Chris Whiteside for the North

 Prince William has led tributes to John “Paddy” Hemingway, the last surviving pilot who fought in the Battle of Britain, after his death aged 105. The Prince of Wales wrote on social media that he was “sad” to hear about the passing of the last of “The Few”. He added:  “We owe so much to Paddy and his generation for our freedoms today. Their bravery and sacrifice will always be remembered. We shall never forget them.” Born in Dublin in 1919, Group Captain Hemingway enlisted in the RAF in 1938 and soon became one of the young pilots who fought in the Battle of France. Two years later, he was among the men known as  “The Few” , a term coined by Winston Churchill to describe Britain’s Battle of Britain pilots. Chief of RAF Air Staff Sir Rich Knighton passed condolences to Mr Hemingway’s family and friends. “I am thankful that I was able to meet and spend time with him in Dublin, most recently in January this year,”  he said. “Paddy was an amazing character wh...

 

Today is world book day. One of my heroes, and perhaps the greatest US President of all time, as Abraham Lincoln. He was a great lover of books. Here are two of my favourite Abraham Lincoln quotes on the subject.

 

At 8pm today, the 80thh anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, I like many others put a lighted candle in my window to mark Holocaust Memorial day and remember all victims of genocide.

WE REMEMBER. Today is the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. This evening at 8pm I and many others will safely place a lighted candle in the window to remember the victims of the Shoah and all other victims of genocide.  When the true horror of what the Nazis had done the world said in disbelief "Never again!" Yet, sadly and incredibly, these have been empty words because, if not on quote the same vast scale, similar things have kept happening. It is time for us all to make sure that the words "Never again" are not just empty words. It is time FOR A B£TTER FUTURE.

"The law is not a moral compass. The people who hid Anne Frank were breaking the law. The people who killed her were following it." Alexander Verbeek. As we remember the victims of the Holocaust and all genocides, let us think about what we need to do to make the world better - and a place where "never again" is not a platitude but an actuality.

Tomorrow, 27th January 2025, is the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Berkenau murder camp and will be marked around the world as Holocaust memorial Day. It is a day when we remember the victims of the Nazi holocaust and all subsequent genocides from Cambodia to Rwanda, from Darfur to Bosnia, from the massacre of Rohinga Muslims in Myanmar to those of Jews by Hamas on 7th October 2023. We remember all victims whether they were murdered for their race, their religion or for some other arbitrary reason, whatever that race, religion or reason might be.  The theme of this year's Holocaust Memorial Day is FOR A BETTER FUTURE. Holocaust Memorial Day Trust | HMD 2025 Theme Each year people from across the UK take part in the  Light the Darkness  national moment for Holocaust Memorial Day. At 8pm on 27 January people across the nation will light candles and put them safely in their windows to: remember those who were murdered for who they were stand against prej...

Britain's Largest charity swim, the Swimathon, returns on 28-30 March this year when thousands of swimmers will head to hundreds of pools around Britain to raise money for three great causes. These causes are Cancer Research UK, Marie Curie Cancer Care, and the Swimathon Foundation. Each of these organizations plays a vital role in improving lives and advancing research. On 29th March 2025 I plan to complete the Swimathon 5000 metres challenge, swimming 200 lengths of Hensingham pool to raise money for these excellent causes. I have been taking part in Swimathon for thirty years. Thank you if you have supported me before. Please join me in backing these excellent causes. Your support makes all the difference! You can sponsor me online on my Givengain page, which you can find by clicking on the following link: Swimathon 2025 - Please support these life-changing causes

The above video shows the keynote speech given today by Kemi Badenoch, Leader of the Conservative Party. (She was introduced by Simon Clarke, Director of the "Onward" group. Here is the text of the speech. "We are all getting poorer. Politicians across all parties have not told the truth about this and instead keep prescribing quick fixes that are actually making things worse. This problem is broader than one party, one leader, or one period of government. Generations of leaders and entire ranks of senior managers have been trying and failing for a long time. Many have not been honest with the public about the challenges we face. And others have not even been honest with themselves. We are a great country, but we’ve lost our way. The truth is that Britain is failing to compete in a world that is changing. And it is not working for its citizens, certainly not the way it used to. Back in the 1980s it took just months to save up for a house deposit. Now it is over a decade,...

 

 

I welcome the belated conversion of Cumbria's leading Labour figures to calling for exactly the sort of devolution agenda that I and other Conservatives have been calling for for a decade, and which the county could have had years ago, had not local Labour politicians repeatedly opposed it. We now read in the Whitehaven News and other local papers that " Labour leaders call for Cumbria to embrace the 'devolution revolution' ." What a shame they were so vehemently opposed to it in 2017 and 2022 when a very generous scheme of devolution was on offer, but the Labour led Cumbria County Council and other Labour local authorities opposed it. Other areas like North Yorkshire which were made similar offers at the same time jumped at it, and North Yorkshire got £700 million pounds and a Mayoral strategic authority which is now up and running with significant powers. Cumbria could have had this too. A few years ago I was a guest on the weekly local political panel programme...

No apologies for repeating this important piece of wisdom.  

The Times newspaper was once nicknamed "The Thunderer" for its' willingness to publish hard-hitting leader articles which put the boot into anyone who deserved it, from the government down. The paper's first leader of 2025 is in that mould. It addresses Elon Musk's criticism of the anti-business policies of the Starmer adminisration and concludes, rightly in my humble opinion, that although not everything Musk says about Britain is accurate, the fundamentals of his critique of Starmer's anti-business approach are spot on. The paper says that "His numerous detractors will be pained to admit it but Mr Musk is, on this, right. Sir Keir's government has claimed to be unashamedly pro-growth and pro-business. The reality could not be starker. During it's first six months in office, ministers have seemingly gone out of their way to discourage investment." "Mr Musk's attack grasps all that wrong with the Starmer government. instead of embrac...

 

 Forty years ago today, at the end of a year which had been bad for a number of reasons which had nothing to do with the novel which made it infamous long before it arrived, my late mother said to me,  "I will be glad to see the back of 1984." So was I, but I will be even more glad to see the back of 2024. Let's work together to make 2025 better.

 

  "How do you know whether a politician is actually going to do what it is they say they'll do?    You can only look back on their track record.    Making promises is easy but if you really want to know what someone is going to be like, look at what they did when they had the chance.  I'm speaking to all of you today not just as leader of the Conservative Party, but as a former business secretary.   Many of you would heard me talk about how we needed to deregulate and you would have seen examples of how I tried to lift the burden off businesses often arguing with other parts of Government or trying to stop them bringing in yet more well-meaning but burdensome regulation.   I saw myself in that role as your champion around the Cabinet table.  It is because I know that it is not government that creates growth. It is business.   Government often needs to get out of the way.     But this is a very diff...

"There are few columnists with whom I disagree more than I do with the Daily Telegraph’s Allison Pearson. Yet, I welcome the decision by the police to drop their investigation into her alleged tweet.  This should never have been a matter for the police." ( Kenan Malik , in an article calling for the right to free speech to be defended regardless of who is expressing their views and who is offended,  I’ll defend Allison Pearson’s right to be obnoxious – as she should defend mine | Kenan Malik | The Guardian )

I posted yesterday about the petition calling for a fresh general election on the grounds that the Labour government has gone back on the promises they made during the election campaign. It was put up a few days ago but suddenly took off yesterday and the number of signatures has been rocketing up over the last 24 hours. Yesterday it passed the 100,000 threshold to be considered for a debate in parliament. This morning it passed the half million mark, early this afternoon three quarters of a million and at twenty to three it stood at 860,573 You can see the current total which by the time anyone reads it will already be higher than shown above, and sign it if you are a UK elector and wish to do so, at Call a General Election - Petitions POSTSCRIPT AT 5PM The number of signatures is now over 1.1 million.