DaveR

A report from the Policy Exchange argues that expensive properties owned by local authorities should be sold as and when they fall vacant and the proceeds used to build more housing. The net effect should be an increase in the social housing stock at no additional cost to taxpayers. See report here: http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/images/publications/ending%20expensive%20social%20tenancies.pdf If the sums add up, this seems to me to be a no-brainer. There is a lot of stuff in the report about fairness, but if the proceeds have to be reinvested in the same local authority area I can't see how it could possibly be unfair to anybody - surely no prospective social tenant has a right/expectation to be housed in a particular council ward?

From today's Times: "It is true that the Olympic Games are not political in spirit or in idea, but this gathering of men and women sounds a political note in a higher sense. Here there is afforded an opportunity for all, above all political differences, to learn to know one another and thus to promote understanding among nations." The original author? Joseph Goebbels

Botany Bay, between Margate and Broadstairs. Lovely sandy beach with chalk cliffs behind. It's not that far - a bit over an hour and a half by car. For some reason I can't post a proper link, but you can cut and paste this: http://www.stella-maris.org.uk/7bays.phtml

Mini micro are brilliant, and 2 and a bit probably the perfect age for most kids. Our scooter has been going strong for 6+ years between the 2 kids. Customer service is also very good - they supply spares at a reasonable price with very clear instructions how to fit (we've replaced a wheel bearing and a spring in the base of the handle)

Everybody is already involved in the LIBOR case - the US (DoJ, SEC, CFTC), the European Commission, the Japanese, the Swiss, us Brits (the FSA and finally the SFO) and a whole bunch of other national regulators the world over. The Italians are just joining the party a little bit late.

Uzbek weightlifter However, if I lose 1kg I am most like a British/Russian lady judo-ist I'm not sure which I prefer

Tom Cruises Tom W@nks Two different celebs, obviously

See maxxi's post above re garlic - it also works well with onions, carrot, celery, or a combination. Roast them with the chicken for 45 mins to an hour, deglaze the pan with wine/stock or both, then puree until completely smooth. Strictly speaking it's more a thin soup than a sauce but it works well.

I wan't questioning whether that line appeared in the article, rather whether it serves as a fair summary of the point/s being made. How about: "Europe is the problem, Spain can be the solution, if it achieves radical social, political economic change in a short timescale and against a background of unparallelled global economic uncertainty. And if the Italians and Greeks follow suit."

"In short, Europe is the problem, Spain is the solution." Did we read the same article? I read it as a wake up call to Spaniards currently looking for an excuse to blame anybody and everybody else. It made the case for growth stimulus alongside (maybe even in place of) austerity, but that has already bedn articulated pretty clearly elsewhere. The key line in the piece is surely: "El pa?s necesita un verdadero shock de modernidad; no s?lo recortes sociales o cambios en los m?rgenes, sino aut?nticas reformas que dinamicen el pa?s y desmantelen intereses creados."

"Dogs are not born bad, Humans determine their fate and that is where the blame should lay. To say all of one specific breed(Or a dog that resembles a certain breed) are Dangerous is just Ludicrous." I agree that dogs are not born bad, but it is evident that certain types of dog have both the capacity and the tendency to be more dangerous to humans than other types. Where capacity and tendency overlap its not ludicrous to categorise a dog as dangerous, provided it is understood to mean potentially dangerous because of the identified factors. Whether such dogs should be automatically destroyed (as under the old law) or be liable to be destroyed (as now) or should not be subject to any legal control other than based on behaviour (as you advocate) is a public policy question, and the answer is not as obvious as you suggest. Cost is not the only issue, and cost issues can be addressed without changing the law if the policy position is agreed to be the right one. Dog lovers disagree but they are not the only constituency here. The law has already rowed back signficantly from the original knee-jerk legislation, and the specific case being highlighted here is not really very significant in the context of the argument as a whole. IMHO.

I put it very carefully - it's not a question of choosing not to work, but simply whether you are able to work or not. Recognise this quote? "I grew up in the '30s with an unemployed father. He didn't riot. He got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept looking 'til he found it." If you believe the opinion polls, the British public are having a Tebbitt moment. The serious argument in its most basic form is that society may have an obligation to provide a minimum standard of living of the sort described by the JRF for those who are incapable of paid work, but not for those who simply don't have work. For the latter the system should always incentivise working over not working, and the expectation is that people do whatever it takes to get into work. You can regulate rents, or you can cut the level of housing benefits - which you choose is (it seems to me) dependent on whether you see it as a market distortion issue or a 'punish greedy landlords' issue. I tend to favour the former, but the net outcome should be the same in economic terms, and arguably its fairer overall. One of the reasons why people can't get on the housing ladder is because of the excessive rents paid out of the benefits budget for modest housing in expensive neighbourhoods.

"One Belfast councillor has received a death threat over Lennox's proposed destruction and workers in Belfast City Council have become the target of a fresh series of intimidating and threatening messages..... Some of the dog's followers took the campaign to extremes and Belfast council workers became the focus of intimidation and abuse. Last year, threatening letters, one drenched in petrol, were put through the letter-boxes of two female dog wardens. Another staff member had her car tyres slashed outside her home." I think it's fair to say that some people have clearly lost all sense of proportion here, and it is they who should be ashamed of themselves. This case followed the procedure of all cases involving a prohibited type (not breed) under s.1 i.e. an expert gives an opinion on whether it is a prohibited type, that is either challenged or not (it wasn't in this case), and then the court hears evidence and decides whether to make a destruction order or not. This only happens to dogs that are prohibited types (in practice almost exclusively pit bulls) so it's not going to happen to anybody's dog unless it looks a whole lot like a pit bull. Anecdotally there are at most a couple of hundred s.1 cases annually (UK dog population estimated at 8 - 10 million) and the vast majority start from someone making a complaint about behaviour by the dog that falls short of being a separate offence under s.3 (dangerously out of control) but is worrying enough for someone to call the police or council, or where the owner has 'form' of one sort or another. There will always be the odd case that seems very unfair, and this may be one of them, but the tone of the earlier posts is kind of apocalyptic compared to the cold reality.

If you ask the public to determine the minimum acceptable standard of living, and what they come up with costs more to provide than the incomes of a sizeable proportion of the population, then it's not surprising that it will be met with calls of 'something must be done'. It doesn't matter whether you accept various analogies/anecdotes about how achieving an acceptable standard of living is a process rather than an instant outcome - it's just a fact that many people don't have the standard of living that ideally everybody would have, and no magic wand will make it so. In truth, the JRF report doesn't take us any further than the two fundamental questions that we are all entirely familiar with and have been debated, in one form or another ad infinitum, i.e. - how can countries get richer; and - how can that wealth be shared equitably with the follow up questions of whether you have to choose between the two (to any extent) and the proper role of government in either. Unless you really believe that it's as simple as: "It's not that the money isn't there. It's what and whether and how we choose to spend it." MM poses this question: "Would the answer to what constitutes a minimum standard of living change if it were made explicit that the only way of closing any funding gap would be an increase in the cost of benefits" I think there is a more direct question that is already being posed, in surveys and the populist press, which is: "Should people ever be better off on benefits than in work?" and the answer that is being suggested ("no") leads to some interesting conclusions i.e. NMW and high income tax thresholds are a good thing (as Quids said) but so is holding down benefits levels, and that it is necessary to be rigorous about separating those who can't work from those who can but for some reason aren't in work.

The area around Quimper in the far southwest is great. Surf beaches to the west around the Bay d'Audierne and smaller more sheltered beaches to the south like Benodet and Loctudy.

"just like it's difficult to say who's to blame when any relationship goes bad." most women don't have any difficulty identifying who's to blame.

Cripes, I didn't realise that the proprietors of the Heavy Hellenic had also suffered a toys and pram related incident. Maybe there should be a permanent sticky on the ED businesses thread entitled "businesses who are so confident that they are perfect that they have insisted that any criticism of them on this forum be ruthlessly purged". Or something.

There's a significant volume of evidence that the predictions of experts are far less reliable than either statistical modelling or the collective views of apparently less well-informed groups of non-experts. (Anybody who listened to Mark Lawrenson's "expert" contributions to the BBC commentary on the final will have acquired their own little bit of empirical evidence to support this conclusion.) So there is a proper scientific basis for pointing out that UDT is indeed behaving like a tit, which is heartening.

A question for Canvas & Cream. It says on your website: "Owing to Health and Hygiene regulations we can only allow food bought from us to be consumed on our premises" Is that true? It doesn't seem to apply to any other cafe. The title of the thread is "Cafes only allowing food bought on the premises to be consumed by your baby". If you're going to come and post on it, at least deal honestly with the point that is being made rather than coming out with a load of waffle.

"England is a state defined by geographical boundaries whose principle role is the exploitation of common resources. A nation is a tribe of people with common values, goals and aspirations typically fabricated by polititcians and built upon fictitious creation myths: be it Alfred the Great or Henry the Eight." This strikes me as utter bollocks, albeit (as always) cloaked in deceptively authoritative language. And if this is true: "I often find common cause with large groups of other people, those people are almost never defined by geographical boundaries - hence I feel no more strongly about differentiating between being English, British or European" I suspect it puts you in a very small minority. Issues of nationality and identity (to say nothing of ethnicity and that vague thing that people call 'culture') are way too complicated to be dismissed so glibly. For me, the debate about "Englishness" is interesting precisely because it is so elusive (to the English) yet somehow so easy to identify for the purpose of defining your otherness (if you are Scots, or Irish). I know and feel that I am English rather than Scots, British rather than French, and European rather than Chinese but is doesn't follow from that that I support an English parliament or Scots independence - there are more important economic and political considerations than my own sense of identity, which is perhaps telling in itself.

8 nights is not long enough to see the whole island even if you spend every day travelling. Also, on public transport it's going to be very inefficient unless you stick to the main routes. If you're flying into Palermo it makes sense to spend at least a couple of days there (try and go to the seaside at Mondello, at least for a seafood dinner). Cefalu is a great spot, but make sure you stay in the old town, as some of the accommodation further along the beach is quite a hike. From there you can either head further east to Milazzo (for the Eolian Islands), Messina (not worth stopping), Taormina and Catania, or south to Agrigento. If I were you I'd head for Agrigento and the temples, and save the eastern half of the island for another trip. Alternatively, you could head west from Palermo, toward San Vito lo Capo and Trapani. I've never been there but I've heard it's nice. And remember to eat an ice cream every day. At least one.

I can't believe Hugo is still blaming bankers It makes you about as credible as New Nexus (albeit with a more attractive prose style)

Trying to connect with a smartphone, it detects the network but says 'can't connect'. On one occasion I was able to connect but then the PC connection (via ethernet cable) dropped, so it appears to be one or the other. I was previously able to connect with another, older phone. Any advice? Do I need to replace the router, and if so any tips on what to get? Should I get 'dual band'?

"Also I was the first to mention balance of probabilities. Where was my credit?" You can have 5 smart guy points. So far your total is.....5.

H, I'm genuinely sorry that you don't understand the difference between devaluation as a governmental tool, and the interrelationship between comparative productivity and exchange rates, because it means that we have been talking at cross purposes all this time. Read and enjoy: Economics 101 - exchange rates