Parliament has debated the new immigration bill this week. Government announcements are heavy on Brexity slogans about taking back control and “Global Britain”, but the reality is that the Bill gives Ministers the power to exclude people from the UK labour market who don’t hold a high level qualification and aren’t a higher earner. Decisions … Read more
In yesterdays blog I suggested that the new centralised system to provide PPE to care homes was run by a company called Clipper. The actual system that the Department of Health and Social Care has set up is run by Ebay. Clipper are the logistics partner who are distributing the equipment to all non-acute health … Read more
Over the next week or two the Government will be announcing the first relaxation of the lockdown that has confined us to our homes for the last month. The rationale for the relaxation is that we are doing well in our fight against Coronavirus. Which begs the obvious question – how well we are actually … Read more
This is from today’s Times. Another article wallowing in World War 2 nostalgia designed to appeal to an older generation who find that the C21st makes them anxious and who have retreated into a fantasy world of Spitfires and Union Jack bunting. Personally I don’t think bringing back national service is such a terrible idea … Read more
This is the last in a trilogy of posts from the era of Big Government. A cautionary tale of NHS procurement. Harold Wilson came to power in 1964, ending over a decade of Conservative Governments. He inherited a long running dispute between the NHS and the Pharmaceutical Industry over the price of drugs, dating back … Read more
As a follow up to last weeks adventures with Hugh Dalton and the onesie this week we have another look at the era of the big state. After World War 2 Clement Attlee shrunk the state prodigiously as Prime Minister, reducing the share of GDP taken up by Government spending by more than any PM … Read more
The last few weeks have marked a massive change in the way we view the role of the state. Government is shifting to the kind of interventionism we haven’t seen since Harold Wilson or even Clement Attlee. Very quietly a few weeks ago the Railways were brought back into state control, with the whole free … Read more
Most people will have seen this graph, or a variant of it over the last few days showing the spread of Covid-10 Coronavirus: It’s clear from this graph and lots of others in the media that some countries are doing much better than others at controlling the spread of the disease. Some of these numbers … Read more
Mulled wine is illegal in Durham. I realise that this is shocking news for residents of this fine City. I have worse news. Baileys hot chocolate is illegal too. You can drink it at home, but publicly the sale and consumption of mulled wine and Bailey’s hot chocolate are against the law. But only in … Read more
The old myth that foreigners are coming to take your jobs has a new rival – Americans are coming to steal the NHS. Both are equally silly. Why the immigration myth is nonsense One of the great myths spread by right wing politicians is that somewhere in the world there is a hoard of foreigners … Read more