Policy fetishism about GDP is being replaced by an unthinking devotion to simplistic happiness indicators, warns Annie Austin. “In a decade’s time we’re going to be using happiness as the sole basis for judging the impact of public policy.” So stated Paul Dolan recently in the opening sequence of ITV’s Tonight programme, entitled ‘Is Britain […]
Time to ditch GDP as a measure of economic well-being
There is nothing inevitable or ‘natural’ about using GDP to measure the economy. The Office for National Statistics has embarked on a journey toward a more rounded assessment of economic well-being, argues Professor Diane Coyle. Just before Christmas, the Office for National Statistics took a giant step, in its normal low key manner: it published […]
Development in 2015
As we enter 2015, Professor David Hulme looks ahead to the next twelve months in international development as the Millennium Development Goals come to an end and plans take shape for the next phase. This year, 2015, will be an important year for ideas and policies about international development. It marks the completion of the […]
Do religious people volunteer more?
Among ethnic minorities in Britain, religious people are more likely to volunteer, but only for ethnic and religious organisations, explains Dr Ingrid Storm. Since the 1990s, the government has involved ‘faith groups’ as partners in local policy and service provision in order to promote civic participation and community cohesion. However, it is as yet unclear […]
Polling Observatory #43: Stability returns with race close to dead heat
This is the forty-third in a series of posts that report on the state of the parties as measured by opinion polls. By pooling together all the available polling evidence we can reduce the impact of the random variation each individual survey inevitably produces. Most of the short term advances and setbacks in party polling […]
Decoupling education from party politics
Dr Andy Howes, of the Manchester Institute of Education at The University of Manchester, discusses possible changes to the exam system, as discussed at an Education Select Committee meeting earlier this month. The select committee is arguably a high point of democratic accountability within the Westminster system. The Education Select Committee earlier this month was […]
The Criminal Law and Policing Pregnancy
The contentious question of whether drinking excessively during pregnancy should be regarded as a criminal offence has recently been considered by the Court of Appeal. Earlier this month the court delivered its verdict in the case of CP v CICA, a case that has attracted significant media interest because of the implications of criminalising pregnant […]
All this talk about balancing the budget is …
Remember the Maastricht criteria? No, I didn’t think so. Nor apparently do Britain’s political leaders, based on their manifestos for tackling the UK’s deficit. The Maastricht Criteria were the convergence criteria for European countries that wanted to join the Euro. Agreed in 1992 (including by John Major’s Conservative government) it covered inflation, deficits, debt, exchange […]
Are all lives valued equally?
On World Human Rights day, Dr. Róisín Read, of the Humanitarian Conflict Response Institute at The University of Manchester, writes about the ethics and issues surrounding humanitarian aid. As the 64th World Human Rights Day is marked today, it is worth taking this opportunity to think about the relationship between human rights and humanitarianism, as some of […]
New poverty research shows potential of citizen-led science
New research and a set of interactive charts and maps are launched today by the Greater Manchester Poverty Action Group (GMPAG), together with the University of Manchester, revealing the continuing extent of poverty among the city region’s poorest residents. This new research sets out key poverty data for Greater Manchester, made available through an interactive […]
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