Instead of wasting time and money going round their areas taking down Union and England flags, Councils should respond to the public mood. They all must own a few Union and England flags, so run them up the Town Hall flag poles. Show us you want to be on our side. Stop complaining about law abiding tax paying people who pay the Council wages and who are proud of our country.
Category: Uncategorized
The case for conservatism
Quintin Hogg’s Case for Conservatism
80 years ago a fellow of All Souls College and a Conservative MP set out to write the case for Conservatism. His book is long and complex, combining a short piece on Conservative philosophy with a longer section on Conservative ideas. It is followed by a third section with an attack upon socialism and a fourth supplies an agenda for the defeated Conservatives in 1947. The book provides some brilliant phrases and insights into conservatism. It mixes these with personal experiences, a wish to draw on sweeping notions of history and to quote from Disraeli, Mill and others. Penguin the publishers state in the front of the book that he wrote a much longer work than they commissioned and he declined to shorten it.
It is sometimes contradictory, as when defending some Labour nationalisations in the Ideas section but offering a rough tough critique of nationalisation in his demolition of the socialist case. The book sees conservatism through the eyes of an English Conservative party supporter, not considering conservatism abroad . It was much locked into the debates and circumstance of post war UK. It was a statement from Conservative defeat, a plea for the Opposition to the new government to be heard and pointers to the changes that would need to be made as the Conservative party adapted to the new post war circumstances. He rightly saw that the problems of the 1950s would be creating enough investment and business capacity to meet demand and handling the new prosperity on offer, not still trying to overcome the poverty and depression of the 1930s.
Quintin Hogg captures the essence of conservatism in both defending the collective inheritance and seeking change through freedoms and free enterprise. I met him in 1972 when first elected to All Souls. We disagreed about the Heath government he served in. He was unhappy with my opposition to the wage and price controls they introduced. He disapproved of my scepticism about joining the European Community. It was an irony that his own words condemning governments that cease to be accountable for new laws and taxes came to apply to the EU membership which he supported.
He made a good case for limited and accountable government. He saw the importance of the role of Opposition in Parliament and the need for a government with a large Parliamentary majority to listen to what others were saying. He opposed the tyranny of the majority and the tyranny of too much law and bureaucracy. He saw fascism and communism are similarly dangerous creeds based on exploiting state power and controlling or harming the people they governed.
It is time to update the case for conservatism.
Dreadful figures for illegal migrants
So instead of smashing more gangs, Labour in its first year smashed fewer than the previous government. Instead of cutting numbers of illegal migrants, they broke the Tony Blair all time record for new arrivals.
They have been processing asylum applications faster, with half being granted permission to stay. They have created a bigger queue of appeals as lawyers think they have made bad decisions. Half of those rejected then get permission based on a court overturning the original decision. With a 3 in 4 chance of an illegal migrant ending up with the right to stay no wonder they keep on coming. The availability of a hotel or flat, benefits and other gifts add to the allure of the UK for the migrant.
The government behaves as if it does not have a huge majority. It could at any time require Parliament to meet to change the law to stop this abuse. Even a Labour MP is now calling for overturning international laws used to stop us controlling our borders. The government could take up the Conservative draft legislation which Labour recently voted down when the Conservatives put it to Parliament.
This is a national crisis. We cannot afford £5 bn a year on asylum seeker costs. We want our hotels back for their proper use. We need Cabinet and Parliament back next week to say Enough is Enough and to act to smash the gangs as promised.
Why did the government refuse the recent addition to our law, the measure to say an illegal arrival cannot then claim asylum? Why repeal the use of a safe country for deportations? Why not instruct our authorities to interview all illegal arrivals under caution to find out who they paid for their trip, who drove the boat, how they out about the service, which bank accounts were used etc? Why not do more mystery shopping to find the gangs?
Taxing property
I have read some really bad ideas in recent days of what Rachel Reeves could do to help fill in the big black hole she has dug.
The latest is to levy CGT on homes sold for more than £1.5 m. That rumour is a good way to get some more well off people to leave the country before the next budget, taking the money from selling their home before the tax. We already have far too many wealthy and high income people leaving, hitting future tax revenues.
Such CGT would also lead many people to stay in their larger homes and adapt them to old age rather than paying the tax when they downsize. Any extra CGT would be in part offset by less Stamp Duty and less business and income tax as the volume of house transactions fell off.
There is the idea of cancelling Stamp Duty and imposing an annual levy on the buyer of the house, indexed to inflation. This would lead to a big loss of revenue in the early years as the government would lose all Stamp Duty on buying a home and levy only a fraction of the duty each year on the new owner . I cant see the Treasury buying that. The original proposal was based on not raising more revenue overall even over the longer term.
There is the idea of higher Council tax. Angela Rayner is pressing ahead with taking more grant away from areas with dearer properties to give more to poorer areas anyway. This amounts to another tax rise on more prosperous families and areas.There are limits to how much Council Tax people can and will pay.
There is then the idea of introducing new bands for more expensive properties to levy a higher rate. It would be difficult to do that without a general revaluation as establishing modern values for some dearer properties would invite challenges about other properties whose historic Council Tax valuations have been shifted by markets since I introduced the tax as Local Government Minister. At the very best all existing higher band properties would need valuing to decide which to promote to the new dearer bands.
All previous governments, Labour, Coalition and Conservative vetoed ideas of a revaluation as being very disruptive and unpopular. Will this government go to war again with people who have worked hard, aspired, and bought themselves a decent house? Will this government want to hike Council tax enough to force low income pensioners to sell up a home that has gone up in value since they bought it? A lot of people are house rich and income poor. It should not be a crime.
Excellent judgement on Epping hotel
The government which has a passion to submit to harmful international court opinions is surprisingly angry with an actual judgement from a UK court. This contradictory approach is even more bizarre when the court is seeking to accelerate the government’s own stated policy of ending use of hotels as migrant hostels. Can anyone explain this as it seems to mean the government wants to be on the unpopular side all the time?
Managing debt interest
The protests against migrant hotels carry on
Many have had enough of government failure to control our borders. The protesters and the millions who agree with them are not racists. They are not against migrants because of their race, creed or colour. They are against criminals.They are against anyone who breaks the law to get into our generous country wherever they come from.
The people who come on boats are often breaking several laws
1. It is against the law to seek illegal entry
2. It is against the law to pay money to a criminal gang to bring them to the UK. They are financing the crimes of the gang which probably include money laundering, tax dodging, other illicit trading.
3. They knowingly get on a dangerous unlicensed boat. Those who do bring children are putting the child’s life at risk.
4. They may take up illegal work when they have been told they should not.
5 As soon as they work they are tax dodging and become benefit cheats.
As far as many protesters are concerned some young male illegal migrants are trying to jump housing queues and extract benefits and public service support on false pretences. The public wants the Uk authorities to know who anyone is, where they came from and if they have a criminal record before accepting them.
Many communities resent the priority given to housing and paying them.At a time when UK citizens are put on long waiting lists for social housing and have to play by the rules to get benefits there is resentment at how the normal rules do not apply to these illegal arrivals
The West needs more than moral indignation in Ukraine
I agree with many western politicians that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was wrong. I agree Russia compounded the outrage by persistent attacks on civilians and on unacceptable targets like hospitals, nuclear power stations and blocks of flats.
The western politicians who say they do not want a compromise peace now want Ukraine to fight on. Doing so without the EU is very unlikely to lead to an unconditional Russian surrender or all Russian forces leaving Ukraine. Ukraine has done a brave job restraining more powerful forces for 3 years but lacks the resource to evict the Russians. The only way for European politicians to right the moral outrage they condemn would be Russian surrender and the replacement of Putin as Russian leader. I do not see Europe having a combination of the forces and resolve to force this.
NATO could defeat Russia, but only at considerable cost and by taking a large risk. I support the many politicians, led by President Biden and now President Trump, who have kept NATO military forces out of the conflict. Russia would not decide to keep the war narrowly focussed on long suffering Ukraine. People,
More war in Ukraine
I have been a strong supporter of the present and previous government policy that the UK should not declare war on Russia or be dragged into the war in Ukraine. I have supported NATO making it clear it will not send troops or fire weapons into Ukraine or Russia and will not let Ukraine join NATO all the time it is in dispute with or at war with Russia.
Because I do not wish to see UK lives at risk over this conflict I have not presumed to add my voice to those telling the combatants what to do.Like most people in the West I condemn the Russian invasion and especially the Russian tactics that include killing civilians, destroying homes, hospitals and other civilian facilities.
I have also been critical of the EU’s role in the removal of a more pro Russia elected President of Ukraine in 2014 to tilt Ukrainian policy to the EU and to weaken links with Russia which led to the Russian seizure of Crimea. That event does not excuse Russia’s war but is important context when considering how to end the conflict. What to us is a war of Russian expansion is to Russia a war of EU expansion, which they think could lead on to Ukrainian membership of NATO.
It is difficult to see how this long and bitter war can be brought to an end. The EU long on pro war rhetoric fails to impose wide ranging sanctions and is still buying Russian gas to help pay for the Russian troops. The EU has been slow to offer sufficient weapons and other support and has sought to rely on US provision in many crucial areas. The US has never been as committed. President Biden helped bring on the invasion by implying Russia might get away with a “minor incursion”, whilst President Trump has always argued Europe should lead the response as it is another European war.
The EU has offered plenty of verbal support to Ukraine to prolong the war. It now needs to offer effective support to help Ukraine liberate some territory. The UK should not get more involved as this is primarily an EU interest as Ukraine is a candidate member and the EU has strong views on the settlement of its eastern borders. The UK has no border at risk. France with strong views on the war and a leading EU member could take over some of the burden of supplying free weapons from us, as her contribution has been a lot smaller. According to BBC figures the UK has provided three times as much weaponry as France, and the US 18 times as much as France in cash terms.
Why do the media and MPs make such heavy weather of curbing public spending?
I am being contacted by media for interviews in the long run up to the next budget. When I say the need is better control of public spending there is still a disbelief that it can be cut. Let me have another go at identifying some of the most obvious wasteful and less desirable spending that the government needs to cut or control.
Bank of England bond losses, running at around £30 bn a year
Illegal migrants put into hotels and on benefits running at an extra £2bn a year
51,000 people a week going onto Universal Credit, with 46% now on the benefit not being expected to seek work £2.5bn extra for one year of additions
£20 bn over a period of years on carbon capture and storage
Continuing large cost overruns and outgoings on the much delayed HS2
£40 bn additional cost from lost public sector productivity in the main services
£35 bn over 99 years to Mauritius for Chagos
£650 m to subsidise mainly imported batteries/ battery cars