I find it hard not to feel a little sorry for Labour. It is being offered plenty of advice, much of it conflicting. Move left to recapture ground lost to the SNP in Scotland. Move right to combat the threat from UKIP in white working-class areas in England. […]
[Originally posted on The Policy Press blog, 24/07/15, under a different title. Reposted here under the original title.] George Osborne’s recent “emergency” budget proposed many changes to state support to lower income households in a bid to fulfil the Conservatives’ manifesto pledge to cut £12bn from welfare spending. […]
The Political Quarterly announced the winner of The Bernard Crick prize for the best piece 2014 a couple of weeks ago. It was awarded to Alan Finlayson’s article Proving, pleasing and persuading? Rhetoric in contemporary British Politics (free to read at the moment). Finlayson contrasts political rhetoric at the […]
In this podcast I contrast some the current Conservative government’s policy proposals with alternatives offered by a couple of recently published reports, and then reflect on the current state of the debate, particularly the role of evidence. (Running time: 28′ 07″) Mentioned in this podcast: Shout/Capital Economics Report […]
There is much that is troubling about George Osborne’s proposal to oblige future governments to run a budget surplus in normal times. There is the small matter of identifying “normal” times. It implies something important about how one is thinking about the macreconomy. What does “normal” look like? […]
Tightening the Overall Benefit Cap. It’s going to cause chaos. Why isn’t more fuss being made about it by Opposition politicians? I know why, of course. But, I mean, y’know, why? Last night I met another member of the housing policy and politics blogging community for one of our […]
The way politicians talk about markets is odd. This is not, I’ll admit, a novel observation. Indeed, very likely it’s not the first time I’ve made it on this blog. But it hit me again reading Heather Stewart’s interview with Chris Leslie in today’s Observer. It is partly […]
Earlier this week Caroline Lucas visited Bristol to speak at the Festival of Ideas on the key themes of her recent book Honourable Friends? Parliament and the fight for change. As well as being a hugely impressive Parliamentarian, Lucas is an extremely engaging speaker. The response from the […]
Last week a tweet by the estimable Stephen Tall crossed my timeline. The tweet pointed to his blogpost The Economist is right. Liberalism is winning. Which could be bad news for the Lib Dems in 2020. That immediately piqued my interest. After all, it is axiomatic, as all […]
I was following the live tweets coming from Saturday’s debate among the Labour leadership contenders. I could sympathize. Many moons ago I was quizzed at a couple of public events by Simon Fanshawe, the chair of Saturday’s event. He’s not backward in coming forward with the difficult question that gets […]
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