Chris Whiteside for the North

Received on WattsApp from a contact who I don't think I'll name, who has just been on a briefing about the budget impact from a firm of accountants in Northern England. He described it as, "Very downbeat, you can tell it wasn't going to be upbeat when the head accountant called the Chancellor 'Rachel Thieves.' "

 Happy Diwali to all those celebrating the Festival of Light today

One of the most common things said to people like who are involved in politics is variations on "You're all the same." You cannot ask for more conclusive evidence that Britain's political parties are not all the same than yesterday's budget. To deal with the financial consequences of the pandemic, the last government had already had to reluctantly raise taxes to historically high levels, much higher than we would have liked. Despite promises from Labour during the election that they would not raise taxes on "working people," they hit everyone in Britain yesterday with even higher taxes, including both the biggest tax  rise in British history and the highest tax burden in British history (including wartime.) This at the same time that, despite Labour promises to cut energy prices, those energy prices are actually going up, and bashing pensioners with a measure that Lsboiur themselves in opposition said woiuld result in nearly 4,000 pensioners a year liter...

It anyone happens to be reading this who lives in the Kirkby Stephen & Tebay ward of Westmorland & Furness, can I remind you that there is a by-election tomorrow. Can I also recommend the experienced and hard-working Conservative candidate Pat Bell, 

 Today we had a budget which kicked pensioners in the teeth and business somewhere even less pleasant. One or two of the measures, such as the increase in the minimum wage and the increase in NHS spending, may well be popular. Taken out of context they may even be beneficial. The problem with this budget is a catastrophic lack of balance. And what it proves about the present leadership of the Labour party is that you cannot believe a word they say. Here are a few of more than 50 times Labour said during the election they had no plans to raise taxes They’ve just broken that promise in their Budget of Broken Promises. If the increase in the minimum wage had been implemented on its' own as a standalone policy most businesses could probably have afforded it and it might well have done more good by rewarding those who are working hard than harm by pricing jobs out of existence. Similarly the big increase in worker's rights could probably have been afforded on it's own. But here...

 It was wrong for comedian Tony Hinchcliffe to refer to Puerto Rico a  "floating island of garbage"  at a Trump rally over the weekend. The remark was rightly condemned by a number of people on both sides of US politics including at least two elected Republicans. US congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar said she was  "disgusted " by the  "racist comment" . She said on X that it did not  "reflect the GOP values" , referring to the Republican Party, and noted thousands of Puerto Ricans served in the military. US Senator Rick Scott said:  "The joke bombed for a reason. It's not funny and it's not true."  He added that  "Puerto Ricans are amazing people and amazing Americans ". Nor was it clever for the current US President Joe Biden to criticise Hinchcliffe in terms which when spoke aloud could very easily sound as if he was calling Trump supporters garbage. What the Democrats are saying he said was,  "The only garbage ...

Remember that British Summer Time in the UK comes to an end tonight and the country goes back to Greenwich Mean Time. Tonight in the UK and indeed in most of Europe, the clocks go back an hour. So in the UK at 3am, it jumps back to a second 2am. Here is a handy guide to putting your clocks back tonight:

"Only three brief months since the 2024 general election and already we can safely consign pretty much everything Labour had to say abut tax during the campaign to the dustbin of history." ( Andrew Neil begins an newspaper article which you can read in full below)

 The third and final phase of the redevelopment of the West Cumberland hospital, all built and equipped with funding agreed and provided during the 2010 to 2024 Conservative led governments, has been opened by the Princess Royal. The new facilities include a therapy gym, a courtyard with access to a 'challenge path' and a kitchen to prepare patients for returning home after a stay in hospital. Princess Anne unveiled the plaque and was invited to sign the visitor book which had previously been signed by her grandmother Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother when she first opened West Cumberland Hospital in 1964 and King Charles III, then Prince of Wales, when he visited the hospital in 2010. Steven Morgan, Chair of North Cumbria Integrated Care (NCIC) NHS Foundation Trust said,  “We are delighted that the Princess Royal, as Patron of the Royal College of Occupational Therapists, has officially opened this fantastic new facility in Whitehaven today. "It’s a great step forward and ...

  “Nelson’s famous signal before the Battle of Trafalgar was not: “England expects that every man will be a hero.” It said: “England expects that every man will do his duty.”  In 1805 that was enough.  It should still be.” Johan Huizinga

  "Starmer said whatever he thought would get him elected and is now reneging on it: prepare for the biggest tax raid in history." (Andre4w Neil, in a Daily Mail piece which you can read in full at: ANDREW NEIL: Starmer said whatever he thought would get him elected and is now reneging on it: prepare for the biggest tax raid in history | Daily Mail Online 0

Ballot papers are being posted out, beginning today, to Conservative party memberes to choose between the final two candidates put forward by MPs for the party leadership, Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick. Ballot papers must be returned, physically or electronically, by 5pm on 31st October.

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 ...

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...

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.