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

How Birmingham became Britain’s scapegoat

1 week 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

3 weeks 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.”

4 weeks ago | 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

1 month ago | 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.
Morning Call: The return of the Americosceptic Tory

1 month ago | morningcall.substack.com | George Eaton |Harry Clarke-Ezzidio

Good morning, George here. In his 100-minute address to the US Congress last night – the longest in American history – Donald Trump declared that he was “just getting started”. Below I explore the new domestic divides that his presidency has already opened. Joe Biden’s presidency left no lasting imprint on British politics and culture. Labour embraced “Bidenomics” as a model of state intervention. Conservatives chafed at the president’s Irish sympathies.
Will the government stop Rosebank?

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

In case you somehow missed the endless briefings given last week,Rachel Reeves wants you to know: economic growth is the Labour government’s “No 1 mission”. The chancellor announced a flurry of government-backed infrastructure projects, most controversially a third runway at Heathrow Airport. But the noise around Heathrow meant that another environmentally significant decision, taken in the British courts last week, largely flew under the radar.
Can Labour's £315m school breakfast plan save a generation?

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

This article first appeared in our print Spotlight Party Politics Special, published on 15 November 2024. Read the full supplement here. By 8.45am on a bright spring morning at the St John’s Primary School in east London, pupils were nearing the end of their hour-long morning breakfast club – eating buttered bagels, creating arts and crafts, and playing Connect 4 with friends. Teddy, who is in Year 6, arrived an hour earlier.
Emily Thornberry interview: “I want to rebuild good vibes about the UK”

Jan 15, 2025 | newstatesman.com | Harry Clarke-Ezzidio

On a mild morning in December, Emily Thornberry braced herself to confront her packed diary. I went with her. Our day began at Portcullis House, Westminster, where she attended a meeting with the Uzbekistani ambassador to the UK, who asked Thornberry, chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, if she would like to visit the former Soviet republic – an invitation she politely sidestepped.
Kwajo Tweneboa: "Let's build housing on a scale not seen since the Second World War"

Dec 2, 2024 | newstatesman.com | Harry Clarke-Ezzidio

There are few people who have had as big an impact on the social housing sector in the recent past than the campaigner Kwajo Tweneboa. Tweneboa, 25, has lived in social housing for most of his life and came to prominence in 2021 when he took on his social housing provider, Clarion. He posted videos of the dilapidated living conditions affecting his family and other residents at the Eastfields housing estate in south London. He had waited 18 months for promised repairs to take place.
Why Ed Miliband's issues with Rosebank and North Sea drilling will worsen

Nov 19, 2024 | newstatesman.com | Harry Clarke-Ezzidio

On Monday 11 November, a host of climate activists, three oil and gas companies, and their lawyers all arrived at Edinburgh’s Court of Session. This unlikely arrangement came together for an ongoing judicial review that could change the shape of the UK’s legally binding course towards net zero. It’s central claim?