Was the US subprime crisis the prime mover? The limits of the ‘critical urbanist’ interpretation of the UK financial crisis

The aim of this chapter is to challenge the argument popular among ‘critical urbanist’ writers that the subprime crisis in the US played a crucial and necessary role in the US and UK financial crisis. It will be argued that this view exaggerates the role of the subprime crisis and of the global interconnections between banks. Instead, it is argued that the banking systems in the US and UK had developed in a fundamentally unstable way and that this was the primary cause of the financial crises in these countries, with the subprime crisis playing at most a contingent contributory role. The focus will be on the structure and operation of the UK banking system and the UK experience of the financial crisis. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the very limited reforms that have so far been implemented

The four varieties of comparative analysis: the case of environmental regulation

The paper develops an argument that the two conventional forms of comparative analysis which seek to explain similar phenomena by similar features, and different phenomena by different features are too restricted. Instead using the idea of plural causation two other possibilities are identified: explaining similar phenomena by different features (e.g. showing how a phenomenon occurs due to one set of causes in one society and another in another) and explaining different phenomena by similar features (e.g. as in functionalist explanations which explain different phenomena as ways of meeting the same societal functions.) The resulting four varieties of comparative analysis are illustrated. The second part of the paper draws on some recent research on environmental regulation in Hungary to address two questions: 1. the similarity in patterns of environmental regulation across nations and 2. inter-locality variation in patterns of environmental regulation in Hungary. In the former case the similarity in the pattern in Hungary to that in North American and western European capitalist countries can usefully be explained as occurring in part through a distinctive set of causes, i.e. socialist legacies

Towards a History of the Origin and Diffusion of a Late Renaissance Chair Design: The Caquetoire or Caquteuse Chair in France, Scotland and England

This article explores the origin and evolution of caquetoire chairs in France and their influence on chairs in Britain. The term caquetoire (or the closely related term, caqueteuse) derives from the French caqueter, meaning to gossip or to prattle. It is applied today in France to tall, narrow-backed, lightly built chairs with open arms and trapezoidal seats; and in eastern Scotland and in the city of Salisbury in Wiltshire to heavily built chairs with many of the same features as the French examples. It is a type well known to students of Renaissance furniture and marked a break with earlier, more heavily built types of chairs. The type is intriguing because it has no obvious antecedents, and because of the differences between the French, Scottish and Salisbury examples. This article discusses the difficulties in identifying caquetoire chairs in the historical record; the range of French, Scottish and Salisbury chairs currently referred to as caquetoires; and the emergence of the French examples. It then considers some possible predecessors to the type, focusing particularly on a chair shown in a tapestry whose significance has not previously been recognised

The slow arrival of renaissance influence on English furniture: a study of the 1519 Silkstede, Shanklin and the 1539 Garstang, Cirencester chests

The article makes a detailed study of two dated 16th century chests. It is argued that the Thomas Silkstede chest now in Shanklin was made by French craftsmen in Winchester in 1519, whereas the Garstang chest was made in Cirencester in 1539. The carving of the former is in full 'first renaissance' style, whereas the latter has a mixture of gothic, heraldic and renaissance decorative features. The two chests are presented as illustrating the very slow arrival of renaissance influence on English furniture. Comparisons are made with other pieces of 16th century English and French furnitur

The St. Mary’s, Climping and Chichester Cathedral medieval chests: a dendrochronological and comparative study

This article provides a detailed description of two medieval chests in Chichester Cathedral Treasury of a rare type: pin-hinged, clamped chests. Both chests have long attracted admiration and have been given various dates, from 1200 to 1300–1350. Their construction and decoration is compared with other chests of the same type in Sussex and Kent. This brings out the contrast between the chests in the two counties, the diversity of the Sussex chests and the relative similarity of the Kent chests. The Sussex group are either plain or have prominent chip-carved roundels, whereas those in Kent have incised gothic arcading and very small roundels. Dendrochronological analysis dates the timber of the Chichester Cathedral chest earlier (1256–88) than the Climping chest (early 14th century), contrary to what has often been thought. It is suggested that these dates make it unlikely that the two chests are ‘Crusader chests’ and that the depth of the Chichester Cathedral chest makes it likely to have been for vestments

The role of family help in the housing decisions of young-people

Recent debates about flows of help within the family have indicated considerable diversity according to the type of help (money, services), and ages and gender of those involved, and have shown that values are only a partial guide to the scale of such flows. This paper focuses on a particular occasion for help, young people's housing, and a particular region, South-East England, where one would expect family financial help to be high given the capacity to help of older generations (due to higher average incomes and wealth) and the affordability problems faced by young people. It is shown that contrary to hypothesis only 12% of a sample of young people had received financial help for housing purposes since they had left home, less than found in previous studies with different samples. The amounts involved were less than young people believed their parents could afford. The role of inheritance was also found to be minor. The results from the different studies are explained as due to changes in the housing market, changing values regarding financial help and differences among the samples. Intensive re-interviews with three households from very different backgrounds are used to show the different ways in which family help operates

Reforming the club: some suggestions for banking reform in the UK

Submission to the Independent Banking Commissio