A response to Boris Johnson’s “Build Build Build” mantra My (increasingly bushy) eyebrows raised somewhat last week when Boris Johnson stood in front of his podium with his latest three worder “build, build, build” and his promise to cut red tape around infrastructure – and raised even further when the chancellor promised to cut stamp […]

The lockdown got us thinking about some big stuff like globalisation. Prior to Covid-19 rearing its ugly head, there had already been much discussion about issues with globalisation. The seemingly unstoppable march of national economies, coming together as one global economy, for the ultimate benefit of the world. Globalisation appeared to tick boxes on all […]

Beto O’Rourke has made headlines this week by announcing his intention to run as Democratic Presidential candidate in 2020, and then smashing records by raising $6.1 million in the first 24 hours of his campaign. What’s interesting to me about this is that Beto is a so-called ‘ex punk’ who used to play bass in […]

We can tend to be utopian but a divided society serves no-one. Britain is divided in a number of ways and if it continues then everybody will suffer. Between Remainers and Leavers, environmentalists and climate change-deniers, misogynists and feminists, the curious and the ignorant and the haves and have-nots, we’re at risk of tearing ourselves […]

We hate betting shops and the misery they cause.  For the past few years I have been including this image in my urban design talks and arguing that it’s time we either introduce planning legislation that allowed councils to ban betting shops altogether, or restrict them to one per square mile. Initially my views were […]

I was asked to film a polemic for the This Week programme to go on the BBC tonight but it has been subsequently dropped because of Boris Johnson’s announcement that he will now not stand for PM. Even though it does have some of the content from the EU referendum blog that we published last […]

Wayne shares his post European Union referendum blues. Three days after the announcement of the EU Referendum result, I still feel totally and utterly down. The only other time in my life that I have felt like this was when my dear mum died. However I was prepared for that, I had had time to […]

We did our bit for the remain in the EU campaign and are still saddened by the result. I honestly didn’t imagine that the UK would get to a position where it is possible that we pull away from Europe. But this weekend’s polls show the “Leave” campaign 3 percentage points ahead. It makes no […]

In 2015 we shouted about our love of the design thinking and process behind a new national flag of New Zealand I have harped on for many years about how the power of design to impact positively on our lives and even to engage in politics is underrated. I grew up at a time and […]

We all have “People Power” if we get together and campaign.  One of my favourite slabs of 7” vinyl in my record box is People Power by Billy Paul. I believe that active and vocal communities can bring a sense of empowerment to the wider community and can engender positive change and make things happen that […]