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The Government vs the State

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ConservativeHome reports that the Government (the ministers) are scaling up their battle against the civil service: Outside of Manchester, the most significant political speech of the day is being delivered by Francis Maude to the Institute for Government. Indeed, it could actually be more significant than “the most personal speech ever given by a British political leader,” too. For Mr Maude’s subject is the structural relationship between government and the civil service, and how it should be altered. His words will [...]

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The Launch of Big Society Capital

The Government has recently launched Big Society Capital to help finance social action in the UK. It will start with a fund of up to £600m that includes £400m from dormant bank accounts (about which I have reservations but that’s past) and up to £200m from the four main UK high street banks. If you run a charity or social enterprise in the Wycombe constituency, if you are interested in attracting long term finance for your organisation and if you [...]

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Three favourites among the Government’s regulation clear out

N.B. This post is written by my Parliamentary Intern, Ralph Buckle. The Government’s Red Tape Challenge has been progressing well and more details have emerged about the 600 regulations that are already due to be scrapped or improved. They make for some interesting reading and range from the completely redundant to regulations that strike at the heart of common sense. The former category includes rules regarding the Restrictive Practices Court that are still on the statute book despite the Act [...]

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Freedom in Education: the profit motive

NB: this post is by Tim Hewish, my Parliamentary Researcher, and the views expressed are his own. I recently attended the E. G. West Memorial Lecture delivered by Professor James Tooley and sponsored by the IEA on the topic of for-profit schooling. He noted that the word profit is highly politicised and many would not wish to even countenance the notion that profit-making should be implemented in schools.  Professor Tooley prefers the term freedom in education because when we discuss [...]

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Tim Hewish: Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures

N.B. The author is Tim Hewish – my Parliamentary Researcher — Steve My attention was recently drawn to the reduced £13 million funding for State initiatives to provide books to pre-schoolers in the form of Bookstart, Booktime and Booked Up. I can sense the reactionary response: Why would any Government withdraw money for children’s books? However, as a first principle, that accepts the premise that it is the State’s obligation to offer a selection of books to infants. We should be [...]

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My reflections on our visit to Durand Academy

N.B. The author is Tim Hewish – my Parliamentary Researcher. We have just returned this afternoon having visited the Durand Academy in South London. Researchers spend much of their time reading and studying policy, some policies better than others, but we often do not get to see the practical implementations.Therefore, it was a privilege to see firsthand how the Academy system is flourishing under the stewardship of Director, Greg Martin. I was struck initially by the neighbourhood. Let’s not try [...]

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A university should be a place of light, of liberty, and of learning – Disraeli

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Reaction to the Government’s higher education reforms really got under the skin of my researcher, Tim Hewish, who launched into a passionate defence of the Government’s direction of travel. I asked him to write this post… — Steve Much has been said about the Browne Report on Higher Education and the subsequent Government response. Most falls into the category of diatribe and the rest is often socialist, reactionary non-thinking. The Government’s statement was sound. The reforms will actually help bright [...]

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Here’s what’s next

Serves me right for wondering. Via Lloyds Action Now: Lloyds Action Now (LAN) is an association set up by shareholders for shareholders to recover our investment losses as a result of the disastrous merger of Lloyds TSB Bank with HBOS. We now know Lloyds directors and advisors, the Government, the Financial Services Authority and the Bank of England (and advisors) were fully aware of the effective bankruptcy of HBOS before the merger but nevertheless promoted it and that the Treasury [...]

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Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty

The Ethics of Liberty by Murray Rothbard is a difficult book to which few could subscribe in full. It is difficult partly because it is concerned only with ‘that subset of the natural law that develops the concept of natural rights, and that deals with the proper sphere of “politics,” i.e., with violence and non-violence as modes of interpersonal relations.’ The book is not concerned with the ethics of personal morality, simply ‘a political philosophy of liberty’. In confining itself [...]

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Bastiat – The State

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This post originally appeared at The Cobden Centre. In the course of things, I had cause to quote Bastiat, a French classical liberal theorist, political economist, and member of the French assembly: “The state is the great fiction by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.” This prompted me to dig out the original essay. As the UK’s national debt doubles and after a period within which QE was used, creating space in the market for [...]

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Steve Baker is MP for Wycombe. He was previously an RAF officer then a business software consultant. Find out more...

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