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The BBC reports that scientists have created sperm cells from stem cells.

Now I am no biologist for sure, but doesn't everyone produce stem cells? And anyone's stem cells can be switched on to produce any type of human cell? Does this not imply that it would be possible to turn a woman's stem cells into sperm cells? Is this the beginning of the end for men's part in the reproductive cycle?

Can't live with them, can live without them?

On 1st August 1908 the Old Age Pensions Act completed its parliamentary stages, the first step in the development of the modern benefits and welfare system by Asquith's Liberal government and the culmination of several decades of debate and lobbying for some provision to be made for the "deserving" poor in their old age. An alternative to the Poor Laws. On 1st January 1909 half a million or so people over 70 years old became entitled to a 5 shillings a week non-contributory payment administered via the Post Office.

It was not universal; only 5% of people lived beyond 70 in any case - and most were women. It was kept deliberately quite low in order to encourage as many as possible to make their own savings arrangements to top it up.

The BBC has a useful little comparison of then and now pensions arrangements, and you can read the whole act here.

According to an article I dug up last year Lord Roseberry described the Act as the most important piece of legislation since the Great Reform Act of 1832.

I'll refrain from a rant about how it's been a hundred years of mostly Tory and Labour government since and we still have 20% of pensioners living in poverty and dependent on additional means tested benefits and how we can solve this by continuing the legacy of liberal economic reforms those pioneers started.  Let's just enjoy the birthday shall we?

I meant to pick up on this from Sunday's Observer - The Chancellor's got his eye on a new best friend

Jasper Gerard says that:

David Cameron should place a bug on BA's shuttle to Edinburgh. For with the filthy Chilean sauvignon, dry roasted peanuts and sundried delights from the All Day Deli Counter, Gordon Brown and Sir Menzies Campbell, returning to their constituencies for the weekend, could be making a light snack of the Conservative party.

Half-decent sources tell me that Brown has, at the least, made tentative overtures to the Liberal Democrat leader about what might happen in a hung parliament. And an inconclusive result is what bookmakers predict. Brown is desperate to break from Blair. Upon entering Number 10, he wants fireworks with announcements even more dramatic than his first act as Chancellor, granting independence to the Bank of England. Many of his prize rockets hoarded in the Treasury have already been set off by that twisted fire starter next door, Blair. So Brown needs a spectacular. And what sparkler would light up the political landscape more brightly than electoral reform?

Now, forgive me if I'm overly skeptical, but I reckon we've "been there, done that" and had the tee-shirt stuffed right down our throats. I know that there are a lot of Labour electoral reformers that somehow blame the Lib Dems for allowing the PR issue to go off the boil and thereby, as they see it, jeopardizing the chance of PR happening before now. And don't get me wrong, I firmly believe that it is one of the most important issues in politics in the UK at the moment. And I know that sounds real wonkish compared with terrorism or crime or whatever else there is to worry about but I cannot accept that we live in a democracy when 22% of the electorate decided more than half the seats in parliament and all of the government.

But...as the article goes on, Gordon may believe that "It could produce centre-left government for yonks, securing what [he] calls 'the progressive consensus'". I don't regard PR as a way of keeping someone in power for ever. As the argument against PR is frequently trotting out - it is about "weak government", about limiting the power of the executive - to reduce its ability to interfere with our lives unopposed as the last ten years have seen. And so we need to persuade the Tories too of the idea. If they really mean that they want small government, let them put their money where their mouth is.

Holding the balance of power, if that's what it comes to, means just that - being able to decide after the votes are in whether the people have rejected a failing, lying and corrupt Labour government and by how much, and which side's policies, mixed with our own of course, are likely more in favour with that electorate. Ming knows that, and made great play of it during his election campaign for leader.

No deals Gordon, get ready to beg. We're not going to have spent ten years attacking nearly your every move, on liberties, on constitutional reform, on illegal warmongering, on centralizing, and a whole load of others only to be seduced by a mere bagatelle of half-baked PR in the hope of creating a long lasting hegemony in which we may play some part.

...on the other hand, the one good thing about the smoking ban is that it brings starkly into the open the fact that the "state" acting in the "best interests" of its citizens can decide and enforce with legislation and criminal penalties what you can and cannot do with your own property. Of course it always has in all sorts of different ways, but at least it's out in the open now.

So we can proceed to Land Value Tax unopposed by those who think it is not right for the state to take some of "your" property wealth yet okay to tell a landlord what he can and cannot allow in his own property...:)

Technorati Tags: land value tax, smoking ban