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Our former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has apparently admitted that the unaccountable quangos he put in place to regulate the banks failed. He's right. His Financial Service Authority spent a decade subjecting every financial institution to a complex web of compliance - so much so that firms had to create entire compliance departments.  [...]

The Banking Commission says its key objective is to protect the UK taxpayer from another bailout. At the same time, they suggest a sort of two-tier system within banks, as opposed to institutional separation. Sounds to me like they're proposing the sort of changes I was aiming at [...]

But no more. Today's budget was a drama-drained drone of yesterday's press releases. In his day Gordon Brown was apocalyptic with a Heathcliff booming voice and contrived surprises. Nothing of any significance can be delivered in Osborne's squeaking falsetto. Today I had a choice. Attend my 24th budget speech or chair the [...]

Ted Heath came to office with a sense of what he wanted to achieve. But without knowing how to make it happen, he u-turned.   What began as the Selsdon agenda to decentralise economic control ended with a prices and incomes policy.  A generation later, Tony Blair exhausted a mountain of political [...]

The BMA attack on the NHS health reforms yesterday was always going to happen; it was just a question of when. In recent history, it would appear that the only time doctors were really happy was when Gordon Brown gave them a new contract – one whic... [...]

Related posts on this blog:Government’s supineness over bonuses as bad as tuition fees The rancid stink over bankers' bonuses will cling to this ...Ban the bonuses! When is Gordon Brown going to stop pussyfooting around with ...Banks remain the cuckoo in the nest Today's announcement that HSBC and Barclays made [...]

Since the General Election the political debate has understandably focused on the economy. But on May 5th we will all be voting about whether to change the voting system to the Alternative Vote, a proposal that I believe would massively reduce the accountability of members of [...]

                    A government needs both strategy and tactics. A sensible government, if it makes a tactical error, will quickly apologise, adjust and move on. If a government makes a serious strategic error – like John Major’s ERM decision or Gordon Brown’s boom and bust policy-  it is likely to be [...]

It seems that you cannot deliver a localist agenda, and decentralise power in Britain, while we remain part of the top down, technocratic EU project.  That, at least, seems to be the conclusion drawn by whoever in government has been briefing James Forsyth at the Mail on Sunday. And they are spot on. Those [...]

Ed Balls has a pop at George Osborne for raising the bank levy by £ 800 Million. A bit rich - no pun intended - coming from a man whose boss, Gordon Brown, handed the banks £ 1,300 Billion bailout money. Still, thanks to that on-going £200 Billion "quantitative easing", in return [...]

The revolving door hit Brussels today. As I have been nagging for Britain on this for the past three years I was invited to the hearing in the International Press Centre today.  The most curious recent British cases are the happy one of Gordon Brown  giving £250,000 to charity - all of [...]

  At least this is one scrap of heart-warming news. This week I will be giving evidence in Brussels at an Inquiry into the revolving door for top politicians. Regular readers will know that I have raged against the corrupting influence of future job prospects for those who hold high office. Ministers, [...]

The rancid stink over bankers’ bonuses will cling to this Government as much as their double-dealing treachery over tuition fees.  All the warm words about us being all in it together are not worth the warm spit in the Whitehall spittoon.   Osborne’s threats turn into hot air and Clegg’s plea [...]

The latest reports estimate unemployment in Britain rising to nearly 3 million in 2011.   It is assumed that this is all because of Osborne’s unprecedented orgy of spending cuts.   Of course they will play a big part, but they’re certainly not the whole story.   IMF, OECD and EU figures show [...]

  It's pure spin but the media fall for it. Yesterday it was fraud-abroad that was to be tackled. It was nothing more than dusted-down measures introduced by the Labour Government in 2008. This morning I was called at 7.00 am to talk about today's headline seeking gimmick of e-petitions. Tony Blair did [...]

The arrogance of the banks knows no bounds.   Faced with new European guidelines putting some restrictions on bonuses, Barclays Capital and HSBC have as good as put up two fingers to the regulatory authorities by hiking up salaries to compensate for the bonus loss.   Why do we put up with [...]

Thank heavens for Gordon Brown. Ok, I admit they are not the most widely used five words in the English vocabulary, but I sincerely mean them. And to be precise, I extend the thanks to his immediate advisors as Chancellor, including Ed Balls, for devising a formula that [...]

              I spent some of yesterday with a group of Conservative members and activists. Their views on the government’s progress to date were interesting.              They are all pleased to see the end of Gordon Brown’s regime. They wanted an end to reckless spending and borrowing, and to the rash of [...]

FOR many years I’ve enjoyed a reputation for being a “right winger” in the Labour Party, whatever that term even means nowadays. Some of my detractors will even go so far as suggesting I defect to the Conservative Party, so far from the Labour Party orthodoxy have I wandered. I think [...]

You could not have a better test for ‘fairness’, a clearer test for being ‘all in it together’, than to compare post-CSR what is being granted to the bankers and what is being handed out to the victims of poverty.   On the very same day we have just been [...]