News

Brexit – a failed project in a failing state

‘Fifty years on from now, Britain will still be the country of long shadows on county [cricket] grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers, and—as George Orwell said—old maids bicycling to Holy Communion through the morning mist.’

British society is heading for levelling down

In his new book “Shattered Nation: Inequality and the Geography of a Failing State”, Danny Dorling paints a bleak picture of life for many UK citizens today.

The souls of the people of Oxford

Something was done differently on the lands of the University of Oxford during the exceedingly long summer vacation of 2023.

Ed Balls and George Osborne’s new podcast is essential listening – but not for the reasons they think

In an apparent attempt to “talk across the political divide”, former chancellor George Osborne and former shadow chancellor Ed Balls have launched a podcast.

How Britain became a shattered nation

In this excerpt from his new book, academic Danny Dorling exposes a new geography of inequality and social fissures across the country.

When we were young: Inequality revisited, a commentary on Geoffrey DeVerteuil’s essay

Not very long ago, the world had a different shape. The cities were shaped differently too.

The last of the summer whine

‘The refrain we hear again and again is “We have to be electable.” No one disagrees. But is that actually what’s happening?’

My Life in Fragments, Zygmunt Bauman (edited by Izabela Wagner), Review

Six years after his death, Zygmunt Bauman can still eviscerate – disembowel the claims of others and skin them of their intellectual pretensions.

World population projections: Just little bits of history repeating?

The world population is expected to peak in the summer of 2086. But do the official United Nations estimates give enough consideration to human behaviour?

Scotland is showing us the route to a fairer society

I am not pessimistic when it comes to global trends. But closer to home the statistics are a lot less rosy.

Council Housing: time to Invest (now, more than ever), submission of evidence to the All Party Parliamentary Group for Council Housing

In 2010, the Parliamentary Council Housing Group of MPs and Defend Council Housing (DCH) published “Council Housing: Time to Invest, fair funding, investment and building council housing”.

Growth which makes everyone, not just a few, better off

In 2023, when discussing what might be possible with levelling up, Peter John quoted the July 2021 words of the Prime Minister said a year before he was forced to resign from office

The crises combine: austerity, cost-of-living, public sector jobs and pay

The UK government may be taxing people more (other than the very well off) than it has done in many decades, but

Weakened by a decade of austerity: why the UK’s covid-19 inquiry is right to look at policies since 2010

Any concerns that the UK’s covid-19 inquiry would give ministers an easy ride seem to have been dispelled by the determination with which its chair, Heather Hallett, has pursued information held by former prime minister Boris Johnson.