The ShortList: this week’s highlights

Boris Johnson: All Promise, No Delivery

By Murad Qureshi

Boris Johnson has made a great deal about his green initiatives – from cycle hire to electric vehicles. But as has been well documented, the Mayor’s record leaves a lot to be desired. The cycle hire scheme has only been used by a fraction of Londoners and is costing the taxpayer millions despite a manifesto promise it would be free. His record on electric vehicles is even weaker. Johnson announced with much fanfare at the Seoul C40 Climate Change Summit [...]

Why should young people engage in politics?

Politics can often feel like something which is far removed from everyday life, and something which most young people don’t easily relate to. Yet if you’ve been a youth worker for any stretch of time, you’ll understand that youth work is political with a small ‘p’. It’s very much about engaging young people to enable them to make positive decisions for themselves as well as giving them the skills to be able to interact positively with the world around them. [...]

North-South Divide Widens – is it time for a North of England Assembly?

By Cat Smith

A report published this week by the Local Data Company on the number of empty shops on our high streets highlights further the North-South divide, as well the dire economic situation many small and medium sized businesses are in. The highest number of shuttered shops was counted in Stockport where more than 30% are now empty, according to the study of 700 British town centres. The shopping parades of the South and West fared best with Taunton, Salisbury and St [...]

Local government finance – not sexy, but important

By Rory Palmer

Local government finance is not the sexiest subject in the world, nor will it get many frontpage headlines. It’s not just the pace and scale of the coalition’s cuts which is hitting local government hard. Uncertainty created by a raft of other council finance proposals is causing real difficulty for town halls across the country. The cuts are savage and deliberately front-loaded, hitting local government disproportionately. Councils with higher levels of need are taking bigger hits, and as town halls [...]

Ashcroft Warned the Tories About the Health Bill a Year Ago

By Neil Foster

Over the last 12 months Michael Ashcroft has been conducting a range of focus groups and polling on how the Conservative Party can build a majority in a 2015 general election. They should be required reading for all involved in understanding public opinion and the electoral terrain. His ‘Wake Up and Smell The Coffee’ study had a significant albeit delayed impact on his party encouraging it to modernise, reposition itself and neutralise a number of ‘toxic’ issues for the party. [...]