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BLOGS
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Melanie Ward
:Tax Dodging and Global Poverty: What the G8 Must Deliver
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Rob Atkinson
:'Loadsamoney' Cameron in 'Tasteless and Ignorant Flash Git' Row
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Douglas Alexander
:The G8 Summit - A Great Moment for Britain, A Great Test for the Prime Minister
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Dr Ion Jinga
:Romanians in the UK
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Mike Ion
:Ed Miliband and the Politics of Optimism
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If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
very day we hear about children and families living in poverty in Britain. Yesterday was the final day of evidence at the Parliamentary inquiry on support of children and families seeking asylum. The inquiry is the first formal review of the asylum support system since 2009 and has revealed evidence of systemic poverty, deprivation, and negative impacts on the lives of children.
One way to tackle the skills crisis is to try and encourage a group into STEM who have been more or less an endangered species in science and engineering to date: women.
Step forward Azerbaijan. The country has the potential to become one of Europe's major allies and suppliers. It is one of the most stable energy players in the region and is fast developing into a hub for the Caspian Sea basin and Central Asia's oil and gas.
The press have to set up the new system and why it is the press and no one else that must develop an independent regulatory regime that will adhere to the Leveson Principles. It isn't for the Prime Minister, the Cabinet or even Parliament to tell them how to do it.
We now need to do whatever it takes to break the cycle of despair and empower those who would eschew conflict and take risks for peace. President Bill Clinton as a new special envoy to the region? Bring it on. And even the Palestinian UN bid, viewed with great suspicion by many supporters of Israel. Labour is backing the bid in the hope it will help restart negotiations.
It would be fantastic to see Catholic bishops, Muslim clerics, Buddhist monks, and radical atheists, in addition to representatives from every other strand of faith or belief in Britain given places in the House of Lords.
We cannot pick and choose which parts of the European Convention on Human Rights we abide by while at the same time shouting and lecturing at the poor record of other countries, such as Russia for example.
Why then have we seen so many scandals in different institutions in such quick succession? There is perhaps only one trend which runs through them all and which may help us to learn lessons for the future: in each instance, behaviours which were accepted within closed institutional circles were opened up to the public glare and did not stand up to scrutiny.
If the high profile political figure from Newsnight is arrested then it won't go any way towards erasing the crimes that have taken place, but it will be deserved, and may hopefully provide some form of comfort or closure for those who have suffered.
Ed Miliband, the leader of the Labour party, has a million things in his in-tray. A challenging economy, rising energy prices, badgers, you name it. And yet he chose to speak to the national media about mental health. Whether or not you agree with his politics, the very fact that he made this speech is a good thing - it's a sign that the subject we've been campaigning about for so long has moved up the political agenda.
Politicians always assume that young people don't have a valid opinion. That they're not interested in decision-making, or politics, or the way the country is run. Well they are. And I am. And I see how much young people care every day of my life. There's a revolution happening at the moment - a movement of young people learning the power of free speech, and the importance of getting their voices heard on the issues that matter to them the most.
The government's strategy on business and human rights will be released imminently. To be effective this must go beyond advice and guidance and set out concrete measures to curb the human rights abuses perpetrated by some British companies, particularly in conflict zones.
Examining his speech from an English perspective Undoubtedly the style of Ed Miliband's speech on 2 October 2012 at the Labour Party conference was l...
Politicians are very often described as "out of touch". This is a claim I have always been slightly suspicious of. By the very fact of being elected, it is politicians' job to be in touch. In my experience, constituents come to their MPs with the widest imaginable range of problems.
There's a question that has been bobbing around like a party balloon since it was first aired at the 2009 World Economic Forum in Davos: would the global financial crisis have occurred if, instead of Lehman Brothers, there had been Lehman Sisters.
I won't lie. I was starting to give up on humanity. I was feeling generally miserable about recent reports of record amounts of melting ice in the Arctic, Mitt Romney's eternally moronic campaign in the US and our current situation of ever rising economic destruction and damning of human rights by the Coalition.
