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---------------------------- ADAM SMITH OR BUST! -------------------------- We've given our online shop a new look, and among other things, the Adam Smith Institute is proud to offer a limited edition of its superb cast busts of the great economist Adam Smith. Standing about nine inches (23cm) high, the exclusive bronze-finish bust is available worldwide. View and order at http://www.adamsmith.org/shop/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- IN THIS BULLETIN... --------------------------------------------------------------------------- WEB WEEK: We're great, and top blogs (with our alternative Queen's Speech) THE RIGHT READ: Tell us your book of the year VICE CITY: More shudder-inducing Westminster mischief POWER AND ENERGY: Lomborg, schools, e-learning, energy, and power lunches BUT FIRST... Flipping through to the Polly Toynbee column over my cornflakes (she works me up into a frenzy that leaves me ready to face the day), I came across this observation in the letters column: 'The web address of the Department of Health is doh.gov.uk -- has anyone told Homer?' ----------------------------------- ------------------------------------- WHO'S HOT? WHO'S NOT? ----------------------------------- ------------------------------------- INSTITUTE FOR HUMANE STUDIES: POLLY TOYNBEE: Promoting free-market intellects Promoting anti-market idiocies http://www.theihs.org / http://www.guardian.co.uk/columnists --------------------------------------------------------------------------- WEB WEEK: See http://www.adamsmithblog.org and http://www.adamsmith.org --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Superlatives ************ It turns out that 120,000 of our online publications were downloaded last year. That means that all those people took the trouble to look up our online catalogue of reports and click to see what it is all about -- or to print it off. Top subjects: inheritance tax (with our report Free Wills), our Delivering Better Education project reports, and our materials on the Nobel economist F A Hayek. Just last week our site www.adammsmith.org logged 4417 individual visitors. That's pushing 20,000 per month, which I rather doubt that any other UK think-tank can match. Particularly since it doesn't even include our other websites, like the Next Generation's (www.tng.org) and Around the World in 80 Idea (www.80ideas.net). So yar, boo, sucks. And in the past 3 months, we've had nearly 1000 video files downloaded off our (almost) all-singing and all-dancing site. While we're on superlatives, did you know that the phrase 'Stealth Taxes' was invented at ASI? It came from our researcher (and ex-TNG member) Stuart Barrow, who soon after went on to become special adviser to the then Shadow Chancellor, Michael Howard MP. Bravo, Stuart! The week in weblog ****************** Provoking discussion on our blog right now: Madsen Pirie drafts a better Queen's speech -- get the state out of education, scrap capital taxes, withdraw from the CAP, deregulate... http://www.adamsmithblog.org/archives/000120.php Current Archaeology editor Andrew Selkirk on how the planners messed up a potentially thrilling reconstruction of a Roman villa http://www.adamsmithblog.org/archives/000114.php Alex Singleton offers his own 'book of the year' choices for the Adam Smith Right Read competition (see below!) http://www.adamsmithblog.org/archives/000122.php --------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE RIGHT READ... Send your nomination by 9 December --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Beeb (privatization's too good for them: I don't know why we're pussyfooting around debating a Charter renewal) is currently running a book event called 'The Big Read'. Well, ASI has always striven for quality rather than quantity, so we're sponsoring 'The Right Read'. Send us your favourite new book, published this year, and a couple of lines (no more, no more) explaining what it's about and why it's so great. We will enter it in our 'The Right Read' competition and from your entries, our highly gifted panel of judges will choose the ASI's Book of the Year for 2003. Email your entry to RightRead@adamsmith.org by 9 December. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- VICE CITY: More Westminster scandals from http://www.ePolitix.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Computer cock-ups ***************** The public sector is so appalling at procuring IT that I'm beginning to think the horror-stories deserve a section of their own. This week, it has emerged that the 450-million-quid computer system at the Child Support Agency came online 18 months late. Only a third of parents' claims have been processed, and just 4% have been paid any cash. Big spenders ************ The DfES bill for nibbles and wine has risen by 30 per cent to 600k since Charles Clarke replaced Estelle Morris. Shows too, doesn't it? The Home Office is spending yet another 442 million quid to target (yes, another one) those who turn to crime to feed their drug habits. Local government leaders say they need 800 million off the government if council tax is not to go up by 100 quid. Well, they would, wouldn't they? The DfES is spending 100 million to modernize school texts following the A-level fiasco. Why not just save the cash and go back to where you were? The Public Accounts Committee has accused the Ministry of Defence wasting 24 million pounds on helicopters that it has no pilots to fly. Beleaguered Britain ******************* Britain is blighted by high crime, poverty and poor productivity, says a Cabinet Office audit. Well, quite: but what are you going to do about it? Forget asylum seekers: more people are now leaving the country than coming here to stay. The way things are going, you can't really blame them. The CBI says that 36,000 manufacturing jobs could go during the Winter. >From our Tough on Crime department: Burglary is up three-fold since 1983. The Scots aren't going along with David Blunkett's ID cards, and the Irish are a bit peeved too: their citizens can presently travel freely to the UK. Greed and failure ***************** Pensions minister Malcolm Wicks (he came to a Power Lunch last week and rushed off to TWO Commons divisions in the process!) has blamed the savings industry for Britain's retirement crisis. Yeah...and the fact that Gordo's taking 7 billion a year in tax off them doesn't count for anything...? Still, it's not enough Tax revenues for the first 7 months of the year were up just 5.4 per cent on last year - against a prediction of 7.3 per cent. Local government chiefs have admitted that half of them will fail the government's target of getting all services online by 2005. Inequalities in Britain's schools have continued to grow under Labour, the education watchdog Ofsted has said. The European Union has lost more than half a billion pounds due to fraud over the past year, according to official figures obtained by the Times. Downing Street will organise an official reception to welcome England's World Cup-winning rugby team. I knew they'd get in on the act somehow. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- EVENTS: Full list on http://www.adamsmith.org/policy/news/forward.htm --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Skeptical environmentalist at ASI ********************************* LECTURE: In his book 'The Skeptical Environmentalist', Bjorn Lomborg takes on widely held beliefs that the global environment is progressively getting worse. Using unimpeachable statistical information, Lomborg systematically examines a range of major environmental issues and documents that the world environment has actually improved. And he's coming to London to say just athat at an important Adam Smith Lecture on environmental policy, on 26 February. Contact Steve at lomborglecture@adamsmith.org for information and invitations. Stars out for sixth-form conference *********************************** ISOS CONFERENCE: Our twice-yearly sixth-form seminar strikes Westminster again. On 2 December, top-flight speakers and hundreds of kids gather in the heart of the policymaking village. Led by ASI's Dr Madsen Pirie, our star performers include: *BARONESS WARNOCK (ethics supremo) on cloning *CHRIS WOODHEAD (scourge of bad teachers) on state failure *SIR SAMUEL BRITTAN (scourge of bad economics) on immigration *ANDREW HALDENBY (public-service reformer par excellence) *CLAIRE FOX (ex-Marxist idea-generating machine) on yoof and government Admission is free to school students and teachers, and the day includes lunch (of a sort...but you don't come for the food, do you?). Contact isos@adamsmith.org for details/invites and find more information here. Virtual breakfast lesson ************************ E-LEARNING BREAKFAST: Professor Diana Laurillard, head of the e-learning Strategy Unit, leads the discussion at another of our famed Westminster Breakfasts this Friday (28 November). Talk will focus on what incentives we need in order to grow a better and bigger e-learning market, and we're looking at methods, new areas, standards, and the business case. Contact Chris on ASI@chrislambert.org for information and invitations. And meanwhile, take a look at our education issues page http://www.adamsmith.org/cissues/education/home.htm And our report on ICT in education, 'Wired to Learn' http://www.adamsmith.org/policy/publications/education-pub.htm High-level energy debates ************************* POWER BREAKFAST: On 2 December our controversial (but correct!) energy policy report 'Power to the People' runs the gauntlet of sixty or so energy experts at an ASI Westminster Briefing Breakfast. The report shreds what passes for UK energy 'policy' and finds that the government's unwillingness to talk seriously about future nuclear-power capacity -- and to talk not at all about new nuclear build -- threatens the security of our supplies and can only lead to severe damage for the economy. Contact Chris Lambert on ASI@chrislambert.org for information and invitations, and read the report for yourself on: http://www.adamsmith.org/cissues/industry-and-employment/home.htm SECURITY SUMMIT: Security of supply (or not) is the guiding theme of our international energy symposium in London next March. Coming to debate it will be top energy-sector decision-makers from the EU and US. Some of the top-name participants include: * DR ANDREI KANOPLYANIK, Deputy Secretary-General of Encharter in Brussels (on the security risks of future Russian gas exports to Europe) * JOHN RITCH, Head of the World Nuclear Association (on the inevitable choice of nuclear power for Europe) and * JIMMY GLOTFELDY, Presidential Advisor & Director of the US Office of Electricity Transport and Distribution. Contact Chris Lambert on ASI@chrislambert.org for information and invitations. Power Lunch guests ****************** 10 December: STEPHEN CARTER, Director of the new media watchdog Ofcom, braves ASI critics of regulation. To see what I mean, visit our media page http://www.adamsmith.org/cissues/media-culture-sport/home.htm 1 December: MIKE SUMMERS, Falkland Islands MP. He's reckoned to be one of the most dynamic and forthright of the Falklands representatives. 27 November: BRUCE GEORGE MP, Defence Committee Chief, might well have something to say on the Treasury's desire to reduce the armed forces. Future events ************* Our full programme for the New Year will be onsite soon. But perhaps you have your own ideas on interesting speakers that you would like us to squeeze in to the programme. So why not tell us who you would like to see and hear at a future ASI event? Email nominations to speakers@adamsmith.org and we'll see what we can fit in. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- AS ADAM HAD IT... --------------------------------------------------------------------------- When I was writing the bit about how there are more people leaving the country than trying to move here, I remembered this line from the Sage of Kirkcaldy: "Though the profusion of government must, undoubtedly, have retarded the natural progress of England towards wealth and improvement, it has not be able to stop it." (Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Book 2 Chapter 3) Yeah...until now! e Dr Eamonn Butler, Director 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.
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