Chris Whiteside's Blog

Apparently when the PM arrived at the European Parliament today the Union Flag of the United Kingdom outside the building was upside down: E.g. This way up ... (Union flag upside down - a signal of distress) when it should have been this way up (Union flag flown correctly) It is not quite clear who was responsible for the distress signal and what they meant by it.

An independent panel has again recommended that the salary for the Directly Elected Mayor of Copeland should be £50,000 which was the original panel recommendation and the figure put in the budget.  Even if this is approved the mayor of Copeland will still be the lowest paid Directly-Elected Mayor in the country. I don't normally support inflation-busting pay rises for local government leaders, but this is a special case and I have written to the Whitehaven News today to say so. The only reason the Mayor of Copeland is not already paid £50kpa was a disgraceful act of party-political sabotage by the outgoing Labour administration. They never wanted to have a directly-elected mayor, the position was forced on them by the voters of Copeland in a referendum. So they decided to wreck the election by nobbling opposition candidates. At the very last minute, having already put £50,000 in the budget, the Labour majority group on the outgoing council used a party-line whip to force t...

Iain Martin, editor of CapX argues at http://capx.co/if-nigel-farage-leads-leave-it-looks-like-curtains-for-brexit/ that if Nigel Farage becomes the effective leader of the "Vote Leave" campaign then the chances of a "Leave" win are just about over. As he puts it "it is very difficult to see Leave EU winning the designation as anything other than the end for Brexit." I wonder. He's certainly right that an "out" campaign dominated by UKIP style messages is less likely to win. Speaking as a floater on the issue, I will admit to having found that the vast majority of Kipper-style material I hear reduces the chance of me voting for that side. On the other hand, we are not electing a government but setting a strategy, and the British people are smart enough to get that. And some of the material from "Britain Stronger in Europe" has been as toxic to their cause as the Kippers are to theirs. Actually, one of the smarter thi...

Antonin Scalia, one of the nine Justices who serve on America's Supreme Court, has died at the age of 79, apparently of a heart attack. Because Scalia was one of five so called "conservative" (small c) justices on a court which at the time of his death frequently split five to four between "conservatives" and "liberals" this is a pivotal moment in the power balance on the USA's Supreme Court. About eight years, towards the end of George W Bush's second term as President and the election of his successor, Democrats like Senator Chuck Schumer said that any Bush nominee for vacant seats on the Supreme Court should be blocked by the Senate and that the nomination should be made after the election by the new President. Yesterday Senator Schumer attacked the present Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, as an "obstructionist" for taking exactly the same position this year that Schumer himself had taken in 2007. My, what a differen...

Foxhouses Road in Whitehaven is now closed for resurfacing work and will be for the next few days. If you need to drive from the centre of Whitehaven to the Valley Park or Mirehouse areas you will need to find another route and should expect worse than usual congestion at certain times of day.

Many years ago I had lunch at a Conservative meeting with Bob Hughes MP who had been Conservative candidate in the Bermondsey by-election and was subsequently elected MP for a different constituency. I was struck by the fact that he expressed sympathy for Peter Tatchell, the Labour candidate in that by-election, over how Tatchell had been demonised. I subsequently came to the conclusion that Bob was right. I disagree with Peter Tatchell on many, many things but it has long been my impression that he is a man of enormous courage and integrity, that some of the attacks on him have been extremely unfair, that these have come from people across the political spectrum, and far more often by those on the "left" who you would expect to agree with him than by the right. Tatchell has now been accused of being a "racist" and "transphobe" by an official of the National Union of Students, Fran Cowling, an NUS officer with responsibility for lesbian, gay, bisexual ...

"I am not a tax expert." ( Dame Lin Homer , Chief Executive of HMRC)

A billion years ago, and a billion light-years away, two black holes, each thirty times the mass of our sun, collided and merged. This cataclysm generated gravity waves strong enough to travel all that way through the Universe, and last September, those waves reached the earth. They were detected by the Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and after scientists there had analysed and confirmed that they really had detected gravitational waves, they announced at a press conference today that the gravity waves predicted by Einstein a century ago do indeed exist. This is a huge moment in science. When I was a boy I remember by parents waking myself and my brother in the middle of the night to see the first pictures which were just being broadcast of the Apollo 11 astronauts walking on the moon. They thought the first ever pictures of humans walking on another world was a sufficiently special event that we should all see it. It str...

The government has backed down on a proposal to cut the "Short Money" given to opposition parties by 19% after a savaging in the House of Commons from - the opposition parties. What does it say about the Labour party that about the one issue in this parliament where they have succeeded in making a serious challenge to the government has been the money paid to opposition parties (e.g. themselves.) (On the other issues on which there has been a serious challenge to the government this parliament such as Tax credits, it has come mainly from their own backbenches.)

Former Conservative party leader William Hague, one of the five people who did most to ensure that we still have the pound as our currency rather than having been bounced into the Europe, has a good article in the Telegraph this week about the reasons most Conservatives can understand both sides of the argument. As he writes "In Britain, the blending of national identity and security, practical policy rather than being a slave to theory, and belief in economic freedom with sound money, has made the Conservatives by far the most successful of our parties. But on the issue of Europe, these components of Conservative thinking mean the party is naturally and inescapably torn ." "So how does a minister or Tory MP decide which side they are on, given that they are in a party whose very strength, history and views can tip them either way? " "They will not find the answer in what Margaret Thatcher thought, because I can join those who testify that her views var...

I've had quite enough of people on both sides of the Brexit debate arguing on the basis of which way the late Margaret Thatcher would supposedly have voted in the forthcoming referendum. The simple facts are that 1) we don't know, and 2) it's not relevant anyway, and 3) there is no single answer because her views about the institution which is now called the European Union changed dramatically over her political career. Opposition Leader Margaret Thatcher DID vote and campaign for "Remain" (appeared as "Yes" on the ballot paper at the time) in the last referendum on British membership in 1975. But that was on the basis of the situation as she saw it 41 years ago. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher signed the Single European Act and used a three-line-whip to push it through the House of Commons and into British law. She was far more pragmatic and less anti-EU while in office than she became later.  But that reflects her views 30 years ago...

Foxhouses Road in Whitehaven, which is the main route from the Town centre to the Valley Park area and a large chunk of Mirehouse, will be closed for road resurfacing for approximately four days from February 15th next week. This may result in some congestion on the other routes from Whitehaven town centre into the Mirehouse area.

"Here we go again. According to today’s  Daily Express,  leaving the European Union is the only way to ‘save the NHS’. According to the Prime Minister, remaining a member of the european club is the only way to guarantee the United Kingdom’s security. "I suppose it is too much to hope that everyone, on both sides of this increasingly-wearisome argument, will pipe down and cease being so damn stupid? Of course it is." "The In campaign, then, needs to increase the cost of Brexit. This will, for sure, require some sleight-of-hand and exaggeration. But this, it should be noted, is no more daft than the with-one-bound-we-are-free stuff peddled by the Outers. "After all, when ordinary people hear the Brexiters shouting about becoming, once again, a ‘free country’ they wonder what on earth these people are talking about. To put it this way, comparatively speaking, the EU’s bondage would be considered tame by any number of former Tory MPs (and, perhaps, some ...

After yet another dismal performance from Labour in Prime Minister's Questions this afternoon, James Forsyth asks in the Spectator " Has Labour given up on opposition? " It's a good question. Perhaps they are not bothering to oppose the government because they are too busy opposing one another. That may be convenient in the short term for my party, but it is not good for the country. As Disraeli put it (a saying which I have quoted before and will probably quote many times in this parliament)

For about a year we have heard surprisingly little in the Western press about Ukraine. All credit to the New Statesman for addressing that gap in last week's issue which had the front page headline "Putin's War." Every intelligent resident of Western Europe who takes an interest in foreign affairs and isn't on Vladimir Putin's payroll is worried about him, and is right to be. Because of Putin's almost total control of the media in Russia, most of his people believe that his aggressive attitudes to his neighbours such as Ukraine is a sign of strength. However, dangerous as he is, Putin is not Superman and Russia's strength is not limitless. We can afford to stand up to him and need to do so. Elizabeth Pond argues in the New Statesman issue referred to above that Vladimir Putin has lost Ukraine apart from the Crimea. Her account of the conflict is not flattering either towards Putin or the oligarchs who dominate Ukraine's politics and descri...

The frightening thing about this scene from "Yes Minister" is that the late Sir Nigel Hawthorne as Sir Humphrey Appleby actually made a more coherent argument about whether Britain should be part of the European Union that much of what he might have called the "egregious" material from either Britain Stronger in Europe, or from either of the rival "Leave" campaigns have managed ... Now, I'm not saying I agree with this spoof view of British policy, but it was certainly explained far more clearly than most of the rubbish in the papers and the twitter feed from either side. If Sir Nigel were still alive you can bet all three campaigns (if they had any sense) would be falling over themselves to recruit him ...

I can understand why the "Leave" camp were upset at the suggestion that Britain leaving the EU might result in unhelpful changes to the border arrangements between ourselves and France. The 2003 Le Touquet agreement is a bilateral agreement between Britain and France, and would not automatically be cancelled if Britain voted to leave the EU. And the present government of France have certainly said they want to keep it. But the position is more complex than that and I think this is one which both the "Brexiteers" and the "Remainers" need to think more about. Because a lot of the electorate is extremely concerned about the security of our borders and don't trust any politicians about it. I don't think anyone has yet presented a coherent strategy to address this. David Cameron hasn't just invented his concern that France might withdraw from the agreement if Britain leaves the EU, however much 90% of the press might like to believe otherw...

Latest demonstration of accident-prone incompetence from the Jeremy Corbyn team. Guido reports at  http://order-order.com/2016/02/09/calamity-corbyns-comical-campaign-cock-up/ , that the Labour leader launched the party's local election campaign ...  ... in a city which does not have local elections this year. He's achieving the impossible - he's making Ed Miliband look capable.

(Cartoon from the Daily Telegraph

I am sure the thousands of Cumbrian residents who work in the Barrow Yards on the Trident programme, one of the most sophisticated weapon systems in the world, will be interested to hear that Labour's shadow defence secretary, Emily Thornberry, apparently compared the Trident deterrent to World War II Spitfires. This is of course the same lady who was sacked from Ed Miliband's shadow cabinet for tweeting a picture of a house displaying England flags in a manner which was perceived (including by fellow Labour MPs) as insulting to working class patriots. Yet another reason why Conservatives who take different views about the forthcoming European referendum must treat one another with respect. After the referendum, whichever way it goes, we will need to work together or Emily Thornberry might be in charge of Britain's defences. To paraphrase the Duke of Wellington, I don't know what effect she will have on Britain's potential enemies but the thought of having her...

"It was a toxic mix of Islington dinner party self-assuredness, total ignorance about the subject and complete indifference to the disastrous path down which she and Jeremy Corbyn are taking the Labour party,” “It meant that people were sitting there in stony faced silence. People were looking into the middle distance and concentrating on keeping their faces straight while she was talking.” (Anonymous Labour backbencher talking to the Huffington Post about shadow defence secretary Emily Thornbury's performance at the Parliamentary Labour party meeting last night. You can read the report from which this quote is taken here .)

A Conservative MP who is also a Doctor tweeted this evening that "Both sides should stop talking to media and sit in a room and negotiate." The only way I could tell whether she was talking about the government and the doctors, or the rival leave campaigns, was to click on the "View Conversation" link. ( It was the issue of Junior Doctors' contracts. And I think she was giving both sides excellent advice in their own and the patient's interests.)

The Economist magazine has an interesting article about Labour's review of the last election, called The elephant in the room? which argues that Labour is basically in denial about why it lost the 2015 election. I'm not going to reveal anything about what was discussed at the meeting of Conservative activists in London which I attended on Saturday because the party has asked that we have the debate about what we need to do by talking directly to one another rather than have the conversation in the pages of the Daily Telegraph. But I will say that it is my honest impression from comparing the article in The Economist with the meeting two days ago that the Conservative party, both at senior level and among the activists, is far less complacent about the factors which could have cost us the 2015 election, and may have limited the size of our surprise victory, than the Labour party is about the problems which handed us that victory. And that the party leader...