Society

Another snippet of good news after yesterday’s inflation stats. Unemployment has fallen, and now stands at 2.61 million. It’s not a big fall, to be sure — down just 51,000 on the previous quarter (within the survey’s margin of error) — and there are still 185,000 more unemployed people than this time last year. But it is, as Chris Grayling told Sky News this morning, ‘a step in the right direction’. The fall is thanks to pretty strong growth in the private sector, where 205,000 jobs were added between December and March. In fact, private sector employment is now just 133,000 off its pre-recession peak. Jobs are being shed in

Ahead of The Spectator’s schools revolution symposium next Tuesday (click here for details and tickets) we are running a series of articles about school reform. The below is a Swedish take on Swedish reform. Is the Swedish model of profit-making schools going wrong? Michael Gove’s critics have started to say so, and British teachers unions warn that it has been shown to lead to all manner of ills — social segregation, deteriorating school results and simply bad schools — and that it would be a calamity for Britain to copy a failing model. We Swedes listen to the British debate with fascination. The issue of profit-seeking schools was truly divisive

PMQs today wasn’t the usual bun fight. With Cameron and Clegg away, it was missing its usual bite. Instead, Harman and Hague started off with some very statesman-like comments on Burma. Even when discussion moved to the NHS, things didn’t really heat up. Hague had some good jokes at Ed Balls’s expense but Balls wasn’t there to heckle back.  The laid-back atmosphere got to a couple of the questioners. Simon Hughes, the Lib Dem deputy leader, called Hague the ‘Deputy Prime Minister’ before catching himself. Luciana Berger went one better, addressing Hague as Prime Minister. One possible moment of tension came when Peter Bone called on Hague to ‘divorce the

The notorious splitters in the Free Presbyterian Church are at it again. The Wee Wee Frees (who should not be confused with the more numerous Wee Frees) warn that Scottish independence is a risky ploy since the Act of Union copper-bottomed the protestant faith and any change to that, however well-intentioned, risks wrath and much else besides. It could be ‘a provocation to God’, no less. It might be, you know. Though the SNP has devoted much time and effort to wooing the Catholic hierarchy, the fact remains that modern Scottish nationalism is an almost exclusively secular business. Indeed one could go further and suggest that though the nationalist revival

The European Union has been handing out grants to environmentalist groups since 1997. New research by the Taxpayers’ Alliance today shows just how much the different groups have received. The European Environmental Bureau, an umbrella group for a number of the others who are funded directly, has received nearly €11 million. More familiar names funded under the LIFE+ programme include Friends of the Earth Europe, which has received over €7m million, and the European Policy Office of the World Wildlife Fund, which has received nearly €8 million. The European Union isn’t the only government to hand taxpayers’ money over to the environmentalists. But they are particularly shameless. When DEFRA funds

‘I was sceptical [about civil service reform] until I read that unreadable column.’ This was the response of a Westminster type who I spoke to earlier about Francis Maude and Sir Bob Kerslake’s joint article on civil service reform in today’s Telegraph. Having re-read the jargon-ridden piece, I see what he means. Take this passage: ‘The Civil Service has to have a culture which is pacier, more innovative, less hierarchical and focused on outcomes not process. We also need sharper accountability, in particular from permanent secretaries and those leading major projects, and we need more digital services, better data and management information and for policy and implementation to be linked