It is not against the rules for Conservative Governments to do popular things. Sometimes it seems Ministers think it is. Other times Ministers say they want to do popular things but the courts, the officials and the quangos somehow conspire to do otherwise.
The Prime Ā Minister announced early on one popular thing he wants to do. He wants to stop the small boats. Even the political parties who welcome high levels of migration have to say they agree with that aim. The vile trade of illegal travel across the Channel risks peopleās lives and makes the traffickers an illicit fortune, so all have to condemn. Yet a year on it still goes on, with legal challenges to every attempt to decide cases against illegal arrivals, and to any suggestion that might make the UK a less attractive destination for these people.
A way through surely is to pass a short amendment to the legislation saying that nothing in Ā Human Rights law or Human Rights court can overturn the settled will of Parliament to stop the small boats by the specified means. So far it has not been to stop the boats, but to stop the Ministers stopping the boats. Opposition parties join in gleefully with that, expressing the wish to stop the boats but opposing all ways to do so short of simply letting everyone in.
This week it has been difficult to fathom why the Government has embroiled itself in media stories about the cancellation of a new train line to Manchester, when the Conservative party chose that very city to show its affection for the North. It chose to take its own business bringing its Conference there, creating more demand for the trains. As someone who voted against HS2 when Parliament made the decision to go ahead with the project I thought the business case at the time was very flimsy. That was with costs of around Ā£30bn and with five days a week train commuting in full flourish. They shifted the case from taking a bit of time off the journey to a case based entirely on the alleged need for extra capacity. Today with the work commuting five days a week model broken and with costs around Ā£100bn the business case has fallen over completely.
I travelled up to Manchester on the morning work train from Euston to get to Manchester at 8.45am after just two hours and fifteen minutes of travel. The train was practically empty despite it having myself and some other Conservatives making their one use of the train to Manchester this year for the conference. My return train had on it the passengers from another cancelled one as well as those of us who had booked it. That too had plenty of empty seats. Where is the case based on capacity for this new train line? Will they publish up-to-date usage and fare revenue figures?
I found the Ministerial line to take that they did not comment on speculative stories quite bizarre. Ministers were all refusing to simply say they were pressing on to build out the railway they had approved, so the media was quite entitled to ask what was going to happen instead. If they had to create this uncertainty the very same week we were all in Manchester they should have at least told us that costs were out of control, the timetable for the work is too delayed and so they are looking at options to see how the project can be carried forward with realistic cost and sensible outcomes. It would be wrong not to do that work.
There are many popular things the Government could do to win back lost Conservative voters and to find some new friends. The Prime Ministerās wish to help the motorist is an excellent idea. Small business runs on vans. Families need cars to get to work, to take children to school and to pick up the weekly shop. Left wing Councils masochistically take pleasure in fining, banning and hectoring anyone who dares to get behind the wheel. They are constantly spending large sums wrecking the roads for drivers. Having identified the need to help people, the Government needs Ā now to will the means as well as the end.
Better guidance to Councils will not be enough. They must cut off funding for anti motoring schemes. They must regulate against Councils deliberately narrowing or closing sections of main roads. They must require speed limits to be proportionate and enforceable given the nature of the road. Very low speeds should of course apply near schools at the beginning and end of the school day and in locations where there are plenty of pedestrians seeking to share the road. Main roads with proper pedestrian crossings and light controlled crossings in built up areas do not need to be 20mph.
This Conference showed that many members want a low tax higher growth kind of Conservatism. We want the Government to succeed. We think that being a bit more Conservative is the way to get better answers for the country and to win back lost voters who after all voted for a Conservative Government in large numbers in 2019. To bring tax rates down and live with wonky Treasury models the Chancellor needs to slow the growth in public spending so the deficit does not carry on rising and is not thought to be rising by the Office of Budget Responsiblity.
Official figures reveal the shocking news that UK public services have suffered a dreadful fall of 7.5 per cent over three years in their productivity. This means around Ā£30bn extra to run the same services, before all the extra money also needed to pay for all the inflation on top. Ministers need to lead senior officials and chief executives throughout the public services to get back the lost productivity as a matter of urgency before going on to use new technology to boost productivity further. We do need extra medics, teachers and uniformed personnel but we need to run off some of the extra staff recruited to the civil service and similar roles in the quangos. Do this by staff freezes and natural wastage. Getting Ā£30 bn back would go a long way to let us cut taxes. Then the Treasury would find out once again that if you cut the tax rates you often get extra revenue as more people do more and pay more. The deficit comes down faster and your options improve.
The Conservative Party is a low tax party by instinct. It should back the strivers as well as the drivers. It should not only stop the small boats but help on the small businesses. It should offer a hand up not hand outs to those in need Ā who can flourish in work. It should be generous to those who through illness or disability need financial and other support. Conservative principles of opportunity, self discipline, choice and Ā freedom are still much needed.
The Government will become more popular if it applies more of these Conservative instincts to the challenges of our times. It is not against the rules to do popular things,. Conservatives do not need to be more right wing, or to become Ā some ideological cult. We need to show our commonsense, our humanity and our understanding that we need to work with the grain of human nature. It is the banners, the high taxers, the Government knows besters, the over Ā regulators who should be unpopular. The left are always telling us they know best, they are morally superior and we must do and say as they tell us. Conservatives should live and let live, help people live their dreams and make their own choices.
October 5, 2023
The Conservative party is NOT a low tax party by instinct. Thatcher was a low tax Conservative Prime Minister…others have been high tax Prime Ministers, fully aboard the big State, high tax model. Unfortunately this is continuing…
October 5, 2023
I think people exaggerate what a low-tax PM Thatcher was.
Anyway, politicians in the Western Europe have their hands fairly tied about low taxes. The main way – by far – to bring taxes right down is to try and instil the following Conservative values into society: work ethic, sense of personal responsibility, patriotism etc into people via church (look at how successful the Quakers have been), education, arts and media.
The main problem is collapse of Western civilisation – not politics. The last great battles here won here by Thatcher.
October 5, 2023
JR,
I find it difficult to find any factual basis for your blog. Fact and record show your hopes to be totally unfounded.
Tory and Labour conspired to stop Brexit and now they both will only allow Brexit in name only. Over 4,000 EU laws untouched only obsolete ones scrapped. Level playing fields ensure lock step to EU tune, vassal state your members called it. Sunak leads the way to stop the public mandate by giving away N.Ireland under his EU Windsor sell out. Sunak has tied UK to EU energy inter connectors making sure UK is locked in by linking our fishing waters to any further deal. We saw last week a EU court fined the whole of the UKā¬34 million for not complying with its rules and laws!! Sunak signed up to paying ā¬2.4 billion to Horizon to promote EU growth and competition (and EU weapons) hoping EU might award some of our money back to UK!! We voted leave 7 years ago to take back borders, laws and money!
Low tax party is simply dishonest. Fact and records over 70 years show otherwise against promises to electorate. Worse than Labour.
People in Small boats were going to be sent straight back under Johnson, Camps at our expense set up in Syria under Cameron. ECHR to be scrapped under Cameron, May and Johnson. All lies. Reduce immigration to tens of thousands umber Cameron. Osborne later told us no one in cabinet was serious in private. 1.2 million visas issued last year, a Tory party choice to allow āmass invasionā by Tory party against 14 years of saying the opposite. Again, lies.
Trafficking illegal immigration vile? Facilitated by RLNI, HM Navy and Border Force under Govt instruction!! Detention centres closed, which would stop criminals leaving during their application, Javid preferred four star hotels for them and was āproudā to announce closure of detention centres! Your view has no bearing to your govt. reality.
HS2 already reviewed by Shapps and Johnson when Sunak was chancellor holding the purse strings, why was it not stopped or project management changed? What faith can anyone have the money for up north will not be wasted the same as HS2? Sunak appears a complete idiot or peddler of untruths?
October 5, 2023
Well Thatcher should have cut more but then we had:- no 12% insurance tax, NI was lower, pensions paid far younger, tax and NI relief for private health care, income tax top rate 40%, stamp duty 1% top rate not 15%, no real limit on private pensions, CGT rates lower and with inflation indexation, interest for landlords was allowable as it needs to be, personal allowance were increased by inflation, No NI on benefits in kind… taxes hugely higher now. All sort of other back door tax grabs too.
October 5, 2023
And a massive realignment of thresholds. Made Lawson famous!
October 5, 2023
Basic rate tax was 33p in the pound when she took office. I can’t find a figure for 1989 but it was a lot less.
October 5, 2023
Mrs fishy introduces YOUR prime minister. Not hers, his name is Modi.
What a miserable speech with no substance or direction
Tax, ban and destroy. Well done Klaus.
October 5, 2023
On similar topic, ‘ Ministers need to lead senior officials and chief executives throughout the public services to get back the lost productivity as a matter of urgency before going on to use new technology to boost productivity further.’ I fell about laughing. If Sir J can name any minister in this government capable of carrying out this task, I’ll go sea swimming in December.
Sir J, we have a cabinet of talkers, lawyers, TV presenters, not experienced commercial managers. Waste and incompetence to continue.
Where was Rishi’s review of the nation’s MOST EXPENSIVE project ie Net Zero? Rishi can promise all he likes, his only major change to date is the Windsor Framework, and he egregiously misrepresented that.
October 5, 2023
He does not need to review net zero, itās over. Insurance of an EV is now Ā£5,000.00pa. That is the death knell. The Actuaries have to deal in facts. Just as the insurance industry won a case claiming a death was in fact a suicide because the deceased had taken the CV19 jab. They did not have to pay out.
Truth will put and the magical thinkers in Westminster will be constrained by reality failing all else.
October 5, 2023
Indeed and certainly not in reality Hunt just announced an increase in the minimum wage this to is a large tax grab 46% for back to government in Tax and NI unless allowances are increased.
I assume the sensible tax pledge Tory MPs will vote against this without allowance increases.
October 5, 2023
It is not up to government to make up poor wages, it is up to employers to pay the right amount and not rely upon their employees getting benefits to cover poor wage rates. That has been going on too long. If people earn more they pay more tax and the benefits bill fall, to all our advantage. I agree tax allowances are too low and are frozen for several more years. This is a gutless way to increase tax, but what else can you expect of a Chancellor with no knowledge of what he is doing. He did nothing to improve the NHS over his years in charge and is a failure. The Tories badly need a period in opposition to try to figure out what and who they are and maybe they will get back to doing better more popular things. They seem to think ‘populism’ is wrong. The wisdom of the masses is certainly better than the small cabal running the Tory party right now.
October 5, 2023
100% – do they not understand that business donāt print money? At minimum we need the VAT threshold moved to JRās preferred Ā£250k.
October 5, 2023
Good morning.
I do not have the time to take this apart, but will comment on this :
Those facilitating this are not the bad guys, it is those that are willing to pay others to enter my country illegally, those so called charities (mostly French and British government funded) who aid and campaign for them, and a useless government who keep blaming others or other things (eg the HRA) whilst at the same time house and reward those same criminals who enter my country and claim they wish to stop but, for whatever reason, never seem to manage it.
Funny how you can pass laws so quickly and without opposition when you want to, even going as far as locking up innocent people in their own homes, dismissing people from their jobs and denying them a living just because they will not take an unknown vaccine, not to mention denying people the ‘right to family life’ by by denying visits to dying relatives, all against the HRA,for no other reason because they can do so.
I could go on and on.
Total and abject failure.
October 5, 2023
There’s been a number of human rights lawyers on GB News saying that if the government wanted to stop the boats – they could.
By the way, the idea of banning smoking is a WHO initiative. Recently, New Zealand used the same method to ban smoking there, which prompted me to check.
Looking at reader comments yesterday, many people still seem to not believe the conservatives will DO what they say.
October 5, 2023
Who on earth would trust anything they say from Cast Iron low tax at heard Eurosceptic Cameron to inflation causer Sunak. Fool me once fool me thousands of times them who is the fool! Still waiting for Ā£1million IHT thresholds promised 15 years back by Ratter Osborne still Ā£325K now worth more like Ā£200K in real terms.
Was it not Sunak at Chancellor who funded all these soft worthless degrees with taxpayer soft “loans” often not repaid thus often grants. So universities in the UK cut by circa 75% then Rishi.
October 5, 2023
The smoking ban is extraordinary. Nanny State dictating to us, free choice a thing of the past. Save the NHS, will it?
As The Daily Sceptic notes “Smokers donāt cost the NHS money, they save it. A 2017 study from the Institute of Economic Affairs estimated a net saving of Ā£14.7 billion per annum at the rates of consumption at the time, with the costs smokers incurred significantly outweighed by the sum of tobacco duty paid and the old-age expenditures avoided due to premature mortality.”
October 5, 2023
+++ a million.
There is a very powerful set of people in this country (throughout all of Europe actually) who wish to change things irrevocably. The vile trade of human trafficking seems tailor made for their cause. I doubt much sleep is lost by any of them as to the full implications of what they are doing, be it for those they are using by encouraging them to set sail in the first place, or the long term effects to the heritage population here. They have a long way to fall and need to be careful who they meet on their way down.
October 5, 2023
The mass exodus from the south across the Med to western European will in due course lead to a smaller but significant exodus from the west(in a cultural sense) to the east-Russia will have the choice of immigrants to fulfil the potential of it’s vast spaces and resources.
I’m already noticing a number of blogs/vlogs by people who have already made the move.I’ve recently been watching excerpts from a Youtube channel called “Siberian Freedom” in which an extended Australian family who sold their farm in Australia to set one up in Siberia document their experiences.They appear to be loving it-and judging by comments from their viewers they are not the only ones;others ask “how can we do the same?”
October 5, 2023
+1
It is now very clear indeed the vast damage and net harm the Covid vaccines have done and are still doing!
October 5, 2023
Yes LL. And now clear evidence from several laboratories around the world that the ‘vaccines’ contain significent levels of contamination such as simian virus (SV 40) and DNA.
October 5, 2023
Correct in every respect.
The Government PAYS the “lefty human rights lawyers” to challenge it in the Courts. It PAYS France, which doesn’t stop the boats and refuses to accept returns. It PAYS the so-called Refugee “Charities” to oppose it. It PAYS the Border Farce and RNLI to ship them in. It PAYS Serco to provide services to criminal migrants. It PAYS the criminal migrants weekly benefits plus all the “free” services they get – most of which aren’t available to the taxpayers who fund them.
It PAYS Ā£8 million a day and rising just to accommodate them. It disgusts me, as does this Government.
October 5, 2023
‘Danegeld’ has never worked, but what do they care about the lessons of history. They repeat mistake after mistake without ever wondering why things go wrong. They think the boat invaders are ‘victims’ of the traffickers, not the criminals they really are. I’d like to have a spare 3 or more grand to spend – it would certainly help during the coming cold winter months, whilst they are cosy in hotels with full board, healthcare and pocket money.
October 5, 2023
+1
October 5, 2023
+1 Donna. ALL out of tax payers pockets.
October 5, 2023
Donna: Plus plenty ! Let’s see what the PM comes back with after today’s finally agreed ‘Anglo-Italian’ fringe meeting on the side lines of today’s European Political Community summit. Seems that the initially reluctant Mr Macron at the last minute decided to attend too despite reportedly considering it a PR stunt previously. Ursula will be there also. In the article I saw, likely deals with Belgium, Bulgaria and Serbia were referred to, in attempts to ramp up intelligence sharing and operations. UK Channel arrivals last 15 days 20/9-4/10 incl. Total 1334 / 24 boats.
Of those 15 days – 10 of those 15 days reported zero arrivals; weather not great.
October 5, 2023
+many.
Who would be stupid to believe anything they say. What confidence would anyone have any other Govt. project will run on time at cost to its conclusion! Tory govt is embarrassing our nation.
October 5, 2023
Donna :
Agreed.
The Government could stop the illegal migrants if it wanted to by simply turning round the boats back into French waters all those that contain migrants with no documentation.
No genuine asylum seeker would throw away their ID as they would want to prove from where they came and to show they are truly seeking asylum.
The 170,000 undocumented “asylum seekers” in the UK are a danger to our national security. Economic migrants are not neceessarily cultural migrants willing to integrate and accept our values.
October 5, 2023
“Funny how you can pass laws so quickly and without opposition when you want to, even going as far as locking up innocent people in their own homes, dismissing people from their jobs and denying them a living just because they will not take an unknown vaccine, not to mention denying people the āright to family lifeā by by denying visits to dying relatives, all against the HRA,for no other reason because they can do so.”
Very astute, and never questioned on the BBC, or even here.
October 5, 2023
Yes, and we have to wait months for a court to decide on Rwanda, all the time letting more and more in. Rwanda won’t work, but it would be good if the judges could get off their backsides and make a decision in days rather than months. The cases have already heard all the evidence, why does it take so long for the Supreme court to rule?
October 5, 2023
They acted quickly enough when Boris prorogued parliament and I don’t thin Gina Miller had much trouble getting her stuff heard and decided. Seems the government don’t want to rush to a failure they know is coming with Rwanda.
October 5, 2023
Yes. It was significant that neither the ECHR nor our army of human rights lawyers and charities lifted a finger when our right to a family life was removed at a stroke during Covid.
October 5, 2023
No money in it, that’s the reason.
October 5, 2023
ā Yet a year on it still goes on, with legal challenges to every attempt to decide cases against illegal arrivals, and to any suggestion that might make the UK a less attractive destination for these people.ā
The government have intention of stopping illegal arrivals. That would upset the globalists who are calling the shots.
Legal challenges, proposals to send them to Rwanda etc are all displacement activity to make it look as if government are attempting to address the issue.
October 5, 2023
The government have ‘no’ intention of stopping illegal arrivals?
October 5, 2023
JH,
Correct. āNoā mistakenly omitted.
October 5, 2023
Yes, good comment on that mealy-mouthed and intensely irritating sentence when the lives being risked by allowing and facilitating this invasion are those of the inhabitants of this country.
October 5, 2023
They are not ‘traffickers’ – they are not forcing anyone to take their boats. The criminals are the passengers and the Tories in 13 years of rule and with an 80 seat majority have made it abundantly clear that they care more for the criminal passengers than they do their own voters.
For this betrayal the Tories face extinction at the next election.
“There are many popular things the Government could do to win back lost Conservative voters and to find some new friends.” It really is too late because this will now look like desperation and ‘jam tomorrow’. Your party has shown its true colours and winks at its mates in boats and on the wrong side of the law whilst making false promises to its voters.
October 5, 2023
@Mark B – you forgot to mention the RNLI, that used to be my favoured charity before the new Woke extremely well paid Boss and his Buddy turned up. Here we have brave unpaid volunteers that go above and beyond to save lives at sea. Lots of people go out in rubber boats around the UK coast, but unless they get into difficulty they are left to their own devices. Yet a criminal in a rubber boat finds that the RNLI turns up just as they leave French waters, even though the boat is fully functional and not at risk. – You have to ask why? Who directed them to be there on call, especially as they should be somewhere else on their paying jobs.
October 5, 2023
Mark, it is like saying who is vile the drug dealer or the ones who buy the drug? Utter nonsense. There was never a war on drugs the govt and police turned a deliberate blind eye, but Sunak must ban smoking!!
How is cannabis mainly taken? Those Tory politicians who announced they took drugs might like to help Sunakās understanding. He does not drink alcohol so I suspect that is to be banned next. Sugar tax already in existence, not allowed to have hateful thoughts, not allowed to disagree with the state, can only protest against themes the govt. agrees with. Forced to take covid vaccines or lose your job. Smart metres so state can control your energy needs. Brainwash children of tender years they can be a man or woman or cat or whatever they choose to be!! Hmmm, what is not to like under this totalitarian cherished Chinese regime. Canāt wait for BOE to take control of my spending. JR would have us believe he is in a Conservative Party!! Oh, I know, it is everyone elseās fault.
October 5, 2023
Excellent advice, Sir John. Alas yours is a minority voice in the modern Conservative party. Your leadership often says similar things – because it studies the polls – but it does not believe in them.
October 5, 2023
The Prime Minister announced early on one popular thing he wants to do. He wants to stop the small boats.
Hereās a very novel idea USE THE BLOODY NAVY and not as some sort of dating agency bringing them to England, just turn them back if the French donāt like it tough we need to protect our own borders , and if by chance they do pick a few up š¤ then transport them to an overseas territory of the United Kingdom like say the Falkland Islands or some other out of reach destination
October 5, 2023
@Mick – What Navy? The UK Navy doesn’t have enough ships or men to protect the 2 white elephant carriers. Although there are quite a few people in the MOD with no real function.
October 5, 2023
Sunak obviously does not want to stop the small boats, but he does like to make speeches saying/lying that he want to. He just does not like actually doing anything to this end like leaving the ECHR and turning the boat back. He could stop them in days if he wanted to but he does not.
October 5, 2023
Mick, we cannot just turn them back. If the French wonāt take them – and they wonāt, and why should they – they are OUR problem. You should also realise that most countries in Europe are dealing with FAR FAR higher numbers than we are, geography protects us to a large extent.
October 5, 2023
It’s a pity Tories won’t explain to the public why Labour and the extremist Left yearn for high levels of net migration into the UK, from certain countries of course. I suppose that’s what happens to truth when the Marxists can whip out the race card to slander, demonise and criminalise. This weapon has destroyed open debate and destroyed the Tory party
The internal war against historical Britain, to dismantle it and rebuild it demands authoritarian imposition from the State. This is Marxism
October 5, 2023
Oh itās done more than that! It produced a āPrincess of the United Kingdomā who is not and has never been a Subject of the Monarch. Itās destroyed British culture.
October 5, 2023
IR35 for the self employed needs to be addressed/ removed. More paperwork for those trying to work.
October 5, 2023
Taxes need to be completely overhauled and simplified, and NI needs to be removed and incorporated into income tax.
NI on companies needs to be greatly reduced/ removed as it is a significant barrier to business.
October 5, 2023
If NI was incorporated into income tax, those of pension age would then have to pay it. How would the Conservative party’s voter base react to that?
October 5, 2023
But I still want to know WHY.
What is the true reason for this bizarre self-destruction?
Is there a death cult pulling the strings from afar?
It would surely be better to be a smokey, inward looking, industrial little island than this nightmare?
See Lampedusa. Eventually the reality of standing room only will catch up with the U.K..and how will that benefit anyone? And I mean literally shoulder to shoulder. And since they have let it get thus far..how can we trust that at some point sense/courage might kick in?
October 5, 2023
This always happens at the end of a culture. Rome could have saved itself, but did not bother. The U.K. (thatās ALL of us) have not bothered.
October 5, 2023
+++
How the mighty are fallen!
October 5, 2023
As we’ve come to see everything is in the wording to sell even the most unsaleable crud.
“small boats” replaces illegal migrants coming in by the thousands. Makes it sound more palatable to the public and less of a serious problem. A nice Sunday afternoon with a pond yacht, rather than one of the most serious issues of our time.
October 5, 2023
It also may evoke the little ships of Dunkirk for some people, and will due to the positive associations of that topic cause cognitive confusion. I wonder how the term came to gain so much traction.
October 5, 2023
Stop the boats. Turn them back to France. Without the customer base the traffickers cannot continue their trade.
As a bonus the lawyers too, have no new customers landing on the beaches.
October 5, 2023
The govt can do whatever it likes and make or get rid of any laws it chooses. It chooses not to and to follow UN,EU, WEF or any other global body.
October 5, 2023
Please be serious. France will not take them. We cannot force them to do so. They are our problem
October 5, 2023
Then let’s create a problem for the French, till they decide to stop effectively turning a blind eye to thousands of migrants creating a problem for us.
October 6, 2023
The best way if we cannot face doing it ourselves is to threaten their fishing in our waters, not pay Danegeld, asking them politely if they wouldn’t mind just doing us a bit of a favour. Fisherman rioting in Paris would have a bigger effect in concentrating Macron’s mind.
October 5, 2023
Then why do we ātake themā, why not make France try to āforce us to do soā? They are ALL from France. They must ALL go back.
October 5, 2023
The French and British Politicians have no real justification for not stopping the small boat crossings.
They have all the powers they need because the vessels ( the small boats ) are not seaworthy and the occupants are at risk once they leave the French beaches.
All it takes is additional patrol vessels to stop and pick up the occupants of the boats within French waters and return them to safety of the nearest French port.
The French are allowing the crossing to occur and ignoring the safety issue of travelling in their waters.
However it would not be unreasonable for the British to provide additional petrol vessels and crews to assist the French with this safety at sea problem to return the small boat occupants to the France the nearest shore/Port of safety. Even assist with port costs and admin to process the returned “migrant”
I guess the legal nicety is the small overloaded boat has to be in the water before action can be taken.
But there is big money, political and criminal influence behind the crossings otherwise they would have been stopped before it became a problem.
Back to who is really in charge of the UK? Not the majority of voters in this “Democracy ?” for sure.
October 5, 2023
While FPTP remains the UK’s voting system, it will probably remain a minority of voters rather than the majority. Vote shares of 35.2% and 36.9% have been enough to deliver “majorities” in recent general elections.
October 5, 2023
Whilst in PR systems parties hold power with much lower percentages.
October 6, 2023
No they don’t, they have to work to find common ground and compromises unless they are capable of winning the support of a majority by themselves (which is perfectly possible under a PR system if a particular party is up to the job of doing that).
October 5, 2023
No, the French are not ignoring the safety issue in their own waters. They escort the boats whilst they are in French waters to ensure that the criminals are safe and they message ahead to the Border Farce/RNLI to come and pick them up ….. usually when they get to British waters but sometimes, if the vessel gets into difficulties in French waters, to come and collect them from there.
There is no “ignoring” going on whatsoever: it’s co-ordinated.
October 5, 2023
You say you want to “stop the small boats by the specified means”. What “specified means”? The whole point is that you cannot tell the French and the Belgians what to do on their shores. In the EU we had processes to deal with this, now we don’t (and yes, this is all about Brexit – there were zero small boats before Brexit). I understand you want to fool people into thinking the problem here is human rights, but it isn’t, it is your party’s total lack of any plan to stop the boats, and we are not fools.
October 5, 2023
What does Switzerland do, being 100% surrounded by ‘Europe’ unlike us? Its wages are even higher than UK wages, providing more of a magnet to economic migrants, one would think. Its only ‘minus’ … people speak German, French or Italian and not English.
Anyone who still thinks that the EU as constituted (previously the EEC, then the ECSC) was and is a force for good should read books on its origins and true aims. They were very well-disguised. Its founders were deviously clever, I’ll grant them that.
In terms of the boats, I agree with the minister’s statement that being miserable or unhappy in itself does not provide justification for travelling to another country and claiming asylum. 20, 30, 40 years ago, surely such claims would have been rightly rejected.
October 5, 2023
āThey must cut off funding for anti motoring schemes. They must regulate against Councils deliberately narrowing or closing sections of main roads.ā
Indeed but the Conservatives have been encouraging and funding this war on motorists for years and still are doing!
October 5, 2023
Almost all one hears from all strains of Politics is BAN this ban that- he could not finish without a ban could he? BAN SMOKING- wht? Its well known what the consequences are, so that is all thats needed!
Nothing to the petty power wielders!
October 5, 2023
How about dangerous sports, should they be banned? How about flying? Driving a car? Horse riding appears dangerous to me, definitely rodeos that ought to be banned. May was going to ban pornography, that should go. May made snooper charter law to spy on everyoneās computer use. Steadily but surely JRs party is a totalitarian party and has Nothing to do with personal responsibility or choice.
October 5, 2023
That should be why! Sorry
Ban Smoking WHY!
October 5, 2023
MFD – why is Sunak banning smoking? Check out the WHO website! Thats why! Sunak’s been told to!
October 5, 2023
There are many advantages from the proposed smoking ban. For instance :
– Expanded black market and extra jobs for the police so less time to chase real crimes.
– Extra employment for the legal side – judiciary, social workers, prison officers, police etc. etc.
– Additional control on our lives. If successful then can introduce food rationing/diet control, which will be inevitable because of Net Zero, with the excuse that it will save lives/the NHS by curbing obesity and poor diet.
October 5, 2023
Sunak says his is going to cut out rip off degrees but Osborne, Hammond, Sunak and Hunt have been funding these duff degrees with soft student āloansā (often grants) for years is he really going to cut the crony university sector by about 75% as about this percentage are rip off and of little or no value.
October 5, 2023
LL,
Not EU students. Tories happy to provide free tuition for them at taxpayers expense and write off maintenance loans as there was no capacity to chase up around EU!!
October 5, 2023
@Lifelogic – and he also stated he wants to encourage more pointless lessons, the ones that encourage obedience and collective thought. He appears to be suggesting, logic, communicating and learning how to think, therefore learn has to be on the back boiler .
Was the old GCE, the old ‘advanced level’ broken? The answer was no, but I am a Politician a leader of the Country the PM, I have nothing else to do as my legacy so what else can I break.
October 5, 2023
LL :
Sunak should also call a halt to the 120,000 Chinese spies, sorry students, in our unversities stealing our IP/checking upon our research and whose money ensures the educational establishment are tuned in to the Chinese government’s wants and desires.
October 5, 2023
It’s rather sad. Your Party has disappeared and is just not conservative. A very few true Conservatives are left floundering and gasping, like doomed fish in a drying-up lake.
October 5, 2023
@Wanderer +1
October 5, 2023
But remember that most of the people in the country ARE Conservative. The red wall proved that. We have a small problem centred on Greg Hands to claims in an X to ābe central officeā.
October 5, 2023
The smoking by age lunacy and forcing people (who do not wish to) to study English and Maths post 16 to 18 are both daft policies.
October 5, 2023
āIām getting another irresistible urge to ban something again – what does my Special Advisor Team recommend?ā
āWell you obviously mustnāt ban the use of the Border Force and Lifeboats from rescuing illegals in the Channel. How about a year on year ban on (declining) youth smoking which will inspire the electorate to vote for you?ā
āOKā
October 5, 2023
MPC +1
So very true, the cancel, ban, spend and tax new age of Conservatism. No freedoms, no Free Speech, no Free Enterprise, no time to balance the books, no time to audit spend. Oh, that right no time to be a Conservative.
October 5, 2023
You want to live and let live, but then say the Councils should be regulated more on their motoring policies.
Why not let Councils keep the business rates they collect, and leave it to local democracy how they run their domain?
If councillors want to impose road congestion, let them be voted out of office.
October 5, 2023
Because Council’s bleed business dry. Trafford Park employed more people per ft2 than anywhere else on earth. The Council taxed to the point that not one business survived. Now itās a tax-free shopping centre – consuming rather than producing!
October 5, 2023
Simply stop legal aid for illegals, why is the taxpayer funding legal aid for people who have no right to be here, who have deliberately destroyed all of their paperwork, which may prove who they are and where they came from.
Stop funding the so called Charities who are funding and promoting this illegal action/trade.
Return Illegals with no paperwork immediately, do not even let them stay/be held in this country for more than 24 hours.
The answer is to take simple and rapid action, with them to be held in a totally secure environment before their immediate return.
Going on Holiday legally with a passport which is deemed out of date (Over 10 Years from Issue) even though it has not expired, because you replaced it early and before the original expiry date, and you will not be allowed to travel, and you will be refused entry.
Seems like one rule and punishment for the legal, and another for the illegals who do not even have a passport, or identity of any kind. WHY ?
October 5, 2023
We don’t need to fund legal aid for illegal migrants. There seems to be plenty of sympathy from human rights lawyers, so they are welcome to do the work pro bono.
October 5, 2023
Return them TO WHERE? No country will take them. Thatās the WHOLE point
October 5, 2023
You canāt return them – France wonāt take them back. You need to turn them back as soon as they enter UK territorial waters.
October 5, 2023
Mark Harper Transport Sec. (PPE yet again) just now on GB news:- this fool either thinks EVcars ādecarboniseā car transport or he is just lying perhaps. EVs actually increase CO2 compared to keeping your old car longer if you do the sums properly. I thought you were a trained accountant (but not a carbon accountant it seems). We do not even have any spare low carbon electricity to charge them with either and even if we did they still make no sense in CO2 terms. This as so much fossil fuel goes into building them and mining making their rather short lived batteries. Very expensive to insure too as the batteries are so easily damaged and highly flammable batteries too. So the cars get written off often for small crashes or even pot hole or kerb damage.
October 5, 2023
So are these 50 (?) tax pledge Tory MPs going to vote against Hunts tax grab increasing the minimum wage without increasing thresholds. This means 46% of the wage increase will end up as even more tax for this dire government to waste.
October 5, 2023
2 promises. One good one bad. Neither delivered, alongside myriad others.
I think we’ve had enough of this guy’s promises.
October 5, 2023
There is no evidence that the Conservative Party is a low-tax party by instinct.
The only low-tax by instinct Prime Minister they have produced in my lifetime was Margaret Thatcher. And when The Establishment thought they might possibly have got another one which they didn’t want in Liz Truss, they engineered a financial crisis and a coup, replacing her with two rejects from the recent leadership contest with no votes allowed.
I give Sunak one cheer for cancelling the second stage of the HS2 White Elephant. But we’re still on the hook to waste roughly Ā£70 billion on the Euston to Birmingham leg.
I’ve never smoked; it is a stupid, harmful habit. But then there are plenty of other stupid, harmful habits people do, which are not and shouldn’t be criminalised. I look forward to seeing our illiberal, authoritarian, hypocritical, nannying, arrogant MPs voting to make middle-aged ADULTS produce proof of their age in order to buy tobacco. Because that’s what the Health Fascists want with their rolling ban on 18 yr olds being allowed to buy them: they want to humiliate ADULTS. Nudge, nudge, nudge …. kick.
The Health Fascists are still in control and I predict they’ll come for adults who dare to drink alcohol next.
October 5, 2023
@Donna – Margaret Thatcher knew how to balance the books, knew how to control expenditure. Basically if you (The Government) earn’t it you had it to spend.
The 70 year high on tax grabs the headline, but how about the total amount the UK government national debt is growing to bail out the failure to govern, currently about Ā£2.59 trillion. – it is the Taxpayer that will be paying this Conservative Government debt way into the future. That debt isn’t Covid, it isn’t Ukraine it is far to extreme for any of those hiccups, it is simple an inept Conservative Government maliciously punishing the electorate, rather than ‘manage’ and control their expenditure
October 5, 2023
All good stuff SJR, but who in your party is listening, will it all be in visible and audible process by Christmas. My judgement will be based on precisely what they do.
If there are, begining 9th October, meetings covering Network Rail, Northern Cities and Government to establish priorities , costs, and a timed programme for the PMs stated desire to modernise the infrastructure north of Manchester to the Scottish border, I will concede it is not just rhetoric.
When our Supreme Court makes up its mind as to the legitimacy of Rwanda and follows it with a message to the ECHR and threat that they butt out or suffer cancellation, I will accept that we are serious on illegal immigration.
Producing ICE cars to 2035 is not a solution, just a gesture. I want to see a plan to use our own energy at affordable prices, free of world pricing cartels, until we have a string of SMRs and reliable power sources working. I want serious investigation into hydrogen for transport and domestic industrial fuel. I want investigation free of vested interests on the viability of water as a fuel via electrolysis to produce hydrogen within vehicles that ultimately fuels them. Check out the various claims on YouTube.
It is only then will I believe we have a goverrnment that is thinking and doing Conservative.
October 5, 2023
This government has compounded so many of its bad decisions that it wastes even more time and our money trying to correct its own mistakes.
The current PM is also deceptive, such as claiming to Beth Rigby of Sky News on the eve of the Conservative Party Conference that he had not decided whether to cancel HS2 after he had already enacted the process, as she revealed.
Honesty? No!
Integrity? No!
Accountability? He needs dumping now and replaced with someone sensible.
October 5, 2023
Bloke, I second that motion.
October 5, 2023
Dear Bloke, Sir John’s posting of the detailed plans confirms your point. The planned anti-tobacco rules are equally deceptive.
October 5, 2023
Unfortunate that the teeny steps towards conservatism had to be spoiled by a blinking smoking ban.
For goodness sake.
Maybe being reported for a joke will throw a little cold water over the do-gooding instinct?
October 5, 2023
The case for rail capacity is immediately apparent to those whose stations you will have passed through but not stopped at on the journeys you made. I grew up in one of those towns, a town similar in size in population to Earley. The train service it receives is mediocre (maximum 1 per hour) and hasn’t changed since the 1960s/70s. It can’t because the track capacity is used up by the sort of trains you were using to get from London to Manchester and back, and which don’t stop at that town and many others on those lines, so constrain the service those towns can receive while providing no benefit to them.
HS2 offered the hope of an improved service by taking those long distance trains off the existing lines, freeing up that capacity, offering the opportunity to give that town and many others in the Midlands and the North the sort of more frequent, more modern train service that those of us who live in the South East expect and take for granted and which, when offered, generates traffic (the Elizabeth line is now carrying 50% more passengers than was originally forecast, for example).
Thanks to this government, that town and many others like it will now remain stuck with that 1960s/70s service.
There’s nothing in the “Network North” proposals that will make any difference to the train service for that town. I’ve checked.
October 5, 2023
Itās all talk about the boats John, nothing more. Weāve heard it all before and nobody believes Sunak or indeed Braverman anymore. They could stop the boats tomorrow if the political will was there but it isnāt and we are becoming a laughing stock, paying the French hundreds of millions to help them on their way to our Border Force rushing out to escort them in and onto 4 star hotels. Not to mention the security risk to our women and our citizens in general if just one of them happens to be an Isis or Taliban member. The first job of the state is to protect its people and this Government are failing miserably. And it isnāt just illegal immigration that is the problem. Itās so called legal immigration as well. Over ONE MILLION people were welcomed into this country last year by your Government. Who gave them permission to do this? No-one. No wonder our infrastructure is at busting point. When I visit my son in London or relatives and friends up north, I no longer recognise my country. No one voted for this. No one in England was asked if they wanted their country to be the most overpopulated multi diverse nation in Europe. Blair deliberately opened the floodgates and your pathetic party have opened them even further.
As for HS2, why do your party not recognise there is more to the south than London as important as London is. Sick of hearing about the poor old north who get more money flung at them along with the devolved nations than those of us in the South West of England or indeed places like East Anglia. It takes 5 1/2 long tortuous hours on the train to London from where I live stopping at every lamp post in Cornwall before even reaching Devon. I would love for a politician, maybe my dopey Tory MP, to ask for a quicker connection but then hey weāre not red wall voters or traditional Labour voters so we donāt matter.
You say āThe Government will become more popular if it applies more of these Conservative instincts to the challenges of our times.ā
Impossible John. You know full well that the majority of your parliamentary colleagues donāt have a Conservative instinct in their bodies. They are not Conservatives by any chalk of the imagination. You are now a minority in the faux Conservative Party headed by a pair of smirking big state, high tax, money wasting rich boys who are totally out of the tune with those they were elected to represent.
October 6, 2023
I returned to your column after a long time away because I always believe you to be one of the decent MPs, a rarity nowadays but youāre no better than the rest of them John. Do you know how long it takes and with how much passion some people want to share their views on this page but only if it meets the censorās approval, ie. donāt be too critical of his pathetic party or their fake MPs. Itās very frustrating to find something that someone has taken the trouble to write in moderation until of course it is too late for anyone else to see it let alone have an opportunity to discuss.
October 5, 2023
“The train was practically empty”
Something to do with the impasse between HMG and RMT/ASLEF perhaps?
“Where is the case based on capacity for this new train line?”
A bit like arguing there is no case for road improvements in or around the London area, now that ULEZ has stopped all but essential London centric car use for most people! Capacity issues on the WCML was the one real issue that called for an alternate railway route, but at a much cheaper price tag. The europhiles in Whitehall & Brussels though wanted the UK railway network to be better integrated with the rest of the EU so *High Speed* 1 and then 2 were conceived; a solution for non existent problems, the UK did not need to fully integrate with the EU high speed rail network, for one thing the CT ownership and operating rules prevent such integration, hence why German DB ICE trains have not been allowed to run into London St Pancras despite a wish by DB.
So there was never a need for higher speeds in the UK than Network Rail already deliver, yet that is what all the main political parties at Westminster sold this project on, NOT capacity, ‘From London, arrive in Birmingham with enough spare time to have another cup of coffee, arrive in Manchester with enough spare time to have a coffee and sandwich’ sort of sales nonsense, although it wasn’t put quite that way, and then Mr Johnson tacked his Leveling Up agenda to it…
October 5, 2023
Doesn’t this sum up as a party that has lost it’s way?
The decision – at last, to cancel part of HS2 was so long winded. What was the government doing here – ‘preparing us’ for that final answer.
It seems the Markets have no renewed faith in what was said at conference – The FTSE all share index, for example, has continued to go down with no sign of a recovery.
Likewise most people will feel the same – deflated, for there was little to inspire, and very little, sorry Nothing to encourage me to vote Tory again.
When the PM was talking about long term planning and so forth, it seemed that he was talking as a WEF puppet rather than the leader of this great country, now decaying from abuse.
October 5, 2023
The conservatives haven’t been low tax though John.
Hunt really should focus on raising the personal tax allowance in line with inflation. Let people keep more of their own money to spend on their rent and mortgages. I’d prioritise this over any inheritance tax changes, IR35 changes,
Other taxes that rose high 62% (It will be 71% for those with student loans that have the ridiculous interest of over 7% applied now thanks Osborne) rates over Ā£100,000 with the removal of the personal allowance a particularly sneaky move by Brown in 2016 (people don’t see Labour’s moves until it is too late) it wasn’t reversed. The public doesn’t seem to know about this and is told by Labour the rich big earners are ready for more plucking.
Osborne brought in the High-Income child benefit charge in 2013 withdrawing child benefits from families with one higher rate taxpayer, even though childcare costs have skyrocketed for those families.
Frozen VAT thresholds and tax thresholds.
Corporation tax rates 19% for people making less than Ā£50,000 stepped up to 25% over Ā£250,000
The dividend tax threshold was halved by Hunt, this follows a previous halving of the allowance.
Introduction of Insurance Premium Taxes 2011.
October 5, 2023
@a-tracy; But not everyone has, or can make use of, personal tax allowances. If you want people to “keep more of their own money” then surely the best & fairest method is for the Chancellor to reduce sales taxes and indirect non-discretionary taxes; such as VAT, Fuel duty, VED, Council Tax, UBR etc, and of course the BBC television tax…
October 5, 2023
Are you talking about net benefit recipients?
October 6, 2023
@a-tracy; I would reply but several attempts have been rejected!
October 5, 2023
Why do we still get ridiculous headline statements? After the cancellation of the top end of HS2 which we expected we then we hear the Ā£36bn saved on that will be spent somewhere else. Where and on what exactly? What exactly is the need? Where does the money we can’t afford now come from for new project? There is no plan yet. How does he therefore know that that much money is needed on the northern lines to solve the ‘problem’? He doesn’t – it just to fool the naive. What will happen if the east/west only costs Ā£20bn? Will he just go on spending on anything just to spend the money? Will the contractors and designers just quote massive prices because they know they will get away with it?
Just how stupid can he get with such grand statements and how stupid does he think we are? Why don’t we get speeches with sensible detail and analysis?
October 5, 2023
@TPZ; “how stupid does he think we are”
Not very, I suspect. Of course Sunak, as a previous chancellor, could have per-announced the next budget, promising tax cuts; now that would have been to assume the vast majority of voters are not only “stupid” but gullible too…
As for what, where, the DfT published a flood of press releases yesterday afternoon on just this, and despite the DfT website headline, the announced projects are not all in, or about, the North and Midlands, they cover the entire UK. I can tell you many in my own (south east) region will be please to see some long standing but ‘non-budgeted’ road improvement schemes mentioned, industry and commerce is crying out for these infrastructure projects that only the DfT can deliver, start your bulldozers (please)!
October 5, 2023
The reason that Councils hide behind the hectoring and badgering of those that need to use our roads, is because those same Councils have failed in their duties over many decades to improve their local infrastructure, so have in fact caused the problems.
October 5, 2023
I think Labour will focus on housebuilding next week. People should look at the Labour Council’s idea of ‘affordable’ housing estates, I have several nearby, ugly small windowed boxes all close together, they like to call them after nature although there is nothing naturally nice to look at, the roads are always left a mess, ugly brick substations built right next to the road, it takes them a lot longer to build them than normal builders take, there is one that seems to have stalled for a year or more it was supposed to be complete in 2022 (public projects always seem to overrun). 50 homes started in 2019! All are funded by Homes England although to listen to Labour your government spends nothing, they take all the credit locally instead, why aren’t the HAs funding them, they make enough money in rent.
All these homes are always built in a struggling Labour-run town with a failing high school that isn’t big enough now! There is a derelict old school that could be used as a lower school, no joined-up thinking at all, the building just left with broken windows for years and the town just keeps voting for them.
October 5, 2023
Penny Mordaunt’s Party-Conference speech was the biggest load of embarrassing sh-t I’ve heard in a while.
She’s obviously going for PM [FACE SLAP].
Can we please get some properly qualified Tory MPs who have done basic things like done a Business Plan as well as have reasonable experience in Business Development and Leadership.
October 5, 2023
Party Conference should be all about discussing how to get better Tory qualified MPs into Parliament instead of listening to the likes of Penny Mordaunt (if her speech is completely embarrassing to committed Tories such as me – imagine the impact it’s going to have on wavering voters ..).
October 5, 2023
ED M
Yes rather over the top all this fighting comment, when all they have done is surrender the UK to others!
October 5, 2023
I’ve always been mystified by the praise heaped on Mordaunt;that picture of her carrying the sword at the Coronation made me think more of a modern-day Carmen Miranda than a statesperson in the making.
October 6, 2023
She’s go no business experience – in setting up a company and leadership.
My local bank manager would make a better PM than her (she’s just a good actress).
October 5, 2023
Calling a halt to part of HS2 is entirely the fault of the shysters who’ve ripped off the taxpayer.
Unfortunately the Tory party now has the reputation of putting rich shysters first – be it furlough fraud, off shore tax avoidance, covid contracts….
Instead you’re forced to tax ordinary people.
The party that uses Tax Less and Stop Banning things (except XL Bullies) will be on better grounds.
October 5, 2023
I suppose it’s a snowball’s chance in hell that anyone at the Conservative Party conference has mentioned the expulsion of the hundred thousand Christian Armenians from Artsakh in the last ten days.
October 5, 2023
Unfortunately their PM give Nagorno-Karabak up – recognising it as belonging to Azerbaijan. He is a WEF stooge. Nobody can do anything to help them in those circumstances.
October 5, 2023
Sir John’s post today highlights his ( and my ) views on how this Government should prioritise its affairs and win back public support . I watched Sunak’s speech and was impressed . HS2 is – and was , a mistake , it has cost the public an outrageous sum and should never have been approved in the first place . The other substitutes Sunak referred to are sensible and much more likely to integrate the country as well as the North .
Illegal migration is beyond a joke and any outside influence on our ability to stop it must be ignored . The whole of Europe is in turmoil on this issue and the ECHR no longer must decide how our laws decide . The sooner flights begin the better .
Sunak must now re-align his Cabinet to include the talent capable of winning the voters ; time is running out .
October 5, 2023
Sir John, as you have previously suggested the whole of the UK Rail Network is in desperate need of upgrading, digitally and so on, so as to improve volumes and efficiencies. The aim to move more people around effectively. The cost would be lot less than so far spent on going from no where to no where. Although you have to question this Conservative Governments motives all around on rail travels, it turns out it is they that has ordered the closure of ticket offices at rail stations. Is that to deter the causal user and force them to use cars?
I was amused at one of the complaints when the rumours of HS2 cancellation was muted, the head of the Japanese operation that was to bring the trains and components into the UK said it was a mistake and sends out the wrong message. Read between the lines, Japan was going to loose out on all that UK Taxpayer funded manufacture, in Japan. Again this Conservative Government has been focused on funding foreign manufacturers with UK Taxpayer money at the expense of our home grown companies. This Conservative Government should listen to the US and even the EU, taxpayers money as a funding/subsidy mechanism goes to those Organisations that are based, homed, contribute to the Country, that Taxpayer money is handed out to – they do not fund foreign entities with Taxpayer money as a general rule. The scenario being the money stays in the country, the system gets to around to be used in the future. That is not this Conservative Governments preferred mode, they seek and encourage the export of UK Wealth ahead of nurturing UK enterprise. If you contribute to the UK economy you are the first to be overlooked.
This Conservative Government feeds and plays into the hands of those that weaponise trade.
October 5, 2023
A while back I was required to attend a meeting in Manchester, travelling from Wokingham. Yes there is a train that goes that way ā that train was ’empty’. Then again very, very expensive(others were paying)
October 5, 2023
Why are we doing net-zero if the sea level rise ISN’T rising …see details on ‘not a lot of people know that’
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/10/04/nothing-to-sea-here-folks/
The evidence is out there
October 5, 2023
You would think we had a reformed Scrooge at the lectern. Current minimum wage Ā£10.42 – raised to Ā£11.00.
A massive 5.5% increase! These very low paid workers will certainly not rush out to celebrate, knowing it comes with paying more taxes…
October 5, 2023
The increase is paid by their small-business-owning employees! This is the Government spending other peoples money without even taking it first!
October 5, 2023
I am not sure where criminalising smoking fits in with all this. It has not been possible to stop drug taking, so why should tobacco be any easier to deal with? We look like having a re-run of Prohibition in the USA, with a similar result at the end of the day.
October 5, 2023
Addendum , I have just read the announcement from Bailie that ” He got it wrong “. Sir John has highlighted in the past many times that the BoEs decisions could not be trusted and the consequent influence on the economy was bad . It only goes to show that the Treasury should not be biased by the decisions of the BoE .
October 5, 2023
The BOE joined in Project Fear on the instruction of the Treasury. They all knew they were lying!
But they could not fool the British people.
They should think about that.
October 5, 2023
You are right again, but who is listening? The Chancellor should not reduce public spending increases and should cut it back dramatically. Freeze Civil Service recruitment now, make 430,000 redundant and watch productivity go up. Conservatives are low tax by instinct, I think not! Sorry, but all our PMs and Chancellors since 2010 have put taxes up!
What they do speaks so loudly I can’t hear what they say!
Also, why not cancel HS2 before the conference and get it out of the way? Does no one in Conservative HQ understand basic PR?
October 5, 2023
Unless the foundation education is sound, you cannot push standards in higher education. A family member has just become a teacher in a preparatory school in Wakefield. She has the speakers of 9 different native languages in her class who have no English. The Schools inspectorate asked how she communicated with them! Donāt they KNOW you canāt communicate with people who speak a different language?
By being ākindā to these 9 types of foreigners, we have sacrificed the education of our own children because the classroom is DOMINATED by the teacher trying to communicate with gesticulation etc with the foreigners.
My relation uses her income to send her own children to the local public school.
October 5, 2023
You keep wittering on about the ‘criminal gangs’ and what a nasty bunch of ***tards they are. You keep pleading that you are trying to ‘fight the criminal gangs who are making money’ and so on.
Hey, why not STOP THE BOATS! Simply get a couple of Royal Navy boats in the middle of the English Channel with a giant net/pontoon between them, put some drones up and stop the boats. Make it quite clear that people will not be allowed to land ILLEGALLY in our country and turn them around. Make it quite clear to the French that you are going to do this. Full stop. No mucking about. No backtracking. It is ILLEGAL for people to enter our country as they are doing – in their thousands. The RNLI is aiding and abetting this criminal behaviour – why aren’t they prosecuted for breaking the law?
October 5, 2023
Dear Sir John,
The Prime Minister must know that the proposed generational tobacco ban is not what it seems. It is the means by which campaigners aim to achieve “smoke-free Britain” by 2030 by cutting off supplies.
Exact date-of-birth recognition, unlike 18+ evidence, seems to require a passport or driving licence. As it kicks in after 2027, with suitable penalties, supermarkets will progressively decide that their cigarette trade not worth the candle. Corner shops that rely on the trade will hang on for a few years longer but, a few prosecutions later, will give up.
As a pipe-smoker, I have had to rely on on-line mail-order for almost a decade, because previous measures killed off nearly all tobacconists. As far as I can tell, adult age recognition under the Online Safety Act will depend on cyber-analysis of selfies. But that will not provide adequate date-of-birth confirmation so, barring some new cheap technology, the mail-order trade also would rapidly die out.
By 2035, if not earlier, pipe tobacco would have disappeared (along with a world-renowned Lake District manufacturer), while cigarettes become a gang-run black market in smuggled imports. Enough to drive one to drink – if still available.
October 5, 2023
Your piece quoted here from Conservative home was inspirational, Sir John,
It is not against the rules to do popular things. “Conservatives do not need to be more right wing, or to become some ideological cult. We need to show our commonsense, our humanity and our understanding that we need to work with the grain of human nature.” I agree totally.
Only by grace, are we able to achieve this – in effect – to fulfil the Two Great Commandments- to love God, and our neighbour as ourselves. So often in our history, we have, albeit falteringly, achieved this. It is in the areas we have failed we so desperately need to get back on track. Although the Church should be leading the way, the door is open to every one of us through Christ’s cross, to repent, to dedicate our lives to God, and to pray for help and guidance. What a difference that would make! But current world events show that whatever happens, He will have the last word, through his ‘Risen, Conquering Son.’