Cameron wastes public money on happiness index (permanent blog link)
The BBC says:
Prime Minister David Cameron has insisted his £2m plan to measure the nation's happiness is not "woolly".
He said economic growth remained the most "urgent priority" but he wanted a better measure of how the country was doing than GDP.
From April, the Office for National Statistics will ask people to rate their own well-being with the first official happiness index due in 2012.
But before that it wants the public to give their views in a consultation.
Labour also attempted to measure quality of life when it was in power but then prime minister Tony Blair abandoned the idea, after it proved too difficult to pin down.
But Mr Cameron, who first floated the idea of a "happiness index" in 2005, when he was running for the leadership of the Conservative Party, argues that gross domestic product (GDP) - the standard measure of economic activity used around the world - is no longer up to the job.
Launching the consultation on Thursday, he said: "We'll continue to measure GDP as we've always done, but it is high time we admitted that, taken on its own, GDP is an incomplete way of measuring a country's progress."
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GDP was too "crude" a measure of progress as it failed to take into account wider social factors - he cited the example of "irresponsible" marketing to children, an immigration "free for all" and a "cheap booze free for all", which had all boosted economic growth at the expense of social problems.
2 million pounds equates to over 200 student grants at the new 9k pound per year level being proposed by the government. And that is just the initial cost of this Cameron vanity exercise.
There are already zillions of statistical measures apart from GDP which measure a "country's progress", such as life expectancy, educational achievement, etc. The implication here is that we somehow need to summarise all these other measures in one number so that the government, having failed miserably on the economic front, can point to another number (assuming they can rig it so that it always goes up). It will also allow the usual middle class control freaks to have yet another excuse for stopping things they happen not to like (e.g. "cheap" booze).
Meat and milk from cloned animals is allegedly safe (permanent blog link)
The BBC says:
Meat and milk from cloned cattle and their offspring are safe to consume, independent scientists have said.
The Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes said it believed the food was unlikely to present any risk.
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FSA chief scientist Andrew Wadge said: "The Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes has confirmed that meat and milk from cloned cattle and their offspring shows no substantial difference to conventionally produced meat and milk, and therefore is unlikely to present a food safety risk."
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Critics say there are strong ethical and animal welfare reasons to ban its use in European agriculture."There are many unanswered questions on the issue of cloning animals - both ethical and practical - and insufficient regulation," said a Soil Association spokeswoman.
"Not only does cloning have a negative impact on animal welfare, we also have no long-term evidence for the impacts on health."
The "critics" like the Soil Association will never be happy with any technology that is newer than the 18th century. It is unfortunate that food policy in the UK (and Europe) is not based on science but is instead based on manufactured hysteria. Animal welfare should be the one issue of concern here, not the anti-technological bias of certain unaccountable organisations.
British students are allegedly invading American universities (permanent blog link)
The BBC says:
The Fulbright commission, which promotes study exchanges between the US and the UK, believes that the numbers of British students in America in the next academic year could rise "dramatically", in the wake of rising tuition, and a limited number of places at home universities.
Lauren Welch, who is the director of advising and marketing for the commission says interest from British students in American institutions has "skyrocketed".
At a recent undergraduate study fair for pupils looking to study in America, she reported a 50% increase in attendees on previous years. The commission's website has seen traffic go up by a third.
"People are worried that they may not get a place in the UK so they want to throw their hat in the ring in other countries to see what happens," explains Ms Welch.
The price of tuition in the United States varies dramatically across universities. The annual average cost to study at a private university on a four-year course is £20,000, at a public university it is £12,000-£18,000 .
"While the possible rise in tuition rates won't be on par with the US, I think the sense is that students are thinking I have to pay £9,000, why not go an extra couple of thousand pounds more and have that added bonus of going abroad," adds Ms Welch.
Another poor BBC story, but most of their stories about America are poor, because their journalists do not seem to have any understanding of America. In this article, they quote Welch, whose job in life is to spin these kinds of stories. In reality, the best private American universities (Harvard, etc.) charge 30k pounds per year, and it takes four years to graduate. Compare that with perhaps 15k pounds per year to go to Cambridge or Oxford, assuming that tuition fees do go up to 9k pounds per year, and with a three year course. Needless to say, 120k > 45k and by quite some margin.
The overwhelming majority of UK students will continue to stay in Britain. The odd rich person (like Emma Watson, who goes to Brown and who of course had to be mentioned in the article because the BBC wanted to show a photo of her) and the odd person who stumbles into America for other reasons will be the exception.
UK universities do not have to worry about competition from the US for UK students, they have to worry about competition for students from outside the UK, in particular from outside the EU. On this score the Tory government seems set to make things worse with a politically motivated and economically and (future) foreign policy damaging policy to reduce the number of foreign students coming to study in Britain.
Rural people are allegedly worse off (permanent blog link)
The BBC says:
People in rural areas need to take home up to 20% more than those in urban areas in order to reach an acceptable living standard, according to a report.
The Commission for Rural Communities said someone in a remote village needed £18,600 a year to get by, compared with £14,400 for an urban dweller.
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The report cited transport and fuel as the main extra cost burdens.A team from Loughborough University that calculates the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's minimum income standard index carried out the research for the CRC.
This index is based on what items people think households need to be able to afford to achieve a minimum acceptable living standard.
Yet again the BBC publishes what amounts to a press release for a special interest pressure group, this time the Commission for Rural Communities (to be abolished, at least). First and foremost, nobody forces anyone to live in a "remote village". Of course if you want to be a farmer then you would (normally) live in a rural area, but nobody is forced to be a farmer. And other people have little reason to have to live in a rural area other than that they choose to, probably because they think it is cheaper (in spite of what this report alleges, using its strictly theoretical "minimum income standard index"), and/or because they want a quieter lifestyle, which is obviously valued by them but which this report completely ignores.
Urban areas are continually forced to subsidise rural areas, for no particular reason. Given this subsidy, rural living is not really "sustainable". And people in rural areas often go to some effort to keep out other people from those rural areas (as happened recently south of Cambridge when a proposed housing development at Hinxton was widely opposed by the rural middle class), which would make their villages more "sustainable". All in all, this kind of bleating by the Commission for Rural Communities should just be ignored.
Cambridge City Council votes for an arbitrary 20 mph zone (permanent blog link)
The Cambridge News says:
Concerns about speeding commuters mean three Cambridge streets are in line for lower limits.
Shaftesbury Road, Clarendon Road and Fitzwilliam Road could benefit from a peculiar highways policy.
As the News has reported, residents living in the area claimed workers from Cambridge University Press and organisations based at Eastbrook regularly flouted the area's 30mph maximum.
Now they are set to get a 20mph limit, even though a survey found average speeds were well under the current top level.
In one direction, the mean speed was just 19mph.
But a meeting of Cambridge City Council's south area committee heard doing a new survey might not be a good idea, because Cambridgeshire County Council - which has responsibility for highways - will only approve 20mph limits in areas where the average speed is 24mph or lower.
Members agreed to spend £12,000 on imposing the new maximum, plus £10,000 on two automatic warning signs.
The lower limit still has to be approved by the county council.
In a survey, 82 per cent of respondents said they believed the area had traffic problems, and 65 per cent supported a 20mph limit.
Two cats have died after being hit by cars and there are fears a child could be next.
Maybe there is some special speeding problem on Shaftesbury Road, Clarendon Road and Fitzwilliam Road. But it does not seem likely, especially when the excuse given is that "two cats have died after being hit by cars and there are fears a child could be next", combined with the results of some meaningless survey. Is there any road in Cambridge where cats have not died after being hit by cars? Is there any road in Cambridge where you could not use the same emotional blackmail about a hypothetical "fear" that "a child could be next"? Is there any road in Cambridge where the residents would not claim there is a "traffic problem"? (Presumably by this is meant a "speeding problem", although any category of "traffic problem" would no doubt get the same response.)
And why stop at 20mph? Let the emotional blackmail continue to its logical conclusion. Some child could be killed by a car doing 20mph. Some child could be killed by a bicycle doing 10mph. Some child could be killed by a bus doing 5mph. Perhaps the Lib Dem middle class control freaks who run Cambridge City Council should vote to ban all non-pedestrian traffic everywhere in the city just in case some child might be killed somewhere in Cambridge. (Adults apparently do not count, since the emotional blackmail is not so useful.)
This is not to mention the county council's farcical policy where you can only get a 20mph limit if the speed is already slow (on average). So fast roads have to remain fast and already slow roads can be forced to become even slower. The Cambridge transport bureaucrats really should all be sacked.
Recycling is evidently a crime (permanent blog link)
A Cambridge University department sends out the following email:
I have been asked by The Enforcement Officer of the Cambridge City Council to write to everyone in the Department concerning another incident of cardboard packaging being disposed of through the wrong disposal route.
In April, we were threatened with a fine because cardboard with the Department address on it was found left out for collection. On this occasion, the user had disposed of the packaging at Sainsbury's recycling Centre at Brooks Road. The problem is, in both cases, the cardboard packaging could be traced back to the University/Department because the address was visible. Any departmentally labelled cardboard is supposed to be disposed of through the commercial waste route.
This is another indication of the stupidity of the people who run Cambridge (and the country, for that matter). So the city (and the country) lavishes praise on residents who throw cardboard into recycling bins, because allegedly it is such a saintly activity. Indeed, there are even suggestions that people should be rewarded financially for doing so.
And yet, at the same time, organisations have to pay to recycle cardboard, because, surprise, there is a cost associated with recycling. So the people of Britain are given a totally hypocritical message. Recycling is saintly, or else it is a crime.
And unfortunately in this specific case, some jobsworth decided to be totally petty. It is quite evident that this was not a systematic dumping of cardboard by the department. One possibility of what happened is that many people in the department send stuff ordered via the internet to the department, because it makes more sense to do that than to send it to home (when nobody is there during the day). Or perhaps someone used some boxes from the department when moving house. Who knows. But now, it seems, it is technically illegal to dispose of any such packaging in one's recycling bin. It is totally crazy. Welcome to Stupid Britannia.
Another terrible legacy of the Tony Blair era (permanent blog link)
The BBC says:
A man who posted a Twitter message threatening to blow up an airport is facing a £3,000 bill after losing an appeal against his conviction.
Paul Chambers, 26, said he acted in frustration after Robin Hood Airport in South Yorkshire was closed by snow.
The trainee accountant from Doncaster, who now lives in Northern Ireland, was found guilty in May of sending a menacing electronic communication.
...
The message Chambers sent to his 600 followers in the early hours of 6 January said: "Robin Hood Airport is closed. You've got a week... otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!"
And the BBC says:
A Conservative Birmingham City councillor has been arrested over allegations he called on Twitter for a female writer to be stoned to death.
Erdington councillor Gareth Compton made the remark about Yasmin Alibhai-Brown on his Twitter page.
Police said he had been arrested under the Communications Act 2003 and bailed. He has since apologised.
Ms Alibhai-Brown said she found his attitude "loathsome" and that a "flippant apology" was not enough.
She had appeared on Radio 5 Live's breakfast show on Wednesday discussing human rights in China.
Afterwards, Mr Compton allegedly tweeted: "Can someone please stone Yasmin Alibhai-Brown to death? I shan't tell Amnesty if you don't. It would be a blessing, really."
It is totally unbelievable that anyone can be convicted or arrested for what are quite trivially obviously not serious threats against anybody. This is one of the dreadful legacies of the Tony Blair era.
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