Robert Buckland Weblog

The economic immigration debate rages, with the Government being forced to admit that its 800,000 figure for economic immigrants into the UK since 1997 looks more like 1.1 million.  Councils such as Slough are facing real problems in providing key public services such as education because they are constantly being surprised with greater numbers of [...]

My apologies for the glaring gap in posting. Things have been predictably hectic over the last two weeks. After the momentous decision of Mr. Brown not to subject us to an October campaign (shame really, because the weather has been rather good), I had a tough decision to make about my legal practice. [...]

Sir Menzies Campbell’s resignation as Liberal Democrat Leader brings a rather odd interlude in Liberal politics to an end.  A decent man, whose father in law was General Roy Urquhart of Arnhem fame, I can only liken his election to the leadership to Tom Baker regenerating in Dr. Who as William Hartnell, rather than as [...]

As the leaves settle reproachfully on my garden, yet another busy week has passed. Last night, I was at the Village Hall at Hinton Parva to hear a talk about the islands of the South Atlantic, given by local resident Howard Crapper. Howard, who has great knowledge of both St. Helena and Ascension [...]

For those of us who are members of the school that Inheritance Tax (ie. death duty) has under this Government increasingly come to resemble legalised theft, last week’s announcement by George Osborne that the next Conservative Government will raise the individual threshold to £1million was manna from heaven. At a stroke, millions of people [...]

As a rugby enthusiast and political hack, yesterday was a day of events. I had spent a frenetic morning in Eastleaze helping with a large leaflet delivery before I headed over to a branch event in Liden where all of us were waiting for Mr. Brown to make his decision. I then dropped [...]

The weather in Blackpool this week was an excellent reflection of proceedings in the Winter Gardens and Imperial Hotel – balmy, calm and very pleasant indeed.  Anyone who was hoping for a Brighton 1992 or Blackpool 2003 experience would have left feeling very disappointed.  The prospect of an early Election has helped the Party re-discover [...]