Slightly more considered view of Monbiot’s discovery. It’s a little odd to study Britain then conclude that racism and conservatism are aligned when our most racist political party is a nationalist socialist one and when our most conservative political party is the Labour Party.

Most toxic is the role of commercial competition, with Monitor acting as enforcer. By opening every NHS corner to “any qualified provider”, the whole service can be taken over by private companies, with a few token charities and mutuals. NHS hospitals, cherry-picked of lucrative work, risk bankruptcy when left with only complex cases. Stroke care

Hopi Sen insists that In the Black Labour (ITBL) is a Keyensian project. He explains that “fiscal conservatism does not entail short-term fiscal stupidity” and compares ITBL’s publication now to writing a paper in the winter telling people to prepare for spring. The message is that once the need for fiscal stimulus to revive the economy has passed, the principles of ITBL – ...

This gets more bizarre the longer it goes on. Florida has a large population of elderly retired Jews, and Newt Gingrich is targeting them in his personal appearances by claiming that while he was governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney vetoed kosher food in state-supported old age homes, thus causing the detainees distress because of the disrespect to their religion. Sounds pretty nasty, doesn'...

IDS launches the long-overdue drive for a benefit cap and the Maximum Leader is nowhere to be seen. What are the odds, huh? I'm sure it's because Cast Iron Dave genuinely did suddenly remember he'd left the gas on, rather than because he's a gutless empty suit who'd rather get a real job than risk perpetrating an act of conservatism. What would the neighbours think? Call me cynical, but I can't he...

Boris Johnson was very well behaved this evening when he appeared before the 1922 Committee of Tory MPs. He stayed off the topics of Europe and tax and instead confined his remarks to London, saying that he wanted the capital to be an example of ‘cost-cutting, one nation Conservatism’. Those MPs inside the room say the performance was classic Boris, as one put it ‘he left no erog...

Is this the way forward towards a Conservative election victory next time? Conservative Home's Tim Montgomerie identifies the five key policies that a "right-wing party with a heart" could use to win over a majority of the electorate. It's an interesting agenda, returning the debate once again to the issue of how to ensure a right-wing party can best promote the interests of 'one nation' rather th...

Steven F. Hayward’s audit of the state of American conservatism, which David Brooks judges to be one of the best magazine articles of the year, argues that the Reaganite ‘starve the beast strategy’ has failed to halt the growth of government. Hayward writes: ‘Thirty years after the arrival of the Reagan Revolution, government is bigger than ever. The Reagan years appear to ...

David Montgomery, who has died aged 84 of a brain haemorrhage, was one of the most prominent historians in the US and the model of a scholar-activist. Along with the late Herbert Gutman, he was the most influential practitioner of the "new labour history", which moved the study of workers away from the institutional history of unions to the workplace struggles, political ideologies and cultur...

I enjoyed the ‘In the Black Labour’ report, by some of Labour’s brightest and best bloggers and thinkers, which argues that Labour should adopt ‘fiscal conservatism’. Here are a few thoughts in response, explaining why I am not convinced by the case which they make.