scholarly journals Economic Policies and the Coronavirus Crisis in the UK

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Malcolm Sawyer
Keyword(s):  
2011 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-43
Author(s):  
Roland Boer

Locality, family, moral economy, virtuous elites, common popular customs – these are the buzzwords of what has come to be known as red toryism, which seeks to breath life into the conservative project in the UK. It valorises the local over the global, family over its discontents (gays, single parents, promiscuity), virtue over cynicism, common custom over bland commercial labels; in short, a return to the progressive, communal values of conservatism. The name most usually associated with red toryism – also known as communitarian civic conservatism – is Phillip Blond. Our brief in this paper is not a treatment of the whole red tory doctrine, but a critical examination of its economic policies and how they relate to theology, via morality.


Author(s):  
Richard Fletcher

The Brundtland Commission in its report Our Common Future (United Nations, 1987) is widely credited with setting down the first policy definition of sustainable development. In 2017 this report will be thirty years old yet it seems we are still a long way from living sustainably: If, as of 2017, there is not a start of a major wave of new and clean investments, the door to 2 degrees [global temperature increase] will be closed. (Birol, 2011) Green policies have been ‘adapted and adopted’ by mainstream parties across Europe, despite Green parties being a relatively small political force (Carter, 2013). The European Commission has become a worldwide driver of green policy (Judge, 1992) and market-based innovations such as the Emissions Trading System 1 , despite being celebrated and criticised in seemingly equal measure. Media coverage of ‘outsider’ party growth in the UK has swung towards the libertarian and anti-Europe UKIP recently, despite comparable and longer term growth in support for the Greens (Goodwin & Ford, 2013). Efforts have been made to disassociate Green voices from older clichés of self-deprivation: The Green party has changed: partly the personalities within it, partly in response to the changing world outside it....At the same time, ideas that were mainly theoretical 25 years ago – solar and wind technology – have been demonstrably workable...The Greens have become the party of possibilities, not catastrophes. (Williams, 2014). One attempt to imagine a sustainable future can be found in The World We Made, written by Johnathon Porritt from the perspective of a school teacher in the year 2050. The positives of huge renewable investments, progressive economic policies and a panoply of exciting new technologies are matched with equally plausible negatives of stubborn inequality, famines and riots. In the postscript, Porritt states: ‘If we can’t deliver the necessarily limited vision of a better world mapped out in The World We Made, then the hard truth is that no other vision will be available to us anyway, on any terms.’ (Porritt, 2013: 276)


Author(s):  
Stephen Farrall ◽  
Colin Hay

This concluding chapter assesses the legacy of Thatcherism in the light of the preceding analysis. It does so by returning to two influential earlier assessments, written whilst Thatcherism was very much still a work in progress, re-assessing and re-evaluating its enduring significance with the benefit of hindsight. It argues that whilst Thatcherism may or may not ‘be with us’ today, the effects of the shifts in social and economic policies initiated by her governments will continue to work their way through the UK in a number of different ways. In ways which go unrecognized or are obscured by more immediate concerns, the legacies of Thatcherism can be distilled along economic, political, social and cultural lines. That not all of these consequences were intended—and that a number of the unintended consequences may appear more dramatic than some of the intended ones—does not make these legacies any the less important.


2005 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL ORTON ◽  
PETER RATCLIFFE

In 2003 the UK government set an objective that in ten years' time Britain's minority ethnic groups should not face disproportionate barriers in the labour market. A key ‘barrier’ is discrimination by employers. This article examines one potential way forward: the use of contract compliance. First, the article presents findings from the authors' study of an innovative use of contract compliance by a group of local authorities in the West Midlands. If contract compliance can be made to work and New Labour is committed to addressing racial inequality in employment, this suggests that contract compliance is an approach that the government should be seeking to develop. The second part of the article therefore considers New Labour's stance on contract compliance, which can be seen to be highly ambiguous. It is argued that if contract compliance is located within the broader context of New Labour policy development, what is apparent is that the professed aspiration for social change is compromised by a dominant commitment to the maintenance of neo-liberal economic policies. The conclusion is that it is likely that only limited progress will be made in achieving racial equality in employment.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Oluwadamilola Aguda ◽  
Obas John Ebohon

Purpose Against the backdrop of the changing trends in tenure in the UK housing system, young adults are faced with different situations that continue to shape their housing consumption and decisions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships amongst young adults’ housing tenure, social capital and elements of perceived job security in Britain. Socio-psychological dimension of housing tenure decisions has been receiving attention by housing market analysts and practitioners seeking deeper understandings of the UK housing market dynamics, particularly in the wake of changing tastes and preferences of young people concerning housing decisions across major cities of the world. Design/methodology/approach A quantitative approach has been applied to the harmonised version of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) from 2001 to 2015. Findings The authors discovered that British young adults’ homeownership decisions are increasingly influenced by social capital and elements of perceived job insecurity, depending on their tenure of origin. Furthermore, this study will significantly enhance the understanding of tenure shifts amongst young adults in the UK and provide property developers, local authorities and central governments the knowledge and information to guide economic policies, urban renewal towards achieving better social cohesion and sustainable communities. Originality/value Very little has been done to investigate the contributions of social capital formation, for example, neighbourhood or social integration and social relations and elements of perceived job security on housing tenure transitions among British young adults. This study will further provide property developers, local authorities and central governments the knowledge and information to guide economic policies, urban renewal towards achieving better social cohesion and sustainable communities.


Three decades after the election of Mrs Thatcher, it is perhaps time to take stock of the concept of ‘Thatcherism’ and the prominent role it has played in the history of post-war Britain. Of course, there is much debate about what ‘Thatcherism’ was, with some arguing that Thatcherism was more noteworthy for its rhetoric than for its achievements. Indeed, when it came to the welfare state little had changed after 13 years of Thatcherism. Some historians have additionally suggested that other social forces that had existed prior to Thatcher will outlast her. Yet, whichever way one looks at it, the Thatcherite project of the 1980s brought about a fundamental reorganization of much of the UK’s social and economic life. Did Thatcherite policies dramatically alter the trajectory of the country’s development? Can even long-term and seemingly enduring path dependencies be altered as dramatically as claimed? Ought Thatcher’s period in office be seen as a ‘critical juncture’ for the UK? This book brings together a range of experts in housing, economics, law and order, education, welfare, families, geography, and politics to discuss the enduring legacy of those social and economic policies initiated by the first of the UK’s New Right governments (1979–90).


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-93
Author(s):  
Ian Cummins

This article will argue that Nancy Fraser’s (2017, 2019) notion of ‘progressive neoliberalism’ provides a conceptual lens that can be effective in the development of a critical analysis of mental health policy in England and Wales during the period of deinstitutionalisation and community care. Mental health policies that came steeped in an originally progressive discourse of choice, empowerment and wider service user rights were introduced by governments largely committed to the free market. In the UK and US, this produced a contradictory position where moves towards a community-oriented vision of mental health service provision were overseen by administrations that were committed to a small state and fiscal conservatism. There were similar developments in other areas. Fraser (2017, 2019) terms this mixture of socially progressive rhetoric and market economics ‘progressive neoliberalism’. Fraser’s model of progressive neoliberalism argues that neoliberalism has colonised progressive discourses. The article outlines this theoretical model and then applies it to the development of community care. It argues that policy responses to the perceived failings of community care focused on increased powers of surveillance, including the introduction of legislation that allows for compulsory treatment in the community. This focus on legislation was at the expense of social investment. The article concludes that the introduction of austerity in the UK has strengthened these trends. For example, The Coalition government (2010‐15) introduced new mental health policies such as ‘No decision about me without me’, which emphasised inclusive approaches to service organisation and delivery. At the same time, it followed social and economic policies that increased inequality, reduced welfare payments and entitlements, and cut services. These are all factors that contribute to higher levels of mental distress across society.


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