Jeremy Hunt MP: I’m determined to do for hospitals what Gove is doing for schools

Inspired by Ofsted, the new Quality Care Commission will fearlessly root out failings in adult social care and general practice too.

Now Len McCluskey faces allegations over his own Unite leadership election

Grangemouth, Falkirk, Ineos intimidation, VAT underpayments, and now this. The Unite leader is an anti-Midas.

Nick de Bois MP: It’s time to cut business rates

Indeed, councils already have the power to do so. So why have only 18 local authorities used it?

The surreptitious growth of the payroll vote

Roughly half of all Conservative MPs are now part of it.

Think Big, Britain

I’ve long hoped that the next Tory manifesto would offer an agenda for ensuring Britain can compete in what Digby Jones has rightly called the ‘Asian century’.

Why Adam Afriyie should withdraw his amendment to the Wharton bill today

There’s no majority in the Commons for a pre-2017 referendum. All the Afriyie amendment can help achieve is to delay and thus endanger the bill.

Iain Dale: Should would-be Tory MPs have to declare their religious views?

Also: Reflections on chairing the Tonbridge and Malling primary. And why I like Piers Morgan…and Tony Benn.

Nida Broughton: Why deciding to build more is so hard

We don’t talk about housing in the way we used to. In the 1960s, both the Conservatives and Labour competed on the number of houses they would build.

A third of Tory members back Afriyie’s EU referendum plan

And over half want a vote before David Cameron’s preferred date of 2017

Adrian Hilton: Unqualified teachers have inspired generations of children

I’m at loss to know why a university professor with a PhD should be obliged to sit a GCSE in Maths simply to tick a bureaucratic box (which really happened).

Boris needs a better grip on housing

“Carpe Diem”, Boris – get London building. Creating streets can be good for London, and good for you.

What if the rules of Monopoly reflected the realities of modern capitalism?

Money can always be created at a faster pace than real estate

The best way to help poorer workers is to cut their tax bill

There’s a case for tax incentives for firms to encourage them to pay the Living Wage. But that’s no substitute for focusing tax reductions on the worse-off.

Stephan Shakespeare: Is it Euro-scepticism, or anti-establishment frustration, that is fuelling UKIP?

The voters currently captured by the Party are more concerned about energy prices and immigration than about the EU.

Lord Ashcroft: Why we need to support the bomb disposal community’s new charity

The Felix Fund does invaluable work supporting bomb disposal experts and their families.