Some contributors here love running down politicians, pointing out their mistakes and inadequacies. Today you can lodge your papers to run yourself if you know how to do it better.
Many people are searching the perfect party or the faultless candidate. Realists Ā accept the task of the voter is to choose from a range of candidates and parties who are fallible, or fall short of our ideal. Our democracy offers plenty of opportunity to lobby, criticise, brief and engage with those who get elected.
Opinion polls tell us of the current dislike of the Conservatives by an important bloc of former Conservative voters. I can understand their frustration at the long COVID lockdown, the Bankās inflationary money printing, the disruption of energy markets by war in Ukraine and the big expansion of the state to micro manage our lives and the economy as a result. It has meant taxes too high, state services losing productivity and quality, and too much borrowing.
What I also remember was Labour, SNP and Lib Dem wanting longer lockdowns, more handouts, and higher taxes. They wanted an economic policy driven by the Bank of England and the OBR who turned to austerity policies after their big inflationary mistake.
Labour and Lib Dem are short on detail on how to pay Ā for their plans for expanding the NHS and social care. They are agreed on keeping the austerity framework of current economic policy. Neither talk about how they would get productivity back to 2019 levels in public services, let alone get on with raising it. Without an answer to this crucial question they could not deliver their improved services. They would spend and tax more with little to show for it.
June 7, 2024
Itās not a bad idea to put those who make extravagant claims into the hot seat. A dose of reality now and again should trim the assumptions of what is possible for any government to achieve. Mostly the State needs to get out of the way of individuals if we want increased efficiency and living standards.
And any government which sets about destroying the fruit of generations of work – i.e. capital, fuels unnecessary wars and attacks the population needs to feel the wrath of the electorate.
But ALL governments must defend their own populations for external and internal attack.
The British Government no longer knows itās population. It is behaving like a section of World Government.
Nobody needs that and we will sack each in turn until they are brought to heel.
June 7, 2024
Good to see that the PM of Georgia,having quickly reversed his President’s disgraceful veto on the Foreign Agents law in parliament ,is already taking action to dismantle those foreign networks.
I see the US has just announced sanctions-because the Georgians object to foreign interference.
Lovin’ the rules based international system!
June 7, 2024
Yes the Globalists working surreptitiously through NGOās is now another busted flush. Nobody has the authority to āmake rulesā.
Sunak comprehensively proved that he is not British regardless of where he was born or what his documents say. He has no understanding of our history, our debt to our forefathers and our moral and emotional priorities. Why should he have – he is 100% Indian.
No country can afford to be governed by people not wholly committed, genetically and financially. Thatās why the USA tried to define what an American was out of the rag tag and bobtail that washed up on its shores.
We have never defined what a British person is because it was obviously the native English, Irish, Scots and Welsh.
June 7, 2024
Lord Agnew resigned for Sunakās school boy errors costing the taxpayer Ā£12 billion. Sunak back stabs Johnson and applies for PM. He was rejected so the elected leader Truss was got rid of and Sunak forced on the nation to betray Brexit, the reason for being elected! Sunak scrapped 2019 manifesto he said he would implement, changed for his five point plan which he asked to be judged on- he failed! After failing in every regard in govt. wants to be PM again- why would the public reward betrayal, dishonesty and failure?
Sunak declared himself the son in law of India, most immigration comes fromā¦ā¦India. No, the nation state should be protected along with our way of life, our religious beliefs before and ahead of all and any alien cultures. Nor should we be suppressed or oppressed for defending our way of life.
Do not let the Facts get in the way from your blog today JR.
June 8, 2024
āBorisā betrayed Brexit- and everything else.
June 7, 2024
It no longer matters what you want your MP to do. Voting is irrelevant. I voted for Boris to lead the party and the country. The Tories got rid of him. My vote and my MP were irrelevant. I voted for Liz Truss. The Tories got rid of her. My vote and MP were irrelevant. I was forced to accept the person who brought them down and made me irrelevant.
I would never vote for a Tory candidate no matter what their policy is as the usurper and his enforced unelected presence makes it all irrelevant.
So I will try Reform this year. Why not. If we get Starmer so be it. That is the fault of the first past the post system not my choice of who I vote for.
June 7, 2024
@BW; Nice to know that some will still defend their political idols come-what-may, including ill advised ‘parties’ whilst others put aside such things, including causing a run on both the Markets and GBP.
By voting Reform all you’re doing is securing Starmer a massive majority; tell us, what do you do when you want to spite someone else, cut your own nose off?!…
June 7, 2024
Iām voting Reform because I want too. It has nothing to do with spite. I am sick to the back teeth of voting Tory, not because I want them to govern but because I donāt want the other party to govern.
June 7, 2024
+1
June 8, 2024
+1
June 7, 2024
jerry :
Voting Conservative will not stop Labourās massive majority at this GE. In fact, since Conservative Party HQ are parachuting their own into the safest of seats, voting Conservative will be unproductive for those voters who will be wanting to see opposition to Labourās policies such as massive immigration and Net Zero.
June 7, 2024
I voted for Cameron in his first election (though I preferred David Davis) he promised a cast iron Lisbon referendum, IHT thresholds of Ā£1m each (still just Ā£325k), to be a ālow tax a heart Euroscepticā, to stay on after the referendum, to serve the leave notice the next day and deliver Brexit. He did the complete reverse of this, abandoned ship and idiotically and totally counterproductively bombed Libya too.
He threw to first sitting duck election against pension robber and gold seller at the bottom of the marker Gordon Brown by ditching his cast iron promise and not being sufficiently Conservative – and so we ended up with the dire Libdim coalition.
June 7, 2024
Line up for this eveningās BBC debate.
Conservative Party: Penny Mordaunt
Labour Party: Angela Rayner
Scottish National Party: Stephen Flynn
Liberal Democrats: Daisy Cooper
Green Party: Carla Denyer
Reform Party: Nigel Farage
Plaid Cymru: Rhun ap Iorwerth
So Sunak, Starmer and Ed Davey too FRIT it seems as Thatcher might put it. There will be only Farage saying anything sensible and I assume he will be attacked and endlessly interrupted by all the other six green crap, open door immigration & tax to death lefties. Rather like on Question Time except they often do not even have anyone sensible at all.
June 7, 2024
See on X
š¬š§ NIGEL FARAGE TRUTH BOMB š£
“We were told take the vaccine, the so-called “vaccine” and you won’t catch Covid, take the vaccine and you won’t pass Covid on, both of those things were totally, completely untrue.
Correct Nigel, huge Covid Vaccine net harm – as is very clear indeed from the statistics even though they are trying to hide them.
June 8, 2024
@LL; Cameron’s first general election as leader was 2010, indeed he promised much, but failed to secure an outright majority and thus had to backtrack to secure the support of the LibDems in coalition. Your argument is moot. I always thought it a bit strange that some expected Cameron to remain as PM and party leader should Leave win, given he was full-on Remain and was the figurehead of that campaign, bit like expecting Farage to negotiate further UK integration with the EU had Remain won!
June 7, 2024
+ 1. Hear, hear, Well said.
June 7, 2024
Plus many.
Who in their right mind would believe Sunak and his chums who betrayed the nation and grace away N.Ireland to force EU lockstep against everything we voted and elected Johnson to do even with known leant votes!
JR needs to accept the dishonesty, treachery and betrayal that runs through the veins of his party. So before JR makes pathetic comments about putting your name forward if you could do better, he needs to accept it is not a matter of ability or intellect but more about personal qualities of honesty, integrity, loyalty to our country that his colleagues and party distinctly lack. You do not have to be intelligent to be honest. If you are not worth your word you are worth anything, all cabinet should bear that in mind before speaking.
June 7, 2024
+1
June 8, 2024
+1
June 7, 2024
Yesterday, the usurper left France and all the world leaders to come home to do a telly interview. Disgraceful, this man was not and is not fit to be PM. He has finally done in any chance the Tories had of making a fist of the election. He must in all honour resign as he is not up to the job. We can only hope that Reform now become the opposition, but it is unlikely under our rigged system of FPTP. At least half of all votes are wasted by this corrupt system. Even so I’ll turn up to vote even though you could put up a donkey with a blue rosette here and it would win.
June 7, 2024
And just when you think that the party would reflect upon past mistakes, misjudgements and the disenfranchisement of its voters ā¦.they do nothing, believing nothing is wrong, its not even head-in-the-sand politics, its two-fingers politics
June 7, 2024
@glen cullen; “its not even head-in-the-sand politics”
Talking of sand (beaches and sacrifice), someone couldn’t even be bothered to pay their respects to our fallen American allies, a photo-opp for the Tabloid right-wing press and he was off back to Blighty! That’s not even “two-fingers politics”, its the one long finger politics.
June 7, 2024
In the fading days of the peopleās Blue Boris (that occurred alas rather a long while before Mr. Johnson left office) I gave him excellent advice as to how to do better, which was to read this diary daily so he would know what he should be doing. I canāt do the better myself since I would not wish to take on employment that became my life rather than just a job.
Few surely have any expectations of the next government we elect having much about it, of possessing vision and drive, of emulating Margaret Thatcherās achievements of reversing the ebb tide. The best we can hope for is that failure becomes evident soon enough and meanwhile some worthy replacement emerges somehow.
June 7, 2024
+1. The core of conservatism, Frost, Redwood, Bridgen need to establish a proper base which we can all join and which can grow into a Party.
Itās too much for Farage, the Reform Party has many good policies but an equal number of existential horrors. You canāt start a Democratic Party as a corporation because you are a rich man, and dictate the constitutional basis and agenda. It has to come from the People.
JR – I trust your best work lies ahead of you!
June 7, 2024
Youāre deluding yourself if you think people are fed up with your government because of the Covid lockdowns. The lockdowns are forgotten. What people are fed up with is:
Canāt get an appointment with a doctor.
NHS falling apart.
People without the funds canāt afford a dentist.
Mass immigration.
High inflation.
Cost of living increase.
High rents.
High taxes.
A billionaire prime minister.
The cost of energy.
Sewage in the water.
HS2.
Needing the French and Chinese to build power stations.
The eternity it takes to decide anything. Sizewell C? Small modular reactors.
Dozens of MPs jumping off the sinking ship.
The Prime Ministerial farce of musical chairs.
Failure to deliver Brexit in a positive way.
The list goes on and on. The general feeling that your government is completely incompetent.
June 7, 2024
Much of this sensible list is however partly due to the vast costs of the entirely pointless & net harm lockdowns and the net harm vaccines for all programme and the NHS shutdowns. Also due to the net zero insanity.
āThe eternity it takes to decide anythingā indeed – the whole of WW2 was only six yearsā. Nowadays it would take that long to agree any new war a diversity and net zero policy.
HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales were commissioned in 2009 at vast expense and they are still not really working or of any real value in defence terms. One seems to act as no more than a source of spares for the other.
June 7, 2024
A PM and Cabinet that make unpopular decisions, or worse lie about intentions with no action, which are curiously selected from 200 to 350 MPs of the Party. No wonder the present Conservative Party became clearly split into several groups over major decisions on policy and direction of travel. Even the Party membership wishes got turned over!
June 7, 2024
I totally agree with this comment by Mike Wilson.
The Conservatives have had the last 14 years to provide real change to the UK, which has not happened.
When the Conservatives managed to obtain a working majority for the first time in 2019, this opportunity was totally wasted.
We have been provided with a soft Brexit and little action on mass and illegal migration.A NHS and public services that are falling apart and record numbers not in work, or coming to the UK illegally, being supported by the taxpayer. It really isn’t on!
My vote goes elsewhere for this election. I am totally sick and tired of the lies, promises, pledges and guarantees both parties. Just look at some of the things being said during the election campaign.
Anyone with an ounce of sense will realise they are being lied to yet again.
June 7, 2024
I would add.
Can’t get a prompt ambulance in an emergency.
Many migrants and others on benefits get a far better deal and more disposable income than many people do working.
Cannot get urgent cancer treatments and urgent operations without huge delays even when delays often kill.
All the motorist muggings and road blocking a very inefficient way to tax people and run things.
Highest taxes for over 70 years. Many taxes even way above the Laffer point let alone the optimum point for good to the people.
Vast waste, crony capitalism, looking after mates and huge corruption.
The net harm vaccines and unequivocally lying about this.
June 7, 2024
Two tier and generally totally useless policing. Zero deterrents to most crimes almost total police inactivity, even when the evidence is overwhelming and the criminal is known.
June 7, 2024
It’s a fact, not a feeling. All future promises and no delivery except more mass immigration, health, dentistry, education, housing crises due to ummmmmmm………mass immigration without integration and laws to stop us objecting to it and applying for jobs if you are an indigenous white man! More woke than New Labour with a majority One Nation Liberal Tory’s and the odd token conservative to appease us!
June 7, 2024
The lockdowns are the root cause of many of the problems you have listed. Most people supported the multiple lockdowns, so, unsurprisingly, they have forgotten about them.
It is not an issue of competence. Labour was responsible for lockdowns here in Wales. Things are just as chaotic, and the impact is even worse.
June 7, 2024
I have certainly not forgotten the lockdown Mike Wilson.
I and many others want to see the perpetrators punished for the terrible things they did.
June 7, 2024
Re : ā the disruption of energy markets by war in Ukraineā.
Europe’s losses due to its own sanctions reducing consumption of Russian gas supplies will reach 1 trillion euros by the end of this year, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund Kirill Dmitriev told TASS today (7th June)
Politicians presume to make unilateral, unauthorised, life-changing decisions and then deny those decisions. Itās unbecoming and worthy of being sacked. You can make mistakes but you canāt lie.
June 7, 2024
And Russia is now totally dependent on China for oil and gas sales. So much for the dream of a Russian Empire revival, as it becomes a vassal of China with orders coming from Beijing. Why has Putin crawled into China 30 odd times recently?
June 7, 2024
Not so. India, Pakistan, Turkey etc as well as China are buying massive amounts of oil and gas. In fact Russiaās receipts for its oil and gas sales has increased many fold. Even the U.K. bought USD 2.4 billion worth.
So sanction worked!
June 8, 2024
What uninformed nonsense!Xi-and his predecessor – have made a similar number of visits to Russia over the years.Russia with its enormous resources and the connectivity provided by its vast landmass is an essential partner to China.
June 7, 2024
But Sir John, most floating voters appear have not switched to Reform, they have switched their voting intention to either Labour or the LibDems, what is more, of those switching to the LibDems many did so (at least in the south) at the 2019 election (case in point, your own Wokingham result), all your attack on those who wanted sensible pandemic polices do is show just why the the political right are fast becoming an irrelevance; many EU27 countries had harder lockdowns, larger safety-net intervention budgets, yet their economies have recovered faster than the UK.
Governments set fiscal policy, not the BoE or OBR, if UK post pandemic policy was wrong then the buck stops with who ever is sitting in No. 10 and 11 Downing Street. The BoE’s notional independence, and the OBRs existence, could both vanish as quickly as they were created.
I wonder what sort of job 650 AI bots would make of being our MPs, would we notice any difference, or would their be far less illogical decision making?…
Reply Oh do give up writing in with your fictions. I received 49 % of the vote in 2019, well ahead of the Lib Dem. In all 9 elections I fought the Lib Demās said they were winning! I concentrated on what I could do for people and the nation. 2019 Conservative voters have not gone to Labour in big numbers. EU 27 countries have on average lower GDP per capita than the U.K.by 20% and many have had little or no growth. Lockdowns were economically damaging, as was Bank of England and ECB policy.
June 7, 2024
reply to reply…Wokingham recognised in you honesty, integrity and as far as you felt able to state personal views in the face of disturbing policies from above. The criticism of a mass of politicians and how they are selected and what their contribution becomes is the point. You are selecting a mere handful of the issues raised and held important by the people, soon to be clarified, if the Party needed it, in the GE.
June 7, 2024
I get the feeling it’s not so much the floating voters, but those who usually vote one way staying at home. At the last by-election Labour won the seat on a smaller vote than they got in 2019, when they lost to the Conservatives.
The polls don’t seem to register the view of those who don’t respond, or where their reply is “Mind your own business”. I really don’t think 40% of the country are so impressed by Starmer and so-called “Labour”.
As to AI bots doing the MPs’ job, it is impossible for AI to be held accountable for its actions, that requires the capacity of mind and purpose.
June 7, 2024
I love feisty John. You’re finally free.
June 7, 2024
I totally agree that all the main parties have moved to the left. I totally agree that Labour, LibDens, SNP and greens are going to be far worse.
Politicians have done what political wonks call ādealignmentā. Typically politicians blame the voters for ādealigningā, but the reality is that politicians have ādealignedā from the voters as the Westminster bubble has drifted from reality.
As Elon Musk famously pointed out in a cartoon, politicians have drifted to the left over the past 20 years but the population have not moved. This drift has been caused by politicians controlling the narrative on main stream and social media and deluded themselves into believing the narrative is reality. Creating a narrative on NetZero will never fix the problems of EV cars, Heat exchangers or lack of energy on windless nights. Same with the problems of lockdowns and mass migration. Narrative is not reality.
This drift has led to a huge, gaping vacuum on the center-right and right, that is being filled by a number of upstart centre right parties.
As the rapper Eminem pointed out in his song āOne opportunityā with over a billion YouTube views. āOophs there goes sanity, Snaps back to reality.ā
June 7, 2024
@Javelin – People have not deserted Conservatism it is this Conservative Government that have deserted them. The alternatives all have policies of high uncontrolled spending funded by high taxation – exactly the policies of the Sunak/Hunt team. the Conservative Party refused to remove this left wing cabal and has left it to the voter to intervene on their behalf.
The most dangerous aspect is this Conservative Government has given themselves and all future Government 5 year terms in office, before they are required to seek approval or challenge. As such they have ensured all Socialist damage will be well and truly embedded in our structures before any remedial options can take place – that is not democracy
June 7, 2024
You say:- āI can understand their frustration at the long COVID lockdown, the Bankās inflationary money printing, the disruption of energy markets by war in Ukraine and the big expansion of the state to micro manage our lives and the economy as a result. It has meant taxes too high, state services losing productivity and quality, and too much borrowing.ā
But the main reason we have rip off energy )about 3 times the cost of energy in the USA and many other places) is the deluded net zero religion your party (and Labour) support and still irrationally inflict on us. The refusal to drill, frack, mineā¦The absurd and absurdly long lock down did huge net harm (as was fairly obvious at the outset) and should never have be done, the Covid vaccines did vast net harm too they were coerced even to young people and even those who had has Covid already. Where is the criminal investigation into the dishonest claims made and these absurd decisions my the MHRA and out āexpertsā. How can it be right that the MHRA has such clear connections and funding from Big Pharma? Then we have the vast government waste, crony capitalism and corruption.
June 7, 2024
The reason the absurd and absurdly long lock down ādid huge net harm was this was fairly obvious at the outsetā is that it could only really ever delay people getting infected unless they hid for ever. The vast majority of these were young not really at risk or badly affected and if not locked down received a free natural āvaccinationā which was earlier, safer and far more effective than the manufactured ones that did so much net harm later. The Barrington Declaration was the sensible route to take and yet Tory Ministers etc. with PPE or similar degrees tried to endlessly trash these sensible people.
So will we ever get a sensible enquiry into the virus origins, the net harm vaccines, the net harm lockdowns, the criminal actions of the āexpertsā with conflicted interests. Or just the vastly expensive sick joke one we have now?
June 7, 2024
A proper inquiry will also needs to Investigate the appalling mass use of Midazolam and similar drugs during Covid 19 Pandemic under Hancock. Also the pushing of ādo not resuscitateā paperwork often not properly obtained.
June 7, 2024
I would like the Prime Minister to explain the following:
On 19 March 2020, on the advice of its scientific experts, Covid was downgraded from a High Consequence Infectious Disease. The justification for the downgrading was that there was more data available and they knew that mortality rates would be low. (They also knew who was most at risk …. the very frail and those with serious co-morbidities).
Here’s the evidence: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/high-consequence-infectious-diseases-hcid#status-of-covid-19
Yet just 5 days later we were locked-down and “Project Terrorise the Population” was launched, wrecking our Civil Liberties, destroying economy and leading to Ā£3 trillion of debt. And that’s before we get onto the demonstrably NOT safe and effective jabs and the coercion to participate in a mass medical experiment.
Not one person has been held to account for the Tyranny. And the ridiculous Public Inquiry, costing Ā£billions, is obviously set up to exonerate everyone.
June 7, 2024
Conspiracy theorists might say it was a trial to see what the state could get away with in keeping the population under control for later use.
June 7, 2024
@Donna; “the very frail and those with serious co-morbidities”
Please explain why so many previously fit people are suffering from Long Covid, an accepted heath issue, and even if correct about serious co-morbidities, many people can live in total ignorance that they have such a health issue. Govts could not win, people in the UK rant on about Lockdown and “Tyranny”, in Brazil (were the then president all but ignored Covid, it’s just Flu) people lament the lost of so much land to cemeteries…
“Yet just 5 days later we were locked-down”
Did the UK have a “Lockdown”? Compare the UK with say the Chinese Lockdown, food delivered to your door or window, factories only able to maintain production if their employees remained on site, slept and eat at their place of work; or just the Lockdown found in Italy and France. There was never a Lockdown in the UK, just restrictions, mostly social, only a relative few businesses had to totally shut up shop due to Covid, many non key business worked through-out, others simply (often later) suffered from people reviewing their lifestyle choices.
June 7, 2024
Agree. And it was revealed by the likes of Vernon Coleman at the time.
I guess money and global obedience were at the root of it all?
What has happened re the Health Treaty thing?
If that takes hold we can look forward to a lot more of the same.
June 7, 2024
Johnson is 100% culpable. He was the PM and he knew it was a load of horse muck.
June 7, 2024
@everhopeful agreed.
@Lynn Boris indeed has much to answer for. Gov. must have know it was a lab leak very early but denied it, they knew it was not a very high risk virus for younger people. In as much as a lock down may only ādelayā a few infections in the vulnerable they also delayed infections which were mainly just earlier, free, more effective natural vaccinations in the young. So net harm and huge financial waste & costs too.
Plus Boris shifted from being a climate realist to being a net zero nutter like his current wife and his bonkers father.
June 8, 2024
@LL; “a net zero nutter like his current wife and his bonkers father.”
Moderation on this site appears to have double-standards by the bucket load…
June 7, 2024
As ever a total failure to answer the question, instead yet another dump of your views repeated ad nauseam.
June 7, 2024
I want politician to promise & enact the many sensible policies I advocate which will work.
Surely that is fairly obvious and self evident.
June 7, 2024
āWhat do people want their candidates and MPs to do?ā
Stick to their promises. Honesty would be a start.
Saying things to get elected and then pursuing a completely different course of action has been the way it works for too long now.
June 7, 2024
Good reply. Manifesto promises should be subject to independent scrutiny at regular hearings and any divergence answered to.
June 7, 2024
+1
June 7, 2024
Well said Peter
June 7, 2024
And be honestly aware of the flood of cheap EVs heading this way.
Accidents galore in their native landā¦doors not opening in a crashā¦airbags not deployingā¦parts not properly welded on underneath and of course the sudden and hugely fierce electrical fire.
Just imagine on one of our death trap āsmartā motorways.
June 7, 2024
Sounds just like the expensive ones. One chap in an v expensive one could not stop and 4 police cars had to physically slow him down and bring him to a halt. For the second time!
June 7, 2024
Well many of their promises are bonkers like the net zero war on plant food, VAT on school fees, the war on landlords, abolition of non dom status, ever more taxes, every larger government, every more employment lawsā¦ these will all do huge net harm.
June 7, 2024
What I want is to vote for a party who try to do what they say in their manifesto, not the exact opposite.
June 7, 2024
Agree – nothing more nothing less
June 7, 2024
+1 with the exception of net zero/climate change which should never have been in any sane party manifesto as it is economic and environmental lunacy, as is the abolition of non dom status and VAT on school fees.
On immigration you either deter immigration by turning them back, not letting them in or not letting them stay. Or you take the open door agenda that all the parties other than reform seem to push especially Labour, SNP, the greens and Sunakās Consocialist. This way immigration will only stop when the UK is so unattractive place to live as most of the rest of the world – with a population of perhaps 500 million or so. Then people will surely leave or stop coming so as to exceed those arriving.
June 7, 2024
You’re in a minority. Most voters choose the candidates with the sweetest lies.
June 7, 2024
When the elected representatives clearly work against the good of the indigenous population it’s only right that they face criticism.
Decimating the armed forces, de industrialising the country and condoning an invasion of ner do wells was un no manifesto.
At the eleventh hour fishy comes out with a raft of conservative promises which if elected would be dropped immediately
Politicians are elected to run the country not sub let it to the likes of the UN, WEF or Brussels which is what they do.
June 7, 2024
Bus lanes rake in Ā£80m surplus I read. So constrict the roads with bus lanes (and other mugging lunacies) and mug motorists/voters/tax payer mercilessly – what a hugely inefficient way to tax people. And why are taxis allowed to use them? This as taxis are far less efficient than private cars about three times as they travel empty of passengers much of the time and need professional drivers. A taxis usually make a double journey with only one way having a passenger.
June 7, 2024
Life under the tories is about tricking people into paying more taxes, more fines, more polls, more charges
June 8, 2024
It was the same under Labour but gets worse and worse.
June 7, 2024
It would be a start if they really WERE our candidates and MPs; but they’re not.
More often than not, they are candidates who are parachuted into a Constituency by Central Office because their background and opinions match those of the LibCON Party Grandees and they can be trusted to toe the Party line; or they tick a diversity box. ie Richard Holden, CON Party Chairman, parachuted into a safe seat, against the wishes of the local Association. There are far too many LibCON former SpAds, who have never achieved anything related to “the real world” and depend on politics for their careers and lifestyles. They’re not there to serve their Constituents.
The “important bloc of voters” who have abandoned the Not-a-Conservative-Party aren’t frustrated. They’re FURIOUS that the Government they voted for has systematically betrayed them.
Over 14 years, they did NOTHING they “promised” and a great deal which they had no mandate for …. including the Net Zero Tyranny. There has been nothing Conservative about the last 14 years; we might just as well have had Labour Governments. As Galloway said CON and Labour are just two cheeks of the same arse.
Ronald Reagan put it succinctly. If you want to get re-elected “Dance with the one who brung ya.”
Johnson was given an 80 seat majority to Get Brexit done. We got BRINO, and Sunak has since taken us closer to the EU we voted to LEAVE.
We were promised controlled borders and reduced immigration. Instead they’ve ferried-in 100,000 criminal migrants for a life of “free everything” and REFUSE to stop it. And they’ve handed out visas to 3 million legal immigrants in just 2 years, 85% of whom are a drain on existing taxpayers.
Only one Constituency voted for a Green MP, yet our economy is being destroyed to suit the Greens.
Treachery like that deserves, and is going to get, it’s just reward.
June 7, 2024
Donna,
Absolutely brilliant summary.
JRās opening specious comment about lock down etc was to make it sound like an inanimate object was responsible, it was NOT. It was his party and govt that CHOSE to lock down the country, print money, His govt is in charge of BOE and OBR they could change rules or relationship at any time with an 85 seat majority.
We can see the conviction of his partyās MPs by 77 MPs running away before the fight!! Sunak the back stabber who gave away N.Ireland attends D- Day! What irony. Cameron who wanted EU vassal state status also present! He ran away after losing the EU vote, cut defence spending, cut up perfectly good Nymrods planes and as a Republican senator recently stated he cosied up to the pandas!
These posh boys seem to lack self awareness or have total arrogance. Replublicans can see the audacity and affront of Cameronās position and comments why couldnāt Sunak!
June 7, 2024
+1
Politics has changed since you first put yourself forward for election John, Many Candidates are no longer local or even put forward by the Local associations.
Politics has become so complicated it would seem almost impossible now to even complete simple tasks.
People arriving illegally are not turned away immediately, yet try to travel on a passport which is still in date, but passed its 10 year issue date because you renewed it early, and you are refused travel.
Even the simple task of mending a hole in the road takes months, whilst fines for minor transgressions (your tyre is touching the white line of a car parking space), grow.
Your car needs to be roadworthy to be on the roads, but the roads do not need to be roadworthy for cars.
Simple things are now overcomplicated, over thought, delayed or simply ignored.
June 7, 2024
Remove the requirement for candidates to have local signatures and a deposit and impose a rule that a candidates must have lived (not work) in the constituency for 1 year ā¦.this would stop parties parachuting candidates in
June 7, 2024
Was it ever thus? I read up the career of William Husskison who was the first railway casualty. He was born in Malvern, spent his teens in Paris at the Embassy, came to attention for his work on refugees of the French Revolution on return to the UK, was MP for Morpeth, Liskeard, Harwich and Liverpool and stood unsuccessfully for Dover after Morpeth. More or less 4 corners of England.
June 7, 2024
Well put, Donna! I think you speak for millions!
June 7, 2024
Many people are searching the perfect party, better schools, better roads, better medical services, better law enforcement, and much else.
Most people do not want to be MPs, become teachers, start filling potholes, become surgeons, barristers, police or traffic wardens. They just expect their government to reach higher standards than Conservatives have done.
June 7, 2024
I would suggest that there are two tpes of voters, the ones who would like government to get out of the way and those who want cradle to grave support.
Unfortunately during an election and in spinning during the governing period – “we are not going to do anything about that it is not government’s job” does not play well with the media.
June 7, 2024
It is true that the ruling Party seems to be intent on allowing erosion of civil liberties and obtain funds as a result. Local Councils and authorities are not curtailed in their activities which offend the citizens. Clear criminal activities go unpunished yet media highlight the injusticies. Campaigning descends to me, me, me activities – witness Tory and Libdems leaders rather than a broad representation of colleagues.
June 7, 2024
We can expect NHS performance to remain poor or worsen following candidate Starmerās shocking stated preference to let a sick relative suffer and die rather than procure treatment with his own money. No hypocrite him when in office NHS neglect sees patients dying and he reminds us it is something he would accept for his own.
June 7, 2024
If I were his wife, I’d consider that grounds for a divorce. He would let his wife and child die rather than pay for private healthcare which might save their lives. What a despicable creature he is.
June 7, 2024
If he or his family can’t use an NHS dentist like most of the population, would he prefer them to remain in agony with toothache for years until one emerged?
June 7, 2024
What do people want their candidates and MPs to do?
Well I want them to give far more direct democracy. To act in the interests of voters for a change rather than their own personal interests and those of vested interests, friends or people paying them consultancy fees. Not to lie to us that the Covid vaccines were unequivocally safe, that there is a climate emergency that a net zero war on plant food with solve will solve, that importing wood to burn at Drax makes any sense, that they have started to cut taxes they have not, that they will cut net immigration to the tens of thousands and give us a cast iron guarantee on Lisbon, that they will stop the boats, cut NHS waiting lists, repay the debt, grow the economy, give us Ā£1 IHT thresholdsā¦ stop lying and cheating us?
June 7, 2024
In short not promise one thing to get elected at elections and then deliver the complete reverse when in power for 14 years. Leaving us with even worse as a replacement in four weeks. Follow sensible scientists and not moronic group think or vested interest ones as they did during Covid and with the net zero insanity. Follow sensible small government low tax economists and not the evil big government nutters. Not give powers that belong to the people away to international bodies.
June 7, 2024
We condemn the contemporary politician and their bureaucratic allies because they deserve condemning. They have viciously and maliciously inflicted deliberate harm and damage upon our country. Call it ‘rubbing our noses in diversity’, call it Identity politics, call it Neo Marxist realignment, call it a bloodless cultural revolution, call it the weaponisation of the human space. Call it what you like. It is the systematic and hateful destruction of a nation and its rebuilding using mass immigration and Maoist, identity politics
Your party’s refusal to oppose Blair’s woke agenda will destroy this country. That is the Tory party’s lasting legacy. Be ashamed for when the real disciples of woke come to power in 4 weeks time they will drive the final nails into the coffin of the UK
There is no hate except an opinion the woke establishment fear
June 7, 2024
Well said Dom.
June 7, 2024
60 MPs maximum after Sunak’s mess up yesterday. There is no divine right for the Tories to form the opposition let alone a government. The tragedy is that there destruction is the only way forward.
June 7, 2024
Good morning.
It is not necessarily the MP, but the ‘System’ I dislike.
I dislike the way they are selected, some parachuted into a place they know little of and have no connection with. This is usually done as a reward. The same too can be said of the Honours System where cronyism is seen as rife.
I dislike the Whip. I believe that MP’s should serve and represent their constituents free from Party politics.
I dislike MP’s, Parties and governments going ‘off-piste’ on policy and breaking election promises.
Small things, but important ones I think.
Reply Whips are necessary so a group of MPs can keep party promises made in elections by all voting for the promise.They can be exploited by leaders using them to go beyond the collective promise.
June 7, 2024
Alternatively MPs going off piste could be subject to subject to democratic re election part way through parliament, which would solve your second point. We have the technology.
June 7, 2024
reply to reply…but we don’t see promises kept! and we see Whips used when individual opinion would signal acceptance, or otherwise on matters that should be across the board agreed.
June 8, 2024
Rolling re-confirmation votes for sitting MP’s. Those that vote against manifesto pledges are moved higher up the list. Say first 6 months , zero, then 10 pcm until the election is called.
HOL abolished.
Replaced by area specialists, drafted in to perfect the legislation so it works.
New slimmed down HOL ( elected by PR) where members who vote against the government are subject to rolling reconfirm votes on a similar basis.
June 8, 2024
We have legal draftsman to draft laws āso that they workā already.
If the Government is warned, as Sunak was warned, that the Rwanda legislation was not sound and would be challenged in court and overturned, he needs to listen. However he would not do so. He is the author of his own demise and the demise of the oldest and best political party on earth. š
June 7, 2024
it’s simple the Conservative government is at fault. They can change laws, introduce Bills and sack the BoE governor . They also managed Covid badly, remember the Covid fraud and dodgy PPE which was throw away, or was this labour problem to?
June 7, 2024
@Stephen Reay +1 – It has been in their gift to make changes for the last 14 years, they refused. In much the same way they have refused to manage anything. We have excessive uncontrolled spending that has been introduced without a token of management of responsibility attached. All covered up by 70 year high taxes and excessive borrowing.
The UK and its great people have become a plaything for the inept and their foreign masters. They wont even permit Parliament to be the UK’s legislators, that privileged falls to those, the unaccountable, the uninterested in the UK in foreign lands
June 7, 2024
First I would express a preference for a candidate chosen by the party electors of the constituency, a resident, not one chosen to do their bidding by party HQ in Westminster.
I do not blame government for decisions taken over Covid. With the benefit of hindsight, some were good and some were bad. I do criticise an enquiry running into years rather than months to come to a balanced view on the decision making at the time.
I do criticise your government for demostrating that after the last eight years, since leaving the EU, they are incapable of runing the UK. First they comprehensively screwed up our departure because the majority did not want to leave. Second they have done little to end EU think politically, in the civil service and associated quangos, or our banking system. From Nett Zero and its marxist dictatorship on EVs, Heat Pumps and insane drive to renewables, that has given us power at three times tbe price of power in the USA, when we have our own sources. When you have presided over the largest influx of legal and illegal immigrants in history, to the everlasting detriment of our culture, that your personal Etc Ed refuses to acknowledge, and our government refuses to correct.
You say we can lobby, read carefully this diary and you will notice that most of us do. Our lobbying is as nothing alongside the vested interrests and contributions of large corporations. Few of us think that Labour, Lib/Dems, or Greens are a viable alternative. Real Conservatives do not flow naturally towards them, they do however seem to be on a roll towards Reform, who, if true to their contract, intend to hold the feet of pro EU consocialism to the fire. I will be among them. Ironic when the current political flow in the EU is to the right.
No excuses, your government, through neglect and fantasy thinking has screwed up big time. Prepare to depart the field and reflect that on ignoring the electorate, they in turn ignore you.
June 7, 2024
+1
June 7, 2024
I’m afraid he’s right Sir John. I don’t trust the Conservative Party to do what it says any more either. Nor is it very conservative quite frankly.
If I had wanted a bunch of Green Liberals in charge, then I’d have voted Lib Dem. If I wanted Maxist policies enacted, then I’d have voted for Labour. We are now going to get a Labour Government that will do as much damage as Blair did (if not more) and I can only blame your Party for this dismal prospect. It could (and should) have been very different.
June 8, 2024
+1
June 7, 2024
If I did want to stand as a parliamentary candidate, at least I’d know I wouldn’t be slapped down at the last minute by a party central office telling me the chairman wants to stand instead of me. I grew up not far from Basildon-Billericay area, I know people there, and I can say for sure there’ll now be a lot of ex-Conservative voters in that constituency. The Holden affair has highlighted everything wrong with the party machine control of politics, including the imposition of candidates without consulting the local activists. I don’t even see why a party chairman has to be an MP. He can surely do his job outside Parliament.
June 7, 2024
Can you imagine the local activists bothering to campaign, leaflet, talk to the community for this infiltrator. A bit like the imposition of the Snake in microcosm. Everything that is wrong with the privileged few in the one nation liberal Torys who think they know better than us, the plebs.
June 7, 2024
Holden is actually HATED in Consett, the main town in the North West Durham constituency. He has been banned from some shops, he is a hopeless constituency MP and he believes that computers forecasting how people will vote is how elections are won.
Cecil Parkinson, who ran the most wonderful campaign as Party Chairman, having hones the Tory Fighting Machine to concert pitch, will be spinning ā¦ mind you, he might not have voted Conservative in the forthcoming election either ā¦.
June 7, 2024
There!
Another suitable candidate.
I thought he was wonderful too.
Where have all the suitable candidates gone?
The Party rejected themā¦every one!
June 7, 2024
Well Sir John, I will simply go with the Reform UK manifesto, full of conservative policies.
June 7, 2024
Reform are the real Conservatives now. Hopefully to replace the fake ones very soon.
June 7, 2024
Hear Hear …..I understand the tory manifesto will commit to the ECHRs, the UN WHO, net-zero, Palestine, EVs & ULEZ and 15 minute cities and green
June 7, 2024
Well I doubt if I could scrape together even one vestige of a vote.
I most certainly could not address a large crowd of people.
But honestly those who are talented and lucky enough to be selected and then approved of should at least do what they promised on the hustings.
They go forward voluntarily and derive their power from us.
Supposedly!
June 7, 2024
One day in the 1960s after school crossing Boxmoor to get the bus I saw Alec Douglas-Home speaking from a rough and ready husting.
It could have been a scene from the 1860s.
No obvious security, totally accessible and accountable.
That was democracy. And we have lost it.
June 7, 2024
The elites are in charge now !
June 7, 2024
After the de-banking furore kicked off by Coutts a few months ago, the Not-a-Conservative-Party was forced to “promise” new rules to end de-banking for political purposes. But they never actually got around to bringing them into force.
Sums up everything that is wrong with the useless empty suits in Government. The article might just as well have stopped at the first two words: Tories Fail.
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/06/06/tories-fail-to-bring-in-debanking-rules-before-election/
June 7, 2024
One way to get values back to 2019 levels would be stop importing up to one million new people each year.
That creates high demand for housing, needing a new home built every few minutes. Such excessive demand causes the cost of buying or renting a home way beyond peopleās reach, leaving them little left to pay for what else they need. Schools, hospital beds, roads, water, waste management and much else are creaking from over-demand.
A couple of years of simple foresight could have avoided the problem developing, but allowing such excess to happen instead of preventing it will cause many more years of hardship to restore what has been lost.
June 7, 2024
isn’t is funny that even after importing millions of people, we still have around a million job vacancies in the UK.
We could import another five million people and I would bet the number of job vacancies will still remain roughly the same.
June 7, 2024
Yes Mark J, and itās disgraceful.
If the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition had simply increased the number of doctor training places when they gained power 14 years ago, we would have had enough of our own British citizens trained and qualified as doctors for the past seven years!
They would not have needed to import so many people from overseas yet still be so far from coping adequately today, with patients waiting for years for treatment.
June 7, 2024
We certainly get a rising welfare bill after these rising mass immigration numbers. I wonder if the two are connected having seen the stats on certain minority ethnic groups?? Said no one, ever. UniParty fools one and all.
June 7, 2024
There are always going to be job vacancies because jobs are rarely filled instantly when someone resigns or dies or is fired. The job needs to be advertised and candidate selection follows which creates a delay with an unfilled vacancy until the new person starts. Previously, this was reckoned to amount to about 800,000 vacancies on average.
June 7, 2024
Good morning,
Sir J., its the Tory Party LIES…. from the manifesto through to recent asertions on illegal arrivals… not to mention the arrogance.
I don’t include your good-self in this comment.
June 7, 2024
@Peter Wood – SJR is a Conservative, those that make the promises write the manifesto’s are not
June 7, 2024
I don’t know how he could stomach the Conservative Parliamentary Party since the Brexit vote. Free at last – but there’s work to be done and Sir J could help….
Do not go gentle….
June 7, 2024
We want proportional representation – we want real democracy
We want the Lords numbers halved and capped and election to it by popular vote
June 7, 2024
The tory government have been talking about the lords reform for 14 years ….all talk
June 7, 2024
We ABSOLUTELY DO NOT WANT PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION!!!!
Here are the other reasons why Reform is not a viable option for Government:
1. They propose Net Zero immigration which is an improvement on the other parties but seem willing to accept that migrants can keep coming so long as British people keep leaving ā hence the ānet zeroā!!
2. By refusing to stand down in all seats regardless of the track record of individual MPs the party eliminates critical future parliamentary allies. The UK would never have left the EU with such mad electoral politics (as Reformās new leader knows!)
3. The Reform Party supports the disastrous and unnecessary Ukraine war pursued by NATO/EU for over 20 years with 500,000 Ukrainian dead and wounded.
4. It supports the end of our voting system in favour of Proportional Representation, a system which gives even more power to corporatist party machines to frustrate their members, gives small parties unwarranted power and produces coalition governments which politicians want ā but the voters DONāT!
5. Reform wants to elect the House of Lords which would then be an unacceptable rival to the Commons. Abolition would be logical ā and preferable to the establishment of a third Chamber to break the deadlock.
6. It supports lower VAT but by not changing the low threshold which daily hits small businesses.
7. Reform claims that the disastrous NHS (whose track record of killing patients is a disgrace) is āthe most loved health service in the worldā
8. The former leader Richard Tice supported COVID vaccination compulsion saying those who were not vaxed should lose their jobs! He attacks the excellent MP Andrew Bridgen for his exposure of excess deaths and vaccine dangers.
9. Reform supports no change to wasteful and corrupt overseas aid (Ā£13bn pa) – we give aid to China!
10. Political judgement is all at sea as was clear when Reform announced their candidate for the Rochdale by-election, one Simon Danczuk who had been suspended by the Labour party for sending inappropriate āsexyā text messages to a 17-year-old:
June 7, 2024
Lynne,
Poor list by comparison.
Your list would be much longer why Tory and Unionist party are not suitable in any regard for office starting with betraying the nation, N.Ireland, fail to deliver Brexit, but moreover are not conservative nor unionists! They even hate their own supporters smearing and labelling them as Turnip Taliban swivelled eyed loons because the supporters wanted to control and limit immigration! So it lied to get elected and now have a list of historic highs in the failure to deliver ie taxation, immigration, illegal immigration, debt, debt interest, public services, failed crime and disorder. In contrast claim biggest achievement gay, which had no mandate and ban smoking!!
Tory party is a busted flush you should not associate yourself with a tarnished rotten dishonest organisation. I am sure you are far better this.
June 8, 2024
You don’t reference your claims about Reform UK’s policies, Lynn. Your list seems rather different from what Reform UK say about themselves:-
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/0/reform-uk-manifesto-richard-tice-key-policies-glance/
I prefer to go on what I read there, not on what you say.
June 8, 2024
Give Reform time. The Civil Service will have them hound and gagged within hours were they to gain power – which they will not I hope.
What Reform propose in overturning our Constitutional settlement is existential for Democracy and irreversible.
I would prefer Labour anyday – or even the Tories.
But Reform are useful as a dustbin vote – better than the traditional dustbin aka the Lib Demās.
June 8, 2024
Clough so long as you donāt hear that which offends you Iām sure you will be happy. Look up each of my statements – all on record. A computer search is easy enough. In addition of course, Reform is a Corporation wholly owned by Tice.
June 7, 2024
It suddenly occurred to me that maybe Cameronās āTurnip Talibanā debacle was not so much about ridding himself of ātroublesomeā candidates but more about imposing DEI.
Before that we got candidates who were chosen for their suitability to the job of MP.
There is absolutely no way that having known our now deceased MP here one could not be surprised, disappointed and critical of his successor.
The present one has wilfully allowed Labour to gain a foothold. Previously unthinkable. And is now set ( or maybe has, youād never notice) to resign.
June 7, 2024
We have not had suitable candidates chosen by the Party Machines. They always choose those easiest to ācontrolā, I.e compromised people. This long predates Cameron WHO WAS HIMSELF CHOSEN BY THE PARTY MACHINE. Make of that what you will.
June 7, 2024
Or as the wonderful and extremely suitable candidate Lord Tebbit said..
āIt’s not so much that Cameron and [George] Osborne didn’t know the price of milk, but that they didn’t know emotionally that the price of milk was important to people. That’s the difference.”
June 7, 2024
Your piece today describes the journey to putting a tick against the least worst option Sir John. Was that your aspiration when you became an MP.
Voters would like a certain amount of independence from their candidates (as you and some of your colleagues do manage) rather than slavishly following party instructions. Voters would like to see governments defeated more often with dissent from their own side when they over step their mandate.
Voters would be best served by local single issue candidates to keep the majority honest in Parliament. 50 or so independents holding the balance of power in a minority administration might make our lives less intruded into by big government.
June 7, 2024
There was a chance for the Conservatives to salvage their plummeting popularity at the time of the collapse of Boris Johnsonās govt. we were back to -5% on the day he left. That chance was a smooth transition to Sunak, who in this alternative universe would not have been beholden to the blob in the way he has been, wouldnāt have had Hunt as chancellor etc.But the Conservative Party chose Liz Truss and we went in 7 weeks to -30% in the polls. It was ERM 2.0 Iām afraid. (Labour et al were of course also in favour of ERM but itās the govt wot dun it that got the blame).
It really is too bad. (Some of us who think of ourselves as being on the ārightā of the party did point this out at the time.)
Reply It was LDI 1 not ERM 2, atrocious central banking.
June 7, 2024
Oooo!
How did you do that?
Any other colours?
June 7, 2024
Not sure
June 7, 2024
@Richard1 – LDI was and is a problem. The boss of the FCA pointed this out and suggested he would change it at its inception. He forgot and didn’t get round to it. Then when it blew up, the FCA boss was then in charge of the BoE and some of us believe he created a crisis through briefing against government to hide his tracks and ineptitude. The over reaction was to instant to be anything else
The Conservative Government Cabinet like all Cabinet’s is a collective responsibility unit, BoJo might have been moved on but it is still his team at the helm
June 7, 2024
Not only. It was a budget with a very un-Thatcherite refusal to indicate any controls on spending when announcing (sensible) tax cuts and a (silly) uncapped energy price subsidy. And no ability to make the arguments in an articulate way.
June 7, 2024
A smooth transition to Sunak – a snake we have been proved right about- wasn’t electable. He seemed to have plotted and planned to bring down Boris because Boris is a winner whether you like him personally or not. Boris disappointed me by not staying on to win his seat back after the fix was in but I remember he was soon to be a father again, can make more money on the outside of politics for his new family and frankly must be laughing his box off now.
The whole Liz thing has a bad smell about it, even the King said, “Back again, dear, Oh dear” when he met her almost as though he knew she wasn’t to last.
I feel sorry for Penny tonight. Sunak has kyboshed her big debut as she’s asked to defend him. Don’t you get the feeling he is meant to lose big.
June 7, 2024
Boris Johnson did for his own PM-ship, his govt collapsed. He has only himself to blame. Those of us who voted for him were badly let down.
June 7, 2024
+1 we voted for the only candidate not committed to overturning the Brexit vote. But Boris Johnson has always been a globalist one-world-government enthusiast.
June 7, 2024
The Blair government created an incredibly far reaching straight jacket that impedes any sort of right wing action by successive administrations.
Add to that DEI and left wing entryism and you have a very shaky democracy.
IDS probably summed it up with his talk of dogs and bones.
How does a government undo the unthinkable when the unthinkable gains votes?
Unthinkable = devastatingly damaging welfare benefits and laws that donāt work. I mean..lookā¦after the Plague they could scarcely get the workers back to work! How could the tories stop benefits? (Although I suppose they started it all with things like Corby and sickness payments rather than dole)
If only their main objective had been to unravel all of TBās elephant traps!
June 7, 2024
@Everhopeful – if we had had a Conservative Government they could have simply changed things – but we didn’t get one and the chance of getting one again has been killed off by the Socialist terrorist within CCHQ and the Conservative Party leadership
June 7, 2024
Exactly.
There wasnāt really much hope anyway.
Didnāt Cameron and Osborne absolutely admire Blair?
āThe Masterā or somesuch.
Ah wellā¦apparently all is lost now ā¦total meltdown and chaos.
Weād better get out our hammer and sickle badges!
June 7, 2024
SJR, I’d have no trouble advocating policies that people would want to vote for. They are the opposite of the policies your party followed in government: mass migration, net zero, high taxes to pay for disastrous ideas like the Covid lockdowns, foreign wars, and handouts to NGOs and ‘charities’ engaged in woke social engineering. When I went out canvassing, though, I’d be up against squads of activists bussed in from elsewhere by the main parties, going round the streets shoring up voter support for their heritage brands. I’d struggle to afford even one leaflet for the tens of thousands of people in my constituency, never mind paying commercially to have them delivered. The big parties would get a leaflet delivered each week of the campaign. I’d get no air time, their messaging would be all over the media, and above all the First-Past-the- Post system would guarantee one of them would win. So tell me why I would bother.
June 7, 2024
You forgot Reform, of course. You know, that party which is way ahead of the Libdems whom you do mention. Why on earth still hitch your wagon to this bunch of Tory charlatans. Nobody believes their ridiculous promises any longer. Another bullxxxx promise on child benefit today. If it was meant you had 14 years to do it.
The choice is between the remainder of parties.
June 7, 2024
Off topic, but I remember when Michael Foot was vilified by some Conservative MPs for wearing the wrong colour coat at the Remembrance Day ceremony at the Cenotaph. Imagine if he’d also left half-way through the ceremony in order to have a chat with the Daily Express at a time he’d specifically arranged himself.
June 7, 2024
I am in a slight quandary. Our new Tory candidate James Uffindell has run a successful business and distributed what I thought was an impressive survey some months ago asking for peopleās views on key issues. There were no loaded questions and I responded. He would get my vote under normal circumstances- ie if the current government were broadly performing well and in the interests of indigenous citizens. But it is not, which is why my voting decision will likely be either a spoilt ballot or possibly Reform (with their commitment to proportional representation which I dislike). I deeply resent this unimpressive PM and government making me think this way.
June 7, 2024
If you see a good candidate, I strongly urge you to vote for him/her, no matter what colour rosette they wear. I always vote for the person, not the party.
June 8, 2024
Absolutely critical to do so. That is how we achieve a patriotic House!
June 7, 2024
The problem is not just the publics poor opinion of politicians and political parties, it also the poor opnion of the adversarial political system and institutions. Consider the weekly spectacle of Prime Ministers Question Time, a poor example of constructive behaviour to say the least.
June 7, 2024
I want my candidate to stand up for the manifesto he or she was elected upon. Equally I do not expect them to instantly search for a job āon the booksā and then disappear behind ācollective responsibilityā . Remove the threat of whips sanctions when they can link their vote to their promises to the electorate.
I want political honours banned, they are little more than bribes/pay offs for support or keeping quiet. I have no doubt the system is ācorruptā
I want honesty not BS. Government to acknowledge mistakes/shortcomings. Look at what spokesman/woman say when challenged. Always a justification or avoids the question. Equally Ministers in Parliament.
I need my MP to be informed, inquisitive and prepared to hold Ministers to account. In this respect stop treating us like fools when you talk about Civil Service reform, head count reduction, efficiency savings, IHT etc all utter tosh. All repeated but not acted upon when voter hot breath gets too uncomfortable.
Ministers with no experience of senior performance driven management appointed often appointed for political not ability reasons and moved on every 18 months or whatever, no time to get hold of brief and achieve change. A recipe for the disaster that is your administration.
I note your comments about Covid, the BOE etc but what you fail to acknowledge is that your party has been captured by the Wets who thought they could force a social democrat agenda with Johnson centrist, liberal, hosing out money, Gove allegedly proud to be a Whig ignoring why especially the Red Wall voted for them. Theresa May having secretly tried to sell us out on Brexit sat like a vulture in the Commons tut tutting when anything ārightā suggested supported by her mate Damian Green head of said Wets, aka One Nation group.
They were more than happy to see you etc on the Right labelled as dinosaurs but surprise surprise and shows their dishonesty, where have they moved to to try and get re elected? Still your Central Office is imposing centrist candidates ignoring the constituency parties.
Itās āyourā fault that a vacuum on the right has been created and arrogant/cloth eared that āyouā failed to recognise the threat/challenge of Reform.
I donāt want Starmer but the only way to get realignment is to clear out the present incumbents with the death of a once 80 majority Tory party as their political legacy.
To answer your question. What do I want? People with the drive and vision who would not look out of place driving a large corporate. Sadly as we see so often with people moving out from the CS, at best we get mainly second division.
June 7, 2024
That would work except that 3 things have gotten in the way:
1. The liberal left have a stranglehold on the establishment and effectively override democratic institutions;
2. External political influences have ensured also that democracy is put in second place;
3. Special interest groups wield far too much power, influencing decisions, often negating the will of the voters.
What we want from our MPs is that they be responsive to our problems. Rather than just replying to a request with a standard response supplied by a civil servant, we we want to see the MP understands and is prepared to support action.
All too often it seems that writing to your MP is a waste of time and effort.
We want MPs to fight the establishment and have a mind of their own. If they can’t think for themselves on many subjects then they are in the wrong job.
June 7, 2024
“What do people want their candidates and MPs to do?”
I would like Conservatives to go on an intensive training course to re-learn what being a Conservative means.
I would like Labour candidates to stop preaching their right-on DEI. Rights for everyone (except the White Heritage English population) Stop pretending throwing tax-payers money at everything in a vain hope it will work (notably the NHS) Come up with a credible plan to reduce (end) immigration legal and illegal.
I would like the LIb-Dems to face the fact they are unpopular, have no worthwhile policies and really just want to rejoin the EU.
I would like the Greens to simply go away. The population does not want to live in caves, eating grass and freezing to death. It’s 2024 not 100BC.
I would like Reform to win a seat or two in the forthcoming election, simply to get their voice into Westminster.
June 7, 2024
A speech by Andrew Bridgen has the same effect on members as the Fire alarm going off. Bridgen has a degree in biological science so is in a better position to interrogate Covid ‘vaccine’ efficacy than PPE, History and Social Science graduates who accept what they are told by ‘experts’ and reject any other legitimate view by blocking their ears.
June 7, 2024
He is an outstanding MP and should be returned. The rosette he wears is irrelevant, he is true blue and we need every last one of those. Anyone within shouting distance of North West Leicestershire please consider campaigning for Bridgen.
June 7, 2024
You answered your own question in the interest rate blog. Now you can write what you want.
I want this culture of OmertĆ to end, it allows failure, mediocrity, political dishonesty to flourish and we suffer from the results.
June 7, 2024
Take planning away from local councils. Require them to zone their area for housing/industry within 6 months – or have it zoned for them. Publish building standards and for the cheaper end of the market some standard designs that are pre-approved. Have the means to inspect and punish hard. We don’t have the luxury of being mini Pevsners.
June 7, 2024
Non Partisan primary elections would give local individuals a chance to compete against well funded national parties that dictate who you will be allowed to vote for; particularly in “safe seats”. For instance; “Tory chair chosen to stand in safe seat 300 miles from former constituency”. Q.E.D.
June 7, 2024
A PM who wans to be re-elected, prioritising D-Day events over a TV interview, would be a good start.
No doubt countless Conservative votes will now have been lost over this huge error of judgement.
An apology will not quell the anger Rishi has caused.
June 7, 2024
What you don’t mention is what disgruntled voters should do if they’re unhappy with the Conservative Party and consider Lab/ LibDem/ … worse.āMany are intending to stay at home in protest or spoil their ballot paper; a -1 to the tally of national Tory votes.āBut some are switching to Reform which gives: Tory -1, Reform +1.āThe difference increases by two so sends a stronger signal to the remnants of the Conservatives who wish to re-build on where to pitch.āReform need not get a single MP, yet their vote share will still have impact.āJust as UKIP’s harvesting of votes pushed Cameron to show the state is willing to blatantly lie to the electorate, e.g. the markets will fall the morning after.
June 7, 2024
And in other news Sunak bunks off D Day celebrations to do an interview that could have waited a day. Now forced to make an apology.
Can he or his advisers be any more inept?
June 7, 2024
I’m still more upset with him for having added Ā£500bn to the National Debt during his time as Chancellor and then PM, with nothing to show for all the money borrowed.
June 7, 2024
You couldn’t adam & eve it
June 8, 2024
Someone should take a butchers at his schedule.
June 7, 2024
JR, don’t take the majority of comments as a personal attack against you personally.
People alare highly fed up with the direction of the Conservatives in general.
When I lived in Lower Earley, I had voted for you on a number of occasions in the GE. In the GE’s of 1997, 2001, 2005, 2010 and 2015.
I believe you were an asset in the Conservatives and thank you for your service to Wokingham from 1987 to 2024.
I still cannot fathom, with your wealth of financial knowledge, you were not made Chancellor of the Exchequer.
If there were more MPs like you in the Conservative party (and cabinet), then it wouldn’t be staring down the barrel of massive defeat.
June 7, 2024
Sir John
With respect what is suggested is a candidate, a prospect MP, is no longer the person that will represent and serve constituents in Parliament and the Country, but they are appointed agents of Gang Leaders. They have become candidates as they are seen as doing their leaders bidding before serving Constituents and the Country. There is no such thing as split loyalty.
The Politicos that now run our structures and systems keep moving away by force the simplistic ideal of ‘Government for the People by the People’ We the people only see democracy as when that situation is in place. It may be too simplistic and idealist, but it is they only thing that can be called democracy. Everything else is a corruption of democracy.
Over the years our Parliament and its Leadership has fought everything that challenges it, anything that asks it to serve the people of this Country anything were the people get to hold them to account. In a desperate need to go through life unchallenged we now have ‘5’ year terms before these gangs and their agents can even seek tacit approval of their performance and direction. It should only ever be 2 years.
This is not Democracy this is destruction of Society.
June 7, 2024
OT, todays news that our PM abandoned the D-Day remembrance ceremony to record a TV interview shows me that he has utter contempt for Britain, its allies and all those brave youths who took part in and died to eventually bring peace and cohesion on the continent of Europe. Utter contempt and lack of any common sense.
June 7, 2024
Further than contempt, he has no understanding, no feeling, no cultural connection, no historical understanding. Why is he here anyway?
Why do we have people like him in such positions, why did the Conservative party choose him?
Shows how they are completely unconnected with ordinary people. They are arrogant, they think they are superior, that we are of no consequence.
In case anyone reading is wondering what my politics are – no, I am not a socialist, I want freedoms.
I want rid of the present Tories who consider themselves intellectually and socially superior. I want MPs who are from our backgrounds, who have done real work, got their hands dirty and not spent their entire lives as academics and theorisers.
June 7, 2024
It also suggested he saw little point in the opportunity to speak with other leaders present, presumablh because he doesn’texpect to be able to follow up.
June 7, 2024
In your list of reasons for the dislike of the Conservatives by ‘An important bloc of former Conservative voters’, you omit another very, possibly the most, important one: the extreme divergence between the manifesto on which the Conservatives stood in 2019, and what they actually did when in office. As a result, nobody trusts them, and at base, there does not seem much of a gap between them and Labour. They have shown little sign of belief in the importance of enterprise, property ownership rights and the freedom that goes with low taxation.
My local Conservative MP I am glad to say, does clearly believe in these things, and I will probably vote for her, but it will be for her personally, and not for Sunak, Hunt, or any of their Social Democrat minions. I hope the Election will rid us of them.
June 7, 2024
Sunak left the D-Day worldwide coverage early so he could do an ITN news feature…..
me, me, me ….probably cost the Tories 5% swing against.
The man has no clue as to importance to the World, the UK, the voters.
June 7, 2024
I wonder who’ll be the new tory leader after the election ?
June 7, 2024
āMany people are searching for the perfect party or the faultless candidate.ā
That is unfair. All we wanted was for the Government to deliver on its manifesto promises. I feel betrayed and let down. Your party could have stayed in power for decades if it had delivered just some of its promises. The fact it has gone massively the other way has led to its downfall. Contributors on here are only voicing what the majority think. The fact that your party hasnāt heeded public opinion is what has led to its downfall.
June 7, 2024
You do not need to be a Politician to make a difference to your community.
Thousands of people volunteer to do unpaid tasks/work locally every day, many, myself included, belong to Charitable organisations to which we pay a membership fee.
Why pay, because you are then covered by that organisations Public liability insurance policy, have access to their legal advice on health and safety, an important necessity nowadays in our claim for everything culture.
Unfortunately membership of many such organisations is now falling for many different reasons, and fund raising events are becoming ever more expensive to organise due to Health and Safety, Event insurance, and Local Authority fees and requirements.
It is slowly becoming too much hassle to volunteer for much longer, but it is taken for granted by many Politicians and Local Authorities, who think it will continue for ever.
June 7, 2024
The trouble is that neither do the Tories. To my mind, the single biggest boost to the economy would be radical reform ā or, preferably, destruction ā of the 1948 Town and Country Planning Act (and its successors), plus the associated EU-imposed environmental and sustainability regulations.
Without the ability to build things quickly and easily, we cannot do many of the things that you yourself advocate, e.g. building more power stations, solving the housing crisis through building more homes, etc.
The Conservatives have tried to amend planning laws, in a rather pathetic and ineffective manner, and could not even get the modest reforms through the House ā largely because their own MPs would not wear it.
So, not only is no one addressing this colossal elephant, but no main party has any intention of doing so. Which is why no one is very keen on voting for any of the main parties.
DK
June 7, 2024
What I would like our MP’s to do? First and last thing; challenge the thinking, and so, the decision making of Parliament, and those that represent us! Especially, Local Government!
To quote Lynn, from above, “Politicians presume to make unilateral, unauthorised, life-changing decisions and then deny those decisions. Itās unbecoming and worthy of being sacked. You can make mistakes but you canāt lie.”
Not enough People are being Sacked! For example Tony Blair/GB, and David Cameron/GO made some very short sighted, terror-able, decisions!
Not forgetting T May???
The largest problem we have, is the System! It needs Major Reform! Constitutionally; We have allowed things like Devolution to take hold, but at what cost (I have no doubt, it will break up the UK, if not repealed)!
The House of Lords needs to be Elected, even if it were to gain greater authority to challenge the House of Commons! The key is not their challenge, but deadlock! A mechanism can be found!
The King needs to be removed from a Position where the monarch can build up it’s own support (and Power) and over time, attaching strings to our representatives, within the HoL and HoC! It should actually become a passive, symbolic, role, as his supporters try and suggest he has today! Removed from influence over daily legislation, strategy/finance, and/or any constitutional structures! Particular the BoE, FCO, the Military, Intelligence, Civil Servants! Etc,…
The constitutional structures should not allow impose local Serfdom, with dominant party’s, as in small C conservatism, combined with the effect of Devolution, as in Wales! Which is being used to undermine Individual wealth generation, and our freedoms! The Labour (Blair) is happy, so not change there, then!
We needed action some time ago, because we are now entering a Marxist phase! Unchallenged, Top-Down, alignment to a Customs Union and Single Market rules, Climate Change, and the unchallenged Net Zero rubbish!
But, isn’t just a Constitutional Problem; Things like Universal Credit are going unchallenged! It completely undermines a Price Mechanism (as in a structured Economy, a Customs Union we are still aligned too)! One Nation Tory’s think they can use it to control the Middle and Lower classes, without any regard to our Freedoms, and access to Opportunity! As far as I’m concerned, it is a Flexible Free market Economy and Trade, that has produced the most efficient economy, (Productivity, Competitiveness), for this country!
The Europe, and the EU, has different, but now having very real problems!
We just need our Politicians to work out, and discuss, what is in the British Interest! It’s not being selfish! It accepts that we have different outlook, and always, have!
Free Markets can give us an advantage, as long as we don’t open us up to big company’s and exposes, us to geopolitical influences! Learn from past lessons! A Free Market driven Economy can be made to work for all!
My list would start;
Reform of Self Employment and Wealth Generation, for Individual and family’s!
House building, and now, social housing! 400K + per year!
Manufacturing Primary Steel!, a foundational product, needed by an independent, Free, Country!
Cheap, home grown, Energy; Oil&Gas, fracking, even, in the longer term Nuclear!
Restricted, controlled, migration, to suit the Economic needs!
Access to Education, Stills, and training!
Build up the Military, and move away from static elite structures!
But, sadly, it seems all to late!
BR
RDM.
June 7, 2024
Mike Lynch – cleared. That’s a welcome turn up. Dumping failure to do due-diligence on the Courts will now make lazy management think.
How does the UK voter get to do due-diligence on those that wish to serve them, they don’t they are denied that.
June 7, 2024
I donāt want āfaultless candidatesā but I do want different candidates. In important ways.
If you look at the way diversity is implemented in the UK it has increased the representation of ethnic minorities and females and gays, and that to some degree was fair enough. But as its currently implemented DEI is active discrimination against white hetro working class males, and this is as true in parliament as anywhere else in our country. If DEI was working then proportions of demographics in parliament would broadly match their proportions in the real world outside parliament. But we can all see that is not the case. The Labour movement used to sponsor and promote clever people from the white working class communities through education and many became MPās, that whole route has pretty much been abandoned. In the real world there are many educated people in important middle class jobs retaining the working class accents of their youth, but hardly any of these end up in parliament. In some ways Scotland is better than England in this regard, as at least broad Scottish accents are common in parliament in ways which broad regional and working class English accents are not.
The candidate selection processes of all the main parties are broken, and the marketing, organisation, backup, brand name, of a major party is pretty much essential to stand any chance of winning a seat, independent MPās are far fewer and the reasons are obvious. I would like to see the selection processes themselves made more democratic. I would like to see things done which address the imbalance felt by anyone standing independently.
Its far too easy to stand for parliament if you have the kind of job where a 5 year sabbatical does not kill your job. These kinds of role are mainly public sector, or law, and exactly the kinds of people who end up in parliament. For most of the wealth creating part of the economy 5 years out would make you unemployable in your main career, as you had become too out of date etc. This needs fixing.
Far too many MPās are poor quality, have done nothing but politics at uni, work for a political party or the public sector bureaucracy, then stand for parliament.
In my days at uni there were 2 kinds of student who stood for election to be officers of the student union. There were the art student candidates who had lots of sales skills, very BS presentationally good in a superficial way, hung a lot of their posters on the latest fashions and trends in ways of speaking and causes to support. Then there were the science/engineering candidates, often hard to get any to stand for election at all, focussed on substance, knew what they were talking about, and very little gloss to them, but were often actually great leaders in far more humble ways. The problem with parliament in recent times is that the vast majority of MPās are exactly like art student officers of the student union, and not at all like science/engineering officers of the student union, and it shows constantly. And they tend to select people like themselves into allsorts of roles both within the parties, and within the public sector, and that is unbalanced and bad for the country.
When I have worked in the US its far more meritocratic than anywhere in the UK. Nobody is impressed with accents, or old school or regimental ties, or who your dad knows. The UK is the opposite, and this is also reflected in the political system. A good political policy would be to push for far more meritocracy, and including in that within the way candidates get selected, the way MPās are promoted, and so on.
June 7, 2024
āI can understand their frustration at the long COVID lockdown, the Bankās inflationary money printing, the disruption of energy markets by war in Ukraine and the big expansion of the state to micro manage our lives and the economy as a result. It has meant taxes too high, state services losing productivity and quality, and too much borrowing.ā
Youāve missed the two biggest issues, Sir John, immigration and Net Zero.
I want a Parliament of MPs who are not working to destroy the country with a massive alien invasion (legal and illegal), Net Zero, de-industrialisation, high state employment and wasteful spending in order to keep taxation high, and not using the BBC to prepare us for a Marxist coup with CAGW, DEI, ESG, Critical Race Theory, Queer Theory and bullying us into forcibly repeating XY=XX.
June 7, 2024
PS :
The M.O. is becoming clear. Just as the current Opposition wants open borders, quicker Net Zero and earlier and longer lock-downs, the Conservative HQ are parachuting into their safe seats their own so that when they become the Opposition they too will be pushing for more immigration and an even quicker transition to Net Zero.
Weāre going to need referendums.
June 7, 2024
‘immigration and Net Zero’ are the only two things people are talking about ….and ignored by the tories
June 7, 2024
Few people expect perfection from any party, but consistency is a trait which I value. Boris Johnson referred to “catastrophic consequences” to our savings if we had to pay for all our social care. As a party which supports thrift, you would expect Conservatives to encourage saving and to avoid people being completely cleaned out by social care. I understood a cap of Ā£86,000 was agreed on an individual’s payments. Then a “postponement” was mentioned. I didn’t hear any more, but perhaps there was a further “postponement”. The position now is not clear to me.
June 7, 2024
I want a government that is more interested in building coal fired power stations than vaccine factories.
I want a government that spends our money defending our borders rather than funding other countriesā wars.
I want a government that serves the people of this country rather than the interests of globalist billionaires.
June 7, 2024
Nothing unreasonable there.
June 7, 2024
+many, spot on RichardP
June 7, 2024
In fact, that should be the 3 lines of the new tory manifesto ….and the only 3 lines of the manifesto – they’d win the election hands down
June 8, 2024
Could not agree more.
Simple and Succinct.
Well said, sir.
June 7, 2024
Dear Mr. Redwood,
Your opening paragraph today displays an uncharacteristic sarcasm on your part.
If some of your readers had demonstrated the same level of competence in their own jobs and careers as the current crop of government ministers have, they would have lost their livelihoods a long time ago.
Voters are not looking for perfection but they are entitled to expect high standards from their elected representatives and high levels of public service as an absolute minimum. You (I use the word collectively) are running a country with all the responsibilities that that entails. You are lawmakers. There is no room to get things as badly wrong as your government has done on all the major issues – immigration, taxation, health, energy policy. The list goes on.
When the general election dust has settled, in all likelihood the Conservative party will be able to spend some time deciding how to make itself electable again. That will require a belief in something and a vision for the future of our country and not just a ‘well, we might be crap but the other parties are much worse’. That is not very useful or helpful.
June 8, 2024
+1 Agree on all of the above.
June 7, 2024
The MPās job was once a part-time position.
Nowadays, the lay person would need to give up their job or have no meaningful job in the first place as MPs are now full time.
The independent candidate is in a chicken-and-egg situation whereby they have no access to the media and no party brand and machine and, most of all, they have limited time and resources.
What we need is an existing political party to see the light and repeal many of our damaging and useless laws, including āgesture lawsā and reduce Parliamentās addiction to law-making.
If this can happen, the job of an MP will once again be accessible to lay people, especially if Parliament only meets, say, one day a month and perhaps could take advantage of remote voting and, say, only meet once per year in person.
The Conservatives have shown that they are not Conservatives and have proved that they cannot be trusted.
The only political party that is likely to reduce the size of the statute book is the Reform Party. They have no chance this time round but they can build into a powerful force over time and only then will a lay person be motivated to lodge papers as a candidate.
Vote Reform!
June 7, 2024
We must blindly choose the candidates’ details unless we know them and their opinion over the years they’ve already been MPs, such as yourself, John.
When someone is a candidate for the first time, as well as a brief 300-word resume about them, they should answer some questions on their core beliefs to indicate which way they would vote on things that matter to us.
People are being asked to vote for Conservative candidates without knowing anything about them, as many previous MPs have now stood down. Many chose Rishi against our wishes, so that’s annoying. My MP foisted him on us, then didn’t support him and stood down!
We thought we were voting in low-tax conservatives, but instead, we got frozen income tax thresholds for the next four years and a significant increase in corporation tax, saving Labour from having to do the deed.
June 7, 2024
I wrote many months ago that the Conservatives were on course to emulate the Progressive Conservatives in Canada who were wiped out in 1993. It looks even more certain now after Sunak preferred to return early from the D-Day ceremony which, it transpires, he didn’t initially intend attending. Perhaps he hopes for a wipeout then he can go to California and further enrich himself?
June 7, 2024
Why do Sunak leave the D-Day commemorations early?
Why did Sunak declare a GE outside in the rain?
It doesn’t make sense. It isn’t logical. No sane person would do this unless of course, you’re trying to throw and lose the GE on purpose. And why would little Rishi do that? I’ll tell you why. He knows a Lab government will take the UK back into the EU while preventing blame for this being heaped onto the dying Tory party
Cameron is still the de facto PM in the same way that filthy Obama is still the POTUS
Sneaky Oxbridge grifters
ps. I note the Tories didn’t pass laws criminalising debanking.
June 7, 2024
Your assumption maybe correct ….they’re dead ducks now, and they’ve left us to communism
June 8, 2024
DOM – you are SO Close to the Truth.
Similar with JR stepping down!!!!!!
Nothing can stop what is coming NOTHING.
TRUST the PLAN,
Panic everywhere.
Bring it on.
June 7, 2024
Micheal Ashcroft focus group poll
In this snapshot, we also find large numbers ā including a massive 31 per cent of those who voted Tory in 2019 ā who say they donāt know what to do or will not vote at all.
āSome of those 2019 Conservatives prefer the Tories to Labour but are minded to switch, instead, to Reform UKā
āNational security, strong for Tories in the past, however, this week Iāve found voters more likely to say they trusted Sir Keir Starmer and Labour on the issue than Mr Sunak and the Conservatives.ā
āPoll, looking at different aspects of being Prime Minister, we find Sir Keir ahead on everything from representing the UK abroad (by eight points) to āmaking things happen and getting things doneā (by 14 points) to āunderstanding people like meā (by 27 points).ā
Lord Ashcroft as he now is, has massively helped the Conservatives over the years, his focus groups usually pick up on the mood that plays out to reflect the final position.
I am reminded of one of his functions at which one of his managers got up to say there is a ālight at the end of the tunnelā when talking about tough times and his own performance. Ashcroft then reportable said to those at his table āwhat that guy canāt see that that light is an express train about to take him outā
June 7, 2024
It didn’t have to be this bad but the Conservative Party along with CCHQ choose to self explode
June 8, 2024
Yes, indeed Ian.
There are big savings and good news out there, absolute silence on it.
June 7, 2024
I agree with you & I am one of the electorate who berates the decisions many politicians make. I understand that many choices are difficult & no politician knows everything about everything. Hence the need for advisors & experts.
But what is so frustrating is when a party is elected to deliver a detailed manifesto. To then ignore that when in office & as the electorate has seen deliver the opposite. Without explaining why!
I was impressed when Boris became PM. When he did his weekly TV broadcasts. Telling us a top line update & answering people’s questions. It may well have been staged but he was connecting with us & that is a very powerful tool. Quite the opposite to the Tory Grandees’s attempts to impose a PM to do their bidding! Like children throwing their toys out of the pram!
That is why the Tories will suffer in GE.
Those in Westminster who tried to over turn a referendum & a GE will be punished for their disloyalty at the ballot box.
June 7, 2024
Whatever happens at the General Election, the Conservatives have only themselves to blame. When you ignore the people who voted you in and do the exact opposite of what they voted for, you deserve what happens.
The budget was the last chance to change the narrative, but Hunt and Sunak are both too weak and timid to take the action needed. Freezing the tax allowances was and is a massive mistake that should have been corrected.
Now we are supposed to believe they are both tax cutters!!
June 7, 2024
It was not the Covid lockdown itself that was anti-Conservative, but the decision to subsidise businesses with public money, which has caused ongoing economic chaos as cosseted employees insist on continuing to stay at home on full salaries. This is why nobody will vote for Sunak – he has ruined the country.
You do not mention the two key issues: the first is Brexit, which many Conservative MPs dishonestly promised with fingers crossed behind their backs, and a barely concealed determination to rejoin the EU by whatever means possible, even that of keeping NI within the EU and helping Labour to win the next election – and yes, I have have a list of offenders, based on close monitoring of the debates in the HoC, but understandably you would not publish it.
The second – related – is Immigration, deliberately fostered to keep the inefficient large pro-rejoin businesses who need cheap labour to boost their profits and widen their moats against SME competition. the country is stuffed full of newbies who all need housing, welfare (including low-paid working welfare) and medical care.
Labour/LibDem/SNP will all exacerbate this problem. But the Tories have done nothing at all to cure it except bicker internally. Clearly, the lawyer MPs are all afraid of leaving the ECHR as – however obviously necessary that step is – it would deleteriously affect their future employment in international tribunals.
June 8, 2024
+1 ššš
June 8, 2024
MANCUNIUS -The lock down was all part of the Globalist Plan.
The Establishment do not want Brexit.
Immigration – all part of the globalist PLAN beware of theTROJAN Horse.
All parties are the same. NOTHING will change unti WE change our governmental system.
June 7, 2024
The Great Reform Act of 1832 got rid of the Rotten Boroughs and broadened the franchise.
We now need a new Great Reform to get rid of the Rotten Parties, where the franchise for choosing who our representatives might be is at the narrowest it has been since those times. The NEC and CCHQ and other tiny cabals in other parties get to select those they trust to support them. The electoral system is heavily tilted to the established parties under Electoral Commission rules.
Because of control by clique and many years spent endorsing EU law rather than proper debate the ability of many (particularly more recent) MPs falls far short of that necessary to steer the ship of state. Some are the butt of constant jokes for their incompetence and yet the system keeps them.
A new party or parties that concentrates on winnowing its potential representation to people who are clearly competent and honest and with a sense of public duty is needed. As with D-Day, we are seeing the disappearance of the last of the generation who had those qualities in Parliament. They need solid backgrounds across a range of policy areas. Then we might have a Parliament fit to take on the quangos, civil servants, international organisations and judiciary who now think they have the undemocratic right to rule us.
June 8, 2024
+1 Exactly so.
June 7, 2024
Amendment: ‘As a result, the country is stuffed full…’ etc
June 7, 2024
So Sunak, who thinks it is appropriate to tell youngsters they have a duty to do National Service, couldn’t even be bothered to stay at the 80-year D-Day Commemorations …..the last time any veterans will be there.
He had a DUTY to be there to represent the British Government.
Who on earth thought he’d be PM material and organised for him to be parachuted into No.10. Whoever it was, they should be sectioned.
June 7, 2024
+1 we know who opted for Sunak. Donāt return them.
June 7, 2024
The doubts about a potential Labour government are extremely well founded in my opinion; however the Conservatives have veered to the left, ignoring their core voters wishes and their own stated principles.
My understanding of what Conservatives should stand for is (in no particular order): –
1/ Law and Order
2/ Small state
3/ Financial acuity
5/ Individual Freedom.
These have been dumped into the dustbin of history.
We have a Conservative government with a 50 seat majority who cannot get anything done and don’t know what to do if they could. The PM’s big ideas about an excrutiatingly difficult to enforce smoking ban (when police won’t turn out for robbery, what is the point of passing fiddly low-level legislation like this? It won’t be enforced) and a change in A levels that will take 10 years to materialise are no solution to the issues of financial laxity, low productivity or Civi Service intransigence.
If the Conservatives do not get a trouncing, they will not change. Why would they?
A Labour government has no better idea of how to address the nations challenges and, in my opinion, will be actively harmful, but the Tories need refreshing. They need to start selecting potential MP’s on the basis of traditional Toriy core values if they want to attract/retain those supporters who have regularly returned them to office. Currently they seem to be a Lib-Dem tribute act and the Lib-Dems don’t do government.
We are all heading on a trip in the wilderness. Hopefully it won’t be for forty years.
June 8, 2024
+1 Well said.
June 8, 2024
1/ Law and Order
2/ Small state
3/ Financial acuity
5/ Individual Freedom.
YES
That means not appeasing religious fundamentalists.
June 7, 2024
316 illegal aliens /boat people arrived yesterday (D-Day) from the safe country of France (not at war)
June 7, 2024
I appreciate what you’ve written but I think there is a fundamental point that a lot of politicians are missing. That there seems to be a “Disconnect” between MPs/politicians and the public. Their ideals come at the expense of ordinary voters. Everyone is going to talk about it but so the PM’s blunder with D-Day is a great example of the disconnect and so is providing children’s benefits relief for high earners.
During the campaign it hasn’t occurred for Tories to remind everyone that they stood up for women’s rights and stopped puberty blockers. This has been popular but no one uses this – is it because they are too scared to upset voters who would never vote for them?
June 7, 2024
We voted 52% for Brexit and then immediately being taken for fools by the fake Conservative party, sitting arrogantly on a record majority pretending that Brexit meant something completely different (insanity on steroids) as time slipped away, manipulated itself chameleon- like to feign the exact direction has infuriated millions. Expect many to vote emotionally.
Rationally too, that given Remainers have hijacked what we voted for!
We cannot rely on politicians anymore as they have lost our trust.
We know we are only taxpayers who are regarded with contempt, sadly but true based on the last 20+ years.
What miserable choices we have in the main parties with paltry alternatives.
June 8, 2024
+1 Agree 100%.
June 8, 2024
UK RETIRED – THE Globalist UK Establishment government do not want BREXIT, it upsets THEIR status quo. They do not care about the people, only POWER and CONTROL. You witnessed that during the Planned demic.
June 8, 2024
One thing is obvious in this election – the public wants change
June 8, 2024
SK – But the public will not get change. It does not matter which party as such anyone votes for, until the whole system of our government is CHANGED, NOTHING will happen. We are not a CONSTITUTIONAL Republic which states…. WE THE PEOPLE…
June 9, 2024
Of course we ARE a Constitutional āmonarchyā. Our glorious constitution is the most comprehensive ever devised and it took 800 years of fighting to achieve it.
We are NOT a simplistic codified constitutional republic without even a nation to anchor us like the USA. Thank God!
You canāt parrot the US mantras here, and import their basic problems arising from the fact that they are not a nation. All countries are useful for is as homes for nations so that they can live as they choose.
June 8, 2024
We want more honesty and less of the sound bytes – less of the populism.
We want accountability with no chance for retiring politicians to just ride off into the sunset leaving the mess without being brought before some special courts/ tribunals to answer
Today again we see JR outlining the possible negatives to our economy but with no mention at all of the elephant in the room – the damage done to this country and to that of our children’s future by the mad Brexit folly – we need more truth and accountability from those serving.
Reply Brexit has got us out of huge new EU debts, slashed our payments to EU and got us into TPP trade Agreement – all positive
June 8, 2024
To tell the truth about the Ā£ and our sovereignty.
Get rid of the tax payer money myth, deficit myths, debt myths. That all apply to Euro using countries, that don’t apply to us a fully sovereign nation state.
Then we can actually move onto what the debate should be about. Our skills and real resources and productive capacity of our nation and what as a fully sovereign nation state we plan to do with them.
June 8, 2024
FWIW this is my opinion in answer to your question(s), Sir John.
I don’t think real conservative (small “c” intended) voters would consider voting for any other existing parties (Lab, LibDem, Greens).
In 2019 they voted for Boris Johnson and the vision of change he represented. Many have now seen the reality of trying to govern, and more importantly, changing anything within the current system, to bring about the improvements they hoped for on a number of issues.
They see their country and its future spiralling out of control of the governing institutions and are in despair.
Many have given up and won’t vote at all.
Many are putting their hopes in the newcomers Reform achieving significant results whereby they can help re-form all that’s been “broken”. Given time. Their (Reform’s) ideas resonate with many, including some other “unconsidered” groups nobody talks about.
These voters see through the promises made by the established parties and want change; they don’t relate to or trust anything/anyone within those parties. The sense of betrayal runs deep.
These opinions are based on responses within private groups i’m part of as well as replies to blogs, newspaper articles and people i know.
Am happy to expand further if wanted.
June 8, 2024
What everyone around here wants is to be protected from massive new housing estates and asylum seekers from the boats. We dont have the WATER or the sewerage or jobs let alone roads docs and schools etc for new houses.
The planning is always over ruled by central govt.
Dumping over 1000 single males in an area famously OAP is a dangerous nonsense