Retired Professor of Political Economy
(Lancaster University, UK - retired 2021)
(also #ProfDJ across the Lune Valley)
Contributor: North West Bylines #NoBridge
Its quite an extraordinary 'natural experiment' - from which we can draw the conclusion (without too much difficulty) that #privatisation is not the way forward if #busses are to be part of the #greentransition
(and don't get me started on #London exceptionalism....)
There are at least two clear reasons why #Vienna is so often voted one of the most liveable cities in the world:
the defining logic of the city is: 'is this good for children' in stead of 'is this good for property developers'?
When awarding planning permission Vienna's planners requires 50% 'affordable housing' in all new urban developments, not the much lower ratios elsewhere.
All you need to know about how rentier #capitalism works in one bit of data:
The UK's water firms were privatised without any outstanding debts over thirty years ago.... now, the privatised #infrastructure (regional) #monopolies have around £62bn in debt, but are still failing to deliver an adequate service.
If that debt has not been used to invest sufficiently in the #infrastructure, which the firms now (grudgingly) admit,, you might wonder where has it gone?
Here's the final section of a letter to the FT from Brendan Kelly (Professor of Psychiatry, Trinity College Dublin) makes a crucial point...
While there is no doubting the problems of mental health, to treat all aspects of these personal travails as illness is to focus too much on the individual and allow our toxic society & workplaces to escape their share of the blame.
A year or so back I treated myself to an original of a @tomgauld cartoon, and each time I look at it (above my desk) it still makes me smile.... so I thought I'd share it with you all. Enjoy!
Looks like the #AntiMonarchist demonstrators were subject to a classic bait & switch operation today - they were reassured through detailed meetings with the #Police, led to believe there was a way that they could exercise their right to protest, only then to be arrested when they did... so much for #democracy - another step down a road we're constantly told is merely scaremongering.... its almost entrapment
Aha, I see finally the penny has dropped in #America.... the FAA is now 'considering' halting the practice where #Boeing engineers/staff certify their own planes as airworthy.
That they could still do so after the two previous #737max crashes, tells you something about institutional capture in the #aviation industry.
Can't see Boeing coming back from this quickly....
The one person right now who you might have expect to be called to speak in a debate of racism in the House of Commons would be Diane Abbott who, subject of a high profile incidence of racist language from a Tory donor... yet the Speaker said that despite Abbott rising over 40 times to speak during the debate, he ran out of time to call her.
If you wanted to confirm to the average voter that the political system is racist, this would be a good way to do it.
George Monbiot offers a concise summary of the current state of #Britain:
#Inequality 'demands oppression. The more concentrated wealth & power become, the more those who challenge the rich & powerful must be hounded and crushed. In other words, economic inequality is mirrored by inequality before the law. You can dispense with all the other indices of democracy. The best measure of the health of a political system is who gets prosecuted'!
Its been clear for ages that many public service cuts are false economies.... as a friend of mine pointed out some time ago, if you cut early intervention & prevention services (which can be relatively cheap & effective), you then enlarge the demand for more expensive (and often mandatory) crisis services....
A new IFS study that looked at closing police stations, suggests, likewise that every £1 saved by closing a location increased social costs by £3!
The 60°S-60°N global average sea surface temperature broke through the 6 sigma barrier for the first time, reaching 6.08 standard deviations above the 1982-2011 mean.
If we keep ignoring the #climatecrisis or hoping that it'll be another generation's problem, its safe to say we're heading into a man-made disaster of epic proportions.
But, hey as long as drivers can pop into #London it'll all be OK, eh, Rishi?
Yet more misogyny by the UK's #police... it seems some police forces are testing women who have suffered from miscarriages for the presence of #abortion drugs in their body.
As if having a miscarriage wasn't distressing enough, now the state wants to check whether it can prosecute you.
A women's right to choose is where we should be, not in this latest twist on surveillance society.
I see te UK Govt. is now trumpeting that it has joined #Horizon & what a great opportunity for #research this is.... while conveniently 'forgetting' that they took us out of the programme in the first place & then spent three years arguing about how to re-enter before finally acquiescing to the EU's original conditions for becoming part of the programme.
Three lost years, entirely caused by #RishiSunak & the #Tories wrecking impulse
One way #classism shows up in discussions of UK #economic policy is the way that regulations that are intended to protect #workers are judged by (and criticised for) the 'burden' they put on #businesses.
However, seldom do we see the pressure to increase #profits & suppress wages described as burden being put onto workers.
All regulation is about trade-offs & balances but not when one side is favoured by an aspiration to relieve it of all 'burdens' while the other's burdens are dismissed
So, interestingly Centene (A private US #healthcare provider) is pulling out of the UK, having failed to capitalise on owning both a chain of GPs & hospitals - both of which are now up for sale.
Apparently they were unable to 'incentivise' GPs to refer patients to Centene hospitals & found there was insufficient margin for profit in the business they were able to direct to their own network.
It seems the UK 'market' for healthcare may be a harder nut to crack that US firms realise.
This graphic (circulated by Bridget Doran on LinkedIn) neatly sums up the problem with the simple message that growth needs to be prioritised & measured via a nominal GDP measure.
In this sense it reflects a heckle reported by Anand Menon nearly a decade ago, during a lecture on GDP & the problems of growth:
'That’s your bloody GDP. Not ours'!
The simple truth that growth is unevenly distributed is often lost in policy discussions!
