Convicted felon offers political advice to conviction-less NDP separatists and praise for blonde conservative commentators

Convicted felon offers political advice to conviction-less NDP separatists and praise for blonde conservative commentators

(Image: Charles LeBlance)

Conrad Black may have spent the last few years of his life watching events in Canada from afar—and from behind bars—but that doesn’t mean he lacks for opinions on the political life of the country. In his latest column in the National Post, the Lord offers the NDP some unsolicited advice on how to get past its current—and rather awkward—“whoops, our interim leader was a BQ-er” phase. Of course, in standard fashion, Black meanders through 600-plus words of verbose copy, this time explaining the history of Quebec politics in the 20th century, before he gets to his point. But when he does finally get there, he makes a boring and completely unoriginal suggestion—merging the New Democrats and the Liberals.

From Black’s weekend op-ed:

If it wants, and has any vocation to be, a durable major party, the NDP should drop the jaded New from its name (and not restrict itself with another adjective such as “Social”); get a serious leader in the event that Jack Layton is not in a position to resume his duties — someone whose career is not a rubble heap of unacceptable associations like Ms. Turmel, or an apparently universally unacceptable personality like Thomas Mulcair; adopt a program that casts a net to the centre; and be prepared to spend at least one more election convincing the Liberals, united as they are only by an insatiable addiction to permanent incumbency, to join them in merger, as Stephen Harper enticed the Progressive Conservatives into the Canadian Alliance. At that point, Liberal Democrats would do as a name, and they could win.

Really, Conrad? It’s nice to know that all the years he spent away from his homeland haven’t dulled Black’s grasp of stunningly common wisdom, offering the merger idea about a year after it was floated pretty publicly (and shot down by the Liberals, with extreme prejudice).

In other news—because we can’t get enough of Lord Black—he would also like us to know that he’s big on blonde conservatives. Writing about Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter, Black describes the two public politicos in the National Review Online as  “attractive, blonde, witty, never-married, heterosexual, practising Christian, conservative women.” Of course, he couldn’t help but throw in this doozy, too: “They know the backbone of this civilization is…the rule of law (which they do not confuse with the racketeering of gonzo prosecutors, and the national addiction to frivolous and vexatious litigation).” Not that Black has any resentment towards “gonzo prosecutors”—in fact, forget he mentioned it.

Conrad Black: How the NDP can take power [National Post]
The Coulter-Ingraham Show [National Review Online]