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.

“Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!”
- a ‘tweet’ from Paul Chambers, 26, when heavy snowfall recently threatened to scupper his travel plans.  Unfortunately for Mr Chambers, the police didn’t see the funny side. A week after posting the [...]

Dear readers,
It’s not often I’ll credit the Daily Mail for a genuinely good piece of journalism but today they deserve a tip of the hat for picking up on this story:
“Ministers have restored official ties with the Muslim Council of Britain despite its refusal to remove a deputy leader accused of supporting attacks on British [...]

Dear readers,
Unusually for me, I’m honestly a bit lost for words this morning because I am still dumbstruck by the astonishing things that have happened in the last 24 hours.  I keep telling myself I should feel angry, yet I appear to be completely paralysed by an overwhelming sense of “WTF?!”  from yesterday’s events, and [...]

Dear readers,
Two stories from today’s papers have left me dismayed and angry.
In Ireland, we have secular campaigners in the Irish Republic defying a strict new blasphemy law which has come into force by publishing a series of anti-religious quotations online and promising to fight the legislation in court.  The new law, passed in July, means that [...]

“It must have been terrifying for the customers but those things would only have gone off if you’d kept them past their sell by date.”
- one of the bomb squad officers who was part of an hour-long stand-off with a suspected suicide bomber in China, only to find the man was armed with sausages.  Police believed [...]

Dear Anton Setchell,
To be honest I had never heard your name before I read the Guardian yesterday.  According to their investigation, you are in overall command of Association of Chief Police Officers’ (ACPO) “domestic extremism” remit.  This rather shadowy organisation raises a huge number of questions about what the role of the police is and whether [...]

“Of course McGuinness expressed no remorse. He has no remorse. He is a terrorist”
- Lord Tebbit, who was seriously injured and his wife crippled for life in the Brighton Grand Hotel bombing in 1984.  Martin McGuinness, former IRA commander, now Northern Ireland’s deputy First Minister, attended a Labour Party function in the Grand Hotel during [...]

“What is to stop me, if I am diagnosed with a debilitating illness now, from shooting a critic who has panned one of my books, knowing that I’ll be able to get away with it?”
- thriller writer Ian Rankin, who believes that the release of the Lockerbie bomber ‘on compassionate grounds’ was tantamount to granting [...]

Dear Shaun Sawyer,
As a leading member of the Metropolitan Police’s counter-terrorism command (SO15), I would hope that you’d steer clear of baseless accusations and needless scaremongering due to the sensitivity of your work.  Boy, was I wrong about that.  SO15 has decided that far right groups could be planning a terrorist “spectacular” to stoke up [...]

“It is not a state secret that he wears Speedo swimming trunks, for goodness sake let’s grow up.”
- David Miliband, Foreign Secretary, who said that photographs of Sir John Sawers, the new head of MI6, that appeared on Facebook are not a threat to national security.  He described Sir John as an “outstanding professional” and denied that [...]

So, let me just clarify something – we want hateful, anti-British Muslims to stay IN this country, but we want to keep people like Geert Wilders OUT ?
I would now like to repeat the reasons offered by the Home Office as to why Geert Wilders was kept out, but this time substitute out any reference to [...]

“It would be better that the Government recognised that there are risks, rather than frightening people in order to be able to pass laws which restrict civil liberties, precisely one of the objects of terrorism: that we live in fear and under a police state”
- former MI5 head Dame Stella Rimington

Dear David Miliband,
I bet you thought you’d got away with it, didn’t you.  All this talk about how the supposedly evil and domineering US had forced your hand into suppressing evidence surrounding the possible torture of British citizen Binyam Mohamed seemed so convincing and you were resolute in defending your actions.  Unfortunately for you, the [...]

Get the latest news on the terrorist attacks from Reuters India.

Dear Ed Balls,
As far as I can see, the entire duration of your stint as Secretary of State for Education has consisted of running around a lot without achieving anything – or in some cases going backwards.  Rather than focussing on school discipline, school funding, grade inflation, school choice, integrity in our qualifications and all [...]

Yesterday was a dark day for civil liberties.
Yesterday was also a dark day for democracy.  For the second time in a matter of weeks, Labour attempted to bribe their opponents using taxpayers’ money to avoid a humiliating defeat – first came the £2.7 billion bribe for Crewe and Nantwich, this time it was the DUP receiving bribes [...]

Dear Tony McNulty,
As a Home Office minister I can imagine that you are pretty nervous right now.  The vote at 6pm tonight on 42-day detention is going to be very close and I think everyone from all political parties knows that the ramifications of this vote go way beyond the confines of a simple Commons [...]

Dear readers,
It would be nice to think that when it came to national security, our Prime Minister would show a little more evidence that he possesses a spinal cord than he did over the 10p tax rate furore when faced with a bunch of unhappy Labour rebels.  Sadly for this country, the Rebels have made [...]

Dear Geoff Hoon,
I wonder what it must be like for a Labour cabinet member to witness his government fall apart at the seams.  After the incredible retreats on non-doms, capital gains tax and the 10p tax rate, one wonders what credibility the government has left (if any).  And now, faced with the prospect of defeat in the [...]

Dear Rachel Sylvester,
I think you have done an excellent job of identifying the absurdity surrounding the government’s plan to increase the detention limit for terrorist suspects to 42 days.  Labour can emotionally blackmail us all they want, but I agree with you that the bill itself is ludicrous in terms of how it tries to achieve a [...]

Dear Jacqui Smith,
Just give it a rest, will you?  Honestly.  Doesn’t the sheer volume of opposition to your proposals to increase the detention limit for terrorist suspects, including from within your own party, tell you something?
If you could show the public independent evidence that a possible conviction or case against an individual (or better still, [...]

Dear George Bush,
It is well documented that you often have a little trouble with your words, but your inability to define and make progress in your ‘war on terror’ continues to be your achilles heel.  ETA have just released a statement to remind everyone of their violent nature as they intend to “strike at Spanish state structures [...]