On Monday, the BBC’s Panorama programme asked “are you a danger to kids?” to highlight the dramatic escalation of child protection measures, and the absurdity of Criminal Record Bureau (CRB) checks. This crucial issue is detailed in Civitas’ publication Licensed to Hug by Frank Furedi and Jennie Bristow.
Yesterday at the end of a four week trial at Southwark Crown Court, a jury found Metropolitan Police Commander Ali Dizaei guilty of having abused his position as a police officer by wrongly arresting and falsifying the case he brought against a young Iraqi web-designer in July 2008. Dizaei received a four year prison sentence.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling has pertinently illustrated the pitfalls of interpreting crime figures.
I don’t know whether the decision to subject literary genres routinely dismissed as unsophisticated to a scrutiny of sorts that will combine the sublime with the ridiculous is a) a timely and culturally constructive move or b) just the evolution of a school of thought preoccupied with ‘owning’ the child in order to, ultimately, control it.
The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) is a little-known Clause in the Lisbon Treaty (the much embattled re-formulation of the failed EU Constitution, which came into force in Dec 2009). Under the ECI, 1million EU citizens from a “significant number” of EU states can submit an “appropriate” proposal to the EU Commission suggesting that it drafts… [Read More]
In November 2000, the European Union issued a directive intended to provide ‘a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation’. While designed to prohibit employers from discriminating on grounds of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, its fourth article expressly stated that ‘the Directive shall not prejudice the right of churches… to require… [Read More]
I used to want to be an astronaut. I also, aged 10 and a half, thought very seriously for a whole afternoon about becoming a Bond girl. At other points in my primary school education I just wanted to get full marks in my spelling test. Unfortunately a new scheme formulated by Hays recruitment agency and supported by the Government will crush these hopes: realism will replace fittingly childish career aspirations and CV composition classes will substitute time otherwise spent furthering reading and writing skills.
This week, the Financial Times (FT) predicted that Germany’s economic recovery ‘may be stalling‘, a seriously concern for Europe’s largest economy. And in the UK, figures released yesterday by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) revealed that the UK economy is only limping out of its deepest recession in modern times (the economy grew only 0.1%… [Read More]
Few artefacts better epitomise England than its cathedrals. It is precisely because they do that their current parlous condition so aptly symbolises the state of national disintegration over which the present government has so artfully presided during this past twelve years.
Apparently children who are down with the latest literary lingo are bang on with their understanding of the English language. Research published by the University of Coventry earlier this week rather unhelpfully concludes that “children’s use of textisms is far from problematic.”