Excuse Me Whilst I Step Outside

Traditional Forms of State Regulation of Banking - Worth Another Try?

2012-01-27T13:56:00.000Z

Enough of this wimpy stuff about bonuses. Bonuses aren't the point. How a given individual's remuneration package is divided between base salary and add-ons is a detail. The point is how large the overall payment is, and what the payment is made for. & payments to senior staff in state owned banks should be made for benefiting society -say by increasing lending to small and medium sized

ECB Loans, Three-Card Tricks and the Dangers of Relative Non-Autonomy.

2011-12-22T14:28:00.000Z

Chris Dillow claims one feature of the crisis of the Eurozone is that 'the markets' have given up on politicians' capacity to solve problems which, in principle, he claims are soluble (his own range of possible solutions are presented in shorthand here). I'm not so sure - not because I have any greater respect for the key politicians involved in all this, but because I'm increasingly beginning

The Only Reason To Read This Post are the Links

2011-12-11T21:47:00.001Z

Mind, they're bloody good links: Michael Hudson talks bitingly of the attempted Europe wide coup which constitute the current 26 country plans for dealing with the Eurozone crisis. OCED finally joins the rest of us in acknowledging trickle down theory is a busted flush. That is all. Off you go now.

Two Speed Europe?

2011-12-09T08:44:00.001Z

We've all woken up this morning to the breathlessly conveyed news that the European political elites have staged an all nighter with the result that most of them have agreed to sign up to a new Treaty to deal with the crisis in the Eurozone. But not Britain. Predictably, the initial coverage in our domestic media is very much focused on the 'Europsceptic v Europhile' axis. Some idiot Tory

I Can Feel An Internal Contradiction Coming On....

2011-12-02T17:03:00.001Z

Blimey - blast from the past time: Etienne Balibar (yes, that one - I'd forgotten about him too if it makes you feel any better) comments on the various risks involved in this latest attempt to hold together the Euro. He lists three main possible risks to Merkel's plans for a revised Treaty and a fiscal union.Details of these plans are sketchy at the moment, but apparently centre around giving

What The Internet is For

2011-11-15T09:41:00.001Z

Schoolduggery is a blog brought to my attention in the last 24 hours. According to the Guardian it is the work of a primary school governor in Suffolk. There's a rather impressive post up on the site which collates data showing that the new wave of so called Free Schools have systematically admitted lower percentages of children on Free School Meals (FSM) - the standard deprivation measure used

A Song From 1981 (Or Earlier?)

2011-11-13T20:51:00.001Z

In October 1981, 250,000 people joined an anti-nuclear demonstration in London. That summer, Tony Benn had come within 1% of being elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. Me? I was unemployed in Brighton. So unemployed, in fact, I volunteered to work as a steward at that Labour Party conference. As a consequence, I find I am the owner of the 'Phonetappers and Punters Club Official Songbook

Pass The Parcel: Euro Edition

2011-11-12T17:44:00.001Z

Gillian Tett and Paul Mason have written the two best popular books so far about the banking crisis of 2008. Perhaps significantly, neither initially started life as an economist: Tett did her doctorate in social anthropology and Mason trained as a music teacher and musical academic. With all due respect to Steph, Pesto and the starry array of proper economists @ the FT, I think these two are the

Occupy Has Nothing to Say? I Blame the Parents

2011-10-28T14:17:00.002+01:00

Socialism, or at least its 20th Century version, collapsed for two main reasons: because it couldn’t find a political form which demonstrated at least much personal freedom and democracy as the Western liberal democracies it opposed, and because it failed to deliver economic progress at the same speed or to the same apparent degree of efficiency as capitalism. Like everyone else of a

Once More With Feeling?

2011-10-10T09:35:00.001+01:00

I wrote last week about my dismay at finding my children didn't know the words to the Red Flag; Rab said he used the tune as a lullaby to his kids when they were small. & this set me thinking about the role of emotionally charged symbols - be they musical or flags or whatever - in the passing on of political and moral perspectives. Let me share another anecdote. This summer I went to

Name That Tune

2011-10-01T17:14:00.001+01:00

So I walk into the kitchen and there is young Ms. McMenamin, aged 12, doing some nonsense free-form rapping about squirrels or whatever. It was the tune that caught my attention: dum-dum-de-dum/dum-dum-de-dum/de-dum-de-dum-de-dum-de-dum. I asked her if she knew what the tune was called, and she searched her memory and came up with a rather hesitant,".. something about trees?". "Well... sort of

That NHS Listening Exercise in Full

2011-05-07T14:00:00.005+01:00

From the LRB blog,"...there’s more to the listening exercise than a website. Paul Burstow, the care services minister, announced last month that 119 listening events had been planned. 119? Impressive. It would be nice to see a list. Apparently if you ask for the list you are told to contact NHS Future Forum. But it turns out that NHS Future Forum does not take incoming calls. Not, it would seem,

AV: A Tactical Question for England ?

2011-04-26T12:03:00.008+01:00

I'm in the 'Oh alright then, if that's the only thing on offer' camp on AV.That's simply because, on balance, I think it is just a tinsey bit more sensible that FPTP. But proportional and fair it sure ain't. Not that any electoral system can necessarily guarantee those aims: you pick a electoral system to fit the underlying political sociology in my view, not to change it. Therefore a system

The Nakedness of Class and the Classroom

2011-04-06T13:09:00.007+01:00

I thought I had given up blogging, but some things make you so angry you just have to write something down. Who is to blame for my return to my pointless habit of hurling typo strewn invective into the ether? Step forward Mr.Toby Young and his West London Free School idea.Everyone needs to be clear what's happening here, so a little background. There is a 'zeitgeist-y' feeling across all welfare

Waiting For the Great Leap Backwards?

2010-12-14T13:32:00.016Z

I had been wondering exactly what the Coalition now expects to happen. They've pushed through the budget, they've handed down the pain to the operational bits of the public sector in eye wateringly-tight financial settlements and they've (just about) got through the first really tricky Commons vote, the one on tuition fees.Were they, I mused, now hoping a spirit of grim, 'post Dunkirk-like

Two Things Worth Browsing Today

2010-12-10T10:58:00.004Z

The graphic is from here: it shows the changes in relative compensation between executives and average workers in the US over the last fifty years. Click on it to get an enlarged picture.Keeping that image firmly in mind trot on over to Will at Potlatch, and consider his sharp eyed linkage of bankers compensation and last night's student protests."If bankers had just managed to keep a limit on

The Student Revolt Against Tuition Fees and the Limits of Public Choice Theory

2010-12-09T09:34:00.025Z

For what seems like decades the Right has claimed that markets or quasi markets in social goods and services protect the interests of consumers, and that public services are inherently subject to being run in the interests of the producers rather than the people who use them unless they are subject to such external discipline. These assumptions have been hard-wired into policy debate to such an

Or is This Just Me?

2010-11-26T16:37:00.002Z

From

Haircuts All Round?

2010-11-23T18:24:00.009Z

A GUBU Day if ever there was one, I'd say : little Ireland threatens to crash the Euro simply by not rolling over immediately to the idea that they should all go back to potato farming and emigration. It's that pesky democracy thing getting in the way of sensible business decisions again. Cowan is surely done for, his reputation as well as career in tatters, surely now seen as little more than a

The Death of Fianna Fail in Two Quotes and a Headline

2010-11-23T16:05:00.006Z

John Naughton reminds us of Eamon De Valera rebuking the Brits for criticising Ireland's neutrality in WW2:"Mr. Churchill is justly proud of his nation’s perseverance against heavy odds. But we in this island are still prouder of our people’s perseverance for freedom through all the centuries. We, of our time, have played our part in the perseverance, and we have pledged our selves to the

Why Academies (or Any School) Shouldn't Control Their Own Admissions

2010-11-19T09:00:00.007Z

Here's the lead story from the front page of my local free sheet newspaper: "A disabled 11-year-old girl has been rejected by an academy school because she poses a “health and safety risk” to other children. Idayah Miller, from Norbury, was told she could not go to the elite Harris Academy in Crystal Palace because her wheelchair would restrict the movement of other children in the

Every Picture Tells A Story

2010-11-18T17:08:00.006Z

The green postbox tells you the picture has been taken in Ireland. We have the Guardian's word for it that the bloke on the left is the deputy director of the European department of the IMF. All in all, I think that bloke begging is going to have to get a bigger cup....Let's be clear about what's going on today. A small country has attempted to take on the debts of a disproportionately sized

OK, Let's Get the Old Street Party Committee Together Again..

2010-11-16T19:25:00.007Z

Addendum: At last - some good news

On Watching Some Windows Getting Broken as a Family Group

2010-11-11T09:06:00.008Z

Interesting times last night - not just at Millbank, but here at Chez McMenamin. Now, time was when Mrs. McM and I would have happily sat watching a few broken windows at Tory HQ on TV, chugged away at the Merlot and gleefully quoted Jim to each other ('If there's a lesson in life we should all learn is that students must never break windows unless they're members of the Bullingdon Club.').We

QE2: Pass the Parcel Redux

2010-11-02T18:41:00.004Z

Blimey: Mason has explained it in a way even I can understand. Hard to believe he was originally a musical academic.My precis: basically the Western financial system remains sitting on a time bomb of unacknowledged (i.e. unwritten off) debt. Quantitative Easing is a potential path - actually, the only potential path - out of this. But with that comes the real possibility of other bad stuff. Not

Social Housing: the End?

2010-10-29T09:12:00.005+01:00

The graphic is from this week's edition of the housing trade mag, not some alarmist leftist publication. It refers to the end of public subsidy for the capital costs of building social housing. If the Tories really mean what they say, we're in uncharted waters.Housing finance is notoriously difficult and dull, so let's strip it back to its essentials: to cover the costs of building houses you can

The Coming Cuts Chaos: A Small Case Study

2010-10-27T13:47:00.008+01:00

Supporting People? It’s the best little government programme you’ve never heard of: according to the CLG’s own study its' £1.6bn of expenditure on preventative support services saves the nation- well, England in this case - a total of £3.4bn. Basically, it saves over £2 for every £1 spent on it. Think of it as the 'stitch in time..' programme.How does it do this? Very largely by putting in

SureStart: A Marxist Approach

2010-10-27T10:58:00.003+01:00

From, via

NW Business Interests Unite To Save Key Turkish Airlines Advertising Strategy

2010-10-22T13:23:00.007+01:00

But he'll still go I think, 'cos he's had his feet held to the fire. I mean look at this picture from Weds game and note the correct use of the apostrophe. That's not the Stretford End we all know and love, is it? That somehow has a ....well, slightly more corporate feel don'tcha think? I think his rather low rent agent got stuffed by the PR machine of a large organisation who had fought the

Localism: Politics and Management Collide

2010-10-22T09:49:00.004+01:00

Three currently Tory led West London Councils are considering merging services. This sort of thing has happened before in small local Districts, but never with authorities of such size. Collectively, they serve a population of getting on for 600,000 people. The three are already merging their children's services departments - aka education and social care for kids - and now they seem to want to

University Fees: Driving Down House Prices in the Long Term

2010-10-15T22:54:00.006+01:00