Last week education secretary Ed Balls called on schools to take more responsibility for low achievement amongst pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. Part of the reason for a relationship between low performance and socio-economic disadvantage, he argued, is low expectations on the part of teachers. Although this approach garnered media interest as a new strategy for… [Read More]
So, the NHS Constitution has been released after almost a year of negotiations, at a reported cost of around £1 million of taxpayers’ money. Was it worth it? Will it really make a difference to patient care?
‘Making sure children are safe, well and receive a good education is our most serious responsibility… However, there are concerns that some children are not receiving the education they need. And in some extreme cases, home education could be used as a cover for abuse. We cannot allow this to happen and are committed to… [Read More]
From the Czech presidency’s ominous start with the gas crisis in the previous Europe blog, they faced a diplomatic predicament of an altogether more jocular sort last week as the ‘Entropa: Borders without Barriers’ was unveiled in front of the European Council building in Brussels on the 12th January…writes Lara Natale
This week social mobility has been high on the government’s agenda – and something of a low, in terms of reception. First there was Alan Milburn’s new position as ‘remover of barriers’ for the disadvantaged, then there was Harriet Harman’s bid to foster equality through legislation. On the latter, in particular, the response has been… [Read More]
Trawling over the health press I’d missed in a week’s holiday yesterday, this headline has got to be the winner: ‘Deaths from hospital blunders soar 60% in two years as NHS staff ‘abandon quality of care to chase targets’ says the Daily Mail. Really?
These days, it seems, you can’t open a newspaper without reading about social mobility and what the Government is doing to increase it. Yesterday, we read of Alan Milburn’s appointment to lead an enquiry into how more children from poor backgrounds might be got into the professions. Reports of his appointment precede publication today of… [Read More]
2008 went out with a proverbial bang as the Russo-Ukrainian dispute threatened to, and eventually did, plunge Europe into an energy crisis, writes Lara Natale. As the bells chimed midnight ringing in the New Year, the price Kiev should pay for gas in 2009 still hadn’t been agreed, thus gas supplies have been disrupted. An… [Read More]
Last week, I wrote about the seemingly perverse decision by an appeal court not to cancel the two million pounds debts a compulsive gambler had run up with his bookmakers over a six month period after it failed to keep its agreement with him not to accept bets from him placed over the telephone. Hot… [Read More]