Barometer | 7 May 2011

Rules of engagement

The strike on bin Laden has been widely celebrated in the US, even though there are strong grounds to regard it as illegal.
— Section 5(g) of Executive Order 11905 signed by Gerald Ford in 1976 states ‘No employee of the United States government shall engage in or conspire to engage in political assassination’.
— The order was reiterated by Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, although the latter bombed Gaddafi’s compound in 1986.
— US special forces could have been justified, however, if their intention had been to arrest bin Laden and then were forced to fire in self-defence.

Money migrations


The National Institute for Economic and Social Research calculated that migrant workers from Eastern Europe have added 0.62 per cent to UK GDP in 2009. How others have calculated the benefits of migration to the UK economy:
£6bn a year: Home Office/DWP, 2006
£1bn a year in reduction to UK trade deficit: Ernst & Young Item Club, 2006
£54.3bn a year: Harvey Nash/Centre for Economics and Business Research, 2006
4p per person a week: Migrationwatch, 2007
£30 per person a year: Home Office, 2008

The coolest months

After the coldest December in 100 years, we had the warmest April. Here is when the records were set for each month since the UK temperature series began in 1910:


Coldest          Warmest

1963      Jan      1916
1947      Feb      1998
1962      Mar      1938
1916      Apr       2011
1996      May      2008
1972      Jun       1976
1922      Jul        2006
1912      Aug      1995
1954      Sep      2006
1917      Oct       2001
1919      Nov      1994
2010      Dec      1934
Source: Met Office

Machine politics

David Cameron and Chris Huhne clashed over whether counting machines would be required for AV elections.