Conservatives
Why the Conservatives should not fear AV
The possible consequences of voting for the Alternative Vote System
"...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..."
The fall out from the IFS' latest study on marriage: time for a grown-up discussion?
Should we really still be arguing about who makes the best parents?
"...The Institute for Fiscal Studies yesterday published a report that found no positive influence of marriage per se on the outcome of children. However, children of married people seem to develop better which can be explained by differences in characteristics of those parents who choose to marry and those who don’t... it is not hard to guess the correlation correctly..."
Big Society - or Big Societies?
A word on the crucial distinction between volunteering and association
It’s been Big Society Week here at the Disraeli Room, with a range of interesting thoughts and debates both here and elsewhere...
The Big Society: A Radical New Approach to Social Mobility?
The complex relationship between putting down roots and moving on to better things - and what it means for civil society policy
"...There is evidence to suggest that geographical mobility is associated with the primacy of the personal over the collective self. This can have a less than positive impact on society..."
Tax and Marriage: Perspectives from Europe
A comprehensive analysis of whether tax and marriage really do go together 'like a horse and carriage...'
"...income splitting can be very advantageous for those couples where one partner earns less than the individual tax allowance of £6,475. An example: one spouse earns £4000 per year, the other spouse £12,475. The first pays no tax at all, the second pays tax on £12,475-£6,475=£6,000. At the basic tax rate of 20 percent this is a tax bill of £1,200. Now, let’s apply income splitting. The combined income of the couple if £16,475. Divided by two this is £8,237.50. So each spouse is allocated (for tax purposes) an income of this amount. For tax calculation the personal tax allowance is deducted: tax of 20 percent is paid on £8,237.50 - £6,475 = £1,762.50; the tax take is £352.50 each. Multiplied by two, this is £705, considerably lower than the tax bill of £1,200 in case joint income splitting is not applied. So maybe income splitting should be restricted to those married couples on very low income?..."
Rank Idiocy
The MyPolice fiasco suggests that speaking to the vision of a Big Society is more important now than ever before
"...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?..."
Whatever Happened to Traditional Conservatism?
Guest contributor Michael Merrick takes on the shibboleths of progressivism
"...beyond the trendies in Islington, metropolitan ethics is rather less popular, and it can alienate..."
Budget 2010 @ The Disraeli Room
The ideas behind the announcements
On Wednesday March 24th, The Disraeli Room will run a series of comment pieces on the issues that arise from what promises to be one of the most important budgets in recent times.
Innovative Ownership
Ownership, Self-Organisation and the Post Bureaucratic Age: the ambient conditions for a radical New Centre Ground?
"...This part of the Cameron agenda is an exciting one for anyone who cares about spreading ownership more widely. While we have argued that the Conservatives' thinking on the post bureaucratic age is at times too evangelical and pays too little attention to the possible pitfalls, there can be no doubt that tying the issue of ownership into the vision of a world beyond bureaucracy presents us with a powerful statement of ethos for our nation..."
Get With The Programmers
ResPublica's Deputy Director, Asheem Singh, on where left and right are getting it wrong on the 'Post-Bureaucratic Age'
"...Foucault called 'good practice'... the systematic collection of data by a Government or business about its service users, so as to be able to offer them products they want at moments of weakness – but products that they may not need or may not even be in their own interests. Consider the civil liberties implications of the new 'terrorism-busting,' 'naked' airport scanners, and we arrive at something approaching an example of what I mean here... And neither left nor right has made the semblance of an effort to seriously engage with these issues...."
