Cllr James Esses represents High Barnet Ward on Barnet Council and a prospective parliamentary Candidate.
I recently discovered a new word in a fiery game of Scrabble against my wife (don’t judge – I have a newborn son and Scrabble is the most exciting pursuit available to me at present).
The word is ‘inaptronym’. It refers to a name that is unsuited to, or mismatched with, its owner’s character.
It got me thinking that the British political party scene is full of inaptronyms.
Labour appear increasingly determined to make work harder. Their tax rises make it less rewarding to work, employ people, and build businesses. Their burdensome Employment Rights Act 2025 makes employing people more costly and complicated. Their attack on family farms punishes generations of hard work. Their imposition of VAT on private school fees targets families who work hard and save up to provide their children with greater opportunities.
The Liberal Democrats have shown themselves to be anti-democratic, given that their continued ambition is for the UK to rejoin the European Union, thereby undermining the biggest democratic mandate that this country has ever seen.
The Greens have demonstrated their contradictory anti-green tendencies, through their opposition to nuclear power. Equally, their former mantra of “following the science and speaking the truth” now seems laughable when you consider that their leader believes that men can become women.
Reform have been unwilling or unable to bring about the reforms they previously pledged to voters. This has been particularly apparent at council level, with pledges to freeze or cut council tax going unfulfilled. The continued silencing of grassroots dissent within the party – for example, suspending Tim Montgomerie, the man who created this website – entirely contradicts their stated aims of democratic renewal. And the never-ending scandal around dodgy donations is the antithesis of ‘political reform’
At one point, it looked as if the Conservative Party was going in the same direction. From entering coalition with the Liberal Democrats, to championing net zero under Theresa May and Boris Johnson, to imposing draconian restrictions during Covid, the party too often appeared uncomfortable with its own name.
However, at last, under the leadership of Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative Party feels truly conservative once again. The Renewal2030 agenda offers a wide-ranging programme of policies with small-c conservatism at their heart:
- Repealing the Climate Change Act and abandoning the statutory 2050 net-zero emissions target;
- Leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and repealing the Human Rights Act 1998 to enable us to protect our borders once and for all;
- Abolishing the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) contained within the Equality Act 2010, in order to remove DEI madness from our public sector;
- Eradicating the unconservative tax that is Stamp Duty, thereby unlocking the housing market and restoring individual aspiration;
- Scrapping high street business rates to boost employment and enterprise;
- Reversing Labour’s proposed ban on the issuing of new licences for oil and gas exploration in the North Sea to provide energy security and tackle the cost of living;
- The ‘Economic Golden Rule’, in which at least half of all government spending savings will be used to pay down the ballooning national deficit; and
- Stopping the tidal wave of gender ideology by enshrining the notion of ‘biological sex’ in law, offering absolute protection for single-sex spaces, and committing to a permanent ban on puberty blockers (including reversing the monstrous clinical trial launched by Labour, which treats vulnerable children as guinea pigs).
Many of these policies command substantial public support and speak to an electorate that is instinctively more small-c conservative than Westminster has often been willing to acknowledge.
Underpinning these policies is a clear commitment to ensuring that elected representatives of the Conservative Party are fully aligned on the direction of travel. This is most clearly apparent in the revamped selection process for prospective parliamentary candidates. Having been through it myself, I can attest that commitment to conservative values flows through the entire process.
A political party is entitled to expect the people who seek to represent it in Parliament to believe in its central ethos. It is, therefore, both reasonable and necessary that Kemi has mandated that prospective candidates are unified behind the core policy lines on issues such as scrapping net zero and leaving the ECHR. For far too long, a sizeable proportion of the parliamentary party has looked as if it would be more at home sitting next to Ed Davey on the green benches. Both the party membership and the electorate more broadly want candidates that are genuine conservatives, in all senses of the word.
Last week’s reshuffle further demonstrates that Kemi is constructing a front bench centred around a clearly conservative philosophy. In Andrew Griffith as Shadow Chancellor, we have a champion of lower tax and deregulation. Katie Lam’s promotion to Shadow Housing and Communities Secretary means greater clarity on integration and national identity. Joy Morrissey as Shadow Women & Equalities Secretary presents a strong message on biological reality and sex-based rights. Andrew Bowie as Shadow Energy Secretary reinforces the move away from net zero. Keeping Chris Philp as Shadow Home Secretary and Nick Timothy as Shadow Justice Secretary reinforces the party’s positions on immigration and crime.
The promotion of several members of the 2024 intake demonstrates the broader ambition for conservative renewal.
There remains noise from groups such as Prosper UK, who seek to pull the party away from its core conservative principles. Thanks to Kemi’s determination, that noise is becoming less and less audible.
I am an economic and cultural conservative. I would not be sitting as a Conservative Councillor, nor putting myself forward to stand as a Conservative MP, if I did not believe that conservatism was once again at the heart of the party.
Finally, at long last, the Conservative Party is an aptronym: conservative in name and conservative in nature.
Cllr James Esses represents High Barnet Ward on Barnet Council and a prospective parliamentary Candidate.
I recently discovered a new word in a fiery game of Scrabble against my wife (don’t judge – I have a newborn son and Scrabble is the most exciting pursuit available to me at present).
The word is ‘inaptronym’. It refers to a name that is unsuited to, or mismatched with, its owner’s character.
It got me thinking that the British political party scene is full of inaptronyms.
Labour appear increasingly determined to make work harder. Their tax rises make it less rewarding to work, employ people, and build businesses. Their burdensome Employment Rights Act 2025 makes employing people more costly and complicated. Their attack on family farms punishes generations of hard work. Their imposition of VAT on private school fees targets families who work hard and save up to provide their children with greater opportunities.
The Liberal Democrats have shown themselves to be anti-democratic, given that their continued ambition is for the UK to rejoin the European Union, thereby undermining the biggest democratic mandate that this country has ever seen.
The Greens have demonstrated their contradictory anti-green tendencies, through their opposition to nuclear power. Equally, their former mantra of “following the science and speaking the truth” now seems laughable when you consider that their leader believes that men can become women.
Reform have been unwilling or unable to bring about the reforms they previously pledged to voters. This has been particularly apparent at council level, with pledges to freeze or cut council tax going unfulfilled. The continued silencing of grassroots dissent within the party – for example, suspending Tim Montgomerie, the man who created this website – entirely contradicts their stated aims of democratic renewal. And the never-ending scandal around dodgy donations is the antithesis of ‘political reform’
At one point, it looked as if the Conservative Party was going in the same direction. From entering coalition with the Liberal Democrats, to championing net zero under Theresa May and Boris Johnson, to imposing draconian restrictions during Covid, the party too often appeared uncomfortable with its own name.
However, at last, under the leadership of Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative Party feels truly conservative once again. The Renewal2030 agenda offers a wide-ranging programme of policies with small-c conservatism at their heart:
Many of these policies command substantial public support and speak to an electorate that is instinctively more small-c conservative than Westminster has often been willing to acknowledge.
Underpinning these policies is a clear commitment to ensuring that elected representatives of the Conservative Party are fully aligned on the direction of travel. This is most clearly apparent in the revamped selection process for prospective parliamentary candidates. Having been through it myself, I can attest that commitment to conservative values flows through the entire process.
A political party is entitled to expect the people who seek to represent it in Parliament to believe in its central ethos. It is, therefore, both reasonable and necessary that Kemi has mandated that prospective candidates are unified behind the core policy lines on issues such as scrapping net zero and leaving the ECHR. For far too long, a sizeable proportion of the parliamentary party has looked as if it would be more at home sitting next to Ed Davey on the green benches. Both the party membership and the electorate more broadly want candidates that are genuine conservatives, in all senses of the word.
Last week’s reshuffle further demonstrates that Kemi is constructing a front bench centred around a clearly conservative philosophy. In Andrew Griffith as Shadow Chancellor, we have a champion of lower tax and deregulation. Katie Lam’s promotion to Shadow Housing and Communities Secretary means greater clarity on integration and national identity. Joy Morrissey as Shadow Women & Equalities Secretary presents a strong message on biological reality and sex-based rights. Andrew Bowie as Shadow Energy Secretary reinforces the move away from net zero. Keeping Chris Philp as Shadow Home Secretary and Nick Timothy as Shadow Justice Secretary reinforces the party’s positions on immigration and crime.
The promotion of several members of the 2024 intake demonstrates the broader ambition for conservative renewal.
There remains noise from groups such as Prosper UK, who seek to pull the party away from its core conservative principles. Thanks to Kemi’s determination, that noise is becoming less and less audible.
I am an economic and cultural conservative. I would not be sitting as a Conservative Councillor, nor putting myself forward to stand as a Conservative MP, if I did not believe that conservatism was once again at the heart of the party.
Finally, at long last, the Conservative Party is an aptronym: conservative in name and conservative in nature.