ninme

An Englishman’s Castle linked to c o n s e r v a t i v e h o m e . c o m and the first thing I see is this article:

DEAR AMERICAN CONSERVATIVES: You don’t know Tony Blair like we do… by Tim Montgomerie

I was in Washington DC over new year for a British-US wedding. My American host took me to the Capital Grille* to ’see in’ 2005. As we went to pay for the champagne, the bartender announced that the drinks had been paid for. A very merry gentleman next to me – wearing an elephant-festooned Republican tie - insisted that no Englishman would be paying for anything. “You come from Tony Blair’s country”, he said. “Blair was a stand-up guy against Saddam. We love him.”

I can’t visit America without conservatives paying tribute to Britain’s Labour Prime Minister. Friends in the White House and Senate all gush over “Tony”. Websites like ThankYouTony.com* capture the conservative adoration for a man who learnt his triangulating strategy from Bill Clinton. I once saw ultra-conservative Fred ‘Beltway Boy’ Barnes* ‘tear up’ when commenting on Blair’s 2003 speech to Congress. Irwin Stelzer’s book* about neoconservatism reprints another Blair oration.

That really amuses me, for some reason. But it’s sad, too. The entire party over there is saying, “Woah, wait a minute! We’re the ones you should be… oh crap.”

At any rate, it looks like it could be an interesting watering hole for British politics. The Englishman is watching to “see how it progresses,” and links to a Times article on it, if you’re interested.

THE Conservative Right is to turn to new American campaigning techniques and the internet to try to revive the party and overcome what it sees as opposition from the metropolitan Establishment.

Only weeks away from the general election, senior Conservatives will open a new front today in the battle for ideas by creating a website advocating “social conservatism”.

It will invite people to bypass the media and put forward their own views on how the party should evolve.

So, we should spread it around, I guess. Hope it helps.