Follow Andrew on Twitter. In October 1962, as the Conservative government negotiated (unsuccessfully) for Britain to join the European Economic Community, Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell declared that Britain's joining would mean "the end of Britain as an independent European state, the end of a thousand years of history!" In 1970, the Conservatives won the General Election […]
Follow Andrew on Twitter. The UK's Met Office has updated its official estimates of global temperatures. It now predicts that global temperatures in the late 2010s will be no higher than in 1998 – at least a 20 year temperature plateau. This constitutes official recognition of the multi-decade temperature plateau predictions that first started to […]
Until today, the UK tax system contained at least some in-principle recognition that the level of tax one paid was related to the ability to pay. Virtually every developed country has some form of child tax allowance – since responsibility for dependents reduces one’s ability to pay, and hence if the amount of tax demanded […]
My highly non-trivial dinner companion summed up his thesis thus: "The guys you have in charge here are clever, and they want to do the right thing (more than they're often given credit for), but fundamentally they're lightweights. On the other hand, it wouldn't make that much difference if they were more heavyweight, because the […]
Some allegations made by the police are wrong. Sometimes policemen even make things up entirely. Policemen will back each other up with falsehoods. Policemen fabricate evidence, alter witness statements, influence false accusers to come forwards. Not every child abuse allegation is true. Not every woman who cries "Rape!" was raped. Not every alleged terrorist was […]
The song I most hate in all the world is Imagine by John Lennon. Its lyrics ask us to imagine a world with no countries, religion, or property, in which there is "nothing to kill or die for". As the lyrics tell us that "isn't hard to do". It's 10,000BC. The strong oppress the weak, and […]
During the 1980s, across much of England and Wales, there were fewer new houses built than there was growth in the number of households. So by the time of the 1991 Census in some parts of the country there were only slightly more dwellings than households, as we can see in the following figure. It […]
With a heavy heart and no enthusiasm, I feel driven by events to write again on gay marriage. Was there ever a measure in which the outrage and enthusiasm were more disproportionate to the harmless nature of what's proposed? I shan't repeat the reasons I've always favoured having a legal form of civil gay marriage. Here, […]
The Institute for Fiscal Studies points out that on the government's own figures (if you believe those – and presumably the government does?) there are still a further £27bn of unspecified additional tax rises and spending cuts to find in the next Parliament. They don't mean there are £27bn of tax rises and spending cuts […]
"My right is hard pressed. My centre is yielding. Impossible to manoeuvre. Situation excellent. I attack." This is the famous laconic aphorism attributed to Marshall Foch at the Battle of the Marne in 1914. It could also be seen as the inspiration for George Osborne's political strategy in his 2012 Autumn Statement. On his right […]
When debating the impact of public spending on growth, economists normally distinguish between two kinds of government spending. "Current" spending is the money used for public sector salaries, consultants, and other such day-to-day needs. George Osborne's original key deficit reduction target was that the structural "current" deficit would be eliminated over one Parliament. The other […]
One of the most important events in political and intellectual history was the final collapse of the Roman Empire after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. (Some readers may think of this as the fall of the "Byzantine" empire, but that was just a name later historians gave it. The Empire called itself the "Roman […]
Suppose that a UK water company – let's call it "WaterCo" – were discovered to have been involved in human trafficking. Would we declare that Ofwat (the body that regulates water prices and water quality) had failed, and that the system of economic regulation of the water sector needed to be completely overhauled? I reckon […]
This is the fourth in ConservativeHome’s series of posts counting down to the Autumn Statement. On Tuesday, Tim Montgomerie said that George Osborne’s economic narrative is taking shape. Yesterday, Peter Hoskin urged Mr Osborne to ditch his current fiscal rules, and Tom Frostick argued that the Chancellor must target wealth. The British economy has not grown […]
In response to the latest mild gossip about highly hypothetical leadership challenges to Cameron we've had the usual chorus of responses: "Have the Tories learned nothing?", "Do these Right-wingers not comprehend that Cameron's failing has been not to drag his party enough to the centre, not dragging it too far!" and most commonly of all "How […]