Printed in the Whitehaven News on 25th June 2025 and the Times and Star 26th June 2025, with minor changes for word count.
I should start with an important statement – I want this government to succeed. It is in all of our interests that it does so. If I’m really honest, despite being a casualty of ‘change’, I had hoped that it might be a chance to reset politics - an opportunity to remove some of the toxicity, so often whipped up by this government when they were in opposition. After the division of Brexit, and the anger and mistrust in a post-covid world where the contract between citizen and state had been strained to breaking, a chance of simpler, quieter times.
Alas, it seems it was not to be. Instead, we have a government that is not only keen to widen those divisions but is determined to shred the social contract in entirety. Last week we saw the House of Commons pass legislation that not only decriminalises the abortion of a baby at any point in gestation but creates a loophole for those that coerce a woman into having an abortion. At a time when the rest of Europe heads in the other direction, reducing time limits for abortion due to medical advancement.
Then we saw the passing of legislation that allows assisted suicide at the other end of life – for now. With safeguards watered down throughout the bill’s passage, who knows where it leads? We’ve seen the slippery slope in countries and states held up as exemplars by proponents of this bill – extension to diabetes, eating disorders, mental health disorders, children. All become fair game in short order.
The NHS constitution is to be rewritten – by a Labour government no less – to remove the Secretary of State’s duty to protect life. Worse still, the Bill confers the power to make that and future amendment by regulations. At the stroke of a Minister’s pen, not by Act of Parliament.
An amendment to prevent any future government rewriting the NHS constitution without recourse to Parliament was voted down by the virtuous people. As was every other amendment to introduce safeguards - for the disabled, the vulnerable, those who simply feel that they’re a burden and those who are coerced.
I’m not one for hyperbole, but we are becoming quickly diminished as a country.
Selling out our strategic assets, like the base at Diego Garcia on the Chagos Islands. Selling out sovereignty in Gibraltar to the Spanish. Handing our fishing grounds to the French on the pretence that we’ll get smaller passport queues until September. Left out of military decisions by our allies because we’re now seen as unreliable.
And every week we’re treated to gaslighting on these pages by our MPs who are telling us everything is fine – Moorside new nuclear site opened up for wind and solar; A66 upgrades still awaiting a decision after being paused 12 months ago; Cumbrian Coast railway line upgrade postponed until who knows; Cuts to Teacher numbers and school funding; New school buildings cancelled; Hundreds of millions of pounds cut from council highways funding as our roads deteriorate. Yet we have plenty of cash for Labour’s trade union donors.
As Kemi Badenoch said at the weekend “Too many politicians treat the world like a student union. Abstract, simplistic and completely disconnected from reality”. That’s as true locally as it is nationally. I’m longing for the day that our MPs and our Government make the shift from campaigning to governing.
