Telegraph View: Nick Clegg Is Out of Step with Britain over Europe
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Telegraph View: The Deputy Prime Minister's latest intervention not only undermines the Government but sets him profoundly at odds with public opinion.

Nick Clegg has in the past been accused of being a politician with one foot in Westminster and one in Brussels. Never has that charge seemed more justified than this weekend, when the Deputy Prime Minister went out of his way to pick a fight with both his coalition partners and British public opinion over the future of the European Union.

Writing in a Sunday newspaper, he warned Britain against running "headfirst towards treaty change" and "tampering with the EU's founding texts". He added: "We spent years fighting to bring down the walls that divided Europe – it would be damaging to let new ones spring up now." And he asked: "Why would we seek to head up a smaller club [of non-euro members] with a fast diminishing membership?" If Britain were to be leader of countries outside the eurozone, that would be "an extraordinary own goal". » | Telegraph View | Monday, October 31, 2011

My comment:

I've come to the conclusion that this newspaper is at war with all things European, especially the EU. It appears to me to have lost all sense of reason and balance. Furthermore, it has become the home not so much of Conservative voters, but of UKIP voters instead. UKIP voters and turncoats. – © Mark

This comment also appears here

Royal Wedding: A Day That Was Truly Happy and Glorious
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Telegraph View: The British people are optimistic, hopeful enough about the monarchy to rejoice in a new generation that will be its heirs.

The royal bride wrote in the page of her diary recounting her wedding day: "Crowds very kind." That was the new Duchess of York, whom later we knew so long as the Queen Mother, on her wedding at Westminster Abbey in 1923, and her phraseology said something about her character – and that of the British people. Yesterday was another opportunity for a display of the same kind of kindness. It was more like happiness, a happiness shared between the cheering crowd, with their proud little Union flags and periscopes, and shared with the royal couple. "Every wedding is a royal wedding," the Bishop of London had said in his address. Much more was implied by the crowd's cheers: that at home Britain is at peace, when the world is full of crowds in conflict; that the British people are optimistic, hopeful enough about the monarchy to rejoice in a new generation that will be its heirs. So the people cheered the new Duke and Duchess, of course. They brought Catherine Middleton, a "commoner" like most of us, and now Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge, into their hearts. But they cheered something, too, that they could hardly put into words. Continue reading and comment » | Telegraph View | Friday, April 29, 2011

My comment:

Beautiful bride, beautiful venue, beautiful pageantry, beautiful procession, beautiful day! Says it all! Proud to be British! God save the Queen! – Mark

Cameron Needs to Be Firmer with Obama
THE TELEGRAPH: Telegraph View: The long-term relationship between Britain and America should not be jeopardised by a presidential response that has been more petulant than statesmanlike.

At some point this weekend, David Cameron is due to talk to Barack Obama on the phone, ahead of his visit to Washington next month. Until a few weeks ago, such a conversation would have involved a businesslike exchange of pleasantries and reflected a strong desire on both sides to place their personal relationship on a sound footing. No doubt that remains their intention; but the controversy over the way the President has castigated BP for its handling of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has added a potentially serious edge to these exchanges.

Mr Obama's aggressively jingoistic rhetoric might have been designed to shore up his own domestic position against criticism that he has failed to act decisively enough, but it is now sabotaging the fortunes of what was until recently Britain's biggest company. Its share price fell to a 13-year low after the American government threatened legal action to prevent the payment of dividends before compensation payments had been met, even though BP is sitting on enough cash to do both. Since the firm accounts for £1 in every £6 paid in dividends in the United Kingdom, this will have a deleterious impact on pension funds, which have £20 billion wrapped up in the company. Read on and comment >>> | Thursday, June 10, 2010

Benedict Brogan: Discarded Policies Are the Price of Coalition
THE TELEGRAPH: Telegraph View: Will there be a coherent policy approach, or a hotchpotch of ideas with no real consistency or theme?

The publication yesterday of the agreed programme for the coalition Government resembled the launch of an election manifesto. The document certainly has the feel of one, with its mix of firm pledges, half-promises and vague aspirations. Not until the ideas begin to take legislative form in next week's Queen's Speech will we see what the true priorities are, and whether the give and take necessitated by the negotiations has produced a marriage of convenience, or of principle – will there be a coherent policy approach, or a hotchpotch of ideas with no real consistency or theme? Read on and comment >>> Benedict Brogan | Thursday, May 20, 2010

THE TELEGRAPH: David Cameron Drops More Tory Pledges As He Hails Coalition Deal >>> James Kirkup, Political Correspondent | Thursday, May 20, 2010

The Country Must Come First, Not Party Politics
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH – Editorial: For the sake of the nation, a deal should be struck, and quickly.

Nick Clegg and David Cameron face pressure to work out an accord swiftly. Photograph: The Sunday Telegraph
The ideal outcome from last week’s election, as we argued forcefully in these pages, would have been a government – preferably a Conservative government – with the mandate and majority needed to tackle the urgent problems that this country faces. We stressed that the haggling and uncertainty that accompany a hung parliament would make it all but impossible to restore the public finances to order, get a grip on immigration, reform the education system, and much else besides. Yet the absence of a strong government is about to cost us extremely dear in another way, too.

As we report today, Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, has persuaded other members of the eurozone that they can interpret a clause in the Lisbon Treaty so as to force every country belonging to the EU to contribute unspecified, and potentially unlimited, sums to bailing out insolvent members of the eurozone. It means that to keep the single currency going, in the event of future Greek-style collapses, Britain will have to write a blank cheque.

This cynical, underhand and anti-democratic move has been prompted by the stresses that the colossal budget deficits of the weaker members of the euro – Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Italy – have placed on the currency itself. Last week, France and Germany agreed that Greece should receive an emergency loan of 110 billion euros. The injection of cash is at most a stay of execution, not a solution to the problem, whose root cause is that Greece, being in the euro, cannot devalue its currency and so cannot make its exports competitive, and thereby earn the money it needs to repay its debts. The obvious solution is for Greece to leave the euro. But that would be a humiliation for Europe’s politicians and bureaucrats, for it would show that the fundamental objection to it – that it could not be viable across countries that are at such different levels of economic development ­– is correct. So, instead, they have decided that in future all the other members of the EU, including Britain, will foot the bill. >>> Telegraph View | Sunday, May 09, 2010

Nick Clegg Is the Candidate of Change
THE OBSERVER – Editorial: The Liberal Democrats offer a prospect of renewal which has been denied them by a grossly unfair voting system

The rotten parliament is dissolved; this week a new one will be elected. Scores of incumbents who fiddled their expenses will be evicted. Many who did not are standing down anyway, too defeated by the public's loathing of politicians to face the campaign trail.

So change is inevitable. Parliament will be full of novice MPs. It might also, if current opinion polls are borne out, be hung.

The Conservatives have spent much energy campaigning against that outcome. They have publicised their irritation that voters could deprive David Cameron of a majority much better than they have explained why he deserves one in the first place.

Mr Cameron warns portentously that a coalition might lead to instability, economic jeopardy and "more of the old politics". Perversely, he also rejects the need to change the current voting system, which has, he says, the merit of delivering clear results. Except this time it might not. What then? Mr Cameron's view is that the system would work fine, if only everyone voted Conservative. This is sophistry draped in hypocrisy. He backs first past the post, while agitating against one of the outcomes that is hard-wired into it. He is campaigning against the voters instead of pitching for their support. He defines change in politics as the old system preserved – but run by the Tories.

The expenses scandal signalled the need for more radical reform. This newspaper has consistently argued that the most effective change would be to introduce a fairer voting system. The current model contains a huge bias towards Labour and the Conservatives, giving them hundreds of safe seats where MPs can complacently ignore voters. Parties then divert money and skew policy towards a handful of tactically important constituencies. Awarding seats in parliament in proportion to votes cast would extend the franchise to millions of people who feel their voices have gone unheard. Deep unfairness radiates out of our voting system and corrupts our politics. This can only be fixed with electoral reform.

If a different system yields more coalition governments, so be it. Mr Cameron ought to appreciate how like coalitions the current political parties already are. Conservative policy expresses the party's agonies in recent years as different factions have competed to graft their priorities on to the leader's mutating creed. >>> Observer Editorial | Saturday, May 01, 2010

The Only Choice for Britain
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH – Editorial: The country needs a Conservative government with a strong majority in order to tackle the enormous challenges it faces, says The Sunday Telegraph

The general election this week offers the country the most significant choice for a generation. Ever since the financial crisis began, it has been clear that Britain faces enormous challenges over the next few years. The new government must stabilise the economy, reinvigorate the private sector and deal with a burden of debt and over-spending that could cripple the public finances. Yet the challenges are not just economic. As our poll today shows, voters are also worried about the consequences of immigration on an unprecedented scale, the state of their schools and hospitals, the weakening of civic society, our military involvement in Afghanistan, and the increasing tide of regulation from Brussels. Such problems demand a strong and vigorous government to tackle them. The question is, which of the parties is best suited to such a task?

Despite the parties' attempts to capture the all-important middle ground, the differences between them are clear. Labour believes that only the state can solve the country's economic and social problems. The Conservatives, by contrast, believe that the growth of the central state is the cause of the problem, not its solution, and want to call upon the invigorating power of citizens and communities. The Liberal Democrats seem to hover uneasily between those two positions: one of the difficulties that Nick Clegg has faced has been to explain exactly where he stands on the critical question of whether we need more or less government intervention in the economy and in our lives.

If you examine the Government's record, there is no doubt that the top-down, target-driven, statist approach has reached a dead end. Since 1997, Labour has added more than a million people to the payroll. Spending has increased by 3.2 per cent per annum, in real terms. Gordon Brown now talks of Tory efficiency savings as irresponsible cuts which will "shrink" or "take money out of" the economy. As David Cameron has rightly pointed out, this is to confuse the economy with the state. Usually, people are better at spending their own money than are officials: it is a basic conservative principle that they should retain as much of it as possible. This also helps stimulate the economy, which is why one of the most convincing Tory victories of the campaign has been their opposition – alongside much of the business community – to the tax on jobs represented by Labour's planned rises in National Insurance.

In defending this position, Mr Cameron has frequently pointed out that there is an enormous amount of waste in government spending that could be cut instead. He is absolutely correct. But efficiency savings, on their own, will not be anything like enough to deal with our abysmal fiscal situation. Mr Brown's reputation for prudence, for making the right decisions on economic issues, has been destroyed by his profligate spending. As a result of the shocking state of our public finances, we face a bleaker economic future than other, similar nations. >>> Sunday Telegraph View | Saturday, May 01, 2010

Related: More endorsements

Detroit Terror Attack: A Murderous Ideology Tolerated for Too Long
A whiff of common sense here. People are beginning to wake up from their slumbers. Surely, the tide must be beginning to turn. It must turn if the West is to be won.

This viewpoint from The Telegraph is refreshing indeed; yet it doesn’t go far enough. Radical Islamism is a symptom of a fanatic belief in Islam. In many ways, it is the true belief of a Muslim, one who, in their eyes, submits to the will of Allah, but who in anyone else’s eyes can only be thought of submitting to the ideology of a death cult: Islam.

If we are to win this war being waged against the West, otherwise known as the Jihad – an intermittent war which has been waged against the “infidel West” since Islam’s inception – then we have to come to the realization that Islam is not a religion per se, but a religio-political system which recognizes NO SEPARATION OF POLITICS AND RELIGION. The separation of politics and religion is the sine qua non of democracy. No democracy can exist without it. Islam is the true enemy of democracy and freedom. No true democracy will ever exist where Islam is the dominant ideology. This is so not only because Islam recognizes no separation of mosque and state, but also because Islam recognizes no diversity. None whatsoever! Islam recognizes one religion – Islam, and one way of life – the Islamic way of life. In an age of multiculturalism and diversity, it is incredible that we should tolerate such an intolerant ideology in our midst, for truly, if Islam gets the upper hand here in the West – and it is looking increasingly likely in the long- or medium-term, then there will be no diversity. There will be only Islam. Apostates will be killed, as will homosexuals. It will then be a case of convert, die, or pay the jizyah, the special tax levied on the infidel in return for some measure of protection. Remember this: Multiculturalism and diversity are anathema to Islam!

Westerners have faffed around, played around with our language for far, far too long. We have come up with all kinds of weird and wonderful expressions, euphemisms all, and all thought-up and devised so as not to appear Islamophobic, so as not to point the finger at a religion and thereby appear religiously bigotted, and to keep the peace at any price. The euphemisms are well-known to all by now: Islamism, radical Islamism (as though there could ever be a non-radical Islamism!), radical Jihadism (again, as though there could ever be a benign, non-radical Jihadism), and so on and so forth. There are but three words that we need in our vocabulary: Islam, Muslim, and the Jihad. An Islamist is a devout follower of the faith of Islam. A believer that dots the ‘i’s’ and crosses the ‘t’s’. Contrary to popular Western myth, he is not one who has perverted his faith; rather, he is the real thing. Just as much the real thing as Coke is to cola.

The Muslims considered by the West as being peaceful and law-abiding are actually people who do not follow central aspects of their faith such as the Jihad, the killing of apostates, honour killings, and other repugnant tenets of that faith.

That The Telegraph has now had the courage to liken ‘Islamism’ to Nazism is to be lauded. It should be noted, however, that this fact has been pointed out on this website since the website was started. Naturally, it was also pointed out in my book. Having taken this bold step forward, The Telegraph now needs to take the next step and call a spade a spade.– © Mark

THE TELEGRAPH: Telegraph View: Jihadist Islamism is comparable to Nazism in many respects. The British public realises this; so do the intelligence services.

Friday's attempt to blow up a transatlantic airliner by a British-educated Islamist was foiled by the bravery of its passengers and crew. We cannot assume that we will be lucky next time. And the indications are that there will be a next time. According to police sources, 25 British-born Muslims are currently in Yemen being trained in the art of bombing planes. But most of these terrorists did not acquire their crazed beliefs in the Islamic world: they were indoctrinated in Britain. Indeed, thousands of young British Muslims support the use of violence to further the Islamist cause – and this despite millions of pounds poured by the Government into projects designed to prevent Islamic extremism.

Is it time for a fundamental rethink of Britain's attitude towards domestic Islamism? Consider this analogy. Suppose that, in several London universities, Right‑wing student societies were allowed to invite neo-Nazi speakers to address teenagers. Meanwhile, churches in poor white neighbourhoods handed over their pulpits to Jew-hating admirers of Adolf Hitler, called for the execution of homosexuals, preached the intellectual inferiority of women, and blessed the murder of civilians. What would the Government do? It would bring the full might of the criminal law against activists indoctrinating young Britons with an inhuman Nazi ideology – and the authorities that let them. Any public servants complicit in this evil would be hounded from their jobs. >>> | Tuesday, December 29, 2009

THE TELEGRAPH: Obama tries to find new words to fight terrorism: Barack Obama has launched a new offensive against jihadi terrorism – which is to say, a new rhetorical offensive. Having discovered that the earlier Obama doctrine of “reaching out” to the Islamic fundamentalist enemies of western democracy has made no difference whatever to their determination to blow innocent people out of the sky (or, in the case of Iran, to build a nuclear bomb), he is opening another verbal front. >>> Janet Daley | Tuesday, December 29, 2009