- FRONT PAGE
-
BLOGS
-
Ed Miliband
:A Distant and Distracted Cameron Cannot Tackle Tax Avoidance
-
Luke Massey
:The 'Aggressive Homosexual Community'? More Absurd and Dangerous Rhetoric from Tories
-
Ian Linden
:Thought-Stoppers for Policy-Makers
-
Natalie Bennett
:Jobs You Can Build a Life On: The British Economy Isn't Delivering
-
Stef Benstead
:The Reality of the Welfare Reform
-
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
Britain's membership of the EU is up for discussion - and it's liable to be a wretchedly stupid discussion.
Beware analyses of mid-term by-elections (including this one, if you like). They are prone either to exaggerate or understate their meaning.
What Osborne's speech recognises - and Cable's announcement will help put into practice - is that people within universities are chomping at the bit to ensure the benefits they can often see themselves are realised, both to society and to the economy.
Faith-based economics (over the last 10 years, not just the last two) got us into this economic mess; it won't get us out of it.
As a citizen of a country that has been ridden with MP money scandals for the past few years, the last thing voters want to see is a politician making an income through doing something other than their day job. When Nadine Dorries was rightly suspended from the Conservative Party last week, I was cheering as loud as when I found out Obama was re-elected for presidency that following morning.
If we want to preserve quality public-service broadcasting in Britain, we must defend the Beeb.
English football is still light-years from a state of good health, exemplified by exploitative ticketing. Unless concrete action is taken to challenge this, admonitions like Mr Farron's will, with any luck, become more frequent and more radical until something is done.
Depressingly even though legislation to ensure equal pay has been in place for 40 years, the gender pay gap in Britain remains among the highest in the EU. On average, women in the UK earn about 15% less than men. And that's an inequality found right across the pay scales - and the concentration of women in certain areas of the economy is now standing against them.
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.
Disappointingly I think the majority of students just aren't interested in political issues and this is something that needs to be addressed on both a local level in student communities and a national level.
We will be electing new Police Commissioners next month. They have a unique opportunity to reduce crime. But that can only happen if simple questions on what crime is being committed, where it is being committed and by who are answered based on evidence. Otherwise real issues could be lost in political correctness.
As a Conservative I have no pleasure in exposing David Cameron's deficit claims. However, as long as the party continues to talk down the economy via the blame game, confidence will not be given an opportunity to return. For it is an undeniable and inescapable economic fact: without confidence and certainty there can be no real growth.
The Minister for Rural Affairs has had an incredible year for ill thought-out policy u-turns.
The dire position of Britain with regard to social mobility is being worsened with time, deepening and entrenching divisions, and diminishing equality of opportunity for all. For Britain to succeed economically our politicians should be striving to improve our position and not make it worse.
I know times are hard, and there is a push to cut spending on all but the most vital of projects, but perhaps a new PR whiz would be a good investment for the coalition. Someone who could persuade them against snatching defeat from the jaws of success.
This government is letting down our young people by failing to build a modern education system fit for the modern world.
