War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Knowledge is Ignorance…. Treason is Patriotism…

Robert Henderson As yet another prime British business, the hi-tech company Autonomy, is bought  by foreigners and the country is still digesting the failure of a massive contract for trains to go to the  last British based train-maker Bombardier ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jul/05/viewpoint-manufacturing-job-bombardier-siemens), the vast majority of Britons  cannot understand why those we elect to safeguard the [...]

No 10 Downing Street e-petitions dealing with Immigration, the EU and the ECHR

 Robert Henderson The Government scheme for e-petitions (http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/) which the public can initiate and/or vote on is now live. If a petition can garner 100,000 votes in a maximum of a year, Parliament will then consider whether to  debate the subject of the petition.  Although there is no guarantee of a debate, it would be politically [...]

Too big to bail-out? Spain and the future of the Eurozone

Open Europe  and FAES panel debate 11 July 2011,  Bishopsgate meeting room, Liverpool Street. Chaired by Matts Person, Director of Open Europe Panel Alvaro Nadal Spanish MP (Secretary of Economy and Employment of Partido Popular) Vick Ford MEP (East of England) Anonio Garcia Pascual  (Chief Southern European Economist, Barclays Capital, ex-IMF) David Oakley (Capital Markets Correspondent, Financial Times) Megan Green [...]

If we leave the EU we mustn’t be another Norway

Amongst those who want the UK to leave the EU there are those who say “Look at Norway, we can have the same arrangement with the EU as they do, a simple free  trading agreement”.  This is profoundly wrong.  The European Economic Area (EEA)  countries  of which Norway is one have to take on most [...]

What the nation state owes you and what you owe the nation state

In its purest form liberal internationalism holds that a man may live anywhere he wishes and owe no particular allegiance to any people, place or society. In theory, although not in practice, it is a an imagined universe in which the individual is supreme in his atomistic and egotistical desires and the nation state no more [...]

“Free markets”, “free trade” and the emasculation of democratic control

 ”I just think that a lot of modern corporate capitalists — the managerial class basically — has no loyalty to any country anymore, or any particular values other than the bottom line.” (Pat Buchanan quoted by Daniel Brandt in his article “Class Warfare” in issue 13 of Namebase Newsline -http//www.namebase.org/news13.html). Buchanan is grasping a demon which he [...]

LibDems make a mockery of elections

57 LibDem MPs were elected in 2010; 57 signed a personal pledge before the election to vote against rises in tuition fees. Yesterday 21 voted  against rises in tuition fees and 6 abstained.  The rest voted for the rise.  What is the point of elections? The LibDem arguments put forward by the likes of Vince Cable to [...]

How British higher education became corrupted

Education is a first rate example of how quasi-commercialism can corrupt. It was a pincer movement from the bottom and the top, from schools to universities. Prior to the end of the 1980s our universities had been funded for decades by the University Grants Committee (UGC) which was made up academics. The UGC received an annual [...]

FIFA and the evils of supra-national organisations

FIFA is of political interest because it vividly demonstrates what happens in supra-national organisations.  These are invariably (1) undemocratic because they are convened by elites who make all the rules and decisions without democratic interference and (2) corrupt, the degree of corruption increasing with the width of the international spread. In FIFA’s case the international [...]

The Government’s EU referendum lock: giving the key to parliament and voters?

Open Europe Debate The Government’s EU referendum lock: giving the key to parliament and voters? Tuesday 16 November 12.30pm – 2pm St. Stephen’s Club, 34 Queen Anne’s Gate, London SW1H 9AB With: David Lidington MP,  Minister of State for Europe Kate Hoey MP, Labour MP for Vauxhall David Rennie,  Political Editor and Bagehot columnist, The [...]