News

The Demos team and its work features regularly in the press on the key issues of the day. Read our statements and articles by our team here.

An unpalatable truth

Figures released today by the Trussell Trust show that almost 1 million food parcels – 913,138 – were handed out by its food bank network in the last year, compared to 347,000 the previous year; 51% of these were handed out to new clients....

The true cost of the cap

The benefit cap statistics released last week provoked predictable reactions – finding 33,000 households were subject to the cap led the Daily Mail to label them the ‘families who had hit the benefits jackpot’. It was implied those affected by...

The true cost of debt

£1.4 trillion. That’s the staggering figure attributed to the level of household debt in the UK. The average student now leaves university after three years with £20,000 worth of debt – before they have even got their foot on the...

Pensions puzzle

The pension reforms announced by George Osborne were unquestionably the most significant aspect of the budget. After a few days, some of their implications are starting to emerge. The chancellor framed the changes as a question of freedom. As he put...

Budget 2014: taxing debates

Conservative MP Nick de Bois is half right. He’s right that the ‘squeezed middle’ is further squeezed by income tax thresholds that have not kept pace with changes in wages and prices. He’s wrong – like most politicians – to...

Creating competition

This week, the stranglehold that high street banks have over key bank services – like current accounts, small business lending, and mortgages – came back into view thanks to Ed Miliband’s eye-catching pledge to break up the bigger banks. This would...

Government as ‘shop steward’

Last week I posted the first blog in a short series on what a new Department for Economic Reform might look to do and how. Below is the next instalment, on government as shop steward. Next week: government as industrial activist. Mission: Government as...