To uncharacteristically stay with the same topic, some reflections a week after the government’s number two signed a pretty substantial devolution deal with greater manchester’s ten number ones. Aficionados may recognise that many details are, to a degree, more of the same: GM already had earnback and transport powers, housing and planning has long been under discussion. However, this is a stake in the ground that pulls those things significantly forward, idenifying budgets and pushing forward mechanisms that enable local control and making a good first fist of, probably more importantly, reducing central government “oversight” and conditions. It is recognition of the seriousness of that which forced hands all round on the solution everyone knew would be needed at some…

view more »

I have to admit to being rather surpised, as well as delighted, that somehow over the last months devolution seems to have taken some very serious steps from the technocratic and academic sphere towards the front line of politics. This week local power was on front pages from the guardian to the financial times, becoming a topic that politicians seem to think might win or lose them votes. The arguments many of us have been sharpening for years about converting the house of lords to a regional chamber in manchester’s town hall, of the city getting a proper boris-style mayor, of major infrastructure investments like hs3 and the local tax raising powers to sustain them are suddenly falling from the…

view more »

An intense blush of the life personal and familial, as we really got away from it all and my other half and I tied the knot a little stronger. That was just the prologue to the wonderful story of my eldest son’s coming of age, and all at what was once, and still is for so many, the centre of the world. Jerusalem was quiet, without a normal hair out of place for the sukkot holidays and the several dozen of our crowd wandered amongst the magnificent and the maligned, seeing all and imbuing the whole occasion with meaning and wonder, even awe. He was, as expected, unbelievably perfect, and the event itself on the lawn overlooking the old city…

view more »

After the most intensive months of preparation, which have speeded up manically over the last weeks and days, we are finally off tomorrow on our big adventure. We first fly to budapest to pick up some of my other half’s family and after a night’s stopover on to tel aviv for the big event. The warm up is on friday, the main act saturday, followed of course by dinner and a party. I can’t quite believe I have a thirteen year old son; these years have really just bunched up we’ve flitted over them so quickly. I’m very happy to be getting away from it all, and very happy too so many friends and family are joining us for a…

view more »

The incredible 85% turnout for the scottish referendum shows vividly that even in our increasingly cynical, mass media celebrity, short-termist, brittle culture, if voting matters, people will do it. Perhaps democracy is not petering out after all. That 45% of the scottish people voted to become an independent country is remarkable; that it wasn’t the talk of the day after was more remarkable still. Much of the momentem the “ayes” had in scotland was built on decades of neglect and patronising from the london-based system, whose media in the last weeks has virtually migrated to scotland, saturating and showcasing the country to britain and the world. Yet, within hours of the vote being called, all the talk was of england,…

view more »

With october getting closer, and the situation in israel refusing to stabilise - let alone start much more importantly on the path towards an actual resolution – the shadow that has been cast over these last months has only darkened. Like a rabbit in the headlights we have let a lot of things slip, so we now need to firm ourselves and push on, even as we feel that is really not how it should be. Deaths in the syrian conflict are now approaching 200, 000 and so while the 2, 000 of gaza may seem small in relation to so many conflicts of both the past and present, they are so much closer to home and it is so…

view more »

My world of hungary this year was rather overwhelmed by my world of israel. We generally go to the balaton in the summer, and this year was no exception, although it was shorter than usual, due to our longer trip to israel in october. Most unusually the rain fell and the sun refused to shine, which is very disruptive to an outdoor holiday, but the longer shadow was cast by the missiles that continued to rain down on gaza throughout our stay, although a 72-hour ceasefire did puncture the week with hope, as has today’s, as things finally seem to be “winding down”. On my return, I rapidly tried to get back up to speed, reading the economist and listening…

view more »

I mentally moved away from the conflict many years ago in utter despair at how, from a moment in time where there were leaders and a process (rabin, araft and oslo, see and that’s how it ended) which might, just might, deliver a settlement that a generation later would be peace, there has been a steady and remorseless moving of the fundamentals away from that hope towards a place where no-one can even envisage a solution let alone take responsibility for moving towards it. This makes the last and next years an exercise of management. That has dire consequences every minute of every day, mainly for the palestinians, but occasionally that management breaks down altogether and as my old…

view more »

Someone’s listening - and just over 6 months after my excellent article on the subject, and the best part of two years’ work from lots of people of whom I was just one, the uk’s finance minster has mooted the possibility of a proper east-west link to the we-hope-soon-to-be-built high-speed network. There are of course many slips twixt cup and lip on hs2, let alone – and I’m claiming the coining of the term first - hs3, but at least it is on the agenda and in pole position for the eventuality that if hs2 does make it, and the appetite, economic case, and financing are there for more, it becomes the obvious, and the right, next step. Albeit heading…

view more »