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Frank Furedi and Jennie Bristow

Since the establishment of the Criminal Records Bureau in 2002, more than a third of British adults have had to get a certificate to say they are safe to be near children, and the numbers affected are increasing. Frank Furedi and Jennie Bristow argue that the growth of police vetting has created a sense of mistrust. Communities are forged through the joint commitment of adults to the socialisation of children. Now, adults are afraid to interact with any child not their own. The generations are becoming distant, as adults suspect each other and children are taught to suspect adults. The vetting culture encourages risk aversion: there is a feeling that it is better to ignore young people, even if they are behaving in an anti-social manner, and even if they are in trouble and need help, rather than risk accusations of improper conduct.Vetting also gives a false sense of security as it can only identify those who have offended in the past and been caught - not what people will do after they are passed as fit to be near children.

"Licensed to Hug" argues for a more common-sense approach to adult/child relations, based on the assumption that the vast majority of adults can be relied on to help and support children, and that the healthy interaction between generations enriches children's lives.

Nick Cowen

Improving the educational outcomes of children from low-income backgrounds is crucial to tackling Britain's lack of social mobility. However, after more than a decade of New Labour's initiatives, and with spending on education now at record levels in real terms, the gap between low-income children and middle-class children has actually widened. Middle-class parents can exercise choice to a greater degree than low-income parents. Some opt out of the state system altogether and choose independent schools. Many more make sure they are living within the catchment areas of good state schools, and use their social skills to negotiate the increasingly complex admission procedures.Other nations organise things differently. The Swedes have developed an approach to education that provides choice for all parents, regardless of income. Funding follows the child, and parents can choose which school their child attends. Independent providers, either charitable or commercial, can receive payment from the state on the same terms as state schools. The results have been impressive. In areas where independent providers operate, standards are driven up in all schools.

Children with special educational needs and children of immigrants have benefited noticeably. The policy, introduced in 1992, is well established and popular with parents. In "Swedish Lessons", Nick Cowen asks what we can learn from the experience of a country with strong egalitarian values that has successfully incorporated the mechanism of choice into its educational provision.

Harriet Sergeant

Expenditure on the police force is at record levels but there is widespread public dissatisfaction and a steep increase in complaints against the police. Police are rarely seen in their communities. It is hard to get them to respond to reports of crime; investigations are lacklustre and often abandoned.

The public have no power to influence policing. All decisions are taken by politicians, but there is no accountability within the system. Centralisation has led to the introduction of targets. Bonuses are paid to senior officers based on compliance with targets. In order to achieve the required level of detections, police officers pursue those who will yield easy convictions, such as speeding motorists or high-spirited students, rather than the serious and persistent offenders who are destroying the quality of life in communities.

Police officers swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen, not the Prime Minister. Unlike many other police forces, British police were not intended to be servants of the state, but of the communities they serve. Their powers are personal, used at their own discretion and derived from the crown. This essential feature of British policing – policing by consent – is now in jeopardy.

Anastasia de Waal

The premise of both New Labour and Conservative policy is that people not living in married two-parent families are choosing not to. This signifies positive diversity to Labour and a decline in family values to the Conservatives. Both miss a critical reality: that high marriage rates are characteristic of the middle and upper classes, whereas family instability is concentrated amongst those on low incomes. The true divide on the family is about poverty not politics.

New research evidence collected for this book shows that most people want the same things, regardless of their politics, class or sexuality. Committed couple-parenting is seen to be the ideal. Therefore, in a liberal, secular society, marriage is a majority aspiration because it is seen to signify commitment. Focusing on the New Labour government, Second Thoughts on the Family demonstrates the way in which Labour’s nominally inclusive position is actually harming those it seeks to support.

Drawing on a specially commissioned opinion poll and 27 interviews with opinion-formers, Second Thoughts on the Family presents a new way of thinking about family policy that transcends all divides.

Nick Seddon

We have become avid consumers of healthcare. We want the freedom to choose the best treatments; we demand the highest quality of service and outcomes; and we will not tolerate a health service that does not deliver.

To add to these raised expectations, medical and technological developments are increasing the scope of what can be treated; but new and expensive ways of keeping people alive for longer have profound implications for the NHS. In this important new publication, Nick Seddon argues compellingly that it is out of respect for the founding principles of the NHS - to provide universal and comprehensive health care - not to mention better care, that it must embrace fundamental, market-based, reform.

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Frank Furedi, Shirley Lawes, Michele Ledda, Chris McGovern, Simon Patterson, David Perks & Alex Standish

In 'Corruption of the Curriculum', the authors - all of whom write from years of practical experience in the classroom - argue that the school curriculum has been corrupted by political interference.

Subjects in the school curriculum used to be regarded as discrete areas of knowledge, which would be imparted to pupils by teachers motivated by a love of learning. This has not been enough for recent governments, who see schools as a means of promoting social and political goals that may or may not relate to traditional academic disciplines. This has given us geography as a vehicle for environmentalism; history that neglects major events and personalities; science classes in which pupils discuss global warming without having the knowledge base on which to make an informed judgement; language classes that are supposed to boost international competitiveness but leave the literature and cultures of other countries unexamined; English classes in which the love of language is trumped by the ethnicity and gender of authors; and maths in which basic concepts such as fractions are repeated year after year without ever having enough time to sink in.

The contributors to this book argue that we need to return to the traditional view of education as a means of transmitting a body of knowledge from one generation to the next, and that academic rigour and respect for the professionalism of teachers should take precedence over political manipulation of the curriculum.

David Conway

Immigration into Britain is now running at a level that is without precedent in our history and which threatens our cohesion as a nation, according to a report from the independent social policy think-tank Civitas.

In A Nation of Immigrants? David Conway takes issue with those who minimise the threat posed by mass immigration by claiming that this is nothing new; that we are a 'mongrel nation'; and that, in the words of the Commission on Racial Equality, 'everyone who lives in Britain today is either an immigrant or the descendant of an immigrant' (pp.2-3). He argues, to the contrary, that from the time England can be considered to have become a nation, immigration has never risen above very low levels and had no serious demographic impact until the last part of the twentieth century. Since 1997, however, Tony Blair's Labour government has effectively abandoned even the goal of limiting immigration. As a result, by encouraging unending mass immigration as a permanent feature of the political landscape, there may result a disintegration of the bonds that hold together the group of people that constitutes a nation:

Danny Kruger

The battle of ideas is not over but entering a new and more interesting phase, according to Danny Kruger, special adviser to Conservative Party leader David Cameron MP. In the late 20^th century, politics was the clash between Liberty on one hand and Equality on the other – a battle over the respective roles of the individual and the state. This remains the basic axis of our politics. But rather than a straightforward clash between Liberty and Equality, politics today is a contest for possession of the principle beyond them both: Fraternity.

Nick Seddon

Charities that derive over 70 per cent of their income from the state have reached a level of dependency which makes them more part of the state than civil society and they should lose their charitable status in order to preserve the integrity of the sector, according to a new report from the independent think-tank Civitas. Nick Seddon argues in Who Cares? that we need to distinguish between charities that are genuinely part of civil society from those that have become part of the political process.

He proposes three categories. Charities receiving less than 30% of their income from the state would still benefit from charitable status. Those receiving between 30% and 70% would be called state-funded charities, and would receive more modest benefits. Those receiving over 70% of their income from the state are already de facto state agencies and would be forced to choose either to reduce their dependency on statutory funding or lose their charitable status (pp.145-6).

Caroline Cox and John Marks

The vast majority of Muslims word-wide are peaceable, law-abiding and hospitable people. Nevertheless, the reaction to atrocities such as 9/11 and 7/7 is threatening relations with all Muslims. In The West, Islam and Islamism, now reprinted in an enlarged and revised edition by think-tank Civitas three years after its first appearance, Caroline Cox and John Marks argue that Islam and militant Islamism need to be distinguished, since a hostile response to Islamist terrorism could quickly become hostility to all Muslims. 'Islamism' and 'Islamist' are the terms now widely used to refer to radical, militantly ideological versions of Islam -- as defined by the practitioners themselves -- suffused with religious justifications for violent or revolutionary political action.

David G. Green

We have become a nation of victims, with officially protected victim groups adding up to 73% of the population (p.6). According to a new book by the independent think tank Civitas, victimhood today is a political status that is sought after because of the advantages it brings, including preferential treatment in the workplace, the possibility of using police power to silence unwelcome critics, and financial compensation. Some groups are claiming to be victims of multiple discrimination: if their claims are taken seriously, 109% of the population have victim status (p.7).

According to David Green's book We're (Nearly) All Victims Now!, politicised victimhood undermines liberalism, weakens our democratic culture and subverts equality before the law, as well as police and judicial impartiality. From 2007, the government intends to establish a Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR) that will protect six groups: women, ethnic groups and disabled people, plus those defined by sexual orientation, age, and religion or belief.

Anastasia de Waal

Tony Blair has staked his reputation on 'education, education, education', but his last chance of a legacy will be a system of rigidly shackled schools in which tick-box inspections take precedence over learning, according to independent think-tank Civitas.

In Inspection, Inspection, Inspection! Anastasia de Waal shows how the Blair government continued the mistrust of teachers and the controlling tendencies that had characterised the Thatcher and Major governments and ratcheted them up several notches. The mechanism Blair has used to get political control of every classroom was OfSTED, the Office for Standards in Education.

OfSTED is not, as people assume, an independent body inspecting school standards: it is the enforcer for the Department for Education, making sure that every teacher in every school is following the latest (and ever-changing) fads from Whitehall. OfSTED was set up in 1992 under the Major government to maintain standards in schools. New Labour reformers have seized this powerful mechanism and added their own brand of intense managerialism, awarding themselves a monopoly over the definition of excellence in education, then enforcing their demands through detailed prescription of teaching methods.

Patricia Morgan

A comparison of family policy and its implications for human happiness and the raising of children in Britain, Italy and Sweden.