articles

Simon Heffer for Chelmsford

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He actually has a world view…He actually believes things, and he believes them with a volcanic sincerity

..a withering reproach to all the temporising anaemic difference-splitters of this Parliament.

We want the Heff, as we affectionately call him, and we want him now.

David Cameron is said to have received 1,000 letters from assorted headcases who believe they are an undiscovered talent, the Susan Boyles of the next Parliament. And yet of all the names that have so far emerged, there is only one that has really made me sit up. I speak for millions of Daily Telegraph readers when I say that last week my heart leapt for joy when I saw that at last Simon Heffer is poised to allow his name to go forward.

I pounded the table so hard the crockery rattled. I emitted a strangled cry of relief – the kind of noise they must have made in Mafeking when they realised the siege was about to be lifted, and my being was flooded with that sense of ineffable calm that is said to have descended on Churchill when he heard that, after agonising years of prevarication, America had entered the war on our side.

Politics may be in crisis. Parliament may be discredited. The very letters MP now seem to stand for nothing but a bunch of Mercenary Plunderers. But with Heffer poised to enter Parliament, and with the ample Hefferian trouserings set to polish the leather of the green benches, I had a sudden sense that everything was going to be all right.

It is true that the news filled me with such elation that my vision was temporarily clouded, and I may not have read the fine print of the article. But I received the distinct impression that he had set his sights on an Essex seat; and since Heffer invented the very phrase and concept of “Essex Man”, and since he is already known as the “Sage of Chelmsford”, it struck me that he must be a shoo-in.

Continue reading Simon Heffer for Chelmsford →

articles

Rebel MPs are where?

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We need a Parliament of rebels, and we need it now.

The political class of this country are like the passengers of a Russian sled, hissing late at night through the moonlit forest. The ponies are exhausted, and behind them the wolves are in full cry.

One by one the leaders of all parties are hurling their colleagues over the back, in the hope of placating the ravening pack. Tory grandees, Labour Cabinet ministers – no one is safe. Now, in an act of political brutality not seen for 300 years, the terrified MPs have turned on Mr Speaker himself, and with a fearful Glaswegian oath the substantial form of Michael Martin has thudded into the snow.

[….]

I have lost count of the number of times I have sat through debates, after which my colleagues have begun their speeches with the words, “This has been an excellent debate”, and I have wanted to shout, “No! It hasn’t been remotely excellent.

“It has been a collection of cut-and-paste Lego-brick speeches in which people have been speaking not from the heart or direct knowledge of the issue, but because the whips have suggested it would be a good idea to speak.”

[…]

If we had fewer MPs, and they were forced to concentrate on what they were actually doing, we would have much less legislation, and I can’t think of a better way of saving us all time, trouble and money.

[The full article can be seen as first printed in the Daily Telegraph on 25 May 2009]

articles

Britain’s oldest mother-to-be

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It takes quite a lot to knock MPs’ expenses off the front pages these days, so I was amazed, as I grabbed a random tabloid while rushing for a plane on Saturday morning, to discover that the big news of the day was a story of impending motherhood. A British woman was pregnant, we learnt from the six-inch high headlines, and a pretty scandalous pregnancy the paper thought it was. Continue reading Britain’s oldest mother-to-be →

articles

MPs, free speech and British security

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About 10 years ago my brother-in-law was giving me a lift through the early morning Washington traffic when he suddenly gave a whoop of joy. “It’s Howie!” yelled Ivo, turning up the radio. “We gotta listen to Howie!” And it was with mounting disbelief that I listened to the next 20 minutes of the Howard Stern show, a shameless and cynical attempt to scandalise the ear. Continue reading MPs, free speech and British security →

articles

Margaret Thatcher’s political legacy

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In praise of  Margaret Thatcher, the woman who changed politics forever, exactly thirty years after she became prime minister.

In the course of researching this article I approached an intelligent 15 year-old girl. She had been born three years after Margaret Thatcher left office. She had never seen her in action. She had no personal memories of any of the great controversies of the Thatcher epoch. And, therefore, she struck me as a perfect source for an understanding of the full semiotic range of the words “Margaret Thatcher” in the minds of young people today. This schoolgirl had been taught by good left-liberal teachers. She had read the papers and listened all her life to the BBC, and she had the normal British teenager’s range of cultural references. I tried a word-association test. “So what do you think,” I asked her, “when I say the words ‘Margaret Thatcher’ “? She paused, and then she said: “Billy Elliott.” Continue reading Margaret Thatcher’s political legacy →

news

Celebrating first year as Mayor

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“Happy Birthday, Boris!” hails this week’s Spectator.  It has been a remarkable first year as Mayor of London including everything from ping pong to knife crime, transport to education and hard work to fun as the Spectator‘s Mary Wakefield found out.

Mary writes: “I met Boris Johnson in his office in City Hall overlooking the Thames and Tower Bridge. Our former editor seemed a more thoughtful and sensible character than the man who used to practise cycling with no hands down Doughty Street at lunchtime, but there were signs of the old Boris tucked around his mayoral office: ping pong bats (the Mayor likes to unwind by trying and failing to beat his personal assistant, Ann Sindall); a book of love poems by the late Woodrow Wyatt; a bust of Pericles in the corner, looking out over this 21st-century Athens. Continue reading Celebrating first year as Mayor →

articles

Tax rise a Shakespearean return to childhood

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With record levels of debt, this Government returns to raising taxes echoing the: “….Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion; Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” (Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, Act II, Scene VII)

When you have to watch someone die, one of the most distressing things is the period that Shakespeare called a second childishness. As a patient enters the final stages, he may suddenly start speaking of mummy, babbling nursery rhymes or talking a foreign language that he forgot at the age of four. The patient may be suddenly rude, irrationally angry or jealous. It is as though all the decades of acquired behaviour and education are melting away, to reveal the juvenile instincts beneath. Continue reading Tax rise a Shakespearean return to childhood →

blog news, general, in parliament, personal notes

The Budget April 2009

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Taxandspendy – with apologies to Lewis Carroll

 

Twas Budget, and the slimy toad,
Did send poor Darling out again,
From whimsy were the numbers grow’d,
That came from Number Ten.

“And use the Taxandspend, old son,
The debts that bite, the laws that catch,
Entreat the hidden tax, don’t shun,
The slightest attempt to snatch!”

He took his big red box in hand,
Longtime to Parliament he talked,
And waffled he, for in honesty,
He’d given it no thought.

Continue reading The Budget April 2009 →

articles

Labour’s pseudo-egalitarian approach to education

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 The affluent bourgeoisie use either fee-paying schools or private tutors to entrench their advantages, while kicking away the ladder of opportunity for bright kids from working-class backgrounds.

The lesson from the story of Georgia Gould is that if you restrict the opportunities of the many, the few will simply lengthen their lead.

Come on comrades, stop beating up on Georgia Gould – you created her

Since no one else is likely to do so, it falls to this column to spring to the defence of Georgia Gould. Telegraph readers may not be familiar with Georgia. One day she will probably pupate into some hectoring Labour health or environment spokesperson, telling us all when to turn the lights off or how many units of alcohol we may consume. But at the moment she is still trying to win the Labour nomination for the London seat of Erith and Thamesmead, and the Labour Party is having one of its amusing fits of hysterics about the matter. Georgia may be brilliant; she may be blonde; she may be captivating. But she is only 22, and the Labour rank and file are furiously protesting.

Continue reading Labour’s pseudo-egalitarian approach to education →

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