﻿<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title>ResPublica</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk</link><description>RSS Feed of all ResPublica Site Updates</description><generator>RSSviaXmlTextWriter v1.0</generator><language>en-gb</language><item><title>Building a Co-operative Economy</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Building-a-Co-operative-Economy</link><description><![CDATA[Against the ‘predatory capitalism’ that anguishes lots of working people today, co-operatives are a viable business model that puts money back into the people’s pockets. Announced in the Queen’s Speech, the new Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, which aims to remove barriers to British companies and boost economic growth, would be the first step towards realising this...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 18 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Farming Today, Shopping Tomorrow</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Farming-Today-Shopping-Tomorrow</link><description><![CDATA[...This story, which feels so familiar, is in fact the story of farming in the 17th and 18th century, following the enclosures of common land. Of course, it also appears to be the story of shopping today, following the enclosures of markets and their domination by half a dozen supermarkets and retail giants...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 15 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Won’t You Be My Neighbour?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Won-t-You-Be-My-Neighbour-</link><description><![CDATA[Beginning with London and the recent austerity measures, the urban planner must assume the role of mediator of government and public discourse. Even in periods of austerity or recession, the urban planner can reconsider the use of space to re-open and extend public services and facilities to all urban dwellers, whether through transportation or relocation of housing and commercial areas...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 14 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>ResPonses to the Queen’s Speech</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/ResPonses-to-the-Queen-s-Speech</link><description><![CDATA[The Queen has announced Parliament’s legislative agenda for the coming year, in total raising 15 bills and 4 draft bills, ranging from Banking Reform to the future of Adult Social Care. The team at ResPublica have collated the highlights to emerge from the central themes...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 11 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Social Franchising: A driver for a better economy</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Driving-Britain-to-Popular-Capitalism-with-the-Social-Franchising-Co-operative-Model</link><description><![CDATA[...Social franchising is the latest form of co-op movement. Similar to commercial franchising, the social franchise is owned by member franchises (or franchisees) but with a social purpose. By replicating a proven business model, and not reinventing the wheel, it can speed up the establishment of social enterprises...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 03 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>‘Obscure Scribblers’ of the World, Unite!</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/-Obscure-Scribblers-of-the-World-Unite-</link><description><![CDATA[The political right is moored to a set of extreme utopian political beliefs that have never delivered the practical results that they claim. Indeed, equality of opportunity and the middle class were both created by government investment and public-private cooperation. Just as history shows that communism failed because it continued to formulate policies based on utopian ideology rather than historical facts, the right now is proposing a similar path based on a utopian faith in the power of markets to solve social problems...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Understanding the Riots</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Understanding-the-Riots</link><description><![CDATA[The findings of the enquiries into the riots in early August 2011 paint a picture of systematic disadvantage and ingrained tensions between societal groups. It has proved impossible to pin down any single set of causes of this undercurrent of disquiet, which implies a need for a more complex, systemic approach in assessing the status quo...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 26 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Book Review: Delivering Public Services that Work Vol. 2</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Book-Review-Delivering-Public-Services-that-Work-Vol-2-by-John-Seddon-and-Charlotte-Pell</link><description><![CDATA[This book serves in part to remind us that public sector reform does not rest only on the lips of David Cameron, or trapped within the auspices of Whitehall, but is something that can begin ‘in-house’ and now. The Vanguard Method acts as a way for public services across the UK to begin to realise the Government’s ‘decentralisation’ and ‘localism’ agendas, which for the non-specialist can appear practically obtuse or worse, unrealisable......]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 24 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The House of Lords: A House of Talents</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-House-of-Lords-a-House-of-Talents</link><description><![CDATA[So the joint committee on the Reform of the House of Lords is recommending a referendum; or so the leaks tell us. If this is true, it is bad news for the future of the second chamber ...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 23 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Reclaiming the Social and Cultural Foundation of Money </title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Reclaiming-the-Social-and-Cultural-Foundation-of-Money-</link><description><![CDATA[There is a contradiction at the heart of money. It is supposed to be the great leveller and liberator, a universal measure of value. Yet its accumulation and usage seem inextricably linked to power, prestige and hierarchy.  Economists play dumb when it comes to money, ascribing it only a neutral role in transactions and even Keynes lost interest in understanding its socio-historical roots and meanings. Likewise they reduce the pursuit of power, prestige and hierarchy to the supposedly morally neutral and ‘natural’ profit motive......]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 20 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Building a Healthier Nation</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Building-a-Healthier-Nation</link><description><![CDATA[...If I ever need brain surgery, I don’t want to need to advise my surgeon, or even have to work out which I prefer. I will just want a convincing expert to take charge and do a good job. But we all know that health - as opposed to illness – services don’t work like that...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 10 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Community Champions to promote Community Budgets</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Community-Champions-to-promote-Community-Budgets</link><description><![CDATA[...One driver, which could help to promote Community Budgets, is the emergence of “Community Champions”.  This will need to be somebody from the local community with the profile, urgency, drive and commitment to effect change. This could, for example, be a community leader, local celebrity or elected politician. This could also be a “group” initiative with local businesses or charities joining with communities to create momentum...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 04 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Between Plato and Aristotle</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Between-Plato-and-Aristotle</link><description><![CDATA[...In order to champion the movement, an established Platonic body must champion then organic Aristotelian organisations. Real time and effort needs to go into nurturing the Aristotelian organisations, and creating relationship between the people at the top and bottom. Unless and until this link is restored, the Big Society will be lost...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 30 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Point of the Lords Spiritual</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Point-of-the-Lords-Spiritual</link><description><![CDATA[The bishops in the Lords have in recent years become far more active, the intention being to demonstrate that they do have a vital role in the constitution. Government proposals involve two options, one to retain twelve of the twenty-six bishops and the other to expel them altogether...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 29 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Civil Religion or Civil Unrest</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Civil-Religion-or-Civil-Unrest</link><description><![CDATA[Seven months on from countrywide riots, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Rededication is an important reminder of the moral and spiritual foundations of social unity. But what does this mean today...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 27 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>ResPonses to the Budget</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/ResPonses-to-the-budget</link><description><![CDATA[On 21 March George Osborne delivered his third budget. The responses to the budget have been mixed, with business leaders praising the introduction of a ‘patent box’ and the cuts to corporate tax, the banks condemning the increase in the bank levy and the opposition calling it the ‘millionaire’s budget’. The ResPublica team have collated a round-up of the key reactions to the Chancellor statement...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 26 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>How the Budget will affect Women</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/How-the-Budget-will-affect-Women</link><description><![CDATA[Without even mentioning them, the Chancellor’s budget will have an enormous impact on the lives of women up and down the country. Paradoxically, some seemingly positive measures announced in the budget are likely to have negative consequences for certain groups of women...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sat, 24 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>We get the budgets we deserve</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/We-get-the-budgets-we-deserve</link><description><![CDATA[...We all need to move on from the comforts of the past and, to coin a phrase from a current active campaign, “move our money” away from this obsession with what you can get and consume and towards a world where money is about what you can “do”...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 22 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Microenterprises left in the cold</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Microenterprises-left-in-the-cold</link><description><![CDATA[...Microenterprises - firms with fewer than ten employees - make up 95% of businesses in Britain, and banks struggle to serve them. NLGS is unlikely to have any effect on the way banks assess risk and make lending decisions, and will not help the smaller firms that have trouble getting credit in the first place...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 21 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>ResPonses to the Marriage Debate</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/ResPonses-to-the-Marriage-Debate</link><description><![CDATA[...The launch of the British Equal Civil Marriage Consultation is the outcome of a growing debate, not just over creating equality of opportunity for same sex and opposite sex couples, but also over the appropriate definition and understanding of the institution of marriage itself. The ResPublica team have collated some of the key responses which inform this debate...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 16 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>A Cornered Rat Will Bite The Cat</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/A-Cornered-Rat-Will-Bite-The-Cat</link><description><![CDATA[The Government’s ambition to open public services to competition from the private and voluntary sectors is resulting in some unexpected consequences. The public sector is, surprisingly, becoming most competitive of all...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 15 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Building the Opportunity Society: The Davos Perspective </title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Building-the-Opportunity-Society-The-Davos-Perspective-</link><description><![CDATA[...In the UK, rising income disparity and failing social mobility are also a cause for concern, and a threat to our social fabric and national wellbeing, as well as the Conservatives' electoral fortunes. Building the "Opportunity Society" – a society where social mobility flourishes and individuals progress as far and as fast in life as their talents will take them – is crucial in reconnecting with important voter groups who hold the key to election success...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 13 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>HS2: Is there veracity in the velocity?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/HS2-Is-there-veracity-in-the-velocity-</link><description><![CDATA[Promoters of the new high speed rail line (HS2) between London and Birmingham claim that it will generate £2 of economic benefit for every £1 spent. The Government says the benefit will be lower, around £1.40. But if a number is the answer, then people are asking the wrong question. What is the real benefit of arriving before the coffee gets cold...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 12 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Complementary Reform in the House of Lords?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Complementary-Reform-in-the-House-of-Lords-</link><description><![CDATA[...It is the legislative framework and the representative system which secures the independence of each body, granting power to the people whilst at the same time protecting legislation from the writ of the executive...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 08 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Wider Value of Work </title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Wider-Value-of-Work-</link><description><![CDATA[...One of the failures of this scheme is that in today’s society the majority of those looking for work do not have long term aspirations to work stacking shelves and as a result the skills they learn from this type of work may have little bearing on their ability to secure a future position within their chosen field. By failing to provide adequate numbers of back to work opportunities within companies that may provide administration or business skill, the government is limiting the future job options for JSA claimants that this scheme should open up...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>On Burke &amp; Badgering the Government</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/On-Burke-Badgering-the-Government</link><description><![CDATA[...From before Clegg and Cameron were born right through their lifetimes, the House of Lords has given such attention to a wide range of causes, including unpopular ones. For example, the Earl of Arran was asked why, when he had in the 1960s introduced two bills, one to decriminalise homosexual acts between consenting male adults and one to protect badgers, the more controversial one on homosexuality found its way into law whereas the one about badgers was defeated. He is reputed to have said that the answer was simple, that there were no badgers in the House of Lords...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 29 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Connecting People with Parliament</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Connecting-People-with-Parliament</link><description><![CDATA[...Instead of being the last western country to have an elected second chamber, Britain could be the first to create a new kind of parliamentary process that enables citizens to take part in politics through the internet, participatory community meetings and the democratic associations of civil society and an entirely new kind of chamber of Parliament...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 27 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Lessons for post-riot Britain </title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Lessons-for-post-riot-Britain-</link><description><![CDATA[...ResPublica start from the premise that Britain has, over time, lost many of its “foundational moral institutions” that gave young people the resilience, discipline and confidence to get on in life. It’s hard to think of a single institution better equipped to plug this gap than Her Majesty’s Armed Forces. These proposals are not pie-in-the-sky. The infrastructure already exists with the Reserve Forces’ and Cadets’ Associations (which Mr Gove recently called to be established in every state school). Military academies could be established using their practical experience and governance support...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 24 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Prayers Answered by Eric the Lawgiver</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Prayers-Answered-by-Eric-the-Lawgiver</link><description><![CDATA[Not since Eric the Lawgiver, a twelfth century Swedish king and saint, has an Eric been accorded such a legendary status as the Department for Communities and Local Government has given its own Secretary of State in its press release headed, ‘Eric Pickles gives councils back the freedom to pray’...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 23 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Changing Outlooks, Not Rules</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Changing-Outlooks-Not-Rules</link><description><![CDATA[...The issue of “social engineering” using contextual data has monopolised the current debate. However, focusing attention on those students who are the first in their families to apply for university is missing the most important point. These young people are not the ones most in need of government support. They have already made the decision that university is right for them and most likely have been working hard to achieve the necessary grades. We need early intervention targeted at young people with the potential to attend top universities, but who actively choose not to because of endemic scepticism towards education in their own communi...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>ResPonses to Secularism and Faith</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/ResPonses-to-Secularism-and-Faith-zvqk</link><description><![CDATA[...The ruling sparked a heated debate between Christian activists who defend the central role of religious values in the UK, and ‘secular’ campaigners who argue that Britain is no longer a religious country, and that such traditions are outdated and discriminatory. Arguments from both sides escalated over the course of the week, in which faith leaders, ministers and even the Queen voiced their concerns on the marginalisation of faith in public life. The ResPublica team have collated a round-up of last week’s events...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 21 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Behind the question of quotas</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Behind-the-question-of-quotas</link><description><![CDATA[...Do the unintended consequences of legislation outweigh the intended benefits?... There is no such thing as positive discrimination as someone else will always be discriminated against as a result, namely an equally competent male.

Equality should mean equality of opportunity, rather than proportional representation. In some measure the Prime Minister’s statement has succeeded in glossing over the fundamental issues that frequently prevent talented women from reaching the upper levels of management in the work place....]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sat, 18 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>From Civic Conservatism to Civic Capitalism</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/From-Civic-Conservatism-to-Civic-Capitalism</link><description><![CDATA[The idea of Civic Conservatism was central to David Willetts when he wrote his seminal text on Modern Conservatism in 1992. He presented the argument that for a Conservative, the key aim should be to reconcile support for free markets - which deliver freedom and prosperity - with the belief in the power and inherent worth of historic communities. Willetts argued that the tensions between these two beliefs are in fact not that strong, and free markets and communities actually mutually reinforce one another......]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 13 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Hester’s Bonus: a missed opportunity</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Hester-s-Bonus-a-missed-opportunity</link><description><![CDATA[The media was abuzz on Monday morning with the news that Stephen Hester had decided to forego his much-maligned £1 million bonus. After the Chairman of RBS turned down his £1.4 million, and Ed Miliband threatened to put the matter to a Commons debate, Hester and the Government finally gave up "defending the indefensible" as Lord Oakeshott triumphantly put it. However, much of the criticism surrounding Hester’s bonus is ironically framed along the very lines that his opponents object to: it is concerned only with give and take at the top of the organisation...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Transforming Our Public Services for Greater Social Good</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Transforming-Our-Public-Services-for-Greater-Social-Good</link><description><![CDATA[...My Bill would ensure that commissioners properly consider “social value” when they are commissioning public services. Social value is the additional benefit from a commissioning process over and above the direct purchasing of the service in question. This widening of the concept of value for money could significantly benefit social enterprises, voluntary organisations and community groups that are trying to deliver public services...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 30 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Collective Learning, Shared Knowledge: Lessons from the cloud for agile apprenticeships</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Collective-Learning-Shared-Knowledge-Lessons-from-the-cloud-for-agile-apprenticeships</link><description><![CDATA[...Many small businesses do not have the capacity or the will to train up new staff from scratch, but business clusters could hold the answer. Clusters are real world social networks of like-minded entrepreneurs who could share fragments of their knowledge with those who seek it. The trick is to put SMEs in a ‘pro-active learning’ mind set. For this to happen, they need to be provided with infrastructural solutions pulling resources and experiences together for the sake of collective benefit......]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Building the Opportunity Society</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Building-the-Opportunity-Society</link><description><![CDATA[...The Opportunity Society has two dimensions: first, a society where community spirit and pride are renewed, so individuals take greater responsibility for themselves and their neighbours; and secondly, and most importantly, a society where social mobility flourishes, so that people can go as far and as fast in life as their talents will take them. Greater social mobility and community spirit are crucial not only to creating a fairer, more open society at ease with itself, but also to creating empowered individuals, stronger communities, and an economically competitive nation......]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Aspiration or Vocation? Qualifications young people should be proud of</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Aspiration-or-Vocation-Qualifications-young-people-should-be-proud-of</link><description><![CDATA[...Let me be clear, there is nothing wrong with going to university.  Quite the contrary, as someone who went to University, I do not want to deny anyone the same opportunity.  However, what about those people not offered any real choice about their futures?  What about the young person who wants to go into further education or get an apprenticeship?  Why should they feel that their qualification is socially any less worthy than a degree......]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Bridging citizenship and consumerism: a solution for sustainability</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Bridging-citizenship-and-consumerism-a-solution-for-sustainability</link><description><![CDATA[Have policy-makers paid insufficient attention to the social dimensions of the ‘triad’ of issues – poverty reduction, equity, and justice – that define sustainable development? How can we achieve the balance we need between the economic, ecological and social aspects of sustainability? And how best should we tackle the ‘double injustice’ – where those who are least responsible for climate change worldwide stand to be worst affected by its impacts – while achieving the ‘double dividend’: helping the environment without harming the economy......]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Mass Ownership: From Brazil to Belfast</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Mass-Ownership-From-Brazil-to-China</link><description><![CDATA[...There is a growing sense that, given the acute inequalities that markets are now generating, getting the economy restarted (the Treasury focus not unreasonably at present) is only half the story. If you restart the same economy, you get the same problems, as night follows day. A second central economic policy issue is therefore how to widen the distribution of ownership and prosperity. It is what I call an agenda of creating mass ownership......]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>A Guide to the Reform of the House of Lords</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/A-Guide-to-the-Reform-of-the-House-of-Lords</link><description><![CDATA[The composition of the upper house of Parliament has been under question for some time and yet still the question has not been answered.  There have been piecemeal reforms, such as the passing of the two Parliament Acts, the introduction of Life Peers and the removal of the vast majority of hereditary peers, but still the questions are asked.  The Coalition Government has now published a draft House of Lords Reform Bill......]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 16 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>A deeper rethinking</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/A-deeper-rethinking</link><description><![CDATA[I do have to pinch myself that party leaders are now wanting to debate the future of capitalism. All power to ResPublica among others I guess for arguing that it is not just policy we need, but a deeper rethinking on policy and society......]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>2012 and Beyond: Black and blue and red all over? </title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/2012-and-Beyond-Black-and-blue-and-red-all-over-</link><description><![CDATA[...What do we know about the interrelationship between private individuals and businesses (competing to create financial wealth) with public bodies (which command or control resources to create public goods and services) and with the groups, charities, trusts and associations (which co-operate to make the UK a more socially or environmentally rich place to live)? What are the positive and negative economic dynamics between (again, crudely) liberté, egalité and fraternité?.........]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 05 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Celebrating The New - Not Seeing Off The Old</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Celebrating-The-New-Not-Seeing-Off-The-Old</link><description><![CDATA[nstead, we should take this opportunity to consider improvements where the provision or practice isn't good enough.

Macmillan nurses, hospices and palliative care give the overwhelming majority in Britain a dignified death which does not involve commissioning doctors and nurses as patient killers.

When the physical, psychosocial and spiritual needs of the patient are met, requests for euthanasia are actually extremely rare. Less than 1,000 people persistently ask for it. 95% of Palliative Medicine Specialists are opposed to a change in the law....]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 30 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Conservatism, the Big Society, and Patriotism</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Conservatism-the-Big-society-and-Patriotism</link><description><![CDATA[The concept of patriotism and its role in fostering shared
identity and values, has permeated the British political scene of late. From
the rise of Nationalism in Scotland, to euro scepticism in England, to even the
Labour Party’...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 22 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>ResPonses to the ICB</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/ResPonses-to-the-ICB</link><description><![CDATA[On the 19th December, George Osborne Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that the government will adopt the main proposals of the Independent Commission on Banking, chaired by Sir John Vickers. The ResPublica team have highlighted a few of what we believe to be the most interesting responses to the Chancellors Announcement so far...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 20 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Mutualising the Post Office</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Mutualising-the-Post-Office</link><description><![CDATA[...The key issues under discussion are whether a Post Office Mutual should operate with a mixed membership, reflecting its need to operate in the public interest, or purely on a model of the producer interests, of sub-postmasters, franchises and staff. And whether the Government should retain a long-term stake in the new organisation...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 12 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Is the urban-rural divide about to get worse?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Is-the-urban-rural-divide-about-to-get-worse-</link><description><![CDATA[There are, however, genuine concerns that this blend of new thinking, and re-badged initiatives may impact unevenly and even unfairly across the country. Much has been made, and will continue to be made, about the north-south divide. But this may not be the only divide which is affected by this new suite of policies...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 06 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>ResPonses to the Chancellor</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/ResPonses-to-the-Chancellor</link><description><![CDATA[Last week the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, delivered his Autumn Statement on the economy in front of a packed House of Commons, announcing a raft of measures, such as a 1 per cent cap on public sector pay-rises, and downgrading his growth forecasts. With borrowing and unemployment all set to rise, Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls was quick to denounce the Coalition’s economic and fiscal plans as being “in tatters”. But what have others had to say about the Chancellor’s announcements? ...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 05 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Changing the storyline</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Changing-the-storyline</link><description><![CDATA[As the Welfare Reform Bill passes through the House of Lords, the current storyline concerning disabled people is almost wholly negative. Daily headlines speak of the work shy and benefit scroungers. But the reality is quite different and the time has come to ask whether the negativity is actually harmful to the Government's aspirations for more disabled people returning to work or the overall contribution of disabled people to the economic performance of UK Plc...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 02 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>What makes a good teacher?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/What-makes-a-good-teacher</link><description><![CDATA[...any business that delivers a product which customers return at the disturbing rate teachers are returned, wouldn't last that long in the ﬁercely competitive world of hard sales. In the UK (and the US) around 50% of all qualiﬁed teachers leave the profession within ﬁve years. This ﬁgure has been stubbornly resistant to change for much longer than a decade and between 2000 and 2007, more than 25,000 people in the UK qualiﬁed as teachers but never taught in a school. There is, of course, a substantial cost attached to this kind of waste and if I was one of those leading providers of teacher training, I would be thinking hard about what it was...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 30 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Localism Down Under</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Localism-Down-Under</link><description><![CDATA[Genuine reform is both dependent and impactful on how citizens understand and engage in governance (or not, as is usual) at whatever level, local, regional and national.  Judging by the Australian experience, there are battles between local communities, developers, agencies and levels of government over what is or should be “local”. The logic for “place setting” was given at length in terms of democracy, economic invigoration and getting the right services delivered to communities...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Conditions to Win: New solutions to save the High Street</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Conditions-to-Win-New-solutions-to-save-the-High-Street</link><description><![CDATA[Tideswell is a large village and feels much like a small town- it is actually comparatively well served for shops, but the trends are clear- in the ‘40s there were about 35 shops in the village, and before we launched our  “Taste Tideswell” initiative, we were down to our last butcher, baker, and greengrocer, plus a post office and convenience store.  The village wanted to reverse that decline and avoid the “tipping point” of losing a specialist retailer for good, with all the knock-on consequences for the rest...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 21 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Compassionate capitalism: A contradiction in terms?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Compassionate-capitalism-A-contradiction-in-terms-</link><description><![CDATA[These people - normal people - are disappointed by tired systems and impersonal structures. But what if a 'compassionate capitalism' is the solution, what does this entail?  This would be a capitalism for communities, the benefits of which are not just restricted to numerical and monetary terms, but focus on the everyday experiences of individuals in their localities, and the power of the markets to contribute to and enrich these.........]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 18 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Euro zone has 6 months to change course or collapse</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Euro-zone-has-6-months-to-change-course-or-collapse</link><description><![CDATA[As the Euro crisis approaches its second year, it is becoming clear that the European liquidity crisis is reaching some kind of conclusion- one way or the other. What seems apparent is that unless the ECB finally accepts its role as lender of last resort (LOLR) by Christmas, the contagion will result in widespread default by sovereign states.  With the political economy of European monetary policy as it is, the German government and the Bundesbank will, de facto, decide outcome of this debacle.  Subsequently, since the European Monetary Union’s (EMU) conception, it has set a monetary policy which maintained low inflation...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 17 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Liberal economics and European politics</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Liberal-economics-and-European-politics</link><description><![CDATA[...It is easy to find a similar dynamic, with the due distinctions of a financial market that is very different from that of the times of Polanyi, in what has happened during the last few days in Europe. The appointment of Mario Monti was dictated by financial markets through the blackmail of the increase of the difference between the yield spread of the Italian BTP and the German BUND; in fact, this difference started to decrease only after Italian President Giorgio Napolitano’s decision to nominate professor Monti as life member of the Senate ...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>A New Vision for Financial Services</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/A-New-Vision-for-Financial-Services</link><description><![CDATA[In my Respublica blog from March this year “Banking on a New Vision”, I asked whether Generation Y was up to the challenge of “charting a new course” for the sector. Having worked with a passionate, talented and ambitious group of colleagues over the last 12 months, I am confident that our Vision will do just that. We were especially delighted that our Vision has been endorsed by TheCityUK’s Board, Advisory Council and a raft of policymakers and industry bodies, as well as being well-received by local and financial media...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>ResPonses to Occupy LSX</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/ResPonses-to-Occupy-LSX</link><description><![CDATA[The LSX protest, now into its fourth week, has transitioned full circle from bearing the sympathy of the Church to splitting the hierarchy of St Paul’s, culminating in two resignations and palpable tension in the Church of England itself and for City workers of all stripes. The ResPublica team has highlighted a few of what we believe to be the most interesting responses to the LSX protest so far...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 10 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Church and the Camp</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Church-and-the-Camp</link><description><![CDATA[...What went wrong, and why? It is not that the church always loses its head in a crisis.  When tested by the recent riots – an event at least as sudden and unexpected as the encampment – the response of the parish churches was remarkable.  The Church of England’s presence and engagement at the local level, very often in the neighbourhoods which suffer most from economic injustice, is deeply inspiring.  Nor is the C of E is some kind of intellectual desert.  It is the home of some highly impressive and engaging theologians.  Many of them, including Archbishop Rowan, have been working for some time on the issues raised by the financial crisis...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 07 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>What is the role of the Church in all of this?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/What-is-the-role-of-the-Church-in-all-of-this-</link><description><![CDATA[...Such transformative action is also not only something that the Church can simply talk about, but crucially something that the Church can do. Becoming partners with community ventures, such as micro-finance initiatives, social enterprises and asset transfers are just a few examples of how this might be achieved. Delivering public services, being a hub for social innovation and a platform for local participation touch upon a few others...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 03 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Solar Debate: Diversifying the energy markets</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Solar-Debate-Diversifying-the-energy-markets</link><description><![CDATA[...Solar is a truly 'disruptive' technology with the potential to turn the energy sector on its head.  REA supports all renewable technologies including offshore wind, wave and tidal.  However, we recognise that many potential new actors in energy like homeowners, and communities, only rarely have the opportunity to invest in these technologies.  Solar however, can work pretty much everywhere for everyone...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 02 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Liturgy of Finance</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Liturgy-of-Finance</link><description><![CDATA[...as initially Maurice Glasman and now George Monbiot have pointed out, certain freewheeling banking practices which helped to cause our current global recession were only made possible by a routing of even American monetary activity through the City of London. This is because it is uniquely independent of the normal scope of national law, while the power of corporate financial bodies over its local self-government was deliberately increased under Tony Blair. Yet far from this representing a survival of medieval corruption into the modern era, as Monbiot implies, it is rather...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Community Franchising: Local innovation for national practice</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Community-Franchising-Local-innovation-for-national-practice</link><description><![CDATA[...At times in history the Church has been pivotal in delivering our country’s social welfare system and, contrastingly, there are other periods when the Church has been woefully disconnected from the needs of our society. Today the country’s 30,000+ local churches are increasingly involved in social action and serving people through thousands of Community Franchise projects...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 24 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The subtle skill of match-making</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-subtle-skill-of-match-making</link><description><![CDATA['Upon the education of the people of this country, the fate of this country depends'. Disraeli's conviction still rings true today, and indeed, resonates loudly in the public ear. The quality of education, the level of graduate skills, the standard of achievement in schools, etc., are all topics of everyday debate and controversy. Indeed, comparing performance of the British sector against international benchmarks is becoming a kind of national obsession commensurate to the passion expressed by Disraeli...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 11 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Firing up the speech-writers, firing up society</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Firing-up-the-speech-writers-firing-up-society</link><description><![CDATA[...You might assume that David Cameron made more mentions of ‘society’ because everyone knows that Margaret Thatcher thought there was no such thing. Except that her 1980 conference speech actually said a great deal about ‘society’ even though she was quoted, seven years later, as declaring that society does not exist. The score is something like a 8-5 victory to Margaret Thatcher....]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 07 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Reforming Immigration Policy</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Reforming-Immigration-Policy</link><description><![CDATA[It is undeniable, especially from where I sit, that the amount of heat generated by immigration debates significantly surpasses the amount of light produced. One reason, I suspect, is that none of the UK think tanks that devote a significant amount of their time to the subject come to it without an existing agenda. Whichever one you agree with, Migration Watch or the IPPR are unlikely to surprise you with their conclusions faced with any particular piece of evidence. The new think tank at Oxford University has not developed the authority of a body like the Institute of Fiscal Studies....]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 07 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Can the Economy Recover with almost 2.5 million people out of Work?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Can-the-Economy-Recover-with-almost-2-5-million-people-out-of-Work-</link><description><![CDATA[...The recession has been tough for everyone and people continue to struggle. Inflation is still above the two per cent mark and is likely to rise to almost five per cent before the end of 2011. In part, those has to do with the VAT increase at the start of the year pushing prices up, but with the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development suggesting that only 25 per cent of workers will get a payrise in 2011, things are likely to stay tough....]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 06 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Supercharging Social Finance</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Supercharging-Social-Finance</link><description><![CDATA[...Policy thinking in this area has focussed, understandably enough, on the ‘supply side’: creating the products to be invested in, and the infrastructure of intermediaries to link investors with those products. But the fruit of these labours could go unrealised unless equal attention is paid to the ‘demand side’: will investors really be eager to dip their toes in the waters of social investment?...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 05 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Skills for better economic outcomes</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Skills-for-better-economic-outcomes</link><description><![CDATA[...Of course there will always be small anomalies in a huge and diverse labour market, but this is taking place on far too large a scale and we have to ask why this is happening and how we can ensure that public and private investment in training actually leads to economically valuable skills....]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 03 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Ageing Time Bomb</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Ageing-Time-Bomb</link><description><![CDATA[As a woman born in 1967 I have a 16% probability of living until I am 100 according to latest research from the Office for National Statistics.  Compare this to my mother, 30 years my senior, whose probability is just 6%.  Whereas 26% of my daughter's peer group, 30 years younger, are likely to see their hundredth birthday.   With each generation, the changing demographic due to ageing compounds the stresses on pension funding....]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sun, 02 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Powering Urban Economies</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Powering-Urban-Economies</link><description><![CDATA[...it can be no accident that we now have a Minister for Decentralisation and Cities, in the shape of the Rt Hon Greg Clark MP.  This is a significant step forward in the recognition of cities as solutions to economic growth, sustainability and social cohesion.  We are on the cusp of change, but also at a moment of real economic need.   There is much to be done and a short time in which to do it if cities are to play their full role in driving economic growth and productivity and rebalancing the economy....]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sun, 02 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Big Society: The Brand vs. the Ideas</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Big-Society-The-Brand-vs-the-Ideas</link><description><![CDATA[...In the short-term the Big Society failed to fill its political purpose – the Tories did not win an overall majority. The longer-term consequences are far more troubling. The emphasis that Cameron placed on the Big Society raised hopes across communities that they were to witness a golden age of localism and community empowerment. Sixteen months on, those hopes have been dashed by the complete failure of Cameron’s Government to live up to his rhetoric.......]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 30 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Big Society and Localism - a Fabian perspective</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Big-Society-and-Localism-a-Fabian-perspective</link><description><![CDATA[The Big Society offers the potential for great social benefit. Yet coupled with an ideological commitment to localism at all costs and the deep public sector cuts, many of the positives are being undone....]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sun, 25 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>How can we localize skills-driven growth strategies?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/How-can-we-localize-skills-driven-growth-strategies</link><description><![CDATA[...In the West Midlands the Local Enterprise Partnerships will be a key vehicle in driving the local skills agenda forward. The Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) comprises the urban core of Birmingham and Solihull, the southern Staffordshire districts of Cannock Chase, Lichfield, Tamworth and East Staffordshire (based on Burton upon Trent), and the northern Worcestershire districts of Redditch, Bromsgrove and Wyre Forest (based on Kidderminster). As a Core City LEP, with a population of 1.9m and a GVA of over £35bn (one third of the West Midlands total), the LEP has a particularly crucial role as an engine of growth both for Midlands and for...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 22 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Homelessness Services:  Empowering the community in our midst </title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Homelessness-Services-Empowering-the-community-in-our-midst-</link><description><![CDATA[In the first half to 2011 St Mungo’s carried out a piece of research looking at the Big Society and homelessness and what challenges and opportunities it presented for homeless people. What we found was widespread anxiety about the future of funding, concerns about some Government policies and an uncertainty about what localism would bring.......]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 21 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Local initiatives, local economies</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Local-initiatives-local-economies</link><description><![CDATA[The present state of the economy was going to be the main challenge for any government, of whatever political persuasion, and the same applies from a micro perspective to each and every constituency in the UK. My view is, a key priority for an MP should be to focus on the local economy and jobs then most of the other priorities will improve as they follow in the slip stream.......]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 19 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Responsive services for empowered communities</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Responsive-services-for-empowered-communities</link><description><![CDATA[...Quite apart from resulting in services that don’t necessarily address the needs of a community, or a range of different agencies duplicating each other’s efforts, the paternalistic, ‘take it or leave it’ approach has had another devastating effect, framing communities and individuals as passive recipients rather than active shapers of services..........]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sun, 18 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>From Buttonwood to Vickers and Back Again</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/From-Buttonwood-to-Vickers-and-Back-Again</link><description><![CDATA[This is a chapter from ResPublica's collection of essays, entitled "Changing the Debate: The Ideas Redefining Britain". Throughout summer and autumn 2011, ResPublica will be publishing chapters from the collection on The Disraeli Room blog, encouraging other thinkers, politicians and members of the public to join the debate and contribute to the development of ideas...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 15 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The year the future started to fight back</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-year-the-future-started-to-fight-back</link><description><![CDATA[This is a chapter from ResPublica's collection of essays, entitled "Changing the Debate: The Ideas Redefining Britain". Throughout summer and autumn 2011, ResPublica will be publishing chapters from the collection on The Disraeli Room blog, encouraging other thinkers, politicians and members of the public to join the debate and contribute to the development of ideas......]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 12 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Learning from 9/11</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Learning-from-9-11</link><description><![CDATA[Instead of only asking one another where we were ten years ago, when Al-Qaeda attacked the USA, it is worth pondering the deeper question put by Archbishop Rowan Williams: ‘After the 11th, what are we prepared to learn?’......]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sat, 10 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Why Ten Years on Britain is Less Secure</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Why-Ten-Years-on-Britain-is-Less-Secure</link><description><![CDATA[It has been a bruising decade for Britain.  If on 10 September, 2001 an analyst had suggested that within months British forces would be fighting on the ground in Afghanistan, let alone in Iraq less than two years later credentials would have been questioned.  911 quite simply changed all the planning assumptions upon which British security and defence policy was established....]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 09 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Coalition and the Environment</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Coalition-and-the-Environment</link><description><![CDATA[This is a chapter from ResPublica's collection of essays, entitled "Changing the Debate: The Ideas Redefining Britain". Throughout summer and autumn 2011, ResPublica will be publishing chapters from the collection on The Disraeli Room blog, encouraging other thinkers, politicians and members of the public to join the debate and contribute to the development of ideas...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 07 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>A crossroads in UK regeneration policy</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/A-crossroads-in-UK-regeneration-policy</link><description><![CDATA[Government ministers, it would appear, have been a little spooked by opposition to their plans to simplify the planning system. This week communities secretary Eric Pickles and Chancellor George Osborne took the trouble to rebut their critics in the pages of the Financial Times.

Their worry is the growing fear, particularly in southeast England, that the enticingly-named National Planning Policy Framework will be a developers’ charter, removing local people’s rights to challenge speculative housebuilding and encroachment on the green belt. At the same time the angst in the planning profession is that the government’s neighbourhood planning...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 06 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The future of localism must be economic</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-future-of-localism-must-be-economic</link><description><![CDATA[This is a chapter from ResPublica's collection of essays, entitled "Changing the Debate: The Ideas Redefining Britain". Throughout July and August 2011, ResPublica will be publishing chapters from the collection on The Disraeli Room blog, encouraging other thinkers, politicians and members of the public to join the debate and contribute to the development of ideas....]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 02 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Innovation, Innovation , Innovation</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Innovation-Innovation-Innovation</link><description><![CDATA[This is a chapter from ResPublica's collection of essays, entitled "Changing the Debate: The Ideas Redefining Britain". Throughout July and August 2011, ResPublica will be publishing chapters from the collection on The Disraeli Room blog, encouraging other thinkers, politicians and members of the public to join the debate and contribute to the development of ideas....]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 30 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Changing lives by changing life chances </title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Changing-lives-by-changing-life-chances-</link><description><![CDATA[This is a chapter from ResPublica's collection of essays, entitled "Changing the Debate: The Ideas Redefining Britain". Throughout July and August 2011, ResPublica will be publishing chapters from the collection on The Disraeli Room blog, encouraging other thinkers, politicians and members of the public to join the debate and contribute to the development of ideas....]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 24 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Libya: Implementing the Peace</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Libya-Implementing-the-Peace</link><description><![CDATA[...Things move quickly when a regime cracks, and with the former rebels now suddenly controlling four-fifths of Tripoli, the immediate end-game is afoot. For a short time celebrations can be permitted. However, the real work starts now and experience from Afghanistan and Iraq suggest planning for the peace will not be easy......]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 23 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Naples 2.0 – Changing the headlines</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Naples-2-0-–-Changing-the-headlines</link><description><![CDATA[...Ironically enough ‘big society’ has emerged: community services are provided by an organisation outside of the public and private realm. But this one is hardly what David Cameron has in mind! The unfortunate developments in Naples have created the dark big society, one operating in the shadow of legality through the suppression of its people.......]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 22 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Our clash of civilizations: hoods vs. brooms</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Our-clash-of-civilizations-hoods-vs-brooms</link><description><![CDATA[...It was a clash of civilizations between people divided not by different cultural roots as the political scientist Huntington predicted, but by values. It was a clash of visions: the rule of the jungle vs. the community values. Hoods vs. brooms.

This is not a class struggle. I can’t forget the line of the banker Gordon Gekko ‘Greed is good’ in the film Wall Street. Aren’t these the ethical standards of the celebrity culture, bank bonuses, Parliamentary expenses and News of World?......]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 19 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Community ‘rights’ need to help people deliver the great neighbourhoods they want</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Community-‘rights’-need-to-help-people-deliver-the-great-neighbourhoods-they-want</link><description><![CDATA[The rights-based approach taken by the Coalition in promoting aspects of the localism agenda is a powerful rhetorical tool. The granting of a new ‘right’ is cast as a benevolent act from Government and lends the exercise an air of permanence: once given, it is difficult to take a right away without a fight. However, to be credible in the longer term, these rights have to help communities deliver on their own priorities....]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 18 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>ResPonses to the Riots</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/ResPonses-to-the-Riots</link><description><![CDATA[Yesterday, David Cameron made clear that the broken society analysis is “back at the top of my political agenda”. But what have others diagnosed as the source of this upheaval, and what can we do to fix it? The ResPublica team has highlighted a few of what we believe to be the best responses to the riots so far....]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 16 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>A New Moral World: The lost “socialism”</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/A-New-Moral-World-The-lost-“socialism”</link><description><![CDATA[This is a chapter from ResPublica's collection of essays, entitled "Changing the Debate: The Ideas Redefining Britain". Throughout July and August 2011, ResPublica will be publishing chapters from the collection on The Disraeli Room blog, encouraging other thinkers, politicians and members of the public to join the debate and contribute to the development of ideas....]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 16 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Riot and Response: England's violent August</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Riot-and-Response-England-s-violent-August</link><description><![CDATA[The response to the recent wave of riots in English cities has exposed the ethical bankruptcy of both liberal left and neo-liberal right in English culture... In the case of the left, a latent callousness and authoritarianism has been laid bare. Many London liberals were quick to call for draconian police responses once they were given the impression - in part by exaggeration in the "quality" media - that their own civic precincts might be under threat....]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 15 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Tough love: The riots and the limits of Liberalism</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Tough-love-The-riots-and-the-limits-of-Liberalism</link><description><![CDATA[These riots happened for one overwhelming reason. The police lost control of the streets on Sunday and suddenly lots of bored kids saw an opportunity to create mayhem with a very low likelihood of being caught. Law and order, like paper money, is a sort of confidence trick. ...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 12 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Well-Being and Action for Happiness</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Well-Being-and-Action-for-Happiness</link><description><![CDATA[This is a chapter from ResPublica's collection of essays, entitled "Changing the Debate: The Ideas Redefining Britain". Throughout July and August 2011, ResPublica will be publishing chapters from the collection on The Disraeli Room blog, encouraging other thinkers, politicians and members of the public to join the debate and contribute to the development of ideas....]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 11 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>If a little Big Society does not work, try tons</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/If-a-little-Big-Society-does-not-work-try-tons</link><description><![CDATA[It is timely to recall not only Parliament but also some words about riots from David Cameron in 2009 and Boris Johnson in 2006.
In the summer of 2009, David Cameron warned that there would be trouble if Gordon Brown were to win an election through pretending that there was no need for reductions in public spending but then had to make cuts: ‘That would be the worst of it: you go into an election pretending you are not going to have to make spending reductions, then you have to make them, and then you really do have riots on the streets because people do not have faith in their politicians.’...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 10 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Character, Civic Virtue and the Big Society</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Character-Civic-Virtue-and-the-Big-Society</link><description><![CDATA[This is a chapter from ResPublica's collection of essays, entitled "Changing the Debate: The Ideas Redefining Britain". Throughout July and August 2011, ResPublica will be publishing chapters from the collection on The Disraeli Room blog, encouraging other thinkers, politicians and members of the public to join the debate and contribute to the development of ideas....]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 02 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Co-operative or not?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Co-operative-or-not?-dpfe</link><description><![CDATA[This is a chapter from ResPublica's collection of essays, entitled "Changing the Debate: The Ideas Redefining Britain".
Throughout July and August 2011, ResPublica will be publishing chapters from the collection on The Disraeli Room blog, encouraging other thinkers, politicians and members of the public to join the debate and contribute to the development of ideas....]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 28 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>A Turning Point</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/A-Turning-Point</link><description><![CDATA[This is the opening chapter from ResPublica's collection of essays, entitled "Changing the Debate: The Ideas Redefining Britain".

Throughout July and August 2011, ResPublica will be publishing chapters from the collection on The Disraeli Room blog, encouraging other thinkers, politicians and members of the public to join the debate and contribute to the development of ideas....]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 26 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>A New Political Settlement</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Changing-the-Debate-The-Ideas-Redefining-Britain-ufqo</link><description><![CDATA[This is the foreword from ResPublica's collection of essays, entitled "Changing the Debate: The Ideas Redefining Britain".
Throughout July and August 2011, ResPublica will be publishing chapters from the collection on The Disraeli Room blog, encouraging other thinkers, politicians and members of the public to join the debate and contribute to the development of ideas....]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 21 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Generation Y can energise the Big Society</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Generation-Y-can-energise-the-Big-Society</link><description><![CDATA[In his keynote speech on the Big Society last month, David Cameron declared that "Alongside the task of building a dynamic economy...we must build a bigger, stronger society". For him, “the Big Society is not some fluffy add-on to more gritty and more important subjects. [The Big Society] is about as gritty and important as it gets – giving everyone the chance to get on in life and make our country a better place to live". One key group that can help the PM deliver on that mission is Generation Y's young professionals. Their energy, ideas, skills and optimism are key to delivering the government's flagship vision for a Big Society. Charities,...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 18 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Media Hacking Crisis: Much Worse Than You Think</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Media-Hacking-Crisis-Much-Worse-Than-You-Think</link><description><![CDATA[The investigation into the ‘hacking scandal’ at News International is far more serious for the media as a whole than most commentators believe. It is not just mobile phone hacking of a few celebrities by a couple of NI journalists. The seriousness of the situation should now be obvious to all but the most obtuse media hack following the House of Commons unprecedented resolution requiring News Corp to withdraw the BSkyB bid. Even this unprecedented event does not capture the scale of the damage that is about to be inflicted on the press. It is not just the hacking of mobile phones (itself a criminal offence) but also obstruction and perversion...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 13 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Big Society's saving grace</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Big-Society-s-saving-grace-soau</link><description><![CDATA[ResPublica recently hosted a talk by Robert Putnam, the Harvard 
professor who is author of Bowling Alone and now co-author, with David Campbell of the University of Notre Dame, of American Grace. American Grace, describes the impact that going to church, synagogue, mosque or temple has on society....]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 12 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Who puts the ‘community’ in community ownership?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Who-puts-the-community-in-community-ownership-kxkj</link><description><![CDATA[‘The decision by a community-based organisation to take over the management of a building is a declaration of hope that the future can be better than the past. That hope can spread throughout the neighbourhood and community. The building and activities that take place within in it become a focus for local energy and the building becomes the practical vehicle through which a vision of a better future can be achieved’. ...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 24 Jun 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Rights for Retailers large and small</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Rights-for-Retailers-large-and-small-pryo</link><description><![CDATA[Pressure on high streets is nothing new; it’s been there for more than 20 years.  Traditional high streets have increasingly been faced with competition from two alternative retail formats.  The first of these is out of town shopping.  Between 1986 and 1997 the number of out of town shopping destinations increased four-fold, with average spend significantly larger out of town than in town.  The second source of increasing competition has been the growth of the internet, where sales will reach 10% by 2013.  These developments will carry on into the future, they are customer driven and will not disappear....]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 20 Jun 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>There’s social capital in them there hills!</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/There’s-social-capital-in-them-there-hills!-ilgd</link><description><![CDATA[A recent National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA) claims that ‘nature is worth billions’ in terms of the social and cultural benefits and savings that it can provide. This is nothing new. Notions of the beneficial effects of green space, nature and trees have persisted throughout history....]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 02 Jun 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Should we be regulating commodities markets?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Should-we-be-regulating-commodities-markets</link><description><![CDATA[Over the last year we have seen a sudden huge increase in food prices across the world, nearly reaching the levels recorded during the 2008 food crisis, which lead to the number of chronically malnourished people in the world rising by nearly 115 million according to the World Food Programme. The price of basic crops like wheat and maize has increased by over 70% in the last year alone.This sudden spike has been accompanied by a steady rise in the price of basic foods over the last decade. Climate change, increased use of biofuels and a falling dollar are often cited as factors that contribut...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 27 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>A competitive disadvantage? </title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/A-competitive-disadvantage</link><description><![CDATA[It appears that the same assumption underpins the government's approach to higher education reform and the NHS overhaul. The supposition in question is that introducing competition into the sectors will plunge prices down and drive standards up. This approach has proven unpopular with the public. However, whereas the vehement public opposition led to a 'slow down' in the NHS restructuring, it looks like the re-organisation of higher education is going ahead unhindered. Indeed, the delay to the higher education White Paper has much more to do with the lack of money needed to cover upfront tuition fees charged at the maximum of £9000 than with ...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 24 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The View from beyond the polling station</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-View-from-beyond-the-polling-station</link><description><![CDATA[I vaguely remember my first visit to the polling station: stroll in, tick a box, stroll out. But on exiting the booth, I distinctly remember thinking, ‘Is that it? Is that what we call democracy? One vote amongst the sea of others’ opinions?’ Common sense told me that no, this is of course not the be all and end all of my democratic participation, but it has since left me wondering whether such ‘common sense’ is adhered to in all political cases. Despite the Government’s renewed efforts to cultivate a more participative democracy, I fear that we will be stuck within the ‘managerial’ and market-based paradigm for some time. ...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 12 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Something is seriously right with Britain</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Something-is-seriously-right-with-Britain-qipc</link><description><![CDATA[Something is seriously right with Britain. That has been the reaction of such a wide range of people, at home and abroad, to the royal wedding, that it is worthwhile reflecting on the significance of the modern monarchy for our ancient kingdom. To annotate that opening, Red Tory begins with the words, ‘Something is seriously wrong with Britain.’ Quite so....]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 05 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>What problems will AV solve? Canadian election update</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/What-problems-will-AV-solve-Canadian-election-update</link><description><![CDATA[Writing last week on today’s AV referendum, I argued that:It’s easy to imagine a scenario in which AV would be pragmatic – all you have to do is look at Canada. As one of the many Commonwealth countries to have adopted the Westminster voting system, Canada is a great case study of its more problematic features. Next month, Canada will hold its fourth general election in seven years (four general elections ago in the UK, Tony Blair came to power). Worse still, the most recent polling suggests that this election will return an almost identical res...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 05 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Tradition is the anchor of royal succession</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Tradition-is-the-anchor-of-royal-succession-ijjf</link><description><![CDATA[‘This respect for Precedent, this clinging to Prescription, this reverence for Antiquity, which are so often ridiculed by conceited and superficial minds, and move the especial contempt of the gentlemen who admire abstract principles, appear to me to have their origin in a profound knowledge of human nature, and in a fine observation of public affairs, and satisfactorily to account for the permanent character of our liberties.’ ~ Benjamin DisraeliThe Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton has inevitably raised the question of the succession; the marriage of two young people, with fresh aspiratio...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 04 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>AV is not a necessary reform</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/AV-is-not-a-necessary-reform</link><description><![CDATA[Up until now I have been strongly in the “Meh to AV” camp. Us Meh to AVers are looking forward to Saturday 7 May as it will be the day when the initials AV once more will only have significance to those who want to place a bet on Aston Villa FC. It will be great for politicians to get back to the important stuff such as fixing the economy, ensuring social justice and opening up the state. Every time an MP started talking about the merits or otherwise of AV I winced at the wasted opportunity to talk about something meaningful....]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 03 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Three good reasons to support a change to AV</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Three-good-reasons-to-support-a-change-to-AV</link><description><![CDATA[Any voting system is fundamentally a way of combining a lot of individual choices about who should be elected into one single group decision. As such the quality of an election result depends both on the system used and on the choices people make. Under our current system voters tend to make choices in one of two ways: positively, where they pick the candidate they like the most, or negatively, where they eliminate possible candidates, either because they dislike them or because they believe they could not possibly win and vote for whoever is left. ...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sat, 30 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Three bad reasons to support a change to AV</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Three-bad-reasons-to-support-a-change-to-AV</link><description><![CDATA[Apparently, at least according to No2AV, I do not exist. Why? Because I am a long standing supporter of the Alternative Vote method of holding elections, end of. Nick Clegg may have called AV a ‘miserable little compromise’ but he also said he would vote against raising tuition fees. For me AV is, and always has been, the best method for holding elections and it is the right system for the UK.Like most supporters of AV I first became aware of the system whilst at university where it was the dominant method for holding elections for clubs and societies. ...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 28 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Why Conservatives should support AV</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Why-Conservatives-should-support-AV</link><description><![CDATA[As a Conservative Party activist, I support the Alternative Voting system (AV). This, it is safe to say, is fairly unusual.One of the biggest problems our country faces is our broken political system. Even prior to the expenses scandal most people had lost trust in our political system, realising that the views of most people are not listened to. Many things can be changed to improve this situation such as a big devolution of power to local communities, regular Swiss style referendums and the introduction of open primaries for the incumbent party in all constituencies. ...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 27 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>What problems will AV solve in the UK?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/What-problems-will-AV-solve-in-the-UK</link><description><![CDATA[This week I’ve asked a number of our regular contributors to weigh in on the Alternative Vote, “the referendum that no one wants”, debated by wonks, decided by Celts and amounting to a sort of high-stakes, low-interest confidence dual between the Coalition party leaders. The bizarre outcome of this situation has been a choreographed series of Cabinet-level “outbursts,” with third party Labour calling for electoral reform - which would severely weaken their long-term electoral interests, but which they must suspect will never be passed or i...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 26 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>An economy for the three Fs</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/An-economy-for-the-three-Fs</link><description><![CDATA[Over the past month, the Blue Labour project has surfaced in the public (or at least political) consciousness, mainstreamed by Ed Miliband’s push to make Labour the party of “family, faith and flag.” ...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 13 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Can localism save Britain's small retailers?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Can-localism-save-Britain's-small-retailers</link><description><![CDATA[It’s incredibly exciting to be – at the time of writing – at the heart of a Twitter war between two modern Tory icons. Guido Fawkes is slating the ResPublica report The Right to Retail, while ResPublica’s founder and “Red Tory” Phillip Blond is, fairly obviously, fighting back and defending it.Some of the discussion seems to be about who paid for the report, and I can confirm that we did. ...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 12 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Big Society: The view from South Africa</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Big-Society-The-view-from-South-Africa</link><description><![CDATA["... These problems are cyclically either symptoms or causes of a disconnected liberalism that inextricably connects the individual whim with dehumanised, bureaucratic big-government. And so, if nothing else, South Africa is the atomised society par excellence ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The rules of engagement for compassionate conservatives</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-rules-of-engagement-for-compassionate-conservatives</link><description><![CDATA["... We should learn from the failures of neo-conservatism ... If there isn't an armed insurrection in the country to support then we should not get involved. It is one thing to help grassroots movements to grow, but it is entirely different to invade a country using ground troops and impose democracy ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 29 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Power down: why true empowerment is double-sided</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Power-down-why-true-empowerment-is-double-sided</link><description><![CDATA["... Where Labour mostly failed to really give power (away), the coalition government risks failing on the other side of the empowerment question: infrastructure and support to equip people with the ability and capacity to utilise that power effectively ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 25 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Potholes in the budget</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Potholes-in-the-budget</link><description><![CDATA["... In terms of decision-making, I think we need to distinguish between two different types of problem.  The first are mass-micro problems. The second are macro problems.  Unfortunately, these two get conflated, leading to attempts to solve both at a macro level ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 24 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Can the budget help the public sector 'do' mutuals?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Can-the-budget-help-the-public-sector-do-mutuals</link><description><![CDATA["... The unspoken truth here - which is beginning to crystallise as the test of this government’s ambitions for mutual solutions - is that the standard levers available to those responsible for delivery probably won’t lead to the creation of mutuals. Keeping services or assets in house certainly won’t and going out to the market, well, unsurprisingly, means the market will decide. So how do you 'do' the mutual option? Where’s the lever? ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 22 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Time for a co-operative budget?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Time-for-a-co-operative-budget</link><description><![CDATA["... I would make it as easy to start a co-operative as any other form of business. There is an energetic renewal in the co-operative sector, with 4,992 co-operative businesses, £33.5 billion turnover and 12.9 million members. But there is an opportunity to do far more still ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 21 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Will Scouting survive?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Will-Scouting-survive</link><description><![CDATA["... Town Halls seem to have decided that raising the rent paid by local Scout Groups is a sensible way to address their budget problems. A survey that we conducted has revealed some truly shocking rises – with some groups facing rent rises of over £5,000 ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 18 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Church, the Census and the Big Society</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Church-the-Census-and-the-Big-Society</link><description><![CDATA["... The issue is one of ‘toleration’ and inclusivity – principles that must of course guide the Big Society at every moment. The BHA mistakenly assumes that the disproportionate representation of religious belief in public institutions and initiatives creates a site for exclusion and privilege, rather than one of fairness and toleration. They are here approaching the concern as if dealing with a ‘market of beliefs’, in which the most popular belief system goes on to win the public purse. But markets don’t often capture value: only the results of choice ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 17 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Big Society: The view from Dover</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Big-Society-The-view-from-Dover</link><description><![CDATA["... This community organisation is now fully fledged and has pledged itself to benefit the people and communities of Dover. It is owned by its membership and anyone in the district may become a member by buying a “Dovorian Bond” for £10. It has received backing from financial institutions to raise the money needed to pay a fair market value for the port of Dover and bring it, in perpetuity, into the ownership of the communities of Dover ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 14 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Shoplifting new ideas for transport</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Shoplifting-new-ideas-for-transport</link><description><![CDATA["... What about looking for inspiration from supermarkets and online retail stores? They have huge ‘demand management’ expertise. In particular, they completely understand their customers: they use loyalty cards, incentives and offers to encourage customers to let them have data about their lifestyles via their shopping habits and preferences ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 11 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Where have all the owners gone?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Where-have-all-the-owners-gone</link><description><![CDATA["... What does our economy look like now? There are hardly any owners. Capitalism has been good at producing capital and lousy at producing capitalists ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 09 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>All. Together. Now.</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/All-Together-Now</link><description><![CDATA["... All of these are examples of the power of collective action, the principle that together, we can achieve more. Of course, when discussing the impact of the internet on civil society, it is important to remember Amana's Law: We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 07 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Allegory and effects of good and bad services</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Allegory-and-effects-of-good-and-bad-services</link><description><![CDATA["... The recent welfare reform proposals include an announcement that people who fail to report a change in circumstances (which affects their benefit claim) will be fined £50. It is a shockingly statist policy, bullying the weak. It is entirely of the wrong philosophical direction ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 04 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Homo economicus in the Big Society </title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Homo-economicus-in-the-Big-Society-</link><description><![CDATA["... The Big Society is part of the attempt by Cameron to place social values into the centre of Conservative doctrine after decades of focus on economic individualism ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 03 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Trust matters</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Trust-matters</link><description><![CDATA["... People are happier when they live, work and play among others whom they trust. When social time and trust are higher, positive emotions become more frequent, and negative ones less likely ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Children and social capital: the end of the state as co-parent</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Children-and-social-capital-the-end-of-the-state-as-co-parent</link><description><![CDATA["... The state can no longer deliver its role as co-parent alongside the primary carer at this time of economic decline. And worse, with economic decline comes an increased birth rate and increased deprivation among children. Either mothers are going to be subjected to even more unbearable pressures, or we are going to have to find another way forward ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 28 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Wasted energy</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Wasted-energy</link><description><![CDATA["... The 8.5m tonnes of food wasted in the UK annually is one feature of what Julie Hill, in her book The Secret Life of Stuff, defines as a “linear economy” - an economy in which resources are extracted, used to produce, consumed and turned into waste. Arthur’s response is amazingly simple – to cook and sell the produce that would have been thrown away ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 28 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The new economics: “It’s the mechanism, stupid”</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-new-economics-Its-the-mechanism-stupid</link><description><![CDATA["... The Haldane-May ecological analogy does not actually tell us much about the mechanism by which instability spreads across the system. We believe that a more useful conceptual framework for the sudden collapse of the financial system is one that draws on the physical sciences to look at the correlated nature of networks ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 25 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Superblog 3000</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Superblog-3000</link><description><![CDATA[This is a test blog, here is some content:ou can put Hogtown back in the pen. Return T.O. to your alphabet soup. Store the T-Dot wherever it is you keep your Hammer pants.Toronto has a new nickname. But first, let's meet the panel of celebrity judges who presided over this historic ceremony:Russell Peters: The Toronto-born comic was the first comedian to sell out the Air Canada CentreEmily Haines: Lead singer of MetricJohn Tory: CFRB radio host, head of CivicAction and the mayor we never had Matt Galloway: Host of CBC Radio’s Metro MorningJen McNeely: Editor and founder of city blog She Does the City Michael Cooke: Editor-in-Chief of the Toro...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 25 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>What the Coalition can learn from the inter-war Conservative Party</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/What-the-Coalition-can-learn-from-the-inter-war-Conservative-Party</link><description><![CDATA["... The experience of the National Government also highlights what can be achieved through coalition politics. Far from being weak and being forced to act based on the lowest common denominator, the national government was highly successful ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 24 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>'Delivering' the Big Society</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Delivering-the-Big-Society</link><description><![CDATA["... There is something both deeply revealing and depressingly wrong about the language here. It may sound insignificant, but it’s the lingo of Whitehall and Westminster, the discourse of top-down government that assumes policy initiatives will be initiated within the usual circles of power and influence and systematically ‘delivered’ to the likes of you and me ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 23 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Slow down, U-turn ahead</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Slow-down-U-turn-ahead</link><description><![CDATA["... Forest privitisation. Price competition in the NHS. NHS Direct. Free milk. Housing benefits. The 1922 Committee.  Anonymity for men accused of rape. School sports. Debt advice funding. A google search of UK news for the past month alone turns up 2500 articles that use the word “U-turn” ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 22 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Is it time for a Slow Sex movement in Britain?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Is-it-time-for-a-Slow-Sex-movement-in-Britain</link><description><![CDATA["... 5 people living together use, on average, less electricity and gas than 2 people do living alone, whilst their water use and waste production are the same as three single person households. Naturally people also take up less land when they live together ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 21 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Beyond AV, Part 2: Proportional votes in the Commons</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Beyond-AV-Part-2-Proportional-votes-in-the-Commons</link><description><![CDATA["... The differences between MPs’/parties’ weighted votes would always have the virtue of exactly reflecting the preferences of all voters ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sun, 20 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Beyond AV: A proposal for Associative Proportional Representation</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Beyond-AV-A-proposal-for-Associative-Proportional-Representation</link><description><![CDATA["... APR is an advanced form of the single transferable vote system (STV) currently favoured by most reformers (such as the Electoral Reform Society).  However, contrary to the common but mistaken received wisdom about PR systems, APR shows how a completely proportional system can contain single member constituencies at the same time as not wasting any votes ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sat, 19 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title> The Big Society's biggest problem</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/-The-Big-Societys-biggest-problem</link><description><![CDATA["... Seven Sisters Market - or the umbrella group trying to save it, the Wards Corner Community Coalition - doesn’t need a community organiser. They already hold regular meetings. They’ve already submitted a plan for a community-led regeneration of the site, and they’ve already fought off one proposal to destroy their market. What they need is a council that listens to them ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 16 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Reeves Plan</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Reeves-Plan</link><description><![CDATA["... The reason for my concern is that the wholesale adoption of Clegg Liberalism has meant that the Liberal Democrats have been less of a force in moderating this Government’s ideological individualism than the One Nation Tories were on Thatcher, or indeed are on Osborne ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 15 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>One year on: Provocative little platoons</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/One-year-on-Provocative-little-platoons</link><description><![CDATA["... In the coming weeks from here, we will be updating the look and structure of our site, in a way which hopefully will open it up to even more participation and engagement. In the meantime, we will be kicking off a series of “One year on” posts – looking back at posts on their one year anniversaries and asking authors to re-visit their arguments in light of the enormous changes of the past year ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 15 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Saving the Big Society requires a short term focus</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Saving-the-Big-Society-requires-a-short-term-focus</link><description><![CDATA["... Entering the lair of the Big Society’s most vocal enemies, the Observer, Cameron fought them off argument by argument, and so the Big Society was saved to see another news cycle ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>A bloodbath for the voluntary sector?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/A-bloodbath-for-the-voluntary-sector</link><description><![CDATA["... I think many fantastic organisations will cease to exist and many deeply committed and talented staff will lose their jobs. Even if, as I want to believe, Big Society and Localism do create new opportunities for us, they are still some way off ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 10 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Micro-entrepreneurialism</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Micro-entrepreneurialism</link><description><![CDATA["... This kind of behaviour is my no means new, this sort of ‘trading’ has gone on for time immemorial between families, friends and communities - institutions which have suffered with the onset of modernity, but which are re-emerging, facilitated by behaviours like collaborative consumption ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 09 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Safe in our hands?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Safe-in-our-hands</link><description><![CDATA["... These are far reaching changes that are only now attracting attention, so much so that questions are being asked as to whether the Coalition even has a mandate for them. So what do these reforms mean for investment in healthcare? ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 08 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Cameron on Islam, liberalism and multiculturalism: a brief comment</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Cameron-on-Islam-liberalism-and-multiculturalism-a-brief-comment</link><description><![CDATA["... Here, it seems to me, ‘multiculturalism’ lacks clarity as a term and thereby sows argumentative confusion.  In essence, Cameron is saying that tolerance of many cultures, as the core approach of the recent past is wrong, because any society and any state requires a strong element of core culture and shared values if it is to function at all. In this he is correct ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 07 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>What defines the 'new economics'?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/What-defines-the-new-economics</link><description><![CDATA["... Thoughts are very welcome from everyone.  Perhaps if we feel the term 'new economics' is already associated with a particular definition, we could co-create a new term.  Either way, I'd be happy to lead a new Wiki entry if there is some form of consensus ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sat, 05 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>We are (not yet) all in this together</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/We-are-not-yet-all-in-this-together</link><description><![CDATA["... The costs to the UK taxpayer and economy of propping up the banks have been colossal. Directly, the bailout cost the UK taxpayer the equivalent of more than £20,000 each. Indirectly, UK economic output fell by 27% or £497bn as a result of the “systemic crisis”, according to the International Monetary Fund ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 03 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Big Society 2.0</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Big-Society-20</link><description><![CDATA["... Initiatives like Lambeth's Co-operative Council, emerging plans around housing in Rochdale, and indeed Barnet Council' plans to transfer allotments to local communities, have overtaken, and represent significantly more radical Big Society initiatives than those emerging from the early, Government supported, pathfinders ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 03 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Do we still need the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Do-we-still-need-the-butcher-the-baker-and-the-candlestick-maker</link><description><![CDATA["... Although not devoid of merit, the pursuit of building a predominantly knowledge-based economy over the last 20 years has failed to deliver the anticipated benefits of a stronger, more competitive and sustainable economy ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Making life live</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Making-life-live</link><description><![CDATA["... When debating UK security policy it is easy to forget about the most important change that has occurred in modern times and particularly since the end of the cold war - the move from ‘Geopolitics’ to ‘Biopolitics’  ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 31 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The credibility gap</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-credibility-gap</link><description><![CDATA["... This is a brave and fundamental shift across the political machinery of the Left – from the very top to the very local. Where the easy route would be to focus on negative campaigning against the deeply unpopular Coalition cuts, instead Labour has boldly embraced the idea of a new civic settlement propagated by their political opponents ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sun, 30 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The silence of civil society</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-silence-of-civil-society</link><description><![CDATA["... Be you a charitable beneficiary, a community group administrator, a neighbour, a community member, a human rights campaigner, a left-wing battler whose raison d'etre is fighting poverty, or a right-wing crusader who believes we can do better than rely solely on the state, or simply an observer interested in the progressive advancement of the commonweal - you all have an interest in seeing the Big Society campaign succeed, and yet there is a deafening silence from you ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 27 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Oxbridge: The ‘old school tie’ network is dead</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Oxbridge-The-old-school-tie-network-is-dead</link><description><![CDATA["... Although it is true that private school applicants continue to account for roughly 50% of the undergraduate body at Oxbridge, despite the fact that only 7% of pupils in this country are privately educated, the statistics do not tell the whole story. The truth is that the sound and fury surrounding the admissions process really does signify nothing: the vast majority of dons do their utmost to admit the most able candidates, irrespective of class, race or gender ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 26 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Big Society will only get bigger</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Big-Society-will-only-get-bigger-qtin</link><description><![CDATA["... The Big Society is here to stay. And this signals a far more profound shift in British politics than is commonly recognised  ..."   ...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 26 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>How can government encourage more people to do more</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/How_can_government_encourage_more_people_to_do_more</link><description><![CDATA[This article is part of a special series on the Big Society...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 25 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>How can government encourage more people to do more?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/How-can-government-encourage-more-people-to-do-more</link><description><![CDATA["... Although a solid majority of people (57%) could be categorised as ‘community participants’, attending events or helping out, a minority of 1 in 5 (21%) are ‘community organisers’ who really make things happen. These people, while spread across the population, are most likely to be middle-aged, middle-class women working part time ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 25 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Anticipating the ‘Unanticipated Gains’</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Anticipating-the-Unanticipated-Gains</link><description><![CDATA["... Policymakers have traditionally sought to build social capital as a separate and distinct activity, often by setting up ‘active groups with active members’, rather than organising broader delivery approaches to stimulate their natural development. Social capital is conceived as something that can be inserted and sprayed on ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 24 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Recycling nudges</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Recycling-nudges</link><description><![CDATA["... Positive interventions, otherwise known as incentives or nudges, are in vogue, if you didn’t already know. Behavioural and financial incentives are the way to change people’s behaviour in a market economy. But what examples of successful incentives are there for recycling? ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sat, 22 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Befriending works: Building resilience in local communities</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Befriending-works-Building-resilience-in-local-communities</link><description><![CDATA[A new report from the Mentoring and Befriending Foundation (MBF) recommends ‘befriending’ as an effective intervention to support people with complex health and social care needs...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 21 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Taking ownership public</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Taking-ownership-public</link><description><![CDATA["...  In reality, the debate surrounding the transfer of assets out of the public sector is dominated by fear and scepticism. The public is sceptical of the government’s intentions and civil society is fearful of the implications for their own organisations ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 20 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>There is more to a Liberal Democrat than a chameleon in a hat!</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/There-is-more-to-a-Liberal-Democrat-than-a-chameleon-in-a-hat</link><description><![CDATA["... Reading many comments about the Lib Dems since the election, it seems to me that public opinion about us could be summed up in the phrase ‘chameleons in silly hats’, and this is a view I think needs challenging ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 19 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Britain's missing Mittelstand</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Britains-missing-Mittelstand</link><description><![CDATA["... Britain is lacking in the world class sub-layer of SMEs, our equivalent of Germany's Mittelstand or the Japanese chuken kigyo, who though individually small, form the backbone of industrial value-add and exports ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 18 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Banking on a new vision</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Banking-on-a-new-vision</link><description><![CDATA["... A new vision for the financial services industry should retain the UK's hard-earned reputation for excellence, innovation and ambition. But Generation Y demands more: an industry that it – and the rest of the UK – can be proud of ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 17 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Violence and the state in America</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Violence-and-the-state-in-America</link><description><![CDATA["... The truth of it is, violence in US politics was substantial before mass media. Check out the men in powdered wigs. Jefferson’s party accused its opposition of treason; the opposition accused Jefferson of planning to bring in the guillotine. Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr settled their political disputes in a fatal duel. America’s first assassination attempt, against Andrew Jackson (1835), needed no mass media; nor did the regular appearances of pistols in Congress. This, in a day when media didn’t fuel aggression because reporters were so cowed by violent politicans that they didn’t dare report on them. It seems we Americans have been...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sat, 15 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Now is the moment for progressives to go Green</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Now-is-the-moment-for-progressives-to-go-Green</link><description><![CDATA["... The Oldham East & Saddleworth by-election may have swung to Labour, but the population was clearly making a stance against the regressive coalition cuts, choosing the only party they believe would not have cut jobs, cut benefits and cut local services ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 14 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Nick Clegg’s neverendum</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Nick-Cleggs-neverendum</link><description><![CDATA["... Today will (quite rightly) be seen as a preview of May’s local elections and even the AV vote and, as such, the first in a series of referenda on Nick Clegg and Clegg Liberalism. His own personal neverendum ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 13 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Self-help housing: localism in action?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Self-help-housing-localism-in-action</link><description><![CDATA["... Sometimes it’s a group of people getting together to meet their own needs by forming a housing co-op and negotiating on their own behalf, while in other circumstances it might be community activists wanting to create housing and opportunities for local people in housing need ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 12 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Reason and tradition for modern conservatives</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Reason-and-tradition-for-modern-conservatives</link><description><![CDATA["... the excellence of a good cook will not be justified on the grounds of his adherence to a number of abstract prescriptions, but on the acknowledgement of this excellence on behalf of other cooks, people already in possession of that excellence and of the relevant practical knowledge: in short, it will be recognised by the authority of a tradition ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 11 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Community open spaces cannot be made, they must evolve</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Community-open-spaces-cannot-be-made-they-must-evolve</link><description><![CDATA["... Many factors can effect whether an open space is loved or loathed by its residents, and many are both. Near where I live I can easily think of several examples of green spaces that lift my soul and wasteland that I prefer to avoid after dark. However high on the list of contributory factors is whether a green space is felt to be owned by its local community or not ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 10 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Big Society and mental health</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Big-Society-and-mental-health</link><description><![CDATA["... There are some areas of public provision where traditional service is exactly what people want and what works best. There are other areas where the innovation and, for want of a better word, entrepreneurial problem solving of small community based charities, social enterprises or groups have significantly shifted practice and principle far beyond that of more traditional structures ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sat, 08 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Significance, belonging and the Big Society</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Significance-belonging-and-the-Big-Society</link><description><![CDATA["... If the Big Society is to succeed then generating a feeling of significance and belonging is of utmost importance. That means building a common sense of community (not always easily achievable in atomised and/or transient neighbourhoods) and sharing and communicating information and therefore responsibility ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 07 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Reform the tax regime, not taxpayers</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Reform-the-tax-regime-not-taxpayers</link><description><![CDATA["... As almost all participants in this debate agree, ‘tax avoidance’ is not a discreet euphemism for ‘tax evasion,’ which is, indeed, a crime, and ought to be prosecuted. Although strategies for reducing tax liabilities are as varied as the manifold taxes that governments levy, ‘tax avoidance’ amounts to structuring behaviour in response to incentives—intended or otherwise—embedded in a given country’s tax code. Understood this way, we all ‘avoid’ taxes everyday ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 06 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>ResPublica's New Year reading list</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/ResPublicas-New-Year-reading-list</link><description><![CDATA["... To kick off the new year, we asked ResPublica staff to hunt through our bookshelves and find the books from 2010 that deserve to be influencing policy in 2011. These were the 10 that we picked ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 05 Jan 2011 11:37:57 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The ten most commented Disraeli Room blogs of 2010</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-ten-most-commented-Disraeli-Room-blogs-of-2010</link><description><![CDATA["... Thanks to everyone who contributed to the Disraeli Room in 2010. Keep the comments and debate coming in 2011 and don’t hesitate to get in touch with me if there’s a topic that you would like to post about ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 03 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Going off-grid</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Going-off-grid</link><description><![CDATA["... I was invited to record a phone-in with TalkSport recently because their three million listeners, who tend to be male and from a lower socio-economic background, have been spontaneously talking about going off-grid.  “I’ve had enough of this,” they are saying on the late-night chat shows. “I’m going off-grid.” At first it was one or two a month, my interviewer told me.  But now it's a few every week ..." ...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 21 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Transparency and the "messy business" of international aid</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Transparency-and-the-messy-business-of-international-aid</link><description><![CDATA["... Demonstrating value, particularly social value, is a notoriously complex and time-consuming process. The Guardian's Madeleine Bunting points out that “many crucial issues in government can't easily be measured in monetary terms”, with particular reference to aid which goes to strengthening civil society and governance.  This is undoubtedly true, yet many imperfect measures, such as those used to determine inflation or economic growth, are both necessary and useful to the policy process ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 21 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Devolving monetary policy?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Devolving-monetary-policy</link><description><![CDATA["... Are we in a danger of creating a scenario where London, like Berlin, is left to bail out ‘fiscally reckless’ communities, and - like the Germans - we are left to argue that the system is sound as long as the big ones are safe? ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 20 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>In defense of the Hereditary Peerage, Part 2</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/In-defense-of-the-Hereditary-Peerage-Part-2</link><description><![CDATA["... What could be more egalitarian than having both the 17th Duke of Norfolk, who is also the 36th Earl of Arundel, and the successful daughter of a middle-class grocer raised to a Baroness share the upper house and be equalised in status in the House in Lords, and in the country in general as subjects of a common monarch? Why should class-based meritocracy (one that rewards achievement with the prospect of social class mobility) be less respect-worthy than income-based meritocracy, when it is the latter wherein much of our problems begin and end? ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 16 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>In defence of the Hereditary Peerage, Part 1</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/In-defence-of-the-Hereditary-Peerage-Part-1</link><description><![CDATA["... The very notion of hereditary succession seems to go against all the democratic values presently privileged and represents all that is unfair and outdated about our system. The aim here, however, is to pause for a moment and deliberately ride against the tide by looking into the many benefits the presence of unelected, particularly hereditary, peers in the House of Lords brings to the nation and ask if it is in our interest to remove them from the Lords so hastily ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 15 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>WikiRiots</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/WikiRiots</link><description><![CDATA["... If the new generation are guilty of anything, it may be that their expectations are too high - because not only have they inherited the cost of the previous generations’ lifestyle, but also many of their ambitions. For the new generation to succeed, they will need to first demand these changes but must also seek to maintain them through participation in a way that is equitable, consistent and most importantly, realistic ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 13 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The "How Big?" Society </title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-How-Big-Society-</link><description><![CDATA["... The inability of big state institutions to collect and interpret the information necessary to effectively plan flows of capital was one of the key downfalls of the socialist dream of a planned political economy. If anything the flow of population poses an even bigger challenge to state planners, since unlike money people have free will and are far harder to account for in objective terms. Yet despite all this it seems that governments are willing, if not eager, to impose centralised controls on migration in the public interest ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 10 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Lords reform: A century in the making Part 2</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Lords-reform-A-century-in-the-making-Part-2</link><description><![CDATA["... A wholly elected House of Lords would challenge the supremacy of the House of Commons enabling it to justifiably claim authority to hold government to account and to represent the people.  For the public, this might endow the Lords and Commons with equal legitimacy. The houses would cease to complement each other and would start to compete, with the Lords more likely to exercise its full powers.  Put simply, two wholly elected chambers runs contrary to the correct operation of our parliamentary system and would require a complete re-evaluation of the function and purpose of the House of Lords ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 09 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Lords reform: A century in the making Part 1</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Lords-reform-A-century-in-the-making-Part-1</link><description><![CDATA["... Following the removal of all but 92 of the hereditary peers in 1999 (there is surely some irony that the 92 hereditary peers are the only democratically elected element in the upper house!), the House of Lords has become noticeably more confident and effective. With an increased sense of legitimacy, the Lords has defeated government legislation more than 500 times since 1999 and has become more insistent upon legislative amendment, which is good for democracy and for the quality of legislation ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 08 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Do the social sciences matter?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Do-the-social-sciences-matter</link><description><![CDATA["... Traditionally academics have seemed to favor a value-neutral approach to the social sciences (something brought over from the natural sciences), and altering this with prescriptions about what should or should not be done seems to be significant barrier to academic engagement in the policy process. However, without a practical purpose social science becomes an end in its own right, rather than a means to something bigger ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 08 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Is it time to take a bite out of the Big Apple?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Is-it-time-to-take-a-bite-out-of-the-Big-Apple</link><description><![CDATA["... The White Paper also outlines the Government's desire to 'nudge' rather than 'nanny' people into making better individual choices to improve their health. Somewhat controversially for the Disraeli Room, I would argue that the 'nudge' approach isn't working and it is time for the government to 'push' people into making better health choices. In some instances, government should outright ban individuals from making the wrong choice ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 07 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>8 new policy principles for a Big Society</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/8-new-policy-principles-for-a-Big-Society</link><description><![CDATA["...Therefore, even if some departments do not yet seem to have fully incorporated it into their policy platform, the Big Society should be an integrated cross-government approach..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 02 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title> The politics of shovelling snow</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/-The-politics-of-shovelling-snow</link><description><![CDATA["... The concept of limited altruism is that individuals are selfishly motivated to perform a purely altruistic act. Any individual shovelling snow off their pavement will get little or no benefit, theyspend an hour or so in hard physical labour at the end of which they still have to walk through the snow in-front of other peoples houses to get anywhere. However if everybody shovels snow then there is a considerable collective benefit because whilst all must exert a lot of effort to do their bit the pavements are now clear and walking is made a lot easier. Furthermore, and this is the clever part, because it is immediately obvious who ha...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 02 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>What’s happening to Italy?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Whats-happening-to-Italy</link><description><![CDATA["... Still, it’s hard to figure out what Fini is up to. Few expected such a socially liberal turn from him – Fini now supports both research on embryo stem cells and same-sex civil unions, a strange choice for a conservative coming from a neo-fascist background. While it is true that the coalition launching FLI, with Fini as their candidate, indicates a young generation tired of Berlusconi’s unkept promises, once the novelty is gone voters will find themselves dealing with actual options ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 23 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Pulling the QE trick</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Pulling-the-QE-trick</link><description><![CDATA["... This is not to suggest that UK or the US should go down the fiscal stimulus route again, but creative fiscal measures should be exercised. Measures that induce grassroots demand into the economy. These need not be as ‘expensive’ to the exchequer as they are believed to be: measures like supporting the Big Society Bank, seed capital finance schemes for SMEs and reviving the car scrappage scheme ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 19 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Democracy, freedom and faith</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Democracy-freedom-and-faith</link><description><![CDATA["... The principle of the equality of condition has resulted in making individuals feel independent, and has thus produced massive social atomisation. Every individual is primarily concerned with his or her own material interests. As a result, the complete loss of social solidarity renders it impossible for democratic culture to flourish. At the same time, increased societal disunion makes it extremely easy for governments to deceitfully manipulate public opinion, mainly for their own gains ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 18 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Fairness, reform and what welfare is for</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Fairness-reform-and-what-welfare-is-for</link><description><![CDATA["... Forward thinking Blairites wished they were allowed to deliver it. James Purnell pushed for welfare reform along the lines being introduced now, but Brown blocked it. Brown also torpedoed Frank Field’s earlier attempts to ensure that work always pays. There is currently a political consensus that welfare needs to be reformed ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 17 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Community rights for an asset owning democracy</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Community-rights-for-an-asset-owning-democracy</link><description><![CDATA["... In the years to come, a huge amount of this wealth will suddenly cease to be public and there is a real risk that such assets will not only be privatised (as during the 1980s) but privatised in such a way as to reinforce existing inequalities of wealth.  There is a danger that the net result will be a rent seekers’ paradise, where vested interests triumph over communal need and wealth flows backwards to the already established and upwards to the already wealthy. We believe that the opposite is possible ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 16 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The time economy</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-time-economy</link><description><![CDATA["... While many in government are heralding the recent spikes in volunteering requests as evidence that people want to get more involved, more recent evidence challenges this. The truth is no one is quite sure. This could be the start of a sea change, driven by rising unemployment rates and people keen to supplement their CVs. Or, it may be a blip in an otherwise overpowering trajectory towards time poverty and individualism ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 09 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>As ordinary as pumpkin pie</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/As-ordinary-as-pumpkin-pie</link><description><![CDATA["... So what happens when America votes like it usually votes? What usually happens.  In midterms this means the President’s party loses seats. In this case, quite a few. But midterms 2010 were same old, same old. In only three elections post 1934 has the Presidential party not lost seats. As Secretary of State Clinton noted, “this is not at all out of the ordinary.”  She should, of course, know ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 08 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Big Society and health, Part 2</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Big-Society-and-health-Part-2</link><description><![CDATA["... In practice, that means we need to look towards designing interventions that build social capital and community confidence and capacity from the outset - and that's as much about promoting the quality and strength of neighbour to neighbour relationships and the ability to self organise on the basis of altruistic exchange of resources, skills and time as much as it is about formalised charities or volunteering ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 03 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Big Society and health, Part 1</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Big-Society-and-health-Part-1</link><description><![CDATA["... So what is the Big Society?  I would argue that it is as much an analysis as a programme.  What underpins it is a deep and genuine concern that - over many years - the strength of the links between us as individuals, within communities, within our neighbourhoods, have been weakened by a political and economic system that has sought to monopolise power and responsibility and crowded out the space previously occupied by what is currently called civil society ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 02 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Disraeli Room Repost: Obama's petard and the resurgent Red Coats</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Disraeli-Room-Repost-Obamas-petard-and-the-resurgent-Red-Coats</link><description><![CDATA["... In any case, by the 1760s, American anti-authoritarian, anti-state individualism was a done deal, an American creed, and would remain so, across the range of US politics. The individual “common man” and the groups he joins are the coin of the realm. They—not the state--are where the Good resides, along with all the other values Americans prize. America deems the state too incompetent and self-interested to do anything right, yet just competent enough to take away one’s rights and freedoms ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Breakfast clubs can bring the Big Society to life</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Breakfast-clubs-can-bring-the-Big-Society-to-life</link><description><![CDATA["... the Big Society will only be brought to life – and the public enthused – when its practical application is demonstrated more clearly. The Big Society’s vision of giving individuals and communities more control over their lives is laudable but must be translated into tangible, practical, visible solutions to local problems that voters can relate to, whether that be welfare dependency, anti-social behaviour, or child hunger, a problem that national food agency and charity Magic Breakfast was set up to tackle ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 28 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Comprehesive Spending Review: the Green Investment Bank</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Comprehesive-Spending-Review-the-Green-Investment-Bank</link><description><![CDATA["... the CSR shed little light on the topic of a Green Investment Bank. Beyond the below-expectation announcement of the initial public capitalization, “little was revealed about the shape of the bank itself”,  as ResPublica’s Kim Mandeng commented regarding Alistair Darling’s budget in March this year.   The debate on the GIB has barely moved in the last six and half months ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 27 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Comprehensive Spending Review: Universal benefits are an unnecessary luxury</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Comprehensive-Spending-Review-Universal-benefits-are-an-unnecessary-luxury</link><description><![CDATA["... Commentators on the left argue that universal benefits are the best way of ensuring that everyone continues to literally buy into the welfare state. This argument contains a great weakness as it ignores the fact that the comfortable in society will only retrieve a fraction of the money they put into the system. More importantly it distorts the purpose of the welfare state by encouraging it to be viewed through an individualistic prism ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 25 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Comprehensive Spending Review: Be careful what you wish for</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Comprehensive-Spending-Review-Be-careful-what-you-wish-for</link><description><![CDATA["... As it is, the CSR shed little light on the road ahead. Indeed, if I am being mischievous, I would posit that, despite the opportunities highlighted above, the Coalition still do not seem to be clear about how we are to pay for the infrastructure that underpins civic action. We had the Big Society Bank affirmed – thank goodness – and the allocation of all proceeds from Dormant Accounts to its capitalisation. At the same time, NESTA have run something of a crowdsourcing exercise on possible financial innovations that the bank should pilot. This then suggests that the Big Society Bank will indeed be what it should be: a fund of funds that o...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 25 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Comprehensive Spending Review: The future of social housing</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Comprehensive-Spending-Review-The-future-of-social-housing</link><description><![CDATA["... Taken together, the combination of reductions in capital grants, new flexibility on rents and changes to housing benefit are comparable in scale to the launch of Right to Buy in 1980, the introduction of private finance and large scale transfers of council housing stock in 1988, and the introduction of housing association grant funding in 1972 - all of them also initiatives of Conservative administrations ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 22 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Comprehensive Spending Review: The Disraeli Room debate so far</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Comprehensive-Spending-Review-The-Disraeli-Room-debate-so-far</link><description><![CDATA["... The Comprehensive Spending Review is finally here and, with it, a 19% cut to departmental budgets over the next four years.  Over the months since the election, the Disraeli Room blog has had a wide-ranging debate on where, when, how and how deeply to cut. It is worth taking a moment to summarise some of that debate in light of the announcements ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 22 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Comprehensive Spending Review: A fresh economic perspective</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Comprehensive-Spending-Review-A-fresh-economic-perspective</link><description><![CDATA["...  I want to argue that we are now well placed to go beyond – perhaps even synthesise – the well-rehearsed debate between the Keynesians on the one hand and the neo-Classical economists (along with the so-called “Treasury model”) on the other.  In a sense, there is a framing challenge, which is important both for the formation of government policy and also in trying to assess the implications of that policy ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 22 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Government's Green Investment Bank should be a mutual</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Governments-Green-Investment-Bank-should-be-a-mutual</link><description><![CDATA["... At present, there is no real intermediate stage between the relatively bad deal of buying green electricity from an energy company and the good deal of producing it yourself. What there is however is a government pledge to establish a green investment bank at a time when it is itself short of capital funds ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 19 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Art and taxes</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Art-and-taxes</link><description><![CDATA["... Rather than a cautionary tale of social abdication, Paul Gauguin’s self-made myth is today held up by many as the archetypal Artist going to the ends of the earth to remain uncompromised by the mutual obligations of civilisation. And perhaps that is the prerogative of the Artist, to pursue Nietzschean self-perfection at the expense of even basic social solidarity ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sun, 17 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Will the Oxford Quad topple Harvard Yard?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Will-the-Oxford-Quad-topple-Harvard-Yard</link><description><![CDATA["... Major British universities fought hard to maintain their global standing with state maximum annual tuition fee of £3290 combined with a state subsidy of approximately £4000 per student. Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College or the LSE could all only charge £3290, the same as the newest of new Universities many of which had only a few years before been provincial further education colleges ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 15 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Drunkenness is a Britishness problem not an economic one</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Drunkenness-is-a-Britishness-problem-not-an-economic-one</link><description><![CDATA["... What is even worse is the changing perceptions of Britain in the world. When I was recently touring a certain part of the former empire, I asked people what came to their mind when they first thought of the British, and all I heard was, 'beer and football' ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 12 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Example by example</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Example-by-example</link><description><![CDATA["... However, the silver-lining that could prevent the oncoming storm is the powerful and mobilising narrative of climate change around which individuals freely associate. Environmental activism can provide a prototype for the Big Society, showing how individuals’ actions are magnified by collective and coordinated organisation ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 11 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Drunkenness is a social problem not an economic one</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Drunkenness-is-a-social-problem-not-an-economic-one</link><description><![CDATA["... The truth is that although heavy drinkers always go for the cheapest available alcohol this does not actually imply that making alcohol more expensive will change their drinking habits, just as it is unlikely to prevent the middle classes from buying the second cheapest wine on the menu at a restaurant. It is the relative price that attracts people, and that will not be changed by minimum pricing ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 08 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Child Benefits: dissolving the "insoluble anomaly"</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Child-Benefits-dissolving-the-insoluble-anomaly</link><description><![CDATA["... The second highly irritating aspect is what the Times, and I suspect the Tories, called an “insoluble anomaly”, namely that a couple with children on two incomes below £44,000 (and a possible joint income of up to around £88,000) will continue to receive child benefit, but a one earner couple with children receiving  income of just above £44,000 won’t. To create such a situation is frankly ridiculous and shows that it does not make sense to treat a family (and here I mean two parents and children) as a bunch of individuals living together as if by coincidence ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 07 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Big Society already exists, we just need to enable people to reach it</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Big-Society-already-exists-we-just-need-to-enable-people-to-reach-it</link><description><![CDATA["... we have record levels of social isolation amongst old and young alike with 7 million people living on their own in England and Wales alone. 97% of neighbourhoods have become more fragmented since 1971. Average life expectancy varies between the richest and the poorest by 14 years and the richest 10% of the population are 100 times as wealthy as the poorest 10% ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 05 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>A more civil economy</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/A-more-civil-economy</link><description><![CDATA["... A thriving civil economy needs many of the same types of foundation as a thriving democracy. Democracy depends on constitutional and accountable political institutions supported by political parties, an independent judiciary, a free press, impartial law, civic bodies, and an involved citizenry sustain democracy in a civil society. The parallel institutions of a civil economy include accountable corporations or enterprises supported by engaged shareowners and their accountable representatives; independent monitors; credible standards; and vigilant and active civil society associations participating in the marketplace ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 05 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Big Society in Cumbria</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Big-Society-in-Cumbria</link><description><![CDATA["... The approach in my Cumbrian constituency is not big, but local and particular. It is about decentralisation but without giving more power to county councils. It is not necessarily about charities or even the private sector (both as capable of manufacturing jargon as any government bureaucracy). Nor is it about atomised individuals allowed to do whatever they want. It’s about collective action  ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 04 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The fairness test</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-fairness-test</link><description><![CDATA["... Our higher moral values and aspirations must not be subjugated to market forces without restraint. Politics too often gets lost in either tribalism or economic and statistical debates, abstracted to the point that moral aspiration is forgotten and systems or ideology take over. We should more often seek as our foundation the shared moral beliefs about the kind of society we want to live in and the ethic of care towards others that should be part of its fabric ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 04 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Turning public servants into service partners</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Turning-public-servants-into-service-partners</link><description><![CDATA["...Successful employee ownership leads to good quality service, to innovation, to expansion, to high productivity, to flourishing communities (the economic multiplier in local economies is huge) and last but by no means least to happier, more committed partner-employees, who understand their world better and are more integrated in society..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 29 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>How Labour can redefine the centre ground of politics</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/How-Labour-can-redefine-the-centre-ground-of-politics</link><description><![CDATA["... Instead of abandoning or privatising Royal Mail, Labour should champion working with frontline professionals and unions to turn the post office network into a localised banking system owned by the people. Post Banks should maintain the community role of post offices, while lending to local SMEs and offering simple, no-fee products targeted at the financially excluded ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 28 Sep 2010 16:37:03 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The route to mediocrity</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-route-to-mediocrity</link><description><![CDATA["... The measures that people need - and those being used by local authorities achieving outstanding efficiencies - are measures related to the purpose of their services from the customers' point of view ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sun, 26 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Distributism and the political economy</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Distributism-and-the-political-economy</link><description><![CDATA["... At first, the response to this was to put more family members to work, thus increasing the family take in the face of stagnant wages. But the family wage has stagnated for a dozen years. So the next “solution”  was to simply lend the wage-earners the money to clear the markets, at rates that routinely reach 30% or more. This leads to Chesterton's second effect of the victory of capitalism, the utopia of the usurers. Or rather, the utopia of, by, and for the usurers, for when they got into trouble, as they inevitably do, they can call upon the public purse to bail them out  ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sat, 25 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The real divide emerging in British politics</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-real-divide-emerging-in-British-politics</link><description><![CDATA["... After all, if the Liberal Democrats are neither “a receptacle for left wing dissatisfaction” nor “Tories with a conscience”, what exactly are they? ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 23 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The poverty challenge</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-poverty-challenge</link><description><![CDATA["... The second enormous challenge for the government is delivering on the Big Society.  The government is embarking on a process of subsidiarity that looks set to be more radical than many Liberal Democrats I met at the conference seem to appreciate ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 22 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Is electoral reform enough?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Is-electoral-reform-enough</link><description><![CDATA["... The arguments for electoral reform are in favour of establishing a more democratic government, yet their focus is simply on the government itself: it is essentially an institutionalist approach that does not touch the fragmented, varied processes and interactions between state and non-state actors that are today constituent parts of our political system ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 20 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Power to change the future</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Power-to-change-the-future</link><description><![CDATA["... Whether it is the Community Politics of the Liberal Democrats or the Big Society of the Conservatives, success will come not from seeing voluntary collective action as an excuse for cost cutting but as a means to a vibrant and successful country ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sat, 18 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Rape? What rape?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Rape-What-rape</link><description><![CDATA["... Around 14,000 women per year are victims of rape and this only covers those cases which are reported. Currently, only five percent accused of the crime are convicted, with conviction rates in Scotland even lower than in England and Wales. Without a review, the very low rape conviction rates in the UK will continue to stay low ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 17 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Pope and post-secular Britain</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Pope-and-post-secular-Britain</link><description><![CDATA["... The news stories building up to his arrival have been rather unsurprising: abuse, protests, “Third World Britain,” the cost to the tax payer (reportedly £10-12 million) and, of course, traffic disruptions. Of only passing interest has been his record as a thinker – not just in his corner of Catholic social teaching but in the wider world of political and moral philosophy ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 16 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Can inheritance tax save children's savings?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Can-inheritance-tax-save-childrens-savings</link><description><![CDATA["... There were close to 800,000 births in the United Kingdom in 2009.  In 2009/10 inheritance tax revenues amounted to £2.4 billion. If all of that revenue had been used to fund a capital grant to every child born, the grant would have been £3000 ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 10 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The epistemic closure of British conservatism?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-epistemic-closure-of-British-conservatism</link><description><![CDATA[“… Peter Hitchens, in his book The Cameron Delusion, noted that the 'main enemy of conservatism in Britain is the Conservative Party.' Hitchens is right, but not in the way he thinks …”...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 09 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Benedict, Red Tories and Blue Labour</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Benedict-Red-Tories-and-Blue-Labour</link><description><![CDATA["... Delivering the Left from its adoration of the State and social libertarianism, the Right from its idolatry of the Market and its economic libertarianism, Benedict, the Red Tories and Blue Labour hold the potential to reshape British politics in pursuit of the good society ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 08 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Planning in a pickle</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Planning-in-a-pickle</link><description><![CDATA["... 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 ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 01 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>What is international aid for?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/What-is-international-aid-for</link><description><![CDATA["... 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 o...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Three ideas for mutualising Britain</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Three-ideas-for-mutualising-Britain</link><description><![CDATA["... 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? ..." ...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 27 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Big Society - Small State?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Big-Society-Small-State</link><description><![CDATA["... 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 ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>AV: No BNP</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/AV-No-BNP</link><description><![CDATA["... 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 ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Why monarchy matters</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Why-monarchy-matters</link><description><![CDATA["... 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 ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 19 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>100 Days</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/100-Days</link><description><![CDATA["... 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 n...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 17 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>A cross between Pol Pot and Attila the Hun, or more Mother Teresa?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/A-cross-between-Pol-Pot-and-Attila-the-Hun-or-more-Mother-Teresa</link><description><![CDATA[...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 11 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>How much should we reform council housing? Part 2</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/How-much-should-we-reform-council-housing-Part-2</link><description><![CDATA["... 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 ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 10 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>How much should we reform council housing? Part 1</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/How-much-should-we-reform-council-housing-Part-1</link><description><![CDATA["... 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 ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 09 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>William Hague's softer side</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/William-Hagues-softer-side</link><description><![CDATA["... Against this global and historical backdrop, William Hague recently made his first major speech as Foreign Secretary, promising a new and strategic approach to foreign policy in order to increase British influence in the world.  Hague argued that in an era of global information, soft power has become crucial for Britain to achieve its desired outcomes ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 06 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Big Society, Great Society?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Big-Society-Great-Society</link><description><![CDATA["... Since first saying the idea was ‘hollow’, the Deputy PM now think's it's the perfect example of the ‘liberal society’. Let's hope it's more liberal on the social side than the economics as it's so far missing any real analysis of the clear failure of free-market neoliberalism. It's also missing the Oakeshottian concept of the role of the ‘ship of state’ in intervention to deal with economic ‘maladjustments’ ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 04 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>We the People's Supermarket</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/We-the-Peoples-Supermarket</link><description><![CDATA["... A key objective of the supermarket is to help families and low income groups in the community have access to food that is affordable and more locally sourced and it’s through volunteer time, expert sourcing of product and maximum use of recycled fixtures, fittings and waste that the enterprise can afford to match, if not undercut the prices of its for-profit competitors ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sat, 31 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>What does the Big Society value?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/What-does-the-Big-Society-value</link><description><![CDATA["... The UK Department for International Development wants more accountability (read “value demonstrated”) in international aid, but a paper by former USAID employee Andrew Natsios demonstrates that this approach tends to skew investment into programmes that can offer easily calculated benefits (in the international development context: health ones over justice and democracy-strengthening ones for example) ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Spirit Level debate continues...</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Spirit-Level-debate-continues</link><description><![CDATA["... According to Saunders, there is something culturally and historically specific about the Anglo-American countries and the Scandinavian countries which has generated both their different wealth distributions and their differing social outcomes, as opposed to their differing income distribution generating these outcomes ... "...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Raising the retirement age in line with life expectancy would be a first in the world</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Raising-the-retirement-age-in-line-with-life-expectancy-would-be-a-first-in-the-world</link><description><![CDATA["... Although these pension formulae differ in the way they incorporate rising life expectancy they have one thing in common: it is always unisex and applies to all in the same way. Women live longer than men, higher educated people live longer than those with less education, and richer people live longer than poorer ones. These factors are not accounted for, would be difficult to implement and are likely to be contentious issues ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 26 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Changing coalitions in midstream</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Changing-coalitions-in-midstream</link><description><![CDATA["... What followed was a constitutional nightmare, wherein the Crown (represented in Canada by a former journalist chosen by the Prime Minister of the previous administration) suspended parliament in order to avoid a no confidence vote and the collapse of the Government. During that legislative recess, one of the principal options being considered (and debated by constitutional scholars) in the event of an eventual no confidence vote was for the Crown to invite opposition parties to form a new coalition government - without holding another election ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 22 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Cultivating Revolution</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Cultivating-Revolution</link><description><![CDATA["... The opportunities for reconnecting people to the process of food production are vast.  But when considering the achievements of Havana there is one key ingredient that seems often absent in the UK: the infrastructure and state support, and a prominent initiative to provide services and resources to those who want to become involved in urban agriculture ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 12 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Debunking of 'The Spirit Level'</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Debunking-of-The-Spirit-Level</link><description><![CDATA["... Evidence-for-the-obvious is a key weapon in the political arsenal, not least because it can open an Overton Window in the range of policies that the public, or a particular constituency, are willing to accept ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 09 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Obama's Petard and the resurgent Red Coats</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Obamas-Petard-and-the-resurgent-Red-Coats</link><description><![CDATA["...Not only anti-statism but fear of the handshake between elites runs through (the USA's) history, on the right and left. You’ll find echoes in the Shay’s and Whiskey rebellions of the late 18th century, when Americans were already rising up against the government they had just formed because it supported the rights of landlords or itself taxed booze.... Greater similarities are found among rightist populists since the 1970s, who feel that the increasingly elaborate global economy is beyond them. “America was once their country,” the populist politician Pat Buchanan wrote. “They sense they are losing it.” And they are..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 08 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Gift Aid it</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Gift-Aid-it</link><description><![CDATA["...a couple raising money for MacMillan Cancer Support organised an Open Garden Event.  They raised an impressive £10,000.  However, the vast majority of this was through cash donations of £20.  Although the couple asked each guest to fill out a form, many were not completed. I have to commend the perseverance of this couple, who spent considerable amounts of time after the event contacting guests to ensure as many donations as possible received Gift Aid. But I have to ask myself whether charities could possibly have the capacity for this kind of perseverance?..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 01 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Exit wounds</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Exit-wounds</link><description><![CDATA["...the UK’s pervasive culture – reflected and magnified by the press – of personalising blame and apportioning it to the highest possible target.  In the public sector, this culture has resulted in a highly centralised and risk-averse public sector, where decision-making and responsibility is hoarded by those higher up the organisation because those at the top are rightfully concerned that they will be the ones who will be held accountable when things go wrong..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 30 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Co-operatives Fortnight</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Co-operatives-Fortnight</link><description><![CDATA["...470 people across the co-operative movement gathered in Plymouth over the last few days. With the lighthouse in view, they were treated to a Phillip Blond ResPublica masterclass in civic society..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 30 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Out for justice: can the Big Society fix Broken Britain?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Out-for-justice-can-the-Big-Society-fix-Broken-Britain</link><description><![CDATA["... Offering have-a-go heroes greater legal protections to apprehend criminals and defend themselves is only a token gesture in the grand scheme of things - unless the Conservatives are genuinely paving the way for state retrenchment to be replaced by voluntary groups along the lines of the Arizona Minutemen who ‘operat[e] within the law to support enforcement of the law’.  If the Broken Britain thesis is accurate then it requires a serious solution, and this in turn requires significant funding..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 24 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Emergency Budget – the macro view</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Emergency-Budget-–-the-macro-view</link><description><![CDATA["... the presumed negative impact on interest rates becomes the key argument against the rise in public expenditure for non-Keynesian theorists. The oft quoted argument that excessive government borrowing – borrowing not expenditure – “crowds out” private borrowers from the credit market,  is unsustainable when seen in historical context ..." ...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 24 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Better Save than Sorry? Family Finances After the Emergency Budget</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Better-Save-than-Sorry-Family-Finances-After-the-Emergency-Budget</link><description><![CDATA["...The Saving Gateway scheme generated both new savers as well as new savings. As did the (Child Trust Fund . However, both schemes are scrapped, leaving savers in limbo. I really don’t know why anybody would save these days, with interest rates being so low. But – given the huge savings and asset crisis we have in the UK – scrapping those two schemes against the background of low interest rates and little trust in banks can only be called a move in the wrong direction..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 23 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Why Britain’s Islamic Finance Industry Flopped </title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Why-Britains-Islamic-Finance-Industry-Flopped-</link><description><![CDATA["...After more than a decade, Islamic finance has attracted a tiny proportion of a potential 1.5 million Muslim adults in the UK. You’d think that, by now, the Islamic finance providers would have realised that boring technical explanations and emotional blackmail may not be the most effective way to win customers..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 21 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Will ‘Booze, Babes and Bets’ help England to win the World Cup?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Will-Booze-Babes-and-Bets-help-England-to-win-the-World-Cup-eykf</link><description><![CDATA["...Amidst the grim predictions ahead of tomorrow’s budget, some equally grim news for England football fans: yet again the team’s woeful performances are being explained by a simple problem that can be fixed with a half-baked knee-jerk solution.  The provision of an inadequately simple answer to a complex problem, it’s a situation familiar to politicians and policymakers..."    ...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 21 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Emergency Budget Needs to Make Work Pay </title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Emergency-Budget-Needs-to-Make-Work-Pay-</link><description><![CDATA["...We can move towards locally set living wage levels by empowering councils to set and enforce their own living wage. This would marginalise the national minimum wage but not dismiss it, as it should be retained as a reference and would continue to ensure a basic standard of living. A locally set living wage would be sensitive to the affluence, demographic composition and the electorate’s concerns in each locality..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 21 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Are We Getting Rid of the Germans at Last? </title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Are-We-Getting-Rid-of-the-Germans-at-Last-</link><description><![CDATA["...The German team had a fantastic start in this World Cup with four wonderful goals against Australia. The German daily BILD proclaimed “Ihr habt uns vierzaubert”, the country was happy and forgot their floundering coalition government for a while..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 17 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Supermarkets in the Coalition Economy</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Supermarkets-in-the-Coalition-Economy</link><description><![CDATA["...Progressives need to think very carefully about this line of reasoning. How important are grocery prices compared with long-term market competitiveness, small business ownership and the livelihood of agricultural producers?..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 15 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Transition Culture vs the Big Society</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Transition-Culture-vs-the-Big-Society</link><description><![CDATA["...Let’s not throw out the Big Society model just yet. It has lots of good elements in it. But we need to be aware that it is far from fully formed. Therein lies the real challenge and opportunity – how to create a model that picks up where the Big Society leaves off and which deep green thinkers and Transitioners can agree with, a model which doesn’t simply mutate into a reworking of “sink or swim” Thatcherism wrapped in a shiny new language of community..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 11 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Fighting for the UK’s Hidden Hungry: Job Centre Plus Policy Repeal Directive</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Fighting-for-the-UKs-Hidden-Hungry-Job-Centre-Plus-Policy-Repeal-Directive</link><description><![CDATA["...Mr Halfon said many families struggling to feed themselves and their families are not able to be referred directly to a foodbank by Jobcentre Plus. His Early Day Motion calls on the House to recognise that the current system is "broken" and that delays in receiving benefits can cause serious problems for families on the breadline, if referral to charities such as foodbanks is not allowed..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 10 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Innovation in the Age of Austerity</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Innovation-in-the-Age-of-Austerity</link><description><![CDATA["...The Defence budget could face cuts in the region of 20%. With this kind of pressure on getting value for money, resources will be spent on things with provable outcomes. I am not suggesting that resources be diverted away from frontline troops, leaving them under-equipped or vulnerable. But what if current strategy - armored vehicles, drones and well-equipped foot patrols - is not the answer in Afghanistan?  What if fully committed investment in blue-sky thinking about the war in Afghanistan could pay off in a way that continued spending under a strategy that has seen UK forces fighting there for close to a decade cannot?.."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 09 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>AV: The Only Option for 21st Century Conservatives?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/AV-The-Only-Option-for-21st-Century-Conservatives</link><description><![CDATA["...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..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 08 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Government must do more to support Food Banks</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Government-must-do-more-to-support-Food-Banks</link><description><![CDATA["... In those areas where food banks operate, front line professional carers give vouchers for those they assess in real need to access their food banks. Social workers, health visitors, citizens advice staff and housing support and youth offending teams all can refer, but one of the most crucial referrers who assess and identify genuine and crisis need is the job centre. Yet here staff have been forbidden by the previous government from giving out food vouchers..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>We are Addicted to Low Alcohol Prices</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/We-are-Addicted-to-Low-Alcohol-Prices</link><description><![CDATA["...There are many international examples of public alcohol cartels run for social benefit, from provincial and state Liquor Control Boards in Canada and the US to the Systembolaget in Sweden, while France has a ban on below cost grocery pricing in general – as the practice of loss leading is argued to be anticompetitive in the long term irrespective of the negative social externalities of alcohol. In comparison to its liberal counterparts, Britain’s more market-driven alcohol market looks out of place..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 02 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>AV in Australia: Lessons for the UK</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/AV-in-Australia-Lessons-for-the-UK</link><description><![CDATA["...Apart from a period in the 1980s, the Liberal Party (Australia's Conservatives) had a majority with the National Party from the Second World War to the early 1970 and again from the mid 1990s to 2007. In the latter period, the Government led by John Howard introduced quite radical reforms of economic and social legislation which were every bit as radical as what had been enacted in the United Kingdom in the 1980s. The reason that this was possible was due to Howard successfully appealing not only to the National Party, the Liberals' traditional allies, but also to Australian Democrats, a now practically defunct party, which shared many of...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 02 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Point and Laugh No More - Part Two</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Point-and-Laugh-No-More-Part-Two</link><description><![CDATA["... We know that given half a chance, people will innovate. The question is how to get them to do so in the wider public interest particularly when the assets that they control are general purpose goods or utilities where they could simply sit on top of monopoly and do as little as possible, extracting rent..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 02 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>We are Addicted to Rising House Prices</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/We-are-Addicted-to-Rising-House-Prices</link><description><![CDATA["...Over-inflated house prices hurt our economy in many, many ways. Here are five of the most important..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 28 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Not Quite PR... but still Worth the Fight</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Not-Quite-PR-but-still-Worth-the-Fight</link><description><![CDATA["...AV is not really that PR-ish. It’s more about voting for who you hate least than who you like the most. Maybe it’s a step in the right direction towards true PR?..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 28 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Point and Laugh No More - Part One</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Point-and-Laugh-No-More-Part-One</link><description><![CDATA["...Some state services work very well. For example, in state provided public services such as defense one of the most remarkable feats of altruism is achieved where people lay down their lives for others. To say that they do this because they are motivated by their compensation, unusual strength of character or unusual mental attitude would clearly be  wrong..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 28 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Why the Conservatives should not fear AV</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Why-the-Conservatives-should-not-fear-AV</link><description><![CDATA["...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..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 26 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Why Axing the Child Trust Fund is Wrong</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Why-Axing-the-Child-Trust-Fund-is-Wrong</link><description><![CDATA["...The Child Trust Fund is, or rather was, part of the beginning of an asset-building social policy. So far, it has boosted savings as since the inception of the Child Trust Fund more parents are saving more for their children..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 24 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Defending The First Paragraph of Red Tory </title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Defending-The-First-Paragraph-of-Red-Tory-</link><description><![CDATA["...Now that the election is over – I have some time to return to my old pastime of exchanging analysis and debate with the good people at Next Left..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 20 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Roger Steare: Freedom, Fairness and Responsibility</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Roger-Steare-Freedom-Fairness-and-Responsibility</link><description><![CDATA["...Once we have re-discovered true virtue and community in public life, then we will have the most powerful tools at our disposal to meet the massive challenges that confront us..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sat, 15 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Future for Children and Families</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Future-for-Children-and-Families</link><description><![CDATA["...The Conservative Party would like to recognise a commitment such as marriage or a civil partnership in the tax system with a transferable tax allowance of up to £750 for couples earning less than £44,000. This might be no longer the case under a Tory/LibDem Government as the latter recognise that “families come in all shapes and sizes”, taking up Labour’s mantra..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 11 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>What happened to Policy?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/What-happened-to-Policy</link><description><![CDATA["...The LibDems should start talking about the other three items on their list before they hand over the keys to No 10..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 11 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Creating an Effective Cartel Busting Regime</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Creating-an-Effective-Cartel-Busting-Regime</link><description><![CDATA["...Yesterday as Gordon Brown faced the final collapse of New Labour and the exit of his Adminstration from power one of the pillars of New Labour’s system of economic regulation also collapsed..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 11 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Party Posturing on Trident</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Party-Posturing-on-Trident</link><description><![CDATA["...A fully costed Strategic Defence and Security Review that looks critically at all significant planned defence spending is crucial to achieving efficient allocation of resources and obtaining the best outcomes for the military..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 10 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>A Green Change</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/A-Green-Change</link><description><![CDATA["...the people of Brighton Pavillion proved that a green vote is not wasted, as they elected Caroline Lucas as their MP..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 10 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>When Political Parties Agree (on What's Good)</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/When-Political-Parties-Agree-on-Whats-Good</link><description><![CDATA["...Anyone who has attended an event with the three 'third sector' supremos from each side – Nick Hurd MP, Jenny Willott MP, and the sadly departed Angela Smith – will have been struck by the measure of consensus on the policy issues...'...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 10 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Memo to All Parties: Social Enterprise remains Your Ally</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Memo-to-All-Parties-Social-Enterprise-remains-Your-Ally</link><description><![CDATA["...The next step for the New Peckham Experiment is to see how it could work in today’s context, thinking about changes such as fragmentation of the traditional family unit and advancements in technology..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sat, 08 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>On the Shortcomings of Voting</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/On-the-Shortcomings-of-Voting</link><description><![CDATA["...As long as vertical accountability measures are tied to the granting of authority, electoral choice will remain limited..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sat, 08 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Here's an Idea: Managed Change</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Heres-an-Idea-Managed-Change</link><description><![CDATA["...In the UK Partnership model I propose, Nick Clegg – who is the obvious candidate – would act as a non-executive senior partner. In my view, David Cameron should take the powerful role that Lord Mandelson created, and essentially thereby become Senior Managing Partner, while Alastair Darling would remain – being streets ahead of the competition – as the other Managing Partner and Chancellor..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sat, 08 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Die Is Cast</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Die-Is-Cast</link><description><![CDATA["...Everyone remember to go out vote, so I don’t lose my 9:4 wager on turnout topping 70%!.."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 06 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults – it is Everybody’s Responsibility</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Safeguarding-Vulnerable-Adults-–-it-is-Everybodys-Responsibility</link><description><![CDATA["...Michael Gilbert, a very vulnerable adult, had been tortured and treated like a slave for a decade..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Tax, Benefits and the Case for a Citizens' Income</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Tax-Benefits-and-the-Case-for-a-Citizens-Income</link><description><![CDATA["...A citizens income ... would remove unfair anomalies and make abuse much harder to commit, but it would also produce a clear and simple progress from overall benefit recipient to overall tax payer..." ...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 26 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Last week: Modernising Gift Aid (and our Homepage)</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Last-week-Modernising-Gift-Aid-and-our-Homepage</link><description><![CDATA[Our Civil Society and Social Innovation Unit continued to make waves this week with its Modernising Gift Aid project. Both the Charity Technology Trust and Taylor Vinters wrote about it, which you can read here  and here. Its launch also drew the attention of the Shadow Minister for Charities, Social Enterprise and Volunteering, Nick Hurd MP, whose comments can be read here along with more details about the project. <b...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 23 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Financial Literacy Classes in Schools? What a Waste of Money</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Financial-Literacy-Classes-in-Schools-What-a-Waste-of-Money</link><description><![CDATA["...evidence from the US finds that students who take a high school course in personal finance perform just as poorly as those who don’t..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 21 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Liberalism and Erotic Capital</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Liberalism-and-Erotic-Capital</link><description><![CDATA["...Sexiness, which includes charm and affability as well as physical beauty, is critical for success..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 21 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The fall out from the IFS' latest study on marriage: time for a grown-up discussion?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-fall-out-from-the-IFS-latest-study-on-marriage-time-for-a-grown-up-discussion</link><description><![CDATA["...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..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 20 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>A Long Time in Politics </title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/A-Long-Time-in-Politics-</link><description><![CDATA["...With that it became a three party race for the centre ground of British politics, and hence for the election..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 20 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Toby Blume: Some thoughts on Joining the Government of Britain</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Toby-Blume-Some-thoughts-on-Joining-the-Government-of-Britain</link><description><![CDATA["...nothing would be beyond the realms of community management with a ‘right to bid’ to run any community service instead of the state. Maybe it’s just me, but that’s really got my mind racing at the possibilities... perhaps a community-led Parachute Regiment is just me being mischievous..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Big Society - or Big Societies?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Big-Society-or-Big-Societies</link><description><![CDATA[It’s been Big Society Week here at the Disraeli Room, with a range of interesting thoughts and debates both here and elsewhere......]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Big Society: A Radical New Approach to Social Mobility?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Big-Society-A-Radical-New-Approach-to-Social-Mobility</link><description><![CDATA["...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..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 14 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Tax and Marriage: Perspectives from Europe</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Tax-and-Marriage-Perspectives-from-Europe</link><description><![CDATA["...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 = £...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 12 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Last week: Transition Towns and Transforming Gift Aid</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Last-week-Transition-Towns-and-Transforming-Gift-Aid</link><description><![CDATA[This week readers of The Independent got a chance to ask Phillip Blond questions, and they really didn’t shy back from asking a few tough ones, which you can read here. The article also got quite some attention on Twitter which can be viewed here. Phillip’s book also got some more coverage on the blogs such as  Platform 10, on <a href="http://communities.canada.com/OTTAWACITIZEN/blogs/bulldog/ar...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 09 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Dear Michael Merrick: your virtue ethics is neoliberalism in another form</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Dear-Michael-Merrick-your-virtue-ethics-is-neoliberalism-in-another-form</link><description><![CDATA[The latest riposte in a series of Disraeli Room debates between William Brett and Michael Merrick on the nature of localism (in epistolary form). ...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 09 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The insidious dangers of defence cuts </title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-insidious-dangers-of-defence-cuts-</link><description><![CDATA["...As I argued in a previous blog,the failure to appreciate the urgent need for the fullest knowledge of native custom, or for taking account of its influence, was a striking absence from military policy in Afghanistan..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 08 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Economy is in flow, not scale</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Economy-is-in-flow-not-scale</link><description><![CDATA["... The more services are fragmented and batch-processed, the worse and more expensive they get... Gershon has it the wrong way round. Cost reduction is a by-product of the focus on purpose and improvement, not vice versa..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 07 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Where do trade unions fit in the Big Society</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Where-do-trade-unions-fit-in-the-Big-Society</link><description><![CDATA["...The Big Society is an idea that hinges on a political willingness and ability to rebuild the civic, religious, political and social middle in modern Britain... following steep declines in the membership of almost all major civic institutions – from political parties to churches to trade unions. It is the latter case that is testing the Tories' mettle..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 06 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Red Tory and Being Reasonable</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Red-Tory-and-Being-Reasonable</link><description><![CDATA[Our weekly take on the best of ResPublica's work on the web, on the blogs and on Twitter...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sat, 03 Apr 2010 02:30:32 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Banning drugs is a political issue. Deal with it.</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Banning-drugs-is-a-political-issue-Deal-with-it</link><description><![CDATA["...Science is a crucial element of drugs policy, but should it be at its heart as Huhne suggests?  If it was, how long before alcohol was made illegal? ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sat, 03 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Philosophising the Big Society</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Philosophising-the-Big-Society</link><description><![CDATA['Let us suppose we are confronted with a desperate thing — say Pimlico. If we think what is really best for Pimlico we shall find the thread of thought leads to the throne or the mystic and the arbitrary. It is not enough for a man to disapprove of Pimlico: in that case he will merely cut his throat or move to Chelsea. Nor, certainly, is it enough for a man to approve of Pimlico: for then it will remain Pimlico, which would be awful..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 01 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Single Father</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Single-Father</link><description><![CDATA["...Lone parenting presents a range of difficulties, however being a lone father poses a unique conflict..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 31 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Rank Idiocy</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Rank-Idiocy</link><description><![CDATA["...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?..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 31 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Whatever Happened to Traditional Conservatism?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Whatever-Happened-to-Traditional-Conservatism</link><description><![CDATA["...beyond the trendies in Islington, metropolitan ethics is rather less popular, and it can alienate..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sat, 27 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>When Universities Become Production Lines</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/When-Universities-Become-Production-Lines</link><description><![CDATA["...how can the quality of education be maintained through a reduction in budgets, a streamlining of services and an increase in student numbers all at the same time?..." ...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 25 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Budget 2010 - Environment</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Budget-2010-Environment</link><description><![CDATA["...£2billion will only buy two-thirds of a nuclear power station and we cannot rely on private sector investment at a time when the economics of nuclear, wind and clean coal do not add up and the financial markets are still fragile. The Government really needs to drive this – as nobody else is in a position to do it.” No good news there then..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 24 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Budget 2010 - Children and Families</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Budget-2010-Children-and-Families</link><description><![CDATA["...The cost of child poverty is high – it is estimated to stand at £25bn per year – so the fight against it should be part of the plan for economic recovery, not something that can be treated on the sidelines..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 24 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Budget 2010 - Ownership and Enterprise</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Budget-2010-Ownership-and-Enterprise</link><description><![CDATA["...SMEs can expect a twelve month cut in the business rates and a doubled entrepreneurs' relief for Capital Gains Tax. This will mean that 500,000 SMEs will pay reduced taxes, including 350,000 of which that will pay no tax at all..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 24 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Budget 2010 - Civil Society and Social Innovation</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Budget-2010-Civil-Society-and-Social-Innovation</link><description><![CDATA["...Red book section 6.45 announced £1.3bn of ringfenced funding to be given to local authority discretion, reducing pertinent indicators to 18 and various streams from 110 to 94. Not exactly 'freeing the slaves,' but baby steps towards some promising thinking in this direction..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 24 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Budget 2010 @ The Disraeli Room</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Budget-2010-@-The-Disraeli-Room</link><description><![CDATA[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. ...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 23 Mar 2010 15:26:20 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Desperately Seeking Savings</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Desperately-Seeking-Savings</link><description><![CDATA["...as the leach towards centralisation begins with the bulk purchasing of paperclips, and evolves to the mass development of titan-care-homes, what price the emergence of the 'supersaver-tender,' and a Serco or similar super-service provider bidding for Government super-duper-contracts to get people into work, to house the homeless or to help tackle drug addiction with the 'tag line,' 'every little helps'..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 22 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Mr Blond goes to Washington</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Mr-Blond-goes-to-Washington</link><description><![CDATA[Our weekly take on the best of ResPublica's work on the web, on the blogs and on Twitter...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sun, 21 Mar 2010 01:24:36 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Just how big is the 'Big Society'?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Just-how-big-is-the-Big-Society</link><description><![CDATA["...Trade unions surely should be counted amongst the “vibrant panoply” of organisations in the declining civic middle that the state should be racing to defend, as they provide some of the best examples of voluntary social organisations that continue to challenge both the state and an individualised society for collective social ends..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sun, 21 Mar 2010 00:44:15 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Empire vs. Colossus</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Empire-vs-Colossus</link><description><![CDATA["...Consider as an example the highway from Kabul to Kandahar that was completed in less than a year.  To achieve this “quick win”, contractors placed such a thin layer of asphalt in some places that it washed away when snows melted the following spring.  Or consider the cobblestone roads requiring extensive manual labour to build, and seen as a source of employment for locals who might otherwise find their way into the poppy-cultivating business.  Sadly what local Afghan leaders really wanted was gravel and asphalt roads because the cobblestones hurt their camels' hooves..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Fighting Fit</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Fighting-Fit</link><description><![CDATA["...It won’t be enough to introduce fitness tests in schools and to simply send letters to parents berating them for doing a bad job because their children have failed..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Beyond Paper: Money 3.0</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Beyond-Paper-Money-30</link><description><![CDATA["...In Colombia, a new service provider's business model  is simply to bring a bank together with a Telco and the tens of thousands of local 'Mom and Pop' shops which underpin Colombia's economy. Perhaps the best known example is Safaricom's MPESA payment system in Kenya, which had 15 million subscribers by the end of 2009, and is now branching out into areas such as crop insurance..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Raging against the Machine</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Raging-against-the-Machine</link><description><![CDATA["...we ought to avoid turning the civic realm into a sectarian power play for ghettoised interest groups, and instead encourage an associative realm in which diversity is embraced as a healthy corollary of the system, rather than an absolutised foundation of it..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Doing The Right Thing: A Video</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Doing-The-Right-Thing-A-Video</link><description><![CDATA["...Roger is lead author of a major ResPublica project entitled 'A Force for The Greater Good,' which examines the role of ethics in business and economics more widely..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>On Ineptitude in Public Services</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/On-Ineptitude-in-Public-Services</link><description><![CDATA["...Instead of standardising demand through dumb computers, you put knowledgeable, concerned people on the front line as the first port of call where they can absorb the myriad variety of human need and allow it to ‘pull’ the appropriate solution. Initial transaction costs go up – sharp intake of breath from factory managers at HMRC – but overall costs go sharply down as time and rework are reduced. Processing times fall from weeks to days; customers send cake and flowers instead of brickbats..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>I or We</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/I-or-We</link><description><![CDATA["...Both David Cameron and Gordon Brown scored over 2.5 - with Cameron just ahead - while Nick Clegg was well behind with 1.85..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Loan Shark Killer</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Loan-Shark-Killer</link><description><![CDATA["...Websites like Zopa are more like cutting-edge credit unions, resting on the simple but radical notion of mutual assistance. Consumers may not be tied by geography, as they were in the days of Victorian mutuality, and still are in the microfinance schemes of the Mo Yunus' Grameen bank. Yet the principle is the same, updated for the 21st century..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Customer and the Citizen</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Customer-and-the-Citizen</link><description><![CDATA["...The managerial trend within government, that began in the 1980's, during the feverish days of Thatcherism, has gradually spread and infiltrated to every facet of public services. This has become sometimes onerously evident for workers in the public sector with the emphasis on meeting targets. For the broad mass of the population, the trend has perhaps become notable in a subtle even seemingly insignificant way as there has been a change in the way we find ourselves addressed when using public services. We have now, it seems, become the customer..." ...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Election, Election, Election</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Election-Election-Election</link><description><![CDATA["... ‘a generation of Ms Mistrustfuls and Mr Boreds [...] hold the key to No. 10’. A combination of long-term alienation from the political sphere and short-term rejection as a result of the expenses scandal has left the political engagement of the British public at gravely low levels, with only 10% of the 2,000 voters surveyed being defined as ‘politically committed’, while 14% were active campaigners, 14% were interested bystanders and 8% politically contented. The flipside of the data is that 54% of the respondents fell into the disengaged/mistrustful, alienated/hostile, detached cynic and bored/apathetic categories. In other words, over h...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Poverty, Politics and Brain Size</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Poverty-Politics-and-Brain-Size</link><description><![CDATA["...brain size is affected, but the level of neglect has to be extreme. Unfortunately Mr. Duncan Smith forgot to mention that the study in question looked at 'extreme extremes': at children in Romanian orphanages who, before the madness of Mr and Mrs Ceausescu came to a violent end in December 1989, were kept in cages, tied to their beds and treated worse than animals over a prolonged period of time. The question we have to ask is the extent to which data based upon these horrific cases should be imported directly and applied to 'Broken Britain.'..."  ...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>A Psephological Quandry</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/A-Psephological-Quandry</link><description><![CDATA["...As though in riposte to our Great Debate  on electoral reform, the Conservative poll lead  fell to 2 per cent nationally over the weekend - a margin small enough that, were this a national election rather than an internet poll of roughly 2,000 adults, election experts would translate this outcome to a Labour victory, with a majority of seats no less. Politics being what it is, this, more than any argument, might b...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Liberty, Innovation, and an Invitation</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Liberty-Innovation-and-an-Invitation</link><description><![CDATA["...Only the innovators on our side can stem the tide of the innovators on 'theirs.' And it is not in regulating or auditing the innovators in our communities that we will develop community innovation and ethos – and so real power - but by reforming the concrete connections of the human commons of the future, and so binding future innovators to the cause of helping those communities..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Dancing On A Pin Head</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Dancing-On-A-Pin-Head</link><description><![CDATA["...I think there are many of us from the left and the right who are tired of the atomised, individualistic, consumerist and ‘for and to’ state of society. We are reaching out for something different. Initiatives like my favourite, the Transition Towns movement  have given up waiting for Big Business and Big Government to provide solutions. They are the living, emergent example of ‘with and by’ society. Local people - butchers, bakers, candle-stick-makers, teachers and mothers - doing things with each other to bring about new forms of relations, production and consumption led by the...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Civil Partnerships: An Opportunity And A Test</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Civil-Partnerships-An-Opportunity-And-A-Test</link><description><![CDATA["...The proposed amendment is not intended to place any obligation to host such ceremonies on those faith communities who are unwilling. The supporters of the amendment believe in religious liberty. Those faith communities who wish to be able to host civil partnership registrations on their premises should be free to do so. And those communities with a corporate view against allowing this should be no less free to refuse to do so. Thus, the amendment, placed by Lord Alli before the Lords this Friday afternoon, states that:  ‘For the avoidance of doubt, this clause does not oblige any religious organisation to host civil partnership ceremonies...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sat, 27 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Assault On British Liberty</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Assault-On-British-Liberty</link><description><![CDATA["...Despite the Government’s woeful record on civil liberties, the Conservatives have been for the most part silent on their substantive views towards this crucial issue. As  Francesca Klug notes, it remains unclear how the promise for a British Bill of Rights will redress these faults. There is little discussion from the right of rescinding Labour’s more illiberal laws, and then-Shadow Home Secretary David Davis’ principled-if-confusing resignation over 42 days was treated with indifference or embarrassment by the Tories..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sat, 27 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Climate Conundrum</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Climate-Conundrum</link><description><![CDATA["...The uproar around these scandals comes in part as a result of the perception that the environment is sacred and we have an associated duty to protect it. This view places the issue of ‘climate change’ on a pedestal, removed from the everyday and ordinary. For those of us living in cities, ‘nature’ is often removed from the ordinary everyday experience of our lives, which only goes to elevate the pedestal. In fact, scientists themselves hold a rather 'pedestalistic' position in our discourse and so the second part of the uproar/shock is tied to a more general shock that scientists, too, improvise, extrapolate, hold prejudices - or even gue...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>AV It!</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/AV-It</link><description><![CDATA["...Qvortrup points out that AV in Australia sometimes produces elections in which a party wins more votes but fewer seats than its main opponent. This is not an argument for keeping FPTP, whose track record in Britain on this is appalling. In three of the four close elections (margin of victory less than 2 percentage points) since 1918, the party with fewer votes won more seats (1929, 1951, February 1974). A system with a 75 per cent failure rate in testing conditions is unfit for purpose..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Adult Economics</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Adult-Economics</link><description><![CDATA["...Although it is seen as acceptable to lose money in a declining market, failing to match profits in the midst of a bubble is regarded by financial institutions (and their investors) as a cardinal sin. So instead institutions blithely follow the herd in offering products they know to be of dubious quality. It may be rational for an individual institution to follow this path in order to retain their investors, but the overall effect is anything but rational. The only way to sort out these perverse incentives is through positive, measured government intervention..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Innovative Ownership</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Innovative-Ownership</link><description><![CDATA["...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..." ...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Safeguarding children (or my son’s bottom)</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Safeguarding-children-or-my-sons-bottom</link><description><![CDATA["...The next morning I spoke to the staff and they told me they are not allowed to wipe my son’s bottom because of ‘safeguarding children’ guidelines. One told me it is a national guideline, another told me it is a guideline that is in place just at this school. I asked her, “are you expecting me to leave work and come in to clean my son and then go back to work?” The answer was of course not a yes or a no, but “these are the rules...”...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Get With The Programmers</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Get-With-The-Programmers</link><description><![CDATA["...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...."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Communitarian Climatology</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Communitarian-Climatology</link><description><![CDATA["...No one should falsify data – and there must be an umbra of certainty  on accurate figures - but to really start to move towards an effective approach on climate change, we need to change our discourse around the issues; to move even towards a more human, even communitarian language about the role of climate change..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sat, 20 Feb 2010 15:49:44 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Bring Back The Machine</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Bring-Back-The-Machine</link><description><![CDATA["...But the machines also performed another task: they created a communal and civil political culture that stretched its sinews down into every last street and tenement building. They were the cardinal element in the process of naturalisation for new immigrants, and they performed a micro-level public service by providing for those in need (in exchange for votes, of course, but a service is a service). This was community outreach in action, but without the whiff of elitism that often accompanies such work. And it was above all political, ensuring that residents were deeply enmeshed in the civic fibre of their home towns and cities..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Sat, 20 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Opportunity Beyond Equality, Part Two</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Opportunity-Beyond-Equality-Part-Two</link><description><![CDATA["...virtue is to do with ethos and education (politics for the sake of paideia and not the other way around); the alternative is virtue as tarted-up merit - and so any idea that there might be a 'national virtue panel' is hardly exhaustive! What Blond and I are talking about is a total shift in ethos at every level. This would include trying to build good ethical practice into the way the market operates. Such could be achieved partly by example – firms that are co-ops between owners, workers and consumers can win out in the long run by crowding out bad practice. This is because people will support fair treatment, better products at fairer pr...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title> Little Platoons For Peace</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/-Little-Platoons-For-Peace</link><description><![CDATA["...It is interesting that representatives of the military... realise that this is as much about wielding “soft power” as it is about destroying the Taliban.  What form does soft power take? Consider, more than 80% of working-age males in Afghanistan are small-scale farmers. Consider, drug traders are often able to exploit the negative choice architecture which confronts these farmers, by frequently providing cash advances for poppies at the beginning of planting season, routinely committing to buy the crop at a set price, and on occasion even offering technical assistance to farmers. This is soft power as realised through civil society..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Cameron@TED</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Cameron@TED</link><description><![CDATA["...In an attempt to wash away the Thatcherite ‘nasty party’ epithet, Cameron has in the past nodded towards the Big Idea of wellbeing-economics and that “there is such a thing as society,” but soon let the concepts slip back into the shadows... It's also notable that this week's ‘Never Voted Tory Before?’ campaign has zero mention of sustainability, climate change, energy security or wellbeing. Clearly these issues have fallen well ...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Opportunity Beyond Equality, Part One</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Opportunity-Beyond-Equality-Part-One</link><description><![CDATA["...What is the problem with the Rawlsian model as regards delivering equality? The following I think: Rawls is bound to be limited to equality of opportunity and this leads to an aporia. It’s true that he expands liberalism to include levelling out of  disadvantages of birth etc but only in the interests of a Lockean or Kantian equality of negative freedom. Why is this aporetic? Because logically it would require one to abolish in every generation for the children the acquired and legitimate meritocratic differentials established by their parents..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>'Gender Equality' - But Not For Daddy </title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Gender-Equality-But-Not-For-Daddy-</link><description><![CDATA["...Mothers are paid for 39 weeks, fathers for 12 weeks.  No equal rights here; when it comes to 'gender equality,' fathers in the UK do badly. Currently, they can only claim two weeks paternity leave on £123 per week. Mothers can get up to nine months. Even when you deduct the two months or so for a mother to recover from birth and settle with the baby, the difference in leave entitlement is still stark..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 16 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Dangerous Deathbed Conversion</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Dangerous-Deathbed-Conversion</link><description><![CDATA["...As a study published by the prominent political scientist Pippa Norris makes clear in an article in the scholarly journal Political Studies, the First-Past-the-Post system does result in a higher level of trust than do the other systems. A change to a different electoral system will not result in greater confidence in politicians – quite the contrary, in fact..." ...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 16 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>About the Disraeli Room</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/About-the-Disraeli-Room-tmza</link><description><![CDATA[The Disraeli Room is 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 prov......]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Social Localism, Not Local Socialism</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Social-Localism-Not-Local-Socialism</link><description><![CDATA["...the notion I am trying to explore is whether a localism that confines itself to tinkering with political structures and processes ('from Whitehall to town halls'), and neglects to argue the positive case for local involvement in formal and informal social institutions, runs the risk of further entrenching precisely that which those exasperated with the burden of an over-mighty state have for so long sought to counter. In short, could it be the case that localism without a coherent notion of 'society' risks becoming that which it seeks to repudiate?"...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Local 'Local'</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Local-Local</link><description><![CDATA["...The pub closure rate has increased over recent years, from 316 net closures in 2006, to 1,409 in 2007 and 1,866 in 2008. The UK currently has around one pub for every 1,100 people, but pubs stand or fall by being local. Research I have put together for Co-operatives UK shows that consumers are less concerned with what drinks are on offer than that the ‘local’ is in fact local..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Are We About To Remake The Broken Middle?</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Are-We-About-To-Remake-The-Broken-Middle</link><description><![CDATA["...The lack of self-critique on both left and right underpins the lack of economic vision and the dearth of transformative thinking. Where for instance will future British growth come from? Consider that the majority of our economic growth over the last ten years was in financial services, housing and the public sector, and this precisely is why radical public sector reform is a sine qua non of a transformative economic platform, and why today's news on the Conservatives' approach to co-operative ownership in the public sector is so exciting..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The Disraeli Room Goes Live</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Disraeli-Room-Goes-Live</link><description><![CDATA["...We begin today with a post from Ed Mayo, ResPublica fellow and Secretary General of Co-operatives UK and follow up with a post by blogger and thinker, Michael Merrick. Tomorrow, among others, we welcome to The Disraeli Room the man who, according to the BBC, is the 'World Authority on Referendums,' Dr Matt Qvortrup. But first we will have Phillip Blond, ResPublica's director writing about the radical new centre ground being forged ahead of the coming election - and what it means for both left and right..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Provocative Little Platoons</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Provocative-Little-Platoons</link><description><![CDATA["...Great things happen when people come together. Where would that irascible, brilliant - yet increasingly blind - old liberal, Milton, have been without his much put-upon aides and his beleaguered kin, who wrote down his verse as he spoke it from memory, word for word. Verse so rich and perfect because of the lucid separation of blind genius - yet useless and lost to time were it not for the simple, human kindnesses of that little platoon around him? ..."...]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>On The Eve Of Our Launch</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/On-The-Eve-Of-Our-Launch</link><description><![CDATA[At ResPublica we are hugely excited about the official launch of our think tank. We have been overwhelmed by the interest shown and look forward to having a really good time and commencing our work with a flourish. In advance of all that, here is a small selection of some of the nice things that some of the newspapers have said about us so far......]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Changing the Nuts and Bolts of Democracy</title><link>http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Changing-the-Nuts-and-Bolts-of-Democracy</link><description><![CDATA[Gordon Brown’s announcement that Labour’s election manifesto will pledge to hold a referendum on whether to change the system for electing the House of Commons to the Alternative Vote early in the next Parliament does not go far enough....]]></description><category>BlogPost</category><pubDate>Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:16:15 GMT</pubDate></item></channel></rss>
