There's good news about UK plc if you ignore the doomsayers

IT IS COMMON GROUND that Brexit is going badly. Remainers deplore their country’s theft by rascals who bamboozled an innocent electorate. Leavers lament the betrayal of their hopes by a cabal of duplicitous Brinos. The ...

Small-scale power plants – are they a solution?

THERE HAVE BEEN regular warnings in recent years – especially during the drought – that the UK needs new policies to reduce carbon emissions – i.e. to decarbonise.  The sectors with greatest emissions are transport, domestic ...

Leaving the CFP discard scandal requires us to chuck Chequers

SINCE THE UNITED KINGDOM joined the EEC in 1973, the effect on the British fishing industry and once vibrant rural coastal communities has been utterly shocking.

Forty-five years ago, more than 20,000 ...

Jacob Rees Moog explains – Chequers is the wrong deal for Britain

Jacob Rees Mogg MP, chairman of the Conservative backbench European Research Group, has written to constituency association chairman challenging the Prime Minister’s claims for her Chequers Agreement. This is the detailed leaflet that accompanied the letter.

Why be afraid of chucking Chequers and doing the right thing?

THE CAMPAIGN against Brexit is stupefyingly alarmist. The bulk of our trade is with countries outwith the protectionist EU trade zone.  This trade has been expanding since we joined the EU, and while our trade with ...

Glyphosate risk? Why don’t we enquire ourselves?

THE CONCERNS over the herbicide glyphosate, originally marketed as the brand Roundup, have grown in recent years.

A recent court case has awarded a man hundreds of million of dollars in punitive ...

Saving carbon emissions from electric vehicles could be illusory

THE DROUGHT this summer has kept the issue of global warming and carbon emissions in the public eye.  Road transport is the principal sector where emissions continue to rise and the government has proposed to reduce ...

In praise of older workers

ACCORDING TO the Equality Act of 2010, it is illegal in most circumstances to discriminate against an employee, or in an advertisement for a job, on account of age. Yet many recruiters and head-hunters will ...

The McNanny State: How the smoking ban closed Scottish pubs

IT WAS SUNDAY 26 March 2006. Nothing much seemed different from the previous weekend. The Old Firm had won their matches, the weather was poor, and the odd empty beer can tumbled down the road. ...

Student politics is not working for Theresa May

LET US START OUT by acknowledging that before Chequers, David Davis, Steve Baker and all of DExEu were completely side-lined (BBC Daily Politics, 9 July: interview with Steve Baker, remarks after 1 min 35 secs). Let us ...

German experience shows how renewable power is not the solution

THE TECHNOLOGICALLY ADVANCED states around the world enjoy a high standard of living. Their priorities vary – European countries, North America, Australia, Japan expend their wealth differently, but have one important characteristic in common.  They all have ...

Brexit “Pants on fire!”

POLITICIANS have never had much of a reputation for straightforwardness – it is of the essence of their calling that hard lines get softened. We are more than a century away from Victorian standards of ...