Friday, July 03, 2009

Labour needs more fighters, and fewer quitters

    Paul Richards

My top three political-speeches-gone-wrong are Howard Dean's ‘I have a scream' in 2004, Kinnock's calamitous ‘We're alright' at the Sheffield Rally in 1992, and Peter Mandelson's victory speech in 2001 where he informed us he was a ‘fighter not a quitter.' read >

Friday, July 03, 2009

The dramatic rise in short-term prison sentences is leading to a crisis in our justice system

    Roma Hooper

This week marked the launch of Make Justice Work, a campaign which aims to radically change the way the media and subsequently the public, understand short-term prison sentences in England and Wales. In the last 10 years prison numbers have risen at an unprecedented rate. We have the highest prison population in Western Europe and are locking up more and more people who 12 years ago would have served non-custodial sentences. read >

The public is more sophisticated in its attitude to MPs' expenses than we are sometimes led to believe

    Sonia Sodha and Celia Hannon

Though it was barely two months ago that the Telegraph began outing MPs over duck houses and bath plugs, it's hard to remember the time before the expenses scandal rocked the political establishment. Just this week, MPs have been debating the parliamentary reform bill that will reform the system of parliamentary pay and expenses. But while political leaders have been falling over themselves to propose new reforms, the public have been left out of the debate. read >

Friday, July 03, 2009

Michael Jackson and the juvenilisation of politics

    Rupa Huq

Am still shocked about Michael Jackson's passing. Went to bed after seeing Kirsty Wark interrupted in the middle of a Newsnight story on expenses (BBC executives this time) to receive news in her ear-piece that he'd been rushed to hospital. Awoke to hear he'd snuffed it. People have compared it to Elvis dying or John Lennon's death. read >

Friday, July 03, 2009

There is a democratic deficit at the heart of our financial system

    Hannah Blythyn

The financial uncertainty that has gripped the globe in recent times has brought insecurity not just to the world markets and economy but also to staff who work in financial services in the UK. It could be suggested that finance sector employees in the UK, those who work in/for banks and building societies - both branches and offices - insurance companies, call centres and the like, have been largely overlooked in some quarters during the financial furore. read >

Thursday, July 02, 2009

To tackle youth crime the government should adopt a 'true toughness' community-centred approach

    Joe Farrington-Douglas

It was, apparently, Gordon Brown who coined Tony Blair’s famous soundbite ‘Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.’ While being politically astute, New Labour’s Janus-faced criminal justice tactics instigated a conflict in the Government’s overall approach to youth and crime that has perpetuated since. read >

Thursday, July 02, 2009

David Miliband: New Labour must remain united because it is needed now more than ever

    Jessica Asato and Mark Day

Sipping an orange juice, fitting us in before a phone call from President Abbas and a visit to Brussels for an EU council meeting, David Miliband looked relaxed in his grand room overlooking Horse Guards Parade. You wouldn't know that a few weeks earlier his decision to stay in cabinet and not follow his old friend Jame Purnell to the backbenches has been a lynchpin in the prime minister's survival. read >

Thursday, July 02, 2009

If we want to continue buying local produce we need to give more support to the people who produce them – migrant workers

    Laura Chappell

Dorset strawberries. Cheshire cheese. Welsh lamb. The sorts of things, according to recent research, that we are increasingly keen to put in our trolleys. Despite the recession the numbers of British shoppers choosing local food continues to rise - 27% of food shoppers reported buying local this year, compared with just 15% in 2006. read >

Thursday, July 02, 2009

Fixing public finance

Concentrating state resources on the most vulnerable and expecting the financially healthy to pay their own way a good deal more is, I'm afraid, a much more efficient way of redistributing wealth than straightforwardly "taxing the rich". Progressives cannot drag their feet on this, but must instead lead the debate on how to restructure the funding and the delivery of social support. - Deborah Orr, The Independent

Britain's immediate fiscal crisis – the massive deficits that threaten to cripple the economy in the coming years – is a consequence not of incontinent spending but of a sudden collapse in tax revenues. The debate should not revolve solely around how to make cuts, but also over how to compensate for that forgone. - Edmund Conway, The Telegraph

Just rewards

The Madoff case was unusual for many reasons, one being that a 150-year jail sentence was a justified outcome. A term in the realm of the 12 to 20-year range mooted by Mr Sorkin in court would have been an insufficient response to such a vast and cruel deception. - John Gapper, The Financial Times

Reformist retreat

We may have dearly wished that this election would succeed in changing the face of Iran. But our wish became father to the belief that the demonstrations against the disputed result would succeed in doing precisely that. They haven't. The reality for the moment is that the reformist cause has gone into retreat. Lacking effective leadership and a cohesive plan, failing to gather through the provincial cities outside, many of its leaders arrested and crowds violently suppressed, it has pulled back. - Adrian Hamilton, The Independent

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Building Britain's Future shows that Labour at last is finding its own voice on the environment

    Melanie Smallman

When Gordon Brown launched the ‘Building Britain's future’ document this week – a document that is being described as his vision for the country and the pre-manifesto manifesto, one important chapter was missing from the document – the traditionally obligatory chapter on the environment. But instead of this being a cause for concern for environmentalists in the Labour party, this should be a cause for celebration. read >

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

The success of the digital economy bill will be judged on whether it can translate science and innovation into jobs and growth

    Will Higham

The prime minister and Lord Mandelson have long been passionate advocates of embracing the global digital revolution as a fount of high value jobs and future growth of Britain. Already the technology sector is responsible for some 10% of GDP and a million jobs. In the US too, Obama has embraced technology, not just as a way of conducting politics, but as a strategic means of modernising public services and providing economic competitiveness. read >

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

In a post-cold war world, we need to question whether there is still a compelling case for Britain to maintain its nuclear deterrent

Alex Glennie

Yesterday, the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr) published Shared Responsibilities: A National Security Strategy for the UK, the final report of its independent, all-party Commission on National Security in the 21st Century. read >

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

If the government is to 'rebuild Britain's future' it must realise that it cannot do so from SW1

Nick Hope

Economic leadership on the world stage, national monetary policy and central financial initiatives alone will not be enough to take the nation out of recession. A more localised approach is vital in strengthening the nation's economic resilience and building future prosperity. read >

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

With an election less than a year away, the government must ensure the cluster munitions bill is high on parliament’s legislative agenda

Thomas Nash

UK PLC - and the Labour government - are going through some hard times right now. All the more reason, then, for Messrs Brown, Miliband and colleagues to capitalise on the genuine triumph of the global ban on cluster munitions - a triumph in which they, with the support of the country, played a decisive role. Countless lives and limbs will be saved because of this new treaty and the UK must make its ratification a priority within the coming legislative agenda. read >

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Tories’ ‘vision’

Labour's educational record is mixed, with plenty of disappointment but solid achievements, especially in early learning. Balls's white paper retains an over-optimistic gloss and Labour's approach may still be too bureaucratic. But the Tories' vision leaves too much to markets and famously sharp-elbowed parents. - Michael White, The Guardian

When I ask those close to Mr Cameron about who advises him on economic policy from outside, I draw a blank. When I ask what think tank proposals excite him, the response is similar. Mr Cameron very much likes things that are suggested to him by the focus groups with which he remains obsessed. He is less taken with proposals from think tanks. - Simon Heffer, The Telegraph

Home alone

When Gordon Brown announced his national plan on Monday, most people would have turned off once he started talking about social housing: isn’t that just for poor people in the North? But in the wake of the credit crunch things are changing. More of us may be thinking about renting. Instead of being worried at the halt of the long march of home ownership, we should celebrate. - Matthew Taylor, The Times

Express to nowhere

The government is to nationalise Britain's largest rail franchise after National Express confirmed that it can no longer afford the £1.4bn east coast contract.  - Dan Milmo, The Guardian

Redundant thinking

A senior cabinet minister will warn tomorrow that "the egalitarian ideal" that has dominated left liberal thinking since the 1960s is redundant, saying Labour's traditional emphasis solely on the poor leaves the vast bulk of the population alienated and left out. - Patrick Wintour, The Guardian

Exit Iraq

Today, as US forces marked their formal withdrawal from the towns and cities they invaded more than six years ago, the Iraqi people showed the kind of spontaneous joy the former vice-president once imagined would welcome the 173rd Airborne Brigade. There were streamers and balloons, pop concerts in the park and, yes, flowers – garlanding the abandoned checkpoints of the US military in petals. - Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian