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We need war reporters, not just citizens with phone cameras
By Guest writer | Talking Politics – 4 hours ago
By Dr Matthew Ashton

This week saw the tragic death of Marie Colvin, a Sunday Times journalist working in the besieged area of Homs in Syria. This is obviously a terrible event and part of a horrific wider pattern in recent years where ever-growing numbers of journalists have lost their lives in warzones. As unpopular as journalists and reporters might be at the moment, I think we often forget how many of them risk their lives in order to do their jobs and tell us what's really going on.

If you believe war matters, and it does, then you have to believe war reporting matters just as much. Governments make foreign policy decisions partly based on public opinion, and nothing shapes public opinion quite as much as war reporting. Some of the most memorable and shocking stories and images of the past fifty years have come out of warzones and helped change our perception of them.

In the modern world, however, good war reporting is increasingly difficult. Technology means that almost anyone
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Is work experience exploitation?
By Jacob Brookman
Jacob Brookman
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By Jacob Brookman | Don't Panic – Fri, Feb 24, 2012
When you are a child, complex issues are often greeted with the phrase: "Don't worry, you’ll understand when you’re older."

But even when you become an adult matters remain confusing. Especially if you are young and trying to get a job.

The Job Centre is an increasingly likely destination for young people coming out of education.

There are now more than a million young people unemployed in Britain – with more than 20% of 16-24 year olds not in employment or education.

That means when you leave school or university you’re not just fighting with people in your year for the few jobs available, you’re fighting with people in the year above you, and the year above them and the other 2.67million people looking for jobs in Britain at the moment.

Which in desperate times leads to desperate measures.

Student Hugh Chadwick resorted to clutching a cardboard sign at a busy road junction in Birmingham for days on end before finding out this week he had clinched a position with an engineering company.

For the 20-year-old it was important to work. And for society to function it is important for theRead More »
Why work experience is a good investment for us all
By Jacob Brookman
Jacob Brookman
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By Jacob Brookman | Don't Panic – Fri, Feb 24, 2012
When you are a child, complex issues are often greeted with the phrase: "Don't worry, you’ll understand when you’re older."

But even when you become an adult matters remain confusing. Especially if you are young and trying to get a job.

There are now more than a million young people unemployed in Britain – with more than 20% of 16-24 year olds not in employment or education.

The job centre is becoming an increasingly likely prospect for youths coming out of education.

That means when you leave school or university you’re not just fighting with people in your year for the few jobs available, you’re fighting with people in the year above you, and the year above them and the other 2.67million people looking for jobs in Britain at the moment.

Which in desperate times leads to desperate measures.

Student Hugh Chadwick resorted to clutching a cardboard sign at a busy road junction in Birmingham for days on end before finding out this week he had clinched a position with an engineering company.

For the 20-year-old it was important to work. And for society to function it is important for
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Assad’s brutality demands an effective embargo
By Guest writer | Talking Politics – Thu, Feb 23, 2012
2011 AFPSir Malcolm Rifkind MP, former defence and foreign secretary, writes on what steps Britain can take to tackle the ongoing violence in Syria:

A moderate and democratic Syria, that serves as a stabilising force in the Middle East, has been a long standing hope of western nations. Whether the country is in a position to assume such a status at some time has never been in doubt. The country boasts a rich demographic diversity, an economy untainted by strict reliance on energy exports, and access to the Mediterranean Sea. The issue at hand has always been the nature of the country's regime.

In recent years, it had been the hope that Bashar al-Assad might be the man to realise the brighter future that lies within reach. Unfortunately, Assad himself proved to be more willing to cast in his lot with the aggressive elements represented by the Iranian regime and its allies. Rather than positioning Syria alongside Turkey, a country that would have been a natural partner, Assad sought to forge an
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Miliband and Cameron even after score-all draw
By Ian Dunt
Political journalist
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By Ian Dunt | Talking Politics – Wed, Feb 22, 2012
Everyone is trying to seduce everyone else.

Labour wants to tempt the Lib Dems into backing their demand for the risk register to be published by playing on the party's commitment to freedom of information during an afternoon debate later today. Cameron wants to tempt Miliband into talking about it before then.

There was a twinkle in the prime minister's eye as he entered the chamber. That twinkle, it turned out, was a Labour briefing document reminding MPs that Andy Burnham — once health secretary, now shadow heath secretary — had kept a risk report on the NHS secret himself not so long ago.

The prime minister was desperate to let it out, like a little girl with a horrid secret, but Miliband was unmoved. "What a failure of leadership" it was to avoid the subject, he told the Labour leader. He's such a flirt. "As we're being kept here to vote at seven on the publication of the risk registers, why don't you ask a question about that?" he added.

Then: "Are you going to ask a question
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Eric Pickles’ treacherous attack on British values
By Ian Dunt
Political journalist
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By Ian Dunt | Talking Politics – Tue, Feb 21, 2012
There's nothing less traditionally British than a traditional Brit. Anyone who even uses the phrase — myself excluded, of course, and only for the duration of this piece — is making a mockery of our national qualities.

The great traditional British value is this: Do what you like as long as you don't stop what I'm doing. It is the value of John Stuart Mill, of Winston Churchill, of Joe Strummer. Those who demand a Christian country of Christian values are traitors to British culture.

Eric Pickles is one of them. He wants everyone to be the same: Christian, speaking English, praying to the same God. His community cohesion agenda, tellingly briefed to the Express and the Mail today, demands the rights of English-speaking Christians take precedence over all other groups.

It follows David Cameron's insistence on the role of religion in British society and SayeedaWarsi's attack on 'militant secularism' last week. Just this weekend, Pickles said he would use legislation to undo a court order
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We can’t help the squeezed middle unless we talk about housing
By Guest writer | Talking Politics – Mon, Feb 20, 2012
People want to know why they can't raise their children in the kind of place they were raised.

By Nicola Hughes

In the run up to the chancellors next budget, politicians are fighting to position themselves on the side of 'the squeezed middle'. So far debates have centred on reducing fuel costs and taking low earners out of income tax, but all parties will be missing a trick if they neglect housing policy.

As recent figures from the English Housing Survey show, homeownership is continuing to decline and doesn't look likely to stop in the next few years. Policy makers should be looking hard at how other parts of the housing system can help meet the needs and aspirations of families squeezed by high living costs and stagnant incomes. More and more people are finding their housing is unaffordable or that their housing choices are constrained, with negative impacts on their lives.

Recent reports have highlighted a whole generation of young people who feel 'stuck' in private rented
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The Falklands- Time to pour oil on troubled waters?
By Jacob Brookman
Jacob Brookman
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By Jacob Brookman | Don't Panic – Fri, Feb 17, 2012
It's a difficult subject, The Falklands. On the one hand, they are geographically closer to Argentina - a lot closer. The UK is situated 7,800 miles north of them and Argentina is just 500 miles to the west. On the other, the Islanders see themselves as British.

Residents show their allegiance to Britain by driving their vehicles with the British and Falkland Island flag …

So when Sean Penn attacks the UK for the ‘ridiculous demonstrations of colonialism’ over the Falklands he is stumbling into an area many would say a pampered Hollywood actor has little understanding of.

Former serviceman Simon Weston, who suffered 46 per cent burns as a result of an Argentine bomb during the conflict, simply dismissed Penn as an ‘idiot’.

Putting the war aside for one moment, similar overseas territories like Gibraltar, Bermuda and Pitcairn Island exist across the globe. They are cultural oddities, often seeming more British than Britain. These are colonial remnants; anachronistic entities that no longer hold much strategic value, and which often require expensive policing at the behest of the citizens.

[Related
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Our pious politicians are out of step with the people
By Guest writer | Talking Politics – Fri, Feb 17, 2012
By Terry Sanderson

I'm sure Baroness Warsi's speech to the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in Rome yesterday was very well-received by its audience. She promised to support the Pope in his desire to return Christianity to the centre of public life in Britain.

It also seemed to chime with the mood of the media — which was fizzing with fury at the modest high court judgment ruling that it was not legal to include prayer on a council agenda — because it is not council business.

Under extreme bombardment from the press, we at the National Secular Society were preparing to barricade the doors - until we noticed a sudden and unprecedented upsurge in membership applications.

Something very strange was happening. The media was almost unanimous in its disapproval of the ruling. Strangely the Sunday Times alone gave unequivocal support to it — and in an editorial even suggested it should be extended to cover prayers in parliament.

Another strange phenomenon is the disparity between what
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Despite the Falklands, Argentina and Britain can still be friends
By Guest writer | Talking Politics – Thu, Feb 16, 2012
There is more uniting our two countries than dividing them.

By Patricio Pouchulu

Since my time as a post-graduate student at UCL in London, I've never met a single Brit who considered the Falklands a final obstacle between our countries.

The same thing applies to Argentina. I remember informal talks about this issue at different universities in London; over the years I enjoyed exquisite pints of British ale in pubs discussing the subject - even on the back seat of an old Routemaster 12 bus when crossing Westminster Bridge after midnight.

The links between our countries are still strong. I have visited parliament. The reception was friendly. I was told that once the South Atlantic problem was solved, we shall share a brilliant future together. My English friends who visit Buenos Aires fall in love with the city. Is it just a combination of good weather, great bookstores, elegant architecture and malbec? I believe something more complex attracts us.

Around 1920, the trade between UK and
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