The EU’s new High Representative for Foreign and Security Affairs, Catherine Ashton, may find her promised “quiet diplomacy” becomes barely audible in some international quarters, writes Natalie Hamill, after one of the EU’s most important Foreign Relations posts was handed to a close political friend of the EU Commission President.
Last October, Andrew Neather, a former speechwriter to several government ministers, claimed in a newspaper article that, in 2000, the present government deliberately sought to increase foreign immigration, partly out of a belief that it would have beneficial economic consequences, and partly to neutralise Conservative concerns about the adverse negative impact foreign immigration was having… [Read More]
New statistics on knife crime this week showed that children as young as 10, the minimum age of criminal responsibility, were taken to court last year accused of knife crime offences.
The British Medical Association needs to stop its scare stories about the private sector, because the evidence isn’t there. Continued on The Guardian’s Comment is Free.
Greece’s financial woes dominated last week’s EU Summit, writes Natalie Hamill. With government debt at 113% of GDP, and a public deficit of 12.7% (more than 4 times that allowed under the EU’s Stability and Growth Pact (SGP). Greece has been spending far beyond her means.
‘We believe that diversity is good for society—socially, culturally, economically.’ So runs the vision statement of the Institute of Community Cohesion, which last year received from the Department for Communities and Local Government almost a quarter of a million pounds ‘for a range a work aimed at helping local partners build more cohesive and integrated… [Read More]
It’s Sunday night, the kids are finally in bed and you’re curled up on the sofa—glass of chilled Chablis in one hand and a couple of fair-trade chocolate cookies in the other (you ate the rest whilst putting the finishing touches to Harry and Polly’s wheat-free packed lunches).
As the well-documented phenomenon of cyber-bullying gathers apace in society at large, even the concrete walls of prison are not proving barriers to its alarming advancement.
The BMA today extend their ‘Look After Our NHS’ campaign, to stop commercially run firms providing NHS care and end the market in the NHS, to patients. Leaflets will be distributed containing stories such as a 70-year-old lady who is forced to go to a treatment centre run by a private provider and suffers ‘complications’.… [Read More]
Lowest marriage rates on record published today, connect strongly to an increase in parenting outside marriage. Yet, over 60% of young unmarried parents would like to marry Today’s marriage figures follow shortly after findings from the British Social Attitudes Survey showing that unmarried parenting has become more socially acceptable than ever. Whilst this may appear… [Read More]