A few days ago I tweeted that current housing policy was a “right mess”. That was in part a response to the news, reported in Inside Housing, that there is going to be an increase in the distribution of tents for homeless ex-offenders in Nottingham, in lieu of […]
The central question in the current debate over the Government’s NHS reforms is whether the “listening” exercise taking place during the recently discovered “natural pause” in the legislative process is genuine or symbolic. Concerns that the exercise is cosmetic will only be fuelled by an article in yesterday’s […]
Much of the debate between advocates of #Yes2AV and #No2AV is not exactly edifying, particularly some of the tactics employed by the latter group. The quality of some of the debate is pretty feeble. Yesterday’s Question Time was a classic example of an occasion where the topic was […]
So it appears that the Department of Work and Pensions may not have been entirely correct. The Department initially denied that Jobcentre Plus employees were tricking vulnerable people in order to sanction them and stop their benefits, as reported in the Guardian last weekend. The Guardian yesterday continued […]
Over at the Telegraph today Benedict Brogan posted an interesting piece under the title David Cameron isn’t a winner – and that’s where his problems begin. The thrust of his argument is clear from the title: Cameron’s failure to secure any sort of majority last May fundamentally weakens […]
Today’s Guardian carries a piece entitled Plans for tuition fees in disarray, ministers say. There is concern that many universities are planning to charge students fees of more than £6,000, which means that the average of £7,500 for which the Government had budgeted is looking inadequate. The implications […]
Here are the five posts published on this blog between January and March that recorded the most hits: Monbiot’s tax take and the embedding of plutocracy: an urgent concern for Liberal Democrats (8 February) The mundane malfunctioning of markets – a tale of life and death (3 March) […]
[Originally posted on Bristol Running Resource, 27/10/11] Are you a runner who is a slave to the stopwatch? Tyrannised by the timer? I have to admit that I am. I don’t keep a proper training log to track my efforts, but I always run with a stopwatch. I’ve […]
It never ceases to amaze me quite how uncharitable people at all points on the political spectrum can be toward those who don’t happen to share their perspective. Such tribalism isn’t the exclusive preserve of those who occupy any one part of the political terrain. And there’s quite […]
Earlier this month Communities and Local Government launched what they describe as an ‘informal consultation exercise’ reviewing the statutory duties placed on local government. It’s aiming to gather views on the full range of statutory duties with a view to identifying any that are no longer appropriate or […]
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