We’re hearing desperately sad accounts of migrants drowning in their attempt to cross the Mediterranean in unseaworthy boats.  The EU must take action to stop the deaths.  This will prove a dilemma for EU leaders.  If those seeking a better life keep coming, there will be calls for them to be dispersed among EU countries, many of which already struggle with the flood of immigrants.  It will also encourage traffickers to lay their hands on anything that floats to increase the flood.  The only real answer will be to use EU naval resources to patrol close to the Libyan coast, their role to turn back the deathtrap vessels within easy distance of their point of departure.  Turning off the money machine will soon stop traffickers from using that route, though they will seek others.  Then the West has the problem of improving the lives of those that seek to come.  The improvements have to be made within their home countries and foreign aid won’t provide a simple solution.  Perhaps the real learning point is that the western form of democracy doesn’t sit easily within other cultures. While despising the tyrants who have ruled these countries in the past, they did provide a form of stability.  Their means of keeping control may seem unacceptable to developed countries but our promotion of an alternative has led to a blood bath which has no predictable ending.

    Nick Clegg entered the election fray this week with a comment that made us smile.  “We will add heart to a Conservative Government and a brain to a Labour one.”

    He made no comment about balls, mainly because he couldn’t offer much in that department.  Unlike Nicola Sturgeon who has come out fighting, a smile on her lips but a claymore in her hands.  The agreement round the table was that she had bigger balls than any of the other leaders’ as she demanded the keys to the treasury.  The size of the mythical testicles would require major surgery, removal of one at a time the only option.  Unfortunately, the removal of the one on the right would make her left leaning, her preference, the one on the left making her lean towards Cameron, heaven forbid.  The answer must be to suspend her from the ceiling, giving a classic hung parliament!  We’ll accept answers on a postcard about the best means of suspension.

    Reports have emerged that Bake Off presenter, Sue Perkins, has quit Twitter after death threats.  They followed the hint that she might replace Clarkson on Top Gear.  Jez quite liked the idea but his remark that ‘JC, Hammond and May never competed much on the skills of reversing and parking’ probably account for his two failed marriages.  On the other hand, Sue’s constant double-entendres on Bake Off might offend regular Top gear viwers!

    “What we hear on the doorstep” has become our political phrase of the week.  We’ve heard it spouted by politicians of every colour and wonder why no one has ever rung our front door bell.  They would be welcomed with open arms.  After all, when do we get a chance to really spell out our views?  There would be no unfairness because we don’t rate any of them.  UKIP might get an easy ride if they did a Nigel and met us in the pub, but even then it would depend on them buying their round.  As ‘researchers extraoadinaire’ we take our work seriously.  To date we have heard fourteen politicians use the phrase.  We suppose that if they use it often enough, they will eventually believe it, but they’ll be on their own in the belief.

    Payday lender Wonga has just posted a loss of £37 million.  Maybe one of the banks will lend them enough to keep going.  A 40% interest rate sounds reasonable.

    The very high salaries paid to managers in the NHS have suddenly hit the headlines.  How strange that it should take so long.  Our local hospital is rated very highly by local people, the only complaints we’ve ever heard relating to administrative mistakes.  Perhaps it’s time for a cull.  Don’t pour in more money until every ‘suit’ has been made to explain what their work delivers to patients.  Two of us worked as business consultants (a pause for all the rude jokes) and saw many over managed companies during our working lives.  In our experience, problems within an organization generally started at the top.