Like the Holy Grail and the Elixir of Life, a Free Trade Agreement between the USA and the EU sounds almost too good to be true. And like each of them, that hyperbolic promise is just enough to lead thousands of hopeful knights errant into peril.
With the recent heightened focus on the issue of care quality and overall standards in the NHS in recent months, it is important to examine whether the public continue to feel that Britain’s health service is “the envy of the world”, as Tony Blair’s first health secretary Frank Dobson thought it should be, and where they… [Read More]
The European Parliament has demanded changes to the EU budget deal agreed by the 27 EU leaders last month. EU leaders struggled to reach an agreement after the collapse of talks in November, and finally agreed on the first ever real-terms cut in spending after an all-night summit. On Wednesday, MEPs roundly rejected the deal… [Read More]
The Office for National Statistics released the above graph yesterday. Note that it takes time to compile and release R&D data so the release yesterday pertains to 2011 with the 2012 figures to be released in the future. The graph more or less speaks for itself. The UK is underperforming in the highly important measure… [Read More]
Any plan to increase penetration of wind-powered generation needs to be ready for cold days when the wind doesn’t blow.
Labour leader Ed Miliband is due to announce today a new policy to build a network of regional banks modelled on Germany’s system of local savings banks – the ‘Sparkassen’ (See FT and BBC news reports). In a speech to the British Chambers of Commerce, Miliband will say that the banks, like in Germany, would… [Read More]
The Care Quality Commission (CQC), the regulator tasked with ensuring standards in health and social care, has today released a report showing that severe problems remain with dementia care in care homes and the NHS and that many facilities are still “struggling” to provide proper care.
George Osborne’s 2011 budget speech contained some very grand sound bites on the importance of reinvigorating British manufacturing. He announced that he wished to see ‘a Britain carried aloft by the march of the makers’, made clear that his budget supported ‘exports, manufacturing and investment’, and stressed that manufacturing ‘is crucial to the rebalancing of… [Read More]
Last month we saw how BIS and DfID used an inappropriate formula to calculate the EU’s economic benefits, and how leading Coalition politicians are using these figures unquestioningly. To demonstrate quite how wrong their calculations are, let’s look at the claim that the EU makes each household £3,300 better off each year. According to the… [Read More]
The autonomous region of Catalonia in the north east of Spain, has announced plans for a referendum on sovereignty. Early this year, the government approved a largely symbolic declaration of sovereignty, with 85 votes for, 41 against and 2 abstentions. Plans are now being made to form a transition council which will conduct research and… [Read More]