The Opposition parties in Parliament think the UK needs to spend more in the public sector. They think better off people and businesses should pay more in tax. They think business should be made to use less fossil fuel, import many more things that need high energy inputs, charge lower prices and be more controlled by the state.
They support the steps the present government has taken to make it more difficult to be self employed, to impose windfall taxes on sectors enjoying a temporary period of high profits, to impose EU regulations on Northern Ireland, to make our Corporation Tax rate less competitive, to introduce price controls on energy. Their complaint is these measures do not go far enough. They want to do more of the same. Taxes must all be higher for longer.
They do not ask themselves why people and companies with money should come to the UK to invest and to create jobs if they are to face higher taxes on success, with price controls and nationalisation threats whether you succeed or not. They never side with the self employed though they often individually rely on them to provide the services they need at home for their own lives. They do not offer anything by way of encouragement or support for small businesses, struggling with a low EU designed VAT threshold. They do not see how rent controls, higher costs imposed on landlords and higher taxes will cut the number of homes for private rentals just when we are already short of properties.
Opposition parties running Councils are particularly keen to stop people going to work, taking children to school or going to the shops by car. Extra taxes for congestion and emission zones, bans on certain types of vehicle, reduction of road space, high parking charges and the rest whittle away at the number of self employed and small businesses that remain to serve the public and keep town centres alive. Self employment  has fallen 700,000 this decade before all these measures have been put in place .
The UK needs to be much friendlier to business and to those who will venture and work hard to serve others.The last thing we need is more interference from politicians claiming to help consumers but ending up with too little capacity and a general decline in the UK’s capacity to earn a living.
May 3, 2023
Good morning.
The Opposition parties do not have an 80 seat majority. Mrs. T had less in her first term as PM and still managed to get more done despite fierce opposition, not only from other political parties, but just about everyone else.
Stop urinating on our back whilst telling us it is raining. We know, and have said here many times, who is responsible :-
THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY
May 3, 2023
Very well said, but, sadly, this is all the Conservative Party has left – shouting out how terrible the Opposition parties are in the hope we won’t notice which party has been in power for the last 13 years. Voters, do not be fooled! Vote Reform, vote LibDem, vote Green, vote Labour, your choice – but do not let this dreadful Conservative party off the hook
May 3, 2023
Nice play by Rishi to suppress possible hostile tabloid coverage of the local elections results, with a Coronation.
May 3, 2023
All of whom are, unbelievably, even worse that the so_called Conservative Party.
No, if you are really bothered, join your local Conservative Party and replace your candidate.
May 3, 2023
Lemming
I think JR is shouting at many who are in positions of power within the Conservative Party, as well as the opposition, and he is right to do so.
Businesses do not start up with lots of employees, they usually start up with one or two people taking the risk of going first self employed, and if then successful they will then perhaps choose to grow.
Choosing to go self employed is a huge risk, as you are completely on your own, with no guarantee of customers or income.
I would suggest that given no Government of any party has ever liked the self employed for decades, it is no wonder that they are a shrinking group, as the high risk is hardly worth in many cases the meagre reward.
Yes a few still make it big, but annual returns show the majority work for less than the median wage.
Some are still happy because of the freedom they have to work the hours that they choose, but many are now finding it impossible to pay ever rising overheads and bills.
The self employed and small business are an endangered species, and Government action is driving them under fast.
People work for themselves, not for the Government, and it is time politicians understood Human nature.
May 3, 2023
I’m afraid I have to disagree with Micro businesses being 0-9 employees. I think they should be 3-9 employees. 1-2 companies are really sole traders and partnerships with limited liability.
Micro business turnover is no more than ÂŁ632,000 and the business has ÂŁ316,000 or less on its balance sheet.
“There were 5.2 million micro-businesses in the UK” Source UK Parliament 6.12.22. “Accounting for 95% of all businesses”.
gov.uk on 6.10.22 says “5.5 million SMEs accounting for 99.9% of the business population”. A small business is from 10 to 49 employees.
Business4Beginners says 75% of them do not employ any staff other than the owners.
SME’s account for 3/5 of employment and half the turnover in the UK private sector. They get no respect from any party. In fact, if you grow and do well Thornberry is promising punishing taxes to give away to struggling small businesses! On PoliticsLive re Guido Fawkes blog:
Thornberry: âThe idea is that we redistribute taxation from the larger businesses to the smaller businesses, so what weâre going to do, weâre going to stick with the taxes for the larger companiesâŠâ
Hollinrake: âWhich taxes?â
Thornberry: â⊠I canât remember exactly which ones it is now. I think itâs the highest⊠higher business taxes, and so businesses of a certain size will continue to be able to pay that higher amount, and that money will be transferred to smaller businessesâŠâ
May 3, 2023
a-tracy
I was simply talking in general terms, and in general terms all governments have been waging war on such people because they tend to think outside of the box, do not easily conform to any simple label, cannot be easily controlled, and as such appear to not be trusted by politicians.
Thus instead of promoting those who do take a risk with their own time and money, ideas, and skills, they hammer them with ever more complicated taxes, regulations, and laws.
Thus the geese that used to lay the golden egg of tax take and employment growth, are now an endangered species.
Why are so many Politicians so stupid, our host being an exception .
May 3, 2023
And yet the government needs the private sector to pay the wages of the public sector. Madness.
May 3, 2023
John, the public sector needs the private sector to provide lower cost labour because they canât afford their generous pensions and perks for all. They have us competing against each other for lower costs, they tell us how much to pay what pension to pay, what hours to work, what holidays we have to pay all the time expecting prices to be kept down and they reward themselves with five days pay for four days work laughing in our faces now. 36 days holidays minimum but usually 45.
May 3, 2023
@Lemming sadly it is the case we can no longer afford thier stupidity
May 3, 2023
For heavens sake not Green, LibDem or Labour !
Even voting Reform risks splitting the Tory vote and letting in one of the above. I genuinely do not know which way to vote, it is like a turkey voting for Christmas, wherever I turn.
May 3, 2023
Spoil your paper. If enough of us do it change will come from a new party.
May 3, 2023
Indeed the current conservative party, under Sunak/Hunt are essentially pushing the same tax to death, regulate to death, climate alarmist & socialist drivel as the opposition parties.
May 3, 2023
Well said, Mark.
May 3, 2023
@Mark B +1
Mrs T, understood the balanced budget, âcutting ones clothâ, to suit income. Most people in the UK call that basic house keeping.
This Government has no concept of that discipline its spend, spend, spend, they just give it away. Earning first so as to fund never crosses anyones mind
May 3, 2023
Exactly. Sir John increasingly tries to distance himself from his own parties actions and policies. Too late. Election tomorrow. Who does he think we’re voting for? The Tory’s? Ha ha ha ha ha.
May 3, 2023
The fact that the opposition want more of the policies that your party has already introduced is not a selling point to vote Conservative. All the main political parties are a disgrace and why anyone votes for any of them is beyond me.
May 3, 2023
Indeed. The Tory Party not quite as socialist, green crap & appalling as the others party but very nearly.
They seem to be making much of the slimmed down coronation only costing 0.004% of annual GDP it seems rather than double that % for Queen Elizabeth II.
But the bank holiday will cost well over 100 times this sum. Worse still is will cost me well over ÂŁ10K. Some one on Talk Radio just now saying how great a friend
to environmentalists Prince Charles is – so why would Just Stop Oil attack the Coronation he asked. Well but only in a “do as I say not as I do” hypocritical way – rather like Just Stop Oil in fact.
May 3, 2023
The picture you paint reminds me of France, when I moved there in 1996.
I expected more regulation than the UK, but the regulatory burden was horrendous. I gave up starting a business and worked for someone else instead. I looked longingly across the Channel at the UK’s pro-business, small-State mindset and comparative lack of regulation and bureaucracy.
Despite the opportunities of Brexit we’ve moved in the French direction. Perhaps even beyond it. We’re in a heck of a mess.
May 3, 2023
The Conservative Party was majority Remain in 2016 and a sizeable minority of its MPs are still Remain today and its Government is decdely of the EU mindset. It isn’t that they are actively campaigning to rejoin the EU but they share the culture, aims, and politics of the EU technocrats so many of them befriended during the UK’s membership.
May 3, 2023
Quite so, Mark B.
May 3, 2023
Why are taxes so high?
May 3, 2023
Hotel bills are pretty steep.
And NZ is horrendously expensive!
Oh but it must all be worth itâŠ
Surely?
May 3, 2023
Hotel bills through the roof as so many are full of migrants so rather a shortage. One hotel I stayed in three years back for ÂŁ80 a night is now ÂŁ220. Must be doing wonders to kill off much of UK tourism. This together with 20% VAT on everything and any goods they buy to take home too.
Best go elsewhere many are saying. Food rather dreadful/industrial expensive too in the UK.
May 3, 2023
We have to provide long range ammunition and tanks to defeat Russia! But we are not at war – there is a Squadron of Special Forces in Ukraine – must be doing Charity work.
We are also importing Russian oil from India – with a âspecial for youâ markup.
May 3, 2023
@Javelin How can I answer that, hmm⊠Oh yes, we the Conservative Government give your (the Tax Payers) money away, then we the Conservative Government donât require it to be accounted for, to achieve anything or for or anyone take take responsibility for it. After all this prolific out of control Conservative Government spending is about âjobs-for-the-boysâ not the future of the UK.
May 3, 2023
What are they spending all the money on !
May 3, 2023
Welfare, useless health and non working public services and foreign aid in all its forms.
May 3, 2023
Easy – because Government is too large (and still growing)
Turn on the TV and see all the people with their hands out for “Government” money. Then just remember that the “Government”, our Political classes and the Civil Service don’t have any money of their own. They have to get it from you and me (and to be frank) I don’t want to give them any more.
May 3, 2023
Well, the left says they’re not high enough. A chap on Dewsbury last night, an ex-Blair advisor, wanted a 90% profit tax on BP.
Reeves has pledged to reduce the pension pot maxim whilst also out of the other side of her mouth, promising her union paymasters to protect their public sector hypothetical pension pots that provide them with bigger defined contributions, do they pay 55% tax on every ÂŁ they take over ÂŁ45k?
I’d like to know how many state pensioners we pay pension credits to that weren’t born here and didn’t have the full required 39 years to get a state pension. This must be getting very costly now.
May 3, 2023
John, your party’s lack of spine is the problem. It and indeed you could expose Labour and the unions tomorrow on issues that would damage them but the party remains silent for an easy political life.
By spending more on Labour-unionised public sector the Tory govt seek to appease the public and the unions and the Lefty media but only serve to strengthen the unionised monster that will eventually seek to consume the nation’s entire wealth and destroy freedoms and damage children exposed to their NUT progressive propaganda using all the poison of identity politics
Starmer’s got form throughout his career especially at the CPS and under Corbyn while etc ed . What does your party and its clueless MPS do to expose him? Sweet nowt. You don’t want the conflict with him, the unions and Labour so the public are forced to pick up the cost with higher taxes, less freedom, Socialist indoctrination and Maoist poison
two sentences sum up the Tories since 1997 :
Powell’s ‘we’re going to rub the Tories nose in diversity’
Cameron’s decision ‘to go with the narrative’
The first is an assault on the nation, its people and its culture by the fascist left and the second is the waving of the white flag and surrender to such a poisonous ideology
The Tories believe the public won’t notice their progressive appeasement if they throw enough cash at them. Well, that may be true but the end game decades down the line will be a nation impoverished, splintered and wrecked which is the goal of all Moaist and Neo-Marxists that now infect the entire body politic and public sector
Thanks Tories for selling the nation down the river to save your own necks
May 3, 2023
I wonder whether the root problem is that MPs are in effect State employees, with State regulation of behaviour, and with state pensions, index linked. It gives them the idea a big state will provide for them, and they forget about where wealth and prosperity come from. In the past, MPs were drawn from the ranks of those who kept themselves and their families. The big influx of women into all parties has made things worse, with their “care” and “childcare” mindset. They now expect more or less everyone to be looked after at some point in their lives by the State. The House of Lords is even more that way, since throwing out the bulk of the hereditary peerage.
To reflect this huge change, the people in the congregation at the coronation service will be mostly dependents, not the independents of 1953.
May 3, 2023
Yes, it is Rose. If all the other public sector unions fight and receive significant gains, then their pay board and pension board go up in line.
As for the State to look after you, this is my family’s biggest fear; my Dad is hoping if it was ever required for him Dignitas-type choices are open to him in the UK.
May 3, 2023
@DOM +1
May 3, 2023
Sir John, your first paragraph applies just as much to the Not-a-Conservative-Party as the so-called Opposition.
Your Party has been in Government for 13 years and ALL these things have been imposed by the Party you support.
The Net Zero lunacy and the current imposition of LTNS, ULEZ, “Clean Air Zones” and all the rest of the economy-wrecking policies on communities which don’t support them, are being imposed under this so-called Conservative Government.
It’s beginning to feel as though you’re deliberately gaslighting us.
May 3, 2023
âItâs beginning to feel as though youâre deliberately gaslighting usâ. Well, consciousness at last. Better late than never.
May 3, 2023
Dear Sir John,
I have made one change to your opening paragraph:
‘The governing party in Parliament thinks the UK needs to spend more in the public sector. They think better off people and businesses should pay more in tax. They think business should be made to use less fossil fuel, import many more things that need high energy inputs, charge lower prices and be more controlled by the state.’
Please reply to say if I have got anything wrong.
May 3, 2023
Unemployed people and those forced into the black market pay no tax. The State is going to be cut down to size one way or the other.
When politicians remove the ability to change things by the ballot box, we are in uncharted territory.
May 3, 2023
But itâs the Conservative Party in government that has legitimised all of the hugely damaging policy approaches that you complain about. Decline is now baked in, most particularly by net zero which even the EU hasnât legally mandated across its member states.
May 3, 2023
Dear Sir John can you explain why after over 13 years of a Conservative Government we still have IR35, and Vat on Energy? When you refer to the opposition you should include the majority of the Conservative Party.
Sorry but this is the current situation in Parliament. The Country and Parliament are run by the Globalist left. What goes on in Parliament, and the Lords, is just theatre to give the outward appearance of Democracy in action carrying out the will of the Majority.
More of less what you say in your daily Diary is true and sound advice. But no one in Parliament listens to you, especially in the Conservative Party.
May 3, 2023
As I understand it, we still have VAT because the EU has annexed N Ireland and won’t allow us to lift VAT there. So HMG tries to cover up that shocking fact by not removing VAT on the Mainland.
May 3, 2023
Rose, we are just sick of these meaningless excuses now, it didn’t stop them from putting student tuition fees ONLY on English pupils, did it? We are not a united kingdom when it comes to it, they can set their own income taxes. England deserves better.
May 3, 2023
Sorry the choice at the next General Election is likely to be between ‘bad’ (Conservative) and ‘worse’ (the others). This is because the other parties are just as bad as John Redwood depicts but neither most Conservative M.P.s nor Ministers are willing to go, let alone campaign for going in the opposite direction (as John Redwood and I advocate) to the other parties rather than just more slowly (at the behest of the civil service mandarins) than the others in the wrong leftist direction.
May 3, 2023
Government policy, is what it is. It follows closely plans and ideology discussed and proposed by the WEF, unelected by anybody, but whose protoges have infiltrated and lead governments around the world.
This is the scandal that needs exposing and calling out. The dots need joining. The bought media will not do it and the government is intent on clamping down on free speech, so who will speak for the demos?
May 3, 2023
Everything that happens is what the government wants.
Johnson joined other leaders in ASKING the WHO to create a health treaty!
Govt. websites show their plans regarding 15 minute cities.
These are not what we ever understood to be politicians.
It is truly like The Twilight Zone.
Nobody can claim they werenât warnedâŠthey just preferred to howl with derision and shriek âConspiracy theoryâ.
And JR used to delete anything that alluded to it all.
May 3, 2023
It is indeed a scandal but some people have been trying to point it out for years.
Not only that but this global involvement and order-taking appears to have been going on for decades
in the form of summits etc. Centuries probably.. Victoria colonised Europe with kings and queens.
It is just that we now notice it because the powers that be for the first time find us surplus to requirements.
Do they really think they can depend on AI?
May 3, 2023
Weird post this morning, as though from another world. The gall of it!
May 3, 2023
SJS
I think a last desperate attempt to wake up his own side, and right to try and do so, but I fear too little too late to do any good now.
The poison of Government Take and Control, is a creeping menace to our so called democracy and economic survival.
May 3, 2023
Of course the country like all others has to earn its living.
The absolutist brexit – anti-democratically exacted by a minority of MPs who held the balance of power – has made it very much harder for many people to do this.
As for elections, the Tories are no longer the party of the Anglican congregations, of the village green preservation societies, or of the Women’s Institutes.
They are the party of the hectoring, bar room loudmouth.
Voters in the leafier, more genteel constituencies are realising this too.
May 3, 2023
“hectoring bar room loudmouth” says NLH without realising he is describing himself perfectly.
May 3, 2023
And they will soon be in for a real shock if they vote labour into their local council area. Most local councillors aren’t like our sell-out Conservative MPs. The voters in the leafier, more genteel constituencies will soon get a shock when their rates go up, our poorest part of the Council area has the highest council tax! More for less.
With Labour your town gets the ugly brutalist buildings, the anything-goes planning, a pump station right next to the road in an ugly brick no problem, a grey metal spike fence 6ft high to surround septic tanks (now 5ft thanks to constant moaning) right on the main road no problem, the large green telecoms boxes right at the entrance to your estate with broken paving slabs no problem, the broken windows on public buildings left, the broken lamps in the shopping square left to rot, a lack of flowers, a few ribbons tied to street lamps on the high street for the coronation, and that’s it. They’ll soon learn. More money is spent on their own offices, more money spent on their own pensions, and more money spent on play areas that constantly get burnt down rather than move them to more sensible overlooked areas.
I feel sorry for proper conservative councillors everywhere, your government is letting you all down.
May 3, 2023
Could you please cite a Brutalist building that has gone up in this country since 1980?
Thanks.
May 5, 2023
There are plenty of ugly brutalist flats with tiny windows built in Ellesmere Port recently near the motorway do you want me to send you a photograph.
My Labour town has anything-goes planning, square block buildings with little character, dirty shopping centre frontage going back 20 years nothing is done to give it a clean up, an ugly new college built ten years or so ago with god awful signs. Pump station square brick box buildings built right on the roadside of new affordable housing estates, other towns .
Brutalist brand new massive grey box shopping store right on our introduction to town with the most massive signs, ugly, ugly, ugly. No planting just a grey square box with a car park brutalist. ANYTHING GOES! Thatâs why three Labour councillors lost their seats to independents this elections when they were supposed to be winning and have always won letting our town go to the dogs has finally bit them back and theyâd have lost three more if the new independents hadnât split the vote against Labour in one ward.
May 3, 2023
Nowt today wiv me officer. It’s that pesky civil service. We is all waycist and must atone
Other countries do it better, look at France.
May 3, 2023
I can’t understand why the so called Conservative Party has made it so difficult to be self employed. Surely even someone with the iq of a sugarpuff must realise that big companies are often grown from small sole trader companies.
Is there a belief amongst government that self employed people may evade tax on some of their profits and deprive the gangster state of it’s cut?
May 3, 2023
I imagine it is about handing all enterprise over to large corporations?
Only about 40 years ago High Streets were inhabited by small, lovely, interesting and DIVERSE
shops. That gave way to big concerns and the High Streets became identikit. Now many of them have gone bust and flats are taking over.
Which of course fits in exactly with the Agenda!
I think that one of the feeble excuses for the decimation small businesses is that collecting their taxes is too expensive! So donât tax them then!
May 3, 2023
Sir John
âThe Opposition parties in Parliament think the UK needs to spend moreâ
I would take issue with you on that statement, as that is now the Conservative Parties doctrine and desire. We have had 13 years of mismanagement of the UK cumulating in the highest taxes in 70 years.
What is there to show for all this taxpayer money – nothing. No one has taken charge, take responsibility or is held account for where all the Tax Payer money goes. Good at punishing people and collecting ever more, but not a single care of what happens to it.
May 3, 2023
This Conservative Party no longer supports small ir medium private enterprise. These are leaving to find jobs under the large corporates. Trades unable to stay self employed have to work for large developers and this causes inflation in building costs.
Buy to let landlords are leaving the sector as this one way invest for a pension has been attacked in an attempt to woo socialist voters and grab the wealth created since Mrs T made it worthwhile. Tax on gross profit, HMO regulation, licencing, certification, and now the inability to vacate the property to sell while being fined if the property cannot be brought to C level of energy performance. 30% are already selling up. The treasury has identified the target and the attack is intended to force sales and take increased capital gains tax without inflation allowance.
The majority of Conservative MPs believe the climate change nonsense and that the UK can run on wind and solar. They go with whatever the UN, WEF and WHO demand. They are signing over health policy to the WHO without general debate or opposition. And of course now the Royal Family is in on the act too. Just watch the King’s video on his Reset and you have the agenda of all the parliamentary parties.
May 3, 2023
Sir John
A weird âBlog/Diaryâ entry today everything you suggest that is wrong with UK, and its Political Parties is the exact doctrine and discipline practised by those the Conservative Party have permitted to lead the Conservatives in Government.
We have no discernable opposition, petty snipping aside we have no Parliament that holds Government to account. What some of us call the âBlobâ with their high level Socialist WEF thinking is clearly in âchargeâ As they have shown it is basically their way or the highway. …AND this Conservative Government and the so-called opposition parties buy into it big time.
It is no longer Government for the peopleâŠ
May 3, 2023
Your opening sentence in paragraph two says it all. There is little difference between our present consocialist government and the rabid socialists we are destined to get in a two horse race due to the abject failure of undemocratic consocialism.
The British people are between a rock and a hard place, damned if they do, damned if they don’t. I await the arrival of Reform
, the only party espousing true Conservatism. For them it is no doubt a matter of timing. Sad we have to wait while the present incumbents shred the country.
Your last paragraph is aspirational, waiting for the Messiah, but with little idea from where he/she might come.
May 3, 2023
I emigrated to Australia. I visited UK recently to see family and friends and from what I saw and heard confirms my impressions from media reports and I really cannot imagine why anyone would want to go and live in the UK unless they’re after freebies for themselves. These are not the sort of people, I should have thought, the UK would want to attract. It is difficult for those already there with commitments but I would bet that many more would be emigrating if only they could.
May 3, 2023
Too right. Especially as we compete with poorer developing nations. I know you are unhappy about the car strangulation process but does it really matter? after all, we mostly import all our cars.
May 3, 2023
The opportunities of Brexit were to protect our borders and fisheries, decide our own laws and taxes and trade deals, protect our borders to make Britain more competitive with a wider trade base for cheaper imports like food.
Instead we have highest immigration with no checks who’s coming in, our fishery communities are in a worse state than ever, taxes are higher for everyone ever, few laws have changed because an unelected house blocks every law that would change anything that would benefit Britain including northern Ireland and food inflation is running at over 20%.
The only thing left is holding our electable politicians to account in the next general election.
Time for reform!
May 3, 2023
The Tories don’t seem to understand that when companies are sold off to foriegn buyers and then “Lifted and Shifted” abroad, jobs are lost. They have allowed this to go on for years. All in the name of fake capitalism.
There’s also these ideas about that we can all sell hambugers to one another and manual work isn’t necessary. Manual skills are no longer taught at most schools. It’s thought we can just import them.
It’ll take a long time to sort our economy out but the Tories haven’t even made a start and seem to be getting worse, not better.
May 3, 2023
Elsewhere the FED has been shown to have failed, they are festering decline in the stability of the US economy and banking. âThe Fedâs excessive open market intervention from 2019 through 2022 was the primary cause of the failure of First Republic as well as Silicon Valley Bank,â Who cares?
We should, the BoE takes its lead from the FED and mirrors them long before doing what is right for the UK. Whenever the FED says jump the BoE says how high. Although the BoE has the luxury that they get the UK Tax Payer to bail them out time and time again aided first and foremost by Sunak and Hunt. It is because in the UK we donât have Government, we just have those that milk the Tax Payer for their own self-esteem. Its not their money, there is more that can be milked so lets keep just giving it away is the only policy to come out of this Government.
May 3, 2023
Sir John, you are concerned it might be different and more oppressive under Labour. You need to get your head around the fact that Labour is essentially a Union controlled and lead Party. Would the Unions allow the trashing of their members jobs? Would the Unions be happy with their members jobs being exported?
As much as we may(and I do) hate their Socialist zeal and their bone-head economics they would still essentially be leaving something that could be built on. So its between this Socialist Conservative Governments trashing everything and leaving a waste ground behind with no prospected or fabric to build on, just debt. Or a Socialist and Union controlled Labour Party that couldnât get away with total destruction â because the paymaster says âNoâ.
May 3, 2023
Sir |John – Just to give my family a chance in the future are there any countries that would provide
a better future.
May 3, 2023
So the best thing you can say for the Conservative party is that it is slightly less communist than the opposition. Neither offer any policies that benefit the people only more of the same- higher taxes, higher illegal immigration, more environmental lunacy and less freedom.
Time for a revolution, preferably one that deals out justice for the last three years.
May 3, 2023
Yes, a revolution.
Need not be bloody;
but it needs to be bloody soon.
May 3, 2023
Agree
May 3, 2023
Dear Mr. Redwood,
Your blog today merely serves to remind us how awful all of the main parties are.
Never was there a greater need for a new party that does something for the people of the United Kingdom for a change. Maybe, one will rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes of the Conservative party after the general election.
May 3, 2023
Sorry, Sir John, but I agree with most of the comments. The Conservative Party has put taxes up to this high level, stifling enterprise & initiative. Sunak & Hunt have no flair or vision. An alert pair would have said the coronation is going to bring a lot of visitors to the UK, so let’s allow tourists to claim back VAT. But that takes the humility to admit they were wrong to stop it in the first place. But the benefit to Taxis, Hotels, restaurants, cafes, theatres, not just in London, but in all the UK main tourist centres would be immense.
May 3, 2023
Keith, they have the visitor’s taxes to try to recoup tax losses by closing down all the other businesses all around the UK. They are about to lose 1/20th of their monthly turnover without being able to recoup it.
The coronation is said to be costing ÂŁ100m. I’d like to see how that is calculated. We have to pay the police anyway, we have to pay the armed forces anyway. Is this for the pop stars? Are tickets being sold or gifted to see that concert? Is the BBC getting the rights to show it for free? What about all the other networks? Will they be paying for coverage? It’s like one big advertisement for the UK if it is done right.
The UK government are said to be contributing ÂŁ30m to Eurovision, and a lot fewer people will get to see or enjoy that; the UK public is very fickle, and so is the Guardian; you read them moaning about money spent on our Kings coronation is there the same uproar about Eurovision. Many, except the self-employed and the 5.5m SMEs, will want their paid day not working is that what contributes to the ÂŁ100m the loss of productivity in the public sector that we still have to pay without the service?
May 3, 2023
Is your post a joke this morning Sir John? All the issues you are talking about are taking place under A TORY government. We don’t need Labour or an opposition party of any sort. You are managing to implement these things already. That’s why I’m not voting for a fake Labour government….your government ..when the real thing is out there. I won’t be voting for them either.
May 3, 2023
Exactly.
May 3, 2023
Yes, we need a Conservative Government, when will we get one?
May 3, 2023
Not just government, we need conservative MPs and a conservative party ….and a conservative manifesto
May 3, 2023
So this morning we have another attack, a rant, on the opposition parties – parties, I would remind you that have not been anywhere near government for the past thirteen years – in fact they have been out of government for so long now they have to be absolved from all past doings, they wouldn’t recognise a wrong policy move if it came out straight at them. No No.. all that has happened in this country during the past thirteen years falls squarely at the doorstep of the Conservatives – conservatives with a capitol ‘C’. Let’s rewind just a bit – by this time we should be in the sunny uplands with a special deal with the EU equal or even better that the deal we had in the past but with no need to pay in- and so 353 million pw more for the NHS and a stoppage to the 70 million snaking their way here, well it’s not the Turks that are coming but their neighbours, and we are floundering around navel gazing havn’t a clue and Sir John would like to drop it all on the opposition parties? Instead am thinking there are people in parliament who should go out and try to make a living in this terrible mess they have left us. Only last week I passed the gauntlet of the immigration queues in getting to Europe – it’s hard to believe we had it all and for free only a short while ago – and at this point I finish my rant.
May 3, 2023
Where did you have immigration queues last week? Which airport or port? My friend got through Rome airport faster than her EU passport husband. I am starting to note the European places hostile to UK tourists that they feel they can treat us differently to people arriving from Canada, America, Australia, China, Japan, etc. I also have a list where friends and family tell me they’ve gone straight through.
May 3, 2023
“The UK has to earn its living”
The UK GOVERNMENT is supposed to earn its living.
Some people earn what they receive, delivering value with fine work.
Too many choose to do harm but still receive the the same payment.
May 3, 2023
Gas prices are falling, oil prices are falling. Coal is now banned.Wood must be kiln dried!
(Smokeless coal may be smokeless but it creates horrendous amounts of very fine dust)
Wholesale food prices are falling.
So who is profiteering?
Why are we still cold and worried?
Who allowed supermarkets to take over the world?
I still wonderâŠWHY those terrified, beseeching faces begging for ÂŁ10k per day??
May 3, 2023
I see that BBC Radio Five Live has replaced BBC TV News programming between 9am â 11am âŠ.could anybody explain why am I paying for a TV licence
May 3, 2023
You say repeatedly that it is the Opposition parties that are saying and doing these misguided things, but from what I can gather from the news media, what you describe is no less than an accurate summary of Government policy on most of these matters.
May 3, 2023
Sir John
A lot of what you say is so true and I am amazed at the blind and deafness of the vast majority of your colleagues.
The root of the problem lies directly at the door of Central Office who could had they wished, cleared out the swamp within and ensured those chosen to stand for election were totally committed to the direction chosen with the skills and experience essential for direct no time wasting government.
May 3, 2023
To earn a living in today’s world you have to manufacture or grow things both of which require amounts of energy to a greater or lesser degree. Without a competitive energy policy (not just electricity) you are doomed to fail.
May 3, 2023
Net-Zero = Import Everything
May 3, 2023
This should be on a 10 metre poster at the entrance to Westminster to examine everyday for MP’s and Lords to study on their way to “woke”.
May 3, 2023
Incentives and all forms of encouragement are essential ingredients for businesses of all sizes ; putting the carrot before the horse does work . As things presently stand the mood seems to be one of over tax control . Leadership has to set an example be it from Government or from Managing Directors . We live in an integrated society – it’s part of our make up .
May 3, 2023
An excellent summary of why it’s essential people vote Conservative in elections: it may not be great but anything else would be much, much worse.
May 3, 2023
How could voting Conservative be essential?
Being only slightly better than âmuch much worseâ canât even reach tolerable!
May 3, 2023
Can’t say that I feel inclined to vote this time. Especially with the voter ID imposition – by the way, how did this one creep though with out much debate?? What about all the ‘Vote Harvesting’ being done with Postal votes??? That is the real scandal – it is no longer a verifiable ‘secret vote’.
May 3, 2023
If Sadiq Khan’s expanded ULEZ zone is predicted to damage London’s economy by at least 500 million pounds per year, then why on earth are this spineless Government not stepping in to halt it?
I’m sick and tired of the endless waffle from Ministers saying “we would have to revoke his powers to do so”, just get on an do it. An abuse of power should not be tolerated, even if is has been devolved.
A policy that will damage the economy of the UK’s largest city and impoverish many who live, work and visit there should be stopped by any means necessary.
This whole sham of expanded ULEZ could be ended tomorrow if we had a Government with any sense of a backbone.
May 3, 2023
Motorway bridges used to obstruct hardened criminals permanently.
Now London Councils block innocent motorists with concrete flower pots.
May 3, 2023
You seem unaware that the government wants ULEZ as part of their NZ agenda. It is pointless voting until we get right wing options.
May 3, 2023
Net-Zero = Zero Cars
May 3, 2023
So ARM will list in the US. A Japanese owned company – they sold out to the highest foreign bidder long ago.
A chip designer, not manufacturer. Vast majority of chips are manufactured in China and Taiwan. Dangerous dependency.
May 3, 2023
In Parliament today according to the Telegraph –
Rishi Sunak claimed Labour stands for “higher council tax, higher crime and a litany of broken promises”
Yet 13 years with this Conservative Government we have taxes at a 70 year high. Logic under Labour we all paid less.
Then we get âbrokenâ premises, the big one of course is the failure to get Brexit done, then there is the bonfire of the Quangoâs they have been increased. So on and so on. Pot calling the kettleâŠ.
UK Politics lack any sort of credibility, when the mass of the UK Populations can see these lies daily churned out – – is there any surprise
May 3, 2023
@Ian B – Labour leader tells PM to ‘stop blaming everyone else’
Sir Keir Starmer asked Rishi Sunak: “Why doesn’t he stop the excuses, stop blaming everyone else”
Not a grown up in sight anywhere, the only record that counts is the economy booming, has the UK left the EU are we wealthier than we were under Thatcher, Blair even. You can even go back 2 Generations, before surrendering to the EU the taxpayer had more of their own money, services were there, Governments just didnât throw money away as if it was going out of fashion.
So the record for the Political Class, they are a waste of space.
May 3, 2023
PMQs is a public embarrassment
May 3, 2023
âOpposition parties running Councils are particularly keen to stop people going to work, taking children to school or going to the shops by car.â
Very true. And we even have a Lib Dem council on a four-day week saying the system is âworking wellâ. It shows that the council is overstaffed by 20% and the Government should not stand idly by watching it happen or we will soon be told that productivity will be even better with a three-day weekâŠand thenâŠ.
May 3, 2023
Are they reducing your council tax by 20% if they’re not staffed for a whole day?
May 3, 2023
âThe UK has to earn its livingâ.
This is true.
So why is the Government not ordering the RR SMRs which outperform wind energy on all metrics, building and electricity costs, reliability and security, even using 1/1000th of the building materials required per watt of power compared to the low energy density wind, when to do so would not only help with our impending energy crisis but provide a valuable boost to our exports?
Does the Government not believe that RR can build these SMRs when it has already done so for decades for our nuclear powered submarines?
May 3, 2023
+1.
Can’t wait for green protestors to superglue themselves to the reactors.
May 3, 2023
If you find a green protestor superglued to the floor or an object anywhere âŠ.just leave them
May 3, 2023
Yes yes yes…
May 4, 2023
OR, look at environmentagency.blog.gov.uk 03 April 2023 âTaking the Rolls-Royce Small Modular Reactor (SMR) to the next stepâ.
Step 1 is now over, Step 2 is only starting ⊠The plan is for 24 GWe of nuclear capacity by 2050.
But note near the end âWeâll also hold a public consultation later in the process, if we go into Step 3 of the GDAâ. IF not WHEN.
GDA: Generic design assessment.
May 4, 2023
OR, see also gov.uk 03/04/2023 âSmall Modular Reactor design completes first step of assignmentâ.
And just for Neil and glen: given the timescale, it will be the children of the present-day protestors who might superglue themselves to the reactors âŠ
May 3, 2023
What you are saying John, is that we need the conservative government we thought we had voted for. Not the current batch of liberal luvvies incapable of running the country.
May 3, 2023
A bit of a nerve to say “the Opposition parties” when your own party are at least as guilty – and has a parliamentary majority.
All those are reasons I won’t be voting, for the first time – because the only options here were the 4 parties currently destroying the country in the HoC. If Reform or Reclaim had bothered to turn out a candidate then they would have my vote.
May 4, 2023
XY Precisely. Just what I was going to say.
May 3, 2023
Your blog today Sir John merely highlights the paucity of choice that the electorate has.
When will your party move to become more Conservative?
May 3, 2023
Excess deaths up quite considerably over the previous week. I think this is the latest week, but may be wrong.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending21april2023