The Spanish prime minister has been a lonely champion of progressive values in the EU. But the polls look ominous When it comes to risk-taking, Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has a formidable track record. In 2018, the Socialist party leader swept to power by triggering a no-confidence vote that unexpectedly ousted his centre-right predecessor Mariano Rajoy. He held on to it against the odds after calling a snap election in 2023, at a time when the popularity of his own party had plummeted and the far right was on the rise. As he endures another rocky period in office, Mr Sánchez has once more rolled the dice. Last week, he announced a snap poll for November after his minority government was blocked from passing measures to ease Spain’s chronic housing crisis. The eviction of
Environmentalists of all political hues must find the language and ideas that turn passion for climate action into impetus The future of Green politics is under constant discussion after the Holborn and St Pancras byelection , but a much heavier clash – in meaning, symbolism and portent – happened earlier this summer, in King’s Lynn and West Norfolk. The council declared a climate emergency in 2021, along with hundreds of others, and while it was under Conservative control. It is now controlled by independents, and a Reform UK councillor, Austen Moore, moved to scrap the declaration. It was the end of June, and the meeting had to be called off, because of the extreme heat in the King’s Lynn council chamber. A lot of people paused to grimly remark on that irony, but not Moore, who simply re
Exclusive: Greater Manchester mayor Bev Craig invited City representative on trade trip organised by business secretary A club representative from Manchester City was invited on a government-backed trade delegation to India this week, despite the club being found guilty of 114 breaches of Premier League rules. Andy Burnham’s successor as Manchester mayor Bev Craig took a representative from the club to Delhi and Mumbai on a trip organised by business secretary Jonathan Reynolds, where she and other northern mayors have been promoting British trade and tourism. Continue reading...
John Banks on the driving force behind a pioneering self-build project in the London borough. Plus a letter from Jonathan Pearson An uplifting article by Phineas Harper about plans for self-build houses by Lewisham council in London ( Free land for those who will build social homes on it. Is this the radical solution to the UK’s housing problem?, 8 October ). The original 1970s Lewisham self-build scheme that he mentions, using methods developed by the German architect Walter Segal , was proposed by a friend of mine, Brian Richardson, who was a Lewisham council architect at the time. Continue reading...
Money was withdrawn from gambling firm before founder warned chancellor against doubling machine games duty The billionaire Done family took a £30m dividend from their Betfred gambling empire, before warning that they would close hundreds of bookies and cut jobs if the government increases tax on high-street slot machines . The chancellor, John Healey, is understood to be considering proposals to double machine games duty in the upcoming budget, a move that the Social Market Foundation thinktank has said could boost state coffers by up to £460m. Continue reading...
Acclaimed medical sociologist who established the importance of social and environmental factors in mental illness In 1956 a letter arrived for George Brown. The Social Psychiatry Research Unit in Camberwell, south London, needed an anthropology graduate and Brown had been recommended by a former tutor. Since graduating two years before, he had had only numbing jobs including supervising time and motion studies, and he leaped at the chance. Brown, who has died aged 95, went on to have a six-decade academic career, becoming a pre-eminent medical sociologist, definitively establishing the importance of social and environmental factors in mental illness. Continue reading...
Christopher Gardner, the author of Food Sense and director of nutrition studies at Stanford, says we have overcomplicated the question of what to eat Finally, some good news: eating well is more straightforward than you think. “There’s a lot of good science out there, and it mostly agrees,” says Stanford University’s director of nutrition studies and professor of medicine Christopher Gardner from his office in Palo Alto – beaming, bronzed and the picture of health. In the age of social media and wellness grift, we’ve overcomplicated the question of what to eat, he says. Continue reading...
Only 1.04% of estimated 230,900 cases reviewed in first five months of £75m three-year scheme Campaigners have urged Andy Burnham to step in after it emerged just a handful of the tens of thousands of unpaid carers who unknowingly racked up huge debts when welfare officials unlawfully changed benefits guidance have been repaid. The first official update on the carers allowance reassessment exercise launched by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in April confirms that progress in cancelling wrongful overpayments has started slowly. Continue reading...
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