Archive for the ‘Social policy’ Category
The chart that says it all on the MMR jab and the incidence of measles
May 3rd, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Posted in British current affairs, Social policy | Comments (0)
Why is crime falling? Here’s 15 possible reasons.
April 28th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Earlier this week, I did a posting about the dramatically falling levels of most crimes across many developed countries. I explained that nobody was sure of the explanation. In today’s “Observer” newspaper, political columnist Andrew Rawnsley devotes his weekly piece to the subject and floats no less than 15 possible reasons: The reduction of lead […]
Posted in Social policy | Comments (5)
At last, some good news: crime is falling
April 26th, 2013 by Roger Darlington
Although I said “at last”, in fact crime has been falling – in both the UK and many other developed nations – for decades and I last blogged about this fascinating, and welcome, trend, about a year ago here. This week, we have the news that, in England & Wales last year, crime again fell, regardless […]
Posted in British current affairs, Social policy | Comments (0)
Why capitalism needs fundamental reform
February 3rd, 2013 by Roger Darlington
One of the most frequently occurring political themes of this blog is that we live in societies where income, wealth and power are distributed massively unevenly and unfairly and this creates poverty and unhappiness at the individual level and terrible social outcomes at the national and international level. Therefore I was pleased to see a […]
Posted in American current affairs, British current affairs, Social policy, World current affairs | Comments (0)
The case for social mobility
May 17th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
“If we want our children to have equal opportunities in life, reducing income inequality is the most important step we can take towards achieving that goal. Bigger income differences between rich and poor are a powerful constraint on social mobility, diminishing life chances for children from less privileged backgrounds and making a level playing field […]
Posted in British current affairs, Social policy | Comments (0)
Our participation in UK Biobank
March 30th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
An incredible snapshot of the health and lifestyles of 500,000 Britons – including 26,000 people with diabetes and 50,000 with joint disorders, 41,000 teetotallers, and 11,000 heart attack patients – is now available for medical research. With more than 1,000 separate pieces of information already available on volunteers aged 40-69 when they joined the project, UK […]
Posted in My life & thoughts, Social policy | Comments (0)
The case for more social equality
March 5th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
The Equality Trust has just released its fourth quarterly Research Digest. This Digest deals with the relationship between high income inequality and low levels of social mobility. The main points are as follows: Social mobility is higher in societies with smaller income differences between rich and poor. If we want our children to have equal […]
Posted in British current affairs, Social policy | Comments (0)
The link between social mobility and income inequality
November 30th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
“The idea that anyone can, by their own merits and hard work, improve their social and economic position is one of the dominant political themes of our times. Encouraging social mobility, both within a person’s lifetime (intra- generational social mobility) and from one generation to the next (inter- generational social mobility), has become a key […]
Posted in British current affairs, Social policy, World current affairs | Comments (0)
Blog Action Day: this year, it’s food
October 16th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
Today is Blog Action Day when bloggers around the world are encouraged to blog on the same chosen topic. In 2007, it was the environment; in 2008, it was poverty; in 2009, it was climate change; and in 2010, it was water. This year’s theme is food. Now two centuries ago, there was a fashion […]
Posted in Social policy, World current affairs | Comments (0)
How consumers and citizens make choices
August 20th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
Some of the reading I’ve done recently has made me think more about how and why people make decisions in the economic and non-economic spaces. This has led me to write an essay for my web site entitled “How Consumers And Citizens Make Choices”. You can read it here.
Posted in Consumer matters, Social policy | Comments (0)