You cannot feed the hungry on statistics.

A couple of items today:

The above is my feelings on the news that UK growth falls less than thought.

The rate of contraction of the UK economy in the three months from April to June has been reduced again.

Gross domestic product fell by 0.6% compared with the previous quarter, better than the previous estimate of a 0.7% contraction.

The original estimate produced by the Office for National Statistics had indicated a 0.8% decline.

The latest improvement came mostly from the manufacturing and construction sectors of the economy.

The ONS figures showed manufacturing fell 0.1% in the second quarter, which was half the amount previously estimated.

The rate of decline in construction was 0.8% instead of 2.2%, the ONS said.

Oh good! The economy isn’t disappearing into the black hole as fast as we thought, this is the “powers that be” idea of good news, the country is still in the shit but not as far into the shit as they thought.

That really makes me want to vote Labour next year.

And this:

Brown: 24-hour drinking law to be reviewed from the Times.

Gordon Brown is to review Britain’s 24-hour licensing laws, which critics claim have led to an increase in binge drinking.

The Prime Minister, who has already blocked supercasinos and is considering a higher

classification for cannabis, made plain yesterday that he was preparing to look at the impact of the relaxation in November 2005 of the licensing laws.

He told his first monthly press conference at Downing Street that the change in the law had prompted very strong views and it was right to look at the evidence.

His remarks prompted speculation that another U-turn was on the cards. Aides said later that the licensing review was not in the same category as those relating to casinos and drugs classification, on which Mr Brown already had clear views, but they confirmed that he was ready to look at the 24-hour drinking issue with an open mind.

After four years of the media, the police the blogosphere and all and sundry telling him that 24 hour drinking was a bad idea, Gord had finally got the message.

And this really is the problem with politicians; they think up a really stupid idea and implement it in a couple of weeks, years later they decide it wasn’t such an “Einstein” moment and do a U turn, the snag is that as well as the four year make up your mind time it takes another couple of years to reverse it.

They really should make anyone who wants to be an MP take a morality test, a common sense test and an IQ test before they are let loose on the electorate.

Angus

Angus Dei on all and sundry

AnglishLit

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