Cllr. Gavin Ayling

It’s a shame TypePad is down, it will be fascinating to know what David Vance thinks of the news about the Northern Ireland spy today…

David Cameron

David Cameron promised, during the leadership election, to leave the EPP (European People’s Party). To avoid any risk that he may renege on this promise, Daniel Hannan MEP suggests we write to William Hague (haguew@parliament.uk), David Cameron (camerond@parliament.uk) and Timothy Kirkhope (tkirkhope@europarl.eu.int).

Please read Daniel Hannan’s article.

Here’s what I have sent:

Dear Mr Hague

I am sure you have received many other similar messages so I shall keep this brief.

I’m sure you know that the majority of Conservatives are against the EU’s march towards a federal state; I’m sure you know that the majority of Britons, regardless of political affiliation, are against that too. However, I still feel it prudent to let you know that we members of the party wholeheartedly support the policy of leaving the EPP and welcome the removal of any ambiguity over whether the party’s “In Europe but not run by Europe” could actually be trusted.

I hope Kenneth Clarke’s outspoken position on this matter is not given too much credence.

Yours sincerely

Original post made at 16:18 on 16 December 2005

Update

David Cameron’s office replied already:

Thank you so much for copying your email to William Hague to David Cameron - he’s asked me to thank you and to say that he appreciated what you had to say enormously.

David Cameron has made clear that it is his firm policy that the Conservative Party under his leadership will not remain a member of the European Peoples Party-European Democrats Group (EPP-ED) in the European Parliament, and will aim to form a new grouping which reflects more closely our views on the way forward for Europe.

The Conservative Party has a fundamentally different approach on the key institutional and constitutional questions relating to the future direction of the European Union, and it is natural that we should wish to ally ourselves with parties which share that view. But we intend to maintain close relations with other centre-right parties with which we agree on much, but not on these issues.

David Cameron has asked the new Shadow Foreign Secretary to take forward this process, with appropriate consultation of all involved. In seeking a new alignment within the European Parliament, the Conservative Party will aim to continue to work closely with fellow centre-right parties in the European Parliament on the many issues on which we agree.

Many thanks again for writing.

Free people

Mat has got an absolutely superb article on the new political stomping ground of the political parties in post-1997 Britain. Read Mat’s post here.

I’ve covered the political compass previously on this blog so I won’t go into it in too much detail here. But it did trigger the following thoughts that I’ll share with you:

The Libdems are left and libertarian and the Tories are right and increasingly libertarian, as you said. However the Lib Dems have a nasty tendency of trying to be all things to all people.

In the country they’re free-market liberals who’ll protect the countryside. In the cities, they’re intellectuals (with beards) who believe in freedom of everyone including votes for paedophiles.

As you say, the Tories and the LibDems haven’t really moved, while Blair’s regime has taken the authoritarian route. This, it seems to me, is an acceptance by the left in Labour that Socialism does not work. Yes, there has to be some state interference, but not much.

The Tories and Labour are consistent in this:
- The Tories believe in free markets and free people.
- Labour believes in regulated markets and regulated people.
- LibDems believe in regulated markets but free people…

Of course, if I accepted Mat’s arguments about what the Lib Dems stood for, I would be a Liberal Democrat but their feelings on the free market, punishment of crimes, the EU and their political inconsistency (as if that’s not enough) are what make me a proud free-market, libertarian Conservative.

The NHS is going to stop people from using its services if you have done anything at all to deserve the ailment…

Click here.

Saddam after his arrest

I am pleased that Saddam Hussein’s trial is being considered, by virtually all observers, as fair. What this means is that if Saddam is not guilty of crimes against humanity there is a real prospect of him being found innocent.

But, as Leanne suggested, this puts us in a difficult position.

An innocent Saddam can stand for election at the next Presidential elections. In fact he absolutely must be allowed to stand for election. But what if he wins? If Saddam wins is there any chance he will agree to continue operating Iraq as a democracy? What moral justification for the war can there be if the majority of people in Iraq were actually happy with their previous leader? Afterall the toppling of Saddam has been the justification ever since Bush’s terrorism claims, and Blair’s WMD claims were found to be lacking.

I think the problem with the questions above, though, is their blatant hypotheticalism. There is little doubt that Saddam is guilty of crimes against humanity and, even if he is found innocent, there is little chance of winning an election with free and fair elections. With that in mind it puts the last two questions beyond the need to answer.

There is another hypothetical question that occurs to a lot of people when discussing war in Iraq: What if we’d finished the job in 1991?

I believed at the time, and continue to believe now, that we should have continued into Iraq at the time and finished Saddam’s rule. A leader that will attack another for no reason (Kuwait) is bad enough but, when he was being forced to retreat, that he started targetting Israel with Skud missiles is beyond reason and suggests that he should not have been allowed to peddle his hate on his people any longer. Bush Snr. compounded matters by encouraging the Shia in the south to rise up against Saddam. But without the coalition’s support this uprising was visciously put down by the Republican Guard. Another ‘what if’ leads us to question what may have happened then too.

The whole Iraq affair is littered with ‘what ifs’ and ‘what might have beens’ but the real question is: Is the war ultimately good?

Personally I think it is too early to answer that question. If the sum of the failings to do not result in an absolute failure, then the war will have been good. If having not planned for terrorism, having not supported earlier uprisings, having used chemical weapons and having started the war using false justifications, Iraq is not improved - then we must decide, I think, that the war was not, afterall, justifiable.