Leader | Comment | Homepage - Durham Times

Too many forms

4:45pm Friday 18th June 2010

THIS week, the Bishop of Durham described the idiocy of the practical workings of the nation’s measures to protect children from predatory adults. One of the assistants in his office at Auckland Castle was required to fill out a Criminal Records Bureau form, with the Bishop as authorised signatory, to continue her occasional work with a local church’s Sunday school.

• Have your say

Heartfelt thanks

6:30pm Friday 11th June 2010

THIS week, we report with some satisfaction the achievement of the target set by our Heart of Durham Appeal. In barely six months, the city has raised almost £50,000 to buy an extra heart scanner for the University Hospital of North Durham.

• Have your say

A play for today

5:38pm Friday 4th June 2010

PRIESTLEY is a name to conjure with in the North of England. Every breath we take could be a reminder of the Rev Joseph Priestley, one of the 18th-century discoverers of oxygen. But newly topical is the novelist and playwright bred in satanic mills country who, just 70 years ago, was suddenly the most acclaimed broadcaster in wartime Britain.

• Have your say

Feeling the pain

5:37pm Friday 28th May 2010

ECONOMIC reality has dawned and the full awfulness of it will spread across our social landscape over the coming months. The cuts in public spending outlined in Tuesday’s Queen’s Speech will mean lots of central and local government jobs disappearing, every one taking its toll on individuals, families and, in some cases, businesses. And the measures outlined this week are only the start; the emergency Budget is still to come.

• Have your say

A price to pay

5:17pm Friday 21st May 2010

DURHAM County Council’s planners certainly cannot be accused of timidity in their blueprint for the future of the city and county. What has been unveiled this week should light the blue touchpaper of a debate about the relationship between the two.

• Have your say

Playing our part

12:07pm Friday 14th May 2010

UNDERSTANDABLY, there has been scepticism and cynicism about the deal which has brought the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats together in an alliance that many commentators thought impossible at the beginning of this week.

Brace yourselves

1:34pm Friday 7th May 2010

THE kidology continued until the very end. The final week of campaigning provided very little enlightenment on the hard decisions to be taken by whoever is to take up residence at No 10. No party was sufficiently confident about its prospects to talk straightforwardly about what is to happen in the months ahead, to “seal the deal with the voters” as Mr Cameron memorably put it but sadly failed to deliver.

It's the economy

1:21pm Friday 30th April 2010

AS the final week of the campaign gets under way, reflections on the 2010 election are favourable. It has been a good, clean fight. With the exception of Mr Brown’s Rochdale aberration, politicians have generally shown the electorate, and each other, greater respect than we have previously come to expect.

Election kick-start

5:57pm Friday 23rd April 2010

IF there were any doubts about the enduring power of television, the debates between the three major political leaders have ended them. What was a weary general election campaign – hardly surprising given it has been running since January – has been rejuvenated by the 90 minutes of prime-time discussion last Thursday.

• Have your say

Tawdry times

12:19pm Friday 16th April 2010

EVERY general election has its buzzwords. Prominent this time is efficiency, the pledge by rival parties to stop the haemorrhaging of public funds. As ideologies draw ever closer, the edge each claims over the others is better management of the nation’s existing resources and systems. Not often considered among those resources are our public buildings.

« Back | More Leader»