Do the Brits really.want to see the Bayeux Taoestry?

French President Emmanuel Macron has promised to loan the UK the famous thousand-year old Bayeaux Tapestry as a gesture of goodwill.

Politicians and local aurhorities are lauding the decision. Conservators and museum people, on the other hand, are warning that the tapestry is way too fragile to transport (and is, of course, irreplaceable).

My first thought was: why would Britain want to lionize a tapestry celebrating nearly two hundred years of conquest and oppression by a foreign force? Maybe the Brits are more broad-minded and urbane than I think, but my guess is that M. Macron is being overly optimistic 

Why is it alway men that engage in risky investing behaviour?

If you've ever wondered why it always seems to be guys that do all that investment in cryptocurrencies, meme stocks, sports gambling, even belief in Donald Trump and conspiracies theories, some new research purports to explain it (but fails, in my opinion).

The research, published in the journal Judgment and Decision Making (yes, that's the name of a scientific journal!), identifies something called the "confidence-information-distortion-confidence" cycle. This essentially says that, once men have an initial opinion on something - whether it be choosing a mortgage or insurance option, making investment decisions, choosing a financial advisor or going it alone - they tend to interpret any subsequent pieces of information, whether confirmatory or useful or relevant or not, as support for their initial assessment. Even if it shouldn't rationally affect their decision at all, each new item of information increases their confidence that their original opinion was right. 

You could just call it "conviction bias", rather than the pseudo-science gobbledygook this study chooses to employ. And it's hardly surprising or news, is it? More to the point, it doesn't really explain why men are more affected by this logic blindness than women. But it remains a fact that some 61% of cryptocurrency investors are men, high-risk stock trading tends to be a male province by a two-to-one ratio, and sports betting is male thing by a three-to-one margin.

A study explaining why women are more risk-averse might be more useful. I imagine it has its origins in evolutionary biology or child-rearing or something of that sort. These things usually do.

Robert Kennedy Jr. hauled over the coals on vaccines

The US Senate committee investigating the actions and decisions of Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. is riveting America, not least for Kennedy's completely unrepentant fixation on walking back decades - nay, centuries - of research and settled science on vaccination.

He doesn't say so in so many words, but it's clear that Kennedy wants to get rid of ALL vaccinations. For now, he is contenting himself with limiting some important vaccines, including the COVID vaccine (which he calls the "most deadly in history", despite its clear role in saving thousands, maybe millions, of lives) and the hepatitis B and RSV vaccines. The spectre of the spread of preventable diseases like polio and measles running rampant through America once again is by no means improbable. (Florida has already revealed plans to repeal ALL vaccine requirements for schoolchildren!)

Kennedy has already dismissed many members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including its director, as well as the entire panel of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), and replaced them with known antivaccine activists. He is promising many more sackings in the near future of anyone who disagrees with his own wacky beliefs (which is almost all mainstream scientists). Many more have voluntarily resigned their positions, unable to work in such an environment. Even his family members are calling for him to step down, calling him a threat to the health of Americans!

The White House (or at least Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller) has publicly defended Kennedy, who has come under fire from politicians on both sides of the political divide. Miller called RFK Jr. "a crown jewel of this administration", in spite of the growing howls for his removal. Trump himself has remained suspiciously quiet about it all, contenting himself with saying that Kennedy "means very well" (faint praise indeed), and that "I like the fact that he's different".(ridiculous and childish). Trump seems to dither between strongly supporting vaccines and not.

As with so much that is happening in the Trump administration, it's hard to look away. But it's a depressing and unedifying spectacle to see so much good work (and so many good people) being wilfully destroyed in this way.

Why does everyone now hate Keir Starmer?

Keir Starmer and the Labour Party won a landslide victory in the UK elections a year ago (411 out of the 650 seats available), largely as a result of general dissatisfaction with the Tories' sorry performance over the preceding decade plus. The country, it seemed, was willing to give him carte blanche to follow a new political direction.

But, as I noted just recently, Labour's popularity is now down around 20%, barely above that of the Conservatives, and well behind the far-right Reform UK, which would win with a healthy majority if an election were held today. Luckily, no such election is planned. 69% of voters now have an unfavourable opinion of Labour, and Starmer's net favourability rating has sunk to an all-time low of -46%. In fact, even among Labour voters, his approval rating is -26%.

Now, Starmer has lost one of his most loyal lieutenants, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, who resigned after details surfaced of her failure to pay the proper land tax on a new home, an egregious sin indeed.

And all this is in spite of what seem at face value to be a series of economic wins: trade deals with the US, India and the EU for example, reductions in NHS waiting lists, improvements to school services, etc.

So, how did Starmer manage to make such an almighty hash of it? Why is Starmer so unpopular?

Well, as is so often the case, cost of living issues are the main reason. Inflation is on the rise again, and the cost of electricity, gas and other fuels has risen even faster, with water and sewage costs increasing more than everything. These monthly bills are highly visible and top-of-mind for voters, and are a big influence on people's opinions. Cutting benefits for disabled people and winter fuel cuts didn't help the government's image either.

British business have also soured in Labour. Higher taxes on businesses are seen by many as "anti-growth", and limits imposed on immigration and foreign workers, as well as an arguably  laudable increase in the minimum wage and improved workers' rights, are all seen as increased burdens for small and medium-sized businesses in particular.

Ironically, in a country still reeling from the effects of the relatively flamboyant and bombastic Boris Johnson and even Nigel Farage, Starmer's lack of personality is also holding him back. You'd think the country would welcome a calm, thoughtful leader, but apparently his lack of charisma and his dull, plodding approach to politics is a distinct turn-off for many Britons. Many of his cabinet members are also not well-liked as personalities, and several (particularly Chancellor Rachel Reeves) are perceived as being out of their depths.

There were other contributing factors too - Starmer's initial reliance on, and subsequent sacking of, the unpopular advisor Sue Grey; the acceptance of free gifts ("freebiegate"); and others. After all, Starmer was supposed to be different from Boris and the others, right? 

Polling suggests that there are two types of Labour defectors: those who now prefer the Greens or Lib Dems - younger, predominantly female and better-educated, who largely feel that Labour under Starmer is too right-wing and "not Labour enough" - and those who have switched to Reform UK (really?!, yes!), who tend to be more working class and poorly-educated, and often Brexit leave voters, many of whose main complaint is that Labour has not controlled immigration well enough. 

Starmer's response to this has mainly been to lurch even further to the right on issues like immigration and trans rights, i.e. to chase those who have defected to Reform. But those same polls suggest that only 15% of those Reform defectors say they would consider voting Labour again, while nearly 60% of the defectors to the  Greens and Lib Dems say they might still vote Labour in the future. So, this seems like a bad choice on Starmer's part, and acting more like traditional Labour would probably help them more. It gets complicated, right?

So, predictably, there is no one underlying reason for Starmer's fall from grace, more of a perfect storm of minor factors, none the less damning for all that. What a mess!

Poilievre barking up the wrong tree on immigration

I had really hoped that we were over the gravelly, whining voice of Pierre Poilievre, complaining about every little thing the Liberals do. But it seems we are stuck with him in opposition for a while longer.

Some of the issues he has latched onto are clearly not winners, but Poilievre is willing to argue that black is white and fudge whatever statistics need fudging if he feels that it will pander to his right-wing base. One such issue is immigration.

Poilievre takes a tough stance on immigration, because that's what he thinks his base expects from him. Recently, he called for very hard caps on immigration, and specifically asserted that "We need more people leaving than coming for the next couple years". Even more recently he has called for the complete termination of the temporary foreign worker program, which industry and agriculture analysts say would be disastrous for the country.

But the point is that Poilievre is behind the times, and merely parroting talking points from his failed election bid that are no longer relevant or appropriate. After action taken by the Liberals, net immigration today is pretty much zero, and the Canadian population, once growing at a rapid and unsustainable clip, has already stopped growing. The uncontrolled influx of both overseas students and temporary foreign workers have already slowed to a much more manageable level.

Poilievre, as in his wont, is also misquoting some statistics on immigration, claiming that 105,000 temporary foreign workers have entered the country in just the first half of 2025, while the government's target was 83,000 for the full year. But in fact, most of that 105,000 were work permit renewals, and only 34,000 were new arrivals, well within the target. Similarly, new permits under the International Mobility Program, were well within targets, and not "out of control" as Poilievre claims. 

The Liberals are well into a program of reducing the numbers of temporary residents. According to Statistics Canada, population growth in the first quarter of 2025 was precisely zero, and the government's immigration plan is indeed for more people to leave Canada in 2025 than arrive. Poilievre is hopelessly out of touch.

Canada should be ready to circumvent Safe Third Country Agreement rules

Canada and America have long had a Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA), whereby two civilized countries that both have robust protections for refugees agree that aliens and fugitives must claim asylum in the first country they arrive in, whether that be Canada or America, and cannot just pass through America to get to Canada, or vice versa.

That has worked pretty well since the Agreement was struck in 2004. But America under Donald Trump is no longer a civilized country, at least as regards immigration and refugees. Refugees turned back at the US-Canada border now run a very real risk of being repatriated back to the country they are fleeing (or even some other country they have never lived in and have no links with). This may put them at risk of imprisonment or worse for their political views or their sexual identity or orientation, or physical danger from an abusive spouse, etc. This is particularly important given that gender-based asylum claims are rarely recognized in the USA.

Luckily, there is a provision under the STCA agreement that allows border agents some latitude in their decisions. For example, there is an escalation protocol that can be triggered when there is "credible evidence" that someone will face inhumane treatment in the US, or faces a serious possibility of being deported to face torture or death.

Up until now, these "safety valves"  have hardly ever been used. But Canadian border agents should be officially reminded of this option, and they should be much more ready to employ it, lest some of the most vulnerable refugees be left at the mercy of an uncaring and draconian American immigration system.

Lies, damned lie and canola statistics

Saskatchewan's populist premier Scott Moe has a vastly inflated idea of his, and his province's, importance. 

Speaking about China's imposition of punitive tariffs on Canadian canola oil exports - a counter-measure to Canada's punitive tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles - Moe claims that: "This $43 to $45 billion Canadian canola industry that we have [is] employing just over 200,000 people", and reminds us that a good chunk of Canadian canola, although by no means all, is grown in Saskatchewan.

This would make canola a much more important industry than automobile production, for example, which contributes about $19 billion to Canada's GDP, and directly employs about 118,000 people. Except Moe's figures are wildly (Trump-ly!) off.

Moe's figures for canola come from the Canola Council of Canada, which clearly also has an exaggerated idea of their own self-worth, not to mention something of an axe to grind. Their figure of $43.7 billion (Moe's "to 45 billion" is just poetic license) includes a grossly inflated estimate of canola's indirect benefits to the country, according to the Trillium Network for Advance Manufacturing, an Ontario-based think tank.

They point out that Statistics Canada, the same source that identified the $19.2 figure for vehicle production, has canola's contribution to the economy at about $5 billion, and employment at around 21,000.

Well, that's quite a different story from Mr. Moe's! "Lies, damned lies, and statistics", as Benjamin Disraeli would have it? Or "I can prove anything by statistics except the truth", as another British Prime Minister, George Canning, asserted?

Quebec proposed ban on public prayer is just daft

Listen, I'm an atheist. I've made no bones about that throughout this blog, even celebrated it at times. But even I know that Quebec's bill to ban all prayer in public is a bad idea.

It's no secret that François Legault's Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) party is stridently anti-religious, or pro-secularism as they might term it. They even have a Secularism Minister, Jean-François Roberge, in the Cabinet. They have already adopted a law requiring all immigrants to Quebec to "embrace the common culture" of the province, and have passed the contentious bill that would ban public workers from wearing any religious symbols in the course of their work (using the Charter's "notwithstanding clause" to avoid claims that it is unconstitutional).

This latest bill is another step down that road, and it too will require the use of the notwithstanding clause, because it too would be unconstitutional. 

It's also wrong-headed. For one thing, Legault has (accidentally or otherwise) admitted that, when he says he wants to ban prayer outdoors, he really wants to ban prayer outside of Montreal's Notre-Dame Basilica, where pro-Palestine Muslims have been holding public prayer meetings for months now. He has said he wants to send "a very clear message to Islamists".

Don't get me wrong, I think prayer is stupid, whether Christian or Muslim. To think that some putative God is listening intently when individuals pray is the ultimate in solipsism, and seems sadly deluded. But if that's really what people want to spend their time doing, well, knock yourself out, I say. Passing a law to ban it is so completely against the letter and the spirit of Canadian law that only Quebec (and maybe Alberta, for different reasons) would have the chutzpah to even try it.