I think you’re putting 2 and 2 together and making 3,456.

Montgomerie’s argument in that piece is that Cameron has neglected his base, and that this is a mistake. He recognises that the reaching-out/detox policy needed to be done, and that this should remain central, but that old-fashioned politics should return.

Therefore the three pronged target:

1. It’s the economy stupid;
2. Don’t forget your base – crime and immigration were the only two areas where the Tories had a lead over Labour in 2005. That doesn’t mean they’re the same thing, or that they should be conflated. It just means that they are two areas where the Tories have traditionally been strong;
3. Keep reaching out – stick with the NHS, DfID approach, because it’re reflective of how the party has changed.

The desire to see racism at every corner is a bit demeaning.

there is no method(ism) to Monty’s (inadvertent) madness

Tim @1: That’s the initial defence I expected, certainly, butI’m afraid it just doesn’t stand up. Certainly there is no explicit recommendation that the two aspects of messge 2 should be conflated, but he’s not stupid – he knows how it will be read by his target audience, those who will have input into local Tory leaflets either centrally or locally.

He can’t have it both ways, saying that the initial 6 messages need to be brought down to 3, but then argue that actually one of the 3 is actually 2.

And the sad thing is I know that Tim Montgomerie may be acting against his better nature. I understand he was behind the anti-BNP ‘nothin British about’ website for example. But here he’s not just pandering to the more abhorrent wing of his party, he’s giving them advice on how to be abhorrent.

3 – I’m sorry, but you’re just reading way, way too much into that – and bandying ‘disgusting’ ‘racist’ and ‘revolting’ about on the strength of virtually nothing. The very same piece contains:

The Tories certainly have changed btw. See the pledges to protect the poorest and the NHS. On civil liberties the party is very, very different from the Michael-Howard-as-Home-Secretary era (although possibly less in step with mainstream public opinion). The parliamentary party will be less male and less white. The party is also much more liberal on gay rights.

If you’re going to argue that using the words ‘crime and immigration’ together makes you a disgusting revolting racist, you’ll have to include all newspapers’ Queen’s Speech analysis, as crime and immigration are traditionally used as a sub-heading together. Here for example:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/dec/03/queens-speech-justice

Oh, and the Home Office, that also use them as subsets of the same area. Here for example:

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/mori-polls-2009/tracker-february-20092835.pdf?view=Binary

Why is it Tories like Shitterface are so keen to attack Labour for even talking to “evil anti-gay Muzzlims” but silent when the biggest online Tory cheerleader, Montgomerie, is a Christian?

Do I need to remind you about the stuff in the Bible that is deeply intolerant?

And this man calls himself a Christian.

Is he anti science, intolerant bigot and an open racist? If so, he can be proud of his ‘committed Christian’ label.

OMFG – are we saying that crime & immigration aren’t linked? Ofcourse they are – that’s err… why some people are called illegal immigrants. The clue’s in the name. Ofcourse they aren’t directly correlated and it in no way states that they are but there is a perfectly coherent thread to give rise to the regard that illegal immigration – that which has not been manged, policed, enforced etc is a serious concern.

No, I’m sorry Tim@4. It’s just not reasonable to compare Tim M’s guidance on leaflet production with the fact that the areas of policing and immigration fall under the same Whitehall department.

I do, however, take your point about the Mori polling you refer to. I’m not here to defend the Home Offices and its ministers’ pandering to media scaremongering about immigration, and I’ve been happy enough to take Jack Straw to task for same in the past http://thoughcowardsflinch.com/2009/10/27/immigration-policy-when-evidence-actually-counted-for-something/

Blanco @5: I think you may be thinking of passages from the Old Testament. I was referring to the New Testament.

8 – the opinion polls linked to do not conflate crime and immigration in any way. They are a series of questions about crime, and a series of questions about immigration. They are in the same document because it is considered to be in the same subset of government. Hell, before the recent split you could have summed up the Home Office itself as being basically about crime and immigration.

I’m afraid you need a lot – a hell of a lot – more to base this attack on. Accusing Tim Montgomerie of being a disgusting repulsive racist requires actual evidence of his racism. His suggestion that Conservative campaigners not only concentrate on the economy and the ‘detox’ policies but also talk about old fashioned Tory policies (and I’ll repeat – in 2005, the only two areas where Tory policies were preferred were i) crime and ii) immigration) is not racist. It’s a ridiculous, hysterical reaction to claim that it is.

I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree, Tim @10, but I should clarify what I am trying to say about Tim M. I’m not seeking to paint him as a ‘disgusting, repulsive racist’ because I acknowledge that the consequences of the conflated message he is recommending to Tory activists may well be unintended, and in the comments I’ve noted his anti-BNP website.

What I am saying is that a) he is promoting the development of racist material by his party, however unthinkingly; b) he might have reflected more on the message he was promoting and to whom he is promoting it, given his professed Christian commitment and his willingness to make public how that faith informs his work.

11 – Fine. I just don’t think you’ve made a case that Montgomerie is saying anywhere that “it is perfectly reasonable to insinuate/imply/spell out that crime is a problem because there are immigrants, and immigrants are a problem because there is crime”.

Talking about crime and immigration might mean that you are conflating the two – a leaflet that had something about “since 1997 Little Whinging constituency has seen 500,000 immigrants arrive, and the results are plain to see: more crime…etc etc” would be such a conflation. But it might not. A leaflet that said “Since 1997 Labour has failed. Failed on the economy, failed to police our borders, failed to keep our streets safe, failed even to feed the elderly in hospital” would not be.

Actually, on reflection, Tim @10, I do regret using the word ‘disgusting’ as it is just a little bit too vitriolic. ‘Disturbing’ might have been a better word.

Tim J’s done a fine job there….

Moving slightly off topic something I find very amusing (for those who do conflate crime and immigration) is that immigrants tend to have lower crime rates than the indigenous. That’s certainly the American experience anyway.

In this guise, Montgomerie is now proposing that each Tory leaflet before the election should strip the content down to three key messages. Here they are:

(1) something on the economy, emphasising how Brown has failed on controlling debt, cutting waste and regulating the banks;

(2) something on crime and immigration; and

(3) something on protecting the NHS and the most vulnerable.

(My emphasis)

The problem with (2) is that it’s a dog whistle, and the point with those is to signal to the dog, regardless of the motivations of the whistler. That ‘something’ might be official Tory party policy, or it might also be an encouragement to Tory PPCs to say what they really think – resulting in a bidding war to see who can be ‘toughest’ on crime and immigration (note how they form one point and not two separate ones). Trust me, there’ll be a lovely media feeding frenzy in the making based on ‘off-message’ candidates’ campaign materials during the election.

PS: Given the Tories can’t do anything about internal EU migration even if they do win, presumably the ‘something’ has to do with immigrants from everywhere else, from America to Zambia…but I don’t think it’s the former they’ll be sending signals about.

(3) something on protecting the NHS and the most vulnerable.

They don’t fit together either.

“The editor of Conservative Home, Tim Montgomerie, is, I understand from the Financial Times, a ‘committed Christian’.”

So remember the parable of the talents then. The bottom line was;

’28 Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. 29 For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. 30 And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
Matthew chp. 25
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2025:14-30

Ergo, screwing the poor is entirely consistent with the best Christian principles.

It was Disraeli as Conservative party leader who made an issue of One Nation Conservatism and he was the grandson of immigrants to Britain.

Nuff said.

Oh joy, Tim W coming here to pat Tim J on the back for obfuscation.

only a matter of time before Tim Twat turns up to give the other two Tims a big hug

but he’s not stupid – he knows how it will be read by his target audience, those who will have input into local Tory leaflets either centrally or locally.

I’m reminded of this – http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2004/oct/08/society.ukcrime

Tim Montgomerie is a revolting neo con. And he just copies the American right wing methods which include this kind of nonsense.

Always remember with Tim he as never had an original idea in his life. He just copies the American right wing.

And once again the two Tim’s jerking off again to the conservative party.

Funny how tories always forget that before the global crash they were asking for more deregulation of the banks. In fact Call me Dave was demanding that Britain’s banks became more like the US’s banks. Funny how the media does not report that and how call me Dave has gone quiet on that line.

‘Why is it Tories like Shitterface are so keen to attack Labour for even talking to “evil anti-gay Muzzlims” but silent when the biggest online Tory cheerleader, Montgomerie, is a Christian?’

What the fuck are you talking about, dipshit?

(a) I’m not a fucking Tory, I’m an anarchist. Find one post where I back Tory policies. Contempt for New Labour does not equal Tory.

(b) I despise all religion, Christianity included. Again, point me to my support for Christianity. However, while the Catholic church may be intollerant of homosexuals and divorcees, I don’t recall seeing pictures of homosexuals hanging from cranes in the Vatican or ‘immodest’ women being flogged or stoned to death.

(c) And if you are the Pickled Politics poster who also called me ‘shitterface’ and threatened to murder my family you should have been fucking banned by now.

Prick.

“And this man calls himself a Christian”

That was a message from our religious affairs correspondent.

“Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, Who is on the LORD’s side? let him come unto me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him.

And he said unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour.”

Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:

But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.

And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.

Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?

And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?

Referring to Tim Montgomerie’s article, I note that there is a sidebar containing some opinion poll results. In the poll, the questions “Tougher on crime” and “Tougher on immigration” are separate. In the text he identifies them as “the top two issues that would encourage someone to vote Conservative”. Thus I have to conclude that he consciously regards the issues as separate.

I consider both topics as ones that draw out the nastiness in any party. They have to be addressed with a lot of sensitivity if a party really intends a meaningful debate and has real policies. Owing to their toxic nature, they aren’t the policies that you should bang on about on every leaflet.

Montgomorie is certainly guilty of crassness. And possibly of a subconscious conflation of the two topics. His biggest sin is that many hours later, he has not changed the conjunction so that the proposition reads “something on crime or immigration”

“He is presumably familiar with the way in which the parable of the Good Samaritan warns us away from racist stereotyping”

I thought Mitchell and Webb made a convincing case for the view that the parable was implicitly racist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rywVlfTtlMY

#26

There are still better examples of universalism in the NT than the Good Samaritan, (the parable of the Great Banquet being one of my favourites), but the clearest stuff on immigration imo are the passages in Leviticus, which go further than some open borders activists in demanding not just uncontrolled immigration, but guaranteed work and welfare for migrants too! My issue is not the possible conflation of crime and immigration by Montgomerie, but why he doesn’t take what the bible has to say on immigration seriously and advocate the abolition of immigration controls.