The chair of a lecture at a Hay festival last week commented that the event had become a job interview: Niall Ferguson had been asked by Michael Gove, sitting in the audience, whether Harvard would allow him spend more time in Britain ‘to help us design a more exciting and engaging history curriculum’, writes Zenobe Reade.
The beginning of June marks the start of an obligatory period of hushed activity in my family household, writes Annaliese Briggs.
An EU Commission paper on pensions argues that no more than a third of our adult lives should be spent in retirement writes Natalie Hamill. This means that by 2060, according to current trends, we should expect to be retiring at 70.
Yesterday, Libby Purves wrote in the Times of the free-range child as endangered species, writes Zenobe Reade. Purves’ eulogy touched upon the demise of dens, boating, unattended bramble scratches and nettle stings. Yet, as she acknowledges, this has long been the preserve of the wealthy, rather than the rural child.
Just how many punches constitute one punch too many, asks Annaliese Briggs?
A new climate change initiative is the cause of the latest rift in EU politics, writes Natalie Hamill. An EU Commission proposal that the target for the reduction of EU-wide carbon emissions should be increased from 20% to 30% (from 1990 levels) has been met with indignation by Germany, France and big business lobby groups,… [Read More]
2000 more Academies are to be opened, the coalition government has announced. It’s now even more important to ensure that they’re genuinely effective.
A short article in the Telegraph last week was of a gravity unmatched by its modest coverage. It told of Oxford University’s plans to create a fund to pay the tuition fees of graduates who go on to careers such as teaching and social work. Graduates would apply to have their fees paid by the fund, made up of donations by alumni.
Freedom. Fairness. Responsibility. The sounding words of the coalition document, released today. But do these words (most particularly the last one) not, then, require at least a mention in the section on the NHS of the scale of the productivity challenge facing the health service… and perhaps a few ideas of what to do about… [Read More]
Most of us mere mortals were sound asleep when the slightly sordid ménage a trios of sorts we were presented with on Friday quickly transformed into a happy, blossoming marriage between two men who appear to have been separated at birth.