OpEd - SubScribe14

The commentators 30-07-14

...on British politics

If Mr Cameron cannot win cleanly, he has clearly prepared to win ugly. The Britain the PM aims to put first with his immigration system may be the Britain of those he needs to entice back into the fold from Ukip. But it certainly isn’t my Britain, and I have a hunch that it isn’t Cameron's either.
- Matthew Norman, Independent

Can you think of a single good reason why EU immigrants to the UK should be able to do nothing and get paid by British taxpayers for doing nothing? Thought not. Because there isn’t one. It’s difficult – impossible, even – to think of a serious or sensible reason why anyone should object to David Cameron’s latest plan. It’s so obviously the right thing to do that even the Lib Dems haven’t opposed it.
- Stephen Pollard, Daily Express

The summer skirmishing has begun, and already the first casualty has been identified: Ed Miliband. As the preliminary bombardment ahead of the election campaign proper took its toll, the Labour leader attempted this weekend to make a virtue of his negative image, admitting he was “not going to be able to compete” with David Cameron in terms of superficial appeal. This was widely judged to be an error, and a disingenuous one at that.
- Mary Riddell, Daily Telegraph

There is a party which seems to have discovered the fire and passion that moved Labour so long ago: the Greens. Last week they revealed that their manifesto for the general election will propose a living wage, the renationalisation of the railways, a maximum pay ratio (no executive should receive more than 10 times the salary of the lowest-paid worker) and, at the heart of their reforms, a wealth tax of the kind Thomas Piketty
- George Monbiot, The Guardian

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The annual Editorial Intelligence comment awards were officially launched last month with the announcement of the seventy-strong panel of judges to be led by Stevie Spring, chair of Children in Need.
They include Lorraine Heggessey, Nihal Arthanayake, Karren Brady, Damian Barr, Lynne Franks, Nicky Gavron, Laura Kuenssberg, Adrian Monck and Kirsty Lang.
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