Our Ken has confirmed in today’s Daily Telegraph that he believes power is more important than ideology.
“If the party believes that it has to choose a leader because of his views on the single currency, then in my opinion the party is beginning to lose touch with reality and will deserve to be in opposition for quite a long time,” he says.
Leaving aside Mr Clarke’s deliberate over-simplification of the issue - what’s at stake is the freedom of our country; the currency is just a physical manifestation of the loss of that freedom - does Mr Clarke really think his about-turn on Europe has closed the subject and put it out of harm’s way? Does he assume his new tune will not be used against him at the next election? Does he believe the government will refrain from taunting him over his apparent change of heart?
They will rip him to shreds over it, gleefully accusing him of opportunism and cynically exploiting the free-born Englishman’s disdain of foreign control of his own country. At every parliamentary debate they will question him, goad him to reveal his true feelings about Europe.
And, in so doing, the European wound will re-open, reminding the electorate that they face a choice which is no choice. Both parties will, on this issue, look exactly the same except one will be known to have been consistent on its view while the other will be exposed as having first checked which way the wind was blowing before deciding what it ‘believed’ in.
The question of British sovereignty must be decided now. Conservatives need a party that actually believes in such a thing and it must elect a leader who will fight for it. For all his many attractive traits Mr Clarke will not defend British sovereignty and therefore should not be leader of our party.
Mr Clarke seemed to do a fairly good job for Britain when he was in government. I can’t remember anyone accusing him of endangering sovereignty.
Again, I think you forget the Conservatives are two parties, just like Labour. What Blair succesfully did was to tell his extremists to go to hell. A Conservative leader has to do exactly the same.
Comment by DE — September 7, 2005 @ 12:24 pm
I am not so sure Blair told the lefties to go to hell, he just put them on ice for a while. He effectively said “back me to regain power and you will have your day soon” and they lapped it up like the unprincipled bafoons they are.
If you look at some of the policies of this government - the redistribution of wealth, the “one size fits all” education policy and the blatent disreguard of our law making institutions, to name just three, the lefties quite clearly are getting their way.
On the other hand, the draconian measures to “counter terrorism”, the private sector involvement in the NHS and an unwillingness to restore power to the unions are examples of policies the left side of Labour hate (not to mention the war…).
Blair compromises on issues he is less concerned with or is unable to get his way on, in order to give him power to push through his own ‘unLabour’ agenda. I am not sure if Blair is unprincipled or just realistic, but he is certainly effective.
The question is, should the Conservatives follow Labour’s path much less effectively by electing Ken as their leader, or should they take a step back and put together a consistent, principled set of policies to counter the rott that our country finds itself in?
A principled opposition or one that just wants power?
Comment by lascivious — September 7, 2005 @ 1:15 pm
Funny that - I don’t remember Heath, Thatcher or Major defending British sovereignity when they signed all those European Treaties without ever putting it to the people in a referendum.
So you either choose someone who is closer to your views in your party so you can wag your finger at the government or you can choose a less of two evils and back someone who has a chance of winning and whose views are still closer to yours than the present government.
Comment by GaffaUK — September 7, 2005 @ 11:54 pm