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?

Doorstep politics eats time

The trouble with getting involved is that it takes up so much time. Since I started doorstep canvassing for the Old Firm, it's seriously eaten into my blogging activities.

It's not just the doorsteps (all that walking has given me thighs like tree trunks), but the town centre leafleting ("Get out of my way, you tosser"), the envelope stuffing (I've definitely got Stuffers' Wrist), and...well, just dealing with the pesky public (I mean, I thought I was getting involved in politics, but all these people keep getting in the way).

I've also found myself drafting responses to the avalanche of letters and phone calls which come in every day from the punters. Absolutely fascinating stuff- problems that never seem to make the news, questions about Tory policy, suggestions for new policies, advice on what we should insert into our own anatomies- it's all there. And after the Election, I'm going to blog some of it.

In terms of results, there's a good feeling that we're going to win the constituency, but nobody actually wants to say it, just in case. And nationally, I think we're all resigned to another five years of Socialism.

Still, as Matthew Parris first pointed out, this is probably not an election to win. It's just such a shame that that we all have to suffer such horrific damage before we can at last kick them out for another twenty years.

Protect and survive

With two weeks to go, the doorstep vibe agrees with the bookies. Labour to win with a 70 seat majority.

Hopefully, between now and 5 May this can be whittled down to a Callaghan-style LibLab gridlock. But the punters aren't convinced.

So we need to batten down the hatches for a bumpy few years.

First of course, taxes will ramp up again. The IMF agrees with the Wat Tyler envelope- £12 billion for starters. Say, another 1.5p on uncapped NI contributions for employers and employees. The archetypal tax on jobs.

But it won't be enough, and government borrowing will bust right through that old golden rule, pushing up borrowing costs for everyone. The virtuous public finance circle of Gordo's early years will go into reverse as tax revenues sag, and debt interest payments notch up.

Current housing market weakness will intensify, and negative equity will return to stalk the land. Consumers will retrench by hiding under the stairs, and refusing to answer calls from the bank's Indian call centre. Rivers of blood will flow down the High Street, with the CEOs of M&S, Sainsburys, Boots, Woolies, Smudger Smiths etc etc all found hanging from lamp posts.

Emergency spending cuts will follow, although obviously they won't be called that.

Unemployment will rise as public sector jobs are frozen and more private sector jobs head East. The economic engines splutter and flame out, and we plunge down towards the icy grey waters of the North Atlantic...

What to do?

Now.

Not when it's too late.

First, sell the house, and repay all debts.

Second, ship all remaining assets into an offshore account.

Third, move into the cash economy.

Fourth, dig up the lawn and plant subsistence crops. Or perhaps specialist cash crops such as opium.

Fifth, arm yourself.

You will have to last out until 2010 at the earliest.

Labour's election fraud

Following Labour's refusal to put up anyone to discuss their jaw-dropping behaviour in Birmingham, I looked forward to our msm political reporters having a real go at their first news conference. Just like they did with Michael Howard after he sacked Flight.

I'm still waiting.

Tony wasn't asked about it either on the sofa this morning, or during his love-in with Gordo this pm.

Compare that to today's World At One. They continued to fan the embers of the Flight affair, pointing out that one of the possible replacement candidates is Nick Herbert, the head of Reform. Apparently- shock horror- he believes taxes should be cut. WATO spent a third of their programme sucking their teeth over it.

Almost as good a use of taxpayers' money as Newsnight hiring a helicopter to ferry around the self-satisfied Michael Crick during the election campaign. Allowing him to make post-modernist jokes about the size of his chopper.