Peter Reynolds

James Brokenshire

I have very mixed feelings about young James Brokenshire.  He’s a Tory and so am I, so I don’t really want to be too derogatory about him.   It’s very difficult though, just  keeping a straight face, let alone seeing anything positive.  Most difficult of all to ignore is the Milliband in him.  I mean, come on, tell me I’m wrong!

One of my more erudite commenters mentioned the phenomenon of Nominative Determinism.  According to Wikipedia:

Nominative determinism refers to the theory that a person’s name is given an influential role in reflecting key attributes of his job, profession, or general life. It was a commonly held philosophy in the ancient world.

It’s not just that he looks like a Milliband.  It goes much deeper than that.  Alright, so George Osborne is right in there as well and I just know I’ve seen at least a dozen other clones.  I just can’t quite remember their names or distinguish them.  They’re the generation that’s heir to Cameron and Clegg.  They’ve gone from graduate to researcher, never had a real job, eternally trapped within the political bubble. You know the type.  And yes, our politics and our society are broken, broken because of the sort of policies, attitudes and behaviour that James exhibits.

Of course, I’m on the libertarian side of the party and James is way, way opposite.   He comes across as not just a hanger and flogger but a hanger, drawer and quarterer – and that’s just for parking tickets.   The trouble is, I fear he’s making such an twit of himself that he’s doing my party a grave disservice.   For such a young and youngish man he is a very old, very old reactionary Tory.

James is the new Minister of State for Crime Prevention.  Congratulations to him on his appointment at such an early stage in his career.  What an important job!  He does rather bring to mind all those old jokes about policemen looking like they should still be in short trousers.   Does anyone take him seriously?

He’s the government’s front man for the drugs issue.  That’s right, it’s not a minister from the Department of Health who deals with drugs.  It’s the Home Office!  Anyway, even before the current furore, I’d seen James in action in reply to a question about drugs policy.   He’s authoritarian, repressive, intransigent and far, far too sure of himself even when he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  This is not someone who believes in “small” government.   Like the Millibands and other illiberal socialists he wants close control of our lives.  I’m sorry but the boy looks silly and he behaves like an idiot.  He’s being taken to pieces all over the internet – ridiculed, abused and condemned.  David Cameron, please get rid of him now!

The trouble is that James is trying to come over all tough and spunky but he doesn’t realise that even men of my sons’ ages have seen it all before.  Eager young politicians who think they know best when they know nothing have been making similar fools of themselves since time began.  To coin a counterfeit phrase,  I’d smoked more joints than he’s had hot dinners before there was even a twinkle in his daddy’s eye!  So many of us had thought through and argued out the drugs issue a hundred times before James even left nursery school.

I can’t really expect a replacement who agrees with me 100% on drugs policy.   What I do expect is someone who is credible, sensible, well informed and committed to evidence-based policy and truth.  James is none of these.  He is making a fool of the government.

What’s really serious is that the man is misguided.  He’s flying in the face of the facts and all the experts.  Drugs policy has huge impact on our society and we need to move away from our present disastrous and oppressive course.  James Brokenshire is the wrong man for the job.