Austen Ivereigh says that illegal immigration is both a symptom and a cause — of British economic success. The dead hand of the state is getting it wrong, as usual: time for a total rethinkSo, the government gets tough on illegal immigrants. The UK Borders Bill currently before Parliament plasters the cracks in our borders, imposes zero-tolerance for unscrupulous employers and gangmasters, and restores discipline to the nation’s frontiers by text-messaging Johnny Foreigner to remind him his visa is about to expire.

Anthony Giddens tells Fraser Nelson that the Labour  project has to ‘restart’ and that Gordon Brown can no  longer afford to be a ‘closeted Machiavellian figure’Professor Anthony Giddens, author of The Third Way and intellectual godfather of New Labour, is a hard man to pin down. After days of radio silence an email arrives confirming he can be interviewed; it’s just that he’s tied up in meetings with Colonel Gaddafi.

I hear that the Conservative Philosophy Group is about to be revived after a hibernation of about 15 years. The group, in so far as it has been heard of at all, has the reputation of being a collection of Thatcherite ideologues, exercising an arcane influence over policy. In fact it had no discernible influence over Tory policy, and was never meant to. One or two members (it must be admitted) wanted to give the impression that we were a think-tank with the usual ambitions.

Lost Pines, TexasWhen I first moved to America in the early 1990s I arrived as a republican, full of a furious rhetoric about the end of monarchy and the abolition of hereditary privilege. I’d sent a hefty donation to Charter 88, who wanted to see PR, a written constitution and an elected second house. Social justice could not be improved by traditional methods and all the Lords Temporal were good for was raising prize pigs and holding the hands of serial killers whom they visited in jug.