Nine out of the top 10 areas for BNP votes actually have a below-average proportion of recent migrants, according to a new study by IPPR, Britain’s top think-tank for immigration research. Read the Guardian report here. Tweet
A great article by Bill Emmott, former editor of The Economist, in today’s Times (and not just because he very kindly quotes Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them). As he rightly says: Immigration is an issue on which all three main British parties are on the defensive and hence illiberal. This is an emerging tragedy for a country […]
Posted 19 Apr 2010 in Blog, Britain, Immigration, Politics, United States
Labour’s first election broadcast reminds voters how the Conservatives opposed most of the government’s anti-crisis measures. It highlights how Labour’s re-election pitch echoes the Tories’ in 1992: you might want a change, but can you trust the other lot with the economy? It worked for John Major… But will it work again this time? Tweet
On liberalism: A liberal basically believes that what you should be doing, every waking minute if you are in politics, is trying to release potential, create opportunity, remove barriers to social progress, liberate social mobility. On Labour and the Tories: Yes, Labour has “betrayed the progressive cause”, destroyed civil liberties and taken the country into […]
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Posted 08 Apr 2010 in Blog, Britain, Immigration, Media, Politics
Why is Labour staking its election campaign on defending a rise in national insurance? It will hurt the pocket of the average voter. It will cost some their job. It isn’t even a “stealth tax” any more. As for Gordon Brown’s Wayne Rooney reference to the need to support an injured economy, how on earth […]
Posted 05 Apr 2010 in Blog, Britain, Politics, Public finances
Hat tip: The Straight Choice Tweet
Posted 28 Mar 2010 in Blog, Britain, Immigration, Politics
Oliver Kamm at The Times, a man I respect a lot, argues in his blog that banks are not a “vested interest”. But unless I have misunderstood him, I think he is being too charitable to the banks. He argues that “the banks are not some unaccountable lobby seeking to superimpose itself on the public interest: they […]
Guardian, 9 March 2010. Running Britain in an age of austerity will be a thankless task – Labour might be better off without this poisoned chalice
Posted 09 Mar 2010 in Blog, Britain, Politics, Published articles, The Guardian
UK foreign secretary David Miliband has written an excellent piece in today’s Guardian about why the notion of a ‘war on terror’ is inaccurate and harmful. He argues that: The more we lump terrorist groups together and draw the battle lines as a simple binary struggle between moderates and extremists, or good and evil, the […]
Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan Tweet
Progress, November 2008. The banking crisis requires government action but not a return to 1970s state control
Posted 29 Nov 2008 in Britain, Politics, Progress, Published articles
Andrew Rawnsley on Britain’s embattled prime minister: More and more critics contend that Gordon Brown’s fundamental weakness is not knowing what he wants to do with power. I disagree. His core purpose is easily stated and could provide a solid theme for his premiership. He believes that it is morally right and economically imperative to […]
Will Wilkinson on why libertarians feel an increasing affinity for the liberal left rather than the socially conservative right: with the obsolescence of the anti-communist alliance with conservatives, many libertarians have sloughed off much of their previously tactically useful sympathy for socially conservative initiatives. Freed to be full-on social liberals, many libertarians are left sensing […]
As a politics junkie, I find the US presidential race exciting – certainly better than Gordon Brown’s ignominious coronation – but not particularly inspiring. I’m not wild about any of the candidates. I find Hillary Clinton uninspiring: a robotic, machine candidate, with a nasty streak and an offputting sense of entitlement. That’s a pity. Her […]
Posted 07 Feb 2008 in Blog, Politics, United States, US elections
It is a measure of how low expectations have sunk that France’s Socialist Party (PS) is celebrating after winning scarcely more than a third of the seats in the country’s newly elected National Assembly. Pollsters had been forecasting electoral oblivion; instead, the PS merely received a drubbing at the hands of President Sarkozy’s victorious UMP. […]
The British people want a say when the Labour Party changes its leader, and thus appoints the next prime minister. According to the Observer, A new opinion poll reveals 56 per cent of the public want the chance to have their say on the new leader of the Labour party, whoever it is, within the […]
Forgive me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Britain meant to be a democracy? And doesn’t that mean that it ought to be up to voters who runs the country, and that nobody has an inherent right to rule? Not according to Gordon Brown. The Chancellor, we are told, has been waiting to be prime minister […]
Apart from the political commentariat, I think most people are sick and tired of the latest twists in the Blair vs Brown saga. The incessant feuding mainly serves to reinforce disillusion with politicians: however much they say that what really matters to them is improving our schools and hospitals or safeguarding our pensions, they appear […]
