By Andrew Allison, Chief Executive.

Dominic Raab didn't shout and swear at civil servants, nor did he throw tomatoes. But he was found guilty in the report by Adam Tolley KC for being intimidating. He was abrasive not abusive. As a result, Raab has been forced to resign as Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary. As Raab said in his resignation letter to the Prime Minister:

"In setting the threshold for bullying so low, this inquiry has set a dangerous precedent. It will encourage spurious complaints against Ministers, and have a chilling effect on those driving change on behalf of your government — and ultimately the British people."

He is correct. Civil servants who are critical of Government policies, can now complain about their minister's unreasonable demands (in other words, asking them to get on with their jobs) and accuse them of micro-aggressions such as raising an eyebrow or not maintaining eye contact. I have no doubt that civil servants at the Home Office will go after Suella Braverman next because they disagree with her handling of the migrant crisis. It is open season for civil servants to remove Government ministers and the Prime Minister is going to accept all of it. 

Bullying is wrong, but doing your job to the best of your ability, having high standards, and expecting officials to also have high standards, is what we expect from ministers. We can all be abrasive at times. All of us have good days and bad days. It's called life. 

Photo Credit: Dominic Raab. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

By Andrew Allison, Chief Executive 

In this article, Andrew Allison looks at the political challenges facing Rishi Sunak this year.

I was listening to an interview recently on TalkTV between Mike Graham and Mark LIttlewood, the DIrector General of the Institute of Economic Affairs. During the interview, he quoted the great economist Milton Friedman: "It's just obvious you can't have free immigration and a welfare state.” 

This has got me thinking once again about the illegal migrants crossing the English Channel in rubber dinghies. Some of them will have relatives in the UK whom they wish to join. Others, such as many of those coming to our shores from Albania, have more nefarious motives. Others will just want a better life which they believe the UK will give them. But all of them know that when they arrive in the UK they will be looked after. They will be given food, shelter and money. And if they are allowed to stay, they can always fall back on our generous welfare system. 

We can blame the French all we like, and the French Government most certainly does not have clean hands, but His Majesty’s Government is responsible for defence, security and border control in the UK. Rishi Sunak has pledged to “pass new laws to stop small boats, making sure that if you come to this country illegally, you are detained and swiftly removed.” It’s progress, I suppose, but surely the Government ought to do everything in its power to prevent migrants from crossing in the first place? Removing incentives would be a good place to start. 

I heard an interview with the French journalist, Anne-Elizabeth Moutet, a few weeks ago. She said that the French were puzzled as to why the UK offers migrants such generous benefits when they arrive here. 

Although 2022 was an annus horribilis for the Conservative Party, 2023 is likely to be worse. The strikes that ended 2022 have continued in 2023. During the first week of January we were told not to travel by train unless it was absolutely necessary. Nurses, ambulance drivers and paramedics plan further strikes, and at the time of writing, junior doctors are being balloted on industrial action. Learner drivers are finding it difficult to get driving tests. Teachers are striking in Scotland and teachers' strikes are scheduled in England. 

Inflation is set to fall (Sunak has pledged that it will halve); however, as Sunak and Hunt have delivered the highest tax burden since the Second World War, economic growth is going to be sluggish at best. Because the NHS became the National Covid Service, the waiting list for procedures and operations stands at over seven million. Sunak had pledged to reduce it, but he hasn’t put a figure on it. Would he regard a waiting list at the end of the year of 6.9 million as a success? I am sure that the British public would disagree. 

Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer is preparing for the next general election, and all he and his party have to do is not make any major gaffes. Both Sunak’s and Starmer’s speeches earlier this month were snooze-a-thons, but Starmer can afford to be boring - which is just as well as that appears to sum him up. It is Sunak who has to be proactive. He is going to require a huge slice of luck to prevent Starmer from entering Number 10, but there is, it has to be said, a long way to go. Labour could produce a disastrous manifesto, for example. But this highlights that voters do not have an enviable choice on polling day, whenever that will be. 

I am sure that I am not the only person who has difficulty in working out the differences between Labour and the Conservatives. Wes Streeting, the Shadow Health Secretary, has admitted that the problems with the NHS are not just about cash, but its structure. Streeting had a brush with cancer a couple of years ago, and in an interview with The Times, he revealed that it took him three appointments to get a simple test. He has said that he doesn’t want to see working class people in pain, and that if he were Health Secretary he would use private hospitals to bolster the NHS. 

Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak can’t even answer a simple question as to whether or not he and his family have access to private healthcare. Or course they do, and he should have admitted it, adding that they can easily afford it and as result they help reduce the strain on the NHS. 

We live in a topsy-turvy political world. What we really need is an adult national conversation about how to provide world-class healthcare in this country over the next 20 to 30 years. A long-term vision. We should be looking at the French and German systems which have far better patient outcomes. We should not be treating the NHS as a sacred cow. But this is not going to happen. Too many of our fellow countrymen and women worship at the altar of a healthcare system which is falling apart at the seams. It is grossly mismanaged. 

With everything going on, free speech issues are often forgotten about, but not by us. Although ‘legal but harmful’ has been removed from the Online Safety Bill, it is still a major threat to free speech. 

The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill should have been a major step forward into legally protecting student and academic freedom. The Bill would have enabled students and academics to sue their universities if they had failed to protect free speech on campuses. After a defeat in the House of Lords, the Government has instead watered down the Bill and has tabled an amendment in the Lords that will only allow students and academics to sue their universities in the last resort. They will instead have to go through the complaints procedures at their university and then appeal (if necessary) to the Higher Education regulator. Only then will they be allowed to take their case to the courts. The amount of time this will take will dissuade many from complaining. This is the last thing we needed and is another blow to free speech. 

The Bill of Rights Bill hangs in the balance. When Boris Johnson was Prime Minister, the Justice Secretary, Dominic Raab, was starting to steer this through Parliament. Liz Truss scrapped it. Rishi Sunak said he was in favour of it, and reappointed Raab as Justice Secretary. Now it appears that Sunak may be changing his mind. The Guardian reported last month that more than 150 civil society groups have written to Sunak urging him to keep Blair's Human Rights Act and commit to scrapping Raab's Bill of Rights.

And I haven’t even touched on Brexit. The Northern Ireland Protocol still hasn’t been resolved. We are not reaping the benefits of Brexit, and that is not likely to happen with Jeremy Hunt as Chancellor of the Exchequer. And like many TFA members, I have my doubts about Sunak’s commitment to Brexit, too. 

There are going to be many battles this year on many different fronts. It is going to be a bumpy year politically and economically. The war in Ukraine is not looking like it is going to end anytime soon, and with more Covid hysteria starting to filter through, I am prepared for the Government trying to restrict our freedoms once again. Happy New Year! 

By Andrew Allison, Chief Executive

If you are in the unfortunate position of having to call the police because your house has been burgled, the most likely outcome is that the criminals will not be apprehended. Only 6% of burglaries a year are solved by police across England and Wales - a pathetically low detection rate which almost gives carte blanche to criminals to keep calm and carry on.

In the opening credits of the comedy series Porridge, Norman Stanley Fletcher was described “as an habitual criminal, who accepts arrest as an occupational hazard, and presumably accepts imprisonment in the same casual manner.” Today, ‘Fletch’ would never have been caught and would never have been sentenced to five years in Slade Prison. Although I have thankfully never been the victim of a burglary, to describe it as a “victimless crime” is insulting to those who may never feel safe in their homes again. 

The list goes on and on. If your car is stolen, don’t expect to get it back - at least not in one piece. If someone steals your mobile phone, the crime will never be investigated.

But even when criminals are apprehended and are taken to court, the punishment invariably doesn't fit the crime. This is from the Lady Margaret local policing team in Ealing. 

A suspended sentence for such a horrific crime is hardly going to deter others from doing something similar. And these were police officers who were assaulted. 

During a meeting I had over a decade ago with Tim Hollis, the then Chief Constable of Humberside Police, I remember him telling me that he liked nicking villains. He was an old-fashioned police officer who was determined to make all of us law-abiding people feel safer. That was his job, and it is the job of every police officer in the country. 

If the Conservative Party has any claim of being the 'law and order' party (which I no longer think that it has), Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman will have to make sure that the police focus on investigating crime and keeping our streets as safe as they possibly can be. 

But if sentencing remains as pathetically weak as it was in the case above, Britain will remain lawless. 

Photo Credit: Paul Harrop 

By Andrew Allison, Chief Executive of The Freedom Association 

In this article, Andrew Allison looks at the causes of inflation, but also reminds readers that the Government needs to focus on preventing a long and damaging recession. 

When Liz Truss was Prime Minister, she sacked her then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, and replaced him with Jeremy Hunt. There are very few things in life which genuinely surprise me, but Hunt’s appointment did. They are not political bedfellows. Hunt had spectacularly failed to garner support amongst Conservative MPs in his own leadership bid. He was viewed as yesterday’s man, destined to spend the rest of his career on the backbenches chairing the Health Committee. Prior to being appointed to his current role, he didn’t have any experience in the Treasury. But in a flash, he started moving his belongings into 11 Downing Street. 

I knew as soon as Hunt was appointed that Truss’s days in Number 10 were coming to an end, and one question Truss should answer is who forced her to appoint him, as I don’t believe for a moment that his appointment was her choice.

I also knew as soon as Truss resigned, that Sunak (and it was always going to be him) would make a number of ministerial changes, but that Hunt was safe. It is as if it was all planned. It probably was. 

I am coming to the opinion that we are not going to see any real Brexit dividends. With Hunt in charge of the nation’s finances, he is going to make sure that we don’t see any. We are not going to diverge from the EU in any meaningful way. After the Autumn Statement, it is clear that the new mantra (which is a return to an old one) is, “Steady as she goes. Managed decline. High taxes and low growth are here to stay.” 

Do you remember the anti-growth coalition Liz Truss spoke about just a few weeks ago at the Conservative Party Conference? They are now firmly in charge. 

Inflation is a scourge, and of course we must do everything in our power to reduce it, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer fails to realise that we are also trying to prevent a long and damaging recession. Inflation is rampant for a variety of different reasons, but the main three reasons are the world’s response to Covid, our response in particular, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The world got into a panic over Covid. Although we didn’t know much about the virus in February and March 2020 (which is why I initially supported restrictions), more information was coming in all the time. For example, we quickly found out that Covid was unlikely to kill younger and healthier people. We could still have kept the economy going and we could still have looked after those who are the most vulnerable. That was obvious after a few weeks. It was also obvious that if the National Health Service became the National Covid Service, more people would die unnecessarily from other illnesses such as cancer. Prof. Karol Sikora argued from the beginning that there would be a spike in cancer deaths if cancers were not treated quickly. He has been proved right. 

Yet despite knowing of these things, governments across the world imposed draconian lockdown measures, without giving a thought to the economic consequences. Indeed, if you mentioned the economic consequences (which I did), you were accused of prioritising money over people’s lives. Even when I argued that people need livelihoods to pay their bills, put a roof over their heads, and feed and clothe their families, I was still accused of being heartless. 

Although there were plenty of needless, and quite frankly, idiotic, restrictions in the UK, other countries went much further, following the Chinese example - an example which our new Chancellor of the Exchequer firmly supported. In New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told New Zealanders that the government was their single source of truth. Australia and Canada were not any better. 

The result of this hysteria is that global supply chains were broken, making it difficult to supply the needs of the world economy once life got back to normal, resulting in higher costs for goods. It was always going to happen. 

When Rishi Sunak was Chancellor of the Exchequer, he announced generous support packages for individuals, families and businesses. The money printing presses went into overdrive. People were paid to sit at home watching television, rather than working for a living. We were repeatedly told that all of this “free” money wouldn’t have an economic impact. We could put the economy into a deep freeze and when the time was right, we could take it out of the freezer, thaw it, and all would be well. I never believed that for one moment. 

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has resulted in higher energy and food costs. That is undisputed. But inflationary pressures were already in the economy as a result of the response to Covid. 

Inflation has not been caused by most of us having too much money burning holes in our pockets. The opposite is true. 

We now have the highest tax burden since the Second World War. 

So what about growth? I can’t see how there is going to be any. The pensions triple-lock is still in place meaning that pensioners are not going to be any worse off than they are now. Those claiming out of work benefits are not going to be worse off either. But those who get up early in the morning to go out to work in order to provide for their families are facing stealth tax rises which will make them worse off. A 23 per cent rise in fuel duty is planned for next year. This will increase the cost of petrol and diesel by around 15p a litre. Expect a gallon of fuel to cost around £9. Corporation Tax will be hiked by a third next April making the UK a less attractive place to do business. Over the next 18 months, living standards are expected to fall by seven per cent. 

I listened to an interview on GB News on the day of the Autumn Statement. A publican was commenting on the increases in the minimum and living wages. Although he supported the increases and told viewers and listeners that he paid above the minimum because he valued his staff and he wanted to retain them, he calculated that the increases would cost his business around £40,000 a year. This is, of course, on top of the increased costs of energy, food, beer, etc. He thinks that in January thousands of pubs will close. 

And then there are strikes. It’s like going back to the 1970s when The Freedom Association was founded. Every day you hear about strikes taking place or new ones which are planned. Train drivers, nurses, postal workers, Tube and bus drivers in London, civil servants. The list goes on. It appears that we are heading for another winter of discontent. 

The 2019 general election was fought on Brexit. The next general election will be fought primarily on the cost of living. Jeremy Hunt didn’t have any rabbits in his hat when he addressed the House of Commons last month, but something has to improve for the Conservatives not to face annihilation in a couple of years’ time. 

By David Campbell Bannerman, Chairman of The Freedom Association  

Latest Political events have left most of us breathless, bewildered and despairing. Once Great Offices of State have been brought into dispute, changing hands faster than gambling cards. Five Prime Ministers in six years and four Chancellors in under four months. Now the total volte farce of a Budget delivered only in October is being binned and totally reversed following serious market instability from the party that trades on economic competence.

Now we have seen the total abandonment of the programme the new Prime Minister advanced just months ago. We have a Prime Minister in Rishi Sunak Conservative Party members didn’t endorse; indeed rejected just months ago, and an empty programme no-one has backed, but which seems in contravention of key aspects of the 2019 manifesto on which the Conservative Government under Boris Johnson was elected with the biggest mandate for 35 years. This is not a criticism of Sunak, but of the party process.

This is a sham, a farce, a disaster. The only benefit is that Rishi Sunak’s Government has brought some stability after such turbulence worthy of the most ferocious of rollercoasters.

What we are witnessing seems to be an absolute breakdown of governance itself. I say ‘governance’ not ‘government’ – meaning the “manner of governing a state” rather than “the body/entity invested with the power to manage a political unit, organisation or state”.

That to me lies at the heart of this appalling shambles. The manner of governance.

The Freedom Association is not just about defending individual freedom, free speech and free expression; our principles embrace the rule of law, Parliamentary democracy, limited government, the free market economy, too – all affected by this failure of governance.

Governing has become like running in quicksand, with the public wondering why Government seems incapable of getting anywhere and of delivering anything, fast. This has brought about dangerous levels of dissatisfaction, complacency and cynicism of the public in the electoral system.

Examples readily abound. The ‘Boats Crisis’ is a perfect example. One would expect one of the primary duties of Government would be to protect our freedoms by maintaining the borders of the country. Yet so far this year 43,000 undocumented unknown individuals, mainly young men, have arrived uninvited and unannounced on our shores.

The Government response is what? Mass arrests? Troops ordered to defend the beaches? The Navy turning back the boats? This is what the Australians successfully did (ensuring the vessels were safe and with fresh provisions – which led to a drop from 60,000 a year to zero. I met the minister responsible).

No! The response has been to welcome them into our country, give them free meals, free instant healthcare (unavailable to those outside the camp walls), free high-grade mobile phones, bicycles and handouts, and treat economic immigrants like refugees when they have travelled through so many safe countries without claiming asylum there. It has been to make dedicated hotel workers redundant before Christmas as hotels are turned into hostels (often in breach of planning permission which only allows 28 days of such ‘change of use’) right across the UK at 300 sites. Veterans’ events, weddings, major functions have been cancelled with the Home Office offering £1 million cheques at a time and a daily cost of £7 million so far.

Meanwhile Care4Calais and other misguided charity workers (allegedly the charity is under investigation by the Charity Commissioners) offer illegal immigrants advice on how to beat the system in French camps. Demonstrators arrive at the Manston immigration centre on behalf of the illegal immigrants - and they are immigrants as they are coming into the county. Migrants move within a country.

Above all, we have human rights lawyers line up to use taxpayers’ cash to work against taxpayers’ interests – particularly by using the twisted knot of human rights laws from ECHR Court judgements to Blair’s Human Rights Act to May’s Sex Trafficking Act to frustrate removals policies such as the Rwanda Plan – approved by Parliament; suspended by lawyers.

This is what creates this legalistic quicksand - and the Government is then continually made to look like the bad guy with numerous Parliamentary and legal challenges. Rather than indulge in PR friendly schemes which appear to address the problems – such as paying the French more to try to stop migrants – we need to address the real causes. The BBC even reported a Calais policeman saying that the EU was to blame by preventing the French police from arresting undocumented illegal immigrants, Even if they stop them getting in boats, they have to let them go again.

There seems to be a new enthusiasm to open the gates to yet more people coming into the UK, despite the fact that now 1 in 6 people in the UK were born abroad and around 8 million people – the equivalent of all people living in Wales and Scotland – have arrived since 2004. The public have reached their tolerance limit when it comes to the scale of Immigration. The British people are law-abiding and strong – they are slow to rise, but when they do, they are formidable.

This picture looks like total and abject failure. A collective breakdown brought by excessive technocratic and legalistic obstacles to the democratic will. It is more the failure of governance than an individual Government – these barriers would apply to a future Labour or Coalition Government. It was John Reid, whom I had the pleasure of meeting recently, who coined the phrase “not fit for purpose” to describe the Home Office. Despite decades seeking reform, the same failure to reform is with us today. The failings are systemic.

A barrister friend of mine says this represents the 1930s Weimar Republic in the weakness and frustration of its democracy, which is a scary parallel indeed.

Unfortunately, we saw this again with Brexit. I really fear that there is an agenda to obstruct and undermine all the benefits of Brexit currently in the pipeline, as there was negotiating a Brexit deal under Theresa May – where it often seemed our negotiating team was on the same side as the EU. Thank God for Lord Frost later.

Suddenly, progress on the UK-India trade deal, which would bring major benefits for UK exports through removing 150% tariffs on luxury goods such as top-end cars and whiskies, appears to have stalled despite warm relations between Sunak and Indian Prime Minister Modi. So too has the prospect of joining the World’s largest trade block, which is not the EU, but the Trans Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) trade block. Again, talk of that has quietened. These would both be decisive breaks from EU convergence. Is that the problem? Would it disrupt the new agenda to retain convergence?

In my view, EU deregulation – the removal, repeal or reform of up to 700,000 pages of EU red tape, directives, regulations and ECJ court rulings (a Nelson’s Column worth of paper) – is the primary economic benefit of Brexit.

Whilst it is very welcome news to see one such benefit – the billions in extra investment that scrapping the EU’s excessive solvency II directive required – in the Autumn Statement as Treasury policy, progress on removing up to 700,000 pages of EU red tape has suddenly been put in doubt by a feeble excuse: they have discovered another 1,200 laws in the archive and OFFICIALS DON’T HAVE THE TIME TO GO THROUGH THEM ALL! What? Wouldn’t saving money be rather a good use of officials time – that large army – just now? No wonder Jacob Rees-Mogg, who introduced the Brexit Freedoms Bill, has attacked the delay.

Now the Sunday Times reports that we are slipping back to discussing failed and rejected trade models when we have the arm’s length deal we need now – and just need to sort the protocol. The ‘Swiss option’ is half a deal. It covers only goods and people of the four core freedoms at the heart of all free trade deals and EU membership, and not investment and Services such as Financial Services – which is why Swiss banks such as Swiss Re and UBS operate out of London.

It is over complex and unwieldy, with 120 bilateral agreements, not the one like the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (the TCA) we have now. Above all there is no control over immigration – the second dominating reason why people voted for Brexit – as the Swiss option has a signed freedom of movement bilateral agreement.

Even the Director General of the CBI, who were very anti Brexit, said on Laura Kuenssberg’s show on the BBC that the Swiss deal would be a distraction and the Government should focus on sorting the Northern Ireland Protocol.

The Protocol is another example of such failure of governance. This revolves around selling-out the UK on alignment to EU rules in order to ‘solve’ the so-called ‘border issue’ that was always ever a device, a tool, to keep the whole of the UK aligned to the EU. It is the EU that has incited community tensions this way by weaponizing the issue through Varadkar and the Irish Government. A previous Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny did not regard it as hard to solve.

How many times has the Government threatened to invoke Article 16 of the Protocol? Article 16 is an emergency clause to allow (where there are serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are likely to persist) a suspension of the Protocol until sorted. At least the Protocol Bill, which has passed through the Commons, is now making its way through the Lords, but there is a reluctance even to use that legislation or act on the Protocol, in fear of EU retaliation. Another logjam; another lack of courage.

On the NHS, the Government has not looked at reform, but has provided more and more resources, with seemingly greater and greater queues in the form of waiting lists. As Michael Portillo points out on GB News, we have increased spending as a share of Government expenditure from 30% to 40% at the expense of the police, soldiers and schools, but waiting lists have ballooned. The Covid impact is wearing thin as an excuse and the denial of access to care for the first time seeing the NHS drop amongst the public. What’s the plan?

There are numerous other examples of such failures in governance we can all point out, but what are the reasons and what are the elements behind this?

Taking all the sectors at play here, I’ll start with MPs first.

It is clear that people think that the quality of MPs is much diminished. I see too many ministers that are weak; too many overpromoted; and far too many lacking conviction. Compare them with Lady Thatcher’s conviction and strength; Michael Portillo, with his razor sharp mind and real authority; Peter Lilley – one of the brightest and most sensitive ministers I have met; the gutsy and competent Gillian Shepherd; Nigel Lawson, the creative Chancellor; David Mellor with his grasp of culture; Lord Carrington, the last minister to resign over something he didn’t do out of principle (the loss of the Falklands); my old boss, Sir Patrick Mayhew, a great man of principle who laid the foundations for the Good Friday Agreement; the canny Norman Tebbit, and yes, even Kenneth Clarke and Michael Heseltine, bright characters and right on other things than Europe. Many of today’s ministers belong in the civil service or middle management. Rather than giving leadership to departments, too many have become robotic compliant reciters of given policy positions.

This is a feature of the selection of MPs, which has become a disaster in itself, in all parties. Tony Blair set the model by controlling candidate selection. All Eurosceptic Labour MEPs were wiped out in one go, a Labour MP told me. The journalist Michael Crick’s Twitter page, @Tomorrow’sMPs, lifts the lid on Labour selection, saying “Labour’s selection processes are unfair, and verge on corrupt. Some contenders get access to local membership lists long before others do”; whilst saying Lib Dems only offer a single candidate often.

Conservative Party selection procedures are far too centralised and look for the compliant MP, not the independent minded free thinkers of old – those, like Lady Thatcher, who were prepared to challenge officials and their advice; people who were ideological. They are also too much into Blair-style tokenism. I understand the emphasis on Conservative candidates to be able to demonstrate the ability to speak in public is much diminished. Some get to a high level without the ability to put their case effectively in speeches or the media. Too many are careerists. More worryingly is the lack of interview time to ascertain whether candidates are actually real Conservatives. Their actual views are little scrutinised.

Number 10, so constantly under pressure, and often without an Alastair Campbell or Craig Oliver to provide steady and informed top-level guidance, is too often pushed around by the media and Parliament, and it is too ready to throw ministers under a bus if enough pressure is brought to bear.

Whilst action on Pincher may have been too slow, action on Conor Burns may have been too fast and unjust. He was immediately fired, humiliated, and banned before having any right to reply. Now we find there is no evidence from the supposed witness - so there is not even a charge; and it was off the Parliamentary estate anyway. A good minister shoddily treated by the system.

Political correctness and wokeness are killing free speech and free expression. Any supposed variance from agreed norms and the media (primarily social media) organise a ‘pile on’.

I am informed that students in journalism are now schooled that their careers will be best advanced by tearing down rather than actual objective, intelligent and courageous reporting of the facts.

On impartiality, the great John Humphrys of BBC Radio 4 Today fame, never gave away his politics until he had retired, such was his professionalism. He was demanding of all – and fair. But now we have Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel publicly whingeing at the fact they have to be impartial, with Maitlis regularly straying into impartiality in direct and unacceptable ways.

The bias in the BBC, and other channels, such as Channel 4 News and Sky and others – more amongst those controlling the agenda than presenters generally – the Media Line – does not seek to report facts for the viewer to make their own judgement on, but seeks to campaign and load the facts one way. Apparently (Nigel Farage told) Climate Change is now such an ‘uncontested and proven view’, apparently, that bias in mentioning it is beyond the rules on impartiality.

MPs, of course, are having to operate in a media and social media world that is incessant and 24 hours. Whilst very revealing of hidden facts in a positive way, it is also too full of bile and falsities on another negative level. I am just immensely glad that as a keen tweeter, with 40,000 people kind enough to listen to my thoughts, that Elon Musk has arrived as Chief Twit restoring free speech and free expression to an important communications platform for politicians.

As for Whitehall – that great body of Government itself - the man or woman on the street see the Government in a highly personalised way: it is Boris’s Government in charge; Liz Truss’s policies; Sunak’s budget, delivered by Jeremy Hunt.

What the public doesn’t see, and doesn’t think much about, is that massive technocratic, legalistic and technical machine behind the few politicians. That is where the numbers are. The Department of Work and Pensions has 96,011 employees for example, and there are 478,540 full-time equivalent civil servants as of March 2022. The Government’s 121 ministers are totally outnumbered, and too often under remunerated. Many civil servants are paid more than the Prime Minister.

I know, as a former Special Adviser, that officials resent external influence – they want to be in control. They claim not to be political, but very much are – they just aren’t party political.

In my view, however, there are now too many special advisers to ministers (SPADS), who are half official and half party political. In my day, when I was a Northern Ireland SPAD (1996-97), there were only 40. Blair had 80. Now there are 180. I don’t knock SPADS; many are very bright, able and well connected, but some don’t have the experience, whilst others create instability in government though too many media contacts and briefings. Dominic Cummings tried to run Government through SPADS, who formed much of Vote Leave, too, but they are not really part of departmental command structures. Departments have press offices anyway, so there is some duplication.

There is also too much of a ‘Chumocracy’: a web of personal relationships where contacts and personal connections count most. The number of married or dating senior advisers, or who are children or friends of, is quite striking.

Newer, I think, is that too many senior civil servants are now becoming overtly political: in office through leaking and obstruction, as well as out of office through public statements. How dare a former servant of the Crown help bring down a Prime Minister, such as former Foreign Office Permanent Secretary (not known for being fans of Boris Johnson) Lord Simon McDonald with his “extraordinary, devastating intervention” which helped bring Boris down over Pincher? 

These generally strong Remainers loved the EU because it was like them, putting the technocratic and legalistic before the democratic. A Valhalla for Sir Humphrey Abbleby-like Yes Minister dominance. Former Cabinet Secretary Gus O’Donnell is more measured and sensible in his interventions, but he is still actively political. There is too much nauseous use of the phrase ‘Speaking Truth unto Power.’ This gives away a superior attitude where the officials are supposedly the best judges of the truth – like the EU - through what superior education and privilege seemingly. 

The ability to hamper, disrupt or destroy ministers is out of control. How can they deliver their agenda for the people who elected them when they are forever distracted by inquiries, legal challenges, departmental resistance? Priti Patel was a victim of this. Dominic Raab is being currently called a bully – with a huge media drama about allegedly throwing a few tomatoes, elevated to career-destructive level, shows officials are in power, not the Government.

If not finding resistance in departments, ministers are being subject to ‘Kangaroo Court’ justice in the Houses of Parliament. And a misuse of an over-controlling Ministerial Code, that seems designed to tie the hands of ministers delivering their agendas, rather than preventing misuse of office, which is not of course acceptable.

There is an ultimate court, and that is the British voter. They have every right to throw out supposedly sleazy or incompetent MPs, as they did after the Parliamentary expenses scandal, and the electorate is becoming more canny on tactical voting. That is the democratic way surely, not endless legalistic and technocratic codes – the stuff of EU rule.

Look at Boris Johnson. What court in the land (and the Privileges Committee is semi-judicial) would allow such compromised MPs who have been so vocal on Boris to hold court over a Prime Minister? Those who have shown such aggression or public attacks, such as Harriet Harman, have clearly been hostile to him.

This use of judicial tools for political ends seems reflected in the USA, too, where a ‘War Crimes investigator’ is let loose on Donald Trump. Whatever one thinks of Trump, to use the legal system and absurd comparisons to war crimes to debar a political candidate, is a dangerous undemocratic development indeed. Or to have the FBI as political police to make Trump look bad by raiding his Florida home in such a disgraceful manner. That too is abuse by State officials of their public office. Or to claim that Trump’s deep concerns over election fraud and voting integrity are ‘false claims’, as if that is definitive, as the BBC do, and that voter fraud doesn’t exist (think the Mafia helping Kennedy in Chicago; or the UK case of misuse of postal ballots in Tower Hamlets) is biased reporting.

Then, of course, to ban someone who was an elected President from Twitter, just because his views don’t conform with extreme forms of Californian wokeness, is very worrying. It is all part of the same problem – the onward march of aggressive Cultural Marxism on both sides of the Atlantic.

Whitehall is shown to be just as left-leaning as its genesis, Academia, which is 80-90% left-wing and hooked on state support, the mainstream media, who now put more emphasis on political activism than to report unbiased facts, and the cultural sector, also state dependent and frequent unrealistic in its criticisms of the Government. Why does it seem that it is generally the right-wing ministers attacked this way: Braverman, Raab, Boris, whilst Left-leaning MPs seem to enjoy a much softer treatment?

The evidence of this is the recent public sector strikes announced – including whole Departments going on strike from mid-December such as the Home Office, the Department of Transport and Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, affecting passport and border checks, driving tests and payment of farm subsidies.

As the inventor of rail franchising (which pre-Covid attracted more passengers than BR ever did, on a third more trains, and eliminated the subsidy for trains overall, if not for track), I found the Government’s decision to replace the successful (but needing some reforms) franchises with the unsuccessful (old BR and Corbyn-style renationalisation) concessions thanks to the public sector Williams Report, incomprehensible and anti-Conservative.

In particular, the decision to negotiate as one, as the Government, was irresponsible, bringing back national rail strikes after their absence under rail privatisation. There has been confusion over whether the Transport Secretary should be in the room or not. Shapps refused to be, and his two successors have met with the unions. Are we going back to retro 1970s-style ‘Beer and Sandwiches’ as well as curly sandwiches?

Whilst there may have been some painful single franchise-only strikes, such as on Southern, other franchises kept operating, and it was not nationwide. If the Government can’t even recognise, reward and improve successful policies, what hope is there? Personally, I would extend such a franchising model to schools, hospitals and to much of Whitehall. 

So, in all these ways, and with such a rich choice of examples sadly to choose from, it is clear that something is seriously wrong with the way we are governed – with governance – that is far deeper, and in much greater need of radical reform, than just the usual choice of policies between the two dominant political parties.

Radical reform is needed to govern better; and in so doing, to restore many of the freedoms we hold dear. 

By Andrew Allison, Chief Executive

'Take back control'. That was the message of the official Vote Leave campaign during the 2016 referendum. Taking back control of our laws, our economy, and, yes, immigration. David Cameron pledged to reduce immigration to the tens of thousands. He didn't, and as I mentioned in my editorial in the latest edition of The Free Nation, neither did Theresa May and Boris Johnson. Neither were interested. Liz Truss was in conflict with Suella Braverman over immigration which was the main reason Braverman resigned as Home Secretary during Truss's record breaking (for all the wrong reasons) premiership. If Rishi Sunak doesn't get a grip of immigration in general, and illegal immigration in particular, he will face a backlash at the next general election. 

As I write, more than 40,000 people have made the crossing from France to the south coast of England this year. They know that when they arrive here they will be processed and placed into temporary accommodation in hotels. Conditions at the Manston asylum processing centre are not good, but what do people expect when we are being invaded? Yes, Suella Braverman was right to describe this as an invasion. What else can it be called? But it's mainly the fault of Parliament and the Government. "I am a victim of modern slavery." Come in. "I have converted to Christianity and I come from an Islamic country." Come in. "I'm gay and I am being persecuted." Come in. "I have family members living in the UK." Come in. The list goes on and on. 

Sending illegal migrants to Rwanda is not going to work. Rwanda has said that it will take 200. That's a fifth of the daily total which arrived in the UK a few days ago. And as we know, the total number sent to Rwanda thus far is zero. Once the human rights lawyers get involved (which they do in every case), the chance of removing them to Rwanda is also zero. A new policy needs to be thought out and it needs to be done quickly. 

We could rescue those in the channel and take them back to France. Another alternative is handing the processing somewhere like Ascension Island. Currently the vast majority of those entering the UK illegally stay here. That is an incentive to hand over thousands of pounds to people smugglers and take a chance. If those trying to enter the UK illegally know that they will not be allowed to remain here, the numbers trying to do so will fall. 

Over to you Rishi. If you get this right, you may stand a chance of staying in 10 Downing Street after the next general election. Get it wrong and you won't. 

In this post, Andrew Allison, Chief Executive of The Freedom Association, looks back at Liz Truss's premiership, and highlights the challenges facing Rishi Sunak. 

Commenting on Harold Macmillan's 'night of the long knives', Jeremy Thorpe said,  "Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his friends for his life". I was reminded of that famous line after Liz Truss fired Kwasi Kwarteng. She was the co-author of the mini-Budget he delivered just before the Labour Party Conference and therefore had ownership of it. Indeed, if a report in the Daily Mail is to be believed, the former Chancellor wanted to delay the abolition of the 45p tax rate, but Truss overruled him. Yet despite this, in an attempt to save her skin, she threw Kwarteng under a bus.

King Charles I signed the Earl of Strafford's death warrant in a bid to save himself. We know how that ended. In more recent times, Richard Nixon fired John Ehrlichman and H. R. Haldeman in a bid to save his skin. That didn't work, either. And it didn’t work for Truss who was forced to resign less than a week later. The final two nails in her political coffin were the resignation of Suella Braverman as Home Secretary and the chaotic scenes in the House of Commons during voting on an opposition motion on fracking. 

All authority had drained away from Truss. The winning manifesto she stood on in the Conservative Party leadership race, which lasted most of the summer, had been torn up. Many were asking what the point of Liz Truss was. Enough Conservative MPs answered the question. 

Kwarteng’s replacement, to everyone’s surprise, was Jeremy Hunt - the Sunak-supporting Remainer who praised China for its longer, harder lockdowns. He immediately started acting as His Majesty’s de facto Prime Minister. It was obvious that he was in charge of economic policy. The then First Lord of the Treasury had surrendered control to him. 

Hunt announced that Corporation Tax will increase by a third next year. The 1p cut in the basic rate of income tax has been indefinitely delayed. IR35 reforms for the self-employed have been scrapped. 

During her speech at the end of the Conservative Party Conference, Truss railed against the 'anti-growth coalition'. The main reason she has gone down as the shortest-serving Prime Minister in British history is because she surrendered to that coalition. Her demise was humiliating and brutal in equal measure. 

Writing in the Daily Telegraph before Truss resigned, Matthew Lynn commented that "the dream of a low-tax, pro-enterprise Britain has now died for a generation. In its place, we face a suffocating consensus of constantly rising taxes imposed on a dwindling, shrivelled economic base."

He is correct. 

As the Conservative Party is drinking the final drop of whisky in the last chance saloon, MPs have no option but to get behind Rishi Sunak. Many Conservative MPs are polishing their CVs, knowing that they are likely to lose their seats at the next general election, but if the party doesn’t get its act together, it could be looking at losses of around 200 seats. That would put the party out of power for at least two terms. As the saying goes, “When you’ve got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.” And the voters have (metaphorically) got many MPs by their balls. 

The King’s new Prime Minister has a bulging in tray. During the Conservative Party Conference I was asked if I could name any successes in the last 12 years of Conservative and Conservative-led government. Brexit was mentioned, but that’s not true. Most Conservative MPs campaigned against Brexit. David Cameron and George Osborne were the architects of ‘Project Fear.’ Brexit was achieved by the coming together of ordinary people - people like us in The Freedom Association. If the Conservative Party had had its way, we would still be members of the European Union. Although many notable Conservatives were very much on our side during and after the referendum, Brexit was not an achievement of a Conservative Government. 

Universal Credit was mentioned as a success. That’s debatable as it hasn’t been implemented in the way Iain Duncan-Smith envisaged. George Osborne made sure of that and Iain resigned because of it. 

To be honest, I can’t remember what the third success my interlocutor came up with. But that rather sums it up. There is hardly anything to show for all those years in Government - at least not on the credit side. On the debit side, the list is long. I will, though, focus on four huge problems facing Sunak: the cost of living, immigration, crime, and health. 

Getting through this coming winter is going to be a difficult task for many families. Although the Government has capped energy bills, they will still be much higher than they were last winter. Taxes are at a 70-year high. Is the Conservative Party still the party of low taxation? I would like to think so, but the evidence for the prosecution is damning. Sunak will not make the same mistakes as Truss, but increasing Corporation Tax is not going to make the UK’s economy more competitive. Taxing middle England until the pips squeak is not going to help us escape a long recession. I am willing to give him a break over the furlough scheme. I know that there were many abuses, but he didn’t really have any option but to present a generous scheme to compensate businesses and their employees after Prime Minister Johnson closed the economy. Inflation is high, and reducing it is a priority. But as I have already mentioned, to avoid a long recession we can’t have sky high taxes. “It’s the economy, stupid.” If voters are feeling the squeeze, the party of Government gets the blame, irrespective of what the views of the opposition parties are. 

We live on an island. That should be an advantage when it comes to limiting illegal immigration. The opposite appears to be true. I really hope that Rishi Sunak grasps the nettle on this issue. In his speech before he entered Number 10 for the first time as Prime Minister, he promised “control of our borders.” Boris Johnson didn’t appear interested, and neither was Truss. Those making the hazardous journey across the English Channel are housed in hotels at taxpayers’ expense. Very few are deported. Meanwhile, British families, who work hard and pay their taxes, are deciding whether to eat or heat their homes. 

According to Migration Watch, a record 1.1 million entry grants to live In the UK were granted in the year ending June 2022. One doesn’t have to be a genius to work out that this is unsustainable. Public services are already under huge pressure. Unless we get immigration (legal and illegal) under control, it’s going to get even worse. 

The metropolitan metrosexuals may dismiss this as a fringe issue, but there is real anger across the country that we are not getting immigration under control. If he gets this right, Sunak could be on to a winner, particularly in so-called “red wall” seats. 

If you are in the unfortunate position of having to call the police because your house has been burgled, the most likely outcome is that the criminals will not be apprehended. Only 6% of burglaries a year are solved by police across England and Wales - a pathetically low detection rate which almost gives carte blanche to criminals to keep calm and carry on. In the opening credits of the comedy series Porridge, Norman Stanley Fletcher was described “as an habitual criminal, who accepts arrest as an occupational hazard, and presumably accepts imprisonment in the same casual manner.” Today, ‘Fletch’ would never have been caught and would never have been sentenced to five years in Slade Prison. Although I have thankfully never been the victim of a burglary, to describe it as a “victimless crime” is insulting to those who may never feel safe in their homes again. 

The list goes on and on. If your car is stolen, don’t expect to get it back - at least not in one piece. If someone steals your mobile phone, the crime will never be investigated. If Sunak can get on top of this thorny problem, he will start to restore trust in the Conservative Party being the party of law and order. It most certainly cannot make that claim now. 

If you are critically ill, you will receive some of the best care in the world. But if you are in pain (and I have much experience of this), you will be put on a waiting list. An aunt of mine has been waiting for more than two years for a routine cataract operation. If you require a hip replacement, onto the waiting list you go. I am fortunate that my GP surgery is rather good at giving patients reasonably quick appointments. I know from talking to friends and listening to interviews on radio and television that many people across the country are not in as fortunate a position as me. Because the National Health Service became the National Covid Service, the backlogs in hospitals are never likely to be cleared. 

I know that there aren’t any quick fixes, but I have heard that Sunak wants to reform the NHS. Yes, we have heard it all before, and we remember the botched Lansley reforms, but unless our bureaucratic healthcare system is properly reformed, nothing is going to change. 

What we need now is a period of stability. I know that has become a hackneyed phrase, but there has been more turmoil this year than any of us thought possible. “Unprecedented” is an overused word, yet what we have witnessed this year (so far) has truly lived up to its meaning. 

I wish Rishi Sunak all the luck in the world. He is not my ‘cup of tea’ politically, but he doesn’t strike me as being a nasty man. Some will blame him for Boris Johnson’s resignation. My opinion is that Johnson was already on borrowed time before Sunak resigned as Chancellor of the Exchequer in July. Many committed Brexiteers had lost confidence in Johnson. But all of this is yesterday’s news and today’s fish and chip paper. I regarded Sunak as the continuity Treasury orthodoxy candidate during the summer’s leadership election campaign. I am not minded to change my opinion, but I really hope that I am wrong. The country is truly crying out of change. If he doesn’t deliver it, we will have Keir Starmer as Prime Minister and any meaningful Brexit benefits will either be reversed or will never happen at all. That would be a disaster and the thought of it should sober up those Conservative MPs sipping their last drop of whisky. 

Commenting on Rishi Sunak's Summer Economic Update, Andrew Allison, Head of Campaigns of The Freedom Association, said: 

"The furlough scheme was welcome when it was introduced in March, but the Chancellor is right to end it. It can only be a temporary measure, but paying employers £1,000 to take back furloughed employees will only delay the inevitable for many businesses.