Letters From A Tory

“I do agree with him that it’s fundamentally important that we listen to the British people unless we know that they won’t agree with us, the Lisbon Treaty being a prime example, in which case we are perfectly entitled to ignore them and push our own agenda forward“

- Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, responding to Health Minister Ivan Lewis’ comments about Labour being ‘out of touch’

Dear Max Mosley.

Yikes.  Even though you are a powerful man as boss of Formula 1’s governing body, this really was a bit of a shocker.  Being caught with a prostitute is one thing, but being caught with five prostitutes engaging in a sado-masochistic ‘Nazi orgy’ was probably a bit of overkill.  Should anyone care?  Well, the standard calls for your resignation have already been flung but I don’t really think that matters.

It never fails to amaze me how un-British this all is.  In the eyes of many foreigners, I thought we were supposed to be a nation of reserved toffs, yet our media are completely obsessed with the private lives of anyone they can get their hands on (or get photos of).  Every single time I read this kind of headline, my first instinct is always to express disbelief that it is acceptable to dig into people’s private lives and expose whatever it is they get up to in their spare time.  Admittedly what you were found to be doing is abhorent to someone like me, but I still fail to see why it’s any of our business what you get up to.  If you had been voted into your position by the general public, then there would be an argument to say that you are accountable to the electorate and should therefore behave appropriately (an argument which I very much agree with, incidentally) but as far as I can make out what you do in your free time, regardless of how powerful or influential you are, is none of anyone’s business but yours. 

Anyone who breaks the law deserves to be held to account, although as far as I’m aware the police aren’t investigating this.  The rich and famous can certainly be thrown to the media wolves if the police charge them with a crime, but short of that there really is no justification for this kind of media intrusion.  The fact that this was a sting operation carried out by a red-top newspaper doesn’t impress me either.

Yours sincerely,

A.Tory

Looks like Geert Wilders has been censored thanks to threats from faceless religious extremists (otherwise known as ‘cowards’) after all.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7d9_1206624103

Place your bets now on whether any British or European politician will stand up for freedom of speech and criticise these sickos.

Dear Michael Martin,

I don’t mean to blow my own political trumpet, but a few days ago I made the following statement in a letter to you: ”Your feet-stomping antics throughout the debate about MPs’ expenses makes me think two things: firstly, that you are not acting in the best interests of politics in this country; and secondly, that you have much more to hide than we first realised.”  And, as it turns out, I was absolutely right.

Apparently, you have spent £700,000 since 2001 on doing up your house and billing the taxpayer for it, including £148,900 on furniture, £13,000 on art, £191,000 on a new air-conditioning system, and £291,000 on “building restoration and refurbishment”.  Your feeble claims that the improvements were ‘necessary’ is outrageous and you should hang your head in shame.  How such a key figure in the Commons can be allowed to show such contempt for the people you were elected to serve is beyond me.  You are an utter disgrace to British politics and far from helping to mend the wounds of the past few months, you are tearing them open with your dishonesty and deceit.

I cannot wait to see the back of you or the Labour Party, as you are both eroding the public’s faith in political life with every day that passes.

Yours sincerely,

A.Tory

“There have been some baggage performance issues”

- A British Airways spokesman on the chaos at Heathrow’s Terminal Five on its opening day.

Dear Geert Wilders,

No doubt you have noticed the panic in the eyes of many Dutch and European politicians at the release of your film on Islam.  Many authorities are bracing themselves for protests now that your film is available.  The question in many people’s minds is should the film have been released - and the answer is simple: yes, absolutely.

I remember the tragic silence that followed the death of Theo Van Gogh, the Dutch filmmaker killed by a Muslim gunman over the film he made.  Most politicians were too afraid to even be seen in front of the cameras, as they feared that should they speak out in the defence of Mr Van Gogh, they would become the next target.  Even the outrage from politicians in the UK was notable by its absence.  Nobody stood up for freedom of speech, even though to my mind it is one of the most fundamental parts of English and European culture.  People cowered in fear rather than rising up against the disgusting attack on Western values.  Now, you are standing up for freedom of speech and you have my total support.  The only time when I think free speech should be questioned is when violence is incited against an individual or group, but your film does no such thing.  Of course it presents a wholly partisan perspective, but what’s wrong with that?  I assume that you have done your research on the issues that you touched on and have gained some fascinating footage, which makes your film more of a documentary - albeit a controversial one - than anything else.

Thank you for standing up for your beliefs and refusing to be silenced by the cowards who fail to confront the continued assault on freedom of speech from a number of religious groups over the past few years.

Yours sincerely,

A.Tory

HERE IS THE SHORT FILM THAT GEERT WILDERS HAS MADE ON ISLAM, WHICH IS CALLED ‘FITNA’:

From yesterday’s Telegraph:

“Gordon Fischer, an ally of Mr Obama, had to apologise this week when he wrote in his blog that [Bill Clinton's] negative campaigning had left a “stain on his legacy, much worse, much deeper, than the one on Monica’s blue dress”

Dear readers,

I was reading through the papers this morning, thinking who would be the lucky recipient of my next letter, when I received an email telling me that my commute to work next week was going to become a nightmare thanks to a strike by South West trains over pay.  I was on the point of flicking off this email when I suddenly glanced at the figures mentioned on South West trains’ website, which I thought I would share with you:

“We met with ASLEF on Thursday 20 March for informal talks in an effort to avoid strike action, and another meeting is planned for next week. They have been offered a pay increase of 4.5% which would give a driver working in the London area a basic salary before overtime of £40,447 for a 37-hour, 4.4-day week.”

Stewart Palmer, our Managing Director said:
“We regret the significant disruption this will cause to our passengers and we reassure them that we will do everything we can to avoid this strike taking place.  However if they do go ahead we will pull out all the stops to run as many trains and buses as we can. We are very disappointed that ASLEF has taken this decision as we believe that this is a very good offer in the current economic climate.”

OH - MY - GOD

When public sector workers are lucky to get 2.0% this year, the train drivers who monopolise south-west London are being offered 4.5% but still sodding off on strike.  To make matters worse, I find out that these complete jokers earn over £40,000 a year for just 37 hours a week and 4.4 days work - and that’s before overtime!!!!  I’m sure all the socialists will be supporting their comrades over this strike action, but I for one would like to see all the drivers who strike fined £1,000 a day for the inconvenience they will cause commuters - then we’ll see who is willing to accept 4.5% and turn up to work next week.

A.Tory

“…and may I just say how wonderful it is to finally see you with your clothes on”

After reading a couple of days ago that men are apparently worried about feeling less masculine with the increasing role of females in society, it would have been nice to see some stories empowering men and demonstrating the key role that we play in society - which is why I was a little disappointed to READ THIS.

Hillary Clinton is desperate to push her credentials as an experienced politician, especially in the field of foreign policy.  However, the latest scandal about her ’sexing up’ her previous roles does her a great disservice.  Her recent claim that she was under sniper fire when she arrived in Bosnia looks a little ropey to me.  Watch for yourself.

Dear Michael Martin,

Talk about a dog with a bone.  You just don’t give up, do you!  Having been bypassed and overruled on several occasions recently about MPs’ expenses, you obviously feel a need to make your own personal contribution to wasting taxpayers’ money by blowing £100,000 on trying to stop an investigation into MPs wasting taxpayers’ money.

You cannot stop the inevitable publication of MPs’ expenses.  As a representative of your local constituency, they (and indeed everyone else) has every right to know how you are spending their money on travel, a second home, your staff etc.  The House of Commons is very different from every other organisation in the country, because you are an elected official who has a say in decisions that affect the future of everyone in the UK and you deserve to be scrutinised on this basis.  Admittedly I don’t see why the exact addresses of second homes should be published because that doesn’t really help me decide whether my local MP is being profligate, but perhaps a street name or local area would be appropriate instead.   That aside, you have no grounds for complaining about this.

Your feet-stomping antics throughout the debate about MPs’ expenses makes me think two things: firstly, that you are not acting in the best interests of politics in this country; and secondly, that you have much more to hide than we first realised.

Yours disrespectfully,

A.Tory

“Scientists claim that if I spend £2.50 a day on someone else it will make me happy. I have been spending far more than this on our MPs’ pensions and it doesn’t make me feel happy at all”

- Allen Booth, of Redhill, Surrey, in a letter to The Daily Telegraph.

Crikey.  After Eliot Spitzer set the bar pretty high for Mayors of major American cities when it comes to bad behaviour, it seems that he was actually quite late to the party as other Mayors are clearly way ahead of him.

Dear Gordon Brown,

Your article in the Telegraph today that desperately clings to the notion of a Union is just hot air masked as a newspaper column.  Your inability to understand the feelings of the general public are trumped only by your blinkered view of how the British Isles should be run.

Of course there are some issues that warrant a union-wide approach.  Your chosen examples of terrorism and climate change are fair enough, but there is no reason why these issues cannot be addressed by England, Scotland and Wales in more independent capacities.  If an issue is that serious, representatives from each country have every reason to work together without the need for an explicit ‘Union’.  I nearly fell off my chair when you suggested that our “shared values” can be seen in “the popularity of our common institutions from the NHS [to] the BBC”, both of which in my opinion needs to be taken out of state control and handed over to independent providers to improve their quality and sustainability in the long term - talk about being out of touch!  To further claim that “tolerance” is a shared value across the Union is hilarious, seeing as the Scots and Welsh absolutely hate the English and have done for centuries.

I’d much prefer it if you were honest about all this.  You need Scotland to keep Labour in power, so you will resist any attempt to weaken the influence of Scottish votes on your position or on the future of Britain.  My message to you is a simple one - give us an English Parliament, get Scottish MPs out of Westminster, and let each country raise its own money and spend it.

Yours sincerely,

A.Tory

“Sorry, did I miss anything?”

Downing Street alone racked up 38.4 million miles, which is no surprise given Gordon’s track record of disappearing whenever the going gets tough! Obviously MPs and civil servants need to get around places, but surely these numbers demonstrate wastage on a massive scale. CLICK HERE for the full story. 

Blogging will return on Tuesday morning, after a couple of days of excellent food courtesy of my mum.  Hope you are enjoying the freezing temperatures and snow that March so regularly brings….

How ironic that teddy bears are coming to the rescue of Bear Sterns.

Dear Ben Bradshaw,

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill is not quite as straightforward as you might think.  As an atheist myself, I’m very much in support of using science to better people’s lives within certain boundaries.  But if the newspapers are correct in saying that this Bill will allow the creation of hybrid human-animal embryos, we are entering into totally different territory.

IVF, for example, helps those couples who struggle with fertility.  Seeing as fertility has been dropping in the western world for several decades, it seems fairly logical to give married couples a helping hand if they wish to start a family.  To my mind, this is ethically justifiable and a correct use of science to help people and improve their lives, without any moral baggage.  This contrasts with creating hybrid human-animal embryos which, even to a non-religious person like myself, sends a chill down my spine.  Using science to manipulate people’s own cells to help improve their lives is one thing, but to start creating hybrids of different species is an entirely different issue and one that I am deeply uncomfortable with.  When a senior Catholic cardinal says that “it is difficult to imagine a single piece of legislation which more comprehensively attacks the sanctity and dignity of human life than this particular bill”, I find it very hard to disagree with him. 

Even though I believe euthanasia and abortion are both easy to justify in certain circumstances, I simply cannot support interfering with life at this level.  The fact that Labour still haven’t given their MPs a free vote on this matter tells me all I need to know about the contempt they have for their own supporters, let alone the British public.

Yours sincerely,

A.Tory

28th January 2008: Mr Conway was suspended from the Commons for 10 days and ordered to return £13,161 of the money he paid his son.   A Commons standards committee said there was no record of Freddie, a student, doing work at Westminster in return for £40,000 of taxpayers’ money.  The committee report, which said Freddie was “all but invisible” at Westminster, concluded the arrangement was “at the least an improper use of parliamentary allowances” and “at worst, a serious diversion of public funds”.

21st March 2008: police say they cannot investigate disgraced MP Derek Conway, even though he was reprimanded by Commons authorities for paying his student son nearly £40,000 to be a researcher.  Scotland Yard said a “lack of systems” for accounting for MPs’ expenses meant it was ruling out an investigation.

“Phew.”

Even though I’m very much against the proliferation of the compensation culture in the UK, I still think that the threat of legal action can be helpful in stopping people acting in an inappropriate or dangerous manner.  Nevertheless, even if an individual or organisation has clearly done something wrong, I can’t help feeling that people take seeking compensation a little too far.

Dear Alan Duncan,

Well done on an organised campaign against Post Office closures.  The rebellion of 20 or so Labour MPs is a nasty jab in the ribs for Gordon Brown and he won’t easily forget it.  However, what troubles me is that the Post Office represents one of those issues where the Conservatives have yet to stamp their authority on it, despite having the public’s support.

The best parallel I can draw is between Post Office closures and the EU.  The campaign for the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty was a fantastic achievement, even though it didn’t achieve the desired result.  There was a minor rebellion from Labour MPs and the Conseratives won a moral victory on the issue, just like they did last night.  But, as with the Lisbon Treaty, the Conservatives haven’t really spelled out what they are going to do to save the Post Offices should they come into power.  Personally I don’t see why the Post Office should survive in its pseudo-monopoly format because it, like the NHS, is a thing from the past and is well past its sell-by date.  However, even if you don’t agree with me and have a plan to revive the Post Office, where is it?  Why are you not spelling out your vision of how the Post Office could be turned into a viable and efficient operation?  I would have thought that with the prospect of an election possibly no more than 12 months away, you would be keen to get your vision and your message out there, and so would the rest of the party - but you didn’t.

Obviously there is time to rectify this, but the Conservative’s emphasis on just attacking Labour without supporting it with clear, concise and affordable alternatives is surely running out of steam.  We need to be seen as the government-in-waiting and much fun as slagging of Labour is, it won’t get us into 10 Downing Street.

Yours sincerely,

A.Tory

George Bush says: “…this is a fight Americans must win. Because we acted, the world is better and the United States of America is safer.”

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