On Sunday, Coffee House ran an article by Koos Couvee, a former Enfield Advertiser journalist and contemporary of mine. It argued that knife crime will only be reduced if we legalise drugs. Young people are killing each other in turf wars over the supply of drugs with an array of horrific knives and even machetes.
In the midst of a glorious election night for the Conservatives on 7 May, London stubbornly resisted the swing across the rest of the country and went a darker shade of red. Why is that and why does it matter when overall we have a majority Conservative government for the first time in 18 years?
The ‘windfall tax’, a concept introduced in the UK by the Blair government, is by definition a one-off seizure of revenue from a profitable industry, to fund an invariably unprofitable but popular project. It has been justified as putting ‘right a bad deal’ on the excesses of profits of unpopular industries. Between 1997 and 1998,
Only one country in the world—Australia—has experimented with standardised packaging for cigarettes. Quite reasonably, people said that until hard evidence emerged from there it would be unwise for the UK Government to introduce a policy that could have serious consequences in terms of crime, compensation for deprivation of intellectual property rights and breaking of our
In today’s Guardian Nick Clegg sets out his reasons why he is stopping the government tabling clauses that would require mandatory sentences on second conviction for possession of a knife. Quite simply: I don’t agree with Nick. His argument for doing nothing further is simply that we are doing enough already. True, the latest Crime
This weekend Ed Balls made it clear he wants to tax Britain more.It won’t stop at 50%, and it wont be confined to the highest earners over 150,000. In that sense low tax Comservatives have much to thank Ed Balls for as he really has set out clear blue water between Labour and the Conservatives
It is perhaps the most striking failure of the EU that nearly 30 years since Margaret Thatcher signed the Single European Act with the vision of a single trading market by 1992, that in 2014 we do not yet have a genuine single market in the services sector. This profound failure has cost the EU
Gordon Brown was notorious for complicating our already over-complicated tax system, and it seems that his former aide, Ed Miliband, wants to emulate the master. The danger is that Ed Miliband would do so against the backdrop of a vulnerable economy in a very mobile global market place. His latest idea is to put up
Danny Finkelstein writes in his column for The Times today that just because we are unsure about what the outcome and effect of any intervention in Syria may be, that is not reason enough to do nothing. Further to support his case for military intervention he suggested that those that argue against military intervention fail
Ministers are still mulling how they can collect communications data, and while quite rightly the debate about the ‘Snooper’s Charter’ centres on the threat to individual privacy, opponents also forget the threat such legislation would post for the UK’s economic recovery. With good reason this Government has prided itself on being the most technologically friendly
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is correct to say that there was a ‘dramatic fall in confidence’ in alternatives to Accident & Emergency units. He says that this has built up steadily since GP contract changes in 2004. He is right of course, and who can blame him for making the obvious political point that Labour
It simply isn’t correct to claim that the Conservative Party is at odds over a possible vote on legislation paving the way for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union. The Prime Minister has adopted a relaxed attitude to both the upcoming amendment to the Queen’s Speech and the Draft EU Referendum Bill
Over a year ago, the Government proposed to increase the available powers of surveillance – giving authorities the ability to monitor every British citizen’s internet activities. It is claimed that such powers are essential to keep pace with tackling crime and terrorism; even though such proposals were ditched by the last Government. Their plans faced
