Tag Archives: Westminster

This was a holding budget designed to buy the government some political breathing room, and so Philip Hammond kicked the can down the road on nearly all of the major fiscal and structural issues facing Britain I intended this piece to be just a few disjointed thoughts reflecting on Philip …

After Brexit, attracting more exceptional citizen politicians and fewer mediocre career politicians is the next crucial step towards democratic renewal in Britain A worthwhile article by new Labour MP Laura Smith for LabourList underlines the urgent need for more politicians who look and sound like contemporary human beings rather than …

So as was always a possibility, the High Court has ruled that the government does not have the authority to initiate Britain’s secession from the EU by invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty without first winning a vote in Parliament. From the Guardian: Parliament alone has the power to …

It is Westminster politicians and journalists, not Brexiteers, who have been short sighted and parochial The Telegraph’s James Kirkup poses an interesting question about the expansion of Heathrow Airport and other national political priorities in the post-Brexit world: Almost 70 per cent of commuting is done by car so roads …

Finding himself prematurely out of power and seeing no value in life as a mere backbench MP, David Cameron brings the curtain down on a bland, centrist, disappointing and entirely forgettable political career Having successfully completed Tony Blair’s fourth term of office and having a premature end called to his fifth, David …

MPs do not have a divine right to represent their constituencies forever once selected by their local party, Jeremy Corbyn is quite right to consider mandatory reselection for MPs and all political parties that profess to care about democracy should follow his lead The Telegraph leads today with a breathless …

– The sycophantic Westminster media identify and empathise much more with Labour’s centrist MPs than the ordinary people who make up the party membership. And it shows. In a rather nauseating review of Theresa May’s first outing in Prime Minister’s Questions, The Spectator’s Steerpike column gushes with sympathy for the …

What do you think is the life expectancy for a 21st century Scot?  According to official statistics,  the latest averages are 77.1 years for a man and 81.1 years for a woman. What about a ‘generation’.  How many years do you think that might be?  I reckon somewhere between 25 …