Category Archives: Uncategorized

  I spent last year ignoring the forthcoming vote on Scotland’s future, as the opinion polls showed strong support for no change to the current position. More recently I have taken an interest, as the polls have narrowed. I  have also commented that the “Better together” campaign is a bit  negative  in some of its […]

  In 1999 I wrote a book asking this question. I hear that people are reading it again. I stand  by my conclusions then, now tested by 15 years passing.  When I wrote the summary I said “Can the UK survive devolution, European integration, reform of the Lords, slimming of the monarchy, proportional representation? Will […]

             The Commons Environmental Audit Committee is not reknown for its sense of humour. So when they said in their recent Report into HS2 that they would like “the government” to “examine the scope for requiring a reduced maximum speed for the trains until electricity generation has been sufficiently decarbonised” they were definitely not […]

  In recent years there has been an avalanche of new regulations from the EU governing banking, financial services and insurance. I attended a seminar last week to catch up with the latest developments. It was a long meeting. We are witnessing the early developments of regulation from the main European Supervisory Agencies (ESAs). UCITs […]

  Some of the comments coming in about the behaviour  of the European  governing class remind me of King Lear’s discovery: “Even a dog’s obeyed  in office… Plate sin with gold, And the strong lance of justice hurtles breaks; Arm it in rags, a pigmy’s straw doth pierce it…” I think things have improved a […]

  Imagine the howls of protest from the left if a pro free enterprise group had taken over the government of the EU and were presiding over mass unemployment on the current scale. Yet today, with the big government brigade in charge of the EU, it is apparently acceptable that 18,965,000 people of working age […]

  The Treasury have been too optimistic about how much extra revenue they will get from a big hike in the rate of Capital Gains Tax. Indeed, it is coming in this year £1.2bn down on last year’s forecast, or a whopping 23% shortfall.  Just as they underestimate the extra revenue you get in from […]

  The second EU debate was bad tempered and  repetitious. The strange thing about it was the posture and tactics adopted by Nick Clegg. Like the other small band of vocal pro EU politicians in UK politics, Nick promised us he would make the case for the EU but spent most of his time minimising  the EU’s […]

  I do not think the issue of Scottish independence should be determined by whether in the next few years Scotland might be marginally better off or worse off financially. It should certainly not be determined on the say so of a few large companies, either telling the Scottish people they will cut jobs  if Scotland […]

  The answer is the cut in top rate of Income Tax from 50p to 45p. (apart from the initial VAT increase). That should come as no surprise to readers of this site, but will be a shock to many of the conventional pundits who have taken the precaution of not reading the latest HM […]