Society

We are meant to be living in a multi-polar world, one where US power is waning, and where countries reject the prying interference of the West. Except, erm, we aren’t. Today’s world looks exactly as it did yesterday. First, many of the 20th century issues people thought would disappear – dictators, repression and democracy – remain as prevalent now as then. The Iraq War has tempered people’s appetite for humanitarian interventions without extinguishing it. The key difference seems to be that support is now minimal on the Left and still strong on the neo-con Right. Everyone is also still focused on what the US will or will not do, even

The London School of Economics once had a global reputation. The Libyan revolution wiped it away as easily as if it was mist on a window.   I cannot find precedent for the collapse in liberal and academic standards Howard Davies, the LSE’s director, presided over. The Cambridge spies met at Cambridge University, as their name suggests. They did not, however, work for Stalin with the blessing of the university’s chancellor, vice chancellor, senate and masters of its colleges. The LSE’s hierarchy sold itself to a tyrant for a handful of silver. If you doubt me, watch this video of Alia Brahimi, a research fellow at its Gaddafi-funded Global Governance

The Home Office has an ambitious police reform agenda and is overseeing challenging budget reductions, but they are also forging ahead with plans to introduce real workforce modernisation.  The serious and credible reviewer, Tom Winsor, will publish his independent report next Tuesday.   Winsor’s review will cover pay, conditions and other aspects of employment that will set the framework for a new settlement when the current 3-year pay deal expires. Expect police overtime and shift patterns to be another major focus of the review.   David Cameron himself, who once boldly described the police as “the last great unreformed public service” is firmly committed to this agenda. As a special

No one, most of all the normally genial Eric Pickles, said that reforming local government would be easy or quick. The New Local Government Network reports that the government’s plan to encourage councils to share back office functions is ‘hugely ambitious’. It says that considerable savings can be made, but it doubts that councils will meet the 40 percent target for backroom efficiencies. Savings of 20 percent are more likely, the NLGN argues. On the face of it, the NLGN is correct. Eric Pickles’s demand that councils share their functions and facilities is ambitious. At the moment, councils are struggling to meet the upfront costs of uniting geographically diverse buildings

Philip Hammond should be wary of the ladies of Cranford. The advent of the railways was met with considerable disquiet in rural England, depicted by Elizabeth Gaskell in both Cranford and North and South. High-speed rail has inspired another wave of determined conservatism in the shires. It’s a proper grassroots movement. For months now, Tory-controlled Buckinghamshire has warned the government that its councils and associations would oppose the development. Cabinet Ministers whose seats are local have supported their constituents, but the resentment is unchecked and it will damage the Conservatives to an extent. Last week, I met two lifelong Buckingham Conservatives who had torn-up their membership cards in protest at

The Libya crisis looked like it would prove the critics of the government’s Strategic Defence and Security Review right. Was it not the case that the HMS Cumberland, now seen as crucial for the evacuation of British nationals, would soon be decommissioned. And would the Harriers not prove useful in a potential intervention? Coupled with criticism that the government struggled to handle the evacuation of British nationals, it looked like the makings of a credibility-destroying theme: strategic misjudgement and tactical incompetence. But a week into the crisis, the government’s handling of the evacuation – and response to the Libyan crisis overall – looks increasingly surefooted. The UK has led the