In the second of her 'On broadcasting' column, Lis Howell argues that the BBC urgently needs to put its house in order before turning to the big political issues of 2017. The licence fee and new technology aren’t necessarily the big issues - the real crisis is about management and the alienation of young people and young talent.

Fear of the ‘unilateralist’ label obscures the fact that there is now an overwhelming case to be made that the complete renunciation of nuclear weapons is in the British national interest. 

Andrew Adonis’s insider account of the Lab-Lib coalition talks provides a vivid and vital, and often surprising, insight into the crucial politics of the day – and is also particularly relevant to the prospects for both parties after the 2015 general election.

Royal Charters are an inappropriate means of regulating the press, a monarchical hangover that debases the role of parliament and reaffirms the view that it is the monarch, not the British people, that should be the ultimate check on parliament.

Severn Trent is the latest water company to be targeted for takeover by a motley group of investment funds. An analysis of their past deals reveals huge profits, meagre tax bills and a seemingly casual approach to ethical concerns. Once again public assets are turned into wealth for the few.

We live in societies with economies nested within them, nested in turn in the non-human world. A green republican conception of political economy recognises this reality, and challenges the priority given to growth.

The bedroom tax is not only socially destructive but, intentionally or otherwise, long term it is likely to have the effect of transferring large amounts of housing stock from taxpayers to banks.

Taxing wealth is an underexplored option in the UK, given the scale of wealth inequality. A new project confronts this head on, with proposals for radical reform.

Despite the recent crackdown on squatting in the UK and Europe, across the Global North we are now witnessing the slow emergence of an alternative politics of housing that seeks to challenge the pieties of neoliberal restructuring, and re-think ways of inhabiting cities.