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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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