At the risk of sounding facile, I think we all need a holiday. Just one day out of life, as Madonna has it, to decompress and condense some of the frustrated steam of hatred that has arisen from some of our most disadvantaged communities.

Usually there is only a 'feel-good factor' when the economy is doing well enough to make the electorate feel good about itself

Almost all of public sector services are to be opened up to competition from the private and voluntary sector, Prime Minister David Cameron announced today.

Sketch: The MoD would be fourth in the FTSE if it were a private company

Lib Dem leader will take a backseat in selling new round of proposals for constitutional change

Andrew Grice on the question threatening to deepen splits within the battered and bruised Liberal Democrats

The toughest austerity package in decades, and the Tories escape untouched. But the Lib Dems are sore

Whatever happened to compassion asks Peter Dunn

There goes Piers Morgan again, overstating the size of something modestly proportioned. Morgan tells Radio Times: "They reckon 3-400 million watch [Piers Morgan Tonight on CNN] every night." His interviewer consulted "Them" – a CNN spokesman – who "clarified that '300m is a potential nightly audience' globally". So that potential audience includes me, even though I've never watched it (except for the silliest bits, on YouTube). Still, Morgan won't mind me saying so, as he claims to miss the irreverence of the British. When he was last in the UK, shopping at Boots in Kensington (I know it well), the cashier pointed over his shoulder at a group of old ladies and asked, "Is that your fan club?", then burst out laughing. "And I thought, that would never happen in America."

It is a scene which will be familiar to many a budget airline passenger – except for the lack of crowds.

Connoiusseurs of comedy will recall the excruciating sight of Ricky Gervais, sent to California to interview his comic idols for Channel 4, and squirming under the hostile glare of Garry Shandling (aka Larry Sanders of The Larry Sanders Show).

As I think I might have mentioned before, I come from a trades union family, and while my dad had the theory down and wasn't above a bit of secondary picketing, my mother lived and breathed the struggle for workers' rights. Or, as we call it today, Going Off On One Big Time.

Lib Dems turning up pressure on Health Secretary's plans

Cabinet Office Minister Oliver Letwin has been warned by Nick Clegg that he faces a hostile reception from the people of Sheffield over his apparent remarks about not wanting more families in the city to be able to afford cheap holidays.