I have explained many times that this wesbite is not an official Conservative website and it does not wish to spend a lot of time on Opposition party matters. It concentrates as under the Conservatives on government policy and outcomes and encourages criticisms and proposals to make government policy better.
A few of you wish to endlessly submit the same criticisms of the past Conservative government, which I usually decline to post. This site allowed plenty of adverse comment when the Conservatives were in power. The electorate made clear their verdict. Your criticisms are now out of date as Conservative policy is changing. An election is a long way off so this is not the time to consider Opposition party draft Manifestos.
Please note that the Leader of the Opposition has apologised for excess migration and has announced new proposals to cut both legal and illegal migration further. She has announced that the net zero targets are unattainable, and has begun setting out polices to reverse the worse follies of current net zero policy. She has opposed the National Insurance, farm tax, VAT on school fees and small business tax rises. She has proposed welfare cuts, opposed the payments to Mauritius and the EU and high public sector wage awards not linked to productivity. None of this is understood in the submissions some people want to make to this site. The electorate chose the Conservatives to be the Official Opposition and they are leading Parliamentary activity against unhelpful government policies and actions.The Opposition tables amendments to government budgets and bills based on these newly defined views.
July 20, 2025
Kemi (the en/gineer) has still not said that Net Zero is an insane/suicidal goal without any merit or positives and that it should be completely abandoned. Nor that she will ditch the ECHR or put a limited on immigration numbers. But after Cameron’s immigration promise of “to the tens of thousands” (we got circa ten times this) so who would believe the Tories under Kemi?
Kemi, to be fair to her, has an almost impossible job, but she first at least needs to promise she will ditch net zero, ditch the ECHR and set a sensible level for government expenditure of well under 30% of GDP not the near 50% that Cameron, May, Boris and Sunak gave us. And most of this was wasted on mad net harm projects like HS2, Net Zero, Low skilled migrant benefits and hotels, “renewable” energy, net harm lockdowns, vast net harm Covid vaccines… Then she can set about convincing us she would actually deliver. She is not yet at first base!
Instead we get people like the dire Theresa May who gave us Net Zero and treated the voters with total and utter contempt elevated to the Lords under her leadership – she should actually be withdrawing the Whip from her. Hence the Tories are in third/fourth place level with the LibDims on 15% or 16%.
July 20, 2025
@Lifelogic +1. If she can’t say no to the ECHR and Net Zero, then it’s because she doesn’t believe in doing that, or thinks most of her MPs would kick her out if she did it. Either way, that’s not a Party that most conservative thinkers want, either as the official opposition or in office. Meanwhile it only vindicates the total lack of trust most of us have in her Party and suggests they probably aren’t sincere in many of the criticisms of government that we support.
July 20, 2025
As noted in Guido, the days of the Uniparty are over. Our democracy is a facade. Our Parliament is incompetent and a waste of time. Those who are elected to the Palace of Westminster are now just the cast of a 3rd rate pantomime, pretending for the real power behind the stage. The civil service writes the laws and answers to a higher authority. There is no clearer evidence of this than the Afghan rescue cover-up, hid by the PCP and continued under the PLP.
July 20, 2025
Either “engineer” Kemi is daft enough to think that net zero and staying in the ECHR are good ideas or she thinks they are not but her LibDim MPs will not stand for her ditching these? Neither are good positions for her to be in.
July 20, 2025
Agree, the conservative parliamentary party is still out of step with its party members and its voters ….and will remain so, while the party bosses and not the local party associations selection candidate MPs
July 20, 2025
@Lifelogic +1
July 20, 2025
Dear Lifelogic, Attractive though your suggestions are, they are fiscally and electorally unrealistic. A more subtle approach might actually work. For instance:
1) Most people want action to slow global warming but not economic self-destruction. Why not just reverse Lady May’s last throw and set the target date for Net Zero back to 2060, as vaguely adopted by China, the world’s top carbon emitter. And be virtuous by committing the public sector to Net Zero by 2050.
2) Just quitting the ECHR and the Council of Europe sounds negative. Why not , instead, just abolish the Blair Human Rights and Equality Acts and replace them with a pre-prepared Freedom from Official Oppression Bill, obliging UK courts to enforce the new UK law. People could still take cases to the ECHR but their verdicts, if deemed damaging, can be ignored as in other CoE countries.
3) Given that the NHS, debt interest and the expanded defence and security budgets alone will take more than 20 per cent of GDP, government spending could only be cut below 30 per cent by abolishing the NHS. A realistic and defensible “Medium-Term Fiscal Strategy” would be to cut total government spending below 40 per cent of GDP and keep it there, emergencies apart. It has been done before.
July 20, 2025
Electricity in the US is about 7p per KWH and in the UK more like 25p per KWH. There is no reason the UK could not have 7p too, other than than suicidal government energy policies from John Major onwards. Vast over taxation and moronic over regulation of energy. The UK has excellent fracking resources and coal can easily and very cheaply be transported.
July 20, 2025
What would 7p electricity and 2p gas per KWH do for the UK economy and UK inflation?
July 20, 2025
A very interesting article in the Daily Mail yesterday about the windfarms on the Cabrach and Glenfiddich Estates owned by Christopher Moran. Their detailed finances have recently been exposed after a court case in the Scottish courts – a quarrel about divvying up the profits between EDF and Moran. It seems that the site makes nearly half its profits from switching OFF the turbines because of the grid can’t take it’s electricity – earning EDF/Moran some £40M for doing nothing. Apparently, these subsidies now amount to some £25B a year – or in simpler terms £850pa per household on our energy bills. This should really be getting more attention than it is…
July 20, 2025
Where IS it getting attention?
July 20, 2025
Net Zero is surely a complete scam. Rather like the net harm Covid Vaccines follow the money!
July 20, 2025
Evolution is about adaptation so as to survive or the gene pool being enhanced by others dying out. It seems this Tory party would prefer to enhance to pool by dying out.
Now “Sir” Jeremy Hunt on Choppers Podcast talks about doom loop economics with Reeves (and his new book “can we be great again”) – So continuing from where tax to death net zero fan Hunt and Sunak left off.
I had to put up taxes he says – we spent £400 billion on Covid (and about the same on the insanity of net zero). Alas all this expenditure did zero good and did huge net harm – the lock downs, the net harm vaccines, HS2, Net Zero, the abolition of Non Dom status (all by Hunt)…
July 20, 2025
Germany spent far more per capita than UK on Covid. Got to put things in perspective otherwise we fall into vortex of doom and gloom that harms the economy.
No-one had a clue in the world what was going on with Covid. The Tories did not do too badly.
Sweden did good but they didn’t really know what was going on either. More luck than intelligent forsight (but still, some kudos to the Swedes for sure)
July 20, 2025
+1
July 20, 2025
“The Tories did not do too badly” nonsense had they done nothing at all, and spent nothing the outcome would have been vastly better. They borrowed and spent £ billions doing vast net harm – on lockdowns and very dangerous net harm “vaccines”! Vaccines even coerced into people with no need of them even had they been safe and effective!
July 20, 2025
If we were rubbish over Covid then so was the rest of the world, more-a-less!
You’re being over critical. I love the UK (despite all its many faults – the good things about it outweigh the bad by x 10 or something! Really). You’re so down on the UK, you sound as if you want to start a new civilisation on Mars or something!
We need more positivity as there is so much doom and gloom that things will only get worse for sure if people don’t cheer up – big time!
July 21, 2025
Lifelogic, I recall you wanting faster and priority vaccinations for men. You originally supported lockdowns and furlough, didn’t you? Weren’t you saying Boris should have locked down a week sooner than he did? he was trying to keep the kids in school and industry open until the Easter fortnight so that he could do what they thought was going to be a fortnight’s closure. Everyone can be wise with hindsight.
July 21, 2025
The Government downgraded Covid from a High Consequence Infectious Disease 5 days BEFORE the first lockdown.
The justification given was “low mortality rates” … estimated 1% and they knew it was the very elderly/frail most at risk (ie those already knocking on Heaven’s door)..
They KNEW it was not dangerous
July 21, 2025
Donna
+10
July 20, 2025
Good morning. And apologies for the long post.
Sir John. An apology to be accepted needs to be both required and sincere. And whilst an apology from the Leader of the Opposition has been made, it is considered to insincere and therefore, worthless. It is seen as almost she is saying; “I’ve apologised now, can you all just shut up, forget about it, and move on ?”
Making speeches promising that, one we are back in power we will do this, is not cutting it. Trust is all gone and we, the little people, are having to deal with the consequences of your party’s mis-management. Naturally as you so kindly provide an outlet, people will use it to let of a bit of steam and, remind both yourself and any former colleagues such as the leader of your party, that we have not forgotten and will not easily forgive despite some apology.
Our country has changed beyond all recognition and, not in a way we would have all liked without ever once consulting us formally, and certainly with regards to immigration. On the contrary, both your party and the current government seem to be working contrary to past promises and, the national interest.
The current government is only one year in its 4 – 5 year term. As we are seeing in the news recently, it is having to deal with matters created by the previous government 2 -3 years ago ! One therefore cannot, as yet, separate the two. Ie The actions or inactions of the former, do go to influence the actions of the latter, especially at the early stages. It is therefore only right and proper to examine the root cause and, in many cases, it can be seen that much of our problems come from the Blair and New Labour years the ‘reforms’ made to our constitution. Reforms that, had your party had the wit and wisdom, would have reversed.
July 20, 2025
See the excellent video – “Blair did more harm to Britain than two world wars.” David Starkey
Wit and wisdom in the Tory Party? They had JR’s excellent wisdom for 40 odd years but alas they largely did the complete reverse – this under Major, Cameron, May, Boris, Sunak… even under Thatcher with the ERM – costing the country £billions and doing vast damage to the UK and the party’s reputation!
Reply. Yesterday I shared a platform with David Starkey. He gave an excellent speech on the nature of conservatism. I spoke about how we want the rule of law but not to be ruled by international lawyers, treaties and quangos.
July 20, 2025
“not to be ruled by international lawyers, treaties and quangos”
Absolutely spot on, and that is even the half of it. Many complain about the hotel bills. I wonder about the bill for the armies of human rights lawyers.
Please, please don’t tell me that the majority are paid by legal aid! We all know how reasonable lawyers’ fees are…
July 20, 2025
Thanks, will this e available, I cannot see it online yet?
When Sunak threw the towel in six months early for his mad & suicidal general election I was amazed he could be so foolish and selfish. So was this decision related to the fact that he was it seems told the day before that the Afghan super injunction was to be lifted by the court (this was later reversed on appeal but he did not know that it would be at the time)?
July 20, 2025
I’m no fan of Blair but Starkey talking guff here to get headlines.
July 20, 2025
Not at all listen again!
July 20, 2025
Yesterday’s speeches by JR and David Starkey were very good, shame you werent there, you would have enjoyed them.
July 20, 2025
Where was this?
July 21, 2025
Do you have a link to a video of the meeting?
July 20, 2025
Mark B
Exactly, we have had 3 decades of political mismanagement, where the traditional ethics of work, saving, investment, and self sufficientcy of family life attitudes have been absolutely trashed and changed, with a plethora of Government knows best policies on taxation, subsidies, benefits, with the State taking ever more control of our lives in almost every way, which has produced immensely worse results all round.
The present Government is now repeating and enhancing those mistakes with more of the same policies of control and supposedly re-distribution, which will fail everyone in the end.
Meanwhile all those who are sucking at the Governments teat, seem to be doing OK, whilst those who have created such wealth are either giving up or leaving.
The future certainly looks bleak at the moment.
July 20, 2025
A doom loop 3+ more year at least to go of this economic suicide!
July 21, 2025
Wages are going to have to go sky high, Alan.
People often forget that when men were the main breadwinners, they were often working all hours (often over 48 hours and some 60+ hours), six days a week (well, the working classes, anyway). The TUC analysis said, “people working excessive hours have risen by 15% since 2010, 3,417,000 people” in 2015, and this had come down; they said it affected 4 million in 2003. The average hours in 2025 are 36.5 hours, and they aim to reduce this, but want pay to grow as if working 60 hours per week, just as the doctors did after their hours were significantly cut from 2008, to the point where they seek pay parity.
Only 8% of people were getting degrees and graduate jobs. We’ve invested in a large number of advanced learning initiatives since the 1990s. From what I read, those generations are miserable. Up to their necks in student and maintenance loans, there is no end in sight of paying off, now extended from 30 years to 40 years. They can’t secure jobs in their field of study, causing further upset as they were misled about the availability of jobs for all.
If the minimum wage for a full-time job from age 21 (Labour want to bring that down to 18) is £24000, how much should a graduate expect after two years of college and three or four years of university to start on?
July 20, 2025
@ Mark B Some things are not easily forgotten or forgiven. The betrayal of Conservative government cuts deep.
July 20, 2025
@Mark B +1
July 20, 2025
We hear you john on how Badenough is opposed to some policies especially net stupid and immigration
The problem is we’ve heard it all before. Year on year promising to cutt immigration and actually increasing it. Treacherous May putting net stupid into law instead of abolishing the CCA.
Nobody believes a word she says because the party is infested with wet limp dumbs and traitors.
Johnredwoodsdiary.com
The uniparty has to be roundly defeated to give us any chance of recovering our country
I see the government or police are now shipping in counter demonstrators mysteriously all carrying the same placards at the asylum hotels.
No such action is allowed at the weekly pro Gaza demos. Two tier or what….
July 20, 2025
Have you done something really noble and heroic to judge others to be wimps?!
We’re ALL wimps (in similar and different ways). Calling others ‘wimps’ is divisive and achieves nothing except to project onto others / virtue signal.
July 22, 2025
I would examine the money flows. Surely that could be viewed as domestic terrorism to intentionally cause disruption. Were these protestors genuine ? or do we have something more dangerous.
July 20, 2025
Methinks he doth protest too much?
July 20, 2025
Good Morning,
The madness of the Labour Party in parliament is all to obvious. It’s too easy to find fault. The Conservative Parliamentary Party should therefore be riding high in the polls and having a renaissance of political fortune. But they are not. My view of the reason why this is so is they keep promoting inexperienced members to senior positions. There are a number of promising ministers, but they should be in apprenticeship to someone who knows the trade.
July 20, 2025
@Peter Wood – ‘Conservative Parliamentary Party should therefore be riding high in the polls and having a renaissance of political fortune’ But they chose continuity over renewal, they chose those that had a hand in to-days mess, they chose those that had the collective responsibility for it. The chose not to move forward.
The gut feeling is the last thing they want is a Conservative Party, a party with Conservative policies and principles
I agree if we ‘had’ a Conservative Party it would be riding high in the polls, but we don’t. This doom loop of continued WEF Socialism is regressive
July 20, 2025
We all know Labour is cr-p. People who bang on about Labour are wasting everyone’s time. Instead, yes, we should be challenging Tories to be doing better in polls. And more importantly come up with some revolutionary ideas – that are pragmatic too – to change the country. Nothing close to that is happening.
So we should be focusing on how to challenge the Tories and Reform (and forget about Labour and Libs – just hoping they don’t do too much damage but not a huge amount we can do compared to trying to challenge Tories and Reform to do better!).
July 20, 2025
Going on about how cr-p Labour is like Airbus going on about how cr-p Boeing are (in fact, Boeing aren’t cr-p – although Labour is) instead of focusing on how to make better planes than Boeing!
It makes no pragmatic sense for people to bang on about how rubbish Labour are. We all know!
July 21, 2025
Talking about Airbus, it’s a joy to read about the success of Sir Timothy Clark of Emirates who has brought great success to Emirates and to the A380 (although Airbus lost a lot over this plane). We need to celebrate British leaders such as Sir Tim (and how UK engineers, in particular from Filton, Broughton, and Stevenage, have contributed a lot to the recent success of Airbus overall and the positive impact on related jobs too and the economy).
July 20, 2025
Until Kemi at least says she promises to ditch the ECHR her promise is surely insincere (she must all ditch net zero). Even then will she be trusted given her party’s appalling record?
July 20, 2025
@Lifelogic – that would be the same as suggesting that the UK’s Legislators are the only legitimate ones, to make our Laws, Amend them or Repeal them through democratic choice. We would have to become a Sovereign Democracy to permit legitimate governance.
The MP’s & Lords have by their actions said they are not fit for purpose, not capable to do their job, and control by the unelected unaccountable elsewhere is what they want.
? how come the ECHR as it practised in the UK refuses the ‘human right’ of the nation above all others.
July 20, 2025
+1
July 20, 2025
Sir John,
I hope Kemi can turn the party around.
I think Kemi comes across well. She seems to be more Conservative than many PCP members appear of late. I think she is well spoken and I would like to trust her.
Perhaps I am mistaken, but I seem to remember that every party since 1997 has said in their manifesto, that they would take control of immigration.
July 20, 2025
I liked Kemi up until she attended the WEF Davos get-together. Now I don’t trust her and never will.
July 20, 2025
+1
July 20, 2025
Both Labour and Conservatives are mistrusted because both say one thing, in their election manifestos, and do something else when in office. More and more voters are coming to this conclusion. The public finances are in an utter mess. Neither party has offered convincing policies to clean it up. The Conservatives were responsible for setting up the OBR. This has been turned into a vehicle to kick the problem can five years down the road when the Chancellor kicking the can knows full well he or she will not be around to answer for his or her misjudgements. The sooner Chancellors are obliged to focus on the government’s ability to finance itself in the immediate year ahead the better. This will help focus attention on the measures needed to bring public spending under control and reduce the national debt to a sustainable level.
July 20, 2025
Stop banging on about Labour. We know they’re cr-p. To bang on about them is a distraction to challenging the Tories to do much better!
July 20, 2025
No. Same people in place. They’re insincere people, in it for the position rather than to do good for the most part.
Just look at the debacle which it is claimed led to the panic election day call.
This isn’t what’s needed.
July 20, 2025
Until the Party grandees and senior Civil service figures are ousted nothing will change.
July 20, 2025
The conservative brand as practised since Blair is dead. Whatever and however sincerely espouse by its current leader, her words are not credible, against its time in power. Circa 60% of those flying under its flag in Parliament are consicialists. Conservatisms recent past is the direct cause of the default and utterly incompetent labour givernment we suffer. They have much to answer for before coming to market with a new brand of snake oil. Conservative thinking within the electorate has moved on, and incidentally has found a wider audience and a new battle flag to fly under. For someone who opposed conservative behaviour from within the party, as vigourously as you did, I find it surprising that you wish to avoid acknowledgment of this wind of change
July 20, 2025
Indeed and yet again we see the same old comments from people living in an allegedly golden past with zero understanding of political realities.
One day we will get some viable solutions rather than endless lists of personal annoyances. Sir JR suggests things are moving forward but it seems they are having to be forced out in response to the success of Farage rather than a believable ‘mea culpa’ and still the centrists in denial about the direction politics is going in this country and wider afield.
July 20, 2025
N,
‘ Indeed and yet again we see the same old comments ..’
Then it becomes a whinge fest.
However, there does not seem to be much in the way of a credible, alternative solution that could address these complaints in the near future.
Suggestions as to what should be done are falling on deaf ears.
Some believe Farage and Reform will eventually save the day. Whether they will gain power, or what they would do if they did, remains to be seen.
July 20, 2025
Both the Government and the Official Opposition are delivering UN Agenda 21 and UN Agenda 2030.
All they are proposing are slightly different ways and timescales of achieving the UN Objectives which are set out and which the British people had no say in implementing.
The reason we are being flooded with immigrants from the 3rd world, including the thousands of Afghans who have no right to be here, is set out here.
https://migrationnetwork.un.org/statements/investing-impact-power-remittances-sdgs
Poor immigrants, who generally require welfare to survive in the west, are imported. They will, where possible, find low-wage work and will receive welfare. They then send money “back home” to their families/communities …. thus sucking wealth out of our economy.
That is why mass immigration won’t be stopped. It is UN Policy, which is being implemented by both Labour and the Not-a-Conservative-Party.
July 20, 2025
Given the immigration numbers over the last few years, one would have thought the jobs they have been brought in to do (care home, hospitality) would have been filled several times over. Why are these existing immigrants not sufficient for today such that the policy of high immigration needs to be continued? Is it because they move on from the job they came here for to something better and leave a vacancy for a new immigrant?
Reply Yes, many people came in on a work visa to take a job in care, only to move on to other jobs. Far too many jobs were alleged to be skills in short supply and eligible for visas. I and some others argued endlessly with Ministers to make big reductions in the list of qualifying jobs and to make the schemes temporary. The best success we had was getting government and business to train people here to be drivers when on line delivery boomed.
July 20, 2025
“many people came in on a work visa to take a job in care, only to move on to other jobs”
How was that allowed to happen?! If a visa is given for care workers, if they leave care work then surely that is the end of the visa?
Unbelievable!!
July 20, 2025
G
Who is keeping records, who is checking, who is enforcing.
Many people overstay for decades, why not a simple visa link to use of NHS or an HMRC account, driving licence prosecution, police/crime prosecution etc etc.
Governments have given themselves huge powers to investigate/monitor the honest people, but the illegals because that is what they are if they overstay, seem to be ignored.
July 21, 2025
Agreed. Biometric ID is surely an option? Unpopular with some.
Who is checking? Who is keeping records? Total loss of control I fear…
July 20, 2025
Same with student on completion of their course ….they’re allowed to stay and look for a job ? Madness idea, they should return home and apply for any UK job there
July 20, 2025
@Donna. Thanks for the link to the UN document. Astonishing that one line of reasoning for the import of all these immigrants is:
“For migrant women on both sides of the remittance corridor, this means reducing and removing underlying barriers to mobile phone ownership and internet access, including improving access to financial literacy, so that they can avail themselves of more remittance sending options.”
We watch our country ruined for this sort of thing?
July 20, 2025
Is that the reason why ever illegal immigrant is given free a mobile phone and free internet access upon arrival in the UK ?
July 21, 2025
Probably. And also whilst a blind eye is turned the obvious illegal working in fast food delivery companies; the thousands of “Turkish” Barbers; nail bars; car washes etc
July 20, 2025
As ordered by 2TK’s best mate, human rights lawyer and Attorney General, Lord Hermer. Civil servants must follow international laws and if they don’t, inform my office.
July 20, 2025
When in opposition and four years from a General election, the opposition can promise anything. It’s what happens when elected that counts.
The sad truth is the Labour/Conservative uniparty let us all down time after time, hence the rise of Reform.
When the next GE comes around it looks, right now, that Reform would win, but it’s a long time in politics and are Reform actually ready and capable of running a Government? Who knows !
As every year passes I become more despondant with what has happened to Britain. Having been born in the Fifties, I remember a largely happy country with a unified population, following our part in freeing Europe from tyranny.
Now I see a fractured and divided society that has had huge demoghraphic change forced onto it by succesive idiot Governments. This is no longer the Britain I grew up in. It has become a collection of nationalities/creeds/religions and races that live apart on the same island. We have been betrayed over and over again.
Reply In many cases as with stopping the boats the Conservative Ministers tried hard to do so but were unable to get the official government and courts to support. It will be interesting to see how well Reform get on cutting wasteful budgets in local government.There is plenty of scope and they have promised to do this.
July 20, 2025
I don’t think Reform will be capable of running a government. They spend too much time criticising the Establishment, and they don’t realise they will need that same Establishment when they come to power. If their rhetoric was more of the nature that they will respect senior members of the civil service but be firm in their objectives that would help. – Take a leaf out of the John Redwood book.
July 20, 2025
You ‘remember a largely happy country with a unified population’..
Well I don’t, born in the 40s, I grew up witnessing discussion on Churchill being kicked out, then Macmillan tells a Conservative rally “we have never had it so good” but calls on pay restraint to combat inflation.!
Wilson governments struggling to have a majority, Heath taking over with attempts to weaken union power which failed, and when their pay demands were not met, they went out on strike. Particularly crippling were the miners’ strikes of 1972 and 1974, the second of which led to the 3-day week, when electricity was limited to 3 consecutive days’ use. Wilson therefore got in again, the Winter of Discontent, and appointed Healey who needed loans from the IMF. Finally the Conservatives got it right and Margaret sorted things out. Unfortunately success brought the rise of immigrants and it never abated.
So, sorry but I content you have got a dodgy memory, or had the benefit of a protected comfortable existance.
July 20, 2025
You missed the point. I was referring to our national identity. Being born in 1952 you could hardly expect me to be politically aware much befor the mid-sixties.
I’m not too sure about the “protected comfortable existance” bit. By the time I was ten, my father had been forced to quit work and live on meagre benefits, due to Parkinsons disease. Which eventually ended his life at 60 (I was, by then 20 years old)
But hey you go ahead and denigrate me and my family.
July 20, 2025
I certainly didn’t intend to offend, for which I am very sorry. Questioning your memory about eras when happy, or not is quite different from you reading my remarks as insulting.
I will say more, the widespread public feeling year by year is that society and the Government of the day is failing in basic moral values.
July 20, 2025
The problem is that politicians of all parties have forfeited public trust. Most seem to be actively working against the interests of those whom they purport to represent. Parliamentary democracy has no meaning as politicians ignore the concerns of their constituents. We live in bleak and dangerous times.
Reply Trust is low. Some Ministers impose bad policies. Others prove unable to get government to do what they and the public want them to do.
July 20, 2025
I do not understand your reply. Do you mean that some ministers are unable to get policies voted through by parliament – i.e. ‘government’ in general? In what sense then are some Ministers able to impose policies?
July 20, 2025
Sir John
The only reason to criticises the previous regime or for that matter all that have ruled this century. Is that you open the door inferring today’s situation is new and only due to the crowd now in office. And, putting context to the overall situation can’t properly be done without showing responsibility
Simple ones NetZero, High energy costs, 70 year high of massive taxes and borrowing, the new crowd are keeping up the fight with people just as all the previous version did.
Uncontrolled expenditure, failure to mange said expenditure. The creation of the always wrong ONS & OBR are not of this crowds making. Yes they could have changed things, but refuse. Just as the other crowd. Instead they just do the same with more zeal because they are short of their own ideas.
July 20, 2025
We’re supposed to believe that a Senior Minister in the last Government, who actively lobbied to increase the number of foreign students allowed into the UK and allow them to bring unlimited numbers of dependants with them, is now terribly sorry about the level of mass immigration the Government in which she served imposed on the British people ….. having “promised” to reduce it.
And we’re all supposed to accept that it was all just a silly mistake. Just like we’re supposed to accept that the Afghan cock-up, cover-up, stitch-up was a mistake.
I’ve got a bridge for sale … going cheap. Any takers?
July 23, 2025
How many other similar super injunctions are out there of public interest? Our MP’s need to start making them public in the House. They really have nothing to lose trust wise. HMG may then actually get in the habit of releasing inconvenient relevant facts and answers.
Reform should also do this where they believe it is right.
Elections are a farce when things such like this are manipulated.
July 20, 2025
The problem with the Conservatives is they are a coalition of MPs with wildly opposing views. Take the ECHR: Labour and the LibDems want to stay in and Reform want to leave. But the Conservatives ? Some want to stay in, some want to leave, some don’t know. If the leader at any one time wants to leave they may be replaced at any time by one who wants to stay in. Add to that the fact their manifesto promises have been shown to be worthless (eg on immigration) and voters simply don’t know what they would be voting for.
July 20, 2025
I am not sure, Sir John, you appreciate the amount of bitterness there is towards the Conservative party because of the damage it did to the country.
At the moment I cannot they how it can recover.
July 20, 2025
Too true …the people are ignored
July 20, 2025
The Leader of the Opposition hasn’t committed to leaving the ECHRs and ‘all’ EU treaties, nor disbanding the OBR and CCC ….until then the party is lost
July 20, 2025
In other news the BBC are reporting that the first act of the Great British Energy was to fund the supply of chinese made salor panels
July 20, 2025
If you don’t study history and analyse the mistakes made by politicians, then you are doomed to repeat the same flawed decisions.
It is because of the Major, Blair, Cameron, May, Johnson, Sunak, and the Starmer governments that our country is in the mess it is now in. None of them have learned the lessons from their predecessors and blindly continued on the destructive path we are now on. I think we have gone beyond the point of saving our country. We have imported far too many people who don’t and never will share our values and culture. I agree with others here who blame the Globalist agenda. It was all done by design. Why – I will never understand.
July 20, 2025
Whilst the Starmer government makes for a very easy target, the official Leader of the Opposition is hindered by the government’s large majority, the record of the last government and by circa two thirds of her MPs really being Liberal Democrats in spirit and willing to oust her if she offends them. You though are not similarly hindered and for that and other reasons are doing a much better job.
July 20, 2025
+Reform council leader urges Starmer to increase economic migration, I think that was Maidstone council this year.
When voting for a party you must remenber that all parties have a left wing a right wing and a centre. it up to voter to do due diligent on all people put befoe them by parties, as for independent people they are much easier to deal with and remove from office as the people in the area are there party and are more likely to follow what the people in that area wants.
I dont think it matter much now with Europe tearing it self apart with net zero and world war at the same time, waste of money is at a all time high to keep inflation going for more GDP so they can borrow more, I do not know how war is a friend of net zero can anybody tell me.
July 20, 2025
The problem is…nobody believes the Conservatives!
Trick me once, shame on you…trick me twice, shame on me.
July 20, 2025
Conservative Party policy has evolved to be one of cakeism. Kemi may say that DESNZ has no “credible” plan to get to net zero by 2050, or that “net zero by 2050 is impossible and cannot be achieved without a significant drop in our living standards or worse, by bankrupting us”. But has she said that net zero by 2050 is unnecessary, plain wrong and that this target should be abandoned? No, instead she says the Party will “come up with achievable solutions”. The Conservative Environmental Group (CEN) are still pushing for net zero by 2050 and the party still contains members such as Baroness May who legislated net zero by 2050 without a proper debate, without a costing and without a vote and Boris Johnson who announced to the World at the UN, “we were the first to send the great puffs of acrid smoke to the heavens on a scale to derange the natural order”. Cakeism is also the policy for mass immigration where although there is yet again another promise to reduce the ‘Boris wave’ of mass immigration there is still no definitive policy to curb or leave the ECHR and no commitment to any net immigration figure. The problem for the Party is that unless Kemi removes the whip from Baroness May, Boris Johnson and many others, such as the Conservative MP for North Dorset who agrees with DESNZ that there should be legislation to ensure that the maximum amount from pension funds can be invested in green energy projects, the voters will feel there has really been no change of policies. Not a surprise of course as it is the Civil Service and the judiciary who are in control and making the decisions.
July 20, 2025
How to evolve the Conservative party? Depends what you are trying to achieve. Getting into power – just sit and wait, sooner or later you get the job, ready or not, useful ideas or not.
The real problem is you play at politics, you hire from a political pool. The skill set goes back to Ancient Greece and Rome. Backstabbing, lying, doing favours and greasing palms are the required skills. The failure of Cameron, May, Johnson was written all over them. Sunak looked better but did not take a sharp enough axe to his cabinet.
But what to choose? As Elon Musk has belatedly found, business looks like politics but it isn’t politics.
May I suggest less politics, less slime, less mealy mouthedness. Tell us clearly what a man or woman is and what lavatories they can use. Sack the quibblers. Provide us with costed plans with spreadsheets and dismiss those who deviate, no big payoffs, just a reference that says ‘failure’. Have a Blood Scandal – sack the boss, pay up and keep the lawyers poor.
A more fundamental problem is the economy. All your clever economists have not found a use for masses of ordinary people. Instead they have presided over the ensh**tifation of work and an ongoing decline in income. Kick their backsides and if we have to go back to making tin trays on coal forges so be it – but with house prices to match.
July 20, 2025
I understand that Kemi, for whom I voted, is trying to reinvent Conservative policy for the long term. I think her heart/mind is in the right place but she is up against two factors: the closet Lib Dems in her parliamentary party and the short-term social media cycle that rewards instant comment. I think leadership will overcome the former problem, but the febrile state of political opinion and the disillusionment with politicians can be toxic, unless you are seen to engage actively with the issues and provide a vision of recovery.
July 20, 2025
I don’t doubt Conservative policy is changing. What is not changing is the crypto-leftism of many (?most) of its MPs, who stuck their legs out to trip up their unwanted leaders Johnson and Truss, crowned leaders who should never have been even a Conservative MP (Cameron, May & Sunak) and have subscribed to all the globalist gobbledygook that impoverishes their constituents but leaves themselves sitting very pretty indeed, with their taxpayer-funded salaries exes and pensions.
Yes, announced Conservative Party policy is changing to meet the next election. But what are the true intentions of those Conservative MPs who will sit in the HoC and campaign secretly but solidly against the ‘policy’ of its leader – as they did in 2019 and 2020? They forget we can see them on tv.
July 20, 2025
It is certainly World Bank policy to increase remittance flows. Their official data for flows from the UK can be found here
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BM.TRF.PWKR.CD.DT?locations=GB
It shows a rapid upsurge after the Blair government came to power, which turns into a plateau of $10-12bn after the financial crisis. That seems highly improbable in the light of inflation and rising numbers of immigrant populations. Rather, we should look to changes in Pink Book definitions and data collection methodologies. It is likely that significant sums are being remitted via personal export of high value items while on holiday (jewellery, gold) and also through crypto platforms that bypass the official money system. I would estimate that the real numbers are at least one black hole (£22bn), if not two.
Then there is all the money flowing out as interest on foreign loans, and profits and dividends on foreign shareholding.
July 20, 2025
Thank you. Nicely found 🙂
July 20, 2025
Its not so much the Conservative party I have a problem with, its the whole of the ruling classes in the UK, the “top” 30% of the public sector, the public school mates who hire each other into senior roles in all sectors, the massive public sector contracts handed over to big service companies because the decision makers on both sides were in the same part of the military before they moved into the civil service or one of the big contractors, the liberal elite who select each other as candidates for elections for all the main parties, the complete and utter lack of meritocracy, the endless echos of “far right” against the decent majority. the country is now in dangerous times. the total headcount of the police & military, even without excluding those there due to DEI only, is not even a small faction of the headcount of the enemy within this country now that actively hate this country, its people, & everything it ever stood for. we are heading for civil war, and we are fiddling while Rome burns. this is a far bigger problem than you are acknowledging John.
We need a complete reset, and NONE of the parties have got a coherent set of honest policies, or politicians to support them, to fix it.
July 20, 2025
I was not greatly encouraged by the first appearance of new Conservative policy on housebuilding. Firstly, the target is 300,000 homes a year – a figure that implies ongoing very high levels of inward migration. Homes are to be crammed in without proper light in order to try to improve profitability for builders and planning objections to be overridden. Nothing about adjusting building standards to make homes more genuinely affordable to build, rather than net zero hovels that no-one will want. A policy as destined for failure as Rayner’s.
https://order-order.com/2025/07/16/tories-promise-housing-policy-by-conference-as-conservative-yimbys-tell-kemi-be-brave/
July 20, 2025
Noted but how much of the Conservative Party is behind Kemi Badenoch because of shared beliefs rather than party loyalty? The Conservative Party brand is toxic. It will take more than Kemi Badenoch, however good she may be, to change that.
July 20, 2025
It is interesting and refreshing to follow the evolution of Conservative Party policy. I would very much like to see the party steal Reform’s promise to restore (in real times) the personal tax free allowance and higher rate threshold. Now that would really show support for working people on low and moderate incomes. If it then means the equivalent of fiscal drag (no inflation index linking) of welfare benefits for the economically inactive then that would dramatically contrast with Labour’s priorities.
July 20, 2025
Dear Sir John,
As a non-partisan, who is desperate for a viable alternative to Labour at the next general election, I am saddened at the destructive Yah-boo personal attacks that currently dominate “debate” between the Conservative & Unionist and Reform UK parties. What we need from both is serious policy development, in a rivalry that could actually lead to popular and constructive programmes evolving.
The last election tells us little about the next. A year ago, the overriding concern for millions of us was that the Conservative government had to end rather than who should replace it. Many found themselves voting for parties they disliked just as much or more, purely on the basis of who had the best chance of defeating the Conservative incumbent. ReformUK leads most current opinion polls but with fewer than the 33 per cent won by Labour last year, which would normally not be enough for an overall majority. Nothing like the golden days of the SDP.
Next time Conservatives are unlikely to win many seats in the old industrial North, Scotland or Wales, Reform few in London, the main provincial cities or the unrepentant Remainer South. The most realistic right-of Labour alternative is a Reform/Conservative coalition. Of course they should try to beat each other now, but
also recognise that in three years time they may need some more or less informal Unionist alliance. That would surely prove impossible if they genuinely hate each other more than anyone else. .
July 20, 2025
153 criminals were illicitly transported, into the UK yesterday on the 19th July from France……
July 20, 2025
When these criminals are given lifejackets by and escorted to mid Channel by the French navy why should our Border Force need accept the instruction from the French navy to come and collect them when they are clearly in perfectly safe hands and in no danger of drowing? The French navy aren’t going to abandon them in mid Channel are they?
July 20, 2025
watching multiple live feeds from Epping
completely unfiltered by the main stream media
I dont think the ruling class have the 1st idea what they are doing
Essex police are obviously completely out of control & worse than useless
this is not a democracy
it scares me, but things looks inevitable
it staggers me what the politicians are saying, they clearly have no idea what they are dealing with
normal ordinary people… have told the ruling class repeatedly… have been ignored… called “far right”… and locked up for trivia
suggest more people watch reality first hand live
July 20, 2025
the crowd just told the Telegraph journalists to f off
main stream media completely unwelcome for telling lies
July 20, 2025
Spot on Iain
July 20, 2025
I have voted Conservative most of my life. After the party’s last attempt to lead us to a healthy economy and safe society failed so poorly, with the leader running for cover I now despair of what the future holds. But my concern is more about what chance any government has of implementing constructive change.
Yes Minister probably best highlights my worries. Almost all elected ministers, of any persuasion, takes guidance from information given to them by civil servants. If that information is selectively given than decisions cannot be made based on reality, and very, very few of our ministers have useful experience based on their previous work. And the civil servants are not selected or measured on productivity or innovation.
If only a new government could select senior personnel to oversee the civil service with the power to ensure the civil servants did their job in support of the governments goals.
July 21, 2025
another flipping ombudsman, this time for water, is not going to help anyone. the existing ombudsman are all terrible quality, the Financial Services ombudsman especially are kids just out of school throwing dice to make decisions. the ruling class are so predictable. the great ship UK is in choppy waters and heading over the waterfall.
i dispair.
July 21, 2025
For goodness sake there are four years before the next election.Engineers don’t announce things until they have everything right.Her views are closely aligned with the ones mentioned. Wait until she has all the anglesworked out.
July 21, 2025
Sounds like the promises the labour party and then abandone all their promises after getting elected are we seeing history repeating itself but under the name of conservatives?