Event today 12.30 at Oxford and Cambridge club (tickets from Politeia)

“Wake up politicians – the people are revolting” (Politeia’s words about their event)

with Matthew Goodwin Professor of Politics Univ of Kent

Robert Tombs   Emeritus Professor of French History Cambridge

Sarah Elliott  Chair of Republicans Overseas UK

John Redwood, author of “We don’t believe you”

 

Politeia 0207 799 5034

18 Comments

  1. matthu
    July 2, 2019

    One MP who is helping with Mr Johnson’s campaign said: “There are three good reasons for cutting the number of departments – you would have fewer people trying to find ways to spend public money, you would have fewer internecine fights between departments and you would have fewer people trying to find ways of imposing regulations.”

    Taking this to its logical conclusion …

    1. Lifelogic
      July 2, 2019

      Well we do need government to provide defence, justice & law and order and a few other things from government but not that many.

      We certainly do not need them to run virtual (and fairly dire) monopolies in Health Care and Education. Anymore than we need them to provide food, farms, books, entertainment ….

      20% (of what would be a far larger GDP) is more than enough for this. As it is we are spending (mainly wasting) not that much short of 50% of GDP

      The appalling London Mayor (listen to his dire excuses at the question session the other day). He can hardly string a coherent sentence together. He seems to be spending a fortune of tax payers money on LBC ration to tell us how dirty London air is (just to justify more taxes on motorists and people working). It must do wonders for confidence in London.

      Huge sums of voters taxes are spent on propaganda to these same voters (or ramming unwanted languages down their throats in Wales, Scotland and perhaps even Ireland soon.)

  2. Dominic
    July 2, 2019

    Yes, the people are revolting. I suspect that’s exactly what most politicians think of the average voter. I find Marxist Labour revolting. I find May revolting. I find the arrogance of our political class revolting. I find 4 intellectuals pontificating about important issues revolting.

    Maybe this event should take place in a working men’s club in Wakefield or Bradford? Maybe then, you’d appreciate the real anger expressed by real people in the real world.

    And that’s the problem. I like you John. I think you’re a decent fella but you’re not going to understand the feeling of emotion and the sheer anger sat in a room with academics.

    This isn’t about politics any more, this is about trust and arrogance and how certain issues have been swept under the carpet to protect the current political equilibrium.

    No longer can we talk in narrative. This isn’t a story to be told but a moment for the truth to be exposed

  3. Stred
    July 2, 2019

    How much?

  4. Newmania
    July 2, 2019

    the people are revolting….

    Can`t argue with that .

    1. Fred H
      July 2, 2019

      certainly one or two on here.

    2. Anonymous
      July 3, 2019

      Ho ho.

  5. Mike Stallard
    July 2, 2019

    Go for it!

  6. Lifelogic
    July 2, 2019

    A good line up Robert Tombs is certainly sound.

    I see that various French “fonctionnaires” have been paid millions of EUROs for doing nothing for circa 25 years. Some holding down private jobs as well. Not their money they are wasting so what to they care?

    Still in the UK (and France) it is often far worse. People are paid to do far worse than nothing, to mug, delay or inconvenience motorists, inconvenience businesses, make them report gender pay, devise idiotically damaging employment laws, misdirected greencrap or health and safely lunacy endless red tape, absurdly complex tax laws, making tax digital and similar damaging lunacies. May and Hammond just loved doing this and damaging productivity in this idiotic way.

    Hammond even then like to complain about poor productivity – look in the mirror you silly fool.

  7. Denis Cooper
    July 2, 2019

    I see today’s Tory hustings are in Belfast, and I wonder whether either contender will be prepared to come out and say that Theresa May let us down over the border.

    Jacob Rees-Mogg was prepared to tell Andrew Marr that he regretted something she had said in her Mansion House speech, which I condemned as selling the pass:

    http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/05/28/social-care-and-the-nhs-2/#comment-937422

    “We have been clear all along that we don’t want to go back to a hard border in Ireland. We have ruled out any physical infrastructure at the border, or any related checks and controls.

    But it is not good enough to say, ‘We won’t introduce a hard border; if the EU forces Ireland to do it, that’s down to them’. We chose to leave; we have a responsibility to help find a solution.”

    Whose side is she on?

    Why is she rehearsing one of the EU’s arguments for them?”

    But in my view what she said in that speech was not the start of her betrayal:

    http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2019/03/19/maybe-you-cannot-keep-asking-the-same-question-in-parliament/#comment-1004894

    “All this goes back to the autumn of 2017 when Theresa May took the strategic decision to exploit the largely fabricated problem of the Irish land border as a pretext to go back on what she had said in her Lancaster House speech on January 17th and instead give the CBI and other business pressure groups what they wanted (that is to say, short of the UK actually staying in the EU, which they may well now hope to get) … ”

    I don’t expect either Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt to tell this unpalatable truth.

    1. Chris
      July 3, 2019

      You are correct Denis about when the betrayal started. The “complete capitulation” by May was formalised in the Dublin agreement, Dec. 2017 (Charles Moore).

      Significant that Boris et al continued to support May although it was abundantly clear back then that she was not honouring Brexit and apparently had no intention of doing so.

  8. Fred H
    July 2, 2019

    off topic…..
    EU leaders have picked German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen for the top post of European Commission chief, after a marathon three-day summit(euphemism for German bullying until everyone backs down).

    The nomination of Ms Von der Leyen, a close ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel, came as a surprise (really?) after the main front-runners were rejected (not put up by Germany).

    1. margaret howard
      July 2, 2019

      Only 3 days? Makes our race to find a replacement for Mrs May look ludicrous. And just 160 000 establishment Tory members having a vote? Democracy?

      (I must say that Frau von der Leyen looks very dignified – makes our Boris look even more absurd)

      1. James Bertram
        July 3, 2019

        margaret – that statement makes you absurd.
        See BrexitFacts4EU website today on the new appointments. Frau von der Leyen is embroiled in a current investigation into misspending and mismanagement in her Defence department; Lagarde (new Head of EU Central bank) already cited for (negligence in relation to ed) financial irregularities.
        No democratic election of any of these people.
        Still want to be in the EU?

      2. Chris
        July 3, 2019

        She is an arch federalist and one of the most forthright proponents of the European army. No, thank you. We need to leave asap.

  9. rose
    July 2, 2019

    One has to hand it to the waning Frau Merkel: she pretends she wants a male Dutch Socialist and she somehow ends up with a female German Conservative, albeit one born in Brussels..

  10. Prigger
    July 3, 2019

    Tusk welcomed that there are
    “two women and two men”
    in the High Command of the EU and he went on to say
    “It is only right there should be a balance of genders”
    and then he added
    “The EU has always been a Mother”

    Hmm.
    So he believes an all women leadership is wrong.
    He believes there are only two genders.
    He believes the EU is and always has been a Mother.

    Interesting.

    1. rose
      July 3, 2019

      So desperate to appoint a woman to the ECB that they have chosen a (person in a negligence court case ed) who isn’t an economist. It doesn’t bode well for the choice of our Governess. (Not that I mind about the economist bit, but they always say they do.)

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