Climate change is the Liberal Party’s Europe
September 3, 2008
From the end of the Thatcher years until…well, still, really…the British Conservative party has been tearing itself to bits over Europe.
No doubt, for a conservative, its a knotty problem. Should the country hitch itself to the European wagon, a socialist enterprise for the common good of all, but particularly bureaucrats? or should it march bravely alone into the cold winds of the twenty first century, upper lip stiff, wellingtons on, sinking or swimming according to its own character and judgement?
John Major spent his premiership fending off both the Europhiles and the Europsceptics, until there was nothing left of the party but a squabbling undisciplined rabble, some of whom dressed in women’s undergarments and suffocated themselves with mandarins. Its true, really.
Same is true of the Libs and the climate change debate (not, now that Downer is gone, the undergarments/mandarin thing). Even in the unlikely event that Costello were return from the wilderness to save the party from itself, he would have no answer to the fact that most Australians want both business and government to be brave about the climate and admit that sacrifices must be made. The Liberal cry that its all about the money in your pocket today just doesn’t cut ice for the climate constituency, which is now a majority.
Nelson is his very own climate induced natural disaster. And Turnbull, the most climate enlightened of the Liberal feather dusters, has shown that if nothing he is an oppositionist who must oppose everything the other side is doing even if he actually thinks its quite a good idea, should have thought of it myself really. His own worst instincts will drive him to lead his party into climate hysteria… a Europhile Tory forced by the tribulations of opposition to rail against the awfulness of French food, inefficiency of German engineering, and the ugliness fo the Scandinavians.
All good for Rudd and Wong - who should just come clean and say, yes, changing our economy is going to cost, but its also going to open up unprecedented opportunities.
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