Back in October I wrote about a scandal building inside DWP – the systematic underpayment of the state pension amounting to over £1bn. 134,000 pensioners were underpaid, in some cases for decades: My blog was in response to a scathing National Audit Office report that revealed the scale of the problem. On average pensioners affected… Read More DWP | Making a giant shambles bigger

It seems like months since Quizmas

The current scandal of No 10 partying while the country was in lockdown is as shocking as it is banal. I cannot conceive of it happening under any other Prime Minister. If Tony Blair had found people having a party in Downing Street or the Garden he would have sent Aliaster Campbell who would have… Read More Boris | All tomorrows parties

Back in the 80s and 90s politics was easy. The Tories were the bad guys, Labour were the good guys, and no-one needed to think too hard about it. There were lots of reasons why the Tories became the pantomime villians of British politics, but 2 stick in my mind: Clause 28 and Primary Purpose.… Read More Clause 9 | The worst piece of legislation ever?

Frankly I’m not ready to give up endless Quality Street and bad telly and return to reality.

2021 was basically a cover version of 2020. Not a real great cover version like Hendrix doing All Along the Watchtower, but the sort of stale insipid cover version used to advertise mobile phones. As predicted Brexit did indeed turn out to be a shambles, and the Government did nothing to mitigate the problems it… Read More Predictions | What did I get wrong about last year, what will happen next year?