Newsround, 18-Feb-10

The Falklands (BBC): I know we don't really want to escalate the situation unnecessarily, but it might be a sensible time to start planning a surprise goodwill visit by the military: reinforcing the goodwill already stationed there, of course.

Incidentally, the iBall team did one of their customarily quirky investment reviews of the company which is at the centre of the latest developments, Desire Petroleum. You can watch it at this link.

Elderly social care (BBC): It was not a little depressing listening the discussion about this story last week. The two left-wing parties kept telling us that this is so important we need to have a political consensus. I disagree. If something is really important, then the voters deserve a chance to have their say, rather than the parties colluding to offer a single policy which we cannot change. It is profoundly anti-democratic to tell us that our political elders and betters will decide for us and there is nothing we can do about it.

This is typical of how the health-and-social-care debate goes in the UK, as it is completely riddled with 'Nanny knows best' assumptions about the proper role of government, and a sinister attempt to bully people into 'consensus' rather than to engage in vigorous, open debate. We might expect that kind of assumption from some of the unreconstructed parts of Labour, but not even the Tory spokesmen can get shot of it, and as for the Liberal Democrats trying to engage in closed-door discussions which are neither liberal nor democratic, the less said the better.