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 Rob Davies,
As a spokesman for Canterbury council, I’m sure you [...]

“It is to have a go at political correctness”
- Conservative councillor David Taylor, explaining why he has a 2009 Sun Page 3 calendar on a wall at his authority’s HQ

Dear Local Government Association,
Seeing as local government has a habit of wasting phenomenal amounts of money, it’s not often that I have any sympathy for your plight.  Today I will make an exception.  The law of unintended consequences often strikes good-willed policies that find little or no political opposition.  The recent decision to give free [...]

Like many other people, I think Facebook and social networking in general is a great invention.  It can bring people together, join those with common interests and help them to share ideas and information.  The only problem is that uniting people with the same agenda isn’t always a good idea.

“One of the problems with younger people is that their lives are less settled”
- Russell Eagling, Liberal Democrat council leader in Kentish Town ward in Camden, responding to the news that one of his councillors had moved 5,200 miles away to Arizona but was still claiming his £700 a month council allowance

Dear Local Government Association,
Being a Conservative, I always err on the side of people taking responsibility for their lives.  However, when it comes to the well-being of children, my attitude is that the children must be protected and if this means protecting them from their parents, so be it.  On reading the news today that [...]

Dear local government workers,
As everyone knows, educational standards in this country have been falling for years but I would have hoped that between 600,000 of you someone would have a calculator to hand or at least be able to do some basic sums.  Civil service unions have already threatened to strike, which would disrupt benefits offices, museums, [...]

Dear readers,
As I sit here at my laptop this morning, I just can’t decide which of these three things amuses me more:
(a) The local elections results being the worst for the Labour Party since the 1960’s
(b) The utter humiliation the Labour Party must be feeling after coming third to the Lib Dems
(c) These hilarious and desperate [...]

I am very much a supporter of ‘localism’ and devolving power as close as possible to those who it affects.  The Labour government have made the dangers of centralising power perfectly clear on many occasions.  However, sometimes the idea of local councils having more power does make me a little nervous, as their use of [...]