Barometer | 26 April 2018

Kill or cure

An anti-war protester on a march against the Syrian missile attacks claimed that President Assad couldn’t be a bad man because ‘he’s a doctor, for heaven’s sake’. Some other qualified medics who provide counter-evidence for this theory:

— Dr Harold Shipman GP in Hyde, Manchester, convicted of 15 murders in 2000, though it is thought that he may have killed more than 250 patients.
— Dr Crippen US-trained homeopath and ear and eye specialist who dispensed medicines, though his qualifications were not recognised in Britain. He was hanged in 1910 for murdering his wife.
— Josef Mengele Gained a PhD in anthropology, researched genetics, then gained a doctorate in medicine before taking a job as physician at Auschwitz.

Windie days

Overzealous Home Office officials are accused of unfairly targeting the post-war ‘Windrush generation’ by demanding that they prove their right to live in Britain. How large is this generation?
— West Indies immigration peaked in 1955-1962 , averaging 32,850 arrivals a year.
— Controls after 1962 reduced this to 15,000 by 1966 and 5,000 by 1971.
— Successive censuses recorded UK residents with a birthplace in West Indies (first figure) and their UK-born children.

Toxic dump

How is the world getting on at destroying stocks of chemical weapons? (In tonnes)

Home nations

The Resolution Foundation suggested that a third of Britons born between 1980 and 1996 will never own their own home. Which European countries have the highest and lowest rates of homeownership?

Source: Eurostat