Monthly Archives: August 2010

 Once upon a time, the Daily Telegraph was practically the house journal of the Conservative Party.  Today, many Conservatives have sworn never to touch it again.  The reason?  Its over-the-top coverage of the expenses scandal.  Few would disagree that to … Continue reading →

We’ve seen the first big post-election political autobiography.  The Prince of Darkness himself.  Peter Mandelson.  He’s entitled it “The Third Man”.  Not to be confused, of course, with Paul Routledge’s unauthorised biography, “Mandy”.  Apparently it caused great disquiet amongst his … Continue reading →

I’ve just returned from a few days in the West Country, and I’ve seen what I believe to be the greatest work of art I’ve ever been privileged to stand in awe of.  Move over, Michelangelo’s David and Beethoven’s Ninth.  … Continue reading →

Caveat: I wrote the following piece based on a report in today’s Daily Telegraph.  I have since spoken to Michael Gove’s office, and was delighted to hear that Michael does not in fact propose to impose “fair banding” on schools.  … Continue reading →

I had been planning to write a blog piece challenging the socialist assumption (espoused also by our Lib-Dem coalition partners like Clegg and Cable) that all children are created equal, and therefore that any bias in the university admission system … Continue reading →

A couple of recent news stories.  Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, the outgoing President of the Royal College of Physicians, has urged the government to legalise both cannabis and hard drugs, arguing (counter-intuitively) that this would reduce harm, and reduce the … Continue reading →

Imagine an A-level economics question: “What the UK is doing is the most expensive way of making emissions reductions”.  Discuss. So let’s discuss it. More than ten years ago, I got a quote on a solar powered photovoltaic (PV) installation … Continue reading →

Sir John Houghton was Chairman of the Scientific Assessment Panel of the IPCC, 1988/2002, and he has a letter in today’s Sunday Telegraph. He complains that he has been widely misquoted.  The alleged quote “Unless we announce disasters no one … Continue reading →

Professor Bob Carter is a paleoclimatologist with a distinguished career at a number of Australian Universities.  He has appeared as an expert witness on climate change in the USA and around the world, and he was a leading scientific witness … Continue reading →

I recently came across a term that was new to me: “International Environmental Court”, sometimes referred to, ominously, as the “International Environmental Criminal Court”. The good news is that no such court exists.  The bad news is that some quite … Continue reading →

A couple of days back I wrote a piece for ConHome (also published below) on Vince Cable, where I accused him of making two elementary, undergraduate-level errors.  But he has scored a Hat-Trick with a third error – this one … Continue reading →

Vince Cable has a reputation as a competent and distinguished economist.  Yet in declaring a redistributive tax policy his “Red Line Issue” within the coalition, he makes not one but two elementary, undergraduate-level howlers, and compounds them together. Fallacy Number … Continue reading →

I recently wrote to the Rt. Hon. Chris Huhne MP, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, drawing his attention to a recent article by Bjorn Lomborg, pointing out that the costs of climate change mitigation would greatly exceed … Continue reading →

Oddly enough, the person who probably had the greatest influence on my early political development was (in a sense) not a real person at all, but the Daily Telegraph’s satirical columnist Peter Simple.  Those were the days, back in the … Continue reading →

Remember the C.S. Lewis classic, where the children climb through an ordinary wardrobe, and find a whole new land beyond?  Or for a more modern (and less religious) take, Dr. Who’s Tardis, where a small antique Police Box appears to … Continue reading →