The WordPress.com stats helper has prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog. Here are some key points:

* This blog was viewed by 1,700 people in 42 countries, the largest number being from the UK, closely followed by USA and Canada.

* Most new readers found the blog on Facebook, then Twitter and thirdly LinkedIn.

* The most popular articles in 2014 were on the history of the disabled people’s movement, a new section added this year as the Kevin Hyett Archive.

* The third most read article in 2014 was over a year old, on ERDF and procurement.

Thank you.

There are four key messages connected with this new book on the welfare state, I suggest:

(1) the welfare state is more than the NHS,
(2) it started with radical writers well before 1948,
(3) middle class families receive state spending as much as poorer people, and (4) welfare and inequality are two sides of the same coin.

As said in The Guardian’s reviews of this new book – “Without state redistribution, inequality in Britain would no longer be on a European or even a North American scale: the gap in the UK’s private incomes would be right up at the top of the table, close to that in Chile.”

Full review of this book – http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/dec/11/good-times-bad-times-john-hills-review-welfare-state-tom-clark

Buy now for Christmas!