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.

“Really, what on earth did they think they were doing?”
- Alistair Darling, speaking on the Andrew Marr show, as cabinet ministers condemn former colleagues who were secretly filmed apparently offering to try to influence government policy in return for cash.  In the Channel 4 and Sunday Times film, Stephen Byers reportedly says he will try to [...]

From the Daily Mail:
Tony Blair waged an extraordinary two-year battle to keep secret a lucrative deal with a multinational oil giant which has extensive interests in Iraq. The former Prime Minister tried to keep the public in the dark over his dealings with South Korean oil firm UI Energy Corporation. Mr Blair – who has [...]

From the Guardian:
“I am, and not only in my own opinion, the best prime minister who could be found today,” he told a press conference yesterday. “I believe there is no one in history to whom I should feel inferior. Quite the opposite.”  The problem, he explained, was that “In absolute terms, I am the [...]

Dear Lord Mandelson,
After your meteroic re-rise to the top of the Labour Party, I was hoping that you would have learned the lessons of the past.  Apparently not.  Despite surviving the expenses scandal relatively unscathed, your reputation for sleaze and corruption remains unshaken as demonstrated by your increasingly dubious behaviour over the past ten days.
Last [...]

“Honesty doesn’t pay in this system and the temptations are great. No-one knows who is cheating and who is not, and it is a disgrace that the Parliament has voted to keep auditors’ reports secret.”
- Chris Davies, Lib Dem MEP, reacting to the news that a leaked report has shown members of the European Parliament are [...]

Dear Derek Conway,
I really thought that I’d heard the last of you but you just can’t keep out of the headlines.  Not only have you heaped shame on the Conservative Party, you still appear to be struggling with the notion that you have done anything wrong.  Like almost every politician, your first instinct is to [...]

Dear readers,
My most popular post ever on this blog was last year’s expose of the MPs who had gone out of their way to screw the taxpayer over the previous Parliamentary year.  Seeing as the House of Lords have been in the news recently for all the wrong reasons, I decided that now is a good time [...]

Dear Michael Martin,
I wrote a suitably foul-tempered letter to Harriet Harman yesterday when she tried to bury bad news on the u-turn performed by the government with regard to MPs’ expenses.  Having since studied the newly updated Green Book, which explains to MPs what they can and cannot claim for, I am truly sickened by the [...]

Dear Michael Martin,
Not content with screwing the taxpayer yourself, the Speaker’s committee proposals for reforming the expenses system for MP’s is just unbelievable.  Only a matter of days ago we learnt that Gordon Brown charged the taxpayer £372 for Sky TV, Tony Blair got the taxpayer to fund his nice new £11,200 kitcken, Barbara Follett charged us [...]

Dear Michael Martin,
I don’t mean to blow my own political trumpet, but a few days ago I made the following statement in a letter to you: ”Your feet-stomping antics throughout the debate about MPs’ expenses makes me think two things: firstly, that you are not acting in the best interests of politics in this country; and [...]

Dear Michael Martin,
Talk about a dog with a bone.  You just don’t give up, do you!  Having been bypassed and overruled on several occasions recently about MPs’ expenses, you obviously feel a need to make your own personal contribution to wasting taxpayers’ money by blowing £100,000 on trying to stop an investigation into MPs wasting [...]

Dear readers,
Welcome to the inaugural award ceremony that rewards those MPs who have clearly gone out of their way to shaft the British taxpayer over the past year.  On the Parliament website you can find a list of MP’s expenses for the last parliamentary session, but they curiously published it on a PDF file to [...]

17th December 2007: former Glasgow MSP Tommy Sheridan claimed he was the victim of a “political witch hunt” after being charged with perjury following his court victory over the News of the World.
Paul Flynn MP (Labour), 25th January 2008:  “I believe this is the result of a nasty, vindictive witch-hunt against a decent, honourable politician”, [...]

Dear Liz Hunt,
In the aftermath of the Derek Conway expenses scandal, I found it baffling that more MPs weren’t discovered to be playing the system.  Your best efforts to highlight the abuse of expenses by Michael Martin, the Speaker of the House, are certainly appreciated but the rest of the media don’t seem that fussed.
You [...]

Dear James Purnell,
I have always been of the opinion that Gordon Brown appointed such a ridiculously inexperienced cabinet for two reasons: firstly, to wash away the look and feel of the Blair years to trick us into thinking that his leadership will be a ‘fresh start’; secondly, to make sure that the new cabinet would [...]

Dear Derek Conway,
I am genuinely disheartened by the events of the last 24 hours with regard to your abuse of taxpayers’ money.  Anyone who thought that the Conservatives were immune from scandals of their own was clearly living in a dreamland, but for a senior MP to show such disregard for MP’s expenses and to [...]