Archive for the ‘British current affairs’ Category
What Ed needs to do next
September 26th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
I’m reminded of the final scene in a film called “The Candidate” [my review here] where, after (unexpectedly) winning a hard-fought election, the Robert Redford character turns to his agent and pleads: “What do we do now?” Now that Ed Miliband has (just) won the leadership of the Labour Party, he has a lot to […]
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The new Labour leader
September 25th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
Well, that was exciting and soooo close: 50.65% to 49.35% after second, third and fourth preference votes came into play. Just beating his older brother David, the Labour Party has a new leader 40 year old Ed Miliband and, as I explained in this posting, I voted for him in the ballot. While I’m blogging […]
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Was Nazism anti-God?
September 17th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
In his first speech during his current visit to Britain, Pope Benedict XVI stated that: “Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to […]
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The Shard rises higher
September 14th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
This week, I was walking across Southwark Bridge to Ofcom headquarters in London and could not fail to notice how the nearby Shard building is rising higher and higher. Shard London Bridge, previously known as London Bridge Tower and also known as the Shard of Glass and The Shard, is a skyscraper under construction in […]
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Cuts hit poorest hardest
September 11th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
If cuts in public expenditure have to be made – and they do (although the scale and speed are very much for debate) – the Government should ensure that those most dependent on state services are least hit. But new research commissioned by the Trades Union Congress shows that precisely the opposite is the case. […]
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The Labour leadership election
September 7th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
Ballot papers have now been issued for the election of a new leader of the Labour Party, the first such exercise since 1994. As an individual member of the Party for 41 years, I have a vote and I have now exercised it. After three months of campaigning by the five candidates, I have decided […]
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Cut public expenditure – but not here
September 6th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
The “Daily Telegraph” has a story today which confirms the growing evidence that British voters are in favour of public expenditure cuts in general but have problems with such cuts in particular programmes, especially those that incur heavy expenditure such as health and education. The other interesting feature of this news item is the suggestion […]
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So the budget really is regressive
August 25th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
Shortly after the Chancellor set out his emergency budget, I did a series of blog postings arguing that the measures were not progressive as claimed but regressive, that is that they will hit the poor harder than the rich. Now we have confirmation of this from the widely-respected Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). In a […]
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Birth and death in Cornwall
August 24th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
I was interested in the news that, while on holiday in Cornwall, the Prime Minister’s wife Samantha Cameron has unexpectedly given birth to a baby girl, their fourth child, who arrived at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro. My wife’s father – the Czech wartime night fighter ace Karel Kuttelwascher – was taken to this […]
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How big should a parliamentary constituency be?
August 24th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
Here, in the UK, currently we elect 650 Members of Parliament to the House of Commons on the basis of one MP per geographical constituency using the electoral system called first-past-the-post (FPTP). But the Coalition Government has plans that could change this. It intends to cut the number of MPs from 650 to 600. Currently […]
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