Thursday, November 05, 2009

Surrender monkeys

"Do-nothing" Dave and his "settled" non-policy is coming under a little bit of attack says The Daily Telegraph.

Roger Helmer dismisses Dave's finest hour, declaring: "What we have is an essentially cosmetic policy. We are installing a largely ineffective burglar alarm when the family silver has already been stolen."

He goes on then to say: "But the British people don't want vague promises. They want the family silver back in good order," adding, ".... I can neither justify nor support our new EU policy."

He has resigned as spokesman for his party in Brussels, as indeed has Daniel Hannan, in order to concentrate on campaigning for a referendum on Europe.

The Lord Tebbit has also weighed in, calling on Mr "Do-nothing" to hold a referendum after he wins "power" to give additional legitimacy to his attempts to repatriate powers from Brussels. I don't think our Norm has quite got it ... Dave has no intention of attempting to repatriate powers.

Nevertheless, the Noble Lord makes a good point. Even if Dave secures 40 percent of the vote in the next general election, low turnout is likely to mean that can claim the active support of no more than about 24 percent of British voters for his European policy.

That, of course, is hardly a strong mandate and, the way it is going., the Boy might even get less. A direct mandate from a referendum would give him added strength ... which is why Mr "Do-nothing" is not going to have a referendum. He wants to park the issue.

On the other side of the coin, we also seem to have some Frog, who goes by the name of Pierre Lellouche, who is describing Dave's policy as "pathetic and autistic" – although not for the same reasons we would. However, it also seems that something has been lost in translation.

But then Dave is probably quite pleased to have flak from the Frog, on the basis that he can balance one lot of criticism against the other. This is a classic BBC trick – if both "extremes" are complaining, they say, then we must be getting it right.

With the Daily Mail in full flow, though – proclaiming that Dave's effluvia represents a "desperately sad moment for British democracy and sovereignty", the response is slightly unbalanced. One Frog does not balance out three million dischuffed Mail readers.

However, Lellouche does illustrate the difficulties that would have faced Dave if he was at all serious. The "colleagues" are most definitely not in the mood to hand back powers, which shows that if we ever get a serious politician leading the Tory party, he will have his work cut out.

Meanwhile, if Steven Glover has his way, the new Tory logo should be a white flag. At least then Dave's surrender monkeys (pictured) will have something in common with the Frogs.

LISBON TREATY THREAD