If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
Each successive government of course blames the last for the financial mess it inherited but the truth is that the blame game pales in respect to apportioning blame for the 2008 global financial disaster.
I was delighted to read last week's news that from 2016, Winston Churchill will be the new face of the fiver (five pound note, about $7.50, if you're reading this in the US). Now, my reaction isn't surprising, given that I wrote a book about Sir Winston. But it goes far beyond my appreciation for the man who led Britain through her darkest hour and into her finest.
Mrs Thatcher had immense achievements: bringing harmony to industrial relations (reducing tenfold the number of days lost to strikes), liberating the Falklands, rejuvenating and modernising our manufacturing sector (and increasing its output), controlling inflation, almost halving unemployment in her time in office and, most significantly of all, preparing the way for the final decline and defeat of Soviet tyranny.
The degree to which Blair's time in office was merely a continuation of Thatcherism has long been hotly debated, and it is a subject that has been returned to often over the past week.
Labour's 'angry brigade' has misunderstood Blair's message which is simply: don't let red mist cloud your judgement. Rather than getting angry with the Tories, get even with them. And, on this, Blair is right: Labour needs to be in the business of the politics of answers, not simply the politics of anger.
A third Pakistani school has been attacked in an escalating wave of violence by Taliban militants determined to stamp out the provision of girls' education. Two out of the three classrooms of an all-girls school in Zalim Kalan in the Bannu Province were the latest school buildings to be destroyed...
Younger siblings always want what the elder has; this is a common dynamic, universally observed to be part of family life. It starts with a glance at big brother's more exciting toys and games and finding them more attractive.
For me, and all his close friends, this is a moment of great sadness and sense of loss that he and Louise will not be round the corner on a Sunday evening for a cup of coffee, glass of wine or bowl of spaghetti bolognese. He has been one of the most significant figures in Labour politics for the last twenty years and so much of what Labour has achieved David has played a part in.
Malala Yousafzai and her father Ziauddin are the first two signatories of the petition to the Pakistani President following the assassination of Shahnaz Nazli yesterday.
Following the demise of the Big Society and the 'green blue' Tories, aid was the last bastion of David Cameron's claim to have detoxified the Tory brand. However, by abandoning the moral case for aid and seeking to mislead people about its future use, Cameron is revealing how weak he has become.
I'm sorry Sam Parker feels that Tony Blair robbed a generation of their faith in politics. But he seems to be confused about the reasons why the disillusionment set in.
On this historic day, with Malala a beacon of hope for all children who are deprived of their rights, let's ensure we listen to our children and together create a world we can all be proud of.
Halfway through his eight-year term, Obama's hair is a bellwether of the unrelenting pressure heaped upon the man known as 'Leader of the Free World'. It tells the story of his Presidency so far as articulately as the US deficit or employment figures.
If proof were needed that the world can be a better place when we take our modern way of communicating and channel it in the right direction, witness yesterday's 'Malala Day'.
It is if 11 of the EU's foreign ministers get their way. Last month, they released a document outlining a 'future of Europe'. The document suggests that 'strengthening the Economic and Monetary Union has absolute priority'. How many unemployed people across the Eurozone have taken to the streets, demanding that closer alignment to Brussels will lead to jobs?
It was a sad, much-mourned, death, greeted with glum faces all round in the Westminster Village that day. A new ministerial code, announced on 15 July, 2011, effectively declared that decades of 'unattributable' boozy lunches and 'off-the-record' slap-up dinners between politicians and the press were to be no more.
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