Society

George Osborne can’t quite help himself. Today he’s continuing his Northern charm offensive, which has been impressively choreographed. He gave a speech back in June in which he said he wanted to create a ‘Northern powerhouse’, involving cities working together. Just a few weeks later, a group of councils in the North pops up with a plan to improve transport links across the region. Ta da! But the Chancellor couldn’t quite resist, when he was asked about the merits of this plan on the Today programme, making another strategic, political move, and linking welfare spending to the debate about regenerating the North. Asked what would happen if Treasury officials argued

Never before have so many waited so keenly to hear Alistair Darling speak. Tonight’s the night, however, and the fate of a nation hangs upon his words. Or so some folk would have us believe. Anyway: two hours of Alistair Darling, live on prime time television. We chosen people, we. In truth, Darling is still the Other Guy in tonight’s debate with Alex Salmond just as the Better Together campaign has been the Other Lot for most of the independence referendum campaign. What he says and what they do matter; just not nearly as much as what Alex Salmond says and what the Yes campaign does. They are the fellows

From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 8 August 1914:  ‘A good many excellent people are talking now as if the present war would mean the destruction of all civilization. That, we venture to say with all respect, is rubbish. Civilization is a far tougher plant than these good people imagine. That the war is a terrible evil, and that it will bring great sufferings, we admit as fully as can the most determined pessimist. It is, indeed, because we feel this so deeply that we have struggled hard in favour of those preparations which alone could have averted war, or, at any rate, might greatly have shortened it. Nevertheless

Ed Balls’ interview with the Telegraph today is a demonstration of what he learnt working for Gordon Brown in opposition. He is at pains to deny that he is planning any major tax rises; he doesn’t want to give the Tories the chance to claim Labour are planning a ‘tax bombshell’. He stresses that he understands that ‘People feel they are paying too much tax already’ and emphasises that he ‘would rather all tax rates were lower’. He also explicitly rules out a National Insurance increase to pay for extra spending on the NHS and a so-called ‘death tax’. Interestingly, Balls also restates his desire to limit EU immigration. He

A revolution is underway in Bromley. The average time that it takes for a leg ulcer to be treated and healed has been cut from 21 weeks to 5 weeks. The partnership that has achieved this dramatic improvement is one of 100 new public sector mutuals employing 35,000 people across England. These are employee-controlled businesses that have been spun out of the public sector, and which now account for £1.5bn worth of public services. Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, is possessed by ‘missionary fervour’ for mutuals.  He told Coffee House that they ‘improve morale and boost productivity.’ Productivity is among Maude’s foremost concerns. Public sector productivity, according to the

This week’s issue is dated 2 August. On that date 100 years ago, my great-grandfather, Norman Moore (always known as ‘NM’), went to Sunday Mass. ‘Father Ryan,’ he noted in his diary, ‘seemed hardly to have thought of the war… I told [him] I felt uncertain whether August would be a good time for a mission to Protestants but I gave him the £5 I had promised.’ Later, he and his wife Milicent went to tea with their Sussex neighbours, Lord and Lady Ashton, who ‘seemed very little informed of the gravity of the situation’. Back at home, a telegram arrived from NM’s friend, Ethel Portal: ‘Germany occupied Luxembourg Reported

Last year, Rod Liddle waded into the Mary Beard ‘misogyny’ row. You may recall that Beard appeared on Question Time, and then complained about the ‘misogynistic’ abuse she received on Twitter when people disagreed with her. ‘The misogyny here is truly gob-smacking,’ whined Prof Beard. The abuse would be ‘quite enough to put many women off appearing in public’. Nonsense, said Rod. ‘It is nothing to do with misogyny – it is just what people reach for when they, perhaps temporarily, hate someone’. Beard had, Rod said, managed to make ‘what can be politely described as an utter fool of herself’. Rod detailed the insults she suffered in consequence: some

Data released yesterday lays bare the true scale of the growing crisis in our prisons. Suicides up 69 per cent in a year. Self-harm up 27 per cent since 2010. Serious assaults up 30 per cent, and the numbers absconding up 10 per cent in a year. One in five prisons rated ‘of concern’ – double the figure 12 months before. Sharp falls in courses to help reform prisoners. Hundreds of sex offenders no longer getting the courses they need to stop them re-offending. Yet you wouldn’t have known this by what the Justice Secretary was doing yesterday. While he was off giving a speech way outside his own brief,

Sometimes I have a quiet time as a voluntary hospital visitor. But recently I’ve witnessed a lot of distress from people of all ages and types. The other week I saw an elderly Middle Eastern man bent over a bin in a ward corridor, crying almost uncontrollably. I asked him the problem and he stuttered out that he had been watching his daughter sleeping, and he believed she was going to die. I went off to find a nurse as I felt I didn’t know enough about his situation or hers to help. The nurse wouldn’t tell me anything due to patient confidentiality. I returned alone to the man and