Chris Whiteside's Blog

Remember that British Summer Time in the UK comes to an end tonight and the country goes back to Greenwich Mean Time. Tonight in the UK and indeed in most of Europe, the clocks go back an hour. So in the UK at 3am, it jumps back to a second 2am. By popular demand I am republishing this a handy guide to putting your clocks back tonight:

A whole crop of recent polls has Labour ahead, with Kemi Badenoch's Conservatives not far behind and ahead of Reform UK. Polls are not elections, and they are only a guide to how people are thinking. But when a whole group of polls show the same thing it's probably not too far from the truth. Here are the latest YouGov and Findoutnow polls: In forced head-to-head choices between the rival party leaders, Kemi Badenoch beats every rival except Burnham. Farage loses to every rival except Polanski. The public is also becoming less inclined to see Reform UK and the Greens as "Main parties" Put all this together and it is becoming much easier for Conservatives to make the case that, if you want to stop Labour the most effective way to do so is to vote for Kemi Badenoch's Conservatives.

 

Very good set of council by-election results for Kemi Badenoch's Conservatives in yesterday's five local contests at District/Borough level or above. Conservative councillor were elected in all four of the by-elections in England, gaining one seat each from Labour, the Greens and Independent, and holding the seat we were defending. (The one seat we didn't win was a Plaid gain from Labour.) Congratulations to all our new councillors.   Reform UK also threw the kitchen sink at a Town Council by-election in Billericay, Essex, a straight fight with the Conservatives,  which they said was close. It wasn't.

Both Conservative and Labour governments have struggled with finding an effective way forward to reform the Leasehold system. The Conservatives did eventually manage to pass the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, which in England and Wales changed residential property rules to make extending leases, buying freeholds, and managing buildings cheaper and fairer for homeowners. Labour in opposition voted for the bill, said it did not go far enough, and promised that they would scrap Leasehold entirely. Two years later, what have they achieved: according to Guido Fawkes, they not only have failed to do this while continuing to promise it: a government consultation which closed on Wednesday suggested they might actually row back from the Conservatives 2024 act, the same one they said at the time did not go far enough. Labour appears to be breaking a promise to cut costs for leaseholders. Here is a link to the Guido Fawkes article: Labour Quietly Ditches Pledge to Cut Leasehold Costs – G...

 

 

 

  BREAKING NEWS: Months of campaigning and pressure from @KemiBadenoch and the @Conservatives - has seen the North Sea FINALLY re-opened for drilling! The Jackdaw field has finally been approved. This should be the start, not the end. Labour must approve Rosebank, end the ban on new drilling licences, and scrap the Energy Profits Levy.

I keep an eye on the viewing stats for this blog and what people are reading. In the past week 200 people have looked at the obit I put up for Kenji Goto after he was murdered eleven year ago. And what I wrote at the time - and stand by - is that he was a man who deserved to be remembered. This is what I wrote about him in 2015. Kenji Goto RIP It's difficult to find more things to say in response to the abominable murder of Kenji Goto which have not already been said in response to the equally abominable murders of David Haines and Alan Henning Shoichi Yukawa, the father of another Japanese hostage who was executed last week, praised Goto for trying to rescue his son: " I just have no words. It's utterly heartbreaking, " he said. " People killing other people - it's so deplorable. How can this be happening? " I am completely convinced of what the Prophet Mohammed would have said about these murders, and which verse of the Qu'ran applies to them. The ...

Many of the leads concerned are in margin of er4ror territory, but both the majority of opinion polls and the average of opinion polls since Conservative conference have shown the Conservatives ahead of Reform UK and at most 5% (and usually less) behind Labour. Latest More in Common poll:

  To the immortal memory of Vice Admiral Lord Nelson and all who fell with him at Trafalgar on 21st October 1805.

"No captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy." Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, Viscount Nelson

  "If one is remembered by a Friend, one is never truly gone." (Grand Admiral Thrawn, from Timothy Zahn's novel "Thrawn" - the passage below from which this quote is taken forms the first words of the epilogue of that book.) In context these words are clearly about exile, not death. Thrawn himself had been exiled from the Chiss Ascendancy to the Empire: he had written these words in a journal he gave to his friend Eli Vanto who was going into exile in the opposite direction, from the Empire to the Chiss Ascendancy.

 

 

"The person who agrees with you 80% of the time is a friend and an ally - not a 20% traitor." Ronald Reagan

"Putin says he wants the Donbas, but why, at the start of the full-scale invasion, was he trying to occupy Kyiv? Is that the east of our country? Is that the Donbas? No, that’s the capital. Without a capital, there is no state. Putin wants to destroy Ukraine. For us, the question is not about withdrawing from the Donbas. The real question is the survival of our state. We stand and fight, because what is the alternative? To be destroyed. Simply put, not everyone feels this because Ukraine is still standing. We have stabilized the battlefield. We are grateful to our partners in Europe, America, and other countries, Japan is helping, Canada is helping, Australia, New Zealand, whoever can. Ukraine stands against such a powerful enemy as Russia. We stand, otherwise we will be destroyed. It’s always difficult, you know, in communications with partners, to find the right words, the warnings that they will truly understand. Putin wants to destroy us. He doesn't respect us, our soverei...

I had the privilege to know David Amess. He was a lovely man and a dedicated public servant, murdered five years ago today while doing his and making himself accessible to his constituents. Today we remember him.

 

Today Kemi Badenoch's Conservatives voted to scrap inheritance taxon the family home. The other parties did not.

No more delays. It’s time to give Jackdaw and Rosebank the green light and get Britain drilling.

The YouGov poll finding the Conservatives ahead of Reform is now matched by a More in Common poll.  More in Common say: "The Conservatives seem to be enjoying a conference bounce as they jump to second in our voting intention, while Labour lead by 4. 🌹 LAB 28% (-1) 🌳 CON 24% (+3) ⏩ REF 21% (-3) 🔶 LIB DEM 11% (+1) 🟢 GREEN 7% (-) ⚫ RES: 5% (+1) N = 2,101 | Fieldwork 9-12/10 | Changes w 5/10