The manifesto’s focus on education is preoccupied with the need to increase education spending and to make education affordable for all learners (such as through the abolition of university tuition fees and reintroduction of the Educational Maintenance Allowance). These are apparently laudable ambitions, but their value relies on the truth of two assumptions; educational achievement is strongly dependent on education spending and educational opportunities available are of hig

Douglas Carswell has made a You Tube film which argues that the most important political difference that divides people is ultimately between optimists and pessimists. While this may seem to be a reference to a Brexit leaver-remainer distinction, it in fact refers to a larger issue. Carswell is an advocate of the almost complete elimination of the powers of states; he is a true believer in the power of free markets to bring about the best of all possible worlds. Carswell

Labour Party...to seize the policy initiative and set out a clear and exciting vision for a ‘Lexit’, based upon some clear ideas about the U

Immigration is where a person wishes to leave the country where they live to emigrate and throw their lot in with another country. They must agree to and accept the laws and economic ups and downs of their new home and respect the culture of that country including the language. They may become ‘naturalised’ after a period of residence. Refugees and asylum seekers are those whose lives are threatened in their own country. This is part of long established international law, tre

Ever since a teen-ager, I have supported the idea of a Socialist United States of Europe. As a UK government negotiator, I subsequently took part in many talks in Brussels. In my time, it was largely a case of detailed ad hoc bargaining: “You give me this and I’ll give you that” – the small change of international diplomacy. The results were not wholly bad, possibly even mildly beneficial for the UK. My own remit when in Brussels was to block any significant move by the EU

Jeremy Corbyn is a hostage on the issue of the EU. His current 'warts and all but let's stay in please' posture is because he's been forced into such a stance by the corrosive spine of Labour MPs who opposed his election as leader, remain deeply hostile to him and have made the EU the issue on which they would revolt if he didn't bow to them. Nonetheless it's a shame he is making a speech the content of which he doesn't believe and which represents a horrendous about turn on

1962: In a speech to the party conference in October, Gaitskell claimed that Britain's participation in a Federal Europe would mean "the end of Britain as an independent European state, the end of a thousand years of history!" 1972: Tony Benn, for the Labour party, proposed a referendum be held on the permanence of the UK in the Communities. The eventual referendum in 1975 asked voters: "Parliament has decided to consult the electorate on the question whether the UK should re

What a difference half a year can make! Back in September 2015, just after it had been revealed that Jeremy Corbyn voted for Britain to leave Europe in the 1975 referendum, The Telegraph printed the following: “The admission from the hard-left MP who is expected to be named Labour leader tomorrow, raises questions over whether or not he will campaign to leave the EU in the upcoming referendum.” The Daily Express clarified: “Again in 1993, Mr Corbyn voted against ratifying the