Cheap plentiful energy is crucial to GDP growth and to the success of any industrial strategy. China achieves it both by relying too much on dirty coal and by buying plenty of discounted oil and gas from countries that are sanctioned by…
I am a great believer in democratic parties and leaders telling us clearly what their aims are, and explaining the principles or beliefs that will help guide them. I am a critic of the modern craze to govern by targets. Let’s consider the…
Nigel Farage bid for seats in the election by saying he would lead a strong opposition to the likely Labour government. The Conservatives countered by saying only they could win enough seats to form a strong opposition, which is manpower…
It is quite wrong for people to say this is the worst financial inheritance for a government. U.K. finances were much worse in 1979 after Labour’s visit to the IMF for a bail out and aggressive over spending and borrowing. It was worse in…
The attempt of an assassin to kill the front runner in the US polls was a direct assault on democracy that all who believe in democracy should condemn. The Prime Minister should pick up the phone to Mr Trump, ask how he is and send the…
I have heard a couple of Shadow Cabinet members on the BBC setting out the Opposition position. They clearly found it difficult. They rightly sounded chastened by the electoral disaster that beset them. They apologised and sounded contrite…
Prison is essential for criminals who threaten our safety. Terrorists, murderers and all who attack people violently should be given custodial sentences to protect the rest of us from their attacks. They should serve more than 40% of the…
Did the Net Zero Secretary get the memo that the government wants us to be the fastest growing G 7 economy? Up he pops to halt new oil and gas development. Between 1990 and 2021 the U.K. slashed output of energy from 219 million tonnes of…
The new government says it supports the same policy as the old government for the steel industry. The main imperative is to cut U.K. CO 2 output. That means shutting down U.K. blast furnaces to make new steel because they need fossil fuel…
Labour proposes two main ways of boosting growth. They wish to lift new homes from 200,000 a year to 300,000 a year. They want to double onshore wind, treble solar and quadruple offshore wind investment. If the government is serious about…
I have set out my local reasons for not seeking election in 2024. I also had a number of reasons related to national direction that meant I was in disagreement with One Nation Ministers. Lord Cameron at the Foreign Office was offering…
I decided not to run both by weighing up what I could hope to achieve as an MP in this new Parliament for Wokingham and for the wider nation. I assumed Conservatives generally would suffer a heavy defeat, though when I made the decision…
In 2011 the Coalition government at the request of the Lib Dems gave us a referendum on abandoning the first past the post voting system. Recognising the fact that many voters support the idea of single member constituencies where the MP…
Some contributors write in as if this is a Conservative site or to tell me to back Reform. Please read the recent statement over what this site is seeking to do. I propose to welcome the new government’s main aims on growth, law and order…
Here’s the main aim of the Labour Manifesto. I fully support it. So did Liz Truss.It just shows how varied and wide an appeal it has. Growth needs to be per capita growth. It needs to be productivity raising, wage increasing growth. We do…
There were many reasons given by people who had voted Conservative in 2019 as to why they switched their votes or abstained. I will attempt here to distll the main things that went wrong that lost the government support. The long and…
This website is written by me. It is not a Conservative party website. I hold no office in the Conservative party and have not been asked to advise or assist them. My prime aim on this site is to provide good quality independent analysis…
I keep reading nonsense that says our trade has fallen owing to Brexit. The latest official figures tell a different story. U.K. exports grew by 50% between 2016 and 2023. That is well ahead of inflation. It was led by a 70% increase in…
Lib Dem’s revel in false “ facts”. Everywhere I go I see large signs saying “Lib Dems winning here”. On past form and present polls in a majority of these cases it will be a lie as they will lose again. It is a bad form of lie, the self…
Nigel Farage was right to condemn the statements of a Reform volunteer filmed by an undercover Channel 4 team. He was also right to ask about who the man was and why he volunteered for that particular canvass. The media is very selective…
Recent polls show Reform just a point or two behind the Conservatives, with one showing them 3% ahead. They are the clear winners of the election campaign if you believe the polls. The polls show both Labour and Conservative weakening a…
So far the UK’s ambition to be the Saudi Arabia of wind has put in an impressive 29GW of capacity. On a good day when there is plenty of wind and total demand is only around 30 GW this might deliver half our power needs. On a day of low…
I see debate about disagreements within the Conservative party. It is true there have been important debates in recent years over lockdowns, money printing, migration levels, Brexit wins, ways of controlling small boats, tax levels and…
All the time I was an MP I posted critical comments of government, Conservatives and myself that were often misleading or inaccurate to show balance. I deleted attacks on any named individual of whatever party , offensive material and some…
The Labour Manifesto is based on offering the best sustained growth in the G7. That means transforming our growth rate, which has been one of the better slow growth rates that characterise the main European countries, to surpass US growth…
According to the polls once again the Green Party will poll badly. There is little appetite for their attacks on cars, gas boilers, industrial activities in the U.K. and the domestic oil and gas industry. The Conservatives have been…
Labour, Conservative and Reform on 80% of the vote want a growth policy. Greens and Lib Dem’s are not so sure. So what do we think of the ideas for growth? Taxation Countries grow faster that set lower tax rates. Ireland has shown how to…
The latest polls show around 41% wanting Labour, down on the start of the campaign. 38% want Conservative or Reform. So one fifth of the electorate wants something different, two fifths want Labour and the two fifths of a Conservative…
8 years on from the Brexit vote let us celebrate the great Brexit wins. By far and away the most important is we are now free to make our own decisions through elections and Parliament. The fact that so far governments have made little use…
The Supreme Court judgement which says anyone wishing to extract oil and gas in the U.K. or any licensing or planning authority wishing to let them has to consider the CO 2 burning those fuels is a bad call. The truth is this country is…