Stop strikes - up the minimum wage
What would happen if we ended the freedom to work across the European Union, asks Johann Hari? Yes, one million Europeans based here will have to go home, and you won't be competing with them any more. But the 1.5 million Brits based elsewhere in the EU will also have to return too. You would be competing against them instead, in an economy that would be even more depressed by the unravelling of European trade. No. The best way to deal with the wage-depressing effect of immigration at the bottom is to demand an increase in the minimum wage. This places the white working class and immigrants on the same side against the CBI-led elite – rather than squabbling among themselves as the bankers stroll away laughing. Johann Hari The Independent
Full article: Strike, yes – but not at this target 
David Cox: Protectionism is certain to engulf the global economy
Cameron, an unlikely anti-capitalist
And, lo, Mr Cameron complains about our capitalism having been "winner takes all", an assertion that is fundamentally untrue (for capitalism has enriched almost everyone in the free world to some degree) but would not be immoral even if it were, says Simon Heffer. After all, those who take the risks and have the superior judgment should have the rewards: anything else is communism. "People are angry with capitalism," he says, showing again that what drives him is not an attachment to principle but an obsession with focus groups. "We've got a lot of capital but not many capitalists and people rightly think that isn't fair." For pity's sake, has he actually thought about what those words mean? Not only are they not what most people would understand as "Conservative"; they are some way to the left of Mr Brown. Simon Heffer Daily Telegraph
Full article: David Cameron's 'moral' capitalism is no better than socialism
British Jews - victims of Gaza
At the London Gaza protests, writes Jonathan Freedland, there were multiple placards deploying what has now become a commonplace image: the Jewish Star of David equated with the swastika. From the podium George Galloway declared: "Today, the Palestinian people in Gaza are the new Warsaw ghetto." Now what, do you imagine, is the effect of repeating, again and again, that Israel is a Nazi state? Even those with the scantest historical knowledge know that the Nazis are the embodiment of evil to which the only appropriate response is hate. How surprising is it if a young man, already appalled by events in Gaza, walks home from a demo and glimpses the Star of David - which he now sees as a latter-day swastika - outside a synagogue and decides to torch the building, or at least desecrate it? Jonathan Freedland The Guardian
Full article: As British Jews come under attack, the liberal left must not remain silent
Carol Thatcher sacked
Carol Thatcher, the daughter of former Prime Minister Lady Thatcher, now faces being banned from the BBC after reportedly referring to an unnamed tennis player as reminding her of a 'golliwog' while talking among friends, writes Melanie Phillips. It is hard to think of anything more despicable than snitching like this on a private conversation. People say or do all kinds of things which are perfectly acceptable in the context of drinks with friends or colleagues, but which would cause a very different impression if they occurred in public. If we were all to be treated in this way, how many of us would remain in our jobs? Melanie Phillips Daily Mail
Full article: The age of the snitch: A nurse suspended for praying. Carol Thatcher sacked for a private remark. How public sector informers are creating Stasi Britain...
People: BBC sacks Thatcher over Golliwog gaffe
Pope in crisis
Pope Benedict XVI walked right into a trap, says Damian Thompson. A German Pope, a former member of the Hitler youth, "rehabilitates" a Holocaust denier, and then promotes an Austrian cleric who thinks Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for immorality in New Orleans. You couldn't make it up; Benedict's enemies didn't need to. The Williamson car-crash was avoidable; his views were public knowledge. Last year, The Catholic Herald ran a front-page story, exposing this cold and sarcastic Old Wykehamist as a believer in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and who regarded The Sound of Music as satanic, on the grounds that Maria undermined Captain von Trapp's paternal authority. Damian Thompson Daily Telegraph
Full article: Pope's PR men have put his future at risk
How can Bishop Richard Williamson deny the Holocaust?
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