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.

“The truth is that [Gordon Brown] is to reforming public services what Nero was to fire safety; or Tiger Woods to marital fidelity.”
- David Cameron, speaking at the Welsh Conservatives’ annual conference

“Met Office staff are eligible to receive performance-related pay based on achievements against specific targets agreed and monitored by the Met Office Board, which are linked to the success of the Met Office at either individual, team or organisational level.”
- the excuse given by Kevan Jones, the Defence Minister, as it emerged that staff at [...]

Dear Mark Serwotka,
As general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union, you have obviously decided to fire the starting gun on the hotly anticipated battle between public sector unions and the government.  Your members have voted for industrial action next month over changes to compensation scheme for staff who are made redundant. More than a quarter [...]

Dear libertarians,
Seeing as Parliament is on leave for a couple of weeks, I’ve got the chance to pick up on a curious story that might grab your attention.  Apparently, a new scheme to clamp down on benefit fraudsters is ‘under consideration’ for the Labour manifesto.  While this is hardly news in itself, I thought it [...]

Dear John Redwood,
Your rolling coverage of suggested spending cuts on your blog is certainly thought-provoking.  For example, your post yesterday entitled ‘Fewer prisoners, fewer prison places’ had an element of underlying logic.  The idea was simple: let low-level non-violent offenders such as burglars and thieves pay fines instead of sending them to prison.  While this [...]

Dear Dr David Haslam
As Chairman of The National Obesity Forum, it was never going to be long before you got a letter from me.  Your unwavering support for obesity surgery along with your justification for such a perspective demonstrates loud and clear why personal responsibility really has bitten the dust under Labour, and I’m glad [...]

The Guardian, 27th October 2009:
The barbecue summer never really materialised. After the prediction yesterday of an Indian summer, much of the UK awoke to rain this morning. But never fear! A mild winter is almost here.  Forecasters came under the spotlight after the now infamous prediction in April of a barbecue summer. There was little [...]

“John Hirst’s salary reflected the need to bring in, and appropriately reward, skills to meet the significant opportunities and challenges in our weather and climate business.”
- a Met Office spokesman, trying to make weather forecasting sound as terrifyingly demanding as possible in order to justify John Hirst, their Chief Executive, getting a 25% pay increase this year.   [...]

From the Telegraph:
Tony Blair is costing British taxpayers £6 million a year to protect – more than the current Prime Minister.  The former Prime Minister is understood to be the most expensive person in the country for the police to guard because of his regular foreign excursions. More than 20 officers are now understood to [...]

“Public spending on eating and drinking is a waste of social assets.  We need to criminalise this by law, so I proposed amending the criminal law and introducing the ‘crime of wantonly squandering public funds’.”
- Zhao Linzhong, a delegate to the National People’s Congress, China’s parliament.  Having become fed up with lavish banquets and official wining [...]

“Nobody calls the BBC ‘Auntie’ any more. ‘Auntie’ was an affectionate name for someone who might have been a trifle prim and stuffy at times, but who was basically reliable and behaved herself with decorum. ‘Auntie’ was not the type of person who stayed in Las Vegas hotels, clocked up taxi rides at £200 a [...]

“upsetting and scaremongering”
- how one of the 357 complaints to the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) described the government’s £6 million climate change TV campaign, in which they stated for the first time that scientific evidence has confirmed that climate change is man-made earlier this month.  Some of the complaints argued that there is no scientific evidence of [...]

From the Telegraph:
Adults who look after friends’ children on a regular basis are being forced to register with Ofsted under new legislation.  They must complete a criminal record check, learn first aid, take a childcare course and even follow Labour’s “nappy curriculum” for under-fives. …It comes just weeks after it emerged that parents giving lifts [...]

Dear trade unions,
The current postal strikes have clarified yet again what a desperately poor understanding you all have of political and economic realities.  Yesterday, you made fools of yourselves yet again by calling for BNP members to be banned from working in the entire public sector as you apparently vowed to mobilise against the threat [...]

“The Criminal Records Bureau already struggles, at huge cost, to do its job and this task is more complex and larger. While taxpayers and the people forced to undergo the [Independent Safeguarding Authority's] checks will lose out, the only people to benefit will be the army of bureaucrats needed to attempt the impossible.”
- James Dawkins, [...]

Dear Mark Serwotka,
Very few people in the public sector are likely to escape totally unscathed from post-2010 election cuts in spending.  Pensions are likely to be hit seeing as the total public sector pensions liability has already topped £1 trillion and is still rising fast.  In addition, other measures are likely to be put in [...]

“It is this sort of bigheadedness and contempt for public money that gets MPs a bad name.”
- Lib Dem MP Norman Baker on the thousands of pounds spent asking consultants whether MPs should stop drinking bottled water in meetings and reply on tap water

Check out these amazing ‘holes’ from around the word:
1. Kimberley Big Hole – South Africa

Apparently the largest ever hand-dug excavation in the world, this 1097-meter-deep mine yielded over three tons of diamonds before being closed.
 
2. Glory Hole – Monticello Dam, California

This is the Glory Hole at Monticello Dam, and it’s the largest in the world [...]

Dear Ben Bradshaw,
As if the meltdown of the national college building programme wasn’t sufficient humiliation for Labour, the Guardian now has the story of the £100 million black hole that has been discovered in the budget of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), putting funding for some of the most prestigious cultural projects [...]

Dear David Cameron,
In all honesty I was tempted to write a letter to Alan Johnson this morning, thanking him for at least trying to start a debate on where Parliament goes from here with regards to democracy, accountability and openness.  However, after reading your plans for giving more power to the British people and giving [...]

“I would take a lot of persuading to be convinced that such services represent the best use of the taxpayers’ dollar.”
- Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister of Australia, who has questioned why taxpayers are funding weight loss courses for their civil servants. Official documents released this week showed the government was paying AU$30,000 (US$22,800) to provide weight loss [...]

Dear Gordon Brown,
Wow, what a relief.  When there was talk over the weekend of you having run out of ideas, I was mildly concerned that you might actually have some decent policies up your sleeve, waiting to be rolled out at any moment. Today you will make a speech in London to try to silence your [...]

Dear Terry Sanderson,
As president of the National Secular Society (NSS), I’m sure you come across numerous examples of where religion is given a helping hand by government.  My continued opposition to faith schools would presumably fit in with your organisation’s viewpoint on education, and when it comes to the NHS we are also in agreement that [...]