During the course of January ConservativeHome’s daily hits have been rising steadily. Interest spiked on the day that Charles Kennedy confessed to his battle with alcoholism. It peaked again on the day I appeared on Newsnight and yet again for the results of the ConservativeHome Members’ Panel. Interest in David Cameron’s gravitation to the political […]
One of the best columns in The Spectator was Stephen Glover’s Media Studies. Mr Glover has now taken his perspective on the press to The Independent and its Monday Media section. It’s always worth reading. Today’s column looks at the increasingly difficult relationship between right-wing newspapers and Mr Cameron. Mr Glover thinks that the Mail […]
I’ve been in Washington for three weeks now. Spending time with Howard Dean’s internet campaign manager (Joe Trippi) last week has been one of the highlights and I’ll write more about that soon… A lo-light was a two-and-a-half hour plane trip to Texas. I was sat next to a very large American lady who needed […]
It may be David Cameron’s big speech day but Norman Tebbit is determined to grab a bit of attention for himself. In a speech to the Bow Group the former Tory Chairman and self-appointed keeper of the Thatcherite flame will "compare the Tory leader to the communist dictator Pol Pot over the way in which […]
An ICM poll for The Sunday Telegraph shows little change from the previous survey in the series. David Cameron’s Conservatives remain 1% ahead of Labour and the LibDems are on 18% (just 1% off their December rating). 80% of those sampled by ICM said that recent scandals had made no difference to whether or not […]
Two weeks ago The Business newspaper revealed the devastating fact that the British tax burden (going up) was higher than Germany’s tax burden (going down). It was the clearest sign yet that the Brown-Blair axis was eroding the supply-side progress of the Thatcher years. Today’s Business newspaper provides three excellent more reasons why Gordon Brown […]
Former Tory MP Sir Cyril Townsend, who represented Bexleyheath from 1974 to 1997, secretly joined the Liberal Democrats last year. His move only became public today when he announced is support for Sir Ming Campbell’s leadership bid. Sir Cyril used his endorsement to criticise David Cameron’s consistency: "David Cameron was the author of Michael Howard’s […]
Today ConservativeHome begins a new feature reviewing the political week. The Review will appear every Friday or Saturday. HOT TOPIC OF THE WEEK… Tax. Britain is becoming increasingly burdened by Gordon Brown’s taxes and George Osborne used a speech to acknowledge the economic cost of this burden but he then put “stability” before tax relief […]
Martin Sewell is a Family Lawyer specialising in Child Protection and Adoption and an Anglican Lay Reader. His work puts him in daily contact with the disadvantaged of society who experience the consequences of social policy the most acutely. "I am more interested in human beings than human rights, and I want to take the […]
If today’s YouGov poll for the Daily Telegraph is to be believed the LibDems are in serious peril. Anthony King writes the following in his analysis of the poll: "More than one in three of those who voted Liberal Democrat in last year’s general election no longer support the party and a large majority of […]
This (not online) comes from Bret Stephens in The Wall Street Journal: "When Chancellor Angela Merkel began her keynote address to the World Economic Forum, her first reference was to the 18th century philosopher from Koenigsberg, Immanuel Kant. Yet despite a Teutonic speaking style, Mrs. Merkel delivered the most American of speeches. I lost count […]
David Cameron is receiving conflicting advice on relations with America. The anti-war Peter Oborne thinks that drawing closer to Bush’s America is a big error on Cameron’s part. He writes this in The Spectator: "David Cameron has ruthlessly dumped Tory baggage on almost every pressing issue: tax, the economy, the environment, health, education, welfare, the […]
Simon Hughes has vowed to stay in the LibDem leadership race despite having been "outed" as gay. Mr Hughes recently told The Independent that he was not gay after the newspaper asked him if he was homosexual: "The answer is no, as it happens. But if it was the case, which it isn’t, I hope […]
Tory MP Boris Johnson has used his Telegraph column to discuss Lord Joffe’s Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill. Pro-life groups have produced excellent briefings against the Bill (see, for example, here) but Mr Johnson is minded to support the right-to-die at the heart of the legislation: "The closer I study Lord Joffe’s Bill, […]
Jeremy Brier, a barrister and blogger, examines last week’s Hamas election victory. Jeremy is a supporter of Conservative Friends of Israel and World Debating Champion for 2004-5: "There are few issues on which you can trust a BBC Question Time audience to get it more wrong than on the Middle East. In Thursday night’s discussion […]