DAVID CAMERON DOES NOT LEAD a Conservative Party. UKIP is the only such party in existence today; as one member of the conservative group of MEPs clearly demonstrated last week.
There are two issues in the headlines today that demonstrate the counterfeit nature of Mr Cameron’s party. First of all we have what continues to describe itself as Conservative government trotting off to the European Court of Human Rights ( ECHR) to object to two Christian women who have been discriminated against by their employers for wearing a crucifix. This government is ready to argue that, because the crucifix is not a ‘requirement’ of the Christian faith, then employers can ban or sack employees for wearing one.
For Christians this simple cross is an expression of their faith worn by many for its perceived protection, and as a symbol of the wearers fidelity to the Christian faith. The Canonicals are not a requirement of the Christian faith, but of the church. But the New Testament, as far as I know, does not make reference to the dress code of the clergy. Is the Burka required by the Islamic faith? Can an employer, using the same argument as the government are about to deploy in ECHR, forbid a Muslim from wearing his beard?
These arguments are, however, secondary to the institution that is deploying them. It was once said that the Anglican church was the Tory Party at prayer. The Conservative party’s relationship with the Church of England was indeed one of conjoinment. These two institutions represented the cultural backbone of the country, going back over 300 years. If a Tory was not an Anglican, then he or she was a Catholic. Either way, the Conservative Party was tied by tradition to the Church of England; as is still is the monarchy.
I am appalled that this government feels obliged to challenge these two ladies for wearing the symbol of their faith – an item which many in this country have worn around their necks for centuries. The crucifix is as much a part of our Englishness as, to use part of John Major’s reflection on Englishness, warm beer and cricket. It is only since our politicians seeded and harvested multiculturalism, that this simple icon has become offensive to …well, not me as an atheist: but to our multi-faith society, whose members, our politicians believe, will be displeased by this crosses feeble presence in the workplace.
A true Conservative Party would have applauded these two women and wished them well, and not set about banning the very Christian symbol that has been the spiritual glue of the party and our society since its birth and evolution… this government is not a Conservative government.
THE OTHER ISSUE THAT has arisen, is that of the so-called ‘tycoon tax’ that has, admittedly, been brought forth by Nick Clegg as part of give and take for abandoning the 50% tax rate for high earners, which has met with much opposition.
Firstly, I would like to make a general point about taxes. Taxes are what politicians remove from the people’s pay packets each month or year and spend with the passion and gusto of a chav lottery winner. Our politicians have come to believe that taxes are a law of nature and their entitlement to them, a law bequeathed by the Almighty, Himself.
This was not always the case; especially within the Conservative Party. They once believed in small government, low taxes and tradition. Today the Tories (and they cannot use the coalition as an excuse), are as amenable to taxing the rich as the parties of the Left; which now includes Cameron’s Social Democrats…I could have said Christian Democrats, but it would have appeared disingenuous to use ‘Christian’ in any context after what I wrote above. But it does not matter because within modern Europe, Christian and Social Democrat, means sharing the same political agenda.
The ‘tycoon tax’ would comprise a minimum of 20% on total earnings. This is a Liberal Democrat initiative, that has been criticised within Cleggs’ Party by no less a figure than Lord Oakeshott, the former Lib Dem Treasury spokesman. While, on the other hand, the Liberal Democrat Party itself would prefer a so-called ‘mansion tax’ on properties valued at over £2 million.
This however has sent many a wealthy a Left-wing liberal’s heart into fibrillation at the prospect of not being able to live in the comfort, they deem themselves having earned – and I agree with them.
If someone manages to, through their ability, to get a first class education and goes on to create wealth by working hours surpassing those in the average trade union weekly calendar, and, through success, employs more and more people, and make more and more profits, much of which would be reinvested to expand a successful enterprise which will employ more people; then why should such an entrepreneur have to pay more than anyone else?
I am 62 and can remember when the tax hike for the rich was almost 80% under Dennis Healy, who promised to squeeze the rich until the ‘ pips squeaked’. He drove thousands abroad in the name of class-warfare. If I had seen 80,70,50 or 40 per cent of my income taken by politicians who had little regard for its distribution, then, even if I were the staunchest of English patriots…I would have looked abroad to save me from such pilfering by the state.
The Conservative Party has, historically, always seen the taking of an ever increasing part of a person’s hard earned income as cause for failure. But today, the state feels entitled to ask for more from someone who has earned more.
Let us equate the proportion paid in taxes to the hours we work. So if the higher tax rate was 50%, then the person paying it would spend half his or working time, working for the government: and the same calculation can be made for every other percentage taken by taxes from all other wage earners or, if you prefer, salary earners.
THE CONSERVATIVE party once took taxes very seriously. They knew that there were limits to what they could ask the people to pay. But it was not only an understanding of what the wealthy were prepared to pay; but also an understanding that the lower the tax threshold, the more revenues would be forthcoming.
What I would do would be to construct an experiment covering a period of 2-5 years. I would have a flat rate of tax of 20% for all except those on minimum wage and just above. I am convinced that, the lower the standard rate of taxation covering all rates of income, the more revenues the exchequer would be able to spend.
This is what Conservatives used to believe in. Minimal taxation and the minimal state. David Cameron has usurped this holy grail of Conservatism and, in an attempt to remake the party from being the ‘nasty party’ they have become a centre Left party equitable in policy terms to social democracy.
I FEAR WE ARE WITTNESSING the demise of the traditional conservative party: and if tradition means anything, then its political expression has to be conservatism. But both issues of wearing the Christian cross and taxes, are not the only issues that represent the demise of Conservatism. There are many other issues, but for now, these two aspects of conservative decline will have to do.
The British Conservative Party once did what its title suggested; it conserved our culture. Whether it were political, religious, or all traditional elements that found meaning in every county of the UK. Every region had its own cultural practices and were encourage to continue them.
Today, these, what I would call relics of our indigenous culture, have been replaced by a politically driven influx of other cultures to the determent of our native one, and over time will transplant them.
I have just read a piece suggesting that more young people are turning toward UKIP and away from supporting the Conservative Party. How much this is wishful thinking or a warning from the writer of the piece I do not know; but given the recent defections from the party to UKIP, and the direction David Cameron is steering both his party and the ship of state on, many more will, over time find a truly Conservative home within UKIP.
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