More Tory stuff

I said here that I wasn't a betting man and if you read the last paragraph, I think you'll agree that this is just as well because it appears that Dr. Fox is slipping fast, leaving it most likely that Davis and Cameron will be the two to slug it out in the final round.

It also appears the smear gun has fired a few rounds of sludge across his bows, according to the Guardian:

"Just before polling began the Evening Standard published an interview with Dr Fox in which he dismissed as "smears" rumours that he had a gay past. He refused to directly deny the rumours but insisted his forthcoming marriage was an answer."

Well, congratulations - but how what a man in his forties plans to do in the future serves as an answer to what he did in the past is beyond me. I'd like to be able to credit him with saying to the Evening Standard that it was none of their damn business but by mentioning his wedding he has effectively legitimised the Standard's grubby little article. And Dr. Fox managed to be graceless enough to take a side-swipe at Cameron at the same time:

"If someone accused me of doing something against the law I might feel bound to answer it. Otherwise I would have no comment to make.

If you start getting into that, all sorts of areas open up and I think you are entitled to a private life."

Seems a bit of a creep to me. And if that wasn't enough, we learn from here that he comes from East Kilbride. There is no excuse for this.

I'm being frivilous - and offensive - but I checked my site meter and I don't get any readers from East Kilbride so who cares? Anyway, the thing that got up my nose about Fox was his "we've got to stop apologising" line. No, I mean why would you apologise for a suicidal monetary policy that crucified British industry and put thousands out of work, particularly in Lanarkshire where Dr. Fox is from? Why would you apologise for the fact that the guru of monetarism Milton Friedman himself appeared before the Commons Select Committee and criticised the Thatcher government's handling of said monetary policy? (I think he said the government's dependence on interest rates alone was like playing a round of golf with only one club or something.) And why indeed would anyone feel the need to apologise for the sneering contempt so many Tories had - telling the unemployed that the destruction of their livelihoods was a 'price well worth paying' in order to get inflation down? (Difficult to believe but in fairness to Lamont, his remarks represented an improvement in Tory rhetoric on the subject - at least he didn't blame the unemployed themselves, which had been the previous custom.) The inflation was caused by the Lawson boom; and the subsequent pain caused by the then Chancellor John Major's decision to enter into the ERM at the rate of 2.95 D-marks to the pound. Anyone in Europe could have told him this was lunacy, but he didn't even bother to consult them.

A price worth paying, eh? I remember wishing at the time that someone would quote Friedman's monetarist maxim back at them (slight paraphrase): "People tend to take rather less care when it is other people's money they are spending". Quite.

Lest we forget - the bastards!