Archive for March, 2008
An Inauspicious Start for the Year of Intercultural Dialogue
Posted by David Conway in Multiculturalism on 18/03/2008
2008 is European Year of Intercultural Dialogue. I bet you didn’t know that.
According to its own dedicated website, the purpose of the year is ‘to encourage all those living in Europe to explore the benefits of our rich cultural heritage and to learn from different cultural traditions’.
A flavour of the sort of thing being aimed at can be gathered from the list of those whom the European Commission describes on its own website as “personalities from the cultural scene from across Europe and beyond who have offered their services as ‘European Ambassadors for Intercultural Dialogue’”.
continued on the Centre for Social Cohesion blog.
Still the sick man of Europe
Posted by James Gubb in Health on 13/03/2008
A new report, published in the latest edition of the Civitas Review, argues 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.
The problems are systemic. 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 needs to be considering more radical options than those under review by Lord Darzi: it should be looking to Europe, and particularly the Netherlands, for better ways of providing universal and comprehensive health care. To read the report click here.
George Monbiot almost says something sensible
Posted by Nick Cowen in Health on 12/03/2008
But not quite. His latest article on Comment is Free is headlined ‘Making GPs more accessible is just a disguised concession to big business’. Although his ideology is almost unparalleled in its economic illiteracy, it looks on the face as if he might have happened upon something important. He starts off well, pointing out that the government’s move to force GPs to open out-of-hours, lacks the significant public backing that is claimed, with evidence cooked up by a cabinet office report and a CBI poll.
White Man’s Burden — The Calumnies of Britain’s Culture Minister
Posted by David Conway in Social Cohesion on 11/03/2008
More than enough, perhaps, has already been said about the speech given last week by the Minister for Culture Margaret Hodge in which she criticised the Proms and other unnamed iconic cultural events — the Henley Regatta?, Glyndebourne? — for not being sufficiently inclusive.
So well does the Culture Minister’s speech epitomise a central flaw in so much current governmental thinking about community cohesion as to warrant a brief re-visitation.
continued on the Centre for Social Cohesion blog.
You can’t change your fingerprint like a 4-digit PIN
Posted by Nick Cowen in Civil Liberty on 06/03/2008
ID cards are being re-branded. The objective remains exactly the same, to create a national database with an associated biometric ID card. The difference is the softly, softly approach to introducing them to keep the scheme associated with the public’s security fears. It will cover first non-EU migrants, then ‘sensitive personnel’ such as baggage handlers, followed by those who work with children. Very similar to the plan as set out in a leaked internal document from earlier this year.
While the new structure to the scheme will certainly be easier to spin, the more essential problem remains how government can be trusted with more of our personal data. Just yesterday, a National Audit Office report found that the criminal justice system handles data so poorly that two-thirds of parole cases are deferred because necessary information is frequently unavailable. Perhaps Jacqui Smith should be trying to sort out this wasteful mess before spinning for creating a brand new one? The government line tends to be ‘this will be different, this uses biometric information which will keep identities secure’. However, as the Guardian journalist Ben Goldacre explained last year, remarkably cheap methods for fooling fingerprint scans have already been discovered. And once your biometric data has been stolen, it is rather difficult to get a new set like one can with bank security numbers!
Faith Schools, Equity, and Community Cohesion
Posted by David Conway in Religion on 04/03/2008
Parents with children in their final year at primary school will today learn how successful they have been in securing for their children a place this coming September at a secondary school of their choice.
Those who have been through this process will know what a trying time it is.
continued on the Centre for Social Cohesion blog.