Left Foot Forward
Johann Hari skewers Richard Littlejohn on his own show
Award-winning Indy journalist Johann Hari has put right-wing Mail attack dog Richard Littlejohn to the sword on his own Sky News show. Hari tore into Littlejohn for spreading lies which the BNP feed on, his ignorance over asylum seeker benefits and BNP leader Nick Griffin's description of him as his “favourite journalist”.
Two cheers for Cameron! But what about the rest of the party hacks on the payroll?
The prime minister performed a u-turn today over the appointment of two vanity photographers to the public purse today - having only last week said they would "save the Government and the taxpayer a lot of money". Former Tory party staffer Andrew Parsons and WebCameron filmmaker Nicky Woodhouse will now be paid by the Conservative party, and not the civil service.
Green challenges on transport policy
When Labour came to power in 1997, it promised to reverse the remorseless growth in road traffic. Within a few years, Labour's first transport secretary, John Prescott, had self-admittedly failed in this ambition, and indeed Labour had almost been sunk by the fuel-price protests. If the Left is to achieve real change in the all-important area of 'transport policy', then it is going to have to be both much more ambitious and much more savvy than was the Blair government.
Many will be worse off under Universal Credit
Last week’s welfare reform white paper included the following graph, claiming to show that “many households will receive more under Universal Credit than under the current system”; at first viewing, the graph does appear to show small weekly gains for those in lower income deciles, and insignificant losses for those higher up the income distribution. But all is not as it seems.
The CPS, judiciary and Yasmin Alibhai Brown just don’t get Twitter
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is well remunerated to exercise her opinions every week in her Independent column. Her free expression keeps a roof over her head, so you’d expect her to be forgiving when others exercise their rights. Sadly not. Whilst she didn’t call the police about Cllr Compton, she says she would have done so, and has backed up the CPS position that these tweets are “menacing”.
Look Left – Real issues lost amidst the madness
The violent rage of a small minority overshadowed the quiet anger of the many as protests against the government's education cuts turned toxic this week. Fourteen people were injured and there were 50 arrests following the attack on the Tories' Millbank HQ on Wednesday, after a peaceful demonstration which saw 50,000 students march on Westminster demanding a rethink of plans to treble tuition fees and slash higher education funding. The violence was immediately condemned by the National Union of Students, NUS President Aaron Porter calling it "despicable".