Chris Whiteside's Blog

Here is the supercarrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, the largest warship ever constructed for the Royal Navy, on her sea trials this week, escorted by the frigates HMS Sutherland and HMS Iron Duke.

"Cumbria Journo" Ellis Butcher has written an exceptionally entertaining (and pretty accurate) account of Thursday's double meeting of Cumbria County Council which you can read at https://cumbriajourno.com/2017/06/30/cumbria-county-council-the-sketch/ . I particularly love the "Reservoir Dogs" riff on the newly elected Conservative county councillors. There are about sixteen Conservative County Councillors who have just been elected for the first time to Cumbria CC, including myself, plus a couple of returning members who had been county councillors before. Of the new Conservative members quite a number are tall, generally smartly dressed, and aged in their twenties or thirties. I qualify under the first of those descriptions but sadly not the third. All three descriptions apply to half a dozen of the new Tory councillors and "Cumbria Journo" has a picture of James Airey and five of those  - Ben Berry, Ben Shirley, Gareth Ellis, Stephen ...

 

During the question session at Cumbria County Council I asked the portfolio holder for Roads and Transport how many "shovel ready" schemes we have to improve the A595, either on the section of the road for which Cumbria County Council is responsible, or on the section which is still a trunk road dealt with by government, and what progress there had been since the last meeting. There were some general comments made but I was promised a written response with full details which I presume will be in the public domain and will share. I also indicated that, just as Cato the Elder repeated endlessly in the Roman senate the words " Carthago delenda est " (Carthage must be destroyed) I intend to keep asking this question again and again until we have significantly more progress in improving this road.

Today was the deferred annual meeting of Cumbria County Council. As expected there was a Labour and Lib/Dem stitch-up: instead of attempting to put together an administration of all parties, as the Conservatives had proposed, the parties which had come second and third in the county council election combined with three independents to exclude the party which had by far the most votes and seats from the council executive. The most interesting thing about this was how defensive the Labour leader on the County council, Stuart Young, was about his election. Before anyone from the Conservative side had made any allegation that his election as leader of Cumbria County council was illegitimate or illegal, councillor Young was keen to deny that suggestion. Indeed, nobody from the Conservative group did suggest such a thing: but we certainly did say that 1) excluding the largest party was a stitch-up, 2) it was not ...

Many of those people who pay any attention to the facts about the defence of the UK have started to get rather irritated about the number of myths floating around about the UK's new supercarriers, the first of which, HMS Queen Elizabeth, left Rosyth for her sea trials yesterday. Yes, the carriers will have aircraft and will start their air trials next year. The UK Defence Review refutes  here the suggestion in the media that the new warships will be dependent on Windows XP. The Ministry of Defence has stated that “The MoD can confirm that Windows XP will not be used by any onboard system when the ship becomes operational, this also applies to HMS Prince of Wales.” Apparently the suggestion to the contrary originated when a documentary about the construction of the carriers showed a laptop, not part of the ship's inventor but owned by one of the engineers building the vessel, which was displaying a comedy wallpaper giving the impression it was running on XP. ...

Test results from the BRE at Bricket Wood continue to show a 100% failure rate as they have now tested samples of cladding from 95 buildings in 32 local authority areas. All the tests so far have involved local authority-owned blocks, rather than private buildings. Prime Minister Theresa May has ordered a major national investigation. Communities Secretary Sajid Javid. who has been put in charge of co-ordinating the response, has urged councils to send in samples urgently. The government recognised that some councils have moved very quickly in terms of sending in their samples and encouraged the others "to do so as soon as possible.” Samples of cladding are also being sought from schools and hospitals. Sajid Javid told the House of Commons yesterday that: “The prime minister said there would need to be a major national investigation into what had gone wrong, when cladding which is failing the tests was fitted on buildings across the country over a number of ...

The deferred Annual meeting of Cumbria County Council, to appoint the Chair and Vice chair, Leader and Committees, takes place tomorrow (29th June 2017) in County Hall, Kendal at 10am and will be followed by the regular meeting due on the same day. It would appear that a reasonable arrangement has been reached on the Chair and Vice chair, and I'm pleased that councillors on all sides have taken a grown-up approach to those particular offices because l ike the speaker in parliament and non-executive mayors at district level, the holders have a responsibility to show a degree of impartiality when in the chair.   However, it also appears that the appointment of the Leader and Cabinet is going to be a stitch-up by the second and third placed parties to exclude the group with the largest share of votes and seats (more votes, it is worth noting, than they got between them.) The Conservatives proposed an all-party inclusive administration (sometimes referred to as a rainbo...

It is perhaps too early to suggest that the SNP has had an outbreak of sanity. Nevertheless there are signs of faint dawnings of reality as First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced today that early plans for another Independence referendum have been put on hold . The first minister told Holyrood she accepted there was no popular support in Scotland for a second vote on independence, and that legislation to hold one would be delayed until at least autumn 2018. However, Nicola Sturgeon said she reserved the right to bring back her proposed bill to stage the independence vote in autumn 2018. The Scottish National party lost 21 of its 56 Westminster seats at the hands of all three pro-UK parties at the election. Its support fell by 470,000 votes, and the party's Westminster leader, Angus Robertson, and former first minister Alex Salmond lost their seats to the Conservatives. The Scottish Conservative leader, Ruth Davidson, said Sturgeon ought to cancel all plans fo...

The largest and most powerful warship ever built for the Royal Navy, the supercarrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, left Rosyth today for six weeks of sea trials. Her flight trials will begin next year.

The agenda for the first Copeland Local Committee of this term for Cumbria County Council has now been published. It will take place at Cleator Moor Civic Hall and Masonic centre from 10.15am on Tuesday 4th July. The Copeland Local Committee consists of all Cumbria  County Councillors representing divisions within Copeland Borough Council. It has a fair amount of influence over the provision of local county council services within the Copeland Borough area, particularly on Highways matters. The agenda for next week's meeting includes a petition being presented by a local resident in my division, Dugald Sperry-Lamb, calling for a 20mph speed limit through Moor Row.

After the government asked authorities responsible for 600 tower blocks with aluminium compound cladding to submit samples for fire safety testing, the latest position on Monday was that  26 local housing authorities have so far complied. They have submitted samples of cladding from 75 high rise buildings for testing and as of Monday it is still the case that every one has failed. Fire safety experts have asked for   greater transparency about exactly what tests the Building Research Establishment (BRE) at Bricket Wood between Watford and St Albans is conducting. That's a legitimate request but, having been to the BRE while I was a St Albans councillor (it's actually in the local authority area of the City and District of St Albans) I am satisfied that they would not be producing such alarming results unless there were genuine cause for concern or to dance to any government agenda. As I wrote on Sunday, it is still too early to start pointing ...

"You cannot engage someone coming to Jesus on the physics of walking on water. They want Corbyn because he is honest and principled and will put an end to austerity. When George Osborne announced a further £9bn cuts to welfare in 2015, the Labour front bench ordered MPs to abstain. Corbyn rebelled and parlayed anger at the compromise into backing for his leadership campaign. Now he is committed to implementing £7bn of those very same cuts if he reaches Number 10. These are facts, but proof is no longer sufficient or relevant. No talking in church. This same joyful credulity immunised the young from revulsion at Corbyn’s extreme views and associations. Corbynistas trill with unseemly glee that no one cares about the IRA or anti-Semitism. Well, I care. I care that people don’t care. I care that a party I would like to be able to vote for is a furious foe of every brand of racism except one. I care that the historical record on the Troubles can be revised by ignorance and ex...

Despite the outcome of the election, I think it is a very healthy thing for the future of British democracy that many young people appear to have learned the lesson from the Brexit referendum that political decisions can affect their future and that it is a good idea to vote. Now we have to make sure the Conservatives say something positive to them, as well as being a bit more willing to point out the many serious holes in Labour's claims - for instance, the idea that they would have a cat in hell's chance of being able to fund the promise to scrap tuition fees and return to student grants, let alone cancel the loans to those who have already graduated. How many young voters who voted Labour in 2017 knew that Labour had said during the 1997 election that they would fund higher education in a different way, but then introduced Tuition fees? Or that Labour fought the 2001 election on a clear and specific promise not to increase them, and then did? A broken p...

"If Corbyn and McDonnell currently represent the "politics of hope," God help us when they turn nasty." ( Dan Hodges , former Labour and trade union official, on Twitter.)

Memo to anyone in Copeland or Barrow in Furness who voted Labour because they believed the claims from local Labour candidates that official Labour policy is to keep Trident. As Guido Fawkes reports here , the founder of the Glastonbury Festival, Michael Eavis says that  Jeremy Corbyn told him he will get rid of Trident “ as soon as I can “. Quotes via Somerset Live : When asked about the Labour leader’s appearance, Michael Eavis said: “Wasn’t he fantastic?”   Eavis says he asked Corbyn when he is going to be prime minister and that he replied: ‘In six months’.   Eavis also said he asked Corbyn: “When are you going to get rid of Trident?” “He said: ‘as soon as I can’.”

The government having asked the authorities responsible for 600 tower blocks with aluminium compound cladding to submit samples for fire safety testing, we hear today that 25 local housing authorities have so far complied, submitting samples of cladding from 60 blocks safety testing and apparently every one has failed. This does not necessarily mean that every one of those buildings needs to be evacuated but it does suggest that substantial improvements in fire safety are called for. It is still far too early to start pointing the finger of blame, let alone throwing accusations of murder around for political gain, but it is no longer too early to recognise that this does not appear to be a failure by one council, one small group of people, or one part of the political spectrum - it is far more serious than that. We seem to be looking not at a local problem but at a nationwide systemic failure of fire regulation. It would appear that either the building regulation ru...

I initially thought that an article in Thursday's FT critical of the Chinese government's "National Renewal" policy, " The Dark Side of China's national renewal " written by their Asia editor, New Zealander Jamil Anderlini, was possibly a bit over the top. I made a point of reading it after learning that every copy of the FT on sale at Beijing Airport on Thursday had the Comment page with this article removed. Whenever I hear that someone wants to stop people reading something, unless they have used due process to demonstrate a legitimate reason - producing in court convincing evidence that it isn't true, for instance - it tends to make me want to read it. Whether Mr Anderlini is right or not, the combination of the action taken at Beijing Airport and the rather childish attacks on his article in the comments section of the FT site do make me think that he has evidently touched a nerve.

Music written by Henry Purcell to celebrate the birthday of Queen Mary in 1694.

I do not pretend to be an expert on the complex and difficult politics of Northern Ireland. I do know that many people on both sides of the sectarian divide in the province have said, done and supported things which I consider shocking. I also know that, thanks to heroes in both communities, there has been massive progress in building a society in which people who would once have refused to speak to each other can work together and have done so. There is an incredibly long way to go but the peace process has made enormous strides. Part of this is that people who were once terrorists - on both sides - have laid down their arms and worked for peace in the province. And if we are trying to build normal politics in Northern Ireland, that means that MPs from the province who have been elected to Westminster's parliament should not be treated as pariahs or second class MPs unless their behaviour clearly justifies such treatment. There is an article by Jenny McCarthy on CAPX abo...

Today is Armed Forces Day , a chance to celebrate the role our armed forces have played in defending our country and the world. Britain's Royal Navy probably did more than any other military unit to wipe out the slave trade. Britain's armed forces played a pivotal role in preventing megalomaniac after megalomaniac from taking over first Europe and then the world. Without Britain's armed forces it is very likely that millions of people who are alive today would have been killed or never been born - anyone Jewish, Gypsy or Slavic, or anyone else the Nazis didn't like - and the rest of the world would be living in what Churchill accurately described as a new Dark age made all the more sinister by the lights of perverted science. Let us be grateful for all our armed forces have done for Britain and the world.

A question that Diane Abbott asked a year ago, and the reply ...

The self-proclaimed "Islamic State" caliphate or DA'ESH (the Arabic abbreviation for their name, which I prefer to use because they don't like it) has destroyed the Grand al-Nuri Mosque in Mosul, a building of great historic and religious significance to Muslims in Iraq. DA'ESH were about to lose control of the mosque as the Iraqi army is in the final stages of retaking Mosul which will mean that virtually all the territory which the self-styled Caliphate held in Iraq has been liberated from this gang of murderers, rapists, and slavers. So they blew it up instead, and claimed that it had been destroyed in a US bombing raid. But the Iraqi armed forces were observing the mosque at the time of it's destruction and have released a video which makes pretty clear that the explosives which destroyed the al-Nuri Mosque were placed on the ground and not an air strike. This death cult claims to be acting on behalf of Islam. Perhaps they even believe it. Bu...

"The First Minister has somehow gone from Indira Gandhi to Cruella de Vil." ( Stephen Daisley on how the people of Scotland are becoming aware of the incompetence and arrogance of the SNP administration at Holyrood: extract from an article called " Watching Trump's Twitter come to life at FMQs ")

Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, has been appointed as the honorary Colonel of her former army unit , the 32nd Signal Regiment, for a five-year term. The reserve regiment includes squadrons based in Edinburgh, East Kilbride, Glasgow, Belfast and Darlington. This is an honorary position which is normally filled by a retired senior officer or member of the Royal family but can be undertaken by public figures. Ms Davidson was asked to take on the role due to her work in the Territorial Army before she became an MSP and her backing of reserve forces while in parliament. She said: "Reservists make up over a quarter of the British Army and the UK's defences rely upon them. "As well as the specialist skills required for the type of regiment you join, the training you receive as a reservist develops leadership, decision making, teamwork, confidence and moral courage. "I loved my time in uniform and am so grateful for everything it taught ...

I think that's enough Star Wars parodies for a few years, so here is a lovely Elizabethan madrigal by Thomas Weelkes.

There have been more horrible tragedies already this year than any country should have to suffer, but it is important that we do not become desensitised to death and horror and that we continue to remember the victims. Following the minute's silence in memory of the Grenfell Tower victims which was held at 11am this morning, here is the chorus "Lux Aeterna" (Eternal light shine apon them) from Mozart's Requiem

Reminder: in one hour's time (11am on Monday 19th June 2017) people throughout the UK will observe a minute's silence in memory of those who died in the Grenfell Tower fire.

The UK will be observing a minute's silence tomorrow at 11am in memory of the victims of the Grenfell Tower disaster.

As a break from Star Wars parodies. here is Handel's "Let the Bright Seraphim" from "Samson."

"It was Farron's inability either to stick to his beliefs about homosexuals or renounce them ... that led to his downfall, nothing to do with Christianity." "Farron had a clear choice. Many Christians believe homosexual marriage is OK." "However, he neither stuck to the teachings of his church nor honestly disowned them. Instead he prevaricated, dissembled and effectively lied. It's not Christianity that's to blame but the fact that Farron has the moral fibre of a lime-jelly rabbit that has been made by an idiot with too much water and not enough, er, gelatin." ( Rod Liddle , article in today's Sunday Times, views attributed to a spokes-angel for the Almighty.)

Patrick McLoughlin writes: Subject: The Great Get Together The Great Get Together   Yesterday was the one year anniversary of the tragic murder of Jo Cox MP. The Jo Cox Foundation have organised the Great Get Together this weekend – it is a great initiative and I hope that you will be able to play a part in it. Thank you for your continued support. Below is the information you will need to get involved. Kind regards,   Patrick McLoughlin  Chairman of the Conservative Party It is one year since the appalling, hate-filled murder of MP Jo Cox.              Her friends and family don’t want it to be a mournful occasion. Jo was a passionate campaigner, and inspired by her, they want us to channel our horror and grief into something positive.     ...

The first stage of shock when something terrible happens is denial, and the second is anger. It is right and proper that the causes of a terrible disaster like the Grenfell Tower fire should be properly investigated, that when we know why it happened all reasonable steps should be taken to make such disasters less likely in the future, and that if anyone has been negligent they should  be brought to justice. What should not happen is lashing out in anger on the basis of having jumped to conclusions about what happened and why on the basis of speculation or, worse, outright falsehoods such as the inaccurate claim that the Home Office had put a "D-notice" on the fire to prevent reporting of the details. (The first clue that this particular smear was rubbish is the attribution of this action to the Home Office, which has nothing to do with D-notices. Both the Defence and Security Media Committee, the government body which actually issues D-noti...

(In the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower disaster...) "Obviously, we need to find out what went wrong, and assess whether other places are at risk. If there is evidence of criminal negligence, of course that negligence should be punished. But the discussion over the past two days has gone well beyond these things. The country is bellowing for a scapegoat big enough and monstrous enough to bear responsibility for such an outrage. The idea of a tragic accident simply won’t do." "Like our pre-modern ancestors, we have an innate sense that, for such a horrifying event to have happened, there must have been great wickedness at work. Like them, we disagree as to who was responsible for the wickedness. Usually, though, just as they did, we blame whomever we already happened not to like. Glancing at this morning’s newspapers, I see that the Guardian blames inequality, the Mail blames eco-regulations, the Express blames EU rules and the Mirror blames the Tories. Simon Jen...

The song "Bohemian Rhapsody" recast as the initial Star Wars trilogy (Episodes 4 to 6):

Cumbria County Council issued the following statement this afternoon: "New political adminstration agreed.   Agreement has been reached between the Labour and Liberal Democrat Groups to form an administration, with Cllr Stewart Young as Leader of the Council and Cllr Ian Stewart as Deputy Leader of the Council. There will be 6 Labour Members on the Cabinet and 4 Liberal Democrat Members - the same split as in the previous administration. The Portfolio Holders will be announced at the Council meeting which is due to take place on 29th June." The Conservative group on the council, who received more votes than the Labour and Lib/Dems combined, had proposed an all party "rainbow coalition" administration. However, two parties placed second and third in seats and votes, despite not quite having a majority between them (in fact they have exactly half the seats) have decided to put forward a minority administration for Cumbria excluding the largest party, and hop...

It is often alleged that Mark Twain once said that " a lie will fly around the whole world while the truth is getting its boots on." It is typical of the irony of life that this attribution is itself probably a lie. The phrase was  first attributed to him in 1919 , nearly a decade after his death, and versions of the phrase had been around long before he was born. A good example of an older, similar saying is this one from Dean Jonathan Swift Regardless of who said,this, it is all the more true in the internet age. Take for example this case  where a tweet in which a journalist made an allegation which turned out to be wrong was re-tweeted 4,745 times within two days and had 2,380 "likes" but the correction when the same journalist admitted this was wrong has had far fewer. (Currently, also after two days, about 445 retweets and 435 "likes.")

Yes, this is "Let it go" from "Frozen," recast as the song of how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader ...

My old friend Giles Marshall, who arrived at Bristol University about the time I was a sabbatical and who I subsequently met while we were area officers in the Young Conservatives, served together on the Conservative party's National Advisory Committee on Education, and were members of the Conservative Education Association, has written an excellent piece about learning points from the 2017 general election for the "Politics means politics" site. It is called " Election takeaways in 2017 ." Although inevitably most of the piece is aimed at explaining how the Conservative leadership managed to throw away a position in which the main threat at the start appeared to be that everyone was convinced we were going to win a landslide, there are learning points in this well considered article for all parties. When I posted a link to Giles' article on my Facebook wall it received strong agreement not only from friends representing very different strands of Con...

"For me, thinking back, a pivotal moment in this election came during Corbyn’s interview with Jeremy Paxman, when Paxman, in full Spanish inquisition mode, asked him why the Labour manifesto included nothing on Corbyn’s long-held ambition of scrapping the monarchy. “ There’s nothing in there because we’re not going to do it ,” retorted Corbyn, visibly amused. Hidden beneath the audience’s guffaws, this was the sound of a man wryly acknowledging the fundamental impracticality of his own radicalism. All of a sudden, Jeremy Corbyn was a moderate." "If compromise was in Jeremy Corbyn’s DNA, then he wouldn’t have spent three decades on the back benches, condemning every effort that a succession of despairing Labour leaders made to make their party more electable. Once electability became his problem, though, he seems to have picked up a taste for it." "On the stump, a lifetime’s commitment to unilateral nuclear disarmament (even as a vice-chairman of CND), r...

Number three in our series of Star Wars musical parodies is " I think I'm a clone now " (to the tune of " I think we're alone now ") It refers, of course, to the fact that the Stormtroopers of the Galactic Empire, and the bounty hunter Boba Fett, were revealed in "Episode II: Attack of the Clones" to be clones of Jango Fett.

Finkle Street in St Bees was closed yesterday at the bottom end near the Village Hall due to a problem with a water main. The road is expected to remain closed for about four days.

French football fans at yesterday's England V France match sang " God Save the Queen " and held up improvised St George's flag signs in tribute to the victims of terrorist attacks in London and Manchester (this was before the tower block fire or I'm sure that would have been in the mix as well.) Both Britain and France have suffered from terrorist atrocities in the recent past. England manager Gareth Southgate said: "We are very grateful to the French for offering this tribute to England as a country." We are grateful for the solidarity expressed by our friends and neighbours in France, Germany and the rest of Europe. Britain may be leaving the EU but we still want and need to be friends and partners with other European democracies.

Thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by the fire at Grenfell Tower in London.

There were an awful lot of things which backfired during the 2017 General Election - please God that next year we will still be able to use that term for it and won't have to add "June" - starting, obviously, with the decision to call it in the first place. But perhaps the funniest was one reported in the Sunday Telegraph this weekend. The Lib/Dem literature used what they assumed was an imaginary estate agent, May & Co, to attack the Conservatives' social care plans. Unfortunately for them, the there really was a May & Co. The "furious" owner of this business had been a Lib/Dem supporter. The Sunday Telegraph took a certain relish in emphasising the past tense ...;

Marcus Aurelius knew something about responsibility - he was probably the best Emperor that the Roman Empire ever had.

It should be a statement of the obvious that no party won an outright majority in the General Election last week and therefore it is the duty of politicians to try to form a stable government on the basis of an formal or informal understanding between two or more parties. The idea of a "grand" or "rainbow" coalition has some attractiveness when it can be made to work - indeed, I have served in such an administration at district level where it worked better than any of us had dared hope, and it is currently my preferred option as a means of running Cumbria County Council. But being realistic, only in the most dire emergency would it be possible for Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell to sit down at the same cabinet table as Conservatives. Anyone with a better command of mathematics than Diane Abbott should be able to quickly establish that the numbers simply are not there for a Labour-led coalition or minority administration. So that leaves some form of Conserva...

I was repeatedly interrupted while trying to listen to a news report on an internet site this evening by an annoying advert for a subscription TV service. One of the advantages they proclaimed was that there are "no ads" on this service. In other words they were putting out a message which was most likely to appeal to the very people who are most likely to be annoyed by the medium they were using to deliver it. I'd better stop there. After the election campaign we've just been through nobody involved in politics is in a good position to read anyone lectures on cack-handed promotion of a message.

Here are two presentations of an amusing Star Wars Episode 1 parody called "The Saga Begins" by Weird Al Yankovic set to the tune of "American Pie." The soundtrack is the same, but the video image in the first version features Al himself dressed as the young Obi-Wan Kenobi, singing the ballad of the young Anakin Skywalker: And the second version matches the words of the song with equivalent clips from the Star wars films, mostly Episode one (with a handful of appropriate scenes from films set later)

"Attempts to draw equivalence between the IRA in 1984 and the DUP in 2017 are dishonest" Tom Harris, former Labour MP, writing in the Telegraph. He also drew attention to this quote:

There are a lot of Star Trek and Star Wars parodies on YouTube, some brilliant, some awful, some with excellent ideas and poor implementation. A few Christmas seasons ago I did a "Star Trek Christmas" series. After the seriousness of three elections (by-election, County elections, General election) now here is a week of Star Wars musical parodies, beginning with a medley of sung Star Wars theme tunes.

Damien Green, a thoroughly good guy who I have known and respected for a long time, becomes first secretary of state (this is Whitehall-speak for Deputy Prime Minister) in the limited cabinet reshuffle which the PM completed today. Here is the new cabinet. The Cabinet is as follows: Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury and Minister for the Civil Service – Rt Hon Theresa May MP First Secretary of State, and Minister for the Cabinet Office – Rt Hon Damian Green MP Chancellor of the Exchequer – Rt Hon Philip Hammond MP Secretary of State for the Home Department – Rt Hon Amber Rudd MP Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs – Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union – Rt Hon David Davis MP Secretary of State for Defence – Rt Hon Sir Michael Fallon KCB MP Secretary of State for Health – Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP Lord Chancellor; and Secretary of State for Justice – Rt Hon David Lidington CBE MP Secretary of State for Educatio...

I certainly don't want to suggest that there are no issues at all with the DUP's record of tolerance and inclusivity and I understand the concerns raised by Ruth Davidson and others, but I also detect more than a whiff of the pot calling the kettle black about Labour supporters criticising the Conservatives for being willing to deal with the present-day DUP. For one thing, Labour themselves explored the possibility of coming to an arrangement at Westminster with the DUP twice in the last Decade. And for another there is Jeremy Corbyn's record of talking to people, welcoming them in terms like "Our friends from Hamas" and indeed, praising them, when the record on gay rights of some of these people from Castro to Hamas to Iran makes the DUP look like a chapter of Stonewall. Jeremy Corbyn took money from the Iranian State broadcaster to make appearances favourable to Iran. Here he is talking to a rally, where two minutes and 11 seconds into this clip Corbyn ...

This setting of the words "Rejoice in the Lord Alway" is sometimes known as the "Bell Anthem"

This morning after the church service at St James' Whitehaven my wife pointed out to me one of the particularly moving plaques on the wall of the church, commemorating one of the many brave heroes who died during the Great War of 1914 to 1918. Lt Robert Gunson of the Royal Artillery was killed at the battle of the Somme a hundred and one years ago next month. He was killed while searching for some of the men under his command who had gone missing. The plaque in his memory at St James' church quotes the line from scripture " Greater Love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends ." We should never forget the courage which so many people have shown in the service of this country and of their friends and comrades. Neither should we ever forget the mistakes which made their sacrifices necessary.

When Theresa May became Prime Minister it was suggested by several people such as John Rentoul  and Alex Massie  that she was the Tory equivalent of Gordon Brown. Whatever else comes out of the next few months, I think that comparison is not going to be made any more. Gordon Brown lost a lot of his moral authority, and was regarded by many people until now as having made his worst mistake, when he didn't call a general election in 2007. (Though I suspect some people who used to think that may have just changed their minds.) Theresa May joins Harold Wilson as the archetypical example of a PM who made exactly the opposite mistake.

The Prime Minister's Special Advisors, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, have resigned. Since, like an honest batsman, both walked before waiting to see if they were given out, I don't think I need say any more than that I agree with this decision. Nick Timothy has made a dignified statement on Conservative Home  here about the election campaign, the Conservative manifesto, and his decision to resign. Fiona Hill's resignation statement is also available on Conservative Home  here .

"Alex Salmond's service to his country would be most appropriately recognised by giving him a seat in the House of Lords" ( Tom Harris ) "And then abolishing it!" ( John Moss )

"I'm sick of 'Liberal' men whose mask slips every time a woman displeases them, who reach immediately for crude and humiliating words." "When you do this, Mr Liberal Cool Guy, you ally yourself, wittingly or not, with the men who send women violent pornographic images and rape threats." "Every woman I know who has dared to express an opinion publically has endured this kind of abuse at least once." "If you want to know how much fouler it gets if you also happen to be black or gay, ask Diane Abbott or Ruth Davidson. "I don't care whether we are talking about Theresa May or Nicola Sturgeon or Kate Hoey or Yvette Cooper or Hillary Clinton: femaleness is not a design flaw." ( J.K. Rowling , from a series of tweets criticising online abuse of women, whoever it comes from and whoever it is aimed at.)

What to make of a General Election in which the Conservatives win Copeland but Labour wins Canterbury? E.g. both parties won seats that the other had held for nearly a century (and Copeland and Canterbury were far from being the only examples.) What to make of a situation where a Conservative government loses seats in England but is able to remain in office (just, and as a minority administration,) because of seats it gained in Scotland? What do we think when a Conservative PM loses her majority on almost exactly the same share of the vote which gave Maggie Thatcher two overwhelming landslides while at the same time the Labour opposition leader scored a tally of parliamentary takes a number of seats which would have been seen as a disaster for Labour in 2005 vote with a considerably larger share of the vote than the one which gave Tony Blair a comfortable majority in that year? The last question is the only one which has an easy answer - in a much more polarised p...

The party chairman, Sir Patrick McLoughlin, has written a message of thanks to all those who worked for the election of Conservative candidates up and down the country ...  " Subject: Thank you Thank you   I wanted to write to you and thank you for your incredible hard work over the last few weeks.              During this campaign I have traveled up and down the country and witnessed first-hand the enthusiasm, dedication and hard work of our members.              I know many of you will be disappointed and in particular I feel sorry for those colleagues who were MPs or ministers who had contributed so much to our country and who lost their seats.              As we all reflect on the result let us remind ourselves that it is...