Forgemasters: Is Clegg about to play his get out of jail free card?
Kevin Meagher does some digging and ponders whether Nick Clegg could be about to conjure up £80 million to save Sheffield Forgemasters.
Kevin Meagher
Kevin is a former head of communications at Advantage West Midlands and public affairs manager for United Utilities PLC. He was also special adviser to Labour Northern Ireland secretary, Shaun Woodward. He is now a freelance communications consultant.
Beware of pushing Catholics out of the progressive club
Kevin Meagher on why it would be a mistake for liberals and those on the left to push Catholics out of the progressive club with their anti-Papal rhetoric.
RDA consultation is a total dog’s breakfast
Last week saw the deadline pass for local authorities and businesses to produce proposals for new, local regeneration bodies to succeed the eight regional development agencies outside London, allegedly replacing the “top-down prescription approach taken previously”.
Sword of Damocles? Scale of cuts to north is more like Grim Reaper’s scythe
Further evidence, if any were needed, that the North-South divide is real and threatening to get wider came today with research for BBC Regions showing a map of economic resilience across England, compiled as part of the Corporation’s Spending Review season.
Cameron: More Heath than Thatcher?
Of course such a proposition is tantamount to someone questioning your parentage in modern Conservative circles. What is often overlooked, however, is that back in 1970 Heath campaigned on the proto-Thatcherite platform of spending cuts, smaller government, removing support fortest
Kevin Meagher’s top five most influential left wingers
Here are five people Kevin Meagher thinks should appear in Left Foot Forward’s list of the fifty most influential lefties in Britain.
The growing divide between north and south
Researchers analysing data on average incomes, house prices, life expectancy and educational attainment show that the gap between north and south has grown wider in the recession – and the dividing line is intriguing.
Progressives should be supporting Elected Police Commissioners
The home office yesterday unveiled its blueprint for reforming the police which promises the biggest organisational shake-up for 50 years; the frustration about this announcement is that it should have been a Labour home secretary making it.
You’ve done great! ps. You’re fired
Good timing and luck are everything in politics. Unfortunately for the regional development agencies, they have not been overendowed with either. They long ago shattered a lorry load of mirrors.
Derry to be first British culture capital
And the winner is… Londonderry! Or should that be Derry? Apparently it’s both these days. The ‘Derry-Londonderry’ bid was announced last night as the first British Capital of Culture for 2013.