A short piece for the Independent – read the rest here

The coalition must grapple with the economic mess that they have inherited, and they have often talked about how Labour failed to mend the roof when the sun was shining, but they should be careful not to leave behind a subtle, but no less dangerous problem. Our legal system is a quintessentially British pillar of the constitution, and it requires talented people to sustain it. The Lord Chancellor is right to make sure that the pillar is not too expensive, but needs to realise the importance of keeping the house upright.

I have started co-hosting a podcast with Bobby Friedman called Political Takeout. It’s available via iTunes and at PoliticalTakeout.com

I wrote a piece on the Australian Labor [sic] Party’s bizarre love of regicide in the Telegraph today following the damp ‘spill’ which happened in Canberra today. Read it here.

I’ve argued that we should raise the minimum wage in this Spectator piece which divided response: it’ll be very interesting to read the pieces in reply which have been promised from certain quarters…

How do the Conservatives continue to tackle the deficit, grow the economy, and persuade voters that they are – as the Home Secretary Theresa May put it in her measured keynote speech to the ConHome ‘Victory 2015? conference yesterday – a party for all? There’s a chance that the answer to all three problems might be to make targeted increases to the minimum wage. Americans are starting to look at the potential stimulus effects of a similar increase in their minimum wage, and this may be the time for the Treasury to contemplate something radical.

My decidedly wonkish look at the ‘get out the vote’ operation:

“By the early evening we were calling people who not only had received several calls already that day to remind them to vote, as well as one or two visits to their doorstep, but these poor voters had sent in their ballots by post, and had told everyone that. One of the practical reasons the Conservatives lost was a lack of data: banks of volunteers young and old spent hours on the phone and walking the streets pestering postal voters who’d already sent off their votes and we’d failed to record this fact. We called quite a few dead people.”

Read it here

So I decided it was about time to revamp the website. Nothing fancy, just a little more user-friendly. It’s an attempt at simplicity, so I hope it satisfies the people who come to this site. This thing now kicks off with the blog when you come to it, but I don’t anticipate using the blogging feature on a regular basis.