Richard's Kingdom

Last week I attended a public meeting about the UK Government’s plans to introduce a statutory register of lobbyists. It seems the proposals are something of a token effort and the meeting highlighted several ways to shine lights into more of this industry’s dark corners. Speaking as one who lobbies in a volunteer capacity I’m [...]

The Government has launched a consultation on reducing the burden imposed on our lives by the state. The Your Freedom website has been live for about a week and has already collected an incredible number of ideas, comments and suggestions. In fact enthusiasm has been such that the site has struggled to stay online thanks [...]

Yesterday the Government announced a “Freedom or Great Repeal Bill” to undo the worst excesses of Labour authoritarianism. If many of the policies therein seem familiar it’s because they seem to have been cherry-picked from the Freedom Bill that the Liberal Democrats put together for the Convention on Modern Liberty last year. After the publication [...]

The United Kingdom has a hung Parliament. The 2010 general election left the Conservatives as the largest party however they are 20 seats short of an overall majority. Therefore a coalition Government must be arranged. The prospect of a government of national unity* – a coalition including both the Conservatives and Labour – is conspicuous [...]

I voted for the Tories in 1997. It was my first ever election, I was 18, and the Conservatives had been in power my whole life. I knew nothing about politics and I educated myself about neither the parties’ policies nor the local candidates. I voted Tory because I feared the unknown: the huge change [...]