That the UK’s counter-terrorism policy relies on flawed polls and survey questions for estimating the number of likely terrorists is truly scary, argues Dr Maria Sobolewska. Last week the media turned once again to trying to quantify how many young British Muslims are wannabe terrorists, travelling to Syria and Iraq and joining the Islamic terrorists […]
Archives for August 2014
The decline of racial prejudice in Britain
The recent release of the 2013 British Social Attitudes report has triggered the usual bout of agonised soul searching about the state of the nation, writes Dr Robert Ford. But dig into the data and it becomes clear that racial prejudice is on the decline. The British, it seems, are becoming meaner and more inward […]
Polling Observatory 39: Big two recover as UKIP fall back
This is the thirty-nineth in a series of posts by Dr Robert Ford, Dr Will Jennings, Dr Mark Pickup and Prof Christopher Wlezien that report on the state of the parties in the UK as measured by opinion polls. By pooling together all the available polling evidence, the impact of the random variation that each individual survey inevitably produces can […]
To save lives we must rethink our assumptions about good healthcare
A new report in the British Medical Journal on centralising acute stroke services in Greater Manchester and London reveals the revolution in stroke care and treatment over the last twenty years – and it contains vital lessons for patients and policymakers, explains Dr Stephanie Snow. Around 152,000 of us will suffer from stroke in the […]
Politicians need to grasp that there are many ways of being British
There are many ways of being British. This is a reality that politicians and others need to understand, explains Dr Bridget Byrne. In response to the ‘Trojan horse’ controversy in Birmingham, David Cameron, Conservative Party leader has again stressed his belief in the need to emphasise ‘British values’. This is not a new approach. In […]
The burning issue of health inequality in our cities
For the first time in human history more people now live in cities than don’t. Yet urban areas continue to be characterised by what are often extreme and stark variations in economic and social health, says Dr Arpana Verma. It is no surprise that the juxtaposition of the urban rich living right next to the […]