Blog
A lobbying register and recall won't solve anything
by Nick Tyrone / 04 Jun 2013 12:00
In the wake of the Patrick Mercer scandal, and the parallel incidents in the House of Lords, Francis Maude and Nick Clegg’s announcements on both a lobbying register and MP recall will be welcomed in some quarters. I happen to think that if you really want to end corruption in parliament, bigger changes are required.
Let’s start with the lobbying register. The first thing that should set alarm bells ringing for those who think this
COMPETITION: Veep DVDs
03 Jun 2013 14:34
What does the Vice President of the US actually have to do besides the duties the President chooses to avoid? Readers can be in with a chance of finding out, by entering our competition to win a DVD of Veep Season 1.
Starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus in her recent Emmy award-winning turn as Vice President Selina Meyer (Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series), Veep is an up-close and politically (in)correct look at the daily successes and disappointments
COMPETITION: Lincoln DVD
03 Jun 2013 11:52
One of the biggest films of the year, Lincoln, from Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks Pictures, will be available on DVD for a lucky reader in our competition that runs for this week only.
Daniel Day-Lewis, as America’s 16th president, leads an all-star cast including Academy Award winners Tommy Lee Jones and Sally Field. Also starring David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and James Spader, Lincoln is based on a screenplay written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Tony Kushner. The film is scored by multiple
Laughter, lefties, zombies and Communist granola
by Anoosh Chakelian / 31 May 2013 18:27
Sidling up to leftwing political and cultural festival Dangerous Ideas for Dangerous Times in sunbaked King’s Cross today, I felt an odd sense of unease. I’d only just learnt what Check Your Privilege means (turns out it’s not the tagline from that ad with Joanna Lumley purring plummily in a greasy spoon) and on arrival I saw with horror that there were Pret-issue chairs everywhere and brown paper lunch bags bursting at the seams with
Farage is in Miliband's cosy little tent
by Josh Zietcer / 31 May 2013 17:56
Conventionally, a privately-educated, tweed- wearing, pub-frequenting politician would be an electoral disaster. However, Farage’s recent Party Election Broadcast, in which he can be seen with a pint of beer in a dimly-lit pub, has been greatly successful. Why? It indicates that he is different from Westminster’s polished, well-educated political class.
In recent years, Cameron and Farage’s rivalry has been well-publicised, whereas Miliband and Farage’s has received less attention. The plummeting support of the Conservative party
Burnham: Social care collapse A&E's biggest difficulty
by Heather Spurr / 31 May 2013 16:28
Andy Burnham is a man on a mission. He has already set out a clear goal of fully combining health and social care if elected in 2015, in what will prove a pretty radical overhaul. For this, he is going to need health workers his side. In opposition, he has been busy getting to know staff on the front line.
Yesterday, he gathered doctors, nurses, paramedics and other healthcare staff for a “Health Summit” to
The Green Party's hidden social agenda
by Justin Cash / 30 May 2013 10:27
Since 1965, the disparity between the wages of CEO’s and regular employees at S&P 500 companies has risen 20-fold. According to The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, chief executives of these companies average a salary some 380 times greater than that of their typical worker. In the UK, remuneration for some executive roles has ballooned 4000 per cent in the last 30 years, whilst a comparable figure for the average worker
Cable: 'Pathetically low level' of women at the top
by Anoosh Chakelian / 28 May 2013 14:37
Today at a Start-Up Loans event targeted at female entrepreneurs, dangling high in the mist of suitably innovative venue Altitude 360, Millbank Tower, Vince Cable admitted both business and government are still failing to represent women.
As the ‘women problem’ perennially plagues David Cameron, whether from people defending the PM or slamming him for seemingly inching away from filling his cabinet with more women, the business secretary acknowledged: “Women are underrepresented in both sides of
Recess musings: The post-election clean-up
by Heather Spurr / 28 May 2013 14:08
Walking out of the front door after a general election can be a dispiriting exercise. The fun is over, the big reveal has happened and now all that is left to do is to wait for the leaflets wafting in the wind to be swept away by the council.
But one curiosity remains unexplained. So many posters gummed to the walls, special election balloons pumped, badges unceremoniously clipped onto passing pedestrians. What happens to all of
'Democracy depends on respect for truth', Lord Owen
by Justin Cash / 28 May 2013 11:04
Justin Cash: To what extent do you think David Cameron and the current administration are culpable in the fiasco surrounding the Iraq War inquiry?
Lord Owen: They have a responsibility to fulfil the intentions of Parliament. When you set up an Inquiry like this, the privy councillors are entitled to have access to the papers and they are entitled to publish. They wished to publish some selected elements of private correspondence with President Bush that
WATCH: The fight to save legal aid
by Ed Stradling / 20 May 2013 15:47
Ed Stradling's exclusive mini-documentary on what he finds to be the dangers of legal aid reform proposals. Includes interviews with human rights and criminal barrister John Cooper QC and shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan.
Europe: The tail that's wagging the dog
by Justin Cash / 20 May 2013 09:38
Now we’ve all had a chance to reflect on UKIP’s local election triumphs, it seems the one thing that commentators across the board have been able to agree on is that Farage's success reflects an elevated wave of euroscepticism among the British population. What to do about EU membership has, as a direct consequence, become one of the most important debates in modern politics, one that has caused no end of confusion in Tory ranks.
But
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"The prime minister has said he does not believe that statutory legislation is necessary to achieve the principles outlined by Leveson."
