Election 2017 blues

The outcome of Teresa May’s snap election has come as a big disappointment to those on the right of British politics. Far from achieving the landslide predicted at the time she called the election, the Tories have been left without an overall majority. Her authority as Conservative leader has been seriously diminished. So what went wrong?

To look on the bright side the Conservatives achieved nearly 60 more seats than Labour, they won both the largest share, and total vote, of any party in recent elections, and they ended all talk of a second Scottish independence referendum for the foreseeable future. Although the Tories lack an overall majority, the parliamentary arithmetic is still in their favour as the seven Sinn Fein members will not be attending parliament. In addition, she can count on the support of the ten Democratic Unionists, so in practical terms she has the backing of about 328 members, whereas the combined strength of the opposition parties can never exceed 315, thus giving the Tories a working majority of around 13.

With the benefit of hindsight it becomes easier to see the folly of Teresa May and her party becoming beguiled by favourable opinion poll ratings, and underestimating how they could melt away in the heat of a campaign. What has now become apparent is that Teresa May’s political style is managerial, lacking the human engagement with the electorate to win them over when the going gets tough. She appeared robotic and uncomfortable in interviews, and by ducking the leadership debates she gave the impression of being both ‘frit’ and arrogant at the same time. In contrast Jeremy Corbyn proved adept at campaigning and winning over audiences, in contrast to his often plodding parliamentary performances.

The ostensible reason for calling the election was to strengthen Teresa May’s hand in the negotiations on leaving the EU. However, in practice the focus on this objective was quickly overtaken by other issues, in particular Labour’s stress on ending austerity, the under-funding of public services and the failure of the Tories to raise living standards for ordinary people. The two terrorist atrocities allowed Labour to point the finger at Tory cuts in police manpower. In their complacency, the Tories alienated older supporters with ill thought out proposals for the funding of social care and the withdrawal of the winter fuel payment for most pensioners. In contract Labour could entice young voters with the abolition of tuition fees. At the end of the day little positive reasons were provided in the manifesto for people to vote Tory. Their strategy can be summarised as trust Teresa May as she is clearly more competent than the unelectable extremist Jeremy Corbyn, whom they proceeded to demonise with the aid and support of their press backers. Unfortunately for the Tories insufficient members of the electorate were persuaded by these negative tactics.

So what of the future? The main task remains a satisfactory outcome in the negotiations to leave the European Union. The election outcome should have no impact on this as the only parliamentary vote will be on whether to accept the final agreement reached. The Tories will need to do more to end low pay, improve public services, reverse the fall in home ownership, and make a more determined effort to reduce uncontrolled immigration, in particular of Muslims through arranged marriages. Unfortunately, the Conservatives commitment to introduce more grammar schools now looks a lot more problematic, given the lukewarm approach of some Tory MPs.

With regard to the other parties, Jeremy Corbyn should be congratulated for increasing the Labour vote by nearly ten per cent when many pundits, including the majority of his MPs, had written him off at the start of the campaign. Although sincere and straight talking he remains a deeply unsavoury character with his past sympathy for IRA terrorist objectives, toleration of Islamist fanatics, and admiration for repugnant or dysfunctional Marxist regimes such as those of Castro and Chavez. He would be more than happy to flood Britain with immigrants from all parts of the globe, and his reflex public obsequiousness towards ethnic minority people and their often regressive practices, and sometimes degenerate culture, is nothing more than nauseating virtue signalling.

Despite all this Labour still managed to produce some sensible policies. Gas, electricity and water are all natural monopolies, and their privatisation has provided only fake competition and negligible benefits. It cannot be right that young people are saddled with huge debts for a university education. Unfettered globalisation appears to have enriched those who caused the financial crash with obscene telephone number bonuses, yet impoverished still further those with the least skills at the bottom end of society.

As for the minor parties, UKIP is clearly finished having served its purpose. It may have a residual role as a pressure group for a clean British EU exit if Nigel Farage is prepared to resume the leadership. The Liberal Democrats plan to scupper Brexit with a second referendum thankfully gained no traction and the party remains an irrelevance. The Green Party continues on the fringe of British politics where it belongs. Although environmental protection is important the Greens’ infatuation with the ludicrous and discredited climate change hoax means they cannot be taken seriously about anything.

In conclusion, the Tories should make the best of the hand they have been dealt. There should be no backsliding on leaving the European Union, including withdrawal from the single market and customs union and ending the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. Until the Brexit negotiations have been successfully completed, nothing would be gained by a change in the Conservative leadership, and an early general election might lead to still more support for the Labour party. So the Tories should stay united, get on with governing the country and demonstrate that they can deliver administrative and economic competence.

President Trump gives a lead

Politicians sometimes like to proclaim that it is necessary for them to provide a lead in order that an outcome that is ultimately beneficial to society is achieved. President Trump has shown in no uncertain terms his willingness to demonstrate such a lead when he pulled the United States out of the Paris climate change agreement. It is to be hoped that other countries follow suit, in particular President Putin of Russia who has always appeared lukewarm over the global warming agenda.

Needless to say Trump’s wise decision to confront reality on this matter has provoked predictable howls of outrage from European Union leaders, who have been the most vocal supporters of the failed theory that increases in CO2 emissions lead to a rise in global temperatures resulting in uncontrollable climate change. In fact the reality has been that for the past two centuries, since the end of the ‘little ice age’ which saw frost fairs held on the Thames, there has been remarkably little change in global temperature despite a considerable increase in CO2 emissions. Therefore it is reasonable to assume the next couple of centuries will similarly show little change in global temperatures.

Supporters of the climate change hoax point out that 95% of scientists believe that climate change is a ‘reality’. What they fail to point out is that in the 1970s 95% of scientists believed that CO2 emissions were not a problem that would lead to rising global temperatures. Indeed some of the more vocal climatologists, as shown here http://bit.ly/27RaoNr, were concerned instead that we were heading for a new ice age, on the grounds that global temperatures had been on a falling trend during the previous thirty years. It should also be remembered that the discovery that CO2 was a greenhouse gas took place in the late 19th century, but only became problematic for scientists a century later.

Promoters of climate change alarmism invariably cite more extreme weather phenomena, which always occur, albeit infrequently, as ‘evidence’ of climate change. For example a few years back Britain was subjected to a prolonged drought which the alarmist pundits blamed on global warming. But later when the problem was reversed and severe flooding occurred, these same pundits also blamed global warming as the cause. Climate change means that the climate of a country is gradually moving in one direction, in this instance either becoming drier, or wetter. It cannot be both and constitute a change in climate. So the alarmists are confusing extreme weather variables as supposed evidence of a trend towards a changing climate. It should never be forgotten that the motivation for the climate change hoax is political one, not a search for scientific truth.

What is Islamophobia?

Over the years the politically correct class has coined a variety of deprecatory labels designed to both denigrate their opponents and promote their own virtue. Words such as a sexist, racist, homophobia and transphobia have entered the political lexicon. Self styled ‘progressives’ enjoy challenging the supposedly ‘bigoted’ beliefs of their opponents, but they rarely engage in open debate on the merits of their own views, preferring instead to silence opposition through the method of pejorative denunciation.

One such label is ‘Islamophobia’ which is designed to deflect any open discussion or investigation that might shine a light on the dark age superstition that is sometimes promoted as the ‘religion of peace’. What is never made clear is why the general public should not be phobic about this belief system, when it is clearly the driving force behind the overwhelming majority of terrorist atrocities and military conflict in the world today.

Defenders of Islam often try to equate jihadism with the comparatively miniscule examples of right wing violence. There is however one crucial difference between the two, right wing ideology is condemned regardless of whether or not it is accompanied by violence. In contrast the motivation behind jihadism, namely Islam, is rarely ever questioned but instead is accepted as a normal and rational belief system.

In reality there is no theological distinction between terrorist groups such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda, and the barbarous Islamic regimes of Iran and Saudi Arabia, with their oppression of women, suppression of religious minorities and routine use of executions for minor infractions of a repressive moral code, together with numerous other deeply regressive practices. The only difference is that the terrorists groups are more likely to openly support jihadism to achieve their objective of a global Islamic caliphate. Hypocritically, British governments have condemned the Islamic terrorist groups whilst at the same time providing billions of pounds worth of arms to the repulsive Saudi regime. Moreover, politicians have also ludicrously attempted to set themselves up as Islamic scholars by trying to define what are, and are not, real Islamic values.

The politically correct class have shown the same double standard, condemning political parties such as UKIP for supposedly fomenting ‘hate’ and ‘bigotry’, whilst rushing to condemn those who question the regressive practices of Islam as promoting Islamophobia. So the answer to the question as to what constitutes Islamophobia can be defined as ‘a well founded rational fear that Islam presents a mortal danger to western cultural and political values, and way of life’. So instead of being cowed by accusations of Islamophobia people should instead embrace it as a badge of honour.