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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Many have been outraged that large companies appear to be paying next to no tax, often over periods of many years. Amazon, Google and Starbucks have felt the heat of consumer anger and the media spotlight. There are repeated calls for a clampdown on tax evasion – if […]
Was David Cameron’s reaction the Leveson report any great surprise? One of the starting points of the inquiry was the concern that politicians – including Cameron himself – had got “too close” to the press. Forecasting that he would side with the press interest rather than the public […]
To what sorts of things do people have moral rights? That’s a profound question worthy of more than a mere blog post. We could turn to the thirty articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for inspiration. We’ll see an aspirational list of rights which still, more […]
David Cameron’s speech to the CBI today started with a paean to the exporters of UK plc; the manufacturers of strong liquor and powerful weaponry that do us so proud internationally. His objective – apart from flattering various members of the audience – was to make the case […]
[This is the text to accompany my presentation to open the South West Observatory seminar “Welfare reform: challenges, impacts and evidence”, 13/11/12] Where to start? Politicians are prone to hyperbole. The most minor modification to a relatively peripheral policy is portrayed as a groundbreaking initiative. However, in the […]
Participation in representative democratic processes at local level is on the wane. Not just in Britain but in several other western democracies. There is plenty of cause to reflect on why that might be, and what might be done about it. How can more local people become engaged […]
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