The Big Society Can Bite Back: A Citizen Perspective
It is, admittedly, early days but opinion is divided as to whether David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ is a genuine commitment to citizenship and civic responsibility or a clever ideological play to dramatically reduce the size of the state, delivering a Grantham fist within a Notting Hill glove.
Cameron’s Happiness Index is welcome news for progressives
The government has announced a wellbeing review. What might this mean and why is this an important and welcome sign of progressiveness? In conventional wisdom, economic growth and higher incomes mean richer lives and improved quality of life. But, as the Happy Planet Index shows, true prosperity goes beyond material pleasures.
Looking Again at The State We’re In
I have been doing a lot of reading and thinking around the subject and nature of Trust, as we prepare to launch the 2010 Edelman Trust Barometer in London and in Davos this week. It will come as no surprise to many to learn that – as with the interim Barometer, published in the summer...
Aspire not to have more, but to be more
The above quote is from Archbishop Oscar Romero. It has recently become a bumper-sticker in the US for fans of steady-state economics. Romero was a hero of the Central American Liberation Theology movement and someone I heard about as a child because my stepfather was a Liberation Theologian and writer and was active in Central...
Milton Friedman is Dead
The Gordon Gekko mantra that ‘Greed is good’ is now oft-repeated in casual conversational references to an era passed, but those who still cling to the Friedman obsession with free markets and the doctrine that the social responsibility of business is to maximize its profits...
Gordon’s Rainbow Bridge to a Better World
Gordon Brown’s surprise descent into the world of TED Global was a clear coup for the Curators but left the audience – sceptical Brits at least – with a sense that this was more a pitch for life after the Premiership than it was a genuine strategy for wellbeing reform. Certainly, the words were right...
Scientist and citizen
One could not help but be underwhelmed by Ed Milliband’s lacklustre performance last night on Newsnight where he gave a very poor explanation as to why the UK should be so much more proud of its climate change performance than the US. John Podesta – Obama’s joint head of Transition – made the valid point...
Ab Fab for The Citizen
At an event at the Edelman London offices earlier this week – co-hosted with Editorial Intelligence and the Reuters Institute of Journalism – we discussed whether or not the Fourth Estate was in permanent decline? Many were trumpeting the Parliamentary expenses scandal as a victory for a (resurgent) media. I, however, would prefer to see...
Towards The Reformation
A rather gentle piece on Transition Towns in this weekend’s FT showed no trace of irony, given the seismic shocks that continue to shake our world. It was almost as if ‘nice to do’ and ‘need to do’ can never be real bedfellows. Yet never has that need been more urgent. An apparent eagerness to...
