As if 4 Chancellors in 4 months was not enough we are now pitching for 3 Prime Ministers in 3 months and maybe a fifth Chancellor. It is an irony that a small group who were determined to pull both Boris and Liz down claim we need to stabilise the markets!
Their attitude to the members is arrogant, preferring them not to have a vote or upending anyone they vote for that they did not want. It makes it extremely difficult for anyone elected as PM as they are under constant fire from their own side from people who will abuse their privileged access and look for any slip or error. Having Ā healthy debate about policy and decisions is good. Personal attacks and venom is destructive and puts many good people off politics.
We now have a short space of time to do again what was done at leisurely pace this summer. The members should look for someone with Conservative views and reject the idea that we want Ā a so called grown up who will do everything the establishment and the international institutions tell them. The establishment gave us the inflation and now seem determined to give Ā us Ā a recession. Why trust them when their forecasts were so wrong and when they continuously lied to us about the inflation they caused but denied for so long.
āGrown upsā usually want to put us back under EU rules, to gold plate any global trend and Treaty requirement even when it is clearly damaging to us, to frustrate the self employed and small business, and to back the big boom/bust swings of Central bank policies as they lurch from printing too much money to stopping credit too abruptly.
October 21, 2022
Good morning.
I feel your frustration and anger Sir John.
General Election now !!!
October 21, 2022
Mark,
Agree… Select a PM, hold a GE, lose power and allow Sir Kier the Grate to become PM. The economy and public finances are already in a mess. Questionable how much more damage he could inflict. What a Labour Government would achieve is to convince the populance of their incompetence (fair or otherwise). They were in power > UK got in a mess > must be their fault.
FWIW I’d stick Boris back. He’ll boost tTry votes in an election, reducing the Truss damage. He can then slide away on defeat allowing someone else 5 years to bring MPs together.
October 21, 2022
I do wish someone would explain why they want Boris back. I keep asking, but nobody seems to have an answer!
October 21, 2022
people love a clown, but they have a dark side.
October 21, 2022
Shirley,
Whoever fills the post will kick up completed Brexit down the road unfinished nor implement benefits in leaving, be historically high tax, continue mass immigration and be devout net stupid. The pitch and manifesto will be the east opposite.
Cameron, May and Johnson did the same. Truss was stupid enough to announce a slight tax change got hammered by her socialist majority, a forced massive U- Turn by remainer Hunt.
The Tory fodder will be told to vote for them, accept what they are given and be grateful! Those who do vote Tory need their heads examined after so many election, false promises and lies.
October 21, 2022
The voting public think it’s the political equivalent of The X Factor (or I’m a non-entity get me into there).
Presumably Blundertruss never had chance to change the interior decor at No 10-looks like Lulu Lytle will have a more durable legacy than Truss-(well,gold leaf beats lettuce leaf any day of the week!).
October 21, 2022
I said bring him back for an election (only). More of the UK electorate will back him than other options being discussed. Tories would lose the election but not as badly. Boris then exits stage right and part can try and find someone competent + charasmatic to take over,
October 21, 2022
Shirley, I saw an interesting piece in the Guardian about getting back with your ex – our advice columnist on the dangerous allure of exes.
Why would the left-wing papers warn about getting back with an ex-PM if they genuinely thought Boris back, in the position he was elected to be in and which the public didn’t remove him from, would be a walkover for left-wing parties next time? Is it because they’ve got all their attacks on Sunak already written? We’ll be reading endlessly about non-doms, posh boys who don’t connect.
I know two couples that split up after 25 years of marriage, the man in both cases thinking he could have the grass on both sides of the fence; they both got back together after a couple of years and are still married now some 27 years later. It doesn’t always follow that thinking you can do better with someone else pans out.
October 21, 2022
I agree with you Shirley. Johnson is a spendthrift and certainly not suitable to have ever been PM.
Also most of the members of the commons are no longer suitable to be caller āRight Honourableā. That lowers the honour for those who really deserve the title , just like our host of this site.
October 21, 2022
JR: “It is an irony that a small group who were determined to pull both Boris and Liz down claim we need to stabilise the markets!”
How sad that people who expected integrity in their Prime minister, and when they found him lacking in integrity* wanted him gone. Sould be described as a ‘small group’. But such is the UK body politic today.
Shirley M: “I do wish someone would explain why they want Boris back. ”
That is a very good question. Boris Johnson, for want of a backbone is the Prime minister who squandered a whopping majority for what is now generally accepted to have been a hoax.
He could have done something with that majority, if he’d stuck to his guns and stood up to those in the ‘deep state’ who wanted the lockdowns and everlasting quarentine, endless sterling printing – which is the root of our rampant inflation problem today.
Liz Truss has made matters worse, by paying everyone’s energy bill – by the means of, you guessed it, printing ‘shed loads’ of Sterling. Which in the face of declining GDP, will lead to the lirafication if the currency. Stand by for another bout of inflation in 12 months.
As Private Frazer often said; “We are doomed”. Unfortunately, this time it is true.
Where do we get this monumentally incompetent politicians? A salary of Ā£80,000 per year is clearly no guarentee of quality. Perhaps we need to abolish the Conservative Central Office ‘filter’ on the candidates. I think it fair to say the present method of selection Conservative candidates has been an absolute disaster.
October 21, 2022
Because the party ejected him only on the say so of the media and opposition, not the electorate. He was just half way through a parliament and what the media coup has done is antidemocratic. There needs to be a restoration now to right he wrong and show they are not to do it again. How the wrong against Mr Kwarteng and Miss Truss is righted would be up to Boris. The democracy belongs to all of us and we should all stand up for it and see it is not continually abused by these remainiacs.
October 22, 2022
Better the devil you know š
October 21, 2022
Johnson who turned to green zealotry, who wanted a gender neutral woman led society, speed up Ned stupid, mass immigration to help cultural destruction of society, give away fishing rights to EU, annex N.Ireland, authoritarian lockdown without good reason, failed to say dangers of vaccines etc. stood up for BLM and ExRebellion as well! Then lie at every turn to call black white! He turned his back on manifesto pledge not to increase taxes etc etc. He had his chance and is part of the arrogance JR is talking about! so on JRās advice most of his MPs would be gone. Johnson should have sacked the lot of remainers, he chose to give the most vile titles!
We had this croc of crap and lies for 12 years where Cameron got rid of most Tory candidates selecting libdumb new labour ones from the centre. Time for Tory party to die and become history so a Conservative party can be formed from the ashes or a new one like Reform Party is allowed to flourish.
October 21, 2022
@PeterB; “Questionable how much more damage [Labour] could inflict”
That is totally the wrong question, Keir Starmer is more akin to Harold Wilson than Ted Heath! What the Tories need to ask themselves is the exact opposite…
“What a Labour Government would achieve is to convince the populance of their incompetence”
Of course they might convince the public just how incompetent the Tories had been, as Wilson did by 1966 and again between Feb 1974 & Oct ’74, not forgetting Blair did the same by 2001.
“FWIW Iād stick Boris back”
Yes, and watch the govts parliamentary majority crossed the floor of the house, or at least sat as independents; some on this site are making the same error the far left made in the 1980s, the more they lost the further to the extremes they headed, “we only lost because we were not radical enough, more, more, more!” was their cry as they fell off the electoral cliff.
October 21, 2022
So far only a few Conservative MPs have said they would rebel of Boris was to return as leader.
Rather short of the numbers needed to overturn the current majority.
October 21, 2022
Frustration and anger with the real world, you mean. All that has happened lately is that John Redwood and his friends’ fantasy economics of unfunded tax cuts met reality, and got a very thorough clip round the ear. So, yes, General Election now and let’s get rid of these Tories who keep on getting mugged by reality
October 21, 2022
Was in unfunded tax cuts or unfunded support for gas and electricity? You and your ilk demanded the support! Oh think of the children I believe is your phrase of choice. Heating or eating is the soundbite while disregarding the reality of a warm home or the latest smart phone, improve your cv if you want satellite TV, cut down on the booze for an armful of tattoos.
Life is choices Gary, why should we subsidise those making poor ones.
October 21, 2022
@NS; “Life is choices Gary, why should we subsidise those making poor ones.”
Indeed, so allow the energy companies go bust and their investors to lose their shirts, as their unrecoverable debts mount, or were your comments only directed towards the poor? It wasn’t just the consumer calling for a support scheme, it was the energy companies themselves and their share holders, including pension schemes…
October 21, 2022
Too big to fail Jerry. The result of government intervention in markets.
October 21, 2022
@NS; Nonsense, the energy companies are not to big to fail, it would be very simple to re-nationalize them post collapse. The real issue would be the pension companies, but so long as a similar protection scheme was given them as the banks in 2007-8 the situation would be totally manageable.
October 22, 2022
“It would be very simple”
And that is where the credibility of your argument fails Jerry.
Nothing government ever does is simple.
October 21, 2022
Weird how Ā£60bn of tax cuts is unfunded whereas Ā£500bn of Covid spending was.
Reply Why isnt the energy package, far larger than the tax changes, called unfunded?
October 21, 2022
Dave Andrews
Agreed, I made the same point a couple of weeks ago.
Different day, different arguments.
They make the arguments to get greater media coverage, and fault finding is so easy, it’s not enough, it’s too much. it’s too fast, it’s too slow, etc etc.
Opposition by sound bites.
October 21, 2022
Agreed.
I am reminded of a quote from ‘Animal Farm’
“All animals are equal but some are more equal than others”.
October 21, 2022
Johnsonās energy policy was back to the cave man hoping the wind might blow now and again. Previously he thought get fracking as wind machines could not blow the skin off a rice pudding!
How many billions did Johnson waste while in govt as if money came from magic trees! His first budgets were good socialist ones according to former Tory ministers. He had an eighty seat, yes eighty seat majority. How many billions to EU that he said should be told to go whistle! No checks to N.Ireland no border down the Irish Sea! He gave away our fishing waters for nothing, absolutely nothing in return. Caved in to Macron to close the country down when lorries were held by France to get food. Did nothing when EU stopped vaccines, did nothing when France threatened to cut electricity off from Jersey. All lies of course to say Brexit was done. How many billions to corrupt Ukraine when he told us previously to stop Russia bashing!
The Tories are on a mission for cultural destruction. 1.2 million visas and over 35,000 illegal immigrants housed in four star hotels! Mass immigration is their game. Braverman represented a ray of hope, hence why she was not elected as PM. She even dared to say UK needs to come out of ECHR if we want to control our borders. She was the only one of a three conservatives in govt, the rest lickspittles.
Shapps who let in 18 million from covid hotspots, who was in govt after so much wasteful spending and socialist budgets. The danger to our national safety and way of life is now in peril with Shapps and Hunt in position.
The Chinese will be waved through our infrastructure without hesitation.
October 21, 2022
@Dave Andrews; JR reply; That’s like calling “war” unfunded, some things have to be funded no mater what, tax cuts for millionaires do not!
October 21, 2022
The tax cuts for millionaires I’m not so worried about, it’s the zero tax rate paid by billionaires with creative accounting and tax havens that bothers me.
October 21, 2022
+1 then we have the vast cost of all those vaccines that the stats. show have done far more harm than good. Especially for the young.
October 21, 2022
Dave, why wasn’t Ā£3 trillion (Hammond) Net Zero unfunded? Why not the open ended commitment to Ukraine? And the channel invasion?
October 21, 2022
@Gary Megson – cosy in the World of entitlement is it ? Without creating the framework for Growth there is no tax to spend.
October 21, 2022
Brexit is the cause of ALL of this.
The insistence that whoever is PM must celebrate it as the best thing that the Tories have ever done – when it is in fact an utterly baleful curse on the country – is asking the impossible, and it is why none of the ERG will put their own heads above the parapet to be shot off.
Isn’t it, Sir John?
October 21, 2022
You think anything and everything is due to Brexit NHL
Ridiculous.
October 21, 2022
@P2; “Ridiculous”
Indeed your comment was, but that’s hardly news… š
There is some truth in what @NLH says, had Brexit not happened, had the referendum result been Remain, Cameron would not have resigned and the Tory party chaos of the last six years would likely never have happened, or at least not to the same script, it would have been the EU federalists falling over each other whilst trying to take the country in a direction no one had a mandate for!
October 22, 2022
Jerry are you agreeing with NHL that all our problems post 2016 are due to Brexit?
And that the ERG are to blame.
I like conspiracy theories as much as you do Jerry but this one is ridiculous.
October 21, 2022
NHL
Back to making divisive comments about Brexit?
October 21, 2022
Number crunchers across the channel are unanimous in that Brexit is the prime cause. Some reckon they can trace a paradigm shift in the UK metrics back to October 2010 when there was a mini-rebellion by 37 Tory MPs on the UKās ļ¬nancial contribution to the EU. Later, things were going downhill fast. Cameron attempted to spike UKIP’s and the ERG 62’s guns; he would renegotiate the UKās relationship with the EU and have an ināout referendum. Big mistake.
After the announcement of the referendum, every metric you can chart started flashing red. The UK is dying from a self inflicted wound the Coroner will call economic suicide. Congratulations to the 2010 Conservatives; the Little Englanders, obsessed with āsovereigntyā free markets and immigration; but, absolutely no idea how to run a two trillion pound economy that uses a fiat currency economic model.
October 22, 2022
Complete nonsense acorn
Figures for the USA and EU in terms of growth unemployment inflation stock market indices are not much different to the UK
You extremist rejoiners are obsessed with Brexit.
I not you u carefully leave out the massive effects of Covid on the economy.
And I note decend to the little England clichƩ jibe again
October 21, 2022
My goodness. You must be such a bore down the pub.
October 24, 2022
Fully agree with you FuS: the quasi-randomness of the sequencing of comments makes your comment very appropriate.
October 21, 2022
It’s not tax cuts but spending cuts needed to the unhealthy benefits bill. Then taxes can be cut accordingly. The unreformed NHS bill where we’re paying for the worlds health care and unneeded backroom staff/managers. The foreign aid budget to fund third world nuclear weapons and armies. Hs2 that no one needs or uses. The Council tax bills paying for people who don’t work from home delivering no services. The Home Office, Treasury, OBR etc etc delivering………….nothing. A bonfire of the useless quangos is needed. A wholesale abolition of EU rules needed. Get rid of any job that has diversity in the title. Not needed its called supervision and management, end of. Let the entrepreneurs get on with wealth creation without Government interference, who add nothing to the mix. Look at reducing Political interference in anything as they are just interfering, hot air waffle, no nothings.
October 21, 2022
@Timaction; “Itās not tax cuts but spending cuts needed to the unhealthy benefits bill. Then taxes can be cut accordingly.”
So what you’re really saying is, make the poor even poorer so the rich can be even richer…
October 21, 2022
Highest taxes in 70 years, mostly paid by highest earners! We already pay too much. Benefit bill rising at the highest rate in decades, despite job vacancies.
October 21, 2022
Definitely. PMs being brought down by the WEF and remainiacs aided by the BBC and Bailey.
Get out of the way and let a true conservative party rise from the ashes.
As for Gove, that’s another story.
October 21, 2022
I’ve tried to forget him! Why spoil it!
October 21, 2022
Tories could have got rid of Bailey or Carney. They CHOSE to extend Carneyās contract! Carney spouting his green crap theory elsewhere in the world.
October 21, 2022
And the Hedge Fund Managers, Ian. There is a shocking Peter Oborne video about Liz Truss’s close proximity with them in a private Chelsea club.
This is no longer the Tory Party of the people.
October 21, 2022
It always was basically the party for people with assets and income, an element of risk takers.
October 21, 2022
I didn’t think you’d publish – too near the truth, eh?
October 21, 2022
I apologise Sir John – -I bet you have been busy refusing offers to vote for people.
October 21, 2022
+1
October 21, 2022
@Ian Wragg; As always, look for the scapegoats, never in the mirror.
October 21, 2022
šš»āš»
October 21, 2022
Dear Mark–of course there will not be a GE and quite right too. The consitutional position could not be clearer.
Boris is going to be back as I have been saying he shoud for weeks now. Horror upon horror but we are told that there are Conservative (?) MPs who don’t like Boris and might resign. Sounds good to me. Boris was forced out for the most pifflingly irrelevant reasons. A drink after, and physically at, work no less and telling a few white lies about next to nothing–just think of those poor misled MPs: look where we are now. I hope the people involved are pleased with their clueless selves.
October 21, 2022
Why are people hell bent on bringing back the biggest betrayer of the UK? Boris had an 80 seat majority and could have achieved ANYTHING he set out to do! Unfortunately he set out to do all the wrong things and I will NEVER forgive him for his lies to reduce immigration and then invite MILLIONS both legal and illegal and even roll out the red carpet for the uninvited ‘passengers’ who are kept in comfort while Brits go cold and hungry. Boris betrayed everyone (except immigrants). I’d better not mention net zero and Boris’s fixation with wind turbines! Not sure my blood pressure would appreciate it!
October 21, 2022
100%, Shirley!
October 21, 2022
+1. The Tory’s support illegals and encourage them with 4* hotels, free food and lodgings, pocket money, health and dental care. No other Country in the world would do this. Then they wonder why they come. Can you imagine chipping up in the USA and being offered this? Fools one and all. The Tory’s hate the English and leave us with no voice. Where’s our devolved administration, free University education, prescriptions, hospital parking etc? No our place is to pay through the highest taxes in 70 years for the Barnet formula for the preferred Scots, Welsh, Northern Irish.
October 21, 2022
Timeaction. I second your thoughts on the Barnet formula.
October 22, 2022
Agree 100%, Timaction.
October 21, 2022
Nail on the head Shirley.
He was just another in a line of those telling untruths to get elected.
Conservatives got a whopping majority and could have done so much better. That majority came mainly because people wanted Brexit but also because they desperately didn’t want Corbyn, even the die hard Labour areas didn’t want that. What did they get? Well in many ways from the appalling wokery, to more mass immigration they got the very thing they didn’t want, and much more besides.
Delivered by a professional teller of porkies!!!
October 21, 2022
+ many Michelle, but being an outright liar to the public in order to obtain votes by fraud is still seen as acceptable by so many, both within and without Parliament! Where are the protections for the electorate against such dishonest and fraudulent actions? Also, why are politicians allowed to sabotage the country for the benefit of a foreign government. I speak of the Benn Act. If we do not have laws against such betrayals, then we should have!
October 21, 2022
Shirley M, +++++++, his incompetence went far far beyond the dopey cake stuff. Net Zero, Lockdown, immigration, wokery, youāve covered it, a room full of elephants in plain sight.
October 21, 2022
@Leslie Singleton, Bring back the biggest spender in 70 years of your money? Not once did Boris think the UK should earn what it spends, just borrow. Boris exported UK jobs to foreign domains then spent taxpayer money buying the same services back. The UK now pays twice for the same but has to borrow to be able to do that – that’s the Boris way, Or in other words Boris was using UK taxpayer money to fund growth in other countries whale at the same time ensuring the UK shouldn’t grow
October 21, 2022
++
October 21, 2022
Leslie, I don’t even think Boris will be allowed to be put to the members; there is talk of a stitch-up behind the scenes with Sunak and Mordant, and then Mordant drops out, because let’s face it if she beat Rishi as Truss did with the membership she’d be the next lettuce on the table.
They know Boris is the public’s choice, he is the only one Starmer would be concerned about, especially if he came back with a whip-hand partner.
The reason the public aren’t as bothered about misleading the house is all politicians do it to suit themselves. Starmer isn’t perfect either, he breached the MP’s code of conduct, retracted accusations about the Ukraine Invasion, and Keir admitted he was wrong and made a mistake about EMA remarks all just this year. It just feels like they’re playing a game and the public are the pawns to be cast aside.
October 21, 2022
We don’t want the Green Liberal Carrie back. We can’t afford her energy bills as she’ll blow up coal power stations so we can import coal from Russia, fracked gas from Qatar/America, and woodchips from the US, whilst exporting our industrial base to China, India and elsewhere. Then we’ll import those inferior goods back, manufactured by dirtier coal powered electricity and wonder why we have a balance of payments deficit and more CO2 produced in the same world atmosphere? CO2 is 0.04% of the atmosphere, you’d have thought if they were going to pick a climate changing gas they’d have chosen one that actually makes a difference. CO2 is a trace gas and an essential element for all plant life on the planet. If this is reduced to 0.015% of the atmosphere all plant life dies and therefore all life on the planet!
October 21, 2022
+1 JR is correct Tory MPs do not give a fig about their voters. Cameron slagged them off as Turnip Taliban, swivelled eyed loons, May ignored them and betrayed them over Brexit! Maymeven asked to work with Corbyn! Tory MPs actively worked with speaker Bercow and Labour MPs to stop the nationwide vote to leave the EU!
How many times does their manifesto has to be reneged on, how many false claims about Brexit, the Tories tried to reverse it- look what Hunt is currently doing to make UK is not more competitive than the EU.
Tories have repeatedly lied over immigration, no tax rise while at 70 year high etc etc.
October 21, 2022
Well said, Hope.
October 21, 2022
You think a poll with 10,000 signatures indicates that Boris is the publicās choice? šš¤£
October 21, 2022
It wasn’t from a special recruited BBC contractor, by any chance was it?
October 21, 2022
British Polling Council – There is no, āminimumā, sample size for a poll which is acceptable, but around one thousand has become the established norm for a nationwide opinion poll in …https://www.britishpollingcouncil.org/faqs-by-members-of-the-public/
Who would you prefer Lynn, Sunak?
October 21, 2022
“Arrogant” to the point that they now do not care how obvious the scheming is.
A clear out via a general election is preferable to wasting time looking for a genuine conservative.
Boris Johnson as a “winner” is an insult to people’s intelligence.
October 21, 2022
+1 Peter – do people have such short memories or do they actually LIKE the way he behaved and what he did to the country?
October 21, 2022
Dear Shirley–I am in the camp that says Boris would have a jolly good chance in the GE, which everything considered is all one can ask amid the present chaos. I am in favour of MPs’ or Members’ votes being determining dependent on which favour Boris. There will be a huge collective sigh of relief the very same day he is re-instated. He does however needs to watch his back more closely this time. The more Tory non-Tories that don’t like him and resign the better.
October 21, 2022
Peter and Shirley M, +++++
October 21, 2022
We have a situation worse than a banana republic, mixed with a little Italian mafia, held together by a N.Korean madman dictator! The asylum known as Free speech media Westminster and City.
October 21, 2022
Both Boris and Truss betrayed their voters, which is why they had to go. This is the important point that needs to be remembered. Boris FAILED on Brexit (look at Northern Ireland, or fishing, or the continued payments to the EU), he FAILED on immigration, he FAILED on energy (he is a net zero fanatic), he FAILED on taxes (breaking his own manifesto pledge), and he FAILED to preserve our freedom and economy during Covid.
As for Truss, she FAILED to appoint Sir John as chancellor (which is what actually led to her downfall), she FAILED to deliver a tax-cutting budget (personal taxes actually INCREASED, due to the failure to increase the personal allowance with inflation and rising wages), she FAILED to adopt policies to increase business investment (such as a super-deduction on ALL capital investment), she FAILED to deliver spending cuts to produce a balanced budget, she FAILED to agree to policies to cut immigration and she FAILED to scrap the net zero targets.
What we need is a leader who will actually DELIVER on the things that we want. But for that we will have to look at another party altogether. The Tories are just woke, left-wing traitors.
October 21, 2022
Heād lose his seat!
October 22, 2022
Sadly, you are right. But he would not be the only one, and that is what might just save the country.
October 21, 2022
Good Morning,
I do hope Ms Truss write’s up her memoirs of being PM, as quickly as her time in office. I want to know how her second chancellor was selected for that office. He was considered unsuitable for any cabinet position in the Johnson government, similarly in the first cabinet of the Truss government, but all of a sudden he’s a ‘safe pair of hands’ to run the Treasury two weeks ago, how did that happen?
October 21, 2022
Both Johnson and Truss appointed cabinets of acolytes rather than broad-based cabinets. That’s why Hunt wasn’t considered by either. (Hunt was in the final 2 against Johnson, then supported Sunak against Truss.)
October 21, 2022
Thereās a lot of people pondering that about Lizās second chancellor Peter.
And her body language suggested she didnāt āchooseā him. As Toby Young described it, she looked like someone whoād had her children kidnapped!
October 21, 2022
Maybe he was the only one willing to put on the nose peg, don the rubber gloves, wield the shovel and deal with the steaming pile of you know what that Truss and his predecessor metaphorically dumped all over the country, and the deal was that he was going to stand up and do so.
Truss was the kid who found out the hard way that neither Father Christmas nor unicorns are real and didn’t like it or want to accept it. She was watching the fantasies and fairy tales that she told the Conservative membership during the leadership election evaporate before her eyes.
October 21, 2022
It was reported that the Hunt was working with a panel of American bankers as his advisors. It seems likely that the IMF did not approve of the divergence between the previously agreed corporation tax and the banks refused to finance any more borrowing after it became impossible to reverse the energy problem for Europe, including the UK. The Hunt didn’t select his advisors. They selected him.
As for the two favourites being the two that staffed the money in the first place and backed the disinvestment in oil and gas, this sums up the Conservative Party. Any competent candidate are not supporters if zero carbon so are ineligible. Only MPs who are as daft as the Swedish truant are considered suitable.
October 21, 2022
Spaffed. Not staffed. Phone has a mind of its own.
October 21, 2022
“Out of the Blue-The Inside Story of Liz Truss and Her Astonishing Rise to Power”by Harry Cole and James Heale was due to be published in six weeks time.
Pulp fiction……with the emphasis -now-on pulp!
October 21, 2022
Easy-peasy:
āOut of the Blue-The Inside Story of Liz Truss and Her Astonishing
Rise to*fall from* PowerāAnd bring it out in two weeks, just in case Liz Truss is back as PM in six weeks’ time.
October 21, 2022
“Out by Christmas” changed from the release date to the title!
October 21, 2022
Fully agree with the post, and I really like the tone of it. We’ve had enough of the new “business as usual”, ignore the Plebs, WEF carry on.
October 21, 2022
@Wanderer +1
October 21, 2022
…forgot to add that it’s probably coming time to leave the Party, as this leadership race will be a stitch up.
October 21, 2022
Wanderer,
Agree it is a stitch-up planned by the globalists when their puppet failed to be elected the first time around. David Frost obviously saw the futility of continuing efforts to help steer the UK in a sensible direction and got out. He, Sir John and others truly CONSERVATIVE must find a way to work together to achieve a government which is not subject to the disastrous whims of the WEF and corrupt global elite.
The immediate future looks bleak. Turning things around will be a long-term task requiring determination, dedication and co-operation. The right people, with the right mind-set can do it.
October 21, 2022
‘The right people, with the right mind-set can do it.’
We just have to find them. Anyone seen that Yeti?
October 21, 2022
Seen from the outside, ignoring the “institutions” gave you the sudden overnight rise in mortgage rates.
October 21, 2022
So ? Mortgage rates have been far too low for far too long and house prices are in an enormous bubble that prices new buyers out of the market. You thank that’s a good thing ? Meanwhile savers have suffered negative real interest rates for the same period but haven’t been bailed-out.
October 21, 2022
Spot on Roy. House prices have shot up for 15 years because people could borrow more. BofE claimed to have set rules that protect borrowers against mortgage rate rises by keping loan amounts affordable. Let’s see how well that works.
Zero interest rates have been the problem not the solution.
October 21, 2022
yep we’ve had several years of silly interest rates but with ever rising inflationary events. Current events and scheming by the treasonists has brought financial prudent judgement crashing down.
A period of adjustment welcomed but not outright revolt !
October 21, 2022
The causes of the interest rate rises were mainly the culmination of the tax, borrow, print and waste policies of Osborne, Hammond and Sunak. Truss was just the final straw.
The old Conservative Boris please, but without the green crap lefty lunacy of Theatre Studies Carrie. Anyone who can save us from Starmer/Sturgeon. He surely has the best chance.
October 21, 2022
I see that Truss will get a pension for life of Ā£114k inflation linked, worth about Ā£5 million in value. Not too bad for 44 days work. Almost everyone else has a lifetime cap (frozen by Sunak and still frozen) of Ā£1,073,000 and annual contribution limits of just Ā£40k PA. This even when contributing ones own money. Still we are all in this together as they say/lie.
October 21, 2022
Now I know why she wasn’t in tears outside No10.
October 21, 2022
If Boris gets back in as PM will he then get 2 X this Ā£5 million pension pot of Ā£114k income for life?
But then if he manages to keep Starmer/Sturgeon out of power he will richly deserve it. Just control the borders, ditch net zero, cancel HS2 and stop some (just 1/2 will do) of the vast government waste.
October 21, 2022
Agreed.
We need somebody who can stand up to the EU lackeys.
October 21, 2022
The lackeys we have enough here thank you
October 21, 2022
Not only would I not vote for a Tory Party led by Boris but I would campaign against it. He makes Conan the Destroyer seem benign.
October 21, 2022
L A, +1, agree wholeheartedly
October 21, 2022
LL : “The old Conservative Boris please, but without the green crap lefty lunacy of Theatre Studies Carrie.”
Plus an end to massive legal immigration and the invasion across the Channel.
We’re told we can only get a trade deal with countries such as India if we allow high evels of immigration from these countries.
But why would a country like India want the doctors, engineers, scientists and IT experts etc. it has trained to leave for the UK?
Isn’t it more likely that our fifth column manifesto-ignoring governing elites use a trade deal to hide their drive for ever more cheap labour immigration into the UK?
October 21, 2022
Well this was caused by the culmination of the vast government waste of Sunak et al. HS2, duff degrees, vast bloated misdirected government, state sector pension, the dire incompetent NHS, Net Zero, the absurd extended lockdown and all the rest of the gross incompetence since and even before Cameron was elected.
October 21, 2022
It was not ignoring the institutions Peter. It was not giving them a bedtime story telling them how (using inaccurate forecasts) this was all going to play out.
Seems you can do whatever you want if you have an accepted narrative
October 21, 2022
View from the inside – excessive government borrowing has led to the country becoming slave to the money markets, having to bend to their will in order to create the illusion the pound is worth something.
October 21, 2022
Peter – The Bank was doing nothing about inflation. We have been living on money-printing and low interest for over 20 years… long before we decided to leave the EU btw.
Yes. The institutions run our country, not the elected government. When the elected government tries to the institutions make the country ungovernable.
October 21, 2022
Agree about interest rates being too low for 20+ years. Gordon Brown claimed low inflation, but it was obvious that deflation on many goods was taking place due to cheap imports from China and elsewhere.
House prices reached a peak in 2007 and it’s a shame that they are excluded from general inflation figures in some way as they would be a good guide as to what is actually happening especially over the latter half of Tory government from 2010.
October 21, 2022
Do you know you can see CPI, CPIH and OOH on ons.gov.uk āConsumer price inflation UK, September 2022ā. OOH are the costs of housing services (associated with ownership, maintenance, and living in oneās own house).
October 21, 2022
PeterVL, I might ask you why we (here in UK) are having to pay such a large premium for our energy supplies this Winter? A large part of it couldn’t be anything to do with Germany could it?
“Reliance on a single foreign supplier can leave a nation vulnerable to extortion and intimidation”
Donald Trump to the UN in 2018 and the German delegation openly laughed at him.
So perhaps before Europe looks too far down it’s nose at the UK, they should think carefully why we are all in this mess? I haven’t heard anyone criticise Angela Merkel for this debacle, when it was clearly her policies that led to the current energy crisis in Europe. At least that’s my view from this side of the Channel!
October 21, 2022
and the horde of ‘suddenly become refugees’ she invited to storm across Europe. Shouldn’t have other EU countries been consulted? But then Russia welcomed the chaos.
October 21, 2022
Germany would have had virtually unlimited cheap energy this winter thanks to Merkel and NS2.It is the USA that is to blame.Germany is now de-industrializing to the (short term)benefit of the USA.
October 21, 2022
They laughed at him because he was flogging šŗšø gas which is much more expensive than Siberian and produces much more CO2.
October 21, 2022
PVL – seriously interested in your statement here.
“ignoring the āinstitutionsā gave you the sudden overnight rise in mortgage rates.”
Who are the “institutions” running our country?
Who underwrites mortgages in the UK now? Years ago, the building societies used savers funds to loan out at a higher % than they paid out. Please tell us who the institutions are that are lending us cheap money, so we are in hold to them.
October 21, 2022
Fact checker was interesting on mortgages just after the mini-budget.
“Mortgage rates have been rising for months
Bank of England data shows the rate for a two-year fixed mortgage at 75% loan-to-value was already 3.64% at the end of August 2022, two percentage points above the level in August 2020….So while some of the rise in payments modelled by Labour may be āa direct consequenceā of the mini-Budget, much of it isnāt, because much of the rate rise occurred before the mini-Budget took place….But taking the average rate of 3.64% on 30 August 2022 (which still predated the mini-Budget announcement by three weeks) as a rough baseline, Labourās example scenarios of mortgage rates rising to 5% or 6% would add around Ā£160 and Ā£280 onto monthly payments respectivelyāa large amount, but less than the Ā£500 figure Mr Starmer used.Full Fact approached Labour for comment but did not receive a response.”
October 21, 2022
@ a-tracy
The ignored institution seen from the outside was your OBR. The radical minibudget without any OBR assessment made the markets panic, causing an inflation spike, problems with some pension funds, Bank of England intervention and lots of international (also institutions) very negative comments about the way Britian was run.
October 21, 2022
We discovered recently Peter that the OBR (whose estimates arenāt always very accurate) are people very close to a left wing outfit called the Joseph Rowntree Foundation) Iām still wondering why Osborne created that with economists who are opposed from conservative thinking.
Iād love to hear from Kwasi, how much he discussed the mini budget with other economists before he rushed out what he and Liz thought was good news. This whole matter with who loans who money, where are our mortgage banks getting their money from to loan out to the public following the changes in 2012 has intrigued me a lot. It seems Osborne gave our monetary policy away to others that can control and pull our choker chain whenever they choose. Itās all quite alarming.
October 21, 2022
@Peter Van Leeuwen
The “institutions” want Sunak.
They might now have managed to get him.
October 21, 2022
@ oldwulf:
You could better say that “the financial markets” want Sunak . . . or Hunt?
“Taking back control” from the markets proved a bit more difficult than expected.
If only Britain were an island! š
October 21, 2022
Hi Peter
At the back of my mind was the previous contest between Sunak and Truss. I suspect that the money men were a bit miffed that Sunak lost. However, they might now get their man. They might regard getting Hunt as a bonus ?
October 22, 2022
I very rarely see support for Sunak among the electorate. If they want to complete the political suicide then the party will appoint Sunak, but they will be writing their own obituary!
October 21, 2022
No, poor planning and budget calculations without costed plans to reduce the cost of the state did Truss in. The State is spending and borrowing too much. Simples really. I can’t do this so why do our politicos think they can?
October 21, 2022
No, Peter. That is propaganda. It was the institution of the Bank of England which created the inflation in the first place and then tried to blame it on the war. Then it made a late feeble move to keep up with the Fed’s interest rate rises and failed. That was the very day before the growth statement. Then the Bank had to raise interest rates again. On top of that it was selling and buying back bonds and babbling about it. Rocking the boat. These three central banks, the Fed, the ECB, and the Bank of England are grossly at fault in creating first of all inflation and not spotting it, and then in consequence going out of their way to create recession. The least one can expect of a central bank if it can’t stop and spot inflation is that it backs up its own government, not a foreign power.
October 21, 2022
People who live people in Dutch houses shouldn’t throw stones. The market in the Netherlands is looking very toppy again, and mortgage rates have moved up sharply there too. The Herengracht Index is the highest it has been in over 400 years. The volume of housing transactions has cratered. Not sure I’d want to be a makelaar (estate agent) at the moment.
October 21, 2022
@ Mark: That is rather over sensitive, I’m really not throwing stones and there is an awful lot to criticise about the Netherlands!
I just notice that certain “experts” and “institutions” aren’t much liked by the ideological right in Britain, which is reflected in this blog.
October 21, 2022
A lot to criticise – start with Mark Rutte?
October 21, 2022
Is it true that the Farmer’s Party has overtaken the party of Weffy Rutte in the polls Peter? If so, we’ll done the Dutch.
October 21, 2022
Well. Flipin phone again.
October 21, 2022
@Wanderer +1
October 21, 2022
There are many who feel the pain, anger, frustration at what we have supposedly doing the best for us and the country.
Unless the party undergoes radical surgery to eradicate those that have bought this about with their total lack of principles, honour, morals, respect and understanding that was was the very foundations of the party then it is totally finished.
For months the replies to your posts highlighted concerns about so called ministers with their secret agenda’s which I feel you recognised and identified with. It is about time that those that run the party listen and make some serious decisions and action them.
October 21, 2022
Sir John, totally agree with your diary entry and thanks for being so candid.
October 21, 2022
Me too.
October 21, 2022
And me.
October 21, 2022
And more agreement
October 21, 2022
It doesn’t help us when you don’t name names, giving yourself the excuse here for not doing so.
As I have said before Sir John it doesn’t matter how your party behaves and no matter how the electorate or nation is betrayed or diminishd by it you will remain 100% loyal. Party before country always. Why should we follow you?
October 21, 2022
That’s not fair. John is a genuine Conservative in the correct party. His positions are in close agreement with the party membership, so he is in the right place.
The problem is that somehow the management of the Conservative Party has been hijacked by liberals, who put their choice of candidate into the constituencies. The membership needs to purge these fake Conservatives and put real ones in place.
October 21, 2022
Does it not occur to you that it is no longer a Conservative party in government given what it says and does, proved in the last few weeks, and there are so many Tory MPs and members who have adopted another belief within it? Why be loyal to the group whatever it says and does that merely calls itself Conservative, and thus follow a pretence? Sir John says he stays because he thinks he can change it from within – it can’t be said that is has been successful. He said once also he that stays because he fears loneliness outside it; a new start involving sacrifice sometimes must be made. Many would follow him and he would add strength to new groups.
Reply We only got Brexit through by staying in the Conservative party. There were no UKIP MPs to help vote for it.
October 21, 2022
reply to reply …The UKIP party foolishly made way for the Tories …..come on Sir John – that just will not do. A combination of UKIP appealing to the electorate and fear of Corbyn got it through.
October 21, 2022
@Dave Andrews +1 spot on!
October 21, 2022
I think a very reputable pundit hit the nail on the head ‘it’s a coup’.
Ye God’s if Johnson and Truss weren’t WEF enough and had to be ousted, what’s in store.
While no fan of Truss or the fake Conservatives I do feel, as mentioned before, that the media have also played a huge part in all this.
Still, the Conservatives won’t slap them down so they ask for all they get.
October 21, 2022
Michelle:
I totally agree with your comments about the Media. Night after night, they attacked Boris . So called ā Partygateā was the first item on the news. BBC and Channel 4 were especially vicious. Eventually, he was forced out.
They did the same with Liz Truss, and they will do the same with whoever succeeds her, because they want a Labour government .
I am especially furious, because I have to pay my TV licence for this rubbish.
I expect I may get some disagreement on this, but I would have voted for Rishi Sunak. The Media attacked him unmercifully as well.
October 21, 2022
Yet again a BBC1 political corresponded reporting in London from his house via webcam, like the pandemic is still here. All designed to heighten the sense of anxiety and of a country in crisis.
I do wonder which came first. The crisis or the rumour of crisis.
Two more friends/colleagues under age 50 have died of cancer since the pandemic. This taking my total of those in my close and very close circle to 19 to have died since lockdown started and none of them of Covid, several of them from anxiety related conditions due to lockdown and most others due to cancers not spotted.
I am very annoyed that there are not charts ready to pick up the numbers killed by lockdown, vaccine or of those who will be killed by Net Zero, many of whom we beggared the nation to save in pursuit of Zero Covid.
October 21, 2022
The media loved Johnson then. Locking everyone down, dishing out money to eat out and stay at home. The NHS deified, the endless Communist style slogans delivered from his rostrum.
They loved ratcheting up the fear, there was no escape unless you went into full media lock down (blissful)
They won’t of course take any of the blame now it’s time to pay for all that, financially and medically as many will die through NHS shut down because of a flu virus!!
Darling Starmer would have kept us locked up for longer, a real hero to them.
October 21, 2022
There are excess mortality figures, NLA, all showing remarkably high levels, even during the summer months. But unfortunately anyone who relies on the BBC and co. wouldn’t be likely to know much about them.
Those deaths in your close circle are shocking and sad, and I’m sure not unique. But by preventing discussion of the problem, the media are doing their usual job of atomising the public in their individual experience and not seeing the big picture, when it goes against the government narrative.
October 21, 2022
@Cheshire Girl, Party Gate was a distraction and Boris enjoyed it, as it diverted attention away from his prolific tax and spend agenda that really brought the UK to its knees. Party Gate was also a bit of Boris huff & puff āI brought in a law to stop other peoples gatheringsā but as el Presidente as I make the law so I can break the law.
October 21, 2022
He tried to ‘run’ the country like his own finances – somebody else will bail him out.
October 21, 2022
I did not support Johnson and would not support Sunak nor was I a fan of Truss.
However, as you say the relentlessness of the negative reporting, only on the topics of the medias choice and the people of their choice is completely wrong and in my opinion interferes with democracy.
I gave up the licence fee years ago and one of the reasons was because of the blatantly bias and unfair reporting/interviewing. Even if I don’t agree with a point of view I want to be able to hear it and decide on its merits myself and not what some jumped up left wing journalist decides. This gives many voters who don’t dig and delve and rely and trust what BBC etc. spout out at them a very one sided view indeed.
12 years of Conservatives and they never did a thing to stop it.
October 21, 2022
Son JR why are you not putting your name forward you are so knowledgeable- according to yourself
Reply I do not have 100 MPs to sign an application
October 21, 2022
Well the make up of Tory MPs is so dire they do not seem to want a sensible or real Conservative PM.
October 21, 2022
How would you find 100 wise(men) in the Tory MPs list? Impossible.
October 21, 2022
@ Reply – No, that is very old fashioned thinking. Be the first to declare and make your case to the members direct. You will get massive media coverage and have a compelling story to tell, not least in presenting your own budget that itself will gladden the hearts of the whole country (VAT off energy bills for one measure).
If 100 MPs do not back you (but if you stand, they will come), keep campaigning (especially if a so called grown up wins – it is what his supporters have done to Liz) and as necessary go full Trump with a stolen election narrative.
If you do not win your chance may well come again very soon.
October 21, 2022
If there are not 100 like-minded MPs in the parliamentary party we truly do have a problem.
October 21, 2022
Forced to settle for ‘we’ve been here before’ candidates. A stitch up.
October 21, 2022
Reply to reply
You are in the wrong party then, Sir John. Quite clearly.
October 21, 2022
Not at all, it is the many others who are in the wrong Party.
October 22, 2022
+1
October 21, 2022
More fools them!
JR, I imagine, can not be āboughtā.
And so would not be considered.
The whole globalist scam is run on the sale of influence through an horrendous spiderās web of institutions (that actually run the world).
āItās a big club, and you aināt in itāā¦George Carlin.
October 21, 2022
Actually,”they” don’t run the world.Ever heard of The Shanghai Cooperation Organization,formed by China and Russia (and whose members and associates now account for almost half the world’s population,with a list of would-be members)?
I see that the Turkish Finance Minister,Nureddin Nebati,has said this week that Turkey(an aspiring member,despite being in NATO) can buy and transport Russian oil without the need for western financing or insurance.India(a full member)likewise.Turkey will also be developed by Russia as a regional gas hub,replacing Germany.
Mr Putin and his friends and allies are destroying the globalists dream,hence the increasingly desperate western efforts in Ukraine-and elsewhere(look up the RAND Corporation document,”Extending Russia”prepared for the Pentagon”a few years ago).I see that Armenia has approached Iran to buy the Shahed drones that the Russians are using very effectively in Ukraine-that will make the Azeris(and those who are stirring up this trouble in the Caucasus)think hard before launching further provocations.
October 21, 2022
Reply to reply: Then do not stay in that useless party, Sir John, if it does not even have 100 MPs that will stand up for the principles they were elected on. You have upheld them consistently, not many others have. You must have seen enough now to realise you cannot influence the direction of policy from the inside. If you resigned the whip and with other like-minded MPs formed a Parliamentary group calling itself e.g. Conservative Reform, what would you lose? This is meant as a genuine question: I’m just a constituent with no experience of how things work with machine politics. However, for what it’s worth my sense is that politicians who are clear and consistent in their principles are among the few who generally retain public respect.
October 21, 2022
More evidence of the shallowness of the ācattle on the premisesā!
October 21, 2022
John cannot say what needs to be said and this culture is destroying our nation. Even politicians are now victims of their own authoritarian laws
October 21, 2022
If private pensions are to go then everyone’s pensions should go.
It is the stuff of bloody revolution that private sector workers should pay tax towards pensions that they themselves will not get. And that a PM should be sidling up to hedge fund managers in a top boy’s club who will rape them of their pensions.
October 21, 2022
This is so true.
October 21, 2022
I concur, DOM. No one can say what they really think.
October 21, 2022
This is similar to the rogue Parliament of 2017-2019. Democracy is only accepted when it gives the ‘right’ result, and so many politicians have absolutely NO intention of honouring the will of the people. Just one big bunch of wannabe arrogant dictators who care NOTHING for the wishes of the people they are supposed to SERVE. There are no safety nets for the electorate. None at all. Politicians can commit treason, deliberately deceive the electorate in order to get votes, and completely trash our democracy with impunity.
October 21, 2022
Loser’s consent has gone out of the window.
It will be interesting to see what happens when Labour finally get in, will the silent majority actually do anything?
October 21, 2022
There were a number of conversations being had on GB News last night. They suggest the whole voting system needs changing, and the different factions of the Tory party need to go their separate ways. The remainers need to join the LibDems or Labour. The rest need to join up with Nigel Farage and or start up a new conservative party.
But FPP makes it difficult for new parties to break in.
October 21, 2022
I disagree, Sharon, FPP didn’t stop the rise of the SNP, did it?
These: Reform, Reclaim, Time, ukip etc. I can’t keep up with them, can’t even coalesce around key policies. Nicola gets as much airtime as Starmer and more than whoever is leading the Lib Dems right now.
If these parties are serious about taking out wet conservatives why do they stand in the seats of true Conservative MPs?
October 21, 2022
Labour did it!
October 21, 2022
Shirley M
Brilliant
October 21, 2022
@Shirley M +1 well said
October 21, 2022
Spot on Shirley
October 21, 2022
S M, +++++
October 21, 2022
The treacherous Globalists who refuse to accept the result of a democratic vote which goes against their wishes, whether it was the EU Referendum or a Leadership Election, are deliberately causing this mayhem and destabilising the country in order to prevent the UK from carrying out a real Brexit.
They are as arrogant, spoilt and selfish as the Eco Nutters who are allowed to bring the country to a halt in order to try and impose their views on everyone else.
But they remain in your Party and are given the power to continue doing it. Your Party needs a purge, but since the Party Grandees won’t do it, the electorate will have to.
And they will.
October 21, 2022
+ many – and I eagerly await the opportunity! I doubt the country can bear another two years of this deliberate destruction of democracy. Maybe someone has links with the CCP and it taking tips/lessons how to inflict similar upon the UK?
October 21, 2022
Donna
Very good post.
Your last paragraph is so right.
The Grandees cannot see that the end is nigh without seismic changes.
October 21, 2022
The Eco Nutters are part of the same club, Donna. That’s why they get kid gloves from the police and the courts and woe betide anyone who dares to move them.
The Eco Nutters are doing the Tory Party bidding so that they may point to the demand for Net Zero.
“We have to think of the people who don’t vote for us.” or “We realise the Red Wall votes are only borrowed ones.” are the first sign of cop out on winning election. Then follows the reneging on manifesto pledges.
Note that the Labour party never ever shows such magnanimity on winning elections. Thus there is only 1% in tax difference between the Tories and what Corbyn threatened and mass immigration has broken all records.
The Tories were the problem all along. An 80 seat majority proves it.
October 21, 2022
++
October 21, 2022
Absolutely spot on Donna
Sadly, the whole system is set up to keep the current “good dog” system in place.
Only good dogs who follow the approved agenda can have a voice or an opinion.
The kids are taught the agenda at school and are told to badger their elders to follow the narrative. Pro EU, pro climate change and green quackery are just a couple of examples.
I read locally that if there’s an election soon, Labour would have a landslide victory and even Sir John would lose his seat.
The new Labour government would destroy our nation completely and give sixteen year old the vote, which would ensure we’d never have a Conservative government again.
There is a piece on Conservative Woman today about how our nation has been turned into a nation of infants…. Very true.
October 22, 2022
What makes you think the CONS are better than Labour. They are pushing hard to be even worse and look to be succeeding! Personally, I wouldn’t vote for any main party. Every one of them wants to destroy democracy because they are all EU sycophants and put the EU before nation and democracy gets in the way!
October 21, 2022
@Donna +1 exactly
October 21, 2022
Donna, +++++++
October 21, 2022
Donna, +++++++ +++++++
October 21, 2022
Will you name names in some way. Those plotting must lose the Tory whip.
We also desperately need a more acceptable CoE.
Reply The main plotters have been talked about in many reports. I do not name people and make accusations against them on this blog for good legal reasons.
October 21, 2022
The good legal reasons would be libel Sir John. The truth is not libellous so if what you write is true you have no fear.
Reply I do not have time nor the resource of a major media outlet or paper to research the allegation, amass the proof and deal with any legal claim.
October 21, 2022
I have been reading about Queen Victoria’s favourite Prime Minister – Lord Salisbury. King Edward VII came to stay with him and threw a paddy over the week-end because he was not allowed to bring along one of this mistresses. That is history, but at the time nobody outside political circles knew.
Now Boris appears with a glass of Prosecco at a party during lock-down with a lot of faces redacted out (why? who were they?) and he is dismissed from office. Why was he there?
That sort of thing makes it impossible to function as a politician. Winston Churchill was drunk for a lot of the time of hisa final Premiership. “Lloyd George knew my father…” And Matt Hancock? And Michael Gove dancing in Scotland? And the Prince Andrew photo?
These leaks are interesting. Where do they come from? Does anyone know?
October 21, 2022
Winston Churchill had not made it illegal for anyone else to take a drink! Boris caused us to abandon our dying relations, close our businesses and bankrupt our families, deny our children an education etc etc etc. but he blew out candles at party.
You canāt tolerate lawmakers who breach their own laws. And if he ādid not understand what the law wasā why should the dustman and the postman? Ignorance of the law is no excuse.
Boris is a proven liar, cheat and economically illiterate individual not fit for the British Parliament! Ergo – his is not and never was a Brexiteer ie in favour of sovereign states. He is in favour of World Government!
October 21, 2022
Dear Mike, In my experience these bits of evidence normally originate from an individual with an axe to grind. Bar some suspicion that the “evidence” is faked, however, one should normally separate the fact from the often malicious motive, just as one should separate the value of a work of art from the views or behaviour of the artist or the value of a named award or bequest from what one thinks of the donor.
October 21, 2022
At this point it might be an idea to install a PM who will stick very closely to the 2019 manifesto which, though far from perfect, was the basis on which the party was elected in the first place. Installing instead a PM who will ignore the manifesto and simply mirror all of Labour’s policies across the board is unlikely to prove successful. Having said that I can’t see a candidate, including Boris, who would fulfil those objectives.
October 21, 2022
Where is the gas and electricity support in the 2019 manifesto? That needs to be paid for and is a big ongoing expense. The debt from (unwise) Covid lockdowns needs to be factored in.
The 2019 manifesto is out of date and had too much net zero in it for the current times.
October 21, 2022
Who pissed Ā£50bn on Test and Trace? Now sitting in foreign bank accounts.
October 21, 2022
MT – Test and Trace plans were a worldwide response; this government would have had to take advice from scientists in WHO, NIA, NIH, Sage, the BMJ was writing up their suggestions.
They couldn’t just magic up a system. Hancock needs to come out in public and tell us how the decision on who to use and where to spend this money was made.
Do you honestly believe that whoever was in control at that time would have been any different? The media was like a circus, look over there – we need more ventillators, look over there – nurses are running out of ppe, look over there we need testing and tracing now.
October 21, 2022
Yawn. Replaying the Labour greatest hits. So, once again, the vast majority of the test and trace money was spent on tests. UK tested far more than comparable countries, and we still are actually. You think we shouldnāt have tested ?
October 21, 2022
MT, +++1, Test and Trace with the Lockdown, both part of the Boris Johnson Gadarene rush to a Net Zero bottom line in efficacy and economics.
October 21, 2022
NS this is one of Boris’ biggest problems bringing forward his 2019 net zero pledge from 2050 to 2030. Like Liz and her speedy mini budget – it is too much too fast, but that’s ok because the higher-ups want it to happen.
October 21, 2022
Roy Grainger
Second that.
October 21, 2022
This is absolutely right – we don’t want anything else from a new PM other than carry out the manifesto the Party was elected on in 2019. There seems a great deal of reluctance by the Conservative governments since, to do this – boundary changes -whatever happened to that?. I do not favour a General Election – it is more than likely that Labour/the LibDems and SNP would bring in proportional representation without a referendum so there would be little chance of the Tories ever returning to power. It was a great mistake to oust Boris Johnson (with the help of the broadcasting medias as has been said elsewhere) as there was no obvious successor which has now been proved and there still isn’t. Is there an elder statesman who would stabilise the boat and carry out the manifesto until the general election in 2024? Some of the names suggested are too young and have little experience of government.
October 21, 2022
And you write this on The Rt Hon. Sir John Redwoodās blog!
You prefer a narcissist, a PM who daily threatened the entire nation if they did not obey his ever self-destructing edict, but who partied and lied to the House of Commons!
The Tory Party is done if these are the members.
October 21, 2022
I suspect that Boris might well win this contest. If he does he will need to have a spread-spectrum Cabinet, to achieve the unity that the government needs. But that means putting right-wingers into departments that are most associated with traditional Conservative values (e.g. Treasury, Defence and Education) – and those with left-of-centre views in places where they can’t do too much damage. Above all, he will need to commit to using the Conservative’s healthy majority TO DO STUFF. And that means that Suella Braverman should receive early forgiveness for a minor security breach and gets reappointed as Home Secretary where she can sort out the immigration mess that is the battleground on which the next GE will be fought. The BRITISH people are not content with the idea that they will eventually become a minority in their own country.
October 21, 2022
Won’t do any good. Boris is tainted. Not funny anymore.
October 21, 2022
never funny – unless you laugh at slapstick bullshit?
October 21, 2022
Exactly – heās ātoxicā.
October 21, 2022
It’s not a happy choice SW and frankly I’m not keen on either.
Boris doesn’t seem to have any ability to produce a coherent energy policy (quite the opposite in fact) nor any willingness to sort out NI and Immigration. He was also the architect of his own downfall before and I doubt anything has changed in that respect since.
Rishi is a former investment banker (e.g. a modern day commercial pirate) who may see being UK PM simply as a career step towards bigger things in the New World order that some (Klaus Schwab?) seem to want. I saw no real desire to reduce spending and limit taxation under his chancellorship – just more fiscal drag and larger government. Only slow decline lies in that direction.
October 21, 2022
I agree on Braverman. The problem is Johnson is an out and out fan of mass immigration.
Us becoming a minority in our own home is neither here nor there to such people. Such people are not affected by all it brings…….well not yet anyway.
As they see it we have little to no right to expect our heritage/culture/customs/history etc. to be respected, treasured and passed down to future generations.
They’ve been busily dismantling such for quite some time now.
October 21, 2022
Absolutely so, Sea_Warrior. Suella Braverman seems to be the only one with the cojones to deal effectively with illegal immigration.
October 21, 2022
Sir JR,
Very interesting and angry perspective. But I seem to recall that you endorsed Liz Truss from the beginning and did not believe her fisical policy had any implicaiton for the level of interest, for which we only had the BoE to blame.
So I am not sure whehter you are angry with the so-called grown-ups or you should actaully look yourself in the mirror as well.
We need an election so we can get rid of this Conservative circus.
October 21, 2022
The fiscal policy was not incorrect, unfortunately the fiscal statement tried to do too much without an accompanying fairy tale from the OBR.
Everything bar the additional infrastructure spending, the 19% rate and 45% rate cut had already been priced in by the markets. He could have got away with it but he had to announce something extra.
October 21, 2022
All that was necessary was for the Treasury to back the Chancellor with the required paperwork given that the OBR was not fit for purpose, but unfortunately this is Gordon Brown’s Treasury and it wasn’t going to help him.
October 21, 2022
Very good point and I think you are right. JR gave a very eloquent warning about unfunded tax cuts and the likely market reaction in this very blog. He was talking about Gordon Brown but it is quite extraordinary that past wisdom has apparently been forgotten.
October 21, 2022
Good morning Sir John
Frustration and anger comes to mind that some 350 people are in Parliament calling themselves Conservatives that have set out to destroy themselves and the Country.
That is not a vote winner for anyone.
Machiavelli could have done a better job than the embedded turncoats.
Now suggesting anyone involved in previous cabinets is qualified or capable to move on from the mess they created, is outstandingly naive. Then to think the UK Citizen wont notice or care is ego gone mad.
October 21, 2022
We are now at the bottom of the barrel.
October 21, 2022
Mickey Taking
Far past that pal they have smashed the bottom out and started digging a grave for what was once a good political party. RIP
October 21, 2022
There should be no peace – just departed by the dozens if not hundreds of proclaimed ‘Conservatives’.
October 21, 2022
Excellent post Sir John. I fear however, that the ‘grown ups’ will engineer a parliamentary stitch up.
For those that want Boris back, what do they think he will achieve that he failed to do last last time around? Fix legal and illegal immigration, cut the size of the state, reduce tax, abandon useless ‘green energy’ and back fracking, oil & gas in N Sea and get rid of N Ireland protocol? And who thinks Sunak will do any of those things either. Hardly.
Let us back a new party. One with real conservative values.
October 21, 2022
BOF – agreed. The fake conservatives are beyond redemption. If you took out all the undemocratic liberal eco-loon socialist dishonest traitors in the party there wouldn’t be enough MP’s left to fill a phone box!
October 21, 2022
It would take more than a decade, at least three general elections, for any new party to get anywhere near power. In the meantime, the split in the right of centre vote would give us a decade of Labour starting, inevitably with a Labour/LibDim/SNP coalition. Is that what you want ?
October 21, 2022
We have effectively had labour for 35 years Chris S. Do you want us to end up like Canada? Let us start now so that genuine conservatives have a real home. A party where conservatism can prosper and grow.
October 21, 2022
The answer is not a new party but for like-minded voters to join the Conservatives and change it from the inside. Unlike the EU, that is perfectly possible, and it would be quicker and more effective that trying to start a new party, given our electoral system.
October 21, 2022
That’s the usual scare tactic. We will see lots of that in the lead up to election. Vote Reform and you’ll let in Labour.
Well the people voted Conservatives and what did they get? Labour and a Corbyn Labour as near as damn it.
I note the media keep plugging Labours huge lead in the polls. It’s all a psychological ploy.
As is the mantra that we can never have anyone else to take on Labour except a party called the Conservatives who aren’t actually conservatives!!!!!!
October 21, 2022
Spot on, Michelle. All planned to manipulate your vote. As far as I am concerned, the CONS have adopted the worst excesses of all the main parties. If we want democracy to survive, we need to reject ALL the main parties.
October 21, 2022
Looks like we will get the same old retreads that caused the problem in the first place. Your short memoried stupid MPs desperate to support anyone who may keep them in a job rather than the needs of the country.
No they are not the same.
I look forward to a n election when we can clean out the stables, your problem is your Central Office recruiting policy is skewed to centrists because Cameron etc didnāt want āswivel eyed loonsā
So despite your attempts to put the clock back, you are out of touch with those who weald the power in your party.
Time to go out with a Big Bang and honour in tact.
October 21, 2022
@Nigl +1, in a democracy it would be those in a constituancy that chose candidates, in a dictatorship you approve just your loyal friends
October 21, 2022
Yes, constituency primaries.
October 21, 2022
Should have left a long time ago.
October 21, 2022
Reading the input from the MsM you have to ask whoās Country is this. They are totally devoted to resurrecting the structures that has brought the UK to its knees.
Why do we have the highest tax take in 70 years, because the Government of the day was involved in spend, spend, spend. They were not at any time about creating wealth to fund their dreams they were just involved in digging deeper in to the wallets of the taxpayer.
Now the MsM and a chunk of the Conservative Party want to return those that havenāt a brain between them that caused this mess in the first place.
October 21, 2022
We had someone with Conservative ideas but without the gravitas or intellectual bandwidth to underpin them with rhetoric and reason. At least this can only go on for another two years until your party is put out of its misery.
October 21, 2022
Sir John.
All credibility of the Government and indeed the Conservative party has gone and in reality you have to call a General election. The actions of Conservative MP’s have now guaranteed the next Gov. will be a Labour Gov.
You may as well give up now and let them try to tidy up the mess. Whilst you are out of power you could try reforming your party into a true Conservative party.
October 21, 2022
Excellent piece ….
Indeed.
We’d all like to know who these bullies are, and under what authority they appear to be imposing their global agenda – which has nothing to do with economic recovery….
Sir John, as an insider you are probably in the know about what is going on behind the scenes, even though, viewed from a distance I would add some interpretations of what I perceive, that may not match yours. We both know it is bad though.
NOW is the time to expose exactly what is going on, who the bullies are, and why our democracy is sinking into the mire.
October 21, 2022
Well that’s what happens when ideologues (try to) control the party. This crisis has been festering within the Tory party, slowly coming to the boil, for 42 years almost to the very day, I hope but doubt those still bitter will allow the party to move on… š„
October 21, 2022
What political party doesn’t have an ideology Jerry?
October 21, 2022
@P2; I did not say ideology, I said “ideologues”. There is nothing wrong with having an ideology, and indeed all political parties have them, the problem comes when those ideas become set like concrete, unchanging over decades or circumstance.
October 21, 2022
Bit pedantic there Jerry
If you are a politician (or a party) with an ideology, as nearly all are,then you can say they are by simple extension of the word that they are ideologues.
Political life is about ideas and opinions.
Often strongly held.
Otherwise you get that old statement…these are my opinions, but if you don’t like them I have others.
October 21, 2022
Itās really no good the right of the Party complaining that the blob are unfair to their candidates. Of course it is, itās like complaining that the sea is wet. So when a right wing / free market candidate is elected leader or appointed to a big position the onus is on them and those around them not to screw it up and waste the opportunity. Boris Johnson was a fool to think the lockdown rules didnāt apply to him, or that no-one would sneak on him. Liz truss was a fool to appoint people only on the basis of whether they supported her, ignoring some of the most able and articulate Tory MPs, and then to rush through a supposedly controversial part-budget. And Suella Braverman has been a fool to allow herself to make a technical breach of cabinet secrecy rules.
The next PM needs to take a calm and measured approach, appoint people on capability not whom they supported, prepare the ground for policy well, and be be capable of clear and articulate explanation of what he or she is doing. There wonāt be any mercy or second chances from the blob, the leftist media or it seems the leftās useful idiots on the Tory benches in the Commons. So donāt squander the next chance, if there is one.
October 21, 2022
Give me the Boris of 3 -5 years ago and I would be reasonably happy, but not the one who has just left.
Sunak, just something about him I do not like, and he has been far too quiet of late (on manoeuvres) !
Mordant, now you are really having a laugh.
Is this really the best the Conservatives can do.
October 21, 2022
There’s literally at least 5 million people in the country who would make a better PM than Ms Mordaunt.
She is the worst of the lot (at least Ms Truss went to Oxford and had some experience in business at a highish level).
October 21, 2022
The Boris I want is the PM with Sir John Redwood as his Chancellor.
October 21, 2022
Is there no (safe) way of naming and shaming these unspeakable disrupters?
October 21, 2022
What’s the point? The majority of MP’s in the party allow it, and even assist these traitors to democracy, so they are equally culpable! The CONS party is beyond redemption. The corruption is too deep and well installed. Not that the other main parties are any better. Between them, they have stitched us up good and proper!
October 21, 2022
+1
Yes, I fully accept what you say but it seems to me that since there are dramatic exposƩs on just about everyone/everything else maybe (in an ideal world lol) some mainstream agency should actually name names.
At the moment this seems impossible because msm is totally bought.
But then, things CAN changeā¦look at the plague narrative!
JR obviously can not do this because of legal reasons and as for other MPs ā¦I believe that the power of the institutions that have control of the world is absolutely terrifying.
October 21, 2022
@Shirley M; “The majority of MPās in the party allow it, and even assist these traitors to democracy”
EXACTLY! Non of the supporters of Ms Truss (before that political suicide of a mini budget) were calling on her to call a General Election and obtain her own electoral mandate to go with her party mandate, they were quite happy to be “traitors to democracy” hiding behind the last Prime Ministers manifesto and polices.
The Conservative party is not beyond redemption, just so long as those who do not truly belong in the party are made to leave (Left or Right, Remainer or Brixiteer), or at least toe-the-line, the party desperately needs it’s own Kinnock vs Militant moment.
October 21, 2022
Spot on again Shirley
October 21, 2022
I am sorry but the parliamentary conservative party is too broad a house to align with or to represent Conservative members views or Conservative supporting views in the country. 30/50% would be better aligning with the socialist left who sit opposite. From outside it is difficult to discern the difference. I sense a true Conservative alternative is in gestation.
October 21, 2022
That’s the nub of it, Agricola.
October 21, 2022
357 of them need to decide what part of the manifesto they ALL agree with that is still outstanding and put it through immediately. Those things shouldn’t even need a vote it is the platform they stood on, and if they acted as fast as they write their promises it would have been achieved by now.
October 21, 2022
I think prospective MPs look at the manifesto, gulp and nod agreement hoping they will never be put to the test.
October 21, 2022
@agricola; The imbalance, and trouble, come from the “New Right” and always has done, not the traditional ‘One Nation’ wing of the conservative party.
Remember, it is not what the party members want but what the electorate want that matters, a lent vote in 2019 can not be relied upon, remember many a Red Wall voter could be a long standing supporters of the Bennite wing of the Labour party, those who (would have) supported leaving the EEC in 1975. To them five years of a ‘one nation’ Johnson lead Tory govt was worth the risk!
October 21, 2022
The new insurgent parties you may have in mind all want PR. That would make the coalition of unlike minds even broader.
October 21, 2022
Today’s reports
This was the second highest September borrowing figure since monthly records began in 1993.
Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the Government borrowed Ā£20bn last month to plug the gap between tax receipts and public spending (caveat the ONS have never bee correct and have a disclaimer to that effect)
Yet the Government wonāt look at the size of the State, its Quangos, Civil Service they are accelerating in size and consumption of the taxpayers money. Just borrowing to keep it going, then it is looking like the Parliamentary Party wants to return those 100% culpable for the mess
Reply Yes, will write about that tomorrow. As I have been warning, OBR forecast of borrowing this year too low. September Ā£5.2bn over OBR estimate
October 21, 2022
While we are adding to decades of accumulated debt at an ever increasing pace any thoughts of “taking back control” are purest fantasy.
October 21, 2022
The Tories have had years to do that and have squandered the opportunity. Rees-Mogg was supposed to be looking for efficiencies under Johnson but appears to have achieved nothing.
October 21, 2022
@Reply – from the ONS t&c’s “We do not give any guarantees, conditions or warranties about the accuracy or completeness of any content used by these products. We are not liable for any loss or damage that may come from your use of these products.”
The ONS as a generalisation tends to miss its projection by around 10% . 10% is massive, if I presented the Board with projections of just 5% out I would have been out the door. I just about get away with 1%, then I am only taking millions not 100ās of millions.
October 21, 2022
Did the OBR cost in a loss of a days turnover for the Queen’s funeral, a days loss in public services, indeed a lot of them were affected for the whole mourning period? It was a pretty unusual September.
October 21, 2022
@Ian B “This was the second highest September borrowing figure since monthly records began in 1993. ..//.. accelerating in size and consumption of the taxpayers money”
Except that is not the only record table extant, so what was our national debt in say September 1945, ’55, ’65, ’75, ’85. What war our GNP/GDP for those years, and what were the rates of (incomer and purchase) tax?
The biggest lie Mrs Thatcher ever told, and the most damaging, was when during the 1979 election she compared the national budget to that of a housewife’s budget, the two are quite different, and if the wider family budget were based on the sort of calculations used by the then average housewife no family would dare take out a mortgage!
October 21, 2022
When Suella B was going on about Tofu etc I get what she was saying.
But the Tofu point was really about problems in our Culture overall not just politics.
And there are HUGE problems in Western Culture / Civilisation.
But politicians’ job is to stick to politics. And not use politics to take swipes at what is wrong in our Culture overall (if Boris takes swipes, he does it in a humorous fashion but not as if he’s on a crusade to change the Culture overall from his position in politics – it’s a subtle but important point – nor am I saying this to give any particular kudos to Boris).
To change our Culture overall that requires the influence of people in our Education, Arts, Media, Churches – and to a degree in Politics as well. But politicians can only do that through the power / frame / discipline of our political system and not venture out of that to try and change the Culture.
October 21, 2022
I think the PMs pay of 170k is way too little. It should be more like Ā£400k. And same principle for pay down the line in Cabinet and Parliament.
Then I think we could get higher calibre politicians and really, properly focused on the job and long term.
October 21, 2022
Ed M. Pay. It’s a difficult one. PMs and Ministers can make a packet from their connections after (during?) leaving office. They presumably climb the greasy pole for that.
If the pay were to go up, it ideally needs to be performance based, but what would the criteria be? It would be hideously complicated to set them for the job of running a country, in a changeable world. And who would set them?
October 21, 2022
Don’t over-complicate it, I think (that’s just veering into the territory of perfectionism. Just pay them a similar wage to countries such as USA, Germany and Switzerland – and perhaps a bit more, not forgetting Singapore pays a tonne more even than these countries).
(Also, I think a PM deserves just as much as Biden is paid – who looks half asleep most of the time. The only difference between him and Ms Truss is that he smiles more / bit more charming).
October 21, 2022
The salary of the Prime Minister set by the Ministers of the Crown Act of 1937 was Ā£10,000, equivalent to nearly Ā£700,000 now. Did I hear something about ‘Peanuts and Monkeys’?
October 21, 2022
Thanks for that.
I was wrong then about politicians in past being poorly paid.
But strengthens my argument that Tory PM (and politicians) should be paid a lot more (not most of this current lot – but to attract higher calibre politicians for the future).
October 21, 2022
It would attract more due to the salary !
October 21, 2022
The Singapore PM gets paid about Ā£1.5 m per year. US President about Ā£400K (British PM does more work than Biden ..). Germany Chancellor about Ā£350K. And Japanese PM about Ā£300K. Something like that. Far more than the British PM (which is based on an old system where gentlemen in politics had more of their own money compared to now).
October 21, 2022
The Swiss PM / President gets about Ā£450K.
So my off the cuff Ā£400K isn’t too far off what a British PM should be earning (and higher wage should trickle down accordingly to the rest of the politicians in Parliament). Methinks. To attract higher quality politicians (so we’ll get the money back through better management of our country).
October 21, 2022
But reduce seats by half, and design a replacement for the Lords.
October 21, 2022
Agreed to first bit (I like the Lords for traditional reasons but it does need reforming, I agree).
October 21, 2022
so you agree to 325 in the Commons, but keep the 757 in the Lords?
Weird.
October 22, 2022
I thought you meant get rid of The House of Lords. Like create a Senate or something – which I’m opposed to (I think I speak for lots / most Tory voters?). But to reduce number of lords, sure.
October 21, 2022
We cannot get higher calibre people when the Party machine controls the Candidates List. Really high calibre people are not bothered about the money, they make the sacrifice of serving in Parliament for higher moral reasons.
Trump took no pay.
October 21, 2022
‘We cannot get higher calibre people when the Party machine controls the Candidates List.’
– Then it’s absolutely essential that Tory grandees (I don’t mean that in pejorative sense) try and change that – and as quickly as possible.
I still think that higher salary would attract more quality politicians (but agreed, there are some who are not interested in the money – but there’s nothing wrong either in accepting say Ā£400K to be PM. Why not? And if the PM doesn’t want all that then donate most of it off to a charity of his choice. And same for pay in Parliament in general. Politicians in some other countries get paid a lot more: Singapore, USA, Germany, Switzerland – precisely the kinds of countries we want to emulate more here in the UK! At least in terms of the economy).
October 21, 2022
It must be a very big question as to whether anyone with ‘Conservative views’ could receive the support of a hundred members of the current parliamentary party.
It amazes me that none of our recent string of Prime Ministers has made it an immediate priority to repeal the Fixed Term Parliament law. If Liz Truss had had the option of asking for a dissolution and hence, a General Election, I am sure she would not have suffered the same level of opposition from her own side.
October 21, 2022
The FTPA disappeared with the āDissolution and Calling of Parliament billā announced in the 11/05/2021 Queenās speech and received Royal Assent on 24/03/2022.
As Charlie Brown would say ā** Sigh **ā
October 21, 2022
To me triggering a leadership race without a real plan, other than another change for change sake shows lack of real political thought by the CCO. In part the CCO is part of the problem they are reacting not leading.
Why not just appoint a Board to run Government based on some of the veterans(to guide) and complete newbies(to learn). A Board that consults with its MPās and party. That would then be a Government and a Party being run on the lines of a good business.
If we could just get some Conservative āethosā into Government there might still be hope ā as it is returning proven failures will just speed up the decline of the UK.
October 21, 2022
Of all the extraordinary events of the last few weeks, surely the most bizarre and disturbing aspect is the speed with which the party seems intent on choosing its new leader and the next PM. Can anyone believe that a leader installed in such haste and panic will be capable of forming a stable government and of staying the course any more than the last one?
Act in haste, repent at leisure.
October 21, 2022
Desperation – sheer desperation.
October 21, 2022
Ex-Tory, it’s not as though they’ve done it from scratch is it. It was only 20 July 3 months ago that Mourdant was eliminated as Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss reached the final round from the very same MPs. These MPs are just being told pick again by the ‘institutions’ apparently. This time though Boris maybe wants to put his hat in the ring. Makes it all a bit more interesting don’t you think?
October 21, 2022
A wise man once said: ā [The government is] considering ā¦ a package of unfunded tax reductions. As if we needed more government debt. Government debt is simply taxation deferred, where we the taxpayers not only have to repay the debt with taxes, but have to pay interest on it as wellā¦ Does no-one in government care at all about the surge in government borrowing? Do they think the markets will just let them get on with it, without extracting a price?ā That man was John Redwood in this very blog. He said it of Gordon Brown, but it is nonetheless surprising that unfunded tax cuts, which were seen as a problem that could unsettle the markets under the last Labour government are somehow now just fine, with the market reaction apparently a big surprise. To me, the abandonment of sound finance by a party that was once known and trusted for its principles, is a step too far, turning off my lifetime of support for the Conservative Party.
Reply Silly misrepresentation of my position. I seek to lower borrowing both by proposing stated spending reductions and by judging the cycle. Raising taxes into a downturn is likely to increase borrowings.
October 21, 2022
Members hands are tied both in leadership elections and in the selection of parliamentary candidates because we are presented with an uninspiring shortlist by the party machine.
Until that is reversed and we recover the power we had, to freely select, Parliament will be full of āgrown-upsā and they will destroy democratic politics in the U.K.
They, being grown-ups, have not thought what the alternative to the majority getting their way at the ballot box might be!
I donāt know a single person who is in infuriated by the antics of this parliamentary party.
October 21, 2022
It wound appear from all the conjecture Conservatives MPās are not being presented with voting for the least āworseā option. But are being asked to vote for Labour
The Mob has destroyed the party from within. Lets have a GE, spend years in the wilderness and just hope some find their Conservative roots and wish to return.
Sir John, I would never suggest who you should vote for, but looking at the picture as its being painted even not voting is not a wasted vote
October 21, 2022
Sir John has abstained on votes before.
October 21, 2022
We need to vote for a party that respects democracy, and also respects and implements Brexit. Without the politicians acceptance of democracy, our vote is irrelevant. Our democracy has been gradually eroded since Heaths tenure as PM.
October 21, 2022
The PCP, and indeed most of the CP Associations (MPs in waiting), are demonstrating Robert Conquestās second and third laws of politics.
As a result the Conservative Party is completely infested with either international globalists or international socialists neither of whom wish to act in the best interests of the country.
The Conservative Party is so close in its aims to Labour/Lib Dem/Greens/SNP that it is no longer offering an alternative vision and is now unfit for purpose. All parties now only offer a high tax and high spend economy. Plus the desire to destroy our economy with the CCA/Net Zero and our social cohesion through the immigration of large numbers of cheap labour with totally different cultures to our own.
To quote Mrs Merkel, 2018 in Berlin :
āNation states must today be prepared to give up their sovereignty and that sovereign nation states must not listen to the will of their citizens when it comes to questions of immigration, borders, or even sovereignty.ā
The only remaining difference is that the Conservatives would achieve these aims slightly slower.
Unfortunately Parliament is so full of history (ancient and modern), language (ancient and modern), arts, PPE, law, media studies, geography graduates that the fifth column in Parliament and the Civil Service and the BBC can completely bamboozle them with false science.
October 21, 2022
Ops.
Finally the shit has hit the fan.
The instability and chaos is due to 40 years of taking orders from the EU.
Now we can start making some real progress as we have left the EU.
It will take 5,10,15,20 years before we have sorted the major weaknesses.
So relax, no need to be so frenetic. Lets take one step at a time.
October 21, 2022
Time will tell how, what looks like an inevitable Labour government, will pan out. We can all speculate on that, although I find it hard to believe it will do a worse job than the Conservative party over the past decade. The UK’s credibility & economy has been damaged with the root cause being the decade long civil war in the Conservative party. What is indisputable is since 2016 the UK has had 4 PM’s (shortly to be 5), 7 Chancellor of the Exchequer, 5 home secretaries, 5 foreign secretaries. We’ve joined the ranks of Italy in political ignominy. There needs to be an urgent change that is best served by a GE.
October 21, 2022
I was thinking of Watford FC managers. I think they have had seven in a year.
October 21, 2022
Lee “the root cause being the decade-long civil war in the Conservative party.”
Do you truly believe that and usually vote conservative?
You feel that covid, leaving the EU as instructed by the public, not just in the referendum but in subsequent Euro MEP elections and two General Elections wasn’t the biggest factor?
October 21, 2022
Indeed all these events happened but the Conservatives have been in power since May 2010 and have not been able to react properly.
So, are you telling me that a Conservative Government can only be good āwhen the sea is calm and there are no gusts of windā?
Youāre a true blue, arenāt you, always ready to find excuses to a Conservative Party that has been reduced more and more to some factions trying to overpower or get rid of other factions, or to ārats fighting in a sackā.
October 21, 2022
No youāre wrong again hefner, or is Lee another of your aliases.
Iām not a member, I vote for the person at local elections not parties. I come from a family of labour supporters actually. I am just as likely to criticise the Tories as support them, if as you keep hovering over my comments, Iād expect youāve seen. The tories didnāt rule alone from 2010 to 2015, I was pissed when they put up student loans to English students only, if one child in the union has to pay their own fees they all should, they often sit next to each other after graduating one earning 9% more just because they were born over a border.
I wasnāt particularly keen on Liz Truss, I didnāt think Boris should have been ejected in the way he was. If this party elects Sunak I wonāt be voting tory at the next election. I donāt trust him.
I think you should know if you call someone a true blue in my neck of the woods itās a compliment as our football team is blue and yes weāre very loyal, were the sort who donāt stab people in the back or jump ships if it gets a bit choppy, we stick true and expect other to do so to. Boris let a lot of people down with Northern Ireland, with his dropping net zero targets from an achievable 2050 in the 2019 manifesto to an unachievable and costly 2030. I honestly donāt care about him raising a glass at work on his birthday with people he was working closely with. Politicians are always having to apologise for misleading the house or talking out of turn.
If you are Lee are you going to answer my question?
October 22, 2022
You ignore the umpteen gatherings, meetings, what passes as parties for most people -call it raising a glass if you like – but people were refused sitting with dying family, denied visiting Care Homes and living life as a hermit. A bloody disgrace that must never be forgiven.
October 22, 2022
He was at work full time during your lockdown
Like many of us were.
Two very different worlds existed.
And politicians and civil servants were exempt from many of the regulations.
But it does expose some of the unnecessary rules they imposed.
October 22, 2022
MT – it was the NHS wanting to protect their staff and sick people on the wards from taking too many visitors. The care homes the same, an overload of people coming indoors into a setting with sick and vulnerable people wouldnāt be sensible. If the pandemic ever rose its head again they would repeat that immediately because no visitation of the vulnerable does stop transmission to them. Boris didnāt want to shut down so hard and so fast he got accused of trying to kill people, closing 7 days later than France was never going to be accepted. The Italians didnāt close down did they, they allowed all the Brits knowing it was running rampant through their Country to go on their Skiing holidays and we caught it back big time when they all returned from their half term holidays.
The difference is those people in Downing Street were working throughout together. I best they got the first tests, and why wouldnāt they we required them to keep government going. They didnāt stop (other than when they were off sick or in hospital themselves). I never agreed with full lockdown for everyone, I worked throughout not a day off, all my colleagues and I thought we were putting our lives at risk every day from what we were first told. To keep the local estate cafe going we had individual plates of food delivered as a treat for the office staff to say thank you every few weeks, I wouldnāt allow drinking on duty at work anyway so that wasnāt an issue but we had a cup of tea or coffee together.
If Boris came back if I were him Iād agree to NO booze at Downing Street full stop. None. He needs to wear a hair shirt for two years and keep good order. He needs a strict disciplinarian in charge of the staff not the last turn a blind eye person. He needs to show he learned his lesson. People say he canāt change. Maybe not but he could have a better second in command in charge of the Downing Street people who work with him.
October 23, 2022
MT Iāll try again with a shorter reply.
The NHS and the Care Homes themselves, the staff and Managers in them didnāt want visiting relatives that could be carrying the deadly virus that would polish off their patients or make them sick. People should have been able to take their elderly relatives back to their homes if they wanted to look after them themselves, there should have been no block on that. The people I knew that died were all allowed ppeād family members in the wards I am very sorry if other hospitals didnāt allow that.
October 23, 2022
MT one second point if John allows.
People that were working together were the workers taking all the risks in those early days when we were told if we caught it we were likely to die from it, especially if we were over 50 or had pre-existing medical conditions and particularly men, I was most worried for my husband and the other working men I knew.
The NHS nursing staff at the time were telling people sat on the grass outside they were going to kill them, whilst accepting free pizza deliveries most weeks and free cake deliveries they were working together and creating Tik Tom routines together, when you worked together you needed to keep your spirits up. I do not agree with drinking alcohol at work in a workplace and I donāt know why it is acceptable it seems to lead to lots of problems with vicarious liability on the Prime Minister alone!
October 24, 2022
a-tracy, Sorry, I am not Lee. And BTW ātrue blueā was neither a compliment nor a criticism.
October 21, 2022
Well Lee , just watch Starmer collecting his mates in rubber boats, their effort to bring in the muslim army will make the Conservatives look like a Sunday school outing
October 21, 2022
So what’s going to happen about Northern Ireland?
My letter in the Belfast News Letter yesterday:
“Six years ago Theresa May said that she would not be giving “a running commentary” on Brexit negotiations, and when she finally revealed what she had agreed it was rejected by MPs.
Likewise, yesterday Chris Heaton-Harris stubbornly refused to give MPs on the Northern Ireland committee any information on current negotiations with the EU over the Irish protocol.
Surely we should be allowed to know whether UK negotiators are trying to get the text of the protocol amended so that the position of Northern Ireland within the UK is restored?
Because if the EU is still refusing to re-open the protocol itself then there seems to be little point in further negotiations, and the UK government should declare that to be the case.”
October 21, 2022
Perhaps, Denis, this is a question the media should be asking Sunak, Boris and whoever the 3rd could be!
October 21, 2022
PMs should not be able to elect anyone to the Lords or get the annual grant unless they have served for at least three years. There should be a probationary period for new Ministers of one year, and if they don’t pass that point as a Minister then they don’t get the benefits of being a Minister or shadow minister.
October 21, 2022
PMs should not be allowed to send anyone to the Lords. Period!
October 21, 2022
If we remain stuck with it (SHAME) then additions should be stopped for at leat 5 years.
October 21, 2022
Would you prefer a left wing quango to do it, or bring back the old hereditary peers? Don’t say you want us to elect them because then they would clash with the Commons.
October 21, 2022
Quite agree Lynn, thinking about it Rishi Sunak is only 42, Penny 49, Cameron was only 48 when he quit, yet today we learn these people even if they only last a short time get a pay off Ā£115,000 pa as an ex-pm so financially we are better off if we re-elect Boris as at least we save that Ā£115,000 for a couple of years and we donāt accrue a potential Ā£115,000 index linked for up to 40 years to the average life expectancy of a male of Rishiās standing + his pension as an ex PM!
In fact thinking about it no-one under 60 should be PM. š
October 21, 2022
The Tory Party is facing a wipe-out at the next General Election. They have been in power for 12 years. During this time they have imported large numbers of aliens and raised taxes to pay for those and their confreres already here. They claim that they will sort out the Channel invasion which is increasing exponentially without addressing the pull factors which ensure that it cannot be solved. They claim the way to get the economy moving is to import more Asiatics whilst hamstringing it with ecolunacy, foisting diversity quotas on businesses and turning a blind eye to foreign take-overs of our most successful.
The Tory party has been lumbered by its membership with a succession of PMs who have demonstrated feet of clay in office; their main achievements have been warmongering on behalf of the US and keeping up the inward flow of aliens. These PMs have deliberately deprecated colleagues who are better politicians and filled their cabinets with Yes-men. As a result, serious grade inflation has befallen the educational sector whilst churning out graduates unqualified for useful employment; the public are invited to clap a malfunctioning behemoth which is well below Continental stadards; the Ajax tank debacle rattles on; the white elephant aircraft carriers ‘show the flag’, the most expensive flagpoles in history; the HS2, the white elephant railway continues to sap the Treasury whilst carving up the countryside.
Will the electorate face a choice at the next election of the Lib, Lab, Con, SNP? The First Past the Post electoral system has been tested to destruction; it continually fails to bring forth leadership and governance that will end our relative decline and increasing sense of alienation and even JR himself has lost confidence in its ability to provide stable governance.
October 21, 2022
The nightmare choice for the members ….
Johnson v Sunak
Hopefully, this will be avoided.
October 21, 2022
Is there anyone who just might lead the Conservatives to victory at the next General Election ?
Johnson or Sunak
Nope …. too much baggage
Morduant
Maybe ….. some recent minor negative press.
Badenoch
A smart lady with a compelling back story, but can the Westminster bubble see beyond a “big name” ?
October 21, 2022
Compelling back story? Only in āpoliticsā since 2015, only elected as a MP in 2017? With no relevant experience in any of the top ministries? Could you please list her successes as a Minister in the last five years? Even fewer than Liz Trussās.
As others have said: āMore ambition than talent?ā
October 21, 2022
Hi Hefner
For “backstory” I was referring to real life. However, I would of course accept that the Westminster establishment may not regard real life as sufficiently important or relevant as compared with “politics”.
October 21, 2022
NHS dentistry under threat, social care overwhelmed by underfunding, Teaching Assistants leaving schools because they get paid more in supermarkets, mental health services stretched to breaking point so children and young people are waiting for months to be helped… I could go on but this list is depressing enough. This is England after 12 years of Tory governments. Enough is enough. General election now please.
October 21, 2022
Lily, check back the NHS dentistry problems started with Tony Blair! He took NHS dentists off many people and its never recovered. He did more to privatise that service than any PM.
It breaks my heart that so many children are reported to have mental health problems. They have never been in school for so many years, the tories actually raised the school leaving age to 18 in 2015, with all these extra teachers assistants too to help them too, Ā«Ā The number of full-time equivalent (FTE) support staff has increased for the past two years, primarily driven by the number of teaching assistants (275,800, up 3.9% from 2019/20).9 Jun 2022Ā Ā» source explore education statistics. Perhaps moving forward teacherās assistants need to be qualified in childrenās mental health care and pay them more money when they have more qualifications and can provide more targeted help.
Something is going very wrong with our children and social media has a lot to do with it. I didnāt let my children have social media at all until they were 16. I was happy with my childrenās state primary school, I donāt recall them having many teachers assistants (1994 to 2006).
October 21, 2022
The Establishments were victims of the ravages of Covid , the war in Ukraine and the consequent drop in demand of world markets . The UK fell victim . By ignoring this state and believing that an economic wand of attraction would be enough to keep us out of this mess was an act of bad timing .
Effective leadership and judgement would have taken this on board and balanced its approach accordingly . Sadly leadership and nous was not there – the political mess followed . A return to the manifesto that won the election is now the right move and the CP must energise this direction .
October 21, 2022
It’s the other way round, Bert. We the people were the victims of the ravages of an establishment that imposed lockdowns. We were also the victims of their crazy energy policies and escalation towards war. World trade links were the victims of overstrict test-and-quarantine policies. We and future generations are going to be the victims of the mad money-printing the global establishment favoured.
But you’re right that the problem was poor leadership and poor judgment by the political class. The front benches need to be cleared out completely and new leaders found, with the courage to do what needs to be done to put this country’s interests first. Not kow-tow to UN bodies of one sort or another.
October 21, 2022
Tory MPs know precisely who appointed Hunt but they fall into submissive silence as they have done on every other difficult issue that is in some way politically or culturally awkward
FGS, it took Farage not Tory MPs to get us out of the EU and that fact alone is an indictment of what they have become…
it stinks how they can still argue the toss as though they have some degree of moral legitimacy.
And now their pathetic appeasement of Marxism as exemplified by Labour, the unions and their client State will condemn us all to this destructive and dystopian horror..Labour will cut loose and impose a dreadful ideology designed to destroy identity, target those they dislike and generally remodel this nation and its people along truly radical lines
October 21, 2022
Recalling a post from November 15 2018:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/11/15/this-is-no-deal-this-is-just-a-very-bad-withdrawal-agreement-to-make-us-pay-and-bind-us-in/#comment-973495
I have just sent a letter to the editor of the Irish Examiner, as follows:
“Perhaps it is time to reprise at least the second half of your famous front page headline of November 15 2018?
“Brexit: Victory in Dublin, Chaos in London”
The Irish victory depends upon the disloyalty of the majority of UK parliamentarians, but it is still your victory.”
That front page:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/politics/2018/11/15/Irish-examiner_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwQiw9wb5wfTQVy_EBJymH64.png
As it was Boris Johnson who deceitfully sold out Northern Ireland for the sake of his pathetic little trade deal, and who later caved in to EU threats over the Internal Market Bill, I don’t see much hope for the province being returned to its proper place in the UK if he is reinstated as Prime Minister.
October 21, 2022
Sir John,
I am disappointed that conservative MPs like you appear to be heavily outnumbered. I do like your post, but cannot understand the enthusiasm for former PM Johnson. How was the election manifesto implemented with a resounding majority?
After the last general election:
+ critical race theory discarded
– unprecedented lockdown with disasterous consequences: dodgy injectable, financial profligacy by the Chancellor, liberties curtailed (passport, online), and deception of the public (so-called partygate means they knew there was nothing to worry about but the deceitful messaging continued) and current and future generations harmed (from protecting the vulnerable via harming child development to harming children with injectable they do not need to payouts)
– open borders (Bavermann’s resignation letter has a telling paragraph)
– woke-standing police
I do not think there can be a proper enquiry into the lockdown complex under the helm of those who implemented it. This means former PM and Chancellor are out, and so should be MP Mordaunt based on Lord Frost’s telling remark on her Brexit performance.
While I can understand why many are reluctant about a Labour-led government, please do not forget that opposition is a chance for renewal. Personally, I will be voting, and it will not be a party currently represented in WEFminster – unless MPs like Sir John and Steve Baker can steer their colleagues on a path of common sense.
October 21, 2022
GB Pound in 2019 $1.30 when Boris and Rishi came to power, then after the spend, spend and spend policy and the anti UK Growth policy, by denying the ability of the UK economy to grow we have the GB Pound at $1.10. A simple Government policy they followed to push up inflation ā the spiral down continues.
October 21, 2022
Sir John,
When Joe Biden became president the democrats and the MSM trumpeted that the the “grown ups” were back in charge. That hasn’t turned out so well. So when there is mention of “grown ups” in UK politics one should be wary of what that really means.
October 21, 2022
STEPPING STONES
I was listening to some Tory called Giles Someone who as saying that Mrs Thatcher adopted the tactic of ‘Stepping Stones’ to arrive at a long-term, big goals.
Stepping stones should be self-explanatory. This is in contrast to Ms Truss who wanted to achieve long-term, big goals with the ‘Stepping Stones’ of Mrs Thatcher.
The ‘Stepping Stones’ isn’t rocket science. It’s a common sense / practical / down-to-earth way to achieve anything whether in politics or losing weight!
October 21, 2022
‘with the āStepping Stonesā of Mrs Thatcher’
– without the ‘Stepping Stones’ approach of Mrs Thatcher I meant.
In other words, Ms Truss was overly ambitious / lacking patience. Which of course sent a jolt of anxiety through the markets and the electorate.
October 21, 2022
The Party and with it, the country, has been sliding downhill since they removed Mrs T. from office in a disgraceful coup.
What followed was a sequence of leaders of the main Parties sitting in Number 10, all with the same socialist tendencies who insidiously dismantled “Thatcherism” a proven ideology.
These PMs all have been either Europhiles and/or dominated by the left-biased Mandarins of Whitehall and consequently moved us further into that direction. A similar change has continued within the BoE, when the last reliable Governor, Mervyn King, stepped down.
Social policies to benefit a country and its citizens work well, nowhere on Earth, so it is bewildering why such policies are maintained at all, especially in the UK.
I fear the whole charade has been put into motion by the 1992 Agenda 21 announcement, a UN programme to produce ‘sustainable development’ that was signed by the Western nations and others to allow “Globalisation” to evolve.
We only have to look back over the past 3 decades to see the effects of that, whereby the Orientals gained while the West remained static or actually declined. The era of exporting jobs and importing cheap labour and products had begun.
It is way past time we put our own country, FIRST, and got back to developing and growing our own economy rather than relying of those overseas nations to supply us.
Sadly, I do not think any new PM is going to have the strength to do just that.
October 21, 2022
Sir John
Our/your local Liberal Democrats (whatever that means) have just spent a lot of money getting personal about you Sir John. A full page News Sheet through everyone’s door on what a lousy MP you are, for seemingly not being at your post while the Country is burning.
Anyone that reads your Diary knows things couldnāt be further than the truth. This crowd have made spurious claims before and seeing across the Country they have previous I would guess it will get worse. The problem is people are buying it they now get to run our failing Council
October 21, 2022
I’m also someone who lives locally and I think I know what’s going on, Ian. The Wokingham Lib Dems have taken control of the council, whose finances were apparently left with unfunded commitments by the outgoing Tories. The council leader has looked at the horror show situation and didn’t take long to decide he’d prefer to get out and instead get himself elected to Westminster as the local MP. That was the point of the hit piece against Sir John – much easier than setting out the achievements of the local Lib Dems’ first six months in office!
October 21, 2022
There is a long history of the LibDims issuing dodgy leaflets and posters that tell blatant lies and half truths.
So nothing new in this, except they mostly stick to when actual public elections are taking place.
It was happening when I was canvassing for Tristan Garel Jones and Margaret Thatcher in Watford back in 1979
If Boris wins the leadership election, we can expect the BBC, Channel 4 and all of the opposition parties to go into overdrive to try and discredit him. They will be taking their steer from the US media and their never-ending attacks on President Trump, while Sleepy Joe escapes almost unscathed.
October 21, 2022
at the last election the local rag,tag, and bobtail outfit imposed a booted out ex-MP from neighbouring Bracknell on our ballot papers. A medical doctor who a few times a month did a shift within 20 miles of Wokingham. The usual snide PR we could all see through failed, although every home was bombarded with leaflets – a dozen I recall. I was very annoyed due to not wanting to vote Tory – but couldn’t stand by and abstain when a reject was proposed to beat Sir John. They are at it again. However, who is paying for this scurrilous nonsense?
October 21, 2022
From BBC QT – Boris Johnson’s sister Rachel says ‘Keir Starmer is Prime Minister in-waiting’
October 21, 2022
Make no mistake John, Brexit is a major, not the only but the main, reason that this party, and this country, has disintegrated so badly. What an utter shambles and, frankly, a disgrace.
October 21, 2022
It’s not the Brexit decision is it, it has been and is the unwillingness to do it properly and the deliberate failure to take advantage. The benefits have been delayed or undermined by those who opposed it. They continue to do it, the party and the government it runs continue to betray our democracy and are now open traitors.
October 21, 2022
WILL HE
Hunt vows to do whatever necessary to bring the debt down.
Will he shut the Lords down?
Will he stop Truss’s Ā£115000 payoff?
Will he stop foreign aid?
Will he stop forking out money for illegal immigration?
Will he stop Mp’s pay rise next year?
Will he bollocks.
Will he screw the general public? Yes he will.
October 21, 2022
I fear you are right, Stephen Reay.
October 21, 2022
Let’s get the facts straight, Stephen, you have fallen for the BBC and Starmer’s lies and half truths.
Liz Truss will NOT get Ā£115,000 a year for being an ex-PM.
There is an allowance for ex-PMs to cover public duties, office expenses and travel for carrying out duties related to their former office. Ā£115,000 is the current maximum which has not risen for more than a decade.
Receipts have to be produced so that only expenditure actual incurred for the purpose is reimbursed.
For example, Teresa May claimed less than Ā£60,000 last year. Cameron, Brown, and Blair claimed the maximum or close to it. I see no reason why Liz Truss should not receive an amount appropriate to work she carries out.
October 21, 2022
Great thanks for the update.
October 21, 2022
You have it so right.
October 21, 2022
There must be a Restoration, of the Merry Monarch. We never regretted the original one, even though that Monarch was far less perfect than Boris. A great wrong must be righted. Democracy must be upheld in the face of continual remainiac coups.
October 21, 2022
My money’s on Sunak (PM) and Hunt (Chancellor). The only two – and combination of – that can restore confidence of markets and have a go at winning the next general election.
Who else is there? Boris had to resign ’cause of his character (not policy).
October 21, 2022
Stuff the markets.
October 21, 2022
Isn’t it extraordinary how all these left wing, innumerate people (not Ed M) are suddenly babbling away about “the markets”? It was the same when they suddenly discovered the existence of the House of Lords.
October 21, 2022
Our only hope is to get Boris back as he was in January 2020, full of enthusiasm and before he turned liberal. May be the events of the last 45 days and his holiday in the sun will have shown him what a crooked crowd of MPs there are in Westminster and spur him on to get us back on track.
Penny does not have the experience and Rishi is hell bent on ruining this country and driving us under the control of the globalist.
October 21, 2022
Yes well Sir John, I agree with what you say today but have little hope at the moment for our country.
This disintegration of your party has happened too fast, since the alternative party, Labour, would be disastrous.
If only, somehow, you and the rather few other Conservative MPs, with knowledge and common sense, could take control.
You should be Chancellor of the Exchequer but you could not work with Sunak as PM could you?
Boris Johnson is the only person who has a mandate from the electorate to be PM.
But could he be ‘tamed’ away from the carbon neutral nonsense and the WEF?
I will say it again. Personally I would like Lord frost as PM and you as Chancellor.
October 21, 2022
It is so refreshing to have a man of honour in the Conservative Party, one who will tell it like it is. It seems that many of the others are only Conservative in name, just to get elected on the basis of Party goodwill. They should be ashamed!
October 21, 2022
I have just read some of the other comments on this blog. People seem to forget that one of the key planks of our constitution is that we have an established church. That is why the King is not allowed to be a member of the Church of Rome – whatever our views on that. Surely it is unthinkable, therefore, to have a non-Christian, of any hue, as Prime minister, because he or she has to appoint the next Archbishop of Canterbury! Economics is far less important than that!
October 21, 2022
Somebody should ask Penny Mordaunt what she would do about the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, and what she thinks about the Lords Constitution Committee suggesting today that a minister could be undermining the rule of law just by proposing it:
https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/30438/documents/175587/default/
“17. The Ministerial Code requires ministers to ācomply with the lawā, including international law. If the introduction of the Bill itself constitutes a breach of the UKās international obligations then it is arguable that ministers promoting the Bill have contravened the Code by doing so”
Some of these unelected legislators-for-life are definitely not fit to be in Parliament.
There would be no point in asking Boris Johnson, given that he is the reason why we are now having to suffer the international embarrassment of passing this Bill, and Rishi Sunak would probably drop it.
October 21, 2022
Johnson, Mordaunt or Sunak? Is that really the best that your 357 MPs can come up with??
One a bumbler in thrall to the Greencrap Brigade, who has failed to deliver a proper Brexit, one who has no coherent ideas, and one a billionaire banker handcuffed to the globalist superpower.
That’s the best you can do?
October 21, 2022
You are absolutely on the money. Since Rishi Sunak is the likely winner and I expect him to implement high tax orthodoxy, I am planning to vote for the Reform Party at the General Election. I have done something similar before. I voted to give Edward Heath the boot in February 1974 and I voted to give John Major the boot in 1997. If the Conservative Party wants my vote in 2024, it will have to govern in the way that I want – low tax, a shrunken State and steadfastly reducing State debt. Interest on State debt is now double the entire defence budget.
October 21, 2022
Good luck with that. Might not be worth you going to the Polling stn.
October 21, 2022
How does the Tory Party work? I thought a constituency party committee interviewed candidates and decided who would be their candidate to be their MP. Party members voted for Truss and her agenda. The minute she took over half the MPs worked against her – ignoring the wishes of the members. Why arenāt the constituency chairs deselecting the MOs who are ignoring the memberās decision.
October 21, 2022
Sir John’s prediction of OBR’s (for once) under-estimation of the current deficit have been borne out today:
public borrowing hit Ā£20bn last month, and economists now say the deficit would hit Ā£200bn this year, more than double official forecasts.September’s borrowing figure is Ā£5.2bn more than forecast by the OBR.
October 22, 2022
If the CP membership get to be able to vote again, will there be anybody asking the candidates in one short interview if they intend to continue with the CP policies of Net Zero, mass immigration (legal and illegal) and high tax with high spending?
October 22, 2022
I think all the options are rubbish.
But if I was an MP my vote would be “anyone but Rishi”
October 23, 2022
Scotland and Wales seem to get second leaders called First Ministers.
In the case of London Khan seems to get a real big say, First Minister of London should be his title no? He is failing in the role every day, Londoners just mass tooling up with knives and guns, people openly walking around with paint spray cans I hope theyāre made to clean off all the paint themselves as their punishment!!! People allowed to close down key arterial road routes around London for two days causing chaos and death.
They seemed to take equal position as Boris during covid on our tv screens outside of their home nation every day.
Perhaps Boris could be a newly created cabinet position of First Minister of England, have all the little mayors answerable to Boris. His prime role could be to promote, sell products and services and enthuse about England all over the World. Scrap Deputy PM, he could be stand in Prime Minister. Prime Minister/First Minister of England. Divide up the spoils.