“Beauty” and “public policy” are not terms you often hear together, but I have been working with Commission for Architecture and the Build Environment and the Arts and Humanities Research Centre over the last year on a project exploring how people think about and experience beauty and its relevance to politics and policy. Our work, [...]

I have written a substantial piece for the new edition of Prospect Magazine on new housing and why its so poor.  It’s the last issue edited by Prospect’s founding editor David Goodhart, with whom I have collaborated a lot over the years. Housing design is an issue a feel very passionately about.  We allow terrible [...]

I have just published, on Open Democracy, my first attempt to make sense of Cameron’s Big Society agenda.  I say first attempt because I want to return to this and write something more substantial.  You can read it here.

I have a good sized comment piece in the Guardian today, responding to yesterdays’s report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, on anti-social behaviour and rehearsing my arguments for a more first aid approach to dealing with ASB. It’s attracted 146 comments so far, almost all of them negative. No surprise there. My only regret [...]

I have just got round to viewing the recording of the launch of my pamphlet on anti-social behaviour.  I think it is my first appearance on YouTube so I am recording the fact!