Politics

It’s hang-a-banker season, so David Cameron had an open goal: Sir James Crosby, the former HBOS chief who allegedly sacked a whistle-blower, and who has today resigned his role at the FSA. The Labour whips planted a question with Khalid Mahmood about Crosby, as if to shoot the Tory fox. “They can even plant questions at short notice,” started Cameron, witheringly. Brown kicked it into the long grass, saying an investigation into banking “rejulation” as he pronounced it – after last week’s “rec-depression” there is something of the George W about Brown. He even seemed to struggle over KPMG and later accused the Tories of “setting their faze (sic) against ordinary families”, as well

Good to see Will Hutton writing about Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration in today’s Observer. I am convinced that the government needs to start looking at some seriously imaginative work creation schemes. Not everyone will be capable of putting in roof insulation or laying broadband cables. The WPA produced a generation of artists, writers and actors who benefitted from state support in the 1930s. This may smack of socialism but these are desperate times, and who knows what crazy ideas will be needed to bring us through this recession? Since I wrote about my idea for a New Deal of the Mind for the 21st century, I have been contacted by

A long, long time ago, when it was still quite unlikely that the Conservatives would form the next government, George Osborne made a promise that, at the time, I thought he’d come to regret. He said a Tory administration would publish online every item of government expenditure over £25,000 – an idea from the Taxpayers’ Alliance. Even they, I suspect, couldn’t quite believe Osborne had taken such a low threshold rather than, say, £50k. Is this really doable? Well, a CoffeeHouser recently got in touch about this fantastic site from Missouri, where Missourians can track what their tax dollars are being spent on. This kind of accountability will have a

I’m at a seminar with David Cameron and Michael Gove on education reform, a favourite subject of ours here in Coffee House. Cameron’s pledge was unequivocal: “A great education reform bill will be a very big part of the first months of a Conservative government”. There are about two dozen people here to discuss what that will mean, a few Swedes, and many good points. Cameron stayed for about half an hour, yet even in that time some fascinating views were expressed. Two main themes: what Cameron is planning, and why it may not work.  Here are some of the points I’ve jotted down: 1. Gove says that in countries

So how significant was Gordon Brown’s claim in PMQs that the world is in a “depression?” Those accustomed to his word-mangling wrote it off as another verbal slip. But as Dizzy points out, the world’s press were less sanguine. As a result No10 has spent much of the day trying to explain that we have a Prime Minister who mangles his words. And perhaps his slip was Freudian because it fits a trend. The other day, Stephen Timms, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, told the Commons:  “Today, we are in a recession—the first to hit the UK since the early 1990s and face some of the harshest economic conditions