At last Labour is concerned with food. It has plans to improve hospital food. “Hospital food” always reminds me of those occasions in pubs, which thankfully, I’ve moved on from, when someone would look at me menacingly in the eyes whilst enquiring whether I liked hospital food. I didn’t know then – and I’m delighted… Read more
Category:
Society
Nasty, brutish and shorter
Thomas Hobbes’ (only slightly amended) quote seems to be the way our government thinks either that we want – or probably more likely, it wants us, to live our lives. The recent figures from the Resolution Foundation on rented housing are a case in point. Outlined in the chart below, they show that the number… Read more
BBC Shame
I’ve previously highlighted the blog of the Oxford academic, Simon Wren Lewis. Although I don’t agree with everything he writes, I have to say it is always impeccably argued… This time, there is certainly no contest: Theresa May shows a disregard for people… that I cannot remember in previous Prime Ministers. The current excesses of… Read more
Bus Reregulation?
One of the most striking aspects of the Labour Party’s new bus travel proposals to give all young people under 25 free travel, is that, interestingly, they have been costed for the entirety of the UK, even though transport is devolved, because Labour seems to think that everyone will want the same proposals. I’m sure… Read more
The Home Office, eyes wide shut
The Independent has published an interesting statistic: NHS figures show the number of stab victims in England aged 10 to 16 rose by 63 per cent between 2011-12 and 2016-17 – four times the rate of increase in the population as a whole. So this seems to leave London as an area that receives most… Read more
A Type 1 diabetic Prime Minister and Health
So the Sugar Tax has arrived and I see one of Cameron’s ex advisors has been congratulating herself in last edition of ‘The Sunday Times’ (paywall) for persuading him to institute it. It is certainly a start. Rather like taxing cigarettes it is to be hoped it will be the start on changing behaviour. It… Read more
Why didn’t the Skripals die on the spot?
I thought this conundrum worth highlighting as ‘Aunt Theresa’s’ Strong and Stable Military Grade Novichok’ now starts to raise a painful smile. It then actually turns out that a ‘military grade deadly nerve agent’ is, as we are now beginning to learn, not necessarily especially military or deadly after all. The ‘recall’ is probably thanks,… Read more
If only you could buy happiness?
What should politicians do? Make us happier of course. UK politicians are not doing great at this – we are only 18th in the happiness league table of OECD countries.* Maybe politicians have got their priorities wrong? As I show below, as happiness and equality are related, maybe they should be doing more about inequality… Read more
What industrial strategy?
The government eventually told us after the last Steel crisis that they would be formulating an industrial strategy for Britain. This was published in late 2017, and despite arguing that, ‘It sets out how we are building a Britain fit for the future.’ – it currently remains unclear what it is, except that it seems… Read more
Crowding out commercial lending
A recent Oxford University report points out that banks’ lending to the property sector ‘crowds out’ commercial lending to companies. Usually we are told that government spending ‘crowds out’ private spending. That is a fantasy, but this report shows that the private banks creation of money actually has effects. Although this is no real surprise… Read more