Crash Bang Wallace
Libertarian political blog from Mark Wallace; political opinion, breaking news and exclusivesA lucky escape for the Welsh Conservatives
Posted on November 23, 2010You may remember my post on that lovely specimen, Zahid Raja, the Conservative Future candidate in Wales who was vitriolically opposing spending cuts that might affect him.
Happily, he was defeated by Grant Tucker, the entirely more libertarian candidate. That was a lucky escape from political embarrassment – and it now turns out it was doubly lucky. Raja has – not unsurprisingly for an anti-cuts NUS officer – now left the Conservative Party entirely:
The Conservative Party needs principled people who will stand staunchly in support of the case to reduce public spending wherever necessary – and no party needs the kind of fairweather friends who storm off in a huff as soon as they lose a student election. Happily Wales has elected the former, and avoided a classic example of the latter.
As Margaret Thatcher would say, “Rejoice at that news!”
Double standards in Wales
Posted on August 11, 2010Ah, the Conservative Future elections – always time for fun, games and embarrassment.
What with the Conservative Party in power for the first time in 13 years and a major programme of essential public spending cuts underway, you might have thought that CF candidates would be competing to show their support for the more radically conservative decisions their party is taking, or even urging them to go further.
Not in Wales, it seems. Take Zahid Raja, for example, who is running to be the Chairman of Welsh CF.
Leaving aside his enthusiastic involvement as an officer of the hyper-politically correct, hyper-socialist National Union of Students, Zahid appears to be strangely enthusiastic about increasing public spending, not cutting it – at least where his own personal interests are concerned.
While the Government implements massive spending cuts, would it look good for CF Wales to be lead by someone who, as a trainee doctor, campaigns for his own profession to be paid even more taxpayers’ money? Or who helps to run protests calling his own University “dicks” when they cut back?
The vast majority of young Tories whom I’ve met recognise the urgent need for public spending cuts. It would be bizarre for them to be led by someone who refuses to accept that the cuts might have to affect him once in while, rather than just everyone else.
Such a person would be a liability, giving credence to the Left’s criticism that Conservatives cut spending on others whilst protecting themselves.
The test of someone’s principles comes when they accept that they might have to take a bit of pain in order to do the right thing. That’s not a test Zahid Raja looks set to pass.
The Penny Drops
Posted on August 09, 2010Always at the white hot cutting edge of investigative journalism, the New Statesman have literally risked their lives by going undercover to the, erm, Young Britons’ Foundation hustings for Conservative Future Chairman. I know, talk about the Heroes of Telemark for the 21st Century.
The intrepid NS hack donning the camouflage cream and stab vest for the job was Laurie Penny who, it seems, went to a party for rightwingers in order to report back her shock that they were right wing.
I have an interest to confess, in that I was at the party in question so I can attest to the general conservative and right-libertarian bent of the evening (although I should state at this point that I was not “pink shirt”, the mystery man who asked her out on a date).
It’s easy to say in hindsight, but I recall being a bit suspicious of Laurie at the time – not least thanks to her claim to be an aspiring fashion journalist whilst dressed like an explosion in Jackson Pollock’s airing cupboard.
The question her article left me with, aside from whether the unattributed quotes in it are actually true, was why she failed to report on the only genuinely scandalous part of the evening. As has now been widely reported, one of the CF Chairman candidates, Ben Howlett, cited Gerry Adams as the most inspirational figure in Northern Irish politics.
That’s quite a shocking statement, particularly coming from a Conservative seeking office (albeit a CF office). Did Laurie miss it, or is it that such a view is not unusual in the New Statesman’s office?