All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Most councils publish a newspaper – usually delivered to your door and instantly discarded. The government has decided that these freesheets are both a waste of public money and detrimental to local newspapers competing in the open market; the accusation that they are predominantly used for propaganda purposes has also been made. Labour opposed the
There is one particular question swirling around when it comes to Libya: how brittle is the regime and its military arm? An answer is now slowly emerging, and one that looks like good news for the rebels – if also yet more proof of Gaddafi’s depravity. Reuters is running a story about refugees inside Libya,
How much are we in for? That is the question that springs most readily to mind after Portugal’s request for fiscal aid from the EU. And, sadly, the answer is difficult to work out. The figures being spread around range from £3 billion to £6 billion, with valuations in between. But, really, it depends on
There is extraordinary news today, suggesting that the Academies revolution is continuing apace. What was a trickle under the Labour years is turning into a flood. This time last year just 1 in 16 state secondaries had ‘Academy’ status: that is, operationally independent within the state sector. Now, it is 1 in 6. By Christmas,
Nick Clegg’s interview with Jemima Khan (née Goldsmith), in which he admits to crying regularly to music, is already coming in for predictable mockery. But the point that Clegg makes about how his job is affecting his kids is worth dwelling on. Clegg is not the only coalition minister to fret about this. Sarah
Judge Richard Goldstone has changed his mind. Writing in the Washington Post, he admits that his “fact-finding mission had no evidence” for key allegations made in the UN report into the Gaza war that bears his name, including the claim that Israel intentionally targeted civilians “as a matter of policy.” Wow! That’s the only possible
With all the talk about social mobility, it was inevitable that those who believe grammar schools were the doorway to opportunity would wade into the debate. The most prominent of these interventions came yesterday from David Davis, who said: “The hard data shows that the post-war improvement in social mobility, and its subsequent decline, coincided exactly
Reassurance — that’s what the happy trio of David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Andrew Lansley sought to emit during their NHS event earlier. And reassurance not just about where the coalition is taking the health service (although there was plenty of that), but also about the “listening exercise” they are engaging in now. Although all
David Cameron is determined to get away from the idea of an annual Cabinet cull. He has repeatedly told friends that he doesn’t want to reshuffle the Cabinet until March 2012. But The Times, the most pro-coalition paper, today uses its leader column (£) to call on Cameron to reshuffle straight after the May elections.
Ahead of this morning’s Cameron, Clegg, Lansley event on the NHS, it is worth reminding ourselves of what Nick Clegg was saying about these reforms back at the start of the year. On January 23rd, he went on the Andrew Marr show and had this exchange: ‘ANDREW MARR: Huge change to the NHS just coming
The Guardian’s political editor, Michael White, has been writing about the possibility of there being a British version of the American’s Tea Party. He says: “Potential leaders? Motormouth red-top columnists such as Jon Gaunt, Rod Liddle and Richard Littlejohn are routinely touted……..” Are we? Excellent. I think I’d make a wonderful leader of a British
Lockerbie is back in vogue. The Telegraph reports that Mi5 has ‘conclusive evidence’ that Moussa Koussa was ‘directing operational and intelligence gathering activities against Libyan dissidents’ and organising support for terror groups. Koussa is expected to meet with Scottish prosecutors later this week to discuss the Lockerbie bombing. Also, the Libyan rebels have pledged to
The birds chirruping in the sunlight clearly didn’t get Ed Balls’s memo. Otherwise they’d know that today is “Black Wednesday,” the day when the coalition’s tax and benefit policies swoop in to leave the average household some £200 a year worse off. This is the message that the shadow chancellor is broadcasting this morning, be
Get your guide to body language out for tomorrow morning Cameron, Clegg and Lansley will be doing a joint event on NHS reforms. The three men all have subtly different messages to get across and there are concerns in Tory circle that Clegg will use the occasion to present himself as the defender of the
For the last fortnight, I’ve been doing an internship at The Spectator. And having seen the furore over Nick Clegg’s announcement today, I thought I’d give CoffeeHousers my take. Until I was 22, I’d never heard of internships: no one at my school (Aylwin Girls’ School in Bermondsey) went on them. Most of us left
David Davis has been relatively quiet for the past couple of months, perhaps nursing a hangover after this. But he’s back making a seismic racket today, with an article on the coalition’s social mobility report for PoliticsHome. He dwells on the education side of things, and his argument amounts to this: that the government’s school
George Monbiot is undergoing an astounding and very public transformation. Last week he overcame the habit of a lifetime and fully endorsed nuclear power as a safe energy source. He went further this week, attacking the anti-nuclear movement for perpetuating lies and ignoring the consensus around scientific facts. He levels special criticism at the allegedly
The government’s new report into social mobility is, it tells us, all about “opening doors” and “breaking barriers” — but it’s probably taxing attention spans too. 89 pages of text and graphs, offset by the same pea soup shade of green that’s used for all these coalition documents. To save you from wading through it
In opposition Liam Fox boasted he could cut the Ministry of Defence by 25% without there being any impact on “frontline” troops. The confirmation that there will be 17,000 fewer men and women in uniform by this parliament’s end mocks that promise. To govern is to choose, for sure, but the scale of these cuts
Ed Miliband’s hand of friendship has to be one of the shakiest body parts in British politics. Sometimes it’s extended to the Lib Dems, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s extended to Nick Clegg, sometimes it’s not. Sure, the Labour leader does appear to have finally settled on a position: that he will only shake the
The most important planks of the coalition’s social mobility strategy are its education and welfare reforms. Raising the standards of state education in this country will give far more children a chance to get on in life. While reducing the number of children brought up in workless households will, hopefully, halt the development of a
Tucked away in an old building, where few people knows of its existence, lives one of the most important parliamentary creatures – the House of Lords European Union Committee. Often ignored because it applies analysis to a debate where loudness is the main currency, it has produced a new report on the Single Market. The
Grenades are seldom expected – yet Andrew Lansley knew that one was going to fall into his lap this morning. The Health Select Committee has today released its much trumpeted report on the government’s plans for NHS commissioning. In normal circumstances its dry take on an even drier subject would evade public notice. As it
The decision, announced yesterday, that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will not stand trial in New York or any other corner of the United States hardly came as a surprise. He will be tried before a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay instead. The Obama administration gave up fighting for its own policy a long time ago. Sometimes
I’m sure James is right and that the government’s NHS problems – a political difficulty that may also be a policy conundrum – ensure that the NHS will be “rewarded” with more money and the coalition will use increased funding as a defence against criticisms of its reforms. It matters little that this accepts Labour’s
A weary-looking Andrew Lansley has just finished answering MPs’ questions following his statement announcing a delay to the coalition’s NHS reforms. The statement left us none the wiser as to what is up for review in the listening exercise the coalition is about to undertake. What it did demonstrate was both Lansley’s encyclopedic knowledge of
The MoD has released its plan for redundancies. The numbers and plan were leaked at the weekend, but here are some details: 1) There will be 17,000 redundancies – 7,000 from the army and 5,000 each from navy and RAF. The first tranche will be notified by commanding officers in September 2011. 2) Some of
Crivvens, the idea of an SNP-Labour coalition refuses to die. Here’s Iain Macwhirter in the Herald: The rule seems to be that, in Scottish politics it’s easier to work constructively with parties you don’t agree with than with parties you do. Labour and the SNP now agree – independence aside – on most of the
President Obama’s speech on the intervention in Libya served to highlight a trend in US foreign policy: America no longer leads; it selectively sponsors. He avoided the idea that the US initiated the intervention in Libya. This was not accidental. Obama was rebuffed in his efforts to push prescriptions on environmental policy in Copenhagen, share
The future of the Health and Social Care Bill is a test of Craig Oliver. For months there has been a steady drip of quiet critiques of the bill; but some Liberal Democrat grandees have suddenly broken cover and burst into open dissent. David Owen and Shirley Williams have called for the bill’s implementation to
The Scottish Centre for Social Research has released its latest survey of Scottish attitudes. It confirms that SNP government at Holyrood has reduced the appetite for independence. For now it’s George Robertson 1 Tam Dalyell 0. The financial crisis has doubtless helps explain this but is not the whole explanation. No, the findings (conveniently) offer
What is going on with the government’s health reforms is highly unusual. Normally, once a bill has gone through second reading and committee stage in the Commons there are very few changes made to it. But the coalition is considering some fairly significant changes to the Health and Social Care Bill in a bid to
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
Here’s a game I often play on a Sunday afternoon. Look through the weekend’s papers and pick out people you would never ever want to meet, under any circumstances. The “Weekenders” slot in The Guardian is usually good for this. But there are plenty of gems hidden away elsewhere, such as this, from the Sunday