So the NHS is 70 years old, and – perhaps it is because it is currently under threat from serious underfunding – the coverage has been self-congratulatory. There is a lot to be congratulatory about, of course: free at the point of use and the egalitarian ethos. It...
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Waves of political nostalgia drown-out a lethal heatwave
A record-breaking heatwave hints at a lethal new climate normal, writes Prof Bill McGuire, but you wouldn’t know as the obsession with Brexit drowns out real news Nostalgia is gripping the political agenda and not in a good way, with Brexit harking back to an imagined...
In praise of public purpose: a life story & the NHS 70th anniversary
This week is the 70th anniversary of the NHS. It was an extraordinary promise by a society to care for all its members, free at the point of use. It went rapidly from plan to reality in just three years and, decades later, as a mark of its success, the NHS still comes...
New publication: Can Design Catalyse the Great Transition?
Everything we make includes an element of design. But design isn't limited to household objects, clothes or buildings, it influences whole systems that shape the way we live. The climate crisis and corrosive inequality tell us that the systems we have need a redesign,...
Praising Parliamentary Watchdogs
The giant services firm Carillion collapsed under the weight of its own greed, hubris and mismanagement in January this year. Earlier this month the excellent Joint Work and Pensions and Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Parliamentary produced one of those...
Is a different kind of trade deal possible?
It is one of the great ironies of history that, east and west, the liberation of the agricultural slaves and serfs happened almost at the same time. The people who carried out most of the work in the fields of Russia and eastern Europe and the plantations of the...
Latest Publication

This pamphlet looks at how the UK is unprepared for a new era of crises and disasters. To illuminate the national predicament we look at lessons from recent history, and what we can learn, often from countries in the Global South, about the kind of local planning required and resources needed to be ready for when storms and other disasters strike near where we live.
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