With no fanfare and little comment, the Tory Party has subtly changed its logo.

The change, inspired by M. Saatchi, has left the logo looking, well, just a little bit camp.
The introduction of a muscular forearm in a rolled up sleeve to the familiar torch perhaps echoes the Party’s recent attempts to be seen as gay-friendly.

The Guardian online site has this to say.

The Conservative Party conference this year was a rather odd animal. It was the most laid-back and enjoyable one in a very long time. And the reason why this state existed was that no one, not even the most enthusiastic, thought that the Tories are going to win the next election (barring a total Labour meltdown). Most I talked to freely admitted that it would be better if it were not a close run thing as that might cause a Lib-Lab pact, which would be the worst of all worlds.

The Tories finally realise that if they arent careful there will be a realignment in the right in the UK, and they may not be a part of it in their present form. There was even talk of a re-branding of the party into something less stuffy and more apt for the modern state of the party.

The laid-back, realistic nature of the conference meant that most activists and politicians were actually willing to discuss policy and the future direction of the party. There was much less sticking to the party line than any conference I have ever attended. But neither were they ashamed of being Tories, unlike the year that May made her idiotic “nasty party” comment.

One the most amusing things about this conference was the fact that it was the most honest about the number of gay men in the Tory Party. Rather than in the past when there were a great deal of men running around supressing their true self, gay men were out and obvious. Gay men would frequently be seen kissing each other when meeting and being “obviously gay”...more power to them. The “Absolutely Equal” event was almost too popular with conference goers, several gay wags complained to me that there more straight men there than gay men. You see, it has developed such a reputation that sensible single folks go to chase after the straight women who go to dance. The day after I had several amusing conversations with gay Tory friends of mine who felt there might need to be another “secret” party, just for gay men. I suggested it be called the “Toryman’s Other Ball”.

Another welcome development is the fact that many Gay Tories are now much more confortable supporting other “non-standard” types who are part of the party. Instead of viewing them as a threat for attention, there is more of a “more the merrier” approach. A conference acquaintance of mine of several years described me as part of the “bohemian wing” of the party, and then to the shock of the PPC we were talking to, suggested he was part of it as well. To add to the feeling for us bohemians, the main hotel bar actually had some real ale on offer from the local Ringwood brewery. The service after 11 was still crap and relatively costly, but at least the beer was better.

I want to thank Cuthie and Cllr John Harrison for spending much of their time at conference with me. Cuthie, now a veteran of the conference scene, can be seen to strut around with confidence and aplomb, putting to shame some of the much older CF members who seem perpetually lost. Cllr Harrison and I are working on several projects which will hopefully begin to evolve over the next few months. Course any Tory councillor who listens to Pantera and Anthrax, driving around in his Subaru rally-street version, can’t be all bad now, can he?

And lastly, I want express my sheer disgust and sympathy for what happened to a certain Asian CF member. Some factionalist CF member sent a rather unflattering picture of him to the Daily Mirror (from a CF night at Stringfellows).

A report on the European aspect to conference can be found in an upcoming issue of The Sprout.

Trevor Philips has made a complete arse of himself and his anti-caucasian lynch mob, the C.R.E. This time they are claiming people in the countryside are passive racists because more ethnics choose not to go live there. This is just so wrong on a whole mass of levels. Of course, it’s the same type of mentality that says states like Maine, New Hampshire, and Alaska (all very rural states) are racist because there are so few blacks there. As a black friend of mine at my alma malus Colby once uttered to this ludicrous assertion: blacks and other ethinic minorities don’t come to Maine because its too fucking cold!”

Not that I am suggesting a conspiracy or anything, but the timing on this is rather convenient. The government is trying to make its case for banning hunting and along comes Trevor to claim that countryside folks are racist, too! What you bet that good ole’ Trevor is an anti-hunting zealot as well?

This is just the sort of bigoted and hateful rhetoric that people who support hunting have to put up with. At a Countryside Alliance meeting in Bournemouth we heard that CA (and other hunting types) have been refered to as “domestic terrorists” by ministers of the crown. The villification of the countryside by the urban left is just appalling.

Update: Charles Moore has written a few words of derision on Trevor’s latest outburst.

...Talking to Tatler magazine, the more obvious Tory boy of the three, Charlie Simpson, said: “I don’t really like talking about politics but I’ve always grown up with their views – the Tories’ way of doing things. I just prefer it.”

Bandmate Matt Jay revealed he voted for the Liberal Democrats in a recent local election but will be switching sides come the General Election. “Yeah, actually, you know what, I am not going to be ripped off any more. From the financial position I am in now, I am a fucking Tory boy too.”

Conservative leader Michael Howard told Sky News. “I didn’t know them but I am becoming more familiar with them. But I am very pleased they are supporting us.”

This bit of very surprising poptastic news comes via CMU.

I had a chat with Rick Wakeman at Tory Conference. He seemed very pleased that he had met another long-haired rocker that supported the Tory Party. He gave me his phone number and asked me to call him. We may be going to do something together in future (or, rather, he & G.o.D.). The irony was that I was just talking to several local consellors and activists of a certain age about the lack of decent music at conference. There are some moves to change that for Blackpool.

What impresses me about the above is that Busted! freely admit they are Tories because of the high tax policies of the other parties. It will be interesting to see if CF do anything with this news. Considering the Tory record of liasing with the more aristic types, I rather doubt it.

Any sign of musicians feeling able to express support for the right-of-centre parties should be welcomed. I happen to know from personal chats with serious rock musicians that there is a fair amount of passive support for the Conservatives amoungst British rockers.

Speaking of music, sometime in the next fews days will see the debut of Bureaucrash Radio. I will have my own radio show called the Abyss which will feature hard rock and metal, as well as new music from G.o.D. and the Mike’s Painkillers.

The Guardian:

“It’s accurate to say she is not cheerful,” Peter Ayrton, the English publisher for Elfriede Jelinek, said yesterday. “But reading her is a totally exhilarating experience.”

He was rejoicing at the Frankfurt book fair as word spread that the severe, feminist and dissident Austrian writer had unexpectedly won the $1.3m (750,000) Nobel prize for literature.

So some shrewish scold takes the trophy, eh? Quel surprise!

I’m not qualified to judge Ms. Jelinke’s literary merits, as “severe, feminist” books for me rate in reading enjoyment somewhere between subpoenas and Korean VCR manuals. The Swedish Academy, too, has a long and ignoble (pun intended, haha) history of promoting hacks who nonetheless fit the politics of the age.

Behold, then, from Ms. Jelinek’s crappy* website, her impeccable credentials:

Do you know him from before? Have you heard the name Halliburton and the name of Cheney, the holy lord, offspring of I don’t know what or who, but certainly of a mother, and since then he has wrestled with the numerous soft feelings. Dick Cheney. But his feelings won’t win. Halliburton will win, the company, they can build cages in Cuba, well, even I could build a cage if I had to, but it would only be strong enough for rabbits, if anything, they also built Corpus Christi in Texass, they managed that. And it earned its name. He will rebuild everything, the lord of the energy industry, Mr. Chairman of the Board, lord of the fiddled books , lord of jobs for the boys. But such boys are only found in Arabia. You can bet on it that this company will win irrespective of whoever else wins. Hang on, and what about the British with all these brave guys who so diligently butchered foreign flesh, and of course also the other way round, because nobody wants to owe the other a favour, but sometimes it has to be. They have dragged themselves to the foreign land, illusion of the avenger incarnate, and now several of them are six feet under, in the sand, and now they should get nothing?

Oho! Texass, did’ja catch that? Not exactly a Joycean level of wit—but then, James Joyce never did win the Nobel, so maybe she’s on to something.

That was from one of the few pieces on the site not in German, so maybe it lost something in the translation; but it doesn’t strike me as anything a moderately clever poli-sci student couldn’t have done, albeit with fewer comma splices.

• (All the links on her website seem to be broken, no doubt due to increased traffic. It’s worth taking a look at, though, if only to wonder at its ceramic Bambi centerpiece.)

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