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Few issues in recent times have so provoked debate and dissention within the library field as has the concept of fees for user services. The issue has aroused the passions of our profession precisely because its roots and implications extend far beyond the confines of just one service discipline. Its reflection is mirrored in national debates about the proper spheres of the public and private sectors—in matters of information generation and distribution, certainly, but in a host of other social ramifications as well, amounting virtually to a debate about the most basic values which we have long assumed to constitute the very framework of our democratic and humanistic society.

David Fée contrasts the revival of the New Towns principles under various forms in the UK over the last 20 years with the absence of debate in France. He first reviews the history of the creation of the New Towns and their iconic status in the new French Fifth Republic born in 1958. Then, he examines the housing situation today which on the face of it would warrant the development of new settlements to meet the housing needs of the country. This paradox is then accounted for by referring to a different demographic context to the 1960s and 1970s and to the transfer of planning powers from the 1980s on from central to local government. These are deemed to be incompatible with a new top-down planning experiment on the size of New Towns. He then moves on to the issue of contemporary official planning principles that emphasise sustainability and densification that are thought to run against the possibility of building on green fields. This is compounded by the decision of many councils to accommodate new housing in the shape of ecoquartiers (eco-neighbourhoods) or environmentally sensitive urban extensions built by private and public developers in keeping with the local development plan. Finally, the question of public opinion and New Towns is raised and he argues that their association in the public’s mind with post-war high-rise urban extensions makes it difficult to repeat the experiment.

The long controversy that has waxed furiously around the implementation of the EEC Directives on the inspection of poultry meat and hygiene standards to be observed in poultry slaughterhouses, cutting‐up premises, &c, appears to be resolved at last. (The Prayer lodged against the Regulations when they were formally laid before Parliament just before the summer recess, which meant they would have to be debated when the House reassembled, could have resulted in some delay to the early operative dates, but little chance of the main proposals being changed.) The controversy began as soon as the EEC draft directive was published and has continued from the Directive of 1971 with 1975 amendments. There has been long and painstaking study of problems by the Ministry with all interested parties; enforcement was not the least of these. The expansion and growth of the poultry meat industry in the past decade has been tremendous and the constitution of what is virtually a new service, within the framework of general food inspection, was inevitable. None will question the need for efficient inspection or improved and higher standards of hygiene, but the extent of the

Inequalities in English schools stem from numerous factors be they educational, social or economic. Thatcherite policies reshaped the education agenda in the 1980s and inequalities were ignored by successive governments until 1997 when New Labour included social objectives in its approach with measures, such as Education Action Zones and Excellence in Cities. The following Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition and Conservative governments of David Cameron maintained such objectives through the Pupil Premium and the Universal Infant Free School Meals scheme. Theresa May’s government seems to have adopted a different policy since July 2016, focusing on meritocracy. Methodological obstacles are inherent to studies on the evolution of inequalities at school level and it may be argued that successive Cabinets since 1997 have not implemented structural reforms designed to tackle economic inequalities, thus limiting the effect of their educational reforms.

The state has an important role to play in reducing inequalities and a string of legislation from the Equal Pay Act of 1970 to the Equality Act of 2010 requires all companies, institutions and associations, as well as private and public services, to ensure equal treatment in access to employment. Yet political discourse has hardly focused on gender equality until very recently. Mandatory equal pay reporting was promoted as part of the Conservative 2015 election manifesto. Moreover, during David Cameron’s speech to the Conservative Party in October 2015, the Prime Minister claimed that it was impossible to have true opportunity without equality and made explicit reference to the problem of gender inequality. This chapter will thus examine the reasons why there are still high inequalities in terms of pay and prospects for women in Britain and how the 2008 crisis has impacted on women. It will also discuss a range of new policies to tackle gender inequality and consider whether this represents a discursive shift from vague notions of fairness to a decisive commitment from central government to tackle gender inequalities head on.

The large, all‐purpose local authorities established by the Local Government Re‐organization Act, 1972, for England and Wales—Scottish local government re‐organization is yet to be completed—are operative; members have long since been elected and organization and staffing, if not complete, at least ready to commence. It is certainly the greatest upheaval since urban and rural sanitary authorities were set up about the middle of the last century. The last change of any magnitude was in 1934; small, however, compared with 1974. At that time, there were 62 county councils, 83 county boroughs and nearly 300 municipal boroughs, 29 metropolitan boroughs, more than 600 urban and about 500 rural districts; roughly 1,600 local authorities. The tremendous reduction in authorities by the present re‐organization illustrates the extent of the upheaval.

The aim of this work is to explain the final negotiated prices for some of the most famous transfers of football players over the last twelve years (2007–2018).

The article analyses different values for forwards taken from the sports website Transfermarkt, developing a statistical model based on personal, performance, risk, environmental and popularity variables. From those values, the article finds an explanation for the final prices paid for 20 superstar players based on a combination of real option valuations, incorporating the players' life cycles and game theory.

The authors find that in a large percentage (70%) of the analysed cases, the price paid was higher than the intrinsic market value resulting from Transfermarkt, implying the existence of monopolistic rents, paid as “growth options” on prices from different negotiating conditions. On occasions, the final prices also exceed the value of the growth option, calculated under neutral bargaining conditions, highlighting the lack of economic viability of important transfers, leading to financial difficulties for the clubs involved.

The algorithm provides more flexibility and realism than previous proposals, based on the life cycle of football players, introducing the uncertainty and volatility of projections through Monte Carlo simulation, the capacity of clubs to bargain a price at any point of the contract and finally, the buyer's ability to transfer the player if his subsequent performance is not as expected.