David Cameron has produced a video showing the Conservative paty’s highlights of the past year. I wonder whether Brown will be doing a review of the year? If not I’m sure we can rustle up some of the highlights of the Labour year!

The best quote I have ever heard from a politician about another politician is: ‘We are always blinded by our own brilliance’. No more apt is that quote today . . .

Huge losses in Local Council Elections. Hit by a Cruise missile in C&N.London to Boris Johnson.

And has just been dealt a hammer blow by losing in the 3rd safest seat in Scotland (if result was repeated at a GE, Brown and Darling would both lose their seats).

However, what I really really just cannot fathom is despite all these messages, he effectively still claimed this morning, that it was the voter’s who simply did not understand Labour!?!? It is arrogance in the extreme to be losing so heavily and blame it on those ‘that don’t understand’.

His quotes this morning at neighbouring Warwick Uni, said it was up to Labour ‘have confidence’ in their own policies and ‘persuade’ the voters to back these by voting Labour.

If he continues on that message he is not only pushing the self destruct button, he might as well be jumping up and down on it, so much so its probably broken!!!

It is not about persuading voters that Labour is correct for them, they clearly don’t think it is. He has to change tact he has to do what the people who have to vote for him want him to do.

*It conjures up images of Brown in a rocking chair in Downing Street repeating ‘why don’t they understand me’.

He is a PM who has spent to long at the top to be in touch with the ordinary voter. Those over at BULS know that only too well.

Boris Johnson has announced a new ‘British theme’ to the London 2012 Olympics, unveiling the new olympic logo in Union Jack theme and announcing a concert to be staged outside Buckingham Palace before the games. The idea Boris claims is to promote Britishness, emphasising our past and our traditions but also celebrating our future and our diversity.

If you all cast your mind back to the Queens Golden Jubilee in 2002 Im sure all of you can remember what a success that was. Well over 1 million people packed the mall for the pomp, the pageantry and… the pop. The Queen staged a unique free of charge pop concert in the gardens of Buckingham Palace an event which is set to be repeated for the London 2012 Olympics.

I and many thousands of others still feel our chests swell with pride at the sight of huge numbers packing in the Mall joining in traditional British renditions of God Save the Queen and Land of Hope and Glory and I look forward to repeating the experience in 2012… which incidently will mark the Queens Diamond Jubilee should she still be reigning.

2012 could be a momentous year for this country, hopefully with a Conservative government at the helm, and will be a perfect time to remind ourselves of the pride of our past and the hope for our future.  For those of you who can’t remember the amazing sights in the Mall and the roaring renditions of Land of Hope and Glory and God Save the Queen this video will jog your memory…

The Labour Party are continuing their terminal decline after another shock by-election result. Tonights result represents yet another startling and humiliating defeat for the Labour party, particularly as this one has occurred in their once safe seat of Glasgow East. A Labour majority of over 13,000 has been turned over night in to an SNP majority of 365. The Labour party can um and arr as much as they like the fact remains this is a disaster for Labour, one in a very long line. The Labour party need to look closely at themselves and realise that their government is rotten to the core and is being rejected right across the country.

BUCF predicted earlier today that the result would be an SNP victory with a majority somewhere between 500-700, we also predicted that the Conservatives would beat the Liberal Democrats to take 3rd place. So even for the Conservatives, who did incidently take third place from the Liberals, this has been a particularly pleasing night. It will certainly be interesting to watch the excuses and the fall out from this election and who knows perhaps Labour will be losing more than just a seat soon…

Whilst we wait for the result of the Glasgow East election we can bring you the result of the poll BUCF conducted earlier today which has come in quicker than expected. The poll reached the 100 vote quota very quickly and an email was sent to me confirming the result:

Should Margaret Thatcher recieve a state funeral?     

YES: 65%

NO: 35%

This is the BUCF prediction (and best case scenario) for the Glasgow East By-election and its aftermath:

SNP to win by 500-700 votes

Labour 2nd,

Tories 3rd up from 4th

Post election: BROWN OUT> MILLIBAND IN

UPDATE:

1AM - LABOUR SET TO LOSE GLASGOW EAST TO SNP

Barack Obama has just made a very passionate speech in Berlin with his mannerisms and words reminiscent of a young JFK. Obama appeared confident and relaxed as he took to the stage in central Berlin and called for greater co-operation between Europe and America. Indeed for a brief moment I found myself hanging off his every word and cheering him on, but then I realised the policies don’t stack up to the promises. He is a great talker but I sincerely doubt his ability to communicate his words in to actions.

When one disects Obama’s speech and pulls apart the clever rhetoric you find that there is little concrete policy just false nicities and memorable soundbites. I am intrigued as to how someone as economically protectionist as Obama can call for greater co-operation between nations when he offers nothing to support that end. I am also intrgiued as to how he thinks it is co-operative to ditch Iraq and leave the Iraqis to wallow in the mess America has made.

This speech reinforced what we already knew, Barack Obama is a great communicator. He speaks with passion, with confidence and with panache but hes like an easter egg, sweet and solid on the outside hollow inside. He is a rabble rouser, he can get the people on their feet but then again so could Tony Blair and look what happened there. I fear his communication skills will inevitably take him to the White House and when it does I hope he communicate his words in to action. Somehow I doubt it, but until then at least the Obama bandwagon will take him through Europe and we’ll have a few more inspirational rabble rousing speeches for posterity.

On the lighter side of the news it has been reported that David Camerons now legendary bike has been stolen outside his local Tesco’s whilst he shopped for salad! Hopefully this incident will not discourage Dave from cycling in the future… however he may prefer to shop at Sainsbury’s for his salad next time!

Your chance to have your say on the most controversial issue of the past week… Should Margaret Thatcher follow in Ronald Reagan’s footsteps and recieve a state funeral? Results will be published in 2 days.

Click here to proceed to the poll.

Abu Hamza the radical muslim cleric who has warped the minds of countless young muslims has lost his appeal to fight his extradition in the House of Lords. The Egypt-born preacher is currently serving a seven-year jail term in the UK for inciting murder and race hate. His extradition to the United States was approved earlier this year by the Home Secretary.

The man besides being a nutter is clearly a threat to others and should not remain in the UK. Besides preaching race hate for years and encouraging young muslims to kill ordinary Britons, in January 2006 while on trial, he accused the jewish people of being “blasphemous, treacherous and dirty” and explained that this was “why Hitler was sent into the world”. I believe that people like this shouldn’t be allowed to remain in the UK and I am glad that his extradition has been held up.

Incidently I find it funny that Hamza preaches and encourages other young muslims to martyr themselves… well why hasn’t he done it yet! The man is wicked and he deserves everything he gets in America.

Commentators have suggested that Gordon Browns welfare reforms go further than those of the left wing’s arch nemisis Mrs Thatcher. Therefore it may not suprise readers to learn that I support the proposals currently going through Parliament, even though they sound remarkably similar to the ones drawn up by the Conservatives in January. (Deja vu?)

The government’s Green Paper will propose forcing those out of work for more than two years to be employed full-time in their community. Under the new proposals, Incapacity Benefit claimants will undergo medical tests to determine whether they can work and will receive a new allowance, which ministers hope will be seen by those not permanently disabled as a temporary measure.

Drug addicts will be forced to admit their problem and embark on treatment before they can receive benefits and anyone claiming while hiding a drug habit will be deemed to have obtained money by deception, and could be ordered to repay it or even be charged with fraud, which carries a prison term. I fully support these plans and it appears that perhaps Labour are finally realising that they have encourage a culture of dependency which hopefully they are beginning to tackle.

Instead of giving people a free lunch as Labour have done previously, you need to follow the Conservative proposals and make them sing for their supper. If these healthy and capable individuals are being funded by the state then they should be of some use to the state! Once again Labour MP’s such as Frank Field, who incidently lunched with Lady T this week, are reported to be seething at these latest plans which only adds to my sense of satisfaction.

The BUCF website as you can tell is going through a period of ‘low blogging’. The reason for this is the committee are currently extremely busy with jobs etc and I myself have been busy experiencing the professionalism of the NHS first hand! As such I and the committee are unlikely to blog for the forseeable, however all those who do wish to blog send me your details to bucfchair@hotmail.com and we shall see what we can do. Again apologies, stick with us and we will be back on track as soon as possible!

Now it is fair to say that this blog is not the most Obama friendly. As with most Conservatives I have an enormous amount of issues with Barack Obama’s plans for America. First and foremost I believe that his politics, at least on the surface, appears dangerously left wing and as history has continually shown the left wing never has and never will hold the answers to the problems of the world. It is no secret that socialism has led to leaders like, Mao, Franco, Hitler and Stalin who butchered and maimed tens of millions of their own people in the name of ’socialism’ and ‘equality’. Socialism and left wing politics are a cancer that spread at times of weakness, desperation and vulnerability. They play on peoples fears and exploit their hopes.

 At the minute America is increasingly vulnerable as they feel that the right wing politics that has characterised their governance over the last decade has failed them miserably so they are lurching to the left in desperate, false hope of the grass being greener on the other side. Obama talks the talk. Hes clever. He’s fresh but most crucially he appears genuine and uncorrupted. However Obama plans do not represent fresh hope but fresh danger for America. He plans large increases in government spending on health and education which in principle are perfectly okay, however he wants to increase taxation on the rich, who already pay more than their fair share, to pay for it. In addition he is dangerously at odds with the prevailing political and economic consensus in the world as he is against companies using the opportunities of free markets to restructure their operations within the US.

Economically he is vehemently protectionist and on the foreign policy level he continues to insist, despite the growing evidence that this left-wing nostrum would be lunacy, that the US must pull its troops out of Iraq. To add insult to injury he threatens to undermine the British, French and German negotiations with Tehran, that have been operating for the last 5 years, and engage in direct, unconditional talks with the dictator. As members of Obama’s own team have stated, Obama is aware that many European leaders believe his plans could undermine the current diplomatic efforts to persuade Tehran to surrender its nuclear programme making the siutation much worse in the longer term.

Now what is the purpose of this post you might ask other than the usual Obama bashing? Well left wing friends of mine have jumped at the oppourunity today to claim that David Cameron and Barack Obama are now ‘best buds’ and the purpose of this post is to dispell such myths. It is true that today David Cameron has praised Obama for his comments suggesting that ‘black absentee fathers need to step up to the plate’ however this has been grossly exaggerated to suit the prevailing media agenda of ‘Obama mania’. The media are selective in their reporting. It is true most Britons are quite taken with Obama and thus the papers have adopted a much more favourable tone when discussing the Democratic candidate and over embellished Camerons ‘endorsement’ of Obama.

Cameron made a very brief reference to Obama as he spoke of his wider plans for social reform. However I still believe that Cameron, as with many Conservatives, will be backing John McCain for US President as ideologically the two have much more common ground and Cameron has consistently heaped praise on the Republican candidate who has responded by dubbing Cameron the ’Tory JFK’. Incidently I also agree with Obama’s remarks that black absentee fathers need to wake up to their responsibilities as do some white fathers, however this does not mean I endorse Obama and it doesn’t mean Cameron does either. Cameron is being courteous with Obama as it looks ever more likely that America will have a President Obama in 2009 and Britain will have a Prime Minister Cameron not long after.  Thus the two men need to maintain a cordial personal relationship but cordial relations does not mean friendship or ideological compatibility.

On another issue I am becoming ever more impressed with Camerons leadership after he has called for the obese, the idle and the poor to take more responsibility for themselves, saying society is too sensitive and fails to “say what needs to be said”. Cameron is exerting true Conservative conviction and is in his own words ’saying what needs to be said’.

Today the Chairman celebrates his 20th Birthday. When he blows his candles out (no doubt on his lifesize Thatcher cake) I’m sure that this year he will have one wish in particular…

Once again Gordon Brown’s government is in disarray. Yesterday after days and weeks of dithering, Jacqui Smith unveiled new plans to tackle knife crime. We should have kept waiting. The government it appeared opted for the shock tactic of taking offenders to wards to see first hand the damage inflicted by knife crime. Personally I think these proposals were ridiculous. I don’t know who is advising the government on policy but who ever it is has clearly been watching too much Maury or Jeremy Kyle. I feel that parading knife victims is both unseemly and unneccessary. I feel if the government want shock tactics then the only shock tactic that can be employed in this situation is jail time.

However it seems I didn’t even have the chance to write a blog on these ridiculous before they were being widely discredited. The ‘experts’ stole my thunder, so I decided not to blog until the policy had fallen flat on its face as it now has. In an interview with Sky’s Adam Boulton on Sunday Live, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said youngsters caught with knives would be forced to confront the possible consequences by bringing them face-to-face with blade victims in hospitals. Now, the Home Office said they would instead only be expected to meet doctors to be educated about the injuries caused by knives “One of those proposals is that people caught carrying knives should be taken to see people in hospital who have been stabbed, or to meet the families of victims, is that correct?” Boulton asked. “It is,” replied Ms Smith. Gordon Brown himself dodged questioning on the proposals.

Shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve has said that ‘ill-thought-through, piecemeal announcements and failed initiatives would not solve the problem’, while even the Lib Dem home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said Mrs Smith had been ‘panicked’ into bringing forward proposals which evidence in the United States had shown did not work. Jacqui Smith is coming up with half-baked ideas because the Government has been in denial, if not down right oblivious, about the scale of the knife crime problem. This episode proves to me what we already knew, this government is incapable, incompetent and increasingly irrelevant. They have absolutely no idea how to tackle the problems society faces and instead deploy ill thought out shock tactics in three days that fall flat on their face within three hours.

I have said a million times over: make offenders realise that carrying a knife is completely unacceptable and make it crystal clear that if you are caught carrying a knife you will go down. No legitimate excuse? No middle ground. This may seem draconian, this may seem fascist but I don’t care. Every day brings a new death, new trauma for countless families, new patients for the hospitals, new victims for the morgue and new paperwork for the police. This situation, like the government, has hit rock bottom and needs dealing with. I can understand people objecting to such methods if there was a genuine reason to carry a knife on the streets but there isn’t. If we go soft on knife crime next it will be gun crime. ‘I need a knife for protection’ will be replaced by ‘I need a gun’ and a big problem will be even bigger as will the number of casualties. 

However if Gordon Brown is so desperate to employ shock tactics… I’ve got one that would work him… resign… and take that Home Secretary of yours with you.

The government has decided that Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is to be given the greatest honour a nation can bestow, a state funeral. Thatcher will be the first British Prime Minister since Winston Churchill to be afforded such an honour. However the plan to grant the same distinction to Lady Thatcher may prove more divisive as to this day, the mention of her name can spark an argument as this blog knows all to well! Yet that is itself a mark of her uniqueness. Lady Thatcher is - and will always remain - a major figure to supporters and opponents alike. Not only did she transform Britain’s economy and culture. Her resolve won her admirers among the people of the former Soviet Empire, whom she helped liberate. Her courage and single-mindedness likewise made her a legend in the United States where even to this day her name is recieved with warmth, respect and enthusiasm.

There is not a country in the world where her name is not still recognised. I agree that it might seem improper to discuss a living person’s funeral but it is another mark of Lady Thatcher’s uniqueness that this is not so in her case. Having survived an assassination attempt and lived through a hurricane of abuse, she is not likely to object to these discussions! This announcement should serve as a timely reminder to Labour supporters who detest Lady Thatcher, that even their own leadership understand what she did was not only neccessary but has given the country remarkable stability which they have enjoyed. They can scream and shout all they like but the fact remains it is the Labour government that have set these plans in motion and it is the Labour leadership that recognise that they and the country owe Thatcher an enormous debt of gratitude.

In a separate unique proposal, the Queen has also given her permission for Lady Thatcher to lie in the Chapel of St Mary’s Undercroft immediately beneath Westminster Hall on the night before her funeral. Family friends and VIPs would be able to visit the chapel to pay their last respects. It is not decided whether she will be afforded the honour of lying in state at Westminster Hall. Informed sources last night confirmed that the Queen and Gordon Brown had given their blessing to the preparation of funeral arrangements for Lady Thatcher in recognition both of her achievements and for being Britain’s first woman Prime Minister. I always believed that the country would give her a state funeral and I am delighted that the plans are now officially in place.

Barack Obama, like Tony Blair, has made his reputation on a promise to be ‘whiter than white’, but even before he has made his way in to the Oval Office Barack Obama’s lies are becoming ever more apparent. In October, Obama had vowed to help filibuster an update of the Republican Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that gave telecommunication companies that had cooperated with President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program immunity from lawsuits. After 9/11, Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop, without the mandated warrant from a federal court, on electronic communication involving terrorist suspects.

Critics said Bush’s Terrorist Surveillance Program was a violation of civil liberties (sound farmiliar?). The US Senate voted Wednesday on the bill updating FISA which had a provision to shield telecommunications companies that had cooperated in the surveillance. Obama joined the 68 other senators who voted to send the bill to the president’s desk. He, despite his apparent objections, did vote for an amendment offered before the final vote by Sen. Christopher Dodd that would have stripped the immunity provisions from the bill, but the amendment failed. Instead Bush signed the bill into law on Thursday, saying it “will help help us meet our most solemn responsibility: to stop another attack.” Obama therefore has in all intents and purposes lied. He promised to fight the bill yet he has endorsed it without amendment.

This episode proves that, like I suspected, he is a man who will do what it takes to walk in to the Oval Office in Jan 2009. Like Blair before him, he doesn’t care what lies he tells, how he prostitutes the principles of his party as long as he gets what he wants. Our Labour counter parts can dillude themselves as much as they like but they can never escape the fact that their trust is misplaced. Obama like Blair and Brown will prosititue the principles they hold most dear for their own gain. Even Jesse Jackson, who dreams of the day a black man will occupy the White House, claims he wants to cut ‘Obama’s nuts off’, why one may ask? Because he is a liar. He sells out not only his party but the whole black race. Sadly I do feel Obama will win this year, I hope not, but I feel he will win. He wont win on conviction he will win on convenience. He conveniently takes over the reigns at a time when Republicans are viewed with contempt.

Obama will win and America will rue the day.

Whilst I cannot agree with everything Tony Benn believes politically, I do hold a degree of respect for him. He served as the MP for my local town from 1984 - 2001 and he is still held in high regard by many, not neccessarily for his politics, but for his integrity. I thought this video on Benn’s perception of the civil liberty issue is worth a watch… 

David Davis looks set to win the by-election in Haltemprice and Howden by a larger margin than that of 2005. He stands as a candidate who will put his career on the line, confident of the fact that the electorate will not only return him to office, but return him with a bigger mandate than before. Yes Davis will almost certainly win this election. It is not the fact that he will win that matters, it is the margin of victory. It is true Labour have not put up a candidate, neither have the Liberals, but for very different reasons. The liberals say they will not field a candidate a candidate against Davis because they agree with his position, Labour wont field a candidate because they FEAR his position.

By not fielding a candidate Labour can avoid a pummeling at the polls. Had they put a candidate up, Labour would have been battered… of this I have no doubt. At such a precarious time for the government, Gordon Brown can’t risk this. Instead they are doing some damage control. History shows that this government chickens out of elections and public opinion when it looks like it isn’t in their favour. This by-election will be no different. Whether they have a candidate for this by-election or not is irrelevant… Labour have been battered.

Finally David Cameron has spoken out against the knife culture and insisted that those caught with a knife without a legitimate excuse would face automatic jail time. I am delighted at this announcement and I am sure that this will be a policy that is recieved positively by the public.

My feelings on this issue are well documented. I have always stated my belief that there is no middle ground on this issue and it is the desire to find one that has led to this state of affairs. There is absolutely no reason why someone should carry a knife on our streets and if they do they should be prepared to face the consequences of their actions.

The desire to find a middle ground on this issue and the liberal ‘nicey nicey’ approach has led to the situation we have today. It is increasingly the youth that find themselves drawn in to the ‘gangland’ knife culture taking hold and we need to stamp it out.

For young offenders, perhaps instead of jail time their aggression would be put to best use in the armed forces. This has led me to believe that perhaps the most effective way to deal with disruptive and unruly youths is to re-impose a form of national service. Instead of accepting they are doomed to a life of thuggery and under achievement, we should attempt to put their agression to good use and ‘reform’ their behaviour. Teach them what it takes to be a real man.

It has become increasingly apparent that this government will offer nothing but words. They don’t have a clue how to tackle the problems faced by society today as it is precisely because their policies and their refusal to tackle the issue years ago that we have the situation we face today. Thus we Conservatives, as the government in waiting, need to make out intentions clear and David Camerons words mark a positive step forward.

The changing face of the Tory party was confirmed as arguably one of its most controversial, right wing members, got in to the spirit of things by actively supporting the LGBTory group on the ’Pride’ march through London.

Noel Gallagher, that wonderfully respectable gentleman from Oasis and New Labour enthusiast, has waded in to the political row regarding knife crime. Now my views on the knife situation are well documented. However in his ever eloquent Mancunian accent Noel says “I don’t know what David Cameron and Gordon Brown are going to do about it. It all goes back to the Thatcher years. It sounds like a cliché but that’s when the rot set in. Me and the Missus sit up and talk about it at night, about how our kids are going to grow up. I don’t know what you can do. Kids are so de-sensitised to it. It’s really scary how it’s all changed. In my day, status was about trying to be somebody - now it’s about trying to kill somebody”

Well I’ve got news for you Noel, the ‘rot’ didn’t set in in the Thatcher years. It set in the day we went ’soft’ on the youth. The day the country sold its soul for modernity’s sake, remember the day you bent over backwards for Tony? In our (or the left and liberals) desire to be liberal, in our desire to appear in touch and ‘with it’ we have bent over backwards to please the youth and appear tolerant. We have bent over backwards to excuse our childrens behaviour rather than correct it. The rot set in, not with Thatcher, but with New Labour and ‘cool Britannia’. The hip ‘call me Tony’ years have marked the sprial of decline in our society. No matter how much Labour massage their figures knife and violent crimes in England have rocketed in the last 10 years. Particularly in our cities. Now, we all know that traditional Labour is wet and incompetent on crime, but we hoped New Labour, with its tough rhetoric, was going to be different. It wasn’t

Once Labour always Labour. They have talked tough, tried to be Tory in image but have failed miserably. Our streets are now part of a ‘gangland culture’. Old women, young children fear to walk down the streets. The rocket in immigration under Labour has facilitated the rise in ‘black on black’ crime and if you look at the ethnicity of those who have died on London’s streets recently it is not too difficult to notice a trend. Fatalities on the streets of our cities are reported daily, almost like sports scores on the nightly news. The tally of fatalities ever increases while the average age of the victims seems to decrease. New Labour and its policy of ‘cool Britannia’ has failed this country. When something is rotten you cut it out, you don’t ask it to ‘please go away’. New Labour are soft. They talk tought but their proof is in the pudding and the New Labour pudding is jelly.

The country has sold its soul for ‘modernity’ and the sad realisation is there is little we can do about it without being branded reactionary or fascist. In my view this country needs a slap across the chops and our youth need a short sharp reality check. Reinstate national service, give teachers and parents more power to discipline their children, make carrying a knife a criminal offence and enforce harsh punishments. Stop this ridiculous situation in its tracks. We have gone too far and we need to take a step back in order to move forward.

They say the 50’s were rigid and intolerant…. well let me ask you how many youths died on our streets due to violent crime? How many were afraid to leave their doors unlocked? How many were afraid to take a walk down the street? How many teenage preganacies? How many drugs related incidents? How many childre answerd their parents back? Then let me ask were the 50’s so bad? The point is this country is fast becoming a joke. What’s worse is the vast majority of the public would acknowledge this is true, but do nothing about it.  

I pray that one day we will have a politican of substance who will stand up and risk his political career to fight for what is right not what is convenient. The left wing in the media might kick up a fuss but the public will be behind them. The public want change. The public want a politician who will fight for what is right not what is expected or politically (in)correct.

Dudley South PPC, Chris D Kelly, with Shadow Secretary for Health, Andrew Lansley

Today marks the ‘Diamond Jubilee’ of the NHS, however the condition of the NHS today is far from ‘diamond’. Whilst there have been undeniable improvements in the performance of the NHS over the past 60 years, this improvement is part of a natural progression and should be expected.  My cousin is now a consultant working with the NHS in Sheffield and she believes that Labour has made the NHS a business, far more so than the Tories ever did, and have put in highly paid managers rather than properly trained professionals. She claims it is a running joke with some of the junior doctors that there must be as many managers as there are patients in the NHS! Every time the government wants another report - another 5-10 people are taken on, but they are never let go, there are some people working for the NHS who don’t know what they do - they just turn up for work every day and look busy. This is the state of our NHS, pot loads of money, all wasted on red tape, mis-managment and all in all a shoddy operation. 

As Cameron has rightly identified, Labour has strangled the NHS in red tape. They have been testing to destruction the idea that the NHS can be improved by more bureaucracy, more central control and more initiatives from the Department of Health. They have invested billions in the NHS but in the wrong areas. They have provided it with record funding and NHS bossess have lapped it up like pigs at a trough. However the improvement witnessed is not proportional to the investment. Thus it is a bad investment. Labour, despite their previous good track record with the NHS, have little if any idea how to ‘fix’ the NHS. The Tories track record is misleading and thus so is the false glow that surrounds Labour’s record.

Naturally during the 1980’s Margaret Thatcher’s primary aim was the economy after the last disastorous Labour government and most other areas had to play second fiddle. In reality the economy had to be priority. With the economy in the state it was in the NHS wouldn’t have been able to last in the current conditions. Britain was economically ‘a dead man walking’ and thus reforms of the NHS at the time were both un-neccessary and a distraction from the job in hand. However this has led to a great deal of fallacy surrounding the Conservative record with the NHS. Most people, if asked, would have said that the Conservative Government reduced expenditure on the NHS and pushed it to the brink of oblivion. This is untrue. In fact, between 1979 and1987, there was an increase in funding of 21% in real terms. The real problem was that demand was increasing at an unstoppable rate and given the economic priorities of the Thatcher government they did mismanage the NHS in some ways.

However the Tories of 2008 are not the Tories of 1988. The greatest tribute we can provide the NHS with is a promise. A promise to ensure that a Conservative government in 2010, which looks ever more likely, will be the champion of the NHS just as we are the champions of the economy. We will fix it the way we fixed the eocnomy. We will scrap these New Labour ’targets’ which detract attention from the real point of the NHS: care of the patient. We will tackle this culture of waste and root it out. Cameron’s plans will give power back to the patients, make them understand their hospitals, their treatments and give them more power over their own care. The government needs to stop interfering and instead should provide the NHS with substantial funding with broad goals in mind rather than concrete targets which have proved unreliable and unsustainable.

Sex is a multibillion dollar business world-wide, and prostitution is an important component of this sector. In the UK the supply and demand side of the act of soliciting is illegal. Make it legal and acceptable once again and it can be taxed, providing valuable funds to our indebted government, and made safe, not only for the customers, but most importantly, for the women (and men) engaged in this line of work.

I agree with the Chairman that this is “a bad situation,” and it is wise for us to recognise the enormous potential we have to turn it around and make it beneficial to society, the people involved, and for the economy.

As far as society is concerned, it is considered a “vice,” but at the end of the day it is only sex. It is as natural as breathing. A former sex worker, Pye Jackobson from Sweden says that for a proportion of the customers it is “about holding someone,” and connecting with another human being. This is a cure for loneliness, and that is an unfortunate social norm that can not be legislated against.

If it were made more accessible, contained to certain districts in cities across the country, then men (and women) could pick and choose where they go to get this service. Market forces would do the rest. All of this readily available sex would surely prove to be far less harmful to marriages and families then people having affairs at work. If sex, rather than companionship, is the driving force behind an affair, then peoples needs could be better satisfied more easily through a safely regulated sexual services industry. I have no concern, as some do, that these “sex districts” (such as in Amsterdam) would become a blight on our cities. Sex stores have become a normal sight in city centres. I doubt brothels would be any more intrusive, either aesthetically or morally.

In light of the tragedies in Ipswich in 2006, David Cameron in his online diary (January 8th, 2007) stated that he is “not convinced legalising prostitution is the way forward,” and he went on to discuss the reasons why some women (and men) end up in prostitution, as he desires to tackle the cause rather than the symptoms of this age old aspect of society. The cause, in this modern era, is dependency on drugs (95% are dependent on drugs, according to an FT article, December 15th, 2006) which is why I believe the sooner it is legalised, the better. Legalise this and get the estimated 80,000 sex workers in the UK (2004, Home Office publication; Paying the Price) seen by doctors and nurses, and not only will they become immediately safer from the spread of STD’s, but they can, with help, begin the process of making themselves free from life threatening drug addictions.

Sending out a ‘strong message,’ like Sweden has, will only push this industry further underground, and those people caught up in it, further into their spiral of addiction and desperation. This will continue to provide an income source to organised crime. Legalise it and that becomes a profession, as it is in the Netherlands, and when it is a profession, it is liable to be taxed, and then that money which currently goes to organised crime and human traffickers could go to the Government. To start off with that would provide a further 80,000 people who can be taxed just like any self employed person. I expect VAT could be added to the fee charged for the service - since if it is classified as a service, and that should make VAT applicable. Then of course many brothels would probably become private limited companies, in which case 21% of their revenue would go to the Government in tax (current rate of Corporation Tax). All of this tax revenue would most likely cover the cost of treating many of these people for the drug addictions which got them into this situation.

In 2003 New Zealand decriminalised prostitution which has had the effect of “safeguard[ing] the human rights of sex workers, protect[ing] them from exploitation and promot[ing] occupational health and safety,” according to Ms Healy, a former sex worker from Sweden. Noble, and quite clearly, achievable aims. It is worth remembering the financial argument, since legalisation and regulation of this sector would take organised crime out of the equation, making it better for everyone involved.

DOMINIC TARN

Jesse Helms, the Republican US senator for North Carolina has died. Now this may seem an unsual story for BUCF to comment on as he was not a particularly well known politician to us Brit’s, however through friends of the family who live in Georgia USA, I have had the pleasure to meet Mr Helms and I knew him to be a deeply conservative and deeply patriotic man. He was a passionate defender of the rights of the individual, a true conservative and a staunch opponent to what he termed the ‘freight train of liberalism’ that threatended to ‘mow us down’. Whilst I do not agree with everything he stood for I acknowledge the true grit and conviction of this great man.

If it were not for the actions of Jesse Helms the world may never have been graced with Ronald Reagan as President and the world today could have been a very different, much worse, place. As Nancy Reagan herself acknowledged many years ago, had Helms not put his considerable political weight and organization behind Reagan so that he was able to win North Carolina in the battle for the 1976 Republican nomination, there may have never been a Reagan presidency in 1980. For that alone we owe him an enormous debt. He was a man who said what he meant and meant what he said. For a true US patriot I am proud, as I know he would be, that he met his end on July 4th. Independence day. A true testiment to a truly great man. My favourite quote of his is as follows:

“Compromise?! hell! … If freedom is right and tyranny is wrong, why should those who believe in freedom treat it as if it were a roll of bologna to be bartered a slice at a time?”

Never a truer word spoken. Rest in peace Mr Helms.

The BULS blog has been focusing recently on the topic of prostitution. Some of their members have come to the conclusion that it should be legalised and protected. When looking at this situation on a purely personal and moral level I believe prostitution is wrong and I find it unseemly and seedy. However I have to agree with some members of BULS who claim we have to recognise as a society that it does happen because there is little if anything we can do to stop it happening. Therefore we need to work out how we can do some ‘damage control’ and ensure that a bad situation is not made worse.

Conservatives believe in the liberty of the individual and as such prostitutes should be afforded that same liberty to decide how they use their bodies. The state should not encourage nor condone prostitution but we must learn to accept that it does occur and as a society we need to find ways of protecting prostitutes. By ensuring that prostitues operate in safe and controlled conditions we are reducing the likelihood of murders and other such atrocities which can tie up valuable police resources and time. We are also reducing the likelihood of our neighbour hoods becoming the site for ‘curb crawling’.

I believe Britain should have organised and designated red light districts like in the Netherlands where prostitutes can operate without fear of rape, abuse or death. Prostitution in the Netherlands is defined as a legal profession; prostitutes/sex workers have access to the social security system, may join unions, have to pay income tax and are treated like any other self-employed tradesperson. In addition health and social services are readily available which reduces the burden on the health services.

By accepting, not condoning, prostitution and ensuring that it is not spread around our streets but localised in specific areas we are reducing the likelihood of situations such as Ipswich and we are in a curious way going some way to ‘cleaning up a dirty business’. We would also  deal a heavy blow to traffickers and pimps who are the cancers of our society. If there was a way we could eradicate prostitution then fine but this isn’t going to happen and we just have to learn to make the best of a bad situation.

The Britain that Tony Blair inherited had the Thatcher’s handbag all over it and New Labour desperately wished not the shake the carefully laid foundations of Thatcherism opting to stick to Conservative spending plans rather than ‘rock the boat’. Blair’s programme for the 1997 election confirmed the left’s worst fears by endorsing all of Thatcher’s free-market reforms of a deregulated, non-planned, largely privatised economy with a flexible labour market, marginalising the trade unions and local authorities, while publicly disowning Left-wing catchphrases such as redistribution.

New Labour let it be known that they had developed in to “the party of business” a position traditionally held by the Conservatives. They dumped the “tax and spend” policies that had characterised previous Labour governments forever, they embraced Thatcherite economics, they shed their commitment to traditional Labour policy and Blair himself seemed almost desperate to come across as Thatcher’s heir.  

To his credit he concluded, earlier than most around him, that neo-liberal reforms of the 1980’s could not and should not be undone. Instead he believed that, in order to appease the left of his party, his task was to soften some of the rougher edges of the Thatcher reforms, the same reforms Major had embraced but without her style, charisma or sheer luck. Blair however had all three.