Education watchdog Ofsted wants to toughen the language of inspections in England - changing the "satisfactory" rating to "requires improvement".

An interesting if somewhat sickening story to start off the New Year.. One of the big surprise stories surfacing is that the 'Palestinians' have finally agreed to begin negotiations with Israel without any preconditions, although they're very careful to label them as 'talks about talks' rather than any actual negotiations. That's probably accurate, since it's alm...

French label City summit demands ‘unacceptable’ as EU leaders push Merkel to agree €150bn in IMF funds

Spain likes shovelling debt under the carpet where it hopes no one will notice. I've blogged before about the debts of Spanish provincial authorities (click the Spain label below). Now we learn that big power groups have recently stepped up pressure on the likely incoming Spanish government to tackle a deficit they accumulated by selling power at regulated tariffs too low to cover costs for 1...

Mixed reaction from MEPs for plan to label historic EU places

Horror films weren’t called horror films until the 1930s — when critics applied that label to Universal's Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931) — but the seeds of the genre were already sprouting in the silent era. In fact, these early scary films set the template for modern horror, from the expressionist shadows of German films such as Nosferatu (1922) and The Cabinet...

I am, I should think, about as centrist as Liberal Conspiracy writers get. I edit a business magazine. I reckon a successful left-wing government needs, at least, the acquiescence of the private sector. I feel no need to seize the means of production, and if it weren't for the fact that the full implications of the label make my skin crawl, I'd probably call my politics 'Blairite�...

Scottish Labour leadership contender Ken Macintosh says he would lead the party as a "devolutionist", not a "unionist".

Ah, the sultry lazy days at the end of summer, when the warm weather brings out the torpor and laziness in all of us and little gets accomplished except by the determined and the desperate.The Romans were the first to label this time of year the Dog Days(diēs caniculārēs), noting that the skies were ruled by Sirius, the Dog Star, the brightest star in the night sky at this time of year, Welcome...

I've been banging on from time to time about the dire financial state of Spanish local government (click the Spain label below). Today the Telegraph runs a very good piece by Harriet Alexander, misleadingly headlined in the print edition "Broke: the corner of Spain where the party is over". Highlighting the small town of Moia, she tells us that In Catalonia ten further councils are thought to...