Danny Kruger

Daniel Rayne Kruger (born 23 October 1974) is a British Conservative Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for East Wiltshire from 2024. Before Boundary changes, he was the member for Devizes since 2019. He is the son of writer and property developer Rayne Kruger, and restaurateur and television presenter Prue Leith. Prior to being an MP, he was Prime Minister David Cameron's chief speechwriter and was chief executive of a youth crime prevention charity called Only Connect.

Quotes

2005–2007

• We plan to introduce a period of creative destruction in the public services.
  • Comment (first reported in The Guardian) leading to Kruger standing down as Conservative candidate in Sedgefield (then the constituency of Labour prime minister Tony Blair), as cited in "Tory candidate quits over remark", BBC News (15 March 2005).

On Fraternity : Politics Beyond Liberty & Equality (2007)

Civitas: Institute for the Study of Civil Society ISBN 9781903386576

• Liberalism is the philosophy of the individual. Its ethic is liberty and its characteristic is autonomy — the freedom of the will from external constraint. It says "I shall…".
  Socialism is the philosophy of the state. Its ethic is equality and its characteristic is coercion — the power, in the last resort, to exert force over individuals and groups. It says "you must…".
  Conservatism is the philosophy of society. Its ethic is fraternity and its characteristic is authority — the non-coercive social persuasion which operates in a family or a community. It says "we should…".
  • "Triangulation", p. 13

• Where the Left imagine social justice to be the realization of certain abstract ideas — equality and emancipation — the Right see it as a system of naturally occurring and beneficial relationships. Social justice is the fulfilment of the individual's need for positive liberty through social membership.
  • "Fraternity". p. 52

2023–present

• Nihilism has consumed left-liberalism from within, and now animates the corpse. Old socialist principles like the dignity of labour and the solidarity of the working class, and liberal principles like free speech, tolerance and the value of dissent, have given way to a new social justice orthodoxy which admits no dignity or solidarity and brooks no dissent. Yet because it occupies the life-like corpse of liberalism, the new orthodoxy attracts the usual bien-pensant progressives (including some calling themselves conservatives) who think they are still promoting a diverse and tolerant society.
  • "Could Sunak be the Tories’ new Pitt the Younger?" The New Statesman (15 April 2023)

• The penny is dropping among people in Westminster that the Government doesn’t run the Government. [...] There's a huge movement going on globally to create essentially a world government that will have power to dictate to national governments what they should do in anticipation of another pandemic.
  • Speaking at a joint IEA and Taxpayers' Alliance event (2 October 2023) held at the Conservative Party conference "The Tories are lost to lunatic conspiracy and moral obsolescence (not that Rishi Sunak cares)", i (2 October 2023)

• The Government should immediately announce an intention to do what is necessary to insist on our sovereignty.
  That means legislation to override the effect of the w:European Court of Human RightsEuropean court, of the ECHR itself and of other conventions including the Refugee Convention if necessary.
  • Comments cited by Nina Lloyd in "Tory backbenchers warn Sunak’s future could be decided by Rwanda ruling response", The Standard (15 November 2023)
  • Following the ruling of the UK's Supreme Court that the Rwanda asylum plan is unlawful. The policy was scrapped by the incoming Starmer government in July.

• [On the Reform Party] They think the obstacle to Conservatism is the Conservative Party. And I kind of get what they're saying. Because in many ways it is, we're not a very conservative party in lots of ways. But I don't agree with them. I think the answer to the Conservative Party's problems is to change the Conservative Party and to make it better, which is what we're trying to do.
  But I am sympathetic to their general critique. I don't really believe in them, I don't really like them to be honest. I don't think they stand for genuine conservative ideas, I think they're just a destructive force. I think it will be a tragedy if they did end up replacing us. But their general critique of what's wrong, I think, is mostly valid. And the people who are attracted to them, I understand why and we have to have major respect for them, not insult them.
  • Comments (22 March 2024) at a party meeting in Salisbury from a leaked recording, as cited in "Reform is right about Tory failings, admits MP Danny Kruger in leaked recordings", The Telegraph (28 March 2024)

External links

• Guardian contributor page