Daniel Hannan

The further left you are, the more your concern for the underdog crowds out everything else, leading you to overlook inconsistencies. You might, for example, argue for immigration and multiculturalism in the UK, but not in the Amazon. You might demand equality before the law and, at the same time, gender quotas. ”

Whenever the debate moves on to hard numbers - our deficit with Europe, our surplus with the rest of the world, our Brussels budget contributions, the tiny part of our economy dependent on sales to the EU, the vast part subjected to EU regulation - Euro-enthusiasts quickly shift their ground and start harrumphing about influence. ”

When you repeat, in that wooden and perfunctory way, that our situation is better than others, that we're 'well-placed to weather the storm', I have to tell you that you sound like a Brezhnev-era apparatchik giving the party line. ”

On any measure, Spain's bank rescue has been a disaster. A hundred million euros have been added to the national debt, ten-year bonds are at a record high and the country's credit rating has been downgraded three notches. ”

The U.S. states that allow for citizens' initiatives tend to have fewer laws and lower taxes than the ones that don't. But the beauty of the system is that it encourages the spread of best practice. ”

It's irresponsible to scare E.U. nationals in the U.K. by hinting that their status might change after Brexit. ”

Every human on the planet is descended from both slaves and slave owners. What makes Britain unusual is not that we engaged in the disgusting trade, but that we eliminated it. Our political institutions led us, earlier than many, to the conclusion that freedom was the highest virtue. ”

I'm going to devote myself full time to securing and then winning a referendum on leaving the E.U. ”

The anti-apartheid prisoners on the island, like so many in every age and nation, found that Shakespeare had a peculiar ability to gentle their condition. They used to gather clandestinely to read the plays; on one occasion, the book was passed around for each man to mark his favourite lines. ”

The complexity of a tax system is every bit as damaging to competitiveness as the overall tax rate. The more convoluted the tax code becomes, the more time we have to take off work to comply with it. ”