One year and counting

Yesterday marked a year since my first post on this blog. I'm pleased I have managed to last a year as I have seen quite a few blogs fall by the wayside over less time. I've produced over 400 posts, which is (obviously) more than one a day, though quite a few are links to press releases from unions.

I estimate about a quarter of my posts have been about private equity in some way, which just shows you how important an issue it has become to unions around the world. Yet it's not a big topic on Left blogs in general. On the rare occasions it does crop up it often gets discussed in rather cartoony language, which is a missed opportunity I think.

Pensions reform has been another topic I've banged on about a lot, and again the lack of interest in this area, particularly Personal Accounts, in the left-of-centre blogosphere is a bit of a shame. Maybe it will hot up when we get closer to 2012 but I fear that by then we may have missed the opportunity to influence te design of the scheme. Just to hammer the point home once more - it will quickly become the biggest pension scheme in the UK, and no doubt one of the biggest in the world.

Looking ahead, I do think that behavioural economics is becoming more influential in policy circles, so I'll probably be blogging about that quite a bit next year. I'll also try and do more on socially responsible investing.

Overall hopefully it is pretty clear that there is plenty going on in the investment world that the labour movement ought to be at least keeping an eye on. I think we might see more interest from UK unions in the year ahead.


Time for a very limited blogroll. These are a few blogs I read on a regular basis -

John's Labour Blog
Stakhanovite hero of Labour and nice bloke to boot. Nice mix of Unison politicking, Trot-bashing, capital stewardship and stuff about the local area and its history.

Going Private
It's a view from inside the private equity industry, and not union/lefty friendly. But it's well-written, thoughtful, and even though it's on the 'other side' I find in genuinely interesting rather than aggravating.

Stumbling And Mumbling
Lots of interetsing stuff about biases and wonky thinking in an economics setting. The sort of blog I would like to write if I knew what I was talking about.

Socialist Unity
Increasingly inappropriate title for the site of choice for gossip from the SWP/Respect faction fight.