Welcome to this weeks round-up – an (almost) ‘David Davis / 42-day’ free zone. As of next week I’m going to drop the classification between left & right – I always anticipated this causing problems and I’ve actually been contacted by some organisations with a polite request to classify them differently.

While some groups like Compass and the ASI can be easily identified with left or right, many others such as the Kings Fund, Theos etc. are harder to align and there’s a strong case that it diminishes the work of them all to assign them such blunt political labels. I trust none of my readers as so blindly partisan as to only read one part of the update anyway. In the weeks ahead I’ll look at a more meaningful way of organising the update, perhaps into reports & publications, briefings & articles, events etc.

As ever please flag anything worthy I might have missed.

Right \ Libertarian Think Tanks

• The Centre for Policy Studies daily blog had an interesting post from ‘harrysnook’ on why the Conservatives should lead calls for a written constitution – “[The] party must ensure that conservatism of values does not ossify into conservatism of forms…A written constitution could entrench our historic liberties and take them above the fray of party politics. Although it runs counter to the traditional line of conservative thinking, it is a possibility that must not be dismissed out of instinctive unease, but must be taken seriously as a modern means to protect an ancient heritage”
• The CPS Lectures page also carries the audio from David Cameron’s speech on Tuesday night – ‘Public Services in the Post-Bureaucratic Age’.
• Chatham House carried one of the best (if not the best) analysis I’ve read of the impact of the Irish ‘No’ vote. Written for their monthly magazine ‘The World Today’ you can read the full text by Senior Research Fellow Robin Shepperd here – he touches on the fact that for both pro and anti EU types democratic legitimacy is fast becoming issue no.1 and the French President will have an opportunity to address it – “Sarkozy will shortly have the power to reorder the political agenda in Europe. If he uses it to promote an honest appraisal of what is going wrong, based on an understanding that the issue of democratic legitimacy is now the EU’s priority number one, he will have performed a vital service. For make no mistake about it. There is much at stake. If the EU mishandles the situation following the Irish ‘no’ vote, matters could spiral out of control”
• The Institute of Economic Affairs have an entertaining discussion paper by Philip Booth called ‘Market Failure: A Failed Paradigm’ – “If I were to give you an engineering lecture and I were to start by saying, correctly I believe, that the maximum theoretical speed of a perfect car was the speed of light3 and that a car that travelled at any speed lower than that was a ‘failed car’ or suffered from ‘car failure’, you would probably think that it was a pretty useless lecture. And you would be right.” Read on….
• The New Local Government Network have a radical proposal for how local councils can mitigate the impact the credit crunch has on the housing market in their areas - ‘adopt US style Mortgage Support Plans and offer below market rate, whole or partial mortgages to either stave off repossession and eviction, prop up the housing market to prevent remortgage difficulties, or support first time buyers to buy locally’. (extract only – full report £12)
• The Henry Jackson Society urges UK politicians to better understand the link between sound education policy and sustained social justice.
• On the Adam Smith Institute’s blog Tom Clougherty has an interesting post on the options to reform local government finance – “Perhaps the solution lies in taking a localist approach to the reform itself. Rather than driving through a particular reform from the centre, empower local authorities to come up with their own solutions. Give them a range of potential taxes to choose from, and let them strike the balance. If people didn’t like what their council came up with, they could always vote them out or move”

Left \ Liberal Think Tanks

• The Joseph Rowntree Foundation have an interesting report on the challenges for parents in raising families with different racial, ethnic and faith backgrounds – how to provide a sense of belonging and identity, how to manage aspects of belonging and heritage across generations etc.
• A couple of events worth highlighting from The Fabian Society – their annual House of Commons tea will take place on 1 July (member only) and will have MPs David Lammy, Jon Cruddas and David Blunkett debating the new politics of class in the aftermath of the Crewe by-election. David Lammy will also be looking at any lessons to be learned from the US election campaign as Labour seeks to recover from defeats in the local elections and the Crewe and Nantwich – David will be speaking in the Boothroyd Room at Portcullis House Monday 30th June 2008, contact rosie.clayton@fabian-society.org.uk for more information.
• The Fawcett Society lent their support to Gerry Sutcliffe’s letter asking local authorities whether they would like greater powers to regulate lapdance clubs – Kat Banyard, Campaigns Officer, said “lapdance clubs are part of the sex industry. They normalise the sexual objectification of women. Areas surrounding lapdance clubs can become ‘no-go’ areas for women. But current licensing rules mean local authorities cannot treat a lapdance club differently from a coffee shop”. Also a quick congratulations to the Director of the Fawcett Society Dr Katherine Rake on her OBE announced this week.
• The IPPR hosted this weeks speech by Gordon Brown on Liberty & Security - “The challenge for the Government and for society as a whole is to achieve a settlement that ensures both our tradition of liberty and our need for security” – (mp3 link)
• Also at the IPPR Joe Farrington-Douglas and James Crabtree weigh into the debate on whether patients should be allowed to top-up NHS treatment in the private sector. Some interesting contrasts with the Reform position last week.
• The Policy Network have a new joint venture with the Alfred Herrhausen Society called Foresight. It’s an ‘international programme of investigation and debate structured around the challenge of forging common futures in a multi-polar world.’ – worth keeping an eye on for those particularly interested in foreign policy.
• Progress have been much in the news in the last 24 hours but on more substantive matters they have a speech by Work & Pensions Secretary James Purnell entitled “How Can Welfare Foster Independence and Responsibility?”. The topic is self-evident but Purnell doesn’t miss the opportunity to take several swipes at David Cameron – “At every stage in his life David Cameron has just drifted with the orthodoxy around him. The answer, for him, is always blowing in the wind.”
• They also have a good piece by Richard Corbett MEP on the importance of next year’s European elections for New Labour.
• At Compass Jeremy Gilbert is furious with Boris for what he sees as a setback for London’s cosmopolitan culture – removing the explicit anti-racism message from the Rise festival. And Vice Chair Willie Sullivan casts David Davis as a ‘mad genius’ and speculates that his move may have positive results for Cameron conservatives, intended or otherwise.
• The healthcare foundation the The Kings Fund will be readying themselves for Lord Darzi’s NHS Review to be published shortly – in the meantime they have a paper on government efforts to shift the balance of care from hospital to community settings.