Commentary & Podcasts

In this post, we reflect on our recent Ask the Expert event on the future of small businesses after the pandemic, held in partnership with UK Research and Innovation.

In the latest instalment of the Social Market Foundation’s Ask the Expert series, held in partnership with UK Research and Innovation, we were joined by Dr Daisy Fancourt, Carl Petrokofsky and Graham Duxbury to discuss the impact of the pandemic on people’s wellbeing and engagement with the natural environment, and the benefits of green prescribing.

In what is fast becoming a mini-tradition itself, it feels as though every year we get a fresh round of the ‘economists vs gifts’ row.

In this instalment of the SMF’s Ask the Expert series, convened in partnership with UK Research and Innovation, we were joined by Ece Özdemiroğlu, Polly Billington and Matthew Pennycook MP to discuss how a green and just recovery from the coronavirus pandemic could be achieved.

“I never make predictions, especially about the future”, the American sage Yogi Berra is reported to have said. If only the rest of us had such a luxury.

The Chancellor was right to declare an “economic emergency” at the House of Commons dispatch box yesterday. If he believes this is an emergency driven by an escalating employment crisis, it is one which can be remedied through Government-created jobs and much more ambitious skills provision.