The UK Prime Minister may have the regal touch in northern England, but he’s been wrong-footed on the constitutional challenges posed by the Celtic Alliance of first ministers from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, argues KENNY MacASKILL
IT HAS NEVER been an aim of Tory governments to raise the living standards of the population. But this government is engaged in the third huge assault on the pay and incomes and services of ordinary people in living memory — and the most vicious of all.
The first of these was the programme of Margaret Thatcher, which completely re-ordered British society in the interests of big business and the rich. She also decimated the trade union movement and bragged that she had recreated the Labour Party in her own image. We are still living with the disastrous consequences of her policies.
The second big attack was launched by Cameron and Osborne, with the eager help of the Lib Dems in 2010. The economy and living standards have never properly recovered from the austerity policies they implemented. Of course, the stated aim then was to reduce the public-sector debt, which had been created by bailing out the banks and the economic damage they caused.
Only an ambitious programme of state-led investment can restore growth and improve living standards, argues MICHAEL BURKE
DIANE ABBOTT warns that Shabana Mahmood’s draconian asylum proposals fuel racist scapegoating and risk demoralising Labour’s base – potentially paving the way for Farage to No 10
The 2025 Budget shores up the PM’s political position with headline-grabbing welfare U-turns, but with no improvements on offer to declining public services or living standards, writes MICHAEL BURKE


