Several lessons for Labour need to be learned from Nick Robinson’s BBC programme Five Days that Changed Britain, broadcast on 29 July, about the five days in May between the election and the formation...
Ed Miliband, second favourite after his big brother for the Labour leadership, has written a piece on his campaign blog in which he argues for a graduate tax as a fairer alternative to tuition...
The reception for David Miliband’s Keir Hardie lecture on 10 July 2010 has been rapturous in some quarters — e.g. John Rentoul in an Independent newspaper blog, and, more surprisingly, by Jon Cruddas, standard-bearer...
In a recent blog post (here) I recommended some daunting facts and figures on Indeterminate Sentences (IPPs) published earlier this month in a Prison Reform Trust ‘Bromley Briefing’. The text of the relevant section...
The other day in a blog post about Indederminate Sentences for Public Protection (IPPs) I described the cruelty and injustice of the IPP régime, under which repeat offenders who have served the punishment part...
Some jewels from the print media …the day after an email exchange about liberty between Tony Blair and I was published in the Observer, … Henry Porter, The Observer 16 May 2010 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/16/henry-porter-civil-liberties-coalition …an...
It’s 1030am on Friday 7 May, the morning after the night before. Enough results are in to make it arithmetically impossible for any one party to win an overall majority in parliament. As expected,...
The novelist, poet, playwright and Nottinghamian Alan Sillitoe died, age 82, in the early hours of yesterday morning. I am a second cousin of his wife, now widow, the poet Ruth Fainlight, and my...
Ephems will shortly be intermittently AFK* for a variety of reasons so please don’t expect any blog posts or responses to comments for a while. Meanwhile we sit and shiver in sub-zero London and...
Does Tony Blair realise that in a couple of sentences in a religious affairs interview with one Fern Britton on television, he has blown what’s left of his defence on the Iraq war out...