Under 25 and at university? Bad news for you then.

If you were a student, last week’s budget wasn’t pretty. But if you descend from reasonable wealth and/or earn whilst you learn then watching George slay the maintenance grant shouldn’t have hurt too much. Students however, may now be saddled with more debt and this is surely bad for any mind beginning his or her life’s journey.

'Call me Dave's' Heathrow headache

When I heard all the fuss last week about the Airport Commissions report into another runway my initial reaction was one of apathy. As a northerner, not an MP for Uxbridge or someone particularly concerned about unreasonable noise levels in my vicinity, I thought, humph well this is a very London centric story, not really worth all this air time.

My next thought, after digesting the televisions witterings further was, that if only the Airport Commission’s Report had considered the north of England for additional aviation capacity, all ‘Call me Dave’s’ problems would be solved. My final thought was, Westminster is too parochial to consider anywhere else even if it benefits politically.

The People's Assembly Against...Oh what was it again?

“Friends, first of all demonstrations are very important. They are part of our political process and I say thank you to each and every one of us that has come here today, to say it is possible to have a different world.”

These are the words of Jeremy Corbyn, prospective Labour leader and MP for Islington North. As crowd pleasing as they are, I couldn’t help but feel, as I stood amongst the quarter of a million other demonstrators in parliament square on the 20^th of June, that these words were not enough.

Tax credits hurt the poor but the cuts will hurt more

Listening to ‘Call me Dave’ speak about what he calls the welfare merry go round, referring specifically to tax payers being given back their contributions in tax credits, topping up their substandard incomes and helping with child care, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the Tories. Of course a 12bn slashing of the welfare budget is callous right now but we should recognise that tax credits were never a good idea. History has shown that this has served to lower living standards for the poor overall, not raise them.

'A source close to.' It's all a bit disinhibitive

This week both Cooper and Burnham were given a telling off by the Kendall camp. Liz Kendall’s campaign director, Toby Perkins MP sent a sternly worded letter after, ‘a source close to’ the Burnham and Cooper camps branded Liz’s followers, ‘Taliban New Labour.’ And during yesterdays televised hustings Andy Burnham had a little slip up, regarding a question on another possible leadership contest in 2020. He suggested that whatever the political landscape, ‘the party comes first.’ Kendall capitalised. ‘The country comes first,’ she noted. Just as before, more unattributed comments emerged from ‘a source close to’ a candidate, this time from the Burnham camp saying that, ‘Liz tried to score a cheap point by taking [what Andy said] out of context.’ With all the candidates pledging to conduct a civilised campaign, is all the mudslinging to be done by the unnamed and will it continue unfettered?