March 2012
1 post
12 tags
George Osborne has to dump this toxic 50p tax rate
Craig Barrett 11.48am
Time and time again, I am reminded of those words of Sir John Major, spoken early on in the Blair maladministration:
“The Conservatives are elected to govern, Labour governs to be elected.”
So nightmarishly often in those thirteen years was policy made on the hoof. We endured a bewildering array of ill-thought out responses to opinion polls, designed to...
February 2012
29 posts
16 tags
Scottish Tories won't advance until they support...
Nik Darlington 10.32am
If unionists in the Conservative party - and I presume, perhaps too romantically, this means most people in the Conservative party - want to win the Scottish independence debate, they must see the necessity for further devolution.
Resistance to devolution fuels the perceptions of English prejudice and arrogance on which the SNP feeds. It runs contrary to the party’s...
12 tags
MPs and peers launch new all-party group for...
Nik Darlington 11.47am
I have just been to the inaugural meeting of the APPG for Apprentices, which is to be chaired by the Lib Dem MP for Burnley, Gordon Birtwhistle.
The straight-talking 68-year-old Birtwhistle is an appropriate choice to lead the new all-party group, having begun his working life as an apprentice engineer in the 1950s.
What surprises me is why MPs have waited until now to...
12 tags
A federal UK can save the Union
Alexander Pannett 11.15am
It is a strangely multilateral metaphor, the Union Jack.
It is one of the oldest flags in the world, formed from the constituent symbols of the United Kingdom, one of the first and arguably one of the most successful supra-national political unions in the world.
The flag conjures up a whole host of images, from the British Empire to British music, Reebok shoes and Kelly...
10 tags
Project Umubano Turns 5
Jono Broom 12.30am
Project Umubano has completed its fifth year.
Strongly championed by David Cameron whilst in opposition, it helped form part of the narrative of change, not only internally in the party but also with the world outside Conservative politics.
It is a remarkable project. Led by then Shadow International Development Secretary, Andrew Mitchell MP, it hit the ground running in 2007...
9 tags
It is pure folly to reduce the number of MPs
Craig Prescott 11.58am
At the last general election, both coalition parties pledged to reduce the size of the House of Commons. The Conservatives offered a 10 per cent reduction (manifesto is oddly no longer available online), while the Lib Dems (link here) wanted to cut the number of MPs by 150. The eventual Coalition Agreement is actually weaker than both parties’ original pledges, as...
8 tags
PMQs review: As a debate it was dreadful, but as a...
Jack Blackburn 1.39pm
There they were, their entourages in tow, ready for the latest bout in this series of fights organised by the NHS and Andrew Lansley. In the blue corner, the reigning champion, Dave “Flashman” Cameron. In the red corner, his spindly challenger, Edward “Not to be confused with David” Miliband.
Cameron entered the arena, flanked by his regular posse of Clegg and Hague, the...
7 tags
NHS risk register debate exposes Labour's...
Nik Darlington 6.01am
Whatever the public relations disaster that will result, the Government must resist the frenzied clamour for the Department for Health to publish its risk register.
Tomorrow, the Labour party has called an opposition day debate on the issue, so keeping up the pressure on the Government over its healthcare reforms.
And MPs have been deluged with cursory click campaigns from...
8 tags
Germany has the answer to Britain's football...
Sara Benwell 7.17am
It’s not often I get to combine two of my biggest passions in the same article, but football and finance are certainly worthy of more than a passing glance at the moment. Sadly, this is because football’s finances are in a mess.
Administration
In recent days, two big British clubs have gone into administration: Glasgow Rangers and Portsmouth, the latter for the second...
14 tags
Lord Carr's death marks the passing of a political...
Nik Darlington 11.03am
Lord Carr, the last surviving member of the Conservative party’s talented 1950 intake, has died aged ninety-five.
Robert Carr was one of the founders of the Tory Reform Group in 1975, along with Peter Walker, who also passed away recently in 2010.
Lord Carr was a successful industrialist, Cabinet minister, leader of the Conservative party and a long-serving...
12 tags
China can still learn from the West
Alexander Pannett 11.50pm
This week has seen the visit of Xi Jinping, the Vice-President of China, to the US.
It has been heralded as an important moment for the man widely expected to become China’s next president.
If this is so, Xi Jinping will be the leader of China at the moment that China has been forecast to eclipse the US as the largest economy in the world (in 2023). To underline the...
12 tags
Labour attacked from left and right for its...
Nik Darlington 10.48am
Two important blogs appeared this morning. One is by a Conservative MP, one is by a former Labour party General Secretary. Both are about the NHS and, in their different ways, both identify the same problem: the Labour party’s stance on NHS reform.
Chris Skidmore is one of the most thoughtful of the 2010 Tory intake (he used to be an adviser to David Willetts, of...
7 tags
Publish and (don’t) be damned – just don’t do...
Stuart Baldock 12.55pm
Lord Justice Leveson, at the beginning of his inquiry into the culture, practice and ethics of the press, stated:
“The press provides an essential check on all aspects of public life. That is why any failure within the media affects all of us. At the heart of this Inquiry, therefore, may be one simple question: who guards the guardians?”
The answer is definitely not...
11 tags
One Nation Conservatism is the best vehicle for...
Samuel Kasumu 7.12am
Following the recent series of articles entitled ‘The Origins of Race Policy’ and the much critiqued piece that I wrote for ConservativeHome, time has come for me to articulate my own personal discourse on the matter of race and political representation. This is the first time I’ve officially disclosed my political views (though recently it has clearly become less of secret),...
8 tags
Bideford: Not only have Christians done no wrong,...
Jack Blackburn 12.58pm
Legally speaking, the High Court’s ruling that Bideford council was breaking the law by having prayers on its agenda was absolutely correct. It does, however, demonstrate an unfortunate state of affairs in this country concerning how we view religion and how we actually approach the idea of toleration.
It should be stressed that, despite what either side of the debate...
11 tags
If Simon Hughes says Andrew Lansley should go, his...
Nik Darlington 10.12am
One my desktop Twitter thing I have separate streams for Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs. It can be quite revealing (you always know when the Labour party’s effective social media operation gets into action because its MPs start parroting the same tweets).
Last week, Labour MPs seemed happier than they’ve been for some time, perhaps even before it...
7 tags
We desperately need NHS reform, but does NHS...
Nik Darlington 3.42pm
Mr Miliband, I want to make this very clear, these remarks do not necessarily represent those of the Tory Reform Group. Much like individuals in the Labour party can have an opinion that may not represent the collective Labour view - such as your ineffectiveness as a party leader - what I write or what anyone else writes on these pages is not, unless explicitly stated,...
8 tags
Demonstrate for human rights in Syria
Alexander Pannett 6.45am
What can you do without freedom? When the world seems silent to your prevails?
The people of Homs, Syria’s third largest city, are currently suffering the seventh day of a brutal and criminal assault from President Assad’s un-repentant thugs.
Hundreds of civilians have been killed by indiscriminate artillery and mortar fire. This is on top of the 11-month crackdown...
8 tags
Let's make restorative justice a reality in 2012
Robert Buckland MP 2.53pm
Having worked for many years in the criminal justice system, prosecuting and defending in criminal cases, I am acutely aware that the trial process does not - and cannot - address the problems faced by victims of crime.
Since my election to Parliament in 2010, I have taken an increasing interest in restorative justice and how it can play a bigger role in the criminal...
7 tags
PMQs: The Leader of the Opportunists won the day...
Jack Blackburn 3.38pm
Was it the operating theatre or the morgue at Prime Minister’s Questions? Perhaps it was a macabre combination of the two.
On the operating table lay Mr Lansley’s NHS Bill: sick, deformed but on powerful life-support sustained by Number 10.
Above it there are two surgeons, Dave and Edward, wielding scalpels not on the patient but at each other.
In the corner is a...
8 tags
Tory Reform Group response to Ed Miliband
Nik Darlington and Alexander Pannett 2.15pm
Today, Ed Miliband claimed that the Tory Reform Group was against reform of the NHS.
Mr Miliband was referring to an article written by Craig Barrett, an independent contributor to Egremont, who suggested that Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, should accept defeat over the Health & Social Care Bill.
Contrary to Mr Miliband’s claims,...
16 tags
Progressive Conservatives should support a Land...
David Cowan 9.51am
In this year’s Macmillan Lecture, the Conservative MP Nick Boles proposed a series of ideas to improve Britain’s economic competitiveness. By far the most fascinating idea was a land value tax.
In the past it has usually been those on the socialistic Left and the libertarian Right who have advocated a land value tax (LVT). But Mr Boles is a prominent Conservative...
8 tags
For the good of the NHS, Andrew Lansley must admit...
Craig Barrett 1.46pm
One of the more delicious aspects of the last Labour governments was their dawning realisation that, contrary to everything Gordon Brown wished to believe, the Tories had not spent the 1990s trying to destroy the NHS.
Having abolished trust hospitals, the Labour government was forced into a humiliating retreat when it introduced the suspiciously similar “foundation...
12 tags
Labour's hypocrisy over knighthoods, bank bonuses,...
Craig Barrett and Nik Darlington 10.42am
Given some of the recent hysteria about bankers’ bonuses, Mr Fred Goodwin and Labour’s leap on to the let’s-hate-the-wealthy bandwagon, people might be forgiven for thinking that this Government was guilty of misunderstanding of that famous misquotation of Calvin Coolidge: “the business of America is business.”
I do my best...
16 tags
So Ed Miliband is now a One Nation Conservative?
Nik Darlington & Alexander Pannett 10.09am
In a speech in London on Friday, Ed Miliband did something quite curious. He tried to emulate Tony Blair.
Mr Miliband’s latest tactic is to call for a “One Nation” approach to banking.
The Labour party leader wants banks to spend less time concentrating on bonuses and more time lending to small businesses and families. He has also called for more...
Anonymous asked: Do you guys see yourselves as Twitter? 2000 words 4 the blogger, 140 characters for the 'answer'. Leave a constructive url, 'Request denied'. The TRG needs to decide whether it wants a proper, open debate - or just transmit like yet another control-freak arm of contemporary party politics. For the record, I was answering the somewhat ethics-free piece on Freddie 'Britain...
6 tags
Let Blairites join the Conservative party for £1
Paul Abbott 7.06am
I was not old enough to vote in 1997, but - like millions of others - it would have been hard not to vote for Tony Blair. Whatever the rights and wrongs of his premiership, in 1997 he was the candidate for law and order and for small businesses. He got aspiration, and why people wanted choice in the public sector. He was pro-America and pro-democracy abroad - as his...
14 tags
Russia's Syrian hypocrisy
Alexander Pannett 10.38am
Yesterday, diplomats at the UN Security Council were engaged in a concerted attempt to pass a resolution calling for President Bashar al-Assad to hand over power, which is a key part of an Arab League plan.
This is a welcome move as bloody government reprisals against the protesters have led to more than 7,000 civilian deaths as Syria slides into civil war.
The text,...
10 tags
New figures show that Britain's university sector...
Nik Darlington 11.56am
Latest research from pollsters YouGov reveals that young people are not being put off higher education by rising tuition costs. Four in five 16-18 year olds still want to study at university and even of those who are unsure, more than one-fifth say they are still likely to go to university in the future.
The survey of more than one thousand youngsters aged 16-20 also found...
11 tags
Why stop at Mr Fred? The time has come for revenge...
Nik Darlington 9.08am
The Queen has annulled the knighthood of the former boss of the Royal Bank of Scotland, Fred Goodwin, following the advice of the Honours Forfeiture Committee.
This committee of senior Whitehall mandarins determines their verdicts according to whether an individual has broken the law and been imprisoned for three months or more, or if they have been censured or struck off...
January 2012
25 posts
13 tags
Western decline is not inevitable as long as we...
Aaron Ellis 12.13pm
The West has had a tough time these last few years, flying from one crisis to another as if in a pinball machine and some of the levers seemingly controlled by the Chinese.
Some believe that the ongoing sovereign debt crisis is not only a crisis of globalisation but also one of Western identity. Given the alarm with which many in Europe reacted to the possibility of Beijing...
13 tags
Macmillan Lecture 2012: Nick Boles sets out...
Nik Darlington 7.01pm
This evening at the Tory Reform Group’s annual Macmillan Lecture, Nick Boles sets out what he describes as a “new national mission” to improve Britain’s competitiveness.
Mr Boles, who was elected MP for Grantham & Stamford in May 2010, is a former director of the Policy Exchange think tank and has been at the forefront of efforts to modernise the...
14 tags
Transport problems: Heathrow is the solution that...
Stuart Baldock 9.38am
The Government has put itself in a difficult spot with regards to solving the South East’s airport capacity problem - or more accurately the capacity issue at Heathrow.
Prior to the election, the Conservative party - it could be said foolishly - ruled out building a third runway at Heathrow. The Liberal Democrats - perhaps even more foolishly - have ruled out any capacity...
3 tags
The public is right: we should pay MPs what they...
Nik Darlington 10.32am
On my way home yesterday I spotted this little story - ‘MPs should get £100,000 a year like doctors, says poll’ - tucked away amid the news pages of the Evening Standard:
The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority has launched a review of members’ salaries and its first evidence suggests they should get more.
For the first time, the authority is...
5 tags
Are ministers risking life and limb to be...
Nik Darlington 9.47am
“The Greenest Government Ever.” It was a pledge of the boldest order and it seems that David Cameron’s ministers are willing to risk life and limb to achieve it.
Sources tell me that Theresa Villiers, Minister of State for Transport, has broken her collar bone in a cycling accident.
How this unfortunate turn of events came to pass is unclear, but Egremont...
17 tags
Iran might be many things, but it is not the...
Aaron Ellis 9.30am
Some of the worst decisions in history have been influenced by bad historical analogies. In an essay on the part played by such analogies in American foreign policy, Robert Dallek dubbed their malign influence “the tyranny of metaphor”.
“For all their pretensions to shaping history, U.S. presidents are more often its prisoners.”
The tyranny of metaphor is especially strong...
10 tags
When will Parliament have its proper say about...
Nik Darlington 12.20pm
Last November, the Foreign Secretary, William Hague refused to rule out military action against Iran. Ten days ago, William Hague again refused to rule out military action against Iran. And today, the Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, has signalled a reinforcement of Britain’s military presence in the Gulf - in particular around the strategically important Straits of...
15 tags
How do you solve a problem like Iran?
Aaron Ellis 9.58am
This question dominates the news once a year and every politician, pundit, and foreign policy expert has an answer to it. Helpfully, they reduce their answers to a single phrase around the likes of “sanctions” or “war”. Then something else happens in the world and Iran and its nuclear programme fade from the headlines until next year.
And every year these solutions contain the...
11 tags
Northern Exposure: One Nation Conservatism is key...
Kris Hopkins MP 12.14pm
My abiding memories of the 2001 and 2005 General Election campaigns, in which I stood in Leeds West and Halifax respectively, were our party’s strong messages on Europe, immigration and crime.
But while we were talking about these important areas of policy, the public were talking about health, education and elderly care. We were out of step and we paid for it when...
9 tags
Beyond post-liberalism: Red Tory or Blue Labour?
Alexander Pannett 10.45am
2011 saw an explosion of civil unrest with the outbreak of the Occupy movement, the student protests and the London summer riots.
The aggression shook civil society on to the psychoanalysts’ couch as we questioned the values we still retained. It seemed that a cohesive society had been fatally undermined by the rampant individualism that had been released by global...
19 tags
The delusory demonisation of Conservatives
David Cowan 10.59am
There are many young Conservatives in Britain. But many do not dare admit it. Young Liberal Democrats, Labourites, Socialists and Marxists are lauded as idealists who care about the injustices of the world, whereas young Conservatives are seen to be unpleasant, reactionary and self-interested individuals with no capacity for compassion (pace unpleasant publicity here and...
7 tags
PMQs review: Questions surrounding Edward's...
Jack Blackburn 1.20pm
The battlelines for this week’s PMQs were bizarre. In theory, it should have been a tough day for the Prime Minister, given the overall rise in unemployment which had been announced earlier.
However, he was up against a Leader of the Opposition who has spent most of the past month doing a Norma Desmond impression in order to defend his record: “I am big. It’s the party...
10 tags
In foreign policy, common values do not mean...
Aaron Ellis 11.03am
One of the popular misconceptions in international relations is that countries which share common values automatically possess common interests.
This attitude is historically flawed and a dangerous influence on contemporary policy, pace the attempt to create a European foreign policy. Twenty-five nations with different customs, histories, cultures and economic priorities...
6 tags
Sorry Ken, even Oxford University thinks us...
Nik Darlington 10.15am
‘Blogging’ divides opinion. Though a regular practitioner, personally I loathe the term. If only one could go back in time and put something in the tea of whoever coined it.
But blogging is both worthwhile and valuable. It has broadened the reach of comment and debate. The everyday pundits who would habitually bore chaps in the pub can do so in the relative...
8 tags
A Shared Resolve
Rt Hon Danny Alexander MP 10.55am
This Coalition Government is delivering on its founding purpose – returning this country to a path of prosperity that is sustainable for the long term. Both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives should be proud of the decision we made to put the national interest before party politics. It wasn’t easy, but it was the right thing to do.
With massive market...
6 tags
David Cameron's ill-conceived vision for the...
Jack Blackburn 11.32am
David Cameron’s comments about the UK film industry have attracted a good deal of controversy.
The Prime Minister’s view is that the film industry’s primary concern should be to invest in films that are likely to be “mainstream and commercially promising”.
This is part of a wider range of government statements on the subject of British film, most of which will...
9 tags
Rejecting crony capitalism
Alexander Pannett 9.45am
With the City bonus season fast approaching, politicians are talking a lot about the need to tackle “crony capitalism”.
Both David Cameron and Ed Miliband have called for executive remuneration to be made fairer and more transparent.
This follows a paper by Jesse Norman, the conservative MP for Hereford & South Herefordshire, published in December that called for the...
9 tags
Sketch: Edward tells porky about railways in dull...
Jack Blackburn 2.29pm
With Edward very much on the back foot, he needed to be able to claim something from the first PMQs of 2012. Given that, his tactics were baffling, even if it is fair to say that his performance skills showed signs of improvement.
It was notable that Edward had calmed down a bit and was less irritating than is habitual. He was more measured, less whiney, though he still had...
5 tags
Break this racket of exam boards and publishers
Nik Darlington 10.15am
The Telegraph is on maneouvres again, this time against the exam boards. And like its ‘Hands Off Our Land’ campaign it is for a worthwhile cause.
Last month, an undercover investigation by the paper blew the lid off the corrupt and clandestine practice of exam seminars. It has prompted an inquiry from Ofqual, the examinations regulator, and the ire of the...
6 tags
Executive pay argument is a distraction and not...
Daniel Cowdrill 11.15am
Both David Cameron and Edward Miliband competed over the weekend to sound tough on executive pay. They both criticised what they see as ‘excessive’ pay at the UK’s biggest companies.
We were told that executives are on a ‘merry-go-round’, where remuneration committee members sitting on each other’s boards, ‘pat each other’s backs, and hand each other pay...