Latest thinking

Time to abandon wider participation?

Blog

18 Sep 2009

Matthew Taylor

For decades Government has seen increasing young people’s participation in post compulsory education - particularly higher education - as a key objective. Michael Gove’s approach implicitly calls this goal into question. He may now find support from an unexpected direction.

Questioning common sense

Blog

18 Sep 2009

I had a chat on the phone with the  neuroscientist Karl Friston the other day. Not only was it illuminating, Professor Friston is a gentle, courteous and friendly man. It was an absolute pleasure and privilige to talk to him.

Clare Patey | Feast on the bridge

Blog

16 Sep 2009

The artist-inspired Feast has become a remarkable part of London's calendar, bringing together Londoners to produce food for a giant community meal. For the last two years it's culminated in a giant Feast on the bridge on Southwark Bridge. Created by artist Clare Patey and colleagues, Feast on the bridge took part last weekend - another extraordinary example of arts transformational involvement in horticulture and community that I've written about earlier here, here and here.

The Economic Consequences of Mr Brown

Video

14 Sep 2009

Stein Ringen is Professor of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Oxford. Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist and broadcaster.

Environmentalism is the new religion? So what if it is?

Blog

10 Sep 2009

Sceptics often say that environmentalism is a religion rather than a science. It was the late Michael Crichton who stirred this one up originally, writing: "environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths." Fair enough: just like Marxism, which predicted a paradise to come after the end-time collapse of captalism, much of environmentalism undeniably draws its inspiration from 19th century millenarian Christianity. There is a catastrophic reckoning coming; there are saints and sinners. We're all going to BURN in the post-Six Degrees world. And so on.

Celebrating insects in art, and the art of being an insect

Blog

04 Sep 2009

PESTIVAL: Celebrating insects in art, and the art of being an insect, opens tonight at the South Bank Center in London.

Bill McKibben on the "torrent of art" about climate change

Blog

04 Sep 2009

Bill McKibben wrote recently on Grist.org about how, over the last few years, art has been shouting increasingly stridently about climate:

Still no response from Michael Gove

Blog

18 Aug 2009

Matthew Taylor

I have given up hope that Michael Gove will reply to the questions I posed to him – on his invitation – last month. I’d like to say this is because he is on the run from my brilliant interrogation but I suspect it’s just that I’m not worth bothering with (even if other bits of the Conservative Party are quoting me!).

Between tension and contradiction - the wonderful complexity of people

Blog

13 Aug 2009

Let’s celebrate something. People are polymorphous - they take many shapes, and I don’t just mean their bodies. I mean, people, on average, can hold a variety of evaluative moods and attitudes; produce a plethora of responses to the ways of the world. They can see that sometimes one has to be disciplined and unforgiving, at other times compassionate and fraternal. They can see the need to stand up to a bully, but also to put an arm around him and ask what’s wrong. On people incapable of this polymorphous social and ethical engagement, we are none too keen.