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Recent Press Releases
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30/06/08 - Health Unit: Response to Lord Darzi's final report: A grand vision but the system will work against it
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. The following measures are welcome: .....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..... ** Immediate Release **
One in four will need to take the anti-paedophile test
The dramatic escalation of child protection measures has succeeded in poisoning the relationship between the generations and creating an atmosphere of suspicion that actually increases the risks to children, according to a new study from the independent think-tank Civitas. In Licensed to Hug Frank Furedi, Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent, argues that children need to have contact with a range of adult members of the community for their education and socialisation, but 'this form of collaboration, which has traditionally underpinned intergenerational relationships, is now threatened by a regime that insists that adult/child encounters must be mediated through a security check' (p.xii). ** Embargo 00.01am Thursday 26 June**
Elite British-style schools open to all - but only in Sweden
Schools in the state sector in Sweden can offer the acclaimed International GCSE (IGCSE) science qualifications that have been denied to British state school pupils by the government, according to Swedish Lessons, a report published today by independent think-tank Civitas. Science IGCSEs are used increasingly in British independent schools due to their internationally recognised high standards, one of the clearest indicators yet of the growing 'educational apartheid' between the state and independent sector. Nick Cowen commented: 'The fact that state schools are forced to teach a narrow curriculum and offer less valuable qualifications due to bureaucratic edicts is bad enough. But now we are faced with the likelihood that Swedes will be emerging from their state-funded secondary schools with better British qualifications than the majority of British pupils are even allowed to attempt. This is what political interference by successive British governments in the school curriculum has led to.' **EMBARGO: 00.01 am Monday 16 June 2008**
Politicisation of the police is putting policing by consent at risk
The tradition of policing by consent, which used to make Britain the envy of the world, is in danger from political interference that is alienating the police from the public, according to a new report from independent think-tank Civitas. When officers join the police force they swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen, not the prime minister. Unlike many other forces, British police have never been servants of the state: officers' powers are personal, used at their own discretion and derived from the Crown - until now.
Marriage in modern Britain: out of reach, not out of fashion
A new report from Civitas, 'Second Thoughts on the Family', finds marriage to be more popular than ever - but a luxury beyond the reach of the poor Defying the idea that marriage is dead, a new Civitas/Ipsos Mori survey of 1,560 young people reveals that the overwhelming majority want to get married: Marriage: fit for purpose in 21st century Britain
**EMBARGO: 00.01 am Monday 19 May 2008**
CIVITAS MEDIA BRIEFING 16/05/08 - NHS far from 'fighting fit'
Chief Executive's report makes a colourful picture of a gloomy outlook Accompanying the Chief Executive's Annual Report to the NHS, released today, the Department of Health claims that the NHS is 'fighting fit in its 60th year. The reality is very different. Set against the main achievements the report highlights:
12/03/08: Statement on tackling Child Poverty in 2008 budget
To reach targets government must address key contributor to child poverty: parental separation. Statement from Anastasia de Waal, Head of Family and Education, Civitas, the independent social policy think tank: "Poverty is the single greatest threat to children's life chances. The Chancellor's focus on eradicating child poverty is therefore critical. However in its rush to reach the 2010 target, the government is pushing short-term policies at the expense of addressing the roots of child poverty. If the government is truly committed to eradicating child poverty it must also address the root causes. Poverty is currently concentrated in single-parent families. Whilst the government has sought to alleviate single-parent household poverty it is ignoring the circumstances generating entry into single parenthood. Parental separation is disproportionately concentrated amongst poor parents: the less well-off are much more likely to separate. Therefore to successfully tackle child poverty, the sources of poverty in two-parent families must also be tackled. This means:
10/03/08: NHS will continue to flounder until government control of the purse strings is cut
A new report today from the independent think-tank Civitas argues that market-based reform in the NHS is being crushed by central direction and will fail if this pressure continues. The solution is putting money in the hands of patients to take control of their health care and to empower clinicians once more. The report Why the NHS is the sick man of Europe by James Gubb, Director of the Health Unit at Civitas, draws together a host of recent studies to show NHS performance on efficiency, quality and - most damagingly so far as its ideals are concerned - equity, has flailed badly over the past ten years despite record increases in funding. As things stand, the trends are becoming irreparable. The undeniable talents of doctors, nurses and health care professionals working in the NHS are being stymied by perverse incentives created by Whitehall. The NHS is now heading for a £1.8 billion surplus for 2007/08 despite patently obvious gaps in funding. The government's solution was to launch a 'once-in-a-generation review' of the NHS, currently being conducted by Lord Darzi. But it should be considering more radical options: it should be looking to Europe, and particularly the Netherlands, for better ways of providing universal and comprehensive health care.
10/01/07: 387,152 patients still waiting over a year for treatment
The government has today announced another increase in the number of patients who have been treated within the 18-week target from referral to treatment (RTT). The latest count, from October 2007, shows 59.9 per cent received treatment within the targeted time. But this conceals the very serious problems that remain:
**IMMEDIATE RELEASE**
GPs make patients suffer to protect inefficient local hospitals
The government's proposals to eliminate excessive waiting from the NHS stand no realistic chance of succeeding, according to a new report from independent social-policy think-tank Civitas. The target of a maximum 18-week delay from referral to treatment (RTT), to be achieved by December 2008, is an impossibility, given the lacklustre performance of some strategic health authorities (SHAs), primary care trusts (PCTs) and hospital trusts. As the government and the Department of Health are coming to realise, the only long-term solution to this is not targets, but choice and competition. The obstacle is now the unwillingness of GPs to provide the necessary information to patients, out of a misplaced desire to protect the inefficient local healthcare system, including the nearest hospital. **EMBARGO: 00.01am Wednesday 2 January 2008**
PISA - Show's over: international study exposes government standards charade
Final straw for government's education record: world's most comprehensive assessment of pupil knowledge and skills crushes UK government claims of rising school standards. PISA results show declining standards between 2000 and 2006:
**No Embargo**
The 'middle-class voice' drowns out the groans of the sick poor in the NHS
'When, under the pretext of fraternity, the legal code imposes mutual sacrifices on the citizens, human nature is not thereby abrogated. Everyone will then direct his efforts toward contributing little to, and taking much from, the common fund of sacrifices. Now, is it the most unfortunate who gain in this struggle? Certainly not, but rather the most influential and calculating.' Frederic Bastiat, 'Justice and Fraternity', 1848 Respect for founding principles means NHS cannot continue as it is The National Health Service is now a divisive influence on society, standing in the way of social cohesion and favouring wealth and the 'middle-class voice' over the welfare of the poor, according to a report from independent think-tank Civitas. **Embargo: 00.01am Wednesday 28 November 2007**
CIVITAS REPORT: NHS Cancer Plan largely ineffective?
Improvements have been registered in avoidable mortality from cancer and circulatory disease, the biggest 'killers' in England & Wales, but real cause for concern remains:
Embargo: 00.01am Friday 31st October, 2007
CIVITAS MEDIA BRIEFING: Innovation needs competition
One of Lord Darzi's key recommendations in his interim report released today is the creation of a Health Innovation Unit - with a budget of £100m 'to help the NHS develop and deploy hi-tech health care such as medical devices and diagnostics'. But it is wholly unclear that a new central body is what is required to drive innovation in the NHS. The NHS already has such a body - the National Institute for Innovation and Improvement - and its lack of impact has been noticeable. A report released today by Civitas, the independent social policy think-tank, argues that the Health Innovation Unit will only help if the NHS follows its own reform agenda and embraces diversity and competition; PCTs must be empowered as strong commissioners, providers must be autonomous and patients must have real choice. Central direction needs to end.
CIVITAS MEDIA BRIEFING: Celebrate Children's Book Week by teaching children to read
Civitas has marked the start of Children's Book Week (www.booktrusted.co.uk/cbw/) by making available for the first time in a commercial edition a phonics-based reading course that has achieved sensational results with children from all backgrounds, including the most deprived. Irina Tyk wrote The Butterfly Book in 1993 to make available to other teachers and parents her method of teaching reading using phonics - a system that teaches children to read by recognising the 44 sounds that make up the English language.
CIVITAS MEDIA BRIEFING: Read all about it
Can ‘first and fast’ phonics solve educational inequality?
Weak reading lies at the heart of the educational apartheid between the advantaged and disadvantaged, and England’s low social mobility. The inability to read properly is the single greatest handicap to progress both in school and adult life. As of this week, all children in primary schools will be taught to read using 'first and fast' synthetic phonics. This means that children's first experience in school of learning to read will be to learn 44 letter sounds which they will be taught to blend together - or 'synthesise' - to form words. Background: despite additional billions invested in education, a significant achievement gap between rich and poor persists. [p2] At the heart of this lie poor reading skills:
This government’s move to systematic synthetic phonics in the classroom brings new hope that children of all backgrounds will be taught to read properly, according to a report by the independent think-tank Civitas.
CIVITAS MEDIA BRIEFING: What do you take them for?
It's not the efforts of A-level students in question, but the government's efforts to educate them. A-levels have become more about preparing the government for the next election than preparing students for their future.
The Results Generation, a new report by independent think-tank Civitas, exposes the way in which the government has focused on artificially generating indicators of improvement instead of focusing on actually improving schools. This prioritisation of grade gaining over quality devalues both A-levels and students. Embargo: immediate release
CIVITAS MEDIA BRIEFING:
Faking it. 'Best ever' Key Stage 2 results - but how many children who reached Level 4 can actually read this sentence? Key Stage 2 results published today by the government don't stand up to scrutiny, says independent think tank Civitas. Teachers have been compelled to generate artificial results, at horrifying costs to pupils. Results released today by the DCSF show that 80 per cent and 77 per cent of pupils have reached the government's expected standard, Level 4, in literacy and numeracy respectively. However it is widely accepted by educationalists that Key Stage 2 results cannot and should not be taken at face value. 'Not only are these results exaggerated, achieving them has had hugely damaging consequences for children' says Anastasia de Waal. 'The only people these "record" scores serve is the government.' Embargo: immediate release
Too many, too fast: NHS staffing inefficiencies run deeper still
BACKGROUND BRIEFING AND COMMENTARY ON STAFFING IN THE NHS Reports released very recently by the King's Fund on Agenda for Change, by the NAO on the consultant contract and that trailed by the Sunday Times this week on the GP contract have all reported little evidence that any of them have had a positive impact on productivity. But none of this should come as too much of a surprise, according to an online briefing released today by the think-tank Civitas, which argues that the findings are symptomatic of deep-seated inefficiencies in NHS staff planning, largely caused by 'pressures to meet an explosion of central direction that has forced a focus on targets and (later) financial pressures, thereby creating an upward-looking service with short-term goals, rather than one that is truly patient-centred and able to match supply and demand' (p.8). Embargo: immediate release
Are your A-levels pre-Blair or post-Blair? Prime Minister's school legacy is a sham.
Higher achievement under Blair is down to smoke and mirrors rather than effective reforms.
Blair's claims of school improvement over his decade in power add up to little more than shameless moving of the goal posts - according to a briefing published today by independent think-tank Civitas. The report exposes the dramatic and unprecedented rise in all major national test results as a sham. It reveals that improvements have been largely manufactured by lowering test standards, narrowing the school curriculum and forcing teachers to teach only for the next barrage of tests - leaving the real prospects of pupils ignored. Embargo: 00.01am Wednesday 27 June 2007
British Crime Survey omits three million crimes
The public are being misled about the true volume of crime by the British Crime Survey which omits three million crimes, according to a report published today by independent think-tank Civitas. Embargo: 00.01am Tuesday 26 June 2007
Corruption of the Curriculum
The school curriculum has been corrupted by political interference, according to a new report from independent think-tank Civitas. The traditional subject areas have been hi-jacked to promote fashionable causes such as gender awareness, the environment and anti-racism, while teachers are expected to help to achieve the government's social goals instead of imparting a body of academic knowledge to their students. Embargo: 00.01am Monday 11 June
Background briefing and commentary
on David Cameron's Sunday Times article In the Sunday Times (3 June 2007) David Cameron responds to critics of his grammar schools' policy by presenting everyone who disagrees with him as a backwoodsman entertaining policy delusions. But the strongest critics of Mr Cameron's education policy are not diehard defenders of grammar schools. They fully accept the need for policies to be modernised and presented in the most persuasive language, but argue that Mr Cameron is not going about modernisation in the most effective way. Embargo: Immediate release
Unparalleled levels of immigration threaten Britain's cohesion as a nation
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: Embargo 00.01am Monday 23 April
Battle of ideas is not over
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 20th 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. Embargo 00.01am Monday 26 March 2007
Public Service Reform Has Hit
The Limits Of Political Action Politics no longer provides the answer to the major problems we are facing, according to a new report from the independent think-tank Civitas. Writing in the current issue of Civitas Review, David Green argues that during the Blair years the strategy of big spending on health, education and welfare was tested to destruction. It has not produced the expected improvements in health and education, and benefit expenditure has created, not a more empowered people, but deeper welfare dependency. The Government promises to ‘deliver’ outcomes but David Green argues that the problem is not just incompetent ministers or a worn-out government, but that we have reached the limits of what can be achieved by political action. Embargo 00.01am Monday 12 February 2007
State-funded charities should lose charitable status
says report 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). Embargo 00.01am Wednesday 7 February 2007
Do we have too many people in prison?
If we imprisoned offenders at the average rate (per 1,000 crimes) of EU members, the prison population would be 113,150 instead of 80,000. Eight out of the fifteen members of the EU for which figures are available imprisoned offenders at a higher rate than England and Wales. The calculations are based on figures for 2003 (the latest available from the Council of Europe). Embargo: immediate release
Civil society fights back
A new report by independent think-tank Civitas reveals the existence of a sizeable and largely unknown part of the education sector, known as supplementary schools. There are hundreds, and possibly thousands, of supplementary schools that have been set up to help children whose needs are not being met by the state schools they are attending. They represent a new flowering of civil society, as parents act to defend their own children's interests without depending on the state. However, according to the report in the latest edition of Civitas Review, there are plans to control supplementary schools via regulation by a Government quango, and these should be resisted. Embargo 00.01am Friday 29 December
Better understanding is needed between West and Islam
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. Full press releaseEmbargo 00.01am Friday 1 December
Victims now outnumber oppressors in our victim culture
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. Full press releaseEMBARGO 00.01am, Monday 9 October 2006
EU would work better without France
The European Union would work better without France, according to a report published by the independent think-tank Civitas. The French have undermined the spirit of mutual co-operation and give-and-take upon which the European project is based until they have become the principal obstacle to the reform of the EU, upon which its future depends. In 'How France Has Undermined the European Project', published in the current issue of the Civitas Review, co-authors Wil James and Gregory Lowe argue that:
Full press releaseEmbargo: 00.01am Friday 25 August 2006
Extra billions for NHS largely wasted
The massive increase in government expenditure on the NHS has not resulted in anything like the level of improvements in the service which might have been expected, according to a study from independent social-policy think-tank Civitas. Total public spending on the NHS in England has increased from £44.9bn in the first year of the NHS Plan (2000-01) to £76.4bn five years later (2005-06). This represents an increase of just over two thirds in cash terms (70%). In spite of this, according to James Gubb, author of The NHS and the NHS Plan: Is The Extra Money Working?, 'service improvement has in too many areas resembled a country stroll, whereas expenditure has increased at a sprint'. Full press releaseEmbargo: 00.01am Monday 14 August 2006
How OfSTED undermines independent teachers
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. Full press releaseEmbargo: 00.01am Sunday 16 July 2006
Foreign Prisoners - Estimates of Re-conviction rates
Based on the latest Home Office findings, 689 (67.4%) of the 1023 foreign prisoners released from jail will have committed offences within 24 months of release. And within only 12 months, at least 501 will have been reconvicted. Full press releaseEmbargo: Immediate release
Family does best when governments don't try to nationalise child-rearing
The family thrives in countries in which the government doesn't interfere with it, according to a new international comparison of family policy published by the independent think-tank Civitas. Family Policy, Family Changes by Patricia Morgan compares the state of the family in secular Sweden, Catholic Italy and Britain. One of the most striking points of comparison is the extent to which the state interferes in family life, especially the rearing of children, in each of the countries. Full press releaseEmbargo: 00.01am Monday 27 March 2006
THE NHS FORMULA FOR DIVIDING £60 BILLION IS BASED ON
FAITH NOT SCIENCE That is the claim made by a leading statistician in a Civitas Online Report, "Eye of Newt and Toe of Frog: a Good Formula for Health?" If he is right, the new formula, introduced by John Hutton in 2003, may be wasting billions, and may be responsible for some current primary care trust deficits. Full press releaseEmbargo: 00.01 am Friday 20 JANUARY 2006
FREEDOM OF SPEECH IS BEING SUPPRESSED BY POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
For centuries Britain has been a beacon of liberty of thought, belief and speech, but now the freedom of its intellectual and political life is being subjected to a subtle form of 'censorship', according to a new study of political correctness published by the independent think-tank Civitas. Anthony Browne argues in The Retreat of Reason that political correctness, which classifies certain groups of people as victims in need of protection from criticism and allows no dissent to be expressed, is poisoning the wells of debate in modern Britain. Full press releaseEmbargo: 00.01 am TUESDAY 3 JANUARY 2006
JUDGES ACCUSED OF USURPING THE ROLE OF PARLIAMENT
Same-sex couples may be next in line to experience the 'institutional injustice' of the family courts
Judges are increasingly making law instead of ruling on it, according to a new report from the independent think-tank Civitas, and the Human Rights Act has provided them with the perfect basis for doing so. The Act's supporters sometimes deny this but the truth was admitted by a Law Lord, Lord Hope: 'It is now plain that the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into our domestic law will subject the entire legal system to a fundamental process of review and, wherever necessary, reform by the judiciary'. (p.3. Emphasis added.) With rising numbers of divorces, the average citizen is most likely to experience the court system in the family courts, and it is here that the quality of judicial decision-making has acquired the worst reputation. In Institutional Injustice, Martin Mears, the former President of the Law Society, shows how some judges in the family courts have 'developed' the law by promoting concepts such as 'equality' and 'non-discrimination' (which are not to be found in the Matrimonial Causes Act) to an extent amounting to virtual new legislation (pp.53-58). The result, he argues, has been a culture of 'institutional injustice' in the family courts, with astonishing judgments that take no account of even the most flagrant examples of bad conduct and bad faith. Martin Mears now warns that same-sex couples may find themselves smarting under the same unjust regime, when relationships formalised under the new civil partnerships legislation start to break down. Full press releaseEmbargo: 00.01am Friday 30 December 2005
School Choice Benefits the Least Advantaged Children
Independent studies have found that school choice improves reading and maths by 5-6 percentile points and that it benefits ethnic minorities and the poor most. A group of Labour backbenchers has published an 'alternative white paper' because they believe that the proposed 'trust' schools will introduce backdoor selection and reinforce the existing pattern of disadvantage. But there is powerful evidence that school choice benefits the least well off, not least from American charter schools. One of the most authoritative studies has been carried out by Caroline Hoxby, Professor of Economics at Harvard University, and Jonah Rockoff, of Columbia Business School. They looked at charter schools in Chicago, where school places are allocated by lottery when a school is over-subscribed. The study compared the achievements of pupils selected by lottery with those who were not (and who, consequently, attended local state schools). This method has the advantage of eliminating the 'selection' effect that statisticians worry about. The results cannot be explained by 'home background' because all the pupils had motivated parents who wanted their children to attend charter schools - some were lucky enough to attend and others were not. Maths results are reported as 'percentile scores', that is all test results are ranked from 1 to 100. Maths scores were over 6 percentile points higher and reading 5 points higher. When adjusted for gender, ethnicity, participation in the federal free or subsidised lunch programme, and the need for special education, maths results were 6.18 percentile points higher and reading 5.11 points higher. Full press releaseEmbargo: Immediate release
DAVID STARKEY LAUNCHES 'JAMIE OLIVER CAMPAIGN'
FOR SCHOOL HISTORY 100 years after the publication of Henrietta Marshall's children's history OUR ISLAND STORY, one of the most popular and inspirational books of its time, Dr David Starkey has launched a campaign to reconnect children with the blood and battles of history that have, for a generation, been put aside in favour of social history and learning skills. Dr Starkey took time off between studio sessions in London, where he is recording a new television programme, to visit a class of 8 and 9 year olds at Barham Primary School, in Kent and enthuse them with his reading from H.E. Marshall's republished book. "What a child is interested in is the story, the human beings, the characters; and all that's gone…" he told BBC News. Dr Starkey joins fellow Historians Lady Antonia Fraser, Andrew Roberts and Simon Schama by throwing his support behind this timeless classic. And in his crusade to put the leading characters back at the heart of school History lessons, Dr Starkey has put Our Island Story firmly back on the agenda. "It's a very interesting story of how the media can actually change things", he told the BBC. "Jamie Oliver changed school meals: Simon Schama and David Starkey are probably changing school history." Full press releaseEmbargo: Immediate release
Pension Reform: Work Till You Drop?
Individuals should be required to build up a fund sufficient to buy an annuity equivalent to the state minimum. Initially it would need to take the form of an obligation to pay a percentage of income into a fund, but once a sufficient fund had been accumulated, saving would be voluntary. The fund would be their personal property, but on retirement individuals would have to buy the minimum annuity required by law. Any balance could be taken as a lump sum, used to buy an additional annuity, or left to accumulate further interest. We should also raise the state retirement age. We now live much longer and enjoy good health well beyond 65 and the state pension age could be raised in stages, perhaps by six months per year so that in ten years it will be 70. There is a basic obligation to work until illness, frailty or death intervene, but a case can be made for working until a fixed retirement age of 70, at which point it can be assumed that many people will be getting frail. Assuming the current school leaving age of 16, a retirement age of 70 allows individuals up to 54 years to accumulate a retirement fund. A sum of about £70,000 should buy an annuity, at current prices, equivalent to the current state minimum of £109 a week (including the pension credit). Inevitably, some people will never accumulate enough, but this scheme would reduce the number of individuals dependent on means testing to the bare minimum. Click Here for Full ReportEmbargo: Immediate release
Nationwide distribution of free history books to primary schools puts narrative history back on the curriculum
The Prince of Wales's wish that children should be taught the history of this country in a chronological narrative that makes sense of people and events comes a step closer this week with the mailing of over one-and-a-half thousand free copies of H.E. Marshall's classic children's history book Our Island Story to primary schools. Our Island Story by Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall was first published in 1905. This children's history of Britain, from the time of the Romans to the death of Queen Victoria, became an instant classic. Beautifully written, with the narrative sweep of the best story-tellers, Our Island Story went through many editions and remained one of the most popular one-volume histories of Britain up until its final edition in 1953. Leading historians of the present day like Lady Antonia Fraser and Andrew Roberts have testified to the effect that this book had on them by igniting a passionate love of history in young minds through its thrilling narrative. The centenary edition has been published by London-based think-tank Civitas and leading school textbook publisher Galore Park Publishing. From the time publication was announced, in June 2005, there has been a palpable sense of excitement about the project. The initial print run of 20,000 books sold out within a month, and a further 10,000 had to be printed to meet demand from bookshops and online booksellers. According to Robert Whelan, Deputy Director of Civitas: Click Here for Full Press ReleaseEmbargo: Immediate release
Multiculturalism can be fatal
Multiculturalism is a divisive political doctrine that creates enormous costs, foments racial hatred, and may even have been complicit in cultivating the homegrown suicide bombers of July 7, according to a new report from the independent think-tank Civitas. In The Poverty of Multiculturalism Patrick West argues that there is a difference between Soft Multiculturalism - the idea that minorities should not face discrimination and that the customs of different people should be tolerated, and which he describes as a 'benign force' - and Hard Multiculturalism, which insists no culture is better than another, and which believes society should not only tolerate difference but promote it (pp.3-4). This leads some Western intellectuals, who regard themselves as progressive, into the perverse position of defending cultures that condone the killing of homosexuals and the virtual enslavement of women, whilst denigrating the culture of the free societies of the West, inspired by the ideals of the Enlightenment, 'in which universal franchise, free speech and democracy are the norm and the expectation' (p.9). West notes the contradiction that lurks at the heart of the exponents of Hard Multiculturalism: Click Here for Full Press ReleaseEmbargo 00.01am Friday 30 September |
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