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Polly ToynbeeThe Guardian |
Watch what happens in Swale, as it’s a tale that will be repeated often in the next few years. Here in Kent is a test of Labour’s determination to...
That is a low blow, health secretary. On a matter of life, death and personal freedom, the debate should be elevated above this. Wes Streeting...
Those panic alarms in MPs’ welcome-to-Westminster packs may have been eyed nervously by some on the Labour benches in the past week. The shock of...
With wailing woe in the small hours, many of you shared that wrenching despair when the US election result extinguished hope. Beyond reason, beyond...
Someone had to pay. Is this a “class”-based budget, the chancellor is asked on the BBC? No, it’s raising money urgently needed for the NHS and...
It’s the mood music that matters most. The budget needs to sing “Here comes the sun” after too many grey months of grim prognosis. That hefty...
A collective groan greeted the rumour that the government will announce yet another royal commission on social care. The fear is that it just kicks...
As the budget approaches, outrage from the Tories and their media outriders at any mention of proposed tax rises is reaching boiling point. Never a...
As the budget approaches, expect more balderdash and hogwash from Labour’s enemies and their foghorn media. Listen to them protest that raising...
Our critically injured public services beg for help, but the totem signifying the state of the nation will always be the NHS. The monthly waiting time...
They’re off! The millionaires are taking flight in droves, chased away by Labour’s budget plans. Day after day, rightwing thinktanks and media...
Bravo to Kim Leadbeater. She can expect a rough ride for introducing an assisted dying bill. If passed, the Leadbeater legislation will enter the...
At a stroke, this government could wipe out much of the extra child poverty caused by the last government. It would be a bargain, at a cost of just...
Inside the Tory party sinkhole, its denizens pretend to understand what has befallen them, but they act like the undead who haven’t realised they...
“I’m not working class any more,” Keir Starmer told LBC’s Nick Ferrari this week. Of course that’s the case. As the Daily Mail rushed to...
With the hail of bad freebie stories echoing the Mersey downpour, this looked set to be a less joyous conference than was due a party that had just...
Jobcentres are the “least well-used” and “least well-loved” of all public services, a failure at the heart of the economy that helps account...
Of all the landmines planted by the last government, bursting prisons were the most dangerous. This left Keir Starmer with no choice but to release...
Broken but not beaten, is Lord Darzi’s verdict on the NHS in England. “My colleagues in the NHS are working harder than ever but our productivity...
I crept into the inaugural Westminster meeting of The Future of the Right, a Policy Exchange project from a bygone age of Tory ascendancy. I admit it:...
The honeymoon for Labour is over, say the massed ranks of the rightwing media. What honeymoon was that? It seems to have been over since 5 July....
This is what a fundamental power shift looks like. Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, has swept away the worst of the Tories’ strike-banning...
These were the headlines after an extraordinary night. “Peaceful atmosphere at Sheffield”, “No signs of disorder in Liverpool”,...
GPs in England have embarked on industrial action for the first time in 60 years. The 10 actions they can choose from could bring the NHS to a...
That sounded like a totemic cut, one that everyone could understand. She cut old folk’s winter fuel allowance! Is it like Margaret Thatcher, milk...
That was authentic anger, Rachel Reeves’s indignation well justified as she thundered in the Commons at the inheritance she has been left. Labour is...
Every Labour government forges ahead with life-changing liberal reforms, and this one will be no exception. Expect the right to die to be one of this...
When Keir Starmer promises that his new government will “bulldoze” through the planning system as “the builders not the blockers”, there is...
I will eat my hat – or several – if Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves don’t soon find the money to bury the pernicious two-child benefit cap. The...
The Bruges Group celebrated its 35th anniversary last week in the august portals of the Army and Navy club in Pall Mall in central London. The group...
Lest we forget, here is an audit of the state of the country Labour inherits. Pin it up, brand it into public memory so no one can forget the...
Winning the election was almost easy compared with the next task Keir Starmer has set himself. “The fight for trust is the battle that defines our...
Hallelujah and hosanna! (If not now, when?) At the stroke of 10, the country knew it had liberated itself from the most contemptible government in...
In one great whoosh, the country looks set to hose away this despicable government on an outflow of its own sewage. Kicking the bastards out is what...
A red glow spreading across the land may be so bright you could see it from space, if polling predictions are right. In that Labour flare, let’s...
Who are the people who will still vote Tory? True, there are not many left, but a solid core of 20% of the population will opt for more of the same,...
There’s turmoil in the EU as the far right advances. Macron risks all, trusting that people vote in protest for the remote EU parliament, but vote...
In all the sound and fury of the election, annual statistics land unnoticed. Yet these grim Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures are the best...
Another month to go: can we bear it? Brainless dishonesty, puerile insults, false accusations, the whole charade takes us for idiots. The more...
When the Tories reach the very bottom of their bad ideas barrel, they come up with a dead rat plan for conscription. The notion is so decrepit that...
Here is the one and only great service Rishi Sunak could perform for his country. Nothing so became him as the leaving of office, despite the deluge....
I have been following the rise of the bao bun very keenly – the pallid little puffballs are enjoying a boom in Britain’s snack sector – on...
The Elite London, described as the city’s “most exclusive jet-set lifestyle event”, filled Wycombe Air Park with row after row of gleaming...
No, no, this is an uncharacteristic mistake. Keir Starmer’s welcoming hand on Natalie Elphicke’s shoulder is a picture his enemies will relish as...
Labour’s tanks roll relentlessly across Tory lawns, not pausing a heartbeat to celebrate phenomenal local election results in England. It treated...
How old is old? That depends on how old you are, for as you age you will nudge that number upwards. A recent German study asked people over the age of...
As the sewage-filled waters start to close over the heads of Torydom, their Tufton Street thinktankers carry on like the orchestra on the Titanic. In...