Damian Hinds blogspot

25 Jan 2017  'Post-truth’ is Oxford Dictionaries’ Word of the Year for 2016.  (Other recent winners of the annual accolade have included ‘vape’, ‘selfie’ and the ‘face with tears of joy’ emoji, apparently). Elsewhere we have heard ‘fake news’ decried, and a debate about whether you can have ‘facts’ and ‘alternative facts’ or if there can only ever be facts and falsehoods. According to Oxford Dictionaries, post-truth is “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”.  It is a concept that is said to have been building in salience around the world. It seems many had felt a long-standing mismatch between what the ‘elites’ in politics or business or the media had been saying was good for them, and what they felt themselves.  So the concept of the ‘objective fact’ had not been totally clear. There has always been partial news, and because of what psychologists call...

28 Sep 2016 Party conference season is upon us again. The annual jamborees attract thousands of delegates and activists to hear the keynote speeches, and take part in the hundreds of fringe events away from the main arena. Each party is at an important stage right now and what happens at conference this year could have a significance well beyond the convention centre. The Lib Dems are re-building. The Greens are looking for a breakthrough. UKIP have to figure out what role they have in a post-referendum world. Perhaps most notable this year is Labour, whose Liverpool conference is closing just as the Post hits the news-stands today. They will have heard from a Leader with a refreshed mandate – one who appeals strongly to his party's membership, but less so to his parliamentary team. Next week I will be with my Conservative colleagues in Birmingham. The focus will be on the new era we now have under a new PM, and the challenges and opportunities ahead as we manage the UK’s exit from...

   Photo credit (c) Michel Focard 6 Feb 2015 The British people deserve and demand a decisive say on our relationship with Europe. No one under the age of 58 has had one, and even many of those who did in 1975, justifiably feel the question turns out to have been a misleading one. We face a number of apparent issues with the EU: Issues around immigration; Sometimes over-exuberant, restrictive regulations on business; The democratic deficit – with laws being visited upon us; Institutional failures – with EU accounts not being signed off [1] ; Of late, opposition from the left to a new key trade deal, the Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership; and Of course, the structural weaknesses in the Eurozone We are facing the biggest national decision of my life time: whether to stay or leave. The debate has hitherto been conducted at the extremes – talk of 3 million jobs at risk on the one hand, or of there being no risk of loss of trade on the other. Both are wrong:...

11 Feb 2014 We all remember classmates who got few O-Levels or GCSEs, but went on to become surprisingly successful in their careers. Likewise, there are always those who do very well at school but for whom success fizzles out later. So, what’s the difference? There is a wealth of research that suggests an individual’s character traits, as much as how bright they are or what exams they get, determine their path in life. The ‘recipe for success’ tends to include self-belief, the patience to pursue long-term goals, the ability to ‘bounce back’ from failures, recognition of the relationship between effort and (sometimes distant or uncertain) reward, and the persistence to keep going. For many years, our educational focus as a country has been all but exclusively on exam results. Now, leading education jurisdictions such as Singapore are increasingly adding an emphasis on the ‘character development’ agenda.  As John Cridland CBE, Director-General of the CBI has warned, “there is a dang...

8 Oct 2013 In his Conference speech last week, Michael Gove set out clearly the moral purpose of policy: not only to raise standards for all, but just as important, to narrow the yawning achievement gap between rich and poor.  He described the Conservative mission to ensure “that every child has the opportunity to flourish”.  Though progress has already been made, in 2012 there was a 26 percentage points gap at GCSE (5+C+ including English & Maths) between kids on free school meals and their more affluent peers. But addressing this gap with teenagers is way too late.  The performance gap appears very early and widens through the school years.  In  Seven Key Truths about Social Mobility , the all-party social mobility group identified that the point of greatest leverage to equalise opportunity is the very earliest years. Of course kids from all backgrounds go on to do brilliant things.  But overall and on average, the correlations have a smooth predictab...

18 Oct 2012 It is a great pleasure to be here with you today to celebrate International Credit Unions Day. And it is a particular pleasure to be here alongside Simon Hughes and Roy [Lord] Kennedy. The all-party group works very well across the parties and credit unions do have great goodwill right across the House. Matters connected to debt – and savings – and related to Credit Unions, are much in discussion at the moment, both over the road and in society at large. From coping mechanisms to deal with the cost of living and the development of payday loans, through the gaps left by our traditional banks and unwelcome changes to our high streets with the proliferation of Money Shops and the like, to the potential for jamjar accounts and the huge role that can be played by volunteers and the voluntary sector in what I will dare to call our Big Society. Today I pay especial tribute to all who are involved in the Credit Union movement whether as staff or volunteers. That’s a funny word, “mo...

27 Feb 2010 -  Letters to the Editor, Herald Newspapers Sir, In his letter in the Herald of 12 February, Simon Joslin of Oakhanger raises important points about the debate on global warming, points which cannot simply be ignored. There have been three key errors made by some (not all) of the leading proponents of action against global warming. The first error was to re-define ‘belief’ in global warming as some sort of article of faith, which should no longer be open to question. This is misguided; nothing in science should be immune to challenge. Calling those who do raise questions ‘flat-earthers’ is only likely to wind them up, and understandably so. The second error was to over-simplify the subject, to suggest that the world is just getting hotter, and that all studies confirm the same thing. In truth something as complex as world climate will always throw up anomalies, and trends will be more jumpy than straight-line. To pretend otherwise was asking for trouble. No wonder gains...