Written for The Times, 26th June 2012 Yesterday’s announcement that Liverpool College is to become an academy is perhaps the single biggest breach in the Berlin Wall between the private and state sectors of education in recent decades. It opens the way for many more private schools to join the state-funded system – giving [...]
Originally written for the Financial Times Going South: Why Britain will have a Third World Economy by 2014, by Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson, Palgrave Macmillan, £14.99 Declinism is back, and this is one of its most brutal and eloquent expressions to date. We aren’t just going through a Great Recession, argue Larry [...]
The advance of elected mayors continues apace, despite the negative votes in city referendums last week. The London mayoral contest dominated May’s local elections. London’s transport, and much else besides, has been transformed for the better by twelve years of the mayoralty. Polls show more Londoners now favour independence for the capital than the abolition [...]
From yes2mayors.com: My response to remarks made by the departing Leader of Bristol City Council Barbara Janke in her resignation letter: Yet again, Bristol’s unstable city council is undergoing a change of leadership. Barbara Janke’s resignation marks the eighth change of leadership in the city council in 12 years – almost one leader a year. [...]
My suggestion that a reformed House of Lords should be located in a major city in the midlands or the north has stimulated a big debate. Here are some of the contributions: Let’s move the Lords to Manchester From the Spectator’s “Coffee House” blog Andrew Adonis, one of the [...]
Originally published in the Birmingham Post There was a time when Birmingham was undisputedly the nation’s second city. Nowadays a host of other cities are nipping at its heels. Greater Manchester is now by far the most autonomous and powerful city outside London, it also boasts the biggest airport. Leeds is the biggest provincial hub [...]
Originally published in The Times Can you name the leaders of Birmingham, Liverpool and Leeds city councils, three of the largest cities in England? No? You are in good company. When I asked the question at a conference of local authority chief executives, not even they could name all three. But have you met [...]
The Institute for Government and I are quoted in this Economist article Britain’s few elected mayors have mostly worked well. That doesn’t mean other cities will vote for them. GISELA STUART, a Labour MP, trots round her Birmingham constituency, listening to gripes about traffic, litter and the sundry inconveniences of life in a busy city. [...]
For Progress We must not oppose high-speed rail for opposition’s sake. High Speed Two is Labour’s scheme in origin and conception. Our battle with the Tories should not be on the existing HS2 proposal, but on taking the line right through from London to Manchester and Leeds as a single project rather than stopping at Birmingham [...]
Posts from my tour of the English cities holding referendums on whether they should have executive mayors: Bristol, 5th January 2011 Bristol City Council has had seven changes of leader in eight years. Yet another change of leader could be in the offing after next May’s elections. But even if the current administration – run [...]