Alex Marsh, writing on his Alex’s Archives blog, comments on phase two of the government’s Help to Buy scheme. A “narrow perspective [focused on current indicators] allows the Coalition to press on with Help to Buy 2, even when we are seeing parts of the market clearly overheating.”

Thom Brooks, writing for The Conversation, argues that bad data has been used to underpin the ‘health tourism’ report. “[The report] exposes serious concern about the government playing politics with both immigration and the NHS.”

On Buying Quality Performance, Jane Mansour is fed up with government disregarding valuable evidence that should be used as the basis for policy-making. “Collective evidence and collective experience is being wasted in the rush to design populist ideas on a whim.”

On the Manchester Policy blog, Colin Talbot argues that the UK might see its own version of a Washington-style budget impasse in March 2015.

On Pieria, Chris Dillow asks: “Just how badly off are today’s young people?“.