‘Blackburn, in common with many northern towns, is experiencing a huge upsurge in pimping, and it is an unpalatable truth … that many of the newest wave of pimps come from within the Asian community.’ So claimed a truly stomach-churning report in last week’s Sunday Times. The report exposed the large scale of organised sex… [Read More]
In August we published a report questioning the value of higher national achievement at A-level. We were interested in examining whether yet another year of rising grades were a useful indicator of achievement and in particular, how these record grades were being obtained. One of the main ways that A-level grades have been increased has… [Read More]
The ambiguous messages coming out of the government on the NHS have the potential to be highly damaging. Happily munching my cereal yesterday morning, the Today programme introduced a discussion with the Health Secretary, Alan Johnson, and I confess my initial reaction was, oh no, ‘here we go again’. But, while there was the compulsory… [Read More]
Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families has just announced that the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority will be overhauled into an independent watchdog equivalent to the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England or the Food Standards Agency. This rather raises the question of what exactly the QCA is at the… [Read More]
‘Every citizen who answer[s] the call of the country – policemen and women, our security and emergency services, our health services – all le[ave] their mark on this island’s story by keeping us safe. They are the pride of Britain. ‘Just as our armed services with bravery and heroism every single day also make us… [Read More]
The HSJ runs a headline article on Lord Darzi’s series of citizens’ juries, the first of which was held last week and attended by both the PM, Gordon Brown, and Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary. On the subject of these consultations, the enlightened Mr. Johnson said: “our principle aim is to get away from this… [Read More]
‘Pressure to reform tests’ runs the headline on the front of today’s Times Education Supplement (TES). The article reports that newly published evidence presented to the House of Commons Education and Skills Select Committee shows that criticism of current testing arrangements in schools have reached a climax. The TES reveals that out of the 52… [Read More]
The Lib Dems have today proposed scrapping PCTs and SHAs and replacing them with elected local health boards, that would also be allowed to raise extra money for local services through a local income tax. The NHS must be shuddering at the prospect of yet more organisation. On the plus side, it would undoubtedly be… [Read More]
Hugo Chavez certainly knows how to shore up his socialist consensus in Venezuela for the long term: ban all schools from teaching anything else. He has already ensured that college level students won’t be able to study medicine without first pouring through Marx’s Das Kapital and some of Fidel Castro’s speeches. But his tactics for… [Read More]
Although we rightly worry about the potentially divisive effects of faith schools, on-campus extremism, and the hateful intolerance that some Muslims show former co-religionists who leave Islam, in actuality the battle for social cohesion will be lost or won not so much by what takes place in Britain than by what happens in the Middle… [Read More]