The Conservatives have barely stuck their head above the parapet with their new education green paper but the backlash from the self-appointed champions of the disadvantaged has already begun. Fiona Millar attacks their policies as re-heated Thatcherism. Admittedly, the Tories have left themselves open to this sort of criticism. Their policies are a bit of… [Read More]
…our fishing industry slips into crisis. The European Union’s Fisheries Commission places strict quotas on fishing in the North Sea, areas that were previously sovereign British territory. The purpose of this policy is to encourage fish stocks to recover from over fishing that previously took place because of the free for all policy that allowed… [Read More]
A priority of the Dutch health care system, just like in the NHS, is to guarantee access to health care services in accordance with principles of solidarity and equality. As a result, health care coverage, just like in the NHS, is universal. But, unlike the NHS, universal coverage is being achieved not through a predominantly… [Read More]
Apparently David Miliband was felt today by the ‘hand of history’, when delivering a speech to the College of Europe in Bruges. You would have thought that hand belonged to Baroness Thatcher given her famous speech of September 1988 at that location, when she laid out the fundamentals of British euroscepticism. Instead it seems it… [Read More]
Last Friday, the Charity Commission announced the creation of a new Faith and Social Cohesion Unit to lead its work with faith-based charities. In the first instance, it announced, the new unit will focus on Muslim charities and communities. Directing its work will be a newly created Project Board the members of which, we were… [Read More]
There is one man across the English Channel who Gordon Brown must wish would shut up, writes Cem Suleyman. The man I’m talking about is Valery Giscard d’Estaing (VGE), former President of the French Fifth Republic (1974-81). VGE was President of the Convention on the Future of Europe, which drafted the original, and failed, EU… [Read More]
Let’s get one thing straight. Hospital reconfiguration is necessary. There are too many district general hospitals (DGHs) in England. All the evidence suggests that acute care, such as A&E, cardiology, neurosurgery, liver transplantation, some cancer surgery and major vascular surgery, is more safely provided in larger hospitals where doctors have the right skills, experience and… [Read More]
A report released last Friday by Civitas, looking at trends in avoidable mortality, found real improvements had been made in England and Wales; avoidable mortality from cancer fell by 15.0% and from circulatory disease by 34.0% between 1999 and 2005. But while this compares quite favourably with improvements made in many European countries, real cause… [Read More]
A largely unreported news item from Italy has perfectly highlighted the differing attitudes to EU legislation between the member states. The horrific rape and murder of a woman, allegedly committed by a Romanian immigrant, has shocked the Italian public and brought underlying tensions about immigration out into the open. The Italian government has responded to… [Read More]
Rudi Giuliani has caused just a bit of a political storm this week for citing poor UK cancer survival rates in an attempt to rile Hilary Clinton’s ‘socialised’ healthcare proposals. So now we have hot-shots on both ‘sides’ of the US political debate bandying around the merits of the NHS, after the glowing reviews it… [Read More]