Duncan O'Leary
Duncan works on projects looking at public services, skills and work.
- What equals what? My hopes for some a bit more progressive action in the blogosphere may have been answered. Liberal Conspiracy, launched this week, looks like a promising place for some good debate on the liberal left. Chris Dillow writes an early post arguing against equality of opportunity as a key policy goal, in favour of more redistribution instead. His argument is basically that: continue reading on 8th November 2007 Comments (2)
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Warning: the type of information that you provide to people may matter
This strikes me as a great idea:
'Drinkers worried about liver damage can test themselves at home. The LiverCheck test measures levels of two enzymes in the blood produced when alcohol damages liver cells. The makers say the test will give users an idea of whether they are drinking too much.'
continue reading on 30th October 2007 Comments (1) - Bad behaviour Anyone interested in the debate on public behaviour – and the role of government in affecting it or otherwise – should read today’s leader in The Times. It contains makes one unspectacular but extremely important point…and then another that sums up some of the problems we’re having in dealing with these kind of issues. The point that I agree with is that before government wanders into the political minefield (and operational complexities) of human... continue reading on 22nd October 2007
- News + comment round-up A few links below that you might be interested in from this week: continue reading on 19th October 2007 Comments (1)
- Political round-up If you’re still wondering what to make of the political events of the last few weeks, here are a few links that I’d recommend: continue reading on 10th October 2007
- Facing the music There’s another interesting record industry story around today – Radiohead are allowing their fans to download their latest album and decide for themselves what price they want to play. I’m not sure what we’ll learn from it, but it will be interesting to see where this one goes. As the musings of the BBC’s entertainment reporter show, though, this all plays into a bigger set of questions about the role of record labels in the future of the industry. continue reading on 10th October 2007
- Death tax or life tax? One of the more interesting Political developments of the last week – the non-election aside – has been the silence on the Left about the moral case for inheritance tax after George Osborne’s passionate (and popular) argument for raising the threshold to £1 million. Rather than engage with the principles behind the Tories’ argument, most of the attacks on the policy have been on technical grounds – whether the sums add up or not – not whether the principle is fair. continue reading on 8th October 2007
- The only thing we have to fear... Just a quick post to flag up an article i have up on the Guardian's Comment-is-Free site. The basic point that i try to make is that traditional economics lacks the tools to understand the Northern Rock saga properly. This is because it what we have been seeing is a social phenomenon aswell as a straightforward economic one. continue reading on 18th September 2007
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The Politics of Public Behaviour seminars, October 8th and 22nd
Just a quick post to let people know that we’re holding two more seminars on The Politics of Public Behaviour – exploring the public implications of private-decision making.
We’ve got great guest speakers for both sessions. On October 8th Daniel Finkelstein, of Comment Central fame, and Patrick Diamond from Policy Network will be along to talk about the relationship between laws and social norms. And on October 20th Jeff French, from the National Consumer Council and Dr Fiona Adshead from the Dept for Health will be here to talk about foregrounding the future in the decisions we make as individuals and as a society. More details for the seminars are below – drop me an email if you would like to come along. continue reading on 17th September 2007 Comments (3) - That's not Right Anthony Browne, the new Director of Policy Exchange, has an article in the Spectator this week with quite a statement in it: ‘The reason so many go from left to right is the realisation that the Right is, well, right. About pretty much everything’. continue reading on 10th September 2007 Comments (5)