Welcome to the 1990s. Labour has dusted down the Mandelson playbook. It has staged a conference to show its not so new leader can purge the party of the left. We’ve had the policy toughness, denying the wish for a higher minimum wage. We’ve had the personal toughness, forcing out a Shadow Cabinet member for refusing to loyally celebrate lower pay. We’ve had the mood music toughness, with the handful of Starmer supporters sent out to portray the socialists in the party as a disloyal rump. The result was a watered down change to the constitution, a defeat of the official minimum wage policy in the vote and plenty of tv debates revealing the big split at the heart of the party.
We will watch to see how they now fare in the polls. Commonsense tells you that stoking a civil war and trying to purge the Labour party of its socialist heart will not add votes. The polls probably rely more on how well or badly the government does anyway. No amount of striving got Labour into competitive shape between 1979 and 1992. The disaster of the Exchange Rate Mechanism pro EU policy by John Major shot them back into contention when the full magnitude of the recession it sparked became clear. No amount of modernisation and reform got the Conservatives back into competitive form, from 1997 to 2007. Labour’s even more disastrous banking crash and Great recession then rocketed the Conservatives into first place in the polls.
For years Labour and Lib Dems have relied on their hostility to Brexit to provide opposition to the Conservatives. Now Brexit is largely done, with many voters wanting it properly finished by taking control of Northern Ireland trade and fish, continuing with hostility to the majority view does not look productive. The Remain bias of Opposition parties over the last few years has come across as backward looking, negative and anti democratic and ensured their big defeat in 2019. So today they need to look for something else. They seem to be moving towards two possible areas of difference with the Conservatives .
The first is they wish to out green the Conservatives, and to focus green policy on a more determined rush to net zero. This will help them with younger voters and with a certain kind of well qualified urban elector, but it will leave them well short of a majority. They will find that as the election draws nearer so they will be pressed on what a faster approach to net zero means. If it means dearer heating and transport, the need to spend a lot of money on ripping out the gas boiler, an enforced earlier switch to electric cars, the need to pay high carbon taxes and the rest they will find many voters will not support that in the privacy of the ballot box. Voters will say they support the idea of net zero for fear of retaliation, but they will not vote for policies that deliberately limit their freedoms or make them worse off.
The second is the wish to be generous and kind to the rest of the world and to see the crusade against poverty in global terms. They will stand up for the restoration of free movement with the continent, for higher levels of overseas aid, for generous definitions of asylum seeking and the idea of running here a World Health Service free for all. Again that will cement various groups of socialist voter, but will not shift the dial to retake the Red Wall seats they lost in 2019.
Sir Keir Starmer’s essay did not reveal any great talent for finding the big political idea that people want, nor any ability to encapsulate in great phrases and pithy arguments what Labour is about. The negative of just taking socialism out of the Labour party does not spread enough joy and hope to the many but comes with the price of division.
September 29, 2021
”The first is they wish to out green the Conservatives”
The last thing the country needs is a Green War
September 29, 2021
@glen the ‘Green War’ – isn’t that the problem Boris wants the UK to out green the World at the expence of the people and the economy. Not thinking it through, no economy, no future
September 29, 2021
Out greening the World – great phrase, by the way – also implies being ahead in developing the technologies. Boris plays the buffoon, but he does nothing without a good reason, usually a pretty long=term one.
September 30, 2021
The terms are rather contradictory and confusing. If people want the world to be greener (literally) then we need more CO2. ‘Green’ has become the byword for reducing CO2.
September 30, 2021
Agree – and if people (not politicans or media) wanted all that ‘green’ stuff, wouldn’t they all be voting for the Green Party
September 30, 2021
What has he done to but to live up to the deserved buffoon?
September 30, 2021
Jon Livesey
He is rather renowned at playing the long game but sometimes time is not always on your side. To have a really green world one needs CO2. Funny old world isn’t it?
September 30, 2021
Yes. Went to Tesco to get some soda water. They had none. No CO2 to make it apparently.
September 30, 2021
@jon – are you sure he is that good? All pronouncements so far have relied on the UK re-equipping itself therefore funding the manufacture of products and advancing technolagies from the most polluting countries in the World who are not going along with this project. Even with the small amount of assembly in the UK, that is not manufacture, that is not solving the problem.
So far his emphasis (getting passed the ‘grandstanding’) is exporting jobs.
As the UK is not a manufacturing hub, and enterprise is suppressed, the developing technologies you mention will not evolve in the UK. They are well ahead elsewhere and are so very happy to sell us, their modern technology manufactured and delivered in the most polluting way.
Under Boris the we get the ‘virtue signal’ but not the deed.
September 30, 2021
@Nota#; +100
September 30, 2021
I just wish Boris would let the rest of the UK know his long-term good reason ?
September 30, 2021
@jon livesey; “Boris plays the buffoon, but he does nothing without a good reason, usually a pretty long=term one.”
I wish I had your confidence, we can only judge Boris Johnson by past political deeds and those come from his time as London Major, ‘nough said… Not that he wasn’t an improvement on what went before, nor what followed, but neither are high hurdles to better. To be even slightly ‘green’, in the context of CO2 lie, is akin to a fraudster only telling a small lie to steal your money, perhaps even your livelihood.
September 30, 2021
The small increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration is greening the planet rather well already. The Boris war on CO2 will cost a fortune and do huge net harm to the economy, jobs and indeed to whole industries. It will do nothing positive for climate either, not even anything positive for world CO2 levels. It may well cost him the next election too. Even if Labour/SNP would be even worse.
September 29, 2021
I’m not sure that they do, actually, Glen.
Incidentally, Momentum only have 30,000 members out of Labour’s half million or so.
They won’t tell you that on the BBC though.
September 30, 2021
Fancy you know the stats on Momentum! quelle surprise!
September 30, 2021
I’m a party member – not of Momentum.
Why ever would I not?
September 30, 2021
Are you seriously telling us that all 300,000 Party members can quote what Momentum’s share is (odd name for a group goimg nowhere, isn’t it?) ?
Remarkable.
September 30, 2021
MiC
That’s because the BBC campaigns on behalf of Momentum so it doesn’t care how many members that organisation has registered.
September 30, 2021
@MiC; Except Momentum is not the only Corbyn support within the wider labour Party, the Blairite sect won’t tell you that though.
I see the bakers Trade Union (BFAWU) announced its members had voted to de-affiliate its self from Starmerâs vision for the Labour Party. I have a feeling they might not be the last trade union to jump ship and when big unions walk, taking their money, the Labour party increasingly becomes a house made out of cards.
September 30, 2021
I was solidly behind the party under Corbyn as I was when it was under Blair, Brown and Miliband.
So are most of its hundreds of thousands of members, but the media only give space to the discontents who make the most noise.
September 30, 2021
As they do in other parties MiC
Stop feeling so put upon.
The media love stories of division.
September 30, 2021
The green war has started and facing the front line are a bunch of terrorists blocking our roads. I can assure you that will not be getting more votes from the suffering public. I can bet that many many people feel like me and will be voting for the least green party mainly thanks to the insulate britain idiots …. greta doesn’t help either.
September 30, 2021
Insulate Britain and ‘Boris’/Carrie are each side of the same coin. It is as if they are the militant wing of the Tory party.
September 30, 2021
Indeed, I cannot believe most voters are remotely interested in very expensive and unreliable intermittent energy and gas four times the price it should be or a war in harmless plant food despite all the propaganda and lies we get from the deluded BBC, international organisations and so called âcharitiesâ. This even more so when they realise the vast cost of the insane and pointless net zero plant food agenda.
The green party after all have only one MP (an English graduate with zero grasp of energy, logic or science).
September 30, 2021
+1
September 29, 2021
Glad to see you at last acknowledge the damage done by joining the ERM.
Now as they say, history repeats itself with the lunacy of net zero.
When the public get to see Liebours even more idiotic stance they will be alarmed.
As for finishing Brexit, get on with it and stop the empty threats.
A win at the next election is far from guaranteed.
September 29, 2021
Exactly. âThe disaster of the Exchange Rate Mechanism pro EU policy by John Major shot them back into contention when the full magnitude of the recession it sparked became clearâ Indeed and the fool failed ever to say sorry or learn from the huge harm he caused.
For Boris just substitute his expensive, unreliable energy religion, the vastly expensive net zero insanity and his/Sunakâs policies of tax, borrow, over-regulate and piss down the drain. Plus his huge ratting on the manifesto promises to tax payers and pensioners. Should be enough. But the. does anyone sensible want a Labour/SNP coalition?
September 30, 2021
Allister Heath spot on as usual today in the Telegraph:-
The Brexit-hating global elite watch Britainâs chaos with glee
Furious voters wonât stand by if the Governmentâs incompetence turns us into a global laughing stock.
September 29, 2021
“Glad to see you at last acknowledge the damage done by joining the ERM.”
That’s a rather revealing remark. I wonder how many other people out there are wasting their lives waiting to work off ancient scores rather than planning for the future.
Maybe we should start celebrating Mafeking Night again.
September 29, 2021
Well said Jon.
September 30, 2021
MiC
You have a supporter to keep you company, it must get very lonely trying to blame everything on Brexit?
September 30, 2021
Given that most of the country are doing that I don’t need to bother, thanks.
September 29, 2021
Maybe we should be rethinking the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Jon?
September 29, 2021
@ Ian Wragg “Glad to see you at last acknowledge the damage done by joining the ERM.” – wasn’t Sir John one of the few who at the time opposed the ERM nonsense, accurately predicting the disastrous course of events that followed? Accordingly, there is no “at last” about it.
September 30, 2021
Well said Formula57
September 30, 2021
Just reading the excellent book by James Dyson – âInventionâ he sees that world rather as I do. He was nearly put out of business by Majorâs predictable and indeed widely predicted ERM lunacy with up to 20% mortgage rates for some – it cost me at least ÂŁ3 million holding my businesses back for several years. Hundreds of thousands of other businesses and homes repossessed too, marriages destroyed, families delayed, suicides… Yes still no apology from the dire & foolish Sir John Major! The BBC still have him endlessly on as some elder statesman or wise old sage! Why he was wrong on almost everything and buried the party for 3+ terms even now they suffer from his incompetence.
Dyson alas largely pushed out of the UK by very slow ineffective planning, lack of sufficient engineers and very poor UK government in general.
September 29, 2021
Sir Keir Starmer’s speech reminded me of the curate’s egg – good in parts. It went down well with the delegates and he received a long standing ovation. Of course, that does not mean that Starmer will be the next PM! However party conferences do usually result in a few points on the polls so as Sir John observes, we shall have to wait and see.
To achieve a working majority at the next GE, Labour must do two things. Firstly, they have to regain the new Conservative voters in their old “Red Wall” constituencies. And secondly, they have to attract enough disaffected Conservative voters in Tory marginal constituencies to win at east 85 seats. As things stand this seems unlikely.
However, with Johnson in hiding at Chequers (why??) the scrapping of the pensioners’ triple lock and the single mother’s ÂŁ20/week universal credit uplift, the stonking tax rises for the working poor – and the SMEs – plus the memory of the 155,000 dead in the Chinese plague virus epidemic still fresh in the public’s mind, who knows?
September 29, 2021
Perhaps Boris is preparing for the conservative party conference, he’s going to have to pull it out of the bag because he knows people are fed up with him.
September 29, 2021
Boris “knows people are fed up with him”. Does he? I doubt it. I think he is so vain that he believes his own publicity and imagines everyone loves him. He has lost touch with the public, let alone his own supporters.
September 30, 2021
We were reminded yesterday that Boris is in a period of mourning for his mother. I accept that people especially if they are close to their parent/s need a varying length of time to mourn, however, his the parties mistake was not appointing his Deputy to handle the press and the fuel problems, to ask more questions of the company that started this and the RHA. It seems funny that they needed to get rid of their stocks of old petrol before the cut of date (today) and voila the public did that job for them. Reeling this back in now will be a problem because they’re still showing queues from the weekend.
September 30, 2021
I fear that you’re correct…he’s our PM, he’s secured for 3 more years, I don’t believe he gives a dam about the tory voter or indeed the people….he’s in his own bubble
September 29, 2021
the only thing people want pulled out is his resignation letter.
September 29, 2021
If he did go the lefty mix of so many fake “Conservative” MPs would choose someone even. We just need the old Boris back – the small government, low taxes, no net zero Co2, libertarian, freedom and choice, no compulsory bike helmets Boris back please. Not this new, green crap pushing, tax to death, manifesto ratting, lock down enthusiast loon he has become.
September 30, 2021
Lifelogic
Agree x a zillion!
September 30, 2021
someone even worse!
September 30, 2021
Micky, yes and the sooner the better.
September 29, 2021
Gosh, how awful. Like Boris has never pulled it out of the bag before in his entire life, right?
I can remember people at the Beijing closing ceremony predicting Olympic disaster in London because Boris would be running it.
September 30, 2021
Is that the same London olympic stadium that cost the UK taxpayers and London rate payers millions of pounds and then we give the stadium away to a private football team for almost nothing for fear of it being left empty
September 30, 2021
yes – the very one. But during the Olympics somebody did manage to provide plenty of loos. Johnson – take credit.
September 29, 2021
Why should those in receipt of Universal Credit get an extra ÂŁ1000 a year untaxed?
That is ÂŁ1000 a year extra to spend competing against those who have to earn their entire income who suffer the increased prices from increased spending in the economy.
Universal credit, whose recipients do rather well, should not be raised while tax threshold are frozen.
September 29, 2021
@Narrow Shoulders
They are all voters. Do you think they are going to vote Conservative after having to take a ÂŁ1000/pa pay cut and live off food banks again? Or the nurses, who got nothing after keeping the NHS going during the pandemic? Or the police? Or the pensioners? Or the self-employed who will be paying a huge chunk of their hard-earned profits in higher NI?
I cannot understand why bungling Boris and the fabulously wealthy Sunak (who’s family own more gold than the BoE) have gratuitously offended their natural voter base in this way.
September 29, 2021
I love it when people who probably would never vote Conservative, come on here and tell everyone why the public won’t vote for them in the future.
It is still mid term.
The low point in terms of popularity for a government.
They have a huge 80 seat majority.
1945 was the last time a majority that big was overturned at a general election in one go.
September 30, 2021
I used to vote conservative until they went into competition with labour, then got worse by going ‘woke’ and green ‘behind the ears’.
I have a relative with multiple morbidity, which have exacerbated over the years since birth and not in anyway related to weight issues and they won’t vote for them either.
If behoves one well not to make assumptions of others based on ones own personal preferences.
Trust is also destroyed, when promises are consistently broken.
September 30, 2021
@Peter2; “I love it when people who probably would never vote Conservative, come on here and tell everyone why the public wonât vote for them in the future.”
Or perhaps they are just the floating voters who in 1979 put Thatcher into No.10, in 1992 kept Major in No.10, in 1997 put Blair into No.10, gave Cameron his 2015 majority (and thus the nation a Brexit referenda), and in 2019 put Boris in No.10?
Elections are NEVER won by way of those who vote, often blindly, along tribal lines.
September 30, 2021
They might be floating voters Jerry.
But I think they are often written by people who would not vote Conservative.
Tribal voting seems to be reducing as can be seen by the red wall seats changing hands after decades.
September 30, 2021
Sakara Gold
All through life we make and take decisions.
When you sign up to be a nurse, doctor,factory worker soldier whatever you know what the terms and conditions are. When a real crisis hits the workplace whatever that was always a possibility that could happen. That’s life , the rub of the green or just fate. If you chose to be unmoved or live your life on benefits that is your choice. Why is it in all the above situations is it the taxpayers who have to bail you out. The vast majority of the really wealthy I know took really high risks to get where they are and I admire them for it. Even more so those who’s businesses failed sometimes through no fault of their own, and picked themselves up and rebuilt their careers and subsequently their wealth. We all get dealt the cards of life. It is how we play them.
September 30, 2021
Sakara. Nurses took on the job to look after sick people. They get paid for that knowing that a crisis can happen at any time. Our armed forces are the same but you don’t hear them moaning about their lot all the time. Anyone with a big union behind them are mega whingers. They hold the rest of us to ransom. I am fed up hearing about them. If that upsets a few people so be it.
September 30, 2021
I am a Nurse and have been for 50 years . 50 years of studying and practice and I have not had any big union back me in all that time. The union goes with the political flow. Conscience also prevents us from demanding a too high wage or a strike.
September 30, 2021
You need to understand the NHS pay scale system. Nurses, for example, moving to the next step within whatever scale they are in, will get c. 8% increase plus the annual rise (if any). Those at the top of a scale or remaining at the same position within one will, of course, only get the annual rise.
I understand that teachers have a similar system.
September 30, 2021
When the scale gets too high most are weeded out for ridiculous reasons and if they try to get back in again have to start from a newly qualified’s pay.
September 30, 2021
@NS; Why should anyone get tax breaks/allowances?!
September 30, 2021
Agree @Jerry but the tax free thresholds are universal (up to ÂŁ100K and should be universal above) as opposed to breaks.
As they exist I would not be happy to see them abolished and for government to take even more money.
September 30, 2021
Because it might improve the overall economy by stimulating growth.
October 1, 2021
@Peter2; But so does the many other types of Treasury provided circular money, often with better results, indeed politicians such as FDR took the concept a stage further (using direct govt work contracts) to help lift the USA out of their very deep economic Depression. Indeed our own Tory govt, in the 1950s, used similar circular money to help with post-war reconstruction, yes at the expense of the tax payer short term, but by the late 1950s our PM quite rightly proclaimed we had never had it so good.
October 1, 2021
My opinion is that people spend their own money better than a government that taxes people and then having taken a fair bit for itself spends what is left back onto the people.
So I would like to see, right now, lower taxes and increased allowances.
It will stimulate growth, create wealth and improve standards of living for people.
It is what arious Chancellors used to do in the past times you refer to Jerry, when the main target was full employment.
October 1, 2021
@Peter2; You make the assumption there is personal money to spend. Certainly in Depressions, sometimes in Recessions or due to war, even the haves often had nothing spare to spend, some had nothing left, not even their hair-shirt. You can not expert the plebiscite to spend money they do not have, can not borrow, or spend scarce money on anything bar essentials such as food and cloths, no economy is going to grow rich again on those two sectors alone!
October 2, 2021
Nonsense everybody has some money and pays some tax.
You always go back to 50 years ago Jerry.
Look at the tax people pay today.
Look at how much they pay.
September 29, 2021
They will win by attracting former Tory voters in the Home Counties – as Blair did, but for different reasons.
Many such people are very unhappy with the crude direction that the Tories have taken of late.
September 30, 2021
The size of swings they need in traditional safe Conservative seats in the Home Counties to turn them red are unlikely to happen MiC
Another problem for Labour is that more traditional Labour seats, like the red wall ones, are voting Labour in reducing numbers.
September 30, 2021
@Peter2; “[the swing needed in the] Home Counties to turn them red are unlikely to happen”
Except traditional Tory seats do not need to turn Red, Yellow will do, even Green, even Purple… Iin such a situation Labour could easily gain a clear working majority, but if not be the majority party within a left leaning, europhile, coalition.
[people beyond the ‘Red Wall’] are voting Labour in reducing numbers”
Tell that to Theresa May, tell that to Nick Clegg!…
Yes many on the left, perhaps even hard left, voted for Boris in 2019, to “get Brexit done”, but one single issue election doesn’t make a trend any more than one Swallow doesn’t makes a summer. Even more so when many believe, with good cause, the europhile New Labour rump engineered an election defeat by muddling Labour’s policy on Brexit, knowing it the last chance to oust Corbyn and his power base.
September 30, 2021
Do you Jerry?
Well good for you.
We shall see in a few years.
After all it is all really just our opinions about the political future.
October 1, 2021
@Peter2; ???, whatever! You are also wrong in any case, what a surprise, we do not need to wait, nor is it opinion, we just need to consult past election results…
October 1, 2021
If you actually did consult past election results Jerry, you might check if any opposition had overturned an 80 seat majority at the very next election.
October 1, 2021
@Peter2; Oh dear….
“you might check if any opposition had overturned an 80 seat majority at the very next election.”
I have, Ted Heath in 1970, Labour lost 76 seats, having gained a majority of 97 in 1966.
Complacency, as you display Peter, is most dangerous. Boris has an 80 seat majority gained from a single issue, now dealt with. Have you not noticed, Boris and Co. have largely stopped talking about Brexit, if anything they try to avoid the subject, now it is all about “levelling up”, natural Labour territory – why might that be?
Reply Labour in the late 1960s badly damaged the economy and put us through the devaluation crisis.They said “the pound in your pocket has not been devalued!” despite raging inflation.
October 1, 2021
Glad you checked Jerry and realise now that only once was an 80 seat majority overturned.
So as you have shown the chances are very low that an 80 seat majority can be overturned at the next election.
October 1, 2021
@JR reply; Not sure what your point was, other than assuming a majority will not perceive this Govt. has damaged the economy by their poor Brexit deal and then compounded the problems by their poor handling of the pandemic.
Why else are Boris, you and many others panicking over the NIP and now the shortage of skilled workers etc; why is Sajid Javid (and Matt Hancock before) trying to delay the CV19 enquiry, but of course if its start can be delayed until sometime in the spring or even summer of 2022 it means the finding will not be reported until 2023, meaning its publication can be delayed by the usual protocols upon calling an early GE…
Or am I being far to cynical.
October 1, 2021
You are being far too cynical.
October 2, 2021
@Peter2; What ever. Surely better to be a cynic than be complacent, your partisan ‘love-in’ style of comments could loose Boris the next election single handed -just as similar comments made by others in the USA played a major role in Trump loosing his re-election, it is very dangerous to only ever tell your friends what they want to hear…
As for majorities, you really do not seem to have the first clue, Boris only needs to loose 40 of those seats for there to be NOC, that number of lost/gained seats is not uncommon, and just to further point out; the Conservatives gained an effective 100 seat majority at the 1959 general election, Labour overturned that & gaining a 5 seat majority in 1964.
October 2, 2021
I am just an interested bystander Jerry
Just an ordinary voter.
It is only someone like an MP or a Minister in the party in government that can be correctly described as complacent by their lack of care and concern about whether in a few years time they might be voted out of power by ordinary voters like you and me.
I just looked at the history of previous elections and read a few articles by those who follow such things and the chances of losing the next election when there is an 80 seat majority is very slim.
But you never know and thanks again for your continued interest.
October 3, 2021
Apologies to our host….
@Peter2; “I am just an interested bystander Jerry Just an ordinary voter.”
Nonsense on stilts, to the point of wanting to use very unparliamentary language. Anyone who posts daily (multiple) comments to a political website is engaging in political activism. An “interested bystander” is someone who reads the political pages of a daily newspaper/website or two, perhaps reads the party manifesto(s) at election time or makes a very occasional comment to a site such as this, neither you nor I, along with most regulars here, are mere interested bystanders.
“I just looked at the history of previous elections and read a few articles by those who follow such things and the chances of losing the next election when there is an 80 seat majority is very slim.”
There you go again, accept (partisan?) conclusions others tell you, more complacency, do you ever have/give an original opinion!
By contrast, I only ever look at the raw data;
As I said, Boris only needs to loose ~40 seats for there to be a hung parliament, 35 if SF either loose or choose not to stand candidates [1], the Conservative party lost 34 seats in Feb 1974, gained 63 in 1979, lost 39 in 1992, lost 178 in 1997, gained 48 in 2019.
Were we talking after the 1983 election (144 seat majority), or after the 1997 election, (178 seat majority) I might be far more inclined to agree with the scenario you suggest but an 80 seat majority is clearly in the ‘swing zone’, judged by past data, hence why Boris is going full-bore on “Levelling Up” in those Red Wall constituencies that gave the majority.
Complacency looses elections, it never wins them.
[1] which is possible if they believe there’s a chance of a more europhile UK govt
September 30, 2021
But Blair had the âred wallâ seats guaranteed, Wales and Scotland. Labour have lost some of the âred wallâ and all but one of âtheirâ seats in Scotland. They have a mountain to climb.
October 1, 2021
@Mike Wilson; Yes, with Brexit done, Corbyn gone, Boris likely has a mountain to climb to retain those Red Wall seats, and at the same time he has a mountain to climb to retain his Blue Wall seat in the south, again having got Brexit done.
SKS doesn’t need to a majority, he just needs to be the largest party in a hung parliament, coalitions or just Confidence & Supply agreements with the LDs and SNP will likely be enough for him to be walking up Downing Street.
Brexit, the 2019 general election result, for the Tories might well prove to have been like an old tungsten filament bulb just before it vaporises, glowing very brightly and then just a vacuous nothing…
September 29, 2021
“Johnson hiding in Chequers” – I’m not a fan of the PM, but his mother has died and her funeral was this week, perhaps he needed some private time, as most human beings would?
September 30, 2021
+1
September 30, 2021
Mark B
With you mate đ
September 30, 2021
Ta. I have never liked the man, but will not kick anyone when they are down like that.
September 30, 2021
Maybe.
But he hasnât treated his âsubjectsâ in a very human way.
September 30, 2021
+1
September 30, 2021
SM
I agree, I actually think Boris needs a rest break, he has not been the same person since he had Covid, I think he also probably got back into work too early, and probably his thoughts and judgement has been clouded by one crisis after another.
He certainly needs to press the re-set button, problem he has is he needs to delegate to competent people, of which there are few about.
Perhaps he should really involve some of the more experienced people on the back benches as his think tank, our host included.
As for Starmer, the jury is still out and will be for some time, the ultra left have not gone away, all so easy to criticise less easy to put forward properly costed and practical solutions.
September 30, 2021
Johnson needs retirement.
September 30, 2021
Then the correct action to take is to take a week off in compassionate leave and let Raab do his job as Deputy.
September 29, 2021
Labour are highly unlikely to obtain a majority without an SNP coalition or SNP deal. I cannot think that many in England would want a Labour government dog wagged by a Nicola Sturgeon SNP tail.
Boris would have to throw it away and he seems to be doing his best with his green crap, tax to death socialism which will clearly not work economically.
September 30, 2021
Which parts were good? I must have missed them. When he called Boris a tool perhaps?
September 30, 2021
Sakara Gold: If you want to quote deaths ‘in the Chinese plague virus epidemic’, as you call it, I think you should either quote UK official figures – 136,000 as of today (though how many of those were falsely attributed to Covid will probably never be known) – or say where you came by figures that you find more reliable than those of the Office for National Statistics.
September 30, 2021
During the acute phase of the Chinese plague viris epidemic, Hancock repeatedy moved the goalposts in regard to how the ONS reported deaths. As a result he BBC website posts several sets of figures based on different criteria;
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51768274
Based on the deceased’s GP recording “Covid-19” on the death certificate, yesterday there were 159,716 fatalities and not 155,000. This is an absolutely appaling number.
My apology for the error
October 1, 2021
Sakara, your BBC link shows UK Covid deaths at 136,662, i.e. the same as the ONS. It’s in large figures, so your eyesight is not to blame.
October 1, 2021
@PhilipR
Wrong again. If you scroll down to the bottom of the page on the link above, you will see the range of figures that I mentioned. Do check your facts before you post. There is nothing wrong with my eyesight.
September 29, 2021
Brexit is not done. We will have control of nothing whilst we remain within the ECHR, with salivating lawyers all over the country. We need a UK Bill of Rights linked to personal responsibility. Until then we may as well turn into the wind.
September 29, 2021
BW,
It does matter what Labour are up to. They are largely finished.
âBrexit is largely done, with many voters wanting it properly finished by taking control of Northern Ireland trade and fishâ This is the key point in todayâs post.
However there is no sign Johnson will get near to properly finishing it. So Johnson and the current Conservative party need to go the same way as Labour.
September 29, 2021
Northern Ireland trade is one half of one percent of total trade, and it is a hundred percent of Brexit complaints. But that’s Ireland for you – all the hot air and none of the importance.
September 29, 2021
+1
September 30, 2021
So why did Theresa May allow the Irish and the EU to make a mountain out of a molehill?
She is my MP and I told her in February 2018 how it could be sorted out:
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2019/10/11/the-fed-joins-in-with-more-monetary-loosening/#comment-1062299
My guess is that she preferred to use it as a pretext to give the CBI what they wanted.
September 29, 2021
@BW +1 No ‘Brexit Done’ equals the first broken promise
September 29, 2021
BW
+1
September 30, 2021
And to think, the Conservative slogan of the last GE was, “Get BREXIT done !”
So Sir John, what happened ?
September 30, 2021
Carrie, COVID, Incompetence – take your pick.
September 30, 2021
Oooo ! I get choice do I ?
I’ll go for incompetence. Do I get a prize ?
đ
September 30, 2021
no you get a next question…
Incompetence due to
a) COVID.
b) Carrie
c)Eton
September 30, 2021
@Mark B +1 Still waiting, still just a maybe
September 30, 2021
Unfortunately staying a member of the ECHR is written into the Withdrawal Agreement. Our only way of leaving the ECHR is to give 12 monthsâ notice on leaving the WA first.
September 29, 2021
SKS has established his authority over a fracious conference and party. He now needs to establish a team about him of similar mind and drive to create a programme that the electorate will vote for. If they succeed in this the conservative party is a very soft target to go for. Particularly because the parliamentary party are well out of phase with their electorate. I do not intend to catalogue this disparity on the grounds that it is boring and repeticious. You are well aware and have been fighting our corner for some time.
My conclusion is that both parties are on approval and will be for the next year, by the end of which more final pre election decisions will have been made. I will follow the conferences of conservatives and reform alike and make my judgement but I do not expect to be qualified to vote.
September 29, 2021
No, SKS has established pretty much nothing. He is deeply unimpressive even in sit-down interviews with soft-ball questions.
I was initially pro-SKS, but looking back I think I was simply giving him too much credit for not being Corbyn.
September 29, 2021
I think Starmer is decent chap, but deluded and damaged by his socialist parents who even called him after Kier Hardie. But why would anyone who wanted to make the UK a better place join the Labour party? Leading the Labour party is sensibly is surely impossible. They clearly do not want to win elections.
September 30, 2021
Lifelogic, the jury is out on all members of the HoC and very few in it express any positive ideas on the way forward for a post Brexit UK. I think SKS has realised that Labour needs to start sounding coherent and plausible before it presents itself to the nation in a GE. Apart from Boris’s flash of brilliance in facilitating UK vaccine creation and application, everything else is either slow reaction to problems that arise, petrol distribution, talk as a substitute for anticipation, planning and action, and overall a lack of realisation that the world has changed since Brexit and Covid that demands a whole new approach to the way that the UK conducts itself. For instance, the French people may remain well disposed to the UK as are most Europeans, but French and EU politicians are most certainly not. It requires the UK government to take radical legal action to put an end to the NI Protocol and the obscenity of the way fishing remains unresolved. Make Brexit Work is a good starting point and it is free for anyone to take ownership of. Everywhere else you look there is an unresolved problem. If this CPC fails to provide credible solutions to all of them we are in deep trouble. The Home Office, Health Ministry, Treasury, are currently on a route to failure.
September 30, 2021
What was decent about colluding with a foreign power to overthrow our democracy?
What is decent about not being able to say what a woman is? Or rather, condemning those who do?
Others can fill in on his time as DPP.
October 1, 2021
Indeed good questions.
September 30, 2021
Logically, Agricola, you’re right. What this government has been doing in almost every policy area should present an absolute open goal to an opposition party. But then if I listen to Starmer, I don’t hear a leader so much as able to galvanise a steel bucket, never mind a fractious party into uniting round political aims that a majority of the country would vote for. If I was a committed Labour voter, I would see more chance of a future for the party under Andy Burnham. IMO Starmer will be like Kinnock or Miliband, just a transitional figure who never gets into power and is soon forgotten. As long as he’s there, the Conservatives will run the country, for better or worse.
September 29, 2021
Wholly appropriate first verse of a poem from Shakespeareâs âLoveâs Labourâs Lostâ
âWhen icicles hang by the wall
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail
And Tom bears logs into the hall
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp’d and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-whit;
Tu-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.â
Apparently Starmer sees the route to a secure and prosperous Britain as investing in the green economy. Letâs hope the wind blows ..but not too much.
September 29, 2021
So labour have the ânew green economyâ
The tories have the âgreen revolutionâ
The libdems have the âgreen recovery planâ
The greens have â fossil free affordable energyâ
The official monster raving loonies have âpuddles deeper than 3 inches will be marked by a yellow plastic duckâ
September 30, 2021
+1
EXACTLY. Not much choice between the lunacies is there?
And as for the Toryâs so-called consultation on their latest sneaky attempt to impose passportâŠI just canât see how to do it. Is the only way to print it off? No online form to do it? And only got until October 11 to work out what they are on about.
September 30, 2021
Everhopeful
https://consultations.dhsc.gov.uk/61497f68de8e5f098521be3a
I completed mine online yesterday!
September 30, 2021
As usual with these so-called consultations, they are targetted at those people who support them, therefore, steering the results in the desired direction.
I was disgusted with the bias questions. Many of them didn’t allow an option to disagree with the idea of Covid passports only the level of enforcement.
We know the vaccinated can still catch Covid. We know the vaccinated can still spread Covid. So what is the point of this expensive exercise?
This Government disgusts me with its lies and deceit.
September 30, 2021
Thanks!!
The link I was given didnât take me there!
Will complete immediately.đž
September 30, 2021
They’ve missed the boat, the people have moved on, there are no longer any covid restrictions in my main town at all….the government should move on and treat it as they would treat the flu
September 30, 2021
@glen Cullen – at least the Monster raving Loony party is able to deliver on its election promises
September 30, 2021
They’re looking quite good at the moment….they might even give Reform UK a run for there momey
September 30, 2021
what is the difference in any of those green policies?
September 30, 2021
None â theyâre all in bed with each other
September 30, 2021
+1
I would be inclined to vote for the rubber duck option, given the others continually lie and spout rubbish the rest of the time.
September 30, 2021
Wasn’t that ‘potholes’?
September 29, 2021
Labour are threatening democracy again, by wanting to rejoin the Customs Union and the single market. Hopefully, that threat will be enough to keep them out of power.
Unfortunately, Boris isn’t listening to the electorate either and sees no problem with breaking manifesto promises. Will there be any choice left for the voters or will all the main parties be the same but flaunting different colours?
Whatever party we choose it looks like it will be spend and borrow, tax and tax again, floods of immigrants and bankruptcy via ‘green’ policies. I am so glad to be old and my exposure will be limited, but I fear for the future generations.
September 30, 2021
Reform UK party conference next week, same week as the Conservatives.
Big Brother Watch are doing a fringe meeting on MondayâŠ. Lots of Conservative MPs, anti domestic Passports – hosting the panel- Julia Hartley Brewer.
September 30, 2021
Reform UK is our only hope. I wish I could be at the conference but I’m abroad. Good luck to Richard Tice. Hopefully, he can build the party into a viable alternative but I think all the smaller parties with similar views need to band together.
October 2, 2021
In what possible way would it be anti-democratic, if Labour – or anyone else for that matter – proposed a referendum on those measures?
September 29, 2021
“Now Brexit is largely done” – OH NO IT ISN’T. Boris and Frost have conceded too much and not asked for equivalence in return.
“the idea of running here a World Health Service free for all.” Your party already does? What does it want to add – invitations?
Do you think your party’s extra taxes are vote winners and going to be popular?
Do you think your party, who pretend they are friends of business, are going to create more employment by taxing employees more?
First time I’ve really seen Starmer’s wife, this is because everyone knows Carrie is seen by too many as a negative drag on Boris on his time, energy and, I read on here although I don’t believe it, his previous beliefs making them more LibDem/green.
September 29, 2021
For some people, Brexit will never be done. Oh, and the Earth is flat.
September 30, 2021
Why did people vote for Brexit truly?
September 30, 2021
Well it used to be everything that got frustrating was down to EU hence the vote was carried, now the blame is B***it.
September 30, 2021
The EU is intrinsically undemocratic. My vote for an MEP means nothing. The EU Parliament rubber stamps legislation. When considering legislation an MEP is allowed to speak for one minute. If an MEP wants to make a written submission it cannot be longer than 200 words.
Freedom of Movement is a nice idea but impractical. Countries like Lithuania have whole towns where all young people move abroad. Other countries have to cope with a large increase in population without the infrastructure needed.
We already have enough, expensive layers of government with parish councils, borough councils, mayors, Westminster, QUANGOs etc. We donât need an additional supra government- that we can never vote out if we donât like them.
That is why I voted to Leave.
September 30, 2021
@Mike Wilson – that if you remember was the point, you couldn’t vote for your MEP, which was best explained by Daniel Hannan Conservative MEP to paraphrase ‘people wonder why I am not campaigning in the election – I have no need to, I have been appointed as your MEP’ That is the system that the EU calls democracy, that is what some parts of our establishment wish to cling to.
As you say expensive ‘promised to be removed’ over bloated State controls with no accountability.
September 30, 2021
You had 4 years of explanations dumbo.
September 30, 2021
truly? I think not!
September 30, 2021
I better add a little more since you are being so rude, The people I used to ask have only one reason and it wasn’t anything written or media explanations! If you can’t catch on to a subtext don’t blame others for your obtuse comment.
September 30, 2021
To avoid being sucked into an undemocratic vortex of every increasing EU control.
Why did anyone vote Remain?
September 30, 2021
Agree â that Lisbon treaty is a doozy
September 30, 2021
Stop legislation being applied to average the UK down because it was needed elsewhere in the EU.
Stop taxes going to the EU from the rest of the world imports coming into the UK and stop them having to go through an EU port.
Stop the massive fines whenever the UK did well and could have used the extra money to benefit UK citizens for such things as taxes on prostitution and drugs that aren’t applied to the people doing those things in the UK.
Slow down the lower-skilled imports of personnel who could earn more in the UK in six months than they could in their home countries claiming top-up benefits (that are there to help UK families because of the cost of living in the UK) which then went out to give their partners a wage in their home country.
I can list more reasons discussed with me and I have in the past Margaret but I’m conscious of the size of the post.
September 29, 2021
When a politicians pulls out the family I feel played
September 30, 2021
Already has – 6 million HK Chinese and 20k Afghans.
September 30, 2021
+1 but I would add another zero to the Afghans and then some.
September 30, 2021
@a-tracy +1
September 29, 2021
The last Labour manifesto pledged to raise the minimum wage at a faster rate than the last Conservative manifesto promised to, so if Labour are “celebrating lower pay” by promising more than the Conservatives will, what does that say about the attitude of the Conservatives to the lowest paid workers in the UK?
After all, it was Conservative policy to oppose the minimum wage at all when it was introduced, and Hansard shows that John Redwood voted against it.
Reply Yes, and then the Conservative party changed its approach and supported it, and raised it.
September 29, 2021
And yesterday the Labour Shadow Home Secretary did a Dianne and could not even remember what the minimum wage was!He was probably told “Just say higher increase, and the punters won’t know the difference”.
September 29, 2021
The trouble with the UK’s shagged out democracy is it has no future, and hasn’t had for two centuries at least. A system of voting that by its nature, ultimately reverts into a binary contest. Nobody plays to take the middle of the pitch where the vast majority of the voters are.
The UK simply alternates from playing down the left wing or the right wing after each election, depending on the equally simplistic binary thinking of a poorly educated electorate. This suits the Westminster’s party elites perfectly; why would they ever wish to change this nice little earner? A job that gives them plenty of spare time to double their Westminster gross income in the private sector?
The UK can’t even progress to splitting the binary by two. For instance parties that represent, from left to right; the Marxist left; the non-Marxist left; the non-fascist right and the fascist right. Check politicalcompass.org if you are not sure if you are left; right; authoritarian or libertarian.
Reply You need to talk to more voters. There is no so called large middle group with a common view trying to find a party. If there was the SDP or Lib Dems would have tailored their views and found them. People have a range of views and interests, not all of them moderate, and choose the party that is closest to their range of views or the one they think will do least damage to their lives.
September 29, 2021
People thought they elected the Party to do least damage. What a shambles that turned out to be.
Posh boy, liar, clown – whatever next? You might have an idea Sir John – care to tell us?
September 29, 2021
Margaret Thatcher, Tony Benn, Nigel Lawson, James Callaghan, Kate Hoey, Nigel FarageâŠ.. we used to have some heavy hitters
September 30, 2021
+1 Glen but unfortunately none now.
September 29, 2021
How can you “have no future” for two centuries? You are just throwing words around that you don’t even understand. Correct spelling and grammar don’t always add up to something that makes sense.
September 30, 2021
+1
September 30, 2021
Isn’t that style of language the way a lot of politicians gather their supporters ? They use emotive language to inflate a certain point and embroider phrases to make themselves appear clever. Unfortunately the meaning is quickly corrected by all who hear, however it is presented. Have you see these short texts in social media which have letters in the wrong order with some omissions yet most can still read and understand the meaning fluently.
September 29, 2021
I don’t agree with your conclusion John. Rather, I concur -as I sometimes do – with Peter Hitchens, who says that UK democracy is defunct, because a critical mass of voters now vote not to improve their own position, but in the hope of hurting those whom they hate – whether they be real or imaginary.
September 30, 2021
That has always been the view of the Socialists and lefties…..destroy those who make progress, drag down success to the low level of those less fortunate.
September 29, 2021
Acorn: there is no perfect political system, but may I suggest that while forms of PR voting encourage the growth of multiple political Parties that then have to form coalitions following an election (see Germany, Italy, Belgium, Israel etc), the UK system encourages coalitions of roughly similarly-minded politicians PRIOR to elections.
September 30, 2021
You’re correct. But the problem is that both of the three main Establishment Parties have (or in the case of Labour are seeking to regain) politicians who are roughly similarly-minded across a whole range of policy areas. (That even applied to EU membership: the revolt came from outside the CON Party, albeit aided and abetted by a small number of Conservative MPs who were genuine Brexiteers.)
So the electorate basically has had no choice for almost two decades, apart from the Corbyn interregnum. They could have red-tinged consensus policies or blue-tinged consensus policies. Or – now that Johnson has turned the CON Party into a left-wing, green-obsessed one – we can have deep-red/green consensus policies (Labour) or paler red/green consensus policies.
Unless the Reform Party can drag the CONs back towards conservatism.
September 30, 2021
Just about the only thing I can agree on.
September 30, 2021
Simply not true. In one election the Liberals got 25% of the vote but only 57 seats. I voted Liberal for decades. But the pointlessness of voting Liberal under the crooked first past the post system wears you down.
You cannot state there is not large support for the middle when the voting system you support distorts everything. I believe it is self evident that under a system of PR a centrist party would be the biggest party.
Reply no centre party emerges in parts of the UK that have PR for devolved elections
September 30, 2021
Fascist left.
Apart with centre right policies would be a start.
September 30, 2021
@reply – or don’t vote, become complacent, because on todays form it would make no difference. In fact any random vote produces the same result.
September 30, 2021
Talking the middle of the pitch. Blair showed how to re-build and manage a team. https://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/cf_images/20041002/CBR713.gif
“The lesson of New Labour has been that elections are won in the centre, not on the fringes. But Mr Blair is not quite exactly average: he polls slightly to the right of the typical voter. Out of step with his party and with Mr Brown gunning for his job, Mr Blair might therefore consider deploying his electoral magic on the Tory side of the House. After all, he is justly famous for making a spent political party electable again after endless years in opposition. If he could perform that trick not once, but twice, his place in history would be assured.
(The Economist Britain The political spectrum: Dead centre – Sep 30th 2004)
September 29, 2021
Sir Keith and his working class roots have zero panache or charisma.
Who would follow this leader?
September 29, 2021
Whilst Starmer is wrestling with the thorny problem as to whether men can have a cervix, biological fact⊠they canât and Angela Rayner is calling people of other political persuasions..scum
The burning question is who do we vote for?
Hopefully the solution lies with Reform UK
September 30, 2021
This is it. Labour have been taken over by the Loony Left and the Frankfurt School. It appeals only to a certain type of voter now.
September 30, 2021
With its continued erosion of the identity of women, I wouldnât dream of voting for the Labour party. A party that believes biological men have a place in womenâs sport is just wrong.
September 30, 2021
or biological men have a place in womenâs prisons
or indeed 20yrs refugee pretending to be 15yrs in our schools….these parties have gone mad
September 30, 2021
As a lad brung up up north I h
September 30, 2021
As a lad brung up up north I have never called anyone “a piece of scum” (does scum even come in pieces?) nor have I even hear anyone do so “up north” nor anywhere else. Mind you Kier Starmer called Boris “a tool” is this not equally bad? The BBC though it was a good joke!
Perhaps most depressing was all those people cheering Rayner on as she came out with this bile. Why would anyone want such bitter people anywhere near to the levers of power?
The phrase “a piece of scum” will however now come to mind when ever I see the delightful Angela Rayner.
September 29, 2021
Sir John, it is easy to gloat. I have to ask which is the most Socialist and left wing party?
At the moment both groupings have their hard core supporters who for most purposes wont switch allegiance. Get past that though and why would any one seriously vote for either of the main party’s – its just a wasted vote in terms of the Countries direction. They are both trying to out left the left and trashing the economy at the expense of the people. In essence they are both lead by remain and are trying to manipulate a return to EU rule
The unfortunate position for me is that I live in Wokingham and our MP is true to his beliefs and recognise duty.
September 30, 2021
Many share your dilemma. A throughly decent MP no longer listened to – old school commonsense and balance on almost all policies. But which of us wants to vote for the Party he aligns with? Last time he benefitted due to being challenged by a renegade local ‘johnny come lately’ – who was given short shrift.
Sir John may suffer badly in the polls but the electorate knows they won’t do better and provide sufficient support. Time and tide wait for no one.
September 29, 2021
Mr John Curtice today on GB News stated that a recent poll covering mid to late September was 35% Labour and Conservative 40%. PM At Chequers? Would like to think the PM is finding a little quiet and time to catch up reading the many hundreds of comments daily on Sir John’s blogs for a start, and/or the thousands of comments & reactions from the public elsewhere, to articles in the various media outlets as they bombard us with their tales of the current state of our union & his governmentâs actions or lack of such. Perhaps also to update himself with the mediaâs countless stories, some of the âsobâ variety, re the ongoing & necessary placements in hotels, hostels, centres, barracks all around our country, which we the taxpayers are funding to provide some kind of sanctuary & basic comfort plus the vast support structure expense around that, to those who have entered our country without invitation. However, in many cases facilities reported not to be what was expected, not acceptable and considered substandard & subject to complaint apparently. Some local councils not too happy at times either with procedure. And in case he noted the dearth of media announcements re Sundayâs south coast arrivals, 3 days ago, the detected / confirmed number was 669. On the Green issue, I keep hearing the rate of transition / proposals seen to date has been far too rapid and needs to be slowed.
September 29, 2021
Brighton on the South coast?
That tells everyone in the Red Wall you are afraid of Blackpool or Manchester and Liverpool is HQ of Unite union.
It tells me Starmer is running scared. Folk see he is cut from the same cloth as lofty lawyers like those who preceded him and is shored up by me too victim Mayor of London S-Khan.
“Feel sorry for me” votes required urgently as the Policy and New Ideas Dept cupboard is bare.
September 29, 2021
Diane
PMread this blog?
You are having a laugh. The man only cares about himself.
Wake up England.
September 29, 2021
‘Conventional wisdom’ is not always right, but I think that it is when it says that ‘oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them’. Of course there will be times when the opposition is so unelectable that the government simply cannot lose – as was the case in 2019 with Corbyn’s extremist, marxist, anti-Brexit Labour Party. But that was then and this is now. Starmer does not oppose Brexit, and no longer even supports free movement (contrary to your claim). The other day Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves told the Today Programme: âWe moved on …. Weâre not going to bring back free movement under a Labour Government.â
So Labour no longer frightens the Brexit supporters. I myself do not believe they can possibly be worse than Boris Johnson, who has betrayed NI and our fishermen, who continues to pay billions to the EU and who refuses to leave the ECHR. So if Labour are no longer unelectable, that means that the Tories CAN (and will) lose the next election if they continue to betray their own supporters and mismanage the country. It’s not that many people will switch from voting Conservative to voting Labour (though some of the most recent ‘Red Wall’ Tory voters might), but that 2019 Tory voters such as myself will switch to other parties (Reform UK in my case) or just abstain (as I did in 2017). The Tories will therefore lose enough seats to lose their majority. Indeed, that is my latest thinking: the next election will lead to a hung parliament. We shall see!
September 29, 2021
Why is anyone unemployed in the UK now ?
September 30, 2021
Because they’re unemployable.
September 30, 2021
Not necessarily.
Despite the government claims of the existence of all these vacancies, a search and enquiry will reveal most are duplicates of the same vacancy, but counted as another vacancy, or the vacancy simply doesn’t exist. Some agencies are merely trying to gather a portfolio of prospective candidate CV’s, to effectively guzumpt to agency who does have preferred client status.
A dirty business, which I suspect has got worse over the years.
September 30, 2021
The military have an establishment figure with a vacancy shortfall e.g 100,000 personal, however they havenât the budget to fund to full establishment this financial year therefore the vacancy remains at 100,000 even though they have no intention of recruiting 100,000
The same methodology is used across all government servicesâŠ.the vacancy lists arenât real theyâre a wish list but the media quote them
September 30, 2021
Their work would not be worth more per hour than the minimum wage to any employer (and so it is actually illegal to employ them due to damaging employment laws). They thus never even learn how to work.
Also the benefits they received mean they choose not to work as for them they see that as a better option. Once again the government and daft laws are the problem.
September 29, 2021
I cannot decide who was the most energetic moderniser, Michael Howard or Ian Duncan Smith?
On purges, this is nuffin. It is impossible to imagine that the Conservative Party once contained people like David Gauke Rory Stewart Phillip Hammond Dominic Grieve George Osborne et al. Not welcome now.
Opposition to the Brexit State is suffocated by the First Past the Past system, but latest Polls show that people still think very much the way they did at the time of the referendum . Remain 43% Brexit 41% Deltapoll 3.9.2.
Sadly Sir John`s calculation, that he can take his moderate voters for granted, given the choices is brutal but correct. King Boris will reign a long time yet.
O me, with what strict patience have I sat,
To see a king transformed to a gnat!
PS Good title
September 29, 2021
off topic? -maybe not.
Northern Ireland faces new pandemic shortage: clowns
First it was toilet rolls, hand sanitiser and pasta, but now Covid-19 has caused a new and unexpected shortage in Northern Ireland: clowns. David Duffy, co-owner of Duffy’s Circus, is appealing for locals to put on the traditional red nose and to learn the skills of a clown.
I know Johnson is not a local but he is well versed in the role.
September 29, 2021
” I know Johnson is not a local but he is well versed in the role.”
Indeed he is. Remember the clowns and the double decker bus at the Beijing Olympics closing ceremony? And then the London Olympics went off like a Swiss watch.
Boris uses public buffoonery to hide rational calculation that he makes behind closed doors.
September 30, 2021
There are 350 or so clowns on the Tory benches in Westminster. Maybe they could help out?
September 30, 2021
Micky – Johnson puts on all sorts of other work clothes to parade in front of the media cameras, so why not? More seriously, I see in the Telegraph today that ‘the month that Wayne Couzens abused the rules to kidnap Sarah Everard, Tory MPs were urging Boris Johnson to ditch the Coronavirus Act’.
I hope Parliament will reflect on this and not renew the Coronavirus Act on 19th October.
September 29, 2021
A lot of this is simple economics. Labour used to be funded almost exclusively by unions, so it was all about wages. Now the unions are asking what Labour has done for them recently It did nothing while six million EU citizens took UK jobs and entered UK professions and took up places in UK Universities, but the Unions have finally woken up, so now there are disaffiliations.
But Labour still needs funding, so it is throwing its support behind the Road Haulage Association in its efforts to import one hundred thousand low paid EU drivers. It would be very interesting to have a transcript of some of Kier’s recent phone calls.
September 30, 2021
Labour could and should be arguing for the more sophisticated minimum wage system as in Germany.
That is, different rates for the varying job categories.
These could then be adjusted for the necessary strategic effect.
RHA seem to be an exploitative bunch, and a very long spoon should be used in supping with them.
September 30, 2021
Why not just let the labour market do it MiC.
Oh sorry I forgot.
You want the State to be involved in every area of our lives.
We’d have a State Minimum Wage Commission staffed by thouseand pontificating as to what the wage should be in every industry.
September 29, 2021
Barnier is being quoted this morning as saying that excluding Ireland from the Single Market was one of the options discussed during the WA negotiations.
But he also says that he then informed Varadkar that this was a possibility.
Think about that. The UK and Barnier discussing excluding Ireland from the Single Market and *then* telling the Irish PM about it.
Let that sink in a bit.
September 29, 2021
An all Ireland free trade area would have been a good idea.
September 30, 2021
A British Isles FTA is a better one.
September 30, 2021
For you maybe, not for Ireland.
September 30, 2021
An all Ireland FRA is what we had before you voted to end it. (PS: it extended way beyond Ireland to pretty much all of Western Europe too).
September 29, 2021
They couldnât exclude Ireland from the Single Market. There are legally binding treaties. They canât arbitrarily exclude any member from the Single Market. The report is nonsense.
September 30, 2021
Yes, this seems like extreme spin to me too.
September 30, 2021
Yeah – except that isnât really what he said, is it?
He said excluding Ireland was clearly one of the options but one that he considered âimpossible.â
I have loads of time this morning. Waiting in one of your massive Brexit queues for petrol. So much winning.
September 30, 2021
Please don’t put petrol in your Tesla – Turn the ignition or press the Start button and there will likely be an enormous WHOOSHHH — and you will be toast.
I would miss your free comedy turn most days.
September 30, 2021
I have no doubt that the EU are writing a directive to remind people not to put fuel in there EVs, and that EVs will have to have to display a warning sticker (along side the many EU stickers)
September 30, 2021
@jon – but the EU Commission is the ruler in the ROI, the people on the island of Ireland must just obey.
September 30, 2021
Baloney as ever.
September 29, 2021
In reality it is not what he said , its all about what he didn’t say. Enough said.
September 30, 2021
Exactly ! Well said.
September 29, 2021
Sir Kier could take up work as a Bond villain look-alike instead of a post politics lecture tour.
September 29, 2021
Surely it must be doubted that Sir Starmer can do a Blair New Labour type revival, unless Blue Boris outdoes Major’s lamentable performance?
September 29, 2021
Mark Leonard, co-founder and director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, wrote this morning suggesting that the UK should back out of the AUKUS deal because “It is not Australia that can help the UK with emergency truck drivers or stemming the flow of migrants across the English Channel”.
Remainers are going quite mad, aren’t they?
September 30, 2021
There is no probably about it. As someone once said; “It’s the economy stupid !”
And destroying peoples wealth and freedoms is a very good way of finding yourself in opposition, as you mention, Sir John. I mean, look at what Theresa May MP achieved when she was PM and ran an unnecessary GE with a wealth destroying manifesto ?
Well when the Tories keep stealing ALL your policies it does really leave them nowhere else to go !
/sarc
Anyway. As you allude to in your piece, all they, the opposition, have to do is wait for you to mess up. The great pity is, they are all missing what is a number of open goals. If any of them had a care I am sure they would look at what all these Green and other policies are doing to this nation and sound the alarm bells. For when the lights go out and people start losing their jobs there will be a fertile ground for resentment and revenge from the electorate. But as I say above, the Tories are implementing ‘their’ policies anyway.
Turf wars are nothing new and nothing for anyone from another party to crow about. David Cameron once referred to your own loyal supporters as, “The Turnip Taliban.” Ironic nowadays as the REAL Taliban are back in power and better armed.
Your leader has been in the top job for just over 2 years, and what a fine mess he has made already. Another two should just about do it.
September 30, 2021
+1
September 30, 2021
Sorry,
Good morning.
September 30, 2021
Alistair Heath has it spot on in the DT. Voters will not stand for your incompetence making this country the worlds laughing stock.
From the lunatic drive to out green other nations, as China steps up its coal transport to keep its lights on, we with only 1% of the worlds emissions are being shafted with a total failure to understand and plan for a post Brexit economy without its cheap foreign labour.
He didnât mentions Borisâs latest capitulation on fishing.
Your blog misses the point entirely. His 14000 words etc are irrelevant. All he has to do is wait. Your âuselessâ government is doing his job for him.
September 30, 2021
Do you really believe that the elected governments have so much influence ? Is it possible that big business leads and politicians follow either willingly or unwillingly ? We can’t vote all the trillionaires in or out?
September 30, 2021
@Margaret Brandreth – isn’t that the problem with the lot of them they have forgotten who they serve, forgotten who lends them our sovereignty, even forgotten who pays their wages. They are good on the ‘grandstanding’ and ‘virtue signaling’ so playing to the MsM’s tune.
The UK like most of the World needs a revolution to reestablish the Magna Carta and the true meaning of Democracy – not the interpreted one employed by the ‘establishment/
September 30, 2021
The governing party need a strong opposition to implement the changes required by Brexit.
Labour have missed the opportunity.
September 30, 2021
I can’t be bothered to listen to all their tripe, but has anything more been said about this?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00101j8
2:11 onwards, particularly 2:13 onwards, Rachel Reeves saying that Labour has now dropped its support for the free movement of persons, which means abandoning any hope of rejoining the EU or even the EEA.
September 30, 2021
Public support for Brexit is draining away and that is not so surprising for a number of reasons, but I find it particularly annoying when Labour blame the Tories for the consequences of following what was originally their own suggestion, as mentioned here in May 2018:
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/05/17/the-business-of-england/#comment-935511
“From the start I was prepared to accept transitional provisions, which are a common feature of international treaties.
For example the six founding EEC countries allowed themselves twelve years to set up their common market … ”
“It was quite conceivable that we would need different transitional periods for different purposes, and also that in some cases the legal or practical difficulties might make it sensible to extend the initially agreed period.
None of that is the same as an oxymoronic âstandstillâ or âstatus quoâ transition which is not any transition at all because nothing will change, and which it seems is just being used by Remainers to keep us tied into the EU for as long as possible in the hope that in the end we wonât leave at all.”
September 30, 2021
The Tories have a majority of EIGHTY.
Nothing that they do is attributable to anything other than their own volition therefore.
Nothing.
September 30, 2021
Circumstances Denis, it’s circumstances that will keep us forever tied to the EU. First of all we are geographically hinged onto their doostep, one of the largest economic trading blocs in the world ‘ that just cannot be ignored. Secondly with the population size we have and with our dependence on imports and so far with no great signs of alternative FTA’s with other great economies leaves us vulnerable – so welcome to the hotel California
September 30, 2021
The mistakes, or rather omissions that Boris is responsible for are easily fixed :
It’s obvious that times are going to get a little tough with costs rising, especially road fuel, energy bills, and council tax. Reduce the level of Universal Credit in stages : take off ÂŁ5 a week each time over two years, starting next spring. Better still, help people by only taking off half or a quarter of the ÂŁ20.
Slow down the Green Crap Agenda and give an assurance that Road tax and fuel duty will not be increased in a futile attempt to force people to buy expensive and impractical electric cars. Let the people decide when and if it is practical for them to switch to an electric car or give up their gas boiler. The pressure will then be on the manufacturers to improve their offerings.
Get the offshore assessment centre for illegal immigrants up and running. It will stop cross channel people smuggling within a month.
Bring forward the positive advantages of Brexit with regular announcements on improvements gained by dropping EU-inspired legislation. He can start with easy ones like getting rid of the deeply annoying and incessant mouse-clicking needed to accept cookies.
September 30, 2021
PS : And fix the DVLA once and for all. Ideally by moving all driver and vehicle processing for England into a new, trade union free centre into a Northern city where the staff will actually appreciate the jobs.
September 30, 2021
What else can we say about the labour party that hasn’t been said before?
New(ish) leader – same old game of trying to con the public that they are not driven by pure Marxism
They will never be the most honest party, but get far too much competition these days.
You could say that at least the labour party were almost true to their roots, but their mismash of policies is as always too destructive for the average person to agree with, unless they get desperate.
Bearing in mind that they have so often failed to run the finances of their own party without major contributions from the unions to bail them out, why on Earth should we let them loose on our economy. It could happen of course if people stop voting Tory. It would in these oppressive times be an act of national suicide – it would be the difference between being pushed or jumping unwillingly.
September 30, 2021
âVoters will say they support the idea of net-zero for fear of retaliationâ
What circles are you mixing in John? Everyone I speak to thinks Net-Zero is barking mad, totally undeliverable, and wonât make an ounce of difference to climate change.
September 30, 2021
100% spot on
September 30, 2021
Boris has only got to make small changes in order to deflect criticism from erstwhile supporters, Starmer, on the other hand, has an impossible task.
Firstly, Labour always relied on up to fifty Scottish seats in order to gain a majority in the UK. That is history and the SNP now have almost all of those seats. Starmer has therefore got to either gain many more English seats than Blair ever managed or form a coalition with the SNP.
The first option is looking even more impossible than under Blair if Boris delivers his levelling up agenda and retains the red wall seats. A coalition with Sturgeon or even some form of confidence and supply agreement is complete anathema to English voters, as the hapless Miliband discovered to his cost. All Boris has to do is wheel out a new version of that poster with Sturgeon as Starmer’s puppetmaster.
The next election is Boris’ to lose. The arithmetic makes it impossible for Starmer or anyone else to win for Labour.
September 30, 2021
Oppositions don’t win General Elections, Government’s lose them.
If the CONs lose the next one it won’t be because Labour is offering a popular policy platform. It will be because insufficient conservatively-inclined voters support Johnson’s brand of left-wing, green-obsessed pretendy-Conservatism.
“Voters will say they support the idea of net zero for fear of retaliation, but they will not vote for policies that deliberately limit their freedoms or make them worse off.” And this will be one reason why. The others will be:
1. The destruction of our economy, Civil Rights and the lives of millions with the draconian and largely ineffectual Covid policy
2. The failure to stop the slo-mo invasion across the Channel
3. The refusal to deal with the BBC and the “woke” cultural war in general
4. Resorting to Labour’s policy of Print, Borrow, Tax and throw our money down the drain
September 30, 2021
This spin job on Starmer is a serious and a thorough one. He used to have a weak, camp voice, with pronounced overtones of Rachel Reeves, presumably from spending so much time with her. Now all that has been removed.
September 30, 2021
Winning an election in the UK is normally the default result of the other party loosing it. The conservatives have set themselves up to lose in 2024 unless they radically re-think what they are, on one hand trying to do, go lefty green, and on the other, failing to respond to the challenges of post Brexit UK or even the glaringly obvious problems that are endemic and have nothing to do with Brexit.
September 30, 2021
You’ve just reminded everyone that we have another 3 years of Boris…..thanks
September 30, 2021
It’s no longer a case of voting for the best party but instead voting for the least worst.
All the parties badly need a good overhaul.
September 30, 2021
As stated previously, this is a hangover from our membership of the EU. Now we know the true calibre of the people that seek high office and it isn’t pretty. The survival of the fittest is much needed in British Politics but this will take time and quite a few GE’s.
It is going to be painful, but worth it.
September 30, 2021
In the UK what history shows us time and time again, No One ever Wins Elections. There have been no winning leaders and no winning party.
Elections are always lost by those that don’t put the economy therefore the people first.
September 30, 2021
+1
September 30, 2021
Sir John,
I agree entirely. In my lifetime oppositions have been voted into power when the government has been perceived to have messed up big time.
So I think the left are now shifting away from refighting the 2016 referendum and trying to imply that the consequences of that result are being badly handled.
Callaghan felt aggrieved that he was misquoted – however “Crisis what crisis?” played as well as “Labour isn’t working”. As we all know three word phrases often help win elections – they tend to focus on the failures of the existing government (or parliament in 2019).
September 30, 2021
From the MsM “Cost of living: ÂŁ500m in new grants to help poorest households”
As a headline it sounds warm and cuddly. Then Think – it is desperately needed as a result of Government Policy, those that don’t meet the low threshold for payout proportionally get punished more.
It has been Government Policy to trash the economy, to raise taxes, to increase bureaucracy and red tape, create jobs for the boys. Its Government policy to Keep growing the state – not reduce it. Government caused people to move to alternative employment as a result of ir35 – driver shortage! The Government is spending taxpayer money on those in the health industry that prefer the telephone, rather than as their contract states. Its Government that is paying ‘London Weighting’ for those that travel into London when they don’t.
All the things a Conservatives Government would never do. All things that wouldn’t be necessary if we had a Government that trusted the people.
However there is a massive growth in employing the ‘grand standing’ political gesturing, and the ‘virtue signaling’ – did any of those advance the economy, provide for the UK’s safety and security?
So yesterday all Starmer finished up sounding like was he and his party are not as extreme left wing or Socialist, or Controlling as the Conservatives and Boris.
People have short memories, the Blair/Brown disaster years of trashing the UK are a long forgotten, the fact we are still generations a way of paying down the debts they incurred all forgotten. Its just yesterdays broken promises and the struggle to survive that now matters.
September 30, 2021
I believe it’s even worse than you describe and not just in this country. Some of the horrific events in Australia are utterly criminal, being carried out by thugs and bigots employed by the various States.
When a 70 year old lady is pepper sprayed by two Aussie police officers for protesting then you begin to realise that Build Back Better is code for pure bred fascism
September 30, 2021
There are too many former “Remainers” who have now morphed into “Rejoiners”. Giving up sovereignty of our country to others as Heath did in taking us into the EU should surely have been regarded as an act of treason and dealt with accordingly.
Now we have the Remainers trying to emulate that act and once again give up our sovereignty to the EU. We need an updated Treason and Sedition Law to deal with them. It would also be useful in dealing with those who would willingly give up our sovereignty to the globalists. We all know who they are…
September 30, 2021
A great deal of our sovereignty has already been given up to the US.
There are no European Union bases on UK soil from which they attack whomever they wish – even non-UK enemies – for instance, are there?
Every international treaty is a sharing or loss of sovereignty to some degree, and this country is a party to a great many.
September 30, 2021
Has it?
What laws, rules, regulations and directives are we forced to agree and enact into UK law ?
Maybe you can give us a long list MiC?
You currently list only mutually beneficial agreements freely made.
September 30, 2021
As a Rejoiner I delight that dimwitted extremists want to accuse me of treason.
With minimal respect to you and your elderly ilk, youâre idiots.
September 30, 2021
If you really hate the UK and really prefer the EU then you fit the definition young andy.