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Despite the Ukip threat, the signs are growing that the PM can copy John Major’s upset
As of today, there are two years to go to the general election in 2015. From now on, the contest will shape all decisions taken by the political parties. For the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, resources that were concentrated on the act of governing will increasingly be diverted to the imperative of winning,Mulberry handbags. The time for jettisoning the men at the top has passed, and all three parties are reconciled to pressing on with the leaders they have, whatever the consequences.
Last week’s local election results have been studied closely for indications of what the voters might decide when the choice really matters. In particular, Ukip’s surge has been elevated to the status of sea-change, foretelling a transformation in how politics works from which the Tories might never recover. Next year’s European elections are already anticipated as the springboard that will hurtle Nigel Farage’s men to national importance, and even seats at Westminster. On May 7 two years hence, we are told, voters susceptible to the messages of the Right will split between the old-order Conservatives and the insurgents of Ukip, leaving the spoils to Prime Minister Ed Miliband.
That, at least,Mulberry outlet, is the doomsday outcome that Mr Farage and his fifth columnists inside the Tory party are counting on. They are certainly using it to herd Mr Cameron towards an accommodation if not with Ukip itself, then with its policies,Mulberry outlet. The threat the party poses is wielded by Conservative MPs who want the Prime Minister to do more to align himself with the populist and, let’s face it, popular ideas it advances. Legislation for a referendum on Europe in this parliament; more stringent immigration controls; no more protecting the aid budget; dropping the legislation on gay marriage � these are being promoted by Tories who see a chance to advance both an ideological agenda and their long-running opposition to the metropolitan modernisation that Mr Cameron tried to impose on them.
In recent days, Downing Street has tried to do its own discreet realigning, by drawing attention to what it intends in the Queen’s Speech tomorrow. Its � admittedly sparse � contents include measures to restrict access to the health service for Romanians and Bulgarians, while attention is also being drawn to what it doesn’t contain, notably a Bill to enshrine our exalted level of aid spending in statute.
The questions of what Ukip’s rise means and what Mr Cameron must do about it have dominated the political debate over the bank holiday weekend. But it is also possible to discern in last Thursday’s results a wider choice that will face the country in 2015, one more promising both for the Tories and for the Right in general. Optimism has its risks, but I am beginning to wonder � especially given the dismal performances by Labour and the Lib Dems in the local elections � whether the conditions are crystallising for an electoral surprise equal to John Major’s victory in 1992, when the electorate decided convincingly that it preferred the Tories’ view of what Britain needed to Labour’s.
Dipping into the histories of the time is a reminder of useful similarities: a recovering economy, Tories divided over Europe, a prime minister derided in the media, and a Labour leader inflated by PR trickery but lumbered with an incredible programme. The polls suggested throughout that the Tories were doomed, so much so that Mr Major’s advisers hated showing them to him. There was even an analogy for the spectacular performance of Ukip: a few years earlier, the Establishment had been panicked when the Greens took 15 per cent in the European elections, only for what Kenneth Clarke derided as the “overnight party” to drop to 0.5 per cent at the general election. Come polling day, 14,092,891 people voted Conservative, more than ever before or since. The public decided overwhelmingly to stick with what they had rather than risk placing their trust in Neil Kinnock, who they sensed wasn’t up to the task of being prime minister.
For every similarity, of course, there is a glaring difference. Mr Major was spared some of the difficulties that Mr Cameron must contend with, and had advantages that his successor does not. For a start, there was his compelling family story of poverty and grammar school aspiration, captured in the film of him returning to his Brixton flat and gazing out of his armoured car � “Is it still there? It is, it is.” (On election night, his then aide Tim Collins gleefully taunted the media doomsayers with: “Is he still here,cheap ghd? He is, he is,Nike Air Max 90 Australia!” How Mr Cameron’s advisers long to make a similar point in 2015.) There was no Ukip to draw away Tory support from the Right. Mr Major did not have to endure the cruelties of the boundary review that followed the 1992 victory. The Tories still had a presence in Scotland. Above all, politicians had not been discredited by scandal and broken promises, nor had politics been turned into a minute-by-minute effort to win the approval of a fickle digital mob.
But a number of basic elements remain, and, if nurtured and consolidated by Mr Cameron,Mulberry uk, can improve Tory prospects. For a start, the party has been galvanised by the death of Margaret Thatcher and the fortnight of commemoration and recollection that followed. Her passing reminded the Tories of their past glories and what they could achieve when united around a leader and an idea. More importantly, the hateful reaction from the Left reminded them that the old enemy has not gone away. Tories can now see the danger a Labour or Lib-Lab government would pose: more green taxes; an elected House of Lords; an immediate switch to proportional representation; wealth taxes, including a mansion tax. “The more you think of it, the more we realise we have to take Miliband down,” says one previously regicidal MP. “We are Tories, after all: our fear of Miliband trumps our contempt for Cameron and Osborne.”
Better still, the Conservatives have what looks increasingly like a clear policy platform that answers Ukip’s challenge. In a few weeks, for example,cheap ghd straighteners, new figures will show that immigration has fallen again, allowing Mr Cameron to say that he is getting on with addressing the problem. Polls suggest that the Coalition’s prescriptions for welfare are overwhelmingly popular, again a success to promote in 2015. On the economy, too, the signs of incipient recovery continue to accumulate.
Stir in the effort by the Tories’ new strategist, Lynton Crosby, to ditch marginal initiatives that do nothing but annoy potential supporters (gay marriage, for example, or the aid pledge),Louis Vuitton Handbags Australia, and their offer in 2015 begins to look like something that Ukip voters might grudgingly endorse. MPs are also encouraged that Downing Street and Mr Cameron have so far stuck to the argument he set out in his conference speech, namely that Britain is locked in a global race for economic survival and that Labour would lose it.
Yet to align himself � and the Tory programme � with enough of a centre-Right majority to secure the same kind of decisive popular endorsement as Mr Major,chanel pas cher, Mr Cameron must do more than portray Mr?Miliband as weak,lunettes oakley, or keep Labour on the wrong side of every popular issue. He must find a language and a tone for himself?that blends the cheerful optimism of Nigel Farage or Boris Johnson with the?deadly earnest of tired, exasperated voters � voters who are ambitious for their country, and understand that the choice in 2015 will be far more important than the political classes realise.
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With multiple crises on his docket
You know things are going seriously wrong for the Obama administration’s ultra-liberal agenda when even The Washington Post begins to question it,ghd sale. Here’s a quote from by Joel Achenbach, a senior staff writer for the Post,chanel pas cher, in yesterday’s front page story on Barack Obama’s slow,cheap ghd, Spock-like decision-making process:
With multiple crises on his docket, the president has much to contemplate as he enters the holiday season. The economy has shown signs of growth and the stock market is up, but it's a jobless recovery,Mulberry uk, unemployment is at the highest rate since he was in college,Louis Vuitton Sydney, and there are fears of a double-dip recession. The dollar is down. The national debt is oceanic,lunettes oakley. Obama's health-care plan is imperiled by the whims of a handful of lawmakers. His approval rating has dipped below 50 percent,Mulberry sale. Even once-Obama-friendly "Saturday Night Live" has taken to mocking him as a do-nothing president. This follows historical patterns: New presidents always experience a drop in popularity as the romance of the campaign trail gives way to the mundane bill-paying and grocery shopping of governance.
The Washington Post is traditionally viewed as the favoured newspaper of choice with Democratic administrations,ghd. But its news coverage of Barack Obama’s lacklustre performance,cheap ghd straighteners, especially on foreign policy and economic issues, is increasingly showcasing some strong doubts on both sides of the political aisle over the president’s leadership.
The Post remains a largely left-leaning publication (with a couple of conservative columnists), and I almost always disagree with its editorial line. But as Achenbach’s article demonstrates, the White House’s honeymoon with the liberal establishment may well be coming to an end,sac chanel pas cher. It’s not just Fox News that Obama has to worry about – it’s now also key members of the dominant “mainstream media” who are beginning to challenge his less than impressive record.
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fellows in the anti-Chilean cause.
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I'm beginning to realise that our victory in the Falklands was the defining event of my childhood.
<img src="http://images.onesite.com/blogs.telegraph.co.uk/user/daniel_hannan/falks.jpg" />
Veteran Falkland Island Defence Force members in Stanley
I was living in Peru where, as you will imagine, opinion was solidly pro-Argentina. Every South American country except Chile backed Buenos Aires,sac gucci pas cher, of course, but in Peru it went further. Peruvians have always seen themselves as Argentina's key regional allies, fellows in the anti-Chilean cause.
Never mind that the sentiment is almost wholly unrequited, and that the Argentines, when they think of their auxiliaries at all, tend to dismiss them as rustics; when Argentina goes to war, Peruvians can generally be relied on to unfurl blue-and-white tricolours and blare their horns in support of their senior partner.
To wish, as Jane Austen observes, is to hope, and to hope is to expect. It never occurred to most Lime?��os that their allies might lose. What we were witnessing, I kept being told by gloating Peruvians,ghd sale, was the eclipse of an elderly, creaking state by a young, virile one. Colonialism was over, and the New World was coming into its own,Nike Air Max 90 Cheap.
By Heaven, how their tune changed when the Union flag was hauled up over Port Stanley,Mulberry outlet. Almost overnight, sympathy swung to the victors. I remember watching a television programme in which a number of Peruvians were asked whether they would rather have been colonised by England or Spain,ghd hair straighteners. Apart from one old lady,Nike Air Max 90 Australia, who was grateful to Spain for spreading the Catholic faith, they all opted for Francis Drake,oakley france.
"They'll like us when we win," says Toby in the West Wing, talking of the Muslim states. It was certainly true in Latin America in 1982. The Falklands victory suddenly made us, not just players again, but a respected again. The English, people said, were personas muy serias: responsible people, decent people, gentlemen. In Shakespearean terms, we went from being Cleopatra's Egyptians to Caesar's Romans,sac gucci.
That is why what is currently happening in Iran has consequences that go beyond the Gulf. The Falklands invasion was launched against what looked like a declining power. The junta's calculation was that Britain would make a peevish complaint to the United Nations and leave it at that.
Today,Air Max 1, the ayatollahs have made a similar calculation. They see a nation that is reducing its military capacity, whose population is agitating against overseas deployments, and whose Government is isolated in the counsels of the world. Like Galtieri, they have judged that we will complain to the UN and leave it at that.
What will it say about us if we prove them right? Ever since 1979, we have cosied up to the mullahs, tolerating their repeated violation of the norms that govern international relations. We have let them get away with violating the sanctity of embassies, with arming foreign militias, with sponsoring overseas terrorism, with proxy assaults on our garrison in Basra. Now this.
And still we talk of humouring them with further concessions. Let there be no more nonsense about expressions of regret or recalibration of maritime borders,chanel, my friends. The end of that game is oppression and shame, and the nation that plays it is lost.
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le dumping social
You can see why LibDems don't want a full audit of the impact of EU rules on Britain. To be fair,Mulberry handbags, they're not alone,air max Australia; the entire political establishment had, , displayed the same nervousness. There has been no official cost-benefit analysis of membership since we?joined. I have,ghd sale, though,?read four unofficial ones over the past decade: one?by the Institute of Directors, one by the Economics Committee of of the US Senate, one by the Institute of Economic Affairs and one by the increasingly Euro-enthusiast pressure group Open Europe. The first three concluded that Britain would be marginally better off out, the fourth that we'd be marginally better off in.
To find a Government audit, you have to go back to when Britain was applying to join. The Treasury reckoned the figures on three occasions: in 1960, in 1967 and in 1970, coinciding with Britain's three membership bids. Each time, HMG concluded that there would be a small negative impact: that the loss of Commonwealth trade and the inflationary effects of higher food prices would slightly outweigh the benefits of preferential exports to the EEC. Ministers took the view that the diplomatic gains would outweigh the economic?costs; and, in a pattern that has continued to this day, they convinced themselves that, once inside, Britain could 'use her influence' to make the EU less protectionist and less regulated. Oddly, though, when they came to put the question to the country – in a pattern that has also continued to this day – they did so in precisely converse terms, making an economic rather than a political case.
The political costs are?easily enough identified. In 1973,ghd, the United Kingdom ceased to be a sovereign democracy. EU law has primacy over British law, and we are largely ruled by unelected Euro-functionaries. One by one, the EU has acquired the attributes and?trappings of statehood: a parliament, a currency, a civil service,Mulberry bags, a president, a foreign minister, a supreme court, treaty-making powers, representation at the UN, a flag, a national anthem, a passport. As power has shifted from the national capitals to Brussels, political alienation has increased and turnout at elections has fallen.
The economic drawbacks are less often rehearsed. The Common Agricultural Policy obliges us to subsidise our farmers' Continental competitors, raising food prices and penalising the poor; the Common Fisheries Policy has caused an ecological catastrophe in British waters; the EU's social and employment rules make us uncompetitive; the Common External Tariff penalises Britain, with its global?trade patterns,?more than any other member state; EU directives have struck at whole industries -?art dealers, slaughtermen, cheese-makers, herbalists,?temping agencies, fund managers; on the EU's own figures, the costs of regulation outweigh the benefits of?the single market by five to one (?600 billion versus ?120 billion).
Above all, though, we need to consider the global context. With every minute that passes, the EU becomes less important to the UK. Trade figures published this week show that, in May,chanel, Britain's exports to the EU were down?five per cent on 12 months earlier; our exports to the rest of the world, by contrast, were up seven per cent,ghd straighteners. Take another look at : Europe is collapsing economically, in?sharp contrast to?the Commonwealth from which we crazily stood aside 40 years ago.
What will William Hague's audit show? That depends partly on who conducts it, obviously. But one conclusion it can hardly avoid is that some of the most burdensome aspects of EU membership come under the rubric of 'single market measures'. This creates a political difficulty. One the one hand, the Prime Minister keeps saying that the single market is the core aspect of EU membership to which he is committed; on the other, all the repatriations of policy which he has explicitly pledged fall into this category. Part of the problem is that the EU doesn't define 'single market' in the way that anyone else would. Because single market measures are subject to majority voting, the European Commission makes a point of introducing contentious social, employment and environmental proposals under the relevant articles. In consequence, many of the most costly EU rules – the Temporary Workers Directive, the Emissions Trading Scheme, the 48-hour week – are so defined,Mulberry outlet.
Awkwardly for any British government, the single market is where the other member states will dig in hardest to prevent any major British retrievals of power. Agriculture and fisheries represent a tiny fraction of Europe's GDP, there is a formalised derogation procedure for most justice and home affairs initiatives, and withdrawing from the European External Action Service and the rest of the Common Foreign and Security Policy is administratively straightforward. But the single market is not so easily unpicked, and other members might argue that for Britain to remain in the customs union while regaining a competitive advantage in employment law would constitute freeloading – what the French call le dumping social,sac chanel pas cher.
There is a way around this problem, and the Swiss have found it. You can be part of a free market in Europe without being a full member of the customs union. It's true that you then 'have no say' over how the regulations of the single market are set, but this doesn't bother the Swiss, whose exports to the EU, in per capita terms, are 450 per cent of ours. While they must meet EU standards when selling to the EU – just as they must meet Australian standards when selling to Australia – Swiss businesses are spared the cost of having to apply these standards to their domestic sales. Being outside the Common External Tariff, the Helvetic Confederation can sign more liberal accords than the EU does – it's in the middle of , for example.
I'm not saying that Britain should exactly replicate Switzerland's deal with the EU. On the contrary, we should hold out for something better, reflecting the size of our economy and our importance as a market for the rest of the EU,cheap ghd straighteners, with whom we run a massive deficit. There are several things we might want to do slightly differently. But the key test of?any negotiation is the recovery of an independent commercial policy that would allow us, too, to sign our own free trade deal with China. If the PM comes back with such a prize, I'll happily campaign alongside him in the subsequent referendum.
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