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Patently Absurd
Despite world-class universities and a strong science base, Britain produces fewer patents per person than most major economies. More concerning still, innovation in Britain is declining at the same time as it is accelerating in other global markets.
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Comments on ‘The City of London Draft Local Plan’
The local government Working Party of the Centre for Policy Studies is currently undertaking a review of the planning system, and to that end is examining several plans of which the City of London Draft local Plan is one.
Bringing Accountability back to Local Government
Central government at present funds just under 49% of the costs of local government in England through block grants, specific and supplementary grants and domestic rate relief.
Which Direction? Board Appointments in Nationalised Industries
Inadequate salaries and continued governmental intervention in the running of nationalised industries have actively discouraged able men from accepting senior management responsibility in the nationalised industries. The temptation to blame defective management and disruptive workforces for all the ills of nationalisation frequently disguises the fact that governments are at least equally responsible for the plight of ailing state industries.
Wages Need No Councils
A government that has set its face against incomes policies in any form has left untouched in striking anomaly; the wages councils. These still regulate, though not with excessive zeal. The wages of nearly three million workers: about one worker in every eight.
The New Corruption
This report analyses some of the disturbing trends which have emerged recently in Local Government, which have serious implications for democracy in Britain. Indeed, the combination of these trends may be so sinister as to warrant the description, “The New Corruption”.
Property and Poverty: and agenda for the mid-80s
Let us start with a little vignette. The scene is the Cabinet Room. The date is 18 October 1945. The new Labour government is less than three months old. And the Cabinet is meeting to hear Mr Bevan;s proposals to take the hospitals into public ownership. Nothing so odd about that, you might say. We all knew that Labour nationalised health.
Making it Work: The future of the European Community
The purpose of this Paper is to try to establish what kind of European Community Britain should be working to bring about in the next 20 years or so. It seeks to provide an answer to two broad questions: what realistically can Britain and her Partners hope to achieve in the longer term though membership of the Community; and what changes or developments and needed in the Community for those hopes to be realised?
Essential Services – Whose Rights?
The right of employees to withdraw their labour in an organised fashion was achieved slowly and, it must be admitted, sometimes painfully during the nineteenth century and in the first years of this century. The background was one in which employees individually worked at a great economic disadvantage vis-à-vis the employer, and one in which some employers were willing to exploit their advantage.
Education Race and Revolution
The Commission for Racial Equality, as it likes to tell us in its advertisements, “was set up by the Race Relations Act 1776 whit he duties of working towards the elimination of discrimination and promoting equality of opportunity and good relations between different racial groups generally.” These are indeed admirable objectives, which no person of goodwill could fail to share. Certainly racism is an outrage; if but only if, that is, the word “racism” is, as it should be, constructed as meaning the advantaging or disadvantaging of individuals for no other or better reason than that they happen to be members of this racial group rather than that.
Criminal Waste
In this study we have tried to achieve a blending of research, represented in our group by John Croft CBE, formerly Head of Research at the Home Office; the political knowledge of John Wheeler JP, MP, who was formerly a member of the prisons service, and is mainly responsible for this paper; the practical experience of barristers who also sit in the criminal courts on occasion as recorders; as well as the experience of two magistrates.
British Shipping: The Right Course
This pamphlet takes a fresh look at the problems of the British shipping industry and suggests practical proposals to solve them.
The Inner London Education Authority after the Abolition of the Greater London Council
In January 1981 two of the present authors wrote a report for the CPS, The Inner London Education Authority: A Case for Reform. In it they trace the development of the ILEA since it was set up under the London government act of 1963, looked at its composition and constitution, drew attention to a number… View Article
The case for the round reading room
In this paper I argue that the nation would be best served by amending the present plans for a monumental new British library. My suggestion is that the Library should limit itself to carrying out a modified version of its first stage as announced by the then Secretary of State for Education and Science in March 1979, approved by the then Minister for the Arts in November 1980, and embarked upon in 1982.
Power to the People!
It is neither a new nor a difficult notion. Education vouchers, perhaps better called education allowances, are on old and simple suggestion. Yet it is a suggestion offering quite enormous promise. There is no doubt that today and in our country this idea is an idea whose time has come.
Personal and Portable Pensions – For All
There should be a fundamental review of pension legislation to remove the penalty on changing jobs, to aid mobility and to link individuals more closely with the wealth represented by their pension fund.
BL: Changing Gear
Between 1975, when the Company became state-aided, and in January 1983, BL received £2,051m from the Government. Except for the loans from the NEB which were subsequently converted into equity and the stake in Wholesale Vehicle Finance Ltd. Neither interest nor dividend has been paid on this sum.
