An interesting piece on public opinion towards international development published on Left Foot Forward today. The gist is unsurprising: there's growing support for reducing UK overseas aid, bringing the Lord's into line with public opinion on this one. Similar evidence on shifting public opinion was published in Foreign Policy recently.

It seems that dwindling support for ODA correlates with the belief that ODA is ineffective and, perversely, that development is the rich world's burden.

They also cite an IPPR/ODI seminar on international development and public opinion (drawing in experts on int dev and cog sci??). Will try to get more info on this soon.

But this does raise at least one question though. Given that scepticism of aid effectiveness is one of the driving factors here, one would think that communication of evaluation results would help. But impact evaluations don't exactly tug the heart strings. Are there any lessons from cog sci of emotions that are pertinent to the statistics versus case studies debate? There must be something in Goldie or Gigerenzer and Todd on this.

Just read the Diamond & Kenny piece on Policy Network, The Next British Centre-Left. Lots of good points in there, not least the risk of being locked out of the issues of the day whilst naval-gazing: where are Labour on Scottish independence, the future of EU-British relations, or on gearing the NHS to baby-boomers hitting 70?

But the core mesage is the need to form progressive alliances in order to prosper in a future where coalitions will be the norm not the exception. Good point, particularly if Ed Miliband's serious about this being a one-term government. Winning a large minority and then attracting Lib Dems whilst the Tories bend to their right wing after one term in coalition seems much less daunting.

But such alliances will always be temporary, as D&K are open about. Thus, lots of flexibility. But the core strand of their suggestion is "a progressive alliance of social democracy and social liberalism...to address the big questions of the age , including a new British model of capitalism, the state, the constitution, relations with the European Union, and the future of the United Kingdom."

Result?
- Less dirigisme: public services and housing provided by public, private and mutuals.
- More industrial interventionism: national investment bank
- More internationalism: constructive approach to EU

George Gallaway wins in Bradford West byelection by mroe than 50%. Polly Toynbee (in Guardian politics weekly 30/03/12) notes that labour have received a tug from the left worth listening to. Decent articulation of this tug comes from Tariq Ali here:

"Respect is different. It puts forward a leftist social-democratic programme that challenges the status quo and is loud in its condemnation of imperial misdeeds"

Take-off the imperial misdeeds and is this still a potent platform? The SD programme Ali refers to is the renunciation of the role of the market in utilities and public service provision. Is this more on the minds of the many than the need for growth? What's the order of concerns/wishes:

1. Cuts
2. Privatisation/redesign of services
3. Need for growth

How does this vary from north east to south east?