For more than half a millennium, Britain has managed diversity through a process of organic integration, with newcomers and their traditions gradually absorbed into the culture. But in this new age of ‘superdiversity’, with more people of very different backgrounds arriving in greater numbers than ever before, is that enough? Trevor Phillips, the former chair of… [Read More]
Each day seems to bring fresh warnings of the pressures bearing down on the NHS. As resources fail to keep track of demand, the principle of universal healthcare is under threat as never before. Excessive waiting times, the rationing of new drugs, ambulances queuing up outside A&E, staff shortages, the list goes on. What has… [Read More]
Something has been going wrong in the British housing market for some time now. The problems that have accumulated are manifold – home ownership is falling, social housing waiting lists are growing, overcrowding and homelessness are increasing, to name a few – but the bottom line is that housing has become increasingly expensive for everybody.… [Read More]
How should our laws be made and where does final power lie? This question has grown increasingly salient in recent years as the judiciary has pitted itself against Parliament in a series of harmful and absurd rulings. Many of these confrontations have revolved around the Human Rights Act, but far more is at stake. Under… [Read More]
For many, the economic benefits accruing from the UK’s membership of the EU are self-evident and unanswerable: access to the European Single Market is of enormous benefit to British exporters and a major attraction for global investors looking to expand into the region. Or so the argument goes. But where is the evidence for this?… [Read More]
The thorny issue of benefit dependency has bedevilled the welfare state since the 1970s, and has increased in importance with each successive decade. Welfare-to-work strategies since 1997 have begun to make inroads into the problem of long-term out-of-work claimants, which once seemed intractable. But, as Frank Field and Andrew Forsey highlight in this forensic examination of the welfare landscape, challenges… [Read More]
The refugee crisis which has consumed Europe in recent months has thrust immigration to the top of the political debate. Heart-rending images of migrants making perilous journeys from North Africa and the Middle East have added a new level of poignancy to the moral and practical considerations concerning mass movements of people. Calibrating the right… [Read More]
The special adviser – or ‘spad’ – has become firmly established in Westminster folklore over the past two decades, coming to symbolise much that is questionable about modern politics. The likes of Jo Moore, who urged colleagues to use 9/11 to bury bad news, and Damian McBride, who schemed on behalf of Gordon Brown against… [Read More]
Every year, substantial numbers of nurses are recruited from overseas despite nursing courses in the UK being vastly over-subscribed. This has led to a situation where many, well qualified young people in this country are denied the opportunity to become nurses. This yearly limit on nurse education places also puts the NHS in a weak… [Read More]
Should Britain choose to quit the European Union it would take back from Brussels responsibility for negotiating its own trade deals with economies around the world. Some see this as a threat, fearful that the UK alone would never have the leverage to thrash out the kind of arrangements that the EU does. Others see this… [Read More]