All posts tagged: Tories

Lady Spielman and Lord Gove: Tories confirm peerages

Lady Spielman and Lord Gove: Tories confirm peerages

Published by skeptic

Ex-Ofsted chief and former education secretary both handed peerages by the Conservative party Ex-Ofsted chief and former education secretary both handed peerages by the Conservative party Former Ofsted chief Amanda Spielman will be made a Conservative member of the House of Lords, it has been confirmed. The former education secretary Michael Gove, now editor of The Spectator, has also been awarded a peerage. Meanwhile James Cleverly, who was education secretary for just under two months in 2022, has been knighted. Spielman led Ofsted from 2017 to 2023. The end of her reign was mired in controversy after a coroner ruled an Ofsted inspection had contributed to the death of headteacher Ruth Perry. The life peerage was trailed in the press last month and branded “inappropriate and insensitive” by school leader groups. Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch’s citation for the peerage highlights Spielman’s 20 years of service in education, children’s services and regulation. “She served two terms as His Majesty’s Chief Inspector at Ofsted, promoting substance and integrity in education for all children and young people, …

Senior Tories Voice Concern That Party Has No Clear Plan To Fight Reform

Senior Tories Voice Concern That Party Has No Clear Plan To Fight Reform

Published by Sam

Kemi Badenoch is under pressure to explain what the party’s position is towards Reform (Alamy) 5 min read01 March Senior Tories have privately expressed concern that the party does not yet have a coherent strategy for taking the fight to Reform UK. “There is no consolidated plan for Reform,” complained one shadow cabinet minister, describing the current approach to attacking Nigel Farage’s surging party is “ad hoc”. Talk to someone associated with the Conservative Party and they will almost certainly admit that they are worried about its future. On Wednesday evening, Tory MPs past and present bemoaned the state of the party at a central London book launch for Simon Hart – who served as chief whip to former prime minister Rishi Sunak – over white wine and cheese-flavoured breadsticks. “What the fuck is the Tory Party?” said one former Conservative MP. MPs, strategists and casualties of last year’s general election have their theories for why the Tories were defeated so heavily in July. The Conservative Party suffered its worst defeat in more than 200 years last summer, leaving Sunak’s successor Kemi Badenoch with a lightweight opposition (121 MPs) …

More grammars and SEND shame in Tories’ muddled messaging

More grammars and SEND shame in Tories’ muddled messaging

Published by skeptic

Four leadership contenders had little to say about what they’d do differently in education if elected Four leadership contenders had little to say about what they’d do differently in education if elected Damian Hinds has urged his party not to let Labour “trash” its record on education, even though another shadow minister said the Tories should “hang our heads in shame” on SEND. Meanwhile a frontrunner in the Conservative leadership race has revived the spectre of ripping up the schools system to allow new grammar schools – signifying the party’s muddled messaging as it seeks to rebuild after July’s election defeat. Shadow schools minister Hinds was the main Tory voice on education at the party’s conference this week, but his job will be up in the air when a new leader is appointed next month. Leadership hopefuls say little Besides a vague plan for more grammar schools, the four Tory leadership contenders said little about what they would do differently in education if elected. But three of the four praised their party’s record on education. …

Public Will Lose Patience With Labour Blaming The Tories After A Year In Power, New Poll Suggests

Public Will Lose Patience With Labour Blaming The Tories After A Year In Power, New Poll Suggests

Published by Sam

3 min read20 September The public will lose patience with Labour blaming the Conservatives for the state of the country after the party has been in power for a year, a new poll suggests. A Savanta survey conducted in the run-up to Labour Party conference in Liverpool this weekend, shared exclusively with PoliticsHome, indicates voters are currently willing to tolerate the new Labour Government claim that the problems they are dealing with are the fault of previous Tory governments. Forty eight per cent of respondents said it was acceptable for the Keir Starmer administration to ‘blame the previous government for the state of the country’ after being in office ‘for a few months’, while 44 per cent told the pollster it was unacceptable. That balance of opinion shifted, however, when the scenario was changed to Labour having been in power for twelve months. Exactly half of people (50 per cent) said it would be unacceptable for the Government to blame the Tories for the state of the UK at that point, while 42 said it would be acceptable. Since winning power …

Michael Gove Says Keir Starmer Could Go “Further” Than Tories Ever Did On Justice Reform

Michael Gove Says Keir Starmer Could Go “Further” Than Tories Ever Did On Justice Reform

Published by Sam

Michael Gove offered his support to the Conservative general election campaign (Alamy) 3 min read12 September Former Conservative secretary of state Michael Gove has said that Prime Minister Keir Starmer might be able to go “further than we ever did” on prison and justice reform. Gove spoke on a panel hosted by the Institute for Public Policy Research think tank on Wednesday evening alongside Labour MP and former Labour Together director Josh Simons, Professor of Social Policy Jane Gingrich, and British Future director Sunder Katwala. The panellists discussed what a comprehensive program for national renewal should look like in this Parliament and how an ‘insurgent’ government might be able to transform people’s lives and restore public trust in politics and institutions. Gove, who stood down ahead of this year’s General Election after being an MP for nearly 20 years, said that many people would have found it “difficult” to see the first wave of inmates being released from prisons across the country on Tuesday in an effort to ease serious overcrowding – including some who were convicted of violence offences. Despite having …

Tories Criticised For Hypocrisy On Smoking Ban

Tories Criticised For Hypocrisy On Smoking Ban

Published by Sam

The Tories have criticised Labour’s plan to ban smoking outside pubs just months after saying they wanted to make it completely illegal. The former prime minister’s decision to call an early election meant he ran out of time to turn the policy into law. Labour have said they will introduce the legislation themselves, and today it emerged that they want to go further by banning smoking in pub gardens, outdoor restaurants and outside sports stadiums and hospitals. The Conservatives posted on X that was “more evidence that Labour hates freedom”. “This isn’t about people’s health. It’s about control,” they added. But embarrassingly for the Tories, a community note was added to the post pointing out the party’s previous support for an outright smoking ban. Other users of the social media platform were also quick to highlight the Conservatives’ apparent hypocrisy. Source link

Tom Tugendhat Says He Wants To “Reform The Tories, Not Become Reform”

Tom Tugendhat Says He Wants To “Reform The Tories, Not Become Reform”

Published by Sam

Tom Tugendhat is the Conservative leadership contender from the moderate wing of the party (Alamy) 6 min read04 August Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat has said that if he becomes the party leader, he would want to “reform” the Conservative Party but not allow it to “become Reform”. Tugendhat is one of six candidates who have officially entered the race to replace Rishi Sunak as party leader. The others are ex-work and pensions secretary Mel Stride, former home secretaries Priti Patel and James Cleverly, former immigration minister Robert Jenrick, and ex-business secretary Kemi Badenoch. Previously a security minister in the Conservative government between 2022 and 2024, Tugendhat is a leading member of the One Nation caucus of Conservatives MPs which identifies as the more moderate wing of the party. After their worst general election defeat ever, there is a divide among Tories over the direction the party should now take to win again. Some MPs and former MPs consider Tugendhat and his One Nation colleagues to be “unconservative”, with one MP who lost his seat on 4 July telling PoliticsHome …

Rachel Reeves Notes 1 Sign Tories ‘Ran Away’ From UK’s Crises

Rachel Reeves Notes 1 Sign Tories ‘Ran Away’ From UK’s Crises

Published by Sam

Rachel Reeves has spotted one sign which the chancellor claims proved the Tories “ran away” from the crises brewing across the country. Speaking on her show, Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, the BBC presenter asked: “You and some other ministers have been suggesting since you arrived in power that things are worse than you knew from the outside. “What is it that you have seen that has actually given you that belief, because most of the information is in the public domain?” Reeves pointed to the country’s overcrowded prisons, saying they were “at crisis point” with almost “no places left”. The chancellor said: “The previous government, rather than making the tough decisions, they simply ran away. They called an election to allow the next people to make those decisions. “It makes me pretty angry that they’ve left the country in this sort of state. “Whichever political party you’re in, you should try and pass on at the end of your time in office, a country and a society which is working better. “This Conservative government did …

‘We’ve become unhappier’: 12 leading photographers on the images that sum up the Tories’ time in power | Photography

‘We’ve become unhappier’: 12 leading photographers on the images that sum up the Tories’ time in power | Photography

Published by skeptic

Dafydd Jones Leave campaigner, Westminster Bridge, London, 15 June 2016 Dafydd Jones made his name as a society and party photographer in the 1980s, mainly for Vanity Fair and Tatler. This image was taken one week before the EU referendum, for his How We Live Now feature in the Oldie. I’d heard about a flotilla of fishermen demonstrating outside parliament in support of Brexit. I went along and it was quite an eccentric, English-seeming scene with fishing boats with flags. Bob Geldof was there. And there was a luxury party boat with Nigel Farage and other Brexit supporters on it. I was just on the riverbank. I had all the lenses to photograph boats, jostling in the river, but the best picture was this one of the lady with the sign. I don’t go out with an agenda, but sometimes there’s a bang: “Oh, that’s it!” Everything’s in the right place: it looks like London, you’ve got the wheel and the light and the lady, and the quizzical look from the man standing there. I …