Organisation: UK Labour

Is Ed Balls a knave or a fool? On Newsnight, he just compared eliminating the deficit in four years to paying down a mortgage in short order. Let's consider the form that analogy should take if it were to reflect reality. Having engaged in…

My copy of Dan Hannan and Douglas Carswell's book, The Plan, arrived today. Haven't read much yet and don't agree with all that I've read, but all the same, if you haven't got a copy, you should. It's well worth the read, and more right…

Sorry I've gone quiet again. Although I work in the energy industry, my greatest passion (policy-wise) is the perversity and cruelty of welfare policy and the overwhelmingly negative effect it has on our economy and the wellbeing of those…

From the BBC's live blog of Gordon Brown's press conference yesterday: 1705 The prime minister says he "will not waiver and will not walk away". He adds: "I admit there have been full mistakes made and I accept responsibility…

Just came across this lottery-funded scheme: You'd think, with a name like that, this would be a spoof, or at least an ironic reference. But apparently not. They appear to be "serious". Is this the apogee of the New Labour philosophy?

It was a miserable budget. Lots of people got screwed. The main ones will be picked up by the commentariat. Let me add to that list a group who many might imagine had done quite well: renewable developers. But didn't Darling throw lots of…

Good call. Indeed. Heavily over-priced at that.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) "has 6 priority objectives for its lending activity": Cohesion and Convergence Support for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) Environmental sustainability Implementation of the Innovation 201…

Alistair Darling, explaining that the downside of reduced bonuses in the City is reduced tax revenues, said (on the Andrew Marr show this morning): -"that's why our income as a country has gone down"-. No Alistair. That's why your income as…

T minus one day until the HIPs story continues and it looks like the Labour Party and its members themselves will be cashing in from the chaos. The Telegraph reports that they are set to make thousands of pounds after the party teamed up…

In today's PMQs, Ming Campbell asked the PM, with specific reference to the recent floods the following question: "The Prime Minister was responsible for the establishment of the Stern report which as he will recall pointed out the severe…

The results are in. As expected, the Government has won Gold, while the Conservatives have had to settle for Silver (Gilt). It's a creditable performance, but not quite competitive. Close, but no banana - is this a taste of things to come…

Rosie Boycott has just said on This Week that "in 1997 we were elated but actually we didn't have that many great big problems. And there are a lot of big problems: there is the war, there is the environment, there is the huge gap between…

JG has posted on the subject of Tony's legacy. This post started as a comment, and grew so large that I decided to post it separately. I must see things through an inverting lens. Reagan: Never a buffoon in the eyes of those old enough to…

Gordon Brown has entered the home straight to finally achieving the position he thought would have been his a long time ago. Yesterday he was officially declared Labour party leader valiantly defeating all his rivals in a close run contest…

-(Picture - Hat tip: Guido Fawkes)- An interesting story in the Times the other day suggested that a candidate's face could make the difference when it comes to an election.  With the labour party deputy leadership entering its final week…

The Labour party and the Government are just about to get caught up in a good old fashioned sleaze story. The Times has broken the story that the massively in debt Labour party has been using government grants for its policy-making process…

More bitter experience. More unfinished business. LP has pointed out The Guardian article in which Lord Falconer declares that Tony Blair has "big regrets" about not tackling the culture of public-service provision earlier. "I don't think…

Forget the legacy and the lecture circuit. Tony Blair has no intention of retiring from the front-line, nor even of being a good back-seat driver. He is preparing for the next phase of his political career, not for life after politics. How…

Anyone (other than the specialists who get paid to produce them, or pressure groups and politicians who use them to justify intervention in favour of their special interests) who has looked with a critical eye at the Cost-Benefit Analyses…

Everyone in the energy industry knew that last year's Energy Review was a fix. Now a judge has recognised it too, and told the Government to consult properly on the nuclear issue. Labour have such contempt for the public that they couldn't…

Most examples of picking losers are normally quite subtle. Very often, the offending policy is well-meaning, and the harm unintentional. But the abuse by the Labour Party of their control of the levers of power to steer funding towards…

Gordon Brown has pledged to "cut red tape" for at least the third time this year, according to the Telegraph. This might seem a strange thing to criticise on pickinglosers, but we do so, not because it would be a bad idea, but because we…

Yet another effort by the Government to "go commercial" is failing. £10m was spent on an internet accommodation service which produced just over 400 hotel bookings this summer, reports the Telegraph. What a surprise. When I book a holiday…

Back in the 70s, government picked a real winner: nuclear power. It was going to produce, they promised, power "too cheap to meter". We know how that turned out. Rather than being too cheap to meter, nuclear turned out to be first too risky…

Age discrimination is self-defeating. Companies that employ less suitable people simply on the basis of their age will do worse than companies that employ the most suitable candidates regardless of age. But that is not the same thing as…

David Miliband wants Westerners to buy the Amazon rainforest (Sunday Telegraph, 1 Oct 2006, News, p.2). We need to ensure that there is a balance between urban and industrial development to provide the goods that people demand, agricultural…

Gordon Brown has come out in favour of devolving power. But his idea of devolution is a little different to ours. Ideally, power should be devolved to the individual. (Actually, ideally the individual, not the government, should have the…