Blighty

PETERBOROUGH is a smallish city in eastern England, which was once home to JLS, a recently disbanded boy band, and to Buttonwood, a less boyish columnist. It is also ground zero for a financial innovation, the social impact bond, which is winning attention around the world.

A social impact bond (SIB) works by using private investors to fund preventative social projects and paying those investors back from public funds if targets are met. The theory is that successful projects ought to translate into savings for the public purse, meaning that the SIB entails no additional public spending.

The Peterborough pilot, which kicked off in 2010, is focused on prisoner rehabilitation.

OUR correspondents discuss the British government's legislative programme for the year ahead

THE results of today’s local elections in England and Wales will dribble out over the next 24 hours. By Friday afternoon, we will be all the wiser about the state of Britain’s voters and political parties. Projections by Professors Rallings and Thrasher of Plymouth University, the rock-stars of local election psephology, are a reliable benchmark. Using council by-election data, they predict that the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats will lose 310 and 130 seats respectively, that UKIP will pick up 40 and Labour 350. Any result significantly better or worse than these predictions will merit close examination.

A poll conducted in the first half of April by Ipsos-MORI on behalf of The Economist shows that as the UK narrowly avoided a triple-dip recession, half (49%) of the public mention the economy as among the most important issues facing Britain today. Concern about the economy peaked at 71% when the coalition government came to power in 2010 and has since fallen by 22 percentage points. This fall is more acute among those aged 55-64 (from 81% to 50%).

Unemployment worries have crept up again since our last poll, following data showing that the total number of workers counted as unemployed increased by 70,000 to 2.56 million between December and February.

“TORTURE numbers, and they'll confess to anything”—so says Gregg Easterbrook, an American writer. The ministers and political staff at the Department for Work and Pensions are rapidly becoming some of the fiercest inquisitors. Over the last few months, as welfare cuts have started, questionable numbers have floated out of Iain Duncan Smith’s office into the public debate like raw sewage. Take the latest example. Yesterday morning, Mr Duncan Smith claimed that:

Around 1 million people have been stuck on a working-age benefit for at least three out of the past four years, despite being judged capable of preparing or looking for work.

British Conservatives worry intermittently that the country’s demography is turning against them. Only 11% of British adults are currently non-white, but the proportion will rise quickly as a more mixed cohort of children reaches voting age. Blacks and Asians are moving to marginal constituencies in the suburbs. And not being white is one of the best predictors of not voting Tory. Just 16% of ethnic minorities favoured the party at the last general election, in 2010. 

An opinion poll released on April 19th by Lord Ashcroft, an occasional Tory donor and full-time gadfly, helps to explain why. In some ways ethnic minorities are natural Tory voters.

"Why do you suppose we went into Europe?" asks Sir Humphrey Appleby, the silky mandarin, to the hapless Jim Hacker in an episode of the 1980s BBC comedy, “Yes Minister”. "To strengthen the brotherhood of free Western nations," comes the stout reply. "Oh really..." scoffs Sir Humphrey, explaining: "We went in to screw the French by splitting them off from the Germans." "What appalling cynicism!" chides the minister.

A high-minded type, David Cameron would doubtless echo Hacker's comments. Inadvertently, however, his Europe policy recalls those of Sir Humphrey. Last Friday the prime minister dined with Angela Merkel at Schloss Meseberg, her summer retreat.