It is reported that some recalcitrant Tory MPs are thinking of setting up a dining club called the Brokeback Club, with the aim of being a thorn in the side of the coalition. John Redwood has told them to think again. He's right.
I had thought people who are elected to Parliament might leave student politics behind them. They need to grow up.
All they are doing is playing into the media narrative that the coalition is already beset by split. The Tim Farron and David Davis incidents last week added more grist to their mill.
Of course there are differences between coalition parties. Otherwise the two parties would become one. So far any differences have been ironed out very quickly, and the fact that interpersonal relationships are good says a lot about the goodwill between the party leaderships. I actually think that goodwill is reflected in the vast majority of both parliamentary parties and their memberships. But MPs with a slightly more sceptical view must realise that anything they say which indicates dissatisfaction with the coalition will be exaggerated and often misreported if they are not careful.
23 comments:
These "recalcitrant Tory MPs" might also want to consider this:
'Does not play well with others' is a tiresome and undesirable quality in children. It's intolerable in adults, who presumably can bear the fact that the universe is not geared around them without having public trantrums.
Just Posted to the same effect. Quite frankly infantile and extroadinarily damaging. David Davis should be Sacked, Quit or defect to the Labour Backbenches.
DD is doing nothing worse than Simon "Straight Choice" Hughes. The Conservative Party is not the personal property of David Cameron and his cronies.
Agreed.
I would be more than happy to spit in the eye of any Tory MP forming such a club, twice over if they called it such a stupid arse of a name.
And lets face it Davis Davis has finally proved he has gone way past his sell by dater. I used to be a fan, but what do I know.
Opposition and dialogue and discussion are fine of course. That is quite clear.
But what these bozos have to remember is just what the Conservative Party is. David Laws, even Clegg, would fit quite happily in a Thatcher first cabinet - far more than say Gillmore.
Just look at the party post war. It was a broad based centre party.
Its 'extreme' actions took place when it was forced to confront politically motivated trade unions and unpick the Callaghan years - and those reforms have never been repealed by Labour.
The public are not interested in rabid politics that these bozos represent.
I am right wing, but I am delighted to see the Education Bill pass with a majority of 90 (!). The Budget ditto. Policing reforms have just been announced. I am happy.
The only thing 'broke-backed' is the Tory Right, they are descending into parody - and as a right winger that disgusts me.
No you twit, Galliamaufry, the Tory party is not Cameron's property, and it is NOT Davis' property either. HE is the silly arse who pointlessly walked out of the shadow cabinet - he is the one throwing his toys out of the pram. He is the one associating himself with a bunch of dicks.
And he and his cronies are behaving like a bunch of spoilt selfish children - you can argue against policy without acting like arseholes.
The real question is what would such a club hope to achieve? I agree with Gallimaufry that the Conservative party is not the property of Cameron, and there should indeed be healthy, open debate within the party. That said, it should always be constructive, with a view to making things better - not just idle carping for the sake of it.
It seems to me that the entire "Brokeback" endeavour is designed to be nothing more than a nuisance. Such behaviour is, as Iain puts it, childish, immature and unbecoming for supposedly adult politicians.
You can't really seriously believe that the 'goodwill is shared between the parliamentary parties *and their memberships*?
I was (until the Shock Doctrine budget) a liberal activist. I worked hard in the constituency, and when we lost, we were devastated, but re-encouraged by the coalition- I suggested we meet with our local Tory party now that we were both on the same side - that we come together to get to know one another better, to find out our differences, to get beyond the blind loathing of the campaign. The response was not printable on anyone's blog, but I think we can safely say that the blind loathing of the campaign is as strong as ever.
Looks like AV will be effectively defeated by a Labour amendment, supported by Conservative MPs. Same could happen to Huhne's windmills. The result could be interesting, where the govt loses its policy programmes to a combination of the Labour opposition supported by its own MPs.
Redwood is worried by such irregularity, but the new generation of Tory MPs don't giveashit.
if we could liken the coalition to mixing colour.
if i mixed 5 parts blue (tory) to 1 part yellow (lib dem) then i should get a very dark green. instead i seem to be getting the equivalent of a half : half mix. a middle of the road green
my point? that despite there being over 5 times as many tory mps as lib dem mps in the coalition - its funny how we seem to have an equal mix of lib dem and tory policies in the government.
and as a tory - if all we are going to have is slightly right of centre lib dem policies as the government agenda and nothing else (ken clarke) then there isnt much point of the tories being in power at all.
@Gavin Gamble
I guess no one ever explained democracy in the UK to you. Davis was elected by the people of Haltemprice and Howden.
No one in the UK elected a government ( it was chosen by the Queen) and not one single person voted for a coalition candidate.
So why Davis should be sacked is beyond me. In fact if more MP's actually stood up and represented their voters we would be in a far better place
There is no doubt that many Tory MP`s are well fed up with `Dismal Dave` already and want to see the back of him thats what all this is about.....cant say I blame them either..
I wish Parliament would hurry up with the new law that enables constituents to turf out psychologically flawed egomaniacs like David Davis if X% vote to do so. If the coalition fights the next election as the coalition it will also be a good opportunity for the Tories/LibDems, whichever is appropriate, to field a spectacularly good candidate against the resident nutter.
If the intention is 'to be a thorn in the side of the coalition' then that is crass. Argument simply for the sake of argument then? Why bother? What is the point? Do these people wish to achieve anything, or are they just modern-day Luddites?
However, if the intention is to put forward a particular point of view that is another thing.
Debate by all means, but opposing just for the sake of opposing is meretricious and self-defeating.
It's not recalcitrance, it's sheer inanity. As you say, these clowns need to grow up. Let them put up decent and supported argument, rather than unfounded opinion.
Its hilarious to see some comments.
Mirtha - we just passed a real Tory measure, Education, by 90 votes. Where is the dissatisfaction there? From you maybe.
Just mouthing slogans is infantile if it is divorced from reality.
Libertarian - did you miss the leaders debates? Why is Labour currently agonising over its new labour? leaders matter and its silly to pretend they are not a huge factor in the way people vote. Brown was a crap PM its one reason why many voted for Davis.
Dr Kevin - in no way do I see policy developing in the same way you do.
I suspect that the minority partner is always going get a bit more than its weight might suggest - but if so why do we see some commentators saying there is nothing in this for the LibDems?
Truth is the coalition came up with an agreement - an agenda - for govt and is seeing it through. Both sets of back benchers voted overwhelmingly for it.
Lets not be fooled by a desperate opposition, desperate newspapers and a few desperate bozos.
Treversden, Laws and Clegg might have indeed fitted in Lady Thatcher's first cabinet but what of the rest of the LibDems - Callaghan's cabinet? Don't you think David Davis would have fitted into that Mrs T's government either or have you forgotten Norman Tebbit and Nicholas Ridley? margaret Thatcher reformed both the politically motivated trade unions AND the complacent, steady-decline accepting British management and Establishment attitude that the postwar Butskell consensus had created. The Tory Party is a broad church and cold-shouldering someone because their beliefs don't match with the present marriage of convenience is short-sighted. Where will your precious coalition be when the next Labour leader offers Vince or Simon a bigger box of choccies?
If this is how the Condem government behaves after just afew short weeks i dread to think what will happen come the spending review in november and beyond.
The party conference season will be an interesting one this year !
and to those who say in a coalition we should expect splits i can see this will be your mantra over the next five years if it makes you feel better please continue to think so. For the rest of us we'll see as it as two divided parties in a divided government.
Dale has the very fashionable, centre right opinion that MPs represent the party rather than their constituents (the opposite of what the best MP of all time, Edmund Burke, said when he declared that he represented the people of Bristol at Parliament, not the other way around).
@Thatcher cabinet revisionists: we've moved on since then. The state is literally twice the size it was in 1979 and the domestic (non-military or foreign service) 8 times. Right wing today means not putting up taxes from an already unsustainable level. I don't care who that doesn't play well with @Craig Ranapia: it's a fact that you can't put keep putting taxes up for ever and its also very unlikely that we can create an economic recovery in this way either. Sack the whole lot of us if you want, @Gavin Gamble, you'll still not change that fundamental fact.
Hurray for DD and long may he and other backbench MPs of all parties continue to represent the views of their constituents and stick two fingers to their leaderships and fashionable, Westminster opinion.
Dear goldenballs, the'ConDem' (ha ha I am in stitches) govt is doing nothing particularly wrong as far as I am concerned.
Its getting a grip on the mess left behind by Labour.
Dear Galliamaufry
You neatly make my point for me - Norman Tebbit was not in Mrs Thatchers first cabinet - perhaps you are getting your Normans mixed up because Norman St.John Stevas was. need I say more.
Of course Ridley was not in that cabinet either.
What Mrs Thatcher famously had of course was a 'Willie'. How right wing was he -? And in fact of course it all went wrong for Thatcher once Willie retired.
And lets not forget Mrs Thatcher signed us up to the Single Market. Bless her she was brilliant but you and others should stop looking through rose tinted specs at a non-existent past. In your dreams did she change the 'steady-decline accepting British management and Establishment attitude'.
The Tory party is not and never has been a hot bed of right wing ferment. Standing up to Arthur Scargill (or Galtieri) does not make it right wing.
Just LOOK at her cabinets. This coalition govt is absolutely no different whatsoever to that one.
@Desperate Dan. I agree with you 100%. David Davis is so conceited that he still thinks that he will be a good future leader of the Tory Party. The man never accepted his heavy defeat as the Tory Party leader and his self-importance is in the size the millennium tent in Greenwich. Even if the Tory Party swerves to the Right in the next election,he will not be the candidate to lead the Party as he will be too old and a gneration will be skipped.
Trevorsden
Sadly I think its you who are divorced from reality...NO slogans from me just saying that there are many backbenchers who dont like Mr Cameron and never will. There are others who can tolerate him but not the coalition hence the reason for this thread...
You may think this coalition is the best thing to happen to politics but there are many more who dont
"You may think this coalition is the best thing to happen to politics but there are many more who dont"
...then you have a choice don't you ... but remember ...that's the way the public voted. You can be as purist and right win as you wish but unless you convince them , and you haven't, you will never have power and never achieve anything.
"David Davis should be Sacked"
if you sack every backbencher who makes fun of his party you will soon run out of MPs. He made himself look a twat. Punishment enough.
Desperate - you cannot recall an MP just because you do not like him. There has to be some reason like fiddled expenses.
Mirtha the tory back bench voted unanimously for this coalition. You have no evidence for your assertions. After one of the strangest elections I can ever remember we are where we are and Labour are out of office.
This govt is going to undergo great unpopularity in making very significant cuts in public spending. Thats why Browns term of office was so disastrous. Once the spending genie is out of the bottle it is very difficult to put back.
Its all very well bleating about 'we need to be more right wing' - do that and you NEVER get in office.
The public are not 'more right wing'
You do what is possible - and in terms of LIBERTY the coalition IS doing what Davis wants. Only nut-jobs scream about 'right wing ideology
Dear Treversden,
The Single Market was an attempt to remedy the clear faults of the Common Market that your, no doubt hero, Grocer Heath signed Britain up to on a false prospectus (eg Common Fisheries Policy). Maastricht (economic and monetary union) was a step too far.
I may be fairly accused of looking back through blue-tinted glasses to an era that stopped the postwar consensus and helped make this country wealthier, but I have 20-20vision of the dangers to the Tory Party leadership of ignoring its right wing.
I trust you will realise that just as the USA is a different country with its own interests so the Libdems are a separate party with no loyalty to Dave beyond temporary convenience. There is no "Special Relationship" beyond that of tart and client.
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