It has come as no surprise that Conservatives have been falling over themselves to denounce a report calling for a major population shift from the North of England to London and the South.
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The TaxPayers’ Alliance report into the performance of regional development agencies was always going to be a brutal condemnation of what is termed “wasteful bureaucratic excess by unaccountable quangos”. Given the TPA’s mission to act as self-appointed scrutineers of the finances, an investigation into RDAs would have been akin to hitting a barn door from five paces.
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The Government says it is keen to promote enterprise, but helping criminals to profit from their activities is probably not what ministers had in mind when they promised to support British business.
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The what-to-do-about-Gordon problem will become much easier for Labour to solve once the party accepts there is almost certainly nothing it can do now to win the next General Election. No Government in history has recovered sufficiently from such disastrous opinion poll ratings, and by-election defeats on the scale of Crewe and Glasgow East, in time to win the confidence of voters at the polls – especially not when the economy is on the rocks.
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It is always tempting for politicians to paint a bleaker picture of social decay than is really necessary in order to score points against their opponents. And it is a pity that shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Chris Grayling somewhat over-eggs his message today by suggesting that the gap between rich and poor in Birmingham is as bad now as it was in Victorian times.
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The Commons Trade and Industry Committee has just about steered clear of accusing six major energy companies of operating a cartel in respect of gas and electricity prices, although the MPs are making it clear they regard the marketplace as far from fair. In a worrying report published today, the committee says it has uncovered evidence that the big players are “abusing their market position” in order to prevent smaller companies from gaining a toe-hold in Britain, while in Europe Governments have conspired to make sure energy prices are lower for consumers and industry.
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If a week in politics is a long time then a year must be an eternity, but it is now almost 12 months since West Midlands council leaders reluctantly offered Whitehall a compromise by agreeing to plan for 362,000 new homes to be built across the region by 2026.
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If taken at face value, the suggestion by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham Vincent Nichols that Catholics across the West Midlands should pray for the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and for the success of the Lambeth conference must be seen as a positive intervention.
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If there is a sense of hopelessness about the Home Secretary's latest pronouncements on knife crime, that is because Jacqui Smith knows she is almost certainly on to a hiding to nothing no matter what she says or does.
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Almost as every week passes the Government appears no longer in charge of its own destiny, stumbling from one disaster to another, hoping against hope to borrow the immortal words of Mr Micawber that something will turn up to save it from defeat at the next General Election.
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The continuing controversy about MPs’ expenses brings with it a number of dangers, not least the risk of treating all of our politicians as potential criminals.
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Schools are not businesses. At least not in the way we normally consider them. You cannot, for example, compare running a school to managing a supermarket.
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