Author Archives: James Worron

Let’s say it again, and again and again: cuts are not the problem

So we are back in recession. Yrs the figures might be revised, but the economy is still weak. Why? It could be short-term factors like the Eurozone crisis, it could be the long-term damage done under Labour due to the … Continue reading

Posted in Economics | Tagged , , | 21 Comments

The truth about the American right: A review of CPAC

The opening ceremony of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington last week seemed to confirm my worst fears about the American right. Mass recital of the Pledge of Allegiance was followed by a diva singing the Star Spangled … Continue reading

Posted in Elections | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

The Victorians, the Liberals and the welfare state

“Protection of the vicious poor involves aggression on the virtuous poor” The words quoted above are those of Herbert Spencer, a prominent Victorian sociologist. If I had read them last week I would have thought them moralising and hyperbolic. This … Continue reading

Posted in Social Justice | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

How to combine the worst of all economic ideas

As the world economy faces a possible double dip we should take a moment to work out how we got in this mess. We seem to have taken the ideas of the liberal Keynesians, of the right-wing free-market neo-liberals and … Continue reading

Posted in Economics | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Time to fight the Mili-cant

Imagine if phone-hacking had been a scandal from the 1980s. The left-wing cultural grand narratives would be completely predictable: this is a result of greed; these are the kind of desperate lengths people will go to sell newspaper and make … Continue reading

Posted in Party Politics | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments