There have been plenty of populist parties rise in the EU. No wonder, when the traditional parties, the national establishments and the EU serve up slow or no growth, high taxes and high levels of inward migration. The populist parties do sometimes get into power, but then often let people down. Syriza seized the government of Greece only to get into a dispute with the Euro authorities over austerity and economic policy. They ended up backing down and the voters decided they had not enjoyed the experience, with a stop on withdrawing some of their money from Greek banks and more damage to the economy. In Italy Lega came into a position of influence but was unable to kick start the Italian economy or halt the arrivals of large numbers of migrants. From the left Five Star also rose and fell.
The populist parties of the so called right often adopt a number of important attitudes and policies from socialism, and populist parties of the so called left often adopt supposedly right wing attitudes towards migration. They do so because they often create programmes – or more accurately craft soundbites – based around polling. Most voters are not ideological. Many want more freedoms for themselves and more controls on their neighbours, lower taxes for themselves and higher taxes for others, more public services that suit them and economies elsewhere. Why not? Of course people vote primarily for their own interests. The task of competitive parties is to come up with a policy offer that will work, to tackle the main concerns of the majority.
In the UK there are four populist parties today, Reform, Restore, Green and Advance. Green has decided to drive hard left, ignoring many of the traditional green issues like climate change and concentrating on major redistribution of wealth and income and Middle Eastern Palestinians concerns. Reform has flirted with backing parts of the two child benefit cap withdrawal, proposes extensive nationalisation, wants proportional representation, seeks to abolish the Cabinet Office and set up a much bigger and more powerful Office of the Prime Minister and struggles to find savings in the spending of the Councils it runs.It has highlighted unacceptable levels of illegal immigration and suggested various measures to reduce it.
These parties hold out the hope that they could push through the change people want, but they find it difficult to set out how exactly they would define the change and how more importantly they would push it through. Starting with a big change in the structure of Whitehall departments could prove costly and create plenty of delays in achieving things voters want. The continental parties remind us it can prove to be a big let down. Most of the problems we face flow from too much government, from taxes that are too high and from a public sector which delivers too little for too much cost. It needs a lot of work to decide what needs to be stopped and how to generate the change needed in government. Soundbites and headlines will not achieve it. Determination, a detailed plan and an ability to drive the machine of government from within is what is needed.
May 27, 2026
Good Morning,
Why is there space for new political parties? It’s simple, the legacy parties are failures at the job of governing. We the voters are not going to vote for the same duplicitous and incompetent people.
May 27, 2026
@Peter Wood – ‘the legacy parties’ placed personal ego and the next election before their job so they opened the door by driving through populist ideology before Country & People. They lost the meaning of government/management and creating a tomorrow.
Some of us recognise that it is the result of the 40 years of the UK being ruled by the EU, that meant instead of government, good management, we had a rubber stamping committee, power was with the unelected unaccountable bureaucrats in a foreign place that had no interest in the UK or its people
May 27, 2026
+1
May 27, 2026
My thoughts exactly Peter.
May 27, 2026
Correct. Even Blair seems to have woken up to that.
May 27, 2026
Even recycled into the new Parties?
May 27, 2026
‘Our hope in ages past…..
Proverbs 14:34: Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.
Psalm 33:12: Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord;
and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.
We have shifted, not you – thank you Lord for your faithfulness!
May 27, 2026
Good morning.
The problem many ‘populist’ parties have is, as soon as they start to take serious chunks of the voter base the established parties of which the government is part of come under attack. They get labelled racist, far-right or extreme. And because they are new and have not the resources to develop a broader base of policies to appeal to the wider base. But one such party that despite all this seems to be bucking this trend is Germany’s AfD. This despite some serious attacks from the State.
Here in the UK we are seeing the slow and irreversible demise of the two main parties. Both in the first quarter of this century and mostly throughout the last have been in office. The situation we now find ourselves in is much to do with their policies and bad management, the worst of which is failure to control the Civil Service.
People sense that the ‘system’ and the country is broken and the old parties cannot understand what needs to be done let alone fix it.
May 27, 2026
Reform may not be able to tackle all our problems and are certainly running into problems with local councils. Much of the problem is government mandated spending which leaves little discretion. Where they have a majority they are pulling out of the government resettlement schemes and challenging the net zero nonsense especially solar farms.
We have been failed by the legacy parties for over 30 years now and people are fed up voting for more of the same.
I read 2TK is handing money over to Mauritius in lieu of the Chagos deal. The whole government is rotten to the core.
It’s time to let others take the helm.
May 27, 2026
I’m not surprised to learn that the Prime Liar is transferring BORROWED money to Mauritius. It was never about Sovereignty …. Mauritius has never had Sovereignty over the Chagos Islands. It’s a BUNG ….. a very large BUNG which British taxpayers will be funding for a very long time.
May 27, 2026
So Lord/Baron Hermer, Attorney General is to refer the recent rape sentences to our wonderfully learned Court of Appeal Judges for a review. These the wonderful people, six of whom twice refused Lucy Letby any appeal, three of whom decided 31 month for Lucy Connolly’s foolish but mild and temporary tweet was perfectly correct and reasonable, refused Sally Clark’s first appeal, Guildford four… and so many other obvious errors. Indeed they seem to be very good indeed at refusing so very many attempted appeals of innocent men and women.
It will be interesting to see what sentences they come up with here. Is serial and multiple rape worse than a minor temporary tweet (the first offence and load of mitigating circumstance) 31 months or not? It will also be interesting to observe also the Scottish Court sentencing of the clearly rather potty Peter Morrell. Hopefully here there will be some more investigations into the SNP and the rather dodgy Scottish legal system given the almost one party state since Blair’s appalling devolution.
A shame Morrell did not take it to court and expose all those others who allowed it to happen and/or tried to cover it all up. His argument could have been that too much temptation was put in his way by the organisation and without proper oversight accountancy and audit controls and he was clearly going rather potty (perhaps understandably given whom he was married to for so long). So hard to resist posh salt and pepper pots, coffee machines, laundry baskets I find. My new caffetiere (the last one smashed) cost £2 at a charity shop. Jacob R M the other day actually said he preferred instant coffee is he OK?
May 27, 2026
Downing Street (in response to Blair’s criticism) says the government is fully committed to delivering change for working people – change to no working it seems looking at their et zero, tax to death, open borders, doom loop policies!
Not that we ever want a Labour Leader who wins three elections again! Blair (and Brown) were worse than two world wars as Starkey puts it in his excellent video. At least Blair has finally got real on the Net Zero lunacy!
May 27, 2026
What’s this got to do with the topic, again. Tedious. Please start your own blog instead of cuckooing Sir JR
May 27, 2026
No need to read them if not interesed.
My topic related one has not appeared as yet. As to cuckooing I have no wish or ability to kick him our of the nest.
Amazing that a Cuckoo chick is born already programmed – knowing exactly what to do yet never meets its parents. Yet it knows to kick out the other chicks once hatched, emigrates to certain bits of Africa then return and put one egg into the parasited nest (reed warblers, meadow pipit it is mainly?) on just the right day and with the right egg colours. The new embrio also suitably programmed to do the same etc.
Nature or nurture?
May 27, 2026
You don’t seem to have made any contribution to the debate. Perhaps you’re embarrassed by the anti-British catastrophe currently in Government?
May 27, 2026
Leave him alone Nigl. Our host normally has to generalise on political topics and it is sometimes useful to pinpoint particular actions of venality by some within the political orbit which LL does. According to the Mail during 7 hours of questioning Sturgeon replied ‘no comment’ to significant questions and when asked about her ‘no comment’ answers John Swinney effectively said ‘no comment’!!!
Reply Sturgeon issued a clear statement that she has not been charged with any crime and was unaware of her husband’s confessed fraud.
May 27, 2026
@Lifelogic – mustn’t be forgotten Starmer/Hermer duo hate the UK and its People, the brand all those that disagree with them as right-wing terrorist. Lucy Connolly’ exposed their hate the UK campaign, even if inadvertently so her like had to be blocked. ‘Rapists’ they are poor disadvantaged individuals whether singly of in gangs, Labours job via Starmer/Hermer is to nurture the disadvantaged as potential voters
May 27, 2026
So Blair has finally come round to reality on May and Miliband’s Net Zero lunacy. Was it not Blair that started all this drivel.
Except Blair still talks about Clean Energy or Cheap Energy. Nothing dirty Tony about CO2 plant, crop and tree food mate. Kemi and Coutinho still do this too. It is a vital gas of life.
Liz Truss on the dire Blair era:-
“In Britain, we are living under the House of Blair. Tony Blair had the most long term impact of any Prime Minister since Clement Attlee.”
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2309566972799602
Almost as good as Starkey’s worse than two world wars video.
May 27, 2026
Reform UK favoured proportional representation as in the 2015 general election UKIP gained 3.88million votes but only one MP. In contrast LibDems gained 2.42million votes but 8 times as many MPs. UKIP had 12.6% of votes cast in contrast to LibDems having only 7.9%.
That was the level of unfairness it sought to unlock. However, as Reform UK are now in such a powerful position in terms of polling they are probably less inclined to change the system. PR tends to create a mishmash of people’s voting preferences as displayed in the EU. First past the post is more decisive.
May 27, 2026
Reform will suffer from anyone but voting patterns in any election which makes victory in first past the post elections so are probably still in favour of PR.
No one who wins in first past the post is going to change to PR.
May 27, 2026
@Bloke – PR has one aim to give power to the minority to damage the majority.
May 27, 2026
Exactly, and the people have given a direct order visa Supermajority in a referendum. No PR.
You can’t pick and choose which Referendum you respect and which you overturn.
May 27, 2026
No wonder people want change when we have to put up with a political consensus of nonsense. Just in the last couple of weeks we have for example been fed nonsense by of all people the police.They claim policing a couple of demonstrations with 4,000 police officers cost the public five million pounds which would translate into one thousand two hundred and fifty pounds per police officer for an afternoon’s attendance. Since when were police paid over ten thousand pounds a week or half a million pounds each per year? And it supposedly cost two million pounds to investigate a £400,000 fraud by one person on the SNP . That is equivalent to about 40 police officers working on nothing else for a whole year when they presumably had access to the banking accounts of both the fraudster and the SNP – it is nothing that one competent specialist police officer should have been able to resolve within a week or so! Is it too much to expect reasonable accounting, honesty and efficiency from the police of all people?
May 27, 2026
One of US defence secretary Hegseth’s flunkeys briefed top officials at Nato headquarters late last week that Trump intends to substantially cut commitments to the Nato Force Model
Hegseth toady Alexander Velez-Green reportedly said during the closed-door meeting that the commitment of US fighter jets would fall by a third, while the US Navy will make 7 fewer destroyers available and will no longer provide any submarines at all
Under the changes, Europe would also have to provide its own reconnaissance drones, while the US plans to strip back its provision of armed models. Refuelling aircraft, key to long-range operations, were also said to be at risk.
Trump has criticised NATO over it’s refusal to join in the war in Iran, inflaming tensions mounting since his threats to take control of Greenland, Trump did not discuss bombing Iran with NATO in advance and has not formally asked for support. He has, though, repeatedly threatened to leave NATO as a result and has begun withdrawing troops from Germany. 5000 of them
Now we know what Trump and the war criminal Putin have been discussing on their regular 90 minute “very good” telecons
May 27, 2026
What’s your point SG. Europe has been freeloading on defence for decades. Germany in particular lives to sell its equipment abroad whilst having ni meaningful armed forces.
Van der lie a lot prioritised Creches for the military when they had no serviceable planes or ships.
Trump is correct to expose Europe, just look at our once proud Royal Navy unable to patrol home waters.
We are ruled by shysters who would rather spend on foreign welfare rather than defence.
May 27, 2026
@Ian Wragg +1
‘freeloading’ is all they have known. EU population 450million, the USA 350million. Yet the USA Taxpayer pays the bulk of the bills, provides the bulk of equipment and provides a great deal of Europe’s defensive manpower. If NATO was a partnership there would be a nod towards reciprocity
May 27, 2026
Perhaps the “We wanna be a Superstate” anti-democrats in the EU should pay for their own defence?
Just saying …..
May 27, 2026
Populists are everywhere – and that the UK’s biggest impediment
‘Sir Tony Blair said on Tuesday night that Sir Keir Starmer had no plan to fix Britain as he launched an unprecedented attack on the Labour leader’s record in office.
In an extensive critique of the Government, Sir Tony accused the Labour Prime Minister of retreating into a Left-wing “comfort zone” of high taxes and red tape that had crippled growth while failing to tackle the ballooning welfare bill.
The former prime minister also intervened in the Labour leadership crisis, warning it would be “dangerous” for the party to lurch to the Left.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/05/26/blair-says-starmer-has-no-plan-for-britain/
May 27, 2026
And here am I applauding Blair! Same shock as finding myself in the same anti-EU camp as Wedgie Benn.
May 27, 2026
@LA
How about Claire Regina Fox, Baroness Fox of Buckley she was previously a member of the Trotskyist British Revolutionary Communist Party, joined the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). She also became co-publisher of its magazine Living Marxism. So on paper she is up there with 2TK in thinking, but no, she is a lifelong Eurosceptic, her first comments on joining the EU Parliament was how MEP’s were denied democracy they could only take orders and rubber-stamp diktats from the unelected unaccountable politburo.
May 27, 2026
As the mainstream parties have bought more of the electorate with their giveaways, doctrine and policies so those sections of the electorate want more of “their” stuff.
Manifestos need to be fully costed by two independent bodies, a free market leaning body and a socialist leaning body and then the voters are in a better position to decide.
Manifestos must be binding and any deviation should be passed by any government’s majority plus 10%.
“Most voters are not ideological. Many want more freedoms for themselves and more controls on their neighbours, lower taxes for themselves and higher taxes for others, more public services that suit them and economies elsewhere. Why not? Of course people vote primarily for their own interests.” Quite.
May 27, 2026
I think the ‘selfish voter’ needs modification. If there’s one societal principle that is universal, it’s that we do recognise the benefit of living as part of a group, so the needs of the group as a whole are taken into account. This is why we have such societal stress at the moment; so many newcomers who only want to take, not participate and contribute. Call it fairness.
May 28, 2026
While living in a group everyone wants to keep up with the Jones and it has come to pass that the government is expected to provide.
I struggle to keep up with the Jones because my taxes are paying for their upkeep.
May 27, 2026
Populists is from the Latin and Democrats from the Greek – but the former is used in a derogatory sense by the blob for democratic policies that are popular with the unwashed Hoi polloi masses. Policies that the extablishment look down on. Things like cheap on demand energy, low taxes, small government, sensible immigration levels, real deterrent to crime and mass immigraion, free unrigged markets in transport, education, cars, heating systems, energy, sufficient houses, freedom and choice…
May 27, 2026
Correct, as Dr David Starkey has pointed out.
But Greek “democracy” was really government by a relatively small section of the population ….. those considered “suitable” to govern. Remind you of anything?
May 27, 2026
Speaking from street level: Reform may not be able to do everything they want to but – unlike previous Tory governments – at least they’ll try.
May 27, 2026
Indeed not issue manifestos that they had no intentions of trying to deliver.
Let us hope we get a sensible government with a decent majority and they actually try to deliver and do deliver. It is one hell of a task against the blob and all the forces against them.
May 27, 2026
No they won’t.
May 27, 2026
‘In the UK there are four populist parties today, Reform, Restore, Green and Advance’
I think your assumption is wrong. It would be hard to conclude that May wasn’t trying to be populist with ‘upping- the-anti’ withe here dire Net Zero plane, then we got Johnson ramping up the deindustrialisation of the UK all solely populist, I was going to say plan, but there was no ‘Plan’ just being downs with the ‘luvies’ and on message. Not one of them had even for their lunatic aspiration a ‘Plan’ on how to fund their ‘dream’ the plan only had destruction as it aim. Then it is no surprise they other lunatics, ‘Labour’ took up the same clarion call but with more aggression more zeal pursuing the same objective of destroying the future and ensuring it by having no way to pay for it.
The traditional parties, the national establishments, lost the ‘plot’ got wound up in personal ego before country and people, which means there is no fresh air between them and the Worlds nutters, the Worlds numpties.
As things stand those that are ‘out-there’ seemingly without a ‘Plan’ are on the same level playing field as those that have brought us to the brink.
The only plane seemingly comes from Starmer, the UK and its people ‘hater’ – the EU at all costs, Chagos at any cost
May 27, 2026
Well surely Labour under Burnham would be a ‘Populist’ govrrnment, if it was only popular with Labour Party members.
Kemi has a plan but also has the old Conservative Party to deal with, as demonstrated by Dominic Grieve last night talking about the ECHR and our inability to return migrants home.
May 27, 2026
The populist parties are only populist with a section of the population – left wing or right wing. The centre ground are disenfranchised. If only the centre ground would be motivated with a sensible centre ground party, but few sensible centre ground people are interested in going into politics.
The centre ground can warm to left wing ideology (the poor and weak shouldn’t be trodden on) as well as right wing ideology (people who are successful should enjoy the fruits of their enterprise) but left and right are too far from each other.
The Conservative Party ought to be able to capture the centre ground, but they have recently left office with nothing working except the cross channel taxi service, so no one trusts them any more. Whilst in office they promoted people who they thought by pretending to be socialists would get more of the left wing vote. Instead they ended up with socialists pretending to be Conservatives. Plus, too many of them were so sentimental about the EU and ended up clueless when the nation voted to leave.
Reform might have taken the centre ground, but they have positioned themselves too much to the right and can’t change now. Will too many vote against them if they feel they will lose their benefits?
The problem with appealing to the centre ground is that you are pitching yourselves at generally apathetic people who are less likely to vote. It’s the extremes who are more motivated about politics.
May 27, 2026
One of the most common features of our ‘established’ political parties has been the failure to deliver what was put to the electorate in their manifestos. This perennial voter disappointment with failed politicians promises, is part of the reason for voters are dismissive of politicians in general.
It is this disappointment that is giving rise to the alternative new parties who are themselves making promises . Time will tell if they keep to them. We are not too convinced for obvious reasons, mostly driven into us by Labour LibDems and the Tories…..
May 27, 2026
‘change in the structure of Whitehall departments could prove costly and create plenty of delays’ Even those that you deem as the traditional parties know there is a problem in the structures that government manages and the taxpayer funds. Yet they all do nothing about it for no other reason than seemingly laziness on the part of the UK’s Parliament. How many in Parliament, those that hold the establishment to account can justify the amounts of taxpayer money they(it is a parliamentary expenditure) absorb just to fund friends of friends in Quango’s.
Argentina had a similar situation, a bloated, over costly State run Establishment that as in the UK was killing the Country. Along came an outsider Javier Milei and over night reversed the decline. He wanted to do it – that all.
Any one can change anything, even those in power, even the traditional parties could have changed things long ago they just had to get on with it. Instead they failed. As such the excuse of cost and delays is unfounded, it just a case of can’t be bothered ‘I’m’ preparing for the next election, the country and the people can ……………
May 27, 2026
Who are the real ‘populists?
Standard Chartered is talking about removing 15% of its back office with the help of AI as they don’t provide anything meaningful. Then you have Ryan Breslow, the chief executive of US payment company Bolt sacking his company’s entire HR team after they created “problems that didn’t exist”. Employment just to use money – and not to fulfil a meaningful function, this has fast become the impediment of a society that is desperate to compete and grow.
How much of this UK Parliament is in its self ‘creating problems’, self-indulgent problems that don’t exist, just to hire more staff and create self-importance? The desire in the UK Parliament to fit in, therefore be ‘populist’, pursue diversity, exclusion and inclusion which in its self is a contradiction, the first thing these aims set out to do is discriminant, create a them and us society, creating difference were that never existed before and in doing so is taking on thousands of taxpayers funded staff to be what after all is just ‘populist’. It has been suggested that the extra millions, and millions of taxpayer money for the NHS has been swallowed up, not to fulfil clinical needs but in HR that then finds “problems that don’t exist” to justify their own existence. So is the UK Parliament in being ‘populist’ when they are similarly wasting hard earned taxpayer money on whims that have no productive purpose?
I would suggest that it is not ‘populist’ to question this wasted spending of taxpayer money after all it is the very job those in Parliament whose function is to hold the establishment to account, that they are then failing to do. The UK Parliament is flushing people hard earned pounds down the drain to be ‘populists’.
May 27, 2026
“Reform has flirted with backing parts of the two-child benefit cap”
Only for working people, as the current system means families are better off on benefits than in work. We have to make work pay.
“proposes extensive nationalisation “
I’ve only heard of supporting critical national assets, such as British Steel. I’d hardly call this extensive.
“wants proportional representation”
Since leading in the last 200+ polls, Reform has gone very quiet on this.
“struggles to find savings in the spending of the Councils it runs”
They are finding savings, although it’s difficult given the huge debts left by the previous administrations. Councils are also bound by government legislation, such as the Climate Change Act and support for migrants and the ever-growing disability crisis that has been allowed to proliferate due to years of political incompetence.
Reform is working on policies. Danny Kruger is heading this. There is so much wrong with our country, much of it caused by current and previous politicians; it’s a major task to undertake and something that needs great care to implement.
Reply Reform wants to nationalise water which would be very costly and supports fully nationalised rail which is excessively costly already.
May 27, 2026
Reply to reply: “Farage’s Reform UK drops pledge to nationalise water and energy companies” – Financial Times headline 25/3/26. Looks like you needed to check up on this one, Lord John.
Reply I was relying on their published policy of state ownership combined with 50 % pension fund ownership.There is also the pledge to have a National Wealth fund owning important national assets. There is no new official statement of policyI can see though there are press references to ending the nationalisation policy, modified by possibly taking Thames Water into temporary nationalised ownership. They do not seem to have cancelled their wish to nationalise steel or said how they would denationalise rail. It is difficult when they change a lot and rely mainly on soundbites. I see Yousef and Jenrich disagree over what their deportation policy is.
May 27, 2026
Ah nobody can keep up with Farage’s changes if mind. It’s almost as if he is casting around trying establish what the majority thing so he can fall in line – and lead,
May 27, 2026
Reply to reply
I read that Reform have ditched their idea about nationalising water. Good thing too, cost too much and the better solution is a better regulator. Keeping it in private hands avoids unions calling a strike and holding the government to ransom.
May 27, 2026
– FULL STOP.
But also from ideology and badly thought out solutions that don’t work in practice.
If REFORM get the keys to #10 then they need to come up with major strategies to implement at the earliest possible time – I’m not sure they are quite there yet. They should concentrate on:
– smashing the immigration gangs and reversing immigrant totals, remove the UK from the ECHR;
– declare a real Brexit and reverse all links made by labour towards the EU – use tariffs to ensure we no longer trade at a disadvantage;
– create a low tax economy and stimulate growth by reversing the costly and painful labour policies, including net-0;
– never mind just reducing tax on overtime, personal taxation is an utter pain and needs major changes, with the ultimate aim of reducing it’s impact severely. We could actually live without personal taxation very easily!
As for things like nationalisation and proportional representation, REFORM would easily change their mind once in power. proportional representation helps only the small parties while denying a decent majority to those that poll most votes. So, a transient idea that gets kicked around to please the crowds.
REFORM need to be reminded that restoring the Great into Britain was achieved with Thatcherite policies – they don’t have to break new ground, just study how it was done and implement those actions that worked best.
May 27, 2026
@Steve Bullion +1
May 27, 2026
“Determination, a detailed plan and an ability to drive the machine of government from within is what is needed.”
Correct. An incoming administration needs to have a plan ready for the first day in office that can be acted upon immediately. Just as Trump did in his second term. David Starkey has given much thought to this, see for instance, these two episodes on his YouTube channel with Mark Littlewood, director of PopCon:
Restoration and Repeal: Mark Littlewood and David Starkey at the 2025 Conservative Party Conference
https://youtu.be/QDLgbI4xois
Brexit started a revolution – that’s why they want to reverse it” | David Starkey Talks
https://youtu.be/dgZ4gyMQ2o8
May 27, 2026
The challenge for 21st century political parties is to understand the economic history and the developments that have happened since the industrial revolution. 18th and 19th century economists understood clearly the economic rent derived from monopoly or oligopoly in land. And 20th century politicians understood the economic rent derived from monopoly in resources such as oil.
Neither of these economic rents were properly harnessed for the benefit of the communities. Even though it might have been understood that the economic rent only arose because of the existence of the communities.
Now in the 21st century we have a growing, and rapidly growing, economic rent arising from intellectual property.
While populist parties might rail against the symptoms of failed economic systems that are manifesting themselves in most developed countries, they will not find solutions unless they understand the the reasons why wages are depressed by the large amount of wealth extracted from production as
economic rent.
The solution is to find ways of collecting all three types of economic rent and distribute the wealth as per capita income. This will supplement wages and allow all families to provide for their own housing, education, and healthcare as well as all other essentials of life. At the same time the general level of wages will increase because production in truly competitive markets only benefits labour after the cost of materials and capital. The need for a welfare state will be dramatically reduced.
May 27, 2026
Dear Sir John,
It seems Sir Tony Blair has echoed all your best ideas for the country!
You are doing a great service to Britain with your tireless efforts to bring about serious debate on the merits of reason, common sense and cut out the nonsensical diversions the media indulge in.
Many thanks indeed!
May 27, 2026
Establishment Parties can also lose their popularity; particularly when they spend 14 years “promising” one thing and doing the exact opposite because they think “their voters” have no-where else to go.
And also when they disrespect a clear instruction from the electorate to change our constitutional settlement with a supra-national organisation and LEAVE it.
The people tried the Not-a-Conservative-Party. They tried a Johnson-led Not-a-Conservative-Party. And now they have tried Labour. Between them they have royally wrecked this country.
All that is left is the “populists.”
May 27, 2026
Britain is at the point where public opinion has become so deeply fractured over so many highly emotional and religious issues that it no longer has a coherent society. Too many people vote according to these divisions rather than what is in the interests of the country. Obviously they would argue they are voting according to Britain’s interests because they want to change Britain to be governed only by people sharing their own views. There is no objectivity, no judgment based on knowledge of history of Britain or the experience of other countries. Many want Britain to be a socialist state, despite the fact – if only they knew – it has been a disaster everywhere it has been tried. Many want it to be governed by Islamic Sharia which is fundamentally incompatible with Christian values. The divisions are wider and deeper that they have ever been. There is no longer any possibility of a consensus on which a party can base a coherent set of policies and there is little tolerance among the electorate for people with opposing views.
Britain is becoming ungovernable. It will get worse, more intolerant and more violent before it gets better.
May 27, 2026
Yes, I’m afraid Prof David Betz is right. It is just the timescale that is debatable.
May 27, 2026
The divisions in society which I mentioned in my other comment would matter less if Britain was not so buried under a mass of convoluted verbose legislation and regulation with the state involved in every aspect of life. A chainsaw is required.
May 27, 2026
Wasn’t making the Prime Minister’s office more powerful a right-wing Tory proposal at one time?
I’m not sure if claims made by Reform are true but they did claim to have saved serious money, £12 million, in Kent by cancelling plans to unnecessarily move staff to a neighbouring building.
In Durham, they stopped funding the annual Pride festival, which saved money, and the trade union raised the money to go ahead with the event, a win all around. Not everything has to be done by the State.
Whenever you take over someone else’s organisation, there are things you need to continue paying for that the old organisation had signed up for. You’ve also got to pay for stuff ordered in advance by previous administrations. eg. This Labour government, led by Keir Starmer, was today taking credit for 30 hours of free childcare for babies from 9 months, a policy invented by the Tories and announced in 2023, 15 hours free from age 2 in 2024, and 30 hours for babies from 9 months in 2023.
Reply Kent increased total revenue spending by £103 m this year, and has a £2 bn capital programme for the years ahead. As you say you inherit commitments but you can cancel contracts and end policies if you want to cut spending.
May 27, 2026
The term “Populist” is nothing but a deliberate insult put about by the elitist established political parties against those who dare to represent the wishes of the majority of the voting public.
“Populism” is democracy in action whose proponents are thoroughly fed up with elitist politicians ignoring the wishes of voters. There is no clearer demonstration than the way the Conservative, LIb-Dim, and Labour parties have ignored the concerns of voters about sky-high inward migration.
It’s time that the Conservatives woke up and smelt the coffee. Despite a good leader in Badenoch, they are losing the argument and rightly so.
Rather than look down their noses at Reform, they should be working with the party to prepare to be part of a coalition government with Nigel Farage.
Or would they rather be beaten by a nightmare coalition of Labour, Lib Dims, Green, Plaid and SNP ?
May 27, 2026
As reported in Guido – A press release went out overnight:
“Today, the Conservative Party have pledged to reverse the Net Zero ban on air con in new homes, as the latest heatwave leaves families suffering unnecessarily… the Conservatives pledge to overturn this ban devised by ‘Robert Jenrick as Housing Secretary’ and entrenched in London by Sadiq Khan.”
Then in chronological order December 2021 – this happened three months after Jenrick had left – when Michael Gove was the new Housing Secretary, and Kemi Badenoch was his second-in-command… That of course means they could have stopped the regulations – if they were against it.
As an aside, if these guys just thought, understood or comprehended what they themselves are saying they wouldn’t keep putting their foot in it. Modern home standards achieve an ‘A’ rating with the use of VHR/MVHR other wise heat is wasted to the atmosphere. The similarities and function of VHR/MVHR & AC are in that the bulk of the cost, hardware, trunking, heat exchangers, fans etc is identical, it is just the thermostat connected use that creates the difference, and that is minute if the rest of the structure is up to standard. More damage, cost, is caused by just opening a window. People forget than in today’s modern insulated homes double glazing keeps heat out in the same way as it keeps it in.
But you have to laugh at the incompetence of the UK Parliament tearing itself apart because it doesn’t understand its function, or you could just cry
May 28, 2026
The UK parliament seem to have great difficulty in understanding anthing much about engineering, science, energy, economics, the Laffer curve, doom loops… about 16% seem to have STEM degrees but many of those are rather dubious. The general rule is if it has “Science” in the title of the degree it probably isn’t.
May 27, 2026
139 ‘illegal immigrants’ invaded the UK yesterday 26th May 2026 …..
May 27, 2026
The question you are asking, Lord Redwood, is can Reform first win the next GE, and then implement real change to the UK? My answer is Yes, but only of they have radical policies ready to go immediately. They need to cut the Civil Service down to 150,000, which is more than enough to run the UK. They need to cut Government Spending by £300 to £400K per year immediately. They then need to cut personal and business taxes by about £200k p.a., leaving around £ 100k to £200k to repay debts. Only then will the UK economy take off, as it is currently being throttled by the Labour Government. Sadly, the previous Labour and Conservative Governments did exactly the same. We have had 30 years of poor government and are paying the price for that today. Lord Redwood, you will disagree, but Reform will be able to do this because of the critical financial situation Labour will leave behind. It will be a question of survival for the UK, so they will have no choice!
Reply None of this is Reform policy. I take it your spending cuts were meant to be much bigger than £300,000 a year!
May 27, 2026
@Keith from Leeds – I think they could win as disrupters, by first and foremost not ‘being the others’ What happens after that is anyone’s guess. The logic is the the other parties would then get their act together, clear out those that are the problem and start over, so some good might come from that.
All it would ever take is for a party to commit to work with their electorate, and recognise they(government/Parliament) are rubbish at running anything. Leave those that can do the work to get on with it.
As for Reform, it wont be Reform winning, party’s never win – they loose, the electorates choice is who would be the least worse every time. Looking at the lazy rabble that infests the UK Parliament, they are all still fighting Brexit they never wanted work foisted on them and them having to manage and govern – they all need to go and let us start over.
The best policy I have seen from any party to-date is from the Monster Raving Looney Party(there’s honesty to start) they have suggested bring in a 99p coin as it will reduce the penny change.
May 27, 2026
+1
May 27, 2026
I wonder if it’s correct to call Syriza a ‘populist’ party. Tsipras and Varoufakis were and are Marxists, and their policies were leftwing distributionist, having much of the politics of the postwar communist insurgents during the civil war. It’s only populist insofar as the leftwing opposition in Greece has policies (such as ( attacking ed) the rich) that remain popular with the disaffected.
The curious thing about the ‘backing down’ is that it came after a national referendum called by Tsipras, whose clear result was actually that advocated during the run-up campaign by Syriza, to defy the EU. But despite that national support, the Syriza government caved in immediately to the EU demands (though some Syriza elements tried to subvert the decision by occupying euro printing presses).
May 27, 2026
unfortunately many decent commentators are now predicting a civil war as they dont think voting can fix anything, that seems pretty likely now.
if the non populist parties cannot accept that they have screwed up with out of control immigration, massive national debt, open discrimination against the white working classes, multi tier justice, and so much more then bad things, sadly, look likely.
personally I think I should have stayed abroad and got permanent residency when it would have been trivial for me.
May 28, 2026
It is worrying just how many people are so desperately anxious about the maladministration of our country that they see Farage as King Arthur. Whatever problem they are discussing, however serious and intractable, they say “When Nigel is PM it will be sorted out.” They have a child like faith in him.