Robert Courts KC FRAeS 🇬🇧

Martin Hewitt is a good man, with a lifetime in public service. But he simply couldn't succeed because Ministers are unwilling to have a deterrent, to detain and remove all illegal migrants, and have proactively weakened the law. His successor will inevitably suffer the same.

On coming to power, Labour chose to put everything on hold - including urgent munitions’ procurement - in order to spend almost 2 years dithering over the SDR/DIP. This has totally paralysed Defence & we would not repeat that mistake, as I explained to @TaliFraser for @ConHome👇

Exclusive: Ministers could push back major shipbuilding programmes and other projects to make £10 billion worth of savings in the Ministry of Defence thetimes.com/article/98990d…

New polling of 1,500 UK adults in @thesun Preference for Winston Churchill or an owl on the £5 note: All: Churchill (+12) 18-24: Churchill (+16) 24-34: Churchill (+9) 35-44: Churchill (+1) 45-54: Churchill (+12) 55-64: Churchill (+3) 65-74: Churchill (+34) 75+: Churchill (+14) White: Churchill (+10) Non-white: Churchill (+19) Conservative: Churchill (+32) Labour: Churchill (+1) Lib Dem: Churchill (+13) Reform: Churchill (+31) Green: An owl (+34)

So if Reeves’s claim that Brexit cost us 8% of GDP is correct it would mean we’d have grown four times more than Japan/Germany and almost twice France/Italy. Up there with Canada/US. If you believe that I have a bridge to sell you. In reality, even with Brexit, we were fastest growing European economy in G7. Just a tad more than France (with no Frexit).

Angela Rayner, 2023: “Being an MP isn’t a second job. It is the job. Labour will put an end to this racket.”

It is total unutterable rubbish that Brexit has caused 8% GDP damage to the economy - even remain economists would admit that is silly, Reeves should be ashamed to spread this nonsense, it makes her look economically illiterate and doesn't inspire market confidence

Antisemitism is on the rise. The Al-Quds protests and terror marches are helping fuel it. We need a shared British identity. The Conservatives are going to fight for that. We will root out the separatism tearing Britain apart.

Thank you @SenJohnKennedy for speaking out against Keir Starmer’s appalling Chagos Surrender Deal. John has been a great ally in the fight against this disgraceful deal and it was brilliant to see him in Washington and brief him about the threat it poses to our shared security.

Absolutely brilliant to visit MGI Engineering - A great British SME who have harnessed their F1 expertise to develop cutting edge drones for Defence.

Superb article from @TomTugendhat explaining why the new banknotes story matters: replacing national heroes with wildlife isn’t a harmless design change: it signals a country losing confidence in its own history and achievements. telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03/1…

This is, frankly, just how you do it. A stellar speech that cast the rest of the chamber into shadow. Watch it and understand why juries matter - and how there is still real genuine quality in the Commons - as exemplified by @Geoffrey_Cox

A bad change made because of bogus concerns about "diversity". A Conservative government will bring back Churchill and our national heroes.

For those of you interested in jury trials, this is Parliament at its best. 👇

If you want to see the best and worst of the Commons, watch Catherine West's snippy response to Geoffrey Cox. Disoriented by a rare display of brilliance in the Commons, she can only call him patronising (inevitably, before reading off a sheet) and her colleagues can only jeer

MoD insiders believe Starmer will be left with no choice but to increase the defence budget during this parliament after the Middle East crisis exposed how unprepared the UK is for war thetimes.com/article/80bdce…

A British team has triumphed in the Pentagon’s kamikaze drone combat trials to win a defence contract worth tens of millions of pounds, by @charliehparker thetimes.com/article/864f9a…

It’s a lengthy but this is magnificent from @Geoffrey_cox on the importance of jury trials. A true orator among giggling simpletons

“A nation that forgets its past has no future.” - Churchill. This may seem like a small thing to some. It isn’t. These quiet reminders of our history - the faces and names we encounter in everyday life - help anchor a shared sense of who we are. They are part of the thread that binds individuals into something larger: a community, a nation. For years our banknotes have carried the people who shaped this country and, in many cases, the wider world: Turner, Turing, Churchill, Austen. Before them, Elgar, Darwin, Newton, Adam Smith. They are prompts to curiosity - moments that might make someone pause and ask who these figures were, and why they mattered. There is nothing wrong with wildlife. But replacing the story of a nation with neutral imagery risks reflecting something deeper: a country that has grown uncertain of its own identity, unsure of the shared culture and history that make it more than simply a collection of individuals. We should not casually discard those small, everyday reminders of what Britain has contributed to the world - or of the people who helped shape it.