People have lots of ideas about tactics that should be used to quell the mobs. Some of the most common ideas, though,aren’t very good. This is because we keep talking about the “riots”, but what’s happened the last few days aren’t really riots. They have no political cause, no demands, no agenda. They have no […]
Category: Politics
London riots and media ‘blackouts’
I will write a fuller blog on the London riots later, but just wanted to comment on a theme seen in some of the tweets and chatter: that the media somehow covered up the latest rioting in Enfield and other places in London. The news is rarely instant. It often takes hours for something to […]
The real evidence on Circumcision and HIV
Writing in the Guardian, Neil Howard and Rebecca Steinfeld argue for a ban on circumcision. I disagree with them, but luckily so do many others and they’ve done a good job of responding. See this direct response from Adam Wagner, and this pre-emptive piece by Alex Stein. I have an instant prejudice against the potluck buffet […]
Rules and Media Restraint
I’ve just come back from an event discussing the future of the UK’s Coalition Government, put on by Lexington Communications and ConservativeHome. But that’s about as much as I can say. There are rules. This event was under one of the most famous, the Chatham House Rule, named after the offices of the Royal Institute of International […]
AV final thoughts and strategic voting
I’ve been in the USA since Wednesday, for work. Because my work has a political aspect, I always end up having to explain the UK’s political system to Americans. This is difficult, because the US political system was designed by lots of clever people meeting over a period of a couple of years, based on […]