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.“The impact of the scheme is accelerating.”
- Ian Austin MP, the [...]

“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”.  [...]

“We’re all feeling the effects of the economy and, especially for families seeking reproductive options, every dollar counts.”
- Danielle Moores, spokeswoman for Xytex international - a sperm bank who are now rolling out their very own ’stimulus package’ by offering up to $200 off a vial of sperm to clients wishing to start or add to [...]

“A competition to outdo each other with promises will not calm the situation”
- Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, who yesterday opened up a new rift with Britain and the United States ahead of the G20 summit in London when she delivered a blunt rejection of extra fiscal stimulus packages as advocated by Gordon Brown and Obama.  [...]

Dear Yasmin Alibhai-Brown,
Oh dear.  I know that the latest unemployment figures showing that it has passed 2 million stole the headlines yesterday, but you should be extremely grateful for this.  I wrote to you back in January of this year to explain why your assertion that women were being discriminated against because they were losing [...]

“It’s now emerging that dogs and cats may well be in receipt of this money”
- Australian Conservative treasury spokesman Joe Hockey, who pointed out to Kevin Rudd and his centre-left government that the cash handouts being distributed as part of an economic stimulus package may be going to cats and dogs instead of homeowners.  Every eligible [...]

“I want to send a message to all those who mismanaged our savings”
- the message shouted by Laura Perego, an Italian porn actress, as she stripped off in the Milan stock exchange yesterday in a protest at financiers.  She walked into the stock market in a black coat, which she took off to reveal her [...]

Dear Gordon Brown,
After David Cameron apologised for not spotting the severity of the financial crisis at an earlier stage, you have obviously been advised to follow suit and talk about your role in the crisis.  Sadly, your personality yet again proves to be the main stumbling block as the word “sorry” remains illusive as you search for credibility and [...]

Dear Gordon Brown,
Aside from failing to impress anyone with your little American jolly (not even the American media), you’re now back in the UK banging on again and again about your stupid ‘global new deal’.  Of course, you daren’t explain what this actually might mean because you know that voters and businesses will be appalled [...]

Dear Gerry Morrissey,
As with every other general secretary of a union at the moment, you are just waiting for that phonecall from a journalist asking for your two cents worth on the latest job cuts in your sector.  Seeing as you front the broadcasting workers’ union Bectu, the job cuts at ITV were just what [...]

If you’re angry or disillusioned about Sir Fred Goodwin’s pension after he destroyed one of the largest banks in Britain, prepare to redirect your disgust and loathing towards Tony Blair.  When it comes to making a mint out of a destructive and deceitful legacy, this man has few competitors.
Let’s start with the book.  Firstly, he [...]

“I am told that the topic of my pension was specifically raised with you by both the chairman of the group remuneration committee and the group chairman, and you indicated that you were aware of my entitlement and that no further “gestures” would be required.”
- an extract from a letter allegedly sent by Sir Fred Goodwin to [...]

Dear Gordon Brown,
Who do you think you’re convincing, seriously?  All this talk of “the difficult birth-pangs of a new global order” and a “global deal and grand bargain” is meaningless and you know it.  The fact of the matter is that you let our economy off the leash many years ago and enjoyed the good times [...]

Dear Liam Byrne,
I understand that the moral justification for supporting charities through this financial crisis is a compelling one.  No-one wants to see good intentioned and often successful charities either downsize or disappear completely during these difficult times.  Unfortunately, the moral case becomes considerably more complicated when it is taxpayers’ money that is used to [...]

“Blaming the hedge funds for the banking crisis is like blaming the passengers in a bus crash”
- Paul Marshall, co-founder of the Marshall Wace hedge fund (one of the funds that held short-selling positions in HBOS last summer), arguing with the Treasury Select Committee about whether insufficient regulation caused the banking crisis

Last week, the claims from three senior Labour Party officials that they could see the ‘green shoots’ of recovery were rightly panned by the media and opposition MPs – but yesterday, for the first time, I’m convinced that I could really see the ‘pink shoots’ of recovery.

Dear Yasmin Alibhai-Brown,
More often than not, I let your opinions on many issues just pass me by because your analysis is so wide of the mark that I don’t even know where to start.  Today we see yet another example of how you (and the likes of Harriet Harman) have manipulated government statistics – in this case, [...]

Dear Ken Clarke,
Much has been made of your pro-EU stance in returning to the Shadow Cabinet.  Expectations are running high in terms of your policies and credibility as our economy continues its march towards new lows every week, if not every day.  Peter Mandelson has already landed himself in trouble with his contentious decision to delay [...]

“This is desperate stuff from the Tories, who continue to scrabble around trying to find a coherent economic policy.  There is no way they can get 350,000 new jobs out of these proposals. There are too many restrictions being applied, the incentive is too small and many of these ‘new’ jobs will simply displace other [...]

“Congress seems willing to help shore up our nation’s most important businesses, and we feel we deserve the same consideration.”
- porn baron Larry Flynt, who is seeking a $5 billion bailout from Washington to rejuvenate the industry, which he says is suffering because of the economic downturn.  He has asked the 111th Congress, which convened [...]

“The VAT cut has been an unbelievable and expensive failure. [Gordon Brown] lectured us about prudence, has spent £12.5bn of our money… and wasted it.  I think this will go down in history as one of the most appalling wastes of money in British political history.”
- David Cameron on the government’s recent VAT cut