Ed Miliband's Christmas message to UK Armed Forces
Updated: 2012-12-31 23:56:45
Ed Miliband MP, Leader of the Labour Party, in his Christmas message to members of the Armed Forces, said:
Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards report - Ed Balls response
Updated: 2012-12-31 23:56:45Ed Balls MP, Labour's Shadow Chancellor, responding to the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards' first report, said:Benefits Uprating Bill an attack on hard working families - Byrne
Updated: 2012-12-31 23:56:45Liam Byrne MP, Labour’ Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, responding to the publication of the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill, said:Labour forces parliamentary debate on backing local pubs - Perkins
Updated: 2012-12-31 23:56:45As figures from CAMRA show that pub closures have risen to 18 a week, Labour will use its first Opposition Day Debate of 2013 to hold the Tory-led Government to account for failing to back struggling pubs across Britain.For all Osborne's smoke and mirrors these figures show borrowing rising and up by almost 10% so far this year - Reeves
Updated: 2012-12-31 23:56:45Rachel Reeves MP, Labour's shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, responding to today's public sector finance figures, said:Agricultural Wages Board abolition amendment in House of Lords- Huw Irranca-Davies
Updated: 2012-12-31 23:56:45Huw Irranca-Davies MP, Labour’ Shadow Farming Minister, responding to the amendment tabled in the House of Lords to abolish the Agricultural Wages Board, said:Ed Miliband's New Year message
Updated: 2012-12-31 23:56:45Watch Ed Miliband's New Year message belowWelcomes Department of Health continuing funding of scheme for thalidomide survivors - Kendall
Updated: 2012-12-31 23:56:45Liz Kendall MP, Labour’ Shadow Health Minister, speaking in the House of Commons in response to the Government’ Commons statement on the grant to help thalidomide survivors, said: nbsp;Labour's Policy Review - Libraries: Innovation, Co-location and Partnership
Updated: 2012-12-31 23:56:45Labour's Policy Review - Libraries: Innovation, Co-location and PartnershipMichael Gove is actively damaging school sport - Twigg
Updated: 2012-12-31 23:56:45Stephen Twigg MP, Labour's Shadow Education Secretary, responding to reports of a delay in the Government publishing its school sports strategy, said:The rise of UKIP was the event of the year
Updated: 2012-12-31 16:53:52The benefits cap is your Policy of 2012
Updated: 2012-12-31 15:28:07Eight pieces of New Year advice for David Cameron
Updated: 2012-12-31 08:44:32Owen Paterson is ConHome readers' One To Watch in 2013
Updated: 2012-12-30 17:35:17Congratulations to Malcolm Harbour CBE – the most influential Tory you've never heard of
Updated: 2012-12-30 16:06:18
My first impression of Malcolm Habour was, I confess, not a favourable one. It was at a Conservative Party Conference in the mid-1990s, and he was telling his Eurosceptic audience that they ought to come to the West Midlands and listen to the people whose livelihoods depended on the EU. Oh Lord, I thought to [...]It's time to threaten the Lib Dems with Mutually Assured Destruction
Updated: 2012-12-29 18:33:57Will EU leaders renegotiate? If not it's Out. Out to what Jacques Delors is calling a "privileged" partnership.
Updated: 2012-12-29 08:53:28The Conservative achievement of 2012 was the re-election of Boris Johnson
Updated: 2012-12-29 06:44:27Nick Clegg is the 'Yellow B**tard of 2012'
Updated: 2012-12-28 16:30:1955% of Tory members would vote against gay marriage if they were in parliament
Updated: 2012-12-28 07:40:46By wading into politics, the King of the Belgians is jeopardising his throne
Updated: 2012-12-28 07:14:55
It is no surprise that King Albert II should oppose the break-up of Belgium: he stands to lose more than any of his subjects. All his predecessors – Belgium has arguably the most politically active monarchy in Europe – have taken the same line. In a state with no common language, culture or history, patriotism [...]While EU leaders argue about the budget, actual spending keeps rising
Updated: 2012-12-26 15:23:53Why? Because Brussels needs to keep purchasing the loyalty of powerful and articulate client groups in every member state. The EU is like a bouncy castle: turn off the budgetary air supply and see how quickly its crenellations shrink, its ramparts sag. This vulnerability, of course, is what makes the current financial crisis so threatening [...]Christmas celebrates the defining event of our civilisation
Updated: 2012-12-24 15:43:42
The idea of sacrifice, of propitiation, seems to be innate in humanity. Even the most rational people, at times of stress, can find themselves half-bargaining with unnamed powers: let my child recover and I'll do such-and-such. Religion is, in some ways, a collective expression of such instincts, and physical sacrifice, by a process of parallel [...]Lefties think they're on the side of the masses. They're wrong
Updated: 2012-12-21 20:58:06
At the Oxford Union the other day, I was comprehensively outperformed by this man: Dr Cornel West. If you’ve heard him live, you’ll know that he speaks in the manner of a charismatic preacher, and that the timbre of his voice captivates almost any audience. The motion was This House would occupy Wall Street. He [...]A Christmas reminder of why the economy is in a mess
Updated: 2012-12-20 16:09:39Government ministers, central bankers and academic economists around the world continue to tell us that the way out of the present crisis is to spend more. You might think that excessive spending got us into this mess but, as plenty of half-educated people will tell you on the thread below, you're simply revealing your ignorance [...]Season’s Greetings
Updated: 2012-12-20 08:30:48It’s not often you meet a person who has set up an organisation just to make sure land is used more constructively. Mark Walton, of sharedassets.org.uk, is such a person and today he told me about how he plans to change the way land is used. He’s been able to set up this new social enterprise [...]I try to give the police the benefit of the doubt, but it's becoming harder and harder
Updated: 2012-12-19 21:06:40
One of the things that used to set the UK apart from the run of nations was the standing of its police force. The British constable was not an agent of the state, but a citizen in uniform, with no more powers than the rest of us, except in so far as those powers were [...]Nick Clegg doesn't just talk in cliché; he thinks in cliché
Updated: 2012-12-18 10:52:17
‘There are no easy answers, no silver bullets, only tough choices. We’ve rejected the Manichean alternatives. We’ve embraced the challenge. We cannot wash our hands of those without the means to get on. My view is simple…’ How can anyone respect a politician who talks this way? How, in particular, can journalists, whose job is [...]Switzerland is a more attractive model than Norway, but Britain could do better than either
Updated: 2012-12-15 16:53:13
Supporters of EU membership keep warning that we might end up like Norway. Oslo, they tell us in scary voices, is 'governed by fax'. Its leaders, apparently, are sitting by their fax machines waiting for the latest directives to flop through from Brussels. As a member of the European Economic Area (EEA), Norway has to [...]What's the most unpopular thing you can say in the European Parliament?
Updated: 2012-12-13 19:34:10It's a crowded field but, bizarrely enough, I reckon the clip above comes pretty close. To appreciate the context, though, you needed to have sat through the ceremony that had just taken place, in which senior Eurocrats praised one another sonorously for having secured peace in Europe. Trumpets were blown, flags raised and – as [...]