This article was first published on Open Democracy. If you want a primer on Wilkinson and Pickett’s joint book The Spirit Level, then the pieces here are worth a look (one by me). And for a comprehensive set of responses…
This article was first published in Open Democracy. So, it is indeed going to be May 5, as I wrote in breaking the news, last week. The battle-lines are already being drawn – it is clear that there will be…
This article was first published on the One World Column blog. How ought we to think of our relationship to – our responsibility for – future people? Is this question (a question pressing all the harder in the wake of…
This article was first published in Open Democracy. Now is not the time for soundbites, but I feel the hand of history on my shoulder, so I can’t help it. A century ago, the Labour Party won its first seats…
This article was first published in Open Democracy. I spent yesterday ‘on point’ for Green Party Deputy Leader (and my fellow Norwich Councillor) Adrian Ramsay, in a series of interviews on College Green just outside the Houses of Parliament. Adrian…
This article was first published on the Open Democracy website. Many voters are ‘against immigration’ and against foreign aid (they say things to me on the doorstep along the lines of: “We should take care of our own; that’s enough”);…
This article was first published in Open Democracy. As we move into 2010, the feeling of many people across this country seems to be that now is the time to give up on large-scale politics, and focus on small local-level…
This article was first published on the Open Democracy website. It is no longer socially-acceptable to exhibit prejudice against ethnic minority people on grounds of their ethnicity, women on grounds of their gender, or working-class people on grounds of their…
This article was first published in Open Democracy. It is day six of the ‘scandal’ over the hacked emails from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia’s School of Environmental Sciences, in which a thousand or so…
This article was first published in Open Democracy. The Government has recently proposed that the Bank of England should take on the primary responsibility for macro-prudential regulation in this country (see this thoughtful appraisal). Such significant shake-ups in our fundamental…
This article was first publish in Open Democracy. As an MEP Candidate campaigning around the East Region in the last few weeks, I’ve frequently asked and been asked the question: what can June’s European Union Elections really do for Britain?…
This article was first published in Open Democracy. Here is a good place to start. Check out the sub-head to this piece in today’s ‘Telegraph’: “October 13, 2008 will go down in history as the day the capitalist system in…