Simon Schama: Michael Gove’s history man
THE Coalition has declared war on educational inequality, Michael Gove told the Tory conference yesterday. But its decisions to scrap Labour’s schools rebuilding scheme and pass the socially divisive Academies Act can only increase it. The education secretary’s insistence that young teachers are his ‘heroes and heroines’ was cringe-inducing, and I could have lived without [...]
Child benefit: middle income earners need it too
AMERICAN Vaudeville artiste Sophie Tucker famously remarked ‘I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor, and rich is better.’ Sadly, I have never been rich, and most likely never will be. But what I can say that I have been a higher rate taxpayer and I’ve been on the dole, and being a higher rate taxpayer is [...]
Lutfur Rahman: Bangladeshis are the new boilermakers
LUTFUR Rahman is an Islamic fascist entrist who rigged his selection as Labour candidate for mayor of Tower Hamlets by signing up 200 predominantly Muslim members from outside the borough. That’s how his detractors see things, anyway. The alternative take is that Lutfur Rahman is simply a politically committed Muslim with widespread support among the [...]
Coalition adopts 1987 Kinnock defence policy
THE 1987 general election campaign feature a Tory poster showing a British soldier surrendering with his hands on his head, with a caption reading ‘Labour’s policy on arms’. Thanks a bundle, Saatchi & Saatchi. Now – at least if Liam Fox is to be believed – this is the Coalition’s policy on arms, too. The muscular rightwing [...]
