In my last full year as an MP (2023-4) I claimed £103,266 in office costs and staff expenses. 2 people helped me do my job. I claimed no travel , no one off expenses . I supplied my own car and diesel for the task. My two staff members concentrated on following up and handling the detail of constituency cases which I discussed with them. I was grateful for the efficient, well informed and caring way they dealt with a wide range of sensitive issues for people. I did not have any staff to write speeches, research problems, monitor political agendas and highlight issues that needed government attention. I regarded all that as my job as the MP. I wrote my own blog seven days a week to keep constituents informed and paid for it myself. We replied to all incoming emails and letters from constituents by the next working day following receipt.
The Lib Dem replacement in Wokingham, Mr Clive Jones, claimed £178,207 in staff and office costs for the part year 2024-5 he has served as MP, or an annualised rate of £237,000. So he has landed Wokingham and national taxpayers with a 130% increase in the bill for his office. The main reason is large parts of the job of being an MP which I did myself he expects others to do for him. His staff list runs to nine staff employed for part of the year 2024-5. IPSA lists a Chief of Staff, a Communications Officer, a Senior Parliamentary Assistant, a Constituency Support Officer, a Senior Casework Team Leader and 4 caseworkers during the first year.
It is difficult to see why he cannot handle his own communications with the public and media, or why he needs a Parliamentary Assistant when an MP has full access to Commons papers and can go into the Chamber to find out what is going on.He should not need someone on the state payroll to design and advise on campaigns.
On top of his claims for his large office he claimed £20,995 for accommodation in his first nine months, and £2579 for travel including some for dependants. This is an expensive MP. No wonder our taxes have to go up with public servants like him undermining public sector productivity, unwilling or unable to do the job they are paid to do without people to do most of it for them.
January 3, 2026
Indeed children let loose in the sweet shop!
But of course the truly expensive things are when our halfwitted government spend hundreds of billions on insane and often actually harmful things like Climate Change, Net Zero, Equality Laws, subsidising renewables, banning fracking, drilling, mining, rigging energy markets, the vast net harms of the Covid “vaccines” and net harm lockdowns, the Covid “vaccines” statistics cover ups, the counterproductive wars, the open door to low skilled immigration, the vast government propaganda agendas, wars on landlords, private schools, motorists, vastly bloated state sectors, huge payments to feckless scroungers who could easily work…
Also in rigging markets in broadcasting, energy, banking, heating systems, schools and universities, in two tier justice, transport systems, planning, housing, building controls, mad employment laws …
January 3, 2026
To increase productivity in the state sector just stop doing the things that do net harms or no good and release the people doing these things to get real and proper productive jobs in the private sector. This alone would double state sector productivity and help grow the productive sector and the economy hugely. Start with all those pushing the net zero rip off energy devil gas religion. it is hugely harmful and total lunacy.
January 3, 2026
I suspect that many of those “non-productive” public sector employees would seriously struggle to find work in the private sector. If you were an employer, would you even consider them given their abject failures to do anything productive previously?
January 3, 2026
Given the absurd employment laws we have and are getting even worse ones it is very dangerous taking anyone on unless you do it through a limited company that you can close without much loss! But even if they at least stopped doing net harms it would be a benefit!
January 3, 2026
Tomorrow you could get ChatGPT to write your numerous posts LL.
Just prompt it to trawl this site for your previous posts and then refer it to the Telegraph headline of the day.
Less is more old chap (:
January 3, 2026
Perhaps I will try and see what it comes up with!
January 3, 2026
LL did use the ‘drain’ metaphor again a day or so ago. I am not sure if ChatGPT would pick up on his old favourites.
January 3, 2026
@Lifelogic – Writing in The Times, Paul Ovenden, who quit as Keir Starmer’s director of political strategy. Politicians have given away too much power to lawyers, activists and regulators, and cannot deliver their promises, an ex-aide to the prime minister has said. with a “stiffening resolve” politicians could “take back control” of the levers of democracy.
Separately, Chris Powell – who worked on four Labour general elections and the brother of the PM’s adviser Jonathan Powell writing in the Guardian – has said the Labour government needs a “fundamental reset” in order to fight off the electoral threat.
To both of them the answer is more and deeper Socialism and control of the individual, by removing basic freedoms
2TK’s New Years Statement, he saw the situation as his own people were not being aggressive enough in the pursuant of control.(maybe something to do with him being on glad-handing AWOL trips away from his day job) He carefully avoided talking about manifesto promises instead pointing to the fact his ‘personal agenda’ has been let slip by those around him.
Overall the tone has changed, the blame is laid at the doors of the ‘right-wing’ fascists that are said to be anti democracy. Then the contradiction this Labour Government has two justice in place, trying to drive deeper control by politicised judges and cancelled elections so no alternative narrative to theirs can be aired.
The point they all forgot was to look in the ‘mirror’ and hear we all want an election today to exercise of democratic rights. That would be Democracy!
January 3, 2026
All the moves in recent years have been designed to subvert any real democratic control Brown’s an independent BoE, the EU, international bodies, international law, climate accords, the ECHR, the EU, the WHO, the OBR…
January 3, 2026
In other news, ‘Peace’ President Trump attacks another country, captures its’ leader and says USA and American oil companies will run things from now on.
Get elected on one thing. Then do the complete opposite.
January 3, 2026
I see that Amanda Pritchard has been awarded a dame-hood for working at and running the NHS so appallingly for so much of her life! (Modern History at Oxford seems to be how she got in). I would have thought than the vast majority of the doctors in the NHS (usually paid a tiny proportion of the CEO’s pay) would have made far better CEOs! Whenever I heard her say anything she always sounded daft, ill informed and rather irrational!
Simon Stevens PPE Oxon before her was just as bad but slightly brighter I think, he is now in the Lords rewarded for abject failure!
January 3, 2026
correct
January 3, 2026
Now you understand where the expression ‘pantomime dame’ comes from.
January 3, 2026
“How a Lib Dem MP increases costs and lowers productivity“
Well implementing their dire mad policies would certainly do that!
Liberal Democrat policies focus on fairness, opportunity, and protecting rights, emphasising tackling the cost of living with free school meals, investing in the NHS for quicker GP access, and boosting environmental action like the insane net-zero targets, spending even more on benefits (ending the two-child limit, improving carer’s allowance), promoting “equality” (more hate crime laws, LGBT+ rights), even more taxation (targeting big corporations, taxing capital gains more), continuing with open door immigration, no deterrent justice… rather like so many ( words left out ed) Labour MPs in fact!
January 3, 2026
He may have spent more but if his spending is within the guidelines then I guess he’s well able to have more staff and claim the necessary expenses.
Reply That is why the public sector costs so much and delivers so little for it. You shoukd not claim expenses just because the rules allow it.
January 3, 2026
To reply “you should not claim expenses just because the rules allow it” well yet but human nature (especially for LibDim and socialist MPs) is what it is. Not their money so they will use it to pay say my mates X, Y and Z who then might buy me some votes with propaganda or perhaps fix my roof cheaply or scratch my back in to other way.
Similarly you should not claim benefits if you can work instead – but then if the rules allow it )and often you are even better off not working, more time, some bartering, more time to cook and shop efficently, no commuting and work clothing costs) then are benefit claimants just being rational given the idiotic rules that pertain?
January 3, 2026
Making hay while the sun shines. There should be a cap on how much can be spent or a fixed allowance payable to everyone. Second home payments should be severely curtailed with a daily allowance according to the local Travelodge for example. The taxpayer shouldn’t be funding property portfolios for public servants.
Reply MPs can claim rent on a second property but not mortgage interest
January 3, 2026
Little logic in this what is the difference between renting a flat and “renting” the money to buy a flat? Can they rent it off their wife, brother, son, or a company the people own!
January 3, 2026
Milton Friedman’s “Four Ways to Spend Money” categorizes spending based on who pays and who benefits, highlighting varying degrees of care: 1) Your money on yourself (careful on cost & quality), 2) Your money on others (careful on cost, less on quality), 3) Someone else’s money on yourself (careful on quality, less on cost, e.g., expense accounts), and 4) Someone else’s money on someone else (care about neither cost nor quality, e.g., government spending), which he argued is least efficient.
Though often the state sector do find “you scratch my back and I yours” ways to corruptly benefit themselves!
January 3, 2026
The staffing and claims demonstrate how ill equipped the new MP is for representing Wokingham’s population, his party campaigning for government, and his persoanl behaviour clowning all the time as if preparing for stand-up – which he is well suited for when the next election shows him the door.
January 3, 2026
Reply to reply
Precisely so. Delegating so much also shows that he’s more out of touch with the electorate. Arms length isn’t supposed to apply to MPs.
Problem is your replacement PPC wasn’t exactly an highly life experienced representative for constituents. You should have stood for Reform.
January 3, 2026
It is easy to be wise after an desperately sad tragedy but but then so very often it is fairly easy to be wise before one. Alas the authorities so often use sledge hammers of lucrative red tape to miss the nut.
Lessons;- 1. Do not sell alcohol with indoor fireworks (especially fairly high temp sparklers) to drunk people especially in crowded basements with highly flammable foam ceilings and rather limited access 2. When you see a fire in a building get everyone out as soon as you can rather than filming it on your mobiles.
January 3, 2026
It’s a time of year when these sorts of fires are frequent. Less so in Switzerland which is a well run country. Excessive alcohol consumption does not help.
Never been to Crans Montana, but love some of the other resorts – Davos, Wengen, Adelboden etc. Not keen on Verbier(broke a leg, expensive lift pass). Snow not great in Europe so far.
January 3, 2026
Parliament and government seem to have become the home for self-seekers with scant regard for those whom they purport to represent.
January 3, 2026
It would be interesting to see a complete list of MPs costs across the whole 650 constituencies. I would even suggest it should be a mandatory requirement of all publicly funded senior employees to report their expenditures every year. MPs, Police Chiefs, Medical board Chairman/COE, Council Leaders, Judges and so on.
The last time details were provided of the open excessive spending of MPs on expenses was five Parliaments ago. We have the Daily Telegraph to thank for providing details of duck houses and John Bercow’s penchant for foreign travel at the tax payers expense. The double dipping of housing allowance flipping of prime residences and renting porn videos at the tax payers expense, were all very revealing.
The details you’ve provided Sir John, of your LibDem successor’s free spending of other peoples money won’t surprise anyone. etc dd.?
Reply These figures come the IPSA public site which lists all MP s expenses.
January 3, 2026
I would encourage people to have a look at theipsa.org.uk checking their favourite MPs. Sir John was extremely good value for money. But how many other MPs, whatever their party, including Reform or the independents (obviously), are/were nearly as good as he was?
January 3, 2026
How can our mad court system allow a payment of £7500 to a violent criminal and also pay nearly £240k in legal costs to lawyers to bring this claim (and doubtless more to defend it.) Legal costs should surely be limited to say 10% of any damages other than in exceptional cases. But then the legal system has been honed by judges and lawyers over many years to benefit lawyers rather than the public or users of the system!
January 3, 2026
Basically as I have often written, the whole Judiciary needs overhaul. Lord/Lady Chief Justice became responsible for some 400 statutory functions, which were previously the responsibility of the Lord Chancellor.
It seems like the laws and interpretation vary according to the bum on seat.
January 3, 2026
Clive Jones may be a waster generating an inefficient service, and £240k is a crazy charge for David Lammy to accept and shrug off, both at taxpayers’ expense.
If a claimant has a valid case, any sensible person could state the key evidence on a single sheet of A4. An independent UK panel can assess it and decide. Too much money is charged and wastefully paid for legal worthlessness.
In these advanced times, is a judge or jury essential? Artificial Intelligence combines the collective knowledge and wisdom of millions of people and could rule on the evidence within seconds.
January 3, 2026
The size of legal costs subverts justice especially if one side is on legal aid or full costs cannot be recovered. People can find that settling is the best thing to do even when they have a very good case as the legal cost and risks exceed that cost of settlement. As with parking tickets just more hassle to challenge than to pay or Lucy Connolly (Starmers political prisoner) who expected more time on remand than the sentence for pleading guilty. If this is Justice I am a banana as Ian Hislop once said.
January 3, 2026
the whole public sector is unproductive and expensive, the Mayor of London’s political appointments are far more worthy of comment than an individual MP’s.
an incoming Reform government will have to be ready with lots of new appointments if it is to stand any chance of not suffering the same fate as the Truss government.
January 3, 2026
Unfortunately Sir John, he has an expensive ego to support. I’ve watched hin (and his coterie) pose on the corner of our road before leafleting it. There were five or six of them and various group combinations were photographed before they split up to post their rubbish through our doors. Judging by the ammout of this stuff we received, they spent a lot of time and money doing this.
But he was a dud as a coucillor and remains one as our MP. For some reason he gets a lot of support from the local Newspaper too. Maybe when the rich (and not so wealthy) Liberals around here start to feel Labour’s pinch, they will come to realise that even Clowns can be expensive to employ….
January 3, 2026
Ah…well. The LibnoDems fund advertising in that rag, so guess why they get biased coverage!
January 3, 2026
Have you sent this analysis to Ed Davey? What does he say about his profligate team member and his inability to communicate.
This is the kind of investigation the Telegraph likes to run with.
I don’t see why the replacement is claiming accommodation and I certainly can’t see how they are claiming expenses for dependents.
January 3, 2026
Ahh… but…! Mr Jones doesn’t live in the constituency, so I guess it cost more to travel to it and maintain administrative facilities there (sarc).
January 3, 2026
Its bit like the LibDem council that Wokingham has. Dirty pot holed streets, a generally unkept Town in decline. Massive income from fining the motorist because its cheaper to curtail movement than maintain adequate infrastructure for the massive rise in population the area has undertaken and that has also lead to the massive increase in rates/taxes received.
The again they did spend £5.5 million on painting ‘maple leaves’ at a round-about, creating an object of ridicule and a danger to motorist and pedestrian a like by not conforming to standard/logical road traffic practices.
As you are well aware their Gang Chief has blamed all the Countries woes on Brexit. The only job he ever had as the internet reminds us was as ‘postal affairs minister, he did not investigate the details of the Post Office Horizon scandal that had led to the wrongful prosecution of hundreds of sub-postmasters, but was the only Post Office minister to meet Alan Bates, the founder of the Justice for Sub-postmasters Alliance’ This lack of regard to this important position on behalf of the Country has landed the Taxpayer a bill of £1billion and rising.
We have a Parliament full of those that see the HoC as somewhere to go and sit out the day – the worlds ‘free-loaders’ that worry more about their personal ego than the job they were empowered and paid to do.
January 3, 2026
Being churlish, or is it sarcastic your old constituency has been shuffled around it might be even be smaller.
I note from the new guys electioneering circulars he has had made a big thing about more funding and improving medical care in the constituency were he lives (and that is not the one he serves in parliament for)
January 3, 2026
I’m sure he cycles all around Wokingham constituency ….after all he supported all the cycle initiatives.
Anybody ever seen him with bicycle clips on his trousers?
January 3, 2026
SIr JR, good to see you did not abuse the expenses system. However, if Mr Clive Jones is behaving within the rules. It’s the rules that need changing.
January 3, 2026
Yes but people should be aware of these facts before re electing these characters
January 3, 2026
and of course the ruling body on Wokingham Council who supported hiring the lackeys to run around ( I very much doubt any running is involved) doing ego boosting for Jones, who previously worked in the toy industry. Might explain a lot.
January 3, 2026
Let MPs bid for how much they will spend on expenses at election time. Those who vote for the winning candidate have the cost divvied up between them. Competition will force better value for money.
January 3, 2026
I suggest it is worse than you describe.
You did a very high bar but is not just one replacement MP that is failing to meet it, but two. The constituency was split in two with the predominantely Wokingham area going LibDem and the new Woodley-Earley area going to Labour.
Being in the latter constituency I can only comment on the communications and responsiveness I am seeing and in comparison to the quality, quantity and responsiveness you provided the current offering is dire.
As well as your constituency engagement you provided a fascinating and valuable insight to the what, why and how of government, this is totally lacking with the current incumbent. I emailed a request to support an EDM on a national issue and eventually received a terse computer-says-no boiler plate with other unrelated political guff, no explanation of why not, other than they are probably a party drone.
Looking at IPSA the 2024-25 staffing cost is £180k, office is £29k and travel £2.7k.
So as a constituent I am seeing a much poorer level of service from an MP with a smaller constituecy for a higher cost but the taxpayer is seeing over double the cost with two MPs and teams in place of one.
January 3, 2026
I suppose if you don’t have the brain power or energy you just hire others to do those jobs.
January 3, 2026
On New Years Day – “Pro-Palestinian activists attacked machinery and spray-painted slogans at a Scottish aerospace factory, footage shared online has shown.” Massive criminal damage can be seen.
Although it is all videoed and now online. The Police and the Government don’t know who they are, other they are not the right-wing fascist wanting democracy and to fly the nations flags. There have been no arrests
January 3, 2026
Atrocious.
The bottom line is that this MP is not up to the job if he needs so much support – but how typical is this of so many MPs? How many have been around the block a few times and how many are truly capable of standing up to being an MP without a vast array of helpers?
We really do need to get better at vetting would be MPs before inviting them into the house – in a logical world that would require MPs of character and strength, not to mention integrity, and that would eventually mean that left dressing MPs that couldn’t do the job unaided would fade away.
January 3, 2026
I can certainly confirm your office staffs rapid response to any contact that I made over the years, indeed even a courtesy follow up to make sure I was satisfied with that response.
Your replacement clearly has a different way of working and thinking to yourself, no doubt working under the guidelines suggested by others, or his Party leader.
Like many others in Parliament and elsewhere, I can only guess he does it because he can under the rules that apply at the time.
As a new MP he would have probably needed advice on how to set up his office, and the various protocols that need to be satisfied by any MP.
What if any, are the guidelines/riles for an Mp’s office and legitimate expenses, and who oversees them ?
Given the amount of paperwork all LibDems always seem to generate with regards to self promotion, and their Party, is it any wonder that costs are high.
Wokingham Council of which he was a past member, now after gaining power a few years ago, offer public consultation almost daily on virtually everything they do or suggest, then they simply ignore it it all, and do what they always wanted anyway, usually with help from expensive outside consultants, so the track record is there, in the Party’s DNA.
Reply IPSA supervises claims and requires staff to be hired on standard contracts with appropriate pay scales. The MP decides how many people to hire and what parts of the MP job they should do.
January 3, 2026
I hope that the voters of Wokingham now appreciate what they have lost by not re-electing John Redwood.
There are not many MPs who would function with such a small team, and none who delivered the same invaluable contribution to public life. If only successive Prime Ministers had taken the advice expressed in this Political Diary, including the present incumbent !
It will be interesting to see what Jones costs the public purse in his first full year in office, I suspect it will be a multiple of the modest expense claimed by Sir John, and the return will be far below what the voters of Wokingham have received for so many years. Their loss will be the Upper House and GB News’ gain.
January 3, 2026
they couldn’t re-elect. Sir John chose to step down prior to the GE.
January 3, 2026
Sir John … I fully expect, if you did the research, you would find that about 600 of the 650 MPs are as bad or worse.
We have a Parliament made up of Prize Pigs of the Animal Farm variety and that includes the House of Frauds which you will shortly be joining. I don’t doubt that you will bring the same level of integrity to that Place as you did the Commons, but you are a very rare breed.
Unfortunately, the Establishment parties generally offer the electorate candidates for Parliament who can be controlled and ongoing, unfettered access to the trough is a very strong incentive to do what the Establishment wants.
January 3, 2026
I know, he’s hopeless, doesn’t respond, doesn’t read my letters, has someone else do it for him and even then it is a place holding response. Wen he was fist elected I gave him two weeks to find an email address and got an auto response say the account was not yet in use. I did try to force him to work with various topics and issues but he is a waste of time.
We miss having proper MPs as Conservative ones were. Even when I had a Labour MP she responded herself quite soon. Theresa May went beyond her limits to get things done for us, marched into Reading Job Centre demanding they bring back the careers man – he was back in two weeks, astonished and happy to stop having to move his family up north. She got me a court of tribunal date in two weeks, delayed already for ten months until she wrote a letter quoting all the right reference codes.
I do not think the present MP for Wokingham wanted the job, and still doesn’t want the job.
January 3, 2026
To be fair, the LibDem MP which was installed in West Dorset does generally reply to my emails …. after several weeks and when the cut and paste responses have been provided by LibDem Central.
For all his manifold faults the former CONservative MP, Chris Loder, did occasionally send a response which was obviously not a cut and paste.
January 3, 2026
Resignation is always available.
January 3, 2026
Mr. Clive Jones MP’s need for 9 staff smacks of ‘jobs for the boys.’ All this extra staff would be worthwhile to his constituents and indeed the country if it then gave him the time to study CAGW, Net Zero and energy and consequently would enable him to ask DESNZ more important questions than the one he posed 08/11/2024:
“To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what data his Department holds on the number of utility companies that charge for paper copies of bills; what assessment he has made of the potential impact of this practice on customers; and whether he plans to take steps to monitor this practice.”
But of course if he understood anything about the subject of climate change and energy he could not and would not be a Lib Dem MP.
January 3, 2026
+1
January 3, 2026
Perhaps in keeping with Clive Jones’ previous experience, being an MP is a hobby for him.
In his first year he claimed to have received over 40,000 emails to deal with, yet that may be relatively low for an MP and is no indication of quality or complexity; and may include much jam and spam.
Spending inefficiently is wasteful, but some wasters might generate brilliant ideas or attract high values of trade via their efforts. As Trade Spokesman he might do so, but so far he appears simply inefficient.
Reply I would have seen 40,000 communications as a light year
January 3, 2026
What an indictment of our host’s successor. I wonder if the honest people of Wokingham would re-elect him if they had to bankroll him themselves.
Actually, isn’t it odd that MPs, whose job it is to keep a stern and jealous eye on government, should be paid by government? Talk about a conflict of interest!
In medieval times MPs were reimbursed by their constituencies. Now that’s a good idea for a real reforming government.
January 3, 2026
Back in those days they OWNED the constituencies.
January 3, 2026
What you say illustrates the difference between someone who regards the MPs job as a service to his constituents and country, and someone who appears to indulge in self aggrandisement. The difference in the cost of private offices says it all, though I see no reason why an MP should be out of pocket on things like genuine travel expenses.
Lurking at the back of it all, however, is the problem that Governments have been very reluctant to face up to seeing that MPs’ basic earnings keep pace with those in the rest of the economy. In 1938, the earliest date in the ONS’s table, the average male weekly wage was £3.50, and had increased to £940.30 in 2025, growth of 282.9 times. In 1938 an M’s salary was £600.00 and using the same measure would have increased to £169,740.00, compared with the current actual figure of £93,904.00.
I have used the male average wage figure because the ONS does not give a combined male and female figure as far back as 1938; the female average weekly wage at that time was £1.60.
January 3, 2026
The costs of your replacement Lib-Dem MP sum up the public sector in general. Far too many MPs are there for the wrong reason, mainly looking after themself! This attitude to costs runs through the entire public sector. I know two young people who got jobs in the public sector and left within a year because of their colleagues’ lazy, sloppy attitude. In both cases, that was close to 30 years ago, so it has obviously got worse.
I wonder how Ed Davy sleeps at night after his refusal to see postmasters accused of theft because of problems with the Horizon computer system. It makes you wonder just how lazy most of our MPs are. Also, who do they talk to, because most, if not all, of our Labour MPs seem blissfully ignorant of people’s feelings about them and their policies. Their mule-headed stubbornness to do anything about immigration and the cost of welfare seems to be a big V sign to voters of every party.
January 3, 2026
If we step back a bit, the truth is its not the money we pay its the return we get from it.
Its the missing link in Parliament, they all ‘love’ to spend but the bulk of them can’t rationalise as to what the point of spending other peoples money entails. Spending money because they know were to steal its replacement from is not the same as spending money to create a return that causes growth, therefore an earned reward. There is a need to understand spending is always investing in tomorrow, if every penny spent earns, it is then less money that needs to be stolen.
I personally would prefer half the number of MP’s pay them more and get the right people. Countries with 5 times the population of the UK seem to do infinity better at managing on half the number of representatives. They are even not frightened to seek confirmation through the ballot box every 2 years.
There is something horribly wrong in UK Governance in that it seems to be there to protect itself and not the country and those the serve. Its ego gone berserk
January 3, 2026
Venezuela, a democratic basket case – similar to the UK? take a look around, I might be having a tongue in the cheek moment but there are some similarities
The Venezuelan dictator took up the fight against democracy by removing those he saw as democratic threat, effectively cancelling election results and those that voiced opinions against him. .
In 2024, Edmundo González, an opposition leader, defeated Maduro in a presidential election, causing the regime to announce a rigged result and compel its opponent to go into exile in Spain
María Corina Machado, another opposition leader, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, was banned from contesting that election.
Take on board the irrational political outpourings in recent days of our own political ideological extremist, Paul Ovenden, Chris Powell and Kier Starmer they all in their way call democracy a threat. They all suggest it is the ‘far-right’ fascists that want democracy.
POTUS has today had the Venezuelan dictator removed and flown out of the Country, would he have the UK’s dictators removed – please.
Although the beef started because Venezuela is a larger outlet for drug traffickers that is causing problems of addiction in the USA, the country has the luxury of having the largest oil reserves in the World.
As a side note Kier Starmer last month banned the UK from sharing security information with the USA as a result of the USA getting tough with drug traffickers, go figure
January 3, 2026
Ian, you point out so many similarities that we ought to ask Farage to approach Trump to repeat his action in the UK. The biggest problem being who on earth could we entrust to take over….none of the PMs we ever had, and it would be contentious to identify a leader from the opposition parties!
January 3, 2026
@Mickey Taking – alas as your comments suggest you wont find any one fit for purpose in this UK Parliament, that’s probably being a bit disingenuous to perhaps the 50 out of the 650 or so that arrived in that house with the best of intentions. The change as far as those that support democracy would be concerned would entail all selections for candidates being done by constituents concerned alone. All the money for campaigns only ever coming from within the constituency itself. Then there would be a remote hope that the elected candidate would arrive in Parliament serving those that put them there.
Democracy in the UK would require the same effort as turkeys voting for Christmas
January 3, 2026
Launching a military strike on the capital of a sovereign nation is hardly the act of a peacemaker. Perhaps FIFA will ask for their trophy back?
Venezuela is neither a major producer nor primary conduit of illegal drugs entering the USA. So why has Trump done this? The obvious answer is to put in place a puppet administration and gain control of Venezuela’s oil reserves.
Reply The US tells us Venezuela has been a major source of drugs and criminal activities against America
January 3, 2026
Every MP should be supplied with the following free –
1. Two staff
2. Office in local government building fully equiped etc
3. Mobile and laptop
4. Train pass
5. Room/bed in one of the London army barracks
Reply MPs are provided with computers and free office accommodation in Westminster. They can claim standard class rail travel to and from Westminster/ constituency. They have a maximum budget for staff and office costs which is far higher than they need spend.
January 3, 2026
Comment? Superfluous, actually.