The new, all singing and all dancing, EU visa is on its way! (Available exclusively for the artistically oriented.) Yes. It is official – artists are the latest minority in need of greater EU protection. Apparently, they battle wanton and excessive bureaucracy as they strive to make their gigs / exhibitions on time, writes Claire… [Read More]
In this week’s Times Education Supplement (TES), Anthony Seldon, master of Wellington College and biographer of Tony Blair, has a comment piece entitled ‘Low-cost lessons from the independent sector’.
The Department of Health took a blasting a few weeks back from the Statistics Commission for lack of clarity, accuracy, objectivity, professionalism, use of simple language and ease of use in its publication of data. And with good reason; much seems about as clear and accessible as mud. But here’s an attempt to add a… [Read More]
Celebrate, for a new national agency has been born! “Ofqual will act as the independent guardian of standards across the qualifications, tests and exam system in England.” The mother is the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, which henceforth will be known as the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency (QCDA). The raft of independent and international evidence… [Read More]
Sir Andrew Green of Migrationwatch has been arguing the point for ages. But it took a cross-party House of Lords Committee to join the chorus before what he has been banging on about all this time finally to make it to the front pages of the national press. What the Lords Committee has joined Sir… [Read More]
The EU’s leg of the Olympic relay race has begun and a couple of mistimed exchanges when passing the baton (buck) of foreign policy has already left it without a hope of winning gold, writes Claire Daley. As the Olympic torch shuffles its way across the continents, a parallel relay race is taking place within… [Read More]
The Guardian features two blogs on health inequalities that are, to be frank, almost completely non-descript. They do a good job at listing the damning evidence – that life expectancy for those in poverty has been falling further behind the national average over the past decade, that infant mortality 19 per cent higher for “routine… [Read More]
The EU: is there anything it cannot regulate? As Cato alerts us, apparently not. This week a wine business faces costs of £30,000 to comply with one of latest petty regulations while a bus route has to be artificially cut in three in order to comply with another, pointlessly wasting passenger time.
At present, approximately a third of all schools in England and Wales are denominational, a status that permits them, when oversubscribed, to select pupils whose parents avow the same faith as these schools. continued on the Centre for Social Cohesion blog.
With due credit to ‘Mr Eugenides’ whose frequent use of colourful metaphors renders him unsuitable to be linked to here, we can see the level of conviction with which the government is leading on criminal justice. May 2000 – Straw plans `short, sharp jail shock’ for young March 2008 – Too many short sentences –… [Read More]