Congratulations to David Miliband on his appointment to head up the ACEVO commission on youth unemployment. He is exactly the right man for the job and may be able to effect more genuine change than he could have done as leader of the Labour Party. A good starting point would be Polly Toynbee’s column in
Iain Duncan Smith has given a detailed interview with the Spectator and the full-length version is online. Right now, beyond David Cameron and George Osborne, he has the most important job in government. There is some really interesting and innovative stuff here despite the unnecessary British jobs for British workers dog-whistle politics. IDS is right
I had a call from a researcher on the Jeremy Vine show this week to ask me to go on and talk about the riots. Would I be prepared to say that shopkeepers should not be closing their shutters early and that we should all be reclaiming the streets. I had a vision of being
Last Friday I wrote a post for this blog suggesting we had a problem with our young people. Well we do now. I remember talking to Camila Batmanghelidjh of Kids Company in the aftermath of the killing of Damilola Taylor and she said she was concerned that some children in her project had become “suicidally
As the early 1980s is recreated before our eyes, we now have a fully-fledged retro riot. Various Conservative commentators have been tweeting and blogging away about this today, including Nile Gardiner on the Telegraph blog and Iain Dale. They are right to warn against a knee-jerk reaction to the situation in Tottenham today. Clearly these
One of the most irritating aspects of modern journalism is the tendency to make spurious connections between unconnected phenomena. The non-existent links between Saddam’s Iraq and al-Qaeda is the most obvious and pernicious of these. Many conspiracy theories originate from making connections where none exist. So when I tell you I am about to connect
The excuse deployed by the police to explain their failure thoroughly to investigate the News of the World hacking allegations is quite persuasive: national security was a priority, and this seemed like something of a sideshow. During the first decade of 21st century, police officers found a new — and sometimes glamorous — role for
How long will it take for journalism to recover from what has been done in its name by the News of the World? It’s possible to argue that our profession or trade, or whatever you want to call it, will regroup and find new ways of holding the powerful, the rich and the famous to
There’s always something satisfying about appearing in a new publication and I made my debut in the Stage, the publication of the theatre industry this week. I was horrified to see that Kevin Spacey’s Old Vic had been advertising for unpaid interns. Oddly, this is something that liberal Britain seems happy with. (Sometimes the right
I have been surprised by some of the reaction to the news that the Independent’s star columnist and interviewer Johann Hari had played fast and loose with the conventions of journalism. It’s very difficult to defend what he did. I always think it’s a little unseemly for journalists to pass judgement on their fellow hacks.
With the publication of the latest unemployment figures, the government allowed itself a little moment of smugness as the figures appeared to be going in the right direction. Coalition ministers claimed credit for this just days after they introduced the new Work Programme: a cheeky if understandable piece of political chicanery. But David Cameron cannot
Those looking for further evidence of my drift to the right might wish to look at my latest post on authoritarian Islam for the new website Conservative Voices. As the great man said: ‘The Left is always looking for traitors and the Right is always looking for converts’.
I have been accused this week of conducting a witchhunt against London Citizens/Citizens UK, the “citizens organisers” and darlings of the political class. It seems some people are quite content that this liberal institution has a trustee who supports Hamas. They may also turn a blind eye to concerns raised by End Child Detention Now
It is now nearly five years since I wrote When Progressives Treat with Reactionaries for the think tank Policy Exchange. It was a plea for sanity in the debate on radical Islam, which had become poisoned by the belief in parts of government that Islamists of the Muslim Council of Britain were the genuine representative
It’s always unpleasant to be libelled and particularly nasty to be defamed by supporters of totalitarian Islam. Journalists really shouldn’t sue, but sometimes it can get very frustrating, especially when the libel is obviously malign and ill informed. Over the past couple of weeks I have been examining the close relationship between London Citizens, the
On Tuesday, I presented the Orwell Prize for journalism to brave Jenni Russell, who used the occasion to go public on her battle against cancer. She had not been well enough to apply for the award herself, but her son had selected her best articles and she was a worthy winner. Here’s the official tribute
There was a really interesting piece in the Observer business section this weekend balancing up the value of degrees and apprenticeships. “A perception prevails, particularly among middle-class families, that choosing a path other than university is a mark of failure, a fact that concerns both employers and advocates for vocational education such as City &
Nick Clegg’s time as the country’s darling was always likely to be fleeting. But poor Vince Cable was consistently feted as the man who got it right on the economy. But he has looked miserable from the moment he entered government. Why is this? I can’t be the only politico to have heard Vince say
David Cameron has been gracious in victory and Nick Clegg has been dignified in defeat, while Ed Miliband has felt like something of a bit-part player. The only real explanation of the drubbing of the Lib Dems is that their own voters have deserted them. The real story of election night is that the Tory
It couldn’t have been a more extraordinary bank holiday for news and spectacle. But now the fuss is beginning to die down it’s possible to compare and contrast the hysteria that greeted the Royal Wedding and the death of Osama bin Laden. There has been a certain amount of squeamishness about the “frat boy” reaction
