The debate over the future organisation and operation of the banking industry seems to have spluttered back into life. Just before Christmas the first report of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards made its appearance. The report focused on structures. Its most eye-catching and newsworthy recommendation was that […]
I don’t normally read the Times. But I bought it yesterday because it carried a half page opinion piece by Nick Clegg under the title Carping Labour must come clean about cuts. We’ve been told that 2013 is going to herald a stronger message from the Liberal Democrats […]
It is clear, even to the casual observer, that the Conservatives are in a bit of a tangle. You could say the same about the other main political parties. But the Conservatives appear to be going through a particularly public convulsion at the moment. They seem to have […]
Here are the five posts published on this blog between October and December 2012 that recorded the most hits: The maths question in economics (24th October) Not so Marr-vellous (4th November) The reopening of the economic mind? (26th November) Policy challenges around welfare reform (13th November) Osbo’s poverty […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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