"Soulless" and "like an airport lounge" – this was the verdict of west Londoner Katie Ducali on the new Westfield shopping centre in Shepherd’s Bush, west London.
Media attention has focused on whether shopping centres such as Westfield London can survive the oncoming recession.
"Growth will be our mount, equity will be our companion, and social justice will be our destination."
The crisis of neoliberal globalisation meant the Scottish National Party (SNP) conference last week was far less triumphal than might have been predicted only six months ago.
How quickly New Labour’s old orthodoxies of the free market have come crashing down.
The government has bought up the banks at the heart of the economic crisis. But it is refusing to take charge of them, preferring to leave them in the hands of the very bankers responsible for the turmoil in the first place.
The collapse of Irish bank shares on Monday panicked the Irish government into announcing that they will guarantee the debt of at least six banks.
In the midst of all the headlines about banks going bust and billion dollar bailouts, one aspect of the chaos currently ripping through the financial markets has gone relatively unmentioned – the looming crisis in pension funds.
Harriet Harman’s fairly unremarkable comments on class to the TUC last week – essentially saying that the class system exists – have elicited a flurry of protest from the old right.
Not least of Gordon Brown’s worries at this week’s Labour conference is the "war on terror". His government, like that of Tony Blair, is mired up to its neck on a number of fronts.
"There will be no ‘glad confident morning’ for free market principles for a long time to come."
Are you feeling the pinch as the credit crunch bites hard? Is Gordon Brown holding down your pay below inflation?
