Starmer urged to tackle welfare reform in wake of Milburn report
Welfare reform is back on the agenda with Alan Milburn’s report into the one million Neets — young people not in education, employment or training. A key finding is the disparity between the money spent on supporting young people on benefits and how much goes into programmes to help them find work. With a leadership challenge looming, Sir Keir Starmer is being urged to grasp the nettle of welfare and show he is intent on reforming the economy and curbing the inexorable rise in public spending. Getting the young into employment would be a central plank in that mission.
All eyes on new Fed chair as Trump promises him 'total independence'
How Kevin Warsh intends to govern the US Federal Reserve should become more apparent as he beds himself in, following his swearing-in ceremony at the White House. Donald Trump chose Warsh to lead the central bank after lambasting his predecessor, Jay Powell, for not cutting interest rates. Trump has said Warsh will have his administration’s “full support” and he wants him to be “totally independent”. Given the inflationary pressures besetting America with the Iranian war and oil shock, the road ahead may prove rocky. Just how independent Trump is prepared to allow Warsh to be remains to be seen.
Ad man takes the future of creativity into his own hands
An arresting new book lands for creatives. Author Eugene Cheong calls it “a smack in the face of mediocrity. A survival guide for anyone who gives a damn about creativity.” Cheong is the much-lauded former chief creative officer at Ogilvy Asia Pacific, where he helped the ad agency win more than 250 Cannes Lions. Now he has published a 13,000-word manifesto, Cowards Don’t Go to Heaven (Victionary, £30). Cheong has written it by hand in ink and charcoal, adding 71 original illustrations from Simon Spilsbury. He is stating clearly that this is not AI-generated (as opposed to a lot of advertising copy, which increasingly is). Cheong sets out the eight essential qualities that make a piece of work legendary rather than “forgettable”: courage, idealism, curiosity, playfulness, free-spiritedness, intuition, authenticity, persistence. His book is a timely reminder of the machine’s limitations.
