MP's death leaves Brown facing new SNP challenge in neighbouring
Gordon Brown faces a difficult byelection in his neighbouring
Severin Carrell on the issues facing the Labour party and byelections at the moment. [Guardian]
Gordon Brown is in a "deep hole", placing Labour in a more serious position than other governments that have experienced mid-term blues, a former minister said yesterday. [Guardian]
A powerful coalition of mainstream Labour MPs and leaders of
David Hare anatomised the failure of privatisation in The Permanent Way; in Stuff Happens, he turned a ruthless eye on the double-think and culpable naivety that led to the
A Tory push to win back seats in the north of
"
It was dreary and wet, and slumped in a chair opposite David Cameron was a jobless hoodie: much of the north in a nutshell according to Policy Exchange, until yesterday the Tory leader's favourite thinktank.
"A rightwing thinktank has written off many northern cities as worthless failures and advised their inhabitants to move south at once. In fact, everything about life in the north of
Steve Bell on Policy Exchange’s report on the north of
Young men are shunning work and turning to a life of crime as
One of Gordon Brown's closest allies has joined calls for a windfall tax on oil and energy company profits to pay for measures to alleviate the impact of higher fuel bills on the poor. [Guardian]
Dozens of companies face having to report embarrassing sharp increases in their carbon pollution under government plans to crack down on greenwash. [Guardian]
A former senior civil servant who was responsible for coordinating the government's anti-drugs policy now believes that legalisation would be less harmful than the current strategy. Julian Critchley, the former director of the Cabinet Office's anti-drugs unit, also said that his views were shared by the "overwhelming majority" of professionals in the field, including police officers, health workers and members of the government. [Guardian]
Peter Wilby on the dangerous effects of journalists’ desire for a news story overpowering rational examination in scientific matters. [Guardian]
Martin Kettle prods around Gordon Brown’s brain in order to highlight how Brown’s impression of what is courageous becomes something else when he is unable to change direction on issues. [Guardian]
Police would be given greater powers to conduct surveillance operations on people suspected of crimes such as burglary and vehicle theft under plans the Conservative Party will announce today. [Guardian]
Ministers' plans to hold in secret inquests that are deemed to put national security at risk are expected to face defeat when the House of Lords votes on them this autumn. A cross-party committee of peers, including a former lord chief justice and two former attorney-generals, has told the government that any decision to hold an inquest without a jury must be taken by a judge and not a minister. [Guardian]
Local councils, health authorities and hundreds of other public bodies are to be given the power to access details of everyone's personal text, emails and internet use under Home Office proposals published yesterday. [Guardian]
Ed Vaizey, Shadow Culture Minsiter: “One of Peter Mandelson's enduring political legacies has been a pithy maxim: only when you are bored of what you are saying will the public start to hear you. So at the risk of boring myself, let me respond to the attack on Conservative arts policy by Dominic Cooke, the artistic director of the Royal Court theatre in London (Lurking in the wings, August 6)….” [Guardian]
Heather Stewart on the possible options available to the Chancellor to stimulate the economy. [Guardian]
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