The Leadership Election. A vote to return to the EU?

22nd October 2022 18

It’s hard to know why the Tory establishment dislikes Johnson so much, he gave them an 80 seat majority, so what else did they want from a leader? Is it because he has a Turkish grandfather, too many wives, or he simply makes people smile? Even better he gave the establishment Brexit in name only. We were promised control of … [Read on]

Thinking Penny Mordaunt would be a good choice of PM? Think again

20th October 2022 10

This article was published in July during the previous leadership election It beggars belief that Penny Mordaunt, the Queen of Woke, is odds-on favourite to win the Conservative leadership contest and become the next prime minister. The country needs her like a shot in the head. Apart from an impressively bouffant hairdo in the best Thatcherite tradition, a photogenic smile, … [Read on]

Dead Woman Walking

14th October 2022 10

During the Tory party conference, Liz Truss was described as ‘a dead woman walking’ by one of her colleagues. One wonders what she could be described as now – an ‘anti-prime minister’? Throwing her chancellor under the bus, as if she were not his closest confidant, as if she did not approve wholeheartedly of his reckless budget, and then claiming … [Read on]

King Charles’ Coronation – selling Mars Bars and NFL tickets or strengthening the links between Crown and People

10th October 2022 11

For over a millennium, the investiture of our monarchs has been attended by a cadre of nobles who, without their wives, currently number 808. The temptation to swap out the congregation for an audience of celebrities, global elites and ‘cultural ambassadors’ must be enormous. This will be the first test of a continuity which the King will swear to protect. … [Read on]

Editorial Autumn Salisbury Review

10th October 2022 4

Looking back, it is hard to believe there were two more unsuitable candidates for Prime Minister than Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss. Both members of the last government which instead of governing the economy with judicious rises in interest rates sat back and oversaw the biggest money printing splurge in our history. True, neither could have foreseen Covid or the … [Read on]

After Truss a golden future of “hard” money ?

2nd October 2022 8

I am sick of buying other peoples’ houses for them. For years I have been earning 0.05 interest on my savings so that the banks can then lend it to house buyers for 1.5%. Buyers is too kind a word. Thieves perhaps? So talk of base rates reaching 6% is music to my ears.  The consequent 10% mortgage rate will … [Read on]

Has Labour’s time come?

2nd October 2022 8

It looks like Kwasi Kwarteng will be the shortest-lived chancellor in history. Liz Truss’s admission this morning that she had not discussed her top-rate tax cut with her cabinet is merely alarming. That the cut was ‘a decision the chancellor made’, as if she, the prime minister, had no part in it, can only mean one thing: the unfunded cut … [Read on]

A Day out in Merrie England 2022.

2nd October 2022 4

Getting out and about does you a power of good – and these days there is that exciting extra frisson of uncertainty; about everything. I was going to see Richard III at the RSC in Stratford, a place which   could easily have become an international cultural hub, but didn’t, as it lacks good transport connections. It’s not even possible to … [Read on]