Government

Why is this recession so cruel to the young? The unemployment figures – now up to 2.44 million – are bad enough. It’s the largest single quarterly drop since data began in 1971. But look deeper and there’s a striking disparity amongst the age groups. The under-18s – school leavers – are hit the most, with their employment numbers down 17% year-on-year. The 18-24 year olds are next worst hit. But there is actually a rise in pension-aged people returning to work. The bottom line: unemployment amongst the under-25s is a third higher than when Labour came to power. CoffeeHousers may remember how full of pious anger Gordon Brown was

Earlier, I wrote that Osborne’s speech today seemed to be a significant moment for Project Cameron.  Having attended the Demos event a few hours ago, I still think that’s the case.  Sure, there wasn’t anything particularly new in it – and the delivery didn’t quite zing – but its central point that Brown’s approach to the public finances is regressive, while spending cuts and the right reforms could deliver better services for all, is a necessary refinement of the Tory message.  Come election time, Brown is going to deploy all kinds of attacks on the “nasty Tories” and their “cuts in frontline services”, so it’s important for Cameron & Co.

As the country prepares for Peter Mandelson’s week in charge, The Mail on Sunday reports that the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell, put the kybosh on him acquiring the title of Deputy Prime Minister. O’Donnell may well have said that it was inappropriate for a peer to be deputy PM but I would have thought that Harriet Harman would also have objected. As the elected deputy leader of the Labour party, I can’t imagine she would have taken kindly to somebody else grabbing the title of deputy PM which Brown had conspicuously failed to offer her. Given all of Brown’s women trouble at the time of the mid-plot reshuffle, I

Reports that the Tories are thinking about appointing a Minister for Afghanistan raise the broader question of how they should structure their national security team. Though the Tories bang on about their idea of setting up a National Security Council, there has been precious little detail given  of how it would work, how it would be different than the Foreign and Defence Policy Secretariat in the Cabinet Office and who would staff it. The National Security Council should be led by a minister, sitting in either the Commons or the Lords, who would also act as the National Security Adviser to the Prime Minister, supported by a National Security Director,

The New Statesman’s interview with Douglas Alexander is making waves for Alexander’s admission that he was briefed against by Brown’s inner circle following the election that never was. The treatment of Alexander, a man who had been a Brown loyalist for his entire political career and was only following instructions, was particularly brutal. But what strikes me about the interview is how Alexander, who is still Labour’s general election coordinator, did not produce a single positive domestic policy argument for re-electing Labour that the New Statesman thought was worth printing. Indeed, when the interview turns to British politics, all we hear from Alexander is negative slogans about the Tories: they

My post on immigration the other week was picked up by BBC World Service, who invited me to discuss it with Lord Maurice Peston (podcast here). I regard it as one of the most important yet least discussed issues in Britain right now, and my original also raised some typically robust comments and critiques from CoffeeHousers. My point is that Britain has a dangerously dysfunctional labour market, one so flawed that when the economy expands it sucks in foreign workers rather than tackling our unemployment. I also revealed that all net job creation in the private sector can be accounted for by immigration. Anyway, allow me to respond to some

Just when you thought Brown’s government couldn’t sink any lower, you go and read the Sunday Times’s lead story today and the comments it contains from “senior Labour figures”, including a minister.  Here are the first few paragraphs: “Senior Labour figures accused the head of the army last night of playing politics as he said that there were too few troops and helicopters in the Afghan war zone. One minister expressed fury that General Sir Richard Dannatt, the chief of the general staff, had attended a private dinner with Tory MPs and suggested an extra 2,000 troops were needed in Helmand province. The general’s remarks put him at odds with

Earlier this week, Lord Malloch Brown announced he’s resigning his brief as Africa Minister in the Foreign Office. I’m sure this will cause some rejoicing, including among my Coffee House colleagues. It was, after all, the Spectator that went to town on the former UN staffer’s grace-and-favour appartment in Admiralty Arch and the other niceties offered to him by the Prime Minister a few years ago. However, I have always found Malloch Brown professional, courteous, and insightful. He may have struggled to find his proper role immediately upon appointment – foolishly describing himself as a Richelieu-type character to David Milliband’s king – and sometimes allowed his sense of self-worth get

Kevin Maguire’s Commons Confidential column in the latest New Statesman contains this intriguing little snippet: “Home Secretary Alan Johnson was a picture of innocence during the plot to oust Brown and replace him with a former postie with the initials A J. Not so his entourage. It has come to the attention of No 10 that one of his team offered a job in Downing Street to a hackette.” After his article for the Indy earlier this week – and his fizzy performance in Manchester yesterday (covered by John Rentoul as part of his AJ4PM series) – you suspect Johnson is being a little more active than the Dear Leader

There was great excitement here in Old Queen Street when Lord Carlile, the Government’s own adviser on anti-terror law, announced that Alan Johnson can and should help poor Gary McKinnon. McKinnon is the computer nerd who hacked into the Pentagon looking for evidence of UFOs, but who is soon to be extradited and tried as a terrorist in America. Lord Carlile – not usually a dovish man – thinks a great injustice is being done (Mckinnon might get 70 years in a ‘supermax’ prison) and has said that the Home Secretary should prevent it. So we called the Home Office to find out when Alan Johnson was planning to act.