Dave is not a libertarian – what a fucking surprise

Via Guido, I find David Cameron's speech rejecting libertarianism.

The first red line he drew was his repudiation of Libertarianism. This was deeply welcome to all those Tories who detest Brown's leviathan state and the daily intrusions into our freedoms - but have long been concerned at the "libertarian" label being slapped onto the party of Queen and country, of service and traditional communities, by swivel-eyed ideologues who are as hostile to true Toryism as are Marxists. Cameron reinforced this later when he said "We are not an anti-state party."

So, there we have it: could someone pass the news onto Jackart, please? Oh, and whilst you are about it, you might want to pass it on to Guido too?

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Cameron : "We are Libertarians"

Dave is in Prague this morning to address the party conference of ODS, the future European parliamentary partners of the Tories.

Come to think of it, you might want to tell Dave "Freedoooooooooooom" Cameron into the bargain. Because, to judge by the text of his speech cited by Guido, Spam has done some hard thinking over the last year or so.

After all, lines such as...

The battle for freedom and opportunity is never finally won. In each generation, those of us who believe in freedom, in human potential, in the idea that the strength of our society comes from the energy and industry and creativity of our people; those of us who believe in these things must be ready to fight for them because the enemies of freedom are never finally vanquished.

... or...

Today we can see the enemies of freedom preparing a renewed assault on our liberty. They do not mean to harm us. In fact, they mean to help us. But their ideas are out of date, their methods have failed and their advance must be derailed.

... or, most egregiously, this...

I am speaking of the politicians and public officials who believe that they know best how to organise our lives. That they are the experts, so they must have the power.

... might have led some people to believe that Dave was, in some way, opposed to state power.

You can find them everywhere – in my country, in your country and in the EU itself.

Yes, Dave: we can see them. And you are one of them, you opportunistic cunt, you.

But thank you too, Dave, for spelling it out so very fucking clearly: any libertarian member of the Tory Party is on a hiding to nothing.

I have long maintained that Spam is a fucking power-seeker, and nothing more. Sure, a Tory government will be less intrusive than NuLabour (probably) but I really wouldn't bet on it being significantly so.

The UK Libertarian Party leader, IanPJ, has eloquently fisked Cameron's speech over on the Libertarian Party weblog.

I feel sorry for those Conservatives who have spent so much time and effort trying to convince the Tory leader that the voting public in the UK are not just sick of NuLabour, but are also sick of the massive levels of state interference in their everyday lives.

I feel sorry for David Davis, who put his job on the line to make his point, I feel sorry for Dan Hannan and Douglas Carswell who only two weeks ago published what was essentially a Libertarian manifesto.

I feel sorry for them because now they have nowhere to go, no place in a Conservative government, not without backtracking on their convictions that is.

Quite. It is a sad day for those libertarian Conservatives who imagined that Dave might share some of their passion for freedom. Sorry, guys, but you've been mugged. Again.

Cameron tried to convince conference today that Libertarianism meant a free for all, when he said:

But freedom can too easily turn into the idea that we all have the right to do whatever we want, regardless of the effect on others. That is libertarian, not Conservative - and it is certainly not me.

For me, the most important word is responsibility. Personal responsibility. Professional responsibility. Civic responsibility. Corporate responsibility.

Cameron's speech is quite simply a disgusting distortion of the libertarian idea; it seems that Cameron, too, has no idea of the difference between "libertarian" and "libertine".

Nevertheless, it is the final nail in the coffin for those who believed that Cameron might harbour such ideals. Or maybe he still does. Who fucking knows? The man opens his mouth and the lies come pouring oh-so-plausibly out of his gob.

I should have seen it coming when, in his interview with Dale, David Davis said that he did not see himself as a libertarian (he then described what he believed in—and it sounded very libertarian indeed).

I could go on, about Schools, Families, Welfare, but there is little point. Cameron I must admit can give a good speech, all credit to him, but the content saddens me.

A Conservative government will unfortunately mean more of the same, state interference, big government, high taxes. This speech was about sugar coating, the same message in a new coat, nudging rather than 'in the face', tinkering with the presentation, but the message to the public is, unfortunately is the same.

Absolutely true. I know it and, if you are honest with yourself, you know it too.

Yes, I am equally aware that, at the next general election, the Conservatives will get in. Indeed, as my father constantly says, he "would vote for a Barbary ape just to get these Labour bastards out".

There has been little about the database state at this conference, Cameron did give an interview on radio today where he undertook to scrap the ID Cards, the NIR and the childrens database, but much like Osborne's financial promises, we know the EU wont let him.

He cannot scrap the surveillance, the cannot scrap the plethora of anti-terror laws, he cannot scrap the databases, he cannot scrap the tax rises, he cannot scrap the road charging from coming into force, he cannot stop the rot.

They may let him make changes to the window dressing, to put an acceptable face on it, because an EU directive is an EU directive not a request, and Dave of all people should know, does know, that because successive Conservative and Labour governments have now given away so much of our sovereignty, that unless he confronts the EU directly and takes us out of the union, he as a Conservative Prime Minister of the UK cannot really change a damn thing.

So, when five years of Cameron's Conservative government leads to no appreciable improvement, do feel free to vote for some real libertarians...

In the meantime, Cameron has heartily pissed me off; as such, your humble Devil is girding up his loins and preparing to give that cunt as much stick as I have given NuLabour.

Fresh meat!