The week in politics: Hard times to be in power (or out of work)
Each week should have a beginning, a middle and an end. This one was no exception, although not quite in the way you'd think.
By Alex Stevenson Follow @alex__stevenson
The beginning came, appropriately enough, on Monday, with the Leveson inquiry into the culture, ethics and general badness of the media starting its work in earnest. "Who guards the guarders?" was the question posed by the appeal court judge. Over the coming weeks the inquiry – and the whole country – will be trying to come up with the answer.
The middle took up the bulk of the second half of the week, and began in earnest just as soon as MPs had hot-footed it back to their constituencies after just two days in the Commons. It's the economy, stupid. Wednesday morning saw official figures confirm we now have the highest number of people out of work since 1994 – and, for the first time, one million 16- to 24-year-olds without a job.
Economic difficulties are not going to go away in a hurry. It looks like GDP won't start growing again properly until at least the beginning of next year. The sale of Northern Rock to Virgin Money, bringing in £747 million to the Treasury, is a handy windfall, but in the general scheme of things isn't so significant. Really, prospects for avoiding a double-dip recession rest on the state of the eurozone. As David Cameron and Angela Merkel showed on Friday, disagreements over how to address the problem aren't going away in a hurry. We're well into the middle of this particular story, with no end in sight. Note to self: must stop including the phrase 'economic misery' in headlines, copy, photo captions, etc.
So that just leaves the end. This week, ex-border chief head Brodie Clark's appearance before the Commons' home affairs committee pretty much put the lid on the border security scandal. Left-wingers claimed Tory MPs on the committee were doing all they could to save Theresa May's skin, but in fact it was his interview on the Today programme which had really wrapped this one up. For now, we think May is pretty much home and dry.
This was also the week when Labour MP Alan Keen passed away, Nick Clegg confirmed extra taxpayer money wasn't an option for solving the party funding impasse, and William Hague spectacularly failed to draw a line under torture complicity allegations. Come back next week for more media inquiry headlines, news from the High Pay Commission and a new set of proposals for party funding around which the three parties can disagree on.
