Please see below my recent article for Conservative Home:
In the early days of this government, I was asked by the Prime Minister how I ran the Policy Unit for Margaret Thatcher. I sent him a presentation on options for establishing a strategic policy vision and direction, and briefly described the way Number 10 worked when I was a young senior adviser there.
I urged him to keep the crucial manifesto headline promises of levelling up, getting Brexit done and not raising the main taxes as central drivers of policy. The overall aim must be the greater prosperity of the many by expanding the economy, making and growing more things at home and showing how Brexit freedoms could lead to more and better paid jobs and more businesses.
These aims could then fuel matters for Prime Ministerial leadership and decision, and delegated matters for the different departments of state. Each Cabinet Minister should be told what is expected of them and how their department fits in with the general strategy. That needs to be agreed on appointment.
Thatcher had a much smaller staff at Downing Street than more recent Prime Ministers. There were three of us, senior civil servants, who talked to her a lot, knew her mind and helped her fashion government speeches, decisions and interventions and chair committees to resolve disagreements. The Principal Private Secretary ran her diary, ensured two way communication with all government departments and Ministers, organised meetings, sent out letters of confirmation and instruction following individual or collective decision and filled her daily boxes with work.
As Head of the Policy Unit, I provided briefs on all the main meetings she attended or initiated, ensuring her views and the strategic vision of priorities and aims could be reflected in what she and the government did. I sent her proposals to start work streams in government to fulfil manifesto and other promises, and to remove or amend departmental proposals that did not fit with the strategy.
I ensured she had bilaterals with leading Cabinet members to avoid misunderstandings and to enable them to voice their worries or request more support when carrying through agreed major policies. The Head of the Press and media department was her voice to the third estate, reflecting her views and answering criticisms as need arose. She had a Political Secretary for Conservative events and party correspondence.
She was pleased with the results of this structure and said she thought it helped her achieve more. For example I helped her drive through the whole wider ownership policy of everyone an owner. The work embraced home purchase, more self employment, personal pension savings, employee share schemes and the privatisation programme.
The Social Security Secretary led a wide welfare review with emphasis on personal pensions and other savings, the Treasury led the share ownership and privatisation policy , the Employment Department worked on qualifications, training and simplifying self employment, and the local government and Environment department pursued the housing initiatives led by Right to buy.
The system worked for a variety of reasons. The most important was we three knew her mind or made sure we found out her view on a topic before telling the rest of Whitehall or the press. They knew when we spoke we spoke for the PM. It was relatively easy for other departments to work out the view in many cases, as there were some clear precepts and priorities that would always influence decisions.
The occasional much-debated big speech charted the future in important areas and led to work across relevant departments to see it through to implementation. The speech was always thoroughly prepared and shared in draft with those Ministers likely to be affected. We tried to ensure there was always consistency, clear direction and language that made it relevant to peopleâs lives. I tried to keep our work strategic, as the PM should not try to do the jobs of Whitehall departments for them. Number 10 is a leader and change maker, not a means of implementing policy.
The work of the PM and Ministers was not done once the policy was announced. Indeed that to me was the formal commencement of the actions, not the end result after a sometimes long and argumentative process to arrive at an answer.
It was important to supervise implementation and check that all was working as intended. It would be no good for the PM to set out what she wanted, for there to be no follow up work to make sure it happened. This might well be the job of named Ministers, but for the big items there also needed to be reports back to the centre. The twice weekly briefing sessions for PM Questions ensured departments had to keep the PM up to date with topical or fast changing items.
The task of writing the big speeches gave me plenty of time with the PM on a regular basis for what was in effect a series of long seminars and reviews of government policy and actions. We checked the speech drafts for accuracy and for relevance to the state of play the government needed to manage or alter.
Policy Unit members had access to the PM on their specialist topics as well as through me. They did not have any licence to instruct Ministers elsewhere in government, and were urged to be careful if Ministers asked for a steer. There was no Policy Unit view for outside consumption, only the Prime Ministerâs view. The Policy Unit view was worked through and argued out in private and put to the PM who could run with it if she wished.
We adjusted the view in the light of her responses. I met the Special Advisers in other departments from time to time but did not regard it as any part of my job to guide or employ them. Our relations with Whitehall usually took place via a formal Private Secretary letter from Downing Street reflecting the PMâs view or informal guidance and arguments in official meetings preparatory to briefing Ministers or in our case the PM. I ensured the Policy Unit was at all times a working part of the civil service with career civil servants as well as directly recruited experts.
There is a modern relevance to all this. A Prime Minister needs a few advisers that he trusts who have sufficient delegated authority to get things done across Whitehall. It needs to be done in a constitutional way, respecting the fact that Cabinet members should be the main source of advice and information on their remits.
Where a senior adviser thinks a department and its Cabinet member are taking a wrong direction which can damage the overall government strategy and outturn that has to be put privately to the PM and the two of them have then to agree how change will be achieved with minimum damage and preferably with no press knowledge. There can only be one government policy at any time, so where there is disagreement advisers need to help the senior politicians arrive at a suitable collective decision.
This should not always be a compromise as sometimes one course is right and the other full of danger, so a clear choice needs to be made. Any good Cabinet Committee required careful preparation to ensure Cabinet members could freely express reservations amid criticisms whilst keeping the integrity and coherence of the overall aims and vision. Where the dispute was the usual Treasury versus spending department one the PM was usually the decisive voice. Number 10 needed a strong negative capability to stop needless change or complexity, as well as a strong positive view of what government could and should do to improve the lives of the nation.
January 25, 2022
If you could explain how new barriers to trade, massive red tape, loss of key workers who’ve gone home and so much more calamity is a benefit, we’d all be pleased to learn from you. But in the real world, rather than your fantasy land, Brexit is a national disaster
January 25, 2022
Did those ‘key workers’ you refer to go home because of Brexit or because the UK, last year, was being hit particularly badly by COVID? I think it’s the latter.
January 25, 2022
Yes, and I think that long before Johnson starts studying Thatcher’s techniques, he might beneficially ask the owner of a brewery as to how to organise a beer sampling.
January 25, 2022
And 10,000 people alive who would have been dead if we’d stayed in the EU with their chaotic vaccine failures.
January 25, 2022
RG, How do you prove âthe evidence of absence of more people dead of/from Covid?â
January 25, 2022
The UK was still part of the European Union for those purposes under the Transition Period at that time.
As you can clearly see, membership in no way prevented the UK from doing what it wanted anyway.
If the UK had locked down and taken the measures at the time that Italy begged it to do, then several times that number of lives could perhaps have been saved on the other hand.
At least you accept that covid19 kills rather a lot of people though, which is something.
January 25, 2022
The head of the vaccination policy unit has made it clear that she could have done exactly what she did, within the EU.
January 25, 2022
There is no evidence for your claim. The reality is that about half of EU countries have a higher vaccination rate than us, some have boosted a bigger percentage of their populations than we have, they all paid less for the vaccines than we did, they all have fewer deaths than we do and most of them have suffered less economic damage than us.
Just because the government you vote for tells you our vaccine campaign is world beating, it doesnât mean it actually is.
January 25, 2022
‘they all paid less for the vaccines than we did’.
An outright lie – you should be ashamed.
January 25, 2022
@Gary Megson; But those EU workers either went home because of the civil strife all you complaining & undemocratic Remainers caused post the referendum, causing such bad feeling that spilled over in to perceived antagonism toward EU nationals, others left due to the unfolding pandemic around this time in 2020, no doubt some went home for Christmas 2019 and never returned.
As part of the WA both the UK and EU agreed that EU26 and UK nationals could apply to remain in their chosen country of residence post Brexit, and of course Irish citizens have had the right to live and work in the UK since 1922.
January 25, 2022
who wants to join the 18 mile queue into Calais for ferries this morning?
January 25, 2022
The disaster in terms of key workers (of which there doesn’t seem much of a disaster) was born of ramping up the population while at the same time providing less and less means for the heritage population to train/educate and even in a lot of places get work at all because of the availability of cheaper labour being able to pour in.
If we take the NHS alone countless people were turned away that wanted to go into medicine, all with the qualifications to do so, because not enough places were being provided for them to study. Of course there’s always a remedy when it involves bringing in huge numbers from elsewhere, more schools, more housing more placements etc but always a problem when it comes to the heritage population it seems.
Then there were those who had qualified but were continually given the run around to get a placement – so much rubber stamping had to be done by countless managers. All at a time of severe shortage !!
Nothing much seems to have changed either. Everything is about bringing in outside ‘talent’ which is a perfect way to bring about the ‘diverse’ flavour all our political parties seem to want, but an unstable way to run affairs. That is the disaster.
January 25, 2022
Your fantasy land seems to be one where referendum results don’t count.
January 25, 2022
@SJS; In that Gary is correct, in the UK referendums are advisory, although no govt in their right mind would ignore them.
Reply The EU referendum was not advisory. The government told everyone voting in a house by house leaflet that they would implement our decision.
January 25, 2022
That government was Cameron’s and none can bind its successor.
Reply The successor government was of course bound by the previous governments promise as the membership of the replacement was similar and no election had occurred to change the mandate.
January 25, 2022
@JR reply; Three points;
1/. The High Court confirmed that the 2016 referendum result was not legally binding;
R (Miller v Brexit Secretary, par 105-107 inc. 22/11/2016.
2/. Even if it were binding, there was no decision to implement, other than a vague notion, ask 1000 voters what they thought they were voting for and you’ll get 1001 different answers, with a broad field of opinion based around 37 (Electoral Commission compliant) manifestos campaigns. Of the 28 Leave options, who won?
3/. NLH is correct, once Mrs May called the 2017 election, all bets were off from that point, even had Mrs May won a similar majority to what Johnson did later, she would have had her own mandate not bound to her predecessors promises, just as Johnson hasn’t been bound after the 2019 election. If successor govts are bound then Mrs Thatcher in 1979 had no right to change anything the previous Labour party had implemented or promised!
January 25, 2022
Not at all, Joe. Brexit was voted for, and Brexit has happened. I simply invite you to remember everything that was promised – exact same benefits, no new trade barriers, third countries offering us great new deals, money for the NHS – and realise it was fantasy. The reality is economic pain everywhere you look. You voted for that. I’d take it up with the folk who promised you a fantasy
January 25, 2022
Who said exact same benefits?
Details please gary
Third countries have already given us deals.
Record sums of money for the NHS
Economic pain…
Best growth of the G7
Lower unemployment than EU nations
Best export figures for last 22 months.
January 25, 2022
FarmersWeekly 14/06/2016, âBrexit campaign insists farm support will continueâ, fwi.co.uk.
Agriland 15/06/2016, âLeave campaign for Brexit criticised for âtaking farmers for foolsââ, agriland.co.uk
In view of the recent decisions concerning the farmers (âFarming is Changingâ, 30/11/2020, gov.uk) which piece of news of 4.5 years ago is the closest to what is happening now?
January 27, 2022
@Peter2; Indeed the UK does have the lowest unemployment of the old EU28, but it also has a very high level of unfilled job vacancies, why might that be.
Best [UK] export figures for last 22 months.”
Not difficult! Could you also quantify that by citing what our imports are, the UK’s balance of trade in other words – you must have the figures…
Still a lot of shortages, inconstant with a UK economy (supposedly) open for business post pandemic if domestic manufacturing is doing well, or perhaps the govt have a postwar style “Export or die” policy, branding the majority of manufacturing as Export Only, home consumers merely getting any excess?
January 27, 2022
So even better than I said Jerry
Not only is unemployment lower than the EU but as you say the UK has loads of vacancies.
Great opportunities for people.
Export figures.. had they been poor would have you moaning about the effects of brexit or some other odd reason.
Yet now the figures are good you play it down.
Shortages are fine opportunities for the UK to move in and satisfy local demand.
Why are you so negative?
January 25, 2022
Of course the results count.
And the consequences of that are pretty dismal.
Free speech and the right to say that wasn’t ended by that silly vote, however.
January 25, 2022
The national disaster is see is borrow and waste governments.
Brexit is a minor detail.
January 25, 2022
Borrow and waste(or rather print and waste)provides a lot of our GDP,which is why that measure is an illusion.None of the so-called debt can ever be paid(nor,for decades, has it been intended that it should ).Debt that cannot be repaid is worthless.
Also,to go back to basics,capital is a surplus of income over spending ie savings.You cannot print capital which is why the whole postwar globalist confection with it’s fake money,phoney value chains,dodgy derivatives and corrupt accounting is now collapsing.
January 25, 2022
Politics alone WON’T nearly change that. That will only really happen when Cultural Values change: i.e. people take more responsibility for themselves and / or turn more to their family – instead of the state. Change in Cultural Values that need to happen in / be influenced by: Education / Media / Arts / Church etc ..
January 25, 2022
If you could explain how dependency on others and legalised human trafficking in cheap labour is a good thing we’d all be pleased to learn from you Gary.
January 25, 2022
NS – even cheap EU labour isn’t good enough anymore I read today in the Guardian that Portugal is accused of having 10,000 migrants from S Asia and elsewhere earning less than their minimum wage. “Nobody wants to be a slave in their own country and these people only do it on a bribe of citizenship”.
January 25, 2022
The jury is out on Brexit for sure, and the govt has been very slow to do anything to take advantage of it. But here are a few advantages:-
– we are saving a net ÂŁ12bn pa, rising for ever, in payments to the EU (less the ÂŁ39bn payable under mrs mayâs foolish deal)
– we have an independent vaccine policy which has most likely saved 10s of thousands of lives and is enabling the quickest exit from pandemic measures among comparable countries. This would not have happened in the EU.
– we have an independent trade policy, all the EU 3rd party deals have been rolled over and some new ones signed (the remain and continuity remain campaigns were adamant until a little over a year ago that this would never happen)
– we no longer have an immigration system which discriminates against non-EU citizens
– we are no longer in a position where laws come into force in the U.K. because an EU body such as the ECJ or the EU council and commission say so. New laws have to be debated and scrutinised in parliament.
Now how worthwhile all of this is in practice we will have to see. If we are going to go on having big state, high tax, over-regulated social democracy then indeed we may as well have stayed in the EU, or at the very least the EEA.
January 25, 2022
Six and a half million registered to stay permanently.
January 25, 2022
Rather, to come and go as they please.
January 25, 2022
As before.
January 25, 2022
As they always were NHL
January 26, 2022
so can you – get a visa! Like we did for years.
January 26, 2022
So I wonder is this 6m checked to see if they are contributing or are half children? Isn’t this another windrush, where they go home for years but still get to claim pension credits here?
January 25, 2022
You had 40+ years to turn your utopian dream into something close enough to reality for the majority of UK citizens that they wouldn’t even contemplate leaving your wondrous club.
But you failed utterly.
And then you compound that failure – instead of finding out why it was all a failure you have spent the last 6 years inventing unfounded “reasons”, casting blame everywhere but the on the shoulders it truly belongs and trying to destroy our country and democracy.
January 26, 2022
The purpose of the European Union was never to create Heaven On Earth.
It was, and is, to prevent Hell On Earth.
It’s been a resounding success at that.
January 28, 2022
spoken like a true acolyte of the Germano-Franco supremacy cult.
January 25, 2022
Gary Megson :
So great were the non-tariff barriers during EU membership that we had a ÂŁ100bn/YEAR trading deficit with the EU which was uncontrollable.
Also uncontrollable was inward migration. Corporates took advantages in cheap wages and the UK taxpayer paid for all the income credit, social and healthcare and infrastructure costs.
Not only did this migration depress wages in the UK and load the taxpayer with additional costs it also denuded the poorer EU countries of the very people they needed to boost their economies and living standards. A lose-lose situation.
Mr. Cameron even wanted to extend the EU all the way from the Atlantic to the Urals (Kazakhstan speech 2013) and include Turkey (Ankara âpave the roadâ speech 2010).
January 25, 2022
The real disaster is the failure of this government to have a bonfire of all the pointless and damaging red tape we can not get rid of due to having less the EU. Boris like nearly all PMs in my lifetime has a broken compass. He is now for very high and increasing taxes, endless red tape, the net zero expensive energy lunacy, much manifesto ratting, inflation, tax borrow and piss down the drain, vast & bloated government delivering dross, no reform of the dire NHS.
Alas any realistic alternatives to him – Sunak, Truss, Javid, Starmer/SNP and the rest would be even worse still.
I blame that lefty Theatre Studies dope and/or Covid and the bureaucrats and “experts” for driving Boris mad – he was once quite sensible in his views.
Look at the insanity of the new Highway Code for yet more insanity.
January 25, 2022
we can now get rid of – not “not”
January 25, 2022
Simple good manners “insanity” says LL.
January 25, 2022
Insanity it is – it will encourage accidents, litigation, scam accidents and bogus insurance claims.
January 26, 2022
You have an unhealthy fixation with your cars, I think.
It seems that nothing, especially people, must ever stand in their way.
Normal people feel effective from other things, however.
January 26, 2022
For our economy to strengthen, we need to encourage more students to study one or a combination of the following: Engineering, Computer Science and Design. Also, Software Coding and Digital Marketing (but, firstly, Engineering, Computer Science and Design). And / or do something entrepreneurial, when young, before university / during university / or missing university all together such as selling stuff via Amazon / Ebay before progressing to owning one’s own digital platform for selling stuff.
January 25, 2022
Our trade to many non-EU countries has grown much more strongly than to EU.
Did you overlook the impact of the pandemic on âkey workersâ, many of whom might well have preferred to be in their home countries for Christmas and other celebrations, to tend to loved ones and at least know they were in their home country with so much doubt over each countryâs travel restrictions.
Notwithstanding all of that, 6 million EU citizens, given a free choice, chose to remain in the UK.
January 25, 2022
I wonder if you could explain why you think villages and towns in Eastern Europe being emptied of young people who move to England to live in cabins on farms doing back breaking work for low wages is a fair, reasonable or decent thing – I would be obliged to hear your justification.
6 million people from the EU applied for settled status. Could you explain where they are all living? (Hint: apart from the seasonal workers in cabins, most of them live in rented property. To afford it they often have to live in overcrowded conditions. However, notwithstanding that, they cause upward pressure on rents and downward pressure on wages. You must be a special sort of person if you think that is a good thing.
January 26, 2022
Well said, Mike. This kind of thing is a bit crazy for the medium to long-term ‘benefits’ of our or any country. But what to do? We can all do our small bit to encourage proper Conservative Values of relying on self / family instead of state etc .. but we can’t just do that through politics. In fact, it can really only mainly be done through a shift in Cultural Values through Education / Media / Arts / The Church (or non-religious organisations if you’re an atheist / agnostic). In other words, Conservatism has to be more than just a political movement (yes, it’s that, of course) but more, a cultural movement.
January 25, 2022
Exports are at a 22 month high Gary.
All those huge trade barriers you keep telling us about seem to be being leapfrogged by traders.
January 25, 2022
Good morning.
Tells you all you need to know that.
But today it is all about knowing what the various ‘focus groups’ think
That was a time when Number 10 and Whitehall could do their respective jobs. But membership of the EEC / EI put paid to that. I mean, who needs politicians and political parties with ideas when, they may run contrary to what Brussels and the Commission want ? Better to employ people as stand ins. Dummies in a parliamentary shop window as it were. Which why we are were we are with them.
A nice informative article. I hope you get the job đ
*My emphysys
January 25, 2022
The focus group point is well made. And those focus groups are not representative.
Surely a good policy unit must operate for the majority not the vocal and insurgent minority.
January 25, 2022
The thing about focus groups and charities, along with those (BBC) anonymous experts, is they are all funded to varying degrees by the government (taxpayer) to tell them, the government, what they want to hear and you believe.
January 26, 2022
Margaret Thatcher also walked to parliament. Things changed drastically when globalist Blair entered the scene.
Reply All PMs are driven for security reasons.
January 25, 2022
Boris Johnson isn’t Margaret Thatcher. Indeed since her downing, it’s been a steady and accelerating descent into a Neo-Marxist abyss. Freedom is being extinguished right before our very eyes. Parliament and its thirst for oppressive laws has become a direct threat to the nation’s values and hard won liberties that we in the real world still cherish
January 25, 2022
Agreed. The party no longer selects ‘Conservative’ candidates. They are now selected upon diversity, woke, liberal, eco-loon credentials, which is why we are where we are!
We can only vote for the candidates put before us. Candidates who pretend to offer what the electorate want, and then ‘do their own thing’ once elected. Labour does this too. There should be a right of recall for any MP who has deliberately deceived their voters, otherwise the deceit will continue.
January 25, 2022
I don’t see much ‘doing their own thing’ we have massed sheep in the Commons waiting to file out for voting with the shepherd counting and others marking for retaliation.
January 25, 2022
Quite so. Candidates for the position of MP should be selected only by the constituency, NOT by the Conservative Central Office. We need less Eton and oxbridge club members and more self-made, common sense, doers and achievers.
January 25, 2022
+1
January 25, 2022
Shirley. Agree. You only have to look at the bonkers cycle rules being brought in.
January 25, 2022
FUS
Agree about the new Highway rules, lots of rear end shunts will occur when cars when turning left or right, stop on a main road to allow pedestrians to cross a minor road.
As for suggestions that cyclists, cycle in the middle of the road lane to get themselves noticed, can you just imagine 15mph cyclist holding up a line of traffic when a 60 mph limit is in place, wonderful for road rage.
Are these the same people who recommended the refuge distances on Smart Motorways ?
January 25, 2022
+1
January 25, 2022
Theresa May MP was the beneficiary of a female only candidate list. When you select people based on criteria other than suitability you get the current mess.
January 25, 2022
All I can say is, when Mrs. Thatcher was in charge, I used to wake up with a sense of hope.
No matter how bad the problem at the time, I would think âMaggie will sort itâ- and in the vast majority of cases – she did.
I no longer wake up with much hope. Later governments have given in to various special interest groups, and the public is not allowed a say, and is worried to death to speak their mind in case it causes âoffenceâ to some group or another.
I sometimes think, we are ruled by âcelebritiesâ, footballers, and anyone except the Government we elected. We need to get up off our knees, and show some steel!
January 25, 2022
This!
January 25, 2022
Chester Girl
Very well said. You are speaking for a heck of a lot of people.
January 25, 2022
Whoever is the next PM, she’ll need a senior advisor, a Willy Whitelaw type. Our host might step forward.
January 25, 2022
I think your current attitude has more to do with how little governments in the past actually interfered in the day to day. Even the authoritarian labour ones, it was top line policy not detailed delivery.
Governments since Blair want to pervade all aspects of our lives which should fill anyone with dread.
January 25, 2022
I agree with you about Mrs Thatcher. During her time in office I was a serving desk officer in the MoD and when she decided that something needed doing and it was urgent, the message went around the desks “this is a handbag task” and we all knew what that meant! Years later in 1992 I had the privilege of meeting her whilst serving on Ascension Island, when she and many others travelled to the Falkland Islands on the 10th anniversary of the war. A simple reception for the returning passengers was arranged in the Mess and despite them all having spent 8 hours on a RAF Tristar travelling back to Ascension Island, she swept into the room with an aura of power about her that I found interesting.
We were arranged in groups to meet the stars and in my group I had amongst others the USAF Base commander. Engaging with her about the Falkland Islands war, at one point she said “do you know the USA said we couldn’t place that many aircraft on their airbase (Wideawake airfield built by the USA in WWII) so I called Ronnie and said it’s our airfield on our island and we will position as many aircraft there as we need to”. The USAF base commander took it rather well, I thought at the time.
I decided that we needed a photograph of the event and called over the station photographer and started to move people in my group in order around Mrs Thatcher and she said “are you trying to arrange me”? and I said yes ma’am. She just went along with the arrangement and I treasure the pictures that were taken that day. She was, as I am sure John knows, a very special person and, love or hate her as you will, she will not be forgotten.
January 25, 2022
Mrs Thatcher would agree with me that politicians can only do so much.
She, like me, would have believed that Cultural Values are mainly what lead to a strong, stable civilisation / country. Cultural Values that are influenced by Education / Media / Arts / Church etc .. And the types of Education / Media / Arts / Church we have etc ..
So for example, Mrs Thatcher would have grown up going to Church. Believing in strong family values. Believing in a strong education and rich and interesting Arts / Media etc .. And that these are ultimately what make a country strong. Politicians can only do so much.
January 26, 2022
Agreed. Thatcher was a giant. Accepted majority voting in the EU because she knew she was smart enough to win the arguments and didn’t need a veto. And she was! Contrast the Brexiters who were scared of losing arguments and so ran away, frit. Pygmies the lot of them, and now we are where Thatcher (and Wellington, and Elizabeth I) always said we should never be – on the fringes of Europe, without allies
January 26, 2022
When did european allies help us?
January 27, 2022
A far greater problem than whether we should be sovereign or not (I agree we should be) is the fairly rapid collapse of Western Civilisation. Everything – including sovereignty of a nation – rests on that. If there is no solid foundation then the whole structure of civilisation collapses.
So Conservatives have to do their bit together and individually to try and restore Burkian-style Conservative values to the culture around us, in particular, Education, the Media, Arts, Church (and other organisations for people who are atheists / agnostics) or things could just get worse and worse.
January 27, 2022
Ah yes, another tick on the Brexit bingo card, we won WW2 all on our own. No help from the Russians (tens of million dead in beating Hitler), free French, Poles, Czechs, Serbs, Greeks, Irish
January 25, 2022
I strongly suspect that for Sir John’s suggestions to be implemented, he would first need to get approval from the ‘power behind the throne ‘ – Carrie Johnson.
But in any case, it is clear that the PM does not have the disciplined mind of Mrs Thatcher. Possibly, a graduate from Norland would be more successful in dealing with our current PM.
January 25, 2022
The power behind the throne are the parliamentary MP’s like, Sir John. If and when they feel that the party and their interests (notice I deliberately left out the nation and its people) are best served by having a new leader, then they shall. Don’t believe me ?!?! Ask David and Theresa. đ
January 25, 2022
Agreed, Mark B. Boris could do very little without the support of Parliament. Are the majority pro-EU liberal eco-loons, or just yes-men?
We are being pushed into more reliance on the EU for energy and food and we kindly take their unwanted immigrants, and pay them for the privilege! Do they need any more fishing licences? Here they are, and EU supertrawlers are welcome too! Whatever the EU want, Boris will deliver.
January 25, 2022
Denis may have been an influence and sounding board in the privacy of their No 10 flat, but I doubt he was ever seen around the office proding individuals with his agenda.
Reply Denis did not intervene. He would be at dinner in the flat when we were speech writing late into the evening and would be personally supportive to his wife but not seeking to change what we were trying to say and do.
January 25, 2022
Denis Thatcher will be remembered for his quote on the perils of speaking in public: “Better keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it and remove all doubt.”
January 25, 2022
I wish we had more people with drive / vision like Mrs Thatcher. And more charming / good-natured men like Denis in the political world.
January 25, 2022
Johnson, by all accounts, did not heed your advice. Lord Agnew’s statement in the HoL on the reasons for his resignation was truly shocking on its revelation about the disregard for waste and fraud by appointed officials. I hope you can tell us more in the future.
January 25, 2022
Good call.
I too shaw that (not on the BBC or terrestrial TV I might add). Many on all sides of the House applauded him as he left and spoke well of him after. One thing he mentioned was, that if the government could recover much of the ÂŁ29bn in fraudulent waste there would be no need to increase ENIC by 1%.
I should be the first duty of every Minister to protect the public purse from abuse. And it should be the PM’s duty to that they do.
January 25, 2022
Never mind fraud, it’s foreign aid that matters above all else to some, apparently.
I mean, spending money to give children an education and to prevent disease…
January 25, 2022
Just ignore widespread fraud say NHL
Hilarious.
Not my money…
January 25, 2022
Reread.
January 25, 2022
never mind fraud….That’s what you wrote.
January 27, 2022
Sorry.
Reread and understand a simple sentence.
January 27, 2022
I did.
Try writing one that makes sense.
January 25, 2022
It was all so different then and clear lines of structure and two way communication.
The perception and maybe the reality is what Carrie wants Carrie gets.
Mrs Thatcher had a vision and was surrounded by people that could deliver it and that demands a disciplined structure and the ability to follow it through and she was not handicapped by a husband that interfered but was supportive and not too high profile with the media or the people
January 25, 2022
Very interesting article, Sir John. No 10’s a mess and needs sorting out, with most of the Spads going and being replaced by a smaller number of civil servants. I suspect that the Cabinet Secretary doesn’t do much, none of the Spads have TORs, and that processes are ill-defined. If Boris won’t bring in a couple of professional management consultants then he should consider bringing in you and William Hague, on the cheap. We were led to believe that, in Boris, we would have an accomplished former mayor of London. Instead, we got a lazy, disorganised, scruffy journalist.
P.S. I am disgusted by the lack of government action to recover billions of fraudulently-claimed BBLS. The cynic in me suspects that the Treasury wants the whole scandal buried and forgotten. Who could possible benefit from that, I wonder?
January 25, 2022
Not William Hague. David Frost.
January 25, 2022
Dom Cummings and Lee Cain, marmite maybe, but they would have provided the discipline this shambles heeded. And what have we got now? Allegedly Carrie didnât like them, it would have been mutual and we now see why. Her immature and entitled decision to organise a birthday party for Boris just follows on from her game playing putting her totally unsuitable mates at the heart of government with ârun away from a tough decisionâ Boris acquiescing.
At the same time my family was agonising over whether every contact we had was legal, my sister couldnât see her new grandson at the same time as the other proud grandparents. But apparently Borisâs ten minutes here 20 minutes there is ok,
My contempt for them and the Tory MPs only thinking whether he can benefit them politically.is total.
January 25, 2022
First off, well done Lord Agnew, a truly honorable Lord!
Secondly, I note our host did not name the PM he is giving advice to…
Is our host applying for his old job back, or perhaps promotion, whilst I admit he would not be my choice he is honorable, and whilst some will no doubt dislike it, we will be in no doubt as to our nations destination.
Reply I am trying to help the PM establish a good set up. I am not seeking a job but would be willing to help if needed.
January 25, 2022
Reply to Reply
Sir John you tick a hell of a lot of boxes , the best thing the party can do is when there can be no more excuses left for all the misdemeanors that, Central Office and the elected politicians get their heads from where the sun ain’t shining and get rid of what we are putting up with at the moment. Get people like you with all the experiences, wasting away on the back benches. I for one have had enough of the suck it and see crowd we have in place at the moment. That goes on all sides of the house. Partygate they are having a laugh, let’s worry more about the Putin threat, energy bills, government waste on fraudulent abuse of their schemes.
It would seem there is a hard core within try do trash this country.
January 25, 2022
O I hope he asks you to help….
Reply He did and I sent him my advice.
January 25, 2022
No mention of how you implemented Denis Thatcher’s personal policy ideas and how he had his own friendly special advisers to promote them ? I imagine he was good fun at a birthday party though.
Reply Denis did not intervene in government or policy.
January 25, 2022
More lame excuses this morning from senior cabinet members doing the media breakfast circus, it matters not one jot if those who attended non work gatherings usually worked together, in June 2020 it was against the law for us mere plebs to attend the family ‘events’ (birthdays or otherwise) of those they worked alongside and did not live with as a family unit – what is more the law stated that only essential in-person work meetings should occur, a birthday party is not, and if work meetings did occur social distancing and/or PPE should be used, and back then didn’t the law also prohibited collective indoor singing!
To cap that, it looks now as if Sue Gray’s report will be necessarily delayed, because all of a sudden the Met Police choose to investigate “partygate” – how convenient. What next, ask the POTUS to declare ‘war’ on Russia…
Voters are like elephants, both have long memories, Tory MP’s need to remember that.
January 25, 2022
Voters don’t have long memories
Where was the family gathering inside Number 10?
January 25, 2022
@Peter2; “Voters donât have long memories “
That would be why voters still mention Crash-Gorden of 2008, the row over the Maastricht Treaty in the early 1990s, the 1984 Miners strike, the 1978 Winter of discontent, the power cuts and three day week of 1973/4 etc…
“Where was the family gathering inside Number 10?”
A Birthday party, in the cabinet room, 19th June 2020 allegedly, if that was not a family gathering but another ‘work meeting’ why was Carrie Symonds present. If it was a private family function why were there (reportedly) up to 30 No.10 staffers and others present? Also why was someone who likely had a very limited security clearance also allegedly present, and yes I do know how positive and negative vetting works, having in the past had to obtain clearance and sign the OSA myself before accessing certain Crown buildings or installations.
January 26, 2022
You miss the point Jerry
Political history goes back decades even centuries.
You have given us examples of political history.
But voters in elections vote for many different reasons and many have firm voting habits.
Most constituencies are safe seats.
Giving a cake to your husband in the building in which you live is not illegal as a bubble was in existence.
January 26, 2022
Peter is, regrettably, probably correct in many cases.
Too many people rely on the media to do their remembering for them, and instead those will do an awful lot of forgetting for them instead.
We should all use our own.
January 26, 2022
@NLH; No, as usual it is P2 who has missed the point, whilst trying to suggest that I was talking of the past, when actually I was talking about the present, what the MSM, their readers and the party political activist still talk about to this day, even some (besides myself) on this very site. What P2 forgets, more likely doesn’t want to admit, even if what happened 10 to 50 years ago is irrelevant to the next election it is no more than just under three years away, more likely just two.
Are you, Peter2, really suggesting average voters have memories like sieves for what has occurred within the last parliament? But again, even if people do forget it doesn’t take much to jog memories or create a debate about past issues, the entire right wing attack on Mr Corbyn and his polices, both in 2017 and 2019, were based upon what the hard-left had ‘done to the country’ in the 1970s and before, what they wanted to do in the 1980s, only a fool would suggest that “Partygate” will not be used by opposition parties should the current PM (well he still is as I type this…) stand for re election within the next three years.
P2 also suggests that “many [voters] have firm voting habits.”, best tell that to the Labour Party given the last election, but if he is correct surely it means many voters will have no problem returning to their ‘Red Wall’ Labour roots…
January 26, 2022
Do you think I’ve missed your point Jerry?
Perhaps you means you are severely irked that someone doesn’t agree with you
But thanks for your essay.
Very interesting.
January 27, 2022
@P2; “irked that someone doesnât agree”
Indeed you are, how dare they!
Honesty from Peter2 for once, he must have finally received that mirror @hefner sent him… đ
January 27, 2022
Now that is silly Jerry because it is you that gets all inflamed when a post of yours is replied to.
I am very calm and not irked in the slightest.
Except when you descend to calling me and others rude names.
January 26, 2022
‘Voters donât have long memories ‘
Correct. they prefer to hang on to the lies, oops manifesto promises, ooops intentions that suit their particular circumstances.
January 26, 2022
‘Voters are like elephants, both have long memories’
Let us hope so.
January 26, 2022
Some do, some don’t.
January 25, 2022
I think that was Roy’s point.
January 25, 2022
We have gone from joined up government, acting in the interests of the country and its peoples under Mrs Thatcher, with proper conservative values, to chaotic and damaging government with the only joined up thinking being the delusion of climate change/global warming/zero carbon driving all common sense out of the window.
The cost of Government was quite obviously a consideration at that time with such a tight knit group in charge. Now no largesse or expansion of staff (there always seem plenty of bodies to make up a good party) is ever too great.
January 25, 2022
I wonder whether Carrie will have to reflect that she played a major part in her husband losing his job, losing her gilded position to become just another part of his extended family. Certainly she has allowed her own hubris to create very damaged goods.
January 25, 2022
Bet she’s planning book titles for the future.
‘How green was my husband’
‘The joker in Downing St.’
‘How to win friends and collect favours’
‘Behind every fool is an astute woman’.
January 25, 2022
I strongly suspect when/if she loses her influence on policy she will be gone.
January 25, 2022
Boris has not lost his job yet. The BBC is reporting that the Sue Gray report will be delayed as the Met Police is now investigating the lockdown parties. Of course, the Met Police cannot say guilty or not guilty but just pass their report onto the CPS. Then the CPS may decide it is not in the public interest to proceed, guilty or not.
What a shabby state of affairs.
January 26, 2022
According to a well known lawyer on tv last night, as I understood him, any of these ‘offences’ are time expired and cannot be put before a court anyway. Don’t know where that leaves the police, just going through the motions in order to quieten down some elements or maybe another delay for political reasons? It took the police long enough to get around to investigating.
January 25, 2022
Happily she had a spouse in Downing Street who didn’t queer the pitch.
January 25, 2022
Sir John – you forgot to mention the importance of Denis Thatcher’s Interior Designer.
Johnson is completely incapable of running the kind of Downing St. outlined above but I doubt if that matters now. He and Carrie Antoinette, who has done so much to help destroy his Premiership, won’t be there for much longer. You can’t “disrespect” the electorate the way he has over No.10 socialising during Lockdown/Restrictions and expect to survive.
So the important question Sir John needs to address is “Who can run Downing St like that?”
January 25, 2022
+1
Implications of disrespect =they were not afraid of catching a virus! The very virus they used to incarcerate us!! Thatâs the real issue.
One could almost believe that Boris was planted in no 10 by Remain Leftists.
And now, it seems he has agreed to upend the Highway Code to pander to his cycling obsession!
The results of which will be disaster.
January 25, 2022
The PM should not really be the person to ârunâ Downing St. They clearly do not have the time. But Boris does need to have a working small government compass, make good speeches, be good in the House, amuse and win elections – pre Theatre Studies and Gold Wallpaper Carrie Antoinette he was reasonably OK at that.
The alternatives are all far worse still many like Liz Truss are LibDim, greencrap Remoaners in the dire Theresa May mode. Sunak is clearly a vast tax increasing (even before Covid), a manifesto ratting, climate alarmist, letâs piss money down the drain dope and worse still he read PPE almost never a good sign.
January 25, 2022
It seems that this scandal started to be revealed since he started getting us out of lockdown.
The fetishists want us back in it.
January 25, 2022
A very interesting article. You recall a long gone era, when we had an export-led manufacturing economy with an industrial base that provided close to a balance of payment surplus. We were self-sufficient in energy, we had powerful and well trained armed forces and respect in the world.
Today we have a laughable crew of sycophantic mediocrities in the current cabinet, “led” by a buffoon who, like so many liars, believes that we should accept his denials and other utterances as the truth.
January 25, 2022
Absolutely
January 25, 2022
Ouch – but doesn’t truth hurt !
January 25, 2022
Much truth in this alas.
JR says – I urged him to keep the crucial manifesto headline promises of levelling up, getting Brexit done and not raising the main taxes as central drivers of policy. The overall aim must be the greater prosperity of the many by expanding the economy, making and growing more things at home and showing how Brexit freedoms could lead to more and better paid jobs and more businesses.
Good points but add to this – abandon the net zero, climate change act, expensive energy lunacy, fix the potholes, get the police to tackle real crime (not wolf whistling etc.), stop blocking the roads, stop soft loans for worthless degrees, control the borders, stop pissing money down the drain on test and trace, HS2, bloated and largely useless government⊠Real Freedom and choice in healthcare and education, scrap the BBC poll tax, a bonfire of red tape, sort out the EU attacks on NI.
January 25, 2022
It would seem to account for why she was by far the best PM we have had since Churchill.
How do you account for the anomoly of the Pole Tax. On reflection was it a totally wrong policy, or was it not thought out with great enough care for it to be marketable. I have always thought it a very sensible idea in which every citizen has a resposibility to contribute to society, but historically it was ill thought out and badly marketed. How come it bypassed what you have described at length as a very effective management plan for governing the country.
Reply I recommended not to proceed with the Poll Tax but she accepted the Environment Ministers advice in favour. The Treasury then undermined it as the Chancellor agreed with me. They went on to underfund the system leading to unacceptably high bills. I did point that out from outside government to no avail.
January 25, 2022
Did you oppose the principal of a Poll Tax, or oppose the plan for achieving it, which to my mind left it vulnerable and accounted for it falling apart.
Must have been a fascinating experience.
Reply I took her the numbers that people would have to pay and explained that the polling which said people wanted to pay more tax for better services did not mean they actually wanted to pay more themselves! The Poll Tax tested out that proposition, making every adult pay a contribution for local services where before it was just householders. As I expected it was unpopular.
January 25, 2022
Quite so. If the Poll Tax had been brought in at the level of the BBC tax, the BBC could not have killed it. Furthermore, it was originally to be brought in over three years, but the property owners at the party conference clamoured for it to be brought in straight away, saying it was unfair the Scots were getting it and not the rest. The hierarchy mistook this clamour for the public voice in general and acceded to the request – as they thought, by popular demand.
The Scots got it sooner because they had revaluations of rateable value every five years and there had just been an electoral disaster for the Scottish Conservatives on the back of that. It was when they came down to London to warn the PM of what would happen elsewhere if the rates were kept, that she changed her mind on the poll tax. Before that she had not been keen. Moral: don’t levy tax regardless of income. This applied to both the rates and the poll tax which came in at much higher levels than the BBC tax, and it applies still to the Council Tax. Brilliant name, Lord Heseltine, but wrong principle.
January 25, 2022
I seemed to remember, the correct name was the Community Charge, until some opponents insisted on calling it the Poll Tax.
They had a different agenda.
January 25, 2022
The pole tax wasn’t the only howler: privatising the utilities was a bad idea; what was wrong were the procurement policies of the nationalised industries combined with a laissez-faire industrial policy which allowed the removal of internal competition by bad actors and the encouragement of foreign takeovers to replace it. Selling off council housing was also very bad idea. The main problems facing the Thatcher government were the lawless unions, especially the NUT: if the government had focused only solving that issue, it would have been an unmitigated success. Most governments try to do too much and get too much wrong.
January 26, 2022
I meant NUM!
January 25, 2022
So many good comments on an absolutely sterling article by Sir John.
It was of a different age, an age of quality, integrity, sagacity, and diligence, and many more attributes of the people of that age. Such a total contrast with the celebrity PM, the overly influential wife, a House full of silence of the sheep, a world of horrors ahead due to fashionable pursuits of dopey juvenile policies unchecked by the due diligence of the elected.
I lived through that time to which Sir John refers, and I saw âthe real thingâ, which is why I have been unable to cast my vote for the empty vessels since the time of Major.
Thank you, Sir John, for laying out the structure of discussion and top-level decision making, a wonderful and salutary insight into a world that only the most capable could carry weight in. Itâs most heartening to know that a golden thread of wisdom and good sense has been unbroken since those days of the best Prime Minister Iâve known, and it resides on the back bench.
Now we know why such splendid qualities are destined to be ignored by the shallow and talentless âbettersâ who now preside. Pearls before swine.
January 25, 2022
This all sounds very professional and business like — A shame it wasn’t taken up.
Too many advisors with conflicting interests clearly is not optimum – What Boris needs is a professional, like our host, at his side.
January 25, 2022
You say âWhat Boris needs is a professional, like our host, at his sideâ.
Indeed JR would surely make an excellent working compass and a no 10 manager. Boris could deliver the speeches and the jokes.
January 25, 2022
Well I guess given the present PM asked you the question, but he must have then discarded your answer.
We are in different times now with the internet, 24 hour news on a whole host of media channels, all with their own agenda’s.
We also seem to have lost the type of personal discipline and responsibility that should go with any senior position.
Then we all accepted a bit of straight talking, and politicians weren’t afraid to speak their minds and explain their thoughts and policies in a clear manner.
We now have deliberate evasion to any question, even the very simple ones, which leads to total and utter confusion.
I wonder what Bernard Ingham would think, say and do now.
reply If you start by asking what the media wants you are doomed. We did not. We thought through the problems, priorities and solutions government could advance, and only then called in Bernard to discuss how the resulting policy should be presented. We watched opinion polls but did not expect opinion polls to tell us how to solve problems that emerged from them.
January 25, 2022
You have convinced me beyond all doubt – we need a second Thatcher now.
“The system worked for a variety of reasons. The most important was we three knew her mind …” – but then so did she! No U-turns after consultations with Marcus Rashford!
reply She often took a long time in private to make up her mind, and it could be a long process getting her to settle on a course of action, as we and she knew once she had gone public she would stick with it. it therefore had to be right.
January 25, 2022
We really could do with some cool heads in Downing Street, quality not quantity too.
Whilst here can I ask, do the Red Wall Tories really not understand they are MPs because of Boris, nothing to do with their own merit. And can we not sort the selection process out and actually have some Conservatives standing as PPCs instead of Lib Dems? But most of all can you not do something with the likes of Steve Baker who seems intent on destroying Boris, because he may well destroy Brexit too.
From 2016-2019 I felt my vote counted for nothing, then Boris won, now I feel totally disenfranchised again, the media are running the show, not helped by the likes of score settling Tories. This is last chance saloon for the Cons as far as Iâm concerned, they wonât get my vote again if they unseat Boris.
January 25, 2022
Mrs. Thatcher didnât have a civil service corrupted by nearly 50 years of EU membership, and now also under Chinese influence.
Our weak PM fired the only person who could have understood the game plan of parties and the economy destroying unilateral Net Zero and now has been well and truly tucked up by the civil service, aided in no small part by the MSM and the educational establishment.
Reply We faced a civil service where many disagreed with our agenda and fought against it vigorously. I will tell another day how we charted privatisation through a largely hostile establishment.
January 25, 2022
Tragically, with ‘Boris’ as leader, with his chaotic behaviour and his deliberate detachment from any detail and understanding, everyone in positions of authority particularly the civil service knows they can get away with almost anything, including matters outside the law, and they do.
He must be removed because cannot and will not change. Our nation is being ruined.
January 25, 2022
By comparison to your time with Mrs T, Johnson never had a chance of setting up No10 as he wanted it. Before he even moved into No10 he was hit with the pandemic and an establishment riddled with ‘quisling remainers’ in every department. He had no time to form HIS government but had to accept what was in place so that he could start to tackle the virus. He has done a better job than any other leader and history will show this.
In your time Sir John we did not have social media, mobile phones were in their infancy and email did not exist. With all these devices and facilities that exist today security in No10 is very similar to trying to hold water in a colander, and in addition we have a news media with a shrinking audience turning every event or announcement into a drama.
Without the Party-gate Pantomime he has enough on his plate with Russia, China and the economy and he is the only person in Whitehall who can lead us to a successful future.
Cue:- a lot of shouting and mis-information from the remainers until they are finally put back in their box. They conveniently forget that they lost the referendum.
January 25, 2022
We have secret ballot in this country.
How anyone, civil servant – or any other person – voted in the referendum is no one’s business except theirs and theirs alone.
So what do you propose – lie detectors tests, the rack, or the Ducking Stool?
January 25, 2022
Those secret ballots which Labour and the trades unions opposed tooth and nail for years.
You now in favour of them NHL?
January 26, 2022
It’s a pity that the criterions for validity of those strike votes – upon which the Tories insisted – were not also applied to the referendum, and to Parliamentary votes on the matter, isn’t it?
Leave would have failed badly if they were.
January 26, 2022
I note you dodged the actual answer NHL
January 26, 2022
When were Labour and trade unions opposed to secret ballots for local or general elections?
And don’t dodge the answer, P2.
January 26, 2022
They had a prolonged campaign of opposition to secret ballots for strike action.
Surely you know the political history of the time heffy?
Who said anything about local or general elections !
January 27, 2022
No employee should be bullied either by management or by their fellow workers.
Secret ballots for strikes are a way of avoiding this and have their place.
January 27, 2022
Sorry P2, You did not originally define the context of these elections, did not point out it was vote for or against strike action, and given that you made the beginnerâs mistake of confusing Labour and trade unions, I could easily imagine that you were considering elections outside of strikes.
Try to think before writing and to actually define the proper context of your comments. A basic requirement for a âsuccessful essayâ, donât you think?
January 25, 2022
Interviewers of politicians ought to be able to utilise these tools….
January 25, 2022
A very workmanlike and professional process, there is no real evidence of anything approaching such a performant framework.
By comparison we appear not to have a government at all but a school playground with no adults in charge – Parliament, the Lords, Westminster and Whitehall appear to be an utter mess where anything that happens is divorced from the actual needs of the country and driven solely by personal ambition.
January 25, 2022
“So long ago
Was it in a dream?
Was it just a dream?
I know, yes I know
It seemed so very real
Seemed so real to me”
January 26, 2022
Sir John didn’t credit the singer – but you should.
January 25, 2022
Preaching to the converted! Hardly think No.10 would give this article the time of day.
January 25, 2022
Thatcher was a once in a century politician. One with a vision and resolve to implement it. We will not see her like for many a year.
But Johnson is an opportunist and to gain a majority against a party headed by a (unsuitable man ed) and a third party whose slogan “Vote for me! And we’ll ignore you!” strangely didn’t work, was no great shakes.
I think she also had some empathy with what ordinary folk expected of her. Only a public school toff would laugh at the idea of a booze up while telling the little people they couldn’t go to church or bury a deceased relative.
All this will pale into insignificance if he pursues the unachievable “net zero” which will destroy the Tory party. Politicians generally (apart from Thatcher) believe that talk is what counts. But COP26 showed that whilst they loved the talk the walk was a step too far.
January 25, 2022
I found this very interesting and revealiong. The key seemes to have been that you had a tight, and therefor manageable, crew of individuals who were clearly strongly motivated towards supporting the PM in her agenda. It is a great pity that there is little sign that the current PM took notice of what you told him.
You did of course have the advantage of having a leader who had a pretty clear idea of what she wanted to achieve.
January 25, 2022
Who were the other 2 ?
I don’t already know btw.
January 25, 2022
A very interesting account, Sir John. Thank you.
As I see it, Margaret, like Winston, was a product of her time, a providential player in national and world history.
She was a Chemistry graduate, and indeed personal chemistry would have been a crucial element in the tight knit team you describe. What a privilege you had in being a part of that.
Although times are very different, (and forgive me in saying this) I do not feel anything is to be gained by slating the PM’s wife, as so many do on this blog. Is there any evidence (other than gossip from a few toxic individuals) that Carrie is worthy of the bad press she gets here? If not, then I think this is very unfair to say the least, and detracts from the points that commentators wish to make. Whatever worldview they share as a couple (and why shouldn’t they?), the buck stops with the PM, and he must answer for it, for better or for worse. Nevertheless, we all hope and pray that, if possible, good counsel will prevail.
January 25, 2022
As far as I can ascertain around 170 people work in 10 Downing Street. Covid is not imbued with Artificial Intelligence such that it can decide who is working and who might be indulging in restrained partying. The fact that there are 170 people in what is outwardly a terraced house but in reality is a Tardis suggests to me that they are equally vulnerable whatever they are doing.
Put alongside what is happening in the UK and the rest of the World, what may have happened in Downing Street is small beer. I accept that it is fundamentally bad leadership to adhere to the hypochracy of ” Do what I say, not what I do.” In current levels of communication it is almost impossible not to get caught out, and there is a mass of media just waiting to feed on it. Best advice suggests not attracting such attention.
From what you tell us of the workings of No10 in Margarets day, the sooner you are invited back to run a spanner over the mecanism the better for all concerned.
January 25, 2022
agricola
Indeed No 10 is an office and Boris Home at the same time, so no surprise he is around most of the time.
likewise no surprise that senior people in a positions of power, would be working close together in a work place and for long hours, to try and fight a war against a pandemic, and so they perhaps ignored some of the distancing rules in order to try and save thousands of lives. At such times a bit of “time out” relief is needed in order to keep up and refresh spirits, and to keep the team bonding of the people involved together.
Calling such events parties is just plain stupid, having said that, the explanations given were equally stupid, and showed a complete lack of management and PR skills and the need for them..
Afraid Boris has bought this upon himself, because he failed to give a proper and full explain, in an honest manner, the situation at that time.
For those who love technology, yes perhaps it could have been done on Zoom or teams, and I am sure many meetings were, but such meetings are never ever the same as meeting in person, where you can fully understand the body language, and the power of feelings of those involved.
January 26, 2022
They’d have been regularly covid testing alan, with access to tests others didn’t have. So perhaps that is why they were more confident in the same room. You can’t hold top-level security meetings over zoom, I would be worried if they did.
Boris’ problem is an immature wife who behaves in the office as though her home, she hasn’t had time to grow into a ‘PM Partner/wife’ role, it is she that needs a serious advisor. Not to arrange a surprise birthday cake in work time in an office during the lockdown, however, I wonder if any NHS workers birthdays weren’t celebrated with cake at work? I read they had regular cake deliveries in fact social media cake companies were bragging about this all the time, let’s not keep over-blowing every little thing it is getting tedious. These people were working together whilst others were keen to hide and stay hidden, they were telling him he should have locked down earlier and harder, there are people who didn’t want to come out in July. Yet we forget ‘The first solidarity protests in the United Kingdom occurred in London on 28 May 2020’.https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53031072 June 12 thousands gathered in London and across the UK.
January 25, 2022
OFF TOPIC.
The Elizabeth line is a new railway line that will travel between Essex to Berkshire under central London.
It will increase rail capacity in the city by 10%.
The railway is three-and-a-half years late and billions over budget but it should be open by June.
It might also generate a migraine for those looking at an empty seat covering.
Why do designers/manufacturers force these awful patterns on us?
January 25, 2022
Oh what memories of a lovely, ordered world!
People like Johnson scatter pleas for help onto anyone who will listen, jumping from one victim to the next like an inebriated flea. And taking advice from no one except the boss!
I imagine that Downing Street is now a slightly rancid jumble of abandoned files, broken mobiles, rumpled suits and strewn McDonaldâs containers. Not forgetting the bottles.
Very few initiatives are seen through. Very little is ever resolved.
Not a fitting place for JR!
January 26, 2022
do you mean the street, or the living quarters?
January 25, 2022
Looks like the end of Boris. And everything!
Oh dear! Canât say the Tories werenât warned.
At war with their core voters sine âTurnip Talibanâ times
How EASY it would have been to please the Tory faithful.
WOKERY has done this.
There was no need to pander to the left. No need to agree with madness.
So does this mean we a doomed to Starmer?
As many on here warnedâŠ.and warnedâŠandâŠâŠâŠâŠâŠâŠ.
January 25, 2022
* sine = since
January 25, 2022
I do hope that things can be smoothed over.
I see that Mrs T only got a 42 majority.
Who in the present party could get 80 except a Boris?
Reply She went on to win two more elections with larger majorities!
January 25, 2022
Reply to reply
Oh yes sorryâŠI wasnât criticising herâŠjust meant she did so well inoffice yet got in initially with half his majority.
Personally I would turn the clock back to thenâŠ..and stay there!
January 25, 2022
I still remember the day even now. I was sat in my politics A level class when someone burst in an told us Thatcher was standing down. How we cheered.
I am sure she was wonderful for old people and rich public school elites. But Thatcher was a miserable failure for families like mine. The damage she caused can not be understated but our country was moving on from her ghastly legacy before the Brexitists took over.
And now with the failed Brexitists government imploding I am filled with joy again. Another ghastly PM is on his way out. We will cheer again.
Reply She won large majorities in three elections and was never defeated by the electorate because many millions liked what she did and were better off from her years in office.
January 25, 2022
Well said Sir John
Andy is too young to appreciate what the great Lady Thatcher did for this country
January 26, 2022
Peter, he’s 48-49 if he was in A level in Nov 1990. Still, he’d have managed to get his university for free before Blair put in student tuition fees in England only.
January 26, 2022
just in a class, not the exam.
And look at the financial mess he got millions of aspiring young people into !
Much of the ‘loan’ will never be repaid, but it is a sword of Damocles hanging over a generation, now 2 at least.
Why was it done? – a starter for 10 ? Well, the Blur faced millions of unemployed youth and came up with the wheeze to get them to learn more about TV Soaps, filming, basket weaving, their favourite ‘pop star’ to ‘degree standard’… I pause here to wipe my eyes from laughing. ..and get them off the streets. Even better he sold them ‘you’ll have a career,earn fantastic money, party-night most nights, and run down city pubs and clubs will make a forune.
Whats not to like?
January 27, 2022
MT the first loans [to English children only] were for only ÂŁ3000 (ÂŁ1000 per year) they should all be repaid by now, I’d like to know how many of those first loans were repaid in full?
I know two people that repaid their student loans and maintenance loans off (Plan 1 ÂŁ3000pa Tuition) paying:
Tax 20%, NI 12%, SL graduate tax 9% over ÂŁ16k, Nest 5% – 46% of his wages. Then additional tax when due to hard work and extra qualifications at work one became a higher rate taxpayer +10% so 56%. The other paid their off due to working lots of overtime in order to buy a property.
January 26, 2022
The fact that he was doing his A level politics gives a clue on his views. Our children and uni students are still being primed with left wing propaganda.
January 26, 2022
The first two years were not that great. Then thanks to the Falklands escapade she certainly had the country with her.
I am not convinced that many people were so happy to have negative GDP âgrowthâ in 1980-1982, the RPI at 20% in Springâ80, 3 m unemployed between 1983 and 1986, the Minersâ strike in 1984, their mortgage rate (BoE rate) oscillating between 9 and 14% between 1984 and 1990 (only 1988 went down to 7.5%) with a number of people in negative equity following the period of very high mortgage rate. Thatâs without talking about the âPoll Taxâ.
So people now older than 60 obviously remember fondly the 80s when they were in their twenties.
Unfortunately I was not âthat youngâ and remember quite well how the pressures were to pay my flexible interest-only mortgage when the rate went over 13%.
So letâs say that my appreciation of âwhat the great Lady Thatcher did for this countryâ is much more ⊠limited.
But I can perfectly understand that people remembering the past only from what a certain type of media (and politicians) tell them considers that period as some past sunlit uplands.
January 25, 2022
I also remember a certain day – Blair won – ‘it can only get better ‘ our not so young children agreed’ !!
Not so long after they all changed their tune and we consoled their mistake by advising ‘with experience brings wisdom’.
They detest the man, like me.
January 26, 2022
So proud of your hatreds…
January 26, 2022
just the one…just the one.
January 25, 2022
I am one who, at the beginning of his term in office, wished Boris well. However, the difference between now and when Mrs Thatcher was in office is the MSM; we are now dominated by these people. Just to give a single example: I listened this morning to BBC 4 when I heard Justine Somebody-Or-Other spend all the time harassing a cabinet minister about parties that Boris has either been to or permitted. Hardly any mention of the Ukraine. Where exactly do all these leaks come from, apart from Mr Cummings? In Mrs Thatcher’s time, I doubt that we whould have heard of them ; in any case, I don’t think that she would have acquiesed to such parties. It is time that, amongts others, the Civil Service was brought to heel. I don’t know if it is still the case, but in Germany some years ago, Civil Servants used to have to swear an oath of allegiance. That is a bit strong, but I think it a bit much that these individuals seem to leak with impunity. I am beginning to get he impression that Boris bares the imprint of the last individual to sit on him.
Reply There were plenty of leaks and a continuous tv media with much larger audiences than today and no alternative pro Conservative media as outlets. There was no former adviser trying to upend the PM which I agree was a help.
January 25, 2022
Most of us didnât vote for the useless prime minister we have. Now his failed government is nearing its end the Tory minority is wondering who to replace him with.
Remember this minority was the one which moaned about the EU being undemocratic. And yet they will soon – for the third time in six years – install a new prime minister without a public mandate. Without any sort of vote in Parliament.
If they cared about democracy theyâd have a general election. But if they did that many of them would lose their seats.
January 25, 2022
You should read up on the British Constitution and how Parliament works
You display your ignorance on here every day young andy
January 26, 2022
Andy rightly points out the hypocrisy of the europhobics’ continual bleating about unelected European Union office-holders when the position of PM – the top – in this country is repeatedly filled at the say-so of a few thousand mainly elderly eccentrics in the Tory Party.
Yes, it happened with Labour too, but they don’t have the ERG with their continual carping on the first point.
Whether that is constitutional or not is irrelevant.
January 26, 2022
NHL
You forgot to mention that the PM is also elected by his or her local constituency party before being elected by local voters as an MP, before being elected leader of his or her party.
And we all get to vote in elections every few years where we can change the government and thus the PM or vote out a local candidate.
Unlike the elite EU technocrats.
January 26, 2022
amazing for a 50 year old!
January 26, 2022
Thank you but I am a little older than 50 !
January 27, 2022
I refer to ‘young’ Andy.
January 26, 2022
P2, I want to know: would you dare to differ with the Leader of the House when he said today (26/01) that the UK has ânow a presidential systemâ where the PMâs âmandate is personal rather than entirely partyâ so âa change of leader requires a general electionâ?
January 26, 2022
Simply heffy I will dare.
I don’t agree with him.
January 26, 2022
Don’t worry Andy there are plenty more in the pipeline. The Tories have only elected duffers for leader for the last 30 years. They could not replace Thatcher and still can’t (or actually won’t). Talent not required, greasing up is more important.
January 25, 2022
This is getting farcical now. Bin Boris and move on.
January 25, 2022
Sir John, I don’t doubt that the workings of the number 10 office could be improved, but that’s like discussing what icing to put on a poisoned cake. The real problem is not how the prime minister’s advisers operate, but the prime minister himself.
It is Boris Johnson who is determined to betray Northern Ireland and Britain’s fishermen rather than have a dispute with the EU. It is Boris Johnson who is determined to increase national insurance. It is Boris Johnson who is pushing the insanely accelerated net zero agenda. It is Boris Johnson who refuses to leave the ECHR, thus preventing any action being taken to stop the Channel invasion. It is Boris Johnson who prefers to rewild agricultural land, or cover it in solar panels, rather than use it to produce more food.
The problem is that Boris Johnson has gone mad. He must be removed and someone sane, and conservative, must replace him.
January 25, 2022
The only question now is WHO should replace Boris as PM. Sunak has made it clear that he will not reverse the planned increases in corporation tax, or national insurance, and he is also opposed to ending the BBC licence fee, so he is OUT. Liz Truss has been proposing that there should be an independent adjudicator who will oversee trade between GB and NI. You what?! Is trade between Surrey and Kent overseen by a foreign body? Or between Calabria and Sicily, or Provence and Corsica, or Alaska and the rest of the US, or between any two parts of ANY other country in the WORLD? NO. The idea that the UK should be the only country on earth that has its internal trade regulated by foreigners is utterly unacceptable, and the fact that this stupid woman cannot see that means that she too is OUT as a replacement for the PM.
I am disgusted by the willingness of this government to betray the independence of the UK that the nation voted for. We voted to be free and sovereign and to TAKE BACK CONTROL, not give it away. It that really too hard for the traitors in government to understand?
January 25, 2022
For all those who miss membership of the EU, we were not then at the stage where our Parliament was simply rubber stamping new law from Brussels. That expanded after Maastricht and following treaties. Unfortunately we now have govt. that has completely failed to repeal any EU legislation. No doubt on the advice and to the satisfaction of our bloated civil service!
January 25, 2022
Reply to Reply
Sir John you tick a hell of a lot of boxes , the best thing the party can do is when there can be no more excuses left for all the misdemeanors that, Central Office and the elected politicians get their heads from where the sun ain’t shining and get rid of what we are putting up with at the moment. Get people like you with all the experiences, wasting away on the back benches. I for one have had enough of the suck it and see crowd we have in place at the moment. That goes on all sides of the house. Partygate they are having a laugh, let’s worry more about the Putin threat, energy bills, government waste on fraudulent abuse of their schemes.
It would seem there is a hard core within try do trash this country.
January 25, 2022
439 dead with Covid confirmed yesterday.
Remember the Tory pensioners told us Covid was overâŠ.
January 25, 2022
With or from
Do you know?
January 26, 2022
Oh, have you seen, an angel! Male or female?
January 26, 2022
You OK hef?
January 25, 2022
did we? – must have missed that.
January 25, 2022
It’s all a different life …. too many differing views and no decisions.
Off topic… where are those agapanthus which seem to be growing wild on you web page?
Reply Scilly Islands
January 26, 2022
Isles of Scilly.
January 25, 2022
Off topic, good news, at least on the face of it:
https://www.rte.ie/news/brexit/2022/0125/1275842-brexit-ni-protocol/
“No sign of imminent breakthrough in NI Protocol talks – Ć efÄoviÄ”
“It is understood London wants state aid provisions in the Northern Ireland Protocol to be handled the same way as they are in the TCA. However, the European Commission has stressed that the Protocol provisions on state aid are linked to the fact that Northern Ireland is de facto in the Single Market, whereas the TCA state aid provisions relate to an international trade agreement.”
Meanwhile, a letter I have sent to a newspaper in Northern Ireland:
“It is to be hoped that Liz Truss will not forget that EU checks on goods coming into Northern Ireland are only one element of the totality of EU checks which must be applied within the province under the existing protocol.
If locally produced goods are to enjoy unimpeded passage over the land border into the Irish Republic, part of the EU Single Market, then all businesses in the province must continue to operate under the relevant EU laws.
How is that to be enforced, other than by routine EU checks at their production sites? Which itself rather calls into question the Irish government position that there cannot be “any checks or controls anywhere on the island”.”
January 25, 2022
As far as 30 migrants crossed the Channel today following the total number of arrivals this month went over 1,000, compared to just 223 in January 2021……I wonder what Margaret Thatcher would have done
January 26, 2022
She would have done what she did to the illegals arriving on Hong Kong’s borders – send them back !
January 25, 2022
1979-1990 was truly a golden age for Britain. We had a leader who achieved real respect around the world and with successive Presidents she dominated the world stage like none since.
The task of getting to grip with industry and in particular the trade unions was desperately needed and achieved through sheer determination.
I always thought the Community Charge was the right policy but implementation was fatally flawed when the decision was made to pilot it in Scotland and Labour branded it the Poll Tax. It was a pity the lady did not follow your advice on this as she did over so much else. Her success in so many areas was also yours.
January 26, 2022
The system worked for a variety of reasons. The most important was
….
You were believers in God.
January 26, 2022
1979-1990 was truly a golden age for Britain. We had a leader who achieved
…
John Major was the start of the globalist puppet show
Ever since then, nothing but puppets
January 26, 2022
I fully understand Sir John’s not wanting to publish my list of her quite memorable “achievements” too.
January 26, 2022
I cannot fault how Sir John advised MT. And in theory individual ownership of the nation’s assets is very appealing rather than them being own by the state and in MT’s eyes ( at the time) controlled by the Unions, rather than the State or the voters. In the longer term it all went wrong with ownership (control) passing to big business and more importantly foreign ownership. Profit became the focus rather than the needs of the individual who now had less influence than before MT.
The coal industry was decimated not for environmental reasons but to destroy Union Power ( which at the time was too great).
Again in theory Brexit should have made the UK more free to have a mind of it’s own. But we appear to have replaced EU domination with US domination and the US fear of Russia becoming a competitor unlike the UK.
The US is happy to poke it’s nose into other countries business and then pull out having left the country in a much much worse state for the ordinary citizen. The involvement nearly always based on a lie and later judged as a war crime except by US and UK and other Western Governments.
The West is completely focused on the Russian troops on Russia’s side of the boarder. They ignore the shelling of East of Ukraine on Kiev’s orders, Kiev not abiding by the Minsk Agreement etc. etc.
Notwithstanding that Russia is looking for a bit of respect from the US and UK. The Russian troops are on the boarder to deter Kiev invading the East of Ukraine and killing thousands of ethnic Russians, and also the waste of the lives of the Ukraine soldiers needed to this.
On another point, by the time Brexit was implemented the EU citizens working in the UK were better off going back home as the standard of living had improved and job opportunities increased in the East of the EU.
This due to vast subsidies and investment paid for by the people of West EU in taxes. Let’s not forget that point dear Remainers.
January 26, 2022
Brilliant article and the information regarding day to day administration is obviously sorely needed. We have the wrong people in power all over the world, but the Wisconsin Assembly has sent election shockwaves by voting to withdraw 10 Biden electors’ votes in 2020 election following evidence of fraud.
Reply They did not vote to do that.
January 26, 2022
It’s very interesting to see the extent to which our esteemed host was instrumental in making the Thatcher government a success.
It’s just as surprising to hear that the current PM asked how it worked in the past, then apparently did something else. The sensible option would have been to invite this man back to do it again.
The structures, procedures and norms that were established then make perfect sense and reading about it now, it gives a clear insight into why the Thatcher government was so successful.
I can only imagine that the current PM is so captivated by liberal and eco-loon beliefs that he can’t countenance a true blue Tory such as Redwood in charge of policy. Truly sad to see this man wasted on the back benches after such success in his early career.
Please… find a way back?
January 26, 2022
I can only imagine that the current PM is so captivated by liberal and eco-loon beliefs that he canât countenance a true blue Tory such as Redwood in charge of policy. Truly sad to see this man wasted on the back benches after such success in his early career.
..
well, we all know he was set up and oppressed ever since he stood against the globalist John Major.
January 26, 2022
P.S. I made the mistake of scanning the first few comments on this thread. I usually ignore the comments, since they make for depressing reading – I was left thinking”How does he put up with reading such utter drivel, day after day?”.
And “How can there be so many people without the ability to think clearly?”. And yet they post, day after day, the same inane twaddle. Perhaps the human race is indeed doomed.
January 26, 2022
I was left thinkingâHow does he put up with reading such utter drivel, day after day?â.
And âHow can there be so many people without the ability to think clearly?â. And yet they post, day after day, the same inane twaddle. Perhaps the human race is indeed doomed.
…
They should “ask” for the Holy Spirit that they may see
I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see.