http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/ Classical liberal comment on the news and current affairs en Copyright 2008 Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:44:59 +0000 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 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. http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/07/twas_ever_thus_england_has_alw.html http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/07/twas_ever_thus_england_has_alw.html Education Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:44:59 +0000 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... http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/07/no_is_the_new_yes.html http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/07/no_is_the_new_yes.html European Union Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:45:06 +0000 [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. ]]> http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/07/requiem_for_the_national_curri.html http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/07/requiem_for_the_national_curri.html Education Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:58:35 +0000 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.]]> http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/07/ets_sats_and_leaves.html http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/07/ets_sats_and_leaves.html Education Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:19:12 +0000 Times Educational Supplement , it is clear he hasn’t a clue. ]]> http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/07/what_eds_all_about_it.html http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/07/what_eds_all_about_it.html Education Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:52:57 +0000 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. http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/07/now_lets_be_franc.html http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/07/now_lets_be_franc.html European Union Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:10:20 +0000 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? ]]> http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/07/accident_and_emergency.html http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/07/accident_and_emergency.html Health Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:59:43 +0000 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. http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/07/the_eus_babbling_tower.html http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/07/the_eus_babbling_tower.html European Union Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:12:15 +0000 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. ]]> http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/07/if_you_have_nothing_to_hide.html http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/07/if_you_have_nothing_to_hide.html Political Correctness Wed, 09 Jul 2008 10:39:53 +0000 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”.’ ]]> http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/07/toddlers_now_to_be_told_off_fo.html http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/07/toddlers_now_to_be_told_off_fo.html Political Correctness Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:54:13 +0000 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. http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/07/bureaucracy_the_new_psychiatri.html http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/07/bureaucracy_the_new_psychiatri.html Health Fri, 04 Jul 2008 11:28:36 +0000 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. ]]> http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/07/the_twaddle_that_was_wdwtwa_ha.html http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/07/the_twaddle_that_was_wdwtwa_ha.html Social Cohesion Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:50:28 +0000 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. http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/06/darzi_a_grand_vision_but_the_s.html http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/06/darzi_a_grand_vision_but_the_s.html Health Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:50:38 +0000 asks Claire Daley. ]]> http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/06/attenshun.html http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/06/attenshun.html European Union Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:37:13 +0000 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. ]]> http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/06/mobilising_entry_into_work.html http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/06/mobilising_entry_into_work.html Education Fri, 27 Jun 2008 12:21:29 +0000