Until recent months the unemployment figures have been used for some trumpeting of "it's not as bad as you think" by the coalition government - but recent figures, even in Tory/Lib Dem terms, give cause for concern. The number of official unemployed rose to 2.52million, with 15,000 more...

Wednesday's Queen's Speech was both a disgrace and disappointment - a failure on both the grounds of what it contained, and what it didn't.

What it did contain was a disgraceful pandering to the Ukip vote, in its financially toothless, but socially damaging, provisions on immigration. It is worth...

Yesterday, the Green Party took the next step towards becoming a truly national party, growing out of its traditional strongholds into new areas of the country, winning its first seats on five councils (Warwickshire, Essex, Surrey, Cornwall and Kent) and doubling numbers on Bristol Council and Worcestershire County Council.

The...

The English county elections, for which voting is today, have been, by and large, despite their May date, a winter campaign. When I look back it certainly feels like. It was through months and months of winter that I stood on wet street corners listening to voters valiantly resisting the...

Around England, election campaigns are in full swing. From Cornwall to Northumberland, Kent to Cumbria, campaigners are hard at work in preparation for the 2 May elections.

You can be excused for not having noticed, since there's not exactly been a media deluge, in part no doubt because there...

The government's stated aim in introducing the bedroom tax, in slashing of council tax benefit that forms a new poll tax, in ending of Disability Living Allowance and making a host of other benefit cuts is to 'make work pay'. That's utterly detached from the reality of the lives of...

All too often I'm told - usually by journalists - that now's not the time to raise environmental issues. And of course it is tough for voters not sure where tomorrow's lunch money or next week's rent is coming from to think beyond those pressing personal problems, but the fact...

I loved learning about lungfish. But I don't want to force them into the curriculum.

Schooling is an area of government policy subject to a peculiar and extreme pressure. Practically everyone has experience of schooling, many people are concerned about their children's schooling, nearly everyone has a view about what...

Yesterday's vote in the House of Commons for gay marriage marks a historic moment in the progress of equality in Britain. With the large Commons majority of 225, the elected representatives have spoken, and the House of Lords has no grounds for resistance.

Britain has joined other progressive states,...

What does the next five years of British politics look like, according to David Cameron?

On the basis of yesterday morning's speech, there's only one political issue - one long, grinding debate, in Britain and across Europe, as he tries, to entirely reshape not just Britain's relationship...

Tuesday sees the Second Reading in Parliament of the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill - an historic day. MPs are being asked whether they are prepared to deliberately, with all of the facts before them, choose to significantly reduce the living standards of millions of their voters.

More than that,...

We started the day with a hope - that faint, persistent feeling that lies within the human spirit even when all seems lost - that George Osborne might be about to make significant changes to his economic Plan A, which had turned out to be better labelled Plan F for...

Paddy Ashdown is right to call for the troops to come home from Afghanistan. The ongoing occupation of the country is a running sore that can only be healed after we've shown a commitment to allow the Afghan people to choose their own destiny. Currently we are pinning in place...

My ears are still ringing with the screams of Barack Obama's supporters welcoming him into office for another four years, while the commentariat is now hard at work predicting what his next term will be like. There were so many disappointments in his first, although it started so well, with...

I'm not sure what country Tory Energy Minister John Hayes thinks is "peppered" with wind turbines - it certainly doesn't reflect the nation that I've been crossing back and forth in recent weeks as Green Party leader. Britain after all, despite our rich wind resources, is only the world's eighth...

As October begins, and the Labour Party conference is in the headlines, people across the country are preparing to unite for a march in London to stop austerity's attack on the UK.

And while the two are in the news, the obvious question is: 'Will Ed Miliband, Ed Balls and...

As I write it is about eight hours since I was elected as the leader of the Green Party of England and Wales. It has been, happily, a whirl. An ITN interview, two BBC television slots, the BBC World at One, Sky TV, Australian radio, chats with a string of...

Do we have to sentence Olympics visitors to eat plastic buns and drink vast tubs of sugary drinks, subject them to the promotion of the dubious Dow Chemicals, and force Paralympics athletes to compete under the shadow of the sponsorship of the work capability test providers ATOS? When we see...

At a recent End Violence Against Women hustings, Tory Kit Malthouse said that we needed a sensible national debate about prostitution law. It was one point on which I agreed with him during the debate. (I certainly very strongly disagree with his claim that London needs...

We've got a senior government minister suggesting Britons turn their homes into potential deathtraps; we've got police being called in to break up fights in long queues at petrol stations. You might think Britain has a problem.

And you'd be right. But it goes a long...