27/04/2009 by Steve Tierney.

Vote Blue On June 4th
If you live in the Roman Bank & Peckover County Division I will be asking for your vote on behalf of the Conservatives on June 4th.  I am sure you will hear my political opponents promise you the world on a silver platter.  I have already had a taste of some of the grand claims they make and grander criticisms of the present Conservative administration.  It doesn’t seem to matter how skewed their presentation or how invalid their comment.  They seem to think that if they promise you the Sun and the Moon and Six Miracles Before Breakfast that’ll somehow win them a seat.  In the end, I’m sure readers of this blog are well aware of the political merry-go-round.  You’ve heard enough nonsense like this over the last decade to be immune to it.  Nevertheless, this month you may be presented with dizzying spin from as varied quarters as UKIP and Labour and the Lib Dems.  I don’t want to get into that big-talking point-scoring political nonsense.  As a local candidate I just want to make a few simple, honest promises.  You’ll be able to reach me (locally) when you need help.  I’ll listen to what you say, I’ll push the things you want and I will work like a dog on your behalf each and every day.  There’s nothing grand or colourful about those promises, I know.  But you can take them to the bank.  Try me.  I won’t let you down. 

Conservative Spring Forum
I have just returned from the Conservative Spring Forum, which I visited with a number of friends and colleagues this weekend.  It was an enjoyable trip which I found useful and interesting.  The agenda could have done with a bit more meat on its bones, to be honest.  Nevertheless, the speeches and presentations I attended were solid and intelligent.  In particular, I was lucky enough to be at the Freedom Association fringe event with the folk from FensCF when MEP Dan Hannan addressed the small but attentive audience with an impromptu ten-minute speech.  As usual when Dan Hannan makes a speech I was blown away.  Nor was I alone in this as the audience were clearly just as taken with his smart, confident and intelligent arguments.  The following day he had another speech for conference, presented here.  I have been a fan of Mr. Hannan’s work for some time (I very highly recommend his book, The Plan, to anybody interested in politics and democracy in the U.K.) and so it was a privelige to hear him speak and a stroke of great fortune to be able to do so from a few feet away!  Quite honestly, It made the weekend for me!

European Elections
We must not forget that on the same day that our County Council elections are taking place we will also vote on our European candidates.  I’ve heard a few ‘normally Tory’ voters suggest they may flirt with another party as a ‘protest’ over the whole Europe and refendum thing and I’d just like to say: Please Don’t.  Let me explain why.  Most Conservatives are sceptical about further integration with Europe and even those that aren’t want to support proper democratic procedure.  The only way to make Labour rethink its blind course of destruction right now is to deliver them a sound thrashing at the elections on June 4th.  If you vote for the ‘fringe’ parties you may think this works as a protest.  And of course you have a free vote and should obviously cast it wherever you choose.  But Labour will not be shaken by a few votes moving to parties with no power or influence.  That protest will do nothing to turn their arrogant grins upside down.  What will scare them and move them to rethink their position is a Conservative Landslide.  Add to this the fact that we really do have decent, honourable, hard-working candidates who we desperately need to get elected so they can bring some sanity back to Europe and you can see why I’d quite literally beg you to remember how important this European Election is.  The European Union is the Monster in the Closet, it wants to creep out at midnight when you least expect it and literally take control of your lives.  Give your vote to the Conservatives and we’ll have a real platform to tame the beast and put it back in its cage.

Irritating? Me?
In last week’s Cambs Times, Columnist Samuel Brakespeare called me irritating.  He did it in a subtle and ironic way, but still.  Irritating?  Me?  Surely not.  My first actual outing in the local press and I get called names!  Yikes.  I suppose it’s lucky I’ve got thick skin if this is what I have to look forward to!  I’m joking, of course.  I rather like the Fen Diary regular slot, which is witty, punchy and informed.  I don’t mind that I have been labelled as a potential source of ‘good sport’ there.  At least he took the time to read my blog and comment.  I just hope that as time passes I’ll be able to get the inimical Brakespeare to think of me as useful instead.  I’m a newbie in local political terms.  Maybe I’m naive too.  But I really do think we can move beyond cynicism and actually contribute something to our communities.  That’s why I got involved in local politics and that’s exactly what I want to try and help achieve.  If I can demonstrate this then I hope even the most professional cynics will agree I’m useful rather than irritating. 

The Small Print (legally required during election campaigns.)
Published by Mrs D N Clark on behalf of Steve Tierney both of 111 High Street, March, Cambs PE15 9LH.

Posted in My Campaign, Election, Europe, Conservative Future, Cambs. County Council, Conservatives | No Comments »

04/04/2009 by Steve Tierney.

“I’m Just Nipping Down The IMF For Some Milk & Cheese”
In the 1970s, the Labour Party had so thoroughly trashed the economy of Great Britain that we sat on the verge of bankruptcy.  Strikes plagued our nation.  Working hours were curtailed while people struggled to pay their bills in the face of rising unemployment and hardship.  The Labour government, shame-faced and craven, stumbled weakly to the International Monetary Fund with their begging cap in hand and asked for help to bail us out.  It was an embarrassing, desperate fall for a country that had once been the most powerful trading nation in the world.  It spelt the end of Labour’s reign, paving the way for Margaret Thatcher’s Conservatives to sweep in and quite literally save the country from destruction.  To this day some sections of society loathe Thatcher and this is because she had to make very painful and radical decisions to ‘fix’ the economy, cleaning up the mess left behind by her predecessors.  But fix it she did and Britain was returned to prosperity.  It wasn’t perfect, of course.  We had problems.  But we could afford to buy our groceries and pay our mortgages again.

Flash forwards to 2009.  After more than a decade at the wheel Labour have presided over yet another financial disaster.  It’s true that some elements of this one are global in origin.  But where is our manufacturing base?  Where are our entrepreneurs?  Where are the wealth-creators that are necessary to ride in on their white horses and save the day?  They’ve been taxed and over-regulated and demonised into oblivion.  It is not good enough that Labour always want to blame somebody else.  They have been in power since the last century! They have had ample opportunity to prove that a progressive left government can work and they have failed.

For the last few months I, and some other sceptical commentators, have been suggesting that Britain’s finances are even more dire than the government would like us to believe.  We’ve said that the country is already slipping into a state of technical bankruptcy, that we have been for some time, and that it is only a monumental credit bubble and some complex spin operations which have covered this up.  Time and again spokesmen and media have assured us: “This is not the case”.  Only a couple of months ago Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown both laughed off the idea that a new visit to the IMF would be necessary for the United Kingdom.

This week the Daily Telegraph has a story with the headline: “Britain should not fear asking for IMF cash.”  Following a briefing from a senior Labour cabinet member it argues: “Britain should not be afraid or ashamed of taking money from the International Monetary Fund.”  Apparently, the IMF is all different now.  There should be no ’stigma’ attached when one of the once-richest countries in the world has to beg for help.  Again.  It’s just a loan after all.  Another loan.  So, there we have it.  Full circle.  The Labour Party have mismanaged their way back to bankruptcy and begging and they are trying to fool the voters into thinking it doesn’t mean anything.  It’s just a little household shopping trip, apparently. 
“Darling!  I’ll be back soon.  I’m just nipping down the IMF for some milk and cheese.  Do we need anything else?”

We do need something else.  A new government.

Posted in Election, Europe, Recession, Parliament, Credit Crunch | No Comments »

03/04/2009 by Steve Tierney.

G20 Hype
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s all about the G20. Obama this and gazillion fiscal stimulus that. It’s very exciting, all the stocks are riding high on the optimism of it and yet its still almost completely worthless. What we needed was some good old-fashioned common sense, a little protection for the poor, some belt-tightening and a bit of community spirit. You know, the stuff the British used to be good at. Famous for, even. What we got was yet more great buckets of cash poured down whatever black hole fund the IMF fancies next week. And where will all that new money come from, because most countries sure as hell don’t have it? The printing press. Of course. What scares me is that the current leaders of the free world don’t actually seem to have any ideas between them. Well, none that don’t involve conjuring up money that you and I will have to find for the next decade or more. It’s a sad day when I thank the French for having the common sense to say “non” to Yet Another Massive Global Stimulus, but that’s where we are. Of course, it’s all just a huge media stunt anyway. Gordon Brown Saves The World again. Just in time for his specifically-delayed budget to bribe his core electorate and a few floating voters to gift him another ‘bounce’. If it wasn’t all so horribly predictable it might almost be funny. For Gods Sake get this madman off the levers of power. He’s like the Wizard Of Oz, all flashing lights and impressive colourful shows … covering a grand illusion. When the curtain comes down it’s just going to reveal a sad man, bereft of any true strength, fighting to retain the pretence of power that was never truly his to command.

Youth Activism
Where are the Young People engaging with politics? It’s never been a ‘youth’ activity per se, but each year that passes the die-hard faithful get scarcer and, quite frankly, they get older too. Despite the fact that they have been campaigning sometimes for several decades, they still provide all the verve and the passion in local politics. Political parties must get younger people involved. By that I don’t just mean the Camerons and the Cleggs - the people who are in politics as a career. I mean the earnest, hard-working people who leaflet and canvas and debate simply because they care about where their nation is going and want to be part of the solution… whatever that might be. When the brave ‘old guard’ are no longer able to fight the good fight, who is going to be active in politics then? Those brave politicos will leave a gaping void if nobody has come up behind them, learning from them, gaining wisdom from their association. Sure, each of the main parties has its ‘youth group’. Most colleges and universities have active political scenes. But we need more than the ideologists and the intellectuals, we need the youths from normal working families, small towns and villages across the country. It’s called balance. It makes a difference.  Some people seem to think that the death of old-fashioned party politics and ‘tribal’ voters is a good thing.  They think that the way is paved for some new political nirvana.  If that’s so I have yet to see the evidence.  Rather, we seem to be sliding towards a miserable world where nobody cares about anything except their ‘five minutes of fame’ or their latest fix of reality TV.  A world without a passion for freedom and good governance doesn’t sound like heaven to me.  It sounds horrible.

Dan Hannan
Many people will have seen MEP Dan Hannan’s excellent speech from a week or so ago. It became an internet phenomenon literally overnight. That’s partly because Dan said things to the Prime Minister that many of us have wanted to say. It’s partly because Dan is a good speaker with charisma and gravity. But mostly it’s because he clearly means every word he says. He’s genuine. It’s so refreshing in these days of spin and glitz and fakery that people feel drawn to it. This is how politics sounds when it’s done right. And by right I do not mean that I agree with his comments (although I do.) I mean that politicians must have the surety and the integrity to mean what they say and stand by it. Too often, of late, people doubt that is true. If a change is coming then politicians like Dan Hannan will be at the forefront of it.

Posted in Europe, Recession, Credit Crunch, Conservatives | No Comments »

15/02/2009 by Steve Tierney.

The Great Free Speech Debate
Much time has been given to the government decision to refuse Geert Wilder’s entry into the UK.  He was invited by members of the House Of Lords to be present at a screening of his short documentary, ‘Fitna‘.  The argument has three sides.  One group thinks he is a nasty piece of work and just shouldn’t be allowed in.  The government seems to agree with that.  The second side thinks that he has something valid to say about the dangers of ‘Islamisation’ in the West and shares some of his sentiments.  The UKIP party (and, presumably, the BNP) seem to be part of that camp.  Finally there’s the group that don’t agree with him, but who think we must stand up for his right to say what he wants to say.  I’m in that camp.

Look: Free Speech means people have the right to say whatever they like, as long as it does not incite to crime or violence, and is not perjury.  That means that people will sometimes say things you don’t like, don’t agree with, or don’t want to hear.  But their right to do so is also your right to do so!  In my opinion, there is no other right which is as important as Free Speech.  Without it, there is no way to defend any of the other rights we hold dear.  We must protect our freedom diligently and despite the fact that sometimes it is painful to do so.  We must even defend those who we vehemently disagree with, because if we do not, sooner or later, it will be our own right to free speech which falls foul of someone’s censorship.  Or it will be our friends or loved one’s lips who are forced closed by the state. 

The government should have let Geert Wilder in.  He is not (presently) a convicted criminal.  He was invited by the House Of Lords.  You cannot defeat a debate by pretending it doesn’t exist, or by sticking your head in the sand.  The battle of ideas must be won by challenge and intelligent comment.  Not by narrow-minded censorship.

LabourList & Derek Draper
Unless you are an avid follower of political discussion this won’t be of any interest to you at all.  But there’s this guy called Derek Draper and he’s in charge of the Labour Party’s attempt to do battle in the ‘blogosphere’ (a bunch of independent folk who talk about politics on the web.)  He set up a website called LabourList (you can find a link to it on this page.)  Then he proceeded to get into a catfight with leading right-wing bloggers Guido Fawkes and Iain Dale.  It’s all gotten pretty childish and petty on both sides.  Which is a shame because all three of these guys are interesting, passionate about their cause, and respected in their relevent quarters.  I suppose you could argue that they are bouncing off one another in the standard political way.  But it would be so much more useful if they were using their obvious intellects to debate actual issues.  Maybe I’m being naive.

Wisbech & District Conservative Association - AGM
Wednesday 11th was the day of the Wisbech & District Branch of the Conservative Association’s AGM.  It was an interesting meeting with a reasonable turnout.  There was some discussion about the proposal to pedestrianise Wisbech Town Center, which is a really thorny issue locally.  It’s a helter-skelter story that is just too complex to go into here.  Suffice to say, there is much disagreement about what should be done.  MUCH disagreement!

Officers were elected for the next year.  Bruce Wegg remained chairman.  Yours Truly remained Vice Chairman.  Simon King remained Secretary.  The only change was Town Mayor And Cllr. Jonathan Farmer elected to stand down and allow the job of treasurer to pass to Samantha Hoy, the secretary of the Fens Conservative Future group.   

Posted in Europe, Wisbech, Conservatives | No Comments »

08/02/2009 by Steve Tierney.

Skiing In Euroland
I’ve just come back from a week’s skiing in Kitzbuhel, Austria. Before anybody accuses me of being a ‘fat cat’ can I just say that I generally don’t take any other holidays all year, that I work extremely long and demanding hours, and that I save up in order to do this with a large group of old friends each winter. Even so, with our current economic climate, like everybody else I’m going to need to reassess if I can afford to do the same things next year. One thing I noticed while being forced to trade in the Euro is just how very expensive everything was. Not just because of our poor exchange rate, nor just because ski resorts tend to be expensive everywhere. The basic cost of everything for those in the Eurozone is just much higher than the amounts we pay for the same items. The friends who I travel with are, in general, quite a successful bunch, yet they were all talking about how the recession…
(or is it depression Gordon?)… is affecting them. Another thing I couldn’t help but notice is that everybody had an opinion on the current government and, with one single dedicated left-wing exception, those opinions were not pretty. These are not political people, not the sort of folk who are given to care about the government beyond their yearly tax bill. But the venom that was apparent when the Prime Minister’s name was mentioned was all too clear. That, even if there were no other evidence at all, would be enough to convince me that Labour are doomed. Hat tip to Dain Jensen, who organised this year’s trip and was responsible for it being such a success.

Free Speech
We’ve got Princes using racist language, Carol Thatcher called people ‘Golliwog’ and the press enjoying the whole furore with their usual gusto. I’ve been reading it all with increasing surprise that nobody ever seems to say anything that gets to the heart of the matter. The whole argument seems to be whether or not these public figures “should be allowed to” say things which may be deemed, by some, to be racially, religiously or ethnically-offensive. Frankly, I think this debate is missing the point. I don’t think that the government (or anybody else) has any right to tell people how they should speak, what they are ‘allowed’ to say, or what opinion they should have about others. We used to have a thing called Free Speech and it meant that, as long as you were not committing perjury, or inciting to violence or crime, your right to say what you felt (however unpleasant or unappealing to others) was protected by law. I believe in free speech passionately. Even when people are saying things I don’t accept, don’t want to hear, or find offensive. When the Powers That Be try to smother free speech they don’t change anyone’s mind, or win any sort of debate, they only shove the whole thing underground, while increasing their mindless ability to meddle with our lives. This assault on free speech, aka political-correctness, is an insidious and dangerous attack on our liberty. Having said that, Carol Thatcher is clearly an unpleasant, mindless idiot. Anybody who thinks that using the term ‘Golliwog’ to refer to somebody who is black, or partially-black, is the right thing to do is worthy only of contempt. And that’s the right way to deal with people who talk like this. Not by trying to enforce some kind of ‘right way to speak’ or by resorting to top-down control. But by trusting decent folk to take a look at the individual in question and realise just what sort of nasty piece of work they clearly are.

The House Of Lords
There are some dodgy folk in every arena in the world. It doesn’t matter where you go. There are always people involved for the wrong reasons, or in it for themselves, or who are seduced away from an honest path. The wrong thing to do is to presume that because there are one or two bad eggs, the whole carton is bad. The press love to tell you the dirty stories because that is what sells papers. But The House Of Lords does its job extremely well, despite ill-advised tampering by the most recent government, and is full of honest, decent people. This is true in every arena in the world. Let’s get rid of the bad eggs as and when we find them, without letting it colour our opinions in general. That’s a healthy way to deal with sleaze, isn’t it? I’m tired of letting opportunistic journalists force one knee-jerk concession after another. It doesn’t lead to improvement. It leads to chaos.

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