Minor riots in london today as parliament voted on increasing student’s tuition fees from some £3k to some £9k. Epicentre was the treasury, with me sat inside talking about tax incremental financing and social impact bonds as the chants grew louder and the nice russian security lady came around to ask us to close the blinds. The country’s bankrupt and all that, but it’s a difficult one to call this for those of us that got our degrees free and indeed were given a pretty decent grant to go on holiday, sorry to university, for 3 years. Actually I learnt tons and have pretty much traded on it the rest of my life, so I definitely see it as a…

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All we are saying - keep talking- is give peace a chance. Everybody's talking about revolution, evolution, masturbation, flagellation, regulation, integrations, meditations, united nations, congratulations... As soon as your born they make you feel small, by giving you no time instead of it all, till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all. A working class hero is something to be. Keep you doped with religion, sex and tv, and you think you're so clever and classless and free... Nobody told me there'd be days like these, strange days indeed... you may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one, I hope some day you'll join us, and the world will be as one... power to…

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Driving home from my sister’s 40th birthday party in london, we caught one of those excellent but rare documentaries that light up a subject and cram a lifetime’s understanding into 30 minutes. I’d recommend listening to what really happened in copenhagen in full, but the story is most startling for its geopolitical climax. It shows that my call then (20 dec) was on the money. Denmark dismally failed in the usual host’s duty of bringing forward a compromise at the right time to get momentum and seal an agreement, and at the end of 2 weeks, and indeed of 2 years negotiations beforehand, as the world’s leaders flew in, there was nothing for them to sign. The programme gets insiders…

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The financial times has surely called it right that the eu using the irish crisis as an opportunity to rid themselves of the running sore of ireland's 12.5% corporate tax rate would “politically, be the most monumental own goal europe could score. The irish were converted to the lisbon treaty by guarantees on tax sovereignty. Reneging on them would cause cracks in europe’s political edifice that no words could paper over.” Much as many do not agree with this rock of irish fiscals, and much as the quid pro quo for a community bail out must be rigour and reality in national affairs, that policy has proved as successful as any, and is their democratic right to pursue. This is…

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So much news: aung san suu kyi (free at last, but so little so late), abysmal failure at the g20, whose consequences will be with us for a decade (an excellent economist piece echoes my last post), and ireland again tests the euro. I’m struck most though by another excellent piece, by andrew rawnsley, on changes to the UK benefits system. Maybe because it’s a problem facing all europe, with the outlier uk dealing with it first; or maybe because my horizons are now rather narrowing to things british. I really need to know much more about this. All sensible people agree that we have ingrained welfare dependency, which is both personal tragedy and economic millstone. British benefits though are…

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Not the doctor, but the place to live, of which there is a chronic shortage in the uk, as house building has declined dramatically over the last 2 years, with no signs of improvement. Apart from land that people want to build on not being made available, this is largely because the norm here is home ownership. However, as hefty deposits are now needed for first time buyers, and declining prices have hit those who already own, the market is weak and indeed getting weaker. Public interventions have kept things afloat until now, but with all spending now slashed, that is grinding to a total halt. It may be a while until it percolates through that the fundamentals have…

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I am one of angela’s biggest fans (13 feb), not least from seeing her at close quarters resurrect the european constitution virtually single-handedly. Less than a year after lisbon came into force, it is worth recalling the firm consensus then that this would be the last treaty for a very, very long time. Now though, it looks like everyone was wrong. In a modern day retelling of twelve angry men, it seems that angela went into last week’s summit alone against 26 “nos”, but came out with unanimous agreement for a new treaty to tighten eurosystem rules. Contrary to the common telling though, this is not a new treaty. There have been dozens of “treaty” amendments over the years, not…

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Although this is about the local “here”, the need to learn from the local “there” hopefully provides interest to my (mainly) non little england readers. Though more complex, local government here is essentially losing around a quarter of its income, making the need to cut costs drastic. Of course this has been long-known, and 3 london authorities, have already gone quite far down the road to keeping all their separate political structures and identities, but having a single set of people supporting them and providing services. Is this the way to go ? Those authorities have a combined population of some 600k: larger than the uk's largest single authority (manchester’s range from 182 to 483k), but much less than broader…

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Just to complete the sequence of my last blogs: friday, manchester and luton, as after a day’s work I picked up the kids and drove them down to a travelodge just outside luton airport. Saturday was budapest as we flew over to meet up with my other half and then stayed in hungary for my mother in law’s funeral on the monday. All in all, it went as would be expected, with moments of deep regret, memories, smiles, togetherness, bitterness, tears and children running around all swirling over the day, which ended for us on a plane back to luton and a long drive back before a horrendously busy four day week, leading to a rather neglected blog. This was…

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