He outlines the most important issues facing the country ahead of the General Election, including “the population explosion”.
Farage would be welcome on the Tory benches, and there will be no split if the Conservatives lose the next election, Francois says.
With both Labour and the Conservatives committed in practice to importing hundreds of thousands of people a year, there is scope for a minor party to harness deep public concern about the status quo.
We have become a party for whom the grotesque is the primary mode of communication. Just to reiterate, I’m not talking about policy or principle here, but a predilection for the odd and off-putting in presentation.
Doing the minimum possible on legal migration would have the unwelcome effect for the Prime Minister of prolonging and intensifying debate about it.
The Conservative MP for Bournemouth East adds that he would stay in the Conservatives if Nigel Farage became a member.
As Europe turns to the right and a Trump return looms over the White House, Britain bucks the trend by appearing to be heading for a Labour government.
He said at conference that: “I’d be very surprised if I were not Conservative leader by ‘26. Very surprised.” Even if he was joking (and he insisted he wasn’t, at first), that’s the sort of jest that’s never entirely a jest.
In only three years the former chief executive of Air New Zealand has taken the Nationals from their second-worst ever performance to more than 40 per cent of the vote.
The elephant in the room is that, unless something significant changes, it is unlikely that the Prime Minister will be able to see through any these plans.
So does Sunak, proudly smiling and clapping as the Chancellor spoke.
A friend of Michael Gove and a former Liberal Democrats, he is bidding for the Daily Telegraph and is an investor in GB News, which he hopes to see at the centre of such an election, if it happens.
There is a real possibility that major companies and civil servants will work quietly behind the scenes to clip the powers of the Data Protection Act.
It’s past time that mainstream Tory politicians recognised these realities and engaged with it as an opportunity rather than as the broadcasting equivalent of a leper colony.