Chris Whiteside's Blog

'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...