When the history of this Coalition government is written a substantial chapter will no doubt be devoted to contrasting the vaulting ambitions of IDS’s welfare reform agenda with the incompetence and inhumanity of its implementation. Like some sort of inverted alchemist IDS has the ability to turn golden […]
I’ve had an unusual and vaguely discomfiting experience. I found myself largely in agreement with a leader in the Economist. I may need a lie down. I can console myself with the thought that what the Economist is saying – that the Conservatives’ fiscal plans for the next […]
Yesterday I took part in a panel discussion on the housing market as part of the Festival of Economics 2014. The panel was chaired by Julia Unwin of JRF; it comprised Kate Barker, Michael Ball, Diane Coyle and me. It was an enjoyable event, with plenty of questions […]
Yesterday evening the Festival of Economics 2014 kicked off with the author John Lanchester in conversation with Izabella Kaminska of the FT. Lanchester, who is promoting his book How to speak money, had some very interesting and important things to say about the language of finance. His key […]
The JRF report What will the housing market look like in 2040?, released yesterday, provided an eye-catching and headline-grabbing answer to the question that acts as its title. Presumably grabbing the headlines was the point. The answer is that under plausible assumptions about future trajectories on tenure, costs and […]
A weekend post at Medium … The apps that made it
#housingday will be marked for the second time on 12th November 2014. It is an opportunity for people in the UK to make the case for housing, and for social housing in particular. Social housing organisations and tenants will be sharing experiences and stories of the difference housing […]
Last week I took part in an enjoyable discussion on nudge policy as part of Thinking Futures, the annual festival of social sciences. Through a slightly mysterious process I ended up speaking in favour of nudge-type policies, while Fiona Spotswood from UWE made the case against relying on […]
There are many roles in life I wouldn’t like to occupy. Quite high on that list is Labour party strategist. What on earth is the next move? Is the party genuinely in a tailspin? Or are current reports of internal strife the confection of a largely right wing […]
On Twitter the other day my attention was drawn to the revised version of Patrick Dunleavy’s thoughts on the matter of academic blogging. For the small number of you who perhaps may not be familiar with Professor Dunleavy he is not only one of the UK’s best known political scientists […]
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