So the Australia type deal that Britain will flourish under, according to Johnson, is a trade deal that, in fact, Australia is trying to actually improve in the already existing trade talks with the EU, where both sides have agreed that: The discussions confirmed a shared commitment to rules-based trade as well as to helping… Read more
Category:
Inequality
Is rebellion imminent?
This moving piece from Channel 4 news and from a real small employer (rather than a grasping rentier capitalist) correctly explains why so many are completely adrift in the government’s occasional, random and unscientific lockdowns. For sure the science is uncertain – but the money creation to ensure both the lady in the interview and… Read more
‘What matters’ is that equality works
We are currently told that Black Lives Matter which, like all lives, of course they do. And while we now discover that the American policeman accused of murder had had 17 complaints against him, none of which seemed to have changed anything, and, indeed there are also instances of American policemen killing white arrestees with… Read more
One way of getting homes for the homeless
This quote below is from a Twitterer I do not know but with whom I do wholeheartedly agree – it seems to be an extraordinary act of generosity. I’m not a fan of boxing but I do appear to have become a fan of Tyson Fury. Dr Abdul G S Kasim@AbdulGSKasim has said that instead… Read more
A Fond Farewell to the UK from an EU27 citizen? – part II (Education, Industry and Media)
Introduction In Part I, I discussed origins, but three cultural and historical differences struck me fairly immediately when I came to work in England in 1981. First, many scientists I met seemed to have little knowledge of the humanities. Correspondingly, knowledge of science seemed lacking among non-scientists. I was hardly the first to notice. C.P…. Read more
Gang culture for toffs? understanding the right wing mind – part three
Sanna Marin, the Finnish Prime minister, who I’ve referred to previously, also has another good quote: I have never thought about my age or gender. I think more about the motivations that brought me into politics. Here is somebody concerned not about her interest group (or ‘gang’), but fired up about why she wants to… Read more
UK Deprivation by Constituency and Voting Patterns in England and NI
Introduction Deprivation and inequality have been regular themes on Progressive Pulse but a very interesting visualisation of deprivation by constituency has been published online by Prof. Alasdair Rae of the University of Sheffield (@undertheraedar on Twitter), displayed in Fig. 1. There is more on the underlying methodology and data here. This is a high-resolution image,… Read more
Normality is the problem
Most will be aware of recent large demonstrations in Chile in favour of greater equality. These often comprised around a million people – a remarkable turnout in a country with a total population of about 19 million. Demonstrators were met with violent military intervention and curfews. The state of emergency has now been rescinded and… Read more
Understanding monetary ‘plumbing’ and where it gets us
There is an interesting podcast from the American site Macro’n Cheese with the Scottish Professor Mark Blyth, who, though he long ago emigrated and has become Eastman Professor of Political Economy at Brown University in the US, he has certainly managed to hang to most of his Dundonian dialect! I have to say I usually… Read more
Westminster: Most Similar Country Ireland? – A new EU Regional Productivity Analysis
Introduction An interesting paper “The big European sort? The diverging fortunes of Europe’s regions” has been published by the Centre for European Reform (CER). Such papers are of great interest at PP. The paper analyses regional productivity. As a single metric productivity is one of the best, but as Charles Adams says, in order to… Read more