Conservative Home has a new site dedicated to following the activities of the Left. I have a feeling that the BBC is going to afford them rich pickings. Time was when B-BBC was practically the only site that bothered to turn over the stones in the superficially attractive BBC garden to uncover very active little leftist bugs- an endeavour which produced stories like this, for instance
Today, Tim Montgomery notes that “At 0853am this morning the Today programme interviewed Katherine Rake of the Family and Parenting Institute. She used her three minute twenty second slot to attack the Tory idea that marriage should be recognised by the tax system. She avoided a question about the evidence that shows marriage is much more stable than cohabitation and continued her political talking points.”
A little googling shows that her organisation, the innocent sounding “Family and Parent Institute, is 80%+ directly Government funded (the rest apparently from “contracts” with Govt), she was a regular contributor to the Guardian- described by them as “Feminism’s calm champion”- and the chairman of her organisation’s board is Fiona Millar, who of course is partner of You Know Who.
From the Biased-BBC perspective, one wonders if this lady with her impeccable leftist credentials was introduced as a “left-wing commentator”?
The Beeb loves quangos: there are whole swathes of ‘experts’ connected to Government, yet “independent” and best of all from the Guardianista class from which the BBC draws its own recruits. Thus contacts galore are guaranteed, programmes are filled with like minds and cosy insights from Government circles fall like confetti amidst the happy couplings of statist thinkers.
that’s some lovely assumption there
even the author disagrees:
John Bright said…
What about the BBC?
Tim Montgomerie said in reply to John Bright…
Are you volunteering John?
Richard Calhoun said…
Complaining about the BBC is no response to our poor showing against the ‘left’
John Bright said in reply to Richard Calhoun…
The BBC is the mouthpiece of left ideology.
Richard Calhoun said in reply to John Bright…
You may be right but how does that help us win the election – we need to look at positives!!
I’m afraid to say that the Conservative party is now so far gone that it would be better off looking for the creeping leftism in its own party.
The cameroons share most of the BBC’s Europhile/AGW hysteria/anti-family values etc that it is hard to see what on the left it can be critical of.
I have to agree Daniel – Cameron seems to be banking on “sick of Labour” angle to get elected.
Daniel Smith
I’m afraid Cameron has finished the Conservative party; the only hope for the country now is that enough people vote UKIP (take a look at their website and try to find a policy a true Conservative might object to) to deny Cameron victory. We get another term of Labour (no great loss, as we would get exactly the same policies from a Conservative government under Cameron) while the Conservative party tears itself apart. At the following election UKIP will have the momentum acquired in 2010 (denying Cameron victory would show their potential) plus the added credibility from the likes of Cash, Davis, Hague and Redwood (and Hannan at the EU). The Cameroons would, of course, all defect to their natural home in the Labour party, where they would be made most welcome.
The new party would have a very real chance of being elected, but they would have a hell of a job before them. Compared with what Thatcher faced in ’79 they would have worse problems arising from 18 years of Labour maladministration to undo. They would also have the Labour party and its apologists blaming them for the strong medicine that would have to be administered, much as they still blame Thatcher for the costs the country incurred in slowing (not even stopping, let alone reversing, tragically) the advance of the over mighty socialist state.
This scenario is far from certain, but I really can see no other possibility if the country is not to disappear up its own welfare entitlements. If there is no chance of reducing the scale of government, I’m leaving after the next election and taking my tax payments with me.
I share your analysis on this although my preferred outcome would be a hung parliament or perhaps a slight Labour victory. If the “tories” (if they still can claim that name) win, the media narrative will immediately turn on them as it did in the 80s, they will be blamed for everything and the whole labour shambles will be forgotten. If, like the Thatcher government, they fail to undo any of the Leftist cancer among the institutions (including the august BBC) they will simply occupy a pointless government without actually changing the culture of society which is what is necessary (and what the left has always understood).
It is sad that so many people actively wish for the ruinous Labour party to get back into power and watch it, for another 5 years, turn this country into an even greater rubbish heap, but, as you say, there is now no other way.
I would certainly prefer a hung parliament or a very slim Labour majority to a large majority, but I do think an election victory for Cameron would merely vindicate him dragging the former Conservative party so far to left. As such, that would be a greater disaster than 5 more years of Labour. If only the 40%+ who will stay at home because they have been told (not least by the BBC) that only an established party have any chance of forming a government could be mobilised. If 24% was enough for Blair to gain a large majority in 2005, what could 40% do for UKIP in 2010?
In many ways a total economic collapse may be the only way we can rid ourselves of these parasites. None of them are remotely necessary to the functioning of society. They are an indulgence of an affluent and over intellectualised way of life.
Neither a truly conservative nor a truly socialist society would have any place for them. They toil not but they certainly spin. The only glory they seek is their own
I had to laugh at the latest conservative flagship policy of “looking at the health’N’safety legislation”…I am sure they will look at it BUT that is all they will and indeed can do, what the Tory frontmen are not saying is that H&S is an EU competence, the EU controls the H&S laws and the Westminster stooges are only allowed to implement and enforce them.
The Tories know full well that as of today the UK government is now legally obliged to work for the EU and put the interests of the EU first and above the interests of the people, as of today the UK government is nothing more than an enforcement and compliance stooge regime of the EUSSR superstate.
Human rights and H&S and social laws and employment laws and green laws all decided by foreigners, we are a regional state ruled by regional stooge puppets and the conservatives will be every bit as subservient as newlabour.
The real actual truth is that Cameron will not have any power to do anything other than follow EU diktats and laws, his governmental lines of communication all flow through and to newlabour federalist commissars, none of his own people are in positions of power within the new EUSSR regime, if he wishes to talk to the new overlord bosses he will have to go through his political enemies to do it, if he goes to Brussels he will be alone and confronting a brick wall of superior forces even if he chose to confront them which he will not and indeed cannot because he is now legally obliged to work for the interests of the EU as from today.
The conservative know full well that the bulk of our laws are now made by foreigners, we as a regional state are now expected to obey and pay up, that is all the former UK is expected to do from now on, the Tories are strangley silent on the actual reality of the UKs demise, we are and will be under the Tories a captive people led by stooge local rulers bound by foreign law to promote the interests of our new foreign rulers and there is NOTHING that the Tory stooges can/would or even wish to do about it.
Lets call a spade a spade shall we? The Tory manifesto is as empty as a vacuum for a good reason, they will have no real power to change anything, its why they warble on about a new quango to see if all the other quangos are needed, in reality its a warning for them to make new places available at the pig trough and nothing more, its why the Tories are fixated on trivial nonsense, they realise they will little more power than to change the wall paper in their plush offices and pad their bloated salaries.
In the twisted little minds of the Beeboids there are no such things as left-wing commentators or think tanks, only right-wing ones.