Latest news with #Tory-supporting
Daily Mirror
01-08-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mirror
'Don't look now, but Keir's scored a win on knife crime'
It's taken a year but Keir Starmer can finally say his government's brought down knife crime, says Fleet Street Fox. It's a shame people won't notice If it seems to you that the government can't do anything right, it may be because the Opposition, the media, and all the other problems you can see, combine to provide a constant drumbeat of national collapse. It is that sort of tone which did for the Tories, although it took 14 years, Brexit, Partygate, AND Liz Truss to put the last nail in their coffin. In a country where most newspapers are Tory-supporting, most people are socially conservative, and all previously-existing problems have not magically evaporated, it's not a surprise - if you think about it properly - that the same tone applies to a single year of Labour being in power. All journalists kick a government harder than an Opposition. That's the problem with a pedestal. But this column is nothing if it is not scrupulously fair and accurate, and so one year and one month into Keir Starmer's administration it is time to announce that he is finally able to declare a win on one of the most hideous trends in living memory. Knife crime is down. Overall, the figure is 6%, and in some places as much as 25%, but it's down in all the worst hotspots except Greater Manchester. That means less pressure on courts, on hospitals, on police, less trouble for teachers, and more importantly, fewer parents and siblings sobbing over a teenager who has suffered unsurvivable wounds by the sort of blade John Wick would think twice about using. Finally, it's safe to leave the house without checking your will is up-to-date. You can send your children to school with a little more confidence they won't be getting shanked on the way home. And the horror headlines so many have had to live the reality of - 'machete thugs', 'teen stabbed at bus stop', or 'Idris Elba asks for help' - can finally start to ebb from the front pages. The knife crime surge was directly linked to the austerity years' slashing of community centres, youth mentor schemes, and outreach work by charities and local authorities which was considered worthless by the Bullingdon thugs who ran the country and our capital city for so long. Fixing that damage was so overdue, and the means so bleedin' obvious, that the bar was low enough to qualify as an archaeological dig. And it's only a 6% drop, which means there'll still be plenty of knife crime next week for Starmer's enemies to wave around. But the real problem the Prime Minister faces is not that politicians and media can always find something to criticise about whoever's in power. It's that the win is completely intangible - no mother will be aware that her child was otherwise not going to come home today, and that instead of fish fingers for dinner it would have been a trip to a hospital mortuary. All good deeds that avert disaster have the same problem. The Covid vaccines, state education, the NHS in general - because we do not live in the world that does not have them, we do not see what it saves. We count only the cost, of the vaccine-damaged, of teacher pay deals, hospital scandals. We look at the budget column we can see, and not the one we can hug. READ MORE: Mum of teen murdered with ninja sword makes powerful plea on day of major law change For years politicians vowed to get tough on crime, and all they did was redefine "tough" and what counted as a "crime". There's a thousand mothers out there who'd say shutting community centres should have led to jail time, and the cemeteries are evidence enough that all the trumpeted crackdowns did was break a few more hearts. If you ask a stranger which is the "party of law and order", they'd probably shrug and say whichever one whose leader last took a picture with a police dog, or attended a dawn raid with TV cameras. And you can bet your bottom dollar some cycnical so-and-so in Westminster is, as I type, trying to find an asylum seeker who committed a knife crime, just so they can prove a link with a different dog whistle. The truth is that knife crime didn't get tackled by the Tories because they caused it, because it was usually poor kids, and because it was usually black kids. The real force behind this win isn't Starmer but his Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who actually listened to police officers, to parents, to community groups, and then put in place what was needed. She gave an interview today in which she spoke about meeting the parent of a murdered teen, and the 'privilege' of seeing some footage of their last hug before he left the house on the day of his death. The reporter said she teared up, then spoke of all the policies she put in place as a result. That's good politics, effective leadership, real commitment - normal, human, determination to do better. And it won't resonate as it should in an August news lull, because there's plenty of bad news still churning about. Yvette achieved a feat of political alchemy. She turned a foundational failure into meaningful, life-saving change, with grown-up, boring competence of the kind we haven't seen in Westminster for a decade. And she won't get the plaudits she should from people who can't see what they didn't lose. But that's what happens when you treat bad news as a problem to solve, and not a stick to hit your rivals with. It's not surprising so many young people have grown up to lash out, over-react, and fail to think things through, when their formative years were spent in a nation led by people who jerked the knee twice a day and only ever sought to escalate anger. That may be Starmer's real win. A national conversation that is unexciting, but competent. It won't make Twitter explode but for thousands of families, it means the world. The centres of their universe, their sense of security and ease, their pride, their hope. The generation who'll learn how to be grown-ups. The sort of thing that nobody notices, because you can't put a price on it.
The National
10-07-2025
- Business
- The National
Minister pans 'nonsense' Tory claim SNP are punishing Unionist voters
David Mundell, the MP for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale, and Tweeddale and a former Scottish secretary, said during Scotland Questions at Westminster on Wednesday that the SNP has 'cynically and systematically deprived funding from areas that do not support independence', such as the Scottish Borders and Dumfries and Galloway. In response, Scottish Secretary Ian Murray claimed 'the whole of Scotland voted against independence in 2014' and accused the SNP of 'starving' the country's public services. Public Finance Minister Ivan McKee has hit back at Mundell's claims calling them 'completely false'. READ MORE: Ross Greer calls for Scotland to pivot towards wealth taxation 'These claims are total nonsense and completely false. The needs-based formula used to distribute the funding available for local government is agreed with Cosla on behalf of all 32 local authorities each year,' he said. "The Scottish Government has provided councils with a record £15 billion this year, a real terms increase of 5.5%. 'In 2025-26, NHS Boards will receive increased investment in their baseline funding, bringing total investment to over £16.2 billion.'' The Conservatives have previously faced their own allegations of 'pork-barrel politics' – where Tory-supporting areas are given more government support than opposition-supporting ones in a bid to shore up votes. Writing in 2020 of Boris Johnson's 'Towns Fund', professor of politics Chris Hanretty said: 'There is robust evidence that ministers chose towns so as to benefit the Conservatives in marginal Westminster seats.' In 2023, the SNP also raised concerns that levelling up funding in Scotland had disproportionately gone to Tory-supporting areas. Dumfries and Galloway council is currently controlled by the SNP, after the Tory administration collapsed before a no-confidence vote in June. The Scottish Borders council is also controlled by the Conservatives. In May, the Accounts Commission warned that all of Scotland's councils were facing a combined budget shortfall of £647 million in 2025/26. 'Whilst councils have partly met this shortfall through service savings and increased charges for services, continuing to use reserves and make one-off savings isn't sustainable,' the commission said.
The National
09-07-2025
- Business
- The National
Scottish Tory claims SNP 'cutting funding from Unionist areas'
David Mundell, the MP for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale, and Tweeddale and a former Scottish secretary, made the allegations during Scotland Questions at Westminster on Wednesday. He said: 'Does the Secretary of State share my view that whatever the budget SNP Scottish Government have, they have cynically and systematically deprived funding from areas that do not support independence, leaving councils like Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders and their health boards struggling to provide basic services?' READ MORE: Insider lifts lid on workings of Corbyn-Sultana project in Scotland Scottish Secretary Ian Murray responded: 'The whole of Scotland voted against independence in 2014. 'It seems to me that the SNP Government strategy is to starve all of Scotland's public services of the vital funding they require.' The Conservatives have faced their own allegations of 'pork-barrel politics' – where Tory-supporting areas are given more government support than opposition-supporting ones in a bid to shore up votes. Writing in 2020 of Boris Johnson's 'Towns Fund', professor of politics Chris Hanretty said: 'There is robust evidence that ministers chose towns so as to benefit the Conservatives in marginal Westminster seats.' He added: 'Choosing towns to benefit a particular party goes against the seven principles of public life (the 'Nolan principles'), and in particular the obligation to 'take decisions impartially, fairly and on merit, using the best evidence and without discrimination or bias'. Former Tory leader Boris Johnson was accused of pork-barrel politics (Image: Jonathan Brady/PA) 'These decisions should therefore be examined both by the Public Accounts Committee and (since the decisions potentially involve a breach of the Ministerial Code, which incorporates the Nolan principles) by the Cabinet Office upon referral by the Prime Minister.' In 2023, the SNP raised concerns that levelling up funding in Scotland had disproportionately gone to Tory-supporting areas. 'This is no longer Levelling Up, this is pure naked pork-barrel politics with public money being used to try and buy electoral advantage", then-SNP president Michael Russell said at the time. Dumfries and Galloway council is currently controlled by the SNP, after the Tory administration collapsed before a no-confidence vote in June. The Scottish Borders council is controlled by the Conservatives. READ MORE: Seamus Logan: Keir Starmer's lack of principle will finish off the Labour Party In May, the Accounts Commission warned that all of Scotland's councils were facing a combined budget shortfall of £647 million in 2025/26. 'Whilst councils have partly met this shortfall through service savings and increased charges for services, continuing to use reserves and make one-off savings isn't sustainable,' the commission said. It further added: 'Capital funding from the Scottish Government is increasing but has not returned to previous levels. Councils remain heavily reliant on borrowing to fund their planned £4.7 billion capital investment in 2025/26.' The Scottish Government has been approached for comment.
Yahoo
08-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Norman Tebbit: Thatcher's true believer was a bruiser until the very end
Norman Tebbit was one of Margaret Thatcher's true believers and one of her most loyal allies. In a Conservative party full of old Etonians and toffs, he was also one of very few cabinet ministers from a working-class once told me, when he was party chairman in the mid-1980s and I was working for The Sunday Times, about the snobbery in the party. "They think I eat peas off my knife," he said. I think he was joking. He revelled in his reputation as a working-class bruiser. Labour's Michael Foot called him a "semi house-trained pole cat" and he was widely known as "The Chingford Skinhead". During the riots of 1981, he famously spoke of his father being unemployed in the 1930s. "He didn't riot," he said. "He got on his bike and looked for work." I've been reporting at Westminster since 1982 and covered the Thatcher era when Norman Tebbit was a giant on the political stage throughout. When I started as a political journalist he had just been promoted to the cabinet in Mrs Thatcher's momentous reshuffle late in 1981. That was the reshuffle in which Mrs Thatcher purged the so-called "wets" in her cabinet and appointed true believers like Tebbit, Cecil Parkinson and Nigel Lawson. Like many incoming governments, hers had struggled in the early days, though perhaps not as badly as Sir Keir Starmer's is at the moment! In the early '80s, though, inflation and unemployment were both rampant. Even after the 1978-79 "winter of discontent" that brought down James Callaghan's Labour government, strikes were still crippling industry. Mrs Thatcher decided radical action was necessary. So she handed Tebbit the job of employment secretary: his job was to tame the power of the trade unions. He succeeded one of the cabinet "wets", the moderate James Prior, who had been branded "Pussyfoot Prior" by Tory-supporting newspapers over his perceived failure to take on the unions. He was exiled to Northern Ireland in the 1981 reshuffle. Parkinson became a charismatic party chairman and Lawson became energy secretary and later succeeded Sir Geoffrey Howe as chancellor. Tebbit had always been very anti-trade union, going back to his first job in the printing room of the Financial Times, where he had been forced to join a union, and then his days as a British Airways pilot. So as employment secretary, he introduced tough anti-trade union legislation, including outlawing the closed shop and making strike ballots compulsory. And, as Mrs Thatcher turned round the fortunes of her government following the 1982 Falklands War, he became one of the most senior members of the cabinet, and one of her most dependable allies. After the 1983 Tory landslide, she promoted him to trade and industry secretary, after Parkinson quit in a sex scandal after fathering a love child. But just as Tebbit was becoming one of the giants of the Thatcher government and being talked about as a potential successor as PM, his political career was cut short by the 1984 IRA attack on the Grand Hotel in Brighton. It was to be the defining moment of his career. Who can forget the images of him being rescued after he was trapped in the rubble? He was badly injured, spent three months in hospital and his wife Margaret was paralysed and spent the rest of her life in a wheelchair. Read more: Some political observers claimed he was never quite the same after his injuries and the sorrow and anger about his wife's condition. I don't think he lost any of his edge, however. He was still a great political campaigner and a bruiser. During the 1987 election, there was tension between Tebbit and Lord Young, another Thatcher favourite, over election strategy, although despite a "wobbly Thursday" during the campaign the Tories won handsomely again. My other personal memory of Lord Tebbit is breaking the story in the UK about his "cricket test" remarks about Asian supporters, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times in April 1990. He spoke about a test of how English someone from an ethnic minority background was by asking which cricket team they supported. "Which side do they cheer for?" he declared. "It's an interesting question." The headline on my story on the front page of the late - and some would say unlamented - Today newspaper was "Tebbit race bouncer. The ultimate test for being British: Which side do the Asians cheer for at cricket?" He was strongly criticised for his remarks, not just by political opponents, but also by Conservative MPs. But Lord Tebbit was controversial right throughout his career. A divisive figure, he was adored by the Tory Right but loathed by the left and trade unions. But what's not disputed is that he was a massive figure in the Thatcher years.
New European
23-05-2025
- Business
- New European
Give Trump the Nobel Prize, Tory peer pleads
The 43-year-old, handed a seat in the Lords by Boris Johnson in 2020 after chairing the Business and Entrepreneurs' Forum, a £3,000-a-year club for Tory-supporting business leaders, has only spoken in the House 38 times in five years, the most recent being last summer. And he has only just submitted his seventh ever written question to ministers. You can be forgiven for not having heard of Conservative peer Aamer Sarfraz – the former Tory donor and treasurer turned lawmaker-for-life is not one of the most engaged members of the red benches. But what a question! Earlier this month he wrote to ministers to ask whether the government 'would support the nomination of President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his role in averting war between India and Pakistan'. Alas for Sarfraz, the government declined to back his bid, although not on the entirely reasonable basis that the cooling of hostilities had absolutely nothing to do with the US president, who had shown his customary grasp of geopolitics by claiming the tensions between the two countries went back 'a thousand years'. Rather, Foreign Office minister Jenny Chapman wrote back that 'the award of the Nobel Peace Prize is a matter for the Nobel committee, and not for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office'. A shame, then. But at least Sarfraz can console himself he's unlikely to have any troubles with immigration officials next time he's heading Stateside!
