Society

And so it came to pass. After sniping at Andrew Lansley’s health reforms from the day they were announced — at one point describing them as a “slash and burn approach” — the British Medical Association has today voted to call on the Health Secretary to withdraw his Bill entirely. The speech that the BMA Council Chairman, Hamish Meldrum delivered this morning captures the tenor of their opposition: “…what we have is an often contradictory set of proposals, driven by ideology rather than evidence, enshrined in ill-thought-through legislation and implemented in a rush during a major economic downturn.” So what to make of it all? Normally, another “union opposes coalition”

What a difference a year makes. When Michael Gove spoke at a Spectator conference on schools reform twelve months ago, his policy ideas were just that: ideas, to be deployed should the Tories reach government. Today, at a follow-up conference, they are being put into practice in the fiery crucible of state — and doing quite well, at that. As tweeted by Andrew Neil, Gove has announced that the number of academies — existing state schools that have seized on the independence being offered to them — now stands at 465. That’s some way up on the 203 academies there were last year. And it’s even a significant rise on

I am writing a book about threats to freedom of speech – real threats that is – and wonder if I should include a chapter on political correctness. I find it a hard question. In many ways, political correctness has improved British manners. That people no longer screech about the niggers and the pakis and the yids, strikes me as all to the good. It is reasonable for a university, say, to suspend a lecturer who keeps making sexist jokes to women. His attitudes directly affect his ability to teach women students. Such speech codes are not a form McCarthyism. The organisers of the anti-communist purge in 1950s American got

If the West is not ready to intervene decisively against Colonel Ghadaffi, it needs to get ready for a post-revolutionary Libya, where the dictator and his bloodthirsty family seek revenge on pro-democracy activists and countries like Britain. Think of Ghadaffi’s previous record: the Lockerbie bombing, targeted assassinations like in the 1970s, and attacks on US soldiers in Germany. Libya could in future represent a threat to Britain akin to al Qaeda. So, the British government needs to think how it will deal with Ghadaffi MK II. Its policy should draw on past examples of containment and isolation. Libya’s neighbours will have to be incentivised to bolster European – and especially Italian

Whenever the BBC broadcast a major national celebration or royal event, they wheel out a Dimbleby to maintain the hereditary principle. If they want a probing political interview, they sacrifice the victim to the snarls of Paxman or the claws of Humphries. If they want election night gravitas, up pops the psephologically effervescent Peter Snow. They are all Auntie’s heavy hitters; sans pareil when it comes to pomp, circumstance, inquisition and exposition. The Corporation has never really nurtured a broadcasting aristocracy for the arts and culture. So perhaps it comes as no surprise that they poached Baron Bragg of Wigton (aka Melvyn) from ITV to present their flagship documentary to