Today we celebrate England. We also remember England’s greatest writer, William Shakespeare. Both have given so much to enrich the world. England pioneered Parliamentary democracy and fired up the prosperity from industrialisation and freer trade. Shakespeare captured so much of the human condition that his plays are as relevant today as 400 years ago. We live with asymmetric devolution in the UK. Labour’s model gave devolved governments to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. They wanted regional assemblies to break up England,  but voters rightly rejected these. The EU always refused t ..read more

The Department for Transport needs to get on with revising these guidelines. The Labour government in Wales now concedes they have introduced too many. There need to be some through roads that allow people to get to work or the shops at a reasonable speed, whilst  ensuring there  are safe paths, crossings and pedestrian areas for those walking.  Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department has issued recent guidance on challenging the imposition of 20 mph zones by local authorities. (15526) Tabled on: 26 February 2024 Answer: Guy Opperman: The De ..read more

The Department for Transport has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (15523): Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent estimate he has made of the level of funding his Department will provide to the rail industry in the 2023-24 financial year. (15523) Tabled on: 26 February 2024 Answer: Huw Merriman: The Central Government Supply Estimates 2023-24, presented to the House of Commons and published on 27 February 2024 (see link below), details the funding provided to the Department for Transport across a large number of different areas. T ..read more

The latest figures for battery car sales in the EU show them down 11% in March, with a market share down at 13%. The fall in Germany was particularly steep. This follows news of price cuts and poor sales at Tesla.The Tesla share price is 62% down from the peak. Tesla announced 14,000 redundancies. This should  be a salutary warning to governments and car companies. It is no good ploughing on with new products that too few people want to buy or can afford. Governments need to do more to deliver enough affordable renewable electricity before trying to force the pace on adoption of battery c ..read more

John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): Many people share the Government’s ambition to stop the boats. Would these Lords amendments not muddle the legislation in a way that, once again, would leave us open to an unnecessary court challenge? Can he reassure us that, unamended, the Bill will do the job? Michael Tomlinson: I know my right hon. Friend has taken a close interest in the Bill since the outset, and he is right. The amendments fall into two categories: those that are simply unnecessary and those that are worse than unnecessary. The second group are wrecking amendments deliberately designed to ..read more

I am trying to get more  to put this case to the Treasury and Bank to stop the outrageous losses. Please use this text. The Bank of England has received £49.4 bn in payments from taxpayers and the Treasury so far to cover its losses on holding and selling bonds.. OBR forecasts point to further substantial losses to come. They estimated these at £179 bn in the March budget papers. This year could see the need to pay the Bank of England a further large sum.        These payments increase the public sector deficit excluding the Bank of England, which is the figu ..read more

This century has seen a great growth in the powers and reach of so called independent public sector  bodies. The four main parties in Parliament usually cheered on and engineered these moves. There was a general buy in to the  proposition that experts were better than political generalists, and that you needed to take the party politics out of large chunks of the public sector.             The  new settlement was always flawed and never adhered to. Whilst the Opposition parties were usually hot to expose any Ministerial interference in these bodies ..read more

I called in today as a local resident  to refuel at the garage . The works I am told are now running behind schedule. The local businesses are suffering very badly. Turnover is massively down with many customers  unable to get there or to park easily. We local users did not want the junction changed and certainly did not want roads closed for weeks on end. We want the local businesses to flourish and to be accessible. One business I was told had its electricity cut off without warning. Residential roads are clogged with cars trying to get round the closures. Why didn’t the Council li ..read more

The IMF like the left wing parties says there must be no unfunded tax cuts. Like them it does not complain about unaffordable wasteful  spending. Indeed it argues spending needs to go up. Why? There is so much to be done by getting  a proper grip on spending. There is no need to let the Bank of England lose another £40 bn this week on top of the £49 bn they have already billed taxpayers. It is a needless disgrace. There is the identified £20 bn of lost public sector productivity the Treasury put in their last plans. Why is it taking so long to get it back? Why do they need to spend t ..read more

It is fashionable amongst the political parties and some football fans to demand a Statutory “independent” football regulator. Some fans support such a change as they are critical of some club owners or managements   and think a Regulator  might be able to sort things out for them . I fear the prospect of an all wise Regulator who would just happen to bring about change in each club that fans would like  is a good dream, but difficult for any appointed Regulator to achieve.A Regulator faces very difficult pressures when Team A claims rival Team B has broken rules and then Team B ..read more