Monthly Archives: June 2015

George Osborne is reportedly looking for £13 billion of savings from government expenditure.  That’s no small potatoes.  As they used to say in the USA, “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money”.  Especially with … Continue reading →

                                There really is nothing in the Brussels cupboard I recently wrote a piece for my newsletter (not yet published) noting that most people involved … Continue reading →

Recently I was dining in London with a group that included a very prominent and well-known political and economic pundit – I shall not mention his name (he may also wish to write about the exchange we had). But let’s … Continue reading →

For many years, the Holy Grail of renewables has been to hit “Grid Parity” – in other words, to generate energy so cheaply that it’s directly competitive with conventional generation, and so would require no subsidy.  It would stand on … Continue reading →

<>   Elzbieta Bienkowska Dear Commissioner, I have just read your letter to ITRE Chairman Jerzy Buzek MEP on the subject of the EU’s industrial competitiveness, and I am sorry to say that it left me profoundly depressed – though … Continue reading →

I heard it again on the Radio today (June 22nd, as I write).  The Today Programme, in fact.  A journalist was interviewing a Spokesman for Business for Britain, and he said: “But businessmen are constantly telling me that if we … Continue reading →

Welcome to a guest blog by my old friend The Reverend Peter Mullen. Here are his comments on The Pope’s recent encyclical on climate change, ‘Laudato Si’.  Peter is the Chaplain to The Freedom Association, of which I was Chairman … Continue reading →

On June 13th I was asked to appear just after 7 am on LBC to discuss the case of Eleanor Hawkins, who stripped off on Malaysia’s Mount Kinabalu , in Sabah, Borneo. LBC were particularly keen to talk to me when … Continue reading →

On Wednesday June 10th, European Parliament Vice-President, Ildikó Gall-Pelcz defied the rules to frustrate a legitimate democratic protest by UKIP MEPs over the TTIP vote delay. See below the press release that our group issued in response to the incident: This evening in … Continue reading →

I wrote recently about the high volume of mail which we MEPs are receiving from concerned citizens about TTIP (the proposed Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership), and I expressed the view that their concerns were premature, because we don’t yet … Continue reading →

Negotiations on an EU/US free trade deal are grinding slowly through the bureaucratic mechanisms on both side of the Atlantic.  The deal is called TTIP – the Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership – and it involves something called ISDS – … Continue reading →