Young Tories Anonymous

The confession in this rant is something that shames me to this day.



Well, on a day as beautiful as this, where that most excellent canopy of the sky perches atop the sun kissed earth like a vast blue turd, it seems rude not to mention the election at least once. After all, the apathetic masses generally couldn't care less about whichever vacuous suit of empty promises grins outside number 10 like a Mormon polygamist with equal number of genitalia. So with that in mind, I believe that it would be prudent to have a look at some of the ideas that the men who aren't (touch wood) going to get elected have espoused.

Now then, before proceeding I should make a confession. *Deep Breath* Okay...for a little over 3 years (and I can hardly bring myself to say this) I was a Young Conservative. I know I know but I thought I could handle it. I thought I could just vote Tory once or twice and not get hooked but I was wrong. It was only through years of being weaned off right wing thinking that I could eventually state with confidence that I was clean of conservatism. I've been on the Non-Tory wagon for 4 years now and show no signs of falling off.

With that out of the way (and believe me, I would prefer to forget about that particular chapter of my life) let us have a brief look at some of the ideas that the Tories believe (well some of them) will sweep them back into power. Before even that, we should consider what basic advantages a conservative government will bring. Well, if Hague did become P.M. then he would be the most recognisable British politician in the world, and particularly America, since Margaret Thatcher. Admittedly this is because most Americans would think that we had elected Monty Burns of The Simpsons fame as the leader of our nation but any publicity is good publicity I suppose. Plus the image of little Willy sitting in the cabinet office muttering "Excellent..." in sinister whispered tones is just too good to let go of. Here's hoping that he appoints a bloke called Smithers as deputy P.M.

Of course, should the Conservatives lose then we stand a high chance of Mr Burns (sorry, Hague) being deposed by the finest politician of Spanish origin with homosexual leanings that the Tories have ever had. I'm going to be intrigued to see how he manages to keep the bigoted xenophobia of the political right that we have all come to know and love chugging along at the same rate...

And speaking of things European, no breakdown of the Tory election manifesto would be complete without a mention of their attitude towards the E.U.
I'm quite aware of how stultifyingly boring the whole European issue is, so I shall be as brief as I can. The main objection of the Tories to Europe (apart from "They're all bloody foreign!" although I suspect that particular argument won't feature in their campaign) is the single currency. The Euro is the issue that has divided the Conservatives into two camps, each bitterly opposed to the other. On the one hand, we have the europhobes and assorted borderline-racists who "didn't fight in the war just so we could jump into bed with the bloody Europeans!" although frankly I find the idea of my grandparents fighting for my right to leap into bed with a European quite sweet...
Then we have the hard core capitalists led by Ken Clarke who are of the firm belief that a single currency will advance the cause of capitalism and frankly couldn't give a bugger whom they go to bed with to achieve that.

The backdrop to this is a nation who (if The Sun is to be believed) are overwhelmingly opposed to joining the single currency because we don't want to lose our "good old pounds and pence". Yes, we are fighting for the right to use pieces of paper and metal that has the Queens head on it as opposed to pieces of paper and metal with a picture of some dreadful foreign type on it. Hmm....it doesn't seem quite as rational when put like that does it? D'you know, I think that is probably because as arguments go, it's a vast pile of hamster droppings that have been out in the sun for too long.

Why are we so adamant about keeping our currency as Sterling? It was only 30 years ago that we were still using imperial currency. Does that mean that someone, somewhere is campaigning for its return? (actually, this being England, there almost certainly is. I'll bet they vote Tory as well...) If so, why stop there? Why not set up a campaign to bring back the Groat! Or trawl further back in history to demand the Denarii! Except we couldn’t do that, could we? The Denarii, one of our earliest currencies, was used throughout the Roman Empire. In effect, it was the first Euro, although it was used over a far wider area.

Money is a method of bartering, nothing more and nothing less. It is a convenience that allows us to avoid carrying livestock with us when we want to go shopping (don't you think that it's a shame that currency developed using precious metals as the standard instead of goods? I think the idea of going shopping with an 8 goat note, or a 2 chicken coin is an irresistible one! Just picture the scenes at the shops "Alright then love there's the dress, that'll be 4 eggs and litre of milk please." "Oooh, can you break a 20 cow note? I've not got anything smaller.")

If we're going to get annoyed about the whole European issue, then could we perhaps get annoyed at it for the fact that it has a system of bureaucracy that makes Kafka's "The Trial" seem like a model of simplicity, or that there are legions of unelected people making decisions that will affect thousands if not millions of people, and they are totally unaccountable, or even that no-one really knows what the hell the European Parliament actually does. But please, don't kick off with it because of cold, hard cash because I find the idea that we are that obsessed with money a rather disturbing one.

So what else have the Tories been wittering about in an effort to make us vote? Well, they've promised to not only spend as much as Labour has promised, but cut taxes in the bargain! Now I'm not the most mathematically inclined person but surely one can't spend money that one doesn't have? And that is clearly what they have thought as well because yesterday they unveiled a series of measures to raise 8 billion pounds for tax cuts. They are a trifle vague however. They say that £2.1 billion will be recouped by cutting government red tape. Erm, didn't they have 18 years in power with which to do this? They're also going to crack down on benefit fraud, despite the fact that our current government are more draconian on fraud and other crime issues than the Tories are (Anne Widdecombe excepted of course...)

And when it comes to Law and Order, the Conservatives are once more behind the pace. They are trying to compete with Jack Straw, the man who shopped his own son for smoking dope, for the sheer unpleasantness of laws that restrict ones personal liberty. The only way that they could top the proposed law for retaining DNA samples of anyone arrested (not found guilty, simply arrested) would be by making drug and alcohol tests compulsory at work (and lest you think I'm joking, this has been proposed by one or two Tories).

One of my all time heroes of politics (even after I stopped being a Tory) was Alan Clarke. He was as right wing as they come, had the most dreadfully outdated views on class structure, and was accused of having links to the National Front (for the record, he didn't. They liked him because, as a historian, we wrote a book about Hitler’s strengths as a leader such as his economic reforms. Ethically speaking, he denounced Hitler as a grade A git).

I thought he was fantastic. At the time when John Major had embarked on his ill advised "Back to Basics" campaign, and Tories were being exposed as sexual hypocrites (promoting family values whilst humping ones secretary is fairly inadvisable) it emerged that AC had bedded not only a judges wife, but his two daughters as well. When faced with the press asking if these allegations were true, not only did he freely admit to it but also pretty much said that it had been bloody good fun! If we're going to elect morally reprehensible politicians, couldn't we at least elect people as entertaining as him rather than the corrupt grey suits full of nothing that we currently plump for?

I could of course go on for a considerable length of time about just how rubbish the Tories are but that would be far too easy. Instead, I'd like to ask you to consider the following. When John Major lost the last election, many dyed-in-the-wool Tories didn't vote out of a sort of collective guilt at how awful the Conservative had become. This time, they've had an actual Labour government, and they really don't like it! I can guarantee that they'll turn out in force to vote. Labour voters however are gently being lulled into apathy because of the assumption that a victory is a foregone conclusion. Which it is, if they bother to vote. If they don't we may be the first nation in the known world to elect a foetus from Yorkshire as our leader. So vote. Even if you're not registered, please vote. Admittedly, I'm going to be voting LibDem as I think both major parties are a shower of rubbish, but that is by the by. Just please, please ensure that little Billy Hague continues to be the political joke that he so richly deserves to be