Few of the revenants rallying behind Prosper UK’s grave-linen standard need much explaining. Most were backers or beneficiaries of David Cameron’s ‘modernisation’ efforts; they were, almost definitionally, the future. Now they’re not.
Freezing tax thresholds rather than adjusting them for inflation allows the Government to raise the de facto tax rate year after year whilst leaving the de jure rate the same; might it also lead the press to lose sight of the cause and effect?
Such an approach is unlikely to reap the electoral dividends they expect; but if it did, the only result would be to make Kemi Badenoch the next Sir Keir Starmer.
On the issues which are subject to the strongest pressures of public opinion – pensions, the NHS, taxation, crime, and immigration – the two major parties keep getting squeezed into broadly identical positions.
Defenders of the status quo on international law ought, you would think, to avoid making agreements which exacerbate the tension between that system and national democracy.
If it is in part judges taking a more expansive interpretation of their rights and responsibilities, that itself is downstream of politicians legislating in such a way as gives them more freedom to do so.
The President’s vision seems to be of an empire without the tedious long-term responsibilities that attend having one, including responsibilities to allies and collaborators.
Not only does it lean even further into the natural advantages as prospective candidates enjoyed by councillors, but it will in general select for MPs who conduct themselves like councillors regardless.
Kemi Badenoch should take care to emphasise the latter as well as the former, so as to reassure environmentally-minded Conservatives that this is about better policy, not a dirtier planet.
The whole point of the Convention is that it elevates certain rights above the political realm. There is an inherent tension between such an arrangement and democracy.
If nothing else, there may yet at some point be another Tory chancellor, and if past performance is any guide their budgets are going to leak.
Unless both parties are really ready to make such a deal work, then the worst outcome for the Right could actually be one where they could form a government after the next election.
Government attempts to set prices and insulate favoured groups from economic reality, which makes economic reality worse, which leads to more attempts to fix prices and protect a wider range of favoured groups.
Rachel Reeves is cannibalising the economy’s healthy tissue in order to avoid confronting Labour backbenchers with unpleasant choices. So it goes.
The proper place of polling is marketing, yet too often politicians defer to the public on granular policy questions.