Lolohai Tapui has been jailed for four months. If we jailed every illegal immigrant for four months, that would constitute over 300,000 prison man years. The Independent story is entirely condemning of Tapui and exonerating of Scotland. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/baroness-scotlands-housekeeper-jailed-1985126.html But who was really exploiting who here? £6 an hour, for God’s sake! In the heart of [...]

I am against Academy Schools, unless the proposed flood of new ones are going materially to be different from the New Labour model. In practice what happened in Academy Schools was that a business, organisation or individual was able to put in just 5% – yes, 5% of the capital costs, and nil – yes [...]

It does not bode well that, while the Queen’s Speech was announcing a rebirth of civil liberty, Brian Haw was being arrested in Parliament Square. This was yet another bad move by the Met. They know Brian very well by now, and are fully aware that he is not a threat to the Queen. It [...]

A society which ringfences its defence budget while cutting its universities, is reducing the value of its stock of civilisation.

I am writing an important letter to William Hague on his proposed inquiry into torture (via my MP to make sure an FCO bureaucrat does not bury it). I am marshalling my evidence but trying to keep it short, plain and unemotional. So no energy or time for significant blogging today. Some thoughts to keep [...]

On 10 May I blogged: Poor Gary McKinnon provides an important test. The Tories and Lib Dems have said they would halt his extradition under Blair’s vassal state one way extradition treaty with the USA. New Labour apparently remain determined to extradite him – and that means Miliband and Johnson in particular. That should be [...]

Yesterday saw a vital indictation of the viability of the coalition – and it was George Osborne who delivered an extremely good result. Last week I blogged: Next week, the EU Council of Ministers plans to adopt strict regulations enforcing transparency on hedge funds and private equity firms and limiting their leverage, ie how much [...]

We have the first fake terror scare since the election – and Theresa May has jumped in on the authoritarian side. The BBC states that: The alleged leader of an al-Qaeda plot to bomb targets in north-west England has won his appeal against deportation. A special immigration court said Abid Naseer was an al-Qaeda operative [...]

I am extremely worried by the judicial activism involved in a series of decisions to prevent strikes. This year both Unite and RMT have been prevented from holding strikes, amid general undisguised establishment glee that workers have not been allowed to go on strike. In today’s judgement against Unite (and for British Airways), there was [...]

The atmosphere of the conference was fascinating – most definitely not triumphalist, but sober and determined. There was a general view that we are heading for a period of unpopularity, but that we are doing the right thing in constructing a government. Having paid attention to about 70% of the speeches, I am still of [...]

Last night several senior Lib Dems tried to explain to me this strange proposal about 55% of the Commons being needed to bring down the government. I think the argument went that it only needed 50% plus 1 to bring down the government, but would need 55% to dissolve parliament. Or it may have been [...]

at the NEC Birmingham. The NEC is brash and utterly without soul – the architectural equivalent of Tony Blair. I am happy we are going to get to vote on the coalition, but rather flummoxed that the debate is to be in closed session – I should have thought this historic decision needed a damn [...]

Having now seen the coaliton agreement, I can say that I can broadly support this government and am convinced that it will be an improvement on the bunch of authoritarian war criminals who have been replaced. Here are the parts of the agreement that to me constitute a radical change for the better in the [...]

Amazingly, there seem to be only two Scots in the cabinet – Liam Fox, who is detested in Scotland, and the hapless Danny Alexander in the ghetto of Scottish Secretary – a token position devoid of power. Have I missed anyone? How many times have there been this few Scots in a Cabinet since 1707? [...]

Even worse news. Cameron’s much vaunted National Security Council will be headed by the FCO’s pro-torture Peter Ricketts, who is personally up to his ears in the policy of complicity in torture, and in its continued cover-up – including being personally involved in the censorship of this vital FOI release last week. Download file page [...]

The Great Offices of State are called that for a reason. They dominate any government, and to a large extent other ministers’ room for manouvere is massively constrained by them. Look at the line-up. Cameron, Osborne, Hague, Fox, May. How on earth did the Lib Dems agree to support such a very right wing line [...]

It is now plain that there is deadlock between Cameron and Clegg over who will be Home Secretary. That is hardly surprising. I have argued before that the most important political dividing line in this country is not left and right, but between libertarian and authoritarian. http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/04/the_deepest_spl.html New Labour was the most authoritarian government this [...]

Diego Garcia remains one of the worst atrocities of all time British foreign policy – and it continues under New Labour. In 1971 Britain commenced the forced removal of the population of the Chagos Archipelago to make way for a huge US airbase. This base has been used for bombing Iraq and Afghanistan, and as [...]

That was such a damp squib it is hard to find the energy to discuss it. The usual New Labour con, built on wildly optimistic growth forecasts. Their budget growth forecast for 2009 proved in fact an astonishig 1.9% too optimistic. Yes, we should be tackiling the budget deficit now. The budget in fact did [...]

In my week without blogging, sorting out much personal detritus, I have been taking stock of the past and contemplating the future. I have decided to rejoin the Liberal Democrats. I know that will disappoint some readers, but as I said after Norwich North, I was forced to conclude that it was impossible to make [...]