Initiatives that are in progress, right now.
In the sorry tale of the UK’s response to the corona virus there are many lessons. The current unfolding illumination is how test and trace is destined to fail because of the actions of this and previous governments which have rendered a sensible response to testing...
Sometimes we are enabled to see clearly. A light shines and we have the ‘intake of breath’ moment. One such widely shared moment has been revelations about the brazen breaking by members of the government of their own public safety measures. Another such a moment,...
In a recent poll only nine percent of respondents said they wanted to return to the world as it was pre-Covid19. We need to be preparing that new world now. So let us imagine it, this new world. The kindness of neighbours we can leave on one side for the moment - it’s...
How often are ideas that once seemed radical and to some, even preposterous, made tame by the turn of events? That is the case now with the suggestion that Britain should experiment with National Gardening Leave, an idea suggested in a 2012 pamphlet I wrote with my...
It wasn't clear at the time, but a couple of weeks ago I gave what is likely to be my last public talk for a while, reproduced below, at an event called Human Nature, organised by the Experimental Thought Co. Already it seems an age away, but even then our...
Nothing like the current upheavals around the world in the wake of the novel coronavirus, COVID19, have been experienced in peacetime. But societies have mobilised like this during conflict and mass conflagrations. Are there lessons to be learned, and could it lead to...
Lindsay Mackie and Andrew Simms explore how crises reveal fundamental flaws in underlying political and economic models and call for a new approach It looks like it’s going to be a national emergency, or, in Whitehall terms, a very grave civil contingency. Novel...
Each year the Financial Times newspaper investigates the UK’s upcoming economic prospects with a survey of analysts. New Weather's Andrew Simms took part. The survey’s predictions often prove highly accurate. Like last year, the uncertainty of Brexit still clouds many...
Buy it here: Knock Three Times - 28 modern folk tales for a troubled world edited by Andrew Simms and Bill McGuire for New Weather. Click here and listen at 35 mins 15 secs to BBC Radio 4's coverage of Knock Three Times "All you can talk about is money and fairytales...
As the UK is revealed to be the biggest net importer of carbon dioxide emissions per person in the G7 group of wealthy nations, heterodox economist Katie Kedward spells out five reasons to question the UK government’s progress on tackling the...