Saturday, 12 January 2013

Saturday Six 21

Good Afternoon, welcome to another tour of some of the blogs that have caught my eye this week. As always, they are in no particular order:

First up, Mark Valladares argues against seeking to anchor policy in the "centre ground". I agree.

Next, something entirely different; one disgruntled man's feelings towards a trip to see Les Misérables. My own review of the film can be found here.

Caron Lindsay regularly features in these pages - mainly because she is a) so prolific and b) so often right. In this piece she makes a strong liberal case against the capping of benefit increases at 1% - something which is inherently unfair dressed up as fairness. (It's a similar argument to that which supported the "Community Charge" or that advocates of a flat taxation system advance.) I disagree with her with regards to whether our MPs should have been voting for it, though, in that the 1% cap is compromise ironed out of a Tory desire to freeze benefits and sees a reduction in the pension funding annual (and lifetime) allowances - reducing the amount of tax relief paid to those on higher incomes.

The London Underground was 150 this week - and this blog is a fantastic tribute to it. I'll be paying repeat visits over the next few weeks and months to explore it's wealth of photos and features.

You probably noticed the Government's mid-term review this week. Jonathan Portes, of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, had a look at the performance in relation to those Deficit Reduction targets.



Andrew

No comments: