Boxing Clever is Tom Ogg’s account of teaching teenagers who had been expelled from school at the London Boxing Academy Community Project (LBACP) in Tottenham, North London. The aim of the project was to make use of the strong relationships that boxing coaches have with wayward young men. “The prose is strong, the story compelling… [Read More]
Electronics products are pervasive but we tend to take their presence for granted. Those which do attract public interest are consumer electronics whose production is often dominated by companies in the Far East. This perhaps explains why Britain’s electronics industry has been undervalued, with the Government failing to recognise its significance in the UK’s struggle… [Read More]
Institutional racism is an unfair allegation to level at British police forces and its universal acceptance by public officials has led to harmful policymaking, according to a new Civitas report. In Mind Forg’d Manacles, Jon Gower Davies outlines the history and influence of ‘institutional racism’ since the Macpherson inquiry, following the murder of Stephen Lawrence.… [Read More]
Over the last decade, the offshoring of UK industry has been well publicised. Now we are beginning to see a new trend: onshoring – the return of British manufacturers from overseas. In The Boomerang Economy, David Merlin-Jones examines the reasons why this is happening and how the UK government can encourage it.
The Vickers Commission was meant to put a stop to this by safeguarding ordinary retail banks from the gambling of investment banks. Laurence J. Kotlikoff shows that the Vickers proposals fail to do this. Even banks deemed ‘good’ can turn bad, since no one can predict which ‘safe’ assets will actually be safe in the… [Read More]
As the criminal justice system faces unprecedented cuts in the wake of the financial crisis, many members of the public fear for their safety. Criminals will face fewer police on the streets and a prison system that will struggle to contain convicts. But is an increase in crime inevitable? In this report, world-renowned criminologist Lawrence… [Read More]
Imagine an industry dominated by businesses that offer poor service, enjoy a terrible public image and lose billions of pounds. They don’t go bust, but increase their market share under a supportive regulatory system. A ludicrous scenario, of course – but it describes much of Britain’s banking industry today. Street Cred examines the failings of… [Read More]
In this report, David Merlin-Jones argues that the only way to revive lending permanently is to go beyond restructuring commercial banks. Britain needs a new state-backed investment bank, described here as the ‘Enterprise Bank’ (EB). This would be able to raise cheap credit in the financial markets by using the UK’s AAA credit rating and… [Read More]
Merlin-Jones argues that the EU’s Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) will have no effect on many companies’ emissions until 2016-18, over a decade after it came into force. It is so ineffective and expensive that attempts to patch it up are doomed to failure. A new approach to carbon reduction is required. He proposes a… [Read More]
To be against equality is to support unfair treatment, and who wants to be unfair? We now have a considerable body of legislation, regulation, monitoring and investigation to ensure that our society respects equality. But what sort of equality do we mean? Peter Saunders identifies three types. Formal equality – equality before the law and… [Read More]