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  • April 8, 2013
    Thatcherism is alive and well

    I was two years old when Margaret Thatcher came to power, and thirteen when she resigned.

    Thatcher’s policies led to mass unemployment, leaving my father on the dole for much of my childhood. I started secondary school the year that Section 28 was brought in, banning schools from presenting same-sex relationships as legitimate.

  • April 5, 2013
    Class: It's about power and wealth, not tastes in music

    This week, I completed a survey on the BBC website to discover which class I belong to. In reality, I don't have much doubt about which class I belong to, so I was really discovering more about the people who designed the survey than I was about myself.

  • March 23, 2013
    Workfare: Hurting the poor, helping the rich

    By requiring people to work without pay, the government's workfare schemes are pushing more and more people into poverty and unemployment, says Ekklesia associate Symon Hill. Christian organisations need to campaign against workfare, not participate in it, he argues.

  • March 18, 2013
    Salvation Army and YMCA face protests over workfare labour

    Several Christian charities are facing protests for participating in "workfare" schemes under which unemployed people must work for free or lose their benefits.

  • March 13, 2013
    Benefits and bishops: What IDS didn't say

    I have often been critical of the Church of England’s leadership for being slow to speak out on issues of economic justice. I’m therefore delighted that 43 CofE bishops have criticised the coalition for cutting benefits (or technically, for raising them by one percent, which is below the rate of inflation and therefore a cut in all but name).

  • March 1, 2013
    Eastleigh, UKIP and the immigration blame-game

    On the day of the Eastleigh by-election, figures were released which showed a marked recent decline in net migration, which obviously delighted the Government. Home Secretary Theresa May boasted about how much she had toughened up the rules, but perhaps in an attempt to forestall one potential criticism, stressed the fact that visas for university students had increased by three percent overall.

  • February 18, 2013
    UK second last among G7 countries in 'global race' for export growth

    The UK has experienced the second slowest export growth of all G7 countries since 2010, with only Japan faring worse, the TUC says.

  • January 2, 2013
    Pay, welfare benefits, fairness and IDS

    It is unfair that jobless benefits have risen far faster than salaries, claimed UK welfare secretary Iain Duncan Smith. But his efforts to justify a further onslaught on the living standards of unemployed people are unconvincing.

  • December 22, 2012
    400,000 people set to spend a second Christmas on the dole in the UK

    Over 400,000 people are set to spend their second successive Christmas on the dole according to new research published by the Trades Union Congress.

  • December 21, 2012
    Snooping on job seekers is risky and unfair

    British state plans to force unemployed people to look for work online and monitor them while they do so have been widely condemned. Privacy will be invaded, crime boosted and poor and disabled people victimised.