The Talking Clock: Conservative Party Conference: our reaction

The Talking Clock is an opinion based, independently authored, small 'c' conservative, libertarian blog.

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Monday, 5 October 2009

Conservative Party Conference: our reaction

This post will be updated as applicable.

William Hague made his foreign policy speech. A few good jokes but a lukewarm response at the end from the hall. Probably because he didn't say what many Conservatives want to hear on the Lisbon Treaty.

Paging UKIP - how many defections have you received since Hague's speech?

Theresa May is talking unemployment and welfare benefits for the sick. Apparently, the Conservatives are going to "get Britain working" - which no doubt includes the "five million people" who "have never had a job" under New Labour, according to May.

Great! Five million spongers off the welfare state. But... errr... where are the five million jobs coming from? Would these be full-time meaningful jobs, or more crap part-time minimum wage twaddle? Or five million people destined to use their home computers to send spam email offering dodgy medicines or things to make a man's private bits a little larger?

Mysteries, mysteries...

Lots of rhetoric - the unemployed need "a friendly face" and "someone to listen" above all else, apparently. That'll get Britain working! Oh no... it's more JobClubs for "mutual support". And volunteering inspired by Obama, apparently. Roll over Salvation Army... the Tories are listing one million volunteering opportunities on their website.

How about more industry and more jobs? Call us radical, but...

Ken Clarke seemed to recognise that. His idea? Moving people from unemployment to self-employment through a revival of something akin to the enterprise initiative scheme.

George Osborne is announcing something about waiving tax and national insurance on new jobs - for a limited period of a new Conservative Government.

Osborne then introduced a snazzy video from employers and their reaction to these amazing (cough) Conservative plans. First up? The UK boss of McDonalds. Do you want fries with that, sir? Have a nice day... Or was it Microsoft? ASDA was definitely amongst the employers on offer anyway.

Then came a video on humanitarianism in Bosnia. Fantastic! Just nobody mention the words 'Diana' or 'loose cannon' now.

This was followed by a rant on multiculturalism - some common sense stuff, some irritating diatribe on faith, lots of accusing the BNP of fascism. Now we thought the fascists were ZaNuLiebour? How confusing.

Finally something really worth listening to came from Caroline Spelman who used her speech to launch a scathing attack on ZaNuLiebour's control freakery, banning and spying tendencies. Though she did not give too much detail on what would be different about the Tories.

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Forever... Diana

...genuine goodness is threatening to those at the opposite end of the moral spectrum.

"And when I look at people in public life... I'm not a political animal but I think the biggest disease this world suffers from in this day and age is the disease of people feeling unloved, and I know that I can give love - for a minute, for an hour, for a day, for a month, but I can give. I'm very happy to do that and I want to do that."
- Diana, Princess of Wales, 1996

"I think the British people need someone in public life to give affection, to make them feel important, to support them, to give them light in their dark tunnels. I see it as a possibly unique role, and yes, I've had difficulties, as everybody has witnessed over the years, but let's now use the knowledge I've gathered to help other people in distress."
- Diana, Princess of Wales, 1996

"Diana was the very essence of compassion, of duty, of style, of beauty. All over the world she was a symbol of selfless humanity, a standard-bearer for the rights of the truly downtrodden, a truly British girl who transcended nationality."
- Earl Spencer

"..she was our guardian, friend and protector. She never once allowed her unfaltering love for us to go unspoken or undemonstrated. She will always be remembered for her amazing public works. But behind the media glare, to us, just two loving children, she was quite simply the best mother in the world."
- Prince Harry

The People's Sovereignty

"...our membership of the European Union has removed our democracy; it has taken away the right of the British people to elect and dismiss those who make their laws. Our system of representative parliamentary democracy, for which millions have died over hundreds of years, has been frittered away. It no longer serves the people. That is why the time has come to give power back to the people. They deserve it anyway; it is their power and it belongs to them. Before long their anger will overflow if they do not get it back."

- Former UKIP leader Lord Pearson in the House of Lords, 5th February 2009

British resistance and liberty

"We British have in a very special way contributed to Europe. Over the centuries we have fought to prevent Europe from falling under the dominance of a single power. We have fought and we have died for her freedom. Only miles from here, in Belgium, lie the bodies of 120,000 British soldiers who died in the First World War.

Had it not been for that willingness to fight and to die, Europe would have been united long before now - but not in liberty, not in justice. It was British support to resistance movements throughout the last War that helped to keep alive the flame of liberty in so many countries until the day of liberation."

- Margaret Thatcher, Bruges, 1992

Monday, 5 October 2009

Conservative Party Conference: our reaction

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