Democracy has been weakened in the United Kingdom with citizens increasingly frustrated at not being able to shape government decisions in any meaningful way. State actions at the local and national level are at risk of becoming even more influenced by vested private interests. This poses a major challenge to the democratic health of the country.…

Since the election of 1997 New Labour's education policy has been subject to variety of forms of critique--in this journal and others. One of the sources for such critique has been a barrage of letters unleashed for over a decade by Colin Richards in the "Times Educational Supplement". Here are reproduced a self-edited selection of his…