Blog

Did you see the ski cross on TV the other week? It’s the newest sport in the Winter Olympics, and involves four skiers racing each other at frightening speed down a lethally steep mountain, flying over jumps, hurtling round twists and turns and generally risking life and limb.

Extreme highs and lows are what you'd expect from the Olympics, but unfortunately we've also come to expect them from the UK housing market and its 'boom and bust cycle'.

This week, London's Evening Standard is running a series on poverty in the capital. A lot of online comments written in response to the series reveal that readers have little sympathy with people experiencing poverty.

Globalisation has been described as an unstoppable force; a fact of modern life; a great opportunity for global poverty eradication; or a source of growing inequality within and between countries. Whatever your perspective, globalisation forms an important part of the environment in which we work if we are going to address poverty, inequality and to build community well-being in the UK.

One thing politicians can agree on is that "work is the best route out of poverty"… but, as employment grows more insecure, it is becoming ever clearer that getting a job does not provide a solution on its own. In the last few years, the number of people 'cycling' between unemployment benefit and a short-term job has risen by a massive 60 per cent. This raises the worry that when it comes to employment as a way of lifting people out of poverty, many are merely bumping along the runway and never taking off.