Monthly Archives: May 2009

Tonight at the Cambridge Union I have a platform to examine the Thatcher legacy. The amount of newsprint and media time given over to the 30th anniversary of her arrival in Downing Street is testimony both to her achievement, and to the idiotic way the left and the many in the commentariate 30 years on [...]

Output falls by 6.1% in the US in the first quarter, more than forecasters expected. The US market rose. Rumours swirl that maybe half of the 19 US banks being stress tested by the authorities will fail their test. The US market rose. News filters out that the Chinese decline in output was bigger than [...]

Listening to President Obama yesteday, he sounded like a more fluent version of George Bush. His speech on how he will confront and destroy the Taliban takes place against the background of more deaths from US air attacks over Pakistan and Afghanistan. Far from ending the war in the Middle East and seeking diplomatic answers, [...]

Let me praise the pilots union. They are challenging the requirement that pilots have to have ID cards in Manchester to go airside. They argue that it will not strengthen security. It is in effect on a new tax on them to do their job, making them buy a card. As the government steps up [...]

The tourist industry of Australia has shown how you can buy loads of prime time advertising on the BBC for very little outlay.(“The world’s best job” stunt) . Well done to them – the Great Barrier reef looks wonderful. I suppose the good news is that it makes a welcome complement to all those self [...]

Nasty and weak PMs leak or brief in advance that certain Ministers are for the chop. We learn today from some source or other that Hazel Blears and Jacqui Smith are pencilled in to lose their jobs in a reshuffle, for incompetence and disloyalty.If this is not the Prime Minister’s wish, he should slap down [...]

There are rumours that the great football being played by Premier league teams at the top of that division may become a thing of the past. People fear that the new higher rate of tax – Brown’s spite tax – may start to deter foreign stars from coming to Britian to earn their mega bucks [...]

The decision of the government to offer a taxpayer loan for just four weeks to LDV, with no extension, is a carefully chosen time period for the lending. Four weeks from today takes us beyond the local and European elections, avoiding embarrassing headlines about the collapse of a vehicle maker when votes have to be [...]

The Ombudsman decision to revisit the Equitable Life issue is a brave one. What else can she do, when her findings of maladministration by Labour’s Regulators have been ignored by the government, refusing to offer compensation as recommended? The Conservatives have pushed the government to offer some compensation, given the obvious regulatory failings, and have [...]