Whilst blanket surveillance will inevitably bring some law enforcement gains, monitoring of an entire population smacks of authoritarianism, and will undermine the proud reputation for liberty we have developed as the oldest unbroken democracy in the world.
A majority of the public believes the government’s economic plan has failed and that it will be ‘time for a change’ in 2015, according to a ComRes survey for tomorrow’s Independent.
A Nigerian student, Boniface Umale, has died at Durham prison, shortly after his arrest. His death was only discovered when his visiting solicitor arrived at the jail to find arrangements being made for his cremation, according to Nigerian Watch.
The professed aim of the introduction of Universal Credit is to boost the personal responsibility of claimants, smooth the passage to work and prepare out-of-work claimants for their next job. There are a number of problems with Universal Credit, however – problems which haven’t been given anywhere near the amount of coverage by the press that they warrant.
Recreating Old Labourism is not only the last thing Miliband has in mind, but would now be impossible, even if that were what he sought to achieve.
Since 2005, more than 1,000 textile workers in Bangladesh have died in fires and building collapses. Thousands of people, many of them young women work in appalling and unsafe conditions in factories which supply western countries and High Street stores with cheap clothing.
It is over a year now since this coalition opened its consultation on tobacco packaging and we are still waiting for their answer. Come to that, it will soon be five years since Alan Johnson launched the Labour government’s consultation.
Britain is rapidly becoming much more peaceful. In case you haven’t already noticed, it is now official. This is great news; but for some these numbers will be small comfort. As usual, headline figures mask the experiences at the individual and neighbourhood level.
Rail fares and ticketing are unnecessarily expensive and complicated – it’s a mess that successive governments have ducked responsibility for sorting out. The Scottish government has now taken action, cutting fares and pledging to remove pricing anomalies. But will the same deal be extended to train users south of the border?
A report by MPs and peers which came out yesterday called for a quarter of all journeys to be made by bicycle by 2050, saying a “fundamental cultural shift” is now needed in how we think about travel.
