As Labour and the Conservatives argue over who is or isn’t going to cut public sector spending after the next general election, it is worth having a look at a report produced by the employers’ organisation, the NHS Confederation.
There are depressing similarities between the case of the two young French students Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez, brutally murdered in south London last July, and the case of Baby Peter, who died a slow and painful death in 2007 at the hands of his carers.
New Labour’s devastation in the European and county council elections has led some commentators to speculate whether the party is finished as a political force in Britain.
The sight of a US president receiving a standing ovation from students at Cairo university is not one we could have imagined a couple of years ago.
Europe and Britain are shifting right, that is one common sense explanation for the meltdown experienced by Labour and its European counterparts.
Every trade unionist who attempts to stand up for their rights comes up against the threat of the law.
The knives were out for Gordon Brown even before the results of this week’s European and local elections were known.
Within days of Barack Obama’s inauguration it was announced that Guantanamo Bay was to close within a year, along with the secret prisons that George Bush’s administration had set up around the world.
The report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, published in Dublin last week, is the map of an Irish hell. In devastating detail it reveals the systematic abuse of tens of thousands of children perpetuated by the Catholic Church – with the knowledge and collusion of the state.
Around Westminster and along Whitehall stand the statues of political and military figures that the British ruling class have thought it worth commemorating.
For the vast majority of people the idea that we need a new Margaret Thatcher is insane. After all, in the early 1980s she presided over the destruction of swathes of manufacturing industry. The scars still hurt in former coal, steel and other industrial towns and villages.
The stench of corruption surrounds the House of Commons. "Clear them all out," is the popular sentiment.
