Society

Hardly a day goes by without more bad news on youth unemployment. The latest figures on NEETs (a horrible de-humanising term for school leavers who are not in education, employment or training) show that the numbers rose between 2010 and 2011 to over eight per cent. The release of these statistics coincided with new polling which showed a near-complete collapse of support for the government among young people. Does this government hate young people? Probably not. Does it belatedly realise it has a massive problem with youth unemployment? Yes it does. The Youth Contract was introduced by Nick Clegg because he and those around him recognised that the Work Programme

Has the world become one huge ball of anger? As a follow-up to his book A Bee in the Mouth, Pete Wood examines how ostentatious rage — once the preserve of Americans — is now spreading to Europe and taking over the world in this week’s cover feature. In our latest View from 22 podcast, Freddy Gray and Fraser Nelson discuss this growing anger, much of it resonating from technology: ‘If you look at internet commenters or trolls, you can see the natural human default position when in front of technology is to be as angry as possible. But only if you are anonymous, the internet has given the cloak

A speech earlier this week by unmasked-spy Jonathan Evans has put the threat of cybercrime back into the national consciousness. The MI5 director general spoke at Mansion House earlier in the week to warn of ‘real damage’ caused online — highlighting one London business which suffered a £800 million loss following an attack. He stressed the need to introduce snooping powers: ‘It would be extraordinary and self-defeating if terrorists and criminals were able to adopt new technologies in order to facilitate their activities while the law enforcement and security agencies were not permitted to keep pace with those same technological changes,’ he said. In tomorrow’s magazine, we have a special

As Isabel reported earlier, today’s public finance statistics contained a double dose of bad news for George Osborne. Not only did borrowing in May come in higher than expected at £17.9 billion — £2.7 billion higher than May last year — but the borrowing figures for the last two years were revised up as well. Before today, we thought the government had borrowed £136.8 billion in 2010/11 and £124.4 billion in 2011/12. Today, we learn it was in fact £140.6 billion and £127.6 billion respectively. That means we borrowed £3.2 billion more than we thought last year, and £11.6 billion more than the £116 billion Osborne told us we would

The Greek coalition was already a pretty shaky affair but the resignation of the finance minister before he’s even taken office weakens it even further. Vassilis Rapanos, who was the Chairman of the National Bank of Greece, has been in hospital and his resignation does appear to be health related. But given that the two left-wing junior coalition partners are refusing to allow their MPs to join the new Cabinet, his inability to take up his post is a severe blow to the government. Another threat to the government’s survival is that the Germans, whose public and private positions have been surprisingly aligned throughout this crisis, are making clear that