Absolutely Not The Daily Troll-o-Graph

 Rishi was supposed to stop the rout. He hasn’t. Now Tory MPs are starting to think only one man can Source - Daily Telegraph 13/02/23 Link Ever since the day of Boris Johnson’s departure from No 10 last July, Westminster watchers have been speculating about his return. It’s almost become a ritual parlour game among some Tory MPs. He nearly had a go at rising like a phoenix from his own political ashes when Liz Truss fell on her sword, but eventually realised that it was too soon. Three months on, the political landscape is changing. The parliamentary party – or at least parts of it – are becoming restless again. When Rishi Sunak entered No 10, many felt the adults were back in the room. Politics was returning to normal. Drama was a word they thought consigned to the past. At least Sunak had a plan, they thought. But now they are doubting the existence of any such plan, let alone a vision. They see a PM embattled by dealing with a series of scandals and an economy that remains slug...

 This grossly expensive escapade doesn’t even come close to adding up Source - Daily Telegraph 09/02/23 Link If you told 1,000 people that the Government had a £100bn pot to spend upgrading Britain’s infrastructure and they could decide where the money would be directed, what would be their top priorities? Perhaps some would choose Heathrow’s third runway given the chaos that gripped Britain’s top airport for much of last year and its importance to our standing overseas. Others might pick the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station in an attempt to make us less reliant on fossil fuels and foreign despots for our energy supplies. Or how about funnelling it into our broken NHS in an attempt to cut out of control waiting lists? On the most recent estimates, the Government could support all three worthy causes and still have billions of pounds left over to bankroll a slew of other major building programmes around the country. What I am willing to wager is that few voters, if any at all, ...

 It’s time for the Tories to call the bluff of provincial potentates and rethink the system from first principles Source - Daily Telegraph - 08/02/23 Link Our political class refuses to admit it, but Scottish, Welsh and London devolution have failed disastrously. In a classic case of New Labour constitutional vandalism, a project purportedly designed to shift political power closer to the people and to buttress national and civic identities within the UK has backfired catastrophically.  Far from promoting proud self-reliance in Edinburgh, Cardiff and City Hall, it has enshrined dependency, resentment and a begging-bowl culture. Instead of a race to excellence, it has encouraged mediocrity, over-promoting non-entities too useless to make it in national politics and empowering an army of little tyrants who want to tell us what a woman is, how and when to travel, and what we are allowed to think. Rather than saving the UK, it has fractured it. Instead of generating competition, d...

 In comments made before his appointment on Tuesday, MP said ‘nobody has ever committed a crime after being executed’ Source - Daily Telegraph - 08/02/23 Link Lee Anderson, the new deputy Conservative chairman, has supported the death penalty, saying it had a “100 per cent success rate”. In comments made before his appointment on Tuesday, the MP for Ashfield said the killers of soldier Lee Rigby should have been executed within a week of releasing their video confession. Speaking to The Spectator, he said he would solve the small boats crisis by putting asylum seekers on a Royal Navy frigate and sending them back to France “the same day”. Speaking to the Spectator, Mr Anderson said the Tories had been “too scared” to tackle benefit fraud because doing so looked like “picking on poor people”. He criticised those who attacked him for his views, saying they were popular with the working class and that, as someone who had been “p--- poor”, he understood what it was like to be a single ...

 Source - Chopper 08/02/23 Link Afternoon! Conservative MPs scratching their heads at Rishi Sunak’s bloodless reshuffle yesterday should look away now. An exclusive, large-scale MRP poll of 28,000 people for the Chopper’s Politics Newsletter and The Telegraph found that if there were an “imminent general election”, the Tories would be left with fewer seats than the SNP. The figures from pollsters Find Out Now and experts Electoral Calculus report Labour winning 49 per cent of the votes cast and the Tories down to 23 per cent. The regression techniques of MRP polling mean that results in individual seats can be calculated. Translated into numbers of MPs, Labour gain 306 seats, taking the party’s total number of MPs to a record 509 (out of only 650 available). The SNP is the next largest party in the Commons, with 50 MPs, and the Conservatives will be in third place with just 45 seats, down from 365 at the 2019 election. The Liberal Democrats more than double their number of MPs from...

 The no-nonsense, straight-talking ex-international trade secretary is an unashamed 'growth' champion Source - Daily Telegraph - 07/02/23 Link The elevation of grassroots favourite Kemi Badenoch to the Secretary of State in charge of a newly beefed-up business and trade department is Rishi Sunak’s way of keeping the right on-side. Formerly international trade secretary, no-nonsense, straight-talking Badenoch has long been a darling of the party’s “common sense” wing - and following an impressive performance in the last leadership race is widely tipped as a potential successor to the Prime Minister. Amid fears for the future of his party, could this be Mr Sunak's way of giving his somewhat inexperienced colleague a helping hand? Born in Wimbledon to Yoruba parents, the mother of three, 43, is an unashamed “growth” champion and has made a name for herself attacking “woke” businesses that focus on “social justice” at the expense of profits. Thought to be in favour of scrappin...

The PM’s critics are indulging in the comfort of fantasy. He has little time to undo their errors Source - Daily Telegraph 05/02/23 Link While its opponents have indulged in ideology and factionalism, the historical success of the Conservative Party has always rested on its longstanding membership of the reality-based community. If the party tears up its membership cards – as some MPs seem willing to do – it will spell disaster for its electoral prospects, and the future of the country. It is true that the Tories are polling about 20 percentage points behind Labour. But those rushing to blame Rishi Sunak have short memories. The party trailed Labour throughout 2022. When Boris Johnson departed amid controversies about Covid rule-breaking and misleading Parliament, the Tories were 11 points behind. When the Liz Truss mini-Budget spooked the bond markets and brought the economy to the brink, they were 30 points behind. Sunak has narrowed the gap, but the damage done last year is clear. T...