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Category Archives: Comment
Known Unknowns, Unknown Unknowns and the Importance of Social Distancing
The UK Government has come under some critical scrutiny in the face of a response to the advance of coronavirus that has differed significantly from the consensus emerging from policy being implemented across many countries. Robert Peston, writing on the … Continue reading
Correlation and Common Sense
” To establish that someone was in the room at the time of the murder does not, it must be admitted, prove that they committed the crime; but it certainly makes them a suspect.” Continue reading
How Many Political Parties do we Really Need?
“One of the few advantages of the First Past the Post [FPTP] electoral system is that it simplifies the choices set before the electorate by the rather brutal device of limiting the number of parties which have any meaningful chance of winning seats. A proportional system inevitably brings more marginal parties into contention for seats and so has the opposite tendency. ” Continue reading
Posted in Comment, Electoral Reform
Tagged "Political Parties", electoral reform, FPTP, PR
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Donald Trump First, Donald Trump First, Donald Trump First
Recent events in Charlottesville have shone a light on the attitude to race of President Trump and his now departed political strategist, Steven Bannon. For a moment Trump seemed to be making his position clear: “When we open our … Continue reading
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What really happened in Sweden last night…
More or Less, [ Radio 4 and the BBC World Service] routinely challenges the interpretation and conclusions drawn from the data circulating in the news. It is a programme which succeeds in making statistics interesting, even amusing. This week’s edition … Continue reading
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Hare Crosses the Border
Start the Week [27Feb2017] was a discussion linked by the theme of borders. In particular I was drawn to the contribution of map-maker Garrett Carr who has travelled “Ireland’s border to explore the smugglers, kings, peacemakers and terrorists who’ve criss-crossed … Continue reading
Alan Winfield on robot ethics
Alan Winfield, who glories in the title of “Professor of Robot Ethics,” at the University of the West of England was a recent subject of Jim Al-Khalili’s Radio 4 series “The Life Scientific.” , [21Feb17], At one point in … Continue reading
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Play and Creativity…
Listen to this glorious discussion which manages to combine stories about the production techniques of Brian Eno, the importance of play in learning, a goal for Arsenal by Giroud, the importance of untidiness in creativity, the screw up behind one … Continue reading
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Carruchan 
Into the Mystic with Donald Trump?
Why should we listen to Rory Stewart? Well, there is plenty of evidence that he a person of capability, but really it is a matter of judging for yourself, and contrasting his proposals with the variety of others that we can see in play, from, on the one hand, the uncompromising centralised management of the Chinese to, at another extreme, the mystic workings of Donald Trump Continue reading →