Aeron Davis looks at the growing crisis of leadership in Britain today. He argues that increasingly self-interested elites are not only damaging society they are destroying the basis of Establishment ...rule itself. The book, based on over 350 elite interviews, asks: how did we end up producing the leaders that got us here and what can we do about it?.
ObjectiveInvestigate MRI evidence of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) healing, patient-reported outcomes and knee laxity in patients with acute ACL rupture managed non-surgically with the Cross ...Bracing Protocol (CBP).MethodsEighty consecutive patients within 4 weeks of ACL rupture were managed with CBP (knee immobilisation at 90° flexion in brace for 4 weeks, followed by progressive increases in range-of-motion until brace removal at 12 weeks, and physiotherapist-supervised goal-oriented rehabilitation). MRIs (3 months and 6 months) were graded using the ACL OsteoArthritis Score (ACLOAS) by three radiologists. Mann-Whitney U tests compared Lysholm Scale and ACL quality of life (ACLQOL) scores evaluated at median (IQR) of 12 months (7–16 months) post-injury, and χ2 tests compared knee laxity (3-month Lachman’s test and 6-month Pivot-shift test), and return-to-sport at 12 months between groups (ACLOAS grades 0–1 (continuous±thickened ligament and/or high intraligamentous signal) versus ACLOAS grades 2–3 (continuous but thinned/elongated or complete discontinuity)).ResultsParticipants were aged 26±10 years at injury, 39% were female, 49% had concomitant meniscal injury. At 3 months, 90% (n=72) had evidence of ACL healing (ACLOAS grade 1: 50%; grade 2: 40%; grade 3: 10%). Participants with ACLOAS grade 1 reported better Lysholm Scale (median (IQR): 98 (94–100) vs 94 (85–100)) and ACLQOL (89 (76–96) vs 70 (64–82)) scores, compared with ACLOAS grades 2–3. More participants with ACLOAS grade 1 had normal 3-month knee laxity (100% vs 40%) and returned to pre-injury sport (92% vs 64%), compared with participants with an ACLOAS grades 2–3. Eleven patients (14%) re-injured their ACL.ConclusionAfter management of acute ACL rupture with the CBP, 90% of patients had evidence of healing on 3-month MRI (continuity of the ACL). More ACL healing on 3-month MRI was associated with better outcomes. Longer-term follow-up and clinical trials are needed to inform clinical practice.
What is the relationship between the financial system and politics? In a democratic system, what kind of control should elected governments have over the financial markets? What policies should be ...implemented to regulate them? What is the role played by different elites - financial, technocratic, and political - in the operation and regulation of the financial system? And what role should citizens, investors, and savers play? These are some of the questions addressed in this challenging analysis of the particular features of the contemporary capitalist economy in Britain, the USA, and Western Europe. The authors argue that the causes of the financial crisis lay in the bricolage and innovation in financial markets, resulting in long chains and circuits of transactions and instruments that enabled bankers to earn fees, but which did not sufficiently take into account system risk, uncertainty, and unintended consequences. In the wake of the crisis, the authors argue that social scientists, governments, and citizens need to re-engage with the political dimensions of financial markets. This book offers a controversial and accessible exploration of the disorders of our financial capitalism and its justifications. With an innovative emphasis on the economically 'undisclosed' and the political 'mystifying', it combines technical understanding of finance, cultural analysis, and al political account of interests and institutions. Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/management/9780199589081/toc.html
Taking their cue from Adolf Berle, who argued that business derives its right to exist from a social contract that means it also has to assume certain responsibilities, the authors argue that such ...responsibilities should apply all the more to businesses in the foundational economy -
the sheltered part of the economy that supplies, on the ground, the mundane but essential goods and services which are the infrastructure of civilised life: utilities, food distribution, retail banking, as well as health, education and welfare services. On the demand side, consumption and
therefore revenue streams are secure for businesses that operate in this area, while, on the supply side, many of these activities are natural (local) monopolies and are usually sheltered from international competition. Instead of acknowledging this protected position, however, companies that
operate in these fields often behave without responsibility and combine low risk with high profits. The authors suggest that, in return for such privilege, businesses in this sector should be required to play their part in the social contract through a social licensing system. Such a system
would also have implications for regional policy since there is interesting potential here to think about the level at which such a licence would be negotiated.
A particular, narrow way of thinking about the economy is dominant in society today. This book explores how this came to be, why the system cannot continue and how to build a better future.
For thirty years, the British economy has repeated the same old experiment of subjecting everything to competition and market because that is what works in the imagination of central government. This ...book demonstrates the repeated failure of that experiment by detailed examination of three sectors: broadband, food supply and retail banking. The book argues for a new experiment in social licensing whereby the right to trade in foundational activities would be dependent on the discharge of social obligations in the form of sourcing, training and living wages. Written by a team of researchers and policy advocates based at the Centre for Research on Socio Cultural Change, this book combines rigour and readability, and will be relevant to practitioners, policy makers, academics and engaged citizens.
With contributions from both activists and academics, this collection of short, sharp essays focuses on different aspects of public knowledge, from libraries and education to news media and public ...policy. Together, the contributors record the stresses and strains placed upon public knowledge by funding cuts and austerity, the new digital economy, quantification and target-setting, neoliberal politics, and inequality.
This is the first ever book to analyse outsourcing - contracting out public services to private business interests. It is an unacknowledged revolution in the British economy, and it has happened ...quietly, but it is creating powerful new corporate interests, transforming the organisation of government at all levels, and is simultaneously enriching a new business elite and creating numerous fiascos in the delivery of public services. What links the brutal treatment of asylum-seeking detainees, the disciplining of welfare benefit claimants, the profits effortlessly earned by the privatised rail companies, and the fiasco of the management of security at the 2012 Olympics? In a word: outsourcing. This book, by the renowned research team at the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change in Manchester, is the first to combine 'follow the money' research with accessibility for the engaged citizen, and the first to balance critique with practical suggestions for policy reform.
