I'm baffled by this latest outburst of libertarian wingnuttery from disgraced ex-minister Liam Fox. Maybe this is just me being naive, but he surely can't really believe that turning the Tories into a clone of the Tea Party-dominated Republicans is a ticket to anywhere except electoral oblivion? Can he?
It's being presented as some sort of challenge to David Cameron, but I presume that there's something else going on here. My provisional theory, based on precisely no inside knowledge, is that Foxy is helping his boss out by creating the bogeyman of austerity cuts so extreme that it makes the coalition's desperate Plan A look like the epitome of moderate, reasonable consensus.
Now if that Nick Robinson could either confirm my theory, or reveal that Foxy really is as bonkers as you'd imagine from taking his speech at face value, or give the heads up on some alternative Machiavellian plot that outsiders would never have dreamed of, that would be interesting. It's the fact that we never hear anything half so illuminating from the political gossip columnists that makes me doubt their value to the rest of us.
It's being presented as some sort of challenge to David Cameron, but I presume that there's something else going on here. My provisional theory, based on precisely no inside knowledge, is that Foxy is helping his boss out by creating the bogeyman of austerity cuts so extreme that it makes the coalition's desperate Plan A look like the epitome of moderate, reasonable consensus.
Now if that Nick Robinson could either confirm my theory, or reveal that Foxy really is as bonkers as you'd imagine from taking his speech at face value, or give the heads up on some alternative Machiavellian plot that outsiders would never have dreamed of, that would be interesting. It's the fact that we never hear anything half so illuminating from the political gossip columnists that makes me doubt their value to the rest of us.
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