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 Lord Mandelson,
After being heralded by Gordon Brown as a powerful [...]

Dear Mark Field,
Apart from the occasional quip on Top Gear, speed cameras aren’t discussed much these days.  I get the feeling that there is a grudging acceptance of their existence among motorists, even if full-scale agreement is a million miles away.  Your calls for speed cameras to be abolished doesn’t really make a useful contribution [...]

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 [...]

“The result was lamentable. The underlying computer system was inadequately procured and tested, resulting in an unstable setup when it was switched on. [Department for Transport] staff do not trust the system which is hardly surprising when we hear that on occasion it took to issuing messages in German.”
- Edward Leigh, the Public Accounts Committee’s [...]

Dear Geoff Hoon,
Poor man.  This third runway at Heathrow was always going to be a delicate matter, but yesterday you got a taste for the ferocity of opposition to the project in the House of Commons.  Interestingly, the Conservative Party are probably the least of your worries on this matter.  The fact that 140 MPs [...]

Dear Theresa Villiers,
Your below-par performance as Shadow Transport Secretary has left you very vulnerable should David Cameron decide to reshuffle his cabinet.  Justine Greening has outshone you at every opportunity.  I was almost feeling sorry for you, but after reading about your opposition to road pricing this morning in the Telegraph, I am more than [...]

I suspect Gordon Brown is feeling pretty relieved this morning after surviving the 42-day detention vote, but I wonder if his next crisis is already in the making (it certainly is, should we see anything like what has been happening in other countries). 

Dear Friends of the Earth,
You really don’t get it, do you.  If organisations like yours came up with sensible policies to guide us towards more sustainable lifestyle choices, I might be willing to listen.  However, the reality is that you just spout utter nonsense that ends up making you look foolish and ill-informed, thereby completely [...]

Nuff said.

Dear Justine Greening,
Thank you for pursuing the government over their ‘green taxes’ sham.  I am always happy to see the government taking a serious interest in environmental issues, but slapping massive tax hikes on motorists is designed to raise £2.5 billion of revenue for the empty Treasury coffers instead of trying to help reduce pollution.
This [...]

Dear Ken Livingstone,
I will start this letter by making it perfectly clear that I don’t like you very much and I don’t think you’ve been a good Mayor of London.  But much as it pains me to admit it, you and I both share a hatred of Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) in it’s current form.  Your [...]