George Osborne and Boris Johnson's China trip- Podcast

Please see the link below to my podcast on George Osborne and Boris Johnson's trip to China.

VR Online Service: George Osborne and Boris Johnson's China trip

The Madeleine McCann case

The Madeleine McCann case is once again headline news all over the world. This partly due to Prime Minister David Cameron, authorising the Metroplitan Police to review the case.

 The Met police have come up with an E-fit of the men they feel were involved in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

Three year old Madeleine McCann disappeared from her hotel room in Pria da Luz, Portugal in 2007. Whilst her parent Kate and Gerry McCann where eating in a resturant with friends.

I think that as sad as it is that their daughter has disappeared. Both of her parents should have been charged with child abandonment. 

I would not like to speculate about what happened to Madeleine. But at the very least the parents should have been a lie dectector test. 

This would have gone some way to establishing whether or not they had any invovlement in the disappearance of their daughter. 

 

Prime Minister's Question time - 09/10/13

Prime Minister's question time returned after about a months break. Ed Miliband and David Cameron discussed the energy market and various of issues.

Ed Miliband still has the momentum going  into to this weeks PMQ's and he did very well to maintain it at this weeks PMQ's. 

Ed needs to convince the wider public that he is PM material and yesterday strong performance would have helped him a little bit.

David Cameron also needs to convince the wider public that his austerity policies where needed and have been successful. 

In PMQ's David Cameron repeated the Daily Mail's talking points about Ed being a Marxist. 

This clearly the talking point that David Cameron plans to push as part of his reelection strategy. 

To some extent it is similar to the talking point the Republicans tried to make about President Obama and that was unsuccessful.

 So I don't think David Cameron will get much success in trying to claim that Ed is a Marxist. 

UK- reshuffling the pack!

Yesterday and today both Ed Miliband and David Cameron have reshuffled their junior ministers. 

It was noticeable that David Cameron has brought one or two more ladies in his cabinet, with the election in two years.  He is probably probably thinking more about the female vote. 

Whilst Ed Miliband sacked three ministers who he felt where not carrying his message. 

As it is two years before the election needs to form a team that's speaks with one voice and carry the message to the nation.  

Hopefully Ed Miliband has got that team who can confidently and purposefully carrying out message up and down the country. 

USA - Government shutdown

Today is apparently day eight of the US government shutdown. This came about because the Democrats and Republicans are in deadlock over the federal budget. 

The Republicans are using the federal budget to try and defund The Affordable Healthcare Act, also known as Obamacare. 

The government shutdown last happened when Bill Clinton was President. This means that all government procurement and day to day activities are currently on hold. 

Which is probably terrible for the US economy which has also been doing well recently.

So far the public seem to  be behind President Obama and is approval has gone up by 4%. 

However this can change very quickly and especially if this shutdown starts to inconvenience the public. Then the public support of President Obama's could disappear very quickly. 

Review of the Conservative Party conference

Last week's Tory conference was largely overshadowed by the row between Ed Milliband and the Daily Mail. David Cameron's big party conference speech had few surprises in there. 

What stood out for me was potential policy of withdrawing Jobs Seekers Allowance to men and women under the age of twenty five. 

Already there are million people under the age of twenty five who are currently unemployed. It sounds like a very quick fix solution to say that withdrawing benefits will make them find work. 

David Cameron has lurched further to the right of his party and only time will tell if it is really what the British people want. 

Conservative conference - Manchester

After the Labour Party's successful conference, the onus has been for the conservatives to achieve similar success. 

There conference has certainly started  with a bang and a string of policy announcements. First big policy announcement was the married tax allowance and this new initiative was to help married couples on a low income. 

However the Labour Party have said that this allowance will help about 15% of married couples and believes that this tax discriminates against single people. 

I would agree with this sentiment as whether a person is married or single they are working hard to pay their bills and put food on the table. To me everyone should be equally rewarded and not the select few.

Today the Chancellor George Osborne also announced there would be a crack down on long term welfare claimants. 

Which means  getting claimants to work for their dole money or making them attend the job centre every day. 

The Home Secretary Teresa May also announced that some illegal immigrants would be deported before they where allowed to appeal. She added that the Human Rights Act would be abolished in 2015. 

The Conservative have now  clearly lurched to the right wing of their party and this partly due to the growing popularity of UKIP. 

A lot of UKIP's members where dissatisfied Tory voters, so the Tories are hoping that a further crackdown on benefit claimants and illegal immigrants will encourage these dissatisfied Tory voters back. 

I think this will either go really well for the Tories or very badly now that they have  completely left the middle ground. 

It will be interesting to find out in the coming days whether they have taken the British people with them or not as the case maybe.