They Blog For You

                      I wish to examine the curious case of the possible resignation of Mr Norman  Lamb. Many people will not have known until the last couple of days the importance of Mr Lamb. He is a trusted adviser to the Deputy Prime Minister. He is a Lib Dem NHS expert, [...]

I set off last Sunday afternoon for a three day visit to Washington and New York. My main purpose in going to Washington was to talk to people in the Obama administration and in Congress about the Balkans (the USA maintains a strong interest in countries like Bosnia & Herzegovina, [...]

KEVIN Brennan, MP for Cardiff West, has hit out at the terrible condition of Pendine Road in Ely after Cardiff County Council failed to keep their promise to repair the road surface by the end of the financial year.The road, which is a popular route to avoid traffic on Cowbridge [...]

Five months ago, I forecast that default within some Eurozone countries was going to happen.  Indeed, I suggested Britain ought to encourage certain countries to default - and decouple from the Euro - rather than piling up and parcelling out yet more debt.  How did I come to such a view?  With debts rising [...]

As has often been said, the banks have a policy: privatise their gains, socialise their losses.   However we should have a different policy: make the banks pay for what they have done and restructure them so that they can never do it again.   Fat chance of course that anything like this [...]

  Part of the excitement of the coming Assembly Election result is the prospect of a fresh group of exciting new AMs. Until Monday I expected one of those to be Mari Rees. When I cheerfully answered the phone to Mari’s father my friend Caerleon Doctor Russell Rees on Monday I had [...]

Tory tax rise means thousands more families to lose their child benefit Up to an extra 750,000...

Tory tax rise means thousands more families to lose their child benefit   Up to an extra 750,000 people will become higher rate taxpayers tomorrow (Wednesday), meaning that thousands more families will lose their child benefit in 2013 Labour will warn today.   Following changes announced in last June’s Budget by George Osborne [...]

    O wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us!"    The 'giftie' gave Lembit many gifts but denied him self-awareness. Today I watch the playback of Tuesday TV programme on two cases of unfair treatment by newspapers. Paul Gasgoine's ex-wife had been grossly libelled and she engaged [...]

               Readers will know I am against the UK lending any money to Euro member states in trouble. We kept out of the Euro thanks to some of us arguing that case. Some of us  forecast the likely problems and do not see why the UK should pick up any of [...]

                 The media and politicians concentrate on the coming squeeze on the public sector. It is struggling to live within an extra £485 billion overdraft to tide it over the next five years, and to live with an increase of just £93 billion a year by Year 5 for current [...]

It’s difficult to get excited about the AV referendum.   It will probably be won not because of the merits of the AV system, not even because most people necessarily understand what it means, but because by 5 May the Tories, who are campaigning hard for a ‘no’ vote, will be very unpopular.   However, [...]

It emerged in the Budget debate which ended today in the Commons that the need for spending cuts is far from the inevitability that Osborne has always claimed.   The independent OBR estimates of growth for the next 5 years, albeit recently scaled down, are still 1.7% this year, 2.5% next year, [...]

"Agreement [on the bail out Mechanism] on behalf of the UK was given by the previous administration, cross-party consensus had been gained" - Justine Greening MP, Treasury minister, July 15th 2010 "I made it clear to the previous Chancellor at the time that I did not support what [...]

Having come down from my Oldham constituency this morning, I joined the march in ‘Whitehall at at 1.15pm, about an hour and a half after the vanguard had begun the march to Hyde Park.   After hearing the speeches I returned along Piccadilly where people were still marching towards Hyde Park [...]

Conclusions of  24/25 March 2011 EU summit included the following:     2. Within the new framework of the European semester, the European Council endorsed the priorities for fiscal consolidation and structural reform. priority to restoring sound budgets and fiscal sustainability, reducing unemployment through labour market reforms and making new efforts to enhance growth. All Member States [...]

Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): I remind the House that I offer industrial business advice to a Swedish, quoted international industrial group and investment advice to a British investment company. Some Opposition Members have expressed displeasure that Government Members should have mentioned the circumstances in Greece and Portugal. The Opposition rightly [...]

The capital gains tax paid this year will reflect transactions at the old rate prior to the hike from this government. The OBR forecasts £3.2 billion in receipts. For 2012-13, when the new higher rate system will be bedded down, they forecast just £2.9 billion, a fall of a tenth. [...]

As is usually the case, this is a very political Budget.   It will change the economic future of this country hardly at all.   The purpose of this Budget is camouflage to distract attention from the Great Axe that is about to fall within the next two weeks and to give [...]

I quote from the linked post.First, I will take the elements of the rule of law as sketched by the late Law Lord, Tom Bingham, in his final book The Rule of Law (Allen Lane, 2010):The law must be accessible, and so far as possible intelligible, clear and predictable (p37Questions [...]

              The government has a target to cut the administrative overhead by 30% over the life of this Parliament. This is a demanding target, but one that can be hit. It will be easiest to do so, if full use is made of people leaving public service to retire or [...]