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February 2016

Ever Greater Freedom For the Peoples of Europe

29 February 2016

Our referendum has awakened the people of Europe and there is already talk of a demand for referendums in other EU member states. It has rattled the ruling class in Brussels who are calling it a contagion that could spread. For them, it seems, an outbreak of freedom and democracy is a kind of disease.… [Read More]


Profound economic shock or profound opportunistic exaggeration

27 February 2016

George Osborne claimed yesterday that leaving the EU would cause a ‘profound economic shock’. And yet the London stock market rose in the week after the referendum was announced. ‘In my judgement as chancellor leaving the EU would represent a profound economic shock for our country, for all of us and I’m going to do… [Read More]


Will the EU be spiteful if we leave?

26 February 2016

Will the 27 other EU members be spiteful towards us if we leave? According to the Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, if we leave the EU the other 27 ‘will interpret a leave decision as two fingers from the UK, and we can expect precisely the same in return’. Mr Hammond plainly thinks that Brussels officials… [Read More]


The growing housing divide is not just intergenerational

17 February 2016

Research by the Resolution Foundation this week shines a spotlight on not just the decline in home ownership but the group most affected by it: those on low to middle incomes, among whom owner-occupation fell from 73 per cent in 2000 to 55 per cent in 2014. Among the under-35s in that income bracket (those… [Read More]


Not all caution is fearmongering in the EU debate

David Cameron’s idea that the Calais asylum seeker camps could move to Kent after Brexit is the latest example of argument over Britain’s future in which the Remain case is labelled ‘scaremongering’. Last week the Leave side had a similar experience with the Daily Mail running the headline ‘Quit the EU to save our NHS:… [Read More]


Is the government’s focus on weekend mortality doing more harm than good?

11 February 2016

The BMA has rejected the government’s final offer for the new junior doctors’ contract. Linked with the recommendation from Sir David Dalton, the chief negotiator in the dispute and chief executive of Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust, that the government now does ‘whatever it deems necessary’ to end the uncertainly of the situation to the… [Read More]


Has a better lifestyle reduced cancer death rates?

4 February 2016

Although more people are being diagnosed with cancer in the UK each year, due to an increasing and ageing population, the overall death rate from cancer is reducing. Such is the upbeat conclusion to be drawn from figures published by Cancer Research UK today, to mark world cancer day. In short, cancer is becoming less… [Read More]


The EU red card could hurt UK interests as well as help them

2 February 2016

One of the main achievements David Cameron is claiming from his renegotiation talks with European heads of state and the EU Council President is a new red card system for national parliaments. It seems that if 55% of parliaments (those of 16 countries) vote against an EU proposal then it will be stopped. At first… [Read More]


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