Lichfield Chronicle Thursday October 14th, 2021 It’s always difficult for a party in opposition: you don’t want to give away your tax and spend plans too early and factions on the left and the right always make it difficult for the Party Leader. And so it was for Keir Starmer at the Labour Party […]
Lichfield Chronicle Thursday September 16th, 2021 Like most MPs, I returned to the House of Commons on Monday 6th September having worked and voted on legislation remotely for 18 months. The Speaker of the House had been very clear about not wanting too many MPs on the Parliamentary Estate milling around the cramped and […]
Washington Examiner August 26th, 2021 With former British Prime Minister Tony Blair calling the manner of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan “imbecilic,” it’s fast becoming accepted in Europe, and particularly in the United Kingdom, to write off Pax Americana and the influence of America on the world stage. Following the collapse of Afghanistan, comparisons have been […]
Lichfield Chronicle Thursday August 12th, 2021 Perhaps the most difficult decisions MPs have to make are those moral ones affecting life and death. In the Conservative Party, these are free votes – that is, the Government has no view on this and it is up to individual MPs to decide how to legislate. These […]
Lichfield Chronicle Thursday July 15th, 2021 Although I am a keen supporter of Brexit and campaigned for it in 2016, many friends of mine voted to remain in the European Union. They respect the decision of the British people – 59% of those who voted in the referendum in Lichfield and Burntwood voted to […]
The House 22nd March 2021 There are so many arguments which have been presented against HS2: Its cost, its damage to the environment, its inability to connect effectively to the rest of the transport network, and whether – in the light of Covid and changing work patterns – it is needed at all. And HS2 […]
The Telegraph August 21st, 2020 While the President has taken the initiative on the world stage, the Prime Minister is letting his star quality go to waste With the latest YouGov poll narrowing the Conservative lead over Labour to just two points, should Number 10 be looking across the channel to France and take […]
The Telegraph June 23rd, 2020 We do not just need to protect statues, as creativity risks being sterilised and purged of anything that could cause offence to anyone. We live in the strangest of times. While the Department of Justice seeks to introduce new laws to protect our national heritage, Britain in 2020 is […]
Conservative Home May 17th, 2020 An article written in response to another published the previous day in support of an early return to Parliament and abandonment of the ‘hybrid’ process whereby MPs can appear in person or via the internet. I very rarely disagree with Andrew Gimson and even more rarely do I not see […]
The Telegraph April 24th, 2020 Once in a generation or so, cataclysmic events transpire which shape the future in unimaginable ways. This pandemic is one such event. Just as we separate the periods of terrorism between pre and post 9/11, history might well divide our society into pre and post Coronavirus eras. But the […]