justchrisdavies

Published 31st October 2021

This will be my last post on justchrisdavies.politics.blog.

This site has now been migrated to a new and hopefully more user friendly site: justchrisdavies.co.uk

Thank you for all your feedback on the legacy posts (which is one of the reasons for the migration) and I look forward to welcoming you on the other side.

I remain on a Twitter break until early 2022 but will continue to post from time to time to the new site in the interim which of course subscribers will be able to read.

Finally if you are more a fan of the spoken than written word, my YouTube channel is up and running and will shortly have all posts uploaded in video format.

I look forward to engaging with you on the new site.

Tories’ budget gamble is a wolf in sheep’s clothing

• £150 Billion of additional public expenditure;
• The end of the public sector pay freeze;
• Real terms spending increases for every government department apart from Defence;
• Reduction in Universal Credit taper from 63p in the pound to 55p in the pound;
• Living wage increased from £8.91 per hour to £9.50 per hour.

This is a budget that Gordon Brown would have been proud to present in his pomp as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The fact that it was delivered by Rishi Sunak is a damning indictment of the Tories abandonment of a key plank of Conservatism: core fiscal restraint and a clear indicator of just how far to the left the fulcrum of British politics has shifted.

Accepting that inflation is likely to average 4% (twice the Bank of England target) is not unreasonable in the short term as the economy rebounds from the pandemic, not forgetting that the decision to lockdown on 3 occasions to date has increased borrowing by over £400 Billion and counting. Note “average 4%” implying it is likely to peak nearer to 5%.

Rising inflation leads to increased interest rates as night follows day and within 24 hours many lenders increased mortgage interest rates by up to 0.35%.

It will not be the last such increase and combined with rising inflation, is likely to leave many of the electorate with less net disposable income before the next General Election, not to mention hundreds of thousands suffering house repossessions or at least racking up mortgage arrears.

A high wage, high growth economy is in principle a wholesome objective. Sunak’s budget assumes a current year growth rate of 6.5%. By 2024, growth is forecast to fall to just 1.3% when government borrowing is expected to fall to (just) £100 Million addition to the national debt.

To achieve high growth and reduce borrowing, tax cuts and spending restraints are good bed fellows.

The recent hike in National Insurance will hit the employed and business owners, who if they dare to take a dividend from retained profits will be hit 3 times, once through their personal PAYE, once through Employer’s contributions on their employees PAYE and yet again on their dividend payments. A nasty triple whammy.

Instead of fostering an enterprise economy to facilitate growth, skills development and optimism leading to long-term planning, the government has achieved the opposite.

Rishi Sunak is highly intelligent and considered by many to be the most well versed Chancellor of the Exchequer since Nigel Lawson. Gambling on 6.5% growth this year is the politics of folly.

Tax receipts for the current year are £46 Billion ahead of Office for Budget Responsibility expectations. The Tories’ long standing belief was that cutting taxes increases tax revenue, a theory that has been consistently proven.

As little as 2 years ago, these very words fell from Ministers lips. To have pivoted to now believing that higher taxes will lead to higher tax receipts is at best misguided and at worst economically reckless.

There is a real danger of stagflation where modest growth is swamped by spiralling inflation leaving everyone as a loser. Every 1% increase in interest rates adds £23 Billion to the annual national debt servicing.

All of this leaves me with 2 observations. The first is a reiteration of my previous comments that the Conservative & Unionist Party is a misnomer. The second is a rhetorical question: do the Tories want to win the next General Election?

COP26 or cop out?

Despite expending masses of CO2 in the process, the so called great and the good are assembling in Glasgow to wring their hands and release even more CO2 at this weekend’s talking shop, which could easily have been a virtual event. There are notable absentees in any event but I can’t think why.

With Stanley and Carrie Johnson and Zac Goldsmith leading Boris Johnson by the nose towards spending £1.2 trillion of taxpayers money on achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, I am backing the Daily Telegraph’s campaign for a referendum on whether or not the public back this policy.

I am a reluctant supporter of referenda per se but this eye watering and reckless waste of money is gesture politics that is making us a laughing stock in the developed and developing world.

Notwithstanding the UK has outsourced some of its domestic CO2 production to others (and then often pays more to import the goods than if they were made here), our headline figure of less than 1% of global CO2 is de minimis.

Given the amount of CO2 that China, India and Germany alone will generate through burning coal for the foreseeable future, the only relevant zero is the level of justification for scrapping gas boilers and internal combustion engines in the current proposed timeframes.

The inability to cost effectively recycle lithium batteries or upscale hydrogen power will take years to come around. In the interim, over 1/3 of utility bills are used to fund green energy development, at a time when wholesale gas and electricity prices are spiralling.

Once the global elite have left Glasgow, it is time to ask the public if they really want to add another £1.2 Billion towards an already eye watering national debt. This madness must end.

French sabre rattling and EU intransigence may yet deliver WTO Brexit by stealth.

With the French presidential election looming and Marine Le Pen resurgent in the latest polling, it is little surprise that the rhetoric from the Elysees Palace is ramping up.

What better piñata for Emmanuel Macron than Brexit Britain? The seizing of a UK fishing boat, the fine imposed on another, both apparently for breaching regulations on landing their catches is the tip of the iceberg. It is telling that the captain of the boat seized will only appear in court after the presidential election. I wonder why.

In diplomatic terms, the UK’s summoning of the French Ambassador for a dressing down, combined with “2 can play that game” from George Eustice and Liz Truss’ refusal to rule out military action suggests that the Johnson government will at least fight rhetoric with rhetoric.

The UK’s (correct) refusal to grant permits to around 50 French trawlers who are unable to evidence that they have not regularly fished in British waters over the last 5 years has led to a series of threats including cutting off the electricity to Jersey.

The French really showed their hand when admitting that the UK needs to be punished for Brexit. Macron remains odds on to secure a further presidential term despite the gilets jaunes protests that threatened briefly to terminally destabilise his current tenure.

With Germany in a post Merkel state of flux (and no government), Macron is now arguably the leader with the most muscles to flex in the current EU27.

This helps to explain the impasse over revisions to the Northern Ireland Protocol. The likelihood of Article 16 being triggered grows by the day. Those WTO Brexit believers may yet get their wish by stealth.

With the EU in legal disputes with 23 of its 27 participants, a full on feud with Britain is at least, a useful distraction.

Resignation of Kathleen Stock a victory for the mob

I have little in common with the fundamental beliefs of Dr Kathleen Stock. As a radical feminist, she is highly respected within the bubble of her academic peers but has committed the cardinal sin of asserting the primacy of biological sex over gender preference.

If this is transphobic, (it is not but bear with me here), the majority of opinion in the UK is likewise. The disgraceful behaviour of masked “activists” at the University of Sussex, combined with inappropriate statements from Dr Stock’s own trade union made her continued employment untenable (despite the laudable and public support of the Vice Chancellor).

Those who truly claim to believe in free speech have lost another brick in their defensive wall. You may not like Kathleen Stock as a person. You may disagree fundamentally with her views. By removing her right to exercise free speech in academia, mob rule has won and been further galvanised.

A reminder. Less than 4,500 gender recognition certificates have been issued in the UK since 2005. Between 0.5% and 0.8% of the population identify as trans gender. I wish Dr Stock every success in seeking future employment. Unlike JK Rowling, she could be cancelled.

To think she will be the last lamb to be sacrificed at the altar of identity politics is delusional unless the mob juggernaut is repelled. Let this be a warning to all who talk a good game on free speech but sit on their hands and do nothing when it is under threat. Appeasement never ends well, just ask Neville Chamberlain.

Insulate Britain – the John Redwood solution

I have given up expecting that Sadiq aka “Genghis” Khan and Cressida Dick will stop the hypocrites that demand insulated homes across the nation (apart from theirs of course) to avoid the (not) inevitable climate catastrophe.

The best hope the British public have for a reduction in disruption is a supply chain failure in superglue and hi vis bibs combined with a really cold winter.

Unless of course common sense prevails and the government listens to Sir John Redwood. In his typically acerbic style, Sir John cuts through to protect the taxpayer by rejecting the notion of imprisonment for these domestic terrorists and in a further nod to their hypocrisy, recommends removing their driving licences.

Given the amount of these so called activists that not only drive cars with internal combustion engines, that will certainly help to reduce their CO2 emissions, which is ultimately their objective right?

God Save The Queen

With Charles and William trotting out the mantra of the World Economic Forum, Andrew continuing to duck and dive from his legal “difficulties” like a champion boxer and Harry continuing his relentless attacks on the Royal Family, it comes as no surprise that our recently widowed Queen is being advised to rest for a further fortnight.

This is yet another annis horribilis. Our 95 year old monarch has led the monarchy with almost unparalleled distinction for almost 70 years. I fear for the future of “The Firm” once she is no longer monarch.

Charles is an adulterer who has been publicly rehabilitated but cannot stop himself from wading into everything from climate change to the Great Reset.

William enjoys a lot of popularity, not least due to his wife’s favourable comparison and stoicism compared to the Duchess of Sussex but he must avoid replicating his father’s interference in matters over which he would be better advised to keep his own counsel.

It is self evident that the Queen is much nearer the end than the beginning of her reign. I wish a full recovery from her latest malaise. The last thing this country needs now is a weak man as its monarch.

God Save The Queen.

Twitter break

Considering the vast majority of you kind souls that read my blog do so via clicking a link on a tweet, as I will not be tweeting until at least January, this piece is unlikely to get many readers.

And that is absolutely fine.

I’m not missing Twitter per se (but this is only day 5 of a break that will last into probably the second week of January 2022) but I do miss the engagement with followers and non followers, whether we agree or not.

There are a variety of personal reasons for this break but as everyone has their own “full plate” suffice to say that once I have recharged my little grey cells and worked out a more structured approach to Twitter than responding as soon as possible to every reply, I will be back.

In the meantime, enjoy the silence.

I’m always amused by people’s social media biographies that say, “all opinions my own”. There is a positive (they are not part of groupthink at least in theory) but for me it always begs the question, who else’s opinion would it be if not yours?

Before the pile on from those who work in high profile public and private sector environments, I would add that I appreciate that in the reductive world of Twitter bios, the “all opinions my own” brigade are evidencing unequivocally that their employers’ views may differ from theirs.

You may well wonder where this post is leading. Away from social media in planet real world, we have the heir to the throne and his oldest son both subscribing to the notion of the need for “The Great Reset”. Other slogans include “Build Back Better” (even Boris is not brazen enough to claim that as his own) or the less well known but no less relevant “New World Order”.

You may still wonder where all this is leading. You would not be alone. Why? Because, in simple terms and without wishing to sound like a hackneyed conspiracy theorist complete with “The end of the world is nigh” sandwich board, well over 99.9% of the population are not on “in” on the joke. A joke with a punchline of “Democracy, as we know it is being taken away”.

A little more than 0.1% of the population will be familiar with Davos. Some may know that this is the annual shindig of the great and the good from the corporate and political elite, who gather annually, pandemic permitting in person, to workshop ideas for the future of geopolitical and macroeconomic futures of the globe, through the prisms of the organisations they represent.

Fewer still will be aware of more informal or less well advertised events featuring billionaires in Gulfstream jets flying into private locations to meet “informally” with world leaders to lobby, influence and in some cases, direct and dictate.

The influence of conglomerates in the pharmaceutical sector has hit the radar for some, not least during the race to find suitable vaccines to mitigate Covid-19.

With even the least tech savvy amongst us using Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other proprietary social media platforms and just about everyone accessing the internet via Microsoft or Apple products, “big tech” has morphed in the last 40 years into a homogenised mass of influence and increasingly censorship.

To summarise, the global elite of political leaders, billionaires, “big pharma” and “big tech” have joined forces. Between them, they have the power to usurp traditional Liberal Democracy so beloved of the developed world and replace it with an irreversible and unaccountable hegemony over which we the people have no material influence.

The Great Reset? Ordinary people, the (more than) 99.9% referred to above will own nothing but they will be “content”. If this sounds familiar it is. If not, it will be very soon in evolutionary terms.

I have used the phrase “capitalist communism” in online discourse and responses have been mixed to say the least. It is however an accurate representation of what is coming if we do not wake up, speak up and deny the global elite their victory by stealth.

Social mobility will effectively have a glass ceiling. Brexit was a shock to the New World Order as it affirmed that the majority of those who voted in the referendum still viewed the nation state as their primary preference above an ever closer federal continent, planned and controlled centrally, with ever increasing powers and ever diminishing accountability. A parallel with the old Soviet politburo if you will.

Now I know that some of you brave souls have clung on to this piece in the hope that you will be fully enlightened by the end of it. Some will already have given up. Some will be shrugging their shoulders but even if just a few of you are still with me, I urge you, right now, to click away from this blog and go and read all you can find on Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum.

And once you have, tell your friends. And tell your friends to tell their friends. Ad infinitum.

I will leave you with this summation.

If you are happy to be led by the nose, do nothing. If you are happy to accept a limitation on your life chances, ditto. If you don’t much care for democracy, sit on your hands. If you’re content to be content with the ongoing erosion and eventual destruction of democracy, then sit back, relax and do nothing.

However if this is not you. If you want more. If you value your freedom of thought and speech, accept the right to be offended and want to be able to emulate Carnegie, Rockefeller, Murdoch, Soros and their kin, rather than being forever beneath their yoke, then once you have read voraciously all you can on Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum, gird your loins and push back.

Churchill did not defeat the Nazis to have a new form of tyranny imposed upon Brexit Britain. Now is the time for you to do your duty by spreading the word and defying the new global oligarchy.

Are you in?

“It didn’t start with violence, it started with words”. An Auschwitz survivor described the origins of Nazi tyranny. It is easy to forget that despite the unique circumstances in Germany that led to Hitler’s rise, the National Socialists were a small minority of the electorate until economic conditions created a vacuum.

Conflating Cancel Culture with the Nazis may seem extreme. Until you examine some of the victims of this insidious and fast growing phenomenon.

Leo Kearse, a supremely funny man has been all but erased from accessing venues in his native Scotland by the SNP, who along with a small but vocal minority have lost the right to be offended.

Dr Kathleen Stock, a renowned academic and radical feminist based at the University of Sussex has been rendered all but unemployed by student “activists” (hiding bravely behind masks and keyboards) and the local trade union branch alleging (wrongly) transphobia.

A teacher at Batley Grammar School who showed pupils a cartoon mocking the Prophet Muhammad has to had to leave his home, go into police custody, and change his identity. His life has been turned upside down and remains threatened.

Actors and actresses apologise with alarming regularity for accepting parts that others deem unsuitable for them to play and choose to stand down rather than defy the mob. If only openly gay people can play gay parts, Eddie Redmayne, who is heterosexual may not. Presumably no one is allowed to play any dead historical figure by dint of being, well, alive.

Even good and bad behaviour has been cancelled. At Loughborough Amherst, a fee paying school (£14,000 per annum typically), behaviour is now skilful or unskillful.

Immutable biological sex is under threat from gender identitarians. With very few exceptions indeed, we are all born male or female. That is a fact. Sex trumps gender. People are free to identify as they choose but safe spaces must remain sacrosanct.

The writer Sebastian Faulks will no longer use descriptive writing in relation to women as being one is not part of his lived experience.

In the last 6 weeks, Ed Davey, Sir Keir Starmer and Boris Johnson have all been unable to answer the obvious question does a woman have a cervix? I’m no gynaecologist but from a straw poll of all the women I know, I can confirm this to be a fact.

Ah facts. This is where things start to unravel in Wokesville. The moral puritanism of the woke army is a sight to behold. Everything from cultural appropriation through to the removal of statues, particularly those connected with slavery is identified, vilified, threatened and cancelled, usually with a snivelling apology from the establishment responsible for not previously engaging in historical revisionism.

I never cease to be fascinated by the whole slavery debate. This is not to deny slavery occurred as part of the British Empire, nor do I consider it anything other than abhorrent. However, the woke seem content to ignore modern day enslavement of white girls by (often but not exclusively) South Asian or Albanian grooming gangs. Conveniently, they also bypass the reality that the United Kingdom navy did more than any other country to bring an end to the slave trade, at substantial financial and human cost.

Corporate wokewashing is also on the rise. The recent John Lewis advert of a boy dressing up as a girl and behaving like a brat to highlight the value of their home insurance offering is, politely, bizarre.

British Airways, a pension deficit of billions that occasionally flies aeroplanes is scrapping the term “Ladies & Gentlemen” in favour of more “inclusive” language. 93% of the UK population is heterosexual. Less than 4,500 gender reassignment certificates have been issued in 15 years and less than 1% of the population identify as anything other than male or female. Ladies & Gentlemen will be staying in my lexicon for as long as I have breath in my body.

Primark have recently launched a range of clothes for “birthing people”. Let’s be explicit: biological women have children, biological men, and trans women do not. The range should be called maternity wear. It is that simple.

Women fought for years for emancipation, equality and it is little wonder that feminists fight so vehemently not to have the word “woman” cancelled. TERFs (trans exclusionary radical feminists) are a reaction to identitarians attempts to park their tanks on women’s lawns, including the use of the term womxn.

Preferred pronouns are another interesting phenomenon, not least as one never refers to one’s self by one’s own preferred pronouns.

All of which segues into almost Scottish play levels of the taboo that shall unfortunately speak its name: White Privilege.

Imported from the US alongside Critical Race Theory, the assertion is that white people should feel guilty for being white. To be white is to be privileged. Reductive? Just a tad. White working class boys have the worst examination results amongst all ethnic groups.

In a recent study, 28% of black people felt discriminated against in the workplace. In the same study, 25% of white people also felt the same way.

Black people are well represented in ball sports including football, basketball, athletics and musically, dominate the mainstream and niche charts.

The acronym BAME seems to me perverse in that it lumps together Black African, Black Caribbean, Asian (including Chinese, Bangladeshi, Indian, Pakistani) and other minority ethnic groups. If someone might tell me where the value is in grouping together such a diverse group, I’d be delighted to hear from you.

My libertarian instincts demand free speech and the right to offend without crossing over into hate speech is a common sense position I am comfortable defending.

My natural Conservative instincts put me at odds with those who lean left, including most of the current Conservative Party but just because I disagree with them does not mean it is not OK to do so, or for me (or them) to be offended. I passionately defend the rights of all to speak freely, regardless of whether we agree.

The term “problematic” is making an increasing number of appearances in the recent written and spoken word, essentially to highlight some verbal slight against a “victim” (who may even be conceptual).

Let’s take the problem away. Those who are offended (some by just about everything) are often ashamed of nothing they do themselves, including using hideous tropes such as bigot, racist, homophobe and transphobe.

Instead of looking for “gotcha” opportunities, how about we all dial down the rhetoric and stop looking for rabbit holes as a means of getting to Wonderland?

Our precious NHS, 73 years in the making is now a hungry old dinosaur with chronic morbid obesity. The more money it eats, the greater its capacity to eat increases and the more cash it seeks to sate it.

It seems a lifetime ago that the great British public were being beseeched to clap for our carers (for doing their jobs) every Thursday night as the pandemic stretched the resources of one of the world’s largest Employers to beyond breaking point. Some viewed this as laudable, “the least we can do” (whilst locked in our homes), others saw it as virtue signalling. Either way, it continued for 10 weeks, during which time the indirect impact of lockdowns began to take hold.

COVID-19 turned the NHS into the National Covid Service and as befits this behemoth it is only just beginning to pivot back to something resembling its pre-pandemic self (although try getting a face to face appointment with your GP to dispel the theory that the NHS is “back”).

135,000 death certificates have COVID-19 listed as one of the causes of death. This bald number ignores the disproportionate skewing towards the over 70s and will pale by comparison with those who succumb to the effects of devastating lockdowns, including late diagnosed cancer victims, heart disease and a plethora of other conditions including suicides resulting from diminished mental health.

As the husband of a chronically ill NHS frequent flyer, under multiple Doctors at multiple hospitals, I have first hand experience of how disjointed the NHS remains.

No matter how much money is thrown at the NHS (now 4 in every 10 pounds of government spending plus some additional pandemic recovery funds to tackle waiting lists estimated at up to 13,000,000 for routine operations), like Veruca Salt, it is never enough.

Be in no doubt that many on the frontline do a great job of delivering surgical excellence and in the case of nurses, genuine care. In the interests of balance though, it does not take forensic examination to see there is a pandemic of waste, excessive bureaucracy and tin ears in the management and deployment of public funds.

The biggest single complaint of those working in the NHS is that they are not listened to. The command and control “top down” management approach survives blue and red hued parliamentary majorities and leads to inefficiency on a Soviet scale.

The latest wheeze is Diversity Managers, a nebulous role if ever there was one, overpaid at best, pure waste at worst. Given the UK population is 86% white and 93% heterosexual, minorities are not exactly underrepresented.

Royal College of Nursing initial demands in 2020 for a 15% pay rise were not only opportunistic but evidence that the death of Trade Unionism is grossly exaggerated. The current demand is around 12% but even replacing Matt Hapless (sorry Hancock) with Sajid Javid has yet to yield a magic money tree for that little bit extra.

Further evidence of the night of the unions is that a hardcore minority of patient facing NHS staff have yet to be vaccinated against COVID-19, yet remain in post. Contrast that with care home workers who face a “no jab, no job” ultimatum just in time for the winter in a sector with over 40,000 vacancies.

I am not denying that care home deaths from COVID-19 in the first few months of the pandemic were tragic and horrific in number in equal measure. One shareholder in a care home was kind enough to share with me that the CEO of his business refused point blank to receive patients back in their facilities without evidence of negative COVID status.

Others were clearly not so able to push back against the mass emptying of hospital beds by NHS managers with disastrous results.

40 new NHS Chief Executives were recently advertised for with salaries of up to £270,000. In context, that is more than 3 times an MP’s salary and more than comparable with private sector peers.

All of which segues neatly into the dreaded privatisation word. The principle of the NHS being free at the point of need remains undiminished and I very much doubt most of the population care one jot about whether the person in front of them (say their GP) in their hour of need is a direct employee or a private sector service provider contracted in.

The left’s screams over the potential for privatisation of the NHS as part of a trade deal with the US are misdirected and hollow, not least given the expansion of private sector involvement in the NHS under Blair and Brown in their time at 10 Downing Street.

Under Tory led coalitions and majority governments alike, from Lansley through Hunt to Hancock and now Javid, reform is spoken of regularly but a bit like the planning system for housing, often ill conceived and lacking long-term thinking (naturally disincentivised by governments whose terms will never exceed 5 years).

Yet, with a heavy heart and with the turning circle of an oil tanker, it will take at least a decade, a strategic review and action plan to reform the NHS, to make it fit and relevant for the 2030s and beyond is not only desirable but essential.

Even this pseudo Conservative government which has its tanks entrenched in neo-socialism cannot continue to throw ever increasing billions at an NHS that is no longer fit for purpose on so many levels.

The purpose of this particular piece is to start the process of lobbying for wholesale reform. It is possible and it is needed. Now.

Elective surgery for purely cosmetic reasons is not the domain of taxpayers money.

Expanding NHS capacity through greater involvement of the private sector is not privatisation now matter how much Jon Ashworth bleats that it is.

There can be no sacred cows when this fatted calf is almost too big to slaughter. I make no apologies for making this impassioned plea to all interested parties: reform the NHS before it eats itself. That is the real obesity crisis.

How do you solve a problem like immigration?

Setting a cap of 100,000 net migrants a year and missing it spectacularly every year? Tried that.

Burying your head in the sand as part of the political class and keeping it there so as not to be spoken of in the same breath as Tommy Robinson or Nick Griffin? Tried that.

And that is about it. What part of “taking back control” is it when over 17,000 illegal and undocumented immigrants have already arrived by boat on the South Coast this year without a single one being deported?

These arrivals are a small percentage of illegal immigrants but the most visible since Nigel Farage started highlighting them.

This just won’t do. It happens to be on Priti Patel’s watch but in truth successive Home Secretaries have failed this country since Enoch Powell’s infamous “Rivers of Blood” speech in 1968 for fear of being branded racist or “damaging community relations”.

Immigration per se was exacerbated by free movement in our time in the EU and multiplied by the accession of former Eastern Bloc countries in 2003. This has helped maintain low inflation, criminally (literally in some cases) low labour costs and low interest rates despite the financial crash and the pandemic.

Inflation is now heading for 4%, double the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee’s target and rejoiners are engaging in an unhealthy dose of schadenfreude over shortages of HGV drivers, even though similar shortages exist in many EU countries.

The public have become increasingly agitated by immigrants and asylum seekers seemingly receiving priority over the indigenous population, brought into sharp focus by the government’s commitment to asylum seekers fleeing Afghanistan. following the calamitous US led allied withdrawal.

The UK has a proud record of “doing the right thing” in relation to genuine asylum seekers. Proportionate to our land mass and relative economic might, we are above reproach in this area.

Sadly, the levels of (particularly illegal) net immigration have blurred the lines for many citizens between the relatively modest number of asylum seekers fleeing persecution versus the large number of economic migrants that have settled.

The number of illegal immigrants residing in the UK is estimated (albeit by a human rights lawyer) to be around 1.5M. Whilst I confess I have no empirical evidence to support this assertion, I put the figure nearer 3M.

There are 2 reasons for this.

Firstly, the Home Office expected 3M EU citizens to apply for settled status before the cut off of 30th June 2021, 5.6M applied (almost double).

Secondly, since mass immigration to the UK began, including visas issued for students and others with leave to remain for fixed periods in the UK, anecdotally many have chosen to remain and work undocumented, often in organised criminal groups (including those who have groomed tens of thousands of white British girls for prostitution and drug running) and in appalling working conditions for less than the minimum wage (the textile manufacturing industry being one such example).

Immigration begins and ends with one question: what does the country need? If jobs need filling and the indigenous population cannot be trained to do them (although with the end of furlough, I cannot see a reason why), then immigration is one option but only after visas have been exhausted for temporary overseas citizens to fill gaps in the workforce until British citizens are trained.

If we really want to balance immigration numbers, a 360o approach is needed. Whilst there is no silver bullet, in bald terms, this breaks down into 5 requirements.

1. Political will. This is the most fundamental requirement. Without it, the existing perceived “free for all” will continue. Giving over £130M to the French and expecting them to “stop the boats coming” is not political will;

2. Auto deportation without appeal for illegal immigrants. This will help to reduce the ever increasing growth of human rights lawyers abusing the legal system with often frivolous appeals that cause sclerosis leading to years for deportation to take place, by which time the original “illegal immigrant” may likely have settled, begun a relationship and have children;

3. A go forward policy for legal immigration based on economic need, including points based entry system to be enforced rather than any form of virtue signalling to appease those who would prefer a return to unrestricted immigration. All legal immigrants must apply and have been accepted before entering the country;

4. British values must be embraced by all legal immigrants and there must be community integration to facilitate harmony. Whilst the UK has a proud tradition of tolerance for diversity of colour, creed and faith, this must work both ways. Not only can there be no “no go” areas for any part of the British population, whilst we are increasingly secular, the largest religious groups in the population remain part of Christianity, including the largest element, the Church of England. Notwithstanding the teachings of other religions, we must not, will not adopt any other law than the law of this land, whether in statute or common law. Those immigrants whose beliefs cannot overcome this imperative must exercise their option to leave the country for another that aligns with their beliefs;

5. The UK must continue to take its equitable share of genuine asylum seekers.

By passing the Nationality & Borders bill, which is making very heavy work of its passage through Parliament and exiting our position as a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights (which yes Cherie Blair assisted in drafting), we can begin to protect UK borders properly. That is what take back control means to me and I believe many others.

The UK is one of (if not) the most tolerant places on Earth with a successful track record of integration of immigrants going back beyond the Huguenots. We do not need to be preached to on inclusivity, respect for diversity and must continue to resist Marxist ideology, including rabid critical race theory (imported from the US) and the absurd notion of white privilege. There are over 7,000 military veterans on British streets. This is a stain on our great nation and must be addressed as a priority by a so called Conservative government.

As white British boys are consistently outperformed by every other student in the UK, they most certainly are not privileged, nor should they be made to feel guilty for their creed or the misdeeds of their ancient forbears.

A brief word on British ex pats living overseas, which prior to Brexit ran to several million. The “when in Rome” principle works both ways. British citizens who call France, Spain, Greece, Portugal or any other foreign country “home” for the majority of the calendar year must make the effort to integrate into the local population and learn (at least) enough language to get by, instead of creating enclaves of Little Britain. We should rightly expect the same for those who settle in the UK.

This has been a challenging piece to write and I’m sure some will choose to twist my words for nefarious purposes. I know my intentions and believe they will accord with the vast majority of the British public across all 4 countries of the United Kingdom, in rural and urban areas.

I end on this thought. The Conservative Party won the 2019 General Election by promising to “Get Brexit Done”. Boris Johnson inherited a poor hand from Theresa May but with obvious exceptions such as the open sore that is the Northern Ireland Protocol, Brexit got done.

The corollary of getting Brexit done was taking back control of our money, laws and borders. Notwithstanding the pandemic, there is little evidence to date to suggest that this has or will happen.

The Tories have been successful by pivoting many times over the last hundred years to deliver electoral success. If they fail to take back control and get serious about immigration, even with a Labour Party that is tearing itself apart, the Tories will be punished at the ballot box sooner rather than later but more importantly, they will have failed this great nation, who will rightly never forgive them for wasting the benefits of Brexit.

GB News: the end of the beginning

I have immense respect for the encyclopaedic knowledge of Andrew Neil across a plethora of geopolitical and macroeconomic matters.

His uncompromising excoriation of GB News on the BBC’s “Question Time” (which used to precede his successful “This Week” show) showed vanity, bitterness and weary disappointment.

Like a heavyweight boxer who goes one fight too many, Andrew looked every one of his 72 years. He may yet live to fight another day but thus far 2021 has been his annis horribilis.

Mr Neil was the public catalyst for drawing front and back of house team members to GB News. Two senior allies left in the wake of the Guto Harri debacle and a further three senior producers have left in the last week, with presenters including Simon McCoy and Kirsty Gallacher apparently considering their position.

Since Mr Neil’s hiatus, GB News has attracted Nigel Farage, Arlene Foster, Mark Dolan, Patrick Christys and Isabel Oakeshott in what many in the mainstream media feel is a lurch to the right and a more tabloid style of programming.

It is hard to resist the notion that there is a “FoxNewsification” of the channel occurring in Paddington. Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on the future strategic direction the board of GB News looks to take and more importantly, viewing figures.

GB News claims that viewing figures of its app and YouTube channels add significant numbers to those watching on television.

With Nigel Farage, either on his eponymous Monday to Thursday nightly show or alongside Dehenna Davison and Paul Embery on “The Political Correction” on Sunday consistently leading the viewing figures, numbers watching on television have at best plateaued in recent weeks and fallen for certain times of the day.

Just over 3 months in to its time on our screens, GB News is already at an ideological crossroads. The lack of news bulletins means some loyal viewers still have to revert to BBC, ITN, Sky or Channel 4 for bulletins and introducing these certainly has anecdotal popularity in the digital court of opinion that is Twitter.

In terms of balance, whilst GB News is used as a piñata by its critics for perceived right wing bias, regular appearances from Rebecca Reid, Benjamin Butterworth, Amy Nickell and Paul Embery amongst other left leaners, does give balance to panel discussions.

The funders of the station have struggled to attract advertisers and even in their wildest dreams would not have envisaged the channel making a profit for several years if at all. That said, the loss of Mr Neil leaves GB News needing to redefine its identity, which from the outside appears to be at odds with his opening monologue when the channel launched.

GB News must now decide the zeitgeist it wishes to tap into. To remain the voice of predominantly nationalistic Conservatives is a perfectly laudable position, providing it can maintain and add to its roster of credible, established presenters and youthful edgy relative newbies.

The continued difficulties with sound quality need to be addressed. It makes the station look amateurish at best, which whilst endearing for a while, when combined with frequent syntax errors, including Tom “Hardwood” on its banners, will be frustrating for the more seasoned presenters who must be retained in the short to medium term as the channel stabilises and grows its audience base.

The imminent arrival of the next new news thing, Rupert Murdoch’s Talk TV, anchored by Piers Morgan, who reportedly rejected the opportunity to join GB News, means the “prime mover” advantage GB News has enjoyed since its launch will have evaporated by early 2022. Murdoch’s billions will ensure that the glitches GB News has suffered are unlikely to be repeated on a grand scale.

Personally, I am broadly happy with GB News’ output. It is a breath of fresh air compared to the overtly leftist agendas pursued by other mainstream television news outlets. The majority of content is rational and well debated and they dare to “go there” with stories that the usual suspects ignore, particularly those which do not suit their narrative.

I remain hopeful but realistic about the future prospects for GB News. The next 3 months will be a seminal period. I wish all involved unbridled success.

To quote Nicholas Klein, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win”. Let us hope this ultimately applies to GB News.

AUKUS is welcome if overdue

Well that came from left field. Hot on the heels of the diplomatic and humanitarian disaster of the US and allies withdrawal from Afghanistan, whilst Joe Biden remains PRINO (“President in name only”), US military commanders have clearly taken control of rebuilding global strategic alliances to begin the process of rebuilding global credibility.

The exclusion of Five Eyes members, Canada and New Zealand is pragmatic given the increasingly cosy relationship each is developing with the Chinese Communist Party, which is the principal raisin d’etre of AUKUS, along with Russia and Iran.

Biden’s latest on screen gaffe, referring to Australian PM Scott Morrison as “that guy down under” was, well, Biden. The ad nauseum debate of his fitness for office rumbles on but should not detract from the significance of AUKUS.

By sharing their nuclear submarine technology with Australia, the US will provide the antipodean nation with the capability of reaching Taiwan quickly, quietly and without the need to refuel.

AUKUS would not have happened without Brexit and Boris Johnson is entitled to claim a major diplomatic coup. Given the ongoing issues with France failing to control migrants heading from its shores to the UK, it is hard not to engage in an element of schadenfreude given the multi billion Euro contract that the Australians have cancelled for the French supplying them with non-nuclear submarines.

AUKUS will not offset the pain of ceding control of Afghanistan to the Chinese/Russian/Iranian trifecta. As well as the Conservative $1trn of minerals including lithium that will now be in their orbit, leaving behind $85Bn of high grade military hardware and ammunition is more than likely to haunt the West at some stage.

The dye is cast in Afghanistan but AUKUS is deserving of praise for the vision shown by all 3 parties given their strategic locations in beginning to provide a defensive shield against the looming military might of the Chinese Communist Party, which has assembled an impressive naval fleet in short order.

Whether the Chinese have the wherewithal to deploy their naval hardware is not a risk the AUKUS allies can afford to take.

After years of chronic underfunding and scaling back our military capability, it is a welcome change to see Defence being given appropriate prioritisation by a British Government and given the Prime Minister’s propensity to spend, a cost effective multilateral solution.

Insulate Britain highlights need for Police priorities to be realigned

Despite retaining her position as Home Secretary, Priti Patel’s inbox remains beyond full. She will need more than rhetoric and jet skis to resolve the Channel migrant crisis, let alone get her Nationality & Borders Bill on to the statute books.

It is shameful that not one of the migrants who has arrived in 2021 has been expelled from the UK at the time of writing.

After 2 weeks of the Metropolitan Police largely standing by and allowing Extinction Rebellion to do as they please in Central London, (for which the head of the Met, Cressida Dick was rewarded with a further 2 years on her contract through to 2024), the XR affiliate, Insulate Britain has caused chaos to motorists by blockading junctions of the M25.

To regard the Police response as supine is to damn them with faint praise at best. The scourge of wokery has clearly contaminated all the way through to the frontline when criminals breaching the Highways Act are treated like victims and asked if they need anything to make their stay more comfortable whilst causing distress, delay and of course, pollution.

I’m no climate change denier but as a country that has reduced our CO2 emissions by 44% in 20 years and accounts for less than 1% of all CO2, however laudable their cause, the activists need to look East to Germany, Russia, China and India or West to the US for where the real problems lie.

None of which excuses the reluctance of the Police to deal swiftly and effectively with criminals intent on disrupting an economy that desperately needs to recover from the tsunami of COVID-19.

Instead of shepherding the protesters away from the very roads they seek to block, they have facilitated them, which is unforgivable.

As for those who superglue their skin to the road, the criminal justice system needs to get creative with sentencing. That starts with our Home Secretary and new Justice Secretary, Lord Chancellor and Deputy Prime Minister. Talk, like superglue is cheap, it is time for robust action.

Liz Truss: Embracing Brexit pays dividends for one Remainer

The government has had a challenging year and continues to have the propensity to shoot itself in the foot with alarming regularity, to such an extent that John Redwood is a more effective opposition than the entire Labour Party.

The paucity of quality on the Conservative benches both in cabinet and junior ministerial posts is stark. Liz Truss is a most honourable exception.

Her vote for Remain has not prevented her from rolling her sleeves as International Trade Secretary and signing a raft of trade deals with countries across the globe.

Whilst the majority are rollovers from expiring EU wide treaties, this is no mean feat.

Ms Truss has also made it her mission, on the record, to push back against wokery including unconscious bias training in the civil service.

Her promotion to Foreign Secretary is well deserved and with the Prime Minister dumping any blame at the feet of previous incumbent Dominic Raab for the disorderly departure from Afghanistan, her hawkish, Thatcherite instincts will bring a breath of fresh air and more than a drop of clear blue water to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office.

Scottish Independence? UK army rescues Scottish NHS

As part of the SNP’s devolved powers, they have full autonomy (and therefore full responsibility) for healthcare provision in Scotland.

The sight of the Health Secretary, Humza Yousaf, falling off a scooter in a corridor was a metaphor for the state of the current Scottish NHS.

Mr Yousaf who delighted on Twitter in Douglas Ross taking a tumble whilst performing as Assistant Referee in the 2018 Scottish League Cup Final, did not see the funny side of his own face plant. Funny that. Or not if you’re Mr Yousaf.

Having already used the British Army for support with setting up mobile testing centres, with a mounting A&E crisis, Nicola Sturgeon confirmed at First Minister’s Questions that the Army had once again been prevailed upon to provide 100 soldiers to support the Scottish Ambulance Service, following the death of one patient who waited 40 hours for an ambulance that failed to arrive.

Despite their super majority with the hard left Greens leading to Sturgeon to seek indyref2 by the end of 2023, the SNP’s lamentable record in health does not augur well for an independent Scotland.

With the highest level of alcohol and drug related deaths in Europe, nearly half of all top 20 COVID-19 hot spots, lower life expectancy than other parts of the UK and lengthy A&E treatment times, they would do well to begin looking after those portfolios they already have autonomy over (including education where outcomes have plummeted under SNP rule) before seeking independence.

I have resigned my membership of the Conservative & Unionist Party. It has morphed into a centre left, statist, high taxation collective of unconservatives, more akin to newLabour than even Ted Heath’s imitation of Conservatism.

I know I am one of many who either had, have or will take identical action imminently so don’t pretend to have original thought on that action.

With the honourable exception of the 5 Tories who defied the whip and voted against the imposition of the new health & social care levy, the rest of the parliamentary party, including those who abstained (a cowardly act) are misnomered. Johnsonism is not Conservatism no matter how many attempts are made to gaslight the media or the electorate that it is.

Since the demise of Margaret Thatcher, I have struggled to connect with a succession of party leaders, for a variety of reasons.

History has been kind to Sir John Major, despite catastrophic decision making, a succession of scandals and a complete erosion of party management.

William Hague was at times funny and engaging but his limitations were brutally exposed by Tony Blair in his prime.

Iain Duncan Smith had (arguably still has) Conservative principles but whilst strategically his ideas may have been sound, tactically he was battered week after week at the dispatch box and his leadership petered out with a whimper.

Michael Howard arguably steadied the ship but came nowhere close to turning the Party into more than a moderately effective opposition.

Vacuums get filled. Not necessarily in the way one expects. David Davis was expected to steamroller into the post of the Leader of Her Majesty’s Official Opposition but as is often the case (see Thatcher M and Corbyn J), outsiders often come from nowhere to win.

Enter David Cameron and 11 years of Camborne. Whilst it would be churlish not to acknowledge relative electoral success, initially in coalition with Nick Clegg’s illiberal Democrats and then with a small working majority, he will forever be remembered for 3 things:

1. Brexit referendum – where he was on the wrong side of history;

2. Austerity;

3. His involvement in and enrichment from Greensill Capital.

There is of course a 4th. Removing his bat, ball and stumps the day after losing the Brexit referendum and leaving a bigger vacuum than the one he benefited from in 2005.

After Johnson & Gove performed mutually assured destruction, Theresa May ended up as Prime Minister uncontested. Let that sink in for a second.

Whatever Mayism was, it was rarely far from braced for impact. Blowing a 20 point lead in the polls with a so called dementia tax as a manifesto commitment and ceding an outright majority to a not so new Labour Party riding a wave of Corbynism, should have had the fabled men in grey suits knocking on the door of number 10 the day after the 2017 General Election.

The 2 years after that election will be fresh in the reader’s memory but suffice to say, it was a far from halcyon period of Conservatism. May’s “negotiations” with the European Union led to a Brexit in name only that, thankfully, led to a succession of heavy defeats for her government through the division lobbies.

Her tearful resignation was at least an honourable act but it will not have gone unnoticed how she has become part of the awkward squad for Johnson since his ascension to the party leadership and becoming Prime Minister.

And so to Boris. How do I describe thee, let me count the ways:

1. Opportunistic;

2. High intellect but poor decision making;

3. Populist, hence policy on the hoof, vanity projects at taxpayers’ expense and a dubious moral compass;

Given the debacle of the Northern Ireland protocol, backlash from fishermen and lack of expediency in returning illegal immigrants (none of those who have arrived in 2021 have been expelled), it is increasingly hard to repeat the clarion calls of “Get Brexit Done” or “Take Back Control”.

To break one manifesto commitment in a day (the pensions triple lock) is unfortunate and arguably (just about) acceptable given the spike in earnings.

To break a second and fundamental manifesto commitment in the same day will take as long as the miners’ strike or the poll tax to fade from the memories of the electorate. Not least as a new permanent tax has been created to “solve” a temporary problem (NHS waiting lists) and even an imbecile would struggle to believe that much of the money will ever reach the social care system.

The paucity of intellectual rigour in the cabinet, (presumably because Boris is constantly checking for people looking to usurp him), the immigration crisis (which unquelled will only morph) and now the wholly unconservative imposition of additional taxes on wealth creators and hard working people is a damning indictment of just how far from Conservatism, the so called Conservative & Unionist Party has distanced itself.

Instead of reforming our “precious” (bloated, grossly inefficient and failing) NHS, which in truth is little more than a National Covid-19 Service that occasionally treats emergencies, this government throws away another £25 Billion of taxpayers’ money (our money).

Add that to the £130M we may as well have incinerated that has been sent to the French to tackle the migrant crossings in the English Channel and a pattern emerges.

This Conservative government now has the dubious honour of presiding over:

1. The highest rates of personal taxation since World War II;

2. The highest energy bills in Europe – over 35% of utility bills are used to subsidise renewable forms of energy. On Tuesday when the wind didn’t blow, we had to fire up (say it quietly) a coal fired power station to meet demand;

3. The state will be vaccinating 12-15 year olds regardless of parental will with a vaccine that they do not need, which has only emergency MHRA approval and we have no idea of potential impact on their health in the medium term – this is totalitarianism on steroids;

4. The state will be forcing care workers who refuse to take the vaccine to leave the sector, which is already facing a resourcing crisis;

5. The state is imposing vaccine passports for those who wish to attend mass gatherings snatching defeat from the jaws of the victory of the vaccine rollout.

Brief dishonourable mentions to the increasingly extreme obsession with moving towards carbon neutrality, scrapping sales of the internal combustion engine, replacing gas boilers with ground source heat pumps that don’t work below 5 degrees Celsius and a very unconservative £2Trn cost to be borne by the taxpayer in consequence.

To summarise, the current Conservative & Unionist Party is now the party of high taxation, nannying, state intervention, totalitarianism, pandering to climate extremists, ever reducing investment in our armed forces and is no friend of business.

Unlike many who were spellbound to the point of salivating over the appointment of Boris Johnson, I was concerned that, at best, he would bumble along for a while on a wave of “hail fellow, well met” popularity.

Sadly, even my worst case scenario of him betraying his so called libertarian instincts and spaffing public money on unnecessary infrastructure rather than truly pursuing a “levelling up” agenda and winning the war on wokeism was way short of the state we are in.

I have applied to join the Bow Group of Conservatives and whilst I would not rule out ever voting for the Conservative & Unionist Party again, I will remain a Conservative to my core, something this party has long since decoupled from.

The Chinese Communist Party (“CCP”) thinks uber long term. It is no accident that they own 1 in every 5 dollars of US treasury debt.

So Uncle Sam, with eye watering levels of leverage, blessed with their “anyone but Trump” president and committed to adding trillions of dollars more to the national debt pile has its main geopolitical rival as its largest creditor.

China will soon overtake the US as the world’s largest economy. This has taken several decades but is the result of a centrally planned deliberate strategy, including currency manipulation and never having to worry about “debt”.

The CCP has successfully combined absolute control through subjugation of the Chinese population, whilst allowing those with the right credentials to “prosper” in turning China into the world’s factory.

With the fall of Afghanistan, they will follow a well trodden path of “infrastructure investment” in return for soft power and unfettered access to a trillion dollar supply of the minerals of tomorrow, not least lithium, a key component in the batteries that are set to power the world’s 4 wheeled future.

David Cameron and George Osborne embraced Chinese inward investment on an unprecedented scale with multiple trade missions, allowing the CCP access to key UK infrastructure, not least our nuclear programme. This flirtation with Sinophilia needs to end, whilst remembering that the overwhelming majority of Chinese people are not the CCP.

The world has been sleep walking whilst the CCP has been knocking over strategic dominoes one by one. The decision to (largely) remove Huawei from the UK’s 5G rollout is the equivalent of scoring a consolation goal when you’re 6-0 down in injury time. Way too little, way too late.

Whatever one thinks of Biden’s decision to turn tail from Afghanistan, it is clear that internationalism may finally be waning. COVID-19 has shown the value of localisation of supply chains and whisper it, the need for countries including the UK to restart indigenous manufacturing.

Western values such as democracy and diversity are losing traction in emerging nations. Just over 40% of nations have recognisable multi-party democracy. Let that sink in. The reverse to that is almost 60% do not.

China has progressively gained soft power through belt and road infrastructure investment predominantly within that 60% which it will successfully leverage in the coming decades. They have won that battle without firing a single bullet.

The US, for the foreseeable future at least can no longer be relied upon as a strategic military partner and the so called “special relationship” is dead.

It was always heavily one sided and the US has always had it in them to act unilaterally without informing its partners (think of the Grenada invasion by Ronald Reagan, much to the ire of Margaret Thatcher). Even a free trade deal looks optimistic in this presidential term.

With China buzzing Taiwanese air space up to a dozen times a day this week and no pushback from the US, an invasion looks inevitable. Rest assured, if and when it happens, it will be a time of the CCP’s choosing. They are in no rush.

Post Brexit Britain needs to stand on its own two feet. We remain a significant economy, 6th on the global stage but have become too dependent on services as a percentage of GDP.

I am not advocating a return to the 1970s when Trade Unions ensured cripplingly poor levels of output, efficiency and quality for privately owned and publicly funded entities. Quite the opposite. The state must also avoid picking winners.

Equally, we must forge new alliances and strengthen existing ones where it is in our national interest. Whilst domestically produced goods and materials may cost more, there is a renewed appetite to buy British.

The UK has some of the finest global intellects across a gamut of the growth sectors of tomorrow. Instead of exporting them all, let’s incentivise them handsomely to build a modern, dynamic British economy, with vastly reduced dependence on other nations. It will be money well spent.

America First is very much alive and kicking under Biden, despite his proclamation at the G7 that America is back. It certainly is. Back home.

The CCP has been CCP First from minute one.

Without becoming insular and navel gazing, it is time the UK pursued a UK First strategy too. Colonel Richard Kemp has called for a doubling of defence spending. Whilst there is no magic money tree, I’m what is set to become an increasingly unstable world, I support this wholeheartedly.

The Conservative Party needs to radically overhaul what the state is and what it is not. Personal taxation is at record post World War levels and government debt has trebled in just over 10 years of Tory led governments. Defence spending on the other hand has gone backwards with army personnel steadily decimated to 82,000.

We cannot “beat” China. We can however learn from them. Starting by thinking much longer term. Which is substantially longer than a single parliamentary term. Our leaders must keep the best of what we have but reform the cost and efficiency of public services without fear or favour.

As a large C Conservative, fiscal and defence hawk and proud Thatcherite, I genuinely believe that Britain remains a great place to live, work and has many positive attributes. It can and must pivot to face the realities of the New World Order. Standing still is going backwards.

What a tumultuous period it has been since the 2019 General Election 20 months ago. An 80 seat majority would normally enable a Prime Minister to fulfil most manifesto commitments comfortably.

Brexit got done. Well mainly. Northern Ireland would beg to differ. The Protocol cannot be kicked down the road indefinitely. The EU is in disarray with Poland, Hungary, Sweden and Denmark all contemplating entering the departure lounge. 23 of the 27 countries are involved in legal proceedings with the EU.

COVID-19 was a dot on the horizon yet just over 3 months later, the 1st national lockdown began.

Joe Biden became President of the United States and in less than 7 months has appeared increasingly frail whilst printing trillions of dollars and is seemingly little more than a prisoner of AOC, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

A conspiracy theorist might speculate that the plan was to install Kamala Harris (who left the race for the White House very early in the piece) within 2 years all along. To channel Francis Urquhart, you could say that, I couldn’t possibly comment.

Biden’s unilateral withdrawal from Afghanistan without consulting the UK spells the need for a hard reset on the “special relationship”.

The Chinese Communist Party, Pakistan and Russia will all be keen to fill the vacuum that the West has left behind. My enemy’s enemy is my friend springs to mind. That alone necessitates an urgent review of foreign and defence policy. Free of the shackles of the EU, global mercantile Britain can, should and must prosper.

English Channel migrant crossings have hit new record highs in benign weather conditions. Leaving the ECHR (yes I know we drafted it) is a priority. People need to understand the difference between asylum (where we already do our fair share) and economic migration.

Population growth of 10M in 20 years for an island nation with our land mass has put a massive strain on our public services and infrastructure and cannot continue. Little surprise that the national debt has trebled since 2010.

It is imperative the Nationality & Borders Bill passes without amendments and as an astute follower pointed out on Twitter, it must be water tight from ambulance chasing Human Rights lawyers to prevent a repeat of the latest deportation flight debacle.

Whilst borrowing remains understandably but unsustainably high, it must start to fall faster and harder before the year is out. Boris must channel his inner libertarian starting with the removal of all remaining COVID-19 restrictions to get the economy moving faster across all sectors.

15th August 2021 must be a line in the sand for the future direction of the United Kingdom. Our attempts to export Western style democracy must cease. I’m not advocating we become “neutral” a la Switzerland but we must focus on getting our own house in order for the remainder of this parliamentary term.