Week of Nov 5 – Nov 11 – US Daily Review

Read Time:4 Minute, 12 Second

Looking at the news and opinion out of London each day.

11-11-13

Can we expect more social conservatism from the Tories?

The Telegraph reports that the Relationships Alliance, which is to launch in the House of Commons, warns that the ‘disintegration of romantic, social and family relationships costs the average taxpayer around £1,500 a year’. Apparently this amounts to £50 billion a year.

John Major chastens Cameron’s coalition but should be mindful of his past

A decent man, Major has his heart in the right place concerning our unequal society, but he has contributed to its rise

Help to Buy mortgage subsidies show how little politicians learnt from the bubble years

Gordon Brown used to joke that there are only two types of Chancellors: ‘those who fail and those who get out in time.’ Inside this joke lay his strategy: he was stoking a debt-fuelled bubble that was going to burst, but he hoped it would do so after the election or on someone else’s watch. It’s the textbook definition of putting party over country.

11-8-13

Is Nigel Farage losing his touch?

Is Nigel Farage’s magic disappearing? On Question Time last night (his 15th appearance in four years) the Ukip leader was taken to task by an audience member who asked him to ‘stop scaremongering the majority of people’ — followed by the kind of rousing cheer that Farage himself used to draw.

Ed Miliband’s ratings gone from ‘abysmal’ to just ‘bad’ but he will need new tunes to charm the voters

Allies of George Osborne are telling MPs not to panic: wages may rise in real terms next year

Drivers are a menace to society

I hate drivers. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate all of them, just a considerably larger proportion than I hate of the population as a whole. And, like most cyclists, I drive myself, having been bullied into it by my then girlfriend who bought me lessons for my 27th birthday.

11-7-13

A third of Tory members back Afriyie’s EU referendum plan

And over half want a vote before David Cameron’s preferred date of 2017

Grant Shapps: Help to Buy will give Londoners the homes they need

Help to Buy helps you get a deposit together. So now that £75,000 deposit can be reduced to £12,500, along with a reasonably priced 95 per cent mortgage

11-6-13

The best way to help poorer workers is to cut their tax bill

There’s a case for tax incentives for firms to encourage them to pay the Living Wage. But that’s no substitute for focusing tax reductions on the worse-off.

Another rotten culture, another political risk on the NHS

The allegations of a cover-up at Colchester General Hospital suggest something rotten in a culture, once again. The police have been called in by the Care Quality Commission to investigate claims that documents about patients’ care were falsified and that managers bullied staff into doing this so that cancer care at CGH could meet its targets. Bernard Jenkin, the local MP, placed great emphasis in his interview on Today on the problems with culture in the NHS, which Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is trying to resolve with a series of reforms to NHS leadership.

The Johnson manifesto

Jo’s, that is – not Boris’s. The Head of the Policy Unit will have a big hand in the plan for the 2015 election to be confirmed today.

11-5-13

Why Boris Johnson’s ‘slow and feeble’ attack on aviation policy isn’t so bothersome

‘Let’s have it every 90 seconds!’ shouted Boris to the CBI this afternoon as he played a series of clips of loud and quiet plane engines. He wanted to illustrate that ‘quiet’ planes would not make another runway at Heathrow palatable, and he used his customary strong language in attacking the government’s position on aviation policy. ‘End the dither, cut the cackle,’ the Mayor of London told the conference, urging the government to rule out a ‘toxic’ third runway by Christmas.