List of The last word Archive

Food and Fellowship in the Vaults Restaurant

Fellowship news

28 Aug 2012

Following on from the very successful Jubilee lunch, the Vaults Restaurant team are delighted to announce a new series of themed days which will be taking place over the coming year. The series starts off with an Indian Summer event on Sunday 30 September, with other themes including Halloween\\; a Fellows’ Carvery\\; and a special RDI event.

A revolution in family policy

Comment

28 Aug 2012

The UK needs a new approach to family policy. Clem Henricson FRSA argues that in developing this, we need to look at the successes and failures of the past.

More civic pride please, we’re British!

Comment

28 Aug 2012

During Lord Digby Jones’s recent talk on Civic Pride at the RSA, he made the point that although we are still world leaders in many fields of industry, we don’t crow about it enough. This prompted Dr Cailean MacKirdy FRSA to recall an event, the likes of which seldom, if ever, takes place today.

Welcoming a new ABI habit

Blog

24 Aug 2012

Matthew Taylor

Encouraging people to save more for their retirement is an example of the kind of ‘wicked problem’ that I argue requires a clumsy solution incorporating elements of hierarchical authority, social solidarity and individualism.  Today comes news that the RSA has made its own contribution to such a solution.

Long-term Unemployment and the Recession

Blog

24 Aug 2012

The number of people unemployed in the three months to June fell by 46,000 to 2.56m – how do we square this fact with the continuing recession? In the second quarter of 2012 the revised GDP Growth Rate was -0.5%.

Why we disagree about climate change: 30(!) wedge issues

Blog

23 Aug 2012

Jonathan Rowson

Climate change has moved from being predominantly a physical phenomenon to being simultaneously a social phenomenon. And these two phenomenon are very different...It is a story about the meeting of Nature and Culture. - Mike Hulme.

RSA Fellows (and RDIs) responsible for all 29 of Team GB’s gold medals

Blog

23 Aug 2012

(…as well as all of the silvers, bronzes, the Olympic torches, the Velodrome and the cauldron).

Can unqualified teachers produce GCSE results?

Blog

22 Aug 2012

This Guest Blog is from Parveen Nawab, a Teach First participant who teaches in a secondary school in West London. Parveen is on a Summer placement with the RSA education team.

The reality check is in the post

Blog

21 Aug 2012

Matthew Taylor

I am grateful to the RSA's Jonathan Rowson for alerting me to this research: A team at UCL have published findings from their repeat of a famous Stanley Milgram experiment to test neighbourhood altruism. The researchers dropped 300 stamped addressed envelopes in the street, fifteen each in twenty neighbourhoods, and counted how many were subsequently put in mail boxes so they would reach their intended recipient. The findings are stark. Nearly nine out of ten of the letters dropped in the most affluent 30% of neighbourhoods were posted on but less than four in ten in other areas.