Economy

Rhetoric is important. David Cameron, Steve Hilton and the movers behind the Big Society project must be given full credit for championing what is an extremely difficult concept to sell Read more

Shortly after the Party’s crushing defeat in 1997, there was a time when many Conservatives believed that some kind of right-wing version of Tony Benn’s “rainbow coalition” of the 1980s Read more

The Big Society is so very often considered a domestic phenomenon, and while it does require us to look introspectively at our own values, we should also look around at Read more

Pain anticipation is a dangerous thing. Knowing the plaster is about to be ripped off and pre-empting what it will feel like is fraught with speculation and worry. Is this Read more

I often think one of the curses of politics is the idea that complex problems are susceptible to overly simplistic solutions. This is a curse that stretches across party lines Read more

Johann Hari is one of the left’s best writers, and has composed a beguiling narrative – that there is no debt crisis. This claim needs nipping in the bud. The essence Read more

Saturday’s “March for the Alternative” looked impressive in scale but it failed to deliver what it promised.  The UK national debt is heading towards £1.1 trillion.  That represents over 60% Read more

I’m not trying to outdo the Spectator’s Fraser Nelson and Pete Hoskin in use of graphs but there are some interesting points to draw from YouGov’s Budget briefing and other Read more

On Saturday the Financial Times published an insightful profile on George Osborne.  It reports that in November last year, just after the tuition fee riots, an unspecified government minister said: Read more

Tonight’s Dispatches on Channel 4 is going to be interesting – they’re doing a live debate on what state assets should be sold off, and have created an online version Read more