Take It Back - PMQs 2nd July 2025

‘I heard you want your country back - f*ck that’, sang ‘Bob Vylan’ at Glastonbury.

He may be right. The easily-led middle-class crowd that cheered him don’t seem fit to take charge. Maybe it’s to do with how digital communication is shortening attention span. That affects the ability to think.

But not to doublethink.

The pop-goers joined in with Pascal’s slogan ‘deff, deff to the IDF’ since Hamas is running a PR campaign representing civilian collateral damage in Gaza as ‘genocide.’ Yet here in the UK Parliament is exposing the unborn, the old and the sick to deliberate, personally-targeted death. Where is the chanting against that?

The double standards also apply to influencers. Entertainers like Vylan and Kneecap will almost certainly not be jailed while despite American concerns Lucy Connolly may not be freed. Standup comedian Nicolas de Santo quotes an Italian saying: ‘The law is applied to one’s enemies and interpreted for one’s friends.’

Now let’s pass from the mosh pit to the bosh pit…

PMQs opened with Labourites cheering for the Prime Minister, whose welfare reform bill passed yesterday after numerous concessions to his rebels. Starmer’s many recent climbdowns and U-turns begin to resemble a sailor’s dance.

The first question, an invitation to Starmer to celebrate his Government’s achievements against child poverty, earned Paul Waugh (Lab) the Opposition leader’s award of ‘toady of the week’ to much laughter.

• Welfare reform and the Chancellor’s future

Sir Keir and Kemi then exchanged views on his failure to rein in benefit costs and the Conservatives’ past record. The anticipated consequences of the Bill’s weakening were not only economic but political. Kemi said Reeves was ‘a human shield’ for his incompetence - the French might say his ‘fuse’ as she next asked whether Reeves ‘would be in post until the next election.’

The Chancellor, already looking miserable, wept as the PM dodged the question and the newspapers noted how the pound fell in response to Reeves’ distress. One might have expected the markets to soar at the prospect of a new tenant at Number Eleven; perhaps they prefer even a sure-fire slump to uncertainty.

The Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey pointed out the unfairness of the revised Bill’s approach to Personal Independence Payments, whereby existing claimants could continue as before but new ones might not qualify. The PM prevaricated, using the ongoing Timms review of PIP as his excuse.

Later, Adrian Ramsay (Green) asked whether Starmer would consider scrapping the two-child benefit cap and the cuts to universal credit for the ill and disabled. The PM countered with the Greens’ unfunded £80 billion General Election tax commitment and, despite their advocacy of ‘change and clean power’, their consistent opposition to infrastructure projects.

Also Victoria Collins (Lib Dem) mentioned a constituent who was ‘set to lose the PIP that they rely on for work’ and had lost a carer through this uncertainty. Starmer referred once again to the Timms review and generalised about reform.

• Governmental transparency

Davey followed up with the issue of the proposed ‘Hillsborough law’ that would impose ‘a legal duty of candour, and for the secondary duty needed to make it practical and effective for investigations and inquiries.’ He said that victims of numerous public scandals feared the law would be watered down. Labour’s Kim Johnson, next on, echoed that concern and said her Party colleague Ian Byrne MP would seek to introduce ‘the real Hillsborough law’ after PMQs. Would the PM back it?

Starmer replied to both questioners that he would support the candour requirement but needed time to ‘get it right.’ Readers may reflect on the implications for the future national ‘grooming gangs’ enquiry, which must also be on the PM’s mind.

• Defence

Olivia Bailey (Labour) noted the Government’s £15 billion investment in the Atomic Weapons Establishment and its prospects for employment and ‘national security.’ A propos that last, Robert Jenrick MP has said on Twitter/X (June 26) that in 2001 Starmer defended pro bono a woman who had broken into UK/US air bases 500 times. Had Starmer won that case it might have set a precedent giving a legal defence to the Palestine Action actvists who caused sigificant damage to planes at RAF Brize Norton.

Since, allegedly, Starmer took no fee then contrary to Downing Street’s assertion he was not obliged to take the case as per the Bar Standard Board’s ‘cab rank rule’; Jenrick has written to the PM to demand he corrects the record.

Does this voluntary assistance show that Starmer is anti-British, asks the 'Black Belt Barrister.’ Does the Ship of State have a destructive shipworm gnawing at its keel?

Another odd aspect of the Brize Norton break-in is that according to former diplomat Craig Murray the vandalised Voyager refuelling aircraft are owned not by the RAF but by a hedge fund using ‘a chain of seven cutout companies.’ Murray goes on to say ‘it is plain that the private companies are also providing the RAF ground crew.’ What?

• NHS

In his reply to the SNP’s Stephen Flynn asking whether the public should believe Starmer’s promise to ‘end the chaos’ the PM berated the SNP’s record on health and said (for the third time today) that his Government had delivered four million extra NHS appointments. Full Fact offers a more nuanced analysis and comparison with recent years under the Conservatives.

Steff Aquarone (Lib Dem) asked about the threat of closure to a convalescence facility in Cromer. The PM gave a vanilla answer about reform to and investment in the sector generally.

Farms, the family farm tax (FFT), solar and nuclear energy

The Conservatives’ Harriet Cross asked for a U-turn on the FFT and received another generalised reply about the Budget’s funding for farming and the ‘road map’ without touching on the eco policy complexities.

Btw one farm unlikely to be ruined by Labour’s inheritance taxes is Worthy Farm which has hosted Glasto since 1970. Sadly not all farmers can have such opportunities and exploit them.

Cross’ Party colleague Dame Karen Bradley was concerned about the conversion of good agricultural land for solar farms and battery storage facilities. The PM attempted to argue for both and that renewables would reduce consumers’ energy bills.

Charlotte Nichols (Lab) welcomed the Government’s industrial strategy and asked how it would support the nuclear sector. Starmer promised a ‘golden age’ of nuclear including Sizewell C and small modular reactors. We have to hope it will come about.

• Housing

David Taylor (Labour) welcomed the Government’s commitment to build more houses. His constituency of Hemel Hempstead was looking at a Garden Communities scheme for 11,000 new homes. The PM said Labour was supporting 47 locally-led garden communities (it seems Green Belt land cannot escape the consequences.)

• POST PMQs - Chagos raises its head again

Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel asked an Urgent Question on ‘ratification of the UK-Mauritius treaty on the future sovereignty of the British Indian Ocean Territory.’

FCO Minister Stephen Doughty said the deal has secured the base on Diego Garcia ‘well into the next century’, glossing over the fact that the ICJ’s ‘world court’ ruling is merel advisory and not binding on the UK and so the expensive concession was not necessary.

Was this another nibble of the shipworm?

Doughty attempted to act long-suffering (‘disappointed by the tone’) about the many questions Dame Priti has previously submitted on the subject. He said primary legislation would be brought forward in due course.

However Dame Priti noted that ‘Labour has breached the parliamentary conventions and denied the House a meaningful debate and vote on ratification’ as per the CRaG (Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010) process for ratifing treaties.

Doughty leaves us with yet another impression of the condescending arrogance of power.

We want our country back.

From Wolves of Westminster

Mind the shop! - PMQs 25th June 2025

As last week the PM was absent, leaving the Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) to mind the shop.

Sir Keir was rubbing shoulders with other NATO leaders at the Hague. He took this opportunity to advertise the procurement of a dozen American jets adapted to carry nuclear weapons. Under what circumstances would such weapons be launched from an F-35 fighter? Perhaps the Ukraine’s President Zelensky clarified that when he met Starmer in London ahead of the summit.

The BBC reports that their use would ‘require the authorisation of Nato's nuclear planning group as well as the US president and British prime minister.’

Blogger Simon Webb speculates that there may be a hidden agenda, to do away with our submarine-borne nuclear deterrent, whose Trident missiles are under the UK’s sole control. Add that to giving away the Chagos Islands and lightening border controls at Gibraltar - is it possible to detect a pattern, of letting us become weaker and ill-guarded?

Which brings us to this PMQs session. Labour’s Calvin Bailey made a show of bridling at Reform’s Richard Tice’s criticism of the commanding officer at Brize Norton, where Palestine Action activists (soon to be defined as terrorists) entered the site unchallenged and caused tens of millions of pounds’ worth of damage to RAF planes. Who was minding that shop?

Ms Rayner said Tice’s comments were ‘even more disgraceful’ than the attack itself. Her astonishing nonsense should be read in contrast with what an ex-Army officer has to say on the subject. Imagine if Argentine agents had disabled our refuelling planes during the Falklands war, causing Vulcan bombers to plummet into the Atlantic post-mission - which their pilots were ready to do, if necessary.

Labour’s Bayo Alaba invited Ms Rayner to boast about the Government’s plans for defence spending. They would drive jobs and prosperity, she said.

How has that worked out for those at the sharp end? Since this is Armed Forces Week it is worth looking at what sometimes happens when Mr Atkins reverts to being ‘Tommy’:

Rebecca Long Bailey (Lab) reminded the House how elderly military veterans harmed by nuclear weapons testing had had the results of their medical tests suppressed; the DPM said ‘we’ would look into it. Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru) told how permanently injured former members of the armed services were harassed with frequent repeat disability assessments; the DPM thanked him for raising the case. Cameron Thomas (Lib Dem) said the Ministry of Defence had never accepted liability for the ‘various cancers, crippling illnesses and deformities’ caused to service personnel and their descendants by exposure to nuclear testing on Christmas Island in 1957; the DPM referred him to the Minister for Veterans (Alistair Carns MP.) Can somebody in the shop come to the counter more quickly, please?

The crisis that we are approaching as a nation has stemmed from both Parties’ failure to attend to business, to know the fundamentals. As a Question Time audience member said two years ago, neither Party was fit to run a whelk stall.

Let us ‘gently’ (to use a popular Labour bully-word) suggest some principles for running the country:

• While being prepared to defend ourselves, avoid unnecessary entanglement in foreign conflicts. Two world wars - and we initiated our entry into both - have nearly ruined us beyond recovery.

• Guard our borders, and guard against enemies within.

• Find well-paid work for our people.

It is time to reconsider economic basics and their implications for society. If the proponents of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) are right, public debt is not so scary as the Treasury, the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility would have it. If we need more money for productive projects we can create it by fiat; if we attain (near) full employment and the economy begins to overheat money can be sucked back out of the system by taxation.

Where MMT-supporting economists such as Steve Keen and Richard J Murphy are in agreement with MAGA is in holding that a sustained foreign trade deficit is a threat, because it mean progressively giving our assets (and so control) to outsiders.

We are an advanced economy and our competitive edge in foreign trade is in services, which almost but not quite compensate for the negative balance in goods trading. The latter would be helped if we were not hobbled by ‘green energy’ and Net Zero ideas.

So what we need is a highly-skilled workforce. Boosting our population with the import of cheap labour may increase GDP but will make us poorer per capita; and given the Welfare State will add to our economic burden, at least to start with.

Second generation immigrants may benefit from our education system and may be encouraged by their elders to take maximum advantage of such opportunities, but in an economy under strain they may simply be crowding out indigenous (if we may call them that) youngsters. So it is that the bottom tier of underachievers is largely composed of white working-class boys, cemented into failure by lack of aspiration at a time when it is needed. Do schools really have to focus on minority sexual obsessions and class/racial victim-consciousness when children should be learning useful skills? Why do more schools not adopt Katharine Birbalsingh’s Michaela School as their model?

Labour came in with a different agenda. One was further devolution, a plan that may have been intended to ensure the Conservatives would never regain power. The Tories have managed to do that without outside help; their shooting-gallery leadership machinations seem to have been steered not so much by the ‘men in grey suits’ as by men in gitis.

Now it looks as though Gordon Brown’s devolution master plan is on the back burner; we need another layer of local government princelings like another hole in the head. This comes as a relief to Plymouth, for one (too late for London, though.)

However the Tories’ Neil O’Brien now told the DPM that the expansion of cities such as Leicester into outlying areas was unwanted; she gave him a blethery answer which appeared to boil down to ‘we are getting on and doing it’ and yah boo sucks.

Meanwhile the economic (and associated political) breakdown continues. Labour whip Vicky Foxcroft has resigned over the issue of proposed benefit cuts and some 120-plus Party MPs seem set to rebel. The Lib Dem’s deputy leader also declared her party’s opposition to slashed personal independence payments and carer’s allowance.

This additional financial pressure on poorer households is made more acute by the rise in housing costs:

‘In 1968, housing costs constituted 9% of average disposable incomes for households in the poorest quarter of the population; this rose to 26% in 2015 before falling to 21% in 2021. Even after accounting for housing benefit, the poorest households spent 19% of their income on housing in 2016, the latest year for which these data accounting for housing benefit are available.’

Labour’s Debbie Abrahams called for more affordable housing, and the DPM talked about Labour’s investment in this area. However on current net immigration trends the pressure on housing will not lessen even if Ms Rayner’s building target (1.5 million houses) is met. Sir Oliver Dowden (Con) spoke of ‘family houses being converted into houses in multiple occupation, leading to a surge in antisocial behaviour and parking problems.’

Will no-one in either major (legacy?) Party mention the elephant in the room? What do they imagine will happen if this continues? Do they not see what is happening already? While deploring the ‘recent disorder on the streets of Northern Ireland’ Belfast’s Gavin Robinson (DUP) spoke of the Windsor framework and the need for sovereign control of immigration.

Who is running the shop?

The DPM and her opposite number (Sir Mel Stride today) exchanged banter about leadership changes but Andrew Snowden (Con) took it further, asking ‘who she would get rid of in the coming reshuffle’ and naming much of the Government’s front bench.

What is needed is not so much a reshuffle as a big pile of discards.

Or even, in this game of political Canasta, two whole new packs.

From Wolves of Westminster

Systematic abuse of trust - PMQs 18th June 2025

Grooming gangs gain the trust of their victims and then abuse them.

It seems they are not the only ones. On Wednesday, immediately before PMQs began, Mims Davies MP (Con) asked Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson:

‘Will the Minister confirm that those in their ivory towers in Whitehall can now be compelled to give evidence under oath on their actions and assumptions—including, vitally, senior civil servants, former Crown Prosecution Service employees, and previous Directors of Public Prosecutions?’

Phillipson replied, ‘As the Home Secretary set out on Monday, anyone found to have been responsible for covering up or hiding vile crimes of child sexual abuse must and will be prosecuted.’

Similarly when announcing Sir Keir’s decision to call a statutory inquiry into organised rape gangs, a No 10 spokesperson said that it will go beyond merely considering the perpetrators:

‘By setting up a new inquiry under the inquiries act with statutory powers to compel witnesses, the local authorities and institutions who fail to act to protect young people will not be able to hide and will finally be held to account for their action.’

Nevertheless there is scepticism about the depth of the new investigation, whose remit has not yet been made clear. The gangs in question tend/ed to operate in Labour-controlled authorities and Baroness Casey’s just-released report says that those who could have taken action earlier stayed their hand fearing accusations of racism and worrying about stoking community tensions. A full examination might reveal serious dereliction of duty by local police, social workers, councillors and constituency MPs.

Properly conducted, it could even lead into Whitehall itself. For example, as long ago as 2011, says Dominic Cummings, then at the Department of Education. Rotherham Council was asking the Department to help suppress revelations by The Times newspaper about sexual abuse and trafficking of children. To his credit Cummings and his boss Michael Gove resisted but Cummings says there were officials who were willing to take the other side.

The mainstream media, still read and watched by trusting millions, have also colluded. Two years ago Guardian columnist Owen Jones dismissed the grooming gang allegations - presumably in good faith but blinded by his political prejudices; now he denies that that he had said so. The BBC’s Emily Maitlis - that distinctive haircut in search of a fully-informed and impartial brain to sit on - recently smeared Rupert Lowe MP to his face as ‘probably racist’ for pointing the finger at Pakistani Muslims; what will she say now that Baroness Casey’s report has been published?

If as seems to have been its approach up to now the Labour Party places party above country it will wish to limit the terms of these fresh hearings. However we are now in the court of public opinion also. As YouTube commentator June Slater says, ‘the cat is out of the bag.’

Mr Lowe, who set up a crowdfunded independent inquiry when it became clear that the Government was trying to fudge things with locally-based and non-statutory explorations, now says he will continue with the project despite the PM’s U-turn. He will be looking to catch whatever the official inquiry tries to exclude.

Other disturbing aspects may come to light. The official failure to protect the young women may have had additional motivations besides fears of social and political embarrassment. If ‘Clarissa’ who wrote to ‘Granniopterix’ is telling the truth we could be uncovering a parallel system within the gangs of drug dealing and corruption; big money and tight mouths.

Claiming to be a victim of British Pakistani rapists in the early Seventies, ‘Clarissa’ alleges that Pakistani gangs were at that time also running drugs into Heathrow with the connivance of baggage handlers and ‘probably customs officers as well.’

Trust in our public institutions is in danger of breaking down. Full disclosure could be highly explosive.

And so to PMQs. ‘Macavity’ Starmer was not there: though returned from the G7 summit in Canada he was too busy meeting some footballers to face the music in Westminster’s “tribal shouting place.”

His role was taken by Deputy PM Angela Rayner, facing shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp for the Opposition. Their exchanges focused on the impending inquiry.

Philp said the victims he had met yesterday demanded that it be ‘independently led, has full statutory powers, and covers all 50 towns affected, including Bradford. They will also only have confidence in it if those who covered this up are prosecuted, foreign perpetrators are all deported, survivors are closely involved, and it is set up before the summer recess.’

Ms Rayner promised only the first two points - and to implement the Jay report - and thanked him ‘for his tone, and for putting the survivors and victims at the heart of his question.’ To some this might sound like ‘don’t look here, look over there.’

Then we had discussion of Sir Keir’s smearing campaigners as ‘jumping on a “far-right bandwagon”’ which Rayner spun as ‘specifically about Tory Ministers who sat for years in Government and did absolutely nothing about this scandal.’ We moved on to the boats, Rwanda and so on. Philp accused the Deputy PM as having a ‘brass neck’ and ‘cheek’; she is certainly tough.

Speaking of tone, Rayner or her scriptwriters have adopted Sir Keir’s bully-phrase ‘I gently say’ - she used it with three different people here. Just imagine what she might be like if she chose to!

After all the ‘point scoring’ Sarah Champion (Lab) pertinently raised the issue of rape gang victims being denied Government compensation ‘on bizarre technicalities.’ The Deputy PM said the three year time limit for civil court claims would be abolished and mentioned other measures to support survivors.

Support for staff and pupils at Bishop Challoner (independent) school - to shut because of the school fees VAT imposition - was not forthcoming: ‘taxpayers in this country should not be subsidising tax breaks for private schools.’ There is no tax relief on school fees and wealthy parents subsidise the State school system through their taxes without - until now - accessing places in it for their children; but we have another four years of this Government ahead and they have an overwhelming majority in Parliament; it is quite easy for a leadership to be tough under these circumstances. One wonders why Starmer makes any concessions at all; perhaps it is because the Party is looking beyond his reign.

Israel featured once again in this session and there needs to be some clarity in the public’s mind about what that nation faces.

Regarding Iran, Iranian-born activist Elica le Bon explains to ‘Triggernometry’ that among Shia Muslims there is a prophecy that when ‘the last drop of blood of Israel falls’ the twelfth Imam - hidden for over a thousand years so far - will return and establish permanent peace and justice. The sooner every Jew has been killed, the sooner will come the long-desired Millennium.

To this end Iran has sponsored terrorist movements against Israel, in Lebanon, Gaza and elsewhere. But if it can manage to make a nuclear-tipped missile its theocratic leadership will have no compunction about launching it at the Israelis.

Retaliation does not matter to the ardent faithful; what is death here - inevitable anyway - compared with forever in Heaven, to which martyrdom is a short cut? To understand the sensual delights of that Heaven, watch this video by Gaza Islamic scholar Ahmad Khadoura. What young man could resist such a vision?

In Gaza Hamas rules. Their 1988 Covenant quotes the Prophet as saying (Article Seven):

‘The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.’

Hamas’ later Charter of 2017 appears less anti-semitic. But even Wikipedia notes:

‘While some welcomed it as a sign of pragmatism and increased political maturity, and a potential step on the way to peace, many others dismissed it as a merely cosmetic effort designed to make Hamas sound more palatable while changing nothing about Hamas' underlying aims and methods.’

Even in this Charter it says (Point 20): ‘Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.’ If there was any doubt, the atrocities of October 7 2023 have dispelled it.

‘Father of the House’ Sir Edward Leigh (Con) raised the issue of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank ‘which is simply leading to radicalisation and desperation throughout the region’ and Ms Rayner agreed that they were ‘appalling and completely unacceptable.’ Nevertheless she repeated the official British line calling for a ceasefire, the release of hostages (the taking of whom is forbidden under international law), resumption of aid into Gaza and the ‘two-state solution.’

Our secular Western politicians think they can impose secular solutions on a red-hot religious movement. Unless and until Islam has the Reformation called for by apostate Ayaan Hirsi Ali, we face in its extreme adherents deadly and implacable opponents of worldly Western values.

Let us demonstrate those values by cleaning house here with a full inquiry - several may be needed - and reinstating the rule of law without fear or favour.

From Wolves of Westminster

Discourtesy – PMQs 4th June 2025

The PM’s rough manners and disregard for relevance have worsened.

Jesse Norman MP (Con) raised a point of order at the end of the session, asking the Speaker ‘Could you give us some guidance on whether you may be able to control answers when they are wildly inappropriate?’

The instance Norman cited was when Badenoch asked Starmer about the two-child benefit cap and instead was slapped with a reference to the Kremlin because they appreciated her admission that the Ukraine conflict was a ‘proxy war’ with Russia. (Make that ‘poxy’: not just despicable but contagious and deadly dangerous.)

The Russophobia is a threadbare theme but cheap shots are Sir Keir’s stock in trade; money for old trope? It is curious that he should exploit it now that Russia is a sort of democracy and our country is led by someone suspected of Communistic instincts.

Writing in The Spectator Madeline Grant developed this point, likening the PM to a late-Soviet Leonid Brezhnev assuring us that all is going well. In the Daily Mail Quentin Letts also notes how Starmer has become ‘idly, sarcastically evasive.’

When you have enough power you can speak nonsense to the people but if they protest it’s off to the Lubyanka with them.

And what nonsense it is! Sir Keir’s aggressive 1984-style quacking mismatches responses to queries. Does Reform’s Sarah Pochin suggest banning the burqa, as in several European Countries? She receives a graceless refusal to reply; instead she is told to speak to her leader about unfunded tax cuts; to remember Liz Truss; and anyway I got a rabbit!

Strike that last: Starmer’s egregious arrogance hasn’t yet spilled over into ‘second childishness and mere oblivion.’ But power has gone to his head. Only he can call an early General Election and not even a Labour Party vote of no confidence can remove him. ‘You have me for another four years, ha ha!’

We must be thankful that the PM bothers to face interrogation at all. One of his mentor Tony Blair’s first acts was to consolidate twice-weekly PMQs into a single meeting; as Ian Taylor (Con) then commented, ‘I warmly welcome the Prime Minister to his role of answering questions and I am grateful to him for finding the time in his diary to do so. At some point he might consult the House about these changes.’ Arbitrarily cut down from two, but as Lear’s daughter Regan asks, ‘What needs one?’ Like the old king, we are impotent, must take what we are given.

Here is Sir Keir, commanding an Opposition-crushing Parliamentary majority. He may do as he pleases, for as long as he pleases.

Yet his overwhelming advantage is based on the ballots of only twenty per cent of the electorate. As Tony Benn said in 1991: ‘If people lose the power to sack their Government, one of several things happens. First, people may just slope off. Apathy could destroy democracy. When the turnout drops below 50 per cent., we are in danger.’

The danger is that the very basis of the Prime Minister’s right to rule comes into question when his support among the people is so slender and his opposition there so great and growing. Starmer’s rapprochement with the European Union in particular runs against our clearly expressed wish - no, our instruction, since the main Parties’ undertaking to carry out the result of the 2016 Referendum turned it into a plebiscite. Our claim to be a democracy is being tested. Where on the line from absolute monarchical rule (albeit delegated to the First Minister) to full republic do we sit?

What may we do when our representatives cease to represent us? In 1774 Edmund Burke told his Bristol electors that his duty was not to follow their opinion but to exercise his judgment in their interest; now, it seems our MPs have done neither. How was it in our interest to lose our sovereignty? Whose right was it to decide that?

We owe a debt of thanks to Andrew Neather, a former speechwriter for Mr Blair. In a 2009 article in the London Evening Standard he said that New Labour’s immigration policy was (in his estimation) partly intended ‘to rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date.’ 

Naturally many people have been tempted to shoot the messenger but his honesty is greatly to be valued, since it revealed the near-insane mindset of Westminster politics, each side determined to give the other ‘one in the eye’ and a fig for the interests of the general populace. 

Even worse than the money-grubbing of the Right was their decision to adopt some of New Labour’s policies in the hope of winning a long term in office like Blair’s. LOTO David Cameron joined the unParliamentary applause (see 35:00 on) as ‘Tony’ swanned off to greater things; may we have an honour roll of those who sat on their hands?

Does anybody wonder at the rise of Reform?

Well, to our muttons.

The PM opened by announcing the report of the Strategic Defence Review. No-one was so discourteous as to take him to task for informing Parliament after the Press and other interested parties; but then, the Conservatives had been scolded in the past by Speaker Bercow for similar offences.

LibDem leader Ed Davey’s manners were not quite so polished as his shoes when he repeatedly spoke of ‘Trump’, only once mentioning that man’s office. ‘I had hoped the Prime Minister would now be beginning to see the sort of man Trump is and start getting tough on him,’ said Mr Davey, channelling ‘The Mouse That Roared.’

He went on to speak of aid to Gaza and the role of the United Nations (whose Presidency will soon pass to Ukraine-supporting ‘no matter what my German voters think’ Annalena Baerbock.)

Claire Hanna of the SDLP bandied the term ‘genocide’ and called for recognition of the state of Palestine; both terms lacking definition here. The SNP’s Brendan O’Hara challenged Starmer to stand by the latter’s legal claim that ‘no genocide has occurred or is occurring’ in Gaza; Sir Keir deplored recent actions but reiterated his position that there should be a ceasefire and that Israeli hostages should be released. The pressure mounts; the skilful PR work of Hamas in using their civilians as human shields may yet succeed in defeating and ultimately destroying Israel, despite the PM’s hopes for a two-state solution. In the context of ‘global instability’ (of which this is a part) Starmer reminded Mr O’Hara of the SNP’s opposition to our nuclear deterrent.

The SNP got another blow from Sir Keir in response to Graeme Downie (Labour, Dunfermline and Dollar) who asked about price inflation in Scotland and restricted employment opportunities for young people. The PM made great play of the SNP’s budgetary difficulties and their sad consequences. Dr Scott Arthur (Labour, Edinburgh South West) supplied him with more ammunition in the form of cutbacks in Scottish adult mental health services. Useful whipping-boys, the SNP.

Also on health, when Manuela Perteghella (Con) asked for a reconsideration of the NIC hike hitting care providers Starmer ‘gently’ (a bully signal) told her that her Party had opposed the Budget.

Lincoln Jopp (Con) tried twitting Sir Keir with Mrs Thatcher’s observation that ‘the trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.’ The PM hit back with a snide reference to former Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, whom Jopp had replaced at the General Election; and to Reform’s ‘unfunded commitments’; and to ‘Liz Truss 2.0.’ There, that bruised several bystanders in his game of Blind-Man’s-Buff!

One whom the PM could not so blithely dismiss was David Davis (Con), who raised the issue of most exonerees not receiving compensation for wrongful imprisonment. But then, Mr Davis had craftily prefaced his query with a reminder that Starmer himself had published a book on ‘Miscarriages of Justice’ in 1999. The PM said he would ‘take away what he says and have it looked at.’ More stiletto questions like that, please.

From Wolves of Westminster

Yes or no? PMQs 21st May 2025

Overture

Seemingly, the PM aims to make PMQs into a tired, pointless country dance. It’s all about managing appearances, which is easy when almost everything is scripted and minor characters are never allowed supplementary questions to smash through his meringue answers.

Even with the greater latitude afforded to the Leader of the Opposition, Kemi Badenoch rarely scores, either. Last week she did, claiming that unemployment had risen ten per cent since Starmer took over. This galvanised the Government into a response and, since Sir Keir was not sufficiently on top of his brief to shoot her down straight away, it was left to Jake Richards (Lab, Rother Valley) to raise it straight after the session as a Point Of Order. Here is his POO, delivered with something of our Leader’s boorish snarl:

“That figure is completely and utterly incorrect. It is no wonder that George Osborne, the former Conservative Chancellor, has said that she has no economic plan if she cannot even get basic statistics right. Will the Leader of the Opposition return to the House and correct the record?”

The Speaker set him down gently: “You have corrected the record in your opinion. We will leave it there for now.”

Act One

This week, the PM began with a couple of sad items – is being a ‘mood hoover’ his technique to dull blades before they clash? – and went on to boast of his ‘deals’. One of these last was with the EU and included an astounding giveaway, extending for another twelve years the Union’s fishing rights under the Brexit withdrawal agreement that were due to expire in June 2026.

When Edward Heath allowed Continental ships the liberty to fish right up to our shoreline as part of our 1973 entry into the EEC, it was because of blithering incompetence, and so his government blew PR smoke all over it.

This PM has no such excuse, if that’s the word we seek. The despair so many of us feel is because we cannot always tell whether the Starmer Government knows what it is doing or not, and which is worse. In this case, it is the former.

Does the PM actually ‘have it in’ for fishermen and farmers? If so, would that be because those food producers are not ‘working people’ as defined by Sir Keir? They work longer than most and often earn less, but they are not wage slaves – is that the problem?

Starmer’s other ‘deals’ were with the US and India, and they too hardly bear critical examination. If you sent the PM out to get fish and chips, what on earth might he come back with?

As for his vaunted “fastest economic growth in the G7”, if we take in the world and his wife, GDP will go through the roof, and at the same time we will be bust.

The first question was from Lewis Cocking (Con), who asked when Starmer would “stop all illegal immigration”. This received the customary bureaucratic boilerplate: past Tory failures / government introducing legislation / Opposition voting against (skipping over the valid reasons). It was a very weak attack anyway – illegal immigration is only a fraction of the overall influx, and if the ‘youth worker visa’ system takes off, the traffickers may find a way to document their customers appropriately.

Next was Labour’s Sarah Owen, highlighting the plight of pensioners forced by inflation to use up their savings. Yet even the mightiest oak will bend in a strong wind, and the PM said: “We want to ensure that more pensioners are eligible for winter fuel payments as we go forward.” Everything depended on the economic improvements he foresaw.

Then came the main feature: a spat between Starmer and Badenoch on inflation, the causes of which are complex, not least ‘events, dear boy’. Kemi bore the usual tirade with equanimity but though she has the hide of a rhinoceros, she lacks its horn. She failed to puncture Starmer with her demand for a yes-or-no on whether he was planning a U-turn on the Winter Fuel Allowance; but then, he had just given his more nuanced response to Sarah Owen.

Interval

During these exchanges, the Speaker had to intervene to chide the Government benches for their noisy mockery, both Whips and “Boyzone at the back”. Such is the arrogant self-confidence of overwhelming power. A propos, post-PMQs, in a Point Of Order raised by Kirsty Blackman (SNP), Speaker Hoyle had to deliver a rocket to DWP and Treasury officials who were failing to respond in a timely fashion to her constituent.

Wera Hobhouse (Lib Dem) told of China’s refusal to admit her into Hong Kong, because of her stance on human rights as she suspected. The PM deplored banning people “for simply expressing their views”. He also assured John McDonnell (Ind) that he would continue to press the Egyptian Government for the release of long-imprisoned British-Egyptian human rights campaigner Alaa Abd el-Fattah.

However, Sir Keir’s sympathies were more limited towards Lucy Connolly, who is part way through a 31-month sentence for an intemperate tweet that she had deleted within a few hours. He told Rupert Lowe (Ind) that he celebrated the independence of British courts and was “strongly in favour” of free speech (a tradition of which he boasted to US President Trump) but was “against incitement to violence”. Some might say the jury is out in that case, in the ‘court of public opinion’.

Act Two

After ‘PM v LOTO’, Louise Jones (Labour) soothed Starmer’s unruffled feathers with a gift question on breakfast clubs and other measures to give children a better start in life.

Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey asked yet again, somewhat pointlessly, about the Winter Fuel Allowance, but more penetratingly about changes to the Personal Independence Payment (PIP). The constituent’s case Davey quoted meant potentially an income cut of £12,000 a year. To the latter, Sir Keir gave his off-the-peg generalised response about necessary support, plus help to get work. Later, Labour’s Andy MacNae raised the same issue, specifically in relation to stressful multiple PIP reassessments; again, the PM spoke of the need to reform the system.

Jim Allister (TUV, North Antrim) highlighted another unresolved problem – that of Northern Ireland and its post-Brexit trading status with the EU, whereby British Steel could sell to the US free of tariffs, but not to NI. The PM acknowledged that it was a work in progress.

Alistair Carmichael (Lib Dem) reiterated the issue of family farm IHT. To skeptical noises, Starmer asserted the “very limited impact of the inheritance tax, only on farmers at a very high level”.

Dr Neil Hudson (Con) tried a portmanteau question on winter fuel payments, pensioner poverty, the “jobs tax”, family farm IHT and fishing rights. This was a mistake, as Sir Keir often gives vague answers even to focused queries; his reply was about our high growth (unanalysed) and trade deals (ditto).

Similarly, Lee Anderson (Reform) wanted to know exactly how many of Starmer’s 24,000 deportees were illegals who arrived by boat or were smuggled in by lorries. Sir Keir’s response to the “simple question” was to boast of the numbers and to criticise the Opposition for not supporting his Immigration Bill (again, without saying what their reasons may have been).

It might have been better to send this for a written reply and then castigate officials if they failed to be specific. All it did this time was give the PM the opportunity to note Nigel Farage’s absence from the Chamber.

A deadlier yes-or-no question might have been the one that ex-MP George Galloway suggests (see from 2:00 on), as to whether Starmer has ever met any of the three young men accused of setting fire to his current and former properties; but nobody would have the nerve. Besides, rumour has it that the whole affair has been overblown; by whom, and why, is not clear.

On an ostensibly unrelated matter, Winston Churchill is said to have been the last red-headed Prime Minister (though grey when in office).

Fighting for survival - PMQs 14th May 2025

This week’s PMQs has more in it than can be covered here, because we take one key issue as our starting point to address the complex crisis facing Britain…

After last week’s stunning results for Reform in the local elections, the Prime Minister made a speech promising a significant reduction in net immigration. It failed to satisfy migration sceptics.

It upset the Left even more, whose ears pricked up at the dog-whistle phrase ‘island of strangers.’ They would not have started barking so furiously if they had remembered the Government’s agreement to grant work visas to an unlimited number of Indians (exempted from National Insurance Contributions for three years) and plans to allow in young (18-30) people carrying European passports (whatever their country of birth might be.)

They might also have recalled the Sentencing Council’s recommendation that the usual penalty for illegal immigration be reduced to nine months’ imprisonment, which is below the threshold for automatic deportation. It is interesting that although the Council is required to be impartial, seven of its eight judicial members were appointed (subject to the sitting Lord Chancellor’s agreement) by a Lord Chief Justice (Sir Ian Burnett) who was formerly a Liberal Democrat MP (see section 4 here.) Perhaps more than a pinch of compassion is baked into that cake.

So despite Sir Keir’s recent statement the general direction of travel on this issue seems clear.

Nevertheless in PMQs Plaid Cymru’s Liz Saville Roberts challenged Starmer, saying his Monday speech contradicted his previous support for ‘migrants’ and free movement. ‘Is there any belief he holds that survives a week in Downing Street?’ she asked. Sir Keir’s reply - ‘Yes, the belief that she talks rubbish’ - was so brutal that it caused a stir on his own side as well as the Opposition’s.

He completed his response with dream-talk - ‘I want to lead a country where we pull together and walk into the future as neighbours and as communities, not as strangers’ - that left us not so much soothed as confused. How was this to be achieved?

The challenges of immigration are not simple. As Douglas Murray has said, ‘if you import the world’s people, you also import the world’s problems.’ The current dangerous confrontation between India and Pakistan over Kashmir is an example, though there is a third, giant country that has an interest: China, which for long has had its eyes on a neighbouring territory, Aksai Chin, plus part of Kashmir itself.

Again, the conflict between Israel and Gaza has resulted in public unrest in this country and influenced the election of several ‘independent’ Muslim MPs who repeatedly raise related questions in Parliament. Reportedly, half of Britain’s Jews have been considering emigration because they feel the authorities have not been grasping the Islamist nettle firmly.

There is a specific difficulty with the latter religion, because taken literally and to extremes it threatens to destroy our separation between Church and State. Theocratic rule - we have had this before, with Christianity - unites believers without reference to territorial limits, and the joys and terrors of the afterlife make any sacrifice or atrocity here well worth while. The easygoing liberal democracy we have enjoyed until recently is, historically speaking, a temporary sunlit clearing in an ancient monster-infested forest.

Fortunately most Muslims in the UK live by their faith’s general rules for daily living without a close reading of all its texts. Nevertheless there are unequivocal statements in those sources that are a kind of underbrush awaiting a firebrand to begin a conflagration. When society is under severe stress - persecution, war, economic breakdown - wild millennial movements can begin, as Norman Cohn illustrated nearly seventy years ago. This is why Ayaan Hirsa Ali argues the need for a Reformation in Islam to temper its absolutism and make it compatible with pluralist Western society.

Not all immigrants are Muslims, but Pew Research has forecast that by 2050 that religion’s followers may constitute up to 17 per cent of the British population. Without a determined national policy to inculcate support for impartial institutions the Labour drive for devolution may result in a proliferation of political, even clannish fiefdoms like those in London and Scotland; ones that may eventually cease to rely on the Labour Party.

Speaking of the latter, marxism is, of course, another uncompromising religion, replacing Heaven with a millennial vision of a stateless society once all opposition has been ruthlessly eliminated. It may have sprung from a sympathy for the suffering of the poor, but it has mutated into the pursuit of a single aim: not human happiness but social equality, whatever the cost. It is said that when Chairman Mao was told nuclear war would annihilate a third of humanity he replied, ‘Good, then there will be no more classes.’ Modern British socialism has added-in apocalyptic environmentalism so that we now have a Prime Minister who used to be, and maybe still is, a ‘red-green.’ We are overdue a Reformation of the Left.

There is another, ideology-free consideration: our country is over-populated. Already we import forty per cent of our food (by monetary value, I think; the dietary value may be greater.) The problem will increase: net migration is more than compensating for our declining birth rate, while farmland is being converted to housing, infrastructure, ‘green’ energy and wildlife set-asides. There may come a time in our unstable world, as happened during the Second World War, when the threat of food shortages raises its head. Even postwar we once kept a strategic food stockpile, but it was scrapped thirty years ago; not that it would have sustained us for long in any case. The British political class does not plan far ahead but reality makes no concessions to lack of preparation.

However, if we choose not to let our population shrink, then we must have a way to sustain it, which will be principally by boosting production to increase import substitution, and by foreign trade. We are in competition with countries whose land and labour are cheaper, or whose massive domestic market and economies of scale allow them to trade surpluses that undercut us. To stand a chance, we have to rebuild high-value engineering capacity, not just cling on to a couple of ageing steelworks. Our energy policy has to abandon its hippie Garden of Eden dreams and use every available fossil fuel resource to keep us going while we develop other, cleaner forms of cheap and reliable power. We cannot wait for Reform to oust the Energy Secretary in 2029, assuming that it can; we are fighting for our economic survival now.

Emergency funding may be needed. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has damaged the economy and we cannot allow the Treasury to hamstring us. If Richard J Murphy and Steve Keen are correct in advocating Modern Monetary Theory, public debt is not the problem; it is private debt that hobbles the economy. Keen has some credibility: he is one of only twenty (his estimate) professional economists (out of 20,000 worldwide) to have predicted the Great Financial Crisis.

Will Starmer listen? Does he have the nerve for a radical Cabinet reshuffle? Does he have the wit to abandon the Grand Plan that he got Gordon Brown to design for him?One fears his arrogance and ideological rigidity will be his political undoing.

But he may do for us first before he goes.

From Wolves of Westminster

At the flicks - PMQs 7th May 2025

Supporting Programme

Last week Labour lost nearly 200 seats in the council elections. The PM said it meant he should go ‘further and faster’ because he was ‘acutely aware that people aren't yet feeling the benefits.’

Another one with a tin ear is House Leader Lucy Powell, who exploded on-air when a Reform spokesman dared to raise the subject of rape gangs two days after Kemi Badenoch completely failed to nail Sir Keir in PMQs on the need for a national enquiry.

A propos, Private Eye (issue 1648, p.7) suggests Speaker Hoyle is a little too cosy with the Starmerites. The magazine claims he ignored ex-Labour MP Rosie Duffield who wanted to address trans rights in that session and that Labour whips have advised their flock not to trouble him on the subject of his expensive foreign jaunts.

Political economist Richard J Murphy says the Government is already collapsing, partly because of Number Ten’s Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney, who he says allows Ministers no autonomy.

However Murphy also sees Starmer as moving towards the ‘far right’ ! Maybe that is correct, if smashing the country’s cohesion is far-right. The Government makes a show of tackling illegal immigration yet is working on a ‘youth mobility scheme’ to let in thousands of young European workers; the EU is being punitively awkward at this stage but who knows, we may end up with a switch from rubber-boaters to officially-Eurodocumented young men born outside the EU.

Main Feature

Starmer opened by boasting of his new trade deal with India. This further undermines employed Brits with a three-year NIC exemption for Indian workers coming to the UK, the Chancellor’s job tax hike for the domestic workforce having taken effect only last month.

The PM also registered concern about ‘tensions between India and Pakistan [that] will be of serious concern for many across Britain.’ Perhaps that was a ‘dog-whistle’ to alert us to the possibility of (more) inter-ethnic conflicts here.

Such potential is not lacking, thanks to the immigration policies of both major parties and their consequent need to cultivate minority votes. For example, five years ago Jess Phillips MP declared her support for Kashmiri separatists, apparently unaware that in addition to competing territorial claims by India and Pakistan, that region is bordered on its northeast by Aksai Chin, whose possession has been disputed by China since 1959, together with part of Kashmir itself. Last year she nearly lost her previously very safe Labour seat over another local/international ferment, this time over Gaza.

That last continues to vex. In this PMQs Leicester’s Shokat Ali (Independent) called on the PM to ‘end all UK military co-operation with Israel’ in the light of the latter’s ‘extermination’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Gazan civilians. Starmer replied that much of what Ali said was ‘simply not right’ and reiterated his standard line on the two-state solution, with humanitarian aid and the release of hostages. The prospects for success there - and for controlling Muslim dissent here - seem as slim as for putting out a Tesla battery fire.

Speaking of EVs, Mike Wood (Conservative) pointed out that Parliament has banned them in its underground car park for safety reasons yet the new Planning and Infrastructure Bill inhibits local authorities from banning the construction of battery energy storage systems near sensitive areas. Sir Keir said the Bill (which has power to override local objections and nature safeguards) would ‘drive’ the economy and that the OBR identified it as the ‘single biggest driver of growth.’

Power devolved is power retained, as the saying goes. There is a tension between Labour’s plans for progressive devolution and its appetite for authoritarian centralisation. The result is a growing public perception that we are a sham democracy.

This is why Prime Minister’s Questions are so important, and so disappointing. We are in the 64th month of our freedom from the EU and our representatives are still fluffing opportunities to call reinvigorated national power to account.

Last week the Leader of the Opposition’s inquisitorial failure was about the great scandal and cover-up of ‘grooming gangs.’ Today, the principal exchanges were about energy policy; they swirled around the now-cancelled winter fuel allowance, employment, the cost of domestic heating, ‘clean energy’ and so on. The PM countered with his measures to alleviate pensioner poverty, the Conservatives’ poor economic record and what they themselves had previously said about Net Zero, and how much Labour was spending into the economy.

Kemi did briefly quote Tony Blair’s comments about Net Zero (‘irrational’, ‘doomed to fail’) but Blair, who says he talks frequently to Starmer, was himself an early ‘global warmist.’ It may that Blair was airing his latest view for tactical reasons pre-May the First, hoping to persuade the electorate that Labour does indeed listen (and so should remain in power to complete his program of constitutional disruption that will make a return to small-c conservative values impossible.)

The Tories need to come clean and say:

‘Yes, we were wrong then and so are you now. Without abundant cheap energy our economy faces collapse. Like the US, we have to exploit fossil fuels heavily while we manage a transition to something more sustainable such as nuclear reactors and hydroelectric plants. Even windmills and solar panels are not ‘green’ when you take into account recycling issues, and the recent blackouts in Spain and Portugal show the strain on power grids caused by erratic inputs.’

Something along those lines. It is not just about oldies eating cold food with mittened hands, it is a national emergency.

Where is the focus, the drilling down that is needed to discomfit the PM (and his strange Energy Secretary) so that his replies can be exposed as inadequate prevarication to protect an unreflective dogmatism? Our ‘red-green’ leader needs to be roused from his woke slumber, before he wrecks the country beyond recovery.

Is Kemi Badenoch the best person to do it?

Shorts

‘Private Eye’ may gently cast doubt on the Speaker’s neutrality, but it would help matters if he were to permit - as he may - non-party leaders to ask supplementary questions when the reply they receive is not good enough; perhaps the reader may see some examples below. On a number of occasions a question with possible significant depths has come at or near the end of PMQs and received short shrift.

Now comes a selection of other queries in this session, again grouped by Party.

GREEN: Siân Berry asked about benefits for the disabled. The PM gave a generic response about support plus help into work.

SNP: Stephen Flynn mourned job losses in Scotland’s energy sector, contrasting this with the rescue of Scunthorpe; Starmer reprised his customary attack on the SNP’s failings in this area, plus education and the NHS.

CONSERVATIVE: Matt Vickers raised the plight of pubs as a result of increased NIC and reduced small business rate relief. Unhelpfully, ‘Sir Beer’ said no-one liked pubs better than himself and that the Tories were unwilling to say they would reverse the NIC increase. Aphra Brandreth asked the PM for an assurance that he would not hand over sovereign powers to the EU including controls over fishing waters; Starmer claimed he would always act ‘in the national interest’ and went on to speak of trade deals and a ‘reset’ with the EU.

LIBERAL DEMOCRAT: Party Leader Ed Davey complained of the loss of the Winter Fuel Payment and delays in improving social care; as to the first, the PM twitted Davey on the Lib Dems’ unwillingness to support the Government’s fund-raising measures and as for the second he said it would take time. Mr Davey then turned on President Trump’s tariffs, and the British film industry that would defeat the President’s assaults with ‘James Bond, Bridget Jones and Paddington Bear’; Starmer argued for pragmatism. Tessa Munt invited the PM to the unveiling of a memorial to our wartime photographic and interpretative service people. Dr Roz Savage spoke of inequality and poverty and asked Sir Keir to reverse changes to ‘the personal independence payment, the winter fuel allowance and the two-child benefit cap’; instead the PM replied on school breakfast clubs, increases to the minimum wage and the ongoing work of the child poverty taskforce.

LABOUR: Matt Western asked the PM to support British car-makers in discussions with the US President; Starmer criticised Reform’s proposals to tear up multilateral trade/tariff agreements and said his deal with India would be good for British jobs. Jack Abbott asked the PM for a final investment decision on Sizewell C for the sake of energy security and employment for young people in his constituency; Sir Keir said this would come in the spending review. Michelle Scrogham thanked the PM for his recent visit to Barrow where nuclear-armed submarines are being built; Starmer said it illustrated the benefits of Labour’s increased defence spending. The PM agreed with Dame Meg Hillier that social housing was a priority, as were housebuilding and tackling homelessness. Connor Naismith asked the PM for his support for an extension to HS2 to enhance Crewe’s strategic value; Starmer said it was under review and noted Labour’s decision to invest in the trans-Pennine route.

Scotland, already the subject of comments today, was mentioned in other exchanges involving Labour MPs north of the border. Elaine Stewart contrasted the falling NHS waiting lists in Wales and England with the healthcare mess left by the SNP; Sir Keir concurred. Glasgow’s Maureen Burke lamented the shortage of social housing in Scotland; again, the PM said a new direction was needed there. Another Scottish MP Kirsteen Sullivan highlighted the value of mental health support for children and Starmer spoke of Labour’s ongoing improvements in provision. For Na h-Eileanan an Iar (formerly Scotland’s ‘Western Isles’) Torcuil Crichton worried about reduced media coverage of Parliament because of Press Association redundancies; the PM praised Britain’s ‘free press and independent journalism’ (but Peter Oborne has a different view, criticising what he calls ‘client journalists’).

- And out we come into the sunlight, blinking...

From Wolves of Westminster

Views of London: pick one

In 1984 the then Prince Charles called a proposed modern-style extension to the National Gallery ‘a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend.’

Here’s a view of the London skyline today:

Here’s how it might look without so much award-winning work by trendy architects:

Which looks better?

In 1802 William Wordsworth stood on Westminster Bridge and thought ‘Earth has not any thing to show more fair.’ A contemporary painting by William Daniell gives us a notion of what the poet saw:

Granted, the population of the City of London, urban Middlesex, and Southwark was then only about 1.1 million; about triple that, now. But couldn’t development be more harmonious?

After the Nazis destroyed 85 per cent of Warsaw ‘with the intention of obliterating the centuries-old tradition of Polish statehood’, the Poles rebuilt the Old Town ‘in its historic urban and architectural form’ to assert their unconquered spirit.

Why is our own country delivered over to vandals, not merely in architecture but in politics? Is there some malevolent Principle at work?