Well, perhaps what the world needs now is one less blog and one new...er...page. No, I don't quite know the difference either but the long and the short of it is that all my stuff - telly, wireless, articles and soon my tweets - will be in one new place with a different address. So if you still want to watch, listen or read my journalism, please follow me to here.

Prof Munro

On the one hand ministers said they wanted social workers to be free from unnecessary bureaucracy and regulation - to make decisions based on their professional judgement, not simply following procedures.

On the other, they said they wanted social workers to be clear about their responsibilities and to be accountable - lessons must be learned. Errors exposed. Names named. While the former is about the system being hands-off, the second requires it to be hands on.

Of course, it is not a simple either/or. There is a balance to be found between a tick-box approach that blinds professionals to the subtleties of individual cases and a laissez-faire model that sees vulnerable children slipping tragically through the net. Professor Munro reflects this tension when she points out that timescales for assessing children at risk were introduced because of legitimate concerns about "drift". But now, she claims there's "an over-preoccupation" with such targets.

In a way, this see-sawing between demands for tighter structural control followed by calls for greater professional autonomy sums up the last decade of child protection reforms. Lord Laming's landmark report into the death of 8-year-old Victoria Climbie in 2003 found "a gross failure of the system", bad practice and organizational malaise. New bureaucratic architecture was put in place.

Just four years later the nation was shocked by two cases of extreme abuse: Child B - a four-year-old little girl with cerebral palsy tortured by her parents and Baby P - the horrifying death of 17-month-old Peter Connolly. After both tragedies, questions were asked as to whether the system itself had become part of the problem: that the detailed protocols saw professionals going by the book rather than their gut.

Now, Lord Laming emphasises the need for "respectful uncertainty" and "critical mindsets". The government talks of "trusting professionals and removing bureaucracy".

The trouble is that sometimes trust will prove to be misplaced. Sometimes bureaucratic shortcoming will leave a child exposed. Sometimes, despite people's very best efforts, things will still go wrong.

So when that next tragedy hits the headlines, with the inevitable calls for "something to be done" to ensure "it never happens again", the question is whether the see-saw will simply tilt back to where it used to be.

Not only does the event mark the climax of a project to rescue and resurrect a building the poet personally sought to protect from the bulldozer barbarians of the sixties, it also glorifies an extraordinary monument to the skills of the ordinary English working man.

The George Gilbert Scott masterpiece, with its Hogwarts-style Gothic spires and gargoyles, is a reminder of Victorian self-confidence and dynamism. But the building also looks forward, encouraging optimism for a new golden age of railways and a celebration of British craftsmanship and endeavour.

The story of what began as the Grand Midland Hotel is a journey through the ups and downs of 150 years of British history, beginning amid the clanging social turmoil of the industrial revolution. Rapidly expanding English towns and cities were competing with each other for dominance as the railways transformed the economic landscape.

In the East Midlands, pit owners and factory bosses were determined their region should not miss out on the exciting opportunities for trade and prestige. They built a train line north to Leeds, south towards London and with links radiating across the United Kingdom, engines thundering to South Wales, to Southern England, to Scotland. The Midland Railway became the largest coal haulier in the land and felt no need to follow its competitors in moving its Derby headquarters to the capital. The owners were proud men with a deep loyalty to their regional roots.

In 1863 the company was granted Royal Assent to build its own line and terminus in London and purchased land at St Pancras, bang next door to its arch-rivals, Great Northern Railway's station at Kings Cross. Construction required the demolition of many houses; the working-class inhabitants expelled without compensation and forced to settle in nearby slums. The necessary excavation of a local graveyard added to the misery - the building site became amassed with open coffins and bones, workers surrounded by decomposing bodies.

It was a shocking episode by today's standards, but the investment promised a neglected and squalid corner of the capital would emerge regenerated. The men from the Midlands saw this as the opportunity to promote their region and rub some of its success in the noses of their rivals. In May 1865, the railway company launched a competition for a 150-bed hotel to be built within sight of GNR's Great Northern Hotel.

George Gilbert Scott, an architect better known for his ecclesiastical works, submitted a design that must have seen jaws drop: a quite staggering vision of neo-Gothic extravagance that blew the minds and original budget of the Midland railwaymen. It was an audacious submission, but Scott knew how to play to the conceit of his paymasters. He promised that the station would eclipse every other terminus in the city and would stand as a monumental advertisement for the enterprise and industry of their region. The red bricks, the signature material in his new creation, would be manufactured in the Midlands.

As the hotel's own history relates: "It was too much for the Midland to resist. The railwaymen took a deep breath, dug deep into their pockets and gave Scott's vision the 'clear' signal."

The Gothic revivalism presents something of a paradox: the building was the product of industrial wealth but its architecture was a reaction against machine production and industrialisation. Scott was celebrating medieval craftsmanship with an architectural style also infused with Christian conservative values. For five years, builders, stonemasons, carpenters and artists laboured to bring his design to life; the result a station that became known, fittingly, as "the cathedral of railways".

St Pancras Station and Midland Grand Hotel London, circa 1905

The building included many innovative features; hydraulic "ascending chambers", electric bells, flush-toilets, Britain's first revolving door and a concrete fire-proof structure. Midland Grand won a reputation as an excellent upmarket hotel charging 14 shillings a night, sixpence more than the luxurious Langham in Portland Place.

St Pancras was, in many ways, the apotheosis of the golden age of steam travel, a time when engineers were superstars and every town or city worth its name boasted a station and at least one railway hotel to welcome tourists and businessmen. The Midland's wagons shifted coal from the rich Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire seams, transmitting industrial power throughout the United Kingdom and across an empire. Their passenger services, meanwhile, promised romance and luxury.

But then, like Britain itself, the Midland Grand struggled to adapt to new ideas and new technology. The hotel's concrete structure was too stubborn to be altered for a clientele which increasingly craved privacy and modesty. Scott's design meant guests had to share washing and toilet facilities, five bathrooms served the 300 bedrooms. Twentieth century patrons demanded en-suite. The Midland Grand put a potty under the bed.

Unable to install the necessary plumbing, the hotel tried to woo guests with a Moroccan coffee house and an in-house orchestra. But it wasn't enough and in 1935 the owners accepted the inevitable and closed its doors. After surviving the war relatively intact, the building was used as offices by the nationalised British Rail, dreary state austerity clashing with the opulence and faded grandeur of Scott's vision. Much of the original stencilling and paintwork was simply whitewashed over and the stone pillars boarded up.

Sir John Betjemen

In the 1960s city planners ridiculed the hotel as indulgent, outdated and an obstacle to efficient development. There were moves to tear it down and replace it with brutalist office buildings. Enter Sir John Betjeman.

As a founder member of the Victorian Society with architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner, Betjeman mobilised a popular campaign against the demolition plans and, despite his fear that St Pancras was "too beautiful and too romantic to survive", managed to secure Grade 1 listing for the building in 1967.

Now, 138 years to the very day since it first opened its doors, the Midland Grand is reborn as the St Pancras Renaissance, Scott's vision painstakingly and meticulously restored. The £150m renovation transports us back to an age when English railwaymen commissioned a staircase that takes the breath away, sweeping past marble pillars and golden fleur-de-lis decorated walls to a painted ceiling adorned with the Seven Virtues - wisdom, justice, courage, temperance, faith, hope and charity. The developer, Harry Handelsman, must have exhibited many if not all seven qualities to see the project through.

The listed ecclesiastical panelling in the old booking hall (now a bar serving English ales, punches and porters) features 135 diamond motifs, each with a different centre-piece to shame the advocates of mass production. In the Gilbert Scott restaurant, (offering Kentish pigeon, Glamorgan Sausages and Scottish Halibut) experts have spent months reapplying gold leaf to the original surround.

This is not simply an exercise in nostalgia and sentiment. The building celebrates contemporary British craftsmanship and cuisine, offering an optimistic vision for our railways and hospitality industries.

The "Eurostar Generation", as the train company operating literally outside the hotel windows likes to describe its market, will decide whether the hotel can prosper once again. High-speed rail travel and the tunnel links to Brussels, Paris and beyond have given rise, it is claimed, to an "explosion of cultural exchange", bringing art and good cooking and friendship and business to and fro across the Channel.

Last year, defying the weather and the recession, Eurostar carried a record 9.5 million people, prompting its Chief Executive Nicolas Petrovic to claim "a real renaissance in rail travel".
The company recently welcomed its 100 millionth passenger: he lived in North London, had a French wife and daughter and was heading to Lyon for a family wedding - the epitome of the Eurostar generation, perhaps.

With air travel's image scarred by a deep carbon footprint and frustrating security, and with petrol prices historically high, the railways are booming: more British passengers are travelling further by train than ever before.

There are industry claims that the luxury hotel business is also "about to enter a golden age" with one analyst suggesting that multinationals like InterContinental, Wyndham, Hilton and Marriott (which owns the St Pancras Renaissance) will each have more than a million rooms by 2020. Across Europe, the concept of the railway hotel is taking off again. In Lille, a down-at-heel industrial backwater now thriving thanks to the arrival of the Eurostar, major hoteliers jostle for trade around the central station.

What might please the board of the old Midland Railway most of all, however, is that their terminus has helped breathe new life into cities like Derby, Nottingham, Wolverhampton and Huddersfield, places struggling to find new markets in troubled economic times and quick to spot opportunity down the tracks. The project is also promising to contribute to the current regeneration of the run-down Kings Cross area, echoing the station's original ambition for the neighbourhood.

St Pancras was the gift of proud men from a proud English region. Tonight their ghosts may join those of Sir John Betjeman and Sir George Gilbert Scott, ethereal knights beaming at a restored monument to the skill and artistry of the British working man.

PS A couple of people have suggested I thought Wolverhampton was on the East Midlands line.  Actually, the point I was making is that, according to rail industry analysis, Wolverhampton residents have been among the most enthusiastic in purchasing through-tickets to Belgium and France.  The Eurostar Generation resides in Mercia!

But it isn't true.

The source for all this is the latest batch of data from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) on applications for Employment Support Allowance (ESA), a benefit introduced two-and-a-half years ago by the Labour government. Today's figures relate to the period between October 2008 and August 2010 - a time, for the most part of course, when Labour was in power.

The key point, though, it that these are new applicants - people applying to see if they might be eligible for additional financial support.

Some will be trying it on, knowing they are quite well enough to work but hoping to hoodwink the assessors into giving them sickness benefit. But I suspect many are simply individuals who don't want to miss out on a welfare payment to which they may be eligible. There is nothing 'dodgy' about seeing if you meet the criteria for something.

The DWP exhorts the public to ensure their full benefit entitlement. For instance, the department has regularly encouraged people to ensure they "don't miss out" on council tax benefit while the Mayor of London also has a scheme called "Know Your Rights".

So, it could be argued, that applicants for ESA are doing what they are told. Unsurprisingly, many people learn that under the tough new medical assessments, they do not qualify. Others, on realising that they have to undergo detailed checks, withdraw their application.

Are these people really workshy spongers? One can easily imagine someone who believes their depression or back pain has contributed to their unemployment and wanting to see if their condition entitles them to the slightly more generous payments under ESA than JSA (Jobseekers Allowance). That would seem to be common sense, not greed.

Extrapolating the data from new applicants to those already receiving IB risks comparing apples and oranges because those in receipt of IB have already been through an assessment.

The government has just begun rolling out its programme for re-assessing existing IB claimants amid controversy over the fairness and accuracy of the medical checks, but it would be a surprise if the proportion deemed "fit to work" was anything like the 39% of new applicants who have not been previously assessed.

To recap then: the figures reflect the results of a Labour welfare reform for new applicants to a relatively new benefit. This has nothing to do with a coalition "blitz on benefit cheats" or a "government crackdown on welfare scroungers", however much Ministers would like to spin the stats. I would also note that today's stories bear an uncanny resemblance to reports six months ago on the previous tranche of ESA data which said almost exactly the same thing.

Far from providing evidence of sicknote Britain, the figures could be seen as evidence of citizens following government advice to ensure they "don't miss out".

It is one of those hardy perennial stories to be wheeled out on a dull news day, a chronic "scandal" that media and Ministers alike know will press the button marked "moral outrage".

 

But hold on. Today's version says 80,000 addicts receive welfare payments and yet in 2006 the story was that 100,000 were on incapacity benefits. In 2008 it was more than 100,000, last August it was nearly 90,000, by November it was more than 100,000 once more.

I haven't seen any stories saying that the latest figures represent a 20% fall in just five months. I wonder why.

I also wonder why this particular group of incapacity benefits claimants is picked out from the data. The suggestion seems to be that people suffering from diseases like alcoholism, drug dependency and obesity are morally culpable for their condition.

John Humphrys articulated just this point on the Today programme
this morning. When Don Shenker, Chief Executive of Alcohol Concern suggested alcoholics were often unable to work "through no fault of their own" he was interrupted. "No fault of their own?" he was asked.

One can understand why the question is asked but once society starts introducing the idea of "fault" into the issue of welfare, the debate enters dangerous territory.

Let us assume that the reason for all these stories about drug addicts, alcoholics and obesity sufferers receiving state support is that some people regard them as "undeserving": what about these people?

1. The smoker who knew the risks and developed lung cancer
2. The non-smoker who lived with a smoker, knew the risks and developed lung cancer
3. The horse-rider who knew the risks of the sport and suffered brain injury after a fall
4. The spinster who ignored her doctor's advice to lay off the sweet sherry and developed debilitating diabetes
5. The man whose refusal to follow health and safety advice resulted in a disabling industrial accident
6. The driver who crashed into a tree after three gin and tonics and was never able to work again

To be fair to the government, ministers have always couched the debate in terms of supporting and encouraging people back into work through treatment or other help. There is also a legitimate public discussion to be had about individual responsibility and whether the state should tailor welfare provision to encourage pro-social behaviour.

But let's be honest: this familiar debate is really about providing ammunition for those who insist it is possible to take a moral stance on welfare; that we can divide up potential recipients in terms of deserving and undeserving.

The trouble with this argument is that it would necessitate some kind of "morality officer" charged with deciding whether incapacity was the "fault" of the individual. Who would we recruit for this job? What questions would be asked?

The alcoholic whose condition has led them from well-functioning citizen to welfare-dependency - is it the role of government to investigate the case and apportion blame?

What if it emerged that the individual had suffered serious child abuse which had led to severe mental health problems which in turn had led to the bottle? Should the abuser face sanction rather than the abused? Should the retailer who sold the cheap cider knowing the customer had a drink problem? What about the drinks company promoting sales of high-strength low-cost booze? And do the institutions and politicians who failed to protect the abused child and supported the drinks industry shoulder any responsibility?

A thought for a quiet morning...

As a statement of intent, the above pledge, made by those joining the new movement Action for Happiness launched today, seems uncontroversial

But we live in the UK, a country which has won gold medals for cynicism, and I am prepared to guess that among the posts which follow this article will be suggestions that there is something deeply un-British and probably underhand about a campaign to spread joy and reduce suffering.

 

Britain is more distrusting of politicians, the media, public institutions and each other than most other countries. We seem hard-wired to question the motives of anyone who steps into the public arena and so it was no surprise that when I mentioned the Action for Happiness launch to colleagues at the BBC there were more than a few who said they suspected it was all part of some plot by the government to brainwash us out of austerity gloom.

Actually, I think it is far more interesting and ambitious than that. Action for Happiness says it "hopes to inspire a mass movement for fundamental cultural change". One of its founders, the economist and Labour peer Professor Richard Layard, told me he thought it was needed because of the failure of organised religion to turn back the "tide of narrow individualism".

He believes the evidence-based principles of the organisation might help deliver the ideals of the Enlightenment, when great British thinkers, including Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart-Mill, were arguing that "the good society is one where there is the most happiness and the least misery".

The suggestion that happy science offers a more effective route to personal and social wellbeing than religion might be controversial in some quarters, but there is something evangelical about the movement. The pledge I quote at the top is a prosaic form of many solemn and sacred oaths. And the "ten keys to happier living", shown above, have echoes of the Decalogue, although the encouragement to "find ways to bounce back" perhaps lacks the majesty of the Ten Commandments.

But there is another echo for me - my time in the Scouts. Just as I promised to "do my duty", to "be prepared" and "do a good turn daily", so Action for Happiness encourages volunteering, resilience and awareness.

Lord Baden-Powell's mission was, like so many of the initiatives spawned as the 19th century ticked over into the 20th, to encourage community well-being at a time of great change. The founding of the Football Association is another example, part of a flowering of social entrepreneurism that David Cameron would like to see repeated today.

Action for Happiness is not a political organisation in the sense that it is linked to government or opposition. It does, though, want to profoundly to change the way people behave. Its rejection of the idea that more cash would lead to a happier country inevitably raises eyebrows as Britain tightens its belt. But the organisation's founders were preaching the same message in the boom. Arguably, it is a message that has been around for at least two-and-a-half thousand years.

The movement attempts to counter contemporary cynicism with practicality, offering simple ways to give our own lives and those of our friends and neighbours greater fulfilment and meaning. There is certainly a growing body of science to back up many of the ideas, but that won't stop many people assuming some ulterior motive.

So, do you want to spread a little happiness? Here are a few ideas the experts reckon might work:

"The money being spent on form fillers and bean counters could be far better spent helping elderly people to stay in their homes," he said last year, adding "or almost anything, in fact." True to his word, he recently announced he was scrapping the Citizenship Survey, a piece of work that has been conducted by the government every two years since 2001.

Roughly 10,000 adults in England and Wales (plus an additional boost sample of 5,000 adults from minority ethnic groups) were asked questions about their role as citizens: about their volunteering and participation, their faith and their feelings about their community. It was, in many ways, a measure of just how big the traditional Big Society could claim to be.

So, just as the government tells us that they want to expand the Big Society and focus on social well-being as a measure of progress, they bin the survey. It is a paradox that was pointed out to Mr Pickles in a letter today from the head of the UK Statistics Authority, Sir Michael Scholar.

Pleading with communities secretary to "look again" at the survey, Sir Michael (an ex-Treasury mandarin) says he "fully recognises the severe pressures on Departments' budgets" but thinks that "insufficient account has been taken of the effect of discontinuing the Citizenship Survey".

"Your Department's summary report of the consultation it carried out said that the 'vast majority' of current users of the statistics expressed concerns about the Survey's discontinuation, noting that these concerns were particularly strongly articulated by other government Departments, voluntary organisations and academics; and noting the use of the Survey's data in providing evidence on the Big Society, extremism, cohesion and integration, fairness in the criminal justice system, discrimination, the impact of immigration, volunteering, well-being, and many other issues."

It is a letter which pushes every conceivable button that might make an impact with the architects of the coalition's reforms: "fairness", "volunteering", "immigration" and "well-being". With regard to the latter, Sir Michael reminds Mr Pickles that the National Statistician had noted the survey's particular "relevance to the major work programme to measure national well-being announced on 25 November 2010; and to helping the public to assess what the Big Society means."

These are subjects close the prime minister's heart - the public consultation on well-being he launched personally last year has only got a few more days to run. You can add your views on the Office for National Statistics website.

Mr Pickles department does not believe that national data is often required:

"We are keen to move away from costly top-down monitoring and measurement of local policies. Local providers are best placed to decide which data are needed to inform local priorities and monitoring."

The survey costs just over £4m a year to run, money Mr Pickles thinks could be better spent on local practical programmes and policy initiatives, particularly "those which directly promote integration and participation in communities".

It is an argument we may hear increasingly: let's not spend money on central bean counters when we can use it at local level (or not spend the cash at all).

The concern of the statisticians is that unless the country has access to consistent data, how are we going to know if the cuts, and localism and the Big Society are making matters better or worse? Without national figures, they might ask, how can Britain hold Mr Pickles to account?

 

The deputy prime minister is duffed up in many of the papers today for trying to prevent the middle classes from using their connections to get their children valuable internships - after he benefited from just such an arrangement.

The charge is that he is a hypocrite - trying to deny to others what he enjoyed himself. But does the accusation really hold water? Are we saying that no politician can ever pursue reforms to a system because he or she is a consequence of that system?

Many Labour politicians were and are products of grammar schools. Harold Wilson, Dennis Healey, Barbara Castle and Gordon Brown benefited from such an education. Is it then hypocritical for them to argue for an end to grammar schools?

I will guess that those who wish to see more such establishments will say "yes" and those who would have fewer will say "no". In other words, the accusation of hypocrisy is used as a way of avoiding the argument rather than engaging with it.

David Cameron has never denied that he was hauled before the headmaster at Eton having been caught smoking cannabis in 1982. I don't know whether the would-be PM derived any pleasure from his encounter with illegal drugs, but it would surely be perverse if that incident prevented him from campaigning against pot-smoking today.

Similarly, until (as he tells it) 1.45pm on the day in March 1980 that he married Cherie Booth, Tony Blair smoked cigarettes. Should such a past have excluded him from any political activity designed to reduce cigarette smoking among others?

The origin of the word hypocrisy is Greek - hypokrisis - and thought to mean "playing the part". In other words, it is about acting one way in public and another behind the scenes. There is a requirement in the true hypocrite, it seems to me, for the two states to exist simultaneously.

An accusation of hypocrisy against Al Gore promoting his film about global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, while criss-crossing the planet in jet-liners may be fair or unfair. But it is, at least, an accurate use of the word. John Major's "Back to Basics" campaign was interpreted as a call for a return to old-fashioned values. Again, fair or unfair, the allegation of hypocrisy related to the questionable moral behaviour of ministers, including the PM, at the time.

What hypocrisy cannot be, surely, is a charge against anyone whose past contradicts their views in the present. If that were so, no-one would ever be able to change their mind or challenge the circumstances of their upbringing.

William Wilberforce, the great reformer, spent his student years gambling and drinking. A religious and spiritual conversion in his twenties saw him become a formidable campaigner against such "immorality". Was he a hypocrite?

 

In his book Political Hypocrisy: The Mask of Power, the academic David Runciman explores the history of the vice "from Hobbes to Orwell and beyond".

It is a relatively gloomy view of human nature and the motivation of politicians, but he makes the point that: "Because people don't like hypocrisy, and because hypocrisy is everywhere, it is all too tempting for democratic politicians to seek to expose the inevitable double standards of their rivals in pursuit of power and votes."

Negative advertising, he suggests, is the most obvious contemporary example of this: "If you wish to do the maximum possible damage to your political opponent in thirty seconds of airtime, you should try to paint him or her as a hypocrite: you must highlight the gap between the honeyed words and the underlying reality, between the mask and the person behind the mask."

Nick Clegg, however, does not disguise the fact that he benefited from an expensive private education and all the advantages of well-connected parents. He would argue, with some justification, that he is not trying to hide or deny his past.

Indeed, it would be tempting to suggest that the accusations of hypocrisy over his internship come from some of those who would rather not see that particular route of middle-class privilege closed: a case of playing the man, not the ball.

Ministers' power to make a difference is diminishing: they are no longer in the business of trying to improve matters with imposed targets or new regulation, pulling levers in Whitehall. Now it is all about encouraging and urging people to change the way they behave. Oh, and by the way, there is no money.

The principles laid out in the document ("we take a long-term view...we will take a progressive approach...we will adopt a ruthlessly evidence-based approach") also include the admission that "Government does not have all the answers." Well no, they don't. And the next paragraph explains why they might currently have rather fewer answers than before.

"We cannot get away from the intense fiscal pressures we face as a country. Failing to reduce the deficit would saddle future generations with enduring public debt and slower growth, threatening social mobility. That creates challenges. We must do more with less. Above all, we must do more to promote a fairer society."

The strategy neatly sets out the challenge. It is much harder for poorer children to make it in Britain than other comparable countries.

Indeed, the report says British women are right at the "bottom of the range" in terms of social mobility.

There is recognition of the need for a real focus on what the report calls the "Foundation Years" - from conception to primary school. The strategy accepts that poorer children turning up for their first day of state education have already fallen behind their peers.

But when one looks at the proposals for those early years, it is clear this is not a government that wants to force change itself, but rather wants to encourage others. (The word "encourage" incidentally appears more than 20 times in the strategy document.)

So in responding to the recommendations from Graham Allen MP that more be done to help mothers from poorer backgrounds the government says:

"We agree that a broad-based alliance of interested groups, charities, employers and foundations would be best placed to take this forward..."

A ministerial determination to encourage localism means that, while the principle of early intervention is supported by a grant of more than £2bn a year to authorities in England, the money is not ring-fenced.

Local authorities facing cuts to their overall budgets can use the cash "to respond to local needs". The result is that in some areas, Sure Start centres are closing - even though today's report says the government is "supporting...the national network".

The much-vaunted scheme to get organisations to open up internships and work experience to those whose parents are not in a position to "have a word with someone else at the golf club or the tennis club" is all about "urging employers" to do the right thing, not passing legislation or imposing regulation.

Existing government commitments to recruit 4,200 new health visitors in England, expand the apprenticeships programme, introduce the pupil premium, offer the opportunity for longer paternity leave are listed by the government as "policy highlights" of the strategy.

But critics argue that such measures do not amount to the kind of long-term, progressive investment that will be needed to make a real difference. And in the context of cuts and the introduction of higher tuition fees in English universities, opponents of the coalition suggest the strategy is dead in the water.

In the end, it is a strategy - not a policy document or a set of spending commitments. With its indicators and rhetoric, it is designed to shape the thinking of Whitehall departments, local government and wider society. It is a nudge. But is a powerful nudge enough?

It is a question of priorities, ministers argue. Variation is an inevitable consequence of devolution and localism. These days, the national in National Health Service is about an over-arching philosophy not, as the government might put it, one-size-fits-all policy.

Success, they contend, should be about value in terms of outcomes, and analysis of the differences between England and Scotland on this score is revealing.

While per patient spending in England is roughly £200 less a year than Scotland, on almost any measure, the English NHS performs as well or better: on waiting times, productivity, patient satisfaction and mortality rate (Nuffield Trust NHS efficiency report [429KB PDF]).

Even when one takes into account deprivation and geography, experts insist the NHS north of the border appears less effective for more money.

This difference has even been given a name: "the Scottish effect". Scotland's taxpayers might wonder whether that is fair.

John Biggin, director of HMP Doncaster, helped convince Justice Secretary Ken Clark to award the contract to the private company Serco on the back of some exceptional results since taking over the running of the jail.

But Mr Biggin's methods may not be the liking of some backbench Conservatives and parts of the national press. He favours programmes involving arts and media, film-making and theatre for prisoners. Professional sports clubs including Doncaster Rovers FC, Featherstone Rovers RLFC and Yorkshire Cricket Club run academies inside the jail.

Having got rid of most of the “extremely stark” security measures inside Doncaster prison shortly after his arrival in late 2009, he painted the corridor walls and hung them with pictures. Serco stresses, of course, that the prison still conforms to all the security requirements of a category B jail.

The Ministry of Justice says the PBR element of the new contract to run Doncaster prison means that 10% of the contract price will only be payable if Serco manages to reduce the one-year reconviction rate of ex-inmates by 5%. Should the company do better than that, they get bonus payments.

The Ministry won't tell me what the total contract is worth (commercially sensitive, apparently), but they insist that, even if reconviction rates fall by the maximum 10%, it will still come in at £1m less than we currently pay.

It sounds like a win-win for the tax-payer, but how will people react if they believe that improving recidivism rates is at the cost of a less punishing regime?

In a recent interview with trade publication The Custodial Review, Mr Biggin explained what he tells the prisoners about his philosophy:

"I tell them that I will provide a whole range of innovative and interesting programmes that will engage, interest and work. Such as family involvement, sports academies, Restorative Justice Mediation instead of adjudications, arts and media, film making and much else besides. What they must do in return is buy into these initiatives and also recognise I have two red lines that must not be crossed. This is a zero tolerance policy for drugs and violence. It's the carrot and stick approach."

It is a system that appears to work. Doncaster, a category B prison and young offenders institution, has won a string of awards, with violence at a 16-year low. It has moved from being a jail with one of the lowest performance ratings to one of the highest in less than a year. John Biggin himself was named Public Servant of the Year last November at the Guardian public service awards.

The government clearly believes that the ideas being pioneered at Doncaster can deliver the results they want: lower reconviction rates, saving the taxpayer lots of money.

However, criminal justice is about more than budgets. There is a powerful lobby within the Conservative party which worries Ken Clark is going "soft" on the punishment element of custody.

When Prisons Minister Crispin Blunt announced in a speech last summer that he was rescinding rules introduced by Labour's Jack Straw on "acceptable activities" behind bars - rules which prevented governors from allowing any arts activities that might fail "the public acceptability test" - he was rounded on by the Daily Mail and ticked off by Downing Street.

Mr Blunt had argued that Prison Service Instruction number 50 was evidence of what he called "the last administration's flakiness under pressure".

He said: "At the slightest whiff of criticism from the popular press, policy tended to get changed and the consequence of an absurd overreaction to offenders being exposed to comedy in prison was this deleterious, damaging and daft instruction."

The Daily Mail responded by headlining: "Tory minister says taxpayer must fund balls and comedy workshops for criminals".

Here, though, is the alternative question: Are taxpayers prepared to fund the costs of punishment? It is not a free good. Locking people up and making their lives unpleasant is expensive both at the time and for years after their release, because the evidence shows that such regimes tend to make recidivism more likely, not less.

This is the question that lies at the heart of the current debate about prisons policy and payment by results. The answer may be in Doncaster.

The authors, writing in the International Journal of Drug Policy, admit they were surprised by their own findings.

Their hypothesis was that the results "would demonstrate an association between increased drug law enforcement expenditures or intensity and reduced levels of violence". But that's not what they showed. Instead, they report:

"From an evidence-based public policy perspective and based on several decades of available data, the existing scientific evidence suggests drug law enforcement contributes to gun violence and high homicide rates and that increasingly sophisticated methods of disrupting organisations involved in drug distribution could paradoxically increase violence."

Following a systematic review of 15 peer-reviewed studies in North America and Australia, the researchers at the University of British Columbia argue that policy makers must find "alternative regulatory models for drug control... if drug market violence is to be substantially reduced".

 

A version of the report was produced last year. Now an updated and peer-reviewed paper has been published and will be presented to a conference of drug experts in Beirut next week.

As the authors concede, their findings fly in the face of conventional wisdom and appear paradoxical. However, they have theories as to why the so-called "War on Drugs" may be making the world a more dangerous place.

One possibility, they say, is that: "by removing key players from the lucrative illegal drug market, drug law enforcement has the perverse effect of creating new financial opportunities for other individuals to fill this vacuum by entering the market."

The very act of disruption, they suggest, creates a more violent climate: "As dealers exit the illicit drug market, those willing to work in a high-risk environment enter, and that street dealing thereby becomes more volatile."

It is a problem well understood by Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), which already tries to factor in the unintended consequences of intervening in a drugs market.

I wrote about this in 2009, revealing how one senior agent had listed the possible negative implications of seizing, say, a large shipment of heroin:

• it might lead to higher prices, which in turn might lead to an increase in acquisitive crime 
• it might mean poorer quality supply on the streets which might result in more drug-related deaths
• disrupting an organised gang might trigger a "turf" war with increased violence, use of firearms, and murder

While recognising the harm that disrupting narcotics gangs can unwittingly cause, Soca does not accept that drug law enforcement is counter-productive. Around the same time, the influential think-tank UK Drugs Policy Commission was publishing a report suggesting that police might "tolerate" some drugs markets rather than risk the violence that would flow from breaking them up.

This week's paper from the University of British Columbia reminds readers of the steep increase in gun-related homicide that followed alcohol prohibition in the United States in the 1920s, and the spike in murder and violence that followed the dismantling of Colombia's Cali and Medellin cocaine cartels in the 1990s.

"In this second instance," the report's authors note: "The destruction of the cartels' cocaine duopoly led to the emergence of a fractured network of smaller cocaine producing cartels that increasingly used violence to protect and increase their market share."

The authors suggest that such violent crime "may be an inevitable consequence of drug prohibition when groups compete for massive profits without recourse to formal non-violent negotiation and dispute-resolution mechanisms".

Another theory to explain the paradox is that if the police get tougher, the drug dealers respond by getting more brutal themselves: "Target hardening, wherein vulnerable entities become increasingly militarised in the face of risk of attack, has occurred among drug organisations facing increased drug law enforcement," the report says.

The authors accept that there are some inevitable shortcomings in their analysis. Most of the studies they looked at involved longitudinal research without a randomised control group. In other words, they couldn't compare the results with what would have happened if there had been no drug law enforcement and therefore cannot state that police action against drug gangs actually causes violence.

Another limitation they considered at the beginning of their review was the risk of "publication bias". They noted that research funders "have traditionally been unsympathetic to critical evaluations of the 'war on drugs'," and that, as a result, there might be a lack of critical evaluation of potential negative consequences of drug law enforcement.

They needn't have worried. Of the eleven studies that analysed empirical data, 10 found "a significant association" between drug law enforcement and violence. The only paper that described "drug law enforcement having a positive effect on reducing drug market violence was based on a theoretical model" rather than hard data.

The clear sub-text of the analysis and its exhortation to policy-makers to find "alternative regulatory models for drug control" is that governments should consider decriminalisation or legalisation of illicit substances.

Since, politically, an end to the policy of prohibition is not on the table in Britain, the question is how police and crime agencies ensure that their actions don't end up making a bad situation even worse.

"I look forward to seeing the results of her work which will help us all build safer and more confident communities free from crime and anti-social behaviour."

 

Was there an expectation that the report the Home Office had commissioned from the widow of murdered father Garry Newlove might lead to ministerial action on dealing with the kind of anti-social behaviour that ultimately led to her husband's tragic death?

Certainly, Lady Newlove must have heard sceptical voices suggesting her efforts would be ignored, because in introducing her list of proposals today she says this:

"To cynics who may be saying 'here we go again, another set of recommendations, another report to gather dust' I'd like them to remember the spirit that sustained, then rebuilt this shattered country during and after the war."

Lady Newlove makes it clear that her recommendations are "to government, to local agencies and to communities". Most of her ideas would seem to require at least Home Office or government support. Some are already coalition policies. I have highlighted the ones that I think would probably require ministerial backing.

• Community reward - where information provided by the community leads to a conviction the community is given a reward to spend on crime prevention work;
• Bling back - where money made from selling local drug dealers' assets is handed back to the neighbourhood they blighted;
• letting communities set their own local speed limits;
• taking crime maps to the next level so people can use them to report crime and ASB (anti-social behaviour) and agencies can publish details of what action was taken against offenders;
• giving the public a single point of contact through the roll out of the 101 number to report ASB;

 

These measures could be achieved without central government support:

• providing council tax rebates, or vouchers for local businesses and services, for people who take part in activism;
• asking Police and Crime Commissioners to commit at least one per cent of their budget to grass roots community groups to use or have a say on;
• encouraging public servants to go out into communities, volunteering their time and expertise to support local groups;
• pooling agencies' budgets, giving communities a choice in how it is spent; and
• changing the '9 to 5' culture of local agencies so they are there to respond when people need them most.

 

So what is the response of the home secretary to the Newlove recommendations? The Home Office was not sure whether Theresa May had read the report yet but said this to me:

"It is not one of those reports that we immediately respond to. We will look at it."

No minister was available for interview on the subject, but a short statement from the Minister for Crime Prevention James Brokenshire ran as follows:

"Since her appointment Baroness Newlove has been working tirelessly to inspire, challenge, support and learn from areas across the country. I look forward to seeing how her report will help to shape how we approach community activism in the future."

I suspect, in time, Mr Brokenshire will tell us that "taking crime maps to the next level" and "giving the public a single point of contact through the roll out of the 101 number" are great ideas. They are already Home Office policy.

But what about "Bling back" and "Community reward"? The Home Office told me the government was not convinced about the effectiveness of "directives from central government, particularly around anti-social behaviour". But I wonder if the power to implement such policies really could be devolved to local level.

Ministers have always seen the Newlove report as aimed at the grass roots not at themselves. It is a classic example of what the new "post-bureaucratic age" of localism and the Big Society looks like.

What would be scary for ministers is if the march attracts broader opposition, including their own traditional supporters. Then, potentially, the protest becomes a movement - much harder to control.

This week I travelled to a Tory heartland - rural Gloucestershire, where you are as likely to see a red squirrel (not very) as a red rosette. The Conservative-controlled county council has announced cuts of £114m with youth clubs, libraries and day-care centres under threat. Familiar public services may disappear.

In a village, nestling in the Cotswolds, I was greeted by a sight that might well send a shudder down the spine of a young Minister. A regiment of purposeful Gloucestershire ladies were making their way to a kitchen-table meeting. Over tea from a pot and cakes from a stand, they discussed the arrangements for tomorrow. They are planning to join the protest.

"I'm scared of going on a political march" says Chloe Lees, announcing that she has never been on a demo before.

"I don't want to be kettled. I refuse to pee in the street whatever the cause."

Nevertheless, the plans have been made and Chloe will be on a train tomorrow morning with her "Save The Libraries" placard.

"I'm taking my 74-year-old Mum," says Susan Caudron. "This is the only way to make a difference. Now we really have to get out there and show them how we feel."

Eighty-five-year-old Eugenie Summerfield adds her voice:

"I'm not fit enough to be there but I'll be with you in spirit. I'm so angry about what's happening, not just in Gloucestershire but all over the country. I'll be with you all the way."

There is authentic passion in the room. The tea-party in the Cotswolds is not politically motivated, but they have been roused by the threat to the users of familiar and well-loved public services.

"I want to stand up for these people" announces Alice Ross. "That's what I'll be doing when I go to London. I'll be standing up for the 15,000 people who signed the petition, hoping it looks like we're standing 15,000 strong." There is a determined look on her face.

I met up with a local Tory MP, Neil Carmichael, to ask what he would say to the militants in the idyll. Coincidentally, he was cutting the ribbon on a new community centre in the nearby town of Stonehouse - just the kind of Big Society initiative the county council hope might prompt people to come forward and take over the running of threatened libraries and youth clubs.

"Go behind me you will see lots of people working hard for their community. They are not marching in protest, they are doing things in action", he told me. "That's what we want to see more of and in this constituency we are seeing it all over the place, and that's really encouraging."

I took the MP's words to the tea-party, but the ladies of Gloucestershire were not impressed. "This is the Big Society and we say no!", Johanna Anderson said. "They should listen to ordinary people like us."

"We all volunteer but you don't expect to run youth services and libraries," echoed Julie Baker. "The Big Society is there but it's not there to run the country in this crazy way."

A recent Ipsos Mori survey found that 45% of Conservative voters think the cuts are being implemented too quickly, but there remains much broader support for the need to reduce the deficit and a resignation about it's consequences. However, even now the cuts have not yet really started to bite. Council plans to restructure and reduce service provision have only recently been announced.

"I'm so worried about the future for our kids, it's awful" says Susan Caudron. "I never thought I'd get to this age and feel so worried about the future."

The ladies of the Cotswolds huddled around a computer, absorbing the TUC's "Tips for New Marchers" as they planned their trip to the capital. If the trains and buses arriving from around the country include many more like them, the politics of the cuts will become very different.

"So we're ALL middle class now (or so 7/10 think, as climbing the social ladder soars in popularity)" was the Mail on Sunday take on the online poll of 2000 people conducted by BritainThinks.

"The popularity of being middle class appears to seal the victory of 1980s Thatcherism, which championed the values of property ownership and self-reliance that are now nearly universal," the paper concluded.

My concern is that the results of asking people if they regard themselves as middle class may not, actually, tell us very much at all. The point about self-definition is that it relates not only to who we think we are but also to who we think we are not. Identity, our sense of self, implies that we can put a fence around our characteristics and say that those outside the boundary are "not one of us".

I remember the exercise in my school maths lesson where the class had to draw a Venn diagram incorporating eye-colour, hair-colour and height. No-one wanted to be the kid whose features were an isolated island, separate from the mainstream.

Defining oneself as middle class is saying one is not working class or upper class. Virtually no-one in the survey described themselves as 'upper class'. God forbid! I don't know whether any Dukes or minor royals were among the 2,000 respondents, but who would want to associate themselves with a social group whose cultural status is generally thought to have been inherited from the blood or bank balance of Mummy and Daddy? The use of the word "upper" seems to imply arrogance and superiority - quite un-British.

"Working class", a handle accepted by one out of four Britons, has associations with the tribal politics of the 20th Century but also, as the Mail article implies, with lower aspirations. Once the working classes would have dressed differently - blue collar rather than white - and the jobs they did would be manual rather than sedentary. There was a powerful sense of group identity associated with the noble virtues of hard work and the struggle to make ends meet.

The notion of the 'working class' has changed

Today, many of the occupations paying minimum wage are service jobs - call centres, contract cleaning, office security and catering. Low paid workers often wear a uniform, a suit, even a tie. They may be indistinguishable from the middle classes waiting for the bus to the office. The nobility of the proletariat has been diluted in the social emulsion of sameness.

Being middle class in Britain, therefore, is about not being upper or working class. It says I am not some snooty aristocrat, nor am I a class warrior or a couch potato. I have get-up-and-go, determination and spirit. Who wouldn't want to be that?

Which is why I think it is time to abandon this notion of middle class. It is an almost useless expression, so vague that even the BritainThinks pollsters were obliged to sub-divide it.

"The survey is clear that the 71% 'middle class' are not a homogenous group, but fall into six distinctive segments" they claim. How polling companies love their "distinctive segments".

We are introduced to Bargain Hunters and Squeezed Strugglers, Comfortable Greens and Urban Networkers, Deserving Downtimers and Disciplinarians. Political strategists are encouraged to believe that only if they find a message to appeal to the latest manifestation of Worcester Woman or Mondeo Man can they guide their party to victory.

In reading all the stories yesterday, I was reminded of some work done by another polling company, Ipsos MORI, for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation looking at attitudes to poverty in 2009 - in the midst of the recession.

Focus groups of working adults from across the income range were assembled. However, "participants demonstrated a strong tendency to place themselves in the 'middle' of the income distribution".

"For most of the participants in our discussion groups, it is people 'like them', whom they perceive to be in the broad 'middle' of the income spectrum, who seem to be undergoing a particularly difficult time. In their words, it is the 'middle band of people' who 'get forgotten', who 'suffer the worse' and who are 'worse off', losing out to both top and bottom."

Ipsos MORI also sub-divided this "middle" group into "Traditional Egalitarians and Traditional Free-marketeers", "The Angry Middle" and "Post-ideological Liberals".

This would seem to be further evidence that the phrase "middle class" is such a catch-all that we might as well ask people whether they are, in yet more sociological jargon, "strivers" or "skivers".