My Evil Temptress

If I’m ever enticed over to the dark side, I expect the devil will take the shapely form of Claire Perry MP.

It may be shallow of me, but I must start with some consideration of her physical merits. Who could be indifferent to this wonderfully robust example of English womanhood. The mere consideration of her physical splendor makes me painfully aware of my own limitations. And although physiognomy may be out of fashion, I cannot believe nature endowed her with that pugnacious chin for nothing.

And having had some experience of weird, I must say that my preference in women these days runs to the normal. And it has to be said that Claire is a paragon of this underrated virtue. Indeed, so dependable is she on this score that that in itself may be an indication of some pleasant behind the scenes surprises. One can but hope.

Claire is also nice in the way nineteenth century ladies were nice. She is privileged, yet condescends to assist the less fortunate of the lower orders with their chaotic lives. Incidentally, this particular virtue is clearly the one that offers me the best opportunity to insinuate myself into her life.

And last, but not least, she is posh. There is no such thing as a true born Englishman who is not turned on by a bit of posh totty. Particularly, if that posh totty occasionally expresses herself with vulgar directness. In this regard the tale of Claire’s musing publically on the need to give the Speaker of the House a "blow job" is promising to say the least.

And to those who say that Claire is not the genuine article and in fact was educated in a comprehensive, I would only harrumph in contempt at their ignorance. Because if there is one thing better than posh totty, it is self-made posh totty.

I know. I know. There are obstacles. Her husband for one. But it seems to me when two people are made for each other, as Clair and I so patently are, that as the song has it: “There ain’t no mountain high enough…”.

But while no petty conventions could keep us apart, my virtue (and marriage) is likely to be saved by a much stronger consideration. It pains me to say it, but Claire, my love, is handmaiden to the Evil One.

As so often happens, her greatest fault is trumpeted as her greatest virtue.

In an attempt to praise her, Max Wind-Cowie of the Progressive Conservatism Project at Demos has said, “She has little time for ideologues either of the right or the left. She just wants to get things done and gets very frustrated with dogma.”

And what she wants to get done is the very picture of noble blamelessness. Her greatest triumph to date as an MP has been in the cause of protecting children from internet porn. This newbie has succeeded to such an extent as to be tipped for high office and lauded as David Cameron’s  advisor “on the sexualisation and commercialization of children”.

But without an ideology, Claire is rudderless and that delightfully pugnacious chin drives her to pursue her laudable goal at any price. And the price she is pushing for, with the receptive ear of the Prime Minister, is blanket government censorship of the internet.

If only she were an ideological conservative a couple of objections to her plan would be obvious.

First, her pragmatic solution would see a new government quango set up to decide what “adult” content is to be filtered out. Claire Perry sells the blanket filter as a protection against porn, but she herself also foresees the filter blocking out pro-anorexia, suicide promoting, and self harm sites as well.

Then when her new quango inevitably gets staffed by the usual suspects (unemployable “caring” liberal activists) what will then be added to an ever growing list of inappropriate adult content?

So just as mobile phone operators currently block the BNP site, so it's not too much of a stretch to foresee liberal apparatchiks whose co-religionists consider Ukip supporters unacceptable as adoptive parents will inevitably be tempted to remove its "divisive"political message from consideration by the general public.

The victory Claire and her fellow conservative pragmatics are gifting liberal lie merchants is best expressed by James Delingpole in his blog post on the value of the internet to conservatives:

The internet, it seems to me, is the last bastion of truth in a world corrupted beyond measure.

Who is standing up for Rachel Frosch? Just a bunch of political bloggers and Tweeters.

Who is exposing the lies of the climate change industry? Bloggers, mostly.

Who kept the story of the Obama administration's shameful betrayal of the embassy staff it allowed to be murdered in Benghazi?

Conservative bloggers, again – though with support from conservative journals like the American Spectator…

It puts me in mind of a scene from Ben Hur. The governor of Judea, Sextus, careworn from his struggles with the Jews asks of his successor, Messala:

“You can break a man’s skull. You can arrest him. You can throw him into a dungeon. But how do you fight an idea?”

Messala’s reply is the only way forward for embattled conservatives today:

“Sextus, you ask how to fight an idea. Well, I’ll tell you how… with another idea!”

The only effective opposition to the liberal ideologues hollowing out our country is conservative ideologues.

Claire’s pragmatism, her flirtation with censorship, provides the left with the mechanism they themselves would love to get away with creating. And conservatism’s last bastion of opposition would be stifled leaving the field open to their ruinous idiocy.

Another obvious reality to a conservative ideologue is that Claire’s filter would be far more effective as a means of blocking sites like Ukip's than it ever would be against internet porn. The sad truth is that boys are a lot keener on accessing porn than adults are on accessing Ukip’s prosaic message. And the former are also far more internet savvy in avoiding any crude government attempts at censorship. So whilst the porn, like love, would find a way through, Ukip’s inconvenient message would go unheard.

And last but not least, the conservative ideologue would see the obvious and only solution to the danger of internet porn. Namely that a mechanism already exists to protect children. It’s called the family and more specifically their parents. If the family is a little the worse for wear these days, that probably has something to do with the 50 year war of attrition that liberal ideologues have waged against it.

Half the children of Britain are now born out of wedlock and more than half of 15 year olds live with just one of their biological parents. The consequences in terms of crime, drug abuse, and general delinquency are all around us.

The way to protect children, the only one that can work, is the family. And the only thing the government can really do to help is to help that fundamental building block of civilisation.

Now Dave, as is well known, is a big fan of the family. Indeed, he promised to assist families financially when he became prime minister. He only reneged on that promise when it became apparent that supporting it might draw criticism from liberals that he is a nasty judgmentalist about the merits of alternate family models.

But I don’t question the PM’s sincerity in supporting the family. Dave’s desire to extend marriage to homosexuals, despite opposition from conservative ideologues tells you all you need to know on the subject.

Dave . Dave. What do I care about Dave when the eternal soul of my beloved lies in the balance.

Claire I implore you on the altar of my unrequited love to think again and turn away from the Evil One. And as Hamlet has it:

“By no means, … Let the bloat King tempt you again to bed”

Just say:

No Dave! My heart has been won by another, better man.