Peter Hitchens

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

4/4 .@sketchblog. If the Tory Party split as it would under PR, into at least two parties (a vapid Cameroon faction and a Thatcherite rump), The Cameroons would spend a *lot* of time propping up the liberal-socialist coalition. — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

3/4 @skecthblog. In a PR system, there are potentially four liberal/socialist parties capabe of forming a coalition ( if necessary, including some liberal Tories). Actual conservatism, with one party, will be disadvantaged by alternative votes etc. — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

2/4 .@sketchblog In a PR system, this division would be accentuated. Labour is at lest two parties, and so are Liberal Democrats. Whereas conservatism in Britain is divided only by the fact that Tory voters have nothing in common with the 'Conservatives' they elect to Parliament. — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

1/4 .@sketchblog 'Admit' it? I'm not confessing guilt, but stating a fact - that *a* conservatve *party* (which the Tories are not) will not win a majority in a PR system. Why not? The left is historically divided in this country between Liberals and Socialists... — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

A defenc eof 'First Past the Post'. Any conservative who supports PR ( as so many nowadays foolishly do) is signing his movement's own death warrant. //hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2015/05/on-legitimacy-and-saving-fptp.html — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

Well, thank heaven for that, .@ThreeJacques. Rousseau's ideas were terrible. The virtue of FPTP is that it *can* (it doens't always) lead to strong decisive government, But it also enables the population to dismiss that government. PR does not allow that. . — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

J.S. Mill made trhe same point . But again .@ralf00652823 I must point out that a perfectly good word already exists for those who do not accept the conventional view - dissenters. 'Contrarian' is an insult deployed by the majority against the minority. — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

.@lewis_i3 I think many hundreds of thousands could say the same. Amazing that good, free education., just down the road, was once normal . But even more amazing that we got rid of it without checking to see whether the replacement would be better or worse. — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

That's the terrible thing about threats, .@sussexboil. They quite often work, when other methods fail. Fear plays much more of a part in our lives, and in our civilisation, than we like to admit. It is interesting how Utopias, set up by kindly people, so often end with terrror. — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

.@rossbeeefburger. Grammar schools were being closed all the time by then. There's no doubt some did not get on with them. — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

Thank you @davidevanjames. I had not heard before of pupils being reallocated to the Secondary Mod after passing the 11+ (though something similar can happen in Germany to borderline entrants) — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

This extraordinarily frank and moving memoir of a family rift, by @rowanpelling, is one of the best things in the papers today: Memo to Meghan https://t.co/NcUrINPTqC via @Femail — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

Why, .@Rossbeeefburger? Which year was that? — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

Sorry, .@Regardermonamis but it was in *2010* that I sought the annihilation of the Tory Party. It is far too late now. And abolishing FPTP will lead to permanent left-wing rule. So you do not concure with my view. — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

Thank you .@wtforeright. — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

@alanbolger14 I think that perhaps in the Cold War the emergence of a seriously neutralist party in the UK, with a chance of winning office, might have led to such manoeuvres. But with the Cold War over,who cares if UK is run by smoothie Blairite Eurocommunists or by an old Trot? — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

.@davidevanjames . Can you tell me where that was? — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

.@nadiasja. I genuinely have no idea what you mean. Can you please explain? — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

It has not such sense .@newscuckoo. The words which properly describe what you are referring to are 'dissent' and 'opposition'. The word 'contrarian' clearly implies a desire to be contrary. Genuine dissent is not a self-indulgent choice. — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

.@migintyallan Oh, I think its many failures *on its own terms* show it to be mistaken. — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

.@coatedrusset. I do not think *anybody* assigns virtue to this supposed characteristsic. I have always regarded it as an insult, levelled by people who cannot accept the possibility that anyone might disagree with them for honest and honourable reasons. — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

Obitaries of the late John Bird ( see https://t.co/v25u3NCdJu, but Times and Telegraph repeat) note that, despite failing the 11+ he was later transferred to a Grammar School. More common than most realise. — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

.@doresearch2020/OI think you misunderstand conservatism, which is a principle of action (or inaction) not a particular set of policies. Plainly, where it has failed in the past (as here), it will have far more ground to make up and be able to do far less. — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

No .@newscuckoo. We do not need *any* contrarians. People should contest conventional wisdom because it is mistaken, not for the sake of it. — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

.@rumptyhurumph. I've no recollection of the CIA organising a mob putsch here to replace our legitimate government with one they liked better. That was Ukraine, the well-known 'coup of dignity' . — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

.@oggmus. Why must you use this silly insult 'contrarian'? I did not (as here) take up the case of George Bell to be difficult, or to get noticed, but because I saw a grave injustice and sought to set it right. https://t.co/dAqGFb9eWB — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

'The biggest enduring reason for Iranian mistrust of the West is an event everyone in Iran knows about and almost everyone in Britain and the USA has forgotten. This was the 1953 Teheran putsch, mounted by America’s CIA and Britain’s MI6.' https://t.co/F85t2RKXKp — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

'Given the state of this country I am often struck by how keen we are to go stamping around the world improving other people’s lands' https://t.co/F85t2RKXKp — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

'We will not turn Iran into a civil society or a civilised power by threats, alarmism and anger or blatant intervention in its internal affairs. Try a little cunning, for once, and mingle it with self-knowledge.' https://t.co/F85t2RKXKp — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Fanatics feed on the (often ignorant and unself-aware) hostility of the West. https://t.co/F85t2RLvzX — PolitiTweet.org