Internal Affairs

How and why are internships legal? Access to things like politics and the media is now restricted to those who can work for little or no pay after university, and often during the university vacations as well.

Britain has now descended into self-parody, in which everyone who is anyone has known each other since they were 19 at the oldest, and routinely a great deal younger than that. Many of them are not even very much older than 19.

A certain amount of hope has been offered by the victory of Ed Miliband in the Labour Leadership Election and by the total failure of the Coalition, as perfect an example as we could possibly have wanted of the consequences of having no serious competition whatever for the top jobs.

With Tony Blair's internship arrangements placing him under what passes for scrutiny in his case, Miliband can and should signal his definitive break with the disastrous 1997-2015 era by declaring his intention to outlaw this practice by means of the Statute Law.

Among other good things, that would create the possibility that, just as his old mate Silvio Berlusconi was eventually nailed, after the manner of Al Capone, for tax evasion, so Blair, whom we may safely assume will regard himself as too important to have to obey this new law, will at long last be tried for something, be convicted of something, and possibly even be imprisoned for something.