In these dark days we need all the shafts of light we can get in our politics. So it is with some gratitude that today we learn of two cases being brought before the European Court of Human Rights in the very same week that the tomato-throwing Lord Chancellor and Minister of Justice again brings forward his Bill of Rights and answers questions on it. What make these cases so delicious is that they are being brought by, first, Owen…
Don’t worry. This is not about trans rights or what a woman is. It is about Scottish governance, the process of Scottish legislation and the consequences of relying on small parties for votes. Above all, it’s about whether Ms Sturgeon is a straight politician as she likes to claim, whether she is being economical with the truth, whether she has misled Holyrood. Like pretty much all politics these days, it’s about integrity. Ms Sturgeon and her Ministers have repeatedly said – both…
Farewell then Liz Truss: 45 days, 1 mini-Budget, 1 resignation, 2 monarchs, 2 Chancellors, 3 sackings and 3 PMQs. Those setting pub quiz questions will forever be in your debt. As for the runners: Sunak: sensibly stayed away from the Cabinet. Campaign slogan: “I bloody told you so!“ Hunt: appears to be calm and a grown up. Probably the only one willing to speak (and implement) some hard truths to both the party and the country. Mordaunt: only if you…
Britain has largely been ungoverned – and certainly not governed with even a basic level of competence – for the best part of a year now. Barely had Covid quietened down and COP 26 been completed, that this latest phase started – around this time last year: The Owen Paterson saga with his resignation in early November following Johnson’s U-turn on his attempts to protect him From December onwards the whole Partygate issue which dragged on and on, despite a resignation…
What is happening in the financial markets now is as dangerous as what happened in October 2008. Unlike then, this does not relate to one or two failing institutions (though that is a crude summary of what happened). Rather, it is two-fold: on the financial side, the issue of government borrowing, how it is to be paid for and how a path back to some sort of fiscal stability to lay the foundations for growth are to be achieved. Politically,…
Poor Chris Philp. Not only is he being blamed by his own colleagues for suggesting the now binned cut to the 45% tax rate. But his statement at a Conference meeting that companies with fewer than 500 employees will be exempt from all business regulations has been seized upon, with some claiming that it means a complete free-for-all: companies able to discriminate, sell dangerous goods, send children up chimneys and so forth. Not so fast. All that is happening as…
“Courage calls to courage everywhere, and its voice cannot be denied.” Those words of Millicent Fawcett are echoed by what we saw on the streets of London yesterday. A pro-Iranian women march met up with a pro-Ukraine one, both chanting “All together we will win.” A large screen in Piccadilly Circus displayed the motto “Woman, Life, Freedom” in solidarity with Iranian protestors. Lovely to see, but no courage is needed to do this in Britain. Brave Ukraine does look as…
There comes a moment with all governments in power for a long time when, desperate to conjure up some of the old magic, they reprise old popular tunes in the hope – or belief – that they will have the same effect as first time around. In October 1992 severe pit closures were announced. 30,000 jobs – mostly of miners in the Union of Democratic Mineworkers – would go. There were protests, not just from the usual suspects, but from…