I switched over to Sky News last night to wait for Boris's acceptance speech. I noticed they were reporting 300 Conservative gains in the local elections, rather than the lower BBC figure I had watched build until Auntie lost interest as the voters misbehaved. I checked the final figures this morning and the discrepancy is huge (see screen shots, click to enlarge). Which figures are correct?
Link: BBC NEWS | Politics | Johnson wins London mayoral race.
Congratulations, Boris. What a shame that the House of Commons will lose one of its few principled and intelligent members to a largely ceremonial post. It's probably worth it, to save Londoners the embarrassment of having a Mayor prepared to befriend totalitarian scum.
Does this mean Ken Livingstone will now have to get a real job? The shock may kill him. Boris, in his acceptance speech, was far too gracious about a disgraceful, despicable man.
Link: YouTube - Littlejohn bitchslaps Toynbee.
I know this video is everywhere in the blogosphere (as it should be) but forgive me for posting it again. The look on Toynbee's smug, insufferable face as Littlejohn delivered a retort so obvious that only she, in her self-righteousness, could have failed to expect it is just too delicious. If she feels it's unfair, let's all say in chorus with Littlejohn "You started it, pet!"
Every little girl and boy that's born into the world alive
Is either a little Liberal or else a little Conservative
For most of my life I called myself conservative. Yet what is it that I want to conserve about today's Britain? Her welfare dependency? Her dumbed-down culture? Her lethal health service? Her chaotic and ineffectual schools? Her cowardly obsession with "health and safety?" Her cultural cringe?
Do I support the laws of the land? No, I think that more than 90% of them should be repealed. Do I support the institutions of the State? Hardly, since I would close most of them. What about "the boys in blue?" Every conservative loves them, surely? Well then I am no conservative, since I regard them (pace the good souls still in their midst) as the IRA to New Labour's Sinn Fein.
They may not always hold office, but in public life the victory of the Labour Party has been total. Save for isolated pockets of comically ineffectual resistance, its thinking now commands academia, the media, the educational establishment and indeed all the public services (including those formerly known as "forces"). If David Cameron were elected tomorrow, that would not change at all. The pace of Britain's destruction might slow, but the trend would be the same.
Since he would conserve far more in our country than I would, Gordon Brown is more properly called a conservative than am I. Conservatives (the clue is in the name) favour the status quo in a broad sense; socially, economically and politically. And in such a broad sense, Britain's society, her economy and her political structures are all now Labour. It is the Labour barons who feel at home in our country. It is the intellectuals of the Left who swagger, unchallenged, amid our dreaming spires.
How can I call myself a Conservative when it would now take far more change to make a Britain of which I could approve than to convert her to a Communist or Fascist state? In the original sense of the word, I am now a radical since I desire root and branch reform. I am one of the alienated few who believe that - 999 times out of a 1,000 - free individuals making their own life choices with the informal support of family and community will do better for themselves and each other than will even the best-directed State.
Such people used to be called "conservatives". What should we call ourselves now?
Link: Iain Dale's Diary: Vote in the April Political Performance Index.
One of the most interesting initiatives in the blogosphere at present is Iain Dale's monthly "Politiical Performance Index." Why not head over there (follow the link above) to vote?