The Birmingham Brief - intelligent thought on policy issues.
- Description
- With thousands of public sector workers striking this week and the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister both speaking at the Local Government Conference in Birmingham the future of public services has rarely seemed a more divisive or topical issue.
- Date:
- Thursday 14th July 2011
- Categories:
- Research, Social Sciences
- Description
- George Osborne has doggedly fought back at critics of the government's austerity strategy, repeating the mantra that sustaining the 'policy credibility' of UK plc with financial markets and investors is the paramount challenge facing this parliament. This week the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been able to draw on an apparent endorsement from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for his agenda of public spending cuts and the Coalition's broader economic policy choices. But is the IMF's 'endorsement' all that the Chancellor makes it out to be?
- Date:
- Thursday 9th June 2011
- Categories:
- Research, Social Sciences
- Description
- The Defence Secretary, Dr Liam Fox, has recently announced the approval of the Initial Gate Business Case for the replacement for the Vanguard Class nuclear submarines. The contracts for this phase are likely to be in the region of £3bn. However, the Defence Secretary admitted that the total cost was likely to reach £25bn by the time the boats are built. Given that the initial estimates prepared in 2006 were in the region of £15–20bn, the sceptics around Whitehall, who are well used to Ministry of Defense (MoD) 'guesstimations', anticipate the final bill being closer to £38bn.
- Date:
- Tuesday 7th June 2011
- Categories:
- Arts and Law, Research
- Description
- About half of the UK population use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) during their lifetimes. Yet despite this, successive governments have appeared remarkably reluctant to engage with the regulation of these therapeutic practices, despite its stated commitment to responsive and appropriate regulation of the health sector.
- Date:
- Thursday 12th May 2011
- Categories:
- Medical and Dental Sciences, Research, Social Sciences