Politics

When Keir Starmer announced his ‘measurable milestones’ yesterday, he called them ‘the most ambitious and credible programme for government in a generation’. But are they really so ambitious? Many of them sound remarkably similar to the missions in the Conservatives’ Levelling Up white paper, published just under three years ago – only less detailed and lacking a focus on improving the worst-performing areas of the country. Starmer has six milestones compared with the white paper’s 12 missions and 51 metrics. On living standards, Starmer promised that they will be ‘higher in every region of the country’. Which sounds very much like the white paper promise that ‘pay, employment and productivity will

At least Justin Welby’s valedictory speech went down well in the House of Lords. Speeches from those in the Upper Chamber yesterday praised Welby’s personal qualities and spiritual counsel and his work pushing for social change. There was even a fleeting mention of one of his books. But outside the chamber many of those watching the Archbishop, while he said his farewell words to the House following his resignation last month over the Church of England’s handling of one of its worst-ever abuse scandals, were horrified. Welby’s address has been called frivolous and tone deaf ‘Whether one is personally responsible or not’ the time had come for a head to roll, he

The evangelical preacher Stephen Green has had his conviction upheld – for standing quite near an abortion clinic in Ealing with a Bible verse in his hands in protest last February. Remarkably, this act is illegal in the UK today. Green argued that he was not protesting about the women entering the clinic, but against the law which prevents him from doing that. The judge noted, however, that the verse Green was holding was Psalm 139/13: ‘For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb.’ Green is a devout man and that devotion, you might argue, is split equally towards God and self-publicity. But still. If the