Cameron’s EU promise: fiddling with Chekhov’s Gun
29 April 2014“I would not be prime minister of a government unless we could carry out our pledge of an in-out referendum.”
The Blog
New pro-European Conservative alliance highlights Britain’s divisions over Europe
25 April 2014A group of pro-European British Conservatives have formed a new party to stand in the upcoming EU elections underneath the European People’s Party grouping. The centre-right EPP grouping is the largest of the European political parties – the Tories were formerly part of this group but struggled to find ideological allies and eventually left. After… [Read More]
Criminal violence falls (again!)
24 April 2014Besides repairing the human damage, hospitals are helping the police forestall violent crime.
UKIP launch controversial campaign amid funding furore
22 April 2014Parliament is on holiday, so the media’s keen to seize on any hint of a story. This emerged yesterday: UKIP has unveiled posters for the European Parliamentary elections. Nigel Farage kicks off the campaign proper with a speech in Sheffield at 13:00. The posters’ content is stirring up a storm, as was intended.
The Prime Minister does God
17 April 2014David Cameron’s piece in the Church Times says plenty about him and people’s reactions say plenty about them.
Use tuition fees to get the skills we need
16 April 2014It is now conventional wisdom that the UK’s recession was exacerbated by the decline of our production base. Too many jobs and too many taxes came from ‘frothy’ industries in services: accountancy, restaurants, communications etc., things that we cannot easily sell abroad to bring money into the country. ‘How do you export a haircut?’ is… [Read More]
Can Ukraine learn from Ulster’s compromises?
15 April 2014I spent last weekend in Newry, a Northern Irish city an hour up the coast from Dublin. I arrived outside the courthouse, whereupon a local cheerfully informed me, “Dissident Republicans still try to blow it up every year or so – it’s a bit of a tradition.”
Viktor Orban wins Hungarian elections as support for far-right party Jobbik increases
11 April 2014Viktor Orbán has won a convincing election victory and will govern for a second term as Hungary’s Prime Minister. His centre-right party Fidesz won 46% with most of the votes counted, but will have 66% of seats in parliament, while the centre-left opposition alliance only managed 25% of the vote. The far-right party Jobbik came… [Read More]
External examiners for police statistics
10 April 2014If one of each police crime-recording team could report to a different force, it would remove any temptation to fiddle.
North-South divide goes deeper still: Northern borrowers will be hit harder by interest rate rise
9 April 2014Six years ago, terrible mortgage lending practices brought Britain’s banks to their knees. Newcastle’s Northern Rock built itself up by offering irresponsible interest-only and 125% mortgages mainly to families in the North, helping them to avoid ‘burdensome’ deposits. After the credit crunch (the financial sector’s realisation of how deep and dangerous these practices had become),… [Read More]