Mortgage Lending The Council Of Mortgage Lenders has predicted that nearly half the mortgages granted and completed over the last four years, would not have been granted if the FSA’s new and tougher lending criteria had then been in effect. That tells you all you want to know about the origins of the financial crisis, […]
Tax Breaks The Tories are sliding around all over their banana skin and it is now dominating the conference. A combination of Fox and Cameron should help to move the media forward. Politically this is a shrewder move than the hoo ha suggests. Labour is forced into the awkward position of defending the better off, […]
Universal Benefits Yesterday’s banana skin, predicted by this Blog, is fully reported across the media today. I do not understand how clever politicians and bright civil servants get themselves into this kind of tangle. It needs to be sorted out quickly. It is right to take child benefit away from the better off and HRT […]
Child Benefit This is very good news BUT……. This Blog has actively promoted removing universal benefits from people who do not need them. Higher rate taxpayers do not need child benefit, fuel allowance and so on. Anybody receiving over £100,000 a year pension should not get the state pension. First because the country cannot afford to […]
Iain Duncan Smith and Welfare Reform IDS came from nowhere to lead the Conservative Party. It was all a mistake. It was not his finest hour, but if he pulls off the radical reconstruction of the benefit system, so long acknowledged as necessary, but ducked by weak governments who retreated into spin, his finest hour […]
George Osborne and the Ministry of Defence George Osborne has been very rude about the MOD’s financial ineptitude. He is right. This Blog would go much further and shut the MOD down. Regular readers will know that this is not the first time I have suggested this dramatic move. The fact is that we have […]
Michael Gove and Empowering Teachers Michael Gove, who has a had a somewhat rough ride in the early months of the Coalition, is to announce the re-establishment of commonsense practice, empowering teachers to enforce discipline in schools. Teachers will be allowed physical contact when appropriate for order or for comfort. This is welcome news. It […]
Socialism in the Modern World This is a big issue for a Blog. Indeed it would be a big book. But the thought is crossing minds, notably that of the new leader of the Labour Party. What needs to be established at the outset is that Socialism is not just about benefits and tax and equality. […]
John Redwood When David Laws resigned this blog recommended that John Redwood take over his job at the Treasury. This would have given the Tory Right a hand in government in the very area where they are intellectually at home, cutting back the State. Moreover, within the Monetarist persuasion, Redwood is economically sound. He made […]
Defence Cuts It is impossible to organise a defence policy independent of a foreign policy. Therefore, although the Treasury holds the purse strings, the Foreign Office has the plan. Next week we can expect to hear from William Hague a difinitive explanation of what the plan is. If it involves the global projection of military […]