| Straw annoyed over Mandelson book Jack Straw criticises his former cabinet colleague Lord Mandelson over his controversial memoirs, published shortly after the general election. bbc.co.uk |
Mr and Mrs Average revealed The average British man is 38 years old, has 41 years left to live and has completed A-levels, while the typical woman is aged 40, will live for another 42 years and is educated up to GCSE A*-C level. telegraph.co.uk |
Spending review serves up sixpences in a pudding of manure and gravel | Simon Hoggart's sketch George Osborne was like Father Christmas who, having struggled down the chimney, decides to take the flat-screen TVIt was an extraordinary performance from George Osborne yesterday. He had a lot of bad news (almost all of which we had heard before) and some good news as well. He was like Father Christmas who, having struggled down the chimney with a sack of presents, decides he may as well take the flat-screen TV and a few fish knives back up. Or to put it another way, he resembled a conjurer desperately trying to force the rabbit back into the hat.At his side was his No 2, Danny Alexander, who had accidentally brandished chunks of the speech to the cameras on Tuesday, and who yesterday paid penance by being Mr Osborne's water-wallah, making sure that his glass and carafe were topped up at all times. As the chancellor's voice began to wear thin and croaking noises emerged this fagging job became more important. No doubt Mr Alexander also shines his shoes and toasts his crumpets.Just beforehand, David Cameron had said: "We are not doing this because we want to; we are doing it because we need to." He sounded slightly piteous.George Osborne doesn't do piteous. Like John Lewis, his schemes and strategies are never knowingly undersold. "Today's the day Britain steps back from the brink!" he began, before explaining that we had actually reeled back from the edge of the abyss several months ago when the coalition first took office. Labour had presided over a financial catastrophe which must never, ever happen again. We should not expect our children to pay "the interest on the interest on the interest on our debt". He ended by announcing that he had taken our country back from the brink of bankruptcy. He made the nation sound like someone waiting to jump off the Tyne bridge, dragged back by his braces, left gasping on the asphalt.Labour has, on the whole, decided that the deficit isn't its fault. It has, you would imagine, been invented by the Tories purely in order to allow them the cuts which they are imposing with an odious relish. Even the Queen is to suffer. We shivered at the thought. How many pastrycooks would go? Would each corgi no longer have a full-time kennel maid? "Our actions this year have taken Britain out of the danger zone," Mr Osborne exclaimed to Labour jeers and cries of "you've made things worse!"Hidden among the horrors were the bits of good news, the silver sixpences in a manure and gravel pudding. Education, health and science spared. Even the widening of the A11 near Norwich was thrown in. Galleries and museums will stay free. Huzzah! Somewhere for the million extra unemployed to keep warm.Afterwards Alan Johnson, the new shadow chancellor, made a poised and amusing reply. He quoted what sounded like a preening paean of praise by the chancellor to himself, explaining how the cuts had set the economy back on its feet. In fact, it was from the Irish finance minister, who adopted the Con-Lib strategy only to create a horrifying double-dip.Ed Miliband's choice of Mr Johnson for this job has been criticised, on the grounds that he doesn't know anything about the subject. But Labour may be better off with someone who is ignorant of "eliminating the structural deficit by balancing the cyclically adjusted current budget", in the chancellor's words, but can deliver a barb.Withering sarcasm may be more effective than technical jargon when it is aimed at the millions of people facing life without work.George OsborneSpending review 2010Tax and spendingHouse of CommonsSimon Hoggartguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Trouble costs Translink £400,000 Translink has confirmed the destruction of two buses during trouble in Rathcoole has cost the company £400,000. bbc.co.uk |
In the shadow of the Shard | David Shariatmadari Skyscrapers with silly names are sprouting in London again, but is this 'boom' really a positive economic sign?There's a mini-boom in construction. You may not have realised this. But I'm surrounded by it, and have a good idea of what kind of boom it'll turn out to be. I live halfway between a building named for its resemblance to an electric razor, and one known as the Shard. Twice a week, I cycle over London Bridge, and risk life and limb craning my neck to look at a megastructure taking shape in front of the 1866 train sheds. Its bottom half is now sheathed in glass, a concrete core sprouting from the centre. On this, stencilled in blue, are the floor numbers – if I squint, I can see we're up to about 56, out of 72. Guys hospital, the Shard's next-door neighbour, for a long time the tallest building in the area, now looks a bit stumpy.This is London's most Bladerunner-esque building, looming over a neighbourhood of narrow streets and ancient relics. It is as incongruous as anything I've seen, the steeples of local churches offering up their own attempts at awe-inspiring height and seeming feeble in comparison. But this is increasingly how the capital is going to look. A predicted shortage of commercial office space in the coming years has seen property developers asking architects to dust off their plans. Those buildings that skyscraper geeks (a rare but dedicated sub-category of internet obsessive) swooned over have been resuscitated. Their silly names, meant to give the impression that they're held in some affection by the public, but probably dreamt up by PRs, are in the papers again: the Cheesegrater, the Walkie Talkie, the Pinnacle.The aesthetics range from the intimidatingly impressive to the grotesque: together, they look dizzying, hard angles jarring with biomorphous curves. What happens when you put a load of "icons" together? Do they cease to be iconic? Do they look ridiculous? Londoners are about to find out.The way buildings look, which is always what monopolises the debate, isn't everything. Of course aesthetics are important – they play a huge part in how we experience the places we live. And in one sense, these buildings are seductive. They have the ability to make you stare up at them in wonder, gigantic public sculptures that dazzle for existing so far beyond the scale of everyday life. But what are they really? Strip away the shiny skin and you have humdrum offices piled on top of one another – in Owen Hatherley's memorable phrase, "the aesthetic tuning of stacked trading floors". People, in this context, are reduced to the level of worker ants, expensive but necessary components in the enterprise of making money. If you remember the scene at the end of Working Girl, where the camera pulls back to reveal that Melanie Griffith's hard-won office is one of hundreds, all exactly the same, you'll know what I mean.So from my bicycle, this "boom" doesn't look like its fruits are going to be evenly spread. And construction analysts seem to agree: the most visible signs of the upturn so far are in and around the City of London, and in that it reflects the imbalances in our economy as a whole. Will growth be driven again by a frothy financial services sector, with all the risks that entails? Skyscrapers may sprout like mushrooms (smaller versions might even spread to cities such as Liverpool, Leeds and Manchester, as they did at the height of the last bubble). But will there be anything in it for us, apart from the thrill of looking up at some new glass spike, and feeling small?Construction industryReal estateCommercial propertyLondonArchitectureDavid Shariatmadariguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |