I think it also comes to the wider point that a good and effective opposition keeps check, which in turn leads (in theory) to good overall governance of the country.

That's not the point. There have been plenty of articles that challenge what the Govt is doing or what they think the approach to Brexit should be (even if that means trying to stay in the EU).

Personally, I think one should maintain a certain level of integrity and be transparent in their positions. His Guardian is full of regret and lamentation, reading like a 15 year old girl's diary entry. Here it's calling on Thatcher, no emotive language, quotes, statements, etc.

One may be Labour or Conservative. I didn't realize being both in the same afternoon was also an option.

Would Mr Norgrove care to explain why he has, in his own words:

"The result of all this is that I’m likely to vote Labour at the next general election. I have soured against a Tory party that is extremely close to wrecking a political endeavour I will defend until my dying day."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/se...

I doubt that the editorial staff of CH are aware of the Guardian piece, but it should serve as a reminder that proper vetting should be a pre-requisite, even for a website.

There's an explanation that most people miss and its not their fault, its because they simply haven't gone through the material to understand how we arrived at this juncture.

In Sunni Islam, there are 4 major schools of legal thought and jurisprudence (there were more but eventually abandoned). What each of these four schools (Hanafi, Shafi, Maliki and Hanbali, named after the pioneers) did was take both the Quran, the Hadith and other associated information (usually from followers/descendents) and extract legal rulings that form the broad corpus of Islamic Law.

This was done for over a millenia. In that time, scholars from these schools would analyse, go back, re-interpret, etc., to try and navigate the problems of their age. The key thing here is that average, laymen did not try and go to the sources themselves to derive their own rulings. People were happy to get on with other things and leave matters of legality to scholars.

This is not what we have now. Any person, without any background in Islam, can go on the Internet, Google some stuff and proclaim that they understand what this religion is about. A few verses here, some hadith there and all of a sudden they can declare fatwas.

"Normal Sunni Islam preaches death for homophobia, adultery, apostacy and much more besides."

This comment illustrates such a point. Did you know that it requires 4, truthful and trustworthy people to publicly declare they've witnessed the act of penetration (for adultery)? If that, did you know that the judge has to reject the accused's testimony (3 times in the Hanafi school, once in the Shafi school)? Even prior to execution, the person can recant their testimony and escape the punishment?

I'm not a scholar, but I've got some door-stopper sized textbooks that just cover the basics. Like I said, Googling is easy but then its obvious to separate those who know what they're talking about from those that don't.

And you don't know what you're talking about.

I think the PM talk is in jest and good nature but it underlies that JRM does have talent that is being undervalued, at the very least, by the Party. You can tell how much respect he commands across the spectrum by his appearance on the last Question Time, he was allowed to speak and rarely interrupted, especially by Dimbleby who was already scarred by the Mogg.

But a junior Minister/Cabinet position will put him to the test and I think it's well earned.

I agree, I think the value proposition is what needs to become front and center. I was having a discussion with a family member who runs his own law firm and has bought into the Corbyn hype. Once you're able to discuss with them one on one, you can see how quickly their arguments begin to crumble, all you have to do is take their policies to their logical conclusions. They have all of the dots but cannot connect them, like public sector pay rises, pension triple lock and nationalisation. Individually they sound great, but combine them together and it's a recipe for financial ruin.

As a first time Conservative voter this past election, I really sat down and tried to understand it all myself. Having looked at how Islamic principles have governed society in some respects, I think there is a pool of overlapping ideas that can be drawn from.

As I've said in other posts, there is a strong sense of libertarianism in Muslim polity, in favour of small state apparatus (just really a judiciary, treasury and possibly an army), low taxes and a focus on individual trade, wealth and trusts to make societies function. If there was serious focus on understanding and communicating those principles to the Muslim population (as it jives with Conservatism) then it could prove popular.

Lessons could be taken from the US and in particular the Ron Paul/Gary Johnson brand of libertarianism. Having a few friends in the US, they have really reached out to the younger vote and it's what propelled Johnson into some contention this past election cycle. If that could be brought in and scaled appropriately, it could prove successful.

This is the problem when life imitates art imitating life. The media cleaves when it comes to issues like this and it's all to compete against themselves for viewership/readership. I remember for a long time questioning why Anjem Choudary of all people kept getting airtime. Why? Media doesn't do reporting anymore, it sells narrative and this is why The Daily Mail and The Sun go one way, and Huffington Post go another.

And no-one is deflecting from terrorism. Quite the opposite, as I said above. Narratives on terrorism, its origins and horrific consequences is why the media are starting to be harassed when they pitch up to the scene.

I created an account just so I could post a comment on this article. I agree that Hayek, Mises and the Austrian school has many ideas that would immensely benefit the current state of our economy. The problem is that those ideas work best from a static, pre-determined state, i.e. if Britain was an economically and politically stable union with some but not huge inequality and efficient markets. The problem is that we're not in that state, quite the opposite in fact.

What Conservatives have to realize (and Mark Blyth puts it in great terms for someone to understand) is that austerity economics has completely and utterly failed. Our obsession with deficit/debt reduction at the cost of sound governance has led to this situation. In order to correct course, the austerity agenda has to be abandoned and wage growth (in turn, tax receipts) need to go up. Yes, that may require borrowing (something I'm not a fan of) but the long-run implication is that continuing cuts increase our debt/GDP ratio and the cycle continues.

Efficiency need to improve. Bad government spending needs to be axed. That needs to happen until wage growth outpaces inflation, which means that you can better service the debt. Once under control and kept at a stable level (i.e. a ratio of 50% or less), then you can start to shrink the state and hand more money back to the populace.

I highly recommend reading/watching Mark Blyth to get a good grasp of why austerity has completely failed everywhere it's been implemented.