Please tell me that the following are not controversial: courts, not civil servants or politicians, should determine what punishment a criminal deserves, based on the individual circumstances of the crime; foreigners should be punished no more harshly, and no less, than a UK citizen. I think it is downright racist Read more…
Abraham McLaughlin in the Christian Science Monitor has been writing for some time about the growing role of China in Africa. China is increasingly making its presence felt on the continent – from building roads in Kenya and Rwanda to increasing trade with Uganda and South Africa. … Under the Read more…
I am not one of those who believe the World Bank should be shut down. Indeed, if anything, I would prefer to see the multiplicity of bilateral aid agencies and NGOs shut down, and all the money put through a single world institution instead. The World Bank is far from Read more…
I have never thought of my gaff in the Elephant and Castle as being in a fashionable part of London – though I personally like the area, and I think it is underrated (and hence relatively cheap, considering how central it is). But I see from this article in The Read more…
John Kenneth Galbraith, the Canadian-born economist and JFK’s Ambassador to India, has died. Galbraith was probably the second most well-known and widely read economist of the 20th Century, after John Maynard Keynes. He was the first pop-star economist, a distinction achieved by few others (Paul Krugman and Jeff Sachs are Read more…
Tim Worstall’s weekly roundup of the best of British Blogs is up.
The House of Commons International Development Committee has just published a very sensible and well-informed report which attacks the UK and EU negotiating strategy on the Doha trade round. They attack the EU for trying to negotiate a "grand bargain" between the rich countries and the global south: We consider Read more…
With my sister Virginia visiting from Brighton, England, we have been touring the California wine region, which is an hour north of here. Here is a photo of me and my sister drinking champagne at the Korbel cellars at 10am in the morning, at the start of a hard day’s Read more…
I have just caught up with this very interesting paper by Rod Boothby looking at the way that new web technology will affect knowledge workers. Today, many knowledge workers feel overloaded because they are forced to react to a constant stream of email, phone calls and instant messages. Email, the Read more…
A self-confessed sex-fiend, the Girl with a one-track mind reports her experience of a marathon runner (not safe for work): … I had a fling with a marathon runner for a while – damn that boy had stamina. Stamina like you wouldn’t believe. … But it just goes to show Read more…