After months of being ignored the BBC invited me on to the World at One to discuss the vote split between Conservatives and Reform! I pointed out I have set out crucial topics like nationalised industry losses, Bank of England disastrous money policy, revealed the public sector productivity collapse, wrote about controlling independent bodies and much else crucial to how we can have lower taxes, a growth strategy and better public services. The BBC resolutely wallows in ignorance of these issues and opportunities. I reminded Ā them I am an economic and political analyst, not a pollster. I declined to play their game of creating a row between Conservative and Reform.
Their view as always mimics the Lib Demās. The country is festooned with their self serving lies with every poster that announces āWinning hereā. Past experience and current polls say they will lose in most of those places.The slogan is all about them and their ambitions. It tells us nothing about what they want for our country or how they would serve their electors. They often ally this to nasty personal Ā attacks on their opponents as they are understandably reluctant to talk about their record in local government or their work in coalition government.
No-one knows how in 3 weeks time many past Conservative voters will vote because they have not yet decided what to do. Currently some say they will vote Conservative, some say Reform, and many say undecided. What the BBC should be encouraging is a fuller exploration of the issues like budget pressures, wasteful spending, public sector losses and the productivity collapse to provide some balance to the parade of left wing experts who all conclude tax rises are needed.
Candidates contesting the election are best advised to ignore opinion polls, which tell the big majority of them they will lose. Candidates need to talk more about the big issues facing us, what they think about them and how they want to serve us. Too many shelter behind party sound bites that close down or skate round debate. Labourās endless repetition that they have a fully costed and funded programme is a silly way of trying to avoid big issues about affordability and value for money of public services.
June 15, 2024
For years now we have been plagued with ridiculous, bogus prediction.
When we will be hitting NZ for goodness sake!
What the ghastly base rate will be!
In how many years the planet will boil.
And who will win the election.
How about we all go back to living a life?
June 15, 2024
Indeed.
The BBC line on Net Zero is perhaps their most blatant propaganda on top of the other issue JR lists where the BBC resolutely wallows in ignorance.
But with first past the post people cannot vote as they wish too. If like me the last thing they want is a Labour majority they are obliged to vote tactically or waste their vote. So who in that seat is the best one to defeat Labour or Libdims or Plaid or SNP.
June 15, 2024
LL
Been there done that, too many times. I will vote with my conscience for a party with conservative policies and values and there is only one of them, Reform.
Since Major we have been failed by Conservatives and Labour. Enough is enough.
June 15, 2024
We had a Lib Dem candidate visit us this week, she slated Rees-Mogg. My wife asked why she spoke so badly about him for her to say how she had a right over body etc. My wife pointed out that he was not even a candidate for our area. She then carried on her rant about his alleged views on abortion. My wife asked if he was entitled to his legitimate views based on religion like anyone else and that it appeared more reasonable than Lib Demās thinking a woman could have a penis. A biological impossibility. At this point the candidate left our doorstep.
June 15, 2024
I assumed Hope would be a woman, like Faith if she ever posted on here.
June 16, 2024
Peter, get with the program donāt assume gender and what has gender to do with anything anyway?
June 15, 2024
I agree. The Tory’s simply aren’t conservative as Cameron made sure with his pick one from three liberals at CCHQ’s insistence. Sir John, Mrs Thatcher etc would not get short listed under the present Tory system. So goodbye Tory’s, hello REFORM. All the blogs and articles are saying the same. The only leader making any sense is………Farage.
June 15, 2024
With Farage the tories would win and with Sunak they’d lose
June 15, 2024
This sums up Sunakās left wing EU one nation party in todays papers:
Ms Braverman said: āI had assurances from Rishi Sunak that he was going to put a cap on legal migration, that he was going to do something about the European Convention on Human Rights, that he was going to fix this transgender ideology in our schools. He hasnāt done that.ā
Sunak ignored and blocked her!
June 15, 2024
@Hope – as with everything he fails to manage and deliver what he promises. He keeps writing checks he has no intention of being cashed. Then has the temerity to suggest that the Conservatives have deserted the his Government and should come back into the fold because of his promises. Sunak and CCHQ need to ‘wake-up’! it is they that are the deserters they refuse the existence of conservatism and fully embraced hard left Socialism.
June 15, 2024
There is a lot about Reform I like. They have more of an entrepreneurial / down-to-earth approach than the Tories.
(But still voting Tory, as a vote for Reform is a vote for Labour).
But even if Reform won, only so much they can do. Politicians can only be effective if the people they represent are effective! But all over the Western world, healthy Conservative cultural values – like family values, work ethic, patriotism, healthy competitive spirit etc – are falling by the wayside. Values which helped to give us Oxford, Cambridge, our Parl and Judiciary, and Guilds and Grammar Schools and so on.
But Reform do not seem to be entering into this debate either. About how to revive these great Conservative cultural values which political leaders need in order to have something to work with / on.
June 15, 2024
LL,
We have FPTP so we have to work with it. If all the people who don’t want either Tory or Labour voted Reform, there’s a good chance we return a Reform government. We cannot be defeatist, we need to have the national confidence that we can change the status quo when there is necessity to do so, even though the odds are stacked against us. Vote for the team you’d like to see in power.
June 15, 2024
@ Peter Wood – exactly so!
June 15, 2024
FPTP is a system better suited than PR for removing those in power.
PR often produces coalitions, with manifestos selected not by the electorate but brokered between the parties, risks a third party retaining power in perpetuity, and can see party lists of candidates meaning party leaderships likewise keep being returned provided a party reaches a threshold of votes.
June 15, 2024
Well perhaps, but in this case it removes the dire Tories to replace them with even worse Starmerās bitter, politics of envy Labour Party with a large majority.
June 15, 2024
The trend is showing the Labour vote falling. Wavering former Lib Dems who had switched to Labour are now returning to their fold. Former Labour voters are moving into the NOTA camp as well. As we know, Lib Dems are geographically concentrated, so their potential in seats is limited (just as the SNP only has 60 seats to go for). The key is then the balance between Conservatives and Reform. If the vote is split then the result is a big landslide, but if it tilts one way or the other, then the landslide is reduced or even eliminated. All the while the key is reducing the Labour vote. They could find themselves forced into coalition with Lib Dems if they can be held to the low 30s.
The NOTA/undecided element is also a much larger than normal factor in this election. If they get convinced to vote for something different there could be a big shift in results. The fact that the Tories are now polling at levels that would leave them well below 100 seats means that they no longer look like the route to reining in Starmer.
June 15, 2024
I just wish the 17.4 million of us that voted to Leave would now vote for Reform UK – we did it once let’s do it again!
June 15, 2024
+many. Exactly right. The swamp needs clearing from enforced socialism.
June 15, 2024
+1
June 15, 2024
PW :
Agreed.
It is a great shame we did not vote for AV when we had the chance. AV has the advantage of FPTP that there is a single MP representing and responsible for a particular constituency combined with the advantage of PR that this MP must obtain 50% or more of the vote. In addition it means that voters can vote for whom they really support and a constituency is never represented by the least popular candidate as a result of a split vote.
June 15, 2024
AV only gets to a notional 50% result by ignoring those who do not vote for either of the leading contenders. It’s not too dissimilar from the French two round system, where those with 50%+ in the first round are elected, and the second round excludes candidates who failed to make 12.5% of the vote in the first round which is then a FPTP runoff for the other candidates.
June 15, 2024
@Peter Wood – so true. Reform have sort of fragmented themselves, they should look at the LibDems with less votes they get more seats. A look and the understanding of the electorate you wish to garnish support from would be a good starting place. Just think, the LibDems stand for different things in every constituency they stand in, they are tapping into the local not national mood. The fact that makes them wishy washy hypocrites is neither here or nor there they win seats and create a platform
June 15, 2024
Reform clearly have little traction in Scotland or London. However they are now neck and neck with the Tories in the rest of the South of England, which has also seen big switching from Labour to Lib Dem, making the area almost a four cornered fight. A bit more tilt, and they could start picking up a lot of seats. They have a lead in the Midlands and the North.
Comment based on YouGov polling. Savanta, Opinium and Survation all prompt for Reform via “Another party”.
June 15, 2024
Quite so. You clearly state the electoral weakness of Reform – no established local infrastructure. I’d add to that, some questionable candidates. It’s a party in development. It has, essentially, just a few viable candidates. However, it does have a charismatic leader who has done more for our country than most other living politicians, AND it has common-sense policies on the big issues facing us. It is those policies, Net Zero, Taxation, Immigration, Energy, Food, that we need bring to the fore, somehow.
June 15, 2024
I see that Lord Cameron of Greensill, Libya has come out with a new version of his “fruitcakes”, “loonies” and “closet racists” comment with his appalling dog whistle comments. Effectively calling farage a racist.
This the cast iron, to the tens of thousands, low tax at heart liar who abandoned ship like a spoiled child when he lost the Brexit referendum (despite having promised to stay on).
It is not Reform who are burying the Conservatives it is you Cameron + May, Boris, Sunak who are doing that.
June 15, 2024
In the style of Lifelogic :-
David Cameron is surely right in todays Times –
ā Before returning to politics Cameron drove a van full of aid from Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire to Ukraine. He recalls the van suffering a āmassive blowoutā in Poland. āWe realised we didnāt have a spare tyre,ā he said. āWhich idiot hired this lorry? I realised it was me.ā
There is more stuff about how much he has done as Foreign Secretary, being a team player under the captaincy of Sunak and never giving up because of polls.
June 15, 2024
No, Slimy Cameron is wrong, underhand and deceitful in his undertakings. Look at his record before and in office. Expense scandal, failed right to recall, failed to address Lothian question, deliberately failed to cut immigration, 80/20% split cuts to tax rises, did the opposite by hiking taxes to record levels, failed to balance structural deficit and pay down debt by 2015, failed to cut number of MPs, hired former Labour ministers instead of conservatives, law and order became redundant under him and his Home Secretary May- drug related crime have boomed ever since, rigged EU referendum with Ā£9 million of our taxes, falsely claimed he got a good deal from EU, others in his party called it thin gruel, stated he would send letter next day and implement vote to leave, he ran off, stated he would stop child benefit to EU citizens who never set a foot here, when he left office it still cost Ā£33 million a year while preventing UK parents having it, gave free university education to EU students while giving a life time of debt to English students- our competitors! His greatest achievement gay marriage which he did not have a mandate or ratified in Queenās speech. The list of his heir to Blaire failings is endless even before the Libya fiasco with France on behalf of EU! What is mystifying is that Sunak brought this socialist loser back!
June 15, 2024
The guy is a lazy, underprepared, hype-conquers-all type.
June 15, 2024
Votes are registers of opinion. Every vote counts. 6 million Reform, Green or Monster Raving Looney party votes or even 6 million spoiled papers will create the kind of shift that 4 million UKIP votes achieved.
Voting for the least worst option or tactically, that is a waste of a vote and the two main parties want you to waste it that way.
June 15, 2024
Indeed, most if the predictions are from rabid alarmist left wing organisations
As for the GE, I do think Reform are now the opposition as fishy wants to lose the election and be in the USA for the September school term
He’s fulfilled his WEF instructions and thinks it’s time to hand over the baton for Starmergeddon to finish the destruction.
He didn’t plan for Nige entering the fray or the rest of Europe doing a sharp right turn
Reply Mr Sunak has made clear he will stay and serve a 5 year term as an MP if he loses the national election but wins his own seat.
June 15, 2024
Reply to reply: Lord Dave of Greenshill Lobbying made it clear that if the majority voted to leave the EU, he would remain as Prime Minister.
I presume Sunak’s lips were moving when he made his intentions clear?
June 15, 2024
Treacherous May stated in parliament she would work with Corbyn!! Sunak stated he would frack, implement 2019 manifesto he was elected on! Braverman in papers today being quoted what Sunak had agreed for her support then failed to implement. EU sell out agreement! I think it reasonable based on Sunakās pledges/promises that no sensible person could or should believe a word Sunak says, same with Slimy Cameron.
June 15, 2024
+1
Sunak who lies to us that he has cut taxes already, the Covid vaccines were unequivocally save and were need to go for net zero. All are blatant lies, unless he is very dim indeed.
June 15, 2024
We had a previous Tory PM who said in the event of a Leave vote he would continue in post and lead the country out of the EU. He announced his resignation the following day.
We take Tory promises with a pinch of salt.
June 15, 2024
…and he’s now in the second most important position in the parliamentary party ….just another step to the left
June 15, 2024
Only a pinch? Surely a ton at least.
June 15, 2024
You know he’s lying because his lips are moving.
June 15, 2024
On main policies, high tax, big state and spend, Brexit, mass immigration, net stupid the Tory and Labour Party are one. No opposition whatsoever as we have seen no mention on Brexit or EU lock step to prevent divergence and defeat public mandate. None.
June 15, 2024
Sir John, He isn’t doing a very good job if his intentions were to stay!!
June 15, 2024
Seem unlikely to hold Richmond.
June 15, 2024
@ian wragg; Indeed, Mr Farage has said he has important work to do in the USA this Sept. to 5th Nov. & perhaps beyond. Nor can a party claim to be the “opposition” on one selective opinion poll, I’m sure the Green Party could also make such claims. š
Farage does seem to think “itās time to hand over the baton for Starmergeddon”, how else can anyone read his actions, and of Reform, to stymie the one party with any prospects of preventing such an outcome.
“the rest of Europe doing a sharp right turn”
Indeed Farage did not foresee that! I bet he must be right peeved off, missing centre stage and the lime-lights of the EP, a far bigger platform than helping the campaign team of a possible next POTUS…
June 15, 2024
@REPLY – how certain are you? He said he was a Conservative yet with high spending, high borrowing leading to high taxation he proves he is a hard-left Socialist
June 15, 2024
Iād like to find a bookie laying odds that that is what he will do. Iād bet against – and win.
June 15, 2024
Good to see the MSM trying to rubbish Farage after Fishy appointed Lird Greenshill as Foreign secretary. There’s more dodgy characters in the liblabcon than there ever could be in Reform.
Nicky Campbell making a right prick of himself yesterday interviewing Nigel as he wouldn’t debate offshoring our CO2
June 15, 2024
Nicky has morphed totally into the standard BBC moron…..shame.
June 15, 2024
Ian
Yes listened to that interview myself, afraid the very silly Nicky Campbell took up far, far too much time trying to lecture Nigel on the fixed science of Climate Change, rather than getting Nigel to answer questions.
Interruption after interruption from a presenter that clearly knows little about the real subject matter himself.
NC came across as a reporter full of his own self importance, hence the so called interview was really a complete waste of time.
June 15, 2024
IW,
Watching and listening MSM appears like Brexit all over again! Like the horrible Lib Dem candidate slating Rees-Mogg when he is not even a candidate for our area!
June 15, 2024
I really donāt know how LibDems get away with the sort of campaigns they run.
Talk about ad hominem.
Verging on downright illegality I would have thought.
June 15, 2024
Some years ago I voted in our local elections. Upon arriving at the polling station and just before I walked into the room where I was to cast my vote (I actually spoiled my ballot paper with, “NOTA”) I was accosted by a man who asked how I was going to vote. I demanded who he was and what reason he was asking me such a question. He said he was a LibDem activist and just wanted to know. I stared at him briefly and told that it was none of his concern. The LibDems tend to be the most cheeky of the lot.
June 15, 2024
Mark B:
I’ve experienced similar.
For many years, activists have sat outside polling stations at a small desk, appearing official, asking voters on exit to show their polling card, or reveal their address, and be seen ticking it off from their ‘official’ list.
Conservatives and others used this to focus solely on phoning those known not to have voted, urging them to do so before 10pm.
Asking someone whom they voted for is blatantly intrusive: less likely to receive a favourable reply; although some are pleased to broadcast their opinions vigorously!
June 15, 2024
I think this is why the pollsters habitually underestimate the Conservative vote. Those who reply “none of your business” tend to be Conservative.
June 15, 2024
I have done this but never asked who people voted for. The idea is to check the voters against canvass returns and make sure you get your vote out as the day progresses.
June 15, 2024
Yes we Tories always manned every polling station. We checked off our pledged votes, we were not interested in the others. Then we set to getting those pledges who had not voted out. We sent cars! In the Major election, I took a husband and wife who had retired for the night, with coats flung over their nightwear, to the pool at 9.55pm.
When I knocked them up they said āwe have lostā and I told them that if all our pledges vote – we win!
We did.
In 1983 in Poole, I was checking off our lists of pledged votes from the lists brought in from the polling booths. They were declaring they had voted Tory, but by 11.00am I had haā¬duly checked off any of our pledged votes; I was able to tell Butterfil that we had a landslide! He heard it from me first š„³
Iām shocked that posters on this site have no idea how to run an election campaign.
June 15, 2024
I don’t need to run an election campaign, Lynn. Your party does, and it needed to make a better showing than it’s done so far. In the 80s the party managers didn’t despise the rank-and-file membership. They didn’t impose a leader that members didn’t want and they didn’t stop local associations from short-listing candidates they preferred. There was a large and enthusiastic activist base such as your good self. Compare that with now. A huge amount of energy and goodwill has been squandered by the stupidity of Conservative leadership preferring to listen to ‘advisors’, rather than the hard-earned experience of party workers.
June 15, 2024
PS. You are NOT allowed to ask who the voter voted for when you man a polling station. You can ask for his polling number. We are never interested in the address. We are ONLY marking off the people who have voted.
Then we mark that off our list of pledged votes, complied when we were able to canvass and ask voters to vote Tory, and give them reasons to do so!
You all need to read Cecil Parkinsonās book – and especially Richard Holden – he will have plenty of time to learn how he should have run this campaign!
June 16, 2024
Lynn Atkinson:
Your two postings above added good quality information.
Cloughās reply made good points too.
Thanks to both of you.
June 15, 2024
@Mark B; Oh really, talk about inventing a storm in an egg cup!…
Election law allows such canvasing, as long as it is done upon exiting the polling station (not as you implied, whilst inside or casting ones vote), and we can decline to comment or passing caustic comments. Nor is there anything ‘party political’, I have been asked by a wide cross section of party workers in the past, including Con & UKIP. How do you think the 10pm Exit poll works, although that is carried out by a professional polling company.
June 15, 2024
Those conducting the exit poll identify themselves properly. I can’t be certain how it is done, but these days the technology would allow them to use an iPad with a replica of the voting card to record their vote without the pollster even seeing it or knowing how the voter responded. The privacy and immediacy would help ensure truthful results. Unlike the pre-election polling, the exit poll is usually quite accurate – and that’s not all down to sample size.
June 16, 2024
@Mark; What is you problem, just say NO THANK YOU, and do it politely!
If you truly believe there is a breach of election law, intimidation, call the police.
I suspect you have mixed up two or more occasions and types of canvasing, those that (as Lynn points out above) who seek to maximize turnout via asking for peoples polling card number and those who conduct an _anonymous_ informal exit poll. By the way, all the canvassers I have come across all made it quite clear who they were and why they were asking, some even wore rather large rosettes. A single rouge, perhaps, not a conspiracy.
June 18, 2024
?
I commented on how the exit poll is run. I have never had a problem with party tellers at polling stations, who are usually polite regardless of party, at least in the constituencies I have lived in. Perhaps a bit different in say Tower Hamlets. See the many reports over the years by Peter Golds detailing voter intimidation there.
June 15, 2024
Have you reported their leaflets, which tell outright lies like āLabour CANNOT win hereā, to the Electoral Commission.
Reply No. Anyone with such a leaflet can do that.
June 15, 2024
We vote at the local Salvation Army Hall and there is usually a Lib Dem person outside in the car park asking to see people’s registration form. Last time I told him it was none of his business and then stood for a few minutes telling others as they arrived thaat they didn’t need to show anything to him – that he was not an official. He got quite upset about it but I thought it was a blooming cheek. I went In to vote myself and an elderly lady came up to me and thanked me for my advice.
There was nobody there at the last Council Eelction but maybe he was just on Tea Break…
June 15, 2024
Itās a disgrace and an indication of the collapse of the Tory Party that there were no Tory workers at the polling station asking for polling numbers. Incidentally nobody asking for ballot numbers is allowed to identify as a party worker. There can be NO CANVASSING whatsoever on polling day.
Where are the Sub-Agents to train the party workers on running an election machine! š¤Æ
No wonder the Tories are in existential crisis.
June 15, 2024
@Everhopeful – it is sort of summed up here on Guido https://order-order.com/2024/06/10/all-the-bonkers-policies-in-the-libdem-manifesto/.
The LibDems will be what ever some fringe wants them to be. Remember their Boss(Ed Davey) running the Post Office as Minister in Charge, the actual boss and management of Paula Vennells took her side at her suggestion that even no money was shown to be missing their employees must be ‘crooks’ and thieves’ and deserved prison.
June 15, 2024
Happy birthday Sir John.
I donāt even know how to vote!
June 15, 2024
Well surely given FPTP you have to vote for the best stop Labour candidate in your area. In most of England this is now Reform.
June 15, 2024
There is no Reform candidate in Hexham. But they have found one to stand against Andrea Jenkins and Philip Davies etc.
We are a Conservative held constituency – since inception in 1921 I believe.
I would not vote Reform anyway. How can Farage (parachuted in with no vote like Holden and Sunak) and who will he āleadā having put all the good Tories out?
I canāt vote Conservative.
I canāt vote Labour.
I would rather die than vote Lib Dem or Green.
I have an independent AFD. Probably I will vote for him.
June 15, 2024
Spoil your paper
June 15, 2024
NS
Then your vote does not count at all.
We should have a none of the above space, and then it would be counted, enough of those and it may win, That would perhaps then give the other candidates something to really think about. and
June 15, 2024
Berkshire Alan – Agree
June 16, 2024
A spiled paper is better than not turning up to vote. It is also better than voting for the least worst option as your registered vote is an affirmation for the party you put an X next to.
If enough voters (for example all the voters who don’t turn up) spoiled their paper. Then those votes would count and make a difference. Even if it was just getting None of the above added to the paper.
Moaning about the status quo but participating in it is a wasted vote.
June 15, 2024
@Lynn Atkinson – as a Conservative, Rishi Sunak and his Government have maliciously disenfranchised you
June 15, 2024
Yes. I am furious with them. I had lunch today who know the Sunakās well, and live in Richmond.
When I told them my objections to Sunak – all political including JRs famous BOE gilts sales, aided and betted by Sunak as Chancellor and PM, they were truly shocked.
I donāt think Sunak will hold Richmond.
June 15, 2024
The leader of the SDP, William Clouston, is standing in Hexham. That is probably why Reform didn’t include it in the 609 seats they are standing in. Their policies are a lot more sensible that those of Labour or Lib Dems, or what Tories would likely implement. However, seat predictions suggest that Guy Opperman is likely to be one of the few Tories who retain their seat with Labour the close challenger or even winner while their vote remains high nationally.
June 15, 2024
Surely your junior doctor relative wants Labour to get in.
June 15, 2024
Well he certainly deserves better pay, his flat mates, the same age in Banking/Law & with far less student debt are paid circa three times his salary. I still have to subsidised him still so he can survive – 7 years so far. Plus I will have to buy him a house no doubt soon. But will Labour pay them properly and fire all the diversity, equality and net zero people they employ? The shadow health Sec. has said the odd sensible thing. Victoria Atkins a lawyer with no medical training & paid 5 time as much called them Doctors under Training.
June 16, 2024
If he is in FY2 he is still āin-trainingā – he gets training days off paid and has supervision at work.
When you get your Labour government it will all be dumbed down, if the tag āin-trainingā is removed people will think theyāre getting a qualified doctor when theyāre getting a text-book rookie. They should concentrate on keeping the over 55 doctors working at least 37 hours per week in the NHS instead they will cut and run as taxes increase.
June 15, 2024
no great loss there then!
June 15, 2024
They are trying to discredit Reformās campaign with accusations of bot support.
Did similar to Trump.
All manipulation and persuasion is apparently badā¦..except when inflicted by the state!
And of courseā¦āTheyāā know exactly how gullible people are.
If they are so bothered let them shut down the entire internet and allow us to go about our business as we always did. Pubs, town centres, shops, coins, exchange of ideas face to face.
Politicians on open air hustings.
I can only imagine how delighted the terrifying leaders of the past would have been to get their mitts on such a divisive, isolating and inhuman tool as the life-changing internet.
June 15, 2024
Todayās theme seems to be a rallying cry for candidates to soldier on. This is coupled with criticism of the BBC approach to politics.
It is probably sensible for politicians to ignore polls at this late stage. Otherwise they might be tempted to throw the towel in. Only a sense of duty to their party might prevent them doing so.
As for the BBC, I am no fan. I donāt have a TV licence. However, in mitigation they may want to cut to the chase about who will win the big race. Many people get bored with the detail or donāt have the patience for it in the first place.
These folk may prefer a tabloid approach instead of heavyweight, weekend broadsheet detail.
June 15, 2024
As for āWorld at Oneā I think you missed a chance there. Sarah Montague is completely useless. You could have run rings around her. The old trick of answering by making the points you want and ignoring the question.
June 15, 2024
Good morning.
That will not fit the narrative being spun. The narrative being, it is all about personalities and not policies. Reason being:
a) The policies are already decided by ‘others’.
b) There is very little to no difference between the LibLabCON anymore. (see (a)).
c) To discuss real policies you mention would open a whole can of worms and show what a mess we are in and the measure that, should we wish to address them, would make any party totally unelectable.
Today’s politics is all about spin and presentation with little to no substance. That is why I get my info’ elsewhere and not from the likes of the BBC.
And as for polls ? There is only one poll that matters, and that is the one that is held on 4th July 2024.
June 15, 2024
‘No-one knows how in 3 weeks time many past Conservative voters will vote because they have not yet decided’
Sadly Sir John you show you need to get out more and talk to ordinary members of the public.
I have to report that contact over months, and now 2 short weeks, with quite a number of former Conservative voters they all say they will vote for Reform. Nobody claims they will continue to vote for Conservatives.
Of course until faced with the ballot paper who can be 100% sure, but no-one I come across insists they will vote Conservative, and most seem certain to vote Reform.
Undecided does not ever feature.
Reply I wrote as I have found on doorsteps, and as the polls suggest. If you were right the polls would be higher for Reform and much lower on donāt knows and wonāt says.
June 15, 2024
People don’t always tell the truth to you Sir John as they are human. You are a decent man belonging to a Party that has betrayed the people. They don’t want to upset you, as you leave with your head held high, hopefully to join and advise the Reform Party, the new and only centre right Party.
June 15, 2024
This was the position for Brexit. School staff rooms, councils and other work places would sneer at anyone suggesting to leave EU! So people kept quiet and voted as they pleased.
It is a bit like the equality /diversity extremism at the moment, the large majority do not want it, but keep quiet in certain forums because they do not want to be smeared, sneered, shunned or labelled for fear of losing job or promotion. Tory party could and should have got rid of S.172 Company Act, DEI and ESG. It built on this left wing agenda and implemented the Sex and Relationship ACT to children of tender years!
June 15, 2024
Spot on ….the tories didn’t just allow the left woke thing to happen, they promoted it
June 15, 2024
reply to reply…did it escape your notice that day by day various polls show an increase in Reform voting.
Were you given roads to door-knock and previous Conservative voters numbered? It seems curious but perhaps they had too much respect for you to say ‘never again, its Reform or abstain’?
‘Undecided’ avoids having a conversation with you about the regular failings of the Conservative Party over many years.
June 15, 2024
The Tory party establishment ignored much of its membership because ” they have nowhere else to go” as well as being “swivel eyed loons etc…”, well now they do have somewhere else to go…and it’s a party which actually achieved something they wanted ie Brexit.
June 15, 2024
Correct …I want my referendum vote, the winning vote to mean something, otherwise we haven’t go a democracy ….the tories ignored the peoples decision, they can’t ignore the reform vote
June 15, 2024
MT is right, and you have overlooked the polls’ bias against Reform, putting Farage’s party under ‘other’, so some people will not see it. Also, after 9 successful elections, SJR, you have a personal popularity which must well exceed the popularity of the Conservatives. I respect the positions you have taken, and the efforts you’ve made in recent years to change the direction your party has been going in. In recognition for that, I for one would feel bad about telling you directly to your face everything I think of your party and its future. Other constituents may also prefer to spare your feelings, if I can put it like that. So you might be getting a rather rosier picture of the prospects for the international bankers’ candidate in Wokingham than she merits.
Reply I have found a lot of people as the pollsters do who say they have not made up their minds. All I wrote was we cannot yet predict what several millions will do because they do not know yet.
June 15, 2024
fine….I’ll be very brave and predict Labour to win, Conservative votes to go into a bit of freefall, Libdems to ‘win’ only a handful, Greens are so impressive they might hold Brighton! Reform to poll 20% but only get a few seats. As usual a GE that disappoints.
June 15, 2024
but they’ll all adopt net-zero (apart from reform)
June 15, 2024
@Reply – I am comfortable saying the opposite to my intentions to all questions asked from people who quite frankly are only asking questions to fulfil their only personal gratification and needs. I will engaged with anyone and everyone for as long as it takes to waste their time – and they would still be clueless
June 15, 2024
Happy Birthday Sir John, on what will be the first day of your 74th year.
May those ahead be similarly excellent.
June 15, 2024
Happy birthday and best wishes for the future. If only Thatcher, Major and all subsequent prime ministers had all listened to your wise advice over many years rather more.
June 15, 2024
Yes.
A Very Happy Birthday to JR
Our rock and comfort during these dire times. š
June 15, 2024
The only party espousing conservatism is Reform. Conservatism died in the hands of consocialism. Labour will leave us more bankrupt than we are, a party fuelled by envy. The rest are just fantasists. Strap in for a bumpy ride.
June 15, 2024
You just know the country has reached rock bottom politically wen the LibDems become part of the political debate.
A group of people so pointless even they can’t find anything positive to say about themselves.
Their favourite poster campaign slogan, ‘Whining (Sic) Here’ seems most appropriate…..
June 15, 2024
Can I think of a single thing that the LibDims want that I approve of?
Well perhaps one, if we had PR we would not be about to suffer 5-15 years of Labour I suppose. Though PR has v. sig. other problems. With PR we would get rule by the Con-socialists + Labour in coalition post this election – essentially the same lunacy continuing but perhaps without the spiteful evil of VAT on private schools (it will raise no money anyway).
June 15, 2024
Ed Davey has recently featured in a clip filmed outside the Prince of Wales pub in Surbiton. He is swaying and holding forth on politics. The last time I was in there was Boxing Day, a few years ago, on a three pub crawl.
It is best for politicians to avoid appearing in pubs when they want a drink. Zac Goldsmith went canvassing in a back street Kingston pub I know. It was not a success. He already had form for using both hands to lift a pint glass to his mouth. Not a good look.
Some politicians use beer as part of their image. They only get away with it when they are pub goers in the first place but not alcoholics.
June 15, 2024
On present polling we would have a Lab-Lib coalition. They could perhaps add in Green and SNP for good measure. Indeed, apart from the Boris honeymoon period all the subsequent polling would have given a left coalition.
June 16, 2024
Worse than a Labour landslide would be a Lab/Lib Dem coalition. Canāt you see that?
June 16, 2024
It will give Labour just the excuse it needs to sign back into the Single Market in order to keep their Lib Dem partners happy. Thatās why theyāve suddenly announced they want back in. This is how PR and coalitions work. Canāt anyone remember when Lib Demās had to give up tuition fees for English kids only for Pupil premiums for poor kids in poorer areas. Yet you never hear of those extra payments for those children now so did they just take the money off the teens and not give the other side the money?
June 15, 2024
The different polling methods in use ensure that at least one pollster will be very wrong. The YouGov method seems vulnerable to the uncertainties caused by the new constituency boundaries – they appear to have already made adjustments to their early polls. No one knows what turnout will be or whether differential turnout will produce surprise results. I would not be surprised at a lower than normal overall GE turnout as there is nothing to energise past Conservative or Labour voters to turn out to vote for them again except more tax increases.
June 15, 2024
Apparently, a majority of Reform voters and a majority of Conservative voters respond that they would favour some form of merger between the two parties.
Had there been time for that and its accomplishment, opinion polls would have shown the resulting party matching or even exceeding Labourās predicted win.
Reform are currently emailing a brilliant graphic design with SUNK in large white capital letters below a blue water background, with a red A sinking at 45 degrees between the N and K.
That simple communication uses just 5 letters to convey the solution so many voters realise as the difference they want delivered.
I regularly donate to Reform as every amount adds weight.
June 15, 2024
If Farage eventually rejoins the Conservative Party, then I see him as Kingmaker, not the King.
Unfortunately, we haven’t seen anyone with the necessary character, skills and courage to take the empty throne yet… Hopefully, cometh the time, cometh the man (or woman)
June 16, 2024
Mr Gold has pointed out on this site that Farage owns 50 odd % of Reform. Your donation is providing him with āa nice little earnerā.
June 15, 2024
Rishi Sunak likes to unwind on long journeys to election visits by playing games with his team. āWhen I am on the road, I am an avid games player. I have got all of the rest of them playing now,ā the Prime Minister told me when I was on board his battle bus for GB News.
Yet another reason not to vote for this dire tax to death, climate alarmist, tax to death socialists. His time would be better spent reading Hayek, Milton Friedman and some sensible climate realists to explain the physics and vast pointless costs of his net zero lunacy.
The main reasons are:- He pushed the total insanity of net zero, he has zero political skills, he lies about having cut taxes they are still rising, he lies about the Covid vaccines being āunequivocallyā safe (they are vastly dangerous as is now very clear indeed), as Chancellor he debased the currency with QE gave us 12% inflation and wasted Ā£billions on net harm lockdowns and net harm vaccines. He has not even tried to control immigration levels, he supported HS2, he failed on four of five of his pledgesā¦
June 15, 2024
Above all he has failed to cut back the size of the state and will give us 5,10 or 15+ years of the Starmer disaster or perhaps even worse than Starmer will he might well be rapidly replaced with even worse.
June 15, 2024
There is nothing worse than Starmer, I donāt think a Labour Government will see out a full term.
June 15, 2024
Labour might well be in for 15+ years.
June 15, 2024
Lynne,
There is. A Tory party dressed in Blairās clothes to deceive the electorate. At least everyone knows what pro EU Trot Starmer and his cohort are like ie Cooper, Benn, Miliband, Lammy etc.
Tell us what the Tory party actually believe in and what you are confident they will do in office under Sunak?
June 15, 2024
I have been urging people to trash the fake Conservative Party since 1994, before Hitchens came to the same conclusion. We have discussed it.
I have not proposed that anybody vote Tory UNLESS you have one of the Spartans or somebody with the same politics proven over years – like Christopher Howarth perhaps (but he is not stank b I believe).
But we need to comprehend that Starmer is the ultimate unapologetic Trot.
June 15, 2024
really? You ain’t seen nothing yet. Is Lynch thinking of running for the following GE?
June 16, 2024
Actually I have reconsidered – and worse than a Starmer landslide (which will stymie him to a large extent) would be a Labour/Lib Dem/Green coalition.
Thank God for FPTP.
June 15, 2024
Both labour & tory are on the same page, they’re both pro ZEV mandate, heat-pumps, battery storage, smart-meters, green power, EVs, imported energy ….everything net-zero ….including pay-per-mile
June 15, 2024
Sunak didn’t even tell his cabinet, nor the 1922 committee or party chiefs about the early election ….does anyone know why he called an early election ?
June 16, 2024
I imagine he was told to. The other WEF puppets are being cleared out.
June 15, 2024
all of them playing games…Sunak .’what could we do next to destroy the economy, piss off the working voters, encourage the gangs loading deathtrap dighies with desperate young men, reward our wealthy mates and look good with the WEF? Best idea gets a few shares from err-indoors.’
Great fun.
June 15, 2024
The latest opinion polls follow the MRP (Multi-level Regression and Post-stratification) methodology, which the psephologists consider to be more accurate on a constituency basis
Even even if Reform nationally achieve 17-19% of the vote they will not win any seats in the election, because of our first-past-the-post system. To win a seat, they have to persuade ALL the Conservative voters to vote for them as well as a proportion of Labour voters. This they will not do.
Take the Clacton constituency that Farage is contesting, which is a safe Tory seat. With the new boundaries, the estimated results on current MRP polling would be as follows; 38% Conservative, 30% Labour, 18% Reform and 6.2% Liberal Democrat. Clacton is a “safe” Tory seat which the Conservatives candidate Giles Watling would hold.
I’ll stand with my previous view that Farage will not displace the Conservatives in Clacton and Reform will win no seats anywhere else. The effect of Reform winning 18% of the vote nationally will give Labour a huge majority with the Lib Dems the official opposition. The Conservatives will be reduced to a rump of about 35 MP’s in the next Parliament.
June 15, 2024
That would be about my assessment.
In any case, the vote will go to those who get away with the sweetest lies. The electorate doesn’t like the blunt truth.
June 15, 2024
You mean like spending Ā£billions to the BoE, EU & UN, Immigration, Nuclear Weapons, Net-zero, Foreign Aid and Servicing our Debt …..everthing I’ve just listed is above and beyond the normal spend on the UK national & local government requirements ie they’re supplus
June 15, 2024
But at least we would be rid of Conservatives like yourself who believe in greencrap and will be able to watch while Millipede creates an economic disaster by 2029.
June 15, 2024
Any candidate standing has to win more than any other. Itās the same for all candidates. Why do people what Reform to be able to win without having to achieve what every other candidate has to achieve? If their message and strategy is popular, they will win – Labour did when it ousted the Whigs.
Why do any of you want Richard Tice to be our very own local WEF – unilateral rule – he OWNS Reform. If he is WRONG – as he was Ā£hen demanding that the unvaccinated be sacked – whatās the difference?
June 15, 2024
@Lynn Atkinson
Richard Tice does not own Reform, which is not a political party but a limited company. Reform UK Party Limited was founded in November 2018 as an āentrepreneurial political start-upā by Nigel Farage, who owns 53% of the shares in the company
Reform was set up to provide a vehicle for Farage’s far-right, anti-EU, anti-immigration, anti-net zero, climate crisis denying, pro-fossil fuel views.
Tice has a minority holding of around one-third of the shares, and chief executive Paul Oakden and party treasurer Mehrtash Aāzami each hold less than 7% each. Reform has 115,00 paying supporters who have no voting power to influence policy.
Do you ever bother to check the facts before you post here?
June 15, 2024
OK – Tice funds it. I have no interest in Reform. It is not a political party as I comprehend it. No members. But a nice little earner for Farage it seems. So marginally worse than I have been suggesting.
June 15, 2024
Lynne,
Tice is a better choice than Sunak, Cameron, Dowden et al and all the socialist pro EU types under the false banner of Tory party.
June 15, 2024
I disagree. He is just as bad. If Reform formed the Government it would be owned by those named by Mr Gold above. This is unchartered territory.
And to think that people told me that a contract between Candidates and their electorate was āimpossibleā.
June 15, 2024
In fact I think it should be illegal for any political party contesting elections in the U.K. to be a wholly owned company which is unable to recruit members.
June 16, 2024
You are wrong, Lynn, not Richard Tice. In 2021 he denounced the proposed NHS Covid vaccine mandate as “mad”, and opposed vaccine passports. Also, the Reform UK Party has members (over 45,000 now, according to ITV). They pay Ā£25 annually. You might want to check what you write in future.
June 15, 2024
The betting market disagrees with you. You can get 9/2 for zero Reform seats, which is a 22% chance. Put you money down.
June 15, 2024
Correction: 18% chance.
June 16, 2024
Now 5/1. 17% chance.
June 15, 2024
But, if they did that, you would claim political bias as they would be focusing on the appalling performance of YOUR government. You should be grateful you are not getting such a roasting. My sense is that people are desperate to punish you. They donāt care if the consequence is a Labour government.
Reply No I would not complain of bias. The waste and bad spending is worse in Labour Wales and SNP Scotland.
June 15, 2024
“They donāt care if the consequence is a Labour government”
But they are going to….. š
June 15, 2024
Never forget the Libdems were the ones calling for an in out majority poll on EU membership until they lost and wanted it ignored. All credibility was lost then
June 15, 2024
It is often forgotten that the 2010 LibDem manifesto was the first call by a party with seats in Parliament for a referendum on EU membership. Once it became clear it wasnāt certain remain would win they changed to say the whole idea of a referendum was terrible, and once they lost they rejected the result and did everything they could to frustrate it.
June 15, 2024
The average quality of MP has sadly declined substantially in recent years: you lambast the Libdems but when in coalition with the Tories at least some of them did have some intellectual clout – such as Vince Cable and Danny Alexander, whether one agreed with them or not.
I remain suspicious of polls predicting a huge Labour majority and suspect most people outside London have no enthusiasm for them. Starmerās comments yesterday about how he would achieve āgrowthā were puerile and insulting to the electorate. We may well see a low turnout election and a much closer result.
Reply Labour support in some recent polls has fallen below 40%
June 15, 2024
To reply – indeed if you include the shy Tories and she reformers the two parties votes exceed Labourās share in polls. Reform are stronger certainly in the red wall areas and most of England.
Vince Cable and Danny Alexander – āintellectual cloutā is this a joke? They were/are profoundly wrong on almost every single issue – especially the Net zero lunacy. Two Economics and PPE lefty, pro the anti-democratic EU dopes.
June 15, 2024
Starmer not only does not know what a woman is, but he does not know that there IS a magic bullet to deliver growth – LOW TAXES!
Personally I doubt he knows which way is up. He looks terrified. So does Farage.
June 15, 2024
Not so much low taxes as far less government, far less government spending, no net zero, a bonfire of red tape, far less waste and low taxes. Plus make people earn their benefits as most will the. disappear.
June 15, 2024
The BBC and indeed the entire blob must be relishing the prospect of 8 or 9 years of leftist government. Gone will be any suggestions of altering the license fee, cutting back the size, power and cost of the quangocracy, reform to public services, scaling back the outrage of public sector pensions, any challenge or even debate on the net zero religion, etc. Best of all for them there will be a surreptitious unwinding of Brexit.
The last might be the only positive thing, because to the extent the Labour govt want to get closer and closer to the EU the less likely they will be to do the sort of mad socialist stuff many of their supporters want. This was the old Conservative argument for EEC membership championed by Margaret Thatcher and others in the 70s and 80s.
June 15, 2024
I think financial reality will kick in pretty soon, when they don’t get the growth they need for their plan, they borrow more to fulfil Labour MP expectations on spending and the money markets get spooked.
It beggars belief they riding high in the polls. I can’t understand what people see in them. There again, I thought Tony Blair was shallow.
June 15, 2024
I am concerned that the incoming Labour government, having inherited a mess far bigger than the mess they left in 2010, will end up borrowing even more precipitating a debt crisis.
I have no pension. I have savings that I live on and which need to last me until I die. I am concerned that a debt crisis will mean my savings being stolen.
What action would you take to protect your savings? My savings are currently in premium bonds and various bank accounts to keep under the Ā£85k limit.
Reply The national finances and economy are in better shape than 2010. I have set out how billions can be saved and tax rates brought down.
I cannot offer investment advice over this website. You can tell a regulated adviser your full financial circumstances and your appetite for risk and they can then recommend ways to invest your savings. There is usually a fee for the service.
June 15, 2024
To Reply The national finances and economy are in better shape than 2010 not sure about this.
But imagine how much better still it could have been had we had no lockdowns, no net harm vaccines, cut out the vast government waste, ditched HS2, not had the PPE and other scams, ditched net zero, had high skilled only immigration, made people work for their benefits, cut the size of the state, cut taxes, had a bonfire of red tape, taken real advantage of Brexitā¦ but we had Con socialists.
June 15, 2024
Well if I were in your position I would sell my house before Starmer brings in CGT on main homes and destroys the economy even further & move abroad to somewhere warmer, cheaper to live but with decent healthcare.
June 15, 2024
Then probably not keep my money in Ā£ but a sensible mix of international investments (nor in the UK so as to avoid any IHT risks if more than the absurdly low threshold Ā£325k that the Osborneās Tories ratted on and failed to index too for 15+ years)
The recent comments from Lord Cameron of Greenshill, Lord Heseltine and others trying to brand Farage as racist are truly appalling and more than sufficient reason not to Voter Tory. They are the appalling dog whistlers.
Though I would in Rees Moggās constituency and a tiny hand full of others where they have sound JR types.
June 15, 2024
I believe that Labour will be very afraid of upsetting the Bond Market after the Truss/LDI crisis Mike. They simply cannot get away with it, so they either have to cut spending or raise taxes.
You are effectively in ‘Cash’ so your main threats are getting taxed on interest payments and inflation. If you are not using your annual ISA allownace, then you should do so. I assume you know nothing of the Stock Market, so stay away from it. Just use your allowance on Cash ISA’s or you will get taxed on any interest over the threshold. Both you and your wife/partner can currently place Ā£20K pa into a Cash ISA – although I wouldn’t be sure this won’t get reduced before too long. Use your allowances whilst you can.
June 15, 2024
My pension, after tax raids and churning, is 900 per year [yes – not month]. I bought 2 slums in 1992 after yet another economic slump. The housing market had collapsed and 3/4 bedroom old houses cost Ā£50,000. I refurbished them and the cost of this was set against income. Presently the CGT on these houses, if I sold in order to avoid the incoming legislation for permanent tenancy and licensing, would be 22% on 50,000 thanks to government policy of mass immigration and zero real interest rates.
Labour is expected to raise CGT and other property taxes. My guess would be back to 40% or higher to match upper income on the sales year. Brown did away with indexation on inflation and reduced the rate to 18% but inevitably they put the rate back up.
The tax payable for both houses would be around Ā£800,000 at 40%. But the inflation from 1992 is Ā£4.1 to Ā£10 making a real gain taxed with indexation only 410,000.
Thus tax grab will make long term investments impossible and the London Stock market will be even more useless than now, where it is already at the bottom of the league. And property investment will be dead. The huge supply of private rentals will be reversed. Where will people who do not wish to buy find homes? But you can bet that most of them will be voting for Labour or worse.
June 15, 2024
22% on 500,000. Correction.
June 15, 2024
Exactly CGT without indexation for inflation and Osbornes not deducting interest off rents before tax is just theft in essence. Even worse to come.
June 15, 2024
You can sometimes roll it over into a new trading business using EIS, unless they have killed that tax break recently? Worth getting advice perhaps.
June 16, 2024
New Towns of quick fix container houses – ā are much bigger, housing more than 550 young people in purpose-built ācontainer housesā, some metal, some of wood and sustainable materials, stacked four or five atop each other. Others, like this one, are permanent, brick-built residences. For a monthly rent averaging ā¬400-500 after housing benefit, every tenant ā who must be aged between 18 and 27 when they move in ā is entitled to their own 20-25 sq metre studio, with its own kitchenette and bathroom, for up to five years.ā
https://dutchreview.com/expat/things-dutch-government-doing-to-tackle-dutch-housing-crisis/
And pre-fabs āSweden uses offsite manufacture to build at least 45% of its new homes. If the UK could emulate this approach ā making use of modern techniques that allow homes to be built faster and with fewer skilled workers ā it could finally overcome its huge housing shortfall.ā https://www.building.co.uk/focus/should-the-uk-look-to-sweden-to-solve-its-housing-crisis/5097380.article
Labour donāt care about nimbyās or fields and nice views. Pylons, no problem, prefabs – excellent idea. Who needs skilled Brickies. https://www.building.co.uk/focus/should-the-uk-look-to-sweden-to-solve-its-housing-crisis/5097380.article
June 15, 2024
I had absolutely NO idea that Blair had borrowed an amazing amount of money miring us all in debt.
I suppose I should have put two and two together since when Brown was finally wrinkled out of Number 10 someone said āThereās no money leftā ( or words to that effect).
June 15, 2024
PFIstill goes on. JR, tell us when it will end.
June 16, 2024
John, could you do a post about how the finances are in better shape in 2024 than they were in 2010 please.
June 15, 2024
Of course the BBC would not have interviewed you, Sir John, on a matter where your views might have played an informative and constructive part in a national debate on the subject. Good Lord, that’s not what the BBC is about! It’s good to know you turned them down.
Best birthday wishes.
June 15, 2024
Happy Birthday Mr Redwood. Have a pleasant day. Your next birthday will be tainted by the knowledge that you are living under a Socialist regime intent on real harm
As an aside. How predictable to see the repugnant Cameron accuse Farage of being to all intents and purposes a racist and an extremist. This tactic is of the Left, it is vile and the last resort open to a man who is responsible for such much damage to his party and the nation. He is in effect slandering the electorate and many MPs in his own party. This man is the embodiment of establishment arrogance and entitlement
June 15, 2024
Lord Dave of Greenshill Lobbying has form when it comes to insulting conservative voters. He called anyone who wanted to leave the EU “loonies, fruitcakes and closet racists.” UKIP made a fair bit of money selling fruitcake at its subsequent party conferences š
You’d think he’d have learnt by now that insults don’t work. He’s obviously a bit slow on the uptake.
June 15, 2024
Look at what Slimy Cameron said and wrote about Trump then goes to him with a begging bowl for corrupt Ukraine! He has no shame, completely arrogant, his ego far larger than any ability for his left wing socialist pro EU views. He preferred to appoint former Labour ministers than conservatives!
June 15, 2024
Perhaps he was high when he said those things? You have to factor that in.
June 15, 2024
Iāve been trying to say that for a while, only in a more roundabout way.
Maybe we should not be surprised at the general madness?
You make a very good point.
June 15, 2024
Yes, this is why I think he and Osborne, I will scream Louise, hated the police so much.
June 15, 2024
hear hear
June 15, 2024
The Conservative Party no longer has enough traditional Conservative Mp’s or policies, and that is why Reform is growing.
Sunak may be a decent sort of man, but he is not a leader, just ask yourself, would you go into battle for him ?
Who to blame for the present demise of the Conservative Party ?
Many reasons, but I suggest Mr Gove for knifing Boris in the back so we ended up with May was perhaps the biggest turning point, they went steadily downhill after that, and are now in rapid decent.
June 15, 2024
Much further back than that. Remember how Thatcher was ousted by the EU wets. Totally disloyal Tory’s. That was the end of a conservative, Tory Party. Every leader since was a liberal EU “wet”.
June 15, 2024
Timeaction.
Indeed, I agree Major was not good at all, but they did get back in after the Brown fiasco, and Cameron said most of the right things most of the time, but then we found out he had no backbone the day after the Brexit vote, it has been going rapidly downhill since then whilst they have actually been in power, for goodness sake they wasted an 80 seat majority bickering amongst themselves.
June 15, 2024
Correct on all points ….I’d further claim that labour aren’t labour
June 15, 2024
Sir John, the BBC were simply taking their lead from your own website!…
reply What nonsense. I have offered no forecast of the election outturn nor any advice on Reform
June 15, 2024
If our host wants the MSM to encourage a fuller exploration of the issues perhaps he needs to stop giving so much oxygen to those who want anything but, such as those who hijack debate after debate here, intent on destroying the Conservative party — not just consign them to five years in opposition. Nor is it just the BBC who are refusing to talk ‘policy’, GBNews is also stoking the Reform-Conservative spat, and were before the election was even called. At least the BBC invited our host on, not that I heard the interview, but I’m sure he was able to make the points he wanted to made, even if just briefly.
“Candidates need to talk more about the big issues facing us”
And there lies the problem! Most of the big issues are ones the current govt could have fixed over the last 14 years, many issues have not been fixed in 45 years, of which the Conservatives had been the govt for 37 of those years, often with a clear majority and mandate. The problems are the policies, not the issues, we all know much of the Public Sector is on its knees, but we also know there are deep problems within the (now) Private Sector too, such as problems with sewage, TOCs, our core (backbone) telecom systems, poor service from energy companies etc.
Callaghan had a point, when during the 1979 election, he turned to his advisors and said “it doesn’t mater what I say, people are just not listening”, and we were not, many had had their fill of the post-war policy set at that point.
June 15, 2024
I think Lord Cameron’s interview with The Times (as reported) was ill-advised and might backfire, many voters will have little sympathy if the opinion polls are even half right; calling out “inflammatory language and hopeless policy” from populist parties is a bit daft after so many within his own party have spent the last 8 years running off towards such language and policy whenever UIKIP, TBP, Reform or Farage blew their dog-whistles!
June 15, 2024
@JR reply; Are you seriously suggesting the MSM only reads what you write, not the readers comments you publish below, many of those comments have actively stoked the fire you do not wish stoked, you can’t complain when the MSM reacts!
June 15, 2024
I’m sure you don’t consider your opinions to represent those expressed by Sir John, or indeed many of those who comment here. Unlike so many other fora, here you find an exchange of views – even yours are permitted, even when you are completely wrong on matters of fact. Mostly, you get corrected.
June 16, 2024
@Mark; Many of my comments are in reply to the comments I cite above. Whilst I might disagree with Sir John about policy, about the advice he has offered both now and historically, unlike some I wish for the Conservative party not only to survive but be in govt or at least the official opposition -nor be beholden to view that have never belonged in modern Conservative party.
No one is forcing our host to publish our comments, as he states at the top of the main page “The moderator reserves the sole right to decide whether to publish or not.”, as I said, he can not complain if the media reacts to comments _he chooses_ to publish.
June 16, 2024
I agree Mark. Jerry pops up from time to time to disrupt and set up strawmen, then he disappears again.
If you are formulating a good argument, he likes to put a negative spin on it to change the algorithms. I try my best to ignore him now, once I cottoned on to his task here, other than to fact check something.
June 16, 2024
@a-tracy, If someone can “put a negative spin on” an argument it can’t be a very secure argument can it, or just perhaps they are testing the argument, its called Debate. Nor do I recall you and others complaining about negative spin when it is put on polices you disagree with. As to when I make a comment, that is up to me, our host, not you.
I’m glad you ignore me, there has been far less noise to the debate, of which many others are happy to engage, but then perhaps they are not simply looking for echos…
June 17, 2024
Got it in one, A Tracy.
Jerry is here for an argument.
Whatever your views he will counter.
June 17, 2024
@MiB; You might see it as an argument Martin, almost everyone else will see it as a DEBATE.
Strange how @Martin in Bristol and @Sam always seem to post in lockstep, whenever one is about the other is too, different debates, different threads, but always together. Just saying…
June 18, 2024
Reminds you of the Monty Python sketch…
I wonder if he gets paid Ā£5?
June 15, 2024
Just a quickie
Does John believe the rumours that the Labour party will change UK tax law so that the proceeds from the sale of a person’s primary residence will be subject to CGT at a rate to be decided? If Labour go down this route you’ll see huge public resistance to this form of state theft.
reply They refuse to rule out that option
June 15, 2024
@DOM; Just because something is not ruled out it doesn’t mean anyone is actively considering such a policy, have the Tories ruled out cutting top rate taxes, have they ruled out ever imposing any tax that would affect the low paid more than those earning above say Ā£200k pa?
Complex questions and Brickbats at dawn…
June 15, 2024
Since has been ruled out by Starmer himself
June 15, 2024
Apparently the prisons are approaching capacity and the Home Office has decided that in the interests of fairness, convicts with less than 90 days to serve can be released early.
There are thousands prisoners who are serving “imprisonment of public protection” terms. These unfortunate men committed trivial non-violent offences, frequently for theft, and have been incarcerated in some cases for decades. A number of them have ended their own lives in despair
IPP sentences ā under which offenders were given a minimum jail term but no maximum ā were scrapped in 2012 amid human rights concerns. The abolition of the policy did not affect those already sentenced, leaving thousands trapped in jail for years beyond their original prison terms.
Everyone agrees that these prisoners should be released. Now would be an excellent time to do so
June 15, 2024
@SG; Isn’t that what the parole board is for, to determine if someone is fit for release? Everyone agrees IPP sentences should never have been created, not that all such prisoners should be released willy-nilly!
IPP sentence are not a “Whole Life” tariff, and as I understand the Parole system, much depends on the prisoners own attitudes, to their crime, their conduct as a prisoner, and to any rehabilitation schemes offered.
That said, there are many people in the prison system who should not be there, whatever the prospect for their (eventual) release, I do worry if some (of those low level) offenders are detained inappropriately due to a lack of more appropriate secure accommodation, care and/or rehabilitation.
June 15, 2024
+1
June 15, 2024
Yet female teachers face lengthy jail terms for having sex with a 15 year old boy it seems. Can we first keep the dangerous & violent, the drug dealers, people with violent mental health issue, rapistsā¦ off the streets first please?
June 15, 2024
@LL; Sexual abuse is abuse whoever carries it out, the law has been _very_ clear on that since the 2003 Sexual Offenses Act., nor, a child (under the age of 18) can not always give informed consent. Those persons with a duty of care or influence over a child also have increased responsibilities under the law. The child was willing is no defense, nor is ignorance of the Law!
Judges in such cases have more information than the media nor you have access to. If the defense team believe the conviction has been miscarried, or the sentence inappropriate, they are free to lodge an appeal.
June 15, 2024
It doesn’t seem to be a crime in France LL
June 15, 2024
+1 age of consent in France is 15 I think. How is Macron getting on with his election?
June 16, 2024
@LL; Don’t be so sure, at least regarding Adult-Child consent, I’m pretty sure the EU unified it to age 18. Also, you and IanT are mixing up an historical case with a far more recent case.
June 16, 2024
It’s hard to imagine but the French seem to be diving into an even bigger political black hole than we are. I’m simply amazed that it’s not getting better coverage over here but we seem too obsessed with our own problems to notice what is going on sur le continent…
June 16, 2024
@IanT; “Iām simply amazed that [the French election is] not getting better coverage over here”
Oh how some in the UK would just love that, in the middle of our own election, were the right-wing appear to be in trouble, to be able to cite the BBC (haha, when it suits…) and say “Look at the French election, they know what’s best” -always assuming the headlines are about RN, Marine Le Pen and young what’s his name, oh yes, Jordan Bardella. Would you want French politics, under such circumstance, to be reported upon were it perhaps the far left Socialists causing upset in France?
France has a two stage election process, RN and Le Pen always tend to do well in the first round, as do the Communists (at least in the past), the non-protest second round tends to focus minds a little more, with many ‘anyone but xxx’ votes. We will know the true result after July 7th.
June 15, 2024
@ Lifelogic – does not keeping rapists off the streets also involve gaoling persons in a position of trust who have sex with minors in their care?
June 15, 2024
I am not encouraging this behaviour but female teachers who have had essentially āconsensualā sex with 15 year old boys should certainly not be jailed ahead of violent and dangerous criminals.
The lowest minimum age of consent is 14 years, set in seven EU Member States: Austria, Bulgaria, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Portugal. It used to be 12 in the Vatican until quite recently.
June 16, 2024
@LL; A child, in such circumstances, were the other person has “influence ” or “control” can not legally give informed consent. Stop being so naive.
June 15, 2024
I doubt she needed physical force to overcome the poor lad.
June 15, 2024
Trivial?
Sums up what is wrong with the world.
June 15, 2024
Certainly “Candidates need to talk more about the big issues facing us, what they think about them and how they want to serve us”. The campaigns are not quite as bad as Mrs. Clinton’s against Mr. Trump where, as you observed at the time, she often preferred appearing alongside popular music stars and the like rather than explaining what she would do as president.
With luck the wretched BBC will admit Farage to the Sunak-Starmer non-debate, best done by kicking Sunak out (which might win his party more votes than if he stays).
(Also happy birthday. š )
June 15, 2024
@f57; In that POTUS election BOTH candidates chose not to talk politics, and one of them is still on the campaign trail refusing to actually discuss policy in a meaningful way, it is not Mrs. Clinton. Anyway, everyone knew Mrs. Clinton’s key policies anyway, they were the same as her Husband’s two terms, the Economy stupid! š
June 15, 2024
I’m really in a quandary about who to vote for. During the “pandemic” we were subjected to many restrictions and rules that had little scientific or medical evidence to substantiate them. Many very highly qualified medics and scientists (and economists) were pointing this out at the time, yet none of the major political parties even questioned any of it, in fact they criticised those who tried to speak out* and even called for more lockdowns and mandated vaccinations. This leaves only one Party and, were my loved ones to cotton on I’d voted for them there would be little domestic peace in this corner of Wokingham!
*And still do!
June 15, 2024
It’s time your loved ones wised up, David, to how big money corrupts the professionals the system pays for. If they are left-leaning, that oughtn’t to be a difficult concept to put across, but we know where the ‘left’ stands these days. So if you aren’t going to explain it to your family, who will? You could start by asking them why they think the professionals who did take a stand against the Covid scam tended to be retired. Get them to check out names such as Prof Sucharit Bhakdi, Mike Yeadon and Jonathan Sumption that they won’t have heard of from their Facebook friends.
June 16, 2024
+1. Sadly the repercussion these biologists predicted are proven every day. And they claim to have empirical proof from carefully conducted autopsies by Arne Burke, a German Professor who has documents down to cell level, the reason these people died.
I am not a biologist, but these papers are peer reviewed. If they say the have proof we must believe them.
June 15, 2024
While the Tories were guilty of so much, the libdems, greens and labour were no better – they supported everything the Tories did and in some cases would have been more extreme.
This is our opportunity to vote out the sickness that has been so badly infecting Parliament.
June 15, 2024
Which party opposed lockdowns and forced vacs?
June 15, 2024
@David+L; Is it not always better to be over cautious in the face of an unknown, ‘yes the snake is probably harmless, but let’s not take any chances, if we’re wrong we do not know the antidote’, many of the Covid opinions now expressed have formed post-pandemic, 20/20 hindsight is wonderful but was unavailable at the time.
If it had been left to economists in 1939….
June 15, 2024
Covid behaviour should have been left to individuals.
June 15, 2024
@NS; Unfortunately much was left to the individual here in the UK, how many people did you see doing their shopping without using the hand sanitizers, unless wearing PPE gloves, never mind wearing a face mask. The numbers were far to large for them all to have eczema, or issues with re-inhaling etc.
Quite frankly it is just selfish for some people to suggest others, the elderly, those at risk of Comorbidity, those who care for such people, should have had restrictions placed on their lives because of the spread of a virus; but those complain (or who made the rules…) think it was OK to carry on regardless, engaging in activities that were guaranteed to widen contagion, widen the risks to others.
June 16, 2024
If you are wrong on every point. Everything is on record. 1/3rd if the British people knew it was a scam and had the courage to refuse and refute the āscare the pants off youā political manoeuvre.
We knew BEFORE the scam – thatās foresight not hindsight.
Seems you still canāt see – but then there are nine so blind as those who will not see.
You should listen to Bridgenās speech on the subject, 50 lives lost to MRNA vacs to āsaveā on cv19 life. (I might be wrong in the specific numbers, I have been cautious, I think the figures are even more stark).
June 16, 2024
The vulnerable should have been quarantined. Jerry. You can find my opinion on that from March 2020 on this site. This is not being wise after the event.
I wrote on here that we should pay the vulnerable to stay at home while the rest of us get on with it. That was the cheaper, least disruptive and frankly at the time, obvious solution. The Nightingale outlets were not used.
Media and other hysterics forced the government to be stupid.
June 16, 2024
@LA; Lucy, Oh right so 1/3rd thought it a scam, that’s a minority then, dud! On the other hand 2/3rd understood there was no scam, or are you seriously suggesting 2/3rd of the UK population are mere ‘sheeple’. How many front line NHS staff, those with actual medical training and knowledge, have either refused to the vaccine(s) or wanted to, do you know, what might such a number suggest..
Tell me, has Mr Bridgen ever repeated his (or other peoples) accusations outside of Parliamentary privilege, if not, why might that be?…
June 16, 2024
@NS; “The vulnerable should have been quarantined.”
But everyone was on the vulnerably scale, proven by the way some previously very fit victims of CV19 are now facing a long battle to regain their health, others died. Even if the vulnerable had been quarantined as you suggest, how many healthy people live with vulnerable people, or simply care for them, such people would also have had to be ‘protected’.
The economy would have been damaged probably far worse as no one would have been able to plan -for the same reason companies often have to lay-off staff if they suffer a partial strike, yes managers know they will have some staff but how many.
What about those living with an undiagnosed comorbidity, outwardly fit and healthy, with a ticking clock inside.
“Media and other hysterics forced the government to be stupid.”
No, the facts forced the government(s), you only need to look at the Covid death toll in places like Brazil, yes a vast country but with concentrated pockets of population.
June 15, 2024
You keep playing this ‘we didn’t know at the time’ card, Jerry. It’s busted. What you mean is people didn’t want to know. They didn’t want to hear that the Covid vaccines were not effective and not safe, that the IFR was no higher than with a bad flu outbreak, that the British government downgraded Covid to the level of seriousness of flu even before the lockdown started, that average age of death remained unchanged around 81.5 yrs, that surgical masks don’t stop a virus, that the 6ft ‘social distancing’ rule rested on no scientific evidence, that Sweden managed fine without lockdowns etc, etc. The facts about Covid were clear enough by the beginning of April 2020, yet you accuse people like me who were pointing them out at the time, of being wise ‘after the event’. Try a different story.
June 16, 2024
+1
June 16, 2024
@R.Grange; “the British government downgraded Covid to the level of seriousness of flu even before the lockdown started”
That is why the UK never had a “Lockdown”, only restrictions.
As for those who died after receiving a CV19 vaccine, can anyone be sure there was no Comorbidity involved?
Yours is just more 20/20 hindsight, coupled to conspiracy theories, promoted mostly by medically untrained people, those seeking either political or blogaphire limelight.
June 15, 2024
Covid was only an unknown right at the beginning. It soon became very clear that the prime risk was to the elderly and those already quite ill. Insufficient was done to investigate alternative treatments properly: we only know that some countries where the use of particular drugs for other conditions was prevalent suffered much less than those where it was not. It has been openly admitted that many of the measures proclaimed by government and WHO were almost entirely ineffective at reducing the spread – facts that were doubtless known to those pushing them. It has also been admitted that lockdown measures were seen as a social experiment to see how far the population could be pushed by fear. That may not work so well next time it is tried. It was also clear early on that closing down the NHS to turn it into a covid service resulted in excess deaths for other conditions that were no longer being adequately treated. Government in the UK failed to grasp that the Omicron variant signalled the end of covid as a big health risk, despite the data that showed greatly reduced mortality. I recall pointing to the data. Track and Trace was a complete farce, utterly pointless because it was so slow in operation. Again, I showed the data analysis on that. These analyses were contemporaneous, not long after the event: you can find them discussed at this site in the archives.
June 16, 2024
@Mark; ” It has also been admitted that lockdown measures were seen as a social experiment to see how far the population could be pushed by fear.”
Can you cite who has admitted such a fact. In any case, if they, whoever they are, wanted to do such an experiment they could have just issued a ‘three minute warning’, no need to set up such an alabrate ‘hoax’.
Many young, including fit and healthy children, many middle aged, not just the “elderly and those already quite ill” caught Covid and were very ill, some died, some are now living with Long Covid.
Are you also among the few who still doubt NASA landed men on the moon, never mind man walked on the moon?! š
June 18, 2024
Yes I can cite. But you can look it up yourself. A| three minute warning would have been rapidly exposed as a hoax – don’t be ridiculous.
Covid deaths among younger age groups were very limited in number, and almost exclusively confined to those who were already ill.
No, I am among those who lived through the events, have visited the Houston Space Center and Mission Control, the Smithsonian, Chicago Science Museum, Dallas Science museum, Houston Museum of Natural Science (all with space exhibits from the Apollo programme including moon rock you can touch at Houston), understand the physics, have studied rocket science (thanks, Barnes & Noble, opposite the Galleria in Houston that had an extensive section on the topic), and got to see the rush photos and film/TV after the Apollo 11 landing courtesy the cinema at the US Embassy in Mexico. Seeing that on a big screen when the film was fresh was quite an experience – stunning detail not conveyed in print.
June 15, 2024
The BBC is delighted that it will get a Labour Government it has worked so assiduously to achieve, and all the lunatic virtue-signalling policies that it will pursue.
Of course, the Not-a-Conservative-Government has had 14 years to do something about the blatantly biased BBC, and it didn’t. It has played their game by their rules …. even if you didn’t.
June 15, 2024
@Donna; Given their apparent editorial line, from their USA owners (Comcast; NBC), I suspect Sky News will also welcome a Labour govt. Same for Channel 5, with their USA (Paramount; CBS ) ownership. Both tend to be politically to the left, and then of course there is Channel Four (owned by the UK State, just like the BBC), so why not have a rant about them, they take far more money off the average consumer than the BBC does via the TVL fee.
June 16, 2024
People are free to spend their money as they choose. The BBC is a tax (or people are scammed into believing it is) Thatās the difference.
June 16, 2024
@LA; Lucy, no one is being forced to fund the BBC, there is no law that require it, these days there are many other ways to enjoy “the moving image” than broadcast television, Netflix, and catch-up services that do not require a TVL, for example. There are many other sources of news that do not require a TVL either. One can choose if to watch live sport, or wait for either the recorded as live repeat, or just the highlights etc. Anyway, Donna’s point was about bias, try reading what you’re replying to!
Some would still rant about BBC ‘bias’ whatever the status of the TVL fee was, perhaps the problem is in the name, the use of the word “British”, after all many the same people only ever seem to want “British” to mean what they want, not what the majority wants.
June 16, 2024
I don’t have to buy a licence (ie pay a poll tax) for the other organisations you list in order to NOT WATCH THEM.
I ignore most of the MSM. They are all carefully controlled propaganda machines. And, unfortunately, GB News is going the same way since it is desperate to play appeasement with Ofcom.
June 16, 2024
@Donna; Oh yes you do pay a “poll tax”, whether you access commercial, subscription or streaming television & radio advertising or not, paid via the online and supermarket checkouts! As for your second sentence, all that proves is you are closed to all but echos of your own preconceived opinion.
June 17, 2024
What a ridiculous argument Jerry.
Do you argue for a hobby?
There are loads of places you can buy goods that are not expensively advertised.
And loads of places you can buy stuff other than supermarkets.
ps
Advertised goods can result in greater sales for companies which then create economies of scale which then can end with reduced prices to the consumer.
June 17, 2024
@Sam “Do you argue for a hobby?”
No, but I fear you do! You also appear to know little or anything about advertising & marketing.
“There are loads of places you can buy goods that are not expensively advertised.”
How do we know which products they are, many companies have more than just their advertised brands, all products contribute to overall company profits, and thus the TV adverting budget. Not that I’m against such advertising, I’m merely pointing out there is no Free Lunch when you watch TV, listen to commercial radio, not even YouTube (about as ‘free’ as one can get).
“And loads of places you can buy stuff other than supermarkets.”
Pure whataboutism! Place of sale is irrelevant for Branded goods, as is your ‘post script’, the debate is about how broadcast TV is funded, not company sales. A company can also boost their sales by paying for in-stores promotions; position goods on middle shelves, end of isle, the display of product flags etc. Some products are rarely if ever advertised on TV but enjoy very high sale figures non the less.
Whatever…
June 18, 2024
Strange rambling and long post there Jerry.
Not actually answering anything in my post
But that is what you do.
June 15, 2024
Happy Birthday Sir John, and also pleased to see that Sir Alan Bates has also got a knighthood. this morning.
June 15, 2024
Perfectly put. Productivity in the public sector I’m sure is way lower than in the companies who have to compete on a daily basis and who pay for the Public sector.
June 15, 2024
I said yesterday that nothing could help the tories now ā However, if next week they adopted reform policies and crowned Farage as the tory leader, they might just win
June 15, 2024
šš¤£ you been at the sherry?
June 16, 2024
Port
June 15, 2024
Pollsters used to struggle with “shy Tories”: people who intended to vote Conservative but were too ashamed to admit it.
My reckoning is that the number of shy voters is directly attributable to the BBC’s (and similar left-wing media’s) biased coverage that paints the right-centre as disdainful and the far-left as respectable.
A way of verifying that number is to watch how the Right (sadly not the Conservatives this time) increase their popularity during the election period when the regulated media is forced to stop being biased.
June 15, 2024
The Lib Dems are first off the block in our locality to get their election leaflet out. The candidate seems like a really good chap, doing much good work. That being so, it would seem sensible not to send him to Westminster, so he can continue the good work he is doing here.
June 15, 2024
Good morning Sir John
āCorrectā no-body knows. The only correlation we can make is that Conservative Voters have been disenfranchised.
Based history and proven evidence excessive spend, tax and borrowing is a 100% domain of the Socialist Hard Left. Taking laws and rules from foreign unelected unaccountable WEF indoctrinated Socialists before listening and serving the electorate is a Hard Left Socialist thing. Refusing the UK its own sovereign democratically elected legislators to be the override on all UK Laws etc. is a Socialist hard left trait. refusing and not supporting ‘freedoms’ speech etc is a hard left thing.
Based on 14 years of evidence, more so since 2019 we have a Party in Government that has deserted the UK, refused to manage and become a proven liars with their personal repeated broken promises. If what we assumed and hoped for was the centre ground of UK Politics we were mistaken, that has now moved to the extremist left we used to find in Labour, the majority of the UK and its people have been deliberately and maliciously disenfranchised how could any one know?
An election based on bad or bad, worse or worse means it should be the none-of-the-above that wins. The only guarantee the majority of the UK will not support the victor
June 15, 2024
Only one news item of interest in the paper this morning: that it is your Birthday. Very many happy returns!
June 15, 2024
Not so long ago he might expect a free TV licence in the near future, and at 80 his state pension would rise by 25p per week. Something to look forward to Sir John?
Anyway enjoy your special day, and I suggest don’t read any more of our whinges for today.
Enjoy!
June 15, 2024
It would help if we were asked to vote for constituency MPs to represent and serve us and the Country in Parliament. And, that prospective MPs would put forward ātheirā agenda towards that purpose. We could hold them to account on ‘their’ promises and not those of the leadership with the CCHQ calling the shots.
Instead, we have Rishi Sunak making it personal and Presidential making only about him and the other guy. Sunak is so out of touch as is his government – itās embarrassing.
The ballot should have had local MP candidates and separately who should be PM (President on current trend). We had recently Councillors and Police Commissioners, no one saw the point it was meaningless ā but so is this Presidential Election.
June 15, 2024
None of us will get what we wish for so why bother? Both camps will be under control of the Blob, the EU, the OBR, the BoE and disciples of the WEF diktats, so will be handicapped what-ever the promises – after-all isn’t that who is getting the blame for everything at the moment. UK governments refuse to manage ( it is always someone else) you get to ask why?
Which begs the question of Sunak’s prophecies on Starmer, would he be allowed to be much different? Starmer has already stated in interview his preference is to take orders from the WEF, something Sunak does in spades.
In other-words both leadership contenders are hard left Socialist that bow to others not the electorate or the Country.
Time for a UK Government by and for the People of the UK – the starting place for this is not on offer.
June 15, 2024
From the Telegraph.
“Grant Shapps is among dozens of Tory candidates ditching the Conservative brand in their campaign adverts, analysis reveals.”
Isn’t that what we are all suggesting?
June 15, 2024
With respect, Sir John, you have yourself avoided the two biggest issues, immigration and Net Zero.
No existing Parliamentary party wishes to discuss Net Zero as they all signed up to the false CAGW claim and its unilateral Net Zero āsolutionā that will bankrupt the country and leave it economically and militarily exposed as a result of attempting to transition from cheap, abundant and reliable energy to rationed supplies of expensive and chaotically intermittent energy with no economic way to store grid-scale electricity. Not only does the national grid need a Ā£220bn upgrade but 80% of our local grids need complete upgrades of substations and cabling to supply the electricity for the complete electrification of heating and transport.
No existing Parliamentary party is even prepared to admit or discuss that renewable energy is far more expensive than hydrocarbons, let alone the additional costs of distribution, grid stability and storage, none of which is required for reliable hydrocarbon or nuclear generated power. Floating offshore wind Ā£242/MWhr, Hinckley Point C Ā£128/MWhr, fixed offshore Wind Ā£100/MWhr, onshore wind Ā£88/MWhr, Solar Ā£84/MWhr, RR SMR Ā£50-Ā£70/MWhr, large nuclear anywhere else in the world but the UK (even for the Hinkley Point C EDF EPR technology) Ā£50/MWhr, gas Ā£60/MWhr (without carbon taxes), coal Ā£30/MWhr (without carbon taxes).
Even the Left supporting Private Eye magazine in its latest issue described Labourās claim that ārenewables are far cheaper than gasā as āan outright falsehoodā.
Reply I have written and spoken a lot about net zero and migration, and got some changes of policy!
June 15, 2024
PS :
PS :
Labour say that ārenewables are cheaper than gasā. Lord Callanan, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero and Minister for Energy Efficiency & Green Growth, in reply to a HoL question on 16/05/2024 said that fixed offshore wind is cheaper than gas.
So why is new offshore wind and other renewables still subsidised?
June 15, 2024
“The Cabinet Office has launched a diversity drive to almost double the number of non-white recipients of honours.”
The honours were already in a bad place and reflected this Conservative Government. Now from this Conservative Government we get honours will not be for what you have achieved for Society, but on making up targets to appease the WOKE left. Very hard-left, bring things down not open opportunities to raise everyone.
June 15, 2024
They have destroyed our meritocracy under their non Equality Laws and positive action rules, ESG, DEI, section 192 Companies Act, Sex Education Act teaching transgeder ideology in schools. Wokism everywhere. Tory’s wonder why they’re toast? Mass immigration, net zero, highest taxes etc.
June 15, 2024
If the Cabinet Office wishes for a highly effective proposal, I suggest MBE’s to all those disembarking from a dinghy and CBE’s for those who manage to do so without getting their feet wet.
June 15, 2024
Indeed, but this is what normally happens – the MSM flood our tv screens with speculation and innuendo to avoid telling us about the important issues or the things going on behind the scenes
Whenever big decisions are being made or a massive political issue comes to light, what do we get – we get distracted, by news of the Royal family or some other inane subject that suddenly becomes important.
To say that the MSM has failed us is to ignore the treachery behind their attempts to hide the truth on so many levels.
June 15, 2024
Well we all saw how useless the media was during Covid. They were at daily press conferences with various medical experts in attendance and instead of taking the opportunity to question the experts to clarify points literally of life and death importance for viewers they instead every time simply asked the politician present a variation of the question “Will you resign ?” and when they didn’t answer the next questioner just asked the same question again. It’s all a Westminster bubble political game for them, they’re not interested in actual issues. For example now they all speculate on how big Starmer’s majority will be rather than asking him about his plans for Council Tax reform (absent from his manifesto) – the former is of no relevance or interest to me, the latter is.
June 15, 2024
If I could retreat abroad now I would . I am fed up with the way the media are dealing with the election ; the BBC in particular seem biased in their approach and allow their broadcasters to divert attention to this . I do believe that the Sunak/Hunt leadership was a mistake but I have no faith whatsoever in the Labour team .
June 15, 2024
Now there’s an idea. Let’s have the Governor of the BoE, the BBC DG and the head of the OBR, standing alongside the other TV political debaters, explaining just how they could help/improve the country.
It would be very interesting to hear them make their case for continuing as leaders of their respective bodies. Especially when they will be questioned by the other participants.
The same should apply to the appointment of judges to the Supreme Court. They are unelected and sometimes our Laws are ‘misinterpreted’ by them, as with the occasion when they overruled a political decision by the elected PM, Boris Johnson, which surely was beyond their remit.
June 15, 2024
Yesterday a local (Winnersh) Libdem councillor popped a large colour Libdem leaflet AGAIN in our door.
This morning 12 hours later the postman popped a different smaller one in the letterbox.
Is there no end to this bombardment in full expensive colour trying to brainwash the voters?
I have emailed another councillor complaining and pointing out if we were ‘Undecided’ we certainly wouldn’t be voting for them!
June 15, 2024
John,
Not that you care, but just to let you know, I’ll be voting for Reform.
It will be the first time ever, that I have voted against a Conservative Government!
We need change!
I cannot vote for a One Nation Tory Party!
I cannot vote for R Sunak or J Hunt, they are puppets!
Although, it’s a bit pointless voting for a non-labour or Nationalist Party, I best vote for something!
Just a reminder; Wales is Brexit land, it has potential, but Welsh Conservatives are One Nation and very Left-wing, People don’t see the point in not voting Labour! Since the Devolution Ref, I don’t think People are bothered!
Best of luck whatever you decide to do next!
Best Regards,
RDM.
June 15, 2024
Matt Forde’s political party podcast is trying to talk to a candidate in each of the 650 constituencies daily he talks to about 5.
The candidates all talk about wanting to discuss issues, local and national with voters rather than discuss polls. The podcast has given me a great insight into these activists and how different their politics is to the one shown in the media once they get to the big game.
However DmSir John, I do think that many prior Conservative voters are interested in the battle for minds between Reform and the Conservative Party. It’s not a numbers game it’s about policy.
June 15, 2024
In Italy, Giorgio Meloni, Prime Minister, leads a right wing coalition. She is the President of the Brothers of Italy party which was founded in 2012. Italy has two elective houses of parliament, the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. The Italian system of governance is highly responsive to changes in the popular sentiment unlike that of the UK which has a system so unresponsive that two thirds of votes in a general election have no impact on the result whatsoever ie they are wasted votes just as much as votes for Count Binface. Italy does not need joke parties to act as a safety valve for those that know they have been permanently disenfranchised. Furthermore, the House of Lords sits without any popular mandate at all.
Will the result of the general election in which the right wing vote will be split create a popular demand for electoral reform which is opposed by the Tory party and the Opposition?
As with the USA, the UK has a reputation for warmongering; is it just a coincidence that both have defective electoral systems which are primarily responsive only to money?
Happy Birthday.
Reply The right in Italy has constantly been splitting and fighting itself. Christian Dem replaced by Forza replaced by Lega replaced by Brothers.
June 15, 2024
Reply to reply: What is wrong with that? What is wrong is when a political party completely changes its core positions without changing its name. If you want to flood the country with unassimilable aliens then call your party the English-hating party and register it as that.
June 15, 2024
When I lived in Italy (some 45 odd years ago – 1979/80) the Italians had already had about 40 different Governments since the War at that time. Not too much seemed to get done because the alliances and coalitions formed were constantlly shifting & changing.
I’ve never been very keen on PR since then. However, I am very concerned that Starmer will continue Blairs project to undermine our existing political system and unwritten constitution, both of which have served us very well for many centuries.
June 15, 2024
IT,
True Italy was notorious for its’ short lived governments. Political violence was also a thing there – Gladio etc. One group trying to undermine another.
I do think political violence will feature more in the UK in the near future.
June 15, 2024
Yes, but we have had consistently bad governance despite having won the war unlike Italy. If you want to live in a foreign country without moving and one which believes we can manage without an industrial sector, power ourselves with intermittents and go to war every time another bunch warmongering crazies occupy the US State department and of course allow ourselves to be injected with dangerous and untested substances because foreign spivs want to make a lot of money, keep supporting the liblabcon.
June 16, 2024
But on a more mundane level FH, even here it doesn’t take me over a year (to get a license) to have my dustbin emptied – which it did in Milan back then…
June 15, 2024
80 seat majority out of the EU. There shouldn’t be any doubt about who is going to win it. The Tories should have a tale of low immigration and sunny uplands to tell.
June 15, 2024
“Too much debate about who might win” – the Uni-Party of course. The majority of the UK People and the Country have been disenfranchised.
Here in Wokingham, I received my letter from Lucy today.
Invest in a vibrant economy? – the 14 year promises have been reneged on time and time again. The opposite has been what has in practice been what was carried out in, without control we have had prolific borrowing and expenditure, leading to a 70 year high tax take – that is straight out of the hard-lefts play book. Fool me once, fool me twice, fool me a third time!
Defend our national security? – maybe just maybe come the election after this one there will be efforts to spend on defence. In the meantime the real day to day security of the UK, its energy, to drive the Country forward has been neglected time and time again and is in the hands of the political whim of those that we in the UK cant vote for or hold responsible. There is no reason for this other than management neglect and the refusal to do the job Government has been employed to do.
We learn nothing about who or what she is or stands for. We know where Sir John has stood in all the years has served the community, on the face of the evidence of the directions this Conservative Governments has shown he as a Conservative was seen as an irrelevance in practice. This Government and the CCHQ may have been polite might have even made out they were listening – but they have not ‘heard’ a single word, they continued the Blair/Brown destruction of the UK, pushed it forward and have finished somewhere left of Labour in practice and deed. As I don’t know ‘Lucy’, her connection with the community, or anything of relevance so I cant say how she will perform. What I do know with any of the existing setup, she would be on a hiding to nothing about as good as the Liberal Democratic alternative
June 15, 2024
If she turned out to only be as good as the yellow alternative, we really are in the smelly doo doo.
June 15, 2024
The debate is not about who will win, it is about how much they will win by and who will come second.
June 15, 2024
My current best guess is that Reform will get twice as many votes as the Lib Dems and less than a sixth of the seats they do. We just have to hope that it will still be possible for a genuine right of centre party to arise over the next 10 years or so. Until then Tin Helmets & Gas Masks are highly recommended.
June 15, 2024
@IanT – what about just a centre party, middle of the road that puts the UK and its people before the ego we see from the hard-left in the Uni-Party
June 16, 2024
Terminology has been move firmly to the left over the past 20 odd years Ian B.
What used to be called the “Centre” is now routinely described by the BBC as the “Hard/Far) Right”. What was once the “Hard/Far Left” is now simply the “Left”. The Conservative Party is full of ‘Wets’ (e.g. “Liberals”) and the Labour Party is stuffed with “Former” Trots & Marxists. Our soon-to-be Prime Minister (Keir Starmer) was the editor of Socialist Alternatives, a Trotskyist radical magazine in the late 80’s. Do you (or the BBC) really believe he’s had some Damascene conversion since then?
I used to ‘Right of Centre’ to mean the Right (e.g. the now minority part) of the Conservative Party, rather than the ‘One Nation’ majority. Heath, Cameron, May, Johnson & now Hunt. What more do you need to know about why the Conservative Party is where it is now?
June 15, 2024
The only chance of stopping Starmer is for the fake Tories to stand aside. A vote for Sunak is a vote for Labour and if there is a repeat of 2015 when UKIP received 4 million votes and 1 MP, and Reform receive more votes than the fake Tories but few MPs, I think there will be a major revolt in this country.
June 15, 2024
If all the previous Tory voters gave up and voted Reform – they would have a majority.
…..just a thought.
June 15, 2024
Reform have established their objective to expel as many Tory MPs, especially the pro-Brexit wing, from Parliament.
Had they had the objective of winning seats they would have had a similar strategy to the Lib Demās who seek to fight a limited number of seats and win them.
If the electorate are unhappy with this strategy, they need to take their fight to Farage.
June 15, 2024
Thanks for your interesting article today Sir John as a sane insight (as usual) on how to objectively view the diversionary tactics currently prevailing ignoring the country’s most profound and significant economic issues at top level.
Many potential MPs would shy away if asked what solutions they propose. I would love to see how they would respond to your questions and can’t wait for the next candidate to come to our doorstep. I will ask them your questions just to see their eyeballs rolling in panic mode.
June 15, 2024
Plagiarised comment, that sums up the State of UK Politics. Just who can frighten who the most, and nothing has to be true. Fool us once……….
So just like in 2019, apparently to keep Labour out I need to vote Tory.
In 2019 I was warned that a vote for Corbyn would lead to things like:
Unprecedented immigration.
Record taxation.
A crisis in the NHS with doctors and nurses on strike.
Subservience to the ECHR.
Massive borrowing.
etc.
Wait hold on, maybe I have the parties mixed up…
June 16, 2024
?