Cameron's patriotic moves

There was a time in the Sixties when certain opinions were commonplace. One such opinion was that the Labour Party was nothing better that a Trojan horse for the Soviet communists. After all, they sang the Red Flag and they wanted to nationalise most things. Many were closet republicans, a lot were ban-the-bombers and they were keen on dismantling the traditions of the state. In short, they were not patriotic and needed to be defeated. Then the Berlin Wall collapsed and the soviet empire went with it. It seemed little point singing the Red Flag with such gusto, and opponents were less charged by Labour Party views.

Tony Blair and his New Labour control freaks decided that all the commie stuff had to go. If he controlled the party it could look like a new party with fresh ideas. Not really. The icing on the cake changed but the rotten fruit inside just got re-hashed.

Now we have Harriet Harperson pushing so-called equality laws on us, we have a meddlesome mattie in charge of the Charity Commission and quango chiefs all on the fiddle or the cover-up. New Labour is a frightful mixture of control, sleaze, hypocrisy and whitewashing episodes.

So is David Cameron right in saying that it is his patriotic duty to try to remove these people? I suppose it depends on what you think Britain should be and remain as being. A conservative's view of patriotic duty is in honouring and maintaining the institutions of the state. If that duty is challenged by those who want to destroy the institutions, then it is a patriotic duty to stop it. We do live in a changing society but too much change is detrimental.

When it comes to the voting, though, we may have a result that in no way reflects our views. According to the YouGov poll published in the Sunday Times, the Conservative lead over Labour has narrowed to two points. It suggests that 37% would vote Tory, while 35% would opt for Labour and 17% for the Lib Dems. This, the Sunday Times says, could give Labour 317 seats, nine short of an overall majority, with the Tories on a total of 263 MPs. So Gordon Brown could remain prime minister (with some backing from minor parties) even though he did worse in the voting. Do we really want that?

35% would vote Labour it says. But how many does that 35% represent of the total electorate. If the stay-at-homers are the largest group, then active Labour voters are a real minority. Perhaps that's why Harriet Harperson is so keen to promote minority causes. She knows she's a minority in a minority which in turn is in a minority. It's like a television camera looking at its own monitor. All you get is a load of television sets leading to oblivion!