YBF – Right-Wing Alternate Reality

While many folks did their Christmas shopping or went to support their football team yesterday, the allegedly sound conservatives of the Young Britons’ Foundation (YBF) gathered in Cambridge, where they could be among those of like mind, and away from all those nasty leftists who laugh at them for their insistence on inhabiting an alternate reality driven by fantasy politics.

Forthright analysis from Boris Watch

Fortunately, an appropriate Twitter hashtag of #YBF9 had been established – this is the group’s ninth conference – so those in the real world looking for a good laugh could observe the wingnuttery from a suitably significant distance. So who was going? A typical speaker was Jonathan Isaby of the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA), one of three TPA representatives who aren’t really conservatives, of course.

What a thrilling prospect

Tory politicians also featured, but apart from Fat Eric, they were either has-beens or never-going-to-bes, like grovelling MP Conor Burns, whose constituents in Bournemouth will have been relieved to see departing the area for the weekend.

What a complete crawler

And their followers? Well, there was Pete Spence, who brought a note of gravitas to matters by reminding others that they “could do worse than to read Hayek”, so no problems with insomnia there, then.

Zzzzzzzzz ...

What of the lofty intellectual heights of YBF9? Alex Wickham, newly appointed teaboy to the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines at the Guido Fawkes blog, gave everyone inspiration by quoting this pearl of wisdom: “I wish I’d done a lot more negative campaigning against Andy Slaughter, he’s an absolute arsehole”. Takes one to know one, Alex (Slaughter’s sin is to be successful, and a Labour MP).

You certainly are, Alex

Then there is the selective retelling of history, as demonstrated by Jack Walker: “It is always painful being told about the Thatcher years when you were not alive to enjoy them”. Yes, it’s such an enjoyment to experience galloping inflation, mass unemployment, social unrest, decimation of manufacturing industry, and the odd war, all spun with flagrant dishonesty by a compliant Fourth Estate.

They sup some strong stuff at the YBF

So what of the people the YBF hold up as exemplars, as they do not deem mainstream Tories like Young Dave and his jolly good pals sound enough? Ah well. We can see who they want their followers to look up to by examining the award winners. Take the Dolphin Award, for example, which is given for being not merely “sound”, but “ultrasound” (laugh? I thought I’d never start).

I get a gong, cos I'm on telly!

This was given yesterday to the odious flannelled fool Henry Cole, which tells you all you need to know about the standards of the YBF. They hold up as a shining example to others someone whose modus operandi includes smears, abuse, serial dishonesty, inconsiderateness, intolerance, gratuitous overindulgence, snobbery, blagging and wilful ignorance. And he’s their #1 star. The prosecution rests.