Following the Olympics, it was hard to escape the return home of the “Olympic Heroes”, which was the main headline in the media, which seemingly found this far more important than a major air disaster or a war in the Caucasus. While not wishing to disregard the undeniable achievements of the Olympic athletes, and recognising [...]
Today the Chancellor finally announced what the measure would be to compensate people who have lost out due to the income tax changes. They are going to give all basic rate taxpayers an extra £120 by raising the personal tax allowance by five times that amount. That was the solution to the problem that I [...]
Last week the government seemingly did a u-turn over the scrapping of the 10 pence rate of income tax, although it is far from clear what form the compensation will take for people on lower incomes who will lose out under the new tax regime.
It’s difficult to see how the government could have thought it [...]
Today it was proposed that smokers should have to buy an annual permit if they want to be able to buy cigarettes. The proposal, by government advisory board Health England, is that smokers would have to choose to “opt in” to buying tobacco by paying £10 a year for a permit. The permit would have [...]
It is now three months since smoking was banned in enclosed public places in England, bringing it into line with the rest of the UK. I have to say that, while Tony Blair’s government have been unpopular on some issues, and have been criticised for producing too much legislation, the Health Act 2006 is one [...]
The fact that over a million people have now signed an online petition against the introduction of a road pricing scheme just goes to show how much the public hates this idea. Even if there has been a lot of encouragement in the press and the blogosphere for people to add their names, and even [...]
Today, we hear that only two groups have submitted bids to become the next operators of the UK’s National Lottery: the incumbent, Camelot; and Indian lottery operator Sugal & Damani.
The new entrant promises to raise a greater amount money for good causes with a more efficient operation than Camelot. Of course, we don’t know much [...]
More than 3000 English football hooligans have had to hand their passports in to the police before the World Cup to prevent them from travelling to Germany to cause trouble. This is considered such an important measure by the authorities that the penalty for failing to surrender a passport is a £5000 fine and up [...]
The most recent twist in the “cash for honours” saga currently afflicting the UK government has seen the the arrest of Des Smith, the man responsible for raising money for the City Academies scheme.
Some people have asked why donors to the Labour party, or to the Academies, are so keen to buy themselves a [...]
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