Chris Whiteside's Blog

 "Anyone willing to trust Putin is either an idiot or complicit in his crimes. Possibly both." Gary Kasparov on X, formerly Twitter. Garry Kasparov on X: "Anyone willing to trust Putin is either an idiot or complicit in his crimes. Possibly both." / X

"I don’t pretend debt is just the fault of the current government, but they are unquestionably making it worse. The next generation will pay the price. There’s only one way out of this crisis - a government willing to make tough choices and get Britain’s finances under control." Andrew Griffith MP Shadow Chancellor

J.S. Bach took Antonio Vivaldi's Concerto for four violins, which provided yesterday's music spot, and tranposed it for four harpsichords. Here is the Bach music as performed with two of the harpsichord parts actually played on that instrument, and the other two on pianos.

 

 

 Conservatives will always be on the side of British Business.

 

 Quote by former PM Rishi Sunak in tomorrow's Sunday Times:

Johann Sebastian Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5      Allegro  Affettuoso  Allegro Performed by the New York Baroque Incorporated Harpsichord: John Scott Violin Solo: Owen Dalby Flute: Emi Ferguson Violin Tutti: Katie Hyun Viola: Bryony Gibson-Cornish Cello: Ezra Seltzer Bass: Wen Yang

Congratulations to Councillor James Poland on gaining the Wreake Valley ward in Charnwood from the Greens  Wreake Valley (Charnwood) Council By-Election Result: 🌳 CON: 48.2% (+8.0) ➡️ RFM: 31.2% (New) 🌍 GRN: 16.4% (-34.3) 🌹 LAB: 3.1% (-6.0) 🔶 LDM: 1.1% (New) Conservative GAIN from Green. Changes w/ 2023.

"Macron and Tusk are speaking and acting with an urgency that makes the latest reports about Russia violating Lithuanian airspace even more concerning. It is not clear that the Government is taking the threat from Russia seriously enough. Its own intelligence assessment says an attack on NATO could come by 2030, while repeated smaller-scale incursions are already taking place.  It comes only weeks after CIA Director John Ratcliffe made an unannounced visit to Moscow, reportedly to warn Russia against attacking a NATO member. Our European allies are responding with growing urgency, yet the Government still will not say what it intends to do on defence. The NATO Secretary General was in Britain only yesterday calling for that path to be set out, and I agree with him. The Conservatives set out two weeks ago both our route to higher defence spending at 3% of GDP and how we would pay for it. The Government should now explain what it knows about the escalations in Eastern Europe, how it...

Kemi Badenoch on the news that inflation has risen to 3%: "Inflation is rising again. Labour’s tax and spend addiction is making the problem worse. Labour has made it more expensive to hire people, run a business and produce the energy our country needs. Those costs have to go somewhere. They end up in the prices you pay at the checkout, in higher energy bills and in fewer jobs and opportunities. Conservatives would make the tough choices: cut wasteful spending, cut taxes and bring down the cost of energy. That’s how we get prices under control and build a stronger economy."

'Steerpike' writes in the Spectator: " In a cringeworthy bid to woo Muslim voters across the country, Polanski this week released a campaign video for the Holborn and St Pancras by-election in which he butchered Pakistan’s national language. Fewer than 200 people in the constituency use Urdu as their main language, but the Green leader evidently thought his linguistic gymnastics would establish him as a better voice for Muslims than the actual Muslim Labour candidate running for the seat. Today, the Mayor of London decided to put Polanski’s newfound proficiency to the test. During Mayor’s questions, the Green leader asked whether City Hall would ban new data centres and underperforming water companies. "  Mayor Khan began his answer in Urdu, presumably with the intention of giving the leader of the Green party a opportunity to demonstrate whether his command of the language extends beyond reading from a prepared text. Khan's Urdu reply translates as: " Peace ...

Dan Hodges has a very interesting piece in the Daily Mail on the likelihood of Andy Burnham calling and winning a general election in the spring - and how Kemi Badenoch may by the only person who can stop him. Hodges points out the similarities to the position just after Gordon Brown became Prime Minister in 2007, when he nearly called a snap election which he might well have won - and didn't because David Cameron and George Osborn's policy of raising the Inheritance tax threshold so that " only millionaires should pay inheritance tax " was cutting through. (By the way, when Cameron and Osborne gained office in coalition with the Liberal Democrats and in a very different fiscal climate three years later, their coalition partners would not agree to the full implementation of this promise, but they did manage to introduce a property-specific allowance that allowed qualifying married couples to reach a £1 million tax-free threshold.) The Present Prime minister, Andy Bur...

Key extract from a Spectator article by Tim Shipman. The article also explains that Miliband and Starmer were advised how damaging the policy would be to British interests and objectives, but chose to ignore that advice:

"It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it." (Maurice Switzer.) I had always believed that this quote, in a slightly shorter form, was from Abraham Lincoln, but this afternoon a friend mentioned it to me and attributed it to Mark Twain, so I decided to check where it actually comes from. There are attributions to both Lincoln and Twain going back a long way - Golden Book magazine attributed it to Lincoln nearly a century ago, in 1931, in the form which I remember, and in 1953 a newspaper in Canada attributed it to Mark Twain. However, neither the Yale Book of Quotations or the Quote Investigator website were able to find any attribution to the former US President or the author earlier than 1931 or 1953 respectively, and the saying was in use for several decades prior to 1931 without any attribution to either. The Bible does contain an idea very similar to the first part of the quote above, in  Proverbs 17:28. ...

I am not the world's biggest ABBA fan but they did have a few very catchy tunes which were absolute earworms, and "Lay all your love on me" is definately one of them.

 

"Nationalists hoping to kill the United Kingdom should be careful what they wish for." This was the sub-heading on a leader in The Times today. It contines, "Nationalists politicians love talking about independence because it means they don't have to deal with the hard stuff: how to balance the books, make the NHS work better or make children better at maths. The fiscal issue is especially neuralgic if you are punting the Scottish National Party of Plaid Cymru line about how everything in the garden would be rosy if only the tyrannical yoke of Westminster could be cast off. Unfortunately the figures tell a different story. Far from the Union being a brake on progress in this kingdom itis and always has been an essential facilitator of it. In 2024/25 public spending per person in the United Kingdom as a whole was £13,504. In England it was £13,134 per head - 3% below the national average. But in Wales it was £15,563 - 12 per cent more. Scotland did even better at £15,...

 Kemi Badenoch posted the following message of condolences on the death of the Prime Minister's father: " My condolences to Prime Minister Andy Burnham and all his family. No matter how old you are, or how much you try to prepare, losing your father is a profoundly painful experience. A part of your life that has always been there is suddenly gone forever and it can feel as though a part of you won’t ever be the same again. May Roy Burnham Rest In Peace. " 

 "For weeks, we were told Andy Burnham would be “pragmatic” and approve Rosebank and Jackdaw. As sure as night follows day, he delayed again. North Sea workers are back in limbo. Burnham must get serious and approve the licences now." Rt Hon Kemi Badenoch MP See her piece in the Daily Mail which you can read at: KEMI BADENOCH: Andy Burnham's bottled the chance to create jobs AND slash energy bills | Daily Mail Online

The saying " If you want peace, prepare for war " is a slightly modified version of an idea first expressed by the Roman military writer Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus in the prologue of Book III of his Latin military treatise, Epitoma Rei Militaris (also known as De Re Militari ) which is believed to have been published between 384 AD and 389 AD,  Vegetius didn't use the exact Latin or English words given above which are the form in which we most often hear or see the quote used today.  His original text reads:" Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum. " which translates into English as “Therefore, he who desires peace, let him prepare for war.” Over time, this phrasing was shortened into the famous proverb used today: in Latin, "Si vis pacem, para bellum"   or in English "If you want peace, prepare for war." The context is that Vegetius wrote the treatise during a period when the Roman army's traditional strength and discipline ...

 

Kemi Badenoch on the big donations to Reform UK "Reform are about to learn the lesson of the law of diminishing returns. In 2020, Michael Bloomberg spent $1 billion employing 2,400 staff and saturating coverage on his Presidential campaign. It came to nothing.  Money is an accelerant, not a cure. If the fundamentals are good, it improves things. If they’re bad, things will get a whole lot worse. You can buy staff and advertising, but you can’t buy judgement or integrity. Sometimes a bigger cheque just means you make more of the same mistakes.   The Conservatives are up for the fight. We are raising millions, attracting new donors and winning back old ones because people can see what is coming. Britain does not need another protest party. It needs common sense, a serious plan and a party capable of bringing the country together. That is who we are. And it is what Reform will never be." Rt Hon Kemi Badenoch MP Leader of the Conservative party

" Baba Yetu " by Christopher Tin was the award-winning theme music for the fourth iteration of Sid Meier's computer game, "Civilisation." The lyrics are the Lord's Prayer in Swahili.

 

The House of commons has rejected an attempt to bring back the Assisted Dying bill which ran out of time in the House of Lords last year. There were passionate speeches both in favour and against the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill during a debate lasting more than four-hours in the House of Commons on Friday. The Bill was voted down by a majority of 16, after 286 MPs voted against while 270 MPs voted in favour. It will have been extremely telling that organisations representing doctors and disabled people had expressed serious concerns about the bill. Some of the MPs who voted against this time had voted in favour of the bill, at least in principle, on previous occasions, and said they were still in favour of the principle but had come to the conclusion that this particulasr bill was flawed. Laying my own cards on the table, I don't think there is a perfect answer to this question. The bill was trying to make an option of release from pain available to allow some people w...

"As Rosh Hashanah begins, I wish every Jewish family in Britain a sweet and peaceful new year. I know this past year has been hard in so many ways. Britain has become a more difficult place to be Jewish. I want you to know that I will always stand against antisemitism in all its forms. I have always admired the Jewish community’s determination to hold on to hope, even in difficult times. That optimism is at the heart of Rosh Hashanah. I share that hope, and I truly believe better days lie ahead. Shana Tova." (Rt Hon Kemi Badenoch )

On 11th September 2026 I had taken part of the day as annual leave so my wife and I could take our twin son and daughter, who were then infants, to the doctor's surgery in Jersey Farm for some of their routine injections. On our way out of the surgery my mobile phone rang. It was a colleague who had not realised why I was on annual leave and IIRC thought I might be in America, phoning to see if I was all right. There were a lot of confused messages being shared because "apparently a plane had hit a tower in New York." We went home and put the television on just in time to see the second airliner strike the South Tower of the World Trade centre - the aircraft my colleague had been referred to was the one which had previously hit the North tower. It was becoming clear that the USA had been attacked, and thousands of innocent people murdered, in an evil and truly atrocious act of terrorism. The innocent people who died, and especially those in the emergency services who died...

Congratulations to Cllr Graham Cone on a superb result last night to hold the Haverhill West ward in a by-election for West Suffolk Council.

 

 Alex Massie in The Times:

Just back from watching the film " Pressure, " which came out in cinemas today, It is about the decision on whether and when to launch the Normandy landings in 1944 and the pressure of responsibility both on General Eisenhower as the person who had to make the final call on whether to go ahead, and on the meteorologists who advised Eisenhower. Very entertaining and gripping film. A friend of mine has posted a review on a film and book review site which you can find by clicking on the link below: Instant film review: Pressure

This is what Labour chancellor Denis Healey said back in the days when Labour were a serious party: “Once we cut defence expenditure to the extent where our security is imperilled, we have no houses, we have no hospitals, we have no schools. We have a heap of cinders.” Compare and contrast with what our current Labour Prime Minister said today:

Just to demonstrate that Kemi Badenoch's Conservatives are not the only mainstream voices who are concerned about Labour's sanctions on Israel. I am very far from always agreeing with Liberal Democrats, but their Friends of Israel group has released a statement about Labour's sanctions which makes a lot of sense. For the avoidance of doubt, the statement below was released by Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel, and I don't know whether it reflects official Lib/Dem party policy.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has an article in the Jewish Chronicle explaining why she disagrees with the Labour government's decision to ipose sanctions against Israeli settlements in the West Bank. You can read the whole article at: Labour’s anti-Israel obsession shows it hasn’t changed since Jeremy Corbyn was leader - The Jewish Chronicle Here are some key extracts. "As British Jews prepare to celebrate the Jewish new year they face a chilling reality – the Labour government looks set to announce what effectively amounts to a boycott of the world's only Jewish state. For any observer of British politics, the normalisation of antisemitism has been one of the most disturbing trends in recent years. Gone are the days when antisemitism was pushed underground or confined to only the extremist fringes of our national debate. Britain’s Jewish communities are in a state of perpetual anxiety. Fences surround their schools, synagogues and cultural institutions to protect the...

In two days' time it will be twenty-five years since a gang of terrorist murderers hijacked four airliners, flying two of them into the twin towers of New York's World Trade centre, and crashing the third into the Pentagon. The fourth plane crashed, apparently as the passengers who had realised what was happening bravely tried to recapture it. As we approach the anniversary of that terrible day, we should remember all the thousands of innocent victims who died on that day, especially the brave emergency workers who gave their lives trying to save others, and the passengers on that fourth plane. This is what US President Bush had to say at a commemorative event at Ground Zero: "One of the worst days in America's history saw some of the bravest acts in Americans' history. We'll always honor the heroes of 9/11. And here at this hallowed place, we pledge that we will never forget their sacrifice." George W. Bush

By no means everything which UK foreign secretary Ed Miliband said today was wrong. He was right to condemn Hamas violence: he was right to condemn Settler violence: he was right to say that blaming British Jews for the actions of the Israeli government is anti-semitism. But as someone who supports a two-state solution, I have to say that the approach taken by the British government today is a wholly misguided way of trying to achieve that aim, and it will not work. Leaving aside the far from trivial practical difficulties such as trying to sanction products from West Bank settlements but not from Israel as a whole, this approach ignores the fact that there are two sides to the problem of trying to negotiate a two-state solution. It is not just Netanyahu and elements of his government which are currently opposed to the two-state solution: it is also many of the representatives on the Palestinian side. If you are trying to promote a particular approach, I have my doubts about trying to ...

Kemi Badenoch on the UK government's sanctions against businesses in the occupied territories announced today. "Labour’s obsession with Israel is rooted in UK politics. It’s got less to do with peace in the Middle East, and more to do with trying to keep the peace in the Labour party. British Jews should not have to watch politicians condemn antisemitism while refusing to confront the ideological movements that spread it. They should not have to listen to warm words from Downing Street while seeing Israel relentlessly presented as an international pariah. And everyone in Britain should care. Because this is about something larger than Israel. We cannot have a government whose political inclination at every point is to surrender, whether it is on Chagos, or at Villa Park. The government should spend less time pandering to its partisan base and more time fixing our broken economy and getting this country back on track. Stop allowing factional and electoral pressures to determine...

 

This is the last in my series of Music spots devoted to British born composers who were composing between the death of Henry Purcell in 1695 and the rise of Elgar which I count as being from the publication date of his first published composition, which was 1899. Sir George Alexander Macfarren was born in London on 2 March 1813. His overture "Chevy Chace" was performed on 26 October 1843 by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra conducted by Felix Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn had heard it performed in London and wrote to the composer that he "liked it very much". After the Leipzig concert Mendelssohn wrote again to say "Your overture went very well, and was most cordially and unanimously received by the public, the orchestra playing it with true delight and enthusiasm". Richard Wagner also admired the peculiar and wildly passionate character of the piece. Macfarren was knighted in 1883. Here is his overture to "She stoops to conquer" I have been putting ...

"Twice in my time as Prime Minister we have had to send our forces across the world to defend a small country against ruthless aggression: first to our own people in the Falklands and now to the borders of Kuwait. To those who have never had to take such decisions, I say that they are taken with a heavy heart and in the knowledge of the manifold dangers, but with tremendous pride in the professionalism and courage of our armed forces. There is something else which one feels. That is a sense of this country's destiny: the centuries of history and experience which ensure that, when principles have to be defended, when good has to be upheld, and when evil has to be overcome, Britain will take up arms. It is because we on this side have never flinched from difficult decisions that this House and this country can have confidence in this Government today." Margaret Thatcher's closing words in her last major speech to the House of Commons as Prime Minister, delivered on 22 ...

Jonathan Battishill was born in London in 1738 (e.g. 43 ears after the death of Henry Purcell and about 150 years before the rise of Elgar). Beginning at the age of nine, he sang as a chorister at St. Paul's Cathedral initially under the direction of composer Charles King. After his voice broke he studied organ, music composition, and singing under William Savage, almoner and master of the choristers. He became a highly skilled organist and was particularly talented at extempore playing; a skill that soon attracted attention and led to his appointment as William Boyce's deputy at the Chapel Royal. While serving as conductor and harpsichordist at the Covent Garden theatre, he composed incidental songs and choruses for plays and pantomime music for both Covent Garden and the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. In 1758 he became a member of the Madrigal Society and in 1761 a member of the Royal Society of Musicians.  Most of Battishill's compositions date from the period 1760–1775, and...

A survey for YouGov finds that British voters now back Kemi Badenoch to be a more suitable prime minister than Nigel Farage by a 29 point margin, having been near-divided on the two leaders this time last year. Badenoch: 45% (+24 from Aug 2025) Farage: 16% (-7) This includes a 54 point net change among 2024 Conservatives and also show that 23% of 2024 Reform voters now prefer Badenoch to Farage.

"I’ve used this line many times, but one of the best Spads I’ve worked with used to tell his ministers: ‘ If you don’t want to read about it on the front page of the Daily Mail, don’t do it.’ " Tim Shipman , from an article in The Spectator about Reform UK's current funding woes. There are some other very good lines in the article including the following: "Deputy heads have rolled. Reform UK, in the person of chairman Lee Anderson, announced this morning that Dan Jukes, Nigel Farage’s right hand man, and James Orr, the party’s head of strategy, have stood down and abandoned the party conference. ‘They have left the building and they won’t be coming back,’ Anderson said." "Footage screened by Channel 4 on Thursday night showed Jukes appearing to suggest a way to get around electoral law to secure a foreign donation of £500,000. A reporter posed as a UK-based son of an American father, who was to give money to the son to give to Reform after being wooed by bo...

Thomas Erskine was born in Edinburgh in 1732 (37 years after the death of Henry Purcell) and ws the eldest son and heir of the 5th Earl of Kellie, who was improsoned for a time for supporting the Jacobites in the 1745 rebellion. Many aristocrats of the 18th century were patrons to the greatest musicians of the age - but Thomas Erskine, also known as  Viscount Fentoun and Lord Pittenweem until he inherited his father's earldom in 1756 as 6th Earl of Kellie, went one better and become one of them. By all accounts he was a superlative violinist and was sometimes known in Scotland by the nickname "Fiddler Tam". He also became a composer and began propagating the modern Mannheim style, of which he was to become widely acknowledged as the leading British exponent. Six of his three-movement "Overtures" (Symphonies) were published in Edinburgh in 1761. James Boswell took him on a visit to Lord Eglinton's in London, where the overture the Earl composed for the popula...

"If you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing." ( Margaret Thatcher )

Charles Avison was an English composer born in Newcastle in 1709 (e.g. 14 years after the death of Henry Purcell) He was a church organist at St John The Baptist Church in Newcastle and at St Nicholas's Church (later Newcastle Cathedral). Although he spent most of his life in Newcastle he both studied and performed in London and elsewhere and became famous far beyond his native region of North-East England.  His works were disseminated widely and he received offers of employment not just in the capital, but also in York, Dublin, and Edinburgh. He is best known today for composing twelve Concerti Grossi, of which this is the fifth, and for his Essay on Musical Expression, which is often described as the first music criticism published in English.

General David Petraeus,  a retired US Army general who was also Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 2011 until November 2012. He recently had this to say about Britain and Ukraine. "Britain's response to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine provides particularly powerful example. From late 2021 onward, UK demonstrated strategic clarity. Your leaders publicly recognized the nature of Russian threat earlier than most, provided military assistance before and after the invasion, expanded intelligence support, imposed sanctions, trained Ukrainian forces, and consistently demonstrated leadership, even as others, including my country [the US] at times, hesitated. Your Prime Minister was also the first major Western leader to visit Kyiv after the invasion, and despite changes of government and significant challenges at home, Britain has maintained remarkable continuity in recognizing both the threat posed by Russia and the imperative of sustained support for ...

"The whole " but you were in government for 14 years " argument - when used to dismiss any change of policy by the Conservatives or to close down debate about what should happen next - is intellectually absurd. By that same logic Margaret Thatcher, Keith Joseph and Geoffrey Howe should have been ignored between 1975-79 because they all served under Ted Heath. They had four years in government that gave Britain the Barber boom, statutory wage and price controls, the miners’ strike in 1972 and the Three-Day Week.  Yet the whole significance of Thatcherism was that the Conservatives learnt from the failure of the policies and assumptions they had previously accepted.  Political parties are supposed to learn from failure, not remain permanently imprisoned by it.  The test is not whether Kemi Badenoch's Conservatives have changed their minds. It is whether their new diagnosis is correct and the policies they put forward are capable of addressing the problems they have ide...

The author and Oxford Don J.R.R. Tolkien, creator of "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings," died on this day in 1973. He was once asked, I believe by a prospective German publisher, about his ancestry and whether he was " arisch " and he took this, almost certainly correctly, to mean that they were asking whether he was Jewish. His response, published in "The letters of J.R.R. Tolkien" and posted on X today, must be one of the most effective squelches in literary history.   

John Stanley was born in London on 17 January 1712, seventeen years after the death of Henry Purcell. At about the age of two, he fell on a marble hearth with a china basin in his hand, causing injuries  which left him almost completely blind. He began studying music at the age of seven. Under the guidance of Maurice Greene, composer and organist at St. Paul's Cathedral, he studied " with great diligence, and a success that was astonishing. "   From the age of nine he played the organ, probably as an occasional deputy, at All Hallows, Bread Street. When he was eleven years old, Stanley was appointed organist to the church at a salary of £20 per annum. When he was fourteen, and apparently " in preference to a great number of candidates, " he was chosen as organist at the church of St Andrew, Holborn, and at the age of seventeen he became the youngest person ever to obtain a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Oxford. Though almost blind, Stanley had a...

Robert Colvile has an excellent thread on X basd on a column he wrote in The Times which dissects the Andy Burnham project and particularly the ridiculous economics which underlie it. Robert Colvile on X: "Andy Burnham's speech on Friday promised voters 'the return of the Labour they once knew' - to undo not just Thatcher, but Blair. But the economics underpinning that claim are, frankly, garbage. (1/?) https://t.co/RNnzASFe3l" / X He writes: "Andy Burnham's speech on Friday promised voters ' the return of the Labour they once knew ' - to undo not just Thatcher, but Blair. But the economics underpinning that claim are, frankly, garbage. Burnham argues that in the 1980s, communities across Britain were stripped of political and economic power. That because they 'surrendered control of the essentials', they were 'exposed to higher costs'. And that greater public control is the *only* way to bring those costs down." ( Burnham sai...