The QT

Monday 21 October 2024
21/10/2024

Author name: The Conversation

Balancing freedom of speech with student safety

Students expressing solidarity with Palestinians and protesting about Israelโ€™s war in Gaza have set up encampments on campuses around the UK. Around 15 encampments have emerged in Oxford, Cambridge, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Warwick, Manchester and others. Theyโ€™ve also cropped up in other countries including France and Ireland. Broadly, students are calling for transparency over and divestment …

Labour in full swing

The last time Labour won Blackpool South, the party won 270 other constituencies. It was 1997 and Labour took 179 more than all other parties combined. Tony Blair walked down a flag-festooned Downing Street later that sunny May day. The debate about whether Britain is approaching a 1992 knife-edge election, where a surprisingly resilient Conservative …

Maybe itโ€™s time to create a fuss about freeze on funding for arts subjects

Recent guidance issued by the Education Secretary, Gillian Keegan, to the Office for Students reveals conflicting priorities in Government and pours fuel on fires burning in an already troubled higher education sector. The focus on science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) โ€” โ€œstrategically important high-cost subjectsโ€ โ€” is met by a freeze on funding for …

Are broadcasting rules fit-for-purpose?

The UKโ€™s media regulator has found GB News guilty of breaching the UKโ€™s ‘due impartiality’ code in five separate programmes. This brings the total violations for the news channel to 12 in the last 18 months, with eight investigations underway. Despite repeated infringements, Ofcom has not sanctioned the channel or threatened to revoke its broadcast …

Levelling up is โ€˜not working as promisedโ€™

The UK parliament has heard findings that levelling up โ€” arguably the Conservativesโ€™ flagship policy agenda โ€” is beset by critical delays. In a report published on March 15, the public accounts committee, parliamentโ€™s expenditure watchdog, has said that, as of September 2023, local authorities had spent only ยฃ1.24 billion of the ยฃ10.47 billion the …

Invisible in life and death?

The UK government is consulting on plans to stop publishing vital statistics from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on deaths of homeless people. This is part of a wider review of mortality statistics including deaths in care homes and winter mortality. Since 2018, the ONS in England and Wales and the National Records for …

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