib/Lab/Con. It is worth exempting from that statement MPs such as Philip Davies and Philip Hollobone who have publicly stated that their election as an MP is to represent their constituents in the HoC, rather than represent the HoC in their constuency.

Writing also that several backbench Tories are busy setting up various Eurosceptic groups and it is estimated that as many as half of all Conservative MPs now want Britain to pull out of the EU, Martin unfortunately does not also make the point that these MPs need to 'stick their heads over the parapet' and publicly say so, rather than dutifully trooping through the division lobbies,on the instructions of their Whips, in support of the government.

Today, via the Daily Telegraph, we learn that George Osborne urged Darling not to sign up to the EFSM, a statement that is in complete contradiction to the note issued by Justine Greening which stated that signing had been a decision that had 'cross-party' support (H/T: Calling England). One would have thought that that point might have been made in the Telegraph article by Robert Winnett a tad more forcibly than his penultimate paragraph does.

Late yesterday evening I was taken to task by Keith Mitchell, Conservative Leader of Oxfordshire County Council, in respect of my post which took to task Iain Duncan Smith. Posting on Twitter:
"Before deleting you, will you provide evidence for your rant against IDS or are you just an unevidenced ranter"
Whether Keith Mitchell exercises his right to 'delete me' matters not - it would of course just be another example of a politician closing his ears to something he does not like. As to evidence, I can only suggest Keith Mitchell rereads that which I wrote. To repeat, I do consider IDS was indolent, or lazy if Keith Mitchell is having difficulty understanding the word 'indolent', in that IDS did not present the full facts when making his statement; that IDS was deceitful in not admitting that what he was requesting of business leaders could not be carried out; and that IDS exhibited servility by his acceptance of the 'status quo' in regard to this nation's membership of the EU. What more 'evidence' is required by Keith Mitchell, I know not and whilst in no way decrying the efforts of IDS in the field of welfare reform, perhaps he might better spend his time taking a second look at the party of which he is a member, its policies, beliefs and internal administration, coupled with the political principles of MPs he seeks to defend.
Before deleting you, will you provide evidence for your rant aainst IDS or are you just an unevidenced ranter?

8 comments:

Trooper Thompson said...

I started commenting, but it turned into a post!

http://englandsfreedome.blogspot.com/2011/07/message-to-tory-eurosceptics.html

WitteringsfromWitney said...

Have visited TT and thanked.....

Anonymous said...

Honour and principle are two words that should never, ever be used in the same sentence as MPs.
As I have asked elsewhere, I would like some one with a better command of the English language and grammar to pen a letter/e-mail asking opur individual MPs:
Are you aware that British servicemen are killing innocent civilians in Lybia?
Are you aware that Britain is deploying munitions in a way that is outside the UN mandate.
Did you vote to in favour of British servicemen killing innocent civilians in Lybia.
If the answer is yes to all of the above - See you at the war crimes tribunal.

AndrewSouthLondon said...

Apparently Brian Haw is really alive and well, but posting anonymously

Take any standard left-wing anti-war rant since the liberation of Iraq, then search and replace "Iraq" with "Libya"

What's this got to do with Euroscepticism? The rest of Europe are also clobbering Gaddafi.

thespecialone said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
thespecialone said...

Of course if you are going to have a rant about "Libya" then you could at least spell it correctly.

I am yet another ex-Tory party member who so loathes Cameron that there is no way I would vote for the party at any coming election. I posted on the DM that Cameron is no more a eurosceptic than is Heseltine or Kinnock.

Anonymous said...

And the politicians are jumping on the graves of squealing Mice - anyone for Tennis- wouldn't that be nice.

The INTERREG is rolling on, very quietly but very deliberately it is developing, new funding has been made available from the EU budget to finance the infrastructure of Le Manche and other provinces of the EU.

The UK pays 10 Billion per year to the EU needless to say some of this money is being used by the EU for the removal of the UK from the World map, yes we are paying for our own demise.

The Express refers to this as a fantasy land, this is no fantasy and as long as people think it is then it will certainly become a reality - to dismiss this concept as fantasy is a dangerous attitude to have.

http://uppompeii1.uppompeii.com/2011/07/03/and-the-politicians-are-jumping-on-the-graves-of-squealing-mice---anyone-for-tennis--wouldnt-that-be-nice.aspx

Anonymous said...

"Before deleting you, will you provide evidence for your rant against IDS or are you just an unevidenced ranter"

That sentence proves that Mr Mitchell is illiterate. If he does not understand why, he might care to investigate "hanging participles".


If anyone is not convinced that IDS has been slippery of late, there's this:

http://tinyurl.com/62bfp7f