Today's New Statesman/ComRes poll amplifies the echoes of Thatcher and the 1980s that have been steadily approaching for a while now: this morning George Osborne said Tory cuts would be harsher than Margaret Thatcher's.

Meanwhile, the next edition of Progress Magazine is an ‘80s revival' special, arguing Cameron could be set to repeat the mistakes of the woman who is the political hero to a third of Tory PPCs.

The same polling goes on to reveal that 20 per cent want to reinstate the death penalty - though this is significantly less than the public at large - and three-quarters believe civil partnerships should be treated the same way as marriage (but it does not give Tory PPCs' views on gay marriage).

While it would be unfair to say the Conservatives haven't changed, a majority are shown to be in favour of cutting public spending and inheritance tax for the richest - findings which shine a light on diehard Tory beliefs that remain. In a similar vein, nine in ten express their support for an immigration cap. The noises emanating from Tory ranks on slashing spending and immigration point firmly away from a progressive agenda of public service reform and commitment to free movement of people. The Conservatives will have to change much more yet if they are to have truly progressive credentials to burnish. 

 

Joe Hall (Independent), Qurban Hussain (LibDems), Nigel Huddleston (Conservative), Dr Stephen Lathwell (Independent),  Marc Scheimann (Green Party), Gavin Shuker (Labour), Esther rantzen (Independent) and Charles Lawman will be attending.

The current economic crisis has cast a sharp light on broad cultural trends across all income groups. Consumer-led aspirations and a national obsession with home-ownership are deepseated cultural developments with both social and economic drivers. But for many families, having access to products and homes means relying heavily on debt.

In the decade to 2008, average household debt in the UK increased substantially – from 93 to 161 per cent of disposable income. The profile of borrowers widened to include lower income groups, which some suggest has led to greater opportunities for social and economic inclusion. But low-income households are the ones that are most vulnerable to debt problems, and ippr’s new research illustrates that our reliance on debt – far from creating opportunity – has created vulnerability during this recession.

ippr’s innovative research with 58 low-income families in London, Newcastle, Nottingham and Glasgow aimed to understand what the expansion of household debt has meant for the lives of low-income families. In-depth interviews, an income and expenditure diary and regular telephone conversations over four months explored patterns of income, spending and borrowing.

Arts & Culture

What we stand for

Culture as a good in its own right.  We are sceptical about the current trend for seeing cultural activities simply as an instrument for achieving other policies, believing in the value of arts and culture for their own sake. We do not believe that the arts are the exclusive domain of the left – a fallacy that has remained unchallenged for too long.

Liberating the arts from stifling bureaucracy. The arts are tangled in bureaucratic organisations: with quangos such as the mammoth Arts Council for England, RDAs, local authorities, different government departments (and others) all trying to exert top-down control. Do we know what all the bodies supposedly stimulating the arts actually do? How much duplication is there? Can they be trimmed, or cast aside? We believe the arts need to be radically simplified.  

Using technology to spread opportunity. The digital age should mean new audiences and revolutionary access for the arts, but much of the thinking in this area is undeveloped. And what about the future of broadband? The policy debate has focused heavily upon technologies, but perhaps the most crucial aspect is broadband’s scope for spreading opportunity - and thus one of the most serious dangers is that of a continuing geographical divide.

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Features

The Cost of Cancer

The UK currently has a cancer death rate 6% higher than the European average. However if the survival rates were improved in England to a level commensurate with the best in Europe, on a cumulative basis by 2020, 71,500 lives could be saved and total costs could be reduced by £10 billion. The report recommends that the Department of Health identifies and adopts the best practice in cancer services from high-performing European countries, focuses resources where largest reductions in mortality can be achieved and focuses on cancer prevention strategies.

"Many of Britain's towns and cities have failed - and been failed by policy makers for too long. It is better to tell uncomfortable truths than to continue to claim that if we carry on as we are then things will turn out well. Just as we can't buck the market, so we can't buck economic geography either. Places that enjoyed the conditions for creating wealth in the coal-powered 19th century often do not do so today.

"Coastal cities, whether large like Liverpool and Hull, or small like Scunthorpe and Blackpool, are most vulnerable ... They are almost always at the end of the line. They have lost their raison d'etre [as ports] and it is hard to imagine them prospering at their current sizes.

"Sunderland demonstrates just how hard it is to regenerate such a city. It is time to stop pretending there is a bright future for Sunderland and ask ourselves instead what we need to do to offer people in Sunderland better prospects."

The report says that all the 3m new homes planned by the government should be built in just three southern cities - London, Oxford and Cambridge. It says: "Cities based on highly skilled workers are the most dynamic. Oxford and Cambridge are unambiguously Britain's leading research universities outside London." People in the north should be told bluntly that their best chance of an affluent future is to move south. "No one is suggesting that residents should be forced to move, but we do argue that they should be told the reality of the position."

Tim Leunig, an economist from the London School of Economics who co-wrote the report, admitted that some people will see his ideas as "unworkable, unreasonable and perhaps plain barmy".

Louise Ellman, Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, said: "This report from David Cameron's favourite thinktank has just dismissed a huge area of the country as worthless. Is it any wonder there are no Tory councillors in Liverpool when for all their warm words they have not changed a bit?"

The above extract from the Tories favourite think-tank might give us a clue.

Click on link to read article.