It is, I suppose, hardly surprising that those who don’t believe in the state have made the worst possible fist of running it in a crisis – either the crisis of Brexit or Covid. But they seem to be pretty conflicted because Sunak has spoken of the ‘Overwhelming might of the state’ while remarking he… Read more
Category:
Conservatism
Looking forward to the referendum on TPP…
It appears to me that once again Yorkshire Bylines seems to have hit the nail on the head. Britain seems to be repeating its past mistakes, joining the TPP, just as it did the EEC, when the early members had already enjoyed a period of rapid growth as recovering or developing economies. Large, mature economies… Read more
Are ‘the Excluded’ simply the liberal elite?
Gina Miller has an interesting article in the ‘I’ entitled “Covid-19 financial aid: Why is the chorus of support for the forgotten three million falling on deaf ears?” It is a worthy question which she tries to answer herself: based on conversations with politicians who follow the same ideological beliefs concerning the economic, social and… Read more
Brexit keeps on giving
According to the Times The EU is prepared to ease post-Brexit border friction if Britain drops its plan to create a “Singapore on the Thames”, according to senior diplomatic sources. So the predictions that Brexit discussions would be continuous seem, just 21 days in, already to be correct. Brexit will never be ‘done’ although in… Read more
Sovereign people..
This letter to the Times from the performing arts community bemoaning the bureaucratic difficulty of working in Europe includes Roger Daltrey who was a prominent Brexiter. He is quoted: I have not changed my opinion on the EU. I’m glad to be free of Brussels, not Europe. I would have preferred reform, which was asked… Read more
The noise of government ‘playing’ us
According to this shameful article by Housing Secretary and three houses Robert Jenrick, who has even now, failed to resolve the cladding crisis caused by the Grenfell Tower fire, nonetheless now he has time, in the middle of this pandemic, to turn his attention to the important matter of statues and streetnames as written up… Read more
Populist Conservatism…
The Economist is beginning to get the measure of today’s Conservative government. Actually all of the (linked) article is worth reading because it demonstrates how the right wing think tanks are intertwined and influential in the current UK government, but these paragraphs are particularly notable: If Mr Johnson’s classical education did not teach him the… Read more
Conservative reality
‘A single market without barriers—visible or invisible—giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the world’s wealthiest and most prosperous people. It’s not a dream. It’s for real.’ This is a quote from Margaret Thatcher How far have we fallen – and what utter incompetence has our current… Read more
Brexit – where we are
This 10 minutes is, to me at least, so good that I really don’t need to add to it: Well worth your time if you wonder about Brexit. We really ought to be able to claim the Brexiters’ misrepresentations under misselling regulations…… Read more
Input legitimacy not output legitimacy…
There is searing stuff (below) from Meg Russell, Professor of British and Comparative Politics at University College London, and previously on the House of Lords standards committee: I couldn’t agree more: Indeed, even Murdoch’s Times is pretty sniffy (click to enlarge): With Keir Starmer recently speaking about plans for a convention on constitutional change I… Read more