Rav Casley Gera

A new report argues that fifty years of urban policy have failed to revitalise the economies of Britain’s Northern towns. If they’re right, the very future of our Northern cities may have to be rethought

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The argument about climate change has been for so long about whether it’s actually happening, we’ve got badly behind on discussion of what to actually do about it. Consideration of what carbon emission targets should be included in any successor treaty to Kyoto, which expires in 2010, needs to begin in earnest now. But the very mindset that the green movement has had to create to get its point across makes it hard to transition to practical thought about solutions. For years, we’ve been repeating and repeating the mantra that climate change is real, is serious, and poses a real threat to civilisation and millions of lives. Now the public and politicians seem finally to be accepting the consensus, it’s a jolt to switch from doom-mongering to planning. [Read more →]

With the UCAS process completed and a new year of students beginning to gear up for beginning university, there’s a remarkable level of concensus in the media at the success of the Government’s contentious funding reforms. Here’s the Guardian, one of the papers most receptive to critics of the reforms in the past: [Read more →]

Celebrity culture is dead. It may seem strong and healthy, but inside, it’s rotting. And soon we’ll all be running from the smell. [Read more →]

The world has been drooling recently over the new Apple mobile phone. Like the iPod, it’s sexy, slim, and simple to use, and it’s expected to fly off the shelves. But it’s not just phone companies who should pay attention: it’s the Government, too. [Read more →]

I have an announcement to make. This is going to shock some of you, but I’ve given it a lot of thought. Before you all rush to judge me, I’d like you to listen carefully to what I have to say.

This Christmas, 2006, I am boycotting “Fairytale of New York.”

I told you you’d be shocked. [Read more →]

In a faraway domain, a fragile democracy is fighting for survival. Everyday we watch on our screens it struggles to maintain order amongst chaos and defend its day-to-day operations against dissent and malicious attacks. What? No, not Iraq! I’m talking about Wikipedia. [Read more →]

In response to his article, “The tall and short of it”

Dear Jeff Jacoby,

I’m going to have to take a little umbrage at your article, “The tall and short of it,” in today’s Globe.

You ask of Deval Patrick, “is there anything there?” Were you watching the same debate as I was? Maybe it’s because from my seat in the JFK Jr Forum I could only see the candidates on TV, but I heard Patrick make a range of numerated, precise policy statements. [Read more →]

Am angered by article in Prospect by Robert Jackson calling for a “mixed-model” format for higher education. He repeats regularly that this does not mean privatisation, even though he advocates allowing Universities to decide salaries, fees and, by implication, admissions policies entirely independently. Quite how this differs from privatisation is not clear. Jackson emphasises the success of the US model in meeting the need for mass vocational training, arguing that a centrally-regulated model can’t match up. Of course, his fundamental concern is of cost, that further extension of HE beyond the government’s 50% mark will simply be politically untenable. He also reiterates the tired line that funding HE from taxation means “the transfer of money through the tax system from poorer taxpayers to the children of better-off taxpayers.” Although Jackson left the Tories for Labour not long ago, he’s clearly learnt the Government’s trick of only ever adopting left-wing rhetoric in pursuit of the most right-wing policies. [Read more →]

Numbers are flying, people are shouting, and protestors are waving banners. Nuclear is back on the agenda, and it isn’t a pretty sight. Some environmentalists are furious, calling the Government’s endorsement of a new generation of nuclear power stations a betrayal, and those who see nuclear as necessary seeing the others as misguided and deluded. The anti-nuclear lobby squeal repeatedly about the danger, about Chernobyl, about Five Mile Island, and about the threat of waste. Those in favour of new builds repeat, endlessly, that without nuclear we cannot meet our future energy needs. Repeat ad infinitum. [Read more →]