We forget at our peril that markets make a good servant, a bad master and a worse religion. Amory Lovins, CEO, Rocky Mountain Institute The Government’s long delayed White Paper on public service reform – Open Public Services – has now been released into the wild. I blogged […]
[Originally posted on Bristol Running Resource, 15/07/11] It’s happened again. After last year’s experience I promised I’d get organised earlier and build up over a longer period. But, exactly like last year, I’ve only managed to enter the Bristol Half in the second week in July. So I’ve […]
Today I posted my first piece over at Dale & Co. You can find it here: Cameron ploughs on with public sector reform
Last weekend the Observer ran with the story on welfare reform and homelessness. A senior civil servant at CLG had written to the Prime Minister warning that the Government’s proposed welfare reforms could result in – among other negative consequences – 40,000 additional homeless households (as I discussed […]
Tonight’s C4 Dispatches programme provided some very clear evidence regarding poor standards of accommodation and management in the private rented sector. It is linked to the Shelter campaign to Evict Rogue Landlords. While the individual underhand practices deployed by landlords are very unpleasant, the impact of the programme […]
[Originally posted at Liberal Democrat Voice, 04/07/11] There is no doubt some soul searching going on at the moment, in part as a consequence of the poor result at the Inverclyde by-election. I’m sure the leadership will seek to dismiss poor election results at this stage in the […]
A leaked memo from Communities & Local Government exposed in today’s Observer has already generated considerable comment. The memo, written by a senior civil servant at the start of the year, sets out perfectly clearly not only that the Government’s welfare reforms ran the risk of making an […]
Here are the five posts published on this blog between April and June that recorded the most hits: Taxpayers and ‘the right to the city’: alternative narratives on cuts to Housing Benefit (25 April) Groundbreaking economic finding during higher education policy development? (4 April) Up to the task? […]
Current events in Greece are genuinely transformational in more ways than one. Clearly the Greek economy is in a heck of a mess. It is not at all obvious whether either of the future directions on offer – eye-watering austerity, on the one hand, or default, exit from […]
Yesterday saw Ken Clarke present the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill to Parliament. While the focus has been on the sentencing U-turns, that is a bit of a sideshow. Any liberal with a concern for rights, and in particular the rights of the relatively less […]
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