Liberal Hunting- a boy can dream....

This isn`t irony , this is a call to arms . Look out Kempton we have you in range

( Stolen from the amazing raincoaster a sort of media poet who irritates amuses , entertains and all sorts have a look)

http://raincoaster.com/

In Praise of Joe Dolce

In “About a boy”, Nick Hornby the hero Will , makes a living from royalties from an ancient Christmas hit always on a new advert somewhere in The East , I think Asia is pretty key in all this actually .The “friend” in Bridget Jones` Diaries had one hit in the 80s and found this enough to get shagged forever. I saw one of the Bros brothers saying something rather mournful which was that you cease to be “hot” but the pure recognition stays forever . That right isn’t it you don’t forget people they cease to be interesting like a pile of junk in the basement .Sigue Sigue Sputnik were a truly awful one hit wonder , they wander this penumbral region of virtual half life like unquiet spirits. Croydonian ,the worlds greatest blogger noticed them disputing rights to the name.

I love one hit wonders though.

People are always saying what a tragedy it was that the sublime ( I don1t think) “Vienna “ was kept of the top spot by Joe Doce and Shaddup you face .Au contraire Vienna was manure in a raincoat and Joe Dolce was a genius with much to say about life and art .
Let us examine the La Dolce Vita

Art Forum examines the work of J Dolce


Hello, I'ma Guiseppi, I gottta something speciala for you, Ready, uno, duo, tres, quatro.

(…………..calling to the muse clearly Homeric in inspiration… ),

When I was a boy just about a fiftha grade, Mama used to say don'ta stay out alateWith the badda boys, always shoota pool, Guiseppi goin-ta flunka school

( Immediately savage social commentary is commenced with the mother making explicit , the moral centre of the piece)

Boy it make-a me sick, everyting I gotta doI can'ta getta no kicks, always gotta follow rulesBoy it make-a me sick, just to make-a lousy bucksGotta a feela like a fool

( the hero chafes at the discipline required for the nation to succeed . Shakespeare dealt with similar material in Henry V part 1, the hero must cast the childish , the Falstaffian aside.)

And the mama used to say all the time,What'sa matter you, hey, gotta no respectWhatta you tink you do, why you looka so sadItsa not so bad, Itsa nice-a place, Ahh shaddupa you face

( In the Greek style chorus the emotional counterpoint mirrors the dialectic between conformity and inspiration , resolved with the a plea for silence as the hero struggles to find reconciliation)

Newmainia is a sensitive feeling person and always looking for beauty.

See link to Croydonian the worlds greatest blogger in the below post

What tax would you cut ?

Somebody asked which taxes you would reduce , I had a few quick thoughts and suddenly its all so clear…………..


Well what a marvellous suggestion this is .
1 Corporation tax I must urgently be reduced as I think even the lobotomised left accept
2 The tax allowance must be raised
3 VAT should immediately be scrapped on all goods with a proven green effect . This would have a massive knock on result for the placement of resources and research into efficiency . Similarly tax breaks should be available for green cars and UK holidays .(Actually labour want to tax UK holidays by adding a surcharge on B and Bs )
(Beneath this green dressing the secret agenda would be to scrap VAT altogether it is a vicious regressive tax we were ,until fairly recently, better off without )

4 Tax allowances for exam results payable to parents .
5 Scrap Stamp duty there is no reason for it whatsoever
6 Scrap inheritance tax or at least tie it to house prices ..obviously
7 Scrap IPT .
8 Return tax benefits to dividends in pension funds ,,obviously

........And so on , a series of virtuous tax advantages by which happy means we also reduce the size of the state encouraging better behaviours and responsibility. This would be paid for by the slow dismantling of the benefits system , the selective introduction of privatisation, less waste , greater tax yield and better growth..


Cut the state away slice out the tumour of dependency the country needs surgery

The Brown Tartan

Thats the Brown tartan up there and Mac Broon trying to flog a dead horse.Apt ?


Perhaps my favourite Tory Blogger is Croydonian . Let me recommend anyone who wants up to the minute repartee, gossip and sheer good humour to his blog . I look in very day and generally lower the tone . He has been doing all the work as usual comparing the heterogeneous origins of London MPs to the racially selected Scottish ones. I must also recommend Praguetory , another superb commentator whose idea it all was. Hat tips and genuine admiration to both.
http://www.croydonian.blogspot.com/
http://praguetory.blogspot.com/



I decided to have a look at the situation in these parts and took on London: out of 70 MPs I can offer - by birth - seven Scots, two Welsh, two Northern Irish, two Germans, one Egyptian (hello Margaret Hodge), one Swede, one Hollander, one American and one Indian. Beyond that, there are six MPs from the Midlands and 12 Northerners of various stripes. There are a further four from the SE or the West and four who have kept their place of birth well away from the public gaze, so if anyone can help out on the origins of the members for Ruislip, Islington South, Ealing North and Hackney South, I would be much obliged. Unambiguously London born MPs make up 26 of the 70, so on a like for like basis, 91% of Scottish seats have Scottish MPs, whereas only 37% of London seats have London MPs.

Now to me this is all about the end of the Union and the attempt of the Broon to hide it from the English . I had this to say:

Scottish attitudes are driving the Union apart and this process has been going on for a long time.When I am not happily giggling at Lord Snooty and his merry capers in the Beano I leaf through such books as “Death of Tory England” In it there is good chapter ,“celtic fringes”, charting the decline of the Conservative Party ,“Unionist Party”, in this context” in those areas. As late as 1955 the Conservative party had 36 Scottish seats in Scotland, Labour 34. Astounding don’t you think how strong that “British National “sentiment was , and when you think of what British National means now .. Oh dear .

The death of the Conservative party in Scotland especially is bound up with the death of the concept of Union . People who echo Margaret Thatcher ,”every Conservative should be a unionist in their bones” are like Angels beating their wings in a vacuum , to misquote Mathew Arnold.. There is no point applying the kiss of life to a corpse and Margaret Thatcher never believed it anyway. It will be interesting to see if nationalistic themes come to predominate in England , I suspect it will not be quite the same .

. By the way this staggering shift since the 50s is one of many that are dealt with in the book “The Chosen People”. Sometimes we think , by a sort of chronological illusion we are in the same period as the Coronation of our present Monarch . We are more remote than they were from the Victorians . You notice this trick of time when , in Alan Clarks diaries he writes “thirty years ago when the Luftwaffe flew over London “ in 1973!!! Thirty years ago was the Sexpistols. Times they are a changing and the attitude of the English to the UK is about to change . Scotland behaves entirely as you would expect any nationalist sovereign country to.It has felt that way about itself for along time now . It has been hidden from the English because Conservatives are still sentimental about the old days and the Labour party , more venally , need the votes

All of this of course has one important point for us . It is the Laird MacBroon of the clan Broon unwilling to let Scots in England vote on devolution , let is not forget , is in a sticky spot. Let us join with Alec Salmon in shouting “the Mac King has no clothes” He is going to try to govern England with Scottish votes and it will be the greatest imposture on any electorate in this land in all history .

God I do feel sorry for the Scots Tories though , what marvellous people they are .

Social JusticeWhat class am I ?

I see an active role for the state in disrupting what you might call class monopolies of opportunity . This could be through the educational system , which means taking on the NUT . This could be through providing outlets by grammar style streaming . It must include buttressing the working class communities from within , protecting them from without .

Not all of this is pretty , most of it will fly in the face of what I think of as the "Liberal "consensus" about the benefits of multiculturalism and undermining traditional family structure .

One thing that horrifies me is the disappearance of working class political representation from parliament . On this basis it is hardly likely that much will be achieved . I would like to see the Conservative party reconnect with its working class support , not focus exclusively on the centre "Liberal " voter. I would like to see more talk about social justice and less about image friendly subjects like the "environment ". I am concerned at the rampant inequality between classes that widens daily .What we get as our "representative MP s ? Priti thingymabob . Asian , oh goody, but the sprig of a long line of bureaucrats last seen getting kicked out of Uganda by the blacks for feathering their nests at their expense. She knows nothing of disadvantage .

I want to see class back in the political agenda and Bennetton ad smarm dispensed with . By the way inside the EU all of this is somewhat problematical.

Here is a thought . What about a what class am I quiz ?


1 Did either of your parents have tatttoo ?
2 Were you educated at the states expense
3 Do you like X factor
4 Did you ever devote a lot of time to dance impressively at clubs
5Did you play out ?
6 Did either of your parents attend any educational establishment after 16
7Can you fight , or have you ?
8 has anyone in your family ever done anything creative for a living


I may come up with some more ideas

Toyn Bee in the Tory Bonnet

Subtle eh ?

Well this has been going on all week one way or another and I think it raises interesting issues about poverty and exclusion. Polly Toynbee however has nothing to add, and I fear it is more toffish Liberals agreeing about what nice people they are

I have just had an awful week , I `ve got gastric flue and the tinnitus I always struggle with is out of control . My hollow voice echoes directly from white faced Hades.
What is the Toyn bee in the Tory bonnet ? .A political philosophy cannot be only a means for safeguarding the privileged the successful and the lucky . How glib and fatuous it is to say "yaaas well you are giving disincentives to pile up more cash as a Lawyer by obliging me to support this "work -shy" family " ; as if the disincentivised one would exchange places for a second .
People are not of fundamentally different sorts ,given any numbers ; the barriers between classes are higher than they were in the 60s . Quite clearly new Labour have little interest in the poor except to infantilise pacify and bribe. Conservatives , if they were sincere , and many have doubts , must think of new approaches.

One point is ,that the most worrying trend is not relative poverty but, "absolute poverty." Absolute poverty, in a bottom detached level of the population, has worsened ,and in the context of overall growth ,and increasing incomes ,it is like a chasm. We have created a whole culture that exists not inside but beneath society , parasitic on it becomes and detested as a carrions feeder. This is something we must be concerned about , it is expensive , it creates nihilism and terrifying crime It is wasteful and wrong .

Other fissures have grown ;the barriers between those outside private education and without capital as compared to those with those advantages . It is telling that top Public schools are now abandoning the A levels , the last redoubt of reliability, because they are worthless internationally . All of those in public education with money are stratified away from the remnant . These escapees include the children of Polly Toynbee . Naturellement.

Liberals like to bleet loudly about all this, mostly to advertise their own class qualifications . Graduate , professional , Guardian reader was , for a long time a statement of class superiority , it still is in the less "with it" Universities like Oxbridge . They are safe in the knowledge that they will not live with the objects of their staged concern and their children will never meet . Time and time again this nauseating double standard is replayed . This is why many Conservatives hate Polly Toynbee , not her supposed "caring qualifications ". Her sickening hard hearted hypocrisy

In my youth working-class credibility if not solidarity was something to aspire to .Now it has been replaced by a faint smear of social concern worn more or less like an accessory.People forget that some of us became Conservatives out of moral outrage at the duplicitous smarm of middleclass ,"worriers". Norman Tebbit is a hero to all of us who have this thread in the skein. Neo Con monetarist thinking makes for a good essay and a cogent argument . It is fairly useless to deal with education , opportunity and social exclusion but without a strong policy here Conservativism , for me , implodes.

Margaret Thatcher`s "Right To Buy " , was brave attack on entrenched positions on behalf of the poor . . One hopes the rumours about a Cameron rent to Mortgage scheme are true . I equally hope the Conservatives will immediately come to the aid of leaseholders who have been the doctrinal whipping boy of the inner city hard left ever since.

So Clark , who is himself a creepy little wonk has touched , perhaps accidentally, on a key issue . Society is drifting apart. "Opportunity" the prerequisite for moral Capitalism does not exits for whole geographical and social trenches. We can hardly suggest more credits , more benefits , more means tested goodies which has been an unparalleled disaster . So what can we do ?

Not easy is it . Firstly accept that the state cannot solve the problem it can only try to create better conditions for people to solve it for themselves.

Cuts on Reggressive indirect taxes
An increase in the tax allowance
A slow squeeze on points based Council housing and benefits
The development of new mortgage products and housing association schemes
The reintroduction of grammar schools by some other name ( which T Blair quite obviously sees as essential himself)
Major public investment in education which must be keyed directly into work , not floating in a NUT dreamland
Tight curbs on further immigration
Rigorous policies of cultural coherence for those here , especially on language
Schools with eight languages should not be inflicted on the most dis- advantaged
All of this would help working class communities to re -establish
The end of the state will provide assumption
AND A Large tax allowance for married couples
.Cash rewards for exam results
I also think you have to attack the glacial snobbery that has descended on the country by finding ways to mix people and extend the experience of everyone .
Perhaps the internet will help , thus far I'm not greatly encouraged
The Trade Unions have a vital role to play in all of this especially in training schemes

David Cameron has talked about a Responsibility revolution. I wonder if he means it. So far he has shown little appetite for political risk taking .The concept of responsibility is exactly what must be reintroduced to the deserts where the poorest live.
re. Let us hope not