Judging Labour, Lib Dem and SNP by how good they have been in opposition reveals how they badly let the country down. Instead of opposing the three worst policy errors of the last four years, they supported them and wanted more of them .
The three biggest errors were putting us into too comprehensive and long a lockdown in response to COVID, backing the Bank of England policy of a big inflation followed by a technical recession, and wanting to close down fossil fuel power stations before we have enough renewable power we can rely on.
Worse still their failure to understand these errors means going forward they want to reinforce the right of the Bank of England to go on getting it hopelessly wrong. They want faster moves to close our gas power stations we rely on, and switch us to even more import dependence.
The Opposition failed to vote with those of us who said the state should take measures to protect the elderly and vulnerable over COVID but allow more people to go to work to keep things going. They failed to vote with us to end the measures earlier. This came with a big bill to subsidise people and business when they were banned from working.
The Opposition missed the obvious way Bank of England excessive money creation and bond buying in 2021 would be inflationary. They probably cheered in private when destroying money by cutting its bonds and hiking rates led to a technical recession the following year. Why do they like these wild lurches of policy with predictably bad outcomes?
Worst of all Opposition parties want to shut down many of our power stations without solving our shortage of grid, resolving how to store renewable electricity when it is abundant, or how to offset the coming big fall in nuclear power as stations close.
June 12, 2024
Indeed.
But other massive Tory errors they supported were the coercing of dangerous Covid âVaccinesâ even into children and those who had had covid already this was an even larger error than the ones you mention. HS2, the whole net zero lunacy in total, the Windsor Accord, the fracking bansâŠ
Even a short compulsory lockdown was a major error, let alone the absurdly long one they inflicted on the country. Other surely criminal errors were letting the MRHA largely funded by Big Pharma regulative so called âVaccinesâ what could possible go wrong here?
June 12, 2024
âregulateâ I meant.
âThe Bank of England excessive money creation and bond buying in 2021 would be inflationary.â How could it not be? All this under Sunak as Chancellor then Sunak has the cheek to complain about the economic mess he inherited as PM (from himself as Chancellor).
A pathetically wet manifesto Suank. What had he got to lose by not being far more bold. He wonât even have to deliver anyway? He should have said on day one I will abolish IHT, cut taxes overall by at least 10%, abandon the insanity of net zero in full and the CforCC, slash immigration to net zero and cut the size of government accordingly. Also did the sick joke Covid Inquiry and have a real one to cover the vast Vaccine Harms and any corruption & criminal negligence within the regulatory system.
June 12, 2024
Continued predictable rant on vaccine failure. One proved problematic, the rest seemed to work and continue in use. Question is, what would you have done as
the king of hindsight faced with the totally unknown. There are times when being a barrack room lawyer wears thin.
June 12, 2024
Well the most obvious few things are have honest independent people regulating the approvals and ensuring the trials are conducted honestly, the new tech and hastily approved âvaccinesâ are not given to people who certainly had zero need for them like the young and those who had had vaccines. Certainly not regulators funded or individuals paid by or even bought by big Pharma?
Also that problems are picked up early in the roll out and the vaccines withdrawn quickly. Very serious problems with the vaccines were picked up very early in many places like Japan. Very serious batch variations were evident too which showed certain batches were extremely dangerous compared to others. They certainly were not remotely safe and effective.
June 12, 2024
In fairness to LL, it was not hindsight. He and others here supported Barrington Declaration.
Those with vested interests smeared, lied and overwhelmed the debate. They should now be held accountable but the useless expensive inquiry is a pure sham. Sweden, Florida, South Dakato also made it clear protect ill health vulnerable and elderly the rest carry on.
Johnson started from that position but he is too weak and caved to Whitty, Valance Farrer et el. That is why WHO treaty should be bluntly rejected.
June 12, 2024
Sorry I meant those who had had Covid already (not vaccines)
June 12, 2024
It was a war, we did not have the luxury of the normal verification period for drugs. The two vaccines by origen, I had over six doses had no negative effects. None of my friends suffered either. War produces casualties, sad but the hard reality.
June 12, 2024
As it is admitted that the âbio-weaponâ was created by the USA (Fauci) they knew EXACTLY what it was and had the antidote, Ivermectin, which they banned after 40 years on the shelf, before announcing the âpandemicâ.
1/3 of British people took no vaccine. Amazing how many of us had foresight.
The sustained excess deaths gives the lie to the fatuous claim that âmillions of lives were savedâ. Read some of the academic papers for heavens sake, produced before the mass rollout of âvaccinesâ. They unleash cancer – 4 member of the Royal Family have cancer and all were vaccinated, for example.
When this is properly examined it will make Horizon look like a tea party.
June 13, 2024
Must be at least 50 times the scale of the contaminated blood scandal. Doubtless they will have to fight for 40+ years too. Those that are still alive anyway.
June 12, 2024
A manifesto like that would appeal to about 15% of those that bother to vote.
June 12, 2024
Well rather more than the one he actually has publish then. Had they actually delivered these sensible policies the economy would not be in the dire mess it is due to Cameron, May, Boris, Sunak.
June 12, 2024
+ 1
June 12, 2024
Itâs not a matter of bothering, I just canât work out how to vote, I canât support any of the candidates. I may be forced, for the first time, to refuse to vote.
June 12, 2024
I certainly cannot vote for pushers of net zero or people who say the vaccines were unequivocally safe as they are either very ignorant/stupid or liars. So that rules almost all of them out.
June 12, 2024
LA,
I have had conversations, via this forum, with our host on this subject in the past.
When Mr Cameron, as he was then, took over the party as “Heir to Blair,” I felt I was no longer able to support his party… The party appeared as David Cameron’s Conservatives on the ballot paper. I very much was a supporter of our host and asked, how could I vote for Sir John, without Mr Cameron taking that vote as approval of his leadership. Sir John said that you are voting for the individual and not the party. I knew what he meant but found it hard to accept the point he made.
With Sir John now stood down, I cannot vote for BluLabour under Mr Sunak.
It’s a tough one isn’t it?
June 13, 2024
I can’t work out how to vote either.
I can’t vote for Sunak. I said at the time of his coronation, there was no election! All the key MPs that supporting him were quick to stand down, now why would that be?
Sunak was a mistake, and he doesn’t believe in anything. Osborne says the loss is the swing to the right. What swing? Osborne also says we’re stopping students from the world from coming here. What a lie. We’re stopping dependents, not people paying their own way for three years. We’ve stopped funding the thousands of EU students who were coming for free in parts of our nation and with UK loans in England.
The opposition didn’t oppose because all the big things implemented would have been proposed by a socialist left-wing government, from higher corporation tax to freezing personal allowances, it’s ironic the left are playing this now.
Lammy said Brexit voters are worse than Nazis. All of the rejoiners are getting very excited about Starmer, they seem to believe we are about to join a special club, one no doubt where we pay in all the time and accept everything thrown at us to fund.
Reform are a bunch of inexperiened squabblers, who, for example would be their foreign secretary, their chancellor, their health minister? The reason all the debates feature Nigel is because it’s a one-man show.
June 12, 2024
These were all conservative policies driven through with an 80 seat majority
It’s your government that cheered when we blew up coal fired stations. It was your government that led to the most expensive electricity in Europe
You agreed to pay windmill owners if you had to switch them off bur you failed to fine them when they didn’t produce.
Everything you did was at the expense of the consumer
June 12, 2024
Indeed letâs screw the tax payers and the consumers. Let us undercut their wages, push up house prices, increase taxes hugely, make them pay a fortune for energy, devalue their saving and increase crime and destroy social cohesion hugely too with vast open door (legal and illegal) immigration too.
June 12, 2024
Electricity at grid scale cannot be economically stored. It should be produced according to demand with a base load provided by reliable means such as nuclear. Why bankrupt the country chasing rainbows which cannot exist. No battery ever produced can keep the grid going for days on end when the windmills don’t turn and the sun does not shine. We need to ditch this nonsense and get back to reliable, affordable energy and that isn’t the renewables so far invented. We produce next to nothing in emissions anyway, so politicians stop trying to virtue signal how wonderful you are (you ain’t) and get your heads out of the clouds of which you know nothing and do what we pay you to do – govern for the people of this country, not the rest of the world who don’t give a fig what we do anyway and are far more sensible than you lot.
June 12, 2024
Well it can be as a pile of coal, tank of gas or oil (or if you must a pile of wood which is less efficient). Then generate only as and when needed. The problem only arrises as they now generate electricity (paid for with idiotic subsidies) when it is not needed. Probably best used by smart meters to charge up cars, fork lifts, heat houses up over night or over-chill industrial freezers a bit this saving doing it later. But stop building more wind and Solar. Wind together battery storage is economic and environmental lunacy. Solar particularly bad as you nearly all of the electricity in summer around lunchtime when least needed.
June 12, 2024
Tory Govt. Paying farmers not to grow food after promising to give farmers money once out of the EU Cap!! How does anyone with an ounce of intelligence in Govt. think this is a good idea while importing 4 million people!!
Tory Govt. stopped tax exemption for red diesel for farmers to make growing food more expensive!
Give away our fishing waters to EU and link any future deal to energy while increasing inter connectors to hostile EU who threatened to cut off Channel Islands electric if fishing licences were not give to France!
The zombies in cabinet are so fanatically wed to the EU that it is perfectly content to act against our national interest in food supply and act against the national vote to leave the EU and take back control of our laws, borders and money. Which part did the ever so clever Sunak not understand!
Then ask yourself why Labour has not held the Govt. to account for its failure to deliver Brexit. Let me help, it is because the two cheeks of the same arse are following the same EU lock step policy to prevent divergence and to diminish what the nation voted for to leave the EU. Rage does not come close for the betrayal from the Tory part of Uni Party.
Destroy the Tory party this time then the Labour Govt next time!
June 12, 2024
Yes I think it has to be a step by step task.
June 13, 2024
I sometimes wonder if Corbyn would have been better than Boris at negotiating Brexit.
We now have a left-wing government coming in because the Tories have just quit en-mass. They don’t want to handle the betrayal promised to the EU.
June 12, 2024
@ian wragg; Ouch! But all very true.
June 12, 2024
Talk of an investment in giant battery storage of 600 megawatt hours (cost circa ÂŁ60 billion). So we build wind farms with vast subsidies that generate electricity when we do not want it. Then we need vast hugely expensive battery storage so as not to waste it all. Note that charging and discharging batteries loses circa 25% of the electricity – so loads of wasted heat. Also a battery to store just 20p of electricity will cost about ÂŁ100. The cost to finance this plus depreciation of this battery might be about double this at 40p every day.
Surely this makes no economic or environments or engineering sense at all. Let us hope it does not catch fire either accidentally or due to terrorism it would go up rather well.
A pile of coal storing the same amount of energy would cost only about 1/1000 of the ÂŁ60billion. Another grant farming scam I assume? A pile of coal or tank of gas for circa ÂŁ60 millions or ÂŁ60 billion of batteries as a âtankâ just to store this expensively generated ÂŁ60 million of electricity? The economics are even more insane if you use mobile car batteries!
June 12, 2024
Given the grid supplies about 30 gw most of the time, 600 mWh is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
June 12, 2024
Still even cheering on the insanity of Net Zero, with just a slight touch on the brakes compared to Labour. We are dire and deluded but not quite as dire a Labour seem to be their sales pitch. Still, even now, pretending that vaccines and lockdowns did not do huge net harms too.
June 12, 2024
The Conservatives also supported mass legal migration that has destroyed the fabric of society in the biggest cities, and imposed NetZero policies on cars and heating, and as a result of these catastrophic policies tax has gone up to record levels.
I agree Labour and LibDems would be worse, as Wales has shown. Greens probably wouldnât last the year. All that will happen with Labour is an acceleration towards a bigger disaster. Unfortunately the public are none too smart and by voting Labour are going to make things worse.
However the question remains. How do voters eliminate a Party, like the Conservatives, that is flawed from its top to its bottom? Democracy was never meant to have all the political parties deserve to be trashed at once.
My considered opinion is to vote for Reform. When I look at their policies on all their failures they are where a centre right party who believes in growth, prosperity and low taxes should be.
All I can do is vote for the best party. I cannot control the stupidity of other voters or politicians.
June 12, 2024
So this is what you are voting for by voting Reform:
They propose Net zero immigration which is an improvement on the other parties but seem willing to accept that migrants can keep coming so long as British people keep leaving â hence the ânet zeroâ!!
By refusing to stand down in all seats regardless of the track record of individual MPs the party eliminates critical future parliamentary allies. The UK would never have left the EU with such mad electoral politics (as Reformâs new leader knows!)
The Reform Party supports the disastrous and unnecessary Ukraine war pursued by NATO/EU for over 20 years with 500,000 Ukrainian dead and wounded.
It supports the end of our voting system in favour of Proportional Representation, a system which gives even more power to corporatist party machines to frustrate their members, gives small parties unwarranted power and produces coalition governments which politicians want â not the voters.
Reform wants to elect the House of Lords which would then be an unacceptable rival to the Commons. Abolition would be logical â and preferable to establishing a third chamber to break the deadlock of the other two.
It supports lower VAT but by not changing the low threshold which daily hits small businesses.
Reform claims that the disastrous NHS (whose track record of killing patients is a disgrace) is âthe most loved health service in the worldâ
The former leader Richard Tice supported COVID vaccination compulsion saying those who were not vaxed should lose their jobs! He attacks the excellent MP Andrew Bridgen for his exposure of excess deaths and vaccine dangers.
Reform supports no change to wasteful and corrupt overseas aid (ÂŁ13bn pa)
Political judgement is all at sea as was clear when Reform announced their candidate for the Rochdale by-election, one Simon Danczuk who had been suspended by the Labour party for sending inappropriate âsexyâ text messages to a 17-year-old: remember UKIP had to suspend more elected MEPs than all the other parties combined because of their lax selection process.
Moreover Reform is a wholly owned Corporation in the name of Tice.
Voting Reform is not âcleverâ; but as you say, we have Hobsonâs Choice.
June 12, 2024
I will vote Reform to get change the country needs. It will force Uni party to change. The list of failings would take too long to cite for either Tory or Labour.
Look at Labourâs front bench, Lammy, Benn, Starmer, Cooper all wanting to override democracy by reversing a national vote and went rogue in parliament to achieve exactly that. Worse, Tory party advocated to work with them against their own party and nation! Some of the former Tory ministers currently advocating for Labour ie Boles, Clarke, Soubry!
Sorry Lynne, you need to think again how you are going to bring about change. A clue it will have nothing to do with the Tory party. Pro EU Cameron was brought back for goodness sake!
June 12, 2024
Lynn
The problem is lynn we have heard it all before from the main Parties, vote for us to stop the others, but the others are just a bad, if not worse.
Brixit stood aside to give Boris a large majority, and what happened, it just got worse !
Time now to show the big 3 just what we think of them.
Yes aware the system is against Reform, and they may get millions of votes but no seats, but we have to show the main Parties that they are completely out of touch with Human nature and reality, and the sooner that message gets across the better.
June 13, 2024
You’re right about Richard Tice, who made no bones about his support for the Kiev regime. But he is no longer Reform UK leader. Nigel Farage has from the start questioned the need for the West to take Kiev’s side. He considers Russia’s attack on Ukraine to be a ‘consequence of EU and Nato expansion’, and has argued for peace negotiations. He has said that if Trump had been US president there would have been a negotiated settlement to the conflict.
As I’ve already commented, Reform have now amended their position on Covid vaccine harms and the need for a public inquiry, much as Andrew Bridgen has been saying.
It seems you urgently need to update what you’re saying about Reform, Lynn.
June 13, 2024
Reform is fake, i.e. controlled opposition. Tice’s vaccine statements indicate he’s in bed with the WEF, just a bit less visibly. I’m not voting for a fake. If there’s no acceptable candidate, I’ll spoil my ballot for the first time since I starting voting in Feb. 1974.
June 12, 2024
Confusing penultimate paragraph. Reform, never having been in power, have had no failures. Under earlier labels, UKIP and Brexit, they succeeded handsomely in getting us out of the EU. Now many remaining states of the EU are begining to show political opposition to the way it operates. All complaints on Brexit should be addressed to our parties of Commons and Lords whose implementation has been abysmal.
I too will vote Reform, the only entepreneurial Conservatives left. The label on the tin describes the content. All other parties offer bait with increased waterr content.
June 12, 2024
Agree Javelin – Labour and Lib Dem will do less to manage immigration than the Tories did. Topic number 4 for Sir John’s list.
We could also add the policy of excessive government as item 5. All parties want to expand the State sector, accept the waste and inefficiency therein and increase taxes + borrowing to unsustainable levels.
June 12, 2024
I agree Javelin and will not be swayed by the past cries that the other one will be worse. I could not in all conscience vote for the existing parties in parliament. Reform is my choice.
June 12, 2024
Yes, the Parliamentary Conservative Party has created a political vacuum on the ‘right’ of the political spectrum, Reform claims to fill that hole. Can it get a toe-hold in the commons, upon which a true conservative philosophy can develop? Most people don’t consider themselves to politically ‘right-wing’. So the first issue to address is to remove that label, and talk about common-sense, good economic management and national wellbeing as the objectives. Tell the MSM to stop trying to label Reform on the ‘far right’.
PS QE or money creating, —-SO BAD.
QT or money elimination —– SO BAD….
oh, both BAD…..?
June 12, 2024
Good luck with the MSM – they have their own agenda and it is not for the benefit of the people but for their already rich backers. They are the supporters of the globalists whatever they may say and don’t care much about this nation.
June 12, 2024
Well said. It’s why Sunak continually parroting “a vote for Reform is a vote for Starmer” is so infuriating (and won’t work).
I’m not responsible for what other people do with their votes. I can only use (or not use) mine. And I’m voting for what I want, not what I don’t want. I’m not “buying” Sunak’s lies.
The Not-a-Conservative-Party permanently lost my vote when it suspended my Civil and Human Rights and imposed the Covid Tyranny, destroying the economy and millions of lives, when it knew FULL WELL that it was a Low Consequence Infectious Disease with low mortality rates and those most at risk were already knocking on Heaven’s door.
A Government which behaves like an abusive husband, using psychological coercive control techniques and imposes a mass medical experiment on people (including mandates where they thought they could get away with it) and REFUSES to investigate the harms the product has caused doesn’t deserve anyone’s vote. And it certainly won’t get mine.
June 12, 2024
You have succinctly outlined the very way that I have long felt and continue to do so. Thanks!
June 12, 2024
+1
Coercing dangerous & ineffective âvaccinesâ especially into young people and people who had had Covid (who had no need of them anyway) was surely criminal? Over seen by âregulatorsâ largely funded by or individually bought by big Pharma.
June 12, 2024
Then you canât vote Reform – Corporation wholly owned by Tice, who wanted the unvaccinated to be sacked.
June 13, 2024
Lynne,
Like Javid threatening 40,000 care workers to be jabbed or be sacked and then had a shortfall so imported millions more! Stop it Lynne, you are too intelligent to make such a remark.
June 12, 2024
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/06/10/the-peoples-vaccine-inquiry-launches-today/
Written by Dr Elizabeth Evans, this describes how The People are arranging their own inquiry.
Several doctor’s alliance have got together and are investigating the vaccines.
There is a link to their website, and a template letter for people to forward to their GP surgeries, to inform them of progress.
June 12, 2024
Our poll cards arrived yesterday and both my daughters immediately indicated they couldn’t be bothered to vote because they didn’t want either Labour or Conservatives to win.
I again spent time telling them that voting in any election wasn’t about backing the winner it was about registering your opinion even if that means going along and spoiling the paper.
I regaled them with my belief that my 22 years of voting for UKIP up to 2014 had led to the momentum that forced David Cameron to put a referendum on leaving the EU into his 2015 manifesto. Had I voted Conservative all that time along with the 4 million others who eventually voted for UKIP in a General Election that would not have happened (with respect to our host his cohort just didn’t have the influence within his party).
So the Greens have two new votes coming from our house, which is unfortunate and hopefully with their communist tax policy announced today my offspring will realise that public services should be paid by the users and not taxpayers but decisions are taken by those who turn up.
June 12, 2024
The Greens who essentially want no border immigration to the UK. So a population explosion to say 10 times current levels?
June 12, 2024
You should have left them with their correct decision. There is nobody to vote for. Now you have won the Greens 2 votes đ€ź
June 12, 2024
That they vote is more important.
Especially if they vote for other than the mainstream
June 12, 2024
Straight to the ‘point’ Javelin, excellent.
June 12, 2024
The Greens and Labour seem to want effectively open door immigration. This way immigration will only stop when the UK has so many people it is so unattractive that no more people will wish to come than choose to leave. Perhaps when the UK population is 500 million or so, most living in shanti towns and tents I assume.
June 12, 2024
‘All I can do is vote for the best party. I cannot control the stupidity of other voters or politicians.’
We just have to hope that the majority of electorate agree.
June 12, 2024
Agreed.
June 12, 2024
+1
June 12, 2024
As Labour is set to win the election we are now voting for the party to sit in opposition. We need a voice in parliament to speak out against the bonkers policies Labour will try to introduce. The only party to fit this bill is the Reform Party as all the other parties share the same flawed thinking.
June 12, 2024
+1 Javelin
Although, even if elected, Reform will have a battle on their hands to restore sanity.
June 12, 2024
+1 and Reform will be the best chance of of beating Labour in many seats with the bonus of burying these fake Conservatives.
VOTERS have been warned not to give Sir Keir Starmer a âblank chequeâ by handing Labour a âsuper-majorityâ.
Grant Shapps warned a crushing election victory for Sir Keir would give him âunchecked powerâ.
Well you should have thought of that before you did the complete reverse of what you promised in the last three manifestos Shapps. Or done a deal with Reform and stood down in half the seats. FPTP voting needs deals before the voting but Sunak preferred to kill the party. Even to do it 6 month early.
June 13, 2024
Shapps obviously doesn’t realise that a large proportion of the electorate have worked out that If the Not-a-Conservative-Party is the “Opposition” then Labour will be unchecked anyway.
June 13, 2024
Donna,
Much Worse, Tory party in power implementing Labourâs policies ie net stupid which they labelled Marxist!
Treacherous May implemented the left wing woke identity rot policy/law!
June 13, 2024
Shapps should concentrate on trying to keep his own seat.
I wouldn’t vote for him, Sunak or Hunt. I wouldn’t have voted for my Tory MP because he put Sunak in place against the member’s and supporters’ views. But like the other Sunak supporters he isn’t standing, traitor.
I feel sorry for Jacob Rees Mogg and a few others, and I hope people think through this full punishment of the Tories for betraying us when they are faced with reduced inheritance tax thresholds, higher taxes on the self-employed, and a reduced VAT threshold for small shop owners in line with their mates in the EU.
June 12, 2024
The opposition have proven to be rudderless. Letâs hope the are the same in Government. I have a hunch that Starmer has a very clear objective and will act quickly. Like Blair his objectives cannot be announced. Even the Labour Party might be surprised.
Anyway, once the population have no means of redressing their grievances via the ballot box, we are in dangerous waters. Those who supported the Conservative Party throughout its fall, rather then bringing it to its knees at a time when it could get up, are to blame. The Tories are now dead ducks. We need a proper resurgent Capitalist Party – Christopher Howarth is wrong in clinging to the destroyed brand, but right in all other respects.
June 12, 2024
Labour not really rudderless but happily steering 180 degree wrong direction rather like the Tories following a broken compass.
June 12, 2024
The median age at death seems to have fallen by almost two years since 2019 (vaccines harms, NHS delays and Covid one assumes) . So can we get the state pension two years earlier now please or is this another back door tax grab? Currently it is given at age 68 for most. It used to be 60 for women and 65 for men. Increased due to increased life expectancy they said, but now they have reversed life expectancy by gain of function experiments, duff âvaccinesâ, Madazolam, net zero rip off energy freezing some pensioners and a rather poor, delayed and rationed NHS.
June 12, 2024
They failed to oppose what was in their judgement good socialist policy, the expansion of the nanny state. A support that expands dependency and stiffles enterprise. It happened because government was itself centre left socialist, hence my handle consocialist.
The only opposition came from a rump Conservative faction, of which you were an ignored voice. In fairness, all politicians at the time were dealing with an unquantified threat to life. Boris, himself a victim of it, had the wisdom to think outside the political box. He freed up big pharma to produce solutions and put their implementation in the hands of one who could think on her feet, clear of the normally atrophied governmenf machine. It was in microcosm how Winston ran WW2. Metaphorically there were the Dieppe failures and the spiv culture of opportunism, but in terms of dealing with this unknown disease he got it right. With hindsight most of the peripheral protectionist measures were badly misdirected. In some cases killing more than they saved.
It encouraged your government in power to continue to play it excessively safe at great expense thereafter. Even to the extent of killing off a more creative, solution through enterprise and tax less activity, promoted by Liz Truss, with an undemocratic coupe. The opposition could not believe their luck at this continued extension of a nanny state.
We now have the result, five million plus out of work alongside a shortage of labour. Anarchists running riot on a weekly basis, none of the fundamental problems solved, a rudderless Disunited Kingdom, with every prospect of the rabble from the orlop taking charge. You and numerous others have baled out leaving the only opposition to Nigel and Reform. He is now the only lifeboat on the Titanic that inadequate politicians designed and built. It is 06.07 time to wake up moderation.
June 13, 2024
“In fairness, all politicians at the time were dealing with an unquantified threat to life.”
Sorry Agricola, but whilst I agree with much of your comment the above is simply not true. They KNEW, probably by early March, that the likely mortality rate from Covid was 1% or lower, and they KNEW who was most likely to be affected. On 19 March 2020, the Government downgraded Covid from a High Consequence Infectious Disease because they KNEW it had low mortality rates – that was 5 days before Johnson imposed. the first lockdown.
For the downgrading to be loaded onto the Government’s website on 19 March 2020, the data would have been available several weeks previously. The Scientists would have had to assess and re-check it, then it would have gone up the Scientific “pecking order” to the Dept for Health where the bureaucrats would have reviewed it before passing it to Ministers. Ministers, we would expect, would ask questions before it was put before the Quad (Johnson, Gove, Sunak, Handcock …. and Cummings). The Quad ….. and Cummings …… obviously accepted the Scientists’ recommendation because the downgrading was authorised.
It would then have gone back to the Dept for Health and through the bureaucratic processes to get the Comms prepared, approved and uploaded to the Website.
All of that, under normal circumstances, would have taken 4 weeks. Since it was an emergency, they would have been working rather more quickly so let’s be generous and say they took 2 weeks. So that means they KNEW by around 4 March 2020 that Covid was not a serious threat to life and mortality rates would be low.
So why did they destroy the economy; why didn’t they protect the vulnerable; why did they ban a treatment they KNEW would be effective (Ivermectin) and why did they promote and coerce experimental medical products on millions?
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/high-consequence-infectious-diseases-hcid#status-of-covid-19
June 12, 2024
Bold move. 14 years in power, and you want to blame the mess on the parties not in power. Why didn’t you stand again in Wokingham on that platform?
June 12, 2024
Labour did not help by failing to oppose the dafter policies of Cameron, May, Boris, Sunak and by trying to reverse/delay Brexit and (together with the evil wing circa 70% of the LibDim/socialist section of the fake Tories).
June 12, 2024
Did you read the article. JR pointing out that the only opposition was from the Spartans and DUP?
If he had stood he would have won handsomely.
June 12, 2024
several points to consider:
Sir John might have considered another 5 years of the work rate and commitment too much.
Any MP might consider age a factor and a form of retirement well earned.
The changing attitudes to libdems in our area, and the endless mistakes his Party made while in power became hard to give 100% support.
Future plans not yet to be made public?
Reply My decision had nothing to do with age. I have plenty of energy.
June 13, 2024
Reply to reply
Energy has to be focused and connected, what use is a charged battery at the back of a drawer.
June 12, 2024
You cannot rely on wind or solar. What renewable power do you have in mind? Nuclear? Youâre too slow at getting nuclear built. Youâve allowed British expertise, once actually âworld beatingâ (to coin a phrase used by idiots), to disappear. Your governmentâs record on energy is appalling – yet you blame the opposition!
June 12, 2024
Equally worrying, most of our gas stations were built over 30 years ago and will need to be rebuilt by 2030. Labour’s plans just don’t work, as easily shown by David Turver and other blogs.
Reform need to take the Red wall constituencies and Reform should push the disastrous policy that Ed Millipede will implement, leading to higher bills and blackouts.
June 12, 2024
The energy policies of the Tories and Labour has been and still is total insanity and has been for 20+ years. Driven by a deluded religion, Greta disciples like socialist dope Gove, globalists and crony capitalists on the make. Who often purchase political influence with âconsultantsâ etc. to push their evil rip off energy agenda and freeze OAPs.
June 13, 2024
It’s not an energy policy.
It’s a redistribution policy, run by the UN. Transfer wealth from the western industrial nations to the 2nd and 3rd world ….. global communism.
June 12, 2024
I really do think you ought to be helping Reform.
June 12, 2024
NO! Look at their statements. Tice thought anybody unvaccinated should lose their job! You want yo bite for that? And he owns the Reform Corporation 100%.
June 12, 2024
Yes, Lynn, look at their statements: ‘The leader of Reform UK has committed his party to a public inquiry into excess deaths and Covid vaccine harms. Richard Tice said there was a âserious problemâ with thousands more people dying than expected and suggested the side-effects of coronavirus jabs could be responsible.’
The Telegraph, 24 Feb 2024
I initially thought Covid was a deadly threat to everybody, such was the weight of the propaganda, and I’m sure quite a few other people commenting on this site did.
As a driving instructor will tell you, we all make mistakes – it’s how we correct them that matters.
June 12, 2024
Good morning.
They were the ‘Opposition’ what did you expect ? They wanted the government and the country to fail so they could more easily blame the Tories and get into power themselves. Because your party no longer stands for anything, not even conserving the nation state, it has no moral or political ground to stand on and fight. Your party, Sir John if stuffed to the gunnals with chancers and spivs. I mean, the people who literally profiited from Lockdown were Tories or friends of.
When the ‘Opposition’ were calling for something your party should have been soing the opposite. Had you done so in this case we would not be in the mess we are now.
June 12, 2024
The future Chancellor used to work for the Bank. She won’t be making any changes.
June 12, 2024
So why did they not oppose something? They agreed with everything the idiot Government did, did yoh not understand the problem?
June 12, 2024
We originally was going to do what Sweden did and not lockdown. Johnson and the government bottled it. You seem to have a very selective memory.
June 12, 2024
They failed to oppose because they agreed with policies implemented. Either John knows this and is being obtuse or he’s as naive as most of the voting public who are about to commit Hari Kari in four weeks time.
Why would a voter transfer their vote from a pile of crap to a pile of crap that is ten times as toxic? That makes no sense. It is an act of suicide blinded by State dependency for which we will all pay a heavy price in more ways than one.
June 12, 2024
The only way to get Reform policies eventually is to get a reformed Conservative party. Voting for the present lot won’t achieve that. Voting Reform probably will. It’s worth a try.
June 12, 2024
Everything in the Tory manifesto is what they should have done in the time they had to do it with the majority to do it with. But they failed. Itâs Reform for me. It is the first time in my 70 years I will not be voting for a Tory candidate. Itâs a real shame, the complete demise of the true Tories.
June 12, 2024
Reform are the only people who want to bury net zero, a policy that will cost several ÂŁtrillions and delivers zero in fact negative benefits. Also the only party who wants a full inquiry into the vast Covid vaccine harms.
For these policies alone they deserve support and others deserve total contempt.
June 12, 2024
This article explains why Reform is gaining support, because whether the next government is Conservative, Labour or Lib Dem the same policies will be enacted.
June 12, 2024
A political earthquake is taking place in Europe and people are waking up. Starmer, should he become PM, may find he has few friends across the channel.
June 12, 2024
Reply to BOF
The established broadcast media, they and all their friends in traditional parties, all on the Left, are referring to anyone and any group or organisation, who is not on their side as ‘the far right’.
It is they who are dangerous and of course correctly described as sinister.
Anyone who believes in freedom must strongly challenge and oppose their language.
June 12, 2024
True – the established media is now a sort of organised Pravda….
June 12, 2024
@ BOF “…Starmer, should he become PM, may find he has few friends across the channel” – true enough but they will likely be greater in number than his friends on this side of the Channel.
June 12, 2024
The Reform Party appears to act more sensibly and is gaining increasing support as voters realise the differences they offer.
June 12, 2024
Lockdown during COVID is frequently criticised, but it should be remembered that it saved many lives. As for “too comprehensive and long a lockdown”, if that was a mistake, it was erring on the safe side and, presumably, it followed medical and scientific advice. Overall, I think the government handled the pandemic very well, having entered lockdown rather late.
June 12, 2024
đđđ
June 12, 2024
Didn’t seem to have been necessary for Downing Street. They thought it OK to have parties.
June 12, 2024
Oh for goodness sake!
How many fit sub-40 year olds died or even succumbed to this at all?
So the most important part of those missing work and education could have safely ignored the advice not to go to school or work, just been slightly more cautious not to walk into an old folks home unnecessarily.
As those in Downing Street did.
Lives lost to cancer since this appalling error?
June 12, 2024
“The Conservatives made three massive errors and the opposition didn’t oppose them” is the best argument I’ve seen for voting Reform. Thanks.
June 12, 2024
Not just three more like 20.
Net Zero, the lockdowns, the net harm âvaccinesâ even to people with zero need to take the risk, the vast tax increases, the 12% inflation caused by currency debasing and gross incompetence, HS2, the PPE procurement scandals, the dumping of the infected into care homes, Madazolam, the sick joke covid enquiry, the vast tax increases, the wars on motorists, the self employed, small businesses and landlordsâŠ
June 12, 2024
Missed off – vast open door legal and illegal immigration, housing policy, the botched Brexit, the Windsor accord, the plastic do nothing police serviceâŠ
June 12, 2024
Reform wanted more of the same too, Tice wanted the unvaccinated sacked! Search the comment you will sue the clip.
June 12, 2024
Yes indeed.
Sunakâs lasting achievement may well turn out to be his opposition in cabinet to a 4th lockdown in the winter of 2021, which forced a U-turn. Only he and David Frost opposed this insane left-blob policy which Boris was about to go along with (Truss, in what should have been a warning, sat stumm along with the rest of them).
But a Labour govt would have been even worse on lockdown and will go faster and further to make energy less relatable and more expensive (this might turn out to be the single worst aspect of the coming Labour govt, against stiff competition).
June 12, 2024
Typo: less Reliable
June 12, 2024
@ Richard I ” a Labour govt … will go faster and further to make energy less [reliable] and more expensive” – yes, very probably – but the answer cannot be to vote for those whose direction of travel is the same with much the same destination and pace, not least because doing so would serve as encouragement to continue with folly.
June 12, 2024
Of course they didn’t oppose the destructive policies the Not-a-Conservative-Party was implementing.
Vote Not-a-Conservative …..the WEF rules
Vote Labour ….. the WEF rules
Vote LibDem ….. the WEF rules
Vote SNP …… the WEF rules
Spot the difference? No, neither can I.
June 12, 2024
Reform?
June 12, 2024
The difference – Vat on School fees Labour and a tiny tough on the brakes of net zero the fake Tories.
June 12, 2024
I would go further than you, Sir John: in the biggest crisis to hit the country since 1940, the opposition not only failed to oppose, they were criminally irresponsible, and for their own political gain. Johnson’s initial approach to the Covid outbreak was to follow our existing public health regulations, much as with a bad flu year. But the opposition and their supporters in the media clamoured to push the government down a road which they knew would break the Conservative party. Under their pressure, the Covid policies Johnson finally adopted required an overbearing nanny state spending untold billions of taxpayer money, piling up a huge debt burden, badly damaging the small business sector, and still being accused of not doing enough to help the NHS. All of them fatal blows aimed at destroying the traditional ethos of Conservatism, and its standing in the public mind. And now you see the result: the Tories left with no clear political identity, and fewer supporters than ever. Did no-one in your party see the game the opposition were playing, I wonder?
June 12, 2024
Still, it was nice for friends of the Tories who got very rich out of it and strange that they show no interest in trying to get some of the money back from fraudsters, at a time when they produce a manifesto aiming to go after people on the dole. Billions wasted, shirt buttons they wish to get from the least able to pay. They deserve their fate – long overdue, said with sadness from a previous Tory supporter. Never again.
June 12, 2024
well said!
June 12, 2024
Sir JR, this piece today shows in a nutshell the whole problem of an adversarial two (or more) political party system.
Party A says ‘increase taxes’ Party B says ‘no that would be wrong’
After an election;
Party B takes over and increases taxes, while party A shout ‘no that would be wrong’
It’s a silly childish system where the role of opposition is simply to criticise government. When in fact all parties should be working for the good of the country.
June 12, 2024
Have a look at the German system of PR if you really want to see silly. Party A fights on A manifesto, Party B fights on B Manifesto. After the election they get together and adopt C manifesto and blame each other. Nobody can sack those at the top of the list of either Party A or Party B. Nobody voted or would vote for manifesto C. Itâs total political class control.
Thatâs why Farage wants PR. He will be at the top of the list and in a job and the spotlight for life.
June 12, 2024
Any PR system is an attempt to represent ALL electoral views, unlike the 2 party lying nonsense headed by a tiny power base of people who have no interest in the good of the people.
June 12, 2024
And what wonderful government FPTP has produced over the last 20 years. At least with PR votes count for something, whereas with our system half of them don’t and governments get in with endless power with less than 50 percent support.
June 12, 2024
@ Old Albion – rather does not today’s piece show the problem more as: –
Party A says âincrease taxesâ, Party B says âyes, do that only more soâ ?
The problem surely is the parties have neglected Winston Churchill’s words that the duty of the Oppostion is to oppose.
June 12, 2024
Highlighting that the oppositions wanted to do more of the same just reminds this voters that the Conservatives follow the same lunatic fringe ideals. Our establishment has got most of the big calls incorrect in the last 20 years.
We need change in a big way including a clear out of the Civil service and quangos.
June 12, 2024
I imagine that for anything to ever work again we need to drain our swamp.
Get rid of charities and make âbungsâ from Institutions to media etc illegal
Be very wary of health and anything totally unrelated to politics becoming politicised.
But do we have a large enough drain rod?
June 12, 2024
And sweep away every last quango!
And withdraw from every international treaty!
How about adding total transparency in local and national government?
June 12, 2024
Yes, why weren’t they included in the manifesto
June 12, 2024
I forgot.
Their aim is order out of chaos.
Theyâve done the chaos bit but they are blowed if they can find the order!
Maybe they donât want to find it?
June 12, 2024
Wise Words
June 12, 2024
The Opposition Parties were doing their constitutional job nicely during the Brexit negotiations, with the covert support from a huge raft of Tory MPs … As for the covid years: no opposition to be seen or heard. After all, there’s reason we plebs outside the M25 call the whole lot sitting in the HoC the Uniparty …
June 12, 2024
Sir John, I actually laughed when reading the headline to your blog.
The reason the opposition did not support the few like yourself that oppose stupidity, is because the Uniparty of Westminster do not fight among themselves. They have formed an alliance under the umbrella cause of returning to the EU membership against the wish of the electorate, whom they despise.
Theresa May effectively destroyed Parliamentary democracy as she embraced and enacted ever more draconian policies. Her true political support team the LibDems were gifted everything they wanted by their fellow supporter. Blowing up power stations, was just the start, she then loading Net Zero law onto the Climate Change Act without even a vote in Parliament! The ongoing open border policy was a feature of her desires, she endorsed and adopted in 2018 the UN protocol on assisting migration. Some Tory she turned out to be eh…?
June 12, 2024
A monumental failure in opposition was to support the government in their appeasement policy towards the EU negotiations.
June 12, 2024
@Dave Andrews – in 2019, 345 Conservative MPs signed up to a Manifesto, in their words to leave the EU. Then immediately reneged and voted against becoming a legitimate Sovereign Legislator of the UK, instead they chose to do the opposite of their election promise and pledge. Now you are asked to believe the latest round of promises.
June 12, 2024
Can’t trust a tory
June 12, 2024
With regard to the virus obsession.
One question was not asked.
How come, if everything was as it should be in a modern worldâŠa virus was able to take hold?
Why would a virus invade a clinically clean and sanitary rule-observing society?
Good God even plants have passports. And we are regulated to death.
(It is highly likely that most virulent diseases were eradicated by clean water and less crowded living rather than through medical intervention)
Maybe an alien landing would have been more credible?
Personally I donât believe a single wordâŠ.and never have!
June 12, 2024
You are describing, Sir John, the reason why so many people believe we have a uniparty Parliament.
Unfortunately this will continue in the next Parliament however it is composed unless those who oppose open borders and Net Zero vote for parties who are not existing Parliamentary parties.
June 12, 2024
It irritates me beyond belief that the covid points in this article are never relayed publicly with any gusto, or so it seems to me. A lot of the public themselves are as much to blame as they all wanted to be locked down. They praised Sunak as the greatest thing since sliced bread while he was handing out free dosh, and free meals.
I’m aware there are other factors involved in our economic mess, but the whole stupidity of covid measures played a part. Labour, said not a word to warn of its effects a bit further down the road and are therefore complicit in its disastrous effects.
Still, Labour just have to dodge around for the next few weeks, and the mainstream won’t press them on any points of their manifesto, so all is well for them. It helps of course having a civil service full of your little helpers!!!
June 12, 2024
Actually Sunak should/should have delivered a Tamworth-style Manifesto with Brexit at the top of the list.
But how to get folk to believe him?
A brave bold action maybe rather than a promise.
June 12, 2024
I’d believe at last him if he said ‘ I’m clearly an out of touch wealthy man, a failed economist and hopeless PM, so I hereby resign and will go take my chances in India or USA. Goodbye.’
June 12, 2024
Youâd probably have to drive him to the airport and see him onto the plane and wait on the tarmac for takeoff.
Just to be sure like.
June 12, 2024
Sir John
Why would any sane person vote for any of them? they all are in a Socialist ‘cloud cuckoo land’ not one has come up with an idea that creates an economy, that manages expenditure. They all want to tax us more so ‘they’ get to spend ‘our’ money, spend money on frivolous ego projects that have nothing to do with causing the Country and its people to move forward.
In a nutshell they are a disgrace. Then they fight proper democracy in case they get challenged
June 12, 2024
“Opposition Parties fail to oppose”
Which is part of the reason our Country is going down the tubes, no alternative thinking any more to offer any alternative view, argument, or policy.
Where are our free thinking members of Parliament, all appear handcuffed and gagged by so called Party Loyalty
June 12, 2024
@Berkshire Alan – given that they failed oppose, and the Conservatives had a 78 seat majority for its mandate to ‘get-Brexit-Done’, reduce legal and illegal immigration. Why did it(The Conservative Government) sign up to EU Laws push for the EU to control UK taxes(VAT). A whole list of say and promise one thing, the do the opposite
June 12, 2024
We must hang on to the hope that even with 400 majority Labour would not manage to get anything done!
June 12, 2024
Ian B
Simply because they put Party before Country, for all the use most of them were (I exclude our Host) you may as well have cardboard cut outs being carried through the chamber to vote.
Remember that any Government has about 130 positions (ministers, aids etc etc) allocated to Mp’s who cannot go against the whips unless they resign
God help us when Ai becomes the norm !
June 12, 2024
2 envelopes were posted through our door yesterday with the word polling showing. I said to my wife I thought weâd had the local elections. She then remembered that theyâre for the General Election. So my mind, and no doubt that of many others, has been numbed by this boring election campaign with robotic, average politicians on mainstream TV stating platitudes and with me switching off after a few minutes. This is surely why there will be a very low turnout on election day. 2 main political parties wanting to continue the destruction of our way of life and giving us no materially distinct policies.
June 12, 2024
We have to change this…………………. We have to vote out the big 3
June 12, 2024
From the Telegraph – General election latest: Shapps warns voters not to hand Labour âsuper majorityâ
A couple of things â he canât defend 14 years of Tory rule. He canât show any positives from his and his is colleges high spend, high tax tenure. He like Sunak has accepted they have lost. His only concern is that he and his cohorts have done such a good destruction job they have wiped out the Conservative Party for generations.
June 12, 2024
Defence Secretary: Tax burden will be lower by 2030 under Tories
The overall tax burden will be lower by 2030 than it is now if the Tories are re-elected, Grant Shapps said this morning.
So they have to be voted into power in this and the next in 2029 before we see changes?
June 12, 2024
Rachel Reeves: UK economy has âstalledâ
Rachel Reeves said the UK economy had âstalledâ and no growth in April (see the post below at 07.04) exposed the âdamage done after 14 years of Conservative chaosâ. (The UK economy recorded no growth in April, according to data published by the Office for National Statistics this morning. )
And she wants to stall it more, with Conservative inspired high uncontrolled expenditure and taxing the life of every thing that is possible, cost of energy up and production moved offshore, education costs up – Socialist wanting to out do a Socialist not one of the putting the Country or its People first.
The economy is not how much ‘Tax’ you can steal, it is not about how much money the Government can spend – it is ensuring new money/wealth is created and gets to slosh around to drive the economy
June 12, 2024
UK voters are now out of step with Europe and the US, with both comtinents sensibly moving to the right while UK voters are moving left. One can only hope that this rightward shift amongst our allies will moderate Starmer’s international activities, although the single most important action he could take in that regard would be to shift Lammy into a ministry where he can do little harm. Ag and Fish ? Same should apply to Milliband E.
If Starmer actually goes ahead with Milliband’s full-on Green Crap agenda, I wonder how long it will be before the wheels start to come off ? The lights could start to go off in the winter of 2029, which, for Labour, would conveniently be after the next election !
June 12, 2024
Starmer is a self-confessed full on Trot, Lammy is the least of our problems.
June 12, 2024
Agree
June 12, 2024
Sorry Sir John, more of a commentary of the electioneering that we are smacked in the face with – ‘Unemployment is rising. Employment is falling. And record numbers of working age adults say they are too sick to even consider a job. This is dire news for the winner of next monthâs general election. ‘
High taxing, money giveaways from all so-called Political Parties does no more than cause this Socialist disease that has grabbed them all to fester.
All, that is all Government, State expenditure should be a fixed percentage of GDP. More so now because they all want to use taxing the life out of the Country and its People as their get out of ‘jail-free-card’ They have all gone rouge we need ways to control them, get out Country and our Lives back.
Government, by the People for the People, recognised as Democracy in the free world would be a good starting place. It should be bottom up leading of power by consent , not top down dictatorship by diktat
June 12, 2024
Sir John,
It might be a bit steep to blame the opposition parties , considering the mess your party has left the country in after 14 years.
June 12, 2024
Agreed, but consider that for the last few years at least the real leader of the opposition in parliament has been Sir John.
June 12, 2024
‘The duty of an opposition is to oppose everything, propose nothing, and to turn out the Government’, according to George Tierney, and quoted by the great Lord Derby. While I agree with you that the Opposition have been singularly ineffective throughout the last fourteen years, the reason a significant part of their lack of effective questioning lies with the Conservative government’s basically left wing policies, beginning with Cameron’s weak decision to go into coalition with the Lib Dems. The only message now coming from the Conservatives, is ‘Don’t vote Labour; they will take everything from you’, but that is just what the Conservatives have done, and although there are now all sorts of Tax cut promises coming out, none of them will do what really needs doing which is to reform and simplify the whole tax system, and I have seen no recognition whatsoever of the need to reform the NHS rather than just throw more money at it.
June 12, 2024
For the record, while I would vote certainly Reform if we had a “One Nation” Conservative candidate in Christchurch, I will be voting for my local MP, Christopher Chope, who, while not being in the same league as our host, is, at least, a proper Right of Centre Conservative.
I sincerely hope that in the scrabble for peerages immediately after the election, I hope that the name Sir John Redwood is not overlooked. You should be at the top of the nomination list.
June 12, 2024
I don’t want Sir John going to that house full of ‘sleepy Joes’.
June 12, 2024
That is exactly why SJR is needed in the upper house.
June 12, 2024
If its not in this manifesto, are the pledges of the old manifesto still in force ie net-zero, zev, foreign-aid etc
June 12, 2024
I am ashamed to have ever voted Tory.
June 12, 2024
Why. Most of the time it wa style best option, indeed, the only option.
June 12, 2024
A lot of voters will no doubt have the same sentiments, but sadly after perhaps 3 or 4 years of whatever follows Labour / Libdems voters may well think ‘why did we?’.
June 12, 2024
Iâve heard it all now, blaming the opposition for not controlling your party.
The problem we have is that all the main parties support these lunatic policies and there is no opposition.
This is why we need the Reform Party to become the new opposition.
June 12, 2024
You think we need MPs who this Churchill was a fool and we should have struck a deal with Hitler! đ€Ż that does not look like opposition to me.
June 13, 2024
The speed this election was called meant that the normal selection vetting process was curtailed. It wouldn’t surprise me if this man and maybe others are plants put there to discredit Reform. Most Reform candidates are good honest people who want the best for this country.
June 12, 2024
Why isnât reducing national debt a manifesto pledge ?
June 12, 2024
@glen cullen; Are you, or did you, pay back your mortgage or other loans, faster than required, to the detriment of your standard of living?
At the national level, all such a policy does is either cause Austerity or drives up either income or stealth taxes, so whilst the bond markets rate our national debt within an acceptable range why make everyone wear a hairshirt.
June 13, 2024
Scraping nuclear weapons would save ÂŁ300bn which could be used on the national debt, without the detriment in living standards ….in fact, no one would notice …..its all a choice
June 13, 2024
@glen cullen; The old CND argument, wow!
June 13, 2024
It could be any big spend, my point is we the government always has choices
June 13, 2024
@glen cullen; Why do others have to have their services, their grant or whatever reduced or abolished. If you and others want to needlessly wear hairshirts fine, no one is stopping you from making voluntary contributions to the HMRC, I’m sure the next govt will be happy to enact some form of ring-fence legislation…
June 12, 2024
Because that would be silly Glen.
It’s balanced by Gilt savings assets, Gilt edged saving certificates, entirely sustainable as it is Sterling and obviously rising fast because we have an ageing population requiring savings.
In reality there is no government borrowing, just National Savings in the form of gilts. Consolidate everything to NS&I and suddenly we’ll find that there is no debt, just Banks, Pension Funds and individuals with sizeable ‘in credit’ deposits.
It’s determined entirely by how much people decide to save rather than spend – since those are the only two choices everybody has. The UK has no national debt, only National Savings, because the ‘debt’ is denominated in our currency – Sterling. Government borrowing isn’t begging, it’s a balancing item in the government accounts. We are a fully sovereign nation state.
So to reduce the gilt edge saving certificates the public hold you can either stop issuing gilts or get them to spend their savings or get rid of the full funding rule.
And like all savings it disappears when the person owing it stops saving and starts spending. Servicing such spending is, of course, how other people earn an income.
The way to get to get them spending instead of saving is by growing the economy. It will get investing in the economy ramped up instead of sitting idle in gilt edge saving certificates.
Government debt, and the Gilt savings it consists of, are a store of taxation that will precisely pay off the debt. Each time, every time. As the ÂŁ is nothing more than a tax credit.
June 13, 2024
So why was reducing ‘the national debt’ a Boris pledge in the 2019 manifesto …..I’m just questioning why its been removed from the 2024 manifesto
June 12, 2024
These are some of the reasons why people have so little faith in Parliament. Opposition parties have supported the worst possible policies and laws created by the Tories. That makes the big 3 totally unfit for purpose.
Yes, opposition parties should be responsible enough to see policies that are damaging coming from HMG and be constructive about getting changes – This hasn’t happened in decades.
Labour would certainly be more extreme when it came to any policy – like closing powers stations too early, that aligned with their destructive socialist instincts.
June 12, 2024
Points agreed. This is why we should be looking carefully before voting for anyone this time around. As some prospectives are being chosen via zoom because of short time limits, we need to really research these people before putting the cross on the paper. How you find out information seems to be difficult as I have been trying to find out past information on several people putting themselves forward but have not had much luck. You find general information but not a really good look at the person in question. A green councillor once said to me that if the Tories put a purple cabbage forward and told people to vote for it, they would. Now this can apply to any party as I see it so I am not criticising the Tories but this makes you wonder doesn’t it?
June 12, 2024
Bulls eye. Outrageous situation when we have to approve people we donât know.
June 12, 2024
It is no surprise the main Opposition parties did not oppose these 3 ‘worst policy errors’ (and I agree they were errors) since:
– in broad terms these criticisms are criticisms from the political right and the Opposition parties are to the left
– ‘expert opinion’ supports all these ‘errors’ and politicians who know no better (including almost all Conservative politicians) don’t want to fall out with a consensus of expert opinion even though expert opinion can often be paralysed by fear from recommending something unconventional
– most public opinion at the time supported 2 of these 3 errors and the third was too technical for the public to have any opinion about.
So if anything was to be changed it had to be from Conservative M.P.s and they were mainly not up to that or any job.
June 12, 2024
A bit of brass neckery going on here, blaming the opposition for Tory policy failures.
June 12, 2024
The only solution now in the forthcoming election is for the Conservatives to come to a deal with Reform . The country badly needs the personality and forthrightness of Farage together with the incentives to stimulate the economy and those who invest in it . Labour and the other Parties mean nothing to me . I want an end to this electioneering turmoil .
June 12, 2024
My answer : don’t watch/listen to Election programs, avoid reading detailed claims/promises/allegations…
Consider re-entry of that damage to mental health world about 3 days prior to voting.
June 13, 2024
@MT; So what are you doing here, commenting on Mr Redwood’s (now clearly) personal website? đ
But of course you are correct, although I did consider waiting until three days after the election, and I bet there are a few on this site who wish I had!
June 12, 2024
@Bert+Young; Even if the Conservatives did shack-up with Reform, the most recent aggregated opinion polls suggest the combined vote will still be 10 or so points behind Labour, and that’s before any more moderate Conservative votes run for the hills. The only chance the Conservatives had vanished yesterday, upon the publication of the manifesto, were even a small step to the centre could have seen votes returning from exile behind the Yellow and Red walls.
June 12, 2024
Just one point.
Store excess power generated by renewables.
Hahahahahaha
June 12, 2024
You just made good points why we should turn to the Reform Party to re-establish true Tory policies and practices.
June 12, 2024
Brilliant John !
Don’t forget about the OBR and IFS.
The OBR and IFS are in the same globalist camp and just as bad. All singing from the same IMF song sheet. They always act as if we use the Euro and have given up our sovereignty. Or we are loaded up with foreign debt which is never the case. Say we can’t afford tax cuts which is quite frankly absurd once you move passed the tax payer money myth.
HM government is not revenue-constrained and can spend whatever it likes but that doesnât mean it should spend whatever it likes. There are definite economic limits on the ability of governments to spend and they are defined by the real resources that are available at any point for sale and are not being utilised (or purchased). Beyond that you get inflation. Note I use the term economic limits not financial limits. There are no financial limits on a fully sovereign government â only economic and political constraints.
The problem is that the political limits and the ideology of the BOE, OBR and IFS imposes on government fiscal policy have in the past 30 or so years meant that net spending is well below these economic limits and the consequences of that are clear.
Cutting taxes or increasing spending or doing both will increase the deficit but so what. The deficit is just household and businesses savings anyway. Having an EU treaty type rule of what size the deficit should be is bonkers. Full employment and price stability is the goal. If they deficit is 6% of GDP or 2% of GDP to achieve that it doesn’t matter. The government has to meet the savings desires of the public or it will be booted out of office. The savings desires of the public decides what the deficit will be.
The OBR , BOE and IFS act as if we use the Euro and we have to tax or borrow to find the money. Why they say we can’t afford tax cuts. We don’t we are British, we are fully sovereign and we issue the ÂŁ.
Again Brexit was the time to sort these institutions out once and for all. Instead we allowed them to determine policy. Using complete fairy tales.
June 12, 2024
@Derek Henry; “The OBR , BOE and IFS act as if we use the Euro and we have to tax or borrow to find the money. Why they say we canât afford tax cuts. We donât we are British, we are fully sovereign and we issue the ÂŁ.”
I thought it was because the Pound sterling (GBP) is beholden to the international money markets, after all we are British, not a tinpot third world country, reliant on bartering… The OBR , BOE and IFS also act as if we use the USD, AUD, JYP, HKD etc.
June 12, 2024
The Conservative Party (of govt) launched their manifesto yesterday, today our host chooses to talk about what the opposition didn’t do four yeas ago, not the proposed polices of his own party going forward. Clearly he can find nothing positive to say about his own party, in fact he appears quite damning, criticizing policy upon policy, and their failure to sort out the BoE, or DESNZ since 2015, thus he resorts to negative campaigning, complaining that the opposition failed to support what the Tory backbench wanted!
Is it 1st April again already?…
Reply This is an independent site, not a Conservative party one. I am not a candidate in this election.
June 12, 2024
So you canât deny the uselessness of what weâre the Opposition Parties?
June 13, 2024
@LA; No, of course not! When faced with a 80 seat (Conservative) govt majority, the opposition could have laid amendments 24/7, the govt simply swatting each away, imposing time limits on debates, even three line whips if there was trouble from their own benches.
Tell me, what did Churchill’s official opposition do to effectively oppose Attlee’s 1945 govt nationalizing the railways, creating the NHS as they saw fit, nationalizing ship building, the steel industry, Coal etc. I’m sure Churchill did get amendments to all those Bills, but only because Attlee accepted there wisdom.
June 12, 2024
Opposition what opposition?
Labour according to this Conservative Government will raise personal tax by ÂŁ2,000 per household of the course of the next Parliament. A guess
The Conservatives costed the same way have increased personal Taxes since 2019 by ÂŁ3,000 per household. A known fact
Even now Conservative Taxes(Fiscal Drag) already announced by Sunak/Hunt to take effect after the GE. According to the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) estimates it will increase the governmentâs tax receipts by over ÂŁ34bn a year in 2028. Effectively, a stealth tax increase. A raid on everyone
The Liberal Democrats and Greens have announced more and more taxes to be given or more correctly taken by them
There is no opposition they are all Socialist wanting to take more money and spend it. Not one of them is interested in controlling expenditure, not one of them is suggesting we grow the economy to fund a future. Not one of them envisages or is promoting a future for the UK and its people, Its all about stealing from those earning to give away without controls on personal bigoted projects
June 12, 2024
âInstead of opposing the three worst policy errors of the last four years, they supported them and wanted more of them.â
Napoleon Bonaparte : âNever interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.â
And with an invasion taking place and a unilateral policy to sabotage our energy and hence economy none of the existing Parliamentary parties care one jot for the UK and its citizens.
June 12, 2024
But surely you donât join them on the sinking ship? Even Napoleon surely knew that?
June 12, 2024
âWorst of all Opposition parties want to shut down many of our power stations without solving our shortage of grid, resolving how to store renewable electricity when it is abundant, or how to offset the coming big fall in nuclear power as stations close.â
But thatâs also Conservative Party policy! We even have the sight of a Conservative Party MP as COP26 President blowing up a power station himself in this official SSE video :
https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1429456184902393858/pu/vid/720×720/JwPnpycxEiyBmqVJ.mp4?tag=12
Reply Not so. I helped change Conservative policy on power stations, keeping older fossil fuel ones open and agreeing principle to some new gas generators, unlike Lab/ Lib/ SNP who want to carry on closing.
June 12, 2024
@OR; Had to cringe when Sharma said “and the many new jobs in renewables”, as if these are extra jobs, not replacement jobs, and a lot fewer than were employed in the hydrocarbon sector.
@JR reply; But that video was from 22 Aug 2021, so the policy changes you speak of must be since, a bit late by then, the Tory party started having _still viable_ coal-fired power stations closed in the 1980s.
June 12, 2024
Sorry, Sir John, all existing Parliamentary parties, including the Conservatives must follow by law the carbon budgets set by the CCC. To quote Friends of the Earth published 03/05/2024:
âIn May 2024, Friends of the Earth won a landmark case in the High Court against the government over its inadequate climate plan.
In a critical victory for climate justice, the government has been defeated in court for the second time on its decarbonisation plan, following challenges brought by Friends of the Earth, ClientEarth and Good Law Project.
The High Court has ruled the government breached its duty under section 13 of the Climate Change Act 2008. This requires the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero to adopt policies and proposals which they consider will enable our legally binding carbon reduction targets to be met.â
So unless the voters elect a government that repeals the CCA âkeeping older fossil fuel ones open and agreeing principle to some new gas generatorsâ is only a short delaying tactic and may well be defeated at the next court hearing.
Note, however, that the ruling judge also said the court had no competence to rule on Net Zero!
June 12, 2024
Oh dear!
The new opposition ( if folk donât get their tactical voting right ) could be âŠ.
AaaaaaarghâŠâŠLibDem!
June 12, 2024
@EH; Indeed, if people don’t get their tactical voting correct, the way things are going, by July 5th, the SNP might even hang on to 3rd position, the Tories left to sit alongside the Greens and PC, whilst Reform lick their electoral wound on College Green. It’s 1979 all over, but in reverse, and far worse.
June 12, 2024
nope I would say the biggest policy failure of all the parties is supporting DEI policies which actively discriminate against white hetro males with working class or regional accents.
by keeping such large numbers of the very demographic which has most of the substance out of the corridors of power they left clueless arts and politics grads in charge, and from that lack of real diversity comes most of our problems.
to say nothing of the lack of empathy for the issues faced by most real people in the real world.
the issues you list John, are all just symptoms of that.
June 12, 2024
@jerry; Sorry, a typo, as an MP since 1987 – although it probably feels more like 57 years!
June 12, 2024
Today’s announcement
“Rishi Sunak has played down warnings Labour will win a âsuper-majorityâ following comments by one of his Cabinet colleagues.” is that an admission that he has lost the Conservatives the election? Who’d have guessed it!
Grant Shapps, the Defence Secretary, this morning warned voters âyou donât want to have somebody receive a super majorityâ is that an admission that he is part of the team that has lost the Conservatives the election? Who’d have guessed it!
June 13, 2024
It’s just a tactic to try and scare people into voting conservative.
June 12, 2024
No worries, Sir John. I won’t be voting for any of those opposition parties. I’ll vote Reform, like millions of us, who will ‘oppose’ from outside Parliament.
June 12, 2024
Just seen Andrew Bridgenâs election leaflet. âMake 4th July Independentâs Dayâ – he has support from my husband Rodney and from Robert Kennedy Jnr, and letâs hope from the vast majority of voters in North West Leicestershire.
I see Andrea Jenkins includes a picture of Farage on her election leaflet – but she is opposed by a Reform Candidate.
If you have a good candidate, regardless of Party, support them. If you are like me, stuck, I donât know what to suggest. Maybe a round of golf to take your mind off the whole damn thing.
June 12, 2024
Have wondered for a while how the people actually working in our electricty generation , transmission and distribution industry feel about the less secure energy resources for our country . Had a look at
gmb.org.uk
For example , a posting on Energy from 23 Jan 2024 –
Annual UK energy imports now cost as much as the total defence budget .
Ahead of the second reading of the government`s Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill in Parliament, the GMB
union attacked the government over the repeated failure to secure energy resources for the nation,
The annual net cost of importing energy to the UK is ÂŁ56 billion.
The UK`s annual defence budget is ÂŁ57 billion.
Gary Smith ,GMB General Secretary , said :
“In an increasingly volatile world ,the UK desparately needs better control over our energy supplies.”
Hope the GMB can remain strong on this issue .
June 12, 2024
Sunak shouldn’t be allowed on TV, he’s killing even the chance to become the loyal opposition
June 12, 2024
Despite what most on here say about the last 14 years, I bet most of you will still vote Tory. If you do, it tells them youâll put up with them because the alternative is worse. For heavenâs sake, either vote Reform or abstain. The Tories are finished for now and probably the next 10 years. It feels like 1997 again – when it looked as though the Tory Party as a challenger for government would never get back into power. Try and make it quick. If Reform get 15% of the vote and roughly equal the Tory vote, change will come far more quickly and maybe in 5 years time, youâll be in with a chance. Abstain or vote Reform – itâs the only sensible choice.
June 12, 2024
Well the opposition want to see the government fail so that they can get into power, so of course they will cheer on the idiots!
The question you should be asking is-why so many idiots? Why the desertion by Cameron when he lost, why the confected mess of May in Brexit, why the green Boris agenda and caving in on NI, why the Truss debacle, why the Sunak money-cuck in Covid, non-democratic crowning and continuing idiocy vis a vis immigration?
So much time, so many idiots, so much mess.
June 12, 2024
The problem isn’t the opposition parties, the problem is a lack of high quality Tory MPs (I mean Sunak’s massive failure over D Day kind of sums up this well. And that some think Penny Mordaunt should be next Tory leader is like tumbling even further down into political oblivion).
It’s not easy to attract high quality Tory MPs but we have to try! In fact, the number 1 priority at next Tory Conference should be how to figure out how to attract higher quality Tory MPs. MPs with relatively high business experience and really patriotic.
Not easy, I know. But at least have to firstly acknowledge and then try.
June 12, 2024
Also, in business, you don’t ultimately blame the competitors (unless they have done something illegal – then you seek damages in court etc). You blame yourself – your own business plan and how you have failed to implement that (including lacking the skills / abilities to carry out etc).
Tories need think more like entrepreneurs!
June 12, 2024
But John, the reason why the Opposition didn’t oppose the government is that the ‘Conservative’ government turned out to be a left-wing social democracy with no patriotic love of nation whatsoever, with authoritarian, Beveridge-type tendencies towards state control, tax-and-spend, and a dutiful unquestioning readiness to allow international powers to restrict, even ban the economic means and the natural, structural advantages Great Britain has, handing parts of the UK to the EU for a mess of pottage (the rubbish TCA).
Naturally the Opposition had to try very hard to vie with the Tories in its socialist policies. At least in the next Parliament as the government they will have things easier, having a tiny Opposition that will spend the next ten years steering this way and that until finally vanishing up its
Oh, and simply disenfranchising the membership, to push through a leadership change nobody wanted, was the last straw, and the camel has been limping along since then.
You are well out of it, as one of the honourable but small (fingers of one hand) number who saw, warned, and were constantly sidelined or lied to.
June 13, 2024
Problem is the country is hungry for Hedonism / WOKE / socialism like being hungry for a greasy burger and chips instead of nourishing and quality food from a Michelin star restaurant.
The country has (to a worrying degree) culturally ditched traditional Tory cultural values (family, work ethic, personal responsibility) for childish quick self-indulgent fixes.
So the real war is in the culture not politics and once you’ve won the cultural war (as Jordan Peterson is trying to do) then politics becomes much, much easier – with low taxes and light-touch government – but you can’t essentially achieve that through politics / economic policy although of course helps.
June 13, 2024
Truth is the government adopted the policies of the opposition.