Week of July 10 – July 16

Read Time:6 Minute, 36 Second

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

7-16-12

Coalition will not make it to election, predicts senior Tory

The Coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats is “very likely” to end before the general election scheduled for 2015, a senior Tory has predicted.

Ed Miliband will kiss and make up with the unions at the Durham Miners’ Gala

Ed Miliband will become the first Labour leader for more than 20 years to attend the Durham Miners’ Gala – but what’s behind his visit?

Double standards II?

The day before yesterday we looked at the different approaches to the health and financial sectors when large companies make mistakes. I agree with those who wrote in to say one of the worst features of banking was the way the state bailed them out instead of making them pay their own losses and sort themselves out, whilst protecting depositors rather than bondholders and shareholders.

Though the Government favours voluntary change, any all-male FTSE 100 boards must grasp that it means business.

7-15-12

The vote on Lords reform showed how Tory members are increasingly taking a stand on questions of principle. It’s not good news for the PM

Born poor? Bad luck, you have won last prize in the lottery of life

The rise of individualism and the celebration of the private over the public is undermining the strength of our social institutions

Friends: The One with Dave’s Dark Cloud of Doubt

There’s stormy weather inside No 10 in the latest episode of our political sitcom

Civic pride is alive and well – but no thanks to Cameron

Today it’s Britain’s waterways. Tomorrow will our crime fighters and teachers be (underfunded) volunteers too?

A political truce finally exposed as a conspiracy

Open discussion of sincerely held opposing views is essential to a free society

7-14-12

Double standards?

Today I wish to contrast the way politicians and some in the press respond to bad conduct in banking and in healthcare. It seems to me that we overdo the allegations and the expression of revulsion when bad bankers are revealed, whilst taking an altogether more relaxed attitude to healthcare errors.

How to take Britain from Bleak House to Great Expectations

People must rediscover the joy of ownership if George Osborne is to repeat Neville Chamberlain’s feat

Gordon Brown takes UN job as unpaid education envoy in hope of following in Bill Clinton’s footsteps

Gordon Brown is making a political comeback on the global stage by taking a job at the United Nations. The former Prime Minister has become the UN’s special envoy for global education, it was announced yesterday.

Yes, banking’s a mess, but be part of the solution. Move your money!

There is a better way for banking – but it relies on us voting with our financial feet

Ed Miliband repays debt to unions by going to miners’ jamboree and attacking Thatcher’s government

Ed Miliband will today launch a savage attack on Margaret Thatcher’s government as he becomes the first Labour leader for two decades to address the biggest gathering of trade unionists in Britain.

7-13-12

Louise Mensch: give us a referendum on Lords reform

Conservative Louise Mensch called for a referendum on Lords reform saying concessions offered by Downing Street so far would not be sufficient to win over the rebels.

Last night Tony Blair returned to the Labour fold. He has, the party announced, been granted a new role, which apparently involves “giving specific advice on the Olympic legacy and in particular how to maximise both its economic and its sporting legacies”.

Cool, assured Ed Miliband must now boldly define himself

Ed Miliband proved himself master of the Commons – but David Cameron’s serial bungling alone will not deliver Labour victory

Cutting the number of MPs.

I voted to reduce the number of MPs by 50 when it last came up, and am willing to do so again when the boundary review is complete. I read that some Lib Dems are no longer happy about this Coalition policy.

It’s with a small shudder that I write these words, but I’m with Lord Mandelson and Richard Branson.

7-12-12

School-of-Brown politics is as destructive as ever

The reform bill fiasco has vindicated the militant oppositionism embodied by Ed Balls, and may yet threaten the coalition

In the Coalition’s darkest hour, it must return to the Rose Garden

After the Government’s defeat on reform of the House of Lords, a fresh agreement with the Lib Dems might just give the careworn PM a new lease of life

Relatively low interest rates are likely, with the “loans” covering the fees recouped when the home is eventually sold or when the person dies

YOU may not care about the government’s bizarre obsession with trying to replace the unelected House of Lords with an almost equally strange upper chamber.

The war of the Lords

The first skirmish ended in stalemate, reports Martin Shapland. Now, the long, bloody entrenched war of attrition on Lords reform begins and a referendum may be both inevitable and desirable

7-11-12

The immorality of taxing the minimum wage

If I might make a modest moral suggestion? One that I’m hesitant to advance: for of course different people have different morals and ethics.

Don’t Legitimise The House of Lords – Downgrade It

Nigel Fletcher thinks the Lords should be stripped of their law-making powers.

David Cameron suffers biggest Commons rebellion over Lords reform

David Cameron has suffered his biggest Commons rebellion since the Coalition was formed, as his own MPs told him controversial plans to reform the Lords were a “dead duck”.

Perhaps David Cameron does not really like Conservatives very much

The Prime Minister is reported to have had some angry words with Jesse Norman, one of the leaders of the backbench Conservatives who had made it plain that they would not vote for his motion to timetable the Bill to abolish the House of Lords.

Why we are breaking the Pirate Bay ban

We must not hand courts and governments censorship powers without a public debate about digital rights

7-10-12

Lords retreat is an abject humiliation for Nick Clegg

Following crisis talks, the Prime Minister and his petulant Deputy have decided to drop the programme motion connected to the House of Lords reform bill.

Greece may have to choose between the euro and the radical left

The dominant forces in Syriza remain committed to the euro, but an increasingly powerful radical left has other ideas

Osborne is right about Balls. Tories must get behind him.

Paul has already done a fine job of explaining the importance of George Osborne’s determination to link Ed Balls to the economic failure of the Brown years.

We must prove Lords reform is not a Lib Dem pet project

Unless Lib Dems can show House of Lords reform to be a matter of democratic importance, it could end up in the same heap of embarrassing failures as AV

Why the Right should claim Robin Hood for itself

Before we start, be assured that this is not some sort of bad joke that ends with the punch line “and that’s why we should tax the rich at 95 per cent”. Rather, I’ve always been surprised at how easily Robin Hood’s name has been usurped by the Left for their own fiscal causes — and how unthinkingly, too.

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