Chris Whiteside's Blog

"Student loan repayments have become a scam. You work hard but you get "rewarded" with high interest rates. How is that fair? Conservatives will reduce interest rates for hundreds of thousands of graduates. That's just Step 1 in our New Deal for Young people." Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch

 Rishi Sunak says Zelensky showed him real-time casualty data from the front in Munich. - 80% of Ukrainian kills are from drones - Russia is losing 1,000 soldiers a day. His conclusion: Europe is not ready for this kind of war.  This was Frazer Nelson's summary of a piece Rishi Sunak has written for tomorrow's Times which I a certainly going to read. I think he's right Our soldiers, sailors and aircrew must never again be put in the position of trying to fight the next war with the weapons and tactics of the last one. War has changed and our defences must be updated to reflect the new reality.

Joani Reid MP, Char of the All-Party-Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism, and a member of the Home Affairs Select Committee, has issued the statement below about the ban by West Midlands Police preventing supporters of the Israeli football team Maccabi Tel Aviv F.C attending the team's match with Aston Villa. It is now beyond reasonable dispute that the process West Midlands Police followed to arrive at this decision was egregiously flawed and that they made a whole serious of factually incorrect statements about it, including some given in evidence to the Home Affairs select committee by the then Chief constable, such as a false statement about the extent to which Birmingham's Jewish communities had been consulted and the release, presented as fact, of AI-generated details of a supposed Maccabi TA match involving crowd trouble which had never actually happened. West Midlands police also gave an account of a violence associated with a match in Amsterdam, which was seriousl...

" A shot in the dark " was the first of the sequels to " The Pink Panther " in which Peter Sellers reprised the character of the bumbling policeman, Inspector Clouseau. The theme music was written by Henry Mancini and performed by Manchini and his orchestra.  

 

 

 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.