China ups the stakes on climate change action, while UK debate flounders

Posted on 22 May 2013 by Nick

Local media in China reported yesterday that the powerful National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the agency responsible for planning China’s social and economic development, has proposed the country adopt an absolute cap on carbon emissions from 2016 (also here [£]). This move would have huge ramifications for international diplomacy on climate change. It would also silence those who urge the UK to give up on carbon reduction on the grounds that it is pointless while the Chinese economy runs on coal. Continue reading →

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Backing ‘benefits to bricks’: our big cities need deal-wheeling housing powers

Posted on 9 May 2013 by Nick

In the coming days, the Commission on London Finance established by Boris Johnson and chaired by Tony Travers is due to publish its final report. The Guardian has obtained an advance copy and it makes for interesting reading. Continue reading →

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Memo to JoJo

Posted on 2 May 2013 by Nick

Dear Jo,

Congratulations on being appointed head of the No10 Policy Unit by the prime minister. I’m sure you’ve received a lot of unsolicited advice in the last week or so, and doubtless much of it has been unhelpful. I hope you won’t mind therefore if I add a brief note to your in-tray, with some reflections from my time in the post you now hold. Continue reading →

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Is there any austerity in the UK?

Posted on 23 April 2013 by Nick

The debate on the publication today of the statistics on the public sector finances for 2012/13 has focused mainly on whether the deficit is falling or not. The answer is no: the deficit in 2012/13 was broadly the same as in 2011/12. But is that because there is too much austerity in Britain or not enough?

Continue reading →

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The benefit cap, mark II – setting the terms of the welfare debate

Posted on 17 April 2013 by Nick

The introduction in London this month of the government’s new £26,000 benefit cap has generated predictably heated debate. Opinion polls show that the policy is popular because the public believe it is fair. Ministers know this, of course, and to push the policy they have been willing to walk up to the line marked ‘misuse of statistics’ and step across it. Labour has been forced into a defensive posture, caught between the Scylla of its compassion and the Charybdis of brute politics. Continue reading →

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The energy of new ideas: British progressives need a dose of Thatcher’s dynamism

Posted on 11 April 2013 by Nick

The term ‘Thatcherism’ was first coined by Stuart Hall in his seminal 1979 essay, ‘The Great Moving Right Show’. At that time, it was the Eurocommunist intellectuals grouped around the magazine Marxism Today – Hall, Eric Hobsbawm and kindred spirits like Andrew Gamble – who first grasped the historical significance of the Thatcher project and the radicalism of the New Right. Only later did the Labour party and its thinkers catch up with their analysis. Marxism Today saw Thatcherism for what it was: a deeply ideological, transformative political project that would reshape the post-war economic and political settlement in Britain. Continue reading →

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Bournville, Birmingham and the bedroom tax: the lessons of Victorian localism

Posted on 25 March 2013 by Nick

By chance, on the weekend that Ed Miliband was extolling the virtues of George Cadbury’s commitment to his workers in a speech on the economy, a new history of the Barrow Cadbury Trust – the grantmaking foundation that bears the name of the firm’s second chairman – was published. It is a vivid history of an organisation that, like others founded by Quakers, has a deep commitment to social justice. The Quaker conviction that each person has ‘the light within’ and that each must live a life of truth and integrity lends itself not just to an egalitarian belief in the equal worth and dignity of every individual, but to a determination to stand alongside those who suffer injustice and oppression, and to speak truthfully to power in their cause. Continue reading →

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Bubblicious: Osborne perpetuates the high house price cycle

Posted on 20 March 2013 by Nick

With the economic recovery continuing to stall, there was a broad consensus ahead of today’s budget that the chancellor should provide a boost for housing and the construction sector, to help get jobs and growth going. George Osborne responded with what he hailed as a ‘dramatic’ move with the creation of a new scheme called ‘Help to Buy’. This will mean anyone (not just first-time buyers) looking to buy a newly built property worth less than £600,000 can access a government loan worth up to 20 per cent of the value of the house (as long as they can put up at least a 5 per cent deposit). The chancellor also announced a parallel mechanism for people looking to buy existing properties too. Continue reading →

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Childcare: Cui bono?

Posted on 19 March 2013 by Nick

The government’s announcement of new funding for childcare is a welcome step. Britain badly needs a better childcare system and any increases in funding for childcare are good news. Today’s announcement also tackles some of the unfairness of the current voucher scheme, by opening up tax relief to parents regardless of whether their employers offer vouchers, thereby widening fivefold the number of parents who are eligible for support. The extra £200 million for the childcare element of the universal credit also makes good some of the cuts that low-income families have faced in childcare help. But the plans also embody new forms of unfairness. Continue reading →

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Better apprenticeships: creating a clear and secure pathway to work for all young people

Posted on 14 March 2013 by Nick

There is now a strong, cross-party consensus on the importance of apprenticeships. Rescued from near death in the mid-1990s and expanded under recent governments, apprenticeship places are now much more widely available in our economy. Despite this success, however, British apprenticeships remain of much lower quality, limited availability and lower status than in the apprenticeship systems of the northern European and antipodean world. Much of what passes for an apprenticeship here would be unrecognisable to an Austrian or Australian. Continue reading →

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