Monthly Archives: April 2009

On April 29th I attended an event organised jointly by the Parkinson’s Disease Society, the Alzheimer’s Association, the British Heart Foundation and others, under the aegis of the UK Biosciences Federation.  The event coincided with the parliament’s consideration of a … Continue reading →

I’m hearing that Bill Turncoat Dunn MEP, hoping to be re-elected in June on the Lib-Dem list, has been going around the region making highly personalised attacks on me.  Nothing new there, except that he’s chosen a rather odd line … Continue reading →

I’ve had an enquiry on my blog: “For those of us who want to copy Norway and Switzerland and be associate members of the EU, please could you write something on Libertas?  While I hugely admire the work that Conservative … Continue reading →

In my typical environmentally-friendly way, I usually travel into the parliament in Strasbourg, from my hotel, on the tram (carriages built in Derby), so I have plenty of time at the tram stop to observe the street, which is showing … Continue reading →

I wanted to blog about the Budget, but in a sense there’s so little to say.  It had been so heavily trailed (what a contrast to the days when the most trivial pre-Budget leak from a Chancellor was a resigning … Continue reading →

Lord Stern’s new book “Blueprint for a Safer Planet” has just been launched, with a broadside against the “sceptics”, who are “ignorant and reckless”.  He continues “the science is sound: greenhouse gases trap heat … the logic of the greenhouse … Continue reading →

What should we think of a driver who routinely drove with the hand-brake on?  Or a householder who ran the central heating and the air-con at the same time, to maintain an equable temperature in the home?  Madness.   Yet … Continue reading →

We hear today that Labour is proposing extensive reductions in speed limits, including widespread 20 mph limits in residential areas, and reductions on single-carriageway rural “A” roads from 60 to 50 mph.  How soon before 50 becomes the standard limit … Continue reading →

As a Monarchist, I am very conscious of the need to distinguish between the institution of the Monarchy, which I support without reservation, and the incumbent, who is after all only human, and with whom it may be legitimate to … Continue reading →

Everybody and his uncle is writing about Alistair Darling’s budget, coming on Wednesday.  It’s been described (rightly) as the most important and most difficult for a generation.  Whatever he does, there is now no avoiding eye-watering levels of national debt.  … Continue reading →

Research by the think tank Open Europe has shown that the Acquis is now over 170,000 pages long in total and that from 1998 to 2008 the number of legal acts in force in the EU has gone from 10,800 … Continue reading →

Damian McBride, the Downing Street apparatchik at the heart of the scurrilous e-mails scandal, has just resigned.  He was seen by many as Gordon Brown’s Alistair Campbell.  Close friend, trusted advisor.  Spin-master in Chief.  And by all accounts, spectacularly unpopular … Continue reading →

The Sunday Telegraph (April 12th) carries a story about “MPs earning rent while claiming home allowance”, as though this were self-evidently reprehensible.  It proceeds to list the sixty-five MPs concerned, who represent a broad spread by party, and include, from … Continue reading →

The Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner responsible for our anti-terrorism programme, Bob Quick, has been in every newspaper with the photograph of the secret document which he helpfully held in full view of photographers in Downing Street, very nearly blowing a … Continue reading →

In addition to being a practicing QC, Edward Garnier is of course the MP for Market Harborough, which is as close as it gets to the heart of fox-hunting country on earth.  He is also the Chairman of the Countryside … Continue reading →