I have been reading a lot of Left Foot Forward today.  Along with my usual Guardian reading habit, this means that today's Britain Today is wearing a nice warm cardigan and a CND badge.  (I am wearing a fleece, if you must know.) 

Steve Tombs and David Whyte write on why health and safety laws matter.  (I live in hope that New Generation Labour will be keener on the debunk boogie than the tabloid bandwagon hop.)

A couple of interesting articles, one from Sarah Barber in LFF and one from the always good Jackie Ashley look at the impact of the government spending cuts on women.  

Datablog has data and (breathless voice) a chart (!) on government spending.  You can download it and do things with it (dinner and dancing, perhaps). 

Keeping on the spending and fairness front, pick of the bunch today is Ben Baumberg on 'Should we defend the middle class welfare state?' in which I (with my C grades in economics) learnt all about means testing and universalism.   

Finally - football, Liverpool, league sustainability.  Esoteric stuff. 

Though it might not seem like it, I do get my book reviews (start every morning with some book reviews) from places other than the Guardian.  It's just that the Guardian is quite good at reviewing books that I might like to read!

Though I probably don't want to read a biography of Alex Ferguson.

I'm not entirely sure who Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair's former chief of staff, means as The New Machiavelli.  Is it supposed to be Blair?  I'm all confused.  Though it does seem likely his book doesn't come with the cringeworthy sex scenes that the old gaffer's did, so, small mercies and all that.

John Gray reviews Crisis and Recovery: Ethics, Economy and Justice, which was co-edited by Rowan Williams.  One of these characters is fast becoming one of my favourite astute writers on timely issues.  ++Rowan, it isn't you, please try harder!  No, not in The Times. 

I wanted to post Gray's magisterial article in the latest LRB last week, but we're on dial-up speed internet these days, and it wouldn't happen for me then.  So here it is now: Farewell Welfare State. 

Should we all decide to take to the streets, the new edition of Clive Bloom's Violent London: 2000 Years of Riots, Rebels and Revolts might come in handy.  'Civil disobedience' is one of my favourite odd expressions. 

If I could be bothered (it's Monday), I would nattily tie together civil disobedience with the Jacobite rebels who, didya know, inspired the first Ordinance Survey.  Rachel Hewitt has written a biography of the OS, which sounds fabulously fascinating.  (All this talk of mapping and stealth and military invasions is making me want to re-read one of my All-time Favourite academic articles, Thomas Richards' 'Archive and Utopia' [paywall]).  

Finally, The Butterfly Isles is the epic tale of one man's quest to see all 59 native British butterfly species in one summer.  It sounds Roger Deakin-esque.