George Osborne is calling the Budget a "con." He is, of course, right. ConservativeHome may wish that Mr Osborne was much more committed to making the economic case for lower taxation but Mr Brown has zero credibility with us on tax. The 2p cut today had a lot more to do with yesterday’s 28% poll […]
The Telegraph’s Jonathan Isaby has done an excellent job in recording that 12 shadow cabinet members joined David Cameron last night in supporting the Government’s doctrinaire attempts to bring Catholic adoption agencies within the scope of gay equality legislation. This dozen – plus Cameron himself – accounted for a huge 45% of the vote against […]
There are a number of good conservative criticisms of the Bush administration. The failure to control spending and the Rumsfeld light footprint doctrine would be my top two. I would also add the first term steel tariffs and the failure to legislatively progress the President’s faith-based initiative. If I was a Tory politician I’m not […]
ConservativeHome has been arguing for our party to support missile defence for some time (and Mark Pritchard MP discussed the issue on YourPlatform last May). It is encouraging, therefore, to see the issue finally on the national agenda. In yesterday’s Times, Michael Evans, the newspaper’s Defence Editor, wrote that "the simple idea of killing an […]
With David Burrowes MP, I founded the Conservative Christian Fellowship in 1990. With that declaration of interest out of the way I hope readers will forgive me if I use this post to disagree with Michael Portillo’s piece in The Sunday Times: ‘If God is talking to you, too, Mr Cameron – don’t listen.’ Do […]
Sam Coates and I spoke too soon. On Thursday night’s edition of ConservativeHome TV (watch it here) we welcomed the fact that Labour had not attacked David Cameron’s emphasis on the family. We hoped that – finally – Labour was willing to accept the overwhelming evidence that most children do better when a mother and […]
Last night former Conservative Chancellor Nigel Lawson performed more of a public service in one hour than Britain’s public service broadcaster has performed in any of the last 100 hours since the publication of the Stern report. Whilst the BBC has breathlessly gushed over the report – failing to subject it to any critical scrutiny […]
The headline of this post – or something very like it – appeared on the front page of The Guardian, earlier this week. ‘Neither the guts to rule nor the guts to quit’ captures the current policy of Bush and Blair in Iraq. We’re caught in some sort of no-man’s land between doing something to […]
Martin Vander Weyer has written an excellent article for today’s Daily Mail (not online). He reviews Gordon Brown’s great tax squeeze on Britain’s middle classes and the declining tax competitiveness of British business. He provides a reminder of the extent of Labour’s tax grab: The fact that our tax burden is rising faster than any […]
It’s one of the busiest days of the Tory year and this is only my second post of the day – my apologies. I’m already in Bournemouth and my excuse is that I’ve been doing lots of media including Radio 4’s PM Programme, Five Live, BBC News 24 and BBC1’s evening news bulletin. My message […]
An open letter to Francis Maude from Tim Montgomerie, Editor of ConservativeHome.com: "Dear Francis, I do not expect an immediate answer to this letter – I realise you have a very busy week ahead of you – but sometime after Bournemouth Conference it would be good to hear that members will retain full rights to […]
Team Cameron have chosen an odd day to announce the results of the Built to Last referendum. Given the fanfare with which it was launched in January the BtL result will hardly be noticed given today’s LibDem vote on tax. As recorded in this earlier post, 92.7% of participants in the Built to Last ballot […]