It is often claimed that the Lords, unencumbered by the rivalries and ambitions of the Commons, have a greater affinity with ordinary people than MPs. Certainly, this is the spin which opponents of the Welfare Reform Bill would like to put on its rocky passage through the upper house, where the government narrowly avoided a
Home Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, commenting on the public sector wage freeze, said: ‘I can’t promise to reverse that now.’ Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, said it was ‘absolutely right’ to place employment before pay rises. But Len McCluskey of the Unite union called it a ‘Blairite coup’ and Mark Serwotka of the Public
The reason why shadow chancellor Balls is such a liability is that he is incapable of understanding how other people feel. That may not matter in relation to the opposition — they do not care how he feels either — but it does, for what one would have thought were fairly obvious reasons, when he
Condemned A Norfolk woman was given the honour of pressing a button to demolish a tower at the Campbells soup factory where her father was scalded to death in 1995. Here are some other buildings demolished to expunge bad memories: — 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester, former home of Fred and Rose West — 5 College
Full speed ahead Sir: William Astor (‘Signal failure’, 14 January) writes that High Speed 2 is supported only by ‘northern Labour MPs who relish the thought of the beauty of the Chilterns being destroyed’. He seems to have missed the MPs from across the House of Commons who joined forces this week to welcome the
