Coppola Comment

In my last post , I debunked the myth of the "reserve pool" of British workers. In this post , I discuss three more labour force myths that refuse to die:  the myth of the "tide of unskilled immigration" the myth of the falling participation rate, and  the myth of the "workless yoof".  There's also an update about my charity walk in the Lake District last Saturday, and a couple of pics.  Read the post here . It's free to read. 

I haven't written a post for a while. I wanted everyone to read the post I wrote in November about my niece Annie's suicide . Writing new posts drops older ones down the list, and I didn't want her memorial post to disappear off the radar until after her funeral. Annie's funeral was last Tuesday, 18th December, the day after her 29th birthday. Now, it is time to write again. But not yet to move on from the issues that Annie's death highlights. This post is about the link between mental ill health and homelessness. Particularly, "street" homelessness, or in common parlance, "sleeping rough". Homelessness and rough sleeping have risen hugely in recent years. Government statistics show that between 2010-15, estimates of the number of those sleeping rough rose by 102%. This is partly due to changes in methodology to correct suspected under-reporting of the problem. But the Government admits that there is a real and considerable increase in th...

On Remembrance Sunday, we remember those who died in war. Particularly the First World War, but also those who gave their lives fighting in subsequent wars. This year, I sang at two remembrance services in which all the music was written by people who either died in war themselves or had relatives who died. The poems of Wilfred Owen, who died one week before Armistice in November 1918, brought home poignantly to us the "pity of war". Perhaps one day we will also honour those who did not fight but still lost their lives, and all those whose lives were ruined by war - the parents desperately trying to find out what happened to their children , the wives left to bring up children on their own, the soldiers whose mental and physical health was ruined, the villagers and townspeople whose homes and livelihoods were wiped out, the thousands of women raped. And perhaps one day we will end the jingoism that disfigures many of our remembrance services. There is nothing to celeb...