On 9 Jan Lord Freud, Minister for Welfare Reform, announced: I am delighted to welcome Matthew Oakley to the Social Security Advisory Committee. He will bring a wealth of skills […]
The government’s change to child benefit that came into force today betrays its real agenda and perfectly illustrates both its deceitfulness and its inability, or unwillingness, to think through the […]
George Osborne’s autumn statement today signalled additional cuts of some £5 billion from public spending in order to fund a ‘growth plan’ of infrastructure spending and ‘business-friendly’ measures that he […]
I have to confess, I’ve been dreading David Cameron’s speech to the 2012 Conservative party conference over the last few days. Not because I feared he’d be convincing or would […]
I’ve been a bit out of circulation since yesterday evening because of work travel, so maybe someone else has already done this. But maybe not. Most of the media reports […]
The record rains earlier this week led to a curious situation where a block of flats was evacuated because of a flood. You might think that a flood wouldn’t present […]
I bought the ‘i’ yesterday because its front page caught my eye: Not because I’m shocked by the statistic of a 34.4% increase in hate crimes against disabled people – […]
If you’ve read some of my other posts, you’ll know that I’m re-reading ‘The Shock Doctrine’ by the very excellent Naomi Klein. I can’t encourage you enough to get and […]
I wrote a couple of days ago about how taxation should properly be seen as a rent that is paid for the privilege of living in a well-structured, orderly society, […]
A commenter on my blog mentioned the ‘tax freedom day‘ announced regularly by the Adam Smith Institute, a right-wing policy think-tank that aims to extend free-market principles. The principle of […]