Ethnic minorities suffer from ‘passive apartheid’ in rural Britain, according to Trevor Phillips, Chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality. Speaking on the Today programme, he pointed out that in the South West region of England ethnic minorities were found in the ratio ‘one in 85’, whereas in the UK as a whole the ratio… [Read More]
In an interview with Le Metro today French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin says, “for the first time, Europe has a shared Constitution. This pact is the point of no return. Europe is becoming an irreversible project, irrevocable after the ratification of this treaty”. For some other revealing insights into the real motives of some of… [Read More]
Something has gone badly wrong with the Home Office statistical service. Not all that long ago you could place reasonable reliance on official statistics. Today a mixture of bungling and deceit seem to be the rule. I recently sent an email to the Home Office about the prison statistics asking them to clarify a figure… [Read More]
In a speech made yesterday to a secondary school in County Durham, Mr David Bell, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Schools for England and Wales, laid out his vision of what purposes our schools should serve in today’s ever more globalised world. According to Mr Bell, they should seek to accomplish two main purposes. The… [Read More]
A new poll carried out by ICM for the New Frontiers Foundation finds strong support for the idea of taking back power over trade, employment, and civil rights, and for creation of a new global trade and defence alliance. The full findings and an analysis are available at this link. It’s well worth a look.
Today’s Times carries a report that a private health insurance company, PruHealth, intends to charge a lower premium to customers who maintain a healthy life-style by not smoking, regularly visiting the gym, etc. Surely, the Treasury could and ought to consider offering comparable kinds of rebate in connection with NHS charges? At present the Government… [Read More]
According to the Sunday Times, the police are shortly going to be encouraged to give offenders who steal goods up to £200 a fixed-penalty notice, similar to a parking ticket. It means that shoplifters and other thieves will be able to ply their trade without getting a criminal record. Past experience of downgrading punishments should… [Read More]
This week the Higher Education Funding Council ‘named and shamed’ 17 universities for not meeting their quota of pupils from state schools. Threatened with the prospect of losing state funding if they do not discriminate against children from private schools, some universities have publicised their strategy for meeting their quota. Exeter University, for example, asks… [Read More]
Tony Blair’s illness is a reminder that old-Labour collectivism could easy re-assert itself under a different leader. One of the dominant trends under Gordon Brown has been the increasing use of means-tested benefits. In 1951 only 3% of the population relied on the old national assistance and unemployment benefit. Today about 22% of households of… [Read More]
The majority of new laws are initiated by the European Union. Many are not even rubber-stamped by Parliament. When John Locke wrote his Second Treatise of Government in the 1680s to defend the emerging democratisation of this country, he laid down the four main characteristics of a free society. The fourth was that the legislature… [Read More]