Essays, thoughts, poems, prayers and quotes:
Thoughts on basic income, citizenship and why we need a welfare system that works for everyone.
As Greta Thunberg says: panic is the rational response to a real emergency. The results of the GE2019 are such an emergency.
Efforts to build a new centre party are doomed to failure.
True security can only be found in a community of citizens who honour their obligations to each other.
George MacDonald (1824-1905) was a Christian who wrote novels, poetry, sermons and fairy tales. Here are a few interesting quotes.
The Great Divorce by C S Lewis is a wonderful thought piece on the subject of what will happen after death. Lewis delights in taking worries or philosophical problems and turning them on their heads.
A poem - on the meaning of welcome - for Refugee Week
It's been hard to get people to understand how severe the cuts to social care (children and adults) have been in England.
Austerity has been severe and unjustified and it has targeted the poorest people and the poorest places. It has also targeted local government. What is the socialist alternative? Barnsley gives us some good clues.
The Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, was first published in 1848 - that is 170 years ago. In many ways it remains relevant today.
One dream of the welfare state is that the welfare state is like a Fairy Godmother, kind and wise, but that Godmother has turned into the Wicked Stepmother.
Where is our welfare state? Is it here or somewhere else?
A summary of some of the leading crimes and injustices of Tory Austerity.
I wrote this blog for The Equality Trust and as a contribution to the international Day of Action on 25th January 2018.
I was recently interviewed by occupy.com about Universal Credit. Here's my perspective on the next unfolding disaster of Tory (non) welfare reform.
Universal Credit is certainly not in accordance with the principles described in Matthew 20:1-16
My friend Virginia Moffatt recently edited a collection of essays called Reclaiming the Common Good which explores the way that society, in so many ways, seems to have lost its way.
How Australia is taking the lead in disability rights and social care I have just returned from 3 weeks in Australia where I have been working with disability advocates, families and support organisations. The…
or why status is not a zero-sum game This essay jumps headfirst into a complex debate which deserves a more careful set of introductory comments. However, I am pressed for time, and so I merely want to offer a few…
The term welfare reform might naturally suggest improvements in welfare systems. However the term is usually, although not always, used by those who have a negative view of the welfare state and who propose…
Many of us believe in justice, and we try and work for justice. But sometimes the “long arc of history” seems a very distant hope. For those of us who work to advance disability rights we see the tide of negative…
I was very lucky recently to get the chance to participate in an event organised by the University of Leeds and Hope Not Hate entitled: A Future for Post Industrial Communities? It provided much food for…
Over the past few decades inequality in the UK has grown considerably, by whatever measure you choose. After World War II, at the birth of the welfare state, inequality was at a very low level. Over time we've come to…
This poem was written as a contribution to Sheffield's Poetry-athon on 20th February 2017, a celebration of the contribution of migrants to our communities. You can read all the poems contributed…