CONOR RYAN | With 200 academies open today, this independent state schools programme – launched in 2000 by Tony Blair and David Blunkett – has certainly come of age
ALAN DOWNEY | The proposals in the leaked McKinsey report on the NHS, suggesting that one in ten health service workers should lose their jobs, are not the answer. Change must come from within the...
The problem with Paul Cook’s sustained metaphor for the proposed housing finance reform as flogging a dead horse is that just as he expects his horse to be sleek and glamorous, he’s clearly expecting...
JUDY HIRST | It seemed a good idea at the time. Tony Blair’s ten-year target of getting 50% of young people into higher education – attacked by some as utopian – fitted the meritocratic mood nearly...
KATE STANLEY | As politicians come back from their summer breaks and the last party conference season before the general election approaches, attention is sure to return to the issue of public...
IAIN MACWHIRTER | Rarely has compassion come at such a cost. The Scottish Government’s decision to release the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, from prison on humanitarian...
The annual publication of A-level results brings with it the agonising over declining standards. Without a good evidence base, it’s hard to ascertain whether there is any truth to the perception that...
PHILIP JOHNSTON| Since Aneurin Bevan established the NHS in 1948, questioning its future has been taboo. But the debate has opened up a can of worms here over US health care
Controversy over UK and US health services rages on, with David Cameron labelling a Conservative critic of the NHS as an ‘eccentric’ whose views are not representative of the party
Ian Owen’s Comment piece argued that the state ‘cannot afford to fund the increasing demand for long-term care’ and ‘individuals will have to make greater provision for themselves
In ‘Down your way’, David Wilson and Martin Yates offered advice to councils on coping with the impending pressures on resources (August 7–20). Am I the only one to see the obvious flaw in the table...
THE KING'S FUND | On this side of the Atlantic we seem to be shocked that our esteemed NHS has been used so readily as a political football in the debate about health care reform in the United States...
CONOR RYAN | Whatever happens at the next election, schools will be subject to performance tables. Labour is proposing to grade schools according not only to their exam results, but also to their...
INSTITUTE FOR FISCAL STUDIES | Today's unemployment statistics showed an increase of 220,000 in the three months to June 2009, using the widely watched International Labour Organisation (ILO) measure...
TONY TRAVERS | George Osborne has clearly aggravated Lord Mandelson. The Shadow Chancellor's Demos speech yesterday attempted to portray the Conservatives as true progressives, citing Disraeli,...
JODY GOLDSWORTHY| ‘The best way to keep one’s word is not to give it.’ This adage might have worked for Napoleon, but it won’t cut the mustard for current day public sector leaders
DAVID LIPSEY| Once upon a time, the idea of Lord Mandelson rescuing the maiden Britannia made for a grim tale. But, despite his new leading role, there will still be no happy ending
JUDY HIRST| Old financial models never die. They just get restructured and rebranded. That seems to be the lesson from the remarkable resuscitation of the Private Finance Initiative, reported in this...
