Friday, October 31, 2003
Sod's law
Rather typically, I start up this Blog and ramble on at length for three months or more, only to go away and miss the most bloggable event so far. Yes, the Tories finally "assasinated" their leader and without bothering to consult the membership who elected him either. This is because, when it comes to the crunch, the Tories can happily discard the democratic process in pursuit of their own perceived self-interest. In place of IDS we are now apparently being offered a reconstructed Michael Howard, who it seems is going to be crowned without a vote, rather like they used to do it under Macmillan and Alec Douglas Hume. The mechanism by which the Tories secured their vote of no confidence was tortuous to say the least. That is why I pronounced in an earlier post that I had tired of the whole process. It seemed like it took an age for the necessary 25 Tory MPs to summon up the courage to write those letters demanding a vote. Personally, I was very taken by a comment posted by Clive Soley MP on his new Blog. He wrote, "There was a rather cruel comment by one Tory MP who said he didn't know about 25 signatures to start an election but it only took three signatures to Section IDS under the Mental Health Act! There is no mercy in politics especially on your own side!"
So if we are to get Michael Howard then it must be open season on his record as Home Secretary and of course, that comment by Ann Widdicombe that he had "something of the night about him." Numerous comments have already been posted on Blogs and elsewhere as well as thousands of words of newsprint. I was particularly taken by Polly Toynbee's article in this morning's Guardian. Under the headline "The night is drawing in" she stated about Howard that "Right from his 1983 maiden speech advocating the restoration of the death penalty, he has courted cheap popularity. It was not being rightwing that worried people like Ann Widdicombe: it was his willingness to dabble in almost any unsavoury policy that looked like a winner. Europhobic, homophobic (he introduced Clause 28 and voted against gay adoptions), anti-abortion (he voted for the Alton Bill to restrict it), he called for General Pinochet's release. As for wise policy-making, he was a key minister responsible for the poll tax." It send shivers down my back.
So if we are to get Michael Howard then it must be open season on his record as Home Secretary and of course, that comment by Ann Widdicombe that he had "something of the night about him." Numerous comments have already been posted on Blogs and elsewhere as well as thousands of words of newsprint. I was particularly taken by Polly Toynbee's article in this morning's Guardian. Under the headline "The night is drawing in" she stated about Howard that "Right from his 1983 maiden speech advocating the restoration of the death penalty, he has courted cheap popularity. It was not being rightwing that worried people like Ann Widdicombe: it was his willingness to dabble in almost any unsavoury policy that looked like a winner. Europhobic, homophobic (he introduced Clause 28 and voted against gay adoptions), anti-abortion (he voted for the Alton Bill to restrict it), he called for General Pinochet's release. As for wise policy-making, he was a key minister responsible for the poll tax." It send shivers down my back.
