Bite Size Blog 3 : Election Pact - NO THANK YOU

 11th May 2026

Bite Size Blog 3 : Election Pact : NO THANK YOU.

The one thing that the Conservatives Party and Reform UK are united on is the real need to remove Keir Starmer as our Prime Minister and Labour as our government.

As soon as possible. 

But is this enough to agree a pre or post General Election Pact between the 2 parties ?

Currently …

the Conservative Party have 116 MPs in Parliament

Reform UK have 8 MPs in Parliament

Now, it’s clear that these numbers could fluctuate between now and the General Election, probably 2029. 1-2 in either direction, maybe. 

But the likelihood is that Conservatives will have over 10 times the number of MPs that Reform UK will have at the time of the next general Election.

Conservatives can and will win the next General Election on our own.

The Conservative Party became the Official Opposition on 5th July 2024. 

We are the Official Opposition today.

And we will be the Official Opposition until the day of the next General Election.

FACT.

Despite the deluded Leadership of Reform UK and many of their supporters, Reform UK are NOT the Official Opposition.

There have been proposals and suggestions that the Conservative Party and Reform UK should form a pre or post election pact, and work together to remove Labour from Government.

Kemi Badenoch, Leader of the Opposition, has been clear.

There will be no pact or merger.

I agree. 

There must be NO PACT or MERGER.

EVER.

NO THANKS.

Reform UK are unproven in National Government, produce ill thought out ideas and ‘policy’ only to change their mind days later. 

Their funding model is questionable. Their underlying principles, as such they are, are divisive & controversial. Even downright NASTY.

More than that though.

Reform UK Leadership have said many times that their objective is to destroy the Conservative Party. To annihilate it.

How can Conservatives do a deal with people that want that ?

The tone of the attacks by Reform UK politicians, subscribers and voters on those that have remained loyal to the Conservative Party is often full of vitriol and, more often than not, highly offensive.

How can Conservatives do a deal with people that want that ?

Quite simply - We can’t. We mustn’t.

I was shocked by seeing recent comments by Jacob Rees-Mogg in support of an article by James Frayne in The Telegraph suggesting Conservatives should start preparing for a coalition.

I have nothing but the utmost respect for Jacob Rees-Mogg.

On this matter we will disagree.

On this matter I suggest he is totally wrong and that he should sample rather more of the grassroots Conservatives views on this idea.

Then, he would see that the vast majority do not want a pact with Reform UK. 

Ever.

NO THANK YOU.

Thanks for reading.

Graham

Twitter : @apple_shwn

Please add any comments to my Twitter post at @apple_shwn

Bite Size Blog 2 : 37

  7th May 2026

Bite Size Blog 2 : 37

So, let’s kick off the Bite Size Blogs with a fun one.

I have been asked lots of times what the ‘37’ means on the decals of my Mini Cooper. 

See below.

My 2004 Mini Cooper “Charlie”

So, in a nutshell, ‘37’ was the car number of the Mini Cooper S that Rally driver Paddy Hopkirk MBE won the 1964 Monte Carlo Rally.

It’s registration number was 33 EJB.

As a tribute to this car and achievement, many Mini’s have this ‘37’ decal.

Paddy Hopkirk & his 1964 Monte Carlo Rally Winning Mini Cooper

This fabulous Mini is currently on display at 

British Motor Museum

https://www.britishmotormuseum.co.uk

Banbury Road, Gaydon, Warwickshire, CV35 0BJ

For more details about 33 EJB, please see the following link.

https://www.britishmotormuseum.co.uk/online-collections/details-page?row_id=76417800292

Thanks for reading.

Graham

Twitter : @apple_shwn

Please add any comments to my Twitter post at @apple_shwn

Bite Size Blog 1 : Introduction

 7th May 2026

Bite Size Blog 1 : Introduction

Hi folks,

After publishing a number of blogs over the last few years, some quite serious and others less so, some lengthy and others shorter, I have decided to publish a set of shorter blogs designed to give you a quick view of my thoughts, in articles that can be read ideally in 5 minutes.

I will call these BITE SIZE BLOGS.

They will still be the usual mix of serious and not-so-serious.

Just in smaller, bite size chunks. 

Keep a look out for these on my X account at @apple_shwn.

I hope you will enjoy these, and find something of interest.

Thanks for reading.

Graham

Twitter : @apple_shwn

Please add any comments to my Twitter post at @apple_shwn

We left the EU, Suck it up Buttercups

 5th December 2025

So, as predicted BEFORE the 2024 General Election, the REMOANERS of the Labour Government and Party are now talking up the prospects of reversing Brexit.

Reversing the biggest DEMOCRATIC vote by the UK electorate EVER.

PM Starmer is, of course, the chief remoaner.

He hates BREXIT.

More than that, though.

He hates democracy.

And from day one of his premiership he has purposefully realigned the UK with the EU, slowly and steadily.

And he intends to go further.

And he won’t stop until the UK has rejoined the EU.

And he will override democracy to do this.

And in the last day or two, other senior Labour politicians have revealed they want the same. As is we didn’t know.

The most notable, perhaps, being, David Lammy.

Click Here

Let’s look at this further.

The road INTO the EU

Many books, articles and websites exist that chart the detailed route of the UK into the EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY (EEC) and these will not be repeated here.

The UK joined the EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY (EEC) on 1st January 1973. This was done without a referendum.

The UK electorate did actually have a referendum on whether to stay in the EEC or not on 5th June 1975.

The result being :

YES: 67.2%

NO: 32.8%

(turnout 64.7%)

Let’s look at those dates again.

UK joins the EEC - 1st January 1973 (nearly 53 years ago)

Confirmation referendum - 5th June 1975 (over 50 years ago)

The road OUT OF the EU

A further referendum on whether the UK should remain in the EU (EEC) or not was held on 23rd June 2016.

The ballot paper asked a simple question.

 

“Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?”

The two options were:

• Remain a member of the European Union
• Leave the European Union

2016 Referendum Result

Option	Votes	Percentage
Leave the European Union	17,410,742	51.89%
Remain a member of the European Union	16,141,241	48.11%
Total votes	33,551,983	100%
Turnout	72.2% (of 46,500,001 registered voters)

There was a majority for LEAVE of 1,269,501 which equated to 3.78%

Although the REMOANER dominated House of Commons and House of Lords tried ever trick in the book to stop it happening by ignoring democracy, the UK formally left the European Union at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (Brexit Day), followed by a transition period until 31 December 2020.

BORIS JOHNSON said he would GET BREXIT DONE.

BORIS JOHNSON GOT BREXIT DONE.

What NEXT ?

As we know, the remoaners have not gone away. 

They haven’t given up.

They haven’t accepted democracy.

They never will,

But, for now, they are in power know.

Those of us who voted LEAVE, who accept and respect democracy regardless of how we voted, must re-double our efforts to make BREXIT work better, and to be alert for signs of this government subverting democracy by trying to reverse Brexit.

We all have a part to play in this.  

There are 2 key points though.

1. NO further re-alignment with the EU or attempt to rejoin the EU should be acceptable at all, and certainly without another referendum.

2. Based on the timeframe between joining the EEC and the 2016 referendum which resulted in a majority to Leave the EU, NO FURTHER REFERENDUM ON THIS SHOULD BE HELD UNTIL AT LEAST 50 YEARS after the referendum in 2016, so 2066, or the date of leaving the EU in 2020, therefore 2070.

And that’s a minimum.

That would seem fair and justified.

Until then, the remoaners can SUCK IT UP, BUTTERCUPS

Thanks for reading.

Graham

Twitter : @apple_shwn

14 Years of a Conservative Government.

15th September 2025

* some of the content below was posted on my Twitter / X account during August/September 2025. This blog may be updated periodically.

There’s always a lot of talk about the 14 years of Conservative Government 2010-24. 

For sure, it was no picnic. 

Some things went wrong. 

Very wrong. 

But …

Some things went right. 

Very right. 

There was a lot of pearl clutching and punishment going on by 2024. 

But, let’s look at what actually happened.

High Level Performance

We hear a lot about the 14 years of Conservatives government.

The failure, & betrayal. 

But, between 2010 & 2024 there were 5 General Elections.

The Conservative Party won 4 out of 5.

Someone must have been happy with them. 

The majority were voting for them.👇

Let’s look at the data.

So, in each of the 4 Conservative Party General Elections wins, the winning vote share was bigger than the so-called ‘landslide’ Labour General Election win in 2024.

So, it couldn’t have been bad for 14 years really.

Could it ?

Perhaps people are mis-remembering what actually happened. 

Now let’s not pretend Conservatives got everything right in these 14 years of government.

 

We certainly didn’t. 

We needed to do much more. 

And I’ve tweeted a lot about what Conservatives got wrong. 

But Conservatives got a lot right as well.

We must have. Conservative voters kept voting for them, until 2024 anyway. 

Feel upset, or even betrayed if you want. 

Admit Conservatives failures (though not forever).

And be proud of the successes, against attack from everywhere. 

However you feel, base it on what happened, not on hurt feelings and mis-remembering history.

Lower Level Performance

So, we’ve looked at the high level stuff (the General Elections), let’s look at some of the lower level key events now. 

Key Events

Let’s look at some of the key events (off the top of my head).

Now let’s not pretend @Conservatives got everything right. 

We certainly didn’t. 

We needed to do much more. 

And I’ve tweeted much about what Conservatives got wrong. 

But Conservatives got a lot right as well.

I contend that 2,3,6,8,9,10 (Govt support),11 on the list were major successes for the government. 

I contend that 1,7,10  (pandemic start),11,12,on the list were beyond the full control of the government.

Migration control was poor, it’s even worse now, under Labour.

The left leaning of the HoC and HoL together with left leaning judiciary / ECHR hindered progress. 

The Conservatives stopped the extreme left Labour under Corbyn becoming the government. What a disaster that would have been.

Although never implemented Conservatives established a viable deterrent to illegal immigration, RWANDA. 

Which would have worked. 

It was already having an impact.

And precisely why Keir_Starmer cancelled it within days of becoming PM in 2024. 

Labour do not want to stop illegal immigration.

Boris Johnson was elected with a mandate to GET BREXIT DONE.

And against massive opposition and a HoC in stalemate, Boris GOT BREXIT DONE.

The UK left the EU, as instructed by the public.

Now, YOUR list of Conservatives successes & failure during the 14 years may be very different.  

And your reasons for success or failure may be very different. 

But hopefully you get the point. 

It was no picnic for sure.

Low points & high points.

That’s life.

Conclusion

The moral of the story of 14 years of Conservative government which is still causing so much pearl clutching,is … 

Conservatives got a lot of things right. 

Voters liked it. 

Conservatives got things wrong.

Voters didn’t like it, and punished them at the ballot box in 2024.

And look what’s happened since then.

Sometimes I wonder if collective memory failure really exists. 

It must do.

And that, folks,is politics.

Thanks for reading.

Graham

Twitter : @apple_shwn

Please add any comments to my Twitter post at @apple_shwn