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.

Dear Lindsey German and Nina Power,
I hope you enjoyed your International Women’s Day.  Now that the likes of Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman have been put back in their box, temporarily at least, following their crass remarks yesterday, I thought it was only fair to give your manifesto for “21st-century feminism” a bit of blog airtime.  [...]

“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 [...]

*yawn*
Yes, it’s still going.  Last night, Mandelson said that David Cameron’s failure to confront his billionaire deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft over his tax status exposes the “fundamental weakness” of the Conservative leader and undermines his claim to be a moderniser.  In an interview with the Guardian, he said that Ashcroft had Cameron “by the balls”, the affair [...]

“You may not recognise marriage in a tax system, but you sure do in a political system”
- William Hague taunts Harriet Harman over the fact that her husband, Jack Dromey, is to fight a reputedly safe Labour seat at the general election.

“‘Hhey, i’ve been having better sex and longer with this here””
- a tweet from Ed Miliband, after he fell victim to the latest phishing scam on Twitter (that’s what they all say – Ed). Several journalists in the parliamentary lobby were also contacted by friends asking why they had claimed to be ”24, female and horny” [...]

Dear Alan Campbell,
As Home Office Minister, Alan Johnson will no doubt steal anything important that you might want to say and all you get left with are the issues that he doesn’t want to get involved in – and lapdancing appears to fall into this category.  You have announced that new powers to crack down [...]

“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 readers,
I’m sure you, like me, were spitting fire when you heard about Harriet Harman being fined £350 and getting three points on her license after pleading guilty to driving without due care and attention.  Sadly, the charges of failing to report an accident and not leaving her details at the scence of the accident were irrelevant because she [...]

Dear Harriet Harman,
After the thoroughly pointless Queen’s Speech just a few weeks back, it seems that you have already changed your mind about how to crackdown on dodgy expenses claims from MPs.  While the headlines today are all about belltowers, Sky TV, porn movies, domestic servants, garlic peelers, air beds and hamburger machines, the complete failure [...]

Dear Harriet Harman,
Despite the Guardian and BBC’s best efforts to bury the story, the news that you are to be prosecuted over a minor car accident in your south London constituency is to be welcomed.  Even so, I have this bizarre sense of sympathy for you all the same.
You face prosecution for allegedly driving without due care [...]

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 [...]

“Only in a place as mad as Westminster can MPs make fat profits playing the property market with taxpayers’ money and get away with it.”
- Nick Clegg, responding to the letter he received from the Speaker John Bercow in which Bercow turned down his request to widen the scope of the audit of MPs expenses amid concerns [...]

“I’m Harriet Harman – you know where you can get hold of me”.
- what Harriet Harman allegedly said to a witness who approached her car after she hit a parked vehicle while talking on her mobile phone.  According to reports, the Minister is now under investigation by the police for driving without due care and [...]

“In closing, I would like to thank you for the huge influx of traffic to my website which your actions have caused. I am sure that the ladies who are a part of the PunterNet community thank you as well, as they will no doubt benefit financially from the many new clients who might otherwise never [...]

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 [...]

Meet Jack Dromey.  He is the deputy general secretary of the Unite union and is “very likely” to be chosen as Labour’s candidate for Leyton and Wanstead according to senior party sources.  He is also Harriet Harman’s husband.  Let’s take a quick look at this:

The constituency has a Labour majority of 6,857 over the Liberal Democrats, [...]

“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 Alistair Darling,
When will this end?  It seems that you cannot go for more than a few weeks without having to fight for your credibility and even your job.  One can only imagine what it is like to be on the receiving end of such regular interference from senior Cabinet colleagues, seeing as every attempt [...]

“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 [...]

“When they say they are going to change their lives now and spend more time with their families, that’s not a code for jumping ship.”
- Harriet Harman, speaking earlier today on yesterday’s departures of Jacqui Smith, Beverley Hughes, Patricia Hewitt and Tom Watson.  Shortly after this interview was posted on the BBC website, Hazel Blears [...]

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 Ed Balls,
For months now, you have refused to set schools free from state control, ensuring that local authorities maintain their grip on our education system and condemn it to many more years of failure and stagnation.  It is, therefore, ironic that when you finally announce some element of freedom for schools, it is the [...]

Dear Harriet Harman,
At long last, your already infamous Equality Bill is published today.  The official line is that it aims to tackle discrimination against women, the elderly and those from lower social classes (part of which involves forcing employers to publish how much they pay men and women) as well as making it a legal duty [...]

“It might be enforceable in a court of law this contract but it’s not enforceable in the court of public opinion and that’s where the Government steps in”
- Harriet Harman, speaking on the Daily Politics show about the Sir Fred Goodwin pension row (judging by the latest polls, the ‘court of public opinion’ doesn’t like Harriet Harman and [...]

Dear Harriet Harman,
Your popularity ratings must be going through the floor right now.  After reigniting class warfare earlier this week with your plans to force public sector bodies to reject job applications from anyone who has received a decent education (a terrible sin, indeed), you are now heaping shame on Parliament itself by introducing new [...]