Easter/Pesach is always a good time to be at the Jewish Chronicle with all the combined holidays. This year it is all the more congenial now the Pope has been so kind as to absolve the Jews of blame for the death of Christ. A time for reflection, perhaps, and a reassessment of history. I
Some political organisations chase the news agenda, others just plough their own furrow driven by the overriding morality of their cause. The work of Gerry Gable and his anti-fascist organisation Searchlight has never been fashionable, but his tireless monitoring and exposure of the extreme-right has acted as an important check on violent racism over four
I have always thought “nudge” theory was an absurd excuse for a political ideology: just another way of arguing against state intervention. But Nick Clegg has almost forced me to eat my words with his comments about free internships. The Deputy Prime Minister has probably done more in one speech to improve the conditions of
So finally the media is waking up to the reality of the government’s new welfare to work scheme. The Single Work Programme (SWP), it turns out, is a top-down contractual model dreamed up in Whitehall and imposed with no consultation with any of the people who will be providing or receiving the services. It is
Today we will hear our fate. As the head of one of hundreds of organisations waiting to hear whether we receive Arts Council funding, I have to admit these are nervous moments. My small organisation, New Deal of the Mind, was set up two years ago to help young unemployed people find jobs in the
I am struck by the confusion of left-liberal opinion over the violence at the anti-cuts demonstration in London over the weekend. Poor Lucy Annson of UK Uncut on Newsnight last night was arguing gamely that she was an artist who just wanted to set up crèches and creative happenings in the occupied shops of tax
On the morning of the March for the Alternative, a friend alerted me to the brilliantly angry Andrew Lansley rap (chorus: “the NHS is not for sale you grey-haired manky tosser”). Admittedly not the most sophisticated political polemic, but as agit-pop goes, pretty effective. Andrew Lansley’s health reforms are fast become a deep embarrassment to
David Cameron’s attack on the “enemies of enterprise”, his version of the “forces of conservatism” shows that he and those around him are still following the Blairite script, at least in terms of rhetoric. But the coalition still needs to decide what it means to be a “friend of enterprise”. There are many in the
It is nearly two decades since the murder of Ali Abuzeid, a Libyan dissident, who was cut down on the streets of London in the most brutal fashion. Having been identified as one of Colonel Gaddafi’s “stray dogs”, he was tracked down to his west London grocery, where he was living out his time in
I was invited to Somerset House on the Strand yesterday as part of the Big Society Network to watch David Cameron take questions for the best part of an hour on his pet subject. My organisation, New Deal of the Mind, has been helping deliver two welfare-to-work contracts since last year and, along with most
I began the week in Israel, where I watched Tzipi Livni make an extraordinary pitch for the premiership by representing herself as the candidate of moderation and peace. I ended it in Place de la Republique in Paris where secular Algerians had gathered to show solidarity with their countrymen demonstrating against “le pouvoir” in Algiers.
The all-too-predictable reaction to David Cameron’s speech on the importance of tackling the ideology of radical Islam has been depressing. Much of what he said in Munich should be entirely uncontroversial. For too long, Whitehall has been prepared to deal with the self-appointed gatekeepers of the Muslim community without asking serious questions about their political
We all know that journalists hunt in packs and now they are circling around the Big Society. Lord Wei’s decision to restrict his volunteering to two days a week and the announcement that Liverpool City Council has withdrawn from a “Big Society” pilot have been used to suggest that the idea is dead before it
One of the most wonderful of many wonderful aspects of the anti-totalitarian uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt is that they have nailed the myth that Islamism represents the “authentic” voice of the Arab street. This was always a pernicious nonsense and the diversity of those demonstrating across the Maghreb and Egypt has been one of
When spin doctors become the story or spokesmen need a spokesman, we know the game is up. So say Alastair Campbell and Andy Coulson, and they should know. So what happens when journalists become the story? The re-opening of the investigation into News of the World phone-hacking case has sent a chill across Fleet
The real question raised by Suzanne Moore’s latest impassioned piece for The Guardian is whether the coalition government likes young people at all, or even gave them a thought when considering their cuts-reform double whammy. Here’s the rub: “There are no jobs. The most beautifully manicured CV will not get you a minimum-wage job
The Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election now raises the distinct possibility that Labour could win the next election by default. People on the left have been wondering for some time what could unite the multiple and often contradictory tribes of the Labour Party and it looks like “Tory cuts” and “Lib-Dem broken promises” could do
I find myself asking the question again. Why did the Coalition decide to cut and reform at the same time? In terms of raw electoral politics it cannot be explained. If Cameron and Clegg had come to power promising not to tinker further with the health service and the education system, but simply to manage
Neal Lawson¹s Comment is Free blog-post/essay/manifesto on the ‘good society‘ is causing a flurry of interest in Labour circles. The head of Labour leftish pressure group Compass has been banging on about this for four years now. Borrowed ultimately from Aristotle, this re-heated utopianism is a tempting route for post-socialists tired of the compromises of
I have been arguing for a return of the Thatcher-era Enterprise Allowance scheme for two years, so I was delighted to see David Cameron announce the extension of the New Enterprise Allowance today. It always made sense to allow as many people as possible to come off the dole and set up their own businesses.
