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Last week a group of pro-freedom activists rallied outside the Liberal Democrats’ European Election campaign launch. TYC understands that embarrassingly for the LibDems the press seemed to somewhat snub the launch, and there were more activists outside than attendees inside.
The campaign unvealed their campaign banner, and leafleted journalists and attendees – and even one errant Labour cabinet minister. He was probably just grateful they weren’t affiliated with Joanne Lumley…Clegg bolted for his car rather than debate his Party’s federalist agenda.
(H/T The Freedom Association for pictures)
The Not Liberal and Not Democrats campaign is being orchestrated by Democracy Movement, which aims to highlight the LibDem’s truly appalling record on European issues – not least their opposition to a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty (EU Constitution).
Tomorrow the campaign is in Oxfordshire and we urge you to go along and hold the LibDems to account for their treachery.
- Sign Douglas Carswell’s brave petition calling for Michael Martin to resign as Speaker of the House of Commons here.
- Sign the 10 Downing Street petition calling for Gordon to do Britain a favour resign here.
- Sign the Freedom Association/TaxPayers’ Alliance petition demanding full publication of MPs expenses here.
Congratulations to the York University students who organised today’s anti-anti-free markets protest and faced down the baying crowd of some 4,000 assorted G20 Leftists to defend capitalism on the steps of the Bank of England. We spot Messrs Aker and Wallace of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, and Simon Richards of The Freedom Association, and Nic Conner in the crowd.
H/T Tim Montgomerie for the pictures.
UPDATE: Nic Connor’s report of the protest at ConservativeFuture.com
Congratulations to Michael Rock, one year on from his successful campaign which saw him elected Conservative Future National Chairman, along with the incumbent National Management Executive.
The year has seen much progress within Conservative Future, from the hotly debated reforms, to the creation of Regional Chairmen, and the regionalisation of campaigning, instead of the old, impractical practice of bussing activists at the crack of dawn up and down the country to flood one ’special’ seat.
Conservative Future has also fought several successful by-elections such as Crewe and Nantwich, Henley and Haltemprice and Howden.
But here at TYC we still maintain that the most important long-term initiative from the current executive has been the Student Life Tours, organised by Student Life chairman Patrick Sullivan.
These tours saw centre-right, pro-freedom organisations such as the TaxPayers’ Alliance, Freedom Association, NO2ID, plus MEPs, bloggers and more visiting campuses up and down the country. We believe that conservatism is a broad church, and its strength lies in its constituent organisations who unite around a single doctrine: freedom. Exposing students to fresh thinking on liberty can only serve to further our ultimate cause.
Patrick, we hope there’s a second round of tours in the works!
TYC took part in several of the stops on the 2008 tour and you can read our coverage here.
TYC has a feature in the latest edition of the Freedom Association magazine, Freedom Today. In it we discuss the advancement of young conservatism, the genesis of this blog, our aims and hopes for it, and why we think that the Conservative Future Student Life Tours are by far the most useful think to have come out of the current CF National Executive’s administration to date.
You can read the whole issue online over at the TFA’s site. Membership of the TFA starts at just £10 for students, and includes a subscription to Freedom Today, so why not make the TFA the conservative movement group you join this year and get involved with the broad church?
As the storm over Downing Street continues to rumble following the Stalinesque detention and questioning of Damian Green MP, plans are afoot to continue to keep the pressure on the Government for answers and to keep the issue in the public eye.
It all began with a comment on ConservativeHome.
“Maybe this will be my last comment regarding politics. I don’t know. If elected officials are not safe why should I assume I am? My husband is on his third tour of the gulf. My brother in law is on the Afghanistan Pakistani boarder. My other brother in law is now partially paralyzed for life due to an injury sustained while training for duty in Iraq. My nephew is finding it hard to integrate back into society after seeing his buddy blown up in the truck next to him while on duty over there. Freedom and democracy are very important to me, I guess I can say they are actually a part of who I am and feel blessed to be born into a part of the world that understands the importance of these things. As far as I was aware, my husband, and other family members have been putting themselves in danger, some have become injured physically, some mentally,and others whom I have never met have lost their lives fighting for the rights of people in other countries. Fighting to allow them to also have the right to hold their governments and leaders to account, without fear of death, arrest or imprisonment. So for me this isn’t about Labour or Conservative or which party is better, this has become a really serious and worrying situation. And I am frightened over this and over the future if this is the way things are headed. What to do? I do not know. If verbal questions and protests aren’t answered then a visual protest of some sort. Green ties, ribbons and armbands,worn by people from all parties in defence of Damian Green. Worn until questions are answered, and until civil liberties and freedom from opression of government are restored.
Posted by: meli | November 29, 2008 at 23:35
Wow meli you said it
Posted by: Michael Booth | November 29, 2008 at 23:50
Meli suggests green ties, ribbons and armbands,worn by people from all parties in defence of Damian Green.
Brilliant – editor what about promoting that on this site?
Posted by: Lindsay Jenkins | November 30, 2008 at 00:15″
Jenkins forwarded the exchange to Simon Richards, Director of The Freedom Association, who took up the torch with the novel idea of turning The Freedom Association’s site green as an act of solidarity.
How far could this go? We mused last month about November 5th becoming a national holiday to mark British liberty, freedom and justice. So we have the day, and now we have the colour.
In turn, TYC saw this and thought, why not take it one step further? Our colour scheme is terribly cumbersome, so we knocked up this poster (well, everyone else is producing great posters lately it seems) and sent it to The Freedom Association. It also looks great on your Facebook/Myspace/Bebo etc, by the way…
We understand that plans are also afoot in Parliament for MPs to wear green ribbons during the Queen’s Speech to signal their disquiet. I’d be great to see activists in their private capacity as concerned citizens sporting them as well (a bit of green ribbon and a safety pin wouldn’t cost the earth!), on the street, in the work place etc, making people stop and ask ‘Why are you wearing that?’.
With the latest comment on ConHome showing that the momentum behind his initiative is growing, are YOU with us?
On Friday 7th TYC was fortunate enough to be able to participate in what for us will be one final stop on the CF Coalition Campus Tour – Nottingham University. Once again the turnout exceeded that of the previous stop, and the panel was broader than ever. In attendance at Nottingham were Simon Richards of The Freedom Association, Tim Aker of The TaxPayers’ Alliance, myself as co-editor of TYC, Patrick Sullivan – CF’s National Campaign Director and Student Life Chairman, and Roger Helmer MEP.
The hallmark of these tours has been the quality of questions we’ve received from the audience, underscoring the rich pool of talent and promise the next generation of conservatives comprises. Chairman Will Bickford-Smith ably chaired the meeting, ensuring a broad scope of questions reached the panel.
A few highlights which hadn’t been asked at previous stops included,
- Is Barack Obama America’s Tony Blair? For our part we submit no, he isn’t. This wasn’t, as come commentators have called it, a landslide – Obama won roughly 7% more of the popular vote than McCain, and the Democrats have failed to secure enough seats to prevent the Republicans filibustering. Certainly, the next two years up until the mid-terms in 2010 will be hard for Right in America, and this election was certainly the ushering in of a new era, but it wasn’t an American 1997 moment.
- Has Brown bounced back? We feel it’s nothing stronger than a political dead-cat bounce. Glenrothes isn’t game-changing for project Brown, much as they’ve tried to capitalise on it. Brown may come into his own in a crisis – but he creates them himself – and vox pops show voters equate Brown with the credit crisis. The polls show the Conservatives consistently not only leading, but leading sufficiently to win a General Election; and whilst in the past month our lead has dipped, it should be noted that includes a correct for anomalous polls such as our 52% position, and that our lead is growing again.
- What to do about the seemingly impending breakup of the Union. Tongue firmly in cheek we mused that if the SNP want to turn Scotland into the East Germany of the British Isles, let them, and when it fails, welcome reunification. More seriously, the devolution project has gone unchecked and Scotland allowed to drift. The Scottish Parliament has been allowed to assume the trappings and stylings of statehood. If an incoming Conservative administration wants to save the Union then it must get a grip on devolution once and for all.
In the words of Chairman Will, this event was his society’s “biggest event of the semester, if not the year.“
Next stop for the tour will be Durham, on November 10th. Sadly TYC can’t attend, but we encourage as many of you as can make it to do so.
On Friday, 31st October, whilst most people were out celebrating Halloween, a panel of leading conservatives were at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, battling with the ghoulish European Union and preaching the exorcism of the demon, tax. On this second stop in the current tour the panel consisted of Simon Richards of the Freedom Association, Phil Booth of NO2ID, myself as co-editor of TYC, Tim Aker for the TaxPayers’ Alliance, PPC Anthony Little and Patrick Sullivan, the CF National Campaign Director and Student Life Chairman.
The contrast with our previous stop, in Exeter, a week earlier, was clear. The Exeter crowd had drawn up a varied selection of questions; the UEA students, some in unholy festive garb, were predominately interested in the EU and taxation – so much for students not caring about tax. The common factor, though, was the quality of questions, ranging from the small details of the FairTax, to levels of European integration (or, preferably, none).
Also in common with Exeter the event was well attended, and the debate passionate. It was also heartening to see dissent amongst the panel, and the students, which ensured we had insufficient time to thrash out all the points we’d have liked to have made.
Once again the Freedom Association generously held a Free Spirits event in the student bar afterwards, and raffled off a bottle of finest ‘Free Spirits’ label gin to one lucky student.
Hats off to chairman Paul Wells for hosting the evening and keeping the debate moving along; and, as ever, to Patrick Sullivan for organising this fantastic tour. Onwards to Nottingham!
On Friday night at the fifth Young Britons’ Foundation activist conference, hosted at Wellington College, Berkshire, TaxPayers’ Alliance activists Mark Wallace and Matt Sinclair picked up the Eric Forth Award for Activism. We’d like to extend our congratulations to Mark and Matt, two upstanding members of the conservative movement. Both richly deserve this honour for their work in leading the crusade to take on excessive taxation and government waste.
Matt, 25, will be known to many through his blog, Sinclair’s Musings, and Mark, 24, for his sterling campaigns work with the Freedom Association, prior to joining the TPA. Having being on the panel at Exeter CF’s stop on the CF Coalition Campus Tour only the day before, I can attest to Mark’s powerful command of his subject, and also to his strong friendship. Well done, guys.
(l-r) Patrick Sullivan, Edward Hallam, Simon Richards, Mark Wallace
On Thursday evening TYC joined the CF Coalition Campus Tour panel at Exeter University in a Question Time style event, taking questions for the award-winning Exeter Conservative Future. We were in sound company, seated between Simon Richards of the Freedom Association and Mark Wallace of the TaxPayers’ Alliance to one side, and CF NME member Patrick Sullivan to the other. Kudos to Patrick for having put together this entire nationwide tour under his remit as Student Life chairman; undoubtedly the highest achievement of the NME this year, and hopefully a new fixture in CF life for the years and administrations to come.
The abiding sense I took away from the evening was the value and importance of going into schools and universities and disseminating ideas. We were undoubtedly preaching to a home crowd and there wasn’t a great deal of dissent, for better or worse. But I do think it was of great worth to bring non-Party speakers before the activists; people prepared to give fresh answers, not trite Party-line ‘isn’t it exciting to be a Conservative’ platitudes. I was particularly impressed by the quality of the questions asked. All were well thought out, erudite inquiries, not simplistic paeans for tax cuts and the like.
(l-r) Dan Ericsson (EUCF Chairman), Patrick Sullivan, Edward Hallam and Simon Richards
Following the event the Freedom Association laid on one of their famous ‘Free Spirits’ events for all who attended, as well as a raffle, won by Alexander Cook, for a bottle of ‘Free Spirits’ Gin. We thank them for their generosity!
Undoubtedly there were some lessons to be learnt from this first date, and we’ll be channelling our feedback to Patrick, but the principle of the evening was sound, and was a welcome step towards a YAF-style interfacing of activists with the broader conservative movement. We see in this event the foundation of something indispensable, a new facet for Conservative Future which should grow and become a mainstay of what CF is about. We’re now very much looking forward to the next stop on the Tour – UEA.
