CentreRight

All this talk about broken society that has been catalysed by Cameron's brilliant speech this week, and Graeme and Peter's depressing anecdotes in particular, remind me of this article by the Guardian's Madeleine Bunting in January. Starting off with an anecdote about anti-social behaviour of her own, it's an astute analysis of the "pathological individualism poisoning public life" (and the blogosphere).

Most of the many comments it attracted knock it for being a "Daily Mail-esque" hearkening back to a mythical golden age of morality and community. But such people who always reach for - as one CiF commenter beautifully put it - that cosy bromide "T'was ever thus", miss the point.

They invariably bring up that quote commonly attributed to Socrates about how the youth of the day are ill-mannered, contemptuous of authority and disrespectful to elders, as if that was evidence that nothing has changed since the 4th century before Christ. It's pretty simple logic: just because I'm in London now and was in London last Tuesday doesn't mean that I must have been in London over the weekend. I could have been lucky enough to be back home in God's country (known to mortals as Liverpool).

Things change!  The very youths that Socrates allegedly decried will have ended up being the ancestors of well-mannered citizens respectful of their elders at some point down the line, if they didn't become such themselves in later life. Cameron and early years Bush have both talked about "the nation of the second chance" when it comes to helping people get on their feet, why can't we give society at large a second chance? We're only doomed to repeat the mistakes of their ancestors if we let ourselves be so by wallowing in complacency. Belittling the problem like Balls et al do is contemptible. What scale of degeneration would have to occur for these people to recognise that it wasn't always thus?

Did you watch the BBC Conspiracy Files documentary last night into the theories surrounding the collapse of World Trade Center Building Seven?

Despite the sinister background music throughout it was clear by the end that there are no credible theories about why and how it collapsed other than the official line - reinforced last week by The National Institute of Standards and Technology - that it was caused by fire. I'm satisfied that a controlled explosion can virtually be ruled out on practicality grounds.

There are certainly questions about why a steel structure like that would collapse in the way it did, but the burden of proof lies with the conspiracy theorists. Only about ten seconds of the hour-long programme was devoted to why on earth the government/zionists/neocons would actually want to go through so much trouble to demolish the forty-seven floor WTC7 building.

The reason mooted by a representative from Loose Change - the biggest group that has been promoting these theories (not including al-Qaeda) - was that it housed offices for the CIA and Secret Service and therefore could have been some kind of staging post for the demolition of the North and South towers. Very flimsy - give me a motive, then we can look at the method.

In case you missed it Cristina Odone has written a report for the Centre for Policy Studies about the Government's wrong-headed "betrayal" of faith schools. Amongst its points are that:

• Faith schools represent a third of all primary schools, but two-thirds of the top 200
• Faith schools do not, as the Government insinuates, turn away "looked after" children
• Faith schools are not divisive, all 77 people (apart from one who was home-schooled) convicted under the Terrorism Act went to state schools, for example

Her Times column focuses on the benefits of Muslim schools:

"Many see this inquisition as the latest twist in Labour's internal politics. With Gordon Brown's succession being discussed openly, the ambitious Mr Balls is wooing the strident secularists who make up the old Labour rump. But there is another constituency that he would be foolish to ignore: Britain's 1.8 million Muslims. Faith schools offer a bridge between their religious community and the wider secular society; and for Muslim girls they are the route from the kitchen sink to university."

Following on from my defence of hug-a-hoodie I thought I'd add my tuppence worth on a related issue that I touched on there: "have-a-go-heroes".

On Tuesday night 28 year old Dee Willis was stabbed in the chest down the road from the Home Secretary's house, hours after the march against knives that followed Ben Kinsella's murder the day before. The stabbing of 16 year old Kinsella came a day after Hamouda Bessad was knifed in the chest in an internet cafe. This really can't go on.

Mayor Boris has rightly made tackling knife crime a priority but there's only so much that stop and searches (27000 of them have been conducted in the last six weeks under Operation Blunt II), scanners and amnesties can do. It's part of a knife and gang culture that requires cultural solutions as well as state solutions.

Boris was quoted yesterday telling young people not to intervene when their friends are getting beaten-up:

"Don't risk it, someone might have a knife - even if that may show a lack of public spirit if someone is being badly attacked".

It's a completely understandable message that will be echoed by mothers across the capital, but as sensible as it is - it sticks in the craw. Something's gone wrong with society when taking the public-spirited course of action is the wrong call. Ben Kinsella wasn't wrong to help his mates, he was unlucky that the real wrong-doers decided to pick on him.

Danny Kruger has written a defence of the infamous speech (read/watch) about youth crime that he wrote for David Cameron. A few paragraphs doesn't do his argument justice but this is the essence of it:

"This speech has gone down in Tory lore as a terrible blunder, but I am still rather proud of it. The nub of it was, that while we should certainly punish people who cross the line into criminality, on this side of the line we need ‘to show a lot more love’.

Love is a neglected crime-fighting device. But the need for it is powerfully proved in Felicity de Zulueta’s important book From Pain to Violence: The Traumatic Roots of Destructiveness. She argues that violence and hatred are not motive forces of their own: they are the terrible expression of wrecked relationships, of thwarted love."

He's completely right. The 'tough love' of punishment can be a blunt tool without the encouragement that  'soft love' brings, and saying so doesn't mean you're some kind of detached-from-reality, soft-on-crime, "Hello Sun" morally relativist liberal (ask Lord Tebbit). David Davis' line that "I also would like to hug a hoodie but for rather longer and harder" was guaranteed to go down well at Party Conference, but it's not the solution.

I'm a bit of a righteous have-a-go-hero when it comes to dealing with things like "the spit-filled mouth of the little rat-faced boy who punched me" that Danny described. But dealing with youths at that stage of waywardness is merely using a reactive stick, when a proactive carrot earlier on could have done the trick.

That's not to say there's no hope at that stage. There's always a hope if people are given a second chance. I happen to be going to a play on knife crime tonight (wearing one of my hoodies, in fact) performed by ex-cons and organised by the small charity Danny left David Cameron's office to run with his wife. It works as much by forming relationships between the charity workers and the convicts as by them applying themselves to the discipline of acting. Danny certainly practices what he preaches.

There's a must-read post by Danny Finkelstein summarising five of the 'sexiest ideas on the political scene'. They all relate to social psychology:

1. Social Norms: This is based on a simple observation - people copy each other. We take cues from others in our peer group about how to behave. This is a more powerful social force than legal restrictions. Could we, for instance, increase the amount given to charity simply by telling people how much more everyone else is giving?
2. Reciprocal Altruism: Why do we help those who are not blood relations? Surely this wouldn't be a good evolutionary strategy? Well, it turns out that it is. We help others because we believe they will reciprocate. In order for this to work, game theory demonstrates, we have to believe we will be interacting with the same people repeatedly.
3. Situationism: Is there such a thing as society? It is not just reciprocal altruism that shows that there is. It is also situationism. People behave differently when in different situations. They conform to expectations and group norms. Individuals have different dispositions but this is only part of the reason they behave as they do.
4. Prospect Theory: Thirty five years ago, innocent A level economics students would ask their teachers "but what if the consumer isn't rational?". It would patiently be explained to them that rationality was a modelling assumption, that could very easily be relaxed. It turns out that relaxing the assumption has produced the most interesting work in economics over the last three decades.
5. Cognitive Dissonance: In 1957 the psychologist Leon Festinger first put forward this idea explaining how people cling on the commitments they have made, twisting the truth round in their head to make it consistent with their existing view. Its importance for social policy is that individuals try incredibly hard to fulfill commitments they have made, verbally or in writing.

Also worth reading is this overview in the Sunday Times of the thinking behind Cameron's rhetoric on positive social norms, framed as being about using the carrot rather than the stick. I'm a big fan of this thinking and Cameron's use of the 'bully-pulpit' to promote socially responsible lifestyles (I must have been one of the only defenders of the infamous chocolate oranges comments!). It's fascinating territory.

This is a guest post kindly submitted by Matt Wardman.

I've been watching the situation in Zimbabwe develop using the websites of organisations working inside and outside the country. Over recent weeks the situation has moved from the need for thorough scrutineering of an election to a situation where there have been more than 1000 incidents and 70 deaths, and a civil war seems possible. This article aims to highlight a few of the many sources of information available.

The most comprehensive information is provided by the Sokwanele organisation, including a Google map of incidents of Political Violence - currently there are more than 1300 recorded, a regularly updated blog, a feed of photos via Flick-r and even messages via Twitter when there are particular crises.

There are a number of other Zimbabwe organisations which provide news online. Zimbabwe Democracy Now have a comprehensive list, including news sources and voluntary groups based outside the country. There is even an ex-Zimbabwe policeman who publishes a podcast from Derby.

Today Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is celebrating yet another birthday from within the confines of house arrest. 

The Conservatives have had a very strong record on Burma in recent years, much credit for which is due to our own Benedict Rogers. William Hague released this statement today:

"Aung San Suu Kyi has suffered over a decade of unjust imprisonment because of her extraordinary personal courage in standing up for the people of Burma. We utterly condemn her continued detention and that of the 2,000 other political prisoners in Burma.

As she marks her 63rd birthday under house arrest and isolated from her friends, family and the outside world, we call on the British Government today to redouble its efforts to raise Burma at the UN Security Council. Those countries which callously continue to oppose Security Council action on Burma, and to shield the junta, should be named and shamed."

My favourite quote of hers is:

"We do not accept the notion that democracy is a Western value. To the contrary; democracy simply means good government rooted in responsibility, transparency, and accountability."

Maybe, just maybe, she will live to be a part of democracy becoming a reality in Burma.

Matthew Parris wrote this morning:

"David Cameron should now think very hard about putting down a motion of no confidence in the Government, precipitating an early debate next week. Strong arguments against doing so will be urged: it would give the Parliamentary Labour Party a cause to rally unanimously around; it would be resoundingly defeated; and some might call that an own goal. But with a government majority of 66, the Tories are never going to win a confidence debate. The time to call one is a moment when mood and argument, if not arithmetic, is with them. Now is that moment.

In political legend it would attach to June 2008 the appropriate dark significance - and portent of things to come."

Striking while the iron is hot would certainly compound negative perceptions of Brown's government at this time, if they could be exacerbated, but is there a danger that it would force Labour to rally around its leader, much like what happened when Neil Kinnock tried this trick in 1990?

Telegraph weekly columnist and blogger Bryony Gordon, a twenty-something, has outed herself today as a "good for nothing, low-down, dirty dropout without a degree", like yours truly:

"Clearly university is not for everyone - yet still Labour presses ahead with its target of getting 50 per cent of school-leavers into higher education.

When people ask me what my degree is in, and I tell them I have nothing more than a clutch of A-levels, GCSEs and swimming badges, a barrier comes down. I am now officially thick. But what's so shameful about being a dropout? For most young people, university is just a given, a way to stave off the real world for a little longer. While some might go to learn, most go to get drunk and get off with each other. There's nothing wrong with that. But nor is there anything wrong with choosing life over education, education, education."

There's two ways of looking at the Government's drive to shoe-horn 50% of us into university whether we need to go or not: that it means that you'd better make sure you're in that 50%, or that it means that as getting a degree means less than it did there is a chance you can use those three years to get ahead of the game without one. The pitfall with the latter is hitting a brickwall when job adverts require graduates only, but if you can prove your worth by the work you've already done then an open-minded employer should see that. A couple of rungs up the ladder and it won't ever be an issue.

I was asked about my reasoning for leaving uni in my ConservativeHome Q&A - it's something that comes up a lot. People too often see the means as an end in itself. There is the life experience side of it of course but it can wear thin after a while. It's a call that each person has to make based on what they want to do - clearly would-be doctors etc don't have the luxury of choice in this. Those who do should weigh their options carefully.

Harry Phibbs referred to Boris going against an election pledge to put New Zealander Sir Keith Park on Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth as his first blunder. Boris has today confirmed his support for the rotating Fourth Plinth project but has said he will:

"work with the Sir Keith Park Memorial Campaign to ensure that a suitable memorial is erected as quickly as possible at a high profile and prestigious central London location".

Boris also mooted the idea of having him on the plinth temporarily to mark the 70th anniversary of the RAF. I'd rather Sir Keith Park on there - at the end of WW2 it was said that "if any one man won the Battle of Britain, he did" - than a Tracey Emin work, but that seems like a good compromise to me.

Further to Tim's post below about Iraq, it's worth noting that Australia formally ended combat operations there yesterday. John Howard said he was "baffled" by the move but Brendan Nelson, his successor as Liberal leader, hasn't carried the torch - he's supporting the withdrawal.

Rudd has justified cutting and running by saying the Australian presence in Iraq had increased the risk of terrorism against Australians. How noble of him. *Cough* peace in our time *cough*. It's also been spun as something of a "mission accomplished", emphasising how many Iraqi troops have now been trained by the Australian forces. Well, job done then! At least one Liberal MP, Dennis Jensen, was quoted saying:

"I mean, you have a war that is essentially being won and we're being seen to move out of there. We really should have stayed the entire course."

In response to Tim's post, Malcolm, an opponent of the war, suggested that our troops must therefore not be needed anymore. I think that's too simplistic. When the media focuses on the bad things happening in Iraq whilst avoiding the conclusion that the Coalition therefore needs to redouble its efforts, it's contingent on those who recognise the strategic significance of Iraq to simultaneously highlight the progress that is being made, whilst flying the flag for sticking it out for the long haul.

Sitting comfortably in Civvy Street we must also be careful not to turn a blind eye to what our soldiers have been through in Iraq, and are going through now in Afghanistan. The intensity of some of the operations has been reminiscent of, like, what you see in films and stuff. I'm currently reading Sniper One by Sgt Dan Mills, Platoon Commander of the PWRR's Sniper Platoon in Al Amarah. Here's one of the YouTube videos of their stay at the infamous CIMIC House:

• British medic shoots suicide bomber, then saves him
• 31 000 scientists sign petition denying man-made global warming
• How determined bloggers exposed a so-called miracle cure for dyslexia
• The story of John Wesley's polygamous brother-in-law
• US foreign policy in idealistic, militarist mode has done well
• A French Muslim gets an annulment after finding his wife wasn't a virgin
• War is never going to be a politically correct pastime
• A homeless Japanese woman lived secretly out of a man's closet
• Galloway's picked up his favourite hobby - now he's suing The Bill
• The relationship between leftie liberal opera and state funding

I'm still finding nuggets in Standpoint magazine's excellent first issue. Editor Dan Johnson has got a good little piece in the Counterpoints section about a concept that I hadn't heard of before called thumos: "a spiritedness and ferocity in defence of clan, tribe, city, or state".

It's a concept inspired by Plato and Aristotle and developed by Harvey Mansfield in this speech and Robert Kagan in this book. Johnson notes:

"Interestingly, the most characteristic modern example of thumos in action cited by Mansfield is actually a woman: Margaret Thatcher. But unless men — and it usually is men — preserve enough thumos to be prepared to die for their country, they become decadent and ultimately subservient. Without thumos, the West lacks the manly qualities that a civilisation requires to survive.

... Back in the Cold War, nobody talked about thumos. The omnipresent threat of mutually assured destruction did not leave much room for spirited temperaments at the helm. But the world since 2001 is learning the import­ance of sheer bloody-mindedness in seeing off a ferocious foe. Mansfield and Kagan are right: this is an old idea whose time has come. The answer to terror and tyranny may indeed be thumos."

Reviving thumos neatly sums up Standpoint's noble mission - a hugely important mission which I know we at ConservativeHome would heartily endorse.

There's a piece worth reading in the Guardian today by Phillip Blond, an academic and author of a forthcoming book called Red Tory:

"The Blairite left and Thatcherite right have colluded in the production of an oligarchical market state that monopolises power and wealth. Indeed, both the public and the private sector are now governed by a centralised bureaucratic or moneyed elite that effectively disempowers everybody else. With more than 20% of private-sector employees working for venture capitalists and with virtually all life in the public sector dictated by the relationship between disengaged managers and centrally determined performance targets, the ordinary worker has been stripped of any transformative influence or social power."

He sees a lot of potential in the Conservative Party's focus on civil society -  deeming it much more significant than merely being the vacuous "sheep's clothing" that other writers for the Guardian see it as - and hopes it won't lack for ambition now that the Party has a comfortable poll lead.

Being quite a righteous child I had a strong ambition to join the police. I had an idealistic notion of being a respected defender of the law-abiding majority and chasing baddies with my truncheon. Over recent years however I've realised that it's probably just as well that I didn't go down that route, I would have been one hell of a frustrated "bizzie" (as we call them in Liverpool, apparently because they're always too busy to help).

PC Copperfield's book Wasting Police Time, a runner-up in ConservativeHome's book of the year award, sets out a lot of the reasons why. His frustration at the bureaucratic system was such that he outed himself and moved to Canada to be a policeman there a few months ago.

Another book definitely worth reading is written by another blogger - (W)PC Bloggs -  A Diary of an On-call Girl: True Stories from the Frontline. Reading it over the weekend (thanks to the kind promoters  for sending me a copy) confirmed again to me why, sadly, the police probably isn't for me as Bloggsy seems to be as close to my female alter-ego as anyone! It was only her brilliant use of irony that kept me from punching things in exasperation at her "computer says no" type anecdotes.

The story today about Norfolk police deciding not to categorise criminal damage as a criminal offence is exactly the kind of story PC's Bloggs and Copperfield give you great insights into.

Peter Whittle rightly picked up on the pathetic, politically correct censorship of the CPA's advert yesterday. But the fact that it gave the CPA some of the only media coverage its mayoral campaign has had - although I acknowledge the frustrating media regulations small parties have had to deal with - leads me on to a question that has been niggling me for a while. This post will therefore be a little longer than normal!

When Michael Gerson was over here meeting various conservative thinkers a few weeks ago he also spoke at a lunch with a number of London-based Christian leaders. When asked about the role that Christians play in British politics they all expressed frustration at the tendency of some to retreat into Christian political groups instead of playing a positive role in mainstream politics. The main example being the Christian Peoples Alliance. What does it achieve?

Allegra Stratton on the Guardian News Blog reports that the Bush Administration has decided to use more "culturally sensitive" phrases to describe Islamic terrorism.

The reason given for not using the word jihad is that there are a different types of jihad, which seems fair enough. But what about not using Islamic terrorist, Islamofascist or Islamist?

Do these "call a spade a spade" terms cause unnecessary confusion and tension? Should this be primarily a tactical issue or an academic one? It seems to be an endless debate.

Our resident experts Dr Martin Parsons and Douglas Murray recently criticised Brian Paddick and others for claiming that Islam and terrorism are mutually incompatible. Also worth reading is an article on the City Circle blog recently in which Mohammed Amin, Vice-Chairman of the Conservative Muslim Forum, rebuffs the arguments of those who complain about the term "Muslim terrorists".

I have to salute the poor parents of the girls who died in Ecuador. In their moment of grievance they were anxious for the tragedy not to put off other young people from having the experience of seeing the world.

Janice Turner ties this in with a trip to India to make some spot-on conclusions about our frustratingly cottonwoolified society:

"We seek to obliterate all risk, believe we can legislate against calamity, manufacture certainty. But here, in India, are 1.3 billion people who, mostly, can't even begin to try. And, look, for all their closer proximity to the precipice, they are less cowed and crippled by fear than ourselves."

It's a shame that the only thing likely to be able to shake us out of our smotheringly risk-averse culture would be World War Three!

I always enjoy reading Turner's social observations in the Times. Other memorable articles in recent months include How boobonomics explain the world, A tall, bland caramel thing please and Brothels are booming. Ban them.

Some quotes from the great former Prime Minister of Australia:

I'm not a banner. I am an encourager and a persuader and an advocate.

I'd like to be seen as an average Australian bloke. I can't think of... I can't think of a nobler description of anybody than to be called an average Australian bloke.

Australia does not need new leadership, it does not need old leadership. It needs the right leadership.

I will be fighting every minute of every day of the campaign because I am determined to win and I think it's important that we have a strong experienced Government that knows it's own mind in these more difficult times.

Truth is absolute, truth is supreme, truth is never disposable in national political life.

It's too much to expect in an academic setting that we should all agree, but it is not too much to expect discipline and unvarying civility.

You can't fatten the pig on market day.

Greg wrote in praise of Andrew Gilligan last week following his award, so I thought I'd turn the tables and pay a little tribute to his work over the last year as he's also been behind several probing questions and cutting quotes about Livingstone of late.

Just looking at his postings on CentreRight in the last few months he's managed to break new stories and find new angles on existing stories that have then gone on to be picked up more widely. Including, of course, his exposé of Nick Clegg's CUCA membership a few days ago.

MPs are all very different to one another in the roles they primarily fulfil: party attack dogs, chamber warriors, committee scrutineers, glorified social workers/councillors, policy experts, writers, single-issue campaigners etc. Greg manages to fulfil most of these functions and remains a genuinely nice guy.

Lord Tebbit has written a piece for the the Mail today rebuffing the judges who criticised the Government for dropping the SFO investigation into dodgy arms dealing:

"Are they ignoring the fact that tens of thousands of people could lose their jobs, or some even their lives, if relations between Britain and Saudi Arabia were to break down?"

That's the same reasoning used by those decrying the Clapham Set as insane and unpatriotic for wanting to destroy the mainstay of Britain's economy whilst it was at war with France.

Both arguments are selfish and short-termist.

It's worth reading these two articles about China and the Olympics by two of the best British conservative writers...

Gerard Baker in yesterday's Times:

"China's success is no longer seen as a temporary aberration, a sort of unsustainable balancing act that would sooner or later collapse. It is viewed increasingly by ambitious autocrats everywhere as an alternative model to the vexingly unpredictable Western version... For liberalism to prevail it will not necessarily require open confrontation or military buildup, or even the empty gestures of Olympic boycotts. But it will require a good deal more willingness by the West to defend itself and its interests and to stand up for liberal democracy around the world rather more effectively and enthusiastically than of late."

Charles Moore in today's Telegraph:

"There is much talk of the Olympic spirit. Obviously, one wants the poor athletes to be able to take part in the contests to which they have devoted their lives. But should one really subscribe to the ideology of the Olympic movement, with its late-19th-century idea of a brotherhood of man forged out of the cultivation of physical strength? This is meat and drink to fascist and communist regimes, with their cult of youth, their hatred of the past and their love of huge public displays. They see sport as their weapon of propaganda. For them, the Olympics are a gift. Besides, if there is anything in the idea of "one world, one dream" - the Olympic slogan for Beijing - its best guardians are not the heirs of the Middle Kingdom."

"The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotation."

I love quotes so thought I'd start a series of postings on here offering my selection of quotes by various interesting characters. I might as well start with the man behind the quote above, Benjamin Disraeli - author and Conservative Prime Minister from the Victorian era:

Never apologise for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologise for truth.

I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad. I seek to preserve property and to respect order, and I equally decry the appeal to the passions of the many or the prejudices of the few.

As a general rule the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information.

The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.

Two nations between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets. The rich and the poor.

Nurture your mind with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes.

On your theme Ben, Cameron has just said this on BBC news about Brown's "extraordinary" (mis)handling of the opening ceremony issue:

"People all over the world must be scratching their head wondering what the British Prime Minister must think. If dithering was an Olympic sport Gordon Brown would have a gold medal."

Tony Blair was often seen as trying to please everyone - he seems to have passed that torch on to Brown.