Remember the child poverty targets? Halving the rate by 2010 and eradicating it by 2020? It's just so 1990s. To this anti-climax can be added the government's target to build three million new homes by, you've guessed it, 2020. And, you're ahead of me, this ain't gonna happen either.
The media are getting a bad press at the moment and with some justification. The periodic vilification of social workers and the demonising of young people are now coming under increasing criticism from us journalists.
How should we react to shoplifters? Is it a crime or is it symptomatic of something else: a mental illness or a substance addiction perhaps, as this personal account on the Frank website describes?
The Department of Health's Dignity in Care campaign was delivered a jolt this week as pensioners joined Age Concern, MP Paul Burstow and actress Sylvia Sims in a protest about the paltry sums on which care home residents survive.
There was never likely to be many banks in the Sunday Times Best 100 Companies to work for, although former bosses benefiting from multi-million pound pension largesse may affect surprise at this.
My thanks to the blogsite Liberal Conspiracy for drawing my attention to the predictable rant about teenage mothers made by, less predictably, a Labour MP.
I must admit to knowing little about the TV soap Emmerdale except that it is set in Yorkshire and the intriguing name Dingle crops up.
This morning I read a Community Care article headlined "Haringey social services fights back". Damned right it should, I thought, and continued.
Findings that young former servicemen are at increased risk of suicide are published today. The timing is apt.
| Outside Left questions the thinking behind today’s social policy, with a sometimes wry, occasionally cynical, always straight-talking look at the political elite that shapes it, written by sub editor, Mike McNabb. |
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