Reading for Battle
Battle Readings is a regularly updated compilation of articles, essays, and opinion pieces relevant to the themes of the Battle of Ideas.
Choose a theme from the listing on the left to narrow your search, or view all readings.
Health & Well-being
For ‘Liberating the NHS’ read ‘Dismantling the NHS’
The NHS is going to be dismantled by using the market forces of ‘creative destruction’. This will have profound effects on the medical profession with attacks on T+Cs, pensions, medical training, professionalism. More importantly, the knock on effects for patient care will be devastating.
Clive Peedell, NHSCA, 4 January 2011
The NHS is going to be dismantled by using the market forces of ‘creative destruction’. This will have profound effects on the medical profession with attacks on T+Cs, pensions, medical training, professionalism. More importantly, the knock on effects for patient care will be devastating.
Clive Peedell, NHSCA, 4 January 2011
Can You Build a Better Brain?
Blueberries and crossword puzzles aren’t going to do it. But as neuroscientists discover the mechanisms of intelligence, they are identifying what really works.
Sharon Begley, Newsweek, 3 January 2011
Blueberries and crossword puzzles aren’t going to do it. But as neuroscientists discover the mechanisms of intelligence, they are identifying what really works.
Sharon Begley, Newsweek, 3 January 2011
A moral defence of late abortion
The chief executive of bpas urges faltering pro-choice campaigners to rediscover their respect for women’s moral autonomy.
Ann Furedi, spiked, 20 December 2010
The chief executive of bpas urges faltering pro-choice campaigners to rediscover their respect for women’s moral autonomy.
Ann Furedi, spiked, 20 December 2010
Second Trimester Abortion Restrictions Are Not an Option: Response to Saletan and Kissling
When leaders in the pro-choice movement start to speculate about restricting abortion rights to appease the anti-choice movement, they have lost sight of what the pro-choice movement is about: respecting women as moral decision makers.
Steph Herold and Susan Yanow, RH Reality Check, 8 December 2010
When leaders in the pro-choice movement start to speculate about restricting abortion rights to appease the anti-choice movement, they have lost sight of what the pro-choice movement is about: respecting women as moral decision makers.
Steph Herold and Susan Yanow, RH Reality Check, 8 December 2010
A policy obsession with teenage mothers? Yes please!
The focus on teenage pregnancy is right because the social, health and economic outcomes for teenage parents, particularly those who are very young, and their children remain poor and because, with the right support – housing, education and training, budgeting and so on those who do become young parents can be outstanding parents.
Simon Blake, Independent, 22 October 2010
The focus on teenage pregnancy is right because the social, health and economic outcomes for teenage parents, particularly those who are very young, and their children remain poor and because, with the right support – housing, education and training, budgeting and so on those who do become young parents can be outstanding parents.
Simon Blake, Independent, 22 October 2010
Why is policy obsessed with teenage pregnancy?
Policy’s engagement with young people from poorer communities has become increasingly focused, not on encouraging their aspirations to reach beyond their disadvantaged circumstances, but by the depressing impulse to cauterise poverty’s ‘toxic’ effects.
Jan Macvarish, Independent , 22 October 2010
Policy’s engagement with young people from poorer communities has become increasingly focused, not on encouraging their aspirations to reach beyond their disadvantaged circumstances, but by the depressing impulse to cauterise poverty’s ‘toxic’ effects.
Jan Macvarish, Independent , 22 October 2010
Topic Guide: organ and tissue donation
'Financial incentives provide the best solution to the crisis of organ and tissue donation.'
Debating Matters, 11 October 2010
'Financial incentives provide the best solution to the crisis of organ and tissue donation.'
Debating Matters, 11 October 2010
UK cost agency to end curbs on Alzheimer's drugs
Britain's healthcare cost agency plans to end controversial restrictions on Alzheimer's drugs in a policy U-turn that could give hundreds of thousands of patients access to previously denied medicines.
Ben Hirschler, Reuters, 7 October 2010
Britain's healthcare cost agency plans to end controversial restrictions on Alzheimer's drugs in a policy U-turn that could give hundreds of thousands of patients access to previously denied medicines.
Ben Hirschler, Reuters, 7 October 2010
The Virginia Monologues: Why Growing Old is Great
Getting old? Get over it! For too long those in short skirts have been telling us oldies we don’t matter: ‘you’re out of touch! Get out of the way, grandma! The next generation is coming through.’ Well, enough is enough. Because getting old is great.
Virginia Ironside, Penguin, 2 September 2010
28 ¾: How Constant Age Checks are Infantilising Adults
ID checks serve primarily as a bureaucratic hurdle to buying alcohol, almost in the same way you need a licence to buy a gun. The implication is that there is something sordid about it, that buying alcohol is not a normal transaction, but one requiring special permission or dispensation.
Dolan Cummings, Manifesto Club, 2 September 2010
ID checks serve primarily as a bureaucratic hurdle to buying alcohol, almost in the same way you need a licence to buy a gun. The implication is that there is something sordid about it, that buying alcohol is not a normal transaction, but one requiring special permission or dispensation.
Dolan Cummings, Manifesto Club, 2 September 2010
Whose Data Is it Anyway?
"The energy, verve and enthusiasm at The Battle of Ideas filled me with hope. Coming from India where so many people still lack the basic necessities that make human life worth living, it was heartening to see basic issues of equity and justice debated with such passion and fervour."
George Thomas, orthopaedic surgeon; editor, Indian Journal of Medical Ethics
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