Monthly Archives: July 2010

One of the worst features of Labour’s regime was the proliferation of bodies that send out glossy brochures paid for by the taxpayer. The brochures got glossier, more numerous and often more vacuous as the Labour years went on. I still can scarcely get in to my office each morning owing to the weight and [...]

There’s been a lot of noise for some years about the high cost of public sector pensions. The last government talked a little about it, but tried to ignore it. Indeed, most of their actions led to a large surge in the overall costs, as they added to the public sector payrolls, put the pay [...]

You read it here first – we need new banks and more banks. That will serve us better. It was good to hear yesterday the Governor of the Bank of England admit there is a bank lending problem for small and medium sized enterprises. It is also good to see the Daily Mail launch its [...]

In the dying days of the last government there was a flickering of interest in the public sector delivering more for less. Ministers started asking to know how much public money in total was spent in each place. They discovered it was often more than they realised, with great overlap between the spending of different [...]

Yesterday in the Commons the Home Secretary told us she wished to opt into part of the EU plans for criminal justice, as the Uk is entitled to do under Lisbon. She presented the European Investigatory Orders Directive as a necessary tidying up or simplification of current arrangements to deal with cross border cases with [...]

Yesterday Conservative MPs held the first Economic affairs backbench committee meeting which I have been elected to chair. As early twilight descended on a Westminster preoccupied by the start of the summer recess we discussed the future economic agenda. We decided to concentrate immediately on a response to the government’s consultation paper on banks and [...]

Yesterday in the Commons we witnessed the new unholy alliance between Labour and the one Green MP to try to limit the freedom. The discussion was about the rights of schools and Headteachers under the new Academies legislation. It was intriguing to see Caroline Lucas in action again – she favours state control and state [...]

I am told there will soon be a Green paper on the banks. The government wishes to tackle the question of financing the recovery. I welcome that, and welcome the fact that reading the papers it appears Parliament will be the first to know what is in it. Readers of this site will know that [...]

It was good to hear the US Ambassdor on the radio yesterday use BP’s proper name, say it is a multinational Group and point out it has 38% of its assets in the USA. He did so in response to some words from a past posting on this website which were put to him. These [...]