Oh Tebbit, Tebbit, He Went to the Lords and He’s Still a Runt

Julian H must confess that yesterday he bought a copy of The Sextator in Leicester. Naturally you may question his judgement. Why would anyone want to be in Leicester?

The Leicester-ness was, in fairness, less of a choice than the taking of the self-proclaiming ‘Current Affairs Magazine of the Year’ (haw haw). The purchase can, perhaps, be excused due to both the reasonable price and old ‘reading the enemy’ adage.

Leaving aside the usual back-slapping of their mate Boris by Liddle and co. (Liddle, if his mugshot sketch is anything to go by, seems to think he resembles Bob Geldof), one noticed a letter from the venerable Lord Norman Beresford Tebbit of Chingford. The prolific peer also featured adjacent in a reported debate on selection in schools.

In the letter Tebbit attacks Dave’s Nu Conservalites for their admiration of Tony Blair. Why should the Tories merge into centrist Blairism, Tebbit thunders, when in ‘2005 Blair had the votes of only 21.6 per cent of the electorate’? A mystery, indeed. Hark, we all remain amazed at how the two largest parties in a first-past-the-post system seek the middle of a bell curve.

Naturally this is why ‘40 per cent of electors are unwilling to vote’. They are all bottling up their lust to vote for a UKIP-like Tory party.

Tebbit’s list of moans and argument on education is, of course, typical of the wing of the Tories he arguably defines. The occasional flicker of liberal enlightenment (bear with me here) is clouded in instinctive conservative prejudiced little England-ness. Let us have a closer butcher’s:

Tebbit’s Reasonable Criticisms of Blair’s record:

• ‘the bungled war on Iraq’ – fair point, even if the Tories largely supported the invasion.
• ‘sensational increases in tax without measurable improvement in services’ – fair point, if a tad sensationalist.
• ‘debauchment of the civil service’ – fair point
• ‘lesser incentives to work or save’ – fair point, just about

Tebbit Showing True Colours:

• ‘his remorseless attacks on the conventional family’ – you what?
• ‘his surrender of British sovereignty to Brussels’ – right
• ‘his fuelling of the culture of drugs, alcohol, yobbery and violent crime’ – ha
• ‘uncontrolled, unmeasured immigration of people determined not to integrate but to establish first ghettoes, and now demands for a separate legal jurisdiction’ – see photo

On education:

‘the lapel of every child should have a voucher attached’ [presumably one for the purposes of education]. The piece adds ‘Problem kids would attract high-value vouchers, he said, while clever, obedient kids would merit more modest funds because they cost less to educate. Government subsidy and free-market dynamism would turn problem kids into profitable kids’ – all good, probably, even if the poncey liberal that I am is a tad uncomfortable with the ‘obedient’ bit.

Yet even in this piece Tebbit, admittedly a tad ironically, can’t help but refer to ‘the blacks and the foreigners’ and ‘bloody lot of them’ with ‘them’ being, as you may expect, Chinese people.

Let us end on another confession – I’m not really sure what my point is here.

Lord Tebbit in Being a Rightist Conservative Shock.

I suppose I just find it strange how these conservatives preach freedom and small government whilst promoting social engineering against ‘yobbery’ and a big government department to stop people benefiting from the global labour market.

Enjoy the photo, anyway.