Whilst reading one of the many diatribes against the current
pathetic crop of Tory MPs in the EU Rubber-Stamping Room after the 90-Day Vote and reading yet another person lamenting the lack of Conservatives in the Conservative Parliamentary Party, I was struck by a thought. I've had the thought before, many times, but didnt of course then have a blog to share it with the world...
Here it is.
Card-carrying Conservatives are the biggest, and I mean the BIGGEST group of masochistic kinky sex-lovers in the world.
Why is this you might ask? Has the man finally gone off the deep end, what with his loony ex taking him to Court for access rights yet again? Is it the immense pressure of UKIP matrons begging him to rejoin the Party that refuses to even acknowledge July 7th even happened in case people think it wasnt the EU's fault?
Nope. I'm feeling as sane as I ever am right now. So.
Back in the heady days of 2004 when UKIP kicked the Lib Dims back into 3rd place in the Euro Elections, I had the pleasure of being part of the local Campaign Team, and did quite a lot of work out in the town square and meeting people whilst pushing leaflets through doors. In my constituency we pulled more votes than Labour and the Libs combined - not bad for an area that even had a Dim Lib MP for five years between 92-97.
But the most pleasurable part of the experience was without a doubt not the Count itself at the local leisure centre and being grabbed by the very worried local Tory MP and worriedly questioned for 30 minutes about who we were and what we were about, and how really the Conservatives thought the same as we did and did we actually have proper members? It wasnt going out and about in the town with banners and boxes of flyers and realising from the enormous support we were getting that actually something very special was about to happen.
No, it was being at the Polling Stations. I visited five different stations during the day, rallying what few troops we had there and doing my own time showing the UKIP colours and just giving people the notion that there was, actually, an alternative to voting for three parties with the same opinion on the EU. And at every one, without fail, every single blue rosette picked their moment, looked guiltily around to ensure none of their colleagues were present, and sidled up to whisper enticingly in my ear 'I just voted for you you know'. THAT, I still can look back on with pride and enormous amusement.
This is what it means to be an actual Conservative in the Conservative Party. It means that yes, you loathe Blair and you despise Kennedy to your toenails. But it also means that you also have to admit, carefully, and possibly only to yourself in the privacy of your own home, that you can't stand the other buggers either. Those people who represent 'you', the Conservative Party. Smug gits like David Cameron who are so transparently out of touch with the vision of an ideal Britain
you have that he might as well
be in the Lib Dims. David Davis, who has made quite clear that he is an 'arch-Eurosceptic' who nonetheless thinks that 'under no circumstances should Britain leave the EU'.
The fact that both of these morons are prepared to sink as low as
this in their desperate quest to inherit the mantle of this, as Kilroy so accurately put it, dying Party, puts me in mind of the First and Second Mate struggling mightily for control of the wheel on the Titanic as it races towards the evergrowing shape of the iceberg ahead, whilst Captain Howard shrugs and walks away, having had enough of the whole sorry mess. Watch, as the next Election comes and the ship slips majestically beneath the waves...
So there it is. This is what the Blue-rinse brigade, decent hardworking people who put endless amounts of time and effort into the Conservative Party, sometimes for decades or more, are striving for. To elect a party whose two prospective leaders are prepared to prostitute themselves to the point of attending debates where the questions are not on why they voted against a Terrorism policy which I suspect more than 90% of their own membership would wholeheartedly support, but rather on what underwear they are wearing and whether they prefer blondes or brunettes. The fact that it is Davis' remarks on the latter rather than his vote on the former that 'horrifies' the President of the Conservative Women's Organisation pretty much says it all.
But here's the thing. Despite the fact that most Tory party workers the length and breadth of the country talk about their own leadership (and REALLY dont get them started on their MEPs) in tones scarcely less bilious than they talk about Nu-Labour and the Lib Dims
, they still keep coming back for more. Don't they? The idea of actually jacking it all in, of refusing to renew that annual sub, of breaking ranks and joining UKIP, or publicly refusing to deliver leaflets whose content they totally disagree with on behalf of a candidate they can't stand led by a leader they wouldnt vote to run a whelk stall if he wore a red or yellow rosette, or even stopping direct involvement in politics completely in disgust at the lack of alternative on offer, simply does not occur to them.
Card-carrying Conservatives in 2005 truly are the political equivalent of the middle-aged barrister who sneaks off to Soho for his fortnightly liason with the leather-clad dominatrix, then goes back feeling all guilty for doing 'it' again though he knows its wrong. But also knowing that no matter what, he'll go back again, and again, because he just cant make himself do anything else.
Like I said, the BIGGEST bunch of kinky masochists in the world.