Last week I examined the claims of Vince Cable, David Lidington and Ed Davey as they heralded the EU’s economic benefits. Their ‘headline’ figures were that 3.5 million British jobs depended on EU membership, and that participation in the Single Market was worth £3,300 every year to every household. They were wrong, their statistics arising… [Read More]
Last week saw the one year anniversary of the takeover of Hinchingbrooke Health Care Trust in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, by the Circle Health Partnership, which represented the first takeover of an NHS hospital by a private provider. It’s a unique and controversial experiment to rescue a hospital that was in dire straits, but it hasn’t been… [Read More]
Various Civitas publications have argued that a devaluation of sterling is required to boost manufacturing exports. See, for example, this piece by John Mills Is the pound over-valued? or number five of David Green’s ten-point plan for a modern industrial policy. The rationale is simple: increasing exports will reduce Britain’s large trade deficit, help rebalance… [Read More]
There may have been valid reasons for jurors to put apparently absurd questions to the judge in a trial involcving public figures.
Yesterday the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AOMRC) published Measuring Up: The Medical Profession’s Prescription for the Nation’s Obesity Crisis, its contribution to the on-going debate about obesity as a public health problem. The report noted that a quarter of the current adult population is obese and that current figures foretell serious problems with the… [Read More]
For the past three weeks, Vince Cable (Business Secretary, Liberal Democrats) has been telling anyone who will listen that Cameron’s referendum pledge is a threat to the British economy. More specifically, he claims: “[A]Just under half of UK’s exports of goods and services are sold into the Single Market; [B]3.5 million British workers have jobs… [Read More]
After 24 gruelling hours of negotiating last Friday, EU leaders finally agreed on a budget for 2014-2020. The collapse of talks last November raised concerns about whether an agreement could be reached, with some nation states favouring an increase in spending and others, like the UK, demanding that the austerity measures imposed by national governments… [Read More]
Emulating a 1992 amendment to the U.S. constitution could improve public acceptance of MPs salaries.
The idea of expanding the health service’s reach globally in the hope of raising the profile of the UK health sector and generating additional income to fund NHS services at home has been around for a few years now – the ‘NHS Global’ branch of the Department of Health was launched in March 2010 in… [Read More]
That sounds like rather bad advice. After all, cigarettes kill. Moreover, as Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg has a duty to act as a role model to the country, or at least not to act the total hypocrite as his government upholds the indoor smoking ban and pushes forward an attack on packaging. In Sunday’s… [Read More]