tag:www.civitas.org.uk,2008:/blog//1 2008-07-22T17:21:02Z Classical liberal comment on the news and current affairs Movable Type 3.33 tag:www.civitas.org.uk,2008:/blog//1.869 2008-07-22T11:44:59Z 2008-07-22T17:21:02Z

As father of two teenagers growing up in the nation’s capital, I am only too acutely aware of all the physical as well as moral dangers to which young people are exposed these days. No weekend passes hardly but that,...

David Conway As father of two teenagers growing up in the nation’s capital, I am only too acutely aware of all the physical as well as moral dangers to which young people are exposed these days. No weekend passes hardly but that, along with countless other parents, I spend many hours plagued by mounting anxiety as to their physical and moral well-being, until, by the sound of their latch-keys turning in the door, I know them to have returned safely to the nest from wherever earlier that evening they may have sallied forth with friends. No one can or should, therefore, reproach me for complacency or callousness if I say I am beginning to suspect that recent media concerns about a so-called epidemic of knife-crime as well as of drug-taking among the country’s young, may well be something of an artificially engineered moral panic that could obfuscate attention from being drawn to what needs to be done in relation to these problems. Times contained an excellent article by Mike Hume, who, by trawling its archives has shown that concern about the allegedly ‘unprecedented’ high incidence of juvenile violent crime has been a constant feature of public life in Britain since Victorian times. One sentence quoted in it from an 1862 editorial in that newspaper has particular salience, since it reads as if it could have been written only yesterday or tomorrow. It runs: ‘Our streets are actually not as safe as they were in the days of our grandfathers. We have slipped back to a state of affairs which would be intolerable even in Naples.’ Reading Hume’s article got me thinking. Maybe things were little different as regards drug-taking. A few minutes spent flicking through Alethea Hayter’s Opium and the Romantic Imagination bore out my surmise, as the following passages taken from it make clear. ‘By the end of the seventeenth century, opium addiction … had become a known practice in England…. By the eighteenth century the opium addict could be met in most walks of life in England…. A habit that was lifelong with such well known figures as [William] Wilberforce, Isaac Milner [Dean of Carlisle], James Macintosh [lawyer and one-time Recorder of Bombay], and Robert Hall [Baptist divine]… was obviously not then regarded as a stain…. Every one, in fact, at that period took laudanum occasionally…. The greatest demand was in the cotton spinning districts of Lancashire, and there … [according to] a local chemist “on a Saturday afternoon the counters of the druggists were strewed with pills of one, two, or three grains, in preparation for the known demand of the evening”… A medical report declared that “there was not a village in all that region round but could show at least one shop and its counters loaded with the little laudanum-vials even to the hundreds, for the accommodation of customers retiring from the workshops on Saturday night.” Laudanum was cheaper than beer or gin, cheaper enough for even the lowest-paid worker…. Lancashire was the worst area, but many of the big industrial towns, among them Sheffield, Birmingham, Nottingham, had an exorbitant demand for opium, and the whole counties of Yorkshire, Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire had a reputation for the number of their opium eaters …. Nor was London much behind….’ If violent crime and drug-taking have been as ubiquitous in this country as these passages and those quoted by Mick Hume suggest, then, arguably, their currently high incidence cannot simply be attributed to other recent phenomena, such as the break-down of the two parent family, the influence of MTV ‘gansta-rap’, the permissive society of the sixties, or whatever. Their ubiquity suggests the best remedy against them must perhaps lie not only in their continued proscription, but with redoubled efforts at educating today’s young as to their perils. It will doubtless be a long hard and doubtless bloody battle. But one small way in which the media might help in is for them to stop glorifying the likes of notorious drug-addicts like Pete Doherty, Amy Winehouse and Kate Moss. Young people are impressionable, and the constant appearance of these so-called ‘celebrities’ in the media can only send out all the wrong messages. ]]> tag:www.civitas.org.uk,2008:/blog//1.868 2008-07-21T17:45:06Z 2008-07-21T17:48:47Z

Ireland voted ‘No’ to the Lisbon Treaty On 13th June 2008. The ‘No’ campaign was led by single-issue pressure group Libertas whose exclusive objective was to secure a resounding ‘NO!’ to the Lisbon Treaty. Well then, congratulations Libertas! Job done!...

Claire Daley Ireland voted ‘No’ to the Lisbon Treaty On 13th June 2008. The ‘No’ campaign was led by single-issue pressure group Libertas whose exclusive objective was to secure a resounding ‘NO!’ to the Lisbon Treaty. Well then, congratulations Libertas! Job done! Surely Libertas’ chairman, Declan Ganley can now return to massaging his business millions whilst enjoying the unique satisfaction of a political career that peaked in triumph (certainly a rare political achievement!) ... Sadly not - because victory in European politics is rarely sweet, or straightforward... Far from removing Libertas’ raison d’être, the EU’s ‘bullying’ tactics and attempts to ‘get around the democratic will of the people’ following the Irish referendum are breathing life back into the Libertas campaign, and not simply because it now seems clear that the EU will force Ireland to vote again. The EU has employed tricky tactics to undermine Ireland’s ‘No’ to the Lisbon Treaty: 1. Claiming the vote lacked a democratic mandate because Ireland has a proportionately small population and therefore it cannot be permitted to stall much needed reform. 2. Claiming that “No” really meant “Yes” – because voters were influenced by further domestic issues. Therefore, Libertas is taking its lead from the EU; morphing, adapting and simply refusing to admit defeat and go quietly into the night. Shortly after the Irish voted ‘No’ to the Lisbon Trreaty, Declan Ganley spoke at an event organised by Open Europe and Policy Exchange: "The Irish no vote: what next?", to justify and explain why the campaign had been successful. And in an announcement this week, Ganley’s arguments are reacting fruition; Libertas’ new tactic is to take the Lisbon Treaty campaign to the supranational level by using the 2009 European parliament elections as “a catalyst to force debate”. Libertas hopes for the 2009 elections to become an EU-wide referendum on the Lisbon Treaty by presenting up to 400 candidates for the election in all 26 countries – including the UK– who were refused a referendum on the treaty. That is, Libertas will transform into a pan-European political party campaigning exclusively on the Lisbon Treaty. Ganley: "Libertas is the box you put your X in if you want to vote 'No' to the Lisbon Treaty. It's clear, it's simple. The message will be: we are now giving you a referendum and it's going to take place in June of next year at the European elections." Crucially, concerned with the EU’s Common values – democracy, accountability, and freedom – and insistent that the EU only has legitimacy if it is democratic, Libertas is seeking to enact reform through the EU’s own (and only) democratic mechanisms. This could strengthen its criticism of the undemocratic and unaccountable Lisbon Treaty. So can Libertas repeat the Irish feat? It will be a difficult challenge. For starters, campaigning across 26 states will cost a huge amount of money, and Libertas’ proclaimed ‘£75 million from online donations’ will be far from sufficient. Beyond the financial limitations, the campaign will need to be tailored to individual electorates, for example, the Irish “No” campaign met specifically Irish opposition and the same will be true in the remaining 26 member states. A single issue campaign might not work at a supranational level. Referendums are sympathetic to single issue agendas, but in supranational elections voters might conflate “No to the Lisbon Treaty” with a broader euro sceptic agenda. This could be a real problem for existing parties who plan to campaign on a euro-sceptic agenda because if the Libertas campaign splits the sceptical vote between more parties, they will each receive a sparser share of the vote – effectively allowing pro-EU, and pro-Lisbon Treaty candidates in through the political back door. But Ganley’s insistence that “there is no room for EU scepticism in Ireland” might crucially differentiate the Libertas campaign. Therefore, rather than splitting the euro-sceptic vote, Libertas’ agenda might secure additional votes by convincing Europhiles that there is no inconsistency in their opposing the Lisbon Treaty because, in Ganley’s words, “we need to work together effectively. I’m Irish, I’m European, and I want the EU to work.” Therefore, “No to Lisbon, not the EU’” will be an important detail of Libertas’ professedly not Euro-sceptic but “Brussels-sceptic” campaign. Delivering a clear, unequivocal message that Europe's elites cannot misinterpret will be a difficult but crucial task given the experience in Ireland, where the outcome was undermined by EU attempts to “reinterpret” the result. The “No to Lisbon not Yes to Libertas” agenda must be clear and simple – like an Orange advert that carefully avoids mention of mobiles and contracts – No to Lisbon is about common values, but an overtly vague campaign could leave voters asking “but what are they promoting? Looks like a car ad to me?!” Will repeating the Irish victory at a pan-European level be enough? Libertas now hopes to counter the EU’s almost comical reaction to the Irish ‘NO’ – European leaders stuck their fingers in their ears, closed their eyes and insisted “We’re not listening!”. But will provoking a pan-European crescendo of “No”, “Nein”, “Non”, “NE!”, “NIE!!”, “NAK!!!” generate a chorus of dissent loud enough to deafen Brussels into accepting the will of the people? Possibly not. But the crucial difference is that this time, Libertas will not simply seek to voice the public’s opinion. Unlike the referendum, the new battle plan is to “establish a Europe-wide voting bloc which would have a strong mandate to block the treaty” - these new representatives will infiltrate Brussels. tag:www.civitas.org.uk,2008:/blog//1.865 2008-07-18T11:58:35Z 2008-07-18T12:06:10Z

[This commentary by Prof. David Conway was originally written on 10 June 2008 - it is reposted here so it can be linked to John White's response to Conway's claims] This year sees the twentieth anniversary of the national curriculum....

Nick Cowen [This commentary by Prof. David Conway was originally written on 10 June 2008 - it is reposted here so it can be linked to John White's response to Conway's claims] This year sees the twentieth anniversary of the national curriculum. To mark the occasion, last week London University’s Institute of Education held a conference on the subject. There a former professor of the Institute John White delivered a diatribe against the national curriculum, arguing it to be in urgent need of radical overhaul, if not wholesale replacement. ]]> specification of them the Government had given in 2000. That runs: ‘The curriculum should enable all young people to become: successful learners who enjoy learning, make progress and achieve; confident individuals who are able to live safe, healthy and fulfilling lives; and responsible citizens who make a positive contribution to society.’ White claimed there is ‘a clash between the new, whole-person aims and the introverted aims of most of the school subjects…. The older subjects are too often prisoners of their past, ill-fitted to look beyond their own confines at how they might contribute to the pupil’s well-being and civic engagement.’ In place of being dominated, as they currently are, by the need to cover the subjects laid down in the national curriculum, White urged that Government should ‘encourage schools to move … from single-subject to inter-disciplinary and theme- or project-based learning.’ We are surely being softened up for something. What that is can be gleaned from an earlier paper Professor White wrote on the aims of school education for the IPPR, New Labour’s favourite kite-flyer. There, he wrote: ‘If we reconceptualise schooling so that aims become more important and the particular means to achieving them less important, this has profound implications for how and why we assess pupil performance… In so far as personal qualities … are prominent among the new aims, the best people in a position to assess pupils have to be those who know them well… All this raises questions about the limits of impersonal, for instance nationwide tests…. The more one is looking for a wider and deeper understanding of how one thing connects to another … the more ... this is something that cannot be expected of an impersonal national tester. Only someone in daily and indeed relatively intimate contact with the examinee is in an appropriate position to make good judgments.’ Oh, dear! An aims led curriculum means an end to standardised national assessment and thereby for any basis by which to be able to compare the relative performance of schools. What a recipe for disaster – or rather for the continued disaster that is so much of present-day state schooling in which all incentive for efficiency has been carefully removed. In any case, the whole rationale for scrapping a subject based approach to schooling is decidedly dodgy. In its clarification of the aims of the curriculum, the QCA states that ‘successful learners’ will ‘know about the big ideas and events that shape the world’; ‘confident individuals’ be ‘open to the excitement and inspiration offered by the natural world and human achievement’; and that responsible citizens will ‘understand their own and others’ cultures and traditions’. It is impossible that children could acquire these several accomplishments without having been made to engage in close study of all the ten subjects originally included within the national curriculum. The British public is being set up for a new revolution in schooling that will lead it further down the road to state serfdom. There is need of urgent public attention to this matter before it is too late to correct the country’s further slide into educational oblivion. ]]> tag:www.civitas.org.uk,2008:/blog//1.864 2008-07-16T11:19:12Z 2008-07-18T13:32:25Z

The past month has the seen the Government’s SATS exam system implode in the bureaucratic equivalent of an ageing star collapsing into a black hole. There were delays to the SATS results and claims that the delays were just to...

Nick Cowen delays to the SATS results and claims that the delays were just to make sure that the release was orderly and complete. Then the release this week was neither orderly nor complete with some results delayed until September and head teachers have been forced to send poorly marked or unmarked exam scripts back to the company, ETS Europe, that is meant to be managing the scheme. There was blood on the radio 4 airwaves this morning as John Humphrys eviscerated Ken Boston for the QCA’s handling of the scheme and it turns out ETS Europe have managed to score a lucrative £156 million 5-year contract to administer the SATS marking.]]> argued before that treating schools as factories and putting teachers on a production line, with ‘good grades’ as the intended outcome, is a hopeless method of improving real academic outcomes, but now it seems that the government itself has lost interest in ensuring its flawed system functions in some minimally acceptable way. Whatever happens now, no one will trust the results are accurate and reflect the real efforts of pupils and teachers: the system of measuring outcomes has become far less worthy of trust than the institutions they are meant to be holding to account. In the end it comes down to the currently named Department for Children, Schools and Families remarkable tolerance for failure. While anyone can be unfortunate and end up employing a company that turns out to be incompetent, only a government department could voluntarily lock itself into the same scheme for 5 years with no opt out. While an independent school could certainly be poorly served for one year by an independent examiner, it would certainly be the last year it was allowed to happen: the examiner would be sacked. Is there a solution? Not while the system for funding the state education system in this country is so top-heavy. In our recent report, Swedish Lessons, we have suggested one of the primary causes of waste and inefficiency in the system is that funds labelled for schools are ring-fenced at the Whitehall level and carted off to be spent in large lump-sums by ministers and civil servants on projects that they have decided are important (like the SATS exams) but in many cases do not actually contribute to any real improvement in student outcomes. Imagine if instead of £156 million being spent by the DCSF, besides all the other countless initiatives that it engages in, all that money was put directly into the budgets of individual schools (distributed on the basis of the number and type of pupils attending a school). Schools would be required to find some way of independently testing their academic outcomes. They may choose the state-blessed SATS system, or they may decide to use something else, or they may club together with other schools to produce a bespoke scheme. For example, Civitas’s own supplementary schools now use a testing scheme called InCas, administered from Durham University, which in its first year has proved successful at tracking the progress made by our pupils in the basics of reading, spelling, mental arithmetic and non-verbal reasoning. If schools had the ability to experiment, and so long as they were required to use tests that were independently verifiable, occasional minor failings within some schools might still take place, but the sort of catastrophic systems meltdown that is unfolding in front of us now would not be possible anymore. It would also mean that schools and pupils could opt-out of the low-value qualifications that are trumpeted only by the government in favour of ones that are more respected by employers and universities. Is this the direction the government are going? Nope. In what can only eventually become a recursive loop of testers testing the testers, a nascent quango, OfQual has been given the job of 'independently' examining what the other education quangos are up to. The only question is how long will it be until OfQual needs its own independent body to examine how good a job it’s doing! [This post was amended on 18 July to correct an error that suggested the 5-year contract between the government and ETS was irrevocable. In fact, the government should be able to terminate the contract but may be penalised with a fine if it chooses to do so] ]]> tag:www.civitas.org.uk,2008:/blog//1.859 2008-07-15T13:52:57Z 2008-07-15T19:48:52Z

If anyone were seemingly less well-suited to be in charge of the country’s education system, it is surely the current Secretary of State for Schools, Ed Balls. For anyone to be qualified for that job surely demands that he or...

David Conway Times Educational Supplement , it is clear he hasn’t a clue. ]]> per impossible that all need of human labour was to become transcended by future development of a system of super-automation whereby all jobs previously performed by humans were now carried out by robots. Human life in this scenario would have become endless free-time. Would education cease to have any purpose under such circumstances? Or would, rather, the need for it never have been any greater to enable humans through its receipt become able to make best use of their time? The Secretary of State’s answer suggests that, under such circumstances, there would be no purpose in anyone’s receiving an education. Anyone with a grain of sense can see that this is just not so. At a minimum, without being able to read, people would be deprived of access to the world of knowledge and culture contained in books. It is hard to see how anyone would not want to be able to read. Therefore, at a minimum, people would still have reason to want to become literate and want their children to as well. The acquisition of literacy forms an essential part of any decent form of elementary education. So, there are some parts of education that are absolutely vital in rendering their recipients employable the purpose of which is not wholly, or even mainly, exhausted by their utility in rendering their recipients employable. Of course, the acquisition of literacy by no means exhausts those parts of education that have both an instrumental value, in rendering their recipients employable, as well as a non-instrumental value, in so far as they enable them to get the most out of their lives. Every academic subject within a liberal arts curriculum imparts some skill that enables those who engage in its study derive more out from life than they would otherwise have been able to. What is of especial importance about them is the extent to which the purpose of engaging in formal study of them is to enable those who do to create, or at to least to appreciate, works of art, literature, music and philosophy. In sum, the non-vocational and non-instrumental purpose of education is to cultivate the intellect and sensibility of thsoe who receive it so that they may thereby be able to experience what John Stuart Mill referred to as the higher pleasures. Experience of them forms an integral component of any human life worth living and is the true end of a liberal education. Given his account of the purpose of education, Ed Ball clearly prefers push-pin to poetry. Unlike poetry, the capacity to play pushpin can be effortlessly acquired by evryone and anyone without any formal study. This is unlike the capacity to appreciate and compose poetry which demands prior effort and study. If, as Balls thinks, the purpose of education is to render those who receive one employable, then learning to appreciate poetry forms no part of its purpose, since being able to do so is without any vocational relevance. A paradigm of a vocationally useful subject is IT (Information Technology). This is the man in charge of the country’s education system. No wonder that, since he took over the job a year ago, the country's schools have been going to the dogs at a faster pace than ever before. ]]> tag:www.civitas.org.uk,2008:/blog//1.858 2008-07-14T17:10:20Z 2008-07-14T17:28:24Z

Brussels’ ever tightening grip on EU member states has seen supranational powers creep into the daily lives of ordinary Europeans. This loss of local power has eroded regional identities. However, some of Europe’s citizens are taking a stand against the...

Claire Daley Brussels’ ever tightening grip on EU member states has seen supranational powers creep into the daily lives of ordinary Europeans. This loss of local power has eroded regional identities. However, some of Europe’s citizens are taking a stand against the surge of Brussels’ influence; battling the tide of EU domination in small, but hugely significant, ways. Quercus suber) is valued for its capacity to battle the harsh Mediterranean conditions; defending itself against droughts and temperature fluctuations. The village of Collobrières is displaying a similar resilience, battling the harsh monetary conditions; defending itself against currency fluctuations. This is because since 1st April 2008, the village of Collobrières has revived the French franc, despite the fact that France’s original currency was displaced by the euro in 2002 after France joined the eurozone. Like all eurozone members, France lost the ability to adjust its exchange rate to relieve uncertain economic conditions because the EU’s common currency is commanded by the European Central Bank which dictates interest rates for the whole zone. In opposition to monetary integration, Collobrières’ businesses have accepted 120,000 francs (about £14,602.56) since April 2008. However, the protest has its own sell-by-date because it will only be possible for Collobrières’ traders to exchange the franc bills until February 2012, when the Bank of France will cease to recognise the old currency. A number of explanations have been given for the unexpected revival of France’s former legal tender: Some indicate that the village is profiting from left-over currency, effectively enabling people to spend old bills which would otherwise be entirely worthless. For example there are reports of a woman who “recently appeared in the village with Fr15,000 (£1,500) that she had kept for the past six years” and accounts that when “elderly people die, their children often find bundles of banknotes under the mattress”. The village is, in part, motivated by profit. But this is not simply a community trading on false tender like a real-life transaction of monopoly money. The community is actually going part way to recovering lost earnings. The introduction of the euro caused inflation by allowing traders to round up costs, and as the New York Times comments, “people lost the concept of the value of money with the euro,” However, the franc has not simply been restored for economic advantage. Inhabitants of Collobrières have cited nostalgia as a key motivation, recalling that the notes “depict French national heroes”. This nostalgia matters because it identifies the EU’s integration as a concern for ordinary Europeans. In the words of Ms. Amrane the mayor of Collobrières, “we lost an identity. We moved very quickly into Europe, maybe too quickly.” The trading of francs in a minor village in rural France matters because it symbolises that ordinary Europeans are reacting to the EU’s democratic deficit and a Brussels that is increasingly out of touch. This point is incredibly important given the EU’s current leadership - France currently holds the EU’s rotating Presidency. French President Nicholas Sarkozy has pledged to lead the Union through six-months of the “most ambitious” Presidency to date, with advancing European integration among his primary objectives. However, for evidence that Sarkozy might not be acting on the behest of the French people, you just have to look to the fact that despite France’s rejection of the EU constitution in 2005 France, like Britain, has been denied a referendum on the revived constitution– the Lisbon Treaty. The gap between EU leaders and an increasingly apprehensive European public is widening. Europe’s general public are being silenced, but some reservations are being voiced - like the protest in Collobrières. Such protests are illuminating, but examples like Collobrières are not simply a light-hearted, and thrifty, real-life game of monopoly. Be warned – minor violations of EU rules have been known to infuriate the powers in Brussels - even circumstances which, far from being protests, are actually enacted to make life easier for Europeans. Such as in Ridley Road market in Hackney, where fruit and veg seller Janet Devers is facing criminal charges for ignoring the EU’s 2000 Directive on the compulsory use of metric weights and measures, despite Commission vice-president Günter Verheugen’s public assertion that the law was never meant to be enforced in this way, and the fact that the majority of London's markets similarly trade in pounds. Ms. Devers’ brother Colin Hunt was convicted of similar charges in 2002. The siblings are not staging a grocery insurgence, but they are simply responding the demands of local customers who themselves protested against the use of metric measures and demanded a return to selling by the pound. Many had hoped that the EU had moved on from enforcing ridiculous regulations, and destructive directives. The lesson of Collobrières might be that minor resistance can be effective. The French region relies on the cork market, obtained from the cork oak tree which is, as mentioned, crucially resilient to harsh climate and legendary for its ability to renew itself after being harvested. Let’s hope the traders of London’s markets are equally resilient after facing EU action which could effectively crop their trade. ]]> tag:www.civitas.org.uk,2008:/blog//1.857 2008-07-11T15:59:43Z 2008-07-11T16:05:09Z

‘Until last month’, writes Jenni Russell in The Guardian, ‘it had been years since I'd been inside [A&E]. In the intervening time I assumed that the money poured into the NHS would have made a visible difference to A&E too.’...

James Gubb writes Jenni Russell in The Guardian, ‘it had been years since I'd been inside [A&E]. In the intervening time I assumed that the money poured into the NHS would have made a visible difference to A&E too.’ In her view, it hasn’t; ‘barbaric’, ‘no-one to help’, ‘inhuman’ are powerful words. Yet sadly, it’s an all too familiar tale. The NHS might be seeing some five million more in A&E now than in 2000 and rushing the majority through in under four hours, but the experience of patients all too often remains unchanged. ‘At a time when the government is increasingly concerned about how people interact with one another in public places’, Russell continues, ‘it seems perverse that institutions run by the state should abdicate their responsibility for setting more civilized norms.’ Perhaps true, but has the state ever been particularly good at this? By extending its regulatory capture ever further, is it not becoming part of the problem? ]]> tag:www.civitas.org.uk,2008:/blog//1.856 2008-07-09T14:12:15Z 2008-07-09T14:16:41Z

Following Wales’ request last year, the EU is close to recognising Scottish, Gaelic and Welsh alongside the current 23 languages officially used by the EU institutions. Welsh is already used in the country’s own Assembly and spoken by one in...

Claire Daley Following Wales’ request last year, the EU is close to recognising Scottish, Gaelic and Welsh alongside the current 23 languages officially used by the EU institutions. Welsh is already used in the country’s own Assembly and spoken by one in five members of the Welsh population, but under the new proposal, Scottish and Welsh citizens will be able to correspond with the EU Council of Ministers in their native language - a similar arrangement to the one negotiated for Spain's regional languages - Basque, Catalan and Galician - in 2005. The added translation costs will be financed by the Scottish and Welsh governments. Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch’, the name of a Welsh town meaning literally; "The church of St. Mary in the hollow of white hazel trees near the rapid whirlpool by St. Tysilio's of the red cave". Is the EU really ready to tackle that kind of tongue twister? Perhaps brevity is overrated. After all when a name can capture an entire scene there is almost no need to visit the place. However, brevity often generates clarity. For example, Immanuel “why use a short word when you can use several long ones” Kant’s tendency to use vocabulary ‘ad absurdum’ requires many German philosophy students to use more succinct English translations to decipher his complicated texts. At least Scottish Gaelic’s comprehensive vocabulary is equipped for EU politics. For example ‘Argie-Bargie’ meaning “to dispute” or “argue”, would prove a handy tool for translating the recent exchanges between French President Nicholas Sarkozy and the UK’s Commissioner for Trade, Peter Mandelson. “Auld Claes an Parritch” could be also be useful, as it roughly translates as “After a holiday (i.e. Parliamentary relocations to Strasbourg!) we return to old cloths (the flailing EU flag, recently dropped from the Lisbon Treaty) and porridge (Brussels as imprisoning national freedoms)”. To be fair, jibes at the language should be balanced with accounts of the more useful phrases the new languages will offer, for example: “Brigadoonery”, meaning “gaudy and beyond good taste” is a fitting addition, and I’m pretty sure “Fantoosh” [“posh, swanky, possibly above one’s class”] will come in handy. However, the proposal seems to be at odds with the European project’s professed objective of greater integration and unity. Perhaps this “parlance” proposal will safeguard unique national cultures and halt the standardisation of globalisation? Or promoting division within the union could lead to fragmentation, and absurdity – if it could lead to the recognition of more “official EU languages” than “official EU member states”? The proposal might not enable “Unity in diversity”. For example, the media has widely compared the proposed increase of official EU languages with the Old Testament story of the Tower of Babel. Genesis recounts how following the great flood, survivors’ attempted to build a tower to reach the heavens. However, God punished man’s arrogant challenge to his power. He instigated a multiplicity of tongues to confound communication and halt the project. Thus the use of more languages compromised “the project” and divided humanity, scattering man across the world. The moral of the story could be that differentiated languages can be a source of incredible differences, and that when men attempt grand projects, the powers that be often intervene to confuse and obstruct. But the workings of the EU are already infamously bewildering. For example, the English version of the Lisbon Treaty provides a lesson in confusion; a Gaelic/Welsh interpretation would sound like a long-lost verse from Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. The Times Online kindly kicked off the translation process with an essential entry for any pan-European phrase book: Is that banana sufficiently curved to pass EU inspection? Gaelic: A bheil caime gu leòr sa bhanana ud airson riaghailtean an EU? Welsh: Ydy’r tro sydd yn y ffrwchnedd yna’n addas ar gyfer safonau’r UE? Sounds like a load of “Neeps and Tatties” (“mashed turnips and potatoes”) to me. ]]> tag:www.civitas.org.uk,2008:/blog//1.855 2008-07-09T10:39:53Z 2008-07-09T10:43:24Z

… you still have plenty to fear, especially if your name is a popular one in Britain. The state has rewarded one Amanda Hodgson’s willingness to volunteer to help at a local school by branding her an alcoholic thug and...

Nick Cowen branding her an alcoholic thug and heroin addict. Rather than receiving an apology for the obvious errors, she has been told to supply even more information, including her fingerprints, in order to prove she is innocent of the crimes that her name and date of birth have convicted her. If she doesn’t, Lancashire Education Authority will revoke her license to hug. Related today: Esther Rantzen acknowledges some of the more pernicious aspects of the new culture of child (over)protection. ]]> tag:www.civitas.org.uk,2008:/blog//1.854 2008-07-08T12:54:13Z 2008-07-08T14:00:03Z

Newly published guidance for play leaders and nursery teachers instructs them to be on the look-out for and to reprimand racist attitudes evinced by toddlers. “No racist incident should be ignored. When there is a clear racist incident, it is...

David Conway reportedly instructed. Among potentially racist behaviour of toddlers for which nursery teachers are instructed to be on guard and ready to take them to task is their saying “yuk” when presented with unfamiliar foreign food. The guidance warns: ‘Children [might] react negatively to a culinary tradition other than their own by saying “yuk”.’ ]]> Infant psychologists at Harvard have discovered that: ‘Five month old babies will look longer at somebody who spoke to them in their own language. Older infants want to accept a toy from someone who has spoken their language. They like toys more that are associated with someone who has spoken their language. They prefer to eat foods offered to them by a native speaker compared to a speaker of a foreign language. And older children say that they want to be friends with someone who speaks in their native accent.’ If toddlers at nurseries evince such apparently innate preferences, are they to be told off and is their doing so to be reported to local authorities as racist incidents? If not, just what is the difference between those forms of behaviour and cases where a toddler turns up their nose at some unfamiliar food? I would be truly interested to know what the NCB’s answers to these questions are, but I shall not buy their book to try and find out. Instead, I shall continue to spend any spare cash I have on exotic Indian curries which reportedly have been found to ‘produce a “natural high” which makes us crave them more than other foods.’ I trust the NCB will not report me to the Commission for Equality and Human Rights if, as might all too easily happen, it should perchance get wind of my culinary preferences - so widely shared among my compatriots of every race, creed and colour. ]]> tag:www.civitas.org.uk,2008:/blog//1.853 2008-07-04T11:28:36Z 2008-07-04T11:33:59Z

It was a theme that ran throughout Lord Darzi’s final report, published earlier this week. ‘High quality care cannot be mandated from the centre – it requires the unlocking of the talents of frontline staff....where change is led by clinicians...

James Gubb It was a theme that ran throughout Lord Darzi’s final report, published earlier this week. ‘High quality care cannot be mandated from the centre – it requires the unlocking of the talents of frontline staff....where change is led by clinicians and based on evidence of improved quality of care, staff who work in the NHS are energised by it and patients and the public more likely to support it’, he wrote. Never a truer word. But this is precisely what the system doesn’t like to countenance. John Seddon has called ‘an army of people engaged in developing specifications, writing ‘guidance’, drawing up standards, devising targets and reporting schedules and the like’. Yet most are based on opinion and ideology, not knowledge. We need look no further than the experience of A&E. Does anyone seriously believe that the dramatic rise in emergency admissions to hospital isn’t linked to the centrally dictated 4-hour A&E turnaround target? If you don’t, here’s a fact. Twenty-six per cent of these ‘emergency’ admissions are now turned around on the same day. That’s an incredibly expensive way of solving a medical problem. And what’s more, it massively distorts clinical priority; there are many patients including those with asthma and suspected heart attacks where observation and testing need extra time. And then there’s the exorbitant cost of recording all this data required by government. Fine if it serves some useful purpose for the organisation. Unfortunately, on estimates provided by the NHS Confederation, about 58 per cent doesn’t; i.e. has no benefit for patient care. But most damagingly are the wider system-effects on medical professionalism; that body of knowledge and vast experience of learning-by-doing that needs to be harnessed day-in-day-out to deliver optimum care for patients. Just a simple cough can have any number of diagnosis, that cannot be dictated by guideline and protocol as the bureaucrats would so love. There is much made of the prevalence of exception reporting in the Quality and Outcomes Framework for GPs; yet I’m not sure I’d want a GP to pill my elderly relative up to the max with beta-blockers to get their blood pressure down to the required level if it meant they couldn’t get out of bed in the morning without such dizziness they’re likely to fall. In 2006 Fiona Godlee used her editorial in the BMJ to lament that ‘the spirit of medical professionalism is slowly dying’. It smacks of a doctor’s plea for the good old days when they ruled the roost, but removing this from the equation, she is right. This week, a powerful piece in the British Journal of Psychiatry, authored by no fewer than 37 of the country’s leading psychiatrists, provides a damning critique of the dangers of putting policy-making in the hands of bureaucrats. In the current system, laid down in the government paper New Ways of Working, a secondary care patient with acute mental illness may never even get to see a psychiatrist; rather a member of a crisis intervention team trained in non-specific psychosocial support. Important, but such support is only one part of the treatment, which should be after triage by the psychiatrist, not preceding it. They, after all, are the experts most likely to get the best course of treatment right; a proper psychiatric diagnostic assessment would look at ‘the complex relationship between psychiatric and non-psychiatric disorders and their common co-occurrence....involving biological and psychological tests and neuroimaging as well as detailed clinical assessments’; i.e. beyond limited therapy. And how’s this situation come about? Because it’s a cheaper option that suits the government. Training more psychiatrists – the ‘superlative physicians’ – is, after all, expensive. But then so is getting the diagnosis wrong in the first place; again political imperative rules over professional judgement. And where’s the patient in all this? Lord Darzi has some work on his hands. ]]> tag:www.civitas.org.uk,2008:/blog//1.852 2008-07-01T10:50:28Z 2008-07-01T15:34:09Z

For those sufficiently fortunate never to have needed to know, WDWTWA stands for ‘Who Do We Think We Are Week?’ For those still none the wiser, according to the proud boast of the Department of Children Schools and Families, 'WDWTWA...

David Conway boast of the Department of Children Schools and Families, 'WDWTWA is a new, DCSF-funded education project, designed to engage primary and secondary school teachers in the exploration of identity, diversity and citizenship with their pupils.’ TWTWTW stands for ‘That Was the Week That Was’, a sixties satirical tv show that brought the likes of Bernard Levin and David Frost to fame. Since it supposedly took place last week, WDWTWA has now mercifully become TWTWTW. I say "mercifully" because of the awful twaddle it well and truly was. ]]> website to provide schools with ‘assembly ideas’ for the week. It suggested that they should invite their pupils to ‘explore history and settlement, showing that movement is a regular part of life’ and ‘consider that Britain has always had immigration.’ It also suggested that schools should ‘use the Socrates quote: “I am a citizen, not of Athens or Greece, but of the world” to look at the theme of national and British identities, asking who pupils will be supporting in the 2012 Olympics.’ Britain has by no means always had immigration on anything that remotely approaches its present scale. Nor has movement always been a ‘regular part of life’, especially for so insular and sedentary a folk as, until only very recently, virtually all of Britain's population have been for centuries. Nor can Socrates be held up as any example of an itinerant cosmopolitan. So much did he love Athens that he never willingly left the city environs save upon military service. The saying attributed to him on the WDWTWA website was originally put into his mouth by Plutarch who lived several centuries after Socrates and so had never known him. This is unlike Plato who did, and who, in his dialogues, portrays Socrates as so fond of Athens that he refused to propose banishment as an alternative punishment for the crimes for which he was falsely condemned by the court there, even when the alternative penalty was death, and who is also portrayed by Plato as having declined to evade that punishment by escaping from jail when offered the opportunity, because he claimed he did not wish to undermine Athenian law by disobeying it. Few of our schoolchildren would have been taught that about Socrates last week, although a proper consideration of the early Platonic dialogues such as the ‘Apology’ and ‘Crito’ would have taught them more about citizenship than they are ever likely to learn at school today about that subject, despite it now being on the National Curriculum. Ah well, as John Ruskin once wisely observed: "Modern ‘Education’ for the most part signifies giving people the faculty of thinking wrong on every conceivable subject of importance to them." No wonder Bernice McCabe, headmistress of the best performing girls school in the country, the independent North London Collegiate School, recently condemned current Goverment educational initiatives for threatening to effect 'the cultural and intellectual impoverishment of a generation of school children.' For those not rich enough to be able to afford a decent private education for their children, roll on the school holidays when they can escape the state-run fortresses of ignorance and error they must attend, and start to be able to learn a few things for themselves free of Government propaganda. ]]> tag:www.civitas.org.uk,2008:/blog//1.851 2008-06-30T17:50:38Z 2008-06-30T17:57:24Z

Lord Darzi today publishes his eagerly awaited Next Stage Review of NHS policy. Ostensibly it heralds the end of the top-down era; a shift away from central targets to more self-sustaining means of driving performance, based on user-empowerment, information, choice...

James Gubb Lord Darzi today publishes his eagerly awaited Next Stage Review of NHS policy. Ostensibly it heralds the end of the top-down era; a shift away from central targets to more self-sustaining means of driving performance, based on user-empowerment, information, choice and competition - but the system will work against it. Reality check • However, Lord Darzi’s vision – as he admits – requires an environment where health professionals are empowered to lead change and where patients are much more than just passive recipients of care. He writes: ‘it has been clear that change cannot be mandated from the centre – it requires the unlocking of the talents of frontline staff’. • But as previous Civitas reports have shown, the structure of the NHS works against this. The ‘customer’ has always been the government, not the patient, with massively perverse consequences. • Performance has been driven by targets, central direction and political imperative. New reform initiatives have come with alarming frequency and – often ill-thought through and partially contradictory – have militated against high quality, personalised care. • This point was raised time and time again by service providers and health and social care professionals in the series of debates Civitas hosted on Lord Darzi’s review. • The NHS must move away from the mantra of central planning to an environment in which money is in patients’ hands and professionals are empowered to develop new models of working and create holistic services right for the individual. • Yet the nine regional reports by Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs) accompanying Lord Darzi’s national review confirm that the centralised approach is here to stay. • The reports are highly prescriptive, dominated by: o Access targets, such as waiting times for mental health services, therapy (NHS East of England; NHS East Midlands) and diagnostic tests (NHS South West). o Demands on service configuration, such as urgent care centres (NHS East of England; NHS North West), diagnostics on the high street (NHS South East Coast) and an increased role for pharmacy (NHS Yorkshire & Humber). o Descriptions of process, such as annual GP health checks (NHS East Midlands), the use of care coordinators (NHS West Midlands) and ‘opportunities for prevention’ (NHS South Central). • Lord Darzi’s own report also requires PCTs to develop ‘strategic plans for delivering the visions’; a time-consuming task that will divert attention from the job in hand. • The national report also: o Reaffirms the provision for 150 new GP-led health centres, despite the extremely poor record of centrally-planned infrastructure over the past 10 years. o Introduces a National Quality Board, along with provisions for regional quality boards and a ‘Quality Observatory’. Yet the DH already produces several ‘toolkits’ and ‘high-impact changes’; as does the National Institute for Innovation and Improvement. Their impact has been marginal. • Evidence-based medicine is important, but prescription will inevitably focus the attention of commissioners on meeting measures set by unaccountable central bodies, rather than reaching out to their populations to develop genuinely patient-centred services. A one-size-fits-all approach will only produce the equality of the mediocre. A new paradigm • For Lord Darzi’s vision to work, it needs to be based on the principle that the individual, not the government, should be in charge. • The government should maintain the emphasis of Lord Darzi’s report on clinical quality and patient experience, but recognise this will only come through the customer being the patient, not the state. • This requires reform of funding as well as provision. We should be working towards a system where each and every patient has a risk-adjusted budget – largely tax-funded – to choose between competing commissioners (GP-led, PCTs or insurers) as well as providers. • James Gubb, Director of the Health Unit at Civitas, said: ‘In his 1942 report that paved the way for the NHS, Sir William Beveridge was at pains to emphasise that “in organising security, the state should not stifle incentive, opportunity and responsibility”. ‘Yet in their direction of the NHS, successive governments have done exactly this. On its 60th birthday, Lord Darzi’s report offers an enticing vision, but it is clear that the government – be it through the DH or SHAs – will still be calling the shots. ‘If there is one lesson from the past 10 years, it is that this is no way to run a health system. Service developments are best driven by user empowerment, not top-down pressure’. ]]> tag:www.civitas.org.uk,2008:/blog//1.850 2008-06-30T17:37:13Z 2008-06-30T17:43:57Z

When Slovenia shuffles off the podium of the EU Presidency tomorrow, France will assume the European Union’s top post for the second half of 2008. Among its priorities, the French leadership has asserted its ambition to formalise a common European...

Pete Quentin asks Claire Daley. ]]> There is no concrete evidence that the EU could meet the expectations of being a military authority. Its recent missions to Chad and Kosovo have been largely civilian missions seeking to maintain security and justice, rather than full-scale military missions. The French Presidency faces further questions about whether it can lead the construction of an effective ESDP. After all, the EU has a history of creating inefficient common policies (e.g. CAP). But, with ESDP the stakes are higher. The crucial difference is that as well as being fundamental to national sovereignty, ESDP is a hugely sensitive policy area. That is to say, lives are at stake. A lot of lives. For example and without wanting to draw too many parallels, there are reports today that 17 people, including one child and fifteen civilians, have been shot during a demonstration by the French military at a barracks near Carcassonne, because real bullets were accidentally used instead of blanks. There is currently confusion about how the error could have happened, and one soldier is being questioned. This tragic event, presents serious questions for the French Presidency. If it intends to race ahead with ESDP, can France be trusted to steer the EU on a steady course, or would the union be at risk of similarly inadvertent political ‘friendly fire’? Member states would be advised to seek caution if they follow France’s route into arming the European Union because, based on today’s tragic events in France, the greatest danger may well come from within. The Presidential role of the EU is a hugely significant position with responsibility to steer a smooth path, similar to that of the rowing Cox who determines the boat’s course in an arena of fierce competition, encouraging their crew to ’push for ten’ towards a common goal. However, crew members are at the mercy of the Cox because the crew face backwards; the Cox alone dictates the boat’s course – a fact which enables France to ensure member states remain ignorant of its real intentions. In terms of ESDP, indications are that France intends to steer the EU towards establishment of a European army for its own purposes. An example of similar skulduggery and ambition is Sarkozy’s proposed ‘Union for the Mediterranean’, creating a new political bloc of Mediterranean countries. The ‘EU crew’ are being encouraged to race towards increased co-operation and unity for countries on the Mediterranean rim. However France’s intentions might be less than admirable because it has been especially keen to create a new ‘club’ for Turkey to join, thereby minimising its argument for joining the EU. For member states themselves, ESDP could mean: “Eliminating Surrendering and Disclaiming Power”. After all, what would happen if a divisive decision, such as whether or not to invade Iraq, were to arise again (as it inevitably will)? Would members be forced to bow to the common will of the EU? It could be argued that Germany’s recent resistance to committing more troops to fight in Afghanistan demonstrates that an EU army could never be a reality. However, in light of the Lisbon Treaty’s seizure of the national veto in many areas, it is conceivable that the development of an ESDP could see member states eventually lose the prerogative to choose when and how they deploy their troops, a power at the very heart of national sovereignty. Public support for the Iraq war was limited when it was decided in Westminster, but the trauma would be far more severe if troops were committed to a war the whole nation opposed. EU Security and Defence policy is saturated with similarly contentious issues and as such, returning to the metaphor (it is Henley Royal Regatta week after all!), the EU members’ boat is currently something akin to a lightweight vessel adrift amidst shark infested waters. It is simply not the case that there is a unified ‘European’ agenda, which would be furthered and protected by military capability. To fight a war, troops need something to fight for, an identity to fight to protect. But what does it really mean to be European? And is that identity strong enough to fight for? Europe’s uncertain identity would have huge repercussions for troop morale. Ireland’s recent rejection of the Lisbon Treaty might alter the agenda of the French Presidency, changing its intended course. Even so, France’s Presidency of the EU is sure to be a choppy ride. The EU Crew would be advised to keep checking over their shoulders to keep their eyes on the finish line. Being a fellow boat member, France will be careful not to tip the boat too much. However the Cox has unique security because they are the only crew member with a safety jacket on (according to Amateur Rowing Association rules)! What does this mean for ESDP? The French have an exclusive safety measure; an enthusiasm to seal the Union of the EU with a European military force could equally be interpreted as a money-saving initiative by a country that has troops committed to conflicts across the globe, including former French colonies in Africa e.g. Chad. To receive funding and resources from other EU member states to fund military intervention in which the French have special interests would indeed be an incentive to establish ESDP. Whilst the French Presidency will attempt to steer the EU’s agenda for the coming six months, it will be left to the member states, as crew members, to do the leg work. Ultimately it is they who are committed to providing financial and human resources for ESDP. After all, every Cox needs the concerted effort and co-operation of their rowers - the powerhouse of the crew- because if those rowers decide to jump ship the Cox will surely be left impotently bobbing in the water, in command of nothing more than an empty vessel. tag:www.civitas.org.uk,2008:/blog//1.849 2008-06-27T12:21:29Z 2008-06-27T12:32:57Z

This week Gordon Brown gave us his assessment of the factors thwarting social mobility in Britain today. Where he was right, was to point to the impact which unemployment had on social mobility under Thatcher. Where he was wrong, was...

Anastasia de Waal Gordon Brown gave us his assessment of the factors thwarting social mobility in Britain today. Where he was right, was to point to the impact which unemployment had on social mobility under Thatcher. Where he was wrong, was to ignore the role which his very own government is playing in thwarting social mobility today – again through unemployment. ]]> further poverty as an outcome of one household splitting into two. In short, this government’s top priority should be to once and for all tackle youth unemployment, firstly through schooling and secondly through the welfare system. With jobs available for a high proportion of those currently unemployed, the problem centres on a lack of motivation to leave benefits. This relates in part to the weaknesses in the education system, which are too often leading to a scenario where young people’s qualifications offer them jobs less desirable than what welfare has to offer. The second - formative - part of the equation is that unemployment arrangements currently act as stallers, rather than bridges, to work, creating disincentives to move into employment and generating stagnant dependency. If we are to see future social mobility in this country, the first thing which needs to happen is policy which mobilises entry into the workforce. ]]>