Given the weekend is almost upon us, I thought I’d lighten the tone a little and talk about autocracy. And couple it with what Spin magazine once described as “the worst indie band in the world” in 1993. I should declare in an interest here. In spite of, or perhaps partly because of, the fact […]
Archives for May 2014
PMQS Review – May 14th, 2014
Verdict: Cameron wins, by a country mile Review: I really can’t believe that Miliband just asked six questions about the AstraZeneca takeover. I’m stunned. He wanted to avoid the economy – fair enough given the double whammy of the announcement from the OECD about above trend growth and unemployment figures falling, plus the fact that […]
David Cameron Will Probably Need the Lib Dems Again
There’s a new item in the Guardian today about David Cameron calling for an end to coalition in-fighting. There has been a lot of chin wagging about a difference in approach to Free Schools policy and the Prime Minister has finally stepped in. Some in the Tory ranks will say this is unneeded; if the […]
The Tories and Immigration
Over the weekend, both Cameron and Boris said some things in the media around immigration. Cameron sounded like he was trying to talk to two different audiences at once. That’s because he was. He said that Britain should not put up barriers to EU migrants coming here to work, that freedom of movement was important. […]
To the Russell Brands of this world I say engage – you have no idea how easy it is
I am what may be described as a politics geek. I work in the Westminster bubble; so do most of my friends, in some capacity or another. But it wasn’t always thus. I have always been interested in politics – when I was fifteen years of age, I sat and watched the Iran-Contra hearings for […]
Labour’s latest misguided attempt to woo disaffected Lib Dems: the Clegg PPB
So most of you will have seen the Labour Party’s party political broadcast last night. If you haven’t, here it is. If you don’t want to waste four minutes of your life, I’ll summarise it for you: it’s four minutes of Clegg bashing with a scintilla of ineffectual painting-the-Tories-as-moronic-toffs crap. Last night, as I watched […]
PMQS Review – May 7th, 2014
Verdict: Miliband wins, but only because Cameron was memorably awful Review: Ed split his questions allotment in two today: the first half was about rent controls and the second half was about the Pfizer-AstraZeneca takeover. The top section was all about Miliband’s rent control proposals. This was the leader of the opposition providing the Prime […]
Cameron’s pyramid debate scheme
David Cameron has dropped his long held reticence to having another round of Prime Minster debates in 2015 by coming up with an new format for them hitherto unknown (or at least someone in his office has): 2-3-5. Or probably 5-3-2, but we’ll get to that in a second. No, this is not a reference […]
UKIP’s European elections campaign is starting to remind me of Yes to AV
I worked on the Yes to AV campaign as the Treasurer, all round money guy and person who kept everyone out of prison. And I know, more than anyone really, that the actual name of the campaign was not Yes to AV, but I am not for the life of me about to write Votes […]
Nigel Farage’s “Canadian Model” and why it won’t work in Britain
In the wake of Farage’s decision not to stand himself in the impending Newark by-election, the nation of Canada has been evoked by UKIP once more. In an article in the Telegraph by Chris Hope, it is said that the lesson of Deborah Grey, a schoolteacher from Beaver River, Alberta, was instructive in helping Nigel […]