DEMOS

• Anita Roddick We were very sorry to hear of the passing away of Anita Roddick earlier this week.  When Demos was founded, back in 1993, she was kind enough to sit on the first Advisory Council.Before and since, she led the way in ethical enterprise, promoting  and championing causes in which she believed.  The 1980s was a period of burgeoning business in which fortune could easily take precedence to principle: amidst this, the Body Shop was a reminder that enterprise and a commitment to... continue reading Posted by Samuel Jones on 13th September 2007
• Rise of the Cultural Dragon - The PM woke him up Today sees the opening of the First Emperor exhibition at the British Museum.  As the newspapers and television reports imply, it features a selection of the terracotta warriors buried alongside China's first Emperor, Qin Shihuangdi in the famous complex at Xi'an.  It's also the largest number to have made the trip overseas - there are about 20 at the BM, 15 or so made a trip to Rome's Scuderie del Quirinale last year.  Even though they might soon have their own diplomatic bags... continue reading Posted by Samuel Jones on 13th September 2007 in Cultural Diplomacy Comments (2)
• Resisting the open access flood There’s an interesting conversation taking place in blogworld that gets to the heart of the public value of science. Our citizen scientists are rightly worried about an industry front that just been set up by “the pit bull of PR.” The arguments for making research open access are irresistible. PRISM’s aim is to counter them with an easy-to-understand but utterly disingenuous line that open access means state control of science. First, this is untrue. Second, it assumes... continue reading Posted by Jack Stilgoe on 13th September 2007
• Political intelligence What it is with politicians and reorganizing Whitehall departments and agencies? John Reid’s answer to the threat from counter-terrorism was to split the Home Office creating a Ministry of Justice and a ‘security ministry’. Nick Clegg’s answer to tackling extremism is to merge the Security Service (MI5) and the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). The ideas published in a new book by the Lib Dems are primarily designed to ‘harden the party’s position on law and order, an area in which they have traditionally been seen as soft’. continue reading Posted by Charlie Edwards on 12th September 2007
• NHS Productivity Opening the papers this morning, it looks like Derek Wanless has thrown the efficiency cat amongst the NHS pigeons. We already knew that a large proportion of extra NHS funding went on staff wages, yet according to Wanless we have seen little increase in productivity. Improvements in smoking cessation and increased life expectancy are being countered by increasingly poor lifestyles/obesity and rising health inequalities between rich and poor.According to NHS statistics total staffing (FTE) in... continue reading Posted by Faizal Farook on 11th September 2007 in Healthy Conversations Comments (2)
• Innovative China I've recently returned from Beijing, where I spoke at the launch of the OECD's review of China's innovation system. Most of the movers and shakers in Chinese S&T policy were present, and there was some lively debate about the balance between 'indigenous innovation' and the need for more international collaboration.I've written a comment piece in today's China Daily which summarises what I said at the OECD event, building on the arguments in our Atlas of Ideas report. The National Science... continue reading Posted by James Wilsdon on 11th September 2007 in Atlas of Ideas 2.0
• GP hours - Time for change? According to the Times today Alan Johnson is set to challenge some of the terms of the GP contract by proposing that GP’s open surgery out of hours and on weekends.  This has met with some criticism from the BMA, who argue that other professionals don’t have to work weekends, and that out of hours work would mean a reduction of normal hours service.There are genuine questions to be asked around how to shape our current model of GP care to best suit the healthcare requirements... continue reading Posted by Faizal Farook on 10th September 2007 in Healthy Conversations Comments (3)
• That's not Right Anthony Browne, the new Director of Policy Exchange, has an article in the Spectator this week with quite a statement in it: ‘The reason so many go from left to right is the realisation that the Right is, well, right. About pretty much everything’. continue reading Posted by Duncan O'Leary on 10th September 2007 Comments (5)
• Lips don't lie? It's with interest that I read Birmingham County Council has introduced telephone lie detector tests, sorry voice stress tests, for claimants calling their benefit office. Whilst on the face of it, this seems to have purported benefits (apparently Harrow Council has saved £110,000 in three months during a pilot scheme), I wonder at what costs?I would think such measures begin to subtly change the dynamics of the claimant-staff interactions (already quite fraught one would imagine),... continue reading Posted by Faizal Farook on 9th September 2007 in Trust and local government Comments (1)
• Can the west wing work in the west end? Radio 4 is airing a new drama called 'Number 10' this Friday, which is sort of trying to do for UK politics what 'The West Wing' did for America. The really interesting question is whether the British public can swallow a positive portrayal of politicians as morally serious people who are genuinely trying to do their best in challenging circumstances. I hope the drama's author, Jonathan Myerson, can pull it off. He's done a nice prospect article that includes this unfashionable, but rather... continue reading 5th September 2007 Comments (3)

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