Duncan O'Leary
Senior Researcher
Duncan works on projects looking at public services, skills and work.
- The Politics of Public Behaviour Demos published a new pamphlet yesterday: The Politics of Public Behaviour. It looks at the public consequences of private decisions. The aim was to ask where and when government should involve itself in people’s personal decision-making, from parenting to carbon emissions, diet, exercise, pensions savings, gambling and organ donorship. It seems on all this issues and more the public/private boundary is becoming blurred. continue reading on 9th May 2008
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Political Science
A couple of thoughts struck me this morning as I listened to the debate on the today programme (at 7.35) about the (re)re-classification of cannabis:
continue reading on 7th May 2008 Comments (5) - Think again Lots of talk of U-turns in the news today. Yesterday’s news on the 10p tax rate, Jim Knight insisting there will be ‘no U-turn’ over teachers pay. Which begs the question, would politics be better or worse without U-turns? Leaving aside these specific examples, I think U-turns (and U-turners) can be underrated.When we make a decision we tend to suffer from cognitive biases that make us surer and surer that our decision was the right one– partly because we look for... continue reading on 24th April 2008 Comments (2)
- You know something they don't know I’m enjoying the new Politicshome – it’s found a niche in providing cross-party, up the minute information à la Bloomberg. What i’m not so sure about is the feature of the website that seems to be getting all the attention – the PH100 polls that are done. (e.g. who will be the next mayor) continue reading on 14th April 2008 Comments (4)
- Exchanging ideas I’ve just seen this article by John Craig – of the newly formed third sector innovation exchange – which is well worth a read. For me it identifies an important part of the debate that public service reform that gets lost in debates about ‘competition’, ‘choice’, ‘contestability’, whatever. The point, in John’s words, is that: continue reading on 8th April 2008
- Life and art WARNING: If you have not seen the West Wing and intend to, do NOT continue reading this post continue reading on 31st March 2008
- Equality of what? John Hutton’s speech to Progress today is causing a stir. (Here’s Polly Toynbee). Hutton argues that: "Rather than questioning whether huge salaries are morally justified, we should celebrate the fact that people can be enormously successful in this country. Rather than placing a cap on that success, we should be questioning why it is not available to more people." I wonder if he actually means different people, rather than more people. There are, after all, always going... continue reading on 11th March 2008 Comments (2)
- What interviews should be like If you have five minutes to spare have a listen to John Humphrey's interview this morning on the right to choose whether to have a deaf child or not. (It's the 8:10). It struck me for a number of reasons. First, because Humphrey's wasn't completely sure of his ground, he had first to listen without interrupting to his interviewee and address the points put to him on their merits. Second, there was long enough for a decent exploration of the issues. And third, probably as a result, i am personally now much more aware of the politics of deafness than i was when i woke up this morning. Isn't this what public service broadcasting is supposed to be like? continue reading on 10th March 2008
- Who are you? Mitt Romney has pulled out of the race to be the Republican nominee, leaving the field clear for John McCain. What are the lessons? Real Clear Politics has a breakdown of the Romney campaign, looking in detail at who he attracted and who he alienated. I prefer this much simpler explanation: the reason he lost to McCain was that he succumbed to an idea that McCain didn’t: continue reading on 8th February 2008
- Listen up Just a quick post to let everyone know that the recordings from the launch of the Demos pamphlet Making it Personal are now up on the website. Charlie Leadbeater gives an overview of the pamphlet before each of the other speakers responds. There was a great line-up and each talk only lasts for about ten mins. If you're going to listen to one person, i recommend Dame Denise Platt - she was brilliant. continue reading on 4th February 2008