Merry Christmas!

From this bastion of unbelief and decadence, a very merry Christmas to all of my enormous readership! I am now esconced in my family residence in the rolling hills of the Borders. I Went to Midnight Mass last night (i.e. this morning). How droll and boring. I can see why the congregation is reducing in number. I wished I'd had a bit of Dutch courage and taken over from the priest - such was the overwhelming drollness of the Mass. I mean, who preaches a pre-prepared sermon that he's found on the internet. And all of that silly Popish ritual - kneeling before entering the pew, making the sign of the cross, incense - how can people take it seriously?!

I've cracked it. I know why Catholics are the filthiest, naughtiest denomination of Christendom. It's all of that ridiculous ritual. I mean, if you had to maintain the pretence of doing all the signs, the rosary beads, etc., of course you'd get bored and start fantasizing about the choirboys or Mrs. Jones and her daughters in the pew 2nd from front.

To appeal to the decadent masses of Europe, Christianity must be stripped of superfluous ceremony. We must remove the rituals and costumes. And in Europe in particular, we must brace ourselves for the onslaught of radical Islam. I don't think it's a huge stretch of the imagination to think about congregations gathering in secret while the civil war is in full swing. Myra Hess playing piano in the National Gallery while the blitz was raging; same kind of thing. Instead of Catholic priests sneaking away into hidey-holes in country houses, this time Christians of all denominations will be under duress.

The United States will be the last redoubt of the Christian faith, unless events take a sudden change of course, and soon.

Merry Christmas to everyone, and let us hope that our politicians regain their senses, or perhaps that a great man rises from nowhere to confound them all.

What hope for true conservatism in Britain?

It may have escaped the attention of American readers that this man, David Cameron, has just been elected leader of the British Conservative Party. If it has, don't worry, it matters not a jot.

As it says on the BBC website, David Cameron is an Old Etonian and an alumnus of Brasenose College, Oxford. According to the BBC, his tutor at Oxford, Prof. Vernon Bogdanor, describes his views as "moderate and sensible conservative". Could there possibly be a less suitable candidate for a conservative revival?

"Moderate and sensible" is codespeak for "wet". What Prof. Bogdanor is saying is that Cameron is not the sort of chap who intends to rock the boat. He doesn't have any zeal for genuine reform. He's a nice, sensible, middle of the road ordinary guy just like you and me who happens to be vexed and goaded by some of life's petty annoyances - high taxes, public sector inefficiency etc. that he's decided to be a public-spirited individual and try in his own small way to sort things out. Never mind the bigger picture - Islamic extremism on the march, the loss of British sovereignty to "Europe", the growing problem of an uneducated, violent underclass, the loss of social cohesion.

The Tories, despite all the rhetoric they can muster, have been beaten so often and so comprehensively by the media that they've developed a sort of cuckold-husband syndrome. The more they are hurt by media caricatures - too white, too male, too middle-class, etc. - the more they prostrate themselves before their tormentors and the more concessions they offer in a desperate attempt to dispell some of the "nasty party" myths.

Though I realise that every man and his dog has a theory about what the Tories need to do to win power, let me explain what we need to happen, not necessarily for a revival of the Conservative party, but for a revival of conservatism in Britain.

Two things are required:

1. A free market in televisual media. The majority of people in this country get their news from the BBC (ostensibly impartial but well to the left of centre), ITV (soft left but vacuous and devoid of hard content) and Channel 4 (explicitly left wing). Hence, no surprise that the Conservatives have trouble getting impartial or favourable coverage on TV. However, if one looks at the political inclinations of the printed media, there are plenty of right-of-centre papers - the Telegraph, the Mail, the Express, the Sun. There would undoubtedly be a market for a conservative news and documentary channel, perhaps along the lines of Fox News. The Tories need to realise that they can NEVER expect fair treatment from the MSM, and that the best approach is to fight the cultural hegemony.
2. Pick a candidate who isn't as damned boring as Cameron. I'm not asking for a Barry Goldwater, just someone with a bit of steel in them. Someone in the mould of a Reagan or a Thatcher. My concern now is that the post-Thatcher transformation of the Tories has put off true conservatives from trying to join the ranks of the Parliamentary party. If all the Tories can get excited about is a few pennies off the tax here and some public sector reform there, then those people whose lives are blighted by crime, who are concerned about the rise of Islamic extremism, who have enough common sense and a vantage point more suited to seeing the bigger picture will give the Tories the cold shoulder they deserve.

To sum up, the prospects for a conservative revival are slim. Not because such a revival is inherently impossible, but because of the naive and wrong-headed way the Tories are going about it. Day by day, the country slides towards civil disorder and societal breakdown. The man in the street feels that there's something wrong with this country and he can't quite tell what it is. Let us hope that true conservatives understand what is going on and persuade the public to vote for them. The alternative scenario, that of a new form of facism exploiting mass public discontent is a terrible one and would seem peculiarly inappropriate for this country, which played a pivotal role in the fight against the orginal form 60-odd years ago.