|
|
FMNews
Email List Archive
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- IN THIS BULLETIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- NEW EVENTS: Sixth-form seminar; and MPs flock to ASI (for some reason) MEDICINE AND LAW: Patients paying for out-of-date legal system FORWARD DIARY: Key events for the first half of 2003 CULCHUR: Experience our thrilling new culchur and meeja pages SAD STATS: More odd facts and figures from the www.ePolitix.com news pages and... WORST BOOKS OF ALL TIME: Send in your nominations! BUT FIRST... Professor David Myddelton of Cranfield was telling me today about the publication of the Wilson government's great "National Plan" in 1965, in which they pinpointed exactly what Britain should be producing over a series of five-year periods. Unfortunately they couldn't pinpoint the demand for copies of the "National Plan", which ran out on the first day. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- NEW EVENTS ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- STUDENT CONFERENCE: Big day today (December 12), as we open our Winter 2002 International Seminar on the Open Society, a politics and economics conference for sixth-formers, featuring several household-name experts on politics and economics. For information, contact ISOS@adamsmith.org or visit http://www.tng.org.uk/isos.htm to see what it's all about. FLOCKERS: MPs are flocking to do Adam Smith Institute events in 2003. Our first big meeting of the New Year is the lecture by Shadow Education Secretary Damian Green MP on 28 January 2003. But others include: - Schools Minister Stephen Twigg will give the Adam Smith Lecture on 13 May; - Environment Select Committee Chairman David Curry MP leads a Power Lunch on 18 February; - discussion with DTI special adviser Vicky Pryce on 11 February; - Public Administration Select Committee Chairman Dr Tony Wright MP speaks on 4 March; and - Environment Minister Michael Meacher Power Lunches on 28 January. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- PATIENTS PAY FOR POINTLESS PROCEEDINGS ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Although legal aid has been dropped for many kinds of court cases, taxpayers are still funding pressure groups to take on expensive but no-hope legal action against doctors and drug companies. That's the message of a new ASI paper by medical law expert Anthony Barton, which you can read by clicking the link http://www.adamsmith.org/cissues/patientspay.htm on the Adam Smith Institute website. This strange system means that tens of millions of pounds is going to lawyers, rather than into NHS services. Time to scrap it? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- COMING UP: Full list on http://www.adamsmith.org/policy/news/forward.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here's a list of some other diary highlights in case you've missed any. As usual, contact events@adamsmith.org to ask about details and invitations. 14 January Spectator Editor Boris Johnson MP (Next Generation Meeting) 22 January Rail Regulator Tom Winsor (Power Lunch) 28 January Shadow Education Secretary Damian Green MP (Adam Smith Lecture) 29 January Environment Minister Michael Meacher (Power Lunch) 4 February Palace press spokesman Simon Walker (Next Generation Meeting) 18 February Environment Committee Chairman David Curry MP (Power Lunch) 5 February David Davis MP (Power Lunch) 11 February Senior DTI adviser Vicky Pryce (Power Lunch) 4 March Public Administration Committee head Tony Wright MP (Lunch) 4 March Cheryl Gillan MP (Next Generation Meeting) 11 March Public Standards Commissioner Sir Nigel Wicks (Power Lunch) 12-13 March Future of Utilities conference 1 April Eleanor Laing MP (Next Generation Meeting) 6 May David Liddington MP (Next Generation meeting) 13 May Schools Minister Stephen Twigg MP (Adam Smih Lecture) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CULCHUR: Our new media and culture issues page ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- With the Media Bill now before Parliament, the luvvies will be dominating the news agenda for the next ten months, so to counteract this we've built a new web page - http://www.adamsmith.org/cissues/media-culture-sport/home.htm - with our own blasts of commonsense on arts, media, and culture issues. Should the BBC be abolished? Libraries privatized? Regulators pensioned off? The Arts Council scrapped? Find out by clicking the link. "A must read! (But quietly.)" -- The Librarian "Conceptualist bullshit" -- culture minister Kim Howells MP "Priapic adolescent narcissism" -- art critic Brian Sewell "Completely dumbed-down. Perfect!" -- BBC D-G Greg Dyke ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- WEIRD WORLD: Statistical snippets from the www.ePolitix.com press review ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- As you know, I subscribe to the www.ePolitix.com news service where I collect all sorts of useful and alarming information about what's going on in the Westminster village. Here's a few from the last week or so: - Ofsted has warned that schools are failing to teach literacy properly. One in four children was leaving school with poor literacy, they found. - The number of young people with depression has doubled in the last 12 years, according to a report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. - The average time between an offence being committed and the sentencing of a defendant has increased by a week to 143 days, a day longer than in 1997. - The cost of building the facility for refitting Royal Navy submarines overran by GBP 200 million, according to a National Audit Office report. - The majority of final year university students believe that borrowing money for their higher education is a good investment, according to a study commissioned by Universities UK. - British troops have been training for war with Iraq by wearing trainers because of a shortage of combat boots, says Wiltshire MP James Gray. - Scotland's hunts, which must now shoot foxes instead of leaving them to the hounds, have killed 50% more foxes than in the same period last year. - The government runs the UK's costliest call centres. Its employers' advice line cost GBP 27.50 a minute, against an industry average of 40-60 pence. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- WORLD'S WORST BOOKS: And your nominations are...? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Another prof today was telling me that some tome by Ricardo was "the worst economics book ever written". Well, economists have produced a fabulous amount of garbage over the years, but it still seemed a big claim. So here's my challenge to you. What would you nominate as the worst economics book of all time. We'll interpret 'economics' widely to include novels (like Dickens) with a politics-economics message. Author, title and one line of justification to me, please. e -- Dr Eamonn Butler Adam Smith Institute, 23 Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3BL, UK E-mail butler@adamsmith.org - Visit us online at www.adamsmith.org Tel +44 (0)20 7222 4995 - Fax +44 (0)20 7222 7544 To unsubscribe, visit www.adamsmith.org/lists.htm
In December 2004 this page was modified significantly from its original form for archiving purposes.
Free-Market.Net, founded in 1995, is now a part of ISIL.
 |