Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

It's disappointing that you have chosen to ignore the postal workers strike.

Ridiculous? Brilliant. Spot on! More power to these guys.

Just one question: who funds and/or pays them and their shows?

Wonderful report from Kenya. I wonder under which names the Ridiculous satirists are standing in the next election. Perhaps we will see a return of a jiving Daniel Arap Moi! During the PW Botha years in South Africa, a brilliant satirist called Pieter Dirk Uys became a legend by sending up apartheid and its political leaders. He is still going strong, having reinvented his character Evita, who still makes audiences of all races cry with laughter. Worth a google if you have not heard of him.

Few will be surprised that the election speculation will be killed by its creators following the predictable poll results. Will the Brown Iron Man have the Ed Balls to mount an election campaign now? Hardly.

i feel that the lady in charge of the discussion between the various politcal leaders in to nights discussion was unfair to the health minister allowing the tory representative to SHOUT him dOwn without stopping his ill MANNERED RANT

They will get around to it when they have stopped having a go at Brown.
Another media frendzie- he is not going until May 2009, but at least another week of "analysing" especially from the Tories why he "bottled" it.

AS the pollster on Wednesday said, Why go to the counntry with at least 3 years of this Government to go? But it keeps Paxman & Co in a job.

An Election? You mean a GENERAL Election? The Dinter of Wiscontent and a dconomic eownturn? It's all nearly as bad as the disconnect between Gordon Brown and financial services. After all, it was Broon's and Balls's financial services dyslexia that failed Northern Rock.

Newsnight has not ignored the postal strike. It knows perfectly well that there will be no postal votes if an election is called now.

SNP tactics in Scotland, given the triumph of the Lib Dems in Broon's back yard, might even lose Broon his seat!! The antidote to arrogance - a leaderless party in government. You don't need an election to secure that. We have it now.

So, when do we get a chance to rid the country of another failed, incompetent dangerous Labour Government?

Whilst amusing in parts, irreverent satirical humour by Kenyan comedy groups like 'Ridiculous' isn't going to help Kenya any more than Spitting Image did the UK, it will just increase irreverence/anarchism. On the other hand, restrictions on emigration of their more able people might help Africa, but it won't, as it that would be in violation of the Human Rights convention (not that that would stop Zimbabwe of course).

The recently passed Zimbabwean Indigenization and Economic Empowerment Bill (see text at the end) requires 51% local (relative to foreign) ownership of Zimbabwean companies. Unsurprisingly, Mugage is not permitted to travel in the EU where Human Rights convention proscribes such legislation and actions. One may ask though, why just the head of state?

From Zanu-PF's perspective (like the Burmese junta's, also backed by China), they're protecting their people from what they perceive to be foreign, mainly Western, economic investors/competitors.

Based on available data, Zimbabwe, like most sub-Sahara Africa, has a remarkably low mean IQ of just 70 (according to Lynn, 2006, p.34). Kenya, with its larger population of 37 million or so is not more than 10-15 points or so higher, which means that liberal democracy would put Zimbabwe at greater risk from unscrupulous local (and especially international) entrepreneurs given that 98% of the country will have an IQ of under 100 relative to UK norms. Kenya is better off given its population is nearly three times the size with a mean IQ about +1SD higher than Zimbabwe. That means about 16% of Kenya's population has an IQ over 100 (but only 2% will have an IQ over 115, probably the minimum for competent and competitive professional services.

The point holds for Kenya about emigration though. They really can't afford to lose the more able people, they're needed to build and run Kenya.

We don't know how to boost IQ there or anywhere else (regardless of what New Labour says, cf. SureStart, HeadStart, Aiming High don't seem to work) other than changing the differential birth-rate (i.e ensuring more of the brighter have more kids), so education may not be their salvation. They have to work with what they have.

Like so much of Sub-Sahara Africa, Zimbabwe's population is being decimated by AIDS and starvation (Kenya is one of the better off) at least in part because they don't have the people in large enough numbers to build and sustain their economy/infrastructure. The 2% of the Zimbabwian population with an IQ above 100 is on an ever diminishing curve. With a population of 13 million they could have at most 260,000 people in the population with IQs above 100. But looking at their population pyramid, 45% of that will be 15 years and under, and one has to ask how many of the remaining 143,000 (half male, half female) will have fled for greener pastures given a) they're more able to go and b) welcomed elsewhere as asylum seekers/economic migrants (see recent EU policy given the low birth rates in the EU).

Cynically, this cuts them both ways. We take their better people which makes it harder for them to do without foreigners at home to help them run their own country.

What's the impact of emigration on their ability to sustain a stable infrastructure and economy? What are we *really* doing to such countries by enticing their brighter people into the EU (it is EU policy). Answer, we make them more economically dependent on us.

Those who extol the alleged virtues of 'freedom', 'democracy' and 'Human Rights' tend to gloss over these unpalatable questions. Not all populations have the same IQ distributions (physical and social gene barriers have seen to that over thousands of years). Yet internationalists or investors (call them what you will) happily spin the myth of universal *uniformly* distributed cognitive ability, education and 'equality', freedom of choice, and most cynically of all, the merits of free market competition as a universal panacea. Where have we heard this before?

Command economies aka despotic governments tend to have large numbers of rural people. This tends to mean lower IQs, which tends to mean a higher frequency of child like behaviour regardless of age. Planned or command economies are paternalistic, repressive and less efficient by necessity. But they maintain law and order in ways that democracies do ot (see the number of Blacks in US and UK prisons). They may be harsh, but they actually protect more people than they harm (cf. Iraq). Free market liberal democracies tend to assume people can fend for themselves. Children can not.

Hitler, the bete noir and model tyrant of the C20th also legislated for indigenization during the 1930s, whilst also abolishing democracy. Alleging there was an international Jewish/Bolshevik(Trotskyite)/High finance conspiracy at work to undermine the state if not Europe he tried to indigenise. Repugnant though it may be to many of us today, up to September 1939, Britain essentially agreed with him in his stance against Bolshevism (cf. Tony Benn on Halifax/Chamberlain). In the 1920s and 1930s Bolshevism/Trotskyism (not Stalinism, which was also a national socialism) *was* seen to be a major threat to Europe. Halifax on behalf of Chamberlain praised Hitler for thwarting it. At the time, this *was* perceived as a conspiracy seeking to take over the world with and establish a Workers' Democracy (sometimes I fear that's New Labour's agenda).

Today, we might think of Zimbabwe as akin to 1920s/30s Germany (which also suffered hyperinflation) except Zimbabwe has a much lower mean IQ.

One way to look at sub Sahara Africa is to regard these countries as helplessly trying to stand up to powerful groups of one time colonists. In 1980, Zimbabwe turned to China for support.

My question is this: do we help any African country by welcoming it's brighter people? As I see it, our economies benefit from such migration a little perhaps, but theirs must suffer greatly. Is it therefore any wonder that at least some African states support Mugabe and look to totalitarian states for guidance and protection?

Given our falling TFRs and mass immigration of the lower skilled (relative to the indigenous Europeans potential) we're likely to be next (see the Leitch Report) after the USA (see the ETS report "The Perfect Storm" in February). I don't see New Labour, the Conservatives, or the Lib-Dems being 'resourced' enough to make any difference to this gloomy prognosis.

This is likely to happen throughout the EU if a) we don't increase our indigenous birth rate (hard to envisage given our equalities legislation and New Labour's promotion of education), b) curb immigration, and c) more critically scrutinise the implications of The EU Reform Treaty's Fundamental Charter of Human Rights (especially Article 3) bearing in mind that China is at variance with this, and has been since 1995. China's 'human capital' is likely to improve, whilst the EU's declines.

Compare media reports on China-Zimbabwe relations:

Mugabe appraisal:

Sir Menzies Campbell

Here we go again - another old foggie bites the dust.

If the latest generation of British party leaders is anything to go by then give me the old fogies every time. One is not over the hill when you reach 60+ - you do have one thing that the younger generation do not have and that is experience of the world and its matters and you only get that with age. No he is not over the hill he still has much to offer.

I add that I am not a Liberal party voter.

Dear Sir,

I believe that Hon. M Campbell wants
to save his party. He thinks some one younger & brighter, who will be able to lift up the Party to a higher level!

He wants to take care of his family
& Business. And to have time for resting and for private life. Wishing him all the Best ever!

Vicentina