BURNING OUR MONEY

New site- David Davis for leader

I've set up a new site to gather together DD leadership links and supportive blogs.

Comments/contributions welcome.

It has to be Davis

Yes, we all accept that none of them are ideal, but Dave has the following key advantages:

• Regular guy with normal voice, wife and kids
• Meritocrat who rose from humble origins- council estate and state educated
• SAS trained killer with sparkly blue eyes- just like Pantsdown- didn't even need a length of wire to dispose of Hughes and Blunkett
• Good experience- business, government whip, Minister for Europe, Chair of Public Accounts Committee, Party Chairman, Shadow Home Secretary
• Strong interest in small government/public sector reform- set up excellent Reform thinktank
• Sound on Europe and Justice
• Represents Northern constituency so actually relates to whatever it is goes on up there

It is concerning that he's the bookies' favourite, but surely it's time to buck the favourite's curse.

Rifkind? Too old, too John Major, and too much of a toff.

Fox? Maybe, but...well, what with all that stuff about Natalie Imbrog...Emrogl...that pop star bird, he comes across as a tubby self-satisfied ponce.

Hague retread? You can't be serious.

Cameron? Osborne? Too inexperienced and unknown.

So Dave's my man. The sooner the better.

English independence

The election has given a big boost to the campaign for English independence. As is now widely known, the English voted for a Tory government, but have been condemned to a further five years of socialism by those communists in Scotland and Wales.

Even worse, the English- particularly in the South East- are taxed to buggery to pay for the whole thing. Last time I crunched the numbers, the Scots were getting a fiscal transfer from down South equal to 10 per cent of their national income.

So I find myself nodding agreement with today's Times article by the 128 year old William Rees-Mogg. (This is very disturbing since I'm old enough to remember the sixties, when Rees-Mogg was a ludicrous creature from the distant planet Posh; when he conducted that flickery black and white TV interview with Mick Jagger about drugs, with Jagger arriving by helicopter on the front lawn of Moggs' country mansion, and being so overawed that he forgot to talk Estuarial and ending up sounding just like Little Lord Fauntleroy. Ah, great days.)

At least Blair pretends to be English, but once the controls are wrested away by Mary Queen of Scots, our subjugation will be complete.

Do the Labour barons understand what's happened? Listening to Peter Hain this morning, you'd have to say they probably don't. Of course he's been given vast new estates across the Irish Sea to add to his lands in Wales, so his intermittently orange head is now a full-on Halloween pumpkin. But to suggest that Labour have won a great victory suggests he finally has slipped the surly bonds of reality.

'Well you know, it's still a good majority. It's bigger than the majority Margaret Thatcher had in 1979.'

Hmm...yes, but didn't she win 44 per cent of the vote?

Notting Hill Tories visit the suburbs

During my sojourn on the doorsteps (yes we did beat the Lib Dems- hurrah!), I met a couple of guys who came down from the Smoke to help out. Now, one...well, naturally one doesn't like to ask on a first meeting, but I gained the distinct impression they might have been...you know...a couple of those Notting Hill types.

Anyway, they were in despair about Mikey's 'liar' tactics and general Nasty Party campaign. And I have to say, they had a point- it didn't play at all well on many of the genteel Home Counties doorsteps I visited. Even those that Voter Vault had scored as pretty solid C.

These Hillistas reckoned we will never break through until we recreate a 'positive brand of opportunity and meritocracy'. We should have spent this election playing the long game and investing in that brand.

I chomped my lay-by sausage roll (a good trick if you can do it), and countered that Mikey didn't have the luxury of the long game. I wasn't sure we had it in the constituency either.

They shook their heads, and glanced at one another.

'Well now, look,'  I said, 'don't think I'm not a political sophisticate. Oh no- no worries on that score- my antennae quiver as much as the next man's. It's just that an awful lot of people are very concerned about crime and immigration. So, you know, we have to address it.' We'd already seen a couple of BNP posters on an estate that very morning.

'Hmmm. Just because the tabloids go on about it, doesn't mean most people are genuinely that concerned. It's simply not the stuff that decides elections. We have to create a positive vision: not get cornered into negativity by the Daily Mail.'

And of course, they're right. Absolutely right.

You can definitely see their point.

You can see it that is, except that flogging and immigration is really all we've got right now.

Because the beating heart of the Conservative brand- the economy- is just not beating like it used to. For all sorts of reasons, under Gordo, incomes, employment and house prices have all risen, and inflation has been subdued.

Yeah, there are a few gripes about taxes, but then the NHS is getting all that extra dosh.

Consequently, most people don't see the economic problem that needs a Tory fix.

And sadly, all the positivism in the world ain't going to change that. Which is why we're forced back onto some secondary-if less appealing- brand values that Labour hasn't managed to incorporate. Crime, school discipline, and immigration control.

But we do at least know that deliverance is out there somewhere. As Ken Clark puts it, all Labour governments eventually run out of money. And this one has nearly maxed out.

So let's have no more despondency in lay-bys. Let's have no more wailing and gnashing in the bistros of Notting Hill. The day is coming, my children. The day is coming.

Trust me. I'm positive.

Well...fairly.

Tories back with 28 seat majority

As predicted the Conservatives have been re-elected with a substantially increased majority.

The (almost) final results are:

Conservatives: 119

Labour:               74

Lib Dems:           17

Analysts say the continued failure of the two socialist parties is no surprise. This is one of the world's most dynamic countries, which now boasts the sixth biggest economy in the world, and where income per head is second only to the US. Here we have an electorate that really understands the importance of freedom and enterprise.

Commenting on the result, the Conservative leader said: 'This is a vote for liberation from big government. The people of the South East have spoken, and they demand independence now. They are no longer prepared to slog their guts out paying taxes to support a bunch of communist wasters up North. It's time for action!'

Yes!

Draw that giant arc from the Wash to the Solent. 21 million of us. 35 per cent of the UK population peddling away to produce 42 per cent the output.

We have just re-elected a Tory government. But instead of getting stuck into the business of rolling back the state, we're actually stuck into another five years of socialism imposed on us by the rest of the country.

We're bullied and robbed blind to prop up a fantasy workers' paradise up North.

What do we get out of the deal exactly?

It is time for action.

Postal voting fiasco

Two sons- both away from home- both applied for postal votes.

One arrived last week. The other has gone missing "due to clerical error". He's been told nothing can be done to rectify it, and the advice is to vote in person.

Yeah...ummm...the only thing being, see...ah, he's not actually at home...which is why he...umm...

Arrrgghhh.

Will there be a check to make sure it's not used by Tony's legions of postal ballot fraudsters? Nobody seems to know.

Banana anyone?