ShiftingGrounds

‘A bridge too far’ were the words of Michael Gove backtracking on his plans to revolutionise the exam system in England and Wales.

‘It is based on the difference between a neo-classical and a neo-aristotelian concept of human nature’
These are the words not of a Harvard professor, nor a professional think-tanker, but of the Labour MP for Dagenham and Rainham. Jon Cruddas is a politician unlike any other.

Yesterday, Jason Beattie at the Mirror revealed a massive cut to the Crime Prevention budget, funds that would have been used locally by elected Police and Crime Commissioners. This massive shortfall in funding means that many of the elected police chiefs will not be able to properly fulfil the role set out for them.

Birmingham New Street, Monday evening. A crowd amasses- chanting and cheering. There is only one name on their lips. Boris Johnson.

Ed Miliband’s speech has caught the Tories off guard. As many have pointed out, David Cameron will now know that he has a real fight on his hands come the next election. Gone will be the petty polling, aiming to paint him as a leader, but not a Prime Minister. Now David Cameron has to fight tooth and nail in the battle of ideas.

When I first started writing for Shifting Grounds earlier this year, my first blogpost was on the danger that Andrew Lansley and the Health and Social Care Bill posed to the future of the NHS. Six months on, our most cherished institution is in grave peril.

The statistics released yesterday show a 25% spike in the number of homeless people on our streets. This is simply not acceptable. We all know it. The government knows it. Yet it is wilfully ignoring all of the markers in its housing policy which should have shown that this outcome was a foregone conclusion.

Among the themes likely to shape British politics over the next fifty years, two in particular are under-discussed. One is an ageing population, meaning increased spending on pensions and healthcare. The other is the decline of home-ownership and an inexorable rise in the private rental sector.

A victory for the people. A government that listens. A well-functioning and healthy democracy where the concerns of ordinary citizens are taken on board and a policy programme that’s reflexive and responsive.
These will be the sort of things trotted out over the next couple of days. And no, you haven’t missed a vital piece of news.

There is no problem. Go back to bed, Britain. We have enough police, and we’re freeing them from paperwork! They’ll be out on the streets in no time. That’s if we haven’t taken an axe to their jobs.
So goes the new rhetoric on police cuts.

Well it’s all just a bit of a mess, isn’t it? A drubbing up and down the country on election day, approval ratings smashing through the floor so quickly it’s threatening the stability of the building and a relaunch that was more damp squib than high-octane reboot.

For a number of years now, local government has been stalked by a haunting spectre. It has threatened to start banging on the door of Westminster politics, and has made gains in European elections.

On the morning of the 19 April 1989, the population of Liverpool woke up to a disturbing headline.
Only four days after the Hillsborough Disaster, The Sun newspaper, under the editorship of Kelvin Mackenzie, ran a story headlined ‘The Truth’.

Out of control, out of touch, the government seem to be ‘out’ of everything. The ‘omnishambles’ narrative has taken a giant leap forward and has now become a mainstay of British political commentary on the government’s leadership of the country.

With times hard for families as it is, rising food and fuel bills, simultaneously made worse by cuts to housing benefit, tax credits and the looming spectre of unemployment, the Conservative-led government is again piling on the pressure with the threat of withdrawal of child benefit payments for families of persistent truants.

Government housing policy has fallen off the political agenda recently, but a series of reports over the past few weeks have shown that the housing crisis in Britain is escalating at an alarming rate.

The Conservative government are in secret talks with sovereign wealth funds in Abu Dhabi with the aim of selling off the state-owned share of the Royal Bank of Scotland, it has been revealed.

Last week, the government finally managed to push the controversial Health and Social Care Bill through parliament. The bill has provoked the ire of the Labour Party, a large swathe of the Liberal Democrats, a myriad of professional healthcare associations, and most importantly, the general public.