Author Archives: Cambridge Town Owl

It was meant to be the war to end all wars, but it never was. The violence in Central London today reflects the continued public policy failures of generations of ministers to learn the lessons from, and deliver the hopes of a now long-passed generation that lost so much. With the events unfolding in CentralContinue reading “Remembering the hopes and dreams of those left behind after the Great War”

“If you are curious about organising, and want to get a sense of what a civic alliance does, come along!” they said. So I did. As did many others. I briefly wrote about the announcement here to help spread the word. Above – from one of a trio of photos here by the organisers. TheContinue reading “Citizens UK arrives in Cambridge”

Another day, and another article making a case for the growth of Cambridge. Only this one is heavily caveated in ways that headlines cannot reflect This is from a follow-up article by Oxford economics researcher Ben Ramanauskas, formerly of the Taxpayers’ Alliance and also adviser to Liz Truss when she was Trade Secretary under BorisContinue reading “Is there a case for turning Cambridge into ‘Europe’s Silicon Valley’?”

From the Queen Edith’s Community Forum: “Make a date to be in the audience next Thursday night (9 November) for the Community Forum’s traditional “Meet The Candidates” event. All four candidates (Cons/Greens/Labour/LibDems) for the vacant position representing Queen Edith’s on Cambridge City Council will be there: The Queen Edith’s Community Forum have also kindly given me permission toContinue reading “Queen Edith’s by-election hustings – Thurs 09 November 2023”

I attended the early afternoon sessions of their event in Cambridge and was ‘disappointed but not surprised’ at how over-centralisation continued to prevent counties, towns and cities from improving their public transport networks. Some of you may recall my earlier blogpost on who does what on regional transport back in September. I stumbled across theContinue reading “Whitehall’s stranglehold is preventing radical improvements to local transport in England”

And it pre-dated the 2019 General Election according to Dominic Cummings Image: How to be a minister – Hutton & Lewis Which then makes you wonder who were the individuals and which were the institutions responsible for putting that shower of scoundrels and knaves into government in the first place – and/or rather, what theyContinue reading “Covid Public Inquiry confirms what we suspected – an utterly dysfunctional central government operation at the very moment we needed the opposite”

The University of Cambridge published the results of its early independent research on how it engaged with ‘the wider Cambridge community’ (see here). What improvements do the colleges and university institutions need to make to ensure their words result demonstrable positive changes? Image – from the quickly-forgotten Civil Society Strategy from Theresa May’s Government inContinue reading “How far has Cambridge University progressed in solving the “Papua to Pampisford” challenge?”

Did Thatcher’s ideology create an inflexible and rigid system of contractual accountability at the expense of democratic accountability? And thus make it harder for local residents to hold councils to account for local services? The academic thinking behind all of this stemmed from the ideology of Margaret Thatcher’s Government in the 1980s – as isContinue reading “Outsourcing as a barrier to better governance and new ideas”

A couple of new Cambridge-based discussion groups have emerged on Meetup – does this reflect an untapped demand for debating and discussion space in and around our city? You can see the groups on Meetup that cover: People can search for other groups in and around Cambridge here. Note I’m not a member of theContinue reading “A Civics Discussion Series for Cambridge & Cambridgeshire”

The Cambridge and County Folk Museum quotation applies again: From Papua to Pampisford. Can Cambridge University’s researchers apply the lessons from their research for the improvement of city, district, county, and sub-region? That was the challenge from former Councillor Sam Davies MBE – whose vacancy is now up for grabs in Queen Edith’s. You canContinue reading “Bristol Ideas 1993-2023 – assessed by the University of Cambridge: Anything our city can learn as well?”