A liberal places individual rights above all else. Conservatism places them high, but within the context of the common or greater social good. liberalism major on rights, conservatism majors on responsibilities and rights. Liberalism places individual choice first. Conservatism has far more in common, at its roots, with the Judeo-Christian heritage (whther or not the individual is a Christian). Liberalism empties that heritage of all meaning and places man in the place of God.

Let me give just one key example. For a conservative, his hom is his castle. Anyone that comes through the widnow at 2am takes his own life into his hands. The home, especially in the hours of darkness, is sacroscant (as the Bible points out). For a liberal, the rights of the homeowner and intruder are the same. The liberal doesn't live in the real world.

As has often been said, "A recovering liberal is a liberal mugged by reality". Cameron has yet to be so mugged.

Here endeth the first lesson.

As the author, Ambrose Evans-Richards, says:

The European Commission is calling for EU powers to vet budgets of the 27 member states before the draft laws have been presented to the House of Commons, the Tweede Kamer, the Folketing, the Bundestag, the Assemblee Nationale, or other national parliaments. It applies to Britain even though we are not in EMU.

Fonctionnaires and EU finance ministers will pass judgement on the British (or Dutch, or Danish, or French) budgets before the elected bodies of these ancient and sovereign nations have seen the proposals. Did we not we not fight the English Civil War and kill a king over such a prerogative?

We did indeed. Evans-richards goes on:

The truth is that no British government can ever put Europe on the back-burner and hope it goes away. It hits you in the face, again, and again, and again. This is why so many British ministers end up feeling a visceral hatred for the project.

In my view, the EU elites overstepped the line by ignoring the rejection of the European Constitution by French and Dutch voters, then pushing it through under the guise of the Lisbon Treaty without a popular vote, except in Ireland, and when Ireland voted ‘No’, to ignore that too. The enterprise has become illegitimate – it is starting to exhibit the reflexes of tyranny.

I disagree on this last point, Ambrose. The EU has been exhibiting tyrannical 'reflexes' since its inception. It has just taken may Brits a lot longer to recognise the fact.

Mrs Thatcher knew all this way back. In 2003 she wrote (in Statecraft):

“Perhaps the most significant shortcoming of the fledgling super-state is that it is not, and will not be, indeed ultimately cannot be, democratic... The Commission and the Parliament share the same federalist agenda – and it is not democratic”.

She added:

‘Europe’ is ... a classic utopian project, a monument to the vanity of intellectuals, a programme whose inevitable destiny is failure; only the scale of the final damage done is in doubt.”

Here's a piece by former editor of the Sunday Telegraph Charles Moore in his Daily Telegraph column a copule of days ago. While I don't concur with Moore's rather silly reasoning - demanding the highly paid Jonathan Ross be sacked (not that Ross is worth it) - the issue of being forced to support a strongly leftwing, allegedly public service, broadcaster is long overdue for review.

Though a 'real conservative' in exile (UKIP member) I still genuinely wish David Cameron and his team (especially the impressive William Hague) well.

Though I see David Cameron as 'Conservative-lite' it is easy to understand that his personal likeability could just make the new arrangement in British politics work, at least for a while. It is good to hear that the new coalition will restate the UK's commitment NOT to join the (doomed) Euro, to keep an independent nuclear deterrent and cut £6 billion from public spending (lunatically out of control currently) and cap non-EU immigration (although EU immigration needs capping too).

Though I do lament the ditching of policies to give tax credits to married couples (a sop to Lib Dim amoral values) and to up the inheritance tax threshold (pure theft by any standards).

Even so, for us all in these isles, it is a new political experience. Could be fun. One thing's for sure, we are no longer run by a man who beleives that a woman raising the issue of "uncapped immigration" and the loss of our border controls as a "bigoted woman". I doubt if even a conservative-lite Cameron could ever be that arrogant or out of touch with real life.

I really don't mean this in any demeaning way, but why is it that whenever I think of David Cameron...'Tweedie-Pie' comes to mind?

As regards Nick Clegg, I actually detect something arrogant in him. He clearly doesn't have the personal touch of a Cameron or Hague. Could be a major problem. But the reality is, as this Daily Telegraph piece reveals, DC may already be headed for some problems from the real conservatives that 'the deal' appears to leave behind.



New Labour hits the reefs as Peter Mandelson offers Gordon Brown back the hat he's been speaking through all these many years.

He's the man who robbed everyone in the country (including plundering their pension funds and selling off their gold at rock-bottom prices) and gave the proceeds, via the handout culture, to the nation's economic migrants and assorted layabouts.

Anyway, I genuinely am off, with our neighbours, to see the marvellous Russell Crowe do his 'Robin' thing this weekend. I'll let you know how Little Dave and Nick Scarlett get on...once they've finally ousted the Sherriff of Bigoted-ham and Prudence from from their current home.

Don't you just love tells of yore? Tales where the villain FINALLY gets his comeuppance?

Cameron, Clegg and Brown Discuss Prospective Joint Working (you decide which is which)

No reason not to be out of the country during this particular election of course - given its pointlessness. Not that I failed to vote (postal vote).

In fact, I voted (as all real conservatives should) with the almost 1 million others who went with the UKIP (along, it seems, with my entire family) and making it the fourth largest supported party in the country. (The UKIP blew away the Greens, BNP and other assorted flotsam.)

Having returned to Albion however, what do I find? I find that the 3 stooges (Cameron, Clegg and Brown) are still discussing who is to become the new PM - Point Man, that is, for the European Union.



But in getting my morning fix of real debate and proper TV journalism via FoxNews (particularly catching up on the recording of the previous night's excellent 'O'Reilly Factor') what did I find ... an extended broadcast of last nights British debate!

So while listening to the Westminster Three pleading for their political futures by answering the question, "How will you restore people's faith in politics?", I just wondered whether anyone else noticed the the elephant in the room?

But there it was. Bold as brass. Wearing a sign asking where the fourth of Britain's leading politicians, EU President and Invisible Man (could it be he was there then??) Herman Van Rompuy, was.  But not one of the Three upfront appeared able to see it. No matter. But then what is the point of listening to politicians venting forth  "what I will do..." when their boss is isn't present to okay the deal?

Of course, the elephant is the real reason why so many people in the UK don't vote. They've been trampled on. It's not because they don't care. at all. It's because the politicians themselves have less and less political influence, being strait-jacketed by Brussels on crucial issues like immigration and border controls and bendy bananas. Indeed, how will they implement just about anything, when, increasingly and stealthily, Brussels calls the real and final shots?

So if you want to ring up the broadcasters of these nitwit political TV charades to complain, just point out their failure to interview the elephant (or his boss) - oh, and make the call 'trunk'.

Is that the shimmy?

Well don't expect this story to feature among the Obama cheerleader journos in the US media, but the UK Daily Mail exclusive reveals that President Obama has already played 32 rounds, that's EIGHT times more than  his predecessor GWB did in his entire presidency.

Of course, Tiger Woods has played a round much more than both ... but that's another story.

A Dead Duck I found Tim Montgomerie's take on Tuesday's Conservative Party Manifesto launch interesting.

Here's how he explain's it:

The manifesto is much more the latest instalment of Cameron's simultaneous attempt to persuade the left that he is different from Thatcher, and to persuade the right that he remains rooted in historic, Burkean conservatism.

In doing this Cameron is taking a risk with core Tory supporters and floating voters. But the course he chose underlines the ambition of his project. He is crafting a new governing philosophy. It is a work reminiscent of George W Bush's 1999 compassionate conservatism but, largely because of the work of the Centre for Social Justice, much more developed. If Cameron succeeds in building a conservatism of society, twinned with traditional conservative beliefs, he could be not just Britain's leader, but a leader of global conservatism.

I may be wrong, but it seems through it Tim sounds an optimistic note for real conservatism. I fail to see it in David Cameron. The trouble is that whatever David Cameron thinks he may be workign towards long-term, his priorities and judgment just don't sit well with historic conservatism.

True conervatism was never about "the politics of the individual" v those of the "collectivist state". Burkian-Thatcher conservatism always sought individual freedom and liberty first, but balanced within the lesser but sometimes greater need of the common good. The conservative result is "small-statism" as avers to collectivist socialist "big-statism".

Tim also fails to deal with the fact that Cameron has wholly bought into the man-made global warming myth that has made CO2 "the enemy".  Yet we all breath out CO2. It is vital for vegetation growth. It is no pollutant (not matter what the US EPA - an actviist green lobby, in truth, may say).  Yet, no islands are sinking, the Antarctic and Arctic ise are currently growing, polar bears thriving and global temperatures (while CO2 continues to rise) are falling. YET, David Cameron has allowed environmental issues to dominate his thinking - and policies on energy and environment. Read the manisesto, see for yourself.

Thus David Cammeronw ill commit the UK to waste billions of pounds on feeble wind farms, unproven 'loser' alternative energies ('biogas', mentioned in the manifesto, is a thoroughly ludicrous 'negative energy balance' concept) in a wholly pointless unwinnable fight against a non-enemy (climate change). 

Let's face it, there is nothing "great" about Cameron and his "wholly new conservatism", except his propensity to be taken in by poor science and bad political judgment. 

The leaders of the 3 major UK political parties go head-to-head today for the first time in Britain on a live TV debate in Manchester.  I shall be elsewhere not watching.

Why? Because I have already heard what all three have to say. How each fares in a couple of live debates is more about gloss than substance.

Remember how badly Ronald Reagen fared in his US TV debate? Yet he turned out to be one of the greatest US presidents. And we won over the audience with just one famously humorous point about not taking advantage by making his opponent's "youth and inexperience an issue in this election" (who remember's the rest?).  What it does show how shallow things turn such events.

Yesterday I read the Conservative Party Manifesto on energy and environment. For all the energy realism and fantasy thinking it contained it could have been drafted by a writer from the Walt Disney Studios. It would so poor I shall be offering an article to a British magazine on the subject today. And the CP manifesto was the best! Anyone wanting realism in understanding energy really should read the UKIP on energy and ennvironment. It is very good.

Anyway, over to Dumb, Dumber and Dumberer for today's headlines. Apt, is it not, that Icelandic volcanic ash should have chosen today to cloud our 'thinking' and try to keep our feet on the ground saving us from high-minded rhetoric?