Civitas Blog

Daniel Hannan takes on the issue of the so-called 'obesity epidemic' while John Tierney predicts more spurious climate change alarm in 2008.

As the new year emerges and the Government tries to shake off the failures of the last few months like a bad hangover, we must remember: when politicians trumpet new problems which only they can solve, the problems probably aren't as big as they are claiming. But if they are that big, they won't be the ones to solve them. So don't let them scare us this year. Our lives, as always, are in our own hands.

New Year celebrations; Auld lang syne, people uniting, setting off fireworks...

Slovenia takes on the EU Presidency for the first half of 2008 and New Year revelries look set to continue, with the diminutive state pledging to encourage supra-national unity to “strengthen the European perspective” and “promote dialogue between cultures, beliefs and traditions”, writes Claire Daley.

To tackle the increasing danger of ‘over-hydrated’ parents, those with children are being subjected to a harsh rationing of 2 drinks per visit. Perhaps Wetherspoon’s (famous for cut price alcohol and meal deals) is set to become a guiding light in the battle against binge-drinking, by advocating a sensible approach to responsible parenting?

Wetherspoon’s have asserted “what we don't want is the adult just staying and drinking in the pub while the child is just sitting there”. Ah, so we are also concerned for the mental stimulation of our future generations - “We don't want children there bored while adults drink.”

However, reading between the lines suggests Wetherspoons’ motive might be less admirable, writes Claire Daley.

The truth shall set ye free, the good book says, a venerable adage that strangely seems to admit of exception in the case of straight-talking Anglican bishops.

This is especially true of those, like Bishop Nazir-Ali, with temerity enough to claim that Muslim no-go areas have lately grown up in Britain in consequence of large-scale immigration, combined with multiculturalism and the rise of Islamic extremism.

No sooner did his claim appear at the week-end in an article in the Sunday Telegraph than a stampede quickly broke out among politicians and pundits eager to be first into the tv studios to sound off about how lacking in all evidence was the bishop’s claim.

Via Samizdata, we learn that the government is getting into the broadband Internet business, intending to create a million new compulsory ‘customers’ for the big Internet Service Providers by ‘requiring parents to provide their children with high-speed internet access’. The government claims it has been putting ‘pressure’ on companies to lower their broadband costs. How much pressure is really required to make a deal with corporations that involves giving them millions of customers who are not allowed to say no? I imagine a rather limp handshake would be sufficient.

Reading John Carvel’s interview with Alan Johnson in Society Guardian this week, one could be forgiven for supporting this government on the NHS. He does seem, at least on the superficial level, to get it. It’s funny how every recent Secretary of State for Health has gone into the job with a very ‘nicey-nicey’ approach to the NHS and then, six months to a year or so down the line, realise it’s not going to reform itself and that Blair didn’t introduce competition just for kicks.

Universities are having to pick up the pieces of the government’s emphasis on targets and testing, according to today’s Times Education Supplement (TES). The TES refers to a report published in the Times Higher Education which has found that schools are failing to equip pupils with the knowledge and skills which they require for higher education. As a result, universities are resorting to catch-up courses and even considering extending degrees by a year ‘…to accommodate the extra time remedial work takes in the first year…’

If fully ratified, the EU’s Lisbon Treaty will create a new role of permanent EU President. Tony Blair’s speech in Paris on 12th January has increased speculation that he aims to become the first full-time EU President, writes Claire Daley.

The possible contenders are currently keeping their cards carefully concealed. However, players are beginning to come to the table. Poker faces at the ready...

A society enjoys social cohesion when, between its members, there exist associative bonds sufficiently strong as to dispose them to be mutually civil and solicitous of each other’s welfare.

Associative bonds between the members of any society will be strong in proportion as they share the same beliefs, values and tastes, or at least certain important ones.

Without being mutually civil and solicitous of each other’s welfare, the members of no society can for long sustain themselves as a single society. Hence, social cohesion must always be a desideratum of any political society that wishes to remain viable.

There isn’t that much one can add to this Telegraph report other than to say that it was almost inevitable: independent schools are going to come under increasing regulation in order to ‘justify’ their charitable status. Obviously, merely providing a good standard of education to 500,000 British children just doesn’t cut it anymore as a public benefit. Independent schools have continually shown up state education, if only by drilling their pupils for national exams much more effectively. Now many have started to transcend those standards altogether by taking IGCSEs instead, having found the depth provided by normal GCSE courses an insufficient challenge for their pupils’ abilities. This could not be allowed to go on.

Based on a recent report by Civitas, analysis of referral-to-treatment waiting time statistics show that while at the latest count, from October 2007, 59.9 per cent of patients received treatment within the targeted 18-weeks, many NHS Trusts still have a long way to go. Importantly, many of these are are in PCTs that have been most reluctant to embrace patient choice.

Parliament is currently debating the passing of yet more powers to the EU, through ratification of the successor treaty to the constitution, most eloquently described by Giscard d’Estaing, former French President and architect of the original document, as ‘the same letter; just in a different envelope’.

Today’s Times contains a report entitled ‘Universities join battle against terror as guidelines’. It tells of how Britain’s university chiefs have finally agreed ‘to inform the police of any extremist behaviour by students or visiting speakers that they suspect may lead to terrorism’.

continued on the Centre for Social Cohesion blog.

The Swiss health care system – while certainly not cheap at €4,270 per head – receives international acclaim for achieving both universal coverage and a very high quality of care for all, without the constrained resources that tend to characterise government-controlled systems such as the NHS. Waiting times for treatment are short or non-existent and the uptake of new technology and drugs is high. For example, whereas only three NHS centres provide the latest intensity-modulated radiotherapy routinely to significant numbers of cancer patients, the Swiss do this as standard. Patient satisfaction is, perhaps unsurprisingly, excellent. As this Civitas study shows, there is much the NHS could learn.

Is the government right to introduce compulsory cookery classes for 11 to 14 year olds? A question on many people’s lips following this week’s announcement that pupils in the first three years of secondary school will spend an hour a week, for a term, learning to cook.

Not content with having flogged off Britain’s gold reserves at rock bottom prices, and signed up Britain to what is a European constitution in all but name – something his predecessor vowed would not happen without a referendum, it now turns out that Gordon Brown personally authorised abolishing the image of Britannia on the country’s coinage.

continued on the Centre for Social Cohesion blog.

Europe Minister Jim Murphy recently gave “a guarantee that parliament can scrutinise the Lisbon Treaty” (mainly because he knows however much its members scrutinise the document they cannot amend even a single word of it and victory is assured by whip).