I had the strangest call today from an outfit called publicservice.co.uk. A rather pleasant woman, albeit with a slightly insistent phone manner, asked me for my views on work creation and the government’s policy on hard to reach &”NEETS” (horrible jargon for young people not education, employment or training). I have my views, but I
Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement to authorise more than 800 new housing units in West Bank settlements, and the condemnation which followed from British Foreign Secretary William Hague, has marked a new high-water mark in the mutual frustration felt by the two governments. The move, which followed close on the heels of the Israeli Prime Minister’s decision
It all seemed innocent enough. I even found myself in the rain at Somerset House watching the river pageant (for the kids, you understand). The street party in my road meant I met neighbours I had never spoken to. And the high-kitsch of the Diamond Jubilee concert seemed to give the world a lesson in
There was a small but important piece in the Independent this week by my former boss John Kampfner. He’s not my boss any more, so I don’t have to be nice to him. But it really was rather good. John simply pointed out that political journalism goes in cycles of hype and condemnation. Thus, just
The coverage of the appalling Rochdale grooming case has been, for the most part, well-informed and responsible. In the Times today David Aaronovitch takes on the cultural issue directly (£) and should be saluted for so doing. ‘So here are the bald facts about this specific kind of abuse. Men, many middle-aged and most of
As those of us in London face up to the prospect of the none-of-the-above election, it’s worth thinking ahead to 2015 and asking yourself if any of the major parties really deserves your vote. It’s hard to remember a time when things were quite like this. Daniel Finkelstein has a theory that the British electorate
Over the weekend I had some interesting responses to my rather flippant tweet asking if there was a government minister not under pressure at the moment. The consensus seemed to be that William Hague was still looking pretty good, with Michael Gove a close second. No one mentioned Eric Pickles, but it was interesting to
Michael Dugher is only half right when he tweets that you know the government is in trouble when it dusts down another Big Society announcement. The idea, in principle, is a good one, or at very least it is an interesting and important experiment in finding new ways of funding public services. Sir Ronald Cohen,
I have always thought Francis Maude was a rather decent chap on the moderate side of Tory politics. He has worked valiantly to drive the Big Society agenda from the Cabinet Office. He has the good hair of a classic Conservative MP of the old school. But he gave the game away when he talked
Wales have won the Grand Slam and I have grown to love rugby. Over the past weeks I have been completely captivated by the Six Nations and I don’t quite know how this has happened, because I used to hate it. I look back to those bitterly cold afternoons up on the hills above the
There is a certain poetry to the leaking of Vince Cable’s ‘vision thing’ memo and the departure from Downing Street of Steve Hilton, the very man who is supposed to have been providing the government’s vision all this time. Cable’s message to David Cameron and Nick Clegg was nothing if not forthright: ‘There is still
It has taken some time, but the media has now worked out that the government’s back-to-work reforms are a story which just keeps on giving. Under the Work Programme, vast amounts of taxpayers’ money will find its way into the pockets of the people running the new system. When these contracts were given out last
I have warned on this blog before that the reforms of the welfare-to-work system risk embedding unpaid labour into the benefits system. This week’s story about Tesco advertising for night shift workers to be paid Job Seeker’s Allowance plus expenses has rightly caused outrage now it seems that large retailers and charities are pulling out
Last week David Milband showed some real class when he presented the recommendations from his Commission on Youth Unemployment. This was a sober and intelligent review of the crisis and the government would do well to take note. He has welcomed the introduction of job subsidies under the new Youth Contract, which will come in
I was immensely proud to co-host an event at the House of Commons with Robert Halfon, the Conservative MP for Harlow, to promote apprenticeships in parliament. The workaholic Mr Halfon came up with the idea of launching a Parliamentary Academy last year after taking on an apprentice in his own office. To me it seems
Last year I travelled with the Holocaust Educational Trust to Auschwitz and the experience had a profound effect. I had been warned it would, but having been a voracious reader of Holocaust memoirs and literature, I thought I was prepared for what I would see. Others have written more eloquently on this subject. Mark Ferguson,
Until now I haven’t seen Matthew Norman as a radical figure in British journalism. But his column in the Independent this week was a genuine anti-establishment rant in the best tradition. The headline was a corker: ‘Cameron is the David Brent of welfare reform’ – clear, to-the-point and expressive of the fury of the piece
This has been a terrible week for the Labour leader – truly, bone-crunchingly awful. Inevitable comparisons have been made with the IDS era of the Tory wilderness years, but this is different because it is Labour. Conservative leaders are trophies, symbols of the best or worst the party can aspire to at any given time.
One thing you learn in life is that most people have no idea how they are perceived by others. This is particularly true in Britain, where we don’t generally feel it is polite to tell people what we think of them. Politicians and public figures therefore find themselves in the unusual position of having opinions
News of the antics of Aiden Burley and his friends at a Nazi-themed stag party in France made me think about the strange ways some Tories like to have fun. When I was at university in the mid-1980s the Tories were in their pomp. My time at Cambridge was sandwiched between the two Thatcher-era landslides
