When the Coalition’s Lobbying Bill appeared in public for the first time, just before the summer recess, much attention was focused on Part I. Most critics agree that it represents an utterly feeble attempt to address the problem of corporate lobbying. Indeed, if the Bill is passed in […]
Syria has been preoccupying the mainstream media and the political blogosphere for several days now. I’ve not blogged about it because I try to stick to things I know something about. I know very little about Syria. Other than it is an awful situation. And awfully complicated. Clearly, […]
Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, which is deemed by many to be the greatest speech of twentieth century American political history. The BBC has produced a number of special programmes examining its content, context and consequences. Many people are […]
I have shovelled something like half a million words into cyberspace since I started blogging three years ago. Some of those words were arranged in ways that were pleasing, to me at least. Some of them were arranged in ways that might best be described as decidedly clunky. […]
[Originally posted at The Conversation, 22/08/13] With independent journalism increasingly under threat, will academics be the next set of critical voices to be targeted? A report calling for research and evidence to have a reduced role in public policy, issued yesterday by a right-wing think-tank, suggests this process […]
[Originally posted at LSE British Politics and Policy blog, 14/08/13] This week has brought a slew of news about the UK housing market. Industry commentators are telling us the sector has “turned a corner”: levels of market activity increased significantly in July alongside a sharp upturn in prices. […]
A bunch of statistics about the housing market have been published over the last few days. Housing issues have been hitting the headlines in the mainstream media harder than is usually the case. A number of the key pressure groups have made the point forceful that current developments […]
Mark Carney’s importation of the forward guidance approach has been all over the mainstream and social media. But how significant is the announcement that the Bank of England is planning on keeping nominal interest rates as they are until after the next General Election? The comment it has […]
We are now beginning to get some insight into the fallout from the Government’s changes to the housing benefit underoccupation rules: the policy that Grant Shapps would like you to call the “spare room subsidy” but most people call the “bedroom tax”. It is a topic I’ve blogged […]
Zero hours contracts are not new. But that doesn’t mean they’re not news. Today the BBC reports on a study by CIPD that suggests there are four times as many workers on zero-hours contracts than previously thought – a million rather than 250,000. Perhaps as important as the […]
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