Rupprecht Gerngross is not a household name, even among historians of World War II, though he led what may have been the only successful internal coup against Hitler's regime. In the final weeks of the war, he led his small band of military translators to take control...
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Is the climate worst case getting worse?
It's not what most people want to hear at the moment, but the impact of Covid19 on society and economy is a gentle breeze compared to the hurricane that global heating and ensuing climate breakdown will ultimately bring. Some problems, when examined closely, simply...
Reckoning with Britain’s imperial legacy: time to search for new heroes
We need an open public competition to update our national monuments, remove imperial injustice and celebrate a new generation of diverse heroes write Nick Robins and Andrew Simms The brutal death of George Floyd has triggered revulsion across the world, stimulating...
How to dodge the next wave of ghost towns
Bernie Ward is a friend mine, but she is also something of a heroine. For six thrilling years, she led the local economic tools team at the New Economics Foundation. During that time she developed, not just money flows analysis but also Bizfizz (enterprise coaching)...
Test and What? How official lack of confidence in the public sector worsened the crisis
In the sorry tale of the UK’s response to the corona virus there are many lessons. The current unfolding illumination is how test and trace is destined to fail because of the actions of this and previous governments which have rendered a sensible response to testing...
How privatisation designed-in the PPE chaos
Sometimes we are enabled to see clearly. A light shines and we have the ‘intake of breath’ moment. One such widely shared moment has been revelations about the brazen breaking by members of the government of their own public safety measures. Another such a moment,...
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This pamphlet looks at how the UK is unprepared for a new era of crises and disasters. To illuminate the national predicament we look at lessons from recent history, and what we can learn, often from countries in the Global South, about the kind of local planning required and resources needed to be ready for when storms and other disasters strike near where we live.
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