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Blogs Out-of-touch 'Loony Right divides Welsh Tories i-Cambria July-Aug 07 Out-of-touch 'Loony Right divides Welsh Tories
Blogs Out-of-touch 'Loony Right divides Welsh Tories i-Cambria July-Aug 07 Out-of-touch 'Loony Right divides Welsh Tories | Out-of-touch 'Loony Right divides Welsh Tories |
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The division between the Conservative Party in Wales and the party's MPs in London seems to be getting deeper by the day.It should have been no surprise that Welsh party leader Nick Bourne has established a policy committee which excludes all three Welsh MPs but finds space for two AMs who were not returned last month (Glyn Davies and Lisa Francis).  For the MPs are ALL members of the tiny extreme-right Cornerstone Group - which is currently pushing for the party to close down the National Health Service and replace it with compulsory private health insurance.Cornerstone claims only 40 MP-members (out of 196). Having heard only of the NHS policy, Welsh Tory AMs such as Jonathan Morgan (Cardiff North) and Mark Isherwood (North) promptly described them as "loonies". In Welsh terms, indeed they are. The group is also viciously anti-devolution, wanting to abolish the entire system. Their main policy wants to "render the current, totally unbalanced devolution settlement void". It carries on, "The devolution referenda [of 1997] excluded 85% of the population - i.e. the English (our italics Ed.) — but the disgracefully wasteful talking shops in Edinburgh and Cardiff are supported by a preponderance of English-tax-payers' money. This is wrong. There should be an all-UK referendum on the issue of abolishing the existing devolution settlement" [and replacing it with more powers for county councils]. When Cornerstone's policies also include "a struggle against liberal values", it can be seen why they have no place at the heart of the Welsh party. "The devolution referenda excluded 85% of the population - (i.e. the English) - but the disgracefully wasteful talking shops in Edinburgh and Cardiff are supported by a preponderance of English-taxpayers' money.... There should be an all-UK referendum on the issue of abolishing the existing devolution settlement". Policy of the extreme-right 'Cornerstone Group'. We all know now that Tory leader Nick Bourne was being slightly economical with the truth when he assured fellow-AMs that he wished David Davies, former member for Monmouth, "all the best at Westminster", and it was not on purpose that he had omitted him from the list of those whose loss from Cardiff Bay left him feeling "obviously sad". Mr Davies may indeed be the key Welsh link with Cornerstone, via his former home town of Newport, where a cabal of extreme-Right anti-devolution Tories still lurks. For Newport was for a time the business and political base of one Peter Bone, now an MP and author of the current NHS pamphlet - with its call for a replacement which seems just like the mess which exists in the US, where the rich do well for health treatment, the poor do appallingly, and the middle class exist in a situation of dire peril.                |
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