The Disraeli Room
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Planning in a pickle
Lee Mallett, Co-Editor and Publisher of Planning in London magazine, argues for national and local government to invest in a new planning regime and new methods for engaging local people and economic interests
"... Communities feel excluded from planning as a strategic and tactical tool for organising our futures and enhancing what we want to preserve. We do need new methods of empowering people and engaging them. They might be a central plank in reinvigorating local democracy because planning encompasses so many pragmatic local issues. Powerful professional and economic interests fear local involvement because they think people will reject change and retreat into Nimbyism. This “we know best” top-down professionalism is what people distrust and will always do so ..."
What is international aid for?
The Coalition wants aid projects to contribute to the national interest, but Labour argue this will lead to the ‘securitisation’ of the international aid budget. Are we witnessing a fundamental re-think about what aid should be used for?
"... not enough research has been conducted to ascertain whether aid projects do in fact ‘win hearts and minds’. The research that has been done suggests that this is not the case and that perceptions are to a great extent based on wider issues of foreign policy. After the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir, Pakistan, the US pledged $50m and took an active and visible role in the relief. A widely-cited poll taken a month after the quake showed that the percentage of Pakistanis with a favorable opinion of the US had doubled, from 23% to 46%. However, it took only six months for that percentage to fall back to its base level ..."
Three ideas for mutualising Britain
David Miliband has proposed turning the BBC into a co-operative, where else could we open the public up to the mutual?
"... Tessa Jowell has continued to advance the mutualism agenda within the Labour Party, most recently convincing Labour leadership forerunner David Miliband to propose that the BBC be run as a co-operative.This is a welcome proposal and one which will hopefully push this debate forward, raising the further question: where else could we open the public up to the mutual? ..."
Big Society - Small State?
ResPublica Fellow Jules Peck asks if the Big Society's break with the individualist neo-liberal model of the Thatcher era is only rhetoric? What role can the state play in making it a reality?
"... Some of the leading players in the Government seem to be saying that there is a role for the state in empowering community flourishing. This rhetoric is all very well. But often what has come hand in hand with a neoliberal free market approach has been a strong belief in low taxation, especially for the wealthy, and in cuts in the size, nature and extent of the welfare state ..."
AV: No BNP
Or 'How the Alternative Vote Referendum can be won'
"... All is not lost for the AV Referendum. What has been overlooked is the potential for AV to raise the barriers to extremism in British politics. Extremist parties like the BNP know that the first past the post system can potentially deliver a Westminster seat to the BNP with only a minority of voters supporting them. AV kills that opportunity. Labour cannot afford to give the Liberal Democrats free rein to campaign amongst part of its ethnic minority core vote on an AV: No BNP platform. Labour may be forced for moral and political reasons to support AV-and that could be a gamechanger ..."
Why monarchy matters
Guest Contributor, Michael Merrick, on the perils of constitutional reform and the risk of plutocracy
"... Indeed, it is precisely this emerging consensus that has enabled a crooked Commons to earnestly urge ‘reform’ of a rather less crooked House of Lords, and an even less crooked Monarchy, and all in the name of making the system less crooked ..."
100 Days
Looking back on the first hundred days of the Coalition Government
"... the Prime Minister needs to clarify whether state spending on early intervention services (particularly Sure Start), asset-building devices (the Savings Gateway and Child Trust Funds), culture and regional development is, in principle, bad or good – and therefore if these particular cuts are, in principle, permanent or temporary. If he won’t take pledge the latter, the next Labour leader should ... "
A cross between Pol Pot and Attila the Hun, or more Mother Teresa?
ResPublica Fellow Jules Peck asks where the Big Society falls on the political compass
How much should we reform council housing? Part 2
Why the radical plans for social housing reforms don't go far enough
"... This is an area where a Liberal Democrat concern for tenant rights and a Conservative desire to grow the ownership state can, as they should, move hand-in-hand. Disregarding the current proposals because they go too far rather than not far enough will kill any possibility of this discussion bearing fruit ..."
How much should we reform council housing? Part 1
Guest Contributor Simon Beard looks at the drawbacks of the proposed reforms to council housing tenure
"... Most troublingly, the effect of removing life tenure will be both to remove some of the long term residents, who often have an important role in providing community cohesion through so called ‘linking capital’, and reducing the economic diversity within estates, meaning reducing the ‘bridging capital’ that might connect those with few opportunities to others who could offer them more. Either of these effects alone could be profoundly damaging, but together they will significantly harm people who are already the socially worst-off ..."
About the Disraeli Room
The Disraeli Room is ResPublica’s blog, dedicated to radical, progressive ideas and analysis. ResPublica’s experts, fellows and friends of all political stripes from the worlds of policy making, social innovation and entrepreneurship meet here to swap ideas, debate and provoke.
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Most read blog posts
- by Alan Riley 17
"...Too many Conservative commentators look back to the glory days of Baroness Thatcher and assume that all is required is a return to the eternal Thatcherite verities of sound money, low taxes, a strong defence, tough on Europe and tough on immigration to deliver a substantial Parliamentary majority.
This recipe did not work in 1997, 2001 and 2005, and only the more progressive message of David Cameron in 2010 delivered substantial gains, which despite being considerable left the Conservatives still short of an overall majority..." - by Asheem Singh 40
"...A small, social start up finds that its biggest competitor is the state it is trying to help. Not only that but the state attempts to crowd out its competitor by using the very same domain name. She would be entitled to ask: whose side are they on?..."
- by Phillip Blond 5
"...The existing First Past the Post (FPTP) system is creaking at the seams, it was defensible when the threshold for winning an election was around 45 per cent of the vote and the two parties that alternated in power could each rely on 40 per cent or more..."
