Month: October 2013

Mailevolence

By admin on October 6, 2013

The evolving Miliband-Mail saga is by turns fascinating, troubling and encouraging. The saga is fascinating because it suggests that Miliband is properly getting under the skin of the political right. His Conference speech presented a very diluted form of social democracy. It represented a tentative departure from the […]

Housing associations and the path to 2033

By admin on October 4, 2013 • ( 1 Comment )

On Wednesday I nipped down to Exeter to take part in a HotHouse event, organised by the NHF, to discuss the future of social housing. I gave a 10 minute talk at the beginning, offering some thoughts on where things are heading. On reflection I got a bit […]

"Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult"
(Samuel Johnson, 1709-94)

"The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable"
(JK Galbraith, 1908-2006)

"A person is not likely to be a good political economist who is nothing else"
(JS Mill, 1806-1873)

"No section of the people has ever been excluded from political power without suffering legislative injustice"
(Millicent Garrett Fawcett, 1847-1929)

"The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd"
(Bertrand Russell, 1872-1970)

"We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men"
(George Orwell, 1903-1950)

"All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others"
(Douglas Adams, 1952-2001)

When I felt the urge …