David “I was right” Blanchflower’s Right Blog is right. On this occasion he’s right about polling results. The public apparently thinks that Osborne’s fiscal policy is bad for the economy, unfair, too fast, excessive, and is affecting their lives directly. They’re also worried about unemployment and public service cuts. Which they also think are “necessary”…
Read More Irrational policy designBecause Chris Dillow has spam-bucketed me again, like quite a few TypePad sites periodically do, this comment will go here instead. Chris discusses a paper claiming that fiscal stimulus will not work because the central bank will put up interest rates and the exchange rate will rise, and quite sensibly points out that it doesn’t…
Read More don’t forget the powerJust as so much Blair era culture-page handwringing about why my kids came back from university, in hindsight, was a way of not talking about wages, student debt, and housing, people tend to lose sight of the central role of politics when they make arguments about “filter bubbles”. The original post over at Flipchart Fairytales…
Read More Boundaries. Now there’s dull for youIn the light of this it’s fairly clear that open data as a project is now over. (Hey, it was the week it turned out the government wants to just throw away the Forensic Science Service’s archive, you know, just hire a skip because who wants a load of old stuff, right?) Tory plans seem…
Read More the Conservatives really do hate you as much as you fearedThe Grauniad Dabatlog has produced a rather fancy network visualisation of the sources cited in Anders Behring Breivik’s personal manifesto/horse-shit compendium. This is great as I now don’t need to worry that I perhaps should have made one. It’s very pretty and you can click on stuff, and see that some of the sources are…
Read More discovering the axis of barkingDid anyone notice that Liam Fox had an audience of Rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks, or I suppose they of him although you know how these things work around here, some time this spring? It’s in the latest MOD meetings disclosure, which runs up to March 2011. MOD is probably the most assiduous department for…
Read More all is right with the worldChina’s neo-con blogging fever-swamp, via (of course) Jamie K. For instance, Gao Yi, a well-known music critic, tweeted: “Compared with a war, US$7 billion is much more worthwhile. Right now, we lack the off-shore staging capacity for a mid-intensity war. A well-known music critic? Now that’s special. You don’t get detailed comment on the Royal…
Read More as for the Mahler, I think it could do with a helipadThis is fascinating, especially when you remember GTech’s role in our own dear sordid raffle. Great reporting, too.
Read More it could be you, but not while she’s aroundThis Melanie Phillips piece is remarkably insightful.
Read More various official agencies knew about the usual lobotomised pc crowdTanya Gold brings the fisk to A4E: Why does this feel so dodgy? I called Harrison’s PR and asked her what will happen if there are no jobs. What then? “Emma believes there are jobs,” she replied. “There are hidden jobs.” Oh yes, those hidden jobs, buried under trees and lying at the end of…
Read More Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest