It’s a scandal laid bare. A stark new report highlights the price paid in Britain’s former industrial heartlands for this silent demolition job

The Welsh valleys have some of the highest numbers of people claiming incapacity benefits in the whole of Britain. In Abertillery, Maesteg and Merthyr Tydfil, getting on for a quarter of the working-age population is not employed – in large part due to long-term ill-health. If the government was serious about reducing the growing welfare bill , it would be starting here and in the other parts of the country blighted by deindustrialisation and poverty. It would identify the parts of the country most in need – Wales, Scotland and large swaths of northern England – and love-bomb them.

Yet instead of devoting more money to regional economic development, ministers are doing the opposite. In one of its less-publicised policy moves, Labour has quietly gutted the fund designed to create jobs, a scheme inherited from the Conservatives. The silent demolition job on regional policy is laid bare in a new report by Steve Fothergill, national director of the Industrial Communities Alliance, an umbrella group for the local authorities worst affected by the hollowing out of Britain’s industrial base and the closure of the coalfields.

Larry Elliott is a Guardian columnist

It’s a scandal laid bare. A stark new report highlights the price paid in Britain’s former industrial heartlands for this silent demolition job

The Welsh valleys have some of the highest numbers of people claiming incapacity benefits in the whole of Britain. In Abertillery, Maesteg and Merthyr Tydfil, getting on for a quarter of the working-age population is not employed – in large part due to long-term ill-health. If the government was serious about reducing the growing welfare bill , it would be starting here and in the other parts of the country blighted by deindustrialisation and poverty. It would identify the parts of the country most in need – Wales, Scotland and large swaths of northern England – and love-bomb them.

Yet instead of devoting more money to regional economic development, ministers are doing the opposite. In one of its less-publicised policy moves, Labour has quietly gutted the fund designed to create jobs, a scheme inherited from the Conservatives. The silent demolition job on regional policy is laid bare in a new report by Steve Fothergill, national director of the Industrial Communities Alliance, an umbrella group for the local authorities worst affected by the hollowing out of Britain’s industrial base and the closure of the coalfields.

Larry Elliott is a Guardian columnist

It’s a scandal laid bare. A stark new report highlights the price paid in Britain’s former industrial heartlands for this silent demolition job

The Welsh valleys have some of the highest numbers of people claiming incapacity benefits in the whole of Britain. In Abertillery, Maesteg and Merthyr Tydfil, getting on for a quarter of the working-age population is not employed – in large part due to long-term ill-health. If the government was serious about reducing the growing welfare bill , it would be starting here and in the other parts of the country blighted by deindustrialisation and poverty. It would identify the parts of the country most in need – Wales, Scotland and large swaths of northern England – and love-bomb them.

Yet instead of devoting more money to regional economic development, ministers are doing the opposite. In one of its less-publicised policy moves, Labour has quietly gutted the fund designed to create jobs, a scheme inherited from the Conservatives. The silent demolition job on regional policy is laid bare in a new report by Steve Fothergill, national director of the Industrial Communities Alliance, an umbrella group for the local authorities worst affected by the hollowing out of Britain’s industrial base and the closure of the coalfields.

Larry Elliott is a Guardian columnist

As Foyles names her memoir its book of the year, here’s a guide to the Booker prize winner’s wide-ranging oeuvre of fiction and nonfiction

‘The point of the writer is to be unpopular,” said Arundhati Roy in 2018. Over the last three decades – beginning with her 1997 Booker winner, The God of Small Things, which catapulted her into celebrity – the writer’s works of fiction, nonfiction and essays have indeed been polarising; she has become one of the most prominent critics of the Indian government and Hindu nationalism.

Last year, she was awarded the PEN Pinter prize , given to writers who cast an “unflinching, unswerving” gaze on the world. Earlier this year, she published Mother Mary Comes To Me, an account of her relationship with her mother. The memoir has now been named Foyles book of the year , and was also shortlisted for Waterstones book of the year. Here, Priya Bharadia takes readers through Roy’s essential reads.

As Foyles names her memoir its book of the year, here’s a guide to the Booker prize winner’s wide-ranging oeuvre of fiction and nonfiction

‘The point of the writer is to be unpopular,” said Arundhati Roy in 2018. Over the last three decades – beginning with her 1997 Booker winner, The God of Small Things, which catapulted her into celebrity – the writer’s works of fiction, nonfiction and essays have indeed been polarising; she has become one of the most prominent critics of the Indian government and Hindu nationalism.

Last year, she was awarded the PEN Pinter prize , given to writers who cast an “unflinching, unswerving” gaze on the world. Earlier this year, she published Mother Mary Comes To Me, an account of her relationship with her mother. The memoir has now been named Foyles book of the year , and was also shortlisted for Waterstones book of the year. Here, Priya Bharadia takes readers through Roy’s essential reads.

As Foyles names her memoir its book of the year, here’s a guide to the Booker prize winner’s wide-ranging oeuvre of fiction and nonfiction

‘The point of the writer is to be unpopular,” said Arundhati Roy in 2018. Over the last three decades – beginning with her 1997 Booker winner, The God of Small Things, which catapulted her into celebrity – the writer’s works of fiction, nonfiction and essays have indeed been polarising; she has become one of the most prominent critics of the Indian government and Hindu nationalism.

Last year, she was awarded the PEN Pinter prize , given to writers who cast an “unflinching, unswerving” gaze on the world. Earlier this year, she published Mother Mary Comes To Me, an account of her relationship with her mother. The memoir has now been named Foyles book of the year , and was also shortlisted for Waterstones book of the year. Here, Priya Bharadia takes readers through Roy’s essential reads.

The tan, the fringe, the warmth and wit – there’s no other TV host quite like her

When King Charles gave Claudia Winkleman her MBE on Tuesday, he looked more delighted than she did. And rightly so. It’s basically blasphemy at this point not to want to be her best friend.

The National Treasure of National Treasures’ rise to royal appointment, and superstardom, is all the more pleasing because, on paper, it’s so unlikely. She is an anomaly among TV presenters, and not only because reading the Autocue must be a challenge when you have a fringe that long.

The tan, the fringe, the warmth and wit – there’s no other TV host quite like her

When King Charles gave Claudia Winkleman her MBE on Tuesday, he looked more delighted than she did. And rightly so. It’s basically blasphemy at this point not to want to be her best friend.

The National Treasure of National Treasures’ rise to royal appointment, and superstardom, is all the more pleasing because, on paper, it’s so unlikely. She is an anomaly among TV presenters, and not only because reading the Autocue must be a challenge when you have a fringe that long.

The tan, the fringe, the warmth and wit – there’s no other TV host quite like her

When King Charles gave Claudia Winkleman her MBE on Tuesday, he looked more delighted than she did. And rightly so. It’s basically blasphemy at this point not to want to be her best friend.

The National Treasure of National Treasures’ rise to royal appointment, and superstardom, is all the more pleasing because, on paper, it’s so unlikely. She is an anomaly among TV presenters, and not only because reading the Autocue must be a challenge when you have a fringe that long.