Don't watch this space...

...well, not too avidly anyway.

My 800th post, so time once again to look at where Social Policy Bonds are heading. The answer is a little disheartening: nowhere. At least, not that I'm aware of. More dispiriting still, the distance between ordinary people and the politicians who are supposed (in the democracies) to represent them appears to be growing wider. But what about the Tea Party movement? Isn't that a genuine grass-roots, bottom-up, closing-the-gap, trend to be welcomed? At first sight, perhaps. But its funding sources raise suspicions and, more important (to me) is that it seems less interested in outcomes and more interested in the same distractions that bedevil conventional politics; foremost among them personality and ideology.

Politicians are becoming a class apart, sharing few of the concerns of their constituents. Corporations, and especially the biggest corporations, are ever more influential in determining policy. Natural persons view politicians with disdain; politics with indifference, cynicism or despair. A realignment, along the lines of Social Policy Bonds, whereby government targets outcomes that are meaningful to ordinary people cannot come soon enough.