The Labour party's capitulation on social security for the young is not an appropriate response to the modern world, but a dangerous step into the past.
An experiment in paying villagers in some of India’s poorest villages a modest regular cash payment without conditions has transformed their lives. It could provide an effective anti-poverty programme for all India’s poor. But which way will Narendra Modi jump?
Labour and social democratic parties in general are succumbing weakly to the demands of global capital and neo-liberal policies. Stuart Weir hails a bold new initiative, a transformational Magna Carta for our times.
Modern governments of all stripes screw up too often. A new study of their blunders suggests that ‘strong government’, traditionally the great strength of the governing system, is to blame. Let’s hear it for deliberative democracy.
Stuart Weir was an early Bennite in the 1970s, fell out with his hero over Tony Benn’s campaign against the Labour Party leadership in the 1980s, and fell for him again when he became a popular sage after 2001. Here he explains a complex relationship with Labour’s most inspiring politician.
The 50p tax rate would apparently have minimal impact but also be devastating to the UK economy. It's worth recalling similar arguments made against the 1981 proposal for a maximum salary cap of four times average wage.
While severely limiting the ability of civil society to function for a full year before a general election, the primary alleged targets of the bill - professional lobbyists - escape largely unharmed.
Vernon Bogdanor would have us believe that the Prince of Wales’s “controversial” meddling in public policy is a good thing. But Prince Charles’s interventions and lobbying activities demean our democracy – and have deprived the public realm of great architecture.
While doing virtually nothing to fix the real problems of money in politics, the government is trying to introduce a new law that will shut down vast swathes of political commentary and scrutiny for a whole year before general elections.
The debate roars on as Theresa May insists the detaining of our citizens is for our own protection, but how far and how deep can this controversy go?
Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 The left is forever being condemned for talking of ‘betrayal’. But it is our responsibility to describe accurately the lies and strategy that lie behind the dismemberment of the NHS and the blatant disregard of the people’s wishes – it is a ‘do
Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 The demonisation of the European Court of Human Rights over the long failure to deport Abu Qatada is likely to be intensified by the Court’s ruling against whole life tariffs. Neither case will get the human rights perspective that they deserve
