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The Guardian (Free subscription) | 2 hours ago
If we don't convince the market how serious we are about cuts soon, there simply won't be any recovery For some time now it has been possible to see the four horsemen of the apocalypse on the horizon. Most economic commentators ignore their existence and the potential damage that could be inflicted on our economy if they all swept through at once. Horse one symbolises the ruinous state of public accounts....
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Events dear boy, events (Free subscription) | 20/11/2009
The scene in the Commons sums up the week. Labour MPs have lost interest. His strategy for the autumn fightback is in tatters. Brown’s failure is complete. The Labour party is short of money and has fallen back on protecting the core vote. The polls have failed to move and there is little evidence that a hung parliament is possible under Brown’s leadership. His economic policy lacks credibility....
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Islington Newmania (Free subscription) | 16/11/2009
‘India can no more be independent than can a cat or dog’ - wrote Orwell and Churchill agreed . Partly because of this merely conventional wisdom of the day , the great man has sometimes been traduced as a stopped clock that got the time right once . I disagree , but what was it that Churchill saw about Hitler others could not , how did he know there could be no negotiation ? I think he...
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Horgan (Free subscription) | 14/11/2009
Many years ago I heard Frank Field MP speak, and one of the themes of his speech was the evil of means testing for benefits. His view was that this created benefits traps, with huge marginal rates of tax if people tried to improve their situation, and discouraged thrift. In fact means tested benefits as they operate today mean that it makes economic sense for the poor to stay poor, because increases...
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Islington Newmania (Free subscription) | 14/11/2009
Fantastic post by Hopi I had much to say and this is an edit : Tax credits are paid for by working people and their children under threat of imprisonment . It has been delivered incompetently ,encourages fraud and pushes down minimum wages . Frank Field called it ,“Last throw of the politics of central control“. and said “ The effect of Gordon Brown’s reforms has been to create...
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The Guardian (Free subscription) | 14/11/2009
Vince Cable's memoirs may be hubristic, but Roy Hattersley is happy to forgive him There is much to like about Vince Cable and much to admire. But nothing reveals the secret of his success as graphically as his persona. While Nick Clegg, his party leader, subscribes to the David Cameron theory that successful politicians ought to look and sound like Rolls-Royce salesmen, Cable has the demeanour of...
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Freemania (Free subscription) | 13/11/2009
Mike Smithson wonders whether Frank Field, who has written yet another gushing newspaper column about David Cameron, is about to defect to the Tories. Of course he isn’t. He’ll wait until he’s been securely re-elected to his safe Labour seat.
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The Guardian (Free subscription) | 12/11/2009
Our country no longer pulls together like it should. But materialism, not big government, has damaged social solidarity David Cameron is on to something . Labour's brave efforts to reduce poverty had one missing ingredient: recognition of the loss of solidarity in our society. This lack of "pulling together", while not necessarily a cause of poverty itself, makes it harder to reduce inequality...
7Vote!
Not a sheep (Free subscription) | 12/11/2009
The news faithfully reported by the BBC that "Gordon Brown has promised to "tighten" the UK's immigration rules by reducing the number of professions which can recruit from outside Europe." misses the problem by a mile. I, and I believe most others, have few problems with French Quants, Indian Systems Analysts or German T&M people working here and paying taxes. The problem,...
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Not a sheep (Free subscription) | 12/11/2009
I read in Paul Waugh's column that "Speaker Bercow's wife Sally was last night selected as one of the three Labour candidates for Westminster council." More ammunition for those who used to call John Bercow a CINO - Conservative In Name Only. Are John Bercow's political antenna that badly attuned that he cannot see how this will look? I wonder if an incoming Conservative government might...
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Events dear boy, events (Free subscription) | 12/11/2009
Having previously noted that Frank Field may well cause Brown a few ‘local difficulties' coupled with his belief that Alan Johnson would be perfect foil to David Cameron, there is further news that he is not a happy comrade. First, we have Field’s article in The Guardian in response to Cameron's speech on poverty: If you read the speech without knowing who has given it, most people would...
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Not a sheep (Free subscription) | 12/11/2009
Back in April I blogged twice about the possibility of Frank Field crossing the chamber of the House of Commons and joining the Conservative party. Here I blogged about a blog of entry of his where he wrote "Harold Wilson asserted that the Labour party was a moral crusade or it was nothing. The McBride affair has left Labour members looking at nothing. That is the reality check that McBride has...
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Islington Newmania (Free subscription) | 12/11/2009
I have been reading the very brilliant Hopi Sen as I always do and commenting on his grumbles about Cameron`s Progressive shtick . This may be a bit inexplicable as I am commenting on a thread but anyway this is what I said …… Aha a huddle of the New Conservatives getting all sentimental about teh 1950s , how very amusing . Some of objections you come up with are the sort that could have...
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Liverpool Daily Post.co.uk (Free subscription) | 12/11/2009
BIRKENHEAD MP Frank Field is at the centre of a row over a “threatening” email he sent to a constituent.
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The Guardian (Free subscription) | 12/11/2009
David Cameron's speech on poverty, the state and the mass engagement of a new generation of community activists on Tuesday set the direction of travel under a Conservative government. Here a panel of social experts analyse the Tory leader's key points. • The state is too large and counter-productive. Cameron: "The size, scope and role of government in Britain has reached a point where it...
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