We have now lived with a Labour government with a huge majority for eight months. They could have changed any law, budget, tax or policy they thought wrong in this time period. It is no longer an excuse for bad service to blame the past government whilst not offering proof of changes that have or will remedy the problem.
All the time we had a Con/ Lib or Con government I allowed wide ranging criticisms of government on this site including many I disagreed with. My own posts regularly pointed out problems and offered better solutions.
I will follow the same approach for a Labour government. Criticisms of the past government will not be posted as we discussed those at the time and electors Ā made their views clear in the election.
The person who sends over the top abuse about Labour is always wasting their time. It is easy to delete, so stop doing it, The person who daily blames a couple of billionaires for the many mistakes of successive UK governments needs to find a different outlet for the repetition of old stories which I am not going to repost.
March 1, 2025
The new SoS Environment, Steve Reed, has decided that the release of beavers into English waterways is to be allowed for the first time in centuries. The Wildlife Trusts will be able to apply for a licence to release beavers, provided certain conditions are met. The aim is for the return of beavers to be carefully managed to avoid a negative impact on food production and farming infrastructure.
How the beavers will survive in our heavily sewage-contaminated streams and rivers is beyond me, but it’s clearly a good idea. Beavers create useful habitats for wildlife and reduce flooding by breaking up waterways, slowing the water flow and creating nice ponds for dragonflies and wading birds.
Of course, the NFU objects. The farmers succeeded in getting the last government to shoot tens of thousands of badgers, on the completely spurious grounds that they spread bovine TB. Everyone else knows that it’s the farmers’ poor animal husbandry that spreads bovine TB.
They have now set their sights on killing the beavers. This week the president of the NFU, Tom Bradshaw, said farmers should be able to shoot “unruly” beavers. āYouāve got to have the final control method in place” I expect they will be wanting to turn the dead beavers into Davy Crocket hats…..words fail me.
March 1, 2025
It’s not necessarily a good idea to slow water flow when there is a great deal of water which needs to flow downstream. It won’t necessarily result in what you describe as nice ponds; it may well turn into extensive flooding leading to destruction of property and potentially loss of life.
I guess you don’t live on the Somerset Levels. The flooding several years ago, caused by the Environment Agency refusing to dredge, didn’t just cause havoc for the people living there it drowned a great deal of the wildlife living on the flooded land.
March 1, 2025
ā Eight months of Labour government and this siteā
There was an element in the previous Conservative government that was open to persuasion, albeit with another element who definitely were not.
What is clear with the current government is that they are not listening and will continue with their plans unless they are somehow forced to change.
They have years before the next election. President Trump may push them where American interests are threatened, but it does not seem he will directly interfere otherwise. For example, provided US access to the Chagos islands is maintained he is not concerned if Britain throws billions at Mauritius.
Lots of insincere flannel about how wonderful Starmer is, in contrast to JD Vance criticism in a previous speech.
March 1, 2025
SG – I’m sorry, but your understanding of this issue is contrary to my experience. I worked on this front for 40 years, and saw first-hand how the pathogen Mycobacterium bovis recolonized our countryside through a burgeoning badger population. Up till about 1970, the UK was nearly free from bovine Tb, but this began to change from then on, and the genetic fingerprint of local strains of M. bovis could be traced with the spread of TB northwards and eastwards in cattle, directly corresponding to the badger population (it so happens the badger as a species, is particularly prone to M. bovis). The increased growing of maize as winter fodder played a big part in this, as badgers thrive on it, should they venture out from winter hibernation.
During my career, I saw farmers progressively marginalised by the denial you , along with many others, have expressed and given the huge demands of growing and providing food for the nation, it was a source of great discouragement to them. This trend continues, and signals the approach of a day when food will become scarce, after generations of plenty. Upon my retirement in 2017, I published a book which covers this tragedy, and many other insights affecting our way of life. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Were-Whole-Realm-Nature-Mine/dp/1787194442
March 1, 2025
Woves and bears are the next stages of this campaign madness by townies who only go into the countryside on their holidays.
March 2, 2025
And the introduction of Lynx in Scotland “to control the deer population.” The fact that lynx can and do attack sheep and other animals is disregarded. Of course deer can be controlled by shooting, but that is frowned upon by the Townie Eco Warriors.
March 1, 2025
Thats Great, when to far left stop us buying meat we will have other victoms for our snares.
Red meat is essential for our health, as demonstrated by by the weak snd wobbly vegies.
March 1, 2025
John, the blatant attempt by Trump and his consiglieri Vance last night to bully Volodomyr Zelenskyy into signing away Ukraine’s mineral wealth deserves comment. Many who post here look up to you to provide thoughtfull opinion on the issues of the day.
Nobody benefited from yesterday’s unseemly scenes in the Oval Office more than the war criminal Putin.
March 1, 2025
Yes indeed what a disgrace
The US administration ego was so big it got in the way of very serious mediation
Trump’s priority was to get a quick win in front of the cameras
March 1, 2025
Trump called Zelensky’s bluff. As has been pointed out in serious publications, Ukraine has little or no rare earth minerals that would currently be economically viable. Those that are, are under Russian control, and will stay there. What Trump wanted was access to oil and gas reserves without a time limit, which Zelensky understandably refuses. The only way out of that rotten deal for him was to provoke a row, which he spectacularly achieved. Trouble is, what does he do now, if he wants to prolong the war? No European countries are going to fight for him and his corrupt country. No European governments are going to welcome paying for Ukraine’s reconstruction as part of the EU, especially those who economies are themselves in recession. The fact is that Ukraine would have got a much better deal from the Russians in 2022, or for that matter in 2013-14, under their President Yanukyovich. But NATO thought they knew better. ‘The West’ has hopelesly bungled this whole thing, and the only solution I can see is for Russia to be offered terms that they’ll accept, in order for a ceasefire to be agreed. Then elections, then a new Ukrainian leader with a grasp of the reality of the situation, then everything can move forward, instead of hundreds of people being slaughtered every day.
March 1, 2025
I have read this sort of pro-Russian crap from you before. If you admire the war criminal Putin so much, why don’t you go and live in Russia yourself? And spare the rest of us from reading your repeated anti-NATO pro Russian ******
March 1, 2025
You still haven’t understood that other people might not be interested in your kind of ya-boo playground insult politics, but actually want to understand what’s going on in the world. What’s happened with the Zelensky debacle yesterday is what matters, not your two-minutes hate against Putin. It surely marks a turning point in the war, and that should soon enough mean we stop spending taxpayers’ money on the murderous Ukraine vanity project. I want to live in a Britain able to spend its resources on what should be our priorities here at home, not on your ideological globalist illusions.
March 1, 2025
No,it was about the Trump team seeing through(not too difficult to do,so obvious was it) a co-ordinated effort by the UK and France(and their Ukrainian puppet) to embroil the US in a war with Russia to save the imperialist-globalist elite.It failed.Into the dustbin of history with you!NOW!
March 1, 2025
It’s the Zelensky ego that has grown too big, fed by the hero worship given him by for example adoring UK MPs:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2025/02/21/ending-the-war-in-ukraine/#comment-1500204
” I was appalled when Zelensky was invited to address the Commons … ”
Now he has been brought down in a cruel way, but that it what often happens – build him up, knock him down.
March 1, 2025
There is a VERY important lesson to be learnt; Trump will not come to our aid when it’s needed. (unless perhaps we can pay for it in advance. To be fair, Roosevelt took all our gold reserves and a loan note, so, not new).
Trump has made it abundantly clear, UK and Europe need to grow up and take care of our own defence. This needs to start right now. If all Europe got together and spent a combined 5% of GDP we’d be strong enough to put up a credible defence. Re-start military investment and production now.
I fear our PM, Fred Kite, is focused on other trivia and spending on irrelevancies.
Reply The US was always wanting to stay out of European wars. Only entered WW2 when Japan attacked the US fleet. Entered WW 1 in 1917. The UK has fought more European continental wars than was wise, though helping defeat Hitler and Nazi Germany was important.
March 1, 2025
If Europe spent as much on defence as it spaffs on immigration we could have a nice little defence budget
March 1, 2025
President Trump is 100% right about Europe needing to spend far more on self-defence but not in the context of abandoning Ukraine to Putin. Ultimately this could all really spook the markets and lead to economic decline including USA in a way that would cost them far more than helping Ukraine. And if Putin builds his armed forces much bigger and stronger and more effective then this has the potential to really undermine the world economy including for the USA. America’s defence policy in the past was ultimately about protecting American economic, geo-political interests not just defending the world from despots for moral reasons. Just as American companies want a stable Europe and world to trade in.
March 1, 2025
I’m not suggesting we start a war, but we do need a credible deterrent force with the European democracies, and that needs urgent investment. I believe we could bring Putin down by economic effort alone, WITH the help of the US.
March 1, 2025
You must have been asleep but ‘they’ have been trying-increasingly desperately- to bring Mr Putin down ever since his Munich Security Conference speech of 2007.
By the way the combination of China and Russia has created an unassailable force.A joint statement yesterday makes it clear any rapprochement with the USA will not affect what is the bedrock of the new world order.
March 1, 2025
So three years of sanctions that haven’t worked, Peter, just tell you that… we need more of the same?
This is a point where a British government that cared about the British people and our own problems would say: We did our bit for Ukraine, but we have other financial priorities than propping up a lost cause at the other end of Europe. After yesterday, it’s clear Zelensky is now part of the problem. The solution is a new leader in Kiev duly elected, with the authority to agree to peace terms that will leave most of that country intact. Not to mention able to start repaying the loans we have granted it over the last few years.
March 1, 2025
Interesting idea. Imagine, a free and fair election in Ukraine and Zelenskyy wins again. What would that do to the legitimacy of Putin’s invasion? No, Putin wouldn’t want to risk it.
This is a contest between democracy and autocracy; a fundamental challenge for the future of humanity- freedom or control. Under which management do you want to live?
March 1, 2025
It was unseemly from all parties.
However President Trump’s assertion that Ukraine has no cards to play is correct.
Why that argument couldn’t have played out behind closed doors is beyond me
March 1, 2025
Maybe it was.. .
March 1, 2025
Zelensky knows well he can’t hand over valuable resources without security and a deal that is good for Ukraine and not just USA. He’s after a win-win deal and not a win-lose deal especially as his people are so vulnerable after fighting a ruthless opponent. Zelensky knows that long-term, standing up to President Trump was the right decision. And he’s right. Future generations will be kind to him and future US presidents generous to Ukraine to make up for how Ukraine has been treated by the USA recently.
March 2, 2025
Zelensky had been invited to the White House to sign the Rare Earth Minerals Deal which had been agreed and to effectively endorse the peace process which Trump and his team have been engaged in.
He, Zelensky, then proceeded to criticise the actions of several US Administrations and “rubbished” the idea that diplomacy would end the war. In other words, he wants it to continue, with American money/munitions. Zelensky was grandstanding in front of the Media and (whether intentional or not – and I think it was intentional) damaging the chance of Trump’s negotiating strategy with Putin achieving the desired result …. and end to the war.
It takes two sides to have a row and Zelensky (a) started it and (b) was extremely disrespectful to the American President.
March 1, 2025
Eight months of wanton destruction and another four years to go. The country will be wrecked as it was at the end of the war. It will take years to rebuild and will not be achieved by voting in more of the same.
Radical change is needed and mass deportations should be policy.
March 1, 2025
It wonāt happen. Even many peopleās hero Nigel Farage isnāt recommending mass deportations. The country is in irreversible decline, the migrants are here to stay with many more to come. Get used to it.
March 1, 2025
Dear John,
I concur with your position on not harping on about he past.
As proper Conservatives, there has been much self analysis on failings. Indeed, it is time to look and more importantly act for the future, not the past.
In that context, looking at the Wokingham Borough Council, the Liberal Democrats have been expert for the last 3 years of power, at blaming their blue predecessors, like the national Government. The Liberal Democrats behave like Labour, in a Yellow wrapper. Your and others observations on this perspective would be welcome?
Best regards, Graham Howe
March 1, 2025
Well said
March 1, 2025
Graham
I agree about the LibDems,
But:
Shout loud enough and long enough and many people start to believe you.
We get the Politicians and Parties we vote for.
Unfortunately not enough people (the electorate) take politics seriously or do any proper research before they vote !
Local LibDems now blame the Government for their local Authority failures
March 1, 2025
Hear, hear.
March 1, 2025
Are we allowed to point out the similarity between the parties Sir John? As this is a big issue for enacting change.
March 1, 2025
And why is there similarity? Because it doesn’t make that much difference anyway, since it’s the same establishment elite running the country using Blair’s laws to circumvent democracy, and deciding what’s policy. As pointed out again recently by Liz Truss in Andrew Gold’s excellent interview with her online.
March 2, 2025
+ 1 It’s why I call them puppeticians. Our equivalent of the Deep State is really governing the country.
March 1, 2025
yet they still have supporters thanks to the way labour reward their friends and a huge amount of brainwashing from the BBC and other media.
How much of UKAID is going to media outlets to get them to support irrational net0 ideology. It’s about time this came out into the open. How much do taxpayers have to pay to have themselves indoctrinated with official government doctrine to keep a rogue government, with their insane policies, in power?
March 1, 2025
If people want things to ācome out in the openā it might help if they were first starting to look at what has already been published by the Government on the internet:
icai.independent.gov.uk 26/02/2025 āHow aid is spentā.
March 1, 2025
The utter failure of the uni-party. Time for radical change.
March 1, 2025
While I don’t think it very constructive to lay one’s emphasis on criticising or praising past governments, arguing historically is a critical part of politics and comparisons between historical regimes can be valid and useful just as comparisons between the performances of different countries (often done on this blog by the host) can be useful. Furthermore Donald Trump won his election in large part by convincing the majority of people that his past performance as President had been better than that of the then incumbent regime.
March 1, 2025
Sir John
While I would guess we all are hearing what you are saying, but at times relating to the root of the problem is unavoidable. This Century has seen a succession of either destructive cabals or/and a bunch of ideological lead MPs that collectively either want a quiet life or just āfree-loadā, or destruction – building has never been on any agenda. With a few exceptions including yourself what we havenāt seen is MPās that stand up for their Constituents and the Country, which after all is the only job they have been empowered and paid for.
We came into this century with the Blair/Brown wrecking ball approach of ideology over common sense seeking to dismantle everything that works. Even what was done was at āhalf cā¦ā not concluded and left hanging (Devolvement that wasnāt, HoL brought into the real democratic World that wasnāt) Since then, outwardly it suggests the whole of Parliament have chosen to accept the destruction and refused to change anything which is their propagative. What is lost is the ability to serve. HoC has become a collective failure.
Then we get the jumping to what appears to be perceived as orders from an ideological Gang Leader, just because they selected you, or a Foreign un-elected unaccountable boss – that is not serving those that empower and pay, the real people that elected MPs. This personal attitude is not about working with the people of the country it is fighting them at every opportunity. Taken as a whole we have not seen the bulk of Parliament defend and fight for ‘democracy’, let alone the ‘people’ and the ‘Country’. We have ‘not’ seen the bulk of Parliament being prepared to recognize themselves as our democratically elected legislators – the only ones with a legitimate right, to create, amend and repeal our Laws .
We have a Parliament stuffed full of wreckers not builders, personal ideology not democracy.
All our MPās if they are to have a purpose other than seek decline and a quiet life need to stand up and smell the coffee. Political Parties are not in themselves democracy, they are just religious cults/sects for those with no ability to serve in the way they personally proposed.
March 1, 2025
With Trump in the white house threatening all kinds of tariffs then backing Putin and russia he has turned the whole world on its head – witness him yesterday in the grounds of the oval office following his failed ambush of Zelensky wearing that stupid red hat now pulled down over his eyes bemoaning that he did not get his hands on the rare earth minerals – just like a child – and all of this because people before have only being telling him what he wants to hear.
There are some who think the agony of all of this will finish after four years and everything will be right again but after four years unless it is spelled out clearly to the american people America could be in store for eight years of a president Vance – that’s why we need up front fact checking at every turn now and more corageous leaders like Zelensky
March 1, 2025
This is no time to concern ourselves with parochial party political issues, we have a war to fight, and once again we are not prepared for it. We have had our Chamberlain moment and now it is time for our Churchill to step forward.
March 2, 2025
When are you joining up James+Morley? I’m sure you’ll want to be in the front line facing Russian troops … and at the risk of being pursued by Human Rights Lawyers in the UK for the rest of your life, if they thought they might be able to cobble together a case against you.
March 1, 2025
The UK is a poor country pretending to be rich. The Establishment should keep quiet and work for THIS country amd nobody else. Keep out of any conflicts, and declare neutrality.
March 1, 2025
Your site your rules Sir John. My only caution is, be careful censoring content is easy, but can lead to mundane uniformity if the loons are always closed out.
Yesterday’s meeting in Washington between Zaleski and Trump was unbelievable. Today we have Zaleski meeting Starmer in London which will be more stage managed but may not give us any insights into where all this is heading.
March 1, 2025
Why is it that a certain well known individual who is supposed to be pretty rich and likes to get involved in vaccination crusades needs us the taxpayers to subsidise his ventures?
Attached below is a summary of a search for āGAVIā on the UK governmentās āDevelopment Trackerā; 348 results are returned where GAVI is either the sole recipient of UK funds or is a participating organisation in the programme.
More government waste identified by social media users have recently claimed that the FCDO had spent Ā£521,525 on restaurants and bars from July to October 2024.
Reply GAVI is the vaccines alliance to vaccinate in lower income countries. Bill Gates who made his fortune in Microsoft shares grants money to GAVI from his foundation, as do some richer countries. The general view is these vaccines cut death rates from killer diseases. The countries and people receiving the vaccines do not have to accept them if they disagree about their impacts.
March 2, 2025
Part of the problem here is that such rich individuals get to exert more control, not only over GAVI but also with projects at the WHO, ETC, because they provide a lot of funds they get to call the shots.
This is totally wrong
But where does this come from?
It is circulated by MSM. It is another subject that includes indoctrination to give us a false result.
We know now how much the democrats spent getting MSM to tell us what to think – it was huge sums, so is it any wonder so many see things that are not there.
I don’t believe that India was too pleased with the vaccination programs executed there.
March 1, 2025
Good to chat to you yesterday, I was not going home to expect the TRUMP outburst!
March 1, 2025
It seemed to me that what was enacted in the Oval office was planted in Trump’s mind by Putin.
Bring the leader of Ukraine to his knees by humiliation and direct threats and lies, and with any luck Putin will get to keep all the territory gained and more. Trump gets rights to some resources that lie under the ground.
Putin will then re-arm and prepare hostities towards his next victims. In the meantime wreaking as much damage by cyber attack and physically by undersea cable cutting.
Trump and co fell for it.
March 1, 2025
I donāt think it was a smart move for PM Cameron to make a speech in Kazakhstan in 2013 declaring that the EU should extend further into the former USSR and reach from the Atlantic to the Urals.
March 1, 2025
I omitted to point out in my last comment that what electors made their views clear on at the last election was at least as much about Sunak as the performance over 5 or 14 years of the last government. The Conservative record in 2019 was no better than in 2024 but then they had the inspired leadership of Boris Johnson rather than the 5 key promises making and breaking of the uncharismatic Sunak. Starmer wouldn’t have got more votes than Boris even if the economic situation had been similar to that under Sunak. Even the notion floated a few months before the election of replacing Sunak with Mordaunt (even though I am no fan of Mordaunt) would have at least got the Conservatives to around 30% of the vote as she wouldn’t have had time to show how useless she probably(even I am not entirely sure of that) was. People would at least have hoped for something better The truth is modern elections are at least as much a duel between the Party Leaders as a battle over policy or the government record but Conservative M.P.s were too dim to see that and replace Sunak with somebody else, preferably Boris before the election. That more than anywhere is where they lost the election so very badly.
March 2, 2025
we should have a list of policies agreed between all the traditional main parties, indeed another list of all the policies agreed by reform too. then a critique of those policies. many of which have no support amongst ordinary voters. then a critique of why the political and ruling system is able to get away with this.
March 3, 2025
I assume that at least to some extent, you are still supporting the Conservative Party, although they don’t have many policies, and probably even fewer that you would agree with !
Which prompts my question : in future, will you be allowing comments on Badenoch and her handling of the party and it’s policies ?
It seems remote in the extreme that from this position, Badenoch, or any other current Conservative MP who might replace her, could possibly win a General Election and I suspect this will be even less likely after the local elections in May.
Almost everyone posting here would agree that Starmer has got to be defeated, but from here, given the likely electoral arithmetic, some form of agreement with Reform would seem to be the only chance of achieving that.
Reply I have made clear I will follow the same policy as I did with a Conservative government. I concentrate on government policy and how to improve it. I do not usually research and write about the different Opposition parties and their strategies and leaders. If I wanted to do an Opposite blog I would need to offer critical appraisal of several parties that now command double figure support when the government js only on 24%.