It’s been one of Cat Onyac’s better days. Her two children are concentrating on their crochet project, sitting in the sunshine at HvH Arts in north London. And they’ve eaten. “All the children get a hot meal,” she says. The family is at a summer scheme for children in Camden on the edge of Keir … Read more
Britain’s public finances are in a desperate state. That is the key message the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will deliver in a speech on Monday, which she will use to draw attention to a £20bn black hole in the tax and spending plans bequeathed to her by the last government. Critics will say that this should … Read more
We knew our country was in the grip of a housing emergency before we took office. But it’s even more grim than we imagined. Not just a high-tax, low-growth economy and crumbling public services. But, lurking under each stone we lift, a frankly scandalous legacy. Prisons running out of spaces and a broken housing market, … Read more
A sweeping overhaul of planning rules to trigger the building of many more affordable homes will be announced by the government this week as it confronts the economic and social legacy of 14 years of Conservative rule. Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner will unveil a new National Planning Policy Framework to MPs on Tuesday before … Read more
What is it that drove, on Tuesday night, seven Labour MPs to vote for an amendment tabled in parliament by another party, with the virtual certainty of losing the party whip as a consequence? The answer is that some issues are so important, so pressing and so at the core of one’s beliefs that the … Read more
The contest to succeed Rishi Sunak as Conservative leader may seem like an argument between corpses in a tomb. The candidates are yesterday’s rejects. Not even the hysterical headline-writers of the Tory press can bring themselves to hype the race as they would in the triumphalist years. The infantile tabloid screams of “Boris this” or … Read more
It’s hard to know where to start if you are a brand new government taking on a mega-survey of risk and potential emergencies in the UK. Beyond the Covid-19 pandemic, the challenges are many. I am an adviser in UK emergency planning and have worked on almost every disaster involving British citizens since 2001, including … Read more
Boring. That was the universal response to Wednesday’s first prime minister’s questions of the new parliament. Where was the screaming, yelling, insulting and air punching? This is supposed to be Strictly Come Politicking. Get off stage, the two of you. Zero points. The Telegraph condemned the new PMQs as a “love-in”. The prime minister was … Read more
Go on. Admit it. There’s a small part of you that’s missed the psychodramas. Not necessarily the existential angst of lying in bed each night wondering what fresh hell the government was going to unleash on us the following day. But certainly the infighting. For the last five years or so, watching the Tories implode … Read more
Every Thursday at noon, outside the west door of Valencia’s cathedral, nine black-cloaked figures – one wearing a banded cap and with a ceremonial harpoon by their side – gather for their weekly meeting, as they have done for hundreds of years. This is the Tribunal de les Aigües (Tribunal of Waters) – a water … Read more