Where should we draw the boundaries of the state? When should Government take responsibility for providing or funding services? And when should it be left to the market to sort out? One characteristic of the current government is that it has destabilised well-established understandings of where the boundaries […]
Nick Clegg’s Hugo Young speech last night is already generating plenty of comment in the old and new media. It was structured around a distinction between “old” and “new” progressives which is highly contestable. The characterisation of “old” progressives was not even a gross simplification. It was a […]
[Originally posted on Bristol Running Resource, 21/11/10] Do you prefer your running solo? Or would you rather a bit of jostling in the pack? They are very different experiences, and both can be enjoyable. But I guess I do most of my running these days with a partner. […]
Yesterday’s hardcopy of the Guardian reports that the Government is only planning to release the full Equality Impact Assessment for its policy of cutting Housing Benefit on the day that the legislative changes are brought forward. Critics have already argued that the policy is being rushed in so […]
So Theresa May has announced, outside of Parliament, that the Government will not be implementing the socio-economic duty for public bodies which was originally part of Labour’s Equalities Act 2010. The tone of the announcement was rather different from the signals the Government were giving back in July […]
We have yet to feel the full force of the Coalition’s welfare cuts. But we are perhaps now starting to get an inkling of the reaction they will elicit when they finally arrive. One of the puzzling characteristics of much of the discussion of the agenda so far […]
At the RSA last week Alan Johnson gave his second speech on the economy, the deficit, and the direction of policy – both Coalition and Labour. He travelled under the banner “Beyond fiscal fables and Greek myths” (available via @LabourList). This event got rather lost in the fallout […]
[Originally posted on Liberal Democrat Voice, 11/11/10] It was entirely predictable. The opening moves in a game that could see another hard-won component of the welfare state undermined have now been played. It may have been predictable, but it is no less distasteful for all that.
Over at Liberal Democrat Voice it all kicked off in response to a post noting that in 2008 Labour under James Purnell changed JSA in a way that is very similar to IDS’s recently trailed proposals for compulsory unpaid work for long-term benefit claimants believed to need reconnecting […]
We are starting to get strong indications of the shape of the Coalition’s proposals on welfare. Today’s papers are trailing the core idea of requiring unemployed people to participate in 30-hours per week of unpaid manual work in the community for four week periods. It appears that if […]
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