Jo Barker

Kemi (looking classy and composed as usual) has stated on @gbnews just now that we are ready for a general election, so on my last day - day 14 the whole Conservative plan that I’ve been posting daily, is below and there are further links within it. It is a solid plan with common sense & savings plan. conservatives.com/our-plan-f…

Day 12 of @KemiBadenoch Conservative plans Financial savings Annual savings include; Reduce Civil Service by 132,000, back to 2016 levels £8.0bn Cut overseas aid £7.0bn Restrict social housing to British nationals £3.9bn End asylum hotels £3.5bn Scrap most of Labour’s GB Energy/green subsidies £1.6bn We are reform £23billion - see below TOTAL. £47billion The measures specifically talked about on Welfare include: Tightening eligibility for sickness/disability benefits, particularly where people have less severe conditions. Changing the way mental-health and neurodiversity conditions qualify for benefits. Restricting benefits for foreign nationals, rather than giving the same access to benefits as British citizens. Making work pay more than remaining on benefits, with stronger employment requirements and support to get people back into work. Reforming PIP and other health-related benefits, where the caseload has grown unsustainably.

Day 11 of @KemiBadenoch Conservative plans. Foreign policy Labour is doing real damage to our country’s standing in the world right now. As an opposition we have consistently stood up for the national interest and demanded they do the same: •We’ve forced Labour to pause their catastrophic £35 billion Chagos Surrender Deal. We will continue to fight against the deal until Labour abandon it entirely. (As we did). •We are pushing Labour to spend 3% of GDP on defence now, not in 2031 •We’ve consistently backed Israel’s right to defend itself from terrorism •We’ve been clear that the future sovereignty of Greenland must be for the people of Greenland to decide •We’ve been clear that, with Iran attacking British military assets, the government must act to defend our bases and our personnel •We’ve opposed Labour’s plans to allow China to build a “super embassy in London” •We’ve pushed for transparency on the collapse of a trial involving two men accused of spying for China •We reject Labour’s Brexit capitulation that would turn Britain back into a rule-taker from Brussels

Part 6 and final day of the Green party’s mad policies. Didn’t make a day 7… Nature gets a lawyer One of the lovelier pledges🙂 is to give rights to nature itself. The Greens’ proposed Rights of Nature Act would give nature legal personhood. Rivers, woods and, presumably, that persistent buddleia on the ring road could acquire rights enforceable through the courts. How charming. In practice, imagine the first judicial review brought on behalf of the River Thames against a nightclub. Then there’s Land Value Tax, which the Greens propose as a replacement for Council Tax, Business Rates and Stamp Duty. The basic idea is that the value created by the location of land - rather than simply the buildings sitting on it - should be taxed for the common good. Economists have been arguing about land taxation for well over a century. Voters, meanwhile, may simply be hoping their current Council Tax bill remains exactly as incomprehensible as it is now.

Day 8 of @KemiBadenoch plan and conservative policies Protecting Children •Introduce a zero-tolerance approach to violence and poor behaviour in schools •Defend decades of cross-party education reforms that have driven up standards •Push for a nationwide ban on smartphones in schools to better protect learning and mental health •Continue campaigning for justice for victims of grooming gangs, including full transparency through the publication of offender ethnicity data •Propose restrictions on social media for under-16s to better protect childhood wellbeing and safety •Establish a Child Cruelty Register to prevent people convicted of child cruelty from repeating their crimes against other children unchecked

Day 9 of @KemiBadenoch Conservatives plan Today The Conservative Youth Opportunity Bill is essentially about reducing low-value university degrees, making student debt fairer, and giving young people more apprenticeships and routes into skilled work. Reduce low-value university courses: Cap the number of publicly funded places on courses where graduates have poor employment prospects or poor financial returns. Make student loans fairer: Remove the real-terms interest on Plan 2 student loans, so balances only rise with RPI inflation, rather than increasing faster than inflation. Expand apprenticeships: Create 100,000 additional apprenticeships each year for 18–21-year-olds. Give employers an incentive: Employers could receive up to £5,000 in wage support per young apprentice through the proposed BRITS scheme (they don’t pay NI up to that amount) Create an Apprenticeship Guarantee: Increase the funding available for apprenticeships for 18–21-year-olds, with the aim of ensuring young people have a genuine alternative to university. The last Conservative government overhauled apprenticeships to standards industries designed themselves and increased age allowed and more can be achieved to reduce need for university. Redirect savings: We argue that reducing publicly funded places on poor-value degrees would save money, which could help fund the student-loan reforms and apprenticeships.

Day 10 of conservatives plan under @KemiBadenoch The Conservatives have a clear plan to take back our streets and combat crime: •Deploy 10,000 extra police and introducing hotspot patrolling of 2,000 of the highest crime areas to prevent 35,000 crimes •Triple Stop and Search to take knives and drugs off the streets and arrest 300,000 more criminals •Roll out Live Facial Recognition in crime hotspots across the country to catch 24,000 wanted criminals •Introduce ‘Immediate Justice’ community sentences issued by police so those committing lower-level offences clean up graffiti, and our streets and parks •Crack down on public cannabis consumption. Mandating police enforcement and introducing automatic referral to the Magistrates’ courts for a second offence •Put public safety first when dealing with mentally ill people. Overhauling Labour’s Mental Health Act and rebalancing from an obsessive focus on racial targets to put public safety first •Curb riding dangerous e-bikes and e-scooters on our pavements. Requiring police to always intervene and enforcing increased penalties •Stamp out ghost plates. Legislating for greater criminal consequences for manufacture, sale and use of ANPR-evading number plates •Clamp down on anti-social behaviour on public transport, with tougher enforcement on trains and extended powers for buses •Expand rural crime taskforces to tackle tool theft and farm crime which cost businesses £44 million in 2024 •Ensure police spending more time on more time on policing streets, and less time policing tweets, by scrapping Non-Crime Hate Incidents •Introduce our “Grimeforce” to put over 80,000 offenders to work to help clean up litter, graffiti and grime More here; public.conservatives.com/pub…

Day 6 of Conservative plans Deregulation. We’ll free businesses from unnecessary red tape that holds back growth. To do this, we will: •Repeal Angela Rayner’s Unemployment act, which costs businesses £5 billion and forces private firms to host union organisers in the workplace •Make HMRC accountable by letting small businesses grade every interaction with HMRC •Reform IR35 rules to simplify tax for the self-employed •Make it easier to open business bank accounts by overhauling regulations that presume guilt •Scrap all mandatory reporting burdens relating to sustainability and climate change (ESG), which entangle businesses in bureaucracy and undermine growth •Remove diversity and inclusion reporting requirements for Financial Services businesses We are reviewing all regulations that are holding businesses back and will announce further deregulation in due course.

Day 5 of @BorisJohnson successes while PM This is one I particularly cheered - Serious violent and sexual offenders spending longer in prison One of the most significant changes was ending automatic release at the halfway point for certain offenders serving 4–7 year sentences for serious violent or sexual offences. Long time coming. For offences such as rape, manslaughter and GBH with intent, eligible offenders instead had to serve 2/3 of their sentence in custody before release. The Act also gave the authorities greater ability to prevent the automatic release of prisoners considered to pose a significant danger to the public.

Day 3 of Conservative plans for manifesto. Defence Reinstate the two child benefit cap, saving £3.2 billion a year, of which, under our Golden Economic Rule, half would go to deficit reduction and the remaining £1.6 billion would be allocated directly to defence spending Prioritise investment in defence by reallocating up to £50 billion of funding currently spent on costly environmental projects through a Sovereign Defence Fund Support service personnel through a new Armed Forces Housing Association Stand with our allies, make tough choices and put the British national interest first Introduce a Tax Free Reservists Scheme. See below. To grow Britain's Armed Forces Reserves to 50,000 personnel, strengthening our nation's security while recognising the enormous contribution made by our reservists. conservatives.com/news/conse…