As most of you will know, in May I was elected President for Birmingham University Conservative Future as a result I would like to refer all to the BUCF Blog where I will blog most regularly. This blog will still be available to read, however, it will not have any new posts until further notice and this is a temporary note. I would like to focus my energy and attention on BUCF to ensure that as a student society, as a branch of CF and as a local group we are doing our utmost to support the Conservative cause.
Thank you all and remember to keep abreast of Sassy Conservatism here.
Fareed Zakaria is the editor of Newsweek International. He recently wrote one of the most gripping articles I have read this year ‘The Capitalist Manifesto: Greed is good, up to a point’ and I thought it a ‘responsibility’ to share a passage from the article with you. According Zakaria:
“Most of what happened over the past decade across the world was legal. Bankers did what they were allowed to do under the law. Politicians did what they thought the system asked of them. Bureaucrats were not exchanging cash for favours. But very few people acted responsibly, honourably or nobly (the very word sounds odd today). This might sound like a small point, but it is not. No system- capitalism, socialism, whatever- can work without a sense of ethics and values at its core. No matter what reforms we put in place, without common sense, judgement and an ethical standard, they will prove inadequate. We will never know where the next bubble will form, what the next innovations will look like and where excesses will build up. But we can ask that people steer themselves and their institutions with a greater reliance on a moral compass.”
There is a great deal of meaning and understanding in what Zakaria writes. Essentially, the law and regulations, alone, cannot sufficiently ensure good legal, political, social or economic practice.Consequently, when David Cameron talks about individual responsibility, he is pointing to common sense, to virtue and to good practice- something that has been in short supply in our communities for much too long now; something that only a Conservative government can now restore.
Ladies and gentleman, fellow countrymen go forth today and do your democratic duty.
Today you have an opportunity to Vote for Change. To vote for the change we all so desperately need, in these times of economic and political instability.
The EU must hear the British public’s voice. Let us be loud and let us be firm.
It has come to my attention recently that Birmingham Young Labour intends to fight the battle that is the upcoming European Elections with all their vigour and might. Their tremendous campaigning force is not to be sneered at, for fear that the hordes of activists will soon pounce utilising their charisma, wit and intelligence to demolish any opposition.
Sound bizarre? Well, I thought I’d do them a favour since their own PR efforts are so criminally incompetent.
In actual fact, the Labour elite squad seems to consist of a pitiful five members (plus the ‘host’ organisation, thrown in there for good measure) who have had yet another of their clandestine meetings to discuss how threatened they feel by the BNP and to, “find out how YOU can make a difference!”
Me? I’d have loved to go, but the thought of spending an hour (at 6.30am no-less) with Brown’s Brummie Brigade caused me to wretch so violently I almost uttered the words, “Bring Blair Back!”
Alistair Darling’s ‘borrow and spend’ Budget which unfolded this week was full of false ideas, false intentions and false calculations. A politically motivated budget is not quite what the country needs as the British economy experiences the worst recession since the Second World War. Despite what the Budget may have you think, Britain’s top earners are not the only one’s who have to pay the price of Labour’s mishandling of the economy and irresponsible borrowing- it will hit the many! In fact, every new born will inherit a fair share of this government’s mismanagement.
So having finally agreed that the economy is in shambles, largely thanks to Labour’s ill-informed economic policy, one would hope that business and enterprise would finally begin to be encouraged, but no, instead, the Budget has enraged key business leaders across the West Midlands. Despite the fact that 8.4 per cent of the workforce in the West Midlands region is unemployed- this is the worst unemployment figure in the country- Mr Darling decided that Leeds and Manchester, both Labour-run Councils are more deserving of the City Region status. In his decision, Mr Darling agreed that plans to create 44,000 jobs in the region as an immediate impact of the City region status, were not as important as party politics. Ultimately, the West Midland’s population have been ‘Punished…for not voting Labour’.
Now let us have a look at the Labour governments explanation:
Wednesday was Budget Day. The borrowing figures got the headlines - and rightly so. We’re in a new age of austerity yet this Government is trapped in the old age of irresponsibility. Sitting there in the House of Commons listening to the Chancellor tell us he was planning to borrow more in the next two years than all previous governments combined left me open-mouthed. I used to say this Government seems intent on saddling future generations with debt. I was wrong. After this week, they’re going to crush them.
But, as ever, the real story of Labour’s Budgets comes after the Chancellor sits down and you get to unpack truth from fiction. And this year, there was more fiction than normal. Within an hour the IMF had rubbished his growth forecasts, suggesting Labour’s Debt Crisis will be even worse. Then their claim that only the rich would carry the burden of their mistakes was dismissed - their tax rises will hit the many, not the few, with everyone earning over £20,000 worse off. And by Thursday it became clear that there’s an even bigger black hole in their figures - which will be plugged by guess who? Yes, all of us - in even higher taxes. This Budget can be summed up in one word: dishonest.
Alistair Darling’s 2009 Budget released yesterday has not kept many smiles on people’s faces. We are now faced with a government that has lied to us, broken manifesto promises while feasting on Taxpayer’s money and worst of all not even realising the damage it has caused through irresponsible borrowing.
Nonetheless, on the brighter side, it’s St George’s Day today- a day to value and celebrate English culture formally. Have a good one!
