Yesterday evening, the Rt. Hon Lord Rees-Mogg of Hinton Blewitt gave a public lecture at the University of Bath entitled “Issues in Foreign Policy.” The speech was organised by the Royal Society of Arts’ South West regional branch and very well attended by both students and Bath area residents.

The University of Bath which awarded him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws in 1977. He was Editor of The Times from 1967 to 1981 and now sits as an independent peer in the House of Lords. His son Jacob Rees-Mogg is currently the Conservative candidate for the neighbouring Wansdyke constituency, and his daughter Annunziata is the Conservative candidate for Somerton and Frome.

Lord Rees-Mogg spoke at length about how history provided an indicator with regard to the current foreign political circumstances the world now faced, and the challenges facing countries such as Iraq, Britain and the United States. He drew skilfully upon the past experiences of Otto von Bismarck and Abraham Lincoln and their realist approach to foreign relations, compared with the more idealistic approach (as he saw it) taken by Tony Blair and George Bush.

For those who didn’t attend, you can download a copy of Lord Rees-Mogg’s speech which we recorded by clicking here (1hour 8mins – 15.6MB.)

The veteran left-winger Michael Meacher has today thrown his hat into the ring with a direct challenge to lead the Labour party while calling for Trident nuclear weapons to be scrapped, huge investment in renewable energy, curbs on City bonuses and nationalisation of the railways.

For Gordon Brown at least, this can only be good news. Michael Meacher has stepped up to the podium as yet another willing sacrificial lamb for the slaughter – just another no-hope candidate for Gordon to beat. However, as one Labour MP commented last year, “We don’t do coronations.” The Labour party therefore need to put on the appearance of a democratically contested selection, but I think there is little doubt in the ultimate outcome.

Despite Tony Blair being, in my opinion, the main reason for Labour’s previous three electoral victories, it now seems to have become common practice for leadership and deputy leadership candidates to openly attack the Prime Minister, his record in office and his polices – each doing their level best to undermine Blair in the waning days of his leadership and gain favourability with the Unions and grassroots party membership whom will ultimately decide their fate.

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News reaches us that Tony Blair’s top Downing Street aide, Ruth Turner, has been arrested yet again in the police investigation over the alleged sale of Peerages for Loans. She is currently under the suspicion of perverting the course of justice and colluding to sell House of Lords peerages to Labour party donors.

Miss Turner, Labour’s chief fund-raiser Lord Levy and Tony Blair must be becoming quite familiar with their local constabulary. These three core suspects are however not the only people that should be having sleepless nights. The ongoing investigation will undoubtedly have implications for Gordon Brown as Primeministerial heir apparent. Had there been any misdoings, it is highly unlikely that Chancellor would have been out of the frame and completely uninformed – he has extended his tentacles and all-seeing-eye into most other operations, so why not the illegal sale of peerages?

This link contains an interesting history of the graphics used on BBC election night coverage since 1955.

Today, traditional hunts across the country have marked the second anniversary of the Hunting Act 2004 by riding out in much the same fashion as they did before the law was enacted. On the traditional Boxing Day meets this year (well, technically last year,) hunts produced record attendance figures as around 300,000 people braved the cold weather to turn out and show their support.

It has been reported in today’s Telegraph on Sunday that should the Conservative party led by David Cameron win the next general election, the Hunting Act 2004 will be placed as a top priority for being repealed. The newspaper reports:

The letter, from David MacLean, the former Tory chief whip, who says he is writing on behalf of Mr Cameron, says: ‘Over the last few months colleagues have been speculating on the different ways we could honour our commitment… There is a danger that our straightforward commitment to bring a Bill before Parliament to repeal the Act… could get confused. All colleagues are therefore urged to simply repeat our commitment to repeal the Act. This would be, of course, on a free vote.’

The Hunting Act itself has been a spectacular failure. Despite wasting hundreds of Parliamentary hours (which could have been spent on much needier issues,) the class-obsessed Labour party claim that the act has achieved their aims. However, hunts are killing just as many foxes now as previously and I would hardly imagine that the increased support registered by hunts was what the Labour party had either envisaged or desired.

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Last night, Bath University Conservative Future hosted Conservative Parliamentary candidate for Chippenham, Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones as a society speaker. Around fifteen students and a local councillor attended the event – which was a welcome improvement on the last event!

Wilfred spoke at length about his background as the son of Jamaican immigrants and his experiences of growing up in inner-city Birmingham from which he eventually found his way into television and later became a successful farmer. The talk drew upon many various aspects of his life experiences and how he believed that conviction politics could reinvigorate Britain.

After this well-received speech, Mr Emmanuel-Jones took questions from the floor on various subjects, ranging from breeds of his Devon cattle to the creation of a black middle-class and the candidate’s A-list. However, the final and most contentious subject of the night unleashing over fifteen minutes of furious debate was the future direction of the National Health Service (provoked by my question, sadly.) Wilfred set about arguing that those who are directly responsible for their ill-heath such as contracting cancer through excessive smoking, should be personally accountable for their own actions and pay for treatment of those consequences rather than hoping that society should automatically foot the bill. Most people in the room did seem to agree – although two particular individuals didn’t quite seem capable of grasping that simple notion…

We at Bath Conservative Future wish Wilfred the best of luck at the next election and we hope to see Chippenham elect him as their Member of Parliament.

Only yesterday I posted about David Cameron and supposed media revelations that he had smoked cannabis while at Eton and Oxford University. Today Mr Cameron is reported in the Daily Mail as having commented that, under his leadership, the Conservative party would take a different approach to drugs.

He also took the opportunity to give a strong warning to young people about the dangers of drug abuse saying, “I would advise strongly against it. It’s against the law, it’s wrong. I have seen what’s happened to contemporaries and constituents who have gone badly off the rails with drugs.”

It is certainly a pleasant (and very welcome) surprise that David Cameron has chosen to make such a statement, although I would say that the simple reclassification of drugs which he advocates cannot be the only solution to Britain’s drugs problem. Still, better than nothing though.

It emerged in the Daily Mail just two days ago that David Cameron probably took cannabis when he was at Eton, and during his Oxford University days. Mr Cameron has still refused to directly comment on whether or not he took cannabis, though he has pointed out that he regrets some of what he did when he was younger but hopes that politicians do deserve a private past.

So, does it matter whether David Cameron took drugs at university or school? The Conservative party and commentators from across the political spectrum would have you believe that it does not matter what a man did when he was a school, but what he says and does now. In that they may be right. However, although Mr Cameron has already stated on his webcameron website that he is not in favour of legalisation, I think that he should use this opportunity to powerfully argue against the use of drugs such as cannabis and heroin that continue to completely destroy the lives of many. Whether or not he will however, is completely another thing.

I was watching an old version of Our Europe on 18 Doughty Street today presented by the Young Briton Foundation’s Shane Greer with Doughty Street regular Michael Ehoize-Ediae, Natasha Harrison and Elisabeth Davies on the panel.

The discussion centred on immigration – not for or against as the general consensus was for, but the differing degrees and levels of which immigrates should pass into Britain. Michael Ehoize-Ediae gave a fair account of himself and his case for controlled levels of immigration. I like Michael and he often speaks well but I think a better argument and line he could have taken would have been to talk about the cultural and ethnic tension that large scale immigration causes rather than try and argue on purely economic issues against the rabid economists.

Immigration is not purely an economic issue; it is also a social issue. This cannot be ignored. We had the lovely Elisabeth Davies from the Adam Smith Institute arguing for even greater levels of uncontrolled and unrestricted migration, which from a liberal economist’s perspective would be of exponentional benefit to the consumer. While I see the argument that higher levels of immigration create new jobs in the economy which spurs on economic growth – blahdy blah, blah etc: I also see that uncontrolled immigration causes huge social problems – which this Labour Government’s tenure in office has more than proved.

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Even if I don’t watch TV anymore, I am sure that the BBC mentioned either on friday or yesterday that a UN summit was held in to order to debate about a report, that states the responsibility of humanity in the recent global warming as very likely. As usual with this kind of reports, trends and model are discussed, the most extreme of them, being a possible rise of the earth mean temperature by 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit, which is equal to 5.8 degrees Celsius. And as always the medias and groups like Greenpeace are prompt in taking the most extreme scenario as the shape of things to come.

Such an increase of the average mean temperature on earth is in my opinion impossible considering carbon dioxide only and for very simple reasons. The first one being that carbon dioxide only accounts for approximately ten percent of the total greenhouse effect, as water vapour has and will always have a higher effect in terms of proportion. The second one is that the effects of carbon dioxide, as a greenhouse case follows a logarithmic curve, not an exponential one thus the more you had the less important the effects becomes. By consequence, a doubling of the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, would not necessarily be translated by a doubling of the greenhouse effect caused by the same gas.

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