Latest thinking

The state I'm in

Blog

15 Oct 2009

Matthew Taylor

Sometimes, well, quite often actually, I find myself using an idea repeatedly but having the gnawing feeling that I haven’t really thought it through. This has happened recently with an assertion I made first in my 2007 annual lecture but repeated most recently in my inexplicably overlooked Prospect piece, namely that I am ‘an enthusiastic collectivist but a sceptical statist’.

Localism is more than a set of principles

Blog

15 Oct 2009

In the last couple of years all the major political parties in the UK have been falling over themselves to talk up their radical credentials. Much of this is filtered through the ‘localism debate’ and ideas surrounding the decentralisation of power and influence away from Whitehall into the hands of frontline staff and local people. As my old boss, Ben Page, said at a recent local government event I attended, “we are all localists now”.

Place, Identity and Community: A history of the plot

Video

15 Oct 2009

Madeleine Bunting is a columnist for the Guardian

Hacking Design

Video

14 Oct 2009

Otto von Busch runs Self_Passage, he is a haute couture heretic and fashion renegade hacking the operating system of fashion.

Michael Sandel - and finding the transcendent moment in debate

Blog

14 Oct 2009

Matthew Taylor

We had a great, packed-out, event here last night with Michael Sandel, Harvard professor, political philosopher and Reith lecturer. As I understand it Sandel’s core argument is that our idea of justice cannot be reduced to utilitarian calculus or the maximisation of freedom (whether freedom from or freedom to) but must instead engage with the different moral categories we bring to the world. It is a more challenging idea than might at first appear and one which  repays deeper reflection.

Justice: What's the right thing to do?

Video

13 Oct 2009

Michael Sandel is Harvard Professor of Government and 2009 Reith Lecturer.

Why do I do it to myself?

Blog

13 Oct 2009

Matthew Taylor

As my regular reader knows, my self-esteem isn't high at the moment.

Renewable energy in the South West - a role for the RSA?

Blog

12 Oct 2009

Matthew Taylor

The independent Committee on Climate Change reports that the Government is a long way from having any credible account of how it is going to reach its target of cutting carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. This comes after Professor David MacKay, the Government’s Chief Energy Scientist pointed out last week that the UK exports up to half its energy use through its reliance on imported industrial goods. Meanwhile hardly a week seems to pass without more bad news about the impact of climate change.

Responsibility and Response-Ability

Blog

09 Oct 2009

Jonathan Rowson

David Cameron's speech at the conservative party conference indicated that the conservative party might be interested in the work of our connected communities project, so I decided to take a closer look.