If Labour is to provide the genuine green alternative to the Tory luddites, they must highlight the missed economic opportunity of a low-carbon economy, using the top economic voices in the party. Lower and more stable bills help our companies compete, while low-carbon infrastructure itself is a key growth area in jobs and investment.
When Europe comes to the fore of politics in Britain, the polls shift in favour of staying, as they did after David Cameron’s speech. When it comes to the crunch, however, the voting public are too clever to turn away from our most valuable relationship.
Front and centre in today’s Queen’s Speech was the announcement that the government will be limiting the ability for certain migrants to use the Human Rights Act – and its provision for the right to a private and family life – to avoid deportation.
It’s something of a love that dare not speak its name, but Powellism has remained a major subtext on the British right for something like half a century, and the rise of UKIP marks only the latest incarnation of this ongoing infatuation.
With all too regular reports of services failing to ensure even the most basic levels of care and safety, some might argue that loneliness is not the most important problem we face. But loneliness and isolation are public health issues with an impact and cost on a par with smoking.
The Catholic church was back in the news this weekend with the story of Cardinal O’Brien’s ‘exile’. It’s a story that’s unlikely to go away any time soon. And given that O’Brien remains Britain’s most senior Catholic, it’s one that has wider relevance. It’s been argued that he should be left alone. But we should all be concerned that the complaints made against him are properly investigated and that appropriate action is taken.
Stav Shaffir was in conversation with Alan Johnson of ‘Fathom: for a deeper understanding of Israel and the region’
perhaps there is a form of growth which it is possible to sustain – ‘green growth’ – and if there is, we all need to know what it would look like. And if it’s impossible, we need to know that too.
In the next few days, and for the first time in human history, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere will hit 400 parts per million (ppm), a level long seen as critical in measuring the damage done to the earth by man-made pollution.
There has been lots of discussion recently about how much more the ’1 per cent’ earn than everyone else. There has been less attention paid to how much more they own.
