One of most interesting dimensions of current developments in the housing market is the way in which global economic events are being refracted through housing policy: how a problem created in the private sector is being used to reconfigure the social rented sector and advance some long-standing objectives […]
What a shocking week for the Government. We’re well past the odd mishap. As the Government careers from one problem to another we’re now shading into something rather more embarrassing. With the exception of some über-loyalists with an eye to preferment, excoriating comment is emerging from all points […]
… no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity. I have always taken the use of the term “enslaved” in the Preamble to the Liberal Democrat Federal Constitution to be figurative, given that slavery was formally abolished in England in 1833. But while reading yesterday’s Observer […]
What determines the size and location of the Overton window? What types of proposals for government action are viewed as acceptable or sensible? Which proposals are viewed as popular enough to make their way into policy? And which proposals are outside the window – viewed as too radical […]
An interesting piece by Vernon Bogdanor on the future of the Coalition has just appeared online. His main point is that both Coalition parties are having to look out for their increasingly restless grassroots: Tories pulling to the right, LibDems pulling to the left. And this destabilises the […]
There was a bit of social media sniping yesterday that, despite David Cameron’s protestations to the contrary, the Queen’s Speech didn’t contain much of any substance to help the ailing UK economy. That doesn’t seem to me to be entirely fair, for two reasons. First, there were some […]
[Originally posted on LSE British Politics and Policy, 08/05/12] Bristol is unique. Those of us who live here are, of course, already aware of this. But the city’s less conventional approach to life attracted broader attention when it alone voted yes in last Thursday’s Mayoral referendum. Stuart Wilks-Heeg […]
The other day I had to give a 10 minute summary of my take on the housing challenges we currently face. I don’t claim any great originality in what I covered. But I thought it might be useful to set the points out here. The next stage is […]
On Wednesday 2nd May we are holding a couple of last minute briefings on the arguments for and against a Directly Elected Mayor for Bristol. For the purposes of the debate I am giving arguments against the move to a Mayor. For the avoidance of doubt, that doesn’t […]
David Cameron’s performance in the House yesterday in response to Labour’s urgent question about Jeremy Hunt seems to have split people. A large number of people thought he was an offensive and evasive bully. Tory loyalists thought he valiantly defended a minister whose reputation had been unfairly impuned. […]
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