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The first edition of Erskine May, the parliamentary rule book, provides, in fine Victorian prose, an apt commentary on the current parliamentary session. 'If the same question could be proposed [...]

Steve Richards (chair) Welcome everyone. As Professor David Salisbury is running late because of a press briefing, perhaps I could ask Professor Stephenson to give some sort of context to [...]

Who's filling the prisons these days? Lads caught without their driving licences or MoT The offence of aggravated vehicle taking is about to be beefed up. It already has an [...]

If by chance you have been reading the popular papers in recent days--in particular the News of the World, the Sunday Mirror, the Sun and the Sunday Express--then you will [...]

The Prime Minister describes the education white paper as a 'pivotal moment' for his government. In the tearooms backbenchers compare and contrast the phone calls they receive from whips and [...]

It's everyday stuff in Britain: baby born out of wedlock; errant father forced to provide DNA sample; result--a direct debit to the Child Support Agency. In Egypt, however, they do [...]

Local newspapers are sometimes mocked for their pedestrian agendas--all those planning wrangles and Rotary dinners--but a campaign by the Brighton Argus is turning the stereotype on its head. It tackles [...]

When I gathered together the group that subsequently launched (in 1984, appropriately) the Campaign for Freedom of Information- including such battle-scarred veterans of the cause as James Cornford, Chris Price, [...]

A white paper is set to reflect the view of ministers and wonks that they can do nothing to stop the likes of Murdoch. They are wrong. The coming communications [...]

The Bet: What will the Scottish Parliament legislate on first? Scrapping Clause 28 1-3 Banning hunting with dogs Evens (Source Charlie Whelan) In the Scottish papers, apart from the premature [...]

The Daily Telegraph's editorial of 30 March 2000 might just be one for the history books. In it, the paper argued for an end to the 'war on drugs' favoured [...]

Francis Maude is playing the accordion. The minister for the Cabinet Office is not performing on a musical instrument as such. He is toying with a narrow strip of paper [...]

The green paper belatedly recognises the need for government to address the downside of utility privatisation, says Linda Lennard Among private-sector companies the privatised utilities occupy a unique position. Not [...]

Jack Cunningham's rash decision to ban beef on the bone was based on a scientific paper which has not been subject to proper scrutiny There were the usual coffees and [...]

The think tank Politeia is urging the Education Secretary, Michael Gove, to afford Latin the same status as other foreign languages in primary schools. In a paper published on 14 [...]

The Scottish government published its white paper on independence. However, the minority SNP administration does not have enough support from opposition parties to stage a referendum in [...]

After reading the latest sunbed scare story in the papers, I did something out of character: I went out and bought a copy of Grazia, its glossy cover resplendent with [...]

From: The Unit To: GB Subject: Osborne on the rack * So, pretty good week. After months of finding it hard to pick up the papers it's become a pleasure [...]

My belief that this government has a political tin ear was strengthened by Harriet Harman's white paper on equality (A Framework for a Fairer Future, from the Government Equalities Office). [...]

It began tamely enough in April with columnists wringing their hands in the Sunday papers, gained heat with student demonstrations that provoked police brutality, and became really serious when striking [...]

A Consultation Toolkit has come my way. It is produced for Labour activists by the party, and concerns the schools white paper, published by Ruth Kelly in October, on which [...]

Several papers noted a report in the Police Review (5 November) of a couple who seem to have an exemplary relationship of trust and excitement. A former police officer and [...]

Share options are a tender subject with company directors. Many who were millionaires on paper two years ago have seen those fortunes evaporate along with their sinking share prices. Options [...]

Internal market or central command and control? Neither is adequate. The new white paper on the future of the NHS will seek a third way In Bristol a 26-year-old mother [...]

Twenty years ago, the NHS introduced an 'associate' role to assist doctors and cut costs. Now, a revolt over patient safety and declining expertise is tearing the medical establishment apart [...]

There is a war on universities. It's not being waged by the ever-striking teaching unions, nor by the 'woke warriors' who want to censor nonconformist views. No, the war on [...]

The Prime Minister is beset by crises many of his own making. Is the great alchemist of British politics on his way out or can he transform his fortunes and [...]

On 2 May a host of new metro mayors took office in England. In the post-Covid period, mayors have emerged as political superheroes. They are effective advocates for their regions [...]

For Siprina Omwanda Ogalo, a 58-year-old mother of four living on Kiwa Island, Lake Victoria, Kenya, transitioning to solar power has not just been a step towards sustainability--it has been [...]

Silicon Valley's big beasts once peacefully coexisted. But now the growing conflict between Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook could transform our relationship with technology. They are the feuding offspring of [...]

In Making It, his brash 1967 memoir of American success, the writer Norman Podhoretz observed that 'one of the longest journeys in the world is the journey from Brooklyn to [...]

Just how toxic can conversation get? In recent years I have frequently rejoiced that living in Italy spared me the poisonous Brexit divide. Then Covid brought us the 'green pass' [...]

Boris Johnson's chief strategist reached No 10 by pitting the people against the political elite and scorning the media. Now his hypocrisy is exposed Eight months ago, I asked in [...]

My phone started ringing excessively on the afternoon of Tuesday 7 March after Suella Braverman had made her statement on the government's small boats policy in the Commons. Gary Lineker, [...]

In the greatest financial experiment ever undertaken, Western governments have printed trillions of dollars to boost their economies. While the asset-rich have reaped the benefits of QE, millennials and the [...]

A French farmer in a mountain village near the border with Italy has found himself at the centre of Europe's migration crisis. Is he a hero or villain? At around [...]

Railways are one of Britain's greatest contributions to human progress. They changed this land forever, cutting journeys from days to hours, feeding the growing centres of the Industrial Revolution and [...]

Thirty years ago, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev tried and failed to abolish nuclear weapons. Yet out of that failure they built a new order Their body language said it [...]

Almost a thousand people drowned in the waters between Libya and Italy in May. Yet still more migrants come. Can anything be done, or are we experiencing a crisis without [...]

When Bruce Page, who has died aged 85, became the New Statesman editor in 1978, his first act was to tear up the style book. The magazine, in his view, [...]

Since it was announced in 2010, the project to transform the benefits system has been beset by problems. What is going wrong? For six years, I've been reporting on Britain's [...]

Hoppers Way in Singleton, Kent, is a quiet suburban cul-de-sac of red-brick detached houses, each with its own garage and driveway. Parked outside No 8, there is often a large [...]

When Eric Zemmour, a far-right polemicist, announced his bid for the French presidency in November last year, he did so into an old-fashioned radio microphone, reading not from an autocue [...]

On the morning of 30 November 2021,1 was sitting in the Downing Street briefing room. The UK Health Security Agency chief Jenny Harries had just said on the radio that [...]

I think of Frank Field in Birkenhead, the constituency he served with distinction between 1979 and 2019. In 1989, in a pub by Hamilton Square, where Frank lived, a member [...]

Boris Johnson's government has opened a new front in its culture wars. Many Tories argue that 'woke' university lecturers brainwash schoolteachers during initial training. When he was education secretary under [...]

Lytton, the Canadian village that recorded a temperature of 49.6 [degrees] C this month before wildfire burned it to the ground, is on roughly the same latitude (50.2 degrees north) [...]

I am sitting in one of London's finest Indian restaurants, Benares, in the heart of Mayfair. I've just placed an order for the 'Tandoori Ratan' mixed-grill appetiser - a trio [...]

Granted extraordinary access to intelligence officers, James Grant has built up the fullest picture yet of Britain's role in rendition and torture. How long, he asks, can ex-ministers dodge questions [...]

When I broke down in my midlife crisis car in remotest Kent just before Christmas, a battered white van pulled up on the far carriageway. To help, I thought. But [...]