The Guardian reports: "People who inform on benefit cheats could be given a share of the resulting savings to the state under proposals being examined by Labour's manifesto team. The idea has been put to Ed Miliband, Labour's manifesto co-ordinator, by Jim Murphy, the Scottish secretary, as a way of making life harder for benefit […]
Francis Maude has today revealed how special advisers to government ministers have been abusing their position by commissioning civil servants to produce work explicitly for the purpose of attacking the Conservative Party. Click here to download some of the evidence he has uncovered through the use of Freedom of Information requests. Mr Maude has written […]
The Sunday Times publishes an analysis of Labour's proposed voting reform that would see a system of Alternative Vote replace first-past-the-post: "Michael Thrasher and Colin Rallings, professors of politics at Plymouth University, re-ran the results of the 2005 general election as if Brown’s alternative vote system were in place. The results show that Labour’s majority […]
After interviewing Labour MP Jon Cruddas for this week's New Statesman, the magazine's editor Jason Cowley concludes that "he's in the race" to be Labour leader after the general election. Iain Dale has pointed out several flaws in this argument, not least the fact that there is an increasingly high chance that he will fail […]
Over on ToryDiary Jonathan Isaby writes about the attacks on Chris Grayling's use of crime statistics. In this piece for LeftWatch, Natalie Elphicke suggests there is a wider problem of statistical collection methods being changed so that a government's performance over time cannot be measured. We already know that many statistics on marriage are no […]
With Gordon Brown having suddenly decided he would like to change the electoral system, the Liberal Democrats are also having a go at pushing their version of electoral reform. They have tabled amendments to the Constitution and Governance Bill which would have elections to the House of Commons run under the Single Transferable Vote System […]
The Sunday Times highlights some key findings from Michael Pinto-Duschinsky, an expert on political finance and senior research fellow in politics at Brunel University: "Payments to politicians and advisers now cost taxpayers nearly £650m a year and have been rising faster than inflation.""MPs’ expenses rose to £109m in the year to April 2009, an increase […]
You thought flying Nokias were bad? This appears in tomorrow's Mail on Sunday: "Sensational claims that Gordon Brown has physically attacked his staff in a series of outbursts in Downing Street – and once in America – have rocked the Government. Well-placed sources say the Prime Minister has been accused of hitting a senior adviser, […]
Iain Dale has spotted an attempt to bury bad news on the day that the media is focusing on Tony Blair's evidence session at the Chilcot Inquiry. The Government has this morning quietly released the latest NHS waiting time statistics for England which read as follows: The number of inpatients, for whom English commissioners are […]
One of the proposals in Gordon Brown's final Budget was to scrap stamp duty on any new property up to the value of £500,000 which is given a zero carbon rating. Yet as today's Independent reports… "Just 24 homebuyers have taken advantage of a high-profile scheme devised by Gordon Brown to encourage the construction of […]
John Redwood suggested on his must-read blog yesterday afternoon that the Government should be asking itself that question: "Since 2005 the government has doubled central government borrowing (on its own understated figures ) from £469 billion to £922 billion – an injection of £452 billion. "Since 2004-5 money supply (M4) has surged from £1,212 billion […]
Sandra Gidley is the Lib Dem MP for Romsey and has a majority of a mere 125 votes. At the general election she will be challenged for the second election in a row by Caroline Nokes for the Conservatives, who is now extremely well placed to gain the seat. And the incumbent MP certainly has […]
The National Equality Panel – appointed by the Labour Government – has today given a devastating critique of its record on inequality, As Chris Hope in the Daily Telegraph reports: "The gulf between the richest and poorest in society is at its widest since the Second World War, an official report has found. "The National […]
That reprehensible sentence is unworthy of Jackie Ashley but she writes it in today's Guardian. "Dear Ms Ashley, Five things: 1. I am open to the possibility that the climate is changing and it is man-made. 2. We should improve energy efficiency and diversify energy supplies but I do not believe that we should turn […]
That reprehensible sentence is unworthy of Jackie Ashley but she writes it in today's Guardian. "Dear Ms Ashley, Five things: 1. I am open to the possibility that the climate is changing and it is man-made. 2. We should improve energy efficiency and diversify energy supplies but I do not believe that we should turn […]