Cameron? Bold?

I've just seen his WebCameron performance, and I don't know where the man gets his ideas from. He's calling himself bold, yet there is simply no evidence of that.

The best policy that the Conservatives have is in the area of education, where they plan to improve parental choice. Even that is lukewarm due to how much it is being watered down.

The remainder of Cameron's claims are window-dressing. More ethnic minority candidates is hardly radical, nor will it win seats where it matters, in marginals like Worcester and Kettering.

The News In Pictures: The Falkland Islands

I'm not sure what Matthew Parris is talking about with "Give The Falklands Back". To demonstrate, here's a little chart which shows the history of the Falkland Islands since the first colony in 1764 through to today with the areas coloured based on rule throughout those years:-

Key

• Purple - Britain and France joint rule
• Orange - Spain and Britain joint rule
• Yellow - Spain rule
• Green - no rule
• Cyan - Argentinian rule
• Blue - British rule

I hope this helps anyone reading to visualise just how little the islands have been Argentinian. In their history, they have been ruled by Argentina for less than 13 years. Add this to the fact that France were the first colonists, and that the islanders want to be part of Britain, and Argentina's claim looks pretty weak.

Matt Frei On Cuba

Link

"Cuba's extraordinary culture is a glorious byproduct of a society that is still pitifully short on the distractions of choice and prosperity"

1. Salsa existed in Cuba long before Castro got in, and exists in many parts of latin America.
2. The ballet only exists because the state funds it and people see it as a way out of poverty (despite being unproductive culture).
3. You take a beautiful palace and put a fucking factory in it? Well, that's a great advert for misusing resources.
4. A lot of cigar afficiandos don't actually rate Cuban cigars as much better than what you get elsewhere.

But I really dislike Frei's quote, because there's so much more evidence that culture thrives when you leave it to the market. American culture dominates like no other, and yet the government does nothing.

Clooney's Villa

And now they're saying it's going to be owned by David Beckham. The whiny-voiced beelzebub. The beast with multiple endorsements.

The anti-George.

Link

Farage and Belgium

There's a whole thing about politics that I find quite distasteful, which is when people simply sling arguments at others because what they say is socially unacceptable, despite the fact that they themselves think it or express it in other ways.

The fact is that Belgium has long been the butt of many jokes by comics of many different political persuasions in the UK. The old meme of "Name 10 Famous Belgians" exists because people think it's a bit of a non-country (I can generally get to 8). It doesn't have the romance of France, the outward liberty of the Netherlands, the glamour of Switzerland. If someone of the cultural left had called it a non-country because of little more culturally than Technotronic and Tintin, this would have been considered as wry observation. But because Nigel Farage said it, people will point and call him a "little Englander" or the all-too-obvious "racist".

Personally, I've been defending Belgium for years because it makes great beer and food (but I'm biased in that regard).

The Cost of RBS

Is there any way to measure or to demonstrate that we shouldn't have bailed out RBS?

Today's losses of £3.6bn are basically a loss of just over £3bn to the tax payer. So we can add that to the total cost, as well as the interest we would have all earned by sticking it in a regular savings account from now until we get it back (if we ever get it back).

Now, I know people like to say "but who's going to lend money to businesses" but that's a spherical cow argument. If the government lends/gives £1 to RBS, that's £1 taken from the taxpayer. Taking that from the taxpayer means they don't spend it on lattes, DVDs or cars, which give money to businesses. So, in effect, rather than businesses getting money from customers in the form of income, they instead have to get it from banks in the form of loans. Hardly the most efficient arrangement.

Any idea how much we've spent so far (plus interest)?

Bogus Colleges

OK, so people are coming into the UK on student visas as a way to illegally immigrate.

Strikes me that there's a simple test for this: if you're coming from a country which generally has illegal immigrants then you can only come into the UK to study if the thing you are studying is outside of the norm. So, you can't come to do a fairly regular degree in computer studies, because why would you? Surely it would be cheaper to do it in your home country.

But let's say you're doing aPhd in electronics at Cambridge, or doing a course related to steel in Sheffield (which you can't do in your own country), then you get thoroughly checked before coming in.

Comments welcome on these thoughts...