Good to see the Thatcherites are calling the policy shots, Dave

The ads in GoogleMail aren't working - they suggested I join these guys:



Their URL, conwayfor.org, keeps making me think of Derek Conway ... Conway for PM? Probably not their intention.

I should probably have heard of a group so influential in the Tory party. Indeed, their website gleefully quotes David Cameron: 'The largest and most effective pressure group in the Conservative Party today', he calls them.

Good to see the Thatcherites are calling the policy shots, Dave. Check out their latest pamphlet, for example, which calls for a cut in corporation tax similar to that proposed by John McCain in the presidential election - 10%. It's written by members of the Taxpayers Alliance.

Let's hope the Tories, currently advocating only a 3% cut, adopt the plan and go the same way as McCain come May.

Tasteful tweet of the week

The award goes to @BenBradshaw for this effort earlier today:

the camerons got good nhs care thanks to Labour's investment and reform. is this the "big government" he derides?

Left Foot Forward banned from Tory conference - a backhanded compliment

See this from top new prog website Left Foot Forward:

Left Foot Forward has been banned from attending Conservative Party conference. In a letter dated 23rd September from the Conservative Party’s Head of Conferences, Stephen Williams writes:

“I am writing to let you know that you application to attend the above event [Conservative Party Conference] has been rejected…

“For over twenty years the party has included the following words on its application forms; ‘the completion and submission of this application does not confer any right upon the applicant to attend conference. The Conservative Party reserves the right to refuse admission to any person without ascribing any reason thereto.’

“I am sure you appreciate that these words and this policy were carefully chosen to avoid the development of any misunderstanding.

“I know this is not the reply you were hoping for, and I am sorry for that. However, it would not be sensible for me to fly in the face of agreed and accepted practices.”

Left Foot Forward will, nonetheless, report live from the Conservative fringe.

Take it as a backhanded compliment, I think. It's not like Labour hasn't been known to to do the same. I can think of at least one Labour pressure group that in the past denied a press pass to Iain Dale, then of 18 Doughty Street, for fear of adverse coverage.

Mandy: Even in the 1970s I was relatively influential

Earlier this week, Peter Mandelson castigated the Tories in his Labour conference speech for their lack of commitment to industrial activism

When did you last hear David Cameron or George Osborne last say anything about Britain's industrial future?

Such a line of attack would have been pretty much unimaginable only a few years ago. New Labour bought into the Thatcherite shibboleth that the only indispensible industrial policy was not to have one at all.

The Tories may try to label this as a return to 1970s-style dirigisme. In fact, you get the impression Mandy would quite like that. Labour conference this week was all about stressing the new, post-crash dividing line: government action is needed to deal with the recession, and the Tories would do nothing. The new bogey decade is the Thatcherite 1980s where the Government 'did nothing' to help out-of-work young people.

Mandy warms to this theme in an article on youth unemployment for the Young Fabian Anticiaptions magazine, published this week (as ever, check for modesty):

Back in the 1970s, I chaired the British Youtyh Council and whilst there published what was then a relatively influential report: "Youth Unemployment: Causes and Curses". I remember taking it to the Prime Minister, Jim Callaghan, in Downing Street to discuss the issue of young people and their prospects.

Even then, the now First Secretary of State was relatively infleuntial!

Guido's beloved FDP

Guido is very impressed with the result of the German election, particularly that of the third party, the pro-business, anti-tax, anti-regulation Free Democrats. And he chides the Lib Dems for not yet congratulating their 'liberal' German equivalents:

Cameron was quick to offer fraternal congratulations to Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats. So far no word from Clegg, the Free Democrats are their sister party and sit with the LibDems in the European Parliament.

The German FDP have had their best showing in decades on a pro-business, tax-cutting manifesto which has driven the Social Democrats out of the government. Most LibDems seem disinterested, only LiberalVision is ecstatic. Makes you wonder if they prefer permanent opposition…

Two quick points:

The FDP got 14.6% of the vote in Germany on Sunday. The Lib Dems here got 18.3% in 2005 on a perhaps less Fawkes-friendly ticket of raising taxes on the rich.

The FDP benefits from a much fairer, more proportional, electoral system which Guido presumably supports ... though I can find no mention whatsoever of electoral reform on his blog.

Sorry if this sounds insufferably po-faced or anything!

Balls is just stating the obvious

Paul Waugh and Theo Blackwell have been discussing Ed Balls' article in the latest, Ken Livingston-edited New Statesman. In it, Balls says:

We did not always strike this balance right: in public service reform, we sometimes sounded as though private sector solutions were always more efficient.

Is this really a leadership pitch to the left, as they're saying? It sounds more like the stating of the obvious to me, especially post-crash.

The Blair government came in with what seemed like a mania to privatise left, right and centre, which has now (Royal Mail aside), thankfully eased. It seemed like some sort of virility test to impress Middle England, even though it was obvious to some of us that mainstream voters weren't that supportive of privatisation after all.

One possible source of regret is surely the disastrous PPP for London Underground. Balls's mentor, GB, was so determined it should happen he rushed it through to make the contracts signed and irreversible before Livingstone power over the the running of tube by being elected Mayor of London in 2000.

Is this some sort of coded apology to Ken?

Muse are the perfect New Tory band

Tory Bear is clearly desperate for his teenage heroes (how young is he?), Muse, to be revealed as Tories. It wouldn't surprise me if they were, as I elucidated as a comment on the TB site ...

Muse are the perfect New Tory band.

They have that veneer of cool that
might make someone who is totally uncool think that they are cool. If you see
what I mean.

Muse, of course, are total rubbish, thoroughly in the MOR
rock tradition of overblown, slightly gothic choruses. To me, they have clearly
always wanted to be Radiohead. But ultimately they're just fucking boring.

To stretch the analogy to the limits of usefulness, I think that makes
Tony Blair Thom Yorke ...