Polling shows huge surge in % of public blaming the coalition for the cuts

Gordon Brown still has something significant to contribute to political life

By Luke Akehurst

Out of the corner of my eye yesterday I spotted someone on the rolling news. He looked vaguely familiar. It took me a minute to realise it was Gordon Brown. Less than four years ago Gordon was Labour Leader and Prime Minister. It feels like another era. We are really a bit rubbish as a country about working out what role our former PMs should have. None of them get any formal status in the way a US President does, […]

Parliament must stop arrogant Jeremy Hunt from overstepping the mark

By Andy Burnham

Today, Jeremy Hunt will ask Parliament to give him new powers to impose cuts to hospitals across the country and give local people and clinicians little chance to object. The debate comes after his plan to downgrade Lewisham Hospital last year – to balance the books in a neighbouring hospital trust – was thrown out by the High Court. Campaigners there won a victory for us all. It is arrogance in the extreme that his response to that defeat was […]

The Sticks and the City

By Polly Billington

My brother, once he’d got himself set up with a room in a shared house near a tube station after finishing Uni, used to “hilariously” divide England into two parts: London and Not London. While it might have raised a smile at his airs for metropolitan wit back then, the worrying thing is that it is becoming true. This is a problem for England in particular, economically and socially – and for Labour it risks being a political problem too. […]

A message for rUK – the SNP is a centre-right party

By Peter Russell

I found myself one Saturday evening recently arguing the toss on Twitter with Billy Bragg about the Scottish independence referendum. This is the upside of social media – discussion with people whom you otherwise would not get to meet. Does this make me friend to the stars? No, because I disagreed with him and his position that independence would be a good thing, as the constitutional shock of Scotland leaving the UK could lead to devolution for the English regions. […]

Tory Minister Freud says it’s “very hard” to know why people use Food Banks

Tory Minister Lord Freud – who once referred to people on benefits as corpses – has come under fire again after he said that it was “very hard” to know why people use Food Banks. Speaking in the Lords, Freud said: “Clearly nobody goes to a food bank willingly. However, it is very hard to know why people go to them.” People to go them in increasing numbers due to the policies of your government, Lord Freud…