Devolving more tax-raising powers offers a genuine opportunity to ignite healthy competition between the different parties involved in running councils.
Local members said Dewhirst’s great virtue was that he was a local, standing in his own constituency. They were “unwilling to take a punt” on an outsider.
Despite several women – including Aphra Brandreth – recently being selected, on current polling, the spectre of a shrinking female presence on the Conservative benches still looms.
Kwasi Kwarteng was informed by the Office for Budget Responsibility that the mini-Budget of Liz Truss and himself had produced a £72 billion hole in the public finances.
The effect of the train strikes on attendance, the trauma of recent years, and the change in the nature of the Tory Conference itself leave the question hanging.
On the first afternoon the Government lacked an orator who could make Conservatives feel good about being Conservative.
“I’ve already mentioned London,” says the Party Chairman. “Look at Wales. Patients almost twice as likely to be on the NHS waiting list as in England. What about Birmingham? A Council that spent time thinking up woke street names instead of looking after its finances.”
The Party Chairman on the constitutional review, membership, the coming Conservative Conference, candidate selection and Carol Vorderman’s false accusations against him, which she was compelled to retract.
Creating chaos, refusing to listen, all underpinned by the high-handed assumption that they know best: the defining characteristics of Labour in power, whether locally or nationally.
CCHQ says no, others claim yes. Either way, that Goodwin might make her claim was foreseeable, and one needs little imagination to picture the consequence.
Do not confuse the quietude on the part of Matthew Parker Street for anything more than the usual calm between election periods.
Every year of pointless delay pushes up operating costs, hobbles our exports, and lets international competitors steal the march on Britain.