On Thursday 22nd November 2007 Civitas hosted a seminar with Global Vision and Chris Heaton-Harris MEP, on the impact the EU is having on education. A summary of the key points from the presentations and subsequent discussion are detailed below.
In an important new report for Civitas, 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. Described in a foreword by Mr Bernard Ribeiro, CBE, President… [Read More]
The number of privately educated pupils being accepted into the UK’s top 20 universities is gaining over state educated pupils, despite government policy to encourage universities to widen their intake. The BBC’s somewhat aggressive headline ‘Private pupils grab top courses’ makes it sound almost like their achievement is more down to their superior grappling technique,… [Read More]
In a follow-up piece in today’s Guardian Unlimited to his important debate on Islam last week with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ed Husain laments the woeful ignorance about that religion whch he claims is displayed by her and other ex-Muslims and non-Muslims who condemn it in toto on the strength of what he argues are only… [Read More]
Last week, this blog wrote strongly in favour of David Nicholson’s hints that it might not be too long before choice might eventually be expanded to allow patients to choose their commissioner or PCT – and not least because it could end the postcode lottery in the NHS. If ever there is a case to… [Read More]
Despite Alan Johnson’s protestations in the FT that the newspaper is ‘wrong to suggest the government is reversing the NHS reforms’, few are that inclined to believe him. As Blair’s former health advisor, Julian Le Grand, has said: the government no longer seems to believe in, or at least wants to pay for, the idea… [Read More]
The Conservatives have barely stuck their head above the parapet with their new education green paper but the backlash from the self-appointed champions of the disadvantaged has already begun. Fiona Millar attacks their policies as re-heated Thatcherism. Admittedly, the Tories have left themselves open to this sort of criticism. Their policies are a bit of… [Read More]
…our fishing industry slips into crisis. The European Union’s Fisheries Commission places strict quotas on fishing in the North Sea, areas that were previously sovereign British territory. The purpose of this policy is to encourage fish stocks to recover from over fishing that previously took place because of the free for all policy that allowed… [Read More]
A priority of the Dutch health care system, just like in the NHS, is to guarantee access to health care services in accordance with principles of solidarity and equality. As a result, health care coverage, just like in the NHS, is universal. But, unlike the NHS, universal coverage is being achieved not through a predominantly… [Read More]
Apparently David Miliband was felt today by the ‘hand of history’, when delivering a speech to the College of Europe in Bruges. You would have thought that hand belonged to Baroness Thatcher given her famous speech of September 1988 at that location, when she laid out the fundamentals of British euroscepticism. Instead it seems it… [Read More]