Because I grew up in a working class world, I never questioned my middle class position. My mum was a nurse, then a primary school teacher. My dad was a junior then middle manager in a manufacturing company. When the Coalition government increased university tuition fees, I could have taken a year out — I wanted to take a year out — before moving away from the town I’d lived in for most of my life. But we felt that was a senseless thing to do, when going to university a year later would cost three times as much. …
In the last financial year, Oxfam received £31.7 million from the Department for International Development, the government body responsible for administering the UK’s overseas aid. In this piece I argue that aid should be viewed no differently to other services outsourced by government bodies to third parties. With this in mind, government must accept responsibility for the mishandling of sexual assault allegations within the aid organisations it funds.
In the six months since the endemic sexual abuse and bullying within Oxfam finally made headlines, the charity ‘sector’ has come under intense scrutiny. This diverse group of organisations in the UK…
I’ve analysed 183 articles from mainstream UK media outlets reporting on extreme weather crises over the past week, and found just 15% of them contain any reference to climate change. Without data from The Guardian, it’s 11%.
It’s fucking hot. But you knew that already, because you’re probably based in London, or Leeds, or Manchester, or some other corner of England, and even if you’re in Motherwell, Scotland it was 33.2C at the end of June. …
Rosie Collington
Thinking about political economy, the state, finance, public services
