Blogs
Opinion and Editorial from the Policy Exchange team.
Choose A Category
Arts and Culture
Demography, Immigration and Integration
Crime and Justice
Demography, Immigration and Integration
Economics and Social Policy
Education
Environment and Energy
French Presedential Election
Foreign Policy and Security
Government and Politics
Housing and Urban Regeneration
Industrial Strategy
International Trade
Security and Extremism
Recent Blogs
Euro Clearing Proposals reveal real European Commission Intent
Michael Taylor — Policy Exchange’s Economics Research Fellow — explains why the recent European Commission proposals on euro clearing ‘may well be the first shot in the battle for European financial services post-Brexit’. He concludes, however, that the proposals, ‘appear to have less to do with addressing market failure and more to do with the failure of any other EU city to develop a financial centre anywhere near comparable to the City of London’.
“Jeremy’s Marvellous Medicine” – the accidental Third Way in Labour’s manifesto
John Blake — Policy Exchange’s Head of Education and Social Reform, a self-proclaimed Corbynsceptic – considers the remarkable success of Jeremy Corbyn in the 2017 general election, exploring the ingredients which made up Jeremy’s “marvellous medicine”.
Why Gerry Adams is wrong on the Belfast agreement
Dr Austen Morgan, a barrister in London and Belfast, one of the UUP’s talks team for the Belfast Agreement and author of The Belfast Agreement: a practical legal analysis, explains why Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams was wrong when he told the Prime Minister that any agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) would be in breach of the Good Friday Agreement.
A State of Extremes
In the first of a series of longer articles for Policy Exchange following the Manchester and London attacks, Sir John Jenkins — former British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and co-author of the UK Government’s review of the Muslim Brotherhood published in 2015 — examines why many Western Governments find it so hard to deal with transnational ideological challenges. After the end of the Cold War, Western officialdom may not have believed in the “end of history”, but many of them did believe in the “end of ideology”. Events are once again proving them tragically wrong.
Why Ruth Davidson et al are wrong on the DUP and gay rights
Jeffrey Dudgeon – co-founder of the gay rights movement in Northern Ireland and author of ‘Roger Casement:The Black Diaries’ — sits on Belfast City Council with the DUP. As a long time political and cultural opponent of their approach, he finds them to be surprisingly flexible in practice on gay rights and other social issues. Policy Exchange Director Dean Godson, author of Himself Alone: David Trimble and the Ordeal of Unionism, writes for the Sunday Times on the wider issues round the Conservative Party’s relations with the DUP.
Election 2017 – Benjamin Disraeli: ‘There is no finality in politics’
‘I have done a terrible, terrible thing. I have voted Labour for the first time. My father and grandfather would turn in their graves, but I was worried about my pension. All I have is my house and the state pension that I manage on.’ These were the words of a typical voter – who had initially pledged Conservative – when she was reminded by Tory canvassers to vote last Thursday evening in a marginal constituency in Plymouth; later that night, the seat changed hands, from Conservative to Labour. Many things went wrong for the Prime Minister and the Conservative Party in this General Election — so what, asks Warwick Lightfoot, Director of Research at Policy Exchange, are the lessons that can be taken from this voter’s change of heart?
The DUP: no longer Ulster’s abominable ‘No’ men
Policy Exchange Director Dean Godson, author of Himself Alone: David Trimble and the Ordeal of Unionism, writes for the Sunday Times on the wider issues round the Conservative Party’s relations with the DUP.
Euro-zone cyclical recovery masks structural flaws
Michael Taylor — Policy Exchange’s Economics Research Fellow — responds to last week’s announcement that the European Central Bank would continue its asset purchase programme, which involves buying €60bn a month of bonds to support the eurozone economy.
The Prime Minister is right to assert that Islamist ideology is one of the key threats of our time
Policy Exchange Director Dean Godson looks at the government’s renewed emphasis on Islamist extremism in the wake of the Borough attacks – and notes Theresa May’s focus on ideology as the “upstream” source of much of the problem. The Government’s task now is to ensure that its policy on counter-extremism is implemented throughout the public sector – which, as all Prime Ministers have found since 7/7, is easier said than done
The Prime Minister says online extremism must be tackled – and here’s how
Policy Exchange’s Co-Head of Security and Extremism, Hannah Stuart, looks at what more can be done to counter extremism online following Theresa May’s pledge to prevent the internet being used as a safe space for extremism. She proposes a new regulator to work with Ofcom to ensure that technology companies take responsibility for extremist material published on their platforms and provide more support and funding for the police’s online security teams
