Mark Steyn in the Telegraph (via my wife: "spot on"):
. . . Europe, like the poor, is always with us - and, whatever befalls the constitution and the euro, there's no reason to believe, after 15 years of failing to do so, that the Tories will suddenly find a form of words both the Clarkeite and sceptic wings of the party will support convincingly. And, if they go into another national election determined to avoid the subject, those 900 UKIP votes up and down the map will do their work yet again. Not to mention the BNP vote, which is a further complicating factor. . .
. . . economic conservatism isn't enough for a conservative party. It may have been in the late Seventies when nothing worked and everyone was on strike. But, though it pains a low-tax nut like me, my sense of modern Britain is that it doesn't think of itself as over-taxed. Besides, many tax rates - VAT, for example - are beyond the jurisdiction of Westminster to reduce: the issue is not stealth taxes so much as stealth Euro-centralism. . .
. . . post-socialist Britain: materially prosperous, but civically impoverished; wealthy villages and upscale suburbs full of frustrated and impotent citizens. Mrs Thatcher liberated the economic energies of the people; today's Tories need to complete the revolution by liberating the people's other energies. Stealth taxes is never going to cut it.
This site created and updated entirely by myself, Robert, a New Yorker living in London and Dorset, England -- and it spares my lovely, soft-spoken English wife from having to endure my carryings on. She thanks you for the peace and quiet she has found.
Expatyank@aol.com EMAIL REQUEST: This writer sure as heck doesn't know everything -- unlike the BBC's Jeremy Bowen, who obviously does -- so disagreement is expected. Well-expressed alternative views and interpretations are more than welcome, for that's how we all learn more in this life. But email is for contact primarily. So please phrase all abuse politely, and place it in the comments. Signed, The Management.
"The more he saw of Europe, the dearer his own country became, taking a
luster to all its parts that no one bound to the farther shore could know it
merited." (p. 331)
