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Akala full news article

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Akala interview on institutional racism and knife crime

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The rapper and author claimed racial explanations for knife crime are a 'way out' for authorities

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Rapper Akala: Knife crime is not a race issue

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The rapper and author claimed racial explanations for knife crime are a 'way out' for authorities

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No correlation between reducing police numbers and Knife Crime.

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Six O'Clock News - 04/03/2019 May: 'no direct correlation' between rising knife crime and police cuts - BBC Sounds

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Catch up on your favourite BBC radio show from your favourite DJ right here, whenever you like. Listen without limits with BBC Sounds.

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Boris Johnson is understood to have been cleared of breaking the Tories' code of conduct with comments he made about women wearing burkas.

He had written that they looked liked "letter boxes" or "bank robbers" in a Telegraph column in which he argued against a ban on full-face veils.

It prompted dozens of complaints but it is understood an independent panel said he had been "respectful and tolerant".

Tory chairman Brandon Lewis and Theresa May had called on him to apologise.

The founder of the Conservative Muslim Forum, Lord Sheikh, wrote to Mr Lewis after Mr Johnson wrote the column in August, demanding "serious action".

The Conservative Party has been accused of not doing enough to tackle anti-Muslim prejudice in its ranks, despite an initiative to boost tolerance and diversity.

The party's code of conduct states that Tory officials and elected representatives must "lead by example to encourage and foster respect and tolerance" and not "use their position to bully, abuse, victimise, harass or unlawfully discriminate against others".

The complaints were looked at by an independent panel which could have referred Mr Johnson to the party's board, which has the power to expel him. But it is understood the panel has cleared him of breaching the code.

Friends of the former foreign secretary said the inquiry had found his newspaper article fostered "respect and tolerance" for the wearing of the burka. The Daily Telegraph also quotes allies of Mr Johnson urging Brandon Lewis to apologise.

The Conservative Party has yet to comment.

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Boris Johnson is understood to have been cleared of breaking the Tories' code of conduct with comments he made about women wearing burkas. He had written that they looked liked "letter boxes" or "bank robbers" in a Telegraph column in which he argued against a ban on full-face veils.

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Unconcious Bias

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Alex Jones has a pair of headphones that completely covers his ears.

"If I'm ever out and about I usually wear them," he says. "So I don't hear anything transphobic."

Alex came out to his friends and family as trans in 2013 aged 15. He describes it as an "empowering" move - but claims that he was bullied more at school as a result.

He says that he started receiving a steady trickle of slurs like "tranny" from anonymous accounts on social media.
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He claims that one person started being openly hostile, insulting him to his face and sending him abusive messages.

"You're a tranny," one of the messages allegedly read. "Nobody will accept you," he claims another said.

Alex did his best to avoid her. Then one day, in Cwmbran town centre, the situation turned violent, he claims.

"I was hugging another friend," says Alex, now 21. "And as I turned around she was just stood there. And that's when she hit me."

Alex called the police. He says that he went to the station to give a statement, asking them to record it as a transgender hate crime.

'Vastly underreported'

"There were several witnesses. [But] the police just dropped the case. They never explained why.

"It made me not trust them," he adds.

Gwent police confirmed that they initially logged a crime report for a violent transgender hate crime - but that the caller "later confirmed that they did not believe they had been targeted because of their gender identity".

Alex disputes this claim.

"The incident was fully investigated but without independent evidence to support the case, the decision was made that it would not be possible to proceed," a spokesperson for Gwent police said.

Alex's case highlights wider uncertainties around the way police treat hate crime, which has risen significantly over the last four years - in part thanks to major improvements in reporting and recording.

Some police forces say that they are still "vastly underreported" across the UK, however.

BBC Three and the BBC's data team analysed four years of data on homophobic and transgender hate crimes provided by 38 police forces.

According to the data, 20-29 year-olds are the age group most likely to report being victims of homophobic or transgender hate crime.

The data show that people in their 20s are accused of homophobic hate crimes more often than any other age group. Suspects in transgender hate crimes tend to be teenagers or even younger, according to the numbers.

The figures show that 70 children aged under-13 - including some younger than seven - have been reported to police for homophobic or transgender hate crimes since 2014.

Changes to the way police record crimes have contributed to a two-thirds rise in records of homophobic hate crime and a rise in transgender hate crime of one and half times over the last four years.

But the increase hasn't been mirrored by an improvement in the number of crimes solved. Just one in eight (13%) recorded homophobic hate crimes resulted in a charge in 2017 - down from almost one in four (23%) in 2014.

An overwhelming majority of the cases in the records for 2017 were closed without resolution. This was usually because of a lack of evidence or a failure to identify a suspect, according to the data.

Dr Stevie-Jade Hardy, an Associate Professor in Hate Studies at the University of Leicester, said the rise in all kinds of hate crime over the last four years is probably down to police improvements in recording and better reporting by the public.

She cautioned that under-reporting is still significant, however - and "especially acute" when it comes to homophobic and transphobic hate crime.

"Our research suggests that there's layers of resistance to reporting including the normalisation of experiences, the perception that reports will not be taken seriously, and fear of being 'outed'," she said.

It's possible that changes to society have also contributed to the rise in hate crimes, she added. This year the government launched a consultation on the Gender Recognition Act following calls to make it easier for individuals to change their legal gender.

The event was one of a number that revealed "pervasive hostility" towards the trans population, according to Dr Hardy.

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The data is from Freedom of Information responses received from 38 police forces across England, Scotland and Wales.

They show that Merseyside has the highest rate of recorded homophobic hate crimes, followed by West Yorkshire, South Wales and Leicestershire.

The areas with the highest recorded rates of hate crimes are not necessarily the most hostile environments for LGBTQ+ individuals.

According to Dr Hardy, some forces are better at recording hate crimes than others. Specialist training for frontline officers, and campaigning to improve reporting, can also have an impact.

"Additionally, the drivers behind acts of homophobic and transphobic hate crime may differ from rural environments to urban areas," she says.

Michael Robinson, a 28-year-old care home worker from Merseyside, was the victim of a homophobic hate crime at work in 2015 - when a colleague verbally abused him.

"She confronted me in the middle of the lounge where residents, staff and family were present," he said.

Michael's colleague shouted a string of homophobic slurs and threatened to beat him up.

He went to the police who recorded it as a hate crime and opened an investigation. It led to the dismissal of his colleague. Michael declined to take the criminal case further.

Merseyside police said that hate crimes are "vastly underreported" across the UK, and that it has taken steps to improve this state of affairs - such as training hate crime officers in new skills to treat victims appropriately.

"We're proud that we have developed a really positive relationship with the LGBTQ+ community and partners, and believe that this supports the higher level of hate crime reports received by the Force," said Assistant Chief Constable Julie Cooke.

'Minority of people'

Ben Hodge is an 18-year-old transgender activist from Liverpool. He says that although he has experienced intimidation and abuse, he has never reported it to the police.

"It happens on the bus quite a bit," he says. "In Liverpool you get a lot of young lads - and by young I mean primary school age - hanging out."

He recalls an incident on the bus when he was confronted by some children who he says were "11 or 12" years old.

"They walked up to my face and said, 'Are you a boy or a girl? I think we deserve to know.'

"They were five or six years younger than me. But if three of them teamed up they could still do some damage."

Ben didn't report this to the police because he says they "didn't really do anything to me".

He says he often experiences incidents that are uncomfortable but he does not consider serious enough to warrant a report. Liverpool police station can also feel "intimidating", he adds.

Despite this, Ben says that Liverpool - which hosts events including a free Pride festival, and a Transgender Day of Remembrance Vigil - is an LGBTQ+ friendly city.

"The minority of people who commit these crimes are ruining it for the majority," he says.

Any existing criminal offence can be a hate crime if it is considered to be motivated by prejudice. In total more than 90,000 hate crimes of all kinds - including race, religion and disability - were recorded by police in the year ending March 2018.

The rise in offences has been driven largely by a sharp increase in Public Order offences - a category of offence that relates to behaviour in public, including threats, harassment and verbal abuse.

While some regional police are working to improve hate crime reporting, some of the country's most senior police officers have criticised a proposal by Home Secretary Sajid Javid to widen the definition of hate crime to include categories such as misogyny, ageism and misandry questioning the value of pursuing such crimes if it is at the expense of others.

Overstretched police now have less time to focus on "genuine crimes" such as burglary and violence, according to Sergeant Richard Cooke, chairman of the West Midlands Police Federation.

Police chiefs say that funding in England and Wales has decreased in real terms by nearly a fifth, and there are 20,000 fewer officers.

For people like Alex - who says his trust in the police has been affected - it is vital that potential hate crimes are taken seriously.

"I wouldn't want what happened to me to happen to anybody else," he says. "Other transgender people should know that you can't say or do stuff that victimises other people [just] because they're different.

"The number of hate crimes has gone up, and that means the police have to do something about it."

Gwent police said they have a team of "over 30" specialist Hate Crime Support Officers.
Video producer: Olivia Le Poidevin, Camera/editor: Tom Werber, Picture design: David Weller
Detective Chief Superintendent Mark Warrender, Gwent Police's lead for hate crime, who also chairs the Hate Crime and Criminal Justice Board Cymru, said: "The increase we have seen in recorded anti-LGBT hate crime in Gwent is due to a number of factors, including regular training for officers, increased hate crime awareness within communities, and improved confidence in reporting."

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Alex Jones has a pair of headphones that completely covers his ears. "If I'm ever out and about I usually wear them," he says. "So I don't hear anything transphobic." Alex came out to his friends and family as trans in 2013 aged 15.

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Summary

As in PEEL efficiency 2016, this inspection:

examined how well forces understand the demand for their service, how well they match their resources to that demand, and how well they are planning to meet future demand; and

provides an assessment of their efficiency.

This report sets out the findings for Leicestershire Police.

The efficiency reports will be followed by reports on legitimacy in December 2017 and effectiveness in early 2018, which together make up the three pillars of the annual PEEL assessment.

Get the report
PEEL: police efficiency 2017 - Leicestershire Police
Get the national overview
PEEL: police efficiency 2017 - a national overview
Get the press release
PEEL: police efficiency 2017 - force press releases National press release: 'Significantly stressed' police forces need to continue to change Get the free PDF Reader from Adobe (external link)

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PEEL: police efficiency 2017 - Leicestershire Police

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As in PEEL efficiency 2016, this inspection looked at how well forces understand the demand for their service and how well they match their resources to that demand and provides an assessment of their efficiency. This report sets out the findings for Leicestershire Police.

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Public sector finances, UK - Office for National Statistics

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How the relationship between UK public sector monthly income and expenditure leads to changes in deficit and debt.

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Brexit Guide

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Theresa May has secured a deal with the European Union on the terms of Britain's exit on 29 March - and a joint statement on how future relations between the two might work. What happens now?

The basics: A reminder

The UK is due to leave the European Union at 23:00 GMT on Friday 29 March, 2019, after people voted by 51.9% to 48.1% for Leave in the 2016 referendum.

The UK and the EU have spent more than a year trying to agree on how the divorce - as it's often called - will work in practice. This has now been agreed with the EU and backed by the cabinet, although two ministers resigned in protest at it. They have also agreed a rough outline of how future relations might work, known as the political declaration.

Theresa May now has to get MPs to vote for the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration. A vote scheduled for Tuesday, 11 December was delayed by the prime minister until 21 January at the latest.

If she eventually clears that hurdle, it will go to a vote in the European Parliament.

What has been agreed between the UK and EU?

There are two documents.

A draft 585-page agreement on Britain's withdrawal from the European Union is a legally-binding text that sets out the terms of the UK's departure. It includes:

Commitments over citizens' rights after Brexit - people will be able to work and study where they currently live, and to be joined by family members

A 21-month transition period after the UK's departure, to allow time for trade talks

The UK would continue to follow all EU rules during this period in order to give governments and businesses more time to prepare for long term changes

A "fair financial settlement" from the UK - also known as the £39bn "divorce bill"

A "backstop" arrangement to keep the Irish border unmanned if trade talks don't come up with a way of avoiding that happening

The other document is a 26-page statement on the UK's future relationship with the EU, when the transition period comes to an end. This is not legally-binding and contains wriggle room for both sides, based around the central ideal of continued close co-operation. The government has described it as "a set of instructions to negotiators" working on a legally-binding treaty.

Formal negotiations on everything it contains can only begin after Brexit has actually happened on 29 March 2019.

The declaration includes:

Plans for a "free trade area and deep co-operation on goods, with zero tariffs and quotas"

"Ambitious customs arrangements" that "build on" the arrangements in the withdrawal agreement

Commitment to respect the EU's four freedoms - the free movement of people, goods, services and money around the EU

A specific reference to the end of free movement in the UK

A reference to allowing the UK to strike its own trade deals after Brexit

An exit from the Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy

Determination to use technology to replace the Northern Irish "backstop" - but no guarantee

A clear continuing role for the European Court of Justice in the interpretation of EU law

Continued participation in EU programmes in areas like science, culture, education, overseas development and space, including "a fair and appropriate financial contribution"

Continued co-operation on defence and security

Have they solved the Irish border issue?

This was the major sticking point in talks with Brussels. Both sides are committed to avoiding a return to a visible Northern Ireland border with guard posts and checks. They believe that bringing them back would put the peace process at risk.

So they agreed to put in place a "backstop" - a kind of safety net to ensure there is no hard border whatever the outcome of future trade talks between the UK and the EU.

The backstop will mean that Northern Ireland would stay aligned to some EU rules on things like food products and goods standards. That will prevent the needs for checks on goods at the Irish border, but would require some products being brought to Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK to be subject to new checks and controls.

The backstop would also involve a temporary single custom territory, effectively keeping the whole of the UK in the EU customs union.

But Brexiteers do not like the prospect of being tied to EU customs rules and they say there's no process for the UK to unilaterally decide to exit the backstop - and Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party has said it will not tolerate anything that creates a new border down the Irish Sea.

Could the transition period be extended?

Mrs May insists she does not want to use the backstop and says it is highly unlikely that it will ever be triggered (her critics think otherwise).

But if no trade deal is in prospect by July 2020, the two sides could agree to extend the transition period instead. This would avoid the need for the backstop at that time, and keep trade with the EU flowing as it does now.

They could do this only once. The transition could not go on being extended indefinitely.

But there is no agreement on how long any extension would be. Some have suggested the end of 2022, but the government position has been for it all to be sorted before the next election, which is due in Spring 2022.

Either way, this could keep the UK under EU rules for at least three years after March's official Brexit date, something Brexiteers are also unhappy about.

Can Theresa May get the deal through the Commons?

As things stand, it looks unlikely. MPs were scheduled to vote on Tuesday, 11 December. However, the prime minister delayed the vote, admitting that "widespread and deep concern" over the Northern Ireland backstop meant the deal would have been rejected "by a significant margin".

Mrs May said she would raise those concerns with EU leaders, and also look at ways to give MPs the power to force the government to "ensure that the backstop cannot be in place indefinitely" and has "democratic legitimacy".

Downing Street has said it will be rescheduled for 21 January at the latest, although Brexit Minister Robin Walker told MPs he hoped it would be sooner.

Before the vote was postponed, Labour and all the other opposition parties in the House of Commons had said they would vote against the deal. About 100 Conservative MPs have said will not support it, although some might abstain rather than actually voting against. And Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party, who Mrs May relies on to keep her in power, have also said they will vote against it.

Theresa May is hoping to persuade MPs that the deal not only delivers on the result of the EU referendum by allowing the UK to take back control of its "money, laws and borders" it is also the best the UK can get from the EU and there is no alternative on offer.

She will also argue that if her deal is voted down, Britain risks leaving without a deal - a prospect feared by many MPs, who think it will cause chaos at the ports and damage industry - or, she says, there will be "no Brexit at all".

Why are MPs against the deal?

Brexiteers say it is not what people voted for - and it could keep the UK tied to the EU indefinitely, without any say over its rules. Some have even argued that it would be worse than staying in the EU.

Remainers also argue that it is a worse deal for the UK than staying in the EU.

What happens if Mrs May can't get the deal through the Commons?

It is hard to say for certain. There are number of possible scenarios, including:

Leaving the EU without a deal

Having another vote in Parliament - Mrs May will get three weeks to make a second attempt

Another EU referendum (this can only happen if the government brings forward legislation to hold one and a majority in the Commons supports it)

A general election - Labour's preferred option but it would need a no-confidence vote in the PM

Theresa May is removed by her own MPs and a new leader tries to renegotiate a deal with the EU - Tory MPs say they are close to having enough signatures to trigger a confidence vote in her

Some of these options would involve delaying the official Brexit date of 29 March by a few months to allow time to renegotiate a deal, if the EU agrees to that

Labour's shadow chancellor John McDonnell has also floated the idea of Labour forming a minority government without a general election to have a go at getting its own version of Brexit - centred around a permanent customs union with the EU - through Parliament, although the party would then have to get the EU to agree to that.

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Theresa May has secured a deal with the European Union on the terms of Britain's exit on 29 March - and a joint statement on how future relations between the two might work. What happens now?

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The history of the United Kingdom is the history of the Royal Navy.

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Plural policing: Theory and practice on JSTOR

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The police increasingly need to work with other government agencies, the third sector, community organisations and the private sector, an approach known a...

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The year 2000 does not sound that long ago. But consider this: If it were the year 2000 right now and you dialed back a time machine 18 years, you'd land squarely in 1982. (Yes, in a world long before the Internet, in which Michael Jackson was gearing up to release "Thriller" and the movie E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial crushed the box office).

Yes, a lot can happen in 18 years.

Since 2000, a lot of obvious things have changed. Smartphones didn't exist, the Twin Towers in New York still valiantly scraped the sky, Mark Zuckerberg was barely old enough to drive, the airwaves were dominated by Santana and Rob Thomas, and a little-known football player from the University of Michigan named Tom Brady was selected as the lowly 199th pick in the NFL Draft. But a lot of other things changed, as well, which you may or may not have noticed.

Here are the 30 ways your life has been subtly altered since the year 2000. So read on-and to learn more about the constant mutability of life, check out 25 Life Lessons You Learned As a Kid That Are Wildly Outdated Today.

If you were a teenager (or older) in 2000, you likely had memorized at least 30 numbers-if not more. Heaven forbid you have to use the phone book to call your grandmother! Today, it's not uncommon to meet married couples who have no idea each other's phone numbers. And if you want a peek into the future, don't miss these 25 Crazy Predictions about the Next 25 Years.

If you took a time machine back to 1998 and stood in the middle of crowded public square and started brazenly snapping photographs of yourself as if nothing around you existed, everyone would think you're the weirdest and vainest person they'd ever seen before. Today? It's taken for granted as totally normal.

Smoking bans really took off after the year 2000, shifting from a society in which there were "nonsmoking" and "smoking" sections to one where you'd be hard-pressed to find even the dive-iest bar that would permit you to light up.

Remember when salads were just "lettuce?" None of the aforementioned vegetables were all that popular in the 90s, but they have become inescapable in the two decades since, whether at healthy lunch places or at high-end restaurants. And for more on healthy eating, don't miss the 30 Best Ways to Boost Your Metabolism after 30.

Before 2000, and really for years after that, same-sex marriage seemed like something that was unlikely to ever happen. And then, as attitudes rapidly changed, it suddenly became a reality. Today, just a few years after it became the law of the land, it seems totally insane that gay marriage was ever once illegal. Oh, and speaking of illegalities, check out this amazing list of 30 Illegal Things Practically Everyone Has Done.

Music fans used to show off their taste with vast shelves of CDs covering their living room wall. Streaming and download services effectively killed the CD collection, but paved the ways for the return of vinyl, which offer listeners a richer sound and a more focused listening experiences. And you're looking to stock up on some great hits yourself, know that Here Is Every "Song of the Summer" for the Past 50 Years.

The idea of "friending" someone on Facebook-and later following them on Twitter or Instagram-introduced a whole new way, passive kind of relationship that did not really exist in the 20th century. With a click of a button you could become someone's "friend." With another click you could express your approval, surprise, or some other reaction to any moment of their life. This type of relationship has now become so familiar we forget how novel it is.

Just a couple months after 9/11, when the country was at its most jittery, a bad hombre named Richard Reid tried to stash a bomb in his shoe and changed our pre-flight ritual forever after. From that moment on, flyers have had to remove their shoes before walking through scanners, making the security process that much more degrading. And if you're traveling soon, be sure you know the 30 Airport Secrets on Insiders Know.

Blockbusters have been around since Jaws. But today single movies have fallen out of fashion: Movies have blown up into entire universes.

Now we've got not just Marvel, DC and Star Wars universes, but also a Conjuring universe and talks of a Hannah Barbera universe.

Thanks to the evolution of technology, meeting software, and more recent development of co-working spaces, it's become less and less necessary to work from an office. Even having one full-time job is becoming less common as workers patch together a handful of gigs and tailor their work to their own lifestyle and travels. If you're interested in becoming a remote worker, consider these 25 Work from Home Jobs with High Salaries.

If you're adjusting for inflation, a TV in today's dollars would cost $10,000 in 1939. Right now, you can buy something enormous and brilliantly high-tech and state-of-the-art for as low as $350. The downward trend of TV prices really didn't kick into high gear until the flat-panel TV explosion in the 2000s.

If someone had told us in 1999 that we'd soon have an endless supply of amazing shows featuring great writing and some of the best actors working-and that we could watch whenever we wanted-you'd think we would never leave the house. (You'd also probably be telling us to be quiet-and that you need to call your roommate to remind him to TiVo "ER.") But many of us simply take the great programming available to us for granted now. We say things like, "There are so many shows these days... Who has the time?"

In the last century, you'd watch a show when it was on or go see a movie in the theater when it came out. You might occasionally find out about a twist ending or surprise reveal before you'd gotten a chance to catch up, but generally if it was something you were invested in, you'd have seen it when everyone else did.

Now, with constant social media commentary and that fact that streaming lets us catch up with shows when we like, just hopping online is stepping into a minefield of finding out big developments we didn't want to know about.

Remember when we could just cruise right through TSA with a cup of coffee in hand, or a bottle of water in our bag? A fond memory that is no more due to the 2006 terrorist plot to stash liquid explosives in a water bottle. Now we take it for granted that we have to empty any liquids before going through security.

We still all have voicemail on our phones, but you're far less likely to leave a message or listen to one now that your phone tells you who called and when. Also, text is easily preferred if a quick bit of information needs to be conveyed.

Backup discs were the way you ensured your information was saved way back in the 20th century. Now, just as streaming has moved media out of our living rooms and into the ether of the internet, so to are our photos, documents, and information more likely to be stored in some intangible cloud than in some hidden safe in our home. Whether it's scary or not, it's definitely the norm.

Online dating was around in the 90s, and you probably knew a few people who had met through dating websites like Match.com. But it was more likely to be the exception than the rule. No longer.

Every single person who is not on Tinder or some other dating service is likely to be met with confusion and distrust from others.

Between emojis and autocorrect, we barely need to be literate to communicate via smartphone. When writing a text, we can just pound a bunch of letters with no punctuation and chances are the phone will figure out what we're trying to say. If it needs extra clarification, tossing in a smiley face or eggplant emoji should make everything crystal clear.

These used to be the stuff of sci-fi novels, but now they're here. Though not quite part of our daily lives (yet), the fact that they exist at all is a pretty seismic change in life compared to two decades ago.

Being environmentally friendly used to be difficult-the green alternative was often more expensive, less available, or much less fashionable (particularly when talking about cars) than the wasteful thing everyone was already using. Thanks to developments in technology and shifts in culture, each of these obstacles have collapsed, making it easier, cheaper, and cooler than ever to get products that are a little less bad for the planet.

Smartphones make plenty about day-to-day life easier and more convenient, but they also have introduced a new aspect of our daily life: 24/7 availability. We are on call at virtually all times, with emails and texts blowing up our phones and friends, colleagues, and randos expecting that they can get ahold of us at any time. The idea of being unavailable has been slowly disappearing since 2000.

It seems hard to believe, but "celebrity chefs" weren't really a thing two decades ago. There was the occasional Wolfgang Puck, but nothing like the name-brand restaurants that have proliferated since.

Last century, worries about charging batteries were generally restricted to cars and those rechargeable AAs that were big in the 90s. Now, between our phones, laptops, and various other devices, access to an outlet where we can get a charge is almost as vital as access to food and water.

Same goes with WiFi-something that did not even exist for the average person before the year 2000, but now is a must-have whether you're in a coffee shop, hotel, or basically anywhere else.

If you'd told us 20 years ago that we would be posting all kinds of personal information, photos, and sentiments in a place where pretty much everyone we know could look at it and comment-and any number of brands could use to sell us on their stuff, it's likely we would be skeptical. But while concerns about privacy continue to pop up, we are far more comfortable with sharing our information than we likely ever would have expected.

All the big retail brands we used to see as the enemy of independent shops-Blockbuster, Tower Records, Borders Books, now Toys R Us-have become victims of an Amazon-dominated world. As we bemoaned another Blockbuster was squeezing our favorite independent video store, we never would have thought that we'd feel nostalgic for those blue-and-yellow VHS cases.

It's not like there weren't natural disasters before 2000, but the frequency and consistency of hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, and other kinds of extreme weather has shifted from anomaly to normality in a surprisingly short amount of time. With the effects of global warming likely to make this only increase, it's a good time to pick up a few extra sandbags.

Well, we call them podcasts now, but audio entertainment, which seemed like a long-gone form of entertainment by the end of the 20th century, has made a major return.

Sure, This American Life was around starting in 1995, but it was still a relatively niche program compared to the powerhouse that podcasts have since become.

International travel already made it easier to get from one place to another, even the far-flung corners of the world. But with high-speed internet and (often free or really cheap) video chat services, the barriers between even the farthest parts of the world have fallen, making it easy to stay in touch with anyone. The only impediment now is a different time zone.

It used to be that you'd need funding or at least access to decent equipment to create a TV show, film, or broadcast. But now that anyone with a smartphone has a high-quality recording studio in their pocket, the barriers to entry have all but vanished.

Anyone can create and share their own work-which has meant there is a lot more stuff out there, but also that you no longer have an excuse not to follow through on that creative project you've talked about for years. And for more on the amazing technology in the world we live, check out these 20 Amazing Facts You Never Knew About Your Smartphone.
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30 Ways Life Has Changed Since 2000 That You Haven't Noticed | Best Life

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The times have changed and so has technology. Sometimes it's all about the minor details and here are 30 ways life has changed since the 2000s that you probably didn't notice.

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Funding changes for Public Services

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Unlike any other ministers at any other time, the Chancellor can choose to drink alcohol while delivering the Budget.

The last Chancellor to do this was Kenneth Clarke, who drank a whisky at the box. From 1997 and the arrival of Gordon Brown, Chancellors have sipped nothing more than mineral water.

Geoffrey Howe had a gin and tonic, while Nigel Lawson had a white wine spritzer.

Kamal Ahmed

Economics editor

And Budget day has started ... well, almost. Chancellor Philip Hammond has left No 11 after posing for pictures in front of the door with his trusty red briefcase.

The speech is due to start at 3.30pm.

The CBI's chief economist has been talking to BBC News as we wait for the Chancellor to set off for the Commons.

Conservative MP James Cleverly admits it has been a tough period for the Tories, but the party has "made a balanced set of choices". He adds that Labour's £50bn spending pledges would "break the economy again."

Ahead of the Budget kicking off, Labour's shadow Economic Secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, says the Conservatives "haven't listened to evidence" on social welfare reforms and that Britain is experiencing its worst period of economic growth since the end of the Second World War.

The chancellor has a number of competing challenges.

Some of them are economic - can he really "end austerity" by spending more and at the same time keep his promise to control the government's £1.8tn debts?

Some of them are political - don't forget the government does not have a majority and pushing any big tax rises, for example, through Parliament would be very difficult. Mr Hammond is also being lent on to be "more positive" on the economy by his next door neighbour at Number 10, Theresa May.
Read more from Kamal here.

BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg tweets:

Philip Hammond is expected to announce a £1.5bn stimulus package for the UK's troubled high streets in his Budget this afternoon.

Julie Palmer, partner at Begbies Traynor, says cutting business rates will be welcome, but more needs to be done.

The old rates system still needs to be adjusted for a modern trading environment, otherwise when the stimulus ends the old issues will return. Our Red Flag Alert has shown that the number of retailers in financial distress has increased by 1% since last year to more than 30,000 businesses. This trend needs to stop. If the government can update the existing system it can unravel one of the barriers for retail and potentially stop the rot of businesses moving away from the high street, and the great British tradition of great British retail can recover."

For one week only the US east coast is only four hours behind the UK - that's because their clocks don't go back until the weekend.

That means Wall Street is now open and the three main indexes have bounced back from a steep sell-off last week.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 130 points, or 0.5%, the S&P 500 added 24 points, or 0.9% and the Nasdaq Composite surged 105 points, or 1.5% at the opening bell.

The World at One

BBC Radio 4

Austerity isn't quite over yet, according to Rupert Harrison, former chief of staff to George Osborne.

He tells BBC Radio 4's The World at One Theresa May's declaration that "austerity is over" has now "raised expectations that cannot be met".

With uncertainty surrounding Brexit negotiations, "doubling down now is not right", he adds.

London's FTSE 100 stock market index has soared almost 140 points, or 2%, this afternoon to 7,076 points, following European markets higher.

Milan is 2.4% higher after returns on Italian government bonds fell sharply after a key ratings agency, Standard & Poor's, made no change to the country's investment rating. That helped push shares in Italian banks up.

The Dax in Frankfurt is up 2.1% on relief that Angela Merkel plans to serve her full term as Chancellor.

Sterling, meanwhile, has slipped to $1.2830.

In case you forgot, today is Budget day, with the Chancellor due to give his big speech at 15:30.

BBC personal finance correspondent Kevin Peachey has written a comprehensive guide about what to expect, from announcements on austerity and Brexit, to potential tax cuts and rises.
Read it here

A former Conservative chancellor has said that governments can't spend what they like to "wash away what happened in the past".

Warning against a giveaway budget, Lord Lamont pointed out that the national debt is still up by £700bn since 2010.

Britain still needs to plug its budget deficit in order to avoid another recession, he said.

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Unlike any other ministers at any other time, the Chancellor can choose to drink alcohol while delivering the Budget. The last Chancellor to do this was Kenneth Clarke, who drank a whisky at the box. From 1997 and the arrival of Gordon Brown, Chancellors have sipped nothing more than mineral water.

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The government will have to find an extra £19bn a year if it is to uphold Theresa May's promise that "austerity is over", a major report has said.

In its pre-Budget report, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says it means higher borrowing and higher taxes.

If not, pledges to raise NHS spending by £20.5bn and "balance the books" by 2020, matching spending and taxation, were likely to be incompatible.

The Treasury said its approach was to keep taxes as low as possible.

A Treasury spokesperson said: "Our balanced approach is getting debt falling and supporting our vital public services, while keeping taxes as low as possible. This year, we have already committed an extra £20.5bn a year to the NHS, scrapped the public sector pay cap, and frozen fuel duty for the ninth year in a row."

'Incompatible offers'

"The government seems to have made two incompatible offers to the electorate," Paul Johnson, the director of the IFS told me.

"The first is that it wants to get rid of the deficit in the next few years.

"And the second thing that the PM said just a couple of weeks ago is that the end of austerity is nigh.

"Well, getting rid of austerity will mean spending at least an extra £20bn or so by the end of this parliament [2023].

"If you're going to spend an extra £20bn or so, you're not going to get rid of the deficit unless you have some big tax rises."

Mr Johnson said he doubted there would be any significant tax rises in the Budget in two weeks' time, as there was still a good deal of economic uncertainty over Brexit and the government would struggle to push any substantial changes through Parliament, where it lacks a majority of MPs.

"The chances of anything significant - the chances of the sort of £10bn to £20bn that might really make a difference - I think are close to zero and essentially for political and not for economic reasons," he said.

'Relief boost'?

In his interview with the BBC last week, Philip Hammond left the door open to tax rises, but said that any increases would be kept to "an absolute minimum" .

One policy the government is looking at is freezing tax thresholds (the amount of money working people can earn before they start paying tax), putting in jeopardy a manifesto pledge to raise the limit to £12,500 a year for lower-rate taxpayers and £50,000 a year for higher-rate taxpayers by 2020.

As the BBC revealed last week, Mr Hammond is also looking at tightening up self-employment rules, so that more self-employed people pay higher levels of tax .

There is a belief in the Treasury that if there is a Brexit deal, that will give a short-term "relief boost" to the economy which will help the public finances.

Tax revenues tend to rise during periods of better economic growth and the need for benefit payments tends to reduce.

The IFS said that austerity was not yet over.

Smaller economy

Departments such as the Home Office, responsible for police services, the Justice department, responsible for prisons, and local government were facing cuts of £4bn in day-to-day spending next year.

There are also benefit cuts of £7bn to be made by 2023, the report says.

The economy is already 2% smaller than expected before the Brexit referendum, which means that the government's revenues from taxes are also lower.

Despite the prime minister's pledge that a "Brexit dividend" could be used to pay for some of the extra money for the NHS, the IFS said there was "virtually no" such dividend by 2023, as savings on contributions to the EU would be less than £1bn a year.

Extra Brexit costs - such as the need for border controls - could easily exceed that saving.

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The government will have to find an extra £19bn a year if it is to uphold Theresa May's promise that "austerity is over", a major report has said. In its pre-Budget report, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says it means higher borrowing and higher taxes.

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The NHS is huge. It's the world's fifth-biggest employer and around 10% of government spending in the UK goes on it, so it's easy to get bogged down by the numbers. So let's break it down. What does the NHS do in a single day?

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universal credit

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Some people will be worse off under universal credit - but they can take on more work to increase their income, the minster in charge says.

Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey defended the new benefit system amid reports 3.2 million households will lose more than £2,000 year.

She told the BBC some people would lose out because the government had made "tough" spending decisions in 2015.

But she insisted the most vulnerable would be protected.

Speaking at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, Theresa May said "people who are moved on to universal credit... will not see any reduction" in their benefits.

Labour's shadow work and pensions secretary Margaret Greenwood said: "Now that Esther McVey has admitted that people will be worse off under universal credit, this Conservative government has no excuse for pushing ahead with their shameful programme.

"This exposes Number 10's claim this week that no family will receive less money under universal credit as fiction."

Ms McVey is reported to have privately told cabinet colleagues that many claimants could lose as much as £200 a month as a result of the switch to universal credit, which replaces a range of existing benefits.

Asked about those reports, she told BBC News: "Some people could be worse off on this benefit. But a thousand people every day since 2010 have gone in to work."

Asked about those who would lose out, she said: "If those people can work, what they will be losing is benefits, but what they have got now is work. Work will be paying. Their wage will be increasing."

Ms McVey also hit back at criticism from Sir John Major who has warned that universal credit could hurt current prime minister Theresa May in the same way poll tax hurt the then prime minister Margaret Thatcher in 1989 and 1990.

She said she "knows more about universal credit" than the former Conservative prime minister.

But the government is facing growing calls from Conservative MPs - including the architect of the system Iain Duncan Smith and other backbenchers facing complaints from constituents - to scrap a promised income tax cut and instead pump more more money into universal credit.

Universal credit is a new benefit for working-age people that consolidates into one monthly payment six separate benefits:

income support

income-based jobseeker's allowance

income-related employment and support allowance

housing benefit

child tax credit

working tax credit

Read more: What is universal credit?

Currently being phased in for different types of claimant across the UK, universal credit is aimed at making the benefits system simpler and more flexible so people who are able to work are rewarded for doing so.

Universal credit has been criticised for running over budget and causing delays to people's payments, but the plan is to move all existing benefit claimants on to it next year.

Ms McVey claimed it was working "much better than the old system" which "kept people out of work" and she said the government was putting £3.1bn into helping people affected by the transition to the new system.

But the Resolution Foundation think tank said less than 20% of affected families are expected to receive support from the government to change to the new system.

People whose circumstances change, who make a brand new claim, or who come off benefits and then go back on them, will not be protected.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the universal credit system "has to change very very rapidly" and that Labour will be proposing "a more comprehensive system" in which nobody would be "worse off".

Speaking in Bristol, Mr Corbyn said that Labour would "immediately stop the process" of the nationwide rollout and would maintain "existing levels of benefit immediately".

"We will be proposing a more comprehensive system but essentially our benchmarks have been nobody should be worse off and nobody should have their homes put at risk because of universal credit."

The switch to universal credit will create some winners, the Resolution Foundation says, with 1.1 million households an average of £53 a week better off.

But, overall, working families will be worse off than under the current benefit system, with the biggest losers likely to be people with children who are currently in receipt of tax credits, analysts say.
What are your experiences of Universal Credit? Share your thoughts by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk
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McVey: Universal credit makes some worse off

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Some people will be worse off under universal credit - but they can take on more work to increase their income, the minster in charge says. Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey defended the new benefit system amid reports 3.2 million households will lose more than £2,000 year.

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Scottish Poverty Information Unit "The most commonly used way to measure poverty is based on incomes. A person is considered poor if his or her income level falls below some minimum level necessary to meet basic needs. This minimum level is usually called the "poverty line".

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This November marks the 75th anniversary of the Beveridge report - the founding document of the modern welfare state and the answer to the question: what would Clement Attlee do? The Attlee government's radical agenda, after all, basically enacted every recommendation made by eccentric patrician liberal reformer Sir William Beveridge, who exceeded his simple brief - to survey the country's social insurance programmes - with a wide range of suggestions aimed at eradicating what he called the five "giant evils": want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness.

Whatever Attlee thought of him, Beveridge was no socialist. He thought taking the burden of healthcare and pension costs away from corporations and individuals and giving them to the government would increase the competitiveness of British industry while producing healthier, wealthier, more motivated and more productive workers keen to buy British goods.

And he was right. The sustained post-second-world-war period of economic growth and near full employment that lasted until the late 70s saw falling poverty, slum clearance, the founding of a free health service and education system alongside rising real incomes and falling inequality - which, in turn, led to higher tax revenues and helped the UK pay off its war debts. In 1950, Seebohm Rowntree - who had surveyed poverty in York in 1899 and 1936 - concluded that the problem had largely been erased.

Seventy-five years on, however, the good work done by the Beveridge Report is in grave danger of being entirely undone. The "five giants" are creeping back into the mainstream of our daily life. As they do, our productivity crashes through the floor. Full-year figures for 2015 show the UK's productivity gap with other countries standing at its worst since modern records began. What would Beveridge find if he were to report today?

Social change organisation the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has always defined poverty as "when a person's resources are not sufficient to meet their minimum needs". In May 2016, however, the foundation added a new measurement to its bleak scorecard: destitution - a term coined to describe someone facing two or more of the following in a month: sleeping rough, having one or no meals a day for two or more days, being unable to heat or to light your home for five or more days, going without weather-appropriate clothes or without basic toiletries. Across 2015, 1,252,000 people - including 312,000 children - faced destitution at some point in the year. That is roughly 2% of the population in the world's fifth largest economy struggling to eat, keep warm and clean and find a bed for the night.
Levels of child hunger and deprivation in UK among highest of rich nations
This summer, Unicef reported that nearly one in five UK children lacked sufficient safe and nutritious food. The official Households Below Average Income figures released in March show child poverty standing at the highest level since 2009/10, with 4 million children in the UK now living in relative poverty. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) predicts absolute child poverty will rise from 15.1% in 2015-16 to 18.3% in 2020-21 - mainly thanks to benefit changes forcing lower incomes down.

Beveridge saw work as the true solution to poverty. It is a mantra that governments have chanted with glee ever since. But while poverty levels have remained fairly constant over the past decade - at roughly 21% of the population or 13 million people - an unprecedented 67% of British children in poverty now live in a household where someone is in work. The new poor, the IFS argues, are an even larger group than these official figures suggest, with previously secure middle-class families living increasingly precarious lives and with people cycling in and out of the official definition of poverty once or twice a year.

At the end of 2016, the GMB union ran ONS data on average earnings for 170 occupations between 2007 and 2016 and found only 19 of them have seen earnings keep pace with inflation - including tax accountants, tailors, chauffeurs and air-traffic controllers. If you are a special needs teacher, a paramedic, a psychologist, a bricklayer, a journalist, a police officer, a cleaner or a vet, then your salary is going down.

The closest thing to a recent Beveridge report is Prof Sir Michael Marmot's review on health inequality, first published in 2010. Marmot found that people living in the poorest neighbourhoods in England died, on average, seven years earlier than people in the richest neighbourhoods. In July this year, he updated his findings - the longest life expectancy in the country was in Kensington and Chelsea where, on average, men die at 83 and women die at 86. By contrast, the lowest life expectancy was in the north of England: in Blackpool, it is 74 for men; in Manchester, it is 79 for women. Kensington and Chelsea may be the richest constituency in the country, but it is also among the most unequal. Life expectancy in the borough that included the Grenfell Tower was 14 years shorter for its poorest residents.

Poverty blighting health of many UK children, paediatricians warn

Babies born in the poorest areas in the UK weigh on average 200g less than those born in the richest areas, threatening their cognitive development. Babies living in poverty are more likely to die within their first year of life. Those who survive are more likely to have chronic diseases, while a 2016 report by NHS Digital found that reception-year children in the most deprived areas in England were twice as likely to be obese than children in the least deprived areas.

In May, a survey of 266 paediatricians at 90 NHS trusts found two in five doctors held back on discharging a child in the previous six months because of concerns about housing or food insecurity. Only one doctor said poverty and low income did not contribute to the ill health of the children they work with, while more than two-thirds said it contributed "very much".

Beveridge wanted a free health service accessible to all. In June, a survey from 40 health charities comprising the Prescription Charges Coalition found 30% of people living with long-term health conditions and paying for their prescriptions have not collected medicine due to concerns over cost, while in both England and Scotland GP coverage is lower in areas of deprivation.

And, unbelievably, the number of people dying of starvation in the UK is on the rise. Over the summer, researchers at Oxford University surveyed food bank users for the Trussell Trust and found 80% of them with severe and chronic food insecurity, leaving them vulnerable to malnutrition and nutritional deficiency. In 2015, 984 people died from malnutrition or dehydration - that is 19 people every week, or just more than two a day, starving to death in the UK.

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Due to cuts the typical secondary school will have lost £178,000 each year since 2015. Photograph: David Davies/PA

Ignorance

"Ignorance," Beveridge believed, "is an evil weed which dictators may cultivate among their dupes, but which no democracy can afford among its citizens." Figures published in April show England and Northern Ireland rank in the bottom four OECD countries for literacy and numeracy among 16-24-year-olds, with employers investing less in skills than in most other EU countries.

Headteachers warn parents: there is not enough money to fund schools

This situation is unlikely to improve. In September, 4,000 head-teachers across England wrote to parents to warn that budgets face a real-terms cut of 4.6% by 2020. According to the teaching unions, a typical primary school will be worse off annually by £52,546 and a typical secondary school will have lost £178,000 each year since 2015.

And there is another sort of ignorance that Beveridge couldn't have imagined - digital deprivation. According to Ofcom figures for 2017, roughly 20% of UK adults - one-fifth of the country - don't have broadband access at home. On average, 90% of ABC1s have home broadband compared with 74% of C2DEs, 66% of DEs and 47% of low-income households. At a time when the government is moving services online and the country is racing towards an increasingly digitised political sphere, it is getting harder for low-income families to take part in debate, read online newspapers, research essays for school or college or lobby their MPs.

Significantly, universal credit - which is gradually replacing job seeker's allowance - is a digital-only service. Claimants are expected to make their applications and manage all relevant contact with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) online. Mandatory job searches require claimants to use the government's online Universal Jobmatch for a minimum number of hours a week. So universal credit is a benefit system available to only the richest 80% of the country.

Jobcentres provide free wi-fi - there are more than 6,000 job-search terminals nationwide, according to the DWP. With unemployment standing at 1.5 million, however, it is clear that 6,000 terminals can't service all those who need to be online between 10 and 35 hours each week - and in a remarkable piece of institutional doublethink, the government announced in January 2017 that it would close one in 10 Jobcentres. Damian Hinds, the minister for employment, said this reflected today's welfare state as "people increasingly claim benefits online"..

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One-third of private rental homes in the UK fail to meet the national Decent Homes Standard. Photograph: Andrew Aitchison/In Pictures via Getty Images

Beveridge was horrified by housing conditions in prewar Britain, which he identified as a source of poverty and squalor. His report argued for an ambitious council-housing building programme with strong rent controls and proposed a "living tapestry of the mixed community", offering a mix of social housing and market housing in which "the doctor, the grocer, the butcher and the farm labourer all lived in the same street".

To say that vision failed is putting it mildly. The ban on councils building houses has contributed to the shortage of homes that is slowly throttling the country - across London, the number of homes built in the six years to the end of 2016 is just 41.8% of the number of new households formed in the same period, according to a GMB analysis of government housing and planning data. Fewer people own their home either outright or with a mortgage than at any time since 1986.

Home ownership in England at lowest level in 30 years as housing crisis grows

One-third of private rental homes in the UK fail to meet the national Decent Homes Standard - meaning they either contain safety hazards or do not have acceptable kitchen and bathroom facilities or adequate heating. More than 795,000 homes harbour severe health threats from damp and mould, pests, electrical installations, excess cold, dangerous levels of carbon monoxide, lead and other chemicals, including asbestos. One in 10 private renters were worried they would be kicked out if they made a fuss.

Support for low-income renters is failing. The Local Housing Allowance sets the level of housing benefit available for tenants in the private rented sector - restricting people to the less expensive properties. Since 2010, the maximum acceptable level of housing benefit was set in such a way that it only covers the rents of the cheapest 30% of homes. That level has been frozen until the end of the decade although rents are still climbing.

In November 2016, the maximum benefit for a room in shared accommodation in Manchester, for instance, was £291 per month. For a two-bedroom flat, it was £519 per month. According to numbers from the Valuation Office Agency published the same month, the lowest rent for shared accommodation in Manchester was £325 per month, and for two bedrooms was £585 per month. Housing benefit, in other words, no longer covers people's rent.

No wonder that half of working families - roughly 3.7 million families - are cutting back on essential food and clothing to pay the rent, according to Shelter. Some 58,000 households were accepted as homeless in 2015/16, an increase of almost 50% over the past five years.

Idleness

Beveridge defined full employment as 97% of the workforce in work. By that measure, the country isn't doing badly. Unemployment hovers just under 5%. And yet, there has not been the increase to wages that full employment typically brings - in the three months to May this year, average pay adjusted for inflation fell by 0.5% year-on-year.

Unstable, precarious, low-paid and temporary jobs have a huge part to play in this - and solid data on the size of the problem is hard to find. Around 900,000 people were on zero-hours contracts in May, according to ONS data - and since many of these people need two jobs to make ends meet, the survey found some 1.4 million zero-hours contracts in place, or 5% of all employment agreements. Someone on a zero-hours contract works, on average, 26 hours a week - with more than a quarter wanting more hours, compared with 7% of other workers.

There are an estimated 1.2 million people working for recruitment agencies with companies from Sports Direct to Amazon contracting out their personnel operations to agencies such as Transline or Manpower. There are no accurate figures on the short-hours or 336-hour contracts that are rapidly replacing zero-hours contracts to avoid negative publicity.

Under a 336-hour annual contract, someone delivering 40 hours a week loses their rights to hours and payments roughly nine weeks into the year. These are a favourite with so-called umbrella companies, set up solely to provide payroll services and legally separate employers and agencies from their responsibilities. If you are paid by an umbrella company, you have minimal employment rights.

Perhaps the best guess at just how fully employed the country is comes from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, which estimates that full-time employees make up 60% of the workforce.

Badly paid temporary and insecure jobs are the new poverty - a trap that is becoming harder and harder to escape, with more and more of us sliding into its jaws. As we rethink our economy for the post-Brexit era, the time has come for a new Beveridge report, founded on his first, essential principle: "The object of government in peace and war is not the glory of rulers or of races, but of the happiness of the common man."

The New Poverty by Stephen Armstrong is published by Verso (£12.99). To order a copy for £11.04, go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min. p&p of £1.99.
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Want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness: are Beveridge's five evils back?

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This November marks the 75th anniversary of the Beveridge report - the founding document of the modern welfare state and the answer to the question: what would Clement Attlee do?

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Beveridge

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The welfare state

On 1 December 1942 the wartime coalition government published a report entitled 'Social Insurance and Allied Services'. It had been written by Sir William Beveridge, a highly regarded economist and expert on unemployment problems. The Beveridge Report quickly became the blueprint for the modern British welfare state. More than 40 years later, even a white paper on social security drafted by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government, which opposed many of the principles behind Beveridge's work, recognised his report as 'by any measure a landmark'.

The Beveridge Report:
'The Way to Freedom from Want'
Document | Transcript

'From cradle to grave'

The Beveridge Report aimed to provide a comprehensive system of social insurance 'from cradle to grave'. It proposed that all working people should pay a weekly contribution to the state. In return, benefits would be paid to the unemployed, the sick, the retired and the widowed. Beveridge wanted to ensure that there was an acceptable minimum standard of living in Britain below which nobody fell.

Although it was a complex document of more than 300 pages, the publication of the Beveridge Report was a huge success. Opinion polls reported that the majority of the British public welcomed the report's findings and wished to see them implemented as quickly as possible. This shows the extent to which the population had shifted to the Left during the course of the Second World War. The first postwar election, in June 1945, resulted in a landslide victory for the Labour Party, who were enthusiastic supporters of the Beveridge Report.

'The philanthropic highwayman'
( Punch cartoon)
Document | Transcript

The Beveridge Report, however, was also the result of longer-term changes in the attitudes of politicians and the public towards social welfare. In Victorian Britain it had been common to lay the blame for poverty and unemployment upon the 'idleness' of the individuals concerned. At that time a wide variety of charitable and philanthropic organisations existed, and it was not felt that the state needed to provide a comprehensive system of welfare support.

By the early years of the 20th century, the rise of the Labour movement in Britain (not to mention the introduction of a social insurance system in Bismarck's Germany during the 1880s) was challenging laissez-faire notions of state involvement in social policy. The Liberal government of Herbert Asquith (1906-14) introduced a number of measures - most notably the Old Age Pensions Act (1908) and the National Insurance Act (1911) - that radically extended welfare rights in Britain. But neither Act was universal in scope - with both favouring the 'deserving' sick and unemployed ('deserving' in that they had previously been in regular employment). But it was clear that the principle of 'individual liberty' was now being challenged by a stronger emphasis on collective welfare rights.

Lloyd George explains
National Insurance, 1912
Document | Transcript

The principle of state intervention was established more firmly during the period between 1914 and 1945. During the Second World War, for example, the government introduced free school meals and milk. In addition to the Beveridge Report, it also sponsored (in 1944) white papers on education, strategies for achieving full employment, and the creation of a national health service. These changing attitudes to social policy in wartime Britain were reflected in the series of reforms introduced by the postwar Labour government under Clement Attlee (1945-51).

The National Insurance Act (1946), for example, created a comprehensive system of unemployment, sickness, maternity and pension benefits funded by employers, employees and the government. Most famously of all, the National Health Service (NHS) Act instituted for the first time in Britain a universal state health service. The Act, which came into force in July 1948, provided free diagnosis and treatment of illnesses at home or in hospital, including dental and ophthalmic treatment.

'Social citizenship'

Despite the rising costs of the NHS, the postwar reforms of the Labour government established a domestic political consensus that lasted for nearly 30 years. As the sociologist TH Marshall wrote in 1965, 'it is generally agreed that... the overall responsibility for the welfare of the citizens must remain with the state'. Marshall's own concept of 'social citizenship' - which put forward a new model of citizenship based on economic and social (as well as political) rights - was characteristic of this collective approach to social welfare after 1945.

'Rolling back the state'

The 'social citizenship' model was not really challenged until the emergence of Margaret Thatcher as Conservative Party leader (1975) and then Prime Minister (1979). Thatcherism promised low taxes, less state intervention, and lower levels of public spending. This involved, in theory at least, substantial cuts in welfare spending. The succession of Thatcher governments between 1979 and 1990 became synonymous with the idea of 'rolling back the state'.

Ministry of Health poster:
'The seven rules of health'
Document (191k) | Transcript

Despite cuts in spending on housing and stricter eligibility rules for benefits, however, the Thatcher revolution was less radical than either its opponents or its supporters claimed. Welfare spending in fact remained stationary between the late 1970s and the late 1980s. Nevertheless, the Thatcher years eroded the political consensus in favour of the welfare state. Today, in early-21st-century Britain, the debate on welfare spending and social policy is no longer centred on Beveridge's 'cradle to grave' principle. It is far more concerned with providing cost-effective social care, through a mixture of public and private initiatives.

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The welfare state On 1 December 1942 the wartime coalition government published a report entitled 'Social Insurance and Allied Services'. It had been written by Sir William Beveridge, a highly regarded economist and expert on unemployment problems. The Beveridge Report quickly became the blueprint for the modern British welfare state.