Government plans to look at changes to the system of penalties for drivers caught speeding have been welcomed by the RAC Foundation. Transport Secretary Alistair Darling has launched a consultation document suggesting variations in the fines and penalty points imposed on motorists depending on to what extent they break limits.The consultation document also welcomes proposals by the police for first-time offenders in the lower speeding category to be offered speed awareness courses, which will be put in place nationwide, in lieu of two penalty points. The drivers will pay for the courses themselves. The idea has been tried successfully in two police force areas.

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Both sides in the argument over grammar schools are overstating their case according to researchers who say that on average there is little difference in achievement between pupils in local education authorities that still have selection and similar pupils in comparable non-selective LEAs.The findings are published today in a report from the Centre for Market and Public Organisation designed to assess what impact selective schools have on educational performance and whether they offer a real opportunity for bright children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

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By David LyonSurveillance Society takes a post-privacy approach to surveillance with a fresh look at the relations between technology and society. Personal data is collected from us all the time, whether we know it or not, through identity numbers, camera images, or increasingly by other means such as fingerprint and retinal scans. This book examines the constant computer-based scrutiny of ordinary daily life for citizens and consumers as they participate in contemporary societies. It argues that to understand what is happening we have to go beyond Orwellian alarms and cries for more privacy to see how such surveillance also reinforces divisions by sorting people into social categories. The issues spill over narrow policy and legal boundaries to generate responses at several levels including local consumer groups, internet activism, and international social movements.

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