I have started subscribing to Money statistics at ‘The Money Charity’. I rather wish I hadn’t. It is an uncomfortable realisation that a whopping 3,118 Consumer County Court Judgements were issued every day in 2017, with an average value of £1,493. Meanwhile the so called National Debt (which many might prefer to call National Savings)… Read more
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Peter May
Picture for the side of a bus
This is from MapPorn (I know, it’s sad, I cannot manage the real stuff). It shows the actual major trading import partners of European countries. The German takeover of European trade, including those countries not in the Euro, is pretty much complete… This indicates the flimsiness of Brexiters assumption that Britain is such an important… Read more
Hospital Food
At last Labour is concerned with food. It has plans to improve hospital food. “Hospital food” always reminds me of those occasions in pubs, which thankfully, I’ve moved on from, when someone would look at me menacingly in the eyes whilst enquiring whether I liked hospital food. I didn’t know then – and I’m delighted… Read more
Nasty, brutish and shorter
Thomas Hobbes’ (only slightly amended) quote seems to be the way our government thinks either that we want – or probably more likely, it wants us, to live our lives. The recent figures from the Resolution Foundation on rented housing are a case in point. Outlined in the chart below, they show that the number… Read more
BBC Shame
I’ve previously highlighted the blog of the Oxford academic, Simon Wren Lewis. Although I don’t agree with everything he writes, I have to say it is always impeccably argued… This time, there is certainly no contest: Theresa May shows a disregard for people… that I cannot remember in previous Prime Ministers. The current excesses of… Read more
Bus Reregulation?
One of the most striking aspects of the Labour Party’s new bus travel proposals to give all young people under 25 free travel, is that, interestingly, they have been costed for the entirety of the UK, even though transport is devolved, because Labour seems to think that everyone will want the same proposals. I’m sure… Read more
The Home Office, eyes wide shut
The Independent has published an interesting statistic: NHS figures show the number of stab victims in England aged 10 to 16 rose by 63 per cent between 2011-12 and 2016-17 – four times the rate of increase in the population as a whole. So this seems to leave London as an area that receives most… Read more
Jane Austen and Brexit
I couldn’t possibly comment…… Read more
Money is created for the common good
Isn’t it? The New Economics Foundation has brought out a report ‘Framing the Economy’, which I confess I have downloaded but not yet fully read. I’m sure it is important, but what I’ve seen so far seems to be reflecting what people currently think and how their thinking can be ‘turned’ towards a correct understanding… Read more
A Type 1 diabetic Prime Minister and Health
So the Sugar Tax has arrived and I see one of Cameron’s ex advisors has been congratulating herself in last edition of ‘The Sunday Times’ (paywall) for persuading him to institute it. It is certainly a start. Rather like taxing cigarettes it is to be hoped it will be the start on changing behaviour. It… Read more