Is a different kind of trade deal possible?

It is one of the great ironies of history that, east and west, the liberation of the agricultural slaves and serfs happened almost at the same time. The people who carried out most of the work in the fields of Russia and eastern Europe and the plantations of the...

Running to stand still in the North Sea clean-up

One of the peculiar implications of our obsession with oil and fossil fuels is the strange way the UK has decided to pay for the decommissioning of the vast swathes of concrete and steel that now litters the North Sea. READ THE NEW REPORT HERE: Rigged: how the UK oil...

It isn’t public versus private, it is big versus small

Let me start with a story, which has to be a little obscure to protect the innocent. The government has a Voluntary Repatriation Scheme for asylum-seekers and refugees who find their home has changed, and who get employment back there. The scheme is administered by...

At last, a vindication from the National Audit Office

It is a strange thing, vouchsafed to few of us, to find ourselves vindicated by the National Audit Office of all people. Yet I have been. I have explained here and elsewhere that the reason why the Govia Thameslink and Southern rail franchise had been such a disaster...

#SmogDay: remembering air pollution’s victims & clearing the air

Action: please call on MPs to sign Caroline Lucas’ #SmogDay early day motion for urgent action to clean the air in our towns and cities. Smog Day is a day to remember all the people who have died prematurely, and avoidably, because of air pollution, and to...