The Tories and Lib Dems Commentators, without Parliament sitting, find it harder to run stories about strains between the coalition partners as a decamped Westminster village scatters its rumour mill to the four winds. Attention has again turned to whether the Lib Dems, with very low poll ratings, are going to disappear into the Conservatives, […]

Iraq Pull Out The top Iraqi General has said he would like U.S troops to stay another twenty years. This is clearly impossible, although I am sure there are elemnts in the Pentagon who would love it. What the General’s comments underline is the chronic instability of the Iraqi State as a viable, self sustaining […]

Playground Cuts Certainly nobody can accuse Michael Gove of being a hesitant cutter. Playgrounds, part of some grandiose initiative by Labour in its twilight hour, are the latest victim of his axe. The problem, as always, with so many of the spending plans of the fallen government, is that it lost the connection between launching programmes […]

Al-Qaeda returns to Iraq There is a report today in the Guardian that members of U.S. backed Sunni militias are rejoining al-Qaeda in Iraq because they are being offered better pay. If this is true it shows an unravelling of a dream that was never real. At the end of the month American troops will, […]

The Senators are Back They really do not get the message, these guys. It is not in order for American Senators, however distinguished and whomever they represent, to badger and cajole a Sovereign Government of a foreign country, itself a constituent part of another Kingdom. The Americans may not like the decision the Scots made, […]

Bank of England Forecast We have learned from the financial crisis and the consequent recession that whilst most economists agree on the obvious elements of the cause, not everyone is agreed on the root cause. When it comes to how to orchestrate a recovery, there is a sharp division between Keynesians and Monetarists. Central to […]

Changing Tide There are times in history when retrospectively a moment is seen when the tide of events begins to flow in another direction. For example, Gettesburg, seen as a stalemate or draw at the time (Lee’s army withdrew intact at its own pace south, while the Union remained on the field, but too mauled to pursue; […]

Pakistan The scale of this disaster is said by the U.N. now to exceed the tsunami, thought not, mercifully, if measured in loss of life. The world is slowly stirring to the need for aid on a gigantic scale. Those images of shivering and frightened children haunt us. And it goes on. The rains do […]

House Prices These are falling again. This is good news. They need to fall a good deal more. I realise the pain and distress this causes to those who are over borrowed, earn their living in the housing market, or are in the replacement kitchen industry. But we cannot get away from the fact that […]

Job Losses Figures from the U.S. on the job front were disappointing recently and now we have a warning that U.K. unemployment situation, which had been better than most predictions at the start of the recession, is about to ‘stall’. This surely means deteriorate. Unfortunately this is the inevitable outcome of government funding unnecessary jobs […]