Conference seems a long time ago.  I remember travelling home on the train sitting next to David Willets and Cheryl Gillian, full of optimism.  A great Conference.  Never underestimating the task ahead, key was that everything was pointing in the right direction.  George Osborne had just enjoyed the Conference of his life and delivered a speech which tackled the big issues and underlined the economic competence of the Conservatives.  David Cameron had delivered a barn storming speech which left all with hope, (yes that great word that Obama anchors campaigns around), that we were en route to a better future.  This was off the back of a dreadful Labour Conference that saw a less than half empty hall wearily trudge through a week of depression, until Lord Mandelson rallied their spirits, (and his future career prospects), with throws of inspiring rhetoric for the Labour faithful to finally have a sliver of hope themselves.

Things are bleak for this Government.  Indeed, for the country.

And yet…..opinion polls are throwing up mixed results.  Trending is that Conservatives are not dominating as much as we should be.  Local council by election results, are ‘disappointing’,(in the words of ConservativeHome’s Jonathan Isaby.  Iain Dale also asks the question why by-election results are not going our way).  Yes, there are always localised reasons at play at by-election results, and their impact can never be dismissed.  But we are not dominating.  Opinion polls are patchy and not as inspiring as the recent 17% lead polls.  Tim Montgomerie on ConservativeHome has alluded to a drop in Conservatives support post Lisbon Treaty ‘U-Turn’.  Many seem to agree with that sentiment on that blog site.  But there is more to it than Europe.

What is fundamentally true is that the Conservatives have so much ammunition at their disposal, the question why polls are not moving stronger in our favour is a valid one to ask!

Consider what’s happening around us…..

  -           The economy.  First into recession, last out.  And the deepest recession in Europe.  We hurtle catastrophically towards a £1 trillion debt that our children will still be paying off in years to come. Brown has got away with the biggest lie in Political history.  That lie?  That debt has been built up because Brown states he was saving the UK from recession, (actually he would say saving the world from recession but scrub that).  That’s like Tiger Woods saying he had 10 birdies in a round and his wife believing he was talking about Golf!   Brown was building debt way before this recession even started.  In the good times he was spending like a manic gambler at the roulette table, hoping the ball will end on black.  In the words of the IMF:  ‘Imbalances and balance sheet strains had emerged even before the recent global shocks triggered a sharp decline in economic activity’.  ie we were heading into recession and spending too heavily BEFORE the Global shocks took place. 

 -           Unemployment heads towards 3 million, (that’s by official figures), unofficially claims of 6 million seem more accurate.  That’s people’s lives wrecked, on hold, dignity stripped.  Benefits and dependency culture set in.

 -           Class War.  Entrepreneurs discouraged.  Bankers bashed.  Top talent packing their bags to work abroad as UK thumps those very people who can bring us out of slump, create jobs for others and generate tax revenues, pummelled to the ground, with more ferocity than an uppercut from Mike Tyson in his prime, by punitive tax rates.  50% for top earners.  40% threshold frozen.  More on NI.  VAT back up 2.5%.  Penalties on companies that reward bankers who make money, (the very people we need to save and keep in this country, not incentivise to work and benefit New York’s Stock Exchange). 

 -           The Unions start to flex their muscles.  Just as the nation was free from the strangulation and choking hold of the Unions, like in ‘The Shining’ ‘They’re back’!  Strikes on the increase, Union militancy.  Bob Crow back on the telly chanting his monotone messages like a failed XFactor auditionee.  The Post Office, on the brink of collapse, wont modernise, cancerously pumping money into its bottomless pension pit, faced by striking members, and growing competition.  The RMT, getting the Tube drivers out on strike, more often than we enjoy a boiling hot summers day that we can take off our shirts and bathe!  And that comes before the pending winter of discontent as Unions rally against Darling’s 1% pay rise limit for public sector workers.  Who will be out striking first?  Rush down Ladbroke’s and place your bet tonight. 

 -           Our population continues on its inextricable path towards 70 million.  Immigration remains unchecked.  Asylum seekers lost amongst the population.  Our open borders burden the UK putting huge strain on over stretched public services, with the NHS groaning under the weight, school classes getting bigger, new houses being built on green belt, predicted power shortages for the years ahead as we don’t have the power stations to support our surging nation, public transport wheezing and roads at a standstill. 

 -           We are in the midst of a deeply unpopular war.  Over 200 brave soldiers have been returned home in a coffin.  Debates over strategy have been rife.  More concerning than that, real questions over the equipment troops are issued with and the lack of protection eg helicopters, have undermined this Government.  There could not be a more inept and ‘uncaring’ Defence Minister in Bob Ainsworth.

 -           The Iraq enquiry is rapidly tarnishing the reputation of ‘Labour’s greatest Leader’, Tony Blair.  We hear daily about the lack of credible evidence of weapons of mass destruction and the inability of Saddam Hussein’s regime to produce workable ones.  Coded language comes from the Iraq Enquiry that George W Bush wanted a hard line and pushed Blair into it.  Bliar indeed.

 -           A House of Commons with politicians so morally corrupt that make even Ronnie Biggs look respectable.  Yes, you will retort that Conservative politicians have been just as bad.  BUT the Government have been poor in taking any lead in cleaning up this sh*tstorm of a mess.  Cameron, has pushed Brown all the way.  Even this week we hear of Prime Minister Brown repaying £500 for painting a shed!

 -           Europe.  The continued enslavery of the British people continues to the faceless unelected bureaucrats of Europe.  Now we have the dreaded Lisbon Treaty with the instantly forgettable, but powerful. President of the European Union, (Herman Van Rompuy), and Foreign Minister, Cathy Ashton, (a Brit who was as vocal in British politics as Sooty was to Children’s TV!).  Blair and Brown promised a referendum for the British people but it never ever emerged.  Yes, Cameron took some hammering on his so called U-turn but a referendum on a Treaty in force is daft.  Another referendum on whether we have given too much power away, hell yes.  The blame for our European ills lay firmly at Brown’s door.

-           Education, Education, Education.  Blair’s famous pledge that education was his first, second and third priority.  A memorable catch phrase that was almost Turette’s by nature, proved to be as reliable as Amy Whinehouse sticking to drinking coke in a bar all night !   Education failures rack up.  50,000 A-level students miss out on a place at university.  This year 52,000 more people applied to University but only 13,000 extra places were made available.  The number of young people not in employment, education or training (Neet) has leapt by more than 100,000 in the past year.  Government statistics show there are now almost 960,000 16- to 24-year-old Neets in England, more than 230,000 of whom are aged between 16 and 18.  Oh and the flagship policy, SAT’s…teachers aim to boycott them next year!

-           A big brother state that worms its way into every aspect of our lives.  Want to help out at your local school?  Drive friends Children to their Cubs or Girl Guides?  Got to be checked on the anti paedophile register first.

Quite literally I could go on all night listing failure after failure after failure.

Fertile ground to be in Opposition.  Too much to choose from.  Should be Christmas all year round.

Opinion polls should be absolutely hammering Labour for their incompetence.  Criminal incompetence.  But they aren’t.

Some recent polls have put the difference between Conservatives to 10% difference.  Labour commanding a mid – late 20’s position.

Who the hell is being polled?  Who is supporting this shower?

As we head towards an election, the most important in many a lifetime, Conservatives need to open up the gap and generate clear blue water.  This is the ‘Schumacher’ moment when we need to be so far ahead of the field, we need to be lapping not only the back markers but coming up to lap the entire field.  Schumacher never slowed up.  He pummelled his fellow drivers into the ground.  As we must do now.

So what is wrong?

Why are we not opening up more of a gap?

Many commentators say that Conservatives Agenda is not yet bought by the British people.  Voters don’t quite trust us as yet.  They don’t understand what we stand for.  They like nice Mr Cameron but don’t have a feel for what he would do.

Much of this can be brought out in the wash in an election campaign say Conservative campaign team leaders.  Maybe…in them we have to trust!  We are not privy to the campaign they intend to use to convince the people.

But one suggestion I would impart onto David, Eric, George & William is that the key word around the campaigns table must be emotion.  Emotion is what politics lacks.  Emotion means getting personal.  It means relating to the ordinary person in the street.  Emotion creates and bonds loyalty and trust.

Politics today is too focused on debating statistics or policies.  As we all fight the election in the middle ground, choices get confused, differences misunderstood by the public, whose political antenna is not as attuned as Westminster politicians think.  I say we all fight in the middle, the key word is that all parties want to be perceived as in the middle, to attract the largest number of voters.  Matters not that policies may be more left or right wing, the centre is where we all will fight, (rightly or wrongly in your opinion).

Margaret Thatcher and Norman Tebbit had their finger on the pulse of the people.  They spoke in terms that people understood.  They personalised and humanised issues that people could relate to.  Politicians are forgetting that, just as any film director tries to do, it is about getting someone to believe in what they see.  Emotion is created by personalising issues.  Remember when Margaret Thatcher turned complex economic issues into the language that people understood.  On spending she equated the state to the family.  We cannot spend what we cannot afford.  When we are at home, if we cannot afford it, we save and then we can afford it, we buy it.  Simple language but the people loved it.  The housewife spoke!  Powerful and it resonated.  More so that today’s debate which quotes pure stats and percentages that Joe public does not understand…or will try to understand as they worry whether Joe, Stacey or Olly will win the XFactor!

Unemployment is not about a statistic of 3 million people it is about Mr Jones, who worked all his life, bought his own council house, can’t find work, wife fallen ill, daughter can’t afford University, a man depressed, lost his dignity but wants better for his family…and is fighting to earn money.  In him we respect and want to see him do well.

The health service is not about dirty corridors, increases in disease, rising cancer death rates, it is about Mrs Hughes, a mother who has a family of 3 beautiful daughters, husband died at war, who is diagnosed with cancer and facing life’s hardest choices.  How do we help her and her daughters.

Afghanistan is so more more than a statistic 200 dead, it is about John, a brave soldier on the front line who died by roadside ambush, a wife pregnant with his unborn daughter, a family torn apart.  How we help that family of a man who gave the ultimate sacrifice for all of us.

Public debt is not about a figure of trillion pounds.  It is about Mary, who is struggling to pay her mortgage, close to repossession, working for a company that is struggling to get credit, that is laying off workers, (her friends).

Violent crime is not about a percentage.  It is about 8 year old Sarah, whose father went to pick up a takeaway for the family, but never came home as youths taunted him, attacked him and used a knife in a savage unprovoked attack.

David Cameron is a thoroughly decent man.  Post the tragic death of Ivan the public saw a different side to the Politician.  They related to him.  A family man.  A bereaving dad.  A loving husband.  And they could associate with that.  We see less of the personal side of David of late.  That loving family man, the dad, the husband, has been less visible.   The emotion of the man not emanating out.

Some may shout this down.

But just sit and watch ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ or ‘The X Factor’.  Watch how contestant’s are introduced.  How emotion is used to get that tear welling up in your eye.  Get that lump in your throat.  Make you leap our your chair and vote for them because, for that moment in time, ‘they’ matter to you more than anything else.  You support them.  You don’t care paying a phone vote because you feel better in yourself for supporting them.  You feel you are making a difference.  We can all point to stories used on shows like this.  The daughter who was told by her dad to audition for Britain’s Got Talent by a dad, who died suddenly and she is now doing this for him.  Who did not feel emotional.

So, David Cameron, more than anyone, realises the election is not in the bag.  By a long way.  It’s not over until he faces the cameras on election night after Gordon Brown has conceded defeat.

So dangerous waters lie ahead.  Gordon Brown has been getting more confident of late.  The last two PMQ’s have been his strongest for a long time.  Iain Dale even concluded that Brown beat Cameron in one of them.  Unheard of!  The economy will start to turn round in the new year.  Brown must sit by the fire at No.10 with Sarah over a mug of hot chocolate and array of biscuits, (as he can’t decide his favourite), and really laugh.  ‘Sarah, look at how bad a mess everything is and yet look at those polls.  We are only 10% behind!  Even with the state of the UK as it is the Conservatives can’t kill us off.  We could still win this Sarah!’…..as she forlornly and adoringly looks into the eye of her ‘hero’! 

And things can change in politics.  The nightmare scenario still exists.  What if Gordon Brown steps down early next year?  A new Labour Leader emerges, be it Johnson, Miliband, Purnell or Mandelson, and starts to distance themselves from Brown’s policies, as the economy picks up and as they benefit from a honeymoon period in the polls, that any new leader always does.

Could Labour win the next election.  Yes.  The public may do a 1992 and shock and keep an ‘unpopular’ Government in.  Better the devil you know.  ‘Oh well things are getting better let’s stick with Labour’.

Worst case, as Ken Clarke would say, a hung Parliament.  The best of no worlds.

Election loss.  Conservatives would tear themselves apart.  Many keeping their lips sealed now for Party Unity would feel empowered to state their case.  Something none of us ever wants to see ever again.

So let’s see more spark to our Opposition.  Let’s see our front bench hammering the Government ever harder.  Let’s see emotion, personalisation and humanisation used to bring issues closer to the public, so they understand what really is going on.

We cannot afford, as a Great Nation, to see Labour in again.

………………….Lord Pearson.

Clearly the best of the candidates standing for the post as UKIP leader.  But arguably none as charismatic as the outgoing Nigel Farage.  Many of us remember Lord Pearson as a former Conservative and strong Party Donor.  UKIP is home to many disgruntled Tories it seems!

Whatever your view of Farage, he has been the backbone of UKIP and his driving personality reaped rewards for the small fringe Party.  It will be interesting to see what happens under the unelected Lord and whether UKIP will now decline.  Pearson is a strong man.  He speaks his mind and is not afraid of controversy.  Maybe Farage will be back again one day….?

Farage is now free.  In the short term he has his fight against Speaker Bercow in Buckingham.  That will be one of the media spotlights in the coming campaign.  Will be interesting to see whether Iain Dale covers this in the next edition of Total Politics with his interview with the new Speaker.  I am sure knowing Iain he will.  Would love to know how Bercow feels about Farage.

What I cant get out of the back of my mind is that there would be no need for a UKIP, if the Conservatives were more sceptical in their attitude towards Europe…..but that’s another subject.

Prime Minister cutting Trident budget.  Prime Minister cutting £2bn off education spending.  More cuts yet to be announced as Whitehall Mandarins currently do the maths.  Where does this leave the Tories?  Is the Emperor trying to steal our clothes?

One of the key differentiators over the summer, ‘clear blue water’, between Labour and Tories has been the early identification by the Conservatives that there needed to be spending cuts to reduce the spiralling deficit.  Pre the recess Gordon Brown was scornful of Cameron’s policies.  At times deeply patronising.  For Brown the choice was between ‘Tory cuts, Labour Investment’.  Cameron was Mr 10%.  The man would axe teachers, health workers, public sector jobs etc.  Oh how times have changed over the Summer.  Brown has been dragged kicking and screaming down the road to Damascus.

Labour have now u-turned.  They have done a complete 180 degree turn and now are prioritising expenditure reviews….only because necessity dictates.  Brown wants to avoid that visit to the IMF, cap in hand, for a bailout of bankrupt Britain….pre the election at least.  So how has this situation developed over the past 2 weeks?  First up, leaked Treasury documents showed that Labour have been in the planning stages of 10% cuts over this summer, (making the abuse that Brown gave Cameron as Mr 10% farcical and deeply offensive).  Ed Balls comes out at the weekend to announce £2bn cuts in education spending.  Yes, this involves axing teaching staff, (something Cameron had been accused of).  Now today, Brown announces he is planning to cut circa 1/4 off Trident spending.  More spending cuts will be announced over the coming weeks.

Trident is an easy card for Brown to play.  He needs his friends on the Left of the Party.  The card carrying dregs left of CND will rejoice that this decision is a move in their direction, albeit only 1 submarine!   It will be interesting to see how Cameron plays the Trident decision.  The Conservatives have always been the Party of Defence.  Known for strong investment into the defence of the realm.  Does he play this card?  Does Cameron say that Labour is leaving the country weaker, as evidenced by the Afghanistan war with soldiers left with insufficient manpower, equipment, armoury, transportation and air power, backing this up with cuts in Trident? 

Or does Cameron focus on economic reality.  He needs to make big cuts.  Not every area can be ring fenced.  The health service is sacrosanct. But cuts need to be made, is Trident one area?  Tough decisions, which will be political by nature.  Cameron also has to be aware of the prevailing times.  Obama’s New World Order, reduce nuclear proliferation.  But times that also pose new dangers.  Unpredictable rogue states like Iran, North Korea, an unstable Pakistan and a real threat of a non conclusion to the Afghanistan War, hence leaving the Taliban regaining control.  Real danger exists and must never be discounted.

The public spending debate is starting to change.  It is no longer a choice of cuts vs. investment.  It is a choice of what gets cut and how much?  As we move forward, ardent critics of the Government’s policy in the past who urged drastic cuts in spending like World Bank, IMF, IOD, CBI, will neutralize their stance / start to make positive noises towards Labour, as they at last announce cuts.  The public sometimes have short memories and hence while the Tories led the way on proposing cuts, the Government will demonstrate they have been cutting, hence moving some way to shortening / blurring the clear blue water we built on this issue.

Now what is the best policy for the Conservatives moving forward?  We could be out manoeuvred by Labour!  This is a key strategic decision by Cameron & team.

Option 1 is silence.  Do the Conservatives need to detail all the policy areas they would cut?  This in effect is the age old argument over whether an Opposition should reveal a shadow budget.  Given spending decisions are being made, unpopularity will follow for this Government.  Already in education, teaching unions are discussing the need for strike action.  Do the Conservatives need to enter into a spending squabble between the Government and Teaching Unions, when we can leave them to it and grab the pop corn and enjoy the fireworks and watch our poll ratings rise.   As other cuts are announced.  More attacks will be made on the Government by those affected.  Strikes will follow.  Public protests.  Marches.  Demonstrations.  All from which we could sit back and watch poll support, in theory rise!

Danger of this strategy is Labour’s response and whether it would resonate with the public.  It is clear that Mandolsen’s strategy in the next election will be, there will be gentle cuts under Labour, precision cuts by a skilled surgeon, and the slogan will be life would be worse under the Tories.  They will state that Tories would propose ‘savage’ cuts.  They will try to paint us as ideologically committed and turned on by spending cuts.  They will paint us as the Party of Unemployment.  This will be the line that every Cabinet Minister will subconsciously try to drum into the electorate’s head.  But will the electorate believe that?  Will they trust a proven lying Government?  That’s the gamble.

Option 2.  That is for the Conservatives to take charge of the spending question.  George Osborne could call a press conference this week and show economic leadership by providing more detail in what Conservatives propose to cut.  We know that Whitehall is preparing the figures and Ministers chewing over what has to be cut.  Before they announce their results, Osborne could have trumped them and then accused Labour of copying Conservative proposals.  We know that Labour are happy to steal our clothing.  Look at Tony Blair.  New Labour was socialism in a pink dress and nice stiletto’s, hiding the evils which lay beneath. 

These are interesting strategic times.  Critical as we approach the next election.  As Conservatives move further towards the Left to attract Liberal Democrat voters, we have to ensure that a clear choice still remains for the electorate.  Choosing between different shades of the same colour can make it easier for bigger poll swings, one way or another.  Electoral volatility is well known in our electoral history.  1992 is a great example, with Major beating the odds, despite poll ratings being wildly wrong.

Of course, Labour are mightily unpopular today.  But what if Brown does decide to retire early because of failing health.  What if the Labour Conference next week is so rebellious, that more follow Charles Clarke and openly criticise Brown, that Brown either quits for the Party of the men in grey coats knock at the doors of Number 10.  The smiling Alan Johnson, the most likely benefactor of Brown going, would enjoy a media bounce and chance to change the Party’s policies, say he is listening to the Public, then the subsequent 3 month honeymoon period, could make it tougher for the Conservatives to achieve the thumping majority we all crave for, (if a snap election had been called to correspond with the honeymoon period).

So what is the clear blue water?  What differentiates us from the other parties?  Well several cards are ours to play.  Core issues like Europe, immigration and taxation are natural Conservative areas.  These are currently on the back burner.  Unplayed winning hands.  Why are they not being played some will ask?

The answer is that polls show that the biggest pool of undecided voters lay in the centre ground.  Lib Dem supporters are volatile.  They are feeling ‘warm and fuzzy’ towards Conservatives.  Given our core supporters want / demand change away from this dreadful Socialist Government, we can bank on their support.  Their votes are in the bank, (however much they want a real swing to the right).  So naturally, as we saw Eric Pickles do last week, the Party seeks to attract Lib Dem voters by playing smooth, sensual, alluring tunes to their supporters to dance to.  Pickles won’t play the Europe card now, as Clegg himself identifies, Lib Dems and Conservatives have different visions of Europe.  Lib Dems love the European Superstate.  Hence, keep Europe off the table.  Discussing Europe will make us less appealing to Lib Dem floaters.  Whilst the Party can, it advisably follows the strategy of winning and building upon core support and keeping away from controversial issues that could be divisive.  No need to rock the boat in the delicate run up to the election.

But….here comes the but….if this Government start to reduce the clear blue water, starts rising in the polls, voters getting more confused at who offers what…..no doubt the European question, Immigration and Tax will raise their head again.  But only if and when the Party need to differentiate itself.  Until that point, the controversial issues will lie sleeping…….

The Czech Republic may well provide the British public what they crave…a referendum on the EU’s ‘hated’ Lisbon Treaty.  I can hear the celebrations taking place now…..yes, a UK referendum is looking ever more likely.  Ideally, the Irish will vote ‘NO’ and kill the Treaty off in a little under 2 weeks but if they don’t….wouldn’t it be satisfying for the British people to finally have the chance to kill this Treaty!

Latest news through has potentially profound implications not only on the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty but the agenda & debate of the next general election. 

Yesterday, the Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer warned that a constitutional challenge to the Lisbon Treaty in the Senate could delay final ratification by up to six months.  This led to heated exchanges.  President Sarkozy of France had a hissyfit, he “exploded” when he heard the news, according to an EU diplomat, and is threatening the Czechs with unspecified “consequences” if they do not speed things up.  EU diplomacy…not like what you hear…bully and threaten the small states.  Unbelievable version of democracy.

Why is the French President so furious?  Most likely he views the Czech senators’ proposed complaint as a ploy by Václav Klaus – a long-time and vocal opponent of the treaty – to ensure that, even with an Irish ‘yes’, the treaty’s final ratification is delayed long enough to allow general elections to take place in the UK in 2010.

We cannot of course take for granted that the Irish will be bullied into a ‘Yes’ vote.  But the campaign in Ireland has been very one sided.  Brussels have provided officials to speak on all the national news outlets, tv advertising has been in your face and threats have been resonating with the Irish people, eg Vote ‘No’ and Ireland will be isolated, therefore lose investment and companies would relocate elsewhere…scary messages in a recession.  The degree of campaigning and ‘persuasive bullying’ for a ‘Yes’ vote has been stunning.  Such interference in the democratic process by the Brussels machine has been deplorable.  So, whilst we have to hope the Irish vote with their hearts and souls and stick to their original decision ie a ‘NO’ vote, we cant be surprised if the Brussels bullying pays off and a ‘YES’ vote comes through…as polls are indicating.  Hence this news from the Czech Republic is stunning and leaves many of us with a sense of hope. 

So if  Czech ratification is delayed until May, then our political parties could well go into the next general election with the whole treaty unratified.  David Cameron has a stated policy that we will hold a referendum if the Treaty is not ratified.  A ballot which would almost certainly lead to a strong ‘no’ in our traditionally Eurosceptic island nation.

This is a perfect scenario for Cameron and removes a major issue of contention.  Cameron’s biggest ‘ticking timebomb’ of an issue would have been if Ireland voted yes, the Czech ratified and hence the whole Lisbon Treaty was ratified and into law by the time Cameron could be in power.  It would have been a nightmare for Cameron to hold a referendum on a Treaty already signed into law.  It would have made him massively unpopular amongst his peers in Europe, (not that many would care about that but trade needs to run freely and not be interrupted by the machinations of disgruntled politicians).  Hence, Cameron coming to power with an unratified Treaty would be perfect as he can leave the choice to the British people…which we know would be massively in favour of rejecting the Treaty.

We know that Euro officials will do ALL they can to ensure that Czech fall into line.  They will never want the UK to vote on an unratified Treaty as it would destroy it.  Let’s hope that the Irish vote ‘NO’ and kill this Treaty but if they don’t….the Czech could lay us British the chance to drive the last nail home into this dreadful Treaty.

Now, thanks to the Czech Republic we may get our chance to vote in a UK European referendum.  The question is simple to pose:  ‘Should the UK ratify the Lisbon Treaty?  Yes or no?   ………. I look forward to campaigning actively, with many of you, for that ‘NO’ vote….unless the Irish save us the privilege!

The following is an EXCLUSIVE and never been seen/heard before interview with The Rt Hon J Enoch Powell.  It is highly revealing and adds to the legend and history that is Enoch Powell.  As ever Powell is forthright in his views and denunciation of European issues…..

The interview was conducted at Enoch’s home in South Eaton Place on Wednesday 31^st July 1991 and since has been sitting in my loft gathering dust…until today that is.  At the time I was a student, working on my University Dissertation on the Future Evolution of Europe: A Federal Europe or Sovereign States?  I requested Enoch’s advice and help and this forms the bedrock of this interview aired for the first time ever today!

Enoch Powell even today creates passionate reactions amongst people when his name is mentioned.  Dan Hannan recently stated that Enoch was a political hero of his…immediately this created shockwaves throughout the political community, such is the power of the name Enoch Powell….and the infamous ‘Rivers of Blood’ Speech.  Dan Hannan will certainly enjoy this interview….as I am sure that Enoch would have enjoyed Dan Hannan’s denunciation of Gordon brown…however Enoch would never have stood for election to the treacherous European Parliament!

To listen to the interview in full, (41 mins), please click here.  http://tiny.cc/6r0cF  Please note that this is a recording on pretty inferior recording equipment at the time, hence some distortion.  It is worth taking a look at the transcribe below.

My recollections of that day are still crystal clear.  As a student I was apprehensive at interviewing a political heavyweight and renown intellectual.  I was fortunate to go to his home in South Eaton Place.  Enoch opened the door, and he was of course a slight man, frail due to age, but he shook my hand with a firm handshake.  He took me straight to his study.  I can remember his study was full of cartoons and satire involving Powell over his many years.  He took me through some of his favourites.  He warmly made a cup of tea and provided generous amounts of biscuits.  I asked him whether he minded me recording the interview, to which he replied yes but he asked me to put all my notes and prepared questions to one side.  He wanted a natural interview and as a student, I should be intelligent enough to hold court with him, without the need for notes.  Powell never one broke eye contact.  Despite his advancing years his eyes were strong and his intellect was razor sharp.  We kept the interview short but he spent a good 3 hours with me.  I walked away impressed with the passion, intellect and the hospitality of the man.  We met several times post this event and he always made time to discuss latest issues.  I cannot speak highly enough of his compassion and courtesy shown to supporting a mere student!  Powell died in 1998.

TBB: Enoch Powell starts the interview with some views on European Integration.  In the present day debate over greater integration, Enoch has been somewhat puzzled over how the original EC, supposedly a free trade area, suddenly had greater connotations….and give his views on Margaret Thatcher’s Bruges speech……

Enoch Powell:“My point one is take the 1972 Act terribly seriously and also its repealability.  My second suggestion, something which hasn’t been adequately explored was the slip across from freedom of trade and intercourse, 1992 and all that, to common legislation, the extraordinary lack of analysis which was based on the hypothesis that in order to enjoy freedom of trade with another country you must have common law.  Now obviously you must have common law, at least there must be reciprocal law, which is not the same as common law, where that effects trade…..stick on trade for the moment, let intercourse go because that’s a separate point…. and there’s been a kind of sleight of hand whereby the necessity of reciprocity for the enjoyment of freedom of trade has been replaced by the assumed indispensability of identity of legislation, so that we have the extraordinary phenomenon that the common standard of bathing beaches…..there are a few things that can be less tradeable than a bathing beach. The point about intercourse is that another assumption has been left unexamined, namely the freedom of intercourse is part of freedom of trade, now it is not, indeed freedom of trade is an alternative to freedom of intercourse, the international division of labour is achieved by trade in the absence of non-trade intercourse, you don’t have to actually walk into the other man’s country in order to enjoy the fruits and the advantages of his particular situation or his productive capacity, so that the removal of frontiers was another illogical and extraordinarily unexamined supposed deduction from freedom of trade.  Freedom of trade has been taken without serious debate to involve freedom of movement…which it doesn’t.  And secondly, identity of legislation, now of course it is perfectly true that all legislative provisions effect economic behaviour, so that if A in country X and B in country Y are to be in relationships of totally unimpeded economic intercourse, they must live under the same laws, but this is an unauthorised extension of a concept of freedom of trade, so that I think if I were, I’m putting myself in your position as it were, enquiring what under explored aspects I would want to be pursuing, the manner in which this sleight of hand was achieved would be amongst them.  There is a third and curious political facet. Events since 1988 of course have in some way been dominated by Bruges.  Now Bruges was very remarkable, Bruges was remarkable in at least two respects.  Firstly, it was contrary to everything to which the person who spoke at Bruges had been a consenting party, now everyone can repent but as an example of repentance to all generations, as it says in ecclesiastical, Bruges takes some beating, and connected with that is a curious background to Bruges.  It was by its nature very visibly an official speech, not only was it delivered and distributed and handled in an official manner, as an official statement by the head of the Government, but the crafting of it and its contents were extraordinarily, well not to put too fine a point upon it, Foreign Office.  It isn’t as though the then Prime Minister had had a pencil and said’ Here I’ll write a speech’.  The reference to Gengis Khan is not one which would come naturally to Margaret Thatcher, nor would she have been someone who lay awake at night saying, ‘Of course Warsaw, Prague, Budapest, those too are great European cities’.  So it has the marks of Officialdom, and yet paradoxical for an official act it did not, it had not gone through the Cabinet machine which was the detonator of the explosion which blew Margaret Thatcher out of office two and half years, no two and a quarter years later.  Of course there’s another side to this, the counterpart to this, which was raised by recent statements made by Lawson, was that members of the Cabinet, in relevant departments, the Treasury, the Foreign office, were apparently content not to seek a Government view on the subject.  So it’s a very remarkable constitutional event which took place in 1988, and I’d even go as far to say that if one doesn’t understand the motivation and the background to Bruges, one is groping in the dark”

TBB: I asked Enoch what benefits he could see to standing outside the Community?

Enoch Powell: “What benefits do you want”?

TBB: I replied economic benefits.  And again asked if we could stand outside the EC when 50% of our trade is within Europe.

Enoch Powell: “But our trade with the other countries of the Community is not dependent upon our membership of the EEC and there’re as likely as bamboozled as we are by the fact that they have a trade surplus with the United Kingdom, so that it is an unjustified assumption, that outside of the EEC, though of course free from the constraints of the EEC, trade would no doubt develop or re-develop in other directions in other parts of the world, and no doubt the percentage would gradually be modified, but there’s no justification for equating membership of the EEC with the existence of mutual trade between the United Kingdom and those countries”.

TBB: I countered that there could be benefits in terms of Foreign & Defence policy having a common policy between the member states.  Also the benefit financially from deploying forces from pooled budgets.

Enoch Powell: “It depends who you think you are.  Defending what?

TBB: The country…..

Enoch Powell:“Well the defence of the United Kingdom has always depended upon alliance, upon a balance of power but it has never been assumed until recently that a balance of power and an alliance implied amalgamation with potential enemies.  So it’s the same, it’s this extraordinary slide from that which is taken from granted to that which is by no means relied upon and I think the two questions that you asked illiustrate the way that sleight of hand has been managed”.

TBB:  We then turned to a Single Currency, which Powell was well known to be opposed to.  I started by stating there were 3 main perceived advantages to a single Currency….

Enoch Powell:  “There are lots of advantages which flow from being a slave…free food, you don’t have to take decisions, and if you use somebody else’s currency, you can dispense with having an economic policy.  So I ask the question…who are we?…..

TBB: An Independent Nation….

Enoch Powell:  “Which is the prior and overriding question’!

TBB: I came back that we were an independent nation but not independent enough and asked him whether he agreed?

Enoch Powell: “But independence is not the same as omnipotence.  Iceland is independent but Iceland is not omnipotent.  The United States is independent but the United States is not omnipotent.  This is another of those slides which has been in use, indeed there’s almost a slide pattern which is visible, whereby something which is taken for granted is replaced by a sleight of hand with something quite different.  The desirability of independence is replaced by the desirability of omnipotence, it is never previously been assumed that a nation, in order to be independent, that is to say not overruled by other nations, had to be of unlimited power, and yet the one has been substituted for the other”.

TBB: I asked Enoch whether he was saddened that current developments were leading to what he had opposed all his life ie a federal Europe?

Enoch Powell: “Well my impression is that the wind is veering, maybe this is an old man’s delusion.  But compared with the sum of an indifference of the later seventies and earlier eighties, I think there’s a big contrast now in the rise of consciousness and criticism of the implications of being absorbed into a European political entity.  Anyhow never despair of one’s countrymen”. 

TBB:  In Powell’s Book ‘1992′, he states that the British people will awake from their slumber on Europe.  But they put off making a decision..until they reach the last point.

Enoch Powell: “Which is dangerous to foreigners”!

TBB:  Is this the case on Europe?

Enoch Powell:  “Well certainly they have been slow to believe what was being done to them and that is what makes the English so difficult to deal with.  That they appear to agree to things with which in reality they do not agree.  This sort of deference  and uncritical behaviour is extremely misleading to the innocent foreigner.  It was for this purpose I conducted my own little campaign in 1971 in the main countries of the EEC to tell them that the British couldn’t possibly mean it.  ‘You wait, you’ll see they don’t mean it ‘!  Now I had no proof of what I was saying except the general presumption of reversion to type.  That’s the way the British have always behaved, likely to be the way they go on behaving. 

TBB:  I asked Enoch why he thought the British people would prevent further integration now, compared to the 1970’s?  What’s the difference?

Enoch Powell: “They didn’t believe it, they didn’t believe anybody would attempt such a thing”!

TBB: And they do now?

Enoch Powell: “And now they are starting to wonder after all it wasn’t for real”!

TBB: Does national Sovereignty still exist in the hearts and minds of the British people?

Enoch Powell: “Dislike of foreigners exists”.

TBB: I asked him to clarify this and produce evidence.

Enoch Powell:“Well recently the injured astonishment at discovering that Parliamentary Legislation was capable of being overturned by a foreign court”.  (Referring to the European Parliament overturning British law which prevented foreign fishing vessels off our shores).  “Something which we have disliked since Henry VIII and which is indeed incompatible with having general elections at all, because if general elections are about the legislation which ought to be repealed, amended or introduced, then there’s no point in having general elections if one’s laws can be made, repealed and amended by others, so you might almost say that the propensity to indulge in general elections is of prima facie evidence of a desire to keep the law making power within the hands of the electorate”.

TBB: I asked Enoch whether the poor turnout at European parliamentary elections highlighted people’s discontent in Europe.

Enoch Powell:“Yes I suppose this could be treated as evidence that they don’t yet believe that the institutions of the EEC have become the effective legislative authority.  I think it’s a bit subtle.  I think the low turnout is a sign of not thinking that it matters rather than of being conscious of the supacession of our own institutions by those of the EEC.

TBB: We then turned to discussing the extension of powers to the democratically elected European Parliament?

Enoch Powell: “It’s elected by whom?  Not by an electorate.  This is the question of whether…. this goes the route of the representative principle, we accept that when we have a elected House of Commons, it can make law by a majority of one, but we accept this because we assume the unity of the electorate from which we deduce that if we don’t like the consequences we should change them because the rest of the electorate are like you and me.  A mere aggregation of two hundred and fifty million people is not an electorate as the basis for a legislative assembly, the legislative authority does not derive—-it’s a very important point, it does not derive from the ballot box, it derives from the identity of the electorate.  Because they are self-identified, because they regard themselves as an entity, they accept a majority verdict and regard a majority verdict as temporary… because since upon the whole they are all the same, and since generally speaking they have the same interests, the result of experience will be the same for you as for me.  It is therefore another of these tricks to say the House of Commons is elected, the European Assembly is elected therefore we can substitute the European Assembly for the House of Commons and nothing else will be altered.  If Ireland as a whole were still part of the United Kingdom, the people of what is now the Irish Republic will not regard a majority in an elected House of Commons as being valid for Ireland because they do not regard the Irish as the same people as the English, so that the validity of a majority vote and the authority of an elected Assembly derives from the homogeneity of the elected body”.

TBB: We then discussed why Enoch was opposed to a Single European Currency.

Enoch Powell: “Government’s print money ever since Midas, Government’s have mad money.  Now the power of Government to make money is a power, which like other powers of Government ought to be under our control.  If you passed the power to make money elsewhere, then you pass that power elsewhere and there is no point in having an election at which inflation, and so on, is an issue.  If you have a common curreny then you dont have general elections about the economy.  In fact you’re beyond general elections.  You’re beyond statehood.

TBB:  We then turned to the issue of a Central European Independent Bank. 

Enoch Powell: “The Emperor”!

TBB:  And whether an Independent Central Bank would remove politics from economics and possess economic benefits from the sudden lurch of free market economic to Keynesian demand management…..

Enoch Powell: “Well there are those who would wish not to be self governed, there are those who would wish the electorate not to take the decisions which the electorate takes….”

TBB:  I interrupted Enoch stating that well informed commentators would say decisions on the economy were affected by short term political /electoral considerations rather than longer term economic stability, which the Central Bank would not be affected by:

Enoch Powell: “So the Central Bank is wiser and better morally?  So we ought to have a dictator because we are not fit to govern ourselves?  We are not fit to control our government?  Well this point was raised with me at a meeting a few weeks ago, and I said simply, in answer to the person who raised the question, ‘Well you go and tell them’! and the laughter which followed…that was the answer of course.  It is a possible contention that we would be better governed if we were not governed, as we prefer to be governed, but you go and tell them”!

TBB:  We then turned to the ERM, (which would go on to spectacularly fail for the UK), given attempts to control exchange rates had failed in the past eg Bretton Woods, Gold Standard, Plaza & Louvre agreements, the ‘Snake’ & ‘Crawling Peg’, was it inevitable the ERM would fail?

Enoch Powell:“Nothing’s inevitable until its happened.  But there is one essential difference between the ERM and Bretton Woods.  Bretton Woods was not the creation, was not an aspect of an institution to which we had in 1972 transferred a superior authority in the United Kingdom, it was not part of a new states set up.  But it proved impracticable because there wasn’t a single state.  Because many of the factors by which the respective value of currencies is affected were outside control or prediction.  Of course there’s  lot to be said for an Empire, there’s a lot to be said for a Caesar or Napoleon, except that I’m not in the business of making the case for Napoleon or Wilhelm, but if you’re inclined to make the case, quite a good case can be made”.

TBB: I then informed Enoch that Mrs Thatcher supported the ERM because of the 6% fluctuation either way allowed for sterling, to which he replied:

Enoch Powell:“Well I suppose if you made it twenty percent you needn’t worry at all.  If you have an ERM where the permissible fluctuation is infinity you don’t have an ERM, and when we joined the ERM with a six percent permissible fluctuation, we did, I understand, give some sort of an undertaking that it would be our intention to narrow that.  Of course if fluctuation is possible, then you’re not subject to an agreed equation are you?  So it’s a fudge like so much else in life and no doubt, and this is tended to be confirmed by what has come out since, for reasons we don’t fully understand, the then Prime Minister was fudging.  Always beware of fudge.  The quantity of fudging in public presentation is enormous”.

 TBB: I then asked Enoch if we were discussing theories rather than reality….could such devierse nations converge economically & politically?

Enoch Powell: “Well that’s the fundamental question.  Making it local, will the Brits put up with it?  Well I don’t think the Brits will put up with it when they are confronted with what it is like not to govern oneself, anymore than I think the Hungarians will…would…did!  This raises the question of what is meant, or what is peculiar about Europe, and what is peculiar about Europe is that it is composed of Nations, contrasting, interacting, often mutually hostile nations and a case can be made, I’ve chosen the phrase carefully, to argue that the achievements intellectually and culturally of Europe would have been impossible without that mutual and internal friction and contrast, living cheek by jowl with a different society”.

TBB:  Vogue at the time was discussion of a two-speed or a multi track Europe……

Enoch Powell: “But if there are two tracks, the tracks go somewhere and this is simply fudge.  If you say you’re going there but you’re going there slowly, you still have accepted the demolition of national independence as the destination and the two speeds are merely a matter of the presentation of a journey to that destination.  It is another fudge”.

TBB:  Like so much of the European issue…..

Enoch Powell: “Like so much in any dangerous…potentially dangerous political question”.

TBB: Could Enoch see the complete separation of monetary & fiscal policy in a Federal Europe?

Enoch Powell:  “I find difficulty in imaging a federal Europe, which is a Europe in which the electorate of the United Kingdom has accepted that the United Kingdom’s Government is not controlled by it or its representatives”.

TBB: Jacques Delors stated 2 years back that 80% of our economic and legislation would be decided in Brussels by the end of this century.

Enoch Powell: “It was a useful quote”!

TBB:  Delors had proposed subsidiarity…..

Enoch Powell:  “This is another fudge because subsidiarity is the exercise by the permission of a higher authority of certain functions by a subordinate authority……but a prior implication is that the supreme authority has been centralised so that subsidiarity already implies unification.  It implies devolution in the sense in which local government in the United Kingdom is devolved.  It is the transfer of powers resident in Parliament, subject to certain conditions, to certain elected bodies, for certain purposes, that’s subsidiarity, being a local government is subsidiarity.

TBB:  The new Eastern European democracies…whether they were being overlooked and what benefits could they bring?

Enoch Powell: “When you say does the European Community overlook this or overlook that you are imputing to the EEC an identity, and a unitary identity and a personality which I do not believe it has.  I think France, the United Kingdom and Germany, being in a different place…different places…view the countries of Eastern Europe differently. 

TBB:  How do you see the future of the new eastern European Democracies?

Enoch Powell:  “I have no idea.  It’s not my business!  I didn’t know what was going to happen, I don’t know now what’s going to happen!  Except I suspect that they dislike foreigners too”!

TBB: I asked Enoch that if he were writing an obituary today of the European Community, would he say that it had any successes at all for UK?

Enoch Powell: “Would I say that Phillip II had had any success?!!!! Well he had for a time”!!!! 

TBB: Given this reply, I asked whether it had achieved nothing at all?

Enoch Powell: “Well so far those who have set out to deprive the inhabitants of these islands of self-government haven’t achieved a great success, so perhaps not this time either.  Perhaps this is another addition to be made to the long roll of failures, and not without the assistance, somehow, of that thing the other side of Europe, which we call Eastern Europe, which is potentially as jealous of the arrogation of power by the Emperor, as the English have been.  In the end it’s all politics”.

TBB: Would Powell favour the free trade area brought about by 1992?

Enoch Powell: “I have never been able to persuade myself that there is any advantage in interfering with the freedom of one’s own citizens to exchange their goods and services with the citizens of other countries.  That’s a mere prejudice”!

TBB: I then asked Enoch if we were overlooking our relationship with America?

Enoch Powell:“Well why did the United States favour, indeed help to force, Britain into a trading bloc in Europe so pregnantly incompatible with the freedom of world trade, which is in the interests of the inhabitants of the United states, or which they believe, which is the same thing.  Politics they thought that  for strategic reasons an amalgamated Europe was worth the disadvantages of a protectionist Europe but then all that has collapsed and fallen flat on its face hasn’t it?  So with luck other misconceptions will fall flat on their faces.  It’s always nice when these things fall flat on their faces”!

TBB: I ended by asking Enoch, if he had a crystal ball, how he saw the future evolution of Europe?

Enoch Powell: “Well I don’t have a ball, and in a long and misspent life in politics I’ve at least learnt that I don’t know what’s bloody well going to happen”!

TBB:Re-phrasing I asked him how he would like Europe to evolve.

Enoch Powell: “As a conservative, I like things much as they have been.  It is a matter of national prejudice, it’s a desire to go on conducting the affairs of one’s country in the manner in which you think they have hitherto been conducted, I choose that carefully, and I think in that I’m not very different from the great bulk of my fellow countrymen.  Your Englishmen is a conservative”.

TBB:  I interrupted to see whether he ever saw the day…

Enoch Powell: “I can’t see into the future.  I didn’t promise to and I can’t.  The fact that I can’t is something which has been brought forcibly home to me”.

TBB: Wrapping up, I asked him whether he thought Britain would remain in Europe.  He looked at me and said with a twinkle in his eye and a slight grin….

Enoch Powell: “Not if I know my fellow countrymen.  But perhaps I don’t”!