The Conservatives as the largest party will have enough seats to govern. After two major constitutional referendums and two General elections in recent years it is time for Parliament and government to make decisions and to see through the decisions UK voters have made.
As expected here, Scottish voters signalled their impatience with the idea of re running the referendum on independence. UK voters rejected the Lib Dem idea of a second Brexit referendum, voting by a huge margin for Con/Lab who both argued to accept Brexit and to leave the single market.
Given the election of 7 Sinn Fein MPs and the Speaker and Deputy Speakers, you only need 320 MPs to form the government as a single party and govern. The DUP is likely to support much of the time anyway.
June 9, 2017
Spin it how you must Sir but that was a disaster
I am glad you are able to remain positive because I can’t find anything to smile about
June 10, 2017
Not much. The Tories perhaps have five years rather than three (to get their act together) assuming they can hold it together. Clearly the daft socialist May will have to go in a few months which is good. Perhaps we can then get a sound leader who actually believes in smaller government, sound economic management and Brexit. Not one who is a tax increasing, wasteful, prices and income controls pushing, gender pay reporting, red tape & green crap pushing dope.
But even that is hard to see. More likely it will be a dire government like John Major’s hanging on to the bitter end like Major did after his ERM stupidity destroyed the party for three+ terms.
June 10, 2017
MickN: “that was a disaster”
An unnecessary disaster too.
If an alliance with the DUP is so wonderful, why didn’t she do that before the election and boosted the Tory majority by eight.
You’d be 330 + eight rather than 317 + 10, I’m not a mathematician but I think it would have been the better strategy.
Seems an expensive way to lose seats if you ask me.
Next time ‘your rabble’ have a opening for an advisor, just advertise on this site. I’ll apply, do the job for less and give better advice.
June 11, 2017
She is giving it to another arch remainer who was vehemently against leaving! She does not listen. She still has not accepted her failing for the atrocities in Manchester and London! She did not have border controls, she has not sorted out schools, she has not implemented control orders, she cut police numbers vindictively for Plebgate. Rudd is in a similar position. Learn lessons my foot. Liberal leftie ‘Intellectuals’ without judgement, decision making, risk taking ability or leadership.
June 9, 2017
It didn’t need any brains to predict what a disaster this election would be. We all said it. Brexit is finished. All that hard work for nothing. I am sick to the pit of my stomach. Was this a stitch up on behalf of those that voted out? Something stinks and its not Chanel no 5!
June 9, 2017
It’s almost as if Mrs May didn’t want too much of a majority so put some unpopular measures into her manifesto. Either that or she was silly enough to believe all that guff about ‘a country that works for everyone’ and core conservative voters would gladly give up their homes for the greater good of society..
Time for her to go when the dust has settled she is deluded and out of touch.
June 10, 2017
Fedupsoutherner: “Brexit is finished”
If true, the next thing that will be finished, is the Tory party.
June 9, 2017
Well done in Wokingham. Only 1% down, while Labour was 10% up and even LDs 2% up.
This suggests that the youth vote and others who liked the idea of free university and rent control have bothered to get out of bed.
The sooner that someone prises Strongnstable’s fingers off the steering wheel the better. After colliding with the barrier and doing several spins and U turns while driving up the wrong carriageway, she may be happier on the back seat with a nice carton of tea.
If you want to get a majority, reduce uni fees and adopt much of the Ukip manifesto, including getting rid of HS2 and the House of Cronies.
June 9, 2017
Note that in Scotland, where they have no university fees, Conservatives did well.
June 9, 2017
Agree, the Tories won’t last long if they keep on punishing English students with smirky Osbornes sky high tuition fees and higher than inflation interest rates! Scrap HS2 to afford to bring this down to a reasonable cost and fair repayment minimum. You cannot have only one set of graduates paying 9% graduate tax for 30 years.
June 9, 2017
Several friends have commented separately to me that they could have written better manifestos (and so could I).
June 10, 2017
A funny thing that a non negligible of people complaining about young people liking the idea of free university (as if with lodging and food) are people over 35 years old (more likely over 50 years) who went through their university years for free. That’s the perfect example of the olds (with nice triple-locked pensions + private pensions) trying to prevent the young generation from getting the advantages that they got. Shameful.
June 11, 2017
You are correct Hef. What is worse ththan govt is content to provide free tuition for EU citizens! You simply could not make it up. Do the politicos think the students do not speak to each other at uni? Can they not remember? Complete idiots.
June 10, 2017
It may be that it was the 25-44 group that made up the largest Labour voting cohort. If so then it’s not university fees but the housing and cost of living issues that may be the most pressing.
June 9, 2017
JR, when are you going to come back to Earth?
Tell us instead of your inconsequential blurb how as one of the sharks you are going to play Jaws to the swimmer Mrs May.
June 9, 2017
Terrible campaign by the Tories. And so the cult of Corbyn (free everything, paid for by the “rich”, what’s not to like, eh) managed to do far better during the campaign than the (non)cult of May. Probably people will point to the dementia tax as the turning point. The election was supposed to be about Brexit but that was hardly mentioned. (The perpetual whining about the EU by Mr Redwood does not count, it was just whining.) The Tories have no mandate, except maybe for a free vote on fox hunting. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of people. Unfortunately it is the people of Britain who are now going to suffer from weak and unstable government.
June 9, 2017
A soft Brexit is now far more likely, and would be a better reflection of the very narrow referendum victory for Brexit.
June 9, 2017
The type of Brexit will be decided by Germany and not likely to be one which is onerous for the UK as Germany is keen for the UK to exit the EU.
June 9, 2017
PvL
theres no such thing as a soft Brexit , we either leave or we dont. Corbyn is as much in favour of leaving as we are. The Labour manifesto page 28 we will end free movement of people !
June 9, 2017
PVL That’s just what the top brass wanted and achieved, without the mad costs of Labours program, but it’s not over yet.
June 9, 2017
Couldn’t be further from the truth.
June 10, 2017
And if Remain had won 52/48, we would never have had an EU army, to the detriment of NATO, nor have our rebate stopped or forced to pick up the costs of the many disasterous EU policies that we rejected, like Schengen, the Euro and Germany’s immigration policies, or rather, the lack of them? 🙂
And then there are the indirect costs that the EU has created or facilitated, like the Diesel Fraud, the Windmill Mania/Solar Farm/STOR diesel costs, the CAP distortions in the market, and the Carbon Credit frauds.
Leaders on both sides stated ‘Brexit means leaving the Single Market’, yet we were never told of the consequences of a Remain result.
All the members of the House of Commons and House of Lords promised to abide by the Referendum result and Theresa May recognised that that promise needed to be implemented. So shame on all those Tory MPs who fought tooth and nail to stop that.
They have paid the price. Let us hope the country can avoid ending up in an even worse position that we have been.
June 10, 2017
Thought your boss said there was no such thing.
June 10, 2017
Matter of opinion and a foreign one at that–people just want out and the sooner and more cleanly and complete the better.
June 10, 2017
Gosh, the view has risen. The Eurozone is still in a mess despite our election. Germany still being vindictive towards Greece. Mass unemployment, destitution and mass Africa immigration against the wishes of the people, with exception of menace Merkel.
June 9, 2017
As the Matt cartoon has it this morning, ” It turns out the voters are bloody difficult as well”
June 9, 2017
Well they can be. Especially if you actually put in your manifesto that you are going to tax them even more heavily, cut their benefits, introduce prices and income policies and even try to restore fox hunting. This while chanting “strong and stable government” and “coalition of chaos” endlessly.
June 9, 2017
How depressing, Cameron’s pusher of climate alarmism and the expensive energy lunacy Ed Davey is back in.
June 9, 2017
It is good the Scottish separtists have done badly, hopefully that’s the end of the referendum issue they for good. Bit It is clear the election was not about brexit it was about all sorts of other things. Even I had a moment when I thought how nice it would be if all my childrens’ student loans would be wiped out by fruit from the magic money tree.
As we scratch around for crumbs of comfort we will not have to endure 5 years Mrs May’s pre-thacherite butskellism. Also we will not get a Corbyn Government for now. But there is a looming danger of another election this autumn or even summer. Can the conservatives really risk that with mrs may as leader?
BTW though, how badly has she really done? 42.5% of the vote is up there with thatcher. The problem is a lot of people wanted Corbyn’s music money tree. Should have waited for the boundary changes.
June 9, 2017
No Richard1
She didn’t need to call an election at all. It was completely pointless a distraction from getting on with the business in hand.
She has zero leadership skills and now should be sacked as leader immediately
Oh and the Tories could do worse than offer a £25 membership fee and a grassroots vote for the new leader
June 9, 2017
The Conservatives lost their majority while increasing their share of the vote by 5.5%.
Yet another example of the fact that the FPTP system doesn’t deliver outcomes which reflect its inputs (votes cast). I am happy with a hung parliament. None of the parties came close to majority support by share of vote, so none of thrm deserve to be in power alone. I can only hope that 2 hung parliaments in 3 general elections represents the beginning of the end of an outdated 19th century electoral sysyem.
June 9, 2017
Congratulations on your victory, JR. Obtaining 56.6% of the vote, with a majority of 18798, is an excellent result. So important to have informed and intelligent MPs like you in Parliament as we head towards Brexit.
Best wishes
The Facts4EU.Org Team
http://facts4eu.org/news.shtml
June 9, 2017
After the election I am one very small step away from being a very disillusioned voter.
Time is ticking away and progress needs to be made on Brexit, the UK needs to be strong and deliver before the remoaning traitors give away our sovereignty to the likes of Junker, Tusk, Merkel & the rest of the EU dictators.
It’s time to pull the bunny out of the hat !
June 9, 2017
JR, It gives me no pleasure whatsoever to say “I told you so!”, but on the calling of the GE, my exact words were “This is the only way Brexit can be lost!”
Given the demographics, Brexiters will be dying off, and the ‘Remain’ youth will be swelling the electoral register! TIME will kill off Brexit.
Drastic action required! – Coalition with the DUP – Refuse any EU offer immediately and move to WTO trade rules – then get out of EU asap and negotiate remaining matters from OUTSIDE the EU!
Were the Tories’ campaign team stupid? Only six months ago we had Clinton with a single battle cry of “Vote for me, I’m a woman”, and the same mistake was made with May’s single battle cry of “Vote for me, I’m Theresa May.”
And something else for all politicians to learn! Show respect to your political opponents! May spent the whole campaign sneering at Corbyn – that didn’t play well! It didn’t play well with me, and I’m an avid Brexiteer!
My feelings are now the exact opposite of what they were on the 24th June last year!
Time to send the pearl handled revolver to Downing Street, then for the Tories to forget the past, go down on their collective bended knee and sign up FARAGE!
June 9, 2017
Excellent choice. Farage never loses an election, eh?
June 9, 2017
And don’t bother with the whisky!! 😡
zorro
June 9, 2017
DP
Farage is a blowhard loudmouth, he couldn’t run a whelk stall
June 9, 2017
It seems all the Conservative complaints about UKIP splitting their vote have been misplaced – they take just as many votes from Labour Farage was right.
June 10, 2017
Were the Tories’ campaign team stupid? YES. Incompetent? YES. Totally out of touch with the country? YES. Now we pay the real price.
Agree with your drastic action plan, but it not showing signs of getting any better as she brings back into the cabinet Hammond and Rudd. We are going to need bloody quickly people in the cabinet that eat, drink, sleep Brexit because it is in their very soul and start trumpeting all the changes that the EU are proposing to bring in and the real cost to us.
There is no such thing as “soft” Brexit . There is no being part of the single market unless we accept open borders and free movement of people. There you go I said it and it ain’t rocket science. What don’t these D****heads understand?
Yes and getting Farage on side would be a good call.
June 9, 2017
Ten to fifteen years ago, the idea that Corbyn who two weeks after the Brighton bombing would be voted for by half the electorate would be such a bizarre idea it would not be taken seriously. Who voted for Corbyn…the British…what??????? And 40,000 people voting in the self-same Brighton for silly Green ideas? What have you Parliamentarians done to our country that people living here would vote for such people? It is surreal.
Mrs May is not going to resign immediately? Whyever not? Amber Rudd should have bowed out too after the election result. She is attempting to carry on as Home Secretary. Corbyn will genuinely make a mockery of them both at Wednesday PM Questions…every single week. They are a joke! As is he!
June 9, 2017
I want to beg you:
Please would you get us out of the EU as it congeals into the EUSSR. We do not need the Euro. We do not need to be governed by a small Commission of unelected secret and probably corrupt Europeans. We do not need to have our laws enforced by a court – or courts – without a jury. We need habeas corpus and an end to extradition. We have to leave.
BUT
We also have to keep trading and by far the easiest way to do this, in the year or so we have left, is to leave the Single Market – the EU/EEA and to join EFTA/EEA. I know it is nowhere near perfect. That is for sure! I also know that a lot of Norwegian politicians would love to join the EU.
But it is better than nothing. Better than becoming a “tiird country” which, as you know will wreck our economy permanently.
Please will you at least think about this solution – temporary as it is. It does not stop us negotiating, indeed it actually provides a forum for us to argue our case.
June 10, 2017
However many times you may pretend otherwise, the fact is that Norway is classed as a “third country” by the EU.
June 11, 2017
Denis Cooper: “the fact is that Norway is classed as a “third country” by the EU.”
Yes, and Norway is in EFTA which has an existing agreement with the EU.
The simplest, most straight forward solution to leave EU with minimum disruption, is interim membership of EFTA ( after all, we were in EFTA before we were in the EEC/EU ).
June 9, 2017
Dear John. Last night was a victory for the Biased BBC – 20 years of pro-Labour propaganda plus 8 weeks of anti-May, vote-anyone-but-Conservative propaganda and they absolutely nailed it. So now I hope that SOMEONE in the Tory party realises – the BBC cannot scare you, they cannot harm you any more than they have already. Defund it to the tune of £6m a year and the playing field will become level. You owe that to democracy.
June 9, 2017
They were very biased – as they alway are. Paul Mason ex BBC hard lefty was everywhere with his brand of economy lunacy. It was not helped by the fact that they gave almost equal time to the SNP, Greens, Welsh, Labour and Libdims and Tories so 5 lefties to one. Half the tories are lefties too alas plus all the BBC staff other then A Neil.
Also he was seen as the underdog, so perhaps they felt they had to help him. There was hardly any questioning as to how on earth he was going to pay for his economic lunacy and promises.
June 9, 2017
Remember it was the Tories that just increased the Licence Fee and extended the legislation to include the on-demand iPlayer, while UKIP wanted the Licence Fee abolished.
June 10, 2017
BBC news gave him 20 minutes to make his barnstorming speech the day before voting.
June 10, 2017
Dear Lifelogic–“They” knew all right but (correctly) decided it was for others to pay or repay. Bring back the Men in grey suits and Smoke filled rooms, I say, absent which we are stuck with Mrs May for the duration, God Help Us, for obvious reasons.
June 10, 2017
Regardless of his ideology,Paul Mason had passion;what did the Tories offer-the equivalent of an old “Terry & June” script.
June 10, 2017
Lifelogic: “They were very biased”
A private members bill;
1. The British Broadcasting Corporation shall be funded exclusively by private voluntary subscription or government grant.
2. The provisions of this bill will take effect at the end of financial year 2017.
Done. But we don’t seem to have many MPs who are up to it.
June 10, 2017
Sky is no better …
June 11, 2017
Denis Cooper: “Sky is no better …”
Sure, but:
1. I don’t have to pay for Sky.
2. BBC doesn’t have to compete for custom. It should be able to produce quality unbiased programming in such a privileged (above) market position.
But it doesn’t.
June 9, 2017
What fool would invest in the UK now? At any given time Corbyn will be PM in a country that has proved it deserves him. So the Tory Party led by Mrs May cannot beat the very worst Labour characters it has ever put forward . The Labour Z Team.
June 9, 2017
Do you want a job ?
June 10, 2017
That’s not the question. Will anyone of real importance in the CP will propose one?
June 9, 2017
It’s when people laugh at you that you should worry.
The conservatives and Mrs May in particular are a joke now! And hard Brexit is categorically rejected by the UK voters
June 9, 2017
No it is not. Scotland voted to remain and now voted Tory and Labour wanting to leave! May mucked up on two key issues. manifesto mess about social care and fox hunting, 2. Was caught out over her appalling HS record to keep us safe i.e. cut number of police vindictively over plebgate and no control of ours borders allowing the current terrorists walk freely in and out of our country!
To make matters worse May has taken a stupid tablet to re-appoint Amber Rudd HS after she too is culpable for security failures in London and Manchester. She could have reappointed rather than require Rudd to resign or sack her.
June 10, 2017
Hope. That was not the heart of the comment: hard or softer Brexit. Note that for the time being nobody not even JR has taken the time to put down clearly what such Brexit could be and what the likely consequences (good or bad) could be. For more than two years, we have got snippets and posturing.
I might be wrong, in which case please give me the references of a properly detailed plan for Brexit. Over the last years the EU27 have produced first a draft then an outline of the main likely discussion points and of their positions on these. Where is an equivalent for the UK?
June 12, 2017
Hef, I heard all this before. The question was clear and succinct remain or leave. Both sides put their cases (orally) forward on many occasions. Cameron spent £9 million pounds our taxes persuading us to to remain. The key issues were clear. Both spun on these issues, I accept not helping the electorate.
Of course there was not a written documenter manifesto. Osborne had the Treasury write utter crap to scare us, he and Cameron also asked foreign leaders to speak to support their case.
May has sent letter issuing arctic 50 and her Lancaster speech sets out what she wants to achieve to behalf of the country. I lost count the amount times Farage told them direct to their faces at the EU Parliament. Hope this helps.
June 10, 2017
“And hard Brexit is categorically rejected by the UK voters”
That may be your interpretation but there is no basis for it.
June 9, 2017
I just hope your party have enough sense to see where they have gone wrong. The writing was on the wall. Looks like there could still be a slim chance for labour to get in.
June 9, 2017
Well done for retaining your seat John. Glad to seethe back of clegg, robertson, and especially salmond.
June 9, 2017
Defeat from the jaws of victory. Mrs May has succeeded in her quest to lose the election and derail Brexit.
Telling pensioners you are going to remove winter fuel allowance and mug their houses whilst continuing to spray £13billion in aid and wasting a year on Brexit negotiations was a real vote winner.
The upside is Clogg and Salmond losing their seats.
A proper Tory manifesto would have seen you walk it.
June 9, 2017
Although I don’t need WFA, losing it whilst ring fencing foreign aid, infuriated me. Then exempting the Scotch from loss of WFA, was enough to make me vote UKIP. Uselessly, as it turned out, but at least I deserted the so called Conservatives.
June 10, 2017
Indeed – perhaps the lesson here is we need mp’s with the backbone needed to bray on Mrs May’s door and demand that she broadens her outlook beyond her inner clique. We have seen this with Blair, Cameron….too many important decisions being taken by a narrow elite that all think alike.
Loyalty doesn’t always pay – May needed saving from herself.
June 10, 2017
Agreed Ian,
Those Winter Fuel Payment cuts as well as the Social care changes turned quite a few Tory inclining voters the other way.
June 9, 2017
If the party has learnt anything at all from this lamentable performance is that we need new faces with their CVs matching the job performance. The closely knit group surrounding the PM who she listened to and relied on has got to go. They talked but as usual they don’t listen.
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, well it is and it where are the emergency crews? The names are already on the pegs: Patterson, Rabb, Redwood and D Davies. We need fresh lungs and legs for the extra time.
We will also have the problem with the Anna Soubry’s of the party and these will have to be bought into the headmasters office and told it has gone from push to shove in that it is sign on or ship out. The country let alone the party cannot afford to have an active fifth column undermining what is ahead in our negotiations with the EU.
June 9, 2017
Splendid result in Wokingham. Congratulations and lucky constituents as well as wise.
Nationally, it is bitter indeed to have been right all along about both the PM and the Leader of the Opposition. Why is the Westminster bubble blind and deaf? Why does it keep saying “we were all taken by surprise”. Well, we weren’t. They were. Again.
Now, in their remianiac way, they are saying “this is the electorate wanting to change their minds on Brexit” – after that result for the Liberals and the Greens!!! This remainiac spin from the broadcasters needs to be taken head on, as you appear to be doing.
June 9, 2017
It is clear that either Mrs May or her advisors set out to sabotage Brexit making it look like it was by the electorate’s own hand on unrelated issues.
Regardless. One thing I did not factor when I voted Leave was that Remain would be put in charge of things. That our negotiators would be so deliberately ill equipped to deal with Brexit. That the metropolitan elites would dictate which politicians and which policies we are allowed.
I was right to vote Leave but we are wading through treacle.
A second referendum please, from which I shall abstain.
I wish we had not had the first.
This election is an unmitigated disaster and it was deliberate.
June 9, 2017
Maybe with a different leader? This one is now a horse with a broken leg and needs shooting!
Oh and to sack her team – one of whom the electorate has already sacked.
June 9, 2017
Theresa May based her campaign on trusting her with Brexit. Obviously the country doesn’t. She has to go and heads have to roll.My guess is that a Boris bandwagon will start to roll. As for your time to get on with government view especially Brexit because the people have spoken, since when will that make any difference to the rabid Remainers, I suspect even now Sir Vince et al are scheming to see how they can get another referendum into play.
As for getting legislation through, any could be held to ransom by a small rump of either the Leavers or Remainers making another election probably inevitable.
I suspect the markets will not be as sanguine as you this morning.
June 10, 2017
An alternative interpretation being that the country trusts Labour on Brexit about as much as it trusts the Tories – which is why many of those who voted for UKIP in the 2015 general election, because they want the UK to withdraw from the EU, felt that it was safe to vote Labour this time.
There’s an interesting scatter diagram here:
https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/873469390641090560/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativehome.com%2F
entitled:
“The Conservatives were the main beneficiary of Ukip’s collapse”
But the straight line they have fitted to the data crosses the horizontal axis where UKIP’s share of the votes has dropped by about 6%, not by zero; in other words according to that analysis the Tories gain no extra votes from a drop in UKIP’s share of the votes until it has dropped by at least that 6%.
Plus, the analysis does not attempt to take into account any extra votes transferred from UKIP to Labour, offsetting those transferred to the Tories; it is a plot of the gross benefit to the Tories, not the net benefit to Tories vis-a-vis Labour, which will be much lower.
In the years leading up to the 2015 general election it was repeatedly pointed out that UKIP had clearly started to divert support from Labour, not from just the Tories, and so even if UKIP was to completely disappear from the political scene the net benefit to the Tories would be much lower than some Tories assumed.
Why we have to wait for the catastrophe of this general election before Tories can even start to grasp this I do not know.
June 9, 2017
Well done Theresa May. That wasn’t a presidential election, we weren’t electing you personally, except in Maidenhead.
Lost twelve seats at an election that was there for the Tories to take.
Tell me Mr Redwood, how does the Tory party manage to appoint such horrible leaders?
June 9, 2017
I have some sympathy with that. We want people with grit who have resonance with ordinary folk who make up the bulk of the voting public, not goody-goodies. When will the Tories give us people with guts rather than whimpering shrinking violets? May is like John Major in drag!
For me, Brexit wasn’t the issue. It was May’s appalling record on cutting police numbers at a time when acts of terrorism were anticipated; breaking endless promises on unfettered immigration; undermining her own support base by threats to pensioner incomes, care and inheritances; young people not being able to get on the housing ladder; crippling student debt; and because most people are sick to death with austerity with pay freezes for our vital services at a time when the top 5% have got richer.
If that doesn’t amount to a perfect storm, I don’t know what does, but she still had the lack of foresight to set sail and embark upon an unnecessary election voyage anyway – and one that could ultimately defeat the very thing we have worked so hard to secure, namely, a complete severance from the European Union, and all in the name of vanity.
With so many disenfranchised people, a diminution in the number of Tory MPs was inevitable, yet the Tories will still arrogantly try to kid themselves that all is well and they have all the answers. Unbelievable!
Tad Davison
Cambridge
June 10, 2017
Perhaps not “horrible” but certainly misguided, out of touch, left wing and totally incompetent.
In my life time we have had Heath, Thatcher, Major, Cameron and May as Tory PMs.
Only Thatcher was remotely sensible, the others were are pro EU misguided socialists.
Even Thatcher made a lot of very big mistakes perhaps under pressure from the others, failing to cut taxes and the state sector sufficiently, failing to address the dire NHS, closing grammar schools, signing away more and more to the EU, the ERM fiasco, the politics of the poll tax ….. Her huge mistake was to allow Major to take over from her.
June 9, 2017
Presumably TM will be speaking with DUP as 320 will not be reached.
It is true Brexit has been confirmed as wanted, but constructive support from Labour should be sought for next few years, bit this will not be forthcoming as Cprnym will want to gloat. Reconfiguring student loans as graduate tax for uk stidents might remove that future bribe. Cross party discussion s on tax structure aligned to care should be carried out, this will also change the narrative from garden vs dementia tax to something more professional… There is much to be done in next 2+ years but parliament a bit more national interest to do this. TM should talk to Corbyn about a few years of Uk, she should also get business onside to speed up Brexit process, if no agreement businesses need time to adjust.
June 9, 2017
Why is mention of Mrs May missing from your commentary?
June 10, 2017
Best way to manage the future?
June 9, 2017
Producing a shambles is bad enough: if it prejudices Brexit it will be a disaster that can never be forgiven.
June 9, 2017
All the above is correct but you face a strengthened opposition concentrated in one party rather than splintered across three.
As a result of the results the whip can not be withdrawn from people like Anna Soubry who still continues to promote her personal manifesto despite nearly losing her seat.
I am afraid this is a debacle and will cost is dear in exiting the EU.
Notable that Labour is trying to mount a coup by offering itself as a government. Typical communist behaviour. What follows next Marshall law?
June 10, 2017
“Typical communist behaviour”, yes because the promotion of Mrs May as PM following the EU referendum was indeed a model of democracy.
June 10, 2017
Not your usual quality of response @hefner
June 10, 2017
Sorry to have disappointed you.
June 9, 2017
The Conservative Party will have enough sets to form a government, not govern.
Mrs May has to go, her judgment has been poor from day one as PM and whilst her decision to call an election was a fair gamble, the campaign and manifesto were shambles. A Remainer should never have been PM, but with the majority of Conservative MPs Remainers e.g. Clarke and Soubry, a genuine Brexit was never probable, now it is very improbable.
Another election this year is odds on and a second EU referendum far from out of the question.
At least Clegg and Robertson lost.
June 9, 2017
Tim Hartford’ conjecture in the FT that an orangutang would select better leaders than the process in current use in the Conservative Party has been confirmed. Will JR again support Andrea Leadsom as prospective UK big beast for the Brexit talks?
June 9, 2017
It has to be leadsom or Fabricant.
Or gyles brandreth
June 9, 2017
hefner
Is the orangutang on offer? Would make a better leader than the current one
June 10, 2017
Indeed a random lottery of people (who perhaps have to then pass an IQ test) would produce far better MPs in general than the current system. If someone actually aspires to be an MP or PM it is often an indication that they are totally unsuitable (with perhaps a few notable exceptions).
June 9, 2017
I agree you have to try to govern, but it will certainly be more difficult now than it was before.
I think I have said all I need to in recent posts about why your Party is now in the position it finds itself.
I await with much unease about a rather uncertain future.
Pleased for you personally John, politics is getting to be a very nasty business with the way some supporters are conducting themselves, especially on Social media, I am pleased you and your supporters locally did not get involved, and rose above it all.
June 9, 2017
Rubbish.
Negotiations will fall at the first hurdle.
The Conservatives, first via Cameron’s abrogation of responsibility, and now via May’s misjudgement, have lost the right to govern.
Enough is indeed enough.
We need a new line-up on the right which BELIEVES in Brexit.
June 10, 2017
We need a new line-up on the right which BELIEVES in Brexit. Indeed and in cheap energy, no green crap, a smaller state, lower taxes, a bonfire of red tape and sound money and sound economic management.
June 9, 2017
Wonderful! Treason triumphs. A left leaning non Conservative party cannot beat a Marxist terrorist supporting labour leader even after major terrorist incidents on the mainland.
The BBC to continue as a left wing tax payer funded progressive mouthpiece, no English parliament or English votes for issues. A soft Brexit likely and England’s role is to continue to accept large scale immigration and continue to pay up for a lefty lovey UK and support for the other “Nations” but not England.
You remain a beacon of light. Real Conservatives need to gather round you.
June 9, 2017
Good news DUP want to change or get rid of the BBC in its manifesto. Let us hope it is a red line of theirs!
June 9, 2017
But our host doesn’t believe in equality for England either – i.e. an English Parliament.
June 9, 2017
There is little time left. The situation is really extremely serious.
June 10, 2017
I think they call it ‘de-toxifying’ ..ie offending as many core voters as possible.
Cameron did it and couldn’t even win outright against man with as many problems as Gordon Brown. Why do the Conservatives keep on backing the wrong people..
June 10, 2017
Could it be that Conservatives are more diverse than what the small coterie usually babycrying on this blog think they are?
June 9, 2017
An opportunity has now presented itself to rid the govt of the Remainers who brought us to this point and replace them with some genuine conservative ministers who have a basic understanding of economics.
Don’t take your supporters for granted.
June 9, 2017
That is what May did, i.e take them for granted, and to make it even worse she sought to punish them with extra taxes etc of e.g. dementia tax, NI, inheritance and estate type duties, withdrawal of school lunches. You really couldn’t make it up.
June 9, 2017
So Brexit with May means now mean Brexit only in name if that. So very bad was May that I even lost my punt! To lose an election against J Corbyn, J Mc Donnall, D Abbott, A Rayner & A Eagle really takes some doing. Especially as she was given most of the UKIP votes for free – as most foolishly trusted her to deliver Brexit. No positive vision, not even a conservative – just like Heath, Major and Cameron a complete and utter disaster. Though it could have been worse.
Please can we have someone with a positive vision. Someone who is not a dim, wet, tax pushing, benefit cutting, big state, ex(?) remainer – and not a green crap pushing, socialist either?
Her replacement will now however have a very difficult job indeed, all thanks to May. I really blame Michael Gove’s stupid knifing of Boris though (yet another damn socialist who even wanted to kill private schools with VAT on fees).
June 10, 2017
No, this ball started rolling with Cameron calling a referendum but then walking away from his promise in a hissy fit when he was unable to deliver his chosen result. By now, we should be half way through negotiations to leave the EU, either with a Cameron administration or one that he handed over to, having presented an A50 letter on June 24th 2016. Instead, he, and he alone, let himself and more importantly the country down. We need somebody we can trust with ability and who will see the job through, not a pansy which wilts in the wind and falls over.
June 9, 2017
Mr Redwood, with reference to your interview with Andrew Neil, I believe that you are correct that the election results were not based on whether there would or not be Brexit.
But, certainly there is a big difference between the Conservative and Labour versions of Brexit.
I think that Mrs May needs to go now and suggest that a leader committed to Brexit is needed, may be David Davis?
Without “fresh blood” at the helm, the EU will not take any negotiation seriously and certainly will not offer any reasonable solution to the UK.
That is why we need a new PM now, as I don’t believe Mrs May will be strong and stable until we leave the EU.
June 9, 2017
In my experience, apolitical people who knew they wanted to leave the EU, think it is all done and dusted. They didn’t work out that this election meant they had to vote Conservative to safeguard Brexit. They didn’t think it was in any danger. Just one of Corbyn’s brilliantly reassuring ambiguities. He gathered in both Remainiacs and Brexiteers. the conservatives should have been on show arguing this point. It should not have been a one woman campaign – and a bad communicator too.
June 9, 2017
May managed to screw it up. Starting with a massive lead she did every possible thing she could to lose votes and turn Brexit into a difficult exercise. She has created the image of a weak government presiding over a split country, the exact opposite of what was needed. To be this bad against a pathetic Labour party almost seems deliberate. Is she really trying to wreck Brexit?
June 9, 2017
I do not wish to be a Mrs May apologist but the Conservative vote held up at 42.5% especially once the young turnout is factored back in, that is a lot of votes.
What happened was that Labour under Corbyn’s promise of spending for all wihout taxes for most gained between 16 & 18% during the campaign.
The Conservatives did not hemorrhage support except in London where there are too many right-on voters and immigrants. Labour gained votes from UKIP, the Lib Dems and the Greens. I am afraid that Gina Miller and her ilk who set up the tactical voting website probably made a big difference even if it was just to the turnout.
June 9, 2017
Some people would call that a ‘conspiracy theory’. However, a lot of those tend to have a factual basis when considered in hindsight…..
zorro
June 10, 2017
In that respect, NS’s comment makes much more sense than resorting to a “conspiracy” explanation.
The PM’s campaign kept turning and U-turning with few Conservatives really being attracted to her staged events. Compare that to the pictures shown every day of Corbyn’s meeting with much bigger crowds of rather enthusiastic people.
Who looked more genuine and dynamic?
June 9, 2017
Mrs May asked the public to give her a clear Brexit means Brexit mandate and she didn’t get one.
The LibDems is a side issue and is clutching at straws.
The Remain establishment and the EU have been very clever.
June 9, 2017
Time for a National Government perhaps?
June 9, 2017
Theresa May took poor advice and appeared too arrogant. At least Ben Gummer got punished for his part in that.
You have lost some good MPs but well done to Ruth in Scotland, people are suggesting she be moved into the Cabinet via the Lords, no for f’s sake she is needed in Scotland to hold the SNP to account, don’t make Sturgeon’s mistake thinking she was bigger and represented more people than she did. I smiled when I saw Clegg, Robertson and Salmond’s results, arrogant men all. However, these Tories from Scotland need to bring a bit of Northern realism to the Southern Tories and show that voting Tory in the North is not a waste of your vote.
So arrogance was the big loser on the night.
June 10, 2017
John was called arrogant also!
June 9, 2017
What dp we have to do to get rid of May? Many of us were prepared tp put Brext at risk just to get rid of her today but still she wont go.
June 9, 2017
You have no mandate to give GCHQ more powers to spy on us.
People saw through this attempted power grab.
June 9, 2017
Quite right. It would be far more profitable to control and police the borders properly and to review our immigration system pdq and enforce the existing laws.
June 9, 2017
One positive to take from this is a minority government can do less interfering in our lives.
America’s recent run of good growth came about while there was legislative deadlock with few laws being passed.
Your minority government could get out of the way, concentrate on getting us easy access to the single market and do little else which would be rather good.
June 9, 2017
I agree.
June 9, 2017
It is essential that the Tory party behaves immediately with confidence. It cannot risk acting on the defensive and losing more initiative to the opposition. Those of a nervous disposition must hold on.
If not Corbyn, and his band of revolutionaries, who will undoubtedly now take to staging ‘victory’ rallies around the country, will be allowed to get away with a claim that they are the true winners. There is a danger that they may with this tactic encourage violence.
It must not be forgotten he and they are not democrats, they are revolutionaries.
I dare say also the BBC and Sky will give him considerable favourable support, as they have in the election period.
June 9, 2017
The BBC has stated many times and to both Corbyn and McDonnell that Labour lost.
June 9, 2017
Typical bolshevik tactics…..
zorro
June 10, 2017
John McDonnell’s interview early yesterday morning was straight out of the Trotsky handbook,claiming the moral right to government as a minority by denigrating a discredited opposition.If it wasn’t for the fact they already control most of the key institutions,I would advise May’s “provisional” government to be alert for actions of the Red Guards.
June 10, 2017
TPW, are you still living with a 50s-60s state of mind. Haven’t you noticed 1989? Berlin Wall? Gorbachev? Castro?
The only remaining “communist revolutionary” is Kim-Jong-Un, and thinking of it Kim-Jong-May.
June 9, 2017
This is your chance to be PM John.
You are our equivelant of Corbyn. Take the reigns you earned it.
June 9, 2017
Welcome back Dr Redwood.
A bit of a surprise result, but then again the bread and butter issues (housing, wages, return on investments) were barely mentioned by Theresa’s team. I’d have prefered to hear how a forward-looking economically liberal adminstration would help ordinary people afford decent housing, get better wages, and have better pensions; as well as take us out of Europe.
I didn’t like to hear how Theresa’s team were going to end internet encryption (and therefore internet commerce) and was not convinced this would improve security. I didn’t like the Heathite scheme to push a centrally planned industrial strategy.
Great performance in Scotland – saved the Conservatives’ bacon.
June 9, 2017
Mrs May saying she wanted to control the internet rallied the youth vote at the last minute.
June 9, 2017
MR
It was another in a line of stupid ideas fromTories ( too many tories Morgan, Sourby etc) want to curtail the internet
That was NOT what got the youth vote. It really is vanishingly simple but because Tory CCHQ dont mix with ordinary people it never dawned on them.
The remain camp blamed leaving on the young not voting.
May looked, sounded and acted like everything Labour said the evil Tories stand for
The youth vote got out in big style because they felt 1) guilty, 2) were targeted very heavily on social media 3)the young all hate the tabloid press who all backed May ( apart from Mirror) 4) were promised “free” education
June 9, 2017
The party machines have spent the past 20 years selecting compliant fools as candidates so is it any surprise that we find ourselves in the position of not having any party fit for power or even for opposition ?
Add to that the wonderful idea of introducing cultural Marxism into state schools under Blair with cross party support and we have ended up with a growing proportion of unthinking idiots amongst the population .
To top all this Cameron and Fallon have virtually disbanded our armed forces .
I voted for you John on Thursday because you personally were the best candidate on the voting slip .
In the H.O.C. your talent sticks out like a sort thumb in an ocean of what one can (if one is being kind) be described as mediocrity .
The only good news that I can see is that Britons have sent an unmistakable signal to those in power that they want to keep their public services , especially the national health service , and will not stand for it being privatised by the back door or downsized .
Really don’t know how the country recovers for this as the leadership and people it needs to restore control are just not there .
June 9, 2017
John
This election has bee shambles for the Conservative Party you might end up governing the country with support from other parties, but it is now time to re-think a lot of what ahs been said by you and others about Hard Brexit, this is obviously not what the British population wants. Your prediction that the Lib Dems would have a bad election did not come to fruition either.
For the sake of the people who voted for you and yourself, start a new chapter, where you base your predictions on facts and figures instead of emotions and gut feelings, it really makes you look less trust worthy
Or to be nice grow up
Reply Lib Dems had another dreadful election with little support for their second referendum.
June 9, 2017
The Liberals even lost Richmond Park to a known Brexiteer. That by election was supposed to be the start of something big. It never happened, and now they have even lost that seat.
June 9, 2017
It is a poor result for the Conservatives – the result of a poor manifesto that was designed to attract Labour supporters . Theresa is in a worse position than before calling the election ; she would have been better to have continued with the majority that already existed .
Whether Theresa can now retain the support of her MPs is in question ; the only problem is who is there to take control ?. There is no-one in the present Cabinet I would go for . The Conservatives need to re-design themselves as a proper right wing group ; moving to the left is not the way to keep the support of the traditionalists and to attract voters who know the importance of business and low taxation . ” Remainers ” are not wanted .
John has to get his skates on and convince his colleagues to pull things together .
June 9, 2017
I’ve just seen the results in John’s constituency and I am very pleased he won . I hope his policies will be at the heart of a deal that is stitched up with the DUP . Comments from Germany are rejoicing at the result with a photo of Merkel toasting the result with a glass of wine with the PM from Argentina .
June 9, 2017
She will be up against her own Corbyn plus coalition of chaos come September.
June 10, 2017
BY, according to the Getty press image agency, Merkel and the Argentinian PM were toasting a future potential trade agreement between the EU and Mercosur.
June 9, 2017
Realpolitik: ‘politics or diplomacy based primarily on considerations of given circumstances and factors, rather than explicit ideological notions or moral and ethical premises.’ (Wikipedia)
The result does however say something about the people of Britain, in the mixed-up, fractious world of 2017. Mrs May did her best, and was worthy of a better outcome.
June 9, 2017
A disastrous result and a disastrous campaign. May’s dementia tax & re-introduction of fox hunting saw a 20% lead reduced to a hung parliament. And now it looks as though she won’t be able to get a hard Brexit through with some Tory MPs calling for us to stay in the single market. Labour also managed to mobilise the young vote on their promise of scrapping tuition fees. No doubt your party will learn nothing from this. Isn’t it time you stopped discriminating against England’s young in this way?
To add insult to injury we now have Labour and the SNP suggesting they could form some sort of ‘progressive’ alliance. Despite the fact no-one outside of Scotland can vote for the SNP and despite a great deal of policies the UK Government implements nowadays only affects England. Maybe it will take the SNP governing England for the English to realise the undemocratic way in which they are governed and which it seems no party including yours gives two hoots about.
For the sake of England John, to stop the possibility of this ever happening, could you please try and persuade your Tory colleagues to put the interests of England before themselves for a change and address the English Question and West Lothian Question.
June 9, 2017
What a disappointing night for Conservative supporters.
I did not expect this outcome but cannot say I’m too surprised. Yesterday I criticised the campaign, even saying that Mrs May did not deserve to win except for the fact that the alternative would be so awful.
Well, Mrs May’s failings have been thrown into sharp relief. The result proves that her tight-knit group have run a catastrophically bad campaign and that team will have to be changed and broadened. I have not spoken to a single Conservative activist who has anything other than strong criticism of the campaign.
The one MP I had hoped to have lost was Soubry. Unfortunately she was returned but immediately she’s been up to her old tricks, stupidly calling for Mrs May to consider her position.
Now it is absolutely essential that everyone in the party falls in line behind Mrs May, despite what has happened in the election. With the Brexit talks looming there can be no change of leader – in fact Mrs May will have little choice other that to keep exactly the same cabinet team and go back to work with support from the DUP.
Anything else will open up the possibility of a second election and a Corbyn government.
The election result should make no difference to the Brexit negotiations. the idea being floated around the BBC that somehow the election will mean we must go for a softer Brexit is ridiculous.
The outcome will be what it will be as ultimately it will depend on the attitude of the 27.
If a certain outcome was unacceptable yesterday it must remain so today. At least we will not be going into the negotiations hamstrung by a party leader intent on signing up however bad a deal is on offer.
I am pleased that my own MP and our host were both returned to the house.
June 9, 2017
Here are a couple of take aways for your next leader.
-taking old people’s homes away,
-restricting the Internet to punish 55million innocent people because twenty five thousand terrorists and terrorist sympathisers use it.
Nope.
-and bringing back fox hunting,
No particular emotional attachment to furry foxes. But no need for that to be in a Tory manifesto. Just get a private members bill through parliament.
A awful wasted opportunity.
June 9, 2017
The number of terrorists in the UK would be minimal if our government had had a fit for purpose immigration system and effective border controls. The government has failed in its duty to protect its own citizens, and yet it seeks to punish the people further for its own shortcomings. The root of the problem should be acknowledged as only in that way can it be addressed properly, with adequate resources directed towards it. Only then can we hope to have some sort of solution to our terrorist problem.
June 11, 2017
Chris: ” if our government had had a fit for purpose immigration system and effective border controls. ”
It’s even worse than that. The government through its proxy the – so called – intelligence services, were warned by Italian authorities that Youssef Zaghba was travelling to the UK and his declared intent was to commit some sort of terrorist attack!
June 9, 2017
Once again May’s brand of ‘red tories’ have demonstrated they are woefully out of touch. Anyone reading this column would realise that shifting leftwards and targeting a ‘dementia tax’ and backing a bigger and more bold state was a daft idea . No doubt the conclusion will be drawn that ‘the hard brexit’ lost the election and lessons will not be learned. May seems to believe that she just needs to be extremely politically correct to win Liberals and ‘jaw bone’ a ‘hard brexit’ to win over core Conservatives. Her thinking is as robotic as her delivery.
All her talk about ‘tackling burning injustices’ and a ‘country that works for everyone’ just didn’t resonate with conservatives or persuade enough UKIP or Labour voters to switch.
All very predictable for anyone who isn’t in the Conservative bubble listening to overgrown schoolboys like Ben Gummer..
Perhaps Dr Redwood could step forward and insist that sanity is restored ..heaven knows the party has tried everything else!. Take back your party!
June 9, 2017
Hear, hear.
June 9, 2017
Dr Redwood please do us all a favour and lead your party into getting rid of Theresa May, and let’s for a change have a real conservative at the helm. We suffered 11 years of social democratic Dave; never did fathom out Theresa but I distrusted her from the moment she handed back police and justice powers to Brussels, for which we had an opt out.
June 9, 2017
Does one laugh or cry? Cry mainly. I don’t vote Tory, I don’t need to with my MP having a 20k majority. But they are the lesser of two evils.
That said, the rank incompetence of the election campaign with the dementia tax farce, the refusal to debate and so on has opened the door for Labour. You might limp on now, but, next time, Labour will walk it because you only seem to have austerity and incompetence to offer.
June 9, 2017
Nigel Evans admits they hijacked their own campaign. What a surprise! We were all saying the manifesto was a disaster so once again one has to ask was it done on purpose? If we have to get into bed with the DUP then a hard Brexit is unlikely. The people have been betrayed.
June 10, 2017
It all seems very convenient …May has a tin ear but nobody could be that incompetent….
June 9, 2017
If Theresa May is as good as her word she will put forward a Queen’s speech that helps the “Just about Managing” group in our country. Brexit negotiations should proceed with due haste and authority because, as you rightly said to a non-listening Andrew Neil, both Labour and Conservative manifestos wanted Brexit. But we also care for our schools, hospitals, appointments at our doctors’ surgeries and our crumbling infrastructure (eg roads). So well done on your own victory and your summation on BBC this morning, now down to business to govern for everyone
June 9, 2017
NHS, schools crumbling infrastructure – all have been in the hands of Government since 1948 but it does not occur to you that the dire state they are in is precisely because of that?
The remedy must therefore be ever more of what caused the problem… and of course throw lots more money at it all from the Magic Money Tree.
June 9, 2017
Just being realistic JohnB, I’m no apologist for the public sector or the unions they attract. But if you think that, within the space of 5 years of a Parliament enacting a Manifesto that’s supposedly there to help the “just about managing” and “governing for the whole of the UK”, means getting rid of Government control of schools, hospitals and our roads then I think you’ll be sorely disappointed. We’re still reeling from the deficit inherited in 2010. Had there been some modest targeted tax rises (or cuts to HS2 and overseas aid) to generate the extra cash to get us into surplus by 2015 or by now, we wouldn’t have such problems.
June 9, 2017
The sooner she gets Brexit done the better. Barnier’s, ‘We can start when Uk is ready’ is of course being taken by the media as understanding. It is but not in the way they think. He understands that the later they start, the more it will be to his advantage.
June 9, 2017
Only the Conservatives argued for the economic catastrophe of hard Brexit. The voters have stripped the Tories of their majority as a result. Hard Brexit is dead, John Redwood has lost all legitimacy. Let us now proceed to put in place what the voters want, membership of the single market and the customs union
June 9, 2017
Hard Brexit = actually leaving the EU
Soft Brexit = staying in
June 9, 2017
How on Earth, on any definition you could possibly come up with, would continued membership of the single market and customs union be “leaving the EU”, control our money and borders or give us the ability to trade more widely across the world?
June 9, 2017
The voters voted in the main for the Conservatives and Labour and neither of these parties were in favour of the membership of the Single Market since this would mean continued large scale uncontrolled immigration.
The SNP, Lib Dems and Greens were in favour of membership of the Single Market and were consequently rejected by the electorate.
June 9, 2017
No reason the result meant any such thing. Do not make things up to suit your own agenda.
June 9, 2017
If that’s what people wanted Len they’d have voted Lib Dem but they didn’t.
June 10, 2017
In other words, continued membership of the EU despite a referendum saying that we should leave the EU.
June 9, 2017
How JR do we get from this dreadful position of a weak minority government to one where the Tories can (at the next election whenever it is) win a sensible majority, achieve a real Brexit and finally have some sensible conservative policies that will actually grow the economy? Policies to sort out the dire, joke, monopoly public services like the NHS, cut the size of the state, go for cheap energy and protect and defend the nation properly?
Quite a challenge now, even for a real Conservative leader. At least we can now ditch May’s prices and incomes policy, her workers on company boards and her gender pay reporting insanities, Hinkley, HS2……. Hopefully Hammonds insane stamp duty rates, the large increase in IPT on medical and other insurance and his other attempted muggings.
The next election please go in slightly more like Father Christmas and ask for people’s support and votes. Less like the grim reaper demanding them repeating “strong and stable government endlessly”!
At least Ben Gummer managed to defeat himself with his half witted manifesto!
June 9, 2017
And at least we have ten real conservatives coming to prop her up. Thank God for the loyal men of Ulster. About time they were acknowledged. The BBC kept them out of all the debates, preferring Mrs Lucas and Mrs Wood – not that it did those women any good. Then the BBC didn’t seem to know who the DUP were this morning. The John Humphrys gaffe of the day was his enthusiastically asking them if they would like to go into coalition with Corbyn!
June 9, 2017
The almost daily leaflet through the door claiming brexit talks were going to start after the election seems a bit in the wind now. 350 days since the referendum – at £50m+ a day – -Must be great throwing other people’s taxes about, while inviting unlimited people into the country for free everything – to be a further financial burden and in some cases an absolute danger to the rest of us. ~How long till the next ” he told a good sob story and to get asylum, we never thought he’d blow ??? people to bits”.
June 9, 2017
If this election had a title it was revenge of the young remainers. Perhaps the government can start worrying about winning their votes. Thinking they would be happy with crippling student debt, unaffordable housing and the curtailment of travel and work within the EU while solely chasing the votes of northern Brexiteers was a big error.
Oh well, at least we have been spared Corbyn walking into Downing Street. Even if that means the DUP will have outsize influence as they did during the Major years.
June 9, 2017
Mrs. May said if she lost half a dozen seats Mr Corbyn would be in Downing Street. She lost a lot more and is still there. Seems politicians just can’t help themselves.
June 9, 2017
How much of an error is it for these young people to have been brainwashed into thinking their future would be better fighting half Europe for a job in a coffee shop, and not having anywhere to live because getting on for a million people a year are coming in needing housing?
June 9, 2017
Unfortunately in another careless comment David Davis has cast doubt on your “… voting by a huge margin for Con/Lab who both argued to accept Brexit and to leave the single market” and instead has given the media the opportunity to run headlines like this:
http://www.independent.co.uk/News/uk/politics/hung-parliament-brexit-single-market-eu-latest-news-theresa-may-majority-tory-mandate-david-davis-a7780541.html
“Tories would lose mandate to leave EU single market if they lose majority, suggests Brexit Secretary”
No doubt this will be repeated and repeated ad nauseam, with embellishments.
June 9, 2017
Tories resurgence under Brown started with £1m inheritance tax pledge, which offered six figure bribes to any waverers.
Winter fuel payments, triple lock, National Insurance duplicity started the rot this time.
The elimination of the Dilnott cap, the statement that “100,000 constitutes a good inheritance”, and including houses in the means test for domiciliary care were all catastrophically expensive to millions of families who have no wealth other than the illusory capital in their primary residence.
Corbyn then bribed the young with the promise of free Uni, dramatically altering their net worth for the next thirty years if they earn any money.
Sordid Auctions.
Totally mishandled by naive unworldly imbeciles – not what you expect to find in the Tory party.
Sort it out, for god’s sake!
June 9, 2017
That went well didn’t it ?
Let’s face it Brexit will be watered down now, if we ever leave at all.
The EU achieved the upper hand overnight without doing anything they must be ecstatic. Well done all concerned.
June 9, 2017
She overplayed the Me Me Me. Besides, was always crazy having two Remainers as 1 & 2. As stood out like a sore thumb at the time in that particular interview and as pointed out by Nigel Farage in the night, it was agonising to listen to her banging on about obeying the instructions of the people whilst clearly she could not bring herself to say she believed in Brexit. Hope Gove is happy–it’s his last minute perfidy and wrongheadedness that has brought us to this. If Boris had been elected everything would be coming up roses. At least Sturgeon will have to put a sock in her broken record. Ghastly that Corbyn’s raft of Santa Claus promises should very clearly also have contributed so much to the result, especially with the younger less experienced voters.
June 9, 2017
Post Scriptum–Just read that Paul Nuttall is standing down (it was mission impossible for him)–Nigel Farage says he may, against his personal wishes (and I believe him), simply have to jump back in to the fray and for my dosh the sooner the better. With him back i/c of UKIP it would become instantly obvious that reports of the party’s demise have been exaggerated.
June 9, 2017
PPS–Now I have just had the displeasure of reading that David Davies is already (already!) making concessions. I would not have believed it possible but it looks to be the case. It seems he has given his interpretation of “what the vote means” and in my opinion he has misread the position big time–Huge mistakes made all over by a small clique and largely independent of wretched EU, from which we have to get clean away, absolutely clean away.
June 9, 2017
For 6 General Elections, the voters have declined to give the Conservatives a good working majority, yet time after time, the Tories ‘elect’ (or not in this case) the wrong leader and put out policies the public will not vote for. A Remainer in charge of Brexit! What was it Einstein said about insanity?
The public, the ones with voting power, as opposed to the political nerds, in general love their services and the things that are provided by them, the military, police, NHS, local government and don’t like cuts to them in order to ‘save’ money which is then given away, in ill advised military interventions, foreign aid, immigration and to large corporations and the rich who already have enough. They stood for years for austerity because they thought it was to balance the books but see now where it is intended to go and it isn’t for their benefit, with their houses under threat of confiscation, poorer pensions, fuel assistance to be cut, bus passes cancelled and higher taxes to boot.
The way this campaign was handled, turning a sure fire win into a loss makes me wonder whether the whole thing was orchestrated by Common Purpose. Goodbye Brexit – we are fast going to the Norway option where we keep paying, are ruled from Brussels with no say. It is all too complete to be down to simple incompetence.
June 9, 2017
It does seem from the strange pattern of results that the referendum remainers have exercised their anger by supporting Labour, possibly thinking that it would not materially affect the result, but they were wrong.
June 9, 2017
And a good proportion of those who do want to leave the EU and who voted for UKIP last time switched back to Labour, offsetting those who reverted to the Tories.
June 9, 2017
ferdinand: “It does seem from the strange pattern of results that the referendum remainers have exercised their anger by supporting Labour, ”
UKIP -10.8% of vote
Labour +9.5%
I’m surprised, but it looks like the remnants of UKIP have returned to the Labour fold.
What amazes me, is the Tory gains in Scotland. Seems to have killed a another independence referendum, stone dead.
June 9, 2017
May did not have to call an election and stated she would not six times. This was he only obstacle that could be placed before the negotiations started. It was her last roll of the dice to stop leaving in its entirety.if Cameron did not lie and kept his word none of this would have happened!
June 9, 2017
The strategy was to push for a hard exit and then call a vote but target resources at unwinnable seats etc. Thus reducing the mandate for Brexit.
June 9, 2017
JR, I agree with all the points you made this morning. I am confused why DD thinks this will alter our Brexit position?
Politicos making all sorts of unsubstantiated claims what the result means about Brexit. You need to make sure more leavers are in the cabinet, Hill and Timothy get the deserved boot. Good to see Gunner gone, he wrote the crap that put your party in peril.
Overseas aid needs to be cut or removed to pay for better public services. Social care in your manifesto does not square with overseas aid. Nor do cuts in services. Terrorism now needs to be treated as a priority to change govt action. Borders to be secure, extreme vetting for those who wish us harm or go to fight abroad. Spell it out to dim-witted May.
June 9, 2017
Hope, yes the uk is where it is because of a combination of Beckett and Cameron. There is an opportunity now for May to enhance her cabinet and Corbyn to actually serve his country … I have little hope, but I am willing to be surprised.
June 9, 2017
Didn’t Jeremy do well lol!
I’m glad you kept your seat John – they should put you on DD’s Brexit negotiating team, really they should
June 9, 2017
That would be far too sensible!
June 9, 2017
More than that – if the media can be believed – that the Conservatives will be looking for a new leader – John Redwood would stand head and shoulders above anyone else in the Conservative team. He would be a high favourite!
June 9, 2017
Dear Marvin–With you maybe but how many others do you know that think that way? I have long largely supported JR but as I have also said many times he has managed somehow to create an image that lots of people do not warm to
June 9, 2017
JR should take over from DD!
Congratulations on your success once again Mr Redwood.
June 9, 2017
Congratulations JR. We shall need your wisdom as never before.
Conservatives 318, DUP 10, overall maj 8 if Sinn Fein don’t roll up to support their old mate. If they do, maj 3. Any two Tory or DUP MPs can blackmail the Government.
Mr Corbyn has bagged a whole generation with more votes than sense. He has gone from zero to hero in seven weeks. Marxists, return to your constituencies and prepare for government.
June 9, 2017
They should put JR at the Treasury (to cut and simplify tax rates and build the tax base) and Peter Lilley should go to the Energy Dept. to ensure we get cheap reliable on demand, non green crap sanity.
Now Ben Gummer has lost his job perhaps he can get a new job writing car sales brochures. He could highlight the large initial capital cost, the high monthly interest charges, the large depreciation rates, the vat on them, details of all the very many maintenance costs, the road taxes, how they often get scratched and vandalised, the large fines if you stay a tyre into a bus lane or park for a minute too long, the possible costs of large breakdowns, the dangers and costs of deadly crashes ………. He should sell loads more car that way!
How can people be so out of touch with reality?
June 10, 2017
Gummers, not gummed- smartie altered it while trying to get through capcha.
June 9, 2017
Jeremy did very well (mainly due to T May and the bonkers punishment manifesto). Corbyn’s many magic money tree promises were clearly something he could never have delivered. But then he knew he would never have to.
He is very fortunate that he will not even have to try and can just continue sniping from the side lines in his fantasy world.
June 9, 2017
The British people have told us by their vote that a great many of them love bribery and are not that averse to Marxism and other loony left ideas regardless of the consequences. The former used so many times before by lefty politicians of course was what created our great affection for our dependency and entitlement culture that we have today. The latter which we will one day not that far off we will fully embrace will be the action that ends our Western societies as we know them. The price for which we will have to pay will be dear as we become impoverished and our culture subsumed by a new less tolerant and enlightened one but will be well earned for being so stupid.
June 9, 2017
When will the Tories ever learn that competing with Labour for the votes of Labour followers is always ultimately going to be a doomed policy, no matter how superficially attractive it may appear? The point is that when it comes to offering up socialism on a plate the Labour Party is always going to have the edge over the Tories because it’s their territory and it’s what they do best (the lies, the vote buying, the sheer irresponsibility). All that socialists like May and Cameron do is demoralise and turn away Conservative core voters without attracting sufficient support from the other side, for that very reason. Cameron lost the unlosable election in 2010 (I do know he crawled into no. 10 thanks to the Libdims) because Tory supporters saw through him. And he only ‘won’ in 2015 because of the truly horrifying prospect of Sturgeon handing Labour power in a coalition. Unfortunately people have become sufficiently inured to the fear factor and it didn’t stop them voting for a Labour lunatic this time around
June 9, 2017
Brexit I fear is back in the melting pot as it is now obvious that the only two possible deals available are to leave without one or as some kind of associate member. To leave without one is the only one where the UK’s future prosperity and security can be guaranteed. So the unknown is although Brexit MPs may be greater in number than before are they committed enough to leave the hard way or will they botch it in accepting a number damaging compromises.
June 9, 2017
I agree with you John but of course what you absolutely must do is ditch May and her special advisers at the first possible opportunity (before the end of 2017) and install as PM someone with at least a basic level of political ability and competence – not sure who that would be but there must be several candidates.
June 9, 2017
If I were May I’d hug Boris closer and put him as Chancellor to get the kids to listen to why they can’t all have their money for nothin’ and a big hitter next to her on the front bench, plus it would really upset GO, then I’d ask you to be in his team to actually do the work required in the treasury :). I’d put the diplomatic Hammond in Boris’ job.
June 9, 2017
Let us hope there are some conservatives who now understand you cannot stick two fingers up at 48% of the country. May asked for a mandate for Hard Brexit and the country told her they prefer a sixth form Communist with a long history of support for the IRA.
That is no mandate to fix my dodgy boiler far less to sacrifice the Nations prosperity security standing and services
In the long term, as I have tried to explain repeatedly, losing Liberal England business the young and the moderate is a mistake .A Party that arrogantly trashes its entire post-war history is not one anyone can respect for long
Your claim that only the Liberal Party represent remain is quite absurd
UKIP got no seats – so much for hard Brexit
June 9, 2017
I’m tempted to say that May should advise the Queen to let Corbyn have a turn.
June 10, 2017
Sad to say I agree.The British Establishment has shown itself to be totally incapable of reform,it needs to be swept away.Corbyn -or the people behind him-would do that.Hopefully they in their turn would then be swept away by something new.Either way something very unpleasant is coming.
June 9, 2017
Very sad indeed as it was all so avoidable, from Hammond’s idiotic attempted NI ratting to the absurd manifesto, to the failure to even appear in the debate, to the winter fuel removal, the triple lock, the failure to guarantee no increases in IT, NI, VAT and then the dementia tax.
Do they have no one in touch with reality in the Tory party that they could run things past?
June 9, 2017
I have noticed something sinister! The PM’s official car has a number plate with that bloody awful EU flag on it! Is that a Freudian slip indicating her true Brexit feelings? I have long since blanked out that flag on my number plates with the Union Flag – I hope the JR limo is similarly patriotic!
reply I have English flag pistes. Everyone should choose the flag they wish to show.
June 9, 2017
Congratulations, John and a pleasure to see you back under your own flag!
I have long wondered at what I suppose must be the blinkered view of those high in government, as to why a person such as yourself, with wide and lengthy experience of the business and economic world outside of the Westminster bubble, have remained excluded from high office?
June 9, 2017
John Redwood,
Can I first say that I am so so sorry as to how the Conservative Campaign has gone and for the shock result last night with exceeded my own worst fears. The opinion polls over the last week suggested a narrow Conservative win- but clearly they over-compensated for their errors in 2015 by putting a harsh filter on the youth vote (ICM and Com Res assumed youth-turnout to be below 50%): It wasn’t- the young turned out in record numbers (despite the rain) and voted (decisively) against austerity and for their university tuition fees to be paid by the State. When I saw the crowds coming out for Jeremy Corbyn and supporting him in their thousands, and some of the results of un-filtered polls like Survation (which was close having a Conservative lead of 1%), something told me that the polls were over-optimistic for the Conservatives this time.
I think, for now, Theresa May has to secure the backing of the DUP (who have 10 Seats and have just offered their almost unilateral support for the Conservatives). Since the seven (new) SinnFein MPs and the Speaker and Deputy Speaker do not vote, the Conservatives-plus-DUP have 328 MPs, giving us an effective Majority of 16. It is therefore not (perhaps) as disastrous as the crude figures look. She should thrash out a Conservative programme for government with the DUP and with a robust programme for negotiating with the European Union, which should include refusing to pay the £85 billion EU “Divorce Bill”- and being willing to walk away if they insist.
However, with the Conservatives having LOST 12 Seats overall (when Theresa May was hoping for a bigger Majority) Theresa May’s authority and standing (both in Parliament and with the Public) has been severely diminished. She will not have the credibility in the eyes of the EU leaders, in Parliament nor with the Public, being seen as weak. I doubt she will get the Mandate she needs to pass such a Queen’s Speech that includes a “Firm Brexit”. Theresa May brought this disaster on the Conservative Party, NOT by calling the General Election, but because the policies in the Conservative Manifesto had not been road-tested nor discussed with the wider Conservative Party and some policies- such as ending free school lunches for primary school children and the social care policy were truly disastrous.
This means that whole-hearted support from all Conservative MP’s for a firm approach in no longer guaranteed- and you can be sure Jeremy Corbyn’s Party, the Lib Dems and SNP (with help from Plaid Cymru with no four MPs) will collaborate to vote down anything like a robust negotiating position. If Theresa may CANNOT command enough support and respect to set out a draft for a tough negotiating position with Brussels then she should go: Someone like Boris Johnson or David Davis should be encouraged to run for the top position- and quickly. They would command respect and have an ability to stamp their authority on the Conservatives in a way that might enable us to win Elections again.
They should then seek a new General Election running on some proper costed Conservative policies that appeal across the board (i.e get rid of Foreign Aid to fund the NHS and the Police better, cut quangos and green subsidies to cut Income Tax- a lot). They should get out there and make the case for lower taxes and take down Jeremy Corbyn’s Socialist Manifesto, which we have clearly failed to do this time.
Then we would win a proper Mandate.
Ian Pennell
June 9, 2017
Look like the bluff “no deal is better than a bad deal” did not even manage to convince the British public.
What are the odds it will work on the EU.
The kind of Brexit and the U.K. Society that comes with it you had been advocating looks to have been thoroughly rejected by the voters.
Time to play nice with the remoaners inside your own party, Mr Redwood ?
June 9, 2017
John,
Please just make sure no mention of means-testing the Winter fuel allowance graces the pages of a future Manifesto. Those few words have cost us dear.
June 9, 2017
If a Student can vote in their home constituency or their place of education, who checks they do not vote in both?
June 9, 2017
And who checks that all those who register to vote are eligible to vote (many more Europeans for whom English was clearly not their first language in and around my polling station than might be expected)?
That said it seems unlikely that electoral irregularities could account for the enormous gap between the predictions and the results. Labour’s bribes to the young and pro migration pitch to the ethnic minorities seems to have been effective.
June 9, 2017
Exactly and I think they should start with every student voter in Kensington 😀
June 9, 2017
The Conservative party can stop wasting any effort on those who will never support them.
It should reinforce its support for its core voters and not seek to alienate them. Firm Brexit and taking back control of borders and money from the EU. Large reductions in foreign aid – together with EU savings to be spent on NHS and Social care. Clear review of Social Care castings with cap on individual contributions ? £100k? And a lower savings protection of £100k. Big reductions in immigration fuelled by an intent to acquire as few new liabilities as possible. A crackdown on extremist Islam and its funding and prompt deportation of hate preachers and foreign criminals. All of these are vote winners. Borrowing from UKIP – free tuition fees and maintenance grants for students of proven ability wanting to study the Proper Sciences, Maths and Engineering at University. Why not?
June 10, 2017
I’ll second all those. All are vote winners.
I was glad to see the demise of Clogg, Salmond and Robertson, which should put the sock in Sturgeons mouth (or maybe not !)
Shame Farron and Soubry scraped in though.
June 10, 2017
“Free tuition fees …. Proper Sciences, Maths and Engineering at University”. Do you realise that your proposal would (have) exclud(d) the majority of past and present MPs, including JR.
June 9, 2017
Well, Mr Redwood – what can I say? I applaud your optimism but the degree of discipline and courage needed to carry on in circumstances like these will be extraordinary. Besides which, many in the Tory party who were always chary of “Leave” and its political implications will be massively emboldened. There is every danger that as well as being portrayed as “out of touch” by the BBC in collusion with the now extreme left Labour party, the Conservatives will be called “divided”, too. Frankly, I would rather that you all played it safe for a while. Alas, alas, the left has the wind in its sails and its message – that somehow the Conservatives are responsible for “heartless cuts” is getting around. A solidly middle class lady told me she hadn’t voted Tory this time because of “cuts” imposed on those with disabilities! Fear might be a bad counsellor, but vaingloriously pressing on with the old Brexit agenda before a majority has been restored risks everything. I suggest the Tory party recrafts its message, re-establishes proper spin doctoring and bides its time, meanwhile keeping up a flow of informed criticism of Labour plans. The educated young are lost to us for the time being; their rage is formidable – I have felt its effect, personally – so for now we need to woo those northern voters whom Mrs May so needlessly alienated and lost with her politically foolish manifesto. Then, and only then, can the Tories return to the country – with a costed programme which speaks to the core and summons the undecided to back Brexit again. Now above all we need care, prudence, foresight and priorities. You have mentioned the folly of HS2; why not scrap it and use the money to guarantee the triple lock and winter fuel? Is Hinkley Point a necessary project? What about quangos? There must be plenty that government can stop doing in order to recapture the Brexiteers – but I am not terribly hopeful. Time to study the results in detail.
June 9, 2017
I have …listened to…the speeches…today of Sturgeon and …Tim …Farron. They are using…mainly but…not…exclusively one, two and three…word sentences. Sometimes..five word sentences. It is as if…they have…discovered…their new voters … are not familiar with …English.
The Manifesto of…the Conservative Party…shows…it enjoys diversity. 300,ooo more… voters…to build on…the Labour Party vote.
In five years…the Tory Party…will have …one million….five hundred thousand more …voters to win over. Enjoy! Enjoy…and…Enjoy! ( divertirse …in…Spanish..)
June 10, 2017
Wrong, have you ever tried to get the British citizenship in five years? Nearly impossible and more likely to become even more difficult.
June 9, 2017
The choice was between two Socialist Parties, just that one says tomayto the other says tomahto.
The electorate, most of them born after the 1970s and thus unblooded by the Socialist Utopia, is besotted with Socialism, lots of free stuff paid for by somebody else. Too bad Mr Corbyn did not win then they could have the Full Monty.
It seems every few decades people need reminding of what the alternative to economic freedom and individual sovereignty is. The UK is as it is now because of a failure of the alleged Conservative Party to promote, explain and deliver that economic freedom and individual sovereignty, instead opting for milk-sop Socialism-lite.
As for ‘wrong’ election results: Mr Cameron when he got it wrong, did the decent thing. So should Mrs May.
June 9, 2017
It was actually Remoaners who urged that we should have a fresh general election, and that should have been enough warning to May that she should not allow it.
June 9, 2017
About 65% of Tories that lost their seats were remainers
June 10, 2017
Not David Davis?
June 11, 2017
When? Never to my knowledge.
June 9, 2017
RG40
I am sorry it has taken a while before I wrote this message of congratulations to you John but, I have only just stopped laughing at Messers Clegg, Salmond and Robertson’s exit.
If Mrs May reads this, I voted for John as a person, a good local MP and a real Conservative, I did not back Mrs May nor the “So called Conservative Party.” When Mr Cameron took over the leadership of the party, I wrote to the Rose Street office and told them I could not support the party under his BluLabour policies and as far as I am concerned, the same applies under the current leader. In fact, I have now joined the Christian Democratic Party because I feel this election has shown how anti the main parties the electorate are becoming. I see myself as a traditional Conservative with morals and a conscience and I am also a Catholic, therefore The CDP is nearer to my political beliefs than any of the mainstream parties.
I felt Mrs May and her advisors were way out of touch of the feelings of the people and, in my opinion, Nanny knows best, will not gain support.
I also think the British people have a sense of fair play and disliked the way Mr Corbyn was bullied and knocked by the media and most politicians.
I feel we’re in a mess and my prediction that we will never REALLY leave the EUSSR will come true….I hope I am wrong. If ever I find myself running a political campaign which I need to loose, I shall use this election performance as a model.
Again, congratulations John…..Your country and Wokingham need you even more now than we did before.
June 9, 2017
Theresa may thought to mess with peoples welfare and emotions because she thought she was on a roll! As we know now it was a dreadful mistake, the campaign was so very badly managed- attacking the grey vote was a real disaster and then not taking into account the potential of the young vote?..unforgivable..in the end mr corbyn turned out to be the much more charismatic leader while mrs may wouldn’t even debate with her opposite numbers… and so now we are facing into the brexit talks.
I can only think it will all end up with a fudge.. a kind of soft brexit… keeping us inside the customs union with all of the trappings of EU membership but with no say as to the EU future and no amount of spin and window dressing is going to be able to disguise this fact..it’s the awful position we find ourselves in now.. and all due to tory politicians mismanagement again putting politics before country.
June 9, 2017
Brexit a winner now.
June 9, 2017
SNP inde dead.
June 10, 2017
And the UKIP hardly twitching.
June 9, 2017
Alas but true to form, the North of England stayed with their roots despite the total inadequacy of the Labour leader. It is the Cities that do the damage as they have too many MPs sitting in them. The cities are where the most benefit recipients live and they will not bite the hand that feeds them. Even though the country could be damaged in the process.
Mrs May made a pigs ear of her campaign and whoever was advising her should be replaced by a professional or two AND now in future she MUST first consult her Cabinet colleagues BEFORE she does or says anything. On her own she is an obvious liability.
It is clear that from the start of the ridiculously long campaigning period (Why was that?), when the polls were predicting a landslide, to the collapse of the vote, only the actual campaigning affected the final votes.
So, the campaigning was obviously wrong as were her impersonal presentations. It’s a pity she had not permitted ‘moderators’ to edit her speeches before they were delivered. They were toxic.
Who was responsible for the disastrous Manifesto that literally brought the Tory house down? Telling the electorate you plan to reduce benefits would never go down well up t’North. And ALL focus should have been on Brexit that is why the GE was called. Why divert?
All in all a shocking result that has done a huge amount of damage to the country and to its ultimate quest to throw off the chains of the EU and the dangerous and incompetent dictators in Brussels. I do hope that aim will not now be surrendered.
June 9, 2017
Best congrats to JR our host.. and that’s as far as it goes- but lordy.. is that the shadowy figure of Michael Gove of the infamous ‘knife in the back’ night I see sitting there in the wings?
June 9, 2017
Perhaps the most depressing thing of all is how easily taken in voters (especially the younger ones) have been by Corbne’s “promises” – (4 more bank holidays, no student debts, no student fees, nationalise the trains, power … etc, more cheap council houses for all, more money for the NHS, for schools, for benefits, for state sector workers for almost everyone …… all paid for by “the rich” and CT tax.
Then they tell us how “honest & genuine” Corbyn is!
The good news is Corbyn failed (he must be relieved as he clearly would have be found out in short order). The Tories can just about survive (for 5 years). Difficult to see how they will win the next one from here though. Daft as a brush lefty May is clearly done for, and quite rightly so.
Can they get the boundary changes needed, and sort out the Labour/Libdim/Wet Tory bias in the Lords?
June 9, 2017
How strange that when it looked as if the Tories were going, as hoped for, to strengthen their
mandate, the wretched EU were clear that that would make no difference to our negotiating position; but now with the Tories’ domestic mandate weakened they (multiples of them) are sure that our negotiating strength has gone downhill likewise. There wouldn’t be a negotiation if it were up to me. Just state our position and, weak position or no, just stand up and say take it or we literally leave right now. They wouldn’t of course but they would get the message. WTO doesn’t seem too bad to me and in any event would be unlikely to last long. There is going to be a period of grief on any basis.
June 9, 2017
Quite! State our position and offer a take or leave.
Interesting point about the negotiating position not being strengthened by a large win so why does the current situation change anything Leslie
June 9, 2017
I have just read a résumé of the DUP’s manifesto. Wow, how about making their leader the Prime Minister.
June 9, 2017
The Tories said Mr Corbyn would have to form a ‘coalition of chaos’ with the SNP to make up their numbers. Now we have Tories making up the numbers with the DUP which will no doubt cost the English Taxpayer a shed load of money just to keep May afloat.
Seems she doesn’t do irony.
June 10, 2017
It is only a rumour but the Rt Hon Arlene Foster may join the Cabinet to oversee the nationwide rollout of the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme 😉
June 9, 2017
DUP. Does this mean that like the EU, persons off the coast will determine British policy? Yes, you could make it up! 🙂
June 10, 2017
Er,at least they are British.Arguably more British than the British these days.
June 9, 2017
Theresa May is not very very good at doing elections. Off with her to a Secondary Modern School. It won’t be like the old days when you were treated as a complete absolute loser and ridiculed by your peers. She will find it more comfortable working accordance with her own level. If she applies herself she could become a bicycle mechanic and work her way up to mopeds. Britain has a place for everyone…whatever their abilities. Perhaps a dozen or so of her friends could help her out.Loan her a widget.
June 9, 2017
Twenty years ago (1st May 1997) Labour won 418 seats with a majority of 179.
Today Labour is jubilant at having won 261 seats (to date) and is apparently “ready to govern”.
Welcome to “Twin Peaks”.
June 9, 2017
I see the mockers and gainsayers are out in force, both at home and overseas. One can tell where the truth lies, judging by who is pleased with the outcome. My wife and I felt that Mrs May deserved much better from the electorate, naive as we are in the ways of ‘realpolitik’. We hope that courage, integrity and loyal support will now be the order of the day – the ruling party owes that to those of us who wanted a decisive Brexit -not to mention all the other serious and pressing issues we face as a nation.
June 9, 2017
May has to tough it out, the country has dodged a bullet. The marxist enemy has revealed its hand
June 9, 2017
Now there will probably be Lords who claim that the Salisbury Convention does not apply to the manifesto commitments of a party which can only form a minority government.
June 10, 2017
That occurred to me too. ‘They’ will try it on it rest assured.
June 9, 2017
I picked up somewhere David Davis saying we might have to backtrack on our mandate for a hard Brexit. Though on a second reading I see that that was in the event of a hung parliament. And no doubt it was wishful thinking on behalf of some financial commentator.
We really do not want to be going anywhere near the single market which is simply EU light.
So Mr Davis please show some backbone and for God’s sake get on with it.
June 9, 2017
ps Well done John.
June 9, 2017
We ‘re heading for soft brexit now because thats what a large slice of DUP supporters throughout northern ireland really want.. the farmers in particular.
If the DUP were to push now for a hard brexit outside of thd customs union then they would probably lose the support of some of their most ĺoyal adherents…simple as that
June 10, 2017
Unless you leave the EU customs union you aren’t leaving the EU, simple as that.
June 10, 2017
The four freedoms (including movement of goods) come with membership of the Single Market (EEA) NOT the customs union which is purely about tariffs. Also customs cooperation is also a separate issue from the customs union and will need to be negotiated separately.
June 9, 2017
Any Tory MP invited to Downing Street should ascertain the location of Mrs May’s walking boots and nick ’em. It is a matter of national and Party well-being she doesn’t go on walking holidays to Wales again. Also she should be advised not to pick Welsh wild mushrooms…just in case.
The EU just needs to dawdle. It will be their plan for negotiations. It looks like a winner for them. Tory MPs, they should dawdle too, get their annual salaries, put in for all the freebies, then have a job lined up outside Parliament..no, another one as well. soon! Possibly outside the country …Tristan da Cunha looks nice this time of year. Bon voyage, mes amies.
June 9, 2017
The EU doesn’t need to dawdle they have May the Great Ditherer who has already lost a year at a cost of 10 billion (yet we are struggling to afford 8 billion over the next 3 years for the NHS).
June 9, 2017
May has to go. The party “rewarded” the wrong person in the wake of last June. She has never impressed, and it was clear from her behaviour at her first PMQs that May had neither the temperament nor the intellect for Brexit to be safe in her hands.
May then confirmed this by repeatedly denying there would be an election when common-sense says that such an option should always be kept open – followed, of course, by the U-turn which proved exactly that. The deployment of personnel, policies and tactics during the campaign was then beyond woeful.
June 9, 2017
I entirely agree! She was hopeless…and needs to go…or got rid of!
June 9, 2017
Zero vision, essentially another dire Ted Heath in drag.
June 9, 2017
Know it’s horribly, horribly trivial but was watching a US Trump polit vid and they were all dressed in grey suits ( M+F ). May has been badly advised on what to wear and make up.
She needs someone to buy her 20 appropriate outfits in mid grey.
Like the US Facebook computer bod who wears the same style T Shirt every day
She’s just a figurehead to do the back room boys bidding.
While she’s doing this bidding she need to wear plain grey just below knee suit , white shirt, SMALL pearls. Get a makeup adviser in.
The public aren’t stupid and they would probably prefer her to Boris as the puppet on a string. Theresa, de stress if you’re staying on. We’re with you., we know you’re being manipulated.
( So long as you get us out of the EU pdq. That’s all you have to do. )
June 9, 2017
‘Congratulations’ Mrs May…in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
As a life-long Tory voter, I did vote for her again….despite reading the Manifesto…very much akin to eating a dry, sawdust sandwich.
Never seen a manifesto with so little appeal…especially to older voters like myself. There was even plenty to turn off Tory voters, in there.
The amazing thing, is that Mrs May did an excellent job, in driving 40% of the Electorate, towards a conclusion that it was OK to elect a Prime Minister, who looked like a scruffy, very old scarecrow, with the naïve politics of a 16 year old, hard left, Socialist student.
“Way to go May”…or let’s shorten that to – “Go May!”.
June 9, 2017
JR
Sorry you’re wrong. May must go and go now. Your party needs root and branch reform and you need it now.
Continuing year after year to ignore your voter base is the height of crass stupidity
But then you’re all politicians and thats all we ever get from politicians, abject stupidity
June 9, 2017
Correction: having just seen Arlene Foster’s letter, a soft ‘Brexit’ is a racing certainty unless there is a fundamental change in the DUP position as a result of the cosolidation of support in Ulster behind the DUP and Sinn Fein post election.
June 9, 2017
As I said on the 7th, “There is one thing for sure tomorrow. The UK will get the government it deserves and nothing better. “Stupid is as Stupid does”, as Forest Gump would say”.
Sadly, a large part of the UK’s undereducated voters, were true to form. They still voted for a laissez faire, neo-liberal, Conservative government, that has operated, over the last seven years, its 19th Century level of of understanding of economics; chasing a ruinous ideological myth they call “balanced budget austerity”.
If this government can’t get its head around the simple concept that is 21st Century Fiat Currency Economics; what sort of mess are they going to create with Brexit? Fortunately, the EU operates with the same IMF model of 19th Century austerity economics. So all is not lossed; but, will be sub-optimal in Spades.
June 9, 2017
acorn
Fiat currency economics was created in the mid 20th century I think you’ll find. . 21st century economics will be blockchain economics
June 9, 2017
Just read summaries of what the DUP stands for and Mrs May has my permission nay encouragement to go all out to work with them. By my lights the DUP will have a wholly beneficial influence.
June 9, 2017
Indeed, some of them are very sound on climate alarmism too.
June 9, 2017
Thank you, couldn’t agree more.
June 9, 2017
LS, are you so sure that DUP’s anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-climate change policy, pension triple lock, freedom of movement at the Irish border, … stance is shared by everybody in the Conservative Party? Isn’t it likely to become quickly a coalition of chaos?
June 10, 2017
No–in fact I’m sure it isn’t–but the Conservative Party, having just screwed everything up, can just change its mind whether it likes it or not
June 9, 2017
Hear, hear Leslie. This is long overdue.
June 10, 2017
I always notice when the DUP speak in Parliament. There are very few of them sitting at the back, but it is always noticeable that they speak plainly, without the waffle and soundbites and politically correct rubbish of so many others. Hopefully they will be an influence for good. I wish them well.
June 9, 2017
The inevitable result of this GE is that the government will have to find more money to spend on the NHS, social care, the police, border controls and students if they are to survive.
Hopefully this will mean the cancellation of HS2 and a reduction of the foreign aid budget rather than increased taxation
June 10, 2017
Dear Richard–To Hell with the foreign aid budget–Just one more thing Mrs May got wrong
June 9, 2017
Brexit I am afraid is a dead Duck, thanks to Mrs May, which I have no doubt was her intention all the time. As a UKIPPER I was keen to vote Conservative when the election was called. Sadly it soon became obvious she had no interest whatsoever in BREXIT and to throw the election was the plan. As with most politicians, long on talk and short on do.Sad but true
June 9, 2017
Jeremy is crowing about how “Labour won the Election”.
“Schhh!”….don’t wake the poor old geezer up from his slumbers…it’s been 3 defeats in a row now – yes, defeats Jeremy.
June 9, 2017
Mr Corbyn has recently said he is not an atheist. But that his beliefs are private. Does anyone have anymore info on this?
June 11, 2017
I think you have to investigate his parents and their original surnames ( and what their secret jobs once were.)
Read that McDonnel trained for the priesthood with de La Salle
( quite like his face )
June 9, 2017
Thanks to Tom Montgomery for his comment on TM winning a political defeat on Radio4 Any Questions. So much better than JR’s fluff.
June 10, 2017
In Saturday edition of The Times, two sentences from Matthew Parris that seem to sum up the mood in some parts, and I hope a majority, of the Conservative Party:
– “The PM’s statement outside Downing Street comes close to inviting not political analysis but psychoanalysis”.
– “The Conservative Party has just taken a kicking from an electorate still trying to din into the Tory head … that ours is a mostly modern-thinking, moderate and outward-looking nation with a reflexive distaste for the Tory right”.
So let bygones be bygones and don’t let JR and his ilk think they have a future.
June 9, 2017
Come on John
Now is the time to admit taking houses from families that have worked their socks off for them all their lives is stupid politics. They may notionally be in the parents names but often the children have put long hours into fixing them up etc. What is the point if its all going to be nicked by the state.
Now is the time to admit the politicians not only know nothing about the internet, but also the are incapable of hiring senior leaders to run the internet policy as it relates to crime and terrorism. As seen by the hopelessly inappropriately qualified ex army officers leading up the government spend in this area currently. Telling us all how you were going to crack down on the big internet boys in such a laughable way just makes us think you are equally clueless about other stuff.
And we really do want immigration dropping, but nobody is really offering that, the Conservative style of lying about it is laughed at now so long have all your noses got.
Being a decent salt of the earth type doing your best has got to have benefits, even for those living in jobless areas, and so on
And yes I got a student grant back in my first college career, I sympathise with students now who want the same.
And you are all running up the national debt like idiots.
We need a proper Conservative party that a modern Mrs T would recognise not this imitation lib dem party claiming to be Conservative.
Serves you all right.
Sort it out.
June 9, 2017
Politicians understandably never blame the electorate. They say..”Oh we did not explain our policies well enough” “the opposition did dirty tricks” ” We will review our policies and listen more to the voters” No. the electorate..a third of them, are wrong!
The Russians in the 1917 reviolution were wrong. The Chinese in the 1949 Revolution were wrong.The Germans in the 1930s were wrong. The Labour “heartlands” in 2017 are wrong.
It is not Mrs May’s fault that some people voted for Mr Corbyn. He is openly a danger! If you have a bonfire in front of the electorate you shouldn’t need to say..this will burn you! then when they get burnt to say “Oh I’ll resign, it’s all my fault.
June 9, 2017
You have to hand it to jeremy he played a blinder.. getting the young vote out.. talking on the same level with the people while largely ignoring the cameras.. so what was mrs may at?.. making speeches.. talking spin and sound bites.. with no debate at all as if to debate was beneath her.. well she got her answer from the people.. and now she’s determined to carry on with the rest of the loser team ie. Boris DD and liam fox to face the EU.. its a disaster in the making that’s all that can be said about it..and all of our own making.. heavens knows what the outcome of all of this is going to be.. and relying on the DUP?..we might as well rely on sinn fein or the snp..jeez
June 9, 2017
PS saw you being interviewed on the TV this morning on the big screen in my hotel breakfast bar, sadly the sound was not on and I have no idea what you were saying, but glad to see you pushing for what you believe in!
Congrats on winning your seat, and good luck fixing the party and the country…
June 9, 2017
John
Congratulations on your personal election result .
Full marks to Jeremy Corbyn for copying the template laid down by Donald Trump who successfully enthused jaded Americans to vote for a populist agenda. “The Donald” defeated the grey Clinton who lacked vision and conviction. Similarly Corbyn enthused a large proportion of the electorate who had become disenchanted with politics. His message was clear i.e. vote labour and receive lots of free goodies. The equally grey Theresa May will not recover from this humiliation.
Like them or loathe them but I can see only three politicians in this country with anything like a personal following and they are Corbyn, Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson. Yes Boris is bonkers occasionally which is a disease that can afflict politicians of all parties, but he is the only Conservative politician in my view who is capable of neutralising the naive appeal of Jeremy Corbyn.
June 9, 2017
Yesterday I held my nose and voted for a social democratic masquerading as a Conservative in a safe seat because to do otherwise would have been giving aid and succour to the Trots and fellow-travelling Greens and Liberals.
This has been a disgraceful and utterly incompetent campaign by May and her very close circle. She has to go.
I very much hope she might give you a job and that you will then be a Brutus to her Caesar.
June 9, 2017
Who was it said that when the fog finally lifts we can always see the dreary steeples of county fermanagh shining through..or words to that effect?
June 9, 2017
It’s obvious why the conservatives didn’t do well. All you have to do is study the accounting between the Bank Of England and HM Treasury.
Taxes don’t fund government spending they never have since we left the gold standard. They are destroyed every night of the week in the overnight interbank. As banks buy and sell their reserves and the BOE meets its overnight interest rate.
Over 7 million people now know this and it’s growing everyday. Hence why the magic money tree is being debunked. The tories have lied about balanced budgets, austerity, and taxes for nearly 40 years and got away with it.
That is no longer the case. I tried to warn John for months on here that this game is up. Especially after Brexit because people are going to want to know where we got the money from. The monopoly issuer of £’s creates them from thin air and this truth is no longer hidden from view.
It’s very simple, the Conservatives have to start telling the truth about debts and deficts and what they actually represent accounting wise. Not a household budget.
Or fiscal conservatism is dead. It’s only a matter of time.
June 9, 2017
What is Mr Redwood’s position on abortion ?
With him celebrating the conservative alliance with DUP, one should ask.
June 9, 2017
I could have cried when I saw the Exit Poll last night and I felt like crying again when I saw the results come in this morning- and I am a middle-aged man! The shockingly inept Conservative campaign has led to this- we LOST Seats like Keighley and Stockton South in the North East- Constituencies that voted heavily for Brexit last year!
Of course, Theresa May should NEVER have assumed that support for Brexit equals (or equates with) support for Conservatism. Which is why she should have had policies that really appealed to working-class voters in the Manifesto- there wasn’t: Given that we needed to get as much support as possible from the Voters, it was completely inept not to promise to cut Foreign Aid, cut green subsidies and use the money that could be saved by coming out from the European Union to cut taxes, put more money into the NHS and Schools and subsidise childcare costs!
You need to get Graham Brady to get the 1922 Committee together to organise a no-confidence motion in Mrs May and arrange for a prominent Conservative to have a very special conversation with Mrs May after this disaster! Then you need a proper no-nonsense Conservative like yourself, David Davis or Boris Johnson to lead the Party out of the awful situation it is now in.
That means being firm about Brexit, insisting on walking away if they refuse to back off with their demands for money. It means cutting foreign aid and using that to fund social care and the NHS, using money no longer going into the EU to cut taxes (VAT back to 15% would boost the economy and help the poor). And if the DUP or the Left (or-Remain-sympathetic Tories on the back-benches) conspire to defeat vital programmes you do this:
Table a motion of No Confidence in your own Government with the help of the Left- explaining this is for the Conservatives to get a proper Conservative Mandate in a new General Election with a no-nonsense approach to the EU, explaining to the Voters why you need a proper Mandate this time. With proper Conservative policies that appeal to Voters- like cutting VAT and more money for the NHS- (and by holding up Jeremy Corbyn’s Socialist policies to proper scrutiny) you should win handsomely.
Ian Pennell
June 10, 2017
Hilarious watching JR’s waffle on the BBC about this result ‘proving the electorate supports Brexit’. JR’s constituents voted against Brexit and he’s still pushing his hard Brexit agenda. It is this same arrogance that has seen Theresa May’s world collapse around her and she now has to get into bed with the DUP. Given JR’s views & voting record on LBTG rights I assume he is thrilled about that? Tories are now the laughing stock of Europe, whose negotiators must be delighted at the prospect of dealing with a government which so skillfully converted a position of strength to one of incompetent weakness.
June 10, 2017
John – You omit to mention the House of Lords who are still apparently free to block and alter and delay any Brexit legislation they want even if it is in your manifesto because you lost your majority. Also your claim Labour want to leave the single market simply isn’t borne out by anything Starmer said during the campaign – he said Labour wanted to retain the benefits of the single market and customs union. Seems to me Labour would be happy with Cameron’s feeble renegotiation deal to stay in.
June 10, 2017
Deep joy pervades the Labour Kingdom!
Court Jester Jeremy has won the Election!
Let the church bells peal in celebration..and the smiles on the faces of the BBC reporters illuminate our darkest of nights.
Promises, that could never have been fulfilled, can now evaporate like puddles of dirty rainwater in the bright sunlight of Victory.
Rejoice, rejoice, Labour has secured a third DEFEAT…deep joy indeed!
June 10, 2017
Why have we ended up with a militarized Police force? This is all politicians making. We need a national inquiry and heads must roll. I reject this future. It must be rolled back. The shooting of the 3 terrorists in 8 mins is a myth. Staged and faked, there are no muzzle flashes on the cctv, this is made by the same people that make Eastenders.
June 10, 2017
Mr. Corbyn’s manifesto of bribery for almost everyone struck gold when it offered to abolish tuition fees and reintroduce maintenance grants. Perhaps even back-dating the policy.
The young voted for Labour in massive numbers as a result.
The Conservative Party and its strategists/advisers should have seen this coming. It was nothing new as it was the sole reason why Mr. Clegg and his Lib Dems did so well in the 2010 GE.
June 10, 2017
It seems those that want a fudged Brexit are moving fast. See Cons Home’s latest article by Paul Goodman, advocating the return of Morgan, Grieve and others to the Cabinet. Heaven help us. Those MPs who want to uphold the Referendum result have to act fast, and I believe it means replacing her with a PM and team utterly committed to what the majority voted for i.e. clean Brexit. The window of opportunity is very small.
June 10, 2017
I see the.broadcast media – BBC to the fore is already underway with a campaign to discredit the DUP. Not surprising given they have a manifesto item to reduce the power of the BBC but it’s more fundamental with them than that.
Expect this to continue, and whilst I would like DUP to demand the Conservatives take on many of their policies I fear the Tories are riddled with people who will side with DUP critics.
When are we going to get people to put the case about the dangers of Socialism. It’s no good concentrating on trivia when there is an ideological war to be fought. Only one side is fighting it.
June 10, 2017
In calling for Mrs May’s head, I think commentators, Anna Soubry and some posting here are forgetting a few important facts :
1. In the circumstances in which Mrs May took over, she did a very good job in stabilising the Country. Given the twin shocks of the unexpected referendum outcome and the foolish immediate resignation of Cameron that was vitally important.
2. Mrs May, although a luke warm remainer, honoured the referendum decision and by appointing David Davies and Boris Johnson to such key positions, arguably did more than was strictly necessary to do so.
3. The Conservative Party cannot afford to introduce any more instability at this crucial time.
4. Rightly or wrongly, the election was all about Teresa May’s leadership.
The critics are conveniently forgetting that under our system, she won the election with a near-record share of the popular vote. Inevitably, in these circumstances, if there was a change of leader, the call for another election from Labour’s far left stormtroopers would be hard to resist.
Another election is not what the Country wants and is certainly the last thing it needs now or anytime in the next two years. Unfortunately and very hard to believe, at the moment momentum ( pun intended ) is clearly with Corbyn.
I know it’s almost beyond belief, but another election could very well put Corbyn into Downing Street supported by Sturgeon and Farron. Respected moderate Labour MPs must be just as worried about that as Conservatives !
EU commentators in Germany and elsewhere are rather inconveniently forgetting that within a couple of hours, our system has seamlessly produced a functioning government with a small but effective working majority. The arrangement will probably not be able to last more than a couple of years but contrast it with the current German coalition which took over two months to negotiate and was not formerly ratified until the third month after the date of the election.
June 10, 2017
A belated congratulations Dr Redwood, I was very pleased to see you re-elected.
I voted Tory even though Mrs May’s manifesto was a complete disaster, because of Brexit and didn’t want the Communist party under Corbyn to be elected.
But like a lot of Brexiteers if Brexit doesn’t happen or we end up with a Norway type soft Brexit (in otherwords we don’t really leave the EUSSR at all) I WILL vote for Corbyn at the next GE just to punish the Tories for their incompetence – (and get all my Freebies too)
June 10, 2017
A few vocal remoaners inside the Tory Party need to be reminded that the election result was not for a re-run of the Brexit referendum.
June 10, 2017
Many of us must be thoroughly sick of hearing that after the election the Government has no mandate for a so-called “Hard Brexit.”
This is just as ridiculous an ascertion today as it was before last Thursday.
The campaign on which the referendum was won was very clearly an end to FOM, the role of the ECJ, budget contributions and the making of our own trade deals in future.
None of these are possible within the current rules of the Single Market and Customs Union and Merkel and Co have made it abundantly clear that they will not bend the rules for the UK.
To argue otherwise is entirely disingenuous. Now I read in the Telegraph that Ruth Davison is proposing a breakaway from the UK party and demanding that Scotland remain in the single market.
Even in her weakened position, Mrs May is going to have to tell Davison that this is not on.
The choice has to be to stay with the rest of the UK or full Independence. Even under another leader, no middle way possible. If Davison doesn’t like it, she can force a vote of no confidence in the Government and see Corbyn in Downing Street, aided and abetted by Sturgeon.
June 10, 2017
Funny, I remember some saying here that General Elections are more important than consultory referendums, and others saying the opposite. So please tell me: which clause is correct?
June 10, 2017
Neither.
What’s the point in having a referendum, consultative or otherwise if the result is to be ignored ? Or even having re runs – it’s just the losing sides way of trying to overturn a result it didn’t like.
Are we to have a rerun of the General Election because some may not like the result ?
OR do we adopt the dictatorial EU’s method who say keep having referenda until we get the result they want – that’s EU democracy for you !