December 2011
17 posts
19 tags
Egremont's review of 2011
Nik Darlington and Alexander Pannett 10.30am
This time last year there was no such thing as Egremont, yet in September, thanks to you, our readers, we were voted the 5th best Conservative blog in Britain in the Total Politics Blog Awards 2011.
We have been pleasantly and quietly stunned at this ascent, proof that there is room in the blogosphere, amid the shouting and name-calling, for...
7 tags
Why atheists can agree with Mr Cameron too
Daniel Cowdrill 6.01am
David Cameron’s speech at Christ Church to commemorate 400 years since the publication of the King James Bible was a commendable attempt by the Prime Minister to engage with faith in a way that predecessors have tried to avoid.
Mr Cameron makes an interesting point that in politics, as in political history, faith is important.
A study into Margaret Thatcher, for example,...
14 tags
Vickers report: don't kill the goose that lays the...
David Cowan 10.26am
The coalition’s response to the Vickers report was a missed opportunity. A chance to reform Britain’s banking sector for the better has been hijacked by the Liberal Democrats’ yearning for influence. And so George Osborne has accepted the report in full, though it couldn’t be said totally against his own judgement.
The most flawed ‘reform’ is the...
7 tags
Britain is a Christian country but Mr Cameron...
Jack Blackburn 6.00am
Q: Is Britain a Christian country?
A: Is the Queen both Head of State and Supreme Head of the Church?
There is no more fatuous question than this, for to deny it is to deny our history and our heritage, not to mention the constitution.
However, it is also foolish simply to say that “Britain is a Christian country”, not because that description is woefully inaccurate but...
18 tags
Iraq was a failure of the neo-conservative world...
Aaron Ellis 9.17am
Iraq is the centre of the world and crucial to the United States’ wider foreign policy. President Obama is a failure and President Bush is as wise and as farsighted a statesman as General Eisenhower or Ronald Reagan.
This is the context in which we must understand the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, says Tim Montgomerie.
Last week, Mr Montgomerie attacked President...
8 tags
Mary Portas shopping list should get Government...
Stuart Baldock 7.40am
Mary Portas’s Review into the Future of our High Streets contains some depressing statistics:
The number of town centre stores fell by almost 15,000 between 2000 and 2009, with an estimated 10,000 losses over the past couple of years.
Nearly one in six shops stands vacant.
Excluding central London, high street foot-fall has fallen around 10 per cent in the past...
18 tags
The Iraq war may have ended but its disastrous...
Alexander Pannett 8.00am
Yesterday, President Obama marked the final end of the Iraq war. It has been nearly nine years since the US and its allies, including the UK, invaded the Middle Eastern nation on the pretence of removing Saddam Hussein and ending his perceived involvement in Islamist terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.
While the war was trumpeted a success by President Obama - the...
10 tags
PMQs: Edward presents Dave with an inexplicable...
Jack Blackburn 2.28pm
In the final PMQs before the Christmas holidays both sides were seeking some festive cheer. So it was that three men - wise or otherwise - came to the House of Commons in the land of Westminster, bearing gifts of vetoes, unemployment figures and, in Nick Clegg’s case, attendance.
With both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition looking for a crowd-pleasing...
19 tags
While the Euro remains on life support, it's...
Daniel Cowdrill 10.04am
Listening to David Cameron’s opponents during the weekend, you would think his veto signals the end of civilisation - or at least the UK’s participation in it.
One of their scare stories is that the City of London is worse-off than before the EU summit. In reality, however, it is in much the same position. The sticking point was the financial transaction tax (FTT). This...
17 tags
Could this be the beginning of the end for Britain...
David Cowan 6.00am
Last Friday morning was a defining moment in David Cameron’s premiership and the history of the European Union.
The Prime Minister’s veto against modifications to the Lisbon Treaty without protection of Britain’s financial services has forced the seventeen Eurozone countries and up to nine of the remaining members of the EU to try to form a separate fiscal union. Mr...
8 tags
Credit where credit's due: why blame the rating...
Alexander Pannett 6.45am
It’s panto season in the UK and for a really stirring encounter with the familiar chants of “He’s behind you” or “Where’s all the money, Gordon”, you need a convincingly evil villain. Since the Great Recession erupted onto our belated consciousnesses in 2008, one of the major villains of the piece has been the Credit Rating Agencies.
In theory, the rating agencies...
18 tags
David Cameron can't offer the eurosceptics that...
Giles Marshall 7.42am
The website politics.co.uk got it right with their headline on Wednesday, “The Conservative Curse: Cameron faces the Europe test.”
The issue that long ago became a latter day tariff reform menace has been warming up for some time to give Mr Cameron the same unalloyed misery it passed on to predecessors John Major and Margaret Thatcher.
Both of those...
10 tags
Don't forget Gordon Brown's hand in Britain's...
Sara Benwell 10.03am
Nobody can reasonably deny that public sector pensions need reform. They are unsustainable. We simply can’t afford them in their current format and schemes which require constant taxpayer subsidy, paid by those in the private sector who won’t be offered anything like the same schemes, just aren’t fair.
The other side of the debate, however, points out that private sector...
11 tags
Lib Dem MPs have time to mount assault on planning...
Nik Darlington 10.59am
The Independent has got its hands on a confidential Liberal Democrat report that describes the Coalition’s planning reforms as “unacceptable” and in need of radical revision.
The report was written by Annette Brooke, the Lib Dem MP for Mid Dorset and North Poole and co-chairman of the Lib Dem parliamentary committee on communities & local...
18 tags
The ghosts of Keynes and Brown are alive and well...
David Cowan 6.00am
The dust has settled on the Autumn Statement.
George Osborne has stuck to his original spending plans but abandoned his 2014-15 target for eliminating the structural budget deficit.
Instead there will be further 0.9 per cent cuts in real terms to current expenditure during 2015-16 and 2016-17. Over the seven year period public expenditure will fall by 16.2 per cent in real...
6 tags
Does the future lie with social enterprises?
Alexander Pannett 10.30am
Last week, MPs voted through the Public Services (Social Value) Bill through to the House of Lords.
If the Bill is made into law, it would change the way that public spending is carried out by councils. Focus will shift from purely economic concerns to take into account social and environmental values as well. By concentrating on social values, public services can...
7 tags
Pub companies report healthy profits but what can...
Nik Darlington 10.14am
The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), which has 130,000 members, has been lobbying the Government to require pub companies to offer genuinely tie-free and guest beer options to pub lessees. CAMRA chief executive, Mike Benner, says the Government is acting too weakly to save Britain’s pubs:
The Government has been cavalier in rejecting the recommendations of the...
