That great and virtuous institution, The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, has for the past two years been studying why British society is in such a terrible mess. It has consulted with commentators and thinkers, and has conducted a survey of 3,500...
Read moreIn the week of the first ever Green Britain Day, I was fortunate enough to hear an exchange which captured, in an admittedly microcosmic way, the realities behind the energy debate. At a planning committee in Norfolk, one of two...
Read moreIn his song "Gave It a Name", Bruce Springsteen circles around the question of guilt. A man who has done bad things "couldn't stand the guilt or the blame/So he gave it a name." It is a weird, offbeat psychological...
Read moreHere is an unusual angle on a grimly familiar story. The constituents of an MP who has been caught up in the expenses row are, in the phrase of the month, very, very angry. Their faith in politics and politicians...
Read moreThere has presumably been much back-slapping and high- fiving at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport after a rare item of good news for the government this week. The great New Labour dream of making Britain a land fit...
Read moreThe week's least surprising news is that the woman variously known as the Hairy Angel and SuBo has begun to behave oddly. In the few short weeks since Susan Boyle appeared on a TV talent show, she has been propelled...
Read moreIn a startling new survey, it has been discovered that not only are girls made of sugar and spice and all things nice, but that they can often induce niceness in others. Boys, on the other hand, have a slugs-and-snails...
Read moreThe experts who have announced that the current crisis in our political system is the worst in living memory are already being challenged. The problem is far more serious than that. Like mad bidders at a history auction, the pundits...
Read moreSome surprisingly positive news has emerged from local government. Across Britain, councils have been reviving the spirit of adventure and self-entertainment which many thought had died in the age of the computer; I-Spy, that game for all the family, is...
Read moreThe people out there are angry, say the politicians. In a floundering attempt to play the sincerity card which has served them so well in the past, they turn their sheepish, plastic bag-claiming, moat-clearing, manure-collecting, property-flipping eyes to the camera,...
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