Douglas Carswell A French presidential election is due in a couple of weeks. Should one care? Will the outcome change anything? Not, I suspect, if incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy wins. We’ll have more Euro summitry and muppetry.  More bailout and borrow economics. More talk of reform, without much change.  Not to mention, more of the Love Actuallywith  [ Read More ]

Douglas Carswell From last week, you’ll need to have worked for someone else for two years, rather than just one, before you can drag them to an employment tribunal for unfair dismissal. Good. Those who use their energy, effort and capital to create wealth – and work – should not be tied down by tribunals.  Quite apart  [ Read More ]

Douglas Carswell A few years ago, we Conservatives were feeling our way towards a new open politics agenda. First we allowed every Londoner – regardless of any party affiliation – to have a say over who should be our candidate as mayor.  Boris won that first primary contest and went on to win the election that followed.  He has remained consistently more popular in London  [ Read More ]

Douglas Carswell Some thoughts on political donations: 1. No more taxpayer funded politics If political parties have got things wrong, then it is they that need to change. Recent headlines cannot be an excuse to get the taxpayer to pay for party politics. Parties might like to try to live within their means and raise  [ Read More ]

Douglas Carswell Les Ebdon has been appointed as the new university access tsar.  I wish him well and bear him no ill will. But whatever you think about Prof Ebdon’s suitability for this role, it is what this appointment tells us about the government’s attitude towards political reform, not universities, that I find so disappointing. Prof Ebdon  [ Read More ]

Douglas Carswell For almost two years this blog has called for a policy of default and decouple in response to the crisis in the Eurozone. How ministers and experts scoffed at the suggestion. How Treasury officials rolled their eyes.  Instead, they pursued a policy of bailout-and-borrow.  First under Labour, and then under the Coalition, billions  [ Read More ]

Douglas Carswell What do UK contributions to Eurozone bailouts, the failure to deport Abu Qatada and wind farms each have in common? They are, explained my constituent, “the sort of things I voted Conservative to stop. Yet they just seem to happen anyway”. No one voted to allow industrial-size wind turbines to march across the countryside,  [ Read More ]

Douglas Carswell Despite ministers telling us they do not want statutory press regulation in Britain, I fear we are in danger of moving towards a system where the press will be overseen by a new super quango. Any such move needs to be fiercely opposed. Why? The press cannot remain free if editors have to answer to  [ Read More ]