In his piece, he suggested that the plight of the Spanish economy is largely brought on by its membership of the Eurozone.  To quote Krugman:

“So what happened? Spain is an object lesson in the problems of having monetary union without fiscal and labor market integration. First, there was a huge boom in Spain, largely driven by a housing bubble — and financed by capital outflows from Germany. This boom pulled up Spanish wages. Then the bubble burst, leaving Spanish labor overpriced relative to Germany and France, and precipitating a surge in unemployment. It also led to large Spanish budget deficits, mainly because of collapsing revenue but also due to efforts to limit the rise in unemployment.

If Spain had its own currency, this would be a good time to devalue; but it doesn’t.

On the other hand, if Spain were like Florida, its problems wouldn’t be as severe. The budget deficit wouldn’t be as large, because social insurance payments would be coming from Brussels, just as Social Security and Medicare come from Washington. And there would be a safety valve for unemployment, as many workers would migrate to regions with better prospects. (Wages wouldn’t have gone up as much in the first place, because of in-migration).

The point is that this has nothing to do with a spendthrift government; what’s happening to Spain reflects the inherent problems with the euro, which now more than ever looks like a monetary union too far.”

I have always been surprised that the progressive left have been taken in hook, line and sinker by the Euro argument.  This is, after all, the same body that Nye Bevan described as “a vehicle for rapacious capitalism.”  In effect, the Euro has taken away many of the key economic instruments that Governments used to have and the Spanish Government is finding its hands tied by Euro membership.  At the same time, the single currency has locked national governments into neo-liberal policies around debt and deficits, with insufficient scope given to policies aimed at tackling unemployment.  The levels of unemployment in Spain, Ireland and Portugal, robbed of national policy levers and thrown into a one size fits all monetary policy, make a very strong progressive case against the UK ever joining a single currency.

Mr Helmer gazes across to the Atlantic, where “Republicans are reacting against wets and liberals and leftists standing as Republican candidates.”  He points out that a bunch of zealots on the Republican National Committee would like to set an ideological litmus test for GOP candidates.  He proposes a similar ideological litmus test for Tories in the UK.  In doing so, he ignores the historical diversity and pragmatism of our views and advocates turning a Party on the verge of regaining power into an intellectually pure rump.

What he fails to point out is that the act of outrageous self absorption by Repuplicans in New York’s 23^rd District, to which he refers, led to the Democrats capturing the seat for the first time since the Civil War.   Many long serving and loyal Republicans are facing being driven out of the Party by the doctrinal purity brigade – marching round the GOP like the Bennites in the early 80s on trucker’s speed.  As the Telegraph noted, “Senator John McCain of Arizona, the party’s presidential candidate last year, would almost certainly fail the test, along with at least 40 other Republicans in Congress.”  Do we really want the same thing to happen here?  I think not.

We have recaptured our electoral verve as a Party because we have recognised that elections are won on the middle ground, where the majority of the British people are.  We have recovered our verve because we understand that the British people dislike ideological zealots and prefer pragmatism and ‘what works’.  Helmer seems to want to throw away our electoral advances for the sake of purity.  He wants everybody in the party to have the same views as him.  That is absurd and dangerous.

Helmer’s politics truly is the politics of ‘no compromise with the electorate’ and a stubborn failure to come to terms with the modern world.  It is the politics of the smug purity of a special interest group, rather than the realistic pragmatism of a successful political party.

It is remarkable that the Lords is using such language – given that it has zero democratic or political legitimacy.  Indeed, it normally reserves this kind of language for the only time when the Upper House gets generally excited – the preservation of their own sports and pursuits.  It sets a dangerous constitutional principle for the unelected, undemocratic House of Lords to be threatening to “block” and “veto” legislation proposed by an elected Government and supported by a democratic chamber.

I dislike this Government and I dislike much of this Government’s putative programme.  But the House of Lords should remember its constitutional position.  It is an amending chamber and NOT a blocking chamber.  If the people’s chamber supports legislation, the unelected chamber should not stand in its way.

Reform of this anachronistic institution is long overdue.  This Government has failed to produce radical reform of the chamber and I hope that the next Government will take up the challenge.   The Lords should be careful about abusing their constitutional position – however much they dislike what the elected House is proposing.

Let’s be quite clear about this.  If true, this is completely outrageous.  It would be totally unacceptable if RBS used OUR MONEY to reward themselves with big bonuses.  Without Governmental support, RBS would have gone the same way as Lehman Brothers.  An absurd business model almost brought one of Britain’s oldest banks to its knees.  The Treasury had to pump £20 billion into the bank to keep it afloat.  This absurd, high risk, irresponsible business model was a major factor in triggering the recession that is still having devastating consequences, in terms of unemployment on ‘main street’.

Just over a year after the bank was put onto life support using public money, it is shocking that the bank’s instinctive reaction is to embark on a champagne fuelled bonus spree using OUR MONEY.  This at a time when the rest of us are having to tighten our belts and we are facing a public sector deficit of record proportions (in large part because the state had to step in to rescue private banks from their own folly last year).  This at a time when unemployment is approaching 2.5 million.  These bonuses, if true, reveal a lack of human decency and a lack of shame for the carnage that the bad decisions of bankers let loose on the economy.

Sure – bonuses can work as an effective incentive model, when the bonus is a share of profits.  It is entirely up to private sector companies what they do with their own profits.  However, bonuses should be used as an incentive for success not a ‘reward’ for failure.  Sky high bonuses should not be paid using public money.  Bankers are acting like the House of Bourbon – they have learned nothing from recent history.  Seemingly, they do not understand their debt to wider society and the need for self restraint.  This round of bonuses is completely unacceptable and counts as a scandalous waste of public money.

In Hannan’s case, I think the key question is – ‘what the hell does he think he was doing?’  He has some interesting ideas but his views on health care are not amongst them.  Did he really think that it would be a shrewd move to appear on the TV shows of two deranged extremists (Beck and Hannity) badmouthing the British health care system?  Why was he openly speaking out against Conservative Party policy on an overseas TV station?  Bearing in mind that UK viewers can watch the toe curling spectacle of Fox News through their Sky dish, did he really think that nobody in the UK would notice?  Had he forgotten that the internet and social media that had his name all over the place a few months ago could also be used against him?  And next time he goes on a tour of self promotion, can Mr Hannan please give some thought to how it will affect Conservatives back home who have a General Election to fight within a year.

What these two examples show (and Con Home picked up on this today).  The ever excellent Tweetminster has pointed out that the Hannan affair could mark the coming of age of Twitter in UK politics.  New media and social networking are transforming politics at a rapid rate.  Our politicians will have to adjust their behaviour equally rapidly.  For the lesson of the past two days is that bad news travels quickly in a new media age.

We must not forget this as the election gets closer and the authoritarian screechings of the Daily Mail grow louder.  Whether we like it or not, freedoms such as freedom of speech, freedom of movement and freedom of assembly and freedom to protest must be non negotiable.  I do hope that recent announcements, such as that about demonstrations on Parliament Square, don’t mean that we are diluting our commitment to civil liberties.

Civil libertarianism is integral to modern, progressive Conservatism.  The public are quite rightly sick and tired of the annoying authoritarian approach of New Labour.   People rightly view us as the party that stands up for civil liberties.  This commitment should not diminish with the demands of an election or the pressures and realities of power.  Our commitment to our ancient liberties must be unswerving and non negotiable.

The piece by ‘Arty McBain’ reads like a piece of Francoist propaganda or an editorial from some of the worst of the hard wight wing appeasing press of the 1930s. 

The piece was also hugely historically ignorant and the author really has to be taken to task for blithely ignoring the horrible brutality of Franco’s regime.

The piece rips into The Times for so-called “Communist propaganda.  That is probably one of the most hysterical statements that Con Home has ever made (and there is quite some competition for that honour).  It attacks The Times for saluting the bravery of the British men who volunteered for the International Brigades.  I am very much with The Times on this one.  The article is based on an entirely misplaced analogy with Britain in the 1980s (as well as some petulant pouting about the fact that Franco was called a Fascist when he was actually an extreme nationalist authoritarian…), whilst ignoring almost every fundamental point about the Spanish Civil War.

It manages to gloss over the fact that the Popular Front had actually won the election in 1936, rather than merely “taking over” as the author of the piece suggests.  He completely ignores the fact that the Communist Party of Spain was actually tiny at the time of the 1936 elections.  Forgetfully, McBain glosses over the coup against a democratically elected Government launched by Franco, his Generals and the assorted thugs he surrounded himself with.  Nor does he mention the fact that the Republican forces included believers in liberal democracy, anarchists, social democrats and socialists, rather than being purely a Communist brigade as the author tries to make out.

The Francoist forces were heavily armed by Nazis in Germany and Fascists in Italy while, at the same time, the western powers imposed an arms embargo meaning that weapons could not reach Republican forces.  Then, and only then, did Stalin take advantage of the first stage of the West’s policy of appeasing extreme nationalists and Fascists by arming the Republican forces.  This was a genuine moral failure on behalf of Britain and France.  The first of many terrible moral failures that littered our foreign policy in the mid 1930s.   

Above all, it makes absolutely no mention of the horrible brutality of Francoist Spain in the aftermath of the Civil War.  Franco was responsible for the politically inspired deaths of hundreds of thousands of Spaniards; the imprisonment of many times this number; the removal of the freedom of any other political parties and trade unions; and the subjugation and persecution of the traditional cultures of the regions of Spain that did not subscribe do his clichéd, traditionalist viewpoint. 

Such a piece surely has no place in a blog dedicated to modern Conservative politics.  It is a gift to our political rivals and is morally questionable for ignoring the horrible, repressive nature of Franco’s regime.

Although some stories have been unfairly reported, in the vast majority of cases there can be no excuses – only apologies.  MPs sent to Parliament as servants of the people should not be seen, however unfairly, to be abusing public money or living a grand lifestyle at the public expense. 

To those of us who believe that the greatness of the country lies not in the Crown or the Lords, but in the Commons and the people, it gives even greater sadness to see the symbol of British freedom being dragged through the mud on a daily basis like this.

To far too many people, there is a perception that politicians exist in a bubble, cut off from the hardships and concerns of ordinary people.  The horrific last few days have further disengaged politics from the people. 

Yes – the expenses rules need to be made transparent and radically reformed on a cross-party basis.  But the first big challenge of a Cameron Government goes beyond that.  It is to work hard to restore people’s faith in Parliament and the political process.  Politicians of all parties need to re-connect with their electors and be, as much as is realistically possible, unimpeachable.  A lot of work needs to be done to restore trust and confidence in Parliament and the democratic process.

The threat of “withdrawal of funding” is always used when talking about a policy that major donors do not like, a bit like the threat of “withdrawal of bat and ball” by the owner of the bat during a game of street cricket.

Today, Con Home have yet another article about a potential return for Ken, including tiresomely predictable reservations from the likes of Tebbit and Wheeler as though they were mind blowing pieces of new evidence that might have got Woodward and Bernstein excited.   The same piece also attempts to pour cold water on a survey of grassroots opinion conducted by, you guessed it, Conservative Home, that supported the return of Clarke.  Con Home argues that Clarke is “disloyal” – which is a tad rich coming from the blog that is openly disloyal to the Party Chairman and founded by the man who advised IDS – one of the most disruptive influences to the Major Government.  The second charge is that his pro European views would make his elevation to the Shadow Cabinet unacceptable.  Of course, that second point is only the case if we adopt the same dash for ideological purity that made us unacceptable to the majority of the electorate for much of the past ten years.  Are we the broad church that made us the most phenomenal election winning machine of the 20th Century or should we be, as Montgomerie seems to wish, some kind of 21st Century version of the Jacobin Club?

Of course, whether to restore Ken Clarke to the Shadow Cabinet is entirely up to the Party Leader and this blog would not have the impertinence to push the Leader in one direction or another.  Nevertheless, there are some very persuasive and powerful arguments for a return to the front bench of Ken Clarke. 

Firstly, he remains one of our most formidable performers.  When I speak to members of the public; leaders in business; and work colleagues, most of whom are Conservative minded, they all express their support for a bigger role for Ken.  He comes over superbly on TV and on the radio; is a superb debater in the House (one of the few Parliamentarians for whom the bars still empty when he makes a speech); and has a wonderful habit of tearing apart Brown’s Government and it’s tattered claims to economic competence piece by piece.

After George Osborne, Clarke is by our most convincing voice on the economy – reminding people that we gave Gordon Brown a golden legacy, which he has fatally undermined.   When you ask the question, will the addition to our team of one of our strongest performers in the House and on the media strengthen or weaken the team the only answer is that it will be strengthen by the addition. 

Of course, the thorny issue of Europe always rears its ugly head.   But Ken is an experienced politician.  He knows that joining the Shadow Cabinet would mean toeing the Party line on every issue, including Europe.  There is no reason to suggest that he would not be prepared to do this.  What he does on the backbenches is quite different to what he would do if part of a Shadow Cabinet and bound by the collective responsibility that entails. 

Don’t forget the fundamental point that we have been making on this blog for some time – in order to win, we need to convince the British people that we are a Party of Government, genuinely ready for the challenges entailed by that.  Nobody would remind the British people of our seriousness as a Party and our ability to step into Government as much as Ken Clarke.

These are serious times.  Gordon Brown’s casual destruction of the economy is threatening the livelihoods of so many British workers and their families.  During these times, we need to utilise all of our strongest weapons.  Ken Clarke is undoubtedly one of those weapons.  It is up to us as a Party whether we put the internecine disputes of more than a decade ago to one side and go forward as a united force to victory.  The hard right ultras need to make a choice between ideological purity and Government.  I hope for the sake of the Party and the country that they choose the latter.