Plus: Here comes Syriza. The Teflon Greens. Mystic Dale v Nick Clegg. The Political Book Awards. And: There’s no such thing as an illegal war.
Our democracy is manufacturing its own ghosts at the banquet.
The rise of ideologically pure minor parties makes reported hopes of using Iraq War to distance Miliband’s Labour from Blair’s seem far fetched.
“So you don’t arrive at a decision because you’re a barrister and therefore you favour the bar or because you’re a solicitor and therefore you favour the solicitors’ firms.”
It may not always work well. It isn’t a model other countries want. But we’ve chosen it – and so are stuck with it.
The “peace process” is not a get out of jail free card – whether or not it ever justified handing them out.
Also: SNP attacked by Scottish councils for annulling hundreds of millions of poll tax arrears; and Plaid MP attacks Government over driving licence flags.
Labour plans new taxes on your family home and your pension – and he and Balls would like to tax death too.
Plus: Charlie Hebdo and 7/7. Mildenhall’s closure: a garden city opportunity? More bad news for the Bow Group. And: I ditch the Telegraph for the Times.
At the risk of stating the obvious, the targeting of Charlie Hebdo and its staff for murder had nothing whatsoever to do with western foreign policy.
Answer: probably not.
Labour doesn’t own the North – it never did – and Conservatives can win here.
The two main parties are making a big mistake by pitching their appeal at supporters of two minor ones – UKIP and the Greens.
By being so unrelentlingly contemptuous about the Leader of the Opposition, the Prime Minister is corrupting his own brand.
The evidence that the home environment has a huge impact on educational and economic outcomes has become impossible to ignore