I have just published this on Twitter:
Questions for Tory Party leadership candidates, a thread to tease out what they really think:
1. Why did you support Boris Johnson?
2. If you criticise Johnson now why didn't you when in office?
3. Where do you think the Northern Ireland border should be? What do you suggest the UK should do to protect the rights of the EU to maintain a single market which the UK has agreed to uphold in the Good Friday and Brexit agreements?
4. Do you support the deportation of migrants to Rwanda?
5. Do you support the imposition of limitations on the human rights of people in the UK?
6. Do you believe it is wrong to be woke? If so, what is it about racial and other equality that you think wrong?
7. Do you wish to repay the UK national debt? If so, why? Who do you think it is owed to? Why do you want to deny those who own that debt the chance to save safely with the government?
8. How would you propose to make good the shortfall in the money supply that cutting the national debt would create? How would you prevent the recession that might well result from cutting the money supply in this way?
9. Your predecessor said ‘fuck business'. It was apparent he meant it. How would you support business, and most especially the smaller ones that create most new employment in the UK?
10. Most smaller businesses have had to withdraw from export markets in Europe because of Brexit. This is now apparent in our trade statistics. How would you restore access to Europe for these businesses?
11. We face a cost of living crisis. Most households will face fuel bills exceeding £3,000 a year from October this year. That is one-third of an old-age pension, and roughly a threefold increase in a year. What would you do to help these families?
12. How would you change the energy tariffs to tackle the cost of living crisis?
13. What would you do to tackle the profiteering that is driving these prices ever upwards?
14. How will you prevent the economic recession higher energy prices are bound to cause by ending discretionary spending by many people and pushing large numbers of small businesses into liquidation as their costs soar, uncontrollably? How will you stop that happening?
15. You say you believe in small government. What does that mean? What would you cut? Why would you cut it? How do you think society can survive without such services?
16. What do you have to say about the loss of well-being for those who will no longer enjoy the services you want to cut? How can you justify the resulting inequality?
17. Should abortion be available on demand?
18. Why should the NHS involve a postcode lottery?
19. Our planet's survival depends on net-zero by 2050 at the latest. We are way behind target. How will you get us on target?
20. Net-zero might involve some unpopular changes, such as reducing meat consumption, cutting holiday flights and reducing carbon car fuel consumption. How will you sell those unpopular policies? What will you offer in their place?
21. Devolution is a live issue. Do you agree that the Union has to be voluntary and that the people of each member nation have the right to stay or leave as they alone would wish?
22. Your party has made it very much harder for people to vote and there is no evidence that this was necessary to tackle voter fraud, which was almost non-existent. Do you support this restriction on the franchise, and why?
23. Do you support the retention of an unelected House of Lords, and why? Is that consistent with democracy?
24. Apart from Belarus we are the only country in Europe that uses first past the post elections for our national government. Why do you support a voting system that produces outcomes that do not reflect the will of the people?
25. Covid is not over. Ten per cent of people in hospital have it. Long Covid is a massive issue. Workplaces and schools are being disrupted by it. What measures to tackle it do you support?
26. Will you increase the NHS budget to tackle long Covid? If not, why not?
27. The world is facing a food crisis because of Russian action in Ukraine. What steps should be taken to prevent mass hunger? What role should the UK play in leading this action?
28. What do you most regret about what Boris Johnson did? How would you prevent that happening again?
29. Please publish your tax returns for the last five years and the full accounts of all companies you, or your immediate family, might have had full or partial ownership of or of which you have been a director over the last five years, with a full explanation of your role.
30. What was the naughtiest thing you ever did? Was it as bad as running through a wheat field?
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To which we might add, “Given that social security is an important economic stabiliser, how will you reconfigure it to accommodate the rising cost of living?”
The first two would be easy enough to answer. That is if the MPs were answering truthfully.
They supported BJ when they thought he was the PM most likely to get them re-elected. They stopped supporting him when that thought changed.
Are the Labour Party MPs much, if any, different wrt Keir Starmer and Jeremy Corbyn?
If only our political commentators had the knowledge, let alone the inclination, to ask even a few of these searching questions and get to the nub of future Tory policy. Well done once again Richard.
Most of them do not have the mental capacity to provide coherent answers even if they wanted to.
Idealogues to a man/woman the only thing they want is Tory-vulturism red in tooth and claw.
Groomed UK serfs (at least in Ingerland) will continue to vote for these idiots….. probably..
The only thing that will happen is that with Bunter gone, the lying & decit will be less obvious.
Pull some of the questions & the list could be posed to Liebore MPs – I am confident that they also would struggle to answer in a coherent fashion (I’m not talking about sound bites & blather, rather coherent answers that address the question). With the chief liar now on his way out, that now just leaves the Liebore opposition and its chief liar.
Brilliant questions – thank you Richard. And Mike Parr’s. description of ‘‘Groomed UK serfs’ who ‘continue to vote for these idiots….’ was perfectly put.
I suspect you’d agree there could be a much longer list, including others about the NHS. I might suggest a more general question – Why are you enabling the privatisation of the NHS?
And for the Labour Party – Why are you not making a much bigger fuss about the moves to further privatisation of the NHS?
Sadly, many of your questions still need to be answered by the Labour Party leader. I’d also ask him about lying to be elected as LOTO, and some of your questions only need a tweak to the wording to be applicable to Starmer. Of the latter, I might pick Q1 and Q2 as examples, with Johnson replaced by Jeremy Corbyn. My follow-up question would be – Why have none of your MP’s responded to the Tory MP’s who claim Jeremy Corbyn is antisemitic?
And of course Keir Starmer has already answered Q21, which means he can’t say Yes to Q5.
With the list of candidates biased towards those educated at a private school (with a tax avoiding charity status) and then going to Oxbridge to study PPE, expecting a proper answer to any real world issues from this lot is like playing the lottery and expecting to win. Actually, come to think of it, you’d probably have more chance with the lottery.
An excellent set of questions.
Will you now produce a “Talking Points” crib sheet with the answers for candidates to be Leader of the Conservative Party? It would be a pity if any of them gave the wrong response.
No!
“Current Con policy is based on Thatcher/Friedman “There is no alternative” ideology, which is directly linked to Earth’s ecosystems ‘Red alert’ – how will you break that destructive path?”
‘Hayek’s Bastards’ is a fair description of Con Party philosophy – isn’t it?
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2021/06/hayeks-bastards-the-populist-rights-neoliberal-roots
Brilliant, although the last question is a bit cheeky.
It would be good to hear the answers from the current opposition party leaders as well (excepting questions about their role in Tory policies).
I was astounded to hear that Rees-Mogg was reported as saying Sunak is a socialist. If so then I am the Archbishop of Canterbury !
JRM is a Thatcherite. In there crazy world socialism is when the government taxes money and communism is when government spends money. Boris Johnson said something like “I went to level up the country and increase spending but … My friends I am no communist.”
Here are three that shouldn’t be on the list anyway.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/rishi-sunak-could-become-pm-heres-what-he-doesnt-want-you-to-know/
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/nadhim-zahawi-lynton-crosby-mark-fullbrook-chancellor-prime-minister/
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/jeremy-hunt-tory-leadership-boris-johnson-nhs-junior-doctors/
How do you reconcile our 30% chronic/permanent child hunger/starvation with our acceptance/use of tax havens?
I note the Observer quotes your views on Zahawi’s overseas financial arrangements today https://guardian.pressreader.com/article/281547999602191. (alternative link https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/09/revealed-officials-raised-flag-over-nadim-zahawis-tax-affairs-before-he-was-appointed-chancellor).
I hope this is a sign that they are paying more attention to everything you write.
Also in the Sunday Times today on Apple
Until Ben Wallace left the leadership race we had the Tory version of the ‘The Hateful Eight’ vying for the top spot (mind you the list could be repaired or even increased – Braverman, Badenoch?).
But Zahawi – I’ve had my eye on him for a long time. I know that Hunt is a killer – what he did to the NHS and his blank eyed unblinking reassurances to the contrary were just lies.
But Zahawi – he’s not a very nice man at all. I wonder what it is like to work for him – I suspect he’s a bully. And look who he is keeping company with? Acolytes of one Lynton Crosby – whose cancerous effects on British politics are likely to go undiminished.
Out the frying pan and into the fire. The lot of us.
Excellent questions every one – but the chance of them being put is close to zero (outside of some on Channel 4 News perhaps) AND the chance of them being answered, let alone intelligently, is even less.
Furthermore, having just watched with growing incredulity and eventual shout-aloud hilarity the bombastic piece of video jingo for the latest contestant, which ends by morphing
P enny M ordaunt – with
P rime M inister
(having spent its entire script waffling about values and NOT personality) I have realised that this is going to be the tackiest electoral contest ever. Plainly the in-depth wisdom of brand images is where ‘it’ is at.
So – will it come down to this? The appeal of the Ben an’ Jerry’s type branding of Ready for Rishi versus the 1960s BOAC stewardess video sleight of hand with Holst’s rugby anthem and bagging the magic letters P M ?
I suppose the latter’s advisers/puppet masters(?) may have realised that there are possible counter -strikes available. Personally I’d favour ” Sunk with Sunak”. If it wasn’t so scary it would be hilarious.
AND it is just as if the entire field had not been publically seared by the Boris Brand these last 3 aching years!
So, my final question would be, not why didn’t you resign/resign earlier, but why did you demean yourself to wear the Boris Brand in the first place – and by the way, no – it wont rub out!
Aaargh – typing in haste. In my penultimate para. I should have typed “former’s” – not the latter’s.
Don’t forget to ask who the members of the ERG are and why, since they are public ally funded, the public aren’t allowed to know their identities.
Politics now seems to require a level of sustained dishonesty beyond what used to happen in the past. What I hear from the prominent candidates for PM is pandering to the views of that 100,000 Tory Party members who will vote on the final two. The ultimate in unrepresentative democracy. Somehow, Johnson has served the purpose of the Tory Party backers and has become too rogue to control (so the kompromat came out); I am sure those same backers will decide who gets to be next PM to suit their agenda whatever the candidate professes. Clearly they don’t want Sunak.
These are all questions the Conservative Party membership are not interested in.
The only answers they seem to want are :
1. I Read the Daily Telegraph.
2. I believe in a small state and low taxes.
3. My heroes are Ann Rand and Margaret Thatcher.
4. I hate Europe, immigrants and communists.
The mystery is why normal people voted them into power in the first place.
I would ask ‘Are you genuinely for free speech?’ . In the Telegraph the Tories are seeking to start some culture wars by saying they are the party of free speech. Unfortunately, several of their MPs have also gone on record that museum curators who explain the historical background to exhibits should be sacked, that university lecturers who explain the historical background to most historical events should be sacked &, in fact, that anyone who does not portray the British Empire as a benign & overwhelmingly positive institution should be harried out of any role they have. Which doesn’t sound much like free speech to me.
The diverse origins of so many leadership candidates is a joy (although their Rwanda policy makes such diversity less likely in future) but it would be worth asking the candidates whether they have ever been domiciled outside the UK – and more importantly whether they have ever claimed the benefit of that status for tax purposes, or managed their tax affairs on that basis, for example setting up offshore trusts. Did they change their position when the deemed domicile rules were introduced in 2017? Are they dual citizens of another country?
And if they were once non-domiciled but are no longer, when did they form an intention to settle permanently and stay indefinitely in the UK, and break their long-term ties with their original domicile.
Nadhim Zahawi was born in 1967 in Iraq. He came to the UK around 1978 with his family. He was educated in the UK, worked and founded businesses in the UK, but as far as I am aware has never lived for an extended period anywhere else or expressed an intention to return permanently to Iraq. Has he ever claimed non-dom status, and on what basis?
Sajid Javid was born in the UK in 1969, to parents from the Punjab. He was educated and worked in the UK, but worked for in the Americas and in Singapore for a number of years. But again I am not aware of him ever expressing an intention to live permanently in the Punjab. It seems he did claim non-dom status while working at Deutsche Bank for a period in the early 2000s, when he was in his 30s. So the UK was not his permanent home at that point? Even though he returned to the UK after periods of working overseas?
I suspect this is less of a concern for Tom Tugendhat, Suella Braverman, or Kemi Badenoch, although each might have a claim to inheriting domicile outside the UK. But good to set the record straight.