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168. A Climate Special: Populism, Security, and Leadership

Can the planet sustain infinite economic growth, or is GDP a flawed metric? Is the UK genuinely decarbonising, or is it simply outsourcing its pollution? How can politicians defeat the populi... Continue

Fred Goodwin superinjunction underlines need for Parliament not media or judges to decide policy in this area

A few weeks ago I took part in a discussion at one of the big internet companies on something called 'the right to be forgotten.' The notion - which the giants of the web are not terribly keen on - i... Continue

11 March 2011

Support the Demoratic Life campaign to keep citizenship on the curriculum

The hints that the Government is thinking about removing citizenship from the curriculum are becoming a little louder. It would be yet another mistake by Michael Gove, at a time the government is de... Continue

10 March 2011

Hannah and George the latest young people to make a big impression

Hannah and George are two young disabled people who helped co-present the latest podcast for the BBC disability programme, Ouch. Having been locked away in a Bloomberg's meeting room, sitting on a pan... Continue

9 March 2011

Dream School has convinced me we need more not less politics teaching in schools

As I know from living with a virtually full-time State schools campaigner, education arouses enormous passions and very strong views. So it shouldn't really come as a surprise that Jamie Oliver's Drea... Continue

8 March 2011

As Cameron slithers from tactic to tactic, Mandelson and Straw right to defend difficult positions

I may not have liked much about Peter Mandelson's book ("'insufferably self-indulgent' - Alastair Campbell" doesn't seem to have made it to the quotes on the cover of the paperback). However, I totall... Continue

7 March 2011

Everyone has a favourite teacher – here’s mine

Here is the piece from the Times Educational Supplement I mentioned yesterday, in which I was interviewed about my favourite, or most inspiring teacher at school. As I said in yesterday's blog, one of... Continue

6 March 2011

Big Society blah. Enemies of enterprise blahdiblah. This is Cones Hotline stuff

According to the pre-speech spin (I thought that was all in the past), David Cameron is going to declare war on 'the enemies of enterprise' today, and he is going to tell us that these include governm... Continue

6 March 2011

An English lesson for Jamie Oliver; a lesson for us all that teaching is hard

I finally caught up with the first episode of Jamie's Dream School last night. May I begin by ticking off Mr Oliver for using 'less' when he meant 'fewer.' Tut, tut, as fellow teacher David Starkey mi... Continue

5 March 2011

Alastair Campbell is a writer, communicator and strategist best known for his role as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s spokesman, press secretary and director of communications and strategy. Still active in politics and campaigns in Britain and overseas, he now splits his time between writing, speaking, broadcasting, charities and consultancy.