Isabel Oakeshott & Richard Tice Get an Earful from Lord Heseltine

Jul 31, 2024

It’s a pity that greenhorns like Isabel Oakshott and Richard Tice don’t listen to Lord Heseltine’s words of wisdom. Lord Heseltine was one of the very best Tories ever! And he’s a Welshman. We wouldn’t be in the mess we are in today if people had listened to the likes of Lord Heseltine instead of listening to the cowboys and cowgirls in politics and journalism! – © Mark Alexander

Boris Johnson’s Legacy? He Has Ruined Britain’s Place in the World

THE OBSERVER – OPINION: The former PM’s insistence to ‘Get Brexit Done’ is the biggest historic mistake this country has made in peacetime

‘Moral bankruptcy’ – Johnson according to Max Hastings, his former editor at the Daily Telegraph. Photograph: Andrew Boyers/PA
As a master of public manipulation, Boris Johnson has few equals. His resignation has all the characteristics of a disaster turned into an opportunity. For weeks now, an all-party committee of the House of Commons has been crawling over the evidence of his behaviour behind closed doors when the rest of us were locked down. This report appears to have confirmed his worst fears. A suspension from the House of Commons, a recall petition from constituents, a difficult byelection and political humiliation.

Most of us would have cowered at the prospect. But with one spectacular coup de théâtre, he was free. The Commons report could hardly recommend a 10-day suspension for an MP who had already gone. The debate would no longer focus on whether he did or did not lie to the Commons. It would become centred on Boris and his future. » | Michael Heseltine | Sunday, June 11, 2023

There is no need to mourn the departure of this clown. The country is well rid of him. He has done immense damage to this country. The UK's reputation in the world has taken a huge hit directly as a result of him and his self-centred actions. To say nothing of millions of people losing their European citizenship merely to get BoJo the keys to Number 10.

That he has lost his political career should give all Remainers a strong sense of schadenfreude. BoJo has had his comeuppance. Praise ye the Lord! – © Mark Alexander

Farewell, Boris Johnson: Britain will not miss your attempts to play Trump: His era in power was marked by squalor and self-promotion. In the end, he proved himself afraid of parliament – and democracy »

The Observer view on Boris Johnson’s resignation: the Tory party is complicit in this disaster: His departure should prompt reflection among senior Conservatives about how and why they supported him for so long »

‘Pantomime has to end’: how Tories turned on Boris Johnson – and how it could break them: After a statement laced with anger and Trump-like lack of contrition, the ex-PM’s demise could tear his party apart »

What’s next for Boris Johnson after leaving the Commons?: The former PM says he is only stepping down ‘for now’. But other opportunities seem likely to tempt him »

Brexit: We Must Be Given a New Referendum

Michael Heseltine is one of the best of Tories. A politician of great wisdom and understanding: a gentleman to boot. – © Mark Alexander

Truss Picked ‘Cronies off Backbenches’ for Cabinet, Says Heseltine

THE GUARDIAN: Former Tory ‘big beast’ says PM needs to ‘appoint ministers who know what the heck they’re doing’

Lord Heseltine, pictured in 2019, warns against believing in ‘short-term miracles to growth’.Photograph: Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images
Liz Truss packed her cabinet with “cronies off the backbenches” rather than competent ministers with a range of views, and appeared to have no coherent plan behind her mini-budget, Michael Heseltine has said.

The ex-deputy prime minister and former senior Conservative, who sits in the Lords as an unaffiliated peer after being suspended from the party in 2019, also predicted that Truss’s chances of winning the next election were “looking pretty bleak”.

Speaking at a fringe event on Monday at the Conservative conference in Birmingham, Heseltine said the prime minister’s plan for rapid economic growth would never work, castigating what he said was a curse of short-termism. » | Peter Walker, Political correspondent | Monday, October 3, 2022

Humiliated Liz Truss is in office but barely in power. Rebel MPs have the whip hand now: The PM and Kwasi Kwarteng have bought themselves some breathing space, but the rest of their plan will trigger more revolts »

Even the Murdoch Press Is Now Waking Up to the Truth: Brexit Was an Act of Self-harm

THE GUARDIAN – OPINION: When the most anti-EU newspapers are pointing to the policy’s inevitable failures, it’s time our government admitted the truth

My love of gardening is grounded in the thrill of renewal: the first snowdrop bulb, the first songbird to break the silence, that shaft of warmth in early March. This week, as a veteran party member and supporter of every Conservative leader from Churchill to Cameron, I have detected something similar: the renewal of my party’s European legacy.

The disastrous consequences of Brexit for living standards, for our economic wellbeing and for Britain’s reputation abroad, have so far been obscured by Covid, the war in Ukraine and the headline-grabbing story of our prime minister’s lack of truthfulness and integrity. But this week, the British press perhaps unintentionally revealed the real world that is emerging as a result of Brexit.

While readers of the Guardian have been kept closely informed about the continuing tragedy of Brexit, it’s only now that other parts of the British press have begun to consider the truth of its legacy. The economies of three of the regions that voted most heavily for Brexit were “smaller at the end of last year … than at the time of the vote”, wrote David Smith in the business section of this week’s Sunday Times. Despite a weak pound making Britain’s goods cheap for foreign buyers, “exporters are … struggling”, Jim Armitage wrote in the same paper. “First-quarter figures last week showed exports of food and drink to the EU were down 17%, or £614m, on pre-Covid levels. Exports to non European countries increased by 10.7%, or £223m, but not enough to offset the European decline.”

Brexit was meant to be a “new beginning for the Tory party,” Jeremy Warner wrote this week in the Daily Telegraph, “but by making trade with Europe more difficult and costly it has so far only added to the country’s travails”. In its coverage of recent OECD warnings, the Daily Mail reported that the UK economy “is set to flatline next year – performing worse than every other G20 country except for sanctions-crippled Russia”. Most of these countries have also felt the consequences of the war in Ukraine and the Covid epidemic – but not, of course, Brexit. » | Michael Heseltine | Friday, June 10, 2022

I have said this from the very start: Brexit was a stupid idea, is a stupid idea and will remain a stupid idea. Nobody with any understanding of economics would walk away from the largest single market in the world, The Single Market. One doesn't need much of a grasp of economics to understand that to do so would be highly damaging to one's own economy. That the Conservatives have done this, the Party that prides itself on being business-friendly, is totally and utterly incomprehensible. – © Mark Alexander

Michael Heseltine Appears with Lib Dems to Urge Tactical Voting

THE GUARDIAN: Tory joins Chuka Umunna and Sam Gyimah in plea to back Lib Dems to stop Brexit

The Conservative grandee Michael Heseltine has made an impassioned appeal to people to choose “the national interest” and ignore traditional party loyalties to help elect Liberal Democrats through tactical voting.

At a press conference alongside Chuka Umunna and Sam Gyimah, who sat as Lib Dem MPs in the last parliament having begun their careers with Labour and the Conservatives respectively, Lord Heseltine said he was still a Tory party member but planned to “lend my vote to the Lib Dems on this one issue” of stopping Brexit.

Heseltine, whose 25-year ministerial career included a stint as deputy prime minister under John Major, saluted Umunna, Gyimah and those who were planning to vote tactically.

“There are men and women whose commitment to our country, their sense of what matters to Britain, where the future of Britain lies, where the future of the younger generation lies, means that they have torn up their traditional loyalties,” he told the event in London. » | Peter Walker, Political correspondent | Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Lord Heseltine on Brexit Day: 'We've Lost Power and Influence' – Newsnight (March 2017)

"It's the day in which Britain lost more power and influence than in any other day of my peacetime life.” Lord Heseltine speaks to Emily Maitlis on the day Article 50 was triggered - starting the process of the UK leaving the EU.

Lord Heseltine: No Deal Brexit a 'Grotesque Act of National Self-harm'

Lord Heseltine tells Sky News that there is "no parliamentary majority for what this government is preparing to do".

Heseltine: Imposing No-deal Brexit 'Intolerable' Attack on Democracy

THE GUARDIAN: ‘Large’ number of Tory MPs set to vote against party, which would also lose ground to Lib Dems

The Conservatives will lose significant votes to the Liberal Democrats or other remain parties if they force through a no-deal Brexit against the will of parliament, the party stalwart Lord Heseltine has warned.

Imposing a no-deal departure without MPs’ consent was “an intolerable position for democracy”, the former deputy prime minister, who is heavily critical of Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s lead adviser and Brexit enforcer, said.

“It is absolutely central that parliament should be able to call to account people who represent them as ministers, and at the moment we’re being told by a particular figure, who’s proud of it, that he’s more or less running the show,” Heseltine said on Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday show.

In response, the policing minister, Kit Malthouse, a longtime ally of Johnson, accused Heseltine of being among ageing Conservative figures who had “never quite reconciled themselves to the idea” of Brexit.

Heseltine, whose near-30 year frontbench career culminated in him serving as deputy PM under John Major, has been a persistent critic of Brexit and lost the Conservative whip after saying he had voted Lib Dem in the European elections in May.

In a joint comment piece in the Sunday Times with the Labour peer Betty Boothroyd, Heseltine argued a no-deal departure would be a “grotesque act of national self-harm”. » | Peter Walker, Political correspondent | Sunday, August 11, 2019

Interview: Michael Heseltine: ‘Britain Is Stepping Down from World Pre-eminence’

THE GUARDIAN: The veteran Tory Remainer on the British leaders of his lifetime and how he came to be the hero of the Put it to the People march

Lord Heseltine is a Conservative politician and businessman. He served as an MP between 1966 and 2001 and now sits in the House of Lords. He has held several government positions, including defence secretary under Margaret Thatcher and deputy prime minister under John Major, and worked as an adviser to David Cameron. He lives in Northamptonshire with his wife, Anne, and is co-founder of the publishing company Haymarket. A longstanding Europhile, he is now a prominent critic of Brexit. » | Dorian Lynskey | Sunday, March 31, 2019

Theresa May Is Effectively Gone. She Is a Leader in Name Only

THE GUARDIAN: This is a national humiliation, made in Britain, made by Brexit. And the prime minister has no control over events

Brexit is the biggest peacetime crisis we have faced and a no-deal Brexit could provoke a national emergency. The depth and scale of the divisions and the narrowness of the majority in favour of leaving the EU mean that the most sensible step would be to put the issue on hold, complete the negotiations and then hold a referendum. Sadly, that option is not available.

But it is in the next phase of negotiations that the details of the UK’s future relationship with the EU will be fleshed out. Depending on what happens in those negotiations, either we will see virtually no change to our current status – in which case, what is the point of leaving? Or, as is much more likely, the Brexiteers will demand significant changes to reflect their own views – views that will appal and frighten much of the electorate when they realise the enormity of what is being done. In essence, Brexiteers want to dismantle much of what we regard as the underpinning of civilised life in the modern world.

A referendum now would at least give people the chance to react to the realisation that the easy and facile promises of three years ago have evaporated. £350m a week for the NHS has become a £39bn severance cost to leave the EU, every penny of it to be borrowed by the current political generation, but to be repaid by the young people coming after them. » | Michael Heseltine | Monday, March 25, 2019

Michael Heseltine Speech - People's Vote March – 23.03.2019

Lord Michael Heseltine on Brexit, Theresa May and Fighting Poverty

Lord Michael Heseltine is a veteran of politics. He served as Deputy Prime Minister under Margaret Thatcher and was crucial in her removal from power. He now sits on the Conservative benches of the House of Lords and has strongly argued against Brexit and to remain in the European Union.

Lord Heseltine Says Britain Will Join The Euro And Brexit Might Not Happen

Lord Heseltine remained adamant the UK would adopt the currency when the “circumstances are right”. Joining Iain Dale in the studio, he also said it was “very possible” that Britain does not end up leaving the European Union.

Michael Heseltine: "Bitterly Divided" Tory Party Could Bring Down the Government

Theresa May's Government At Risk of Collapse within Two Years, Warns Lord Heseltine

EU Debate – Oxford Union | Lord Michael Heseltine (2016)

Lord Heseltine Brexit Is the Cancer Gnawing at the Heart of the Conservative Party

Lord Heseltine Talks Theresa May and Brexit

Michael Heseltine Launches Scathing Attack on Boris Johnson - BBC News (June 2016)

Conservative grandee and former leadership contender Lord Heseltine has launched a scathing attack on Boris Johnson, accusing him of creating the "greatest constitutional crisis in modern times". Mr Heseltine, a former deputy prime minister, told the BBC the former London mayor had "ripped the (Conservative) party apart." Lord Heseltine described Mr Johnson as "like a general, that led his army to the sound of guns, and at the sight of the battlefield abandoned the field."