By Ben Chu

Is there any subject that exposes as much hypocrisy and denial as the provision of long-term care for the increasingly populous elderly?

We berate the Government for its inadequate provision of care, but how many people invite their frail parents to live with them these days? We demand that care should be universal and free, yet when additional taxes are suggested to pay for this provision we scream blue murder at the rapaciousness of the state.

By Ben Chu

My colleague Andy McSmith notes Cherie Blair's decision to heap more misery on Gordon Brown's head by obliquely suggesting in her memoirs that he might have leaked the news that she was pregnant. In her book, Cherie remembers going through the options of those who were privy to her secret one by one. She concludes that it would not have been Lauren Booth, her half-sister, nor Sally Morgan, Tony Blair's senior aide, nor Anji Hunter, the Prime Minister's "gatekeeper".

By Ben Chu

As part of its public flagellation for ripping off its viewers with rigged phone-in competitions, ITV has published a report from the law firm Olswang. It's damning stuff. The report reveals that the "People's Award" at the 2005 ITV Comedy Awards, voted for by viewers, should have gone to The Catherine Tate Show, not Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway. When the winner was announced, Tate had more votes than Ant & Dec. The report has also revealed that the award organisers had promised Robbie Williams that he could present an award to Ant & Dec, in order to guarantee his attendance at the show.

But then Olswang's report delivers this unintentionally amusing verdict:

By Ben Chu

The received wisdom among progressives is that John McCain, for all his faults, is at least serious about tackling climate change. We should think again given the Republican Presidential nominee's recent proposal to suspend the US federal tax on gasoline. McCain says Americans deserve "just a little break this summer". For a good argument as to why a "little break" would be terrible for the environment, read this New York Times article by Thomas Friedman.

Interestingly, while Hillary Clinton has rushed to add her support to McCain's cynical proposal, Barack Obama has resisted; another reason why Obama, for all his disappointing populism over trade, remains the most progressive of all the remaining candidates in the Presidential race.

As Gordon Brown wonders how he can recover from last night's drubbing in the UK local elections, perhaps he should look across the Atlantic and learn a lesson from the Senator for Illinois.

By Ben Chu

Dear Prime Minister,

Your enemies said you were "too Scottish" to be an acceptable Prime Minister to the English. In response, you've bogged yourself down in a campaign to promote a sense of "Britishness" which has failed to boost your popularity one iota.

Your enemies said you were a stealth taxer. To counter that, you cut the basic rate of income tax only to find that, to pay for it, you had clobbered the low-paid, the very people you've tried so hard to help since entering office.

By Ben Chu

On Saturday we reported on the Lower Mill Estate, a nature reserve and private spa in the Cotswolds. But this is not just an ordinary retreat for the wealthy. This is a place that proudly puts the environment first. As Lower Mill says on its website: "Carbon footprint is minimised; natural wildlife is promoted through the placement of nesting boxes, bird feeders and insect refuges. Sustainably sourced, materials are used throughout (locally originated and indigenous to the area where possible), and the construction process minimises carbon footprint." What a wonderful commitment to preserving the natural world. Except that our article revealed some rather jarring facts about the place. As Mark Hughes reported: "Residents are not allowed to hang their washing in their garden - they can either use a tumble drier or take their clothes to the on-site laundrette". Seems rather un-green to eschew the renewable power of the wind in favour of energy-guzzling tumble driers. But perhaps that can be overlooked. Anything else?

By Ben Chu

In today's letter to the Treasury Select Committee, the Chancellor, Alistair Darling sketches out ways the Government might attempt to undo the social damage done by removing the 10p tax rate for income tax. Among them are "potential changes to the tax credit system", "changes…to the minimum wage regime" and reform of "the mechanism that already exists to pay the Winter Fuel Allowance". Yet this all misses the point.

The central problem with the removal of the 10p rate was that it penalises low-income workers who do not qualify for the various laudable poverty-alleviation schemes the Government has introduced.

By Ben Chu

The banking community seem to be developing a line of defence, of sorts, against the charge that it is primarily responsible for the present financial crisis. It goes something like this: "Yes, we bankers made mistakes, but we only operated in a regulatory and credit framework devised by governments. Real moral responsibility lies with central bankers who held interest rates too low, for too long, and with governments that failed to call time on the lax lending environment." This seems to me to be the financial equivalent of an arsonist blaming the police for not catching him before he burnt down the orphanage; or castigating the newsagent for selling matches.

By Ben Chu

An investment bank has collapsed in America. Billions in write-downs have been announced by financial institutions, with more in the pipeline. The US is believed by the IMF to be on the brink of recession. The UK could well follow. The very free-market philosophy that has prevailed in the West for a quarter of a century is crumbling. And John Varley, the Group Chief Executive of Barclays has penned a letter to the Financial Times.

What does it say? Is it a belated mea culpa for the £1.6bn in losses his bank announced two months ago? Is it a serious suggestion of how to get the banking sector to start lending again? Perhaps a proposal for how state regulation can stop the banks wreaking such havoc in future? No; the burning issue on the mind of the chief executive of one of the world's largest banks is…"there is growing evidence that the vital role of dads in bedtime reading is under threat".

By Ben Chu

The Daily Mail's front page today blows the whistle on the way ordinary customers have been "short-changed" by the retail banks. Its editorial slams the "widening gap between low interest rates paid to savers and spiralling loan repayments demanded from borrowers" and goes on to note that "the very bankers whose greed and incompetence caused the credit crunch in the first place" get to pocket the difference. It's all good stuff. But you might be interested to note that you could have read an almost identical piece of analysis of the banks' behaviour on Open House two months ago.

By Ben Chu

The British media certainly has its faults, but anyone tempted to despair about our press might first care to compare its coverage of yesterday's Olympic torch relay through London with this choice offering from the Beijing 2008 Official website. What's staggering is that there's not even the usual attempt to blame the disruption on "sabotage" by subversive Tibetans. It simply writes up the day's events as if it all proceeded smoothly and everyone had a great time.

By Ben Chu

As my colleague John Rentoul points out, David Cameron's use of language on the subject of immigration has been irresponsibly loose. But it is also worth pointing out that there seems something dodgy about the way the House of Lords report, on which Cameron was basing his argument, reached its strikingly negative conclusion about the economic benefits of migration.

By Ben Chu

Anyone interested in the roots of the financial crisis engulfing the West would be well advised to watch Robert Peston's Super Rich: the Greed Game. The programme was broadcast last night on BBC2, but it can be viewed for the next six days here.

We already knew that the crisis was caused by the colossal greed of cowboy bankers, the stupidity of institutional investors, the spinelessness of regulators and the corruption of credit rating agencies. But what is new about Peston's programme is that he has managed to get some of the most powerful figures in global financial markets - among them George Soros, Stephen Schwarzman and Sir Ronald Cohen - to admit as much.

By Ben Chu

In a newspaper article today making the case against "high net immigration", Lord Wakeham, sets himself up as a champion of first-time house buyers (priced out by all those inconsiderate home-buying migrants) and low-paid workers (undercut by all those deviously hard-working foreigners). So who is this champion of the underdog, this peer of the realm unafraid to speak out against the damaging consequences of a free market in labour? A union baron? Perhaps an ennobled left-wing Labour MP?

By Ben Chu

Read some sections of the press today and you would imagine that the biggest danger facing the financial industry is not the credit crunch, but the threat of regulation. We are being subjected to free market lectures along the lines of "risk taking is in our veins, it must be allowed to flow" (Daily Telegraph) and "it is time for reflection, not regulation" (Financial Times). I'm sure that most of us would like nothing better than to leave the banks to sort out their own mess. But the truth is that banks themselves cannot live with the consequences of a laissez faire regulatory regime. Look at the behaviour of the financial industry since last summer.

By Ben Chu

Now that road pricing has been resurrected Lazarus-like in yesterday's Budget, it's surely beholden on its supporters to ensure it does not get buried a second time. Part of that effort will entail defending the principle. My esteemed colleague and fellow blogger John Rentoul, while supporting the scheme, argues today that road pricing "isn't green" because its goal is to fit more cars onto the road network without causing gridlock. That's certainly one way road pricing can be used. But I think it's important to stress that there is another, "greener" way.

By Ben Chu

Some rewriting of history seems to be going on in the licensing laws debate. We keep being told that the Government brought in the 2003 Licensing Act promising that it would instantly create a continental-style drinking culture here in Britain. That would certainly have been a silly promise given the ingrained binge-drinking proclivities of the British. But looking back over the records, I can find no evidence of a minister actually making it. There may well have been off-the-record talk of encouraging a more moderate drinking culture, but that was never the main objective of the act, let alone a promise.

By Ben Chu

The argument about bankers' pay will probably ignite today when the head of the Financial Services Authority, Hector Sants, delivers a speech to the great swinging appendages of the financial industry. Expect Mr Sants' suggestion that "remuneration structures are too short-term and…incentivise behaviour which is not helpful in maintaining long-term financial stability" to be greeted with howls of protest. We will most likely hear the familiar arguments about how pay must be high enough to attract the top international talent and how regulation will grievously damage our economy.

By Ben Chu

In her You Ask the Questions interview in The Independent today Harriet Harman responds to a reader who asks whether it is true that she re-mortgaged her house to pay for her Labour deputy leadership campaign thus: "Yes. And I trust Alistair Darling will keep interest rates low!" It's obviously a joke, but unfortunately its one that doesn't work because since 1997 it has been the responsibility of the Bank of England, not the Chancellor, to set interest rates.

By Ben Chu

Are higher rental prices "good news"? They are according to Melanie Bien, a director at the independent mortgage broker Savills Private Finance. She is quoted in a business story in The Independent today about the slowing buy-to-let market as saying "the good news is rents are rising and demand for rental property remains high as first time buyers continue to struggle to get on the housing ladder and need somewhere to rent in the meantime". So good news for buy-to-letters; not for renters like me though.

By Ben Chu

Those of us who work for the press were rather miffed with Tony Blair's description of us as "feral beasts", but some aspects of press behaviour, particularly from anti-immigrant papers, certainly merit the description, as this post on Recess Monkey demonstrates. Or perhaps not. Does anyone think this emailed case study request, allegedly from the Daily Mail journalist Diana Appleyard, constitutes reasonable journalistic behaviour?

By Ben Chu

The resistance of GPs to the Government's plans for "polyclinics" was wearily predictable. There is a legitimate debate to be had over whether collecting doctors and various medical specialists under one roof will improve the quality of the service offered to patients. But some of the arguments deployed by GPs against the plan are a little difficult to take seriously.

By Ben Chu

The Northern Rock fiasco has exposed a good deal of muddled thinking. But one of the less remarked upon examples is the attitude of Eurosceptics to the European Union rules restricting state aid for private businesses. The Daily Telegraph, which favours nationalisation for Northern Rock, blames these rules as one of the reasons why the mortgage bank was not taken in to state ownership earlier and regards them as "further proof of how Brussels damages the City of London". Are we to conclude from this that the Telegraph is in favour of European national governments propping up ailing businesses as a general rule and that the paper would like the rules scrapped?

By Ben Chu

The Conservative leadership attacks Gordon Brown for being a "ditherer" and ordering endless reviews to put off making decisions. But the Tories are not averse to such delaying tactics themselves. Today the shadow chancellor George Osborne has established a review of taxation policy to be headed by the Tory grandee Lord Howe. But what about the Conservative economic policy review from John Redwood which last summer proposed, in the words of its author, "a tax cut by any other name"? And before that, in October 2006, there was Michael Forsyth's report for the party which recommended £21bn in tax cuts. I suppose one could say that at least when Gordon Brown dithers he dithers over many different decisions. The Conservatives' policy on taxation in recent years feels like one colossal dither.

By Ben Chu

Is the latest rate cut good news for borrowers? The UK's biggest mortgage lenders were quick to announce they would be passing on Wednesday's interest rate cut in full. Halifax, Nationwide, Abbey, Royal Bank of Scotland and NatWest all promised to cut their standard variable rates by 0.25 per cent, in line with the Bank of England cut. But how much confidence can we place in these promises? After December's rate cut, 18 lenders reduced their rates by less than 0.25 per cent, and 10 did nothing at all. And Michael Coogan, director general of the Council of Mortgage Lenders said yesterday: "Borrowers should not expect that a base rate reduction will automatically result in a cut in standard variable rates or discounted rates across the market. Lenders' rate setting policies are more complex than simply the level of the base rate."

By Ben Chu

A thought on the present bugging furore. Civil rights groups and opposition MPs have consistently argued in recent years that far better than giving the police the power to intern terror suspects for lengthy periods without trial or impose control orders on them (effectively a punishment without trial) wire-tap and communications intercept evidence should be made admissible in court.

By Ben Chu

Spain is a wonderful country and its people possess many fine qualities, but it's pretty clear that they are decades behind Britain when it comes to attitudes towards race, as the vile taunting of the F1 driver Lewis Hamilton  in Barcelona demonstrates. Of course, one should be careful of generalising from the behaviour of a minority. But consider this: would it be considered socially acceptable by anyone in Britain - even the most vicious and bigoted - to dress up like Al Jolson to mock a black sports star?

By Ben Chu

Last week on Open House I questioned the ethics of the police inviting the media along on raids, asking "what if the police have got it wrong". Well now it seems that they did indeed get it wrong. The alleged foiling of a Romanian child trafficking ring in the Home Counties on 24 January - an operation given considerable TV and print publicity - has been exposed as a barrel-load of hyperbole. According to Saturday's Guardian: "All but one child has been returned to the Roma community in Slough, according to a Romanian diplomat, and none of the 24 adults arrested at the scene has been charged with child trafficking offences". But there's no sign that the Metropolitan Police have learnt their lesson from this debacle. ITN screened dramatic television pictures of a police raid on a "Chinese people smuggling ring" in South London last Thursday.

By Ben Chu

There are some humane and reasoned thoughts from the former Number 10 spin doctor Alastair Campbell in The Times today about the way the media treats tragic cases such as the disappearance of Madeleine McCann and the mental deterioration of Britney Spears. Campbell singles out the Mail Group which he claims to "despise". But something's missing here. What about The Sun? The front page of the Murdoch red top today screams "Britney's 60 crazy hours, see pages 4&5".

By Ben Chu

So now all three political parties are apparently in favour of increasing the police powers of stop and search. Perhaps the most depressing aspect of this Gaderene rush to appear "tough" on crime is that the Government and opposition parties are tearing up one of the key provisions of the post-Macpherson reforms of the police force.

By Ben Chu

Critics of the 2005 liberalisation of drinking laws in England and Wales have always seemed more motivated by faith in their position than reason. So I suppose it's only fitting that the latest public figure to criticise the reform of the drinking laws should be the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The evidence of the effect of the legislation on reducing street violence is mixed. Some areas have seen a reduction, others a modest increase. But it is perfectly clear that the extension of pub opening hours has not significantly added to the levels of violence in our streets.

By Ben Chu

The Liberal Democrats seem to be taking a strangely illiberal trajectory on crime under their new home affairs spokesman, Chris Huhne. In response to the release of the latest crime figures yesterday (which showed overall falls, but a rise in gun crime) Huhne called for the police to step up stop and search. Previously the party was very hostile to stop and search; surely the sensible stance for a party concerned with civil liberties because the policing tactic disproportionately targets ethnic minorities and damages community relations. There is also no evidence that it does much to reduce crime. Huhne also supported Government proposals to install US-style metal detectors in schools at the weekend.

By Ben Chu

No doubt it’s a great opportunity for a journalist. The police give you a call and tell you they're going to be conducting a dawn raid the next day. Even better, they invite you to come along with a cameraman to capture the very moment they pound the door in with their sledgehammers. But there seems to me something deeply unethical about this practice of turning a police opportunity into a publicity event, as happened yesterday in London when the Metropolitan Police broke up an alleged Romanian "child slavery" operation in the early hours. The Evening Standard were apparently invited along. So was ITN. Great story. Great images. But what if the police have got it wrong?

By Ben Chu

Could the Jeremy Clarkson bubble be about to burst? The tiresome Top Gear presenter and darling of News International printed his bank details in his Sun column in November to prove that the furore over the Government's loss of 25 million people's personal details was "a palaver about nothing". Some clever fraudster promptly set up a £500 direct debit from his account to a diabetes charity. How delicious if they'd made it out to Greenpeace instead.

By Ben Chu

I was amused by the proposal in Jackie Ashley's Guardian column today that Gordon Brown should make a new start in 2008 by establishing an "outer inner circle" of advisers. Would that mean that an "inner" adviser who gave duff advice could be relegated to the "outer inner" circle? Or perhaps an "outer inner" adviser who performed particularly well could win promotion to the "inner" Downing Street chamber? It all sounds like something that could have come from the pen of Jonathan Swift.

By Ben Chu

The Sun comes over all liberal today. Proposals to jail motorist who use mobile phones while driving are condemned as "draconian". Harriet Harman's suggestion that men who visit prostitutes should be criminalised is also rubbished as an "easy option". Strange, considering that the paper is normally howling for tougher sentences and new criminal legislation. Why the change of heart? Surely it's not because the Sun thinks its readers might be the sort of people to fall foul of these proposals…

By Ben Chu

In the grand debate about whether the Spice Girls were good for feminism or not, no one seems to have remarked upon the fact that their entire career was the creation of a man: the pop svengali Simon Fuller. It was Fuller who secured the girls a record deal; Fuller who delivered them a truck-load of hype and favourable press in the 90s. Fuller made far more out of the group than "Scary", "Ginger", "Baby", "Mel C", "Mel B" and "Posh". And Fuller is still pulling the strings. Guess who's organising their reunion tour? Girl power? Fuller power more like.

By Ben Chu

In a speech to the Bali climate change conference, James Connaughton, of the US delegation, went beyond satire by arguing: "We will lead, we will continue to lead. But leadership also requires others to fall in line and follow". American leadership on climate change? The US failed to ratify the Kyoto Treaty. For years President Bush denied the science. The White House is trying to undermine the UN approach by setting up a disruptive talking shop of its own. And now it is sinking attempts at Bali to establish a serious successor to Kyoto.

By Ben Chu

Is the front runner for the vacant position of England football coach a fascist? The Mirror reports today that Fabio Capello, while he was managing Real Madrid, praised the Spanish dictator General Franco to an Italian newspaper. He also admits to having voted for the loathsomely anti-immigrant Northern League party in his native Italy. Will any of this prompt a rethink at Soho House? Unlikely. The Football Association are so desperate at the moment after the twin disasters of Eriksson and McClaren that they would probably give the job to Satan himself if it would guarantee success.

By Ben Chu

The Schools Secretary Ed Balls sounds like someone who has re-invented the wheel, but insists on calling it a "revolutionary, circular, vehiclular aide". In the Government's "10-year strategy" for education he proposes that parents should attend "information sessions" on their childrens' progress. Sounds like an old fashioned parents' evening to me.

By Ben Chu

Fantastic spot on the Spectator's Coffee House blog about James Murdoch. It recalls a little-noticed section in Alastair Campbell's diaries in which the younger Murdoch, who has just won a massive promotion within the News Corporation empire, voices strong views in support of the Palestinian cause at a Number 10 dinner. Campbell noted: "[Rupert] Murdoch said he didn't see what the Palestinians' problem was and James said that it was that they were kicked out of their f****** homes and had nowhere to f****** live." It will be fascinating to see if James's control of The Times, The Sunday Times and The Sun will result in a modification in the views of those newspapers on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

By Ben Chu

The Telegraph newspapers have launched a campaign with the slogan "Call yourself British", which aims to rally support for the Union. Nothing wrong with that. But the rather aggressive-sounding tag seems rather misjudged to me. It has echoes of the divisive Conservative slogan in the 2005 election: "Are you thinking what we're thinking?". God forbid the Telegraph titles should be thought to be performing the newspaper equivalent of the "dog whistle"…

By Ben Chu

Gordon Brown's decision to boycott last weekend's EU-Zimbabwe summit was dismissed in some corners as gesture politics. The fact that he is known to find European summits less than thrilling merely compounded the cynicism. But Brown's no-show actually worked out rather well in marginalising the Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.

Without a strong presence from the old colonial overlord, Mugabe had to fall back on lambasting Europe as a whole for being the source of Zimbabwe's woes - a line that has far less traction at home and in wider Africa than Britain-baiting. He was also reduced to calling Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel a mouthpiece for Mr Brown - a line that even his most one-eyed supporters among other African leaders must have struggled to take seriously.

By Ben Chu

An article by Donald Malcolm on First Post examines the bizarrely low profile Boris Johnson has maintained since being selected to the Conservative candidate for London mayor. It also points out that the hilarious YouTube clip of the old Etonian rugby tackling a German in a charity football match  is proving very popular. It has now passed one million views. A few more can't hurt...

By Ben Chu

A key Gordon Brown promise now seems to have been jettisoned entirely. Before moving into Downing Street in June, Brown's team pledged that major announcements would be made directly to Parliament. It was supposed to mark a break with the spin-crazy Blair era. Mr Brown famously broke that when he announced troop draw downs while on a visit to Iraq in October. And he was at it again today when he wrote about the results of his counter-terrorism review in Rupert Murdoch's Sun.

By Ben Chu

It is unconvincing for the Home Secretary to argue in the House of Commons today that she did not make public back in July the news that illegal immigrants had been hired for Whitehall security jobs on the grounds that the Government's "analysis of the problem had not been completed".

By Ben Chu

David Cameron's move away from an optimistic "let there be sunshine" message to the depressing theme of "anarchy in the UK" continues.