Society

Thursday

David Blackburn

In the service of others

David Cameron’s Big Society re-launch continues after his American interlude. Today, he will introduce the national citizens’ service for 16 year olds, which was famously backed by Michael Caine during the election campaign. There is no military element to this national service; the aim is to unite different communities, ages and classes. As a leader in the Times puts it: ‘The bold aim is to turn a summer of potential drift and disaffection into one of purpose for youths from different backgrounds, working together to help people worse off than themselves, under the wing of various charities and social enterprises; and thereby, perhaps, to lay the ground for a less

Matthew Sinclair

Meeting the cost of welfare reform

As far back as last September, Iain Martin wrote that Iain Duncan Smith’s plans to reform the welfare system were going to run into trouble over cost: ‘But there is no way these proposals, as drafted, will be implemented by a Conservative government, for one simple reason: they carry an estimated up-front increased cost of £3.6bn. A Treasury and Tory Chancellor desperate to find massive savings quickly will never nod that through even if advocates of these proposals promise vast “long-term” savings. Officials will simply say: how many times have we heard such talk before?’ It would be a real tragedy if the political will built up to take serious

Wednesday

David Blackburn

Another one in the eye for Vince

I feel for Vince Cable, who has morphed from Sage to Crank in a matter of weeks. Imagining himself as the scourge of the tuition fee, Cable floated the idea of a graduate tax recently. This pre-empted the Browne report into university funding and disregarded the coalition agreement, which states that all questions would be deferred until the Browne report’s publication. It was, in other words, posturing. The BBC reports what has been rumoured in Whitehall: the government is not giving serious consideration to a graduate tax, which would have incurred enormous upfront costs. Politically, the Liberal Democrats must abolish tuition fees, or at least tame their impact on the

David Blackburn

Howard versus Clarke

Michael Howard appeared on today’s Daily Politics and laid into Ken Clarke’s ‘caricature’ of a policy to reduce prison places. There is, Howard argues and John Denham supported him, a correlation between increasing the number of those incarcerated and a fall in crime. In other words, prison still works. Howard criticised Clarke’s ‘rather foolish’ denial of that link. Howard echoes the Spectator’s editorial line that early release endangers society, and that it costs less in real terms to keep criminals in prison. Howard’s off-message critique is the most total I have yet seen, particularly on the statistical case against the government’s position. It is significant that it came from a

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Clegg’s debut

John Bercow will need to be in good voice today. For this is the first time that Nick Clegg has stood in for David Cameron at PMQs and he is bound to get an almighty barracking from the Labour side. At the moment, Labour MPs seem to reserve nearly all their disdain and anger for the Lib Dems. Nick Clegg’s appearances at the Despatch Box are a cue for Labour MPs to shout ‘traitor’ and jeer at him repeatedly. Jack Straw, the wiliest of politicians, is bound to try and make today an uncomfortable occasion for Clegg. They’ll be three things I’ll be watching for today. First, how the Lib

David Blackburn

The RAF is in danger of being destroyed on the ground

Liam Fox is anticipating the Strategic Defence Review, preparing the services for what will be extremely bad news. Britain will not engage in large scale operations in the immediate future. The Telegraph reports that officials intend to reduce the number of strike aircraft, warships and tanks. Future strategic emphasis will be on maximising firepower and range and minimising direct and associated costs. The service arms have mobilised their writers to prepare a defence. The Times have hosted a set-to between Air-Vice Marshall Tony Mason and Major General Julian Thompson. Mason’s argument is simple: warfare is determined by air superiority. He writes: ‘Since Dunkirk, British Armed Forces have usually fought beneath

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Almost a whitewash

A powerful editorial in New Scientist about Muir Russell’s report into those emails leaked from East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit. It does not quite call Russell’s publication a whitewash, but comes fairly close. Its main point of contention is that there have been three inquiries into the Climategate farrago and “incredibly, none looked at the quality of the science itself.” Russell hammered CRU for its secrecy but upheld the integrity of the researchers there. However, in failing to examine the quality of the science, the editorial continues:  “How can we know whether CRU researchers were properly exercising their judgment? Without dipping his toes into the science how could Russell tell

Tuesday

David Blackburn

The small society

No one, especially me, has comprehended the Big Society in its entirety. As far as I can gather, the state will shed some of its bureaucratic armour, but there is no clue as to where it will be dispensed. Writing in today’s Times, Rory Stewart, whose constituency contains one of the ‘Vanguard Communities; attempts a definition. He writes: ‘It is about decentralisation, but without giving more power to county councils. It is not necessarily about charities or even the private sector. It’s about collective action.’ Collective action already exists in Britain. People group together to re-paint the Village Hall; they organise a school run; they teach knitting to the inmates

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The End of the Honeymoon?

A good deal of excitement on the left today as YouGov’s polling suggests the coalition’s “honeymoon” has ended. The government’s approval rating is now just +4 (41% approve of its performance, 37% disapprove). I don’t know why anyone should be surprised by this. Not only was the budget astringent, the coalition has launched any number of large-scale reorganisations of fundamental services including, of course, education and the NHS. So, in addition to the economy – and government rhetoric has tended to stress the short to medium term ghastliness of everything – there’s great uncertainty about schools and hospitals. In fact one could argue that the government is trying to do

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Surely 12 year olds can <em>care</em> for themselves?

A couple of weeks back I wrote a piece for the magazine about the debate over the Schonrocks, a family living in south London who allowed their two children – aged five and eight years – to cycle to school unaccompanied. The school had told them to desist from this practice because it was dangerous. It seemed to me commendable of them. Now, in the papers, we read of a child who was left behind at a service station whilst on holiday with his mum and dad in Switzerland. Shock horror. The little mite spent two hours “being cared for” by service station staff before his parents remembered that they

Monday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Mahmood seeks answers

Khalid Mahmood, the Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Bar, has put down a significant question for Theresa May: ‘Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent reports she has received on (a) investigations undertaken by members of the US Congress and (b) materials held by the US Department of Justice on the attendance of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab at any events addressed by Anwar al-Awlaki at North London Central Mosque since 2005; and what assessment her Department has made of the role of the North London Central Mosque in deradicalisation in the content of her Department’s review of each strand of

David Blackburn

Gove kills two birds with one stone

Michael Gove may be a pip-squeak but he has an imperious voice and that formidable quality of both sounding and being enormously clever. With a faint note of arrogance, he bossed a potentially difficult interview on the Today programme this morning. Tired of defending himself against Ed Balls’ dishonest maxim that what’s good for bureaucratic process is good for children, Gove changed tactics. He described his bill as a ‘permissive piece of legislation’ and linked it directly to the Blair-Adonis Academy reforms, which were frustrated by a regressive coalition wedded to the educational status quo. Gove emphasised that the cuts to the school building fund (drawn up by Balls in

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A help or a hindrance?

The Washington Post today publishes the first part of its series on the intelligence bureaucracy that has grown up in the United States since 9/11. The Post has been working on this report for two years and what it reveals is not pretty. There are more than 1,200 government organisations working in this area and, predictably, they don’t talk to each other. There are 51 federal organisations and military commands studying terrorist financing alone, with all the predictable problems of overlap.    Retired Army Lt Gen John R. Vines who conducted an assessment of the Pentagon’s most sensitive programme sums up the problem neatly: “I’m not aware of any agency

The Spectator

CoffeeHousers’ Wall, 19 July – 26 July

Welcome to the latest CoffeeHousers’ Wall. For those who haven’t come across the Wall before, it’s a post we put up each Monday, on which – providing your writing isn’t libellous, crammed with swearing, or offensive to common decency – you’ll be able to say whatever you like in the comments section. There is no topic, so there’s no need to stay ‘on topic’ – which means you’ll be able to debate with each other more freely and extensively. There’s also no constraint on the length of what you write – so, in effect, you can become Coffee House bloggers. Anything’s fair game – from political stories in your local

David Blackburn

The age of philanthropy

Cameron’s Big Society Blitzkreig is underway, and he says that he hopes to ‘foster a new culture of voluntarism, of philanthropy and social action’. So far so good. As Fraser noted yesterday, there is a long and generous history of philanthropy in Britain; success will depend on the government transforming a culture of private charity into one of community charity. Collective action is hard to instil, not least when money is tight. Some projects and schemes will be favoured over others and many people will be disappointed. Cameron hoped to lessen financial shortfalls by raiding dormant bank accounts. It’s a brilliant idea in theory, but the FT sounds a note

David Blackburn

The return of the Big Society

It’s back. David Cameron is re-launching the Big Society, the least captivating idea in British politics. There is nothing wrong with the central idea: the grand plan to decentralise power to local communities. Terminology was a problem. The Big Society sounded infantile and patronising. The detail was lost in a morass of wonkery. The overall vision was contradictory: ‘people power’ was the end, community organisers were the means. The authors of the Big Society erroneously assumed that people care about community. But community is a turn-off for many, and the Big Society sounded like one enormous management meeting from which there is no escape. From Westmoreland to Richmond-upon-Thames, voters hated

Sunday

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Squatters’ rights

Some new public conveniences at a shopping centre in Rochdale will include two hole-in-the-ground squat toilets in order to make the area’s Asian population feel more at home. These innovations are apparently known as “Nile pans”, although I must say I have never heard them called this. I’ve heard them called “holes in the ground”, though. A local council spokesman said that this installation proved that the people of Greater Manchester were more “cosmopolitan” than anywhere else in the country – but I think the scheme is not nearly “cosmopolitan” enough. To get the true Asian toilet experience the council should provide each cubicle with swarms of specially-bred flies and

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Mitchell’s right move

Andrew Mitchell’s decision to prioritise Afghanistan in the development budget is sensible. It demonstrates that Mitchell, a former soldier, understands that the Britain’s overseas aid needs to be in support of Britain’s foreign policy objectives. The Observer reports that Mitchell will announce a 40 percent increase in the Afghan aid budget. This will be paid for both by the increase in development spending and by reducing aid to countries in Eastern Europe and Latin America. I also understand that Mitchell has been emphasising to his department that it needs to work better with the military. For too long, there has been a culture at DFID that has seen it as

Saturday

Melissa Kite

Me, myself and I

‘It’s not all about you, you know.’ Where did this nonsensical phrase come from and how did it enter into common parlance? I had a boyfriend who used to say it regularly, with particular vigour during times of crisis. I would arrive back from a trip to the Middle East bursting to tell him about how I’d passed out on a Hercules jet in 120 degree heat and been revived by the head of the British army and he would huff and puff and say, ‘It’s not all about you, you know.’ I had a similar run-in with a girlfriend recently. She rang up to ask whether I would like

Jeremy Clarke

Spirit of reconciliation

I was lolling in a deckchair with a vanilla ice cream, watching the literary types in their interesting shoes pass to and fro along the cobbled path, when, 30 yards away, across the grassy courtyard, Martin Amis appeared in a doorway and lit up. I recognised the face instantly. I watched him carefully. He must have been gasping. How many seconds, roughly, do ordinary smokers inhale for at each visit? One second? Two? With Martin Amis I counted up to five. He sucked the guts right out of his fag in about four goes. The last time I saw anyone attacking a cigarette with as much boggle-eyed addiction was on