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BLOGS
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Mehdi Hasan
:Woolwich Attack: Demonising Muslims Won't Help
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Mario Dunn
:Royal Mail Privatisation - Do We Want This?
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Mike Judge
:Cameron Isn't Redefining Marriage, He's Wrecking It
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Dr James Hannam
:A Plea From a Eurosceptic Tory
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James Bloodworth
:Don't Give the Woolwich Attacks a Meaning They Don't Deserve
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If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
Ed Miliband, the leader of the Labour party, has a million things in his in-tray. A challenging economy, rising energy prices, badgers, you name it. And yet he chose to speak to the national media about mental health. Whether or not you agree with his politics, the very fact that he made this speech is a good thing - it's a sign that the subject we've been campaigning about for so long has moved up the political agenda.
Disappointingly I think the majority of students just aren't interested in political issues and this is something that needs to be addressed on both a local level in student communities and a national level.
We will be electing new Police Commissioners next month. They have a unique opportunity to reduce crime. But that can only happen if simple questions on what crime is being committed, where it is being committed and by who are answered based on evidence. Otherwise real issues could be lost in political correctness.
As a Conservative I have no pleasure in exposing David Cameron's deficit claims. However, as long as the party continues to talk down the economy via the blame game, confidence will not be given an opportunity to return. For it is an undeniable and inescapable economic fact: without confidence and certainty there can be no real growth.
The Minister for Rural Affairs has had an incredible year for ill thought-out policy u-turns.
The dire position of Britain with regard to social mobility is being worsened with time, deepening and entrenching divisions, and diminishing equality of opportunity for all. For Britain to succeed economically our politicians should be striving to improve our position and not make it worse.
I know times are hard, and there is a push to cut spending on all but the most vital of projects, but perhaps a new PR whiz would be a good investment for the coalition. Someone who could persuade them against snatching defeat from the jaws of success.
This government is letting down our young people by failing to build a modern education system fit for the modern world.
One of the biggest secrets of the current UK recession is that there is one sector which is booming. Strangely this sector is often perceived as at odds with economic growth, holding back industry and a luxury we can't afford with the nation's finances in a slump. This booming growth sector is the green economy.
I find it hard to have a reasoned debate on the role of the state in our political economy - which is what the discussion about size ultimately stems from - on the basis of percentages, or comparisons of percentages between nations/eras.
The collapse in the Lib Dem vote is therefore most likely to benefit the Labour party and make a Parliamentary majority for Cameron's Conservatives even more of a stretch, though Lib Dem defections alone would probably not deliver Labour a majority.
Polls continue to show that voters prefer Mr Cameron as prime minister to Mr Miliband, but that they prefer Labour over the Conservatives. That might well change before the next election in 2015, but there is little to suggest that Mr Cameron's grand vision will be sufficient to persuade more voters to back his party.
Once again stealing the limelight on centre stage, Boris Johnson has lifted the spirit of the Tory party conference and has unsurprisingly hit the headlines whilst doing so. Does he secretly have ambitions of one day leading the Conservatives? Let's see where we are in 2016.
This conference has surely been the conference of old Conservative values and a message to the country: we are still Conservative and we are still ready to fight!
The Conservatives have struggled to offer a clear vision that is compatible with the new realities of the financial crisis, beyond deficit reduction itself.
There is a clear need to tax the largely unearned and unequally distributed wealth locked up in property. Failing to do so at a time when living standards stagnate for those not fortunate enough to live in a house worth £2m is bad politics, bad economics and bad judgement.
