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Nigel Adams, Conservative Member of Parliament for Selby and Ainsty and Parliamentary Private Secretary to Lord Strathclyde, Leader of the House of Lords, gives his personal take on 2012. Share 30 inShare0 Email Plugging in. North Yorkshire is taking a lead with superfast broadband; a powerful way of helping skills and jobs. Photograph: Rex Features 2012 has been another tough year but thankfully in respect of employment we are seeing a turnaround that appears to be baffling some economics commentators. In my own constituency of Selby and Ainsty in North Yorkshire, unemployment has fallen by a quarter since the coalition has been in office. With a national unemployment rate of 7.8% and Selby and Ainsty's rate falling to 2.9%, I am encouraged that a recovery is well underway in the region. In fact, there are now record numbers of people in work and across the Yorkshire and Humber region has seen employment rise by 48,000 to 2,503,000 people. The Office for National Statisti

The Guardian Northerner's political commentor Ed Jacobs rounds off his look back at how the three main parties have fared in 2012 Share 19 inShare0 Email Big northern hitter. But has the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne been hitting his own party's wicket? Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters U-turns, bleak electoral prospects and a deeply unpopular Chancellor. It's been a tough year for the Conservatives up north. Here's the party's 2012 in numbers: 24.6% - the average support for the Conservatives in northern England in 2012 among those certain to vote as measured in the Guardian's regular polling by ICM Research. Three – the number of U-turns made by the Chancellor in the wake of his 'omnishambles' budget in March. Among them was the tax on static caravans which would have had a severe impact on the largely East Yorkshire-based industry. In a joint article for the Guardian Northerner, the Labour MP for Hull North, Diana Johnson and Br

The US turmoil over fiscal matters has a mirror in the crisis approaching the welfare state, argues Dan Silver, as use of UK food banks rises six-fold Share 320 inShare7 Email Food banks are getting busier as austerity hits those least well-prepared to cope. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian The six-fold increase in the use of food banks reveals a growing social crisis and the abject failure of the welfare state to provide the basic support that is required. Sadly, this is set to get worse in the New Year. The financial crisis of 2008, which for many has discredited the dominant model of financial capitalism, has been maintained by those currently in power. It has been reconstituted as a debt crisis caused by government deficits. Indeed, Ian Duncan Smith has argued that not only did welfare transfers (such as the tax credits that provide support to many underpaid workers) increase people's dependency on the state – worse still, it pushed the public finances

William Gladstone will scrutinise his boyhood surroundings, where he bathed on the beach now dotted with the sculptor's large men Share 38 inShare11 Email Antony Gormley's Another Place. Not dissimilar to Gladstone taking a dip. Photograph: Colin McPherson Antony Gormley's famous iron men on the beach at Crosby are to be joined by another piece of metal sculpture, safely on dry land. Less than a mile from the hundred huge figures, which were saved from being shipped elsewhere six years ago, an over-lifesize bronze bust of William Gladstone will be unveiled next month. Standing on an eight foot stone column, the piece shows "every nook and cranny" of the Liberal Prime Minister's craggy face, looking "as if he was always in a rush" according to sculptor Tom Murphy whose past subjects include John Lennon and Dixie Dean. The ' Grand Old Man' had plenty to think about, as the only person ever to serve as Prime Minister four times and a s

The Guardian Northerner's Ed Jacobs takes a post-holiday headache pill and spots possible light at the end of the recession tunnel Share 9 inShare1 Email Northern prosperity could be a trigger for national prosperity, says the OECD Photograph: Murdo Macleod The holiday is over and - as with all good festive seasons - we now enter the hangover period, with people up and down the country going back to work after nearly a fortnight of celebration, balancing excessive eating with quality family time. If this prospect isn't sobering enough, the economic predictions for 2013 should do the trick. Just before the Christmas break came the news that growth for the third quarter of 2012 had been revised down from 1% to 0.9%. Not a substantial adjustment, but enough to point to growth taking a downward trajectory, with the fourth quarter unlikely to be anywhere near that 'good' given the absence of revenues from the Olympics and the British Retail Consortium's assessme

The coalition promised to restore the authority of parliament, so why wasn't its mid-term progress report delivered there? Share 3 inShare0 Email Nick Clegg and David Cameron answer questions during a joint press conference inside No 10 Downing Street. Photograph: Peter Nicholls/AFP/Getty Images The detail which struck me forcefully about Monday's No 10 press conference went largely unreported, namely that it took place at all in the format it did. David Cameron has virtually abandoned Tony Blair's innovation, the monthly press conference. In any case, if he and Nick Clegg wanted to give a mid-term coalition report, surely they should have done so to MPs who just happened to reconvene on Monday? We all know what's going on here. Despite political reporters' efforts to put the PM and his deputy on the spot with some good questions, a press conference is a more easily orchestrated event. Journalists aren't elected, the terms of trade are harder, there&

Former foreign secretary challenges shadow chancellor by reframing Labour's economic policy Share 51 inShare1 Emaila David Miliband told MPs that the last Labour government had made mistakes. Photograph: Wpa Pool/Getty Images Has David Miliband just delivered one of his most significant speeches since his brother defeated him in the 2010 Labour leadership contest? The initial headlines on his speech on the welfare bill have focused on his attack on the government after he described the measure as "rancid". But this misses the most significant aspect of his speech – an apparent attempt to reframe Labour's economic policy which is being run by his great rival Ed Balls. The former foreign secretary told MPs he accepted the government's "envelope" in a key part of the public finances – a line Balls has yet to cross. *Miliband said the debate should not focus on affordability but about priorities within the "envelope" of "all benefi