Apr
30
2007
Jack Straw is one of the few Labour government members who believes in Parliament, and tries to play by the rules by bringing things to the House that ought to be debated there. I can believe that he does value the British virtues of freedom, fairness and tolerance himelf.
The problem is the government he serves clearly does not.
This government has done more than any other peace time government to damage and remove our freedoms - giving unprecedented powers to functionaries to come into our homes, spy on us at home and on the streets, lock people up without trial,
Apr
30
2007
Judged by their own standards the people assembling in Thailand to “save the planet” have just helped wreck it. Their combined carbon footprint must be large when you add the energy in their luxury hotels to the jet travel and the food miles they are enjoying together.
I would feel better about it if I thought some good would come out of it, but Kyoto shows us that this “war” is not won
Apr
29
2007
A call from a journalist three thousand miles away asked me to sum up the end of the Blair era. He told me he was thinking of saying “Economy OK, a pity about Iraq”.
I suggested he thought again about the first part of that testimonial. We have lived through 10 years of good growth, low inflation, low interest rates, rising house prices and cheap Indian and Chinese goods in all the main world economies.
Apr
28
2007
As Labour’s policy of fortnightly refuse collections backfires we are getting the usual spin response and disinformation.
We are first told
Apr
26
2007
Making personal data about young Doctors available on the web does not encourage people to trust the government with their personal identity data or even with their medical records. A Minister did some public breast beating
Apr
26
2007
“Disgruntled” has not written back. It looks as if “Disgruntled” is a friend of NHS South Central, not a local constituent.
Apr
25
2007
Yesterday in the Commons an Opposition debate on paying for local services gave the parties a chance to set out their stalls for May 3rd.
The battle is over money more than anything else. People are fed up with paying so much for government as a whole and receiving so little. The Lib Dems offer local Income Tax, without always explaining that can only be introduced if Parliament voted for it, and both main parties are against it. Suggesting it is around the corner, and it will lower people’s bills, is just plain wrong.
Labour has looked at further stealthy increases in the Council Tax, been rumbled and has had to rule out revaluations and other obvious tricks this Parliament, to add to the 92% rise on Council Tax since 1997.
There is then the battle of the bins. Many people feel rubbish collection is the only major service they receive for all their tax, so they are understandably
Apr
24
2007
Yesterday in the House we had an all day debate on the Finance Bill and the state of the economy.
As usual Labour was both complacent and living in
Apr
24
2007
The lack of any response makes me think this disgruntled is less likely to be from Wokingham and more likely to be from the Health Authority - why are you remaining anonymous?
Apr
23
2007
On St David’s day we have a debate in the Commons about Welsh affairs. There will be no debate today on English matters.
The EU wants to carry on with its dreadful plans to curse us with more regional government, with a view to splitting England. They never seek to divide Wales or Scotland in a similar way.
Meanwhile the UK government goes along with some of this regional agenda, ignoring clear votes in referenda and opinion poll figures which show that we the English do not want our country split into meaningless regions with high cost governments in each region bossing us about.
The sooner we move to a country where Westminster MPs are dual role, meeting as the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, the Welsh Assembly in Cardiff, the Northern Ireland Assembly in Stormont and the English Parliament in Westminster as well as meeting together as the Parliament of the Union, the better.
Labour’s disastrous devolution experiment has gone wrong in Scotland, the very place it was designed to please, becuase it does not go far enough for nationalists. Now it is going wrong in England, because it so unfair on England. St George’s Day would be the right day for the government to admit that and offer us some positive change. Don’t stay in waiting for the announcement!
Apr
22
2007
Mr Milliband’s nerve cracked before we reached the election results in Scotland, Wales and the local elections in a couple of weeks time. He has decided to dive for cover with Gordon Brown, leaving the Blairites without a front running candidate.
Apr
22
2007
People in France have turned out in large numbers to show they think it matters who their President is. They have also shown how split the country is, with the frontrunner not managing a third of the vote, and the two top candidates only just getting a little over one half of the vote between them.
There is scepticism about who can deliver, and what they want them to deliver. We know that a majority of the French people are fed up with the EU project, voting against its latest manifestation, the Constitution. We know that many of them hate the Euro, and think the high interest rates and high Euro valuation is doing damage to their economy. They also now know they are choosing between two candidates who both believe in European centralisation!
Apr
20
2007
It is interesting to hear pollsters and commentators hedging their bets with one third of the French electors still apparently undecided.
Clearly many electors do not like the offering of either of the two main candidates, but some
Apr
19
2007
You know it is election time in France and the UK, because the Today programme
Apr
19
2007
Having more troops on the streets cannot prevent car bombs or suicide bombers. Terrorists do not put stickers on their cars to say this is a terrorist vehicle. Patient intelligence, interception of phone calls and emails, eavesdropping on their networks, picking up intelligence from the streets and local communities are the ways the authorities need to develop their policing, with a view to preventing a terrorist attack. If the US and UK really want to help the Iraqi authorities they should send more counter terrorist back room staff to guide and train a specialist Iraqi police force determined to infiltrate the networks and crack their communications systems. Having lots of troops around to shoot the terrorists after they have carried out their act of terror is a
Apr
16
2007
I received another four glossy brochures just today from different parts of the NHS telling me how wonderful things are - or could be if only there was proper partnership working between local Trusts, PCTs and local authorities. Apparently it takes more glossy brochures to get these parts of the public sector to talk to each other and to decide who is responsible for what!
My day was made, however, by a letter entitled “Dear colleague” from the Chairman and Chief Executive of NHS South Central. The letter wisely explained to readers who do not recognise “South Central” as their home that it is a new SHA (cue budgets for PR, new letter heads, extra recruits and don’t forget the focus group research and letter writing) covering an area from Milton Keynes to the Isle of Wight.
The whole letter was about the generation of “surpluses” in 2006-7 and 2007-8. A most helpful table appended to the letter shows that they expect a surplus of
Apr
16
2007
On Any Questions this week Peter Hain decided to condemn me for a speech I made 14 years ago, without clearly having bothered to read it.
Uncorrected by Jonathan Dimbleby - who is usually careful about panellists making false and disparaging remarks about others - Hain claimed I had made a savage attack on single mothers.
The speech was entitled “There aren’t many fathers around here”. It put the case for fathers to be asked to make a financial contribution where they were not living with their families, a policy which both the Conservative and Labour parties subsequently took up.
What did I say about single mothers? I said “Everyone would wish to help the young family that has suddenly lost their father through death,or if the mother has been badly abused or badly treated by the father and the relationship has broken down” - savage stuff, Mr Hain? I went to say that if no relationship between the mother and the father is being tried the state should pursue the father - not the mother! “It would be better for the child and better for the family and better for the state if more fathers assumed their natural responsibilities”. Doesn’t Peter Hain think exactly the same on that matter?
Come on BBC, do your job - be impartial for change - stand up to the appalling Labour spin machine which makes up myths about opponents and then never stops spinning them. The BBC allows endless comment on me about things I have never said or done which Labour
Apr
16
2007
One cheer for Gordon Brown trying to take the celebrity out of politics. In the modern version served up by New Labour it will be a bit like trying to make bread without flour, but I can see why he thinks the cult of celebrity has all gone too far. When the Defence Secretary tries to make our navy look like contestants in Big Brother it is certainly time for a change.
Gordon Brown has also shown
Apr
16
2007
Readers of this blog will know I am all in favour of the government dropping the phrase “The war on terror”. I am pleased Hilary Benn
Apr
15
2007
It is a sign of the times that the Labour party is only bothering to contest 6 out of 10 of all the Council seats up for election on May 3rd. This is a new low for ruling party in a mid term local election.
Maybe it shows just how unimportant Labour now thinks local government has become. They have centralised more and more, seeking to guide and control most things from Whitehall. Why bother to try to win Councils if you pull the striings from the centre?
Or maybe it shows just how pessimistic they are about winning. Doubtless the spin doctors have already decided that they can show a bigger proportion of the vote for Labour if they leave out all the non contests from their figures which will be in areas where Conservatives or Liberal Democrats are well entrenched.
It is probably also because they cannot find people to stand with a red rosette on. The left are disillusioned by all the neo con rhetoric from Blair, and the floaters feel let down by the actions as Labour has reverted to type, taxing and borrowing its way to more control over our lives.
On the doorsteps there are many adverse comments about the Labour government. Many people seem to think there is going to be a General Election soon - if only! The most common complaint is the surge in the tax bills that people have experienced in recent years, as they count the cost of Council Tax, National Insurance, Inheritance Tax, Airport duty, Congestion charges and the rest.
Many want a change, but think
Apr
14
2007
The government uses a funny public sector definition of key workers.
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John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
