Unfortunately, the blog is the first thing that goes when I get swamped with work, so once again, it’s apologies for the lapse since my last post.
The big story of the weekend is the proposal to impose a windfall tax on the banks, something that is enthusiastically embraced by Labour and LibDems and “not discounted” by the Conservatives.
I argue that the Conservative leadership should tread very carefully before supporting such a move - let me explain why…
The last 24 hours have been rather news-heavy, with the two big stories being Europe and this morning the Kelly Report.
I’ve written numerous pieces on expenses, so I will deal with that in due course, but suffice to say, I have been banging on about ending the Communications Allowance and having a rental allowance for so long, that I am feeling somewhat vindicated in the positions I took.
More fundamental and important is the question of Britain in Europe. I understand that David Cameron will be making an announcement at 4pm, so I deliberately wanted to make my opinions clear before then, rather than just writing out another reactive piece after the fact.
A lot has been written about the potential move to women-only shortlists for Conservative seats selecting in the new year. Because of the unusually high churn in seats caused by the expenses scandal, it is likely that some of these seats will be “safe” Conservative seats or ultra-marginals that we could be expected to win.
This would result in an automatic increase in the number of women MPs on the Conservative benches if the actual General Election results reflect our current poll ratings.
Conservative Home have just put up a post, asking the “10 Big Questions” any incoming Conservative Government will need to consider after the next election.
I, for my part, hope to be part of that Government, so will do my best to answer those questions here and now.
The summer bank holiday is over and slowly we’re creeping towards the most important party conference season of this Parliament. For this will be the last conference for each of the parties before the next General Election, so each will be using their time to set out their stalls for the forthcoming campaign.
Members of each of the parties will be in anticipation for what the “big theme” will be for each of their party’s campaigns, although the bets are that the economy will obviously dominate.
So what should that of the Conservatives be?
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