Were you paying attention to Pacific Partnership 2010? If you weren't, it is OK... but the Navy PAOs out in the Pacific did a fair to good job getting the word out what the USNS Mercy (T-AH 19) was out there doing. The ship deployed back on May 1st and wrapped up business on August 24th, and is expected to return to San Diego later this month. These naval medical diplomacy deployments are int...

An interesting council story comes to me from Singapore. Friends staying over there were disturbed by the host family's dogs barking at a cobra, rearing up and hissing at them near the front door. They called the local equivalent of pest control who are adept at getting rid of snakes. The next day, the snake man came all kitted out ready for anything...except one thing. He refused to step int...

Danny Alexander has told the Observer that substantial tax cuts are highly unlikely for five years. Alexander argues that ‘the tax burden is necessary as a significant contribution to getting the country's finances in order. So it will have to stay at that level for quite some time.’ Given that the income tax threshold will rise to £10,000 over the course of the parliament, d...

If the government provides everyone with a decent safety net and enough money to live on, then more and more people will be able to think about more than just getting through to the end of the week. They'll get the confidence to apply for jobs, they'll be in better health and even have a little bit of money to spend on studying and developing their skills. This isn't some wild-eyed ...

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, writing in today’s Financial Times (free registration required), champions the government’s commitment to fairness and explains why he believes yesterday’s IFS report is asking the wrong questions. Fairness is about every child getting the chance they deserve, regardless of their background. Poverty and deprivation matter enormously but fairness ...

Before and during the election there was a great deal of talk about the Lib Dem use of social media as a way of getting our message across cheaply and effectively. Since then though the Party seems too place very little importance on social media with the result that an important and effective way of

The gap between children in Wales and the whole of the UK getting the highest grades at GCSE widens again, results show.

Yes, getting misty-eyed over the old Stasi state seems mad - but others in the West also have a hankering for long-gone pasts.

Tony Blair’s forthcoming memoirs have already been getting some attention. Obviously, I’m not important enough to have not read them in advance. But nor will I be reading them when they are published. It’s because the title of the book tells us everything we need to know already.

The Liberal-Conservative administration deserves to pass its 100 day probation. It hasn’t done much yet, but it has said some of the right things and sounds like it might even get round to doing a few of these things at some point in the not-too-distant future. I’d pretty much accept that from a new staff member, so I guess I should be half-pleased that I seem to be getting this level ...