ThunderDragon may, let’s face it, be taking the youth thing a bit far. Why would a 21 year old want to be a political blogger when, as the poet would have it, the force that through the green fuse drives the flower still drives his green age? If you are a Conservative when you are 20, we used to say, you have no heart. If you are a Socialist when you are 30, then you have no head. The ThunderDragon is, it seems, a heartless young chap. Compare and contrast with Bob Piper, who is clearly the kind of fool there is no fool like.
His tag cloud features “Labour” as his most frequent topic. The comrades from Islington and Kirkcaldy have been in charge for much of his life. It’s hard for a young person in Britain to have the perspective to see that Labour is a political irrelevance and an historical anomaly. Their ideology is long since discredited. They are in power because of the snake-oil-marketing abilities of a master huckster. To be fair, young David Cameron is also too fascinated with New Labour and the dark arts that brought them to power. So focussed as to deploy them just as people have learned to see through them.
The ThunderDragon kicked off his blogging career on 20th June last year, with a single post on the West Lothian Question. His second post did not come until July 20th. His opinions were calm, but Cameronian. One might, for a while, have thought he had ambitions to be a Conservative candidate. After this slow start - just two posts in two months - the inital dancing round the ring was over. Off came the silk robe, in went the gum shield and he came out fighting. He posted a series of surprisingly unCameronian opinions. The critic of Israel and proponent of the non-policy of "English Votes on English matters" told us that:
This tree image is ridiculously generic, and if the word 'Conservative' was removed from beneath it, could be the logo for anything, or nothing!
"Party democracy is compromised in quest for more women MPs" says ConservativeHome, and who can really disagree with that, for it is the truth.
'Faith schools' seem very much like an oxymoron to me
"Eco-Warriors" are nothing more than idealistic idiots
Less controversially, he informed us that Charles Kennedy is a drunk, commenting:
As an alcoholic, he should not have stood for such a position, or should have resigned as soon as it became clear that he could not kick the habit easily.
That's a young man's view. Us older hands, even if we are not of Dylan Thomas's opinion that
an alcoholic is someone you don't like who drinks as much as you do,
see a politician without a flaw as a terrible thing. Flaws make us human. They make us less priggish. In a politician, a good flaw is essential to make him less inclined to ban others' foibles. Besides, as Ming Campbell has comprehensively demonstrated, mere sobriety does not guarantee success. Winston Churchill could have drunk all the LibDems under the table, and then kicked their asses electorally. Go figure.
This post played to his strengths; commenting on young people and their supposed disillusionment with politics. I am not sure I agree with his view that “spin” turns the young off more than the old. Older voters are inclined to expect less from the charlatans in public life, if only because they couldn’t take the strain of constantly dashed hopes. But they detect spin better than the young. Still, it was an intelligent, interesting post.
Subsequent posts have been equally “sound” on pointless apologies for history, positive discrimination and John Reid’s hypocritical heckler. His style is developing and he has earned the approval of several leading bloggers. The ThunderDragon consistently provides an interesting and enjoyable read - always entertaining and often insightful. His writing may even give us a foretaste of our political future. Stick with him. After all, time will cure his youth.
Next up: Please vote for my final victim.
