UCL Conservative Society

What is to be made of it?! It is very inoffensive but somewhat convoluted. That is about all there is to say. It’s a bit of a nothing really.

Admins: please delete the post above.

As for the local election manifesto, I found the whole idea pretty innovative: after all Conservative councils apply Conservative policies. Therefore by listing what local councils have done and the leitmotif behind it the Party can say “Hey, we aren’t just promising, we’re doing it, and we can do it for you as well if we gain control of your local council”.

I say it’s a pretty good idea.

Did you see how many Conservative MPs voted to keep the workings of the House of Commons exempt from public scrutiny? What a disgrace:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmtoday/cmdebate/09.htm#hddr_1

The party really is all over the place on the issue of openess and probity.

OK its a small point (if a point at all)… but you just have to love the old English used in the voting with the ‘AYES’ and ‘NOES’ tradition that will never die.

eamonn,

er, i thought i WAS making a point about policy. i’m sorry to see you’ve made it personal by calling me ’sanctimonious’, ‘patronising’, and, by implication, sneering. And you said my use of certain words was ‘pathetic’. I’d genuinely be grateful if you argued the point -the transparency of the Houses of Parliament and the views of various MPs, including david maclean, on the matter - rather than making unpleasant personal statements about me. it does rather undermine the very point you’re trying to make.

On that note, despite you saying that i should ‘argue properly’, i see you haven’t actually said anything about the point i was making. it’s hard to have a debate when the person you’re debating with slags you off instead of discussing the issue. If you have a constructive reply, i’d be happy to read it. The same goes for the other threads to which we have both contributed.

Colin,

Thanks for your (grown up!) reply. i think you’re right to an extent, although i note no libs went through the lobby to support david maclean in the division. of course, it being a friday before elections, maybe they just had to get back to their constituencies to prepare for local government…!

What I actually disagree with Tarquin is your perpetual use of transparent rhetoric - such as, “The Tories. New spin, same old discredited values….”

You are drawing massive sweeping statements from such minor things. The fact that one minor Tory MP draws up an amendment such as this does not mean that the general direction of the party has changed - a similar comparison can be drawn with the Lib Dems stance on fox hunting - just because Lembit Opik, Mark Oaten and Menzies Campbell voted against the ban doesn’t mean that the overall party’s stance was one that was against the ban - you cannot draw such sweeping statements as, “same old (discredited) values,” for the Conservative party as a whole from one minor issue.

Also on another note your link now leads to something else - You could probably do with posting another. I would try www.theyworkforyou.com

eamonn,

so you don’t like my rhetoric. ok, i admit, i may be a little colourful in my language, but i’m never personal (although i thoroughly dislike the tory party as an institution), and I would be grateful if you weren’t either.

I would argue that there is substance to my ’specious rhetoric’, even if you don’t like or agree with it. Taking the quote that upset you: ‘The Tories. New spin, same old discredited values….”, well, if you don’t think that the new tory party is all about spin, you obviously haven’t heard of steve hilton, or noted how cameron has managed to say a heck of a lot recently without actually saying very much at all. do you honestly think that the tory media machine isn’t firing pretty hard on all cylinders these days, or that david cameron is not acutely aware of the power of the photo op and the role of image in the media? and without any policies to speak of, do you not think that there is a lot of spin there? Come on.

Further, i do think that the party still in many ways stands for the same old discredited values. let’s look at the case in point, the FOI exemption Bill discussed above. firstly, i wouldn’t say that Maclean is minor. ok, he’s not front bench, but he has been an MP for 24 years, he was a Government Minister at MAFF and the Home Office, and was the Conservative Chief Whip from 2001-05. It’s a backroom role, certainly, but not a minor one. He’s not some Michael Fabricant-esque maverick on the fringe of the party. And secondly, look at the number of Tory MPs (and Labour MPs, but that’s another story) who went through the lobbies with him - it evidently struck a chord. And, echoing another debate on another thread, look at the manifesto the current crop of Tory MPs stood on at the last election. it was deeply unpleasant. Look at how many of those MPs also happily served the Major and Thatcher Governments, and voted for railway privatisation, the poll tax, care in the community, etc. Further, look at how close the party came to electing david davis. boris johnson’s then researcher told me that if davis had won he’d have resigned his party membership. How much of your attachment to the party rests on Cameron’s leadership? And how in-tune is his leadership with the core values of the 197 MPs he seeks to lead? You said somewhere else that politicans have to tow the line on occasion, and i agree. But how many awful right-wingers are towing the line now just because Cameron’s riding high in the polls? I don’t care how nice and liberal he seems, if he becomes PM, John Redwood’s going into Government, and I do not ever want to see that again.

When you look past the barely-thought-through policy suggestions such as tax breaks for married couples, and see what the tories do in parliament, where it matters, you see they still stand for the same things. They voted for Iraq in 2003 and Trident recently. They’ve opposed every budget that has invested money into the public services, which were horribly underfunded after 18 years of Conservatism (20 years, if you count the 2 years that Labour followed tory spending plans after they got in). They have not repented for the mistakes of their last time in power. In fact they don’t even think of them as mistakes. Why should they be forgiven?

I’m not saying that the tories are evil or uniformly awful - they are not. No party has a monopoly on wisdom or intelligence. The party may have Andrew Rosindell, but it also has Peter Bottomley. Just like the LibDems may have Lembit Opik, but they also have Vince Cable. I just worry that you’re all getting sucked into a party that’s going to screw us over again. and why? because the leader seems nice. there’s more to it than that.

finally, yes, eamonn, you have replied in a thoughtful and mature way to my postings, barring the aberration above. I admonished you for that one slip and if you felt like i was treating you like a ‘thick little petulant child’, well, sorry. That image of you certainly wasn’t in my head when i replied, but perhaps you shouldn’t have made such a personal attack on me. If you or laura-rose want to continue a genuine debate, i see that neither of you have replied to the considered responses to your comments on the ‘caerulean 5′ or ’stranded tory 1′ threads. i would be happy to read your thoughts on them.

eamonn,

i too thought that it would be great to get rid of saddam hussein. however, i also considered that the war had the barest shred of legality, little international support, was driven by the dogma of US neoconservatives and not the facts on the ground, and was neither about the war on terror (as the Bush administration suggested to its own people to get their backing) nor about doing the right thing (as we were leaving mugabe, the iranian mullahs, north korea and the murderers of darfur untouched). if i could see that, if a million marchers could see that, if a small number of tory MPs and the entire liberal democrat party could see that, then IDS and those who followed blair into the aye lobby could have seen that. i’m sorry, but blaming blair’s lies for their poor political judgement is not an excuse.

as for trident. i accept that some think we need nuclear missiles. we don’t though. the threat over the coming years is not from states, it is from terrorists with suitcases. michael portillo, the former tory defence secretary, recently said that he didn’t see the case for trident, but that if he was in power he doubt he’d have the political ‘guts’ to vote against it. i suspect that is what has happened with both the govt and the tories.

you mention some interesting policies around the NHS. where are they from? i was under the impression that the tories didn’t have any policies on the subject yet. what are the tories’ views on reducing central targets altogether, and allowing professionals to get on with the job? also do you know the party’s view on localising healthcare services (a la denmark), so that the Secretary of State for Health isn’t the first tier of democratic accountability from whom a patient might seek redress?

you say the tory party is changing. but i have yet to see any firm evidence of this. yes, the rhetoric is changing, but that’s nothing, i want to see beef, not sizzle, as the americans say. the only policy that has been announced recently has bene tax breaks for married couples, which was fairly comprehensively torn apart by the question time audience when francis maude tried to explain it on the programme some weeks ago.

what is it that you like so much about the party?

The NHS policies came from a TRG policy supper I had with Andrew Lansley and they have been announced in speeches before by David Cameroon - particularly the emphasis on outcomes rather than initial treatments. As to the policies you mention the Lib Dems have pushed - I’m not sure of any current Tory equivalent.

The reason I am a member of the conservative party is for reasons such as the NHS health policies I have already stated - plus other more traditional conservative policies such as selective education and assisted places. I have grown up on council estates as a son of divorced parents, though was lucky enough to go to private school, and know full well the state of Britain for the everyday person. I know full well the possible effects a broken family can have. For me the welfare state also needs reform - notably in areas such as national insurance - the current system rewards those who sit on their arses rather than attempting to get a job - I would rather see a system where those who are working, in whatever sense (Even volunteer work), have their wages subsidised rather than simply dishing out relief to the unemployed willy nilly. I know that although this isn’t a traditional conservative view, neither the lib dems or labour would even consider reforming the welfare system as it stands.

Michael Portillo doesn’t have any political balls - why do you think he has stepped out of politics? The threat is not just from terrorists - both North Korea and Iran have nuclear programmes and both countries are run by increasingly paranoid leaders. That is ignoring the steady frosting up of relations that there has been in recent years with China.

With regards to the Iraq War if I was told that the UK was under threat of attack from Iraq then I would make all moves to disarm Iraq. Do you think the Tories would support such an unpopular measure if there was no threat. Of the 1 million people who gathered in London there was a large islamic contingent concerned that it was a wholesale attack on islam. Not everybody in London that day was concerned because they didn’t think Saddam had WMDs. I do however take your point with regards to the illegality of the war and the Conservatives probably should have pushed the government for further approval from the UN. I do also believe however that it was a rare case of political opportunism from the Lib Dems - knowing full well that there was an election coming in a couple years and knowing full well that they might be able to capitalise politically on any governmental cock ups. (Not that the Conservatives have never done this in the past.)

I do feel that something needs to be done about Mugabe and that any humanitarian crap that the government has produced to justify the war is tosh- if they had cared so much about humanitarian crises then there are other greater ones. Although the conservatives haven’t pushed for any movement in Darfur lets not forget that they aren’t ignoring other international problems - George Osborne has stated that a conservative government will give £500 million to fight Malaria in the third world - matching the financial comitment of the USA.

Assisted places wasn’t an admission that state school education was crap altogether - it allowed children to enter selective education if they so wished and gave those who couldn’t afford to go to a decent school (Particularly in rough areas) the opportunity to go.

I would however prefer a wholesale return to state selective education with the 11+ re-introduced. The move to comprehensive education for all has brought standards down, particularly in the poorest areas. Many other European countries still have streaming in their state education systems (Germany included) - we need a return to that sort of a system and only a Conservative government would have the balls to do so.

You need to overcome the academic snobbery that an academic education is the only way for people to go in this society. The fact is that there are huge numbers of kids leaving school without any real usable skills in the world of work which is resulting in ever increasing youth unemployment and of a huge cost to the taxpayer.

It may come as a shock to you but not everyone is as suited to such a rigourous academic education as you or I - something the government has finally come to realise - the option of a more vocational post 16 education becoming part of the raising of the school leaving age to 18. I think that it would be a lot fairer, to the taxpayer as well as the people being educated, if there was a selective education system that ensured that those who aren’t as academically able are allowed to pursue another more vocational education. That way taxpayer money isn’t wasted on unemployment benefits nor on trying to enforce an all-embracing academic education on them. (Something the majority of western nations have come to accept, America excluded - even they however have vocational options in their syllabus.) I’m not saying that everyone who goes to a comp rather than a grammar school has to take more vocational subjects but it should be encouraged - indeed it should still be ensured that youths leave school with basic maths and literacy skills - but it is only through that means of education that we get value for money out of the state education system.

I also feel that grammar schools would be of huge benefit to poor and deprived areas - it allows those who are less well off and who want to study the opportunity to do so, leaving those who don’t want to in the other schools. I know that doesn’t sound fair, almost creating a school of academic no-hopers, but to force those kids that do want to learn in to a school with those who don’t want to learn isn’t fair either. People need to overcome the idea of producing an ultra-fair education system as it just doesn’t work - common sense and malleability are needed in this instance.

I come from a borough (Trafford) where there is still an 11+ and the comprehensives actually get above average exam results for the country and the grammar school gets even higher results which means that standards are driven up for everyone involved - not just those at the top. Selection allows those of similar levels to go at the same pace and teachers then don’t have some children struggling and others being held back. I would have the option to switch schools at 16 so that those from grammar schools can pursue a more vocational education if they want to.

In terms of more vocational qualifications I agree that people shouldn’t necessarily be forced in to that kind of education at 11 and that was not what I was suggesting. I would advocate a system that starts to encourage people towards vocational subjects if they are less academically able from the age of 14. I don’t think people should necessarily be forced into doing vocational training - particularly not before the age of 16. I believe that there should be a basic all round education taught to all children - people will always need maths, english and basic knowledge in science regardless of what job you take in life. However - the UK needs plumbers, carpenters, electricians etc and with more youth unemplyment and more people leaving schools without any useful skills it would be better to make those who are going to leave school without those skills - the less academically able - to train in other areas.

The idea of choice is an intruiging one - although I do agree there should be a level of preference involved but there also has to be practicality. I may well want to become an olympic athlete, rock star etc but if I haven’t the natural talent there then it would be a pointless exercise. I realise that not every child is reaching their potential at 11 but then there was always a degree of interchangability between grammar schools and comps for those children who feel like they are being held back at the comps. It may be worth considering having a comprehensive education up until the age of 14 and allowing selection to occur from that age - those who haven’t academicallh blossomed by that point aren’t likely to in the following two years.

Selection is the only way to drive standards up for all and to ensure that the jobs market is receiving people with applicable skills of whatever kind - whether they be vocational or academic.

Just because the current line of thought of David Cameron is against selective education does not mean that the MPs of the conservative party are against it. My local MP, Graham Brady, was quite outpoken against Cameron’s policy the day after the speech.

UKIP - no. Far too many right policies there for me - and besides there are still plenty in the Conservative Party in favour of selective education.

If that chap had a blog in which those comments were published then I might be sad enough to go out looking for an argument and tell him off.

Also, exams? Mature student?