Two big decisions required for SMEs
Over the past six months, and thanks to the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust Ltd, and others, I’ve immersed myself in the issue of local banks. It can be a frustrating business, because politicians often prefer the convenience of people to blame (greedy bankers) rather...
Are payday loans making places poorer?
There is a central moral conundrum at the heart of the payday loan phenomenon, as our report Can You Imagine an Ethical Wonga? sets out. It is that payday loan companies are designed to help people through what are intended to be unusual and temporary periods of...
Imagining an ethical Wonga
The central conundrum about payday loan companies is that they are designed to help people through what are intended to be unusual and temporary periods of financial difficulty. Long-term and repeated use of payday loans is seriously expensive. Yet the business...
Time to think afresh about being human
In 1950, the computer pioneer and code-breaker Alan Turing set his famous 'Turing Test', laying down a test whereby we could decide one way or another if a computer could think. It was a high bar but the test remains as controversial today as it was then. I've...
The roots of the bonus problem
I still have one account with Barclays. Yes, I am ashamed of myself. I've moved all the others. I did a small calculation, as one of the bank's 48m customers worldwide, and found that I have contributed £50 towards their £2.4bn annual bonus bill. I know I haven't...
Strikingly Good-Why the Tube strike is a public service
The London Tube strike has unleashed a whole lot of nastiness. And I don't mean the 'misery for millions of Londoners'(of whom I'm one) who are deemed too weedy to undergo 48 of limited public transport. Welcome to the world of class hatred, hysteria,pathological...
In praise of middle-sized
The news emerged yesterday that the successful publisher Quercus is now up for sale because, according to co-founder Mark Smith, "the publishing industry seems to be polarising around very big and very small companies. It's difficult for companies of our size." The...
Towards a new kind of banking
There is a political trend emerging, and it has been a long time coming. Ed Miliband is calling tomorrow for a more diverse banking system. We know his office has been considering an American-style Community Reinvestment Act, which forces the big banks to set up...
Tackle the most difficult cases first
This is the first blog post of 2014, and along comes an opportunity to write about one of New Weather's objectives for the year ahead - beginning to set out the parameters of a new kind of measurement system for public services which doesn't actively undermine the...
How to re-bank the UK effectively
Our associate David Boyle has been working with Baroness Kramer in the House of Lords (before she went into government) to develop implementable approaches to creating a new local banking infrastructure in the UK. You can read the results here (Re-banking pdf), and...