Blog Posts by Ian Dunt

George Osborne must be one of parliament's worst speakers. Only the more nervous of the 2010 intake can compete – the MPs who read in monotone from sheets of paper while their hands quiver. George has a curious combination of nervousness and indignation, a sort of arrogance combined with frantic uncertainty. On Budget days he is so keen to get through the speech he rattles through it, a machine gun of numbers and dubious commentary. His voice can't hold out. It starts weak and ends devastated, barely with enough time to recover before he starts the round of TV interviews the next day.

George gets less and less convincing by the year, as his fiery rhetoric is dashed on the rocks of total economic stasis. He also becomes less convincing by the minute, as his rattled, hoarse voice dying a death in his throat. This time he finally croaked, literally choking on his own words halfway through the Budget.

That was the low point, but things weren't great even as he started. The Tory cheers for

Digital journalism's inclusion in the new press regulation system came out of nowhere.

No-one paid any serious attention to websites during the Leveson inquiry and the judge himself spent precious little time discussing them in his report. For online writers, the proceedings were akin to watching an incontinent uncle marvel at a VHS tape. But when the royal charter on a new press regulator was published yesterday it included a reference to "relevant publishers" – a term which included "a website containing news-related material [including comment]" as well as newspapers or magazines.

Twitter proceeded to lose its cool, but the references to "relevant publishers" seemed to be exclusively about who could work as staff or on the appointments committee of the new regulator.

The story didn't end there though. Shortly afterwards, the amendment to the crime and courts bill was published. This second "dab" of legislation forces publishers to face exemplary damages if they are taken to court

By Madsen Pirie

The proposed mansion tax is a wealth tax, and wealth taxes are among the most pernicious and damaging of all taxes. The proposal is not to tax people for doing anything with a house such as buying it or selling it, but simply for owning it.

One of Adam Smith's canons of fair taxation is that it should be levied in a way that is convenient for the person paying it. A tax on rents should fall when the rent has been collected, he said.

In general we tax transactions so that a little of the money changing hands makes its way into the state coffers. We tax money when it is earned, or when it is used to buy things. We do not tax it simply because people have it, otherwise we are simply confiscating it from them in installments, undermining the very basis of property rights.

People generally react to wealth taxes by moving their wealth abroad, or into areas not subject to the tax. If a mansion tax is levied on homes valued in excess of £2m, fewer of them will be bought. Some

Argentina's comments about the Falklands Islands are rarely right. The country's entire claim to the island is that of a pirate. It can be distilled to the most basic and barbaric concept in international relations: owning something because it is close to you.

But today we find ourselves in the curious position of hearing sense from Buenos Aires. They're right about the Falklands Islands referendum. The vote returned 99.8% support for remaining an overseas territory of the UK on a turnout of 92% (enjoyably, somewhere on that island are three people who side with Argentina and who presumably keep it very much to themselves).

The Falklands referendum is an answer to a question which was not asked. No-one questions whether the Falklands islanders want to remain British. They question the legitimacy of self-determination as the guiding principle of a territorial dispute. Holding a referendum is a prime example of answering the question you wished you were asked rather than the one which

The hypocrisy of politics can sometimes be startling. British and American commentators – most of them on the right, some on the left – have taken to the airwaves to libel Hugo Chavez as just another tinpot dictator, hated by his own people, a tyrant who imprisoned judges, closed down TV stations and hated America.

Chavez, who died of a severe respiratory failure yesterday evening, was a complex and layered figure. He had his weaknesses. But the attacks on him are not motivated by concern for free speech or human rights. They are motivated by the unlimited fury of the west when a third world leader exerts control over multinational corporations and directs resources towards their own people.

Here is a simple, incontestable fact about Hugo Chavez. He was not a dictator. Anyone who suggests otherwise has not grasped basic political concepts. In fact, Chavez won the presidency four times in elections which were monitored by international observers. He brought forward a constitutional

The idea Ed Miliband has no policies is becoming less convincing by the day. Look closely and they are revealed, like a Magic Eye poster. Over the last two days, the Labour leader used a party political broadcast and a speech by his shadow home secretary to unveil a raft of them on immigration. Some of them are good, some of them are unfortunate and some of them are morally questionable, but they show evidence of a party leader thinking honestly through a prickly issue.

Politically, Miliband knows he has to grasp the nettle on immigration. The Labour ministers and MPs who travelled down to Eastleigh reported back that it was constantly raised on the doorstep and probably had a significant bearing on Ukip's surge in the seat. The problem with addressing these concerns is that most of them are erroneous. The mere fact they are being raised in Eastleigh highlights the problem. There basically is no immigration in Eastleigh.

Here, for the record, are some key facts about migration:

Conservatives

It is hard to envisage a more disastrous situation for David Cameron. As David Davis said yesterday: "I think if we came third it would be a crisis. I think that's the case, and if it's a close second with Ukip on our tail it will also be uncomfortable." Cameron's fundamental lack of authority with his backbenchers is only partly a policy matter. It is primarily a result of the feeling that he is simply not a winner. He failed to win a Tory majority after four years of preparation against a deeply-unpopular Labour government. Now he has failed to win one of the party's top ten target seats.

Without the ability to take 20 seats off the Lib Dems the Tories' hopes for a majority in 2015 seem optimistic to say the least. Worse – the result comes after the Tories lost their chance at winning extra seats via the constituency boundary review. Without a credible plan to win the election, backbenchers will be even more rebellious. Paradoxically, this makes it even less likely they

The one thing everyone wants to talk about in Eastleigh is Ukip. Ukip wants to tell everyone it can win. The Tories want to tell everyone that voting Ukip lets in the pro-immigration Lib Dems. The Lib Dems want to encourage a split in the Tory vote. And Labour wants to use the wildcard fourth party, with its accompanying protest vote, as an excuse for its poor performance.

It's mostly hype. Ukip are very unlikely to win. Bookmakers' average odds give them an 11.1% chance. They are also unlikely to come second. All three final local polls put them in third place, 12 points behind the leading party.

But a strong performance from the eurosceptic party is entirely conceivable, especially if the chatter on Eastleigh High Street is anything to go by. William Hill have cut the odds on a Ukip victory from 100/1 to 5/1 over the course of the campaign. "There has been substantial support for all three of the front runners, with Ukip coming through strongly as the finishing post looms up,"