Liberal-minded Tories call for ‘defence of civility' in face of populist politics
Bright Blue, a London think tank linked to the party's liberal wing, also warned that 'sudden philosophical shifts' under different Tory leaders in recent years had severely damaged its reputation with voters, who now doubted its competence.
Bright Blue, run by former political adviser Ryan Shorthouse, has released a report, The Right Road, on the future of the centre right in Europe, where mainstream politics has been roiled by populist right-wing parties.
It called for a 'reboot and reunification' of the centre right to defeat populists and, as described by the authors, the 'statist' left.
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It laid out principles that the authors argued centre-right parties should rally around. These included 'prioritising the defence of civility' in the face of abrasive populist politics, and fostering a greater shared national identity 'for people to unite around' in countries grappling with immigration and assimilation.
Tuesday's launch in London of the report, however, laid bare some of the divisions that persist in the Conservative party over its best way forward amid the threat to its future from populist political forces such as Nigel Farage's Reform UK.
Researchers, academics and Tory-linked politicians gathered for a panel debate on Tuesday in the grand Council Room of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers building at Birdcage Walk, within sight of the Houses of Parliament at Westminster.
One of the panellists, Nick Timothy, a former co-chief of staff to former Tory prime minister Theresa May, and now a Tory MP himself and party whip, gave an excoriating analysis of the party's travails.
Mr Timothy said Conservatives had been 'seduced' by political liberals who had managed to convince everybody that their ideology was the 'natural order of things' when, he said, it wasn't.
He encouraged his fellow Tories to 'embrace the change' wrought on the mainstream system by populists.
For example, Mr Timothy said Britain had been 'incredibly naive' in the way it dealt with China. He suggested China's influence had been 'a cancer in the economy'. Chinese exporters, he alleged, were selling equipment to Britain with secret 'kill switches' while the British government had treated China 'like Sweden' in trade rules.
'They're not Sweden,' he said.
He also called for a push towards 'net negative' immigration.
Meanwhile, his fellow Tory MP, shadow Scottish secretary Andrew Bowie, said he felt Mr Timothy was 'too negative'. But he conceded centre-right parties such as the Tories had been 'quite lazy' in addressing issues important to voters, such as immigration.
He warned, however, that they needed to make their case 'with more hope', which he said voters craved.
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Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
Feminist punk fan mail from the Maze Prison
Political resistance has a long and varied history among the Irish people, from artistic defiance through WB Yeats's The Lake Isle of Innisfree (1888) and Seamus Heaney's poetry collection North (1975), to armed and carceral insurrection during the Easter Rising in 1916 or the 1981 hunger strike led by Bobby Sands and fellow Irish republican prisoners. Like other left-leaning and politically active Londoners, the women who comprised feminist punk band The Raincoats were keenly aware of the sectarian violence in Northern Ireland known broadly at the Troubles. Some members of the band were involved in anti-colonial demonstrations as part of the Troops Out Movement, or TOM for short, established in 1973 with the aim of ending British rule in Northern Ireland. Others had their own experiential knowledge of government oppression, migrating from fascist regimes in Portugal and Spain to the relative democracy of England. Yet nothing quite prepared the band for a handwritten piece of fan mail they'd receive upon the release of their first LP, a letter that would tether their own sonic history to one of fierce political struggle in Northern Ireland. The following excerpt from my new biography of the band, Shouting Out Loud: Lives of The Raincoats , chronicles that moment in which feminist punk became unexpectedly linked to the bloodshed of the Troubles. READ MORE Audrey Golden In 1979, The Raincoats received a piece of fan mail at Rough Trade from a writer named Jim Kyle. The return address at the top read 'Compound 19, H.M.P. Maze' – the H-Blocks near Lisburn. The letter had been sent from the feared institution that held political prisoners sentenced for acts of violence during the Troubles: Dear Raincoats, After repeated plays of the new album I just have to write and offer some praise, especially after reading the panning that bigot McCullough gave it when reviewing it in Sounds. I hope his article didn't discourage you too much as I'm sure anyone who reads Sounds regularly knows by now that he allows personality clashes etc. to influence his honesty. Stiff Little Fingers were another among many to incur his juvenile attitudes. As Ana said when replying in Sounds it makes one angry to think that someone like him has the power to influence people's choices. Anyway back to the album itself, which I think is brilliant. When I ordered it from Rough Trade a couple of weeks ago I also bought the new Jam, Fall, and Banshee L. P.s as they are among my favourites. However although they are very good it has been your album which has dominated the turntable and is what I'm listening to as I write this. A lot of things impress me. The actual music itself is first class especially on the Void and No Looking but I think it is the brilliantly structured vocals that makes it all so special. It's hard to explain in words what I feel impresses me in the album the highest accolade I can give it is that I really enjoy it. The standout for me is the excellent Off Duty Trip. Also your version of Lola would make a great single. I hope it's not too long before you release something else. In the meantime I think I'll be playing The Raincoats a lot. Cheerio, Jim The Maze prison was designated for prisoners during the Troubles and held detainees from 1971 to 2000. The Maze, as it was sometimes simply described, began as a series of compounds or cages making up an area known as Long Kesh, which was opened in 1976, replaced later by eight H-Blocks, named for their shape. It was a maximum-security prison that became known globally as a result of the protests occurring there, including the blanket protest and the 1981 hunger strike led by Bobby Sands. The prison was separated into 'cages,' as they were called by republicans, or 'compounds,' as they were called by loyalists. There's very little written information about the names of the prisoners who were held in the H-Blocks, unless they appeared in the media or have since given testimony to the Prisons Memory Archive. The 'Jim Kyle' who mailed the handwritten letter to Rough Trade in London identified his location as 'Compound 19', a loyalist area of the prison. On Shankill Road in West Belfast, a predominantly loyalist area, the ACT Initiative was established in 2008 as a conflict transformation program designed 'to facilitate the civilianisation of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).' Dr. William Mitchell, its director, remains in touch with many of those who were once imprisoned in Compound 19, where he himself was incarcerated for murder at the age of 17. He knows Jim Kyle well, and Jim agreed to Mitchell telling his story, centring on his abiding love of music and The Raincoats. 'Jim and I were actually in the same cell,' William explains. 'And my own personal development, musically, was initiated by Jim Kyle. Because as a 17-year-old, in 1976, he lent me an album by Bob Dylan, Desire .' From that point onward, Jim opened up the musical minds of many prisoners in Compound 19. It's a story, William explains, about difficult stereotypes of young people involved in the stark violence of the Troubles. Like many of their same-age counterparts, the young imprisoned loyalists were beginning to come of age as punk happened, and many saw themselves as part of the cultural revolution taking place in music, despite the very different sides of the conflict on which they committed acts of violence. 'I'd only been in prison about six months, same as Jim, we were arrested the same month in 1975,' William says. 'Both teenagers. I was 17, he was 18. We didn't know each other until we'd come into prison.' Thanks to Jim, William came to understand the deep politics and significance of Dylan's music, 'this protest singer who, as soon as I dropped the needle on Desire, sang, pistol shots rang out in a barroom, enter Paddy Valentine from the end of the hall. It was an epiphany moment, and it literally changed my world, changed my life. Through his music, I developed an interest in the characters in the songs and became introduced to William Burroughs, TS Eliot, Shakespeare, Arthur Rimbaud, all of these people who, as a young man, really fascinated me.' How was anyone listening to records in the H-Blocks? William explains, 'You were literally caged,' but they could roam freely within the compound and had access to study and educational facilities. There was a markedly large population of very young men, teenagers, and otherwise very young adults, like William and Jim, who'd been recruited during what William describes as 'the worst years of the conflict,' from 1972 to 1975. And those prisoners in Compound 19 together, around the same age, 'were drawn to the punk movement as a subculture, and we looked at it from afar with the disappointment that we couldn't engage in it. But we could listen to it and hear it on albums,' William says. Vicky Aspinall on violin, Palmolive on drums and Gina Birch on bass of The Raincoats performing at Alexandra Palace, London, UK, 16th June 1980. (Photo by David Corio/Redferns) Jim loved punk and post-punk, but he was also a well-rounded lover of music. William describes it, warmly, as a 'quite eclectic taste,' explaining, 'Jim used to religiously get the NME and Melody Maker and look for mail order opportunities, but of course, Rough Trade was his big focus. And we had this camaraderie, this group of young men. So any time someone got an album, they shared it. That record player was the only one we had between 80 prisoners,' he says as he points at a small suitcase record player behind him on a shelf. The record player 'lived' in the study area of Compound 19, and there was a hardback book that sat beside it. If you wanted to listen to a record, you'd put your name in the book and the hour you wanted it. Jim introduced the sounds of 'alternative music,' and music that was making a political impact in the UK, 'including, of course, The Raincoats,' William says. Jim recently reminded William of playing him The Raincoats' cover of Lola, but he emphasised that what drew him to The Raincoats initially was the Fairytale EP, 'their first single.' But he loved it all, and he sent the fan letter after receiving the self-titled LP from Rough Trade. Throughout his time in the Maze, he kept in direct contact with Sue Donne, who handled Rough Trade mail order. He gratefully recalls how Sue began sending him 'freebies' and discounting records for Jim to give a listen to. Did the records get censored? All the records would be opened and examined, and some things would be censored. But if there wasn't anything obvious – thank goodness for the subtlety of The Raincoats' political interventions – the records would be delivered to the prisoner who ordered them. But not before they'd been desecrated. William holds up some examples of records that had come into the Maze. There are large black redaction marks where the guards essentially made scribbles to damage the records. The prisoner's number would also be written largely on the front. 'But it actually gives them a kind of authenticity now,' he reflects. Jim would sometimes put on The Raincoats in the evening for everyone– 'And you can just imagine some of the criticism he would have got from the older folk,' William says. But it didn't deter Jim. The music was that important. He was imprisoned for about four years in total. During that time, he brought the world of Rough Trade to the prison, and he opened the sonic and political minds of many young prisoners in the larger compound with him. Jim loved music so much, and learned so much about it from the records he ordered and shared with fellow prisoners in the H-Blocks, that he opened a record shop in Smithfield Market in Belfast after he was released from the Maze. The market 'was a hard place,' William explains, with a long and violent history during the Troubles. 'It would get bombed every other month during the conflict,' he says, but after the Good Friday Agreement, it became a space of peace. And, thanks to Jim, of music. William used to visit the shop regularly until it closed, and he bought a fair amount of his current record collection from Jim. What was the shop called? 'Jim's Records.' That piece of fan mail, housed carefully in The Raincoats' archive for nearly 50 years, is a reminder of the stark power, and often unpredictable political resonances, that music can have. Had many tried to guess the identity of a Raincoats fan imprisoned in Long Kesh in 1979, they'd likely have made the assumption the writer had been a member of the IRA, whose politics seemed to align most closely to their own. Yet the truth is much more complex, and it reveals both the strengths and limitations of political ideology – and the assumptions we make – in moments of great unrest. Shouting Out Loud Shouting Out Loud: Lives of The Raincoats is published by White Rabbit
Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
Fergus Finlay sought Labour Party run for presidency
Labour Party grandee Fergus Finlay asked Ivana Bacik in January if he could run for President for the party. Mr Finlay, who had also sought the party's nomination for the 2011 contest and considered a run in 2018, said he was 'very disappointed' to see Labour supporting Catherine Connolly. The former head of Mary Robinson's historic 1990 campaign said he did not know what Ms Connolly had done to 'deserve' the Labour Party's support. Speaking on RTÉ's Behind The Story podcast this week, Mr Finlay revealed he had approached party leader Ms Bacik in January indicating he was open to running for President. READ MORE 'I wanted to say that Labour should contest, must contest, must do everything we possibly can to contest, recognising all the difficulties that we don't have 20 Oireachtas votes sewn up there. But there were a lot of Oireachtas votes in play at that time,' Mr Finlay said. 'There was no other left-wing candidate in the field at that time – I wanted to say that Labour should contest, and I wanted to be considered as a candidate.' Mr Finlay, who added he felt no 'entitlement to anything', said it quickly became clear to him that his proposal was 'going nowhere'. 'I think [Ms Bacik] felt that this was not a winnable situation for Labour. Maybe she felt it wasn't winnable for Labour with me. Maybe she felt that I was a burned-out waste of space! I have no idea. She's far too polite ever to say anything like that, but it became clear to me very quickly that it was going nowhere.' Mr Finlay had lost out on the Labour Party's nomination in 2010, ahead of Michael D Higgins winning his first term. Mr Finlay would also later reveal he had also considered putting himself forward in 2018, before it became clear to him that President Higgins would seek a second term. Mr Finlay said he believed in the role of the President to 'get the best out of people', and that if he had a criticism of President Higgins it was that 'he didn't do enough of that', particularly in terms of national morale during the Covid-19 pandemic. Mr Finlay said he was 'very disappointed' that Labour had decided to row in behind Independent left-wing candidate Ms Connolly. 'There's a lot of stuff I don't agree with Catherine Connolly about, there's a lot of stuff I admire her for. But Catherine Connolly left the Labour Party because we wouldn't give her a nomination to run alongside Michael D Higgins, and she has never had a good word to say about the Labour Party from that moment on,' he said. Mr Finlay said it would have been a 'crazy, suicidal decision' to give Ms Connolly a nomination, which would have meant there was 'no chance of anybody winning that seat'. He said Ms Connolly 'couldn't bring herself to accept that', and she 'has never had a good word to say about the Labour Party since'. 'And now we're backing her. And I have no problem with members of the Labour Party going out and voting for Catherine Connolly, none in the wide, Earthly world. But I don't know what she's done to deserve our support, to be absolutely honest with you.'
Irish Times
3 hours ago
- Irish Times
Seán Kelly to seek Fine Gael nomination to run in presidential election
Fine Gael MEP Seán Kelly has announced his intention to seek the party's nomination to run in the forthcoming presidential election. A contest between Mr Kelly and former minister Heather Humphreys became increasingly likely on Monday night after the party's executive council decided to seek fresh nominations rather than selecting a single candidate. The meeting was convened after the sudden announcement on Thursday by party nominee Mairead McGuinness that she was dropping out of the race for health reasons . Speaking on Tuesday morning, the Ireland South MEP said that he had 'underestimated' the grassroots support for him and that he will 'certainly seek the nomination' from his party. READ MORE 'So I would be looking for the nomination, and after that, and if I'm nominated, I will be greatly honoured to represent the party and stand for election as president,' Mr Kelly told RTÉ's Morning Ireland. Mr Kelly said he believed the 'time is right' to put himself forward, after discussing it with family and supporters, in light of the changed circumstances following the decision by Ms McGuinness to withdraw from the race. The former president of the GAA said that having spent time in Ireland over the last few weeks, he understood that he had grassroots support and momentum as many people had told him they were disappointed that he was not running for the Áras. Mr Kelly had previously ruled himself out of running. He considered contesting the nomination against Ms McGuinness earlier in summer, but he ultimately decided against it. After deliberating for little over an hour on Monday evening, Fine Gael's executive council decided it would reopen nominations on Tuesday until September 2nd. Ms Humphreys, who also previously ruled herself out, has yet to declare her intentions. However, party sources have said that following the vacation of the nomination by Ms McGuinness, she has expressed strong interest in representing the party in the autumn poll. Her candidacy has been strongly backed by Tánaiste and party leader Simon Harris . Last month, Mr Kelly had ruled himself out of the contest by saying the presidency was a largely 'ceremonial' role. He appeared to walk those comments back on Tuesday, and said that his comment 'was in comparison to presidents around the world who have executive powers.' 'But I think actually there's a huge potential in the job, it is the highest honour in Ireland. And if you look at what the last number of presidents have done, they've done tremendous work. There's huge flexibility there,' he said. He said that a remark he made in ruling himself out that 'a day out of Kerry was a day wasted' was a 'a tongue in cheek' comment. 'I'd be bringing the Áras to the people as much as the people to the Áras, so that's not a problem at all.' Mr Kelly said that he will now start lobbying for support from the Fine Gael parliamentary party. He will need the support of at least 20 TDs and senators. It is understood Ms Humphreys already has the overwhelming support of Fine Gael's parliamentary party, despite having not yet formally started lobbying for support. Mr Kelly said that he believes Fine Gael's base would like to see a contest for its presidential candidates. 'I think the people, particularly members of the party, would like to have a contest. We didn't have a contest for a long time now, because we didn't have a contest at the last presidential election seven years ago, we didn't have a contest for the leadership. 'We weren't going to have a contest when Mairead got the nomination, so I think people would like to have a contest. Contests are good for parties, are good for democracies, and I think that I would welcome a contest, and hope I'd be part of it.'
