As a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, I am uneasy about the bail-out of Flybe. Every time a private business is bailed out by the taxpayer, the pressure grows.
This new government seems to want to concentrate its energies on giving Britain a cutting edge. Will it succeed where others have failed?
If Boris Johnson now gives real political substance to what has become an overused catch-phrase, he will recreate the Tories in the image of “ Honest Stan” Baldwin.
One has to pinch oneself to remember that as recently as last July May was Prime Minister, Hammond Chancellor of the Exchequer and Gauke Lord Chancellor.
His big win marks the end of the EU Ascendancy and the beginning of a new era: that of Britain as a sovereign nation.
Johnson is a self-described “Brexity Hezza” and now has the chance to mould a Party and country in his own romantic image.
Plus: Leaders who will have to go and reflections on my eleventh general election. How things have changed.
The tax burden isn’t a full measure of the size of the state. But it’s arguably the pre-eminent factor and certainly that which most concerns the TaxPayers’ Alliance.
The big prize will be that the UK’s economic and trade freedom will be restored, something May’s backstop would have prevented, potentially indefinitely.
If we lack the self-confidence to defend our achievements, how do we seriously expect to be able take the fight to our opponents?
When he declared that “the first consideration of a minister should be the health of the people”, he was beginning to map out an election-winning mass appeal.
How better to follow Jeremy Corbyn’s speech yesterday than by citing a signature Tory policy that shifted wealth to “working people and their families”?
It’s one that more Tories should tell – in season and out, including this week each year, when Labour strive to delegitimise it.
The latter’s NHS myth is fading as time passes, and younger people bring their consumer viewpoint to their use of public services.
Over the past few decades our constitution has been so corroded that the likes of Powell, Benn, Crossman, and Foot would struggle to recognise it.