Open Road

Wednesday Feb 3rd 2010

A PR catastrophe

Monday Feb 1st 2010

Great clunking fist

Blair was once called Bambi, so I suppose it’s natural for Brown to be Thumper, (or Thumper.)

Whether he is really Mad Bad Gordon Brown wielding physical violence is not just the issue. Number 10 is one of the highest profile workplaces in the country and should show a lead on standards of professional behaviour: it should be above suspicion.

Anyone concerned about workplace bullying should be aghast that these rumours can be left hanging in the air with anaemic denials. That sentiment applies equally to both physical and verbal bullying

Let’s be quite clear about this; the Labour party has committed in its manifesto to the eradication of workplace bullying. The TUC, which funds the Labour party, campaigns against workplace bullying. You can even, with no trace of irony, find a petition against workplace bullying on the Number 10 website. The Labour party website expresses similar concerns.

The silence you hear is the sound of hypocrisy. If there were allegations about a high-profile private sector organisation this would all be treated very differently: the Today programme investigations would have rolled out this morning, a plethora of (state funded) charities would have called for more money and no doubt it would all come back to the evil variety of capitalism created by Margaret Thatcher.

Instead the liberal elite have avoided this issue entirely: they know full well that their own power and privileges are at stake. Words fail me. The ballot box won’t.

Saturday Jan 30th 2010

From the Vaults

Rejected passage from Margaret Thatcher’s October 1979 party conference speech:
‘Morality is personal.  There is no such thing as collective conscience, collective gentleness, collective freedom.  To talk of social justice, social responsibility, a new world order, may make us feel good, but it does not absolve each of us from personal responsibility.
‘When we have succeeded with a nation of people who take personal responsibility then we shall have, and be entitled to have, The New Patriotism.’
An interesting series of thoughts.  While one may quibble about the rejection of the idea of collective freedom - surely a valid concept in some circumstances - Mrs T (or a member of her team) articulated an important truth which we have been reminded of repeatedly in the years of New Labour.
The state can give us money or housing, or treatment, but never care in the true sense of the term.  Help is constrained by processes, procedures, guidelines and rules.  What we get are the nice judgements of bureaucrats, not the full-hearted desire to help that can only come from the voluntary choice of generous souls.
Handing over care to the state always and inevitably that ends with the evaporation of a much more valuable commodity:  personal moral responsibility.  Or, in concrete terms, two community policemen standing by while a child drowns in a Wigan pond because ‘they hadn’t been trained in what to do.’ Mrs Thatcher had it right.

Friday Jan 29th 2010

Prepare for the Olympic election

Thursday Jan 28th 2010

Calais, England

In an engaging publicity stunt, the local authorities in Calais have declared themselves part of Southern England, at least for the duration of the 2012 Olympic Games.  Their new Mission 2012 campaign has already apparently attracted some sports teams who don’t fancy the food and transport horrors that await them in London - and who can blame them?
Calais was of course part of England until 1558 when it fell to the French.  Although the inhabitants celebrated at the time, they have spent the ensuing 500-plus years being either ignored or patronised by the Paris elite - a fact that still rankles, given the comment by one of their councillors that “We would undoubtedly have been far less [involved] in the Paris Olympic games.”
But as well as attracting international sports stars and tourists, the neatness of this stunt is the warm feelings it will engender in the hearts of patriotic Brits who might add an extra trip over this summer to this little corner of France that is forever England.
It gets you thinking.  What about reversing the terrible mistake of 1558?  Would the burghers of Calais be inclined to swap good food, excellent sporting and arts facilities, fast reliable trains, and cheap booze and fags for the joys of a permanent place in Brown’s Britain?  Err…
Would anyoone like to start a campaign to mereg the Home Counties with the French Republic instead?