The RSA Blog

Ask not what the state can do for you

Blog

11 May 2011

Matthew Taylor

I had an interesting conversation yesterday with a number of people trying to work out how to respond to the idea of the Big Society. As I said yesterday, the report on Monday of the ACEVO Commission on the Big Society is likely to provide plenty of ammunition for those critical of the implementation of the idea, but this conversation was more at the level of principle.

Small but perfectly informed

Blog

10 May 2011

Matthew Taylor

After yesterday’s massive screed of a blog (someone sent me a text saying ‘I read the first half but had to stop when I realised I was losing the will to live’), something shorter and lighter.

Barking up the wrong tree

Blog

09 May 2011

Matthew Taylor

It really isn’t fair. I don’t just mean West Bromwich Albion being trounced yesterday by arch enemies Wolverhampton Wanderers nor even my son’s team (which I ineptly manage) losing twice at the weekend. At least there was some joy in being the proud son as my mother received a civic award from Southwark.

After the elections: Britain in the 2010s is getting eerily similar to the 1930s

Blog

06 May 2011

A financial crash followed by a serious recession that leads to a crisis in public finances resulting in a cost-cutting coalition government that ultimately leaves everyone but the Conservative Party in the political wilderness.  And all set in a context of geo-political uncertainty driven by civil strife and violence in parts of the world with huge military and economic importance.  A pretty good description of the way things are going now but an equally good one for the early 1930s. 

Too clever for this world

Blog

05 May 2011

Matthew Taylor

Fortunately I rang the ‘Today Programme’ this morning to check they still wanted me for a package on why intellectuals are bad at politics. ‘Oops’ said the nice lady ‘we did leave a message on your voice mail saying we’d dropped it’.  Either my Blackberry is playing up or Lord Matthew Taylor, the former Liberal Democrat MP, is trying to work out why he has a message from the BBC saying ‘sorry, we don’t need you any more’. I hope he doesn’t read too much into it.

Companies, consumers and comic turns

Blog

03 May 2011

Matthew Taylor

I spent some of the bank holiday weekend working on my annual lecture. Regular readers (hi mum, really looking forward to watching you get your civic award from Southwark this weekend ) will know there have been a few false starts along the way, but I have a pretty clear plan now and have even written quite a lot of the first draft.

Off with my head!

Blog

27 Apr 2011

Matthew Taylor

Typical! On a day on which, for various reasons, I feel more anxiety than even my usual background levels, I face a very uncomfortable 45 minutes on Moral Maze.

Lack of aspiration, or smashing of dreams?

Blog

27 Apr 2011

We are constantly told by practitioners and policymakers that it is working class kids’ ‘lack of aspiration’ that explains their low educational achievement. But actually, the evidence points in other directions. All the ‘lack of aspiration’ discourse does is blame working class families for inequalities entrenched in our education system.

Our brains hurts (well, a little bit anyway)

Blog

26 Apr 2011

Matthew Taylor

I spent some of the Easter weekend reading a draft of a new paper from our social brain project, and very interesting it was too.