Chris Whiteside for the North

James Cleverly topped the poll in the latest vote of MPs for the Conservative leadership election. Votes were cast as follows: James Cleverly:           39 Robert Jenrick             31 Kemi Badenoch           30 Tom Tugendhat            20 This means that Tom Tugendhat leaves the race and the other three candidates go forward to the final ballot of MPs later this week. The top two candidates in that vote will go forward to a ballot of Conservative party members. The winner will be announced on 2nd November. All the candidates displayed different strengths and different visions last week but I thought that James Cleverly gave far and away the strongest performance at party conference. He was the only one with the courage to apologise for the things we as a party got wrong, to talk seriously about how to address them and learn from our mistakes, and he put forward the most positive vision for our country and our party. For that reason I decided on Friday to back James Cleverly and I am

Less than a hundred days after his enormous election victory, Sir Kier Starmer's approval ratings have fallen to some of the lowest ever experienced by a British Prime Minister, while Labour's poll lead over the Conservatives has been cut to 1%. An opinion poll published yesterday by More in Common found that his net approval ratings have fallen by 44 percentage points since taking office, from +11% in July to -33% in the last few days. A voting intention poll from the same company found that Labour's lead over the Conservatives has dropped to 1% with Labour on 29% and the Conservatives on 28% - a lead well within the margin of error on a poll of 2,023 voters carried out by More in Common between 5th and 7th October.   Apparently the drop in Labour support was largest among voters aged over 65 - now I wonder what might have caused that group of voters to feel betrayed by Labour?

"Zionism advocates self-determination for Jews. It does not agitate against the welfare and well-being of Palestinians.  Consequently, I can, at one and the same time hold Zionism at the core of my Jewish identity whilst simultaneously feeling deep pain in seeing the suffering of numerous innocent Palestinians." (Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis , article in the New Statesman and on X, formerly Twitter) You can read the New Statesman article at:  What is Zionism? - New Statesman

Sue Gray, who had been Sir Keir Starmer's chief of staff both as Leader of the Opposition and for his first 93 days as Prime Minister, has resigned from that role and will become the PM's "Envoy for the nations and regions." It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that she has been forced out as a scapegoat for the fact that after promising and end to "Tory psychodrama" it has been replaced with Labour psychodrama and some vicious infighting within the new government. Sue Gray made her name as one of the key arbiters of government ethics in the civil service, and she continued to enjoy a great deal of respect throughout the political spectrum, even after her damning report on the former Prime Minister (except among his most partisan supporters, anyway) until the second it was announced that she was moving from a post requiring the strictest of impartiality to become chief of staff of a political party.  At the point when it was announced that Sue Gray had ac

 "One year on, October 7th will remain etched in my memory forever.  That clear Saturday morning in Southern Israel, Hamas unleashed a brutal terrorist attack, raping, mutilating and kidnapping innocent Israeli civilians. Armed gunmen rampaging through a music festival. Families torn apart. Defenceless babies killed in cold blood just for being Jewish. Just days later, on the invitation of the ambassador, I was in Southern Israel against official advice, as the first Foreign Minister to visit after the attacks. With Eli Cohen, Israel’s Foreign Minister, I travelled to the southern Israeli village of Ofakim, where we were forced to shelter underground following a barrage of Hamas rockets. And later, with my own eyes, I saw the bullet holes and the blood, when I visited the site of the attacks, met survivors, and witnessed the destruction caused by Hamas. It was barbarism beyond belief. When I met with President Herzog, he said “James, everyone stands with us today. But soon, we wil

A year ago today one of the worst atrocities of modern times was perpetrated by Hamas terrorists. They murdered over a thousand innocent people and took hundreds more as hostages. They also started a round of conflict in which tens of thousands more people have died, most of then from the very community on behalf of whom the Hamas terrorists claimed to be acting. Some things are bigger than party politics. Here is the statement issued today by the UK Prime Minister. I disagree with him and his government on very many things but in this statement he speaks for me and for Britain.

  "I'm the child of migrant families, on both sides of my family ..." "My mum came here from Sierra Leone in west Africa in 1966 and my dad's family came here from northern France in 1066." James Cleverly  during the leadership hustings at Conservative Party Conference.