Harry Clarke-Ezzidio

Policy Reporter at The New Statesman

Policy Correspondent, @NewStatesman. Covering social affairs | 📩 [email protected] | boo-urns twitter

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Articles

The woman who bested Big Oil

4 days ago | newstatesman.com | Harry Clarke-Ezzidio

Climate activism isn’t the typical realm you associate notable eponymous court rulings with. But for Sarah Finch, victory in a five-year legal battle last June not only created a judgement in her name, but a strong precedent over the future of fossil fuel drilling projects in Britain.
Ed Miliband's quiet victory

1 week ago | newstatesman.com | Harry Clarke-Ezzidio

The headlines about who’s up and who’s down in the Cabinet following Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ spending review have all been written. Wes Streeting (securing a 3 per cent annual increase in NHS funding), up; Angela Rayner (handed £39bn over ten years for an affordable house-building programme), up; Yvette Cooper (Home Office spending to be cut by 1.7 per cent), down. One frontbencher long expected to be joining the Home Secretary’s coop of fiscal confinement was Ed Miliband.
Is Labour’s football regulator already falling apart?

3 weeks ago | newstatesman.com | Harry Clarke-Ezzidio

One of the most common yet most difficult political footballs for politicians to control is cronyism, as Labour is currently finding out. The Government is scrambling to deal with the connections its preferred candidate to chair the new football regulator, David Kogan, has to the party.
Why is Birmingham leading Britain's child poverty spiral?

4 weeks ago | newstatesman.com | Harry Clarke-Ezzidio

To truly understand the impact of child poverty in Birmingham, the best place to go is Ladywood. Sitting to the west of the city centre, research from 2008 identified this area as having the highest percentage of children who live in poverty of any parliamentary constituency. A newspaper report from the time depicts the situation on the ground for locals: “I’d rather starve than let them go hungry,” a father who was out of work said of his girlfriend and their 12-month-old daughter.
Tottenham’s victory won’t save English football

1 month ago | newstatesman.com | Harry Clarke-Ezzidio

Is it fitting, or tragic, that European football’s second-tier competition would come to rescue the dismal footballing seasons of Manchester United or Tottenham Hotspur? After record-poor domestic campaigns in the Premier League era – United sit 16th and Tottenham 17th in the table – the two contested the Europa League final in Bilbao yesterday (May 21). Beleaguered fans of both had dubbed the encounter – which Spurs won, 1-0 – as “the Battle of Mid”, and even “El Crappico”.
“We must not allow people to fall in love with Reform”

1 month ago | newstatesman.com | Harry Clarke-Ezzidio

After losing the election to become the Conservative mayor of the West Midlands last May – had he won, it would have been his third term – Andy Street has barely been seen in public life. “I had a little rest and good holidays,” Street, an effulgent yet spiky figure, told me when we met in Birmingham city centre recently.
How Birmingham became Britain’s scapegoat

2 months ago | newstatesman.com | Harry Clarke-Ezzidio

There’s been a lot of trash talk about Birmingham recently. Most obviously, a strike by the city council’s refuse workers, now in its fifth week, has filled the streets with sweaty black bin liners. The accumulated rubbish has now reached thousands of tonnes.
Nigel Farage’s mutinous army

2 months ago | newstatesman.com | Harry Clarke-Ezzidio

It was billed as the “biggest political rally in history”. But as its 6.30pm start time drew near, it became clear that Reform UK’s local-election campaign launch at Birmingham’s Utilita Arena on Friday (28 March) was going to reflect its true position: an insurgent party on the verge of civil war.
Mark Fairhurst: “I do not fear the law. I will accept the consequences.”

Mar 26, 2025 | newstatesman.com | Harry Clarke-Ezzidio

Mark Fairhurst, the national chair of the Prison Officers’ Association (POA), is nostalgic about his early days working in Britain’s jails. When the Scouser joined the profession in the early Nineties, aged 22, life for him and his fellow prison guards was “fantastic”. “It was really disciplined,” Fairhurst, now 55, told me when we met at the trade union’s north-London office. “We had plenty of staff.
Morning Call: The axewoman cometh

Mar 6, 2025 | morningcall.substack.com | Harry Clarke-Ezzidio

Good morning, it’s George here. The last week has been dominated by foreign affairs but that has sharpened rather than ended Labour’s domestic dilemmas. Below I explore those confronting Rachel Reeves as she prepares to deliver her Spring Statement on 26 March. Rachel Reeves and welfare have a complicated history.