MIKE THATCHER | It was a no-win situation for the health secretary. On the controversial issue of top-up fees, Alan Johnson knew he would be upbraided by the unions if he said ‘yes’ and pilloried...
MIKE THATCHER | In the long run, we are all dead, Keynes famously remarked. As a justification for pump-priming an economy out of recession, it still has considerable appeal.
TONY TRAVERS | Many public service finance officers will have thought about ‘risk’ a great deal recently. In the past, the management of local authority, housing association or university reserves...
VICTORIA MACDONALD | For weeks now there has been nothing but unremitting gloom. The collapse of the markets, the failure of Fannie Mae, Lehman Brothers, Icesave, etc and inflation soaring to its...
MIKE THATCHER | It seems that councils, police and fire authorities, charities and universities will be disappointed in their calls for the government to guarantee deposits totalling more than £1bn...
MIKE THATCHER | The cherished fiscal rules lie in tatters as the government embarks on a borrowing bonanza aimed at stabilising the turmoil in the UK’s banking sector.
MELISSA BENN | It could be the biggest political news story of the autumn: the return of the Prince of Darkness, or the Prince of Sleaze as one newspaper unkindly called him.
NICK COMFORT | Governments get tired, and so do ministers. That is why prime ministers are tempted every so often — as Gordon Brown has so publicly been — not just to reshuffle the pack but to...
MIKE THATCHER | It was the speech of his life, they said. An oratorical tour de force. Authoritative and yet apologetic; humble, while still combative.
MIKE THATCHER | It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Gordon Brown might not think so at the moment, but the collapse of global capitalism could save him from the ignominy of an unscheduled...
PETER WILBY | This ought to be a pregnant moment for the Left. The project of free-market capitalism, liberated from the dead hand of state regulation, has unravelled.
MIKE THATCHER | TUC conferences ain’t what they used to be. Gone are the days when prime ministers quaked as the labour movement marshalled its big battalions.
TONY TRAVERS | It is a measure of the Conservatives’ confidence that shadow chancellor George Osborne has let it be known that he is now considering public expenditure cuts.
MIKE THATCHER | Chancellors are not supposed to tell the whole truth. Of course, they shouldn’t lie, but being overly frank is not top of the job description.
DAVID LIPSEY | The US party conventions spark typical British condescension towards our largest former colony. We regard them as exercises in vulgar razzmatazz compared with the deeply serious...
MIKE THATCHER | Payment by results has never been far from controversy. Introduced in England in 2003 as part of an NHS internal market, it has been ignored by every other part of the UK.
PETER HETHERINGTON | Far away from the Westminster village, seemingly out of reach of a questioning media, a rather arbitrary reorganisation of English local government is under way.
MIKE THATCHER | Roy Keane, the manager of Sunderland Football Club, blamed it on wives and shopping. Overpaid footballers, he said, would rather play for an inferior London team than head to...
CONOR RYAN | There might be an August lull in speculation over Gordon Brown’s future. But the prime minister faces a testing September as he seeks to relaunch his government.
MIKE THATCHER | Labour MPs might have broken up for the summer, but there is still a frenzied atmosphere as Gordon Brown clings on to power amid growing concerns about his leadership of the party...
