Both Labour and Lib Dems specialise in negative campaigning. They abuse Conservative MPs and Councillors, making false allegations and twisting what we say or ascribing views to us we have never held. Their fellow travellers on this site often do the same. They imply no decent person can vote Conservative and Ā claim an unfounded moral high ground. Indeed they seek to control and use language to rule out some decent Ā Conservative values and questions. The BBC often backs up these ideas.
Yesterday on the Today programme a couple of voters fromĀ Hartlepool were put under pressure to explain why they voted Conservative, with the BBC seeking to suggest to them that somehow the culture of the party of Thatcher should have made that morally impossible! No mention that Margaret was our first female Prime Minister who won three huge General election mandates for her popular policies of cutting taxes, promoting wider ownership and recovering the UK from Labour’s high inflation and economic crash which led to a trip to the IMF to borrow and to be told to cut spending . I do not recall Labour voters in 1997 or SNP voters more recently being made to explain themselves and being told they were wrong to vote as they did.
In this latest set of elections Labour caricatured their own campaigning technique by spending all their national media time on vilifying Conservatives and making a wild series of Ā unsupported allegations, when people wanted to hear their approach to Cv 19 , economic recovery and getting wins from Brexit.
Keir Starmer rightly made Labour Ā dress smartly and show some respect for our flag. You need however to live a brand. In the Commons Labour MPs still queued up to support the EU side in disputes, to back the needs of foreigners and overseas countries Ā over the needs of U.K. voters, and above all to use Commons powers to develop their sleaze campaign instead of pushing a positive agenda.
Given the large number of people who voted Conservative a good starting point for Labourās recovery would be to accept that many people enter Conservative politics to serve the public and make things better. By all means have some good disagreements with us, offer better solutions or different aims, but do not falsely claim Conservatives are in it for wrong motives and want to harm the interests of the very people who helped vote us in. It is not helping Labour, as it is as dishonest as it is negative.Ā A good opposition respects their opponents and presses hard for improvements or changes that the public wants. Running sleaze campaigns and nothing else can boomerang against the party. It means they haveĀ nothing to say on how to govern better, and are vulnerable to counter accusations against the people in their own party who make mistakes or undertake criminal activity in public office.
May 9, 2021
Sir John,
On the subject of campaigning, do you happen to know why the PM – who clearly has a technique for winning votes and elections – seemed to ignore Shaun Bailey who, to his credit did very well against the odds? A bit of Boris fairy dust might have helped him win. It seems that the PM either wrote London off or has a plan for it?
May 9, 2021
@DaveM; I suspect Boris ignored Shaun Bailey so as not to taint him, Boris might well have been a two term London Mayor but that is no measure of his true popularity when his opponent was even less popular!
May 9, 2021
Unless you live in London, I’d leave it to the good burghers of that fine city to decide whom they want as mayor, after all, who in London give a fig about who the mayor of Stoke on Trent might be?
And as for bile, does calling people “traitors” and “enemies of the people” count?
It seems not for John.
May 9, 2021
Sir John never said those phrases.
More fake news from MiC
May 9, 2021
@Peter; Our host might not have said such words himself but as publisher, and as a publisher who has in the past refused to publish words with much less ‘baggage’.
More fake news from Peter2.
May 9, 2021
Reply to Jerry
Sir John also published nasty comments about old white people.
May 9, 2021
Anyway. Glad to see that you’re missing Sir John’s point.
It means that Labour is over and Brexit has been endorsed for a fifth time.
Yet still your side insults greater numbers of people than ours yours. Do the math.
May 9, 2021
Many of the people in London donāt seem to care about who is elected mayor only 41.2% came out to vote, hardly a ringing endorsement. In Manchester only 34% bothered to vote for their Mayor (yet thatās a landslide victory).
May 9, 2021
Another post from Jerry determined to counter every post made on here.
Devils Advocate as a. hobby.
I’m not sure why, if you dislike the host’s political policies you post endlessly every day.
May 10, 2021
@Peter2; It’s called engaging in debate, if all our host wanted was “Likes” he could save himself a pile of work, just provide a “Like Button” at the bottom of his daily blog posts…
May 10, 2021
You just post in a contrary manner Jerry.
It isnt a form of debate at all.
If someone said they liked red wine you would reply saying
Nonsense you are quite wrong. Only white wine which I like is good.
May 9, 2021
Surely it was written off when Cameron chose Bailey, a pleasant enough chap, but not the sharpest tool in the box and with even less charisma than May & more tedious too. Virtually invisible too. The lesson is choose on ability & not for diversity, flower arranging reasons. The same is true of Cameronā moronic choice as Tory Chairman Baroness Warsi.
May 9, 2021
@LL; “The lesson is choose on ability & not for diversity, flower arranging reasons.”
Quite the opposite, you’ll never win by abandoning the “diversity, flower arranging” niceties that the majority of voters like and want to see, London is more than the City and Canary Wharf…
May 9, 2021
I don’t agree.
Only when there is a choice between candidates of equal competency should diversity become a consideration.
May 9, 2021
Indeed but you never get two candidate of “exactly” equal ability/competency and even if you did many other factors are relevant – how close to work do they live, can they afford to move, will they stay in the job, how settled are they, what other pressures are on them …
May 9, 2021
Perhaps try this flower arranging approach for civil engineers, pilots, nuclear scientists, electronic engineers, physicists, brain surgeons, dentists and the likes too. Should go well.
May 9, 2021
@LL; Irrelevant to most within London, perhaps you need to get out and about more, for someone who claims a ‘working class’ upbringing (unless I’ve miss read your claims of self betterment) you really do not have a first clue when it comes to the average person, even within traditional Tory voting areas.
May 9, 2021
JR, Johnson said on the campaign trail Brexit is done and this is why the electorate voted for your party. Specious rot at best lies at worse.
Could look at this article from con woman and explain to us why Johnson and your govt is becoming more dependent on EU electric with new cables being laid to the continent which is directly linked to fisheries, under the agreement.
Come 2026 the UK will have no option but to allow the EU to plunder our waters (the UK can only theoretically take back control) but it would mean turning off the lights in our country! Instead of nuclear pods created by Rolls Royce.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/flashpoint-jersey-a-bad-sign-for-our-fishermen/
May 9, 2021
@Hope; Might be best not to go down that road, after all the simple answer is; during the 1980s & 1990s the UK failed to build -or commit to building- enough new nuclear power stations (it is the govts job to plan 20, 30, 50 years into the future after all), knowing that we would reach peak oil and gas in the 2k’s, and at the same time they did not take those brave public spending decisions with regards new nuclear, our politicos chose to all but close an industry down that at the time had something like 400 years worth of known accessible and usable resources. And the real silly idea, justifying such economic, and social, vandalism by using spurious environmental concerns to daemonise carbon based fuels that has grown like topsy into the idea that even CO2 is a problem rather than harmless plant food that is necessary for the creation of oxygen.
No doubt you’ll post your usual D word as a retort, whatever…
May 9, 2021
That is your motto Jerry.
“Quite the opposite”
May 9, 2021
LL, from what depths of your fevered imagination do you dredge up the suggestion that David Cameron ‘chose’ Sean Bailey as the Mayoral candidate?
The former PM was not Leader of the Party when Mr Bailey was selected, and whilst the Party Leader can (and does) have influence at such a time, candidates for the London mayoralty have to go through several selection committees before a limited number of names are presented to the Party membership for election to the final candidacy position.
I know this because I participated, right from the first steps, in the first two London Mayoral selection procedures.
May 9, 2021
From the BBC:- It was while speaking at a Centre for Policy Studies that David Cameron, then the leader of the Conservative Party, took notice of Mr Bailey.
Within a year he had been selected to stand for the Conservatives for the Labour safe seat of Hammersmith in the 2010 general election.
He increased the Conservative vote in the area and his efforts impressed Mr Cameron and his director of strategy Steve Hilton. Six months after the election Mr Bailey was asked to come to 10 Downing Street as a special adviser on youth and crime.
May 9, 2021
@LL; How does any of that fit your assertion about the London Mayoral candidacy?
Unless you are seriously suggesting that, back in 2007, David Cameron considered Mr Bailey to be a future London Mayor. Even if he did, as @SM points out above, Cameron never had the final say, not even by way of the leaders prerogative, Cameron was no longer party leader by the time Bailey was selected…
Stop digging!
May 9, 2021
Exactly. With a bit more support from his party we might have seen the end of the odious Khan.
May 9, 2021
@JoolsB; I’m sure the Greater London area Conservative party organisation gave their full support, but how ever good they can not escape the national image/polices of the party and its leader, London and the South is turning against the current Tory party, and no guesses why!
May 9, 2021
Well, I cannot guess, Jerry, so you’ll have to enlighten me. Be careful that you’re not ascribing your own views to everyone in London. Because, apart from Brexit – which was a national mandate – Boris Johnson is a more woke global-warmist than all the Londoners I know.
May 9, 2021
@NickC; “Be careful that youāre not ascribing your own views to everyone in London. Because, apart from Brexit ā which was a national mandate ā Boris Johnson is a more woke global-warmist than all the Londoners I know”
Oh right, so unless you personally know 51% of all Londoners, as defined by City Hall elections, did you not just do above what you told me not to do – yet more proof of the hard rights attitude to others, “Do as we say, not as we do”.
May 9, 2021
and with a better candidate though he did do better than I expected him to do.
May 9, 2021
Leave Khan to dig his own hole.
May 9, 2021
Alas he is digging a huge one for all Londoners and they need to be protected from his vandalism. Even if most of the London Turkeys voted did vote Christmas.
JR FYI I have noticed the new site ignores contributions coming from people with emails that end ā.co.uk.ā and not .com or .net etc.
May 9, 2021
How do you know this, Lifers? I ask because I thought and read at the bottom that our email addresses are never revealed to anyone.
May 9, 2021
When I used one it did not work!
May 9, 2021
DaveM,
Bailey had been written off as a no-hoper for a long time.
I donāt believe Labour failed because they mentioned sleaze in their campaigning. Itās more a case that their fashionable taking the knee outlook no longer chimes with their traditional voting base. Sleaze does need to be mentioned though it might suit the Conservative party for it all to go away. It did not help canvassing when Starmer was chucked out of that pub in Bath though.
I agree with Delingpole that while it is fine that Labour failed in Hartlepool itās a shame voters there did not see through the current Conservative party and elect an alternative candidate.
May 9, 2021
+1
May 9, 2021
Indeed…………..in the Commons Labour MPs still queued up to support the EU side in disputes, to back the needs of foreigners and overseas countries over the needs of U.K. voters………………I seem to remember quite a few Tory MP’s and a certain Prime Minister (remember her Chequers ambush with Olly?) with most of her Cabinet undermining the UK’s position,(especially the rogue Hammond) which is why we ended up with the appalling Northern Ireland Protocol and Withdrawal Agreement. WTO would have been much better.
Boris is still not standing up to the EU and their appalling behaviour in Jersey, Northern Ireland and now banning Jersey fishermen from some of their ports in France. Its time for retaliatory action. That’s how you deal with bullies and buy alternative products other than EU! The EU are not our friends and their actions, language and behaviour have shown this.
May 9, 2021
Good Morning,
Thin gruel for a Sunday post; complaining about competitors complaints…
If there’s one good aspect of Mr. Johnson’s character, it’s his positive, constructive, rambunctious attitude. There’s the good contrast with negative Labour. I also read that EU legislation is being repealed; very good, do lots more and tell us all about it and why it will make our lives better.
Labour, sadly, has no platform, it very much needs to re-define it’s purpose for the nation. The masses of ‘workers’ living in council houses of the last century has reduced so much there is no longer a viable constituency. Time to drop the socialist banner (it looks rather ridiculous around a QC, knight of the realm)
and figure out who they wish to represent.
If Labour do that, they, with the Tories, might be able to form a joint ‘Unionist Party’ for Scotland to give the SNP a real challenge.
May 9, 2021
Sorting out NI and fishing should be a priority.
The SNP threat is an empty one as the number of people who voted are much less than the number eligible.
Sir Kneel has much soul searching to do as his party is now an irrelevance.
Reform won a few councillors and will consolidate their position to nip at the tories much like ukip.
May 9, 2021
@ian Wragg; For most people both NI and Fishing, as standalone issues, are pretty irrelevant, talk about fishing quoter’s to someone in say Northamptonshire and most eyes gloss over, being as far from the sea as is possible to be in the UK, but talk to them about the issues that logistic companies face and you have their attention, whilst there are problems with the NI protocol most problems are occurring at the channel ports.
The Govt need to sort out Brexit, as a whole, either entrench and offer support to adversely affected companies, or seek compromises, rejoin the EFTA for example, which might also mitigate the SNP’s attempts to destroy Scotland’s future in their pursue of a one-party State.
May 9, 2021
Again, Jerry, you seem to be ascribing your own particular views to “most people”. How do you know this? Actually there are many people who are deeply troubled by the give-away of Northern Ireland and our fish.
And if you think that the SNP would have given up their quest for Scotland to quit the UK if the UK had remained in the EU, then you obviously didn’t follow the news between 2014 and 2016.
May 9, 2021
@NickC; “Actually there are many people who are deeply troubled by the give-away of Northern Ireland and our fish.”
How do you know this, are you not simply ascribing your own particular views to āmost peopleā?… š
Also I did not claim the SNP would give up on independence, I suggested such a course of action (the UK joining the EFTA) would mitigate against the SNP’s rational for asking for another referendum, given that they are claiming independence is needed to either join the EFTA or EU (or at least the EEA) in their own right – something that can not do as a devolved nation. On the other hand the UK could seek to (re)join the EFTA and still be a ‘greater Switzerland’.
Try actually reading what others say, never mind attempting to understand the wider issues themselves, not simply keep posting adhock comments or replies that fit your phobias or wish-lists. Personally I would prefer the Govt to entrench, and stand up to both the EU and SNP bullies, but that will need the spending of taxpayers money, like what happened in the 1950s as we grew our way out of the economic hole left by WW2 bombs.
May 9, 2021
+1 Nick.
May 9, 2021
NickC, things have improved getting over to Northern Ireland, trader support is a big help with documentation, however, everything that is stopped going into the EU must be stopped coming in from the EU otherwise they wonāt budge. Quid pro quo.
I have been spreading the message no more dairy, meat, plants with soil from the EU until our exports are accepted on a level footing. The government need to tell us where they are up to right now on helping exporters with documents, certificates, trader support otherwise people think things were as reported in January with no progress.
May 9, 2021
Indeed, we all saw the cowardly reluctance by all politicos to publicly criticise BLM demonstrations or the double standards of the police in those and Extinction Rebellion actions. It didn’t go unnoticed out here in the real world, especially when we were all trying to abide by the lockdown rules!
May 9, 2021
+1
May 9, 2021
Peter
Labour has two platforms. The first is to both maintain and enhance the Public Sector, especially if it is heavily unionised. The second, is minority causes. Or, to put it another way, Cultural Marxism. Labour have the advantage that we have a frit government and PM that they can bully as the aforementioned are more concerned with their image than they are of doing a good job.
May 9, 2021
Yes to all that Sir John. Fear not, the electorate largely saw through it. The great enigma is Scotland and independance. I think it is a nostalgia thing for a fantasy. Bit like voting for Robin Hood. When the cold economic facts are realised I do not believe the SNP boat will float, or is it’s promulgation a means of getting a bigger slice of the cake. I drafted thoughts on what happened yesterday. After condensation I will consider offering it.
May 9, 2021
I can understand people voting for the SNP. Their voters may not support independence but they may be attracted by the freebies that the SNP regularly offer. The ‘independence blackmail’ gets them more and more funding from the rest of the UK so the SNP can fund more vote buying freebies. If you live in Scotland, why not take the money and the freebies? However if you are live elsewhere you have to question why more and more money is pumped their way when they already get many benefits not enjoyed by the rest of the UK. Surely this is an indication that they don’t really need more money, isn’t it?
May 9, 2021
shirley
Agreed, if I were Boris I would not be going out of my way to invest in Scotland whilst they persist in this independence nonsense, as it is simply money down the drain. Over the years UK Governments have spent more and more in Scotland per person, to what effect, they simply continue to ask for more and more
Scrap the Barnett Formula, and let them increase their own taxes for their extra spending, as they already have the power to do that.
May 9, 2021
+1
May 9, 2021
+1
May 9, 2021
+1
I fail to see why Scotland gets substantially more than Cumbria, Northumberland and the other northern counties. It is time the ‘temporary’ Barnett Formula was updated to reflect reality.
May 9, 2021
But Scotland doesn’t. The 2018/19 OSN figures show Scotland’s fiscal deficit as Ā£2,482 per person.
That is less than the West Midlands (Ā£2,545 per person) and the North West of England (Ā£2,780 per person), and substantially less than the North East of England (Ā£4,064 per person), Wales (Ā£4,307 per person) and Northern Ireland (Ā£4,996 per person).
Offering Scots the same level of subsidy as Northumbria would mean giving an extra Ā£1,500 per person. I’m sure they’d jump at that sort of “levelling up”.
May 9, 2021
Peter, how many English companies have their factories and warehouses in the NW and NE but remit from HQ in the South and London and so their earnings are all shown there?
May 9, 2021
The Barnet Formula is completely unfair to English taxpayers and is frankly insulting. Why should Scots get free University education, prescriptions and hospital parking, all subsidised by the English?
May 9, 2021
Let’s contrast the honourable position of the SNP with that of ukip under Farage when it was popular, shall we?
He stated, expressly, that if their were to be a ukip majority in Parliament – possible with as little as 25% of the vote – then under the supremacy of Parliament, the UK would leave the European Union with NO REFERENDUM. It would repeal the 1970s Acts and operate Article 50 just like that.
That tells us what his thralls really think of “democracy” and “the will of the people”.
May 9, 2021
And so The People didn’t elect Nigel Farage. What is your point ?
You frequently sneer at voters for being thick and of defective memory and I suggest that is why you got Brexit and why Labour are in the wilderness.
The People are more intelligent and moderate than you ever give credit and they have feelings. When you hurt them you have to expect a reaction that you dislike.
May 9, 2021
UKIP is a false comparison MiC
They never had any MPs
Stick to your more usual BNP slur
Or self emplyed tradesmen slur.
It suits you better.
May 9, 2021
I followed Farage avidly, and do not recall him saying anything like that. He always called for a referendum on EU membership. Maybe it was the usual spin by the remain msm and not wholly accurate. We do know that the SNP do not respect democracy or the results of referendums that don’t give the ‘required’ result. The EU mantra of re-running referendums until the desired result is achieved, is alive and well in the SNP.
May 9, 2021
No, it was he himself who said it.
He said that if ukip got a Parliamentary majority then the UK would leave the European Union.
He did not mention a referendum.
He pestered other parties for one, of course.
None of you objected.
May 9, 2021
“None of you objected’ – on the contrary, so many people objected by the legitimate and powerful means of using their vote, and as pointed out above, UKIP never made it to/in Westminster.
May 9, 2021
But it is totally irrelevant MiC because he never got elected.
He also needed to get over 330 UKIP MPs to achieve what your personal fantasy dreams his party might have done.
May 9, 2021
UKIP could have done that, but the 10% of the population that really wanted out were never going to get them a majority, so it’s academic.
Just the same, the Remain parliament could have looked at the prospect of leaving the EU after the 2016 referendum, and decided they couldn’t do it. They chose to honour the result (sort of).
May 9, 2021
Hardly true. If he did in fact state that prior to an election, then why not do it if elected. It would have been one of those rare cases of manifesto integrity. I do like the way you pluck possible figures from the ether to bolster your argument, almost politician like.
May 9, 2021
It would have been true to what he said, but have exposed all that is so terribly wrong with the UK’s non-Constitution.
May 9, 2021
What exactly is wrong with it MiC?
You quote and dislike a particular public figure who never got elected by the people of this country.
It suggests the opposite is true.
May 9, 2021
Martin, I laughed so much at ‘the honourable position of the SNP’ that I had to take a handkerchief to my wetted eyes. Eventually I composed myself and managed to read the rest, in between lasting chuckles.
Much needed amusement after such awful news everywhere you look.
May 9, 2021
Martin, Why shouldn’t UKIP put forward the policy of leaving the EU (without a referendum) as part of its manifesto at a national general election in the UK? It would only mirror what you accepted – Ted Heath taking us into the EU (EEC) in 1973 without a referendum.
Moreover the SNP position (which you appear to think “honourable”) omits to mention that the SNP accepted the 2014 referendum as a once in a generation vote. Having a second Scotland referendum so soon is as morally indefensible as having a second Brexit referendum because Remain didn’t like the result of the 2016 vote.
May 9, 2021
There’s no constitutional reason at all why a party cannot do either of those things in the UK.
It’s simply all those pious claims to care about “the will of the people”, which make one reach for the sick bucket in view of that.
Hence my original comment.
May 10, 2021
Nonsense again from you MiC
“The will of the people” was not to elect a single UKIP MP.
Your irritation at them is a irrelevance layered on a fantasy.
May 10, 2021
MiC I wondered who had ‘piously’ said “the will of the people” that made you reach for the sick bucket that you were responding to but the only person typing that was you twice in this thread.
I also looked up ‘thrall’ because I notice it is your current go-to insult. = a slave, servant, or captive. Who do you think are slaves, servants or captives and to whom?
May 9, 2021
+10
May 9, 2021
There are only three solutions.
1. To ignore the SNP and hope, as former German Chancellor once said, “Hope for better weather”
2. Let them go.
3. Turn the UK into a Confederate nation state similar to that of Switzerland. My prefered option.
Sadly we lack both the political imagination and boldness to do the last two so will end up with them doing the former.
May 9, 2021
Option 2 please – we let go of our empire and gave independence to many countries in the 50s & 60s, so why not Scotland
May 9, 2021
None of these matters should or can receive consideration until England has a true parliament. Why is it imagined that England can manage without one and with something that is not in any way geared towards English identity and sovereignty.
May 9, 2021
The SNP and their leadership are on a winner. The more they bang on about independence the more money the likes of ‘Boris’ and Tory unionists throw at them. If I were them I would carry on like that.
They will always win as Tories don’t have the courage to turn them down.
In truth they don’t want independence as they are much better off this way. They behave and project themselves as independent. They build on their identity. All this time they ensure that ‘Westminster’ is distracted from attending to England and the English.
May 9, 2021
Exactly, Prangwizard. One cannot buy friends, though Boris Johnson is just the sort of Englishman to try.
I think Scotland is (in theory) perfectly capable of existing as a separate country. Though how well they’d do in practice as a colony of the EU with a hard border with England is another matter.
May 9, 2021
+1
May 9, 2021
Good points. Thatcher, in essence, won four elections the last one with Major as he chosen man as Thatcher II continued, until the people sussed what a daft, pro EU, socialist dope he was, with his moronic ERM fiasco, tax increases and failure even to apologise for his entirely pointless devastating ERM recession. One that destroyed jobs, homes, marriages, businesses with 15% mortgage rates. āIf it is not hurting it is not workingā the pathetic fool used to say. Yet Tory MPs chose to retain him and thus bury the Tories for 3+ terms.
Talking of bile I see that an idiotic LBC presenter claimed the opposite of āWokeā is āRacistā. So if you do not accept all the woke lunacy (as circa 95%+ of people do not) you are now a nasty racist it seems?
May 9, 2021
Thatcher cannot however escape the blame as she appointed the dope as Chancellor, let him join the ERM and then allowed him to become PM. Then again Osborne, Hammond and Sunak all had (or still have) duff, tax, borrow and waste anti-business, green crap pushing, red tape strangling, expensive energy compasses.
On the positive side perhaps without Majorās moronic ERM insanity we would have been in the EURO and leaving the EU might never have happened.
May 9, 2021
Mrs.T was pressured into it. Major and others threatened to resign if she did not.
May 9, 2021
She was PM. If she thought it was the wrong policy she should either have vetoed it or resigned.
May 9, 2021
She should indeed have vetoed it as her sound advisor Sir Alan Walters, JR and many other competent, rational & sensible people told her to do.
May 9, 2021
Surely Thatcher appointed three dopes as Chancellor: Dope 1 was so obsessed with reducing inflation that he considered the destruction of large swathes of manufacturing industry a price worth paying for reducing it. He later became so obsessed with metrication that he demanded that carpet manufacturers scrap their imperial looms and replace them with foreign metric ones. Dope 2 was so obsessed with joining the ERM that he shadowed the Deutschmark and triggered massive inflation. Just because people are not sectionable does not make them right in the head.
Thatcher was well intentioned but took privatisation too far to include the utilities, run by British engineers, for which competition cannot sensibly exist and which now are partly foreign owned and a drain on our current account.
May 9, 2021
Much truth in this. She should have put Sir Alan Walters in the Lords and made him Chancellor or JR.
May 9, 2021
Though Lawson is bright and is now sound on the mad climate alarmism religion.
May 9, 2021
Look, people whom you describe as “woke” – an American folk word simply meaning aware of historic and continuing injustice – that is, those who are outraged by, and who protest against the inhuman treatment of people, do not do so because it might appear fashionable, or to annoy those like you who couldn’t care less.
They do so because their sense of decency allows them no choice.
Try to imagine that, if you can.
May 10, 2021
MiC
They should stand for election, instead of imposing their views on us without being tested by “the will of the people”.
May 9, 2021
Proving that to be racist trumps all other offences. It oughtn’t. Being unpleasant or harmful to anyone innocent should be of equal gravity. Woke-ists are the most bigoted people out there – they advocate harming old white men, for example.
May 9, 2021
My favourite bit of ‘Wokery’ is; “Asking for evidence of racism is itself proof of racism”.
One calls to mind the late Gerald Kaufman’s response when asked what he thought of Labour’s Election Manifesto; ‘The longest suicide note in history”.
May 9, 2021
Or that men should be allowed to self declare as women and then compete against women and thus effectively destroy women’s sport.
May 9, 2021
Merely not proposing the persecution of another race does not make you non-racist.
It is also necessary to care about injustice suffered by other races to the same extent that you care about your own suffering them.
I’m unsure as to how many commenting here would pass that test.
May 9, 2021
“It is also necessary to care about injustice suffered by other races to the same extent that you care about your own suffering them.”
Oh there you go again, Martin.
Ascribing to us thoughts we don’t have.
And so you have achieved Brexit and your party has been slapped into outer space.
Do you not see that yours is written evidence of Left wing bigotry against the majority and that you have caused the very outcomes that you dislike ?
You are not nearly as clever as you think you are.
May 9, 2021
I don’t wish to divulge my past but I have witnessed a lot of human suffering and it really didn’t matter what the person’s race was – a shrill scream is a shrill scream, it pierces the soul.
May 10, 2021
No, Welsh Labour have achieved their equal best-ever result.
As English Labour would have too, had they been the government dealing with covid 19 as did the Welsh one.
May 9, 2021
Lifelogic, This is Carla Bruni-Sarkozy on cancel culture, quoted on Guido:
“Little by little and without warning, do-gooders and censorship have taken control. Obsessed by their image of upholders of morality, a whole load of people without culture, without experience and without courage are trying to impose their narrow-minded ideas on us. Their sterile, uniform and puerile ideas are seeking to invade humanity. If we have the misfortune not to think like them, they rush at us with all their dictatorial energy to try to make us be quiet. Humour is quietly disappearing as a result of their moralising speeches, freedom is in its death throes, creation is lifeless and democracy in great danger. In short, it is not good to joke in 2021 . . .”
May 9, 2021
Humour is alive and well, try the Daily Mash, for instance, or Stewart Lee.
May 9, 2021
Is that in support of Charlie Hebdo?
May 9, 2021
Indeed.
May 9, 2021
Ah, so that’s what’s been depriving us of all your rib-tickling repartee is it, LL?
May 9, 2021
Labour don’t just criticise the Conservatives. They regularly insult every person who voted for Brexit and everyone who loves this country and its democratic foundations. They have effectively turned this country into a one party state, and that isn’t a good place to be, but it’s safer than having Labour change the country into their ideal. Where are the brains of the party? Insulting and alienating the majority of voters won’t win them more votes!
May 9, 2021
+1. If you are note woke youāre a racist seems to be their line!
May 9, 2021
Says a bunch of Upper Class, wealthy white people.
WOKE is a tern originated by, and for, black people or people of colour who have aWOKEn to their identity. It has since been hijacked by the Cultural Marxists and Race Baiters.
May 9, 2021
“black people or people of colour” is there another word for that? non-white perhaps?
May 9, 2021
@matthu; “non-white perhaps?”
I have yet to meet a “white” person, the closest I’ve come to doing so were corpses. We are all non-white, at least those with blood in our veins, be it socialist red or aristocracy blue! š
May 9, 2021
Indeed. Go woke, become broke! Let that be a warning to the Tory’s.
May 9, 2021
@Shirley M; Mr Corbyn had never insulted anyone before, nor whilst Labour leader and after (at least publicly), it is not his style, yet he has received much bile from Conservatives and their supporters, especially within the MSM. If the right do not like being on the receiving end of others bile, best they do not throw their own bile over others…
May 9, 2021
Good or bad, he just wasn’t convincing or to the taste of the majority.
May 9, 2021
@agricola; That was not the consensus after the 2017 general election! It would not have taken to many more Tory seats to have fallen for Corbyn to have been walking up Downing Street, as either majority or largest party leader, hence why after the 2017 GE he was also attacked from within his own party by those from the New Labour era.
May 9, 2021
Good comment. The Labour party has many in Westminster that despise anything British, our heritage, our history, our flag. Fortunately those views are not shared by many outside London. Boris must work hard now to reverse the woke anti British trend. Especially in Westminster.
May 9, 2021
Well said Sir John.
Thank you.
May 9, 2021
Our host suggest politicos should “drop the bile”, but then unloads a bucket or two upon Labour, the LibDems and the BBC…
The Tories might have done well overall but there seems to be some worrying signs, as @Lifelogic will no doubt point out, the Tories failed to remove a pretty mediocre sitting London Mayor, whilst across the Home Counties, the South and South East the Tories have lost many County Council seats and in some cases control. How can the Tories loose 2 seats to the LibDems on Wokingham Borough Council, whilst the Tories have lost 42 Country Councillors across the south from Kent to Wiltshire, many seats going to the LibDems and/or Greens…!
Any company who, in the search for new customers, forgets to offer suitable inducements to their existing long standing and loyal customer base simply ‘churns’ their customers base, and at worst they actually end up with fewer customers as the frustrated and forgotten vote with their feet, whilst the new customers either do not arrive or stay. Boris and the Tories might be able to keep the Red Wall Brexit supporting areas happy for now but what happens when europhile Labour accept the the fact that is Brexit and stops trying to fight old battles?
May 9, 2021
Electoral history shows that in mid term Council elections the two main parties often lose some seats to the smaller parties like Greens and Lib Dems.
There can also be some odd by election results where the voters vote in an MP not from the sitting government.
But these incidents are very often reversed at general elections.
May 9, 2021
@Peter2; Nonsense, the mid term governing party might loose one or two County council seats but not 5, 8 and, in one, 14 seats in multiple County councils, that is not mid-term blues, it is a wide spread deep dissatisfaction by any measure – even if the cause is simply down to otherwise Tory votes choosing to sit on their hands.
As for your second paragraph, irrelevant, I was talking about Local elections, not a by-election, but had there been a Westminster by-election in my CC area (bar one such constituency) and had such a long held constituency swung against the Tory party that would be even more of an indicator that the Tory party is in real trouble here in the south.
May 9, 2021
You need to check back on electoral history Jerry.
May 9, 2021
@Peter2; I might suggest the same of you, especially after your diatribe with re=gads Thursdays by-election in Hartlepool, with carefully curated statistics to try and make the Reform party look as if they had done exceptionally well.
May 9, 2021
Jerry
I said to andy who was claiming how well the Lib Dems and Greens had done that Reform got more votes than either of these parties.
To call that comment a ” diatribe” is ridiculous.
To say figures for each party I mentioned were “carefully curated” when they were simply facts that were correct is also ridiculous.
PS
I never said or even implied the Reform party had done exceptionally well.
Altogether Jerry, not one of your better posts.
May 9, 2021
@Peter2; “To call that comment a ā diatribeā is ridiculous.”
Except you falsely claimed Andy had posted comments he did not.
“To say figures for each party I mentioned were ācarefully curatedā when they were simply facts that were correct is also ridiculous.”
Except you failed to acknowledged Reform received 10,000+ fewer votes compared to their previous incarnation as TBP in the same seat at the 2019 election.
“I never said or even implied the Reform party had done exceptionally well.”
Except you said Reform had done better than the LibDems, a half-truth, Reform lost 25% or so of their vote compared to their previous incarnation as TBP in the same seat at the 2019 election, the LibDems lost a mere 2% or so, thus the LibDem vote actually held up far better than the Reform/TBP vote.
May 10, 2021
Jerry
Must a quiet day for you.
30 posts already.
What I originally posted was completely factually correct and no amount of pedantic waffle from you will alter that.
But do carry on Jerry if it keeps you busy.
May 10, 2021
@Peter; What I originally posted, rebuffing your lies and half-truths, was completely factually correct and no amount of pedantic waffle from you will alter that. Ho-hmm…
“30 posts already.”
Yeah, mostly in reply to you, defending myself and Andy against your naked assertions. How about you play the ball, not the man?!
“pedantic waffle”
Ah! The real problem, unwelcome pedantic waffle to you perhaps, the hard facts to everyone else (at least those not of partisan mind).
May 10, 2021
Fact not lies.
Prove it or shut up Jerry.
Not acceptable.
May 10, 2021
Jerry
Check the Hartlepool election result.
Reform got more votes that either the Lib Dems or the Greens.
Which is what I said.
Correct or not?
Yes or No
No more waffle no more pedantry.
May 9, 2021
jerry “how can the Tories lose two seats to the LibDems on Wokingham Council”
Answer is simple, constituents are fed up with an inefficient Council failing to return calls, failing to reply to e mails, forever losing paperwork submitted, sending out the wrong forms to the wrong people, indeed we have had so many changes of personnel in the last few years, that some will actually admit they do not know what they are supposed to be doing, or who is even responsible in their own Departments..
The Council have gone through so many re-organisations over the last decade the above is no surprise at all.
Whilst I did vote for a hardworking Conservative Councillor who was trying her best in her own way, it is no surprise many voters have given up and simply voted for someone else out of frustration, in the hope that things will change.
We still have some good hardworking personnel within the Council, but there is simply not enough of them !
May 9, 2021
only 2 was my reaction – but then the alternative was hardly attractive….spoilt paper being the only comfort.
May 9, 2021
Factchecking Jerry: The Tories lost 3 seats to the Libdems on Wokingham council, while gaining one from Labour.
But his main point is surely right this time. And it takes us to the question of where the Tories are going, if they are no longer the party of individual enterprise, self-reliance, and freedom from state interference, but instead the big state party, with massive state control and massive state handouts as we have at the moment.
May 9, 2021
@Richard II; “[being a] big state party, with massive state control and massive state handouts”
You mean like Labour, the LibDems and the Greens are, yet all did well here in the South, perhaps the problem with the Tory party is it now needs to again offer more of what you suggest they should not, after all how well did UKIP and TBP/Reform do with their ‘small state, massive personal freedom’ tickets?
Perhaps the worm has turned, just as it did back in 1979…
May 9, 2021
You misread me. I didn’t suggest anything the Tory party should or should not do, just that it has changed. Then the question is, once the Covid terror wears off, will its core electorate have gone somewhere else? I thought that was your point, Jerry. Agreeing with you seems to be harder than I expected!
May 9, 2021
@Richard II; The question is not so much where the Tory party is, but were the electorate are!
Perceptions towards the NHS have likely changed due to the pandemic, and many people of usually ‘individual enterprise & self-reliance’ mind now understand why both the concepts of a strong Society along with accessible Social Assistance is important to all, not just the ‘feckless’ – “But for the grace of God goes I” now has real resonance for many brought up to believe in 100% self reliance.
May 9, 2021
Bang on the money today Sir John.
For everybody in the parliament change has got to come. The fear is that conservative members sit back on their laurels and take their eye off of the ball to some of the real problems that are and will be affecting this country now and in the very near future.
May 9, 2021
+1
May 9, 2021
Thoughts on how the UK government should set out its stall after yesterday’s confidence boost. How to treat the three national authorities.
NI and the UK need the removal of the Protocol, an EU delayed land mine that fosters division. It’s creation was vindictive.
Wales confirmed their inherant socialism. I see no danger in their christian interpretation of it. Do not tamper with their financial support as a punishment for voting the way they do, but ensure they benefit post Brexit/Covid as much as any other area of the UK.
Scotland are not easily understood. They are largely well educated. As such who of them would choose to escape the malicious, as the SNP see it, control of the English to serfdom in a totally undemocratic EU. What is independant about that. I suspect that the canny Nicola hangs the threat of independance over the English like the Butter Knife of Damoclese in order to demand the biggest slice of any cake on offer. It is encumbent on HMG to spell out the consequences of severence should the siren calls now increase in volume. The Scotts have more autonomy than any other devolved nation, make clear their failures which grow in proportion to their clamour for independance. It may be necessary to call the SNP’s bluff and give them their referendum. Remember Catalan, only 40/60 in favour of independance until the Spanish government in a ham fisted show of force turned it into 60/40.
The crunch bit is for the UK government to ensure that the UK prospers from Brexit, way beyond the wildest dreams of the English. I and many others in this diary have told you how to do it, so ignore the EU and the ill considered thoughts of Biden, and get on with it. To use a sailing phrase, the wind is with you, don’t waste it on more of the past.
May 9, 2021
Poor Bristol too, Turkeys voting for Christmas. A dreadful Labour Mayor with the deluded Green dopes coming second.
May 9, 2021
Bristol
ā¦ creates more new companies during lockdown than any other UK city;
ā¦ is the best city outside London to create a company (68th in global ranking when Manchester has now fallen to 79th and London is 3rd) (Start-Up Ecosystem Rankings 2020 out of 1000 cities in 100 countries).
Bristol company tops list of 50 most innovative tech firms (BusinessCloud).
ā¦ but who am I to comment when we have here LL, our own specialist of anything business-related.
May 9, 2021
Coincidence or causation?
May 9, 2021
P2, so what do you think?
May 9, 2021
It is probably coincidental Hefner
What do you think?
May 9, 2021
P2, I would also think itās coincidental, but LL seems to think that having a Labour mayor is going to bring āThe Ten Plaguesā on Bristol. Given that the guy has been mayor since 2016, most of these plagues should already have decimated the population there.
May 9, 2021
Couldn’t agree more Sir John and thank you Lifelogic for a perfect description of Major. I reckon he finally dropped all his principles about the same time that he dropped his trousers in No10.
May 9, 2021
Good article. Labour has backed itself into a corner – as is readily apparent whenever its backbenchers particpate in Home Office Questions. The British people, increasingly, see Labour as more interested in the needs of anyone but the British.
May 9, 2021
+1 well said!
May 9, 2021
+1
I would go one stage further and say all who is native English, exemplified by the sneering over the St George flag.
May 9, 2021
+1
May 9, 2021
+1 Spot on!
May 9, 2021
Good morning.
When in opposition I seem to remember the Conservative Party doing much the same thing. The job of the Opposition is to hold the government of the day to account and to highlight wrong doing and bad policies. Their second objective is to convince the electorate that they would do something both different and better.
Labour under Kier Stamer MP has only done the first of those two things. They have just made negative comments about the government but have failed how they would differ and do better. The SNP manage this two stage method better, following the old saying; “Four legs good, two legs bad” mantra – ie Independence good, UK bad. Their supporters not seeing other parts of policies as contradictory.
As others here have alluded to, Labour really has nowhere to go. They are captured by a London Metropolitan elite that just simply cannot understand or relate to its core supporter base – ie The North. But its greatest problem is Socialism itself. This ideology does not do self reflection. It does not look at itself and seek to evolve. The CCP did, it embraced Capitalism as it realised that it too would fall unless it gave its people hope of a better tomorrow. What better tomorrow does Labour offer the people of this nation ?
May 9, 2021
Mark B
They offer “Social Justice for all”, whatever that means !
As you say the metropolitan elite are in control, other than Corbyn, who was in effect a student protester who never grew up, but never learning from decades of Socialist failures world wide.
May 9, 2021
@Mark B; I agree with your first paragraph, but would also include the MSM such as the BBC, it is part of their job to ask deeply probing questions, to act as the devils advocate, and yes that can appear to be taking sides to those who would wish such questions are not asked. The Govt can call an official press briefing, outside of the democratic checks and balances of Parliament, knowing they can have anything up to an hour with an open mic, putting their case, picking who asks any questions and has total control of how or even if they answer the broadcast media become those (extra-parliamentary) democratic checks and balances.
As for Labour having nowhere to go, nonsense, they could reclaim the Red Wall in the north by giving up the the their gains in South, but then the bigger question for the right might be who fills the vacuum, would the Tory party retake the ground or would the LibDems and/or Greens take new ground?
May 9, 2021
Iāve given up with the Today Programme as with much else of the BBCās output. But I did happen to hear that interview by Nick Robinson with two Hartlepool voters. It was a disgrace. One party which has lost badly in these elections is the BBCās political team which for the last three weeks has been running a relentless and absurd personal campaign against Boris Johnson. Great to see the voters have ignored it.
In Scotland there is no evidence of some massive change in public opinion since the 2014 referendum, there is therefore no case for a new referendum. Let Sturgeon hold her own Catalonia style gesture referendum if she likes, where she will get a 90% vote on a 30% turnout. And ignore it. (But donāt send her to prison as Spain /the EU are doing).
In London #Uselesskhan was under 5% ahead of a weak Conservative candidate on the first preferences. If weād had a good candidate – like Rory Stewart – and a strong campaign focused on crime we could have won that too.
May 9, 2021
Richard1,
Rory Stewart? Are you joking?
Iād rather vote for Count Binface.
May 9, 2021
Well then thatās why we have Khan
May 9, 2021
The 2014 vote was premised on Cameron’s “pledge” remember?
It involved major constitutional change.
It was torn up before the last votes were counted, and mocked by many Tories.
The vote is therefore invalidated, and any undertakings made in relation to it void.
In any case no parliament can bind its successor.
May 9, 2021
Richard 1 – Khan was guaranteed the win from the out as there were far too many candidates who split the vote. Also no one really of any outstanding ability to challenge Khan’s base.
Rory Stewart!!!! No thank you. Do your research on him.
May 9, 2021
“One party which has lost badly in these elections is the BBCās political team ”
Perhaps the BBC should indeed form its own party, Richard. It certainly opinionated enough.
May 9, 2021
I’m not sure he/they show respect for OUR flag. Flags for many acronyms, the EU, other countries, yes, but not our flag.
That is their main problem.
May 9, 2021
Aye all those abstract nouns.
They’re much cheaper than providing a decent country in which people could live.
May 9, 2021
The Today programme also ventured into Harlow Essex, asking people there why they voted Conservative , one lady replying she was fed up of hearing about Boris’s flat decorations, finishing up with the advice to them of ‘give it a rest’. At that point the reporters world fell through the floor as he realised their media pile on before the election, rather than helping Labour, had delivered votes to the Conservatives.
As to advice for Labour, it also helps if they actually like the country in which they are seeking support, especially England, which they positively hate, they are Anglophobes and people can see it.
May 9, 2021
Criticising Labour for “tax and spend” policies is a bit thick when the Conservatives have doubled (!!) the size of the national debt in only ten years. People have got used to living on cheap tick, however many are allocating over half their income to servicing their debts. When interest rates revert to a historical norm of 5% – as they must – the government will undoubtedly still be blaming Labour for the mess.
I should like to wish Sir David Attenborough many happy returns on this, his 95th birthday. His wonderful nature documentaries, produced and broadcasted globally by the BBC, have earned more in export income for the country than many industries surviving today.
May 9, 2021
SG
Attenborough has been relentlessly pushing the Climate Change nonsense and telling untruths into a bargain!
May I respectfully suggest that you look on YouTube for the Netflix documentary in which he claims that Walruses were flinging themselves off a cliff due to the absence of sea ice but failing to mention half a dozen Polar Bears on the cliff top, the producer of the programme later apologise for the misleading information, also the presence of the film crew with their drones may well have panicked the Walruses?
And the Polar Bears are doing very nicely, despite the claims
May 9, 2021
Attenborough has actually been to the places that are subjected to climate change, particularly the Arctic, where there is now no ice at the N Pole in summer. Also melting glaciers in the Himalayas, Greenland, the Alps etd etc. He is an expert in his field and has spent the last 40 years or so documenting our wonderful planet – and the damage that we humans are doing to it
Unfortunately for you and the other dinosaurs that post here – against the absolutely overwhelming evidence of the climate crisis – the world’s scientists and governments disagree with you,, including our own. They have not been taken in by the propaganda paid for by the fossil fuel industry and acknowledge that we must reduce our emissions, and quickly. Even our kind host Sir John, who has posted many interesting pieces on the economics of our transition to a low-carbon economy, understands the reality of the situation.
Happy birthday, Sir David Attenborough. Thank you for all the wonderful documentaries that so interested me during the lockdowns.
May 9, 2021
Dear Sakara Gold,
There is no land mass at the North Pole, the Arctic Ocean has a floating ice pack. If there was no ice at the Pole you would be swimming in extremely cold water. You really should improve your knowledge of a subject before you start insulting others.
Here is a little puzzler for you to think on: If the Arctic Ice Pack melted, by how much would sea level rise?
May 9, 2021
Where can Labour go?
The tories have stolen their clothes …with knobs on.
Labour certainly canāt out-socialise/communise the tories.
So we are definitely a one party state.
All opposition crushed …by one means or another.
Digital currency and real loss of freedom next if Hannahās cat-out-of-bag pronouncements are to be believed.
And why is it any particular achievement to have a female PM? I thought we were all equal!
May 9, 2021
valid points and shame on the tory (to borrow a phrase) āshape-shiftersā
May 9, 2021
+1
May 9, 2021
‘Digital currency and real loss of freedom next if Hannahās cat-out-of-bag pronouncements are to be believed.’
Could you be more specific, please? Who is Hannah?
May 9, 2021
Sorry!
Daniel Hannan…my iPad knew better.
He made an odd video entitled ā Our moment of liberty is coming to an endā.
Today he wrote piece in the telegraph āDigital currency is the future. The quicker we develop an e-pound, the betterā.
These once conspiracy theories are now out in the open.
May 9, 2021
Excellent post.
I do hope that Andy and Newmania read it.
They were insulting me before Brexit by ascribing to me views that I didn’t hold … and that’s why they got Brexit !!!
I love reading their little tantrums on this site.
May 9, 2021
Yes indeed.
It’s high time we all recognized that this is the nature of socialists.…and one of the reasons we get so angry that the Tories have allowed socialism to grow to the destructive force it is within our country and their party.
But what about the GREENS Why did they do so well this week.
It can’t be for their economic strategy, for they would as likely plunge us into a vast array of destructive environmental projects.
It really had little to do with the hard work of supporters knocking on doors — Both the Greens and Tories reaped the votes because of the huge amount of green propaganda the BBC, and other broadcasters, unleashes daily.
The media has the power and the will to make us vote as they direct – Shouldn’t we all be worried about that!
May 9, 2021
English results ā number of councillors
Total councillors available 3800 ā number of Green Party councillors 121
Clearly the voters didnāt vote for nor supported the Green Party
May 9, 2021
I’m the last one to want to promote the Greens, but in their own words:
They certainly did better than labour thanks to MSM propaganda over CC
May 9, 2021
BBC reporting Welsh Senedd 2021 results
Labour 30
Conservatives 16
Plaid Cymru 13
Lib Dems 1
The passage youāve quoted must be from an earlier time
BBC reporting English Councillors 2021 results
Green 143 out of 4645 (latest)
May 9, 2021
Why are you forcing me to promote the Greens?
According to the BBC they gained 82 seats which was a big increase FOR THEM
My whole point is that they and the Tories were helped by the BBC’s non-stop PR for MMCC
May 9, 2021
Bryan please accept my apology
May 9, 2021
The people will not turn off their TV so the fake news MSM win every time. The vast majortiy BELIEVE what they see and hear. Take the plan demic. I have not had a TV for over ten years as there is so much true information available to everyone, but one has to search.
May 9, 2021
BBC reportage in overdrive yesterday afternoon. Since when did local elections take up the BBC all day ?
Clearly Labour’s problems are their problems and they report them in a “What are WE going to do about them ?” tone.
May 9, 2021
Yes, Sir John. So, why has the BBC’s persistent bias not been curbed, or the BBC defunded?
May 9, 2021
Walt
You only had to see the Marr show with Sturgeon. Talk about an easy ride
Still has to be expected one Scot to another. At least Gove put him in his place.
I agree stop funding it or just knock it down and start again. It is not going to change. Too many grossly overpaid and under performing. P45 time for the lot of them.
May 9, 2021
Do like Maggie. Privatise it. Put it up for auction.
May 9, 2021
all the more reason to defund the bbc and let it sink or swim in the real world
May 9, 2021
Well I’ve done my bit, so that’s the BBC minus 1 x Ā£159. I don’t miss watching live TV at all, and am now content with Amazon Prime and more time for other non TV interests.
May 9, 2021
John Redwood being a Conservative MP might well say that. As neither Tory nor Labour I think he’s right.
It doesn’t take long for me to have a belly full of Labour front bench sanctimony before I have to turn over or turn off.
The irony is they criticise the Tories for not living up to their principles, not realising the Tories don’t have any.
So Keir Starmer takes full responsibility – and sack Angela Rayner. No Keir, taking responsibility means you resign. He seems quite a nice chap, perhaps good as a shadow home secretary or justice secretary, but to lead a party to victory requires someone with charisma. Personally I’d like to hear some initiatives, but then what do I know?
May 9, 2021
Rather than waste any more time why not grant Scotland independence – there are far more important issues for Westminster to deal with. Just think of the money that could be put to better use.
May 9, 2021
Identity politics is a strange animal. It comes from a place of sanctimonious piety, where others are judged “deficient” without any good reason and where rejection of one belief, automatically translates to something unconnected (woke). It’s been allowed to fester because the Tories have let it happen, apparently believing their policies would be enough to convert the hearts and minds of the masses. What wasn’t anticipated (but should have been) was the left’s Marxist element infiltrating local politics, aka, the “long march through the institutions”. This has provided a very effective block to the centre right politics of a Tory government and allowed them to systematically introduce the destructive policies of the left, anyway, i.e. they’ve ruled from the bottom up as if successive Tory UK governments didn’t exist. With the local election victories there will need to be some very serious, and perhaps disproportionate, time and energy diverted to a (still) heavily indoctrinated left-leaning administrative powerbase, finally demonstrating how the Tories can reach the people, en masse, and help improve lives. Good luck!
May 9, 2021
Well said Sir John as the national debate has been below standard for decades coinciding with the TV broadcasting in the Commons. When you only had radio MPs were obliged to raise their game and give substance to arguments with gravitas. You could be inspired by their insights and experience. Even the Speaker from Wales was a joy to hear!
Nowadays it has become lower than watching adolescents moaning and droning with minimum skills in arithmetic, language ability and logic over emotional spouting that gets the headlines instead.
May 9, 2021
“Both Labour and Lib Dems specialise in negative campaigning. They abuse Conservative MPs and Councillors……”
āHow people treat other people is a direct reflection of how they feel about themselves.ā ~Paulo Coelho
May 9, 2021
My words, repeating something I heard this morning.
The Conservatives are now Labour, Labour are now communists- now we need a centre right party.
May 9, 2021
could I add ‘Green are bonkers, Libnodems are just confused.’
May 9, 2021
Sir John
As always I broadly agree with you.
Unfortunately nowadays Politics is about deceit, unrealistic promises and playing to the WOKE brigade. The MsM is not about news, informing or investigative journalism, its about a sound-bite headline to catch the audiences attention so as to expose their sponsors/advertisers. In that way they have the means to pay the wages. The downside here is that to many of the media are card carrying activist of the left, if only they also had to expose their interest instead of other doing it for us. At the extreme we have the Guardian (guarding who) supported slavery when the World had moved, supported the Confederate, but tries to imply it is others.
The PM is making the mistake of being lead by a noisy Metro Leftish Agenda. That is about his little corner of London and not the whole of the UK. He made the mistake of Cobra meeting announcements being able to be counted and/or accredited to others long before the UK formal gets informed. The UK Cabinet has a Health Minister, an Education Minister perhaps others as well that are NOT UK ministers just minsters of a Region of the UK – that’s bizarre.
Its time for the Government to ‘Man’ up either abandon the regional parliaments or properly delegate responsibilities to the regions. Strathclyde is big enough to look after it own affairs without interference of Edinburg. Yorkshire is bigger than Scotland and they don’t get a Parliament. The system is a mess.
May 9, 2021
The management of London has been a disaster for a very long time. It started going wrong when some one decided they should grab large swathes of the surrounding County’s that had been extremally well run and tried to integrate them into the lawless territory London now is.
I cant remember the actual Mayor in the US that created the theory and system, but it worked for him and its working in London. Lawlessness causes people with the means to up sticks and leave. If they are not your natural supporters that’s a good thing so there is no point in controlling the problem just let it keep festering and you will keep getting elected.
May 9, 2021
Yes, I was born in Middlesex since swallowed up by Greater London, a total dissater.
May 9, 2021
Gove ā āāScotland independence isnāt on the table we have to look to the issues before us..Iāll be concentrating on covid recoveryāā
What planet is Gove on, the Scottish independence referendum is front and centre the issue of the day ā didnāt he notice the elections a couple of days ago
Keep Gove off the air
May 9, 2021
Boris could stop Scottish independence tomorrow morning if he wanted .
Just instruct somebody at the BOE to use their index finger and a computer keyboard and credit the Scottish consolidated fund with a Ā£ trillion blips.
Say when that Ā£trillion runs out phone me and I’ll get another Ā£trillion credited in.
Scottish independence would be killed off – stone dead.
If the SNP don’t use the blips correctly and cause inflation or use their skills and real resources correctly they will get voted out.
May 9, 2021
They could use that magic money to promote independence.
May 9, 2021
True peter,
But they wouldn’t need independence after that and their case for independence would be weak and the voters would see it. They could no longer complain about funding.
The other parties could attack them for not getting things done. Trust me even if Boris funded the consolidated fund properly they would fail.
They would introduce a basic income and be voted out in no time with inflation going through the roof.
The universal basic income is like when Zimbabwe chased all the farmers off the land and they rewarded the freedom fighters with the farms. Production dropped by 60% and the freedom fighters sat on top of the roofs of the farms and sunbathed and still got paid.
With the same spending was flowing through Zimbabwe as if the farmers were still in place. Not realising production had dropped 60% no wonder they got inflation.
Universal basic income is the same . They want some Scots to sit on the roofs of their houses in the rain and get paid for not producing goods and services. Whilst others have to go out and do the work.
They’ll be voted out quicker than you can say nutters.
If they used the fund to adopt a job guarentee on the other hand growth rates, productivity and profits would go through the roof.
That helps to fight inflation as it is counter cyclical and a one off price adjustment.
May 9, 2021
Hmm sounds very inflationary to me.
Creating money out of thin air.
But I admit I am half seduced.
Can you send me a million as soon as possible.
Before it is worth a loaf of bread.
May 9, 2021
The reason that they have nothing to say is genuinely… that they have nothing to say!!
The Labour party had a point when the movement formed, there were some serious issues to address with equality (of opportunity) BUT…
They had achieved all that they really needed to achieve when they left office around 1950.
Since then, they have struggled to find a raison d’etre. In order to “champion the poor” and win elections doing so, you need an awful lot of poor people. After a while, those “poor” start to notice that after 50-70 more years of voting Labour, they’re still poor – or at least relatively so.
So they lurch into championing other “inequalities”, gender, immigration – and while doing so they try to import new voters, who live in their own cultural bubble, while attempting to change our laws and customs to be theirs – thereby destroying the cohesion of our social fabric.
The traditional Labour voter notices that too and sees that the Labour party no longer stands up for this country, for them or for much of anything else, other than trying to achieve power for the sake of having power. And when they get it… they always, always, always trash the economy.
And people are starting to notice that equality of opportunity and equality of outcome are not the same thing. One is desirable, a laudable aim, the latter is not. What we are doing, at best, is to tweak the results so as to pretend that the system isn’t broken – but it may simply be that, for example, women choose not to enter certain types of work just as men also have less interest in some occupations. We do not see hordes of men campaigning to be child-minders, but many women would like to spend their time in that role.
If thereās to be a new opposition party, let’s not have more socialists. It’s time that failed experiment was put firmly into the hazardous waste bin.
May 9, 2021
You cannot blame Nicola Sturgeon for the plan she is following.
She wins both ways : While Boris announces he is going to “love bomb” Scotland with more money, in a futile attempt to buy off Indy 2, she will get the credit for frightening him into spending the
Sassenach’s money.
When all that extra spending of our money makes no difference to the polls, she will win again because, whatever he says now, Boris cannot deny Scotland another vote while there is at least 50% of the Scottish electorate calling for one.
What he should do is offer an interim measure by legislating for early and full devolution of taxation and spending. Sturgeon would have no option other than to accept the deal as anything else would prove to her electorate that her policy is all bluster and lies. We can all sit back and watch Sturgeon cut services and raise taxes in a futile attempt to balance the books, just like she would be forced to do following independence. There is nothing like a bit of cold economic realism to thwart a dream.
May 9, 2021
I have no doubt that if Nicola Sturgeon was successful in her referendum it wouldnāt take 5 years to leave the union of the UK, nor would she enter into an agreement deal that effectively keeps her bound to the UK laws, regulations and level playing field ?
May 9, 2021
Chris,
Hope you are well.
” our money”
Is a myth.
Based on the idea that your taxes fund things they don’t. Never mind that somehow using the treasury and BOE your taxes are Then used in Scotland.
An absurd notion not based on reality. The treasury accounts and BOE accounts shows that no such set up exists.
May 9, 2021
Hello Derek, and thanks for enquiring, we are all well here in deepest Dorset.
I am afraid that we have to disagree over the funding of the devolved regions of the UK.
The overall expenditure on everything across the UK is funded by a mixture of taxation and borrowing.
Taking England in isolation, expenditure only exceeds taxes raised by a very small margin : in 2019 (pre-pandemic), the figure for England was only Ā£88.25 per head of population. That is less than the amount spent on the foreign aid budget and could therefore easily be eliminated. A few simple changes ie scrapping HS2 and other vanity projects, and England could easily be running a budget surplus.
The other three parts of the United Kingdom run very large current account deficits but the whole of the UK, including England, is responsible for financing the overall total of these deficits on a per capital basis.
In other words, the taxpayers of England are still liable at a UK level for the difference between taxes raised and expenditure incurred within the devolved nations.
The deficit figures on a per capital basis for 2019 are as follows :
Scotland : Ā£2,482
Wales : Ā£4,307
NI : Ā£4,996
England : Ā£ 88
These are the amounts spent in excess of taxes raised in each of the four parts of the United Kingdom.
Because the other three parts make up less than 15% of the total population and the deficit in England is so small, it is English taxpayers who carry the responsibility for almost this entire amount.
For 2019, the overall deficit was Ā£41.36bn. England’s share of the entire deficit was Ā£623 per head of population. Compare this with England’s own deficit which, as I said, was just Ā£88.25 per person.
In other words, each and every person in English is subsidising those in the rest of the UK by more than Ā£534 a year.
May 9, 2021
Reply to ChrisS
Bullseye but she cannot be trusted to not then blackmail Boris as infinitum sadly.
The socialist Slovakia ran out of road when they split from Czechoslovakia after 5 years. The lesson is lost on the SNP who are a one trick pony sadly. They would argue why change tack when it is working ?
May 9, 2021
Looking forward, the country having endorsed the team, HMG must bring covid get up and go to outstanding problems. I focus on a major one, the vastly expanded legacy of appointments, operations,and treatment regimes that have built up during the inevitable concentration on Covid.
Of utmost importance, the action plan must be headed by the same type of clear thinking that created the vaccination programme. It cannot be left to a demonstrably failed PPE , NHS administration. I see it as the legacy chaos after the Iraq war. Audit demand against capacity and be prepared to be flexible. Your Worcester hip operation might have to be matched with capacity in Aberdeen. Do not be afraid to contract out to Melbourne if it can lead to speedy resolution. The cost of the air fare, particularly if you can fill an A380, is insignificant alongside the total cost.
This is the required level of thinking if the problem is to be cleared well before the next election. It is important because just about every elector will know of a friend or family member in need of treatment. My friend of the family is a three year old prolapsed rectum, very painful when it occurs. The memory of clearing the problem will have great voter significance. The party that gets things done.
May 9, 2021
If I may ask, Sir John, what on earth makes you think the present leadership of the Labour Party wants it to win?
May 9, 2021
“Both Labour and Lib Dems specialise in negative campaigning.”
As long as it keeps them out of government then long may it continue. However we do need an alternative to the Cons unless Sir John can instigate the necessary and long overdue reforms. That will not happen under Boris.
May 9, 2021
Up to a point, Lord Copper. The truth is that negative campaigning DOES work, but ONLY if (i) the criticisms are about something that the public really care about, and (ii) you also have a positive message of your own.
Labour failed on both scores. Who gives a monkey’s about what Boris spent on his interior decor? Yes, it was grossly extravagant, and we can all have a good laugh at how henpecked he must be to spend more than he can afford on a flat he will only be living in for a few years. ‘There’s no fool like an old fool’, as they say. But is it not us who are paying for it, so that’s his problem, not ours. And if he’s got a mate who will help him pay for it, then good luck to him. It’s not something that affects us, so we don’t care. But what was Labour’s big policy idea for making Brexit Britain a global powerhouse? Nobody knows – least of all Labour themselves!
But where negative campaigning was more likely to be successful was where it was not, unfortunately, used: in London, attacking Khan. Bailey should have gone for Khan’s jugular on the issue where the latter was most vulnerable: knife crime. Furthermore, Bailey was in the inviduous position of being able to use his ethnicity to his advantage, claiming that Khan (unlike Bailey) did not care about the murder of young black kids. He should have made knife crime the front and centre of the campaign, with an aggressive attack slogan of Etc ed Khan’s indignation at such an attack would merely have magnified the issue in the public’s mind, and violent crime is something that people DO care about. Bailey could perhaps therefore have won if he’d played his cards right, by being strongly negative, but combined with some positive policies to reduce crime (more ‘bobbies on the beat’, electronic surveillance of known gang members, stop and search, etc).
May 9, 2021
I donāt care what Johnsonās interior decor cost.
I do care who paid for it initially and why they paid for it, because I donāt think our prime ministers should ever even give the impression that they can be bought.
May 9, 2021
Like Labour and Trade Union funding for example?
May 9, 2021
Yes, and all those party members paying their dues too – outrageous.
Peter cannot see the difference between public record, transparent financing, by known entities, and covert anonymous payments for who-knows-what.
I feel sympathy more than anything.
May 10, 2021
err.. dues were meant to be the pot to protect members’ industrial action, not to pay high salaries to union officials and Party coffers.
May 10, 2021
It is the influence these many millions that are bankrolling the Labour party achieve in terms of selecting MPs and policies in manifestos MiC.
Mind you, on reflection I think it should continue as it is helping to make Labour the party of permanent opposition.
May 9, 2021
P2, funny comparison: it was always known that Trade Unions are/were supporting Labour, From its origin at the end of the 19thc members of the Trade Union Congress had been essential in the creation of what became the Labour Party.
One needs be very flexible in their thinking to compare this with what has recently been happening around the Prime Minister.
But never let the opportunity of a dumb comment be missed, eh?
May 10, 2021
You can’t resist a personal little dig, can you hef?
What is dumb is anyone thinking the millions of pounds given to Labour doesn’t give them huge influence over the choice of MPs and policies.
Perhaps this is yet another reason they are in opposition and will be for very many years yet.
May 9, 2021
I don’t think a PM should be put in a compromising position by his missus. That’s my issue with it.
(Also the fact that she lectures us – via her husband – on restraint.)
May 9, 2021
Andy
“….I donāt think our prime ministers should ever even give the impression that they can be bought.”
Well said !
May 9, 2021
Well said, honestly the abuse hurled at Hartlepool residents by the left on Twitter had to be seen to be believed. And somehow the left thinks that it makes them more electable.
I live in the heart of Sussex. Iām well used to seeing Tory posters and flyers defaced or ripped down, strangely that never happens to Labour or Lib Dem ones. Itās almost like Tory voters are more mature!
Boris is a great example, he never uses personal abuse, and has a ready and genuine smile, itās what makes him so popular, despite obvious faults such as lack of fidelity. I hope the Tory party never stoops into the gutter like Labour, and supports Boris to the hilt.
May 9, 2021
The Home Office said 49 people managed to cross the English Channel in three small boats on Saturday
Could someone please have a word with Boris
May 9, 2021
‘Boris’ doesn’t care. He’s happy with it.
May 9, 2021
No. They didn’t cross the Channel in three small boats. They were met part way by the Tory ferry service.
May 9, 2021
It’s odd, but maybe predictable, that we get a stream of anguished complaints about NI and fishing, when the recent votes pretty much indicate that the public either don’t care or are content to wait for negotiations to pan out.
The press focused on fishing and NI because that’s where the eye-catching stories were, not because they were very important in economic terms. They were issues that seemed to be “crises” but which in fact were so limited in scope that they were crises only to journalists.
When the Press is manipulating you, it may not be the smartest move to go along with the manipulation with the volume turned up.
May 9, 2021
Unfortunately it is not just politics where dishonourable hearts work . Personal standards have deteriorated as people discover they can get their own way ; right or wrong, by living in a make up world of lies, deceit and over the last 20 years or so, twisting facts around and attempting to gain influence from someone else’s followers. Of course one cannot change the very basis of reality around and as the con artists claim their unlawful right to own others work, experience and standards around, they then influence others to behave in a similar sort of way, sometimes subliminally. The people who con then do everything they can to avoid truths coming out and try sleaze and directed put downs , keeping them as low as possible and getting others on board to do the same. There is no honour , there is no ‘If’, but if i ever find anyone with a pure heart, not an act to avoid the wrath of the country by posing as an altruistic saint, I will let you all know.
May 9, 2021
I think that one thing that is now obvious is that Brexit is yesterday’s news, and that the action in the next three months is going to be Scottish Independence and the Labour Leadership.
Boris now has to decide if he is going to be seen as managing Scottish Independence, defining what it really is, and minimizing the damage – or is he wants to be seen as having Scottish Independence dragged out of his hands, leaving a nasty after-taste.
There is a “good” Scottish Independence to be had with a bit of cooperation. It would leave Scotland Independent in an emotional and flag-waving sense, while making almost no difference to the economics of the British Isles. But it will take both Boris and the SNP to recognize it and reach for it.
May 10, 2021
Would that be rather like the “good” Brexit that some politicians were reaching for? Leaving the UK Independent in an emotional and flag-waving sense, while making almost no difference to the economics of the EU.
May 9, 2021
Perhaps your critics have a point?
Perhaps the sleaze, and corruption, and the law breaking, and the culture wars, and the absolute incompetence of your government is just too extreme.
If you were all genuine patriots you would look at the extremist mess your party has become and you would disown it. One wonders why you do not.
You are all putting party before country. Which is the wrong way around.
May 9, 2021
Umm.
Labour has been slapped into outer space and Brexit has been endorsed for a fifth time. I’ll give you that greenism has been endorsed too but most of us have never been against that, just the haste that Boris introduces it. Anti-greenism is yet another thing you ascribe to people with different views from your own and so you pay for in voting outcomes that you dislike.
I’d love a swanky electric car but I’m paying too much in tuition fees (both STEM students, Masters level) and can only afford to recycle old ICE cars which I fix myself.
May 10, 2021
not true. The damage done to party might make it unelectable for years. Whereas quitting the 28 and vaccinating all who want it is putting the country first.
May 9, 2021
JR
Hmm….interesting points Sir Redwood. Though if this were a general election I think the conservative party would be in for a nasty surprise.