Connect with us

Politics

Bristol parking wars: Greens gear up for fight with drivers over pavement ban on cars | Bristol

Published

on

Ismail Mohammad pushes a buggy down the centre of a narrow road in east Bristol. His two sons stay close as vehicles could come from either direction at any moment. “There are cars [parked] on the pavement. We have to go on the road,” says Mohammad as he hurries to the boys’ primary school in Easton. “It’s dangerous because cars sometimes come fast through here.”

This is the daily gauntlet run by parents of young children and by disabled people in many parts of the inner city, where tightly packed Victorian streets struggle to accommodate lines of parked cars, camper vans and ever-expanding SUVs.

If Bristol council has its way, the days of parking on the pavement may be over. In opposition, the Green party called for it to be banned – now they lead the council, they have set up a taskforce to make it a reality.

Ismail Mohammad and his sons in Easton, Bristol. Photograph: Karen Robinson/The Observer

It is – as Rob Bryher, the councillor leading the group, admits – “incredibly controversial”, but insists it is the only way to get people to walk and cycle, or use public transport, instead of driving, which accounts for half of all journeys in Bristol. Plans include a dramatic increase in double yellow lines and a target to replace at least one on-street parking spot on each of Bristol’s 1,500 streets with a bike hangar, planter or benches every year. Bryher said it “would be a way of gradually but consistently bringing in a different way of seeing urban space”.

Advertisement

The council is exploring new residents’ parking schemes, where drivers pay for a yearly permit, to generate funds for enforcement and new bus routes. There may also be a workplace parking levy on businesses, raising money for public transport improvements. Nottingham brought in a similar scheme in 2012, which collects about £9m a year.

Bryher has little sympathy for drivers who claim they must park on pavements on narrow roads. “You need to park somewhere else instead … there are enough [spaces] for every­one to park in the city,” he says. “It’s just that you might have to park further away and you might have to consider whether you need a car.”

There have long been complaints about Bristol’s public transport. It has some of the UK’s most heavily congested roads but bus usage is below other metropolitan areas.

If Bristol goes ahead, it will be the first city in England outside London to introduce an effective city-wide ban. London councils have been able to issue fines since the 1970s, but in other English cities, only the police can act against motorists caught driving on the pavement or parking dangerously.

Advertisement
Alun Davies of the Bristol Disability Equality Forum: ‘My fear is some day a disabled person will be killed because of a vehicle parked on the pavement.’ Photograph: Karen Robinson/The Observer

In Easton, Mohammad is keen on the council acting. His family, like just over a quarter of the city’s households, doesn’t own a car. But he suspects there will be a backlash from drivers: “They want to park outside their houses. They will fight the council.”

Other parents also back a tougher approach. Denisa Necilova, 32, has just dropped her two sons off at school. “Pavement parking is a big problem here. Sometimes mums with pushchairs like me cannot get through,” she says, pushing her youngest son in a buggy. “I have to go on the roads. It is very dangerous.”

skip past newsletter promotion

Disability organisations in Bristol argue that pavement parking is limiting the freedom of disabled people – and could one day result in a fatality. “My fear is someday a disabled person will be killed because of a vehicle parked on the pavement,” says Alun Davies, the interim director of the Bristol Disability Equality Forum. “Surely that risk to life and limb trumps the two minutes somebody has to park on the pavement, to get into a shop or something?”

James Stockhausen: ‘there is nowhere else to park in Easton’. Photograph: Karen Robinson/The Observer

People parked on the pavement on nearby roads feel they have little choice. Rob Poole, 36, is fixing his VW camper van, which is up on the pavement. “If cars are parked on the road it becomes inconveniently narrow,” he says. He understands concerns about accessibility but wouldn’t want to give his vehicle up because it lets him “go places I would otherwise not go because public transport is so poor to certain places.”

James Stockhausen, 34, pauses after helping his family into their car, parked on the kerb outside their house. “The road is not wide enough. If we were fully on the road and [the car on the other side] was fully on the road then no cars could get through,” he says. “There is nowhere else to park in Easton. It is not reasonable [to tell us to park elsewhere]. It is not the answer.”

Advertisement

Source link

Continue Reading
Advertisement
Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

Politics

UK support for Ukraine ‘iron-clad’, Keir Starmer tells Zelensky

Published

on

UK support for Ukraine 'iron-clad', Keir Starmer tells Zelensky

Sir Keir Starmer has assured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky the UK’s support for Ukraine in its war with Russia remains “iron-clad”.

The two men met at a summit of the European Political Community in the Hungarian capital, Budapest.

The US has been by far the largest single donor of military aid to Ukraine.

But fears have been expressed that the return of Donald Trump to the White House in January might slow, if not halt, the flow of American military aid to Kyiv.

Advertisement

The prime minister said the summit was “not just about sovereignty of Ukraine”, but also “our freedom, our democracy and our values”.

Following his talks with the Ukrainian leader, Sir Keir sidestepped a question about whether Trump’s presidential election victory was good for Europe and Ukraine.

He said he had met President Zelensky for the sixth time since becoming PM, adding it was an opportunity to affirm the UK’s “iron-clad support of Ukraine”.

Earlier, summit host Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Europe’s leaders had agreed that they needed to take responsibility for their security and not just rely on the US for their defence.

Advertisement

“To be blunt, we cannot wait for the Americans to protect us,” Orban said.

The Hungarian leader is a staunch Trump supporter and has close ties to Moscow. He has been reluctant to impose sanctions on Russia or to supply Ukraine with weapons.

Trump has said he wants to end the Ukraine war “within a day”, but has declined to set out how this would be achieved.

Some commentators have suggested it could mean the new US administration putting pressure on Zelensky to give up some territory as part of a peace deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Advertisement

The Ukrainian leader said he had yet to discuss the conflict with the US president-elect.

Sir Keir urged Ukraine’s allies to “step up” their backing, telling Zelensky: “As you know, our support for Ukraine is unwavering.

“It’s very important that we see this through. It’s very important that we stand with you.”

The Ukrainian president thanked him “for sticking with us all through this tough period”.

Advertisement

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have also repeatedly pledged to stand by Ukraine.

Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte said Trump’s first term had stimulated Europe to spend more on defence, but “we need to do more”.

He stressed that the threat of Russia, and its alliance with North Korea, China and Iran, posed problems for the US as well as Europe.

“If Russia would be successful in Ukraine, you would have an emboldened Russia at our border,” he said in Budapest.

Advertisement

Rutte, who was Dutch prime minister during Mr Trump’s first 2017-2021 presidency, added: “I worked with him very well for four years.

“He is extremely clear about what he wants. He understands that you have to deal with each other to come to joint positions. And I think we can do that.”

Sir Keir dodged a question about a report Trump had privately described him as “very left-wing”.

The prime minister said their meeting in New York in September and their phone call on Wednesday after the US election result had been “very positive, very constructive”.

Advertisement

Source link

Continue Reading

Politics

Whitehaven ex-miner calls for ‘unjust’ pension payment change

Published

on

Is Reform UK's plan to get Farage into No 10 mission impossible?
BBC Dave Cradduck stands in a garden overlooking the town of Whitehaven. He has a stern expression and he is looking at something out of shot. He has short grey hair and is wearing a grey woollen cardigan over a green and blue polo shirt. A pair of glasses are hanging from the collar of his top. BBC

Dave Cradduck worked in the ventilation department at Haig Pit in Whitehaven

A former miner who is among those missing out on extra pension payments is calling for the government to address the “injustice”.

A pension boost for those signed up to the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme (MPS) was announced in last week’s Budget, to address what Energy Secretary Ed Miliband called a “scandal” in historic management of the fund.

Dave Cradduck, who spent 20 years working at Haig Pit in Whitehaven, Cumbria, said it was “unjust” that “not a penny” would be given back to those on a different scheme.

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) said the pension funds operated differently and it “must consider the two schemes separately”.

Advertisement

When coal mining was privatised in 1994, the government agreed to guarantee miners’ pensions.

It also said it would put aside some of the pension fund profits, in case the fund did not have enough money in it later.

Ex-miners had campaigned for years for money to be returned to them and the government has now pledged to return about £1.5bn to 112,000 former coalminers and their families.

It only applies to those who were part of the MPS and not those, like Mr Cradduck, who were signed up to the British Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme (BCSSS).

Advertisement

‘Our money’

Mr Cradduck said it was “immoral and unjust”.

The 77-year-old said the government had taken £4.8bn out of the MPS fund, and £3.2bn out of BCSSS, therefore those on the scheme were also owed money.

Mr Cradduck, who worked in the pit’s ventilation department ensuring the flammable gas underground was kept to safe levels, added: “I greatly wonder whether they’ll ever do anything about it.

Advertisement

“It’s not their money, it’s our money – we just want our own money back.

“Is that too much to ask?”

Getty Images Pit head winding gear at the Haig Colliery Mining Museum, pictured close to the former Woodhouse Colliery in Whitehaven.Getty Images

Mr Cradduck worked at Whitehaven’s Haig Pit for 20 years

Mr Cradduck said although promises about the pension fund had been made by previous governments, this was the first time any money was going to be paid out.

“They obviously think it’s an injustice, and if it is, why isn’t the other scheme treated as an injustice as well?”

Advertisement

Those affected are writing to MPs to ask for their concerns to be raised in Parliament.

A DESNZ spokesman said it was open to considering any proposals for changes from the trustees of the BCSSS.

They added: “The BCSSS operates in a different way to the MPS, with the government taking no money from the scheme’s surpluses.

“All of that surplus is used purely to fund future pensions.”

Advertisement

Source link

Continue Reading

Politics

£100m cost for HS2 bat safety ‘shed’ in Buckinghamshire

Published

on

Is Reform UK's plan to get Farage into No 10 mission impossible?
Getty A night sky with a bat flying across the black background and an elderflower tree to the left with white spray flowers and green leaves. The bat has its mouth open and its wings are spread open wide. It has a white furry body and brown head with pointy ears.Getty

The current HS2 chairman asked “did people think about the bats?” when setting the project’s budget

HS2 Ltd is spending more than £100m building a “shed” for bats, the chairman of the government-owned company said.

Sir Jon Thompson told a rail industry conference the bat protection structure in Buckinghamshire was needed to appease Natural England, as bats are legally protected in the UK.

Government adviser Natural England was contacted for comment.

The 1km (0.6 mile) curved barrier will cover the tracks alongside Sheephouse Wood near Calvert to prevent bats being disturbed by high-speed trains.

Advertisement

Sir Jon said there was “no evidence that high-speed trains interfere with bats”.

PA A bat protection structure which will run for around one kilometre (0.6 miles) alongside the wood, creating a barrier allowing bats to cross above the high-speed HS2 railway without being affected by passing trains.  The drawing shows trees and grass either side of a railway line, with a black wire fence on the left side of the track and a curved structure over with stripes over the top. PA

The barrier will allow bats to cross above the high speed line without being disturbed (artist’s impression)

“We call it a shed. This shed, you’re not going to believe this, cost more than £100m to protect the bats in this wood,” he said.

Other more expensive options, including a bored tunnel and re-routing the railway, were considered.

After receiving the go ahead from Natural England for the design, HS2 Ltd was forced to spend “hundreds of thousands of pounds” on lawyers and environmental specialists because the local council did not approve the work, Sir Jon said.

Advertisement

“In the end, I won the planning permission by going above Buckinghamshire Council’s head,” he explained.

PA Ariel view of an artist's impression of Sheephouse Woods with the railway running alongside it, covered by the curved barrier to protect bats - which looks like a tunnel that is above ground.PA

The bat protection structure would run for 1km over the railway line, costing £100m

Buckinghamshire Council’s Peter Martin, who is deputy cabinet member for HS2, previously expressed “extreme disappointment” about the structure.

In March 2023, the council said HS2 was cutting back trees in Sheephouse Wood in order to protect the “Bat Mitigation Structure” and railway line.

Earlier this year, Mr Martin said: “We believe HS2 Limited is unnecessarily damaging Sheephouse Wood, a Site of Special Scientific Interest and Ancient Woodland.”

Advertisement

Sir Jon claimed the issue was an example of the UK’s “genuine problem” with completing major infrastructure projects.

He told the Rail Industry Association’s annual conference that HS2 Ltd has been required to obtain 8,276 consents from other public bodies in order to build phase one of the railway between London and Birmingham.

He said: “People say you’ve gone over the budget, but did people think about the bats [when setting the budget]?

“I’m being trite about it, but I’m trying to illustrate one example of the 8,276 of these [consents].”

Advertisement

Sir Jon, who has led the project since Mark Thurston left his role as chief executive in September 2023, warned in January that the estimated cost for phase one has soared to as much as £66.6bn compared to the £37.5bn forecast in 2013.

HS2 A silver-coloured train coming out of a tunnel with grass growing over the top. There are grasses and a fence in the foreground.HS2

HS2 will see high speed trains running between London and Birmingham

Source link

Continue Reading

Politics

Former NI assembly member dies

Published

on

Is Reform UK's plan to get Farage into No 10 mission impossible?
Pacemaker Anna Lo pictured on her last day at StormontPacemaker

Anna Lo was born in Hong Kong and moved to Northern Ireland in 1974

The Alliance Party has paid tribute to its “ground-breaking” and “trailblazing” former assembly member Anna Lo, who has died at the age of 74.

Ms Lo was the first ethnic-minority politician elected to Stormont, and the first Chinese-born person to be elected to a legislative parliament in western Europe

Alliance leader Naomi Long described her as a “great friend” and paid tribute to her “dedication and passion for serving her constituents” in Belfast.

She added that Ms Lo had been brave in confronting the “appalling racism” she faced during her political career.

Advertisement
Pacemaker Anna Lo at an Alliance Party manifesto launch.  She is wearing a white jacket, a monochrome patterned top and is speaking into a microphone.Pacemaker

Anna Lo represented the Alliance Part at the Northern Ireland Assembly

‘Championing causes from hospital bed’

Born in Hong Kong, Anna Lo moved to Northern Ireland in 1974.

At first she took jobs as a translator and as a BBC secretary, before attending Ulster University where she qualified to begin work as a social worker.

She later became the director of the Chinese Welfare Association in Belfast and a founding commissioner of the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland.

Advertisement

Lo was first elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2007, representing South Belfast for the Alliance Party.

She was re-elected five years later and served until her retirement in 2016.

Her sons, Owen and Conall Watson described her as a “campaigner for equality and social justice in Northern Ireland”.

In a family statement, they confirmed that she died in Belfast City Hospital on Wednesday, following complications of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Advertisement

They added that even from her hospital bed, she “continued to champion the issues that she had dedicated her life to”.

“We are incredibly proud of Anna and what she achieved throughout her life and career,” her sons said.

“She was a wonderful mother, grandmother, partner and friend, whose energy, joy and integrity inspired those she met.”

“Anna stood for and fought for equality, for women’s rights, against discrimination including racism, and for a political system to serve the needs of people rather than reinforce historic divisions,” they added.

Advertisement

‘Trailblazer in Northern Ireland politics’

Pacemaker Anna Lo heading into a polling station during European and council electionsPacemaker

Anna Lo was also an Alliance candidate in the European elections in 2014

In a party statement, the Alliance leader said: “Anna will forever be remembered as a ground-breaker in local politics.”

Ms Long added: “Her service to the Chinese community, to good relations and to the city of Belfast, much of which went unseen by most, was transformational.”

She said her friend had “a number of causes close to her heart, including protection of the environment and human rights, and was a strong voice on women’s rights and equality”.

Advertisement

Former Alliance leader David Ford also expressed his condolences and described Ms Lo as a “trailblazer in Northern Ireland politics”.

“I first met Anna in her previous career as a social worker, where she was known for the exemplary care she gave all her clients,” he said.

“On a professional level, she gave Alliance a massive boost when she made the party’s first Assembly gain, in South Belfast in 2007.”

He added: “I am sad to hear the news of her passing but her legacy as a trailblazer in Northern Ireland politics will live on.”

Advertisement

Lo served on several assembly scrutiny committees, including as chair of the environment committee.

In 2014, she said she would not be seeking re-election, explaining that continual racist abuse had influenced her decision.

She made headlines earlier that year after declaring her preference for a united Ireland at a time when she was an Alliance election candidate for the European Parliament.

She is survived by her sons Conall and Owen, two grandchildren and partner Robert.

Advertisement

Source link

Continue Reading

Politics

If I were a cautious, centre-left prime minister, Trump’s victory would have me worried | Andy Beckett

Published

on

Badenoch spars with Starmer over Labour’s view of Donald Trump at PMQs – video

Whatever determinedly positive things centre-left leaders around the world have said about Donald Trump’s victory in public, in private they must have greeted it with a shudder. Not just because of the dark and chaotic prospect of another Trump presidency, but because in many ways the defeated Kamala Harris is just like them. She is a hard worker, a patient reformer, a reasonably good communicator, an instinctive mover towards the ideological centre, a supposed antidote to rightwing populism, and yet also an incumbent, in an era when such perceived protectors of the status quo are widely despised.

Keir Starmer may have particular cause to worry. On her campaign website, Harris promised to “bring together” trade unions and business, “grow the economy” and increase both basic pay rates and employment. She said she had voted for legislation “creating hundreds of thousands of high-quality clean-energy jobs”, and “ensuring America’s energy security”. She said she would “cut red tape” to “build more housing”. She pledged “tough, smart solutions to secure the border … and reform our broken immigration system.” Above all, she presented her rightwing opponent as “cruel”, “dangerous” and “unfit to lead”.

All these policy ideas and political messages, and sometimes their precise language, could come from a Starmer speech or Labour press release. If they’ve been rejected by voters in the US, could that also soon happen here?

Supporters and members of the Starmer government who want to believe that Harris’s defeat is not cause for panic can point to the Conservatives’ weakness compared with the Republicans. While the catastrophes of Trump’s first presidency, such as his mishandling of Covid, appear to have been forgotten by many Americans, the Tories are weighed down by their more recent and much longer record in office, and are likely to be for years to come.

Advertisement

Britain and the US can also be very different politically. In the week that the notoriously reactionary Conservative membership nevertheless elected Kemi Badenoch as party leader, many Americans seem to have been put off by Harris’s race and gender. Yet other contrasts between the countries are less reassuring. While the administration of which Harris is part has overseen strong economic growth, Starmer’s government is likely to bring only a more modest improvement, according to the official forecasts that accompanied last week’s budget. If many voters did not notice, or refused to give Harris credit for, the boom under her and Joe Biden, what chance is there that Starmer’s probably smaller economic successes will be electorally rewarded?

This apparent breakdown in the relationship between a government’s achievements and its popularity poses a profound threat to centre-left politics. For decades, centrists have assumed that “what counts is what works”, as Tony Blair put it. As its name implies, centre-left politics is about compromise and alliances, which are meant to make steady, measurable progress on concrete issues. Yet it appears that more and more voters prefer the dogmas, tribalism, symbolic gestures and fantasy policies of rightwing populism. This dramatic, accelerated, often more short-term politics comes across better on digital media. It also expresses many voters’ anger about the present and anxiety about the future – or their desire to ignore looming disasters such as the climate crisis for as long as possible.

Badenoch spars with Starmer over Labour’s view of Donald Trump at PMQs – video

In the two previous periods when western democracies were consumed by doomy thoughts, the 1930s and the 1970s, many centre-left governments also struggled and were sometimes replaced by authoritarian rightwing populists. At prime minister’s questions this week, hours after Trump’s election, there was a new mood, which could not just be attributed to the fact that Badenoch was making her debut. She beamed with satisfaction at Trump’s victory, and woundingly remarked that Labour’s budget had been “cut and paste Bidenomics”. Meanwhile, Starmer gave unconvincing assurances that Anglo-American relations would continue as normal.

In these exchanges was possibly the beginning of a political shift: towards a situation where his government, while still theoretically dominant at Westminster because of its majority, in fact loses the ideological initiative and becomes isolated, even beleaguered.

Advertisement

We’re not there yet. Despite her aggression, Badenoch is not a commanding public performer and may never be one, given her tendency to bluff and her party’s lack of credibility and fresh ideas. Labour also has time on its side. By our next election, Trump’s final, four-year term may be over – and may also have demonstrated, as he did last time, that populists are better at electioneering than governing.

It’s possible that his latest victory will be the Republican equivalent of the Tory win in 2019: achieved by making impossible promises in circumstances that favour the right to a greater than usual extent, with Biden’s infirmity analogous to the huge but fleeting Conservative opportunity created by the vote for Brexit.

Yet simply waiting for Trump and other populists to fail in office again would be a slow and uninspiring strategy for the centre left: an acceptance that change can only come after further, possibly terminal, social and environmental damage. Instead, the centre left could make a better case, whether in government or opposition, by addressing inequality with more urgency, as Biden did before beating Trump in 2020, having incorporated ideas from Bernie Sanders’ insurgent campaigns to become the Democratic candidate.

We live in a different world to the one that formed the modern centre left. Unless it becomes more aggressive and more class-conscious – effectively, more populist – it will continue to rule only occasionally and with modest success. The rest of the time, the radical right will run riot.

Advertisement

Source link

Continue Reading

Politics

Former Defence Secretary John Nott dies aged 92

Published

on

Is Reform UK's plan to get Farage into No 10 mission impossible?

When Sir John Nott walked out of a live TV interview

Sir John Nott, who served as Conservative defence secretary during the Falklands War, has died aged 92.

Following the Argentine invasion of the South Atlantic islands, Sir John twice offered to resign.

Then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher refused to accept, and he stayed on until the conclusion of the war after which he stepped down to focus on his business interests.

Advertisement

During a political career that spanned almost two decades, he also worked in the Treasury and trade department, as well as representing the Cornish constituency of St Ives.

However, he became better known for storming out of a television interview, when broadcaster Sir Robin Day pressing him on defence spending cuts referred to him as a “here today, gone tomorrow politician”.

Removing his microphone, he muttered “I’m sorry, I’m fed up of this interview. It’s ridiculous” and left the studio.

Recalling the interview in 2002 he told the BBC that Sir Robin “was just looking, as interviewers do, to create trouble”.

Advertisement

“I was thinking of my farm, and the harvest and the green fields of England and half my brain was saying, ‘why do I have to sit here listening to all this ridiculous questioning’.

“I just got bored with it and just walked out.”

He retained a sense of humour about the incident, later entitling his memoir ‘Here Today, Gone Tomorrow’.

Born in 1932, he attended Kings Mead Schools, Steaford, Bradfield College and Trinity College Cambridge.

Advertisement

He also served as a lieutenant in the Gurkha Rifles, fighting in the Malayan Emergency, a communist-inspired revolt against the British colonial authorities.

In the 1966 election, he won St Ives for the National Liberals, a party which merged with the Conservatives two years later.

He slowly climbed the parliamentary ladder and in 1981, Margaret Thatcher appointed him as her defence secretary.

Over a year into the job he, along with the rest of the British government, was largely taken by surprise when the Falkland Islands where attacked by Argentina, who claim the territory as their own.

Advertisement

Sir John faced fierce criticism in the House of Commons for failing to foresee the attack and leaving the islands vulnerable to invasion.

Already bruised by rows over defence spending cuts the year before, he pleaded with Thatcher to be allowed to step down.

While she accepted the resignation of Lord Carrington, foreign secretary at the time, she refused to let Sir John to go saying “she could not possibly accept” when the British taskforce was still carrying out its operation to retake the islands.

Initially Sir John had been sceptical that the UK could regain the territory, however, his doubts were soon dispelled and later praised the deployment as “a remarkable achievement”.

Advertisement

Speaking to the BBC in 2002, he rejected criticism of the infamous sinking of the Argentine ship, the Belgrano, during which 323 sailors died.

“We didn’t start the war, – there was a great army of people who tried to somehow blame the war on us. (But) we were negotiating peacefully with the Argentinians,” he said.

“It was a terrible tragedy. I was shocked when all those Argentinian soldiers died. It was terrible really.”

However, he said that after that the incident the Argentine Navy was never put to sea, adding: “If we had had to contend against not only the very brave Argentine pilots but against the Argentine navy it would have been very much more difficult.”

Advertisement

Following Britain’s victory June 1982, Sir John again asked to be allowed to resign and eventually got his way in 1983.

Getty Images A cross on Wireless Ridge, just outside Stanley, Falkland Islands for those stands as a  memorial for those killed in the 1982 Conflict.Getty Images

Memorial on Wireless Ridge which is just outside Stanley, Falkland Islands for those killed in the 1982 Conflict.

He returned to banking, a career he had pursued before entering Parliament, taking up the chairmanship at Lazard Brothers.

He continued some involvement in politics and in 1999, then-Conservative leader William Hague, put him in charge of a commission to opposed the UK adopting the Euro.

During the 2016 Brexit referendum, he quit the Conservative Party in protest at what he called a “tirade of fear” coming from then prime minister David Cameron.

Advertisement

Later in life he took up writing, producing not only a political autobiography but two further books about the “adventures of an old age pensioner”.

Mr Wonderful Takes a Cruise and its sequel Mr Wonderful Seeks Immortality detail his trips to, among other places, Bromley, Balham and the nightclub Spearmint Rhino.

He is survived by his wife and three children including Sasha Swire, author of the memoir, Diary of an MP’s Wife.

Swire paid tribute to her father in a social media post: “RIP my beloved father, John Nott, protector, politician, farmer, me.”

Advertisement

Shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel said: “John Nott was an inspiring defence secretary and politician who stood up, alongside Margaret Thatcher, to aggression.

“His resolute determination to free British sovereign territory from tyranny is as important today as it was during the Falklands conflict.”

Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2024 WordupNews.com