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Bucks County pledge extra £3m on local road repairs

The Conservative-run County Council has announced a one-off £3 million addition to this year’s £25m budget for road maintenance in Buckinghamshire. Many people have voiced their concern over the state of Wycombe’s roads. This move by the County Council should start to improve matters. As a frequent road user in Wycombe and the wider Buckinghamshire area, both by car and on my motorcycle, I look forward to the prospective improvements. While these additional funds will help to reduce the backlog [...]

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The woman who changed the world has passed away

I learned this afternoon with considerable sadness of the passing of Baroness Thatcher. I cannot say I knew her — I was 19 when she ceased to be Prime Minister — but I grew up with the transformation she delivered in our country and across the world. It was only after a year in Parliament that I began to realise against what odds and opposition she had suceeded. I was grateful to meet her once after my election. The Economist has [...]

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Presentation to Windsor Conservatives

After this morning’s advice bureau, I had the pleasure of visiting Windsor Conservative Association Women’s Group, where I explained what I think are the long term causes of this crisis and what we should do about it. Here are the slides: I was delighted students from a local school joined us and were able to take away copies of Dr Nigel Ashford’s Principles for a Free Society, commissioned by the Jarl Hjalmarson Foundation. As we were mostly discussing the problems of state-direction in [...]

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David Cameron has shown why the Tories are the truly moral party – Telegraph

In Birmingham yesterday Mr Cameron delivered the third great speech of his career. As on the two previous occasions, it came at exactly the right moment. He arrived here in shocking shape after a dire six months, during which the Government had been guilty of indecision, incompetence, drift and – at times – an intolerable arrogance. Many people no longer knew what the Prime Minister stood for. There was even talk that he might not survive until the general election. [...]

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William Hague: “There’s only one growth strategy: work hard,” but hard work needs honest money.

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In today’s Telegraph, William Hague tells the Government’s business critics to stop complaining and work hard to deliver jobs. However, Mr Hague forgets that a day’s hard work is rewarded with a day’s pay: if that pay is in a money which someone else is producing at near zero cost, the value of hard work is undermined. People who are slogging their guts out to make ends meet in an environment of rising living costs are bound to take the Telegraph’s reporting of [...]

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David Willetts, “Our university revolution has only just begun”

David Willetts writes in the Telegraph: Our university revolution has only just begun: Despite some dire warnings about the Coalition’s student finance reforms, we’ve already had more applications to university than in any year under the previous government. Once the decline in the total number of 18 year olds has been accounted for, their application rate is down only 1 per cent on last year, when a record number of people applied to get in. We’ve sent recent graduates into [...]

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A day trip to Belfast and a lesson in the consequences of violence and statism

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I travelled yesterday to Belfast East, where I spoke with Conservatives from across Northern Ireland who are working to normalise politics, diffusing and moving beyond sectarianism: I learned and saw far more than I can share today but my overwhelming impression was of a great people who have been hamstrung by violence, sectarianism and the growth of the state. Taken together, the result has been the destruction of great industries and the conversion of prosperity based on production into dependency. [...]

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Poster of the week – 1929, “Socialism would mean inspectors all round”

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From the Conservative Poster Archive, poster 1929-31, “Socialism would mean inspectors all round”. Too true, unfortunately: see Harry Snook’s Crossing the Threshold - 266 ways the State can enter your home from the Centre for Policy Studies (PDF) and my related question in debate.

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Poster of the week – 1909, “Socialism Throttling the Country”

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From the Conservative Poster Archive, poster 1909/10-14, which seems apt with the Government still spending about half of national income:

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A fascinating speech by Michael Gove

We’ve faced a good deal of opposition in the last year and a half. And I am certain 2012 will be no different. Because one thing I’ve come to realise during my time as Education Secretary is that the opposition we face is of a very particular kind… It’s ironic, if you think about it. The popular critique of our reform programme has most often been of its underpinning motives. The talk was of an ‘ideologically-driven Academies programme’ and ‘ideologically-motivated [...]

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Steve Baker is MP for Wycombe. He was previously an RAF officer then a business software consultant. Find out more...

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