Labour in Opposition campaigned vigorously against individual Conservative MPs and Ministers, accusing them of breaking rules, being hypocrites and behaving badly. It seemed they were out to recreate the sleaze campaign they ran against the members of the governing party of John Major. It looked as if Lord Mandelson, architect of that approach in the 1990s, was advising or backing Sir Keir to do the same in the 2020 s. It is therefore a fitting irony that Labour, fresh from its moral pulpit in Opposition, should this week be brought low by their need to sack Lord Mandelson for his own personal conduct. The endless allegations and enquiries into Conservatives filled the media and papers for much of the last Parliament. Now it is Labour’s turn for full scrutiny.
Most of the public understand that any governing party will have people who are too casual about applying the laws and rules they impose when it comes to their own conduct. Some will make genuine mistakes, some will be so busy they miss deadlines to declare and explain, some will let office go to their head and take liberties. There will be a smattering of crooks who get through vetting, or who become crooks faced with new temptations. So it has proved with Conservatives, Lib Dems and Labour in the successive governments I have witnessed.
I agree teasing out hypocrisy and criminal behaviour by governing party MPs is a part of the process of Opposition. I do not however think Labour was right to believe that its heavy handed sleaze campaigns against a few malefactors and some unlucky people caught in the crossfire won them the 1997 and 2024 landslides. Their misunderstanding of this has distorted their approach to Opposition, left them unprepared for government this time round, and in a quandary now the sleaze allocations are a rising tide hitting themselves.
The Major government was brought down by joining the European Exchange Rate Mechanism and putting the country through a needless inflation followed by recession. The Johnson/Sunak government was brought down by the Bank of England money printing and big inflation of the covid era which Ministers allowed and by the disruption to growth their covid policies induced. The fact that Labour supported the Exchange Rate Mechanism and the money printing policies that destroyed the Conservatives just made it more difficult for them to follow an economic policy which works once they got into office. The electorate rightly blames a government for visiting on them bad policies, even when these are urged by the Opposition as as well.
If you decide to campaign on a ticket of offering sleaze free government you need to do a lot more homework on who you appoint and how you control them. If Labour still believe sleaze free government was the important offer, then they have failed miserably. 5 MPs elected as official Labour candidates are currently under investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. 5 Ministers have left the government following allegations about their conduct. A Homelessness Minister was accused of bad treatment of tenants, a Treasury Minister accused of financial wrongdoing, and a Transport Secretary had failed to declare a past fraud offence. 2 Ministers resigned in protest over government policy. They have now lost their very political appointee as Ambassador to the most powerful country in the world, and have had a dangerous reshuffle of Ministers highlighting their weaknesses.
Reform is discovering that these mishaps can happen to them as well as to parties of government. They would be wise to give a no sleaze pledge a miss. Two of the five elected in 2024 have lost the whip. Rupert Lowe was thrown out by the party amidst serious allegations which he has vigorously denied. James McMurdock has gone independent following issues about his financial and business affairs. Meanwhile they have gained two replacements, one from a by election and one from an MP changing his mind about which party he supports. They seem to have their own version of the government’s one in, one out policy.
My conclusion is Oppositions need to concentrate on planning and promoting how to make things better so they are ready for government. They should expose bad behaviour by Ministers and other senior people in government but avoid claims that in future human foibles, mistakes and bad conduct will all be banished.Labour’s failure to plan a positive future when in Opposition and to work out how to have fast growth and low inflation is hurting us all.
September 17, 2025
The one thing that Starmer claimed he could and would always do was ‘follow the rules’.
Now he says he deliberately did not follow the rules before appointing Mandleson.
They state that they did not complete ‘security checks’, which must be mandatory.
So in my view this is more than simply failing to be sleaze-free.
This is incompetence, admitted. Unforgivable.
The PM must go.
Reform’s attack on Rupert Lowe looks mendacious. I’m looking forward to the Court case so we know whether it was or not. If it was the owners of Reform will have to go too. Perhaps they can ‘sell’ to their members.
September 17, 2025
The leftwaffe really believe they are morally superior. People like (Mandleson ed)really think they have a right to lord it over us. Even now when he’s been thoroughly disgraced he appears on TV with that superior smug face knowing he’s getting a substantial payoff and his daily bingo from the HoL.
Where’s Hermer who seems to be running the country, why isn’t he calling for his removal from the Lords.
It’s all right when we do it guv. That’s the liebour motto.
September 17, 2025
If you believe certain media outlets the Party lefties smell blood in the water, with 2 or 3 candidates manoeuvring to replace the hapless Starmer. We’re going to see even less nation management and more soap opera in Whitehall. Makes the Tories look like they had a plan!
PS There are now 5,700 MORE civil servants than when Labour came to power, despite promising a reduction. See here: https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainer/civil-service-staff-numbers
September 17, 2025
Lynn, The PM will go once a majority of his MPs realise his actions are going to cost their seat. The elections next May could be enough.
As for the Labour activities to damage opponents, these have now switched. Now they are in power they criticise and attempt to marginalise any of the population who oppose their ideology: labelling people far right, targeting entrepreneurs, asset owners, farmers and business leaders for punitive tax payments, limiting free speech. The list could go on…
September 17, 2025
Pete Council have now been given a pot of money and the power to ‘auction the leases’ of commercial properties which are privately owned.
The owners, whose rents are now often less than the Business rates, keep properties empty to spite the Government obviously. The owners pay the business rates on vacant property, so they are also desperate to spite themselves apparently.
So the Govt applies such punitive taxes that businesses can’t afford to trade on the High Street, then the Government solves the problem by bypassing the vicious/stupid owners.
September 17, 2025
Newspapers love a tale of politicians behaving badly. So it must be tempting to throw opponents to the wolves.
Few get away with it. Kennedy and Martin Luther King in the USA perhaps.
Other events bring down governments though.
September 17, 2025
@Lynn Atkinson – still acting as law maker in chief the 2TK makes the laws on the fly so is untouchable. It wasn’t incompetence it was making a calculated point a political point with fingers crossed that is would work. It worked before lets do it again just ensure the paper trail doesn’t lead back to me.
September 17, 2025
So the paper trail did lead back to him therefore incompetence.
September 17, 2025
Rupert Lowe denied the allegation of threatening behaviour made to the Metropolitan Police and they found no evidence to prosecute. Zia has not apologised but Farage said he wouldn’t have reported the matter. It is reported that Reform consulted the left wing accusatory Hope not Hate when vetting candidates. This is worrying.
September 17, 2025
I agree, remember the Tax Payer is paying the costs of the Opposition MP’s . We should expect them to prepare a viable plan for Government while in opposition, Tax Payers should NOT pay them to perform in the spectacle of Prime Ministers Question time on Tuesdays.
September 17, 2025
Given the scale of the job for the next government to try to correct the problems it will inherit I think that the money spent on opposition MPs including any Short Money which now goes mainly to Conservatives as the second largest party is hugely inadequate. Of course there are some think tanks that offer additional support with policy analysis, but so far only Prosperity (formerly Legatum) actually turned up to host seessions at the Reform party conference. The Tony Blair Institute has an annual budget in excess of £100m and around 1,000 staff (although admittedly many are engaged on foreign issues).
Indeed, it will largely be others who do the hard yards of dissecting damaging legislation and how to unwind it without causing chaos in the process by playing the right notes in the wrong order. There won’t be much help from the civil service. The Conservatives struggle partly because they are internally divided, and partly because they were responsible for legislation in need of repeal or amendment that they are embarrassed to disown (I think of e.g. Miriam Cates trying to defend the Online Harms Act) or that they failed to oppose. At Reform Mr Kruger now has a lot to try to organise, and with no real funding to do so as yet.
September 17, 2025
Morning Sir John,
It is true to say that, a party in opposition should concentrate on telling the electorate how they will make things better if they’re elected however, ever since the Blair era, very few people believe a word any politician says.
September 17, 2025
And why would they believe anything they say after warmonger Blair, sell the gold and save the world Brown, I am low tax a heart to the tens of thousands Cameron, Brexit means Brexit Net Zero May, £400 billion spend on net harm lockdowns and net harm Covid Vaccines Boris, The Covid Vaccines were safe Sunak and now Smash the Gangs Starmer.
All of them pushing the economic and environments insanity of net zero at vast expense.
Working out “how to have fast growth and low inflation” Well we all know how to do this just ditch net zero, have a bonfire of red tape, cheap reliable energy, halve the size of the state sector, cut taxes, high skilled net beneficial immigration only, some real deterrents for criminals, freedom of choice, cull all the rigged markets education, housing, transport, healthcare, energy, banking…
So 180 U-turns needed on all issues!
September 17, 2025
babies lives in 2022-23, according to research by the baby loss charities Sands and Tommy’s. Streeting opted for the rapid review instead of a national inquiry into maternity care, which many families have been calling for.
Fourteen NHS trusts are to have their maternity services examined over what has been described as “failures in the system”, the government has said.
The inquiries are part of a rapid review of maternity care in England that was announced in June.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said bereaved families had shown “extraordinary courage” in coming forward with issues dating back more than 15 years.
Some of the families have severely criticised the review and Streeting’s handling of it, describing the investigation as “not fit for purpose”.
Well perhaps they could release the clearly unsafely 15 times convicted Lucy Letby and use the £1 million saved on better maternity care or at least give her a proper appeal hearing! Our legal system is appalling!
September 17, 2025
800 babies lives lost that is!
September 17, 2025
A good interview of Starmer’s political prisoner and perfectly pleasant Lucy Connolly on GB news. Effectively forced to please guilty by sentencing her directly to jail for a similar term if she pleaded not guilty anyway – our brilliant justice system! When too can Lucy Letby have her 15 appeals?
See Dr John Campbell video on the Massive and dangerous DNA contamination of mRNA vaccines. All very worrying as are the sig. increased cancer statistics in the Covid Vaccinated!
September 17, 2025
@ Cliff..Wokingham “It is true to say that, a party in opposition should concentrate on telling the electorate how they will make things better…” – not exclusively though. The duty of an Opposition is to oppose, as Lord Randolph Churchill stated and, iirc, was repeated by his son.
September 17, 2025
F57
You are of course correct, but I would suggest that, a good way to oppose is to say how it could be done in a better way.
Opposition opposing was something missing in recent parliaments, it had become far too a cosy club in my opinion.
September 17, 2025
Cliff…opposition should ONLY be used when the proposal to change a status quo is clearly wrong.
Subsequently a better proposal might be explained, or suggest no change was necessary.
September 17, 2025
Agreed.
September 17, 2025
In any political party you will get a few bad apples. But appointing a known bad apple to the role of US Ambassador seems to me to be incredibly foolish and asking for trouble.
As for the rest of Two-Tier’s unfortunate appointments to Cabinet, a little due diligence by his henchmen would have brought their “misdemeanours” to light. How difficult would it have been to check that Rachel from Complaints had actually worked for 10 years as an economist at the B of E, or Renyold’s claim to have been a Solicitor?
Reform is now vetting its candidates very carefully, but I expect some will still slip through the net or will “misbehave” once in Office: power corrupts. I very much doubt that Farage/Reform will fall into the “holier than thou” trap which Labour tries to spring on the Not-a-Conservative-Party.
September 17, 2025
+1
September 17, 2025
@Donna +1
September 17, 2025
We are now governed by a vast array of civil servants and quangocrats. To think that they are immune to misdemeanours or worse and only politicians succumb is extreme folly. Of course, they are used to considerable protection from public gaze, even when caught red handed – such as immigration officers taking bribes to dole out indefinite leave to remain: only those actually caught are exposed, and not bosses who allowed systemic abuse.
I suspect an incoming government will have a huge volume of actual wrongdoing as well as actions designed to frustrate rules old and new to deal with. The blob will go out of its way to be disruptive, including through the accusations it makes by way of return. Whole departments will be sacked. But the devil makes work for idle hands.
September 17, 2025
The demand by opposition members for a statement to the house by the government on the Mandelson debacle, saw none of the key decision ministers involved present in the house. Not one of them was man enough to explain why Mandelson with his colourful social diary and famous for his relationship with a convicted paedophile was considered ideal Ambassador material for the USA?
Kemi B made the point but it was rather lame. She missed the opportunity to reprise that famous Farage observation given in the EU Parliament which cemented his presence on the political scene,
Kemi could have said…”Where are you? I can’t see you, No one can see you. You have the demeanour of frightened office clerk, and the presence of a ghost. Come to the house and explain how you supported and why you supported Peter Mandelson to represent the interests of our nation in our most important trading and defence partner’s homeland the USA.”
To coin a well used phrase from the Thatcher days. Starmer was too frit!
September 17, 2025
@Rod Evans – it has been the pattern of this administration for the CEO and Board to be absent. If you are not there to address anything confrontational – it didn’t happen, move on.
Another TwoTier move, Parliament cannot be in a position to hold the executive to account
September 17, 2025
Unfortunately they play the man and not the ball because they are not skilled enough to win a game any other way.
One only has to look at the background of a huge number of MP’s to see that they are completely devoid of any real talent for running anything, let alone a Country, indeed many of them would appear not even to be able to run their own finances in a proper manner, but this is what happens when Party politics takes over and head office controls everything, including the list of chosen want to be candidates to stand for election.
September 17, 2025
Is it any wonder then, why the general public now despise the Uni party.
Have you heard the ramblings of the new leader of the Greens?
The Lib-Dems continue to criticise from the sidelines, knowing they’ll never gain power.
I say we need a new representation. I can think only of Reform.
September 17, 2025
There is a difference. Already the left-wing media is focussing away from Mandelson, Rayner and the rest. If that had been the Conservatives the left wing media would have been like a dog with a bone.
Sorry to say but Labour still has the BBC, Channel 4 and some other powerful media on its side. The traditional media may have lost political influence in recent times but it still makes a difference when, in the case of the BBC/Ch4, the public is being forced to finance the bias.
September 17, 2025
Today’s post is Sir John at his best. Years of experience in politics coming through! However Labour are not the enemy – Farage and his Reform limited company are
Another day, another turncoat Tory jumps ship – and announces that they have joined the dreadful Nigel Farage’s Reform limited company. Today the anti-net zero, pro fossil fuel right-wing press are in raptures, their euphoria is tangible
It amazes me that a “party” with only 5 MP’s – two of which have been forced to resign the Reform whip – gets so much attention in the media. Allegedly, the opinion polls show Reform have a lead. That also amazes me – most polls only sample 1500 – 2000 people – who selects them? What are the criteria? I’ll wager it’s the Telegraph or some malcontent Tory who was overlooked when Truss or Johnson were selecting their cabinet
The party needs to have a discussion with Kemi Badenoch. The lady has been unable to make any sort of dent in the “polls” and is completely outmatched by Sir Keir Starmer at PMQ’s Clearly, the Conservatives need a leader who can take Farage and his Reform nutcases on
Reply The polls are broadly right as born out by election results. Both Reform and the Conservatives correctly identify the policy of not exploiting our own oil and gas as self harm and bad for the environment.
September 17, 2025
@Sakara Gold – when what called itself the Conservative Party deserted the Nations Conservatives by trying to appeal to the countries socialist in words and deed, they lost the election not because of a major shift in support but because those that conservative were disenfranchised, had no where to go so that sat on their hands. It could be suggested ‘none of the above’ was the largest Party at the GE. The Conservative Party stopped being Conservative big and small c, when the Socialist invaded its control, selection and management. Don’t forget those in Parliament were not chosen by the Party but by those on the Left seeking continuity of those that failed the Country, those from the Collective Responsibility team of the previous administration. Maybe that was the aim to destroy the ‘lefts’ hated conservatives from within, so far the are doing it quite well.
There may one day be another ‘Conservative’ Party in more than just name, but it will come from the grass roots the real conservatives those that get out and drum up support on the doors. Until then if ‘one’ has to vote it will be anyone but the Uniparty. The party that is not the ‘Others’
September 17, 2025
And the Italian Cancer increases study.
Increased cancers after mRNA vaccines Dr John Campbell video which links to the study.
September 17, 2025
SG : “Clearly, the Conservatives need a leader who can take Farage and his Reform nutcases on.”
Isn’t the main purpose of an Opposition to oppose the government?
September 17, 2025
I thought the main purpose of the “loyal opposiiton” was to hold government to account (not quite the same as simple opposition) and to offer the citizens a proper alternative government.
We haven’t had a true alternative for decades, despite it’s faults Reform is the closest option we have at the moment and the weight of public opinion appears to hold that view.
Mr Gold makes the same schoolboy error as countless conservative pundits/politicos in attacking the figurehead and ignoring the concerns of the large group of people who see Reform as an expression of their concerns, a path forward from this dire mess.
Family – Community – Country
September 17, 2025
Sir John
While in full agreement with your conclusion “need to concentrate on planning and promoting how to make things better” and it would be nice if things were that simple.
Those seeking influence, know they cannot influence without exposure, be that exposure in the media social or otherwise. Then the kicker, these outlets only exist as a result of paid adverts. That’s then the problem a well-reasoned, well-constructed articulate article will get lost in the fog of noise. Never forget to be a point of influence you are the sales department of that point of view in amongst the crowd.
Many people write articles for the media, many groupings send out releases, in the main they get lost. The point they all miss is that it will appear if advertisers get the support, they need from it, a return on their funding – they are not being altruistic, these are hard-nosed businesses looking for a return. Hence Newspaper Journalists for the most part don’t get to write their own headlines that’s the job of Sales.
If it is the stand-out, shouty of wrong-doing etc., that makes a good Media Sound-bite, always in itself verging on not being ‘true’, being as sensational as it is possible to get away with, that everyone sees. It’s the exposure for the advertiser that is paramount.
As much as a good read, a logical and well-reasoned article such as your Diary offering today is, it is not how the main stream media works. Your headline would have had to be re-written to be more caustic, more confrontational to find its way into the mainstream – the content doesn’t matter. A lot of us call it ‘click-bait’ for a reason.
Reply I am not trying to run a newspaper. This site had over 300,000 views yesterday
September 17, 2025
The Spin Doctors, are the Political Salesmen, keeping a person or a purpose as the centre of attention for a reason – its not about being nice, logical or reasoned. It doesn’t need to be true, a bit innuendo is all it takes to so a seed – job done.
September 17, 2025
Fair comment but the Mandelson appointment seems to have neglected or ignored or overruled the expected checks as well as betraying the bad judgement of the prime minister, not only in selecting Mandelson but in his handling of the events surrounding the sacking. The Opposition clearly enough has a duty to pursue that topic, as shown by yesterday’s debate in the remarks by David Davis, Emily Thornberry as Select Committee chairperson, and Kemi Badenoch.
What is disappointing but too typical of contemporary politics is seeing some MPs and others trying to get a bandwagon rolling to forbid non-career diplomats being appointed to ambassadorships. The record shows there have been a good number of successful appointments of people from other backgrounds (“diversity is our strength”!!), indeed Mandelson might (don’t know) have done some good while ambassadoring.
September 17, 2025
All’s fair in love and war.
Sex, money and power are the driving forces and a great deal of all are expended on getting power and keeping it and trying to wrest it away from incumbents. This why governments have so many in places like the Cabinet Office. A sensible, sane system could run the country with about 400 people working on a Wednesday afternoon.
But from the days of Machiavelli an enormous employment opportunity for useless people is found squabbling and scrabbling for power. Let us consider Mandelson, he is a …..but there is no realistic chance he is a security risk. After all, Ambassadors know almost nothing secret anyway. So there was no real point in ‘security clearance’ apart from security theatrics. But omit one jot or tittle and the other side starts screaming and raving.
Thus we go on. with some 15,000 persons in the Cabinet Office (Tory or Labour) we can reckon 14,600 are superfluous taking money from the taxpayer for useless squabbling. Thus we go on, it provides newsprint and amusement and a huge waste of money and effort.
Reply The Ambassador to Washington does have to handle classified material
September 17, 2025
reply to reply….and might come across ‘slip of the tongue’ confidential information.
September 17, 2025
Sanctimonious self righteousness is part of the stuff of Socialism, and now it has come back to bite them. If Starmer knew of the emails, he should have made it his business to read them; he has no excuse, but like any second-rater, falls back on blaming his staff. An honourable, let alone right-honourable, man would resign.
Labour’s failure to do anything to prepare for office is extraordinary, given the time in which they had to do it, and the virtual certainty that they were going to win the next election, whenever it was. The only possible exception was Streeting, but it is difficult to see him being able to do anything constructive that might change the status quo.
September 17, 2025
O/T and mindful you are not running a news site but August RPI is 4.6 per cent. suggesting the Chancellor would do well to follow your advice at last.
September 17, 2025
“and is completely outmatched by Sir Keir Starmer at PMQ’s”
I watch PMQs most Wednesdays SG. Kemi has missed a few open goals but has also walloped a few in too. Starmer seldom actually answers the questions and last week was very clearly in trouble. I enjoyed watching yesterdays debate too – some blistering attacks from the Tory backbenches and the poor soul sent to represent the Government just had to sit there and take it. No Starmer, no Pixie Balls, no David Lammy in sight…
Things can only get worse and they will clearly do so under Starmer. Unfortunately we are in the same boat as this motely crew and will surely sink with them… and your beloved Net Zero will be part of the reason we go down!
September 17, 2025
When I worked for the public sector, we weren’t allowed to accept even a box of chocolates as a gift. Why are the rules different for politicians? All gifts should be banned, as nobody gives anything without expecting something in return. The revelations about that Ali bloke are a disgrace, and this is what the people hate. As for the demise of the Tory party, I would put it down to their lies and incompetence on immigration; most people don’t understand the economy.
September 17, 2025
Watching the Mandelson debate yesterday was fascinating. David Davis was very effective leading the attack against the government.
The Labour benches were exceptionally quiet and those who did speak were rarely supportive of Starmer. The most damning contribution from the government side was from Emily Thornbury, particularly as she is the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee. It’s clear that she is going to push the matter, especially after being humiliated by Labour MPs when they failed to support her and she came nowhere in the race to become Labour’s deputy leader.
The Mandelson issue is going to run and run and is already immensely damaging to Starmer. The fact that he failed to appear to defend himself in the debate was particularly telling.
September 17, 2025
Ford is shutting EV car production site in Germany, as the demand from consumers is far far lower than predictions and forecasts. Unfortunately the plebs are not following the dictats of the ruling classes in Europe.
Any sensible political class would be listening to the consumers.
September 17, 2025
….and Jaguar been closed for a while …..they say due to a cyber issue
September 17, 2025
A rather unnoticed ‘event’ of the last week might I hope prove significant. Last Thursday Richard Tice said that (American style) civil servants need to believe in (rather than oppose and hinder as has normally been the case with Conservative governments and often also with Labour governments) the policies of the elected government they are asked to enact. Suella Braverman said the appointment system of the British judiciary needs to be changed so that they cease to be a self perpetuating oligarchy enacting their own views. Suella Braverman (who is more farsighted and quicker to see and analyse things than other British politicians) is the first significant politician to state the problem (perverse legal decisions) lies not just with foreign Judges but also with British Judges and that political, indeed partisan intervention is needed in appointing British Judges. I myself also want time limited contractual appointments or popular elections for Judges and I agree with the Law and Justice Party in Poland over replacing partisan hostile Judges. I also believe questions over interpretation of legislation should be determined by parliamentary committees, not the courts.
In a democracy civil servants and judges should be functionaries (competent rather than incompetent ones, as generally happens now) not overriding participants in policy, governance and law making. In a democracy the sole right to override Parliament should be vested in the people themselves by Referendum.
I congratulate Richard Tice and Suella Braverman in beginning to point the way towards this.
September 17, 2025
Not a view of the civil service shared by Sir Humphrey Appleby: “Bernard, I have served eleven governments in the past thirty years. If I had believed in all their policies, I would have been passionately committed to keeping out of the Common Market, and passionately committed to going into it. I would have been utterly convinced of the rightness of nationalising steel. And of denationalising it and renationalising it. On capital punishment, I’d have been a fervent retentionist and an ardent abolishionist. I would’ve been a Keynesian and a Friedmanite, a grammar school preserver and destroyer, a nationalisation freak and a privatisation maniac; but above all, I would have been a stark, staring, raving schizophrenic”.
Judges are constrained by what the law says so surely Parliament can bind them?
September 17, 2025
No need for schizophrenic civil servants – we can and should do what America does and change the senior civil service when the Party in charge of government changes.
Haven’t you noticed most of our Judges refuse to be constrained by Parliament or even the law? – the same happens in America where although there is one law Republican appointed and Democrat appointed Judges tend to take diametrically opposite views of the law : at least it is more open in America and at least one faction does not as here almost entirely dominate the judiciary via a self perpetuating oligarchy who appoint their own successors (which is what Suella Braverman, a onetime barrister, is now rightly wanting to change).
September 18, 2025
The American system does have weaknesses of course, even flaws. The effects on continuity, on preservation of knowledge and experience, arising from a wholesale replacement of senior civil service cadres being one. As for the judiciary, the USA suffers from being too much a krytocracy, with its Supreme Court enjoying a sovereignty in interpreting its constitution, for recent example managing somehow to conjure it permits abortion and then it forbids it, according to era and social pressures. While law does not exist in a vacuum, isolated from the society it regulates, the US judiciary seems to have more extensive powers than does ours and is very much more political. Possible solutions to the difficulties in the USA would not seem prima facie to be applicable in the UK: we do not have an out-of-control judiciary pursuing its own agenda despite Lady Hale and any tendency can be very effectively checked by a sovereign Parliament.
September 17, 2025
Do sleazy remarks on social media count as sleaze as labour are trying to stop criminalising written offensive remarks .Libel is on the increase and nasty lies written in the media can ruin life.
September 17, 2025
Judgements:it has long-been common knowledge that in USA the appointment of judges(at several levels)
is politically influenced.This is noticeably so during the present Presidency.
What,heretofore,never occurred to me is that the same charge may be laid about England’s.
The Bell Hotel rulings highlight the lack of a fair hearing.
I asked my MP which of the 2 versions-priority to the concerns of local residents or priority to
“asylum ” seekers did he support.Answer came there none.
September 17, 2025
I believe the process of selecting candidates to stand as an MP for the main political parties is deeply flawed. Where are candidates with real life experience, candidates who have run businesses and held important positions? Where are candidates with engineering and scientific backgrounds? Far too many are too young and woefully inexperienced to be an MP and far too many seem to be wedded to political ideologies rather than having a strong commitment to serve the needs of local constituents. All this needs to change.
Reply I was chairman of a large quoted industrial group when first elected. Quite a lot of Conservative MP s in the last Parliament had good business experience e.g. Hunt who became Chancellor and Stride, now Shadow Chancellor
September 17, 2025
Dear Sir John,
The Ministerial Code was, quite sensibly, drawn up in 2010 by senior civil servants to avoid intrnecine chaos between ministers of the incoming Conservative/ Liberal Democrat coalition. Not unnaturally, it enshrined the role of civil servants, who in any case tended to have the casting vote when ministers of the two parties disgreed.
Once the Conservatives re-established a majority government, the Code should have been suspended, if not abolished. But the government lacked the courage to do that. Instead, the Code was weaponized to attack ministers who the prime minister, civil servants or the Opposition did not like. Hence Priti Patel was ousted for holding a meeting with a foreign leader without a civil servant being present and Dominic Raab was axed for being overbearing with civil servants when he felt they were not delivering the goods.
Most recently Angela Rayner, our deputy prime minister, was forced to resign, not on the judgment of the prime minister, the governing party or the House of Commons but on a ruling by an unelected “independent” adviser that she had broken the Code. Nothing to do with us, they could say, but an outside official and therefore objective.
As you say, spare us the sermons and hypocrisy and give us honesty and democracy
September 17, 2025
“Most of the public understand that any governing party will have people who are too casual about applying the laws and rules they impose when it comes to their own conduct. Some will make genuine mistakes, some will be so busy they miss deadlines to declare and explain, some will let office go to their head and take liberties”
I think we can all agree with this, after all politicians, like the rest of us, are humans. It would be good if they didn’t try out so much petty points coring against each other and this also applies to the press.
For what it’s worth I think Rayner probably made a genuine mistake although not helped by a clear lack of attention to the detail. For me I could live with her making a full apology and have the PM make the judgement she stayed that time but could not survive something similar again.
This is obviously putting aside that by her own behaviour in the past she made that outcome, shall we say, very unlikely
For those that disagree, and I am sure there are many, I ask which is the way to get more talented people to want to go into politics, to be puritan about the smallest error or to be a bit more forgiving. How would you like to be treated in the same position?