I would be happy to receive comments on the events  in Venezuela. I am not planning to make any early statement myself on these issues, and will study the US and Venezuelan  responses as they develop. It seems likely this will lead to some rebuilding of the badly run down Venezuelan oil industry which will drive oil prices  down easing inflationary pressures.

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.

There has been much debate about Britishness and who is British. Some say only someone born in the UK to British parents is truly British. This would rule out may good Brits who have UK passports and are legally settled here. In  practice anyone is British who was born here or who successfully applies for British citizenship. So why is there an issue?

Wish for change, or worries about how to define Britishness is a product of rapid high volume migration into the UK in recent years. It led Parliament to put in a test for applicants to become citizens to show some knowledge of UK history and customs. It has led the public to demand much lower rates of citizenship grants and inward migration.

Many of us have an idea of what being British is, but not all our ideas agree with one another. We do not say to someone born of UK parents in the UK they are not British because they want to abolish the monarchy or give the country away to the EU or spend their time condemning our history. We disagree with them revelling in  the democratic freedoms of our country to disagree about such fundamental issues. A criminal does not lose his citizenship though he may lose rights to liberty and to vote.

We can say to people seeking to come here and applying to be UK citizens that if their intent is  to come to be criminals or terrorists we do not want them. If they despise or hate our country they would be best advised to go elsewhere. We can say to people on low and no incomes thinking they might be more prosperous in the UK they can only come and settle if they get a job and pay their own bills and show they will make a contribution. We can have benefit and housing  rules that favour settled UK citizens over new arrivals, taking the view many take that charity begins at home.

If someone gains the privilege of becoming a UK citizen they have won one of life’s bigger lotteries. Free health care, heavily subsidised social housing, a wide range of benefits for any of life’s hazards, good free education for children are all available for UK citizens meeting the criteria. The UK has been too free with its grants of citizenship, adding to strains on the NHS. housing and the benefits bill.

Being British is also about the shared history, the culture, the English language, the traditions we enjoy together. These will be different for individuals free to make their own choices from a rich palette of choices. If too many people are admitted who have not been brought up in these surroundings with that common culture it gets more difficult to define what being British is, and unsettles more who have been born and brought up here.

If 2026 is to offer us the change we want UK  government needs to do less and do it better.

It needs to delay the idea it can bribe and force  us to buy heat pumps  and battery cars. The UK does not have the  power stations to supply all the power this would need, and the grid is far too small. Save the money on the subsidies.

It needs to smash the gangs in the ways often proposed here, to save all the money on housing illegal migrants.

It needs to stop its ill placed generosity to the EU and foreign  countries. We should not be giving away our fish and so much money to the EU nor the money and Chagos islands to Mauritius.

It needs to repeal some of the many EU originated laws that impede and delay  building homes and infrastructure. Bats are treated better than people when planning.

It needs to tell the Bank of England to stop selling bonds at big losses and sending taxpayers the bill.

The government should resolve in 2026 not to make promises it will not keep.

The government should repair the damage done by broken Manifesto promises. It should  start by smashing the gangs and reversing the tax rises on working people.

2026 will determine whether Labour has a future. Its current low in the polls reflects anger and disappointment at how badly it has been governing. This year there is still time for it to change course and show it has learned from a bruising year and a half in office. It should start by going back to its Manifesto. It needs  to think of the many voters who are not socialists who either voted for it or voted tactically in ways which allowed it a big win in seats or who stayed at home thinking they could live with its likely impact. They took comfort from the Manifesto.

They liked the idea of smashing the gangs and ending illegal migration. They were relieved  there would be no tax rises other than the targeted VAT on school fees and the Non Doms changes. They agreed with the idea of going for growth and creating more jobs.

The collapse of support comes from government reneging  on all three of those crucial pledges. The latest Home Secretary talks tough but acts weakly, failing to deport illegals arriving by small boat, failing to intercept small boats or arrest the gangs and boat drivers to stop the trade, The Chancellor has run two budgets as ways to threaten anyone  who works hard , owns their own home and saves with yet more tax. Net zero zealotry closes industries and loses us jobs.High taxes lead talent and those with big money to go elsewhere.  The way to some recovery for Labour lies with reversing all this.

It is unlikely they will do so. Meanwhile they deter many voters, with the agenda they did not put in their Manifesto. Scrapping many jury trials. Delaying elections. Pushing through unwanted reorganisations of Councils regardless of local opinion. Limiting free speech excessively.

Worse still is the way the Prime Minister spends much of his time abroad giving money, territory and our rights to self government away. People want a leader who puts the UK and the needs of UK voters first, not someone who apologises for our past and seeks for damaging interpretations of international Treaties to make the UK pay.

Kemi Badenoch has made clear in a recent email to members that she stands for Conservative values. She wrote

The government’s policy of ever closer relations with the EU will damage our slow and stuttering growth more.

It means sending more money to the EU which in turn means putting up taxes further. It is Labour’s massive tax rises to date that have slowed growth, destroyed jobs, slashed vacancies and put up unemployment. Why do more of the same?

It means adopting the higher carbon taxes under the EU emissions scheme, putting up the costs of energy. Far from helping abate the cost of living crisis they talk about, it will make it worse.

It means adopting a version  of the EU  carbon border  tax or tariff, designed to make things we import from outside the EU dearer if they have used fossil fuel energy in their production and transport. That might invite retaliatory damaging tariffs from the US and others.

It means accepting more young migrants from the EU keeping wages lower and taking job opportunities our young people need.

Far from boosting our exports it is more likely to boost our imports and displace imports from non EU. This will not increase our GDP and will help push up the cost of living.

The Family farm tax is very damaging. It was troubling older farmers greatly, threatening splitting up farms and making the less viable. Now some of the smaller family farms have been exempted. Still many small businesses and some of the larger family farms are being attacked by IHT, making it difficult for them to pass them on to a new generation of owner/managers. It puts people off building businesses here in the UK or leads to early closure.

More damage was done to more people by the Jobs tax of the first Labour budget, the hike in Employers National Insurance. As some of us forecast there has been a fall in vacancies, and  a rise in unemployment. There are  especially acute problems for young people looking for their first job. Putting the Minimum wage up at the same time as the big tax rise exacerbated the problem, leading more employers to cut back on recruitment or to slim their workforces down. The catering and hospitality sector was particularly hard hit, and shops also suffered another blow to their chances of survival. The addition of big rises in business rates, against the government promise of helping pubs and High Street shops, was another unexpected hit when they had been promised rates reform to lower their bills.

The language Labour used in its Manifesto to avoid tax rises on  working people and to  boost living standards has been blown away by a run of anti growth tax rises, managed price rises, and the overriding policy of dear energy to speed net zero. Many more people are now on benefits, and many more young people are not in training, education or work. The government struggles to define a working person, and finds plenty of people to tax more that look like working people to the rest of us. The Chancellor says she is concentrating on getting the cost of living under control, yet she grants large wage rises to a wide range of public sector activities and allows through rises in energy prices, rail fares, Council tax bills and other public sector activities.

As Labour criticise their leader and examine other options, their attention goes to things that will make the situation worse. Every deal with the EU entails paying the EU more money for no advantage, leading to yet higher taxes. The Erasmus deal costs far too much and will if like the last time we were in it pay for more EU students to come here than it will help UK students to go abroad. The idea of joining the Customs Union would mean putting many more tariffs back on imports to the UK, pushing up prices and making UK business less competitive with dearer imported raw materials and components. They have given far too much of our fish away for 12 more years, preventing the good growth of our local fishing industry. They have still not lifted the ban on getting our own oil and gas out of the ground, which bring us more tax revenue and well paid jobs. They still are wedded to closing down all our petrol and diesel car plants by 2030, which means more closures and job losses soon.

To get the econo0my growing again, to help create more jobs, to get the numbers on benefits coming down will take more than a small tax cut on family farms, welcome though that is. They must reverse many of their bans that stop us making and growing things here. They must bring down the costs of employing people, especially young people,  by cutting their Jobs tax. They need to review taxation of small businesses generally and create a better climate to encourage new and growing businesses to stay and flourish here.

The government has carried out one sensible U  turn on its farms policy. It says it wants to get back to growth, to controlling the cost of living and to encouraging investment. To do that it needs more U turns on its tax rising agenda. It needs to grapple more successfully with runaway public sector costs. it needs to concentrate on getting many more people back to work, whilst issuing fewer sicknotes for life.