The difference with Major and Sunak, is Major was elected and had a mandate, no one voted for Sunak and he has no mandate. He's weak, he doesn't seem to have a grip. What is better now than it was in 2010? National debt in 2010 was £800Bn its now £2,600Bn. NHS waiting lists are 8 million. Ring an ambulance and a pizza and the pizza will probably arrive first. Tax is far higher than its been since WW2 Crime is out of control, judges are being told not to jail people. Americans now think we aren't a top tier military power. The economy is in the doldrums. Nothing works in Broken Britain.
I don't understand the man doing this job at all, or politics for that matter. He is one of the 0.001% who have fantastic wealth and access. I can only think there is more to his motivations than meets the eye.
Remember his current full job title is "The First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Union, and Minister for the Civil Service and the Unelected Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" Emphasis on the unelected...
In the British parliamentary system the prime minister is never directly elected by the public. The voters elect a House of Commons. Usually, the leader of the largest part in the Commons becomes the PM: it is up to that party to choose its leader, not the general public. BTW, I don't want Mr Sunak to be PM and I'm keen to see him go.
I do not think Simon Heffer is remotely understanding the level of anger against the tories about mass immigration and the fact that the tories have quite clearly shown that they have no intention of stopping it other than idiotic fantasist nonsense about Rwanda. There is no way back for them.
The Tories are long gone. They no longer exist. The current record replacement level of "legal" immigration is punishment for Brexit voters for daring to pull us out of the dry run for unelected globalist tyranny, the entire political establishment (a handful of (genuine) Tory rebels aside) tried their best to stop Brexit. So now they are simply watering down native British votes to the point where our views are irrelevant such they can have another referendum (which won't be in Labour's manifesto) and join up to the EU again but with total integration including the Euro and all the 2030 Lisbon stuff that hands over a country's natural resources to the unelected Eurocrats - this will be in the LibDem manifesto which no-one reads but will be used as justification under the forthcoming LibLab coalition. The speed they ousted Truss and installed a WEF puppet was staggering - she had the audacity to try and actually implement a popular centre-right (unlike the party) manifesto, the manifesto that got them elected in a landslide - that will never do! All of this is a matter of political will and replacing us IS their will - all of them, they being the captured globalist political class - LibLabCon.
Lots of people are having a really hard time and the Conservative government are making no attempt to improve the lot of ordinary people. If Labour win the next election IMHO it will be a consequence of large numbers of people looking at the government and not liking the character of those in power. Party gate, PPE scandal and a raft of other acts of dishonesty, self serving behaviour, incompetence and excess deaths in the pandemic have changed the public mood.
It’s because Tories believe in trickle down. They think that tax chts to the rich will improve ordinary people’s lives - like they will get the crumbs from the table eventually
No the problem is none of the parties work for us any more. They are all orchestrated by the billionaire elite - ditto across the water. Which is why Trump and Truss were replaced by force - our unelected masters won't tolerate outbreaks of democracy.
@@OmanjackThere's a difference between social democratic capitalism and extreme capitalism which is what the Tories enjoy. Greed is Good is their mantra.
Why not? The Tories are the party of big money and the corporations have been rampant since before 1997. It was Major who signed GATT / Maastricht - Blair just happened to be assigned the role of implementing all the social liberalism that globalisation demanded
Correct. Or an independent civil service, police force and education system. It was a globalist cultural revolution that swept all - including the so called Tories with it.
I think a lot of this stems from Austerity. We were told in 2010 that we all had to tighten our belts and put up with essential public services being cut, but assured that it would be temporary and we would be back stronger as a nation. This never happened. Every single facet of British life has gotten worse, and these crooks are to blame. They couldn't organise a bumming in a barracks.
@@chaosflower4892 Very true. Our infrastructure is atrocious. Obviously foreign investment is less likely to happen when the PM changes every couple years and there’s no cohesive strategy.
Yep, the party of "personal responsibility" has spent 14 years getting their spiv mates in the City off the hook for a financial crash which cost this country £3 trillion in bailouts and lost growth. They tried to blame the doubling of the national debt on excessive spending by Labour but the truth was it was because we saved the bondholders who'd made bad bets And even now, when all their paper wealth is still propped up by our taxes, still the Tories refuse to do anything about the tax havens, the rent seeking parasites who are running our public services into the ground, the vast costs of structural unemployment / mass immigration It's almost as if they're organising some sort of collapse which is designed to leave only the super wealthy standing
20:25 There is no recession, and there isn't going to be a recession...it was announced today the last quarter of 23 the economy shrunk by 0.3% putting us in a recession.
They should have learned. But they serve a different authority to the people of our nation. If they wait until November, many won't go out to vote if the weather's bad.
Heffer spent decades, slamming Charles, as Prince. Now he's praising him, for decades of service, cool hand on the tiller, principled leadership... Someone's grovelling for a gong, I think.
He radiates corruption. Tax evading wife. India trade deal to sell out UK interests. All covid embezzlement went through him. He doesn't want it investigated, or pursued...wonder why?
@@JupiterThunderYour comment is illogical, he left school and educated himself and got to the highest public office in the land, how was that failure, he didn’t come from a privileged background but was incompetent like Johnson!!
@@JupiterThunder Left school with 'no qualifications whatsoever' (asides the three O-levels he gained) and went on to become a 'complete failure'... By ultimately becoming the Prime Minister.
Mr Heffer says the electorate have very short memories. Well mine and many others memories keep getting jogged as I walk around my city and I see the results of thirteen years of Tory gov failure everywhere I look many of whom are dressed from head to toe in black shrouds following dark looking males with beards. If the Tories wish to live in Pakistan or Africa they should move there instead of moving it here.
Don't blame the immigrants, blame those dumbass politicians from both parties for years allowing unchecked immigration and did not develop our services and housing sectors.
@@rickadkinson6539 we are all aware of that but the Tories were given an eighty seat majority on a slogan to get Brexit done and protect our borders. They did neither but on our borders they opened them wider than they have ever been in our history. I am told during the last thirteen years they have imported six million immigrants. They have excelled themselves and done more damage to our country and culture than the appalling Blair ever dreamed of. Their Rwanda nonsense is just a smokescreen a lie. Eighty seat majority gave them carte blanch to change laws close our borders and quit the ECJ.
What an excellent video, I am going to have to pay more attention to Simon Heffer. He had some great lines there too, one in particular sticks with me, 'Whatever is good for the country should be possible'. It's interesting to hear his views on some of our current crop, especially when compared to greats such as Enoch Powell and Thatcher. Either would wipe the floor with almost anyone in the HoC today.
Heffer is an idiot - he thinks the Tory party still exists. We have three globalist Social Democrat parties who work for the WEF. The last 13 years had proven that manifestos are empty words to fool people - we had a government elected by a landslide on the back of a centre-right manifesto, a government who once in power carried on being New Labour. They ramped already eye-watering immigration levels to a staggering 1%+ PA population displacement level - a deliberate policy/punishment to wipe out the power of the native Brit vote ensuring the next EU referendum (oh it's coming) goes the other way. The entire political class is captured - voting is pointless.
An interesting and insightful interview. Simon Heffer brings his historian’s trained mind to bear on the current political mess in Westminster. Very enjoyable.
He also brings a vastly complacent and blinkered set of prejudices to the matter of British politics. Apart from his vague notion of an inevitable but relatively painless Tory defeat, he's hardly foreseen a single development that's transpired this year. 🤭
Austria is about to have 48% less electricity costs than Britain. If Mr Sunak sorted the greedy opportunists in the electricity market he may just win the election if Britain's electricity prices were returned to 2020 prices instead of in the pockets of the French Insurance markets who own it.
If he had allowed fracking when he said he would, it could have come online months ago and we not not have to import natural gas, we could export it. If we did not have destructive taxes on energy production or industry, through the Climate Change Act, the cost of living would be much lower. If we did not subsidise wind and solar then our energy bills would be lower as well.
It doesn't matter what his policies are - NOBODY is going to vote for Sunak - we all know he was a plant as part of a WEF coup against Truss who was actually trying to implement a landslide-winning centre-right (unlike her party) manifesto. But then nobody is going to vote for Starmer either - however this will work against us because the LimpDumb's manifesto will no doubt call for a second EU referendum (which Labour wouldn't dare put in theirs) and the LibDems will get that as part of the deal to form the forthcoming coalition required for a majority government - and as we have been displaced by mass-immigration at a staggering rate of over 1% PA since the last referendum (intentionally to water down the native vote) it will go the other way next time - only once they've had the "right" answer it will be the last say on the matter - and of course we will join as full members - Euro and all - including the 2nd stage 2030 Lisbon stuff that hands over all member state natural resources to Brussels.
@@danielearley5062 Petrochem companies are not charities - they sell to the highest bidder. North Sea, fracking etc. will only serve a global market and not be kindly donated at cut-down costs to the local market. Shareholders for a start would not allow it.
@@rjy8960 There are four main international markets for gas, European, North American, and Central and South American. Just because there isn't an internal market for gas in the UK right now, does not mean there cannot be one. Additionally, the laws of supply and demand mean that increasing supply of a product means that the price will drop. That would be a condition for allowing fracking. That's not to mention the additional business, which shareholders will like, the jobs, which the local area will like, and additional taxes, which HMRC will like.
A very good interview with a very sound Conservative. The only thing Simon Heffer said that I really disagreed with was that the year of the last general election was "Two Thousand and Nineteen": it was "Twenty Nineteen".
I like the fact that he says there isn’t going to be a recession on Thursday. The United Kingdom entered the technical recession meaning there has been a recession.
This guy doesn't live in the real world. Does he really imagine that Tory promises would make a difference at this stage? The electorate have a short memory, as he says, but it's not THAT short. They'll remember Johnson's lies and Truss' ineptitude and vapidity for a long time. There's been a fundamental change in the British voter's perception of the Tory party imho.
Interesting listening and it is a long time since I heard a Tory talking any sense about Scotland. I visit Scotland regularly and Labour as a political force in Scotland is dead and buried. Politics in all UK is still relatively tribal and the sight of Labour in coalition with Tories to run councils in Stirling and Edinburgh sticks in my craw and anyone else I have spoken to in Scotland. Labour will not be winning the seats it needs in Scotland to get a landslide majority at Westminster, and while they might win more than the one seat they currently hold I would be astonished if they win more than a handful. Intelligence, ideology and purpose is also a good title to introduce the problem with the political class. University followed by working as a political assistant for an MP before becoming an MP is no substitute for having a proper job before entering politics. My local MP is a Tory who was an army officer before entering politics and he has shown undoubted expertise as a junior Defence Minister, even if I disagree with him on almost everything else.
I think Callaghan was the last PM to see active service. Other jobs are also valuable experience. I agree on the need for MPs to have proper jobs, a PPE degree doesn't cut it, on its own.
What a shame, as a vote for the SNP, is a vote for the Tory party in a two party system and has basically split the left vote in the UK, allowing the Tories to devastate the countries of the Union for the last 14 years.
@@dovesk1 The Labour Party is basically dead in Scotland and has been for many years, even before the Tories returned to power in 2010. Look at politicians like Mhairi Black and Stephen Flynn, they are basically the people who would have joined the Labour party in a previous generation. Present day Labour has even joined in coalition with the Tories on Stirling and Edinburgh councils. No chance that anyone in Scotland still regards Labour as a left-leaning party.
What tosh regarding SNP voters. There is no more 'tribal' a vote than the Tory vote. And the notion that SNP voters 'particularly hate the English' is offensive, condescending and a convenient way to demean a legitimate alternative - more Tory traits.
@@masoodahmed2041 I used to like him and although he speaks a lot of sense he's not what I thought he was. Nowhere near as good as Peter Hitchens. He doesn't understand how radical Blair was and Starmer would be, and he never said anything against the lockdowns at the time. He also doesn't realise that Cameron was one of the reasons why the Conservative Party has become so liberal.
37:00 >> I’m often incredulous about how little some of today’s politicians seem understand about delivering something in the real world. The idea of UKCA being a case in point.
Complete stupidity. How long would it take to craft a completely new set of all -encompassing standards to cover all of the exiting EU (a lot transposed from UK legislation) essential requirements and standards only to act as a further barrier to trade with the UK? The only reasoning for it as I see it was to allow us to lower our standards and allow products that do not conform with current EU standards into the UK market. That would go down from a consumer and trade position to the EU like a lead balloon.
@@rjy8960 Exactly. All the EU standards are *minimum* standards, that any member has always been free to exceed. The only reason Tories would ever want to change them, is to reduce standards.
It’s difficult to think why anyone would vote Tory or Labour. But it’s up to other parties to state their claim if the much needed change is to come. As it is, most folks will probably stay home or vote for either of the aforementioned to try and stop its main opponent winning… carpe diem!
Heffer is talking crap. I live in South Wales. I was diagnosed with a complex hernia in November '22 saw a consultant within two weeks, underwent open abdominal surgery in August'23. I can generally get a GP appointment within a day (on the day if I call early enough). Yes some surgery will take longer depending on the type, but most straight forward operations are quicker than England.
I'm afraid I don't buy the criticism of Labour in Wales - the country has seen a massive ingress of older English people who retire there and a flight of younger people. Schools are closing, and there are whole communities that have never recovered from the closure of the coal mines - no industry replaced them. Wales has crippling health and care costs and not enough taxpayers to cover the expenditure. The only way to resolve this is to stop paying for the care of old people - would a Tory government do that?
It's a very conceited middle class London view that the SNP core vote is based on simple hatred of the English. Do the English hate European Union countries and was it that made Brexit possible? It's more about wanting to control your own economy, countries / regions / communities rarely benefit from giving up political control to a disconnected third party .
The idea that the hospitals in Wales, tfl, and knife crime in London aren't the effects of Tory austerity is bizarre double think. The Tories weaponise budgets against anyone that wants a better country.
I agree with placing VAT on school fees. A first step to abolishing private schools which give unfair advantage and cause society division. Same with private medicine.Yes it is very much a class war and time to shift the balance in favour of average working and lower middle class people. Kemi Badenoch would be a disaster. She is extreme right wing. And The Monarchy is a throwback to a feudal age of unfair priviledge and wealth which has no place in our modern world.
The problem with Badenoch isn't (just) her politics, which would probably morph into whatever she thought expedient on the day, but the fact she's thick as mince, lazy as a slug, doesn't read her briefs, yet has the absolute arrogance that she's the most intelligent and experienced person in the room. A walking example of the Dunning-Krueger Effect.
As Simon Heffer sais, the conservatives do not have any ideology, well what is left in the way of rational for this flacid thinking? The economics I was so blithely taught in the 1980s which fed conservative thinking is largely debased now. I feel events have left conservative historians behind, the next election is going to be Tories vs everyone else who cares what sort of Britain we live in. I used to admire Mr Heffer, perhaps I still like his mild manner. Feel sorry for what has been lost in the party because of populism.
I'm not a Telegraph reader or Tory supporter so it would be churlish to pick at Simon Heffer's view except he is wrong on the economic outlook. Recession is here and UK business conditions will become harsher as 2024 goes on.
He's a Thatcherite... they just can't accept that its neoliberalism which has brought us to this point. Right wing Tories can moan all they want about Blairism - they were the ones who signed GATT, Maastricht etc. They've always imported more immigrants than Labour (look at the 1950s), their friends in the investment banks were always behind the equalities agenda, women in the work place etc.
pish, wrong on just about every point. I'll be buggered if I'm gonna hang around to listen to any more of this nonsense. Cameron was never a centrist. A party that allied itself with AfD and Front Nationale can NEVER be centrist. David Cameron is about as centrist as I am a tortoise!!! Byeeeee
Voting for Starmer is a vote for no change. He's just a Tory in a pale Labour suit. Wealth is created by manufacturing and trading. Having left the EU we have no one to trade with and having given up manufacturing in the UK in favour of importing from China we have no way of creating wealth. Public services must be cut to balance the income from taxation and taxation must increase to provide funding for essential public services. There is no way this economic decline, that began in the 1980s, can be turned around in four years or maybe forty years. A Starmer goverment will lead to a disappointing four years followed by another 20 years of Tory incompetence.
The tragedy is that the alternative is even worse than those deposed. Britain is lost unless they elect candidates from something like the Reclaim Party.
In a democracy the people get the government they deserve, as they voted in the representatives. The citizens of the UK must stand before a mirror and state: "we have met the enemy, and it is us."
Very interesting interview. History, assuming it is objective, does matter. I agree that the Tories have been hopeless, but equally, I don't see how Labour can get us out of this level of debt and stagnation.
Halting the daily embezzlement of public funds, and jailing the perpetrators, and seizing their assets, under the Proceeds Of Crime Act would make a start. Anyone know of an experienced prosecuting lawyer, who heads a political party, by any chance?
Apparently during what Mel Brooks would call "the bunker scene", a certain German chancellor could be overheard ranting that Neville Chamberlain's concessions at Munich were all a plot, a case of Perfidious Albion delaying the war so they could build up the RAF in order to win it when the time came. So according to him, Chamberlain was the guy won the war! (Then this same commentator poisoned his dog and shot himself.)
In 1917 the UK's defense budget was 50% of GDP. Does Simon Heffer propose that Churchill should have kept it there instead of tapering off to 2% by 1930?
It's always the ones who look like they were picked last during PE class, who want conscription, national service, and endless war preparations. For other people, of course. Him and Mark Francois could make a side hustle, cosplaying live action versions of Penfold from Dangermouse.
It seems to me there is little difference between any of the parties (Lib, Lab, Con) who are more interested in sucking up to those in the World Economic Forum, WEF and intoducing laws to satisfy the WEF rather than protecting the citizens of this country.
@@elvishprincess321 Loading up offshore bank accounts with money looted from the public purse in unfunded tax giveaways whilst public finances are in freefall is just plain stupid. Not even the markets, never ones to look a gift-horse from their pals in government in the mouth, recoiled in horror. Its was a moronic policy implemented by a moron.
Just when this guy says something that seems to make sense, he comes out with a manifest lie about Brexit, or praises Badenoch. And he will still vote Tory ... luckily, his generation will be the last to do so, and the Tories will hopefully never be in power again.
The difference with Major and Sunak, is Major was elected and had a mandate, no one voted for Sunak and he has no mandate.
He's weak, he doesn't seem to have a grip.
What is better now than it was in 2010?
National debt in 2010 was £800Bn its now £2,600Bn.
NHS waiting lists are 8 million.
Ring an ambulance and a pizza and the pizza will probably arrive first.
Tax is far higher than its been since WW2
Crime is out of control, judges are being told not to jail people.
Americans now think we aren't a top tier military power.
The economy is in the doldrums.
Nothing works in Broken Britain.
We don't elect Prime Ministers.
We didn’t vote for Sunak and we don’t want him
I don't understand the man doing this job at all, or politics for that matter. He is one of the 0.001% who have fantastic wealth and access. I can only think there is more to his motivations than meets the eye.
shame for those who voted for Boris the Clown
@@jumblestiltskin1365 a trade deal with India is imminent I hear.
Remember his current full job title is
"The First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Union, and Minister for the Civil Service and the Unelected Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland"
Emphasis on the unelected...
In the British parliamentary system the prime minister is never directly elected by the public. The voters elect a House of Commons. Usually, the leader of the largest part in the Commons becomes the PM: it is up to that party to choose its leader, not the general public. BTW, I don't want Mr Sunak to be PM and I'm keen to see him go.
I do not think Simon Heffer is remotely understanding the level of anger against the tories about mass immigration and the fact that the tories have quite clearly shown that they have no intention of stopping it other than idiotic fantasist nonsense about Rwanda. There is no way back for them.
There is no love for Labour I think the tory voters will opt for Reform or stay at home which will hand the election by default to the socialists
The Tories are long gone. They no longer exist. The current record replacement level of "legal" immigration is punishment for Brexit voters for daring to pull us out of the dry run for unelected globalist tyranny, the entire political establishment (a handful of (genuine) Tory rebels aside) tried their best to stop Brexit. So now they are simply watering down native British votes to the point where our views are irrelevant such they can have another referendum (which won't be in Labour's manifesto) and join up to the EU again but with total integration including the Euro and all the 2030 Lisbon stuff that hands over a country's natural resources to the unelected Eurocrats - this will be in the LibDem manifesto which no-one reads but will be used as justification under the forthcoming LibLab coalition. The speed they ousted Truss and installed a WEF puppet was staggering - she had the audacity to try and actually implement a popular centre-right (unlike the party) manifesto, the manifesto that got them elected in a landslide - that will never do! All of this is a matter of political will and replacing us IS their will - all of them, they being the captured globalist political class - LibLabCon.
it didnt start under the tories, bliar started this crap, free votes for the woakes
OK, but why default to the morally and economically bankrupt Labour Party, which started the problem in the first place, and will be just as bad?
@@kamapublishing9949vote reform
Lots of people are having a really hard time and the Conservative government are making no attempt to improve the lot of ordinary people.
If Labour win the next election IMHO it will be a consequence of large numbers of people looking at the government and not liking the character of those in power. Party gate, PPE scandal and a raft of other acts of dishonesty, self serving behaviour, incompetence and excess deaths in the pandemic have changed the public mood.
It’s because Tories believe in trickle down. They think that tax chts to the rich will improve ordinary people’s lives - like they will get the crumbs from the table eventually
Problem is their fundamental values. Relying on greed and self interest to drive the economy is hopeless.
No the problem is none of the parties work for us any more. They are all orchestrated by the billionaire elite - ditto across the water. Which is why Trump and Truss were replaced by force - our unelected masters won't tolerate outbreaks of democracy.
That's literally the basis of a capitalist democracy though. That is modern conservativism.
@@OmanjackThere's a difference between social democratic capitalism and extreme capitalism which is what the Tories enjoy. Greed is Good is their mantra.
He's wrong about King Charles, every time he opens his mouth he alienates me further.
Same, he is a vapid apologist and maniac.
All roads lead to 1997. There hasn’t been a Conservative party since then.
Why not? The Tories are the party of big money and the corporations have been rampant since before 1997. It was Major who signed GATT / Maastricht - Blair just happened to be assigned the role of implementing all the social liberalism that globalisation demanded
Correct. Or an independent civil service, police force and education system. It was a globalist cultural revolution that swept all - including the so called Tories with it.
It started in 1970 and that includes Margaret Thatcher.
Tony Blair should be locked up for the rest of his life after the harm he has done the British Isles
I think a lot of this stems from Austerity. We were told in 2010 that we all had to tighten our belts and put up with essential public services being cut, but assured that it would be temporary and we would be back stronger as a nation. This never happened. Every single facet of British life has gotten worse, and these crooks are to blame. They couldn't organise a bumming in a barracks.
we barely make anything...
we can't even build a tunnel or railway...
@@chaosflower4892 Very true. Our infrastructure is atrocious. Obviously foreign investment is less likely to happen when the PM changes every couple years and there’s no cohesive strategy.
@@chaosflower4892 Because of Tory deindustrialisation and the spiv casino economy
Yep, the party of "personal responsibility" has spent 14 years getting their spiv mates in the City off the hook for a financial crash which cost this country £3 trillion in bailouts and lost growth. They tried to blame the doubling of the national debt on excessive spending by Labour but the truth was it was because we saved the bondholders who'd made bad bets
And even now, when all their paper wealth is still propped up by our taxes, still the Tories refuse to do anything about the tax havens, the rent seeking parasites who are running our public services into the ground, the vast costs of structural unemployment / mass immigration
It's almost as if they're organising some sort of collapse which is designed to leave only the super wealthy standing
Every country should "mind their own business". Wish they would then... Imagine.@@chaosflower4892
20:25 There is no recession, and there isn't going to be a recession...it was announced today the last quarter of 23 the economy shrunk by 0.3% putting us in a recession.
They should have learned. But they serve a different authority to the people of our nation.
If they wait until November, many won't go out to vote if the weather's bad.
That's what they hope for. Because the Tories benefit from a low turnout.
Heffer spent decades, slamming Charles, as Prince.
Now he's praising him, for decades of service, cool hand on the tiller, principled leadership...
Someone's grovelling for a gong, I think.
'Sunak doesn't radiate incompetence'. Must be a different Sunak I've been watching!
Johnson and Truss do radiate incompetence for sure
He radiates corruption.
Tax evading wife.
India trade deal to sell out UK interests.
All covid embezzlement went through him.
He doesn't want it investigated, or pursued...wonder why?
He radiates the effortless superiority one might expect from a former Head Boy of Winchester College.
I gave up when he said how capable Blair is! Capable of destruction of Britain?
I suppose capability doesn't pick sides,only results.
They're all Blairs now.
Not anything just careerists@@LondonSteveLee
@@MikeNewland They are all complicit in what's going on - there is little to no resistance amongst the political elite of any stripe.
@@MikeNewland Just following orders? Where have I heard that before?
Good to see John Major being called out for the weakling and incompetent that he was.
Not according to Edwina Currie 😮
2016 and he popped back up and as not gone away again since
John Major used to be a circus clown before going in to politics. He left school with no qualifications whatsoever, a complete failure.
@@JupiterThunderYour comment is illogical, he left school and educated himself and got to the highest public office in the land, how was that failure, he didn’t come from a privileged background but was incompetent like Johnson!!
@@JupiterThunder Left school with 'no qualifications whatsoever' (asides the three O-levels he gained) and went on to become a 'complete failure'... By ultimately becoming the Prime Minister.
Mr Heffer says the electorate have very short memories. Well mine and many others memories keep getting jogged as I walk around my city and I see the results of thirteen years of Tory gov failure everywhere I look many of whom are dressed from head to toe in black shrouds following dark looking males with beards. If the Tories wish to live in Pakistan or Africa they should move there instead of moving it here.
Don't blame the immigrants, blame those dumbass politicians from both parties for years allowing unchecked immigration and did not develop our services and housing sectors.
It's terribly sad to see how delusional he has become in his support even now, for Sunak and the Conservatives.
It's been happening over many decades, NOT the last 13 years.
@@rickadkinson6539 Very true.
@@rickadkinson6539 we are all aware of that but the Tories were given an eighty seat majority on a slogan to get Brexit done and protect our borders. They did neither but on our borders they opened them wider than they have ever been in our history. I am told during the last thirteen years they have imported six million immigrants. They have excelled themselves and done more damage to our country and culture than the appalling Blair ever dreamed of. Their Rwanda nonsense is just a smokescreen a lie. Eighty seat majority gave them carte blanch to change laws close our borders and quit the ECJ.
What an excellent video, I am going to have to pay more attention to Simon Heffer. He had some great lines there too, one in particular sticks with me, 'Whatever is good for the country should be possible'. It's interesting to hear his views on some of our current crop, especially when compared to greats such as Enoch Powell and Thatcher. Either would wipe the floor with almost anyone in the HoC today.
Enoch Powell and Thatcher great? Jesus wept.....
Heffer is an idiot - he thinks the Tory party still exists. We have three globalist Social Democrat parties who work for the WEF. The last 13 years had proven that manifestos are empty words to fool people - we had a government elected by a landslide on the back of a centre-right manifesto, a government who once in power carried on being New Labour. They ramped already eye-watering immigration levels to a staggering 1%+ PA population displacement level - a deliberate policy/punishment to wipe out the power of the native Brit vote ensuring the next EU referendum (oh it's coming) goes the other way. The entire political class is captured - voting is pointless.
@@billyb6043 The definition of great is not "someone I agree with or whose politics I like".
An interesting and insightful interview. Simon Heffer brings his historian’s trained mind to bear on the current political mess in Westminster. Very enjoyable.
He also brings a vastly complacent and blinkered set of prejudices to the matter of British politics. Apart from his vague notion of an inevitable but relatively painless Tory defeat, he's hardly foreseen a single development that's transpired this year. 🤭
The winner, this time, is going to be abstention, None of the Above.
Austria is about to have 48% less electricity costs than Britain. If Mr Sunak sorted the greedy opportunists in the electricity market he may just win the election if Britain's electricity prices were returned to 2020 prices instead of in the pockets of the French Insurance markets who own it.
But his & other MP's shares would go down
If he had allowed fracking when he said he would, it could have come online months ago and we not not have to import natural gas, we could export it. If we did not have destructive taxes on energy production or industry, through the Climate Change Act, the cost of living would be much lower. If we did not subsidise wind and solar then our energy bills would be lower as well.
It doesn't matter what his policies are - NOBODY is going to vote for Sunak - we all know he was a plant as part of a WEF coup against Truss who was actually trying to implement a landslide-winning centre-right (unlike her party) manifesto. But then nobody is going to vote for Starmer either - however this will work against us because the LimpDumb's manifesto will no doubt call for a second EU referendum (which Labour wouldn't dare put in theirs) and the LibDems will get that as part of the deal to form the forthcoming coalition required for a majority government - and as we have been displaced by mass-immigration at a staggering rate of over 1% PA since the last referendum (intentionally to water down the native vote) it will go the other way next time - only once they've had the "right" answer it will be the last say on the matter - and of course we will join as full members - Euro and all - including the 2nd stage 2030 Lisbon stuff that hands over all member state natural resources to Brussels.
@@danielearley5062 Petrochem companies are not charities - they sell to the highest bidder. North Sea, fracking etc. will only serve a global market and not be kindly donated at cut-down costs to the local market. Shareholders for a start would not allow it.
@@rjy8960 There are four main international markets for gas, European, North American, and Central and South American. Just because there isn't an internal market for gas in the UK right now, does not mean there cannot be one. Additionally, the laws of supply and demand mean that increasing supply of a product means that the price will drop. That would be a condition for allowing fracking. That's not to mention the additional business, which shareholders will like, the jobs, which the local area will like, and additional taxes, which HMRC will like.
This guys a fool if he thinks Sunak isn't dishonest. The guys a career liar.
Simon Heffer is part of the problem he is so remote from what the country is thinking he’s option is irreverent ……. He sings to his masters
20:26 "There is no recession, there isn't going to be a recession, let's forget that" ....Really?
Just about sums up the 'wisdom' of Heffer
Many of Simon's critiques seem very out-of-date.
Love to hear Simon. Refreshingly honest and blunt.
Totally tribally and myopically Tory. 😮😏
Always fun to hear some Telegraph delusions
What are the delusions?
Labour in 1997 opened the floodgates of migration and they've never been closed.
?
@@joemulhall5202 ?
A very good interview with a very sound Conservative. The only thing Simon Heffer said that I really disagreed with was that the year of the last general election was "Two Thousand and Nineteen": it was "Twenty Nineteen".
a handful of extremists? try visiting a university ... and I dont mean the students!
What nonsense. Just a random remark.
Yes, it's shocking just how chock-full of radicals unis are now. All with joke PhDs, spouting nonsense views that would make a flat earther blush.
I like the fact that he says there isn’t going to be a recession on Thursday. The United Kingdom entered the technical recession meaning there has been a recession.
Enjoyed this frank conversation of some of the failings of our politicians and how unfit they are to hold office.
Excellent interview..
This guy doesn't live in the real world. Does he really imagine that Tory promises would make a difference at this stage? The electorate have a short memory, as he says, but it's not THAT short. They'll remember Johnson's lies and Truss' ineptitude and vapidity for a long time.
There's been a fundamental change in the British voter's perception of the Tory party imho.
Steven clearly enjoyed that interview. It was a pleasure to watch, as well.
I don’t get why Fox hunting is a left right thing. I don’t see how thats a bone to the left.
Many rightish people opposed fox hunting.
Interesting listening and it is a long time since I heard a Tory talking any sense about Scotland. I visit Scotland regularly and Labour as a political force in Scotland is dead and buried. Politics in all UK is still relatively tribal and the sight of Labour in coalition with Tories to run councils in Stirling and Edinburgh sticks in my craw and anyone else I have spoken to in Scotland. Labour will not be winning the seats it needs in Scotland to get a landslide majority at Westminster, and while they might win more than the one seat they currently hold I would be astonished if they win more than a handful.
Intelligence, ideology and purpose is also a good title to introduce the problem with the political class. University followed by working as a political assistant for an MP before becoming an MP is no substitute for having a proper job before entering politics. My local MP is a Tory who was an army officer before entering politics and he has shown undoubted expertise as a junior Defence Minister, even if I disagree with him on almost everything else.
I think Callaghan was the last PM to see active service.
Other jobs are also valuable experience.
I agree on the need for MPs to have proper jobs, a PPE degree doesn't cut it, on its own.
What a shame, as a vote for the SNP, is a vote for the Tory party in a two party system and has basically split the left vote in the UK, allowing the Tories to devastate the countries of the Union for the last 14 years.
@@dovesk1 The Labour Party is basically dead in Scotland and has been for many years, even before the Tories returned to power in 2010. Look at politicians like Mhairi Black and Stephen Flynn, they are basically the people who would have joined the Labour party in a previous generation. Present day Labour has even joined in coalition with the Tories on Stirling and Edinburgh councils. No chance that anyone in Scotland still regards Labour as a left-leaning party.
What tosh regarding SNP voters.
There is no more 'tribal' a vote than the Tory vote.
And the notion that SNP voters 'particularly hate the English' is offensive, condescending and a convenient way to demean a legitimate alternative - more Tory traits.
nice long interview! thanks
Excellent interview. Simon Heffer's historical insights are fascinating and thought provoking.
The journalist is very well spoken and extremely knowledgeable in history and politics. A very highly educated and well read man.
Steven Edgington is excellent.
These are right wing hacks who are out of touch with the UK public.
I agree Heffer is an incredible journalist a political heavyweight which very few people realise, another one is Peter Osborne.
@@masoodahmed2041 I used to like him and although he speaks a lot of sense he's not what I thought he was. Nowhere near as good as Peter Hitchens. He doesn't understand how radical Blair was and Starmer would be, and he never said anything against the lockdowns at the time. He also doesn't realise that Cameron was one of the reasons why the Conservative Party has become so liberal.
37:00 >> I’m often incredulous about how little some of today’s politicians seem understand about delivering something in the real world. The idea of UKCA being a case in point.
Complete stupidity. How long would it take to craft a completely new set of all -encompassing standards to cover all of the exiting EU (a lot transposed from UK legislation) essential requirements and standards only to act as a further barrier to trade with the UK? The only reasoning for it as I see it was to allow us to lower our standards and allow products that do not conform with current EU standards into the UK market. That would go down from a consumer and trade position to the EU like a lead balloon.
@@rjy8960
Exactly.
All the EU standards are *minimum* standards, that any member has always been free to exceed.
The only reason Tories would ever want to change them, is to reduce standards.
Love listening to Simon Heffer - almost like having a mini history lesson!
It’s difficult to think why anyone would vote Tory or Labour. But it’s up to other parties to state their claim if the much needed change is to come. As it is, most folks will probably stay home or vote for either of the aforementioned to try and stop its main opponent winning… carpe diem!
Heffer is talking crap. I live in South Wales. I was diagnosed with a complex hernia in November '22 saw a consultant within two weeks, underwent open abdominal surgery in August'23. I can generally get a GP appointment within a day (on the day if I call early enough).
Yes some surgery will take longer depending on the type, but most straight forward operations are quicker than England.
Nearly 23 minutes in before a mention of the pandemic. Will he mention the 70 000 excess deaths in 2023?
Painful listen this, the telegraph are worse than the express nowadays, genuine extremists.
I'm afraid I don't buy the criticism of Labour in Wales - the country has seen a massive ingress of older English people who retire there and a flight of younger people. Schools are closing, and there are whole communities that have never recovered from the closure of the coal mines - no industry replaced them. Wales has crippling health and care costs and not enough taxpayers to cover the expenditure. The only way to resolve this is to stop paying for the care of old people - would a Tory government do that?
Yes- Yes they would!
Much i disagreed with here, much i agreed with. An interesting conversation. Cheers for doing it.
Wonder if Mr Heffer might ever consider giving a tour of his book shelves. That would be some #booktube video(s), and a (proverbial) half, hey?!!
It's a very conceited middle class London view that the SNP core vote is based on simple hatred of the English. Do the English hate European Union countries and was it that made Brexit possible? It's more about wanting to control your own economy, countries / regions / communities rarely benefit from giving up political control to a disconnected third party .
It's true. Half my family come from there.
We've heard what SNP supporters say about the English, and we've heard what Brexiteers said about Poles and Romanians.
His thoughts on Fishi Sunak don't chime with the consensus...
This guy does great interviews....deserves the best jobs
YEAH. I THINK I'LL GO AND READ SIMON HEFFER... ON THE VERANDAH.
Great interview Stephen, with a sagacious commentator.
I agree that the Tories are thick. Sadly, the only thing that will change with Labour is that the average IQ will drop 20 points.
Must be the fight against elitism.
Agreed, whatever Heffer thinks about the Tory deficiencies, the Labour party cabinet incoming is going to make it look intellectually stellar.
@@jumblestiltskin1365
They won't have such intellectual powerhouses as Nadine Dorries or James Cleverly, that's for sure.
He is so good! Very clear and so true. On the quality of our recent PMs and MPs…This is excellent!
Did they discuss Brexit?
22:17 - he still 'passionately' believes in his little pet project - despite the evidence
@@bbbf09 I must have switched off by then. i was amazed how they were already blaming the Labour Party for perceived future failures in government.
The idea that the hospitals in Wales, tfl, and knife crime in London aren't the effects of Tory austerity is bizarre double think. The Tories weaponise budgets against anyone that wants a better country.
Voting for Kemi Badenoch is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Like slamming your testicles in the deckchairs on the Titanic.
Super interview. Very impressed with Stuart.
I agree with placing VAT on school fees. A first step to abolishing private schools which give unfair advantage and cause society division. Same with private medicine.Yes it is very much a class war and time to shift the balance in favour of average working and lower middle class people. Kemi Badenoch would be a disaster. She is extreme right wing. And The Monarchy is a throwback to a feudal age of unfair priviledge and wealth which has no place in our modern world.
The problem with Badenoch isn't (just) her politics, which would probably morph into whatever she thought expedient on the day, but the fact she's thick as mince, lazy as a slug, doesn't read her briefs, yet has the absolute arrogance that she's the most intelligent and experienced person in the room.
A walking example of the Dunning-Krueger Effect.
As Simon Heffer sais, the conservatives do not have any ideology, well what is left in the way of rational for this flacid thinking? The economics I was so blithely taught in the 1980s which fed conservative thinking is largely debased now. I feel events have left conservative historians behind, the next election is going to be Tories vs everyone else who cares what sort of Britain we live in. I used to admire Mr Heffer, perhaps I still like his mild manner. Feel sorry for what has been lost in the party because of populism.
Interesting talk
I doubt austerity impacted Simon Heffer the same way it impacted my community.
We will always support this channel. They're always one of the best.
I'm so glad he didn't think Stalin and Mau weren't genocidal maniacs.
I'm not a Telegraph reader or Tory supporter so it would be churlish to pick at Simon Heffer's view except he is wrong on the economic outlook. Recession is here and UK business conditions will become harsher as 2024 goes on.
He's a Thatcherite... they just can't accept that its neoliberalism which has brought us to this point. Right wing Tories can moan all they want about Blairism - they were the ones who signed GATT, Maastricht etc. They've always imported more immigrants than Labour (look at the 1950s), their friends in the investment banks were always behind the equalities agenda, women in the work place etc.
I'm not a Telegraph reader and I know why now.
pish, wrong on just about every point. I'll be buggered if I'm gonna hang around to listen to any more of this nonsense. Cameron was never a centrist. A party that allied itself with AfD and Front Nationale can NEVER be centrist. David Cameron is about as centrist as I am a tortoise!!! Byeeeee
Simon Heffer is clearly suffering from Turning-into-Edward-Heath Syndrome. Yes.
Voting for Starmer is a vote for no change. He's just a Tory in a pale Labour suit. Wealth is created by manufacturing and trading. Having left the EU we have no one to trade with and having given up manufacturing in the UK in favour of importing from China we have no way of creating wealth. Public services must be cut to balance the income from taxation and taxation must increase to provide funding for essential public services. There is no way this economic decline, that began in the 1980s, can be turned around in four years or maybe forty years. A Starmer goverment will lead to a disappointing four years followed by another 20 years of Tory incompetence.
Karma for the Tories
Only clowns participate in the red/blue team pantomime.
I guess it's possible we could build a million houses by November
“Not enough idiots”, he got that right.
Superb analysis.
Simon Heffer is indeed very fortunate to have Kemi Badenoch as his MP. I have Hunt.
The tragedy is that the alternative is even worse than those deposed. Britain is lost unless they elect candidates from something like the Reclaim Party.
And even then, Reclaim is controlled opposition. Voting is IRRELEVANT.
@@bewilderedbrit8928 Is that why Andrew Bridgen didn't stick with them?
In a democracy the people get the government they deserve, as they voted in the representatives. The citizens of the UK must stand before a mirror and state: "we have met the enemy, and it is us."
Reform is essentially the only option now
Very interesting interview. History, assuming it is objective, does matter. I agree that the Tories have been hopeless, but equally, I don't see how Labour can get us out of this level of debt and stagnation.
Impossible for Labour because so much damage has been done.
Halting the daily embezzlement of public funds, and jailing the perpetrators, and seizing their assets, under the Proceeds Of Crime Act would make a start.
Anyone know of an experienced prosecuting lawyer, who heads a political party, by any chance?
Investment buddy, something this current generation of Conservatives doesn't understand. That's where their shortcomings lay.
Scottish people don't hate the English.
😂😂😂😂😂😂lol
A lot of them do.
Found the section about chamberlain enlightening, I'd not considered the point of view before that Heffer makes on the 1938 decisions.
Apparently during what Mel Brooks would call "the bunker scene", a certain German chancellor could be overheard ranting that Neville Chamberlain's concessions at Munich were all a plot, a case of Perfidious Albion delaying the war so they could build up the RAF in order to win it when the time came. So according to him, Chamberlain was the guy won the war! (Then this same commentator poisoned his dog and shot himself.)
A Telegraph "journalist" interviewing another Telegraph journalist 😂 😂
Simon could be right.
'Most men'..... Don't menstruate?!?!?? None do
In 1917 the UK's defense budget was 50% of GDP. Does Simon Heffer propose that Churchill should have kept it there instead of tapering off to 2% by 1930?
Where is that information from
It's always the ones who look like they were picked last during PE class, who want conscription, national service, and endless war preparations.
For other people, of course.
Him and Mark Francois could make a side hustle, cosplaying live action versions of Penfold from Dangermouse.
It seems to me there is little difference between any of the parties (Lib, Lab, Con) who are more interested in sucking up to those in the World Economic Forum, WEF and intoducing laws to satisfy the WEF rather than protecting the citizens of this country.
Terrible sound. Simon Heffer practically inaudible. A real shame as this is a valuable discussion.
It's because of his weight, he runs out of breath a lot. I noticed also.
Yo Bill Gates is huge!
Liz truss would not of got my vote but she didn't even get a chance
Her ideas were correct she just didn't have the ability to pull them off competently.
@@elvishprincess321 Loading up offshore bank accounts with money looted from the public purse in unfunded tax giveaways whilst public finances are in freefall is just plain stupid. Not even the markets, never ones to look a gift-horse from their pals in government in the mouth, recoiled in horror. Its was a moronic policy implemented by a moron.
She had her chance. She wiped £30 billion off the economy in one day.
"not of got" 🤔
Dear oh dear. This guy is out of touch with reality
After watching this interview, I have a feeling that the times wish that they never put this person on
"There weren't enough idiots so he [Cameron] put some of those on his A-list as well." Classic Heffer and dead right.
Just when this guy says something that seems to make sense, he comes out with a manifest lie about Brexit, or praises Badenoch. And he will still vote Tory ... luckily, his generation will be the last to do so, and the Tories will hopefully never be in power again.
There is a recession now
Like all good interviews , I now have a couple of books to read.
Heffer makes some true points but he still has not overcome his classical Tory prejudices.
Kemi is first rate 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
A first rate example of the Dunning Krueger Effect.
Chamberlain had to avoid war as long as he could to allow the build-up of the British military
Great interview
Cons, Labour. No difference between the pair of them anymore. It's vote for a further kicking or vote for a right good drubbing.