There are times when it is appropriate, even necessary, to be angry and to shout out. I’m presently in a local café trying hard to restrain myself. I have two immediate sources of irritation (and many more lurking around). These are: (1) the reviewers’ reasons for calling for a second set of revisions to our… Read More »
We have written a paper on the salience of ‘muckraking sociology’ in the era of COVID which has (1) been rejected by a mainstream sociology journal, in part because it apparently doesn’t publish ‘polemical pieces’, and (2) returned to us with a request for a second set of revisions by a specialist health sociology journal,… Read More »
The issue of the legitimacy or otherwise of lobbying government has arisen once more with Cameron’s championing of Greensill Capital. As the ‘crisis’ unfolds, new information is forthcoming daily, so this blog will inevitably be somewhat time-bound. But the issue is indeed critical in that it reflects what C W Mills called the ‘higher immorality’… Read More »
The Queen’s position in various ‘rich lists’ may have slipped of late but she – and the monarchy more generally – remain exceptionally wealthy. In this contribution to my ‘greedy bastards’ series I draw on recent research into ‘The Firm’ published in Sociological Review and entitled ‘The Corporate power of the British monarchy: capital(ism), wealth… Read More »
Data on the obscene concentration of wealth globally and within the UK continue to be published. Two new documents from the Equality Trust (3 December 2019) and the High Pay Centre (6 January 2020) have not received as much attention as they might – and should – have done. The Equality Trust’s ‘Billionaire Britain’ shows… Read More »
It is commonly and correctly asserted that the British aristocracy had lost its political grip by the conclusion of the nineteenth century. The once all-powerful aristocrats had been well and truly displaced by fast-forward bourgeois entrepreneurs. But they did not just fade away. A report in the Metro (of all places), drawing on research by… Read More »
I have maintained over a period of roughly two decades that capital buys power to make policy with a view to its further accumulation, and that it has shown a greatly enhanced return under post-1970s financialised capitalism. Expanding on this formula, I have argued: (a) that the UK is now characterised by a new ‘class/command… Read More »
The headline from the Sunday Times Rich List 2019 concerns the likelihood of the super-rich leaving the UK en masse (if that isn’t a contradiction in terms) if ever Corbyn, ‘an ardent Marxist’, were to be elected PM. Its editorial too defines this possible migration as constituting a significant ‘loss’ to the UK. Apparently the… Read More »
There now exist four major accountancy/auditing firms in the UK. Until the late 20th century the market was dominated by eight networks, but this gradually coalesced due to mergers and the 2002 collpase of one firm (following its involvement in the Enron scandal) into the ‘big four’ in the 21st century. The big four now… Read More »
Since the putative decline in the (party-)political significance of aristocratic land ownership, attention to who owns what land has faded. But it is now resurfacing, and the targets still include, but now extend far beyond, aristocratic estates and the grouse shooting season. Recent headlines have noted that half of England is now owned by less… Read More »