This post is the first of its kind for me. The post is jointly authored by myself and my friend and colleague Ken Gibb. It is being published simultaneously on both our blogs. You can find Ken’s post here. A recent NIESR paper by Armstrong and Davis (November […]
While I was sat in the auditorium at the Liberal Democrat Spring Conference listening to Danny Alexander’s speech on the economy – which, by the way, was not too shabby an example of the genre – Twitter reported the unveiling of the Labour party’s five election pledges. Here […]
In today’s Observer Sir Hugh Orde argues that the cuts to police funding being proposed by the Conservatives for after the election, layered on top of the cuts that have already happened, put the ability of the police to fulfil their basic functions at risk. He argues that […]
A couple of days ago I was asked, at short notice, to write a brief introduction to Social Policy, suitable for young people interested in finding out more about the discipline. Even though I only had a few minutes to write it somewhat inevitably I wrote more than […]
I’ve only just found the headspace to catch up with Tim Montgomerie and Stephan Shakespeare’s The Good Right, an agenda for the modernisation of conservatism. I was reminded of it yesterday while reading Stephen Tall’s final – and excellent as ever – post for ConservativeHome. The overarching aim […]
[This post is the original version of a text that first appeared in issue 370 of Liberator magazine (February 2015), under the title “Sustained by useful idiots”] As we approach the last few weeks of this Parliament it is almost inevitable that our thoughts turn to evaluating the […]
In this podcast I discuss proposals emanating from the Conservative party for new ways to dispose of social housing. At the moment IDS’s proposal to give properties to previously unemployed tenants who manage to secure a job for a year is the one gaining the most media attention. […]
The long election campaign is now well and truly under way. It is hard not be underwhelmed by the story so far. Politics is a complicated, multidimensional business. Indeed, one of the things I don’t envy politicians is that they are expected to have intelligent views on all […]
I’m not sure whether anyone is tracking the frequency with which stories about the UK’s problems appear in the media, but intuitively you get the sense that it is increasing. Barely a day seems to pass now without something appearing prominently somewhere. Housing is not just on the […]
Last week researchers associated with the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the London School of Economics published a substantial suite of papers reviewing the Coalition government’s policies across a broad range of social policy areas. They summarize the key strands of policy and try to provide an […]
“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)
“The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable”
(JK Galbraith, 1908-2006)
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