Harry Fone is the Grassroots Campaign Manager for the TaxPayers’ Alliance. Less than two weeks into January and councils are already telling residents to expect another year of inflation-busting rate rises. Local authorities will be permitted to raise Council Tax by...
London’s Nightingale hospital comes off “standby” mode – as these sites face their biggest test yet
In recent months, the Government has been forced to defend itself over the Nightingale hospitals, the medical sites it set up in the spring to support the NHS through the Coronavirus crisis, which have been noticeably empty, and sometimes deactivated, across the...
Jamie Green: Now that Brexit has finally happened, Scotland’s ambitions must stretch beyond Europe
Jamie Green is Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Education and an MSP for West Scotland. They say that January is a time for renewal, new starts and new resolutions. After the 2020 we’ve just had, that message of renewal is more important than ever, but I can think of...
Toby Young: O’Brien is wrong – censorship is never the answer
Toby Young is the General Secretary of the Free Speech Union and the Editor of LockdownSceptics.org. I was disappointed to read Neil O’Brien’s column on this site yesterday (‘Trumpism in Britain. It’s time to call out those in the media who cynically feed the cranks,...
Andy Street: The big opportunity for the West Midlands in the small print of the EU deal
Andy Street is Mayor of the West Midlands, and is a former Managing Director of John Lewis. As the nation continues to grapple with the immense impact of Covid-19 it already seems a lifetime ago that Brexit was the dominant issue on our TV screens. Right now, all our...
Newslinks for Tuesday 12th January 2021
Coronavirus 1) Police vow to fine lockdown refuseniks “Britain’s most senior police officer has said it is preposterous that anyone could be unaware of the need to follow lockdown rules and served notice that those who ignore them will be challenged and fined. Dame...
Trump, Parler, bias, free speech, incitement – and regulation. Beware of the cure being worse than the disease.
The implications of Twitter banning the President of the United States’ account are big. And those of Parler being forced offline by Google and Apple are even bigger. On the decisions themselves, we will be brisk. The barring of Donald Trump’s account...
Jerome Mayhew: The carbon proposal that the Government should put at the heart of its plan for COP26
Jerome Mayhew is MP for Broadland. We keep being told that we have to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2050 – and have even made this a legal requirement. We normally expect the market to sort out the allocation of scarce resources by matching supply with...
Nat Wei: Ministers need to prepare now for the next sudden crisis – and trust people more as they do so
Lord Wei is a Conservative member of the House of Lords. He is a co-founder of Teach First, a social entrepreneur, and a former government adviser. Readers of my blog and ConHome will know that I have been a big advocate for using the crisis that is upon us to build a...
Starmer opposes Council Tax rises. But he won’t say where the money would come from.
In the latest piece of repositioning, Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, has spoken out against Council Tax increases. It came in a speech yesterday devoted to seeking to recapture a broader piece of territory from the Conservatives by claiming Labour to be the...
