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![]() Polly ToynbeeThe Guardian |
Every Labour government forges ahead with life-changing liberal reforms, and this one will be no exception. Expect the right to die to be one of this...
When Keir Starmer promises that his new government will “bulldoze” through the planning system as “the builders not the blockers”, there is...
I will eat my hat – or several – if Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves don’t soon find the money to bury the pernicious two-child benefit cap. The...
The Bruges Group celebrated its 35th anniversary last week in the august portals of the Army and Navy club in Pall Mall in central London. The group...
Lest we forget, here is an audit of the state of the country Labour inherits. Pin it up, brand it into public memory so no one can forget the...
Winning the election was almost easy compared with the next task Keir Starmer has set himself. “The fight for trust is the battle that defines our...
Hallelujah and hosanna! (If not now, when?) At the stroke of 10, the country knew it had liberated itself from the most contemptible government in...
A red glow spreading across the land may be so bright you could see it from space, if polling predictions are right. In that Labour flare, let’s...
Who are the people who will still vote Tory? True, there are not many left, but a solid core of 20% of the population will opt for more of the same,...
There’s turmoil in the EU as the far right advances. Macron risks all, trusting that people vote in protest for the remote EU parliament, but vote...
In all the sound and fury of the election, annual statistics land unnoticed. Yet these grim Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures are the best...
Another month to go: can we bear it? Brainless dishonesty, puerile insults, false accusations, the whole charade takes us for idiots. The more...
Whatever your view of Diane Abbott, or your view of Keir Starmer, there has plainly been a serious blunder in Labour’s campaign when her treatment...
When the Tories reach the very bottom of their bad ideas barrel, they come up with a dead rat plan for conscription. The notion is so decrepit that...
Here is the one and only great service Rishi Sunak could perform for his country. Nothing so became him as the leaving of office, despite the deluge....
I have been following the rise of the bao bun very keenly – the pallid little puffballs are enjoying a boom in Britain’s snack sector – on...
The Elite London, described as the city’s “most exclusive jet-set lifestyle event”, filled Wycombe Air Park with row after row of gleaming...
A key turning point in British politics was Tony Blair’s famous three priorities: “education, education, education”. A giant step was his...
How did Labour let its most life-transforming policy get more publicity for its suspected “watering down” than it ever got for the policy itself?...
No, no, this is an uncharacteristic mistake. Keir Starmer’s welcoming hand on Natalie Elphicke’s shoulder is a picture his enemies will relish as...
Labour’s tanks roll relentlessly across Tory lawns, not pausing a heartbeat to celebrate phenomenal local election results in England. It treated...
How old is old? That depends on how old you are, for as you age you will nudge that number upwards. A recent German study asked people over the age of...
As the sewage-filled waters start to close over the heads of Torydom, their Tufton Street thinktankers carry on like the orchestra on the Titanic. In...
The prime minister rounds up asylum seekers on the eve of local elections, not to sway voters but to appease the hyenas lurking on his backbenches. He...
A culture change is on the way when this moribund government of the living dead is gone. Clock-watching, we wait for that witching hour on election...
Panic and a screeching U-turn. The prime minister dismissed claims there were too few nursery places for every two-year-old in England (with working...
That time of year approaches when we ritually sacrifice 40% of our 16-year-olds to mark them down as failures. Exam season is coming up – that...
This is a sick country, getting sicker. NHS waits will take years to clear, if at all. While people wait, they get sicker. When more and more people...
Children became unhappier in the past decade, according to the annual Good Childhood report. The number of eight to 16-year-olds with mental health...
The alarm sounds over and over again. Every organisation concerned with the cost of living and children going without is trying to alert the public to...
A squalid day in parliament. The most important of debates was the most pointless and dishonest. It preached on the high ground and played politics in...
It’s a done deal – just about. Down at the bookies, you can get 14/1 on a Tory majority at the next general election, while betting on Labour to...
It’s a done deal – just about. Down at the bookies, you can get 14/1 on a Tory majority at the next general election, while betting on Labour to...
The rout of the Tories gallops on across the country, as yesterday the voters of Wellingborough and Kingswood stampeded away from them in yet more...
The prime minister’s tax return crept out with the house in recess. But the front page of the Financial Times splashed a blunt warning: “Sunak...
“Labour is running scared!” blasts the Telegraph. How did that happen? To see a party with an unswerving 20% lead chased away from its headline...
It may have passed you by that last week was Welcome to Your Vote week, encouraging sixth-formers to get excited about a vote denied to them. “We...
Like a hornet in the ear, that £28bn is buzzed into every voter. Tory central office sends out daily attack press releases that say nothing else....
It is the very worst of taxes. (Probably – there’s tough competition for that title.) Council tax is, as it stands, “indefensible” says the...
Schools are too often the crucible in which social conflicts are fought out, with teachers expected to put right whatever we fail to fix in the world...
Feuding parties never win, No 10’s flailing political guru, Isaac Levido, warned rebellious MPs last week. Though the prime minister’s position is...
Why would they do that? The sheer perversity is incomprehensible. Just when ministers and the opposition call for more community treatment to prevent...
Any government would take fright at the astonishing rise in people on disability benefits. It began pre-pandemic, but really shot up afterwards. Rishi...
Never interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake. So said Napoleon (though you would never know he ever had an interesting thought, judging by...
In his first speech of 2024, the message from the man who will be prime minister this time next year (barring a large asteroid crashing into Earth)...
It was nice of Royal Mail to send me a message. “Delivered”, it said. To prove it, there was a photo of my parcel on the doorstep. Except it...
Just as I sat down to write this, yet another one thumped into my inbox. “£28bn every year … Labour have not changed – their irresponsible...
This is where the housing pressure-cooker explodes. This is Manchester’s civil court, like others all across England, where people are made...