Monthly Archives: August 2011

Your Big Year 2012

One of the last initiatives I was introduced to in my time working on the government’s enterprise agenda was “Your Big Year”. I had met many champions of impressive enterprise initiatives and seen many of the proposed activities evolve successfully into … Continue reading

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The dangers of playing the economic blame game.

With turbulent equity markets, gloomy news on jobs and more than 10% of town and city centre shops vacant, it is still difficult to see how we can avoid the dreaded “double-dip”. Against this backdrop Flatline George (Osborne) has sagely … Continue reading

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London’s youth, grounded.

It’s mid-summer, in the middle of the school holidays. The playing fields are empty, apart from a few people walking their dogs. There has been no trouble here but in the distance, thick acrid smoke rises from the site of … Continue reading

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War

Tuesday 9th August 2011 00:14 BST. I am sitting in my living  room watching my city burn. Five minutes ago explosions and flame leapt through another building in the north of Enfield. The gangs are in charge of London tonight. Trevor Reeve, … Continue reading

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The Government fiddles whilst London burns

Hoards of feral youths have spent their weekend running riot on the streets of London. Despite goading and assaulting our police forces and crippling our local economies, we are still bombarded with words like “disenfranchised”, “disaffected” and “criminalised”. These are … Continue reading

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For the sake of a drink.

Last night’s Panorama (Dying for a drink – BBC1 20:30 BST) was a shocking expose on the state of alcoholism in the UK – and in particular, amongst our young people. It was, perhaps, a little unsurprising to those of … Continue reading

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