It’s a curious irony that with the death of Margaret Thatcher and the release of Ken Loach’s The Spirit of ’45, the two great ideological consensuses of the 20th century should return to sharp focus at the same time. Both ideologies emerged from a country in ruins. On the one hand, a spirit of unity, […]
Did Thatcher make Britain a more selfish country? Read More »
Arguing that the traditional understanding of British social divisions is out of date, the BBC has launched its class calculator. The BBC is right to conclude that simplistic brackets such as upper, middle and working class no longer accurately reflect 21st century occupations and lifestyles. But despite a compelling appreciation of cultural and social capital
BBC calculator fails to grasp the nature of class Read More »
This article was originally written for Liberal Conspiracy. Every few months, newspapers decide to have a pop at Oxford and Cambridge for institutionally discriminating against a particular section of society that isn’t white, male and public school educated. This time it’s the turn of the Guardian to criticise Oxford University, presenting statistics obtained under
Oxbridge is being unfairly attacked for institutional bias against ethnic minorities Read More »
Attending a debate on tax avoidance at the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation earlier today, I met an academic who angrily proclaimed to me that “all tax is theft”. I replied that if one holds that view one should probably never use a hospital. One should probably not use roads or trains either,
Tax is not theft, it is the price of civilised society Read More »
