The central conundrum about payday loan companies is that they are designed to help people through what are intended to be unusual and temporary periods of financial difficulty. Long-term and repeated use of payday loans is seriously expensive. Yet the business...
In 1950, the computer pioneer and code-breaker Alan Turing set his famous 'Turing Test', laying down a test whereby we could decide one way or another if a computer could think. It was a high bar but the test remains as controversial today as it was then. I've...
I still have one account with Barclays. Yes, I am ashamed of myself. I've moved all the others. I did a small calculation, as one of the bank's 48m customers worldwide, and found that I have contributed £50 towards their £2.4bn annual bonus bill. I know I haven't...
The London Tube strike has unleashed a whole lot of nastiness. And I don't mean the 'misery for millions of Londoners'(of whom I'm one) who are deemed too weedy to undergo 48 of limited public transport. Welcome to the world of class hatred, hysteria,pathological...
The news emerged yesterday that the successful publisher Quercus is now up for sale because, according to co-founder Mark Smith, "the publishing industry seems to be polarising around very big and very small companies. It's difficult for companies of our size." The...
There is a political trend emerging, and it has been a long time coming. Ed Miliband is calling tomorrow for a more diverse banking system. We know his office has been considering an American-style Community Reinvestment Act, which forces the big banks to set up...
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.
