Cllr. Gavin Ayling

I’m pleased that an often quirky public figure took issue with irresponsible and selfish white van man: Link. And I’m even more pleased that the BBC did not take the side of PC for once!

Ken Clarke has made a speech today that reconfirms that, while he may be the most likely candidate to win a future election, he is also the least Conservative member of the party.

With hindsight Clarke was right about the war in Iraq. With hindsight those of us who never believed in the story of WMD or links to terrorism were wildly optimistic that a war could be carried out easily and quickly (though possibly in part due to a complete lack of preparedness for the insurgency). It is also obvious that the war in Iraq has made us an obvious target for Muslim extremists. However, what Clarke implies when he says that the Iraq war made us more likely to be attacked, is that there is some justification, and indeed, excuse, for the bombers. Someone once said that one person’s terrorists is another’s freedom fighter - these people are not fighting for their freedom, they’re fighting to remove ours.

I’m not a neo-con, and I am socially liberal, but to convince me that Clarke were the right person for Number 10, he would have to satisfactorily explain to me, and most other Tory members, how his support for the euro and all things EU (whether it has waned or not) can be balanced against the political balance that Conservatives normally attempt to reach. How can the man claim patriotism if he would willing surrender more of our sovereignty to a foreign and non-democratic organisation.

As Chancellor, Ken Clarke presided over tax cuts, but not the swingeing ones that we should have experienced. As a member of Thatcher’s government he did not make vocal complaints against her censorship of the media and ‘arts’. With his track record as an economic liberal and inconsistent about social issues how can he seriously take the newly right-wing Labour party to account? The Labour party that has involved itself in privatisation, erosion of social liberties and imposition of social legislation is far closer to Ken Clarke than it is to the majority of the Conservative party.

While it is not good for the Conservatives’ image, we also need to be honest about the need to restrict further immigration until those that are already here have had time to assimilate and avoid further ghettoisation. We also need an honest declaration about the need to treat harshly those known to be involved in extremist activities.

The main area of clear blue water between the Conservatives and Labour at the moment should be a more obvious declaration of adherence to civil liberties, a promise not to set laws that erode people’s freedom where it hurts no-one else as well as the more radical and so, exciting, financial liberalisation that was promised by the so-called choice agenda.