Malcolm Rifkind may be the last non Cockney to capture the Royal Borough
It was reported that Mr Jacob ReesMogg, the son of Lord and Lady Rees-Mogg, was told that he could not be Kensington and Chelsea's prospective Conservative candidate because he lacked 'the common touch'. This must be a rare instance of anyone in Kensington and Chelsea, certainly in the higher reaches of the Kensington and Chelsea Conservative Association, using 'common' as a term of approbation.
I cannot claim to know Mr Rees-Mogg very well. But he is one of the few of the younger politicians whom some of us are positively pleased to see enter a room or meet at table. He does something in the City. But we can be sure that it is the sort of thing that generations of his kind have done before him. We know we are not confronted with a standard member of the politocracy — interchangeable between New Labour and inclusive Tory — from the dispiriting world of PR and lobbying. There is no evidence that Tory traditionalists put off voters. I seem to remember reading somewhere that, fighting The Wrekin at the last election, Mr Rees-Mogg received a lower-than-average swing against himself. I hope that is not wishful thinking on my part.
My wider subject here, however, is social change in the Conservative party. Many Conservatives, it seems, believe that the only way they can win back the voters is to make themselves identical with New Labour, and choose Conservative candidates no different from those of any other party except the BNP. There would be no room now for a Disraeli (too exotic) or a Churchill (related to a Duke, and showy). The party also mistakes egalitarianism for equality; egalitarianism in manners, and manner, having replaced the economic egalitarianism of which Mr Blair had to rid his policy in order to win in 1997. No longer does everyone have to have the same income, but they have to have the same outcome.
Even the Kensington and Chelsea Association, it seems, has fallen to blokiness, probably mainly among the women. The winner of the nomination, Sir Malcolm Rifkind. with his Edinburgh lawyer's vowels, may be the last non-Cockney ever to capture the seat. He probably won it this time only because the contest did not include a true descendant of a pearly king. Even so, the Association's womenfolk must have held many a plotting lunch in an effort to find a
contender with the common touch to stop Mr Rees-Mogg.
Just to get into the right mood, they would have eschewed their usual Caesar salad and polenta around Sloane Square and opted for a pub lunch down towards Fulham. 'Lavinia, darling, lovely to see you. Order me a Kate and Sidney1 and an Apple Frittera, would you, while I go for a Hit and Miss3?' Returning. 'Now, to business, we've got to stop that Jakey Rees-Mogg. I've been on the Dog and Bone4 to all the hereditaries one knows, and they say that even the life peers are against him. So he can stick that up his Khyber5. I don't like his Boat6 or his Barnet7. Do you think we could put it around that he's a bit of an Iron8?'
'Now, Georgiana, don't be silly. If he was, inclusive old Central Office would lay that on with a bleedin' Lord Lovellg. Jakey would Ball-of-Chalkm it. Anyway. I think he's got a Carvin'11 with a decent pair of Bacons12 and a couple of Dustbins13. So there's nothing queer about his Hampton". Aren't you having the Loop's, by the way? For my main course, I'm having the Jack [8. Face it, this time round we've got to back Rifkind. Remember: next time we might get someone seriously common.'
'Oh, I do hope so, my dear.'
1Steak and kidney; 2Bitter; 3Piss; 4Phone; 5Khyber Pass — self-explanatory; 6Boat Race — face; 7Barnet Fair — hair; 8Iron Hoof — pouf; 9Shovel; 10waik; "carving knife — wife; 12Bacon and eggs — legs 13Dustbin lids — kids; "Hampton Wick — mildly obscene; 15Loop the loop — soup; ifgack the Ripper — kipper.
C enator Kerry might still beat President Bush in November. But Senator Edwards would have a better chance of doing so. That is what the figures, rather than the results, really tell us. Mr Edwards, according to the opinion polls, and other evidence, is more popular than Mr Kerry among independent voters and Republicans who might switch from Mr Bush. Yet Mr Kerry is beating Mr Edwards for the Democratic nomination.
The explanation lies in the now rigid way in which American parties choose their presidential candidate. The Constitution lays down that the first voting in the process takes place in Iowa and New Hampshire; two states unlike the country as a whole — Iowa because it is unusually liberal and New Hampshire because it is unusually small. Whoever wins in either has 'name recognition' in the rest of the United States. Mr Kerry was able to win in Iowa because he was liberal and in New Hampshire because he is, like New Hampshire, from New England.
If the first tests were in, say, Missouri and Ohio — two 'swing states', or what we would call `marginals' — Mr Edwards would, I suspect, have won. The New Hampshire primary dates from 1952. The Iowa caucus became prominent in the 11970s. Television made both important. A candidate seen winning on television became hard to stop from winning the nomination. Before television, several candidates used to do well enough in the primaries to be in with a chance at the convention. There, much was decided in 'smoke-filled rooms' — now banned by health faddists over-represented in the Democratic party. So it serves them right if they are forced to nominate candidates who lose.
The news that, in the hope that it might help him become the owner of the Daily Telegraph and The Spectator, Mr Desmond has sold his pornographic magazines will have raised concerns about declining standards in his publishing empire. Common sense suggests that there is a considerable overlap between male readers of the Telegraph and The Spectator and readers of, say, Big Ones. 'Synergy' is the business term. There is, however, no incentive for Daily Telegraph readers also to buy Mr Desmond's existing daily newspaper, the Daily Express. That is the publication he should have sold to convince Telegraph readers that he is a suitable owner. Also, despite years of attempts by the Telegraph marketing people to make the paper multicultural, I am not sure that many Telegraph male readers are Asian Babes men.
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