This makes slightly more sense

A surprisingly amusing blog posting on the Spectator Coffee House outlet (well, really, it is a clog as well) by Melanie Phillips on the twin subjects of the American Tea-Party Movement and Sarah Palin, both dismissed and sneered at by the political elite on both sides of the fence in the United States, only to find both acquiring a hard-to-stop momentum.

Ms Phillips simplifies matters somewhat in that she does not delve into the opposing views various individual members and organizations within the Tea-Party Movement hold of Ms Palin - that would require a more serious analysis of American politics as she is lived. However, the piece ends with a comment that makes somewhat more sense than the call for a European Tea-Party Movement.

In Britain, that core conservative agenda of defending life, liberty and social order (which in turn offers the best chance of success in the pursuit of happiness) is scorned not just by Labour but by the ‘Red Tory’/’Blue Labour ‘hopey changey ‘Cameroons. ‘Core conservative’ voters, currently scorned and abandoned by the Conservative party, are in despair over the non-choice on offer to them at the forthcoming election.

Britain needs its own ‘Tea-Party’ movement to challenge the whole dopey-changey thing here, too.

The whole notion is at least conceivable in a country the roots of whose politics are the same as that of America. In fact, those roots are here, though we have been diligently digging them up.

In the meantime, here is Glenn Reynolds's account of the Tea-Party Convention and the astonishingly optimistic mood of the participants.

There is no such thing as Europe

How many times does one have to keep repeating that? All right, let me clarify that statement. Of course, there is a Europe as a geographical concept – it is a subcontinent of the huge Eurasian continent. There is also such a concept, though it is hard to define, as European culture, which melds into European history and European thought. One gets into serious difficulties with it as European culture and European thought are so varied in themselves.

What there is not and never has been is a Europe as a political concept. There is no such thing as European politics, though there is, obviously EU politics, a completely different concept, often alien to European history and traditions. Therefore, there can be no such thing as a European Tea Party Movement. Not if ever so many people join the group on Facebook; not if Real Clear Politics or Glenn Reynolds write about it.

It would be pointless to talk about tea parties as a political concept in Europe even if such a thing as Europe existed politically speaking. No-one would understand it. In Britain tea party (as in vicarage, for instance) means something quite different; on the Continent it means nothing at all. In fact, history tells us that on the Continent tax or bread riots tend to have further reaching consequences than the American tea parties have done so far.

The biggest problem, however, more or less understood by David Ignatius on Real Clear Politics is that each country’s problems are separate and different, even though they all share the understanding that the government’s role is to spend, spend, spend, an understanding they share with most other countries in the world. One suspects that, like Henry Kissinger, David Ignatius would feel happier if there were one European fiscal authority – easier to draw parallels, presumably.

What would a European tea party movement oppose? The European Union? Maybe, but it is hardly the biggest spender; its role in the destruction of the economies of European countries is a little more subtle: it used control and regulation to further integration.

Individual governments? Why would a European movement care about individual European governments? I see no point in going on a demonstration that would demand fiscal conservatism from the French or Greek governments. Let the people of those countries worry about that, as long as we do not have to pay.

All this talk of European this, that and the other or European elites, as Glenn Reynolds writes, comes to the same conclusion: we need some kind of a European political entity, a concept many of us radically disagree with. But the truth is that we cannot have a European tea party movement unless we have a European state, a European government and a European polity. People who support or call for a European tea party go along with the notion of a European state.

So true

When did I last disagree with anything Victor David Hanson wrote? Hmmm, let me think. Must have been the 12th of Never. Anyway, here he is providing the best and pithiest insight into why President Obama's political behaviour is causing such ructions.

The problem with Obama’s new hedging on taxing those who make below $250,000, or his administration’s taking credit for victory in the Iraq war that they so once fervently tried to abort, or the flip-flop on renditions and tribunals, or the embarrassments over closing Guantanamo and trying KSM in New York or Mirandizing the Christmas Day bomber,or trashing/praising Wall Street grandees, is not that presidents cannot change their minds as circumstances warrant, or even that all politicians are at times hypocritical. No, the rub is that Obama is not merely flipping and triangulating on issues in a desperate attempt to shadow the polls, but he is doing so on matters that he once swore were absolutely central to his entire candidacy and his signature hope-and-change agenda, critical to the future of the U.S., and proof of his opponents’ either ignorance or disingenuousness.

It is always a mistake to pretend that you are the knight in shining white armour who will rid politics of all its incubi, especially if you happen to be a Chicago politician who had risen through the machine with the help of some very dubious associates. Sooner or later the truth will rise up and bite you, after which it becomes very difficult to claim that behaving like a politician is no big deal.

At a lower level the same thing happened to Tony Blair and his government (though the Conservatives seem unable to take advantage of the situation). Back in 1997 I recall saying repeatedly that I did not think it was such a very good idea for Labour to campaign on the whiter than white platform. White tends to go grey very quickly in politics and it then looks much worse because of the promises of being so much cleaner than the other guy. In particular, in was not a great idea to use that as a campaigning slogan by a party where corruption went quite high up. Well, it all came to pass.

Instead of complaining

No matter how often and how carefully one explains that Britain not having a presidential system prime ministers are not elected, too many people respond by complaining (to put it politely) that Gordon Brown or whatever stupid nickname they decide to give him was not elected.

Indeed not and neither was any prime minister, especially not those who took over between elections. That would be Churchill in 1940, Eden in 1955, Macmillan in 1957, Douglas-Home in 1963, Callaghan in 1976 and Major in 1991 as well as Brown in 2007. It is the party that is elected and it is the party that decides who is to be the leader.

In many ways this is unsatisfactory and shows up once again that there is no real separation of powers in Britain with the Executive being part of the Legislative and, consequently, strongly in control of it. That, rather than the existence of parties, imposes constraints on MPs. (We are assuming that MPs, unconstrained, would actually be decent human beings.)

One could argue that with a smaller majority the Legislative would acquire more control over the Executive. Given the fact that between seventy and eighty per cent of our legislation comes from the EU with Parliament either knowing nothing about it or being unable to reject it, control of government is all our parliamentarians can hope for - power they cannot have and, apparently, they do not miss it.

Assuming that this country will one day be independent and sovereign again, should we not think of a different political system, one which would separate the two branches of government? Should the resignation of a Prime Minister necessarily entail a general election, thus allowing the people have some say in the matter of the next leader of the country? Alternatively, could we not have something resembling the American system in which the head of the Executive is elected separately from the Legislative and then chooses his (no women so far) cabinet, which is then approved of or otherwise by the Legislative? The question there would be how to reconcile that with a Monarchy, which is still the most popular body in this country and has many useful attributes, not least keeping politicians in their place.

It used to be the case that an MP who accepted a paid governmental position or an "office of profit" had to resign and a by-election was called. Though this principle is enshrined in the Act of Settlement (1701) and Act of Union (1707) and is still adhered to in the United States where it was enshrined in the Constitution. Since 1919, however, we have abandoned the notion in Britain and MPs are merrily accepting emoluments under the Crown without having to face the electors again. Despite the howl of outrage that would follow such a suggestion, a return to the ideas written into the Act of Settlement could be a first step towards a better regulated political system of separated powers.

Let me explain something

For the nth time I received an e-mail this morning, asking me to sign Number 10 petition that demands Gordon Brown’s resignation. This time I wrote back to say that there will be an election next year and this is called democracy.

I understand the petition is being promoted by Guido Fawkes but he does not need any links from me. The whole story shows how little even people who apparently exist within the political circle understand the workings of a state, a government or a body politic, namely this country’s.

Demanding that the elected Prime Minister resign through petition is on the level of saying that because 1 million people of whatever provenance marched against the war in Iraq, Tony Blair and his Cabinet should have changed their foreign policy.

People have every right to march and proclaim their point of view; they have the right to say that a war is not done “in their name”, whatever that might mean. But an elected government has the right to ignore that and, in any case, many of us can say that they were not marching in our name.

While we are on the subject of elected government, let me deal with another canard, that Gordon Brown was not elected to be Prime Minister of this country. No he was not and neither is anybody ever. We do not have a presidential system and elect parties. The leader of the party with a majority (or, if there is a hung parliament, which there might be next year, the one that can form a majority) is asked by the Monarch to form the government. It is up to the party to decide who that leader is and, inevitably, we the voters have to take into account whether we like their choice or not.

If a Prime Minister resigns between elections the party in power chooses another leader who then becomes PM. If Gordon Brown is not the rightfully elected Prime Minister of this country then neither were Winston Churchill in 1940, Anthony Eden in 1955, Harold Macmillan in 1957, Alec Douglas Home in 1963, James Callaghan in 1976 or John Major in 1991.

It was, admittedly, very foolish of the Labour Party to bow to Brown’s paranoia and nominate him as leader without an internal party election. That was, however, an internal problem and, I have no doubt, the party will pay for it. As things stand, Labour is on track to losing the next election and I predict an extremely bloody civil war afterwards. The silencing of all opposition to Gordon will, undoubtedly, be brought up.

So what have we got? A highly unpopular government that did none of the good things it promised to do back in 1997 and managed to destroy the country’s economy, oppressing the wealth-creating private sector and increasing the bloated leach-like public sector. The mess is now so horrendous that even if the Conservative leadership were considerably more intelligent and talented than it is, one doubts they would be able to deal with it.

Gordon Brown goes from one messy situation to another, one disaster to another, one scandal to another. The Government is flailing around, exhibiting all the signs of a dying political entity.

If it goes on like this, it will most certainly die at the next General Election, which will be, as we predicted over and over again on EUReferendum, next May. Brown was not going to the country at any one of those dates helpful political pundits proposed – he was going to go to the wire and that is what he will do.

It doesn’t matter how many people sign that petition – the only thing that matters is how many people will put a cross against the various Labour candidates’ names and how many will put a cross against other candidates’ names.

This is called democracy. Live with it. And stop pestering people to sign stupid petitions.