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Tory
Reader Fluent (look for his site in the ‘Bulldog Bloggers’ blogroll presently) has asked me about Shadow Chancellor George Osborne. In truth I was not going to bother with the man, he’s not a contender and is not what’eed call a classic kingmaker either.
Nevertheless the Alchemist gives the people what they want. y’see when I read Osborne’s speech the word which jumped out at me was ‘compassion’. A loaded word if ever there was one, and a damned useful one too. Were I a politician I would probably use it every day and twice on Sundays.
‘Mr. Alchemist, what is your stance on crime?’
I will be ruthless in pursuit of lawbreakers, but compassionate to victims and their families.
‘Mr. Alchemist, what will you do about the rising tide of illegal immigrants?’
I’m not without compassion for their plight, but that won’t stop me sending every damned one back where he came from.”
‘Mr. Alchemist, did you sleep with your secretary?’
I’ll answer these allegations when I return from compassionate leave.
Etc…
One has to ask if Osborne really means what he says, and if he does, will the Tories show compassion to every bit of pond scum the police haul in, or will it be reserved for those who deserve it? If your Author knows he’s damned.
Of course you, like the Alchemist want to hear about Mr. Osborne’s economic plans, he is Shadow Chancellor, not morality Tzar (the day will come, I fear). You will recall that a few months ago he attacked Brown’s tax-and-waste-and-hoard policy and stated his fear that the current economic incline was untenable past the end of the decade.
In his speech Osborne reminisced about previous Tory triumphs in the economic sphere and hinted that he was just the man to continue this good work. Before going on to lambaste Labour’s weakness in allowing the EU to enact legislation limiting Albion’s freedom, and pointing out the stunting effect this has had on free trade in general.
Osborne does have a flavour of Cameron about him, they are young modernises with vision, but precious little in terms of map-and-compass navigation ability.
Incidentaly, I stand by what I said earlier, Sir Malcom Rifkind would make a good Chancellor.
I’m surprised the word isn’t taboo nowadays thanks to Bush’s “compassionate conservatism”. Like “neo-con” is a deadly insult, calling a Tory “compassionate” could be too. We just have to work at it.
Btw, did you watch the speech? You can see it here at the Beeb. It was the watching that did for me, not the reading. It was a better speech than Cameron’s if you judge on the criteria the media are using i.e. youth, niceness, centre-ish politics, apparent sincerity etc.
Of course there are other criteria.
Comment by fluent — October 8, 2005 @ 9:31 pm
No, I did not actualy watch it, I rarely do wath the Television news. I find reading the text of a speech a better way to judge it objectively.
Comment by The Alchemist — October 11, 2005 @ 1:10 pm