The Home Office has radical plans, but they won’t come to much, says Alasdair Palmer. Less money and fewer paid officers will inevitably mean more crime Last month when Theresa May, the Home Secretary, launched the coalition’s consultation document on the police, ‘reconnecting police with the people’, she said it would ‘herald the most radical
I’m beginning to wonder where I can go this summer to get away from Jonathan Powell. Suddenly Tony Blair’s curly-haired former chief of staff is everywhere, bursting out of newspapers and Radio 4 programmes, relentlessly repeating the message that it’s good to talk to terrorists. Or, to be more specific, that it was jolly good
Under guidelines introduced by the last government, dis-abled people are now allowed to decide the kind of services they want from local authorities. This is called ‘empowerment’ and ‘devolving services to people in the front line’, and it is a good thing, apparently. But it has had certain unexpected consequences. Bizarrely, it seems that in
The process of forgetting ‘Bush’s war’ has already begun, says Andrew J. Bacevich. But if President Obama fails to learn from that disaster, he’ll pay the price in Afghanistan What is it about the war in Iraq that induces officials to lie, dissemble, prevaricate, and otherwise exert themselves to dodge the truth? Now even Barack
Wayne Hemingway — de-signer, trendsetter and fashion watchdog — was interviewed by the Telegraph before his festival ‘Vintage at Goodwood’ took place over the weekend. He made two claims that inspired me, not a natural festival-goer, to dial the booking hotline: ‘There will be attendants for each toilet so that they are as clean on
The road to hell, they say, is paved with good intentions. And so was the road to Eric. Eric is our cat. My wife and I rescued him from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home in July 2008: two wide-eyed ‘parents’, excited about giving a young life a fresh start. Two years on, I want him
