Month: June 2011

The Q#2 quintet

Here are the five posts published on this blog between April and June that recorded the most hits: Taxpayers and ‘the right to the city’:  alternative narratives on cuts to Housing Benefit (25 April) Groundbreaking economic finding during higher education policy development? (4 April) Up to the task? […]

Greece and the augurs of global disaster

Current events in Greece are genuinely transformational in more ways than one. Clearly the Greek economy is in a heck of a mess. It is not at all obvious whether either of the future directions on offer – eye-watering austerity, on the one hand, or default, exit from […]

Access denied

Yesterday saw Ken Clarke present the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill to Parliament. While the focus has been on the sentencing U-turns, that is a bit of a sideshow. Any liberal with a concern for rights, and in particular the rights of the relatively less […]

Failures to care for vulnerable people: what lessons to draw?

The practices exposed by Panorama last week at Castlebeck’s Winterbourne View care home were profoundly shocking. The case continues to develop – several further arrests were made this week. Ghandi said that “a nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members”. What we witnessed at […]

Conference, security and the ‘managers of unease’

The additional security provisions for the Liberal Democrat September conference in Birmingham have attracted considerable high profile comment in the Lib Dem blogosphere. Bloggers including Caron’s Musings, Aunty Sarah and Mark Thompson have registered significant and fundamental concerns. A explanatory post by Andrew Wiseman at Lib Dem Voice, […]

Back on the ‘path

[Originally posted on Bristol Running Resource, 04/06/11] Yesterday’s Towpath 10k was my first outing at 10k for more than three years. Having missed the Bristol 10k last month I thought I’d enter the next local race that I could get to, if only as a target to keep […]