Ben Jennings on Shabana Mahmood’s asylum measures – cartoon

A moral crusade won’t work. To defeat Faragism, Labour must revive a vision of social cohesion and collective responsibility Last month, as the Nobel peace prize eluded Donald Trump’s covetous grasp, the Harvard professor Michael Sandel received an accolade sometimes described as a Nobel equivalent for philosophers. The $1m Berggruen prize is awarded annually to a thinker deemed to have helped humanity find “wisdom, direction, and improved self-understanding”. Somewhat wistfully, given the state of the polls, I found my mind wandering back to the early 2010s, when Sandel was recruited by the Labour party to deliver just these benefits…

Second chambers are a good idea, but they should not be able to overturn clear decisions reached by an elected body If ever a British institution needed assistance in dying, it is the House of Lords. Its handling of the assisted dying bill on Friday of last week, continuing this week, is all but unconstitutional. A bill passed by the House of Commons after years of public debate is being blocked by a small group of peers under the pretence of scrutiny. Their purpose is to kill the bill by filibuster and impose their religious or moral views on…

The home secretary says there is a postcode lottery in the performance of forces in England and Wales. Source link