We've spent a lot of time talking about the possibility of a Johnson getting into Downing Street - and now it's finally happened. Few expected it would be Jo Johnson, the unassuming younger brother of Boris, who got into No 10 first.

The mayor of London will have spent his breakfast musing over the headlines about the appointment of Jo Johnson, the MP for Orpington, being elevated to the government. He is David Cameron's new head of policy in No 10 and a full Cabinet Office minister.

Squint your eyes and view them from afar, and you might just mistake Jo for his elder brother. They both have the same blonde mop, although Jo's is tidier and more measured. Both went to Eton College. Both belonged to the Bullingdon Club while at university at Oxford. Boris and Jo are undoubtedly cut from the same cloth - even if Jo's waistline is not quite as expansive.

In one critical way, though, Jo differs from his elder brother. He is not ostentatious. He does not get himself stuck in zipwires.

Read More »from Meet Jo Johnson, the younger brother who beat Boris into No 10

Ever since Harold Macmillan told Britain "we've never had it so good", politicians have rightly been wary of good news.

Back then, it was the slow pace of recovery from the Second World War which brought howls of outrage against a prime minister trying his hardest to be upbeat.

The economic situation now is not especially rosy, either. So the Institute for Economics and Peace's surprising findings present a challenge for the ruling classes they would do well to ignore.

Its UK Peace Index concludes both crime and homicide have fallen significantly in the last ten years. Even the global financial crisis has not stopped the decline in violence. The evidence is clear enough: On this metric, if no others, Britain is turning into a nice place to live.

The problem is the British psyche is virtually incapable of accepting this to be the case. itself a side-effect of our not being very good talkers. Social anthropologists who have studied the English have cottoned on to this. We use grumbling

Read More »from Green and pleasant, but this land will always remain grumpy

By Sarah Wootton

In the last few years the campaign to legalise assisted dying for terminally ill, mentally competent adults has been increasing in momentum. Britons continue to travel abroad to die and the law -following guidelines from the director of public prosecutions endorsed by MPs - effectively forgives compassionate amateur assistance to die.

Last week, Paul Lamb, previously known as 'L' to the media, lifted his anonymity as a member of the Nicklinson legal challenge. This legal case seeks to establish that in certain circumstances, it would be lawful on the grounds of necessity for doctors to directly end their patient's lives at their request. This reignited interest in the issues surrounding 'the right to die' and highlighted an interesting dimension of the debate: when assistance to die is legalised, who should have that right and where should we draw the line?

People often assume that Dignity in Dying would be fully behind this case; it's about the choice of how you die

Read More »from We support the right to die – but not for Paul Lamb

Working in advertising, it’s easy to become flippant and cynical.

But I must say; if there’s one thing I’ve really enjoyed in the past two weeks, it has been the spicy political discourse surrounding Thatcher’s legacy.

In an era of evasive, centrist rhetoric, it’s been great to see people getting really wound up about the £10m funeral, the effect her premiership has had on the British character, and... anything else for that matter.

For me, it actually illuminates the irrationality of hatred aimed at David Cameron. I'm alarmed by his creeping privatisation, but ultimately he’s a moderate who flip-flops on hotter policy points.

So when a red-faced ranter derides the coalition in this way, I think it lacks perspective. Get a grip - try living under Thatcher!

Now there was a politician you could get your teeth into. She was a union bashing, poll taxing, milk stealing power-haircut. Looking back, it seems like everyone hated her, and yet she kept winning elections!

Actually, in Read More »from After Thatcher, it’s back to business

As I've mentioned before, multiculturalism is not an ideology, it is merely a statement of fact. The most recent Lord Ashcroft poll suggests it is a particularly successful one.

The survey of 1,035 minority voters completed earlier this week found nine in ten believed the UK was now multicultural and about that many believe it's a good thing. A representative poll of the general public conducted at the same time found 70% of voters believed it was a good thing. The only group with a majority opposing multiculturalism were Ukip voters. Seventy-one per cent of Tories support multiculturalism, as do 76% of Labour voters and 89% of Lib Dems.

Ethnic minorities themselves believe the various groups in the UK get on very well with each other. The general population, probably under the influence of persistent tabloid headlines about the mythical breakdown of the British social fabric, tend to overestimate problems between minority groups.

Particularly pertinent is the optimism with which

Read More »from The poll which reveals huge public support for multiculturalism

You can usually dismiss Labour's hype pretty easily. If opposition is conducted in poetry and government in prose, then Ed Miliband's is of the sixth-form variety. But there is one area in which it is not exaggerating: The NHS is genuinely being privatised. Under our noses, it is effectively being dismantled.

The NHS reforms enacted by Andrew Lansley and carried through by his teenage successor, Jeremy Hunt, will soon be fully enshrined in law following a Lords vote in six days time.

The reforms enjoy no democratic legitimacy. They will be financially ruinous, create an atomised health service and embed perverse incentives in the NHS.

They have been implemented in a cloak and dagger way which suggests ministers are well aware they would spark public outrage if they were properly understood. Lansley only announced them after the general election. Then he published the legislation without any of the secondary rules which would give them meaning. The entire two-year debate on NHS reform

Read More »from The conspiracy to privatise the NHS

Shrouded in solemnity, but not necessarily grief, Margaret Thatcher's funeral in St Paul's Cathedral saw the Establishment lay to rest one of its champions with all the sombreness it could muster.

The remains of Britain's first female prime minister stood in a coffin draped with the Union Jack in front of the altar. It was impossible to gaze on without remembering the fallen soldiers who returned to this country with their coffins covered by the same flag, some from a conflict which this 87-year-old led.

Even that mildly critical thought seemed out of place. This was not an occasion for bitterness or recrimination; it was an attempt to provide a historic figure with a funeral which presented her as a humble human being.

But none of Britain's soldiers had a send-off quite like this. Two thousands three hundred people gazed on a simply magnificent scene. Christopher Wren's creation is a superb space for this sort of occasion. From the glimmering gold of the ornate ceiling decorations to

Read More »from Eyewitness report: Thatcher’s sterile funeral

By Tony Hudson

It all started with Maggie.

Before the Iron Lady, Britain's prime minister and the American president seemed to be operating in completely different political systems.

While the US president is often referred to as 'the most powerful man in the world', it may be more accurate to say the president is 'the most influential man in the world' as his actual power – within the US at least – is very limited by the strict institutional rules created by the US constitution.

In the UK, the prime minister was a man operating from a position of potential weakness: everything about his ability to govern depended on the size of his majority in the Commons.

Then came Thatcher. She was the first prime minister to really make the UK premiership 'presidential'. Tony Blair followed in her footsteps, going even further and blurring the boundaries between the two roles at the summit of the US-UK special relationship.

Dr James Boys, a senior visiting research fellow at King's College, London,

Read More »from Of prime ministers and presidents: Thatcher’s forgotten legacy