Society

Yesterday Nick Clegg published an ‘implementation framework’ for the government’s  mental health strategy. This follows his announcement in February 2011 of a ‘No Health without Mental Health’ policy, which has not been delivered and is now fragmenting under the changes being implemented to the commissioning structure of the health service. I have a special interest in this subject. About four years ago the failure of both the NHS and the private sector to deliver moderately competent mental health treatment (to me) nearly killed me; I was very ill with complex PTSD. The cost to the state of my death (in the absence of other resources and leaving behind a family

‘Osborne’s austerity is killing the recovery.’ It’s a familiar refrain, one that we hear every time there’s bad economic news. And, sure enough, today’s terrible GDP stats have sparked yet another rendition. Take this, for example, from the TUC’s Brendan Barber: ‘The government’s austerity strategy is failing so spectacularly that is has wiped out the recovery completely.’ But very rarely is that austerity quantified. Just how big are these cuts that have supposedly crippled the British economy? Well, according to the latest ONS figures, total managed expenditure stayed roughly flat in the coalition’s first year, before being cut by just 1.8 per cent in real terms (£12.6 billion) in 2011-12. But this

Today’s GDP figures are far worse than expected. They mean that the economy has now shrunk for three consecutive quarters. The figures have destroyed the optimism created by the fact that employment and tax revenues are rising. Politically, these figures are undoubtedly a blow to the coalition. Labour is out trying to pin the blame for the continuing recession on the government’s economic policy. The Treasury is countering that the figures confirm that ‘the country has deep rooted economic problems’. In a sign, though, of how serious the GDP fall is, the government is conspicuously avoiding suggesting any external reasons for it — such as the Eurozone crisis, the weather

MPs have been amusing themselves with a rather grim game in which they guess what event will lead to Parliament being recalled in August. Over the last few days, the Euro crisis has become the definite favourite. The yield on Spanish bonds is now over 7.55 per cent – a rate that is unaffordable in anything other than the shortest of terms – the IMF is indicating it will cut off future aid to Greece, and Italy’s regional debts are about to pull back into the eye of the storm. Now, this crisis has so far being marked by a willingness by the Eurozone to do just enough to stave off the trouble for

With the South Africans slaughtering England at the Oval this weekend, Mr Steerpike was more intrigued by the goings-on off the pitch. Catching up with a super-skinny and immaculately preened Shane Warne, it would seem that the former Aussie spin-king is still very paranoid about being photographed smoking in public. Every time a small child came up demanding a photo, Warne risked setting fire to his tight Armani number by hiding his cigarette behind his back. Still, it’s an improvement on the ‘altercation’ he had in 2000 with some Kiwi lads who snapped him smoking whilst being sponsored by a nicotine patch company. No smashed cameras this time. Ed Miliband

Will we soon see Harriet Harman shopping in Iceland while wearing a shell-suit and sporting, just above the cleft of her buttocks, the tattoo of a leaping dolphin? The fragrant one has been assuring journalists of her bona fide blue collar credentials. Well, actually, in fairness, that’s not quite what she said. She merely insisted that she was ‘not as posh as Samantha Cameron’ and not ‘landed gentry’. Harriet was very expensively educated and is the niece of the 7th Earl of Longford — so gentry, then, if not quite landed. But I suppose from Harriet’s vantage point this makes her sort of normal, even if from the vantage point