Conservatives believe in freedom and enterprise, choice and opportunity. We believe in helping people to live fulfilling lives, recognizing and releasing the talents and energy within. We reject the gloom of the left who think people and the world have to be controlled by governments to avoid disaster. We do not want to live in a pocket-money society where most things belong to and much income is taken by the state, leaving people with what remains after the large demands of governments have been satisfied. We know from experience that well-intentioned government policies so often backfire. Rent controls to help tenants lead directly to a shortage of property. Subsidies to help investment lead to high
August 27, 2023
agree with all of that John.
but other stuff acts against ordinary people building shareholdings and wealth.
stuff like means testing which massively acts against saving, and encourages people to save little and depend upon the state. stuff like penal approach to paying for old age care. or paying for college.
stuff like catchment areas which encourages people to overpay for housing in order to have access to better schools and healthcare.
so as much as I agree with your points, they need updating and taking account of some of the (presumably, but maybe not) unintended consequences of how the political class have organised the UK.
cheers
August 27, 2023
other stuff that needs adding to this view of the world is the impact of massive amounts of immigration, glossing over those impacts is bad for all of us
August 27, 2023
Most appears sensible, none of it applies to your govt. or party over 14 years. You all speak a good job but enact none of it! Ban smoking on the streets of Paris if you like, it will never happen.
Apply the sentiments to economy, taxation, debt, debt interest, inflation, stealth taxes through local authority and other public sector bodies, Brexit, immigration, EU laws, EU Regs, EU courts, giving away N.Ireland, giving away our fishing waters, energy inter-connectors with EU to prevent leaving EU. Utterly dreadful public services across the board. Weak on crime and punishment, drugs freely available damaging society not even trying to stop it, harming society with weird warped ideologyâs like transgender rubbish in childrenâs education, ESG causing enormous cost and harm to business and wider society etc.
Without Farage no EU referendum, without Farage no Brexit at al he forced May out, without Farage no public awareness of mass immigration under your party. What have you and your colleagues done to regain your party to conservatism? I do not see anything?
Is any of this conservatism that you preach? Your blog is a world away from todays reality of your party and govt. wake up and smell the coffee.
August 27, 2023
It is really tragic that so many people put their faith in the Tory party to deliver Brexit, reduce immigration and put the nation first to give them an 85 seat majority to stop treacherous May and her likes being rogue in parliament to ignore and defy the public wish. This vile individual and her cohorts allowed to stay to bring down leavers and ensure remain got their way to tie UK to EU.
You all should be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves for failing the nation and failing the trust of the people. Never should your party ever be in govt again for such a betrayal.
August 27, 2023
Iain, if you own shares now and they return more in dividends than ÂŁ500 pa from next year (ÂŁ1000 this year) you have to fill out a self-assessment and pay tax on it. Labour donât want people to earn from none work related earnings so that will probably be reduced to zero allowance and a much higher % tax, even though dividends are only paid out on taxed profit now at 25%!
August 27, 2023
âConservatives believe in freedom and enterprise, choice and opportunity.â
âGovernment should avoid unnecessary regulation and interference in the lives of people and the work of companies.â
Well yes real Conservative do believe in freedom and choice and a small state. Not though the highest taxes for 70+ years Rishi Sunak.
The Conservatives under Cameron, May, Boris and Sunak have done the reverse. These ConSocialists have completely the opposite agenda. One of tax to death, borrow, waste, push the climate alarmism religion, regulate to death, have pointless lockdowns for Covid, coerce vaccinations even into young people with dangerous substantial ânet harmâ Covid Vaccines, suppress free speech, push net zero, a dire state monopoly heath care system, energy market rigging, road blocking, transport market rigging, housing market rigging, bank rigging, QE inflation causingâŠ
August 27, 2023
+++
But then they have been dancing to a tune other than the good of this country?
Obeying other orders?
Mrs T always seemed resistant to outside influencesâŠbut she didnât whisk us away from the EU ( or whatever we called it then).
I canât remember what she thought about immigration.
In London it was going strong when she came in but only in certain areas.
London was still London. Safe and lovely. And where we lived is scarcely safe to visit now.
Was it the London-led pressure of immigration that led her to disperse firms all over the country, uprooting workers, families etc.?
Reply She controlled immigration keeping the net figure to around 50,000, under a tenth of recent numbers.
August 27, 2023
Reply to reply,
Only because Labour and Tories vied for position of cutting immigration after it became apparent social cohesion breaks down when there is too much or those coming do not integrate. How many MPs second generation immigrants trying to change our country to where they came from rather than changing people to the existing values and culture of our grate country?
August 27, 2023
Reply to reply
Yes.
A much happier country.
Clean, safe, free, plenty of jobs and just lovely.
August 27, 2023
But just as she left, she signed us up to the Global Migration Pact, whence we see todayâs massive numbers.
August 27, 2023
No she didnât!
August 27, 2023
Wasn’t that Mrs May
August 27, 2023
yes – but we hadn’t had Merkel inviting the millions into EU, nor Shengen, and we hadn’t abandoned border controls….
August 27, 2023
But in those days with the communist/socialist countries still behind the Iron Curtain, immigration was much less likely to occur. Both the socialist and western countries were pouring money to
âThe Third Worldâ to try to get friendly relations with the developing countries, which certainly had an effect on potential immigration. And finally whatever the source of the present perturbations to it, the weather in the 80-90s did not show so many events âout of the climatological ordinaryâ, another reason for todayâs immigration pressure. Thatcher was good but the overall environment was more benign.
This should be recognised by anybody trying to look at past events in an historical context.
August 27, 2023
The question when Mrs Thatcher came to power was âis Britain governable?â
It would not have been by any other Party.
She also of course, fought and won a war 8,000 miles away.
She faced and overcame huge challenges.
August 27, 2023
Weather events were no more extreme back then than today hefner
You’ve been had by green propaganda and the invention of 24/7 worldwide news.
For example deaths from extreme weather events have fallen by over 95% in the last century.
Amazing considering the huge population increase in that period.
August 28, 2023
Is this 95% reduction in deaths from extreme weather events the reason for increased immigration?
August 28, 2023
No it’s more to do with dreadful criminal gangs offering poor people false hope.
The hope of a better richer life.
Surely you realise this hefner.
August 29, 2023
MiB, compared to one hundred years ago, the quality of information about what the weather will be in the next 24 hours has increased by leaps and bounds. So saying as you do that the reduction in casualties due to extreme weather events over the last century is the proof that âweather events were no more extreme back then than todayâ is rather short-sighted, a flimsy argument and does not denote much understanding of the progress of meteorology.
But I guess thatâs not the reason you comment after me, doesnât it E2P2EUfanMiB?
Anyway if commenting like that is how you enjoy life, who am I to deprive you of that pleasure?
August 29, 2023
Its not my argument hefner just something reported by studies that are accepted as facts.
There are studies the IPPC use showing a century of hurricanes and other extreme weather events.
You (and climate lobbies) trust and use climate data when it compares temperature data from 1880s to todays temperatures.
Yet dismiss data about extreme weather events over the same period as flimsy.
August 30, 2023
My original comment was about why when discussing immigration there are other historical reasons to be considered.
You commented about only one reason I had included, extreme weather events.
Your original comment was about the reduction in the number of casualties linked to extreme weather events as a proof that the number of them had not increased over the last century despite the large population increase.
My point was that the reduction in casualties is more likely to be linked to better weather forecast information being made available allowing people to take measures to protect themselves.
I didnât say that data about extreme weather events are flimsy. I just said that your argument is flimsy. I am really sorry for you if you cannot see the difference.
August 27, 2023
Correct. But those people aren’t Conservatives. They’re Liberal-Globalist carpet-baggers: parasites who have now killed their host, the Conservative Party.
August 27, 2023
Current uni party flooding our country to change our culture, history and way of life for the worse. We are being forced to pay for our own demise. It must stop. Starting with breaking the Uni party who act against the people of this nation, against our national interest, suppress our free speech and ideas.
JR is intelligent, conservative but utterly failed to bring about change or influence in his own party. He is a minor lost voice who is ignored.
August 27, 2023
As painful and effective as parasitic wasps.
August 27, 2023
Spot on. All the main political parties are the same.
August 27, 2023
Donna +1
August 27, 2023
Totally agree. I don’t recognise any conservative value, ideas, actions or policies in the present Tory Government. Just utter failure in everything they do. I wont bother listing them all. We all know it’s time they went.
August 27, 2023
@Lifelogic +1 oh so true not a Conservative amongst them just Socialist WEF disciples that have high-jacked and destroyed a Country to appease foreign masters. A Conservative would have âservedâ, served their constituents not enslave them. A conservative world have defended democracy, free speech, a democratic legislator, a Conservative would never have sacrificed a nation.
August 27, 2023
Agree
August 27, 2023
Let’s not forget the fines, fines and more fines, and more fines. Speed cameras on high speed motorways. Debt collectors of council tax, parking, traffic, HMRC fines earning ÂŁ100k+. Food banks prevalent in a nation claiming to be in the top ten largest economies. Drug addicts abounding every town center. Fines, and spending three hours every time one calls HMRC to deal with their mistakes. Crime and lawlessness at an all time high.
August 27, 2023
I see that:- âRachel Reeves has ruled out any version of a wealth tax if Labour forms the next government, declaring that additional taxation will not lead to prosperity.â
She does not quite go so far as to say far lower taxation, cheap reliable energy, deregulation and much smaller state would certainly lead to prosperity. Her two moronic tax proposals of VAT on private school free and abolition of the Non Dom status will clearly cost far more than they raise.
But of course all taxes are âwealthâ taxes IHT especially, but the combination of income tax, IPT, NI, IHT, Sunakâs QE inflation, stamp duty, fuel duty, CGT without indexation, council tax and all the rest will easily take 90% of your wealth off you over circa 20 years. You will have nothing as we will bleed it all off you and grind you down. We will not even give you a decent health care service, control immigration or even fill the pot holes either! Freedom and choice and even free speech will be culled.
August 27, 2023
@Lifelogic +1 I wonder what would happen if we were only taxed to fund what was necessary for us all to get on and prosper. Being taxed to pay for personal ego is aggressively extreme. Tax so as you can give mates jobs in Quangoâs, Tax to allow the NHS to build personal managerial empires, tax thrown at foreign regimes to suck up and so on and so on.
Then you note those that are causing this pain, this destruction, all have futures lined up in areas of the World.
August 28, 2023
+1
August 27, 2023
Once their children board at school from 11 to 18, I would imagine any school anywhere other than the UK especially those at a lower cost would become equally as attractive, the UK will lose a lot more than just their term fees, clothes, clubs, weekend spending, nannies, gardeners, cleaners etc. but let them carry on with the politics of envy it will come and bite them on the bum.
August 28, 2023
+1
August 27, 2023
You have missed out one important concluding paragraph. So let me help. “In Britain the Conservative Party has been in power for thirteen years and has done none of these things, except for 44 days when Liz Truss was in charge, which was a golden period thwarted only by the Marxist woke international money markets”
August 27, 2023
You might see an inkling of some of those points made in the article, a pre-election rally.
However I very much doubt the electorate will change what it intends to do, year 14/15 is far too late.
August 27, 2023
Yes, sadly I think you are correct; the current incompetent PCP has squandered it’s opportunity and the faith of the electorate. My thinking is, come the next GE, the conservative voters will stay home, let the the current PCP get wiped out, along with the muppets who select conservative candidates at CSO, in the hope of a new, REAL Conservative Party emerging that will fully embrace and implement conservative principles. Can we put any Reform candidates in?
August 27, 2023
I agree Peter, but we canât put any Reform candidates in. We MUST keep the Conservative MP – that handful, in. So I suggest that if you are a real Tory, even if you canât vote for your own candidate, find the one you can support and go and canvass for him/her. Donations – direct to that campaign NOT via Central Office.
And we need to get control of selection. Central Office must get that message loud and clear.
August 27, 2023
Correct
August 27, 2023
…. and a Sunout coup.
August 27, 2023
You have missed out one important concluding paragraph. So let me help. “In Britain the Conservative Party has been in power for thirteen years and has done none of these things, except for 44 days when Liz Truss was in charge, which was a golden period thwarted only by the Marxist woke international money markets
August 27, 2023
Rather clever or sly of the Sunak Camp to blame all the financial problems that he as Chancellor together with the BoE had caused through QE, lockdowns, test and trace, covid loans. eat out to help out⊠and his other vast government waste on Truss and her 44 days.
Essentially Nadine Doris is surely right in the letter today.
August 27, 2023
But was Mrs T like other reformers? F Nightingale and E Fry were also women who made great changes but ( for whatever reason) their reforms also did not persist. In fact in their spheres things have got worse and worse. Education is the same.
Did Mrs T challenge too many? Stir up too many hornetsâ nests?
I was shocked at the scenes following her death and even more shocked that the govt. did nothing to stop them.
Or is it just that a swing to the right causes a huge swing to the left?
Or maybe when TB came along we were too innocent. We did not realise that politicians could lie, and lie andâŠ..
August 27, 2023
If you had seen Heath and did not know that politicians lie, then I give up.
You canât expect the Thatcher interlude to be sustained on its own merit for 33 years!
Her biggest mistake was that she did not secure the heir in a place of power. Redwood should have been Chancellor rather than Major. But by that time she was afraid of and appeasing her enemies.
August 27, 2023
Obviously Sunak, Hunt et al are not conservatives, I read a prominent US economist who declined a top job in the EU accuse politicians of putting their own ambition over the needs of the people.
Couldnât happen here, could it?
August 27, 2023
They were golden days when we really believed that things could only get better. ( Yes I know whose lying slogan that was)
However, somewhere along the way things became too centralised. Too big.
People were encouraged to throw up their heritage for a mess of pottage.
We have places where people do not know each other.
We have imported people.
And we no longer have a home or a country.
Yet those who were given what was ours can stay or go at will.
And at our expense.
August 27, 2023
‘we really believed that things could only get better’ – the fresh slogan could be ‘ things could only get worse with the Tories ‘.
August 27, 2023
+++
Agree.
But then, as everyone says.
They really arenât conservatives.
A globalist is someone who wants the entire world reduced to assets. ( Owned by them of course).
Every plant, animal, you name it. Catalogued and accounted for.
1066 all over again.
August 27, 2023
You believed that? đđ€Ł
You deserved the ignorant Blair.
August 27, 2023
‘well-intentioned government policies’. A well argued and welcome article from our esteemed host but I question this statement in its entirety. We are now governed, as opposed to previous governments pre-1990, by a domestic and global alliance of genuine evil whose purpose is not the promotion of freedom and decency but of authoritarian control at all levels of human living.
The west, its history and its very soul is under attack by a combo of vicious and destructive ideologies (CRT, ESG etc etc) whose aim is the dismantling of all that has gone before and replaced by something sinister.
There’s a groundswell of anger not yet noted by most western politicians
August 27, 2023
@DOM +1 well said
August 27, 2023
+++
Expected, noted and no doubt prepared for donât you think?
They had good practice during convid.
Insurrection is sitting on a park bench drinking a cup of tea!
Or saying farewell to your granny.
August 27, 2023
+1 DOM. But the mainstream politicians are noticing. Their reactions though are typically anti-democratic or outright authoritarian.
For example in Germany they are openly talking about banning the AfD party (the increasingly popular non-mainstream party, polling over 20%) and have already opened aggressive investigations into its youth wing. In the US of course, they are using the justice system to bankrupt and destroy political or ideological opponents.
On the bright side, more and more ordinary people see through these shenanigans.
August 27, 2023
+many
August 27, 2023
So where did it all go badly wrong since the time of Mrs Thatcher ?
Sold off the State(tax payer) assets on the cheap. We now have the situation where the individual does not own them nor the State.
The beliefs listed fit the Reform party a lot more than the so called “Conservative ” Government and most of it’s MP’s in Parliment.
The other main parties are no better. They all want to control us and impose a single global view. If it is not big Global Government if is big Global Business wanting to control how we live our lives. At the same time the individual’s
needs have become more important than those of society as a whole. Even more so if the individual is not a UK citizen. The balance between Socialism and Capitalism is a delicate balance.
Reply The state has continued to buy up and create assets which perform badly. It should sell off Nat West and rid itself of so much expensive property in Central London etc
August 27, 2023
reply to reply …..agreed. Sell off Westminster for flats, hotels etc Preserve the facade for tourists. Downsize to a couple of hundred MPs homed in Birmingham since the governments promise fast travel London to Birmingham – eventually.
August 27, 2023
I like the way you slipped in HS2 without actually saying it ….”Birmingham to London in 25 mins with HS2” …its worth all of the ÂŁ200billion with return on investment in only 100 years
August 27, 2023
The trip is not to be done in 25 mins, that was the claimed saving in journey time.
August 27, 2023
Haha they wouldnât want to live in Birmingham!
August 27, 2023
Where did it all go wrong post Thatcher? Well she foolishly appointed John Major who failed his maths and nearly all his other O levels as Chancellor, let him john the ERM (against sensible advice from her economics advisor and JR) then even supported this dope to be PM. The foolish Tory MPs then even retained these dope even when it was clear that no change no chance was the position. As it is now with Socialist, Globalist, Climate Alarmist dope Sunak with his five pledges he is so abjectly failing on.
But even Thatcher kept the anti-competitive NHS state (though you did at least get tax relief) virtual monopoly health care, failed to cut the state sufficiently, closed very many grammar schools, increased the numbers of duff degrees, buried us further in the dire EU and even fell for the CO2 devil gas con trick.
August 27, 2023
Re the CO2 con trick, she did recant in her memoirs.
August 27, 2023
This comment refers to now not Mrs Thatcher’s time. So a Conservative Governments sells off good assets cheap and buys bad assets at a high price. The tax payer foots the bill in both cases. But this would apply to all the main political parties. Perhaps we just don’t have competent people in charge and that’s the real problem now.
August 27, 2023
All so true Sir John, but all in the past, the present Conservative Government is much closer to Lib/Lab in deed than my Conservative thoughts. One of the main restrainers today is the stupid Net/Zero program. We produce a miniscule amount of Co2 in comparison to any other industrialised country. We heavily subsidise the so-called green energy at massive cost to us poor tax payers so I’m afraid you are whistling in the wind with your exhortations. The Conservative party will not get my vote again until the party expunges the Remainer Rump called Grandees.
August 27, 2023
@Ray +1 more to the left of any Lib/Lab coalition. NetZero is about punishment, a punishment not administered by any other Country. They have surrendered the UK economy, the one thing that would have got the UK into a position to create the wealth and resources to ensure the UK could cope with anything that is thrown at it. They have surrendered to UK to foreign masters.
August 27, 2023
Man made CO2 is 3% of the total CO2. CO2 makes up 0.04% of the atmosphere. The UK makes up to 1% of the total of manmade CO2 in the atmosphere. Therefore UK is responsible for 0.000012% of the total on today’s figures. All our suffering, energy Bill’s, banning ice cars, gas boilers, fracking, coal powered power stations in order to reduce CO2 by…….0.000012%. So are we Governed by fools who think their actions and policies will effect climate? Whilst they import over 1.2 million people every year as they have no CO2 footprint or health or housing needs and will help reduce the 7.4 million English NHS waiting list.
August 27, 2023
Conservatives USED to believe in those things Sir John. Now the vast majority of so-called Conservatives in Parliament and local government don’t.
Which is precisely why the country is in the same kind of state it was back in the ’70s after a decade-and-a-half of Wilson/Heath/Wilson/Callaghan – lefties all. Just like Major/Blair-Brown/Cameron-Clegg/May/ Johnson/Sunak.
I’ve never had a great deal of time for Nadine Dorries; but she certainly gave Sunak and his anti-democratic backers in the Parliamentary Party both barrels in her resignation speech ….. and was bang on target, branding him the treacherous, pretty-boy empty suit he so obviously is.
August 27, 2023
Indeed Nadine is exactly right in her letter.
August 27, 2023
Yes apart from the net zero nonsense Nadine is correct.
She is particularly correct that anyone from a working class background risks the way she has been treated, in ways that those from privileged background do not, as they are protected by entrenched contacts.
Lots of these political policies are like the quantum and gravity theories… Make sense standalone but full of problems when you join them together.
August 27, 2023
I disagree. Nadine is trying to get on the victim bandwagon. Itâs sickening. She did very well considering her own limited ability.
August 27, 2023
@Donna +1 – it would appear the Conservative Party nationally has turned extrema left, they are responsible for these charlatans that now run the Country. Either they need to step up and do something, even if that is the creation of a real Conservative Party or all move on and join Labour. As it stands they must hang their heads in shame for all the lies they touted to get elected.
August 27, 2023
Donna.
Yes Nadine Dorries spells it out in detail from the inside with passion and accuracy. Opportunity, not lost, but systematically destroyed. I look forward to her book.
August 27, 2023
+1 Donna. We are living in a form of the 1970s, but with the internet allowing governments to control us ever more tightly.
August 27, 2023
@Donna
‘You have no mandate!’ Dorries in savage attempt to bring down Sunak in resignation letter.
but what does CCHQ and the Party do about it? It suggest they are all happy with the ultra left people they have allowed to rule.
August 27, 2023
Like Johnson? The Net Zero King? The Remainer who decided to replace the EU with World Government (so he could trick the gullible into believing he was a Brexiteer? That warrior intent on fighting not only Russia but China. The man who destroyed the British economy by imposing the first ever lockdowns, repeatedly and ruthlessly âscaring the pants off the publicâ. I believe Johnson spent more per day than any government ever has done and probably ever will do. Drunk with power.
Nadine Dorries best friend?
August 27, 2023
+1. A disloyal unelected opportunist.
August 27, 2023
In essence, having been part of it, you agree with the Conservatism of Margaret Thatcher as did I and many others. We wanted and got an inspirational Britain where anything was possible if you worked hard and went for it. Not far from where I live and even closer to where I used to live, there is a monument to that philosophy and Margaret. It is a large council estate that Margaret effectvely sold to the occupants. Now a large portion of the properties have been refurbished, individualised and vastly improved from the outside at least. There is even the occasional Palladian pillar. Basically it exudes pride of ownership. That is Margaret’s legacy. She got a few things wrong, nobody is perfect, but the direction of travel was absolutely correct.
Since her departure Conservatism has been on a downward slide to the present day where apart from a residue of 50 MPs it no longer exists in Parliament. It still does in the country awaiting a messiah, an unlikely event from its own ranks. If you want it you vote Reform. The alternative is consocialism whichever way you turn. The only choice is degrees of competence in orchestrating your increasing lack of control, be it your bank account or life.
August 27, 2023
Good morning Sir John
All good and well meaning, but how can the UK get a Conservative Government.
It is tiring always being dominated by Socialist wannabees that see their personal ego and control as their only mantra. Is it just fear of the People?
Just think how great and how wealthy the UK would be if the people were released from the shackles of this Socialist WEF regime that is all bluster and no action. Their endeavours to hold the people of the Country down to appease their foreign masters seems to have no bounds. It is clear that the majority of the HoC is anti UK and are anti their constituents, they even refuse their job as UK Legislators.
We need more UK MPâs(not actual numbers there are to many) that work for their constituents and we need the removal of those that take their orders from elsewhere. We need a UK Legislator, a UK Parliament, a UK Government that works for the UK.
It would be great if it was Conservative Government, but as it stands there is a refusal to allow Conservatives in the HoC. The Control of the Conservative Party has been high-jacked by a Socialist Cabal â to keep it left, to keep it anti UK.
August 27, 2023
âIncreasing self-employment and small business was also an important part of the revolution.â
âThe taxable turnover threshold, which determines whether a person must be registered for VAT, will remain at ÂŁ85,000 until 31 March 2024.â
This government is strangling the growth of the self-employed by not raising the VAT threshold. Tradesmen are turning down work so as not to breach the threshold. This is resulting in a loss of growth but the greed of this Government for ‘jam today’ and the damage it is doing to our future prosperity doesnât seem to get through their thick skulls.
August 27, 2023
Like their Corporation tax policy, not realising that 25% of nothing is worse than 15% of something and encourages inward investment and jobs. I’ve just read that over 7% of all taxes now goes in debt interest. I repeat over 7% of all taxation is going on debt interest. This Tory Government promised to balance the books by 2015. Just go. Total failures at everything.
August 27, 2023
IR35 forcing many freelancers to pay business expenses out of taxed income, and the mass issue of work visas to entrants doing nothing but undercut and displace locals, have put lots of disincentives into the system.
August 27, 2023
Oh yes indeed.
It’s just an awful shame that the Tories allowed socialism to overtake this once great party, after Thatcher.
Socialism is for dead or dying societies – we aren’t quite dead yet, but are well on our way. No longer do we get the truth from politicians as they stage act their routines to make us believe all is normal. All we get now is socialist diktats designed to ruin the middle classes, make paupers out of the rest of us, while leading us into a dystopian future that none of us voted for.
For conservatism to work we need people of integrity in Parliament, who can think for themselves and stand up for their constituents. I fear many MPs are just playing the game, because they know what is coming, while a handful of decent MPs try to change things.
The indoctrinating media has so much to answer for!
August 27, 2023
Itâs funny how the Conservative and Unionist Party are not stopping the ULEZ (and green) Balkanisation of Britiain.
The Conservatives throw their hands up saying they cannot do anything about it. They are in Government not in opposition. They could bring in a law to stop ULEZ for a whole raft of reasons.
The only reason I think they are letting Khan go ahead is to win more seats in and around London and other â15 minuteâ prison cities.
The problem is the old truth about suits. Wear the suit you expect to be promoted into. In other words if you act like opposition you will become opposition.
August 27, 2023
They insisted on ULEZ as part funding for TFL settlement. It’s a Tory invention and part of their net zero religion.
August 28, 2023
1. Air Quality standards are set by the EU (Environmental Regs). We are obliged to comply by “the deal.”
2. Schwab/WEF wants 15 minute ghettos/public transport and private vehicles restricted to “the elite”
3. Sunak and the Not-a-Conservative-Party grandees think they can use ULEZ to boost their very low electoral prospects in a swathe of Constituencies who will now be forced to pay Khan’s Car Tax and those bordering Greater London
He could stop it by creating a Statutory Instrument to amend the Greater London Authority Act. It would take about 24 hours to get it drafted, checked, signed and implemented. He has chosen not to.
August 27, 2023
We’re almost back to those miserable days before Thatcher. Endless public sector strikes. Swingeing taxes and government mandated impoverishment through net zero and ULEZ schemes. All designed to remove wealth from individuals to the state or the great and good.
An AfD type party or BBB is required to reset the balance.
August 27, 2023
Sir John, I don’t think American conservatives need to be told any of this. British ‘Conservatives’ do, especially those in government,but will they listen? It doesn’t look like it.
August 27, 2023
Yes, this is how it should be: you set out very clearly the great advantages of free markets, and the steps the Thatcher Government took to reinstate them. But your post spark off strong feelings of frustration and sadness that what you list as Conservative beliefs are far from being the creed of the current leaders of the Conservative party, and it is very difficult to see how they are going to be reinstated as the basis of Conservative Parliamentary Party policy
August 27, 2023
âAll [car and heating systems] should be subject to the same safety and environmental laws.â
If this were the case, then evs would be paying the double on new vehicle sales taxes for the double CO2 emissions on manufacture compared to ff cars and additional yearly VED on their extra weight destroying roads and infrastructure, such as bridges.
The mining of the special minerals and metals for the production of ev batteries and the large scale electrification required by Net Zero causes massive environmental damage from all the extra mining and refining operations required.
Wind farms would be paying a CO2 emissions levy upon completion to cover their profligate use of concrete, steel and acreage in their manufacture. Offshore wind farms use 1000 times more concrete and steel than nuclear per unit of power and 2000 times more than CCGT plants.
16 million trees have been cut down in Scotland to build their onshore wind farms and everywhere the wind farm blades are killing large numbers of birds, including endangered species of raptors.
The high temperature production of solar panels not only emits large quantities of CO2 but also the creation of large toxic tailings lakes damaging the environment. So there should be an environmental charge on solar panels.
August 28, 2023
The Eco Nutters don’t care about the destruction of trees, birds, bats or other wildlife (wind turbines are implicated in the number of whales beaching themselves).
Environmentalists DO care about these things ….. but the Eco Nutters aren’t environmentalists, they’re Net Zero obsessives. The Net Zero lunacy has nothing to do with the climate or the environment.
August 27, 2023
Totally agree but for one salient point. While we are still tethered to EU via NI & a multitude of EU rules & regulations. That Westminster have no intention of changing. British electorate are just being bled dry & disrespected on all levels!
August 27, 2023
Good words, and sadly thats all they are, they don’t match the reality of this government …if they did you’d win the next election
August 27, 2023
Wider ownership has taken a battering since the Thatcher era where the rise of the market state to replace the nation state reflects changes to economies and the effectiveness of government action.
Too many now have too little stake in preserving and fostering contemporary society to wish to make any effort to do so. When ordinary middle-class jobs no longer pay sufficient to fund ordinary middle-class lifestyles such is inevitable. Now more powerful and far-reaching solutions are needed than those that were successful in the days of Margaret Thatcher.
August 27, 2023
Ms Reeves in today’s Telegraph
Labour kicks of it GE Campaign suggesting that no âextraâ wealth taxes(not mentioning the existing SocCon 70 year high over taxation may stay). Thatâs obviously a pragmatic announcement, if you have wealth it is easy to move it and/or leave â so they cant honestly be taxed. All tax falls on those that are trapped.
âShe said: âThe point I was making then, the Government said that they needed to raise ÂŁ12âbillion, and I said, well, why do you always have to come to working people and ask them to contribute more?â
She added: âI donât have any spending plans that require us to raise ÂŁ12 billion worth of money. So I donât need a wealth tax or any of those things … We have no plans for a wealth tax.â
Like most of us are thinking why the need to raise more, when you cant manage the existing exorbitant tax take. Its called âcutting ones clothâ to fit the circumstances, bring spending under control(that Thatcher theme of house keeping once more)
Labour has still buying into some of the meaningless luny left aspirations that are about feeding into the WOKE generation. Just as this Tory Government is ruled by the WEF Socialists in foreign lands, Labour have the Unions as their rulers, but does that then mean that union jobs, the economy UK wealth creation would not be sacrificed? In all probability the economy will be strengthened, to retain Union jobs not ditch them means the UK has to come first.
As it stands Labour is closer to achieving the existence of a UK than this Conservative Government. Would I vote for them? I have the handicap of Sir John being my MP and getting rid of true Conservatives would not help. If I moved to South West Surrey or Richmond I would vote Labour in a heart beat.
August 27, 2023
Simon Heffer – in the same paper is also on the Money
Leadership means taking responsibility. Thatâs now forgotten
The NHS, the police, NatWest â many of our top managers happily take the pay, but are too slow to answer for their institutionsâ failings
He forgot to mention pretend Conservatives
August 27, 2023
Sir John your up hill battle is becoming harder as each day passes and those that guide you as your leader donât give a âmonkeysâ. Who doesnât see the true problem? Seems like it is the Conservative Party and CCHQ – maybe unlike you they donât care or have given up.
Conservatives, Conservativism? It appears to have left the UK some time ago
It is easier to use the comments on the same subject that are repeated elsewhere
âConservatives and labour are now the cheeks of the same backside. No matter who you vote for you will end up with Socialists.â
âTories canât let Labour outflank them on tax – sorry that ship sailed with the installation of the Laurel and Hardy tribute act as PM and Chancellor.â
âLook ! Unless we are involved in a war , at the next election the so-called Conservatives are toast . They might be able to ameliorate that situation to retain a few more seats, but with Risi I doubt this, managed decline has become just decline of the entire UK system. An election January 2025 would be the beginning of year Zero.
This lot of Tories only stand for being in power – they are bereft of ideas or cogent policies.â
âI think everyone in the room has no idea what this fake Tory party stands for!? I for one have no idea..anyone else? â
âNo clue whatsoever.
They should be returned under the Sale of Goods Act as not being fit for purpose, and also for mis-selling a clearly rotten product.
Sadly, the political shop keeper is going to give us the newer 2023 Starmer model as a replacement, when really all we want is a complete refund. â
August 27, 2023
NFL was dead in just 50 years, where did employee and management ownerships get it, eventually sold out and now owned by the German post. You see without the well paid government connected transport agreements theyâre not competitive with the profits now going out of the UK, it would be interesting to know just how many key UK contracts they still have. Their ex employees were often quick to sell up. The people donât seem to want the responsibility of owning shares John, the downsides as well as any upsides, would the partners in Lewisâ be expected to top up losses from their own savings and put their houses on the line to raise finance (no!). Theyâre happy taking the bonus but a bad couple of years and its sell, sell, sell and I donât mean the merchandise.
August 27, 2023
Banks donât want to let business owners sell out to Managers and Staff (unless they have assets to put up as collateral), ask them, in fact ask the Bank your government owns. They donât want to give them loans because too often within five years theyâve spent to much on themselves and gone under. Without the founders driving and protecting, securing finance and adapting to change quite often the none-entrepreneurial just panic.
August 27, 2023
My family is a product of 1980âs entrepreneurial Britain. We found it very hard to get loans and almost impossible to get grants, we achieved growth, built and sold businesses along the way, created hundreds of jobs, some of the people we trained now also run their own enterprises. We had to work twelve hours per day to get our businesses off the ground, risk our home, reinvest every penny. Would I do it now – NO. Would I encourage my children to do it now – NO.
Your new government doesnât like entrepreneurship, you talk a good talk and Labour is even more trouble with their wage controls, holiday controls, pension controls, people just think theyâre running their businesses now, we should ask Labour if youâre trying to calm the horses with your no increases to top rates of tax who are you going to tax more pensioners, and the self-employed (NI on pensions would be my guess, with an NI tax combined with IT).
Just when 1980s entrepreneurs would be looking to sell up and retire along come Labour to tax them to death with their raid on capital gains tax. A lesson in how to kill effort will follow.
August 27, 2023
UK Conservatives
UK Tax 70 year high
UK Debt the end of March 2023,
UK General government gross debt was ÂŁ2,537,000,000,000,(2.5 trillion) or 100.5% gross domestic product.
UK economy non existent. UK management of expenditure non existent.
Over taxed and massive debts, surely it is expenditure, the unmanaged expenditure that is now the greatest problem not tax in isolation. This Conservative Governments refusal to manage could be called treason, destruction of the UK. What it is NOT is Conservatism.
August 27, 2023
Good article. Such a pity we don’t at present have a government that believes in any of it.
August 27, 2023
I agree with all Sir J…. the crying shame of it is your Party has swung so far left to be the very opposite of the key principles you’ve so eloquently listed. Nadine’s damning yet wholly valid assessment yesterday means Labour will enter Government at the next election imvho. The silent majority are beyond being livid.
August 27, 2023
Sir John – I wish it was all true today . The Dorries letter of resignation tells it all from the inside . There is a vast difference between the Thatcher years and what exists now ; our leadership is flawed and the trust of voters lost . We no longer have the respect and place in world affairs that once existed and the various international league tables spell it out . The country is in a real mess from all angles .
August 27, 2023
+1 Donna. We are living in a form of the 1970s, but with the internet allowing governments to control us ever more tightly.
August 27, 2023
The government building a mRNA factory at Harwell says it all. And, going back, the installation of the 5G towers despite the lockdown.
August 27, 2023
Yes conservatism sold off all of the great shipping companies and the ports and airports
and property and industry all over to the point where we are largely beggars in our own land.
August 27, 2023
‘The core of the problem was economic.’
Was it, in particular, economic interventions?
Yesterday’s solutions cause today’s problems, to paraphrase Thomas Sowell.
(The first paragraph can be deleted; it’s a fragment of one near the article’s end.)
August 27, 2023
SJ lays out precisely what conservatism is. A great pity then, that the present Government fails to maintain the principles of true conservatism. They act more like socialists rather then true blues and is the main reason why this country is failing across all fronts and why they are doomed at the next GE.
I have written before about the post WW2 German miracle worker, Ludwig Erhard and can add our very own John James Cowperthwaite who, in the 60’s, using conservative principles made Hong Kong the most successful and economically free economy in the world, from what was no more than a fishing port. And ditto of course, our very own Mrs Thatcher.
Three strong economic ‘pathfinders’ who threw out socialist dogma and let the people run their own lives. The “Miracles” created by all three of them changed their Nations for the better. Much, much better!
So why has the present “tory” Government ignored these proven policies of the past but followed the demented socialist way of controlling our lives? It is failing us, AGAIN! It always does.
There is a saying “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Alas, this government has ignored that one too and now we’re so broken we desperately need a fix.
It’s time to throw out all of the failing policies and call upon the old conservative principles that are proven to have worked.
Number 10, you have just 12 months or less to ‘get it done’! For good! For the good of OUR country.
August 27, 2023
At last someone is trying to explain to the Conservative Party what a philosophy of conservative government is and how it can be applied to making policy in the national interest.
August 27, 2023
+1
August 27, 2023
If only. If only we lived in 1983 again and something could be done.
Sir John and his party have however advanced us to 1984. State control with marxist/wokism is embedded in every aspect of our lives, many like it as they gain from it and are protected, and a large number are members, including MPs, of Conservative (The Destroyer of England) party. Every detail of what we do and want to do is being regulated and punishment for exercising what once was freedom is becoming widespread.
This extends throughout government and all elements of administration, finance, education, media with a limited exception, but regulation is everywhere. We have many restrictions what we can say and do everywhere. Even now in our armed forces we have these views imposed on fighting men and women.
No doubt Sir John thinks this academic and debate paper is the way to attack the subversion if he dare publicly recognise its existence. Probably would not be considered gentlemanly to identify and seek the remove the people who have in a planned and co-ordinated way imposed their extreme and foreign ideologies. The country has been brought to a state of collapse, they are being allowed to succeed in their aims to achieve this.
Sir John is a willing and always member of an untrue Conservative party but hardly any members dare be courageous. We need direct action for change back to truth and decency and the restoration of our values. We can’t wait for endless cosy debate.
August 28, 2023
Every Government since Mrs T has leaned further left. Labour, Tory and LibDem. All paths lead to where we are now. The unelected telling the elected what to do.
August 27, 2023
My petrol up again to ÂŁ1.49.9 (ÂŁ1.50p) …thanks to this government net-zero
August 27, 2023
and average Insurance cost going up due to repairs becoming much more expensive.
August 27, 2023
Indeed. Iâve just had my renewal quote. Up 50%. WTF!!
August 27, 2023
Talk about conservatism, do not make me laugh. Look at the voting against Andrew Bridgen, the only TRUE conservative and the bill to inform parents of Trans education and his discussion on the WHO Plandemic treaty . The Large majority of MPs are career politicians who do not give a toss about the people. However change is coming and PANIC will ensue.
August 27, 2023
They insisted on ULEZ as part funding for TFL settlement. It’s a Tory invention and part of their net zero religion.
August 27, 2023
Correct
August 27, 2023
Conservatism is a label it means nothing anymore.. people din’t want Left or Right they want old fashioned decency and honesty men in the greg suits and thst’s the problem, decency and honesty are not represented anywhere while they scramble at the greasy pole – snouts in the trough
August 27, 2023
Apart from people in safe seats why do not support the party that holds the safe seat. Their vote is pointless.