This may be hard to believe but at present too many youngsters manage to pass A-levels without meeting this

This may be hard to believe, but at present too many youngsters manage to pass A-levels without meeting this requirement.The proposals also address one of the main criticisms made by universities: the fact that they cannot select the brightest youngsters because so many candidates nowadays obtain A-grade passes at A-level. The proposals put forward yesterday by Mike Tomlinson, the former chief schools inspector, for radical changes in the secondary school examination system have much to commend them. They address the problem, often highlighted by employers, that too many youngsters are leaving our schools without even the basic skills they need to manage in the world of work.
The idea is that all pupils will have to attain the equivalent of a GCSE grade C in maths and communications skills before they are awarded the new diploma proposed by the report. But it will surely not be long before national interest rears its head once again.. For now, they are at one in demanding such things as a cap on EU spending.

France and Germany need Britain if they want to achieve anything on foreign policy, and Britain needs both, especially after Iraq. For all the honeyed words in Berlin, this is a marriage of convenience. The smaller states fear, with some justification, that the Big Three simply want to preserve old-style influence in the new 25-member Union.The one consolation for the small countries is that their worries are probably premature. The chorus of negative reaction undermines the view promoted by Downing Street that more can be achieved if the three biggest nations can find shared ground. We might look forward, for example, to a deal salvaging the EU Constitution. And defence is an example of what can be achieved when a British government decides to engage constructively rather than snipe from the sidelines.Any re-energised leadership, however, will need to be conducted with more finesse than hitherto. For implicit in the exclusive nature of today’s meeting is that there is a first and a second division.The EU could certainly do with an injection of strong leadership as it embarks on its most ambitious enlargement.

Among the signatories are Poland Spain and Italy, three of Mr Blair’s closest allies on the war.These governments are now dismayed that today’s summit might mark the launch of an informal “directorate” of Europe’s three biggest states. The backlash against Tony Blair’s new-found friendship with France and Germany began even before the Prime Minister’s plane took off for today’s trilateral summit in Berlin. Six European prime ministers signed a declaration essentially warning Messrs Blair, Chirac and Schr? not even to think about trying to dominate decision-making in the enlarged European Union.
If Mr Blair had hoped that by reviving relations between London, Paris and Berlin he would close the bitter divisions exposed by the Iraq war, he must now be aware that he risks opening a new set of fissures. The problem of artificial insects, it appears, is that they may fly the better for being small but then are far more vulnerable to being buffeted by the wind. Long have we wished to blow away our flying tormentors with a quick puff At least we can do it with their mechanical imitators.. Yet that, according to the head of the Aerospace Subgroup at the University of Bath, is what the scientists have in store for us, to the delight of military planners.
But nature is not so easily mocked. We have enough problems trying to bat away flies, never mind mosquitoes, without having to cope with a new breed of miniature flying robots imitating the actions of insects.

But he took great pleasure in the knighthood bestowed on him in 1996.Tam Dalyell. This was not only a blow to Hann, but a considerable blow to the cause of nuclear power in Britain. With Robin Jeffrey he had formed a most effective partnership, the driving businessman, the expert publicist on the one hand and the creative nuclear engineer on the other.However Hann was never a person to moan about the past, and he put his energy into other chairmanships – Hickson International, Eurotherm, the Bath Press Group – and was able to indulge in his favourite recreation of sailing; some compensation for a lingering regret that because of his father’s sudden death he had been denied a career in the Royal Navy.He was dealt a terrible blow in 1999 when Jill, his wife and support of 40 years, died. Often they turn out to be both delicious and enjoyable, but we leave without very much information, and feeling that perhaps there has been little purpose in accepting hospitality.