Author Archives: johnredwood

In the late 1990s when Labour decided to offer considerable devolution to Scotland and a little devolution to Wales I wrote a book warning that such changes would fuel Scottish nationalism, not undermine it. “The death of Britain?” set out how Labour’s constitutional revolution would damage our democracy. I wrote it as a Unionist, wanting […]

I understand why Greeks voted in large numbers for an anti austerity party. They did so out of desperation with the misery inflicted on their lives and living standards over the last five years. A fall of one quarter in national income, massive job losses, and pay cuts for those still in work should drive […]

Amidst all the arguments about the EU in the UK there is rarely much attention to what the EU really does and what people like or dilike about it. All we hear is from people who like trade who wrongly claim our trade is dependent on EU membership, when we can see many non EU […]

Some has asked how much the UK has at risk in the ECB. The UK’s shareholding is only 3.75% paid, so it works out at around Euro 55m or under 0.5% of the Bank’s capital. In contrast Germany has subscribed almost Euro 2bn or around 18%.

The Euro is a political project. It may masquerade as a high design created by independent and talented experts, but in the end it will be judged by unruly electorates by whether it helps make them more prosperous or not. The problem for the ECB and the other custodians of the Euro flame is how […]

This week there was a final round of consultations of Conservative MPs by William Hague in order to make decisions on the implementation of the recent White Paper on English votes for English issues. It is clear that the Conservative leadership now agree that we do not want a narrow English votes for English laws […]

On Monday at lunch time I joined an invited audience in the Speaker’s House in the Commons to debate democracy for the BBC. They filmed and recorded 90 minutes of debate. They invited an American Professor to lead the discussion. He was intelligent and articulate but not grounded in the realities of UK democracy. His […]