Archive for the ‘British current affairs’ Category
And the rich get even richer …
April 30th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
.. . while the poor get even poorer – and the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne insists that we’re all in this together. As explained here, the lastest Sunday Times Rich List shows that the wealthiest 1,000 people in the UK are now worth £414 billion which is a 4.7% increase on last year. […]
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The world of the Special Adviser
April 25th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
Special Advisers – or SpAds as they are known in Whitehall and Westminster – are in the news this week because of the publication of e-mails from the advisers to Cabinet ministers Jeremy Hunt and Vince Cable concerning the News Corporation bid for BSkyB and the resignation of Hunt’s adviser Adam Smith. During the Wilson/Callaghan […]
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With friends like these …
April 23rd, 2012 by Roger Darlington
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Could you manage on £4.2 million a year?
April 2nd, 2012 by Roger Darlington
In an earlier posting, I invited you to check your income against the average for the UK, and a range of other countries around the world. I doubt whether you earn as much as the chief executive of a top British company. The average annual pay of a FTSE 100 boss now stands at £4.2 million, […]
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Hostage taking in Nigeria
March 9th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
I think that hostage taking is a particularly cruel and abhorrent crime and I was saddened by the news that Briton Chris McManus and Italian Franco Lamolinara died in the attempt by UK Special Forces and Nigerian military to rescue them from an Islamist group in Sokoto. One of the earliest short stories that I wrote […]
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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)
A small victory over an unfair system
February 7th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
Ten months ago, I did a posting about how I had accompanied a good friend of mine with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) to an interview as part of a Work Capability Assessment (WCA) because he had applied for the new Employment & Support Allowance (ESA). He was refused the ESA, he appealed, and today he had […]
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How many peace walls are there?
January 27th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
Peace walls developed in Northern Ireland shortly after sectarian tensions broke out into violence in 1969 but, since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, I think that most people outside Northern ireland have assumed that the violence has ended and the peace walls have come down. In fact, dissident Republicans continue to mount violent actions […]
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What is the major strength of the British political system?
January 27th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
This week, I had the following e-mail from a student in Russia: “Hello! I have read your short guide to the British political system, and I wanted to ask what you think about this statement: “The capacity of the UK’s constitution to evolve is its major strength”. Do you agree with this, as I am […]
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What bonfire of the quangos?
January 20th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
In October 2010, I did a posting about the new Coalition Government’s intention to abolish or merge some 300 so-called quangos, including both the ones on which I sit, the Communications Consumer Panel and Consumer Focus. Fifteen months later, only one merger has actually happened – Postcomm going into Ofcom which was in fact proposed […]
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