It was Gordon Brown who told us once devolution was granted to Scotland Scottish nationalism would melt away. As some of us feared, instead it gave the SNP a bigger platform and more resentments to work on. They proved masterful at governing badly whilst blaming the constitutional settlement and Whitehall for all their woes. Labour failed to put devolution in during the 1970s, used their big majority to do it after 1997, and later lost countless seats in Scotland as payment for their pains.
Gordon is back again setting Labour policy on this most vexatious of political insider questions. He wants more devolved powers for Scotland. He wishes to ignore England and make the devolution within our Union all the more lopsided. Just as the EU wiped England of their maps and tried to balkanise England into a set of unloved regions, so Gordon Brown wishes to do the same. He accepts that Labour lost the crucial referendum to set up an elected regional government in the North East and did not try again. So this time he wants to build regions up from so called partnerships between local Councils aggregating to a new region.
There is no strong regional identity in most parts of England. Exeter does not want to be governed from Bristol, Liverpool does not want to be managed by Manchester. Wokingham is variously bundled into the South East, Rest of the South East (x London), Wessex, Thames Valley, Berks,Bucks and Oxon. None of these regional groupings command our loyalty or consent. We would not vote for any of them to have governments.
People in my area belong to Wokingham Borough or to West Berks. We belong to the county of Berkshire in the country of England. We identify with Berkshire and with England without either having a government. Lop sided devolution has gone too far. Ignoring England’s views and needs is wrong. Those who say they want power devolved should listen to people’s own perceptions of their identities. The best devolution of power is not to new layers of government but to individuals and businesses to make more of our own decisions.
December 9, 2022
I understand the Labour model was broken but the globalist WEF model that the Conservative party follows is equally as broken. Neither model benefits the voters.
December 9, 2022
Nor are they intended to benefit the voters. The last Conservative Manifesto largely said what voters wanted lower taxes, better services, controlled and very selective immigration… (except for the net zero rip off energy crap that it promised which no one sensible wanted) and yet the total reverse of this has largely been delivered,
This other than the net zero lunacy that has idiotically even been strengthened.
December 9, 2022
Who used Gordon Brown in 2014 for Scottish referendum give away without a say for English taxpayers-who paid for said give away! Tories!
Who is paying for Scottish public sector largesse? English taxpayers!
Who is paying for free university education in Scotland? English taxpayers!
Who is paying for free prescriptions in Scotland? English taxpayers!
Who recently sought Brownâs advice? Snake.
Who sought Blaireâs advice? Handcock!
Who hires a host of former Labour ministers to Tory govt? Tories!
Who hires Labour activists and ultra remainers to Tory govt? Tories!
Hunt introducing regionalisation that Prescott started in 2003 to break up England!!
Where is our devolved parliament JR?
Who wanted and voted for UK to be a vassal state to EU. 277 Tory MPs ( Snake and Hunt included) currently sitting in Parliament!
Where is our Brexit?
N.Ireland not devolved but given away to EU!
Hunt about to mirror financial regs presumably to align with EU!
December 9, 2022
âHunt about to mirror financial regs presumably to align with EU!â
No. A return to the disastrous âlight touch financial regulationâ that facilitated the economic crash:-
âhttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63905505â
However, it will be sold – with a straight face – as implementing Brexit by setting our own rules, âcutting red tapeâ, âturbocharging growthâ. As if our regulators were not bad enough already.
Happy days for City spivs. When it all hits the fan they will walk away with no penalty. Taxpayers will carry the can again.
December 9, 2022
Hunt stated making UK a competitor to US and Asia. No mention of a competitor to EU.
December 9, 2022
+1
December 9, 2022
By international treaty signed between this government and the EU named the Trade & Cooperation Agreement we have too, and will continue too, abide to the EU âlevel playing fieldâ clause …sold down the river
December 9, 2022
Lockdowns put us at the mercy of disease. By disrupting our finely balanced ecology, we made the return of sickness more aggressive this winter. The delightful, polite and surely correct Sunetra Gupta in the Telegraph today. One of those appallingly attached by Handcockâs nasty, deluded and ignorant sidekicks with PPE degrees amd similar.
It also delayed the spread of naturally acquired immunity among the young who are at very little risk from Covid anyway extending the problem. Like the largely ineffective and dangerous vaccines it seems it also did rather more harm (to the economy, health, the NHS, education, social harmâŠ) than good.
December 9, 2022
Elon Musk unravelled more shadow banning of conservative voices in US and scientists who advocated differently from US govt.! Also unravelled collaboration against Trump. Trump correct again.
Handcock worked against anyone who portrayed a different view to himself and had Gove help with anti lockdown and anti vaccine protests.
December 9, 2022
+1
December 9, 2022
Labour has been out of power for 12 years. As ever – and it really is every single day nowadays – J Redwood wants to talk about anything but the disasters meted out by the Conservatives for 12 years now
Reply This website rarely talks about Labour and Labour policy and usually discusses government actions and views.
December 9, 2022
But we have had the same misguided, green crap, over regulate, tax, borrow, print and waste big state socialism from John Major, Blair/Brown, Cameron/Osborne, May/Hammond, Boris/Suank and Sunak/Hunt. Perhaps one day they finally might realise it kills growth and never works!
December 9, 2022
Reply to reply: rarely talks about Labour or Labour policy!
Yes you do, Labourâs climate change act/policy. May claimed she would implement and build upon it. Milibandâs Energy policy to cap pricing.
Your govt has former Labour ministers as advisors and working in number 10 policy unit. They are driving your party and govt policies! Hunt currently implementing Prescottâs regionalisation plan with mayors etc that we the public rejected in 2003!
Who heads up the No.10 economic policy unit- Rachel Reeves husband? Will Dry labour activist and pro remainer in No.10 highlighted by a Guido.
December 10, 2022
John, Hope is right, why are your government hiring Reeves husband, a woman actively working to lose you all your jobs? My husband is much more to the right than me. Is Reeves husband much more right wing than her? Does he not agree with her policies so that he wants to keep a Tory government? We have a right to know. Which Tory employed him and who is it he works for now Hunt (a man hell bent on hurting private enterprise)?
Weâve read of Femiâs friends working in Tory HQ and JRF advisors taking over the OBR that brought down Truss, is this just all a con trick. That an Oxbridge class get what they want whatever the masses choose.
Implementing Labour policies all the time, do your cabinet need reminding they are not in a coalition.
December 9, 2022
I struggle to think of anything of note where Labour is concerned. Sometimes the foul-mouthy females catch my attention, Corbyn, union man Lynch or quiet puppet Starmer do – but for the wrong reasons.
What exactly have they got to offer me, a disillusioned sometime-Tory voter?
December 9, 2022
Indeed Labour will amazingly be even worse than these incompetent, green crap pushing and often corrupt fake Conservatives.
December 9, 2022
You both better wake up. Socialist Tories are following Labourâs agenda. Have you not noticed high tax and waste in public sector? Destroy private sector ie industry and jobs to a China? Give away of billions around the world? Climate scam? Destruction of our culture through mass immigration? No Brexit?
As for LL repeated Labour worse nonsense, as a matter of record and fact Tories worse than any Labour govt since WWII! Read figures on debt, deficit, taxation, inflation, immigration. LL claim is totally false, not based on fact and pure wild speculation as Tories in power for 12.5 years with an 80 seat majority!! I thought LL declares he is a man of maths science and figures.
December 9, 2022
Yes, and by 2024 his brexit – for we have got specifically the one demanded by the ERG – will have cost the UK a quarter of a trillion pounds in lost trade.
And yet they rant about foreign aid…
December 9, 2022
NLH, you don’t tell us where you got your information from. It’s worth looking at a study entitled ‘Post-Brexit Imports, Supply chains, and the Effect on Consumer Prices’ published by the LSE’s Centre for Economic Performance in April this year, and available on its website. It found that in 2021 UK imports from the EU fell by 25% relative to those from non-EU countries, but that our exports to the EU followed a similar path to trade with non-EU countries. It seems we’re rerouting our imports in favour of non-EU countries, but our exporters to the EU are not losing out drastically. Even the BBC, reporting this study, noted a recovery in the level of exports towards the end of 2021, saying it ‘suggests many British exporters have successfully got to grips with the extra red tape – paperwork and checks’.
December 9, 2022
Current brexit is nothing akin to what the ERG hoped for NHL
Come on eh?
December 9, 2022
Had it not been for your infantile absolutist brexit then Scottish nationalism would indeed have melted away exactly as Gordon Brown suggested.
He and Darling were commended highly by international bodies for their handling of the global financial crisis. What did they say about Truss’s budget on the other hand?
This really does look like desperation from Sir John.
Reply Labour were wiped out in Scotland after their handling of the crash
December 9, 2022
@NLH – He and Darling caused the Financial Crisis whose debt is still being paid by UK taxpayers. He gave UK Gold reserves away to save his bacon. He proclaimed the UK would never need nuclear power and endless list of failure only equalled by Hunt and Sunak
December 9, 2022
No it would not have melted away at all and Brexit is a good thing both for Scotland and the rest of UK or would be if Gov. started deregulating and cutting the green crap and sorted NI out. But the will is not there to do this.
December 10, 2022
Lifelogic
You have no idea what Brexit could do and already has done
December 9, 2022
MPs represent their constituents Nationally.
Councils represent them in their County with levels right down to their local parish and bicycle shed.
Other associations such as pressure groups can represent citizens whose interests combine, change, or straddle different government borders.
Giving those associations legal power, such as devolved national Govt, mayoralty, and other devices of creates stalemate and worthlessness. They are tantamount to His Majestyâs Opposition vested with power of authority.
National opposition within Scotland is a legacy of Gordon Brownâs failures. Apart from voting to ban smoking to improve health, so much of what he did has led to bad outcomes lingering today.
December 9, 2022
That is the most ridiculous comment from you Martin. The SNP main mission above all else is to get independence. It wouldn’t matter to them if the UK was the land of milk and honey, they would still want independence even if it meant the people had to wear sack cloth and ashes. Also if you really want to see racism at its finest then go to the Scottish parliament and have dealings with some in that party. I have and it’s not pleasant but then neither is the attitude of many citizens towards the English.
December 9, 2022
But the Scottish voter realise that voting SNP get them more Danegeld from the English. This does not mean they would actually vote for independence though. Once they realised the economic damage that would inflict, the debt they would have to take on and the currency they would have their cash converted into.
December 9, 2022
Well, thanks to the SNP becoming the dominant party in Scotland – and for obvious reasons – Labour do not feature much in their politics these days, exactly as the polls predicted before their elections.
What do the polls say about your party here in England, Sir John?
December 9, 2022
Yet Labour at that time hoped Scotland would become their own area of dominance NHL
Total failure.
December 10, 2022
PeterXi
The propaganda chairman has spoken
December 9, 2022
The handling of the financial crisis had nothing to do with what happened in Scotland in terms of Labour votes. This is JR nonsense
December 10, 2022
Bill, the Labour government of 1998 to 2010 was a disproportionately laden Scottish cabinet and full of Scots in top positions. I was really surprised the Scots kicked them out in favour of the SNP after all Blair, Brown, Darling, Irving, Cook, Robertson, ( all Scottish) gave them more than any government in history.
December 9, 2022
The EU model was to destroy national identity in preparation for central government by dividing Britain up into new regions grouped with parts of other neighbouring countries. The WEF model is to destroy national identity in preparation for central government by mass immigration from the Third World until indigenous peoples are disenfranchised by a ‘world majority’.
December 9, 2022
@beresford +1 yes our Political Overlords at their best
December 9, 2022
+1
December 9, 2022
I believe that those polices are still on track
December 10, 2022
What a load of undocumented nonsense
December 9, 2022
@Javelin The Surfs must keep there place and accept the higher unelected unaccountable Order
December 9, 2022
Labour took Scotland for granted. Then after one general election it got completely wiped out there.
The knock on effect for Labour in the U.K. was crippling.
Now the Conservative Party is blatantly and openly ignored its manifesto and the wishes of the electorate after the bloodless coup that installed Sunak and Hunt.
The Conservative Party will also be crippled after the next general election. This will be for the long term good of the country. However, establishing a sound and honest government that works for the good of the electorate and the nation state will not be easy.
December 9, 2022
Not remotely easy I suspect not in my lifetime. Now that the Tories have trashed everything so comprehensively with their mad socialism and vested interests/corruption.
December 10, 2022
Peter, are you kidding? If the Tories get wiped out it will be for the long term good of England? Or the whole UK, we will get split asunder.
December 9, 2022
Good morning.
Something that to Tory Government today still pushes with its new Mayors.
Gordon Brown is just a âuseful talking head for others who cannot afford either politically or for some other reason to make themselves known. He floats their ideas to see what the reaction would be knowing that he cannot be harmed. Question is, who is pulling his strings ?
I find it strange that our kind hosts talks about so and so not wanting to be governed from another part of England yet, he is happy for England to be governed via the UK Parliament by Scots, Welsh and those from Ulster.
At a time where the Labour Party is considering replacing the HoL with something else I think it time we looked at the suggestion of converting the Upper Chamber into a UK Senate and the Commons into an English Parliament, getting rid of all those useless Regional Mayors. It is time we gave England and the English parity with the rest of the Union.
And turning back to one Gordon Brown, the man who sold our nations gold at rock bottom. All I can say is – Pop singer of the 80âs, Jilted John was a man ahead of his time with the title of his hit single.
Google is your friend đ
December 9, 2022
Aren’t we getting tired with Sir J blaming others?
The reality is the Tories had a once in a generation opportunity to really DO GOOD for our Nation. The Tories had a huge majority, the population behind it, and a fair to middling economic base to work from. Brexit meant we could fundamentally improve our way of running the country, for the benefit if the population. And what did the Tories do; well we all know.
I’m sorry Sir J, your Party has let you and us down. From it’s inaction, it’s lack of ideas, it’s lack of follow-through to even implement it’s own manifesto, the simple outright lying, and deliberate damage to us, we must conclude that the Brexit dream is dead, and the PCP no longer answers to the electorate but to ‘a malevolent external’ group.
December 9, 2022
+ many Peter. It is more than betrayal. It is downright traitorous, but nobody in Parliament is prepared to raise the alarm or speak up about it. Same with the Benn Act. I am still sure that act must be, or should be, illegal, but Parliament puts Parliamentarians first, country second (if we are lucky)! Nobody in Parliament REALLY cares about our country, not even Sir John. We need another brave person like Oliver Cromwell to call out the corruptness in Parliament.
December 9, 2022
+1
December 11, 2022
Well there is a reason the Mayflower set sail for the New World.
a) They all need to be swept away.
b) We should take the best parts of the US system and the Swiss systems and start afresh.
c) We need to re-instate specific Treason acts, particularly for elected officials & Senior members of the government and its organs.
All because they cannot do simple things in a simple straightforward way.
December 9, 2022
I dislike conspiracy theories normally, but sadly it seems you are absolutely correct, Peter.
December 9, 2022
I agree total with your remarks Peter, is it not time for Sir John and otherâs that think like him to leave the Conservative Party and join a party that reflects their point of view. I shall certainly being doing this when I next have a vote.
Reply The aim is to get the Conservative government to do things we want, as with the successes in getting them to keep 3 coal power stations so we can keep the lights on and now the new coalmine to help the steel industry.
December 9, 2022
@ Planner – it is way past time for the Conservative Party to rejoin Sir John. We would all be much better off if it did.
December 9, 2022
Reply to Reply – do the things we want? The only time this Government does what we want is when they know the dire consequences of not doing something. Can you imagine how many people would die from hypothermia if gas and electricity were switched off? They were voted in on a manifesto which they, in the main, have totally ignored, in most cases like taxes and immigration delivering the opposite. They have wasted vast amounts of the country’s wealth on fraud and corruption yet have written it off instead of punishing the perpetrators. They have damaged our children’s health with their ill-conceived lockdowns. They have pumped billions into the NHS yet we have to wait many hours for an ambulance whilst seeing rows of ambulances waiting at the quayside for the unwelcome illegal immigrants. I’m afraid this Government has no moral compass. The theme of your diary today is to warn us that Labour will be worse. I expect they will be but it’s your party that is bringing this about with its net zero policies, failure to deliver Brexit, dire immigration, and high taxes.
December 9, 2022
Reply to reply. Rachel Reeves was interviewed last night on GB News and was pretty sure that by the time they get into power the coal mine won’t be open and she hinted they wouldn’t open it. I got the impression she was very flustered saying that all those jobs wouldnt go ahead. Does she realise that most of the workforce on windfarms in Scotland are foreign because they are foreign developers who mainly use their own workforce.
December 9, 2022
and I very much doubt ‘local’ workers would want to besmirch their reputations by working on such countryside destruction and uglyness. I can imagine the topic of conversation in the pubs ‘so what do you do for a living mate?’ ‘err I work putting in the concrete lumps in the fields or drive the cranes building wind-farms’ …. EVERYTHING STOPS, DEATHLY SILENCE AND STARES.
December 9, 2022
Reply to reply
That’s revealing, a leading Tory saying he wishes to get the Conservative government to do things we want. Obviously he means they are not naturally doing so and his fellow MP’s are lying their heads off when they appear on the media defending the shambles that is the Tory government or else they are not Tories but greasy pole climbers hoping for personal preferment, never mind the country.
December 9, 2022
Reply to reply: you will have as much success as Cameron did when he thought he could change the EU from the inside! You are outnumbered Sir John but you still stick with the party that is doing such huge damage to the UK. In other words, you will continue to support the party even though you do not support their destructive policies. They won’t listen, and you KNOW they won’t listen. When did they ever listen??????
December 9, 2022
We always knew that they didnât listen but after the 2016 referendum it became personal âŠthe concord between government and the people had been broken
December 9, 2022
Reply to reply: Wouldn’t it be better to have a Government that does the things we want because they want them as well, rather than trying to ‘make the horse drink’?
December 9, 2022
Drax got a nice little earner on its last two coal units that both now have extended capacity contracts to next April, The units won’t run commercially but only on a max-gen shout. They will be paid “a fee” and 400,000 tonnes of coal that Grid will get someone to pay for. That pile of coal will be good for about a thousand GWh. Those units may not get to run at all this winter. I wonder if that coal is on a sale or return deal?
December 9, 2022
Coal is cheap and generates a lot of heat.
What did you think would be the result acorn?
December 9, 2022
Alas this is largely true. The party is stuffed with dire, green crap pushing, tax borrow and waste LibDem types or vested interests career politicians on the make.
UK MPs take Grade 2, Grade 6 SAT exams and the MPs did worse than 10-year-olds, with only 44% passing the basic maths test I see. Is it any wonder they fall for the net zero lunacy and vote through endless damaging scientifically illiterate lunacy. I wonder how many would get a top grade GCSE maths. 5% of them perhaps?
December 9, 2022
Let alone a decent A level in Maths or Physics. Yet these people decide the countries energy policy and how we have to heat our homes. Would we let them decide on aircraft design?
December 9, 2022
@Peter Wood +1 Conservative Governments have been the CEO of the UK for the last 12 years and have still to show even the slightest ability to actually Manage themselves let alone the Country. They have been in charge of our energy, our safety, our security, our economy, our laws rules and regulations â no one else. Everything is still in a mess, why we ask â they refuse to do what we pay them for. All they know is how to tax, they donât know how to spend, manage spend or account for spend
December 9, 2022
Most of your piece is accurately well-expressed, Peter.
However, it is the Conservative Govt inaction that causes the tiredness you feel.
In contrast, SJRâs identifying blame where it belongs, and leading with ideas on remedies stimulate wide awake solutions.
If more MPs maintained his quality standards and enduring high performance, most of the UK would be living comfortably in health and happiness.
December 9, 2022
Yes, it is the PCP that has let the Nation down, which is why they are not fit for purpose and must go.
The majority of the PCP did not want Brexit, and that appears to be the situation still. The PM’s since the Referendum were clearly not ‘conviction Brexiteers’ and therefore we’ve had an indifferent response to it, a worst of both worlds outcome so far, causing the the electorate to reconsider the decision. I give you the immigration problem mismanagement as evidence. The PCP believed that controlling immigration was a key driver for the Brexit vote, so they have grossly mismanaged it since to show what a bad idea it was. Where are the benefits of Brexit? Almost none, since there has been no effort to implement them.
A nation deceived.
December 9, 2022
Conservative party members voted in favour of Liz Truss. Her plans seemed good, yet her budget change was badly presented, seen as too rapid and lacking rationale. Cynical market leaders reacted adversely and others followed in a knee jerk rush, causing panic into collapse. Had her beginning been smoother, key matters might well have been progressing better than now. Regrettably, we have the membership loser as PM and his ardent Remainer as Chancellor.
December 9, 2022
+1
December 9, 2022
It is time for the expensive security given to ex PMs to be withdrawn. They should pay for their own.
December 9, 2022
@Stred +1 So true
December 9, 2022
Gordon Brown is a High Priest of Interference and of a type of unpleasant Superiority Complex; the peasants need to be controlled, so the more controllers and the more forms of control that exist, the better. Of course, what eventually happens is that one group of controllers start fighting with another group of controllers, first figuratively, then legally and then literally …. while the rest of us would just like to quietly get on with our lives.
December 9, 2022
Get on with our lives & without having to pay for all these levels of parasitic government.
December 9, 2022
Anyone not accepting Brownâs mass immigration is a Bigot!! Gillian Duffy and England remembers!
Tories have not reversed Labourâs mass immigration but built on it to reach highest ever immigration both legal and illegal while lying to say the opposite to get elected! 2768 golden visas issued last year out of 1.2 million visas issued! That is a teeny tiny amount of brightest and the best and a considerable amount of welfare taxpayer funded immigration! Families of students for duff degrees allowed to come as well!!
Meanwhile Snake claims he will reduce immigration knowing he allowed thousands more from India, against Bravermanâs advice, and has shelved, again, Raabâs British Rights bill!!
Get out of ECHR is the only way to take back control of borders!
Please, just get out!
December 9, 2022
The ECHR is not wholly to blame. It is Theresa May’s Modern Slavery Act that’s allowing the majority of Albanians to successfully claim asylum here. Most EU countries grant zero asylum to these people. It is this country that refuses to check dental records for assessing the actual age of a so-called child. Why is our Government not changing these policies? They managed to impose draconian laws on us in no time at all during Covid.
December 9, 2022
With an 70 seat majority this government could, today, repeal the ECHRs and the Modern Slavery Act and enforce the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 âŠthey choose not too
December 9, 2022
Daft as a brush Geography Graduation one Theresa May gave us Net Zero, the dire Modern Slavery Act, three years of dithering trying to reverse Brexit (in effect) and then leaving a complete mess that left Boris with a very weak hand and thus we suffer under the dire NI protocol. What a legacy dear! Yet she still gets a lifetime of expenses, pension etc. that will cost taxpayers perhaps ÂŁ10 million or so. Talk about rewards for moronic and dishonest failures.
December 9, 2022
ECHR – why must we submit to a foreign court !
December 9, 2022
Because Blair forced it into UK law and all the Governments since refuse to even try to change this or withdraw from it.
December 10, 2022
glen cullen: “With an 70 seat majority this government could, … ”
This government could have been an agent for positive radical change, but they were side tracked by the COVID scam.
Boris Johnson should have stuck to his guns, and ignored that idiot from Imperial College, Ferguson. It’s not as if he’d had a track record to recommend any of his conclusions.
The one thing he did say during his presentation to Parliament in 2020, “We will be paying for the measures [we take to combat COVID19] for decades to come”.
Note the use of the plural form of decade.
Now of course we’ve the excess mortality conundrum. More people dying inexplicably each year, and not one of the experts can seem to figure out why.
December 9, 2022
Exactly Labour’s devolution has been a disaster for the UK as has almost everything Blair and Brown did. The counterproductive wars, the further EU treaties, selling the gold and even announcing it in advance, incorporation of the ECHR into UK law, the US extradition act, the pensions wrecking tax grabs, the all shall have duff degrees agenda, the legal system “reforms”… can anyone think of a single positive from the Blair/Brown era?
“The best devolution of power is not to new layers of government but to individuals and businesses to make more of our own decisions” indeed leave the money will the people and businesses so they can choose how to spend and invest it. They do it far more efficiently than government and politicians do by a factor of many times. They want value and know what they need as they are at the coal face not the top of the mine.
December 9, 2022
An interview with Rachel Reeves on GB news. I do not suppose she could be any worse as a Chancellor than Osborne, Hammond, (Lockdown eat out to help out and currency debaser) Sunak, the (dangerous vaccine coercer) Javid or Hunt (who left the NHS is such a poor state after 5 years). She says no unfunded tax cuts or spending, yet she seems to think that Labour will pay for things by abolishing NonDom status and putting VAT on school fees! If she really thinks these moves will raise more tax than they cost she is totally deluded. So is she daft and deluded or just lying for convenience political reasons like Starmer? Liam Halligan alas did not ask her this.
Also idiotically she is hugely against coal & the new Cumbrian coal mine and full of net zero lunacy, so clearly has no understanding of energy and economic realities. It seems she was a womenâs chess champion at 14 (why do they need to divide women and men in chess competitions are the pieces very heavy or something?)
Yet another PPE Oxon graduate. But is seems she did take Maths and Further Maths at A level (alas not physics) so perhaps not that dim. Daughter of two lefty teachers it seems.
December 10, 2022
LL,
Her husband is in No.10 head of economic policy unit! They are already setting govt policy on finance. When you say could not do any worse, I think you mean they will carry on same trajectory!
December 9, 2022
Duff degrees (circa 75% are) and ÂŁ50k of student debt, interest at 7% on this debt (3.5K PA) and loss of three years earning!
December 9, 2022
LL,
Yes, but Tories built on their legacy and policies for twelve long years!
December 9, 2022
My friend who works at a red-brick told me that theyâve just spent ÂŁ5,000 on a team building away-day for his department (combined with a Christmas do), because it was a budget line in the account and needed to be spent before year end
This government needs to review the available university courses, its funding and justification of foreign students
December 9, 2022
I’ve had a roofer round for a couple of days. He told me he used to work on schools between terms for a nearby County Council. The schools had work done, budget left over you see, often basically repeating what has been done before, and were told ‘ we have to use it or lose it’. madness!
December 9, 2022
Even in the eighties unnecessary new carpets were bought for secretaries’ offices in universities at the end of the accounting period.
December 9, 2022
Cumbria coalmine plan is ‘backward step’, says Alok Sharma. The Guardian described Sharma (satirically one assumes) as “The Tory party’s most respected figure on climate” he says “the mine will damage UK’s international reputation as well as environment”.
Sure Sharma, far better for the environment and the economy to import this coal needed for steel manufacture from Australia or Russia on diesel ships and trucks! Or just export all steel jobs and import the steel. But will the mine even go ahead if Labour will moronically kill it in two years anyway or the courts and protesters kill it?
Rachel Reeves in the interview on GB news at about 17.28 yesterday made it seem Labour is likely to kill it.
December 9, 2022
That’s rich isn’t it? How many decades did Labour support miners and pits? Seems, just like the Tories, they have forgotten who they represent and are now just a self interested bunch of chancers hoping to get into power for their own selfish interests.
December 9, 2022
Everything in politics has gone 180, the Tories are now Red, Labour are now Blue and the Greens are in Power
December 9, 2022
I remember Michael Foot closing pits….oh! and wearing a labourer’s donkey jacket to the Cenotaph.
December 9, 2022
The only reason that devolution has “worked” in Scotland is that everytime the governing party has said jump Parliament has thrown money up there to see it wasted on all the free handouts to be used as a bribe to try and convince the Scottish people that independence is the panacea for all their ills.
Canny Scots want to keep the status quo as they know that the English will always buy them out of any crisis.
Scotland gets the bread, butter, jam and gets to eat it. For them it’s a no lose situation.
December 9, 2022
Exactly Blair/Brown/Cameron/May/Borid do not seem to understand game theory or the blindingly obvious. So we keep paying them the Danegeld!
December 9, 2022
I would say, Turboterrier, to the contrary, that devolution has not served Scotland, Wales, or even N Ireland. The two former have built in local left wing voting tendencies through being addicted to big state spending, and this returns dodgy left wing administrations, the SNP being a left wing alternative to the Labour Party when the Scots fell out of love with it.
This means local government writ large, at its worst. Wee Nicola is really a jumped up Labour county councillor with far too much power and pretensions. Ditto for Drakeford. The anwer is not to create more of them all round England.
N Ireland has suffered grievously from the Belfast Agreement forced on it. Every single local administrative decision has to be negotiated with the enemy. The DUP say they have cut their eyelids off. Think of the strain! No other part of the country is administered like that.
We should have just one parliament and no mayors. Two layers of government and attendant expense and bureaucracy are enough. There is nothing to be gained from a whole lot of grandstanding Burnhams refusing to co-operate when they easily could. Unfortunately, the Blair/Brown regime were constitutional vandals and the damage cannot easily be repaired.
December 9, 2022
However, Bristol has recently voted out its Mayoralty despite a media blackout during the campaign – and on the result.
December 9, 2022
Yes, seems Hunt is going to grant Scotland easier banking. More appeasement of Scottish threats.
Tories don’t care about England. If they did they would state England ought to have a parliament. If ok for Scotland, why not for England too. But we can see they are working on plans to destroy us.
December 9, 2022
Hunt should be reforming Gordon Brown’s Bank and sacking its governor.
December 9, 2022
Agree
December 9, 2022
as is COVID-19: THE GREATEST HOAX IN HISTORY
by Vernon Coleman
Though the war on CO2 plant food & the climate alarmism religion is perhaps an even greater hoax and con trick.
December 9, 2022
+many
Methinks the hoaxes are all part and parcel of the agenda.
We are being carefully conditioned and corralled.
( Neanderthals sending reindeer over a cliff).
Plague lockdown = Oxford ( soon others) climate lockdown.
If there had been no compliance with covid weâd have been ok.
December 9, 2022
Absolutely! When we hear stupid things like not being racist to save the planet we know weâre in madman territory!
Net zero Watch are reporting on some businesses pulling out of this ESG nonsense whereby decisions in business are decided in by how it affects climate change!
Further madman territory! In effect weâre told to believe up is down, black is white and men are women! A scam indeed!
December 9, 2022
Sadly the 6m estimated to have died will not get to read it.
December 9, 2022
Yes LL + 100%
December 9, 2022
In the cold hard light of day what has any of these regional city mayor’s, police commissioners and the like achieved other than creating a bigger waste of the taxpayers money?
Another thick layer of waste as so much of the present structures of government.
The globalist agenda advances into every aspect of our lives. The people are ignored at every twist and turn of the advance.
December 9, 2022
+1
I think it is said that devolution is much favoured by globalists.
Apparently in the belief that small areas are easier to control/influence/bribe.
Local âagents for changeâ popping up on (local) social media herding folk off for jabs.
Getting them to collect toothpaste and woolies for Ukraine and even take in refugees.
All very useful for Mass Formation.
December 9, 2022
Divide and rule!
December 9, 2022
+1
December 9, 2022
Having lived in Scotland for 15 years and seen what a disaster devolution was I want no part in anything Brown or the Labour party are suggesting. I hope Brown isn’t contemplating suggesting we hand over more obscene amounts of cash to the Scots to persuade them to stay after wee Nicola has her egotistical referendum. And no, we do not need more layers of management and beuraucracy in local government.
December 9, 2022
Indeed Danegeld policies do not work, not with Scotland nor with France on migrants!
December 9, 2022
Lifelogic,
10 out of 39 comments from you today.
Back to the old days before moderation threats.
I do note you have drilled down beyond degrees and A levels and can now tell us about SAT exam results.
December 9, 2022
More layers of Government, more empire building, more talk, more confusion, more delay, more non productive staff, more cost.
What a wonderful political idea !!!!!!!
December 9, 2022
I’ve come to the conclusion that democracy is deliberately sidelined these days. Labour and CONS decide what they want to happen and they both push for the same thing, therefore giving us no alternative to vote for. We have become slaves to our power hungry wannabe dictators in Parliament. You can guarantee that both parties will continue to deliberately damage the UK no matter which is in power.
That’s why we must fight to restore our democracy and hope there is something left that is worth fighting for, after another two years of these betrayers of everything, including their own manifesto. The future looks bleak. Parliament with it’s ridiculous spending and net zero religion gives us no reason to hope for anything better. Things can only get only worse!
December 9, 2022
In fact something like what Sir John is advocating is already happening. In April the government published ‘guidance’ on integrating Local Enterprise Partnerships, such as the Thames Valley Berkshire LEP, into ‘local democratic institutions’. Their role would be to ’embed a strong, independent and diverse local business voice into local democratic institutions, carry out strategic economic planning in partnership with local leaders that clearly articulates their areaâs economic priorities, etc.’ In other words, business would tell local authorities what to do, and that would be part of ‘local democracy’. This despite the fact that business rates are not paid to local authorities, but to Westminster. So in a borough like Wokingham, which gets nothing from Westminster, commercial interests will be calling the tune without paying the piper.
December 9, 2022
That Gordon Brown is back wielding influence is the fault of this Tory government. He wants to make the current NHS health care model permanent through legislation. The Tories have failed to commission a truly independent review of healthcare structures, funding and outcomes drawing on more successful arrangements in other countries and paving the way for change and improvement here. Instead Gordon Brown will be successful in making our current failed model permanent.
December 9, 2022
The long term harm wrought by brown as chancellor and then pm and by Blair as pm on our Country is incalculable. It wasnât even completely clear at the time but has become so. The stirring up of separatism, the leveraging up of the banking system for the boom-bust, the cack-handed bank bailout, the sale of the gold, the expanding deficits in a boom, the welfarism and statism. Etc. and of course the Iraq war.
Amazingly – and unfortunately due to the mistaken decision to select Liz Truss as Conservative leader – it looks like we will be in for another dose of the same. The Conservative govt we have now may be uninspiring and ineffective, but we must expect terrible long term damage from the next Labour govt, as always happens with Labour govts.
December 9, 2022
According to Hancock (an unreliable witness, I know) it was Nicola Sturgeon who took the decision that all school children in England should be forced to wear masks (or rather cloth face coverings of little use) during Covid. This suggests we should be repatriating powers from Scotland not devolving more to them.
December 9, 2022
Surely anyone sensible should have treated anything coming from Nicola Sturgeon & the SNP as being almost certainly wrongheaded, unscientific, economic lunacy & idiotic.
December 9, 2022
and they also reduced coughs and colds transmission. However, the schools who insisted pupils wear coats due to windows being kept wide open rather undid much of the good.
December 9, 2022
Yes, Gordon Brown’s Devolution policy for Scotland and Wales has been a disaster and the English, who became second-class citizens in our so-called democracy with no Parliament of their own, are forced to massively subsidise the Scots in the Establishment’s desperate attempt to buy sufficient votes to prevent separation.
We’ve now had 12 years of so-called Conservative Governments so what have they done about Blair/Browns Constitutional vandalism, let alone to recognise England in our Constitutional arrangements?
Nothing. Oh, not quite right ….. in a desperate attempt to prevent the Scots from voting for independence, Cameron increased the Devolution powers given to the Scots, removed English Votes for English Laws in Westminster and started implementing English devolution to regions by the imposition of City-region Mayors which no-one wanted; a process which is ongoing with Sunak/Hunt’s announcement that they are going to impose one on Cornwall.
And then we watched Blair/Brown’s politicised House of Frauds blatant attempts to overturn the Brexit Referendum and it ballooned to 800+ leeches on British taxpayers. What has the Conservative Government done to reform it?
Nothing.
What proposals does the Conservative Government have to reform it?
None.
12 years of Pretendy-Conservative Governments have refused to deal with the mess created by Blair/Brown’s Constitutional vandalism. And you’ve left the field wide open for them to have another go now ….. because the Pretendy-Conservative Government is utterly useless.
December 9, 2022
You get a +1 because of the new word ‘Pretendy’ I like it and its apt when describing the tories
December 9, 2022
Devolution for England not within England. It’s time for an English parliament. Giving Democracy, Equality and fairness to England.
December 9, 2022
Agree
December 9, 2022
+1
December 9, 2022
I’m open to the concept of devolution, but rather that was from central to local government. For example, let local councils collect vehicle excise duty – after all it’s the local council that maintain the roads, damaged by motor vehicle use. Central government can carry on collecting fuel duty to pay for motorways and trunk roads.
As to regional governments, scrap the lot of them. If I was in Scotland I would rather have my money back.
December 9, 2022
Dave Andrews +1 Local means Local, not super jobs for the boys Regions. It is not that long ago pre-EU that Central Government coordinated when required but kept out of local issues and kept is focus on the International Purpose of the UK. Defence, Energy, International Trade and so on
December 9, 2022
Talking of damage to roads, round here big housing estates are going up, like everywhere, but the country roads supplying them were never meant for 40 ton trucks delivering materials pounding them all day everyday and are breaking up or subsiding. We have depressions big enough to lose a mini in and then someone, maybe the builders come out with a bucket of tarmac and chuck it in. Will the builders maintain the roads they are abusing or reinstate them when they’ve had their bog profits? – dream on, it will fall to the tax payers in the usual privatise profits, socialise losses way.
December 9, 2022
I had never feared government until the last ( double) Labour administration.
After Labour lost the election we came within a whisker of a genuine coup IMO.
And everything has just got worse and worse.
They never went away!
December 9, 2022
More politicians and more favours handed out are just what we all need.
December 9, 2022
@Narrow Shoulders + 1 ‘Jobs the Boys’, keeping those that can’t hold down a real job engaged to suck up to their gang leaders. Bad and Corrupt Politics, super Corrupting QUANGOâs all have no place in a Democracy. – so I guess that’s confirming what most of us see.
December 9, 2022
Be thankful he is taking them backwards after the various contortions of the conservatives in the Commons has made edible the unpalatable. Send him a thank you card for Christmas.
December 9, 2022
Having spent the last twelve years dismantling the UK economy in the name of the neoliberal austerity religion; you are accusing Labour of going back to a broken model, hilarious!!! That, on top of “selling off the family silver” in the Thatcher era.
When a private sector organisation gets as unwieldy as UK PLC; becomes too disorganized to function efficiently, it’s time to break it up. Most of the productive assets of UK PLC are owned by foreigners including foreign governments. It does not even own its own basic economic life supporting infrastructure! For instance; it pays for its own domestic oil and gas at volatile world “free market” prices WTF!!!
A united Ireland in the EU; an independent Scotland in the EEA. England and Wales together go back to being the Kingdom of England and Wales. The Act of 1536 when King Henry VIII effectively made England and Wales the same country, with the same laws.
đ Eventually, I expect Wales will want independence from England with the reformation of the six Celtic Nations ( Brittany Cornwall Ireland Isle of Man Scotland and Wales.)
December 9, 2022
Not alone that but Yorkshire will want to break away as will other regions – we had if so good with the EU and if we had stayed there would be none of this trouble with NI and the DUP, Scotland would be at peace respecting the referendum result of 2014 – yes we had if so good until we fell for the lies tricks and nonsense about taking back control and 350 million on the side of a bus.
December 9, 2022
acorn
How can it be “neo liberal austerity” when State spending has risen considerably ?
December 10, 2022
Acorn, in your new scenario, do the Scots pay back all the money it took for the Kingdom of England and Wales to drag them out of bankruptcy, build their roads, bridges, infrastructure, resite UK wide public sector operations up there?
December 9, 2022
Good morning Sir John
Agreed the usual lopsided thinking. Gordon Brown may be at its worst but equally it is miss-placed all over. My usual analogy Yorkshire population wise is bigger than Scotland but the people there have less say in what affects their lives.
I live in Wokingham but donât recognise West Berkshire, but I do recognise Berkshire. Then you get Bromley has been siphoned of from Kent, Croydon pulled away from Surrey, Ilford ejected from Essex. Every one was doing extremely well before political interference.
December 9, 2022
and Oxford rather different to the Shire.
December 9, 2022
“Exeter does not want to be governed from Bristol, Liverpool does not want to be managed by Manchester. ”
And Cardiff and Edinbugh don’t want to be managed or governed by London either.
December 10, 2022
Theyâve got devolution Peter, they have councillors, mayors, another layer of government as well as too many MPs in relation to their citizens. That means they are in charge of their own schools, nhs etc.
December 9, 2022
12 Years of SocCon rule and the Country is still festering with half baked ideas. If only the UK just simply had a Goverment in Charge and a proper Parlimenr that did its duty.
December 9, 2022
A good concise summary of the tragedy of devolution SJR and of Gordon Brown’s disastrous legacy. Everything he touched turned not to gold, cost a fortune and mostly never voted for.
Arrogance and ignorance on steroids.
December 9, 2022
“Just as the EU wiped England of their maps and tried to balkanise England into a set of unloved regions”
England was divided into 9 standard regions by the Wesminster government in 1946. I appreaciate that you may have the impression that the EU is responsible for everything, but I think that blaming the EU for something that happened 11 years prior to the Treaty of Rome being signed is a bit of a stretch.
December 10, 2022
8 regions for statistical purposes. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Historical_and_alternative_regions_of_England#Standard_statistical_regions
December 9, 2022
“build regions up from so called partnerships between local Councils aggregating to a new region.
There is no strong regional identity in most parts of England.
People in my area belong to Wokingham Borough or to West Berks. ”
Then head them off, they are not going away!
Have a Parliament of Local Councils, and where they can form partnerships, to solve particular problems, in their area, being it Local, Borough, or Region wide! Aided by access to a funding pot that would allow them to leverage investment from central government.
Infrastructure and/or housing projects, between different boroughs, would be a premium example!
So, Wokingham would have a Partnership in a house building company serving the area between Reading and Wokingham.
And, so on, with different partnerships, around the Borough.
It’s a simple solution, one that could replace all Devolution, and work for all!
The problem is you MP’s; you are all guarding your own little thief-toms, and you call them your constituency’s ?
There would be no conflict, what so ever, if it was well constructed, initially !!!
December 10, 2022
Absolutely.
“People in my area belong to Wokingham Borough or to West Berks” are the words of a politician who defines things by the constiuency, council or ward, not by how normal people view things.
Where I live happens to (currently) fall under Wokingham constituency, and Council Tax is paid to Wokingham Borough (both of which can be changed at the whims of others). Where do I actually live? Reading.
Reply Most of my constituents do identify with Wokingham or West Berks, not Reading
December 10, 2022
In my experience, if you ask someone where they live, they will reply with a city, town or village, not a local government construct. For example, if you ask someone who lives in Shinfield where they live, the answer is likely to be Shinfield, not Wokingham.
December 10, 2022
It depends where you are when youâre asked Peter. An English person on holiday abroad, would usually give your region of England i.e. North West England. If you are then asked for more information youâd probably give your County. But no I wouldnât give my electoral regions, I thoroughly dislike the way my County was carved up and the Borough council removed which gave less local accountability and meetings ended. It was carved up by a female labour MP from Salford – Blears if my memory serves me.
December 9, 2022
Never mind about George Brown. His ideas wiuld be better counteted if an English single identity and democracy were promoted. Your party’s plan to break England into regions will set each part against the other and demoralise the people who do not want more local politicians.
If Tories support and promote a Scottish parliament, why not the same for England? For those who say it means more administration, regionalisation will create far more and most of the leaders of it will be invisible.
December 9, 2022
One of the festering reasons for Devolution is that Central Government with it one size fits all mentality and the control of the national purse is a best useless in providing results, is useless at solving local issues. People want control of their own lives.
Political interference to suit personal political preferences on shaping a way forward is also an âegoâ trip enemy. If the power to work directly with community needs had been directed to those bodies on the ground (proper devolution) that actually do the work this discussion wouldnât be taking place.
Sir John just as with your Exeter-Bristol analogy, it can be applied everywhere Glasgow â Edinburgh and it should have been. The original recognised Counties already suited the and lets be honest worked well before all the Political interference.
The advent of becoming an EU State crucified the UK Government, as an Internationale Power so it turned in on the Country and tried to become everyone’s Local Council. Something they still havenât got past. Brexit should have released the Country, but Government because they donât know their purpose are still fighting for their purpose still keeps meddling.
December 9, 2022
Whilst it may seem to the English a good idea for Scotland to become independent for financial reasons they need to consider just how expensive it would become to have a failed state, possibly controlled by Russia or China, on its northern border. And if Scotland did not benefit from the Barnett Formula then even fewer people would be living in Scotland and England would be even more populated.
If there is to be another independence referendum the UK Government needs to ensure that the election is not rigged again by the decision as to who can and cannot vote. The 2014 referendum was wrong to exclude all the Scottish ex-pats leaving elsewhere in the UK but then to include all EU and Commonwealth citizens âresidentâ (?) in Scotland. The next time we may find postal votes coming from all over the world, including from Chinese âstudentsâ.
December 9, 2022
If actions speak louder than words then it is obvious that the SNP is more interested in braking away from England ( let’s be clear on this, not the UK) than the wellbeing of the People who live in Scotland.
The SNP is in power because Labour is not the Labour of Old and the Conservatives who have always had a bit of a struggle in Scotland, are just like Labour now. The Vikings in the far North of Scotland are still resisting the SNP đ
This is what happens when Politicians get involved with issues that ordinary Britons have been happy with for a few Hundred years.
There is no UK football team. That sums up National identity for you in the British Isles. The English (people who live in England) know they are English without a Parliament ( But grossly undemocratic in the current set up)
December 9, 2022
“The best devolution of power is not to new layers of government but to individuals and businesses to make more of our own decisions.”
Absolutely opposite to your own party leaders views then?
December 9, 2022
Good old Brown – He never got anything right, and he is still pursuing EU and UN goals.
By breaking the country into regions the EU would have been able to rule directly, bypassing national governments – but there is another aspect to all of this, the UN plans to remove democracy from us all.
It’s starting to happen in America where unelected bureaucratic regional organisations are taking power from elected town and city councils – so regional power is accrued with the aim of destroying democracy at a local level.
This is exactly what traitor Brown is intending for the UK.
December 9, 2022
I suspect Brown wuld not do this to England if he were English.
The common theme in most of the decisions politicians make around devolution – or anything that creates more political office – is jobs for the boys. From devolution to mayors to the EU… all more roles for them to hold.
The scary thing is that they prefer unelected roles, such as the EU Commission. That is the beginning of the end for democracy.
December 9, 2022
XY +1
I suspect that Brown being a true labour socialist would be doing this even if born in England – he has no love of democracy and would impose his own form of communism if he could.
December 9, 2022
We are and should only remain as the United KIngdom . There are Area Authorities in the country to adjust things according to local needs and demands – a process also determined by a democratic system ; nothing else is necessary . We must not succomb to any other form of decision method that weakens our national stance and respect .
December 9, 2022
Too true Bert! I think rebellion is just around the corner.
December 9, 2022
Thought about logically the perceived reason for devolution was that on the UK becoming a EU State the UK Government and its Parliament lost its purpose. Their job was now fulfilled by a Supranational EU Commission.
Instead of accepting their purpose of âbeingâ was lost the UK Parliament thrashed around in the breeze and basically stole functions from others. It shuffled the pack, changed the meanings and definitions of Counties, got rid, merged etc. – all to hide the fact of what was happening. It was central Government and Parliament that now no longer had a place in this EU State called the UK, it was the ‘Local Council’ for all. So fully function capable bodies were sacrificed on the political egoâs of those searching for a new jobs and powers.
The end result, those that could do the job effectively and efficiently were banished on the new alter of this new centralised bureaucracy looking to stroke personal egoâs, the one-size-fits-all rule gang â that has failed and failed many times over.
Because, centralised âruleâ doesnât work, is it any wonder the people want change. I would guess even the Gordon Brown’s version falls short, as it is focused on jobs for those that âfailâ. Its the good old theory of trash what works to get something that does what âIâ want and is done in my image â Socialism, EU, WEF.
December 9, 2022
Your government is even better at governing badly and you regularly blame civil servants for your failures!
December 9, 2022
@Mike Wilson. +1 While convienantly forgetting that is they the Government that are the Countries Management and the Civil Servants work for them, they do what Government command. We employ our MP’s to insure that happens
December 9, 2022
From the MsM
Jeremy Hunt launches sweeping post-Brexit reforms to transform City
âChancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt said: “We are committed to securing the UKâs status as one of the most open, dynamic and competitive financial services hubs in the world.
“And we will go further â delivering reform of burdensome EU laws that choke off growth in other industries such as digital technology and life sciences.”
Does anyone believe this âToshâ – a Friday Sound Biteâ dead on Monday, into the same basket a âGetting Brexitâ done. – it will never happen, the external entities that control this Government will not permit it.
December 9, 2022
@Ian B
The Chancellor has set out plans to overhaul the financial sector including a review of rules to make bankers accountable for their decisions and easing capital requirements on smaller lenders. extending the need for anyone owning their mistakes
A New Body of âIndependent Investment Researchâ
Bring Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) ratings providers into the regulatory perimeter
Consulting on a UK retail central bank digital currency – UK State Control of personal money by the back door
expanding the investment manager exemption to include cryptoassets – UK State Control of personal money by the back door
Jobs-for-the-Boys and little else
December 10, 2022
Ian B: ” including a review of rules to make bankers accountable for their decisions ”
The Conservative way to make ‘bankers accountable for their decisions’, would be to refuse to bail them out when they make stupid decisions that bankrupt their organisation. But then the Tory party has been Socalist lite for the last thirty years.
So, what do you expect from the !Tory party, except Socialism ?
December 9, 2022
Why in my country, the country of the United Kingdoms of Britain & Northern Ireland, do we have a different devolution settlement in each of the separate countries, and why do we have separate regional mayors inventing their own laws and restriction, and why do we have a London mayor with the powers akin to a PM with his own realm âŠthree decades ago I could travel and work throughout the UK without hindrance, interference or tax â today I have plan and ensure I have extra funds just to visit my capital
This government has allowed the devolution and separation of our nation and regions to the detriment of our cultureâŠand our right under ancient laws of the magna carta
December 9, 2022
Hear ! Hear!
December 9, 2022
Dear Sir John,
Have you been letting the office junior loose again? We already knew that whoever writes this for you is devolved from reality, but this isn’t even internally consistent, let alone aligning with facts.
Reply I write all the blogs myself save the ones that reproduce government letters or PQ answers
December 9, 2022
Sir John, you ask the BBC who speaks England. I ask you who in the Tory party and government speaks for England? Why ask them and not your party?
I don’t mean when MPs or ministers talk from time to time about something happening in England, but for England as a nation, its people, distinction; not elements of British or UK, but English citizens.
Will anyone dare stand in the HoC and say ‘I speak for England, as SNP members speak for Scotland, and I declare myself as leader for England and English identity’.
reply I am pressing for a BBC England to match BBC Scotland
December 9, 2022
Sir John you have to do more than press the BBC, you have to shame and embarrass them . Call them out as Anglophobic and institutionally racist against English people . This is perhaps one time where the institutional racist tag is appropriate, for they have a corporate structure which has a BBC Wales, BBC Scotland, BBC Northern Ireland , even an apartheid BBC Asian Network , but no equivalent BBC England.
I took up this fight when Labour discriminated against English people first time around and got nowhere, complaining to the BBC about the lack of a voice giving the English people’s side on devolution. To fob me off they sent me a BBC report suggesting they were taking devolution seriously, headed… ‘Devolution, The BBC’s programme response’….. They clearly hadn’t bothered to read my complaint, or their own report, for it mentions Scotland in the report some 83 times, England , only in a regional context, 3 times ! I also hassled them about their failure to give England a representative online presence , this time got contacted by the person who was tasked with creating an England BBC Website, who disarmingly said…’Look I’m Welsh, I would welcome suggestions’ … so much for ethnic sensitivity at the BBC , from there I got transferred up the chain of command to his boss, Elonka Soros ( a good English name ) whose job title was Diversity and English Regions, so that is what they think of England, a regional afterthought after diversity.
December 10, 2022
The Prangwizard: “I ask you who in the Tory party and government speaks for England? ”
More to the point, who in the Tory party speaks for Conservatives?
If the Tory party were selling something based on reputation, one might ask what have they Conserved ?
How many of Labours radical initiatives, has the Tory party rolled back after a decade?
Ian Moore below, asks: “Labour vandalised our constitution, yet what has this Conservative Government done to sort out the mess?”
I agree, a decade in government yet the Tories have done nothing ” to roll back Labour legislation.
December 9, 2022
I see Sturgeon is trying to change the law on gender change. It will cause all sorts of problems for women in both England and Scotland. I trust this is one time Westminster steps in and protects the rights of women.
December 9, 2022
FUS, the House of Commons overruled the Northern Irish Assembly on abortion, in the name of Human Rights. Two sets of human rights, some might protest, but that didn’t bother them. They should therefore be able to overrule the Scottish Assembly in the name of Women and Equalities
December 9, 2022
An interesting program âLizâs Trussâs Big Gambleâ on Radio4 right now (09/12/2022 12:30-13:00) about the October Truss âthingyâ, the BoE, the political and financial markets, telling us practically that Sir John provided us with very biased information on this blog for several consecutive days. All those who love being fed propaganda should obviously be free to continue getting their daily dose of ⊠on here.
What is even more delicious is that the main journalist is Nick Robinson who had been the President of the Oxford University Conservative Association then Chairman of the National Young Conservatives (1987-1988). There would obviously some here telling me âOh heâs a wetâ not realising that Sir John with IDS and the wonderful Bill Cash are now heading not so much the âdrysâ but the âdesiccatedâ.
December 9, 2022
Robinson turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to what really happened. Of course he did. He was part of the villainy. The media are never going to admit they got this catastrophically wrong, and they will all keep mum together. Anyway, they probably approve of what was done and want to keep in with the usurpers.
December 9, 2022
Labour vandalised our constitution, yet what has this Conservative Government done to sort out the mess? Nothing . English votes for English laws became English votes at a Committee, to being scrapped. The Conservatives, if they conserve anything is the settlement handed to them by Labour. So Labour gift the country the West Lothian settlement , and the Tories conserve it . Labour give the country Mayoral fiefdoms (an insult to English civic governance) and the Tories say ‘me too, mee too’. This abject capitulation to Labour policy extends to other areas. Labour buy into Net Zero and the Tories do it with bells on. Labour swamp the country with mass immigration and the Tories out do them.
Now Labour are looking to add to their constitutional vandalism, but there will be no point in us looking to the Conservatives to fight against it, for if the Tories ever get back into power after Labour has wrecked more of our country, one thing we can be sure of is that the Conservatives won’t unpick any of the vandalism Labour has done, for they will conserve it, or say me too with bells on to anything Labour has done.
December 9, 2022
Yes I totally agree with you on that issue Sir John. Why is Derbyshire lumped in to EAST Midlands? If anything it is slightly to the west of the foot of the Pennine Chain. We have no affinity with Yorkshire. Nor for that matter with cities and counties to the West.
However, the Blair/Brown regionalisation project was not only to make us firmly part of the EU. Indistinguishable from the rest of it.
You do not agree, but I am firmly convinced that there actually is a global plan to force the whole world into an authoritarian, unelected, ‘government’. It is called Agenda 21 and the governing will be done by the United Nations.
What a strange coincidence that the Covid19 so called pandemic struck just when it looked like Johnson actually would ‘Get Brexit Done’.
Bear in mind that our country has been a global power and is still of some consequence. So us leaving the EU threatened to delay the progress of agenda 21.
There is also of course, the anthropogenic global warming ‘theory’ chugging away in the background. Also global plans regarding ‘migration’.
December 9, 2022
I do not understand why Labour wants to divide up UK in this way. Go my mind it just adds extra layers of government and will cost taxpayers a bundle.
December 9, 2022
I do not understand why Labour wants to divide up UK in this way. To my mind it just adds extra layers of government and will cost taxpayers a bundle.
December 9, 2022
It’s not just Labour.
See the plans to introduce another layer of government* in Norfolk and Suffolk.
JF
*Jobs for the boys.
December 9, 2022
Its great fun discussing which UK party is the worst at government especially as there is so much competition for the crown. The reason that we are so badly governed is that are electoral system is flawed which is why it is universally unpopular.
It is the most arrogant impertinence for the Tory party to claim that they represent anyone other than the financial spivs that bankroll them. Get rid of the First Past the Post model and the unpatriotic and incompetent fools whose careers it promotes. There is no democracy unless all votes count equally.
December 9, 2022
The media are the reason we don’t get the good people in public life we used to.
December 9, 2022
That and the selection process …made in their own image, so many are anti brexit, pro EU, pro green, pro net-zero, pro woke …they just wont more friends with the same view (I realised that the party died in 2016), we’ll never get the traditional old school MP back
December 18, 2022
Only someone rather limited would write âthe mediaâ without giving a hint to which media is referred to.
To refer to âThe mediaâ is as intelligent as saying the âbogeymanâ.
December 9, 2022
JR: “Gordon Brown takes Labour back to a broken model for the UK”
Achievements of Gordon Brown.
1. Advertised to the world that he was to sell a portion of British Gold reserves, thus ensuring that the British treasury would get the worst possible price.
2. Taxed the pensions funds, which admittedly at that time were in surplus, and thus turned the surplus into a deficit, and in turn forced the Pension funds to search for ‘innovative’ but more risky means to meet their pension commitments. Gordon Brown shares the blame with Rishi Sunak for nearly destroying the government bond market.
3. Is still paid annually ÂŁ100,000 in addition to a platinum tax funded pension, to keep meddling in public affairs, long after the British Public dismissed his sorry backside from government. ( It’s as if his very comfortable tax funded pension, isn’t sufficient. ) I wondered why these old buffers kept popping up on the BBC long after their sell by date.
We should get that particular allowance scrapped with no replacement at all. Or, since I’ve never known a politician to willingly remove his/her snout from the trough, convert it to an incentive payment to keep his beak out of public affairs after leaving office. Open his trap once, and he loses the ÂŁ100K for the year.
December 10, 2022
Pleased to see you have pushed back against Labour and their attempt to continue the EU’s plan to Balkanise England into unrepresentative regions.
We need English MPs sitting as an English Parliament more than ever. Our economy and English taxpayers are being drained of resources by ludicrously large subsidies for NI Scotland and Wales.
English voters do not realise that we would have almost no deficit without the Barnet formula and would be one of the richest countries in Europe. With a population of 56m, England alone would be the fourth largest country in Europe, and only a little behind Italy, at that.
With Wales, we would be the third largest country in Europe and the Welsh deficit could easily be eliminated whtih some hard work.