Coronavirus Archives | Rethinking Poverty

Coronavirus

Glasgow and its appetite for green community business

By The Alternative UK

21 Dec 2021

While the COP focus is on Glasgow, and the Scottish central belt, we thought we’d share some vibrant local Glasgow initiatives and community business that address zero-waste shopping, and...

Read More

The place of place – Carnegie UK and wellbeing

By Pippa Coutts

23 Nov 2021

For over 100 years Carnegie UK has worked on place-making in different guises – as funder, as researcher and evaluator and as an advocate. In our new strategy –...

Read More

Learning to listen: ‘No sense making about me without me’

By Laura Seebohm

19 Aug 2021

At the start of the pandemic one women told her support worker “I’ve been told what to do for years, this is nothing new”. We know that policy decisions...

Read More

Talking Points reflects on our post-pandemic future

By Rethinking Poverty

04 Aug 2021

What does the experience of Euro 2020 and its aftermath tell us about the state of England today, and about the outlook of the younger generation as we emerge,...

Read More

The Bank of England’s new ​’net zero’ mandate could be a game changer

By Lukasz Krebel

05 Jul 2021

The Bank of England’s (BoE) Monetary Policy Committee meets today, and will publish its first Monetary Policy Report since the Bank was given an updated ​‘net zero’ mandate at the... Read More

What does Covid-19 mean for the inclusive growth agenda?

By Charlotte Morgan and Luca Tiratelli

16 Jun 2021

What’s the role of inclusive growth in recovering from crisis? It’s easy to see as a ‘nice-to-have’, but can be at the centre of helping us build back better.... Read More

Talking Points reflects on the 2021 local elections

By Rethinking Poverty

04 Jun 2021

The results of May’s 2021 local elections will have dismayed those who care about progressive causes, as showcased in Rethinking Poverty. But can we learn anything from them about... Read More

Talking Points looks at the future of work

By Rethinking Poverty

06 May 2021

As the UK takes further steps towards ending the restrictions of lockdown, April’s Talking Points looks at what the pandemic has meant for the future of work and what... Read More

US stimulus package inspires Talking Points

By Rethinking Poverty

07 Apr 2021

January and February’s Talking Points focused on poverty and equality and the climate crisis, looking for glimmers of hope and finding not many – at least not in the... Read More

Basic Income: a feasible route to income security? 

By Malcolm Torry

31 Mar 2021

Lack of income security is widely recognised as a major problem – and one that has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Could a Basic Income help? And is... Read More

Local innovations to solve the problems that matter

By Pippa Coutts

09 Mar 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic, with its many challenges has tested our ability to innovate. Many of us associate the idea of innovation with bright, new objects or processes, and this... Read More

Valuable work

By Nadia Whittome

02 Mar 2021

The Covid-19 pandemic has shone a light on the discrepancy between the work we most urgently need as a society, and the work we value and reward. So many of... Read More

Coastal communities in the time of Covid

By Fernanda Balata

25 Feb 2021

In 2015, we put out a paper outlining a common vision for coastal communities. Our work found that creating and supporting good, sustainable jobs is completely compatible with maintaining a healthy... Read More

Talking Points: January 2021  

By Rethinking Poverty

04 Feb 2021

With a new lockdown announced on 4 January and schools closed across the country, 2021 got off to a bad start. By 25 January, Gordon Brown was warning that... Read More

The case for a four day week

By Anna Coote & Aidan Harper

28 Jan 2021

  Shorter working time should be at the heart of post-pandemic recovery. That’s the message of The Case for a Four Day Week, published by Polity this month, and written by... Read More

Book launch: Poverty (2nd Edition)

By Ruth Lister

27 Jan 2021

The coronavirus pandemic has exposed and aggravated the economic insecurity experienced by a growing number of members of society.  This may encourage greater understanding of the acute insecurity typically... Read More

Talking Points looks back on 2020

By Rethinking Poverty

07 Jan 2021

2020 has been a year like no other in living memory, with two months pre-Covid and the rest of the year forming the first part of the post-Covid era.... Read More

Talking Points: November 2020  

By Rethinking Poverty

02 Dec 2020

A recent article by Gordon Brown in the New Statesman bore the title ‘How to save the United Kingdom’ – and he is not alone in painting a bleak... Read More

Permanent changes to UK’s failing social security system needed

By Holly Barrow

25 Nov 2020

The Covid-19 pandemic has once more highlighted that the UK’s social security system is in dire need of reform. Chancellor Rishi Sunak himself seemingly identified its shortcomings, as he... Read More

How workers can take on big finance and win

By Alice Martin and Annie Quick

19 Nov 2020

The impact of Covid-19 has been a powerful reminder of the leverage workers could collectively hold. Care workers, supermarket cashiers and couriers – usually dismissed as ​“unskilled” – have demonstrated... Read More

Green recovery: what is it and how do we get there?

By Caroline Hartnell

18 Nov 2020

The rhetoric across the political spectrum is that we need a green recovery. We are also seeing growing public outrage at increases in poverty. This was the background to... Read More

Digging deep for change

By Neil McInroy

12 Nov 2020

We are optimists in local government. But that optimism is being stretched to breaking point: by this pandemic, by ongoing public service austerity, rising demand, insecure finances and stalled... Read More

Out with the old, in with the bold: six propositions for building back better

By Sarah Davidson

05 Nov 2020

Those of you who follow the work of the Trust will know that our calls for governments to focus on societal wellbeing aren’t new. We have been working on... Read More

Talking Points: October 2020

By Rethinking Poverty

04 Nov 2020

With the UK now facing a second wave of coronavirus and an England-wide lockdown just announced, October’s Talking Points is less focused on recovery and the changing world of... Read More

A New Story of Us: what role can communities play in shaping the post-COVID future?

By The Alternative UK

27 Oct 2020

A/UK’s joint report with the Local Trust, where Plymouth residents wrestle with COVID, and point to the future Communities and localities have often responded quickly, effectively and innovatively to... Read More

From Coronavirus to Community Wealth – Building Back Better in Northern Ireland

By Neil McInroy, Joe Bilsborough & Charlie Fisher

14 Oct 2020

Just over a year ago, our organisations – the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) and Development Trusts NI (DTNI) – jointly penned Time to build an inclusive local... Read More

Talking Points: September 2020

By Rethinking Poverty

07 Oct 2020

This month’s Talking Points picks up August’s discussions of the changing world of work and the knock-on effects on cities. It also looks at the inexorable rise of poverty... Read More

The power of communities of place and interest

By Hannah Ormston

16 Sep 2020

What does community mean to you? Whether it means stopping to catch up with your neighbour in your local park; knowing where to access support if you need it;... Read More

Talking Points: August 2020  

By Rethinking Poverty

02 Sep 2020

Lockdown has seen huge changes in the world of work – most notably the rise of home working. With the furlough scheme coming to its end and the government... Read More

Super-Policies: New Thinking To #BuildBackBetter

By Jennifer Wallace

26 Aug 2020

The Carnegie UK Trust works to improve personal, community and societal wellbeing. Many of the issues that we work on, and the partners and groups who we work with,... Read More

Pandemic truths 6: How Covid-19 shone a spotlight on the warped values of our current way of life 

By Andrew Webster

19 Aug 2020

‘Indeed, the one thing these prophecies had in common was that, ultimately, all were reassuring. Unfortunately, though, the plague was not.’ ‘The truth is that nothing is less sensational... Read More

Reducing inequality in Oxford: what Covid innovations can be sustained?

By Caroline Hartnell

13 Aug 2020

The last few months of lockdown have seen organisations across the country finding innovative ways to meet the challenges presented by the pandemic. As we edge back to ‘normal’,... Read More

New times, new welfare attitudes?

By John Hudson, Neil Lunt and Ruth Patrick

12 Aug 2020

As the UK emerges tentatively from lockdown, and the economic and social implications of the crisis start to solidify, there is an inevitable and valid debate about what shape... Read More

Talking Points: July 2020  

By Rethinking Poverty

05 Aug 2020

With recovery packages being debated the world over, we stand at a crossroads. This month we start by looking at the widely divergent options we face, and the need... Read More

Conversations With Communities: Sharing Common Experiences From Scotland, England, Northern Ireland And Wales

By Hannah Ormston, Rachel Heydecker and Pippa Coutts

04 Aug 2020

The Carnegie UK Trust works to improve personal, community and societal wellbeing. Many of the issues that we work on, and the partners and groups who we work with,... Read More

Facing the Shadow Within Ourselves to #BuildBackBetter

By Barry Knight

30 Jul 2020

To follow up his article, #BuildBackBetter, Barry Knight is researching practical ways to make this happen. In the first of a series of articles, he examines the role of... Read More

Pandemic truths 5: How Covid-19 shone a spotlight on the warped values of our current way of life 

By Andrew Webster

23 Jul 2020

‘What’s natural is the microbe. All the rest – health, integrity, purity (if you like) – is a product of the human will, of a vigilance that must never... Read More

Own the future: a guide for new local economies

By Frances Jones

17 Jul 2020

Build back better. It’s a powerful phrase, but as post-Covid-19 economic policies begin to emerge, those three words are starting to ring hollow. Based on what we have seen... Read More

A green recovery for local economies

By Jonty Leibowitz

16 Jul 2020

Covid-19 and the climate emergency both expose in different ways the fundamental lack of resilience in how we develop local economies in the UK. There has been a lot... Read More

#BuildBackBetter coalition launched

By Gemma Lawrence

10 Jul 2020

The #BuildBackBetter coalition, which consists of 350 organisations from business, trade unions and civil society, was launched on 29 June. On its website it is described as ‘a platform for... Read More

Talking Points: June 2020  

By Rethinking Poverty

08 Jul 2020

As the UK moves further away from lockdown, the question of recovery comes ever more to the fore. This month we start with the new #BuildBackBetter coalition, launched against... Read More

Pandemic truths 4: How Covid-19 shone a spotlight on the warped values of our current way of life

By Andrew Webster

07 Jul 2020

‘All I maintain is that on this earth there are pestilences and there are victims, and it’s up to us, so far as possible, not to join forces with... Read More

Crisis conversations – Reset #4: time, work and sharing economic benefits

By Andrew Simms

02 Jul 2020

A decade of economic hardship seemed to have transformed for increasingly urban workforces the promise of shorter working weeks and better work – life balances into bleaker futures, of... Read More

A good life for all: why a human rights approach to poverty and inequality makes sense

By Anya Bonner

01 Jul 2020

Across the country, the COVID-19 pandemic is both highlighting and reinforcing existing inequalities, poverty and exclusion faced by many in the UK. Most of these problems existed long before... Read More

Pandemic truths 3: How Covid-19 shone a spotlight on the warped values of our current way of life

By Andrew Webster

30 Jun 2020

‘The truth is that everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits.’ Albert Camus, The Plague This is the third in a series of articles in which Andrew Webster... Read More

Reasons for hope: why and how we can #BuildBackBetter

24 Jun 2020

The crisis reveals much and will change more – for good or bad. Everything feels like it is now up for grabs. There is much pain and suffering and... Read More

Pandemic truths 2: How Covid-19 shone a spotlight on the warped values of our current way of life

By Andrew Webster

23 Jun 2020

‘Perhaps the easiest way of making a town’s acquaintance is to ascertain how the people in it work, how they love, and how they die.’ Albert Camus, The Plague This... Read More

Looking Back Better: the Future Forum on climate change

By Alex Talbott

18 Jun 2020

While human suffering is not a win for climate justice, could new timescales for international cooperation foster the mechanism for urgent environmental action? Our body has a virus, a... Read More

Coronavirus: a chance to reshape the UK’s approach to immigration?

By Holly Barrow

17 Jun 2020

As the coronavirus pandemic wreaks havoc across the globe, it has once again become clear that not all of us are equally equipped to weather this storm. Casting a... Read More

Pandemic truths 1: How Covid-19 shone a spotlight on the warped values of our current way of life

By Andrew Webster

16 Jun 2020

‘Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves.’ Albert Camus, The Plague Barry Knight’s 2017... Read More

Looking Back Better: the future forum on technology

By Alex Talbott

11 Jun 2020

With our worlds increasingly online, young people’s contribution to the design of our digital future is essential.  Unsurprisingly, the impact of technology (both positive and negative) wove its way... Read More

How to make elite power listen to the people? Organise

By James Morrison-Knight

10 Jun 2020

‘If I’m honest I am just tired Tired of everyday filling up my car and Knowing that I’m paying for the bombs in Iraq Tired of pretending like it... Read More

Looking Back Better: The future forum on education

By Alex Talbott

04 Jun 2020

Students challenge a restrictive curriculum: why education should be more than academic. The subject of education is perhaps the area where we are naturally most willing to accept the... Read More

Talking Points: May 2020

By Rethinking Poverty

03 Jun 2020

As the UK takes the first faltering steps out of lockdown, the focus is more than ever on the ‘what next?’ question. Will the coronavirus crisis lead to a... Read More

Deliberating with care for a caring democracy

By Marian Barnes

02 Jun 2020

Sometimes, when times seem unlike anything we have known before, we need to reach for ideas that are not new. The current crisis does not necessarily mean that we have... Read More

Looking Back Better: the Future Forum on community

By Alex Talbott

28 May 2020

What is ‘community’? What does it look like? How has our perception of the term changed in the course of the coronavirus crisis? Any meaningful engagement with the idea... Read More

A post-growth economy: thinking the unthinkable

By Caroline Hartnell

27 May 2020

Monday 11 May saw the launch of a new report from Positive Money called The Tragedy of Growth. That same day a webinar brought an audience of almost 900... Read More

Crisis conversations – Reset #3: thriving places to live

By Andrew Simms

26 May 2020

Quieter streets, cleaner air, more time – amidst the human tragedy of the Covid-19 outbreak other experiences are inviting people to ask more of the quality of their home... Read More

Looking Back Better: young people and the Future We Want Now

By Alex Talbott

21 May 2020

The Orwell Youth Prize is a social justice-based writing programme and prize for young people (aged 12-18) from across the UK. This academic year, the Prize has been working... Read More

Time for local economic development to muscle up

By Neil McInroy

18 May 2020

For some in the local economic development community there is talk of a post crisis “bounce back” – reflective of an idea that the economy is on a purely... Read More

Now is the time to talk about a good society, argues Compass paper

15 May 2020

Compass last week published a paper Towards a Good Society, written by Ruth Lister, Labour peer and the outgoing chair of the Compass board. Cries of ‘we cannot go... Read More

Community Planning During COVID-19

By Lauren Pennycook

14 May 2020

COVID-19 and Wellbeing Blogs: The Carnegie UK Trust works to improve personal, community and societal wellbeing. Many of the issues that we work on, and the partners and groups... Read More

Beyond silos, egos and logos

By Avila Kilmurray

13 May 2020

Reaching beyond ‘silos, egos and logos’ was the challenge that Neal Lawson of Compass threw out to activists in Northern Ireland. A webinar on 28 April, ‘Empowering Voices in... Read More

Work with all members of our society to #BuildBackBetter

By Katy Goldstraw, John Diamond

12 May 2020

The unprecedented challenges created by the global COVID-19 pandemic have brought about many examples of human kindness, compassion and value-driven policy responses. Painted rainbows in windows across the country... Read More

Crisis conversations – Reset #2: learning as we go for long term transition

By Andrew Simms

07 May 2020

In the debate over the global response to Covid19 a battle of hashtags has broken out between those urging a quick return to ‘normal’, and those saying that ‘normal’... Read More

Talking Points: April 2020

By Rethinking Poverty

06 May 2020

Life continues to be dominated by coronavirus. This month’s Talking Points focuses mainly on the all-important question of ‘what next?’ Has the market economy had its day? Will we... Read More

The business we want? Businesses respond to the COVID-19 crisis

By Gemma Lawrence

05 May 2020

We recently looked at the ‘explosion in citizen-led action in response to the coronavirus pandemic’. This week, we look at how some businesses have responded to the crisis. In... Read More

Crisis conversations – Reset #1: learning as we go for long term transition

By Andrew Simms

30 Apr 2020

How quickly the brain adapts to the new normal – Emily Maitlis, BBC Newsnight, 25/03/2020 In late 2018 the Rapid Transition Alliance launched with the purpose of building a... Read More

From many Yeses to one big Yes: towards a global Green New Deal

By Caroline Hartnell

29 Apr 2020

‘Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That,... Read More

Mid-Covid, Universal Basic Income now doesn’t look idealistic, but realistic

By The Alternative UK

24 Apr 2020

From our beginning, we’ve identified Universal Basic Income as a foundational policy for A/UK – as a way to ground active citizenship, encourage creative living, redistribute wealth and collectively... Read More

A minimum income guarantee – for now and forever

By Caroline Hartnell

22 Apr 2020

Last week, we covered New Economics Foundation’s (NEF’s) first weekly economics briefing which looked at how we can win the economic recovery after coronavirus. This week’s focused on ‘Fixing... Read More

Kindness in a crisis

By Ben Thurman

21 Apr 2020

COVID-19 and Wellbeing Blogs: The Carnegie UK Trust works to improve personal, community and societal wellbeing. Many of the issues that we work on, and the partners and groups... Read More

A safety net for all

By Sarah Arnold

20 Apr 2020

The Minimum Income Guarantee would make sure no one falls through the gaps in our social security system. Yesterday the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) revealed that nearly one... Read More

Civil Society and Covid-19

By Sue Tibballs

17 Apr 2020

“Neighbourhoods are the cells which keep society whole. We are threatened with infections, from outside and from within; our powers of resistance and eventual recovery depend largely on whether... Read More

Want to keep a city participating in Dagenham, or citizens assembling in Paris?

By The Alternative UK

16 Apr 2020

Coronavirus, and its strange distancing, compels us all to rethink how we come together. Our mutual care and sense of collective responsibility is expressed by NOT being physically close,... Read More

Can we win the recovery?

By Caroline Hartnell

15 Apr 2020

New Economics Foundation (NEF) will be holding Weekly Economics Briefings to discuss challenges the coronavirus crisis poses to progressives — from analysing policy decisions to highlighting the organising being done in... Read More

5 ways coronavirus could help humanity survive the ecological crisis

By Matt Mellen

09 Apr 2020

This pandemic is a further wake up call things need to radically change and many of the emergency measures help the planet too The human tragedy of the coronavirus... Read More

Talking Points: March 2020  

By Rethinking Poverty

08 Apr 2020

Since the last Talking Points went out, our world has been completely turned upside down. The country is in lockdown. Nothing is certain. March Talking Points is inevitably focused... Read More

#BuildBackBetter

By Barry Knight

07 Apr 2020

What does it mean to ‘build back better?’ Coronavirus has changed our world forever. Plans made a few weeks ago seem outdated at best or undoable at worst. The... Read More

Social movements in times of pandemic: the moment for philanthropy has arrived

By Romy Krämer, Graciela Hopstein and Halima Mahomed

02 Apr 2020

The global Corona pandemic might very well be the biggest crisis of our lifetime. The current situation has the potential to not only disrupt the status quo but to... Read More

Community responses to Covid-19

By Gemma Lawrence

01 Apr 2020

The last few weeks have seen an explosion in citizen-led action in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Last week, we looked at the 1000s of Covid-19 Mutual Aid groups... Read More

How should we talk about COVID-19?

By Uplift

31 Mar 2020

These are uncertain and challenging times for people trying to push for progressive, people-first solutions to the crisis presented to us by COVID-19. Being deliberate in the way in... Read More

Will individualism survive the Coronavirus?

By Stuart Cartland

26 Mar 2020

The current national and global crisis in which we find ourselves has exposed the myth that a society based upon individualism can work, flourish and be sustainable. We can... Read More

Nine things I’ve noticed this week

By Julia Unwin

25 Mar 2020

We’ve known that a global pandemic would come for decades, and it’s been modelled and planned for time after time. But when it comes it’s a massive and terrifying... Read More

We are nothing if we are not together

By Neil McInroy

24 Mar 2020

The Covid-19 pandemic has destabilised our present and will profoundly affect our social, economic and political future. Whilst we do not know how events will progress, we can be sure that things will never be the same again. There will be no going back. The... Read More

What does Covid-19 mean for people restricted by poverty?

By Helen Barnard

23 Mar 2020

As we come to terms with what Coronavirus could mean for us and our families, we urge the Government to keep people who are restricted by low incomes front of... Read More

This changes everything

By Neal Lawson

20 Mar 2020

Most of us have experienced nothing like this before. It is strange, forbidding and dislocating to a degree probably only experienced by those alive in the early 1940s. Events... Read More

Charging migrants to use the NHS is a public health threat

By Daniel Button

19 Mar 2020

During a pandemic, the last thing we should be doing is putting more barriers in the way of access to healthcare. Rishi Sunak has announced increases to the Immigration... Read More

Over 900 Covid Mutual Aid groups set up across the UK

By Rethinking Poverty

18 Mar 2020

Over 900 local groups have now been established across the UK to provide support to people throughout the covid-19 outbreak. A spokesperson for Covid-19 Mutual Aid UK said: ‘In... Read More