Earlier today my good friend Dave over at Nearly Legal, in a post about the Localism bill, put his finger on something that had been troubling me. Something strange and unusual is definitely afoot. It is only a couple of weeks since the social housing reform consultation paper […]
If you have a blog then you’ve probably got access to a host of usage statistics for your site, information on links to and from your blog, and the search terms that people used to lead them to your words of wisdom. I’ve just noticed that someone found […]
For the second day running a confluence of events got me thinking. At lunchtime yesterday I had an interesting discussion triggered by a recent paper (here for those who can access it) that uses Hirschman’s famous Exit, Voice, Loyalty framework to examine recent developments in education policy in […]
Mixed news from the world of financial regulation today. My morning toast was made that bit more enjoyable by encountering the news that Vince Cable is having no nonsense from the FSA about its report into the collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland (reported here). The FSA […]
The Government’s strategy for addressing poverty and inequality is geared towards tackling benefit dependency and making the transition into work easier. In this respect there is a great deal of continuity with the rhetoric, if not the practice, of the previous Labour administration. The publication today of this […]
The reform of Housing Benefit for private rented sector tenants made it back into the newspapers today. The Observer ran a story on the inside pages under the headline Ministers ‘bury’ report on cuts to housing benefit. The report they are referring to is the Impact Assessment (IA) […]
We’ve now had a few days to come to terms with the content of Local Decisions: a fairer future for social housing, the Coalition government’s consultation paper (CP) on social housing reform. The response has varied from the broadly positive to the outright condemnatory. In prefacing his comments […]
Where should we draw the boundaries of the state? When should Government take responsibility for providing or funding services? And when should it be left to the market to sort out? One characteristic of the current government is that it has destabilised well-established understandings of where the boundaries […]
Nick Clegg’s Hugo Young speech last night is already generating plenty of comment in the old and new media. It was structured around a distinction between “old” and “new” progressives which is highly contestable. The characterisation of “old” progressives was not even a gross simplification. It was a […]
[Originally posted on Bristol Running Resource, 21/11/10] Do you prefer your running solo? Or would you rather a bit of jostling in the pack? They are very different experiences, and both can be enjoyable. But I guess I do most of my running these days with a partner. […]
“No section of the people has ever been excluded from political power without suffering legislative injustice”
(Millicent Garrett Fawcett, 1847-1929)
“a person is not likely to be a good political economist who is nothing else”
(JS Mill, 1806-1873)
“Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult”
(Samuel Johnson, 1709-94)
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