Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the
tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds

NB: The author is Tim Hewish, who I am glad to welcome as a local contributor. — Steve

One of my local Wycombe friends asked me: Why, as a young person, should I vote Conservative? I initially came out with the usual blurb about the positives of Conservatism, but she stopped me mid-way and she repeated ‘no, as a young person’. This made me think about the question further and I was fortunate enough to find two articles that stated my case beautifully. The first comes from a young campaigner who recently wrote on the ConHome website:

We’ve come to love and depend on our captors. A whole generation is clearly suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, direly dependent on the State – and Labour would have us stay this way to ensure we vote for them for years to come.

For many my age who think Stockholm Syndrome is just a Muse song let me flesh out the basics. It is instead defined as:

A paradoxical psychological phenomenon wherein a positive bond between hostage and captor occurs. In essence, eventually, the hostage views the perpetrator as giving life by simply not taking it.

For far too long, young people have been at the mercy of the Blair/Brown Curriculum.

Almost all of us rebel against our parents in our teens, but then why should we run into the arms of the big nanny state? There is a twisted Nineteen-Eighteen-Four aspect in our generation where we are taught: War is Peace (The Iraq War),  Freedom is Slavery (hundreds of children’s rights but no personal responsibility) and Ignorance is Strength (teaching us social issues, but not the educational facts that means we are unable to question and think for ourselves)

In a world where we are ‘told’ the standard of life has improved by reams of Gordon Brown’s statistics tell us they want a double-think worthy fair future for all. (Click hear for a new blog detailing all of Labour’s failures)

I ask you: Is it a fair future that thousands of young people leave school without the basic grasp of reading, writing and arithmetic? Is it a fair future when you finish university without there being enough jobs to go around? Is it a fair future that Labour doesn’t actively support the stability that marriage brings? Is it a fair future not being able to get a foot on the housing ladder? Is it a fair future that out of the almost 3 million unemployed 1 million of those are 18-24?

This is exacerbated even more by the second article I found, which shows Labour have dropped their pledge to get one million more people to own their home as it “compounds inequality”.

Their own Housing Minister, John Healey, attacked owner occupation, saying that:

“Home ownership had been dropping since 2005 and I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing” and he slammed parents passing a legacy on to their children since “inequality is compounded over the generations.”

Only in a world where 2+2=5 would this make sense and people would swallow it. The hard graft and determination to own your own home is one of greatest aspiration the young can aim for. It gives you a goal to work towards, it maintains your work-ethic, it gives you a sense of pride and something on which you can improve. While it is also something that you can leave to your children.

Relying on your own acumen and skill is something we should champion, not condemn.

Saying it compounds inequality just shows that Labour doesn’t want any free individual to own anything and wants everyone equally poor as Churchill correctly stated:

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

So at a time when the Government’s own advisory body indicates that only 26 per cent of families aged under 40 could afford to buy a home in England in 2008, the Conservatives are calling for:

• A permanent cut in stamp duty for first-time buyers up to £250,000
• For an equity stake for social tenants who are good neighbours
• Respecting the tenures and rents of social tenants
• And are pledging to build more family homes with parking spaces and gardens for young families by scrapping flawed Whitehall density rules.

This is why young people should vote Conservative on May 6th and break the cycle of being Labour’s captives and end these 13 years of their Big Brother government and start embracing the Conservative vision of the Big Society based on hope, not fear.

Via ConservativeHome:

Via Cranmer: Conservatives launch Debt Clock:

What you could buy with the interest on Labour’s debt:

If Britain was not going to spend £63.7 billion a year on debt interest, we could:

Abolish fuel duty, inheritance tax, and stamp duty or

Abolish council tax or

Pay for 1.5 million extra police officers or

Pay for 1.6 million extra teachers or

Pay for 1.9 million extra nurses or

Cut the basic rate of income tax by over 13p.

Britain will spend more next year on paying the interest on Labour’s debt than on educating our schoolchildren. The Dedicated Schools Grant in 2010-11 will be £31.9 billion. Debt interest payments will be £42.9 billion in 2010-11, and are estimated to rise to £63.7 billion by 2013-4.

And so on…

Foreign Secretary Milliband disgraces himself with propaganda worthy of the old Marxists:

The foreign secretary, David Miliband, today made a politically sensitive attack on the Tories, saying the Conservative party’s new alliances in Europe made him feel “sick”, and meant that the party was run by “a bunch of schoolboys”.

Much of Miliband’s annual speech to the Labour conference was devoted to a critique of the Tories’ foreign policy and, in particular, their new relationships being forged in Europe. Miliband told delegates that the Tories were now in alliance in the European parliament with the For Fatherland and Freedom party, a Latvian party that participates in an annual event commemorating the Latvian Waffen SS.

via Tory ties with EU extremists are sickening, says David Miliband |Politics |The Guardian.

However:

William Hague has described smears made by David Miliband in his speech to the Labour Party Conference as “disgraceful”.

Miliband’s speech included insults towards the Latvian Government, accusations of anti-Semitism against Polish politician Michal Kaminski and allegations against Eric Pickles.

William said that Mr. Miliband’s remarks were “cheap party spin” and “represent a failure of his duty to promote Britain’s interests”.

“This kind of shoddy politics should be beneath a Foreign Secretary”, William added.

via The Conservative Party | News | News | William Hague responds to Miliband’s “disgraceful” smears .

These dreadful new left politicos can’t be ejected too soon.

Fleeced!

Via the Taxpayers’ Alliance:

On Monday, Matthew Elliott and David Craig released their new book Fleeced! How we’ve been betrayed by the politicians, bureaucrats and bankers… and how much they’ve cost us, published by Constable. Fleeced! is the very first book to analyse the financial, fiscal and political crisis resulting from a decade spent under the stewardship of Gordon Brown and is a devastating indictment of Brown’s time as Chancellor and Prime Minister. The authors, who were the first to reveal the shocking truth about Brown’s overspending since 1997 in their previous books, show that in 12 years of New Labour around £1.5 trillion of taxpayers’ money has been squandered on an acceleration in profligate government spending fuelled by the economic boom; and around another £1.5 trillion has evaporated in the bust.

Fleeced! was given a big preview in the Daily Mail who summarised the key chapters, explaining how the authors arrived at the eye-watering total of £3 trillion for Gordon Brown’s mishandling of the economy. The release of Fleeced! and Brown’s £3 trillion con were also reported in:

The Sun, Labour blunders cost taxpayers £3 trillion

Daily Express, Brown the bungler has cost every person in Britain £50,000

Daily Mail, Brown’s mishandling of the economy has cost £50,000 for every person in Britain, according to new book

Daily Star, Bungler Brown has bled Britain dry

Daily Telegraph, Gordon Brown ‘wasted three trillion’

The Guardian, Comment Is Free: I see no wisdom, Mandelson

This is Money, Brown ‘cost us £50,000 each’ in tax

Press Association, ‘Brown cost taxpayers £3 trillion’

Matthew Elliott was interviewed on Sky Sunrise on Monday morning and on John Gaunt’s Suntalk radio show on Tuesday.

Fleeced! RRP £8.99, is now available in all good bookshops and on Amazon here

Few could forget the images of the Green Goddesses rolling into service during the national fire strikes of 2002 and 2003, manned by the Armed Forces. This week the threat of fire strikes hang over us again as a result of local industrial disputes spanning London, South Yorkshire, Humberside, Merseyside and Essex.

The prospect of being without our firefighters is very worrying indeed, but all the more so because of the reckless way in which the Government has left us without and emergency fire cover for this critical period – despite knowing for some time the threat of industrial action was looming.

The Green Goddesses have been sold off and government policy now excludes the possibility of the military stepping in to cover during fire strikes.

via ConservativeHome’s Platform: Caroline Spelman MP: The Labour Government has shamefully neglected its duty to defend the realm by leaving the country dangerously exposed if firefighters go out on strike.

There has been a spate of books recently on liberty and democracy. On my desk as I write there are half a dozen published within the past few months with titles such as What Price Liberty?; The Assault on Liberty; Democracy: a Thousand Years in Pursuit of British Liberty; and A Useful Fiction: Adventures in British Democracy. Their publication is a timely reminder of how we got where we are and evidence that cracks were appearing in our political system long before the expenses scandal that has engulfed Westminster.

via The rot that set in as New Labour took root – Telegraph.

When I read the following, I think of all those individuals and families in modestly- and low-paid jobs, who still pay tax, and I get really quite angry. Perhaps it is due to my ordinary upbringing and my personal knowledge of family and family friends who are not well-off, but who are apparently still funding this:

Lynne Jones, the far-Left Labour MP, billed the taxpayer more than £1,100 for upmarket Farrow & Ball wallpaper as part of a redecoration programme at her second home in London.

Miss Jones, a leading member of the Socialist Campaign Group founded by supporters of Tony Benn, gave her Lambeth flat a £22,000 facelift which also included £6,100 for a new bathroom, £600 for Persian rugs and £518 for an LCD television.

Almost £7,000 of claims for painting and decorating, furnishings and a new boiler were paid out after the date in 2007 when Miss Jones announced her intention to stand down as MP for Birmingham Selly Oak at the next general election.

via MPs’ expenses: Lynne Jones claimed £1,000 for wallpaper – Telegraph.

We have all had enough. It is time for immediate reform, fresh candidates, a general election and yet more reform, pushed by a new team who feel the burning indignation of the public.

In the meantime, I’m off to do some work for the Centre for Social Justice. I need to remind myself why we must press on and fix not just the expenses system but society itself.

William Hague once promised that New Labour would first be greeted with fascination, then admiration, then disillusionment and finally contempt.

Speaking to Tory candidates in Cheltenham (right) he made the strongest and most negative attack on Labour of the Cameron era.

via ConservativeHome’s ToryDiary: Hague throws rhetorical kitchen sink at the “decomposing political muckheap” that is Labour’s frontbench.

George Osborne reacts to today’s budget: