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PERHAPS I’m just suffering a bad case of the January blues, but I confess that my inevitable disappointment in Barack Obama’s presidency kicked in before he had even tripped up over the presidential oath.

THE APPEAL Court ruling that Basildon council can move on 132 households from a travellers’ site in Essex appears to fly in the face of a new spirit of compromise from the Government towards the travelling community.

THE Government will shortly lay before parliament regulations implementing long-awaited reforms to the basic state pension. These changes will give women and carers a weekly National Insurance credit for substantial periods of time spent caring. Parents of children under 12, carers of disabled children and adults and foster carers will benefit.

THE immediate priority in Gaza is humanitarian relief and reconstruction. But the bigger goal is to seek to end the conflict forever.

AN ATTACK on Palestinian fishermen from Gaza in an act of piracy by the Israeli navy last Thursday (January 22), which left five of the fishermen injured, is sure to complicate any task Gordon Brown entrusts to the Royal Navy in the eastern Mediterranean. Leaks from Downing Street have alluded to the impending deployment of British naval vessels in support of the Israelis. British vessels would be expected to assist in halting the supply of weapons by sea to those who are lawfully resisting Israeli aggression in the area and the illegal occupation of Palestinians’ land. The expenditure of taxpayers’ cash on the protection of Israeli interests in war-ravaged Gaza at a time of financial turmoil is unlikely to go down well with British voters.

Some education priorities the Government must pursue if it is to achieve its goal of ending child poverty by 2020

THE increase in the Conservative lead in a series of opinion polls will have made grim reading for Labour MPs this week, but one glimmer of a silver lining was the fact that the Tory advance appears to have come at the cost of the Liberal Democrats.

IF THE Prime Minister’s words to Labour’s National Executive Committee this week are to be taken at face value, an important change in the direction of Government policy is about to take place.