Ā Ā Ā The Lib Dems tell us we need to re enter the EU single market. Do they read nothing? Have they not seen the data of how our growth rate slowed after we joined the EEC, and slowed again after 1992 when they ācompletedā the single market?
When we entered the EEC customs Union in 1972 they took tariffs off their successful goods exports to us, but did not take barriers down for our service sector exports to them. Predictably our balance of trade with Europe plunged into the red and stayed there. The rules, tariffs and taxes helped their exports to us much more than our exports to them. We had to ditch trade with Australia, New Zealand and others as they made us impose tariffs on the food they sold us,to substitute Euro food instead.
They then bamboozled a weak U.K. establishment into eventually joining the Exchange Rate Mechanism. A few of us pointed out the damage this would do. It predictably gave us an inflationary boomlet followed by a bad bust. Needless EU economic damage.
The EU all the time we were in failed to agree a trade deal with our biggest overseas country market , the USA . It failed to enter the important TPP Pacific trade area which we have now joined once Ā out of the EU.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā The EU used the excuse of the single market to make us adopt all too many new and additional laws, burdening business with over the top costs. These laws often impeded innovation and made you do something as the EU leading company did it.
As Single Ā market Minister my main task was to stop, delay or dilute needless and undesirable laws. As a result of their inward looking protectionist Ā anti innovation approach EU per capita GDP is just half the US level. Locking us into that again is a very bad idea. Lib Demās are neither liberal nor democratic. They want to deny us the result of the Brexit referendum. They want more and more laws and taxes to restrict entrepreneurial and business freedom.
June 11, 2024
Thankfully , the Lib Dems will be nowehere near the levers of power
June 11, 2024
Unfortunately it seems the appalling Starmer will hold nearly all of the levers of power. Another tax to death, net zero zealot, someone who wants ever more immigration, taxes and regulations, also to reverse Brexit and someone who has failed to question the vast net harms of the Covid vaccines and theclong lockdowns. Plus he wants to kill private schools and destroy landlords.
June 11, 2024
So Sunak has unveiled a CGT cut for landlords to sell properties to their tenants. Which fool though this up? I suppose it might apply to perhaps 1 in 200 properties at most where tenant want to buy and can raise the funds to do so. But a the Tories will not get back into power (circa 2% chance) and perhaps just a 20% chance that even if they do they will actually deliver. So totally irrelevant?
A Tory promise to on day one after the election to abolish IHT completely might at least lift the Tory chances to say 10%. At least that would be meaningful. The above promise is almost totally worthless.
June 11, 2024
It is rumoured that Labour plan to impose CGT on all house sales (though presumably IHT is allowed as an offset). The effect would be to completely gum up the housing market, particularly for anyone looking to downsize in retirement or who needs to move for work having lived in the same house for a decade or more.
June 11, 2024
Currently not CGT at all on death just IHT.
June 11, 2024
I think you’ll find if this crackpot idea is implemented that nearer to 199 properties in 200 will be sold to tenants (who will quite often to be family members of the owner) and the government’s CGT take on second home sales will reduce to zero.
June 12, 2024
The thought had occurred to me. Well doubtless they would have anti-avoidance measures to prevent such things or will use GAAR rules, but as Sunak will never win and the Tories never keep their promises anyway it is all rather irrelevant.
June 11, 2024
Not a singe one of our numerous tenants could get a mortgage to buy any of our properties.
That is why they are renting in the first place !
This is such a stupid idea, probably thought up by some spotty 19 year old intern in Conservative Central Office.
Why no serious player didn’t veto it I will never know. Unless they thought it would be a cynical way of trying to persuade tenants to vote for the party !
June 11, 2024
But but then we’ll give them 0% deposit mortgages and print more money to do it. Think of the children!
June 11, 2024
+1
June 11, 2024
Lifelogic
“….Worthless….”
That is why they made it !
June 11, 2024
Sunak just now, launching the rather pathetic Tory Manifesto. āI am actually very proud of my record as Chancellorā. So he does not even realise what he has done wrong? What planet is Sunak on? He debased the currency, gave us 12% inflation, failed to cancel HS2, funded the net harm lockdowns, funded the net harm vaccines (and still blatently lies about their safety), wasted billions or crony capitalism, worships net zero, increased government debt hugely, wrecked the economy, increased taxes hugely, blocked the roads, attacked the self employedā¦ very proud – really? Vote Tory we are dreadful but not quite as bad as Labour.
June 11, 2024
So the unemployment rate rises to its highest level for two and a half years. Hardly surprising given what Hunt, Sunak and Starmer have been doing with taxes, net zero and interest rates to get to get inflation down. So he hits one of his five targets. Wreck the economy, but yes we have halved inflation – well done!
June 11, 2024
Who in their adult right mind would believe the Uni Party. We saw the rogue parliament in action ignoring the national vote, now betraying the national vote to act in lock step to EU by stealth!
Dishonesty runs through the veins of parliament and there is a total disconnect with the public. Manifestos are Charades by politicians for politicians for the Punch and Judy show in parliament each Wednesday!
June 11, 2024
I think this view is also supported by Sunakās repeated claims, another yesterday, that he or Starmer will be PM. That is what he wants. That is because they have the same ultimate agenda, closely align and act in lock step to EU, not diverge, not scrap EU laws, regs or directives.
Sunak introduced recent EU equality law into domestic legislation and accepted EU limiters on cars in this country- no debate just did it!! We voted leave!!
JR forgets Sunak stated he would implement the 2019 manifesto, he Chose not to and replaced it with his five point pledge asking the nation to judge him by it after a year, he failed both and now wants us to believe him about future pledges! Is this an act of Arrogance or stupidity? Does he think we are stupid?
Has Sunak forgot he betrayed Brexit and the national to leave the EU with his EU sell out Windsor agreement?
June 11, 2024
Indeed the dire Winsor Accord.
Rishi Sunak today said he is not “blind to the fact people are frustrated with me” as he unveiled a Ā£17bn package of tax cuts in the Conservative manifesto. The prime minister admitted he has “not got everything right” as he set out “big ideas” to turn around his faltering campaign.
What did he get right exactly, not lockdowns, not furlough, not energy, not net zero, not HS2, not the net harm vaccines, not eat out to help out, not tax rates, not law and order, not the NHS, not legal or illegal imigration rates, not government debt levels, not housing, not his 12% inflation, not the size or efficiently of government, not the date of the election, not todays pathetic and wet maniphestoā¦
June 11, 2024
”Who in their adult right mind would believe the Uni Party”
Did you hear Sunak last night, immigration down by a third, income tax the lowest its ever been ….what planet is he on …who’s feeding him these lines
June 11, 2024
Itās like listening to Biden.
June 11, 2024
It will be worse now Hope! Most of the honest MPās are giving up , either in despair or tired of fighting for the truth.
Men like Sir John are few and far between in Westminster, most are greedy and self serving like flip flop Starmer of kneeling fame .
June 11, 2024
Indeed see that last three Tory Manifestos for all the many broken promises. See if you can find any that they actually kept?
June 11, 2024
Sunak in front of a (Be Bold) sign delivers nothing of any significance at all. Pathetic in answer to a question he suggests overall taxes will be just 1% lower with his plans. It needs to be at least 30% lower Sunak. It could easily be so too just cut out the vast levels of waste. Start with abolition of net zero, at least half the university degrees, HS2, all the woke lunacy, go for easy hire and fire, fire 50% of civil servants, cut legal aid hugely,
You wonāt get in so why hold back? The man is a tedious and deluded fool with a record of failure & doing the reverse of what was promised.
June 11, 2024
The non Conservative One Nation clowns want to rejoin the EU. Lord Greenshill couldn’t leave the stage quick enough after losing the referendum.
Starmergeddon wants closer ties but fortunately the EU is doing a very sharp right turn and whilst he tries to decarbonise( bankrupt) us by 2030, he may find out the whole net zero scam binned in Europe. The same in America when Trump returns.
We are completely out of step with the rest of he world but probably a price worth paying to get rid of the social Democrats cuckooing as tories.
5 years of liebour should waken up generation Z when their freedoms are curbed by the communist left.
June 11, 2024
Sunak launches Tory manifesto promising to cut taxes and immigration!! Where was he in 2010, 2015, 2017 and was chancellor in 2019! This clever mathematician might see a pattern here, same promise to get elected same lies and deliberate failure to deliver. Legal immigration was a choice it did not happen by itself or without Govt. Support!! Same for historic tax rises! Sunak scrapped JRMās planned cull of 92,000 civil servants!
June 11, 2024
Hope
He could have stayed on until January 25th 2025, had a November 2024 Budget where he could have done all he suggests that he is now promising.
I wonder why he didn’t ?
Don’t bother to answer, because it is all lies and never going to happen.
June 11, 2024
+ 1. Lord Greensill of Libya – I promise to stay on and deliver either outcome and serve the leave notice the day after the referendum. Yet he abandoned ship to āworkā for Greenshil. Now he is back collecting he salary and allowances.
In an act of surely criminal gross negligence Cameron did not even get the civil service to prepare for the quite likely leave outcome.
June 11, 2024
Certainly Cameron is responsible for -5% in the polls, same for Sunak. It could be argued May responsible for -8-9%, so that would have got them back to 40% if this jokers hadn’t been on the scene.
June 11, 2024
At the 2019 election Boris said that every tory MP has to agree to the brexit manifesto or leave ….so they all lied
June 11, 2024
+1
June 11, 2024
We could be a bankrupt nation under Starmergueddon following the Tory’s 15 years of failure and refusal to balance the books. They did not repair the welfare roof before the pandemic and then the rest was now history.
This will wake up the nation and put us on the path to REFORM.
June 13, 2024
They’ll be just the excuse Starmer needs to put through a load of policies he wished were in his manifesto relating to the EU.
John, The Lib Dems says leaving the EU has damaged our standing on the world stage. Yet the USnews.com say we are the worlds #5 in power after the USA, China, Russia and Germany. Entrepreneurship we are #4 after USA, Germany and Japan. The UK has #4 universities in the world’s top ten QS ranking. 17 in the top 100 only the much larger USA has more. England alone ranked #13 in the world for reading and science, and among the highest performing western countries in education, we’ve risen up rankings in Maths – one of the top performing countries in the western world – do you hear Sunak talking about any of this – NO – he wants to lose.
Who wants to elect people who just see England and the UK as weak followers not leaders?
June 11, 2024
Find any bin for your vote other than the Lib Dem bin, if you canāt vote positively for a good candidate.
The Lib Demās need to be wiped out completely at this election. Not only are they thumbing their nose at the electorates decision to assert our own Sovereignty (Brexit) but their leader is culpable in the Horizon scandal – he sided with the corporation against the people. The complete reverse of the intended role of MPs which is to STOP those wielding the power of the State to crush us individually.
The EU Parliamentary elections and the polls in the US for The Presidential election indicate that the electorates of the west have had a belly full of these mad Globalists. Letās press that button in the U.K. too.
June 11, 2024
Indeed plus the LibDims are also totally deluded net zero zealots.
JR says āthe Lib Demās are neither liberal nor democratic. They want to deny us the result of the Brexit referendum. They want more and more laws and taxes to restrict entrepreneurial and business freedom.ā
Unfortunately most of this fake Conservative party thinks and had delivered exactly this too.
Quite a good interview with of Rishi by the BBCās Nick Robinson except he totally failed to question Sunak on the net harm lockdowns, the net harm vaccines or Sunakās Moderna intrrests or his blatant lies that the vaccines are āunequivocally safeā or on the inanity of Sunakās net zero agenda. Sunak kept saying the election is about the future. No Sunak it is about you credibility. Sunak – given the past 14 years Sunak the Tories have none having none. They have delivered the total reverse of what was promised. So why trust them yet again?
Nick Robinson also, quite wrongly accused Farage of bringing up Sunakās racial background, he did no such thing Nick as you surely must know.
June 11, 2024
Racial background though can be brought up as and when it suits for gaining an upper hand, claiming victimisation etc. In all honesty I can’t say I’ve ever read or heard of Sunak using that particular weapon, unlike some.
Nick Robinson is of the BBC ilk who will always try and make a racial pantomime out of anything and everything.
Obviously if the hand ever fell on his shoulder proclaiming he had to go for being too old and too white, that would be a different story, but all the while it’s someone else he’ll try and stir the ‘racist’ pot for professional kudos.
June 11, 2024
Lynne,
your comments are worse for Tory party. They repeatedly lied And as govt. betrayed the nation to leave the EU! Lie dumbs, Tories and Labour might as well have the same manifesto, it would simply say, follow EU and implement everything it wants through quangos while we create a narrative to fool the public.
June 11, 2024
Donāt vote Tory either unless you have a proper Tory candidate. If the parties intent on taking the U.K. back into the EU fail that is a shot cross the bow of Labour.
Throw your vote away carefully!
June 11, 2024
+1
June 11, 2024
@LL; Indeed there were no questions about Lockdown, a good thing as a balanced interview would also have had to ask about Lockdown parties, the harm done by “Eat out to help (spread it ab)out”, never mind the harm done from not actually having a Lockdown in the UK.
June 11, 2024
‘No lockdown in the UK?’ Er, what???? So why were untold billions paid out in furlough money, Jerry? Why were most shops closed? Why were schools closed for months on end? Why was travel to other countries banned? Why were people arrested for sitting in parks? So all these business operators, head teachers, government ministers and police chiefs were just totally unobservant, not to have noticed ‘there was no lockdown’? What a pity you couldn’t have put them right at the time.
June 11, 2024
@R.Grange; I think some need to compare life in the UK and to how say French, Italian and I think Spanish life was at the time, having to carry exemption forms and personal ID just to leave home to go shopping for food, and then of course there was China… Yes here in the UK we had certain _social_ restrictions, some businesses could not carry on, unable to comply with social distancing, hence furlough money.
That said, I can understand how some, who clearly can not live their lives without socializing in a pub, gym, Cinema, football match, at a designer coffee shop etc. might feel their lives had been “Confined” rather than just had restrictions placed on certain activities.
June 11, 2024
You have s very strange recollection of lockdown Jerry.
You obviously never had to try to survive running a small business during this time.
Many people lost their livelihoods and were financially ruined.
Try a little empathy.
June 12, 2024
@Sam; “Many people lost their livelihoods and were financially ruined.”
My empathy if for those who lost loved ones to Covid, or from the resultant lack of NHS treatment capacity, and were financially ruined as a result, due to the lost of the main breed winner, or pension provision, a retirees wife loosing her husband often has to take a cut in the pension.
Most small businesses survived, via furlough, SEISS, or “bounce-back loans” the suspension of UBR etc. Might I also suggest some of those businesses that did not survive (whether large or small) were _perhaps_ only a mild recession away from failure anyway.
June 13, 2024
It was just as likely that people who had been allowed to travel to Europe ‘tourist corridors’ from July summer 2020 (goodness knows why?) brought back more covid than those that had isolated in the UK without mixing for three months. Just as covid increased significantly, brought here from half-term holidays in the likes of Italy which kept quiet about its death rate until March.
June 11, 2024
@LL; “Nick Robinson also, quite wrongly accused Farage of bringing up Sunakās racial background”
Nonsense, what Farage said would never be said about, or to someone, of Anglo-Saxon culture, or of a traditional European religion. And Farage has form for stoking such fires, remember the ill-advised messaging and then billboard being driven around, before and on the day Joe Cox died?
June 11, 2024
Reply to Jerry.
So tell me what is wrong with identifying someones racial background.
I’ve got one. I’m English, I don’t mind anyone referring to it. My thoughts are influenced by my racial origin.
Go on, tell me it’s wrong to be English.
June 11, 2024
Yeah but Farage was talking about Sunak’s ‘wealth & finance’ background …super super rich
June 11, 2024
And, if I may be permitted to add, I was DNA’d a number of years ago confirming my Y chromosome was either of Danish Viking or Anglo-Saxon origin.
My name has also been extensively researched and it goes back to the 12th C. in the northwest of England.
June 11, 2024
@Prangwizard; “Go on, tell me itās wrong to be English.”
Why would I do that?!…
The issue is not identifying someones racial or religious background; the problem is suggesting, because someone is of one background, they do not, can not, _understand_ another culture or religion – even though the person has lived almost all of his entire life within that “other” culture, having been born, schooled and educated to Degree level within the questioned culture, only leaving to work in the USA (a very similar culture) for a short period.
June 11, 2024
Whatever the background Jerry, it was a terrible political and cultural mistake to make.
To fail to grasp the significance of the day and the remembrance showed a disconnect by him and his group of advisors.
June 12, 2024
@MiB; No one has said otherwise; the discussion though was about what Farage said afterwards, not what Sunak did (not do) on the day. But you know that, is being contrary you hobby?…
June 12, 2024
My post isn’t contrary to what you said Jerry.
It was just commenting about the mistake the PM made.
June 12, 2024
@MiB; You were being “contrary” – contradictory; inconsistent; with regards what the point of debate had become, to the extent that it was borderline “Whataboutism”! Your comment belonged below @LL if anywhere.
Whatever…
June 11, 2024
Farage pointed out many times that many people nominally belonging to traditional European religions had no empathy for the UK: the senior politicians of the EU for example. Race doesn’t enter into it. I don’t recall Sunak attending the cricket or rugby or football, or doing anything to suppress the anti-British demonstrations around the country.
June 11, 2024
All Narcissists scrap the past and want you to have no yardstick to judge them by. They want a āfresh startā every day so that they get away with yesterdays murder.
Unfortunately politics – with the power money and limelight – is heaven to narcs. But you can spot them from those there to serve because:
1. They do no work
2. They contradict themselves repeatedly (they lie in the moment to win and have no thought for being caught out tomorrow)
3. They canāt find a stage big enough to dance upon! See Macron who canāt be bothered with France – heās ment for bigger things š¤£š
June 11, 2024
Cable, as Business Secretary at the time, was also culpable but claimed there was nothing he could do! Both quite useless when in office. Unfortunately that charge applies to too many politicians when they reach elevated ministerial status.
June 11, 2024
LA,
Around here orange Lib Dem boards are the only ones I see on display. It is either Conservative or Lib Dem. Labour donāt get a look in.
I am not sure of the reason for this but itās the way of things around here – even with Sir Ed Dopey as the sitting MP.
One of their leaflets even had the cheek to say how he was championing the sub postmasters in the Horizon scandal. Shameless.
June 11, 2024
Vote for the postmistress. I doubt the local Tory has Sir John’s record in fighting or those wronged.
June 11, 2024
Shameless liars. Itās mind boggling. Sack them!
When I was active in elections for the Tories, it was the Lib Demās who uprooted our banners and signs. I doubt they have changed. Being far yo the left of Labour that hate Tories more than anybody else.
June 11, 2024
16.1 million people voted Remain. Democracy does not require that they change their mind on that, just as Conservative voters were not required to flip to supporting Labour after 1997 or 2001 or 2005.
Seeing Brexit as a mistake (and most surveys now show that this is the majority view) is a valid view in a democracy and it is also legitimate for that view to be expressed at the ballot box.
June 11, 2024
Peter
Have you already forgotten that Remainers did not allow us to leave properly.
Have you forgotten that Remainer Politicians visited the EU whilst negations were going on to try and undermine our position.
Have you forgotten that a certain Mr Remainer Ben, got a bill past Parliament that precluded us from walking away from a Bad Deal.
Not asking for people to change their mind, but we never ever got a proper Brexit, we got a bad deal, and it was because of Remainers undermining every move.
Hence we got the deal we got, BECAUSE OF REMAINERS so do not complain, you got what you asked for !!!!
June 11, 2024
Well said BA
Excellent post.
June 12, 2024
We’ve left. That was all Brexit meant. It’s been done and we’re all living with the negative consequences of the decision.
“BRINO”, “That’s not the Brexit I voted for” etc. sound to me like buyers regret. The deal we have is the Johnson/Frost “oven ready deal” along with Sunak’s Northern Ireland fixes. (why do they get “the best of both worlds” but the rest of us can’t have that?). I don’t see a lot of remainer names in that list.
Brexit is much the same as socialism. Some people think it would be great if only it were done properly, when in fact it’s just a bad idea.
June 12, 2024
You must be pleased with the way the Europeans are voting now then, they all seem to want a massive change from what you said was good, but they were living your dream and have voted for change themselves.
Thank goodness we are at least rather more distant now 1
June 11, 2024
Well no, it was the idiot May who didn’t even take into account that many people might have actually preferred the Swiss way with some additional measures to stop a million a year arriving. These things can be negotiated by intelligent negotiators. It’s left an open goal for LD.
June 13, 2024
Peter, costs of being in the EU right now are never mentioned, Germany’s performance whilst still in the EU not discussed. France resorting to nationalism not mentioned. The Ā£900bn covid loan the EU have taken on not mentioned. The cost of Erasmus and the savings we made being out, never mentioned. The re-shoring of manufacturers not mentioned and we have much more to do on that front so that we can address our trade deficit. We have a trade surplus with non-EU countries.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn02815/#:~:text=The%20UK%20generally%20imports%20more,trade%20in%20services%20in%202023.
No-one is discussing ANY savings since we stopped paying the divorce payment recently.
June 11, 2024
Sir John,
I understand from the news channels that, Sir Ed Davy was in Wokingham yesterday… Shame I missed him. I would have loved to have put to him that, if his party is so green, why have they put half of Bramshill Forest through my letter box over the last couple of months telling me how bad The Conservative Party is and how great Clive Jones and The LibDems are.
The remainers just cannot accept we don’t want to be part of the EU project in any shape or form.
Slightly off topic… I am sick to death of the number of petty new rules and offences being brought in, each with a disproportionate fine attached. To name but a couple that have come to light over the last few days…. Cat microchips, car EU compliant sticker with UK and Union Flag on rear of vehicle.
The government has become a bunch of gangsters, however I do think they’ll make an offer we will be able to refuse.
The UK.. It’s a new fine every day.
June 11, 2024
Yes. It amounts to bullying. Iām sick to death of it too.
June 11, 2024
+1
June 11, 2024
+++
June 11, 2024
Could you elaborate, please?
June 11, 2024
Mike
Perhaps Cliff means a UK car sticker (when in Europe) is now required, as GB stickers not now legal.
Likewise important to get a CritAir Certificate on your windscreen when travelling in France, or you get automatically fined when entering a town or city which has emission regulations.
The CritAir Certificate is based on your Cars emissions, Rated from 1-6 and needs to be purchased in advance, costs about Ā£4.00 for the life of the vehicle.
Most vehicles which are compliant and rated 1-3 are usually ok for entry every where, but vehicles rated 3-6 can be banned from entry at certain times, or will be fined.
June 11, 2024
Thank you Cliff and Alan.
June 11, 2024
Yeah sure Mike. If you are going to go driving on the continent this year…
The old GB sticker or number plate with GB on it is no longer enough. You are required now to either have a rear number plate with the union flag and UK. If you have a normal number plate with GB, you will need to buy a sticker from your local post office for Ā£1.50. Failure to comply will lead to a fine of a minimum of Ā£120. Hope this helps
June 11, 2024
A car registered in this country and taken out of it must now have a UK sticker, not a GB sticker. Available for between Ā£2.99 and Ā£ 5.99 in Halford stores or possibly at the Eurotunnel shop in Folkestone. And this has been the case since 28 September 2021, and is in fact a UN decision supported by Grant Schapps as SoS for Transport in January 2021.
June 11, 2024
If your number plate includes the UK identifier with the Union flag (also known as the Union Jack), you do not need a UK sticker. However, you will need to display a UK sticker clearly on the rear of your vehicle if your number plate has any of the following: a GB identifier with the Union flag. a Euro symbol.
June 11, 2024
The EU wants U.K. number plates to be marked with a union flag.
And what the EU wants the EU gets – right?
June 11, 2024
If you’re driving in another country, you need to follow their laws and rules. What’s so hard to understand about that?
June 11, 2024
Absolutely nothing, so perhaps people who arrive here should remember that situation as well eh !
June 11, 2024
Oh so you think countries should be sovereign? From your eccentric comment on Brexit above Iām astonished.
Do you think that those coming from the Continent should obey our laws? For instance that you cannot travel without documentation?
June 11, 2024
If I hire a car on the Continent will my presence be flagged by the plate?
Isn’t a GB sign sufficient indication?
June 12, 2024
@Lynn Atkinson, countries are sovereign, including within the EU.
What documentation are we required to travel with in the UK? I don’t carry documentation with me when I’m driving. It’s not a legal requirement here.
June 12, 2024
How about GBA,GBG, GBJ, GBM and GBZ? The Channel Islands, Isle of Man and Gibraltar.
June 11, 2024
We have four cars we take abroad at various times. All four proudly display “GB” and a Union flag on the number plate. I have added the smallest possible UK sticker somewhere on the back of each.
As for the French Crit ‘Air sticker, I have those for the three cars that require them but, like their requirement to carry a breathalyser kit, they will probably never start checking them, unless they do go ahead with cameras but that will mean issuing stickers for ever vehicle, even exempt classic cars.
If Macron is defeated in the election, LePen is likely to scrap the whole scheme.
June 11, 2024
Agree! Agree! Agree!
Cat chipping is a BAD law pushed by ghastly āliberalā types who never think things through.
Apart for being a cruel law, turning vets into money grabbing policemen it is an attempt to soften us up for widespread human chipping.
June 11, 2024
Lots of money in it and fines to be levied. Follow the money.
June 11, 2024
Yes.
A whole industry has sprung up around it.
And it does nothing to help animals.
June 11, 2024
Everhopeful
Cats have a habit of rehousing themselves when they find an owner they prefer. How will chipping those particular cats work?
It was obviously just another control measure that seemed innocuous!
June 11, 2024
Absolutely!
And the person who takes in a ( known to be) maltreated cat is immediately put in the wrong.
June 12, 2024
Precursor to passing laws to reduce the number of domestic pets – to “save the planet.” First they have to know how many there are and who has them.
Next they will have to be licensed, like they’ve recently required for every chicken you own.
June 11, 2024
@Cliff; The Conservatives also play on their Green credentials, they to have been known to put an entire forest though a letter box! It is also a tad arrogant to suggest voters never changed their (majority) minds, if that was true the UK would still be in the EU, having made a once and for always choice in 1975.
June 11, 2024
What was presented prior to the 1975 Referendum was a blatant lie.
Look to any govtā¦..thatās where youāll find arrogance not in posts on here.
June 11, 2024
+1
June 11, 2024
@EH; I thank you for your opinion, but many might suggest what was presented by Vote Leave in 2016 was also na blatant lie, “Oven Ready”, Ā£259m per week extra for the NHS, the EU will want to give us their best exit deal, my ar…
June 11, 2024
Heath admitted on record that the 1972 referendum was based on a lie. So there is no discussion there, just accept the facts.
We did not need an exit deal at all and the NHS has many times more than was promised in busses during the gerrymandered Brexit campaign.
The majority thought so. So suck it up.
In fact the whole of Europe has had. Belly full of the EU. Did you miss the results of the EU elections recently held?
June 11, 2024
@Lynn Atkinson; I assume you meant 1975 and Harold Wilson, but so what if his “renegotiation” was a lie, not that it was a secrete, people such as Tony Benn knew the truth and were not afraid of saying so. The Leave “No” vote lost because their campaign failed to capture the average voter, and always looked a bit of a construct from what I remember.
If you did mean 1972, and the entry negotiations, there was no referendum and that is what caused some to accuse Heath of lying because the 1970 manifesto only talked about entering into negotiations – with presumably either a referendum or election on the terms, of course Heath simply asked Parliament, knowing he had the votes.
June 11, 2024
Jerry,
Two wrongs don’t make a right.
I was talking specifically about our local situation in Wokingham. The LibDems have run a campaign that was very personal about John, and there were two or three flyers each week.
Perhaps if politicians insist on having willy waving competitions about who is the most green, then they should practice what they preach.
June 11, 2024
Cliff, agreed, there is to much poison, and on all sides, targeting the individual not the policies.
June 12, 2024
When the leader of the Labour Party admits to being a Trot, that has to be pointed out. He is out of step even with his party.
Thatās not personal, thatās politics.
June 12, 2024
@LA; All political extremes that hide within other Parties or group (such as Toryism, Socialism) need to be exposed, be they left, right, even the mambo-jumbo centre with their calls for the muddle-way of PR.
June 11, 2024
Cliff
Agreed, had the third leaflet/news letter from them yesterday since the election was announced.
Whilst I agree with you, and they will certainly not get my vote, I have had nothing from any of the other Parties, good grief the Conservatives did not have a candidate until a few days ago, and she has been bussed in from out of the area !
Say what you like, but the LibDems have at least got their Party machine and local support working !
Just a shame about their policies !
June 11, 2024
We need to return & enforce the ideas of magna carta
June 11, 2024
Magna Carta Libertatum (Medieval Latin for “Great Charter of Freedoms”)
June 11, 2024
+1 The politicos think they know best. We’re not going to terrify our 18 year old cat by taking him to the vet to have him chipped.
June 11, 2024
As an aside, who is going to enforce this cat legislation, the police? They don’t enforce anything these days unless its wokedom.
June 11, 2024
+1 like they’re enforcing the XL Bully dog ban
June 11, 2024
Who will pay the fines on unchipped feral cats? Who would even take an unchipped feral cat to the vet if spotted with injuries or illness to risk a fine on top of the vet bill?
June 11, 2024
What has this site done with my post before 06.00. Have you ceased showing it to the poster.
It took 24hours to moderate yesterday, while the usual offender managed 14. And you expect us to believd you could run a country which you manifestly did not.
June 11, 2024
People are free to choose what they put in their OWN Diary.
June 11, 2024
@Bloke; Indeed, although owners need to be constant about the ‘rules’, comments/subjects acceptable one day can fall foul the next, talk about their readers having to tread on eggshells, even when a mater of public record.
June 11, 2024
Gerry, go and post in Van de Leydenās blog. She will welcome you.
June 11, 2024
@LA; So much for your belief in the Freedom of speech!
June 11, 2024
The LibDems aren’t interested in facts: the EU is a religion to them and they have blind faith.
Of course, if the Not-a-Conservtive-Party had done as instructed and we had LEFT the EU and taken advantage of our freedom, rejoining the Single Market wouldn’t be an option.
But the Treacherous Tories didn’t obey the instruction they were given. They stitched us up with a Brexit “deal” which means we are still significantly under the EU’s control and they then refused to go all out to take advantage of the greater flexibility we DID have.
No branch of the Westminster Uni-Party wants us to LEAVE the EU.
June 11, 2024
Indeed. As you say āNo branch of the Westminster Uni-Party wants us to LEAVE the EU.ā Plus the Uni-Party strives to deliver the total unaffordable zero benefit insanity of net zero and to pretend that the lockdowns and Covid Vaccines were positive. Nick Robinson failed totally to address these issue – typically BBC.
June 11, 2024
I ignore the BBC and I have no interest in listening to Sunak prattle his “mis-speak” on taxes, immigration, Rwanda/criminal migrants, Net Zero or anything else.
June 11, 2024
Likewise, Donna. It never fails to surprise me how often people commenting on this site discuss what’s been on the BBC. Would they have listened to Lord Haw-Haw, I wonder?
June 11, 2024
I never watch the BBC News as it is straight propaganda and not good for blood pressure!
June 11, 2024
Donna, as was postulated earlier, is our Westminster Uniparty collectively suffering from Stockholm syndrome?
Their EU captors have brainwashed them into believing reduced freedoms and constraint is a good thing?
June 11, 2024
+1
June 11, 2024
@Donna; You mean like (some on) the right-wing are not interested in the facts, capitalism, market forces, monetarism are a religion to them and they have blind faith. Pretty standard politicos by the sounds, at least the LDs do not hide their true intents, unlike say Reform.
June 11, 2024
Judging from Davey’s “campaign” the LibDems main policy is to encourage the use of water-slides, paddle boards and fairground rides.
The “campaign” demonstrate his, and their, level of intellect.
June 11, 2024
@Donna; You know what they (no, not the LDs) say about all work and no play…. š
Yes the PR stunts are naff, well most of them, but hardly worthy of your last sentence.
June 11, 2024
The results of Monetarism are proven beyond a shadow of doubt, there is no āfaithā or ābeliefā in political economy. Capitalism is the people – who are āthe Marketā in operation. Theyāre millions of decisions every hour is what keeps capitalism ācleanā. Skewing any market with subsidies (promoting one group over the others) destroys wealth and leads to the disaster in Germany, hell bent on destroying what Hitler called āThe English Systemā (capitalism and democracy) which you so despise. Germanys old ideal of Corporatism has led to the downgrading of Germany and France, and to the imminent destruction of the EU and the whole globalist ārules-basedā decadent, perverted system.
If ever there was a time when current affairs disproved your thesis, and āfaithā, itās now.
But I doubt you have the wherewithal to see what is in front of you writ large.
June 11, 2024
@LA; If Capitalism is so pure how did the 2007 US subprime mortgage/banking crisis happen; how did the 1995 Barings Bank collapse happen; how did the 1929 Wall Street Crash happen, the latter resulting in the Great Depression, the contagion from which brought about the 1930s depression here in the UK, and across western and southern Europe; but surely all those checks and balances you talk about would have kept things “clean”.
June 13, 2024
I believe the US subprime mortgage/banking crisis was allowed to happen because of political interference from Clinton’s crew rather than the free market. The free market had decided people were too much of a credit risk and wouldn’t give them mortgages. Without the political decision to loosen housing rules by rewriting the Community Reinvestment Act in ’95 putting pressure on banks to lend in low-income areas and lower income borrowers who did what was expected and stopped repaying the loans. Brown and Blair just copied this thinking and encouraged specifically Northern Rock and others to write as many mortgages without checks and balances as possible. Boom – Bust.
June 11, 2024
EU is a religion to them, as is the deluded Net Zero lunacy and their road blocking lunacy. I cannot think of a single policy like from the LibDims.
June 11, 2024
Starmer will take the UK back into the EU. That’s a fait accompli. Of course he’ll deny it but then he’s a Socialist ie a liar. This will make Cameron and his sewer crawling One-Nation sect happy as Twickenham chappies. No wonder Starmer’s silent about his EU intentions, he needs Brexit voters support to slither into government
Even wondered why the Tories never reference Starmer’s EU plans? Why??????? Because this party’s leaders want us back in also.
It’s been pure treachery, racism and thinly concealed hate of all things British since 1997 and still the voter delivers these bastards back into power. I am convinced the voter has a death wish or maybe some form of Stockholm Syndrome. Voters across Europe are now realising their woke mistakes and correcting back to morality and decency
June 11, 2024
With the EU member governments gradually swinging to the right I wonder how long it will take Starmer and Davey to be less enthusiastic about “our closest friends and neighbours” in the EU. Probably less time than it takes the EU Commission to realise things are changing.
June 11, 2024
The EU has ways of dealing with voters. Donāt raise your hopes.
June 11, 2024
@Peter Gardner; Not the EU, the national govts.
Emmanuel Macron, I suspect, has played an Ace card in response to the French EP elections, it is one thing to cast a protest vote (for notional politicians in the EP), it is another entirely when voting for your own national govt.
The SPD lead German coalition govt has rejected a similar move though, not because they fear the AfD, but because they fear the CDU.
June 11, 2024
So you admit that the EU Parliament is not a serious issue. I agree.
I think Macron will be slaughtered in the forthcoming election. He might well resign himself, in a huff.
Stand by for President Le Pen! šš»
The EU is finished, in its death throes, Italy, France and Britain have rejected it. Germany is destroyed.
June 11, 2024
The first ćsondagesć indicate there will be a government of the right, even without Zemmour. With a slight fair wind, it could easily be RN with a full majority.
June 11, 2024
As had already happened in previous ācohabitationsā (Mitterrand-Chirac, Mitterrand-Balladur, Chirac-Jospin) I would bet that Macron will go to the end of his mandate in May 2027. So, if it ever happens, Presidente Le Pen is not before May 2027.
June 12, 2024
The French media don’t seem to share your admiration for Macron’s latest move. Jerry. They seem to think he hasn’t played an ace, but rather he’s playing with fire and will get burned. My impression is that the man lost interest in France and French politics long ago, and now wants to strut the world stage posing as the saviour of Ukraine and Putin’s nemesis. He’s been called the little Napoleon, and now it seems he really does want to go down in history as another French leader who came to grief by wanting to fight Russia.
June 12, 2024
@Hat man; The French media is in Project Fear mode, no better way to scare the average right-wing voter in to voting for the left-wing candidate whilst holding their noses.
June 11, 2024
Four countries accounting for 35% of the population constitutes a blocking minority in Council. France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands would be sufficient for example, and are in prospect of being controlled by governments opposed to many EU programmes.
June 11, 2024
I have suspected for some time that the mission of David Lord Cameron of Remain and Palestine is to take the UK closer and closer to the EU. The Sunak Framework gives him considerable leverage to do so and a channel to do it without people noticing. When the Rwanda scheme fails, as it inevitably will, he will probably have by then negotiated a deal for UK to take a quota of the EU’s unlawful migrants. It would stop the boats – they’d be flown in at taxpayers’ expense instead – so it would, like Sunak’s Windsor Framework, be spun deceptively as a major breakthrough in regaining control and securing UK’s sovereignty.
Anyway I have no evidence of Cameron actually doing this but the enabling mechanisms, inclination and pressures to do so are all there.
June 11, 2024
The EU has ways of dealing with voters. Don’t raise your hopes.
June 12, 2024
The EU has no way of dealing with reality though. And Reality is about to hit.
You appreciate that the Globalists are pressing for a ātactical nuclear warā in Europe?
The nukes that stopped Japan were 20 tons. Russiaās ātactical nukesā are 70 tons.
Have a think.
Moreover the Russian navy with nuke subs and hypersonics is exercising in the Caribbean atm. No news of that on the MSM. Why?
Oh – and East Germany voted for all the parties which want peace with Russia. Given a referendum it could rejoin the Russian Federation.
June 11, 2024
DOM,
What are āTwickenham chappiesā and why are they happy ?
June 11, 2024
I don’t mind going back in the EU if it’s right wing.
June 11, 2024
Do you consider the 3rd Reich āright-wingā? If so then the EU has always been right-wing.
I want nothing whatsoever to do with it.
Strength to the people of France, Italy, Hungary etc struggling to be freed of Leviathon.
June 11, 2024
Good Morning,
Is there nobody in Sunak’s socialist party to tell him he’s embarrassing himself and us by clinging on to what’s left of his premiership? We don’t believe a word he says, much less the worthless manifesto, full of evaporating jam tomorrow. Better he goes now, let a caretaker take over and then see if there’s a new ‘right-of-centre’ party able to emerge from what’s become a joke Conservative Party. Reform only exists because the PCP has gone EU style socialist.
June 11, 2024
I tend to agree that, even at this late stage, Sunak’s resignation would help the Tories limit the damage. He says resigning has never crossed his mind. Why on earth not?
June 11, 2024
Some suggest the reason we are having the election is because Sunak called it to forestall being ousted by the 1922 Committee.
June 11, 2024
The LibDems are near to worthless on many issues, but they are aware that the EU is seen as wetter than a damp squib in the majority of eyes here. Thatās probably why they sentenced their EU loyalty to virtual death in about two lines after page 100, far at the back-end of their manifesto as a long, long, long term faded intention.
June 11, 2024
Indeed no real point being in the SM (or CU) but not the EU, you either need to be in or out.
But Iām afraid this is whatās coming even if Labour wonāt have the courage of their convictions to say it as the LibDems have. Labour will do nothing to advance the opportunities of Brexit (not that the Tories have done much) and will surreptitiously try to reverse it. Once in power if they think they can get away with it they will do as the Lib Dems propose.
At the risk of sounding like a stuck record, those who put forward the manifestly incapable Liz Truss as leader and PM and saw us plummet to -30% in the polls have only themselves to blame for whatās coming. ERM all over again. Sorry.
June 11, 2024
Everything Sir John has written is right but irrelevant to the Lib Dems and the majority of Remainers. These people do not believe in the democratic nation state. They really do believe in an elite class of people from a number of countries jointly legislating to govern all countries. They really believe this is the better way to govern. The bigger the collective the better so they favour government of the UK not only by the EU but also by wider international bodies, especially the UN and its agencies, and with policy direction given by both by UN bodies and by the WEF. They are quite happy, in fact they favour, the supremacy of supra-national law over domestic law. They are more than content with what the EU eupemistically calls its democratic deficit because supranational technocratic government provides mechanisms for by-passing democratic consent and accountability.
Remainers, including those in the Conservative party, have been relentlessly undermining every attempt of UK governments to reach beneficial agreements with the EU since 2016.
Sunak’s Framework on Northern Ireland, for different reasons since he is not a Remainer, cements EU rule and ECJ jurisdiction in Northern Ireland permanently – a fact exposed by Lawyers for Britain when countering Rishi Sunak’s desperately deceptive promotional spin.
The Conservative party still toys with an EU treaty on Defence. I suspect it won’t be long before a deal is made for UK to take a quota of the EU’s unlawful migrants as the only way of stopping the boats, once it is clear that Rwanda has been tried and failed.
Back to the Single Market. Any regulation can be linked to trade, competition, level playing field and what have you. The EEA countries know this from bitter experience. It would be a wedge item to gradually subsume UK into deeper and wider EU regulation as the EU contemplates its two-tier future. Such developments were much in debate in inside the EU in 2016-17 and come to the fore periodically. Currently the debate is about substituting QMV for unanimity in foreign affairs, security and defence. If successful the EU will in effect take over the European side of NATO with disastrous consequences – although Biden’s Democrats would favour that.
The UK must remain outside the single market if it is to have any chance of retaining sovereignty and of competing equally in the world’s markets, particularly as its export strength is services, rather than manufactured goods. The CPTPP is a far superior model for co-operation and free trade between sovereign democratic states. the UK should champion such a model for other countries.
There really is no good reason for the UK even to contemplate joining the single market and plenty of good arguments for it not to jeopardise its future even by considering it.
June 11, 2024
The LibDems are well documented for being what they are Cyril Smith being the biggest (pun intended) example of what they are.
June 11, 2024
Jeremy Thorpe was another well documented example …. but rather thinner.
June 11, 2024
Talking of Manifestos, it’s being widely reported that Sunak will be promising another NI cut, and more help for First Time home buyers, well that’s 1/3rd of the electorate sorted…
I wonder what measures there will be for the other 2/3rds, the unwaged, the low waged, retirees living off their pensions, those who need to move up the housing ladder due to work or because their families are growing?
Meanwhile, our host talks about what ‘Dreamers’ might do if they ever gained a majority, and if they did, and had made rejoining the EU a Manifesto pledge, would they not have a mandate, just as Thatcher had a mandate to sell off LA owned social housing. I also seem to remember it was the Conservatives who took the UK into the EEC, it was Mrs Thatcher who headlined the (remain in) “Yes” campaign of 1975, it was also Mrs Thatcher who told us in 1983 that our future lay inside the EEC, not outside as Labour wanted; why would she have done all that had our economy been so damaged since 1972. I’m not saying there wasn’t any damage done, clearly there was, but most was as a result of the agreement Heath signed, that Wilson would have rejected had he still been PM.
All the polls show a need for the Tories to step to the left, or at least the centre, but no all the talk is about leaping ever further to the right, just who are the real ‘Dreamers’? š
Reply Margaret Thatcher changed her mind in the 1980 S when she saw the bad impact of the first decade of membership on exports and U.K. industry
June 11, 2024
Jerry
The Tories need to step to the left… Really, they have been doing that for the last 14 years, and why are they losing support to Reform, according to the Polls ?
Yes aware the Polls could be wrong, but certainly everyone I speak to would like the Tories to go Right rather than Left.
June 11, 2024
@BA; Yes the Tories are loosing some support to Reform, but they have clearly lost far more support in the opposite direction, unless there is one hell of a silent majority sitting on their hands, or lying to the pollsters.
Vote Reform, get a Labour majority govt; it really is that simple.
June 11, 2024
There are a lit of people unwilling to support the Uniparty. Turnout projections are for record lows.
June 12, 2024
We’ll get a Labour majority anyway, Jerry. Vote Reform and get a Conservative party again, is the point.
June 11, 2024
@JR reply; Exactly Sir John, people change their minds, some even admit to having done so.
June 11, 2024
One of the main arguments for being in the EEC in the 80s was that it would more or less prevent a Labour govt doing the sort of crazy socialist stuff Labour in those days used to propose. Margaret Thatcher never declared herself an opponent of EEC / EC membership while in office. There are conflicting reports as to whether she became a leaver in retirement.
There is a possible argument for re-joining the single market – which would certainly have some business benefits to set against the undoubted financial and political / constitutional costs. We have had 8 years of Brexit-supporting Conservative govt (OK May did what she could to neuter it), 5 of them with strongly Brexit-supporting PMs with large majorities. Yet what have they done? A few trade deals itās true, contrary to remain forecasts, but what else? Whatās been the point of all the disruption and angst, and indeed now the destruction of the Tory party if all we do is continue in policy as if we were still in the EU? Maybe best just to admit that there might be some good theoretical arguments for Brexit, but the reality is for whatever reason itās never going to work in the U.K.
reply In office she opposed the ERM, the single currency and the Maastricht agenda
June 11, 2024
Perhaps, although she was PM at the time we joined the ERM. She should therefore either have vetoed it or resigned. An irony of the whole story is had the āpro-Europeansā as they used to be known not forced her out she would have gone on to veto the Maastricht treaty, meaning the EU as it became would never have been created. Perhaps the others would have gone ahead but the UK would have been left outside but in the EEC and Brexit would have never come up as a concept.
June 11, 2024
@JR reply; A bit like complaining about missing the bus, even though you’ve watched it arrive, stop, and then waved it bon voyage!
Mrs Thatcher was happy to support SEA, that allowed the creation of the ERM, the single currency, the Maastricht agenda; yes she later claimed to have (been lead to) miss understood the significance of the said Act. but the EEC’s destination was in plain sight within the 1957 Treaty of Rome, only missing the map, which she provided via Baron Cockfield. Powell, Benn, Shore all understood, how come, was there only three copies in the HoC library…
June 11, 2024
jerry : āAll the polls show a need for the Tories to step to the left, or at least the centre, but no all the talk is about leaping ever further to the right, just who are the real āDreamersā?ā
What would be the point please as Labour, Lib Dem and the Greens all occupy the Left and far Left? Or do you not believe in offering the electorate a choice as we see in all far Left (communist) countries?
June 11, 2024
@OR; You make an excellent point, so just what was the point of UKIP, what is the point of Reform. It is you who seem to be suggesting a Hobson’s Choice, at least on the right, Reform, or err, Reform!
But my point was about elect-ability, the opinion polls suggest that ability is somewhere left to the Tory party’s (pre manifesto) ideals, never mind those of Reform, principles are fine but sometimes foolhardy…
June 11, 2024
jerry :
Sorry but I do not understand your logic. You seem to be saying that if we cannot have more than one party on the right for whom we can vote then we should have none! At least UKIP and Reform provide a party towards the right if only the one.
Yes, it would appear you are correct that the country is going to vote Left and far Left (Labour/Lib Dem/Green) but I think that when they wake up and realise this means open borders and a forced, faster journey to Net Zero they will not be happyā¦.but we shall seeā¦.Certainly the Conservative HQ placed Remainers and CEN members in the safest seats will provide no effective opposition to these Left/far Left policies.
June 11, 2024
@OR; I’m saying the exact opposite, that some others only appear to want one party on the right, it being Reform, in other words if the Conservative Party do not adopt Reform policies then the Conservatives are not right-wing, not “true Tories”, their ideal is two Parties in lockstep. The problem there is, and to use a term from the 1980s, many reaming “wets” seem to be fleeing for the hills, of at least towns with Yellow or Red walls around them.
As for your second paragraph, perhaps, but to suggest voters do not understand what they are voting for is just arrogant, and quite frankly desperate, Project Fear.
June 11, 2024
Jerry
Europe is going to the Right, election result last week !.
People fed up with Socialist polices, poor/no immigration control, and net Zero !.
June 11, 2024
Good morning.
The LibDems are pro-Eu only because when we were ‘offically’ part of the EU the voting system for the Europarl gave them more seats and a say (thanks to European Party Groupings), not to mention funding, above and beyond their actual support. To them rejoing the Single Market is the first step into rejoining the EU.
There is nothing either liberal or democratic about this lot. Real sheep in wolves clothing.
June 11, 2024
Whenever anyone suggests the UK joins the EU again, I cite the Maastricht Treaty requirement of not more than 60% debt to GDP ratio. No one has given me any reason why this isn’t a barrier to the UK joining again. I can’t see the EU rewriting the Treaty just for the sake of the UK. I can see the Commission fudging it for their own reasons, but surely it only takes one party to bring a claim to the ECJ to block the UK joining.
June 11, 2024
Oh the EU trashed that requirement ages ago. However you do need to accept the Euro. Scotland – are you listening?
June 11, 2024
As for new entrants having to accept the euro, even that is half wrong: countries have to enter the euro only if/when the entry conditions (euro convergence criteria) are fulfilled: thatās why Bulgaria, Czechia, Hungary, Poland Romania still use their currencies.
Two other countries Denmark and Sweden have got a previous opt-out and are not in the eurozone.
June 11, 2024
@Mark B; By that rational UKIP should have also been pro EU… It might explain though why UKIP tried very hard to destroy the Leave vote in 2016, why they announced the referendum lost even before a single vote had been counted, because their power base was within the EP, mush like the LibDems. The rump of UKIP have had to Reform (pun intended), having spent the last 5+ years in the political wilderness…
Mr Farage has let the cat out of the bag now though, it was clearly never about Brexit, it was about taking over the Tory Party, or as he has recently suggested, the rump of what’s left assimilating into the Reform Party.
June 11, 2024
Such rubbish! You had to leave the EU before it was at all interesting to become a viable party in the U.K. BECAUSE WHILE WE WERE A SUBJECT NATION WITH A SUZERAIN RATHER THAN A MONARCH NO PARTY OR PM HAD ANY POWER. THEY WERE COMPELLED TO ENACT THE DAMAGING LAWS DREAMED UP BY THE 4TH REICH AKA THE EU.
For that reason we can now look forward to people a great quality coming forward in quantity to be candidates in all the serious parties – ie never the Lib Dems.
June 11, 2024
@LA; Yours is pure nonsense, and you sound very rattled.
There was more chance of the EU making the UK accept a PR voting system than the HoC ever doing so themselves, thus far more chance of smaller Parties becoming viable, just look at the AfD in Germany, National Rally in France, and any number of Green or Socialist Parties across the EU, all flourishing due to PR.
Whatever all your SHOUTING was about goodness knows. You do realize that at least four current EU member countries [1] still have a Monarchy and Parliament, they are still free to enact legislation, demand their Prime Minsters take positions at the “Council of the European Union”, they could even choose to follow our Brexit; and how did the UK obtain Brexit if the EU is all powerful?!
[1] Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Spain, and with Luxembourg having a Monarchy in thre form of a Grand Duke
June 11, 2024
Ed Davey doesnāt know what a woman is
June 11, 2024
Enigma
Ed Davey doesn’t know what many other things are either. His grasp of democracy is shaky to say the least.
The UK demos voted to leave the EU, the LIbDems have refused to accept that democratic decision.
June 11, 2024
@Rod Evans; “The UK demos voted to leave the EU, the LIbDems have refused to accept that democratic decision.”
Just one very large hole in your boat there, some 1975mm wide, sending it to the bottom pretty quickly.
As Tony Benn said at the time; “we might have lost a battle but the war is not lost” (or words to that effect).
June 11, 2024
What a strange argument Jerry.
The recent referendum plainly overuled the 1975 referendum.
June 12, 2024
@Sam; Try understanding what I was replying to, I was pointing out that voters can change their minds, nothing is ever set in stone. If Ed Davey thinks he can obtain a majority mandate to re-join the EU he has ever right to try, just as Tony Benn had ever right to carry on fighting for the UK to leave the EEC/EU.
June 12, 2024
You are mixing two different things Jerry
One is an individual’s right to continue to campaign on an issue like being in or being out of the EU which I accept.
The other is having a public referendum on an issue, where my opinion is that the result should be duly accepted and enacted upon by MPs
June 12, 2024
@Sam; Yours is classic Doublespeak, or just plain Duplicity [1].
If you accept the individualās right to continue to campaign on an issue you have to accept there might be a future referendum or manifesto pledge majority that will change the current status quo.
[1] in that whilst you believe in the individualās ‘rights’, you do not believe that individuals should be allowed to organize into a group, thus you stymie any meaningful outcome
June 12, 2024
Gerry, to quote Benn in an argument to overturn Democracy and in favour of the unsackable EU is a joke.
The war is over. Take a look at the German EU election results. The East voted in effect to rejoin Russia, the whole concept of German Europe was ditched, the AFU was castigated by the State machine yet held second place. The Party of Merkel has effectively halved its support, in spite of āwinningā in the corrupt PR system.
If Germany rejects the EU, its own āempireā – are you surprised that Italy, France and Britain have rejected it too?
The EU stepping stone to One World Government has fallen, the end will never be reached.
June 12, 2024
Lucy… Sorry, Lynn, by that logic the era of capitalism in the UK was over in 1945, after all there was a clear and landslide majority for Socialism, with a near 50% of the vote in favor of Attlee’s Labour Party alone, over 50% of the popular vote if one also counts those cast for other Socialist and communist parties & independent candidates!
People change their minds, and in a democracy that is allowed, what is so hard to understand?
June 11, 2024
But due to equivalence we still slavishly adhere to EU law and diktat without barrier free access tot he market. As usual the worst of both worlds delivered to us by our civil service.
June 11, 2024
From Govt website
āUK statement on adoption of International Health Regulations amendments. Delivered on 1 June 2024 at the 77th World Health Assembly in Genevaā
Been going on whilst we have been looking the other way ā¦.at the Pandemic Treaty?
Apparently the incoming govt. will be able to choose which parts to accept or decline.
Not sure if this is better or worseā¦.
June 11, 2024
@Everhopeful – ensuring the UK is no longer Sovereign, that the voter can have no say and the UK Parliament is not the UK’s legislators. All diktats, laws are to be decided by unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats
June 11, 2024
+++
Dismal prospect for us all!
June 11, 2024
If the tories get in they accept the WHO Pandemic Preparedness Treaty ….and
If labour get in they’ll also accept the WHO Pandemic Preparedness Treaty
June 11, 2024
Some are saying that Farage should be embraced by the Conservatives to ‘unite the right’. But this would result in the genuine right wingers being safely ensconced in a mostly left wing party, and ‘voices in the wilderness’ as you have been for the last twenty years or so. Surely the best way to ‘unite the right’ is for Conservatives who agree with the Reform manifesto to join Reform and offer voters a genuine alternative to the globalist Uniparty.
June 11, 2024
āThe Lib Dems tell us we need to re enter the EU single market. ā¦..They want to deny us the result of the Brexit referendum.ā
Unfortunately a majority of existing Conservative MPs, particularly those Conservative HQ have imposed on the safest seats, have the same desire and the rumour is that Lord Cameron will become the next leader of the Conservative Party. This is why any voter who does not agree with re-joining the EU, nor with mass immigration or Net Zero, will be wasting their vote voting for a Conservative Party who will be not be acting as an Opposition to these policies in the next Parliament.
June 11, 2024
@Original Richard – 2019 the Conservatives came into Office all signed up-to getting ‘Brexit Done’ that’s what they individually promised their constituents if they got elected. The day after they became MPs they reneged, just them as the largest group in Parliament there could be no dissenters that was a promise, they had a 78 majority of those signed up-to the deal.
June 11, 2024
āLib Demās are neither liberal nor democratic.ā
Of course not, theyāre just another branch of our fifth column Communist uniparty Parliament.
Take Net Zero, which is not only supported by Labour/Lib Dems/Greens (naturally) but even by 150 Conservative MPs and Peers via the CEN (Conservative Environment Network) which is the project to net zero our 1% contribution to global CO2 emissions and sabotage our economy by transitioning away from cheap, abundant, reliable energy to expensive, chaotically intermittent energy.
Now, for Communists Net Zero is entirely feasible with the right campaign as the USSR showed with their collectivisation program in the early 1900s. Unfortunately it didnāt work, was hugely unpopular, and resulted in a huge loss of life.
Freedom is slavery, war is peace, ignorance is strength, diversity is meritocracy, Net Zero is prosperity
June 11, 2024
Iād like the manifesto to reconsider spending Ā£300 billion on American nuclear weapons and spend that money on UK manufactured conventional weapons, equipment and personnel ā¦.there Iāve said it out loud
June 11, 2024
āThe Lib Dems tell us we need to re enter the EU single marketā is it something to do with having a pigeon as their emblem, a sign of cr..ping on people.
The Liberal Democratic leader aspiring to lead the Country as President, his history as āParliamentary Under Secretary of Stateā in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, showed he failed the UK as it started the decline, then as āMinister of State for Trade Policy.ā The UKās Trade with the World declined we became a massive importer of ātatā, trade was not reciprocated.
As minister āMinister for Postal Affairsā he completely failed to manage his brief, he knew of the problems but rather than check as was required in his position he supported the actions of the Post Office officials, as they tell the truth and everyone else lies ā if money is not shown to be missing it must be theft, if an official says so! He destroyed our local post office in Wokingham by supporting false allegations, was that because she was a strong Conservative Councillor?
The Liberal Democrats have cost the UK Taxpayer a small fortune in their persistent bumbling – maybe that is why Cameron loved them so much – fellow travellors
June 11, 2024
Sorry Sir John, but has not it been a Conservative Government for the last 14 years, did the leave vote not win Brexit 8 years ago, are we not still tied to a mass of EU laws and has it not been the Conservative Party run by the Remain Faction of the Party not been the main problem? Having voted Conservative all my life I think the Party needs destruction because of this anti-Brexit take over.
June 11, 2024
The tory parliamentary party has indeed forsaken its own membership ā¦.and made the cardinal sin of going against the majority will of the people
June 11, 2024
@AncientPopeye – will we ever see one again?
Just think a party that was fiscally responsible, funded ego projects from economical growth. Tax available to spend by Government actually came from UK Growth not just dipping into peoples pockets every time the management screws up.
People are not supposed to notice that the promise of reduced NI is paid twice over by the fiscal drag of allowances being frozen until April 2028. The link to payments in, to payments out, is to be broken and replaced with what – all asylum seekers including those of pension age will be treated the same as everyone in the UK. All because Government is to lazy to make NI work as intended and not run a ‘Ponzi’ scheme.
People are not supposed to notice that the rise in the defence by 2030 is on condition these guys are voted for this year and again in 2029.
As you say Popeye Socialist rule has been with us for the whole of this century, they all no how to spend, spend, big then cover things up by stealing from everyone’s wallets.
June 11, 2024
The failures of the EU have much in common with this Conservative Government rather than embrace democracy and work with people, they chose to distort and manipulate democracy, then dictate to the people.
The Bureaucrats run rings around democratically elected representatives because of those as pretenders to lead themselves do not like being questioned, do not like challenges and see themselves the chosen ones. Its about ego and self-esteem. As such they capitulate to the unelected unaccountable Bureaucrats for allowing them the illusion to have their 15 minutes of fame in the limelight.
Real Democracy is not top-down control but bottom up lending of authority, hence āGovernment by the People for the Peopleā
June 11, 2024
Your last sentence is perfect and should be painted across both houses of parliament
June 11, 2024
The libdems, like every other remoaner, are in love with the idea of belonging to a huge organisation that takes all the life decisions for everyone. They see the future as a sort of Utopia where we all live simple lives, with our needs provided for by a benign governing body.
The EU is a perversion itself of what was originally postulated by the people of Europe. It has become less than benign, but secretly despotic. To want to rejoin this monstrosity, despite all the facts for not, demonstrates an irrational set of minds.
It is high time we rejected the ignorant and irrational standing for office and voted for those that would improve our lives.
June 11, 2024
Conservative Party manifesto 2019
Point 2, Leave the EU. Boris Johnson made a personal guarantee that he would get Brexit “done” in January if he won a majority.
Point 3. No income tax, VAT or National Insurance rises
Point 8. Introduce a points-based immigration system
The Conservatives won with a massive majority ā then failed to deliver. On leaving the EU it was said by some that it was Parliament that was the block. The Conservatives all elected on the Conservative Manifesto with a 78-seat majority were the majority power ā collectively failed, they blocked their manifest and personal promises.
So, whatever is in the next Conservative manifesto you just have to look at their record to know what it means, zilch, nothing just lies to win an X in a box then renege and destroy the Country once more
June 11, 2024
On the election, promises today – Mel Stride said the Conservative Partyās general election manifesto will include āvery bold movesā to cut taxes.
Then- The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said 65pc of older Britons now pay tax on their income, up from just 48pc since 2010. It comes after the tax-free allowance for pensioners has been cut in real terms.
The vote me promise, backed by doing the opposite
June 11, 2024
OMG Sunakās just said that he comes from a small business background
June 11, 2024
His mother ran a pharmacy, didn’t she?
June 13, 2024
His father is a GP that is also a small business? I don’t understand what people don’t understand about a GP practice and a pharmacy being a ‘small business background’?
June 11, 2024
Correct – it doesn’t really matter what Sunak says …we don’t believe them, the trust is lost
June 11, 2024
12:12hrs Sunak has just said they’ll scrap EU laws ….I’ve heard that before
June 11, 2024
One of the puzzling things about this election is the really huge swing to Labour, despite having an uncharismatic leader in Sir Kier Starmer and no recent experience of government. A Lib Dem leaflet came though our door recently which made disturbing reading. Here, in the 5th richest country in the world, we have 6 million folk forced to use foodbanks. A quarter of our schoolkids qualify for free school meals. The amount of child poverty in Britain has reached levels not seen since the Poor Laws forced the destitute into workhouses.
Many of these kids have parents that both have two or even three jobs. The cuts in working benefit tax credits and the transition to Universal Credit have made them destitute as the payments have not kept up with food and rent inflation. Many of these families are being forced out of their homes regularly under no fault evictions, as landlords are forced to pay higher interest on their buy-to-let mortgages.
A generation ago, under a Conservative administration, 350,000 families had their homes repossessed. They voted for Blair’s New Labour in 1997. In three weeks time, 6 million destitute folk will vote Labour as they see a change of government as their only hope for a better life.
Sunak’s manifesto will be a disappointment to these people. It will be a very long time indeed before the country votes Conservative again.
June 12, 2024
Nobody thinks Labour will herald a ābetter lifeā. Nobody is voting āforā anything in this electionā we are all choosing who to vote āagainstā.
Of course Starmer is very dangerous. I doubt he will see out a full term.
June 12, 2024
They’ve been importing poverty for 28 years, on behalf of Big Business, to suppress wages.
When you import poverty to drive down wages, the settled population also becomes poorer since they can’t compete with those who are prepared to live and work in Victorian conditions. So those who were already near the bottom of society will move from just-about-managing to poor and no longer able to provide for themselves or their families.
June 13, 2024
Do you know anyone personally who is using a food bank?
We are importing poverty – people arriving with nothing.
If people can get free food, it leaves more of their benefits for their needs rather than their kids needs.
June 11, 2024
Starmer anticipates ‘huge scope’ for EU ties ( note, ties ) on education, defence & security. Erasmus is occasionally bandied around and mentioned again in recent weeks – potentially to rejoin the scheme ( has he costed that one too? ) Unless I’m missing something I don’t often hear anything about our Turing Scheme. Yes, there is info on line – uk.gov but nothing much in terms of promotion or info to the electorate from our politicians. We do of course recall the fairly recent approach by she who must be obeyed to dear Rishi for what appeared to be an offer of free movement for a certain age group, which I believe was declined. Just a thought.
June 17, 2024
“More Disadvantaged Participants To Benefit From 2023 To 2024 Turing Scheme Funding”
Turing: July 17, 2023
More than 41,000 students, learners and pupils across the UK set to study or work in over 160 destinations across the world during next academic year.
https://www.turing-scheme.org.uk/more-disadvantaged-participants-to-benefit-from-2023-to-2024-turing-scheme-funding/
We were sending less than that on Erasmus but received at least ten times more in the other direction. Look up Boris and how much Erasmus cost and why Turing was better for the UK. It is saving billions in loans alone, + free tuition in Scotland for EU citizens when English kids couldn’t go to uni up there for free.
June 11, 2024
I presume the Not-a-Conservative-Party Manifesto which Sunak is launching today has been printed on Andrex …. so that it will at least be useful for something.
June 11, 2024
“Lib Demās are neither liberal nor democratic. They want to deny us the result of the Brexit referendum. ”
Couldn’t agree more!
June 11, 2024
The Lib Dims are not just not just illiberal and undemocratic, their policies are also extremely Dim.
June 11, 2024
I see that the Conservative party is again promising a reduction in employee NI contributions.
On Radio 4, a spokesman cited that more could not be done because of high borrowing, particularly made necessary by Sunak’s (over generous) Furlough Scheme.
The only beneficiaries of the Furlough Scheme were employees and those who were retired received nothing, but we are now being penalised by frozen income tax thresholds while employees have been given big reductions in NI contributions. Talk about our support being taken for granted !
June 12, 2024
And employers have to stump up for massive āminimum wageā increases. Startups pay 20% VAT on energy. We are forcing people into the black market to stay alive.
June 11, 2024
Is anyone suspicious about Sunakās ambition to abolish National Insurance? Could it be something to do with redefining the State Pension as a benefit rather than an entitlement?
Itās already described as a benefit, but years of having to pay into the National Insurance scheme tend to undermine this idea. Once the ādifficultyā of National Insurance is removed the State Pension will be open to sanction. Social Credit Scores might be applied, have you been jabbed, do you have a Smart Meter etc. The State Pension might even be paid in Digital Currency meaning it could be programmed with restrictions placed on its use.
June 11, 2024
From Rishi we now have it, a manifesto approaching Conservatism. However two questions.
Why was the only sign of it Liz Truss’s short tenure of office during the past recent years.
Then, how can a consocialist party in the Commons, a broad church covering everything from paganism to the Pope, actually execute any of it without going into melt down.
The Lib/ Dems can say anything that comes into their heads, knowing they are getting nowhere near power.
Labour can only offer the nanny state. Tooth cleaning and breakfast at school. Nothing about the creation of wealth to pay for their ambitions, just the negative politics of envy. Limiting very high quality education to the super rich, who will always be one step ahead of a predatory government. Since Anthony Crossland, who I will refrain from quoting, they have always been determined to reduce everyone to the lowest common denominator, having partaken of grammar schools or private education themselves. The none doms have already, no doubt , covered their options. They therefore have three options in power, reduce expenditure, increase taxation, or both. None of which they wish to discuss pre election.
Reform have a viable Conservative manifesto, but at best can only look forward to opposition. However be assured they would be a much more effective opposition than any consocialist party.
June 11, 2024
I read the LibDem manifesto and Iāve never seen such a bad list of policies. Itās as if they had taken them from a think tank made up of race-baiting, woke, net zero extremists. I canāt believe any rational person reading this tosh could vote for them.
On the other hand, I watched the Reform media presentation yesterday on the economy and it was like a breath of fresh air. They answered all the questions thrown at them by the reporters with eloquence and in-depth knowledge. Even the reporters seemed enthused by their message. They had lots of ammunition against the Bank of England and how badly it is being run giving our taxes to the financial institutions. Sir John could have written it.
June 11, 2024
The Lib Dem delusions about Net Zero almost make Ed Miliband look like a sage.
June 11, 2024
The EU along with NATO, UN, WHO the most notable and MANY other Globalist organisations are CORRUPT.
Wake up people you have been fooled for decades.
June 11, 2024
Donāt you mean āALL other globalist organisations ā¦ā?
June 11, 2024
At first glance the manifesto doesnāt mention cars/EVs/ ZEV-mandate/transport nor trains
June 12, 2024
It is about time the lib/dumbs were put out of their misery. They have a rubbish leader (one of many) who should be in jail for his part in the SubPostmasters debacle which he has not apologised for or done anything constructive about to make up for his lack of compassion. As to his election antics, he makes me feel sick. How did he get to be Sir? Shows what a stupid country we live in.
June 12, 2024
+1
June 12, 2024
Get rid of that joke of a leader they have and start again with grown up people who know what they are talking about. We cannot survive on these types of trivial people in politics.
June 12, 2024
The Conservative Party struggles to critique Labourās proposal to recruit 6,500 ānewā teachers because they are stuck in the outdated mindset that taxes fund government spending. Once you get beyond that, explaining the proposal is very straightforward.
Here:
https://new-wayland.com/blog/labour-wants-more-batley-grammar-schools/
Always look beyond the headline. Everything in politics is cleverly designed to get you to jump to conclusions. It is a smoke and mirror, 3 card monte trick.
Brexit was the time to expose the tax payer money myth. Nobody took the opportunity to do so. By linking taxes to spending we never get the tax cuts. It is totally bonkers. If an alien landed from mars and looked at how we debate and frame things. It would think we are insane.
I’m a great believer in Brexit have been For 40 years. Sometimes I wonder what was it for. If we are just going to keep on lying about our national sovereignty.