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.

This is John Varley - the chief executive of Barclays.
He thinks London’s role as a leading financial hub may be “damaged” by the new bonus tax.  He told the BBC that “banks are competing globally – this bank, Barclays, competes with banks all around the world and we have to be able to compete on a level [...]

From everyone’s favourite paper, The Sun:

Dear readers,
Sometimes you really have to take your hat off to a Government and say ‘well done’.  During these difficult economic times, it takes real courage to stand up there and deliver a set of policies that will start the long haul back to financial stability, even if it costs them votes in the process.  Yesterday was [...]

“The banking industry did not cause a housing bubble, it wasn’t the one setting monetary policy and it wasn’t in charge of the regulator.”
- Angela Knight, the chief executive of the British Bankers’ Association, as the banking industry today warned the Treasury that plans for a “supertax” on bankers’ bonuses would damage the City’s reputation [...]

Dear Eric Pickles,
As you seem to spend most of your time running round the country trying to dampen local political fires such as the row over the ‘Turnip Taliban’, I can’t say for sure how much time you actually dedicate to election planning.  Rumours of a general election in March continue to circulate, yet the Conservatives potentially have a lot [...]

Dear Harriet Harman,
I fear that with the impending electoral doom that faces the Labour Party, you may be losing sight of your beloved equality agenda.  Yesterday’s coverage of the latest unemployment statistics focused on the disastrous figures for youth unemployment and the slower rate of growth in overall unemployment, but I’m concerned that you missed [...]

“doing God’s work”
- how Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and chief executive of Goldman Sachs, described bankers in his interview with The Sunday Times.  Mr Blankfein, the son of a Brooklyn postal worker, believes that banks serve a “social purpose” and argues that the return of big profits and bonuses should be welcomed as proof the economy is [...]

Dear George Osborne,
Having watched your performance at the Conservative Party conference, it was clear to me that you are keen to put electoral strategy and voter sentiment ahead of common sense.  While this is not a bad idea in the run-up to an election, one does wonder if you’ll ever be able to turn it [...]

“Growth will come – I’m confident about that”
- Alistair Darling, demonstrating his stunning economic credentials once again while commenting on the disastrous GDP figures released today that showed the UK is in its longest recession since the 1950s

“The trouble is, if you compare sterling and the dollar, it is like two drunks propping up the bar”
- Mark O’Sullivan, of Currencies Direct, on the plummeting value of the pound and the dollar

“Economics is too important to be left to economists”
- Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams

Dear Lord Turner,
As the Financial Services Authority (FSA) is in its final days now that the Conservatives have committed themselves to scrapping your organisation, you have evidently decided to make a nuisance of yourself with idiotic suggestions that pander to the Government.  Your plans for a multi billion-pound tax on banks to tackle the City’s [...]

Dear Vince Cable,
Clearly there was something in the water this weekend, as everyone seemed to be enjoying a spot of ’bonus bashing’.  On Saturday, George Osborne said that a Conservative government would seek to stop the payment of large bonuses across the banking system and told the Guardian that handing out big awards backed by state guarantees was [...]

“I joined the Government in January so I could say I was a politician during the financial crisis. But then when the scandal over MPs’ expenses blew up, I went back to saying I was a banker.”
- Lord Davies, Britain’s Trade Minister

This  is Joanna Birchall, walking past the coffin of her husband Major Sean Birchall after his funeral a few days ago in London. Major Sean Birchall of 1st Battalion Welsh Guards died on 19th June while on patrol near Lashkar Gah in central Helmand province, Afghanistan.
Today, a Ministry of Defence source confirmed that ministers were [...]

“The elected politicians responsible for destroying our shrubs must halt this destruction with immediate effect.”
- the note held up by a protestor who dresses himself as a 6ft human shrub.  He filled a planter with brightly coloured flowers in a campaign against a council decision to cut back on plants to save money during the credit crunch.  The man, [...]

“The impact of the scheme is accelerating.”
- Ian Austin MP, the government’s housing minister, trying to put a nice gloss on the news that just six families in England have been helped by the government’s £200m mortgage rescue scheme – up from two families in the previous month.  The initiative, launched at the start of [...]

“The real dividing line is not ‘cuts versus investment’, but honesty versus dishonesty. We should have the confidence to tell the public the truth that Britain faces a debt crisis; that existing plans show that real spending will have to be cut, whoever is elected; and that the bills of rising unemployment and the huge [...]

Dear Brian Cowen,
I don’t know whether you have had time to watch what’s been happening in Westminster over the past couple of weeks as Gordon Brown’s government descends into chaos.  To be fair, being Irish Prime Minister has probably been just as bad, from what I’ve been reading, but there are a number of interesting parallels [...]

Dear Hazel Blears,
As your chipmunky face is splashed all over the papers this morning, I thought that I would offer you some friendly words of advice.  I have no doubt that a possible leadership challenge has crossed your mind.  Nevertheless, on the evidence of several pieces of news that I stumbled across yesterday, you might [...]

Dear Lord Mandelson,
After being heralded by Gordon Brown as a powerful figure in European circles when you returned to the Cabinet, one would expect you to be able to successfully negotiate with other EU countries when it came to industrial matters.  Unfortunately for you and the British car industry, it looks like you have seriously [...]

“We, the workers have nothing to eat, we had to seek some sort of alternative food and I gave them an example.”
- Zoran Bulatovic, a Serbian union official, who chopped off his finger and ate it in a protest over wages to show how desperate he and other workers are. “It hurt like hell”, he added.  [...]

With the UK economy slipping into an ever deeper recession, there are many different plans of actions being touted as the solution to our financial woes.  However, journalists, pundits and policymakers should remain wary about their ideas as one day they might be unfortunate enough to get what they wished for.

The best moment, though, was on the BBC Live Text updates that have been rolling throughout the day.  At 12:30pm, they said that “City workers have been leaning out of windows to wave £10 notes at G20 protesters on the streets below, the Press Association reports. Demonstrators responded with jeers and shouts, their reporter says.”  [...]

“There is an air of breathtaking unreality in Westminster and Whitehall that reminds me of 1975.”
-  Lord Owen, foreign secretary under Jim Callaghan in the late 1970s, in today’s Sunday Telegraph warning that Britain’s economy might have to be subject to “IMF disciplines” that would require painful public spending cuts to halt a “precipitate loss of confidence”.  [...]