The Wardman Wire

A weekly roundup of publications, reports, events & articles from the leading UK think tanks.

Even although I’m now having to leave out as much as I’m putting in (see below) I’m conscious this is still quite a lengthy read (certainly by the standard of most blog posts). So each week I’ll flag a ‘must read’ item for those who don’t have the time to read the full post let alone the content it highlights - an entirely subjective choice on my part of course but I’ll endeavour to be as fair and non-partisan about that choice as I can. This week it has to be the Joseph Rowntree paper “A minimum income standard for Britain: What people think”, touching as it does on issues of relative v’s absolute poverty and making judgements about income levels needed to ‘participate in society’…

Reports & Publications…

• The Centre for Policy Studies published a paper in defence of Faith schools by Cristina Odone entitled “Bad Faith” - “Today’s class warriors are bent on portraying faith schools as boutique education, the exclusive preserves of pushy middleclass parents. Yet for low-income parents, these schools represent the only way their children can be taught the faith that their own family holds dear. Would a government that prides itself on its egalitarian instincts block opportunities for the poor while securing them exclusively for the rich?”·
• The Centre for European Reform published essay by Daniel Keohane and Tomas Valasek called “Willing and able? EU defence in 2020” - Tomas & Daniel ask if with Europeans increasingly turning to the EU when in need of troops for peacekeeping or for delivering humanitarian aid will the EU be able to keep up with the demand?
• Matthew Lockwood at the IPPR published a paper called “After the Coal Rush: Assessing policy options for coal-fired electricity generation”.
• The Joseph Rowntree Foundation published “A minimum income standard for Britain: What people think” - Julia Unwin, Director of the JRF said “This research is designed to encourage debate, and to start building a public consensus about what level of income no-one should have to live below. Of course, everyone has their own views about what items in a family budget are ‘essential’. But this is the best effort to date to enable ordinary people to discuss and agree what all households should be able to afford”
• The Social Market Foundation has an interesting paper from Jessica Prendergrast entitled “Disconnected Citizens: Is Community Empowerment the Solution?”
• Professor Kenneth Minogue has published a paper for The Bruges Group called “Are the British a Servile People? Idealism and the EU” – “At the heart of the matter, Professor Minogue argues, is the curious form of idealism that disdains pride in Britain and British culture, preferring to give allegiance to a far more vaguely defined ideology of internationalism. This rejection of national sovereignty, and the subsequent embracing of unaccountable transnational institutions, as advocated by our political establishment, has led to the British people submitting to more and more authority which comes dressed as virtue”
• The Work Foundation published a paper by Rebecca Fauth and Alana McVerry entitled “Can ‘good work’ keep employees healthy? Evidence from across the EU”

Articles & Briefings…

• The Fawcett Society, in an article to appear in the New Statesman, mark the 80th anniversary of The Equal Franchise Act with an article condemning the impact of the ‘supersexualise me’ culture on women’s citizenship.
• Sophie Moullin, Reseach Fellow at the IPPR published an article in Progress called “Tackling social care presents progressives with an opportunity to carve out new territory”
• At Compass Adam Lent, Head of Economic and Social Affairs at the TUC, argues that it’s ‘Time to Defend Tax’ -“genuine progressives need to be very wary that with the electoral balance shifting rightwards, the possibility of the current erosion of fair taxation turning into a full-scale assault may not be far off… Without a concerted and well-backed campaign to defend progressive taxation, the consequences for social justice will be severe.”

Events & Meetings…

• On Wed 16th July Centre Forum are holding an invitation only event on ‘Academies and future of state education’. Speakers will include Lord Adonis, David Laws MP and Michael Gove MP. Please telephone 020 7340 1160 for more information.
• Demos are hosting an open discussion at the Southwark Lido entitled “Changing the settings, changing politics” on Tuesday, 8th July 2008 at the Southwark Lido. The panel will be addressing the need for politicians to seek new platforms for engaging with citizens and more details are available via email from seminars@demos.co.uk.
• Demos will also host a debate at IslamExpo this year about the threat of Islamist extremism. “The Islamist Threat: Myth or reality?” will take place on Saturday, 12th July 2008 at 5:30pm – more details here.
• Lib Dem Deputy Leader and Shadow Chancellor Vince Cable MP will be giving the Annual Institute for Fiscal Studies Lecture – “Economic policy lessons from the disappearing decade of stability” – on Monday 7th July at Bloomberg LP.
• Policy Exchange have a launch event on Monday 7th July for “Out of sight, Out of mind: The state of mental healthcare in prison” - speakers include Lord Ramsbotham (Former Chief Inspector of Prisons) and Edward Garnier QC MP (Shadow Prisons Minister). Contact events@policyexchange.org.uk for more details.

As always please flag anything worthy I might have missed. As hinted above I’m now getting regular contact from some of the major think tanks keen to both flag content they want me to highlight and asking for copies of the roundup. To that end I’m going to start issuing an email version among key players (God, I’ve been reading too much of this stuff) in the think tanks and public research bodies. If anyone would like to be included in the email version please let me know over at my blog…