Westminster Views | rogergale

Westminster View

March 2025

Not surprisingly, the fallout from Trump’s attempt to humiliate President Zelensky in the White House continues to reverberate around the world. The spoilt man-brat and `Commander in Chief’, a populist charlatan who has never seen anything much other than self-service, said it all, really, when he opined that “This will make great television”.

Reducing the greatest threat to democracy that has been seen for a generation, to the level of a reality TV gameshow is possibly not the smartest thing that the President of the United States has ever done; but then neither he nor his Vice-President, the appalling Vance, are half as smart as they think they are. Are they?

Equally predictable I suppose was that Mr. Farage, the interim leader of the Reform cult, should have sought as Trump’s British Apologist-in-Chief to have blamed the President of Ukraine for the unseemly and boorish bust-up in Pennsylvania Avenue.

More telling, perhaps, was the reception afforded to President Zelensky when he passed through Britain on his way home. He was received warmly and courteously by the Prime Minister at Downing Street and then by King Charles at Sandringham, a venue to which he had been whisked by helicopter. This audience, prompted America’s First Narcissist to observe petulantly that “ I don’t feel special, anymore”.

Very perceptive, Mr. President!

March was always going to be a tough month for Starmer’s Government. The promises of a ` fresh start’ and an administration that `delivers’ have now collided with the cold, hard reality of trying to govern. The `Not the emergency Budget' (aka `The Spring Statement’); A row over the “two-tier justice system” proposed by the Sentencing Council and internal Labour divisions over other legislation have all conspired to ensure that the month in Westminster has not been plain sailing.

We have debated, either on the floor of the House or in Committee. The Finance Bill; The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, the Crime and Policing Bill, The Employment Rights Bill; The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools bill; National Insurance Contributions; Planning and Infrastructure reform; The National Minimum Wage; The Tobacco and Vapes Bill and many proposed Lords` amendments to government bills.

Following in the wake of the ill-conceived cuts in Pensioners’ Winter Fuel Allowance, the results of which will be felt in bills landing on doormats in time for Easter, probably the most divisive and contentious of many dire government initiatives has been the increase in National Insurance Contributions. This “Tax on Jobs”, as it has become known, hits all corners of business to devastating effect. Whilst High Street firms, (already struggling under the burden of increases in Business Rates), are laying off staff and terminating arrangements to engage apprentices, other sectors have been hit perversely and inconsistently hard. The National Health Service is exempt from the increase but General Practitioners, Dentists, Pharmacists, Care Homes and the providers of domiciliary care and adult and children’s hospices - all of which in their own way make a direct contribution to the health of the nation - will have to pay .

That levy will have to come out of either earned income: or in the case of charities out of money generously given, and already taxed as income, by private donors. As I said in the House, the cost of this to Children’s Hospices like Demelza House and Shooting Star will inexorably lead to a reduction in the staff and palliative services upon which some of the sickest children in the land depend. That is not merely flawed, it is immoral.

On the basis that if you peddle an untruth often enough people will eventually believe it we have been told that this return to `austerity’ has been necessitated by a “Twenty-Two Billion Pound Black Hole” in the nation’s finances bequeathed to Starmer’s Chancellor by the previous government. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has stoically resisted calls to verify that figure because it is quite simply dishonest.

The unpalatable truth is that this Government`s financial crisis has been made in Downing Street by a Government and an inexperienced Chancellor, who have talked down an economy that was growing at the time of the General Election, has forked out inflation-busting pay increases under union pressure, has squandered money on irresponsible schemes and has introduced financial and legislative burdens, such as the Employment Rights Bill, on business and industry that have destroyed confidence and investment.

In the inevitable Emergency Budget/ Spring Statement `Rachel from Accounts’ refused to rule out further tax rises in the Autumn: With growth forecasts halved by the OBR and real incomes still expected to fall an extra 250,000 – including 50,000 children – will be pushed into relative poverty by the end of the decade.

Starmer’s Labour Government says that it 'wants to build'. More homes, more infrastructure, more investment. In theory “simples” - In practice anything but.

The Planning and infrastructure Bill attempts to streamline planning for infrastructure and houses but it takes away powers from local people - meaning that people will have less say in the future of the area in which they live. We know that planning has to be simpler and faster but steamrollering decisions through in Whitehall without the right of councillors to vote on planning applications is a recipe for the loss of still more high-grade farmland to housing development and the installation of still more unwanted solar farms.

It will also smooth a path for unaccountable bodies such as The National Grid, to Impose their environmentally-unacceptable proposals upon our communities - while claiming that these are in a mythical ` national interest’.

Setting aside the small question of a lack of the skilled labour force needed to build the thousands of `affordable’ homes that the Housing Secretary, Angela Rayner, is promising (a workforce that would almost certainly have come from overseas until the shutters came down), there are, I believe, about a million planning consents already granted for homes that have yet to be built. In this regard the Conservative government is also culpable but should we not be seeing those dwellings through to completion and occupation before stimulating still more `banking’ of agricultural land by developers?

The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, commonly known as The Assisted Dying Bill, completed its committee stage in the small hours of the morning of Wednesday 26th March. After nearly eight hours in the chair of the final committee sitting, I was able to report the bill for Further Consideration (The Report Stage) and Third Reading on the floor of the House. Although I am on record as having voted against the Second Reading I am, having been appointed as one of the Bill’s Chairmen, now required to remain strictly impartial and may not comment further on the merits or otherwise of this legislation.

I do, though, feel able to say that both the promoter of the bill, Kim Leadbeater (Labour, Batley and Spen) and its leading opponent, Danny Kruger (Conservative, Devizes) presented their respective cases with admirable clarity, determination and courtesy.

The bill will now be thoroughly considered by the House of Lords; amended as their Lordships decide and then further considered by the Commons. In the event that the bill is passed by both Houses of parliament and receives the Royal Assent it is unlikely, in the light of Ministerial observations in Committee, that it will be implemented within the lifetime of this parliament: which means that it will very possibly become an issue at the next General Election.

I am also in the process of chairing the Crime and Policing Bill through Committee and again, therefore, have to remain impartial.

Nothing, though, apart from immigration, can be relied upon to raise public hackles more than Crime and Punishment!

During this month the Sentencing Council – that august and learned body that sets tariffs for the appropriate sentences upon conviction of crimes – rocked the boat by suggesting that judges should take an offender’s ethnicity, gender and social background into account when passing sentence. The backlash was immediate and fierce.

A queue of Members of Parliament formed up in front of television cameras and at the doors of radio studios to denounce the proposal as the creation of a “two tier justice system”: the loudest voice of objection emanating from the Labour backbenches. Starmer, a former Director of Public Prosecutions, realised that this was a political grenade that was about to explode. The Justice Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, declared that “justice must be equal for all” – an observation that ought to have been obvious but in 2025 sadly needed saying. The proposal will hopefully die a natural death, but the fact that the Sentencing Council should have considered such a proposal at all speaks volumes about the drift within parts of the judicial system.

As winter turns to Spring farmers are busy out in what is left of their fields sowing the seeds that will grow into the crops that will help to feed Britain in the Autumn and next winter. That has not, though, prevented rural representatives arriving in Whitehall with tractors and other farm machinery to remind Members of Parliament that the combined Treasury assaults upon their livelihoods in the form of inheritance and other taxes, coupled with low farm-gate prices, and high volumes of imported goods is destroying the rural economy. I do not believe that I am exaggerating when I say that by the end of this decade we shall, if we continue down this track, have lost any pretence to self-sufficiency.

One industry that battles on notwithstanding the increased costs of energy, the National Insurance `Jobs Tax’, food and other supplies, is Tourism. As a nation we have a great deal to offer, and I am grateful for the support that I have again been given during English Tourism Week, by Deidre Wells and her ‘VisitKent’ colleagues, to promote the attractions of Herne Bay, Sandwich and West Thanet. It would be a tragedy, would it not, if as a result of the National Grid creation of the proposed Converter Station monstrosity on the Marshes and the installation of grotesque solar `farms’, we were to lose the opportunity to see the Reculver and Richborough Roman Forts and the Wansum Channel recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage site?

There are numerous sideshows in the Dining and Meeting rooms pf the Palace of Westminster and one such that caught my eye was the Cats Protection campaign to secure the banning of the importing of wild Serval cats from Africa and the cross-breeding of them with domestic cats to produce a strain of `Savannah’ felines that are a potential threat to both wildlife and humans.

I am entirely in favour of the re-introduction of the Lynx and the British native Wildcat into the wild under properly regulated and controlled conditions, (as I have successfully supported the re-introduction of the beaver) but to permit the creation of an unnatural strain of animal as a status-symbol or fashion accessory is a step too far; we have to put an end to it before it gets out of hand. We have seen through the importing of grey squirrels and mink the damage, although less dangerous than the cats, that the insertion of alien species can do.

In other news: the price of a first-class stamp has risen, in the teeth of the blessed memory of Rowland Hill and his Penny Black, to £1.70. While the government endeavours to get to grips with the overspend on social benefits we learn that the bloated Motability scheme that provides vehicles for people who are registered as disabled now accounts for one fifth of all of the new car sales in the United Kingdom.

The Government continues to not take any responsibility for the dispute between Birmingham’s Labour-run City Council and the Trades Union representing refuse collectors (`Dustmen’ in old money) that has reduced the Country’s second city to one vast rubbish tip with rats running riot and the prospect of serious disease hovering in the wings. This reluctance to engage can have nothing, surely, to do with the fact that a significant number of Labour Members of Parliament had their election expenses sponsored by the aforesaid Trades Union?

‘Offrail’ has concluded its deliberations and determined that there is sufficient space at the relevant North London depot to accommodate a competitive service To the trans-Channel Eurostar. That ought to concentrate a few smug minds at the former monopoly carrier. Eurostar has refused to re-introduce the stopping service at either of Kent’s International stations, Ashford and Ebbsfleet, meaning that travellers from a wide sector of South East England have to travel all the way into St. Pancras to then travel all the way back again to mainland Europe. The prospect of a challenger should lead to better services and lower prices – and not before time.

King Charles is unlikely to travel to Canada to open the new session of the Canadian parliament; there is the hope however that there is a serious possibility that Prince William, with Kate, might be drafted in to sub for Dad. At times like this a little soft diplomacy in support of our Commonwealth friends might help to send a clear signal to the ‘obtuse being’ in the White House.

And finally, those of a certain age will remember the anti-war slogan “There’s a new Korea for you on Vietnam”. The updated version is “There’s a new Crimea waiting for you in Greenland”!

***********************************

This Column was written prior to the Trade War announcement, which will be covered next month.

There was an asterisk beside the piece referring to the Hungarian Revolution in the February `View`, but no footnote.
For those interested James Michener`s contemporary but harrowing book “The Bridge At Andau” tells the appalling story