The pensions triple lock is a policy that everyone in Westminster knows is unaffordable. The delusion is so potent that it has led some to claim that those calling for pension spending restraint are ‘far left’. We really are flying upside down.
43.7 per cent of members said it was likely there would be more defections of senior Tories and 12 per cent highly likely. Which begs the question: of those 57 per cent, who exactly do they think it might be?
He says it was “a very tough decision” to leave the Conservatives, but he did it because the country is “in real peril right now”.
The Conservatives should not be intimidated or cowed by a good week for Reform but look at the lessons to be drawn, exploit the weaknesses – because they exist – or better just keep reminding people they are far from dead, and very much still in the game.
She must also understand the party’s defection ordeal is analogous to a chess game—where her MPs are her pieces, and to sacrifice them blatantly or, worse, hand them to a rival party is blundering.
The party has already absorbed much of the support that comes easily to it. From here, the task is different: persuading voters to stay, winning over the remaining considerers who are wary of competence and judgement and Nigel Farage.
There are political advantages of having a deeply unpopular and mortally wounded and weakened individual struggling on in the top job. Maybe that’s the Tory plan. It’s a bit party before country, but then Starmer is the hypocritical expert there.
Labour have nothing to offer but more spending, more borrowing, more welfare. Reform shout louder, but their destination is the same. Britain deserves better than a choice between denial and delusion.
L P Hartley once wrote “the past is a foreign country; they do things differently there”. Everyone in politics is trying to express the same, but it might be an idea for all to visit it occasionally and say ‘you know what? We got that wrong’.
The Farage personality cult aspects of the party should bother conservatives.
Jenrick is incorrect to believe that the Conservative Party is finished. We are far from it. We have a studious leader in Kemi Badenoch who is slowly piloting the ship around.
It is His Majesty’s Official Opposition that is forcing the u-turns and exposing the dangers of the Government’s disastrous polices, from the Chagos giveaway through the taxes on jobs and business to the dear energy which is doing so much harm.
As Reform absorbs disgruntled ex-ministers and new groups jockey for influence, Badenoch’s Conservatives remain a party of the right — but one that has yet to find its voice.
Tory voters in Watford told us there views on the recent defections from the Tories to Reform UK: “She’s spring cleaning”, “I just think he’s really bitter”, “If they believed in it, maybe they’d stick around”:
Britain abolished its blasphemy laws because they were incompatible with a free society. We understood that beliefs, religious or otherwise, are not entitled to protection from insult, however distasteful.