Peter Bone had been a backbencher 17 years, priding himself in being as disloyal to the Tory whips as possible. Guido remembers Michael Cockerell’s Inside The Commons documentary, in which he boasted after the 2014 reshuffle:
“I see my role in Parliament: I’m not here as representing the government, I’m here to scrutinise the government and it doesn’t matter who’s in power. The new Chief Whip has been in power for about two hours and I’ve already rebelled against him.”
Not only was Bone’s appointment as deputy Leader of the House brilliant because he’s a great watch in the Commons, Boris never even had a deputy Commons leader at any point during his premiership. The appointment was just pure banter…
So from a lowly backbencher to a minister, now comes the inevitable fall in stature. Today on the order paper, Peter Bone’s first public act in the role couldn’t have gone down worse on social media:
Multiple Tory Members have now said they’ll vote for any leadership candidate that abolishes the jumped-up, left-wing whinge-a-thon of a youth ‘parliament’, which to date has done nothing except give Jeremy Corbyn a standing ovation and debase the green benches. Oh how the mighty fall, Peter…
As the Treasury now raid everyone’s pockets to pay for the enormous pandemic bill, new figures from the TaxPayers’ Alliance reveal a worthy causes propped up by taxpayer generosity: between 2020 and 2021, the British Youth Council – the group which runs the UK Youth Parliament – received £299,941 to keep afloat, all while actively campaigning against the government, lobbying for the enfranchisement of children, and asking for “free” universities. Not to mention calling for the dismantling of the police force on the grounds that it “enable[s] racism and injustice”.
The cash was received in three tranches:
- £183,300 to support the UK Youth Parliament. Which couldn’t even sit during the pandemic, for obvious reasons.
- £100,000 to support the British Youth Council’s role “involving young people in policy development across government“. A role which basically amounts to having children demand idealistic and unrealistic Net Zero targets should be “inclusive”…
- £16,641 to prevent the closure of the British Youth Council. Presumably because they could only survive on a bailout from the government they despise.
“Taxpayers are tired of seeing their money prop up controversial campaigns and causes, particularly during a pandemic. Government ministers are foolish to be funnelling money to organisations that simply do them down. Government needs to stop funding the lobbying merry-go-round and instead focus cash on taxpayers’ priorities.”
£300,000 to turn 11 year-olds into the next generation’s Momentum activists. New data from Opinium’s Youth Democracy Index also shows over 43% of 18-24 year olds think socialism is a good model for society, with just 32% thinking the same of capitalism. Give it a few more years and it’ll be even worse. At least until these kids look at their payslips and realise how much a socialist utopia would cost…
Who will speak up for teenagers?
A young Ed Miliband in the making?
