On a fine summer afternoon I took some of the ASI team on a helicopter trip over the Thames. From left: Madsen, Rahulan, Steve, Sam, Luke, Xander.

Steve (l) and Luke (r)

Sam (l) and Rahulan (r)

The familiar sights of London take on a fresh look from on high. This is the famous Tower Bridge.

Among the new sights being added to London is the skyscraper everyone calls the gherkin.

Westminster Abbey just visible at bottom left, then the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye across the Thames. It was an enthralling look at London.

(We flew with Biggin Hill Helicopters)

On the 'rest' day of the Mont Pelerin Society meeting in Iceland we took a private flight over the volcanic terrain. The top photo shows the rugged lanscape of most of the island. Below that is the most famous geyser (look for the steam to the right of the blow-hole). Next is a glacier, with pieces dropping off into the water.

After this we had time for whale-watching (self portrait), and found ourselves in the middle of a pod of mincke whales. Quite an enthralling day, despite some pretty serious rain.

As part of my university psychology course, I had to do a practical exercise, so I decided to conduct a local opinion poll. The poll's questions, layout and delivery, and the way I collected and processed the answers, were all complete rubbish. But in seeing the huge flaws in it, I learned an awful lot about opinion polling, and how unreliable it can be.

Yet in science experiments at school and college, there was an assumption that all results would be written up as a big success. Usually, perhaps, because the 'experiments' were all designed to work properly for the students. So I found myself trying to twist my rubbish results to fit this optimistic way of writing things up.

The experience has made me wonder just how much of the 'science' that is reported in our newspapers is in fact rubbish too, with the experimenters twisting it to fit the convention that things must be written up as a success. We'd all learn more, and avoid future mistakes, if they wrote it up showing why it was rubbish. But that wouldn’t get into Nature.

I cannot look at any apocalyptic prediction about the climate, or oil running out, or obesity or passive smoking, without reflecting back on my experience. And I am particularly skeptical of opinion polls. When you read that a shocking N% of us have suffered child abuse, only to learn that 'abuse' includes smacking naughty children, then it just trivializes the real abuse which a much smaller percentage of children actually suffer.

Our scientists have sensationalized their results so consistently for so many years that we can no longer believe them. So when they really do have something important to say, it gets tossed into the same rubbish bin. A bit like what has happened to politicians, really. Sad.

We went with some of the ASI staff to try out the Great British Beer Festival at Kensington Olympia, as recommended by Alex. There was quite a selection of beers.

Where else could you find a choice of over 450 real ales as well as foreign beer cider and perry? Last year's festival was one of the most successful ever with over 46,000 visitors who between them drank 210,000 pints of beer.

We didn't quite manage that, but amongst the hordes of mostly young people enjoying the night out, we did run into the odd member of our Next Generation group. Some people say there is too much choice, and that we are tyrannized by it. I must say it did not seem that way. The ASI crowd remembered that strength is a proxy for taste, and tried out the beers with the highest specific gravity. Interestingly enough, these were the ones which sold out first…

Other people on the London think-tank and blog scene are planning to visit it tonight.

One of the constant writing habits to guard against, if you are an economic liberal like most of us who write for this blog, is the tendency to complain all the time. Before writing this post I looked back through the last dozen or so postings here. By the time you read this it may have changed, but at that particular time, a comfortable – if that's the word – majority of recent postings either included or simply were complaints of one kind or another, about bad government, and about bad ideas about how there should be yet more bad government.

Good. It is good to complain about badness. But, a balance should be struck, if only to avoid demoralising both ourselves and all our readers.

And we economic liberals do have plenty of good news to celebrate. Capitalism, the myriad attacks on which make us so gloomy, now produces, despite all the attacks, a never-ending stream of wondrous new products and services.

For me, one the most delightful recent products of capitalism has been digital photography. Hardly a week now goes by without me having digital camera fun of some kind, often bloggably so.

My current camera, a Canon S1 IS, is my best yet. It has an "image stablizer", which is invaluable, and it has a mega powerful (10x!) optical zoom lens, ditto.

But my buying brief was: the best cheap digital camera that I could fit into my jacket pocket, and fitting my Canon S1 IS into some pockets is a tight squeeze. The problem is that zoom lens. If Canon could, Canon would just love fit it into a camera the size of a cigarette packet. But, Canon can't.

Only a few weeks ago, a friend patiently explained to me that optical zoom lenses – such is the nature of the universe – cannot stick out any less than they now do. But the universe, it seems, has just changed its nature:

Québec City, May 18, 2005 – Scientists from Université Laval's Faculty of Sciences and Engineering have invented a lens five times thinner than a sheet of paper that is able to zoom in and out without mechanical parts. Tigran Galstian and Vladimir Presnyakov present this amazing piece of optical instrumentation in the latest issue of the Journal of Applied Physics.

"There are several possible applications for such a lens. We believe one of its most promising developments could be in camera-embedded cell phones," says Galstian. "Our opto-electrical zoom lens would be of much higher quality than the ones that currently equip these phones."

This won't just make small cellphone cameras far better; it will make better cameras, like mine, far smaller. Superb. Obviously there is much further work to be done before this magic can be sold in the high street, so: patience. But: superb.

I only learned of this latest capitalist triumph by reading the August 2005 issue of Digital Camera Shopper, which I only bought because it has a review of the Canon S2 IS, which is my camera only better. (Dead tree publications have their uses.) The story I then googled my way to is over two months old.

But that's the thing about good capitalist news. It's easy to miss.

(Brian Micklethwait also writes here.)

Britain's celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has complained that government uttered "a lot of headline-grabbing words" instead of delivering more nutritious school meals. His TV series Jamie’s School Dinners sparked off a campaign to replace junk food with balanced nutrition.

While government announced a cash award of £280m for healthier meals, it turned out that this was not extra money, and that some of it was lottery cash. Helen Rumbelow (Times) reports Jamie Oliver's comments that "Our friends across the world are amazed that a proud country such as ours can have so little regard for the health and wellbeing of its children."

Mr Oliver said that on a recent visit to South Africa he went to the poorest township in Johannesburg and found that school meals were better than in Britain. He said: "It completely astounded me that in a place of unbelievable poverty, the love and care put into childrens' meals was greater than in Inner London — and resulted in a more nutritionally balanced lunch."

Mr Oliver thought that his superbly-conducted campaign had been successful, as did many observers. They had reckoned without the government's propensity to announce bold new innovations, to set up task forces, to unveil initiatives, and then not to do anything. This is a government which likes the headlines, and the praise which promised action brings. It is less keen on the hard work required to implement real change and improvement. It is also very ready to castigate others for its lack of progress; and this time it looks as though the schools and the parents are to be blamed for their unreadiness to accept the required changes.

From the States, Chuck Stoakley sends us this photo of a wooden cup that has been in his family for quite a while. The metal rim carries the inscription "Made out of the Oak from Adam Smith's house".

Smith of course had a number of homes throughout his career; he lived many years in Glasgow where he was Professor, and later in Panmure House in Edinburgh's Canongate, which still stands. But presumably this wood comes from Smith's family home in Kirkcaldy, which is now long gone. Is this the last relic of it, or do people out there have others?

The powerless critics of powerful politicians often say – by which I mean write – words like: "Words on their own count for nothing", "empty rhetoric", and of course that regular standby: "We demand action not words". But if words alone are futile what are these powerless wordsmiths doing with their lives?

I do words without action, and I think words without action can count for a lot. Why else would I have asked to become a contributor to this blog? (This is my first posting here. Hello everybody. Thanks for having me.)

Consider the British phrase "compulsory purchase". And consider the words they use in the USA to describe the same tyrannical process: "eminent domain". The first sounds like thievery, but the second sounds much more solemn and respectable, which might help to explain this recent outrageous decision by the US Supreme Court.

Think what it would mean for the world if its most influential people were to start talking again about "protection", instead of, as they mostly now prefer, describing the imposition of new tariffs and the introduction of new subsidies as "trade war".

Grumblers are saying that this announcement offering to end farm subsidies by President Bush is unimportant because he knows that his offer of reciprocal subsidy removal will be rejected. But the implication remains that President Bush thinks that removing subsidies would be a good thing, as it would.

And not even all that politically daunting. In New Zealand, as the International Herald Tribune had already pointed out, they don't now have agricultural subsidies and the farmers of New Zealand don't want them back. The President gave Tim Worstall the perfect excuse to link back to that IHT article, from the Globalisation Institute, and no doubt many others too. Simply by saying what he did, the President has changed the whole intellectual atmosphere within which future decisions will be made.

Actions taken in New Zealand make me think also of that other equally significant category: actions unaccompanied (in the short run) by anything much in the way of words. (Suggestions along these lines have long been an Adam Smith Institute specialty.) Just as words matter because they bring forth future actions, actions matter because they bring forth future words.

Last Sunday we left Gatwick airport bound for Copenhagen. Once there we only had time to check in to our hotels and meet up for a quick Tuborg. The following day, after helping him with press and TV interviews, I headed out with Madsen to the harbour by the canal. We found a restaurant with a good view and settled down for lunch. It was time for me to get to grips with some Danish food. Smørebrod is the traditional Danish lunch. It consists of a slice of buttered rye bread with some kind of meat or seafood on top, usually with mayonnaise. I was feeling adventurous and headed straight for the beef tartar. My dish of raw beef was served with raw egg and some raw onions. Despite the novelty of this dish, it didn’t actually taste very exciting. Madsen went for the herring buffet, which seemed to feature an infinite variety of pickled fish, again on rye bread. The meal was of course washed down with wine and a small glass of Akvavit.

I spent the rest of the day wandering around the harbour and the Strøget – basically Copenhagen's equivalent of Oxford Street, but pedestrianized like much of the city and therefore quieter and more laid back. For the whole trip the weather was simply beautiful. That evening we had dinner in the Tivoli pleasure gardens, with a glass of white beer, and watched people screaming in terror on the fun rides across the lake. Tuesday morning was the day of the CEPOS conference, where all of the speakers spoke very coherent English, although most were Danish. The conference lasted until lunch time and Maat Laar’s talk in particular was very amusing. Together the speakers made an excellent case for flat tax, currently sweeping across Europe from the east. After a few 'town hall' pancakes in the hotel we had a quick lunch in a tavern by the town square, then it was time to head home.

That evening, we were welcomed home by torrential rain, thunder and lightning.

HRH Prince William graduated at the University of St Andrews yesterday, as the three founders of the Adam Smith Institute did some years previously. The place worked its magic on him, as it does with most, and no doubt he will take away happy memories gained among its cobbled streets and grey stones.

Like many students these days, the prince is lined up for some work experience afterwards, in the three areas of the financial sector, land management, and mountain rescue. These are good choices.

From the mountain rescue service he will experience how important and valued is the work of the unpaid volunteers who give their time and risk their lives in the service of other mountaineers.

In land management he might learn some of the country conservation practised on his father's lands. He might see how the vast prairies of subsidized monoculture so prevalent elsewhere do nothing for the appearance or ecology of the countryside.

In the City he will acquire a knowledge of how economics and business works in practice, and understand the importance of controlling costs and putting incentives in place. He might well come to support the low taxes and sensitive regulatory regime under which economies prosper. Then again, he might learn to down incredibly strong cocktails in evening displays of conspicuous consumption!

Either way, he has made good choices which should bring him a range of useful experiences and knowledge.

Over at the Globalisation Institute, Alex Singleton suggests that we should put some sense of priorities into our foreign aid. At present we support everything, from

promoting women's participation, to African land reform, to the creation of church networks, to helping disabled people, to adult education, to discouraging drug use.

He says it would make more sense to concentrate on the most effective things, noting that the fight against malaria would save more lives than combating drug use. It is the same approach the Copenhagen Consensus takes.

It's Adam Smith's birthday.

At least, we think it is. His birth was registered on 5 June 1723, so it's likely to have been a couple of days earlier. He was raised in Fife, Scotland, by his widowed mother, to whom he remained devoted. He never married, and after his mother died, an unmarried cousin looked after him: he was so steeped in the world of ideas that someone had to.

While still a child he was briefly kidnapped by vagrants, only to be wrested back by his uncle, who summoned up some friends on horseback to help him in the task. Otherwise, his early life was not very dramatic. He studied mathematics and moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow, then won a scholarship to go to Oxford, a university he thought worthless, before returning to Glasgow as a teacher.

But there, he wrote a hugely influential book on moral philosophy - which brought him fame and led to him being hired as tutor to the young Duke of Buccleugh, going on the Grand Tour of Europe, and (in the process) collecting a vast amount of information about economies and manners that would make its way into his great treatise, The Wealth of Nations.

You can learn more about Adam Smith, and read his books online, here.

In today’s Guardian, Stacy Mitchell, from the Washington DC-based Institute for Self Reliance is urging Britain to ban large-scale retailers from the UK’s high streets and edge-of-town locations, and has the Guardian pledging to "fight back" against the "domination" of large scale retailers in favour of local shops and producers.

She cites the exponential growth of large scale retail in the US and the disparity in retail space between the US and UK. Americans enjoy, on average, 38 feet of retail space whereas we Brits have a mere 7 square feet per person which is the cause, according to research carried out by the Mckinsey Global Institute, entitled Driving Productivity Growth in the UK Economy of rip-off Britain. It ain't that complicated: the limited supply of retail space pushes up the price of goods. This is why stuff is cheaper in the US, and also why we are willing to sit on a plane over the Atlantic for seven hours to do our Christmas shopping.

Following revision of Planning Policy Guidance Note 6 in 1993 the Government makes it almost impossible to build out-of-town retail sites, and the anti-development lobby has built on this to convince politicians that out of-town development is the primary cause of town-centre decline. Economic growth is considered to be static, and town centres unable adapt to out-of town competition. Research disproves these widely held beliefs, yet central government planners fail to recognize the damaging impact town centre protectionism has on the price of goods.

It might be OK for wealthy, educated, presumably middleclass Ms. Mitchell to preach to the Champagne-drinking Guardian reading masses that we should abandon retail and return to ye olde medieval days of buying our fruit off carts, but tell the working class mother on a sink estate that she will no longer be able to buy her children £5 jeans from Asda.

May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership.

- Psalm 109, verse 8

I recently met a friend who lived in a Grade II listed building. He soon began telling me some of his problems.

The building when he bought it was derelict, and had a dangerous building notice attached, where the big chimney was falling down. He repaired and renovated the big open fire on the ground floor, but in the bedroom above, the stub of a half-demolished chimney still protrudes eight feet into the room. He wanted to demolish the stub - the fire below will be vented by an external flue anyway. But the inspector would not let him; so what should be a fine bedroom is turned into a pokey box room.

And then there is the sheer inefficiency. The inspectors are always watching their backs, will never give a firm decision, and are always changing their minds. On one occasion, he was told that he could start work, with eight conditions attached, and the formal consent would arrive within three weeks. He arranged for builders and scaffolders to arrive four weeks later. But the consent still did not arrive. He rang up to complain and was told 'Oh I've changed my mind - I have sent your case up to the DCMS to approve'. The scaffolders and builders had to be dismissed - at a considerable cost. He had revised the plans no fewer than four times to comply with ever-altering conditions. The real problem was that there was no-one he could complain to. English Heritage, he said, did not run an adequate complaints system; the inspectors were tyrants, their word was law, they were not accountable in any way to the customers - there was no system of checks or balances.

I have heard similar complaints elsewhere, and it is about time that English Heritage took account of them. I gather that there are proposals to set up some sort of internal complaints system, which will be quite useless. What is needed is a proper independent system on which no one associated with English Heritage is represented. It should be made up entirely of fellow owners of listed buildings, all of whom are presumably enthusiasts for old buildings but who see the problems from the practical point of view. English Heritage should stop bullying property owners: they are an essential part of the preservation of our heritage.

Many readers of the conservative Spectator and Sunday Telegraph might foam at the mouth in agreement with Peter Oborne's complaint that the Blairs show no respect for the Queen. His wife, Cherie, does not curtsey to the Queen? Outrageous! Tony says that Her Majesty enjoys weekly audiences with him, not the reverse? What a bounder!

But then, why should we demand fawning formality, ask some, when Britain's monarchy is a weird anachronism, and too many Royals are self-obsessed freeloaders?

The truth is that the fawning is repulsive, but the formality has a certain importance. The Queen is not just some random player on the political stage, like the BBC's Jeremy Paxman, any more than the Stars & Stripes is just a piece of cloth. The monarch symbolizes Britain, just as the flag symbolizes the United States. Burn one, or forget the other, (like Blair talking about 'my' armed forces or the Foreign Secretary describing him as 'head of state') and it shows contempt for the constitution and the people.

Whatever one might think of the holder of the office, we should be glad that politicians are required to show formal respect for it, and the nation that it represents. For example, the idea of the Queen being the titular head of the police, courts and military is to show that they are there to serve the nation, not some demagogue. When a Prime Minister starts talking about 'my' army or imagining himself as 'head of state', it is time to tell him to take his hands off the constitutional safeguards of our liberty.

So we do not demand that people fawn towards some pathetic and outdated aristocracy. But politicians must be reminded that power is ultimately ours, not theirs, and obliged to demonstrate their acceptance of the conditions under which we allow them to wield it.

Yesterday marked 200 years since Danish story-teller Hans Christian Andersen was born. He rose above his humble beginnings (mother cleaner, father cobbler) to become one of the world's best-loved writers, and author of children's classics such as The Little Mermaid, The Ugly Duckling, and The Emperor's New Clothes.

There were huge celebrations in Denmark and other countries to mark the anniversary and honour his memory, including a huge celebrity-packed concert in Copenhagen.

Although a children's author, many of his stories have a darker side. The mermaid endures pain to appear as something she is not; the duckling is mocked and derided. In his stories, as in life, there was not always a happy ending. The little boy who declared aloud that the emperor wore no clothes at all, despite the adoration of the crowd of flatterers, was the one punished. The emperor continued to rule, and the crowd continued to praise the non-existent clothes.

I see something of Blair's Britain and the spin machine in this story, but therein lies part of Andersen's power. His stories are sufficiently timeless for everyone to see in them echoes of their own time.

Three of the bright young people behind the Freedom Institute, an Ireland-based free-market think tank, came and visited the ASI recently. The Freedom Institute is doing sterling work in Ireland. They've recently been publishing on topics like: the relationship between church and state; poverty; and where human rights went wrong.

To give an idea of where the Freedom Institute is coming from, their home page quotes Ronald Reagan saying: "There stands before the entire world one great and inescapable conclusion: Freedom leads to prosperity. Freedom replaces the ancient hatreds among the nations with comity and peace. Freedom is the victor. " Quite right.

They have a good blog, too. I particularly liked a blog entry entitled The State Creates the Black Market, accompanied by the poster (right). It serves as a useful reminder to politicians that it is government action that has created drug dealers. I don't want to live in a society where everyone's drugged out, but almost anything that politicians could do would be better than the status quo.

Final note: It's my last day at the ASI - I'm leaving to run the Globalisation Institute - so I thought I would be indulgent and say goodbye. A gorgeous lead crystal captain's decanter has found its way onto my desk today. I've secretly been wanting one of these for ages, so it's very much appreciated.

On seeing the Times headline:

BRITAIN'S PLAN TO SAVE PLANET FROM QUAKES AND ASTEROIDS

my newsagent commented "and I hope they fix the trains while they're at it."

On the way to work this morning I noticed an EDF Energy van proudly advertising its support for London's 2012 Olympic Games bid. Not many Londoners realize this, but EDF - which swallowed up London Electricity - is short for Electricité de France. It is owned by the French government. Rather ironic considering the French are trying to get Paris to host the games.

Sir Samuel Brittan's new book, Against the Flow, is a splendid collection of insightful short essays on international affairs, political economy, and modern thinkers.

I was drawn to his chapter "Why be interested in Ayn Rand?" because ASI has a seminar on Rand coming up on Wednesday 2 February, with excellent speakers including Elaine Sternberg, Kenneth Irvine, Tom Burroughes and Andrew Medworth.

And why be interested in Rand? Well, says Brittan, her politics were not straightforward. Though she claimed her views were based on pure reason, her life and values (he says) were coloured by the fact that she was born (Jewish) in pre-revolutionary Russia, had to take refuge during Russia's civil war, and maintained deeper personal connections in Russia than she chose to admit.

The second point of interest, says Brittan, is that she made her impact not through academic or political tracts, but through novels. Viewed as fiction, these are of 'decidedly mixed' quality, with 'ideal' but cardboard characters. Yet she writes with verve, and through this medium has reached far more people than some dusty academic tract ever could.

Thirdly, Rand is interesting because of the fundamental challenge she poses to collectivism: saying that what people create is theirs, and any attempt to tax it or regulate its use is immoral. Well, maybe: but there is no doubt that the political debate of today could use a dose of her radicalism.

Following Prince Harry wearing a Nazi outfit to a fancy dress party, the European Union may now ban the swastika symbol following calls from German Members of the European Parliament to do so.

Why don't we go further? I suggest banning the star of the Soviet Union. After all, the Soviet Union murdered at least 60 million of its own people, probably many millions more. Perhaps there could be a committee set up to root out more symbols of oppression and ban them.

Alternatively we could try and get a degree of perspective on things. No law is needed in order for people to wear black at funerals or keep quiet in cinemas. The social stigma Prince Harry has experienced in the media should prevent a repetition just as being hushed in the cinema or theatre embarrasses one in to a greater degree of consideration. As for the idea that fascist views would be reduced by banning the swastika, this is absurd.

Under the proposed ban, would we be allowed to watch films about the Second World War involving the sinister Nazi officer with the duelling scar beneath his left eye wearing his swastika and iron-cross? Maybe this would be allowed in an historical context but what of Mel Brooks' musical The Producers?

Sometimes it is good to take stock of the battle of ideas and see how the scorecard stands.

• The world is running out of scarce resources.
We hardly hear that these days since Julian Simon and others showed that our ability to develop less accessible sources, and to use substitutes, are increasing faster than resources are being used. They are relatively more plentiful, therefore, with falling prices to prove it.

• The world faces an overpopulation crisis.
Actually, it may not. World population is leveling off. It seems that population increase slows as countries become richer and people no longer have to rely economically on their children. Europe faces a falling population, for example.

• Pollution is spreading and poisoning the planet.
The case used to be that rich countries pollute, and that as everyone became richer the world would become an open sewer. Now we think that wealth enables production to be cleaner. It is the poorer countries which pollute. As they become richer, they will be able to afford a cleaner environment. In Britain, for example, air and water quality are reportedly much cleaner than they used to be.

• The Kyoto Protocol is the only hope to prevent global warming.
If all its assumptions were correct, it might delay until 2100 the warming level which would otherwise be reached by 2094. That’s six years. But the assumptions are increasingly questioned. How much warming is there, and how much of that is down to a natural geophysical cycle? If any is man-made, how much of that is down to land use changes rather than emissions. The view is spreading that there are more urgent uses for all that money.

Quite a few significant anniversaries fall in 2005. February 10th marks the death of Montesquieu, (1689-1755) author of Spirit of the Laws, and a key thinker in constitutional government and separation of powers. SF buffs, always present among libertarians, might hold parties to celebrate Jules Verne (1828-1905) on March 24th.

On June 7th it will be 100 years since Norway regained its independence from Sweden. Staying outside the EU, Norway remains independent today.

The great historian and chronicler of Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), was born 200 years ago on July 29th.

A significant UK event took place 50 years ago on September 22nd, as the BBC’s monopoly of broadcasting ended when Independent (commercial) TV went on the air. The justification for the BBC licence fee probably disappeared at that point, but it has fought a half-century rearguard action to sustain its hold on public funds.

The big one for the general public will be the October 21st commemoration of victory at the Battle of Trafalgar, at which Nelson died. This event more than any other put limits to Napoleon’s ambition, and kept Britain clear of Continental centralism and system-building.

The recent Tsunami tragedy might well generate more interest in a similar catastrophe which took place on November 1st 250 years ago with the Great Earthquake at Lisbon. The event had a profound effect on the age, causing people to re-examine their philosophies and belief-systems. The scenes and stories of terrible suffering jolted the sometimes optimistic complacency of the times.

Those who remember, remember, the 5th of November should note that it was 400 years ago that Guy Fawkes was discovered in the cellars of Parliament with the barrels of gunpowder with which he had planned to murder the King and government. Parliamentary reports since then have tended to be more sedate.

It is just 15 years since the fall of the Soviet system. Starting in the summer of 1989, country after country dropped out of Communist dictatorship, as people power asserted itself against oppressive rulers who had lost the resolve to resist it. The Berlin Wall came down, just as President Reagan had said that it must. Finally, on Christmas Day, Romania freed itself.

Those countries and those people have been through turbulent times and transitions, but 15 years on most of them lie within the orbit of market economics and democratic freedoms. We have just seen people power in the Ukraine take those frontiers yet further to the East.

Socialism stood exposed as a hollow evil, built on lies. Invoking the great names of freedom and human dignity it had betrayed their substance at every point. Fifteen years ago it was revealed to be nothing more than the ruthless exercise of power by a self-perpetuating elite. The liberal democracies, chaotic and undirected, had shown a vibrancy and resolution which many thought them incapable of.

At a New Year whose celebrations are muted by tragedy, it is well to reflect that people can improve the world by their actions. It is a vastly better place than it had been because of the events of 15 years ago. Millions more people can find personal fulfillment and express themselves by the choices in their lives. They were stirring and thrilling times.

We wish all of you a good New Year.

The cost of buying the traditional presents for the Twelve Days of Christmas is up by 1.6% report PNC Advisors. The three French hens posted the biggest hike, up 200%. The costs reflect changing economic conditions, as some goods become relatively more plentiful and others scarce. I might dispute some of their figures.

Gold had quite a good year as the greenback weakened, so those five rings cost more. If the law which bans fox-hunting in the UK is extended to bird-shooting as some seek, partridges will be hard to find. They only survive because sporting gamekeepers protect them from predators. The pear tree should become cheaper, though, since tree cover is increasing each year in the UK and US. If carbon dioxide is increasing, it could happen elsewhere, too.

Turtle doves and colley birds might thrive in the extra tree cover, but those French hens stand dangerously exposed to the EU’s common agricultural policy. UK swans are in greater supply thanks to an influx of rather beautiful black and white Russians ones, visiting unusually for the winter. Geese have recently made something of a comeback for people tired of turkey.

This is all well and good, but the problems come in the service industries. The fact is that drummers and pipers are skilled labour and command higher wages. Lords can be hired pretty cheaply, especially since Tony Blair created so many from Labour Party donors. Ladies who dance are difficult to outsource unless the recipient is happy with a Bollywood video of them, but the milking maids face an influx of competition from the new EU nations to the East (it is even rumoured that their visa applications may have been fast-tracked).

So, every year some of these prices are up, some down. And every year people are prepared to supply these goods and services not from benevolence, but from their regard to their own interest. Merry Christmas everyone.

While David Hume exhibited admirable qualities of generosity and goodwill, his reputation as a skeptic meant that he was never described as pious. When he took up house in Edinburgh's New Town (1770), in a yet unfinished street one along from St Andrew's Street, a wag chalked up "St David's Street" on the corner to mark the great philosopher's presence. The name stuck, and I was reminded of the story last week when I stayed around the corner.

There are different versions of the story. Thomas Huxley tells one:

It was the first house in the street, and a frolicsome young lady chalked upon the wall "St. David's Street." Hume's servant complained to her master, who replied, "Never mind, lassie, many a better man has been made a saint of before," and the street retains its title to this day.

Another version has it that he remarked quietly, "Never mind - I am not the first man of sense that has been made a saint of."

Douglas Mason died yesterday. He was an Adam Smith Institute author and a good friend. A thoroughgoing believer in the free economy and free society, he will be remembered as the originator of the 'poll tax' - the idea of replacing the UK's local property taxes with a uniform per-capita charge for local services. But he also produced papers from the 1970s onward, calling for the liberalization of alcohol licensing, the sale of state forestry, winding up local-government quangos, privatizing the Royal Mail, getting the state out of libraries, abolishing state housing subsidies, and much more.

Everyone liked him, and enjoyed discussing aspects of liberty with him. This even included those who disagreed. His engaging, modest and unassuming character put him on easy, first-name terms not just with political leaders, but even with the humblest cleaner or doorkeeper in the House of Commons, where he worked as an assistant and speechwriter to leading Thatcherite ministers.

Douglas lived quietly, and rarely lost his temper or created a fuss, except when he thought that politicians were ignoring or disrespecting the rights of ordinary people, of whom he counted himself one. He was an inspirational thinker and writer, and his influence on events was very much wider and more lasting than many people suppose.

A number of obituaries has appeared in the leading UK newspapers: The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Times, The Herald, The Scotsman, and The Guardian.

The first national survey of religious affiliation derived from the last census is published on the Office of National Statistics website (and reported by Jonathan Petre in the Telegraph). It shows the UK to be 71.1% Christian.

The Jedi, at nearly 400,000, outnumber those who answered Sikh, Jewish or Buddhist. Many who were offended that the state should ask so personal a question undoubtedly gave an impertinent response. It is one thing for opinion polls to ask such things, but quite another when the government seeks to know such detail about us.

However, all Jedi Masters will find it satisfying that due recognition has at last been given to that ancient religion with its sorcerers' ways…

The Big Mac, Coke and fries are not guilty, it seems. In The Business, Tony Glover tells us that the British Marketing and Research Bureau (BMRB) has conducted a 5-year study of 6,000 UK teenagers,. It finds that the frequency with which 11-15 year-olds eat fast food has been falling, along with their consumption of crisps and confectionary. But they spend an average 7.3 hours a week on the internet (up from 5.2 hours in 2003), plus 7.7 hours playing computer games (up from 7.3 hours in 2003).

Ten years ago, when few UK teenagers had home computer access, they played more sport. The proportion playing one or two sports a week is markedly down. According to BMRB consultant Sandy Livingstone:

They're spending less time exercising and more time in front of a screen. This must be a major factor in the problem of rising child obesity.

If is really is computers, rather than fast foods, which make children fat, whom should obese people sue? Should it be the store from which they bought the computer, or the manufacturing company? Or perhaps the software firms which hooked them on gaming and the internet without warning them that the activity would make them fat? Step forward, Microsoft, sitting on a pile of cash just waiting to be redistributed to lawyers. And watch out for those warning labels in future.

Today two of the ASI staff played - and one of them scored! - in a charity soccer match against the All Party Parliamentary Football Club. The charity being supported was TackleAfrica. Needless to say, the team containing ASI staffers won by a rather healthy margin. Excellent.

Hayek used the phrase "second-hand dealers in ideas" to describe the important work of intellectuals who propagate the principles of a free society and a free economy. He described their influence as decisive in the battle of ideas and policy.

It is certainly true, as Hayek himself noted, that it was the dominant intellectuals of the left, from Fabians onwards, who tilted the political debate in favour of growing government intervention. Hayek urged Antony Fisher to help disseminate the ideas of freedom rather than pursue a political career, and his advice led to the founding of the Institute of Economic Affairs.

In addition to Hayek's second-hand dealers in ideas, there is also a need for those who can give effect to those ideas. It is one thing to be convinced of the soundness of certain principles, but quite another to know how to put them into practice.

The difference is similar to that between scientists and engineers. The theoretical scientists promulgate the physical laws which change our understanding, but it takes engineers to use them to change the world. It is Newton, Boyle and Kelvin who discern the laws of nature, but it is Watt, Stephenson and Brunel who devise the machines which use those laws.

Sir Robert Boyle did the theoretical work on gases subject to pressures and temperatures, but if anyone thought they had only to wait for a steam engine to emerge, they would have waited forever. It took the creative genius of people such as James Watt to turn those theoretical ideas into effective practical machines. Locomotives, suspension bridges and transatlantic steamers did not just emerge from laws of nature; they were the product of creative minds like George Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

The policy-makers who give effect to free market ideas resemble engineers more than they do second-hand dealers. They have to devise the policy machines which put those ideas to good use. It is one thing to know that a private enterprise telephone system will be more innovative and efficient than a state service, but that knowledge alone does not change a state system into a private one. Those who expected it to follow from the knowledge alone would be like those waiting for a steam engine to emerge.

Policy engineers have to construct finely tuned machines which use the theoretical ideas of freedom in ways that work. They have to change the status quo into the sought-for reality in ways which use the political process to good effect. This requires creativity rather than salesmanship.

It is true that the political process is less clean and fine than the world of theoretical principles, but the application of those principles depends upon policy engineers rolling up their sleeves and getting their arms dirty with the oil and grime of the real world.

The UK government's legislative agenda - the Queen's Speech - captured headlines with its 'security agenda' of ID cards, a British FBI, etc. But that's all electioneering, aimed at tabloid newspaper readers.

Much more alarming is how triflingly technocratic are most of the 37 measures proposed. Reducing the National Lottery funds from three to one. Merging laws on animal welfare. Shortening school inspections. Modifying public-inquiry rules. Means-testing legal aid in minor courts. Shuffling the nature and countryside agencies. Setting up a Welsh transport users' committee. With maybe five months until an election, is this the best they can do?

What about tackling our sclerotic school system? Sack the pen-pushers and give parents vouchers? Let heads run their schools and compete for customers. Education would be transformed.

Let hospitals run themselves too. Give patients vouchers, savings accounts, or competing social-insurance plans. Hospitals would be desperate to attract patients, not anxious to keep them out.

Fix our over-complicated tax system. Follow the example of four EU countries and five others: scrap all the complexities, and just have a 20% flat tax on incomes over a certain amount.

That's three do-able things that would do far more good than what our tired politicians are actually proposing.

I was in Sainsbury's last night getting things for my flat like kitchen roll, mushrooms, wine, meat and bread. The environmentalists hate supermarkets, preferring small, local shops. We should buy from a local butcher, a baker and a hardware store, or go to local farmers' markets. But there are good, rational reasons why - given the choice - most of us prefer the supermarket for our shopping. One of the them is time. There aren't many farmers' markets open at 9:30pm in the evening, and it just takes far too long to go round lots of individual shops. Supermarkets make shopping so much faster. The enviromentalists say we'd be happier if we lived slower lives, spending more time doing food shopping. But I'm happier taking less time on the shopping, and more time doing other things.

I was at home recovering on Monday, a victim of EU health and safety legislation. No, not the lack of it: the fact of it.

In Zagreb for the World Leaders Summit, organized by a new free-market institute in Croatia, I went up to look at a tall marble and gold pillar I'd seen in front of the cathedral, commemorating - well, I never found out what. Because around the pillar is a perfect circle of cobbles, ten metres across. In Britain, some health and safety Tsar would see to it that the cobbles were flush with the surrounding pavement, but in Zagreb they stood about 10cm above it.

The rational part of my mind told me that - even as I stepped up to the monument. But the rest of my brain has been habituated into thinking that the world holds no dangers any more, since Britain and the EU have outlawed them all. I missed the step, fell flat and cracked a rib.

I'm all in favour of flat walking surfaces, clearly-marked steps, handrails, and all the other things you don't get, even in Zagreb's best international hotels, never mind its streets. But it make me think that our obsession with safety at home is making us unfit to travel abroad.

Coddled at home, we have begun to think the rest of the world is safe too. But it isn't.

As Professor John Adams said in his ASI report Risky Business, when you try to protect people, they simply expose themselves to more risks: insist that people wear car seat-belts, for example, and you find they drive more dangerously. Convince them you've banned dishonest traders, and they become unthinking victims to every shark that comes along. Tell them every step is well marked, and they fall over the first one that isn't.

But might less nannying and a bit more reliance on personal responsibility and common sense actually leave us better equipped to survive in the world?

"Inertia can develop its own momentum."

This might do violence to the laws of physics and language, but it expresses a truth. It was said by former Foreign Secretary, Lord Hurd, and often quoted by ex-Chancellor Lord Howe on the subject of deregulation. But it applies in other areas, too.

Tom Steinberg - a third way left-winger who used to work for the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit - talks about Friends Reunited. This is a successful social networking website which connects people who went to the same schools or who worked for the same organizations. "Friends Reunited is a site both wildly popular and probably more condusive to social cohesion than any specific government intervention in that area," he says.

But rather than concluding that social networking should be left to the market, he says the success of Friends Reunited shows that government needs to be doing this sort of thing. He seems to think the government would be more efficient at running such a website - after all, the government's records tell it where we went to school and where we've worked. He also uses "government" and "low cost base" in the same sentence.

The government is, of course, already funding 'social networking'. But it is private projects that people actually use.

I met Steinberg once. We were at an event where the speaker was pointing to the success of another social networking website, Friendster. As you might have guessed, this site helps you keep in contact with your friends, and it's not funded by taxpayers. Friendster is a great idea, but soon after the event, people started complaining that Friendster wasn't scaling up to the demand - the site became very slow. Others complained that they didn't like how Friendster treated one of its staff. So lots of people switched from Friendster to newer rival called Orkut. (Friendster then got reprogrammed to be faster.) The market process means that new ideas and techniques compete, and it also means that taxpayers do not get lumbered by the bill. The government should leave social networking to the market.

The era of space tourism drawn nearer with yesterday's X-prize win by Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne. For those prepared to put up money for a short trip into space there are already waiting lists. I signed up some years ago.

Some people ask if the price, which is likely to be $100,000, and maybe $200,000, is too high. It may be to start with, but it will come down. When colour TV sets first came out, only the well-to-do could afford them. Since there was good business to be done, however, other producers came in with economies of scale and newer technology, and the price came right down.

It will be the same with private spaceflight. In the meantime, since money is pretty democratic, it is already available to those who value it enough to make the sacrifices. Yesterday's TV coverage featured a youngster aged 14. He has signed up and paid a $1,000 deposit, which he made "by mowing lawns, delivering papers and doing odd jobs." He is determined to raise the rest and be among the first to ride into space. I was already rooting for him before his name appeared at the foot of the screen. He is called Adam Smith.

There's a new force in telecoms that is likely to put a downward pressure on the cost of phone calls. Called Voice over Internet Protocol (or VoIP for short), it uses the internet to route part of a phone call. This creates more competition for the traditional telecoms companies, and many big businesses are starting to use it. Back in 1984, when British Telecom was privatized, few would have anticipated this technology.

Markets move in mysterious ways. Often unanticipated threats to market incumbents materialise, and increase competition where people once thought it unlikely. The competitive threat keeps existing firms in the market on their toes, and is good for society, too.

I was present in May 1978 when F A Hayek (pictured) delivered the Hobhouse Lecture to the London School of Economics. The room was packed with staff and students as Hayek delivered a paper entitled The Three Sources of Human Values, which was published as an epilogue to vol III of his Law, Legislation and Liberty.

Hayek explained that from the first source came ideas which were genetically determined and innate. The second source was the product of rational thought, the ideas we think up. These two were relatively minor. The third, and by far the most important, came by cultural transmission, the ideas passed on by society.

Part of his thesis was that human beings had developed their inherited moral instincts as hunters. As they later developed an extended society, interacting and trading, they had to learn culturally to subjugate the inherited instincts to the wiser and more rewarding morality of what he called The Great Society.

Hayek told his rapt audience that the old values of the hunting band still had their allure, including the urge to share everything when value could not be stored. Even with all that modern society makes possible, we still feel the inherited urge that we have learned to subjugate to the transmitted rules which make more worthwhile goals possible. The groups which learned to do that were the ones which survived and prospered.

Members of the audience actually gasped when Hayek referred to Socialism as 'atavistic' - the reversion to an older, more primitive form. Many of the students had thought that Socialism was modern and scientific, and could perhaps bring rational order to a chaotic and unjust world. Now here was Hayek equating it with a primitive instinct, inferior to the learned rules which had enabled human society to develop.

It was, perhaps, a defining moment. Socialism in Britain was at its high water mark, although it had visibly failed to meet worthwhile objectives. Already its confidence was ebbing, together with the faith that it delineated the path to a better future. Now here was an intellectual attack on its very claim to modernity and rationality. Less than a year after Hayek's lecture came the counter-revolution.

In 1990 Brian Micklethwait wrote a Libertarian Alliance pamphlet called The Tyranny of the Facts. It is an odd piece because it is what I would have expected from a socialist outfit.

It is the 'tyranny of the facts' that makes the vast majority of people oppose communism. They see that in communist countries the ordinary people lived in poverty, they see that it murdered 100m people, they see that communism destroyed the environment, and they conclude that the facts are not on the communist side. They might consider communism to be good in principle, but recognise that the facts are not on its side. People support our side of the argument have not normally deduced it from logic. Micklethwait underestimates the importance of empirical evidence.

The facts about the NHS are what is making a health service based on the triple nationalization of funding, planning and provision an untenable system. Our government's second-term policy of simply spending more money on the NHS is an important experiment, and the facts that are coming out are firmly on our side. They are a 'tyranny', I suppose, if you are socialist.

Far from being a tyranny, the facts are really a blessing. They help us to select between competing theories about how government should be structured and what it should do. And they firmly show that choice, competition and markets promote the general good, and that government involvement and controls usually do not.

I've just been on the radio telling the nation why supermarkets are a good thing. They're frequently knocked by the usual anti-capitalist mafia - on the ground that they pay slave wages, or screw down suppliers, or kill off small businesses, or are a blot on the urban landscape. All junk.

Supermarkets make us richer. They are hugely efficient, forcing down costs. Groceries - and now clothes and household goods - are now much cheaper than in the pre-supermarket age 40 years ago. That leaves us more money to spend on the things we value.

They enrich our choice too. The shelves groan with fruit and vegetables that were unknown forty years ago - or unknown in the winter, when they were out of season. Now we quaff New World wines, because they're better and cheaper than the French stuff - thanks to supermarkets.

Sure, they might be bad for inefficient grocers in their area. But they bring in huge footfall which actually helps other retailers. A new supermarket can actually revive a dead area of town.

They rank near the top in the Financial Times 'Best Workplaces' survey. They give their staff discounts on their shopping and on leisure activities, and offer share schemes and bonus systems. The Work Foundation praised them for the number of jobs they create and the flexibility of the working patterns they offer - one reason why they are huge employers of women with family commitments and the over-50s.

Consumers know all this. That is why we give supermarkets so much of our custom. And what's wrong with that?

UK public holidays were introduced as Bank holidays in 1871, with the intention of giving the poor a day off for reading and self-improvement. The poor improved their complexions instead by sunning themselves on the beaches, and have done so since. These days, however, the August public holiday is often punctuated more by the rhythmic whir of windscreen wipers than by the distant call of seagulls.

Paul Simons, who writes the Weather Eye for the Times, pleads for the August holiday to be moved to the first Monday, as it used to be, on the grounds that the weather is better. My colleague Eamonn Butler thinks the whole concept of public holidays is outdated (see below), cramming everyone as they do onto overcrowded roads and facilities.

As one who prefers the cool scents of Autumn to either blazing heat or driving rain, I cannot pretend to be objective, but I would like to put in a case for moving the spring public holiday. We have quite a few around that time, including Easter and Whitsun. It was superfluous when the Mayday holiday was added to them to honour labour (and by a Labour government).

It always seemed significant that Europeans celebrate labour in Spring, the time of planting and promise. The US celebrates it in autumn when the harvest is in. The former takes place in hope, the latter in achievement. Mayday is a socialist holiday, full of expectation of what might be. US Labour Day seems to be a more capitalist holiday, celebrating wealth which has already been garnered. Socialism promises, capitalism performs.

If further argument were needed, I could add that Mayday in Britain is rarely warm enough for a picnic or barbecue, whereas September nearly always is.

August Bank Holiday weekend again, it's raining (predictably) and all the TV experts are forecasting enormous traffic jams on the motorways, overcrowding on the trains, and delays at the airports.

Why do we do it? Bank holidays were introduced decades and decades ago in order to ensure that the humblest manual workers got at least some days off. Since in those days it was a cash economy, if you closed the banks then businesses couldn't operate, and they would have to give their workers a day off. But things have changed. Many, perhaps most, shops stay open throughout bank holiday weekends, and public transport (for what it's worth) keeps on running.

Meanwhile, those of us in factories and offices use it as a good opportunity (or excuse) for an excursion to the beach, and as we all head lemming-like in the same direction at the same time, large parts of the country grind into gridlock.

Do we really need a bank holiday in August, when so many people take August holidays anyway? Do we really need two holiday weekends in May, hot on the heels of the Easter Bank Holiday weekend?

Bank holidays are an anachronism. By all means have a regulation that employers must offer their staff reasonable holiday entitlements. But let workers take those holidays as and when they and their employers decide, and spare us all that transport gridlock. Maybe the weather might improve, too.

David Hume died on this day in 1776. He was, by my reckoning, the greatest philosopher of the empirical school. I chose his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding as one of my all-time greatest books. I said:

What a joy it is to watch an intelligent mind thinking. Hume asks how we know things, and starts with himself. He muses about the status of sensory inputs. What is it that happens when we think we see something? We suppose the presence of an external world as the source of the inputs to our senses, but what evidence have we other than those senses themselves?

Hume concludes that our knowledge is more tentative than we suppose. His Enquiry is thus an ultimate anti-system book, with a covert sub-text of liberalism. If knowledge is that hesitant, wherein comes the authority to insist upon systems and to impose them?

Adam Smith, remembering him in a letter to William Strachan, delivered a famous epitaph:

Thus died our most excellent, and never to be forgotten friend; concerning whose philosophical opinions men will, no doubt, judge variously...but concerning whose character and conduct there can scarce be a difference of opinion... Upon the whole, I have always considered him, both in his lifetime and since his death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man, as perhaps the nature of human frailty will permit.

"Never give a bureaucrat a chance to say no."

- Morton Blackwell, The Laws of the Public Policy Process.

Two months working for ASI while in London have resulted in a memorable summer. Here is a list of what I have enjoyed the most about my stay. I have not listed them in any specific order.

1. Working at ASI - without a doubt the coolest group of people I have ever worked with. The genius work of the Adam Smith Institute has them well on their way to world domination.

2. Lunches with Madsen Pirie - the only man I know that will soon be rocketing through the earth's atmosphere on his way to outer space, and who scoffed at a mint condition Bentley Mulsanne S. Very inspirational!

3. We Will Rock You - the Queen musical is the most ridiculous spectacle I have ever witnessed, thus making it incredibly entertaining.

4. White Lightning – unbeatable value, this white cider contains 8.7% alcohol content. £2.87 for a plastic 3 litre bottle resulted in many interesting nights.

5. Sports Cafe - the American embassy for college students abroad. Tuesday nights offer £1 pints, making it a safe bet for a good time.

6. London's proximity to Edinburgh - only a short train ride away from London, and the park adjacent to Waverley Bridge offers free accommodations if you are willing to hop the fence.

7. London's proximity to Paris - wonderful architecture and beautiful scenery. I recommend staying at Hotel De Fendome.

8. Romantic - London is a great place to spend a week with your lovely girlfriend.

9. Pub Food - I thoroughly enjoyed experiencing steak and ale pie while avoiding fish and chips.

10. The language - I have learned countless new words to incorporate into my everyday vocabulary and some interesting pronunciations to apply to the words I already use.

There is one sole aspect of being in London that has disappointed me. $1.80 of my hard earned money bought me just £1. As a result of this experience I have vowed that the next time I come to London, I will have generated enough income so that I will not have to resort to sleeping in parks or buying cheap booze. A valuable lesson learned, thanks to the great city of London. Thanks to ASI for the opportunity.

Nick Richards is an undergraduate at Marymount University in Virginia, USA.

The communists in the Soviet Union murdered 62 million people. China killed more than 38 million people. If we include the regimes of Pol Pot and Ho Chi Minh the number increase by another 3 million. Left-wing ideologues in the West nevertheless praised communism when it was in force. Critic of the free-market J K Galbraith famously said that standing on the Berlin Wall: "Looking in either direction it really makes no great difference". Has John Kenneth Galbraith recanted? No.

Now, many who supported communism in the past claim that the economic system in the USSR et al was not in fact communism. They implausibly argue that it was merely 'state capitalism'. Nevertheless, many ordinary people see communism as something that just cannot work in an imperfect world - even though it has good at its centre.

They are mistaken. There is nothing moral about communism. At its centre is the idea that it is legitimate to force people how to live and where to work - turning citizens into mere pawns. Communism's failure in practice derives from its rotten centre.

Economists have wondered if it is worthwhile for people to increase their incomes, bearing in mind what they lose by working harder for longer hours.

Happiness economists use surveys to measure people's happiness, and conclude that people act irrationally to increase their monetary incomes, even if this decreases their overall happiness. This assumes that people can measure intangibles such as the effects of pollution or the stress of longer journeys on their happiness level.

These analysts suggest that the increased prosperity brought by economic growth since the Middle Ages, for example, has not increased people's overall happiness, and that a peasant working the fields in a mediaeval farm might have been far happier than a wealthy business man of today. This is because the peasant didn't experience the stress which riches bring.

This has several problems. Since happiness is necessarily subjective, people are answering questions about how they feel, as opposed to how things are.

It could also be argued that people will generally moan and be unhappy, regardless of economic circumstances. If this is the case, an increase in money can surely still remove some of the unnecessary sources of unhappiness, such as disease and famine. A rich person today may be unhappy because of their physical appearance, personal relationships, or because of their stressful job, but at least they might no longer have to worry about their family starving or dying from conquerable diseases. Some accept this, but say that we are now at a level of income where we do not need to earn more. Yet further increases in wealth will enable us, for example, to have better healthcare, improve the environment and live longer.

Happiness economics looks very much like another attempt to impose a seemingly idyllic world view in which people's choice and freedom are to be restricted, so they are forced to live their lives in a way that someone else thinks will make them happier.

The 1980s were a decade in which Margaret Thatcher pursued privatization and supply-side reform. The UK experienced high levels of growth in the decade (30.1% growth compared with 21.2% for 1970s), as well as low levels of inflation (compared with the bitter experience of the 70s). The resulting increases in incomes, consumption and prosperity meant the 80s earned a reputation as the 'decade of greed', in which we are meant to conclude that people were unusually selfish.

This analysis is unfair. The 80s might have been a decade of 'enlightened self-interest' but it was not really a 'decade of greed'. Annual charitable giving in the UK doubled in real terms. As people became richer themselves, they increased the amount they spent on international charities. Labelling the 1980s as a 'decade of greed' is a good smear, but it flies in the face of reality.

All handguns were banned in Britain a few years back, in response to a massacre of schoolchildren. Since then the amount of gun crime has soared. It seems to be mostly a city thing related to drug gang territories, and involving young men with illegal handguns or automatic weapons. One response has been to seek tighter restrictions on shotguns, even though they are rarely featured in such crimes.

Britain has fairly few road accident deaths by international standards, but some are caused by drunk drivers. There is a campaign to lower the legal blood alcohol limit for drivers from 80 milligrams per 100 millitres of blood to 50 milligrams. A large proportion of the deaths is caused by repeat offenders who are several times over the legal limit. There is no evidence that any deaths are caused by drivers with between 50 and 80 milligrams of alcohol in their blood.

The desire is there to do something about difficult problems, but because it is difficult to do something which would help solve them, people do something else instead. It is a kind of displacement activity whose main function seems to be one of satisfying an activist urge, even where the action taken will make little or no difference. People often say "But we must do something." It might make more sense, though, if the action targetted the young men shooting off handguns and automatics in city streets, rather than those shooting pigeons in forests. It might make similar sense to try to keep serial drunks out of cars instead of hounding respectable motorists who don’t kill people.

Some of the campaigns pursued by the environmentalist lobby seem to derive from a similar urge to 'do something,' even when that something bears scant relationship with the objective.

Regular visitors to the Institute may notice a couple of new faces from next week. Sam Nguyen and Xander Stephenson will be joining us having recently completed their A-Levels, and will be heading off to university after a gap year with us.

The ASI gap year is an opportunity to develop skills and widen horizons, and of course, earn some money. The job involves working on every aspect of the Institute's work, including administration, dealing with journalists' queries, replying to the Institute's mail, writing 'think pieces' and organizing events.

Richard Wake, an undergraduate from Southampton University, took a gap year with us for part of the year and then went visiting Grenada studying turtles. He sent us this picture.

If there were any word in the English language that could be forgotten, my choice would be the world 'inevitable'. It is used habitually to refer to ends that are not inevitable, and is used to discourage others from arguing against something. It is used simply as a morale-basher.

In the mid to late 1990s, we were told by pro-EU campaigners that Britain's use of the Euro was inevitable. Those who opposed the Euro were supposed to leave the debate with their tails between their legs because they were wasting their time. Instead, the supporters of Sterling fought an excellent campaign, and the government has put the Euro off the agenda. What was once 'inevitable' is now extremely unlikely. Fortunately, I have not yet seen anyone claim that British adoption of the EU constitution is inevitable.

I noticed at the weekend Action on Smoking and Health describe a government ban on smoking in pubs and restaurants as 'inevitable'. It certainly might happen. But people also said a ban in Washington was inevitable, and these people helped defeat it - for now. The power of individuals to beat the 'inevitable' should not be underestimated.

Here is my list of the 10 greatest Scots of all time. Of course, there are infinite criteria on which one might base such a list, but since this is my list, I have chosen the following: those writers and thinkers who have contributed most to our appreciation of human nature, our understanding of society and, of course, our ongoing quest to live in freedom. So here it is, my list (in ascending order) of the 10 Great Scots:

10. David Livingstone (1813-1873) was born in Blantyre, south of Glasgow. Despite growing up in poverty, he studied Medicine and Theology at the University of Glasgow. Livingstone became a doctor and scientist, and one of the great explorers of the African continent. He aimed to introduce Christianity and legitimate commerce to Africa, and struggled for the abolition of slavery. Livingstone's motto as he crossed Africa was 'Christianity, Civilisation, and Commerce.'