What is the Coalition’s biggest policy-making failure? I suspect a short poll would generate a long list of contenders. Quite high on the list must be irrational short-termism. Cut the Environment Agency’s budget significantly in an attempt to save money. End up paying out much more money to […]
Yesterday I took part in an event introducing social media to members of academic staff. I was asked to come along and act as one of two live case studies. I was there to share my experiences. The aim was to illustrate the possibilities and highlight some of […]
Warning about an impending housing bubble or denying that any signs of a bubble can be detected are popular media pastimes in the UK. Bubbles are bad. Bubbles shut people out of the housing market because property is unaffordable. Bubbles store up trouble for those who buy at […]
The issues of housing shortage and increasing housing supply feature prominently in current debates over how to deal with the UK housing crisis. Housing analysts often seek to place these urgent policy problems in the context of the longstanding issue of excess volatility in the UK housing market, […]
Vince Cable made a substantial speech to the Royal Economic Society at the beginning of this week. The speech is worth reading in full because it represents one of the most thorough, thoughtful and wide-ranging perspectives on the economy that you are likely to hear from a front […]
I was intending to discuss Iain Duncan Smith’s speech today at the Centre for Social Justice. I really was. But I just can’t. I’ve read the text of the speech and watched some of the VT. But I’m not quite sure what to say. The characteristic missionary zeal […]
Something interesting is happening in the world of housing policy. At least it feels that way in my more optimistic moments. Since the Coalition government produced its housing strategy in late 2011 there has been a lot of talk about the need to deal with the housing problem, […]
The Liberal Democrats seem to be getting into an almighty tangle over the Rennard affair. Stephen Tall offers a good overview of the state of play. It seems no one, apart from Lord Rennard and his chums, feels the outcome of the Webster inquiry is satisfactory. Many also […]
Today, as might have been anticipated, Andrew Rawnsley took as his subject the apparent thawing of relations between Labour and the Lib Dems. The opinion polls suggest that an outright Labour majority in 2015 is by no means assured. So it makes sense […]
I have to admit I found the whole situation rather discomfiting. Yesterday I found myself agreeing with George Osborne. Of course, as David Gillon (@WTBDavidG) pointed out on Twitter, we can all join George Osborne in agreeing that Iain Duncan-Smith is not perhaps the sharpest knife in the […]
“a person is not likely to be a good political economist who is nothing else”
(JS Mill, 1806-1873)
“No section of the people has ever been excluded from political power without suffering legislative injustice”
(Millicent Garrett Fawcett, 1847-1929)
“The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable”
(JK Galbraith, 1908-2006)
Most recent comments