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.Dear Lindsey German and Nina Power,
I hope you enjoyed your International [...]

“A belief need not include faith or worship of a god or gods, but must affect how a person lives their life or perceives the world.”
- guidance on Harriet Harman’s new Equality Bill, explaining why vegans and teetotallers amongst others are to be given the same protection against discrimination as religious groups.  The Bill makes [...]

Dear Nick Griffin,
I’m not quite sure whether the decision by BNP members to scrap your whites-only membership rules is the beginning or the end of this saga.  Your hand had been forced by the threat of a court injunction from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and you will now have to go back to court [...]

“While Pope Benedict never mentioned the Equality Bill, or even Harriet Harman, it is clear that the deputy leader of the Labour party is one of the few revolutionary idealists left on the government front benches. She still believes, like a St Paul’s girls’ school Robespierre, that the state will set us free from the [...]

Dear John Denham,
For a Labour minister to talk common sense is such a momentous occasion that I was in no doubt that I should be writing a letter to you this morning.  Yesterday you declared that being black or Asian no longer means you will be automatically disadvantaged.  Incredible stuff, really.  Unfortunately, your eureka moment falls [...]

“The full veil is not welcome in France because it runs contrary to our values and contrary to the idea we have of a woman’s dignity. Let us undertake not to give opponents of democracy, dignity and sexual equality the chance for a victory which would put our society in a very difficult situation.”
- Nicolas [...]

Dear Nick Clegg,
In the modern political era, it is almost a given that policy announcements and speeches are leaked to the media way so that some interest can be drummed up in advance.  It was therefore quite refreshing for you to spring a surprise attack on David Cameron this week, although – as we have [...]

Dear John Bercow,
As reported yesterday in the papers, the final recommendations of the Speaker’s Conference on Parliamentary Representation were announced.  Rather than shout and yell at what I read in the papers, I thought I would do the honourable thing and read through your recommendations myself to ensure that there was no misunderstanding or misinterpretation.  Unfortunately, [...]

“strong sense of colour and different sense of distance”
- the attributes possessed by women according to Wang Zheng, an official at the Wanxiang Tiancheng shopping centre in China, to explain why they have opened a car park that offers women drivers bigger-than-normal parking spaces to accommodate what it sees as their special needs.  The spaces are [...]

“I don’t think that feminism or the cause of women is in any way set back by these findings. It only proves what previous studies about the spatial differences between men and women have shown. Besides, it is not as if there was a massive failing by women. It is just about parking – not [...]

“Thank you for your letter … regarding the Black Power List [and] the Miss Black Britain competition. Do I take it from your responses that if there was a Miss White Britain competition or a White Power List that you would not consider that to be racist either? Is there any difference legally or morally [...]

Dear Lillian Ladele,
Your refusal to conduct civil partnership ceremonies because they were against your Christian beliefs has become one of the most intriguing court battles that I have ever seen.  Yesterday, Appeal Court judges ruled that your infamous refusal constituted a breach of equality laws and that the right to express a strong Christian faith [...]

“SANTA loves all kids. Even GINGER ones”
- the message inside a Tesco’s Christmas card, showing a red-head being bounced on Santa’s knee.  The card has now been withdrawn after parents branded the card as “discrimination” and said that they were disgusted with it.  A spokesman for Tesco said: “We sell a large range of Christmas cards including some [...]

Dear John Bercow,
Now that your wife is making headlines for all the wrong reasons, it is clear that you’re feeling a bit left out so you’ve decided to start making headlines for the wrong reasons too.  Your latest wheeze is to force political parties to declare how many women, ethnic minority and disabled applicants they reject as [...]

Dear feminists,
Despite the media-friendly messages spouted by your treasured organisations and public figures, the notion that you believe in pursuing genuine ‘equality’ has always been a gross misrepresentation.  I have now discovered yet another manifestation of your lack of interest in equality to the point where you publicly display your hatred of men yet again.
Manchester [...]

Dear Nicolas Sarkozy,
What a strange week it was for you.  Even though you publicly restated your opposition to women wearing burkas in a speech on French national identity last week by saying that “France is a country where there is no place for the burka, where there is no place for the subservience of women”, [...]

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 [...]

Dear Kathryn Szrodecki,
Sometimes all I have to do is hear the name of a campaigning group before I know that they are a waste of time.  Although this may sound harsh, my method is unnervingly accurate in this age of political correctness and job justification.  In your case, you belong to the ‘Size Acceptance Movement’ who [...]

Dear Iqbal Wahhab,
As soon as I read that you were chair of the Ethnic Minority Advisory Group, I figured that you weren’t exactly an objective bystander on race-related issues.  Rather amusingly, you have threatened to resign after being frustrated by ministers who held “endless, fruitless meetings” to discuss race in the workplace.  Ironically your reason for stepping down [...]

Dear President Hamid Karzai,
As Afghanistan goes the polls, reports of bribery, corruption and fear are plentiful in the British media.  Whether the result of the Presidential election will be accepted by Western leaders remains to be seen.  However, the last few days have given me plenty of reason to doubt the honesty and warmth of [...]

“Her obsessions are those of an over-educated, well-off, middle-class woman who has no worries about where her money is coming from: our pockets, of course”
- former Tory MP Edwina Currie on Harriet Harman, after Harman’s recent comments about men not being capable of running things by themselves

Dear Joan Bakewell,
Age discrimination is not exactly one of the most gripping political dilemmas in the modern era, yet its influence is still pervasive.  You attacked the BBC over the weekend for damaging the position of older women in society by exiling female news presenters, and it’s not often that the BBC is on the receiving end [...]

“I think it’s absolutely shocking that Alesha Dixon is not going to be a judge on Strictly Come Dancing. And as equality minister, I am suspicious that there is race discrimination there.”
- Harriet Harman, hitting out at the axing of performer Alesha Dixon from Strictly Come Dancing. Harman urged the BBC to bring the 30-year-old, whose [...]

“Unless your career success rests on your chest it is probably wiser to rely on your other assets at the office.  I don’t think women are stupid, I just don’t think anyone knows the rules. Women understand the power of breasts in general, but they don’t understand the power of their own. If cleavage isn’t [...]

Dear David Cameron,
While I take no issue with your liberal views on homosexuality that have been rightly welcomed by many people, your apparent change of heart on the now infamous ‘Section 28′ is not something that I can subscribe to.  Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, which stated that a local authority “shall [...]