The Government says Britain has a serious social mobility problem, but a new Civitas report shows this is wrong. The government’s social mobility strategy is based on a flawed understanding of the evidence. Social Mobility Delusions, by sociologist Peter Saunders, reviews the evidence on social mobility in Britain and finds: Social mobility is the norm… [Read More]
Last week’s statement on family migration and amendments to the Immigration Rules came as part of the Home Office’s dogged effort to drive down non-EU immigration. Although the changes have a far wider scope, much of the media hype has centred on those relating to ‘foreign criminals’, and in particular their ‘abuse’ of Article 8… [Read More]
While police forces and the prison system grapple with the swingeing cuts inflicted by the Coalition Government, a new Civitas report reveals that policing strategies that target individual offenders could help protect the public. Offender-Desistance Policing and the Sword of Damocles, by two Cambridge University criminologists, Lawrence W. Sherman and Peter W. Neyroud, argues that… [Read More]
In light of the Coalition’s renewed efforts to increase work in prison, the theme of yesterday’s CECJS conference (Centre for Education in the Criminal Justice System), ‘Evidence Informing Practice’, seemed particularly opportune. Practitioners, academic experts and policymakers as well as, perhaps most importantly, former prisoner learners, all concurred that offender learning in practice must be… [Read More]
By Anna Sonny Negative press surrounding the Ukrainian government has been gathering pace over the last few weeks as political tensions in the domestic sphere cast a shadow over their relations with the rest of Europe. The Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych, is under fire from the EU because of his government’s poor human rights record… [Read More]
It is a pity that the 2020 Tax Commission, the Taxpayers’ Alliance and the Institute of Directors did not put their heads together before the Commission came out with its flat-rate tax proposal. It is a pity because, with just one more number, you can get rid of the ‘cliff edge’ at £10k and obtain smoother ‘progressivity’.
Today, Andrew Bailey, a director of the Bank of England and soon-to-be chief regulator of the financial services industry described free banking as a ‘dangerous myth’.
Yesterday saw the launch of Reform Section 5, a new civil liberties campaign that aims to reform the Public Order Act so that it no longer has a chilling effect on free speech and debate in the UK. What was particularly laudable was its broad base of support, featuring both the Christian Institute and the… [Read More]
By Anna Sonny On May 6, the French elected Francois Hollande as their new President, only the second Socialist leader to succeed at the polls under France’s Fifth Republic. Promises of growth instead of austerity, combined with the ever-increasing unpopularity of Nicolas Sarkozy, gained Hollande 52.7% of the French vote.
By David Conway Only actions, not words, can break bones. People can, however, be just as badly damaged by hateful things said about them. So why should not the criminal law be made to protect people as much from malicious words as from physical assault? I raise this question in light of a common reaction… [Read More]