‘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]
When questioned on Sunday AM yesterday on the subject of the report by Sir Derek Wanless , released last week by the King’s Fund, on how effectively the NHS had spent its money the Health Secretary, Alan Johnson, referred to a recent study by the Commonwealth Fund: “There was a recent study by the Commonwealth… [Read More]
In honesty, Sir Derek Wanless’ ‘review of NHS funding and performance’, released on Tuesday by the King’s Fund, tells us little we didn’t know already: that while there may have been ‘some clear and notable improvements’, the NHS, overall, is not getting much bang for its buck. ‘The NHS has failed to generate the relatively… [Read More]
One of Gordon Brown’s first moves as Prime Minister was to stir that alphabet soup of government departments. The DfES* was split up, a few bits of the DTI** got mixed in and we ended up with the DCSF*** and DIUS****. One might imagine this was little more than an excuse to get some fresh… [Read More]
No society can flourish in the absence of its enjoying a considerable degree of cohesion among its members. In determining how much cohesion a society enjoys, few factors play a more decisive role than do the policies it adopts towards two decisive matters. These are immigration and education. continued on the Centre for Social Cohesion… [Read More]