Archive for the ‘British current affairs’ Category
The Government’s “Spending Challenge”
August 20th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
You might laugh; you might cry; you might become angry. I refer to the 44,000 ideas that the great British public has put forward for cutting expenditure on which the Government is now kindly inviting us to vote on its “Spending Challenge” website. Is this any way to run a country?
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Why Labour lost
August 3rd, 2010 by Roger Darlington
“Voters were turned off by Labour’s main election message on public services, according to new polling evidence commissioned by the independent think tank Demos, released today. The poll shows that voters who deserted Labour at the last election felt Government spending had reached or even breached acceptable limits and no longer viewed the state as […]
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Excess and the City
August 1st, 2010 by Roger Darlington
In an earlier blog posting, I asked: how big should income differentials be? I return to the subject now because this week the Financial Services Authority reveled information on earnings last year in the City of London. While most people in Britain struggled to cope with the economic recession caused by the irrational exuberance of […]
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The cull of UK quangos
July 27th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
The term ‘quango’ has come to be almost an insult, but it is simply an acronym – short for quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation. Most of these organisations do really good work and give value for money, although there is always a case for looking at roles, rationalisation and savings. Perhaps some of the functions could be […]
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Why the budget is regressive rather than progressive (3)
June 27th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
As more and more study is made of the totality of the government’s measures to tackle the deficit – so, not just the tax and benefit changes in the budget, but also the likely impact of spending reductions – it becomes clearer and clearer that the poorest will suffer the most. A piece in the […]
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Ask Ed Miliband a question
June 26th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
My son Richard is currently working for the think tank Demos on its Open Left project. The project is running an online question & answer session with each of the five candidates for the Labour Party leadership. In the first of the Open Left’s online Q &As, Ed Miliband, the Shadow Climate Change Secretary and MP […]
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Why the budget is regressive rather than progressive (2)
June 24th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
Further evidence is now emerging that the tough budget is not as fair as the Chancellor was pretending. The respected Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has produced this analysis. As explained in this “Guardian” editorial: “As the IFS pointed out, the reason the measures looked so fair was because they took into account the announcements […]
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Why the budget is regressive rather than progressive (1)
June 23rd, 2010 by Roger Darlington
As the dust settles on the budget statement and the implications start to be understood, it is clear that, while this Conservative Chancellor has made more effort that his Tory predecessors to be fairer to the poor (presumably under pressure from his coalition partners), the overall impact of the measures will still be regressive. In […]
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What does it mean to be English?
June 23rd, 2010 by Roger Darlington
Although I am the Member for England on the Communications Consumer Panel, I don’t feel particularly English. In fact, I’m half Italian. My wife does not feel English either, but that might be because she’s half Welsh and half Czech. Most of our closest friends are not English either – they are American, South African, […]
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How big should income differentials be?
June 17th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
I’ve been reading a fascinating book called “The Spirit Level” by Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett. This work argues that societies with greater income inequalities suffer a whole range of worse economic and social outcomes than more equal countries. The most obvious sign of income inequality is in the area of pay. Obviously the Chief […]
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