At midnight on Tuesday next I along with all other MPs cease to be an MP. Parliament will be dissolved.
Any references on this site to my role as an MP will become historic.
Government Ministers remain as Ministers, but are very restricted in what they can say and do as Ministers.
I will be busy with the election but will keep a website going.
The election campaign period starts officially on Wednesday 3rd May with the receipt of the writ.
This website is paid for by me.
.
April 29, 2017
Good luck!
April 29, 2017
29/04/2017 “A Parliamentary Candidate has not yet been selected for this constituency ” ( Official Conservative Party Website )
The Referendum was 23rd June LAST year, not this year. Has the Tory party as a whole decided whether to vote Leave or Remain yet?
April 29, 2017
Wait for the local election results, 4th May. This may show up some Conservative square pegs in constituency round holes.
April 29, 2017
They need to be whipped.
April 29, 2017
Good luck.
We need as many Brexit MPs as we can get. I’m not convinced that a Tory win is going to do this. In fact I think it may well end up reducing the number of Brexit MPs. Perhaps this is the plan. It could well be read as a mandate for soft Brexit.
Yanis Varoufakis’ comments are worth reading in the Daily Express today on EU stonewalling and divisiveness in nations.
April 29, 2017
Dear Anon–Yes, but what he especially says that makes sense is that in dealing with the EU we are dealing with a many-headed Hydra, which according to the myth, not far wrong, has two heads replacing each one cut off: I for one am sick to death of hearing first from one and then the next etc, every single one being nothing whatsoever to me (I can neither spell their names nor pronounce them and don’t care to do either). I am in the camp that reckons we should just scarper now with two fingers up to them on the way out. Given that there is no significant drive in Northern Ireland for splitting from the UK, the latest EU comments, besides being totally hypothetical (so normally not addressed for that reason alone) are scurrilous in the extreme.
April 29, 2017
I agree, Anon. I am very wary indeed of what T May is planning. I have also seen it mooted that Fox and Johnson may well be dispensed with and as they were the face of Brexit that is not good. The truth will be in whether Theresa May makes use of the real Brexit talent amongst the backbenchers. I fear she won’t.
April 29, 2017
The Tory Party Electoral machine is running painfully slowly. For heaven’s sake choose your candidates!
Local papers would perhaps feature a picture and a blurb if they knew just who Mrs May has in mind for the election she called.
The fact you haven’t a candidate entrenched, dug in, in Wakefield, shows a level of electoral campaigning neglect and silliness beyond belief.
April 29, 2017
Good luck John. All the best.
April 29, 2017
Haifax… has a constituency. It is in the UK. Wake up!!!!
Please inform Tory central office they may have an outside chance in winning if they manage to come up a candidate ( anyone ) with an IQ above that of a Meercat selling “Inshuuuranccce”
April 29, 2017
Many thanks for the enclosed information and confirmation that you will keep the website going, in what will be a very busy period for all contestants.
Always good to hear your views and read your postings.
April 29, 2017
J, onwards and upwards me thinks.
Rgds
April 29, 2017
Good on you John. Hope you get reelected if only to stop the government agreeing to pay extortionate fees to Brussels.
I hope the Tory majority is enough to pass legislation but small enough to prevent a sellout
April 29, 2017
I am sure everyone posting here appreciates and values the time, effort and cost that you put in to run the site and for allowing us to contribute.
On a personal note, I wish you good luck in defending your seat.
April 29, 2017
Seconded.
April 30, 2017
That goes for me too!
April 29, 2017
Good afternoon.
Many thanks Mr.Redwood MP (for now) sir.
And good luck. Not that I and many of you in your party need it.
April 29, 2017
Good Afternoon,
Thank you for keeping this blog open and relevant in this historic period of our country’s story.
April 29, 2017
Good luck for the election Mr Redwood. I hope you are returned comfortably.
Will the Conservative manifesto address our own EU exit negotiating stance? No hard border for Ireland, no exit fee payable, compensation for handing over assets paid for with our membership fees, free trade to be offered on a reciprocal basis, leave to remain for citizens who are working or have family life here but no benefits available unless qualified for residency (must be a reciprocal arrangement) and all subjects to be discussed together. If not we walk.
April 29, 2017
Absolutely !
April 29, 2017
I too wish John well in the forthcoming election. I also agree with you that it would be excellent news if the list you refer to was made a major plank in our manifesto. If she really believes in a proper Brexit it would give her tremendous ammunition ahead of negotiations.
April 29, 2017
Have a good, enjoyable election campaign and I wish you good luck on getting reelected.
April 29, 2017
Yes. Best wishes and thank you. I look forward to the ‘new’ blog post election.
April 29, 2017
Things, economically, are not looking so good from what I read and hear.. and I have a real bad feeling about these up and coming brexit talks with all of the fake news that is going about that I don’t really know what to believe anymore? So on a lighter note ..good luck to John for the upcoming election
April 29, 2017
Good luck and all success in the election and Brexit.
April 29, 2017
Good luck John in the coming elections. Well done on your informative site. I love reading it.
Can Mrs May please reconsider her stance on the triple lock pensions as I think it will cost her at the polls. £3.05 a week rise is hardly a goldmine and with the current rises in utility bills, poll tax and the cost of living rising pensioners need this rise. Not every pensioner has the good fortune to have a private pension.
April 30, 2017
Wholeheartedly agree with you ‘fedup’ With any savings interest at near zero since 2008 after a lifetime of saving, as we were encouraged so to do, this is more bad news.
Does she really want to win.
April 30, 2017
£3.05 per week pension rise would be quite welcome. My wife and I live in Canada where UK State pensions are frozen. We haven’t had a pension rise during the 14 years we have been getting them and are now jointly some £70 a week down over what we would get if we came back!
Best wishes for re-election John, if we had a vote you would get it!
Richard
April 29, 2017
Unfortunately I no longer live in Wokingham but if I did you would get my vote…
April 29, 2017
May you get a thumping great majority, and then be asked to join the Cabinet. Bestw ishes.
April 30, 2017
We can hope, but I think our host is the best Chancellor we never had.
May 1, 2017
Agreed, A S.
April 29, 2017
I sincerely hope that you are re-elected and that Mrs May has the good sense to offer you a cabinet position, ideally in the Treasury or the Dept for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Good luck!
April 29, 2017
Very best of luck Mr. Redwood – we need you back in your seat to represent us; accordingly we have to do everything we can to make sure that happens on Polling Day.
April 29, 2017
Messrs Junker and Tusk ( # they are EU politicians ) were said by the BBC to have taken only “one minute” to come to a negotiating stance on behalf of the EU. One wonders if they had a cigarette afterwards.
April 29, 2017
Good luck John!
April 29, 2017
Good luck
April 29, 2017
You say Government ministers will remain as ministers but will be very restricted in what they say and do as ministers- i hope this applies to dear old Boris who has been sucking up a great deal lately to Trump- its the very thing that could well draw us into another major war as if we hadnt got enough on our plate at the moment. But if it comes to that then i hope they call up boris with the first intake and put him into the front line so that he can have a good look…
April 29, 2017
Best of luck Mr Redwood, Wokingham (and David Davies and team) needs you
April 29, 2017
In the centre of Birmingham today the corbyn supporters were out with loud megaphones telling us all how to vote, they annoyed everyone so much with their noise they must have lost more voters than they could hope to win.
April 29, 2017
Best wishes in the election John.
And your website makes compulsory reading. Many thanks.
April 29, 2017
I cannot envisage you not getting in. I don’t think you need luck, but I do wonder how long you are going to involve yourself in politics . There is so much more you could do. Dr Lucy Worsley presents some fantastic history programmes . You could do something similar ..with Shakespeare’s works and lifetime.
April 29, 2017
Dear Dr John Redwood,
I wish you well for the election and thank you for all you have done serving both your own constituents and giving your views in your diary here and in return a sympathetic ear to the many of us who comment here. There are few such web sites where we feel we are listened to. Apologies for the habitual length of my posts. I do not have your knack of the pithy.
I have no idea what might be in the offing but if a ministerial position should be offered I urge you to accept, even if it means ending this wonderful site. At least we would know you are there. You have done it all before but it is not finished until Britain is free again.
Many thanks and good luck.
April 30, 2017
+1
April 30, 2017
Commodore Redwood,
I am grateful your website will be continuing to provide a much needed distraction to Mrs May constantly repeating ‘Strong & Stable leadership’.
I wonder if she has been coached by the same team that instructed Mr Cameron to during the referendum campaign to repeat ‘Stronger, safer and better off in a reformed EU’ . That didn’t really work so perhaps someone should ask Mrs May to cut out the parroting.
April 30, 2017
Dear Ken–Big difference–Cameron hadn’t actually achieved reform, far from it, and manifestly had no ability or way or plan to change that–Worse, if possible, he tried to pretend otherwise whilst we all knew he was talking drivel, thereby provoking contempt. What his clever PR people were up to beats me. In the end nobody believed a word he said.
April 30, 2017
That is true Cameron failed spectacularly – he was so convinced of his own brilliance and a Yes vote he didn’t even ask for any concessions from our EU partners.
I still believe we are in the era of style over substance where a narrow elite (headed by Lynton Crosby) decide everything from party policy to the news agenda. Mrs May joined parliament when Blair came in and learned much from ‘the master’.
Her bunch of control freaks are more than capable of staging a front to present an illusion of leaving the EU but in reality this will amounts to a betrayal of the Brexit vote and the Tory ‘right wingers’ who have been fooled into supporting her.
It’s all rather sinister – North Korea arguably has ‘Strong and Stable’ government …
April 30, 2017
“Luck” is out of the question . Common sense and straightforward presentation – which John has in plenty , will decide the day . One way or another I expect the vote will give a safe and strong negotiating mandate to Theresa and a much increased majority to John .
April 30, 2017
It seems a good moment to say thank you for all you do in providing this thought provoking blog, and of course wish you all the very best in the election.
May 1, 2017
Seconded, W L.
April 30, 2017
Good luck to you and other real Brexiteeers. Let’s hope UKIP does not challenge them.It is a pity that the Conservative selection office is sending a choice of previous Remainers as a choice for constituencies like Upminster, which were for Leave. There is a lot of bad feeling about this.
I had a chat with some neighbours in the area, many of whom are working in engineering or taxi and cab drivers. They seem to be UKIP or Conservative supporters mainly. They tell me that they now spend over 3 hours driving through the jams created by TFL to ‘make our journey better’.
One told me that his new E5 diesel van will be facing Khan’s extra charge within the inner ring road and added to the congestion charge will cost £36 a day out of his pay. He is considering leaving a secure store on site and traveling by tube. However, his van carries all the spares he needs and there is no room or security. My own Euro 6 new car has just been declared unsuitable because the specification was changed 6 months after it was first licensed.
This might be understandable if the ant- diesel measures actually would make any real difference or the 40,000 deaths caused by new diesels was based on real science.
For instance, the story that new diesel cars were producing 6 times more NO2 than a new lorry is not surprising. New lorries have to squirt Adblue ammonia into the exhaust and this mops up the ‘deadly’ gas. Dividing a very small number into zero gives infinity, so 6 does not mean that huge amounts of NO2 are still being belched out. Channel 4 showed pictures of this using a heat detecting camera but the fumes would have been water vapour and CO2 if the lorry had been a new one.
The neighbours all know it is all green lobby false news and, if Mrs May goes along with it, they will not be voting for her. The same goes for self employed tax rises and making income tax returns 4x a year using special software. She needs to make promises and remove doubt about cancellation of these damaging policies.
May 1, 2017
As just about every news outlet, from the BBC to the Guardian and Sun is telling us that there has been a huge increase in the NO2’deadly gas’ pollution, because of the recent increase in numbers of diesel cars- and that an expensive scrappage and banning scheme is necessary, could you please allow this Defra report to be included, as it shows on p 63 Fig 5.9 that NO2 emissions are now one sixth of what they used to be. How we survived at all must be one of those questions we will never undertand.
https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/assets/documents/annualreport/air_pollution_uk_2015_issue_1.pdf
May 1, 2017
Figure 5.20 p.73 shows that for all road transport, including cars, vans,taxis, lorries, and buses the dangerous PM2.5 particles are about a third of what they were in 1992. Despite this, apparently, we are having our lives shortenened by a guesstimate of between 2, 6 or 20 months, depending upon which report is chosen.
May 1, 2017
It’s a bit concerning that articles in the FT say May is blocking conservative people like Hannan and Kamall from being selected to stand in winnable seats. Good luck with your battle ahead, I don’t think the Tories should be complacent the EU have a big requirement to stitch us up into a bad deal – the Hokey Kokey Leave – there’s going to be all sorts of media shenanigans in the next month once the local elections are out of the way.
May 1, 2017
If you are no longer an MP neither is Mrs May. So who is running this country?
You pay for this site very commendable but rightly so as it it is yours.
But was anything done over the use of Public Money by Mr Cameron to promote his own personal agenda over the EU Referendum? £9 Millions of tax payers money was blown without any approval nor any counter argument published and paid for to balance the opinion.
That was a plan right out of The Brussels Handbook on persuading the masses with their own money. Brexit cannot come soon enough for me and I trust you will have a super majority to see it through.
Reply I explained on the site. All MPs cease to hold office as MPs on Tuesday(tomorrow) at midnight. Government Ministers continue to serve until the PM after the election results either confirms them in office or replaces them. They serve in a caretaker capacity, ready to respond to a crisis, but unable to launch new policies or to use the arms of government to set out their political case. Ministers wishing to remain as Ministers have to stand as candidates, win, and be confirmed in office again after the election.
May 1, 2017
Well I hope Mrs May sacks continuity Osborne and appoints our host in the role of Chancellor. We might then at least see a return to reason and an end to the socialist virtue signalling.