For the first time, annual school league tables have measured the number of pupils achieving five GCSEs at grades A*-C in ‘traditional’ subjects comprising the new English Baccalaureate qualification. The result has been that recent increases in academic achievement have been exposed as a sham, as it is revealed that only 15.6% of pupils have […]

Frank Field, the MP chosen to be the government’s so-called ‘poverty czar’, has recommended, in his much-anticipated report on poverty and life chances, that schools should offer parenting GCSEs in an attempt to curb widespread family breakdown in the UK. Readers may feel that this is a faintly ridiculous suggestion, or perhaps a step too […]

A court has deferred judgment in a landmark case involving hoteliers who refused to allow a homosexual couple to rent a double room at their Bed and Breakfast in Marazion, near Penzance in Cornwall. Many may be tempted to dismiss this as another failure of the Cornish to ‘move with the times’, yet this case […]

From a guest blogger. Based on a talk given at the final session of the Thomas More Institute’s reading group entitled ‘University: Training for the “Rat Race” or Forming Virtuous People?’. The value of higher education is often assessed in strictly utilitarian terms. Will having an education to university degree level increase my lifelong earnings? […]

SERIES ON HUMAN FREEDOM: PART TWO The second blog in our series on human freedom examines the claim that we cannot be free, because our higher faculties of knowing and willing are determined by our brain states. Many scientists today operate not only with a healthy methodological naturalism, but with an overtly philosophical naturalism.  That […]

From a guest blogger: Consider the following thought-experiment. A particularly sadistic person subjects another human being to horrible torture so severe that the victim’s sufferings are certain to result eventually in death. The victim then begs their tormentor to diminish his or her suffering by hastening the inevitable end. If euthanasia is to be considered […]

From a guest blogger: One of the most surprising decisions of the new Coalition government has been its choice to opt-in to the new European Investigation Order (EIO) proposed by the European Union (EU). This directive would replace the current system of mutual legal assistance (MLA) with a system whereby one member state can require […]

From a guest blogger: The Nobel laureate Aung Sann Suu Kyi, ‘The Lady’ as she is known in Burma, was released at 5.00pm on 13 November 2010. The numerological significance of the moment cannot be missed by anyone who knows the vital significance of such matters in a country whose rulers are obsessed with them: […]