Like that species of kremlinologists that I thought had disappeared with the Cold War, the commentariat has been obsessed with analysing the policy pronouncements of Mrs May’s new government and, in particular, whether they are designed to remove any vestiges of a Cameron legacy. Frankly, I doubt it, but it really is far too soon to tell.

Most exciting, or alarming – depending on your point of view, is the eleventh hour review of the EDF nuclear development at Hinkley Point. I am no expert, but if the Chinese are financing it, and French taxpayers are bearing the development risks, then why look a gift horse in the mouth?

The key question is – are we getting a good price for the electricity. The way the issue has been handled however, sends all the wrong signals to potential investors just at a critical moment when we need to be sending out a very clear message that Britain is open for business.

Our new kremlinologists detect the hand of one Nick Timothy, the Prime Minister’s former special  advisor and now her joint chief of staff. Apparently, he wrote something in the past raising questions about the national security aspects of Chinese investments in our strategic industries. Well, we will all want to know a great deal more about Mr Timothy as the PM’s new consigliere, indeed we will want to know everything that there is to know. Some will never have heard of him, others – like me, will know little more that that he sports a beard like Ivan the Terrible.

Actually, it’s complete nonsense: Nick Timothy will have no more decision making power than Larry the Downing Street cat, or any other of the PM’s familiars. Hitherto she has been renowned for running a very tight ship and all decisions will be very much her own. I am confident that her ministers will have been as surprised by the Hinkley decision as were the board of EDF and the Chinese Government.

 

I was horrified to read on Guido that George Osborne has been allocated a ‘sh*t’ room with no view to add further humiliation after the slaughter of the cameroons. I know the feeling. You should see the room I’ve been allocated.

I really don’t believe however, that that there is anything vindictive in any of this. I know the deal, I was once the accommodation whip, and the current holder of that distinguished office could not be a nicer guy.

Personally I should never complain. For three years I enjoyed the best office in Westminster – on the third floor of Number one Parliament Street, with a balcony overlooking Parliament Square, and Big Ben as my wall clock. It was the perfect venue for a party during William and Kate’s wedding. Andrew Mitchell has it now.

When you become a minister you give up your room in the Commons and instead you get allocated something more like a ‘booth’ in one of the dark and dingy ministerial corridors. Ministers have their real offices in their department of state elsewhere in Whitehall. I had the most magnificent room in the Old Admiralty building that Winston Churchill occupied from 1911-1915 when he was First Sea Lord. It’s only a week since I was purged and I miss it terribly.

The problem facing the accommodation whip is this: there is no stock of empty rooms. So, ministers that are being dismissed have to swap with those being promoted. As a general rule the ministers being dismissed are relatively senior and have correspondingly high expectations. Those being promoted to ministerial rank however, tend to be relatively junior and consequently have less desirable accommodation to give up. The only way to handle this mismatch is to allocate the choice of rooms strictly according to a rule, and that rule is in order of seniority determined by year of first election.

Ex ministers whose pride is already hurt, can be even more discombobulated when they see the quality of the accommodation that the whip has to offer, but as I used to say when I had that unenviable job: “you weren’t elected to sit in a room, but to sit in the chamber of the Commons”. I’m not sure that it cheered them up though.

I expected no quarter in the slaughter of the Cameroons, and none was given.

I have what the police refer to as “previous” when it comes to my relationship with the new Prime Minister. Ken Clark was absolutely right: she is a ‘very difficult woman’ but, as I have said in this column before, she will make a formidable PM at a time when we certainly need one. Our European partners require, once again, to benefit from the presence of a very difficult British woman.

The trickiest part of getting the sack was actually receiving the telephone call. Number 10 rang at eight on Friday evening, telling me to expect a call from the PM in twenty minutes. They then rang every half hour to apologise for the delay – until 10.30 when they announced that it would now take place on Saturday morning. Well, I had a pretty busy Saturday morning in the north end of the Forest where mobile coverage is not good. Unknown to me, unanswered calls from Number 10 were clicking through to my wife’s phone and she was texting me manically. When I finally got one of her texts, I found a spot in Nomansland where I could get a signal, phoned in to Number 10 and waited for three quarters of an hour, before I gave up and pushed on to New Milton. Eventually I got the call – and the sack – at one o’clock just as I arrived at a voluntary organisation’s summer lunch.

I have enjoyed my time as a minister and I will miss it. I will particularly miss my private office staff and the civil servants at DFID, of whom I have grown very fond. They work terribly hard, they are remarkable people who achieve extraordinary things.

Lord Digby Jones, whom Gordon Brown made a minister, described the experience as thoroughly dehumanising. As I have said, I enjoyed it and I will miss it, but think I understand what he was getting at: There were sometimes occasions when decisions were made on my patch, about which I wasn’t consulted at all, but nevertheless I was required to explain and defend them. I expect there will be plenty more of that about for ministers.

Now however, the boot will be on the other foot: I will be in the position of holding them to account. No quarter!

Last week I walked a four and a half mile section of Latchmore Brook, one of four streams to the east of Fordingbridge. It flows from its headwaters adjacent to the B3078 near Bramshaw Telegraph down to the Avon.

The Forestry Commission has just submitted a planning application to fill-in and redirect the  stream as part of the EU funded Higher Level Stewardship Scheme. I visited this much loved  part of the Forest back in 2012 after concerns were raised  about tree-felling along the stream. Since then proposals have expanded to cover the whole catchment. This now requires a full Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), which provides an opportunity for everyone to take part in the consultation process over the next 16 weeks.

I recommend that anyone with an interest in the Forest should “walk the stream” to see what a wonderful place it is already. Much of Islands Thorns inclosure is designated “ancient and ornamental woodland” with magnificent oaks and beech trees. It includes a remarkable section of stream, a highly protected “site of special geological conservation interest” with deposits set down over 40 million years ago.  Extraordinarily, it appears that this is to be infilled too.

An intervention on such a scale along miles of stream will have major impacts on the whole catchment, and many questions will need to be addressed in the EIA before decisions are taken which will change the existing habitats for the foreseeable future.  These must include  the effect of importing thousands of tonnes of hoggin and clay into the ancient stream; the impact of heavy earth moving vehicles in an environment where previous interventions have been carried out with little more than men with spades (strangely, the numerous side drains that those spades fashioned, and which prevent the trees from becoming waterlogged, are to remain);  how the ancient history,  including the largest concentration of Roman features in the whole of the New Forest  will be preserved;   and how the existing habitats for species such as the rare Southern Damselfly and Smooth Snake (for which I am the ‘species champion’) will be conserved.

Islands Thorns, Amberwood and Alderhill inclosures eventually open on to the grassland, heath and mires down to Ogdens which are already important habitats for a variety of species.  Ponies and cattle graze by the stream and on “The Shade” – the large area of open grassland. It is an iconic scene which draws many visitors, with easy access from the nearby car parks.

This is a truly remarkable landscape that is typical of the New Forest and which needs protecting and conserving. Vandalism is the word that comes to my mind. I support any move to stop these proposals, there are plenty of better ways to spend the money.

Very late one evening last week I was working alone in the House of Commons library when a colleague, whom I count as a good friend, came in and attempted to persuade me to switch my allegiance in the Tory leadership contest. At that time I was supporting Michael Gove, and he wanted me to switch to Theresa May. He was disappointed that he was unable to persuade me. Furthermore, he was unable to comprehend my preference to switch to Andrea Leadsom were Gove to be eliminated in the next ballot (which he subsequently was), notwithstanding my acceptance of all of Theresa May’s merits and that she would be a formidable prime minister.

I have read and listened to a great deal of ‘expert’ commentary and analysis explaining the ideological differences between the May and Leadsom camps, often going so far as to define them as two separate ‘tribes’. There may be a few tiny grains of truth in some of it, but – by and large – I believe that the commentators have added two and two, in order to try and make six.

Like my friend and colleague in the library, they fail to take account of what I call the random caprice of human nature, and assume that choice is rational. I come across this caprice all the time when discussing voting intentions on the doorsteps, but equally, I accept that I too am sometimes a prisoner of it.

I have known Theresa May since 1996 when I visited Germany with her on a fact finding mission prior the abandonment of the deutschmark and adoption of the euro. She has had a successful professional and political career. She has been our longest serving Home Secretary, in the department notorious for its difficulties. I have every confidence that, if elected, she will be a strong prime minister at a time when we certainly need one. I Know Theresa politically, but I do not know her personally, having never mixed in her circle and rarely met her socially.

Andrea Leadsom, by contrast, has had a much shorter political career, and I have known as a politician for a correspondingly shorter period. I know her socially however, and I count her as a friend. We have studied the Bible together, and prayed together. These relationships count for something in politics, as they do in any other walk of life. They rise above ideology, and tribal allegiance.

 

On Friday when the financial markets were in turmoil, the PM had announced that he was to resign, and a palace coup was being orchestrated against the Leader of the Opposition, I was in Ringwood unveiling a plaque at a residential care home in recognition of the its outstanding quality of care. The residents of that home are unaffected by these great national dramas: Of much greater importance to them are small acts of kindness, the gentleness with which they are treated, the respect and dignity afforded to them.  Actually, if you think about it, the same is true for us all.

After the referendum I would have thought that people would have had quite enough of it. As I write however, apparently two and a half million citizens have signed a petition demanding that it be repeated. Rather more inconveniently they have been filling my email inbox with this demand. One fellow even complained to me that he only voted ‘Leave’ because he expected ‘Remain’ to win.  Well, after years of tramping doorsteps and feeling the full range of voter caprice, I’ve heard any number of extra-ordinary  explanations for reaching a decision on how to vote, but voting for A because you expect B to win, has got to be the daftest.

Others complain that the margin of victory was too narrow and that such a momentous decision needed a more decisive mandate. It is a fair point, but you can’t change the rules after the decision has been made. It would indeed have been possible to have written such conditions into the referendum legislation beforehand but it is too late now. I would have cautioned against such provisions, after all, we tried it once before: In the first Scotland devolution referendum in 1979 the legislation required that, for an Edinburgh parliament to be implemented, the ‘yes’ campaign had not only to win, but also to secure a ‘Yes’ vote equal to not less than 40% of the registered voters on the electoral roll.  Well they won, but they failed to make the 40% rule, so they didn’t get their parliament, and I remember the deep sense of unfairness and bitterness ae a consequence. The people have voted, and however we may, or may not like the result, it is done. As the Rubaiyat says “ the moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on: nor all your piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel but half a Line, nor all your tears wash out one word of it.”

Cheer up!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The argument for leaving put simply.

We find ourselves increasingly governed by people whom we do not elect and who we cannot remove.

The European Court of Justice overturns our own laws, whilst the unelected European Commission increasingly is making laws for us to live under. In these processes the European Parliament is a white elephant. It cannot initiate legislation of its own, and it has no power over the bureaucracy, the European Commission, or the Court where real power lies.
As a consequence, we have lost control of our own borders, over who can receive benefits, and so many other aspects of our national life.
Many of our fellow countrymen accept these limitations on our democracy, and urge us to remain despite them, because they fear the economic consequences of leaving the EU. They believe we will be more prosperous if we stay.

Frankly, a nation that is prepared to give up its right to govern itself, for the sake of its prosperity, deserves to have neither.

My argument however, is that, for us in the UK, this is a false choice: we can regain our right to self-government by leaving the EU and at the same time become even more prosperous.

Far from securing prosperity for us, EU membership does not suit our economy and is making us poorer. Every year we run a substantial trade deficit with the EU. Last year that deficit was a staggering £68 billion. Our trade is predominantly with the rest of the world and it was never in our interests to have joined a club that discourages trade outside ‘Fortress Europe’. The reality is that this fortress has been crumbling for years. When we joined all those years ago, its share of the world economy was almost a third, now, notwithstanding adding 20 more members, that share of the world economy has almost halved to just 17%.
In addition, the EU’s single currency experiment has proved an unmitigated disaster. Yet those who warn us of catastrophe if we leave the EU, are the same people that told us that it would be disastrous for us if we didn’t join the single currency.

 

It is time to declare that the Emperor really is wearing no clothes, and to take back control of our country.

 I was at a public meeting in Salisbury last week when a trade unionist demanded to know in what way the rights of working people are dependent upon our membership of the EU, given that the entitlement to maternity benefits, holiday pay, sick pay, social security and unemployment benefits in UK exceed the minimum required by EU legislation?

He had answered his own question: they don’t, and to suggest otherwise is just plain wrong.
Of course, if I – as your MP – wanted to reduce your holiday entitlement, and voted to do so in Parliament, I would have to face your wrath at the next election. The problem with the EU is that the judges at the European Court and the 28 commissioners who increasingly are making our laws are not accountable to anyone: more and more, we are being governed by people who we do not elect, and who we cannot remove.

 

At a another meeting in Ringwood the following day, someone drew our attention to Anthony Bamford’s excellent letter to his JCB employees, reassuring them that their jobs were safe, and that they would prosper if we left the EU. In that letter he makes the point that when we joined the Common Market as its eighth member, it accounted for fully 31% of the world’s economic output. To-day however, with 28 members, the EU’s share of the world’s economic output has shrunk to 17%. I draw two inferences from this. First, the EU is of diminishing importance in the world economy and that if we are to prosper in the future we will have to look beyond its confines to the younger and growing markets of the future. Second, the EU is to a significant extent responsible for the diminution of its share of the world’s economy. The reality is that, far from acting to promote trade with the growing economies of the world, it acts to restrain that trade. In effect, the EU’s trading policy is one of constructing a ‘fortress Europe’ where trade between the member states within the EU is encouraged, but trade with the rest of the world is discouraged by the tariff wall that the EU has built around itself.

Where the EU has sought to make trade deals with countries beyond its own borders, it has proved extraordinarily dilatory. Canada has been trying to reach such an agreement with the EU for fully seven years. India, with a huge and lucrative potential market, waited so long for an EU agreement that it eventually gave up.

 

At a debate in Canford last Saturday the point was made that, irrespective of the undemocratic imposition on our ability to govern ourselves, membership of the EU – however frustrating – was necessary to secure our prosperity. As Anthony Bamford’s letter points out, the reverse is true: the EU is, on the contrary, holding back our prosperity. Whilst at the same ensuring that we are increasingly governed by people we do not elect and cannot remove. We can do something about that on 23rd June.

 

 

 

At public meeting in Fordingbridge last week a constituent asked me why the Vote Leave campaign had conceded the economic argument on the question of leaving the EU. I assured him that we most certainly had not. To get that impression I suspect he had just allowed himself to be overwhelmed by the vociferous chorus of academic economists, corporate bureaucrats, and politicians all warning of penury if we leave the EU.

It is difficult to stand up to this rather than accept the herd instinct and just follow along. It takes courage – or complete innocence – to point out that the Emperor is wearing no clothes. It is reassuring however, to recall that it was the very same people who warned of the desperate consequences we would face if we did not adopt the euro currency. They could not have been more wrong then, and they were wrong too when they said that we would face disaster if we left the exchange rate mechanism. They have form. They have made a habit of being wrong, and they are wrong now.

I believe that we will prosper outside the EU (the Prime Minister, not so long ago, said that we could thrive) but I don’t want to over sell the prospectus. Whether we are inside, or outside the EU, the single most important determinant of whether we prosper, is our ability to produce goods and services that other people are willing to buy at competitive prices. If we can do this we will be okay, economically at least, irrespective of whether we are in or out of the EU.

The reason I believe that we will be better off out than in, is because our ability to trade those competitive goods and services will be greater. Most of our trade has always been outside the EU but it is disadvantaged by the EU rules which encourage trade within the EU and make it more difficult to trade outside, by building a barrier around the EU in the form of a common external tariff.  Britain’s particular strength has always been in the export of services but within the EU, despite years of trying, we still do not have a single market in services. When the EU negotiates trade deals with other countries, trade in services is not its priority, in fact a third of its agreements exclude them.

As a general rule I am sceptical of the value of trade agreements. You don’t need a trade agreement to trade. We trade successfully with China, the USA and India and we don’t have trade agreements with any of them. Undoubtedly however, some agreements can give added advantages. The problem is that the EU is so monumentally bad at making them. Canada has been knocking at the door trying to make one for 7 years. India tried for so long, and eventually gave up. We would have much greater flexibility to negotiate on our own account and to our particular national interest if we set ourselves free to do so. As for the claim that, were we to leave, existing trade deals negotiated by the EU, would then exclude us, this is just nonsense and contrary to international law.

There really is no economic advantage to be had by staying in the EU. You can measure that fact by the £68 Billion trade deficit we had with the EU last year, and every year.

 

 

I haven’t said much about immigration in the EU debate. I haven’t needed to: last week’s statistics, the second highest on record, speak for themselves.  Constituents constantly express the view to me that the UK is already full, with housing and public services under considerable pressure.

The Government was successful at cutting quite dramatically the numbers of non EU immigrants during the lifetime of the last parliament, but nevertheless did not come anywhere near meeting its manifesto commitment to cut the total numbers to just tens of thousands. This cannot be achieved unless we have some control over EU migration, and we don’t have any at all. That is why the Prime Minister made such a big deal about seeking such control in his effort to re-negotiate our membership terms.

He came back virtually empty handed. What he got was not control of migrant numbers, but rather the possibility of some temporary reduction in their benefit entitlements described as an ‘emergency brake’.  The PM believes that the prospect of reduced benefit entitlement will, in turn, reduce the desire of EU migrants to move to the UK.  I just don’t believe it. They come here for jobs not for benefits. Europe is in a semi-permanent self-inflicted recession caused by its disastrous experiment with a single currency. Britain has been booming. The imperative to move to the UK to get a job is not going to diminish.

What is particularly insulting about the so called emergency brake, is that it is not under UK control. It will be operated by the EU Commission (and this was when they were attempting to persuade us to remain…just wait till they have us in the bag!)