Monthly Archives: June 2008

One of the many policies and aspirations of the present government that lies in tatters is its wish to see many more houses built in Britain. With an impeccable sense of timing and no sense of irony, the government chose the top of the housebuilding cycle to announce that it intended the building industry to [...]

Today is a good day to review the progress of two leaders at modernising their institutions. David Cameron’s Conservatives are in good shape on the back of election victories. There are many more women prospective candidates. Homosexual MPs and candidates are treated like any other, as their sexual orientation is not relevant to how they [...]

Fiscal policy is too lax — the government is spending wasting and borrowing too much. Markets fear that the government is going to borrow far more than in the budget. Each day brings more evidence of a loss of financial discipline in the public sector. Monetary policy is still too tight – the banks are [...]

Last evening after a day pounding the streets of Henley I went to see a Beating the Retreat at the Officers’ Mess at REME in Arborfield in my constituency. It was such a pleasure to find a small corner of Labour’s great public sector where the people are professional, courteous and keeping high standards. Even [...]

Legislation has become an extended press release to this government. As the government of the spinners by the spinners for the spinners detects movements in public opinion through its copious professional polling and focus group research, so it wishes to send out messages. “We feel your pain”, “We will do something about your problem”, “We [...]

I just turned on the New Zealand versus England cricket in time to see the collision between bowler and batsman and the run out of the New Zealand player as a result. In the spirit of cricket England should not have appealed for the run out.

Yesterday’s debate on the rising cost of living reminded us just how driven by soundbites modern Labour politics is. Ministers stuck doggedly to their task – to put the word “world” or “global” in front of anything unpleasant that is happening to the economy, and to claim endlessly that everything being done in the UK [...]

Today we debate how to get more planning permission through our aged, creaking and unpopular system of planning. The government wrongly thinks that injecting yet another quango into the process, stuffed full of so-called independent experts carefully chosen by Labour Ministers, will do the job. The more their backbenchers disagree, the more the government makes [...]