John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network shared an email with me this morning to which the PS was: PS Up late last night with Richard Murphy i.e. The Courageous State which I got yesterday through the post – almost as gripping as Harry Potter! Even I’m not sure about that. But you can buy it
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I’ll be speaking in Brighton on Tuesday 1st May speaking at an event at  The Terraces Bar and Grill, Brighton Sea Front at an event organised by Greenspeak in association with Brighton and Hove Green Party. For more details, goto http://greenspeakuk.weebly.com/index.html I’ll be talking about The Courageous State – and anything else I’m asked about (within reason!).

Ha-Joon Chang has a great article in the Guardian this morning. In it he points out that South Korea – his country – is the model of what capitalism should deliver. There’s been massive growth and, as he notes: The country is, per capita, the third most innovative in the world, after Japan and Taiwan, when measured by the
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I’ve just referred to the very obvious need for policies that embrace the idea of the Courageous State as a solution to the economic and political malaise me now face. Courageous States are driven by principles. Of course they’ll also be pragmatic sometimes – politics always is, and has to be an exercise in pragmatism. But principles matter in a Courageous State.
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Mary Ann Sieghart in the Independent argues ‘Labour’s wrong if it thinks it’s time for a shift to the left’, and yet she concludes: Labour has to give voters reasons to vote for it, not just reasons to vote against the Coalition. They don’t have to be wildly left-wing and populist. But if all the party has
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Today we’ve learned that a private company - either Serco or Virgin – is likely to take over the supply of children’s services in Devon. This is a situation I foresaw, discussed and contextualised in the foreword to my book, The Courageous State, published last November. There I said (and I summarise, a bit): The economic crisis we are now facing is the legacy
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Fascinating comment in the Guardian this morning: Willie Walsh, the British Airways chief executive, will launch an excoriating attack on the government on Thursday for the absence of a coherent growth plan, accusing ministers of “warm words and cold action”. At the British Chambers of Commerce conference in London, he will say this government and the last
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I’m speaking on Wednesday evening at Labour Left’s Red Book Event in Ipswich. The event is at 7.30pm at the Unite Building, Grimwade St., Ipswich. David Hough and Dan Young are the other speakers. The event is hosted by Ipswich Labour Party but I’m sure you’ll be welcome if not a member.  Please contact John Cook 01473 255131 for further details.
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From a blog from the London Review of Books, by Ross McKibbin: The privatisation of the state has had a profound effect on the social structure of Britain. From the moment the great privatisations of the Thatcher era occurred a whole new social class was created. They are the bankers, lawyers, consultants and lobbyists who arranged the
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