Society

By some quirk of planning, Channel 4 and BBC Two ended up showing two very similar programmes last night about the mess of the assessments that determine whether a sick or disabled person is able to work. The most haunting of the stories told last night was Panorama’s case study of a man who had died of heart failure while contesting a decision declaring him fit to work. The assessor who had initially referred Stephen Hill to a doctor for urgent medical attention was the same person who paradoxically declared him fit to work. A potted history of incapacity benefit is not kind to either Labour or the Conservative party.

London is quieter than usual this week in spite of the Olympics, with many commuters staying at home or fleeing the country while the Games take place. That’s a good thing for the transport system – clearly Justine Greening and Francis Maude’s ‘remoding’ advice had its desired effect – but retailers and tourist attractions are reporting a lower-than-usual footfall as a result. The Financial Times reports that the 100,000 Olympic visitors lags behind the 300,000 typically expected in the capital, with the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions pointing to a drop of up to 35 per cent in tourists. Ministers will be hoping the ghost town effect won’t impact negatively

This is not a great time to be a tabloid journalist. It is an even worse time to be an out-of-work tabloid journalist. Few tears are shed when red-top hacks lose their jobs and they are consigned to a discard pile that includes unemployed bankers and politicians. This is why the case of Matt Nixson is so unusual. When the phone hacking scandal broke, Nixson had just moved from the News of the World, where he was features editor, to take the same job on the Sun. He was given the push last July amid a flurry of allegations about alleged payments to police and prison officers (Nixson was alleged

‘Desperate Treasury to water down planning laws,’ blasts the Telegraph today, making it quite clear that it’ll oppose any effort by the government to return to planning reform. Those Tories who were uncomfortable with the original proposals are also making clear that they haven’t changed their position. The new national planning policy framework was announced this spring. Those who helped craft this compromise are privately stressing that it is simply too early to tell whether further changes are needed. But I still think there is a good chance that the Treasury will push for more planning reform this autumn. First, it is something that it genuinely believes would help the

Today’s papers are stuffed full of Olympic reportage rather than analysis of the GDP figures. But down in the bowels of Whitehall, a list of policy options to try and boost economic growth are being drawn up. Decisions on what to do will be taken after the Olympics but I understand that further planning reform is currently on the list. The coalition announced a new national policy planning framework in the Spring. But it was not as radical as George Osborne and the Treasury wanted it to be: opposition from heritage groups like the National Trust and various environmental organisations led to it being watered down. With the economy shrinking

Remember that great scandal that rocked the Olympics, G4S? That pre-Games row has been completely eclipsed, at least for now, by the rows and rows of empty seats at supposedly sell-out Olympic venues. It turns out that those seats, often situated below the masses of people who shelled out a pretty penny for their own seats, belong to sponsors, who have either failed to fill them, or who have given the tickets to people who just haven’t turned up. Locog has launched an investigation, which it needs to conclude and find a solution to the problem as soon as possible. Those forlorn rows of seats are giving out the wrong