Jock's Place - conservative - Comments

The other thing...

Jock — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 09:53:25 +0100

...I'm not sure he is a homophobe, Mark, unless he's one of hese religious bigots who "love the sinner" in their plaintive whiney little voices as if it makes them okay. He turned up at Iain Dale's civil partnership and probably at Alan Duncan's too, and seems to have a well known baackstory about being a good chum to Michael Brown when he was being hounded (for something not dissimilar to what a Tory candidate in Exeter was later demanding people on the local radio station he was participating in should be arrested for).

But all that just makes it worse to me. He may b e a really good friend to his gay friends, but fails to put that into action by consistently pretty well either absenting himself or voting against law reform on sexual orientation issues.

Happy, it seems, to have one rule for his mates but decide that others should be kept unequal by the law. That seems to have been a constant trait in the Tory party over decades.

Separate things...

Jock — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 22:54:45 +0100

...He's made HRA an issue in the by-election, which is okay, but I refer to the fact that he has also been pretty consistent in his opposition to any gay equality legislation (notwithstanding what Iain Dale has written about him).

Although in reality the only reason we have got any equality legislation seems to be to have been because of people willing to take their cases in the late eighties and nineties to the European Court of Human Rights rather than by positive government action (of governments of either party).

HRA and 'gay rights'

Mark Wadsworth — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 22:02:41 +0100

What on earth does the HRA have to do with being gay? The HRA turns out (in popular opinion at least) to be a 'criminals' rights act'. Ok, DD is probably a homophobe and at 59 he is far too old to be taught that making drugs illegal causes about 100 times more harm than the drugs themselves. So I can understand you'd never vote for him (neither would I) but threatening to chop off your own arm seems a bit extreme.

Heh! There's "broad

Jock — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 22:31:57 +0100

Heh! There's "broad church" and there's "universal broad church of Christ the pragmatist". Freedom won't come from the latter!

If and when LPUK makes some electoral headway and have explained their ideological position, then people who head that way from a position like Davis's can decide they really are libertarians and join. I just don't think that the libertarian "narrative" is sufficiently developed and well promulgated to stand the very public relationship with a reactionary social conservative like Davis that such would be.

In fact, given the rest of Davis's reactionary views, I'd be tempted, in the absense of any other decent party candidate standing, to stand an LPUK candidate as a way of saying just how "liberal" would you like the country to be - "hang'em, flog'em and bang up your gay children just as long as you don't extend the already broken habeas corpur breach beyond the twenty-eight days I arbitrarily agreed to last time" or "government is the problem, freedom the solution".

I know what you mean, but if

Bishop Hill — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 21:08:59 +0100

I know what you mean, but if Libertarianism is to ever amount to anything, it has to be a broad church.

Hmm...

Anonymous — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:08:51 +0100

We are relying on him declining!

Good point, I'd forgotten

Tristan Mills — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:05:30 +0100

Good point, I'd forgotten about his drugs stance.

He's good on things like the database state and free speech, but on drugs and removing government discrimination based on sexuality he's distinctly illiberal.

I can imagine him as a Liberal Unionist and Imperialist in the 19th Century. I doubt his views on sexuality would have been controversial, nor his drugs policies in certain sections of the party...

Patronising sod! In the

Jock — Thu, 15 May 2008 22:28:48 +0100

Patronising sod!

In the real world one expects one's opponents to play the ball not the man. I've seen innumerable complaints to police about election literature far less distorted than they put out against me. If there was the remotest chance that they won by unfair tactics then I should have that tested, which it now has been and ruled "fair play" (though it still breaches my copyright, which I see has become an issue again in Crewe). Such tactics only serve to prevent honest and open debate amongst opinion formers,

I don't particularly care actually. As a libertarian I'm much more enthused by the idea of delivering social and public goods without the dead hand of government at any level.

Greet, greet, greet. What a

Anonymous — Thu, 15 May 2008 19:12:35 +0100

Greet, greet, greet. What a poor loser. If you think the words did you harm you shouldn't have used them. Welcome to the real world.

If I was in your ward, you

Citizen Stuart — Wed, 07 May 2008 20:22:24 +0100

If I was in your ward, you wouldn't have needed to knock on my door - that Labour leaflet would have persuaded me to vote for you! Give it another go next time, either as a Lib Dem or a member of the Libertarian Party. We need more real liberals in political office.

tow = toe. I'm ill today so

Philip Thomas — Wed, 07 May 2008 15:17:13 +0100

tow = toe. I'm ill today so that's my excuse. Betty has none.

A sorry affair

Philip Thomas — Wed, 07 May 2008 15:14:27 +0100

God, I hate the leaflet that was put out against you. Hopefully, some people read it and realised how much sense you were talking. I worried a bit about the same thing during my campaign. It is something any politician that doesn't tow the route of conventional ignorance risks.

Evidence of what? That an

Jock — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:07:00 +0100

Evidence of what? That an offence may have been committed? The leaflet speaks for itself. It is a clear breach of my rights as copyright owner under section 80 of the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act (1988?) which is the civil matter. If I can make the case, however that that makes it a derivative work I will argue that it is therefore a statement of fact misrepresenting me or my position and could then fall under section 106 of RPA 1983.

And the evidence?

Anonymous — Wed, 07 May 2008 13:30:05 +0100

And the evidence?

I suspect the thick skin

Jock — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:54:02 +0100

I suspect the thick skin thing is one of those aspects of psychopathy that I do not share with most politicians,

But you are right - I need to get back onto that book which is now badly delayed. I have to ask a few other contributers still for a start!