Chris Whiteside's Blog

 

 

 Polish Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski : @sikorskiradek "In Poland, we think that if Putin succeeded in conquering Ukraine, we would be next, and the cost of deterring him on the Polish border would be much higher. We are paying for Ukraine's sustenance both as a state and in the defensive war. I personally believe that gives us the right to have a voice in these negotiations. Of course, we wish luck to the US, but it has to be a fair peace that respects Ukraine's red lines and respects Europe's security."

Host:  "Do you think that this issue of territory, Donbas region, is a solvable one?" General Ben Hodges : "Yeah, Russia could leave and recognize this as Ukrainian sovereign territory."

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, a season of reflection inspired by Christ’s forty days in the wilderness. We wish everyone a Lent filled with reflection, prayer, and service.

I must confess that I do not always agree with President Trump. Indeed, that is probably the biggest understatement I have ever posted on this blog. However, here is something he has got right. The Labour government had been briefing that the US president had come round to supporting their plan to give away the Chagos Islands to a country which never owned them, against the wishes of the Chagos Islanders themselves, and pay £35 billion for the privilege. Well he hasn't. This is what President Trump said on the subject today: The Labour government has been telling us, wrongly, that international law requires us to give away the islands. This is not, and never has been true. And in fact, because of treaties we have signed with the USA, it is against international law to give them away without US agreement. Which means this terrible deal cannot proceed.  Kemi Badenoch said: " As I've said before Starmer’s Chagos deal is an act of great stupidity.  Paying £35bn to surrender ...

I attended the funeral today at St Peters' Kells and at Distington Hall of Ronald Fox, a true gentleman, who was born in Whitehaven in 1944 and died earlier this month just before he would have reached the age of 82. Ron was an immensely kind man who liked nothing more than helping people, and he had a great many friends in Whitehaven and the surrounding area, many of whom were there today. Rest in Peace. 

 

At the Reform press conference, Robert Jenrick was asked about his new party's stance on the two-child benefit cap. Nigel Farage cut in with a response beginning " I want to speak for Robert here. " Kemi Badenoch summed it up in three words: " One. Man. Band. "

New figures released today show that unemployment in the UK rose to its highest rate in nearly five years at the end of 2025. The unemployment rate climbed to 5.2% in the three months to December, from 5.1% in the three months to November, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) The rise in unemployment came as annual wage growth slowed, dropping to its lowest level in almost four years. The UK's economic growth has dampened, with a backdrop of slower hiring as businesses cut back due to higher costs. The ONS says that estimates numbers of employees on payrolls in the UK fell by 121,000 (0.4%) between December 2024 and December 2025, and by 6,000 between November 2025 and December 2025. This is based administrative data from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC). When looking at the quarter from October to December 2025, to compare with ONS  Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates, the number of employees fell by 130,000 (0.4%) compared with the previous over the year and by 46,0...

"It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value." Arthur C. Clarke

This afternoon the government U-turned on their proposals to delay May 2026 elections in a number of councils. Elections to those councils will now go ahead in May after all. I am certain this is the right decision but have some sympathy for the Electoral Registration officers in those councils who have lost weeks of planning time. Everything about this was confusing. On 22nd January the government announced that 34 of the councils going through reorganisation and originally due to hold elections in May would go ahead with those elections. They also listed 29 councils which would now have their May 2026 elections postponed. The original Press release with those two lists of councils can still be seen on the Gov.uk website at   Councils granted flexibility to finish reorganisation - GOV.UK Today housing and communities Secretary of State Steve Reed announced a U-turn on this decision. His letter to all affected council leaders can be seen at: Postponement of local elections in Engla...

The Monkees' most haunting song:

 

"This is pathetic. You’re the Cabinet Office. The elite of the bureaucracy.  At the heart of government. This is not just  juvenile. It’s factually wrong. We used to think the senior civil service a Rolls Royce. You’re not even a Trabant now. For god’s sake grow up!!!" The above was Andrew Neil 's response when on Valentine's day the cabinet office posted this:

 “Patience is not the ability to wait but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting.” — Joyce Meyer

Great campaigning session this morning and early afternoon in Kells. It's a long way to the next general election but our campaigning team is fired up with enthusiasm. And having walked about seven miles and thirteen thousand steps, time to put the feet up and relax for half an hour before the next job.  What better music to relax to than the "Pifa" pastoral symphony from Handel's Messiah? 

Well, here is the answer. "Paraskevidekatriaphobia" is an irrational fear of a date. Such as an irrational fear of Friday the 13th.

Conservatives have WON the Worth Valley, Bradford by-election with over 50% of the vote and nearly twice as many votes as the Reform UK candidate: Cons: 1815 (51.7%) Ref:   917 (26.2%) Lab: 425 (12.1%) Grn: 245 (7.0%) LD: 83 (2.4%) IND: 29 (0.4%) Conservative majority 898.   Congratulations Cllr Paul Golding! Nigel Farage may arrogantly claim we're dead but we're not in the ground yet.

 

"The government must agree to create a new category of Extreme Criminal Protest Group to make it easier to ban groups like Palestine Action without necessarily labelling them as terrorists. Ministers should accept my amendment in the House of Lords." Lord Walney.

When former Home Secretary Yvette Cooper proscribed the "Palestine Action" campaign group under anti-terrorism legislation, the comment I made at the time was that banning a group which had organised the deliberate sabotage of RAF aircraft was entirely justified but I wasn't certain that the use of Blair-era anti-terror legislation was the best way to do it. Jake Symons wrote,  " In a recent episode of The Brink, " (Link to that episode below at ‘We are deeply compromised’: Security Experts Expose Britain’s Intelligence Crisis ) " Lord Walney, the former Independent Adviser on Political Violence and Disruption in November – and a Labour figure – revealed that he had suggested a solution that would have restricted Palestine Action without having to resort to terror legislation. That was the obvious solution. Yes, they broke into Brize Norton and caused significant damage to our national security infrastructure, but to lump them with Islamic State and Al Qaed...

This is the 1969 version of the song, written for the original "The Thomas Crown affair" film, which was used fifty-six year later to conclude the second season of "Severance."

This is a particularly appropriate question for today. What irrational fear is referred to by the following word, paraskevidekatriaphobia? An appropriate prize (it isn't something nasty) will be sent to the first person to post the correct answer in the quiz thread comments on either of the two blogs on which this quiz post will simultaneously appear at 06:00 UTC on Friday 13th February 2026.

“ Keir’s not driving the train. He thinks he’s driving the train, but we’ve sat him at the front of the DLR. ” Now the driverless train chugs on, with no direction. The control room is empty, and the Prime Minister is stuck unable to change the track himself. From an article by Tom Harwood in The Critic which you can read in full be clicking on the link below: Starmer’s countdown begins | Tom Harwood | The Critic Magazine The first sentence above, in italics and quotation marks, is taken from the book, " Get In " by Gabrial Pogrund and Patrick Maguire, and they were quoting a member of Starmer’s inner circle describing his political operation, citing the driverless Docklands Light Railway.  The following sentence is what Tom Harwood's wrote immediately after that quote and is his commentary on what that means for the country now that Morgan McSweeney, the brains behind the operation, has resigned. 

The ONS has released the latest figures for UK economic growth, relating to  the UK's Gross Domestic Product for the three months ending December 2025: In their words, "GDP grew 0.1% in Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2025.  Services showed no growth (0.0%), while production grew (+1.2%) and construction contracted (-2.1%)." Source:  GDP first quarterly estimate, UK - Office for National Statistics They also said that GDP per head has reduced slightly in each of the last two quarters. 

Tom Peck in The Times on the PM's dreadful performance at Prime Minister's Questions yesterday ... “When you’re bang to rights, it’s common in politics, though never wise, to point out that your opponent is worse than you are. It’s never wise because it’s not a denial, it’s an admission of guilt. This was like that, but worse. When you’re on the ropes over child sex offences, you can’t really return fire with an illegal cheese and wine party, but he tried it.”

From Jan Ganesh in the Financial Times on the Labour challengers to Starmer: "You have to have access to a special plane of consciousness to believe that Labour is unpopular because it is not leftwing enough."

 

Bangor University has issued a statement disavowing the views of their student Debating and Political Society and confirming the University's commitment to free speech. Here is the statement.

“A smart man makes a mistake, learns from it, and never makes that mistake again. But a wise man finds a smart man and learns from him how to avoid the mistake altogether.” Roy H. Williams

I try never to get too hung up on any single opinion  poll, especially three years out from a General Election, but this set of results from the pollster More in Common is quite interesting.

Hat-tip to John Rentoul for posting on X this section of Stephen K Bush's morning Newsletter:

 Thanks to Andrew Griffith MP for posting this comment from Heath Secretary Wes Streeting on X: (Source:   Andrew Griffith MP on X: "I agree with Wes on this! More self awareness than his own Chancellor and Prime Minister.⬇️ https://t.co/stdeQxM0cw" / X )

When I was a student I was a strong supporter of Free Speech (within the law) and opponent of the so called "No platform" policy. I supported a private member's bill proposed by Fred Sylvester MP to make it unlawful for student unions or the higher education establishment's authorities to stop a group of students inviting a speaker because the people implementing such a ban disagreed with the speaker's views. A measure very like the Fred Sylvester bill did eventually become law as the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023  (click on link for details of the act.) I strongly support that act. Because Education is devolved it does not apply in Wales. The current committee of the Debating and Political Society at Bangor University, who might or might not have broken that law if it applied in Wales but were certainly unwise, have walked into a Reform UK trap by turning down a request by two Reform UK members of parliament to speak to the society. That in itself...

"A smart man only believes half of what he hears, a wise man knows which half." Jeff Cooper

Stan Ford, a royal navy veteran who took part in the D-Day landings and survived the sinking of his ship not long after that, has died at the age of 100. Stan, who was born in Bristol and later lived in Bath, celebrated his 100th birthday in May 2025, at a party attended by family, friends, and local officials. Above: Stan Ford (centre) at his 100th birthday celebration Ford served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War and, at the age of 19, was serving was aboard HMS Fratton when it was torpedoed off the coast of Normandy in August 1944.  HMS Fratton was an escort ship assigned to accompany ships taking men and supplies across the Channel on D-Day and afterwards. The impact of the explosion from the torpedo which sank her was so severe that the gun platform Stan Ford was operating was blown off the ship and into the sea, with him still on it. He suffered a fractured spine and injuries to both legs when the ship was sunk in 1944, leaving him with lifelong injuries. He was p...

After the Deputy Prime Minister, David Lammy, let it be known that he had warned the Prime Minister not to appoint Peter Mandelson as Ambassador to the USA - an interesting comment since Lammy was Foreign Secretary at the time and would presumably have had to sign off on the appointment - a "Labour source" told the Guido Fawkes site, (see here ) “ If Lammy’s political instincts are telling him it’s time to make his move, it can only mean that Keir is entirely safe. ”

 “There’s a theory about the Russo-Ukrainian war that is designed to satisfy the innate desire of the contrarians to be 'against the current thing.'” “It also satisfies the desire of anti-Western westerners to blame … the West.” "Best of all, that theory allows you to appear thoughtful and nuanced while everyone else is being hysterical about Russian aggression. Letting go of it is near impossible, because ones ego and intellectualism are at stake." "The theory goes like this: Russia invaded Ukraine in preemptive self-defense against American aggression, embodied by NATO’s arrogant eastward expansion. Had America simply shown restraint and honored its alleged promises to Gorbachev, none of this would have happened. It’s a compelling narrative - one that transforms a war of conquest (born out of ideology) into a story of Western arrogance and Russian victimhood." "There’s only one problem with that theory: it’s almost entirely fiction . A very carefully ...

This is what Angela Rayner, then deputy leader of the opposition, tweeted when Rishi Sunak became Leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister without calling a general election:

Wednesday 4th February 2026:  Sir Keir Starmer at this week’s PMQs ‘ Morgan McSweeney is an essential part of my team. He helped me change the Labour party and win an election. I have confidence in him. ’ Sunday 8th February 2026: Morgan McSweeney resigns. He said: "After careful reflection, I have decided to resign from the Government. The decision to appoint Peter Mandelson was wrong. He has damaged our party, our country and trust in politics itself. "When asked, I advised the Prime Minister to make that appointment and I take full responsibility for that advice. In public life responsibility must be owned when it matters most, not just when it is most convenient. In the circumstances, the only honourable course is to step aside."

  And Air Chief Marshall Sir Arthur Harris - known to popular history as "Bomber Harris" - was as good as his word. The point has also been made that the present Russian government seems to have attacked Ukraine with a similar naive belief that they could bomb the hell out of Ukraine's civilian population, but it would be an outrage if anyone did anything to them ...

 

Having watched the Labour government nearly come apart over the last few days, I am reminded of a Spitting Image sketch comparing Labour's current opinions to the Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Ruddigore and a song beginning with the words "My eyes are fully open to my awful situation." The main characters in both the original song and the Spitting image parody admit that their opinions are irrelevant in a trio with the chorus line "It really doesn't matter." The original song includes phrases like " If I were not a little mad and generally silly I would give you my opinions on the subject willy nilly " Spitting Image portrayed the Labour G&S Society under Neil Kinnock, then Labour leader, performing their version of the Ruddigore song, with Kinnock singing, almost too fast to make out (which is part of the joke). Here is the original song "It really doesn't matter" from Gilbert & Sullivan's opera Ruddigore, whic...

Let me make clear at the start that I am not in favour of racism against anyone, whether their skin is white, back, brown, yellow, blue or any other colour, whether they are Jewish, Muslim or a member of any other faith group or none, and whoever the racism is coming from. Anyone may fall foul of the temptation to slip into racist modes of thought, anyone can be a victim of racism, and the suggestion that people of any particular colour are either uniquely guilty of or uniquely free from racism is itself racist. I am in favour of sensible attempts to educate people against racism and extremism. However, all such programmes must be constructed carefully to ensure that they do not become subject to over-reach and in particular, do not appear to target what the majority of society would regard as legitimate mainstream opinions. The danger of this is all the greater because it is usually the product either of genuine misunderstandings and miscommunication or of unconscious biases on the pa...

The CPC is to seek a retrial in the Elbit Systems case. I presume that on the charges where the jury acquitted the defendants those verdicts will stand, but there should indeed be retrials on those charges where the jury was unable to reach a verdict.

When the history of newspapers in Britain is written, Eddie Shah deserves to be remembered as the man who started a revolution in the industry by freeing the press from the print unions and introducing new computer-based technology to the nationals. His actions were hugely controversial at the time, but after his death in late December 2025, even The Guardian could write of him in their obituary published yesterday,  " Shah sparked the changes that broke the unions’ power and allowed the introduction of new printing methods, exploited first by Rupert Murdoch and subsequently by every other national newspaper group including the Guardian. From the grey and inky pages and grainy black-and-white photographs of the 1970s and early 80s, the newspapers burst into colour reproduction, more innovative designs and speedier and uninterrupted print and circulation runs. " They quoted Eddie Shah himself as saying “ It wasn’t a failure because our innovations benefited the rest of the ind...

 “I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad. I seek to preserve property and to respect order, and I equally decry the appeal to the passions of the many or the prejudices of the few.” — Benjamin Disraeli

 

 

This was Andrew Neil's monologue at "Times at One" yesterday, and posted on X "BETRAYAL  And still the revelations about Peter Mandelson’s betrayals from the heart of government come, each one more jaw-dropping than the last.  We learned earlier this week that he’d tipped off his convicted paedophile mate about an imminent €500bn bailout of the Eurozone, advance information hugely useful to a financial fixer like Jeffrey Epstein.   Even more incredibly, we saw how he’d advised America’s most powerful banker, via Epstein, to threaten the British government over plans to tax bankers’ bonuses in the wake of the Great Financial Crash, caused by said bankers.  Which the powerful banker then did in an intimidating call to then Chancellor Alastair Darling. A call inspired by the government’s very own business secretary, one Peter Mandelson.   Now we learn that the moment Mandelson was given a note about a highly sensitive meeting between Darling and then US T...

"Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured." Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) Yes, I have used this quote before, but in the past few years I have found that reminding myself of it has become more and more necessary given the number of terrible things happening in the world and sily thigs being said and written about them.

Today is the 52nd anniversary of the M62 coach bombing, one of the worst terrorist atrocities ever to take place on British soil. Twelve people, including a woman and two small children, were killed when a bomb exploded on a coach carrying off-duty soldiers and their families. An entire family was wiped out by the bomb. Another 38 people, including men, women and children were injured. The authorities believed the attack to be the work of the IRA, who never formally claimed responsibility but implicitly admitted later that this and another two incidents had been " authorised operations carried out by units of the Irish Republican Army. " Here is a plaque commemorating the victims at the M62 Hartshead Moor service station near to where the blast occurred. We will remember them.

“One of the reasons why I am in favor of less government is because when you have more government, industrialists take it over, and the two together form a coalition against the ordinary worker and the ordinary consumer.” Milton Friedman

Andrew Willshire, founder of the independent strategic analytics consultancy Diametrical Ltd, has a great piece on Conservative Home about Kemi Bdenoch's path to renewing the Conservative party and the internal contradictions in the arguments of her critics, particularly those of the recent Conservative defectors to Reform UK. You can read the whole piece at Andrew Willshire: Reform is a Frankenstein’s monster of a party | Conservative Home but here are a few extracts "Ever since the election, there has been a fashion among parts of the right-wing commentator class to tour news studios to demand that the Conservative party have some sort of “reckoning”, an “inquisition” into how and why it failed." "More particularly, it is apparent that the reckoning that they want is primarily for the so-called “Lib Dems in the party” to be expelled. By this account, it was solely the fault of these 40 or so MPs that 14 years of Conservative government failed to result in the New J...

I have written a number of articles on my blog about cases  When clever people do stupid things  and about  Why clever people do stupid things . You will rarely find a more example of a brilliant man who repeatedly does incredibly stupid things than Lord Peter Mandelson. I suspect future historians will gasp in disbelief at how, between 1997 and 2024, three consecutive Labour Prime Ministers (Blair, Brown and Starmer) appointed Peter Mandelson to some of the most important jobs in their power to bestow, and then kept bringing him back and appointing him to new high offices after he repeatedly crashed and burned in disgrace. The temptation to appoint him must have arisen because when he was at his most intelligent, Mandelson was one of the most able, effective and persuasive people Labour had. But it should have been obvious after at most the second time he had to resign in disgrace that when it comes to matters of personal ethics, Mandelson doesn't have the common sense o...

Jeremy Clarkson is not always right. But every now and again he hits the nail on the head. I think he may have a point here ...

"Economic policies need to be analyzed in terms of the incentives they create, rather than the hopes that inspired them." Thomas Sowell

I put up a quote at the weekend from a column in The Times by former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. The honesty of the column enormously impressed me: how many senior politicians an you think of who would write for publication that they are concerned about their successor repeating their own mistake? Rishi argues that the politicians' dilemma is this - almost every reputable economist will tell you that if you want to provide decent public services while protecting the standards of living of everyone in society, especially the most vulnerable, the most important  thing you should concentrate on is economic growth. (Even Starmer appeared to understand that at the outset.) But that is "Jam tomorrow" and is rarely at the top of the priority list for swing voters. You can't deliver a better society without growth, and you can't deliver growth if you listen to every trend on social media and the newspapers (or if you listen to a single word that delusional people like the...