Communities

The discovery a few weeks ago of 24 slaves on a caravan site in Leighton Buzzard may have hit the front pages but, for most of us, the trafficking of Read more

I tweeted this morning about the possibility (sadly denied) of a new external relations unit in No10. There is apparently some sort of new department which will look after ‘partnerships’ Read more

This morning’s Telegraph splash says that “Magistrates have been told they can ignore sentencing guidelines and hand down more draconian penalties to rioters and looters”. While I completely understand the Read more

The next time David Cameron meets representatives of the Muslim community and they tell him that the reasons for domestic extremism are that ‘Muslims are angry about British foreign policy’ Read more

George Osborne’s announcement in the Mansion House speech about the sell-off of Northern Rock last night prompted me to ponder more closely what we should do when the time comes Read more

A while ago, I listened to a debate on Radio 4 about crowd-sourcing which turned out to be considerably less interesting than I had hoped. But I’ve been trying to Read more

Away from the hothouse of Westminster I’ve spent the last few weeks campaigning in West Sussex for election to Chichester District Council. One of the most refreshing things about campaigning Read more

Dave Clements at the Guardian Joe Public Blog has got entirely the wrong end of the stick on nudging, the Big Society and indeed the Tories generally. He seems to Read more

Ruth Porter has written an interesting post on ConservativeHome, going over much of what we have said in favour of the Big Society. Her conclusion is particularly relevant: “The Big Read more

On Friday the Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman announced that plans to sell off half of the country’s estimated two hundred and fifty-eight thousand hectares of forests were to be abandoned. Read more