When disabled activists converged on the House of Commons this week to protest against welfare reform, they wanted to remind the Tories of what happened the last time a reforming government tried to tackle disability benefits. That was December 1997, when Tony Blair was talking as fervently about welfare reform as Iain Duncan Smith does
Home Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader and deputy Prime Minister, said: ‘People want a louder Liberal Democrat voice in government,’ after his party did very badly in local elections and saw its proposal of the alternative vote defeated in a national referendum. Mr Clegg said there would be ‘substantial and significant changes’ to the
If Romans had had such a concept as a ‘right to life’, their jurists would have dealt with the question whether it should be possible to lose it. Given that the salus (safety/security/well-being) of the people should be the ultimate law (Cicero), one can guess what their answer would be. But whatever one’s view of
A better class of tourist — The Seychelles tourism industry received a boost with the announcement that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are to spend their honeymoon there. — Like many island states in the tropics, tourism is a huge part of the economy: just over half the country’s GDP and 70 per cent
Parting could be sweet Sir: Your leader (‘Disunited Kingdom’, 7 May) omitted to mention that if Scotland becomes independent, tens of thousands of British government jobs will be moved to England, and as many again from the private sector will invigorate our northern cities, as the financial organisations now based in Edinburgh will have to move
