He may have less than a year, as Parliament returns and his Party’s conference looms, to persuade voters of his case – which he has scarcely even begun to make.
Maybe the future isn’t Leavers v Remainers, or even Conservative v Labour. Perhaps its truth v post-truth – Rowling v Dorries. I’m with Rowling. You?
The twenty-fourth article in a new series on ConHome about how government might be made smaller, taxpayers better off and and society stronger – through strong families, better schools and good jobs.
This is the essence of the Prime Minister’s message to the nation. He is speaking the truth, even if the country is unlikely to be grateful to hear it.
The committee’s report was thorough, but the sentence is disproportionate.
If this is the case for Conservative MPs, it is all the more important for their leader. Rishi Sunak should walk through the lobbies today and back the Committee.
Many of Tory MPs will be sick and tired of the self-reverential obsequies attached to the Committee’s deliberation and verdict – and of the hysteria, hate, vitriol and venom directed at a man without whom many would never have had the opportunity to serve in Parliament.
Party activists could be forgiven for wondering if he would now rather have Starmer in Downing Street than Sunak.
We kick off a ConservativeHome project on strong families, better schools and good jobs today – indispensable means of achieving a smaller state and a stronger society.
We propose a new fund providing competitive grants exclusively to micro and small charities, which often provide services in isolated communities. And regulations should be set proportionate to charity income.
My argument is simply one of affordability (including, by the way, by dropping the triple lock) if our public finances are going to be sustainable.
There should be a high bar to exposing anyone to a flawed recall procedure yoked by happenstance to a legitimate Parliamentary enquiry.
Ministers have protected some of the most vulnerable people in society, during some of the most challenging times the country has faced. They should now adapt the Social Metric Commission’s measure of poverty as a national statistic.
Labour like to say we are the only major economy whose GDP has not recovered to prepandemic levels. But looking at GDP at constant prices in national currency the UK economy in 2022, according to the IMF, was one per cent bigger than in 2019.
The second part of our series on reducing demand for government, in which we set out a programme for change – focused on families, civil society and government.