UK political realignment?
Tories axe right-wing group over race issue By Nigel Morris Political Correspondent The Independent, 19 October 2001 The hard-right Monday Club was suspended from the Conservative Party last night and told it would only be readmitted if it abandoned campaigning on immigration. David Davis, the party chairman, announced the tougher than expected move after a tense 80-minute meeting with officers of the organisation. He ordered the group to review its constitution to include a promise not to "promulgate or discuss policies relating to race". Mr Davis also told it to expel members who champion racist opinions. Speaking outside Conservative Central Office, he said: "Until we're satisfied with their response, the Monday Club is suspended from any association with the Conservative Party." He said that if the group was not prepared to amend its rules "to make it unconstitutional for them to promulgate any policies on the question of immigration and race", its suspension would be made permanent. The showdown came after Viscount Massereene and Ferrand, its president, Lord Sudeley, its chairman, and Denis Walker, and Denis Walker, a member of the executive, were summoned into Central Office. The order means that the organisation will no longer be able to describe itself as the Conservative Monday Club. The newly elected Tory leader, Iain Duncan Smith, has been dogged by reports of links between his leadership campaign and far-right groups. Just six weeks ago, before his election, Mr Duncan Smith described the Monday Club as a "viable organisation with the party and they are, in a sense what the party is about". However, in a swift about-turn, three Conservative MPs, Andrew Hunter, Andrew Rosindell and Angela Watkins, were earlier this month instructed by the new leadership to sever their links with the Monday Club. Mr Hunter had been its deputy chairman and associate editor of its Right Now! magazine, which described Nelson Mandela as a "terrorist". The Monday Club, set up 40 years ago to oppose liberal policies within the Tory party, has pursued strong anti-immigration views and as recently as six weeks ago, its website was backing financial assistance for repatriation. The view has since been excised from its list of policies. Mr Davis told Radio 4's PM programme: "The Monday Club had a number of things on its website which we didn't like and reflected badly We want to clear this up once and for all." The suspension will cause tension in the party, both among grass-roots members and right-wing MPs who fear that Mr Duncan Smith's decision was driven by "political correctness". However, he was urged by several senior colleagues, including David Willetts and Tim Yeo, to take decisive action as a first step towards reaching out to the political centre-ground. A Tory spokesman said there were no plans to extend the action to any other right-wing organisation affiliated to the party. The Labour chairman, Charles Clarke, said: "The reality is that the Tories have lurched further and further to the right in recent years. They will be judged on their record, not their rhetoric." The move came hours after two MPs resigned from Mr Duncan Smith's frontbench team, just a month after being awarded their posts. Nick Gibb stood down as a spokesman on Transport, Local Government and the Regions to take up a seat on the Public Accounts Committee, while James Cran gave up his post as deputy to Eric Forth, the shadow Commons Leader. Full article at: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=100273 Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland [EMAIL PROTECTED]
UK political realignment?
And you thought it was Guardian articles that get forwarded to PEN-L?! Previous posts under this heading have speculated on precisely the subject of yesterday's lengthy disquisition by Hugo Young, who is the Guardian's chief political analyst and board member of the Scott Trust, the independent body that governs Guardian Media Group. Mark Jones' comments re the Guardian's historical role in British politics and its rendering of services to the UK's permanent government (e.g. dishing Old Labour from the left during the late 70s/early 80s, shopping Sarah Tisdall when she leaked news of NATO's/US's decision to site Cruise missiles at Greenham Common, largely uncritical support of New Labour, together with a very interesting forerunner of Mr Tony's project from the pen of former editor Alistair Hetherington, to be forwarded later), very much apply here. In other words, we are seeing the nurturance of the Liberal Democrats as the official opposition-to-be, and the continued sidelining of the punk Thatcherite Conservatives, while New Labour becomes/already is the natural party of the permanent government. Yesterday's newspapers reported how, at the current LibDem conference, one of its leading lights, Mark Oaten, had opened up a split within the party over the private finance initiative, suggesting that it was in fact a necessary financing mechanism that should not be opposed so dogmatically. This is a sure sign that the party is smelling the scent of power and influence, just as the Scottish National Party's timely querying of its anti-NATO stance is a sure sign that it is trying to neutralise powerful obstacles to its path to power (leading to questions of: did Salmond fall, or was he pushed?). While the LibDems remain officially very critical of PFI/PPP, watch out for more "reasoned" accommodations to the new orthodoxy. Lib Dems can be the opposition Labour conservatism and Tory irrelevance has opened up a gap Hugo Young Tuesday September 25, 2001 The Guardian On the world crisis, Liberal Democrats speak for just about everyone. They're at the perfect centre of British opinion. They're appalled by what happened, yield to no one over terrorism, want it rooted out, support a British military response. They worry about the causes of terrorist rage, refuse to demonise Islam, demand a focused response, want it to be proportionate (whatever that means), support British values, want civil liberties protected, favour international law, insist risk must be minimised, and hope that terrorists (whoever they might be) are eliminated while not a glove is laid on a single innocent Afghan. They occupied the heights of sober responsibility yesterday. It will be the same, for the most part, at other party conferences that decide to face down the charge of bathetic irrelevance by meeting in the next three weeks. What the Lib Dems say, most of us say; but the same goes for what they do not want to say or think about. We'd all like the crisis to be over without a mess. We may not be so sure where we'll stand when the action shatters these neat ambitions. The Lib Dems certainly aren't. There was a certain unctuous banality about what they said. What happens when the first misdirected missile lands on a Kabul market, or the Pentagon hawks get to attack Iraq, or ID cards are hustled through parliament in an emergency hour, were questions not covered by the motion. Nor are many of us, I guess, sure what we would think. There've been years when this party might have made different noises. A fringe of pacifist rejection would have been heard in the hall. But they're very aware of their new status as a plausible leader of the opposition to Labour, which is not a ludicrous perception. They may not yet have enough seats to claim sole possession of the dispatch box, but the prospects are good whichever way they look. After a wasted summer, when they idly failed to build on the profile and progress they showed in June, they have an opportunity to change the shape of politics in, say, the election after next. The other parties are doing quite a bit to help. The Tories did them a favour by electing Iain Duncan Smith. Duncan Smith has done them another by choosing a shadow cabinet that nobody to the left of him has any time for. This is the lamest, most talentless, most politically unappealing alternative government since records began. But the personnel, rebarbative though they are, are not the point. W hat Conservatism is losing is any unique raison d' tre, any credibility in the world beyond the ever-narrowing party. When Gavyn Davies became chairman of the BBC, the feeble cry went up that here was another Labour man in a top job. More revealing was the absence from the short list of anyone known to be a Conservative. The Nolan process was duly gone through, and no Tory banker appeared to challenge the Labour banker. The possibility gapes before us that hardly anyone of stature outside politics is these days a confessional
UK political realignment?
Penners The old ones are the best ones. Just as Old Labour got dished from the right (via the SDP), now the Conservatives are getting those vague warnings of a breakaway. No Gang of Three/Four yet, but look out. = Duncan Smith win 'could prompt defections' Lucy Ward, political correspondent Thursday August 16, 2001 The Guardian The former Tory party chairman Sir Jeremy Hanley yesterday launched a bitter attack on the leadership candidate Iain Duncan Smith, saying in a letter to the Daily Telegraph that the defence spokseman had been disloyal in fighting John Major over the Maastricht treaty. "Should we seriously consider rewarding with the leadership a man who showed more loyalty to a rebellious group in parliament than to his own party, just when he needed it?" he wrote. Moderate Conservatives are giving Mr Duncan Smith six months to distance himself from rightwing allies or risk a walkout under his leadership, according to a senior Tory. Senior figures, primarily those who backed Michael Portillo and who believe the party needs to embrace radical change to recover electorally, argue that Mr Duncan Smith must swiftly break with high-profile backers such as Lady Thatcher, Lord Tebbit, Lady Young and the "compassionate conservatism" of George Bush's Republicans. One said: "There is no talk of a breakaway party yet and we will wait and see whether Iain is going to follow a more inclusive agenda if he wins the contest. But if he doesn't do this, we may have a case where people will have no choice but to leave [after] six months." Lord Tebbit gave Mr Duncan Smith strong endorsement when he announced his candidacy and Mr Duncan Smith is also understood to be the favourite of Lady Thatcher. Talk of resignations came as his rival for the leadership, the former chancellor Kenneth Clarke, likewise stepped up the effort yesterday to insist he could unite the party. Following an early assault from Duncan Smith supporter Michael Ancram, himself a failed candidate, warning that a Clarke victory risked "tearing the party apart" over Europe, the Clarke camp declared that only their candidate could win a general election. "Winning is the best glue there is for the party," said one of Mr Clarke's supporter. "Unity will only come now with success." As Clarke aides sought to dispel suggestions that he was flagging badly behind Mr Duncan Smith among the 320,000 party members voting in the leadership ballot, the Clarke campaign team published a list of 100 chairmen of Conservative associations backing his candidacy. Full article at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,537563,00.html Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland [EMAIL PROTECTED]
UK political realignment?
Penners The article below is a case study in the confused politics of the present. His paper having joined the effort to discredit Portillo, Jonathan Freedland now bemoans the Conservative Party's apparently inevitable drift into civil war as two diametrically opposed candidates do battle over the summer, with only the promise of intense infighting to follow the final election. This, of course, is the hope of New Labour, the natural party of government. At the bottom of Freedland's "analysis" is the conventional wisdom that, to be politically successful, politicians must fight for the centre. But what is the centre? Twenty years ago today's centre was in fact something well the right of the post-war consensus, which was then the centre. But that centre was in crisis, and required major surgery, which it got in what came to be known as Thatcherism. New Labour is now consolidating that "revolution", as did Clinton the Reagan-Bush revanchism in the US, and Chretien for Mulroney's legacy in Canada. The Conservatives were "the natural party of government", but, since the time of John Major's leadership, it has been remarked widely that the party has lost its innate raison d'etre: to win and keep power. This is because it has placed ideology above its former pursuit, as opposed to making the exercise of power its ideology. The vacuum has been filled by New Labour, which eschews the entire notion of ideology, if in a very ideological fashion (as with its determination to proceed with the rapid privatisation of pretty much all that remains of the state sector -- yesterday Ken Livingstone's London Transport chief, Bob Kiley, was unceremoniously, unaccountably sacked by Transport Secretary Stephen Byers for his implacable opposition to the government's ludicrous plans to re-enact the British Rail privatisation in London Underground). Prompted originally by the observations of Mark Jones, I have come to the conclusion that New Labour is the vehicle by which the natural party of government has retained control of the levers of state -- and whose grip has been firm since 1979. As the Thatcher ascendancy represented the culmination of intra-state and capital struggles that reached a peak during the early 1980s (remember the chief of the CBI Terence Beckett promising a "bare-knuckle fight" with the government?) only to result in the triumph of the unstable coalition of economic fundamentalists and Crown loyalists (with the defeat of Argentina, the NUM and the labour movement), so the Blair ascendancy represents the final passing of the punk Thatcherite coalition as capital and the secret state -- together the natural party of government -- find a new home in the house that they built, courtesy of the Labour right wing, ex-SDPers, ex-CPGB types, and influential news media (Pearson/Financial Times, News International, BBC, LWT). Without the ideological burdens afflicting the Conservatives, the natural party of government finds a comfortable home in New Labour for the time being. It is also more clearly aligned with a modified economic fundamentalism, in keeping with the Third Way's socially concerned gloss and appreciation of state power. The Crown loyalists are, for the time being, in exile. The tragedy of Portillo is that he realised this, as Freedland suggests, and that he was making a difficult but necessary journey towards the goal of remaking the Conservative Party in the image of the natural party of government. Unfortunately for him, however, his journey was made very difficult by his political origins within the Crown loyalist faction of the punk Thatcherite coalition. Portillo was one of several young Conservatives who, under the tutelage of Peterhouse, Cambridge historian Maurice Cowling rose quickly to achieve great prominence as a young bona fide Thatcherite. Cowling himself is reminiscent of the selectively libertarian Kenneth Minogue in his lofty pronouncements regarding culture and political theory (see http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/08/feb90/cowling.htm for his demolition of Raymond Williams, for example). Like Minogue, Cowling has remained faithful to Thatcher, if for rather different reasons. Cowling's contemporary political hero was Enoch Powell, who is often regarded as a precursor, even mentor, to Thatcher. A Powellite Peterhouse mafia around Cowling, George Gale and Patrick Cosgrave (who succeeded Gale as editor of the Spectator in 1973 and later became a special adviser to Thatcher) led the anti-Europe Conservatives against Edward Heath's leadership of the party from the pages of the Spectator magazine (now owned by Conrad Black) when Gale took over its editorship in 1970. Its politics did not extend to Powell's misty nostalgia for empire, however, instead valuing the "special relationship" with the United States. In this it was closer to the politics of Robert Conquest. Nevertheless there were tensions in this little group, united by opposition to Europe but divided as to reasons why. Co
UK political realignment?
> Penners
>
> The article below is a case study in the confused politics of the
> present. His paper having joined the effort to discredit Portillo,
> Jonathan Freedland now bemoans the Conservative Party's apparently
> inevitable drift into civil war as two diametrically opposed
> candidates do battle over the summer, with only the promise of intense
> infighting to follow the final election. This, of course, is the hope
> of New Labour, behind which lies the natural party of government. This
> is more or less confirmed in today's Guardian by its "eminent"
> political commentator Hugo Young, who also happens to sit on the board
> of the Scott Trust, owners of the Guardian. Letting the cat out of the
> bag, Young states:
>
Within his big tent, Tony Blair would always like to include the
right sort of Conservative party. Shortly before the election, he
was reflecting on the consequences of another Labour landslide,
and counted among its benefits the effect on the Tories. They
would head for the centre ground, he thought, which meant
turning to Kenneth Clarke.
A true party warrior might have detested this prospect, because
it threatened Labour's hegemony; and given the state of the
Tories, it looked extremely improbable anyway. Mr Blair, by
contrast, looked forward to it, partly because he's an incorrigible
centrist, but mainly because the outcome would simplify his
ambition to suck the poison out of the Europe debate before a
euro referendum.
Some ministers still think that. They want a Clarke victory.
Whether their premise is correct rather depends on whether the
referendum is held. But the inference correctly goes to the heart
of this leadership contest. The biggest thing at stake in it is the
Europe question. This will determine the result. And the result is
entwined with the politics of the euro, yes or no.
("Don't be fooled: Europe is central to the Tory contest", The Guardian,
19 July 2001:
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/conservatives/comment/0,9236,523975,00.ht
ml)
> At the bottom of Freedland's "analysis" meanwhile is the conventional
> wisdom that, to be politically successful, politicians must fight for
> the centre. But what is the centre? Twenty years ago today's centre
> was in fact something well the right of the post-war consensus, which
> was then the centre. But that centre was in crisis, and required major
> surgery, which it got in what came to be known as Thatcherism. New
> Labour is now consolidating that "revolution", as did Clinton the
> Reagan-Bush revanchism in the US, and Chretien for Mulroney's legacy
> in Canada.
>
> The Conservatives were "the natural party of government", but, since
> the time of John Major's leadership, it has been remarked widely that
> the party has lost its innate raison d'etre: to win and keep power.
> This is because it has placed ideology above its former pursuit, as
> opposed to making the exercise of power its ideology. The vacuum has
> been filled by New Labour, which eschews the entire notion of
> ideology, if in a very ideological fashion (as with its determination
> to proceed with the rapid privatisation of pretty much all that
> remains of the state sector -- on Tuesday Ken Livingstone's London
> Transport chief, Bob Kiley, was unceremoniously, unaccountably sacked
> by Transport Secretary Stephen Byers for his implacable opposition to
> the government's ludicrous plans to re-enact the British Rail
> privatisation in London Underground).
>
> New Labour is the vehicle by which the natural party of government has
> retained control of the levers of state -- and whose grip has been
> firm since 1979, and especially since 1985. As the Thatcher ascendancy
> represented the culmination of intra-state and capital struggles that
> reached a peak during the early 1980s (remember the chief of the CBI
> Terence Beckett promising a "bare-knuckle fight" with the government?)
> only to result in the triumph of the unstable coalition of economic
> fundamentalists and Crown loyalists (with the defeat of Argentina, the
> NUM and the labour movement), so the Blair ascendancy represents the
> final passing of the punk Thatcherite coalition as capital and the
> secret state -- together the natural party of government -- find a new
> home in the house that they built, courtesy of the Labour right wing,
> ex-SDPers, ex-CPGB types, and influential news media
> (Pearson/Financial Times, News International, BBC, LWT). Without the
> ideological burdens afflicting the Conservatives, the natural party of
> government finds a comfortable home in New Labour for the time being.
> It is also more clearly aligned with a modified economic
> fundamentalism, in keeping with the Third Way's socially concerned
> gloss and appreciation of state power. The Crown loyalists are, for
> the time being, in exile.
>
> The tragedy of Portillo is that he realised this, as Freedland
> suggests, and that he was making a difficult but necessary journey
> towards the goal of remaking
UK political realignment?
Penners, As suggested last week, both Bill Morris's TGWU and Dave Prentis's Unison are following the lead set by John Edmonds' GMB in opposing, forthrightly, New Labour's plans to privatise what remains of the welfare state, and much else of the state sector. Against the warnings of his predecessor, Paddy Ashdown (ex-Special Boat Service and now International Crisis Group personage), Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy is seeking to exploit this turmoil by positioning his party as the protector of state welfare provision, in collaboration with the unions. Thus the Lib Dems, in becoming the advocate of the public service ethic, assume the erstwhile mantle of the (Heathite) Tories, while Labour, in becoming the relentless ideologue of privatisation, consolidates Thatcherism, and the Conservatives retreat ever more into the hysterical paranoia of the Monday Club (see third part of Wilson Plot review, to follow). = Blair muddled over private sector, say unions Kevin Maguire, Lucy Ward and John Carvel Monday July 2, 2001 The Guardian Tony Blair last night faced mounting criticism within the Labour party when the leaders of Britain's two biggest unions attacked "confused" proposals to extend private sector involvement in public services. The Transport and General Workers Union general secretary, Bill Morris, accused the government of a "cocktail of confusion" and complained it had been unable even to define properly its proposals. The Unison leader, Dave Prentis, warned in an interview with the Guardian that his union had £8.5m in a dispute fund to oppose privatisation moves. The TGWU and GMB revealed they were to meet Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, to discuss public services, and both suggested they could create difficulties at Labour's annual conference over the appointment of Charles Clark to the new cabinet-level job of party chairman. There were belated government efforts to reassure unions and other critics of the limits on plans to step up the role of the private sector. The transport secretary, Stephen Byers, a staunch Blairite who supports an increased role for private firms in delivering public services, issued firm assurances on the BBC's Breakfast with Frost that the government would not privatise the London Underground - a comment intended as a signal that ministers are not planning a privatisation free-for-all. Sources close to Mr Byers said last night: "The debate about the role of the private sector has got under way, but because there is no clarity or clearly defined limits people who are opposed entirely have been able to run up the flag of privatisation." The attempt to lay down firm markers on the limits to reforms will be seen by critics as a sign of nervousness at government loss of control of the debate. The TUC will meet on Wednesday to consider a pro-public services statement that threatens to set it on a collision course with Mr Blair. The TGWU's biennial conference in Brighton this week will discuss calls to review links with Labour amid mounting concern across the union movement. Mr Morris said he would oppose any weakening of the ties and also rejected reports that his union could fund the Liberal Democrats in future, although he accepted they could join forces on single issue campaigns. Rejecting GMB suggestions of "pro-public services" union candidates challenging Labour in local elections, he said: "There is only one show in town and that is the Labour party. There is no divorce and there is no separation." But he warned: "Government is focusing on the wrong targets. We see the main problem not as poor management but a cocktail of policy confusion," he said. The Lib Dems are keen to talk to unions about public services, having secured a strong election result on a platform of extra taxation for investment in health and education. Mr Kennedy said yesterday: "The Liberal Democrats have argued for investment as a number one priority. While we are not ideological over the provision of services we do believe that the public service ethic must be predominant." Full article at: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,9061,515506,00.html Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland [EMAIL PROTECTED]
