Just over one fifth preferred no increase in the military budget and more tax cuts. Grant Shapps’ demands for more cash have cut through with members – but show little sign of having persuaded the Treasury.
Universities need overseas students to cross-subsidise the domestic ones. The best way to solve this problem would be properly to fund domestic higher education funding.
There is also a strong case for believing that it is risky if you have almost half of adults not paying income tax – the position we were approaching by the end of the Coalition.
This will not be the last scandal to come to light and, given the impact of ITV’s drama, other scandals may get similar television treatment. The contaminated blood story would make searing viewing.
We are fed up with being controlled by its incorrect forecasts, and subject to wild policy swings by the Bank of England which did much to give us inflation in the first place.
Warm words won’t cut it: victims need action. Their lives will always be defined by their treatment. They need life-changing compensation, and the quashing of unjust convictions.
Without understanding what parts of the status quo are propped up by the mass import of people, and how, and why, any move to cut headline numbers is going to run aground on the consequences of so doing.
There is also a moral point: if someone works, they should be the main beneficiary of their labour, rather than being forced to give most of their extra earnings to the Government.
Pro-environment policies – and Treasury funding to make them a reality – were a consistent hallmark of his tenure as Chancellor,
Instead of a Conservative housing policy that emphasises home ownership and architectural beauty, it will now be done the Labour way. When tower blocks start rising over the Home Counties, I hope that our remaining MPs realise their mistake.
What’s missing are the long-term reforms that would overcome resistance by the pension sector. The question is whether the Government will use the limited time remaining in the Parliament to fix these problems.
There are many things that can be done to resist the tide. The first would be for ministers to make the philosophical case for where state responsibility ends, and personal responsibility starts.
Preventing right-wingers from being discriminated against by corporate progressives is not going to be top of an incoming Labour government’s list of priorities.
To those who say that election year budgets should offer short-term giveaways, I say this: history tells us that the British public is much too smart and much too sceptical to be bribed.