Let me give Andy Burnham his due. For the best part of a decade he was the most persuasive voice in the country for letting go – for the plain truth that a decision taken in Whitehall about a town no official has ever visited tends to be worse than the one the people who […]
Trains run on rails. And access to these rails determines what services can be offered. Back in the 19th and early 20th centuries the railways were privately owned. Most companies, however small, initially owned their own permanent way. It soon became apparent that, rather than forcing passengers on long journeys to disembark and join another […]
The Roman historian Livy can claim to have invented an entire genre. Midway through his vast History of Rome, he breaks off from the narrative to ask a question nobody had thought to put in print before: what would have happened had Alexander the Great turned his armies west and marched on Italy? It is […]
Andy Burnham is, apparently, going to solve the old age care problem. I tend to think he won’t but there we are, me and my cynicism. For he’s talking of organising something like the NHS, a National Care Service, which – as with the NHS – is the wrong way to do things. In order […]
On June 23 Britain’s grid came close to collapse. Despite energy minister Michael Shanks calling claims ‘scaremongering’, new whistleblower information shows the grid had indeed been pushed past safe operating limits. A leaked National Energy System Operator (NESO) document said that ‘system constraints were breached and system security was compromised’ – a damning indictment of […]
In his first days as Prime Minister, Andy Burnham announced a series of populist pledges that purport to address the cost of living, but fail to address the deep structural issues afflicting the British economy. Burnham will soon discover – like the four short-lived predecessors who held office before him – that the voters of […]
I’m 23. Like many of my friends, I endured the British education system all the way to university: GCSEs, A levels and then an undergraduate degree. Now, with little opportunity to progress in the small town we grew up in, those same friends are now looking to move to a city for work. For some, […]
Last week, Andy Burnham inaugurated ‘No 10 North’, his signature project, by working for the first time from the government’s new Manchester base, a self-styled ‘situation room for growth’. The symbolism was clear: power would no longer be concentrated in Whitehall. But the rhetoric remains stronger than the detail. The detail we have is concerning. […]
When Waitrose suspended mackerel sales over fears of overfishing, it was a warning. Weeks later, M&S followed suit. And as stocks continue to plunge, retail giants like Sainsbury’s and Morrisons sit poised to take similar action. The crisis in our seas has finally hit the supermarket shelves, but in reality, it runs far deeper. Today, […]
This week, Nimby Watch is in central London… Okay then, where are we this time? We’re in Belgravia, one of London’s swankiest neighbourhoods. Don’t say I never take you anywhere nice. Okay, fine. But neither one of us can afford anything here, as well you know, and I’m including coffee when I say that. Well… […]
It’s been a wild summer already. Britain’s onto its seventh prime minister in a decade, with Andy Burnham wasting no time rearranging the furniture – and, for part of the week, the postcode – of No 10. Outside Westminster, England gave us their best World Cup run in 60 years, though the trophy itself will […]
The Government is consulting on a requirement for the provision of pay details in job advertisements. This is part of a wider consultation being run by the Office for Equality and Opportunity (OEO) on equal pay and pay discrimination. The remorseless expansion of the scope of equality legislation never slows, driven as it is by […]
Britain’s spending and tax choices now fall to John Healey. My expectation? Higher spending, higher taxes and meaningless tweaks to welfare reform. Tuesday’s decision to cut VAT from domestic electricity bills could save the average household around £45 a year. Fine as far as it goes. But it will do nothing to boost productivity, stimulate […]
The media headlines all tell a consistent story about AI and employment: We’re doomed! ‘Robots may shatter the global economic order within a decade,’ says The Telegraph. ‘A World Without Work’ is coming, The Atlantic predicts. ‘The brave new world of robots and lost jobs’ is upon us, The Washington Post says. Most gloomily, Forbes […]
Yesterday morning, John Healey woke up for the first time as our country’s Chancellor. A dream come true perhaps – but the legacy he’s received from his predecessor is more the stuff of nightmares. The first figures out that day were the latest ONS stats on employment. Not a rosy picture. They show 160,000 fewer […]
As Andy Burnham stood outside Downing Street on Monday to launch his new regime, our new Prime Minister did his best to prove to his 349 parliamentary backers that they had made the right decision. Much of his speech was rhetorical filler. ‘I will put the care of people at the heart of everything I […]
