The best tory leader we never had?

 

*That* subject...

 Tom Paine is always a recommended read, but his recent post on immigration nails it.  

Politicians talk about people being in favour of immigration, or not (, or racist, or xenophobic...) but it isn't that simple.  Like many groups, immigrants are not an homogenous lump.  Some are a positive benefit to the UK and should be welcomed with open arms.  Others merit our sympathy for the treatment they ave received at home and should also be welcomed.  Some should not.  

So the politician who calls for a lenient approach to immigrants justifies that by reference to those in the first two groups.  And they are right.  Then, the politician who wants immigration to be controlled points to the latter group.  And they are right, too.  Any discussion between them is a waste of time, because they are talking at cross purposes.  

We need an intelligent, discerning, effective and efficient immigration policy of the type that politicians have conspicuously failed to give for the last 25 years or so.  It needs to encourage - and enable - immigrants to arrive via legal routes with their documentation intact as far as possible.  It needs to be understanding if they are unable to do so.  It needs to identify those who will not make a positive contribution to the UK and deny them entry.  It needs to find those who, having arrived, are making a negative contribution and politely escort them home.  

Then, the policy might generate a little respect and understanding.  Oddly, sending selected foreigners home might actually reduce outbreaks of racism...

Where did the Conservatives go wrong? (part 1 of 8,273...)

 This is a huge and many-faceted question, of course.  The choice of possible points to raise is as enormous as, well, the scale of their defeat.  So I'll probably come back to this in future.  But there's one that I want to flag up immediately. 

That's the Truss issue.  No, not her appointment as leader & PM*, I'm referring to her later un-appointment.  The Party had asked its members which of two candidates should be leader, and the membership gave a clear answer; Truss, not Sunak.  The parliamentary party then promptly removed Truss and inserted its choice instead - carefully ensuring that the membership were not consulted in the process.  

That sent a number of messages.  First, it told just over half the membership that their views were not welcome.  Two years out from an election, and you tell half your most committed supporters to **** off.  Not a terribly clever move.  

Second, it must have made the rest of the country think that if that's how they treat their supporters, how are they going to treat us??  Which is not great.

Finally, it was a clear and public display of indecision, mild panic, and - very seriously for a Conservative party - disloyalty.  Not a quality that people look for in a government.  

Before then, I think it was just about possible that the Conservatives could have pulled it together, made the arguments, shown that their opponent was trying to be all things to all men**, and got themselves in shape for a 2024 election.  After then, it was all downhill as their credibility was gone.

 

*I was a Party member at the time and voted for her over Sunak.  Many point to her brief tenure and proclaim that her program of lowering taxes & inviting economic growth was clearly mad, pointing at the swift and decisive response that it provoked from the markets.   Except that it didn't, of course.  What provoked the adverse response was her reluctant agreement that HMG should provide a potentially unlimited underwriting of household energy bills, a policy forced on her by 25 years of energy policy failure by successive governments, finally hitting home. 

** even while unable to clearly define confusing terms like "man" and "woman".

Well hello again...

 I remember someone suggesting in 2010 that the right-wing bloggers would decline, as a political blog really needs a government that the blogger disagrees with in order to generate the material and the motivation to keep the flow of posts going.  I pooh-poohed the idea, but looking back at my stats it is pretty clear they were right and I was wrong.  

But here we are... a new government that (admittedly) hasn't done much yet but which I rather suspect I am going to disagree with.  We also have the small matter of a Conservative Party that completely lost its way and been punished appropriately for it.  That needs gentle nudging (or a hard kicking, I'm relaxed, whatever) back onto a course that might be described as being, well, conservative.  

 So I think I'll be here again once in a while.  More that I have for the last 14 years, anyway.