Letters From A Tory Daily views on British politics and the Conservative Party from a centre-right thinker who writes letters on his blog to politicians, journalists and many others.

Welcome to ‘Letters From A Tory’, covering British politics from a conservative perspective. Please leave a comment if you have any thoughts about today’s letter, and don’t forget that you can CLICK HERE to get my letters sent to you by RSS every morning.“An unsavoury character could have come in and we just can’t [...]

Dear Dr Pedro Greer,
Seeing as yesterday’s news here in the UK was dominated by the race to become the ‘Speaker’ of the House of Commons (which was eventually won by some prick called John Bercow), the shocking article on the BBC website about Miami’s treatment of their sex offenders will have escaped many people’s attention.  A Miami law [...]

Dear libertarians,
Every so often a story comes along that beautifully clarifies why I will never support libertarianism.  The death of Baby P was one such story, and a couple of days ago another of these pivotal stories reared its head, as a young mother who was judged too stupid to care for her own baby has [...]

Dear Colleen Hauser,
To say that I am disheartened to read about your behaviour would be a huge understatement.  An alert has gone out to police forces across the US to search for you after you left home with your cancer-stricken teenage son to avoid him receiving chemotherapy.  Sadly, your decision is likely to end with your son dying  [...]

Dear Ed Balls,
There appears to be a growing consensus that you represent the very worst aspects of the Labour Party – arrogance, incompetence and disdain at the heart of Gordon Brown’s inner circle.  Yesterday’s announcement on the recruitment and retention of social workers after the death of Baby P might sound like good news, but it [...]

Dear libertarians,
Regular readers of my blog will know that once in a while I stumble across a story which I think strikes at the heart of libertarian values.  Like many other Conservatives (big and small ‘c’) I want the state to play a much smaller role in our lives than it does now, but I [...]

Dear Alan Campbell,
As a Home Office minister, I’m sure Jacqui Smith takes all the high profile cases and leaves you with the issues that she isn’t particularly interested in.  I appreciate that regulating the internet is a horribly messy situation and doesn’t offer much in the way of glitz and glamour, but don’t think for [...]

“At the back of my mind was, ‘God, I hope nobody finds out about this’.”
- Tim Russo, 41, a convicted sex offender, who was paid more than £2,500 by the Labour Party to help their 2005 election campaign.  In 2002, Russo was convicted in America of trying to arrange sex with someone he thought was a 13-year-old boy.  [...]

Dear Internet Watch Foundation (IWF),
As the organisation that filters out websites for internet users in the UK, you were never likely to escape controversy for long.  Your ruling that the Scorpion’s 1976 album called ‘Virgin Killers’ may have an illegal front cover and you subsequently blocking the Wikipedia website that contains the album cover has caused [...]

“Imagine living with a neighbour from hell and then double it.  I once rolled the dirt off Shannon’s feet. The mud was like glue, really stuck on. We had beetles and mice in our home which were coming from their house. I think social services should be shot. I used to tell them time and again [...]

Dear libertarians,
As a conservative I am always intruiged by libertarian angles on some of the problems facing society.  The government having faith in its citizens, giving them the freedom to make choices and not unduly interfering in their lives are all principles that I broadly subscribe to.  What I find harder to reconcile is the [...]

Dear Nick Clegg,
In the chamber of comedy that was PMQs yesterday, it was you who took time to draw attention to the terrible plight of two sisters in Sheffield whose father was given 25 life sentences on Tuesday for raping and abusing them over a period of thirty years.  As with the case of Baby [...]

“Too many vulnerable children are still being let down by the system and we are failing to learn from the worst cases of abuse.” – Christine Gilbert, Ofsted’s chief inspector (19th November 2008)
“This is a tragic and serious loss of life that has got to be investigated properly so that all of the lessons can [...]

Dear Ed Balls,
Since becoming Secretary of State, you have demonstrated your love of centralised control in education and children’s services beyond any reasonable doubt.  Removing the freedoms that City Academies enjoyed under Tony Blair is a good example of how you detest individual responsibility and independence from government.  Like Gordon Brown, your response to the [...]