I know many of you out there reading this have, it is fair to say, never been fans of George Osborne. However, spare a moment to consider how quickly the Right have turned on him – for supposedly moral reasons as well. This excerpt from Janet Daley’s Telegraph article yesterday sums up perfectly this new, […]
Archives for March 2016
Could Osborne’s budget blues affect whether we stay in the EU or not?
It is a really weird time in British politics. There are strange currents going this way and that, breaking down traditional right-left thought patterns. Europe is the classic issue in this regard. Most Labour MPs want the UK to remain a member of the EU. However, the success of this partly rests on a Tory […]
Is there a “conservative” viewpoint on disability benefits that can achieve consensus on the right?
One of the big things to come from this year’s budget (other than the sugar tax and endless speculation about what Osborne is up to and whether it will work or not) was the cuts to disability benefits. What’s interesting about for me about the debate on the right is that cuts to disability benefits […]
Budget 2016: it’s amazing how far George Osborne suddenly feels from being prime minister
Only a few short months ago, it was accepted wisdom within Westminster that George Osborne was going to become the next prime minister. “The one chart that shows how George Osborne is almost certainly going to be our next Prime Minister,” the Independent declared back before 2015 conference season, and that is but one of […]
If the country votes to leave the EU in June, the Tories could face a huge backlash on immigration
I’m Immigration is one of the key planks of the Vote Leave argument. No wonder: in terms of trying to get the British public keyed up about the EU, immigration is the one thing that does it for a large portion of the population. This is oddly one of the reasons the Brexiteers in the Conservative […]
It’s obvious now what Labour should have done after the 2015 election
Having just read the full report on Labour’s loss in May 2015, helpfully supplied by Stephen Bush at the New Statesman (the report, not the election result, just to be clear), I have come to finally understand what it was that the Labour Party should have done after losing the election. Some have speculated that […]
Why Boris talking about Obama was a bad move
I know I’m writing about BoJo (BoGo now?) a lot at present, but I just can’t help it. He’s popping up practically every day with some new, ill-advised piece of “wisdom”. I never thought I’d say this, but Boris is the new Corbyn. Yesterday it was about Barack Obama. From his Telegraph column came this: […]
Why Boris is wrong about Canada
For a while I have been saying that the EU Leavers have no clear vision of what Out looks like. But finally, Boris has shown me what Brexit will mean. If we vote to leave on June 23rd, Britain will be more like…..Canada. “What I think we should do is strike a new free trade […]
Does the Dan Jarvis Demos speech mean the start of a coup against Corbyn?
Yesterday, Labour MP Dan Jarvis gave a speech at the Demos think tank that had some of the political press in a tizzy. “Dan Jarvis sets out his vision for Labour as leadership talk mounts,” announced a Guardian headline. “Labour backbencher Dan Jarvis is to fuel rumours over his leadership ambitions by setting out his […]
Eurosceptics pining for lost sovereignty want something that no longer exists
The Eurosceptics, it has been said by many, have no clear narrative in this referendum. That’s a little harsh – sure, they have nothing even approximating a consensus on what life outside of the EU looks like for Great Britain (which is fairly important), and sure, they are scrambling all over the place coming up with […]