Barometer | 18 June 2011

Council housing

Ed Miliband proposed that a Labour government under his leadership would send people in employment to the top of the council house waiting list. Mr Miliband risks criticism by his own party, which has already attacked similar plans by the Tory-controlled Westminster Council. How would Mr Miliband’s policy have gone down with the architect of Labour’s post-war housing policy, Nye Bevan?

—Bevan always intended council housing to be a choice of the middle classes as well as the working classes, saying he wanted to create a ‘living tapestry’ where ‘the doctor, the grocer, the butcher and the labourer all lived on the same street’. He said nothing about the long-term unemployed, perhaps because he never imagined that there would by 2011 be 350,000 households where no one has ever worked.

Rubbish collections

The government abandoned its plan to force councils to collect rubbish every week rather than every fortnight. Do we need weekly collections?

—Residents are 3.45 times more likely to complain about odour where collections are fortnightly. —Dustmen in Westphalia were found to be exposed to higher levels of fungal spores where collections were fortnightly.

—Houseflies are more likely to be found at landfill sites if the bins arriving there have not been emptied for a fortnight.

—Micro-organisms in household rubbish reach a peak 27 days after a dustbin is filled.

Social networks

Facebook claimed 687 million users worldwide. How does this compare with other ways of communicating?

Myspace 63 m
Twitter 175 m
Landline telephones 1.2 bn
Internet users 2.1 bn
Mobile phones 5.3 bn
Global population 6.9 bn

Foreign students

The government partially backtracked on plans to cut foreign student numbers in Britain. Where do they come from?

China 57,000
India 38,500
Nigeria 16,700
Ireland 16,600
Germany 15,500
US 15,000
Malaysia 14,000
France 13,800
Greece 11,800

Source: Higher Education Statistics Agency