In City Journal, Steven Malanga recounts how two very different New York mayors – Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg – recognized how harnessing detailed data could dramatically improve the effectiveness of civic services ranging from fighting crime to locating storm-downed trees. New York’s past record of success offers lessons for Canadian cities – but only those with a mayor driven by an uncompromising sense of purpose.

In Vino Veritas – Or, Whatever It Takes to Get the Truth Out of Such a Crew
Winston Churchill drank his way to saving the world from Nazism and, according to Alec Marsh in Spiked, the old bulldog would fit right in with certain current Parliamentarians enjoying a tipple to endure late-night sittings in Westminster. “Well, why not?” Marsh asks. “Politicians wouldn’t be human if they didn’t.” This news doesn’t, however, sit well with certain neo-puritan scolds from – you guessed it – the Green Party, which on the other hand does support providing free narcotics to welfare recipients.


