Category: Culture

Culture, Economics, sociologyLeave a comment

People Want Economic Change but Have Stopped Trusting Governments to Deliver It

Colin Henderson

While two-thirds say that democracy is the best way to govern, four in ten say a strong leader would serve their country better. Kate Pickett Back in 2009, when Richard Wilkinson and I published The Spirit Level, our aim was to demonstrate through hard data what communities across the world felt intuitively: that deep economic inequality tears apart our social fabric. It erodes trust, undermines health and wellbeing, and divides us from each other. Over a decade later, the diagnosis has not changed, but it seems the public’s patience with politicians and policymakers to act on this evidence is running out. … Continue reading People Want Economic Change but Have Stopped Trusting Governments to Deliver It

Culture, Cybersecurity, InnovationLeave a comment

The paperless home: a realistic way to get started

Colin Henderson

 Summarize ​ Written by: SoftMaker The Friday Chat  The stack of paper on your desk keeps growing, the file folder is bursting at the seams, and at some point you make the decision: from now on, everything goes digital. A few weeks later, the stack is growing again – and your guilty conscience right along with it. The problem is almost never the technology. It’s the sorting. Why the paperless home so often fails Most guides to the paperless home read like an instruction manual for a second full-time job. Every document is supposed to be scanned, sensibly named and filed … Continue reading The paperless home: a realistic way to get started

briefing, Culture, India

How One of the World’s Biggest Reading Nations Feeds Its Habit

Colin Henderson

Voracious readers in India are turning to a centuries-old private lending system as public libraries fall short. Akanksha SinghAugust 13, 2026 at 10:00 PM EDT The shelves at Victoria Circulating Library and Music House leave little room for snobbery. Mills & Boon romances are wedged beside literary classics. Political biographies sit atop Tintincomics. Towering stacks of dog-eared thrillers line narrow aisles, alongside DVDs, CDs and Hindi bestsellers piled Tetris-style in triple and quadruple layers. Despite the apparent chaos, owner Arif Merchant knows where everything is. He’s spent four decades serving customers in the Mumbai neighborhood of Mahim, building a vast inventory … Continue reading How One of the World’s Biggest Reading Nations Feeds Its Habit

briefing, Culture, Social_evolution

How polarised is European politics? Here’s how your generation, gender and where you live affect what you believe

Colin Henderson

 Summarize ​  Rory FitzgeraldPublished: August 11, 2026 6.32am EDT Across Europe, the political debate has rarely looked more polarised. Media narratives frequently describe societies as becoming sharply divided between younger progressive and older conservative generations. A growing body of research also suggests that political attitudes are becoming more divided by gender, particularly among younger cohorts. Young women seem to be adopting more liberal positions than young men on issues such as climate change and immigration. Using data from the European Social Survey, which I have led since 2013, my team has examined the truth of these claims. We’ve done this by looking at long-term trends … Continue reading How polarised is European politics? Here’s how your generation, gender and where you live affect what you believe