Month: July 2008
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BBC Trustees Claim £1,000 A Month
The BBC Trust’s twelve members claimed an average of £1,000 in expenses last year at the expense of TV viewers who are forced to buy a licence to watch TV. Scotland’s representative on the Board was the most expensive. Jeremy Peat claimed a total of £30,976, a monthly average of £2,581. This included £9,800 for…
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Democracy Delayed (Again)
The end of feudalism in the British legislature may be delayed again. Justice minister Jack Straw has published the third discussion paper on House of Lords reform in seven years. But if he has his way there will be no more reform until after the general election, which may not be until 2010. The Conservative,…
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What Makes Our Country Special
“Along with the BBC and the monarchy, the (national health) service has become part of the way in which we define what makes our country special”. So wrote Nicholas Timmins in the Financial Times on 30 June 2008. Mr. Timmins went on to write that the five-year cancer survival rate in Britain is “well down…