A local authority will be able to send any school to the adjudicator, not just its own, and I suspect that left wing councils that have never liked school freedoms will be particularly inclined to use this new power to push down numbers in academies.
The proportion of crimes resulting in a charge or summons has fallen by two thirds, from 16 per cent in 2015 to 5.6 per cent today. A quarter of people in England live in areas where the police are in special measures.
In England and Wales the average house cost 3.5 times average earnings in 1997, but 9.1 times earnings last year. In London it’s about 14 times. Prices in England rose 9.4 per cent last year.
My own view is Britain should aim to be the grammar school of the world, maximising upsides and lowering downsides by admitting a very small number of highly skilled people.
With war tipping economies into a downturn across the world, unemployment will be near the top of the in-tray for the new PM. But long-term problems with the welfare state remain.
With the global population exploding and relative power of the west declining, we should reduce our dependence on the kindness of strangers.
Departmental budgets are being eroded as both construction costs and public sector pay demands start to spiral.
We’re calling time on badly-publicised rules, usurious fees, and other underhand tactics used to squeeze motorists.
The U.K. birth rate has fallen back to near record lows – so perhaps some of the same debates will come here as we try to cope with our ageing society.
Here comes the sun: but for so many it really has been a long cold lonely winter. I don’t ever want to go back into lockdown.
The UK and governments across the west have started to act. But we’re still just starting to figure out how to respond.
It accounts for a larger share of output and a much larger share of productivity growth in poorer regions of the UK
Japan, Korea, Taiwan and now China, have all invested heavily in new technologies – through government support for new industries.
It’s welcome that we’re investing much more in services. But we need to tackle the causes too.
There is little reason to think that doubling down on net migration is going to magically produce different results to the last 25 years.