Chris Whiteside's Blog

The Conservatives tabled an Opposition Day motion in the House of Commons calling for convicted rapists, paedophiles, and child sexual exploitation offenders, including grooming gang members, to be excluded from the government's automatic early release scheme and to serve longer custodial terms. The motion was passed by 115 votes to zero-0 with votes from 89 Conservatives, 4 DUP, 3 Greens, 11 Labour MPs, 4 Plaid Cymru, and others. Most Labour MPs, along with Reform UK and the Lib Dems, abstained. The vote is not binding on the government. Ministers indicated they would proceed with the scheme starting after summer recess.

Nigel Farage, Leader of Reform UK, has decided to pre-empt the parliamentary inquiry into whether he broke House of Commons Rules by failing to declare a £5 million donation, by "doing a David Davis" and resigning his Clacton seat to fight a by-election. The other parties have criticised this on grounds which range from the sound - for instance, that it's a bit daft to ask voters to endorse Farage's conduct when he has deliberately called a by-election ahead of the investigation - to the rather less sound. It is admittedly a bit of a cheek for Labour to criticise Reform for inflicting the cost and inconvenience of an unnecessary by election on the taxpayer and the voters of Clacton when they have just inflicted the costs of a parliamentary by-election and a Mayoral election on the taxpayer and the voters respectively of Makerfield and Manchester. At the time of posting, it look like none of the other major parties are going to legitimise the by-election by contesting ...

 

  Mexico 2, England 3. Well done guys!

Best of British to the England men's football team in their world cup match in the early hours of tomorrow morning. PS - I also congratulated Scotland on winning their first World Cup match for many years, and if they were still in the competition at this stage I would be wishing them good luck too. 

"Britain must live within its means while making the defence of the realm the highest priority. Strong defence relies on a strong economy. And tax rises will do even more damage to our economy. Burnham must cut welfare to fund defence." Kemi Badenoch

 

Labour never had a plan.    

I know I have posted this piece, often accompanied by a montage of pastel pictures of summer scenes, many times before,  but it is such a beautiful way to relax on a summer evening. The paintings are by Vladimir Volegov

Nearly always worth listening to Andrew Neil, and he has a regular "The Andrew Neil Report" which you can get as a podcast or in Youtube. Here is yesterday's report on a very strange week, in which Andrew Neil is giving his view in response to questions from viewers and listeners. The question which will probably be of most interest is the very last one, which is posted 53 minutes and 34 seconds into the video, " Which prime minister disappointed you most? " Neil gives a quick masterclass covering fifty years, of all thirteen Prime Ministers from Ted Heath to Sir Keir Starmer, saying whether he had "high hopes" of any of them (he mostly didn't) and whether each in turn disappointed him or surpassed his expectations. There are three Prime Ministerial administrations which he praises as "transformational" or "serious," and met or surpassed his expectations, there is one who he doesn't criticise because the PM concerned did wha...

Here is a summary of the aggregate results of the 53 council by-elections since the May 2026 local elections, compiled by Election Maps UK. Reform UK, who were defending six seats, made five net gains to end up with 11 seats, on an aggregate vote share of 23% The Conservatives, who were defending twelve seats, made net losses of three to end up with nine on an aggregate vote share of 19%. In both cases those net figures include both gains and losses in various directions, including both Conservative gains from Reform UK and Reform UK gains from Conservatives. This should be a corrective both to anyone who goes too far overboard on the "Reform have peaked" narrative - however much I may think it's true, they are still in the lead - but also on the "The Tories are dead/The Tories are no longer a national party" narratives as we had wins in England, Scotland and Wales and are winning too many elections and votes to justify any such conclusion. Essentially the patte...

"A society that puts equality - in the sense of equality of outcome - ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality or freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom. On the other hand, a society that puts freedom first will, as a happy by-product, end up with both greater freedom and greater equality. Freedom means diversity but also mobility. It preserves the opportunity for today's less well off to become tomorrow's rich, and in the process, enables almost everyone, from top to bottom, to enjoy a richer and fuller life." Milton Friedman

  You can sign the petition at: Save the Summer Job

According to a social media tracker referenced by the website "The Daily Britain"  here , Reform UK has suffered the loss of 120 councilors. The number of council seats loss is slightly higher as those quitting Reform or resigning their council seas included at least one dual-mandate councillor. The breakdown of losses in the tracker is, quote, " 21 councillors kicked out, 38 defected, six suspended, one disqualified, 50 resigned, and five who lost their seats outright. " The headline says that 120 have gone since May but I think there may be some confusion about May of which year this applies to: the figures for the number of councillors shed by Reform since the May 2026 elections are: " 41 entries: five lost seats, 17 resignations, 13 defections and six suspensions. " I have seen various different figures floating around for exactly how many councillors Reform UK has lost, the differences may be due to factors like some lists including Town and Parish co...

 

There is a shocking allegation in the Spectator that the Treasury is more concerned about "diversity" than numeracy. If there is an atom of truth in the suggestion that HM Treasury removed a Numerical Reasoning Test from the department's graduate scheme in 2020  "due to evidence of the test having adverse impact on candidate diversity" , that is deeply concerning. Diversity is, provided it is applied in a way which is not allowed to conflict with the need to recruit the best people, a good thing. But prioritising it above skills and abilities which are clearly highly relevant to the functioning of a department is indicative of a recruitment policy which is seriously off balance. By the way, this policy was never announced to parliament and very possibly not presented to any minister: the Spectator found out about it trough an FOI request.   Here is an extract from the article by John Connolly: "Whoever enters No. 11 will find themselves dealing with a count...

A glorious piece. Unfortunately, ever since the opening ceremony for the 2012 Olympics I have not been able to listen to this wonderful music without a series of images coming into my head starting with Rowan Atkinson playing the same repetitive note which forms pat of this piece on a keyboard again and again, and finishes with Her late Majesty doing a parachute jump into the stadium with James Bond ... Never mind.

No apology for repeating this. If I put it up often enough to sink into one other person's head, that was worth doing.

Weird Al Yankovic's song about Ebay, a parody of The Backstreet Boy's " I Want It That Way ".

 

According to a survey by polling agency Find Out Now, for the Daily Mail, voters overwhelmingly support Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch's promise not to make a pact with Reform UK. In a survey of 1,049 nationally-representative respondents, when asked whether the Conservatives and Reform parties should agree a deal, 22% of those who answered said yes against 78% saying no. 60% of those respondents planning to vote Conservative and 52% of those planning to vote Reform were opposed to a deal. The survey also showed Kemi Badenoch leading Nigel Farage on who is more effective at holding the government to account and on who is trusted more on managing the economy.     

This is what happens when socialists who don't understand the market try to control prices:

"Sir John Major makes the essential point. Parents who send children to private school save the state money.  Labour’s tax on them has failed. Now the state has 2,000 fewer teachers than when Conservatives left office. So we will reverse this futile, vindictive policy." Rt Hon Kemi Badenoch , responding to a speech by former Prime Minister Sir John Major, of which you can see some of the relevant part at: Kemi Badenoch on X: "Sir John Major makes the essential point. Parents who send children to private school save the state money. Labour’s tax on them has failed. Now the state has 2,000 fewer teachers than when Conservatives left office. So we will reverse this futile, vindictive policy. https://t.co/TzwM1n68Vb" / X

 JUST ANNOUNCED: Local businessman and councillor Phil Eckersley selected as Conservative candidate for Mayor of Greater Manchester.

Yes, I know, I posted another version of the same piece a fortnight ago, but this is sung by a different choir and I thought it was interesting to compare the two performances.