Citizens / Consumerism / Digital Democracy / Individuality / Leadership / Manifesto for Change / Politics / Trust / Wellbeing
Who Leads The State? (Part One)
The State has fallen from fashion and from grace. For many, it now encapsulates everything that is wrong in life: pointless bureaucracy; nannying interference; needless cost. The social democrats among us – too many falsely seduced by the Reagan/ Thatcher legacy – have failed to persuade, while market fundamentalists have filled the intellectual vacuum by...
Polising the State of Media
Neil Wallis (formerly of the News of the World and, briefly, the Metropolitan Police) accidentally said that “what we see in the media, we see in all the other institutions of society”. Speaking at #PolisTrust at the London School of Economics, Wallis was referring to the issue of trust. He is of course correct –...
Citizens / Digital Democracy / Individuality / Leadership / Manifesto for Change / New Economics / Politics / Trust / Wellbeing
The Indecency of Power
Plato famously believed that philosophers should rule. Aristotle argued that the political class must be led by ‘men of virtue’. They both had a point. “Much of what is amiss in our world”, as Judt commented, “can best be captured in the language of classical political thought”. In today’s city states, nation states and business...
Ill Fares The Land: The Book I Wish I Had Written
Possibly one of the finest treatises on politics, Tony Judt’s ‘Ill Fares The Land’ is the one book I wish that I had written. Polemical and passionate in equal measure – and despite Judt’s untimely death – this is in many ways the book for our times: the perfect re-artuclation of social democracy and the...
Citizens / Climate change / Consumerism / Manifesto for Change / New Economics / Politics / Wellbeing
Stealing Back The Commons: Citizen Economics Beyond Capitalism (Part Two)
In part one of this blog we suggested that it might be time to question the role of capitalism in securing our futures. In this second part of the blog we look at what might replace or update capitalism 1.0. Res Communes – sustainable wellbeing economics of, by and for the citizens I’m involved currently...
Citizens / Climate change / Consumerism / Energy / Leadership / Manifesto for Change / New Economics / Politics / Sustainability
Stealing Back The Commons: Citizen Economics Beyond Capitalism (Part One)
Michael Jacobs, an ex-SpAd to Gordon Brown, has recently written in the New Satesman that ‘green social democracy can save capitalism’. Well, not everyone agrees. For some, the ‘green social democracy’ experiment has, thus far, not worked, and indeed, might be running out of time. And as for capitalism – or at least capitalism1.0, it’s...
Nick Clegg’s Failure is the Failure to Ask The Right Questions
Nick Clegg’s current predicament is a perfect example of a leader failing to ask the right questions. Furthermore, as Professor Stefan Stern has pointed out, Clegg has been swept into the classic CEO pitfall of choosing not to pursue issues that sit in the “too hard” basket. Both epitomise serious shortcomings of leadership. The fact...
Citizens / Consumerism / Digital Democracy / Individuality / Leadership / Manifesto for Change / New Economics / Politics / Trust
World Gone Wrong
“The idea is essentially repulsive, of a society held together only by the relations and feelings arising out of pecuniary interest” John Stuart Mill As though scripted for a 1970s dystopian SciFi fantasy, society has landed in the wrong place and is apparently marooned here. Our people and our planet are not at ease with...
Citizens / Climate change / Digital Democracy / Leadership / Manifesto for Change / Politics / Trust
Stop Swaying. Start Shifting
It is time to re-consider some societal fundamentals and have an honest conversation about the legitimacy of power. Why are we surprised that the Eurozone remains in crisis? That the issue of ‘Palestine’ remains unresolved? That American kids are still being shot in the streets, only weeks after the horrors of Newtown? That austerity lingers...
