Why it became Michael Gove’s awful month
by Neil Robertson

The surprising thing about Michael Gove’s short tenure as Education Secretary is how quickly an appointment which began with such hype and bluster has descended into one of hubris and error.

The controversies Gove has been embroiled in since May have been entirely unforced errors; it is not beyond a Secretary of State to publish an accurate list of which schools will/will not see their building projects completed, nor is it beyond his ability to give a realistic estimate of how many would take advantage of his invitation to become academies.

The truth, as we now know , is that most schools in England & Wales didn’t await the Academies Bill with the same breathlessness Gove had when he rushed it through Parliament.
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by Dave Osler

It is not logically possible for anyone to have ‘gone off script’ during an ‘unscripted appearance’. That David Miliband can construct a sentence accusing David Cameron of such an offence is unfortunate proof that the the control freak mentality that characterised New Labour throughout  the ‘on message’ mid 1990s is alive and well.

The occasion for the outburst came in an appearance on the World at One yesterday, in which the former foreign secretary discussed the current prime minister’s suggestion that elements within the Pakistani state are complicit in terrorist attacks in Afghanistan and India.

by Jonathan Rutherford

What is Labour’s future? Soundings journal, and Open Left at Demos ask the question in a new, jointly published e-book, Labour’s Future.

We don’t offer answers, but set out a series of points of view – from Phil Collins’ Liberal Republic to Doreen Massey’s, ‘the political struggle ahead’ – that frame the coming debate.

by Guest

Tim Finch from ippr is right to call for the immigration system to be changed, highlighting the inequalities and injustices that scar the system.

However, we at Runnymede believe a credible immigration system must take seriously Britain’s commitment to human rights and justice, rather than focusing primarily on returning people who do not fit into narrowly defined categories.

by Guest

Nick Robinson’s Five Days That Changed Britain was not the revelation-fest BBC trailers led us to believe. Predictably, it turned out to be a mix of the banal and already-reported. I was almost knocked out my chair to discover Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown “didn’t get on”. My jaw hit the floor when it was revealed David Cameron thought Clegg was someone he could do business with.

Okay, I’m being a bit facetious. But I did come away with the impression the real story of the post-election negotiations between Labour, the Tories and LibDems is yet to be told.

by Chris Dillow

Should firms be free to sack workers who are short or ugly? The answer is yes, if you support the CBI’s opposition to the government’s decision to scrap the default retirement age.

The case for firms forcibly retiring 65-year-olds is that these tend to be less productive (pdf) than younger workers.
But there’s also good evidence that shorter and uglier workers are less productive too.

by Don Paskini

The Lib Dems are prepared to compromise on everything from raising VAT to cutting benefits in order to get a referendum on voting reform. So why are they insisting on combining a vote on the referendum with their plans to change constituency boundaries?

by Sunny Hundal

The left of the Labour party is usually caricatured as a homogeneous group that, pre-New Labour, dogmatically stuck to positions that ensured the party stayed out of power.

But here’s the thing: it looks like these Labour centrists, who were pragmatic about the need to respond to changing voter concerns in order to get elected, have become dogmatic themselves. They’ve become so obsessed with avoiding ‘tacking to the left’ that they themselves have become out of touch.

by Paul Cotterill

So Nick Clegg has been lying about what advice he received, or didn’t, from Mervyn King about how to deal with public finances.

Back in June he defended his party’s volte-face on cuts in an interview…

by Sunny Hundal

The only problem with Cameron calling Israel a massive “prison camp” is that it doesn’t go far enough. Israel is still building illegal settlements that have all but destroyed any chance of Palestinian confidence in their intentions and the chance of peace.

But nevertheless, even such a small move is important, and unless it is loudly supported by those who want peace in the Middle East, Cameron will only hear pro-Israel frothing from the Tories and Labour. That will only make him retreat. If we want him to go further, we must support even the baby steps.

by Guest

Adult care is a highly pressured area of local government spending at the best of times, with councils racking up overspends even as public spending grew. Now this unfashionable area of public spending is increasingly taking a hit.

Take a bow, London Borough of Havering. With its Conservative-run council trying to save £19m over the next three years – and possibly £50m over five years – adult care users are being told to chip in.

 

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