“Brexit chaos proves that I was right all along,” says everyone. Our political narratives need to change, or they’ll become barriers to thought

In times of uncertainty, politics is about choosing between competing narratives. The trouble is that narratives tend to be more about sticking to one’s position than responding to events. We need our politicians to be better at changing their stories and their minds, argues Kate Alexander Shaw

Organized combat or structural advantage? The politics of inequality and the winner-take-all economy in the United Kingdom

Since 1970 the United Kingdom, like the United States, has developed a “winner-take-all” political economy characterized by widening inequality and spectacular income growth at the top of the distribution. However, Britain’s centralized executive branch and relatively insulated policymaking process are less amenable to the kind of “organized combat” that Hacker and Pierson describe for the United States. Britain’s winner-take-all politics is better explained by the rise of political ideas favoring unfettered markets that, over time, produce a self-perpetuating structural advantage for the richest. That advantage is, in turn, justified and sustained by reference to the same ideas. Inequality growth in the United Kingdom has been primarily driven by the financialization of the economy that began under the Thatcher government and continued under New Labour. The survival of pro-finance policies through the financial crisis provides further evidence that lobbying by a weakened City of London was less decisive in shaping policy than the financial sector’s continuing structural advantage and the tenacity of its supporting political consensus

The Experiences of Children Participating in Organised Sport in the UK

No abstract available

Solving the Spruce Creek Problem - Creating a Safer Water System Without Compromising the Environmental Health of a Water System

Spruce Creek is a local river south of Daytona Beach with direct access to the ocean, making it popular for boaters. However, when the Florida East Coast Railway was built, one section was artificially shrunk by building peninsulas to make it easier to build a bridge across. While this saved the railroad money, the modifications caused the river’s current to become dangerously strong, making it difficult (and dangerous) for ocean-going boats to pass through. Efforts by the community to widen the river to make it safer have been complicated by economic and environmental concerns. This study aims to find a solution that satisfies people’s concerns in an economically-feasible manner that preserves the integrity of the ecosystem. This is based on research available on similar situations how solutions affected the ecosystem, studies done on Spruce Creek in previous years, and community information and knowledge on the health of the ecosystem and the difficulty any action may encounter. Each solution is to be analyzed based on 1) how well it satisfies the desires of the community, 2) how much the local or state government will have to spend, and 3) how healthy the river will be in the aftermath. Analysis has been stalled, however, due to the lack of information and difficulty getting information from the local government. When the analysis is complete, the solution can be handed to the local community and used to kickstart efforts to help their community, protecting Spruce Creek and ensuring the health of the water system