NME Events

With the National Conservative Future elections due to get underway very soon, NKCF is getting into the election spirit!

Friday 25th January 2008 – 8:00pm
Michael Rock – NME chairman candidate – will be attending our usual Future Friday meeting. There will be a Q & A session after our meeting to allow people to ask questions about his ideas, policies and beliefs as he attempts to win over the NKCF cohort. - Conservative Future members at other branches are welcome!
Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=9551789523

Don’t forget to book your place by signing up on Facebook.

If you have any questions, or if you would like to visit us here in Newcastle-under-Lyme, please get in touch with our Deputy Chairman (Political), Matthew Jones – political@newcastlecf.co.uk.

The Dinner Party

It was probably the best programme I’d seen over the Christmas period, and yet it was made and first broadcast over ten years ago. What am I talking about? The Dinner Party.

Over the past few weeks (and indeed the next few weeks coming up), Channel 4 are slowly releasing their archives of comedy, documentaries and drama to the world for free. All through a nifty little program called 4oD. One of these programmes is called The Dinner Party, a programme made as part of the ‘Cutting Edge’ series by a film-maker called Paul Watson. It’s 1997, on a cold night in East Anglia. The cast? A group of Conservative voters, contemplating the prospect of the end of an 18-year-old Conservative government. Set in the comfortable surroundings of a well-furnished candlelit dining room, the group touch upon the topics of the day.

What amused me whilst watching this programme was not the nature of the comments made by a few of the guests. Not the fact that you couldn’t actually broadcast some of the things said any more. Nor the fact that a couple of the guests were rather entertainingly rude. It was the fact that the issues being discussed were rather the same as the issues we’re talking about right now.

Immigration. Education. Sleaze. Things don’t really change, do they? Should we be placing limits on how many people are coming into the country? Can we really trust a new government to make real and significant improvements in education? What part do private schools play in today’s society? What is the effect of sleaze on a government and is it right for them to get away with things?

The guests are outspoken, the wine is flowing and the discussion is relevant. Watch it, you will not be disappointed.

Click here to download 4oD – www.channel4.com/4od.

Celebrity Cabinet

Sky News has released the results of their poll today on which celebrities you’d like to see in the Cabinet. Surprisingly, Sir David Attenborough topped the list as Prime Minister, with Jamie Oliver nestling in as Health Secretary. 2,226 responded, and the winners are:

Prime Minister: Sir David Attenborough

Chancellor: Carol Vorderman

Foreign Secretary: Sir Michael Palin

Justice Secretary: Robbie Coltrane

Home Secretary: Judge John Deed (Martin Shaw)

Defence Secretary: Andy McNab (ex-SAS/novelist)

Scotland Secretary: Billy Connolly

Health Secretary: Jamie Oliver

Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Nigella Lawson

Department of Trade and Industry: Sir Alan Sugar

Minister for Women: Jo Brand

Work and Pensions Minister: Victor Meldrew (Richard Wilson)

Wales Secretary: Catherine Zeta-Jones

Secretary of State for Transport: Jeremy Clarkson

Communities Secretary: Sir Bob Geldof

Chief Whip: Simon Cowell

Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families: Supernanny (Jo Frost)

Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport: Steve Redgrave

Northern Ireland Secretary: Eamonn Holmes

Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills: Prof. Stephen Hawking

What do you think? Jeremy Clarkson for PM? Maragaret Thatcher for Pensions? Or how about Rob Brydon representing the Welsh? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Matthew Jones
Deputy Chairman (Political), NKCF

Christmas Comes Early...

It's very early on a Sunday morning only one week before Christmas. I'm hearing word through the blogs that an truly staggering poll will be revealed later today. YouGov's research for the Sunday Times should reveal a Conservative lead of a massive 13 points. The Liberal Democrat lead isn't yet around (from what I can see), but topline voting intentions for the main two parties are LAB-CON-32%-45%.

What does this bring up?

• We've made significant progress since the previously concerning/static 40% mark was reported. No more worrying?
• We have made no major announcements but have gained. The main thing? Europe.

Are we about to see the Lisbon Treaty's impact on the Labour Party? Could a Conservative announcement regarding a retrospective referendum boost our ratings even further?

The highest Conservative rating ever recorded by YouGov. What a Christmas present for Conservatives across the country!


Matthew Jones
Deputy Chairman (Political), NKCF

The Mysterious Others

Britain, Britain, Britain.

This week’s polling results from Populus make for interesting reading if you’re interested in politics. Whether you’re red or blue, the poll makes for – to put it diplomatically – positive and not-so-positive reading. Peter Riddell summed it up rather nicely in The Times the other day, saying that despite there being a pivotal group being dis-satisfied with Labour, the Conservatives have only improved their position marginally on certain key policy areas. For information, the top-line voting intentions are CON-LAB-LIB-OTH 40%-32%-16%-11%.

But the real issue that I want to look at here is the concept of a two-party state. Are we such a state? We are often compared to America in that we have Labour and the Conservatives, and they have the Republicans and Democrats. There are factions on the other side of the Atlantic, of course there are, but in contrast our ‘factions’ divide from the main party and set up their own. See George Galloway. Election results show that the Liberal Party (in one form or another) has not been the Official Opposition in the House of Commons since 1922 – 85 years! We have to go back 101 years to find the last non-Conservative or Liberal opposition. Even then, it was Joseph Chamberlain who led a separate ‘Unionist’ group after a dispute over tariff reform. Essentially, yes, you guessed it, Conservative.

The results of the polls are interesting. The Conservatives are generally in the 40% - 42% region, with Labour gaining percentages of between 27% - 32%. This shows that while the opposition are consolidating their position around the 40% mark, the general public’s view of the government is fluctuating and their poll ratings remain considerably volatile. This has led to commentators to speculate on whether or not a coalition government could be a realistic outcome from the next general election.

With two or maybe even three years to go, there is still plenty of time for the smaller parties to make up some ground. In October, only 7% of people claimed to want to vote for a party that was not Labour, the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats. Now, only two months later, 11% of people will vote for a smaller party. I’m no mathematician, but why? It took David Cameron over two months (from August to early November) and an abundance of bad handling on the government’s part to gain 4%. What do the other parties have to offer?

The Green Party

The phrase “the law of unintended consequences” comes to mind here. So much emphasis is being placed upon the concept of living in a ‘greener’ country, with a lot of resources being pumped into encouraging recycling. Are the main parties actually doing better than they think in encouraging ‘greener thinking’ by causing a shift in support to the Green Party?

UK Independence Party

So much talk about Europe and the advantages of being a member of the European Union could be turning people off the two main parties. UKIP “is committed to withdrawing Britain from the European Union” because it believes that it is “bad for Britain's economy and prosperity, but it is an alien system of government that will ultimately prove to be totally unacceptable to the British people”. The President of France, Nicholas Sarkozy, believes that a referendum in the UK would result in one in France. He says that if the treaty were put to the people of France and Britain, then the treaty would fall. Are UKIP on to something here?

Respect

In their latest policy booklet dated April 2006, Respect say that “A vote for Respect is a crucial step towards the creation of a new radical working-class voice that will speak for millions who, through the betrayals of New Labour, have lost their political representation”. If the Blair-Brown coalition really has improved the economic welfare of our country and, in general, made people richer, will people be voting for this party?

British National Party

Always keen to stir up controversy, the BNP stand for lower immigration, British independence and higher-quality education and healthcare. Are the British people really that unhappy with the levels of immigration at present? Have the BNP already ruined their chances of electoral success by allowing themselves to be portrayed as a radical party? After all, if people want British independence and different policies on education, aren’t there already UKIP and the Conservatives?

What can be said in conclusion? I don’t think that there is any definitive answer. Clearly some like UKIP are trying to approach things in a different way, but the fact of the matter remains that at least another fifty years is needed before a credible alternative to the main three parties can possibly be a viable idea.

Matthew Jones
Deputy Chairman (Political), NKCF