The intentions of Alex Salmond, the UK’s sharpest political operator, in his leadership of his country’s bid for independence are becoming less clear than they initially appeared. Many thought the plan was to cut adrift and go it alone, clean and free. First the Monarchy was spared the axe, then the Bank of England and […]
The issue is the proposed mortgage guarantee the government will give to all home buyers, who cannot find from their own savings the required 20% deposit. The Treasury Select Committee under its able chairman, Andrew Tyrie, has issued a critical report about this ridiculous proposal. The financial regulators, the building societies and the banks are […]
This is the most extraordinary situation which the entire international community finds both perplexing and alarming. There is a tendency to dismiss the tension as bluff from a hermit kingdom full of brainwashed and starving people, run by a despotic family dynasty, supported by puffed up generals and an out of date military, which if […]
The unfortunate and unhappy teenager Paris Brown, who has been put through an emotional mangle by the media over her tweets of the past, has resigned from her extraordinary post as a youth police and crime commissioner in Kent. One can only hope that she quickly recovers her self confidence and self esteem after a […]
In the forest of British and world Politics a great oak has fallen. The death of Margaret Thatcher is an event of great significance, whatever political views you hold and whether you think her brand of politics, Thatcherism, good or bad. The measure of her greatness as a politician is that she has a political […]
To highlight the extraordinary situation of a huge family, led by able bodied work age adults, living entirely off benefits and no work, at public expense while their neighbours toil and pay taxes to fund the fiasco, is a point worth making. Whether it is quite as simple as that and whether senior government ministers, […]
Lord Carey, in an article in the Daily Mail today, makes assertions about the public attitude to the Church of England, and about the role of the Prime Minister which are unfounded and unfortunate. Yes, it is true that the Church is no longer held in the respect that it was and it does not […]
Brussels will argue and try to convince itself, that it is good. There has been firmness with flexibility, the complex governance structure sustaining the single currency functioned, Cyprus is a worthy member of the Euro family, the future of the Euro is still assured. Many onlookers think differently. They see a shambolic presentation of a new […]
The Tories are obsessed with home ownership in the same way that the Catholic Church is obsessed with sex and the Church of England with gender. It is the ruination of the potential for something more valuable and worthy from all three. Harold Macmillan presided over the great post war Tory triumph of building 300,000 new houses […]
Osborne has delivered a budget for 2013, the centre piece of which is little short of financially ridiculous. The great economic disaster of ranking property as the mainstay of the economy, fuelled by excess credit providing mortgages which require little to no equity stake from the buyer, only correctable through house price inflation, was the wick which […]