Latest thinking

Why MPs don't want power

Blog

10 May 2010

Matthew Taylor

Being focused on my annual lecture and trying to avoid election commentary in my blog, I have been posting a lot less recently. Mind you, maybe I should stop entirely. This morning someone called Wendy Smith attached this comment to a very old post:

RSA Animate - Empathic Civilisation

Comment

06 May 2010

Bestselling author, political adviser and social and ethical prophet Jeremy Rifkin investigates the evolution of empathy and the profound ways that it has shaped our development and our society. View the full video of Jeremy Rifkin's talk at the RSA. Download a transcript of this video (pdf).

Tackling Global Warming and Doing Good

Video

05 May 2010

Professor Bjorn Lomborg, political scientist and author

The Placemaker's Guide to Building Community

Video

05 May 2010

Nabeel Hamdi, professor emeritus, Housing and Urban Development, Oxford Brookes University

21st century enlightenment - the (very) first draft

Blog

05 May 2010

Matthew Taylor

I have managed to write a first draft of the first half of my 21st century enlightenment lecture. I have set up a wiki of the text so that my wonderful readers can post their comments directly into the text. I intend over the next six days to write the second half (which is there in note form at present) so I have a working draft by next Monday. I then want to spend the next two weeks knocking it around and doing some focussed reading which addresses the major weaknesses in the argument. This leaves me the final week of May to write draft two and the first weeks of June to ask for final comments get the pamphlet printed and start to prepare for the lecture on June 17th. In asking for more comments I only ask that readers remember that this is a narrative to set along side the RSA’s new strapline - it isn’t a new theory of the world or a piece of deeply researched scholarship. I’m hoping for an argument that stacks up – albeit at a high level of abstraction - that makes the RSA’s vision feel vivid and exciting and which provokes a positive response from at least some opinion formers and social commentators.

21st century institutions

Blog

04 May 2010

Matthew Taylor

In a first for me I was recently invited to be a panellist on an arts programme. It was an edition of Radio 4’s Front Row, broadcast yesterday, focussing on the tenth anniversary of Tate Modern.

Big Society(2): What's Blue and Yellow and Red all over?

Blog

29 Apr 2010

Jonathan Rowson

If you still don't know who you are going to vote for, you could do worse than read the manifestos of the three main political parties. I recently read the three tomes for the first time in my life and was impressed by their scope and level of detail.

21st century enlightenment - a new plan

Blog

28 Apr 2010

Matthew Taylor

I had some stunning comments on my last post on 21st century enlightenment (thank you!). A number of people suggested I needed to set out the structure of the argument (and why I am making it) more fully. I have done this below: 

General Election 2010 - what about the issues?

Comment

27 Apr 2010

Ben Lucas

The story of the election so far has been the rise of Clegg and the Liberal Democrats and the consequences this may have on the result.  Change has become the central question – the choice being about who can manage this best and who personifies it the most.  But change for what?  It is striking that policy has received less attention in this than in any previous election.