The Telegraph reports today that over 200,000 pupils in the UK will miss out on their first choice of secondary school this year. Going by last year’s figures, the problem is concentrated particularly in inner-city areas. In 2006, 33% of Birmingham students failed to get their first choice place. In London, Wandsworth, Brent and Westminster… [Read More]
By Pete Quentin At the heart of the EU debate (as with almost everything else in politics) is the question of identity. Which groups, or communities do individuals believe themselves to be members of? What is it that allies them to these groups and separates them from others? A major factor in determining the answer… [Read More]
School ‘improvement’ strategies which alienate teachers and thereby set schools back, have become a recurring theme under the New Labour government.
immigration, EU, Europe, capital economics
One can easily agree with the premise of Timothy Garton Ash’s search for ‘the story Europe wants to tell’; namely that ‘Europe has lost the plot’. In an essay recently published in Prospect magazine Garton Ash states that ‘as we approach the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome…most Europeans have little idea where we’re… [Read More]
‘Class war over classics’ is the Times Education Supplement’s front-page headline. Following the Government’s list of books in their Key Stage 3 reforms, the TES reports that staff are planning to simply disregard the diktat: ‘They said it was misjudged, politically motivated and “will not be taught”’. Whilst education secretary Alan Johnson describes the texts… [Read More]
by Pete Quentin There has recently been a lot of (increasingly) confident talk amongst those who propose further integration of European defence. Javier Solana has been boasting of the EU’s military “successes” in Congo and Lebanon last year and talking up the “full operational capacity” of its new battle groups. Meanwhile the German presidency is… [Read More]
With half of the Europe project team conducting research on the continent, this week’s Tuesday blog entry will look sadly neglected. In the meantime, we can take a quick look to the US where a school choice revolution might be finally beginning in earnest after a few faltering starts. The sign of any real choices… [Read More]
This week marks ten years of National Marriage Week. And ten years of marriage-less Government policy. Marriage has been kept off the Left’s agenda in order to give people greater choice. Yet for all its democratic ambitions, the Left’s stance on marriage is jeopardising its very own principles.
John Reid, in honour of little known and even lesser practiced ‘Safer Internet Day’, has launched another barrage of verbal torpedoes over the issue of sex offenders using the Internet. The plan is to force released sex offenders to register their online identities (email addresses and usernames) with the government so that their communications with… [Read More]