Readers of The Social Review living in the Manchester area, or those who have a keen interest in public transport, may have heard that, at long last, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority is set to take control of the buses of the region. This has been rumoured since the creation of the authority and has been even more widely expected since the…
Social Policy gives us a range of means in which to assess deprivation. Some measures focus on social capital; others on economic capital. In Canada, Pierre Bourdieu inspired its public measure to combine both. The trouble for researchers now lies in deciding what indicators are most telling, from the sea of data available. There are tens of thousands of public datasets that…
Some political quotes stand the test of time. One of my favourites and most-quoted comes, unsurprisingly, from the late, great, Tony Benn. When faced with those with any kind of power, he encouraged us to ask five important questions: What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you use it? To whom are you accountable?…
The NHS Constitution begins with the following statement: “The NHS belongs to the people. It is there to improve our health and wellbeing, supporting us to keep mentally and physically well, to get better when we are ill and, when we cannot fully recover, to stay as well as we can to the end of our lives. It works at the limits…
Being poor impacts every part of your life; from your mental health, to your life expectancy, and throughout your education. The average life expectancy gap between a boy born in an affluent area and a boy born in one of the poorest areas reached 8.4 years in 2018. Being affluent tends to mean that you can have a support network that many…
Central to Labour’s agenda under Corbyn has been the democratisation of the economy – a new economic model – for the many not the few. From putting workers on company boards, to nationalising key industries, to expanding cooperatives and mutuals as forms of worker organisation – Labour’s pledge to lead an irreversible shift in wealth and power in favour of working people…
Labour recently announced the intention of ending in-work poverty within the bounds of the next parliament once in government. Putting to one side this slightly woolly phrasing – reminiscent of the current administration’s resolution to ‘complete decarbonisation (hopefully before the last polar bear burns to death)’ – this is a welcome intervention from a leadership that has frankly been far too reticent…
On February 22nd, 2018, the University and College Union went on strike. Although many factors played a role in causing the strike, the balloted action concerned a reorganisation of the USS pension scheme. The details of the changes to the pensions are fairly complex, and I am not here to write about the particulars of the dispute (not least because it is…
