Month: December 2012

My top ten posts of 2012

This has been quite a good year for this blog. I could never claim my ramblings have mass appeal, but traffic in 2012 has been nearly double that in 2011. This year’s top post recorded twice the hits received by last year’s top post. Half of this year’s […]

Revisiting Capitalism Unleashed

Over Christmas I went back to Capitalism Unleashed: Finance, Globalization and Welfare by Andrew Glyn. It is simultaneously a sparse and a sprawling book. The text has fewer than 190 pages, and yet it covers an immense amount of territory. I returned to the book to look for […]

My top ten blogs 2012

It’s that time of year again. A year ago I offered, for the first time, a list of my top ten blogs. I’ve continued reading all those blogs regularly during 2012. So this year’s list has been harder to compile. Thinking about who to include isn’t a challenge. […]

In a pickle over planning

One of the Coalition government’s first acts was to signal the intention to get rid of Regional Spatial Strategies (RSSs). They were seen as the embodiment of Labour’s centralising, top-down approach. In their stead we were to enter a new era of localism. Or, possibly, Localism. Spatial planning […]

The gathering storm

A storm is heading our way. That’s the only conclusion you can sensibly draw from reading the second annual independent Homelessness Monitor, funded by Crisis and published this month. Homelessness is a complex phenomenon, with its roots in the interaction of structural, social and individual factors. Broad economic […]

Osbo’s poverty trap and pinging the elastic of reality

Since they entered office the blue-tinged contingent of the Coalition has been engaged in a systematic process of stigmatising those in receipt of social security benefits. Great emphasis has been placed upon the undeserving and the fraudulent. There is support for the hard working strivers, but condemnation for […]

Marginal notes

The readership of this blog is increasing over time, but I’m very conscious that not everyone likes to consume their reading material online. And few people have the inclination to rummage in the blog archive to find related posts of interest. I have therefore put together a thematic […]

Morality, tax and tax morale

Many have been outraged that large companies appear to be paying next to no tax, often over periods of many years. Amazon, Google and Starbucks have felt the heat of consumer anger and the media spotlight. There are repeated calls for a clampdown on tax evasion – if […]

Leveson, liberals and legislation

Was David Cameron’s reaction the Leveson report any great surprise? One of the starting points of the inquiry was the concern that politicians – including Cameron himself – had got “too close” to the press. Forecasting that he would side with the press interest rather than the public […]