Packing up is never easy. There are many reminders of old battles fought and won or fought and lost as I tidy the papers and take away personal effects from the office . There are friends and colleagues to say Au Revoir to.
Today I wish to thank all the people of Wokingham for having me as their MP through 9 elections. We worked together well as I sought to represent their views, get redress when government wronged them, pressed for things we needed as a community and set out a vision of how Wokingham and our country could grasp greater prosperity, freedom and success.
For much of my time Wokingham came out high in surveys of best places to live. Unemployment was low most of the time, with many larger and smaller businesses coming to invest or growing from their home base. There has been an abundance of talent and energy to set up and grow enterprises, to volunteer to run events, to help charities and improve our local environment. I have visited many homes with well tended gardens, and watched with delight as bushes and trees have flourished in what were new developments, covering over the bare newness. I have argued  to keep the green gaps, the farms and the fields that intersperse our towns and villages and provide some balance to the urban settlements.
I have often been the person who pushes the case for our public services and spaces to catch up with the housebuilding and private commercial parks. The early days I needed to help secure pavements, primary schools and shops for new Earley, through the days of working with the Council to freshen and modernise Wokingham Town Centre. It took a long time to get a new railway station which was much needed but we got there in the end. We did welcome new surgeries, new schools and improved roads under the previous Council.
I have backed home ownership which is the majority experience and the aspiration of many in Wokingham . I have pushed a better deal for small businesses and self employed, as Wokingham is enterprising. I have enjoyed the cultural life of our Borough, enriched by the choirs, concerts, local artists and craftsmen and women. I have helped the Council get more money for potholes, social care and a number of good causes.
Every day as MP I asked myself what can I do to make life better for the people I represent. Every day 365 days a year I wrote a blog to keep people up to date with what I was saying and doing, and to seek views on what the problems are and how they should be tackled., It has made for a fascinating and lively conversation.
Thank you all. Thank you so much to those of you who have contributed so much to our community. I shall miss the privilege of being able to thank you as MP.
I want to stay living in the Borough I love, and will still be running a modified website encouraging a wider debate about how best we can proceed together as a nation. I am full of optimism for Wokingham and for our country, as long as local and national government reflects the common sense of the people. Government has power and money to do good, but can abuse its privileges or make bad mistakes which set us back. A free Parliament needs to be a noisy Parliament, capable of correcting error and holding accountable those who let us down.
May 29, 2024
You will be sadly missed by all Conservatives in the country, but mostly by the people of Wokingham who have had an active and supportive MP long after most the rest of us have suffered the modern, alienated and distant version.
The people need to find their own new generation of MPs cast in the old mould as described by JR above.
These are OUR parties and OUR MPs. We are jealous of OUR power to choose OUR representative.
Thank you JR not only for the consistency, quality and quantity of you work, but for you incredible endurance and selflessness.
May 29, 2024
I hope your optimism for the nation isn’t misplaced
After the sellout of Brexit and the shenanigans of all 3 parties over Covid, I’m not so sure.
I fear we have a bleak few years ahead with the clowns likely to be in office after the elections, not that I thought your party would be any better.
It’s a shame your voice of reason won’t be heard where it matters.
Good luck.
May 29, 2024
JR, I think I too would be tired, fed up and demoralised by the likes of Cameron, May, Greive, Wollaston, Clarke, Soubry, Allen and all those betraying the nation over the Brexit vote. Sadly, Sunak, Hunt, Dowden etc are equally dire. You are right to abandon ship as they All failed to listen to your sage advice. There is no one with your ability or conservative values left in the party. Let us hope all voters follow your lead and leave your party.
Labour were in cahoots with some of your colleagues to thwart the nationâs desire to leave the EU. Some of whom including Starmer, Miliband, Lammy, Cooper, Benn etc. will carry on where Sunak and Hunt left off to prevent Brexit by acting in lock step to the EU, refusing to scrap EU laws, not leave ECJ or ECHR and lack the intellect to govern as an independent nation, they are only capable of following.
Good luck JR, be assured that have not listened to you nor will they change. Use your talents elsewhere where they will be appreciated rather than ignored.
Time for Reform.
May 29, 2024
@Lynn Atkinson – unfortunately the ‘people’ are excluded from finding good candidates by gang leaders that want only those that will serve their delusions. Constituents are just fodder, good MPs serving Constituents and the Country are now part of History and have no place in today’s top down dictatorship.
May 29, 2024
That is NOT so. We always freely chose our candidates. Heath removed that and replaced it with the âparty listâ. We MUST recover that power so we can choose candidates we want for parties that can win.
Craig McKinlay is the case in point, from UKIP but standing as a Conservative he beat Farage standing for UKIP. Craig showed us how to get the candidates we want into Parliament.
Even Farage know that at last – thatâs why he dreams of leading the Tory Party đ€Ż
May 30, 2024
@Lynn Atkinson – there is always more to it, ‘The Party’ ultimately is the one with the money. A good MP would be one that is first working for their community, their constituency, the Country, but big bucks drown out little voices – therefore corrupt democracy. That’s why we get obedient servants of a gangs leadership, not those that are there to serve their electorate.
May 30, 2024
The currency in democracy is votes. The corporations have few. The parties have no votes, also no volunteers and now they are battling to find candidates.
This does not signal the end of democracy, it signals the end of Corporatist Rule – as you describe it, and we need to ensure the rebirth of Democrcy where the âdemosâ are the source of all power.
Cheer up, things are about to turn a corner. Grab the wheel!
May 29, 2024
Yes, very sorry to see you go Sir John.
We’ve never actually met but I have nodded to you a few times in town over the years. I once spotted you in Tesco’s too but decided to let you peruse the frozen vegetables in peace. Thank you for always replying promptly to my occassional emails (moans). We have been very fortunate in having you as our MP over all these years and you will be sorely missed. Perhaps next time I spot you in Wokingham, you won’t mind if I finally say hello.
Let’s hope that they can find a worthy successor for you.
May 29, 2024
It will be sad to leave a place to which you have devoted so much time. I wish you well. Another of the disappearing number of conviction politicians, who used to be so numerous on both Conservative and Labour benchs.
It’s good that you live in your constituency and like it. We once had an MP who lived in Wandsworth. He probably did not want to lose the cheaper council tax.
On the Friday you announced you were leaving I was at Kingston beer festival. There was a beer called Redwood available and I mentioned to various people that you had announced you were not standing in the election.
The beer was an American IPA. Though if you drink beer I would imagine it would a traditional English beer brewed with Kentish hops.
May 29, 2024
Lib Dem candidate Clive Jones came knocking this morning Sir John
He was unlucky enough to have my wife answer the door. Mrs T is not a lady to be trifled with and she’s never been a great fan of ‘Councillor’ Jones either. He tried to get into his election pitch but rapidly found himself being verbally boxed around the ears with pot-holes, solar farms, loans to bankrupt councils, rubbish collections and unwanted cycle-ways. Mrs T doesn’t take prisoners (or pause much for breath once she gets going) and I suspect the poor man won’t be coming back here any time soon. I made her a nice cup of calming tea afterwards but I will admit that it’s been making me smile all afternoon.
May 29, 2024
The people struggle to have any influence given how political candidate selection works in all of the main parties.
May 29, 2024
đđ» but now the Conservative Party can be killed off so that we can replace it with a proper patriotic, capitalist, democratic and unionist Party.
Donât breath life into this corpse.
May 29, 2024
Thank you Sir John. You will be missed.
May 29, 2024
Good morning.
Spoken like a gentleman and a good MP.
I received a letter from my (supposedly Conservative) MP yesterday. He told me that, in his time as an MP he has ‘exclusively’ campaigned on women only issues. Now I have no issue in that in itself but, as our kind host pointed out (see above) you are elected to serve and represent ALL those in your constituency irrespective of any factors.
Sir John is clearly of a different era and cut from a very different cloth and I envy the good people of Wokingham who had the wisdom to return him to Parliament on 9 successive occasions.
I cannot thank him as my MP, but I can thank him for reminding me what a good constituency MP and politician looks like.
Enjoy your retirement from the Green Benches, Sir John, you more than most have earned it and with distinction.
May 29, 2024
We have a Minister for âWomen and Equalityâ and one for âEnergy Security and Net Zeroâ both total contradictions even in their titles. You are either for Women OR for Equality and for Energy security OR for Net Zero.
So Sunak promises 100,000 new apprenticeships with major crackdown on Mickey Mouse degrees he has blasted ‘rip off’ university degrees that are leaving young people worse off.
Far too late mate you have gone. Plus we know any pledge or promise from you and the Tories is totally worthless anyway. You abjectly failed on immigration, on tax levels, on energy with your net zero lunacy, on net harm lockdowns, on net harm vaccines, on four of your pledges (and you caused the inflation problem).
Diesel cost in the UK the highest in Europe I see. Yet we are expected to compete.
May 29, 2024
Start perhaps with Oxford PPE look at the vast damage done to the country by their PPE graduates.
Sunak, Hunt, Cameron, Handcock, Ed Balls, Tony Benn, Yvette Cooper, Edwina Currie, Dodds, the Eagle sisters, Damien Green, Ted Heath, Chris Huhne, Woy Jenkins, Mandelson, Neal OâBrian, Rory Stuart, Harrold Wilson, Rachael Reaves, Harper, Philip Hammond⊠god help us.
Still perhaps more the dire people drawn to this course rather than the course itself?
May 29, 2024
Good luck with your next endeavours and make sure you have a good rest after 4 July; you deserve it.
May 29, 2024
So Rachel Reeves rules out further tax rises if Labour wins power. Well surely they will need some tax rises to replace the losses they will make by putting VAT on private school fee and the scrapping on Non Dom both will cost more than they raise.
Also:- Reform prepares legal challenge to Labourâs âdiscriminatoryâ private schools tax raid. Well that might help starmer U turn on his evil & mad policy. Loads of judges might be rather keen on not having VAT on their childrenâs school fees and find some legal ruse to stop it.
May 29, 2024
Not of course that they would ever let their personal interests colour their judgements would they?
May 29, 2024
No one in the media has questioned them on council tax. One thing we can be sure of is council tax in England will double as it did last time they were in control. The party of spite and envy will be eager to punish those aspiring to own a nice house, especially in the Tory voting south, plus they will force the property rich but cash poor pensioners to sell their homes because they canât afford the exorbitant charges on top of the already exorbitant charges they are planning.
May 29, 2024
1 in 8 university places to go says Sunak (well it is you who are going actually) but 75% to go might be rather more like it.
Just kill the soft loans and the universities acting as immigration factories and see how many actually people think the degrees are actually worth ÂŁ75k of debt and three years unpaid?
Apprentice train drivers start on ÂŁ50,000 it seems. Junior fully qualified Doctors on ÂŁ34,000 and the doctor probably has had 5 or 6 years unpaid training and about ÂŁ100k of student debt plus interest at ÂŁ7k PA.
Junior doctors to strike over the election 27th June to 2nd of July. I wonder why? Try living the latter in London. You struggle even to rent a grotty room for let than ÂŁ1000 PM you even have to pay your own comp. professional fees.
May 29, 2024
Spot on LL. My son Junior Doctor living in London has left the profession, canât afford to live there as a Junior Doctor. Why do MPs, ten a penny, get to put every single living expense including their London pads on expenses when Junior Doctors, far more worthy applicants, have to pay it all themselves out of their meagre salaries.
May 29, 2024
@Mark B +1 – well said, and highlights the issue of a leadership controlled socialist CCHQ – 2 peas in a pod
May 29, 2024
I have followed your progress for quite a few years, having met you briefly when I attended a talk at one of the fringe events of the Conservative Conference, when I lived in Cheshire.
I wish you all the best, and I am glad you will still be continuing with your website. Your Constituents are going to miss you. It is a terrible wrench to leave Parliament after all those years, and adjustment will take some time.
We are facing the prospect of a Labour Government. I have lived through several of those, and I don’t remember them ending well. Frankly, I dread the prospect.
Take care of yourself, and I wish you, and your family, all the very best.You have served our Country well.
May 29, 2024
If only his party had taken his wise advice over the years on the ERM, tax levels, net zero, the EU, the vast government waste, on energy, criminal justice, educationâŠ
May 29, 2024
Hear Hear
May 29, 2024
I hope the people of Wokingham appreciate what they are about to lose. It is now in their hands to find a worthy successor , I hope they realise the importance of what they are about to do.
Only you know of where you have succeeded locally and failed to persuede nationally. The cost of being able to see wood from trees in a party increasingly incapable of recognising a forest. It is oft said that all political endeavour ends in disappointment however great the achievements on the way to it. Witness Churchill and Thatcher. There will always be some lost idiot whose pinnacle in life was to splash paint on their statues.
The only antidote is to think positive and move on to new achievements. One truism of moving is that you inevitably leave with more than you arrived with, in every sense. I wish you well and look forward to continued contribution to your thinking.
May 29, 2024
Not alas in the hands of the people of Wokingham but of people like Sunak at the top of the party. People who kicked out Andrew Bridgen just for telling the truth on Vaccines and have prevented sensible people like Lord Frost from standing as an MP. Only tax to death, net zero pushing socialists need apply.
May 29, 2024
DONâT VOTE FOR THEM! DONâT WORK FOR THEM.
May 29, 2024
Iâm not sure the people of Wokingham do appreciate what theyâre about to lose. Theyâll find out soon enough. Thank you Sir John. I have appreciated having an MP who has always responded promptly to my correspondence, who has helped me when asked, particularly with HMRC, your diary, for knowing what a woman is and your stance on lockdown. I will miss you.
May 29, 2024
@agricola – Rishi and the CCHQ finding a successor, someone to serve Wokingham, dream on. No longer a case of someone to serve their constituents, but an obedient socialist agent of their leader
May 29, 2024
Thank you so much for all your work as MP and for the ever informative, wise and insightful comments in your blog – do continue as loon as you can. You will be greatly missed.
May 29, 2024
+1
So Angela Rayner vows to a group of Muslims (all men) that Labour will recognise Palestine as a state if they win the election. So has this been agreed with Starmer? Also Steve Baker is off on his holiday to Greece having given up on the election one assumes.
Perhaps wise given Bakerâs rather small majority.
May 29, 2024
Sir J, all the very best and thank you.
Radar
May 29, 2024
It is said that all good things come to an end and Sir John has made his mark on British politics for many years. One hopes that whoever wins his Wokingham seat is equally committed to the consitituency.
Mrs Gold and I wish Sir John all the best and good luck in whatever endeavours he chooses for the future. We intend to continue contributing to the blog – where appropriate – should he decide to keep up with it
May 29, 2024
Wokingham have been very lucky to have you. Look at some of the appalling MPs most other places have to suffer. A great shame your party did not listen to you far more than they did.
You say:- âI am full of optimism for Wokingham and for our country, as long as local and national government reflects the common sense of the people.â
Not much optimism from me, we might well have to suffer Labour for 10-20+ years, so discredited is the Conservative party after 14 years that even the appalling Starmerâs Labour Party seems preferable to many people. Parliament almost never listen to the common sense of the people. What is/was needed was to ditch net zero, halve the size of the state, cut taxes, cut all the woke lunacy, cut all the loans for duff degrees, have sensible quality only immigration, relax planning, ditch HS2⊠but no MPs knew better. The Government even went for net harm lockdowns, net harm Covid Vaccines and QE to debase the currency and cause the inflation that Sunak is so proud to have reduced. He even lies to us that the vaccines were âunequivocally safeâ.
Labour policies on rental properties, net zero and VAT on private school fees and abolition of Non Dom status are all idiotic and will all be hugely damaging. We have had far too much socialism and immigration from the ConSocialist for 14 years already.
May 29, 2024
SJ
have no doubt you can hold your head up high when you leave the ‘Mother of all Parliaments’, which is something most who depart that place cannot lay claim to. On that basis alone you time as an MP as not been wasted. The only blot on the copybook of your career is the current nature of the party you represented.
It seems is history has come full circle. In the next month or so an ideology you have fought against all your life could return with a vengeance, Socialism. Starmer’s possible victory could herald a dark time in this nation’s history
Good fortune in whatever you pursue.
May 29, 2024
BBC presenter Geeta Guru-Murthy must surely be fired after demonstating her absurd bias on air – saying Nigel Farage was using ‘customary inflammatory language’ and declined to stand for a seat. What a dim biased fool she seems to be. He chose not to stand for a seat as he is perfectly entitled to do.
This is clearly how she (and many at the BBC) seem to âthinkâ. She is surely totally incapable of any balance, like most at the BBC. The BBC single sided and wrong headed agenda on net zero alone is hugely damaging for the country pure evil.
May 29, 2024
Thank you
May 29, 2024
Having tried to comfort our host at the end of his current career, I would draw your attention to two pieces of nonesense falling from his ex leaders lips in the last couple of days.
I have spent business and holiday time in Israel. The first thing you notice is that it is not outwardly jewish in the sense that Golders Green is, when last I was there. It is stable and has a maturity amongst late teenage citizens you do not experience in the UK. A product of very real in your face threat and their national service for all as a necesity. A country where all reservists, just about everyone male and female can be trusted with the responsibility of having a well oiled Uzi in a bedroom cupboard.
In the UK only criminals roam armed. National Service, of which I partook, has its potential virtues, but only carefully thought through, not as a back of an envelope political lifebelt, thrown to such as me in the hope I might return to the fold.
Next we have an ill considered bribe lobbed out on pensions. Pension security for all in old age was a good idea, but badly conceived by politicians. Only politicians would think it good that someone else, the young, should pay for the retired. Flawed as the retired begin to exceed in number the contributors. It appeared to work for a while, but resulted eventually in one of the lowest paying pension schemes in Europe. Only the private sector got it right, despite ongoing government interference. Government really screwed up big time when they failed to create a social fund from the proceeds of North Sea oil and gas. Prefering HS2 instead. The Norwegians got it right and created a social fund that gives them a superior health and retirement life. Government now has an opportunity for salvation. Kill off Nett Zero, exploit all our fossil fuel and that of the Falklands under a rethought business plan that benefits UK and Falkland Island citizens, with an enormous social fund giving us the best healthcare in life and a secure fruitfull retirement. Sadly you can count on your fingers those politicians who might share such a vision and act on it.
May 29, 2024
It must be very sad for you and it is a tragedy for the country that you didn’t win more of your battles.
Obviously “wins” were unlikely during the Blair/Brown regime but the Not-a-Conservative-Party Grandees’ decision to continue with the Blair Agenda and morph into a Blue-Green-Socialist parody of Conservatism, sidelining the remaining genuine Conservatives has led directly to the debacle of the past few years.
They can’t say you didn’t warn them and try to put them on a better path, because you repeatedly did. So the smoking ruins of the once-mighty Conservative Party you will leave behind is not your fault.
The NaCP needs to be destroyed, because as well as making a smoking ruin of the Party, they’ve also created a smoking ruin of what was once the green and pleasant land of England.
May 29, 2024
I came across your website accidentally in about 2015 whilst working in the energy sector on EU new rules compliance, which was becoming a major and expensive task for our country. That made me a firm Eurosceptic. It was reassuring to discover your site and that many more people felt the way I did about the EUâs threat to our democracy. That was a big factor in motivating me to campaign actively during the EU Referendum.
I was very pleased to shake your hand prior to your recent Brasenose lecture, and wish you well in your future endeavours. In the words of a motivational speaker I once heard âstage not ageâ is what matters!
May 29, 2024
Enjoy your retirement Sir John, although of course retirement becomes the busiest time of your life…. Being in your neighbouring constituency of Bracknell I have watched from the fringes but have always been thankful over the years on the efforts you have been making for your party. I only occasionally post here but have found it incredibly useful to me on my daily reads. Thanks again and all the best for the future.
May 29, 2024
I donât like to rain on your parade but under your watch Wokingham has had a massive increase in housing. Itâs one of the reasons I left the area when I retired. Itâs a real urban sprawl with the area between the town and the A329M and the M4 covered with new housing. Tiny houses with tiny rooms and tiny gardens – no privacy and not enough parking. Wokingham has been joined to Reading (the huge development of Woodley and Earley) and, more recently, to Bracknell. No doubt South if the town will be developed soon with Wokingham joining to Wokingham Without and Crowthorne.
Iâd have expected our MP to lead a local refusal to have this housing built. The South East of England is becoming one big housing estate.
Even Elms Field, an oasis of green space close to the centre of town, had to be built on. I am sure much more vocal opposition from our MP could have prevented some of the increase in the concrete jungle.
May 29, 2024
MIke
John Prescott, remember him, overruled everyone at the time, including an independent Planning inspector with regards to much development.
I certainly agree with you about excessive developments over the past 40 years, but Labour were in power for 13 of those years, when much of the more recent planning was passed.
The real problem has been caused by population movement/explosion, which is still going on !
The existing Infrastructure simply cannot cope with the new volumes of traffic and people. No lessons learn’t again !
May 30, 2024
Hi Alan,
The Crest Nicholson housing to the North of the town and the housing to the East – right up to the A329M has all taken place in the last few years.
You canât blame this in Labour. The Tories have been in power for the last 14 years. They have nothing but massively increase the population and let houses go up by the thousand.
My son lives in a new estate in Warfield. I was there a few weeks ago. I see they have started another huge estate down towards Tescos. They wonât be happy until the whole of the SothbEast is an urban sprawl. Reading, Wokingham and Bracknell used to be separate towns with countryside between them. Over the last 50 years they have been turned into effectively one huge urban sprawl. The Tories have been in power for the majority of that time. Itâs their doing and their fault.
May 31, 2024
Mike, I am with you on all you say, just wanted to put on record that it was not just the Local Conservative run Council, and Conservative Governments at the time.
We now have the same situation with the LibDems in control locally, no forward Local plans, so the Government of the day will make the decision for them.
May 29, 2024
Thank you, sir, for your contribution to the country via Parliament. Best wishes.
May 29, 2024
Dear Sir John
We are very sad to hear about your imminent departure as MP for Wokingham and trust that you will find more time to join us in our studios for lively discussion and frank debate about the forthcoming election, great issues facing our great nation and how the face of politics will be changing over the next few years.
Our Production Teams will be getting in touch!
Kind regards
etc.
[not]
May 29, 2024
Thank you Sir J for articles past and your steadfast commitment to conservatism. I look forward to hearing more about your plans for the future, which I am sure will not be confined to sunset on the Riviera!
May 29, 2024
Hii sir John
Thank you for all the information you have written. Although I live in Birmingham bankrupt by labour. Costing me 21% rise in my council tax. If the government had done better with our independence Brexit and stopped the boats I would have voted conservative. This government have wasted a golden opportunity to make the UK better
I wish you all the best for you in the future
God bless.
May 29, 2024
“Every day as MP I asked myself what can I do to make life better for the people I represent.”
An echo of JRM’s observation in his early backbencher days: “politics should not be about making people’s lives difficult.” Now, if only every MP could be issued with a permanent reminder of JRM’s observation, continuing with “what can I do to make their lives less difficult?”
May 29, 2024
At one time sad but at another time it’s positive for us to move on when we feel it’s time. So good luck for the future.
May 29, 2024
As I never lived in Wokingham, you were never my MP, more’s the pity. Good luck for the future and thanks again for this blog.
I look forward to communicating with you again in time.
May 29, 2024
Sir John, your reputation will not be lost when you leave the HoC. We need more like you but unfortunately the Tory head office is now focused on other ideas. The opportunity for free thinking individual representatives has been banned. The new policy is lobby fodder members only.
Lord Frost’s treatment is a case in point.
May 29, 2024
Michael Portillo is very critical of all these late MP resignations, says MPs wanting to resign should give a year or soâs notice. he says constituencies have no time for a proper selection process for successors and proper vetting, raising the risk of unsatisfactory people being elected to the next Parliament?
May 29, 2024
Perhaps Mr Portillo should have words with Mr Sunak as he was the one who told them only a couple of weeks ago, they could all go on holiday the election was miles away.
GCHQ now looking for about 200 candidates, what a bloody farce.
May 30, 2024
+1
May 30, 2024
Agreed Alan,
May 30, 2024
If the Conservatives had any shame they wouldnât stand for election at all. Look at the mess they have made of this country.
May 29, 2024
It has been alleged that the, Little Usurper did not consult cabinet colleagues and fellow party MP’s when announcing the GE. Speculation suggests that this is because he was soon to be deposed. So no wonder they felt doing what they did necessary.
And in anycase, who wants to take the mantle of being ignominiously dethroned on election night like Mr. Portillo once was ?
May 29, 2024
Did Portillo consider that a snap election removes that option? Of course they will ALL be hopeless candidates – all have already been vetted by Central Office.
DONâT VOTE FOR THEM.
We must prepare for the post-Starmer House.
We need a sound party and freely selected candidates.
May 29, 2024
‘A free Parliament needs to be a noisy Parliament, capable of correcting error and holding accountable those who let us down.’
It isnt the Parliament that will do that, it will be the electorate in a few short noisy weeks of insincere promises and allegations.
Sadly I join others wishing you would fight the GE – preferably Independent, as the country cannot continue with the Conservative Party, bereft of most of the things that made it worth fighting for!
Best wishes for the future.
May 29, 2024
I would just like to say Thank You for all you have done for us over your time as our MP. We will miss such a good MP in our constituency. Best Wishes from Christine.
May 29, 2024
Sir John
As a Wokingham resident, a long time Conservative voter I have always been confident when putting my X in the box against your name. I always felt you served us constituents of all complexions well. That was the point you âservedâ Wokingham and our Country.
Sir John â Thank you all the best for revised future
May 29, 2024
Given the media hype about the stupidity that now surrounds the up-and-coming election there has to be a churlish note. There is something no longer seen in UK politics â serving Constituents and the Country.
We now have a full-on presidential election to vote for our next all mighty all-pervasive Leader, 2 + 1 guys that are absolutely clueless, self-absorbed and deluded. How did it come to this? No longer an election for a good MP, but an election of a president that will hand constituents a token agent of theirs because they will bow to them alone. Goodbye, democracy. Hello dictatorship
May 29, 2024
Sack them all. Thatâs what we can and must do!
The Tories this election, the Labour cabal next – it may be sooner than you think. I donât believe Labour will last a full Parliament.
May 30, 2024
@Lynn Atkinson – Starmer would have walked it, if only he kept his mouth shut – now the results will be marginal. But it is the System that has become corrupted top to bottom and as you infer we need to clear out the swamp.
May 30, 2024
Lynn, the news today suggests Starmer will sign up for more PFI agreements to spend on public services as Blair and Brown did last time, as Major showed the way. I fear for my kids and new grandchild.
May 30, 2024
When the IMF is called in and Britain is bankrupt, all these âagreementsâ are void. Changing times are always dangerous, but what have we to lose? I also fear for the forthcoming generations so we may as well engage and fight for our country and people.
Donât tolerate these self-selected elitists.
Sack them. They have no money, no votes, no volunteers and now they canât get candidates either. They are DONE. Kick their crutch away and let them fall.
We must plan and work and prepare for the new Democratic Age.
Cheer up. Itâs they, the globalists who have lost!
May 30, 2024
Without people like John who is going to lead the new generation. Half the time they no longer watch or read the news. Who wants to enter the cess-pit of politics, the woke, scared to speak their mind twenty and thirty somethings have already conceded. How bad does it have to get before they reawaken?
May 29, 2024
In 1951, parents William and Amy created a powerful combination of highest quality: a guiding light and stalwart enabling Margaret Thatcherâs achievements; plus a history of more enduring goodness.
May 29, 2024
I have lived and worked in many parts of England, based around Bristol, Nottingham, London, Manchester ( twice ), and in retirement near Portsmouth and now Oxfordshire. So I have never been able to develop a significant connection with where I lived and their MPs.
I have however followed Sir John in recent years and his determination with his cases and subjects has been a magnificent continuity.
I will continue to follow and wish you Sir John great happiness and success in your new life arrangements.
May 29, 2024
I think that you have been a marvellous MP. Thank you for all your help and hard work on our behalf.
May 29, 2024
I think the Tory Party (and the country) is done for. The country is turning very poor at a fast rate.
I wish you well, however.
May 29, 2024
âA free Parliament needs to be a noisy Parliament, capable of correcting error and holding accountable those who let us down.â
Absolutely correct. The current problem is that we have no opposition or even debate on major issues such as mass immigration and Net Zero. So any voter who does not support these policies should not vote for any of the existing Parliamentary parties but instead for any candidate opposed to mass immigration and Net Zero wherever they can be found because :
1) The existing Parliamentary parties will take any vote for them as support for continuing with mass immigration and Net Zero.
2) Even just a single MP from a party that does not support these policies will have an enormous influence on the debates in Parliament and at the BBC.
3) Even if no MP with these opposing policies is elected because of our FPTP system a large number of votes cast in opposition simply cannot be ignored even if Parliament and the BBC try to do so.
May 29, 2024
Thank you very much for all your hard work for the local community and for the nation. You have always remained communicative and always had an ear open to hear the needs, ideas and wishes of the Wokingham electorate. We have had some interesting exchanges down the years and I am sorry to lose you as my MP. I do believe that the Conservative party has moved too far left and has too many globalist influences. To survive it needs a new bold set of leaders and visionaries who are willing to take tough and radical decisions on matters of immigration, energy policy and security, farming and land use etc. Pushing back on the EU and EHCR, pushing back against many other issues where we are led in a pack of nations rather than doing what serves our people best.
May 29, 2024
A great servant to both Wokingham and the House of Commons. Looking forward to your continued contribution to public life, where you still have so much to offer.
May 29, 2024
SirJ, youâre a credit to parliament & the people âŠ.youâre done a bloody good job
May 29, 2024
Seconded. Remember that Powell was also left high and dry, but he died an honest man having been true to himself throughout it all.
May 29, 2024
I enjoy your blog every morning and appreciate that you have responded each time I contacted you on various issues over the thirty years I have lived in Wokingham. I can’t believe there is/will be another MP who would put their views on a publicly available forum seven days a week and publish responses both for and against. That’s bravery these days!
Whoever your successor will be, something will be lost. It will be up to them to build a positive relationship with their constituents and that’ll take time and understanding. I feel quite pessimistic about the next few years, sadly, and I hope I’m proved wrong. It is difficult to have conversations with others these days as opinions are polarised and the trend is for dissenters from official narratives to be effectively silenced.
Enjoy your retirement, Sir John, and please do keep your blog going, otherwise some of your more regular contributors will need to find new hobbies to fill their time!
May 29, 2024
Sir John, “thank you” is a wholly inadequate way of expressing gratitude for all that you have done, for the country, the governments of which you were a member, for your constituents, for your party and for the followers of your blog. If only Conservative Party leaders had been prepared to listen to you, and involve you properly in their governments, the country would be in a better place than it is today. Very best wishes for a long and healthy retirement.
May 29, 2024
Thank you Sir John for your service to the country. Your experience and common sense will be a loss to Parliament and the whole country.
The very best of luck and, hopefully, you can continue in some way to influence the future of our nation.
I am looking forward to the new John Redwoodâs Diary.
May 29, 2024
Sir John , Your record as an MP and particularly your representative role for Wokingham has been an outstanding one ; I wish I could say the same for my area – South Oxfordshire . You definitely will be missed in more ways than one . Good luck and very best wishes to you .
May 29, 2024
A great article, but please put it into the public domain eg. local newspaper etc. as not everyone has the internet or is logged into your diary. According to one of the other candidates you never do anything for our town, and this needs rectifying. Thank you for the many interesting emails I have received each day and I wish you a long and happy retirement.
May 29, 2024
Thanks John. I have been one of your voters from time to time, in amongst many geographic moves for work. Very best of luck.
May 29, 2024
Good morning John. I perhaps am one of the few people who comment on this site who has voted for you personally in all of your past 9 elections.
Sometimes it has been hard, because your Party has made it difficult, and no more difficult than in this election, but on every occasion I voted for you, rather than the Party you represent, because whilst the Party may have left myself and many others behind, you remained steadfast in your views, and were prepared to make those views public.
Do I agree with everything you say and stand for, certainly not, but you have come the closest by far to my own views on most topics and policies.
It is a shame that many of your constituents are still completely unaware of what you stand for, what you have done over the years, and the presence of this excellent website.
Yes politics is important, but perhaps too many of us are so busy with our own lives, and trying to earn a living whilst supporting our families, that we do not realise how important until we have some time to reflect, usually later in life when we have a bit more time.
I started reading and contributing to this site back in 2008, I wrote to you as my MP and asked what the Conservatives were going to do about the dire situation the then Labour Government had got us into, you wrote back immediately (much to my surprise at the time) and suggested I look at your Website, of which I was completely unaware.
I have to say this site has been a revelation into the life of all the aspects of politics, especially in understanding your views, knowledge and details on economics, big finance and parliamentary procedure.
Thank you for your service over the years, whoever takes your place will have very big boots to fill, unfortunately for Wokingham, I do not see that any of the main Party candidates will even come close to that task.
Politics has changed over the decades, as have our MP’s, The Party’s and Mp’s are now rapidly losing the Country with their often quite bizarre and complicated thoughts, and expensive policies and actions.
I wish you well for the future, and am pleased that this site will continue albeit in some modified form.
Thanks again.
May 29, 2024
âas long as local and national government reflects the common sense of the people. Government has power and money to do good, but can abuse its privileges or make bad mistakes which set us back. A free Parliament needs to be a noisy Parliament, capable of correcting error and holding accountable those who let us down.â
For the moment it appears that those in Government, in Parliament just donât understand any of that. They neither know how to listen or hear those are âsupposed to serveâ. They pat the minions, their electorate on the head and say âbe a good chapâ I am busy with my ego. If the leader of the gang chooses the candidates, those candidatesâ loyalties will never be with the people, they will never hold the inept to account.
Starmer has already gone on record of saying he doesnât like the noisy rabble that is Parliament (Democracy), he prefers working with his unelected, unaccountable Socialist friends in Davos â their direction for the World is his aspiration. Sunak has already embraced, rules and powers of those that are his masters in these other domains, it is not his electorate or this Country that he wishes to serve. The other Guy, who knows, who cares.
Until someone is willing to work with the people of this great country there is just decline.
Sir John â you are the last of a breed
May 30, 2024
There are plenty more but we were denied the power to return them to Parliament. The British produce outstanding individuals with monotonous regularity.
Sir Johnâs name will be remembered for all time because of his heroic victory to obtain and win Brexit and the Spartans unparalleled stand thereafter, as our CHAMPIONS.
His political career was VICTORIOUS. I donât think he was ever looking for personal, earth-bound âhonoursâ. Anybody can get them if you sink low enough.
May 30, 2024
Well said Lynn.
Will Brexit hold though, it seems Starmer prefers Davos to Westminster.
May 29, 2024
You have shown what it is to be a proper MP. Parliament is materially diminished by your taking leave of it.
May 29, 2024
Sir John, you only got elected MP 9 times in a row for being appreciated for your attention to duty and the work you put in over the years. May you go on to more stimulating and satisfying times whatever Fate has in store for you. It would be so nice/useful for some of us..ok, me just now, for sure..to know how/ where to make contact with you if anything crops up one feels you should know about..and where your advice is – sometimes sorely – needed. Please be so kind as to have me those details..I’m on oeuvre007@gmail.com. Meanwhile, here’s wishing you Happy Days. I trust your ‘pantomime story’ in the City at Xmas continues or has this gone the way of the dodo?…Wait to hear. Ciao bello….
Reply You can still contact me via this website. Still expect to offer a Christmas tale
May 29, 2024
Thank you, Sir John, for all your posts keeping us informed and taking such a keen interest in our opinions.
I wish you all the best for the future.
May 29, 2024
Many thanks for representing Wokingham so well all these years. Roger Howard
May 29, 2024
If anyone deserved to be awarded a Lordship it would be you SJR. But how would it feel arriving there to find Spads like Gavin Berwell who helped Mrs May to undo Brexit there already and of course all the other dreadful failed politicians and civil servants.
May 29, 2024
Sorry to see you go Sir John. Best wishes for the future.
May 29, 2024
Well done Sir John. Leaving sadly, but “as one door closes, another always opens” as will some wonderful opportunities for your talents to blossom.I am sure your contributions will be highly sought by many. The best of British luck to you and your family.
May 29, 2024
Well what a surprise!!!!!!!!
Nothing can stop what is coming NOTHING.
May 29, 2024
A sad loss to the Party, as one of the good old Thatcher retainers, who have become far too short in supply these days. However, it will serve to explain the problems and predicaments the current government of pseudo-conservatives are in today.
May 29, 2024
It is hard . Hope all goes well.
May 30, 2024
I am not a constituent but I am a citizen.
Your contribution to policy before you entered parliament resulting in privatisation and liberalisation of the City were foundational to our current relative prosperity, despite the efforts of many governments to squander the gains of rolling back the state.
Thank you.