Author Archives

Retired lawyer studying Chinese and linguistics

• Will Immigration Concerns Lead to Brexit?

  By Michael Ingle on August 31, 2015 • ( 0 )

  Pre-EU Referendum polls show a continuing (and even increasing) lead for the ‘Yes’ campaign for Britain to stay in the EU.  However, I am concerned that the constant focus on immigration issues in the UK could overturn this lead by… Read More ›

• The Migrant Crisis: The UK Is Trying To Have Its Cake And Eat It Too

  By Michael Ingle on July 30, 2015 • ( 3 )

  The migrant crisis in Calais has assumed tragic proportions, with several of the people trying to enter the UK having lost their lives in the process.  Attempts by politicians in the UK and France to solve the crisis have so… Read More ›

• Eurosceptic Contradictions

  By Michael Ingle on June 24, 2015 • ( 0 )

  Eurosceptics are now limbering up for the ‘No’ campaign in the UK’s forthcoming EU referendum.  It is becoming clear that their key arguments for a ‘No’ vote in the referendum include the following: If the UK does not leave the… Read More ›

• The Eurozone and IMF will bend more than Greece to Avoid Grexit

  By Michael Ingle on June 6, 2015 • ( 0 )

  We appear to be nearing the end of the fractious negotiations between Greece and the Eurozone and IMF, over the Syriza government’s demand for a significant relaxation of the debt repayment terms imposed on Greece in December 2012. We know… Read More ›

• EU Referendum Issues

  By Michael Ingle on May 25, 2015 • ( 0 )

  Though I have always opposed holding an in-out EU referendum (for reasons well expressed by Tony Blair during the recent election campaign), UK voters have now decreed that we will have one. More than 50% of voters supported the Tories… Read More ›

• The LibDems: A Need for Fresh Thinking

  By Michael Ingle on May 23, 2015 • ( 0 )

  The 2015 UK election was truly a debacle for the Liberal Democrat party, of which I am a member. The LibDems now have only eight MPs in the House of Commons (down from 57), and their share of the vote… Read More ›

• Planning Restrictions Are Driving Us To Extremes

  By Michael Ingle on April 22, 2015 • ( 0 )

  Almost everyone in the UK agrees that we need to build more houses, indeed many more houses, if we are to provide adequate, and affordable, housing for those who need it.  Last year we built 140,000 new houses, but it… Read More ›

• The UK Election Campaign Comes to Life

  By Michael Ingle on April 10, 2015 • ( 1 )

  The campaign for the UK election, which will be held on 7th May, is at last showing signs of life.  The campaign proper only started on 30th March, after a lengthy ‘phony campaign’ which had been going on since Christmas…. Read More ›

• The Leadership Vacuum in Europe

  By Michael Ingle on February 21, 2015 • ( 0 )

  I have always been a keen supporter of the European Union and of the UK’s membership of it.  The EU has without doubt helped to keep the peace in Europe since it was established (a major achievement in itself after… Read More ›

• Can Angela Merkel afford to be so relaxed about Grexit?

  By Michael Ingle on February 1, 2015 • ( 0 )

  I am writing this post as a prediction and not as a warning, because I am certain that nothing I say will have the slightest impact on the outcome of the current Greek debit crisis.  However, I cannot resist putting… Read More ›

• Robert Moses: Master Builder of New York and Infrastructure Dynamo

  By Michael Ingle on January 26, 2015 • ( 0 )

  I have recently read Robert Caro’s 1974 biography of Robert Moses: The Power Broker – Robert Moses and the Fall of New York.  It is a massive book, at 1,162 pages, as readers of Caro’s four volume biography of Lyndon… Read More ›

• Visit to the British Museum

  By Michael Ingle on January 23, 2015 • ( 0 )

  

  I made one of my regular visits to the British Museum this afternoon.  I focussed on Room 70 on the top floor (Rome and the Roman Empire).  After climbing the two long flights of stairs to the top floor, I… Read More ›

• Visit to the Green Belt at Denham, north west London

  By Michael Ingle on January 17, 2015 • ( 0 )

  

  I have visited an area of green belt in north west London, specifically around the town of Denham in Buckinghamshire.  It should be noted that Denham is inside the M25 and approximately 25 minutes by train from Marylebone Station.  House… Read More ›

• Visit to the Green Belt at Bexley and Bexleyheath

  By Michael Ingle on January 17, 2015 • ( 0 )

  

  I made my third green belt visit to Bexley and Bexleyheath in southeast London.  Bexley is 34 minutes by train from Cannon Street Station in the City of London, with a further 10 minute walk (or short bus journey) to… Read More ›

• Up the revolution…but do not tamper with the Green Belt!

  By Michael Ingle on January 6, 2015 • ( 0 )

  Club and gallery owner Alex Proud published an article in the Telegraph yesterday in which he suggested “10 ways we can fix the UK”.  It was an iconoclastic list, verging on the revolutionary, including such ideas as: make it illegal not… Read More ›