Meanwhile, in a parallel universe
A House of Lords committee has reported on the impact of rising numbers of right-wing thinktanks on people’s economic well-being. They found that the benefits of such bodies had been overestimated.
Inquiry chairman Lord Wakeham said: ‘Looking to the future, if you have got that increase in numbers and you haven’t got any economic benefit from it, you have got to ask yourself, is that a wise thing to do?’
Shadow home secretary David Davis said the peers had shown ‘unequivocally that the benefits of the current thinktank policy to ordinary UK citizens are largely non-existent’.
Posted on April 1st, 2008 at 5:31 pm

Why do they call it thinktank? Do you have to get tanked to think or must you climb into one?
Puzzled
jameshigham’s last blog post..[curves] in the eye of the beholder
I think it’s because they get to lumber across all kinds of terrain, blasting away from a safe distance, and they have thick skins.
Does anyone else have a Yahoo account and find it really pisses them off to see a Taxpayers’ Alliance* press release in Yahoo News practically every day?
[* an "alliance" of about six people, as far as I can see]
ejh’s last blog post..Spain
We really should start our own outfit - it seems to be a piece of piss to get all kinds of horseshit into the media. The lazy sods will swallow anything.
Oh come off it! If the House of Lords tells us that immigration is failing to achieve what it is supposed to achieve, we’d better start listening.
http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com
So what is immigration supposed to achieve?
Come to that, what is the House of Lords supposed to achieve?
ejh’s last blog post..Spain
Well, surely being something of a bulwark against incipient authoritarianism in recent years deserves a bonus point or two.
This report seems to be all over the place. One minute its complaining about a lack of or poor data from which to conduct a meaningful analysis, the next minute its coming to firm conclusions despite the lack of meaningful date it complains about.
Just goes to show that most politicians - elected or otherwise, couldn’t think their way out of a wet paper bag - especially the tory ones (of whichever flavour - the real ones and the New Labour imitators) as lettersfromatroy aptly demonstrates.