Last week Civitas released a report detailing the successes of the German and Swiss banking systems. In particular the success of the German savings banks and the Swiss cantonal banks allowed German and Swiss businesses to continue to access credit throughout the recession. The benefits of this have been evident in 2010 as both countries… [Read More]
Hands up who thinks BAA stands for British Aviation Authority? Well put them down, you’re all wrong. The acronym has meant nothing after BAA was privatised in 1986 and since 2006, it has been owned by the Spanish consortium Ferrovial. The arctic chaos of this week has clearly shown that there are some infrastructures too… [Read More]
Hungary is readying itself for its chance at the EU helm as Belgium’s six-month rotating EU Presidency draws to a close. One of the newer EU member states (Hungary joined in 2004), this is their first opportunity to take on the EU Presidency role (member state take it in turns to hold the position for… [Read More]
Trawling through the 167 pages of the Coalition Government’s response to the consultation on the NHS White Paper ‘Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS’, one cannot help but agree with Phil Collins’ recent comment piece in The Times… just why is the Secretary of State making NHS reform so hard for himself?
In 1981, the then Governor of HMP Wormwood Scrubs, John McCarthy, composed a damning letter in The Times bemoaning the inadequacies of the prison system: “From my personal point of view I did not join the Prison Service…to be a member of a service where the staff that I admire are forced to run a… [Read More]
With the Irish bail-out agreed upon EU leaders and Eurozone country governments have been returning to the long-term task of placing the Eurozone on a more sustainable footing. However a number of recent pronouncements highlight the difficulties in concurrently achieving short-term stability and long-term change.
Bing Crosby may have dreamt of a white Christmas; but, as festivities approach a climax, bringing with it a band of rain, sleet and snow, the reality of spending another year cooped up at home like a turkey in a battery farm rapidly moves down the list of seasonal aspirations.
When school choice emerged as a popular policy proposal for the UK, the pro-Whitehall control contingent in the education debate began latching on to any argument to suggest it couldn’t work. Now a new report by Gabriel H. Sahlgren puts many of their concerns to rest.
In June 2009, 7 year old Dominic Johansson was snatched by the Swedish authorities as he and his family boarded a plane bound for India. He was immediately taken into care and his parents permitted only one short visit every five weeks. There are no allegations of gross neglect; there is no evidence of serious… [Read More]
The last couple of days have witnessed three very different events that have led to calls for action to be taken against controversial individuals. The cases of Julian Assange, Frankie Boyle and Pastor Terry Jones share the common theme of censorship, and demonstrate the difficulty of deciding when censorship is justified.