Outed as a "Tory rebel"
Thursday, August 23, 2012 at 12:28 I was in Durham yesterday.
I've passed by (on the East coast mainline) hundreds of times but before yesterday I had only visited the city twice – once for a Federation of Conservative Students conference in 1983 (I was an observer not a delegate) and, more recently, a smoking-related speaking engagement that I had totally forgotten about until yesterday when I recognised the venue, the University Library on Palace Green adjacent to the cathedral.
Anyway, when I got home last night I sought out the Guido Fawkes website in the certain knowledge that Guido would have pictures of Prince Harry naked in Las Vegas. Sure enough, he didn't disappoint.
What really caught my eye, however, was another story: Rebel Tory Party Conference.
Invites have gone out today for a conspiratorial alternative Conservative Party conference to rival the real thing next month.
The one-day Windsor event calls for a renewal of Conservatism and boasts an all-star cast of sound speakers including James Delingpole, Matthew Elliott, Dan Hannan, Tim Montgomerie and Toby Young.
Although I am not, and never have been, a member of the Conservative party, I do have a small confession.
The list of "sound speakers" who will be taking part in the so-called "Tory rebel conference" includes, erm, me.
Click here for full details.
Update: I have just read some of the comments on Guido's post. They include:
"Scruton would be worth hearing. Rest are barrow-boys and tossers."
"Too many men in suits. It looks like an auditor’s convention."
"Apart from a few exceptions they are also horrendously white and ‘British’ looking. Ugh."
"It’s a veritable who’s who of dribbling right wing loons."
"A list of wankers."
That's me told.
Reader Comments (3)
I suggest you turn up and prove them wrong Simon - eh?
The Coalition has been accused by many, including myself as being 'Blue Labour,' while Labour has been accused of being 'Red Tories.' A good example is Anne Milton and tobacco display ban and plain packaging the kind of nanny state rubbish one associates with Labour. Politics for many has become a centre ground mush of barely differing policies.
Someone I know worked for Cameron and I asked him how he came across, was he a true Conservative? The answer was definitely yes. My guess is that Cameron was seduced by the power of office and there are especially in the Lib Dem ranks some very good free market economic minds. However UKIP cost the Tory Party about 10-15 seats and a chance to rule independently. Cameron's apparent reneging on the 'cast iron guarantee' of a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. My information is that he had no such right as Parliament and the House of Lords had passed it, the Lib Dems Europhilia, William Hague the Foreign Secretary has gone native on the EU plus the Tories have done little serious reductions in spending, you have a toxic situation of a very disgruntled classical liberal, centre right and/or party activists. Cameron is not the second coming of Baroness Thatcher.
Like Simon Richard's The Freedom Zone at the start of October at the Conservative Party Conference the knives are out. I have read that the Tories are struggling to fill the room. The EU, spending and the nanny state, as an MP said to me was worth 'dying in a ditch for.' The mood for some is mean.
Don't blame UKIP. Blame Cameron for being scared of the Tobacco Control Industry and putting bigots and phobics in Health like Lansley and Milton.
You may recall that I wanted to vote Tory in 2010 but Cameron's refusal to say anything at all on the smoking issue before the election led me to believe the NuConservatives were just as bad on that issue as NuLabour. I was right. I'd be very angry now if I had voted Tory.
They had to do but one thing to win a majority to rule alone - amend the smoking ban. How many more voters have turned away from the Tories after voting for them last time directly because of the smoking ban and now gone to UKIP? Why is it the only party whose membership and share of the vote is increasing? It isn't just about the EU.
As UKIP is the ONLY party that proposes to take the jackboot of smokers necks and reintroduce tolerance, consideration and choice for both sides, it is getting lost votes from the LibLabCon which has made clear it hates smokers.
All they want from smokers is their vote - and then they tell them to get lost.
Any smoker who votes Conservative, Labour or LibDem in the next election is as stupid as the antis say they are.