Author Archives: johnredwood

               The latest car sales figures confirm that the UK is beginning to grow and recover whilst the Euro area remains mired in deep recession.  The five months to May saw car sales in the UK rise by 11%. In Germany car sales fell 8.8%, in France they fell by 11.9% and in Italy [...]

            Yesterday in Parliament several weighty EU documents were considered by the Commons. It was a timely reminder of the huge scope and breadth of the EU project. It underlined how much power has already gone to Brussels, and how much more they need and want to complete their Euro union. We had just [...]

  Later than some of us wanted, today marks the end of Nato responsibility for the security forces and combat roles in Afghanistan. It is a fitting day to thank our troops for all their brave and loyal service, and to wish the Afghans well in assuming full responsibiltiy for the security of their own [...]

  Sometimes international meetings turn out to be timely. There is some global crisis which needs attention. Whatever the agenda of the summit may say, however well crafted it may be, events take it over. Sometimes there is mercifully no such crisis, so the Summiteers have to concentrate on the pre arranged agenda and feel [...]

The economies of Europe rely in no small measure on building luxury brands and selling the products to the better off of the world. The brand of champagne is one of the oldest and most famous of these products.We can learn from the French success at building this brand. It is a way for relatively [...]

           It is conventional wisdom that a party needs to be united to win an election. This bears little relationship to reality. After  all the Conservative party of Margaret Thatcher was divided between wets and dries,with very different views on the economy and public spending, yet won three big victories. The government of Mr Blair was [...]