The coverage of death rates in this country has been lacking in nuance – leading people to have skewed perceptions of the UK’s performance.
Some of the solutions being proposed for UK trade talks would make it a pariah state in the WTO community.
Boris Johnson’s former Head of Policy, the former Co-Chair of Women for Britain, and a geneticist who manages the Conservative Policy Forum make the final.
Do you believe the politicians or the markets? The power brokers and the money brokers have reacted in diametrically opposite ways to last week’s summit. To the politicians the summit was a major event, seeing a step change to the creation of “Two Europes” (Sarkozy), with “pygmy” England (Clegg) dangerously isolated on the sidelines, and […]
Could this be the beginning of the end of the UK's membership of the EU? The Prime Minister definitely did the right thing in refusing to sign up to a new EU treaty unless the UK got safeguards for the City. It is possible that in 24 hours the deal looks totally different (EU negotiations, […]
Well, the cat really is out of the bag. Like closet athiests in the 17th century wondering behind closed doors, away from the ears of the priests, whether God really exists, so British political leaders have long wondered behind closed doors whether the French and Germans really do want to take control of the City. […]
Should a nurse in Morecombe be paid the same as one in Manchester? Should a policeman in London get paid only slightly more than one in Lancashire? Potentially one of the biggest announcements that came out of the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement was the review of national wage bargaining. Amidst all the doom-mongering, there was little discussion of this […]
Open Europe’s report today makes a compelling case for the government to spend what political capital it has in the EU defending the City from the barrage of EU regulations. Financial services makes up 10% of UK GDP, whereas fishing makes up 0.05%. However disastrous the Common Fisheries Policy – and it is difficult to […]
Is George Osborne having a good war? It is a critical issue for the country and its economy – and the future of the Conservative Party. The Chancellor is in an extraordinary position. He has been dealt the worst hand of any chancellor since at least Geoffrey Howe after the winter of discontent in 1979, […]
The mood in Europe has taken on an ugly tone, which has had a possibly counter-intuitive outcome: the EU's cheerleaders in Europe have become the best recruitment sergeants for British politicians who want to withdraw from the EU. The more bullying the rhetoric from French or German politicians, the more the British public are likely […]
Nick Clegg’s announcement of £1bn worth of programmes to help the young unemployed is more than welcome. I have made the point on this site several times that the government has to be on the front foot on the battle against unemployment. It is obviously (as Tim pointed out) unfortunate that the Lib Dems briefed […]
Imagine young James, out of work for a year, and almost giving up hope for the future. He applies for a job paying £15,000 a year at a small company, Smiths, that is just managing to tread water in these difficult times, and to his great joy gets it. This is economic motherhood and apple-pie, […]
Next week’s Autumn statement by the Chancellor – and announcement of his growth strategy – is growing in importance almost by the day. At the beginning of the year, it was just going to be a fairly run-of-the-mill attempt to get the economy to accelerate faster out of a recession that had ended. Now, it […]
The Chancellor is getting flooded with proposals to revive the economy (see ConHome's 'turbocharge series'), so he should be able to create some fireworks during his growth review. Most of the proposed reforms aim to boost businesses, such as reductions in taxes and red tape. But the Chancellor should include some measures to more directly help the unemployed get into jobs, not just because it is the right […]
Voters across the political spectrum are united in their wish to see more done here.