There are two bad ideas in the offing from the government. The first is the proposal that people should be allowed to add extensions without planning permission. Can you imagine the disaster of next door being sold to aspirational know-alls who want everything they can legally get without a thought for the effect on their […]
Nick Clegg is talking in rather vague terms about stopping free bus passes, winter fuel allowances etc. to those who have no financial need of them. This is bound to cause controversy because of the pivotal notion of the universal right to benefits enshrined in the foundation of the welfare state. To test this hypothesis we need […]
The Lib Dems cannot reasonably be blamed for clumsiness with the levers of power. They have had to learn on the job. Unfortunately fate and votes determined that they form a coalition with the Conservatives. This is the party, still, of the view that it is the natural party of power and that it is […]
Two things stand out about the 2012 Presidential race. Neither the President nor his opponent have yet developed obvious winning themes and America is polarised. Rather than a theme, there is instead a schism. It is about the American dream of individual freedom, self reliance and minimal government versus the one nationhood of the United […]
This Blog has recently drawn attention to an untrustworthy Establishment, following the lies and deception at the heart of the failure, for over twenty years, to reveal the truth about the Hillsborough disaster. Waiting in the wings are the outcomes to Leveson and Chilcot. There are high hopes that both will deliver emphatic conclusions in […]
Protests about the unfortunate and apparently very bad film made in America, but nobody seems to know by whom, which insults Islam, has led to an ever widening area of protest, which now goes beyond Arab counties right across the Islamic world. America is shocked by the death of its Ambassador to Libya. It is […]
It is very distressing for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, multitudes think of them affectionately as Wills and Kate, to have to brave their own scandal of privacy invasion, while on an important overseas tour. Now it transpires that the decision to sue the publishers of the pictures in France has provoked an Italian magazine to jump on […]
Markets have gone wild with the news that the Fed is going to pump new money, not once, but month by month, into the US economy, until it begins to grow convincingly under its own steam. Coming on top of the ECB decision to stand ready to do its own version of QE, this shows […]
Usually when people use the word corruption they think of bribes and kickbacks. There is another use which implies a decay, dysfunction and a loss of integrity. This disturbing pall now hangs menacingly over the governing establishment of our country and permeates through the very institutions, the police, the judiciary, the press and the politicians, […]
It is easy to see why the worthy and wise Sir Menzies Campbell did not work out well as leader of the Lib Dems. The prim idea that it is out of order for coalition ministers to talk to friends in the opposition by text or whatever perhaps comes from his earlier career as an […]