Nick De Bois

No, legalising drugs won’t stop knife crime

On Sunday, Coffee House ran an article by Koos Couvee, a former Enfield Advertiser journalist and contemporary of mine. It argued that knife crime will only be reduced if we legalise drugs. Young people are killing each other in turf wars over the supply of drugs with an array of horrific knives and even machetes.

London can be Blue again

In the midst of a glorious election night for the Conservatives on 7 May, London stubbornly resisted the swing across the rest of the country and went a darker shade of red. Why is that and why does it matter when overall we have a majority Conservative government for the first time in 18 years?

Plain packaging has backfired in Australia – don’t bring it to the UK

Only one country in the world—Australia—has experimented with standardised packaging for cigarettes. Quite reasonably, people said that until hard evidence emerged from there it would be unwise for the UK Government to introduce a policy that could have serious consequences in terms of crime, compensation for deprivation of intellectual property rights and breaking of our

Nick Clegg is wrong on knife crime – we need minimum sentences

In today’s Guardian Nick Clegg sets out his reasons why he is stopping the government tabling clauses that would require mandatory sentences on second conviction for possession of a knife. Quite simply: I don’t agree with Nick. His argument for doing nothing further is simply that we are doing enough already. True, the latest Crime

The Snooper’s charter threatens Britain’s burgeoning technology boom

Ministers are still mulling how they can collect communications data, and while quite rightly the debate about the ‘Snooper’s Charter’ centres on the threat to individual privacy, opponents also forget the threat such legislation would post for the UK’s economic recovery. With good reason this Government has prided itself on being the most technologically friendly

David Cameron is right to be relaxed about tonight’s EU vote

It simply isn’t correct to claim that the Conservative Party is at odds over a possible vote on legislation paving the way for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union. The Prime Minister has adopted a relaxed attitude to both the upcoming amendment to the Queen’s Speech and the Draft EU Referendum Bill