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.“We want to transform the most intimate and private relations between [...]

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 Dawn Primarolo,
As Health Minister you tend to only crop up in the media when announcements are less than glamorous, and today is no exception.  You are claiming success from new figures that have shown the number of abortions, including for those under-18 and under-16, has fallen since 2007 and fell by 4.5% in the [...]

Dear Harriet Harman,
Having received numerous letters from me over the course of this year discussing your poorly judged interpretations of equality and discrimination, it was wonderful to see the BBC making a programme that leaves you looking rather stupid.  Much as the BBC website trailer for last night’s show on equality and parenting (which can be [...]

Dear Elizabeth Adeney,
At 66 years of age, you are set to become Britain’s oldest mother in about a month or so from now.  Having undergone IVF treatment in the Ukraine, there has been criticism of your actions on the basis of your age, but you have robustly defended yourself by telling the Sunday Mirror that your [...]

Dear Professor Le Grand,
As an architect of some novel policies in the past, perhaps I shouldn’t be too surprised at your latest offering.  Your plan is to make couples who have children outside wedlock become automatically married by the State, even in the absence of a ceremony or taking any vows.  I know that you like [...]

Dear Ed Balls,
There is something unbelievably cheeky about yesterday’s release of a government report by Sir Alan Steer into the appalling standards of behaviour in our schools, seeing as Labour have ignored the issue for a decade.  The number of children excluded more than 10 times in a single year went up from 310 in [...]

“It’s not really 100% perfect, but compared to the earlier drafts it’s a huge improvement.”
- Shukria Barakzai, a member of parliament in Afghanistan, giving his verdict on the new law supported by President Hamid Karzai.  Human rights activists are furious, as they say it means that women no longer have the right to refuse their husbands sex [...]

“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 [...]

Dear Greater Glasgow and Clyde NHS Health Board,
Thank you for standing your ground.  It’s wonderful to see that in this day and age where people throw around lawsuits like they’re going out of fashion, you have decided that you’ve done nothing wrong by refusing fertility treatment to a lesbian couple.  Not only are you operating [...]

I don’t know whether to feel anger or sympathy – angry that Alfie Patten, age 12, and Chantelle Steadman, age 15, are so stupid that they think it’s appropriate for them to raise a child, angry that their parents haven’t bothered to explain to them why they shouldn’t do something so irresponsible, or sympathy for the child who [...]

“If he wanted to have a family he should have thought of that before he robbed my family of a much-loved man.”
- Peter Askins, 53-year-old brother of George Askins who was kicked to death by Kirk Dickson and a friend in 1994 because he refused to hand over a cigarette.  Kirk Dickson and five other [...]

Dear Andrew Lansley,
Today’s verdict that England is ‘the sick man of Europe’ must have really stung Alan Johnson.  Labour have been in power for over ten years and despite countless initiatives, hundreds of millions of pounds in investment and numerous ministers having a crack at the problem, England is still in dire straits.  The figures [...]

Dear Damien Hall,
I cannot imagine what it must be like to find out that you are unable to have children of your own.  Naturally, you turned to adoption after you received this news but you have been told by Leeds City Council that you are ineligible to do so as you weigh 24 stone.  You [...]

Dear James Purnell,
It’s not often that I support a Labour policy.  Your recent welfare reforms, designed to bring private and voluntary firms into the mix, was a notable exception to this.  So long as people are looking for work, the government will help support them.  Not only is the reduced role of the government to be welcomed, the [...]

Dear Chris Grayling,
With rumours flying about that you will become Conservative Party Chairman in the not-too-distant future, you can be forgiven for not firing on all cylinders with regard to the upcoming welfare reforms.  You and I are thinking along the same lines on these reforms: bringing in expertise from the private and voluntary sector is absolutely the [...]

Dear Peter Mandelson,
No doubt you are trying to keep a low profile at the moment while George Osborne inadvertently deflects attention from your own meetings with the Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska.  The fact that you allegedly “dripped pure poison” about Gordon Brown at the dinner table with Osborne and Rothschild seems long-forgotten (at least, for [...]

Dear Iain Duncan Smith,
It is quite amazing to watch your rejuvenation in British politics.  You only have to go back a few years to see an Iain Duncan Smith without the support of his own party or the public, with your departure as leader of the Conservative Party an inevitably.  In stark constrast, your policy [...]

Dear Harriet Harman,
To read about your interview on family life this morning was very revealing and very sad.  In a country where we have the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe, where we are bottom out of 21 developed countries in a UN report on the wellbeing of children (including child poverty, health, education, family and peer [...]

Dear Cath Elliott,
You really don’t get it, do you.  You and all the other supporters of lesbian parents accuse those who support the ‘traditional family’ of discriminating against you and being “religious fundamentalists who spewed their hatred on the streets”.  Your name-calling and “we’ve moved on” argument are outrageously selfish and I totally disagree with [...]

Dear Chris Bryant,
Evidently the desire to release stupid initiatives is spreading like a nasty virus through the Labour Party.  It now seems that you honestly believe giving sex education to 9-year-olds is a good idea – a truly chilling thought.
It is quite clear that the Labour government has no idea how to prevent teenage pregnancies.  If [...]

I don’t think I would ever want to work in exactly the same place as someone that I’m dating or married to, although I know many people who do precisely this and have no problem with it.  Having said that, I think the success of such an arrangement does somewhat depend on where you work.

For those of you were thinking about shoving your parents into an old people’s home to save a bit of hassle, perhaps you will consider spending more time with them in future – unless you want to go to jail, of course.

Dear Minette Marrin,
You are so lucky I didn’t find your article in The Times until today, because I’m normally a bit more relaxed at weekends so I don’t tend to dish out any serious anger – but I’ll make an exception.
Your points about the modern era being “a moment for serious revaluation of men” are sickeningly [...]

Dear Andy Burnham,
I am getting sick and tired of this.  Talk about a lack of vision and originality – your interview in the Telegraph has made it perfectly clear that Labour are about to steal yet another Conservative policy.
After the backlash against Alistair Darling’s policy theft, I thought I was on fairly safe ground by [...]