My speech in response to the Queen’s Speech

I begin by saying how much I agree with our colleagues from Northern Ireland who rightly want Northern Ireland to be as fully part of our internal market as it always has been and as the Northern Ireland protocol says it should be.

I urge the Government, with our Northern Ireland colleagues, to urgently negotiate a solution with the EU so that we can have full access to and from Northern Ireland for normal commerce, or, if the EU is determined not to allow that to happen, to take the administrative steps necessary to make sure that our internal market works smoothly and argue the case that the Northern Ireland protocol states that that is part of its objective and so should be enforced.

I welcome many things in the Gracious Speech. I am glad that the Government give great priority to providing the resources to support the innovations and new ideas in the health service. The health service needs to build itself back on all the non-covid-19 treatments and procedures after its valiant fight against this awful illness, and it will take those extra resources that the Government are promising.

There are innovations in the way that healthcare can be delivered, treatment offered and investigations undertaken following the covid-19 period that I am sure our Secretary of State will be very keen to ensure the NHS works up professionally to make a better service.

However, I urge the Government to address a series of problems that seem to be cropping up in various parts of the country relating to some surgeries that are not up to the standards of the best or the good regarding access to healthcare and appointments.

I think everybody wants the reassurance that as the NHS gets back to a better balance in its working, everyone who feels they need an appointment can get through on the phone or on the internet and have early triage and early settlement in a suitable online or face-to-face appointment, depending on their needs.

We are hearing about cases at some surgeries around the country where people cannot get through, where the phone lines are restricted, where the timing of the phone calls is limited, or where there are not enough appointments on offer and no forward booking. I hope that there can be guidelines on minimum standards so that people everywhere feel that they have access to excellent NHS care just as most people do who have good surgeries and good doctors.

I welcome the animal welfare measures in the proposals. One of benefits of making more of our own decisions is that we can and should set higher welfare standards, and I am glad that the Government are taking that up.

I welcome the wish to do more for veterans, and we must ensure that the covenant is properly legislated for. I hope the Government will consider the whole issue of housing, because one unsatisfactory feature of some service careers and lives is that when people leave after many years of good service, they have no deposit for a house and there is no availability of one, because they have been living in service-provided accommodation for many years.

I hope the Government will consider more imaginative schemes that either support service personnel to buy a home of their own while still in the services, or help them with savings and the necessary arrangements to get the right combination of deposit and mortgage when they leave after many years of good service. We want our veterans to be better housed, and not to fall through the cracks because of the service they have given and their dependence on state-provided accommodation that lasts only as long as their service.

I hope the Government will take a stronger line on defending our fish and restoring our fishing industry. We must do lots of work before the so-called transition is over. Many Brexit voters look to the Government to provide that back-up to our fishing industry, and to ensure proper standards, regulation and control of our fishing grounds, and that our own industry is properly looked after.

I also hope we will soon get some VAT reductions or cancellations. VAT was imposed on a range of items that, if left to its own devices, the UK Parliament probably would not have chosen. That should be part of the Brexit bonus.

I hope the Government will work more, as the Gracious Speech implied, on national resilience. That issue is becoming common—indeed, President Biden is working hard on that in the United States of America. We have seen how, if we become too dependent on overseas interests, we must be careful in the field of energy. We have seen our French neighbours threatening Jersey over the energy supply that it currently receives from an interconnector to France.

I hope the Government will learn a lesson from that. Interconnectors under the sea are vulnerable if other countries are hostile to us, because of the physical location of the cable. We should move our policy from one of increasing dependence on more interconnectors to import energy, to one of wanting self-sufficiency and capacity in the United Kingdom. We always used to have that, and surely it would be a good source of jobs and investment if we set ourself the target of getting back to meeting our own needs in whatever suitable style the Government wish.

I am glad the Government are talking about broadband and threats to the internet. We must ensure that, with the right amount of Government support and a great deal of private-led investment, we get fast broadband throughout the country, for both business and home use, as that is a big part of our future.

We saw how dependent we have become on broadband as we made special arrangements for the pandemic, and many of those changes will live on in whole or in part. We therefore need that much better capacity and performance. The national resilience strategy must ensure some of the building blocks. Indeed, we literally need more building blocks, basic materials and capacity for the construction industry, but we must also produce enough of things such as steel and aluminium to have that resilience should problems emerge in the world’s supply system.

I am pleased that the Government will consider public procurement. Now that we are free to make more of our own decisions, it is right to review the huge sums of money that the Government spend on buying in goods and services, and ask ourselves whether, while preserving sensible competitive process, we can ensure that more of that money is well spent on United Kingdom supply. In some areas I feel that we resort too easily to the overseas option, and at a time when other great countries around the world are taking steps to ensure more of their own internal capacity, the United Kingdom must do that as well.

Building back better should be about making sure, with that right mixture of public demand—perhaps sometimes with public pump-priming, but more often with a lot of private investment—that we start to replace some of that lost capacity and substitute for some of those imports, because our balance of payments deficit is still very large.

I was very interested to see a quote from the Labour deputy leader, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), in recent days, where she said:
“Working-class people don’t want a handout or someone telling us what we should think. We want the opportunities to do it for ourselves.”

I think those are a great couple of sentences. In a way, the Government have got there first, and quite a few of the things that the Government are saying and some of the things that the Government are doing in this Gracious Speech are about just that.

Levelling up is not about making people more dependent on the state throughout the country with a sort of competitive bidding process to see who can get the most money from the state; it is about spending state money intelligently and making state interventions intelligently where only the state can go in areas such as transport and support for those in difficulty, while at the same time generating many more good private sector jobs, allowing many more businesses to flourish and allowing many more people to gain skills and trade for themselves. Through that we can have a more diverse, more private sector-led economy in the areas of the country that have not been as prosperous or have had higher unemployment than we would like.

I welcome everything in the Queen’s Speech, which promotes a great recovery and offers many more hand-ups for people, so that they do not need so many handouts. We need to have that active promotion of success and ensure that people feel they have opportunities. We have to make sure that companies feel they have opportunities, that there will be more better-paid jobs, that we help people who wish to train for them and that training is available so that people can go on that journey from a less well paid job to a better-paid job.

Above all, we need more measures—tax and otherwise —to help people expand their own small businesses or to see that self-employment is a good option that might give them a better life and a higher income. We do that by lower taxes, by smarter regulations and by a Government who spend their money on buying great UK products and services and allow some of that spending to filter into small companies, as well as into the usual large companies that provide so much of the public procurement that is domestically provided.

I welcome the Queen’s Speech. I want to see a rapid and strong recovery. I want a recovery that is all about many more better-paid jobs, harnessing a lot more private investment, expanding our industrial and service provision capacity and widening people’s boundaries and opportunities.

I trust that our freeports, when they come, will have wide boundaries and a very generous offer, because they could be some of the pioneers of the enterprise spirit we will need in the places that we wish to level up. I wish to see the right repairs and improvements to the public estate, so that it is something of which we are proud. That goes alongside the levelling up, which will entail a lot of private investment and private job creation.

That surely is the future. By all means level up; let us do it by promoting great investment and by having excellence in the public sector, where only the public sector can operate.

227 Comments

  1. Mark B
    May 13, 2021

    Good morning,

    Nice speech. But let us see how much of that gets done.

    1. Peter
      May 13, 2021

      The generous remarks about Angela Rayner are unexpected. However, they are a welcome change from what we often read in newspapers.

      She has risen a long way up the greasy pole against all the odds. She has no qualifications but she had caring responsibilities for her mother from an early age. Then she had a child of her own while still at school. She also has experience of low paid work – unlike many of her Labour colleagues. As your quote shows, she can also be very capable of making sensible observations backed up by her life experience.

      1. jerry
        May 13, 2021

        @Peter; “unlike many of her Labour colleagues”

        Unlike most MPs these days, from what ever side of the house.

        1. MiC
          May 13, 2021

          Or equally, “quite like many of her Labour colleagues”.

          Read their pages.

      2. Ian Kaye
        May 13, 2021

        I completely agree, we all respect her authenticity….Until she joins the Liberal Democrats! lol.

      3. Andy
        May 13, 2021

        Parliament needs all sorts of people in it if it is to properly represent us all.

        I, for one, enjoy listening to MPs like Angela Rayner, Jess Phillips, Mhari Black who present a perspective we don’t often hear in Parliament. A new perspective which is welcome.

        Indeed, I’d suggest that the main problem with our Parliament is that there are too few MPs like them – and too many identikit posh, rich, publicly school educated, entitled, blustering, old white men.

        The country looks more like Angela Rayner than the Tory backbenches.

        1. Fred.H
          May 13, 2021

          We take some comfort that you are getting nearer being another ‘blustering, old white man.’

          Funny country this, at one end we have the handsomely rewarded or privately wealthy, the other extreme being children poorly dressed hopefully going to school in Blackpool (or wherever) but hungry. Somewhere in the middle ground are normal well-adjusted majority who look on at the out-of-touch 600+ in the Commons, 1000 in the Lords, hundreds of thousands in the Civil Service, and the still millions thought to be in a job but are hidden by state subsidy.
          At least courtesy of our host we can air the issues that concern us, being foremost in our thoughts, while throwaway lip-service paid to them in other places.
          Funny old world.
          We spend £billions on all sort of ‘vote influencing?’ projects but get more engaged on who paid for No 10 to be lavishly decorated to suit the political queen.

        2. Peter2
          May 13, 2021

          Check out the other parties benches too andy
          Your automatic bias is showing

        3. Mike Wilson
          May 13, 2021

          Parliament needs all sorts of people in it if it is to properly represent us all.

          The person it needs most is Nigel Farage but the Tory Party threw everything including the kitchen sink to stop him winning a seat in parliament. Of course, under a PR system, if the 2014 EU election results were repeated, UKIP would be the largest party in our parliament.

          1. Paul Cuthbertson
            May 13, 2021

            Mike wilson – agree with your comment. The UK Establishment despise Nigel Farage and will ensure he never achieves a position of merit.

          2. Fedupsoutherner
            May 13, 2021

            Well said Mike.

      4. Lifelogic
        May 13, 2021

        Well here she was, for once, saying something sensible “do not give them a fish but teach them how to fish” or plumb, or build or roof… But far more commonly we get idiotic suggestions from her or Labour’s vile, visceral & hugely damaging politics of envy. The usual rob the wealth creators to deter them from wealth creation and give it to the poor – to deter them from bothering to work agenda.

        Incidents like when:-
        Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner was reprimanded in the House of Commons when she “appeared” to use the word ‘scum’ in reference to a conservative MP while he was speaking during a debate on Wednesday. The MP was not saying anything remotely unpleasant or offensive either if I recall correctly..

      5. Fred.H
        May 13, 2021

        yes real world experience, not inherited land, wealth, Eton education prior to joining the ‘old boys network’. Not Mother Theresa- but who is.

      6. agricola
        May 13, 2021

        I will listen to her with greater respect in future, though not necessarily agreeing with her. Thanks for the CV.

    2. MiC
      May 13, 2021

      I’m sorry, but John’s first paragraph cannot possibly be true, unless he believed some utterly inconceivable things too.

      If it were true, then he would not have worked for brexit, which absolutely implies something like what we have, unless he also believed that the GFA could be shredded without disastrous local and international consequences, or that Eire could be coerced also to leave the European Union and to join the UK single market.

      And whatever else John might be, he’s not that silly, surely?

      1. Mike Wilson
        May 13, 2021

        @ MiCk

        I’m sorry, but John’s first paragraph cannot possibly be true, unless he believed some utterly inconceivable things too.

        Maybe he believed we could leave the EU and that the EU would not act like spoilt brats.

        1. Fred.H
          May 13, 2021

          I’ve never imagined for one moment that Sir John could be that naive.
          However, he could be forgiven in thinking his Party and the Commons would unite to show some balls….but then again…

        2. MiC
          May 13, 2021

          Showing solidarity with a member country, Eire, is “acting like spoilt brats” is it?

          Well well well.

        3. Andy
          May 13, 2021

          It really isn’t the EU behaving like spoilt brats. The Brexitists are an embarrassment to our country.

          1. No Longer Anonymous
            May 13, 2021

            I wouldn’t hunt a mouse around a sofa with you.

            Utter girly wimp. Embarrassment of a man.

      2. Peter2
        May 13, 2021

        Why do EU officials need to stop and inspect lorries travelling from the mainland (with all necessary supporting paperwork) which are carrying goods to replenish supermarket shelves in Northern Ireland.
        They are using rules to play us up.
        You know it and so do the rest of us.

      3. Lengy
        May 13, 2021

        It is certainly odd. He seems totally to misunderstand the Protocol. It puts NI in the EU customs territory!

        1. Denis Cooper
          May 13, 2021

          No, it does not put Northern Ireland in the EU customs territory.

          This is from the EU:

          https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/pt/qanda_19_6122

          “Northern Ireland remains part of the customs territory of the United Kingdom … ”

          followed by an attempt to explain all the unnecessary complications that Boris Johnson has inflicted on the people of Northern Ireland and their trading partners.

          I do not blame you for your misunderstanding, the whole thing is totally stupid.

        2. Peter2
          May 14, 2021

          Wrong again Lengy

      4. Denis Cooper
        May 13, 2021

        Oddly enough Sir Jonathan Faull would not agree with you that Brexit “absolutely implies something like what we have”. But what would he know about it? He was only a Director General on the EU Commission …

        The core of the UK’s problem is that Theresa May gave the EU the whip hand with her Mansion House speech, and Boris Johnson has not taken it back, for whatever reasons, and so the EU will simply reject whatever is proposed unless it suits them, they are not open to compromise.

        https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-49488844

        “Brexit: Backstop plan by Sir Jonathan Faull dismissed by EU”

        “EU officials have poured cold water on alternative proposals for the Brexit backstop by a former British European Commission official.”

        It is the same now: Lord Frost proposes a “risk based” approach to border checks and controls, in line with Article 7.4.1 of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement, but the EU just rejects that out of hand and says that it has to be their “zero risk” approach:

        https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2021/05/12/left-right-and-the-true-divides-in-uk-politics/#comment-1228383

        “However, it is understood that, following an exploration of the issue within the European Commission, it has been concluded that allowing more flexibility based on risk would jeopardise the EU’s body of rules on food safety and animal health, and run counter to the EU’s zero-risk approach.”

      5. jon livesey
        May 13, 2021

        To me, and to most sane people, I think, the bad faith and hostility of the EU in administering their own agreement is an argument *for* Brexit, not against it.

        Unless, of course, you are the kind of person who always sides with the bully.

    3. majorfrustration
      May 13, 2021

      Agree – a lot of hope but….

  2. Ian Wragg
    May 13, 2021

    A lot of words from the government but not a lot of substance.
    The NHS and GP practices are in general a mess and I see nothing in th speech to rectify this.
    NI and fishing will be the real test as to who runs the country.

    1. turboterrier
      May 13, 2021

      Ian Wragg
      Exactly. Our surgery does nothing without a prior telephone consultation which extends the appointment time to actually see a doctor. My neighbour her daughter is a Practice Manager and has told her they can claim £150 per consultation. Nice work when you can get it. Does it improve services to the patients? NO
      Government and politicians in general have lost the plot. Very few understand the key areas that worry the population the most.
      Our MP over climate change concerns , infrastructure and types of vehicles has sent out the same letter countless times to constituents and it is a bland press release type of letter not addressing any of our real concerns. In truth he doesn’t know and doesn’t want to know. Paper shuffler. We get what the criteria laid down by Tory central office when they apply for the position. Politician? My backside.

    2. jerry
      May 13, 2021

      @Ian Wragg; You do not see because you do not want to see.

      The NI protocol is a distraction, a border poll would settle the argument for at least a generation, fishing is an irrelevance, used by UKIP to hook the unthinking (for for the pun), most of the industries problems are not territorial but scientific.

      1. agricola
        May 13, 2021

        No way Jerry, the NI Protocol is fundamental in creating a schism in the United Kingdom. Devised by those of evil intent and sold to snake oil addicts. It has to go.

        Fishing is not irrelevant, it may be financially small for the UK, but not for those in the industry, it is their life. It is symbolic of sovereignty and who controls our territorial waters. That the EU fishing industry is being allowed to gently wind down their activities in our waters is generous. Can they not be content with their own waters. They must realise that the UK is not some African coastal state where they can fish unhindered. In reality the only country to be kicking off is France, a country living in it’s revolutionary past. You had better explain your statement that the majority of our fishing industries problems are scientific not territorial. Quantify the detail rather than scattering words.

        Their fundamental problem is that the Brits do not eat much fish, but sensible europeans do. We have the fish in our waters, they are no longer an entitlement for EU fishermen to take. The EU have to get their heads round buying fish from us. UK politicians , if they do not realise it already are dealing with a hot political potato, small though it may be.

        1. jerry
          May 14, 2021

          @agricola; I stand by my comments, time to take the political emotion out of both NI and Fishing, never mind the nonsense, especially about fish and fishing, you ask me to “quantify the detail rather than [use] scattering words”, yet offer nothing yourself other than emotional and culinary mumbo-jumbo!

          Those outside of the UK must find many comments on this site strangely contradictory, whenever the SNP or Scottish independence comes up some will always insists – cut Scotland free, usual on the grounds of cost to the English taxpayer; yet whenever NI issues are considered the ‘enclave’ must be defended and kept within the UK at any cost -but then it wasn’t 10 Scottish MPs who kept the Tories in govt back in 2017… Don’t get me wrong, I do understand the emotion but emotional responses rarely solve any problems, quite often they make a bad situation worse.

          I might be wrong but hasn’t the Channel Islands had to cope with being economically tied to the EU (via the UK’s membership) but not actually within for the last 50 years, how much extra paperwork and customs clearances has it cause for their economy, I believe their argi’ sector has suffered, but if not why not?

          Most of the problems with fishing are nothing to do with inshore waters but with the extended fishing rights that have been claimed, here in the UK we need get our head around the fact that we have few full claims over full EEZs and because fish have no knowledge of such territorial water boundaries fishing quotas are scientific and international, not country by country.

    3. Hope
      May 13, 2021

      Ian,

      Next we will be told by JR small state low tax! If only…..

    4. bigneil - newer comp
      May 13, 2021

      With the constant flood of invaders in dinghies Brittania certainly doesn’t “rule the waves ” anymore – even in it’s own waters – so they won’t be bothered about the fish in them. Control of our borders was one of the main things people voted for at Brexit. Clearly what we were told was lies – as normal.

      1. agricola
        May 13, 2021

        We voted in essence for sovereignty. Illegal immigrants and fish in our waters were symtomatic of that desire for regaining sovereignty.

        1. glen cullen
          May 13, 2021

          nothing more nothing less

          1. jerry
            May 14, 2021

            @glen cullen; “[immigration & fishing] nothing more nothing less”

            Well yes, if we’re talking about the subhead to the title of an upcoming book perhaps – “The Idiots Guide to Brexit” – but it will be a rather small and factitious book if that was all it covered, of a far more complex subject and argument.

    5. Mark B
      May 14, 2021

      An admission from our kind host that his party has failed despite being in office for over 10 years.

  3. Ian Kaye
    May 13, 2021

    Regarding healthcare I remember George Osborne in a budget speech several years ago go mentioning going to Seattle I think it was to learn from how one of the world’s top hospitals operated. What came of this?, one asks.

    1. Fred.H
      May 13, 2021

      Or to explore Microsoft?

      1. Fred.H
        May 13, 2021

        if you know what I mean …

  4. forthurst
    May 13, 2021

    Repeal the Climate Change Act or continue to watch the real economy decline remorselessly. The Chinese do not take their marching orders from the globalists and neither should we. Stop importing people as a cover for the inability to create more GDP per capita because of self-imposed constraints on productive efficiency and economy. The government makes itself look ridiculous when boasting about net zero carbon and then sailing an archaic vessel at China as though that will constrain its remorseless growth unconstrained by those intent on destroying our economies with fake science.

    1. Lifelogic
      May 13, 2021

      Indeed scientific and economic lunacy.

      Matt Ridley tweeted today – If any organisation should go virtual this year it’s the climate jamboree, in which 30,000 people travel to tell the rest of us, for the 26th time, that we should not travel.
      Would save circa £200 million too. So Boris has made the appalling Neil O’Brian (PPE again) a minister for “levelling up”. This the man who quite wrongly & viciously attacked people like the excellent Prof. Sunetra Gupta and Claire Craig for telling the truth. Should go well what exactly is he going to level up and how?

      1. Lifelogic
        May 13, 2021

        sorry – the excellent Dr Clare Craig

      2. Richard1
        May 13, 2021

        Agreed, Mr O’Brien has behaved in a shameful and unConservative way. His constituency association should review his position.

      3. Hope
        May 13, 2021

        LL,
        There will be no socialist levelling up, but a levelling down to give the impression everyone is the same. We saw it in 1997 with Blaire’s, Education, Education, Education. Reduce standards and inflate grades was the result. Everyone goes to university no matter what their qualifications and everyone gets a degree. All the same. But we know most degrees now are not worth the paper they are written on.

        Grammar schools are the only way to help those from All backgrounds to be given true life chances against those with connections and money.

        I note vaccine minister Zahawi was a co-founder of YouGov and his wife still has controlling influence in the company.

        The govt. refusing FOI requests for the information it receives despite funding from govt. (taxpayers) to Yougov for polling. Seems odd.

        1. Mark B
          May 14, 2021

          My niece went to university to study guess what ? Dance ! I kid you not.

    2. turboterrier
      May 13, 2021

      forthurst

      +100% Brilliant
      60 odd years ago my old granny was always telling us ” beware the yellow peril” How right she was. They are taking over everything to the point in a few years they will have full control of all the materials and components Western Europe needs to survive.

      1. Mitchel
        May 13, 2021

        The only state that could constrain China is Russia (look at the map and the connectivity with Europe;look at those resources-oil,gas,iron ore,copper,nickel,cobalt,diamonds,timber,fresh water,huge tracts of unexploited agricultural land,etc,etc).Instead,those two are increasingly cementing an alliance – in addition to security/military co-operation, Russia is expanding it’s agriculture and industrial base(with competitive advantage)to meet the needs of China and other fast growth ASEAN economies.Unlike other participants in the Belt & Road,Russia is also retaining control of all trade corridors and logistical facilities across it’s vast territories,giving it huge leverage.

        The former Chinese ambassador to Moscow used to say,adapting a quote from Mao,”Russia and China are the lips and the teeth;if the lips are gone the teeth will grow cold.”

        The EU used to talk of a Europe stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostock;Merkel and Macron have more recently expressed fears that Europe might disappear like it almost did in the 13th century when the Mongols,having conquered most of Asia,swept along the steppe with a simple message “submit or be destroyed”,devastating Poland and Hungary,only stopping because the sudden death of the Great Khan required their generals to return home for a protracted succession process.The momentum was lost for good.

        Presidents Putin and Xi look to be in good health to me!

      2. Mike Wilson
        May 13, 2021

        @turboterrier

        60 odd years ago my old granny was always telling us ” beware the yellow peril”

        She meant jaundice.

        1. turboterrier
          May 13, 2021

          Mike Wilson
          Sorry Mike totally wrong she was way ahead of her time. When the first takeaways came into the town she really had a go. Her sister was the same. Must have been something from their youth.
          She would be in lots of trouble today with the woke PC lot. Maybe she was a visionary or even a witch but one thing I know she was right.

        2. Fedupsoutherner
          May 13, 2021

          Oh what an ignorant comment. I can quite see what Turbo is saying.

          1. Mitchel
            May 14, 2021

            I think the expression was coined by Kaiser Wilhelm and was directed at the Japanese.

        3. Fred.H
          May 13, 2021

          nah…. too much free orange juice. Don’t pinch it from the other kids.

    3. nota#
      May 13, 2021

      @forthurst – Agreed

      Even if tokenism, when applied internally in the UK it should at the very least take in the attitudes and policies of those wishing to export to the UK. The standard of the manufacture and method of shipment must be included the ‘credentials’ claimed. What comes to mind is the latest TV add from the VW Group, they fail to mention they own their own coal fire power stations to produce eco friendly cars. I guess they are not alone in this hypocrisy.

      The UK Government is complicit in this double speak, they have created policies to export production, therefore jobs whilst seemingly reducing the UK’s CO2 emissions – the rest of the World gets to produce them instead. How does that work for World Climate Change?

  5. Lifelogic
    May 13, 2021

    You are right – But far, far too gentle & polite as usual with your vague hints at a more sensible agenda. Basically this is an insane, socialist, green crap pushing Queen’s speech that will damage the economy hugely. A mad tax, borrow, over regulate and piss down the drain agenda.

    The NHS should not be a dire virtual state monopoly at all, nor free at the point of rationing, delay and non treatment (other than for the few who really cannot pay). Net zero carbon is insane, but if we are really are going for this “net zero” lunacy then the way to do it is to get fracking, burn the cheap natural gas or coal and then do carbon capture (which wastes much of the energy generated thus pushing up the cost of the electricity by circa 50%). It is however still cheaper than the unreliables, is on demand and saves far more C02 than wind does too (if you are quite wrongly worried about this vital plant food that is). Also sticking with your old cars is far better in CO2 terms than causing new electric ones to be built (in most cases & yet government policy is to drive them off the road).

    Gove the other day talked about tens of thousands waiting for treatments. It is well over five million Gove and still growing! We should have fair competition in healthcare and education too but socialist Gove even wanted to put VAT on private school fees. So opting for that would make you pay 5 times over – For your own state education not taken up, for others state education, extra tax on your earning to pay the school fees and then 20% VAY on top. We have a fair competition authority but they ignore blatantly unfair competition from the state sector with hugely damaging results in healthcare and education.

    The appalling way many GPs are avoiding patients is a total disgrace but it is the absurd way they are remunerated that makes this inevitable (thanks to Labour and the failure of Hunt and the Tories to amend the idiotic GP payment system).

    1. MPC
      May 13, 2021

      Yes if only Mr Redwood could have brought himself to recommend a sensible balance of new ‘home grown’ energy. Alok Sharma could easily respond to this statement with a commitment to even more onshore wind!

      1. Mark
        May 13, 2021

        I see that onshore wind is to be included in the next CFD auction in December, so be careful what you wish for! I also note that in commentary on its annual results, Ørsted has warned that it is seeing problems with the undersea connections to wind turbines that could prove expensive to maintain and remedy. Offshore wind is maybe not quite the easy way forward that Boris and the BBC seem to think.

    2. Fedupsoutherner
      May 13, 2021

      Our surgery is still insisting on telephone conversation first – that’s after listening to the drone telling you all about Covid first which is now out of date. We are supposed to be allowed to hug abd meet indoors from Monday yet our GPS still seem reluctant to see patients face to face. I have learnt though that they earn £150 for each phone call. I can’t say for sure if this is correct but if so then it’s a nice earner as they still get to see those patients in person too.

      1. Hope
        May 13, 2021

        LL,
        P.8 Daily Telegraph last week claimed govt.’s plan to pass expense of electricity to gas forcing people to change to the former by making gas too expensive! Apparently 2028 will herald the mass change to heat source pumps, how many will be able to afford the conversion costs?

        Meanwhile the electric cables from Netherlands and France at a cost of £1.1 billion stilling laid to the UK irrespective of threats to blockade N.Ireland from life saving vaccines, blockade Jersey and stop its electric supply! I am sure that will boost business to the UK and UK manufacturing! Utter and complete Govt. fools, undoubtedly listening to treacherous civil service, being dishonest with messaging to the public.

        How will old folks keep warm? No one will be able to afford the Fake Tories in govt.

    3. James Freeman
      May 13, 2021

      Allam Cycle gas plants are 59% efficient as opposed to 62% for standard generation. Zero CO2 emissions. Invented by a British engineer. No idea why we are not building one here, as these largely solve the problem.

      1. Lifelogic
        May 13, 2021

        Sounds rather too good to be true but even if less efficient than this it is surely far better than the current insane direction of travel. Not that CO2 is even much of a real problem in reality.

    4. Fred.H
      May 13, 2021

      Did I detect, like you LL, a little tremor in ‘the (government) force’?

  6. Lifelogic
    May 13, 2021

    I see BBC Question Time is sticking with 5 remainers to one leaver or even 6 – 0. This when you include the chair. The Sadiq Kahn supporting John Burcow on last week and on GMB with the dire Campbell is insufferably pompous – let us hope the fool (& blatant traitor in my view) is never put into the Lords. He even seemed to think that French fishing boats should be allowed to blockade our harbours and we should take no action!

    On climate alarmists to climate realists the BBC ratio is of course always 6 or more to zero.

    1. MiC
      May 13, 2021

      What is this obsession with the sides that people took in a now dead issue?

      Do you go on endlessly about which side they were on in the same-gender marriage debate?

      No – so why do you do this about the brexit one?

      You are utterly fixated with Identity Politics, it seems to me.

      1. Mike Wilson
        May 13, 2021

        @MiCk

        You are utterly fixated with Identity Politics, it seems to me.

        Ahh, Mick, Mick, Mick. You are most definitely the pot, man.

      2. Lifelogic
        May 13, 2021

        My politics have nothing to do with ‘identity politics’ as I understand the term anyway. How on earth do you define as ‘identity politics’?

      3. Lifelogic
        May 13, 2021

        Different types of people took different sides on the Brexit issue in general. These people in general remain the same types of people even after the Brexit issue has been determined.

        1. MiC
          May 13, 2021

          You could say that about people and whether they are pro-HS2, anti same gender marriage, pro-devolution, anti-rail privatisation or anything else.

          But you obsess about where they once stood on the now over and done with issue of brexit.

          And you try to make it their identity.

          Why is this?

      4. Lester
        May 13, 2021

        MiC

        A dead issue?

        I don’t get that impression from reading your posts?

    2. jerry
      May 13, 2021

      @LL; Never mind, you should soon (if the economics do not cause the venture to be pulled) have an alternate to the the BBC and all the other ‘useless’ MSM, “GB News”…

      1. Fedupsoutherner
        May 13, 2021

        Can’t come too soon.

        1. jerry
          May 14, 2021

          @FUS; I agree, as I’ve said before, the GB News viewer ratings will prove or disprove the idea that the current MSM is ‘out of touch’ with the majority – either way they will be a success, either a wake-up call or good market research! 😮

    3. Andy
      May 13, 2021

      There are no such thing as remainers and leavers. You wanted to leave and you left. Your job is now to prove that you were right. Not doing very well, are you?

      1. Fred.H
        May 13, 2021

        Correct Andy – there are now optimists and whingers.

      2. MiC
        May 13, 2021

        The whole sorry brexit thing has resulted in the worst Identity Politics ever seen in this country, but which suited the Tories perfectly. It’s hardly surprising that they try to prolong it. Is X a Remainer or a Leaver?

        But woeful as it is, it is done, and not foreseeably reversible.

        They won’t be able to play this cynical game for much longer. Crucial material current issues will – quite correctly – come to dominate people’s thoughts, and the utter mess that the Tories are making of the country will become impossible to ignore.

        1. Fred.H
          May 13, 2021

          What will you have left to complain about as things improve?

        2. Peter2
          May 13, 2021

          Do you ever self reflect MiC?
          This is what you do every day on here.

        3. Mike Wilson
          May 13, 2021

          @MiCk

          As a Leaver I am looking forward. It strikes me that it is Remainers who can’t let go. They lost but the victors have to stand over them and say ‘stay down!’ because the eegits keep trying to stand up.

          Lay down and stay down, mate. You lost.

          1. MiC
            May 13, 2021

            Nah mate, we’re getting up.

            And you’re going to get whacked – metaphorically speaking of course!

    4. Fred.H
      May 13, 2021

      never watch – and after your list of participants will not change that !

      1. Mike Wilson
        May 13, 2021

        @Fred.H

        never watch – and after your list of participants will not change that !

        I no longer watch either. I don’t have a BBC licence. If they think I am going to give them £175 quid so they can give Zoe Ball £1.3 million pounds a year for spending 15 hours a week talking between records they have another think coming.

        It is also very good for my blood pressure. During the height of the Leave/Remain debate, when the panel were almost exclusively Remainers, I felt a strong desire to pick up my television and throw it threw the bi-fold doors.

        1. Fred.H
          May 13, 2021

          I suspect a common sentiment….lots of smashed tvs.

    5. rose
      May 13, 2021

      But Oliver Letwin was right in 2018/9 or whenever it was about the power from the Continent being cut off.

      1. Mark
        May 13, 2021

        Part of the problem will become that it will end up happening regardless of the state of relations with the EU, but simply because across Europe we end up with too much reliance on intermittent renewables that may spend long periods producing very little, leading to shortages. The assumption that we can always import when our wind farms and solar parks are producing next to nothing is false. The same unfavourable weather often affects most of Europe at the same time.

        You need correlations to be negative if you hope to benefit from it being windy elsewhere. As this chart shows, that simply doesn’t happen across Europe, and the slightly less correlated countries tend to have slight winds that produce little power.

        https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/tn541/1/

      2. Mike Wilson
        May 13, 2021

        But Oliver Letwin was right in 2018/9 or whenever it was about the power from the Continent being cut off.

        Another one who, quite rightly, lost the party whip and decided to stand down rather than face more humiliation. Of the present bunch of Tory MPs, I would suggest the vast majority of them, including the one in 10 Downing Street, should lose the whip.

    6. Dave Andrews
      May 13, 2021

      Starts after I’ve gone to bed. Still, if I ever have the appetite for a large dose of sanctimony there’s always I-player.

  7. The other Christine
    May 13, 2021

    Sir John, I can’t believe that you are using those toxic three words “build back better”. We all know that they are shorthand for the WEF’s shocking dystopian agenda that ultimately seeks to take away virtually all our freedoms.
    May I suggest that in future you use the slogan “buy back Britain”? At least we will be reassured then that this Government cares about this country and its citizens rather than the ambitions of the global elite.

    1. Fedupsoutherner
      May 13, 2021

      +1

    2. nota#
      May 13, 2021

      @The other Christine – +1 oh so true

    3. jerry
      May 13, 2021

      @The other Christine; “May I suggest that in future you use the slogan “buy back Britain”?”

      Very good, yes perhaps the State should “Buy Back” (renationalise) all the utilities, power generation and other strategic companies that are either owned outright by non UK parent companies or have significant control exercised by non UK based shareholders! 😛

      Would make a change from the very similar sounding, but unspoken, slogan that has been the fact for a few decades now, ‘die back Britain’….

    4. Fred.H
      May 13, 2021

      build back would be a start perhaps beyond mos. Better ? In my lifetime?

      1. Mark
        May 13, 2021

        It implies an intention to destroy first. That is of course a key plank of net zero policy. Destroy our industry, destroy our homes, destroy our farms, destroy our freedoms.

        1. Fred.H
          May 13, 2021

          well the first part has been going to plan!

    5. Sharon
      May 13, 2021

      The other Christine

      Absolutely agree!

    6. J Bush
      May 13, 2021

      +1

    7. Mark B
      May 14, 2021

      +1

  8. Sea_Warrior
    May 13, 2021

    I am disappointed that a government that thinks banning GCT is a sensible use of parliamentary time won’t tackle the vastly more important issue of saving our primary school children from being indoctrinated in ‘trans’ rubbish.

    1. Fedupsoutherner
      May 13, 2021

      +1

    2. jerry
      May 13, 2021

      @SW; Children do not learn their ‘inner’ gender nor sexuality, they can not be indoctrinated to change either, although they can learn to be more tolerant, more accepting of those who are different to themselves, in sort to be less bigoted.

    3. J Bush
      May 13, 2021

      +1

    4. Lifelogic
      May 13, 2021

      Exactly, just more pathetic virtue signalling from them.

  9. DOM
    May 13, 2021

    If Labour embraced a libertarian agenda which would for them represent a cultural volte face, I believe they could crush the Tories at the next GE.

    There is one thing most white, working people (voters) despise and that is being told what they can say and how they must think. This Tory government and their Oxbridge educated bullshitters , thinking they’re being oh so clever by heading north and patronising people that I know personally, are vulnerable on this most fundamental non-economic issue

    Mr Redwood is being disingenuous with his praise for this pernicious series of recommendations. Using immature phrases like ‘build back better’ or some other variation of it is simply creepy. He’s a better politician than this. Yes, he has to tow the Government line like a good chap but he knows the contents of this speech challenge his very core beliefs

    He’s not a Socialist. He’s a libertarian. Why pretend?

    1. Mark B
      May 14, 2021

      Party unity.

      If there was any one reason which kept the Tories in opposition so long, it was disunity. Sadly, the Left (Wets) won over with Cameron getting the gig and embarking on his war against the Turnip Taliban.

  10. Sakara Gold
    May 13, 2021

    An outstanding speech, worthy of Marcus Tullius Cicero defending the Roman republic in their Senate.

    I should have liked to see a commitment in the Queen’s Speech to defend our rivers and seas from the tremendous and endless discharges of untreated human effluent – authorised (!!) by the Environment Agency – by the foreign-owned water and sewage companies. Why should the British public in the 21st Century have to put up with this?

    I am begining to think that a case can be made for the nationalisation of the water industry, with compensation for water customers for having to endure this disgusting practice.

  11. Narrow Shoulders
    May 13, 2021

    Regarding the Northern Ireland protocol. Did we not pass legislation that allowed us to ignore this for our own internal market?

    Why have we not invoked this part of the withdrawal act? Frit?

    I was sad to see that you welcomed the flood of further legislation proposed in the Queen’s speech. We should be looking to lessen the influence of government in our lives. It is the fact that the state has interfered which means that you need to call for better access to GPs, the NHS and energy. With less interference and more market involvement the problems would find their own solutions.

  12. David Brown
    May 13, 2021

    The Devil is in the detail on this one
    Not much about The Green Agenda
    Whilst I support climate change initiatives I have commented several times about the dash for all electric cars.
    There has been many comments about infrastructure and battery technology associated with all electric cars.
    Hybrid cars are the closest we get right now to the right balance in that hybrids charge themselves although reliant on fossil fuel for the main engine.
    However they don’t need infrastructure charger points across the country
    I feel we need to focus on engineering and science research into better sustainable battery technology
    We need to reach a point where all electric cars can recharge themselves whilst moving and batteries that are recycled and hold a lot of charge for long periods of time.
    Is there any reason why we cannot lead on battery technology and hydrogen as part of a focus on green industry?.
    This may need some Gov help but to me the benefits could be enormous.Especially for international trade.

  13. formula57
    May 13, 2021

    “We have seen our French neighbours threatening Jersey….” – indeed we have so that even the Foreign Office might be privately wondering if the habitual “friends and partners” wording (that I note with pleasure you have eschewed) might not be apt.

    As for the Speech, there was much in it that one had hoped had been attended to hitherto. A bad case of too distracted by Covid to bother with anything else perhaps?

    1. nota#
      May 13, 2021

      The UK Government is complicit in this they agreed things with the EU that wasn’t in their Gift. The Channel Islands are outside of the UK and have never been in the EU. Boris and his Government are not the PM and Government of the Channel Islands. That is why the Channel Island cant vote in UK elections and therefore are not represented in the UK Parliment

      All ‘gusto’ and ‘virtual signalling’ creating problems for other as usual

  14. Planner
    May 13, 2021

    I agree totally agree with your statement that minimum standards should be introduced for GP surgeries. The answering of telephone calls in a prompt and efficient manor, should be the first subject to be addressed. Unfortunately in recent times I have had occasion to contact my GP surgery frequently. The phone is never answered in less than 10minutes and on occasions it has taken up to half an hour to receive a response. I have lost count of the number of occasions I have then been given incorrect information, when the call is finally answered.
    I have also been told by para medics that they have similar problems when they need to urgently contact GP surgeries when dealing with serious incidents. This matter needs addressing urgently. I don’t think it is an exaggeration to suggest that people will die because of this. How many people with a serous problem give up when they can’t get through on the phone only to find that had the contacted their GP earlier their life may have been saved.

  15. David Brown
    May 13, 2021

    Sorry I missed a point about batteries.
    Imagine if this country could be in a position to lead the world on a new generation of batteries?
    Batteries that are long lasting, recycled.
    New generation batteries for mobile phones, household appliances,
    Yes vehicles of all types maybe a combination of battery and hydrogen.
    To me that’s a worthy investment

    1. nota#
      May 13, 2021

      @David Brown – then we read the main players have moved on, the EU (bless them), Germany and Sweden has focus along with Portugal, and out side of them Japan are all going the Hydrogen route, with big commitments on vehicles and supply infrastructure projects all underway.

      Even up in boney Scotland, Aberdeen have announced some of their Hydrogen Public Transport Busses have clocked up more the 100,000 miles

      The battery as such was only ever a short term project.

      The World has moved on while the UK Government sticks to ‘Virtual Signalling’

    2. Lifelogic
      May 13, 2021

      I do not see that hydrogen has any real nets advantages over methane or many other fuels used to store energy and battery alternatives. We do not have hydrogen mines so still need to manufacture it and it is difficult and expensive to store. See “The Hydrogen Illusion by Dr. Samuel Furfar”.

      I am in favour of much R&D in battery technology.

      1. Lifelogic
        May 13, 2021

        Or Hydrogen strategy to nowhere
 – Samuel Furfari

      2. Mark
        May 13, 2021

        The first problem with hydrogen is it is expensive to make. Green hydrogen costs around ten times methane, while even steam methane reforming sees 5 times the cost if you insist on carbon capture..

    3. SM
      May 13, 2021

      And are all these batteries and micro-chips and computers and databanks and smartphones manufactured out of a kind of thin air that absolutely won’t pollute the atmosphere in a way that might upset Ms Thunberg or Sir David Attenborough?

    4. jerry
      May 13, 2021

      @David Brown; Those who hold and controls the reserves of the minerals or what ever that these new batteries need will lead the world, not the country who invents or holds the IP rights, Great Britain grew rich because of her Empire, not her designs…

    5. Mark
      May 13, 2021

      The basic physical and electrochemical properties of the elements largely dictate the choices for batteries, and determine the theoretical limits of what can be achieved. Battery research is about getting closer to those limits of energy density, rates of charge and depletion and lifetime cycles at acceptable cost. Modest improvements are certainly possible, but a radical breakthrough is unlikely.

      In the next few years we are likely to see shortages of raw materials to make batteries. Demand will run ahead of mine capacity, and we are already seeing surging metals prices . For some elements (e.g. cobalt), global availability will become a very real problem. Plans to try to move to only EV production by 2030 look infeasible. There isn’t time to expand mining capacity sufficiently. Just one of the ways in which the wheels are going to fall off net zero policies.

    6. steve
      May 13, 2021

      @ David Brown

      Promote Johnson’s battery revolution all you like, the laws of physics says it isn’t viable.

  16. nota#
    May 13, 2021

    Sir John
    I urge the Government, with our Northern Ireland colleagues, to urgently negotiate a solution with the EU so that we can have full access to and from Northern Ireland for normal commerce

    The UK has to ask the EU for the UK to be the UK. The EU has to grant permission on inter UK Law Rules and Regulations, without a single UK Citizen be in in a position to approve or reject them. That is not the UK out from under EU Rule, that is not a Sovereign, Free, Democratic UK. The Remainers get their wish EU Rule of the UK

    1. Andy
      May 13, 2021

      Amusing isn’t it? This is what you voted for it you voted Tory in 2019.

      I didn’t vote Tory. I’m not to blame.

      1. Fred.H
        May 13, 2021

        You’ll have something to regale the listeners with when you reach the care home. In the meantime I think its lost on us.

      2. nota#
        May 13, 2021

        @Andy – ? what are you on… ?

    2. Mark B
      May 14, 2021

      +1

      It’s like going to your neighbours to get the keys to get in your own house.

  17. Alan Jutson
    May 13, 2021

    Thanks for your efforts John, only time will tell if anyone is listening.

    Yes we certainly need change, but some are more immediate than others.
    Doctors Surgeries should be an absolute priority, virtual appointments, even if you can get one, are no substitute for face-face consultations.
    With 5,000,000 patients waiting, and that number growing by the day, our health service will need a new set of priorities as more and more people suffer from debilitating illnesses, constant and increasing pain, and more developing complex problems, which in turn also creates further financial pressure for many of those simply left waiting.

  18. dixie
    May 13, 2021

    This “cheap” natural gas you get from fracking, how will you replace it so our children will also be able to enjoy the same “cheap” and reliable energy, and who will pay for this replacement?
    After all, the “cheap” and reliable North Sea oil didn’t last very long, did it….
    Or is it that you simply don’t care and believe only you matters and you can be completely independent of everyone else, for example an NHS – until you need a vaccine in a pandemic that is.

    1. dixie
      May 13, 2021

      – above is reply to LL’s rant.

    2. Mark
      May 13, 2021

      We need to be working on forms of nuclear power for the longer term future. Get that right, and we can make the hydrocarbons we need for specialised uses such as aviation even when the oil “runs out”. A lot of the work is simply the need to get public acceptance. Oppositi9n from greens (including back to when David Miliband was Energy Minister) has gone in the other direction.

      1. dixie
        May 13, 2021

        I think we need a variety of energy solutions, including nuclear, and agree part of our fuel solutions must involve hydrocarbon generation.

    3. Mike Wilson
      May 13, 2021

      @dixie

      I note your quotation marks around ‘cheap’. Indeed. North Sea Oil was never cheap. We have always has the most expensive petrol in the world, despite being a net oil exporter for some years. It was taxed to death.

  19. Richard1
    May 13, 2021

    Apparently M Barnier wants a review of Schengen as well as a ban on all non-EU immigration. A joke and a tragedy at once to see such a mixture of humbug and folly from a supposed mainstream EU-French politician.

    1. Fred.H
      May 13, 2021

      He needs to talk to Merkel – a bit late, isn’t it?

    2. MiC
      May 13, 2021

      Why do you care?

      The UK is out.

      This country now has zero influence there – whereas it was once one of the Big Three with France and Germany.

      Twitch, twitch, twitch go those curtains, eh?

      1. Richard1
        May 13, 2021

        what an odd post. of course the politics of other important countries are of interest, especially those of neighbouring allies.

        Do you not find M. Barnier’s utter humbug and extraordinary and extreme folly rather odd after all the praise that was heaped on him?

      2. Fred.H
        May 13, 2021

        You have an odd obsession with curtains. Did John Lewis close the store in Cardiff?

      3. steve
        May 13, 2021

        “Twitch, twitch, twitch go those curtains, eh?”

        ……and your excuse, Martin ?

      4. Mike Wilson
        May 13, 2021

        @MiCk

        This country now has zero influence there – whereas it was once one of the Big Three with France and Germany.

        I thought there were 28 (27 now) equal members. Sounds a bit undemocratic having a ‘Big 3’. Who has taken our place now? Is it like the Premier League? We’ve been relegated so the country 4th in the table now moves up to the ‘Big 3’?

        As to why do we care? We’re doing out bit welcoming boatloads every day – the least they can do is take a few themselves. Horrible people – turning their back on the world. Little Europeans!

      5. Fedupsoutherner
        May 13, 2021

        MIC I hope the woman living opposite you remembers to close her curtains tonight.

    3. Everhopeful
      May 13, 2021

      He is looking to the Presidential elections. Out-Pening Le Pen.
      And he knows it is a popular policy ( never, ever to be followed!).
      Why then, when they know what we actually want, do they do the opposite?
      Always.
      Puppets.

    4. Mark B
      May 14, 2021

      The French, just like us, could ban Non-EU immigration in a trice. Non-EU immigration is still and national prerogative. The fact that our lot never, and will never, do this speaks volumes.

  20. Bryan Harris
    May 13, 2021

    Well said on GP appointments – you summarise the NHS problems exactly – Additionally, the NHS new guidelines for appointments instructs family GPs to embed a system of “total triage”, meaning that anyone seeking to see their doctor must first have a discussion online or by telephone. Hardly a fast professional service when it is almost impossible to get to talk with a surgery in the first instance.

    You have to ask why ex-service men and women are not given top priority to get onto the housing ladder with councils.

    Personally I would have shouted more for a total revamp of our tax system – It is an impossible morass of contradictions, is very expensive to collect, and takes people away from worthwhile jobs just to get the sums right. It should be simple and transparent.

    One point nobody is talking about — WHY DO THE POLICE GET AN EXTRA £30mILLION TO IMPOSE CV RESTRICTIONS WHEN WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE REVERSING OUT OF PROTECTIVE MEASURES?

  21. No Longer Anonymous
    May 13, 2021

    The friends I lost were killed by lockdown and not by CV-19. Missed appointments and isolation.

    1. Everhopeful
      May 13, 2021

      +1
      And we will see more deaths.
      See how they now want most GP appts to be virtual?

      1. steve
        May 13, 2021

        Everhopeful

        “See how they now want most GP appts to be virtual?”

        That isn’t Government doing that, it’s the doctors.

        £88,000 pa, get to wear decent clothes to work and have a chair to sit on. Good number, and even better if you don’t have to be public facing. It’s hard graft, I feel sorry for them.

        1. Everhopeful
          May 13, 2021

          +1

      2. glen cullen
        May 13, 2021

        I’m surprised the GPs aren’t asking for more money to go virtual

        1. Everhopeful
          May 13, 2021

          Thing is though…there are several NHS ( CONTROLLED) online GP sites that charge per consultation.
          So…who gets the dosh there?

  22. agricola
    May 13, 2021

    The speech handed to the Queen by government was very aspirational as was your speech afterwards. I can imagine the government saying, “Well thats over without too many hiccups, lets get back to the bar”.

    You trust that our freeports will have qualities that make them a great success, me and this diary too. They were muted well before the Queens Speech, so where are the crossed T’s and dotted I’s of the detail. You cannot say to Zubby Do Inc., just park your new factory in that field and everything else will follow. There are a herd of cows that might object, not to mention any lesser spotted toads that Swampy might discover. I am being fanciful, but I am sure you get the point. When people invest their hard earned cash they want more than the nag in the 2 oclock at Kempton.

    Take care for those that need it for no fault of their own at lifes final stretch. Have government the moral right to offer it to the disadvantaged or feckless for free while at the same time destroying the savings of the frugal. What sort of moral message does that send. Is it going to be linked into or intigrated into the NHS. What are the standards under which it will operate. The crunch question, how will it be financed and who will be responsible for it, national or local government. Here I make a suggestion. Civil servants, local and national, as far as I understand it, have pension provision largely paid by local and national government. Put another way, by Rate payers and Tax payers. Why not, to the level necessary to cover the cost of Care for the Aged, make civil service pensions, in part or in whole, funded by civil servants themselves. This would only bring them into line with the employed or the self employed. There is no logical or moral argument for not doing so.

    Finally, desiring that NI be part of the normal UK market place as it ever was, is totally inadequate. What set of idiots allowed it to be suggested otherwise, only the EU and their remainer friends as far as I can tell. An EU that would indulge the pleasure of conception of a second Gaza and see it through to birth. Abort it now.

    We want action, not well constructed sentences that can be forgotten in days.

    1. Wokinghamite
      May 14, 2021

      The loss of savings to fund care is a significant problem. Thrift should be encouraged, not stamped out. The solution mentioned by agricola would, clearly, be at the disadvantage of another group of people and is not likely to be acceptable. A few years ago, there was much talk about an insurance-based system in which the premiums would be hefty, but at least it would allow the bulk of savings to be kept. That sounded promising, but it doesn’t seem to have been actioned. Is some other action planned by government to address this issue?

  23. oldwulf
    May 13, 2021

    Sir – all good common sense. It is disappointing that you feel the need to say it.

  24. Andy
    May 13, 2021

    Levelling up means taking money from people in places like Wokingham and giving it to people in places like Hartlepool.

    I am sure the Tory’s friends in the south will not take long to object to the Tory’s disagreeable new friends in the north. With entirely predictable electoral consequences for many southern Tory MPs.

    1. Fred.H
      May 13, 2021

      Wokingham has amongst the lowest, if not the lowest Government funding – so contributing to places like Hartlepool. How’s the funding in your leafy Herts or Bucks – wasn’t it?

    2. agricola
      May 13, 2021

      NO IT DOES NOT. Idiotic political scattology. Levelling up means giving the men and women of Hartlepool the exact same opportunities to earn wealth , own desirable property and educate their children just like the best is the rest of the country, Wokingham included .

      You are no better than Mystic Meg at predicting voter intentions. I am tired for one of your Oracle of Dephi, entrail scattering omens.

    3. Mitchel
      May 13, 2021

      Levelling up will mean printing further huge amounts of money and a hope that the whole system doesn’t collapse before the next election.

    4. steve
      May 13, 2021

      Andy

      Good point. But if you really want to level things up – it should be illegal to sell a house for more than you paid for it. That would solve the perceived housing problem as it would give younger generations a fair chance of catching up.

      I have no sympathy for certain older people who settled a £500 mortgage for their house in 1960, but now want say ~ £750,000 + for it.

      They’ve already got one foot in the grave, and seem to think they can take all that selfish profit with them to the next world.

      Greed, sheer unmitigated greed.

      1. Fred.H
        May 13, 2021

        Steve – so if you redecorated it every few years, replaced the kitchen every (5 to 10?) totally replumbed and installed wonderful luxury bathrooms, replaced open fireplaces, replaced central heating, replastered damaged walls, insulated lofts, repaired/repainted damaged external walls, possibly re-roofed, installed double glazing, changed crap front/back doors, refloored/carpeted/tiled etc Had new electrical main service unit with breakers every 10 to 20 years and probably spent thousands of hours keeping the garden from becoming a jungle – – – you still want the £500 value on selling? Deranged thinking.

        1. Fedupsoutherner
          May 13, 2021

          Yes, all that and then needing money for the care home. We’ve moved into a bit of a tip and it’s cost us well over £30k so far to do it up and we haven’t changed the kichen or bathroom yet. As for the garden, don’t even go there.

          1. Fred.H
            May 13, 2021

            FUS – – no cost for ‘care’ home if you only have the £500 left…..When some authority tells you or offspring you are not allowed to return to the house.
            But otherwise as Bob Geldof said ‘ Give me your f***ing money’.

        2. steve
          May 13, 2021

          Fred

          If it aint broke, don’t fix it. Nothing wrong with open fireplaces, and why do you want luxury bathrooms ? A good soak in a tin tub by an open fireside takes some beating.
          I don’t go in for mod cons myself, in fact – I use paraffin, coke and logs mainly. I only use gas during the worst winter months and that’s just to get instant hot water for a shave. I don’t even have a TV.

      2. Alan Jutson
        May 13, 2021

        So Steve just imagine a pair of joined semis in outer London.

        Prices are factual of the market then and the market now.

        One was purchased by the owner in 1970 for £7,500

        One was recently purchased 5 years ago for £600,000

        Both now want to sell for differing reasons, what price would you suggest they go on the market for given they are next to each other ?

        The original price they paid ?

        Have you really thought through your suggestion.?

    5. Mark
      May 13, 2021

      It means getting places like Hartlepool to have a vibrant economy so they don’t have to rely on taking money from people in places like Wokingham.

      If there is a criticism of the current plans for Teesside it is that the proposals for the new hydrogen hub etc. imply that the new industries will have to be heavily subsidised or protected by tariffs because they can never be properly competitive. In short, it is not sustainable.

    6. Mike Wilson
      May 13, 2021

      @Andy

      Levelling up means taking money from people in places like Wokingham and giving it to people in places like Hartlepool.

      You are showing your ignorance there, mate. Already happening, big time.

    7. Peter2
      May 13, 2021

      So are you in favour of the efforts to improve less well off areas of the UK or not andy?

  25. nota#
    May 13, 2021

    The health service needs to build itself back

    From the MsM – Doctors have been told to discourage patient appointments in person to promote the use of virtual consultations.

    A family member who has now been in agonising pain for more then 3 months, taking paracetamol, co- codamol, and ibuprofen has had no effect. Being able to get access to the Wokingham GP Practice is non-existent. In desperation a call was made to the ‘Push Doctor’ service, by all accounts was very good and very helpful. The advice given was there was an urgent need to see a GP in person. The Wokingham Practice had those notes on file from the ‘PushDoctor’ service but has still declined to respond, or being polite they basicaly seem to be ‘fobbing’ patients off.

    It looks like the only way of getting access to the NHS is via A&E. That then poses the question of what is the Wokingham GP Practice for? </strong

  26. graham1946
    May 13, 2021

    No mention of the biggest elephant in the room – ‘Care’ and how it is to be funded. Just 9 words in the Queen’s speech about something may be done sometime, despite Johnson’s obvious lie that he had a fully worked up scheme 2 years ago. It’s been kicked into the long grass for the last 30 years as politicians think it more important to spend 500 million on climate change talks, foreign aid, open borders for illegal immigrants who get far better care than our people who have worked all their lives and contributed NIC and tax.

    1. graham1946
      May 13, 2021

      Delayed in moderation again, whilst some yards long and repetitive get in without problems. Says it all really. Must have hit a nerve.

      1. Mark B
        May 14, 2021

        Yep !

        I should have studied a foreign language, gone to France, bought a dingy or paid a trafficker and said into the middle of the English Channel to be picked up and ferried back to my own country to be treated better by my own government rather than now – A cash cow !

  27. Wokinghamite
    May 13, 2021

    A good speech from Sir John, but what about the funding of social care?

    1. agricola
      May 13, 2021

      Just be patient, when moderation falls on my main contribution you may find a solution to your taste or a dish from hell.

    2. steve
      May 13, 2021

      Wokingham-ite

      Oh that’s easy, council tax payers fund it. (without being asked for their permission)

      1. Mark B
        May 14, 2021

        I though that is already happening.

  28. rose
    May 13, 2021

    I don’t expect Sir John to answer this but can someone else: Are we to trust the verdict of a female coroner in 2021 on what exactly happened in an incident in a war in 1971?

    1. agricola
      May 13, 2021

      If she informs herself fully and understands that the military operate under very different rules of engagement to those of the police service. She will have to judge it in terms of 1971.

    2. steve
      May 13, 2021

      “I don’t expect Sir John to answer this”

      I would, he’s an MP and therefore paid by us to answer our questions.

    3. Everhopeful
      May 13, 2021

      The guns are going off as I type. Weapons testing.
      They love war, these governments.
      Like pandemics, wars release the money and assets of ordinary people… whey from curds. To be mopped up.
      And then for political expediency and virtue signalling they throw those who fought for them to the wolves. Retrospectively!
      How can any judgement be made on soldiers who did as they were told by a government they ( foolishly) trusted?
      Letters of Comfort for them?

    4. Mike Wilson
      May 13, 2021

      @rose

      Are we to trust the verdict of a female coroner in 2021

      What has the gender of the coroner got to do with the price of eggs?

      1. rose
        May 13, 2021

        It is mostly a question of time and different conditions, but her sex, her politics, and if she were by any chance a republican, are bound to come into it too. Soldiers should be judged by other soldiers at the time.

    5. glen cullen
      May 13, 2021

      Unlike a terrorist a British solider never goes out on patrol with the desire to shoot anybody.
      Its mandatory for a British soldier to attend an annual lesson and pass a test on the ‘rules of engagement’, and when on active service to carry a ‘rules of engagement card’ and to fully understand its implications.

  29. glen cullen
    May 13, 2021

    Thanks for that input SirJ, but would have preferred your highlighting the daily invasion of illegal immigrants crossing the English Channel – 186 illegal immigrants crossed on Tuesday

    1. Everhopeful
      May 13, 2021

      + 1

      1. Everhopeful
        May 13, 2021

        It suits.
        It’s a money spinner.
        Never see house prices fall.
        But..oh my ..what of the pandemic? Surely…movement of people…….

    2. steve
      May 13, 2021

      glen cullen

      “186 illegal immigrants crossed on Tuesday”
      ……..Yep Keep ’em coming !
      Help the French treat our island as a dumping ground and at our expense, we love it. And we can vote conservative for more of the same.
      Good times eh…..thumbs up !

    3. Mike Wilson
      May 13, 2021

      @Glen Cullen

      186 illegal immigrants crossed on Tuesday

      They will soon be legal. I am surprised we are not operating a ‘one in, one out’ system. As they have passed through the EU – where they should have claimed asylum – the EU should accept one of us for each one who comes over in a boat. I did fancy retiring to Italy – or Spain (Balearic Islands, preferred) – but Brexit put the kaibosh on that. But, now, surely we ought to have a second chance. They are free to come here in a boat from France. Surely we should have the same privilege going the other way. Where is Andy when you need him? Couldn’t he have a chat with his mates in the EU and set something up?

      1. MiC
        May 14, 2021

        Only about 1% of those reaching the European Union want to come to the UK.

        Most want to stay in Germany, France, Scandinavia, or anywhere safe.

        However, Germany only grants residency to about one in forty.

        1. Peter2
          May 14, 2021

          Proove that statement is correct MiC

  30. Everhopeful
    May 13, 2021

    Lovely speech, as ever.
    Not a lovely government though.
    Why are we so reliant on the internet?
    Because they locked us down! ( And another imprisonment a gleam in someone’s little eye?)
    Wait for the “cyber attacks”.

  31. steve
    May 13, 2021

    JR
    “to urgently negotiate a solution with the EU so that we can have full access to and from Northern Ireland”

    Do tell us Sir Redwood why the UK should be ‘negotiating’ with the EU concerning NI, it is after all sovereign British territory.

    1. nota#
      May 13, 2021

      @steve – Many of us are bemused why as a Sovereign Free Democracy we have to get permission from the EU to in act our own laws and Govern ourselves. It has absolutely nothing to do with the Belfast Agreement – we are pledged to up hold it

    2. Alan Jutson
      May 13, 2021

      steve

      Exactly, its not working so change it so that it does, we are now supposed to be a sovereign nation, let the EU look after the Republic and do what it likes at the border with NI.

      Why on earth are we inspecting goods that are only going to NI from the UK mainland (other than for perhaps security purposes), utter madness.

      1. Denis Cooper
        May 13, 2021

        Well, suppose that the UK made a trade deal with the US and as part of that trade deal chlorinated chickens were allowed into Great Britain. Then some of them might be taken across to Northern Ireland, and some of those might be driven across the land border into the Irish Republic which is part of the EU Single Market, potentially destroying its integrity. And if you said to the EU “But realistically, what would be the risk to your Single Market, surely it would be tiny?” their answer would be that the risk must be ZERO.

        Here is a letter around this theme I had published in the Irish Independent in June 2019:

        https://www.independent.ie/opinion/letters/letters-to-the-editor-varadkars-bluff-over-the-border-may-soon-be-exposed-38254509.html

        Based on the whimsical concept of growing rumours that:

        “… the UK government is secretly planning to set up batteries of trebuchets to hurl US-style ‘chlorinated chickens’ over the coming ‘hard Border’ into the sacred territory of the Republic.”

      2. Fedupsoutherner
        May 13, 2021

        I couldn’t agree more Alan. It’s a ridiculous scenario. We obviously haven’t really left.

  32. jerry
    May 13, 2021

    Our host said; “We are hearing about cases at some surgeries around the country where people cannot get through, where the phone lines are restricted, where the timing of the phone calls is limited, or where there are not enough appointments on offer and no forward booking.”

    Can I just point out the above was the case before Covid 19, in some cases years before. Much of it in my experience (not just opinion) is to do with GP practises moving towards a more business like remit rather than older public services remit, the business manager becoming more important that the needs of the Doctors and even ‘customers’ -I mean patients.

  33. Richard1
    May 13, 2021

    Off topic, the UK now ranks 16th in the world for Covid deaths per million – even though its now clear we were over-counting by c. 25% – behind, inter alia, a good number of EU countries. Do people remember how we used to get shrill daily posts from leftists here on how the UK’s performance was the ‘worst in the world’?

    Sweden, which was much criticised by left-wing people for running a much more sensible, non-lockdown, policy, ranks 33rd. And Taiwan – which is the country whose lead and advice we should have been following instead of fawning over the Chinese Communist Party, ranks 203rd.

    1. jerry
      May 14, 2021

      @Richard1; “even though its now clear we were over-counting by c. 25%”

      Quite the opposite, the govt is under counting deaths from Covid 19, what is more they admitted as much the day they changed the counting methodology twelve months or so ago. Only those deaths who a/. had returned a positive test and b/. die within 28 days of that test are counted. No one is counted who tests positive but dies 28 + 1 or more days later. Further, people who have died without having a test, but had obvious CV19 symptoms do not appear to be tested post-mortem nor counted; people who suddenly succumb to a pre-existing morbidity but until shortly before death had been responding to treatment do not appear to be tested for Covid post-mortem either.

  34. Everhopeful
    May 13, 2021

    Are they weaselling their way round to another lockdown?
    Are they?
    The only question worth asking IMO.

    1. Fedupsoutherner
      May 13, 2021

      Listening to the news today and the Indian variant which is apparently spreading I wouldn’t be at all suprised. Did the government shut down flights from India soon enough?

      1. Paul Cuthbertson
        May 14, 2021

        FUS – Indian variant spreading!!!!!!!NEWS is not just what happens, it is what a fairly small group of people decide is the news. The virus is the media.

    2. glen cullen
      May 13, 2021

      UK pop. 68,193,314
      Covid deaths past week 15 – 5 – 2 – 4 – 20 – 11 – 11
      Puts things into perspective

      1. Fred.H
        May 14, 2021

        Domestic accidents resulting in death? Road Traffic accidents resulting in death? Suicides? Medical mistakes resulting in death?

  35. L Jones
    May 13, 2021

    Regarding veterans’ housing: ”.. because they have been living in service-provided accommodation for many years.” The point should be made that this accommodation is PAID FOR. Many people believe that it comes free with the job. It doesn’t.

  36. Denis Cooper
    May 13, 2021

    Looking up your speech I took the opportunity to skim through what the Prime Minister had said two hours earlier, and I found that his speech included many warm words about the union.

    By which he meant “the whole United Kingdom”, claiming that “Everything we do will be done as one United Kingdom, combining the genius of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland – joined together by blood and family tradition and history in the most successful political, economic and social union the world has ever known”, making the questionable assertion that “… we shall benefit as one United Kingdom from the free trade agreements … “, and concluding with the rhetorical flourish of three pledges each of which started with the words “As one United Kingdom, we will … “.

    It’s almost as if he hadn’t pressed his Tory colleagues to vote through agreements with the EU which mean that while technically Northern Ireland is still part of the United Kingdom Her Majesty shares sovereignty over that part of her realm with the EU Commission and EU Court of Justice, the most relevant institutions of what a previous President of the Commission described as a “non-imperial empire” and the UK Foreign Secretary is now close to accepting as a state, albeit “not quite a normal state”:

    https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uks-raab-no-final-decision-eu-ambassadors-status-2021-05-02/

    At the behest of Boris Johnson, wittingly or not, the UK Parliament agreed that henceforth Northern Ireland would have the legal status of a “condominium”:

    https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2021/05/11/the-queens-speech-debate/#comment-1228321

    and yet he carries on talking as though this was not the case, and apart from a few members like yourself MPs choose to ignore what has happened.

    Recalling that English/British monarchs continued with their fictitious claim to the throne of France until 1800, when George III dropped it at the time of the Act of Union of Great Britain and Ireland, I suppose that it could take some time before the British monarch formally renounced his claim to be the sole sovereign of Northern Ireland.

    1. Denis Cooper
      May 13, 2021

      This letter published in the Irish News today:

      https://www.irishnews.com/opinion/letterstotheeditor/2021/05/13/news/how-many-times-do-unionists-need-to-be-fooled-before-they-cop-on–2319736/

      ends with these words:

      “How many times does Johnson need to fool unionists until they cop on that he doesn’t give a damn for anyone on this island no matter what flag they fly.”

      That seems to be an increasingly common sentiment, rather paradoxically uniting all shades of opinion.

  37. Enrico
    May 13, 2021

    Re. the speech all well and good but its always all talk and very little action ie.the sea of illegal immigrants.Priti Patel was constantly talking about stopping it but alas we see more arriving daily.

  38. Fred.H
    May 13, 2021

    OFF TOPIC.
    26% DROP IN BURGLARY.
    Did the Police notice the difference? They don’t turn up anyway. Just another stat noted via the 999 / 111 calls.
    Wonder how many fewer cars and caravans stolen from outside homes?

    1. glen cullen
      May 13, 2021

      Well my house insurance nor car insurance has reduced

  39. Derek Henry
    May 13, 2021

    Hi John,

    You just stopped short of saying job guarentee which was a shame. A brilliant solution to transition workers back into private sector work.

    “We have to make sure that companies feel they have opportunities, that there will be more better-paid jobs, that we help people who wish to train for them and that training is available so that people can go on that journey from a less well paid job to a better-paid job.”

    Training does not equal jobs never had done.

    The main reason that the supply-side approach is flawed is because it fails to recognise that unemployment arises when there are not enough jobs created to match the preferences of the willing labour supply. The research evidence is clear – churning people through training programs divorced from the context of the paid-work environment is a waste of time and resources and demoralises the victims of the process – the unemployed.

    Imagine a small community comprising 100 dogs. Each morning they set off into the field to dig for bones. If there enough bones for all buried in the field then all the dogs would succeed in their search no matter how fast or dexterous they were.

    Now imagine that one day the 100 dogs set off for the field as usual but this time they find there are only 95 bones buried.

    Some dogs who were always very sharp dig up two bones as usual and others dig up the usual one bone. But, as a matter of accounting, at least 5 dogs will return home bone-less.

    Now imagine that the government decides that this is unsustainable and decides that it is the skills and motivation of the bone-less dogs that is the problem. They are not “boneable” enough.

    So a range of dog psychologists and dog-trainers are called into to work on the attitudes and skills of the bone-less dogs. The dogs undergo assessment and are assigned case managers. They are told that unless they train they will miss out on their nightly bowl of food that the government provides to them while bone-less. They feel despondent.

    Anyway, after running and digging skills are imparted to the bone-less dogs things start to change. Each day as the 100 dogs go in search of 95 bones, we start to observe different dogs coming back bone-less. The bone-less queue seems to become shuffled by the training programs.

    However, on any particular day, there are still 100 dogs running into the field and only 95 bones are buried there!

    And you also have the BOE. The BOE with their interest rate targeting the carpet bomb approach. Like to keep a group of humans unemployed so they can control inflation ?

  40. Everhopeful
    May 13, 2021

    “We may need local lockdowns to tackle blah blah blah variant” said Prime Minister.
    There you go!

  41. paul
    May 13, 2021

    Nothing on socal care then.

    1. glen cullen
      May 13, 2021

      Shame on them

  42. Mike Wilson
    May 13, 2021

    The ‘Gracious Speech’! Really?

    Can’t we ever leave this feudal nonsense behind and grow up?

    1. Fred.H
      May 13, 2021

      The Queen reading out the annual fairy tale is so much theatre – interesting to witness a bit of it as the Monarch arrives and parades through but thats about it., as we witnessed once.

  43. Mike Wilson
    May 13, 2021

    My local doctor’s surgeries is virtually uncontactable – unless you are able to fill in a very long-winded form that asks the ins and outs of a cat’s backside about your history, your family history etc. They already have this information. Why do I have to repeat it every time I want to talk to a doctor. My wife has health issues that make it impossible for her to sit at a computer and type all the nonsense they want. She needs to be able to make a phone call but ‘Sorry, we’re not doing anything on the phone any more’.

    As an aside, I wanted to ring the DSS the other day – a state pension query. ‘If you have a query, call this number …’ I called the number and listened to a recorded message saying they are not answering the phone any more because of COVID. Seriously, the public sector is taking the piss.

    1. Mike Wilson
      May 13, 2021

      But, they do deserve a significant pay rise for not doing their job properly.

      1. Fred.H
        May 13, 2021

        You wonder what ‘the job’ consists of in many cases.

    2. Fedupsoutherner
      May 13, 2021

      Mike, I had similar problems trying to speak to someone about the heating allowance last winter. For the second time they underpaid us. Online a phone number was given and on the back of the letter they sent out. When we tried phoning it was not active.

  44. X-Tory
    May 13, 2021

    Sir John, While I cannot fault your sentiments, I do think you were a bit weak on specifics and failed to give the government a proper steer. Here are three specific examples of what I mean:

    i. You said you wanted the government “to urgently negotiate a solution with the EU so that we can have full access to and from Northern Ireland for normal commerce”. But it’s not just “full access” that is needed, but completely UNIMPEDED access. In other words ZERO checks and paperwork. Moving goods between London and Belfast should be no different to moving goods between London and Birmingham. There are no checks on the motorway, so there should be no checks at the ports. The ideal solution would be to scrap the Protocol entirely, but if the government does not want to do this there is another solution: adopt a twin-lane procedure at the port. just like at airports there are two gates – ‘something to declare’ and ‘nothing to declare’ – so there should be two lanes for lorries at the ports, with only those lorries with goods for the Republic being checked. All lorries gong through the ‘Northern Ireland Only’ lane should NOT be checked at all and should require NO paperwork – the default, in other words, should be that you do NOT need paperwork unless you self-declare that you are taking goods to the Republic.

    ii. On energy self-sufficiency (a vital measure) you said that we should “set ourself the target of getting back to meeting our own needs in whatever suitable style the Government wish”. This gives the government far too much latitude! I would have preferred to see you steer the government in the direction of Rolls-Royce’s Small Modular Reactors, as otherwise the government may miss this opportunity and instead just go for more wind turbines, which are 70% made outside the UK and fail to ensure reliability of supply.

    iii. You urged the government to “take a stronger line on defending our fish and restoring our fishing industry”, but should have been more specific, such as, for instance, demanding an immediate ban on all foreign ‘supertrawlers’, a ban on all foreign boats within 12 miles of our coast, and a requirement for ALL fish caught in UK waters to be LANDED in UK ports.

    1. The Prangwizard
      May 13, 2021

      I wholly agree; it is essential to be more assertive when making important and serious points, and agree with those you are making. Tragically for many, including what is best for the country Sir John is so obsessed with gentlemanliness that if he has strong feelings they don’t come over and he can easily be thus ignored as being of no potency.

    2. Fedupsoutherner
      May 13, 2021

      Good post XTory

  45. MiC
    May 13, 2021

    What, materially, is this “brexit bonus”, then?

    Well?

    1. Everhopeful
      May 13, 2021

      Um….
      Oh I know…lockdowns and destitution!

  46. Dennis
    May 13, 2021

    Don’t mention Assange’s torture. Torture? Yes you would think so in his position. It does seem the US rules the UK is correct.

  47. Fred.H
    May 13, 2021

    OFF TOPIC.
    Dave (David Cameron) has said he was paid “far more” as a part-time adviser to now-collapsed Greensill Capital than when he was prime minister. (Barely a living wage).
    He told MPs he had a “big economic investment” in the finance company, including shares. (but not available to all).
    But he insisted he was not motivated by money (stop giggling you at the back) when he lobbied ministers on behalf of the firm – and he believed he had acted in the national interest.(What! -you can’t be serious).
    Mr Cameron was paid £150,402 a year when he quit as prime minister in 2016.
    The Job centre didn’t find any interviews for him.

  48. Jetro
    May 13, 2021

    Would like to know what was gracious about the speech? I myself thought it was very bland middle of the road stuff- but then after all these years am also thinking the poor woman must be bored out of her mind reading this stuff.

    1. Paul Cuthbertson
      May 14, 2021

      There will not be many more of these events. Nothing can stop what is coming, Nothing.

  49. Iain Gill
    May 13, 2021

    I see the SNP have implemented complete open doors immigration into Scotland, and are preventing immigration officers going about their job.

    I can guarantee 100% support for the Westminster govt if they put a stop to this nonsense.

    Lets see some action?

  50. glen cullen
    May 13, 2021

    BBC reporting – Two men who were being detained in an immigration van Glasgow, which was surrounded by protesters have been released……….MOB (woke) RULE

  51. kb
    May 13, 2021

    All good stuff in this speech, particularly pleased to see the section on making appointments at the GP. Many of us are subjected to degrading treatment, madly phoning up at 0800 on the dot in the hope of being answered. It is beyond time this system was outlawed.
    The stuff in this speech is so sensible, I am afraid Sir John’s days in the house are numbered. Can’t have chaps talking sense in public.

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