The title of this blog doesn’t refer to the sort of footprints you leave behind in the mud or snow, but rather the type that define the area or space occupied by a building, or in this instance the boundaries of a burgage plot. By ‘burgage’, I’m referring to the long and narrow strips of land arranged along street frontages that functioned as the basic units of a town that could be built upon.

So perhaps footprints isn’t the best word to use, because I’m actually referring to plot boundaries rather than the actual buildings. But, footprints is, in another sense, an appropriate word to use as it calls to mind the idea of ‘evidence’ left behind and that’s exactly what the landscape historian and archaeologist has to work with when attempting to reconstruct medieval towns. For a city that’s never been overly keen on preserving its most recent heritage, it…

(satire?)

In a new development, Wall St – which is notorious for giving safe haven from US justice to hundreds of well-known criminals and gangsters – has confirmed that whistleblower fugitive Edward Snowden has made a bid to escape US courts by asking for asylum in the notoriously fugitive friendly gangsters paradise.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Mr Snowden said the ex-CIA operative was optimistic the eight-block-long financial district in the heart of New York would agree to grant him asylum because the lunatics have been running the asylum there for years.

Experts say it is a masterstroke by Snowden – who is extremely unlikely to face US justice if his application for refuge in Wall St is accepted. Although Washington has been aware for years of the numerous criminal activities taking place in the tax haven – not one criminal harboured by Wall St has ever been tried…

‘Education’ is rarely out of the news these days, with a conveyor belt of reviews and reforms. Some recent social media exchanges have highlighted the distinction, made by the Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci amongst others, between ‘education’ and ‘schooling’.

While we should acknowledge and welcome the fact that existing funding for adult andcommunity learning was protected in last week’s Comprehensive Spending Review given the current economic climate, it seems that most of the reported policy discussion about ‘education’ is actually about ‘schooling’. The main focus appears to be on ideology and control in primary and secondary education.

Speaking at the recent Sunday Times Festival of Education, Prof. A C Grayling suggested that, “Teaching to the exam has squeezed out education in favour of schooling” (Earlier this year,Grayling placed a bid to open a free secondary school in Camden.)

In this context, it’s interesting to remember that Education Secretary Michael Gove told the Social Market…

The newly formed Birmingham Women’s Campaign called a protest outside the Katie Road NHS walk-in centre yesterday. Those present talked to service users and knocked on doors in thelocality explaining the issue andgetting the petition filled in.

There have recently been two denials that the walk-in centres are going to be closed. The first was from Kings Norton Councillor Steve Bedser, the city council cabinet member for health and wellbeing. The other was from Dr Andrew Coward, head of the new South Birmingham Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), who stated categorically at a local NHS Listening Meeting that no NHS Walk-In Centres in South Birmingham will be closed. This was reported at a Patient Participation Group meeting for Granton Surgery (Middleton Hall Road) last week.

These welcome reassurances were heard after the big campaign in Erdington made the closure of its walk-in centre politically unacceptable. The task now…

United Kingdom (Photo credit: stumayhew)

Further to Dr Alf’s reblogging of John Cassidy’s excellent article, entitled “The Mistaken Lessons of History : a UK Misfortune“,  published in the  New Yorker, I should like to make some additional observations.

Austerity and cutting on their own are never going to work because the jobs which are lost as a result will not be replaced unless other measures are taken in parallel.

Secondly, austerity has to be delivered quickly as was the case with Canada and Ireland where it was applied for two short years and where people were told in advance why it was being done and how growth would be engineered.

In the UK, we have had austerity delivered too slowly and without the accompanying additional measures.

A comprehensive list of necessary measures should include (inter alia):

a) Lower taxes to get money hidden offshore brought back onshore and thus…

This is an excellent and MUST READ article from John Cassidy, published in the NYT.

via Austerity and the Mistaken Lessons of History : The New Yorker.

Personally, I think that John Cassidy argues the case against UK economic policy brilliantly. It seems that much of the UK political classes and the UK media is currently being brain-washed.

Any thoughts on why and what to do about it?

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