Struggling politically? Want to fill columns? Start a debate about the niqab. It’s another opportunity to roll out the veil puns and plaster that stock image of a Muslim woman in a black niqab, her heavy eye make-up emphasised.

Sometimes I think that we are obsessed. Why do we insist on telling woman what they should and shouldn’t wear? As a British Muslim woman who wears the hijab (headscarf), I don’t think covering my face in public would be safe, appropriate or is necessary for me. But I have close friends who wear niqab, and I don’t want to judge them. I am no scholar. What other women believe and wear is up to them, they don’t have to justify themselves to me. There is so much hostility based on what we think the niqab represents. One of the first things that came to mind when Jeremy Browne made his comments was this: has anyone actually spoken to any of the women who choose to wear niqab? So I decided that I would talk to as many as possible. 

It’s been argued that women who wear a full-face veil are excluding themselves from society. Psychology graduate Nadia, who started wearing niqab a few months ago, tells me that opportunities are not taken away by a piece of cloth, but by how other people react to it. “From my understanding of feminism, women should be able to do want they want to do. The niqab isn’t imposed by men. I do it for God.” Tayabbah, 20, is an English student at King’s College London and tells me that no one should take her right of wearing a niqab away. “I’m not harming anyone. It is a choice I made and a choice I have to deal with.” 

These are determined young women. And they are hardly conforming – they are a minority within British Muslims, and no one forced them to wear a niqab. Several say they are the first ones to wear the niqab among their family and friends.        

“I found niqab liberating,” Muslim convert and mother-of-two Khadija Sallon-Bradley tells me. “When I turned 12, I started wearing make-up. There’s this notion that is if you’ve got it, you flaunt it - and it’s driven into you that if you don’t look good, you won’t be spoken to by boys. So much has to do with appearance and you are bombarded with images of perfect and skinny girls and it makes you very self-conscious. I had so many insecurities.”

She started to question her role in society, what was expected of her, and went through a feminist phase as a teenager. Khadija adds that although she converted at 18 and started wearing hijab at university, she couldn’t “ditch the concealer”. By wearing the niqab, she felt right and that people wouldn’t judge her just by her face any more, and that there are many ways to communicate.

LSE Sociology student Rumana, 24, has dreams of being a social worker. “I want to work with vulnerable women, deal with victims and inspire other niqabis. I don’t want to cut off my career choices. I don’t want to accept that.” Although Rumana concedes that physically she has put up a barrier, her intention is not to be cut off from society. She does not deserve to have “letterbox” shouted at her, she says. “You can’t see me, but I make sure you hear me. I make sure my character and personality comes through. I’m not just a walking Qur’an.” She tells me that she makes an extra effort to contribute to seminars, to say hello and so on. She does compromise when she has to and has given evidence in court. I can’t help thinking, is this chatty young Muslim someone who should be excluded and shunned for what she chooses to wear?

If these women didn’t want to be a part of society, you wouldn’t see them in the street in the first place, would you? In the past, I didn’t understand why some Muslim women would wear extra covering, but that’s because I never asked. These women have done their research, and feel compelled to wear the niqab. In most cases, they deal with the situations they are in pragmatically and with courage. When it comes to security and identification, whether they are sitting exams, going to the bank or travelling abroad, women who wear niqab have either worked out an accommodation or have compromised. 

When I go out to eat with a friend who wears niqab, we’ll choose a restaurant where she feels comfortable. It’s not an issue. The first thing I associate with my friend with is her love of baking, her football obsession and the way she laughs, not what she wears. She has never imposed her way of doing things on me.

Women who wear the niqab shouldn’t be dehumanised or othered. I am sure that my friends who wear it don’t appreciate how (largely) white middle-class MPs and commentators - who have little interaction with those who wear niqab - feel as though they have to act as a knight in shining armour to liberate Muslim women from their oppression. The women I spoke to don’t need a saviour, nor do they want anyone to view them with a patriarchal eye, as though Muslim women are meek creatures without agency. The fetishisation of a covered woman and the language of de-veiling is not only orientalist, but it can be creepy. I am reminded of the recent leak of Lady Gaga’s Burqa lyrics. It’s so wrong.

This is Britain, and pluralism is something to be celebrated. I have come to appreciate the diversity in Islam, and Muslim women are not homogenous. We have different inspirations and different styles. There has been a huge fuss about the niqab, and I think it would be more helpful to understand and appreciate the contributions of these women instead of marginalising and scapegoating them. Will it make us feel better to ostracise them?

Perhaps we should question ourselves and what makes us feel so insecure about difference. Have you ever met a woman in niqab? Has a woman in niqab ever harmed you?  

The debate around the cost of university is extremely misleading. All the focus is on tuition fees, with little or no mention of accommodation costs and living costs. Moreover, there are hidden costs which are not factored into even these categories. All of this means that the real financial situation for aspiring students from disadvantaged backgrounds is far more problematic than any commentary currently acknowledges.

First, it is important to note the real total of an undergraduate degree. As already stated, the debate in the media centres around tuition fees as if this represents the full price of a degree. However, this is a mere fraction of the cost. Living costs and accommodation costs are both huge expenses that are very rarely mentioned. A conservative estimate of living costs is around £3,500 - around £1,150 per term. Most housing costs around £400 per month, which equates to £4,800 per year. The prediction that allowing an increase in the tuition fee cap would create a market has been proved woefully inaccurate. House of Commons Library statistics show that for the academic year 2012/13, the average tuition fee was £8,400. This is only reduced to £8,100 when factoring in fee waivers. So an estimate of the overall cost of one year of undergraduate education at an average university is £16,700.

Second, we must establish the standard support given by Student Finance for students from low-income families. Tuition fees are automatically given as a loan which students only start paying back once they start working. In determining the financial situation of university undergraduates we only need to look at the other two expenditures: living costs and accommodation costs. Going on the estimates made above, this works out at roughly £8,300 per year. However, even for the most supported students, with household incomes under £25,000, there is only one payment to cover these two costs. The maximum maintenance payment, which includes the maintenance loan and grant, is currently £7,177. This leaves an initial black hole of over £1,100.

In addition to this initial funding deficit, there are a number of practical barriers which increase the financial burden further. For example, the figure for accommodation costs does not include a deposit - for most properties this is one months rent plus 100 pounds. Nor, indeed, does this include a cost for an agency fee. This is unlikely to be necessary in the first year when most students live in university accommodation, but in subsequent years this is very common. The agency fee is at least £100, bringing the black hole to £1,700. What's more, the deposit is only returnable after an inspection upon vacating the rented premises. The result of this is the requirement for a further expense of £600, as the next year’s accommodation has to be secured well in advance of receiving the initial deposit back. While the deposits are returned, it still requires students from low socio-economic backgrounds to find the money before it is returned. This brings our black hole total to £2,300.

The fact that this deficit must be filled by the institution creates a complex variety of potential situations, making it incredibly difficult for students to calculate the exact funding gap they will experience. Very few universities can fully ameliorate the funding gap. The University of Manchester, a member of the Russell Group, provides a significant amount of support to eliminate the deficit. Over a third of their undergraduate intake, which is approximately 8,000 per year, receives the ‘Manchester Bursary’. Students with family household incomes below £25,000 are eligible for £1,000 cash grant, and £2,000 in an accommodation discount. This support is sustained throughout their degree. However, this is the exception as most institutions are not wealthy enough to afford this level of support.

The University of West England (UWE), a former polytechnic, has had to dramatically reduce the support it offers students from low socio-economic backgrounds. The money it receives from the Access to Learning Fund has decreased significantly in recent years. In 2006/07, UWE had a fund of £944,544 to distribute through bursaries. In 2012/13, the figure had dropped to £552,358. The consequence of this can be seen in the number of students receiving a bursary. In 2011/12, there were 2,500 students eligible. This figure has fallen to 1,000 in the academic year 2012/13. As a result, a large number of students who meet the criteria for a bursary will obtain no help in narrowing the hole in their finances. However, the UWE bursary is only £1,000, leaving even the lucky students who receive a bursary in a deficit of around £1,300.

For new universities, the situation is even worse. The University of Gloucester, which acquired university status in 2001, offers virtually no support to plug the gap in student finances. For the academic year 2013/14, the institution will offer 206 scholarships through the National Scholarship Programme (NSP). This scheme is worth £3,000 in the first year of study, and £1,500 for all subsequent years. However, this support takes the form of fee waivers. This means that it has no impact on the financial black hole. Students not eligible for the NSP receive a bursary of £500, but only in their first year of study. The consequence of this is that students from low-income families have virtually no support in meeting the immediate funding gap.

These figures will vary according to institution and geography, there is no doubt that most low-income students have a large funding gap of well over £1,000. The amount varies significantly depending on institution and geography (regional prices and diverse travel costs), reaching anything up to £2,500. And this does not even factor in the impact of inflation. According to the Bank of England, the Consumer Price Index has averaged 3.4 per cent over the last 6 years. The impact of this being that every student is taking a real terms funding cut, year after year. If we are serious about increasing diversity and participation, the financial funding deficit for students from low socio-economic backgrounds urgently needs to be addressed.

Five years ago the world’s economy went into shock as Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy.  The resulting global economic crisis was driven by the greed of loosely regulated financial institutions, governments seeking short term popularity and the unhealthy relationship between the two. It has resulted in unsustainable levels of debt in some major economies with a period of austerity prescribed to restore balance within a decade, although the scars may last far longer.

But a more fundamental risk to our long term economic development lies in the rapidly expanding use of our scarce natural resources, combined with the planet’s ability to cope with the multiple impacts of their use. We know that we are living well beyond our means, drawing on natural resources at a rate that we cannot sustain.  Just as we have accumulated debt priced too cheaply, so we have built economies with resources priced too cheaply. 

Whichever basic need we consider, from warmth to mobility to food, today’s solutions are hugely inefficient – in the same year the Lehman Brothers went under the world was using resources at a rate 50 per cent faster than it can renew.  And as our growing population, expected to reach nine billion by 2050, consumes more, these strains on our natural capital will become even more acute.

The inevitable conclusion of this is a resource crunch. It means we urgently need to find new methods of production, address wasteful consumption and develop innovative business models that put sustainability at the heart of business operations. But a recent survey of global business leaders shows that while awareness of a pending resource crunch is high, most businesses see this as a risk to be managed rather than as a new commercial opportunity. Few see it changing the nature of the business they do today. Tellingly we also found that only 13 per cent of board directors are remunerated for achieving sustainability targets. 

The resource war will bring winners and losers. Take water. Already we are seeing parts of Texas in drought with reports that 30 communities could be dry by the end of the year.  By 2050 the OECD predicts that the world's demand for water will grow by 55 per cent. Competition between water users and nations demanding water resources will escalate. And yet our research has shown that only one in seven businesses have a target to reduce water use.

In our work with businesses all around the world we have found two distinct behaviours when it comes to sustainability.  Think of the 19^th century science experiment with frogs and boiling water. Most businesses are treading water on the issue of sustainability as the temperature rises. They won’t move until the issue bites them hard. Our research suggests that they are discounting the impacts of sustainability on their business well into the future, beyond the time horizon of most shareholders or the CEO’s likely tenure.

A few, the jumpers in the frog analogy, are moving now.  They anticipate the danger and see a way out. The first step they take is to look inside their business and map out the resources used in the products and services that they provide.  The insight gained usually highlights simple cost saving measures to improve efficiency and resource use. But incremental improvements that once seemed ground breaking can now look like greenwash, damaging reputations and doing little to ensure competitiveness and survival.

True leaders go further and take a deeper look at resource use to drive a far more fundamental business change. These companies are at the cutting edge, redesigning products and services and their business models to minimise the use of resources that were once plentiful and cheap but are increasingly scarce and costly. Interface, the world’s largest maker of carpet tiles is an example of a company putting sustainability at the heart of business strategy. It’s not being done as an add-on but is core to the future success of the business. Dyson, through its focus on designing out inefficiency from the start, is another.

While I understand it’s hard to challenge the status quo before the platform is burning, the alternative can be harder still. Just think how many of the high street names that have recently failed could have survived had they anticipated, not just reacted to the onslaught of the internet.  A new tsunami of change will result from the resource crunch with less reliable access to cheap land, energy, water and materials as regions of the world and business supply chains become resource stressed.

A golden age of sustainability lies in waiting.  For as we slowly recover from the debt crisis, businesses that have been hoarding capital are now looking to invest once again in their future. But that future can’t just be more of the same. Business face a world where consumers will expect more but resources will be scarce and expensive. This is a huge opportunity to innovate. Successful businesses will be sustainable investments, resilient to the resource crunch, but they will also be good businesses that appeal to environmentally conscious consumers. They will have sustainability inside.

A report by UN weapons inspectors has confirmed that the nerve agent sarin was used in the Ghouta area of Damascus in August, with the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon calling the attack “the most significant confirmed use of chemical weapons against civilians since Saddam Hussein used them in Halabja in 1988 - and the worst use of weapons of mass destruction in the 21st century.”

Under the deal brokered by the US and Russia in response to the attack, Syria has pledged to destroy its chemical weapons stockpile by 2014. But how will this work, and how much will cost?

For a start, because Syria hasn’t signed up to the Chemical Weapons Convention, we simply don’t know for certain how many chemical weapons it possesses. US Secretary of State John Kerry said he believes Syria has around 1000 tons of chemical weapons. As part of the deal, Syria should be disclosing information on its stockpile in the next week, but this depends firstly on Syria sharing accurate and complete information with international inspectors, and secondly assumes that the Syrian government still has full control of its chemical weapons stockpile.

This DefenseNews blog reports that former chief UN weapons inspector and head of the Iraq Survey Group David Kay believes the international community would have to deploy 2000 weapons inspectors in Syria. They would then need security, which the blog suggests would be provided by the Syrian government. Whether the Syrian government is capable of providing the necessary safety guarantees is still an open question.

The actual process of destroying chemical weapons is expensive too. This Time article estimates that it cost the US government roughly $1 million to get rid of each ton of US chemical weapons. In Syria its likely to be more costly, because of the difficulty of securing chemical weapon sites, and uncertainty as to whether chemical weapons will be destroyed in Syria or first transported abroad.

Cost-wise, this might all compare favourably to a military intervention in Syria – which I discussed here– but will it be effective? Locating and destroying chemical weapons in an active war zone is a huge challenge, so this latest US and Russian initiative could easily fail on its own terms. It’s worth remembering that Libya pledged to destroy its chemical weapon stock in 2004 and invited in UN inspectors, but a hidden cache of mustard gas was found in the country in 2011. Libya is a vast, desert country, which makes easy to conceal weapons, but in 2004 it was peaceful. On top of this, even if Syria does destroy its chemical weapons stockpile, this initiative does nothing to protect civilians against conventional weapons.

By far the most significant policy announcement made by the Lib Dems at their conference is that the party will pledge to protect the NHS and schools from cuts after 2015. Nick Clegg suggested yesterday that both budgets should be ring-fenced until 2020 and Danny Alexander told the Today programme this morning:

We’ve said that we want to, as a party, maintain the commitments to the NHS in terms of keeping its budget protected in real terms, and also to the schools system.

Among other things, this is another snub to Vince Cable, a long-standing critic of ring-fencing. Before the recent Spending Review, he warned that shielding some departments from cuts and forcing others to endure even greater austerity was not "a very sensible" long-term approach. He said:

The problem about ring-fencing as an overall approach to policy, is that when you have 80 per cent of all government spending that’s ring-fenced, it means all future pressures then come on things like the army, the police, local government, skills and universities, the rest that I’m responsible for. So you get a very unbalanced approach to public spending.

But as in the case of Help To Buy and the future of the coalition, Clegg and Alexander have chosen to disregard Cable's advice.

It's also worth noting that the Lib Dems' pledge means that all three of the main parties are now likely to go into the next election promising to ring-fence the NHS. David Cameron and George Osborne havee long made it clear that they want to continue to protect the health budget ater 2015 and Ed Miliband told the BBC earlier this year: "We're not going to be cutting the health service, I'm very clear about that. We will always be protecting the health service and will always make it a priority."

Promising to shield the NHS from cuts is both good politics and good policy. Polls show that it is the most popular spending area with voters and the above-average rate of inflation in the health service means it frequently requires real-terms rises just to stand still. But it does mean all parties will be under greater pressure to say how they would continue deficit reduction without significant tax rises. Should the ring-fences around health, international development and schools spending remain, some departments will have had their budgets more than halved by the end of the programme, with a 64% cut to the Foreign Office, a 46% cut to the Home Office and a 36% cut to defence.

This year, at New York Fashion Week, 6 per cent of catwalk models were black and 9.1 per cent were Asian. 2 per cent were Latina; 0.3 per cent were categorised as ‘other’. And 82.7 per cent were white.

Like so many scandals in fashion, this could easily have been tacitly ignored by onlookers or resignedly accepted. Instead, a trio of industry insiders – models Naomi Campbell and Iman, and former model agent Bethann Hardison – have branded themselves as The Diversity Coalition and used their uniquely prestigious platforms to name and shame those designers who put on all-white shows at the Fall/Winter New York Fashion Week 2013. A minimalist website run by the three industry heavyweights compiles lists of shows which have excluded non-white models, often headed by names dripping with kudos: Alexander Wang, Victoria Beckham, Marc by Marc Jacobs, Donna Karan, Oscar de la Renta.

The fashion industry isn’t known for its enthusiastic embracement of diversity. Take the so-called ‘size zero debate’: when agents were accused of recruiting models outside the Stockholm Centre for Eating Disorders as young girls with anorexia left their appointments, the industry responded with a collective shrug of all their bony shoulders. Outspoken commitments to slots for ‘plus size’ models abound, but the shows often fail to materialise. Various countries and Fashion Weeks have announced BMI-based initiatives intended to prevent unhealthily thin models from working and to stem the demand for them - then quietly reneged upon these promises. Pleas from consumers to stop heavily Photoshopped fashion photography that makes models appear impossibly lithe have also been met with the equivalent of a condescending pat on the head (let’s not forget that 84,000 people – mostly teenage girls – signed a petition asking Seventeen magazine to commit to publishing one un-retouched photograph per issue last year, which the teen mag’s editor never properly acted upon. But she did offer the 14 year old author of the petition an internship.)

Where race is concerned, fashion has an equally serious problem. Most of this revolves around passing the buck: agents say that they can’t take on as many non-white models because designers are reluctant to book them, so it’s bad for business. Designers say that because the agents aren’t employing them, they don’t have enough non-white models to choose from to fit their ranges. Make-up artists who have no make-up for darker skin tones and hair stylists who don’t know how to work with black hair argue that they can’t afford to train or buy materials for the types of models they hardly ever encounter. Fashion Week coordinators say that it’s the designers’ responsibility to hire their own clients, and to involve themselves in the process would be anti-capitalist. Magazines argue that the catwalk dictates what and who is ‘in’, and they just follow the money. It’s an age-old story of discrimination: each individual playing a part in a system that excludes certain types of people, and none willing to take any responsibility for it.

How should fashion respond? When someone important enough has brought up the issue in the past, it has been met with a brief surge of shame-faced tokenism on the runway. For the few non-white models who are lucky enough to have fought their way on to agents’ books in the first place, this realistically translates into increased competition between each other, and the driving down of wages. In order to make themselves desirable for the one or two slots available (if there are more than two black models in a show, it's apparently seen as 'a black thing'), these models often agree to work for less money. Once again, non-white employees are underpaid and underrepresented because of the colour of their skin.

According to a Jezebel report depressingly entitled ‘Fashion Week’s models are getting whiter’ – one that backs up statistically what Campbell has already said anecdotally about fashion moving backwards since she first started modelling – the industry is getting worse. But of course, none of these agents, designers, casting directors, fashion coordinators, make-up artists and stylists would individually identify as racist. No longer will this excuse hold, according to The Diversity Coalition. They have pre-empted the argument, and succinctly stated: “No matter the intention, the result is racism.”

Amongst all of their rhetoric and their broken promises, their refusal to ever properly identify or tangibly solve their own unequivocal problems, fashionistas have been caught short by Campbell and co's cool-headed approach. Numbers and names are harder to manipulate than vague 'calls for change' or 'commitments needed for the future'. Anyone can click on The Diversity Coalition's website and see exactly who is part of the problem. If enough people hold these designers to account, the famously inflexible runway royals might even listen.

Perhaps, having had their shows thoroughly named and shamed, we could finally start to see a change from fashion that goes beyond token black models on a white-washed catwalk.

“There are still some bad debts lurking in there"
Lord Myners tells the BBC that there are still bad debts to be addressed after the government sells a 6 per cent stake in Lloyds Banking Group.
 

This week, a judge at Blackfriars Crown Court in London ruled that a Muslim woman can wear the veil, or niqab, in court, but must remove it when giving evidence.

Some immediately said he should have gone further. For instance, the redoubtable Janice Turner of The Times declared on Twitter that the decision makes “an awful precedent”. She argued that being able to observe a person is important when coming to a decision about their guilt. Janice’s views echoed those of the National Secular Society, which told the BBC it’s “vital” that defendants’ faces are visible “at all times”. In other words, veils should be banned from court, tout court.

I agree that the judge’s compromise is unsatisfactory, and I too would like to go further, but in the opposite direction. I think we’d have a better justice system if all witnesses were made to wear a veil.

In the course of researching my book Born Liars, I spent a lot of time reading the academic literature on lie detection, and talking to scientists who study interrogation techniques. I found a surprising scientific consensus: people are less good than they think they are at judging a person’s truthfulness by observing their demeanour. Humans, it turns out, make erratic lie detectors. But here’s the funny thing: we think we’re great at it.

In a landmark study from 2006, the researchers Charles Bond and Bella DePaulo asked 2,520 adults in sixty-three countries how to spot a liar. Most people confidently explained that liars stutter, squirm and avert their gaze. The same preconception persisted in every culture studied. The trouble is, it’s not accurate. As a result, it leads us astray.

A person telling a lie may look their interlocutor in the eye. They may well – especially if they have had time to prepare – be just as fluent, if not more so, than a truth-teller. Conversely, some people, even when they’re telling the truth, appear shifty and uncomfortable, especially under pressure.

We’ve all encountered successful liars. So why, Shakespeare’s warning notwithstanding, do we continue to believe that we can “find the mind’s construction in the face”? Emily Pronin, a psychologist at Princeton University, points to a fundamental imbalance in the way people relate to each other.

When you physically encounter me, there are two things that are more prominent in your mind than in mine: my face and your thoughts. As a result you give too much credence to what you think you can tell from my face, while remaining confident that your own thoughts are entirely private.

Studies have found that people consistently over-estimate how much they can learn about others in job interviews, while at the same time believing that others can get only an unreliable glimpse of what they’re thinking or feeling. The model we work with is something like this: I am never quite what I seem; you are an open book. Pronin calls it “the illusion of asymmetric insight”.

It’s an illusion that sits at the heart of our justice system. The lawyer and fraud specialist Robert Hunter, whom I interviewed for the book, calls it “the demeanour assumption”: this assumption that we can read others’ faces like a book. Hunter believes that the demeanour assumption regularly misleads interrogators, judges and juries.

When a jury is trying to come to a decision, they need to take all sorts of information into account. What a witness is doing with their face while talking is, to a large extent, noise in the data, a hindrance to the search for truth. In their study, Bond and DePaulo found that “people are more accurate in judging audible than visible lies”.

Critics of the veil like to refer to the long traditions of our justice system. But if niqab-wearing women make us pay attention to this flaw in the system for the first time, isn’t that a good thing?

We can stop witnesses wearing veils. Or we can make all witnesses wear them. Either way, let’s not pretend that banning the veil in court will lead to better justice.

One hundred years ago, Gandhi launched the campaign that was to transform him into a figure of international stature. By 1913 he had spent the previous twenty years in South Africa – first as a lawyer, then as a community leader. But years of protest against racist laws had exhausted his support among the country’s 150,000 strong Indian community. Most had been brought from India as indentured labourers, but as the years went by, many had prospered. The tradesmen and shop-keepers had been the bedrock of Gandhi’s non-violent campaigns, but they had finally run out of patience with him.

Gandhi had used every tactic he could think of, but support had ebbed away. Yet the need for reform was more urgent than ever. A court ruling had effectively removed state recognition of polygamous marriage, while the government refused to lift a crippling tax. As the historian, Maureen Swann observed, victory against the South African government was more important than ever for Gandhi for personal as well as political reasons: “The movement in the Transvaal was in a state of collapse, the deputation to London a failure…He wanted a successful end to satyagraha (passive resistance) in the Transvaal not only for its own sake, but also as the necessary prerequisite for returning to India, taking satyagraha with him, making it the basis for Indian nationalist politics.”

On 13 September 1913, despite waning support, Gandhi called on the community to rise to the challenge: “The fight this time must be for altering the spirit of the Government and of the European population of South Africa. And the result can only be obtained by prolonged and bitter suffering that must melt the heart of the Government and of the predominant partner. May the community have the strength and the faith to go through the fire!”

On 15 October 1913 Gandhi gathered his supporters at Phoenix, his farm near the port city of Durban, to begin the long march to the Natal border with the Transvaal. When they got there they would cross without permission – knowing that this was illegal.  Just 16 protesters, including his long-suffering wife, Kasturba, answered his call.

For a moment it appeared that Gandhi’s entire South African mission would end in failure; that he would have to leave for India with little to show for years of resistance. Staring defeat in the face, Gandhi reversed a long-held position and turned at last to the one group he had previously ignored: the poorest of the poor. He called on the indentured labourers on the sugar plantations and coal mines to support his cause.  

The result was extraordinary. Thousands downed tools and joined the protest. By 6 November the march had reached Volksrust, on the border with the Transvaal. Whites in the town threatened to ‘shoot the Indians like rabbits.’ Still they pressed on and the border was crossed without violence.

By the end of November the towns in Natal were at a standstill, troops had been rushed from the Eastern Cape and Pretoria and the mines had been turned into temporary prisons.  Strikers were bludgeoned, beaten and intimidated; some died. Gandhi and his closest supporters – including several whites – were imprisoned. Yet still the protests continued.

News of the action reached India via the Reuters newsagency, and carried in every newspaper. There were angry meetings across the sub-continent. Fearing that the situation might spiral out of control, the Viceroy came out in support of the protest. Speaking in Madra, Lord Hardinge said that the South African Indian community had violated the law “with full knowledge of the penalties involved, and ready with all courage and patience to endure those penalties.” But, he went on: “In all this they have the sympathy of India – deep and burning – and not only of India, but of all those who like myself, without being Indians themselves, have feelings of sympathy for the people of this country.”

For an Imperial ruler, like Lord Hardinge, to openly attack another government within the Empire was almost unprecedented. He came close to losing his job, receiving strong letters from the Colonial Secretary and the King. But so positive was the response in India itself that London backed down and he remained in post.

On 11 December, under acute pressure from both home and abroad, South Africa’s Minister of the Interior, Jan Smuts, finally took the step that broke the impasse. He announced a Commission of Inquiry into the causes of the strike. Gandhi was freed from jail. On 16 January 1914 Gandhi and Smuts met and negotiated a deal, ending the tax and allowing polygamous marriages. By July Gandhi had left South Africa, in triumph. Little wonder that when he finally learned that Gandhi had left South Africa nearly 100 years ago, Smuts declared: “The saint has left our shore. I sincerely hope forever."

He travelled to England and then on to India, where he was greeted, for the first time, as Mahatma, or ‘great soul’; the title by which he was to be known for the rest of his life. Gandhi took with him the strategy of non-violent resistance he had perfected in South Africa. He was to use it with extraordinary effect against the British, until in 1947 London finally conceded defeat granted Indian independence.

Gandhi is still venerated in South Africa. His final, decisive 1913 campaign is due to be commemorated later this year. Events are being planned by his a group working with the Mahatma’s grand-daughter, Ela Gandhi, a peace activist and former Member of the South African Parliament.

The car industry has long been at the forefront of manufacturing innovations. From the assembly line that made the Ford Model T, to the obsession with manufacturing quality that helped Toyota become a byword for reliability, the way cars are made has always been at the heart of the automotive industry’s development. As well as being a piece of unqualified good news for the manufacturing sector in this country, Jaguar Land Rover’s announcement last week of 1,700 new jobs at its facility in Solihull is also an exciting continuation of this story.

Jaguar Land Rover has always worked hard to develop highly advanced design and production capabilities in the UK. The latest expansion covers the development of car designs that can be quickly adapted to satisfy the rapidly changing demands of the market. Amongst other things, it is the company’s use of technology that makes such flexibility possible, empowering it to get products to market faster without compromising on quality. For example Jaguar Land Rover uses advanced, 3D design technology and immersive projections of virtual prototypes to rapidly assess and evaluate the impact of changes to the design of its vehicles. This empowers the company’s engineers to make alterations to the virtual vehicle, and simulate its operation, before the parts for the physical prototype are manufactured. It means that Jaguar Land Rover’s vehicles can be optimised for safety, style, efficiency and performance with much less physical testing than would historically have been necessary, accelerating their time to market and building their competitive edge.

Automotive manufacturing is one of the most obvious applications of such technology, since cars are amongst the most complex consumer products of all. However, consumer products form only a part of the global manufacturing output, and a smaller part of the UK’s. Many non-consumer products can be even more complicated to develop than cars, and the timelines even more demanding – think of drilling equipment for the energy, transport and water industries, of aircraft assemblies, or of refining equipment for rare metal ores. Changing trends in the global economy and changing priorities in global business mean that the flexibility and responsiveness afforded by design and manufacturing technology such as that used by Jaguar Land Rover will become a significant advantage for many different areas of the manufacturing sector.

This ought to be good news for the UK. The ups and downs of British manufacturing are well-documented but, as we look to the future, we should do our best to take advantage of the opportunities offered by changes in global business.  In recent decades, Japan and Germany have succeeded through a focus on efficiency and high quality, and China and Korea have flourished through a drive to reduce cost and time-to-market, but the business world of the future will reward flexibility, agility and innovation. The current changes happening in the manufacturing industry reflect this and the application of the technology in use at Jaguar Land Rover has the potential to help British manufacturers address these priorities.

Modern technology and global supply chains are fuelling accelerated change in dozens of industries. In energy (, smart grids, renewables), in transport (composite aircraft, hybrid cars), healthcare (sensor supported care), defence (UAVs, robotics), in entertainment (mobile broadband, smartphones) and in many other industries, technological advances over only the last 15 years have completely altered the competitive landscape. In the UK, we have the right combination of creativity, computing, design and engineering expertise to give us an edge in this new world order of manufacturing.

We’re unlikely ever to repatriate the manufacturing of high-volume, low-value products (and it’s debatable as to whether we would want to), but the success of the automotive design and manufacturing in the UK shows what can be achieved here when we use our expertise to tackle premium and specialist markets. Jaguar Land Rover is a fine example of what can be done when existing technologies are applied in an innovative manner, and there is much that British industry could do to replicate its success in other sectors.

Further recent signs of recovery in the UK economy are encouraging, but they cannot be sustained by internal consumption alone. The UK has run a trade deficit in every year since the Falklands war, and closing that gap should be a long-term priority for any government that wishes to see a robust distribution of jobs, wealth and stability in this country. Manufacturing has a huge part to play in that and, if this government is serious about facilitating the "march of the makers" then encouraging the kind of innovation in evidence at Jaguar Land Rover would be a good place to start.

By any measure, Nick Clegg is having a good conference. He has won major votes on the economy, tuition fees, nuclear power, the 50p tax rate and Trident, confirming the Lib Dems' new status as a party of the "radical centre". These triumphs both reflect and reinforce Clegg's improved standing as leader. The Eastleigh by-election, which convinced the Lib Dems that they aren't facing wipeout in 2015, and the return of economic growth, which the party hopes to earn some credit for, means that talk of a leadership challenge by Vince Cable or anyone else has largely disappeared.

But speak to Lib Dems and you get the impression that Clegg's position isn't completely secure yet. One senior party activist told me that he could still face a challenge if the party performs particularly badly in next year's local and European elections, warning that "we could come fifth behind the Greens". Such a result would mean the loss of most or all of the party's nine MEPs. With a year to go until the general election, there would still be just enough time for the Lib Dems to contemplate a change of leader.

As Lord Oakeshott, one of those who would lead the revolt, noted in his pre-conference interview: "This will be much the biggest test we’ve had on a nationwide basis of our support and our appeal since the general election, so that’s why it will be crunch time. There will be no excuse when everyone has been voting, particularly in important areas like London. I think that’s when everyone will focus on things and I hope we will have a good hard look at our prospects for the election. There will still be time, but next May/June will be the last chance."

One group that hopes the Lib Dems might yet oust Clegg is the Tories. If it they are to win the next election, the Conservatives needs a Lib Dem leader who can win over Labour voters in Tory-Labour marginals. At present, after the defection of around a quarter of 2010 Lib Dem voters to Labour, the Tories stand to lose dozens of seats at the next election (Corby was an early warning) -  there are 37 Conservative-Labour marginals where the third place Lib Dem vote is more than twice the margin of victory.

The belief among the Tories is that a more centre-left figure such as Cable or Tim Farron, both of whom have signalled their availability, could prompt the party's former supporters to return home from Labour. Tim Montgomerie told me last year that "a left-wing replacement" of Clegg in 2014 was "vital to Tory hopes". Fortunately for Ed Miliband, the chances of him facing a new Lib Dem leader in 2015 have fallen further after Clegg's victories this week.

Anna Calvi’s sumptuous self-titled debut saw her catapulted from relative unknown to one of the most respected artists in music. Released in 2011, it was a record full of drama and beauty, nominated for the Mercury Music Prize and the BBC’s Sound of 2011 poll. Brian Eno and Nick Cave became avid fans, critics were falling over one another to heap praise on her work and Calvi established herself as one of the finest British songwriters of recent times.

She was exposed to a range of music from an early age and her obsession grew as she got older, becoming a classically trained violinist after convincing her parents to buy her one when she was six, and teaching herself to play guitar when she was eight. This seriousness about her art seems to inform everything she does creatively and marks her out from many of her contemporaries.

Incredibly, it wasn’t until she was 23 that she began singing. Emulating the emotion and vulnerability of singers like Edith Piaf, Calvi developed the unique singing voice now so central to her sound: from soft, delicate whisper to spine-tingling roar.

After some time away writing new material, she’s back with her second record, One Breath, which will be released on 7th October. To celebrate her return, the New Statesman spoke to her about music, politics and feminism.

Black Box studios in France was where you recorded the last album and you chose to return there to record One Breath. What is it about the French countryside that you enjoy when recording?

When I work I really like to be away from distractions, so being in the countryside really suits me. Black Box has really beautiful old equipment and I'm really fond of the people who work there. They also cook amazing meals!

Your debut album was so successful and highly thought of that many people would be tempted to try and recreate that with their follow-up, but something tells me you just wouldn’t want to do that. What can we expect from the new record?

I wanted to experiment with different sonic textures on this record. I wanted to use the guitar at the emotional climax of the song rather than having it simply as an accompanying instrument. I also wanted to explore the different ways I could use my voice - to exploit as much dynamic range out of it as I could. I think this record is also more personal than my first. There are more extremes of emotion, and more moments of beauty and ugliness.

You’re quite keen on using a small recording unit to sketch out early ideas, aren’t you? Can you ever see yourself producing other people’s or, indeed, your own work?

I would love to do some producing for fun, I'm not sure I could handle the responsibility of someone else's work for a whole album, as I know how important the role is. But I think if the pressure was removed I would really enjoy producing, as I'm always very involved in the recording process. I could see myself further down the line of my career producing my own records.

Your live sound is really beautiful, translating what you do on record really well indeed. I’ve always thought, though, that there may be room to grow that sound as the venues you play get bigger. Is that something that’s in the back of your mind?

I think the type of record you are performing dictates how the live sound should be, rather than the size of the venue. The new record requires new instrumentation and I'm looking forward to translating that in a live setting.

Being creative must bring so many rewards, and I’m not talking about success or acclaim, but more escapism and a deep exploration of your own thoughts and feelings. Is that something you enjoy?

Getting lost into your imagination is a really wonderful thing. Art is a safe place to explore every aspect of your psyche - from the most ugly to most vulnerable parts of who you are. I think it's important for everyone to have the space and time to have a deep exploration of ones thoughts, whether they are in a creative role or not.

I remember seeing something a while ago that said Suzanne and I came about after a dream you’d had. Has that idea of exploring your subconscious featured on this new album?

I think a lot about the power of music to hypnotise, as that's what music does to me. I want music to transport me somewhere else. There are several moments on the record where I specifically wanted the music to be hypnotic. I always try and create an atmosphere in my music, for the listener to get lost in.

It’s incredibly moving listening to your work because you sing with such emotion in your voice. Do you feel that’s a natural thing, or can one learn to do that through practice?

My voice came from hours and hours of practice. But I feel I was channelling my own particular way of expressing myself through the guitar and violin before I became a singer. I think that's just my personal connection to music and it has always been there. I eventually found a way to express myself through singing, which was a really liberating experience. It took a lot of work though.

The tone you get from your guitar is stunning. How and why did it first appeal to you and become your signature sound?

I've always liked to play with reverb because it really makes the guitar sing. I just find I can play with a lot of emotion when I have reverb. I like to keep it simple though, I don't like the sound of a heavily affected guitar. I want to be able to hear the human playing behind it.

You play without a bass player, meaning you have to create guitar parts that compensate for that, which makes for a really intricate playing style. Can you just explain how the lack of bass has affected your creative approach?

It encouraged me to work harder as a guitarist, and it also taught me about space. I love space in music. I also have an even bigger appreciation of bass now, as when I add bass frequencies to a song it feels so important!

I’ve gathered in the past you are rather underwhelmed by much of the music released today. Are there any bands or artists you would recommend me listening to?

I think there are a lot of great bands currently releasing music: Austra, Wild Beasts, Bat for Lashes, Patrick Wolf, The Invisible and Connan Mockasin are some of the artists I'm listening to at the moment.

You’ve been able to call Brian Eno and Nick Cave fans right from the off. That must be incredibly helpful and great for you personally.

Brian Eno's support has meant so much to me. He was one of the first people to hear my debut record and he really gave me the confidence to feel I was on the right track. I owe him so much. To tour with Grinderman was like a dream come true for me, as I'm such a huge fan of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Seeing them perform every night was a great education!

I find it incredibly frustrating that female artists and male artists get treated differently. Female artists are far too often judged on how they appear. What I’ve loved about the media coverage you’ve had is that the narrative has centred around your brilliance as a songwriter and you as a creative force, rather than how you appear or what you wear. Am I being incredibly naive there, or do you feel that, too?

I do feel lucky that my musical vision has been strong enough to avoid that trap. However, I often get asked what it's like to be a woman in music. I've spoken to other female artists and they also continually get asked this question. It's frustrating that women are regarded as 'female artists' as opposed to 'artists', which is how men are regarded. I doubt male artists get asked what it's like to be a man making music. I really hope this fascination with gender won't last forever and we can all just focus on the music.

Do you consider yourself a feminist?

I think it's really important that women and men reclaim the word feminism. Feminism is about equality. It's about being inclusive, not exclusive.  So, yes, I do consider myself a feminist. I don't believe that ultimately the patriarchy serves men any better than it serves women. The pressures on men and women to live up to their gender stereotypes are ridiculous and impossible to fulfill.

What’s the single biggest issue facing women in the world today?

Violence towards women is a huge problem - in too many parts of the world sexual, physical and cultural abuse of women is commonplace. Many women in the world are still culturally oppressed and unable to develop their potential. There is more equality of opportunity in the West than there used to be, but still women often have the less secure, less creative, less well-paid jobs. Sexism is ingrained in our culture so there is a lot of work still to be done.

There seems to be a rather nasty anti-immigration sentiment permeating British society, captured perfectly by that government van telling immigrants to ‘go home or face arrest’. Have you noticed it and, if so, what are your thoughts?

I didn't see the Government vans myself but think that was an appalling idea. Much of the public’s concern about immigration seems to be based on an exaggeration of the scale of immigration and a belief that immigrants are a drain on the public purse. Such fears are being exploited by the media and right-wing political parties. I recently read about an OECD study which in fact confirmed that immigrants actually contribute more to Britain’s economy than the indigenous population.

Ultimately no one really 'owns' any part of this world.

Much is being made about a lack of a strong, coherent voice on the left of politics. How do you see politics in the UK right now?

There's definitely a feeling that all parties are the same and politicians are motivated by personal gain. However, outside traditional politics there is a hunger to bring about change. The popularity of the Occupy movement, for instance, demonstrates the energy there is to curb the power of banks and multinational companies and ensure they pay their fair share of taxes. I think left-wing parties need to develop a much more distinct voice and have the courage to stand up for their core values. They should focus on championing the rights of the underprivileged rather than attempting to keep up with the right wing agenda.

For more information about the release of Anna’s second album, visit http://annacalvi.com/

Rob Pollard is a freelance writer. You can follow him on Twitter @_robpollard

An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist, by Richard Dawkins

He is the world’s most famous atheist and evolutionary biologist. Author of The Selfish Gene, responsible for popularising the gene-centered view of evolution, and more recently, The God Delusion; An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist is the first volume of Richard Dawkins's autobiography. The memoir explores both the emotional and intellectual influences that shaped Dawkins's upbringing and young adulthood. It is a journey that takes readers from childhood in colonial Africa, to teenage rebellion and finally, Oxford. Here is a narrative that blends a love of poetry with scientific skepticism, and the result is a mixed response from the critics.

Writing for the Guardian, Richard Fortley praises the authorial style of the scientist, culminating in an account that is “surprisingly intimate and moving”.  “Dawkins's mother is delightfully described,” writes Fortley, “Most geeks cannot write: it is a brutal fact of living symbiotically with machines. But then most geeks do not have a taste for poetry.” An Appetite for Wonder gives readers a window into the personal conflicts and chapters of Dawkins's life, including a memory of a particularly inspiring teacher, “who put the young scientist on the road to zoology and to Oxford, where he has spent more or less his whole life.”

Brandon Robshaw in the Independent is likewise pleased with Dawkins's readability. “The reason Richard Dawkins’s books are so successful is that they are both intellectually rigorous and refreshingly easy to read.” The first volume of his autobiography, we are told, is “no exception”. “The book simply bubbles with ideas,” continues Robshaw, relishing in observations and theories which pepper the memoir. But Robshaw is also pleased with Dawkins's biographical style: “Dawkins studied zoology at Balliol College, Oxford, and he beautifully conveys the tweedy, pipe-smoking atmosphere of intellectual camaraderie”.

Jenni Russell, writing for The Sunday Times, is at odds with the reviews of both Robshaw and Fortley. What Robshaw calls “delightfully described” narrative is reconsidered by Russell to be “jarring awkwardness.” The awkwardness is said to stem from an inability to write about the nuances of human beings. Robshaw notes: Dawkins “isn’t observant, has no gift for conjuring up characters or situations, and is unwilling to reveal anything other than the most superficial emotions in himself.” A “misjudging of tone”, Dawkins is reported to lack “the skills or characteristics of a good autobiographer” which results in a book that is ultimately “self-promotion without self-knowledge”. 

The Broken Road, by Patrick Leigh Fermor

Hailed as one of the greatest British travel writers, Patrick Leigh Fermor began his journey through Europe in 1933, shortly after Hitler came to power. But it was not until middle-age that he wrote up his travels, publishing A Time of Gifts in 1977 and Between the Woods and the Water in 1986. Despite ending the latter with “To be concluded”, his death in 2011 suggested that, sadly, the trilogy would never be completed. But since then, his biographer Artemis Cooper and travel writer Colin Thubron have edited a Leigh Fermor’s unpublished work into The Broken Road.

Writing in the Financial Times, Suzi Feay writes that despite the fact that Leigh Fermor never finished the work, “it’s a surprise to find that the book is so readable”. She hails above all Leigh Fermor’s well-known energy, saying that “The sheer zest with which he delineates each monastery, its history, setting and eccentric monks, is infectious.”

William Dalrymple, writing for the Guardian was also impressed by how polished the book was, despite having to be finished by editors. He writes that “few of us thought it likely that it would contain any material to equal its great predecessors. The wonderful surprise is that, while the book is certainly uneven, and contains some jottings and lists that are little more than raw, unworked data, overall it is every bit as masterly as Between the Woods and the Water”. He concludes that “by any standards, this is a major work. It confirms that Leigh Fermor was, along with Robert Byron, the greatest travel writer of his generation, and this final volume assures the place of the trilogy as one of the masterpieces of the genre, indeed one of the masterworks of postwar English non-fiction.”

The unfinished nature of the book is noted in the Scotsman as well, but the reviewer comments that, although this is effectively a draft, it is a “Patrick Leigh Fermor draft, which makes it superior to the finished work of most other writers. The youthful joy shines through, and the deep cultural learning that was superimposed in later years is there in sufficient quantity to lend wonder to this fragmented tale.” The reviewer concludes that “This will be the last full book by Patrick Leigh Fermor to appear in print. Anybody who loved its two preceding volumes will fall upon it hungrily. Anybody who has not read the two preceding volumes should do so without delay.”

In the New Statesman magazine, Jeremy Seal again acknowledges that "the text sometimes lacks the perfectionist gleam found in Leigh Fermor's earlier work", but overall judges that "these occasional slips barely show through the dazzle". He also hails the editors' "stroke of brilliance" in including Leigh Fermor's separate diary he kept during his exporation of Mount Athos which, Seal concludes, "finally brings the journey to its rightful end in the spiritual heart of the country that was to prove, though the young author did not know it yet, Leigh Fermor's 'real love and destination'". 

The Blunders of Our Governments, by Anthony King and Ivor Crewe

A historical catalogue focusing on the worse errors of governments from the last 30 years, The Blunders of Our Governments shows the British establishment in its worse hours. Authored by a former and current Professor of Government at the University of Essex, this book is probably not the best choice for someone who is deciding whether to embark on a career in British politics.

King and Crewe show where the accountability in our political system lies, as explained by Dominic Lawson in The Sunday Times. “Obviously a government can be punished for its blunders at a general election. But the top civil servants sail serenely on, to collect their knighthoods and fine pensions”.

A big theme of the book is the inability of civil servants and politicians to comprehend people’s lives outside the Westminster bubble. Peter Wilby, in The Guardian, sums it up fantastically concisely: “The causes of the blunders were numerous. In many cases, ministers and their senior officials were simply ignorant – King and Crewe politely call it 'cultural disconnect' – of how large sections of the population lived from day to day”.

Sonia Purnell, in The Independent, describes the cause for the appalling record of blunders. “Part of the problem is a dangerously common desire among politicians to be seen as action heroes whose innate good sense and dazzling cleverness preclude the need to pause to consult or bother with boring detail”.

Just a few days ago the government formally announced the imminent stock market flotation of state-owned British postal stalwart Royal Mail, as discussed by Spear’s last week.

In a move reminiscent of the mass privatisation of the Thatcherite era, this week the sale of another major organisation – albeit only part-owned by the state – has begun. Earlier this morning it was announced that the initial sale of taxpayer-owned shares in Lloyds Banking Group to institutional investors has raised £3.2 billion for the Treasury, representing a small profit (but not after inflation).

However, unlike the case of Royal Mail’s whopping 378-year-long history of complete state ownership, the government has only owned just over a third (38.7 per cent) of Lloyds Banking Group for the past five years, following its £20bn bailout of the failing bank in 2008 as a result of the Lloyds’ disastrous acquisition of Halifax Bank of Scotland.

The government is selling a 6 per cent share of it stake, reducing its ownership of the bank to around 32.7 per cent. While this may appear to be a small chunk of its holding, the Coalition can hope to cash £3.3 bn for the benefit of taxpayers on breaking the deal.

In a statement the Treasury said: "We want to get the best value for the taxpayer, maximise support for the economy and restore them to private ownership. The Government will only conclude a sale if these objectives are met."

Shares in Lloyds closed at 77.36p on Monday, which is well above the price of 61p that Chancellor George Osborne regards as the break-even level. During Lloyds' bailout the government bought shares at an average price of 73.6p.

Since the average market price at the time was 61p, the government booked the difference as a loss and added it to the national debt. BBC business editor Robert Peston says that based on Monday's share price the taxpayer should "more-or-less" get its money back.

The sale of this banking giant, laid low by the credit crunch, has been hailed as the UK’s second biggest share placing ever. It is, according to the Financial Times, not only a milestone in Lloyds’ recovery but also the sign of a momentous turnaround in the UK’s fortunes in the wake of the financial crisis, which brought the banking industry to the brink of collapse in October 2008.

The FT also reports that Lloyds’ shares, which are expected to be sold at 75p, have soared more than 90 per cent in the past 12 months, racing past the government’s 73.6p "in-price" for the first time in three years last month. It came as no surprise, therefore, that the government set the wheels in motion for the reprivatisation process.

And, naturally, investors are keen to muscle in on the action. The Capital markets bankers involved in the transaction reported a swift take-up of Lloyds shares, with one US hedge fund said to have submitted a $1bn order.

"Investors are making a call on the UK," said one banker on the deal. 'This level of demand would not be there if people weren’t confident in the UK’s broader economic recovery.'

The good news is that individual investors could also soon get their hands on some Lloyds shares, since the initial placement is expected to be followed by a second sale – potentially involving retail investors – in the first half of 2014.

Royal Mail’s flotation has created some interesting private investment opportunities through publicly traded shares, so let’s hope we can bank on getting access to some Lloyds stocks, too.

This piece first appeared on Spear's Magazine.

Labour spent the summer bemoaning the "cost of living crisis" afflicting families as wages continue to lag behind prices. But while Ed Miliband might be identifying the right problems, David Cameron and Nick Clegg have one major advantage over him: they can act now. Clegg's announcement that all five-to-seven-year-olds will receive free school meals from next September, saving families around £400 a year, is the best example yet of how the government is shifting its focus from the macroeconomy to living standards.

The Deputy PM said: "My ambition is that every primary school pupil should be able to sit down to a hot, healthy lunch with their classmates every day. Millions of parents across the country are feeling the squeeze. Over the course of a year families spend over £400 lunch money for each child. I am determined to do all we can to help put money back in the pockets of these families. We will start with infant school pupils because teaching healthy habits young, and boosting attainment early, will bring the biggest benefits. Universal free school meals will help give every child the chance in life that they deserve, building a stronger economy and fairer society."

The political danger for Labour is that the coalition will blunt its attack over the cost of living by demonstrating to voters that it is taking action now. With higher-than-expected growth, Osborne has additional revenue to play with, which he is likely to use to fund pre-election giveaways such as this (the school meals plan costs £600m), rather than returning to his original deficit reduction timetable.  The pressure is now on Ed Miliband to produce policies on wages, jobs, housing and childcare that will convince voters that they'd be better off under a Labour government.

It's 6 May 2015, and the UK government has just been voted out of office by a thoroughly unimpressed electorate after five years of painful austerity. It was a painful blow for the despotically named Alan is Great Party, but the writing had been on the wall for some time as the focus groups and polls had been brutally clear. Military cuts led to a remote British territory being occupied by foreign forces, and certain wealthy pressure groups had begun plotting terrorist action following high wealth taxes and anti-corporation regulations. I suppose as Virtual Prime Minister, retiring to virtual obscurity was a better ending than being virtually assassinated by a virtual grumpy banker. Forgotten, rather than dead.

“One of the things that always amused my wife was the idea that the Prime Minister could be assassinated by 'Liberal Terrorists', but if you imagine a totalitarian regime, I can easily see an extreme version of the Occupy or Libertarian movements trying to overthrow such a government,” Cliff Harris, the founder of Positech Games, tells me. He's been tinkering with his head-spinningly complex politics simulator Democracy for the last nine years, and is preparing for the release of the latest version. Democracy 2 was released in 2008 before the global crash, and now the political landscape has changed considerably, requiring a complete retooling of the game's dynamics for Democracy 3. 

“We have a lot of things that are suddenly important in the political world that were minor issues before,” explains Harris. “Terrorism is a bigger concern, but public debt, the interest rates on debt and deficits are suddenly major issues. When Democracy 2 was designed, I had problems working out how to effectively discourage the player from running up a huge budget deficit, but now people are very familiar with the austerity argument, even if they disagree with it. So Democracy 3 models deficits and interest on debts properly, and has credit ratings for government debt, which makes a big difference.”

You'll also come up against familiar-sounding events, with the likes of fracking, internet censorship, bankers' bonuses, avian flu and extradition of extremists simulated through the game. No Leveson Enquiry dilemmas as yet, though: “There isn't actually a press freedom event, but there should be, it's a good idea.” Nice to see that someone believes The Alan is Great Party has something to offer post-government. Maybe I should follow the well-trodden path from Member of Parliament to consultant?

Another aspect of post-2009 politics that isn't simulated in the game is coalition. The game sticks resolutely to dual party politics, with an opposition AI that automatically opposes every government decision (“Insert Miliband Joke Here,"  Harris remarks). “A game where you get to run the government is fun, but a game where 90% of the time would be haggling with a third party is less fun,” Harris explains. “If you have multiple parties, and political consensus, then you get decisions with no effective political downside.” Is there room for a game that replicates the more grubby world of political horse trading? “I think there definitely is, and it would be fun to code some really sneaky backstabbing AI for that!”

These aren't the only challenges Harris has faced in updating the game for post-recession times, and he's written extensively on his blog about accurately simulating the French electorate's mindset, creating a functioning private sector and how socialists would react to the introduction of food stamps. True to the game's belief in democracy, Harris often leaves these blog posts as open questions to gauge feedback, ensuring that his biases are kept in check. “I've tried to make the game entirely neutral,” he maintains, while simultaenously accepting this is an impossible task. “You can likely tell I'm an environmentalist from the game, but probably nothing else. I've won [virtual] elections in every country as both a socialist and a capitalist, which must say something."

One way to match this success in game is to gradually shape public opinion to your party's beliefs by passing laws that change demographics, which is something that made Ministers in the Alan is Great Party a little uncomfortable. “If you pass really strong anti-union laws, you will actually see both union and socialist memberships decline over the long run. You can also influence Liberalism with policies like community policing. You can encourage a religious society over time by having marriage incentives, school prayer and faith schools. Over the long run, you should be able to sculpt society to the voter composition you want, as long as you can stay in power all that time.”

Pretty chilling social engineering when you think about it - surely having to simulate the political system this cynically has left Harris feeling pretty jaded about western democracy as a result? Surprisingly not. “When you play Democracy 3, you end up acting quite rationally in a way that appears cynical to outside observers. It makes me understand how some apparently crazy things governments do make sense in the context of trying to stay in power while avoiding disaster.” Definitely a mantra to keep in mind as we enter party conference season.

Democracy 3 will be released soon on PC, Mac and Linux, but is available now in Beta form for those who pre-order from the Positech Games website. You can read more about the development challenges faced on Cliff Harris' personal blog

Alex Kovacs’ debut, The Currency of Paper, is a novel of ideas: it incorporates both a range of perspectives on the nature of work and the possibilities of art, and a variety of projects that arise from the mind of its eccentric protagonist, Maximilian Sacheverell Hollingsworth. Published by Dalkey Archive Press under its British Literature Series, The Currency of Paper opens with Karl Marx’s quote about alienation from The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, which explains that ‘forced labour’ does not ‘develop freely [the worker’s] physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind’. In its first chapters, Maximilian, estranged from his aristocratic family and feeling obliged to ‘escape the obscene working conditions that prevail in the free-market system’, plans his entire life in a single day at a Dagenham print works, aiming to secure his freedom by counterfeiting money.

Kovacs alternates chapters that detail Maximilian’s private or anonymous schemes, conducted across London, with documents about or by him, including his essays and aphorisms, the chords and lyrics to the only song he writes, and the instructions for a board game that he invents. Kovacs contrasts the enormity of Maximilian’s most ambitious creations with the crushing minutiae of jobs, which fuels a kind of mania: most of his conflicts are with himself or his abstract notions of society, with little human contact for most of the novel. The Currency of Paper is frequently comic, its humour springing from Kovacs’ dry observation of the gap between Maximilian’s intentions and their reception: its funniest scene comes when he holds his first conversation in fifteen years, being disappointed by his failure to transform a man called Trevor’s life as they talk in a Bromley-by-Bow pub. To Maximilian, its rarity makes such a discussion deeply significant; Kovacs highlights Trevor’s indifference by closing with a swift outline of Trevor’s subsequent quiet family life.

Maximilian keeps searching for beauty in everyday life, especially in the transient products of consumer capitalism: a chapter where he becomes obsessed with collecting paper (but not cloth) napkins, finding something transcendent in the miniature writings and drawings on them, is amongst the most charming, Kovacs allowing the reader to share the thrill of Maximilian’s hermetic discoveries. Dilettante Maximilian struggles to find the right scale for his work, but his refusal to engage directly with wider society means that his revolutionary dreams fall short: he must settle for pranks on corporate directors, covertly promotion of unions and small businesses, or anti-Thatcher exhibitions that he will not allow to open until after his death, when they will not be topical.

Followed from 1951 to 1999, Maximilian’s underlying concerns and interests rise slowly, as the recluse realises the impossibility of extricating himself, even if he is unaware of how his neighbours speculate on what he does in his bungalow. Throughout, he tentatively allows himself to interact with others, socially and sexually, before retreating back into his art.: ultimately, he remains an enigma, Kovacs refusing to end The Currency of Paper like Christie Malry’s Own Double-Entry by B. S. Johnson, clearly a strong influence, in which former book-keeper Malry’s scheme of balancing of every wrong (debit) that he feels the world does him with an act of revenge (credit) is terminated by Malry’s arbitrary death of cancer.

Inspired by Situationist ideas about aesthetics and politics without ever naming them, Kovacs’ novel slots into a recognisable Modernist and post-Modernist tradition that takes in Georges Pérec’s detached summaries of varied existences in Life: A User’s Manual and his Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris, where Pérec tried to record everything he saw in the Place Saint Sulpice over three days. It also recalls Tom McCarthy’s Remainder, with its central character similarly freed to create certain happenings through the acquisition of a large sum of money, and Kovacs’ unemotional descriptions of Maximilian’s idiosyncratic activities reinforce this affinity. The novel’s fragmented structure lends it commonality with Lars Iyer’s Spurious trilogy, drawn from blog posts, as well as Sheila Heti’s How Should a Person Bewith its emails, letters and transcriptions, and Ben Marcus’s collection of short experiments in The Age of Wire and String.

Occasionally didactic, The Currency of Paper works best when asking how capitalism affects art, considering Maximilian’s freedom from the competiveness and egotism that the economic system encourages amongst producers, and thinking about who gets to make it. Maximilian’s liberation comes from an individual process, necessarily outlawed, before he attempts to fund collective activity that would radically change post-war Britain. Kovacs puts one man’s mind at war with the machinations of a whole world with considerable subtlety, intellectual ambition and wit: as a result, making this a promising first novel, which announces an intriguing new voice in British avant-garde fiction.

Under this government, youth unemployment reached a staggering one million. Even more face the prospect of a low-skill, low-paid and insecure job. This has to change.

But we don’t just want to help people to get a job; we want to help those who want to create a job for themselves and for others. An enterprise revolution among our young people could help us tackle the scandal of youth unemployment – and help get our country back on its feet. And that’s what we’re setting as a Labour ambition today.

Today, Britain doesn’t do as well as it should in global enterprise league tables. In fact, if we had the same start-up rate as Germany or America, we could create another 200,000 new self-employment opportunities and businesses. That’s the conclusion of a brilliant new report written by Jamie Mitchell, former managing director of Innocent Drinks for Labour’s Youth Jobs Taskforce today.

The report is urgently needed. This week, we learned that the government’s much vaunted plan to help would-be entrepreneurs innovate their way into work is miles short of hitting its target. The New Enterprise Allowance was supposed to support 40,000 people set up shop. But it’s still 35% short of hitting its goal – and a measly 6% of young people have received help. We think we need to do better than that.

Jamie’s recommendations should be read and considered by anyone – and any party – who thinks that we can and should do better. Studying the pioneering work of Labour councils all over Britain, along with the great work of the Prince’s Trust and Young Enterprise, Jamie has handed us some big conclusions to think on.

First, we need to make sure enterprise isn’t just a bolt-on to careers advice. Enterprise needs to be recognised as a big option that’s open. There is no lack of talent, ideas or creativity among our young people. Our problem is that too much of this entrepreneurial energy is unrecognised or unsupported. Right now, JobCentres’ advice is mixed at best and what’s left of our careers service often gives enterprise only a fleeting mention.

Second, Jamie also encourages us to consider whether we could expand the Start Up Loan scheme, targeting young people aged 18-30, and how to put more emphasis on encouraging young unemployed people to consider the New Enterprise Allowance, which is on course to dramatically miss its targets. Local councils need to follow the example of trailblazers like Sheffield Council, which has built a team of school enterprise champions, academies like the Peter Jones Enterprise Academy offering enterprise qualifications, business networks offering advice, and universities offering incubator space, advice, training and even grants – all dedicated to boosting the ranks of local young entrepreneurs.

Next, we have to look at enterprise in schools. Young Enterprise for example, reckons that 42% of their alumni start a business during their career. That’s nearly twice the rate for those who join their programme. And finally, we need to think about how we measure outcomes a little better so that we know what works and what doesn’t.

This is a big ambition. It is to the next generation of entrepreneurs that we will look for the businesses that will help our nation thrive in a fast changing world, drive the innovation that will improve our lives, and create the decent jobs we need.

Jamie’s report is about putting entrepreneurship at the heart of our national story and builds on our ambition to make this happen - from our plans for a proper British Investment Bank with a network of regional banks to help businesses get the finance they need, to a revolution in skills giving firms the support, funding and responsibility to make this happen.

Our challenge is to open the floodgates of opportunity, giving our young people the chance to turn their good ideas into successful businesses.

Liam Byrne MP is a former technology entrepreneur and shadow work and pensions secretary

Chuka Umunna MP is shadow business secretary

Earlier this week, South Korean officials ordered that restaurant franchises are no longer allowed to open two restaurants within 800 metres of each other. Fried chicken restaurants are a particular target, because around 7,400 are opened in the country every year.

The sharp rise in the number of fried chicken shops has been worrying officials in London too. There are 8,000 fast food outlets in the capital, or one for every 1,000 people, and fried chicken shops are especially popular. In the London Borough of Newham, for instance, there are over 70 chicken shops. Our chicken shop mania has even inspired an unimaginatively named (but genuinely inspired) documentary, The Fried Chicken Shop.

In November 2012 last year the Mayor of London Boris Johnson called on local authorities to help curb Londoners’ appetite for fast food, and around the country some local authorities are trying to clamp down on fast food shops serving school children on their lunch breaks.

Boris Johnson's primary concern is Londoners’ expanding waist lines and poor health, while in South Korea the bigger problem is economic. Every year in South Korea around 5,000 chicken shops go out of business, which policy-makers fear is contributing to the country’s rising household debt. In contrast, Londoners’ appetite for fried chicken is seemingly (and dangerously) limitless – you regularly see two fried chicken shops within metres of one another, and both seem to doing a roaring trade. Our love for fatty foods means the UK's fast food industry contributes around £4bn a year to the national economy. South Korean fried chicken-eaters just can't keep up with UK appetites, which is good for national health, but bad for the economy.

As The Economist points out this week, whether fried or roasted, chicken consumption can tell us something about the state of the global economy. Around the world, chicken consumption is growing 2.5 per cent a year and is predicted to overtake pork as the most popular meat. This is because as emerging economies become wealthier, more families are able to afford meat, and, as the cheapest meat, chicken is the most popular choice.

In developing countries increased chicken consumption is consequently a positive economic indicator, but in the UK this is less obviously the case. Taste and ability to soak up alcohol aside, the relative cheapness of chicken helps explains the rising popularity of fried chicken shops in the UK at a time when household budgets are shrinking.