DEMOS

• Culture and learning urgent news We experienced severe problems with our emails around the deadline for responses to the cultural learning paper on April 30th. If you sent a response then, you will probably have received a message saying that your email could not be delivered.
  
  Responses that did not get through can still be sent  to
  
  cultural_learning@demos.co.uk; or to
  rachel@cloreduffield.org.uk
  
  With many apologies for this inconvenience. continue reading Posted by John Holden on 12th May 2008
• The Politics of Public Behaviour Demos published a new pamphlet yesterday: The Politics of Public Behaviour. It looks at the public consequences of private decisions. The aim was to ask where and when government should involve itself in people’s personal decision-making, from parenting to carbon emissions, diet, exercise, pensions savings, gambling and organ donorship. It seems on all this issues and more the public/private boundary is becoming blurred. continue reading Posted by Duncan O'Leary on 9th May 2008
• Political Science A couple of thoughts struck me this morning as I listened to the debate on the today programme (at 7.35) about the (re)re-classification of cannabis:
  continue reading Posted by Duncan O'Leary on 7th May 2008 Comments (4)
• Old habits die hard? There has been much in the news in the last few months about the past lives of our politicians, but how much do these really matter? I think there is good reason to be cautious about David Cameron's 'transformation' of the Conservative Party, given his past record and the prevailing economic consensus. continue reading 1st May 2008
• Demos 3.0 We're in the midst of upgrading our IT systems... this shouldn't take too long but it will mean our emails are out of action for some of today. But we're a resilient bunch at 136 so pick up a phone and you'll find us on the other end of the line (that's if you call 0207 367 4200). If it's a media enquiry get in touch with Will on 0207 367 6325 continue reading Posted by Charlie Edwards on 28th April 2008
• Extreme Measures I recently wrote on Comment is Free about what we should do with the so called preachers of hate, which you can read here. The article outlines some of the dangers of locking up people for incitement to terrorism - as happened last week with Abu Izzedeen and five others. Not that I agree one iota with anything they said of course.  But by putting these men in prison we risk legitimising their ideas in the eyes of their believers. The now outlawed al-Muhajiroon, of which all six were... continue reading Posted by Jamie Bartlett on 25th April 2008 in Wicked Jihad Comments (1)
• Think again Lots of talk of U-turns in the news today. Yesterday’s news on the 10p tax rate, Jim Knight insisting there will be ‘no U-turn’ over teachers pay. Which begs the question, would politics be better or worse without U-turns? Leaving aside these specific examples, I think U-turns (and U-turners) can be underrated.When we make a decision we tend to suffer from cognitive biases that make us surer and surer that our decision was the right one– partly because we look for... continue reading Posted by Duncan O'Leary on 24th April 2008 Comments (2)
• Stop press: 'The public love the armed forces' Back in September the Chief of the Army called for greater support of the British Armed forces. He said there was a social gulf  between the army (which has borne the brunt of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan) and British society. Soon Ministers began to raise the issue of public support for the armed forces, and media campaigns were ratcheted up... but this hyper-activity was based on a single major flaw - the widely held but utterly false assumption that there was a lack of public support for the armed forces to begin with. continue reading Posted by Charlie Edwards on 24th April 2008 Comments (1)
• ‘Complements’ and sweet talk Dr. Edzard Ernst, a prominent professor of alternative medicine, is interviewed in today’s Independent talking about his new book, Trick or Treatment. From what I gather, it gives alternative medicine a bit of kicking, demonstrating its ineffectiveness when subjected to randomised controlled trials.Two interesting points strike me about the article.The first is that whilst Dr. Ernst is very critical about the complementary medicine industry, he doesn’t shy away from criticising... continue reading Posted by Faizal Farook on 22nd April 2008 in Healthy Conversations
• Like school, but not Last weekend I got pretty excited by 'iTunes U' - an area of iTunes that lets Universities in the US share audio and video from their lectures, talks and events. You can subscribe to courses, listen to one-off debates, and hear some of the leading thinkers in a range of fields dispensing their vast wisdom. Thinking about this in the context of sites like the splendid School of Everything, it's another alternative way to learn, and to share knowledge. continue reading Posted by Peter Bradwell on 22nd April 2008 Comments (1)

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