Category Archives: IPPR

IPPR A DAY…

By | | , ,
7 Comments

It’s becoming an almost daily feature on the BBC. I refer to the “left-leaning” IPPR getting high profile for one of their “reports.” This morning it was all about voters living in England placing more emphasis on their English rather than British identity. Whilst one absolutely welcomes the wishes of English people being giving attention (at last) one also must be careful about where this leads. The EU, for example, would love to see the UK break apart into a mass of small controllable regions, and the encouragement of this via an IPPR study is surely a watch out. The other point is that this study claims most English people would like to see “Devo Max” for Scotland but this is surely a misrepresentation by the IPPR and BBC as to what exactly “Devo Max” actually constitutes? As I understand it, Devo Max will ensure that the taxes from England will still continue to flow north of the border but in addition Scotland can then vary taxes even further.

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

LESSONS IN DISCLOSURE.

By | | ,
36 Comments

I noticed the BBC has given great prominence to the report by the Institute for Public Policy Research claiming that training days for England’s teachers should be quadrupled to 20 a year, costing £75m. The Institute for Public Policy Research says the difference between excellent and bad teachers means pupils achieve more than a GCSE grade extra. However the IPPR is not just any old think-tank – it is a LEFT WING think tank which has acted as cheerleader for Labour’s more controversial policies, including road pricing, rubbish taxes, ID cards and justifying hospital closures. It has also been the recipient of over £1 million of lucrative grants from Labour. So when the BBC reports the latest IPPR advocacy I think it has a duty to put the character of the IPPR in context so that we realise that what we are actually hearing is government thinking – a lit like the BBC itself I guess.

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.