Jack McConnell blasts Labour’s “caveman” attitude to Happiness Index
Former Scottish First Minister Jack McConnell has hit out at Labour's dismissal of the 'Happiness Index', published yesterday by the Office of National Statistics. Shadow Cabinet Office Minister Michael Dugher…
Conservative ignores £13 trillion in tax havens to focus on tradespeople
From UK Uncut: Treasury Minister David Gauke last night attempted to reshape the public debate around tax avoidance and evasion by focusing government anger at trades people ‘dealing cash in…
Turning altruism into exploitation
Today a new campaign 'Justice for Interns / Volunteers' is being launched by charity workers hoping to end what they see as the exploitative practices of many charities. This got…
On the coming food crisis
At what point do you draw a line through the dots on a graph and call them a trend? At what point do we stop calling talking about “another food…
Thanks G4S! You’ve Reminded Us All Why The Private Sector Ain’t The Answer.
G4S’s abject failure to keep its side of the bargain over Olympics security ought to act as a damned great neon warning sign when it comes to the private sector…
Why Osborne blames immigrants for the jobs crisis
George Osborne is in a rather embarrassing position. His “Office of Budget Responsibility” (OBR) is claiming that there must be more immigration to the UK. The OBR claims that the…
On QE, overproduction and the economics of a negative carry universe.
In the run up to last week's announcement of more QE from the Bank of England there have been a couple of interesting posts on FT alphaville talking about "negative…
24 Hour Green Party People – Mondays say GP is "just what the country needs"
Madchester legends Happy Mondays have used their twitter feed to endorse Green Party policies - and probably not the policies you're thinking of: the Green Party are not what I…
Driving people to self-immolation: pour encourager les autres
Yes, it has come to this – an unemployed man in Birmingham has set fire to himself outside a job centre. The exact context of his self-immolation is not yet…
From satanic mills to shopping malls: towards a new era of struggle against insecurity
An invitation In my last blog I argued that the left needed a theory of social change, and that the lack of one is at the heart of many of…