Tim Shipman, political editor at The Sunday Times wrote last weekend that many people in Johnson’s team see the downsides of red tape and potential tariffs as “a thimble of spit in a tsunami” when compared to what he terms “the worst recession in living memory”. The macho impression the government tries to give is […]
One of the most important pieces of legislation we are considering presently in the House of Lords is the agriculture bill. During its passage through the House of Commons it was argued that this bill needed to include a ban on food products which were imported to the UK – but didn’t meet our strict […]
Isn’t it amazing how simple many things appear until you really start to look into them? I remember my first time playing on a full-sized snooker table, confidently expecting to saunter round the baize dispatching the perky spheres into the hungry pockets. Maybe, just maybe, my opponent wouldn’t even get a chance to come to […]
The Sun’s ‘exclusive’ yesterday on the “Doomsday Dossier” is suspiciously similar to the leaking of Operation Yellowhammer details last August by another Murdoch-owned newspaper, the Sunday Times, but with added coronavirus issues. I assume it was done for the same purpose: as a signal to try and convince the EU that the government is serious […]
With a US trade deal, the UK faces the doubly damaging prospect of the arrival of both American food and American healthcare products and services. The combination threatens the nation’s health and the NHS’s wellbeing. This is a variation of the good old American win-win, but while America wins both ways, we lose twice. The […]
So, after three days of insistence that their algorithm was appropriate, and following its enthusiastic endorsement by Michael Gove, the Department for Education capitulated and agreed to let Centre Assessed Grades (CAGs) stand as A-level and GCSE students’ final grades. However, many questions are left to ponder. The shadow attorney general maintains that in allocating […]
The latest round of talks between the UK and EU on the future relationship ended today on another sour note. But after obstinately insisting under no circumstances would there be any extension to the transition period, David Frost, the prime minister’s special adviser and chief negotiator, seems to have finally realised that time is short. […]
The A-level results fiasco is just the tip of the educational inequality iceberg, one which extends even beyond the issue of private and grammar schools, but is nevertheless exacerbated by it. Underlying the broad inequalities we find in our education system is one key ingredient: socioeconomic inequality. We must now quickly learn the lesson that […]
Amid the furore over the mangling of this year’s A-level results, one statistic stood out for me: only 7,557 students took French. While the numbers taking Spanish rose slightly, those taking German fell by 6 percent. This decline in European languages in state schools is worrying, accompanied also by a decline in the humanities, such […]
In their book, published in 2013, The Blunders of Our Governments, Ivor Crew and Anthony King explore 12 examples of government blunders, all of which took place prior to the majority Conservative government of 2015. Their examples are from Conservative, coalition and Labour administrations. A summary of the findings can be found here. They define […]
Politicians are attempting to blame various Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) agencies, for England’s lacklustre performance in managing the pandemic. It is a paradox that such political ‘blame gaming’ highlights what I believe are some of the inherent and longstanding problems that have limited the NHS’s potential. This is exacerbated by misinformation leaked […]
By Dido “Noelle” Harding One: When you’re born make jolly sure daddy’s a peer, grandpapa’s a retired general and even the family dog has a clubfoot. If you can’t manage this then FORGET COMPLETELY ABOUT BEING IN CHARGE OF ANYTHING. Go to the local academy (they’re all exactly the same for a reason, and they […]
Every reasonable person knows that government isn’t easy. Particularly in a pandemic. Making real time decisions when events are unfolding at speed inevitably produces mistakes. Yet the vast majority of the mistakes made in the exam fiasco don’t fall into that category. They were avoidable and there was plenty of time to look properly into […]
Tuesday saw the start of round seven of talks on Britain’s future relationship with the European Union. The UK and the EU have now been in negotiations on their future relationship since 2 March 2020, which makes you wonder just what they have been talking about and why there’s been so little progress. Part of […]
Sir Ivan Rogers was our ambassador to the EU (known as UKREP) until Theresa May forced him out in January 2017 for having the temerity to suggest she should have a clear plan ready before triggering Article 50. Since then he has made a series of incisive speeches, all of which have proved remarkably prescient. […]
One of the most entertaining exposés of the current scandal around A-Level results, and in particular the automatic, computer-generated downgrading of kids from state schools in poorer parts of the country, was undoubtedly provided by James O’Brien of LBC radio. Speaking on 14 August, he expressed his anger as he surveyed the latest gross injustice […]
Conservative backbench MPs are an unhappy group at the moment. Number 10 is struggling to manage them and is seen to be ignoring their concerns. When the Conservatives won an 80-seat majority in the 2019 general election this majority was widely seen to be impenetrable. The government, and therefore Number 10, would be able to […]
An A-level student from Barnsley has written a letter to the prime minister and the health secretary, as well as her new Conservative MP Miriam Cates, about the A-level results shambles. Her letter pleads for justice for this year’s A-Level cohort, after being subjected to a failed algorithm that appears to favour private schools over […]
Cast your minds back two months, to a time when every Thursday evening you would step out your front door or lean out of your window and join your neighbours in clapping for the “wealth creators” of Britain. That’s not who you were clapping for? Well according to Boris Johnson we were as much clapping […]
On the day that an exams algorithm robbed a significant number of working-class children in Yorkshire and across the nation of the results they needed to access their university places, Jon Snow interviewed Nick Gibb on the Channel 4 news. Gibb began by telling Snow that the spread of grades across the whole cohort was […]
The computer says, “No, you Josh from a community comprehensive in Mexborough shan’t go to Oxford”. Nor shall you, Amber from Bransholme, Hull’s largest council estate. But the computer says “yes” to Harry from Rishworth and Olivia from Ampleforth. As for grades, the computer says “yes” to downgrading Josh’s and Amber’s and “yes” to inflating […]
By making such a chancy crossing the only way to seek asylum here, the prime minister and home secretary are complicit in aiding and abetting odious gangsters who are making millions out of desolate people.
On a visit to Northern Ireland yesterday where he met Irish prime minister Micheál Martin, Boris Johnson made the extraordinary claim that there will be no border down the Irish Sea, saying if there is one it will be “over my dead body”. This is widely reported in the local media (here and here) and […]
Twitter wars; they’re everywhere. Even if you are not on Twitter, you’ve probably still seen a fair few. And even if you haven’t directly seen the venomous, back-and-forth, 280-character limited attacks, I’ll wager that you’ve read the news articles denouncing or encouraging them. It seems that the debate around whether or not these Twitter wars […]
UK economic output shrank by 20.4 percent in the second quarter of 2020, the worst quarterly slump on record, pushing the country into the deepest recession of any major global economy. Caused by the UK government’s lacklustre response to the Covid-19 pandemic, there are worrying signs that this unprecedented economic crisis could quickly morph into […]
How I’ve appreciated the smells of lavender growing in my garden this year reminding me of visits to Lavender farms across the UK and Provence in France. As well as being a beautiful plant, lavender is well known for its soothing scent and the calming benefits of its oil. It’s a classic in the world of […]
Sir Jim Ratcliffe, founder of the chemical company Ineos and Britain’s richest man, plans to open a car plant in France to build the successor to the 4×4 Land Rover Defender which was discontinued in 2016. Ratcliffe, who was a supporter of Brexit, reportedly moved to Monaco in 2019 in order to avoid paying £4bn […]
In response to an increasing number of small boats carrying refugees across the channel, the home secretary, Priti Patel announced on 9 August, that Dan O’Mahoney (former director of the UK’s Joint Maritime Security Centre and previously with the National Crime Agency and Border Control Heathrow) had been appointed to tackle it. About 4,100 people […]
This morning on BBC Radio 4, Minister of State for Health Edward Argar attempted to defend the indefensible by suggesting that the government will stick with Serco to provide the essential coronavirus test and trace programme. This is despite mounting evidence of the abject failure of the current test and trace programme run by Serco, […]
Boris Johnson told Sophy Ridge at Sky News on 8 December last year there would be no new customs checks on goods shipped from Britain into Northern Ireland and that Labour were “wrong” to suggest there would be. “We’re a UK government, why would we put checks on goods going from NI to GB or […]