The Open University

Explainer: What is national insurance?

11 March 2017

A tax called national insurance has become the centre of a row within Britain’s ruling Conservative Party. The recent budget announced a rise in the tax for the self-employed (from 9% to 11% on profits above £8,060 – still less than the 12% paid by employees). But a number of Conservative MPs have strongly criticised […]

Britain’s dark history of criminalising homeless people in public spaces

10 March 2017

Since the onset of austerity in 2010, the estimated number of people sleeping rough in England has more than doubled, from 1,768 in 2010, to 4,134 in 2016. As the number of homeless people increases, while support services and hostels are diminishing, rough sleepers are becoming ever more visible in British cities. But rather than […]

Academics respond to the Budget 2017

8 March 2017

Following the Chancellor, Philip Hammond’s, first Budget Jonquil Lowe, Senior Lecturer in economics and personal finance and Mick McCormick, Head of Social Work at The Open University give their opinions on some of the big issues announced on Wednesday 8 March. Social Care Mick McCormick, Head of Social Work at The Open University: “The Chancellor’s […]

Austerity isn’t working for everyone – especially women

7 March 2017

Women have borne the brunt of government austerity policies since 2010. Cuts to spending on services and social security have a disproportionate gender impact because women rely more on these services, benefits and tax credits than men do. It is therefore ironic that the UK is set to announce another budget that will do little […]

Why we must reduce the prison population rather than build new prisons

26 February 2017

The justice secretary Liz Truss has published a new bill to reform the prison and court system in England and Wales. The Prisons and Courts Bill proposes new laws emphasising audits and league tables of prisons and a legal responsibility for both prison staff and the secretary of state for justice to ensure that prisons […]

Why there is such an enormous demand for drugs in British prisons

15 February 2017

The BBC’s Panorama documentary on HMP Northumberland recently put the problem of drug taking in prisons firmly under the spotlight. The terrible harms that psychoactive drugs create for both prisoners and prison officers were laid bare – secretly recorded footage showed prisoners overdosing on drugs, prisoners threatening an officer with a weapon, and one prison […]

Romania protests: what caused the biggest uprising since the fall of communism?

8 February 2017

Romania recently saw the largest demonstrations on its streets since the fall of communism. On February 5, more than half a million people took part in protests across the country. The marches came in response to an emergency decree passed by the recently elected PSD-ALDE government – a coalition of the PSD (Social Democratic Party) […]

Aerial view of housing estate. Image: Thinkstock

Housing White Paper: affordability problem will not change, says OU expert

7 February 2017

Lecturer in Economics, Alan Shipman, comments on the Government’s Housing White Paper, published on Tuesday 7 February 2017: Earnings have risen too slowly “The Housing White Paper pinpoints the main problem – that average house prices have risen to eight times earnings, this ratio doubling in some areas since 1997 – then addresses the wrong […]

Bercow should see and speak only as directed by MPs: New Speaker of the House of Commons needed, says OU expert

7 February 2017

Reader in Government, Richard Heffernan, argues that John Bercow has overstepped the mark with his comments on Donald Trump. Highly political and too public a speakership “First elected as a Conservative MP in 1997, being reelected as such in 2001 and 2005, John Bercow becoming Speaker in 2009, ceased being a Conservative. It has long […]

Religious literary report receives OU input in Parliament

3 February 2017

The importance of religious literacy in a post-Brexit world was the topic of an All Party Parliamentary Group debate recently, with contributions from The Open University. As the Brexit debate continued to draw heated exchanges in the Commons chamber on Tuesday 31 January, John Wolffe (Professor of Religious History and Associate Dean for Research Scholarship […]

OU News

Category: Society and politics