General Winner
23 Jun 2010
Nick Carter, Britain’s unsung commander in Kandahar, has brought coherence to the struggle against the Taliban across Southern Afghanistan. This is the ‘good news’ story the government should tell the country...
Jun 2010: The world on their shoulders
Opinion - Chilcot: the price of being a loser
23 Jun 2010
Apart from the star performance of Blair, the media coverage of the Chilcot inquiry has been dominated by the question of legality centred on an interpretation of UNSCR 1441. Two … » more
Defence needs revolution not reform
23 Jun 2010
George Osborne’s emergency budget promised a reduction in most departmental (including defence) budgets of 25 per cent in real terms. Even without these reductions we already know from a National Audit Office report that the current planned procurement programme is up to £36bn overspent over the next decade assuming the defence budget keeps pace with inflation which it will not.
Security must be a strategy in more than just name
23 Jun 2010
Every US Administration is required by the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act to publish a National Security Strategy. The document has often appeared late, and sometimes not at all; the latest edition … » more
Business and finance
Osborne's private gamble
23 Jun 2010
On becoming leader of the Conservative party, David Cameron commissioned Built to Last, a statement of party aims and values. The first of the eight aims was the encouragement of … » more
Careful with that axe, George
14 Jun 2010
The condition of the country's public finances formed the backdrop to the recent election. This is not surprising since government borrowing reached £156.1bn in 2009-10 (11.1 per cent of GDP); … » more
Liberal Democrats
Birds of a feather
23 Jun 2010
With the party’s unity under the spotlight of the media and in the gunsights of the Labour party, now is a good time to look at the underlying unity of the Liberal Democrats. Over the last five years it has had a leader ousted, another resigning without fighting a general election, contests for both party president and deputy leader, opinion poll ratings sinking as low as 11 per cent, a formal coalition arrangement with another party and now it is facing the difficulties of being the junior coalition partner in a government facing and making as unpopular decisions as any peacetime government in living memory.
Constitutional renewal
MPs are back in the driving seat — so start the engine
23 Jun 2010
If the expenses scandal last year was a dark cloud over parliament, then the reforms that have taken place since represent a significant — and so far largely overlooked — … » more
The House Rules, OK?
23 Jun 2010
In his recent speech to the Hansard Society, leader of the Commons GEORGE YOUNG gave a rallying cry to MPs: take advantage of recent reforms, and hold the government to account
Defence
The covenant we must protect from the lawyers
23 Jun 2010
In June 2010 ex-Royal Marine Ben McBean, who lost an arm and a leg in Afghanistan, shared with an audience at the Royal United Services Institute the problem with his … » more
Banking
Back to the Bank of England
23 Jun 2010
The wind of change that a new Government brings focuses on the big questions that affect the country and tries to provide a cure to a number of malaises. The … » more
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June 2010 edition
Defence: the good news from Afghanistan that Britain needs to hear, and why defence strategy needs a revolution. Plus, Osborne's private budget gamble, how the Lib Dems flock together, and why MPs are back in the driving seat.