Gaming Conferences And Golf

After the Liberal Democrat and Labour Party Conferences both of which have shown parties in disarray and uncertainty, the way is open for the Conservatives to take advantage.

This means clear thinking, coherent policies, broad agreement, a sense of team spirit, dignity, intelligence and dare I say it, a little style lacking in the other parties.

We are not going to have it.  Already Ken Euro-Clarke has got out of the attic demanding to bring back the much loved policies of Edward Heath and Listen With Mother on the radio.

We know how he incites other lesser beings. He has much to offer the Tories, notably from British American Tobacco, Unichem, assorted financial services interests and not least what he has learned from his friends in the Bilderberg.

The knives are already polished for the ritual back stabbing to take place in quiet corridors, corners of bars and expensive restaurants.  Rivals will seek to ruin reputations and tell tales of errors of personal judgement.

The debates about policy will leave us none the wiser as to what they are or why.  Excuses will be made for what went wrong, especially under Cameron.  Promises will be legion for things that can never be delivered.

It will all be a charade from which we will learn little and gain nothing.  Today, I would like to go to the peace, quiet and dignity of the Ryder Cup.  Unluckily, this is not possible, elements in the American crowd preventing this.

It is a grim irony that the Euro man the Americans hate is Rory McIlroy, the golfing great from Ulster and if I am not mistaken with a good smack of Scots Irish in the blood. American's  tend to know little of their history.

In recent decades they have forgotten that many of the USA ideas about democracy, freedom, rights and Independence etc. came with the Scots and Scots Irish migrants of the 17th and 18th Centuries.

See "The Scottish Invention of America, Democracy and Human Rights", University Press of America, Klieforth and Munro, 2004.

The immediate concern is whether we are going to have months of snow and ice, as forecast by weather people headed up by Piers Corbyn, yes one of the those Corbyns, which would do for the Tories, or the kind of milder winter of recent years.

Wait and see.