Boom to bust: Gordon Brown's 'My Life, Our Times' ". Financial Times. 8 November 2017 . Retrieved 25 July 2019. In an early draft of the report leaked to the Guardian in September, Brown recommended that the House of Lords would be reformed as an assembly of regions and nations, with a remit of safeguarding the constitution and with power to refer the government to the supreme court. Some serious solutions to some very serious problems. Inspiring, readable and so great to feel that, in Gordon Brown, there's a proper, big-brained adult in the room.’

I’ve seen the great work Gordon Brown has done on financing education in the world’s poorest countries. Now that he turns his mind to other pressing global issues to find solutions that could bring genuine change to the world, I’m going to pay attention. I’m going to read. And hope.’ In his presentation, Brown insisted there is support for radical change from voters across the UK, but in Scotland “middle Scotland” – the group Brown has previously identified as those who feel more Scottish but have not written the British dimension out of their lives – believe by margin of 50% to 10% that a serious plan to change Britain could be more attractive than independence. Nayrouz Qarmout talks to Esa Aldegheri at the Edinburgh International Book Festival Gaza-based writer Nayrouz Qarmout returned to the Edinburgh International Book Festival to launch the English translation of her book The Sea Cloak. In her event, filmed live, the Palestinian author talks to fellow writer Esa Aldegheri about what motivate… In an interview with the Sunday Times, Starmer said there were “questions of implementation”, telling the newspaper: “The answer is that this is the bit of the discussion that comes after Monday, because that’s testing the propositions, refining them, and then crucially answering, thinking when and how this is implemented. Their topic is the “permacrisis” – an epithet they tell us was chosen as “word of the year” in 2022 by Collins dictionary. It refers to a series of challenges – including Covid, US-China rivalry, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and energy prices – that “show no signs of abating”. The “antidote”, as they put it, is growth. The only question is which “growth model” we choose. While “inclusive growth” is frequently invoked, how that inclusion is to happen is unclear. Progressive taxation is rarely mentioned, and neither is the expansion of state-provided social services. Instead, we have the slightly comedic spectacle of a Hoover fellow, an investment guru and a New Labour politician blaming everything bad on “neoliberalism” while also praising the IMF and the virtues of managing the world’s finances as though it were a household.The title and format of the book follow a template that is familiar from a glut of self-help books, and which publishers presumably love. Brown has identified seven areas where greater international cooperation is required: global health, economic prosperity, climate change, education, humanitarianism, abolishing tax havens and eliminating nuclear weapons. Each chapter offers a historical and moral diagnosis of the problem at hand, and a set of policies to alleviate it, all of which require states and their leaders to act in common with one another. The research is undeniably impressive in its scope and detail, though occasionally leaves you feeling bludgeoned by its sheer volume and unrelenting force, rather as Brown tended to leave audiences feeling after his speeches.

Gordon Brown highlights the global challenges our generation must meet and makes the case for the global cooperation we urgently need.’ His report also recommends that the civil service and agencies should be dispersed from London to Scotland, and an enhanced role for Scotland internationally, with new powers for Scottish government to enter into international agreements and bodies such as Erasmus, Unesco and the Nordic Council. He will introduce his new book, Permacrisis: A Plan To Fix A Fractured World. From the escalating climate crisis to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, increasing nationalism, surging inflation and worsening inequality, Brown and his co-authors, the economists Mohamed El-Erian and Michael Spence, found their recent conversations focussed on the rapidly increasing chaos in the world. Val McDermid: The Winter of Our Discontent The fan club for Val McDermid’s books just keeps growing – lapping up each new novel featuring either DCI Karen Pirie or Tony Hill and Carol Jordan. But whether you’re an old hand or new to McDermid’s work, there’s something special this Aug… The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the 21st Century: A Living Document in a Changing World

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Where Brown differs from a regular Davos bore is that he clearly holds deep-seated moral views regarding the responsibilities of wealthy countries to less wealthy ones, combined with a sense that true justice (a word that recurs throughout the book) is never adequately achieved, but needs constantly pushing for. It was observed in the past that Brown’s intellectual and political project was to unite Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments (an analysis of our natural psychological tendency to sympathise with others’ suffering) with The Wealth of Nations (the founding work of liberal political economy), books that had been too often read and taught in isolation from one another. Seven Ways to Change the World seems to bear this out, in being a call to match economic globalisation with adequate political coordination, so as to deliver on the moral responsibilities of the rich to the poor. Brown’s ability to move between economic and moral reasoning is a potent one, and more than a match for the kind of smug liberalism of Pinker (whom he engages in a brief tussle) or others proclaiming that contemporary capitalism is as good as it gets. “Most people would rightly regard as morally abhorrent the proposition that a child born into the poorest 20% of a population should face a risk of mortality twice as high as a child born into the richest 20%. Yet that is the reality of the world we now live in.” Such logic blasts its way through everything.

Gordon Brown draws on his unparalleled experience to show us how international cooperation is the only way to solve the challenges of our societies, economies and environment. Every chapter is brimming with ideas and insight – and will leave you feeling inspired to change the world.' Their own suggestions are split between technical fixes and moral injunction. Among the technical fixes are carbon capture, facial recognition technologies, generative AI and a Boston Dynamics robot that “can do the twist and mash the potato”. The moral injunction is to say “we cannot just assert that global problems need global solutions but must go a step further and persuade the sceptical”. This might be more persuasive if precisely that glib phrase “global problems need global solutions” wasn’t used twice elsewhere in the book. Labour will consult on replacing what the party calls the “indefensible” House of Lords with an elected chamber as part of a 40-point plan written by Gordon Brown to overhaul the constitution, but stopped short of committing to its abolition in the manifesto.Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary, said on Sunday that Labour will make sure there is an elected second chamber, and the plan is for it to be done in the first term. “We will be consulting ahead of the manifesto around how we make that happen,” she added. This excellent book presents a new growth model that is sustainable and inclusive, and where technology lifts jobs for all. Don’t miss reading it!’ I cannot recommend it enough. Despite its hefty subject matter, Brown’s book zips along... The book is peppered with quotations and statistics, but never struggles under their weight... As a call for global cooperation and a clear explanation of many of the planet’s greatest challenges, Seven Ways to Change the World is certainly more convincing than the partial and inadequate moves made at the recent G7 meeting, and a more clear-sighted vision of the threats we face than anything yet managed by Keir Starmer.' Mandelson, Peter (9 November 2017). "My Life, Our Times by Gordon Brown - review". Evening Standard . Retrieved 25 July 2019. Sarah Crossan with Sally Magnusson: The Other Woman Sarah Crossan, former Irish Children’s Laureate has been delighting and moving younger readers for years with her award-winning books — 2016’s One about the life of conjoined twins won the Carnegie Medal — and her move to adult fiction is a cause …