Club Journal: write to your MP
Thursday, August 6, 2009 
Club Journal, the official journal of the Working Mens' Club and Institute Union (CIU), has devoted a full page of its latest issue to our campaign to amend the smoking ban.
The paper reports that "The two joint chairmen of the All Party Non-Profitmaking Clubs Group have launched a cross-party campaign to amend the smoking ban in clubs and pubs across Britain."
Chris Brewis, editor of Club Journal, estimates that there are 2000 working mens' clubs in Britain, with an average of 1000 members per club - that's an estimated total of two million members.
Working mens' clubs have arguably suffered more than most from the smoking ban and Club Journal has some good advice for those who want to do something about it:
As there is strength in numbers, you should write to your own MP to ask if they will support an amendment to the ban. If they won't, then you may wish to ask why should you support them when they next seek your vote?
Remind Labour MPs that the Government reneged on an election manifesto promise to exempt private members' clubs from the ban. Explain that this is one of the reasons why you are disillusioned with the present Government.
I couldn't have put it better myself. Get writing!
Reader Comments (90)
Lyn -
My heart goes out to you, it really does. I admire both your courage and your honesty in sharing your current difficulties with us. Thank you.
To think that you are denied even the life-enhancing therapy of a fag with your drink amongst congenial company of your own choosing makes me livid, frankly.
As I remarked to the egregious Miss Smith:
‘Good Intentions’ is NO defence to FORESEEABLY Evil Consequences.
Although not usually one to allow the toxin of hatred into his soul, I must confess that I've recently come to LOATHE these people (our Masters) with an intensity I never thought possible.
Allow me to set my customary courtesy aside for a moment, in order to pose one very simple question to the Political Class and its little battalions of scurrying Orcs:
WHOSE FUCKING COUNTRY IS THIS, PLEASE ?
('Cos it doesn't feel like mine any more)
Idlex,
I understand what you mean. And it is a very difficult decision to make as to what to do with your vote which will best produce the result that we want.
However, in my opinion, our FIRST DUTY is to remove an many of these labour nincompoops as possible. However, you could say that there are as many conservative nincompoops as there are labour - or lib dem, or whatever.
However, there is no doubt in my mind that we must get rid of the labour nincompoops FIRST. If, as a result, other nincompoops are elected in their place, then we will have to handle that situation as we go along. This is not a short haul situation - I wish it was!
In the interests of brevity, I have no doubt that posters are aware that Cleoe Smith has made a statement about the smoking ban which is a copy of the Cons central office statement. This central office statement says, "I have yet to be convinced that passive smoking is not harmful......"
Regardless of the repetition of the mantra, is it possible that one could turn this statement to one's advantage?
Is it possible to PROVE, and thus CONVINCE the Tories, that passive smoking is harmless?
Personally, I think that the statistics prove BEYOND SHADOW OF A DOUBT that passive smoking is harmless.
It is my personal opinion that the first thing that we need to do is get rid of as many labour MPs as we can. Then, convince the new intake that the doom-mongers are wrong. To do so.................
Technical Question:
Anybody experiencing connection problems lately after trying to 'confirm' post on here - or is it just me ?
Sorry Dick Puddlecoat, I have to disagree with you on several points in your post.
Firstly, I cannot see any political party thinking, as you say, that "the smoking ban is a vote winner" It's just too preposterous for words. There is something like between 12 to 25 million smokers in the UK, and for any party to cast figures like this to one side, would be pure political suicide, as we have all witnessed with the Labour Party.
Admittedly, the smoking ban was not the only issue to kill off new labour, but it has been a major contributor.
In my opinion, the Tories and the Lib-Dems are still afraid to come out on the side of the smoker, not because they are anti-smoker friendly, but because they are frightened of the Labour controlled propaganda programme which the vast majority of the public still believe in, and let's face it, who wants to be seen as "child killers"? which is how the Labour machine paints us all?
I don't know when politicians will start to feel free to come out with the real beliefs again, if ever? I just pray that one day, in the not too distant future, they will, and we will be rid of New Labour and their spin-meisters for ever.
The other point which you bring up, is that "UKIP are gaining dramatic ground by being bold where Conservatives are not".
On this issue, I think you will find that UKIP are not gaining ground at all, and especially over the Conservatives. Over the past year they have in fact lost considerable ground in every by-election apart from Norwich, where the Conservatives won, and UKIP's share of the vote did increase, but only at Labour's loss.
At the end of the day, the anti-smoking law is wrong. It needs stopping in its tracks, in needs at the very last, an amendment. The sooner we all start fighting the party which brought this abysmal law in, and the party which are still paying out our hard earned money to keep it going, the sooner we might start to win a toehold in defeating it. Whilst we have all this infighting and anti-Tory rhetoric, we will continue to lose ground.
Fight the real villain, not tomorrow's imaginary one!
Junican wrote: our FIRST DUTY is to remove an many of these labour nincompoops as possible.
We can assist in this by simply not voting for them. I won't be voting for them. The smoking ban will be the principal reason why I won't be voting for them. There are plenty of other reasons for not voting for them.
But since it appears, barring some extraordinary mishap, that the Conservatives are bound to win the General Election next year, I don't see that I need to vote for them, particularly when they show no sign at all of revisiting the matter of the smoking ban. Or at least, I don't feel in the least bit enthusiastic about voting for them.
I might feel differently if it looked like the election would be a close-run thing, or if I lived in a marginal constituency. But it doesn't, and I don't.
Personally, I think that the statistics prove BEYOND SHADOW OF A DOUBT that passive smoking is harmless.
Personally, I think the same. But the 'personally' bit is the catch. The statistics to which you are referring are presumably the studies of passive smoking which very largely indicate no significant risk.
But I'm not at all sure that everyone else is thinking about those statistics. I suspect that anyone who disagrees with you and me is actually more likely to believe that, since it is well-established that smoking causes lung cancer, then quite obviously passive smoking must also cause lung cancer as well, but to a far lesser extent.
That's to say that I suspect that most people's beliefs about passive smoking are simply extensions of their beliefs about active smoking, and are quite independent of any of the studies of passive smoking. And as long as they believe that first hand, active smoking causes cancer, they will also readily believe that second hand, passive smoking causes cancer as well. And they will also believe that third hand smoking (contact with the deposits of tobacco smoke on buildings and furniture) also causes lung cancer, and perhaps even the sight of anyone smoking is enough to cause lung cancer.
My own belief is that people will carry on believing that passive smoking poses as serious health risk while they carry on believing that active smoking poses a health risk. And the latter is now established more or less as much as a fact of nature as the fact that the sun goes round the earth.
Idlex -
Re:
"And the latter is now established more or less as much as a fact of nature as the fact that the sun goes round the earth."
Well, if the Dumb Majority STILL believes the latter, we HAVE got our work cut out for us.................!
Peter Thurgood wrote: In my opinion, the Tories and the Lib-Dems are still afraid to come out on the side of the smoker, not because they are anti-smoker friendly, but because they are frightened of the Labour controlled propaganda programme...
That approaches saying that Tories and Lib Dems are secretly smoker-friendly, and only Labour is smoker-unfriendly.
Perhaps you're right. I wish it was that clear.
95% of Lib Dem MPs voted for a complete smoking ban. Only a mere 90% of Labour MPs voted for it. It was the Tory MPs who proved the most liberal, with only 40% of them voting for a complete ban. David Cameron, who gave up smoking when he became Tory party leader, has said that he won't be revisiting the matter of the smoking ban, and this Chloe Smith candidate repeats the party line word for word.
Maybe David Cameron is secretly smoker-friendly. Maybe Chloe Smith is secretly smoker-friendly. Who knows, maybe even Gordon Brown is secretly smoker-friendly, but dare not say so. But, on the face of it, it would not appear so. And, on the face of it, there are no signs of things changing any time soon.
On the face of it, the only political parties to be openly smoker-friendly are UKIP and the BNP. If the smoking ban really matters to a smoking voter, he or she should vote for one of them, and let the devil take the rest.
Well, if the Dumb Majority STILL believes the latter, we HAVE got our work cut out for us.................!
Ah, someone spotted my deliberate mistake. Well done, Corporal Jones.
But the point is exactly as you state it: we do indeed have our work cut out for us.
Sorry Idlex, we have had 12 years of the devil taking everything we once had. I do not want my family's fate to be put into the hands of this new devil you speak of.
I want to be rid of all devils, once and for all.
I have e-mailed the following to my Conservative MP:
'Millions of people would be attracted to vote Conservative if the party promised to amend the law so that pubs, private clubs, Bingo Halls and their employees could decide how, whether and where to allow smoking. Their numbers would include not only smokers but all who seek freedom of choice for themselves and are prepared to offer it to others.
'I have corresponded with you on this before and, as I recall, received what was apparently a standard reply about your not being convinced that ‘second hand smoke’ was not harmful. Regardless of that controversy, I am not writing here of anyone’s being involuntarily in a place where there is tobacco smoke.
'Clearly there is a similar formula reply doing the rounds at the moment, as you will see, if you visit the website http://takingliberties.squarespace.com/ and I do hope that if you or a member of your staff replies to me that it will not be repeated again.
'I am 73 and shall not vote Conservative again unless there is a promise to amend the law. After 11 years of abstinence I decided last year that a pipe and tobacco would enhance my old age and took up smoking again. I don’t think it unreasonable for people of my generation to be able again, as they were for most of their lives, to stroll out for a pint and a smoke in the evening of any day - or of their lives. But of course I would argue for the same freedom for everybody.'
Norman -
Please DO let us know what the response to your sweetly reasonable e-mail is.
Three or more million more like it MIGHT do the trick:
"What ARE we going to do about all these bloody militant smokers, Andrew ?"
"I really don't know, David. Personally, I wish they'd all go and damned well die - and leave us in peace."
"Thought we were trying to prevent that ?"
"Ha! ha! Good one !"
"But NOT at least until AFTER the next election, Andrew. Whatever they say, 'our' people will still turn out: they hate The Other Side too much not to."
"I'm with you there, David. Cheers !"
"Only place to be, Andrew. Cheers !"
We must NEVER over-estimate the Intelligence of MPs.
I'll certainly let you know what my MP replies. He's away until next Monday.
I think idlex's idea is the only alternative to making the useless lot in govt sit up and take notice about the erosion of peoples civil liberties and the smoking ban and all the silly bans in general.
If there was a party like the BNP or UKIP that promises to amend the smoking ban available for me to vote for I would do so without hesitation, but as I dont live in britain this option is not available to me only a shower of dead heads who are all anti smoking.
I would be so happy to have a party to vote for that, regardless of their policies, if they promised to overturn this stupid smoking ban.
Because I cant see what we are upholding any more when they're taking everything we hold dear away from us and ignoring our wishes. How bad can the other lot be I ask.
We're all going to be scuppered one way or another anyway especially now that the money is running low no matter who gets in, we're all going to be bled dry with taxes and more restrictions.
So what would be the difference as to who gets in to power next time.
At least the shower that gets in on a promise would have to follow through and they would have to give us back our simple and coping pleasures like unrestricted smoking.
At least it would give their new spin doctors a new line in spin such as 'smoking indoors in pubs and restaurants is the new NOT smoking outdoors'.
And a lot of people would be very happy!
"At least the shower that gets in on a promise would have to follow through and they would have to give us back our simple and coping pleasures like unrestricted smoking".
Are you kidding Ann?
It was in the Labour Party's manifesto that would not bring in a total smoking ban. They promised a partial ban, which would ban smoking only in places which served food.
What did you say Ann, "They would have to"?
This is what makes me so angry. We have this stinking, rotten Labour Party, who lied to us in their manifesto, and not just over the smoking ban either, this rotten party that has taken away our liberties and freedom, this rotten party that has bankrupted our country, this rotten party which is "still" using "our money" to get across their lying messages about smoking, and what do most people say about it on here? They say "let's all write to the Conservatives and tell them that if they don't do as we say we won't vote for them"
It's not the effing Conservatives for Christ sake that did all this, it's the effing Labour Party.
AND THEY ARE STILL DOING IT.
But it's a controlling, dreary mindset, Peter, which is transparty and seems to be required of those who would be members of the political class. Those of us who write to our Conservative MPs are simply asking the party not to ignore an open goal.
I think idlex's idea is the only alternative to making the useless lot in govt sit up and take notice
I certainly don't see any other alternative.
The smoking ban may as well have been something that took a quarter of the people in this country, and nailed them to the floors of their houses. Nailed them by their hands, or nailed them by their feet, so that they couldn't move, and were always in pain.
In that sort of situation, all you want is someone to come along and set you free, someone who'll come and pull the nail out of your hand or foot or head. And maybe make you a cup of tea afterwards as well. And a biscuit.
Nothing else matters. The EU doesn't matter. Immigration doesn't matter. Education doesn't matter. Global warming doesn't matter. All you want is someone to take the great big nail out of your foot.
The old politics - the politics of the old Labour and Conservative and Lib Dem parties, banging on about free markets and human rights and pensions and unemployment - is over. Something more important has come along.
And maybe when you've had the nail pulled out of your hand or elbow, you'll want to go looking to free other people from their nails. Old ladies who've been nailed to doors. Young men nailed to cupboards.
In some perfectly obvious ways, there's no point hoping that Labour and Lib Dems and Tories are going to pull out the nail, because these were the people who hammered it in in the first place. They are the last people who are going to help. And, of course, they're not helping.
So you have to go elsewhere.
And don't come along and tell me that the Conservatives didn't do this to us. Plenty of Conservative MPs voted for the smoking ban. Including my own MP, Angela Browning.
And while David Cameron isn't promising to repeal or amend the ban, he is complicit with this filthy government.
And he isn't promising anything,
But who supplied the bloody nails Idlex?
No prizes offered for the first correct answer, because it is a rhetorical question, the answer to which, we all know.
The Labour Party supplied those nails, like arms dealers, supplying an illegal war, like drug dealers supplying the victims of the dependency which they created in the first place.
One has only to look at the voting figures for the smoking ban to see who the real culprits were (and still are).
The Labour propaganda machine creates a problem, i.e. the smoking ban, and then they milk it for all it's worth. And it isn't just the general public who fall for their propaganda, so strong is their message, that politicians, and even doctors fall for it. Who would dare to stand up today and be counted as the one who dared to say this is baloney, this is crap, it just isn't true? I will tell you, it is UKIP and the BNP and a few people like us, on sites like this.
And the reason the above mentioned can stand up and say it, is because we all have nothing to lose. I am not campaigning to get into Parliament, and from what I can see, the BNP and UKIP have about as much chance of ever getting there as what I do.
If we ever want something done about this unlawful ban, we will not do it by pinning our hopes on the likes of Screaming Lord Such and the Raving Loony party. We have two real alternatives. Labour and Conservative.
Labour have shown what they can do (or can't do). The Conservatives did show that 60% of them voted against a total ban, they also showed in a recent poll on ConservativeHome that a vast majority of Conservative voters were for amending the ban.
With figures like this, what the hell is the point of keeping on knocking the Conservatives as if they were the master planners of this in the first place?
Vote UKIP get Labour, Vote BNP get Labour. Vote Labour get 5 more years of agony.
Vote Conservative, and at the very least, we will get a sympathetic hearing.
Vote Conservative, and at the very least, we will get a sympathetic hearing.
But I don't want a sympathetic hearing. I want someone to pull this nine inch nail out of my head.
And anyway I didn't get a sympathetic hearing from Angela Browning. She wrote:
Your analogy with Nazi ideology is both offensive and disproportionate. I know a bit about Nazi ideology; My father was a Prisoner of War for five years. Incidentally, always a heavy smoker, he died suddenly at the age of 58 of a heart attack. You can guess what caused it.
It wasn't an analogy, but never mind.
It's not my intention to knock the Tory party. Given their voting record, they are clearly the least worst party. But that's not saying much.
As things stand, the Tories are set to become the next government. But when they've been elected, will they do anything about the smoking ban? No. Probably not.
The Labour propaganda machine creates a problem, i.e. the smoking ban
In your determination to load the entire blame on the Labour party you are forgetting that smoking bans are appearing all around the world. It's not the Labour party that's doing that. They're just bit part players.
even doctors fall for it.
Doctors like the WHO's Gro Harlem Brundtland are among the main culprits for smoking bans. Her and Richard Doll. And George Godber. And Liam Donaldson. They've been working for 60 years to ban smoking. 80 years if you count the Nazi doctors before them.
Anyway, when a Tory government is elected next year, you can show us all the sympathetic letter you'll got from Prime Minister David Cameron's sub-sub- undersecretary, and we can all coo over it and say, "My, how sympathetic they are!" And it'll read something like:
I am writing on behalf of David Cameron to thank you for your e-mail, about the smoking ban.
We sympathise with your concerns that this ban appears unfair, in some cases making it harder for smokers to socialise or relax, and of course regret the pressure it has put on some businesses.
We have yet to be convinced that passive smoking is not harmful, when a considerable body of scientific evidence suggests a strong link between second-hand smoke and adverse health effects.
There is also a clear indication that the ban has helped many people quit smoking..
And you'll be saying, "See, they sympathise!" And it'll be true: the 20th word in the letter will be sympathise.
Sorry Idlex, it doesn't work for me.
You can spin until you are blue in the face, but when you stop you will still see the people who brought in the smoking ban in this country was the Labour Party, no ifs and no buts, the Labour Party, full stop!
And there are no certainties either about who is going to win the next general election. Mandleson is not positioning himself for nothing. Mandleson would love to see a load of fools voting for minority parties, that would put him right where he wants to be, at the very top as Prime Minister of the Socialist Republic of Great Britain.
It saddens me to read that Idlex and others on here would vote BNP for the end of the ban. It's sickening. As a person of mixed race, and one who has been attacked physically and verbally by their supporters, you don't know what you're saying.
You would vote for a party who's REAL agenda is on a par with Nazi ideology at it's darkest, just to amend the ban?
Hitler saw smoking as a stench of freedom, which needed to be erased.
These Nazis (the BNP) don't, so they're ok?!!
I am 100% with you on that score Zitori. I wouldn't dream of voting BNP if they offered a million pounds and said all smoking would be free from now on.
You would vote for a party who's REAL agenda is on a par with Nazi ideology at it's darkest, just to amend the ban?
I'm no expert on the BNP. I only found out a few days ago that they, like UKIP, want to repeal or amend the ban. Beyond that, I know that they're anti-immigration. And that they have growing support in towns in which the ethnic English population feels threatened.
Well, I'm threatened too. Not by immigration, but by a smoking ban which is intended to destroy my English culture. So I feel much like those besieged English in those towns, who have been abandoned by their own country.
So, yes, if the BNP is the only party that will speak for English smokers, and for their traditional culture, I'll vote for them. As it happens, UKIP also speaks up for smokers, so I'm far more likely to vote for them, given the choice.
I'd breathe a sigh of relief if the Conservative party would say that they'd amend the ban. I'd vote for them if they did. But they aren't, and I don't think they will.
Furthermore, in my view the smoking ban is the piece of real Nazism around here. Modern 'healthism' has a thoroughly Nazi, eugenic origin. Smoking epidemiology and associated smoking bans started in Nazi Germany. It's all of a piece with antisemitism, which in Nazi ideology was a matter of 'racial health' aka public health. The modern totalitarian Labour party looks far more Nazi to me than the BNP in this respect.
Gentlemen, gentlemen - seconds out !
Peter is right, of course - though I entirely understand Idlex' anger.
The Conservatives ARE going to win the next election, and ARE going to form the next government.
Any discussion of TACTICS that fails to accept THAT is just so much hot air.
The ONLY question now is: HOW are we going to put pressure on Cameron and Co to act like civilised Grown-Ups themselves, rather than adolescent Ink Monitors with a crush on Deborah and Liam from the Lower Sixth.
Personally, I detest the lot of 'em - and I speak, like Peter, as an ardent conservative (lower case since Major) AND Freedom-Lover.
And as such I feel DESPERATELY betrayed by the cowardly posture that the leadership obviously thinks it expedient to adopt.
My IDEAL outcome would be a mass desertion from the Tory Party to UKIP (to be re-named the 'Independence Party' - or some such), followed by those few remaining 'traditional' Labour MPs who still care sufficently for Country and Liberty to make the leap.
Ain't going to happen, though - not yet, at least.
Sorry - but if we're to get our perfectly REASONABLE ideas through the door, we HAVE to concentrate on the Doorkeepers.
I don't want to have to be argiung on this forum about THIS issue in five bloody years time !
So, what SHALL our tactics be ?
For a start, and as I've mentioned before, I'd be very interested to know Greg Knight's views on the matter. He IS an Insider, after all, and GENUINELY 'sympathetic'.
I might add that up until a couple of years ago, I was a regular Lib Dem voter, who wouldn't have dreamed of voting UKIP, never mind BNP. How much has changed, and so rapidly!
But back then my whole identity and culture were not under threat in the way they are now. Back then this seemed like my country, and I could afford to support other persecuted or disadvantaged minorities.
I no longer have that luxury. As a smoker, I have myself become a member of a persecuted and reviled minority. I have to look after myself first, and people like me. I have to unite with people who will put this country and its culture and traditions first rather than last. When I was a Lib Dem voter, I took it all for granted.
So, what SHALL our tactics be ?
Well, as I see it, people like me have moved from left to right. Five years ago, I regularly found myself in sympathy with leftist views. Now it's the right who seem to make more sense. So my vote ought naturally to be going to the Conservative party.
But the Conservative party isn't doing something that I think it ought to, which is to support smokers and traditional pubs and British culture. With Cameron the Conservative party has been busy re-branding itself as a touchy-feely, green, healthy, modern party, and distancing itself from its Thatcherite past, just when people like me are beginning to re-evaluate that past, and look with kinder eyes upon it. Cameron has also modelled himself on Blair as a trust-me-I'm-one-of-the-lads politician - yet did so just when Blair was turning into Bliar.
So, from my perspective, the Cameron Conservative party looks unpleasantly like NuLabour-lite. And it is intended to. So, as I have been moving rightward, the Conservative party has been moving left. I don't want to catch a bus that's going in that direction. That's what I'm trying to escape from.
I think the Conservative party is misreading the mood of the country. I'll bet there are millions of people like me, who now hate the Labour party with a vengeance, and who are dismayed to find the Conservative party doing its level best to emulate Labour. I think that, instead of re-branding the Conservatives as they have been, they'd do better to begin to re-emphasize British tradition, British culture, British values of freedom and democracy - and distance themselves from a Labour party which has clearly abandoned that culture and those values.
My guess is that the whole country has been shifting rightward in recent years, and particularly over the past two years. But the Conservative party doesn't seem to have noticed. They're still living in the past that preceded this. And they're missing the opportunity of grabbing votes like mine, which are ready to be picked like so many ripe plums.
I really do not think that Labour, Tories, Lib dem and UKIP differences are significant.
I think that the probability, unless something really weird happens, is that the Tories will form the next Gov.
At the moment, the Tories are saying, "We are not convinced that SHS is not harmful".
Clearly, they are officially sitting on the fence - saying nothing either one way or another - frightened of antagonising the antis and not quite sure what to do about the smokers. But, we must be aware that it is the duty of the opposition to 'oppose' - they do not have to say what their own policies might be in the future.
The best thing for us to do in the short term is to keep banging on about the unfairness and illiberalness of the smoking ban as it now stands.
At the moment, the Tories are saying, "We are not convinced that SHS is not harmful".
Good point. I hadn't noticed that.
I think that one thing that's become quite clear from this discussion is that it's the Tories who hold the keys to this debate. What they do will define what everybody else does, including what I do.
Maybe this whole smoking ban issue is being taken much more seriously than any of us think. Maybe Cameron and the Tories know perfectly well that there are millions of votes from angry smokers like me up for grabs.
I've got nothing against the Tories. I used to loathe Thatcher, but that's a long time ago now. 25 years ago. These days I look to them in hope. But they always disappoint.
It's very strange. I really, really want to vote Conservative at the next election. But I can't. Not while they don't reach out for my vote. And they don't seem to want it. So right now it's going elsewhere.
They don't have to make a policy statement about it. It would suffice if a few top Tories were photographed smoking cigarettes. That would speak volumes in itself.
Unlike me, Peter Thurgood is a long time Tory voter. He
probablyhas a much better idea of what it is to be a Tory than I do. How can I know, given that it's only been over the past 2 or 3 years that I've taken any interest in them? So maybe he knows a few things about them that I don't know. Maybe what seems to e to be his blind trust in them has a deeper foundation than I imagine.Well you can hear and see Boris Johnson talking about smoking and smoking himself here Idlex
http://video.aol.co.uk/video-detail/boris-johnson-room-101-smoking/564142389
'I'm no expert on the BNP' Idlex.
Well that's true, so maybe you ought to learn more about these scumbags before you start singing their praises for their dispicable take on freedom.
The anti- smoking crusade is certainly based on Nazi propaganda,and I have always shared that concern and anger, but just because the BNP has not included that particular charge in their hate-filled agenda, they should never be considered as an alternative for anyone who has regard for their fellow man and a passion for freedom.
Idlex, how can you say "These days I look to them (Conservatives) in hope. But they always disappoint?"
The Conservatives have not been in power for 12 years.
Zitori, perhaps you could direct me to some source of information on the BNP. I've not been interested enough to do so myself.
Peter, I think that if Boris exemplified the Tory party, I'd have no hesitation in voting for them. But he doesn't. He's just one sort of Tory, of which he is the only exemplar.
And a party doesn't have to be in power to be disappointing. I'm far more deeply disappointed with the Lib Dems than I am with the Tories. And they've never been in power.
What STILL puzzles me is this:
Cameron has SUCH an exciting opportunity before him now to bring in the much-needed changes that almost everyone you speak to seems to agree on.
An opportunity, in fact, UNPARALLELED in my lifetime - and that includes the period just before Mrs T's victory in 1979, and Blair's in 1997.
Whatever signals his political antennae ARE tuned into, they DON'T seem to be coming from the Electorate at large.
This is profoundly mysterious: UNLESS, that is, he really DOES see himself as The Heir To Blair.
That thought makes me shudder........
Some years ago, the irreplaceable Michael Wharton (a TRUE Conservative), writing as 'Peter Simple' in the 'Telegraph', once asked:
"What have the Conservatives EVER conserved ?"
Many of the things that I have always loved about this country now lie broken and neglected beneath the rubble of Blair's vandalism.
Is Cameron, I wonder, minded to salvage ANY of it......................?
Is that not the KEY question ?
Martin V: re Michael Wharton and also his predecessor on the Peter Simple column, Colin Welch: I think the latter created it.I knew him, in the sense that I had the occasional drink with him. These were men of massive insight and culture. They also had a huge sense of humour. They tasted and tested politics and intellectual fashion and did not like what they experienced. They were able to poke fun at the the brash, the dreary and the trendy, from J. Bonington Jagworth to Hampstead Marxists to the 'Bishop of Bevindon'. We need their depth of analysis,detatchment scepticism and sense of fun now.
I do not know who my MP is. East Lothian. And if I wrote to whoever he is (in this area I am sure it is a he) I am sure I would get the stat response. I am not alone in this thought. Most like me think a MP is someone who draws money from the state.
That includes a SMP and an EMP and their office staff and relatives who I am sure employed someway or another.
Norman -
Forgot to mention Colin W. I envy you.
One 'Peter Simple' piece was worth the price of the entire paper IMHO - and SHOULD have been compulsory reading for all the drones at Central Office (together with Christopher Booker, of course).
That's MY kind of 'conservatism' - humane, witty, warm-hearted, sensible, and properly wary of ALL 'modernising' agendas.
I bet Norman Tebbit (Hiss ! Boo!) was a fan.
Now just LOOK at the collective 'talent' in Dave's Team !
IS there a word in our Mother Tongue for 'BEYOND dreary' ?
'Uberdull', perhaps.......................
Readers may recall that I said I had written to my (Conservative) MP. Without disclosing his name, because I did not say I would do so, I repeat his reply (with, for accuracy, the misspelling) below. I appreciate his not giving me the standard, party line response:
Dear Norman,
Much enjoyed your e mail but I am not with you on this one. I'm normally fairly liberal on issues such as this but I cannot see that the libertarian principles you espouse on this issue are more important than the impact of smoking. And, without being too rude, you really cannot expect policy to be changed because you've decided to take up a pipe.
How you vote is of course entirely a personal matter. But I would be amazed if you could put a bill of the type you propose above the importance of chosing the right party to get us out of the hole created by the longest and deepest recession since the WW2.
All the best
Did anyone see David Cameron on GMTV this morning?
He was talking/being asked about the NHS and the 'revelation' that many more NHS workers have time off sick than people in the private sector. He also bemoaned the fact that so many NHS workers smoked, many were obese and others suffered mental health problems! With the current climate, what else does he expect? Apart from which, NHS workers, like kitchen workers, usually take time off for a minor cold as in their profession a minor cold for them could be a lot more serious to someone more vulnerable!
I specifically noticed, and winced, each time he mentioned smoking as this was always the first of the vices to be mentioned and it was said with a certain amount of 'venom' for want of a better word!
Of course, I wonder how many fewer NHS workers suffered mental health problems prior to being denormalised by this pathetic excuse for a government? I know my own issues here escalated dramatically with the advent of the smoking ban!
I must say, listening to DC this morning did not give me the slightest bit of faith in my vote being of any use at all if it went to the Tories - we would just be stuck with more of the same. It was almost as though Blair/Brown were operating DC like a ventriloquists dummy!
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