Dinner with John Redwood

Last night John Redwood addressed the Bow Group, he comes across much better face to face than he does on TV. The Bow Group still has some heavyweight thinkers and some of the question put to him were pretty tough, he handled them well.

After the presentation a number of us had dinner together and had a chance to grill John in a lot more detail, if was very interesting to get a very frank account of what it was like to be in a Conservative government through the Thatcher and Major years. John was very open about the mistakes that were made but also very proud of the achievements as well. It is very easy to forget what was achieved through the 80s and 90s by the Conservatives, bringing income tax down to a realistic level, forcing the unions to grow up, letting council tenants buy there own homes. None of these things have been rescinded by Labour because they know that that they were good for the country.