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This week’s think-tank roundup…

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

Welcome to this week’s Think-tank Roundup. Perhaps still a little on the thin side this week as silly season draws to a close but you’ll still find worthwhile stuff on the Russia-Georgia conflict, Climate Change, Middle East negotiations from the negotiators perspective David Lammy’s thoughts on handling Cameron. No roundup next week since I’m on holiday but I’ll be sure to reflect everything I’ve missed in the next one.
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This week’s think-tank roundup

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

Welcome to this week’s Think-tank Roundup. This week we have calls to scrap the next census, ‘Policy Exchange do Blade Runner’ and even the suggestion that all this web stuff is slowly throttling the very idea of think-tanks – your correspondent, of course, perishes the thought but that’s this weeks must read so see below. Also this week a series of links for all the main conference and fringe events from the major think-tanks.
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This week’s think-tank roundup

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

Welcome to this week’s Think-tank Roundup. As well as the controversial Policy Exchange report and some good stuff on events in Georgia you’ll find rows over the Muslim Writers Awards, debates about the legacy of Solzhenitsyn, windfall taxes for energy companies and calls for football clubs to pay more – to those off the field!

As ever please use the comments for anything I’ve missed…
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This week’s think-tank roundup

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

Welcome to this week’s Think-tank Roundup – everything from ‘new money’ and supply-side oil crunches to the call for better teachers and yes, Michael Gove’s ‘Nuts’ (there was more to his speech than that storm suggested).

Things seem to be quiet on the events front but I guess that’s a function of both parliamentary recess and the impending party conference season (of which more soon). Must read piece this week is probably Gove’s speech if only because it deserves a better airing than it got because of that unfortunate quote about lads mags – details below.

As ever please use the comments for anything I’ve missed…
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Think-tank roundup – w/e 25th July 2008

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

Don’t let the mention of that lazy trope ‘political correctness’ put you off this weeks ‘must read’ piece -the CPS report ‘Through the Looking Glass’ on Western foreign policy and the sometimes erroneous attitudes that frame it.

No roundup next week for personal reasons but I’ll try to cover off everything in the subsequent one.

As ever please use the comments for anything I’ve missed…

Reports & Publications…

• Today the Centre for Policy Studies publishes ‘Through the Looking Glass: political correctness, foreign policy and bad decisions’ by noted foreign policy expert Roger Howard. Roger examines ‘how political correctness is seeping into foreign policy’ and concludes “we are looking at the rest of the world through a highly distorted looking glass, one that has been shaped, to an important degree, by political correctness. We will see the outside world in a much clearer light if we can smash the glass. Doing so is one of the biggest foreign policy challenges that confront us.”
• Liberal think-tank CentreForum published ‘Earned amnesty: bringing illegal workers out of the shadows’ – the report ‘proposes a detailed strategy and rationale for an ‘earned’ regularisation programme which identifies those illegal immigrants who contribute to British society’.
• The International Policy Network published ‘While Doha Sleeps: Securing Economic Growth Through Trade Facilitation’ – a report which ‘shows how unilateral reforms of bureaucratic procedures can be even more valuable than the tariff reductions sought through the WTO’.
• The New Economics Foundation published “A Green New Deal: Joined-up policies to solve the triple crunch of the credit crisis, climate change and high oil prices” – the report proposes a modernised version of Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ designed “to power a renewables revolution, create thousands of green-collar jobs and rein in the distorting power of the finance sector while making more low-cost capital available for pressing priorities.”
• The Joseph Rowntree Foundation have some interesting research into ‘Immigration and Social Cohesion in the UK’ – “The researchers conclude that to ensure cohesion, the impact of social and economic changes needs to be addressed as well as how people relate to each other. The limited opportunities and multiple deprivations of the long-term settled population in parts of UK towns and cities undermine social cohesion”

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Tory bloggers should have more confidence

For those of us who lean centre-right the most dispiriting thing about the row over the crime statistics is the paucity of confidence it demonstrates in some Tory supporters, particularly among bloggers.

We’ve established a near-constant 20pt poll lead, notched up significant electoral victories in London & Crewe, garnered the sort of positive press coverage they’ve only dreamt about for c.15 years and seen even Labour’s most loyal and optimistic supporters in the press now talk about the ‘scale of’ rather than ‘likelihood’ of defeat.

That’s the sort of context most oppositions would shed a limb for.
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This week’s think-tank roundup..

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

This week’s ‘must read’ item is the Theos report on the role of Christianity in Britain today, not because I agree with every word but because it’s a provocative read, particularly for those on the liberal / left. Other than that enjoy and as ever please flag anything I may have missed. Also if anyone would like to be included in the email version please let me know…

Reports & Publications…

• Liberal think-tank CentreForum published a report on Academies and the future or state education – ‘Featuring a foreword from Schools Minister Andrew Adonis, this collection brings together the leaders of some of the most successful academies to explain how they have made these previously failing schools so popular with parents’.
• The Foreign Policy Centre published ‘Global Politics After 9/11: The Democratiya Interviews’ – a ‘series of conversations about the dilemmas of progressive foreign policy after 9/11’ edited by Alan Johnson.
• The Hansard Society have published a report called “Law in the Making: Influence and Change in the Legislative Process”. The report “analyses the influences and elements that come together in making an act of Parliament. It looks at the role of external actors such as, the media, voluntary organisations, governmental bodies, professional associations and businesses, as well as Parliament and government departments in the process of making the law”. Note: this report isn’t available for free download but can be ordered here.
• The Institute of Economic Affairs published “The Economics of Fair Trade: A Christian Perspective” – arguing that the promotion of fair trade in schools ‘has often degenerated into crude anti-capitalist propaganda’.
• The New Local Government Network weigh in on the topic of the moment with a report entitled ‘Gangs at the Grassroots: Community solutions to street violence’. Author Anthony Brand warns the Government to “avoid using centralised policies to tackle gang violence and knife crime” and allow local areas “to introduce interventions based on local factors”
• Theos, the ‘public theology think tank’ published “Neither Private nor Privileged: The Role of Christianity in Britain Today”. The report “rejects calls to privatise religious faith but insists that the nature of the church’s involvement with government should differ according to the ‘moral orientations’ of the state at any given time”
• Reform launched a report called “A New Reality: Government and the IPOD generation”. Reform have dubbed 18 to 34 year olds the ‘IPODs’ because they are ‘Insecure, Pressurised, Over-taxed and Debt-ridden’ and this report aims to ‘understand what kind of government IPODs want to see and the relationship they want to have with government’.

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This week’s think-tank roundup…

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

On the assumption that most people who read this are as sad and nerdy about politics as I am this week’s ‘must read’ item is ‘Taming Leviathan’ from IEA, more details below.

Other than that enjoy and as ever please flag anything I may have missed. Also if anyone would like to be included in the email version please let me know…

Reports & Publications…

• The Centre for Policy Studies have two interesting reports this week. Anthony Jay presents his view on the need for a much-slimmed down, self-financing BBC and Maurice Saatchi has a highly provocative paper called “Enemy of the People” – a mocked-up high court judgement on Labour’s 10 years in office.
• The Centre for European Reform have a briefing note by the CER analysts on the French EU Presidency – “France’s EU presidency was always going to be ambitious, with wide-ranging plans for climate change, immigration and defence. Now, however, President Sarkozy will have to focus on resolving the legal and institutional mess created by the Irish No to the EU’s Lisbon treaty.”
• The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) has an interesting report on how free-market liberal think tanks can influence public policy the world over – drawing on insights from 13 authors from think tanks around the globe it observes that “though the ‘war of ideas’ has been hard fought, it has been only partially won. New threats to freedom have emerged, including environmentalism and big-government conservatism. In some countries the burden taxation and regulation has never been greater” – the report is called ‘Taming Leviathan’ and you can read it here.
• IPPR North released a paper on the Barnett Formula arguing that “current disparities in funding across the UK is becoming an increasing source of tension between the four nations, especially between England and Scotland, and that unless addressed it could have implications for the union”
• The Joseph Rowntree foundation published a report by Andrea Waylen and Sarah Stewart-Brown called “Parenting in ordinary families: Diversity, complexity and change”. The report ‘examines parenting in Britain during early and middle childhood within different social and cultural groups and looks at how parenting develops and changes over time’.
• The New Local Government Network offer up a collection of essays on ‘Next Steps for Local Democracy: Leadership, accountability and partnership’. The collection “brings together the reflections of leading thinkers within local government, setting out a range of ideas on future service delivery, leadership, citizen interaction and rebalancing the relationship between central and local government”
• The Policy Exchange have produced a report on gun & knife crime which, according to the Sunday Times, is getting some attention in Downing St. I’ve spoken to Policy Exchange and the report isn’t actually online at the time of writing (Friday 11th am) but will be later today – their publication area is here.

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This week’s think-tank roundup

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’. donpaskini blogged about it on LC here.
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This week’s think-tank roundup

As promised last week I’ve ditched the classification into left & right and decided to break things down slightly differently into three sections – I’ll highlight any formal reports and publications issued, articles / briefings or blogposts from their own sites or in the MSM and finally public events or debates that might be of interest.

If there are any significant personnel changes among the major players I’ll highlight those as well.

Reports & Publications…

• The Centre for Policy Studies published a paper by Tony Lodge, ‘Wind Chill’, on the limits of wind power in terms of plugging the UK’ energy gap.
• The Institute of Economic Affairs published ‘Sixty Years On – Who Cares for the NHS’, a fascinating paper on the risks politicians face proposing anything remotely radical about the NHS – “Elite opinion does not, as yet, warm to a free market in healthcare. Although aspects of a market-based system are accepted, ideas of ‘market failure’ loom large – especially amongst the political class. Nevertheless, the author shows how some groups of opinion formers are prepared to be more radical. These groups, she believes, may in time be effective in promoting a vision of a market in healthcare that is free from government interference and from the stifling power of government-granted professional monopolies”
• The IPPR published a paper by Jane Midgley on ‘How the UK should respond to food policy challenges’
• Two publications from the New Local Government Network worth highlighting. The first – “Healthy Places: Bonds that bind local government and primary care trusts” looks at the options for further devolution within the health service and how it could improve service delivery. The second – “Directly Elected, Direct Results” – calls for an expansion in the directly elected mayoral model with powers over local police, transport and health services. (joint venture with the IPPR)

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