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Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Cal  Thomas :: Townhall.com Columnist
The 'Contract with Britain'
by Cal Thomas
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BELFAST, N. IRELAND - British Prime Minister Tony Blair returns from a late-summer vacation in Barbados with his ruling Labor Party approval rating at a 19-year low of 31 percent. Conservatives, under new leader David Cameron, enjoy 40 percent approval, according to the latest Guardian/ICM Poll.

Seeking to take advantage of Blair's troubles and their popularity surge, the Tories last week borrowed a page from what now seems like an ancient Republican Party playbook, publishing a type of "contract with Britain."

Titled "Built to Last: The Aims and Values of the Conservative Party," Cameron lays out his party's philosophy in the opening lines: "Our Party seeks to cherish freedom, advance opportunity and nurture responsibility. By trusting people, we help individuals grow stronger; by sharing responsibility, we help society grow stronger. We believe that there is such a thing as society, but it is not the same thing as the state."

This last sentence is a middle ground between Ronald Reagan's (and Margaret Thatcher's) "government is the problem" world view and President Bush's "compassionate conservative" position. There are a few "bones" for almost everyone: "Top-down government seems to belong to another age. Monolithic, unreformed public services do not provide the personalised response people expect. High taxes and poor education make us steadily less competitive."

There is also an appeal to do more to fight HIV/AIDS and endemic poverty in Africa. The word "revolution" is repeated several times as in a "revolution in personal responsibility." There is great concern throughout the UK that lawlessness, declining test scores in public schools (Conservatives propose school choice vouchers for the poor) and general cultural drift have caused Britain to fall behind where a majority thinks the country ought to be. The party calls for "a revolution in civic responsibility."

While the Conservative Party document does acknowledge the need for "new efforts to integrate at home," there is nothing else in its eight points that addresses the public's growing concern about unrestrained immigration (more than 1 million non-European Union foreigners have been allowed to settle in Britain since Labor came to power in 1997). A significant number of those are Muslims, who refuse to embrace the cultural values of Britain. According to a Telegraph YouGov poll, a majority of Britons (53 percent) now view Islam, not just Muslim extremists, as a threat to society. And 18 percent of those polled believe "a large proportion of British Muslims feel no sense of loyalty to this country and are prepared to condone or even carry out acts of terrorism," up from 10 percent from a year ago.

The Conservative Party vision statement offers no specifics about what it will do about any of this should voters elect David Cameron prime minister. Perhaps that is because it wants to avoid being labeled "intolerant" or "Islamophobic." Failing, however, to address this real concern among the British public will not make the issue go away. Following last summer's London subway and bus attacks, Tony Blair promised to crack down on "preachers of hate" and to close any mosque or Muslim school that advocated violence. He has been unable to do so, thanks mainly to liberal judges and lawyers who have manipulated Britain's legal system, allowing most of the mosques and Muslim schools to continue to preach and teach their extremist doctrines.

No party can lead without addressing security and uncontrolled immigration. It isn't about keeping people from enjoying a better life. It is about preserving life for those already here and for those who come in an orderly, legal and proportional fashion. Immigrants must be willing to transform themselves into complete British citizens, embracing the history, language, culture and laws of their adopted home. Anyone not wishing to do so should not come, or should be deported for trying to undermine that which serves the majority.

Still, the Conservative Party is on to something. America's Republican Party would do well to remember what it has forgotten, which is that power should not be used to perpetuate one's self in office, but to do good things. Democrats, who appear to have a chance at recapturing a congressional majority, should be required to offer a detailed "contract" of their own; one that would allow them to liberate themselves from the special interests and class warfare of the past and move into the 21st century with new ideas to deal with serious challenges at home and abroad.

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About The Author
Cal Thomas is co-author (with Bob Beckel) of the book, "Common Ground: How to Stop the Partisan War That is Destroying America".
 
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Enlightener

Okay,

Let's have some free thought here
about the State of British politics.
Most Americans seem naive about our
real history. They enjoy visiting London,
watching the changing of the guards and
taking memoir shots of Picadilly.

The rest of us who live in the real
World here, have to endure daily doses of
lies and deceptions from our politians,
horrendous so-called socialised health care,
an abused disaster by greedy unscrupulous
medical professionals, who are anything but,
unbelievable violent crime, uncontrolled
waves of immigration by masses of African and
Eastern European rejects whose only contribution
is violating our laws, drug dealing and
any other horrible crimes they can unleash
upon us. Blair is, like most UK politicians,
a millionaire, his retirement in Barbados,
among the wealthy expat snooty bunch is
imminent, he, Cameron and all the rest of
them are out of touch with the struggle to
make ends meet that most UK Citizens endure.
This includes no real control of violent
criminals, they do pretty much as the please
with judicial imunity. They obtain guns at ease
while the police are expected to risk their
lives without bullet proof vests or appropriate
weaponry. (Several unarmed police including
women gunned down recently) Their is no end
to the violence insight, as a matter of fact
East European organized crime view the UK as
a peachy destination.! Where the pickins are
fantastic. Finally, you must understand, that
the ultimate power is in the hands of an aging
Woman of German heritage, married to a Greek,
with a useless prince and a couple of morons
after him next in line for the throne of what
is now anything but GREAT Britain.

In conclusion, Americans should be
grateful that they have ared police who respond
when called and who are heavy handed with
violent criminals, we could sure use some of
those cops here. We have armies of young
schoolkids, male and female, who when out of
their school uniforms, form gangs influenced by
American rappers, beat, knife and shoot people
including seniors, who are not allowed to
defend themselves against young adults, even in
life threatening situations.! Our dailies are
full of terrible crimes commited by uncontrolled
young hooligans, who regularly throw bricks and
other missiles at the windshieldsof buses,
fire and ambulance services and passing
motorists.!

In conclusion, we live in a Country
with a barbaric past. Wales, Scotland and
Ireland were stolen by violent force by
merciless, hooligan Kings. Remember Mary
queen of scots, Th true prince of Wales,
a proud Country with a royal family older
than Britain itself, was decapitated by King
Edward and his title illegally given to his
nephew, whose descendants like Charles,
outrageously adorn it to this day. He, William
and Harry have no rightful claim to or
connection with the Welsh people.!Tom Jones
has more right to call himself the king of
Wales. Most UK Citizens wish they had never
heard of Iraq or Afghanistan,etc. They would
gladly drop Blair and his Sons over there, so
they could face the daily madness British and
American peole are subjected to in this futile
endeavour.

Regardless who wins the next election
here, there is no end in sight of bad news
for the British people. We are forced to join
a European Union which benefits only the
Continental Countries.(Why should we sacrifice
the strongest currency for the Euro and open
our borders to masses of diseased losers that
the Spanish and French encourage)This is a
small Island. The Uk Government wastes billions
on offensive weaponry, including 20 billion
to upgrade it's nuclear arsenal. (Whose going
to attack us that we should require teh latter)
But doesn't spend anything on housing it's
poor and homeless. This Island
is carved up into numerous huge estates for the
royals, the titled (handed down) and the rich,
while the rest of us strugle to obtain a morgage
with outrageous interest rates from greedy
uncotrolled banks and loan businesses.

We have masses of veiled, terrorist
appearing foreigners under guise of religion,
who have nothing in common with teh British
image or culture, building mosques, imposing
their alien ways and many of them commiting
serious crimes, while our government and
courts forbid us to criticise or protest.
(most officials, judges and politicians live
in safer areas and send their kids to all
or mostly white schools)

Our Embassies put on a smilingface
and try to potray us as a polite, friendly
wonderfully quaint land full of happy, content
folk, this we are not.!

As a Welshborn person, I have no
choice as to whether I want royalty to rule
me or my Country and I am forced to travel
on a document from a Nation detest.

" God Bless America."
The only place worth living in.





Cameronian Conservatism
Like most British Conservatives I long for the end of Blair's socialist government.

Blair may have been right in supporting the US over Iraq and Israel over Hizb'Allah but I am afraid this seems to have blinded US Republicans to the fact that Blair is a died in the wool socialist and leader of a socialist party which has undergone a merely cosmetic and symbolic change from being honest about being socialist - Labour is still a party of tax, spend, borrow and waste, supports socialised medicine and the low standards and rationing that entails, like all good socialist parties from Hitler's National Socialists onwards, supports legalised racial and sexual discrimination and notwithstanding his apparent support for US foreign policy has only arrested a single hate preaching Imam because the State department presented an extradition warrant while showering money and honours on "moderate" Muslims who burn books, call for homosexuals to be slain and want to institute sharia family law in the UK to cement the subjugation of their womenfolk.

But Cameron is not, in so far as the War against Islamic Terrorism is concerned, all that much better. The break up of the liberal left MSM in the UK is years behind the US (we have no Fox and the blogosphere is still in its infancy), and Cameron is in thrall to the liberal left media. Hence his failure to criticise Islamic extremism in trenchant terms, his failure to unequivocally support Western civilisation against Islam, his failure to speak out on the need to secure our borders against Muslim "asylum seekers" (the UK is not a first safe country for anyone) and thus his inability to capitalise fully on the failings of Blair's socialists.

He has let the liberal left MSM (and in the UK its a lot further to the left than the US MSM, as unbelievable as that may seem) set his agenda. Given that the Baby Boomers who run the MSM here are on their way out and Generations X and Y are significantly to their right according to polling, he is missing a trick. Promising to be better managers of big government and surrender to Europe and Islam is not enough to win an election, not least as our electoral boundaries give a 60 seat advantage to the socialists. Thatcher, Reagan and Bush (43) won elections by promising something radically right wing, not a better managed version of the same socialist decline (even if Bush (43) has failed to do anything about big government and has left the US borders wide open).

Cameron may come good. Some of the people behind him (David Davies is a good Conservative Atlantacist) are very sound, but Built to Last is notable more for its rejection of Thatcherism and implicitly the ideals of freedom, justice and equality she espoused than it is for anything else. Its one thing not to frighten the horses, its another to send your prize stallions to the glue factory.

If he gets real you'll see promises of serious tax cuts, a tough stance against Islamic excesses and an end to the racist creed of multiculturalism, but not yet and maybe never.
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