OPINION
— Brexiters don’t have any real Brexit benefits to boast of, so they have to make stuff up.
OPINION
— Brexiters don’t have any real Brexit benefits to boast of, so they have to make stuff up.
Long-Read
— Professor Chris Grey’s latest Brexit analysis on David Lammy’s speech that was maybe the first time since Brexit that a major politician challenged its central, flawed assumptions. A small but welcome first step to realism.
OPINION
— In a recent interview with the News Agents podcast, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said that she is no longer 100% certain that the Conservatives would not attempt to abolish the Scottish Parliament
Analysis
— The prime minister’s pledge to bring integrity to public office could become a stick to beat him with – just like ‘back to basics’ became one for John Major.
UK Strikes
— Recent price rises are not due to higher wages but supply-side issues, including the war in Ukraine, the COVID pandemic, and Brexit. All in all, the current government’s intransigence on public sector pay is based on both bad economics and bad politics.
Long-Read
— Professor Chris Grey’s analysis on how the Northern Ireland Protocol and the Retained EU Law Bill processes rumble on undramatically but with potential for crisis and chaos, the idea that Brexit is dying, and thoughts on how Re-joiners will need to build and sustain a ‘big tent’.
Climate Change
— Tory-linked think tank appoints the author of books which claim that environmentalism is part of a “totalitarian” plan to control the public and human-made climate change is a “myth”.
Opinion Polls
— A majority of the British public is unimpressed with Zahawi’s conduct over his tax issues and believes that he should step down from his role as Conservative party chairman.
OPINION
— There’s pointlessness, and then there’s Prime Minister’s Questions, where democracy goes to kill itself.
UK Politics
— The public still does not know what Keir Starmer and the Labour party stand for. Inspiration could come from a surprising source.
Right to Strike
— The strikes bill making its way through parliament potentially means employers will be able to block workers from taking industrial action. Despite his efforts to portray trade unions as out-of-control, is Rishi Sunak misreading the voters’ opinion?
Long-Read
— Professor Chris Grey’s latest Brexit analysis on why it is not in the “remainers’” power to create a post-Brexit consensus, a discussion about the Retained EU Law Bill and Northern Ireland Protocol, plus some thoughts prompted by Frost’s hero-worship of Edmund Burke.
OPINION
— The most notable thing about Keir Starmer’s speech last week was the way in which the Labour leader shamelessly nicked so many Tory and Vote Leave slogans. Will he be touring the UK in a bus with £350 million a week for the NHS on the side of it next?
OPINION
— It’s either very bold or gob-smackingly arrogant for the leader of a party that has been in charge for the past 13 years to demand a clean slate and to be judged on future results based on some self-serving criteria.
Austerity
— Public spending cuts and the soaring cost of living will not only affect people’s lives now but could trickle down through generations.
Long-Read
— Professor Chris Grey’s latest Brexit analysis, looking at how and why even over Christmas the Brexit debate continued, and the case for caution as well as optimism in reading the most recent opinion polls.
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