Category Archives: Uncategorized

An average household pays 33.8% of their income in tax. … Council tax is sharply regressive even after adjusting for rebates and Council Tax Benefit with the poorest 10% paying 7.1% of their income in council tax whilst the richest 10% pay only 1.5% of their income in council tax. Extract from The Equality TrustContinue reading “Paying for the pandemic Taxation and Thinking outside of the box.”

It used to be said that a woman over 30 with two degrees or higher qualifications had a statistically higher chance of dying in an air crash than getting married. Now, well-qualified and experienced women over 50 have a statistically lower chance of finding new employment at all levels of the UK’s workforce. Many olderContinue reading “Business and employment policy needs to target women over 50 years of age”

2020 and the Covid-pandemic has seen the greatest outpouring of civil society in a generation. On release, the NHS Responder App attracted 750,000 volunteer applicants and over 1m missions were completed, in addition to the 1000’s of mutual aid groups that sprang up across the country. The opportunity to capture civil society through making volunteeringContinue reading “Employee Engagement and Covid-19 Support”

The population of the UK currently stands at 66 million. Covid presents a great challenge to deliver vaccines by injection not once, but twice per person. Therefore, a total of 132 million injections need to be given. This is a sizable piece of work and may need to be undertaken annually like the flu jab.Continue reading “Dentists should be utilised to deliver vaccines in future large-scale vaccination programmes”

Why are bicycles still so rubbish? We live in a world of driverless cars, high-speed rail and Musk’s reusable rockets, and yet the common or garden bicycle is still stuck in the Dark Ages. All technology is of course prone to faults, but there is surely nothing so reliably unreliable as the bicycle. When theContinue reading “To the barricades! The opportunity for a revolution in bicycle design”

The first two waves of COVID-19 have led to the cancellation of almost all non-urgent NHS treatments and operations in order to free up capacity for COVID-19 patients. As a result, the number of patients waiting for more than a year to access treatment has skyrocketed from 1,600 in February 2020 to 192,000 in NovemberContinue reading “The NHS continues to be overwhelmed most winters by a combination of flu and COVID-19”

I think a huge opportunity that has been created has been the proliferation of accessibility to things to people that are disabled. I was speaking to somebody who has been able to watch their favourite music live streamed, attend online courses, engage in talks and seminars that otherwise wouldn’t have been made easy for aContinue reading “There must be more protection, opportunity and care for the disabled people in our society.”

A more sustainable future is one with fewer private cars. During the early weeks and months of the COVID-19 pandemic, road traffic dropped dramatically, allowing us to see how much richer a world with less traffic could be. Air quality improved, people were able to reclaim space to walk, cycle and play safely, wildlife prospered.Continue reading “Encouraging a modal shift towards more sustainable transport options after COVID-19”

During COVID-19 there was a significant rise in the use of online shopping from the major retailers. Local retailers have had to innovate and some of the practices and ideas are phenomenal from click and collect to applications on mobile devices where the customers chooses items that are then delivered. In our main town theContinue reading “Reinvigorating the high street”

The pandemic has deepened the sense of constitutional crisis gripping the UK. Strained relations between UK and devolved leaders have visibly deteriorated at a time when the public turned to their representatives for effective action. The institutions facilitating intergovernmental relations have been found wanting – both before and during COVID-19. The existing Joint Ministerial CommitteeContinue reading “Pandemic shockwaves have deepened faultlines in the UK’s devolution settlement”