Conservatives still lost

The Conservative Party conference has kicked off in Bournemouth with David Cameron saying he wont be promising tax cuts at the next election. He is saying this because the Tories have promised tax cuts before and lost – and because apparently a lot of Brits dont believe health and education can get better with tax cuts. Meanwhile, the honeymoon poll period he’s been enjoying is over. Labour and the Tories are virtually neck and neck, and one big reason is because people don’t know what the Conservative Party stands for. Sound familiar?
*
In 2002, following three years of the Clark government, Bill English presented to the New Zealand electorate a lacklustre campaign which talked a lot about education, the economy and values, but said nothing substantial. He wasn’t prepared to talk about tax cuts, he wasn’t prepared to talk much about reforming the economy or the state sector and he certainly wouldn’t have said that the reason so many Maori have lung cancer is because they choose to smoke. National hadn’t learnt from 1999, when a bitter electorate was sick of the party that sold its soul to govern with Winston, and then sold it again to remain in power with the likes of Alamein Kopu, Tuariki Delamere and Tuku Morgan.
*
Labour sold a message of three years of strong stable government, which saw big spending increases in areas the public likes (health and education), lots of booty for its supporters (Maori, arts sector, environment) and the union movement getting the repeal of the Employment Contracts Act. Labour was riding high on a growing economy, low unemployment and a sense of contentment. Clark was a formidable debater, she knew what she believed in and could articulate it strongly – English never could. Bill English is a hardworking and honest man - but he fears having strong convictions, and it showed. He never looked like he believed he could win the election – as a result, Labour increased its share of the vote, and the disenchanted voted for NZ First (revitalised with Winston’s “3 policy” pledge), United Future (also revitalised having adopted the Christian Future NZ party and being the media darling with his “common sense” cliche) and ACT (which got its best ever result).
*
National suffered – it had its worst vote ever. Less than 21% of the vote. A year later, it was polling double that, with Don Brash as leader. Brash has been willing to take a stand on principle. Most notably he took a stand against Maori political correctness and the big elephant in the room of New Zealand politics – state privilege for Maori. He was saying what many thousands of New Zealanders had been saying, and what smaller parties had been saying. He also took a stand on tax – promising worthwhile tax cuts across the board. In 2005 the result was 39%, and near victory.
*
The Tories have had a boost in support for two reasons – firstly, the public is fed up with Labour. The war in Iraq has bled support to the Lib Dems, and the constant scandals of the likes of Blunkett, Prescott and the Brown/Blair divide aren’t impressing anyone. Labour is now looking as sleazy as the Tories did in the Major era. In addition, Blair – who won it for Labour three times, is on his way out and is seen as an outgoing PM. Any support he could bring has withered away. Secondly, David Cameron is young and charismatic, and the darling of the media. His radical approach to matters such as demanding more female and ethnic minority candidates is pushing some buttons – basically he is moving towards the left, while rightwing Tories are going “shhhh don’t rock the boat”.

*

You see Cameron has changed the party logo to the insipid tree at the top of this post - we have statements such as "hug a hoodie" where Cameron wants to "understand" why yobs are useless good for nothings. The answer is simple - because they aren't scared of the justice system.

*

The party has released new "Aims and Values". They are hardly inspiring:

*

Supporting the shared experiences that bring us together and promote well-being, like sport, the arts and culture, and reforming the National Lottery so that its proceeds are properly allocated to these purposes.
*
Supporting families and marriage, and making high quality childcare more available and more affordable.
*
investment in new light rail systems for cities
*
Working towards the target of giving 0.7% of national income in
aid by 2013
*
What party is this now?
*
It is only mildly redeemed by:
*
Further reforming the Common Agricultural Policy, abolishing all
remaining production-linked subsidies, scrapping import tariffs and
removing all export subsidies.
*
Abolishing ID cards if they are introduced.

*

Furthermore David Cameron's speech talks about "corporate responsibility" because, you see, business should feel guilty. Shadow Environment Secretary Peter Ainsworth tops the vapidity stakes by saying "We accept that the economic cost of not tackling climate change will be infinitely greater than the cost of taking action now" . Infinitely greater? Really? So it will eradicate humanity? What utter rot - pandering to the eco tax lobby, surrendering to the recycling nazis who refuse to operate landfills on a for-profit basis, and complain that people throw so much away, surrendering to the economic luddites who leave local government running roads as parts of their personal political fiefdoms.

*

Cameron's approach to foreign policy has also been less than inspiring, pandering a little to anti-Americanism as he seeks the anti-war vote. He may even be listening to former PM Mike Moore (yes our Mike Moore), you could do worse than follow him on trade.

*

It is the job of the Conservative Party to wean people off the state - increasingly it shows little interest in doing much beyond stopping it getting worse. It should promote getting rid of corporate welfare, being innovative about infrastructure by getting out of the way, and letting social services be driven by consumer choice rather than bureaucracy. It should be aiming to shift from welfare and public housing to employment, growth and private property ownership. It can progress beyond the prejudice of xenophobia and conservative morality that alienates it from immigrants and many of the young – while not touting bullshit like “hug a hoodie”.
*
Anthony King of the Daily Telegraph says the party should focus on being anti-waste and anti-regulation – that would be a good start. This should push some buttons, many are sick of being pushed around and an anti-nanny state campaign would be something Labour would find hard to rebut -and would be playing in territory that the Liberal Democrats long abandoned, since they took over the role of Michael Foot in 21st century UK politics.
*

One can only hope they realise it. You see, only 18% want the Conservatives to commit to drastically reducing the size of government – 18%!!

*

Britain needs the Conservative Party. It is the only party with a decent number of members who believe in less government - it is the only party that can confront the dark deathly socialist menace of the European Commission - the number one enemy of agriculturally oriented countries - and it is the only party that has any hope of defending fundamental freedoms. Cameron has made a few good starts, he isn't promising a hardline on drugs or censorship and has sought to get rid of the grey haired old men born to rule image of the party - but he has also been throwing out some political babies, as he courts the middle ground of political vapidity.

*

It would be nice to think of him as being more than just "better than Gordon Brown". The British public deserve a lot better.

US gambling ban a huge blow against freedom

Every so often the US Federal Government shows how little it understands the spirit of the Constitution. In banning online gambling, it shows crass disregard for the pursuit of happiness - all those who voted for the ban, in both houses of Congress should be ashamed.
*
Now the Congress, and in all likelihood George. W. Bush can join Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Zimbabwe and other killjoys in stopping consenting adult Americans from spending their money the way they see fit. President Ahmadinejad of Iran will be thrilled.
*
The effect has been to decimate the share prices of online gaming companies, but then why should Demoplicans or Republicrats give a damn about capitalism, or entrepreneurialism, unless the respective entrepreneurs pass a gold doubloon into their palms?
*
Bastards - how dare they stop Americans doing as they wish.

Labour attacks your right to free speech

PC is dead right on proposals to overhaul the funding of political parties. You should be outraged. This is pure partisan prejudice. It is Labour spitting the dummy that it doesn't get funding from those who fund National.

*

Tough shit.

*

Why should I not be able to donate by whatever means I wish to whatever political party I wish? Why? Because it might be seen as buying influence? Well let's be clear about that - the only parties that can be seen to have enjoyed that are those that SELL influence. That means the parties of big government. Labour dishes out subsidies and regulations, National would too, or maybe just liberalise some areas but not others. The Maori Party and Greens happily support dishing out taxpayer's favours to those they like, and United Future and NZ First aren't exactly averse to it either.

*

So you'd only be concerned if you supported a union based party or a crony capitalist based party. The policies that allow this are obvious - they are in place now.

*

and don't start me on state funding of political parties.

Preventing perverted thoughts is impossible

New member of my blogroll, Tezza has pointed out how Gymnastics New Zealand is requiring all spectator's cameras to be registered. According to Stuff "SAFE sexual offenders programme director John McCarthy said there was a small risk paedophiles could attend the event". Really? I wonder if he will spot them. It can't be the coach can it? Or how about Sarah's dad? Or Tania's brother? or Tiffany's mother? You can spot them you see. You know who they are.

*

Of course it is up to Gymnastics New Zealand to do as it wishes on its own property. However this is part of a bigger trend. There is:

*

- Banning photos of kids in a nativity play;

- UK Post Office banning 5yo's passport photo because her exposed shoulders might offend a Muslim country (later overturned;

- FBI calling on schools to not put photos of their students on their website;

- This blogger banned from taking a photo at an Irish dancing championship;

- Air NZ and British Airways not seating men beside unaccompanied children.

*

Now nobody is going to question the need for children to be protected from pervs. However, there is palpable hysteria out there about the likely risks. The number one risk of children getting sexually abused is from people the child knows. Why? Because a stranger has to be brave or stupid to start randomly approaching children - it used to happen more in the past when there was some perspective on these things. I remember being warned about strangers, and some man invited me to his cabin on a holiday and my parents told me it wasn't a good idea. Having said that, I wandered the streets alone as a child quite a lot from age 8 upwards, in ways I bet few parents allow now - nothing happened to me, and if an adult scared me (which happened occasionally) I ran - it helped I lived in a suburb with wide open streets and footpaths, so it was difficult to do anything without being seen.

*

So after mum's boyfriend, stepdad, dad, grandad, uncle, cousins, neighbours, family friends and brothers - you've knocked out most of the risk factors. The next level would probably be sister, mother and aunt (yes there are female child molesters, they are in the minority, but certainly there). Then you can worry about the photographer.

*

You see, I remember being at school swimming sports and there was a father of one of the children who took photos of many of the kids by the pool, for the school magazine. He was always a kindly man who was very sweet, and there was never an issue of his motives. Now one can never really know who is turned on by what. I can bet you that odds are that you know someone who gets aroused by things that might shock or disturb you, or maybe it is you. You'll never ever know - because, after all, it's rather easy to use your imagination and masturbate. It is reasonable to protect your children from being sexually assaulted (or assaulted full stop), it is also reasonable to avoid strangers taking photos of them without your permission - but when does this start to become a ridiculous restriction on freedom of expression. If you allow your child to perform in a play, you probably want to take photos - other parents probably do too - if the local perv does as well, then really what IS the harm? He isn't peeking in changing rooms, where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy.

*

The problem is that people masturbate about other people all the time. It has probably happened to you and you can be grateful you probably don't know the people who have done it. If you're really hot you'll have had thousands get aroused for you, and there were almost certainly pedos who got aroused for me when I was a child. The fact I never saw them or knew about it means it doesn't matter.

*

Pervs putting gymnast photos on the internet is disconcerting. However, there is little doubt that there is a fetish for professional gymnasts. There is also a fetish for girls smoking, fetish for school uniforms and fetish for girls in football clothes etc etc. There is probably a fetish for women wearing the burkha. People will sexualise whatever arouses them, and as long as they don't act on it, except with consenting adults, it is nobody else's business.

*

So hopefully the hysteria will die down - and the law will never get involved, except to protect private property rights.

*

Hopefully it wont get to this stage.

Brash, Winston and political correctness

Don Brash in the last few weeks has said some of the same sort of things that got me in a slight amount of trouble in university.
*
It was when I realised that free speech was something that you took into your own hands at university. I learnt that there was a received wisdom, and it had a long list. Some of that was things I agree with, other I don’t. The ones I didn’t were the notion that ethnicity should ever matter, and that people were not responsible for their own lifestyle. I talked of what being Maori “really was” and why someone who is born of certain parents should be entitled to a special place at university. I talked of how the only way Maori health statistics could make a huge step forward is if they stopped smoking so much, ate better and exercised more. None of this is rocket science and it wasn’t new in the late 1980s.
*
However, I got hounded. I was told I had a racist point of view, that I didn’t take into account the Treaty, that I ignored poverty and how much Maori had lost – and that to be Maori you had to “feel” Maori. My response was that I could “feel” Maori and that would be legitimate – except I guess there would be a committee to decide whether I really did feel what I said. I found that there was an accepted view of Maori having been oppressed, not responsible for what they do and all being disadvantaged. Being the son of lower-middle class Scottish immigrants, who came to NZ with virtually nothing, I found this rather grating. However, as I wasn’t Maori/Polynesian, female or gay, so I was part of the power hierarchy that ran the world – and the assumption was that everything was easy for me. So nice to have non-Maori women judge me so thoroughly. Fascists!
*
I had to keep my mouth shut- there was an unofficial longlist of opinions that would raise irrational responses ranging from patronising sadness (oh dear, poor boy doesn’t know better) to anger at how offensive I could be. The list included a wide and varied type of issues:
*
- The government should give more money to Maori;
- There should be a separate Maori legal system;
- Education should be free;
- Free market reforms are wrong;
- All women are oppressed, men are the oppressors;
- Ronald Reagan is an evil warmongerer, the USA is the cause of so much trouble in the world;
- All women have a right to state funded free contraception and abortion on demand;
- Nuclear weapons are bad and all countries should disarm;
- Nuclear power is unsafe;
- Prisons are wrong and Maori commit crime because of the Treaty breaches;
- Pornography should be banned because it insults all women;
- Free speech is a right, except when it offends or upsets anyone;
- It is impossible for non-Maori to understand the special relationship Maori have with the land, sea, sky and spirits;
- Maori spirits should be respected, but Christians should accommodate blasphemy;
- Building motorways is bad;
- Big business is bad and the world is being taken over by transnational corporations;
- Free trade is bad, because it oppresses poor countries and it doesn’t work and doesn’t exist anyway.
*
Get the picture? Buy into the leftwing manifesto or get sneered at.
*
Brash was foolish talking about the blood purity of Maori – because it is irrelevant. The notion of being Maori, English, Japanese, Mexican or Serbian is psychological. Race is, at the most, a relatively minor biological feature which should have about as much interest to us all as hair and eye colour. I am sure that if statistics were gathered for blondes, brunettes and redheads there would be umpteen overs and unders in health, education, sports, crime, wealth etc. The discrimination as well is obvious. Blondes are stereotyped as stupid, redheads as having anger problems. These characteristics are more objective than being Maori – being Maori is a state of mind. Now there is nothing necessarily wrong with having an affinity to others as such, especially if you appreciate having some shared DNA and culture. This is part of the diversity of being human – but it is not a reason for the state to think of you differently. The heterogeneity of humanity is a good thing – and when the state has discriminated, it deserves attention – but the state does not do so anymore and has not for some time. Brash would have been better simply saying that whether or not people are Maori should be irrelevant to government. He shouldn’t get embroiled into whether there is anything objective about being Maori – because, realistically, it should not matter.
*
As far as lung cancer is concerned, Brash is dead right. Maori die more of lung cancer because more smoke, and that is their choice. There has not been tobacco advertising now for around 18 years, and for some years before that it was quite innocuous – promoting brands rather than “you should smoke”. Most people start smoking in their teens, and it happens because they are trying to be adults – because they are sheeple, following their peers and because it annoys adults. Thousands stop smoking by choice – those who don’t do so knowing the dangers – this is because the dangers have been publicly known since the 1960s at the latest.
*
Unfortunately, in New Zealand in 2006, it is ok for a Labour government and a Green MP to tell you what to eat and when to exercise, but not for a Caucasian male National Party MP to point out that if more Maori people choose to smoke than non-Maori, it is no wonder that more will die of lung cancer. Brash is a victim of the insidious political correctness cultivated by the left – the same political correctness that makes excuses for those who beat up their kids, because of their race.
*
To top it off, for Winston Peters, who once proclaimed the same policies as Brash on Maori affairs, who campaigned as such, to call Brash evil is such incredible hypocrisy (Winston is hunting for the Maori vote again). Let’s see some quotes from Winston to see how he plays the race card:
*
“We have now reached the point where you can wander down Queen Street in Auckland and wonder if you are still in New Zealand or some other country”
*
"We are being dragged into the status of an Asian colony and it is time that New Zealanders were placed first in their own country."
*
Yes, Winston courted the votes of his greedly grey grizzler constituency – you know the ones that think anyone who looks Asian is a “Jap” and “doesn’t bloody trust them, remember the war?”. How about the ones who say “they’re different from us”, “they’ll take our jobs”. Winston knows the prejudices he milks, the fear he stoked among Asian immigrants – and now he’s in bed with the Labour Party. I need say no more.