h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"The 'Back to Basics' speech was John's keynote speech to the Tory Party conference in, I think, 1993. At which he called for a more traditional Britain and a return to Victorian values and prudery and such like. This was immediatly followed by a seemingly endless stream of Tory MPs being caught with their trousers down and in effect turned the Tory government into a laughing stock"

I always find the idea of "traditional" Victorian values ironic as the values of the Victorian era were largely imported by Prince Albert and were the antithesis of the common attitude of Britons both pre and post Victorian era. In other words, what the more authoritarian wing of the Tory party was promoting as "basic" British values was a moral code that had existed for about 70 years in 2000 years of the island's history.

Hmmm...
To be fair to Suddenly-Not-So-Grey John, I don't think he did quit espouse Victorian Values, did he?. Wasn't that that woman with the shrill voice and the frightening hair?
I thought 'Back to Basics' was more of a Social-Responsibility-is-Founded-in-Personal-Responsibility,-the-3-Rs-and-Regular-Reading-of-Wisden sort of an idea. Generally kind of fuzzy, yeah? Political Correctness is based on an "Ought to Really" rather than a "Mustn't" kind of a concept. Sort of...
Yeah...fuzzy...
OK, I admit I wasn't listening too closely at the time.
Sorry. Maybe I'd better shut up...
P.

Yeah...that should have been "quite", not "quit".

...OK, I quite...

Pin

Yes, I always had problems with the phrase Victorian Values. Wasn't it all in reality prostitution, drunkeness and rampant syphillis

---IF ANYTHING IS WRONG IN THIS POST, IT'S BECAUSE I'M DRUNK, SORRY---

'Back to Basics', as I remember it, wasn't about 'Victorian values', it was about cutting the crap and returning to what the Tories are about. Being honest, basically. We (we being the Tories) support the idea of the individual over society, and the nation over the world. All the rest of the 'trad' Tory values, without the crap
. Don't care what you do, as long as you look after yourself. There is no need for the Tories to be homephobic, as long as those thta are gay look after themselves, the same as straights. No reason for single parents to be a problem, just support yourself. It annnoys me that people associate Conservatisism with nasty ideas- that isn't where the party traditionally comes from. Right-wing doesn't automatically mean anti- everything outside the norm.



Suddenly I realise that post doesn't say what I wanted it to. Thing I'll come back when I'm sober....

But who would ever have even guessed this. It's just too unbelievable. I'm surprised that he ever had an affair, which is probably a bit naive of me. But Edwina Curry !!!!!!!!

I remember she brought out one of those novels she writes a few years ago, which described a female politician having an affair with a whip. It was generally thought that she must have based it on a real-life experience, and journalists were running through the names of the whips, looking for a likely candidate. When they got to John Major, they must have immediately dismissed the idea as too ridiculous.

Yes, the news tonight have playing up on her book. Appartenly it borders on outright porn

I do think it's rather bad form of her to talk about it in her book tho'. What's done is done. All parties concerned have worked it all out, so this just stinks (to me) of coal raking to make her book more interesting.

I probably shouldn't do this, but I feel I have to...

"It annnoys me that people associate Conservatisism [sic] with nasty ideas"

Then why does conservatism (small 'c') feel the need to qualify itself with the word 'compassionate'? Is there a brand of of conservatism which is not compassionate? Which is callous, uncaring, and unsympathetic? Actually, I shouldn't even have to ask that question - I know there is. I lived through 10 years of it from 1979 until 1989 and then some, and those in the US did for the entire term of Reagan's administration, and four more years of Bush's.

Socialism and Liberalism don't have to add the word 'compassionate' to their name because they already are.

S'good that someone speaks up for Conservatism, surely? There'd be little political debate here if h2g2's overwhelmingly liberal voices just prevailed without question.

Back to J+E, and the delicious irony of it. It does actually sum up the true inconsistency/hypocrisy (depending on your aforementioned viewpoint) of Conservatism. The code of the party that Major inadvertently inherited was that personal indulgence is OK, as long as its not conspicuous. The trouble is, if everyone's fingers are stained, no-one has the moral authority to lead.

Maybe, just maybe the reason that Dullboy was so ineffectual back then is that all his rivals were carrying a whistle. A Mutually-Assured-Destruction whistle, sure, but still quite an effective discipline-neutraliser.

Edwina's getting some unlikely stick, too. Since it clearly really happened, I'm just amazed she kept it back so long. Must have been a real strain on her vacuous, self-publicising, conscience all these years.

Great story, great fun, can't wait to find out who St Margaret herself was shagging now. (Oh, John...you didn't, did you?!?...)

I like Edwina Curry - she always struck me as being a slightly dangerous woman with a good sense of humour, and they are both qualities I admire. I am not in the least bit surprised at her having an affair with John Major. Though I am surprised at John Major having an affair with her. If you see what I mean.

AGB spat at women who sit by while their husbands screw around, but so much of that screwing around is actually completely meaningless. I admire the women who know it, and who get on with their lives. And I admire their ability to handle pain, because they must feel at least some pain.

John Major? Edwina Curry? Whoda thunk it?

B

One idea that's been floated on the news is that he was so hot on sleaze becuase he'd been there, done that, and new the trouble and heartache it could cause.



Why does conservatism need to add compassionate? Maybe because so many people, as you've just demonstrated Gosho, associate conservativism only with its worst excesses. Why does New Labour- need the 'new'. Incidently, that's a clear breach of Labour party rules, which explicitly forbids creating a group within tyhe labour party with anything added to the name

A Spokesman for Baroness Thatcher said "She doesn't recall being told whether or not someone might have mentioned it as a piece of gossip."

Hmmm, not sure what that means, but it's hard to believe you could forget such an excellent bit of gossip, however brain-addled you become. I think if I'd have known that little secret, I'd have sat chuckling to myself over it for years and years.

gossip.

>>Incidently, that's a clear breach of Labour party rules, which explicitly forbids creating a group within tyhe labour party with anything added to the name <<

Absolutely, the notorious Militant ruling.

>>Socialism and Liberalism don't have to add the word 'compassionate' to their name because they already are<<

And lets not forget some of the less that compassionate things that have been done in the name of socialism - things that the British forget because we are more aware of what socialism actually is - rather than accepting that everything that is done under the banner as being the logical extension of socialism.

When the word socialism is voiced (or even liberalism in the US) our colonial cousins think not of the NHS, votes for women, the liberation of Auschwitz, Sartre, the freedom movement in South Africa, the collectivisation of Spain, cheap public utilities, the anti-fascist resistance, the throwing off of colonialism in the far east, the liberation theology movement, land reform, heath and saftey legisalation, the minimum wage, and "From each according to his ability to each according to their need"; but of Stalin, Pol Pot, the red menace, beaurocracy, bankrupcy and exile, boat people from Veitnam and Cuba, famine in China and Ethiopia and the shadow of the bomb. If that's what you think socialism is then you need to perhaps rebrand it 'compassionate socialism' - but it won't do you much good.

The diference between socialists and conservatives is that there IS a real socialism, a defined set of principals and values which one can return to without rebranding, and to which we can refer when dismissing Stalin as betrayers or corrupters of a cause. Wheras the conservative don't, there is no ideology - yes there is corporatism and capitalism, but that's not a 'traditional' tory value - the party was formed on opposing rural reform in farming and land management.

The only drive the desire to maintain the staus quo in which the landed could maximise their profits at any expense. This admitedly is still a major theme of middle of the road conservatism, while the bulk of the party lurches ever further to the right on a proto-fascist capital agenda. If you can call those values, then it's not socialism that you need to be looking up.

>>Edwina Curry - she always struck me as being a slightly dangerous woman with a good sense of humour<<

And one who wasn't afraid to tell the truth, even if it meant big buisiness losing their right to profit at any end. On eggs and farming practices in husbandry she was 100% right, if anything she was over cautious - and we are still living with the legacy of ignoring her.

Can't we talk about sex, it is SO much more fun than ideologies?

B

Here here! Unfortunately, talking about sex in this context means imagining John Major naked, which, quite frankly, I;d really rather not do.

Well, at least she had the good taste not to suck David Mellor's toes. Chelsea Strip or naked, the imagination boggles and the stomach heaves.



B

Yes well, the only excuse in that whole matter is at least the woman in question got paid...

Mind you, I supose Edwina Currie got a leg up in the party from a leg over...

B

No she didn't, that was one of the things that seemed to have hurt her was that John over looked her for promotion when he became PM. Probably he didn't want one of his 'messes' sitting across the cabinet table from him.

Well, she did get some advancment, even if it wasn't as much as she wanted. She Did start out, after all, as a humble back bencher.