Military familiesThere are encouraging hints in the papers today that the Government will offer military families a reprieve from the planned taxation on education.
I spent Friday and Saturday this week in Larkhill, the military town. One thing dominates local conversation here: the hundreds of Afghan nationals relocated here, and to neighbouring towns, since the fall of Kabul to the Taliban.
Tory Party Conference is over; thank goodness. It was a curiously, almost hysterically, upbeat week - curious, for my party has not been happy for some years. We usually have a leader that lots of people grumble about.
I write from Birmingham, where the Conservative Party is gathering for its annual Conference which this year is a beauty parade of leadership contenders. More on that in a moment.Our area is rich in activity and poor in connections.
Parliament is in recess, for the Party Conferences. Ed Davey, of the Liberal Democrats, has endeared himself to me with his relentless absurdity; I honour him for his persistence in performing water-based stunts for the cameras.
A week of politics and history. The Government pushed through the legislation for ‘Great British Energy’, its new mega-quango which will produce no energy.
A strange summer for me: in anticipation of an autumn election I’d expected to be canvassing all through the hot months, but Rishi had other ideas and it was all over by 4 July.
The riots across the UK in consequence of the murder of three children in Southport have two direct implications for politics and policy. The first is that the riots reflect a widespread, and not blameworthy, concern across society with the pace and scale of immigration.
