Working Class Tory: Speakers' Corner No. 12

Tuesday, 10 November 2009

Speakers' Corner No. 12

Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP): Is he not at least a little bit uncomfortable that on a day when the Prime Minister is off in Berlin, celebrating the end of the Berlin wall, and the end of control and secrecy and all it represented, the Government are trying to put such measures through the House?

A question to Jack Straw, Justice Secretary. From the Commons, yesterday - will be published online later today.

Before You Read Anything...

"I don't pretend I am anything but an honest-to-God right-winger. Those are my views and I don't care who knows 'em." - Denis Thatcher. And me...

I don't provide comprehensive coverage of Conservative politics at all - quite apart from me not wanting to, there are far better people for that than I could ever hope to replicate - I post when something is particularly annoying or interesting. My posts may not even mention the Conservative party, the Labour party, or even Britain.

Also note that most the vast majority of blogposts are (now (September 09-)) written between around Midnight and 1am to be read the following day, and if I cannot approve comments for publication, or respond to them, don't take offence, I just can't get to a computer!

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Good Conservative Quotes

- My job is to stop Britain going red - Margaret Thatcher, 1977.

- I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad. I seek to preserve property and to respect order, and I equally decry the appeal to the passions of the many or the prejudices of the few - Benjamin Disraeli, 1832.

- We Conservatives are the party of the hard-working classes. We don't care if they have blue collars or blue blood - Peter Lilley, 1996.

- The unions might be good for the people who are in the unions but it doesn't do a thing for the people who are unemployed. Because the union keeps down the number of jobs, it doesn't do a thing for them - Milton Friedman, 2000.

- Freedom not voluntarily policed with respect quickly degenerates into anarchy. We urgently need to relearn how to respect one another - Frank Field, 2009.

- You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness - Ronald Reagan, 1964

- All of us are proud to be part of this Conservative family, and the values that have shaped our past must also guide our future, the determination to fight for freedom and democracy, the resolve to protect our national independence, the courage to speak the truth in an age of spin and political correctness, the self confidence to fight for our beliefs even when the odds are against us and to fight so hard against those odds that we win. The boldness to fight the next election on the most ambitious Conservative programme for a generation, for we are going to go further than any government has ever gone before to hand back to individuals and families the ability to shape their own lives - William Hague, 2001.

- The reality is that for 30 years the private sector of our economy has been forced to work with one hand tied behind its back by government and unions. Socialist measures and Socialist legacies have weakened free enterprise - Keith Joseph, 1974.

- The thing that frightens me the most about a Labour government is that is suppresses enterprise - Alan Sugar, 1992.

-We thought we signed up for a free trade area, but what we are really getting is a European superstate. This is why I want to go to Brussels: not to gain power for me, but to give power back to you. That does not make me an anti-European. That makes me a democrat - Jean-Paul Floru, 2009.

- The European currency was a thinkable idea two years ago, but now it is just going to be dross. You should be careful because a European currency would mean that your savings and your pension are going to be diluted to fund public saving schemes in Greece and Spain and France - Alan Clark, 1997.

- What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone? - Winston Churchill, 1908.

- I have no intention of slurring over the differences we have with socialism, nor concealing my belief that we are the National Party of Great Britain, representing not narrow class interest, nor the bigotry of the left wing intellectuals, but all those who support the British tradition of democracy, of personal freedom, of personal responsibility for one's own affairs and those of one's family, with the least possible interference from the State - Norman Tebbit, 1969.

- Gordon Brown's lack of fiscal responsibility will damage our ability to compete, and mean further tax rises for hard working families - George Osborne, 2006.

- My kind of Tory party would make no secret of its belief in individual freedom and individual prosperity, in the maintenance of law and order, in the wide distribution of private property, in rewards for energy, skill and thrift, in diversity of choice, in the preservation of local rights in local communities - Margaret Thatcher, 1975.

- The view which has been dethroned in this process is conservatism. This can be summed up as a pessimistic view of humanity and society based on a Christian belief in the imperfectibility of man, demanding the exercise of individual conscience, strong self-restraint, deference to established authority, sexual continence and constancy, patience, respect for age, for hierarchy and for institutions, patriotism and monarchy - generally combined with a strong predisposition in favour of hard work and thrift and a horror of idleness and debt. These views were once held widely by voters on both sides of the political divide. The modern person may recognise all these things under the other names which progressives give to them: ‘repression, religious bigotry, snobbery, sexism, chauvinism, xenophobia, suburban and/or “Victorian” values etc.’ Call them what you like, but don't imagine that your choice of name doesn't betoken an opinion on an important issue. They once were dominant and are now despised and rejected - Peter Hitchens, 2009

- Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence - Ronald Reagan, 1970.

- The historical experience of socialist countries has sadly demonstrated that collectivism does not do away with alienation but rather increases it, adding to it a lack of basic necessities and economic inefficiency - Pope John Paul II, 1991.

- What our generation has forgotten is that the system of private propery is the most important guarantee of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not. It is only because the control of the means of production is divided among many people acting independently that nobody has complete power over us, that we as individuals can decide what to do with ourselves - Friedrich Hayek, 1944.

- Anyone who votes Labour ought to be locked up - Bernard Montgomery, 1959.

- Those who, in the nineteenth century, argued the dangers of a mass democracy in which a majority of the voters would have no stake in the country at all, had reason to be fearful. But the remedy is not to restrict the franchise to those who own property: it is to extend the ownership of property to the largest possible majority of those who have the vote. The widespread ownership of private property is crucial to the survival of freedom and democracy. It gives the citizen a vital sense of identification with the society of which he is a part. It gives him a stake in the future - and indeed, equally important, in the present. It creates a society with an inbuilt resistance to revolutionary change - Nigel Lawson, 1985.

- If I did not believe that our work was done in the faith and hope that at some day, it may be a million years hence, the Kingdom of Heaven will spread over the whole world, I would have no hope, I could do no work, and I would give my office over this morning to anyone who would take it - Stanley Baldwin, 1928.

- A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both - Milton Friedman, 1990.

- Socialists cry "Power to the people", and raise the clenched fist as they say it. We all know what they really mean—power over people, power to the State - Margaret Thatcher, 1986.

- The day may dawn when fair play, love for one's fellow men, respect for justice and freedom, will enable tormented generations to march forth triumphant from the hideous epoch in which we have to dwell. Meanwhile, never flinch, never weary, never despair - Winston Churchill, 1955.

- What the welfare system and other kinds of governmental programs are doing is paying people to fail. In so far as they fail, they receive the money; in so far as they succeed, even to a moderate extent, the money is taken away - Thomas Sowell, 1980.

- The historic role of the Conservative Party is to use the leverage of its political and diplomatic skills to create a fresh balance between the different elements within the state at those times when, for one reason or another, their imbalance threatens to disrupt the orderly development of society - Ted Heath, 1975.

- Communism and fascism or nazism, although poles apart in their intellectual content, are similar in this, that both have emotional appeal to the type of personality that takes pleasure in being submerged in a mass movement and submitting to superior authority - James A.C. Brown, 1963.

- Making the rich poorer does not make the poor richer, but it does make the state stronger - and it does increase the power of officials and politicians, power more menacing, more permanent and less useful than market power within the rule of law. Inequality of income can only be eliminated at the cost of freedom. The pursuit of income equality will turn this country into a totalitarian slum - Keith Joseph, 1976.

- Of course I am very proud of being a Tory. Yes, in my head and in my heart I regard myself as a Tory. As I have said, I was born that way; I believe it is congenital. I am unable to change it. That is how I see the world - Enoch Powell, 1978.

- There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism -- by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide - Ayn Rand, 1962.

- If you take away the forums of democracy you don't have anything left - The Rev. Ian Paisley, 1986.

- If a Tory does not believe that private property is one of the main bulwarks of individual freedom, then he had better become a socialist and have done with it - Margaret Thatcher, 1975.

- The true patriot is motivated by a sense of responsibility, and out of self interest - for himself, his family, and the future of his country - to resist government abuse of power. He rejects the notion that patriotism means obedience to the state - Ron Paul, 2007.

- To me a Tory is a person who believes that authority is vested in institutions - Enoch Powell, 1992.

- I joined this party because I believe in freedom. We are the only party believing that if you give people freedom and responsibility, they will grow stronger and society will grow stronger - David Cameron, 2005.

- Fifty years on from now, Britain will still be the country of long shadows on cricket grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and pools fillers and, as George Orwell said, 'Old maids bicycling to holy communion through the morning mist' and, if we get our way, Shakespeare will still be read even in school - John Major, 1993.

- There can be no self-government without self-discipline. There can be no self-government without self-control. There can be no liberty unless it is grounded in moral discipline and the ability to do what is right - Alan Keyes, 1999.

- The red flag has never flown throughout these islands yet, nor for a thousand years has the flag of any other alien creed - Michael Heseltine, 1976.

- It's that sort of entrepreneurial spirit the Conservatives believe in and Labour doesn't understand - Alan Sugar, 1992.

- Throughout the 20th century, the strongest and most successful, most vibrant, most interesting societies were those infused with the principles of political, economic and religious freedom. The best-performing economies were those where citizens were given the maximum incentive, under the rule of law, to make the choices they considered best for themselves and their families. This is not a matter of ideology of faith. It is an unassailable fact of history. The Berlin Wall did not fall by accident. It fell because millions of people living in societies crippled by the failures of excessive government control yearned for the freedoms they saw in the West. The socialisation of the means of production and distribution had manifestly failed them, and they aspired to something better. The Berlin Wall fell also because leaders like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher had the courage to hold to the conviction that the most successful and stable societies would always be those where the power relationship was defined by popular consent – where government served the people, rather than people being slaves to the dictates of government. In this belief, they were relying on one of the great intellectual inheritances of Western society, indeed one of the great intellectual inheritances of British society - Malcolm Turnbull, 2009.

- The great political reform of the last century was to enable more and more people to have a vote. Now the great Tory reform of this century is to enable more and more people to own property. Popular capitalism is nothing less than a crusade to enfranchise the many in the economic life of the nation. We Conservatives are returning power to the people. That is the way to one nation, one people - Margaret Thatcher, 1986.

- If the spirit of the Reform Bill implies merely, a careful review of institutions, civil and ecclesiastical, undertaken in a friendly temper, combining, with the firm maintenance of established rights, the correction of proved abuses, and the redress of real grievances,—in that case, I can for myself and colleagues undertake to act in such a spirit and with such intentions - Robert Peel, 1834.

- The truth is that a prosperous world based on free and open markets is a world of co-operation and interdependence between the people of all nations. By contrast, a world of closed, State controlled economies is a world disposed towards confrontation and conflict - Nigel Lawson, 1988.

- The Government's obsession with gimmicks, spin and gestures betrays the victims and puts the public at risk - Dominic Grieve, 2009.

- A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself - Milton Friedman, 1962.

- My policies are based not on some economics theory, but on things I and millions like me were brought up with: an honest day's work for an honest day's pay; live within your means; put by a nest egg for a rainy day; pay your bills on time; support the police - Margaret Thatcher, 1981.

- The reason Labour flourished many years ago was the "them and us" situation that prevailed in England. There were the rich and there were the poor. At that stage maybe I would have sympathised with the need for a Labour government. But that's all been changed now. Look around. Yes, there are the very poor and more should be done for them. But almost everybody's got a microwave oven, a car and a colour television - maybe more than one colour television in their homes. Let's be honest with each other. 'Them and us' doesn't exist any more - Alan Sugar, 1992.

- You might however consider whether you should not unfold as a background the great privilege of habeas corpus and trial by jury, which are the supreme protection invented by the English people for ordinary individuals against the state. The power of the executive to cast a man in prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government, whether Nazi or Communist - Winston Churchill, 1943.

- Conservatives are humble enough to recognise the unlikelihood that they have all the answers, so they don't try to provide them. They are disbelieving of those who claim special abilities to transform society for the better. They are realistic enough to recognise that life isn't always fair but that across the spectrum of things that make a person happy the politician can positively influence one or two at most. Conservatives hate few people, if any; they love their communities and their country and feel no need to intellectualise why - any more than they feel the need to explain their love for their parents/spouse/children. Conservatives have no dogma, no manifesto, no slogans. We are not capitalists, we do not celebrate 'freedom', we abhor authoritarianism and chuckle at those who think this is contradictory. We recognise our present is intimately tied to our past and our future. We are patriotic, loyal, affectionate and peaceful. We are not socialists and we are not libertarians - Gary Monro, 2009.

- Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children what it was once like in the United States when men were free - Ronald Reagan, 1961.

- The word 'conservative' is used by the BBC as a portmanteau word of abuse for anyone whose views differ from the insufferable, smug, sanctimonious, naïve, guilt-ridden, wet, pink orthodoxy of that sunset home of the third-rate minds of that third-rate decade, the nineteen-sixties - Norman Tebbit, 1990.

Working Class Tory

Tuesday, 10 November 2009

Speakers' Corner No. 12

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