Talking of class, I'm still trying to follow Daniel Finkelstein's advice by laying my personal biases to one side and giving the new Conservative leader as many benefits of the doubt as I can muster. So far I'm enjoying reading about his new policies; I just don't like hearing him talk about them. His problem or mine?
Simon Heffer has another dig at the Tory leader's economic policies today:
The whole policy review process by the Tories is a sham. It is merely a device to postpone an admission of prevarication, and to try to dampen internal dissent.
Tim Worstall, meanwhile, thinks DC's community service proposal is a short-cut to fascism. I quite like the sound of it, to be frank.
I'm also beginning to wonder if Cameron has been reading Fred Barnes's new bio of George W. Here's an extract (not yet online, unfortunately) from the Weekly Standard:
One of the strengths of conservatives is their ability to take the world as it really is. Nonetheless, many conservatives cling to the hope that someday, somehow, the federal government will be substantially reduced in size. This is a fantasy, or at least a goal for the far-off future... As George Will has pointed out, a conservatism that advocates a strong role for government - Bush-style conservatism - is now "the only conservatism that is palatable to a public that expects government to assuage three of life's largest fears: illness, old age, and educational deficits that prevent social mobility."...
Bush and his aides have embraced an insight lost on some other conservatives: What matters is not how big government is but what it does.
UPDATE: A Cameron critique, in the form of a graphic, over at Conservative Home.
You Larkhallites are all the same!
"I quite like the sound of it, to be frank."
The smack of firm govnerment, eh?
Posted by: Tim Worstall | Wednesday, January 25, 2006 at 01:26 PM
Larkhall? Careful, that's almost a libel....Fox Hill was my old patch.
Posted by: Clive D | Wednesday, January 25, 2006 at 01:42 PM
At least I didn’t say Twerton, which would have been libel.
Posted by: Tim Worstall | Wednesday, January 25, 2006 at 04:58 PM
You'll be hearing from my lawyers. I'll have you know I used to play for Twerton Celtic under-13s...
Posted by: Clive D | Wednesday, January 25, 2006 at 05:57 PM
What proof of social mobility in the New Britain! Twerton to The Times in only 30 years!
Posted by: Tim Worstall | Thursday, January 26, 2006 at 10:52 AM