Eye on Britain
Friday, February 29, 2008
Robber caught by bikers
If this had happened in batty Britain, the police would have arrested the bikers for "assaulting" the robber. Don't believe it? See here
A BIKER who crash-tackled an armed man to the ground after he tried to hold up a club in Sydney says the bandit "picked the wrong night" for a robbery. The Southern Cross Cruiser Club was holding a meeting at a club in Regents Park, in Sydney's west, when two men armed with machetes stormed in and approached staff at the bar.
The group of about 50 motorcycle enthusiasts was in another room when they were alerted to the alleged robbery. "I was in the middle of giving my meeting and someone ran in and said, 'The place is being robbed'," club president Jester said on ABC radio. He said while one alleged offender jumped over a balcony and ran into a nearby park, the other man tried to escape through a roller door at the front of the club. "So we ran around the roller door out the front and as this guy opened the roller door, we crash tackled him in the doorway," Jester said.
The man managed to escape after being knocked to the ground and tried to climb a fence out of the property, Jester said. "He fell on my arm so I let him go and he got up, so we chased him to the fence," he said. "We caught him at the fence and crash-tackled him and hog-tied him to the ground and waited for the police to get there." Jester said the man had picked the wrong night for the alleged robbery. "If they'd only looked, right when they walked in the main door, they would have seen 40 or 50 of us sitting there. "Obviously they couldn't see out of the balaclavas, because they didn't even look. I don't think he did his homework very well."
Jester praised the efforts of Auburn police, who he said were at the scene in a matter of minutes. The officers later located the other alleged robber in a nearby street. One of the men sustained minor injuries and was under police guard in Westmead Hospital this morning. The other man was being questioned by police.
Source
Brainwashed kids in Britain
British children, well versed in the effects of climate change, are putting pressure on older generations to act now to halt environmental decline. New research shows 95% of children aged between 4 and 15 were 'concerned' by global warming, with more than half 'very concerned'. And three out of four respondents believed they were more fluent on the subject than their parents.
The eco-conscious youngsters, dubbed 'Greenagers', now want to put more pressure on older generations to take a lead in environmental decision-making. Some 70% of those polled believed climate change is something that will affect them in their lifetime. Another 85% thought people should be more concerned about the issue and 96% believed it is important to encourage other people to be more environmentally friendly.
The research has been conducted by the UK kids' channel Nickelodeon as part of their environmental campaign called 'Nick's Big Green Thing'. The channel has launched a week of programming to encourage children to create a greener environment. One of the week's hosts, acclaimed adventurer and environmentalist David de Rothschild, was delighted to see the youngest generation were paying attention to the subject of global warming.
He said: "Our climates changing quicker than anyone ever expected and we can't afford to ignore the signs. "The good news is we have the solutions and this research proves that kids are taking action helping to create more stable environmental conditions for our future generations."
The survey further showed that more than half (59%) of children were aware of the concept of a 'carbon footprint' and were keen to alter their home life in order to reduce it. Better recycling, switching off lights in empty rooms, avoiding car travel and reducing the use of household appliances all polled highly.
Despite the awarness of home environmental initiatives, the respondents felt that they learned more about the environment from school teachers rather than their parents.
Source
If this had happened in batty Britain, the police would have arrested the bikers for "assaulting" the robber. Don't believe it? See here
A BIKER who crash-tackled an armed man to the ground after he tried to hold up a club in Sydney says the bandit "picked the wrong night" for a robbery. The Southern Cross Cruiser Club was holding a meeting at a club in Regents Park, in Sydney's west, when two men armed with machetes stormed in and approached staff at the bar.
The group of about 50 motorcycle enthusiasts was in another room when they were alerted to the alleged robbery. "I was in the middle of giving my meeting and someone ran in and said, 'The place is being robbed'," club president Jester said on ABC radio. He said while one alleged offender jumped over a balcony and ran into a nearby park, the other man tried to escape through a roller door at the front of the club. "So we ran around the roller door out the front and as this guy opened the roller door, we crash tackled him in the doorway," Jester said.
The man managed to escape after being knocked to the ground and tried to climb a fence out of the property, Jester said. "He fell on my arm so I let him go and he got up, so we chased him to the fence," he said. "We caught him at the fence and crash-tackled him and hog-tied him to the ground and waited for the police to get there." Jester said the man had picked the wrong night for the alleged robbery. "If they'd only looked, right when they walked in the main door, they would have seen 40 or 50 of us sitting there. "Obviously they couldn't see out of the balaclavas, because they didn't even look. I don't think he did his homework very well."
Jester praised the efforts of Auburn police, who he said were at the scene in a matter of minutes. The officers later located the other alleged robber in a nearby street. One of the men sustained minor injuries and was under police guard in Westmead Hospital this morning. The other man was being questioned by police.
Source
Brainwashed kids in Britain
British children, well versed in the effects of climate change, are putting pressure on older generations to act now to halt environmental decline. New research shows 95% of children aged between 4 and 15 were 'concerned' by global warming, with more than half 'very concerned'. And three out of four respondents believed they were more fluent on the subject than their parents.
The eco-conscious youngsters, dubbed 'Greenagers', now want to put more pressure on older generations to take a lead in environmental decision-making. Some 70% of those polled believed climate change is something that will affect them in their lifetime. Another 85% thought people should be more concerned about the issue and 96% believed it is important to encourage other people to be more environmentally friendly.
The research has been conducted by the UK kids' channel Nickelodeon as part of their environmental campaign called 'Nick's Big Green Thing'. The channel has launched a week of programming to encourage children to create a greener environment. One of the week's hosts, acclaimed adventurer and environmentalist David de Rothschild, was delighted to see the youngest generation were paying attention to the subject of global warming.
He said: "Our climates changing quicker than anyone ever expected and we can't afford to ignore the signs. "The good news is we have the solutions and this research proves that kids are taking action helping to create more stable environmental conditions for our future generations."
The survey further showed that more than half (59%) of children were aware of the concept of a 'carbon footprint' and were keen to alter their home life in order to reduce it. Better recycling, switching off lights in empty rooms, avoiding car travel and reducing the use of household appliances all polled highly.
Despite the awarness of home environmental initiatives, the respondents felt that they learned more about the environment from school teachers rather than their parents.
Source
Thursday, February 28, 2008
British police useless at real policing
Persecuting ordinary decent people is all that they are good at
The man convicted yesterday of murdering two women and trying to kill a third was left free to continue his campaign of violence against women because of basic investigative errors by police. Levi Bellfield was found guilty at the Old Bailey of murdering Marsha McDonnell, 19, and Amelie Delagrange, 22, and attempting to murder Kate Sheedy. He was then identified as the prime suspect for the unsolved murder of the schoolgirl Milly Dowler.
A Scotland Yard task force has been set up to investigate Bellfield's possible connection to a series of 20 murders, attempted murders and other attacks dating back 25 years. Detective Chief Inspector Colin Sutton said that Bellfield was a dangerous man and that women would be safer now that he was behind bars. He stalked his victims, all young and blonde, as they waited for - or stepped off - buses late at night. Police said that they expected more victims of Bellfield, 39, a wheelclamper, to come forward after his picture was published widely for the first time.
As officers promised to uncover the full extent of Bellfield's crimes, it became clear that vital clues were missed that could have led to his arrest two years before he was eventually detained. Four officers from the Metropolitan Police have been reprimanded for serious errors in the inquiry into the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy in Isleworth in May 2004, three months before Miss Delagrange's death. Bellafield had attacked Miss Sheedy, now 21, with his car, knocking her down then driving over her twice. The Independent Police Complaints Commission found that officers had looked at the wrong day's CCTV footage, thereby failing to spot Bellfield's car stalking Miss Sheedy.
The Times has learnt that the written warning given to one officer was considered so serious that it was handed down by a Deputy Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard.
Police in Surrey investigating Milly Dowler's death failed to follow up on house-to-house inquries that could have led them to Bellfield in 2002 - before the murders of Miss McDonnell in 2003 and Miss Delagrange in 2004. They called 11 times at the house of Emma Mills, Bellfield's girlfriend, but after being told that she had moved they did not trace her new address. Miss Mills was by then living with Bellfield in West Drayton, West London. She has since been able to tell police that she owned a red Daewoo car of the kind seen on CCTV near Walton station on the day that Milly went missing. The car was reported stolen four days later. It has also emerged that a man in a similar car attempted to abduct a girl in the area the day before Milly disappeared.
A previous girlfriend of Bellfield's had a daughter who was a schoolfriend of Milly. The schoolgirl had been to her classmate's for tea and was thought to have met Bellfield. Miss Mills is also understood to have told detectives that, on the night of Milly's disappearance, Bellfield got out of bed at 4am and told her that he was going "to take care of the dog" at her flat in Walton. Detectives think this might have been when Bellfield went to dispose of Milly's body. Her remains were found in September 2002 in woods at Yateley Heath, Hampshire, an area known to Bellfield, who attended car auctions nearby.
Surrey police have issued a fresh appeal for information about the Daewoo car and are offering a œ50,000 reward for evidence leading to the conviction of Milly's murderer. Bob and Sally Dowler, Milly's parents, appealed for new witnesses to come forward. They said: "Milly was a loved and loving daughter and sister. She had every right to expect a happy, rich life ahead of her. As parents, how could we imagine anything else? We are pleading for anyone who knows anything to have the courage to speak up."
Surrey police sources emphasised that nothing had emerged in 2002 to make Bellfield a suspect. At the time he had nine previous convictions and there was intelligence to suggest that he made silent phone calls to women. "He was way off the radar, it was not until he was picked up in connection with the Amelie Delagrange murder that he began to be a possible suspect," said one source.
Bellfield was caught eventually by a combination of painstaking detective work and a bizarre stroke of luck. A police telephone hotline set up after the murder of Miss Delagrange received 129 calls from women who suspected that men they knew might be the killer. One woman said that Bellfield, who had violently attacked her during their relationship, was capable of killing women. At the same time officers were studying CCTV pictures from the streets around Twickenham Green on the night of the young French woman's murder. They appeared to show that she was followed by a white Ford Courier van but were too blurred to yield the vehicle's numberplate or driver. A smudge on the roof and two aluminium rear plates were the only things to mark it out from 26,000 similar vehicles in Britain.
The search for the van produced information about a wheelclamper who had bought a similar van for cash a few months earlier. The man had left his mobile phone number with the vehicle's previous owner. Then came the stroke of luck. When the phone number was punched into the police intelligence system, it matched with the number of a man who had called the antiterrorist hotline months earlier to report suspicions about his neighbour. The man was Levi Bellfield - the same name given by the woman caller. Surveillance revealed that his white van had similar markings to the one caught on CCTV.
His phone had also rung moments before Miss Delagrange was attacked. Bellfield, whose awareness of forensic science meant that he normally had his phone off before attacking his victims, immediately switched it off. But both the call and the act of switching the phone off left traces on the network that placed Bellfield at the murder scene. When police raided his home to arrest him in November 2004 they found him cowering in the loft.
The jury was unable to reach verdicts in connection with two other attacks, on Anna-Maria Rennie, then 17, in Whitton, South West London, in October 2001, and Irma Dragoshi, then 33, in December 2003. There was no evidence that any of his victims had been sexually assaulted.
Source
British Gas broke into our house, say couple who owed them nothing
An Englishman's home is a long way from being his castle these days
When David Houghton returned home from a holiday, he was horrified to find the lock on his front door had been picked. But it wasn't thieves who had broken into his home. It was British Gas. The energy giant had taken the drastic - and perfectly legal - step in a row over an unpaid bill, even though it later emerged that Mr Houghton did not owe the company a penny.
The 34-year-old's nightmare began in July 2005, when he bought a two-bedroom flat in Willesden Green, North London, with his girlfriend Abby Simpson. He immediately decided to ditch the property's contract with British Gas for a better deal with rivals EDF. But the British Gas computer system wrongly continued to bill the couple. Mr Houghton dealt with numerous threats of legal action and visits from the bailiffs, before a personal apology from the energy giant's managing director, Phil Bentley, convinced him that his troubles were over.
But when the couple went on a long weekend to New York in June last year, they returned home to a nasty surprise. While they were away, British Gas had swapped their meter for a pay-as-you-go version. To do so, an engineer and locksmith had sneaked into the flat by picking the locks on the front door and an internal door. They then left a note informing the couple what they had done. British Gas switches customers to pay-as-you go meters if they consistently fail to pay their bills.
Investigators have since worked out that it was the occupants of the next-door flat who owed the money to British Gas. The company has now apologised, blaming the bungle on incorrect records at the National Grid and problems with the address at Royal Mail. It has also given Mr Houghton and Miss Simpson 200 pounds.
However, the watchdog Energywatch last night demanded that the gas supplier fully compensate the couple. Mr Houghton said: "I am totally disgusted and bewildered by their behaviour. "I spoke to manager after manager at their call centres and each time was promised the problem had been sorted out." Between 2005 and the break-in two years later, the bill demands rose from 90 to 900 pounds. Mr Houghton said: "We sent them letters in response but then the bailiffs came round trying to get access."
A spokesman for the company claimed last night that the Gas Act allows workers to break into a customer's home to change the meter, providing he or she has been warned in advance. However, Mr Houghton claims he was never notified. He added: "It felt so intrusive that they had been in our flat and could have gone into every room if they'd wanted to.
"I called the police, who said they weren't interested because nothing had been taken." Graham Kerr, a spokesman for Energywatch, said: "Mr Houghton and his partner have had appalling treatment from British Gas. "Having your home broken into is a traumatic experience and that blow isn't softened by the perpetrator being a household name that just happened to make a mistake."
A British Gas spokesman said: 'Our managing director, Phil Bentley, has spoken to Mr Houghton and apologised. "We've since corrected our records, changed the meter back and Mr Houghton has been given 200 pounds in compensation."
Source
Ten myths about nuclear power
`It's dangerous, wasteful and too expensive!' Greens are busily putting the case against nuclear, but there is not a spark of truth in their arguments
The UK government is expected to announce tomorrow that it will give the green light to the building of new nuclear power stations in the UK - the first since the Sizewell `B' station was completed in 1995. These are urgently needed to make up the shortfall in power supply as older nuclear stations are closed over the next few years.
Yet the decision is bound to be controversial - not helped by widespread misinformation about nuclear power. Greens opposing nuclear power muddle every issue from terrorism to uranium supplies, in order to besmirch the only proven safe and cost-effective way to generate large amounts of electricity that won't produce large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. One would think that greens don't want a world with abundant energy and a stable climate!
These are some of the myths we are likely to hear from greens debating nuclear power over the next few weeks:
1) Uranium is running out
According to Greenpeace, uranium reserves are `relatively limited' and last week the Nuclear Consultation Working Group claimed that a significant increase in nuclear generating capacity would reduce reliable supplies from 50 to 12 years
In fact, there is 600 times more uranium in the ground than gold and there is as much uranium as tin. There has been no major new uranium exploration for 20 years, but at current consumption levels, known uranium reserves are predicted to last for 85 years. Geological estimates from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) show that at least six times more uranium is extractable - enough for 500 years' supply at current demand. Modern reactors can use thorium as a fuel and convert it into uranium - and there is three times more thorium in the ground than uranium.
Uranium is the only fuel which, when burnt, generates more fuel. Not only existing nuclear warheads, but also the uranium and plutonium in radioactive waste can be reprocessed into new fuel, which former UK chief scientist Sir David King estimates could supply 60 per cent of Britain's electricity to 2060. In short, there is more than enough uranium, thorium and plutonium to supply the entire world's electricity for several hundred years.
2) Nuclear is not a low-carbon option
Anti-nuclear campaigners claim that nuclear power contains `hidden emissions' of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from uranium mining and reactor construction. But so do wind turbines, built from huge amounts of concrete, steel and plastic. The OECD analysed the total lifetime releases of GHG from energy technologies and concluded that, taking into account mining of building materials, construction and energy production, nuclear is still a `lower carbon' option than wind, solar or hydroelectric generation. For example, during its whole life cycle, nuclear power releases three to six grams of carbon per kiloWatthour (GC kWh) of electricity produced, compared with three to 10 GC/kWh for wind turbines, 105 GC/kWh for natural gas and 228 GC/kWh for lignite (`dirty' coal)
Greens, exemplified by the Sustainable Development Commission, place their trust in `carbon capture and storage' (CCS) to reduce the GHG emissions from coal and gas plants. But carbon capture is, at present, a myth. There is no functioning power station with CCS in the world - not even a demonstration plant - and if it did work, it would still greatly reduce the energy efficiency of any power station where it is installed.
3) Nuclear power is expensive
With all power generation technology, the cost of electricity depends upon the investment in construction (including interest on capital loans), fuel, management and operation. Like wind, solar and hydroelectric dams, the principal costs of nuclear lie in construction. Acquisition of uranium accounts for only about 10 per cent of the price of total costs, so nuclear power is not as vulnerable to fluctuations in the price of fuel as gas and oil generation.
Unlike the UK's existing stations, any new designs will be pre-approved for operational safety, modular to lower construction costs, produce 90 per cent less volume of waste and incorporate decommissioning and waste management costs.
A worst-case analysis conducted for the UK Department of Trade and Industry (now the Department of Business and Enterprise), which was accepted by Greenpeace, shows nuclear-generated electricity to be only marginally more expensive than gas (before the late-2007 hike in gas prices), and 10 to 20 times cheaper than onshore and offshore wind. With expected carbon-pricing penalties for gas and coal, nuclear power will be considerably cheaper than all the alternatives
4) Reactors produce too much waste
Contrary to environmentalists' claims, Britain is not overwhelmed with radioactive waste and has no radioactive waste `problem'. By 2040 there will be a total of 2,000 cubic metres of the most radioactive high-level waste (9), which would fit in a 13 x 13 x 13 metre hole - about the size of the foundations for one small wind turbine. Much of this high-level waste is actually a leftover from Britain's atomic weapons programme. All of the UK's intermediate and high-level radioactive waste for the past 50 years and the next 30 years would fit in just one Royal Albert Hall, an entertainment venue in London that holds 6,000 people (and which seems, for some reason, to have become the standard unit of measurement in debates about any kind of waste in the UK)
The largest volume of waste from the nuclear power programme is low-level waste - concrete from outbuildings, car parks, construction materials, soil from the surroundings and so on. By 2100, there will be 473,000 cubic metres of such waste from decommissioned plants - enough to fill five Albert Halls. Production of all the electricity consumed in a four-bedroom house for 70 years leaves about one teacup of high-level waste, and new nuclear build will not make any significant contribution to existing radioactive waste levels for 20-40 years.
5) Decommissioning is too expensive
Existing UK reactors were built with no regard for future demolition. New reactors will be constructed from modular designs with the need for decommissioning built-in. The costs of decommissioning and waste management will be incorporated into the price of electricity to consumers. New nuclear plants are expected to have a working life of 40 years so the cost of decommissioning is spread over a longer period. Current government subsidy of decommissioning costs is approximately o1 billion annually (for 20 per cent of Britain's electrical supply) - half the subsidy to `sustainable' energy (two per cent of Britain's electrical supply).
6) Building reactors takes too long
This is perhaps the most ironic of the anti-nuclear arguments, since the legal manoeuvrings of Greenpeace delayed the UK government's nuclear decision by a year and it is the very opposition of greens that will cause most of the future delays.
The best construction schedules are achieved by the Canadian company AECL, which has built six new reactors since 1991; from the pouring of concrete to criticality (when the reactors come on-line), the longest build took six-and-a-half years and the shortest just over four years. The UK government expects pre-licensing of standard designs and modular construction to reduce construction times significantly - to about 6 years. New nuclear build could certainly start making significant contributions to UK carbon reduction targets by 2020.
7) Leukaemia rates are higher near reactors
Childhood leukaemia rates are no higher near nuclear power plants than they are near organic farms. `Leukaemia clusters' are geographic areas where the rates of childhood leukaemia appear to be higher than normal, but the definition is controversial because it ignores the fact that leukaemia is actually several very different (and unrelated) diseases with different causes.
The major increase in UK childhood leukaemia rates occurred before the Second World War. The very small (one per cent) annual increase seen now is probably due to better diagnosis, although it is possible that there is a viral contribution to the disease. It is purely by chance that a leukaemia `cluster' will occur near a nuclear installation, a national park or a rollercoaster ride. One such `cluster' occurred in Seascale, the nearest village to the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant, but there are no other examples. Clusters tend to be found in isolated areas where there has been a recent influx of immigration - which hints at a virus.
Men who work on nuclear submarines or in nuclear plants are no more likely to father children with leukaemia (or any other disease) than workers in any other industry
8) Reactors lead to weapons proliferation
More nuclear plants (in Britain and elsewhere) would actually reduce weapons proliferation. Atomic warheads make excellent reactor fuel; decommissioned warheads (containing greatly enriched uranium or plutonium) currently provide about 15 per cent of world nuclear fuel. Increased demand for reactor fuel would divert such warheads away from potential terrorists. Nuclear build is closely monitored by the IAEA, which polices anti-proliferation treaties.
9) Wind and wave power are more sustainable
If, as greens say, new nuclear power cannot come on-line in time to prevent climate change, how much less impact can wind, wave and carbon capture make? Environmentalists claim offshore wind turbines can make a significant contribution to electricity supply. Even if that were true - which it is certainly not - the environmental impact disqualifies wind as `sustainable'. The opening up of the North Sea continental shelf to 7,000 wind turbines is, essentially, the building of a huge industrial infrastructure across a vast swathe of ecologically sensitive seabed - as `unsustainable' in its own way as the opening of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration.
Wave power is still highly experimental and unproven as a method of generating electricity. Even if we allow the Severn Tidal Bore, the tidal surge that runs up and down the River Severn estuary in south-west England (and a great natural wonder of the world), to be destroyed, the cost overruns and time delays would make any problems of the nuclear industry look cheap by comparison.
10) Reactors are a terrorist target
Since 11 September 2001, several studies have examined the possibility of attacks by a large aircraft on reactor containment buildings. The US Department of Energy sponsored an independent computer-modelling study of the effects of a fully fuelled Boeing 767-400 hitting the reactor containment vessel. Under none of the possible scenarios was containment breached.
Only the highly specialised US `bunker busting' ordnance would be capable - after several direct strikes - of penetrating the amount of reinforced concrete that surrounds reactors. And besides, terrorists have already demonstrated that they prefer large, high visibility, soft targets with maximum human casualties (as in the attacks on New York, London, Madrid and Mumbai) rather than well-guarded, isolated, low-population targets. Any new generation of nuclear reactors in the UK will be designed with even greater protection against attack than existing plants, and with `passive' safety measures that work without human intervention or computer control.
Source
BRITAIN'S MILIBAND TOES CHINA'S PARTY LINE: RICH COUNTRIES MUST PAY
Miliband is the son of a noted Marxist theoretician so this obeisance to Communist China is not unexpected
Rich industrialized nations must help the developing world pay for a shift to cleaner technologies to fight climate change, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Tuesday during a visit to China's financial center. Major developing nations such as China and India will face a devastating "boomerang effect" of devastating effects from global warming such as drought and crop disruptions if they do not opt for cleaner, less polluting economic development, Miliband told students at the China-Europe International Business School.
Adapting energy technologies that emit fewer of the greenhouse gases viewed as a main contributor to climate change "does not sacrifice development but ... it is much more expensive than high-carbon development," he said. "The question is, who pays for it?" Miliband said. "The richer countries have got to lead in taking the burden of paying for the shift to a lower-carbon economy." Scientists believe carbon dioxide is one of the leading contributors to global warming.
China, which chiefly relies on heavily polluting coal to fuel its surging economy, now rivals the United States as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases.
Britain backs calls for industrialized countries to help the developing world cope with the consequences of centuries of pollution by the West. Last month, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged about 50 million pounds (US$98.3 million) to support investment in energy efficiency, renewable energy, clean coal and carbon dioxide capture-and-storage technology during his first state visit to China. China has pledged to improve energy efficiency, while insisting on its right to pursue the economic growth needed to supply jobs to its 1.3 billion people.
For the poorest countries, the focus should be on promoting sustainable development, Miliband said. "Their aid programs have got to be 'greened,'" he said. Miliband was to travel to the southwestern industrial hub of Chongqing before heading to Beijing later in the week. During a stopover in Hong Kong, he said Monday that he would discuss the issue of Sudan with his Chinese counterparts, but added that Beijing alone should not be held responsible for trying to end the conflict there. "We all have our responsibility to use our weight in the country and in the international arena to argue for dialogue, for responsibilities on both sides."
Source
NOT ALL BRITISH TORIES ARE GREEN
Claims that changes in global climate are the result of man-made emissions of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, are used as a pretext to demand increased taxes on vehicle use and restrictions such as lower speed limits. Yet the level of public debate about this highly complex subject has often been at a simplistic and emotive level, rather than a serious examination of the scientific evidence. Indeed, attempts to question the claimed `scientific consensus' are often met with abusive personal attacks designed to discourage dissenters - a clear sign that the issue has been hijacked for political purposes.
There are two questions that need to be considered: whether man-made emissions of carbon dioxide are actually changing the world's climate; and, even if they are, whether any action taken to reduce the UK's emissions could have a significant remedial impact at a global level.
On the first point, a scientific consensus on the causes of climate change does not exist, despite strenuous efforts to create that impression by those who wish to maintain and exploit public alarm. As explained by Dr Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, in an open letter to the Royal Society, the claimed link between carbon dioxide emissions and global warming does not even merit the scientific title of `theory'; it is merely a hypothesis, since causation has not been demonstrated in any conclusive way. He also points out that the recent warming trend began long before human-caused increase in carbon dioxide was evident.
The main alternative hypothesis to explain climate change is rapidly gaining credibility: variations in the sun's output of charged particles and in its magnetic field, linked to the sun-spot cycle, affect the flow of cosmic rays reaching the Earth's atmosphere, where they help to seed clouds. At times of high solar activity (such as recently), fewer cosmic rays reach the atmosphere so there is less cloud cover; more of the sun's heat radiation reaches the Earth's surface and the planet warms. When solar activity is low, more clouds form and reflect the sun's radiation back into space, so cooling takes place. Evidence is mounting to support this hypothesis and there are some scientists predicting a period of global cooling ahead, as solar activity decreases.
There is also nothing unprecedented about recent global temperatures or rates of change. There have been many fluctuations in temperature since the end of the last ice age, most recently the Medieval Warm Period of around a thousand years ago and the Little Ice Age that followed it. The existence of these natural fluctuations is an embarrassment to the proponents of man-made climate change, and attempts have been made to rewrite climate history to eliminate them. Also, since direct daily observations of temperature only began during the Little Ice Age, claims about recent temperatures being the `hottest ever recorded' are highly misleading.
Even if man-made carbon dioxide emissions were the cause of climate change, any measures that the UK could take to reduce its own emissions would have a negligible impact at a global level. In 2004, the UK emitted 158.09 million tonnes (carbon equivalent) of carbon dioxide, amounting to 2.1 per cent of the world total. Of the UK figure, 21.6 per cent came from road transport in 2004, or 0.46 per cent of the world total.
While road transport in the UK emits 34 million tonnes of carbon per year, China's total output of carbon dioxide in 2004 was 1,284 million tonnes (carbon equivalent), up from 1,063 million tonnes in 2003. Thus a single year's increase in carbon emissions by China, at 221 million tonnes, was six and a half times the output from road transport in Britain, or 40 per cent more than the UK's total emissions.
Any reduction that could be achieved in the UK's road transport emissions would be insignificant by comparison: a 10 per cent reduction would be negated in less than six days, if China's emissions continue to grow at their current rate. There can be no justification, therefore, for taxation increases or other restrictions that would affect mobility, on the grounds of tackling climate change. Suggesting that an example set by the UK would lead countries such as China and India to forgo the benefits of economic growth is risible.
Whether climate change due to greenhouse gas emissions is real and set to continue or not, responses to it need to be based on rational assessments of the costs and benefits of the options, not futile, damaging and expensive political gestures. This was the message delivered by the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs in its 2005 report, in which it also pointed out that there are positive aspects to global warming, such as fewer cold-related winter deaths. There is no justification for singling out the drivers of Britain as responsible for climate change.
FULL REPORT here
The English are fleeing Britain for Australia
More British people are moving to Australia than ever. For the first time, Australia is the preferred destination for British emigrants, more popular than America and the Med. In 2006-7, 23,223 British people emigrated to Australia, according to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship; of the total, 3,837 were members of families who had uprooted, and 18,115 were "skilled migrants" granted resident visas under the more relaxed residential points system. The figure is double that of a decade ago, and compares with 18,000 in 2004. British people make up almost a quarter of foreigners applying for Australian citizenship: in 2005-6, Australian citizenship was conferred on 103,350 people from over 175 different countries. Of those, people of British origin numbered 22,143, or 21.4% of the total.
Hundreds of thousands of British people go to Australia every year - for a holiday, a long-term stay, or to test the waters prior to emigrating. In the 12 months to July 2007, nearly 200,000 native British citizens packed their bags for Australia, the highest number to leave since the heavily subsidised mass emigration Down Under in the 1960s (1 in 12 Britons now lives abroad, a total of about 5.5m, according to a study by the Institute for Public Policy Research).
And the British easily top the census lists of foreigners resident in Australia and eligible to apply for citizenship. In 2001 they numbered 346,000, or 36.9% of the total ahead of the New Zealanders with 204,900 and Italians with 44,200. In fact, a quarter of a million British people (245,311) living in Australia claimed a British pension in 2006.....
Local trades, too, such as plumbing, electrical services, building and bricklaying, are in need of skilled labour, and often advertise in Britain. While the salaries are about the same as in the UK, their purchasing power is greater because the cost of living in Australia is lower. Others go in search of love, or the promise of it. Australia's outback regions are severely short of women, especially "young wife fodder", said one farmer.
Many recent newcomers are middle-class professionals with young families, drawn by an immigration policy that appeals to the highly skilled. Australian cities fiercely compete for the most talented. Among last year's British emigres were a Sikh family - the father an investment banker, the mother a dentist - who settled here, their third country of residence, to enjoy better prospects and a more child-friendly environment.....
In the 1950s, over 90% of Australians saw themselves as proudly British or Irish, regardless of whether they traced their lineage to a Georgian pickpocket, an East End prostitute, a declasse aristocrat, a potato-famine refugee or a family of graziers (cattle herders) and squatters.
Today's influx has subtly different motives for emigrating: they tend to be pursuing a realisable dream, rather than escaping a nightmare. Asked why they emigrated, most cite: sun and coastal living, lots of space, affordable housing (outside city centres), a generally reliable public health system, good, cheap schools, many jobs and relative security. They are also drawn by some of the world's last unspoilt natural wildernesses, ie, Uluru (Ayers Rock), Tasmania, Kakadu and the Great Barrier Reef. Holidays to exotic South Pacific islands - Vanuatu, Fiji, New Caledonia - are relatively cheap and a few hours away.
But the latest wave of emigrants are motivated by deeper social and economic impulses. Christopher Wade, the director of British Council Australia, said: "Australia has a great work ethic, but a very good after-work ethic too." He especially admires the "fair go" and egalitarian spirit. This is best expressed, he said, in the culture of "volunteerism": for example, many parents commonly coach their children's sports teams. There is such a thing as a community here, Wade insists.
Of course, it is Wade's job to talk up the Australian-British relationship. But the nation's rude economic success and political stability are strong magnets. During the past 15 years, Australia's standard of living has risen constantly and in 2006 it surpassed that of all Group of Eight countries except the US, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Since 1990, Australia's real economy grew by an average of around 3.3% a year, coupled with low inflation averaging around 2.5% (however, it recently exceeded the Reserve Bank's threshold, driving up variable interest rates to a mortgage-busting 8.97%, and rendering the cost of inner-city homes, as a multiple of income, less affordable than that of any other developed nation). There are jobs aplenty, however: the rate of unemployment fell from a peak of nearly 11% in 1992 to below 5% last year - its lowest level since the early 1970s.
The unprecedented Asian, chiefly Chinese, demand for Australia's mineral resources is behind this boom. Australia has some of the world's largest coal, iron ore and uranium reserves, and is one of the biggest gold and diamond producers. Western Australia, lavishly endowed with natural gas and minerals, is enjoying the biggest mining-led surge in its history, and Perth is one of the most expensive cities.
Buttressing that success is the world's oldest continuous democracy. At first glance, Australian standards of public debate suggest an Anglo-Celtic version of Italy's saloon-bar atmosphere. Yet the nation's raucous politicians - witness the Welsh-born deputy prime minister, Julia Gillard, herself the daughter of 10-pound poms, who last year called an opponent "a snivelling little grub", and the former prime minister Paul Keating, who regularly emerges from retirement to toss in a little more rebarbative Aussie wit (the former treasurer Paul Costello, he said last year, was "all tip and no iceberg") - are constrained by a parliamentary system that draws on the best of the Westminster tradition and the English and Scots enlightenment. The November 2007 general election was a sublime example of Australian democracy. When the incumbent prime minister, John Howard, lost the election - and his seat - after 11 years in power, the leadership shifted seamlessly to Labor's Kevin Rudd. Thanks to the compulsory system of preferential voting, the transition was gracious, popular, representative and bloodless....
Gratitude is never far away, either. More Australians seem to realise how good they've got it, and how hard won. Every year more than 10,000 young Australians gather on the shores of Gallipoli on Anzac Day to commemorate the fallen Australian troops. The Kokoda Track and Milne Bay in Papua - the battleground on which Australian forces, many of them untrained militia, first defeated the imperial Japanese army on land - is now considered to be hallowed turf.
And as I watched younger Australians and British backpackers dance in the New Year and partying on the beaches of Sydney, it occurred to me that perhaps Britain had made a terrible mistake - surely they should have left the convicts at home and emigrated?
More here
Antidepressants don't work?
The report discussed below has required more thought from me than the usual crap that I find in reports of medical research. The study concerned has many strong features. I note that the study was led by a psychologist. I am not usually very supportive of my fellow psychologists (See here) but I do note that a much higher standard of evidence seems to be required for publication in psychology than in medicine.
In the end, however, I think the study below confirms something I have been saying for some years: That our taxonomy of depression is a big problem. There is a strong tendency for any mental state characterized by suicidal thoughts to be seen as depression. But there are in fact TWO broad mental states characterized by such thoughts: True depression and what used to be called anxious depression. And those states are so different as to be almost opposite. The first is characterized by very low levels of activation and the second by very high levels of activation.
The DSM has now given anxious depression a fancy new name and listed it separately but I doubt that the distinction is as yet commonly made by practitioners. ANY suicidal state will often be given Prozac etc. And where Prozac is probably helpful in livening up true depressives, it would tend to push anxious depressives over the top and cause them actually to commit suicide -- which we know does happen. It is however crazy for a drug that helps some in a category to have the opposite effect for others in the same category so it seems to me that the fault lies with patient categorization. Prozac should be rigorously EXCLUDED as a treatment for anxious depression.
And I think the same distinction helps make sense of the report below. It is true that the therapeutic responses tabulated are often not much different from placebo. That overall statement, however, ignores what seem to me to be important details. The most striking is that in their Table 1, the difference from placebo varies markedly. In some studies, a LOT of the patients were helped by the drug while in others few were. And there were in fact two instances where placebo gave a better response than the drug! The latter result is about as crazy as Prozac driving you to suicide. My hypothesis would be that the samples where few were helped included a lot of anxious depressives and, in the two very deviant cases, a predominance of anxious depressives.
So I think we are still at the "Don't know" stage. I think we need studies from which anxious depressives have been rigorously excluded before we can evaluate the therapeutic effect of drugs on true depressives. If I were prescribing, however, I would certainly give Prozac etc. to anyone who was obviously a true depressive. I suspect that it has a much stronger effect for them than would at first appear from the results of the existing poorly-categorized studies.
I am particularly concerned about the response to this study from NICE. NICE are well-known for depriving Brits of drugs that might help them and I am afraid that this study will cause NICE to issue guidance that will deprive many Brits of relief from their suffering -- leading to suicide in some cases. Not to put to fine a point on it, I think this study could kill. Popular summary of the research follows. -- JR
Persecuting ordinary decent people is all that they are good at
The man convicted yesterday of murdering two women and trying to kill a third was left free to continue his campaign of violence against women because of basic investigative errors by police. Levi Bellfield was found guilty at the Old Bailey of murdering Marsha McDonnell, 19, and Amelie Delagrange, 22, and attempting to murder Kate Sheedy. He was then identified as the prime suspect for the unsolved murder of the schoolgirl Milly Dowler.
A Scotland Yard task force has been set up to investigate Bellfield's possible connection to a series of 20 murders, attempted murders and other attacks dating back 25 years. Detective Chief Inspector Colin Sutton said that Bellfield was a dangerous man and that women would be safer now that he was behind bars. He stalked his victims, all young and blonde, as they waited for - or stepped off - buses late at night. Police said that they expected more victims of Bellfield, 39, a wheelclamper, to come forward after his picture was published widely for the first time.
As officers promised to uncover the full extent of Bellfield's crimes, it became clear that vital clues were missed that could have led to his arrest two years before he was eventually detained. Four officers from the Metropolitan Police have been reprimanded for serious errors in the inquiry into the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy in Isleworth in May 2004, three months before Miss Delagrange's death. Bellafield had attacked Miss Sheedy, now 21, with his car, knocking her down then driving over her twice. The Independent Police Complaints Commission found that officers had looked at the wrong day's CCTV footage, thereby failing to spot Bellfield's car stalking Miss Sheedy.
The Times has learnt that the written warning given to one officer was considered so serious that it was handed down by a Deputy Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard.
Police in Surrey investigating Milly Dowler's death failed to follow up on house-to-house inquries that could have led them to Bellfield in 2002 - before the murders of Miss McDonnell in 2003 and Miss Delagrange in 2004. They called 11 times at the house of Emma Mills, Bellfield's girlfriend, but after being told that she had moved they did not trace her new address. Miss Mills was by then living with Bellfield in West Drayton, West London. She has since been able to tell police that she owned a red Daewoo car of the kind seen on CCTV near Walton station on the day that Milly went missing. The car was reported stolen four days later. It has also emerged that a man in a similar car attempted to abduct a girl in the area the day before Milly disappeared.
A previous girlfriend of Bellfield's had a daughter who was a schoolfriend of Milly. The schoolgirl had been to her classmate's for tea and was thought to have met Bellfield. Miss Mills is also understood to have told detectives that, on the night of Milly's disappearance, Bellfield got out of bed at 4am and told her that he was going "to take care of the dog" at her flat in Walton. Detectives think this might have been when Bellfield went to dispose of Milly's body. Her remains were found in September 2002 in woods at Yateley Heath, Hampshire, an area known to Bellfield, who attended car auctions nearby.
Surrey police have issued a fresh appeal for information about the Daewoo car and are offering a œ50,000 reward for evidence leading to the conviction of Milly's murderer. Bob and Sally Dowler, Milly's parents, appealed for new witnesses to come forward. They said: "Milly was a loved and loving daughter and sister. She had every right to expect a happy, rich life ahead of her. As parents, how could we imagine anything else? We are pleading for anyone who knows anything to have the courage to speak up."
Surrey police sources emphasised that nothing had emerged in 2002 to make Bellfield a suspect. At the time he had nine previous convictions and there was intelligence to suggest that he made silent phone calls to women. "He was way off the radar, it was not until he was picked up in connection with the Amelie Delagrange murder that he began to be a possible suspect," said one source.
Bellfield was caught eventually by a combination of painstaking detective work and a bizarre stroke of luck. A police telephone hotline set up after the murder of Miss Delagrange received 129 calls from women who suspected that men they knew might be the killer. One woman said that Bellfield, who had violently attacked her during their relationship, was capable of killing women. At the same time officers were studying CCTV pictures from the streets around Twickenham Green on the night of the young French woman's murder. They appeared to show that she was followed by a white Ford Courier van but were too blurred to yield the vehicle's numberplate or driver. A smudge on the roof and two aluminium rear plates were the only things to mark it out from 26,000 similar vehicles in Britain.
The search for the van produced information about a wheelclamper who had bought a similar van for cash a few months earlier. The man had left his mobile phone number with the vehicle's previous owner. Then came the stroke of luck. When the phone number was punched into the police intelligence system, it matched with the number of a man who had called the antiterrorist hotline months earlier to report suspicions about his neighbour. The man was Levi Bellfield - the same name given by the woman caller. Surveillance revealed that his white van had similar markings to the one caught on CCTV.
His phone had also rung moments before Miss Delagrange was attacked. Bellfield, whose awareness of forensic science meant that he normally had his phone off before attacking his victims, immediately switched it off. But both the call and the act of switching the phone off left traces on the network that placed Bellfield at the murder scene. When police raided his home to arrest him in November 2004 they found him cowering in the loft.
The jury was unable to reach verdicts in connection with two other attacks, on Anna-Maria Rennie, then 17, in Whitton, South West London, in October 2001, and Irma Dragoshi, then 33, in December 2003. There was no evidence that any of his victims had been sexually assaulted.
Source
British Gas broke into our house, say couple who owed them nothing
An Englishman's home is a long way from being his castle these days
When David Houghton returned home from a holiday, he was horrified to find the lock on his front door had been picked. But it wasn't thieves who had broken into his home. It was British Gas. The energy giant had taken the drastic - and perfectly legal - step in a row over an unpaid bill, even though it later emerged that Mr Houghton did not owe the company a penny.
The 34-year-old's nightmare began in July 2005, when he bought a two-bedroom flat in Willesden Green, North London, with his girlfriend Abby Simpson. He immediately decided to ditch the property's contract with British Gas for a better deal with rivals EDF. But the British Gas computer system wrongly continued to bill the couple. Mr Houghton dealt with numerous threats of legal action and visits from the bailiffs, before a personal apology from the energy giant's managing director, Phil Bentley, convinced him that his troubles were over.
But when the couple went on a long weekend to New York in June last year, they returned home to a nasty surprise. While they were away, British Gas had swapped their meter for a pay-as-you-go version. To do so, an engineer and locksmith had sneaked into the flat by picking the locks on the front door and an internal door. They then left a note informing the couple what they had done. British Gas switches customers to pay-as-you go meters if they consistently fail to pay their bills.
Investigators have since worked out that it was the occupants of the next-door flat who owed the money to British Gas. The company has now apologised, blaming the bungle on incorrect records at the National Grid and problems with the address at Royal Mail. It has also given Mr Houghton and Miss Simpson 200 pounds.
However, the watchdog Energywatch last night demanded that the gas supplier fully compensate the couple. Mr Houghton said: "I am totally disgusted and bewildered by their behaviour. "I spoke to manager after manager at their call centres and each time was promised the problem had been sorted out." Between 2005 and the break-in two years later, the bill demands rose from 90 to 900 pounds. Mr Houghton said: "We sent them letters in response but then the bailiffs came round trying to get access."
A spokesman for the company claimed last night that the Gas Act allows workers to break into a customer's home to change the meter, providing he or she has been warned in advance. However, Mr Houghton claims he was never notified. He added: "It felt so intrusive that they had been in our flat and could have gone into every room if they'd wanted to.
"I called the police, who said they weren't interested because nothing had been taken." Graham Kerr, a spokesman for Energywatch, said: "Mr Houghton and his partner have had appalling treatment from British Gas. "Having your home broken into is a traumatic experience and that blow isn't softened by the perpetrator being a household name that just happened to make a mistake."
A British Gas spokesman said: 'Our managing director, Phil Bentley, has spoken to Mr Houghton and apologised. "We've since corrected our records, changed the meter back and Mr Houghton has been given 200 pounds in compensation."
Source
Ten myths about nuclear power
`It's dangerous, wasteful and too expensive!' Greens are busily putting the case against nuclear, but there is not a spark of truth in their arguments
The UK government is expected to announce tomorrow that it will give the green light to the building of new nuclear power stations in the UK - the first since the Sizewell `B' station was completed in 1995. These are urgently needed to make up the shortfall in power supply as older nuclear stations are closed over the next few years.
Yet the decision is bound to be controversial - not helped by widespread misinformation about nuclear power. Greens opposing nuclear power muddle every issue from terrorism to uranium supplies, in order to besmirch the only proven safe and cost-effective way to generate large amounts of electricity that won't produce large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. One would think that greens don't want a world with abundant energy and a stable climate!
These are some of the myths we are likely to hear from greens debating nuclear power over the next few weeks:
1) Uranium is running out
According to Greenpeace, uranium reserves are `relatively limited' and last week the Nuclear Consultation Working Group claimed that a significant increase in nuclear generating capacity would reduce reliable supplies from 50 to 12 years
In fact, there is 600 times more uranium in the ground than gold and there is as much uranium as tin. There has been no major new uranium exploration for 20 years, but at current consumption levels, known uranium reserves are predicted to last for 85 years. Geological estimates from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) show that at least six times more uranium is extractable - enough for 500 years' supply at current demand. Modern reactors can use thorium as a fuel and convert it into uranium - and there is three times more thorium in the ground than uranium.
Uranium is the only fuel which, when burnt, generates more fuel. Not only existing nuclear warheads, but also the uranium and plutonium in radioactive waste can be reprocessed into new fuel, which former UK chief scientist Sir David King estimates could supply 60 per cent of Britain's electricity to 2060. In short, there is more than enough uranium, thorium and plutonium to supply the entire world's electricity for several hundred years.
2) Nuclear is not a low-carbon option
Anti-nuclear campaigners claim that nuclear power contains `hidden emissions' of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from uranium mining and reactor construction. But so do wind turbines, built from huge amounts of concrete, steel and plastic. The OECD analysed the total lifetime releases of GHG from energy technologies and concluded that, taking into account mining of building materials, construction and energy production, nuclear is still a `lower carbon' option than wind, solar or hydroelectric generation. For example, during its whole life cycle, nuclear power releases three to six grams of carbon per kiloWatthour (GC kWh) of electricity produced, compared with three to 10 GC/kWh for wind turbines, 105 GC/kWh for natural gas and 228 GC/kWh for lignite (`dirty' coal)
Greens, exemplified by the Sustainable Development Commission, place their trust in `carbon capture and storage' (CCS) to reduce the GHG emissions from coal and gas plants. But carbon capture is, at present, a myth. There is no functioning power station with CCS in the world - not even a demonstration plant - and if it did work, it would still greatly reduce the energy efficiency of any power station where it is installed.
3) Nuclear power is expensive
With all power generation technology, the cost of electricity depends upon the investment in construction (including interest on capital loans), fuel, management and operation. Like wind, solar and hydroelectric dams, the principal costs of nuclear lie in construction. Acquisition of uranium accounts for only about 10 per cent of the price of total costs, so nuclear power is not as vulnerable to fluctuations in the price of fuel as gas and oil generation.
Unlike the UK's existing stations, any new designs will be pre-approved for operational safety, modular to lower construction costs, produce 90 per cent less volume of waste and incorporate decommissioning and waste management costs.
A worst-case analysis conducted for the UK Department of Trade and Industry (now the Department of Business and Enterprise), which was accepted by Greenpeace, shows nuclear-generated electricity to be only marginally more expensive than gas (before the late-2007 hike in gas prices), and 10 to 20 times cheaper than onshore and offshore wind. With expected carbon-pricing penalties for gas and coal, nuclear power will be considerably cheaper than all the alternatives
4) Reactors produce too much waste
Contrary to environmentalists' claims, Britain is not overwhelmed with radioactive waste and has no radioactive waste `problem'. By 2040 there will be a total of 2,000 cubic metres of the most radioactive high-level waste (9), which would fit in a 13 x 13 x 13 metre hole - about the size of the foundations for one small wind turbine. Much of this high-level waste is actually a leftover from Britain's atomic weapons programme. All of the UK's intermediate and high-level radioactive waste for the past 50 years and the next 30 years would fit in just one Royal Albert Hall, an entertainment venue in London that holds 6,000 people (and which seems, for some reason, to have become the standard unit of measurement in debates about any kind of waste in the UK)
The largest volume of waste from the nuclear power programme is low-level waste - concrete from outbuildings, car parks, construction materials, soil from the surroundings and so on. By 2100, there will be 473,000 cubic metres of such waste from decommissioned plants - enough to fill five Albert Halls. Production of all the electricity consumed in a four-bedroom house for 70 years leaves about one teacup of high-level waste, and new nuclear build will not make any significant contribution to existing radioactive waste levels for 20-40 years.
5) Decommissioning is too expensive
Existing UK reactors were built with no regard for future demolition. New reactors will be constructed from modular designs with the need for decommissioning built-in. The costs of decommissioning and waste management will be incorporated into the price of electricity to consumers. New nuclear plants are expected to have a working life of 40 years so the cost of decommissioning is spread over a longer period. Current government subsidy of decommissioning costs is approximately o1 billion annually (for 20 per cent of Britain's electrical supply) - half the subsidy to `sustainable' energy (two per cent of Britain's electrical supply).
6) Building reactors takes too long
This is perhaps the most ironic of the anti-nuclear arguments, since the legal manoeuvrings of Greenpeace delayed the UK government's nuclear decision by a year and it is the very opposition of greens that will cause most of the future delays.
The best construction schedules are achieved by the Canadian company AECL, which has built six new reactors since 1991; from the pouring of concrete to criticality (when the reactors come on-line), the longest build took six-and-a-half years and the shortest just over four years. The UK government expects pre-licensing of standard designs and modular construction to reduce construction times significantly - to about 6 years. New nuclear build could certainly start making significant contributions to UK carbon reduction targets by 2020.
7) Leukaemia rates are higher near reactors
Childhood leukaemia rates are no higher near nuclear power plants than they are near organic farms. `Leukaemia clusters' are geographic areas where the rates of childhood leukaemia appear to be higher than normal, but the definition is controversial because it ignores the fact that leukaemia is actually several very different (and unrelated) diseases with different causes.
The major increase in UK childhood leukaemia rates occurred before the Second World War. The very small (one per cent) annual increase seen now is probably due to better diagnosis, although it is possible that there is a viral contribution to the disease. It is purely by chance that a leukaemia `cluster' will occur near a nuclear installation, a national park or a rollercoaster ride. One such `cluster' occurred in Seascale, the nearest village to the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant, but there are no other examples. Clusters tend to be found in isolated areas where there has been a recent influx of immigration - which hints at a virus.
Men who work on nuclear submarines or in nuclear plants are no more likely to father children with leukaemia (or any other disease) than workers in any other industry
8) Reactors lead to weapons proliferation
More nuclear plants (in Britain and elsewhere) would actually reduce weapons proliferation. Atomic warheads make excellent reactor fuel; decommissioned warheads (containing greatly enriched uranium or plutonium) currently provide about 15 per cent of world nuclear fuel. Increased demand for reactor fuel would divert such warheads away from potential terrorists. Nuclear build is closely monitored by the IAEA, which polices anti-proliferation treaties.
9) Wind and wave power are more sustainable
If, as greens say, new nuclear power cannot come on-line in time to prevent climate change, how much less impact can wind, wave and carbon capture make? Environmentalists claim offshore wind turbines can make a significant contribution to electricity supply. Even if that were true - which it is certainly not - the environmental impact disqualifies wind as `sustainable'. The opening up of the North Sea continental shelf to 7,000 wind turbines is, essentially, the building of a huge industrial infrastructure across a vast swathe of ecologically sensitive seabed - as `unsustainable' in its own way as the opening of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration.
Wave power is still highly experimental and unproven as a method of generating electricity. Even if we allow the Severn Tidal Bore, the tidal surge that runs up and down the River Severn estuary in south-west England (and a great natural wonder of the world), to be destroyed, the cost overruns and time delays would make any problems of the nuclear industry look cheap by comparison.
10) Reactors are a terrorist target
Since 11 September 2001, several studies have examined the possibility of attacks by a large aircraft on reactor containment buildings. The US Department of Energy sponsored an independent computer-modelling study of the effects of a fully fuelled Boeing 767-400 hitting the reactor containment vessel. Under none of the possible scenarios was containment breached.
Only the highly specialised US `bunker busting' ordnance would be capable - after several direct strikes - of penetrating the amount of reinforced concrete that surrounds reactors. And besides, terrorists have already demonstrated that they prefer large, high visibility, soft targets with maximum human casualties (as in the attacks on New York, London, Madrid and Mumbai) rather than well-guarded, isolated, low-population targets. Any new generation of nuclear reactors in the UK will be designed with even greater protection against attack than existing plants, and with `passive' safety measures that work without human intervention or computer control.
Source
BRITAIN'S MILIBAND TOES CHINA'S PARTY LINE: RICH COUNTRIES MUST PAY
Miliband is the son of a noted Marxist theoretician so this obeisance to Communist China is not unexpected
Rich industrialized nations must help the developing world pay for a shift to cleaner technologies to fight climate change, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Tuesday during a visit to China's financial center. Major developing nations such as China and India will face a devastating "boomerang effect" of devastating effects from global warming such as drought and crop disruptions if they do not opt for cleaner, less polluting economic development, Miliband told students at the China-Europe International Business School.
Adapting energy technologies that emit fewer of the greenhouse gases viewed as a main contributor to climate change "does not sacrifice development but ... it is much more expensive than high-carbon development," he said. "The question is, who pays for it?" Miliband said. "The richer countries have got to lead in taking the burden of paying for the shift to a lower-carbon economy." Scientists believe carbon dioxide is one of the leading contributors to global warming.
China, which chiefly relies on heavily polluting coal to fuel its surging economy, now rivals the United States as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases.
Britain backs calls for industrialized countries to help the developing world cope with the consequences of centuries of pollution by the West. Last month, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged about 50 million pounds (US$98.3 million) to support investment in energy efficiency, renewable energy, clean coal and carbon dioxide capture-and-storage technology during his first state visit to China. China has pledged to improve energy efficiency, while insisting on its right to pursue the economic growth needed to supply jobs to its 1.3 billion people.
For the poorest countries, the focus should be on promoting sustainable development, Miliband said. "Their aid programs have got to be 'greened,'" he said. Miliband was to travel to the southwestern industrial hub of Chongqing before heading to Beijing later in the week. During a stopover in Hong Kong, he said Monday that he would discuss the issue of Sudan with his Chinese counterparts, but added that Beijing alone should not be held responsible for trying to end the conflict there. "We all have our responsibility to use our weight in the country and in the international arena to argue for dialogue, for responsibilities on both sides."
Source
NOT ALL BRITISH TORIES ARE GREEN
Claims that changes in global climate are the result of man-made emissions of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, are used as a pretext to demand increased taxes on vehicle use and restrictions such as lower speed limits. Yet the level of public debate about this highly complex subject has often been at a simplistic and emotive level, rather than a serious examination of the scientific evidence. Indeed, attempts to question the claimed `scientific consensus' are often met with abusive personal attacks designed to discourage dissenters - a clear sign that the issue has been hijacked for political purposes.
There are two questions that need to be considered: whether man-made emissions of carbon dioxide are actually changing the world's climate; and, even if they are, whether any action taken to reduce the UK's emissions could have a significant remedial impact at a global level.
On the first point, a scientific consensus on the causes of climate change does not exist, despite strenuous efforts to create that impression by those who wish to maintain and exploit public alarm. As explained by Dr Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, in an open letter to the Royal Society, the claimed link between carbon dioxide emissions and global warming does not even merit the scientific title of `theory'; it is merely a hypothesis, since causation has not been demonstrated in any conclusive way. He also points out that the recent warming trend began long before human-caused increase in carbon dioxide was evident.
The main alternative hypothesis to explain climate change is rapidly gaining credibility: variations in the sun's output of charged particles and in its magnetic field, linked to the sun-spot cycle, affect the flow of cosmic rays reaching the Earth's atmosphere, where they help to seed clouds. At times of high solar activity (such as recently), fewer cosmic rays reach the atmosphere so there is less cloud cover; more of the sun's heat radiation reaches the Earth's surface and the planet warms. When solar activity is low, more clouds form and reflect the sun's radiation back into space, so cooling takes place. Evidence is mounting to support this hypothesis and there are some scientists predicting a period of global cooling ahead, as solar activity decreases.
There is also nothing unprecedented about recent global temperatures or rates of change. There have been many fluctuations in temperature since the end of the last ice age, most recently the Medieval Warm Period of around a thousand years ago and the Little Ice Age that followed it. The existence of these natural fluctuations is an embarrassment to the proponents of man-made climate change, and attempts have been made to rewrite climate history to eliminate them. Also, since direct daily observations of temperature only began during the Little Ice Age, claims about recent temperatures being the `hottest ever recorded' are highly misleading.
Even if man-made carbon dioxide emissions were the cause of climate change, any measures that the UK could take to reduce its own emissions would have a negligible impact at a global level. In 2004, the UK emitted 158.09 million tonnes (carbon equivalent) of carbon dioxide, amounting to 2.1 per cent of the world total. Of the UK figure, 21.6 per cent came from road transport in 2004, or 0.46 per cent of the world total.
While road transport in the UK emits 34 million tonnes of carbon per year, China's total output of carbon dioxide in 2004 was 1,284 million tonnes (carbon equivalent), up from 1,063 million tonnes in 2003. Thus a single year's increase in carbon emissions by China, at 221 million tonnes, was six and a half times the output from road transport in Britain, or 40 per cent more than the UK's total emissions.
Any reduction that could be achieved in the UK's road transport emissions would be insignificant by comparison: a 10 per cent reduction would be negated in less than six days, if China's emissions continue to grow at their current rate. There can be no justification, therefore, for taxation increases or other restrictions that would affect mobility, on the grounds of tackling climate change. Suggesting that an example set by the UK would lead countries such as China and India to forgo the benefits of economic growth is risible.
Whether climate change due to greenhouse gas emissions is real and set to continue or not, responses to it need to be based on rational assessments of the costs and benefits of the options, not futile, damaging and expensive political gestures. This was the message delivered by the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs in its 2005 report, in which it also pointed out that there are positive aspects to global warming, such as fewer cold-related winter deaths. There is no justification for singling out the drivers of Britain as responsible for climate change.
FULL REPORT here
The English are fleeing Britain for Australia
More British people are moving to Australia than ever. For the first time, Australia is the preferred destination for British emigrants, more popular than America and the Med. In 2006-7, 23,223 British people emigrated to Australia, according to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship; of the total, 3,837 were members of families who had uprooted, and 18,115 were "skilled migrants" granted resident visas under the more relaxed residential points system. The figure is double that of a decade ago, and compares with 18,000 in 2004. British people make up almost a quarter of foreigners applying for Australian citizenship: in 2005-6, Australian citizenship was conferred on 103,350 people from over 175 different countries. Of those, people of British origin numbered 22,143, or 21.4% of the total.
Hundreds of thousands of British people go to Australia every year - for a holiday, a long-term stay, or to test the waters prior to emigrating. In the 12 months to July 2007, nearly 200,000 native British citizens packed their bags for Australia, the highest number to leave since the heavily subsidised mass emigration Down Under in the 1960s (1 in 12 Britons now lives abroad, a total of about 5.5m, according to a study by the Institute for Public Policy Research).
And the British easily top the census lists of foreigners resident in Australia and eligible to apply for citizenship. In 2001 they numbered 346,000, or 36.9% of the total ahead of the New Zealanders with 204,900 and Italians with 44,200. In fact, a quarter of a million British people (245,311) living in Australia claimed a British pension in 2006.....
Local trades, too, such as plumbing, electrical services, building and bricklaying, are in need of skilled labour, and often advertise in Britain. While the salaries are about the same as in the UK, their purchasing power is greater because the cost of living in Australia is lower. Others go in search of love, or the promise of it. Australia's outback regions are severely short of women, especially "young wife fodder", said one farmer.
Many recent newcomers are middle-class professionals with young families, drawn by an immigration policy that appeals to the highly skilled. Australian cities fiercely compete for the most talented. Among last year's British emigres were a Sikh family - the father an investment banker, the mother a dentist - who settled here, their third country of residence, to enjoy better prospects and a more child-friendly environment.....
In the 1950s, over 90% of Australians saw themselves as proudly British or Irish, regardless of whether they traced their lineage to a Georgian pickpocket, an East End prostitute, a declasse aristocrat, a potato-famine refugee or a family of graziers (cattle herders) and squatters.
Today's influx has subtly different motives for emigrating: they tend to be pursuing a realisable dream, rather than escaping a nightmare. Asked why they emigrated, most cite: sun and coastal living, lots of space, affordable housing (outside city centres), a generally reliable public health system, good, cheap schools, many jobs and relative security. They are also drawn by some of the world's last unspoilt natural wildernesses, ie, Uluru (Ayers Rock), Tasmania, Kakadu and the Great Barrier Reef. Holidays to exotic South Pacific islands - Vanuatu, Fiji, New Caledonia - are relatively cheap and a few hours away.
But the latest wave of emigrants are motivated by deeper social and economic impulses. Christopher Wade, the director of British Council Australia, said: "Australia has a great work ethic, but a very good after-work ethic too." He especially admires the "fair go" and egalitarian spirit. This is best expressed, he said, in the culture of "volunteerism": for example, many parents commonly coach their children's sports teams. There is such a thing as a community here, Wade insists.
Of course, it is Wade's job to talk up the Australian-British relationship. But the nation's rude economic success and political stability are strong magnets. During the past 15 years, Australia's standard of living has risen constantly and in 2006 it surpassed that of all Group of Eight countries except the US, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Since 1990, Australia's real economy grew by an average of around 3.3% a year, coupled with low inflation averaging around 2.5% (however, it recently exceeded the Reserve Bank's threshold, driving up variable interest rates to a mortgage-busting 8.97%, and rendering the cost of inner-city homes, as a multiple of income, less affordable than that of any other developed nation). There are jobs aplenty, however: the rate of unemployment fell from a peak of nearly 11% in 1992 to below 5% last year - its lowest level since the early 1970s.
The unprecedented Asian, chiefly Chinese, demand for Australia's mineral resources is behind this boom. Australia has some of the world's largest coal, iron ore and uranium reserves, and is one of the biggest gold and diamond producers. Western Australia, lavishly endowed with natural gas and minerals, is enjoying the biggest mining-led surge in its history, and Perth is one of the most expensive cities.
Buttressing that success is the world's oldest continuous democracy. At first glance, Australian standards of public debate suggest an Anglo-Celtic version of Italy's saloon-bar atmosphere. Yet the nation's raucous politicians - witness the Welsh-born deputy prime minister, Julia Gillard, herself the daughter of 10-pound poms, who last year called an opponent "a snivelling little grub", and the former prime minister Paul Keating, who regularly emerges from retirement to toss in a little more rebarbative Aussie wit (the former treasurer Paul Costello, he said last year, was "all tip and no iceberg") - are constrained by a parliamentary system that draws on the best of the Westminster tradition and the English and Scots enlightenment. The November 2007 general election was a sublime example of Australian democracy. When the incumbent prime minister, John Howard, lost the election - and his seat - after 11 years in power, the leadership shifted seamlessly to Labor's Kevin Rudd. Thanks to the compulsory system of preferential voting, the transition was gracious, popular, representative and bloodless....
Gratitude is never far away, either. More Australians seem to realise how good they've got it, and how hard won. Every year more than 10,000 young Australians gather on the shores of Gallipoli on Anzac Day to commemorate the fallen Australian troops. The Kokoda Track and Milne Bay in Papua - the battleground on which Australian forces, many of them untrained militia, first defeated the imperial Japanese army on land - is now considered to be hallowed turf.
And as I watched younger Australians and British backpackers dance in the New Year and partying on the beaches of Sydney, it occurred to me that perhaps Britain had made a terrible mistake - surely they should have left the convicts at home and emigrated?
More here
Antidepressants don't work?
The report discussed below has required more thought from me than the usual crap that I find in reports of medical research. The study concerned has many strong features. I note that the study was led by a psychologist. I am not usually very supportive of my fellow psychologists (See here) but I do note that a much higher standard of evidence seems to be required for publication in psychology than in medicine.
In the end, however, I think the study below confirms something I have been saying for some years: That our taxonomy of depression is a big problem. There is a strong tendency for any mental state characterized by suicidal thoughts to be seen as depression. But there are in fact TWO broad mental states characterized by such thoughts: True depression and what used to be called anxious depression. And those states are so different as to be almost opposite. The first is characterized by very low levels of activation and the second by very high levels of activation.
The DSM has now given anxious depression a fancy new name and listed it separately but I doubt that the distinction is as yet commonly made by practitioners. ANY suicidal state will often be given Prozac etc. And where Prozac is probably helpful in livening up true depressives, it would tend to push anxious depressives over the top and cause them actually to commit suicide -- which we know does happen. It is however crazy for a drug that helps some in a category to have the opposite effect for others in the same category so it seems to me that the fault lies with patient categorization. Prozac should be rigorously EXCLUDED as a treatment for anxious depression.
And I think the same distinction helps make sense of the report below. It is true that the therapeutic responses tabulated are often not much different from placebo. That overall statement, however, ignores what seem to me to be important details. The most striking is that in their Table 1, the difference from placebo varies markedly. In some studies, a LOT of the patients were helped by the drug while in others few were. And there were in fact two instances where placebo gave a better response than the drug! The latter result is about as crazy as Prozac driving you to suicide. My hypothesis would be that the samples where few were helped included a lot of anxious depressives and, in the two very deviant cases, a predominance of anxious depressives.
So I think we are still at the "Don't know" stage. I think we need studies from which anxious depressives have been rigorously excluded before we can evaluate the therapeutic effect of drugs on true depressives. If I were prescribing, however, I would certainly give Prozac etc. to anyone who was obviously a true depressive. I suspect that it has a much stronger effect for them than would at first appear from the results of the existing poorly-categorized studies.
I am particularly concerned about the response to this study from NICE. NICE are well-known for depriving Brits of drugs that might help them and I am afraid that this study will cause NICE to issue guidance that will deprive many Brits of relief from their suffering -- leading to suicide in some cases. Not to put to fine a point on it, I think this study could kill. Popular summary of the research follows. -- JR
Millions of people taking commonly prescribed antidepressants such as Prozac and Seroxat might as well be taking a placebo, according to the first study to include unpublished evidence. The new generation of antidepressant drugs work no better than a placebo for the majority of patients with mild or even severe depression, comprehensive research of clinical trials has found. The researchers said that the drug was more effective than a placebo in severely depressed patients but that this was because of a decreased placebo effect. The study, described as “fantastically important” by British experts, comes as the Government publishes plans to help people to manage depression without popping pills.
More than 291 million pounds was spent on antidepressants in 2006, including nearly 120 million on SSRIs. As many as one in five people suffers depression at some point. With that in mind, ministers will today publish plans to train 3,600 therapists to treat depression. Spending on counselling and other psychological therapies will rise to at least 30 million a year.
The study, by Irving Kirsch, from the Department of Psychology at the University of Hull, is the first to examine both published and unpublished evidence of the effectiveness of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which account for 16 million NHS prescriptions a year. It suggests that the effectiveness of the drugs may have been exaggerated in the past by drugs companies cherry-picking the best results for publication. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), which is due to review its guidance on treating depression, said that it would consider the study.
Mental health charities say that most GPs admit that they are still overprescribing SSRIs, which are considered as effective as older drugs but with fewer side-effects. SSRIs account for more than half of all antidrepressant prescriptions, despite guidelines from NICE in 2004 that they should not be used as a first-stop remedy.
American and British experts led by Professor Kirsch examined the clinical trials submitted to gain licences for four commonly used SSRIs, including fluoxetine (better known as Prozac), venlafaxine (Efexor) and paroxetine (Seroxat). The study is published today in the journal PLoS (Public Library of Science) Medicine. Analysing both the unpublished and published data from the trials, the team found little evidence that the drugs were much better than a placebo.
“Given these results there seems little reason to prescribe antidepressant medication to any but the most severely depressed patients, unless alternative treatments have failed,” Professor Kirsch said. “The difference in improvement between patients taking placebos and patients taking antidepressants is not very great. This means that depressed people can improve without chemical treatments.” He added that the study “raises serious issues that need to be addressed surrounding drug licensing and how drug trial data is reported”.
The data for all 47 clinical trials for the drugs were released by the US Food and Drug Administration under freedom of information rules. They included unpublished trials that were not made available to NICE when it recommended the drugs for use on the NHS. “Had NICE seen all the relevant unpublished studies, it might have come to a different conclusion,” Professor Kirsch said.
Tim Kendall, a deputy director of the Royal College of Psychiatrists Research Unit, who helped to formulate the NICE guidance, said that the findings were “fantastically important” and that it was “dangerous” for drug companies not to have to publish their full data. He added: “Three of these drugs are some of the most commonly used antidepressants in this country. It’s not mandatory for drug companies to publish all this research. I think it should be.”
SSRIs are not prescribed to patients under 18 because of the risk of suicide.Drugs watchdogs in Europe are considering tighter controls on the development of new medicines, The Times reported this month, and may soon require regulators to monitor psychiatric effects and the risk of suicide more closely during clinical trials.
A spokesman for GlaxoSmithKline, which makes Seroxat, said: “The authors have failed to acknowledge the very positive benefits these treatments have provided to patients and their families dealing with depression and their conclusions are at odds with what has been seen in actual clinical practice. This one study should not be used to cause unnecessary alarm and concern for patients.” A spokesman for Eli Lilly, which makes Prozac, said: “Extensive scientific and medical experience has demonstrated that fluoxetine is an effective antidepressant.”
Source. Original journal article here
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Stupid British immigration bureaucracy -- and "caring" Leftist politicians
"I'd have more chance of being allowed to stay and care for my frail mother if I was a foreign criminal"
All Deborah Phillips wants to do is care for her increasingly frail 80-year-old mother. She has no intention of claiming benefits and would save the taxpayer the cost of helping to look after another elderly woman. But because Miss Phillips was born in the United States, moving to England when she was three, she has been refused permission to stay and must leave the country with her seven-year-old daughter Alexandra by the end of April. When that happens her English mother Betty Phillips will be left alone.
Despite huge support from her local community and the backing of her MP, Immigration Minister Liam Byrne has rejected her request for residency.
Miss Phillips, 48, believes she would have a better chance of avoiding deportation if she was a foreign criminal or terror suspect facing the risk of persecution back home. She said: "Some of these people stay here with the help of human rights laws. What about the human rights of my English mother and her right to a family life? "Sometimes I feel like a criminal. I'm just a very soft target because I am doing everything by the rules. It is annoying because terrorist suspects are treated better and allowed to live here. I don't see the logic in that. We are not costing the Government a penny." Miss Phillips, who lives with her mother in Cottingham, near Hull, has a U.S. Navy pension and works part-time as a volunteer teaching assistant.
"We are not a burden on this Government nor are we criminals. I just want to be able to look after my mum. Once the Home Office gets rid of us, they will never let us back in. Then what would happen to this 80-year-old woman?"
Her mother lost her husband Phil, 77, who suffered from Alzheimer's, in May 2005. She has had two small strokes and suffers from arthritis, heart trouble and hypertension. She is also prone to stress and anxiety. Miss Phillips, who has been turned down four times for permission to live permanently in this country, insists her mother is too frail to take to the U.S. Her mother, a former teacher, is English and her late father was American.
Miss Phillips came here as a small child in 1963 when her father retired from the U.S. Navy. She speaks with an English accent, went to school and college in Hull and lived here until she too joined the U.S. Navy at 21 and went to sea. After leaving the Navy and working in the U.S. she decided to join her family in Yorkshire. Miss Phillips, whose brother David, 45, is a businessman in Kentucky, wanted to return to care for her parents and made the move in December 2003. "I always knew I could come back to England one day because this is my home," she said. "My parents needed looking after. I never knew it would cause this bother."
The divorcee misses out on automatic citizenship by 15 months after a rule change in 2003. Children born abroad to a British mother and foreign father after February 7, 1961, and before January 1, 1983, can now become British citizens through the maternal line. Miss Phillips missed out because she was born on November 5, 1959.
She first applied for residency in August 2005 but hit a mountain of red tape. In May 2006, Miss Phillips - and her daughter - were forced to leave Britain but returned in June last year aboard a U.S. military cargo plane after her mother's health deteriorated. "But I made no secret of what I was doing and applied again for permission to stay," she said. "Again I've been turned down."
The latest refusal from the Home Office gives one reason as "she (her mother) may also rely on friends and neighbours to some degree to alleviate her sense of loneliness and isolation". Miss Phillips said: "The day after receiving the notice one of mum's neighbours, they are all OAPs, was taken away in an ambulance. The Home Office doesn't even know who my mum's neighbours are."
Tory MP David Davis, who represents Haltemprice and Howden in East Yorkshire, said: "This decision is a disgrace when somebody born to a British woman is being threatened with deportation at a time when the Government cannot even deport foreign criminals. "This woman wants to stay in this country to care for her elderly mother and is actually saving the state money and making a positive contribution to society."
Source
You There! Step Away From The Happy Meal, Laddie!
Post below lifted from Blue Crab. See the original for links
The increasingly authoritarian "liberals" in Britain are now working on banning the humble McDonald's Happy Meal. The people's republic city of Liverpool is set to enact a ban on the meals. It's for the children, of course.
The left has become much worse than what they rebelled against forty years ago. They now think their groupthink mentality is the only way to think and that decisions must not be made by anyone but them. The lovely "cash-hungry vultures" remark is especially telling. It just doesn't say what Mr. Twigger thinks it does. Nice jackboots, Mr. Twigger.
British Muslims criticise food company after it is revealed that some crisp varieties contain alcohol
Furious Muslims have heavily criticised Walkers crisps after it emerged that certain varieties of the manufacturer's products contain trace elements of alcohol. Some crisp types use minute amounts of alcohol as a chemical agent to extract certain flavours.
The report in Asian newspaper Eastern Eye, highlights concerns raised by shopkeeper Besharat Rehman, who owns a halal supermarket in Bradford, West Yorkshire. Mr Rehman told the paper: "A customer informed us that Sensations Thai Sweet Chilli and Doritos Chilli Heat Wave are not on Walkers' alcohol-free list. Our suppliers were unaware of this. "Even if it is a trace amount of alcohol, Walkers should make it clear on the packaging so that the customer can make an informed choice. "I feel frustrated and angry. I have let my customers down simply because such a big company like Walkers is not sensitive to Muslim needs. "Many of them were my daughter's favourite crisps. As soon as I found out about the alcohol in them, I called home to ask my wife to throw out all the packets."
Shuja Shafi, who chairs the food standards committee of the Muslim Council of Britain, said that he intended to investigate. "Certainly we would find it very offensive to have eaten food with alcohol." Masood Khawaja, of the Halal Food Authority, said that this was not the first time the issue had been raised with Walkers. "They should have looked into the matter and solved it instead of hiding behind labelling regulations. It does not matter what percentage of alcohol is involved. "Besides Muslims, there are a lot of teetotal people who would not like to consume alcohol in any form. As far as possible we try and lobby for halal symbols on popular products like Kellogg's cereals. "But we have always told Muslims to check the contents list even if a product is marked suitable for vegetarians. But to not mention it on the packaging is unfair."
However, a spokesperson for Walkers said that trace amounts of alcohol in crisps or bread are believed to be permissible for Muslims. "We do not add alcohol to our products. However, ethyl alcohol may be present in trace amounts in a very small number of our flavours. "It is used as a carrying agent for flavourings, and is found in many common food and drink products. "Foods like bread can also contain the same or higher trace amounts due to fermentation. "We are aware of the concerns from some Muslim consumers about the appropriateness of specific ingredients. We take the concerns of our consumers extremely seriously. "In previous assessments by Muslim scholars, foods and drinks that contain trace amounts of ethyl alcohol have been confirmed as permissible for Muslim consumption because of both the fact that the ingredient does not bear its original qualities and does not change the taste, colour or smell of the product, and its very low level."
Source
Fair To Whom?
Post below lifted from Blue Crab. See the original for links
The Daily Mail hits at the "Fair Trade"certification in Britain again this morning. This time, they are reporting on the release of a study by the Adam Smith Institute that slams the entire fair trade movement as worthless marketing or something that is actually harmful to the most vulnerable people on Earth.
The UK executive director of Fairtrade whines that the report is beating them up for trying. (It's all about the good intentions, don't you see?).
Actually, the study, as reported in the story, isn't beating them up for trying. It is beating them up for what they are doing wrong. Is making sure that farmers get a fair shake a laudable effort? Well, maybe, although that is a subject that is debatable. But forcing collectivism is the surest way to ensure that they all get treated equally badly. The "fair trade" activists insist on only dealing with collectives. Winston Churchill's famous quotation applies here: "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." The report indicates that the "fair traders" are very good indeed at making everyone miserable.
This Bishop is no Pawn
Most readers will remember the Anglican Bishop of Rochester, Dr. Michael Nazir-Ali, who has been notably outspoken on the topic of Islam and the Islamization of Britain - especially when one compares him with the Archdhimmi of Canterbury.
Dr. Nazir-Ali's most famous and controversial statements concerned urban neighborhoods of the UK which have become virtual "no-go areas" to non-Muslims. The bishop has taken a lot of flak from the chattering classes, especially those within the Anglican hierarchy. According to today's Telegraph, however, he's not backing off from his assertions:
Dr. Nazir-Ali originally fled from Pakistan to escape death threats from Muslims, so the irony of his current circumstances is not lost on him:
He continues to speak out, and is more concerned about the civilizational crisis within the West than he is with Islam itself:
Dr. Nazir-Ali is daring to give voice to sentiments that many thousands of his fellow Britons hold, but which are denied utterance by the rubrics of political correctness:
Many Christians - not least some of the leaders of the major Protestant denominations - seem to think that Christian morality always requires the faithful to submit without resistance to any form of violence. Dr. Nazir-Ali, however, believes the time has come for Christians to stand up for what they know is right.
The moral cowardice that his been so evident of late within the Anglican Church is not lost on him, although he is circumspect about addressing it directly:
Above all he is opposed to the adoption of any form of sharia for Muslims in the UK:
It's ironic that a bishop of Pakistani and Muslim background should be the most visible defender of Christianity and British tradition.
Maybe it's easier for someone coming in from the outside to see what we've got that's worth saving.
Source
GREEN POWER = BLACK DEATH: AFRICAN FARMERS PAY THE PRICE
European consumers shunning imported food supposedly to limit climate change should not make African farmers a scapegoat, a Brussels conference has been told. In Britain, several supermarkets have begun labelling products flown into the country with stickers marked "air-freighted," to reflect concern about the contribution of aviation to global warming.
But Benito Mueller, a director at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, dismissed the concept of food miles as "an extremely oversimplified indicator" of ecological impact. Saying he was "really angry" with the implicit message that agricultural produce from Africa should be avoided, Mueller claimed that less greenhouse gas emissions are often emitted from the cultivation and transport of such goods than they would be if grown in Europe. Strawberries imported from Kenya during the winter, he maintained, have a lower "carbon footprint," a measure to ascertain the effect of a method of production on the environment - than those grown in a heated British greenhouse, even when their transport by air from Africa is taken into account. Mueller argued that African farmers should not suffer because of efforts to cut discharge of carbon dioxide, the main gas triggering climate change. Britain, he added, is responsible for 50 times more greenhouse gas emissions than Kenya.
Efforts to increase the use of biofuels were also called into question at a February 13 conference organised by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Co-operation, a body dealing with relations between Europe and some 80 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. The European Union has set itself a target that biofuels should provide 10 per cent of the energy needed to power cars and other modes of transport by 2020, despite growing doubts over whether it is wise to rely so heavily on these fuels.
Two new papers published in Science magazine have calculated that production of the most popular forms of biofuels causes a major increase in greenhouse gas emissions because of land clearance. Palm oil, a key biofuel used in European cars, is produced through the deforestation on lands rich in peat. It would take an estimated 840 years to claw back the amount of carbon dioxide released from that process, according to scientists, through the eventual reduction of greenhouse gas emissions caused by using biofuels rather than conventional petrol or diesel.
Mark Rosegrant from the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute cited worries that land that should be used to grow food for the poor and hungry is instead being used for biofuels. "The continued expansion of biofuels is increasing food prices and increasing malnutrition in a number of developing countries," he said.
FULL STORY here
"I'd have more chance of being allowed to stay and care for my frail mother if I was a foreign criminal"
All Deborah Phillips wants to do is care for her increasingly frail 80-year-old mother. She has no intention of claiming benefits and would save the taxpayer the cost of helping to look after another elderly woman. But because Miss Phillips was born in the United States, moving to England when she was three, she has been refused permission to stay and must leave the country with her seven-year-old daughter Alexandra by the end of April. When that happens her English mother Betty Phillips will be left alone.
Despite huge support from her local community and the backing of her MP, Immigration Minister Liam Byrne has rejected her request for residency.
Miss Phillips, 48, believes she would have a better chance of avoiding deportation if she was a foreign criminal or terror suspect facing the risk of persecution back home. She said: "Some of these people stay here with the help of human rights laws. What about the human rights of my English mother and her right to a family life? "Sometimes I feel like a criminal. I'm just a very soft target because I am doing everything by the rules. It is annoying because terrorist suspects are treated better and allowed to live here. I don't see the logic in that. We are not costing the Government a penny." Miss Phillips, who lives with her mother in Cottingham, near Hull, has a U.S. Navy pension and works part-time as a volunteer teaching assistant.
"We are not a burden on this Government nor are we criminals. I just want to be able to look after my mum. Once the Home Office gets rid of us, they will never let us back in. Then what would happen to this 80-year-old woman?"
Her mother lost her husband Phil, 77, who suffered from Alzheimer's, in May 2005. She has had two small strokes and suffers from arthritis, heart trouble and hypertension. She is also prone to stress and anxiety. Miss Phillips, who has been turned down four times for permission to live permanently in this country, insists her mother is too frail to take to the U.S. Her mother, a former teacher, is English and her late father was American.
Miss Phillips came here as a small child in 1963 when her father retired from the U.S. Navy. She speaks with an English accent, went to school and college in Hull and lived here until she too joined the U.S. Navy at 21 and went to sea. After leaving the Navy and working in the U.S. she decided to join her family in Yorkshire. Miss Phillips, whose brother David, 45, is a businessman in Kentucky, wanted to return to care for her parents and made the move in December 2003. "I always knew I could come back to England one day because this is my home," she said. "My parents needed looking after. I never knew it would cause this bother."
The divorcee misses out on automatic citizenship by 15 months after a rule change in 2003. Children born abroad to a British mother and foreign father after February 7, 1961, and before January 1, 1983, can now become British citizens through the maternal line. Miss Phillips missed out because she was born on November 5, 1959.
She first applied for residency in August 2005 but hit a mountain of red tape. In May 2006, Miss Phillips - and her daughter - were forced to leave Britain but returned in June last year aboard a U.S. military cargo plane after her mother's health deteriorated. "But I made no secret of what I was doing and applied again for permission to stay," she said. "Again I've been turned down."
The latest refusal from the Home Office gives one reason as "she (her mother) may also rely on friends and neighbours to some degree to alleviate her sense of loneliness and isolation". Miss Phillips said: "The day after receiving the notice one of mum's neighbours, they are all OAPs, was taken away in an ambulance. The Home Office doesn't even know who my mum's neighbours are."
Tory MP David Davis, who represents Haltemprice and Howden in East Yorkshire, said: "This decision is a disgrace when somebody born to a British woman is being threatened with deportation at a time when the Government cannot even deport foreign criminals. "This woman wants to stay in this country to care for her elderly mother and is actually saving the state money and making a positive contribution to society."
Source
You There! Step Away From The Happy Meal, Laddie!
Post below lifted from Blue Crab. See the original for links
The increasingly authoritarian "liberals" in Britain are now working on banning the humble McDonald's Happy Meal. The people's republic city of Liverpool is set to enact a ban on the meals. It's for the children, of course.
McDonald's Happy Meals are to be banned in Liverpool over claims they are contributing to the epidemic of childhood obesity. The city council is planning to outlaw the meals on the grounds that they are damaging the heath of children - particularly as they offer free toys in order to encourage parents to buy junk food for their children. The Liberal Democrat-controlled authority claims the credit for taking the lead in the campaign that led to the ban on smoking in public places.
Members of Liverpool City Council's Childhood Obesity Scrutiny Group want a bye-law that would forbid the sale of fast foot accompanied by toys. Councillors say the promotional items are used to boost sales through the "Pester Power" phenomenon - children pestering parents for Happy Meal toys. The scrutiny Group has ordered a report from town hall officials that would pave the way for the bye-law that would be the first of its kind in the UK.
Lib Dem councillor Paul Twigger said: "The Scrutiny Group is recommending that a bye-law be enforced to stop the circulation of free toys associated with junk food promotions. "We consider it is high time that cash-hungry vultures like McDonald's are challenged over their marketing policies which are directly aimed at promoting unhealthy eating among children.
"Childhood obesity is a dire threat to the health in this country and it needs to be nipped in the bud urgently. "Children are directly targeted with junk food and McDonald's use the Happy Meals to exploit Pester Power of children against which many parents give in. "In most Happy Meals the toy is sold with a burgers containing four or five tablespoons of sugar, along with high-calorie fries and milkshakes. "These fattening meals are being shamelessly promoted through free toys and it is clear that it is going to take legislation to combat the practice.
The left has become much worse than what they rebelled against forty years ago. They now think their groupthink mentality is the only way to think and that decisions must not be made by anyone but them. The lovely "cash-hungry vultures" remark is especially telling. It just doesn't say what Mr. Twigger thinks it does. Nice jackboots, Mr. Twigger.
British Muslims criticise food company after it is revealed that some crisp varieties contain alcohol
Furious Muslims have heavily criticised Walkers crisps after it emerged that certain varieties of the manufacturer's products contain trace elements of alcohol. Some crisp types use minute amounts of alcohol as a chemical agent to extract certain flavours.
The report in Asian newspaper Eastern Eye, highlights concerns raised by shopkeeper Besharat Rehman, who owns a halal supermarket in Bradford, West Yorkshire. Mr Rehman told the paper: "A customer informed us that Sensations Thai Sweet Chilli and Doritos Chilli Heat Wave are not on Walkers' alcohol-free list. Our suppliers were unaware of this. "Even if it is a trace amount of alcohol, Walkers should make it clear on the packaging so that the customer can make an informed choice. "I feel frustrated and angry. I have let my customers down simply because such a big company like Walkers is not sensitive to Muslim needs. "Many of them were my daughter's favourite crisps. As soon as I found out about the alcohol in them, I called home to ask my wife to throw out all the packets."
Shuja Shafi, who chairs the food standards committee of the Muslim Council of Britain, said that he intended to investigate. "Certainly we would find it very offensive to have eaten food with alcohol." Masood Khawaja, of the Halal Food Authority, said that this was not the first time the issue had been raised with Walkers. "They should have looked into the matter and solved it instead of hiding behind labelling regulations. It does not matter what percentage of alcohol is involved. "Besides Muslims, there are a lot of teetotal people who would not like to consume alcohol in any form. As far as possible we try and lobby for halal symbols on popular products like Kellogg's cereals. "But we have always told Muslims to check the contents list even if a product is marked suitable for vegetarians. But to not mention it on the packaging is unfair."
However, a spokesperson for Walkers said that trace amounts of alcohol in crisps or bread are believed to be permissible for Muslims. "We do not add alcohol to our products. However, ethyl alcohol may be present in trace amounts in a very small number of our flavours. "It is used as a carrying agent for flavourings, and is found in many common food and drink products. "Foods like bread can also contain the same or higher trace amounts due to fermentation. "We are aware of the concerns from some Muslim consumers about the appropriateness of specific ingredients. We take the concerns of our consumers extremely seriously. "In previous assessments by Muslim scholars, foods and drinks that contain trace amounts of ethyl alcohol have been confirmed as permissible for Muslim consumption because of both the fact that the ingredient does not bear its original qualities and does not change the taste, colour or smell of the product, and its very low level."
Source
Fair To Whom?
Post below lifted from Blue Crab. See the original for links
The Daily Mail hits at the "Fair Trade"certification in Britain again this morning. This time, they are reporting on the release of a study by the Adam Smith Institute that slams the entire fair trade movement as worthless marketing or something that is actually harmful to the most vulnerable people on Earth.
Last year, British consumers spent more than 300million pounds on Fairtrade products. But the report Unfair Trade claims that the organisation's "positive image appears to rely more on public relations than research". It adds:
Fairtrade helps only a very small number of farmers while leaving the majority worse off.
It favours producers in better-off nations such as Mexico, rather than poor African countries.
It holds back economic development, paying inefficient cooperative farms and discouraging diversification and mechanisation.
Supermarket chains profit more from the higher price of Fairtrade goods than farmers.
Only a fifth of produce grown on Fairtrade-approved farms is actually purchased at its guaranteed fair price.
Tom Clougherty, policy director of the Adam Smith Institute, says: "At best, fair trade is a marketing device that does the poor little good. "At worst, it may inadvertently be harming some of the planet's most vulnerable people."
Most damning of all, the report claims that Fairtrade is hurting the poorest group of all in the production process of its goods - the casual labourers hired by farmers to pick the bananas, coffee and cotton.
The UK executive director of Fairtrade whines that the report is beating them up for trying. (It's all about the good intentions, don't you see?).
Actually, the study, as reported in the story, isn't beating them up for trying. It is beating them up for what they are doing wrong. Is making sure that farmers get a fair shake a laudable effort? Well, maybe, although that is a subject that is debatable. But forcing collectivism is the surest way to ensure that they all get treated equally badly. The "fair trade" activists insist on only dealing with collectives. Winston Churchill's famous quotation applies here: "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." The report indicates that the "fair traders" are very good indeed at making everyone miserable.
This Bishop is no Pawn
Most readers will remember the Anglican Bishop of Rochester, Dr. Michael Nazir-Ali, who has been notably outspoken on the topic of Islam and the Islamization of Britain - especially when one compares him with the Archdhimmi of Canterbury.
Dr. Nazir-Ali's most famous and controversial statements concerned urban neighborhoods of the UK which have become virtual "no-go areas" to non-Muslims. The bishop has taken a lot of flak from the chattering classes, especially those within the Anglican hierarchy. According to today's Telegraph, however, he's not backing off from his assertions:
Bishop of Rochester reasserts `no-go' claim
In his first interview since his controversial comments, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali vows not to be forced into silenceThe Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, who received death threats for airing his views on Islamic issues, has vowed that he will continue to speak out.
His claim that Islamic extremism has turned some parts of Britain into "no-go" areas for non-Muslims led to fierce rows between political and religious leaders over the impact of multiculturalism on this country.
Those comments were followed soon after by the Archbishop of Canterbury's suggestion that the adoption of aspects of sharia law in Britain was "unavoidable".
The bishops' views in The Sunday Telegraph sparked a storm of criticism and raised questions over the role of the Church in society but, most seriously for Dr Nazir-Ali, led to threats that he and his family would be harmed.
Yet, in his first interview since the sinister calls were made to his home, the Bishop of Rochester remains steadfastly defiant. He will not be silenced. "I believe people should not be prevented from speaking out," he says. "The issue had to be raised. There are times when Christian leaders have to speak out."
[.]
Threats were made warning that he would not "live long" and would be "sorted out" if he continued to criticise Islam.
Dr. Nazir-Ali originally fled from Pakistan to escape death threats from Muslims, so the irony of his current circumstances is not lost on him:
However, it's not the first time that his life has been endangered.
Shortly after being made a bishop in Pakistan - at 35 he was the youngest in the Anglican Church - he was forced to flee to Britain to seek refuge from Muslims who wanted to kill him.
He says that he never expected to suffer the same treatment in Britain and expresses concerns over recent social developments.
He continues to speak out, and is more concerned about the civilizational crisis within the West than he is with Islam itself:
"The real danger to Britain today is the spiritual and moral vacuum that has occurred for the last 40 or 50 years. When you have such a vacuum something will fill it.
"If people are not given a fresh way of understanding what it means to be a Christian and what it means to be a Christian-based society then something else may well take the place of all that we're used to and that could be Islam."
Dr. Nazir-Ali is daring to give voice to sentiments that many thousands of his fellow Britons hold, but which are denied utterance by the rubrics of political correctness:
Just over a year ago Abu Izzadeen, an Islamic radical, heckled John Reid, the former home secretary, as he tried to deliver a speech on targeting potential extremists. "How dare you come to a Muslim area," Izzadeen screamed.
There was widespread dismay at the outburst, but nobody had dared to try to suggest that these views were entrenched across the country until the bishop spoke last month.
In warning of attempts to impose an Islamic character on certain areas, for example by amplifying the call to prayer from mosques, he seems to have tapped into the fears of a large section of society.
Many Christians - not least some of the leaders of the major Protestant denominations - seem to think that Christian morality always requires the faithful to submit without resistance to any form of violence. Dr. Nazir-Ali, however, believes the time has come for Christians to stand up for what they know is right.
To many, he has become a champion of traditional Christianity and its importance to Britain at the same time as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has been attacked for suggesting the adoption of aspects of sharia law is "unavoidable" in this country.
While the archbishop received widespread support from within the Church, Dr Nazir-Ali found himself isolated from his colleagues.
"I don't court popularity. If I say something it's because I think it's important enough to say it. What I said was based on evidence, and that has been strengthened as a result of overwhelming correspondence."
The moral cowardice that his been so evident of late within the Anglican Church is not lost on him, although he is circumspect about addressing it directly:
He wishes the Church would be more vocal on issues of multiculturalism and sharia law, but refuses to criticise his colleagues, although it is clear he is baffled by their silence.
"I can't guess why they haven't talked on the issue. I'm not responsible for other people's consciences." Is it due to cowardice? "You'd have to ask them."
Above all he is opposed to the adoption of any form of sharia for Muslims in the UK:
"People of every faith should be free within the law to follow what their spiritual leaders direct them to, but that's very different from saying their structures should replace that of the English legal system because there would be huge conflicts." In particular, he points to polygamy, women's rights and freedom of belief as areas in sharia law that would undermine equality.
There is a danger that the archbishop's remarks could become a reality unless Britain quickly regains a sense of its Christian heritage.
"Do the British people really want to lose that rooting in the Christian faith that has given them everything they cherish - art, literature, architecture, institutions, the monarchy, their value system, their laws?"
As a Pakistani-born immigrant who has suffered racist abuse - he was called a "Paki papist" by Anglican clergy - he has gained an army of admirers who appear grateful to have someone brave enough to address controversial topics. He has vowed the latest threats will not change how he and his family live.
"The recovery of Christian discourse in the public life of this nation is so important. It's that discourse that will allow us in a genuine way to be hospitable to those who come here from different cultures and religions."
It's ironic that a bishop of Pakistani and Muslim background should be the most visible defender of Christianity and British tradition.
Maybe it's easier for someone coming in from the outside to see what we've got that's worth saving.
Source
GREEN POWER = BLACK DEATH: AFRICAN FARMERS PAY THE PRICE
European consumers shunning imported food supposedly to limit climate change should not make African farmers a scapegoat, a Brussels conference has been told. In Britain, several supermarkets have begun labelling products flown into the country with stickers marked "air-freighted," to reflect concern about the contribution of aviation to global warming.
But Benito Mueller, a director at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, dismissed the concept of food miles as "an extremely oversimplified indicator" of ecological impact. Saying he was "really angry" with the implicit message that agricultural produce from Africa should be avoided, Mueller claimed that less greenhouse gas emissions are often emitted from the cultivation and transport of such goods than they would be if grown in Europe. Strawberries imported from Kenya during the winter, he maintained, have a lower "carbon footprint," a measure to ascertain the effect of a method of production on the environment - than those grown in a heated British greenhouse, even when their transport by air from Africa is taken into account. Mueller argued that African farmers should not suffer because of efforts to cut discharge of carbon dioxide, the main gas triggering climate change. Britain, he added, is responsible for 50 times more greenhouse gas emissions than Kenya.
Efforts to increase the use of biofuels were also called into question at a February 13 conference organised by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Co-operation, a body dealing with relations between Europe and some 80 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. The European Union has set itself a target that biofuels should provide 10 per cent of the energy needed to power cars and other modes of transport by 2020, despite growing doubts over whether it is wise to rely so heavily on these fuels.
Two new papers published in Science magazine have calculated that production of the most popular forms of biofuels causes a major increase in greenhouse gas emissions because of land clearance. Palm oil, a key biofuel used in European cars, is produced through the deforestation on lands rich in peat. It would take an estimated 840 years to claw back the amount of carbon dioxide released from that process, according to scientists, through the eventual reduction of greenhouse gas emissions caused by using biofuels rather than conventional petrol or diesel.
Mark Rosegrant from the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute cited worries that land that should be used to grow food for the poor and hungry is instead being used for biofuels. "The continued expansion of biofuels is increasing food prices and increasing malnutrition in a number of developing countries," he said.
FULL STORY here
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Authoritarian medicine in Britain -- Health "insurance" with a difference
If they cannot afford to give you a drug or service that you need, you are forbidden to pay for it yourself!
Created 60 years ago as a cornerstone of the British welfare state, the National Health Service is devoted to the principle of free medical care for everyone. But recently it has been wrestling with a problem its founders never anticipated: how to handle patients with complex illnesses who want to pay for parts of their treatment while receiving the rest free from the health service. Although the government is reluctant to discuss the issue, hopscotching back and forth between private and public care has long been standard here for those who can afford it. But a few recent cases have exposed fundamental contradictions between policy and practice in the system, and tested its founding philosophy to its very limits.
One such case was Debbie Hirst's. Her breast cancer had metastasized, and the health service would not provide her with Avastin, a drug that is widely used in the United States and Europe to keep such cancers at bay. So, with her oncologist's support, she decided last year to try to pay the $120,000 cost herself, while continuing with the rest of her publicly financed treatment. By December, she had raised $20,000 and was preparing to sell her house to raise more. But then the government, which had tacitly allowed such arrangements before, put its foot down.
Mrs. Hirst heard the news from her doctor. "He looked at me and said: `I'm so sorry, Debbie. I've had my wrists slapped from the people upstairs, and I can no longer offer you that service,' " Mrs. Hirst said in an interview. "I said, `Where does that leave me?' He said, `If you pay for Avastin, you'll have to pay for everything' " - in other words, for all her cancer treatment, far more than she could afford.
Officials said that allowing Mrs. Hirst and others like her to pay for extra drugs to supplement government care would violate the philosophy of the health service by giving richer patients an unfair advantage over poorer ones. Patients "cannot, in one episode of treatment, be treated on the N.H.S. and then allowed, as part of the same episode and the same treatment, to pay money for more drugs," the health secretary, Alan Johnson, told Parliament. "That way lies the end of the founding principles of the N.H.S.," Mr. Johnson said.
But Mrs. Hirst, 57, whose cancer was diagnosed in 1999, went to the news media, and so did other patients in similar situations. And it became clear that theirs were not isolated cases. In fact, patients, doctors and officials across the health care system widely acknowledge that patients suffering from every imaginable complaint regularly pay for some parts of their treatment while receiving the rest free.
"Of course it's going on in the N.H.S. all the time, but a lot of it is hidden - it's not explicit," said Dr. Paul Charlson, a general practitioner in Yorkshire and a member of Doctors for Reform, a group that is highly critical of the health service. Last year, he was the co-author of a paper laying out examples of how patients with the initiative and the money dip in and out of the system, in effect buying upgrades to their basic free medical care. "People swap from public to private sector all the time, and they're topping up for virtually everything," Dr. Charlson said in an interview. For instance, he said, a patient put on a five-month waiting list to see an orthopedic surgeon may pay $250 for a private consultation, and then switch back to the health service for the actual operation from the same doctor. "Or they'll buy an M.R.I. scan because the wait is so long, and then take the results back to the N.H.S.," Dr. Charlson said.
In his paper, he also wrote about a 46-year-old woman with breast cancer who paid 250 pounds for a second opinion when the health service refused to provide her with one; an elderly man who spent thousands of dollars on a new hearing aid instead of enduring a yearlong wait on the health service; and a 29-year-old woman who, with her doctor's blessing, bought a three-month supply of Tarceva, a drug to treat pancreatic cancer, for more than $6,000 on the Internet because she could not get it through the N.H.S. Asked why these were different from cases like Mrs. Hirst's, a spokeswoman for the health service said no officials were available to comment.
In any case, the rules about private co-payments, as they are called, in cancer care are contradictory and hard to understand, said Nigel Edwards, the director of policy for the N.H.S. Confederation, which represents hospitals and other health-care providers. "I've had conflicting advice from different lawyers," he said, "but it does seem like a violation of natural justice to say that either you don't get the drug you want, or you have to pay for all your treatment."
Karol Sikora, a professor of cancer medicine at the Imperial College School of Medicine and one of Dr. Charlson's co-authors, said that co-payments are particularly prevalent in cancer care. Armed with information from the Internet and patients' networks, cancer patients are increasingly likely to demand, and pay for, cutting-edge drugs that the health service considers too expensive to be cost-effective. "You have a population that is informed and consumerist about how it behaves about health care information, and an N.H.S. that can no longer afford to pay for everything for everybody," he said.
Professor Sikora said that oncologists are adept at circumventing the system by, for example, referring patients to other doctors who can provide the private medication separately. As wrenching as it can be to administer more sophisticated drugs to some patients than to others, he said, "if you're a doctor working in the system, you should let your patients have the treatment they want, if they can afford to pay for it." In any case, he said, the health service is riddled with inequities. Some drugs are available in some parts of the country and not in others. Waiting lists for treatment vary wildly from place to place. Some regions spend $280 per capita on cancer care, Professor Sikora said, while others spend just $90.
In Mrs. Hirst's case, the confusion was compounded by the fact that three other patients at her hospital were already doing what she had been forbidden to do - buying extra drugs to supplement their cancer care. The arrangements had "evolved without anyone questioning whether it was right or wrong," said Laura Mason, a hospital spokeswoman. Because their treatment began before the Health Department explicitly condemned the practice, they have been allowed to continue.
The rules are confusing. "It's quite a fine line," Ms. Mason said. "You can't have a course of N.H.S. and private treatment at the same time on the same appointment - for instance, if a particular drug has to be administered alongside another drug which is N.H.S.-funded." But, she said, the health service rules seem to allow patients to receive the drugs during separate hospital visits - the N.H.S. drugs during an N.H.S. appointment, the extra drugs during a private appointment.
One of Mrs. Hirst's troubles came, it seems, because the Avastin she proposed to pay for would have had to be administered at the same time as the drug Taxol, which she was receiving free on the health service. Because of that, she could not schedule separate appointments. But in a final irony, Mrs. Hirst was told early this month that her cancer had spread and her condition had deteriorated so much she could have the Avastin after all - paid for by the health service. In other words, a system that forbade her to buy the medicine earlier was now saying that she was so sick she could have it at public expense. Mrs. Hirst is pleased, but only up to a point. Avastin is not a cure, but a way to extend her life, perhaps only by several months, and she has missed valuable time. "It may be too bloody late," she said. "I'm a person who left school at 15 and I've worked all my life and I've paid into the system, and I'm not going to live long enough to get my old-age pension from this government," she added.
She also knows that the drug can have grave side effects. "I have campaigned for this drug, and if it goes wrong and kills me, c'est la vie," she said. But, she said, speaking of the government: "If the drug doesn't have a fair chance because the cancer has advanced so much, then they should be raked over the coals for it."
Source
Doctors and teachers to act as 'informers' to target violent offenders BEFORE they strike
Under controversial new British plans. Judged guilty while still innocent, in other words. Given the appalling abuses of the existing secretive child welfare system this would be a descent into utter darkness. The Leftist British government obviously has a conception of civil liberties not too different from Joseph Stalin's
Doctors, teachers and social workers will be told to act as informers to identify potential violent offenders for monitoring by the police and other agencies. Ministers hope that by spotting binge-drinkers, drug addicts and young gang members early before they commit serious crimes they can be placed on a national database and steered away from offending behaviour. The plans have been dubbed the Minority Report powers, a reference to the 2002 Tom Cruise movie in which a futuristic "precrime" police unit uses psychics to arrest and imprison criminals just before they carry out attacks.
But civil liberty campaigners and union bosses warned that such intrusive measures by the Home Office would destroy the relationship of trust between GPs and their patients or social workers and clients. They would also put professionals at risk of reprisals if they are seen as police informers. Opposition MPs said recent fiascos involving huge quantities of personal data lost or leaked by the Government raised grave doubts over plans for sharing and swapping private data.
The scheme, outlined in the Government's latest Tackling Violence Action Plan, will mean redrafting the NHS's strict privacy protection rules to encourage health staff to share patients' confidential data as part of "public interest disclosures". The document sets out plans for identifying individuals who may not have committed any offences but are judged to be "at risk of involvement in violence". Tell-tale signs of those 'whose behaviour may be identified as risky' include drug addicts or alcoholics, mental health patients and youngsters who join gangs or who have been the victims of violence either in the home or on the street.
Ministers want GPs, social workers, mental health agencies, housing officials and school or college staff to provide tip-offs so that multi-agency Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships, including local police, can act. The only existing systems are for monitoring convicted criminals through probation staff, so new organisations will have to be set up to watch those thought to be at risk of committing violence.
Once an individual is assessed as a high-risk potential offender, they would be placed on local and national databases and subjected to regular reviews. The Home Office claims such measures will save lives. Ministers have cited examples such as Michael Stone, convicted of murdering Lin and Megan Russell, or Soham murderer Ian Huntley. They repeatedly came to the notice of medics or police, but lack of data- sharing meant threatening patterns were missed. The Home Office said examples of "interventions" for potential criminals included regular visits from social services staff, providing mentors to young people, forcing them to attend weapons awareness classes or more after-school activities to keep them off the streets.
Union officials voiced grave concerns and accused ministers of failing to consult professionals or to address concerns they had already raised. A spokesman for Unison, the public services union, said: "These plans threaten to build a barrier of suspicion between the public and those who deliver their services."
Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: "This is another ill-thought through measure, no doubt based on flawed databases and unreliable statistical analysis." Shami Chakrabarti, director of human rights group Liberty, said: "Home Office edicts are unlikely to help skilled health professionals make delicate judgments on behalf of their patients. The danger is of vulnerable victims treating their own injuries for fear of being reported to the police."
Source
Black groups don't like Britain's new rules
A new immigration proposal announced recently to increase citizenship fees and landing charges for visa holders arriving in the United Kingdom (UK) has left Caribbean nationals and non-European residents in Britain worried. One of their major fears is that thousands of persons who have been living and working in the UK for decades might receive little or no social security benefits. The Sunday Gleaner has learnt that already, some lobby groups, including the Jamaica diaspora and Facilitator for a Better Jamaica (FFBJ), are examining the proposal and other immigration developments to make an appropriate response and representation.
Under the new immigration proposal, immigrants arriving in Britain will be required to pay an extra 20 pounds landing charge on top of their visa fees. Naturalisation fees attract over 700 pounds, while it costs 75 pounds for a British passport. At the same time, there is widespread speculation that there will be additional increases in immigration fees at the start of the financial year in April.
The extra charge is slated to fund schools, hospitals and other social services said to be under stress from an influx of migrants mainly from countries of the European Union. The British government is expected to rake in 15 million a year from the levy.
At the same time, social benefits in Britain are to be linked with citizenship and those who have been denied British passports will lose a wide range of welfare services, including child benefits, housing benefits and income support. Prisoners who serve time in Britain will automatically lose their rights to British citizenship and the benefits it offers.
Founder of Facilitators for a Better Jamaica (FFBJ) Sylbourne Sydial said his concern was not one of alarm, but one of unease as the new measures being implemented were a "smack in the face of multiculturalism and a shift from the Commonwealth." "Since the formation of the FFBJ's home office consultation team," he said, "we have seen that these different and new proposals - in the form of increase in fees, reduction in vacation period, 20 pounds landing charges and the many changes in the immigration rules - show very clearly that there is a shift in UK policy towards former Commonwealth nations of which Jamaica is a part."
While a number of Jamaicans and other West Indian nations with whom The Sunday Gleaner spoke are seeking to speed up the process of acquiring citizenship, Jamaican-born journalist, Luke Williams, believes the long-term impact on Jamaica and the Caribbean will be devastating. "What is happening is demoralising and is exploitation in many forms including financial and brain drain. It's a double-whammy: They (the British Government) are getting extra money from the high fees and putting pressure on those not considered the best, as well as getting rid of those they do not want," he said. [That's a bad idea??]
A Jamaican-trained medical doctor (Dr Brown) at the Greater Almond Street [Ormond St?] Hospital in Central London noted that many West Indian doctors are now looking alternative places to practise their skills. "Many are looking at places like the US and Canada. Some may even return home as the European Union has opened up and there is an influx of doctors," she said.
Source
Green Hypocrites in Britain
Post below lifted from Blue Crab. See the original for links
On a number of occasions, I have pointed out that the elitists who are pushing the biggest "environmentalist" agendas like global warming have no intention of living with the limits they plan on imposing on the less-than-elite. The phrase I use for that is that they will "wave from the limousine" as they pass the shivering masses. I expect a rousing chorus of "told ya so."
Yes, indeed. They will tout their carbon-neutrality while riding in the finest - and least eco-friendly - cars. No worries. They'll wave if you can see them through the blackout windows. Meanwhile, in other "eco-friendly" news, the Telegraph points out that "fair trade" coffee is anything but.
On top of that, the growers selling to fair trade programs are also selling on the free market. The free market pays premium for high quality so the best beans are sent to the free market. The leftovers are sent to the "fair trade" market to garner the guaranteed higher-than-market value prices. It has never been easier - or more lucrative - to rape the planet.
We don't need to define Britishness
British national identity is becoming more and more like the weather: everybody talks about it but nobody can do anything about it. And come to think of it, it is especially like British weather: so tepid most of the time that it is difficult to describe.
This is not necessarily a problem: having a sense of your own country's character as a vague, largely invisible thing which hums away quietly in the background. Until, of course, the woolly, taken-for-granted conception is challenged by an internal threat which makes use of precisely that amorphous lack of definition to create malignant - potentially lethal - social divisions
And that is where we find ourselves. Last week's report from the Royal United Service Institute went so far as to say that Britain's lack of clear conviction over the value of its identity and political culture had left it a "soft target" for terrorism - which is not the same thing as being soft on terrorism, as some sections of the media concluded. The British security services are among the few national agencies not lacking a clear set of objectives. They are not soft on terrorism.
The real argument of the RUSI study was that Britain was leaving itself open to the recruitment of Islamist terrorists by its failure to instil a confident, graspable sense of what this nation believes and stands for, and of what exactly it means to belong here. In fact, the defence experts said - as have so many others that by now the statement has become almost platitudinous - that the philosophy of multiculturalism and the diversity which it has consciously encouraged have helped to fragment society.
So officially, everybody is pedalling furiously away from multiculturalism. Not only government ministers and opposition leaders but even figures such as Trevor Phillips of the Equality and Human Rights Commission have proclaimed the need to dismantle it. But somehow all of this opprobrium does not filter down to the classroom or to public sector agencies (such as the BBC, local government bureaucracies and the NHS), which are still explicitly committed to "diversity programmes" that positively encourage the continuing separateness of ethnic communities.
It would be easy to see this as simply an accident, a kind of absent-minded philosophy creep in which the original good intentions just got out of hand, as things so often do when they are administered by bureaucrats. So deeply entrenched - and so embedded in the employment practices of the public sector - was the idea of "tolerating differences" that nobody noticed for the longest time that it had slipped over into "encouraging differences".
If that were the case, this would be a relatively easy problem to solve: a few stern ministerial guidelines and departmental directives ("URGENT: the word 'diversity' to be replaced by 'unity' in all official policy pronouncements") could, over a period of a year or two, turn the situation round. But everybody recognises that it is not that simple. Which is to say that everybody knows that we have a far more profound dilemma: Britain does not have a unified, coherent, identifiable self-image, either as a people or as a political entity, which it can offer to incomers as an inspiration and a ready-made value system.
There is a reason why all the attempts to define Britishness seem to end in fatuity: not only because they dribble off into nebulous virtues such as tolerance and decency, which should be common to all civilised people, but because the British opinion-forming classes tend to find the whole concept of national identity either sinister or risible. And it is perfectly plausible to see this as a virtue: a strong, cohesive sense of national loyalty certainly can transmogrify into blood-and-soil nationalism of a horrifying kind, and the ironic distance which the British maintain from even their most important historical institutions has the unmistakeable ring of grown-up wit.
Even in my more sentimental American-expatriate moments, I can see why, to most British eyes, flag-waving US patriotism seems childlike and naive. In many respects, the American model is peculiarly unhelpful, even though it is the one to which Gordon Brown and now Jack Straw cleave as they desperately seek a way out of the crisis that their own party's policies have created. Mr Straw hinted only last week that perhaps the written constitution idea was the way out of our mess since it seemed to be so successful in the US at implanting what he called an "enviable notion of civic duty". Indeed it does. But that is there, and we are here.
Americans are unlike almost all other peoples of the world in that they all either are themselves, or are descended from, people who went to the country as an act of will (apart from those who were taken there against their will whose descendants, unsurprisingly, have had more difficulty in assimilating than almost all later migrant groups). This makes them ideal subjects for the great 18th-century Enlightenment experiment: a newly invented country with a carefully devised written constitution and a self-conscious assumption of an identity that was defined in deliberate rebellion against an old aristocratic order.
To settle in the US is, in effect, to sign the "social contract" that the founding fathers envisaged: accept the rules and the principles on which this country is established and you can belong here. That's the deal that is spelt out very clearly to every prospective citizen and, for the most part, it works. Older nations that chose to redefine themselves by overthrowing their history - such as France, where the revolution turned into the Terror - have had less happy results.
Britain is particularly ill-suited to adopting the apparatus of a revolutionary republic. You know what a Brown-Straw (not to say Cameron) written constitution would look like, don't you? A list of bland aspirations with a presumptuous and irritating "Bill of Rights" attached.
Britain's historical identity has been produced by accretion, subtle accommodation and fudge: to define it is impossible because it has had no consistent conscious intent. Which is fine, because we don't need to define ourselves, we just need to stop hating ourselves. [Or having self-hatred preached at us]
What is at the heart of the aggressive form of "multiculturalism", as most ordinary people suspect, is not tolerance but self-loathing: the deprecation of our own culture and history that elevates almost anybody else's values above our own. It is not the indoctrination of some mystical sense of Britishness that is required but a restoration of the quiet pride and conviction that used to enable Britons to maintain the highest standards of civil behaviour in the world.
Source
If they cannot afford to give you a drug or service that you need, you are forbidden to pay for it yourself!
Created 60 years ago as a cornerstone of the British welfare state, the National Health Service is devoted to the principle of free medical care for everyone. But recently it has been wrestling with a problem its founders never anticipated: how to handle patients with complex illnesses who want to pay for parts of their treatment while receiving the rest free from the health service. Although the government is reluctant to discuss the issue, hopscotching back and forth between private and public care has long been standard here for those who can afford it. But a few recent cases have exposed fundamental contradictions between policy and practice in the system, and tested its founding philosophy to its very limits.
One such case was Debbie Hirst's. Her breast cancer had metastasized, and the health service would not provide her with Avastin, a drug that is widely used in the United States and Europe to keep such cancers at bay. So, with her oncologist's support, she decided last year to try to pay the $120,000 cost herself, while continuing with the rest of her publicly financed treatment. By December, she had raised $20,000 and was preparing to sell her house to raise more. But then the government, which had tacitly allowed such arrangements before, put its foot down.
Mrs. Hirst heard the news from her doctor. "He looked at me and said: `I'm so sorry, Debbie. I've had my wrists slapped from the people upstairs, and I can no longer offer you that service,' " Mrs. Hirst said in an interview. "I said, `Where does that leave me?' He said, `If you pay for Avastin, you'll have to pay for everything' " - in other words, for all her cancer treatment, far more than she could afford.
Officials said that allowing Mrs. Hirst and others like her to pay for extra drugs to supplement government care would violate the philosophy of the health service by giving richer patients an unfair advantage over poorer ones. Patients "cannot, in one episode of treatment, be treated on the N.H.S. and then allowed, as part of the same episode and the same treatment, to pay money for more drugs," the health secretary, Alan Johnson, told Parliament. "That way lies the end of the founding principles of the N.H.S.," Mr. Johnson said.
But Mrs. Hirst, 57, whose cancer was diagnosed in 1999, went to the news media, and so did other patients in similar situations. And it became clear that theirs were not isolated cases. In fact, patients, doctors and officials across the health care system widely acknowledge that patients suffering from every imaginable complaint regularly pay for some parts of their treatment while receiving the rest free.
"Of course it's going on in the N.H.S. all the time, but a lot of it is hidden - it's not explicit," said Dr. Paul Charlson, a general practitioner in Yorkshire and a member of Doctors for Reform, a group that is highly critical of the health service. Last year, he was the co-author of a paper laying out examples of how patients with the initiative and the money dip in and out of the system, in effect buying upgrades to their basic free medical care. "People swap from public to private sector all the time, and they're topping up for virtually everything," Dr. Charlson said in an interview. For instance, he said, a patient put on a five-month waiting list to see an orthopedic surgeon may pay $250 for a private consultation, and then switch back to the health service for the actual operation from the same doctor. "Or they'll buy an M.R.I. scan because the wait is so long, and then take the results back to the N.H.S.," Dr. Charlson said.
In his paper, he also wrote about a 46-year-old woman with breast cancer who paid 250 pounds for a second opinion when the health service refused to provide her with one; an elderly man who spent thousands of dollars on a new hearing aid instead of enduring a yearlong wait on the health service; and a 29-year-old woman who, with her doctor's blessing, bought a three-month supply of Tarceva, a drug to treat pancreatic cancer, for more than $6,000 on the Internet because she could not get it through the N.H.S. Asked why these were different from cases like Mrs. Hirst's, a spokeswoman for the health service said no officials were available to comment.
In any case, the rules about private co-payments, as they are called, in cancer care are contradictory and hard to understand, said Nigel Edwards, the director of policy for the N.H.S. Confederation, which represents hospitals and other health-care providers. "I've had conflicting advice from different lawyers," he said, "but it does seem like a violation of natural justice to say that either you don't get the drug you want, or you have to pay for all your treatment."
Karol Sikora, a professor of cancer medicine at the Imperial College School of Medicine and one of Dr. Charlson's co-authors, said that co-payments are particularly prevalent in cancer care. Armed with information from the Internet and patients' networks, cancer patients are increasingly likely to demand, and pay for, cutting-edge drugs that the health service considers too expensive to be cost-effective. "You have a population that is informed and consumerist about how it behaves about health care information, and an N.H.S. that can no longer afford to pay for everything for everybody," he said.
Professor Sikora said that oncologists are adept at circumventing the system by, for example, referring patients to other doctors who can provide the private medication separately. As wrenching as it can be to administer more sophisticated drugs to some patients than to others, he said, "if you're a doctor working in the system, you should let your patients have the treatment they want, if they can afford to pay for it." In any case, he said, the health service is riddled with inequities. Some drugs are available in some parts of the country and not in others. Waiting lists for treatment vary wildly from place to place. Some regions spend $280 per capita on cancer care, Professor Sikora said, while others spend just $90.
In Mrs. Hirst's case, the confusion was compounded by the fact that three other patients at her hospital were already doing what she had been forbidden to do - buying extra drugs to supplement their cancer care. The arrangements had "evolved without anyone questioning whether it was right or wrong," said Laura Mason, a hospital spokeswoman. Because their treatment began before the Health Department explicitly condemned the practice, they have been allowed to continue.
The rules are confusing. "It's quite a fine line," Ms. Mason said. "You can't have a course of N.H.S. and private treatment at the same time on the same appointment - for instance, if a particular drug has to be administered alongside another drug which is N.H.S.-funded." But, she said, the health service rules seem to allow patients to receive the drugs during separate hospital visits - the N.H.S. drugs during an N.H.S. appointment, the extra drugs during a private appointment.
One of Mrs. Hirst's troubles came, it seems, because the Avastin she proposed to pay for would have had to be administered at the same time as the drug Taxol, which she was receiving free on the health service. Because of that, she could not schedule separate appointments. But in a final irony, Mrs. Hirst was told early this month that her cancer had spread and her condition had deteriorated so much she could have the Avastin after all - paid for by the health service. In other words, a system that forbade her to buy the medicine earlier was now saying that she was so sick she could have it at public expense. Mrs. Hirst is pleased, but only up to a point. Avastin is not a cure, but a way to extend her life, perhaps only by several months, and she has missed valuable time. "It may be too bloody late," she said. "I'm a person who left school at 15 and I've worked all my life and I've paid into the system, and I'm not going to live long enough to get my old-age pension from this government," she added.
She also knows that the drug can have grave side effects. "I have campaigned for this drug, and if it goes wrong and kills me, c'est la vie," she said. But, she said, speaking of the government: "If the drug doesn't have a fair chance because the cancer has advanced so much, then they should be raked over the coals for it."
Source
Doctors and teachers to act as 'informers' to target violent offenders BEFORE they strike
Under controversial new British plans. Judged guilty while still innocent, in other words. Given the appalling abuses of the existing secretive child welfare system this would be a descent into utter darkness. The Leftist British government obviously has a conception of civil liberties not too different from Joseph Stalin's
Doctors, teachers and social workers will be told to act as informers to identify potential violent offenders for monitoring by the police and other agencies. Ministers hope that by spotting binge-drinkers, drug addicts and young gang members early before they commit serious crimes they can be placed on a national database and steered away from offending behaviour. The plans have been dubbed the Minority Report powers, a reference to the 2002 Tom Cruise movie in which a futuristic "precrime" police unit uses psychics to arrest and imprison criminals just before they carry out attacks.
But civil liberty campaigners and union bosses warned that such intrusive measures by the Home Office would destroy the relationship of trust between GPs and their patients or social workers and clients. They would also put professionals at risk of reprisals if they are seen as police informers. Opposition MPs said recent fiascos involving huge quantities of personal data lost or leaked by the Government raised grave doubts over plans for sharing and swapping private data.
The scheme, outlined in the Government's latest Tackling Violence Action Plan, will mean redrafting the NHS's strict privacy protection rules to encourage health staff to share patients' confidential data as part of "public interest disclosures". The document sets out plans for identifying individuals who may not have committed any offences but are judged to be "at risk of involvement in violence". Tell-tale signs of those 'whose behaviour may be identified as risky' include drug addicts or alcoholics, mental health patients and youngsters who join gangs or who have been the victims of violence either in the home or on the street.
Ministers want GPs, social workers, mental health agencies, housing officials and school or college staff to provide tip-offs so that multi-agency Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships, including local police, can act. The only existing systems are for monitoring convicted criminals through probation staff, so new organisations will have to be set up to watch those thought to be at risk of committing violence.
Once an individual is assessed as a high-risk potential offender, they would be placed on local and national databases and subjected to regular reviews. The Home Office claims such measures will save lives. Ministers have cited examples such as Michael Stone, convicted of murdering Lin and Megan Russell, or Soham murderer Ian Huntley. They repeatedly came to the notice of medics or police, but lack of data- sharing meant threatening patterns were missed. The Home Office said examples of "interventions" for potential criminals included regular visits from social services staff, providing mentors to young people, forcing them to attend weapons awareness classes or more after-school activities to keep them off the streets.
Union officials voiced grave concerns and accused ministers of failing to consult professionals or to address concerns they had already raised. A spokesman for Unison, the public services union, said: "These plans threaten to build a barrier of suspicion between the public and those who deliver their services."
Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: "This is another ill-thought through measure, no doubt based on flawed databases and unreliable statistical analysis." Shami Chakrabarti, director of human rights group Liberty, said: "Home Office edicts are unlikely to help skilled health professionals make delicate judgments on behalf of their patients. The danger is of vulnerable victims treating their own injuries for fear of being reported to the police."
Source
Black groups don't like Britain's new rules
A new immigration proposal announced recently to increase citizenship fees and landing charges for visa holders arriving in the United Kingdom (UK) has left Caribbean nationals and non-European residents in Britain worried. One of their major fears is that thousands of persons who have been living and working in the UK for decades might receive little or no social security benefits. The Sunday Gleaner has learnt that already, some lobby groups, including the Jamaica diaspora and Facilitator for a Better Jamaica (FFBJ), are examining the proposal and other immigration developments to make an appropriate response and representation.
Under the new immigration proposal, immigrants arriving in Britain will be required to pay an extra 20 pounds landing charge on top of their visa fees. Naturalisation fees attract over 700 pounds, while it costs 75 pounds for a British passport. At the same time, there is widespread speculation that there will be additional increases in immigration fees at the start of the financial year in April.
The extra charge is slated to fund schools, hospitals and other social services said to be under stress from an influx of migrants mainly from countries of the European Union. The British government is expected to rake in 15 million a year from the levy.
At the same time, social benefits in Britain are to be linked with citizenship and those who have been denied British passports will lose a wide range of welfare services, including child benefits, housing benefits and income support. Prisoners who serve time in Britain will automatically lose their rights to British citizenship and the benefits it offers.
Founder of Facilitators for a Better Jamaica (FFBJ) Sylbourne Sydial said his concern was not one of alarm, but one of unease as the new measures being implemented were a "smack in the face of multiculturalism and a shift from the Commonwealth." "Since the formation of the FFBJ's home office consultation team," he said, "we have seen that these different and new proposals - in the form of increase in fees, reduction in vacation period, 20 pounds landing charges and the many changes in the immigration rules - show very clearly that there is a shift in UK policy towards former Commonwealth nations of which Jamaica is a part."
While a number of Jamaicans and other West Indian nations with whom The Sunday Gleaner spoke are seeking to speed up the process of acquiring citizenship, Jamaican-born journalist, Luke Williams, believes the long-term impact on Jamaica and the Caribbean will be devastating. "What is happening is demoralising and is exploitation in many forms including financial and brain drain. It's a double-whammy: They (the British Government) are getting extra money from the high fees and putting pressure on those not considered the best, as well as getting rid of those they do not want," he said. [That's a bad idea??]
A Jamaican-trained medical doctor (Dr Brown) at the Greater Almond Street [Ormond St?] Hospital in Central London noted that many West Indian doctors are now looking alternative places to practise their skills. "Many are looking at places like the US and Canada. Some may even return home as the European Union has opened up and there is an influx of doctors," she said.
Source
Green Hypocrites in Britain
Post below lifted from Blue Crab. See the original for links
On a number of occasions, I have pointed out that the elitists who are pushing the biggest "environmentalist" agendas like global warming have no intention of living with the limits they plan on imposing on the less-than-elite. The phrase I use for that is that they will "wave from the limousine" as they pass the shivering masses. I expect a rousing chorus of "told ya so."
Ministers are using a secret limousine service to ferry them around the country, a Mail on Sunday investigation has discovered. Senior Labour figures are quietly using 60,000 pound ($120,000) gas-guzzlers to whisk them around in comfort - despite claims that politicians have switched to smaller, cheaper models that are less damaging to the environment. Among the prominent politicians using the secret luxury car service is the Speaker Michael Martin and his wife Mary, who travel regularly in top-ofthe- range Mercedes and Jaguars.
This newspaper has established that a fleet of expensive cars operates discreetly from South London, away from the Westminster base of the official Government Car Service. Kelly Executive earns 500,000 pounds a year carrying out up to 50 journeys a day for politicians, including the Speaker, from its fleet of 30 chauffeur-driven limos. The Government also uses a number of similar private companies in other cities. Ministers and Labour MPs such as Mr Martin frequently use the firms to pick them up from the airport and take them home. Significantly, none of the limousines appears on the public list of cars in the official Government car pool, which handles the transport arrangements for Ministers and civil servants.
Last year the Government announced it had spent 900,000 pounds buying 110 hybrid-engined cars for the Government Car and Despatch Agency to cut down on carbon-dioxide emissions, to show voters that it was doing its bit to save the planet. However, it is an open secret that many Ministers do not like the Toyota Prius - of which 98 were bought. It has been nicknamed "the milk float" by Government drivers who say the car is slow and has a "tinny rattle". Ministers privately complain that they miss the comfort of the executive cars that the Prius replaced.
Kelly Executive has 20 S-class Mercedes, which emit up to 355g of CO2 per kilometre - well above the 226g level at which London Mayor Ken Livingstone has levied a new environment-driven congestion charge of 25 pounds a day.
The Speaker uses Kelly Executive in London, but when travelling to his constituency home in Glasgow he favours local company Little's Chauffeur Drive, which boasts of "utmost discretion and an impeccable chauffeuring service" used by "the world's most important people".
Yes, indeed. They will tout their carbon-neutrality while riding in the finest - and least eco-friendly - cars. No worries. They'll wave if you can see them through the blackout windows. Meanwhile, in other "eco-friendly" news, the Telegraph points out that "fair trade" coffee is anything but.
"Fairtrade purports to work within the market economy but its rise has been largely based on marketing subsidies and public-sector procurement," says Tom Clougherty, policy director of the Adam Smith Institute. Despite huge pressures on the public purse, local councils are squandering large sums becoming Fairtrade towns and cities, distributing posters and leaflets to nanny people into only buying Fairtrade. Meanwhile, the Fairtrade Foundation has received over 1.5m pounds from the Department for International Development. It wants more. In December, reminiscent of 1970s-style industrial policy, it called for 50m of development aid to be spent as "strategic investment" on Fairtrade.
Monday sees the start of Fairtrade Fortnight, the time each year when we are hectored into paying more for a cup of coffee. Charities, politicians and primary school teachers will deliver the scheme as an undisputed good. With all this effort, it is a pity Fairtrade does not work.
Fairtrade's supporters blame the plight of coffee farmers on world prices and ruthless multinational companies. But supporters ignore the real causes of poverty among growers. Farmers I interviewed in Kenya told me that the problems they face are not caused by global influences but their own government's interference. They are forced to use milling companies granted regional monopolies, who fleece them. They want to boost productivity by using fertiliser, but they cannot afford the inflated prices demanded by the government fertiliser monopoly. Imported tools and machinery would transform their output but are subject to punitive tariffs. Police roadblocks slow their goods and involve money exchanging hands.
On top of that, the growers selling to fair trade programs are also selling on the free market. The free market pays premium for high quality so the best beans are sent to the free market. The leftovers are sent to the "fair trade" market to garner the guaranteed higher-than-market value prices. It has never been easier - or more lucrative - to rape the planet.
We don't need to define Britishness
British national identity is becoming more and more like the weather: everybody talks about it but nobody can do anything about it. And come to think of it, it is especially like British weather: so tepid most of the time that it is difficult to describe.
This is not necessarily a problem: having a sense of your own country's character as a vague, largely invisible thing which hums away quietly in the background. Until, of course, the woolly, taken-for-granted conception is challenged by an internal threat which makes use of precisely that amorphous lack of definition to create malignant - potentially lethal - social divisions
And that is where we find ourselves. Last week's report from the Royal United Service Institute went so far as to say that Britain's lack of clear conviction over the value of its identity and political culture had left it a "soft target" for terrorism - which is not the same thing as being soft on terrorism, as some sections of the media concluded. The British security services are among the few national agencies not lacking a clear set of objectives. They are not soft on terrorism.
The real argument of the RUSI study was that Britain was leaving itself open to the recruitment of Islamist terrorists by its failure to instil a confident, graspable sense of what this nation believes and stands for, and of what exactly it means to belong here. In fact, the defence experts said - as have so many others that by now the statement has become almost platitudinous - that the philosophy of multiculturalism and the diversity which it has consciously encouraged have helped to fragment society.
So officially, everybody is pedalling furiously away from multiculturalism. Not only government ministers and opposition leaders but even figures such as Trevor Phillips of the Equality and Human Rights Commission have proclaimed the need to dismantle it. But somehow all of this opprobrium does not filter down to the classroom or to public sector agencies (such as the BBC, local government bureaucracies and the NHS), which are still explicitly committed to "diversity programmes" that positively encourage the continuing separateness of ethnic communities.
It would be easy to see this as simply an accident, a kind of absent-minded philosophy creep in which the original good intentions just got out of hand, as things so often do when they are administered by bureaucrats. So deeply entrenched - and so embedded in the employment practices of the public sector - was the idea of "tolerating differences" that nobody noticed for the longest time that it had slipped over into "encouraging differences".
If that were the case, this would be a relatively easy problem to solve: a few stern ministerial guidelines and departmental directives ("URGENT: the word 'diversity' to be replaced by 'unity' in all official policy pronouncements") could, over a period of a year or two, turn the situation round. But everybody recognises that it is not that simple. Which is to say that everybody knows that we have a far more profound dilemma: Britain does not have a unified, coherent, identifiable self-image, either as a people or as a political entity, which it can offer to incomers as an inspiration and a ready-made value system.
There is a reason why all the attempts to define Britishness seem to end in fatuity: not only because they dribble off into nebulous virtues such as tolerance and decency, which should be common to all civilised people, but because the British opinion-forming classes tend to find the whole concept of national identity either sinister or risible. And it is perfectly plausible to see this as a virtue: a strong, cohesive sense of national loyalty certainly can transmogrify into blood-and-soil nationalism of a horrifying kind, and the ironic distance which the British maintain from even their most important historical institutions has the unmistakeable ring of grown-up wit.
Even in my more sentimental American-expatriate moments, I can see why, to most British eyes, flag-waving US patriotism seems childlike and naive. In many respects, the American model is peculiarly unhelpful, even though it is the one to which Gordon Brown and now Jack Straw cleave as they desperately seek a way out of the crisis that their own party's policies have created. Mr Straw hinted only last week that perhaps the written constitution idea was the way out of our mess since it seemed to be so successful in the US at implanting what he called an "enviable notion of civic duty". Indeed it does. But that is there, and we are here.
Americans are unlike almost all other peoples of the world in that they all either are themselves, or are descended from, people who went to the country as an act of will (apart from those who were taken there against their will whose descendants, unsurprisingly, have had more difficulty in assimilating than almost all later migrant groups). This makes them ideal subjects for the great 18th-century Enlightenment experiment: a newly invented country with a carefully devised written constitution and a self-conscious assumption of an identity that was defined in deliberate rebellion against an old aristocratic order.
To settle in the US is, in effect, to sign the "social contract" that the founding fathers envisaged: accept the rules and the principles on which this country is established and you can belong here. That's the deal that is spelt out very clearly to every prospective citizen and, for the most part, it works. Older nations that chose to redefine themselves by overthrowing their history - such as France, where the revolution turned into the Terror - have had less happy results.
Britain is particularly ill-suited to adopting the apparatus of a revolutionary republic. You know what a Brown-Straw (not to say Cameron) written constitution would look like, don't you? A list of bland aspirations with a presumptuous and irritating "Bill of Rights" attached.
Britain's historical identity has been produced by accretion, subtle accommodation and fudge: to define it is impossible because it has had no consistent conscious intent. Which is fine, because we don't need to define ourselves, we just need to stop hating ourselves. [Or having self-hatred preached at us]
What is at the heart of the aggressive form of "multiculturalism", as most ordinary people suspect, is not tolerance but self-loathing: the deprecation of our own culture and history that elevates almost anybody else's values above our own. It is not the indoctrination of some mystical sense of Britishness that is required but a restoration of the quiet pride and conviction that used to enable Britons to maintain the highest standards of civil behaviour in the world.
Source
Monday, February 25, 2008
A PROPHETIC POEM
One does occasionally hear the term "The white man's burden" as a mocking reference to the claim that the British and other empires were good for the native peoples whom they dominated. I wonder how many people are aware that the term was originally the name of a poem and that the poet was Indian-born British poet Rudyard Kipling? Some, no doubt. But I would not at all be surprised to hear that NOBODY reading this was aware that the poem concerned was inspired by the deeds of a famous American "Progressive". Let me explain:
Right into the 1960's, the American Left (e.g. JFK) was patriotic and nationalistic. Nowadays they mostly make only a shallow pretense of patriotism. Getting the votes of minorities is their desperate aim these days and glorifying America does not serve that aim very well. And with Obama, even the pretense seems to be fading.
And the most nationalistic icon of the American Left in history was undoubtedly TR (Theodore Roosevelt), founder of the "Progressive" party. TR was the first Fascist leader of the 20th century -- where Fascism is conceived of as Leftism plus nationalism. He glorified war as a purifying force for the nation, built lots of battleships and invaded and took over three countries. And on the home front he attacked big business. Fascist enough? His conquests were in fact in the last few years of the 19th century but his Presidency of the USA continued into the early 20th century.
The British empire had however never been Fascist. It was run by conservatives most of the time and when the Left came to power they were much more inclined to wind it down than expand it. And, as the saying goes, the empire was mostly acquired "in a fit of absence of mind". It was not acquired as the result of any deliberate expansionist policy but rather as the byproduct of pursuing other objectives -- such as containment of the French. And if anyone doubts the humane impulse that formed British policy of the time, just reflect that it was in 1807 that Britain became the first major country to abolish slavery. And, unlike Abraham Lincoln many years later, the British both attacked it outside their own domain and abolished it at home. Lincoln's war "against slavery" was fought while permitting slavery in the North! Lincoln's war was really a power-motivated war with slavery as a thin pretext.
And India is an excellent example of the non-imperialistic origin of the British empire. The British first came to India as the representatives of a private company, the British East India company, and the aim was trade, not conquest. The company encountered various attacks on its operations, however, so gradually built up a private army to defend itself (perhaps a bit like the security guards employed by Halliburton in Iraq today). And when Indian princelings took on the company in battle, the company tended to win -- meaning that it eventually had large parts of India under its private control. At that stage, the British government got a bit concerned that the company was not treating the natives well and took over the company's military and rulership operations. So the British government in a sense "inherited" India rather than invading and conquering it. The history I have just given does of course simplify much for the sake of brevity but that is the essence of it.
And the humane thinking (mostly of Christian origin) behind British policy is spelled out in Kipling's poem. Kipling saw the British as having a civilizing mission and saw that mission as one of replacing savage values with humane and Christian ones. And he persuaded himself that TR had such values too. He wrote his poem as a commentary on the American takeover of the Philippines. He saw America as joining Britain in the mission of civilizing savages.
And what he wrote was very prophetic. And it was good prophecy because it was based on experience -- British imperial experience. He prophesied that the gift of liberty and humaneness that America would give to other nations would not be appreciated and would instead lead to resentment of America. And that was long before the liberation of France from the Nazis and the liberation of Iraq from Saddam! Here are some excerpts from a wonderful and idealistic poem that is now almost always misrepresented:
That's amazingly good prophecy by my lights. Very wicked of him to mention skin color judged by today's hysterical political standards but Britain and America WERE largely white countries at the time, and still are.
Insane British police again: Fathers arrested for stopping fight
Two fathers have condemned the criminal justice system after they were arrested and thrown into a police cell for trying to prevent a fight involving a gang of youths. Christopher Dale, 38, and Arthur Parkes, 29, decided to intervene when they heard that a group of boys planned to catch and beat up another youth. They made a citizen's arrest of the two ring leaders, aged 12 and 14, and held them while Mr Dale's wife called the police
But when officers arrived it was the men who were handcuffed and led away after the boys accused them of assault. What followed was a nine month "nightmare" in which the men faced losing everything as the Crime Prosecution Service refused to drop the case. Their ordeal only ended in court when a magistrate finally decided there was no case to answer, "It has been an absolute nightmare," said Mr Dale yesterday, an engineer who fits fire alarms and a trained pilot.
"They arrested us, threw us in the back of a police car and then into a cell - our dignity stripped just outside my house. "We are constantly told not to turn a blind eye but when you do what you think is your duty you get arrested. "We are very, very angry about our treatment. I thought I was doing the right thing by stopping a gang of youths attacking another lad. "If it happened again I would have to think very seriously about whether I would step in. I feel let down by the very people who are supposed to be protecting us."
Mr Parkes, 29, who works for energy firm E.ON, added: "We have been unjustly treated by the police and the CPS. I have always had respect for the police but since this I have no faith in the police and the judicial system."
The men, from Preston, Lancashire, both of good character who had complained to police about youths terrorising their neighbourhood, were cleared by district judge Peter Ward, who said the case was "not in the public interest". The pair were accused of assaulting the boys, then aged 14 and 12, at around 9pm on May 5 last year.
Preston Magistrates heard during the two-day trial from prosecution witnesses, including four boys who gave varying accounts of how the "victims", who cannot be named for legal reasons, were attacked on a driveway. The court heard how the two men stepped in after a group of boys went looking to "batter" another teenager who was accused of bullying.
Their lawyer Paolo Passerini successfully urged the judge at Preston Magistrates' Court to halt proceedings, arguing there was "no case to answer" as there were inconsistencies with the evidence. CPS district crown prosecutor Peter McNaught said: "We considered this case very carefully. However, in all the circumstances, we consider that it was in the public interest to bring this case."
Source
A chilling example of Britain's secret State where a mother and child are forced into hiding
Last autumn a small English congregation was rocked by the news that two of its parishioners had fled abroad. A 56-year-old man had helped his pregnant wife to flee from social workers, who had already taken her son into care and were threatening to seize their baby.
Most people had no idea why. For the process that led this couple to such a desperate act was entirely secret. The local authority had warned the mother not to talk to her friends or even her MP. The judge who heard the arguments from social services sat in secret. The open-minded social workers who had initially been assigned to sort out a custody battle between the woman and her previous husband were replaced by others who seemed determined to build a guilty case against her. That is how the secret State operates. A monumental injustice has been perpetrated in this quiet corner of England; our laws are being used to try to cover it up.
I will call this couple Hugh and Sarah. Neither they nor their families have ever been in trouble with the law, as far as I know. Sarah's only fault seems to have been to suffer through a violent and volatile first marriage, which produced a son. When the marriage ended, the boy was taken into temporary foster care for a few months - as a by-product of the marriage breakdown and against her will - while she "sorted her life out" and found them a new home. But even as she cleared every hurdle set by the court, social workers dreamt up new ones. The months dragged by. A psychologist said the boy was suffering terribly in care and was desperate to come home. Sarah's mother and sister, both respected professionals with good incomes, apparently offered to foster or adopt him. The local authority did not even deign to reply.
For a long time, Sarah and her family seem to have played along. At every new hearing they thought that common sense would prevail. But it didn't. The court appeared to blame her for not ending her marriage more quickly, which had put strain on the boy, while social workers seemed to insist that she now build a good relationship with the man she had left. Eventually, she came to believe that the local authority intended to have her son adopted. She also seems to have feared that they would take away her new baby, Hugh's baby, when it was born. One night in September they fled the country with the little boy. When Hugh returned a few days later, to keep his business going and his staff in jobs, he was arrested.
Many people would think this man a hero. Instead, he received a far longer sentence - 16 months for abduction - than many muggers. This kind of sentence might be justified, perhaps, to set an example to others. But the irony of this exemplary sentence is that no one was ever supposed to know the details. (I am treading a legal tightrope writing about it at all.) How could a secret sentence for a secret crime deter anyone?
Sarah's baby has now been born, in hiding. I am told that the language from social services has become hysterical. But if the State was genuinely concerned for these two children, it would have put "wanted" pictures up in every newspaper in Europe. It won't do that, of course, because to name the woman and her children would be to tear a hole in the fabric of the secret State, a hole we could all see through. I would be able to tell you her side of the story, the child's side of the story. I would be able to tell you every vindictive twist of this saga. And the local authority knows perfectly well how it would look. So silence is maintained.
And very effective it is too. The impotence is the worst thing. The way that perfectly decent individuals are gagged and unable to defend themselves undermines a fundamental principle of British law. I have a court order on my desk that threatens all the main actors in this case with dire consequences if they talk about it to anyone.
Can that really be the way we run justice in a country that was the fount of the rule of law? At the heart of this story is a little boy who was wrenched from the mother he loves, bundled around in foster care and never told why, when she appears to have been perfectly capable of looking after him. When she had relatives who were perfectly capable of doing so. In the meantime, he was becoming more and more troubled and unhappy. To find safety and love, that little boy has had to leave England.
What does that say about our country? The public funds the judges, the courts, the social workers. It deserves to know what they do. That does not mean vilifying all social workers, or defending every parent. But it does mean ending the presumption of guilt that infects so many family court hearings. It does mean asking why certain local authorities seem unable to let go of children whose parents have resolved their difficulties. It does mean knowing how social workers could have got away with failing to return this particular boy, after his mother had met all the criteria set by a judge at the beginning. It is simply unacceptable that social services have put themselves above the law.
We need these people to be named, and to hear in their words what happened. We need to open up the family courts. We need to tear down the wall of secrecy that has forced a decent woman to live as a fugitive, to save her little boy from a life with strangers, used like a pawn in a game of vengeance. Even if the local authority were to drop its case, it is hard to see how Sarah could ever trust them enough to return. At home, for their God-fearing congregation, the question is simple: what justice can ever be done behind closed doors? And in whose name?
Source
Keeping a cool head about hot weather
Ignore the panicky headlines about a new UK government report on higher temperatures in Britain - it actually contained good news.
`Climate change soon could kill thousands in UK', declared the Guardian in a news item about a new report from two UK health bodies, the Department of Health (DoH) and the Health Protection Agency (HPA). But even a quick glance at the report itself suggests this is a rather misleading summary. In fact, the report suggests that, on balance, a warmer climate will be good news - for the UK, at least.
Health Effects of Climate Change in the UK 2008 is an update on an earlier report published in 2002. It looks at a range of areas that might be affected by rising temperatures: flooding and windstorms; vector-borne diseases like malaria and food-borne diseases like salmonellosis; water quality; the direct effect of temperature on health; air pollution; and sunshine.
The most recent reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggest that the world will continue getting warmer and that human activity plays a major part in this warming trend. The DoH/HPA report supports this view; by the end of the century, average temperatures in the UK may be two degrees Celsius warmer at night and four degrees Celsius warmer during the day. Cold spells will decrease in length while heatwaves will become longer and more intense. Rainfall may decrease in one or two areas, but isn't likely to change much overall. Flowing from this general outlook, the report notes:
* Floods will become less frequent in spring but more common in late summer, but few people die in such events and the wider health effects are uncertain;
* Outbreaks of insect-borne diseases will remain rare, and will be as much due to changes in land-use and activity - like spending more time in wooded areas - than climate change;
* Warm summers could increase the risk of food poisoning, so further improvements in food hygiene standards are desirable;
* The quality of untreated water might decline as more bacteria will be present, but this is `unlikely to pose a threat to well-managed water treatment plants';
* Air pollution problems caused by small particles, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide will be unaffected or will fall, but periods of high ground-level ozone will increase deaths and hospital admissions.
So, in most of these areas there is little to worry about. Some potential areas for improvement are identified, which is useful for health professionals, but no cause for the rest of us to be concerned.
Even in the area that the Guardian and others picked up on, the direct effect of temperatures, there is plenty of good news. As the Guardian says, the report suggests that the prospect of a serious heatwave in south-east England - possibly leading to 3,000 deaths - at some time in the next 10 years is about 25 per cent. Hence, the horror headlines.
However, actual experience over nearly 40 years suggests good news overall. For example, `mean annual heat-related mortality did not rise as summers warmed from 1971 to 2003'. That means we're able to adapt to warmer temperatures. Indeed, the authors note: `Heat-related mortalities are substantial throughout Europe, but the hot summers in southern Europe cause little more mortality than the milder summers of more northerly regions.' If we're prepared for warm weather and we take simple precautions, then heat shouldn't be a problem. So, for different UK regions, the authors estimate the following decline for hot weather-related fatalities (cases per million of population, 1971-2003):
* South-east England from 258 to 193 in 2003;
* Rest of England and Wales from 188 to 93;
* Scotland from 125 (in 1974) to only eight in 2003.
Meanwhile, deaths due to cold weather fell dramatically - overall, by more than 33 per cent. Far more people are affected by cold snaps than by heatwaves, so the change is more significant than for hot-weather deaths. Here is how cold-weather deaths fell between 1971 and 2003:
* South-east England from 9,174 to 5,903;
* Rest of England and Wales from 9,222 to 6,088;
* Scotland from 9,751 in 1974 to 6,166 in 2003.
We should be shouting this from the rooftops: far fewer people are dying because of the temperature than in the past. Milder winters are far more important than hotter summers in achieving this, along with other changes to how people live. Where there have been calamities, like the heatwave deaths in France in 2003, there have been other factors involved. In the case of France, the higher temperatures arrived just when the working population all went on holiday, leaving city-dwelling old people without anyone to keep an eye on them.
If warm weather is that bad, why does it seem to be the dream of every retiring person in Britain to move to the south coast or, better still, Spain or Australia? Unsurprisingly, in a temperate country accustomed to miserable weather, with cold winters and often poor-quality housing, higher temperatures are almost certain to have a net benefit for the UK. Yet this doesn't fit in with the general atmosphere of climate change alarmism that encloses newspapers like the Guardian. Even the BBC, which is hardly shy about climate alarmism, gave the story a more balanced headline: `Global warming "may cut deaths"'.
This report also brings into relief a side of the climate change debate that is under-discussed: the ability of society to adapt to changing weather patterns. A quick glance at the huge variety of human societies shows a capacity to operate successfully in a range of conditions. Bustling Bangkok rarely dips below 30 degrees Celsius while average temperatures in Moscow and Helsinki are in low single digits. Even in a single, very successful city like New York, temperatures can range from the bitterly cold in winter to the blazingly hot in summer. There is little or nothing that climate change can throw at us that we don't already deal with successfully.
If temperatures do change substantially over the next few decades, there will be some disruption and humanity will need to adapt to new problems, as it has always done. But in spite of all the gloom and doom about global warming, we can chill out about a warmer Britain.
Source
A realistic solution to the British school mess
You read stories to your children every night when they were young. You racked your brains trying to understand the mysteries of modern methods of teaching maths and you did not miss a single parents’ evening. You spent hours studying inspection reports and the league tables before you decided on the secondary school you wanted them to attend. Now you learn that their names are to be put into a hat. Egged on by a government obsessed by the wickedness of pushy middle-class parents who want the best for their children, your local education authority (LEA) has decided to substitute the vagaries of a lottery for the ideal of parental choice.
Lotteries, ministers tell us, are one of the fairest ways to allocate places at oversubscribed secondary schools. They want, in other words, to spread the misery. They seem to think that if every school has equal numbers of disadvantaged and/or difficult children, every school will be equally successful. The possibility that successful schools will be dragged down to the level of the rest has not, it appears, crossed their minds.
If everyone cannot be educated in a successful school, nobody will be. Old Labour, red in tooth and claw, reeking bitterness and envy, is creeping centre stage. You care about your children’s education? You want them to have the best possible start in life? Forget it. The politicians and their bureaucrats know best, and if they have their way no parent will be able to manipulate the system in order to secure, as some see it, an unfair educational advantage for their child.
At present, grammar schools are allowed to select pupils on grounds of academic ability, city academies can admit up to 10% of their intake on the evidence of “aptitude” in a particular subject, such as music or technology, and faith schools can still take into account a family’s commitment to a particular religion.
But those freedoms are under ever fiercer attack. Changes to the admissions code that dictate what teachers can and cannot do make the exercise of individual professional judgement more and more difficult.
Many in the world of education want schools to be forced to admit certain percentages of children from different social backgrounds and I have no doubt that ministers are attracted to the idea. Parental choice now risks becoming an evil that will have to be stamped upon in the name of equality of opportunity.
The truth, of course, is that successful schools are successful because they are in control of their own destiny. Crucially, they can decide the pupils who are likely to benefit from the kind of education they offer and they can expel pupils who cannot or will not conform. They respect the aspirations and concerns of parents who have decided that this is the right school for their child. In education, as in any other market, those who deliver what the customer wants will prosper.
Northern Rock, the prime minister told us last week, is in “temporary public ownership”. Not so state schools, which, whatever the colour of the government, seem set to remain the property of the state for ever. This is why standards in so many state schools are so low. The sooner these schools are freed from state control and allowed to compete one with another for the custom of prospective parents, the better.
Would this mean that every school would immediately try to turn itself into a grammar school? Well, not if they all wanted to survive. As in any other market, the challenge is to identify and meet the needs of different customers. Some schools would certainly transform themselves into highly academic institutions; others would be equally effective, but would educate children with, say, emotional and behavioural difficulties. It happens now in the fee-paying sector. Why not in the state?
The state would continue to fund education but would abandon its hopeless attempts to micro-manage every aspect of school life. Funding would follow the child, and children who for whatever reason are more difficult and therefore more costly to educate than others would attract more funds; schools would therefore have an incentive to cater for their needs. Schools that failed to attract enough pupils would close. Their pupils would – as, again, happens now in the fee-paying sector – move to other schools, or a new operator would take over the running of the school.
There is no reason a market of this kind could not operate efficiently. Equally, there is no reason to believe that the current centrally managed system of admissions will ever deliver anything approaching equality of opportunity. Lotteries may be considered a solution by some LEAs because, nationwide, demand for good secondary education outstrips supply. In many parts of the country there are not enough credible schools and so provision has to be rationed. So much for a centralised system that tells schools and parents what they can and cannot do.
The freedom to choose the kind of education you want for your child is a fundamental democratic right. We need to liberate schools from the tyranny of social engineering, and we must allow every school to define its ethos and educational approach in response to market demand and to set an appropriate admissions policy. The only real solution to the crisis in secondary admissions is to create more good schools, and top-down reform has failed to do this. So, the way forward could not be clearer; the tragedy is that none of our politicians can see it.
Source
British Tories ditch green taxes: "David Cameron is to abandon plans for "green" taxes amid fears of a backlash from voters unhappy about having to pay for climate change. A leaked policy paper commissioned by the Tory leader warns that action on the environment is too often seen in terms of "consumer sacrifice". Instead the document urges Cameron to copy the more positive "can do" strategy of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the California governor, who has invested huge sums in businesses developing green technologies. Cameron has faced controversy for floating plans to increase tax on air travel, polluting cars and food packaging. He was last week accused of hypocrisy by taking a winter sun break in South Africa after earlier urging people to holiday in the UK. The Conservative leader has also been criticised over the wind turbine erected on the roof of his Notting Hill home. The leaked paper, written by Greg Barker, the Conservative environment spokesman, admits that Cameron's green stunts have proved unpopular."
One does occasionally hear the term "The white man's burden" as a mocking reference to the claim that the British and other empires were good for the native peoples whom they dominated. I wonder how many people are aware that the term was originally the name of a poem and that the poet was Indian-born British poet Rudyard Kipling? Some, no doubt. But I would not at all be surprised to hear that NOBODY reading this was aware that the poem concerned was inspired by the deeds of a famous American "Progressive". Let me explain:
Right into the 1960's, the American Left (e.g. JFK) was patriotic and nationalistic. Nowadays they mostly make only a shallow pretense of patriotism. Getting the votes of minorities is their desperate aim these days and glorifying America does not serve that aim very well. And with Obama, even the pretense seems to be fading.
And the most nationalistic icon of the American Left in history was undoubtedly TR (Theodore Roosevelt), founder of the "Progressive" party. TR was the first Fascist leader of the 20th century -- where Fascism is conceived of as Leftism plus nationalism. He glorified war as a purifying force for the nation, built lots of battleships and invaded and took over three countries. And on the home front he attacked big business. Fascist enough? His conquests were in fact in the last few years of the 19th century but his Presidency of the USA continued into the early 20th century.
The British empire had however never been Fascist. It was run by conservatives most of the time and when the Left came to power they were much more inclined to wind it down than expand it. And, as the saying goes, the empire was mostly acquired "in a fit of absence of mind". It was not acquired as the result of any deliberate expansionist policy but rather as the byproduct of pursuing other objectives -- such as containment of the French. And if anyone doubts the humane impulse that formed British policy of the time, just reflect that it was in 1807 that Britain became the first major country to abolish slavery. And, unlike Abraham Lincoln many years later, the British both attacked it outside their own domain and abolished it at home. Lincoln's war "against slavery" was fought while permitting slavery in the North! Lincoln's war was really a power-motivated war with slavery as a thin pretext.
And India is an excellent example of the non-imperialistic origin of the British empire. The British first came to India as the representatives of a private company, the British East India company, and the aim was trade, not conquest. The company encountered various attacks on its operations, however, so gradually built up a private army to defend itself (perhaps a bit like the security guards employed by Halliburton in Iraq today). And when Indian princelings took on the company in battle, the company tended to win -- meaning that it eventually had large parts of India under its private control. At that stage, the British government got a bit concerned that the company was not treating the natives well and took over the company's military and rulership operations. So the British government in a sense "inherited" India rather than invading and conquering it. The history I have just given does of course simplify much for the sake of brevity but that is the essence of it.
And the humane thinking (mostly of Christian origin) behind British policy is spelled out in Kipling's poem. Kipling saw the British as having a civilizing mission and saw that mission as one of replacing savage values with humane and Christian ones. And he persuaded himself that TR had such values too. He wrote his poem as a commentary on the American takeover of the Philippines. He saw America as joining Britain in the mission of civilizing savages.
And what he wrote was very prophetic. And it was good prophecy because it was based on experience -- British imperial experience. He prophesied that the gift of liberty and humaneness that America would give to other nations would not be appreciated and would instead lead to resentment of America. And that was long before the liberation of France from the Nazis and the liberation of Iraq from Saddam! Here are some excerpts from a wonderful and idealistic poem that is now almost always misrepresented:
Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.
Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.
Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--
That's amazingly good prophecy by my lights. Very wicked of him to mention skin color judged by today's hysterical political standards but Britain and America WERE largely white countries at the time, and still are.
Insane British police again: Fathers arrested for stopping fight
Two fathers have condemned the criminal justice system after they were arrested and thrown into a police cell for trying to prevent a fight involving a gang of youths. Christopher Dale, 38, and Arthur Parkes, 29, decided to intervene when they heard that a group of boys planned to catch and beat up another youth. They made a citizen's arrest of the two ring leaders, aged 12 and 14, and held them while Mr Dale's wife called the police
But when officers arrived it was the men who were handcuffed and led away after the boys accused them of assault. What followed was a nine month "nightmare" in which the men faced losing everything as the Crime Prosecution Service refused to drop the case. Their ordeal only ended in court when a magistrate finally decided there was no case to answer, "It has been an absolute nightmare," said Mr Dale yesterday, an engineer who fits fire alarms and a trained pilot.
"They arrested us, threw us in the back of a police car and then into a cell - our dignity stripped just outside my house. "We are constantly told not to turn a blind eye but when you do what you think is your duty you get arrested. "We are very, very angry about our treatment. I thought I was doing the right thing by stopping a gang of youths attacking another lad. "If it happened again I would have to think very seriously about whether I would step in. I feel let down by the very people who are supposed to be protecting us."
Mr Parkes, 29, who works for energy firm E.ON, added: "We have been unjustly treated by the police and the CPS. I have always had respect for the police but since this I have no faith in the police and the judicial system."
The men, from Preston, Lancashire, both of good character who had complained to police about youths terrorising their neighbourhood, were cleared by district judge Peter Ward, who said the case was "not in the public interest". The pair were accused of assaulting the boys, then aged 14 and 12, at around 9pm on May 5 last year.
Preston Magistrates heard during the two-day trial from prosecution witnesses, including four boys who gave varying accounts of how the "victims", who cannot be named for legal reasons, were attacked on a driveway. The court heard how the two men stepped in after a group of boys went looking to "batter" another teenager who was accused of bullying.
Their lawyer Paolo Passerini successfully urged the judge at Preston Magistrates' Court to halt proceedings, arguing there was "no case to answer" as there were inconsistencies with the evidence. CPS district crown prosecutor Peter McNaught said: "We considered this case very carefully. However, in all the circumstances, we consider that it was in the public interest to bring this case."
Source
A chilling example of Britain's secret State where a mother and child are forced into hiding
Last autumn a small English congregation was rocked by the news that two of its parishioners had fled abroad. A 56-year-old man had helped his pregnant wife to flee from social workers, who had already taken her son into care and were threatening to seize their baby.
Most people had no idea why. For the process that led this couple to such a desperate act was entirely secret. The local authority had warned the mother not to talk to her friends or even her MP. The judge who heard the arguments from social services sat in secret. The open-minded social workers who had initially been assigned to sort out a custody battle between the woman and her previous husband were replaced by others who seemed determined to build a guilty case against her. That is how the secret State operates. A monumental injustice has been perpetrated in this quiet corner of England; our laws are being used to try to cover it up.
I will call this couple Hugh and Sarah. Neither they nor their families have ever been in trouble with the law, as far as I know. Sarah's only fault seems to have been to suffer through a violent and volatile first marriage, which produced a son. When the marriage ended, the boy was taken into temporary foster care for a few months - as a by-product of the marriage breakdown and against her will - while she "sorted her life out" and found them a new home. But even as she cleared every hurdle set by the court, social workers dreamt up new ones. The months dragged by. A psychologist said the boy was suffering terribly in care and was desperate to come home. Sarah's mother and sister, both respected professionals with good incomes, apparently offered to foster or adopt him. The local authority did not even deign to reply.
For a long time, Sarah and her family seem to have played along. At every new hearing they thought that common sense would prevail. But it didn't. The court appeared to blame her for not ending her marriage more quickly, which had put strain on the boy, while social workers seemed to insist that she now build a good relationship with the man she had left. Eventually, she came to believe that the local authority intended to have her son adopted. She also seems to have feared that they would take away her new baby, Hugh's baby, when it was born. One night in September they fled the country with the little boy. When Hugh returned a few days later, to keep his business going and his staff in jobs, he was arrested.
Many people would think this man a hero. Instead, he received a far longer sentence - 16 months for abduction - than many muggers. This kind of sentence might be justified, perhaps, to set an example to others. But the irony of this exemplary sentence is that no one was ever supposed to know the details. (I am treading a legal tightrope writing about it at all.) How could a secret sentence for a secret crime deter anyone?
Sarah's baby has now been born, in hiding. I am told that the language from social services has become hysterical. But if the State was genuinely concerned for these two children, it would have put "wanted" pictures up in every newspaper in Europe. It won't do that, of course, because to name the woman and her children would be to tear a hole in the fabric of the secret State, a hole we could all see through. I would be able to tell you her side of the story, the child's side of the story. I would be able to tell you every vindictive twist of this saga. And the local authority knows perfectly well how it would look. So silence is maintained.
And very effective it is too. The impotence is the worst thing. The way that perfectly decent individuals are gagged and unable to defend themselves undermines a fundamental principle of British law. I have a court order on my desk that threatens all the main actors in this case with dire consequences if they talk about it to anyone.
Can that really be the way we run justice in a country that was the fount of the rule of law? At the heart of this story is a little boy who was wrenched from the mother he loves, bundled around in foster care and never told why, when she appears to have been perfectly capable of looking after him. When she had relatives who were perfectly capable of doing so. In the meantime, he was becoming more and more troubled and unhappy. To find safety and love, that little boy has had to leave England.
What does that say about our country? The public funds the judges, the courts, the social workers. It deserves to know what they do. That does not mean vilifying all social workers, or defending every parent. But it does mean ending the presumption of guilt that infects so many family court hearings. It does mean asking why certain local authorities seem unable to let go of children whose parents have resolved their difficulties. It does mean knowing how social workers could have got away with failing to return this particular boy, after his mother had met all the criteria set by a judge at the beginning. It is simply unacceptable that social services have put themselves above the law.
We need these people to be named, and to hear in their words what happened. We need to open up the family courts. We need to tear down the wall of secrecy that has forced a decent woman to live as a fugitive, to save her little boy from a life with strangers, used like a pawn in a game of vengeance. Even if the local authority were to drop its case, it is hard to see how Sarah could ever trust them enough to return. At home, for their God-fearing congregation, the question is simple: what justice can ever be done behind closed doors? And in whose name?
Source
Keeping a cool head about hot weather
Ignore the panicky headlines about a new UK government report on higher temperatures in Britain - it actually contained good news.
`Climate change soon could kill thousands in UK', declared the Guardian in a news item about a new report from two UK health bodies, the Department of Health (DoH) and the Health Protection Agency (HPA). But even a quick glance at the report itself suggests this is a rather misleading summary. In fact, the report suggests that, on balance, a warmer climate will be good news - for the UK, at least.
Health Effects of Climate Change in the UK 2008 is an update on an earlier report published in 2002. It looks at a range of areas that might be affected by rising temperatures: flooding and windstorms; vector-borne diseases like malaria and food-borne diseases like salmonellosis; water quality; the direct effect of temperature on health; air pollution; and sunshine.
The most recent reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggest that the world will continue getting warmer and that human activity plays a major part in this warming trend. The DoH/HPA report supports this view; by the end of the century, average temperatures in the UK may be two degrees Celsius warmer at night and four degrees Celsius warmer during the day. Cold spells will decrease in length while heatwaves will become longer and more intense. Rainfall may decrease in one or two areas, but isn't likely to change much overall. Flowing from this general outlook, the report notes:
* Floods will become less frequent in spring but more common in late summer, but few people die in such events and the wider health effects are uncertain;
* Outbreaks of insect-borne diseases will remain rare, and will be as much due to changes in land-use and activity - like spending more time in wooded areas - than climate change;
* Warm summers could increase the risk of food poisoning, so further improvements in food hygiene standards are desirable;
* The quality of untreated water might decline as more bacteria will be present, but this is `unlikely to pose a threat to well-managed water treatment plants';
* Air pollution problems caused by small particles, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide will be unaffected or will fall, but periods of high ground-level ozone will increase deaths and hospital admissions.
So, in most of these areas there is little to worry about. Some potential areas for improvement are identified, which is useful for health professionals, but no cause for the rest of us to be concerned.
Even in the area that the Guardian and others picked up on, the direct effect of temperatures, there is plenty of good news. As the Guardian says, the report suggests that the prospect of a serious heatwave in south-east England - possibly leading to 3,000 deaths - at some time in the next 10 years is about 25 per cent. Hence, the horror headlines.
However, actual experience over nearly 40 years suggests good news overall. For example, `mean annual heat-related mortality did not rise as summers warmed from 1971 to 2003'. That means we're able to adapt to warmer temperatures. Indeed, the authors note: `Heat-related mortalities are substantial throughout Europe, but the hot summers in southern Europe cause little more mortality than the milder summers of more northerly regions.' If we're prepared for warm weather and we take simple precautions, then heat shouldn't be a problem. So, for different UK regions, the authors estimate the following decline for hot weather-related fatalities (cases per million of population, 1971-2003):
* South-east England from 258 to 193 in 2003;
* Rest of England and Wales from 188 to 93;
* Scotland from 125 (in 1974) to only eight in 2003.
Meanwhile, deaths due to cold weather fell dramatically - overall, by more than 33 per cent. Far more people are affected by cold snaps than by heatwaves, so the change is more significant than for hot-weather deaths. Here is how cold-weather deaths fell between 1971 and 2003:
* South-east England from 9,174 to 5,903;
* Rest of England and Wales from 9,222 to 6,088;
* Scotland from 9,751 in 1974 to 6,166 in 2003.
We should be shouting this from the rooftops: far fewer people are dying because of the temperature than in the past. Milder winters are far more important than hotter summers in achieving this, along with other changes to how people live. Where there have been calamities, like the heatwave deaths in France in 2003, there have been other factors involved. In the case of France, the higher temperatures arrived just when the working population all went on holiday, leaving city-dwelling old people without anyone to keep an eye on them.
If warm weather is that bad, why does it seem to be the dream of every retiring person in Britain to move to the south coast or, better still, Spain or Australia? Unsurprisingly, in a temperate country accustomed to miserable weather, with cold winters and often poor-quality housing, higher temperatures are almost certain to have a net benefit for the UK. Yet this doesn't fit in with the general atmosphere of climate change alarmism that encloses newspapers like the Guardian. Even the BBC, which is hardly shy about climate alarmism, gave the story a more balanced headline: `Global warming "may cut deaths"'.
This report also brings into relief a side of the climate change debate that is under-discussed: the ability of society to adapt to changing weather patterns. A quick glance at the huge variety of human societies shows a capacity to operate successfully in a range of conditions. Bustling Bangkok rarely dips below 30 degrees Celsius while average temperatures in Moscow and Helsinki are in low single digits. Even in a single, very successful city like New York, temperatures can range from the bitterly cold in winter to the blazingly hot in summer. There is little or nothing that climate change can throw at us that we don't already deal with successfully.
If temperatures do change substantially over the next few decades, there will be some disruption and humanity will need to adapt to new problems, as it has always done. But in spite of all the gloom and doom about global warming, we can chill out about a warmer Britain.
Source
A realistic solution to the British school mess
You read stories to your children every night when they were young. You racked your brains trying to understand the mysteries of modern methods of teaching maths and you did not miss a single parents’ evening. You spent hours studying inspection reports and the league tables before you decided on the secondary school you wanted them to attend. Now you learn that their names are to be put into a hat. Egged on by a government obsessed by the wickedness of pushy middle-class parents who want the best for their children, your local education authority (LEA) has decided to substitute the vagaries of a lottery for the ideal of parental choice.
Lotteries, ministers tell us, are one of the fairest ways to allocate places at oversubscribed secondary schools. They want, in other words, to spread the misery. They seem to think that if every school has equal numbers of disadvantaged and/or difficult children, every school will be equally successful. The possibility that successful schools will be dragged down to the level of the rest has not, it appears, crossed their minds.
If everyone cannot be educated in a successful school, nobody will be. Old Labour, red in tooth and claw, reeking bitterness and envy, is creeping centre stage. You care about your children’s education? You want them to have the best possible start in life? Forget it. The politicians and their bureaucrats know best, and if they have their way no parent will be able to manipulate the system in order to secure, as some see it, an unfair educational advantage for their child.
At present, grammar schools are allowed to select pupils on grounds of academic ability, city academies can admit up to 10% of their intake on the evidence of “aptitude” in a particular subject, such as music or technology, and faith schools can still take into account a family’s commitment to a particular religion.
But those freedoms are under ever fiercer attack. Changes to the admissions code that dictate what teachers can and cannot do make the exercise of individual professional judgement more and more difficult.
Many in the world of education want schools to be forced to admit certain percentages of children from different social backgrounds and I have no doubt that ministers are attracted to the idea. Parental choice now risks becoming an evil that will have to be stamped upon in the name of equality of opportunity.
The truth, of course, is that successful schools are successful because they are in control of their own destiny. Crucially, they can decide the pupils who are likely to benefit from the kind of education they offer and they can expel pupils who cannot or will not conform. They respect the aspirations and concerns of parents who have decided that this is the right school for their child. In education, as in any other market, those who deliver what the customer wants will prosper.
Northern Rock, the prime minister told us last week, is in “temporary public ownership”. Not so state schools, which, whatever the colour of the government, seem set to remain the property of the state for ever. This is why standards in so many state schools are so low. The sooner these schools are freed from state control and allowed to compete one with another for the custom of prospective parents, the better.
Would this mean that every school would immediately try to turn itself into a grammar school? Well, not if they all wanted to survive. As in any other market, the challenge is to identify and meet the needs of different customers. Some schools would certainly transform themselves into highly academic institutions; others would be equally effective, but would educate children with, say, emotional and behavioural difficulties. It happens now in the fee-paying sector. Why not in the state?
The state would continue to fund education but would abandon its hopeless attempts to micro-manage every aspect of school life. Funding would follow the child, and children who for whatever reason are more difficult and therefore more costly to educate than others would attract more funds; schools would therefore have an incentive to cater for their needs. Schools that failed to attract enough pupils would close. Their pupils would – as, again, happens now in the fee-paying sector – move to other schools, or a new operator would take over the running of the school.
There is no reason a market of this kind could not operate efficiently. Equally, there is no reason to believe that the current centrally managed system of admissions will ever deliver anything approaching equality of opportunity. Lotteries may be considered a solution by some LEAs because, nationwide, demand for good secondary education outstrips supply. In many parts of the country there are not enough credible schools and so provision has to be rationed. So much for a centralised system that tells schools and parents what they can and cannot do.
The freedom to choose the kind of education you want for your child is a fundamental democratic right. We need to liberate schools from the tyranny of social engineering, and we must allow every school to define its ethos and educational approach in response to market demand and to set an appropriate admissions policy. The only real solution to the crisis in secondary admissions is to create more good schools, and top-down reform has failed to do this. So, the way forward could not be clearer; the tragedy is that none of our politicians can see it.
Source
British Tories ditch green taxes: "David Cameron is to abandon plans for "green" taxes amid fears of a backlash from voters unhappy about having to pay for climate change. A leaked policy paper commissioned by the Tory leader warns that action on the environment is too often seen in terms of "consumer sacrifice". Instead the document urges Cameron to copy the more positive "can do" strategy of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the California governor, who has invested huge sums in businesses developing green technologies. Cameron has faced controversy for floating plans to increase tax on air travel, polluting cars and food packaging. He was last week accused of hypocrisy by taking a winter sun break in South Africa after earlier urging people to holiday in the UK. The Conservative leader has also been criticised over the wind turbine erected on the roof of his Notting Hill home. The leaked paper, written by Greg Barker, the Conservative environment spokesman, admits that Cameron's green stunts have proved unpopular."
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Don't Joke in Britain
We read:
DIE FOR GAIA, SAVE THE PLANET?
The enviroloonies seem to have found their way out of the asylum again: this time to tell us that 70 per cent of Britons should die for the sake of Gaia. That's not quite the way they put it, of course. Rather, the Optimum Population Trust (there's a pedantic part of me that wants to tell them it's Optimal) tells us that the maximum sustainable population of the UK is 17 million: given that there are north of 60 million currently, we can only avert the coming End Times if the extra pop their clogs soonest.
It's not bad for a paper on demography, economics, the environment and their interactions written by a physicist, that is, a paper written by someone with no knowledge of any of the three basic disciplines. The argument rests on two fundamental pieces of illogic. The first is the use of the Commoner-Ehrlich equation which is that ecological Impact is equal to Population times Affluence times Technology or:
I = P x A x T
Paul Ehrlich, you might recall, is the man who in the 60s predicted hundreds of millions starving in India in the 70s and the US in the 80s. Then in the 70s predicted the same in the 80s and 90s and, in his latest book, Real Soon Now. The flaw in this equation is that technology is held to multiply the impact instead of, as is obvious to even the casual observer, divide it.
If you haven't spotted why yet, consider this. Are we using higher technology than hunter gatherers? Yes? Good, now, if there were 6 billion hunter gatherers around, would Gaia simply be, as at present, a bit grumpy, or even worse off? Correct, there wouldn't be any biosphere at all as that many humans with flints and spears alone would have eaten every thing on the planet and then each other. As, indeed, hunter gatherers did with the megafauna of every place they got to outside Africa, the Aborigines, the Clovis culture in North America, the Maori in New Zealand and so on. The equation should thus read:
I = (P x A)/T
For higher technology reduces the environmental impact. The effect of this upon the logic used in the paper is this. As the paper says, higher technology and increased affluence increase the pressure on the environment, and as none of us is prepared to give up the levels of both which we already have, the only thing we can do to save the planet is to have fewer people. But getting the equation the right way around removes this constraint: we can reduce the impact by having better technology and there's no need to go round slaughtering the chavs [disrespectful young British lower class people] (well, OK, not this reason then). And most importantly, as we'll see, we can do this by creating technology which has lower carbon emissions.
The second conceptual error is that in their calculation of the permissible population level they use the concept of ecological footprints as calculated by Mathis Wackernagel. Now in one way I've got a lot of time for him: it's not everyone who manages to turn their Ph.D thesis into a thriving international business, so hats off, well done sir. On the other hand, that thesis is what is technically known in serious circles as horse manure. For example, when looking at the carbon emissions of nuclear power, the calculation is:
Nuclear power, about 4 per cent of global energy use, does not generate CO2. Its footprint is calculated as the area required to absorb the CO2 emitted by using the equivalent amount of energy from fossil fuels.
Mat bubba: over the cycle nuclear does have CO2 emissions, roughly the same as hydro or wind, less than half solar and a tiny fraction of coal. But our ecological footprint idea gets much worse than that. The essential idea is that we work out how much land a particular activity requires. Then we work out how many activites and how much of such there are and then look at how many hectares of land we need to be able to do all of them. This is what gives us our regular yearly (when Mathis and his boys release their annual update) cycle of we need "three more earths" if we're all going to carry on living like this.
Again there's a conceptual error about technology: thinking that the amount of land we need to do something is static, which it plainly isn't. We get more food off a hectare now than we did last year, as we have every year for at least a century (yields have been going up one per cent a year for at least that long) and so on. But wait, there's yet more.
Each piece of land is only allowed to count once. The land needed to recycle CO2 emissions is somehow different land from that needed to grow the food: that plants eat CO2 to turn it into my food gets missed.
Even given all of this exaggeration the actual end finding of the ecological footprints calculations is that we've got plenty of land to do everything except recycle our CO2 emissions, something which really isn't all that much of a surprise. We've had thousands of scientists labouring away for more than a decade to tell us that, they even wrote a great big report about it. And guess what the result of that report is? If we can invent a few more bright shiny new technologies that don't emit carbon then everything is just hunky dory.
In the end this report is just another sad set of scribblings from people who would appear to have some deeper personal problems. Perhaps it's the thought of people having sex without a full body condom that does it, or perhaps they've come over all Fran Liebowitz ("Children don't smoke enough and I find that they're sticky, perhaps as a result of not smoking enough") but something is clearly wrong, when we read:
"It follows that if it is not possible to constrain affluence and technology, then the only parameter left to constrain and reduce is population."
Their sad misunderstanding about the effects of technology blinds them to the truth, that by not constraining technology we don't have to constrain either affluence or population. The late great Julian Simon once calculated that we had the resources for a permanently growing economy and population for the next 7 billion years. That might be a little Panglossian, to be honest, but it's more accurate than the insistence that there should be fewer, poorer people.
Source
EU threat to British lives
European judges could strip the profiles of more than half a million people from the national DNA database on privacy grounds — undermining its growing value to police as an investigative tool.
As two sex killers caught by the database were jailed for life yesterday and a senior detective joined calls for a universal register, the European Court of Human Rights will hear a case that could mean 560,000 DNA samples being destroyed. Two people charged with offences but never convicted will ask the court next week to remove their records from the database. If they succeed, 13 per cent of the 4.3 million profiles collected since 1995 would have to be destroyed.
The category of DNA profiles facing destruction has yielded vital clues in criminal cases. Official figures seen by The Times indicate that the DNA of 8,500 people never previously charged or convicted has been matched with DNA taken from crime scenes. The cases have involved about 14,000 offences including 114 murders, 55 attempted murders and 116 rapes. Europe will rule on the legality of the database as demands grow for the entire British population to be sampled after its crucial role in catching Steve Wright, the Suffolk Strangler, and Mark Dixie, the killer of Sally Anne Bowman.
Detective Superintendent Stuart Cundy, who led the investigation into Miss Bowman’s murder, said that a universal database would have caught Dixie within 24 hours of the killing. Instead he remained at large for nine months until police took a DNA swab from him after a pub fight. Dixie, 35, was jailed for life at the Old Bailey only hours after Wright, 49, was given a whole-life sentence for the murders of five Ipswich prostitutes. Wright had been arrested after a DNA sample from one of his victim’s bodies matched the profile loaded on the database after his arrest for a minor theft.
Mr Cundy said: “I am all for a national DNA register, with all the appropriate safeguards. If there had been one at the time of Sally Anne’s murder we would have known who it was that day. It could have protected everybody else out there. For nine months between Sally Anne’s murder and the arrest one of our biggest fears and was that this man could attack again. A national DNA register could solve that.”
Richard Ottaway, Miss Bowman’s local Tory MP, said: “A universal DNA database is necessary to solve these crimes.” The Home Office has published proposals for extending the existing database by taking samples from people detained for minor, or non-recordable offences, such as not wearing a seatbelt. Ministers are understood to be awaiting the outcome of the European court case before deciding whether to proceed with the expansion plans.
Human rights lawyers will argue in Strasbourg that a juvenile acquitted of attempted robbery and Michael Marper, who faced charges of harassment that were later dropped, should have their profiles removed from the database. South Yorkshire police, which arrested both, has refused to destroy their records. Peter Mahy, their solicitor, said: “This is the most important case on the human rights implication of retaining biometric data.” He said his clients were concerned about the uses to which the samples might be put and the lack of independent oversight of the national database.
Source
Crowbarring their way into the family home
The UK government's campaign to colonise family life is nearly complete: it is now telling parents to remove video games from their children's bedrooms.
In Britain, as part of an effort to prevent children from playing games that are `unsuitable' for their age, a legally enforceable cinema-style classification system is to be introduced for video games. This will make it illegal for shops to sell classified video games to a child below the recommended age (1). The Brown government's clampdown on violent video games has ugly echoes of the `video nasties' panic unleashed by the Conservative government in the 1980s.
Back then, the authorities' belief that if children watched slasher-gore horror flicks they would turn into crazed psychopaths was routinely ridiculed by opponents of the Conservative government. That was because the notion that watching violent material somehow damages people has always been one of the flimsiest panics around. Indeed, even as New Labour tries to rehash the old monkey-see/monkey-do censorious attitude in relation to violent video games, it is forced to admit that there isn't much hard evidence to suggest that children will grow up to be more violent if they watch Driller Killer or play Manhunt 2.
Unfortunately, however, in today's ultra-suspicious climate, these old arguments about violent material turning out violent young people are more likely to get a hearing, because individual and increasingly parental autonomy is held in even lower esteem than I Spit On Your Grave.
The driving factor behind this return of the creakiest and hoariest of moral panics is not so much violent video games, but rather concern about the remaining free space between parents and children. Ostensibly, the government's proposals to restrict youthful access to violent games are targeted at retailers, who will face a fine if they sell bloody games to underage kids - yet more fundamentally, it is being used as a way for the authorities to crowbar their way into the family home. Government ministers are `advising' parents (that is, piling the pressure on them) to keep computers and games consoles out of children's bedrooms and instead allow children only to play such games in the living room. So determined is the government to colonise every aspect of parenting and family relations that it is now peering even into children's bedrooms, and tut-tutting about what it sees there.
In this sense, outlawing violent video games is a transparent cover for eventually outlawing the existence of truly free personal spaces inside the family home. Given that this government frequently shifts from `offering advice' to threatening coercive action against those who refuse to follow it, these latest moves to kick consoles out of kids' bedrooms are clearly more frightening than any computer game.
The implication of New Labour's hectoring advice on games consoles is that stupid parents do not know what is best for their children. Instead, the authorities themselves must dictate what is appropriate for young people, and even what their bedrooms should look like and contain. Indeed, New Labour has made the social control of children and teenagers a central plank of its Respect policies and its `politics of behaviour' because it recognises that this is a device for controlling and monitoring parents - that is, the adults in British society.
Last week, home secretary Jacqui Smith unveiled proposals for new `parenting contracts', which would be served on mums and dads whose underage children are caught drinking. The contracts would ban parents from allowing their children to visit certain areas or places at stipulated times, and would hold them responsible for preventing their children from consuming alcohol. If parents breach these contracts, they could find themselves before the courts and can be fined o1,000.
It is true that teenagers frequently seek out the thrills of illicit cigarettes and booze - that is a reflection of their impatience and aspiration to enter the adult world sooner rather than later. It is simply not possible or, more importantly, desirable for parents to keep a constant tab on what their teenage children get up to. Enacting `parent contracts' against people whose children drink is to punish parents for things that are, and shall always be, largely beyond their control.
Yet the message of the anti-teen drinking contracts is clear: parents are inadequate slobs who need to be instructed in parenting skills by the powers-that-be. Jacqui Smith says of parents: `The idea that you can hand your kids a six-pack of lager and tell them to disappear off for the evening - with no thought to the consequences - is frankly baffling to me.' (2) But there is no evidence that huge numbers of parents are forcing their offspring to guzzle beer every evening. Rather, Smith's comments about parents (which, notably, caused far less controversy than her comment about walking alone through London) are underpinned by New Labour's unsubstantiated and pretty vile prejudice that everyday parents are bestial and depraved and thus should not have the final say on how they bring up their children.
At school, too, children are increasingly being socialised to believe that their parents are dupes and dopes who shouldn't really be trusted. Consider the furore over the content of children's packed lunches. As part of New Labour's crusade against fatty, sugary food and fizzy drinks, some schools now rifle through children's lunchboxes, confiscate contraband items, and write letters of complaint to unthinking parents. This implicitly breaks a quite sacred bond between parent and child: a mum or dad lovingly packs their child's lunchbox, only to have it ruled unhealthy by a teacher or other school official. This sends the message to children that the authorities know better than your mother how to bring you up.
As someone at the coalface of schooling at the moment, I can see the emergence of a new generation that looks up to the authorities for constant guidance and permission on basic matters. The one group of people teenagers certainly won't be seeking approval from is their parents. Instead, parents are increasingly seen, in cultural, political and media debates, as individuals who are failing to provide the correct healthy and moral guidelines for the next generation in open-prison Britain.
There is not a shred of evidence to suggest that children who play violent video games will grow up to be violent psychopaths. Nor is there hard evidence that parents hand out six-packs of Carling and tell their kids to `get on with it'. However, these stories are themselves evidence of an increasingly demented and nasty mindset amongst government officials, who seem to view most parents as low-life scum in need of short, sharp fines or worse. It is an outrage for officials to barge their way so brazenly into the parental home and order that parents pack away their kids' computers. Who the hell do they think they are? It's time, surely, that we zapped New Labour's encroachment on parental autonomy before they take their draconian measures to the next level.
Source
CLIMATE SCEPTICISM: GROWING BY THE DAY
THE LONE voice in the midst of the debate argued effectively that climate change is both unavoidable and a `cyclical' phenomenon. Scientist Dr Henry Clemmey, who is the managing director of Preston-based Woodford Global Group, asserted that global warming is part of a pattern that has been happening throughout the earth's history.
The former Leeds University academic admits to having seen the effects of climate change within his own lifetime - but believes that mankind cannot be held responsible. "Climate change is something that we can't stop or prevent - but we do need to be knowledgeable about its potential effects," he said. "I think that so many debates about climate change take place against an ignorance of both time and scale in terms of the earth's evolution. "If you look back through the history of the planet, you will find a whole series of cycles. "You will also see that these cycles have taken place before - and will take place again in the future."
He added that the cycle lasted for 60,000 years and was currently warming up and said: "it's not so long ago - in terms of the earth's evolution over the past four billion years - that the climate was far hotter than this."
Dr Clemmey also maintained that when the carbon particles found in the atmosphere now are compared with other periods in the earth's evolution, they show that mankind's recent behaviour cannot be held responsible for climate change. He believes that it is a gradual progression that has led to this point.
His figures were dismissed by glacier expert Professor David Collins and climate change expert Professor Kevin Anderson.
"I cannot always understand the scientists' current obsession with carbon emissions," said Dr Clemmey. "The current changes we are experiencing go far beyond what we have caused by our lifestyles in our own lifetimes - and ultimately the earth will look after itself."
Source
British police to use Tasers on children: "Police have been given the go-ahead to use Taser stun guns against children. The relaxing of restrictions on the use of the weapons comes despite warnings that they could trigger a heart attack in youngsters. Until now, Tasers - which emit a 50,000-volt electric shock - have been used only by specialist officers as a "non lethal" alternative to firearms. However, they can now be used against all potentially violent offenders even if they are unarmed. It is the decision not to ban their use against minors that is likely to raise serious concerns. Home Office Police Minister Tony McNulty said medical assessments had confirmed the risk of death or serious injury from Tasers was "low". But he failed to mention Government advisers had also warned of a potential risk to children. The Defence Scientific Advisory Council medical committee told the Home Office that not enough was known about the health risks of using the weapons against children"
`Most Britons belong to no religion': "Freedom from religion in Britain is becoming as important as freedom of religion, according to a United Nations investigation. A 23-page report by Asma Jahangir, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, says that the 2001 census findings that nearly 72 per cent of the population is Christian can no longer be regarded as accurate. The report claims that two thirds of British people do not admit to any religious affiliation. The report calls for the disestablishment of the Church of England. It says that the role and privileges of the Church do not reflect "the religious demography of the country and the rising proportion of other Christian denominations". The report says that there is an "overall respect for human rights and their value" but it gives warning of discrimination against Muslims."
We read:
"When it comes to making your co-workers laugh, tread carefully. Sometimes even a great joke can lead to the punch line "you're fired." The daily grind has always been fertile ground for practical jokes, witty one-liners, rude gags and general clowning around. But it is becoming harder to avoid crossing the line into offensive territory, due in part to the ease of electronic communication and the workplace's growing attunement to cultural diversity and worker sensitivity.
Take the PR Newswire employee fired last month for using the term "loony-bin-rally" to slug a press release about a march for mental illness. The company published an apology saying it deeply regretted the "error" and understood how "such terminology feeds the prejudice and discrimination associated with mental illnesses."
Then there was the European head of Barclaycard--the credit card arm of Barclays (nyse: BCS - news - people )--who lost his job last month, allegedly because of a gag that offended fellow employees. According to The Daily Telegraph, Marc Howells was discussing quarterly results with his staff when he told the following joke: "The results were like Muslims--some were good, some were Shi'ite."
It may be difficult to determine when the punishment fits the crime, but there is no doubt jokes are dangerous creatures in an office environment. Careless e-mails build up a trail of evidence that can look 10 times worse when closely analyzed and wrenched out of context. An offhand riposte about a co-worker can worm its way through the office, resulting in an official complaint or even disciplinary action if there is the suspicion of discrimination.
Which begs the question: Is it even worth making a joke at work anymore? Not according to British writer Toby Young, whose 2003 book How to Lose Friends and Alienate People chronicled his many failed attempts to charm co-workers at Vanity Fair through humor. "It is a risk that simply isn't worth taking," said Young
Source
DIE FOR GAIA, SAVE THE PLANET?
The enviroloonies seem to have found their way out of the asylum again: this time to tell us that 70 per cent of Britons should die for the sake of Gaia. That's not quite the way they put it, of course. Rather, the Optimum Population Trust (there's a pedantic part of me that wants to tell them it's Optimal) tells us that the maximum sustainable population of the UK is 17 million: given that there are north of 60 million currently, we can only avert the coming End Times if the extra pop their clogs soonest.
It's not bad for a paper on demography, economics, the environment and their interactions written by a physicist, that is, a paper written by someone with no knowledge of any of the three basic disciplines. The argument rests on two fundamental pieces of illogic. The first is the use of the Commoner-Ehrlich equation which is that ecological Impact is equal to Population times Affluence times Technology or:
I = P x A x T
Paul Ehrlich, you might recall, is the man who in the 60s predicted hundreds of millions starving in India in the 70s and the US in the 80s. Then in the 70s predicted the same in the 80s and 90s and, in his latest book, Real Soon Now. The flaw in this equation is that technology is held to multiply the impact instead of, as is obvious to even the casual observer, divide it.
If you haven't spotted why yet, consider this. Are we using higher technology than hunter gatherers? Yes? Good, now, if there were 6 billion hunter gatherers around, would Gaia simply be, as at present, a bit grumpy, or even worse off? Correct, there wouldn't be any biosphere at all as that many humans with flints and spears alone would have eaten every thing on the planet and then each other. As, indeed, hunter gatherers did with the megafauna of every place they got to outside Africa, the Aborigines, the Clovis culture in North America, the Maori in New Zealand and so on. The equation should thus read:
I = (P x A)/T
For higher technology reduces the environmental impact. The effect of this upon the logic used in the paper is this. As the paper says, higher technology and increased affluence increase the pressure on the environment, and as none of us is prepared to give up the levels of both which we already have, the only thing we can do to save the planet is to have fewer people. But getting the equation the right way around removes this constraint: we can reduce the impact by having better technology and there's no need to go round slaughtering the chavs [disrespectful young British lower class people] (well, OK, not this reason then). And most importantly, as we'll see, we can do this by creating technology which has lower carbon emissions.
The second conceptual error is that in their calculation of the permissible population level they use the concept of ecological footprints as calculated by Mathis Wackernagel. Now in one way I've got a lot of time for him: it's not everyone who manages to turn their Ph.D thesis into a thriving international business, so hats off, well done sir. On the other hand, that thesis is what is technically known in serious circles as horse manure. For example, when looking at the carbon emissions of nuclear power, the calculation is:
Nuclear power, about 4 per cent of global energy use, does not generate CO2. Its footprint is calculated as the area required to absorb the CO2 emitted by using the equivalent amount of energy from fossil fuels.
Mat bubba: over the cycle nuclear does have CO2 emissions, roughly the same as hydro or wind, less than half solar and a tiny fraction of coal. But our ecological footprint idea gets much worse than that. The essential idea is that we work out how much land a particular activity requires. Then we work out how many activites and how much of such there are and then look at how many hectares of land we need to be able to do all of them. This is what gives us our regular yearly (when Mathis and his boys release their annual update) cycle of we need "three more earths" if we're all going to carry on living like this.
Again there's a conceptual error about technology: thinking that the amount of land we need to do something is static, which it plainly isn't. We get more food off a hectare now than we did last year, as we have every year for at least a century (yields have been going up one per cent a year for at least that long) and so on. But wait, there's yet more.
Each piece of land is only allowed to count once. The land needed to recycle CO2 emissions is somehow different land from that needed to grow the food: that plants eat CO2 to turn it into my food gets missed.
Even given all of this exaggeration the actual end finding of the ecological footprints calculations is that we've got plenty of land to do everything except recycle our CO2 emissions, something which really isn't all that much of a surprise. We've had thousands of scientists labouring away for more than a decade to tell us that, they even wrote a great big report about it. And guess what the result of that report is? If we can invent a few more bright shiny new technologies that don't emit carbon then everything is just hunky dory.
In the end this report is just another sad set of scribblings from people who would appear to have some deeper personal problems. Perhaps it's the thought of people having sex without a full body condom that does it, or perhaps they've come over all Fran Liebowitz ("Children don't smoke enough and I find that they're sticky, perhaps as a result of not smoking enough") but something is clearly wrong, when we read:
"It follows that if it is not possible to constrain affluence and technology, then the only parameter left to constrain and reduce is population."
Their sad misunderstanding about the effects of technology blinds them to the truth, that by not constraining technology we don't have to constrain either affluence or population. The late great Julian Simon once calculated that we had the resources for a permanently growing economy and population for the next 7 billion years. That might be a little Panglossian, to be honest, but it's more accurate than the insistence that there should be fewer, poorer people.
Source
EU threat to British lives
European judges could strip the profiles of more than half a million people from the national DNA database on privacy grounds — undermining its growing value to police as an investigative tool.
As two sex killers caught by the database were jailed for life yesterday and a senior detective joined calls for a universal register, the European Court of Human Rights will hear a case that could mean 560,000 DNA samples being destroyed. Two people charged with offences but never convicted will ask the court next week to remove their records from the database. If they succeed, 13 per cent of the 4.3 million profiles collected since 1995 would have to be destroyed.
The category of DNA profiles facing destruction has yielded vital clues in criminal cases. Official figures seen by The Times indicate that the DNA of 8,500 people never previously charged or convicted has been matched with DNA taken from crime scenes. The cases have involved about 14,000 offences including 114 murders, 55 attempted murders and 116 rapes. Europe will rule on the legality of the database as demands grow for the entire British population to be sampled after its crucial role in catching Steve Wright, the Suffolk Strangler, and Mark Dixie, the killer of Sally Anne Bowman.
Detective Superintendent Stuart Cundy, who led the investigation into Miss Bowman’s murder, said that a universal database would have caught Dixie within 24 hours of the killing. Instead he remained at large for nine months until police took a DNA swab from him after a pub fight. Dixie, 35, was jailed for life at the Old Bailey only hours after Wright, 49, was given a whole-life sentence for the murders of five Ipswich prostitutes. Wright had been arrested after a DNA sample from one of his victim’s bodies matched the profile loaded on the database after his arrest for a minor theft.
Mr Cundy said: “I am all for a national DNA register, with all the appropriate safeguards. If there had been one at the time of Sally Anne’s murder we would have known who it was that day. It could have protected everybody else out there. For nine months between Sally Anne’s murder and the arrest one of our biggest fears and was that this man could attack again. A national DNA register could solve that.”
Richard Ottaway, Miss Bowman’s local Tory MP, said: “A universal DNA database is necessary to solve these crimes.” The Home Office has published proposals for extending the existing database by taking samples from people detained for minor, or non-recordable offences, such as not wearing a seatbelt. Ministers are understood to be awaiting the outcome of the European court case before deciding whether to proceed with the expansion plans.
Human rights lawyers will argue in Strasbourg that a juvenile acquitted of attempted robbery and Michael Marper, who faced charges of harassment that were later dropped, should have their profiles removed from the database. South Yorkshire police, which arrested both, has refused to destroy their records. Peter Mahy, their solicitor, said: “This is the most important case on the human rights implication of retaining biometric data.” He said his clients were concerned about the uses to which the samples might be put and the lack of independent oversight of the national database.
Source
Crowbarring their way into the family home
The UK government's campaign to colonise family life is nearly complete: it is now telling parents to remove video games from their children's bedrooms.
In Britain, as part of an effort to prevent children from playing games that are `unsuitable' for their age, a legally enforceable cinema-style classification system is to be introduced for video games. This will make it illegal for shops to sell classified video games to a child below the recommended age (1). The Brown government's clampdown on violent video games has ugly echoes of the `video nasties' panic unleashed by the Conservative government in the 1980s.
Back then, the authorities' belief that if children watched slasher-gore horror flicks they would turn into crazed psychopaths was routinely ridiculed by opponents of the Conservative government. That was because the notion that watching violent material somehow damages people has always been one of the flimsiest panics around. Indeed, even as New Labour tries to rehash the old monkey-see/monkey-do censorious attitude in relation to violent video games, it is forced to admit that there isn't much hard evidence to suggest that children will grow up to be more violent if they watch Driller Killer or play Manhunt 2.
Unfortunately, however, in today's ultra-suspicious climate, these old arguments about violent material turning out violent young people are more likely to get a hearing, because individual and increasingly parental autonomy is held in even lower esteem than I Spit On Your Grave.
The driving factor behind this return of the creakiest and hoariest of moral panics is not so much violent video games, but rather concern about the remaining free space between parents and children. Ostensibly, the government's proposals to restrict youthful access to violent games are targeted at retailers, who will face a fine if they sell bloody games to underage kids - yet more fundamentally, it is being used as a way for the authorities to crowbar their way into the family home. Government ministers are `advising' parents (that is, piling the pressure on them) to keep computers and games consoles out of children's bedrooms and instead allow children only to play such games in the living room. So determined is the government to colonise every aspect of parenting and family relations that it is now peering even into children's bedrooms, and tut-tutting about what it sees there.
In this sense, outlawing violent video games is a transparent cover for eventually outlawing the existence of truly free personal spaces inside the family home. Given that this government frequently shifts from `offering advice' to threatening coercive action against those who refuse to follow it, these latest moves to kick consoles out of kids' bedrooms are clearly more frightening than any computer game.
The implication of New Labour's hectoring advice on games consoles is that stupid parents do not know what is best for their children. Instead, the authorities themselves must dictate what is appropriate for young people, and even what their bedrooms should look like and contain. Indeed, New Labour has made the social control of children and teenagers a central plank of its Respect policies and its `politics of behaviour' because it recognises that this is a device for controlling and monitoring parents - that is, the adults in British society.
Last week, home secretary Jacqui Smith unveiled proposals for new `parenting contracts', which would be served on mums and dads whose underage children are caught drinking. The contracts would ban parents from allowing their children to visit certain areas or places at stipulated times, and would hold them responsible for preventing their children from consuming alcohol. If parents breach these contracts, they could find themselves before the courts and can be fined o1,000.
It is true that teenagers frequently seek out the thrills of illicit cigarettes and booze - that is a reflection of their impatience and aspiration to enter the adult world sooner rather than later. It is simply not possible or, more importantly, desirable for parents to keep a constant tab on what their teenage children get up to. Enacting `parent contracts' against people whose children drink is to punish parents for things that are, and shall always be, largely beyond their control.
Yet the message of the anti-teen drinking contracts is clear: parents are inadequate slobs who need to be instructed in parenting skills by the powers-that-be. Jacqui Smith says of parents: `The idea that you can hand your kids a six-pack of lager and tell them to disappear off for the evening - with no thought to the consequences - is frankly baffling to me.' (2) But there is no evidence that huge numbers of parents are forcing their offspring to guzzle beer every evening. Rather, Smith's comments about parents (which, notably, caused far less controversy than her comment about walking alone through London) are underpinned by New Labour's unsubstantiated and pretty vile prejudice that everyday parents are bestial and depraved and thus should not have the final say on how they bring up their children.
At school, too, children are increasingly being socialised to believe that their parents are dupes and dopes who shouldn't really be trusted. Consider the furore over the content of children's packed lunches. As part of New Labour's crusade against fatty, sugary food and fizzy drinks, some schools now rifle through children's lunchboxes, confiscate contraband items, and write letters of complaint to unthinking parents. This implicitly breaks a quite sacred bond between parent and child: a mum or dad lovingly packs their child's lunchbox, only to have it ruled unhealthy by a teacher or other school official. This sends the message to children that the authorities know better than your mother how to bring you up.
As someone at the coalface of schooling at the moment, I can see the emergence of a new generation that looks up to the authorities for constant guidance and permission on basic matters. The one group of people teenagers certainly won't be seeking approval from is their parents. Instead, parents are increasingly seen, in cultural, political and media debates, as individuals who are failing to provide the correct healthy and moral guidelines for the next generation in open-prison Britain.
There is not a shred of evidence to suggest that children who play violent video games will grow up to be violent psychopaths. Nor is there hard evidence that parents hand out six-packs of Carling and tell their kids to `get on with it'. However, these stories are themselves evidence of an increasingly demented and nasty mindset amongst government officials, who seem to view most parents as low-life scum in need of short, sharp fines or worse. It is an outrage for officials to barge their way so brazenly into the parental home and order that parents pack away their kids' computers. Who the hell do they think they are? It's time, surely, that we zapped New Labour's encroachment on parental autonomy before they take their draconian measures to the next level.
Source
CLIMATE SCEPTICISM: GROWING BY THE DAY
THE LONE voice in the midst of the debate argued effectively that climate change is both unavoidable and a `cyclical' phenomenon. Scientist Dr Henry Clemmey, who is the managing director of Preston-based Woodford Global Group, asserted that global warming is part of a pattern that has been happening throughout the earth's history.
The former Leeds University academic admits to having seen the effects of climate change within his own lifetime - but believes that mankind cannot be held responsible. "Climate change is something that we can't stop or prevent - but we do need to be knowledgeable about its potential effects," he said. "I think that so many debates about climate change take place against an ignorance of both time and scale in terms of the earth's evolution. "If you look back through the history of the planet, you will find a whole series of cycles. "You will also see that these cycles have taken place before - and will take place again in the future."
He added that the cycle lasted for 60,000 years and was currently warming up and said: "it's not so long ago - in terms of the earth's evolution over the past four billion years - that the climate was far hotter than this."
Dr Clemmey also maintained that when the carbon particles found in the atmosphere now are compared with other periods in the earth's evolution, they show that mankind's recent behaviour cannot be held responsible for climate change. He believes that it is a gradual progression that has led to this point.
His figures were dismissed by glacier expert Professor David Collins and climate change expert Professor Kevin Anderson.
"I cannot always understand the scientists' current obsession with carbon emissions," said Dr Clemmey. "The current changes we are experiencing go far beyond what we have caused by our lifestyles in our own lifetimes - and ultimately the earth will look after itself."
Source
British police to use Tasers on children: "Police have been given the go-ahead to use Taser stun guns against children. The relaxing of restrictions on the use of the weapons comes despite warnings that they could trigger a heart attack in youngsters. Until now, Tasers - which emit a 50,000-volt electric shock - have been used only by specialist officers as a "non lethal" alternative to firearms. However, they can now be used against all potentially violent offenders even if they are unarmed. It is the decision not to ban their use against minors that is likely to raise serious concerns. Home Office Police Minister Tony McNulty said medical assessments had confirmed the risk of death or serious injury from Tasers was "low". But he failed to mention Government advisers had also warned of a potential risk to children. The Defence Scientific Advisory Council medical committee told the Home Office that not enough was known about the health risks of using the weapons against children"
`Most Britons belong to no religion': "Freedom from religion in Britain is becoming as important as freedom of religion, according to a United Nations investigation. A 23-page report by Asma Jahangir, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, says that the 2001 census findings that nearly 72 per cent of the population is Christian can no longer be regarded as accurate. The report claims that two thirds of British people do not admit to any religious affiliation. The report calls for the disestablishment of the Church of England. It says that the role and privileges of the Church do not reflect "the religious demography of the country and the rising proportion of other Christian denominations". The report says that there is an "overall respect for human rights and their value" but it gives warning of discrimination against Muslims."
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Stupid immigration swoop in Wales
This is typical of the lazy British bureaucracy. Just to show that they are doing something, they pick on the easy targets. Anybody can find illegals working in restaurants any time but as the restaurant workers are hard-working and providing a useful service they should be bottom priority. But grabbing the problem illegals -- parasitical Muslims and blacks -- would need work.
Note: I am NOT saying that ALL blacks and Muslims are parasitical. But I am saying that there are many in that category. In this age of political correctness, one has to guard against wilful misrepresentation of what one is saying.
Eight Malaysian and Chinese nationals found working illegally at restaurants and a takeaway in a Gwynedd town have been arrested. The Thai Emperor, Everyday Takeaway and Honour Chinese restaurants in Caernarfon were visited by a Border and Immigration Agency team and police. Six of those arrested, who had such jobs as cooking and serving customers, are due to be removed from the UK. The owner of all three premises was given a formal written warning. He will also face future visits by immigration officers, said the agency.
The operation on Wednesday evening followed intelligence. Officers went into all three places at the same time and checked the documents of staff to discover if they had the right to work in the UK. At Thai Emperor, a Malaysian man, 34, and woman, 31, were arrested and are due to be removed from the UK in the coming days. Next door, in Everyday Takeaway, a Malaysian man, 32, was arrested and is also due to be removed. Five illegal workers were arrested at the Honour Chinese restaurant, in Castle Square, including two Chinese men, aged 29 and 33, who were both failed asylum seekers. Steps are being taken to remove them from the UK as soon as possible, said the agency.
Two Malaysian women, aged 24 and 29, and a 39-year-old Malaysian man will be removed from the UK in the coming days. Another Chinese man arrested was later released after producing evidence he was working legally. All those arrested were taken to Caernarfon and St Asaph police stations for questioning. Jane Farleigh, regional director of the Border and Immigration Agency in Wales and the South West said: "This successful operation shows that we will find and arrest illegal workers wherever they are in Wales." [BULLSHIT! When a British bureaucrat's mouth is moving in public, you can be sure that he/she is misrepresenting something] She added: "Illegal working hurts good business, undercuts legal workers and law-abiding businesses, creates illegal profits and puts those employed at risk."
Source
Britain: Privileged children excel, even at low-performing "comprehensive" schools
Charles Murray pointed out long ago that richer people have higher IQs and that IQ is the main factor in educational attainment. What the report below skates over is the safety concerns many British parents have about sending their children to "sink" schools
Middle-class parents obsessed with getting their children into the best schools may be wasting their time and money, academics say today. They found that children from privileged backgrounds excelled when they were deliberately sent to inner-city comprehensives by parents opposed to private schooling. Most of the children "performed brilliantly" at GCSE and A level and 15 per cent of those who went on to university took places at Oxford or Cambridge.
To give their children "the best start in life", many parents choose to live in catchment areas of high-performing schools, "find God" to gain their child a place at a faith establishment or make financial sacrifices to pay for their child's independent schooling. However, the researchers decided to analyse the progress of the offspring of "those white, urban, middle-class parents who consciously choose for their children to be educated at their local state secondary, whatever the league table positioning".
This group attended average or poorly performing schools in working-class or racially mixed areas. Here they thrived academically and were often given special attention by teachers keen to improve the school's results, according to the study by professors in education from the universities of Cambridge, Sunderland and West of England (UWE).
The only failure was in social integration, which had been the very reason most parents sent their child to the school. Most children from middle-class families mixed only with pupils from identical backgrounds. The research found "segregation within schools, with white middle-class children clustered in top sets, with little interaction with children from other backgrounds".
Professor David James, from UWE, said: "But we wanted to discover what motivates parents who instead choose to send their children to local comprehensives that appear to be performing poorly. "Most children who had this choice made for them have gone on to perform brilliantly in GCSEs, A levels and then on to university entrance, including a much higher than average entry to Oxbridge."
The researchers interviewed 124 families from London and two other cities. Eighty-three per cent of the parents had degrees and a quarter were educated to postgraduate level. They included three Labour Party activists and two who worked in a social exclusion research unit. In 70 per cent of families, one or both parents worked in the public sector. Most described themselves as left-wing or liberal.
The report found: "Some parents were motivated by a commitment to state-funded education and egalitarian ideals and many had an active dislike for privileged educational routes on the grounds that they were socially divisive. Many wanted their children to have an educational experience that would prepare them for a globalised, socially diverse world. "These parents positioned themselves in a way we termed `a darker shade of pale', as part of a more culturally tolerant and even anti-racist white middle class. "They felt strongly that higher-achieving schools would not provide the kind of experience of the `real world' that their children needed."
However, the researchers said such parents did not consider that they were sacrificing their children's education, with many seeing it as a worthwhile, if risky, strategy. "Many parents said they could and would pull out if things did not go well," the report said. Some parents who attended privileged schools made the choice as a "conscious reaction to their own schooling". Others wanted their children "to compete in ordinary circumstances". It added: "Anxiety was not absent, especially when their children were attending schools that were pathologised - or even demonised - by other white middle-class parents."
But even though those sending their children to comprehensives were open and tolerant of other backgrounds, in some cases researchers noted "elitism and a sense of intellectual and social superiority - a sense that would be confirmed by their own child's relative success".
Source
Parents defeat Sharia imposition in England
Parent power has prompted an Oxford primary school to rethink a plan to serve only halal meat. Rose Hill Primary School used halal meat, which is slaughtered under Muslim religious law, in several dishes last year and in all meat dishes for a month-long trial last month. It was the first school in the county to ask school meals provider Food with Thought to provide a purely halal menu.
The school has now decided to offer youngsters a choice of normal meat, a halal option or a vegetarian dish, and will use a wristband system to make sure pupils get the correct meal.
Lyndsy Johnson, 35, of Radford Close, said: "We're glad now that we have got the three options. That is how it should have been to start off with. "It was a very big issue. Everyone was talking about it on the estate. We have definitely got parent power."
Parents only found out about the menu change on the last day of winter term - after halal meat had begun to be served. Some parents were opposed to their children eating halal food, because they felt the animals were slaughtered in a cruel way. They said they should have been consulted about the changes. Within days parents raised a petition with 220 signatures, calling for three choices for school meals - meat, halal meat and vegetarian - and met headteacher Sue Mortimer and school governors to discuss their concerns.
On February 8, Mrs Mortimer sent home a letter which read: "Whilst the trial was on I continued to have discussions with Food with Thought and am now able to confirm the school could have three choices at lunchtime." The new menus will begin on Monday with children at the school in The Oval choosing meals at morning registration. They will be given coloured wristbands to show dinner ladies their choice for the day, with a red wristband for meat, blue for halal meat and green for vegetarian.
Mrs Mortimer had told parents the school introduced halal meat as part of its inclusion policy. She said because halal meat was not forbidden by any religion or culture it would allow every pupil to choose a meat dish for lunch. She refused to comment on the new system when approached by the Oxford Mail. A spokesman for Oxfordshire County Council said the school had bought new equipment to ensure halal meat and non-halal meat was kept separate during preparation.
Dr Taj Hargey, chairman of the Muslim Education Centre of Oxford, said: "This is the best solution to improving community relations."
Source
Foreign brides who plan to live in Britain 'must speak English'
Thousands of foreigners who want to marry a British person and move to Britain will have to take an English language test, the Prime Minister announced yesterday. Gordon Brown said that the test would help to prevent foreign brides being exploited. He made his surprise announcement only five hours after a Home Office Green Paper on overhauling citizenship rules said that consultations on English tests for foreigners were continuing.
The Prime Minister said in a speech in North London: "We will introduce a new English language requirement for those applying for a marriage visa and planning to settle in the UK - both as part of our determination that everyone who comes here to live should be able to speak English and to make sure that they cannot be exploited."
The English language test will apply to tens of thousands of spouses, particularly those from the Indian sub-continent. A total of 47,000 spouses and fianc‚es, including 17,000 from the sub-continent, were admitted to the UK in 2006. Ministers have for some time been concerned that some of those arriving from the sub-continent have no knowledge of English, are vulnerable to exploitation and cannot get access to the job market. It was unclear last night whether failure to pass the English language test would lead to outright refusal to come to Britain or whether a temporary visa would be granted.
Mr Brown's announcement came after proposals to reform citizenship rules under which migrants who want a British passport or to settle permanently in the country will have to undergo a probationary period of up to three years. Foreigners will be expected to leave the country if they fail to take citizenship or apply to settle permanently, as the Government seeks to end the situation where migrants "languish in limbo" having been allowed to stay. The Government is also considering ending the "ancestral visa" scheme under which Commonwealth citizens aged over 17 with a British grandparent are allowed to enter Britain to seek work and settle. [That would be very offensive to Australians. The Australian government has in the past retaliated against British restrictions on Australians by introducing similar restrictions on Brits] A scheme under which retired migrants with an annual income of at least 25,000 pounds are allowed to enter Britain, receive free healthcare and then settle may also be scrapped.
Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, made clear that she expected the number of new citizens - more than 1.1 million since Labour came to power 1997 - to increase as a result of the overhaul of citizenship rules. She said: "I would want to see a larger proportion of those that are here moving to full British citizenship. You will not be able to languish in limbo. Once your period of temporary residence comes to an end you will need to apply for the next stage or leave."
Gaining citizenship will take at least six years from arrival in the UK instead of the current five years, and could take as long as eight years. The probation period will last a year if the foreigner takes part in community activities such as charity fundraising, running a sports group or other voluntary work. Migrants who undertake no community or voluntary work will have to wait the existing five years plus a minimum three years on probation. Full access to non-contributory benefits will not be granted after a person has been in the UK for five years, but only after an applicant has completed the probationary period.
A fund financed by a surcharge on immigration applications will be set up to give cash to areas that experience problems because of immigration, such as oversubscribed schools. The fund is expected to raise tens of millions of pounds a year.
Migrants who have served a prison sentence will be barred from citizenship and minor offenders given a non-custodial sentence may have to serve three years on probation. A draft Bill based on the proposals is due this summer, and full legislation is expected in November.
Source
Disgraceful treatment of elderly ex-soldier
Warrant officer is a very distinguished military rank -- indicating that the man was a first class soldier in the service of his country
Now let's look at the lot of the pensioners [social security dependants], highlighted by the imprisoning of 76-year-old, ex Warrant Officer, Richard Fitzmaurice.
Mr Fitzmaurice was shackled and humiliated by a British court (they are no longer fit to be called courts of justice). Eight hours in a holding cell, an hour and a half handcuffed to a guard in a security van and a lengthy wait in a police station custody unit for a prison space. When a jail cell comes free, Mr Fitzmaurice, who has four children, 14 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, will be stripped, searched and locked up with criminals for company. Then at the end of a long traumatic day, finally, at 9.30 in the evening, this 76-year-old veteran , was allowed one phone call to his family. He told his son: "I'm okay. Don't worry about me."
His crime: non-payment of council tax. For that heinous offence, Mr Fitzmaurice, who has seen the bill on his Band D property soar hugely over the years, could spend the next 34 days behind bars. The sum owed - 1,359 pounds - may not seem much to our MPs whose noses sink ever deeper into the trough, but it represents 16 per cent of Mr Fitzmaurice's 8,406 Army pension. Read that again! Mr Fitzmaurice's 8,406 Army pension! Now note that in 1998-1999, the cost of Band D council tax in Heacham was 699. By 2007-2008 this had risen to 1,359 - an increase of 94 per cent.
Faced with demands to pay ever increasing Council Tax on a meagre fixed income meant that he and his wife were being forced to choose: Reduce their spending on food and heating, or pay their council tax in full. Mr Fitzmaurice chose to put the needs of his frail wife of 55 years before the demands of his Councillors.
And who can blame him, for, King's Lynn and West Norfolk Borough Council, who brought the case brought against him have been indulging in a little trough feeding themselves. Last year his borough councillors voted themselves a 35 per cent increase in allowances - 50 per cent more than an independent panel had recommended. The total extra cost to taxpayers was more than 91,000 pounds!!!
This council, like too many others has also routinely wasted so much of the money they extract from the people! In 2003, the council was criticised for spending 50,000 on a beach-cleaning tractor and mechanical rake that proved a waste of time. The previous year, two spa pools in North Lynn built for the disabled at a cost of 30,000 were closed without being used because the construction was found to be sub-standard. And let's not even look at the gold plated pensions and other perks that all council officials now enjoy - at our expense!
Yesterday a cold hearted spokesman for King's Lynn Borough Council said: "Mr Fitzmaurice does not qualify for council tax benefit, so although he can afford to pay he is choosing not to. "He has chosen to pursue the matter in this manner, rather than settle his liability and raise his concerns through legitimate methods. The decision to impose a custodial sentence, and the length of that sentence, rests with the magistrates."
Before he went into court, Mr Fitzmaurice said he was standing up for older people on fixed incomes but faced with steeply rising living costs. "Where is the money supposed to come from?" he asked. "We are on some of the lowest pensions in Europe yet Britain is one of the richest countries in the world. We are being disregarded and shoved on the back burner because it's convenient for the Government. "People are actually sacrificing food so that they can have the heating on. Pensioners are being betrayed by the Government, yet they are the people who put this country where it is today."
And whilst pensioners choose whether to freeze to death or starve to death, our elected MPs will be dining on steak and drinking champagne in Westminster today.
So there you have the connection! It's the link between the haves and the have nots. It's the link between the modern day Marie Antoinette's and the starving peasants! If you don't feel a burning anger at the base wrongness of that and despise those greedy men and women put into Parliament to serve us, but who only think of themselves, then you should do!
Source.
See also here. The gentleman has now been freed after some kind soul paid his bill
Protein boosts early babies' brains
Brain damage with premmies is always a worry so this is very encouraging news
Premature babies given a diet richer in proteins have higher IQs as adolescents, a study at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London has found. The improved diet also changed the structure of their brains later in life, the scientists found, by increasing the size of the caudate nucleus. This is linked to higher intelligence.
The study tested verbal IQ levels and carried out brain scans among two groups of adolescents born prematurely in the 1980s. One group was given a high-protein diet in the four weeks after birth; the other a standard diet.
Elizabeth Isaacs, who led the research, published in Pediatric Research, said: "The data presented here are among the first to show that the structure of the human brain can be influenced by early nutrition. "Scientists have speculated that the size of the caudate nucleus might be influenced by nutrition in infancy, when the brain is undergoing its chief growth spurt. We now see that cognitive effects of early diet that we previously reported in childhood persist into adolescence."
Source
Was the recent British airliner crash the result of global cooling?
The plane's engines were OK and it was not short of fuel. But it had just flown through exceptionally cold temperatures right across the Northern hemisphere and part of the fuel may have frozen. Read here and here to decide for yourself. A small excerpt:
Another pilot commented that "the air temp over the UK at the time [of the accident] was some of the coldest I've ever experienced with OAT [outside air temperature] at higher levels down to -70 degrees Celsius."
There is an unconfirmed report that the BA038 pilots did not descend during cruise to lower altitude.
At very low temperatures, wax crystals form in the fuel and "flowability" may be impeded (akin to the way a blood clot or embolus can cause a stroke). The cold fuel approaches a semi rigid state. Jet fuel also contains some amount of water, and at very low temperatures it will freeze. Icing may not have been an immediate issue here, but rather a contributory one, like paraffin waxing, to the clogging of sensor points/connections. This is particularly relevant to the Full Authority Digital Engine Control (FADEC), which metered fuel to the airplane's Rolls Royce Trent engines. FADECs use reference air and fuel pressures to perform their function; loss of those due to ice obstruction or clogging from waxing can lead to the FADEC's logic becoming confused or unresponsive. Indeed, both FADECs could be affected almost simultaneously by dint of exposure to an identical environment.
Add in a second factor: Heathrow has adopted a new air traffic control procedure known as the Continuous Descent Approach (CDA). The procedure is more fuel efficient than the traditional step-down approach, and basically the engines are at idle power. During aircraft operation, fuel is withdrawn from the fuel tanks and passed to a filter at the inlet to the engine fuel system. To prevent blocking of the filter due to formation of wax or ice in the fuel, a heat exchanger warms the fuel upstream of the filter. Such heat exchangers use hot air bleed from the engine compressor or heat from engine or hydraulic oil. Of note, the times when the greatest heating is required are often those times when the engine is not operating at maximum, for example, during a lengthy descent at idle from high altitude.
With ultra-cold en route temperatures inducing clumps of paraffin or ice, and a cool engine during descent at flight idle, perhaps the stage was set. Any blockages occurring at different times during the descent, and the simultaneity of the thrust loss, would have been seen only when (and because) the auto-throttle called for a thrust increment on finals after gear and flap extension. There is an account that the aircraft did not hold during the approach, which would tend to support the low-power, low-temperature scenario.
Prof. Stott explains his dissent
I am often challenged as follows: "Philip, I know you are critical of the science and politics of `global warming'. But why don't you just play along with it all, because it will be good for energy policy and for the world in general? And, like Pascal's wager, it means you won't lose out either way."
My reply is identical to that reported by James Boswell in his magisterial Life of Johnson (1791) on asking the great man why he wasn't a Papist [just replace the relevant words with `Global Warming', or `Global Warmers']:
"On the Roman Catholick religion he said, `If you join the Papists externally, they will not interrogate you strictly as to your belief in their tenets. No reasoning Papist believes every article of their faith. There is one side on which a good man might be persuaded to embrace it. A good man, of a timorous disposition, in great doubt of his acceptance with God, and pretty credulous, might be glad to be of a church where there are so many helps to get to Heaven. I would be a Papist if I could. I have fear enough; but an obstinate rationality prevents me.'"
Likewise, whenever I hear politicians and activists talking about "stopping climate change", or "saving the planet"; when I see the rich buying indulgences in the form of carbon credits, or carbon offsets; when I hear politicians talking about "zero-carbon houses", when no such thing exists; when I hear scientists declaring that we can manage the most complex, coupled, non-linear, semi-chaotic system known to humans by fiddling at the margins with one factor - and to a degree Celsius; when I see the blatant hypocrisy of newspapers like The Independent and The Guardian, which lecture us all, while selling foreign holidays, page after page; when I hear academics planning to fly to another world conference on climate change; when I watch one more hyped-up report,with shelving ice and doleful polar bears, on the tele; when I see yet another celebrity flying in to yet another world gig to tell us how to live the `Green' life; when I hear claims that wind turbines will save the world; ..... I could go on and on ..... but,
..... an obstinate rationality prevents me from having anything to do with the carbon claptrap of the Global Warming Religion and the trivial pieties of our shallow Age.
And, though I have many faults, I cannot cant. The witch hunters, and the McCarthyists, will thus always find me unrepentant. Above all, we must hold on to our reason, and to our honest understanding of things.
Moreover, I fear that it will be `global warming' hysteria which will ultimately prove to be the witchcraft and the devil of the Age. I refuse to acknowledge its familiar spirits, and I trust, like John Proctor in Arthur Miller's 1953 masterpiece, The Crucible, I shall, to the last, stand firm.
Source
Nationalized medicine and the incentives they face
The role of incentives are too easily ignored by individuals who have the idea that the State is somehow, magically, the solution to whatever problem we face. And government-run health care is supposed to be the solution to the scarcity problem in health care. Economists argue that incentives matter and that political-provision of services creates distorted and perverse incentives. And here is a perfect example.
The British National Health Service is notoriously slow in treating patients. Some people deny this is the case and point to various numbers released by the NHS itself to show how efficient it is. And one number the NHS takes seriously is that they require patients admitted to the emergency ward to be seen within 4 hours of admission. Doesn't that sound peachy?
Don't get too excited. Let me point out how well-intentioned interventions can create unintended incentives. A town in a poor country is faced with too many rats. They offer a bounty for each rat that is killed. Proof of a kill required the bounty hunters to hand in a rat's tail. Alas, a bevy of tailess rats were soon seen running about town. To solve that problem the city required the entire carcass of the rat be handed in. And they were inundated with dead rats. But it seemed to have no impact on the number of rats running about. Apparently individuals took to breeding rats.
There was a time when the South African government decided that they would offer an award for every AK-47 that was turned into the police. These weapons were frequently used in major crimes and it was a bit embarrassing to the ANC government that they had been the importers of the weapons in question when they were trying to overthrow the previous government. So they offered a nice hefty bounty on each AK-47 that was turned in. The only problem was that AK-47s could be purchased in neighboring countries for a lower price. One could buy it in Zimbabwe and legally sell it to the South African government at a premium. AK-47s were duly imported in record numbers in order to collect the awards the government was handing out. To say the least they merely increased the number of such weapons in the country.
Governments are very good at establishing perverse incentives without realizing it. And so it was with the NHS. The 4-hour rule is simple. A patient must be seen within 4 fours of admission. If too many patients are not seen in that time the health service could lose funding. Of course the ability to see patients that quickly is not increased by the rule. Instead the local hospitals have incentives to act in very strange ways.
If you know you can't see a patient in emergency care for at least six hours, but you are required to see them within four hours of admission, then the easiest way to solve the problem is to delay admission for an additional two hours. And that is what is happening according to the Left-of-center Guardian. The paper reports, "thousands of seriously ill patients in ambulance `holding patterns'" were being kept outside in the ambulances "to meet a government pledge that all patients are treated within four hours of admission."
The story was originally broken by The Observer. The Guardian notes:
Notice the knock-on effect of this incentive. The hospital can't see the patients within the required 4 hour period. So it refuses to admit the patient until it can see them and meet government edicts. That means the patients is left in the ambulance. That means the ambulance can't treat other patients.
Under normal conditions the government says that it ought to take 15 minutes from the time an ambulance arrives with a patient until they prepared to depart. Ambulance crews say it is usually 5 to 10 minutes. But reports now show that on 14,700 occasions at 35 hospitals in London alone, in the last year, an ambulance mysteriously took over one hour before they could turn around. And on 332 occasions they took more than two hours. The total for the entire country is probably three times that.
For a moment I want you to think about a fast food restaurant -- say McDonalds. Let us say that the manager notices that they aren't serving customers as quickly as they should. So he sets a 4 minutes rule. From the time a customer enters the line, he should not wait more than four minutes to be served his meal. Do you really think that the way they would meet this target is to lock the doors so customers can't get in?
Why is it that clerks at the local grocery store can process your purchase within a few minutes while government departments around the world can keep you waiting for hours at a time? Are clerks at the local Safeway just that much more efficient than those at the DMV? Or do they face entirely different incentives?
Does the DMV fear losing customers? Does Safeway? Does the salary of the checkout clerk at Safeway depend on keeping customers happy? How about the DMV clerks? I don't think the people differ that much. The problem isn't the personnel -- as some Republicans tends to think -- the problem is systemic. Government just hasn't found a way to create the right set of incentives. And people who work for government are responding to the incentives they do face.
Source. See also here on British "patient stacking"
This is typical of the lazy British bureaucracy. Just to show that they are doing something, they pick on the easy targets. Anybody can find illegals working in restaurants any time but as the restaurant workers are hard-working and providing a useful service they should be bottom priority. But grabbing the problem illegals -- parasitical Muslims and blacks -- would need work.
Note: I am NOT saying that ALL blacks and Muslims are parasitical. But I am saying that there are many in that category. In this age of political correctness, one has to guard against wilful misrepresentation of what one is saying.
Eight Malaysian and Chinese nationals found working illegally at restaurants and a takeaway in a Gwynedd town have been arrested. The Thai Emperor, Everyday Takeaway and Honour Chinese restaurants in Caernarfon were visited by a Border and Immigration Agency team and police. Six of those arrested, who had such jobs as cooking and serving customers, are due to be removed from the UK. The owner of all three premises was given a formal written warning. He will also face future visits by immigration officers, said the agency.
The operation on Wednesday evening followed intelligence. Officers went into all three places at the same time and checked the documents of staff to discover if they had the right to work in the UK. At Thai Emperor, a Malaysian man, 34, and woman, 31, were arrested and are due to be removed from the UK in the coming days. Next door, in Everyday Takeaway, a Malaysian man, 32, was arrested and is also due to be removed. Five illegal workers were arrested at the Honour Chinese restaurant, in Castle Square, including two Chinese men, aged 29 and 33, who were both failed asylum seekers. Steps are being taken to remove them from the UK as soon as possible, said the agency.
Two Malaysian women, aged 24 and 29, and a 39-year-old Malaysian man will be removed from the UK in the coming days. Another Chinese man arrested was later released after producing evidence he was working legally. All those arrested were taken to Caernarfon and St Asaph police stations for questioning. Jane Farleigh, regional director of the Border and Immigration Agency in Wales and the South West said: "This successful operation shows that we will find and arrest illegal workers wherever they are in Wales." [BULLSHIT! When a British bureaucrat's mouth is moving in public, you can be sure that he/she is misrepresenting something] She added: "Illegal working hurts good business, undercuts legal workers and law-abiding businesses, creates illegal profits and puts those employed at risk."
Source
Britain: Privileged children excel, even at low-performing "comprehensive" schools
Charles Murray pointed out long ago that richer people have higher IQs and that IQ is the main factor in educational attainment. What the report below skates over is the safety concerns many British parents have about sending their children to "sink" schools
Middle-class parents obsessed with getting their children into the best schools may be wasting their time and money, academics say today. They found that children from privileged backgrounds excelled when they were deliberately sent to inner-city comprehensives by parents opposed to private schooling. Most of the children "performed brilliantly" at GCSE and A level and 15 per cent of those who went on to university took places at Oxford or Cambridge.
To give their children "the best start in life", many parents choose to live in catchment areas of high-performing schools, "find God" to gain their child a place at a faith establishment or make financial sacrifices to pay for their child's independent schooling. However, the researchers decided to analyse the progress of the offspring of "those white, urban, middle-class parents who consciously choose for their children to be educated at their local state secondary, whatever the league table positioning".
This group attended average or poorly performing schools in working-class or racially mixed areas. Here they thrived academically and were often given special attention by teachers keen to improve the school's results, according to the study by professors in education from the universities of Cambridge, Sunderland and West of England (UWE).
The only failure was in social integration, which had been the very reason most parents sent their child to the school. Most children from middle-class families mixed only with pupils from identical backgrounds. The research found "segregation within schools, with white middle-class children clustered in top sets, with little interaction with children from other backgrounds".
Professor David James, from UWE, said: "But we wanted to discover what motivates parents who instead choose to send their children to local comprehensives that appear to be performing poorly. "Most children who had this choice made for them have gone on to perform brilliantly in GCSEs, A levels and then on to university entrance, including a much higher than average entry to Oxbridge."
The researchers interviewed 124 families from London and two other cities. Eighty-three per cent of the parents had degrees and a quarter were educated to postgraduate level. They included three Labour Party activists and two who worked in a social exclusion research unit. In 70 per cent of families, one or both parents worked in the public sector. Most described themselves as left-wing or liberal.
The report found: "Some parents were motivated by a commitment to state-funded education and egalitarian ideals and many had an active dislike for privileged educational routes on the grounds that they were socially divisive. Many wanted their children to have an educational experience that would prepare them for a globalised, socially diverse world. "These parents positioned themselves in a way we termed `a darker shade of pale', as part of a more culturally tolerant and even anti-racist white middle class. "They felt strongly that higher-achieving schools would not provide the kind of experience of the `real world' that their children needed."
However, the researchers said such parents did not consider that they were sacrificing their children's education, with many seeing it as a worthwhile, if risky, strategy. "Many parents said they could and would pull out if things did not go well," the report said. Some parents who attended privileged schools made the choice as a "conscious reaction to their own schooling". Others wanted their children "to compete in ordinary circumstances". It added: "Anxiety was not absent, especially when their children were attending schools that were pathologised - or even demonised - by other white middle-class parents."
But even though those sending their children to comprehensives were open and tolerant of other backgrounds, in some cases researchers noted "elitism and a sense of intellectual and social superiority - a sense that would be confirmed by their own child's relative success".
Source
Parents defeat Sharia imposition in England
Parent power has prompted an Oxford primary school to rethink a plan to serve only halal meat. Rose Hill Primary School used halal meat, which is slaughtered under Muslim religious law, in several dishes last year and in all meat dishes for a month-long trial last month. It was the first school in the county to ask school meals provider Food with Thought to provide a purely halal menu.
The school has now decided to offer youngsters a choice of normal meat, a halal option or a vegetarian dish, and will use a wristband system to make sure pupils get the correct meal.
Lyndsy Johnson, 35, of Radford Close, said: "We're glad now that we have got the three options. That is how it should have been to start off with. "It was a very big issue. Everyone was talking about it on the estate. We have definitely got parent power."
Parents only found out about the menu change on the last day of winter term - after halal meat had begun to be served. Some parents were opposed to their children eating halal food, because they felt the animals were slaughtered in a cruel way. They said they should have been consulted about the changes. Within days parents raised a petition with 220 signatures, calling for three choices for school meals - meat, halal meat and vegetarian - and met headteacher Sue Mortimer and school governors to discuss their concerns.
On February 8, Mrs Mortimer sent home a letter which read: "Whilst the trial was on I continued to have discussions with Food with Thought and am now able to confirm the school could have three choices at lunchtime." The new menus will begin on Monday with children at the school in The Oval choosing meals at morning registration. They will be given coloured wristbands to show dinner ladies their choice for the day, with a red wristband for meat, blue for halal meat and green for vegetarian.
Mrs Mortimer had told parents the school introduced halal meat as part of its inclusion policy. She said because halal meat was not forbidden by any religion or culture it would allow every pupil to choose a meat dish for lunch. She refused to comment on the new system when approached by the Oxford Mail. A spokesman for Oxfordshire County Council said the school had bought new equipment to ensure halal meat and non-halal meat was kept separate during preparation.
Dr Taj Hargey, chairman of the Muslim Education Centre of Oxford, said: "This is the best solution to improving community relations."
Source
Foreign brides who plan to live in Britain 'must speak English'
Thousands of foreigners who want to marry a British person and move to Britain will have to take an English language test, the Prime Minister announced yesterday. Gordon Brown said that the test would help to prevent foreign brides being exploited. He made his surprise announcement only five hours after a Home Office Green Paper on overhauling citizenship rules said that consultations on English tests for foreigners were continuing.
The Prime Minister said in a speech in North London: "We will introduce a new English language requirement for those applying for a marriage visa and planning to settle in the UK - both as part of our determination that everyone who comes here to live should be able to speak English and to make sure that they cannot be exploited."
The English language test will apply to tens of thousands of spouses, particularly those from the Indian sub-continent. A total of 47,000 spouses and fianc‚es, including 17,000 from the sub-continent, were admitted to the UK in 2006. Ministers have for some time been concerned that some of those arriving from the sub-continent have no knowledge of English, are vulnerable to exploitation and cannot get access to the job market. It was unclear last night whether failure to pass the English language test would lead to outright refusal to come to Britain or whether a temporary visa would be granted.
Mr Brown's announcement came after proposals to reform citizenship rules under which migrants who want a British passport or to settle permanently in the country will have to undergo a probationary period of up to three years. Foreigners will be expected to leave the country if they fail to take citizenship or apply to settle permanently, as the Government seeks to end the situation where migrants "languish in limbo" having been allowed to stay. The Government is also considering ending the "ancestral visa" scheme under which Commonwealth citizens aged over 17 with a British grandparent are allowed to enter Britain to seek work and settle. [That would be very offensive to Australians. The Australian government has in the past retaliated against British restrictions on Australians by introducing similar restrictions on Brits] A scheme under which retired migrants with an annual income of at least 25,000 pounds are allowed to enter Britain, receive free healthcare and then settle may also be scrapped.
Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, made clear that she expected the number of new citizens - more than 1.1 million since Labour came to power 1997 - to increase as a result of the overhaul of citizenship rules. She said: "I would want to see a larger proportion of those that are here moving to full British citizenship. You will not be able to languish in limbo. Once your period of temporary residence comes to an end you will need to apply for the next stage or leave."
Gaining citizenship will take at least six years from arrival in the UK instead of the current five years, and could take as long as eight years. The probation period will last a year if the foreigner takes part in community activities such as charity fundraising, running a sports group or other voluntary work. Migrants who undertake no community or voluntary work will have to wait the existing five years plus a minimum three years on probation. Full access to non-contributory benefits will not be granted after a person has been in the UK for five years, but only after an applicant has completed the probationary period.
A fund financed by a surcharge on immigration applications will be set up to give cash to areas that experience problems because of immigration, such as oversubscribed schools. The fund is expected to raise tens of millions of pounds a year.
Migrants who have served a prison sentence will be barred from citizenship and minor offenders given a non-custodial sentence may have to serve three years on probation. A draft Bill based on the proposals is due this summer, and full legislation is expected in November.
Source
Disgraceful treatment of elderly ex-soldier
Warrant officer is a very distinguished military rank -- indicating that the man was a first class soldier in the service of his country
Now let's look at the lot of the pensioners [social security dependants], highlighted by the imprisoning of 76-year-old, ex Warrant Officer, Richard Fitzmaurice.
Mr Fitzmaurice was shackled and humiliated by a British court (they are no longer fit to be called courts of justice). Eight hours in a holding cell, an hour and a half handcuffed to a guard in a security van and a lengthy wait in a police station custody unit for a prison space. When a jail cell comes free, Mr Fitzmaurice, who has four children, 14 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, will be stripped, searched and locked up with criminals for company. Then at the end of a long traumatic day, finally, at 9.30 in the evening, this 76-year-old veteran , was allowed one phone call to his family. He told his son: "I'm okay. Don't worry about me."
His crime: non-payment of council tax. For that heinous offence, Mr Fitzmaurice, who has seen the bill on his Band D property soar hugely over the years, could spend the next 34 days behind bars. The sum owed - 1,359 pounds - may not seem much to our MPs whose noses sink ever deeper into the trough, but it represents 16 per cent of Mr Fitzmaurice's 8,406 Army pension. Read that again! Mr Fitzmaurice's 8,406 Army pension! Now note that in 1998-1999, the cost of Band D council tax in Heacham was 699. By 2007-2008 this had risen to 1,359 - an increase of 94 per cent.
Faced with demands to pay ever increasing Council Tax on a meagre fixed income meant that he and his wife were being forced to choose: Reduce their spending on food and heating, or pay their council tax in full. Mr Fitzmaurice chose to put the needs of his frail wife of 55 years before the demands of his Councillors.
And who can blame him, for, King's Lynn and West Norfolk Borough Council, who brought the case brought against him have been indulging in a little trough feeding themselves. Last year his borough councillors voted themselves a 35 per cent increase in allowances - 50 per cent more than an independent panel had recommended. The total extra cost to taxpayers was more than 91,000 pounds!!!
This council, like too many others has also routinely wasted so much of the money they extract from the people! In 2003, the council was criticised for spending 50,000 on a beach-cleaning tractor and mechanical rake that proved a waste of time. The previous year, two spa pools in North Lynn built for the disabled at a cost of 30,000 were closed without being used because the construction was found to be sub-standard. And let's not even look at the gold plated pensions and other perks that all council officials now enjoy - at our expense!
Yesterday a cold hearted spokesman for King's Lynn Borough Council said: "Mr Fitzmaurice does not qualify for council tax benefit, so although he can afford to pay he is choosing not to. "He has chosen to pursue the matter in this manner, rather than settle his liability and raise his concerns through legitimate methods. The decision to impose a custodial sentence, and the length of that sentence, rests with the magistrates."
Before he went into court, Mr Fitzmaurice said he was standing up for older people on fixed incomes but faced with steeply rising living costs. "Where is the money supposed to come from?" he asked. "We are on some of the lowest pensions in Europe yet Britain is one of the richest countries in the world. We are being disregarded and shoved on the back burner because it's convenient for the Government. "People are actually sacrificing food so that they can have the heating on. Pensioners are being betrayed by the Government, yet they are the people who put this country where it is today."
And whilst pensioners choose whether to freeze to death or starve to death, our elected MPs will be dining on steak and drinking champagne in Westminster today.
So there you have the connection! It's the link between the haves and the have nots. It's the link between the modern day Marie Antoinette's and the starving peasants! If you don't feel a burning anger at the base wrongness of that and despise those greedy men and women put into Parliament to serve us, but who only think of themselves, then you should do!
Source.
See also here. The gentleman has now been freed after some kind soul paid his bill
Protein boosts early babies' brains
Brain damage with premmies is always a worry so this is very encouraging news
Premature babies given a diet richer in proteins have higher IQs as adolescents, a study at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London has found. The improved diet also changed the structure of their brains later in life, the scientists found, by increasing the size of the caudate nucleus. This is linked to higher intelligence.
The study tested verbal IQ levels and carried out brain scans among two groups of adolescents born prematurely in the 1980s. One group was given a high-protein diet in the four weeks after birth; the other a standard diet.
Elizabeth Isaacs, who led the research, published in Pediatric Research, said: "The data presented here are among the first to show that the structure of the human brain can be influenced by early nutrition. "Scientists have speculated that the size of the caudate nucleus might be influenced by nutrition in infancy, when the brain is undergoing its chief growth spurt. We now see that cognitive effects of early diet that we previously reported in childhood persist into adolescence."
Source
Was the recent British airliner crash the result of global cooling?
The plane's engines were OK and it was not short of fuel. But it had just flown through exceptionally cold temperatures right across the Northern hemisphere and part of the fuel may have frozen. Read here and here to decide for yourself. A small excerpt:
Another pilot commented that "the air temp over the UK at the time [of the accident] was some of the coldest I've ever experienced with OAT [outside air temperature] at higher levels down to -70 degrees Celsius."
There is an unconfirmed report that the BA038 pilots did not descend during cruise to lower altitude.
At very low temperatures, wax crystals form in the fuel and "flowability" may be impeded (akin to the way a blood clot or embolus can cause a stroke). The cold fuel approaches a semi rigid state. Jet fuel also contains some amount of water, and at very low temperatures it will freeze. Icing may not have been an immediate issue here, but rather a contributory one, like paraffin waxing, to the clogging of sensor points/connections. This is particularly relevant to the Full Authority Digital Engine Control (FADEC), which metered fuel to the airplane's Rolls Royce Trent engines. FADECs use reference air and fuel pressures to perform their function; loss of those due to ice obstruction or clogging from waxing can lead to the FADEC's logic becoming confused or unresponsive. Indeed, both FADECs could be affected almost simultaneously by dint of exposure to an identical environment.
Add in a second factor: Heathrow has adopted a new air traffic control procedure known as the Continuous Descent Approach (CDA). The procedure is more fuel efficient than the traditional step-down approach, and basically the engines are at idle power. During aircraft operation, fuel is withdrawn from the fuel tanks and passed to a filter at the inlet to the engine fuel system. To prevent blocking of the filter due to formation of wax or ice in the fuel, a heat exchanger warms the fuel upstream of the filter. Such heat exchangers use hot air bleed from the engine compressor or heat from engine or hydraulic oil. Of note, the times when the greatest heating is required are often those times when the engine is not operating at maximum, for example, during a lengthy descent at idle from high altitude.
With ultra-cold en route temperatures inducing clumps of paraffin or ice, and a cool engine during descent at flight idle, perhaps the stage was set. Any blockages occurring at different times during the descent, and the simultaneity of the thrust loss, would have been seen only when (and because) the auto-throttle called for a thrust increment on finals after gear and flap extension. There is an account that the aircraft did not hold during the approach, which would tend to support the low-power, low-temperature scenario.
Prof. Stott explains his dissent
I am often challenged as follows: "Philip, I know you are critical of the science and politics of `global warming'. But why don't you just play along with it all, because it will be good for energy policy and for the world in general? And, like Pascal's wager, it means you won't lose out either way."
My reply is identical to that reported by James Boswell in his magisterial Life of Johnson (1791) on asking the great man why he wasn't a Papist [just replace the relevant words with `Global Warming', or `Global Warmers']:
"On the Roman Catholick religion he said, `If you join the Papists externally, they will not interrogate you strictly as to your belief in their tenets. No reasoning Papist believes every article of their faith. There is one side on which a good man might be persuaded to embrace it. A good man, of a timorous disposition, in great doubt of his acceptance with God, and pretty credulous, might be glad to be of a church where there are so many helps to get to Heaven. I would be a Papist if I could. I have fear enough; but an obstinate rationality prevents me.'"
Likewise, whenever I hear politicians and activists talking about "stopping climate change", or "saving the planet"; when I see the rich buying indulgences in the form of carbon credits, or carbon offsets; when I hear politicians talking about "zero-carbon houses", when no such thing exists; when I hear scientists declaring that we can manage the most complex, coupled, non-linear, semi-chaotic system known to humans by fiddling at the margins with one factor - and to a degree Celsius; when I see the blatant hypocrisy of newspapers like The Independent and The Guardian, which lecture us all, while selling foreign holidays, page after page; when I hear academics planning to fly to another world conference on climate change; when I watch one more hyped-up report,with shelving ice and doleful polar bears, on the tele; when I see yet another celebrity flying in to yet another world gig to tell us how to live the `Green' life; when I hear claims that wind turbines will save the world; ..... I could go on and on ..... but,
..... an obstinate rationality prevents me from having anything to do with the carbon claptrap of the Global Warming Religion and the trivial pieties of our shallow Age.
And, though I have many faults, I cannot cant. The witch hunters, and the McCarthyists, will thus always find me unrepentant. Above all, we must hold on to our reason, and to our honest understanding of things.
Moreover, I fear that it will be `global warming' hysteria which will ultimately prove to be the witchcraft and the devil of the Age. I refuse to acknowledge its familiar spirits, and I trust, like John Proctor in Arthur Miller's 1953 masterpiece, The Crucible, I shall, to the last, stand firm.
Source
Nationalized medicine and the incentives they face
The role of incentives are too easily ignored by individuals who have the idea that the State is somehow, magically, the solution to whatever problem we face. And government-run health care is supposed to be the solution to the scarcity problem in health care. Economists argue that incentives matter and that political-provision of services creates distorted and perverse incentives. And here is a perfect example.
The British National Health Service is notoriously slow in treating patients. Some people deny this is the case and point to various numbers released by the NHS itself to show how efficient it is. And one number the NHS takes seriously is that they require patients admitted to the emergency ward to be seen within 4 hours of admission. Doesn't that sound peachy?
Don't get too excited. Let me point out how well-intentioned interventions can create unintended incentives. A town in a poor country is faced with too many rats. They offer a bounty for each rat that is killed. Proof of a kill required the bounty hunters to hand in a rat's tail. Alas, a bevy of tailess rats were soon seen running about town. To solve that problem the city required the entire carcass of the rat be handed in. And they were inundated with dead rats. But it seemed to have no impact on the number of rats running about. Apparently individuals took to breeding rats.
There was a time when the South African government decided that they would offer an award for every AK-47 that was turned into the police. These weapons were frequently used in major crimes and it was a bit embarrassing to the ANC government that they had been the importers of the weapons in question when they were trying to overthrow the previous government. So they offered a nice hefty bounty on each AK-47 that was turned in. The only problem was that AK-47s could be purchased in neighboring countries for a lower price. One could buy it in Zimbabwe and legally sell it to the South African government at a premium. AK-47s were duly imported in record numbers in order to collect the awards the government was handing out. To say the least they merely increased the number of such weapons in the country.
Governments are very good at establishing perverse incentives without realizing it. And so it was with the NHS. The 4-hour rule is simple. A patient must be seen within 4 fours of admission. If too many patients are not seen in that time the health service could lose funding. Of course the ability to see patients that quickly is not increased by the rule. Instead the local hospitals have incentives to act in very strange ways.
If you know you can't see a patient in emergency care for at least six hours, but you are required to see them within four hours of admission, then the easiest way to solve the problem is to delay admission for an additional two hours. And that is what is happening according to the Left-of-center Guardian. The paper reports, "thousands of seriously ill patients in ambulance `holding patterns'" were being kept outside in the ambulances "to meet a government pledge that all patients are treated within four hours of admission."
The story was originally broken by The Observer. The Guardian notes:
Those affected by 'patient stacking' include people with broken limbs or those suffering fits or breathing problems. An Observer investigation has also found that some wait for up to five hours in ambulances because A&E units have refused to admit them until they can guarantee to treat them within the time limit. Apart from the danger posed to patients, the detaining of ambulances means vehicles and trained crew are not available to answer new 999 calls because they are being kept on hospital sites.
Notice the knock-on effect of this incentive. The hospital can't see the patients within the required 4 hour period. So it refuses to admit the patient until it can see them and meet government edicts. That means the patients is left in the ambulance. That means the ambulance can't treat other patients.
Under normal conditions the government says that it ought to take 15 minutes from the time an ambulance arrives with a patient until they prepared to depart. Ambulance crews say it is usually 5 to 10 minutes. But reports now show that on 14,700 occasions at 35 hospitals in London alone, in the last year, an ambulance mysteriously took over one hour before they could turn around. And on 332 occasions they took more than two hours. The total for the entire country is probably three times that.
For a moment I want you to think about a fast food restaurant -- say McDonalds. Let us say that the manager notices that they aren't serving customers as quickly as they should. So he sets a 4 minutes rule. From the time a customer enters the line, he should not wait more than four minutes to be served his meal. Do you really think that the way they would meet this target is to lock the doors so customers can't get in?
Why is it that clerks at the local grocery store can process your purchase within a few minutes while government departments around the world can keep you waiting for hours at a time? Are clerks at the local Safeway just that much more efficient than those at the DMV? Or do they face entirely different incentives?
Does the DMV fear losing customers? Does Safeway? Does the salary of the checkout clerk at Safeway depend on keeping customers happy? How about the DMV clerks? I don't think the people differ that much. The problem isn't the personnel -- as some Republicans tends to think -- the problem is systemic. Government just hasn't found a way to create the right set of incentives. And people who work for government are responding to the incentives they do face.
Source. See also here on British "patient stacking"
Friday, February 22, 2008
Twisted British law again
Courageous Indian defended himself against an habitual criminal -- How awful!
A shopkeeper could be charged with murder after an armed robber who tried to steal the day's takings was stabbed with his own knife during a struggle. Tony Singh, 34, described as a hard-working family man who often works 13-hour days, was ambushed as he shut his shop on Sunday evening by Liam Kilroe, 25, a career criminal who was armed with a knife.
Mr Singh fought back and, after a fierce hand-to-hand struggle, Kilroe was seen by witnesses to stagger away clutching the knife to his chest. Kilroe was taken to hospital, where he died, and Mr Singh was detained by police. He is now waiting to discover whether he will be charged, and is on police bail until February 29 pending further inquiries.
Lancashire police confirmed that papers had been sent to the Crown Prosecution Service, which will decide whether Mr Singh should be charged with one of three offences: murder, manslaughter or assault.
Mr Singh, who suffered injuries to his neck and back during the struggle and had to be treated in hospital, insisted yesterday that he had acted in self-defence. The shopkeeper, who runs the Lifestyle Express general store in Skelmersdale, Lancashire, said: "I feel lucky to be alive. All I was doing was trying to stop myself getting hurt. The guy could have killed me. "I have got some injuries to my face and I am pretty shaken up but, thankfully, I am OK and able to return to work. It could have been so much worse. If one of the wounds had gone one inch either way, then it could have been fatal for me."
Kilroe, of Billinge, near St Helens, who had convictions stretching back nine years, was in breach of bail conditions at the time of his death. He had failed to appear in court to answer charges that he carried out armed robberies at a shop and post office with an imitation firearm. In one raid a postmaster was hit over the head with a handgun but the robbers fled empty-handed. In a second robbery, at a general shop in Croston, Leyland, they forced a woman behind the counter to open the till at gunpoint and hand over 8,000 pounds. Kilroe's trial was scheduled to go ahead in his absence earlier this week at Preston Crown Court until Judge Christopher Cornwall was told that the accused had died.
Mr Singh had just shut his store at 9.40pm on Sunday and was about to drive home when Kilroe struck. He smashed the driver's side window of Mr Singh's Ford Focus with the butt of his knife and reached in to demand the takings. The shopkeeper resisted. At the end of the struggle Kilroe was seen to stagger away from the scene with the knife in his chest then stumble to the ground. A number of people witnessed the confrontation and have given statements to police. Mr Singh's customers and fellow shopkeepers offered their support yesterday. One said: "Tony is a much-loved shopkeeper who has worked hard all his life."
Detective Superintendent Mick Gradwell, of Lancashire police, who is leading the investigation, said: "Police and an ambulance attended the scene and found the driver and passenger windows of the Focus smashed. Liam Kilroe was dead by the car and another man was in the car with stabbing injuries to his head and back. "There had clearly been a struggle between the two men and we have recovered a knife which I believe to be Liam Kilroe's. We have had a number of consistent accounts from eye witnesses to the incident and further inquiries will be made."
A spokesman for Lancashire police said that the Crown Prosecution Service had asked them not to divulge details of the struggle because they would form the basis of their decision whether or not to prosecute Mr Singh. He said: "A file will shortly be passed to the Crown Prosecution Service for them to make a decision on finalising the case. Depending on their decision there will either be a charge or no further criminal action and the incident will be passed to the coroner."
Source
Global Cooling: Amazing pictures of countries joining Britain in the big freeze
Even the mainstream media are now talking about global cooling. Heading above and story below from Britain's "Daily Mail". There is a similar article on Newsmax
Yesterday's picture in the Mail of a cascade of icicles in the Yorkshire Dales was a reminder of how cold Britain can be - something many of us have forgotten in this unusually mild winter.
But it really is remarkable how little attention has been paid to the extraordinary weather events which in recent weeks have been affecting other parts of the world. Across much of the northern hemisphere, from Greece and Iran to China and Japan, they have been suffering their worst snowfalls for decades.
Similarly freakish amounts of snow have been falling over much of the northern United States, from Ohio to the Pacific coast, where in parts of the state of Washington up to 200in of snow have fallen in the past fortnight.
In country after country, these abnormal snowfalls have provoked a crisis. In China - the only example to have attracted major coverage in Britain - the worst snow for 50years triggered an unprecedented state of emergency. Large parts of the country have been paralysed, as rail and road transport ground to a standstill. More than 25,000 miles of power lines collapsed under a weight of snow and ice they were never designed to cope with. Snow has devastated thousands of square miles of farmland, threatening severe food shortages. The total cost of the disaster to the Chinese economy may be more than £10billion.
In Afghanistan, freezing weather and the worst snow for 30 years have killed more than 900 people. In neighbouring Tajikistan, according to aid agencies, the coldest winter for 50 years, along with soaring food prices and a massive energy crisis, threatens a "humanitarian catastrophe".
In Greece and Turkey, where temperatures dropped as low as minus 31 degrees Celsius, hundreds of villages have been cut off by blizzards and drifting snow. In Iran, following heavy snowfalls last month, its eastern desert regions - normally still hot at this time of year - have seen their first snow in living memory. In Saudi Arabia last month, people were amazed by the first snow most had ever seen. On the Pacific coast of Japan last week, heavy falls of snow injured more than 50.
Meanwhile in the U.S., similarly abnormal snowfalls have hit more than a dozen states. One Massachusetts town reported 12ft drifts after its heaviest snows in 30 years. In Wisconsin, the state governor declared a state of emergency as schools and airports were forced to close by up to 20in of snow - and even this was dwarfed by the blizzards which dropped as much as 16ft of the white stuff on parts of Washington state.
In light of such similar news from so many places round the world, it may not seem surprising that U.S. satellite data for January shows the extent of snow cover in the northern hemisphere as reaching its highest level since 1966, 42 years ago - and that temperatures were lower than their average for the whole of the 20th century.
Furthermore, it is not only in the northern hemisphere that records are being broken. Following last year's freak snowfalls in such southern cities as Buenos Aires and Sydney, satellite observations from the other end of the world have this winter shown ice cover round the Antarctic at easily its greatest extent for this time of year since data began in 1979, 30per cent above average.
Yet so far in our corner of the world, we have been remarkably slow to notice what was going on elsewhere, and to put the different elements of the story together. Doubtless much of the reason for this has been that, in Western Europe, we have (until the recent cold spell) enjoyed yet another comparatively warm winter - probably thanks to changes in warming sea currents which scientists find hard to explain. (Although Alpine ski resorts have seen their best snow conditions for many years.)
This is why we saw reports of balmy, prematurely spring-like weather, with primroses and blossom coming out earlier than usual and the curator of Kew Gardens suggesting "there is no winter any more" - just when much of the rest of the world was shivering through the coldest January and February since The Beatles were still together.
But one of the oddest features of this great freeze is how little it was predicted. We are so used to hearing that the world is inexorably warming up thanks to rising CO2 emissions, and that recent years have been the hottest since records were kept, that no one prepared us for the possibility that there might suddenly be such a dramatic exception to the accepted trend.
So far, the leading advocates of the global warming thesis have remained fairly quiet about the 2008 freeze, although some may explain that "freak weather events" such as we are now witnessing are just what we should expect to see as Planet Earth hots up - even if this produces the paradox that warming may sometimes lead to cooling.
Global warming "sceptics", on the other hand, are inevitably pointing to these record snowfalls as evidence that global temperatures are no longer rising as the CO2 theory predicts. We may, they suggest, be seeing the start of a period when temperatures reverse their generally upward trend over the past 30 years, as we did in those decades before 1978 known to climate scientists as "the Little Cooling".
The truth is that it is still much too early to draw any long-term conclusions from 2008's great freeze. But it is one of the most startling developments to have emerged in the world's weather patterns for a long time - not least in that it was so unexpected. At least it raises important questions over how our global climate is evolving which the scientists will have to try to explain. To the millions of people whose lives have been seriously disrupted by this year's freeze, the concept of global warming must seem awfully remote.
Source
`Counterknowledge': when fiction masquerades as fact
From 9/11 to homeopathy, `counterknowledge' thrives thanks to a mad mixture of postmodern political correctness and capitalist greed
For anyone who still believes in the methodology of the Enlightenment, sitting around the table at a twenty-first century dinner party can be intellectual torture.
Your fellow guests tuck hungrily into a menu of conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, junk history and (above all) quack medicine. Yet they will also have the nerve to insist that they reject the `medieval superstition' of religion.
We are facing an epidemic of gullibility caused by what I describe in my new book as `counterknowledge' - fiction masquerading as fact. The chief medium of dodgy empirical claims is, unsurprisingly, the internet, which enables people to construct do-it-yourself conspiracy theories and turn them into cyberspace cosmologies within the space of 24 hours.
There is no point pretending that we can (or should) police the internet. What we must do, however, is relentlessly attack trusted institutions that are allowing the pollution of the public domain by counterknowledge.
The real villains of my book are not the snake oil merchants themselves: they are the governments, universities, medical professionals, major publishing houses and newspapers that circulate patently false empirical claims. Let me give you some examples.
Constable Robinson publishes a book called 9/11 Revealed, by Ian Henshall and Rowland Morgan, that recycles every brain-dead `alternative explanation' for the terrorist attacks, including the Pentagon being hit by a missile and the Twin Towers being demolished by pre-rigged explosives. I bought my copy in WH Smith at Paddington Station in London.
Six British universities offer degree courses in homeopathy, a form of 200-year-old quackery whose claims are so risible that the press was mocking them even in the early nineteenth century. The Prince of Wales regularly abuses his constitutional position to lobby on behalf of this witchcraft. Boots the Chemist sells shedloads of homeopathic `medicine' every day.
Patrick Holford, Britain's leading `nutritionist', claims that Vitamin C is proving more effective than AZT against HIV in laboratory tests. He holds no degree higher than a 1970s BSc in psychology, but has been made a visiting professor at the University of Teesside.
British and American universities regularly teach `Afrocentric history', built around a series of claims - for example, that the Greeks stole their philosophy from the Egyptians - which are designed to raise the self-esteem of black students. These claims are fantasies. But then all claims are fantasies, according to the dreary postmodernists who hold sway in the cultural studies faculties of these universities.
How have respected institutions allowed themselves to be drawn into pushing counterknowledge? The answer lies in a mixture of postmodern political correctness and capitalist greed - and the two mix very well together.
I am a capitalist and a conservative. But I also believe in a public domain in which facts must be demonstrated to be true. Many of my allies in this battle are Marxists who believe the same thing. The crucial conflicts of the future may not be between ideologies, but between fact and fantasy. The enemy consists of `9/11 Truthers', Afrocentric historians, homeopaths and `scientific creationists'. An ill-assorted bunch, certainly - but, unfortunately, their stuff sells.
Source
Fat Fascism building
Obesity needs to be tackled in the same way as climate change, a top nutritional scientist has said. The chairman of the International Obesity Taskforce wants world leaders to agree a global pact to ensure that everyone is fed healthy food. [Like what? McDonald's can prevent heart disease. But maybe that is not what he had in mind] Professor Philip James said the challenge of obesity was so great that action was needed now, even without clear evidence of the best options. He also called for stricter rules on marketing and food labelling.
Professor James, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, was speaking in Boston at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He commented: "This is a community epidemic that is actually a response to all the wonderful apparent industrial and economic development changes that we've seen, with a collapse in the need for physical activity, and now a targeting of children to make profits by big industry in food and drink. "We have to change that, and it will not come unless we have a coherent government-led strategy. The issue is: have we got the political will?"
He added that it was important that all food used a "traffic lights" labelling scheme so that consumers could immediately assess fat, sugar and salt content. "This is a form of public education which is being resisted mightily in Brussels with intense lobbying of commissioners who've just announced that they won't go down the British road," he highlighted. "So we're in the process of trying to make it clear that if you're concerned about the health and economics of a society you should take this seriously."
Ten percent of the world's children are either overweight or obese, twice as many as the malnourished, said Professor James. "A huge range of analyses show that we have not been looking at the problem of children's nutrition and well-being properly. "They're disadvantaged from birth, their academic achievement is impaired, their earning power is diminished, and they almost certainly have a life expectancy which is less than that of their parents."
New data from Scandinavia showed that the weight of a child at the age of 7-12 predicted whether or not they were going to die early from heart disease or other problems, he said [but die later of other problems]. "We now have to think in a totally different way and recognise that it's the life cycle," he added. "Because these children start off being born small, they are then exposed to totally inappropriate environments, and they are therefore super-sensitive."
Another expert, Professor Rena Wing, presented research at the AAAS in Boston suggesting that large-scale changes in diet and exercise were needed to prevent obesity [They sure are!]. A study of 5,000 men and women who lost an average of 70lbs (30kg), and kept the weight off for six years, shows that large lifestyle changes - such as exercising 60 to 90 minutes a day - were needed to keep people slim. "The obesity epidemic won't go away simply because people switch to skimmed milk from whole milk," she said. "They need to substantially cut their calories and boost their physical activity to get to a healthy weight - and keep minding the scale once they do."
Source
Cheaper chickens: a slap in the face of British food snobs
The outraged reaction to Tesco's decision to sell chickens for $4 is stuffed with an unpalatable mix of snobbery and fearmongering
Tesco hits a new low with arrival of the 1.99 pounds ($4) chicken', screamed a headline in the Independent. When the paper said `low', it wasn't referring to the price. `While Sainsbury's has committed to massive improvements in animal welfare, Tesco is showing its ethical credentials with this race to the bottom', declared the research director of Compassion in World Farming. The fact that a supermarket could be widely criticised for cutting its prices reveals much about the topsy-turvy, screwed-up debate about food today.
Tesco's decision to slash the price of its Grade A broiler chickens, rather than making the more ethically acceptable free-range variety cheaper, comes almost immediately after celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall launched a television crusade against broiler production. In Hugh's Chicken Run on Channel 4, Fearnley-Whittingstall produced two crops of chicken side-by-side: one using typical intensive methods; the other using free-range principles. The intensively produced chickens, bred to grow quickly, had less space to move in, were kept awake almost constantly and suffered from leg problems. As a result, some of them - though not many - had to be destroyed. The free-range chickens, bred to grow more slowly, were able to roam around outdoors. However, some of the free-range birds also had to be destroyed because they acquired an infection - something which the broiler birds stuck indoors were never exposed to.
In his show, Fearnley-Whittingstall frequently argued that in selling such cheap chicken (it was `two-for-a-fiver', then - now you can get three for six quid), Tesco was complicit in the lowering of welfare standards for chickens. So it must have felt like a personal slap in the face for the posh River Cottage chef when Tesco launched its latest deal to make the birds even cheaper. `I'm very surprised [at Tesco] because everybody is selling out of free-range chicken', said Fearnley-Whittingstall. `To launch a 1.99 chicken is in direct contradiction to a statement [Tesco chief executive] Sir Terry Leahy made last summer, when he said he didn't want to get into a food price war on chicken.'
Tesco, however, is unrepentant. It has promoted the latest price cut as a helping hand to families suffering from `mortgage worries, energy price rises and inflation'. Yet it seems that for a big company to ignore the ethical pestering of a celebrity do-gooder and provide its customers with what they want - good, affordable food - is beyond the pale these days. Numerous commentators and reporters are attacking Tesco for acting `unethically'. Ironically, Hugh's Chicken Run seems to have communicated at least one clear message to viewers: you can get two chickens for a fiver at Tesco! Sales of bog-standard chicken rose by seven per cent after the series ended. This suggests that while the ethical hectoring of food snobs like Fearnley-Whittingstall might get liberal and green-leaning commentators hot under the collar, it doesn't have much of an impact on the British public. When you've got a family to feed, having access to a good dinner for relatively little money is a good thing - and if we really gave a damn about chickens and their `feelings', well, we wouldn't eat them in the first place.
Of course, Tesco is not providing cheap chicken for the love of it. Rather, it thinks that a high-profile promotion such as this will get more shoppers into its stores and increase its turnover. Sainsbury's, on the other hand, has always pitched itself as being a bit classier, middle-class and right-on than Tesco, and so it uses a bit of PR about its ethical values to get a different kind of shopper into its stores. Both companies are interested primarily in making money. But as long as that means producing and selling food cheaply and efficiently, surely that is good news for the rest of us?
Underpinning the reaction to Tesco's price cut is a feeling that food is becoming too cheap - that we no longer know the true value of what we eat. If only we would pay more for our meals, then they would be tastier, healthier and more `ethical'; they would be more morally filling, apparently. It is certainly true that you get what you pay for, and it's nice to have the option of a `posh' chicken every now and then. But it is far from clear why returning to the days when food absorbed 30 per cent or more of the average household budget is anything to celebrate. Such a reversal would inevitably mean sacrificing other things that we enjoy doing, and it would put some foods out of the reach of poorer families altogether. The food snobs' explicit attempt to prevent food from being made cheaper could have a detrimental impact on people's living standards.
What really underpins the outraged reaction to ever-cheaper chicken is snobbery: a sense that the dumb masses don't know what is good for them. Some anti-Tesco (or perhaps Tescophobic) commentators write about the `zombies' who work and shop there, and claim - without a smidgen of evidence - that cheap meat is poisoning poor people. Better if they didn't have meat at all, I suppose, and lived instead on tinned beans and potatoes. Indeed, the chicken snobbery is liberally basted with a mixture of fears: that the food we eat will not only poison our bodies (through making us obese and stuffing us with additives), but will also poison our minds (through making us think that animal cruelty is okay) and poison our communities (through driving the local butcher and baker out of business).
This sense of superiority over the thick, cheap meat-scoffing masses permeates today's food campaigning: it's there in the blame-the-parents scaremongering of Jamie Oliver's TV and political crusade to improve school dinners and police the lunchbox, and in the food fears spread by the likes of Sun columnist Jane Moore and the anti-supermarket rant Tescopoly by Andrew Simms. While most of the British public buys and enjoys cheap and nutritious food, and then gets on with the more interesting parts of their lives, sections of the commentariart bizarrely work themselves into a frenzy about dangerous chickens or turkey twizzlers.
Our food is not killing us. In fact, never in the history of Britain has such a wide variety of safe and healthy food been affordable to so many. When the well-to-do start lecturing companies and customers about their selling and eating habits, it's not just the chickens that need a good roasting.
Source
New conditions for obtaining British citizenship proposed
Immigrants with children and elderly relatives [who apply for citizenship] may have to pay a special levy to help to fund public services, under proposals to be published in a Green Paper today. The money would go into a British trust fund as part of a package of proposals for "earned" citizenship aimed at encouraging applicants for British passports to contribute to society. It is estimated that such a fund could raise up to 15 million pounds a year. A document leaked to Channel Four News states: "Money for the British trust fund will be raised through increases to certain fees for immigration applications, with migrants who tend to consume more in public services - such as children and elderly relatives - paying more than others."
The Green Paper also contains a proposal that immigrants who have worked in Britain for five years be put on probation for an additional year before they can become full British citizens. The document says that this would be to "incentivise immigrants to make the commitment to becoming British citizens and fully integrate into society". A Home Office spokesman said last night: "We are not commenting before the Green Paper is published."
Gordon Brown has already suggested that applicants should be asked to undertake community or voluntary work as a way of introducing them to British institutions and people. Ministers have rejected a points-based system for citizenship or fast-tracking applicants to a passport. They are, however, looking at barring people from becoming citizens if they have been convicted of a serious criminal offence. The existing citizenship requirement is that a person must have lived in Britain for five years, passed a test in English and demonstrated a knowledge of life in Britain.
Before he became Prime Minister Mr Brown said: "In any national debate it is right to consider asking men and women seeking citizenship to undertake some community work in our country or something akin to that which introduces them to a wider range of institutions and people in our country prior to enjoying the benefits of citizenship."
Liam Byrne, the Immigration Minister, who has been drawing up the proposals, said that the message had to be that becoming a British citizen was not something that was simply handed out but should be earned. In a recent speech he said that Britons had made clear that they thought newcomers should pay taxes and that no favours should be given to the rich. "I asked people whether successful migrants - like high-earning footballers or surgeons - should get ahead faster. I got a pretty blunt answer. Treat everyone the same. Just make sure no one's dodging their dues." He added that people wanted applicants to obey British laws. "When an offence is serious, I am afraid we do want to show newcomers the exit door," Mr Byrne said.
Source
Courageous Indian defended himself against an habitual criminal -- How awful!
A shopkeeper could be charged with murder after an armed robber who tried to steal the day's takings was stabbed with his own knife during a struggle. Tony Singh, 34, described as a hard-working family man who often works 13-hour days, was ambushed as he shut his shop on Sunday evening by Liam Kilroe, 25, a career criminal who was armed with a knife.
Mr Singh fought back and, after a fierce hand-to-hand struggle, Kilroe was seen by witnesses to stagger away clutching the knife to his chest. Kilroe was taken to hospital, where he died, and Mr Singh was detained by police. He is now waiting to discover whether he will be charged, and is on police bail until February 29 pending further inquiries.
Lancashire police confirmed that papers had been sent to the Crown Prosecution Service, which will decide whether Mr Singh should be charged with one of three offences: murder, manslaughter or assault.
Mr Singh, who suffered injuries to his neck and back during the struggle and had to be treated in hospital, insisted yesterday that he had acted in self-defence. The shopkeeper, who runs the Lifestyle Express general store in Skelmersdale, Lancashire, said: "I feel lucky to be alive. All I was doing was trying to stop myself getting hurt. The guy could have killed me. "I have got some injuries to my face and I am pretty shaken up but, thankfully, I am OK and able to return to work. It could have been so much worse. If one of the wounds had gone one inch either way, then it could have been fatal for me."
Kilroe, of Billinge, near St Helens, who had convictions stretching back nine years, was in breach of bail conditions at the time of his death. He had failed to appear in court to answer charges that he carried out armed robberies at a shop and post office with an imitation firearm. In one raid a postmaster was hit over the head with a handgun but the robbers fled empty-handed. In a second robbery, at a general shop in Croston, Leyland, they forced a woman behind the counter to open the till at gunpoint and hand over 8,000 pounds. Kilroe's trial was scheduled to go ahead in his absence earlier this week at Preston Crown Court until Judge Christopher Cornwall was told that the accused had died.
Mr Singh had just shut his store at 9.40pm on Sunday and was about to drive home when Kilroe struck. He smashed the driver's side window of Mr Singh's Ford Focus with the butt of his knife and reached in to demand the takings. The shopkeeper resisted. At the end of the struggle Kilroe was seen to stagger away from the scene with the knife in his chest then stumble to the ground. A number of people witnessed the confrontation and have given statements to police. Mr Singh's customers and fellow shopkeepers offered their support yesterday. One said: "Tony is a much-loved shopkeeper who has worked hard all his life."
Detective Superintendent Mick Gradwell, of Lancashire police, who is leading the investigation, said: "Police and an ambulance attended the scene and found the driver and passenger windows of the Focus smashed. Liam Kilroe was dead by the car and another man was in the car with stabbing injuries to his head and back. "There had clearly been a struggle between the two men and we have recovered a knife which I believe to be Liam Kilroe's. We have had a number of consistent accounts from eye witnesses to the incident and further inquiries will be made."
A spokesman for Lancashire police said that the Crown Prosecution Service had asked them not to divulge details of the struggle because they would form the basis of their decision whether or not to prosecute Mr Singh. He said: "A file will shortly be passed to the Crown Prosecution Service for them to make a decision on finalising the case. Depending on their decision there will either be a charge or no further criminal action and the incident will be passed to the coroner."
Source
Global Cooling: Amazing pictures of countries joining Britain in the big freeze
Even the mainstream media are now talking about global cooling. Heading above and story below from Britain's "Daily Mail". There is a similar article on Newsmax
Yesterday's picture in the Mail of a cascade of icicles in the Yorkshire Dales was a reminder of how cold Britain can be - something many of us have forgotten in this unusually mild winter.
But it really is remarkable how little attention has been paid to the extraordinary weather events which in recent weeks have been affecting other parts of the world. Across much of the northern hemisphere, from Greece and Iran to China and Japan, they have been suffering their worst snowfalls for decades.
Similarly freakish amounts of snow have been falling over much of the northern United States, from Ohio to the Pacific coast, where in parts of the state of Washington up to 200in of snow have fallen in the past fortnight.
In country after country, these abnormal snowfalls have provoked a crisis. In China - the only example to have attracted major coverage in Britain - the worst snow for 50years triggered an unprecedented state of emergency. Large parts of the country have been paralysed, as rail and road transport ground to a standstill. More than 25,000 miles of power lines collapsed under a weight of snow and ice they were never designed to cope with. Snow has devastated thousands of square miles of farmland, threatening severe food shortages. The total cost of the disaster to the Chinese economy may be more than £10billion.
In Afghanistan, freezing weather and the worst snow for 30 years have killed more than 900 people. In neighbouring Tajikistan, according to aid agencies, the coldest winter for 50 years, along with soaring food prices and a massive energy crisis, threatens a "humanitarian catastrophe".
In Greece and Turkey, where temperatures dropped as low as minus 31 degrees Celsius, hundreds of villages have been cut off by blizzards and drifting snow. In Iran, following heavy snowfalls last month, its eastern desert regions - normally still hot at this time of year - have seen their first snow in living memory. In Saudi Arabia last month, people were amazed by the first snow most had ever seen. On the Pacific coast of Japan last week, heavy falls of snow injured more than 50.
Meanwhile in the U.S., similarly abnormal snowfalls have hit more than a dozen states. One Massachusetts town reported 12ft drifts after its heaviest snows in 30 years. In Wisconsin, the state governor declared a state of emergency as schools and airports were forced to close by up to 20in of snow - and even this was dwarfed by the blizzards which dropped as much as 16ft of the white stuff on parts of Washington state.
In light of such similar news from so many places round the world, it may not seem surprising that U.S. satellite data for January shows the extent of snow cover in the northern hemisphere as reaching its highest level since 1966, 42 years ago - and that temperatures were lower than their average for the whole of the 20th century.
Furthermore, it is not only in the northern hemisphere that records are being broken. Following last year's freak snowfalls in such southern cities as Buenos Aires and Sydney, satellite observations from the other end of the world have this winter shown ice cover round the Antarctic at easily its greatest extent for this time of year since data began in 1979, 30per cent above average.
Yet so far in our corner of the world, we have been remarkably slow to notice what was going on elsewhere, and to put the different elements of the story together. Doubtless much of the reason for this has been that, in Western Europe, we have (until the recent cold spell) enjoyed yet another comparatively warm winter - probably thanks to changes in warming sea currents which scientists find hard to explain. (Although Alpine ski resorts have seen their best snow conditions for many years.)
This is why we saw reports of balmy, prematurely spring-like weather, with primroses and blossom coming out earlier than usual and the curator of Kew Gardens suggesting "there is no winter any more" - just when much of the rest of the world was shivering through the coldest January and February since The Beatles were still together.
But one of the oddest features of this great freeze is how little it was predicted. We are so used to hearing that the world is inexorably warming up thanks to rising CO2 emissions, and that recent years have been the hottest since records were kept, that no one prepared us for the possibility that there might suddenly be such a dramatic exception to the accepted trend.
So far, the leading advocates of the global warming thesis have remained fairly quiet about the 2008 freeze, although some may explain that "freak weather events" such as we are now witnessing are just what we should expect to see as Planet Earth hots up - even if this produces the paradox that warming may sometimes lead to cooling.
Global warming "sceptics", on the other hand, are inevitably pointing to these record snowfalls as evidence that global temperatures are no longer rising as the CO2 theory predicts. We may, they suggest, be seeing the start of a period when temperatures reverse their generally upward trend over the past 30 years, as we did in those decades before 1978 known to climate scientists as "the Little Cooling".
The truth is that it is still much too early to draw any long-term conclusions from 2008's great freeze. But it is one of the most startling developments to have emerged in the world's weather patterns for a long time - not least in that it was so unexpected. At least it raises important questions over how our global climate is evolving which the scientists will have to try to explain. To the millions of people whose lives have been seriously disrupted by this year's freeze, the concept of global warming must seem awfully remote.
Source
`Counterknowledge': when fiction masquerades as fact
From 9/11 to homeopathy, `counterknowledge' thrives thanks to a mad mixture of postmodern political correctness and capitalist greed
For anyone who still believes in the methodology of the Enlightenment, sitting around the table at a twenty-first century dinner party can be intellectual torture.
Your fellow guests tuck hungrily into a menu of conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, junk history and (above all) quack medicine. Yet they will also have the nerve to insist that they reject the `medieval superstition' of religion.
We are facing an epidemic of gullibility caused by what I describe in my new book as `counterknowledge' - fiction masquerading as fact. The chief medium of dodgy empirical claims is, unsurprisingly, the internet, which enables people to construct do-it-yourself conspiracy theories and turn them into cyberspace cosmologies within the space of 24 hours.
There is no point pretending that we can (or should) police the internet. What we must do, however, is relentlessly attack trusted institutions that are allowing the pollution of the public domain by counterknowledge.
The real villains of my book are not the snake oil merchants themselves: they are the governments, universities, medical professionals, major publishing houses and newspapers that circulate patently false empirical claims. Let me give you some examples.
Constable Robinson publishes a book called 9/11 Revealed, by Ian Henshall and Rowland Morgan, that recycles every brain-dead `alternative explanation' for the terrorist attacks, including the Pentagon being hit by a missile and the Twin Towers being demolished by pre-rigged explosives. I bought my copy in WH Smith at Paddington Station in London.
Six British universities offer degree courses in homeopathy, a form of 200-year-old quackery whose claims are so risible that the press was mocking them even in the early nineteenth century. The Prince of Wales regularly abuses his constitutional position to lobby on behalf of this witchcraft. Boots the Chemist sells shedloads of homeopathic `medicine' every day.
Patrick Holford, Britain's leading `nutritionist', claims that Vitamin C is proving more effective than AZT against HIV in laboratory tests. He holds no degree higher than a 1970s BSc in psychology, but has been made a visiting professor at the University of Teesside.
British and American universities regularly teach `Afrocentric history', built around a series of claims - for example, that the Greeks stole their philosophy from the Egyptians - which are designed to raise the self-esteem of black students. These claims are fantasies. But then all claims are fantasies, according to the dreary postmodernists who hold sway in the cultural studies faculties of these universities.
How have respected institutions allowed themselves to be drawn into pushing counterknowledge? The answer lies in a mixture of postmodern political correctness and capitalist greed - and the two mix very well together.
I am a capitalist and a conservative. But I also believe in a public domain in which facts must be demonstrated to be true. Many of my allies in this battle are Marxists who believe the same thing. The crucial conflicts of the future may not be between ideologies, but between fact and fantasy. The enemy consists of `9/11 Truthers', Afrocentric historians, homeopaths and `scientific creationists'. An ill-assorted bunch, certainly - but, unfortunately, their stuff sells.
Source
Fat Fascism building
Obesity needs to be tackled in the same way as climate change, a top nutritional scientist has said. The chairman of the International Obesity Taskforce wants world leaders to agree a global pact to ensure that everyone is fed healthy food. [Like what? McDonald's can prevent heart disease. But maybe that is not what he had in mind] Professor Philip James said the challenge of obesity was so great that action was needed now, even without clear evidence of the best options. He also called for stricter rules on marketing and food labelling.
Professor James, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, was speaking in Boston at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He commented: "This is a community epidemic that is actually a response to all the wonderful apparent industrial and economic development changes that we've seen, with a collapse in the need for physical activity, and now a targeting of children to make profits by big industry in food and drink. "We have to change that, and it will not come unless we have a coherent government-led strategy. The issue is: have we got the political will?"
He added that it was important that all food used a "traffic lights" labelling scheme so that consumers could immediately assess fat, sugar and salt content. "This is a form of public education which is being resisted mightily in Brussels with intense lobbying of commissioners who've just announced that they won't go down the British road," he highlighted. "So we're in the process of trying to make it clear that if you're concerned about the health and economics of a society you should take this seriously."
Ten percent of the world's children are either overweight or obese, twice as many as the malnourished, said Professor James. "A huge range of analyses show that we have not been looking at the problem of children's nutrition and well-being properly. "They're disadvantaged from birth, their academic achievement is impaired, their earning power is diminished, and they almost certainly have a life expectancy which is less than that of their parents."
New data from Scandinavia showed that the weight of a child at the age of 7-12 predicted whether or not they were going to die early from heart disease or other problems, he said [but die later of other problems]. "We now have to think in a totally different way and recognise that it's the life cycle," he added. "Because these children start off being born small, they are then exposed to totally inappropriate environments, and they are therefore super-sensitive."
Another expert, Professor Rena Wing, presented research at the AAAS in Boston suggesting that large-scale changes in diet and exercise were needed to prevent obesity [They sure are!]. A study of 5,000 men and women who lost an average of 70lbs (30kg), and kept the weight off for six years, shows that large lifestyle changes - such as exercising 60 to 90 minutes a day - were needed to keep people slim. "The obesity epidemic won't go away simply because people switch to skimmed milk from whole milk," she said. "They need to substantially cut their calories and boost their physical activity to get to a healthy weight - and keep minding the scale once they do."
Source
Cheaper chickens: a slap in the face of British food snobs
The outraged reaction to Tesco's decision to sell chickens for $4 is stuffed with an unpalatable mix of snobbery and fearmongering
Tesco hits a new low with arrival of the 1.99 pounds ($4) chicken', screamed a headline in the Independent. When the paper said `low', it wasn't referring to the price. `While Sainsbury's has committed to massive improvements in animal welfare, Tesco is showing its ethical credentials with this race to the bottom', declared the research director of Compassion in World Farming. The fact that a supermarket could be widely criticised for cutting its prices reveals much about the topsy-turvy, screwed-up debate about food today.
Tesco's decision to slash the price of its Grade A broiler chickens, rather than making the more ethically acceptable free-range variety cheaper, comes almost immediately after celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall launched a television crusade against broiler production. In Hugh's Chicken Run on Channel 4, Fearnley-Whittingstall produced two crops of chicken side-by-side: one using typical intensive methods; the other using free-range principles. The intensively produced chickens, bred to grow quickly, had less space to move in, were kept awake almost constantly and suffered from leg problems. As a result, some of them - though not many - had to be destroyed. The free-range chickens, bred to grow more slowly, were able to roam around outdoors. However, some of the free-range birds also had to be destroyed because they acquired an infection - something which the broiler birds stuck indoors were never exposed to.
In his show, Fearnley-Whittingstall frequently argued that in selling such cheap chicken (it was `two-for-a-fiver', then - now you can get three for six quid), Tesco was complicit in the lowering of welfare standards for chickens. So it must have felt like a personal slap in the face for the posh River Cottage chef when Tesco launched its latest deal to make the birds even cheaper. `I'm very surprised [at Tesco] because everybody is selling out of free-range chicken', said Fearnley-Whittingstall. `To launch a 1.99 chicken is in direct contradiction to a statement [Tesco chief executive] Sir Terry Leahy made last summer, when he said he didn't want to get into a food price war on chicken.'
Tesco, however, is unrepentant. It has promoted the latest price cut as a helping hand to families suffering from `mortgage worries, energy price rises and inflation'. Yet it seems that for a big company to ignore the ethical pestering of a celebrity do-gooder and provide its customers with what they want - good, affordable food - is beyond the pale these days. Numerous commentators and reporters are attacking Tesco for acting `unethically'. Ironically, Hugh's Chicken Run seems to have communicated at least one clear message to viewers: you can get two chickens for a fiver at Tesco! Sales of bog-standard chicken rose by seven per cent after the series ended. This suggests that while the ethical hectoring of food snobs like Fearnley-Whittingstall might get liberal and green-leaning commentators hot under the collar, it doesn't have much of an impact on the British public. When you've got a family to feed, having access to a good dinner for relatively little money is a good thing - and if we really gave a damn about chickens and their `feelings', well, we wouldn't eat them in the first place.
Of course, Tesco is not providing cheap chicken for the love of it. Rather, it thinks that a high-profile promotion such as this will get more shoppers into its stores and increase its turnover. Sainsbury's, on the other hand, has always pitched itself as being a bit classier, middle-class and right-on than Tesco, and so it uses a bit of PR about its ethical values to get a different kind of shopper into its stores. Both companies are interested primarily in making money. But as long as that means producing and selling food cheaply and efficiently, surely that is good news for the rest of us?
Underpinning the reaction to Tesco's price cut is a feeling that food is becoming too cheap - that we no longer know the true value of what we eat. If only we would pay more for our meals, then they would be tastier, healthier and more `ethical'; they would be more morally filling, apparently. It is certainly true that you get what you pay for, and it's nice to have the option of a `posh' chicken every now and then. But it is far from clear why returning to the days when food absorbed 30 per cent or more of the average household budget is anything to celebrate. Such a reversal would inevitably mean sacrificing other things that we enjoy doing, and it would put some foods out of the reach of poorer families altogether. The food snobs' explicit attempt to prevent food from being made cheaper could have a detrimental impact on people's living standards.
What really underpins the outraged reaction to ever-cheaper chicken is snobbery: a sense that the dumb masses don't know what is good for them. Some anti-Tesco (or perhaps Tescophobic) commentators write about the `zombies' who work and shop there, and claim - without a smidgen of evidence - that cheap meat is poisoning poor people. Better if they didn't have meat at all, I suppose, and lived instead on tinned beans and potatoes. Indeed, the chicken snobbery is liberally basted with a mixture of fears: that the food we eat will not only poison our bodies (through making us obese and stuffing us with additives), but will also poison our minds (through making us think that animal cruelty is okay) and poison our communities (through driving the local butcher and baker out of business).
This sense of superiority over the thick, cheap meat-scoffing masses permeates today's food campaigning: it's there in the blame-the-parents scaremongering of Jamie Oliver's TV and political crusade to improve school dinners and police the lunchbox, and in the food fears spread by the likes of Sun columnist Jane Moore and the anti-supermarket rant Tescopoly by Andrew Simms. While most of the British public buys and enjoys cheap and nutritious food, and then gets on with the more interesting parts of their lives, sections of the commentariart bizarrely work themselves into a frenzy about dangerous chickens or turkey twizzlers.
Our food is not killing us. In fact, never in the history of Britain has such a wide variety of safe and healthy food been affordable to so many. When the well-to-do start lecturing companies and customers about their selling and eating habits, it's not just the chickens that need a good roasting.
Source
New conditions for obtaining British citizenship proposed
Immigrants with children and elderly relatives [who apply for citizenship] may have to pay a special levy to help to fund public services, under proposals to be published in a Green Paper today. The money would go into a British trust fund as part of a package of proposals for "earned" citizenship aimed at encouraging applicants for British passports to contribute to society. It is estimated that such a fund could raise up to 15 million pounds a year. A document leaked to Channel Four News states: "Money for the British trust fund will be raised through increases to certain fees for immigration applications, with migrants who tend to consume more in public services - such as children and elderly relatives - paying more than others."
The Green Paper also contains a proposal that immigrants who have worked in Britain for five years be put on probation for an additional year before they can become full British citizens. The document says that this would be to "incentivise immigrants to make the commitment to becoming British citizens and fully integrate into society". A Home Office spokesman said last night: "We are not commenting before the Green Paper is published."
Gordon Brown has already suggested that applicants should be asked to undertake community or voluntary work as a way of introducing them to British institutions and people. Ministers have rejected a points-based system for citizenship or fast-tracking applicants to a passport. They are, however, looking at barring people from becoming citizens if they have been convicted of a serious criminal offence. The existing citizenship requirement is that a person must have lived in Britain for five years, passed a test in English and demonstrated a knowledge of life in Britain.
Before he became Prime Minister Mr Brown said: "In any national debate it is right to consider asking men and women seeking citizenship to undertake some community work in our country or something akin to that which introduces them to a wider range of institutions and people in our country prior to enjoying the benefits of citizenship."
Liam Byrne, the Immigration Minister, who has been drawing up the proposals, said that the message had to be that becoming a British citizen was not something that was simply handed out but should be earned. In a recent speech he said that Britons had made clear that they thought newcomers should pay taxes and that no favours should be given to the rich. "I asked people whether successful migrants - like high-earning footballers or surgeons - should get ahead faster. I got a pretty blunt answer. Treat everyone the same. Just make sure no one's dodging their dues." He added that people wanted applicants to obey British laws. "When an offence is serious, I am afraid we do want to show newcomers the exit door," Mr Byrne said.
Source
Thursday, February 21, 2008
More governmment health dictatorship for Britain?
Paternalistic plan to deter smokers: Permit to be required. Big Julian has been pushing this idea for some time
A ban on the sale of cigarettes to anyone who does not pay for a government smoking permit has been proposed by Health England, a ministerial advisory board. The idea is the brainchild of the board's chairman, Julian Le Grand, who is a professor at the London School of Economics and was Tony Blair's senior health adviser. In a paper being studied by Lord Darzi, the health minister appointed to oversee NHS reform, he says many smokers would be helped to break the habit if they had to make a decision whether to "opt in".
The permit might cost as little as 10 pounds, but acquiring it could be made difficult if the forms were sufficiently complex, Le Grand said last night. His paper says: "Suppose every individual who wanted to buy tobacco had to purchase a permit. And suppose further they had to do this every year. To get a permit would involve filling out a form and supplying a photograph, as well as paying the fee. Permits would only be issued to those over 18 and evidence of age would have to be provided. The money raised would go to the NHS."
Le Grand said the proposal was an example of "libertarian paternalism". The government would leave people free to make their own decisions but it would "nudge them" in the right direction. He said there was a parallel in pensions law. If workers were automatically enrolled in a pension scheme, few would choose to opt out. But if they had to make a conscious decision to opt in, most people would stay out. "Breaking the new year's resolution not to smoke would be costly in terms of both money and time ... [This] would probably have a greater impact on poor smokers than on rich ones, hence contributing to a reduction in health inequalities."
The paper, written by Le Grand and Divya Srivastava, an LSE researcher, acknowledges: "Administratively it would require addressing the problem of the existing black markets and smuggling in tobacco; but this should probably be done anyway." They add: "Politically, this might be viewed by some as giving people a 'licence' to smoke; and by full-blooded libertarians as a subtle and hence even more dangerous form of paternalism - paternalism squared. "On the other hand, the popularity even among smokers of the smoking ban in public places suggests that firm actions in this area can lead to political as well as health pay-offs."
The paper also proposes incentives for large companies to provide a daily "exercise hour" for employees and a ban on salt in processed food. A Department of Health spokeswoman said last night: "We will be consulting later this year on the next steps for tobacco control. Ministers are looking for input from a full range of stakeholders."
Source
Taking the ash out of Ash Wednesday
An Australian writer flagellates the green-leaning C of E bishops who want to turn Lent into 40 days and 40 nights of conserving energy.
Ash Wednesday was something special when I was a child. You exited church with a huge carbon smut on your forehead. Woe betide the coward who furtively wiped it off. Our nun teacher, who bore a remarkable resemblance to the Penguin of The Blues Brothers fame, told us that those ashes were a poke in the eye of a godless world.
So when I read that the Church of England (CofE) bishops of London and Liverpool, Dr Richard Chartres and James Jones, have declared a carbon-free Lent, I could just imagine the Penguin unsheathing her wooden yardstick to xylophone their knuckles. `How dare those brazen things take the ash out of Ash Wednesday?' she would be muttering.
Amen to that. Just how will a carbon-free Lent make Britain more Christian? Even to an unbeliever, the bishops' initiative seems just a bit daft. As the non plus ultra of Lenten self-denial, participants in the Carbon Fast are to remove one prominent light bulb and live without it for 40 excruciating days. On Easter, they will screw in a low-energy bulb, thus saving 60kg of carbon (1).
The symbolism of this is perfect, if inadvertent. Why the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead should be symbolised by Easter Bunnies and chocolate Easter eggs has never been clear to me. But replacing high-energy light bulbs with dimmer low-energy ones seems a perfect image of the slow extinction of Christianity in England.
Instead of fasting for Lent, the bishops are urging their faithful to reduce their carbon footprint a fraction each day. Instead of giving up snacking on chocolates, they are told to avoid using plastic bags. Instead of giving up lolly-gobbling, they are told to unplug their mobile phone charger. Instead of giving up alcohol, they are told to check the house for draughts (2).
Along with God, the bishops seem to have lost their common sense. Obesity has been linked to global warming (3). Chocoholic lolly-gobblers walk less, consume more McDonald's and use more electric appliances. Have they calculated how much the carbon footprint of their flock would shrink if they gave up sweets for Lent? And the idea that reusing old envelopes is superior to teetotalling as a way of reducing carbon emissions is risible. The conversion of the legions of Britain's alleged binge drinkers would be a great environmental, as well as spiritual, achievement.
As the bishops rightly point out, however, Lent is not only about penitential practices like fasting, going temporarily vegan and taking cold showers. It is also about concern for one's neighbour. The sample sermon in the promotions kit for their Carbon Fast includes the touching story of Andrew Maglasey's young family. Their life has apparently been ruined by climate change.
But bishops in Britain should be concerned about the global impact of a warmer world - and the fact that it might potentially be a good thing. Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg claims that deaths attributable to excessively hot weather are typically an order of magnitude lower than that for excessively cold weather. In Europe, the figures are 1.5million cold deaths versus 200,000 heat deaths. Overall, claims Lomborg, by 2050 a warmer planet might actually save 1.4million lives a year.
I realise that in the eyes of environmentally aware bishops, Lomborg is a heretic - not just a scientific heretic, but a stack-the-faggots-dry-and-high sort of heretic. The theologian du jour is Al Gore, whose documentary An Inconvenient Truth is a recommended resource for the Carbon Fast campaign. Perhaps they are thinking of adding it to the Bible as a multimedia appendix to the Book of the Apocalypse.
Nonetheless, their eco-friendly Lenten resolutions would benefit from Lomborg's rigorous scrutiny of the impact on developing countries. If less petrol is consumed, won't that put Nigerians out of work? If you use low-energy lightbulbs made in Holland, will that put out of work Indonesians who make the high-energy ones? Are Bishop Chartres and Bishop Jones willing to take responsibility for the deaths that a cooler world may cause?
Chesterton is reported to have said that those who stop believing in Christianity don't believe in nothing, they believe in anything. This is not an epigram which the readers of spiked, a generally godless publication, are likely to assent to. But it does seem to apply to certain clerics. Having abandoned traditional practices of Christian piety in a desperate search for relevance and fuller pews, the bishops have resorted to touting an activities list which treats the environment with the respect they once paid to God.
The problem with sprinkling holy water over 40 sensible ways of being thrifty is that they don't express an interior conversion to anything, much less God. You don't need to be a Christian to want to save money by using less electricity. The old ways of living Lent were senseless, in a way. But they symbolised a sturdy desire to amend one's life, which was hopefully reflected in more upright behaviour and greater devotion to religious practice. The new Carbon-free Lent is nothing of the sort: it lacks any sense of transcendence whatsoever.
Above all, the privations of Lent were supposed to be an imitation of the 40 days Christ spent in the desert fasting before beginning his ministry. Fasting and penance are essential to Christianity because its founder commanded them: `If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.' It is a strange sales pitch in the Penguin's godless world, but at least it is a distinctive one - unlike the bishops' commonsense message of thrift, which appears to have been cribbed from a list of handy household hints by Tesco's public relations department.
However, one of the bishops' suggestions is more demanding than anything the Penguin would ever have recommended to us. On the thirty-ninth day of Lent, Good Friday, the day when Christendom contemplates the betrayal, the scourging, the crucifixion and agonising death of Christ, they want their flock to talk to church leaders about making their churches greener. Only a saint could possibly do that. Give me a hairshirt any day.
Source
British government still losing data disks: "Serious offenders on the run from the Netherlands have been able to commit further crimes in Britain after the Crown Prosecution Service mislaid a computer disc containing their details. Home Office ministers were told within the past two or three weeks that a disc containing details of 4,000 offenders whom the Dutch authorities wished to trace had been missing for almost a year. The disc contained DNA details of 4,000 offenders, some of whom are believed to be murderers and rapists, which the Dutch sent to Britain to be checked against the national DNA database. Initial checks on 2,000 samples carried out by police since the disc was discovered last month have found matches against 15 people, including 11 who have committed further crimes in Britain during the past year. But the figures could be higher, as a team of police officers still have to carry out checks on a further 2,000 samples provided by the Dutch authorities."
Israeli general escaped arrest at Heathrow `because police feared gunfight': "An Israeli general wanted for alleged war crimes escaped arrest at Heathrow airport because British police feared an armed stand-off. Major-General Doron Almog stayed on board the El Al plane for two hours after it landed in London in September 2005 after being tipped off that a warrant had been issued for his detention. Leaked documents now show that officers refused to board the plane because they were worried about the possibility of a confrontation with the armed marshals who travel on flights operated by El Al, the Israeli national airline. There were also concerns that General Almog, who has been accused of illegally ordering the destruction of 59 homes in the Gaza Strip in 2002, might have been travelling with armed personal security."
Paternalistic plan to deter smokers: Permit to be required. Big Julian has been pushing this idea for some time
A ban on the sale of cigarettes to anyone who does not pay for a government smoking permit has been proposed by Health England, a ministerial advisory board. The idea is the brainchild of the board's chairman, Julian Le Grand, who is a professor at the London School of Economics and was Tony Blair's senior health adviser. In a paper being studied by Lord Darzi, the health minister appointed to oversee NHS reform, he says many smokers would be helped to break the habit if they had to make a decision whether to "opt in".
The permit might cost as little as 10 pounds, but acquiring it could be made difficult if the forms were sufficiently complex, Le Grand said last night. His paper says: "Suppose every individual who wanted to buy tobacco had to purchase a permit. And suppose further they had to do this every year. To get a permit would involve filling out a form and supplying a photograph, as well as paying the fee. Permits would only be issued to those over 18 and evidence of age would have to be provided. The money raised would go to the NHS."
Le Grand said the proposal was an example of "libertarian paternalism". The government would leave people free to make their own decisions but it would "nudge them" in the right direction. He said there was a parallel in pensions law. If workers were automatically enrolled in a pension scheme, few would choose to opt out. But if they had to make a conscious decision to opt in, most people would stay out. "Breaking the new year's resolution not to smoke would be costly in terms of both money and time ... [This] would probably have a greater impact on poor smokers than on rich ones, hence contributing to a reduction in health inequalities."
The paper, written by Le Grand and Divya Srivastava, an LSE researcher, acknowledges: "Administratively it would require addressing the problem of the existing black markets and smuggling in tobacco; but this should probably be done anyway." They add: "Politically, this might be viewed by some as giving people a 'licence' to smoke; and by full-blooded libertarians as a subtle and hence even more dangerous form of paternalism - paternalism squared. "On the other hand, the popularity even among smokers of the smoking ban in public places suggests that firm actions in this area can lead to political as well as health pay-offs."
The paper also proposes incentives for large companies to provide a daily "exercise hour" for employees and a ban on salt in processed food. A Department of Health spokeswoman said last night: "We will be consulting later this year on the next steps for tobacco control. Ministers are looking for input from a full range of stakeholders."
Source
Taking the ash out of Ash Wednesday
An Australian writer flagellates the green-leaning C of E bishops who want to turn Lent into 40 days and 40 nights of conserving energy.
Ash Wednesday was something special when I was a child. You exited church with a huge carbon smut on your forehead. Woe betide the coward who furtively wiped it off. Our nun teacher, who bore a remarkable resemblance to the Penguin of The Blues Brothers fame, told us that those ashes were a poke in the eye of a godless world.
So when I read that the Church of England (CofE) bishops of London and Liverpool, Dr Richard Chartres and James Jones, have declared a carbon-free Lent, I could just imagine the Penguin unsheathing her wooden yardstick to xylophone their knuckles. `How dare those brazen things take the ash out of Ash Wednesday?' she would be muttering.
Amen to that. Just how will a carbon-free Lent make Britain more Christian? Even to an unbeliever, the bishops' initiative seems just a bit daft. As the non plus ultra of Lenten self-denial, participants in the Carbon Fast are to remove one prominent light bulb and live without it for 40 excruciating days. On Easter, they will screw in a low-energy bulb, thus saving 60kg of carbon (1).
The symbolism of this is perfect, if inadvertent. Why the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead should be symbolised by Easter Bunnies and chocolate Easter eggs has never been clear to me. But replacing high-energy light bulbs with dimmer low-energy ones seems a perfect image of the slow extinction of Christianity in England.
Instead of fasting for Lent, the bishops are urging their faithful to reduce their carbon footprint a fraction each day. Instead of giving up snacking on chocolates, they are told to avoid using plastic bags. Instead of giving up lolly-gobbling, they are told to unplug their mobile phone charger. Instead of giving up alcohol, they are told to check the house for draughts (2).
Along with God, the bishops seem to have lost their common sense. Obesity has been linked to global warming (3). Chocoholic lolly-gobblers walk less, consume more McDonald's and use more electric appliances. Have they calculated how much the carbon footprint of their flock would shrink if they gave up sweets for Lent? And the idea that reusing old envelopes is superior to teetotalling as a way of reducing carbon emissions is risible. The conversion of the legions of Britain's alleged binge drinkers would be a great environmental, as well as spiritual, achievement.
As the bishops rightly point out, however, Lent is not only about penitential practices like fasting, going temporarily vegan and taking cold showers. It is also about concern for one's neighbour. The sample sermon in the promotions kit for their Carbon Fast includes the touching story of Andrew Maglasey's young family. Their life has apparently been ruined by climate change.
But bishops in Britain should be concerned about the global impact of a warmer world - and the fact that it might potentially be a good thing. Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg claims that deaths attributable to excessively hot weather are typically an order of magnitude lower than that for excessively cold weather. In Europe, the figures are 1.5million cold deaths versus 200,000 heat deaths. Overall, claims Lomborg, by 2050 a warmer planet might actually save 1.4million lives a year.
I realise that in the eyes of environmentally aware bishops, Lomborg is a heretic - not just a scientific heretic, but a stack-the-faggots-dry-and-high sort of heretic. The theologian du jour is Al Gore, whose documentary An Inconvenient Truth is a recommended resource for the Carbon Fast campaign. Perhaps they are thinking of adding it to the Bible as a multimedia appendix to the Book of the Apocalypse.
Nonetheless, their eco-friendly Lenten resolutions would benefit from Lomborg's rigorous scrutiny of the impact on developing countries. If less petrol is consumed, won't that put Nigerians out of work? If you use low-energy lightbulbs made in Holland, will that put out of work Indonesians who make the high-energy ones? Are Bishop Chartres and Bishop Jones willing to take responsibility for the deaths that a cooler world may cause?
Chesterton is reported to have said that those who stop believing in Christianity don't believe in nothing, they believe in anything. This is not an epigram which the readers of spiked, a generally godless publication, are likely to assent to. But it does seem to apply to certain clerics. Having abandoned traditional practices of Christian piety in a desperate search for relevance and fuller pews, the bishops have resorted to touting an activities list which treats the environment with the respect they once paid to God.
The problem with sprinkling holy water over 40 sensible ways of being thrifty is that they don't express an interior conversion to anything, much less God. You don't need to be a Christian to want to save money by using less electricity. The old ways of living Lent were senseless, in a way. But they symbolised a sturdy desire to amend one's life, which was hopefully reflected in more upright behaviour and greater devotion to religious practice. The new Carbon-free Lent is nothing of the sort: it lacks any sense of transcendence whatsoever.
Above all, the privations of Lent were supposed to be an imitation of the 40 days Christ spent in the desert fasting before beginning his ministry. Fasting and penance are essential to Christianity because its founder commanded them: `If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.' It is a strange sales pitch in the Penguin's godless world, but at least it is a distinctive one - unlike the bishops' commonsense message of thrift, which appears to have been cribbed from a list of handy household hints by Tesco's public relations department.
However, one of the bishops' suggestions is more demanding than anything the Penguin would ever have recommended to us. On the thirty-ninth day of Lent, Good Friday, the day when Christendom contemplates the betrayal, the scourging, the crucifixion and agonising death of Christ, they want their flock to talk to church leaders about making their churches greener. Only a saint could possibly do that. Give me a hairshirt any day.
Source
British government still losing data disks: "Serious offenders on the run from the Netherlands have been able to commit further crimes in Britain after the Crown Prosecution Service mislaid a computer disc containing their details. Home Office ministers were told within the past two or three weeks that a disc containing details of 4,000 offenders whom the Dutch authorities wished to trace had been missing for almost a year. The disc contained DNA details of 4,000 offenders, some of whom are believed to be murderers and rapists, which the Dutch sent to Britain to be checked against the national DNA database. Initial checks on 2,000 samples carried out by police since the disc was discovered last month have found matches against 15 people, including 11 who have committed further crimes in Britain during the past year. But the figures could be higher, as a team of police officers still have to carry out checks on a further 2,000 samples provided by the Dutch authorities."
Israeli general escaped arrest at Heathrow `because police feared gunfight': "An Israeli general wanted for alleged war crimes escaped arrest at Heathrow airport because British police feared an armed stand-off. Major-General Doron Almog stayed on board the El Al plane for two hours after it landed in London in September 2005 after being tipped off that a warrant had been issued for his detention. Leaked documents now show that officers refused to board the plane because they were worried about the possibility of a confrontation with the armed marshals who travel on flights operated by El Al, the Israeli national airline. There were also concerns that General Almog, who has been accused of illegally ordering the destruction of 59 homes in the Gaza Strip in 2002, might have been travelling with armed personal security."
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
The Left Wing School Agenda and the Banning of Patriotism
An article by Mark Loftin [markcloftin@yahoo.com]
When Winston Churchill was dropped from the UK school curriculum last July, one had to wonder if patriotism itself was next. Now it's official. The Institute of Education, a leading educational body, has warned teachers not to instill pride in students when speaking of great moments in British History:
"To love what is corrupt is itself corrupting, not least because it inclines us to ignore, forget, forgive or excuse the corruption. And there's the rub for patriotism."
The recommendations singled out specific moments in history that students should now feel "ambiguous" about:
1750-1830 The Industrial Revolution: exploitation of the poor versus great wealth creation and growth
1807 Abolition of the slave trade. Britons were both practitioners of the trade and responsible for abolition
1947 Indian independence and Partition. How well did Britain manage its withdrawal from the sub-continent?
2003 Iraq war: was it liberation or occupation?
This shouldn't come as a surprise. The UK schools' leftist agenda has been in full steam over the last year:
* Last month, "Mum and Dad" become forbidden in British schools because it assumes a child's parents are different genders, and The Three Little Pigs was banned so not to offend Muslims.
* Last July, as mentioned, Winston Churchill was dropped from the UK school curriculum.
* Last April, teachings about the Holocaust were dropped as to not offend Muslims.
* Last March, schools began teaching 4-years olds about homosexuality through books like "King and King," (which is about a prince that rejects three female princesses before falling in love with a prince).
* An Inconvenient Truth is regularly shown in 3400 UK schools, instilling paranoia in 7-11 year olds.
Here in the U.S., the leftist agenda is also sinking its teeth into our schools at an equally disturbing pace. Leading the charge is California:
* San Francisco is debating an anti-war textbook, which features corporate American celebrating the spoils of war and Ronald Regan hugging Osama Bin Laden. Pete Hammer of the San Francisco Unified School District, who approved the book, says "The topic is one that a lot of teachers would have an interest in bringing into the classroom."
* A current bill gaining momentum by California lawmaker Joe Simitian (D - Palo Alto) would require California schools to include climate change as part of the science curriculum
* Last October, "Mom and Dad" were banned from schools, along with "Husband and Wife." In the same bill, public schools were ordered to allow boys to use the girls' restroom or locker room, and vice versa, if they choose
* Last June the state passed a homosexual education bill SB 777, which: ".requires textbooks and other instructional resources to cast a positive light on homosexual `marriages,' cross-dressing, sex-change operations and every other facet of homosexual and bisexual lifestyles."
* More hatred of Israel, as seen by anti-Israel speakers and the atmosphere that appears on the UC Irvine, UC Berkeley and San Francisco State campuses .
While there is not a specific mandate here in the US to "ban" patriotism - or any specific heroes that defined it - with more of the left's agenda taking up course time, one must wonder what will be slighted to make room.
A 2003 poll from California's Santa Monica High School said that 1/3 of students were not proud to American and 40 percent said America itself was "unjust". One can only imagine what the numbers would look like today in the name of "progress." Of course, you can't blame young, impressionable students for not being proud to be an American if that is what they are taught. The way the left commonly twists the meaning of the word, not being proud to American could be taught by a teacher as "patriotic."
In typical Doublespeak fashion, the left has been adamant about manipulating patriotism's definition for years. The Merriam-Webster's Dictionary defines patriotism simply as "love for or devotion to one's country." In 2001 Senator John Kerry redefined patriotism to mean "not drilling in the Arctic refuge." In 2006, Kerry redefined it again to mean "wartime dissent." Air America has defined it as "pointing out the flaws in your country." Entire Web blogs are dedicated to this trickery, such as US Patriots United which issued it's "10 commandments of patriotism." A few entries:
Multiculturalism? Socialized Healthcare? Government- administered education? Wartime dissent? If the left had their way, being a patriot would be officially redefined to mean.being a liberal democrat.
At Nathan High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a project was started in 2005 to hang a picture of George Washington in every classroom. John Pribram, chairman of Project George Washington and a member of the Military Order of the Purple Heart said:
"I'm grateful (for the success of the project). After Sept. 11, we were united at that point. Flags in front of every house. Patriotism was rekindled. George Washington does the same thing."
One can only speculate at the heated debate that would occur in California over whether George Washington - military hero and devout Christian - deserves the classroom wall. Unfortunately, with Churchill being pulled from the walls in Great Britain, there is now a precedent for more patriotic disillusionment from California's schools.
Perhaps Leo Lacayo, San Francisco Republican Party media surrogate, put it best with his response to San Francisco's anti-war book: "We're not teaching them -- we're basically washing their brains with liberal mish-mash."
FINIS
UK Daily Express: "GLOBAL WARMING? IT'S THE COLDEST WINTER IN DECADES"
Note that the "Express" story below is about winter ice while the Greenies have been gloating about summer ice. Nonetheless, if all the summer loss is replaced in winter the Greenies have only got theory to hang their hats on.
Also note that -- according to paleoclimate research -- the earth never loses its polar ice, not even during eras of extreme global warming. So the whole Greenie gloat is sensationalism, not science.
Note thirdly that the article below is from the mass media but the truth behind it can be seen from the scientific graphs below -- the first of which shows the extent of the antarctic sea ice right now -- which is SUMMER in the Antarctic. Instead of being minimal, the area of ice is greater now than it has ever been in the period graphed.
(Bigger version of the graph here)
The same thing is even clearer in the Anomaly graph ("anomaly" means "deviation from average"):
(Bigger version of the graph here)
And it's not only the Antarctic. The graph below is of the Arctic anomaly. Look at the tail end of it and you will see that after the big melt of 2007, the ice area has popped back up to normal
(Bigger version of the graph here)
The "Express" article:
Criminalising acts of kindness
The routine vetting of everyone who works with kids will sow suspicion and discourage volunteering. So why aren't volunteering groups worked up about it?
UK government legislation requiring background checks on anyone who works with young people - including volunteers - could have a devastating impact on important areas of social life for children while placing a cloud of suspicion over adults. Yet one of the main bodies that promotes volunteering has published a rather mealy-mouthed report that offers no proper criticism of the ominous vetting culture.
The report by the Commission on the Future of Volunteering, Manifesto for Change, almost criticises the expansion of criminal records checks for all adults working with children. But it doesn't quite, and so is left in a bind. The report shows the extent to which this kind of background check - `vetting' - is now an unquestioned, untouchable practice. It also shows how the volunteering sector is in denial about the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act, which comes into force this autumn. This Act will make vetting compulsory for all adults working with children - including those who are providing their services for free as volunteers. That means everybody from mothers helping out at playgroups to fathers teaching a local football team will be checked. The Act will mean that 9.5million adults - one third of the adult working population - will be subject to ongoing criminal checks (see The case against vetting, by Josie Appleton).
The Commission is quite rightly not merely concerned with the technicality of volunteering - who can do it, when, how easy it is - but also with the ethos necessary for volunteering. The Commission's vision is `a society in which we will be united by our common concern for the wellbeing of others; a society in which we enrich our own lives by enriching the lives of others through the giving of time'; and it emphasises that this `depends as much on the way we all feel about ourselves and others as about technical questions'.
Yet the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check for all adults working with children turns people away from one another. The CRB check turns the suspicion of others into a basic assumption for the organisation of our relationships with one another. It means that the first question asked about people putting themselves forward for volunteering is: `Have they been checked out?' The spontaneous offering of help, freely given and received, simply cannot happen if that relationship is channelled through some unwieldy government bureaucracy. Genuine volunteering cannot happen if we need state clearance before our offer of help is accepted.
The Commission's report takes up the technicalities of vetting. It notes that mass criminal records checking is in many respects irrational; that CRB checks have `degenerated into caricatures of risk aversion', and are `disproportionate in relation to any actual risks'. But in the end, all the Commission can say is that vetting should be made more efficient: `We are absolutely in favour of safe practice and protection for volunteers and those receiving services, but it cannot be right that good people are deterred by avoidably slow and inflexible procedures'. These weasel words - `safe practice and protection' - embody the whole nasty assumption behind vetting: the assumption that an unvetted adult spending time with a child is an `unsafe practice'.
Who knows what Baroness Julia Neuberger, the chair of the Commission, really thinks. A rabbi and Liberal Democrat peer, and author of The Moral State We're In, she has a deep grasp of how morality has changed, and must remember the time before 2003 when vetting was not an everyday thing, when people turned up on a say-so to help out at a football match and society did not fall apart as a result. She must know that it is possible to organise adult-child relationships differently to today.
And yet the Commission was established by Volunteering England, which has from the beginning supported the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act. Volunteering organisations are, almost to the letter, behind the compulsory expansion of vetting of their members. The discussion of vetting has become almost taboo in volunteering circles - you can criticise the way mass vetting is done, but not the principle that it is necessary.
These volunteering organisations are burying their heads in the sand about the implications of the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act. Come autumn 2008, if a man helps out at the local football team and is not checked, he will be called a criminal and will be in line for a 5,000 pound fine. The government is cheerfully holding sessions to talk to `stakeholders' about what the Act will mean. But have they really thought about how this law will play on the ground? How many children's football teams/nurseries/cricket clubs are there that rely on local volunteers? Have officials really thought about what it means to make `helping out' into a crime?
This is an issue that cannot be fudged. If you support volunteering and the principle that we should give freely to help others, then you must be against the vetting law. This is no time for sitting on the fence. More people within the volunteering community need to start questioning the new vetting law, before it has the chance to erode the already-fragile community relationships that exist in the UK today.
Source
Tying us up with even more red tape
Many hailed the UK government's new risk advisory committee as a challenge to the `cotton wool culture'. It is nothing of the sort
Last month, the British government appointed a Risk and Regulation Advisory Council (RRAC). This move is part of UK prime minister Gordon Brown's enthralling programme designed to ensure that `policymaking benefited from a fuller and more rounded consideration of public risk'. He specifically wants this rounded consideration to be applied `even when facing pressures to react to events' (1). What does this really mean?
Currently, it seems that every new risk that is identified, no matter how minor, has to be responded to with some new moralising campaign or draconian measure to restrict our liberties further. Even when civil liberties are not directly affected, excessive safety regulation can make normal parts of everyday life - like the humble school trip - impractical. And when government is not directly involved, companies still feel obliged to warn us about dangers that should be self-evident to any sensible person - like those coffee cups that tell us the `contents may be hot'.
Has Gordon Brown suddenly decided that we, the great British public, have the intelligence and wherewithal to be trusted to manage our own lives? Apparently he `is so concerned that the cotton-wool culture is denying people the freedom to enjoy themselves that he has asked the watchdog to report to him personally'
Media reaction was rightly somewhat sceptical that Brown might have been fortified suddenly by the spirit of Edmund Hillary reincarnated, ready to lead us into clear, clean air free from the stifling laws, regulations and red tape generated by 10 years of New Labour. As Roland White wrote in The Times (London): `Can the real problem be solved by a committee? No, because the real problem lies at the heart of modern politics: dividing the balance of responsibility between the individual and the state.' (3) If Brown had really had a change of heart, he would have appointed Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson as head of his new committee to scrap unwanted safety legislation and not Rick Hawthornthwaite, geologist and private equity fund manager. After all, the financial markets have hardly covered themselves in glory when it comes to risk-taking of late.
These criticisms, however, are in danger of missing the real problem with the RRAC. It is not actually designed to liberate us from a nannying state but to find more effective ways of influencing our behaviour. It is also part of an ever-growing abdication of responsibility on the part of our political leaders. And at its heart is a real contempt for the abilities and opinions of the British public.
The RRAC came out of a report by the Better Regulation Commission (BRC) called Public Risk: the Next Frontier for Better Regulation (4). The aim of that report was to create a `more engaged and trusting relationship with the public around issues that have a significant day-to-day impact on lives and attitudes'. The authors admit that `public trust is on the wane'. To counter this they recommend a `move away from an approach based on trying to control people to an approach that seeks more to influence behaviours'. Rick Hawthornthwaite criticises government policy for `collapses in the face of a confrontational parliamentary system, the media and short-term career pressures'. He advocates `a more mature dialogue with the public on what really needs to be done whenever "something must be done". offering a more responsible alternative to whatever the clamour of the crisis may be demanding'.
You don't have to read deep to get this argument: government policy should bypass parliament and the media and go straight to the people. Not to ask us what we think - Labour is not in the business of letting us have referenda, after all - but to influence our behaviour towards pre-determined objectives. So, we can expect patronising consultations and citizen juries rather than the clamour and confrontation of real democratic debate. We can look forward to `the deployment of a high-calibre team to act as a "network catalyst" for high-quality, evidence-based dialogues in which all key stakeholders, internal and external, revisit issues and explore how better outcomes can be achieved'. Thank God no one has been out on the streets demanding that - it would never have fit on the placard.
A key part of the RRAC's approach will be to work `with external stakeholders to help foster a more considered approach to public risk and policy making'. This is to state baldly that unelected committees can deliver more consideration than our elected representatives. Brown's appointment of the council is nothing more than an abdication of responsibility for making policy; such authority has been gifted on our behalf to `external stakeholders' who will draw up `simplification plans' from forums convened as `action learning sets'.
As spiked has consistently observed, we live in a period where politicians, bereft of any big ideas and frustrated at their resulting inability to move people, are desperate for any means of gaining some legitimacy and getting their policies effected. This latest move is to ask risk managers and professional facilitators to do it for them.
Just as revealing as the aims and methods of the RRAC are its first targets. What are the top risks facing us that the council is going to tackle? It won't be the threat of economic recession, the dumbing-down of education or the state of the National Health Service - it will be food and superbug scares, animal disease outbreaks, under-pensioned citizens and obesity.
The approach to obesity, for example, is not to tell us that it might be healthier for us to relax a little about what we eat, that the health scares may have gone too far, that we should be sure to trust ourselves more than the continuously contradictory science. Instead, the decision has already been made that obesity is a real issue. The only risk here is that we might not change our behaviour to suit. The role of the RRAC is to mitigate that risk. As `independent, external voices', the committee can focus support around `clearly articulated objectives', `increasing public understanding of the issues. and establishing the right context for successful implementation'. This is a spin machine. Is it a coincidence that Brown set up the RRAC just a few weeks after appointing Stephen Carter - spin supremo - to head up `political strategy, communications and research and his policy unit'? (5)
This behavioural approach seems to have informed the latest initiatives on obesity, like compulsory cookery classes and even paying people to lose weight. We can expect more of the same in other areas as the work of the RRAC starts to influence more and more of government policy.
The political elite seems increasingly and even bizarrely out of touch with what we think, with how we actually live our lives. At its root is a deep contempt for people: if they really thought there was too much regulation, they would scrap it and let us manage risk in our own lives. Life, if one is to live it, involves risks and choices, trade-offs and gambles. Instead we get the RRAC. As one social commentator said: `It is a symptom of the overweight state that administrators at the top come to rate intellectual debates about risk management higher than the gut instincts of the brave people at the bottom.' (6)
These initiatives are nothing to do with making us any less risk-averse, with trying to reawaken a spirit of adventure. Rather this is about politicians trying to sell us policy that they are too scared to front themselves. Another risk management quango can only entrench the contemporary role of government as anti-democratic technocrats.
Source
US and Britain join rush to recognise Kosovo: "Leading Western powers gave their formal blessing to the independence of Kosovo yesterday, as angry Serbs took to the streets across the Balkans to vent their fury over the loss of their historical heartland. Europe had hoped to speak with one voice on Kosovo but a failure to reach agreement left each country to issue its declarations separately. The first, from Spain, brought disappointment when it announced that it would not recognise a secession that it viewed as a breach of international law. But there was jubilation and relief when France affirmed its support, followed moments later by Britain, Germany and then Italy."
An article by Mark Loftin [markcloftin@yahoo.com]
When Winston Churchill was dropped from the UK school curriculum last July, one had to wonder if patriotism itself was next. Now it's official. The Institute of Education, a leading educational body, has warned teachers not to instill pride in students when speaking of great moments in British History:
"To love what is corrupt is itself corrupting, not least because it inclines us to ignore, forget, forgive or excuse the corruption. And there's the rub for patriotism."
The recommendations singled out specific moments in history that students should now feel "ambiguous" about:
1750-1830 The Industrial Revolution: exploitation of the poor versus great wealth creation and growth
1807 Abolition of the slave trade. Britons were both practitioners of the trade and responsible for abolition
1947 Indian independence and Partition. How well did Britain manage its withdrawal from the sub-continent?
2003 Iraq war: was it liberation or occupation?
This shouldn't come as a surprise. The UK schools' leftist agenda has been in full steam over the last year:
* Last month, "Mum and Dad" become forbidden in British schools because it assumes a child's parents are different genders, and The Three Little Pigs was banned so not to offend Muslims.
* Last July, as mentioned, Winston Churchill was dropped from the UK school curriculum.
* Last April, teachings about the Holocaust were dropped as to not offend Muslims.
* Last March, schools began teaching 4-years olds about homosexuality through books like "King and King," (which is about a prince that rejects three female princesses before falling in love with a prince).
* An Inconvenient Truth is regularly shown in 3400 UK schools, instilling paranoia in 7-11 year olds.
Here in the U.S., the leftist agenda is also sinking its teeth into our schools at an equally disturbing pace. Leading the charge is California:
* San Francisco is debating an anti-war textbook, which features corporate American celebrating the spoils of war and Ronald Regan hugging Osama Bin Laden. Pete Hammer of the San Francisco Unified School District, who approved the book, says "The topic is one that a lot of teachers would have an interest in bringing into the classroom."
* A current bill gaining momentum by California lawmaker Joe Simitian (D - Palo Alto) would require California schools to include climate change as part of the science curriculum
* Last October, "Mom and Dad" were banned from schools, along with "Husband and Wife." In the same bill, public schools were ordered to allow boys to use the girls' restroom or locker room, and vice versa, if they choose
* Last June the state passed a homosexual education bill SB 777, which: ".requires textbooks and other instructional resources to cast a positive light on homosexual `marriages,' cross-dressing, sex-change operations and every other facet of homosexual and bisexual lifestyles."
* More hatred of Israel, as seen by anti-Israel speakers and the atmosphere that appears on the UC Irvine, UC Berkeley and San Francisco State campuses .
While there is not a specific mandate here in the US to "ban" patriotism - or any specific heroes that defined it - with more of the left's agenda taking up course time, one must wonder what will be slighted to make room.
A 2003 poll from California's Santa Monica High School said that 1/3 of students were not proud to American and 40 percent said America itself was "unjust". One can only imagine what the numbers would look like today in the name of "progress." Of course, you can't blame young, impressionable students for not being proud to be an American if that is what they are taught. The way the left commonly twists the meaning of the word, not being proud to American could be taught by a teacher as "patriotic."
In typical Doublespeak fashion, the left has been adamant about manipulating patriotism's definition for years. The Merriam-Webster's Dictionary defines patriotism simply as "love for or devotion to one's country." In 2001 Senator John Kerry redefined patriotism to mean "not drilling in the Arctic refuge." In 2006, Kerry redefined it again to mean "wartime dissent." Air America has defined it as "pointing out the flaws in your country." Entire Web blogs are dedicated to this trickery, such as US Patriots United which issued it's "10 commandments of patriotism." A few entries:
(someone who),
"respects the diversity and culture of all nations, recognizing that our continued success lay not in spite of other nations but in alliance with them in a uniform approach toward promoting the global general welfare."
"ensures that the basic rights of those we hold dear to access quality healthcare and education is steadfastly supported, uncompromisingly and without discrimination based on race, color, creed, gender, or orientation."
"offers foreign humanitarian aid unconditionally without tying it to religious dogma"
"exercises the right to openly challenge (the president) and hold accountable at all times, even and most particularly in times of war"
Multiculturalism? Socialized Healthcare? Government- administered education? Wartime dissent? If the left had their way, being a patriot would be officially redefined to mean.being a liberal democrat.
At Nathan High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a project was started in 2005 to hang a picture of George Washington in every classroom. John Pribram, chairman of Project George Washington and a member of the Military Order of the Purple Heart said:
"I'm grateful (for the success of the project). After Sept. 11, we were united at that point. Flags in front of every house. Patriotism was rekindled. George Washington does the same thing."
One can only speculate at the heated debate that would occur in California over whether George Washington - military hero and devout Christian - deserves the classroom wall. Unfortunately, with Churchill being pulled from the walls in Great Britain, there is now a precedent for more patriotic disillusionment from California's schools.
Perhaps Leo Lacayo, San Francisco Republican Party media surrogate, put it best with his response to San Francisco's anti-war book: "We're not teaching them -- we're basically washing their brains with liberal mish-mash."
FINIS
UK Daily Express: "GLOBAL WARMING? IT'S THE COLDEST WINTER IN DECADES"
Note that the "Express" story below is about winter ice while the Greenies have been gloating about summer ice. Nonetheless, if all the summer loss is replaced in winter the Greenies have only got theory to hang their hats on.
Also note that -- according to paleoclimate research -- the earth never loses its polar ice, not even during eras of extreme global warming. So the whole Greenie gloat is sensationalism, not science.
Note thirdly that the article below is from the mass media but the truth behind it can be seen from the scientific graphs below -- the first of which shows the extent of the antarctic sea ice right now -- which is SUMMER in the Antarctic. Instead of being minimal, the area of ice is greater now than it has ever been in the period graphed.
(Bigger version of the graph here)
The same thing is even clearer in the Anomaly graph ("anomaly" means "deviation from average"):
(Bigger version of the graph here)
And it's not only the Antarctic. The graph below is of the Arctic anomaly. Look at the tail end of it and you will see that after the big melt of 2007, the ice area has popped back up to normal
(Bigger version of the graph here)
The "Express" article:
New evidence has cast doubt on claims that the world's ice-caps are melting, it emerged last night. Satellite data shows that concerns over the levels of sea ice may have been premature. It was feared that the polar caps were vanishing because of the effects of global warming. But figures from the respected US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show that almost all the "lost" ice has come back. Ice levels which had shrunk from 13million sq km in January 2007 to just four million in October, are almost back to their original levels. Figures show that there is nearly a third more ice in Antarctica than is usual for the time of year.
The data flies in the face of many current thinkers and will be seized on by climate change sceptics who deny that the world is undergoing global warming.
A photograph of polar bears clinging on to a melting iceberg has become one of the most enduring images in the campaign against climate change. It was used by former US Vice President Al Gore during his Inconvenient Truth lectures about mankind's impact on the world. But scientists say the northern hemisphere has endured its coldest winter in decades. They add that snow cover across the area is at its greatest since 1966.
The one exception is Western Europe, which has - until the weekend when temperatures plunged to as low as -10C in some places - been basking in unseasonably warm weather. The UK has reported one of its warmest winters on record. However, vast swathes of the world have suffered chaos because of some of the heaviest snowfalls in decades. Central and southern China, the USA and Canada were hit hard by snowstorms.
Even the Middle East saw snow, with Jerusalem, Damascus, Amman and northern Saudi Arabia reporting the heaviest falls in years and below-zero temperatures. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan snow and freezing weather killed 120 people.
In Britain the balmy February weather came to an abrupt halt at the weekend as temperatures plunged to -10C in central England. Experts believe that this month could end up as one of the coldest Februaries in Britain in the past 10 years.
The freezing night-time conditions look set to stay around -8C until at least the middle of the week. A Met Office spokesman explained: "There has been little or no cloud cover across England and Wales. So there is a capacity for a fair bit of heat to be able to escape at night. "It has been warmer in Scotland but that's because it has been cloudy there. "Until the weekend the temperatures were in the 14s and 15s, and we will see a return to that later this week, though it will look grey and overcast when the clouds return." But he added that there was little chance of snow. He said: "When the rain comes it will get warmer."
Source
Criminalising acts of kindness
The routine vetting of everyone who works with kids will sow suspicion and discourage volunteering. So why aren't volunteering groups worked up about it?
UK government legislation requiring background checks on anyone who works with young people - including volunteers - could have a devastating impact on important areas of social life for children while placing a cloud of suspicion over adults. Yet one of the main bodies that promotes volunteering has published a rather mealy-mouthed report that offers no proper criticism of the ominous vetting culture.
The report by the Commission on the Future of Volunteering, Manifesto for Change, almost criticises the expansion of criminal records checks for all adults working with children. But it doesn't quite, and so is left in a bind. The report shows the extent to which this kind of background check - `vetting' - is now an unquestioned, untouchable practice. It also shows how the volunteering sector is in denial about the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act, which comes into force this autumn. This Act will make vetting compulsory for all adults working with children - including those who are providing their services for free as volunteers. That means everybody from mothers helping out at playgroups to fathers teaching a local football team will be checked. The Act will mean that 9.5million adults - one third of the adult working population - will be subject to ongoing criminal checks (see The case against vetting, by Josie Appleton).
The Commission is quite rightly not merely concerned with the technicality of volunteering - who can do it, when, how easy it is - but also with the ethos necessary for volunteering. The Commission's vision is `a society in which we will be united by our common concern for the wellbeing of others; a society in which we enrich our own lives by enriching the lives of others through the giving of time'; and it emphasises that this `depends as much on the way we all feel about ourselves and others as about technical questions'.
Yet the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check for all adults working with children turns people away from one another. The CRB check turns the suspicion of others into a basic assumption for the organisation of our relationships with one another. It means that the first question asked about people putting themselves forward for volunteering is: `Have they been checked out?' The spontaneous offering of help, freely given and received, simply cannot happen if that relationship is channelled through some unwieldy government bureaucracy. Genuine volunteering cannot happen if we need state clearance before our offer of help is accepted.
The Commission's report takes up the technicalities of vetting. It notes that mass criminal records checking is in many respects irrational; that CRB checks have `degenerated into caricatures of risk aversion', and are `disproportionate in relation to any actual risks'. But in the end, all the Commission can say is that vetting should be made more efficient: `We are absolutely in favour of safe practice and protection for volunteers and those receiving services, but it cannot be right that good people are deterred by avoidably slow and inflexible procedures'. These weasel words - `safe practice and protection' - embody the whole nasty assumption behind vetting: the assumption that an unvetted adult spending time with a child is an `unsafe practice'.
Who knows what Baroness Julia Neuberger, the chair of the Commission, really thinks. A rabbi and Liberal Democrat peer, and author of The Moral State We're In, she has a deep grasp of how morality has changed, and must remember the time before 2003 when vetting was not an everyday thing, when people turned up on a say-so to help out at a football match and society did not fall apart as a result. She must know that it is possible to organise adult-child relationships differently to today.
And yet the Commission was established by Volunteering England, which has from the beginning supported the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act. Volunteering organisations are, almost to the letter, behind the compulsory expansion of vetting of their members. The discussion of vetting has become almost taboo in volunteering circles - you can criticise the way mass vetting is done, but not the principle that it is necessary.
These volunteering organisations are burying their heads in the sand about the implications of the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act. Come autumn 2008, if a man helps out at the local football team and is not checked, he will be called a criminal and will be in line for a 5,000 pound fine. The government is cheerfully holding sessions to talk to `stakeholders' about what the Act will mean. But have they really thought about how this law will play on the ground? How many children's football teams/nurseries/cricket clubs are there that rely on local volunteers? Have officials really thought about what it means to make `helping out' into a crime?
This is an issue that cannot be fudged. If you support volunteering and the principle that we should give freely to help others, then you must be against the vetting law. This is no time for sitting on the fence. More people within the volunteering community need to start questioning the new vetting law, before it has the chance to erode the already-fragile community relationships that exist in the UK today.
Source
Tying us up with even more red tape
Many hailed the UK government's new risk advisory committee as a challenge to the `cotton wool culture'. It is nothing of the sort
Last month, the British government appointed a Risk and Regulation Advisory Council (RRAC). This move is part of UK prime minister Gordon Brown's enthralling programme designed to ensure that `policymaking benefited from a fuller and more rounded consideration of public risk'. He specifically wants this rounded consideration to be applied `even when facing pressures to react to events' (1). What does this really mean?
Currently, it seems that every new risk that is identified, no matter how minor, has to be responded to with some new moralising campaign or draconian measure to restrict our liberties further. Even when civil liberties are not directly affected, excessive safety regulation can make normal parts of everyday life - like the humble school trip - impractical. And when government is not directly involved, companies still feel obliged to warn us about dangers that should be self-evident to any sensible person - like those coffee cups that tell us the `contents may be hot'.
Has Gordon Brown suddenly decided that we, the great British public, have the intelligence and wherewithal to be trusted to manage our own lives? Apparently he `is so concerned that the cotton-wool culture is denying people the freedom to enjoy themselves that he has asked the watchdog to report to him personally'
Media reaction was rightly somewhat sceptical that Brown might have been fortified suddenly by the spirit of Edmund Hillary reincarnated, ready to lead us into clear, clean air free from the stifling laws, regulations and red tape generated by 10 years of New Labour. As Roland White wrote in The Times (London): `Can the real problem be solved by a committee? No, because the real problem lies at the heart of modern politics: dividing the balance of responsibility between the individual and the state.' (3) If Brown had really had a change of heart, he would have appointed Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson as head of his new committee to scrap unwanted safety legislation and not Rick Hawthornthwaite, geologist and private equity fund manager. After all, the financial markets have hardly covered themselves in glory when it comes to risk-taking of late.
These criticisms, however, are in danger of missing the real problem with the RRAC. It is not actually designed to liberate us from a nannying state but to find more effective ways of influencing our behaviour. It is also part of an ever-growing abdication of responsibility on the part of our political leaders. And at its heart is a real contempt for the abilities and opinions of the British public.
The RRAC came out of a report by the Better Regulation Commission (BRC) called Public Risk: the Next Frontier for Better Regulation (4). The aim of that report was to create a `more engaged and trusting relationship with the public around issues that have a significant day-to-day impact on lives and attitudes'. The authors admit that `public trust is on the wane'. To counter this they recommend a `move away from an approach based on trying to control people to an approach that seeks more to influence behaviours'. Rick Hawthornthwaite criticises government policy for `collapses in the face of a confrontational parliamentary system, the media and short-term career pressures'. He advocates `a more mature dialogue with the public on what really needs to be done whenever "something must be done". offering a more responsible alternative to whatever the clamour of the crisis may be demanding'.
You don't have to read deep to get this argument: government policy should bypass parliament and the media and go straight to the people. Not to ask us what we think - Labour is not in the business of letting us have referenda, after all - but to influence our behaviour towards pre-determined objectives. So, we can expect patronising consultations and citizen juries rather than the clamour and confrontation of real democratic debate. We can look forward to `the deployment of a high-calibre team to act as a "network catalyst" for high-quality, evidence-based dialogues in which all key stakeholders, internal and external, revisit issues and explore how better outcomes can be achieved'. Thank God no one has been out on the streets demanding that - it would never have fit on the placard.
A key part of the RRAC's approach will be to work `with external stakeholders to help foster a more considered approach to public risk and policy making'. This is to state baldly that unelected committees can deliver more consideration than our elected representatives. Brown's appointment of the council is nothing more than an abdication of responsibility for making policy; such authority has been gifted on our behalf to `external stakeholders' who will draw up `simplification plans' from forums convened as `action learning sets'.
As spiked has consistently observed, we live in a period where politicians, bereft of any big ideas and frustrated at their resulting inability to move people, are desperate for any means of gaining some legitimacy and getting their policies effected. This latest move is to ask risk managers and professional facilitators to do it for them.
Just as revealing as the aims and methods of the RRAC are its first targets. What are the top risks facing us that the council is going to tackle? It won't be the threat of economic recession, the dumbing-down of education or the state of the National Health Service - it will be food and superbug scares, animal disease outbreaks, under-pensioned citizens and obesity.
The approach to obesity, for example, is not to tell us that it might be healthier for us to relax a little about what we eat, that the health scares may have gone too far, that we should be sure to trust ourselves more than the continuously contradictory science. Instead, the decision has already been made that obesity is a real issue. The only risk here is that we might not change our behaviour to suit. The role of the RRAC is to mitigate that risk. As `independent, external voices', the committee can focus support around `clearly articulated objectives', `increasing public understanding of the issues. and establishing the right context for successful implementation'. This is a spin machine. Is it a coincidence that Brown set up the RRAC just a few weeks after appointing Stephen Carter - spin supremo - to head up `political strategy, communications and research and his policy unit'? (5)
This behavioural approach seems to have informed the latest initiatives on obesity, like compulsory cookery classes and even paying people to lose weight. We can expect more of the same in other areas as the work of the RRAC starts to influence more and more of government policy.
The political elite seems increasingly and even bizarrely out of touch with what we think, with how we actually live our lives. At its root is a deep contempt for people: if they really thought there was too much regulation, they would scrap it and let us manage risk in our own lives. Life, if one is to live it, involves risks and choices, trade-offs and gambles. Instead we get the RRAC. As one social commentator said: `It is a symptom of the overweight state that administrators at the top come to rate intellectual debates about risk management higher than the gut instincts of the brave people at the bottom.' (6)
These initiatives are nothing to do with making us any less risk-averse, with trying to reawaken a spirit of adventure. Rather this is about politicians trying to sell us policy that they are too scared to front themselves. Another risk management quango can only entrench the contemporary role of government as anti-democratic technocrats.
Source
US and Britain join rush to recognise Kosovo: "Leading Western powers gave their formal blessing to the independence of Kosovo yesterday, as angry Serbs took to the streets across the Balkans to vent their fury over the loss of their historical heartland. Europe had hoped to speak with one voice on Kosovo but a failure to reach agreement left each country to issue its declarations separately. The first, from Spain, brought disappointment when it announced that it would not recognise a secession that it viewed as a breach of international law. But there was jubilation and relief when France affirmed its support, followed moments later by Britain, Germany and then Italy."
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Greater powers for official British `snoopers'
More than a dozen Bills going through Parliament extend the powers of state inspectors to enter people's homes, the Government has admitted. Despite a pledge by Gordon Brown last October that he would limit powers and introduce a liberty test, he has extended the right to enter property in planning, crime, environmental, education and health legislation.
A parliamentary answer obtained by the Conservatives shows that nine Bills and one draft Bill contain new powers of entry, with three others entrenching existing powers. "The fact that Gordon Brown is entrenching and extending powers of state bureaucrats to enter people's homes makes a mockery of his so-called review into powers of entry," Eric Pickles, the Shadow Communities Secretary, said.
The Counter-terrorism Bill and the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, for example, allow entrance to properties to enforce social disorder and antiterrorist laws. The Education and Skills Bill allows the State to inspect private schools and the Climate Change Bill allows officials to enter homes to enforce black bin charges and to monitor carbon-trading schemes.
Mr Pickles, who said that there was a need for measures to tackle crime and terrorism, added: "Yet this uncontrolled extension contradicts Gordon Brown's empty promises on liberty and is another worrying sign of the surveillance state." A survey of state powers to enter people's homes by the Centre for Policy Studies last April highlighted a significant expansion of entry powers under Labour. The spokesman from the Home Office said that all the Bills would be included in the review of powers of entry. The spokesman added that it was inevitable that some new powers had to be included in the Bills to ensure the laws were enforceable.
Source
More wasted education spending
Shocking to say so but there are some things that governments can't fix.
Labour's attempts to cut the numbers of students dropping out of university have cost nearly 1 billion and had virtually no effect, a committee of MPs is expected to warn this week. More than a fifth of students drop out before graduating, a figure that has improved by less than one percentage point since 2000. The drop-out rate is worse in former polytechnics. Even more students are giving up on part-time degree courses, which are to be expanded sharply by Gordon Brown and John Denham, the universities secretary. More than 44% of students fail to complete such courses. MPs on the public accounts committee would not comment on their report in advance of publication, but one Westminster source said: "It is depressing. This shows universities are simply flatlining. Too many students are not getting the higher education they were promised."
The MPs will blame the increasingly impersonal nature of universities that has accompanied Labour's mass expansion of higher education for failing to keep students committed. Many senior academics now take little interest in teaching undergraduates, as most of their department's government grant is based on their output of research papers. Some students complain of going through their entire degree with no academic knowing who they are. A large proportion of students who give up on their studies calculate that the value they gain from their degree does not justify the debts they incur.
Spending on "retention" schemes, such as mentors to support students who are considering leaving, may even make the situation worse - the 800 million pounds spent over the past five years has mainly been taken from teaching budgets. The worst performers include Bedfordshire University and Anglia Ruskin University, based in Cambridge.
Source
British army 'faces disaster': "A senior British defence official has warned the armed forces are headed for a "train crash" because the Government is starving them of funds as two separate coronial inquests found shortages of equipment were to blame for the deaths of British soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. In a confidential presentation to colleagues at a meeting in the Ministry of Defence to discuss budget cuts, a senior defence equipment capability manager said spending had been so severely pruned that vitally needed equipment was simply unaffordable. He also warned that the Government risked "mortgaging the future" of national defence. The meeting, one of a series to try to work out how to pay for all the equipment the forces need to meet their commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, was also told that the Treasury has exaggerated the increase in the military budget. Officially, it will rise by a modest 1.5 per cent this year. In fact, it will increase by only 0.6per cent in cash terms, leaving a black hole of hundreds of millions of pounds, the meeting was told."
More than a dozen Bills going through Parliament extend the powers of state inspectors to enter people's homes, the Government has admitted. Despite a pledge by Gordon Brown last October that he would limit powers and introduce a liberty test, he has extended the right to enter property in planning, crime, environmental, education and health legislation.
A parliamentary answer obtained by the Conservatives shows that nine Bills and one draft Bill contain new powers of entry, with three others entrenching existing powers. "The fact that Gordon Brown is entrenching and extending powers of state bureaucrats to enter people's homes makes a mockery of his so-called review into powers of entry," Eric Pickles, the Shadow Communities Secretary, said.
The Counter-terrorism Bill and the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, for example, allow entrance to properties to enforce social disorder and antiterrorist laws. The Education and Skills Bill allows the State to inspect private schools and the Climate Change Bill allows officials to enter homes to enforce black bin charges and to monitor carbon-trading schemes.
Mr Pickles, who said that there was a need for measures to tackle crime and terrorism, added: "Yet this uncontrolled extension contradicts Gordon Brown's empty promises on liberty and is another worrying sign of the surveillance state." A survey of state powers to enter people's homes by the Centre for Policy Studies last April highlighted a significant expansion of entry powers under Labour. The spokesman from the Home Office said that all the Bills would be included in the review of powers of entry. The spokesman added that it was inevitable that some new powers had to be included in the Bills to ensure the laws were enforceable.
Source
More wasted education spending
Shocking to say so but there are some things that governments can't fix.
Labour's attempts to cut the numbers of students dropping out of university have cost nearly 1 billion and had virtually no effect, a committee of MPs is expected to warn this week. More than a fifth of students drop out before graduating, a figure that has improved by less than one percentage point since 2000. The drop-out rate is worse in former polytechnics. Even more students are giving up on part-time degree courses, which are to be expanded sharply by Gordon Brown and John Denham, the universities secretary. More than 44% of students fail to complete such courses. MPs on the public accounts committee would not comment on their report in advance of publication, but one Westminster source said: "It is depressing. This shows universities are simply flatlining. Too many students are not getting the higher education they were promised."
The MPs will blame the increasingly impersonal nature of universities that has accompanied Labour's mass expansion of higher education for failing to keep students committed. Many senior academics now take little interest in teaching undergraduates, as most of their department's government grant is based on their output of research papers. Some students complain of going through their entire degree with no academic knowing who they are. A large proportion of students who give up on their studies calculate that the value they gain from their degree does not justify the debts they incur.
Spending on "retention" schemes, such as mentors to support students who are considering leaving, may even make the situation worse - the 800 million pounds spent over the past five years has mainly been taken from teaching budgets. The worst performers include Bedfordshire University and Anglia Ruskin University, based in Cambridge.
Source
British army 'faces disaster': "A senior British defence official has warned the armed forces are headed for a "train crash" because the Government is starving them of funds as two separate coronial inquests found shortages of equipment were to blame for the deaths of British soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. In a confidential presentation to colleagues at a meeting in the Ministry of Defence to discuss budget cuts, a senior defence equipment capability manager said spending had been so severely pruned that vitally needed equipment was simply unaffordable. He also warned that the Government risked "mortgaging the future" of national defence. The meeting, one of a series to try to work out how to pay for all the equipment the forces need to meet their commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, was also told that the Treasury has exaggerated the increase in the military budget. Officially, it will rise by a modest 1.5 per cent this year. In fact, it will increase by only 0.6per cent in cash terms, leaving a black hole of hundreds of millions of pounds, the meeting was told."
Monday, February 18, 2008
Would you "Adam and Eve" it?
Comment on the censorship obsession of the modern age by Prof. Stott below. See the original for links
The London Underground has just banned a stunning poster for the Royal Academy of Art's forthcoming exhibition of the works of the great German (Northern Renaissance) painter and engraver, Lucas Cranach der Aeltere (c.1472-1553) [`500-year-old painting banned from Underground for being "too racy"', The London Paper, February 13]. Why?
Oh my goodness! One just loses the will to live! I have never heard such twaddle. And this comes at a time when the Government has just decreed that school children must engage in the arts for at least 5 hours each week.
The wonderful work in question is Venus (1532), oil and tempera on red beechwood (37.7 x 24.5 x 0.5 cm), from the Staedel Museum, Frankfurt am Main. Please, please put two fingers up to the stupid, stupid Underground, and view this masterpiece here on the RA's web site. And why not visit the Exhibition yourself [it runs from March 8 - June 8, in the Sackler Wing of the Gallery]? Then buy a big poster of Venus, and travel around the Underground unfurling it for all to see.
I am sick, sick to death of people banning things because someone somewhere might be offended. It really is time to grow up. PC-ness from `global warming' to banning fine art will be the death of our culture. I really can't "Adam and Eve" that we are letting these things happen to us.
*N.B. For non-Brits: "Adam and Eve" is Cockney rhyming-slang for "to believe". I have no doubt that this too will be banned very soon, as a problem for non-English-speaking visitors to East London.
Source
NHS patient starved to death
A hospital trust will have to pay damages after a patient who had undergone a successful operation for cancer was then inadvertently starved and poisoned to death. Roy Hodgson, 66, a retired pub landlord, underwent a surgical operation to remove a tumour in his throat at the Cumberland Infirmary, in Carlisle, and was given a good chance of making a full recovery. But he suffered weeks of starvation after a nurse failed to insert a feeding tube correctly into his stomach, and senior medical staff failed to spot the mistake.
Mr Hodgson, a father of three grown-up children who ran the Three Tuns pub in Cleator, West Cumbria, for 20 years, suffered such hunger pangs that he attempted to flee the hospital and was discovered near its entrance clutching his stomach.
It emerged at his inquest that several days after his operation on October 16, 2004, the feeding tube came out and the nurse put it back in the wrong place. A radiologist who examined a scan of the area did not spot the error. When nurses fed him through the tube with liquid nourishment, they were effectively poisoning him. He died two weeks later after developing peritonitis.
At the time Karen Hodgson, his daughter, described how her father kept asking for something to eat and drink, and showing them how swollen his stomach was. He would have to write notes to explain his hunger. She said: "A couple of days before he went back into intensive care, the nurses found him in the hospital foyer with his coat on, crouched by the wall and holding his stomach."
The National Health Service Litigation Authority, which handles major claims against NHS hospitals, has written to the family's lawyer confirming that the trust accepts medical negligence. There is yet to be an assessment of the level of damages. Markus Nickson, the family's solicitor, said that the hospital had admitted that staff failed to give Mr Hodgson the care he needed and that he died as a result. He said: "What Mr Hodgson and his family have gone through was appalling."
The hospital, part of the North Cumbria Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, has insisted that it has learnt the lessons of Mr Hodgson's death. The hospital has changed its protocols and any reinsertion of a feeding tube is now only carried out by specialist staff.
Mark Hodgson, 28, the dead man's son, said that the family had not pursued legal action for the money but said that they did not want a similar thing happening to anyone else. He said: "We have been told that they have changed the procedure nationwide. That is the best thing we could have got from this."
Mr Hodgson, an electrical engineer, described his father as a happy, outgoing and caring man who had every hope of a recovery. "What happened was an absolute disgrace," he said. "We wanted justice. We had no idea that he was not being fed properly."
The family's grief was compounded at the time by having to leave the pub that was also their home. They said that the brewery had asked them to leave if they could not open the pub for business. The family, which was running the pub, were forced to raise money through a garage sale of their possessions. Mr Nickson said: "Not only did they lose a loved father because of a ghastly mistake, they were told by the brewery which owned the pub that they would have to get out within a week."
At the inquest last November, John Taylor, the Coroner for West Cumbria, concluded that Mr Hodgson had died as a result of an accident. The coroner was assured by medical staff that procedures at the hospital had been changed in the light of the patient's death. Feeding tubes are no longer put in after surgery, but between diagnosis and the start of any treatment. Nurses would no longer reinsert feeding tubes so soon after an operation when the hole in a patient's stomach was not properly established.
Source
Starting school at 4 'no help to children'
Children in England start school lessons earlier and sit more tests but still perform no better than in other countries, researchers say today. They find school "stressful" as they are subjected to academic lessons in English and maths at the age of four. In countries such as Sweden and Finland, where children do not start school until seven, pupils often outperform English children by the age of 11.
English primaries are also bigger than in most other countries - with an average of 224 pupils against 128 in Scotland - and make pupils sit exams more often, at a younger age and in more subjects.
In a damaging conclusion, it is claimed more parents educate their children at home or in alternative Steiner schools because they believe schools are "too constrained by the imperatives of performativity".
The findings - made as part of a two-year review of primary education by Cambridge University - will fuel fears that the target-driven nature of modern schooling is damaging childhood.
Steve Sinnott, the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, described the findings as "devastating". He said: "When it comes to testing in England, the tail wags the dog," he said. "It is patently absurd that even the structure and content of education is shaped by the demands of the tests."
The Department for Children, Schools and Families said it had commissioned a "root and branch review of the primary-level curriculum". This will attempt to ease the transition from early years into school and will also "consider whether it would be appropriate to allow greater flexibility in school start dates", said a spokesman. She added: "The idea that children are over tested is not a view that the Government accepts. The reality is that children spend a very small percentage of their time in school being tested. "Seeing that children leave school up to the right standard in the basics is the highest priority of government."
In a further conclusion, today's report shows that English schools focus more lessons on politically correct themes such as "diversity, tolerance and multi-culturalism" than in other nations. A study by Glasgow University said this was "especially evident" in RE, history, geography and citizenship. France and Japan were more prepared to celebrate home-grown values in the curriculum.
Source
Britain: Ban on bottled water coming?
Drinking fizzy water is a perfectly reasonable choice. People tend to like bubbles in ALL their drinks. But drinking still bottled water is just posing in most localities. And posing is mostly a bad thing. But if we outlawed all posing that would be the death of Leftist politics! So principles are taking as back-seat here
Drinking bottled water is almost morally indefensible, a government minister has suggested in a scathing attack on the industry. Phil Woolas, the Environment Minister, said it was daft that six million litres of bottled water were drunk every day in Britain when safe tap water was universally and cheaply available. His comments echoed concerns among environmentalists, who believe that the packaging, transportation and disposal of bottled water products creates unnecessarily high carbon-dioxide emissions.
But they provoked a furious response from the industry, which is worth œ2 billion annually. Representatives demanded an immediate retraction of his remarks. Mr Woolas has further riled the industry by giving his backing to a campaign to persuade the public to use the tap as their primary source of drinking water.
Next week Thames Water, supported by Friends of the Earth and Mr Woolas, will start a campaign to persuade restaurants, pubs and hotels to make tap water more easily available to customers. By persuading people to switch back to tap water the organisers of the initiative hope to reduce the impact on the environment by cutting out the carbon-dioxide emissions from transportation and manufacture of the bottles.
Bottled water has been calculated to have a carbon footprint more than several hundred times bigger than tap water for some brands. Many bottles are transported thousands of miles to get to Britain from countries including the United States and Fiji.
The minister was particularly concerned about water being imported to Britain because of the potential damage to supplies in other countries. "It borders on morally being unacceptable to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on bottled water when we have pure drinking water, when at the same time one of the crises that is facing the world is the supply of water," he told the BBC Panorama programme. "There are many countries in the world who unfortunately haven't got pure tap water. We should be concentrating our efforts on putting that right in my opinion."
He received unexpected backing from Peter Ainsworth, the Shadow Environment Secretary, who agreed that the industry and consumers had big moral questions to answer. "I don't think Phil Woolas is wrong," he said. "Huge amounts are imported from other countries - some now ludicrously from the Far East. This is an ecological nightmare and it doesn't make economic sense either. It certainly raises questions about the basis on which we have constructed our economic lives. By any rational standard it's crazy to be importing water from countries far away when there's perfectly good water in our taps. "It looks like the epiphany of any unsustainable human activity. I think as consumers we should consider the impact we have on the environment. If they think about it they might change their behaviour."
Steve Webb, the Liberal Democrat environment spokesman, said that the environmental impacts caused by the bottled-water industry were sufficiently worrying that the Government should introduce taxes to pay for damage to be put right. Taxes, either directly on the sales of each bottle or through mechanisms such as landfill tax, would put pressure on consumers to change their behaviour. A Swedish study calculated that the environmental impact of bottled water was 90 to 1,000 times greater than tap water, and could be higher.
Jill Ardagh, director-general of the Bottled Water Information Office, led the industry's angry response to the minister's remarks. "Mr Woolas is clearly ill-informed about bottled water and the role it has to play in society, either in this country or other parts of the world," she said. She said that an estimated 20,000 jobs depended on the bottled water trade and demanded that he retract his comments.
Source
Comment on the censorship obsession of the modern age by Prof. Stott below. See the original for links
The London Underground has just banned a stunning poster for the Royal Academy of Art's forthcoming exhibition of the works of the great German (Northern Renaissance) painter and engraver, Lucas Cranach der Aeltere (c.1472-1553) [`500-year-old painting banned from Underground for being "too racy"', The London Paper, February 13]. Why?
"... the painting in question, of Venus wearing nothing but two necklaces, a gauze slip and a jewelled headdress, has been deemed too sexual and likely to cause offence by Tube advertising bosses. She has fallen foul of guidelines set out by CBS Outdoor - the firm who vet London Underground's advertising. The rules state that ads should not `depict men, women or children in a sexual manner, or display nude or semi-nude figures in an overtly sexual context'."
Oh my goodness! One just loses the will to live! I have never heard such twaddle. And this comes at a time when the Government has just decreed that school children must engage in the arts for at least 5 hours each week.
The wonderful work in question is Venus (1532), oil and tempera on red beechwood (37.7 x 24.5 x 0.5 cm), from the Staedel Museum, Frankfurt am Main. Please, please put two fingers up to the stupid, stupid Underground, and view this masterpiece here on the RA's web site. And why not visit the Exhibition yourself [it runs from March 8 - June 8, in the Sackler Wing of the Gallery]? Then buy a big poster of Venus, and travel around the Underground unfurling it for all to see.
I am sick, sick to death of people banning things because someone somewhere might be offended. It really is time to grow up. PC-ness from `global warming' to banning fine art will be the death of our culture. I really can't "Adam and Eve" that we are letting these things happen to us.
*N.B. For non-Brits: "Adam and Eve" is Cockney rhyming-slang for "to believe". I have no doubt that this too will be banned very soon, as a problem for non-English-speaking visitors to East London.
Source
NHS patient starved to death
A hospital trust will have to pay damages after a patient who had undergone a successful operation for cancer was then inadvertently starved and poisoned to death. Roy Hodgson, 66, a retired pub landlord, underwent a surgical operation to remove a tumour in his throat at the Cumberland Infirmary, in Carlisle, and was given a good chance of making a full recovery. But he suffered weeks of starvation after a nurse failed to insert a feeding tube correctly into his stomach, and senior medical staff failed to spot the mistake.
Mr Hodgson, a father of three grown-up children who ran the Three Tuns pub in Cleator, West Cumbria, for 20 years, suffered such hunger pangs that he attempted to flee the hospital and was discovered near its entrance clutching his stomach.
It emerged at his inquest that several days after his operation on October 16, 2004, the feeding tube came out and the nurse put it back in the wrong place. A radiologist who examined a scan of the area did not spot the error. When nurses fed him through the tube with liquid nourishment, they were effectively poisoning him. He died two weeks later after developing peritonitis.
At the time Karen Hodgson, his daughter, described how her father kept asking for something to eat and drink, and showing them how swollen his stomach was. He would have to write notes to explain his hunger. She said: "A couple of days before he went back into intensive care, the nurses found him in the hospital foyer with his coat on, crouched by the wall and holding his stomach."
The National Health Service Litigation Authority, which handles major claims against NHS hospitals, has written to the family's lawyer confirming that the trust accepts medical negligence. There is yet to be an assessment of the level of damages. Markus Nickson, the family's solicitor, said that the hospital had admitted that staff failed to give Mr Hodgson the care he needed and that he died as a result. He said: "What Mr Hodgson and his family have gone through was appalling."
The hospital, part of the North Cumbria Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, has insisted that it has learnt the lessons of Mr Hodgson's death. The hospital has changed its protocols and any reinsertion of a feeding tube is now only carried out by specialist staff.
Mark Hodgson, 28, the dead man's son, said that the family had not pursued legal action for the money but said that they did not want a similar thing happening to anyone else. He said: "We have been told that they have changed the procedure nationwide. That is the best thing we could have got from this."
Mr Hodgson, an electrical engineer, described his father as a happy, outgoing and caring man who had every hope of a recovery. "What happened was an absolute disgrace," he said. "We wanted justice. We had no idea that he was not being fed properly."
The family's grief was compounded at the time by having to leave the pub that was also their home. They said that the brewery had asked them to leave if they could not open the pub for business. The family, which was running the pub, were forced to raise money through a garage sale of their possessions. Mr Nickson said: "Not only did they lose a loved father because of a ghastly mistake, they were told by the brewery which owned the pub that they would have to get out within a week."
At the inquest last November, John Taylor, the Coroner for West Cumbria, concluded that Mr Hodgson had died as a result of an accident. The coroner was assured by medical staff that procedures at the hospital had been changed in the light of the patient's death. Feeding tubes are no longer put in after surgery, but between diagnosis and the start of any treatment. Nurses would no longer reinsert feeding tubes so soon after an operation when the hole in a patient's stomach was not properly established.
Source
Starting school at 4 'no help to children'
Children in England start school lessons earlier and sit more tests but still perform no better than in other countries, researchers say today. They find school "stressful" as they are subjected to academic lessons in English and maths at the age of four. In countries such as Sweden and Finland, where children do not start school until seven, pupils often outperform English children by the age of 11.
English primaries are also bigger than in most other countries - with an average of 224 pupils against 128 in Scotland - and make pupils sit exams more often, at a younger age and in more subjects.
In a damaging conclusion, it is claimed more parents educate their children at home or in alternative Steiner schools because they believe schools are "too constrained by the imperatives of performativity".
The findings - made as part of a two-year review of primary education by Cambridge University - will fuel fears that the target-driven nature of modern schooling is damaging childhood.
Steve Sinnott, the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, described the findings as "devastating". He said: "When it comes to testing in England, the tail wags the dog," he said. "It is patently absurd that even the structure and content of education is shaped by the demands of the tests."
The Department for Children, Schools and Families said it had commissioned a "root and branch review of the primary-level curriculum". This will attempt to ease the transition from early years into school and will also "consider whether it would be appropriate to allow greater flexibility in school start dates", said a spokesman. She added: "The idea that children are over tested is not a view that the Government accepts. The reality is that children spend a very small percentage of their time in school being tested. "Seeing that children leave school up to the right standard in the basics is the highest priority of government."
In a further conclusion, today's report shows that English schools focus more lessons on politically correct themes such as "diversity, tolerance and multi-culturalism" than in other nations. A study by Glasgow University said this was "especially evident" in RE, history, geography and citizenship. France and Japan were more prepared to celebrate home-grown values in the curriculum.
Source
Britain: Ban on bottled water coming?
Drinking fizzy water is a perfectly reasonable choice. People tend to like bubbles in ALL their drinks. But drinking still bottled water is just posing in most localities. And posing is mostly a bad thing. But if we outlawed all posing that would be the death of Leftist politics! So principles are taking as back-seat here
Drinking bottled water is almost morally indefensible, a government minister has suggested in a scathing attack on the industry. Phil Woolas, the Environment Minister, said it was daft that six million litres of bottled water were drunk every day in Britain when safe tap water was universally and cheaply available. His comments echoed concerns among environmentalists, who believe that the packaging, transportation and disposal of bottled water products creates unnecessarily high carbon-dioxide emissions.
But they provoked a furious response from the industry, which is worth œ2 billion annually. Representatives demanded an immediate retraction of his remarks. Mr Woolas has further riled the industry by giving his backing to a campaign to persuade the public to use the tap as their primary source of drinking water.
Next week Thames Water, supported by Friends of the Earth and Mr Woolas, will start a campaign to persuade restaurants, pubs and hotels to make tap water more easily available to customers. By persuading people to switch back to tap water the organisers of the initiative hope to reduce the impact on the environment by cutting out the carbon-dioxide emissions from transportation and manufacture of the bottles.
Bottled water has been calculated to have a carbon footprint more than several hundred times bigger than tap water for some brands. Many bottles are transported thousands of miles to get to Britain from countries including the United States and Fiji.
The minister was particularly concerned about water being imported to Britain because of the potential damage to supplies in other countries. "It borders on morally being unacceptable to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on bottled water when we have pure drinking water, when at the same time one of the crises that is facing the world is the supply of water," he told the BBC Panorama programme. "There are many countries in the world who unfortunately haven't got pure tap water. We should be concentrating our efforts on putting that right in my opinion."
He received unexpected backing from Peter Ainsworth, the Shadow Environment Secretary, who agreed that the industry and consumers had big moral questions to answer. "I don't think Phil Woolas is wrong," he said. "Huge amounts are imported from other countries - some now ludicrously from the Far East. This is an ecological nightmare and it doesn't make economic sense either. It certainly raises questions about the basis on which we have constructed our economic lives. By any rational standard it's crazy to be importing water from countries far away when there's perfectly good water in our taps. "It looks like the epiphany of any unsustainable human activity. I think as consumers we should consider the impact we have on the environment. If they think about it they might change their behaviour."
Steve Webb, the Liberal Democrat environment spokesman, said that the environmental impacts caused by the bottled-water industry were sufficiently worrying that the Government should introduce taxes to pay for damage to be put right. Taxes, either directly on the sales of each bottle or through mechanisms such as landfill tax, would put pressure on consumers to change their behaviour. A Swedish study calculated that the environmental impact of bottled water was 90 to 1,000 times greater than tap water, and could be higher.
Jill Ardagh, director-general of the Bottled Water Information Office, led the industry's angry response to the minister's remarks. "Mr Woolas is clearly ill-informed about bottled water and the role it has to play in society, either in this country or other parts of the world," she said. She said that an estimated 20,000 jobs depended on the bottled water trade and demanded that he retract his comments.
Source
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Multiculturalism is making Britain 'a soft touch for terrorists'
Britain has become a soft touch for terrorists, leading defence experts warn today. The world-renowned Royal United Services Institute has delivered an unprecedented attack on the Government's security policy. It warns that a failure to "lay down the line" to immigrant populations is undermining the fight against domestic extremism. It condemns the country's "fragmented" national identity and obsession with multiculturalism. And it accuses ministers of a "piecemeal and erratic response" to urgent threats to the nation and of starving the armed forces of cash to the point of "chronic disrepair".
The security think tank, which has unrivalled contact with senior political and military figures, urges ministers to abandon "flabby and bogus strategic thinking" and to make the defence of the realm the "first duty of Government". The bleak assessment comes as top security officials warn that planned job cuts could undermine the UK's intelligence performance. The Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS), which analyses information with GCHQ, MI6 and the Ministry of Defence, is facing the loss of 121 posts. DIS staff are central to the intelligence community and provide expertise on the development of weapons systems and arms proliferation, as well as support to UK operations overseas. John Morrison, the former Deputy Chief of Defence Intelligence, claims such losses - amounting to a staff cut of more than 20 per cent - would be "ludicrous" and seriously compromise large areas of its work.
The study also follows two blows this week to Labour's anti-terror strategy. Appeal judges have given an Algerian pilot the go-ahead to claim compensation which could run into millions for being wrongly accused of training the September 11 hijackers. And five young Muslim men had their convictions for terrorist offences quashed by the Appeal Court.
Laws making it a crime to possess extremist jihadi propaganda and literature could now have to be re-written and dozens more prosecutions could collapse after senior judges ruled that police and prosecutors must prove to juries that terror suspects not only possessed potentially dangerous material but were intent on using it in an attack.
In Wednesday's ruling the Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips stated that unless there was clear evidence of "terrorist intent", merely possessing or sharing extremist material did not amount to a crime. The law was designed to help police catch so-called "clean-skins" - would-be terrorists who have yet to carry out an atrocity but are in the early stages of planning one. But the effect of the ruling is that the police will struggle to build a watertight case against suspects based on such early planning or research for an attack, and will instead be forced to wait until plans are far more advanced - increasing the risk of a successful atrocity.
The Appeal Court ruling was the latest instance of counter-terrorist laws being defeated or watered down by senior judges, but RUSI's damning report raises fundamental questions over the Government's ability to protect Britain from the gravest threats. The work of a panel of senior military commanders, diplomats, politicians and academics, it contrasts the erosion of national confidence with the "implacability" of Islamist terrorists.
The study calls for a radical shake-up of government to take away oversight of security and defence from "the arena of short-term party politics" - in the same way that interest rates are now set independently of politicians. "The United Kingdom presents itself as a target, as a fragmenting, post-Christian society, increasingly divided about interpretations of its history, about its national aims, its values and in its political identity," it states. By contrast those who refuse to integrate into British society have a "firm self-image".
"This is a problem worsened by the lack of leadership from the majority which in misplaced deference to "multiculturalism" failed to lay down the line to immigrant communities, thus undercutting those within them trying to fight extremism. "We look like a soft touch. We are indeed a soft touch, from within and without."
The authors suggest the world is living through a "time of remission" between the September 11 attacks six years ago and a yet-worse future atrocity which will deliver "an even greater psychological blow". The British people are "uncertain" about wars abroad, fearful over security at home and doubtful over the "muddling" of responsibility for protecting them between Westminster and Brussels. "Repeated assertions by ministers that all is well, that the matter is well in hand and can be safely left to them to manage in-house, no longer carry conviction," the report warns.
Against this backdrop a serious decline in the armed forces has left Britain "open to ambush", with the military engulfed in an "atmosphere of chronic disrepair". The RUSI study echoes concerns raised by five former heads of the armed forces who spoke out against military underfunding in the House of Lords last year. It likens the lack of adequate spending on defence over the past ten years to "a breach made by the defenders themselves in the walls of their own city".
The report particularly condemns the savage cuts to the Royal Navy in recent years, accusing politicians of suffering from "sea blindness". The Navy has seen its fleet of warships and submarines as well as its manpower drastically reduced in recent years, and is struggling to maintain training in the face of crippling budget pressures. Britain now has a "bare-bones defence and security establishment", according to the report's authors, yet we lack the knowledge of future threats which would justify such a risk.
New threats are emerging besides Islamist terrorism - "ferocious" Russian nationalism, climate change and competition for resources - while international bodies which Britain relies on such as the United Nations, Nato and the EU are "weakening".
The report urges a return to "traditional alliances with the English-speaking world" - particularly the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and Canada - adding: "Foul-weather friends are to be preferred to fair- weather friends; and the British people know precisely which are which."
It calls for oversight of security and defence to be handed to two new committees - one joint Lords and Commons group, chaired by a senior opposition MP, tasked with identifying gaps in security, and another within the Cabinet to coordinate activity across the whole of Government.
Tory security spokesman Baroness Neville-Jones said: "This report sends a powerful message to Government that leadership is badly lacking at a time of significant threat to our country. Conservatives agree that multiculturalism has been a disaster for national cohesion and has increased our vulnerability to the terrorist threat."
With the Government's long-awaited National Security Strategy due to be published within days, the damning attack by such respected experts will add to the intense scrutiny of policies on terrorism and defence. The Ministry of Defence rejected RUSI's warnings of military decline, saying: "The UK's Armed Forces have the ability to meet the broad range of tasks they may be required to undertake, often at short notice. "They have a battle-winning capability that is second to none. The broad range of capability gives us insurance against the inherent uncertainty of the future."
Source
HEARTBURN: BBC is "racist"
[Black] Comedian Lenny Henry has attacked the lack of ethnic diversity in Britain's broadcasting industry. "When I started, I was surrounded by a predominantly white workforce, and 32 years later, not a lot has changed," he told the Royal Television Society. In his own field of television comedy, he added, ethnic minorities were "pitifully underserved".
Last year, BBC executives waived their annual bonuses for failing to meet their full diversity targets. Henry criticised the so-called "golden age" of television, citing such shows as Till Death Us Do Part and Mind Your Language. "TV producers of the '60s and '70s missed a great opportunity," he said in London on Thursday. "Rather than reflect the reality of multi-ethnic Britain, they chose a more xenophobic route - emphasising points of difference instead of similarities."
In a seven-point plan, he encouraged programme-makers to "be bold" in setting targets and appointing ethnic minority staff. "I'm not talking about cleaners, security guys, scene shifters or anyone wearing a uniform," he added. "I'm talking about decision makers, producers, directors [and] commissioners." However, he said advances had been made in children's television and praised the BBC for its "fantastic" range of presenters.
Last year, Cracker writer Jimmy McGovern accused the BBC of being "one of the most racist institutions in England".
Source
White BBC Staffer Hits Back at Racism Accusation
A rather amazing show of spirit!
Britain: Gurkha restaurant told it cannot fly the Gurkha flag
But the Russian or Chinese flag would be fine! Gurkhas are mountain tribesmen from Nepal (North of India) who have served with distinction in the British army for 200 years. They are generally highly esteemed in Britain for their courage and loyalty to Britain. So it should be noted that the flag concerned is the flag of a BRITISH regiment! This really is a quite grievous insult.
Just some horrible Leftist pacifism at work, one imagines. It is absurd to call the flag advertising. It is a mark of justifiable pride. And Gurkha food is brilliant!
Herbal hope for Alzheimers?
A jar of browny-green goo is all it took to end Dr Stephen Minger's doubtsabout whether traditional Chinese medicine could teach anything to Western science. When a colleague walked into the leading stem cell scientist's lab at King's College London with a Chinese remedy that he believed could boost brain cell growth, and asked if he could test his theory on some neurons that Dr Minger had grown in his lab, he wasn't keen.
"My first thought was `you're not putting that on my cells'. But it turned out to be amazing stuff. It really stimulated the cells to grow; they grew like weeds," recalls Dr Minger, the ponytailed scientist who has has been in the spotlight since 2003, when his team created the UK's first lab-grown human embryonic stem cells. These are the "blank-slate" cells that have the power to turn into any cell of the body and may be key in producing more effective treatments for diseases such as diabetes and Parkinson's.
But for all of his scientific credentials, Dr Minger is about to step out of the conventional and into the alternative. At the time of the "green-goo" incident, neither he nor his colleague had the time or money to investigate further the ancient remedy that produced such an astonishing effect. But the experience stayed with Dr Minger and he began to view Chinese medicine in a different light. If its remedies could make brain cells grow, could they help to treat diseases that destroy the brain such as Alzheimer's?
Now the Government has asked him to head a two-year project aimed at strengthening links between UK and Chinese scientists. He immediately thought of using the project as a way of probing the ancient cures of traditional Chinese medicine, often referred to as TCM, to see if they can be converted into modern treatments.
The project starts this month. Dr Minger will fly to Shanghai to bring together Alzheimer's scientists in the UK with Chinese researchers in the hope of mining TCM for new medicines for the disease. He believes that the traditional system, based on energy flow in the body, yin and yang, anecdotal evidence and treatments made from ground-up plant and animal products, can help evidence-based Western medicine. So do many drug developers in the West who are turning their attention to TCM in the hope that the thousands of remedies in its armoury may have tangible biological and therapeutic effects. "I think there are clearly active ingredients in some of these plant extracts which have potent biological effects," says Dr Minger. "It's not that surprising when you look at the fact that Taxol, a cancer treatment, originally came from yew, and aspirin from willow. Assuming that this project works, TCM could represent a whole new class of drugs that no one has had access to before."
He believes that there is a pressing need for new Alzheimer's treatments. "It is such a huge healthcare burden; it's projected to bankrupt most Western countries in the next 50 years. There are almost no therapies and the existing ones work only on a subset of people. Plus, in most cases, they only slightly slow the progression of the disease." Rebecca Wood, the chief executive of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, agrees that looking for potential cures in Chinese medicine could open up new avenues of treatment. "It's always worth looking at the unusual. We shouldn't assume we've got all the answers here. Just because something is traditional doesn't mean that it doesn't have active compounds in it."
In fact, experts estimate that one in four prescription medications used in the UK was originally developed from plants. Dr Paul Francis, a neuroscientist at King's College London and one of the Alzheimer's researchers who will join Dr Minger in China, points out that even some of the conventional Alzheimer's medications prescribed in the UK started off as shrubs. "If you look at the three drugs currently available, one of them came from daffodils and snowdrops," he says. Further, many current conventional treatments are based on Chinese herbal remedies, including a possible treatment for dementia.
In recent years the Chinese Government has invested huge sums into investigating whether its vast library of traditional remedies can be converted into orthodox treatments. "The Chinese are very committed to this," says Dr Minger. "They have state-run labs that are doing nothing except investigate TCM."
But developing conventional drugs from these ancient cures is not an easy process as a single remedy can contain many different plant ingredients. How do you know which one is responsible for the curative effect, and is this effect due to one ingredient or a combination?
The process starts with scientists identifying a remedy that they think may have therapeutic potential. Using modern technology - and working by a process of elimination - they test each fraction of the remedy for biological activity, discarding the pieces that have no effect. They continue until they have sieved the remedy down to a point where only a few chemical constituents remain, which they deduce must be the ones that elicit the therapeutic effect. Artificial copies of the active chemical are then made and tested on patients in clinical trials.
But why can't they just give patients the traditional remedies in their native form? Because, Dr Francis says, they are not guaranteed to have any medicinal effect, and, more importantly, they may be dangerous. No two traditional remedies are the same, he says, unlike a pharmaceutical treatment where each pill has an identical composition. The remedies also need to undergo conventional scientific testing to make sure that they won't interact with other medication. This involves a barrage of safety tests, test-tube studies and, eventually, trials in patients. "Any chemical, even a natural chemical, can have side-effects," says Dr Francis.
Dr Minger, who believes that East-West scientific collaborations are the way forward for UK researchers, says that he may also use it to investigate whether TCM holds any potential treatments for cancer. "China is going like gang-busters, particularly if you're thinking in terms of medicine and pharmaceuticals. In many cases their labs are as good, if not better, than labs here or in the US. A lot of Chinese scientists also are moving back. When you ask them why, they say it's too good a place not to be right now."
Does Dr Minger anticipate any culture clashes? "Most of the Chinese guys are Western-trained so it's not that difficult to work together," he says. Plus, much of their science is regulated to the same level as UK science. The only potential problem he sees is the traffic. "It takes for ever to get anywhere. When you're scheduling something, you have to pack in so much extra time to get from one place to another." And he has learnt from the green goo incident how important it is to have no preconceptions. "I think it just takes a little bit of open-mindedness
Source
Britain: Expensive new home for four newts
Cheshire County Council is calling for a review of EU legislation after being forced to spend o60,000 to move four newts from a school development site. Great crested newts are an endangered species and are protected by EU law. When four were found on land at Fallibroome High School, Macclesfield, they had to be trapped, moved and have a new pond built to house them.
Councillor Barrie Hardern called the 60,000 pounds cost of the scheme before the school could build "ludicrous".
When the amphibians were found on the site where the school wanted to build new sports facilities and an extension a costly mitigation exercise had to be undertaken which meant a new habitat had to be built.
Natural England, the government body charged with protecting the newts said it is important to look after every colony no matter how small. But Mr Harden said: "I find it extraordinary that the law requires public money to be spent at such a ludicrous level."
Source
Cheapskate Brits again: "Shortages of equipment were blamed yesterday for the deaths of British soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan as two coroners in separate inquests made withering attacks on the Ministry of Defence. One coroner attacked the MoD's "unforgivable" failure to supply basic equipment, and accused it of a breach of trust. Both inquests showed that an acute lack of equipment had played a part in the deaths of a young officer in Afghanistan and two soldiers in Iraq. Captain James Philippson, 29, of 7 Parachute Regiment Royal Horse Artillery, was killed by a gunshot wound to the head on June 11, 2006, when his unit went to the rescue of other British soldiers who had come under fire from the Taleban in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan. His colleagues told an inquest in Oxford that they were "totally outgunned", and lacked basic equipment, including Minimi machineguns, rifles with under-slung grenades and night-vision kits."
Britain has become a soft touch for terrorists, leading defence experts warn today. The world-renowned Royal United Services Institute has delivered an unprecedented attack on the Government's security policy. It warns that a failure to "lay down the line" to immigrant populations is undermining the fight against domestic extremism. It condemns the country's "fragmented" national identity and obsession with multiculturalism. And it accuses ministers of a "piecemeal and erratic response" to urgent threats to the nation and of starving the armed forces of cash to the point of "chronic disrepair".
The security think tank, which has unrivalled contact with senior political and military figures, urges ministers to abandon "flabby and bogus strategic thinking" and to make the defence of the realm the "first duty of Government". The bleak assessment comes as top security officials warn that planned job cuts could undermine the UK's intelligence performance. The Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS), which analyses information with GCHQ, MI6 and the Ministry of Defence, is facing the loss of 121 posts. DIS staff are central to the intelligence community and provide expertise on the development of weapons systems and arms proliferation, as well as support to UK operations overseas. John Morrison, the former Deputy Chief of Defence Intelligence, claims such losses - amounting to a staff cut of more than 20 per cent - would be "ludicrous" and seriously compromise large areas of its work.
The study also follows two blows this week to Labour's anti-terror strategy. Appeal judges have given an Algerian pilot the go-ahead to claim compensation which could run into millions for being wrongly accused of training the September 11 hijackers. And five young Muslim men had their convictions for terrorist offences quashed by the Appeal Court.
Laws making it a crime to possess extremist jihadi propaganda and literature could now have to be re-written and dozens more prosecutions could collapse after senior judges ruled that police and prosecutors must prove to juries that terror suspects not only possessed potentially dangerous material but were intent on using it in an attack.
In Wednesday's ruling the Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips stated that unless there was clear evidence of "terrorist intent", merely possessing or sharing extremist material did not amount to a crime. The law was designed to help police catch so-called "clean-skins" - would-be terrorists who have yet to carry out an atrocity but are in the early stages of planning one. But the effect of the ruling is that the police will struggle to build a watertight case against suspects based on such early planning or research for an attack, and will instead be forced to wait until plans are far more advanced - increasing the risk of a successful atrocity.
The Appeal Court ruling was the latest instance of counter-terrorist laws being defeated or watered down by senior judges, but RUSI's damning report raises fundamental questions over the Government's ability to protect Britain from the gravest threats. The work of a panel of senior military commanders, diplomats, politicians and academics, it contrasts the erosion of national confidence with the "implacability" of Islamist terrorists.
The study calls for a radical shake-up of government to take away oversight of security and defence from "the arena of short-term party politics" - in the same way that interest rates are now set independently of politicians. "The United Kingdom presents itself as a target, as a fragmenting, post-Christian society, increasingly divided about interpretations of its history, about its national aims, its values and in its political identity," it states. By contrast those who refuse to integrate into British society have a "firm self-image".
"This is a problem worsened by the lack of leadership from the majority which in misplaced deference to "multiculturalism" failed to lay down the line to immigrant communities, thus undercutting those within them trying to fight extremism. "We look like a soft touch. We are indeed a soft touch, from within and without."
The authors suggest the world is living through a "time of remission" between the September 11 attacks six years ago and a yet-worse future atrocity which will deliver "an even greater psychological blow". The British people are "uncertain" about wars abroad, fearful over security at home and doubtful over the "muddling" of responsibility for protecting them between Westminster and Brussels. "Repeated assertions by ministers that all is well, that the matter is well in hand and can be safely left to them to manage in-house, no longer carry conviction," the report warns.
Against this backdrop a serious decline in the armed forces has left Britain "open to ambush", with the military engulfed in an "atmosphere of chronic disrepair". The RUSI study echoes concerns raised by five former heads of the armed forces who spoke out against military underfunding in the House of Lords last year. It likens the lack of adequate spending on defence over the past ten years to "a breach made by the defenders themselves in the walls of their own city".
The report particularly condemns the savage cuts to the Royal Navy in recent years, accusing politicians of suffering from "sea blindness". The Navy has seen its fleet of warships and submarines as well as its manpower drastically reduced in recent years, and is struggling to maintain training in the face of crippling budget pressures. Britain now has a "bare-bones defence and security establishment", according to the report's authors, yet we lack the knowledge of future threats which would justify such a risk.
New threats are emerging besides Islamist terrorism - "ferocious" Russian nationalism, climate change and competition for resources - while international bodies which Britain relies on such as the United Nations, Nato and the EU are "weakening".
The report urges a return to "traditional alliances with the English-speaking world" - particularly the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and Canada - adding: "Foul-weather friends are to be preferred to fair- weather friends; and the British people know precisely which are which."
It calls for oversight of security and defence to be handed to two new committees - one joint Lords and Commons group, chaired by a senior opposition MP, tasked with identifying gaps in security, and another within the Cabinet to coordinate activity across the whole of Government.
Tory security spokesman Baroness Neville-Jones said: "This report sends a powerful message to Government that leadership is badly lacking at a time of significant threat to our country. Conservatives agree that multiculturalism has been a disaster for national cohesion and has increased our vulnerability to the terrorist threat."
With the Government's long-awaited National Security Strategy due to be published within days, the damning attack by such respected experts will add to the intense scrutiny of policies on terrorism and defence. The Ministry of Defence rejected RUSI's warnings of military decline, saying: "The UK's Armed Forces have the ability to meet the broad range of tasks they may be required to undertake, often at short notice. "They have a battle-winning capability that is second to none. The broad range of capability gives us insurance against the inherent uncertainty of the future."
Source
HEARTBURN: BBC is "racist"
[Black] Comedian Lenny Henry has attacked the lack of ethnic diversity in Britain's broadcasting industry. "When I started, I was surrounded by a predominantly white workforce, and 32 years later, not a lot has changed," he told the Royal Television Society. In his own field of television comedy, he added, ethnic minorities were "pitifully underserved".
Last year, BBC executives waived their annual bonuses for failing to meet their full diversity targets. Henry criticised the so-called "golden age" of television, citing such shows as Till Death Us Do Part and Mind Your Language. "TV producers of the '60s and '70s missed a great opportunity," he said in London on Thursday. "Rather than reflect the reality of multi-ethnic Britain, they chose a more xenophobic route - emphasising points of difference instead of similarities."
In a seven-point plan, he encouraged programme-makers to "be bold" in setting targets and appointing ethnic minority staff. "I'm not talking about cleaners, security guys, scene shifters or anyone wearing a uniform," he added. "I'm talking about decision makers, producers, directors [and] commissioners." However, he said advances had been made in children's television and praised the BBC for its "fantastic" range of presenters.
Last year, Cracker writer Jimmy McGovern accused the BBC of being "one of the most racist institutions in England".
Source
White BBC Staffer Hits Back at Racism Accusation
A rather amazing show of spirit!
"An award-winning BBC reporter has accused Lenny Henry of insulting her white colleagues by calling for affirmative action employment polices at the corporation. The comedian claimed that racism was still rife within broadcasting and asked why ethnic minorities were often found only in menial roles.
But he was criticised by Olenka Frenkiel, a leading investigative reporter who has produced acclaimed reports for Newsnight, Correspondent and the Today programme. Ms Frenkiel concluded: "For goodness sake, campaign for a person to be Director General - not for a colour. I am still offended by Greg Dyke's lamenting of the BBC as `hideously white'. Why is it okay to vilify white people for their colour not black ones? It's insulting."
Source
Britain: Gurkha restaurant told it cannot fly the Gurkha flag
But the Russian or Chinese flag would be fine! Gurkhas are mountain tribesmen from Nepal (North of India) who have served with distinction in the British army for 200 years. They are generally highly esteemed in Britain for their courage and loyalty to Britain. So it should be noted that the flag concerned is the flag of a BRITISH regiment! This really is a quite grievous insult.
"A former Gurkha has been banned from flying the regiment's flag from his Nepalese restaurant, but he has been told he can hoist the colours of the European Union.
Asbahadur Gurung, whose family served in the Army for 70 years, wanted to display his former regiment's colours above his restaurant, called The Gurkha. Council officials said the green and white flag was a form of advertising and refused him permission. But they advised him that he did not need permission to run up the flag of any country, the UN or the EU
The decision has angered Mr Gurung, whose father Mambahadur fought in the Battle of Kohima in Burma in the Second World War. "I was proud to serve the British Army for 28 years as was my father before me," he said. "We know the British people have a great respect for the Gurkhas and we thought a lot of people would appreciate the regiment flag."
Mr Gurung, 70, spent 28 years in the Queen's Gurkha Signals, eventually reaching the rank of captain. He added: "Our restaurant is called The Gurkha so we thought it would be quite appropriate to fly our flag. I don't understand what the problem is. It is not very good. I don't want to fly another flag or the EU flag - I didn't fight for the EU." ...
The local parish council had no problem with the flags and there were no complaints from local residents. But Purbeck council viewed the Gurkha flag as a form of advertising
Source
Just some horrible Leftist pacifism at work, one imagines. It is absurd to call the flag advertising. It is a mark of justifiable pride. And Gurkha food is brilliant!
Herbal hope for Alzheimers?
A jar of browny-green goo is all it took to end Dr Stephen Minger's doubtsabout whether traditional Chinese medicine could teach anything to Western science. When a colleague walked into the leading stem cell scientist's lab at King's College London with a Chinese remedy that he believed could boost brain cell growth, and asked if he could test his theory on some neurons that Dr Minger had grown in his lab, he wasn't keen.
"My first thought was `you're not putting that on my cells'. But it turned out to be amazing stuff. It really stimulated the cells to grow; they grew like weeds," recalls Dr Minger, the ponytailed scientist who has has been in the spotlight since 2003, when his team created the UK's first lab-grown human embryonic stem cells. These are the "blank-slate" cells that have the power to turn into any cell of the body and may be key in producing more effective treatments for diseases such as diabetes and Parkinson's.
But for all of his scientific credentials, Dr Minger is about to step out of the conventional and into the alternative. At the time of the "green-goo" incident, neither he nor his colleague had the time or money to investigate further the ancient remedy that produced such an astonishing effect. But the experience stayed with Dr Minger and he began to view Chinese medicine in a different light. If its remedies could make brain cells grow, could they help to treat diseases that destroy the brain such as Alzheimer's?
Now the Government has asked him to head a two-year project aimed at strengthening links between UK and Chinese scientists. He immediately thought of using the project as a way of probing the ancient cures of traditional Chinese medicine, often referred to as TCM, to see if they can be converted into modern treatments.
The project starts this month. Dr Minger will fly to Shanghai to bring together Alzheimer's scientists in the UK with Chinese researchers in the hope of mining TCM for new medicines for the disease. He believes that the traditional system, based on energy flow in the body, yin and yang, anecdotal evidence and treatments made from ground-up plant and animal products, can help evidence-based Western medicine. So do many drug developers in the West who are turning their attention to TCM in the hope that the thousands of remedies in its armoury may have tangible biological and therapeutic effects. "I think there are clearly active ingredients in some of these plant extracts which have potent biological effects," says Dr Minger. "It's not that surprising when you look at the fact that Taxol, a cancer treatment, originally came from yew, and aspirin from willow. Assuming that this project works, TCM could represent a whole new class of drugs that no one has had access to before."
He believes that there is a pressing need for new Alzheimer's treatments. "It is such a huge healthcare burden; it's projected to bankrupt most Western countries in the next 50 years. There are almost no therapies and the existing ones work only on a subset of people. Plus, in most cases, they only slightly slow the progression of the disease." Rebecca Wood, the chief executive of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, agrees that looking for potential cures in Chinese medicine could open up new avenues of treatment. "It's always worth looking at the unusual. We shouldn't assume we've got all the answers here. Just because something is traditional doesn't mean that it doesn't have active compounds in it."
In fact, experts estimate that one in four prescription medications used in the UK was originally developed from plants. Dr Paul Francis, a neuroscientist at King's College London and one of the Alzheimer's researchers who will join Dr Minger in China, points out that even some of the conventional Alzheimer's medications prescribed in the UK started off as shrubs. "If you look at the three drugs currently available, one of them came from daffodils and snowdrops," he says. Further, many current conventional treatments are based on Chinese herbal remedies, including a possible treatment for dementia.
In recent years the Chinese Government has invested huge sums into investigating whether its vast library of traditional remedies can be converted into orthodox treatments. "The Chinese are very committed to this," says Dr Minger. "They have state-run labs that are doing nothing except investigate TCM."
But developing conventional drugs from these ancient cures is not an easy process as a single remedy can contain many different plant ingredients. How do you know which one is responsible for the curative effect, and is this effect due to one ingredient or a combination?
The process starts with scientists identifying a remedy that they think may have therapeutic potential. Using modern technology - and working by a process of elimination - they test each fraction of the remedy for biological activity, discarding the pieces that have no effect. They continue until they have sieved the remedy down to a point where only a few chemical constituents remain, which they deduce must be the ones that elicit the therapeutic effect. Artificial copies of the active chemical are then made and tested on patients in clinical trials.
But why can't they just give patients the traditional remedies in their native form? Because, Dr Francis says, they are not guaranteed to have any medicinal effect, and, more importantly, they may be dangerous. No two traditional remedies are the same, he says, unlike a pharmaceutical treatment where each pill has an identical composition. The remedies also need to undergo conventional scientific testing to make sure that they won't interact with other medication. This involves a barrage of safety tests, test-tube studies and, eventually, trials in patients. "Any chemical, even a natural chemical, can have side-effects," says Dr Francis.
Dr Minger, who believes that East-West scientific collaborations are the way forward for UK researchers, says that he may also use it to investigate whether TCM holds any potential treatments for cancer. "China is going like gang-busters, particularly if you're thinking in terms of medicine and pharmaceuticals. In many cases their labs are as good, if not better, than labs here or in the US. A lot of Chinese scientists also are moving back. When you ask them why, they say it's too good a place not to be right now."
Does Dr Minger anticipate any culture clashes? "Most of the Chinese guys are Western-trained so it's not that difficult to work together," he says. Plus, much of their science is regulated to the same level as UK science. The only potential problem he sees is the traffic. "It takes for ever to get anywhere. When you're scheduling something, you have to pack in so much extra time to get from one place to another." And he has learnt from the green goo incident how important it is to have no preconceptions. "I think it just takes a little bit of open-mindedness
Source
Britain: Expensive new home for four newts
Cheshire County Council is calling for a review of EU legislation after being forced to spend o60,000 to move four newts from a school development site. Great crested newts are an endangered species and are protected by EU law. When four were found on land at Fallibroome High School, Macclesfield, they had to be trapped, moved and have a new pond built to house them.
Councillor Barrie Hardern called the 60,000 pounds cost of the scheme before the school could build "ludicrous".
When the amphibians were found on the site where the school wanted to build new sports facilities and an extension a costly mitigation exercise had to be undertaken which meant a new habitat had to be built.
Natural England, the government body charged with protecting the newts said it is important to look after every colony no matter how small. But Mr Harden said: "I find it extraordinary that the law requires public money to be spent at such a ludicrous level."
Source
Cheapskate Brits again: "Shortages of equipment were blamed yesterday for the deaths of British soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan as two coroners in separate inquests made withering attacks on the Ministry of Defence. One coroner attacked the MoD's "unforgivable" failure to supply basic equipment, and accused it of a breach of trust. Both inquests showed that an acute lack of equipment had played a part in the deaths of a young officer in Afghanistan and two soldiers in Iraq. Captain James Philippson, 29, of 7 Parachute Regiment Royal Horse Artillery, was killed by a gunshot wound to the head on June 11, 2006, when his unit went to the rescue of other British soldiers who had come under fire from the Taleban in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan. His colleagues told an inquest in Oxford that they were "totally outgunned", and lacked basic equipment, including Minimi machineguns, rifles with under-slung grenades and night-vision kits."
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Mouldy NHS hospital kills a baby
A hospital has closed its neonatal unit to new admissions after a baby died from a rare fungal infection and another was found to be suffering from it. A premature baby, described as having been very sick, died at Salford Royal Hospital in late December. It was discovered that the child had aspergillus, a common airborne fungal infection, which can attack the very young. The infection was also found on the skin of a second baby, who is now being treated. As a precautionary measure, the hospital has stopped admitting preterm babies while the cases are investigated.
Michael Robinson, the senior consultant neonatologist, said: “Preterm babies are more susceptible to developing infections because of their immaturity and we continue to do all that we can to reduce these. “When a second infection occurred within two months of the first, we took further advice and are embarking upon a range of investigations and precautionary measures to ascertain whether there are any common contributory factors. “As a temporary measure, we have closed the unit to admissions of preterm babies and are currently monitoring the situation closely.”
The disease is a common airborne fungus that is found in homes and buildings and favours damp or flood-damaged properties. It is usually harmless but can develop in people with asthma or weakened immune systems such as leukaemia patients or those undergoing chemotherapy.
The hospital remains open to women giving birth. There were 17 babies on the neonatal unit and they are still being cared for by specialist staff. The hospital is a regional centre for premature babies and has received the highest rating of the Healthcare Commission.
Source
BBC: BIG CONTRAST BETWEEN ONLINE NEWS AND TV NEWS
Netizens get the real story. The general public get led up a dry gulch
Yesterday provided one of the starkest contrasts I have ever witnessed between the standards of news broadcasting on BBC TV News and BBC News Online. Putting it in the crudest of terms, the so-called flagship, BBC Ten O'Clock News (BBC 1), provided little more than tabloid hysteria, while the BBC Online coverage was thoughtful, and genuinely worthy both of plaudits and of the BBC's long tradition of public service.
The story in question somehow inevitably related to 'global warming', and it was about the report from a panel of scientific experts commissioned by the Department of Health, and the Health Protection Agency (HPA), to examine the way in which the UK has responded to rising temperatures since the 1970s, and to assess how the risks are likely to change. The moment you glimpsed the BBC Health News Online headline, you knew that you were in for some balanced and nuanced reporting, well-worth the read: 'Global warming "may cut deaths"' [BBC Health News Online, February 12]:
"The risk of a fatal heatwave in the UK within ten years is high, but overall global warming may mean fewer deaths due to temperature, a report says. A seriously hot summer between now and 2017 could claim more than 6,000 lives, the Department of Health report warns. But it also stresses that milder winters mean deaths during this time of year - which far outstrip heat-related mortality - will continue to decline."
The coverage went on to point out: "While summers in the UK became warmer in the period 1971 - 2003, there was no change in heat-related deaths, but annual cold-related mortality fell by 3% as winters became milder - so overall fewer people died as a result of extreme temperatures.
Rather than physiological changes explaining our ability to adapt to rising temperatures, the report puts this down primarily to lifestyle alterations - our readiness to wear more informal clothes, for instance, and the shift away from manual labour."
All very interesting. The account then, quite fairly, discussed the impacts of potential heatwaves, but, even in this context, it entered sensible caveats: "However, even 6,000 deaths pales in comparison with the number of cold-related deaths, which in the UK currently average about 20,000 per year."
Throughout, the Online reportage read, and felt, like real science, well-presented and cautious. I congratulate the Online Editor and the reporters concerned.
In stark contrast - you will have to take my word for this - the report on the BBC Ten O'Clock News was a travesty, focusing entirely on the mayhem of heatwaves, with lurid graphics and the use of over-dramatic language. By the end, any careful science had been brutally violated (I nearly said 'raped') - there is no other word for it - in the worst traditions of tabloid journalism. The role of milder winters cutting deaths, of course, was just ignored.
What can one say? No wonder TV audiences are falling. That is the last occasion on which I shall bother to waste my time watching the BBC Ten O'Clock News. BBC Online and Radio will do fine for me, thanks. But what must the excellent reporters of the Online site think?
And, what would the doughty John Charles Walsham Reith, 1st Baron Reith, the BBC's first Director-General, think? We could well recall his weighty words: "Need we be ashamed of moral values, or of intellectual and ethical objectives? It is these that are here and now at stake."
Source
An attempt by a British Muslim to wriggle out of what the Koran says
Followed by a mocking comment from a reader:
Some words are so loaded with emotion and historic content that it becomes almost impossible to use them in an objective way for initiating a debate or public discussion. These words trigger off gut reactions that not only drown sensible discussion but subsume all other voices. "Sharia", what is known as Islamic law, is such a word. In many western minds, it conjures up images of brutality and women's oppression. In certain Muslim quarters, it throws up visions of a Divine utopia. The two images clash and result is a great deal of heat but no enlightenment.
This is what I think happened with Archbishop of Canterbury's lecture, Civil and Religious Law in England: a religious perspective. Rowan Williams was trying to raise the important issue of religious conscience in a secular state and exploring how it can play a positive role in public space. I think the Archbishop made a basic mistake by focussing on sharia, with all its multiple internal and external problems - he could have illustrated his notion of "interactive pluralism" quite easily with other examples.
By using sharia as the basis of his lecture, he allowed the demons of western perception of Islam out of the bottle and ended up being thoroughly demonised himself. My own reading is that the import of Archbishop's lecture lies elsewhere: with the debate within the Anglican church about gay clergy, female bishops, and the issues of human fertilisation and embryology. He used sharia as a distraction and thus failed to promote a proper public debate on issues that rally mattered to him and his church. As such, the reaction to the Archbishop's comments have little to do with what he said. They have largely been, with few exceptions, about attacking Muslims, creating a full-scale Islamophobic moral panic: just look at the headlines.
I will have something to say about the relationship between sharia and the Qur'an in a future blog. But here I would like to point out that the Qur'an itself often produces similar reactions in certain individuals and communities. Just as sharia conjures up ready-made images, so the Qur'an produces automatic gut reactions. This is not surprising as the Qur'an, like any text, is not totally self-explanatory and any understanding of the text and its meaning depends on the intellectual, religious and cultural horizon of the reader.
A number of correspondents have rebuked me for not expressing doubts constantly, for not throwing scorn at certain verses, for not berating some of the teachings of the Qur'an. In other words, I have not conjured up their favourite stereotypes, caricatures and latent images of the Qur'an. Peitha, for example, excuses me of not having any doubts about what I am reading - this despite endless discussion about doubt on this blog. Apparently, I am not "a genuine individual tussling with the real problems of the Koran". A "genuine individual", I suspect, will be one who satisfies all the prejudices of such critics. Sorry to disappoint you Peitha but I am not in the business of flaming your prejudices. But I am in the business of explaining - primarily to myself, what the Qur'an could and should mean to Muslims today. I do not have perpetual doubt - if I did it will lead to total paralysis.
But I am in the business of finding new ways to read the Qur'an. And Richard Kimber provides us with one new way: intertextuality. Intertexuality has its origins in literary and critical theory, and hermeneutics, and Kimber uses it skilfully to tease out additional meaning of 2:21-29. I, of course, brought out what I thought was significance; Kimber adds an additional layer. I could describes Kimber's explanation of how the Qur'an combines "defensiveness and defiance" and moves "seamlessly from denouncing nit-picking critics to the more serious offence of those who break God's covenant" as a discovery and a step forward in my spiritual journey. So there!
There is a problem with intertextuality that I think we need to be aware of: In critical theory, the text is regarded as a complete whole, a pure text to be viewed as itself, as Jacques Derrida tells us. Historical context, which is crucial in the interpretations of the Qur'an, thus becomes irrelevant. Now, Kimber, as is evident from his explanation of 2:21-29, does not take this course - but I do think we ought to be aware of the danger. However, the point that as a dense literary text - with different linguistic levels containing pure information as well as literary language - the Qur'an should be analysed with the tools of literary studies (hermeneutics, literary criticism, semantics, linguistics and linguistic science) is well made; and my thanks to Richard for that. In the end, all interpretations of the Qur'an are individual, relative, and time bound. They are limited by shortcomings of the reader. Mine included.
Source
Comment on the above:
There can be few Muslims who dispute that (1) the Qur'an is the word of Allah; (2) Allah is all-knowing and all-powerful.
Given that Allah is all-knowing and all-powerful, we would expect him not to have any communication handicap. The one book that is the flawless word of Allah should be the most easily understood of all books.
And yet just about all "moderate Muslims" such as Ziauddin Sardar seemingly would have us believe that this all-knowing all-powerful Allah does indeed have a communication handicap. That to the extent that huge numbers of people have grossly misunderstood his clearly peaceful message and incorrectly engaged in wanton violent jihad as a result. And that only by some extraordinary interpretative process can I and others see in the Qur'an the tolerant peaceful message that Allah is telling us.
Please, Allah, given that you are so all-knowing and all-powerful, why don't you cut out the complex problematic process of Messenger and ancient Arabic and and just tell us all directly in our own languages??? Or could it be that all this scholarship(??) about interpretation is no more than the mother of all whitewashes???
And could it be that the Qu'ran was in reality the words of a very human author, the military leader whose military activities are repeatedly mentioned therein. That's very much what it looks like to me and many others. The Qur'an is unmistakeably nothing other than the authentic words of that famous man, with Allah nowhere on the scene. You couldn't fake it if you tried.
A hospital has closed its neonatal unit to new admissions after a baby died from a rare fungal infection and another was found to be suffering from it. A premature baby, described as having been very sick, died at Salford Royal Hospital in late December. It was discovered that the child had aspergillus, a common airborne fungal infection, which can attack the very young. The infection was also found on the skin of a second baby, who is now being treated. As a precautionary measure, the hospital has stopped admitting preterm babies while the cases are investigated.
Michael Robinson, the senior consultant neonatologist, said: “Preterm babies are more susceptible to developing infections because of their immaturity and we continue to do all that we can to reduce these. “When a second infection occurred within two months of the first, we took further advice and are embarking upon a range of investigations and precautionary measures to ascertain whether there are any common contributory factors. “As a temporary measure, we have closed the unit to admissions of preterm babies and are currently monitoring the situation closely.”
The disease is a common airborne fungus that is found in homes and buildings and favours damp or flood-damaged properties. It is usually harmless but can develop in people with asthma or weakened immune systems such as leukaemia patients or those undergoing chemotherapy.
The hospital remains open to women giving birth. There were 17 babies on the neonatal unit and they are still being cared for by specialist staff. The hospital is a regional centre for premature babies and has received the highest rating of the Healthcare Commission.
Source
BBC: BIG CONTRAST BETWEEN ONLINE NEWS AND TV NEWS
Netizens get the real story. The general public get led up a dry gulch
Yesterday provided one of the starkest contrasts I have ever witnessed between the standards of news broadcasting on BBC TV News and BBC News Online. Putting it in the crudest of terms, the so-called flagship, BBC Ten O'Clock News (BBC 1), provided little more than tabloid hysteria, while the BBC Online coverage was thoughtful, and genuinely worthy both of plaudits and of the BBC's long tradition of public service.
The story in question somehow inevitably related to 'global warming', and it was about the report from a panel of scientific experts commissioned by the Department of Health, and the Health Protection Agency (HPA), to examine the way in which the UK has responded to rising temperatures since the 1970s, and to assess how the risks are likely to change. The moment you glimpsed the BBC Health News Online headline, you knew that you were in for some balanced and nuanced reporting, well-worth the read: 'Global warming "may cut deaths"' [BBC Health News Online, February 12]:
"The risk of a fatal heatwave in the UK within ten years is high, but overall global warming may mean fewer deaths due to temperature, a report says. A seriously hot summer between now and 2017 could claim more than 6,000 lives, the Department of Health report warns. But it also stresses that milder winters mean deaths during this time of year - which far outstrip heat-related mortality - will continue to decline."
The coverage went on to point out: "While summers in the UK became warmer in the period 1971 - 2003, there was no change in heat-related deaths, but annual cold-related mortality fell by 3% as winters became milder - so overall fewer people died as a result of extreme temperatures.
Rather than physiological changes explaining our ability to adapt to rising temperatures, the report puts this down primarily to lifestyle alterations - our readiness to wear more informal clothes, for instance, and the shift away from manual labour."
All very interesting. The account then, quite fairly, discussed the impacts of potential heatwaves, but, even in this context, it entered sensible caveats: "However, even 6,000 deaths pales in comparison with the number of cold-related deaths, which in the UK currently average about 20,000 per year."
Throughout, the Online reportage read, and felt, like real science, well-presented and cautious. I congratulate the Online Editor and the reporters concerned.
In stark contrast - you will have to take my word for this - the report on the BBC Ten O'Clock News was a travesty, focusing entirely on the mayhem of heatwaves, with lurid graphics and the use of over-dramatic language. By the end, any careful science had been brutally violated (I nearly said 'raped') - there is no other word for it - in the worst traditions of tabloid journalism. The role of milder winters cutting deaths, of course, was just ignored.
What can one say? No wonder TV audiences are falling. That is the last occasion on which I shall bother to waste my time watching the BBC Ten O'Clock News. BBC Online and Radio will do fine for me, thanks. But what must the excellent reporters of the Online site think?
And, what would the doughty John Charles Walsham Reith, 1st Baron Reith, the BBC's first Director-General, think? We could well recall his weighty words: "Need we be ashamed of moral values, or of intellectual and ethical objectives? It is these that are here and now at stake."
Source
An attempt by a British Muslim to wriggle out of what the Koran says
Followed by a mocking comment from a reader:
Some words are so loaded with emotion and historic content that it becomes almost impossible to use them in an objective way for initiating a debate or public discussion. These words trigger off gut reactions that not only drown sensible discussion but subsume all other voices. "Sharia", what is known as Islamic law, is such a word. In many western minds, it conjures up images of brutality and women's oppression. In certain Muslim quarters, it throws up visions of a Divine utopia. The two images clash and result is a great deal of heat but no enlightenment.
This is what I think happened with Archbishop of Canterbury's lecture, Civil and Religious Law in England: a religious perspective. Rowan Williams was trying to raise the important issue of religious conscience in a secular state and exploring how it can play a positive role in public space. I think the Archbishop made a basic mistake by focussing on sharia, with all its multiple internal and external problems - he could have illustrated his notion of "interactive pluralism" quite easily with other examples.
By using sharia as the basis of his lecture, he allowed the demons of western perception of Islam out of the bottle and ended up being thoroughly demonised himself. My own reading is that the import of Archbishop's lecture lies elsewhere: with the debate within the Anglican church about gay clergy, female bishops, and the issues of human fertilisation and embryology. He used sharia as a distraction and thus failed to promote a proper public debate on issues that rally mattered to him and his church. As such, the reaction to the Archbishop's comments have little to do with what he said. They have largely been, with few exceptions, about attacking Muslims, creating a full-scale Islamophobic moral panic: just look at the headlines.
I will have something to say about the relationship between sharia and the Qur'an in a future blog. But here I would like to point out that the Qur'an itself often produces similar reactions in certain individuals and communities. Just as sharia conjures up ready-made images, so the Qur'an produces automatic gut reactions. This is not surprising as the Qur'an, like any text, is not totally self-explanatory and any understanding of the text and its meaning depends on the intellectual, religious and cultural horizon of the reader.
A number of correspondents have rebuked me for not expressing doubts constantly, for not throwing scorn at certain verses, for not berating some of the teachings of the Qur'an. In other words, I have not conjured up their favourite stereotypes, caricatures and latent images of the Qur'an. Peitha, for example, excuses me of not having any doubts about what I am reading - this despite endless discussion about doubt on this blog. Apparently, I am not "a genuine individual tussling with the real problems of the Koran". A "genuine individual", I suspect, will be one who satisfies all the prejudices of such critics. Sorry to disappoint you Peitha but I am not in the business of flaming your prejudices. But I am in the business of explaining - primarily to myself, what the Qur'an could and should mean to Muslims today. I do not have perpetual doubt - if I did it will lead to total paralysis.
But I am in the business of finding new ways to read the Qur'an. And Richard Kimber provides us with one new way: intertextuality. Intertexuality has its origins in literary and critical theory, and hermeneutics, and Kimber uses it skilfully to tease out additional meaning of 2:21-29. I, of course, brought out what I thought was significance; Kimber adds an additional layer. I could describes Kimber's explanation of how the Qur'an combines "defensiveness and defiance" and moves "seamlessly from denouncing nit-picking critics to the more serious offence of those who break God's covenant" as a discovery and a step forward in my spiritual journey. So there!
There is a problem with intertextuality that I think we need to be aware of: In critical theory, the text is regarded as a complete whole, a pure text to be viewed as itself, as Jacques Derrida tells us. Historical context, which is crucial in the interpretations of the Qur'an, thus becomes irrelevant. Now, Kimber, as is evident from his explanation of 2:21-29, does not take this course - but I do think we ought to be aware of the danger. However, the point that as a dense literary text - with different linguistic levels containing pure information as well as literary language - the Qur'an should be analysed with the tools of literary studies (hermeneutics, literary criticism, semantics, linguistics and linguistic science) is well made; and my thanks to Richard for that. In the end, all interpretations of the Qur'an are individual, relative, and time bound. They are limited by shortcomings of the reader. Mine included.
Source
Comment on the above:
There can be few Muslims who dispute that (1) the Qur'an is the word of Allah; (2) Allah is all-knowing and all-powerful.
Given that Allah is all-knowing and all-powerful, we would expect him not to have any communication handicap. The one book that is the flawless word of Allah should be the most easily understood of all books.
And yet just about all "moderate Muslims" such as Ziauddin Sardar seemingly would have us believe that this all-knowing all-powerful Allah does indeed have a communication handicap. That to the extent that huge numbers of people have grossly misunderstood his clearly peaceful message and incorrectly engaged in wanton violent jihad as a result. And that only by some extraordinary interpretative process can I and others see in the Qur'an the tolerant peaceful message that Allah is telling us.
Please, Allah, given that you are so all-knowing and all-powerful, why don't you cut out the complex problematic process of Messenger and ancient Arabic and and just tell us all directly in our own languages??? Or could it be that all this scholarship(??) about interpretation is no more than the mother of all whitewashes???
And could it be that the Qu'ran was in reality the words of a very human author, the military leader whose military activities are repeatedly mentioned therein. That's very much what it looks like to me and many others. The Qur'an is unmistakeably nothing other than the authentic words of that famous man, with Allah nowhere on the scene. You couldn't fake it if you tried.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Global warming kills off Loch Ness monster!!
LEGENDARY Nessie hunter Robert Rines is giving up his search for the monster after 37 years. The 85-year-old American will make one last trip in a bid to find the elusive beast. After almost four decades of fruitless expeditions, he admitted: "Unfortunately, I'm running out of age." World War II veteran Robert has devoted almost half his life to scouring Loch Ness. He started in 1971. The following year, he watched a 25ft-long hump with the texture of elephant skin gliding through the water. His original trip was to help another monster hunter with sonar equipment and quickly identified large moving targets. He was smitten and returned the next year, which is when, he says: "I had the misfortune of seeing one of these things with my own eyes."
Since then, he has been obsessed with tracking down the creature with a staggering array of hi-tech equipment. It was this gear that took the famous "flipper" picture that year which created a stir around the world. Despite having hundreds of sonar contacts over the years, the trail has since gone cold and Rines believes that Nessie may be dead, a victim of global warming. He still wants to check almost 100 contacts on the floor of the loch, believing one may be the monster's remains.
Robert bought a cottage on the banks of the loch to live in during his annual summer trips. He has also set up a "Nessie" room in his Boston home crammed with information gathered over the years. As he prepared for his last hunt, Robert said: "What am I to do - forget what I saw? There are a lot of eyewitness accounts. Are they all liars? All drunks? I don't believe human nature is like that. "What disturbs me as a lawyer is that we prove cases by eyewitness testimony. The human brain is not 100 per cent accurate but it's not zero either."
In 1975, the trained physicist and inventor managed to get a photograph in the murky waters of the loch which apparently showed the body, flipper, neck and head of an animal. Since Nessie hunting began in the 1930s, a host of people have tried to find the monster.
Source
NHS pays back millions in overcharges
The NHS is being forced to pay out at least 180 million pounds to people wrongly charged for nursing care. Patients charged for long-term nursing and social care from 1996 to 2004 have been able to have their cases reviewed. More than 12,000 cases have been examined, resulting in around 2,000 payouts at a total cost of 180m to date.
It comes after NHS chiefs were told to fund care packages where the main area of need was health-related rather than just personal care, such as aid with bathing or dressing. But the rules were interpreted differently across England, meaning some people ended up paying more than they should.
In 2003, a report by the Health Service Ombudsman said the Government's guidance on the eligibility of patients for NHS-funded care places had been "misinterpreted and misapplied" by some health authorities. The result was that some elderly and disabled patients suffered "hardship and injustice" by wrongly being asked to pay for their care needs.
Earlier, in 1999, Pam Coughlan won a test case against the closure of her NHS care home in Exeter. The judgment made clear that if the needs of the patient were primarily health needs, the health authority was responsible. Applications had to be submitted to primary care trusts by November last year for the payouts, which can take distress into account.
A Department of Health spokesman said: "The NHS has paid restitution to the affected individuals or their families, totalling œ180m to date. It is not possible to estimate the level of restitution that will be paid following the review of the remaining cases."
Source
This is what a supposedly Christian archbishop has encouraged
Gina Khan knows the horrors of polygamy. Her mother was married off at 15 and only when her father took his new bride to the other side of Pakistan did Gina's mother discover that he already had another wife and five children. Later he married a third woman, but when Gina's parents came to Britain, her mother made him divorce the third wife: "She knew that there was a law in this country that protected her. He never did it again."
Gina's mother was traumatised, though, and would burst into tears at the recollection. But the family brush with polygamy doesn't stop there. Gina's sister suffered the same fate and ended up being sectioned under the Mental Health Act. And Gina, when happily married to a Pakistani man, had to endure him being forced by his family to take a second wife: his 16-year-old cousin. With reluctance, she divorced him.
I interviewed Gina for The Times a year ago, and she was determined to highlight the plight of Muslim women living in an utterly male-dominated community. She has had to endure persecution, including a brick through her window and threatening phone calls. But she won't give up. "We are in the 21st century; we're not in the 7th century." Yet, even though polygamy is illegal here, the Government still pays extra benefits to men with more than one wife, as long as the marriage was conducted in a country where polygamy is allowed. When John Hutton was Work and Pensions Secretary, he demanded a review: the conclusion, last December, was that it should remain.
Why, when ministers claim to be trying to empower Muslim women, do they support a barbaric tradition that is against women's interests and against the law? The DWP tries to play down the number of people able to claim such benefits, but its guidance still talks about "valid polygamous marriages". How can a polygamous marriage be valid in any circumstances here? This is just one example of Muslim women being denied the same rights as other women, in the name of respecting different faiths. The exaggerated attempt to embrace "diversity", exemplified by the Archbishop of Canterbury, is disastrous not just for social cohesion, but for many members of the Muslim community too, most of them female.
It is one thing to respect Muslims' need for halal butchery or for Sharia-compliant mortgages: these are genuine religious differences that harm nobody. But polygamy, forced marriages and (dis)honour violence are practices more cultural than religious. They are rooted in the culture of South Asian communities, often deeply rural, and have no place in modern Britain. They do not deserve respect or even toleration.
Yet still there are schools that refuse to put up posters giving warning of the dangers of forced marriages, according to a recent report by the Centre for Social Cohesion. Shazia Qayum, team leader at Karma Nirvana, a refuge in Derby, claims: "We approached schools to get posters up that let children know that there was help available. This was just before the holidays, which is the most critical time, because this is when girls get taken off to Pakistan or Bangladesh to be married. Unfortunately, none of the schools would let us put them up because they said it would offend the parents."
And still there is often collusion within the Asian community to prevent women running away from forced marriages. Taxi drivers taking battered women to refuges will sometimes report their whereabouts to their abusive husbands. John Paton, manager of the Lancashire Family Mediation Service, says: "It's extremely difficult for an Asian woman to go to a community worker or an agency where she knows that there are potentially people there who will report back to her family what she has said."
There have even been complaints about local councillors intimidating Asian women's groups. As the chair of a women's project, who wants to remain anonymous for her own safety, explains: "We have a lot of pressure from the local councillors in Bradford; they are the bad ones, because they abuse their power by trying to get details on who is staying with us and what they are doing. They give us a hard time, until we have to complain to the police and they back off. They are dominant males who are trying to bully us." Unfortunately, Britain's Asian community is full of dominant males, and unless we work actively to resist them, Asian women will continue to be bullied. Giving them the "choice" of using Sharia, when such a choice is likely to be forced on them by their husbands, fathers or brothers, is no help at all.
You don't just have to be concerned about women's safety to be alarmed. According to Nazir Afzal, the Crown Prosecution Service's lead on such matters: "If you had a map of the UK showing the location of Islamist groups - or terrorist cells - and you had another map showing the incidence of honour-based violence and you overlaid them, you would find that they were a mirror; they would be almost identical. It could be that this is simply because this is where South Asians live or it could suggest there is a strong link between these two attitudes." So we should all be concerned that life in Britain can be miserable for South Asian women. They are at least three times more likely to kill themselves than white women of the same age. We should not be encouraging them to use Sharia courts run exclusively by men, even for civil matters. Nor should we be worried about offending cultural sensitivities by standing up for their rights. We should be telling their menfolk that the traditions of rural Pakistan, Bangladesh and India are unacceptable enough over there. They are completely intolerable in this free country.
Source
A good pre-nup can now stop predatory divorce claims in Britain
Husbands one, two and three have already netted her 18 million pounds but Susan Crossley's efforts to secure a slice of her fourth husband's œ45 million fortune hit the buffers last night. On the eve of a keenly awaited court hearing, Mrs Crossley, 50, abandoned her claim on the fortune of her estranged husband, the property developer Stuart Crossley, 62. She had signed a prenuptial contract originally, saying that she would not claim a penny if the marriage, which only lasted 14 months, broke up. Hours before today's High Court hearing at which Mrs Crossley intended to pursue her claim, her lawyers announced that she had dropped it and will walk away with nothing. The decision is a boost to the status of prenuptial agreements, which lawyers had predicted would be certain to be upheld by the courts in her case.
Last night her solicitor, Mark Harper, of the London law firm Withers, said: "Mrs Crossley has abandoned her claims." Privately Mrs Crossley has accepted that she stood no chance after a Court of Appeal ruling before Christmas in which judges made clear their view that the prenuptial agreement was valid. Mrs Crossley, whose previous husbands were Kevin Nicholson, heir to the Kwik Save fortune; Peter Lilley, adopted son of Thomas Lilley, chief of Lilley and Skinner shoes; and the racing magnate Robert Sangster, had tried to argue that she was entitled to half the share of Mr Crossley's wealth because, she claimed, he had not disclosed every aspect of his assets.
She maintained that the prenuptial agreement was invalid because he failed to tell her about "tens of millions" he had in offshore accounts. But in a ground-breaking ruling in December, three Court of Appeal judges dismissed her challenge to a judge's ruling that the "prenup" should first be evaluated before looking at any further claim she might have. Mrs Crossley had argued that this denied her access to the courts.
Her lawyers had described the streamlined one-day hearing to look first at the "prenup" as a "knockout blow" because it meant that her claim for a share of her husband's wealth would probably be thrown out. Lord Justice Thorpe, who made the decision with Lords Justices Keene and Wall, said that judges had a duty to shorten the trial process where "very rich people are demanding full scale trials" and were straining the courts' overstretched capacity. At the time Mr Harper said that the ruling was "a significant step forward for prenuptial agreements" and Mr Crossley said: "This is a fair decision. I am upset that our marriage failed. Sadly, my wife is a career divorcee." Alex Carruthers, a family lawyer with the London firm Hughes Fowler Carruthers, said that in future judges would be likely to be "more forthright in upholding prenuptial contracts, if the circumstances are right".
Mr Crossley had met his future wife in the summer of 2005 and they were married in early 2006. He had four children, Mrs Crossley had three, one by each of her previous marriages. By March 2007 the Crossleys had separated and in August she filed for divorce.
Lord Justice Thorpe, giving judgment in December, said that before they married they employed "highly experienced lawyers" to write their "pre-nup", which allowed them to walk away after a divorce with what they had taken into the marriage. "This seems to me to be an entirely appropriate step for the parties to take."
Source
LEGENDARY Nessie hunter Robert Rines is giving up his search for the monster after 37 years. The 85-year-old American will make one last trip in a bid to find the elusive beast. After almost four decades of fruitless expeditions, he admitted: "Unfortunately, I'm running out of age." World War II veteran Robert has devoted almost half his life to scouring Loch Ness. He started in 1971. The following year, he watched a 25ft-long hump with the texture of elephant skin gliding through the water. His original trip was to help another monster hunter with sonar equipment and quickly identified large moving targets. He was smitten and returned the next year, which is when, he says: "I had the misfortune of seeing one of these things with my own eyes."
Since then, he has been obsessed with tracking down the creature with a staggering array of hi-tech equipment. It was this gear that took the famous "flipper" picture that year which created a stir around the world. Despite having hundreds of sonar contacts over the years, the trail has since gone cold and Rines believes that Nessie may be dead, a victim of global warming. He still wants to check almost 100 contacts on the floor of the loch, believing one may be the monster's remains.
Robert bought a cottage on the banks of the loch to live in during his annual summer trips. He has also set up a "Nessie" room in his Boston home crammed with information gathered over the years. As he prepared for his last hunt, Robert said: "What am I to do - forget what I saw? There are a lot of eyewitness accounts. Are they all liars? All drunks? I don't believe human nature is like that. "What disturbs me as a lawyer is that we prove cases by eyewitness testimony. The human brain is not 100 per cent accurate but it's not zero either."
In 1975, the trained physicist and inventor managed to get a photograph in the murky waters of the loch which apparently showed the body, flipper, neck and head of an animal. Since Nessie hunting began in the 1930s, a host of people have tried to find the monster.
Source
NHS pays back millions in overcharges
The NHS is being forced to pay out at least 180 million pounds to people wrongly charged for nursing care. Patients charged for long-term nursing and social care from 1996 to 2004 have been able to have their cases reviewed. More than 12,000 cases have been examined, resulting in around 2,000 payouts at a total cost of 180m to date.
It comes after NHS chiefs were told to fund care packages where the main area of need was health-related rather than just personal care, such as aid with bathing or dressing. But the rules were interpreted differently across England, meaning some people ended up paying more than they should.
In 2003, a report by the Health Service Ombudsman said the Government's guidance on the eligibility of patients for NHS-funded care places had been "misinterpreted and misapplied" by some health authorities. The result was that some elderly and disabled patients suffered "hardship and injustice" by wrongly being asked to pay for their care needs.
Earlier, in 1999, Pam Coughlan won a test case against the closure of her NHS care home in Exeter. The judgment made clear that if the needs of the patient were primarily health needs, the health authority was responsible. Applications had to be submitted to primary care trusts by November last year for the payouts, which can take distress into account.
A Department of Health spokesman said: "The NHS has paid restitution to the affected individuals or their families, totalling œ180m to date. It is not possible to estimate the level of restitution that will be paid following the review of the remaining cases."
Source
This is what a supposedly Christian archbishop has encouraged
Gina Khan knows the horrors of polygamy. Her mother was married off at 15 and only when her father took his new bride to the other side of Pakistan did Gina's mother discover that he already had another wife and five children. Later he married a third woman, but when Gina's parents came to Britain, her mother made him divorce the third wife: "She knew that there was a law in this country that protected her. He never did it again."
Gina's mother was traumatised, though, and would burst into tears at the recollection. But the family brush with polygamy doesn't stop there. Gina's sister suffered the same fate and ended up being sectioned under the Mental Health Act. And Gina, when happily married to a Pakistani man, had to endure him being forced by his family to take a second wife: his 16-year-old cousin. With reluctance, she divorced him.
I interviewed Gina for The Times a year ago, and she was determined to highlight the plight of Muslim women living in an utterly male-dominated community. She has had to endure persecution, including a brick through her window and threatening phone calls. But she won't give up. "We are in the 21st century; we're not in the 7th century." Yet, even though polygamy is illegal here, the Government still pays extra benefits to men with more than one wife, as long as the marriage was conducted in a country where polygamy is allowed. When John Hutton was Work and Pensions Secretary, he demanded a review: the conclusion, last December, was that it should remain.
Why, when ministers claim to be trying to empower Muslim women, do they support a barbaric tradition that is against women's interests and against the law? The DWP tries to play down the number of people able to claim such benefits, but its guidance still talks about "valid polygamous marriages". How can a polygamous marriage be valid in any circumstances here? This is just one example of Muslim women being denied the same rights as other women, in the name of respecting different faiths. The exaggerated attempt to embrace "diversity", exemplified by the Archbishop of Canterbury, is disastrous not just for social cohesion, but for many members of the Muslim community too, most of them female.
It is one thing to respect Muslims' need for halal butchery or for Sharia-compliant mortgages: these are genuine religious differences that harm nobody. But polygamy, forced marriages and (dis)honour violence are practices more cultural than religious. They are rooted in the culture of South Asian communities, often deeply rural, and have no place in modern Britain. They do not deserve respect or even toleration.
Yet still there are schools that refuse to put up posters giving warning of the dangers of forced marriages, according to a recent report by the Centre for Social Cohesion. Shazia Qayum, team leader at Karma Nirvana, a refuge in Derby, claims: "We approached schools to get posters up that let children know that there was help available. This was just before the holidays, which is the most critical time, because this is when girls get taken off to Pakistan or Bangladesh to be married. Unfortunately, none of the schools would let us put them up because they said it would offend the parents."
And still there is often collusion within the Asian community to prevent women running away from forced marriages. Taxi drivers taking battered women to refuges will sometimes report their whereabouts to their abusive husbands. John Paton, manager of the Lancashire Family Mediation Service, says: "It's extremely difficult for an Asian woman to go to a community worker or an agency where she knows that there are potentially people there who will report back to her family what she has said."
There have even been complaints about local councillors intimidating Asian women's groups. As the chair of a women's project, who wants to remain anonymous for her own safety, explains: "We have a lot of pressure from the local councillors in Bradford; they are the bad ones, because they abuse their power by trying to get details on who is staying with us and what they are doing. They give us a hard time, until we have to complain to the police and they back off. They are dominant males who are trying to bully us." Unfortunately, Britain's Asian community is full of dominant males, and unless we work actively to resist them, Asian women will continue to be bullied. Giving them the "choice" of using Sharia, when such a choice is likely to be forced on them by their husbands, fathers or brothers, is no help at all.
You don't just have to be concerned about women's safety to be alarmed. According to Nazir Afzal, the Crown Prosecution Service's lead on such matters: "If you had a map of the UK showing the location of Islamist groups - or terrorist cells - and you had another map showing the incidence of honour-based violence and you overlaid them, you would find that they were a mirror; they would be almost identical. It could be that this is simply because this is where South Asians live or it could suggest there is a strong link between these two attitudes." So we should all be concerned that life in Britain can be miserable for South Asian women. They are at least three times more likely to kill themselves than white women of the same age. We should not be encouraging them to use Sharia courts run exclusively by men, even for civil matters. Nor should we be worried about offending cultural sensitivities by standing up for their rights. We should be telling their menfolk that the traditions of rural Pakistan, Bangladesh and India are unacceptable enough over there. They are completely intolerable in this free country.
Source
A good pre-nup can now stop predatory divorce claims in Britain
Husbands one, two and three have already netted her 18 million pounds but Susan Crossley's efforts to secure a slice of her fourth husband's œ45 million fortune hit the buffers last night. On the eve of a keenly awaited court hearing, Mrs Crossley, 50, abandoned her claim on the fortune of her estranged husband, the property developer Stuart Crossley, 62. She had signed a prenuptial contract originally, saying that she would not claim a penny if the marriage, which only lasted 14 months, broke up. Hours before today's High Court hearing at which Mrs Crossley intended to pursue her claim, her lawyers announced that she had dropped it and will walk away with nothing. The decision is a boost to the status of prenuptial agreements, which lawyers had predicted would be certain to be upheld by the courts in her case.
Last night her solicitor, Mark Harper, of the London law firm Withers, said: "Mrs Crossley has abandoned her claims." Privately Mrs Crossley has accepted that she stood no chance after a Court of Appeal ruling before Christmas in which judges made clear their view that the prenuptial agreement was valid. Mrs Crossley, whose previous husbands were Kevin Nicholson, heir to the Kwik Save fortune; Peter Lilley, adopted son of Thomas Lilley, chief of Lilley and Skinner shoes; and the racing magnate Robert Sangster, had tried to argue that she was entitled to half the share of Mr Crossley's wealth because, she claimed, he had not disclosed every aspect of his assets.
She maintained that the prenuptial agreement was invalid because he failed to tell her about "tens of millions" he had in offshore accounts. But in a ground-breaking ruling in December, three Court of Appeal judges dismissed her challenge to a judge's ruling that the "prenup" should first be evaluated before looking at any further claim she might have. Mrs Crossley had argued that this denied her access to the courts.
Her lawyers had described the streamlined one-day hearing to look first at the "prenup" as a "knockout blow" because it meant that her claim for a share of her husband's wealth would probably be thrown out. Lord Justice Thorpe, who made the decision with Lords Justices Keene and Wall, said that judges had a duty to shorten the trial process where "very rich people are demanding full scale trials" and were straining the courts' overstretched capacity. At the time Mr Harper said that the ruling was "a significant step forward for prenuptial agreements" and Mr Crossley said: "This is a fair decision. I am upset that our marriage failed. Sadly, my wife is a career divorcee." Alex Carruthers, a family lawyer with the London firm Hughes Fowler Carruthers, said that in future judges would be likely to be "more forthright in upholding prenuptial contracts, if the circumstances are right".
Mr Crossley had met his future wife in the summer of 2005 and they were married in early 2006. He had four children, Mrs Crossley had three, one by each of her previous marriages. By March 2007 the Crossleys had separated and in August she filed for divorce.
Lord Justice Thorpe, giving judgment in December, said that before they married they employed "highly experienced lawyers" to write their "pre-nup", which allowed them to walk away after a divorce with what they had taken into the marriage. "This seems to me to be an entirely appropriate step for the parties to take."
Source
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Antisemitism at LSE
An attempt to brand Israel as an "apartheid" state by students at one of Britain's leading universities fell by just seven votes last week. But members of the Jewish and Israel societies at the London School of Economics may have to return to the students' union debating chamber after a challenge to the conduct of the ballot. The union's constitutional committee is understood to have called into question the 292-285 vote against the motion, although a decision was not due to be announced until yesterday.
The resolution - whose proposers included the head of the students' Palestine Society - called for a campaign to lobby the LSE and the National Union of Students to "divest from apartheid Israel". More than 600 students - six times the usual attendance for union meetings - cast their vote, which was held by secret ballot rather than a show of hands to prevent intimidation. But the union's returning officer received complaints that some students had been unable to get into the crowded hall to hear the debate, and that ballot papers lying around may have been used by people not entitled to vote.
The result of the debate, however, buoyed Jewish students, who had only 48 hours to mobilise opinion after learning that it was to take place. Marilyn Carsley, president of LSE's Israel Society, said that there had been "a lot of anti-Israel rhetoric" on campus recently and that the outcome of the debate had been "uncertain. We were all on edge." Sam Cohen, an MA student, who led the campaign against the resolution, said: "The response has been phenomenal. Jewish and non-Jewish students proudly opposed extremist language at LSE and have shown that we want a moderate, sensible and constructive debate around the issues of the Middle East. "I really hope this is the last time people try to polarise the student body in this way."
An editorial in this week's LSE student newspaper, The Beaver, commented: "The LSE has been in real danger of alienating Jewish and Israeli students, and this motion was another example."
When new students arrived at the London School of Economics last autumn, they received a welcome pack from the students' union that would have been distinctly unwelcome to many Jewish freshers. Its contents included a letter from two union officials, one the head of the Palestine Society, telling them of the union's twinning with the West Bank university, An Najah, and accusing Israel of having killed 800 Palestinian children. It was a taste of what was to come. Pro-Palestinian campaigners have turned up the heat on Israel over the past year, sporting "Make Apartheid History" T-shirts while handing out leaflets denouncing the Jewish state. "It is time for us to call Israeli apartheid by its name and press our universities to divest and stop funding it," Palestine Society head Ziyaad Lunat told the JC this week.
But the intense lobbying "has made a lot of Jewish students feel intimidated by the atmosphere this year", said Sam Cohen, an activist in the Jewish and Israel societies. "They feel particularly targeted because the anti-Israel voice is so loud, extreme and polarising." There are 36 Israeli postgraduates and three undergraduates at LSE, according to an official website aimed at encouraging applicants from the country. But one third-year Israeli postgrad, Lior Herman, said he would now think twice about advising compatriots to join him. "I would definitely recommend LSE for academic reasons, but the atmosphere among students is not so pleasant."
If last week's resolution labelling Israel as apartheid had passed, Mr Herman believed that many Jewish and Israeli students "would have found it hard to be members of a student body that says if you don't agree Israel is an apartheid state, or side with the boycott, you're not one of us." Ms Cohen said that Jewish students had come to her in tears, for example after the term "apartheid" had been "tossed around in class". An MA student in human rights, she said that in one of her own classes, "I have heard students accuse Israel of genocide, ethnic cleansing and of being an apartheid, racist state."
Source
Britain: "Whites need not apply"
Rarely a day goes by without a whopping piece of hypocrisy on the part of the British Labour Party, for much of their political life is one big act of hypocrisy. Thus this weekend we have them facing both ways at once on matters of race.
On the one hand they have joined in the general chorus of denunciation of Archbishop Booby's suggestion that Sharia Law be afforded status and recognition, and thereby approbation, within the law of England and Wales. On this the Labour Party have got it right.
At almost the same moment, however, Labour's deputy leader Harriett Harman is found to be supportive of the notion that the law be changed to enable `all-black' shortlists to be drawn up for the selection of candidates for election to Parliament by individual constituencies. As the report says:
White candidates should be barred from standing for Parliament in up to eight constituencies in order to get more black and Asian MPs elected, says a controversial report commissioned by Labour's deputy leader, Harriet Harman.
Just savour those words: `white candidates should be barred.' It has taken us a thousand years or so to arrive at a state of constitutional affairs whereby any man or woman might seek to stand for Parliament regardless of sex, race, colour, religious creed, political philosophy or sexual orientation and for the party of one's personal taste. Now, if Labour's obnoxious plan were to succeed, our people would be legally excluded from standing for Parliament in the constituency of their choice for the party of their choice simply because of the white colour of their skin.
Such is Labour extremism that it is prepared to contemplate the introduction of a measure that is flagrantly in breach of the right not to be discriminated against "on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status", which phraseology I have lifted intact from Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Source
Sharia in Britain already
Sharia law is operating in secret in many British towns and cities, the Daily Express can reveal. Muslim communities are being ruled with a rod of iron in clear defiance of the British legal system. Panels of Islamic scholars sit in mosques, converted living rooms and even a former pub to issue fatwas, or rulings. The revelation that they have decided thousands of cases over the last 25 years comes after the Archbishop of Canterbury provoked condemnation by calling for an "accommodation" with the Islamic legal code.
Dr Rowan Williams said parts of civil law could be dealt with under the sharia system - but some communities have already gone much further. The Daily Express has uncovered a catalogue of evidence that sharia courts are acting independently of British law. Aydarus Yusuf revealed last year that a stabbing case had been decided by an unofficial "court" sitting in Woolwich, south-east London.
The 29-year-old youth worker, who was involved in setting up the hearing, said a group of Somali youths had been arrested on suspicion of stabbing another Somali teenager. The victim's family told the police it would be better settled out of court and the suspects were released on bail. A hearing was allegedly held and elders ordered the suspects to compensate the victim. An Islamic sharia council at Leyton in east London also revealed that it had dealt with nearly 7,000 divorces since it had opened in 1982, while sharia courts in the capital have settled many hundreds of financial disputes.
Details of the spread of sharia law emerged as controversy continued to rage over Dr Williams's comments, with condemnation from Downing Street, the Conservatives and other leading Church of England clerics. Thousands of Daily Express readers posted comments on our website www.express.co.uk and 95 per cent of callers to our phone vote line said sharia law should be banned.
Along with the Islamic council in Leyton, there are at least two other sharia courts in London. There are also courts in many areas of the country with high Muslim populations. The Islamic sharia council lists members in Birmingham, Bradford, Halifax, Leeds, Manchester, Oxford, Cardiff, Peterborough and Rotherham. As revealed by the Daily Express last year, there is also a sharia court in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, less than a mile from the former home of suicide bomber Mohammad Siddique Khan. One Muslim man who has faced that court's wrath because of his homosexuality said: "Campaigners claim sharia courts in Britain just sit on civil matters, but the reality is very different and Muslims are ordered to live by these laws, not British law."
Most sharia courts concentrate on divorce cases - although such judgments are not recognised in British law - as well as financial and neighbourhood disputes. Other areas where sharia courts have been consulted voluntarily are inheritance disputes, boundary wrangles and religious guidance. Suhaib Hasan, a spokesman for the Islamic sharia council in Leyton, said he and his colleagues dealt with more than 200 cases a year. "From the beginning, people have wanted our services. More and more come back to us. Each month we deal with 20 cases," said the sheikh, who has presided over sharia courts in Britain for more than 25 years.
Although their rulings have no basis in law, participants agree to abide by them voluntarily and may settle their disputes without referral to the British legal authorities. On its website, the Islamic sharia council warns that the divorces it grants can not invalidate a union under British civil law and advises that a separate civil divorce should be obtained. Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity, said there is an "alternative parallel unofficial legal system" now operating. "Sharia courts now operate in most larger cities, with different sectarian and ethnic groups operating their own courts that cater to their specific needs according to their traditions," he said.
A room containing a long table and 16 chairs inside Birmingham's central mosque acts as a sharia court presided over by five elders. They regularly pass judgment on a host of disputes. All are fully versed in sharia law but the hundreds of books on Islamic science and theology on the shelves around them serve as back-up. The sharia council is the formal body of Islamic legal opinion and jurisdiction for local Muslims. It is also a point of advice for Muslims in the city seeking a religious or theological perspective on general issues.
Source
Over two million foreigners are now working in Britain
The number of foreign workers in the UK has risen above two million for the first time, The Daily Telegraph can disclose. There has been a 75 per cent increase in workers from abroad in the last six years, while the number of British employees has dropped by half a million, new figures show
The rise has followed an influx of hundreds of thousands of Eastern Europeans into the UK since 2004. At the same time the number of British people claiming incapacity benefit has soared while there has also been an increase in people emigrating. Official figures from the Labour Force Survey show that the number of foreigners in the UK workforce increased between 2001 and last year by 864,000 - to just over two million people. This is equivalent to one in 14 of a total working population. The Conservatives last night said the disclosure undermined Gordon Brown's vow to create jobs for British workers.
The figures were contained in a letter from Karen Dunnell, the national statistician and director of the Office for National Statistics, to the Conservative MP James Clappison, a member of the Commons home affairs select committee. He said: "Ministers are really out of touch with what is happening in the jobs market. "The Government has overseen a significant increase in the employment of foreign citizens but have had much less success in creating jobs for British citizens."
Shadow home secretary, David Davis, said: "These figures further undermine Gordon Brown's grand and unwise pronouncement to create British jobs for British workers. "In fact, they show the number of UK-born citizens in employment has actually fallen by half a million in the last six years. "There is nothing wrong with the fact that immigrants to the UK should join the workforce but it is a matter of concern that we have more than a million people under 25 not in employment, education or training."
The figures showed there was a 75 per cent increase in the number of "non-UK nationals" working in Britain compared with 2001, when the figure was just 1.15 million. More than 700,000 workers from Eastern Europe have registered to work in the UK from the eight countries which joined the European Union in 2004. By contrast the number of UK-born nationals in the workforce fell, between 2001 and 2007, down by 500,000 from 24.4 million in 2001 to 23.9 million last year.
Critics claim many British workers are either simply unemployed or claiming to be too ill to work. Around 4.8 million people are currently claiming out-of-work benefits. Around 2.6 million are on incapacity benefits - 120,000 more than when Labour came to power in 1997. Last weekend David Freud, the Government's new welfare adviser, told The Daily Telegraph that as many as 1.9?million people claiming incapacity benefit could in fact work.
An additional factor in the fall in British workers is emigration. In the 12 months to July 2006, 385,000 people left the country, thought to be the highest number since the 1960s. A spokesman for the Department of Work and Pensions said: "It is well known the UK workforce has declined due to demographic changes. "Our challenge now is to help utilise the workforce out there, helping those people who have not yet got into the labour market to do so through targeted help and support."
Source
British senior citizen flies to India for knee op because he 'didn't trust NHS after bungled surgery'
A great-great-grandfather flew a 10,000 mile round trip for knee surgery because he did not trust the NHS after he lost a leg when they bungled a previous operation. Battling Ken Austin, 80, refused to go through the NHS again after a knee replacement on his right leg ended up with him losing the limb completely because the surgeons had mistakenly severed an artery. When faced with a similar operation on his other leg, the pensioner from Halifax, West Yorkshire, decided to spend his savings on flying to India for the procedure instead.
Mr Austin, who has just returned from the trip, said: "It's a sad case that you pay all your taxes and then don't get the service. I realise it was a tricky operation I had, but I did not trust them." He added: "It is strange to think that I have gone to a poor country for an operation."
The former foster carer's knees have been deteriorating due to his age for years and he had his first knee replacement operation on his right leg in 1993. When the pain in his right leg came back last year, he was told he needed another knee. He was told by surgeons at Bradford Royal Infirmary that it could be risky cutting through old scar tissue but decided to go ahead because he considered himself to be in the best hands. But the decision ended up costing him his leg after surgeons blundered and severed an artery.
Mr Austin said: "While I was in theatre, an artery was severed, cutting off the blood supply through my leg and foot, and what should have been an eight-day stay turned into an eight-month nightmare. "The flesh on my right leg began to die and turn black. "When ulcers started appearing all over my leg, maggots were used to try to fix the problem but eventually I was left with little choice but to have the leg removed, which was done in January last year." He added: "I couldn't believe this had happened to me. I was always an active chap, I like to travel, do a spot of gardening and I love to get out in the car for a drive. It really hit me hard. "I knew that the operation may have been a bit tricky, but what was my alternative, a wheelchair, in pain for the rest of my life? There was no way I was going to do that."
Mr Austin had to have a false leg and to walk with a stick after the failed operation. The horrific experience meant that when his left knee started to go seven months later, the pensioner began to look at other options. He said: "I couldn't go through the heartache I had been through before... "I'd heard of people going to India for surgery so I started asking around and found out a friend, who lives in Greece, had been to India for surgery without the wait of the NHS and the cost of going private. "He said he had such a great experience that I decided that is what I would do. I dare not trust the NHS with my last leg, I could not lose everything"
The wait for an operation in India is shorter and it only costs 5,000 pounds, including travel, compared to 9,000 pounds in England. Mr Austin contacted the Bharathi Raja Hospital in Chennai and by the end of the year, was in the operating theatre receiving treatment from Dr AK Venkatachalam, a UK-trained consultant orthopaedic surgeon.
He said: "I'm delighted with the results. I am completely fine now and on my way home did a detour and visited my friend in Greece to show off my new knee. I'm off to Cuba too this year." He now says that if he ever has more problems with his knees, he would not think twice before going back to India instead of using the NHS. "I'm lucky because I can afford it with my savings, others may not be so lucky," he said.
Source
Britain makes SUVs a very expensive luxury: "Owners of fuel-hungry cars will pay up to 6,000 pounds [$12,000] a year to drive in Central London under the scheme by Ken Livingstone to convert the congestion charge into an emissions tax. Thousands of families with larger cars, such as people carriers, will be caught by the new 25 pounds daily charge for vehicles that emit more than 225g of carbon dioxide per kilometre. At least 15,000 owners of larger cars living inside the charging zone will lose their residents' discount and their daily payment will rise by 3,000 per cent from 80pence to 25 pounds. Drivers of small, fuel-efficient cars in bands A and B for road tax will become exempt under the new scheme, which begins on October 27. Owners of cars powered by liquid petroleum gas and larger hybrids, such as the Lexus hybrid, will no longer be exempt after January 2010. Owners of fuel-inefficient cars face a further penalty next month in the Budget, which is expected to include increases in the top rates of road tax." [It's mainly hatred of wealthier people. The "benefits" are minuscule]
An attempt to brand Israel as an "apartheid" state by students at one of Britain's leading universities fell by just seven votes last week. But members of the Jewish and Israel societies at the London School of Economics may have to return to the students' union debating chamber after a challenge to the conduct of the ballot. The union's constitutional committee is understood to have called into question the 292-285 vote against the motion, although a decision was not due to be announced until yesterday.
The resolution - whose proposers included the head of the students' Palestine Society - called for a campaign to lobby the LSE and the National Union of Students to "divest from apartheid Israel". More than 600 students - six times the usual attendance for union meetings - cast their vote, which was held by secret ballot rather than a show of hands to prevent intimidation. But the union's returning officer received complaints that some students had been unable to get into the crowded hall to hear the debate, and that ballot papers lying around may have been used by people not entitled to vote.
The result of the debate, however, buoyed Jewish students, who had only 48 hours to mobilise opinion after learning that it was to take place. Marilyn Carsley, president of LSE's Israel Society, said that there had been "a lot of anti-Israel rhetoric" on campus recently and that the outcome of the debate had been "uncertain. We were all on edge." Sam Cohen, an MA student, who led the campaign against the resolution, said: "The response has been phenomenal. Jewish and non-Jewish students proudly opposed extremist language at LSE and have shown that we want a moderate, sensible and constructive debate around the issues of the Middle East. "I really hope this is the last time people try to polarise the student body in this way."
An editorial in this week's LSE student newspaper, The Beaver, commented: "The LSE has been in real danger of alienating Jewish and Israeli students, and this motion was another example."
When new students arrived at the London School of Economics last autumn, they received a welcome pack from the students' union that would have been distinctly unwelcome to many Jewish freshers. Its contents included a letter from two union officials, one the head of the Palestine Society, telling them of the union's twinning with the West Bank university, An Najah, and accusing Israel of having killed 800 Palestinian children. It was a taste of what was to come. Pro-Palestinian campaigners have turned up the heat on Israel over the past year, sporting "Make Apartheid History" T-shirts while handing out leaflets denouncing the Jewish state. "It is time for us to call Israeli apartheid by its name and press our universities to divest and stop funding it," Palestine Society head Ziyaad Lunat told the JC this week.
But the intense lobbying "has made a lot of Jewish students feel intimidated by the atmosphere this year", said Sam Cohen, an activist in the Jewish and Israel societies. "They feel particularly targeted because the anti-Israel voice is so loud, extreme and polarising." There are 36 Israeli postgraduates and three undergraduates at LSE, according to an official website aimed at encouraging applicants from the country. But one third-year Israeli postgrad, Lior Herman, said he would now think twice about advising compatriots to join him. "I would definitely recommend LSE for academic reasons, but the atmosphere among students is not so pleasant."
If last week's resolution labelling Israel as apartheid had passed, Mr Herman believed that many Jewish and Israeli students "would have found it hard to be members of a student body that says if you don't agree Israel is an apartheid state, or side with the boycott, you're not one of us." Ms Cohen said that Jewish students had come to her in tears, for example after the term "apartheid" had been "tossed around in class". An MA student in human rights, she said that in one of her own classes, "I have heard students accuse Israel of genocide, ethnic cleansing and of being an apartheid, racist state."
Source
Britain: "Whites need not apply"
Rarely a day goes by without a whopping piece of hypocrisy on the part of the British Labour Party, for much of their political life is one big act of hypocrisy. Thus this weekend we have them facing both ways at once on matters of race.
On the one hand they have joined in the general chorus of denunciation of Archbishop Booby's suggestion that Sharia Law be afforded status and recognition, and thereby approbation, within the law of England and Wales. On this the Labour Party have got it right.
At almost the same moment, however, Labour's deputy leader Harriett Harman is found to be supportive of the notion that the law be changed to enable `all-black' shortlists to be drawn up for the selection of candidates for election to Parliament by individual constituencies. As the report says:
White candidates should be barred from standing for Parliament in up to eight constituencies in order to get more black and Asian MPs elected, says a controversial report commissioned by Labour's deputy leader, Harriet Harman.
Just savour those words: `white candidates should be barred.' It has taken us a thousand years or so to arrive at a state of constitutional affairs whereby any man or woman might seek to stand for Parliament regardless of sex, race, colour, religious creed, political philosophy or sexual orientation and for the party of one's personal taste. Now, if Labour's obnoxious plan were to succeed, our people would be legally excluded from standing for Parliament in the constituency of their choice for the party of their choice simply because of the white colour of their skin.
Such is Labour extremism that it is prepared to contemplate the introduction of a measure that is flagrantly in breach of the right not to be discriminated against "on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status", which phraseology I have lifted intact from Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Source
Sharia in Britain already
Sharia law is operating in secret in many British towns and cities, the Daily Express can reveal. Muslim communities are being ruled with a rod of iron in clear defiance of the British legal system. Panels of Islamic scholars sit in mosques, converted living rooms and even a former pub to issue fatwas, or rulings. The revelation that they have decided thousands of cases over the last 25 years comes after the Archbishop of Canterbury provoked condemnation by calling for an "accommodation" with the Islamic legal code.
Dr Rowan Williams said parts of civil law could be dealt with under the sharia system - but some communities have already gone much further. The Daily Express has uncovered a catalogue of evidence that sharia courts are acting independently of British law. Aydarus Yusuf revealed last year that a stabbing case had been decided by an unofficial "court" sitting in Woolwich, south-east London.
The 29-year-old youth worker, who was involved in setting up the hearing, said a group of Somali youths had been arrested on suspicion of stabbing another Somali teenager. The victim's family told the police it would be better settled out of court and the suspects were released on bail. A hearing was allegedly held and elders ordered the suspects to compensate the victim. An Islamic sharia council at Leyton in east London also revealed that it had dealt with nearly 7,000 divorces since it had opened in 1982, while sharia courts in the capital have settled many hundreds of financial disputes.
Details of the spread of sharia law emerged as controversy continued to rage over Dr Williams's comments, with condemnation from Downing Street, the Conservatives and other leading Church of England clerics. Thousands of Daily Express readers posted comments on our website www.express.co.uk and 95 per cent of callers to our phone vote line said sharia law should be banned.
Along with the Islamic council in Leyton, there are at least two other sharia courts in London. There are also courts in many areas of the country with high Muslim populations. The Islamic sharia council lists members in Birmingham, Bradford, Halifax, Leeds, Manchester, Oxford, Cardiff, Peterborough and Rotherham. As revealed by the Daily Express last year, there is also a sharia court in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, less than a mile from the former home of suicide bomber Mohammad Siddique Khan. One Muslim man who has faced that court's wrath because of his homosexuality said: "Campaigners claim sharia courts in Britain just sit on civil matters, but the reality is very different and Muslims are ordered to live by these laws, not British law."
Most sharia courts concentrate on divorce cases - although such judgments are not recognised in British law - as well as financial and neighbourhood disputes. Other areas where sharia courts have been consulted voluntarily are inheritance disputes, boundary wrangles and religious guidance. Suhaib Hasan, a spokesman for the Islamic sharia council in Leyton, said he and his colleagues dealt with more than 200 cases a year. "From the beginning, people have wanted our services. More and more come back to us. Each month we deal with 20 cases," said the sheikh, who has presided over sharia courts in Britain for more than 25 years.
Although their rulings have no basis in law, participants agree to abide by them voluntarily and may settle their disputes without referral to the British legal authorities. On its website, the Islamic sharia council warns that the divorces it grants can not invalidate a union under British civil law and advises that a separate civil divorce should be obtained. Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity, said there is an "alternative parallel unofficial legal system" now operating. "Sharia courts now operate in most larger cities, with different sectarian and ethnic groups operating their own courts that cater to their specific needs according to their traditions," he said.
A room containing a long table and 16 chairs inside Birmingham's central mosque acts as a sharia court presided over by five elders. They regularly pass judgment on a host of disputes. All are fully versed in sharia law but the hundreds of books on Islamic science and theology on the shelves around them serve as back-up. The sharia council is the formal body of Islamic legal opinion and jurisdiction for local Muslims. It is also a point of advice for Muslims in the city seeking a religious or theological perspective on general issues.
Source
Over two million foreigners are now working in Britain
The number of foreign workers in the UK has risen above two million for the first time, The Daily Telegraph can disclose. There has been a 75 per cent increase in workers from abroad in the last six years, while the number of British employees has dropped by half a million, new figures show
The rise has followed an influx of hundreds of thousands of Eastern Europeans into the UK since 2004. At the same time the number of British people claiming incapacity benefit has soared while there has also been an increase in people emigrating. Official figures from the Labour Force Survey show that the number of foreigners in the UK workforce increased between 2001 and last year by 864,000 - to just over two million people. This is equivalent to one in 14 of a total working population. The Conservatives last night said the disclosure undermined Gordon Brown's vow to create jobs for British workers.
The figures were contained in a letter from Karen Dunnell, the national statistician and director of the Office for National Statistics, to the Conservative MP James Clappison, a member of the Commons home affairs select committee. He said: "Ministers are really out of touch with what is happening in the jobs market. "The Government has overseen a significant increase in the employment of foreign citizens but have had much less success in creating jobs for British citizens."
Shadow home secretary, David Davis, said: "These figures further undermine Gordon Brown's grand and unwise pronouncement to create British jobs for British workers. "In fact, they show the number of UK-born citizens in employment has actually fallen by half a million in the last six years. "There is nothing wrong with the fact that immigrants to the UK should join the workforce but it is a matter of concern that we have more than a million people under 25 not in employment, education or training."
The figures showed there was a 75 per cent increase in the number of "non-UK nationals" working in Britain compared with 2001, when the figure was just 1.15 million. More than 700,000 workers from Eastern Europe have registered to work in the UK from the eight countries which joined the European Union in 2004. By contrast the number of UK-born nationals in the workforce fell, between 2001 and 2007, down by 500,000 from 24.4 million in 2001 to 23.9 million last year.
Critics claim many British workers are either simply unemployed or claiming to be too ill to work. Around 4.8 million people are currently claiming out-of-work benefits. Around 2.6 million are on incapacity benefits - 120,000 more than when Labour came to power in 1997. Last weekend David Freud, the Government's new welfare adviser, told The Daily Telegraph that as many as 1.9?million people claiming incapacity benefit could in fact work.
An additional factor in the fall in British workers is emigration. In the 12 months to July 2006, 385,000 people left the country, thought to be the highest number since the 1960s. A spokesman for the Department of Work and Pensions said: "It is well known the UK workforce has declined due to demographic changes. "Our challenge now is to help utilise the workforce out there, helping those people who have not yet got into the labour market to do so through targeted help and support."
Source
British senior citizen flies to India for knee op because he 'didn't trust NHS after bungled surgery'
A great-great-grandfather flew a 10,000 mile round trip for knee surgery because he did not trust the NHS after he lost a leg when they bungled a previous operation. Battling Ken Austin, 80, refused to go through the NHS again after a knee replacement on his right leg ended up with him losing the limb completely because the surgeons had mistakenly severed an artery. When faced with a similar operation on his other leg, the pensioner from Halifax, West Yorkshire, decided to spend his savings on flying to India for the procedure instead.
Mr Austin, who has just returned from the trip, said: "It's a sad case that you pay all your taxes and then don't get the service. I realise it was a tricky operation I had, but I did not trust them." He added: "It is strange to think that I have gone to a poor country for an operation."
The former foster carer's knees have been deteriorating due to his age for years and he had his first knee replacement operation on his right leg in 1993. When the pain in his right leg came back last year, he was told he needed another knee. He was told by surgeons at Bradford Royal Infirmary that it could be risky cutting through old scar tissue but decided to go ahead because he considered himself to be in the best hands. But the decision ended up costing him his leg after surgeons blundered and severed an artery.
Mr Austin said: "While I was in theatre, an artery was severed, cutting off the blood supply through my leg and foot, and what should have been an eight-day stay turned into an eight-month nightmare. "The flesh on my right leg began to die and turn black. "When ulcers started appearing all over my leg, maggots were used to try to fix the problem but eventually I was left with little choice but to have the leg removed, which was done in January last year." He added: "I couldn't believe this had happened to me. I was always an active chap, I like to travel, do a spot of gardening and I love to get out in the car for a drive. It really hit me hard. "I knew that the operation may have been a bit tricky, but what was my alternative, a wheelchair, in pain for the rest of my life? There was no way I was going to do that."
Mr Austin had to have a false leg and to walk with a stick after the failed operation. The horrific experience meant that when his left knee started to go seven months later, the pensioner began to look at other options. He said: "I couldn't go through the heartache I had been through before... "I'd heard of people going to India for surgery so I started asking around and found out a friend, who lives in Greece, had been to India for surgery without the wait of the NHS and the cost of going private. "He said he had such a great experience that I decided that is what I would do. I dare not trust the NHS with my last leg, I could not lose everything"
The wait for an operation in India is shorter and it only costs 5,000 pounds, including travel, compared to 9,000 pounds in England. Mr Austin contacted the Bharathi Raja Hospital in Chennai and by the end of the year, was in the operating theatre receiving treatment from Dr AK Venkatachalam, a UK-trained consultant orthopaedic surgeon.
He said: "I'm delighted with the results. I am completely fine now and on my way home did a detour and visited my friend in Greece to show off my new knee. I'm off to Cuba too this year." He now says that if he ever has more problems with his knees, he would not think twice before going back to India instead of using the NHS. "I'm lucky because I can afford it with my savings, others may not be so lucky," he said.
Source
Britain makes SUVs a very expensive luxury: "Owners of fuel-hungry cars will pay up to 6,000 pounds [$12,000] a year to drive in Central London under the scheme by Ken Livingstone to convert the congestion charge into an emissions tax. Thousands of families with larger cars, such as people carriers, will be caught by the new 25 pounds daily charge for vehicles that emit more than 225g of carbon dioxide per kilometre. At least 15,000 owners of larger cars living inside the charging zone will lose their residents' discount and their daily payment will rise by 3,000 per cent from 80pence to 25 pounds. Drivers of small, fuel-efficient cars in bands A and B for road tax will become exempt under the new scheme, which begins on October 27. Owners of cars powered by liquid petroleum gas and larger hybrids, such as the Lexus hybrid, will no longer be exempt after January 2010. Owners of fuel-inefficient cars face a further penalty next month in the Budget, which is expected to include increases in the top rates of road tax." [It's mainly hatred of wealthier people. The "benefits" are minuscule]
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Risk-averse world demands the unattainable
Comment on the latest extension of British bureaucracy. New drugs are to be suicide-rated
For drug manufacturers, the hurdles constantly get higher. Patients demand drugs that work effectively but which are targeted so precisely that they have no side-effects. The pharmaceutical industry would like us to believe that such products are possible, but there is hardly a drug on pharmacists' shelves that does not have at least one undesirable side-effect.
Some of the cosiest and most familiar drugs are among the worst offenders. Take aspirin. We all do. This centenarian is a genuine lifesaver, with a near-miraculous list of battle honours. It is effective against pain, but more aspirins are swallowed to protect against heart disease than headaches. Worldwide, more than 60 billion doses are taken every year. Yet if it were invented today, aspirin could never be marketed. Its most dangerous side-effect is damage to the stomach lining, causing ulcers and bleeding. In under16s, it can trigger a rare but potentially fatal condition, Reye's syndrome.
No drug with two such damaging side-effects would get far in today's risk-averse world. Yet it is impossible to deny that, overall, aspirin has done far more good than harm. By expecting drugs to be completely safe we are throwing away potentially valuable products too readily. Whenever new safety rules are introduced, costs rise and it becomes less and less profitable to produce drugs that have a limited market.
So people with rare diseases suffer. "Orphan drug" designations, whereby companies are given incentives to develop less profitable drugs, may help a little but the cost pressures inevitably drive companies to seek big-market drugs, the only way they can get their money back.
The problem then is that a rare side-effect may loom large simply because of the huge number of people taking the medication. It looks awful if thousands of people suffer side-effects and join in class actions, but if tens of millions are taking the drug the numbers suffering may be only one in a thousand or less. The other 999 are alleviating their symptoms and enjoying life.
Side-effects of drugs for treating depression are especially tricky to assess. There is evidence that they may increase suicidal thoughts, if not actual suicide, among adolescents. This may mean that teenagers plunged into gloom are lifted sufficiently by the medicine so that they see the possibility of controlling their lives once more. Thinking of suicide could be a sign of improvement.
If every drug is to be assessed for suicidal thoughts, it creates another barrier, another set of costs, and another reason for rejecting promising medicines because of a side-effect that may be tiny when compared with potential benefits.
The reductio ad absurdum of the search for complete safety is stasis. No new drug will ever be approved because fear has paralysed innovation. Everybody will lose. There will be no new medications, and we will be forced to fall back on those approved in earlier times when standards were lower. So by seeking perfect safety we will end up with drugs that are actually less safe, but familiar. It's enough to give you a headache. I'd recommend an aspirin.
Source
Comment on the latest extension of British bureaucracy. New drugs are to be suicide-rated
For drug manufacturers, the hurdles constantly get higher. Patients demand drugs that work effectively but which are targeted so precisely that they have no side-effects. The pharmaceutical industry would like us to believe that such products are possible, but there is hardly a drug on pharmacists' shelves that does not have at least one undesirable side-effect.
Some of the cosiest and most familiar drugs are among the worst offenders. Take aspirin. We all do. This centenarian is a genuine lifesaver, with a near-miraculous list of battle honours. It is effective against pain, but more aspirins are swallowed to protect against heart disease than headaches. Worldwide, more than 60 billion doses are taken every year. Yet if it were invented today, aspirin could never be marketed. Its most dangerous side-effect is damage to the stomach lining, causing ulcers and bleeding. In under16s, it can trigger a rare but potentially fatal condition, Reye's syndrome.
No drug with two such damaging side-effects would get far in today's risk-averse world. Yet it is impossible to deny that, overall, aspirin has done far more good than harm. By expecting drugs to be completely safe we are throwing away potentially valuable products too readily. Whenever new safety rules are introduced, costs rise and it becomes less and less profitable to produce drugs that have a limited market.
So people with rare diseases suffer. "Orphan drug" designations, whereby companies are given incentives to develop less profitable drugs, may help a little but the cost pressures inevitably drive companies to seek big-market drugs, the only way they can get their money back.
The problem then is that a rare side-effect may loom large simply because of the huge number of people taking the medication. It looks awful if thousands of people suffer side-effects and join in class actions, but if tens of millions are taking the drug the numbers suffering may be only one in a thousand or less. The other 999 are alleviating their symptoms and enjoying life.
Side-effects of drugs for treating depression are especially tricky to assess. There is evidence that they may increase suicidal thoughts, if not actual suicide, among adolescents. This may mean that teenagers plunged into gloom are lifted sufficiently by the medicine so that they see the possibility of controlling their lives once more. Thinking of suicide could be a sign of improvement.
If every drug is to be assessed for suicidal thoughts, it creates another barrier, another set of costs, and another reason for rejecting promising medicines because of a side-effect that may be tiny when compared with potential benefits.
The reductio ad absurdum of the search for complete safety is stasis. No new drug will ever be approved because fear has paralysed innovation. Everybody will lose. There will be no new medications, and we will be forced to fall back on those approved in earlier times when standards were lower. So by seeking perfect safety we will end up with drugs that are actually less safe, but familiar. It's enough to give you a headache. I'd recommend an aspirin.
Source
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Leaky Jonathan is dribbling again
Below is an old and hilarious claim about James Hansen -- that the world's most vocal and visible scientific panic-merchant was ever "silenced". But it is the sort of reporting we expect from Jonathan Leake. There is an earlier example of Leake's deliberate deception on climate matters here. Hansen is a NASA employee and the truth of the "censorship" matter is as follows:
In 2006, Hansen accused the Bush Administration of attempting to censor him. The issue stemmed from an email sent by a 23-year old NASA public affairs intern. It warned Hansen over repeated violations of NASA's official press policy, which requires the agency be notified prior to interviews. Hansen claimed he was being "silenced," despite delivering over 1,400 interviews in recent years, including 15 the very month he made the claim. While he admits to violating the NASA press policy, Hansen states he had a "constitutional right" to grant interviews.
Now for Leake's dribble:
British Government "collects more data than the Stasi"
One consolation: The Brits are usually too inefficient to do much with it
This has got to stop. Britain's snooper state is getting completely out of hand. We are sleepwalking into a surveillance society, and we must wake up. When the Stasi started spying on me, as I moved around East Germany 30 years ago, I travelled on the assumption that I was coming from one of the freest countries in the world to one of the least free. I don't think I was wrong then, but I would certainly be wrong now. Today, the people of East Germany are much less spied upon than the people of Britain. The human rights group Privacy International rates Britain as an "endemic surveillance society", along with China and Russia, whereas Germany scores much better.
An official report by Britain's interception of communications commissioner has just revealed that nearly 800 public bodies are between them making an average of nearly 1,000 requests a day for "communications data", including actual phone taps, mobile phone records, email or web search histories, not to mention old-fashioned snail mail. The Home Office website notes that all communication service providers "may be served with a notice by the secretary of state requiring them to maintain a permanent intercept capability. In practice, agreement is always reached by consultation and negotiation." How reassuring.
The cell phone networks have been configured for legal wiretapping for a long time now. For example a recent case in Greece, parties unknown simply called the utilities in Ericsson's AXE system to perform an unlawful intercept.
In modern mobile telecommunication networks, legal wiretaps, known as lawful interceptions, are preformed at the switch. Ericsson AXE telephone exchanges support lawful intercepts via the remote-control equipment subsystem (RES), which carries out the tap, and the interception management system (IMS), software used to initiate the tap which adds the tap to the RES database. In a fully operating lawful interception system the RES and IMS both create logs of all numbers being taped so that system administrators can preform audits to find unauthorized taps.
The wiretapping infrastructure is there. And it's going to be used. The attack and defense of the information infrastructure inadvertently creates a technological arms race in which both sides get more sophisticated. The defense of any network -- and the Internet is no exception -- relies to a large extent on having a profile of its "normal" activities. Statistics based on huge samples and datasets are used to create a picture of what should be. Just as when a person knows something has been disturbed on a tabletop with which he is intimately familiar, so must network defenders have a way of spotting "anomalies". But this in turn creates threats to those who, often for legitimate reasons, want to do new things. For example. The RIAA wants to monitor peer-to-peer traffic on the Internet, but advocates of privacy want to prevent them from doing so. In order to frustrate the Internet monitors the privacy advocates use all kinds of ways to obfuscate or encrypt their information. This in turn leads to even greater investments in monitoring and cryptanlysis.
Sometimes public policy goes off in two different directions at once. Privacy laws mandate that data should be protected, while anti-terrorism laws provide that in certain respects they should be monitored. Recently a group of law professors denounced "online mobs" operating under cover of anonymity. But the same law professors might object to requiring everyone who went online to swipe an identity card into a reader before accessing the Internet. Somehow the balance must be struck, but not before there's collateral damage to the little guy.
Perhaps the saddest story of the last week concerned a "59-year-old PG&E worker and his wife, who were mistakenly flagged as pro-Scientology hackers" and had his home address, phone number, cell numbers, Social Security number dragged through the Internet through no fault of his own by a shadowy group called Anonymous. The big bad boys on the network can more than take care of themselves in this "arms race" but the ordinary man must trust to luck.
Source
The batty British welfare State at work
UNEMPLOYED scrounger Mohammed Salim is getting the state to pay for him, his wife and their ELEVEN kids-because he can't be bothered to go to work. He quit his 27,000 pounds job teaching maths and science three years ago and is BETTER OFF claiming 29,096 a year in benefits. And he has much more time to devote to his Islamic political party- which ATTACKS the British government, even though this country gives his family their food, clothes and house for free. Mohammed is also busy planning his TWELFTH baby with wife Noreen, 35, but has no plans to get a job.
He grinned: "For many years I worked in Derby as a teacher, earning 27,000 a year, and Noreen would be at home with the kids. "I would come home at weekends. Then I moved back to work in Manchester and took a pay cut to 24,000. It was a load of c***. "I was teaching at a college and I'd be up at 5.30am with the kids then have to go to work. "I just couldn't be a***d with sitting in traffic. I'd be sat in traffic for hours and I felt like I'd done a day's work by the time I got there, I was so stressed." "It's nice to be at home with the kids and for Noreen to have a hand."
That's a luxury most hard-working taxpayers who struggle to support their families can only dream about. The family we're all supporting live in a comfy five-bedroom house on a quiet street in Rochdale, Gtr Manchester. They get 19,000 a year Jobseeker's Allowance, 6,600 Child Benefit, 2,496 free school meals and 1,000 pounds Council Tax Relief.
They have a minibus to swan around in, two TVs and a computer, plus a garden full of brightly-coloured toys. Noreen has never worked since marrying Mohammed-who is her cousin-when she was 16. She said: "I spend all day clearing up after the children. As soon as you pick up one pile of crisps or mop up drink, there's another."
As she sits on the sofa nursing their latest addition-an as yet unnamed two-week-old girl-Mohammed explains: "I can't stand condoms. "I used a condom once. It was awful. Never again, it's nothing like the real thing. It's up to God whether we have any more kids." He chortles: "It says in the Bible and the Koran to go forth and multiply, and that's what we'll do. It's Noreen, she finds me irresistible! "I see my children as God's blessing, as a gift from God. Some people out there pay to have children, through IVF or surrogacy. I feel so lucky that I can have as many as I want. "I want to carry on my family name and for my children and grandchildren to remember me."
The couple's ten other children are Muhammad Aves, 16, Sarah Zenib Bibi, 15, Maryam Hajra Bibi, 13, Muhammad Bilal, 11, Muhammad Haider Ali, nine, Halimn Sadia Bibi, eight, Umayah Habiba Hadia Bibi, seven, Saadiqah Fatima Bibi, five, Muhammad Ibrahim Amter, three, and Muhammad Imam Ismail, 18 months.
Mohammed moved to Britain from Pakistan in 1966, when he was eight. He went on to university and qualified as a teacher. He then taught computer studies, maths and science at primary and high schools and a higher education college in Manchester and Derbyshire until three years ago.
Soon afterwards he stood as a candidate in the Rochdale constituency in the 2005 General Election, using an anti-war message. But he only got 361 votes-less then one per cent of the total cast. Mohammed said: "It goes to show that we are not living in a democracy, because a democracy is supposed to reflect the opinions and the interests of the majority. "The so-called democratic process has let down the Rochdale people, just as it let down the people of the entire country when the Blair government went to war in Iraq." Previously, Mohammed staged a hunger strike in protest at the publication of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses-which some Muslims claimed was blasphemous. He said: "The hunger strike was successful in that people saw I was prepared to make a sacrifice for what I believed in."
Now he spends his time running his political party, Islam Zinda Badd, whose name means `Long Live Islam'. He said: "I set it up to protest about the war in Iraq and the NHS, and we want to show that all Muslims are not terrorists. "We use the Koran for guidance. We are not radical. We believe that we should look after each other, especially children and the elderly, and that wealth should be shared. "That is what is great about Britain. In Pakistan the government does not look after you like in England. The government here is so supportive...
And he has no plans to go back to Pakistan despite his party's anger at British policy. He said: "I did want to move back at one point but now it is so unstable-and I don't think we would be able to have the quality of life we have here."
Source
British minister warns of `inbred' Muslims
It's a wonder this guy is not accused of "hate speech" In Australia there is a similar problem and a radio host was heavily attacked for mentioning it. For some facts on the Muslim inbreeding problem in Australia, see here.
A government minister has warned that inbreeding among immigrants is causing a surge in birth defects - comments likely to spark a new row over the place of Muslims in British society. Phil Woolas, an environment minister, said the culture of arranged marriages between first cousins was the "elephant in the room". Woolas, a former race relations minister, said: "If you have a child with your cousin the likelihood is there'll be a genetic problem."
The minister, whose views were supported by medical experts this weekend, said: "The issue we need to debate is first cousin marriages, whereby a lot of arranged marriages are with first cousins, and that produces lots of genetic problems in terms of disability [in children]." Woolas emphasised the practice did not extend to all Muslim communities but was confined mainly to families originating from rural Pakistan. However, up to half of all marriages within these communities are estimated to involve first cousins. Medical research suggests that while British Pakistanis are responsible for 3% of all births, they account for one in three British children born with genetic illnesses.
The minister's comments come as Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, rejected calls to resign over claims that Islamic law should be introduced in Britain. "I'm not contemplating resignation," he told friends. Williams insists his remarks were misinterpreted and that he was not advocating a parallel sharia jurisdiction for Muslims, but Lord Carey, his predecessor, warned acceptance of Muslim laws in Britain would be "disastrous". The archbishop is believed to have received hate mail since he made his controversial comments but has rejected offers of round-the-clock police protection. Williams is set to clash with the government again this week by voicing opposition to plans to extend detention without charge for terrorist suspects to 42 days.
Woolas, who represents the ethnically mixed seat of Oldham East and Saddleworth, has previously warned that Muslim women who wear headscarves could provoke "fear and resentment". Yesterday, he was similarly outspoken. "If you talk to any primary care worker they will tell you that levels of disability among the . . . Pakistani population are higher than the general population. And everybody knows it's caused by first cousin marriage. "That's a cultural thing rather than a religious thing. It is not illegal in this country. "The problem is that many of the parents themselves and many of the public spokespeople are themselves products of first cousin marriages. It's very difficult for people to say `you can't do that' because it's a very sensitive, human thing."
He added that the issue is not talked about. "The health authorities look into it. Most health workers and primary care trusts in areas like mine are very aware of it. But it's a very sensitive issue. That's why it's not even a debate and people outside of these areas don't really know it exists."
Woolas was supported by Ann Cryer, Labour MP for Keighley, who called for the NHS to do more to warn parents of the dangers of inbreeding. "This is to do with a medieval culture where you keep wealth within the family," she said. "If you go into a paediatric ward in Bradford or Keighley you will find more than half of the kids there are from the Asian community. Since Asians only represent 20%-30% of the population, you can see that they are over represented. "I have encountered cases of blindness and deafness. There was one poor girl who had to have an oxygen tank on her back and breathe from a hole in the front of her neck. "The parents were warned they should not have any more children. But when the husband returned again from Pakistan, within months they had another child with exactly the same condition."
Source
Plastic bag hatred
Hosking was filming a wildlife documentary in Hawaii in 2006, on how plastic pollution is killing whales, sea birds and turtles; apparently these animals are choking on our discarded plastic fragments. She then returned to her hometown of Modbury in Devon, south-west England, determined to convince the town's traders and residents to replace plastic bags with other, biodegradable and re-useable varieties. She was successful, and Modbury is now hailed as Britain's first carrier bag-free zone....
Hosking may well be a wonderful human being (though her comment about people who have second homes in Devon - `Oh, you're one of the ones I need to put a pipe bomb through your letterbox, quite frankly' - does not suggest an entirely generous spirit). But she doesn't seem to think very much of the rest of us. In an interview last year, she expressed a cynical and fashionable disdain for modern British society: `We are 60million people eating up vast amounts of valuable natural resources. this can only lead to us drowning in our own waste and cooking in our own gases. Plastic bags clogging our waterways and climate change are two symptoms of the same problem - unsustainability.'
Whatever Hosking's personal merits and flaws, there is clearly something in the issue of bags that gets people agitated. Politicians have picked up on this mood, too, and are falling over themselves to suggest bans or compulsory charging for plastic bags. Indeed, Hosking was by no means a pioneer. First off the mark was Ireland, which introduced a `plastax' in 2002. Shoppers must now pay for each bag they receive. Currently the price of a plastic bag in Ireland is 22 Euro cents (about 15 pence or 30 US cents); the introduction of this charge initially cut the number of bags handed out by 90 per cent, though bag usage has crept up again since. According to the Irish government, the proportion of litter made up of plastic bags fell from five per cent to 0.22 per cent after the tax was introduced. Other administrations - in France and San Francisco - have banned plastic bags altogether; London may soon follow suit. This month, China announced a ban on free plastic bags.
Yet contrary to the assertions of campaigners, plastic bags are a mere footnote in Britain's use of resources and production of waste. They do not contribute very much to overall waste levels. The bags handed out for free by supermarkets weigh about eight grams. We use absolutely loads of them each year: about 10billion in the UK, which amounts to 80,000 tonnes of waste. It sounds like a lot, but in fact it represents only 0.27 per cent of all municipal waste produced annually in the UK. Moreover, the bags are produced using a part of crude oil - naphtha - that generally can't be used for anything else. If naphtha wasn't used to produce bags, it would mostly be burned off.
If anything, the plastic bag is a victim of its own success. These wafer-thin carriers are durable, ridiculously cheap to mass produce and have all sorts of wonderful ancillary uses, from bin liners to bicycle seat covers. This capacity for imaginative re-use - and the irrationality of obsessing about such trivial consumption - was neatly illustrated by Louise Carpenter in her Observer Food Monthly interview with Hosking. Her Hosking-inspired aversion to plastic bags left her, almost literally, in the shit: `In the middle of our conversation, I feel a rumble in my daughter's nappy [diaper] that quickly turns into an explosion. When I get to the loo to change her, I realise with dismay that I only have a plastic Sainsbury's bag in which to contain the dirty nappy. To my shame, it is my usual method of dealing with such a business. Not only is this clearly unacceptable in Modbury but I realise that Hosking has already converted me. "I'll take that from you!" says the Modbury cafe lady when I emerge holding the un-bagged nappy.' Welcome to Brave New Modbury, where even sticking a stinking nappy in a plastic bag, and tying a very tight knot, is frowned upon.
The cost-benefit ratio of the modern plastic bag is extremely high - they cost little financially or environmentally, and they are extremely useful. That doesn't mean plastic bags are perfect, of course. If a small charge for bags reduces bag litter, it might not be a bad idea. If alternative, cost-effective materials can be found to make carrier bags, materials which do not linger in the environment, then that's all to the good. But the crusading tone of today's anti-plastic bag hysteria suggests there is something more profound going on here than the problem of litter or plastic waste on the sea shore; this has become a deeply moralistic campaign, with some worrying undertones.
UK prime minister Gordon Brown put his finger on it last November when he suggested that plastic bags are `one of the most visible symbols of environmental waste'. It is the very visibility of plastic bags, the fact that they are used to carry all that nice food and various other consumer products, that makes certain people uncomfortable. At root, the mostly middle-class activists who get excited by the detritus of everyday life, like plastic bags, are really guilt-ridden about consumption in general - which is ironic, given that the middle classes consume more than the majority of the population. While most expenditure continues to be on the necessities of life - housing, food, heating and transport - the relatively small proportion of income devoted to the non-essentials has in recent years taken on an overwhelming importance for middle-class campaigners and commentators.
The anti-bag campaign is a product of society's current impasse. In the absence of any new political vision for transforming society, greens argue that we have reached our `natural limits' and must stop, rein things in, live more humbly. Therefore, overconsumption is looked upon as downright foolhardy, even sinful; we must reduce, reuse, recycle, they say. In this narrow-minded climate, the plastic bag, and more importantly he who carries it, has become a symbol of reckless greed and waste. What's more, many people see society as lacking any moral purpose today; thus they seek out activities and campaigns that can provide them with a sense of purpose and moral bluster. Fretting about something as historically and environmentally insignificant as the plastic bag might seem mad to many of us, but it allows Moralistic of Modbury to feel as if they are doing something Important.
Above all, this new `ethical' outlook represents a psychological, sometimes even physical, retreat from modern life. Hosking's description of her return to Modbury captured many people's view of modern life these days: `I'd been running away from Modbury for about 15 years, going as far away as I could. But right now I think it's probably quite important to localise yourself, batten down the hatches and have a life where you can sustain yourself a bit.' (6) `Sustain yourself a bit' - that could be the motto of environmentalism and of contemporary society in general. What about the millions of people who expect more from life than basic sustenance and degraded debates about non-degradable bags?
Source
NHS reforms 'in full retreat’
Reform of the National Health Service is stalling as Britain continues to fall behind comparable countries in Europe, a report from the influential Reform think-tank concludes. While the Government claims that the overhaul of the NHS continues, it is in denial about what is happening on the ground, according to Professor Nick Bosanquet and his co-authors, Andrew Haldenby and Helen Rainbow.
The reform programmes remain “embryonic, and in some cases in full retreat”, the report says. As a result, the NHS is facing “a perfect storm” created by the combination of an ageing population, expensive new technology and a more informed society. Without successful reform, the report says, the NHS will decline, providing substandard quality and access. An outflow of talented staff would increase the difficulties.
Mr Haldenby, the director of Reform, said: “In his major speech on the NHS in January, the Prime Minister said that reform was all but in place . . . In fact, reform has barely left the starting gate.”
Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, said: “This report highlights Gordon Brown’s mismanagement of our NHS. He has spent a lot but achieved too little.”
Source
The cringing British: "British athletes will be banned from competing in this summer's Olympic Games in Beijing if they criticise China's totalitarian regime. The gagging order has been imposed by the British Olympic Association. Competitors who break the rule will not travel to the games or, if they are already in China, will be put on the next plane home. It means sportsmen and women will be unable to raise concerns about China's human rights record or its occupation of Tibet. Critics accused the BOA of bowing to political pressure and said that the move raised the spectre of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, which passed off without protest and were hailed as a propaganda coup for the Nazi regime. The reaction is in contrast to other countries, including the United States and Australia, where athletes will be free to speak out about China should they wish to do so".
Below is an old and hilarious claim about James Hansen -- that the world's most vocal and visible scientific panic-merchant was ever "silenced". But it is the sort of reporting we expect from Jonathan Leake. There is an earlier example of Leake's deliberate deception on climate matters here. Hansen is a NASA employee and the truth of the "censorship" matter is as follows:
In 2006, Hansen accused the Bush Administration of attempting to censor him. The issue stemmed from an email sent by a 23-year old NASA public affairs intern. It warned Hansen over repeated violations of NASA's official press policy, which requires the agency be notified prior to interviews. Hansen claimed he was being "silenced," despite delivering over 1,400 interviews in recent years, including 15 the very month he made the claim. While he admits to violating the NASA press policy, Hansen states he had a "constitutional right" to grant interviews.
Now for Leake's dribble:
Jim Hansen has long been a thorn in the side of the White House. Now he has a stark warning for Britain. The trap was sprung in February 2006. The White House ordered that Dr Jim Hansen was to be denied the oxygen of publicity forthwith. He was to be banned from appearing in newspapers and on TV and radio. He was effectively to disappear. It was the kind of treatment that might be reserved for terrorists, criminals or, in a totalitarian regime, for political dissidents.
Hansen, however, was none of these things. The director of Nasa's renowned Goddard space science laboratories was a dry, rather self-effacing climate change scientist with a worldwide reputation for accurate and high-quality research. What had happened? "All I had done was to give a talk to the American Geophysical Union, setting out how 2005 had been the warmest year on record," recalled Hansen, in a visit to London last week. "But someone at Nasa got a call right from the top, from the White House. They were very annoyed."
It was not quite all he had done. Hansen had also e-mailed a transcript of the talk to a raft of reporters before he spoke. "I did make sure it hit the headlines," he recalls modestly. In his talk he declared that humanity, especially Americans and Europeans, were burning fossil fuels so fast that they risked transforming Earth into "a different planet".
Government scientists were not supposed to say things like that. Shortly afterwards the head of Nasa's public affairs office, one of George Bush's political appointees, banned Hansen from speaking to the media. "Then they also forced us to remove all our data about the latest temperature rises from the website," says Hansen. "I realised they really were going to stop me communicating." It looked like a classic case of a naive scientist being ruthlessly crushed by a government machine.
In reality, however, it was Hansen who laid the trap - and the Bush administration that got caught. A few more calls to the media and soon the story of the lone scientist gagged by the mighty Bush administration hit the front pages all over the world, carrying Hansen's warning about climate change with it once again.
More here
British Government "collects more data than the Stasi"
One consolation: The Brits are usually too inefficient to do much with it
This has got to stop. Britain's snooper state is getting completely out of hand. We are sleepwalking into a surveillance society, and we must wake up. When the Stasi started spying on me, as I moved around East Germany 30 years ago, I travelled on the assumption that I was coming from one of the freest countries in the world to one of the least free. I don't think I was wrong then, but I would certainly be wrong now. Today, the people of East Germany are much less spied upon than the people of Britain. The human rights group Privacy International rates Britain as an "endemic surveillance society", along with China and Russia, whereas Germany scores much better.
An official report by Britain's interception of communications commissioner has just revealed that nearly 800 public bodies are between them making an average of nearly 1,000 requests a day for "communications data", including actual phone taps, mobile phone records, email or web search histories, not to mention old-fashioned snail mail. The Home Office website notes that all communication service providers "may be served with a notice by the secretary of state requiring them to maintain a permanent intercept capability. In practice, agreement is always reached by consultation and negotiation." How reassuring.
The cell phone networks have been configured for legal wiretapping for a long time now. For example a recent case in Greece, parties unknown simply called the utilities in Ericsson's AXE system to perform an unlawful intercept.
In modern mobile telecommunication networks, legal wiretaps, known as lawful interceptions, are preformed at the switch. Ericsson AXE telephone exchanges support lawful intercepts via the remote-control equipment subsystem (RES), which carries out the tap, and the interception management system (IMS), software used to initiate the tap which adds the tap to the RES database. In a fully operating lawful interception system the RES and IMS both create logs of all numbers being taped so that system administrators can preform audits to find unauthorized taps.
The wiretapping infrastructure is there. And it's going to be used. The attack and defense of the information infrastructure inadvertently creates a technological arms race in which both sides get more sophisticated. The defense of any network -- and the Internet is no exception -- relies to a large extent on having a profile of its "normal" activities. Statistics based on huge samples and datasets are used to create a picture of what should be. Just as when a person knows something has been disturbed on a tabletop with which he is intimately familiar, so must network defenders have a way of spotting "anomalies". But this in turn creates threats to those who, often for legitimate reasons, want to do new things. For example. The RIAA wants to monitor peer-to-peer traffic on the Internet, but advocates of privacy want to prevent them from doing so. In order to frustrate the Internet monitors the privacy advocates use all kinds of ways to obfuscate or encrypt their information. This in turn leads to even greater investments in monitoring and cryptanlysis.
Sometimes public policy goes off in two different directions at once. Privacy laws mandate that data should be protected, while anti-terrorism laws provide that in certain respects they should be monitored. Recently a group of law professors denounced "online mobs" operating under cover of anonymity. But the same law professors might object to requiring everyone who went online to swipe an identity card into a reader before accessing the Internet. Somehow the balance must be struck, but not before there's collateral damage to the little guy.
Perhaps the saddest story of the last week concerned a "59-year-old PG&E worker and his wife, who were mistakenly flagged as pro-Scientology hackers" and had his home address, phone number, cell numbers, Social Security number dragged through the Internet through no fault of his own by a shadowy group called Anonymous. The big bad boys on the network can more than take care of themselves in this "arms race" but the ordinary man must trust to luck.
Source
The batty British welfare State at work
UNEMPLOYED scrounger Mohammed Salim is getting the state to pay for him, his wife and their ELEVEN kids-because he can't be bothered to go to work. He quit his 27,000 pounds job teaching maths and science three years ago and is BETTER OFF claiming 29,096 a year in benefits. And he has much more time to devote to his Islamic political party- which ATTACKS the British government, even though this country gives his family their food, clothes and house for free. Mohammed is also busy planning his TWELFTH baby with wife Noreen, 35, but has no plans to get a job.
He grinned: "For many years I worked in Derby as a teacher, earning 27,000 a year, and Noreen would be at home with the kids. "I would come home at weekends. Then I moved back to work in Manchester and took a pay cut to 24,000. It was a load of c***. "I was teaching at a college and I'd be up at 5.30am with the kids then have to go to work. "I just couldn't be a***d with sitting in traffic. I'd be sat in traffic for hours and I felt like I'd done a day's work by the time I got there, I was so stressed." "It's nice to be at home with the kids and for Noreen to have a hand."
That's a luxury most hard-working taxpayers who struggle to support their families can only dream about. The family we're all supporting live in a comfy five-bedroom house on a quiet street in Rochdale, Gtr Manchester. They get 19,000 a year Jobseeker's Allowance, 6,600 Child Benefit, 2,496 free school meals and 1,000 pounds Council Tax Relief.
They have a minibus to swan around in, two TVs and a computer, plus a garden full of brightly-coloured toys. Noreen has never worked since marrying Mohammed-who is her cousin-when she was 16. She said: "I spend all day clearing up after the children. As soon as you pick up one pile of crisps or mop up drink, there's another."
As she sits on the sofa nursing their latest addition-an as yet unnamed two-week-old girl-Mohammed explains: "I can't stand condoms. "I used a condom once. It was awful. Never again, it's nothing like the real thing. It's up to God whether we have any more kids." He chortles: "It says in the Bible and the Koran to go forth and multiply, and that's what we'll do. It's Noreen, she finds me irresistible! "I see my children as God's blessing, as a gift from God. Some people out there pay to have children, through IVF or surrogacy. I feel so lucky that I can have as many as I want. "I want to carry on my family name and for my children and grandchildren to remember me."
The couple's ten other children are Muhammad Aves, 16, Sarah Zenib Bibi, 15, Maryam Hajra Bibi, 13, Muhammad Bilal, 11, Muhammad Haider Ali, nine, Halimn Sadia Bibi, eight, Umayah Habiba Hadia Bibi, seven, Saadiqah Fatima Bibi, five, Muhammad Ibrahim Amter, three, and Muhammad Imam Ismail, 18 months.
Mohammed moved to Britain from Pakistan in 1966, when he was eight. He went on to university and qualified as a teacher. He then taught computer studies, maths and science at primary and high schools and a higher education college in Manchester and Derbyshire until three years ago.
Soon afterwards he stood as a candidate in the Rochdale constituency in the 2005 General Election, using an anti-war message. But he only got 361 votes-less then one per cent of the total cast. Mohammed said: "It goes to show that we are not living in a democracy, because a democracy is supposed to reflect the opinions and the interests of the majority. "The so-called democratic process has let down the Rochdale people, just as it let down the people of the entire country when the Blair government went to war in Iraq." Previously, Mohammed staged a hunger strike in protest at the publication of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses-which some Muslims claimed was blasphemous. He said: "The hunger strike was successful in that people saw I was prepared to make a sacrifice for what I believed in."
Now he spends his time running his political party, Islam Zinda Badd, whose name means `Long Live Islam'. He said: "I set it up to protest about the war in Iraq and the NHS, and we want to show that all Muslims are not terrorists. "We use the Koran for guidance. We are not radical. We believe that we should look after each other, especially children and the elderly, and that wealth should be shared. "That is what is great about Britain. In Pakistan the government does not look after you like in England. The government here is so supportive...
And he has no plans to go back to Pakistan despite his party's anger at British policy. He said: "I did want to move back at one point but now it is so unstable-and I don't think we would be able to have the quality of life we have here."
Source
British minister warns of `inbred' Muslims
It's a wonder this guy is not accused of "hate speech" In Australia there is a similar problem and a radio host was heavily attacked for mentioning it. For some facts on the Muslim inbreeding problem in Australia, see here.
A government minister has warned that inbreeding among immigrants is causing a surge in birth defects - comments likely to spark a new row over the place of Muslims in British society. Phil Woolas, an environment minister, said the culture of arranged marriages between first cousins was the "elephant in the room". Woolas, a former race relations minister, said: "If you have a child with your cousin the likelihood is there'll be a genetic problem."
The minister, whose views were supported by medical experts this weekend, said: "The issue we need to debate is first cousin marriages, whereby a lot of arranged marriages are with first cousins, and that produces lots of genetic problems in terms of disability [in children]." Woolas emphasised the practice did not extend to all Muslim communities but was confined mainly to families originating from rural Pakistan. However, up to half of all marriages within these communities are estimated to involve first cousins. Medical research suggests that while British Pakistanis are responsible for 3% of all births, they account for one in three British children born with genetic illnesses.
The minister's comments come as Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, rejected calls to resign over claims that Islamic law should be introduced in Britain. "I'm not contemplating resignation," he told friends. Williams insists his remarks were misinterpreted and that he was not advocating a parallel sharia jurisdiction for Muslims, but Lord Carey, his predecessor, warned acceptance of Muslim laws in Britain would be "disastrous". The archbishop is believed to have received hate mail since he made his controversial comments but has rejected offers of round-the-clock police protection. Williams is set to clash with the government again this week by voicing opposition to plans to extend detention without charge for terrorist suspects to 42 days.
Woolas, who represents the ethnically mixed seat of Oldham East and Saddleworth, has previously warned that Muslim women who wear headscarves could provoke "fear and resentment". Yesterday, he was similarly outspoken. "If you talk to any primary care worker they will tell you that levels of disability among the . . . Pakistani population are higher than the general population. And everybody knows it's caused by first cousin marriage. "That's a cultural thing rather than a religious thing. It is not illegal in this country. "The problem is that many of the parents themselves and many of the public spokespeople are themselves products of first cousin marriages. It's very difficult for people to say `you can't do that' because it's a very sensitive, human thing."
He added that the issue is not talked about. "The health authorities look into it. Most health workers and primary care trusts in areas like mine are very aware of it. But it's a very sensitive issue. That's why it's not even a debate and people outside of these areas don't really know it exists."
Woolas was supported by Ann Cryer, Labour MP for Keighley, who called for the NHS to do more to warn parents of the dangers of inbreeding. "This is to do with a medieval culture where you keep wealth within the family," she said. "If you go into a paediatric ward in Bradford or Keighley you will find more than half of the kids there are from the Asian community. Since Asians only represent 20%-30% of the population, you can see that they are over represented. "I have encountered cases of blindness and deafness. There was one poor girl who had to have an oxygen tank on her back and breathe from a hole in the front of her neck. "The parents were warned they should not have any more children. But when the husband returned again from Pakistan, within months they had another child with exactly the same condition."
Source
Plastic bag hatred
Hosking was filming a wildlife documentary in Hawaii in 2006, on how plastic pollution is killing whales, sea birds and turtles; apparently these animals are choking on our discarded plastic fragments. She then returned to her hometown of Modbury in Devon, south-west England, determined to convince the town's traders and residents to replace plastic bags with other, biodegradable and re-useable varieties. She was successful, and Modbury is now hailed as Britain's first carrier bag-free zone....
Hosking may well be a wonderful human being (though her comment about people who have second homes in Devon - `Oh, you're one of the ones I need to put a pipe bomb through your letterbox, quite frankly' - does not suggest an entirely generous spirit). But she doesn't seem to think very much of the rest of us. In an interview last year, she expressed a cynical and fashionable disdain for modern British society: `We are 60million people eating up vast amounts of valuable natural resources. this can only lead to us drowning in our own waste and cooking in our own gases. Plastic bags clogging our waterways and climate change are two symptoms of the same problem - unsustainability.'
Whatever Hosking's personal merits and flaws, there is clearly something in the issue of bags that gets people agitated. Politicians have picked up on this mood, too, and are falling over themselves to suggest bans or compulsory charging for plastic bags. Indeed, Hosking was by no means a pioneer. First off the mark was Ireland, which introduced a `plastax' in 2002. Shoppers must now pay for each bag they receive. Currently the price of a plastic bag in Ireland is 22 Euro cents (about 15 pence or 30 US cents); the introduction of this charge initially cut the number of bags handed out by 90 per cent, though bag usage has crept up again since. According to the Irish government, the proportion of litter made up of plastic bags fell from five per cent to 0.22 per cent after the tax was introduced. Other administrations - in France and San Francisco - have banned plastic bags altogether; London may soon follow suit. This month, China announced a ban on free plastic bags.
Yet contrary to the assertions of campaigners, plastic bags are a mere footnote in Britain's use of resources and production of waste. They do not contribute very much to overall waste levels. The bags handed out for free by supermarkets weigh about eight grams. We use absolutely loads of them each year: about 10billion in the UK, which amounts to 80,000 tonnes of waste. It sounds like a lot, but in fact it represents only 0.27 per cent of all municipal waste produced annually in the UK. Moreover, the bags are produced using a part of crude oil - naphtha - that generally can't be used for anything else. If naphtha wasn't used to produce bags, it would mostly be burned off.
If anything, the plastic bag is a victim of its own success. These wafer-thin carriers are durable, ridiculously cheap to mass produce and have all sorts of wonderful ancillary uses, from bin liners to bicycle seat covers. This capacity for imaginative re-use - and the irrationality of obsessing about such trivial consumption - was neatly illustrated by Louise Carpenter in her Observer Food Monthly interview with Hosking. Her Hosking-inspired aversion to plastic bags left her, almost literally, in the shit: `In the middle of our conversation, I feel a rumble in my daughter's nappy [diaper] that quickly turns into an explosion. When I get to the loo to change her, I realise with dismay that I only have a plastic Sainsbury's bag in which to contain the dirty nappy. To my shame, it is my usual method of dealing with such a business. Not only is this clearly unacceptable in Modbury but I realise that Hosking has already converted me. "I'll take that from you!" says the Modbury cafe lady when I emerge holding the un-bagged nappy.' Welcome to Brave New Modbury, where even sticking a stinking nappy in a plastic bag, and tying a very tight knot, is frowned upon.
The cost-benefit ratio of the modern plastic bag is extremely high - they cost little financially or environmentally, and they are extremely useful. That doesn't mean plastic bags are perfect, of course. If a small charge for bags reduces bag litter, it might not be a bad idea. If alternative, cost-effective materials can be found to make carrier bags, materials which do not linger in the environment, then that's all to the good. But the crusading tone of today's anti-plastic bag hysteria suggests there is something more profound going on here than the problem of litter or plastic waste on the sea shore; this has become a deeply moralistic campaign, with some worrying undertones.
UK prime minister Gordon Brown put his finger on it last November when he suggested that plastic bags are `one of the most visible symbols of environmental waste'. It is the very visibility of plastic bags, the fact that they are used to carry all that nice food and various other consumer products, that makes certain people uncomfortable. At root, the mostly middle-class activists who get excited by the detritus of everyday life, like plastic bags, are really guilt-ridden about consumption in general - which is ironic, given that the middle classes consume more than the majority of the population. While most expenditure continues to be on the necessities of life - housing, food, heating and transport - the relatively small proportion of income devoted to the non-essentials has in recent years taken on an overwhelming importance for middle-class campaigners and commentators.
The anti-bag campaign is a product of society's current impasse. In the absence of any new political vision for transforming society, greens argue that we have reached our `natural limits' and must stop, rein things in, live more humbly. Therefore, overconsumption is looked upon as downright foolhardy, even sinful; we must reduce, reuse, recycle, they say. In this narrow-minded climate, the plastic bag, and more importantly he who carries it, has become a symbol of reckless greed and waste. What's more, many people see society as lacking any moral purpose today; thus they seek out activities and campaigns that can provide them with a sense of purpose and moral bluster. Fretting about something as historically and environmentally insignificant as the plastic bag might seem mad to many of us, but it allows Moralistic of Modbury to feel as if they are doing something Important.
Above all, this new `ethical' outlook represents a psychological, sometimes even physical, retreat from modern life. Hosking's description of her return to Modbury captured many people's view of modern life these days: `I'd been running away from Modbury for about 15 years, going as far away as I could. But right now I think it's probably quite important to localise yourself, batten down the hatches and have a life where you can sustain yourself a bit.' (6) `Sustain yourself a bit' - that could be the motto of environmentalism and of contemporary society in general. What about the millions of people who expect more from life than basic sustenance and degraded debates about non-degradable bags?
Source
NHS reforms 'in full retreat’
Reform of the National Health Service is stalling as Britain continues to fall behind comparable countries in Europe, a report from the influential Reform think-tank concludes. While the Government claims that the overhaul of the NHS continues, it is in denial about what is happening on the ground, according to Professor Nick Bosanquet and his co-authors, Andrew Haldenby and Helen Rainbow.
The reform programmes remain “embryonic, and in some cases in full retreat”, the report says. As a result, the NHS is facing “a perfect storm” created by the combination of an ageing population, expensive new technology and a more informed society. Without successful reform, the report says, the NHS will decline, providing substandard quality and access. An outflow of talented staff would increase the difficulties.
Mr Haldenby, the director of Reform, said: “In his major speech on the NHS in January, the Prime Minister said that reform was all but in place . . . In fact, reform has barely left the starting gate.”
Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, said: “This report highlights Gordon Brown’s mismanagement of our NHS. He has spent a lot but achieved too little.”
Source
The cringing British: "British athletes will be banned from competing in this summer's Olympic Games in Beijing if they criticise China's totalitarian regime. The gagging order has been imposed by the British Olympic Association. Competitors who break the rule will not travel to the games or, if they are already in China, will be put on the next plane home. It means sportsmen and women will be unable to raise concerns about China's human rights record or its occupation of Tibet. Critics accused the BOA of bowing to political pressure and said that the move raised the spectre of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, which passed off without protest and were hailed as a propaganda coup for the Nazi regime. The reaction is in contrast to other countries, including the United States and Australia, where athletes will be free to speak out about China should they wish to do so".
Monday, February 11, 2008
Peter Hitchens: Archbishop not much worse than his government
The poor old Ayatollah of Canterbury doesn't actually deserve all the slime now being tipped over his modernised mitre. Just some of it. Of course it is absurd for the chief of the Christian Church in this country to cringe publicly to Islam. But at least Archbishop Williams is open about his unwillingness to defend the faith - as is his colleague, the wretched Bishop of Oxford, who recently announced that he was perfectly happy for loudspeakers to blare the Muslim call to prayer across that city.
Even on their own liberal terms, this pair are clueless about sharia and its scorn for women. It was exiled Iranian Muslim women who defeated a similar proposal in Canada. They had travelled thousands of miles to escape sharia law and didn't want it in Toronto, thanks very much.
Compare that with the Government, which poses stern-faced as the foe of "terror" and noisily jails figures of fun such as Abu Hamza while greasily pretending that there's no connection between Islam and terrorism. Gordon Brown's Cabinet has also quietly agreed that Muslim men with more than one wife can now claim benefits for these extra spouses - while bigamy remains a criminal offence for everyone else, punishable by up to seven years in prison.
More here
Archbishop, you've committed treason
My text for today is "Hold fast that which is good": 1 Thessalonians 5:21. These are words I heard so regularly in prayers at my Anglican girls' school that I have been unable to forget them. I draw them to the attention of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who seems to have forgotten them. At least, he seems to be losing his grip on what is good in this country and, indeed, to be throwing it away with both hands in his curious suggestion that aspects of sharia should be recognised in English law.
In an interview on Radio 4 last Thursday, Rowan Williams said that the introduction of parts of Islamic law here would help to maintain social cohesion and seems unavoidable. Sharia courts exist already, he pointed out. We should "face up to the fact" that some British citizens do not relate to the British legal system, he said, and that Muslims should not have to choose between "the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty".
What he went on to say was more astonishing. He explained to the interviewer, in his gentle, wordy way, that a lot of what is written on this confusing subject suggests "the ideal situation is one in which there is one law and only one law for everybody". He went on: "That principle is an important pillar of our social identity as a western liberal democracy." How true.
However, he continued: "It's a misunderstanding to suppose that that means people don't have other affiliations, other loyalties, which shape and dictate how they behave in society, and the law needs to take some account of that."
Stuff like this is bad for the blood pressure, but I listened on. "An approach to law which simply said there is one law for everybody and that is all there is to be said . . . I think that's a bit of a danger."
What danger? And to whom? The danger, surely, is rather the archbishop and those who think like him, who seem unwilling to hold fast that which is good. What is good and best and essential about our society ? it isn't merely a matter of "social identity" ? is the principle of equality before the law. That principle and its practice have made this country the outstandingly just and tolerant state it is; it is one of the last remaining forces for unity as well.
What is also good and essential to this country is the law itself. It has evolved over centuries from medieval barbarities into something, for all its faults, that is civilised. Our law expresses and maintains the best virtues of our society. Anybody who does not accept it does not belong here.
When other legal systems or other customs clash with ours, we prefer ours, to put it mildly. At least we should; what has troubled me for years is the way that exceptions and excuses tend to be made, in the name of multiculturalism, for practices of which we do not approve. Victoria Climbi‚'s terrible bruises were ignored because of assumptions about the cultural norms of African discipline. Last week it emerged that someone in government has sold the moral pass on polygamy: husbands with multiple wives in this country are now to get benefit payments for each wife.
In the midst of all this moral confusion and relativism, is the premier prelate in the land holding fast that which is good? Far from it. He is recommending multiculti legal cherry-picking, in which individuals would be free to choose the jurisdiction they preferred for certain matters. He even admits that his proposal introduces, "uncomfortably", the idea of a market in the law, "a competition for loyalty".
One encouraging sign is the almost universal fury that our foolish archbishop has aroused: he has miraculously united the irreconcilable in opposition to himself, from Christian extremists to mainstream Muslims, from Anglican vicars to godless Hampstead liberals, from Gordon Brown to backwoods Tories.
The archbishop and his few supporters insist that the media have misrepresented him and not many people have actually read the learned speech that he gave to a learned audience after his inflammatory radio interview. They are wrong. I haven't seen any serious misrepresentation in the media, and reading his speech several times doesn't exonerate him. Nor does it increase respect for his judgment, his command of English or his powers of ratiocination; he is woolly of face and woolly of mind.
In any case, you do not need to follow anybody's argument to understand that legally recognising aspects of sharia is either unnecessary or undesirable. If the aspects in question accord with English law (the Anglican archbishop is speaking of England, presumably), there is no need to offer any extra provision or recognition for religious courts. They are of no interest to the law. If they don't accord with English law, they are unacceptable and should be repudiated, or even prosecuted.
All this has nothing particularly to do with it being Islamic law at issue. The same would apply to any other religious law: Hindu, Mormon or wiccan. However, there is a lot to be said against sharia and the desire of a reported 40% of British Muslims to live under it. That explains, in part, the present outrage. Sharia is rightly feared here: it is disputed, sometimes primitive, grievously in need of reform and wholly unacceptable in Britain.
So what possessed this troublesome priest to stir up this predictable fury with his divisive and unnecessary suggestions? Why did he choose to speak not just in a quiet academic meeting but also in the public glare of The World at One? And cui bono? It has most certainly not been good for ordinary British Muslims, as they well understand. It has, however, given comfort to Muslim extremists, who will see this as the thin end of their Islamist wedge.
Williams's behaviour looks like vainglorious attention-seeking, but it is also something much worse. To seek to undermine our legal system and the values on which it rests, in a spirit of unnecessary appeasement to an alien set of values, is a kind of treason. It is a betrayal of all those who struggled and died here, over the centuries, for freedom and equality under the rule of law and of their courage in the face of injustice and unreason. Theirs is the good that we should hold fast and so of all people should the Archbishop of Canterbury. Otherwise, what is he for?
Source
Talking CCTV cameras in Britain
Talking CCTV cameras have been installed at two Norwich parks with the aim of slashing anti-social behaviour. Eight cameras at Waterloo Park and one at Eaton Park have been connected to their own loudspeaker system and, through Norwich City Council's 33-screen, 500,000 pound CCTV control room, the voice of a camera operator will boom out across each park to tell off those causing a nuisance, committing low level crime and anti-social behaviour.
Norwich City Councillor Bert Bremner, responsible for community safety and cohesion, said: "It is a really positive thing for the city. "Waterloo Park has had its problems with attacks, graffiti and arson, especially at night-time, and we want to leave these places open for people to enjoy all the time. "These will be ways of embarrassing people and reminding them. Someone being told off for dropping litter will respond in a reasonable way, and I believe most people will say sorry and do something about it. There will be some that won't and, if the matter is serious, the police will follow it up."
The council, which used a 35,000 pound grant to pay for the installation of the high-tech talking system, is one of 20 areas to receive funding for the project ran in partnership with the government's Respect Unit. Six full-time operators man the cameras 24 hours a day and there is a direct communication link between the police and the CCTV control room. The talking cameras have been in operation for three months already and have been used by police on two occasions, including the theft of a woman's handbag.
"We want CCTV because it means people will use their parks and aren't frightened to be there," added Mr Bremner. "People are asking for it. We have surveyed the whole city and the response is incredibly positive. "We are not in a police state, we are in a democracy and people understand we are doing it for their safety. This will help make these places safe."
Although critics have likened the new talking system to the nightmare vision of the future George Orwell wrote about in his novel 1984, many people believe the advantages are worth it. The council's operations manager Gwyn Jenson said: "We have had some teething troubles, but that is because the system we are using is innovative and hasn't been used anywhere else in the country. "We are looking at the usage of the system and if it is a success, we'll look at expanding it further. But we think it is going to be successful and, if so, we will be looking to add the system to our other cameras across the city."
The council ran a poster competition with the city's schools to mark the launch and 12-year-old Hollie Rayfield-Brown from Colman Junior School came up with the winning design which will be placed at cameras in each park. Hollie was also given the chance to sit in Big Brother's chair and issue a telling off to a staged littering incident in Waterloo Park from the CCTV control room. Hollie said: "The poster took me about three lessons and I chose litter because if everyone dropped litter the world would be really messy. "I would wonder where the voice was coming from, but I think it's good because it makes people think twice about what they're doing."
Source
Muslim mania
Islamophobia? It seems as if we are suffering more from Muslim-mania - an unhealthy obsession with all things Islamic, and a paranoid fixation with looking at the world from behind a veil. News that a leading awards panel has rejected a version of The Three Little Pigs for fear that "the use of pigs raises cultural issues" with the Muslim community, has been slammed as "multiculturalism gone mad". But similarly unhinged attitudes are now common in government reports.
Why does the Ministry of Defence think there is a shortfall in army recruitment? Apparently because of "prevalent views on current operations among ethnic minority communities". One might imagine that the Muslim youth of Bradford and Tower Hamlets packed the ranks before the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
What does the Home Office's official assessment see as the big problem it faces extending detention without charge to 42 days? Apparently, because Muslim community leaders expressed concerns about the impact on relations with the police. Presumably our Muslim-manic Home Office believes that burying habeas corpus would be OK if they were unconcerned.
Jacqui Smith has even officially renamed Islamic terrorism as "anti-Islamic activity". Never mind walking Hackney's mean streets, the Home Secretary appears most scared of treading on Muslim toes. All this can only reinforce divisions by treating Muslims as a race apart.
There are big Muslim communities in our cities - about 15 per where I live in northeast London - but the 2001 census put Muslims at just over 3 per cent of the population in England. How has 3 per cent of the public become a focus of public debate? This imbalance must have far less to do with "them" than with the rest of us. It reveals less about Islam than about the anxieties of mainstream British culture.
The clear and distinct identity of the Muslim community, embodied in the veil, makes it a visible symbol of the divisions and insecurities in Britain. But the obvious target is rarely the right one. Muslim-mania has become a sort of political veil behind which we can avoid facing up to some awkward home truths about our society.
Time to cure the body politic of this degenerative condition, stop obsessing about offensive images or playing word-games with terrorism, and start an honest discussion about the bigger questions facing society as a whole. What beliefs, if any, can we unite around today? What are we prepared to stand and fight for now? These questions remain unasked while our leaders tilt at the alternative straw men of Islamophobia and Islamofascism. The Three Little Pigs at least has a lesson about hiding behind straw to keep the wolf from the door.
Source
Inquest jury blames NHS hospital for unlawful killing of mother
The "chaotic" storage of drugs at a hospital led to a woman who was in labour being given a powerful epidural anaesthetic in her arm instead of a saline drip. An hour after giving birth to a son, Mayra Cabrera complained of feeling dizzy and soon afterwards she suffered a fatal heart attack. Her husband was in the room as doctors fought in vain to save her life. More than a year after her death, the Great Western Hospital in Swindon, Wiltshire, admitted that there had been a mix-up with bags of intravenous saline solution and Bupivacaine. The painkiller should have been administered direct to her spine.
An inquest jury found the Swindon and Marlborough NHS Trust responsible yesterday for unlawful killing. It is believed to be the first such finding against an NHS trust, rather than a named person. Senior staff at the hospital face a possible prosecution after Wiltshire police said that they would reopen the investigation into her death.
After the verdict Arnel Cabrera, Mrs Cabrera's widower, called for a prosecution against the midwife who made the fatal error. In a statement he said: "Mayra was my love and my life. However, our life together was ripped apart by the action of a midwife who failed to check the fluid she gave to my wife. "The midwife's failure to accept responsibility or show any remorse for her actions has made me very bitter and angry. I cannot forgive her and now hope that the police and Crown Prosecution Service will prosecute her for manslaughter."
The NHS trust apologised unreservedly for the mistake and said that it had learnt its lesson. It supported a call by the coroner for improvements to the labelling and storage of drugs and for other measures to prevent a recurrence.
Mrs Cabrera, 30, was a Filipina midwife at the Great Western Hospital, where she gave birth to Zachary in May 2004. The handling and storage of drugs there was described as chaotic. David Masters, the Wiltshire Coroner, said that he would be writing to the Health Secretary recommending stricter controls on the handling and administration of drugs.
After 17 hours' deliberation at the end of the four-week inquest in Trowbridge the jury returned a majority verdict. It stated: "Mayra Cabrera was killed unlawfully - gross negligence/manslaughter - storage and administration."
The midwife accused of the mistake, Marie To, repeatedly denied having made the fatal blunder and said that she was unable to explain how the Bupivacaine had been connected to Mrs Cabrera's drip. Gerwyn Samuel, for Mr Cabrera, told her: "It is because you are blocking from your mind the blindingly obvious - that you put up that bag and that it was Bupivacaine."
Mr Masters said that he would be writing to the Health Minister, the Midwifery Council, relevant royal colleges and the General Medical Council to recommend that staff training and the storage and administration of drugs should be overhauled. He also wants the connectors for epidural drugs to be changed so that a mix-up would be unlikely to recur. He said: "The nettle needs to be firmly grasped. It is quite clear that what is needed is a firm and radical approach to tackle the problems raised. "Firstly we need equipment which can be only used for epidural use - giving sets, syringes, and infusion bags which can only be attached for epidural use. Because we are in a global market place the manufacturers have to look to Europe and not just UK requirements. This is something the Minister for Health should tackle."
Detective Inspector Ian Saunders, of Wiltshire Police, who led the original investigation, said that the evidence presented to the inquest would be reviewed. "The CPS will carefully review what has been said in these proceedings to see if any new evidence has come to light."
Lyn Hill-Tout, chief executive of Swindon and Marlborough NHS Trust, apologised for the blunder that killed Mrs Cabrera. She promised that the trust had learnt its lesson. "I want to reiterate our sincere and unreserved apologies to Mr Cabrera and Zac. The trust admitted liability for Mrs Cabrera's death as soon as possible. We sincerely hope that other hospitals will be able to learn from the bitter lessons that we have learnt. This tragic case should not have happened and one death is one too many.
"We wholeheartedly support the coroner in his call for better labelling of drugs by the manufacturers and most importantly the introduction of new special fittings which do not allow for drugs to be connected to the wrong route. "We can never bring Mayra back but we can do all in our power to ensure that there are no similar tragedies. We have been criticised for a number of failures, failures which we accept, deeply regret and from which we have learnt important lessons."
Mr Cabrera, whose work permit expires at the end of this month, is to ask the Home Office for permission to stay in Britain on compassionate grounds. His request was backed by the coroner, who criticised the way in which his case had been dealt with up to now.
Mr Masters said: "I find it quite extraordinary that this man has not had the benefit of knowing that he can stay in this country for the foreseeable future. I would wholeheartedly support his right to stay, had I any say in the matter. It seems to me that the red tape should be cut and thrown away and that should done quickly, sooner rather than later."
Source
A British Muslim woman comments on the the flea-brained archbishop's support for Sharia law: "Look around the Islamic world where sharia rules and, in every single country, these ordinances reduce our human value to less than half that is accorded a male; homosexuals are imprisoned or killed, children have no free voice or autonomy, authoritarianism rules and infantilises populations. What's more, different Muslim nations claim to have their own allegedly god-given sharia. ... There is no agreed body of sharia, it is all drafted by males and the most cruel is now claiming absolute authority. In Pakistan, on the statutes are strictures on adultery introduced by the military dictator Zia ul-Haq. Women activists in that country have given their lives protesting against the injustice of those laws where women suspected of adultery, or rape victims, are punished in hideous ways and the man goes free. The Iranian theocracy changes its regulations from year to year, capriciously playing with the lives of females. .. Two Iranian friends chose to die rather than live under the demeaning religious orders. Go to Afghanistan if you fancy a 12-year-old bride – a practice approved by the mullahs. That's sharia for you. Many women, gay men and dissidents came to Britain to escape Islamic tyrants and their laws. Dr Williams supports those laws and, by default, makes the refugees victims again."
"Honor" abuse in the UK: "Up to 17,000 women in Britain are being subjected to "honour" related violence, including murder, every year, according to police chiefs. And official figures on forced marriages are the tip of the iceberg, says the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO). It warns that the number of girls falling victim to forced marriages, kidnappings, sexual assaults, beatings and even murder by relatives intent on upholding the "honour" of their family is up to 35 times higher than official figures suggest. The crisis, with children as young as 11 having been sent abroad to be married, has prompted the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to call on British consular staff in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan to take more action to identify and help British citizens believed to be the victims of forced marriages in recent years."
The poor old Ayatollah of Canterbury doesn't actually deserve all the slime now being tipped over his modernised mitre. Just some of it. Of course it is absurd for the chief of the Christian Church in this country to cringe publicly to Islam. But at least Archbishop Williams is open about his unwillingness to defend the faith - as is his colleague, the wretched Bishop of Oxford, who recently announced that he was perfectly happy for loudspeakers to blare the Muslim call to prayer across that city.
Even on their own liberal terms, this pair are clueless about sharia and its scorn for women. It was exiled Iranian Muslim women who defeated a similar proposal in Canada. They had travelled thousands of miles to escape sharia law and didn't want it in Toronto, thanks very much.
Compare that with the Government, which poses stern-faced as the foe of "terror" and noisily jails figures of fun such as Abu Hamza while greasily pretending that there's no connection between Islam and terrorism. Gordon Brown's Cabinet has also quietly agreed that Muslim men with more than one wife can now claim benefits for these extra spouses - while bigamy remains a criminal offence for everyone else, punishable by up to seven years in prison.
More here
Archbishop, you've committed treason
My text for today is "Hold fast that which is good": 1 Thessalonians 5:21. These are words I heard so regularly in prayers at my Anglican girls' school that I have been unable to forget them. I draw them to the attention of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who seems to have forgotten them. At least, he seems to be losing his grip on what is good in this country and, indeed, to be throwing it away with both hands in his curious suggestion that aspects of sharia should be recognised in English law.
In an interview on Radio 4 last Thursday, Rowan Williams said that the introduction of parts of Islamic law here would help to maintain social cohesion and seems unavoidable. Sharia courts exist already, he pointed out. We should "face up to the fact" that some British citizens do not relate to the British legal system, he said, and that Muslims should not have to choose between "the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty".
What he went on to say was more astonishing. He explained to the interviewer, in his gentle, wordy way, that a lot of what is written on this confusing subject suggests "the ideal situation is one in which there is one law and only one law for everybody". He went on: "That principle is an important pillar of our social identity as a western liberal democracy." How true.
However, he continued: "It's a misunderstanding to suppose that that means people don't have other affiliations, other loyalties, which shape and dictate how they behave in society, and the law needs to take some account of that."
Stuff like this is bad for the blood pressure, but I listened on. "An approach to law which simply said there is one law for everybody and that is all there is to be said . . . I think that's a bit of a danger."
What danger? And to whom? The danger, surely, is rather the archbishop and those who think like him, who seem unwilling to hold fast that which is good. What is good and best and essential about our society ? it isn't merely a matter of "social identity" ? is the principle of equality before the law. That principle and its practice have made this country the outstandingly just and tolerant state it is; it is one of the last remaining forces for unity as well.
What is also good and essential to this country is the law itself. It has evolved over centuries from medieval barbarities into something, for all its faults, that is civilised. Our law expresses and maintains the best virtues of our society. Anybody who does not accept it does not belong here.
When other legal systems or other customs clash with ours, we prefer ours, to put it mildly. At least we should; what has troubled me for years is the way that exceptions and excuses tend to be made, in the name of multiculturalism, for practices of which we do not approve. Victoria Climbi‚'s terrible bruises were ignored because of assumptions about the cultural norms of African discipline. Last week it emerged that someone in government has sold the moral pass on polygamy: husbands with multiple wives in this country are now to get benefit payments for each wife.
In the midst of all this moral confusion and relativism, is the premier prelate in the land holding fast that which is good? Far from it. He is recommending multiculti legal cherry-picking, in which individuals would be free to choose the jurisdiction they preferred for certain matters. He even admits that his proposal introduces, "uncomfortably", the idea of a market in the law, "a competition for loyalty".
One encouraging sign is the almost universal fury that our foolish archbishop has aroused: he has miraculously united the irreconcilable in opposition to himself, from Christian extremists to mainstream Muslims, from Anglican vicars to godless Hampstead liberals, from Gordon Brown to backwoods Tories.
The archbishop and his few supporters insist that the media have misrepresented him and not many people have actually read the learned speech that he gave to a learned audience after his inflammatory radio interview. They are wrong. I haven't seen any serious misrepresentation in the media, and reading his speech several times doesn't exonerate him. Nor does it increase respect for his judgment, his command of English or his powers of ratiocination; he is woolly of face and woolly of mind.
In any case, you do not need to follow anybody's argument to understand that legally recognising aspects of sharia is either unnecessary or undesirable. If the aspects in question accord with English law (the Anglican archbishop is speaking of England, presumably), there is no need to offer any extra provision or recognition for religious courts. They are of no interest to the law. If they don't accord with English law, they are unacceptable and should be repudiated, or even prosecuted.
All this has nothing particularly to do with it being Islamic law at issue. The same would apply to any other religious law: Hindu, Mormon or wiccan. However, there is a lot to be said against sharia and the desire of a reported 40% of British Muslims to live under it. That explains, in part, the present outrage. Sharia is rightly feared here: it is disputed, sometimes primitive, grievously in need of reform and wholly unacceptable in Britain.
So what possessed this troublesome priest to stir up this predictable fury with his divisive and unnecessary suggestions? Why did he choose to speak not just in a quiet academic meeting but also in the public glare of The World at One? And cui bono? It has most certainly not been good for ordinary British Muslims, as they well understand. It has, however, given comfort to Muslim extremists, who will see this as the thin end of their Islamist wedge.
Williams's behaviour looks like vainglorious attention-seeking, but it is also something much worse. To seek to undermine our legal system and the values on which it rests, in a spirit of unnecessary appeasement to an alien set of values, is a kind of treason. It is a betrayal of all those who struggled and died here, over the centuries, for freedom and equality under the rule of law and of their courage in the face of injustice and unreason. Theirs is the good that we should hold fast and so of all people should the Archbishop of Canterbury. Otherwise, what is he for?
Source
Talking CCTV cameras in Britain
Talking CCTV cameras have been installed at two Norwich parks with the aim of slashing anti-social behaviour. Eight cameras at Waterloo Park and one at Eaton Park have been connected to their own loudspeaker system and, through Norwich City Council's 33-screen, 500,000 pound CCTV control room, the voice of a camera operator will boom out across each park to tell off those causing a nuisance, committing low level crime and anti-social behaviour.
Norwich City Councillor Bert Bremner, responsible for community safety and cohesion, said: "It is a really positive thing for the city. "Waterloo Park has had its problems with attacks, graffiti and arson, especially at night-time, and we want to leave these places open for people to enjoy all the time. "These will be ways of embarrassing people and reminding them. Someone being told off for dropping litter will respond in a reasonable way, and I believe most people will say sorry and do something about it. There will be some that won't and, if the matter is serious, the police will follow it up."
The council, which used a 35,000 pound grant to pay for the installation of the high-tech talking system, is one of 20 areas to receive funding for the project ran in partnership with the government's Respect Unit. Six full-time operators man the cameras 24 hours a day and there is a direct communication link between the police and the CCTV control room. The talking cameras have been in operation for three months already and have been used by police on two occasions, including the theft of a woman's handbag.
"We want CCTV because it means people will use their parks and aren't frightened to be there," added Mr Bremner. "People are asking for it. We have surveyed the whole city and the response is incredibly positive. "We are not in a police state, we are in a democracy and people understand we are doing it for their safety. This will help make these places safe."
Although critics have likened the new talking system to the nightmare vision of the future George Orwell wrote about in his novel 1984, many people believe the advantages are worth it. The council's operations manager Gwyn Jenson said: "We have had some teething troubles, but that is because the system we are using is innovative and hasn't been used anywhere else in the country. "We are looking at the usage of the system and if it is a success, we'll look at expanding it further. But we think it is going to be successful and, if so, we will be looking to add the system to our other cameras across the city."
The council ran a poster competition with the city's schools to mark the launch and 12-year-old Hollie Rayfield-Brown from Colman Junior School came up with the winning design which will be placed at cameras in each park. Hollie was also given the chance to sit in Big Brother's chair and issue a telling off to a staged littering incident in Waterloo Park from the CCTV control room. Hollie said: "The poster took me about three lessons and I chose litter because if everyone dropped litter the world would be really messy. "I would wonder where the voice was coming from, but I think it's good because it makes people think twice about what they're doing."
Source
Muslim mania
Islamophobia? It seems as if we are suffering more from Muslim-mania - an unhealthy obsession with all things Islamic, and a paranoid fixation with looking at the world from behind a veil. News that a leading awards panel has rejected a version of The Three Little Pigs for fear that "the use of pigs raises cultural issues" with the Muslim community, has been slammed as "multiculturalism gone mad". But similarly unhinged attitudes are now common in government reports.
Why does the Ministry of Defence think there is a shortfall in army recruitment? Apparently because of "prevalent views on current operations among ethnic minority communities". One might imagine that the Muslim youth of Bradford and Tower Hamlets packed the ranks before the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
What does the Home Office's official assessment see as the big problem it faces extending detention without charge to 42 days? Apparently, because Muslim community leaders expressed concerns about the impact on relations with the police. Presumably our Muslim-manic Home Office believes that burying habeas corpus would be OK if they were unconcerned.
Jacqui Smith has even officially renamed Islamic terrorism as "anti-Islamic activity". Never mind walking Hackney's mean streets, the Home Secretary appears most scared of treading on Muslim toes. All this can only reinforce divisions by treating Muslims as a race apart.
There are big Muslim communities in our cities - about 15 per where I live in northeast London - but the 2001 census put Muslims at just over 3 per cent of the population in England. How has 3 per cent of the public become a focus of public debate? This imbalance must have far less to do with "them" than with the rest of us. It reveals less about Islam than about the anxieties of mainstream British culture.
The clear and distinct identity of the Muslim community, embodied in the veil, makes it a visible symbol of the divisions and insecurities in Britain. But the obvious target is rarely the right one. Muslim-mania has become a sort of political veil behind which we can avoid facing up to some awkward home truths about our society.
Time to cure the body politic of this degenerative condition, stop obsessing about offensive images or playing word-games with terrorism, and start an honest discussion about the bigger questions facing society as a whole. What beliefs, if any, can we unite around today? What are we prepared to stand and fight for now? These questions remain unasked while our leaders tilt at the alternative straw men of Islamophobia and Islamofascism. The Three Little Pigs at least has a lesson about hiding behind straw to keep the wolf from the door.
Source
Inquest jury blames NHS hospital for unlawful killing of mother
The "chaotic" storage of drugs at a hospital led to a woman who was in labour being given a powerful epidural anaesthetic in her arm instead of a saline drip. An hour after giving birth to a son, Mayra Cabrera complained of feeling dizzy and soon afterwards she suffered a fatal heart attack. Her husband was in the room as doctors fought in vain to save her life. More than a year after her death, the Great Western Hospital in Swindon, Wiltshire, admitted that there had been a mix-up with bags of intravenous saline solution and Bupivacaine. The painkiller should have been administered direct to her spine.
An inquest jury found the Swindon and Marlborough NHS Trust responsible yesterday for unlawful killing. It is believed to be the first such finding against an NHS trust, rather than a named person. Senior staff at the hospital face a possible prosecution after Wiltshire police said that they would reopen the investigation into her death.
After the verdict Arnel Cabrera, Mrs Cabrera's widower, called for a prosecution against the midwife who made the fatal error. In a statement he said: "Mayra was my love and my life. However, our life together was ripped apart by the action of a midwife who failed to check the fluid she gave to my wife. "The midwife's failure to accept responsibility or show any remorse for her actions has made me very bitter and angry. I cannot forgive her and now hope that the police and Crown Prosecution Service will prosecute her for manslaughter."
The NHS trust apologised unreservedly for the mistake and said that it had learnt its lesson. It supported a call by the coroner for improvements to the labelling and storage of drugs and for other measures to prevent a recurrence.
Mrs Cabrera, 30, was a Filipina midwife at the Great Western Hospital, where she gave birth to Zachary in May 2004. The handling and storage of drugs there was described as chaotic. David Masters, the Wiltshire Coroner, said that he would be writing to the Health Secretary recommending stricter controls on the handling and administration of drugs.
After 17 hours' deliberation at the end of the four-week inquest in Trowbridge the jury returned a majority verdict. It stated: "Mayra Cabrera was killed unlawfully - gross negligence/manslaughter - storage and administration."
The midwife accused of the mistake, Marie To, repeatedly denied having made the fatal blunder and said that she was unable to explain how the Bupivacaine had been connected to Mrs Cabrera's drip. Gerwyn Samuel, for Mr Cabrera, told her: "It is because you are blocking from your mind the blindingly obvious - that you put up that bag and that it was Bupivacaine."
Mr Masters said that he would be writing to the Health Minister, the Midwifery Council, relevant royal colleges and the General Medical Council to recommend that staff training and the storage and administration of drugs should be overhauled. He also wants the connectors for epidural drugs to be changed so that a mix-up would be unlikely to recur. He said: "The nettle needs to be firmly grasped. It is quite clear that what is needed is a firm and radical approach to tackle the problems raised. "Firstly we need equipment which can be only used for epidural use - giving sets, syringes, and infusion bags which can only be attached for epidural use. Because we are in a global market place the manufacturers have to look to Europe and not just UK requirements. This is something the Minister for Health should tackle."
Detective Inspector Ian Saunders, of Wiltshire Police, who led the original investigation, said that the evidence presented to the inquest would be reviewed. "The CPS will carefully review what has been said in these proceedings to see if any new evidence has come to light."
Lyn Hill-Tout, chief executive of Swindon and Marlborough NHS Trust, apologised for the blunder that killed Mrs Cabrera. She promised that the trust had learnt its lesson. "I want to reiterate our sincere and unreserved apologies to Mr Cabrera and Zac. The trust admitted liability for Mrs Cabrera's death as soon as possible. We sincerely hope that other hospitals will be able to learn from the bitter lessons that we have learnt. This tragic case should not have happened and one death is one too many.
"We wholeheartedly support the coroner in his call for better labelling of drugs by the manufacturers and most importantly the introduction of new special fittings which do not allow for drugs to be connected to the wrong route. "We can never bring Mayra back but we can do all in our power to ensure that there are no similar tragedies. We have been criticised for a number of failures, failures which we accept, deeply regret and from which we have learnt important lessons."
Mr Cabrera, whose work permit expires at the end of this month, is to ask the Home Office for permission to stay in Britain on compassionate grounds. His request was backed by the coroner, who criticised the way in which his case had been dealt with up to now.
Mr Masters said: "I find it quite extraordinary that this man has not had the benefit of knowing that he can stay in this country for the foreseeable future. I would wholeheartedly support his right to stay, had I any say in the matter. It seems to me that the red tape should be cut and thrown away and that should done quickly, sooner rather than later."
Source
A British Muslim woman comments on the the flea-brained archbishop's support for Sharia law: "Look around the Islamic world where sharia rules and, in every single country, these ordinances reduce our human value to less than half that is accorded a male; homosexuals are imprisoned or killed, children have no free voice or autonomy, authoritarianism rules and infantilises populations. What's more, different Muslim nations claim to have their own allegedly god-given sharia. ... There is no agreed body of sharia, it is all drafted by males and the most cruel is now claiming absolute authority. In Pakistan, on the statutes are strictures on adultery introduced by the military dictator Zia ul-Haq. Women activists in that country have given their lives protesting against the injustice of those laws where women suspected of adultery, or rape victims, are punished in hideous ways and the man goes free. The Iranian theocracy changes its regulations from year to year, capriciously playing with the lives of females. .. Two Iranian friends chose to die rather than live under the demeaning religious orders. Go to Afghanistan if you fancy a 12-year-old bride – a practice approved by the mullahs. That's sharia for you. Many women, gay men and dissidents came to Britain to escape Islamic tyrants and their laws. Dr Williams supports those laws and, by default, makes the refugees victims again."
"Honor" abuse in the UK: "Up to 17,000 women in Britain are being subjected to "honour" related violence, including murder, every year, according to police chiefs. And official figures on forced marriages are the tip of the iceberg, says the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO). It warns that the number of girls falling victim to forced marriages, kidnappings, sexual assaults, beatings and even murder by relatives intent on upholding the "honour" of their family is up to 35 times higher than official figures suggest. The crisis, with children as young as 11 having been sent abroad to be married, has prompted the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to call on British consular staff in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan to take more action to identify and help British citizens believed to be the victims of forced marriages in recent years."
Sunday, February 10, 2008
British Dentists 'under pressure to treat fewer children'
Dentists are under pressure not to treat children as the NHS cannot afford to fund their care, it was claimed yesterday. Health trusts want dentists to concentrate on targeting adult patients who have to pay for treatment, according to a pressure group. The claims, to a Commons health select committee, come as figures show that one in three children has not visited a dentist for up to two years.
Eddie Crouch, a founding member of dental pressure group Challenge, said: "There is a danger that children will be turned away because of undue pressure from primary care trusts to get revenue from dentists. This money obviously comes from adult patients who pay for treatment." He added: "The new arrangements have failed to provide many of the important benefits that the Department of Health wished to achieve. "There are growing inequalities in access to care, and the quality assurance mechanisms are woeful."
Early last year many dentists were forced to stop treating children until April after local health trusts ran out of money at the end of the financial year. The trusts faced budget shortfalls after the Government overestimated how much would be raised from dental fees.
Mr Crouch's comments were backed by the London Regional Group of Local Dental Committees. In a statement to the committee it said there was increasing pressure to treat more adults and that people from deprived backgrounds would suffer. "Children and adults who are exempt from NHS charges are among the most in need of dental help," it said. "Yet PCTs require dentists to ensure that a certain proportion of the patients they treat are sufficiently well off to pay for their own NHS treatment, in order to maintain the PCT's financial balance. "We know of dentists who have been told that unless they see a higher proportion of paying NHS patients, they will have their contract capacity curtailed."
Other experts told the committee that dentists would actually be better off financially if they pulled out children's teeth rather than go through the time-consuming process of attempting to save the tooth with a root canal filling.
The Government set up the select committee to investigate the state of NHS dentistry after it emerged that 250,000 fewer patients saw a dentist in the year since the introduction of the new contract in April 2006. The number of children seeing a dentist within the previous two years has fallen by 19,000 from the figure in 2006 and only half of adults have seen a dentist within the past 24 months. With an average patient list of around 2,500, that would mean 1.25million patients have lost access to a dentist.
Source
Let's call a ceasefire in the 'war on obesity'
In tackling an imaginary fat epidemic, the British government is intruding into our lives, guilt-tripping parents and stigmatising chubby children
New year, same old obesity panic. Yesterday, the UK government launched its latest strategy document on tackling fatness, Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives (1). Like every other measure the government has ever announced on obesity, it promises greater intrusion and regulation of our everyday lives, and to make our society a more fraught and joyless place.
The report opens with a smiling prime minister, Gordon Brown, assuring us that: `Heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes have taken the place of nineteenth-century diseases as the illnesses that curtail life prematurely, cause long-term incapacity, reduce quality of life, and on which we focus our healthcare resources.' These diseases `represent as big a threat to our ambitions for world-class services as a lack of investment in the National Health Service did 10 years ago', he says - a neat double-whammy of fearmongering and self-congratulation for his government's health spending.
So how bad is the `obesity problem', or `epidemic', as the government likes to call it? The new strategy document says it is on a par with that other planetary emergency that is pushing us towards oblivion: `[We] are facing a public health problem that the experts have told us is comparable with climate change in both its scale and its complexity.' Climate change is now the new model of how to build a social panic to justify government intervention, as we have noted previously on spiked (see The dangers of fried food and a fried planet, by Rob Lyons). With `global warming' implanted in the public consciousness as a product of man's greed and folly, a phenomenon that could end up killing off humanity, it has become a cheap, easy fallback phrase for our scaremongers-in-chief who want to issue dire warnings on everything from terrorism to bird flu to overeating.
In truth, however, there is no `obesity epidemic'. What really lies behind the government's obsession with our waistlines is not a burning necessity to slim down an apparently waddling nation, but rather a deeply unhealthy urge on the part of officialdom to monitor our lifestyles and attitudes.
Some critical experts question whether there is an `obesity problem' to be solved at all. Of course a small percentage of the population is very fat. These morbidly obese individuals do struggle with a range of health problems because of their weight. They need help - although many of the current solutions for morbid obesity, like surgery to reduce stomach size, seem to be as risky and severe as the problems they're designed to fix.
However, the vast majority of people, from `normal' weight through to the mildly obese, do not face any particular difficulty as a result of being overweight. In fact, the definitions of `overweight' and `obese', and the way the two terms are used interchangeably in popular discussion of the issue, blur the distinction between normal body shapes and the morbidly obese. In adults, these definitions are based on body mass index (BMI) (basically, a ratio of weight to height). A BMI of 25 or more is defined as `overweight', while a BMI of 30 is regarded as `obese'. But most of the population has a BMI greater than 25, so by definition, most of us are `ill'. As it happens, recent statistics from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggest there is little difference in mortality figures for those with a wide range of BMIs, including those who are at the lower end of the `obese' range (see Who's afraid of. being fat?, by Patrick Basham and John Luik).
For children, the situation is even more complicated because their bodies are going through rapid changes. As a result, adult definitions of obesity are generally regarded as unsuitable for children. In the new report, government ministers state `a third of children are either overweight or obese'. Apart from the familiar problem of blurring `overweight' and `obese' to produce a more startling number, it is worth noting that the figures used are based on an outdated definition. A different and more widely accepted definition of childhood obesity suggests fewer children are affected. (For further discussion of this area, see Fattened statistics by Peter Marsh.)
As the American academic Paul Campos neatly put it, maybe the best way to win the war on obesity is to stop fighting it; to stop waging war on actually quite normal people who enjoy eating nice, rich foods.
Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives argues that the problem of obesity is, at core, an imbalance of `energy in' (food consumption) with `energy out' (our metabolism plus our physical activity). We all have to take responsibility for our weight, the authors argue, but there are also `genetic, psychological, cultural and behavioural factors which. have an important role to play'. In other words, as well as having to tolerate the ongoing tsunami of advice and lectures from government advertising campaigns, media health experts and doctors about our personal behaviour, we should also expect to see big changes in our environment and culture in the name of tackling the illusory obesity epidemic.
The reorganisation of aspects of society around the war on obesity is already happening, and it is undermining parents and unnecessarily stressing out children. There have been changes to school meals that dictate much more rigidly what children eat during the day, and there are regular inspections of kids' lunchboxes to check that they aren't secretly consuming chocolate or fizzy drinks. Such measures not only deny children the sugary perks of childhood that the rest of us enjoyed; they also implicitly undermine parental authority. If a teacher or other school employee rifles through a child's lunchbox and sends a stern letter about the contents to mum or dad, what message does it send to the child? That your parents cannot be trusted; that the health-aware and caring authorities know better than your mother how you should be brought up.
The weighing and measuring of children's BMI has now been institutionalised in some schools. Children are given a letter for their parents, like a school report advising mum and dad on little John or Jane's `progress' in the subject of weight and healthiness. As Dr Michael Fitzpatrick has argued on spiked, these public weigh-ins, effectively designed to measure children's obedience to New Labour's new health regime as much as their weight, will cause distress to perfectly happy and healthy children who may simply be carrying a bit of puppy fat or childhood chubbiness: `The mass weigh-in will inevitably stigmatise overweight children and provoke widespread anxiety and distress among both children and parents.' (See Stop bullying fat kids, by Dr Michael Fitzpatrick.)
Meanwhile, the ban on junk food advertising during kids' TV programmes exposes the illiberal edge to the war on obesity. You may not care very much whether massive corporations like Coca-Cola can book a 30-second slot during Dora the Explorer, but we should be concerned when the authorities take it upon themselves to control the dissemination of images and information in the name of protecting us from our own worst instincts. It is censorship of the most patronising kind (see Advertising is a free speech issue, by Brendan O'Neill).
On top of these developments, Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives outlines some new and pointless proposals. The document suggests there should be a unified system of colour-coded food labelling to warn people of the fat, salt, sugar and calorific content. Cookery classes will be made compulsory for 11- to 14 year-olds, even though many schools simply don't have the facilities to host such classes. UK health secretary Alan Johnson, displaying the anti-obesity crusader's dictatorial instincts once more, says he wants to use planning legislation to prevent burger bars being built in the vicinity of schools. Yet according to the Local Government Association: `There is no evidence that where fast-food joints are located makes the slightest bit of difference to obesity.' (2)
From turning home economics into a pious lecture on good food/bad food, to marking every fatty or salty food product in supermarkets with a red warning label, to restricting the building of burger joints. it seems the government wants to win the war on obesity by making eating food - one of the everyday joys of our lives - into such a tedious and scary task that we all might just give it up.
The war on obesity is a joyless and fear-underpinned initiative. Its effects could well include making parents feel guilty and chubby children feel isolated (possibly even making them the victims of anti-fat bullies); and the war will likely turn the everyday pleasure of eating into a fraught task, while making society and TV ever-more tightly policed arenas. New Labour, a government without any wider vision of how to lead or change society, has become obsessed with micro-managing our lives. And its micromanagement is increasingly backed up by some fairly nasty measures. At the start of this month, Gordon Brown indicated that patients could be denied treatment if they didn't stop smoking, lose weight or exercise more, as part of a NHS `constitution' (3).
It is time there was a ceasefire in the war on obesity - and time that the government decommissioned and put beyond use its weapons of fearmongering and fatty-bashing.
Source
Lawyers lose for once: "Law firms that grew rich by exploiting sick miners are to be forced to repay tens of millions of pounds that they wrongly sliced from their clients' compensation. The multimillion-pound payback follows an investigation by The Times into a series of abuses linked to the Department of Trade and Industry's 7.5 billion pound coal health compensation scheme. An estimated 75,000 former pit workers are likely to receive payments under a nationwide scheme that has been agreed in principle by the Government. The cost to those solicitors who improperly deducted money from awards given to elderly and vulnerable clients may top 50 million. Claims were registered by more than 760,000 former miners with chronic lung disease or a crippling hand condition caused by their work underground. Solicitors handling each claim were paid a fixed fee by the Government, but many chose to make additional deductions from the compensation awarded to their clients. The money they sliced off was sometimes banked by the law firms themselves and in other cases was passed to miners' unions or claims handling companies."
Vicious mullah banned from Britain: "Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a controversial Muslim cleric who defends suicide attacks, has been refused a visa to enter to the UK after a campaign by David Cameron. The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said that it deplored the decision and accused the government of caving in to "unreasonable demands spearheaded by the Tory leader". Muhammad Abdul Bari, the secretary-general of the MCB, said that Dr al-Qaradawi enjoyed respect as a scholar throughout the Muslim world. "I am afraid this decision will send the wrong message to Muslims everywhere about the state of British society and culture," he said"
Dentists are under pressure not to treat children as the NHS cannot afford to fund their care, it was claimed yesterday. Health trusts want dentists to concentrate on targeting adult patients who have to pay for treatment, according to a pressure group. The claims, to a Commons health select committee, come as figures show that one in three children has not visited a dentist for up to two years.
Eddie Crouch, a founding member of dental pressure group Challenge, said: "There is a danger that children will be turned away because of undue pressure from primary care trusts to get revenue from dentists. This money obviously comes from adult patients who pay for treatment." He added: "The new arrangements have failed to provide many of the important benefits that the Department of Health wished to achieve. "There are growing inequalities in access to care, and the quality assurance mechanisms are woeful."
Early last year many dentists were forced to stop treating children until April after local health trusts ran out of money at the end of the financial year. The trusts faced budget shortfalls after the Government overestimated how much would be raised from dental fees.
Mr Crouch's comments were backed by the London Regional Group of Local Dental Committees. In a statement to the committee it said there was increasing pressure to treat more adults and that people from deprived backgrounds would suffer. "Children and adults who are exempt from NHS charges are among the most in need of dental help," it said. "Yet PCTs require dentists to ensure that a certain proportion of the patients they treat are sufficiently well off to pay for their own NHS treatment, in order to maintain the PCT's financial balance. "We know of dentists who have been told that unless they see a higher proportion of paying NHS patients, they will have their contract capacity curtailed."
Other experts told the committee that dentists would actually be better off financially if they pulled out children's teeth rather than go through the time-consuming process of attempting to save the tooth with a root canal filling.
The Government set up the select committee to investigate the state of NHS dentistry after it emerged that 250,000 fewer patients saw a dentist in the year since the introduction of the new contract in April 2006. The number of children seeing a dentist within the previous two years has fallen by 19,000 from the figure in 2006 and only half of adults have seen a dentist within the past 24 months. With an average patient list of around 2,500, that would mean 1.25million patients have lost access to a dentist.
Source
Let's call a ceasefire in the 'war on obesity'
In tackling an imaginary fat epidemic, the British government is intruding into our lives, guilt-tripping parents and stigmatising chubby children
New year, same old obesity panic. Yesterday, the UK government launched its latest strategy document on tackling fatness, Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives (1). Like every other measure the government has ever announced on obesity, it promises greater intrusion and regulation of our everyday lives, and to make our society a more fraught and joyless place.
The report opens with a smiling prime minister, Gordon Brown, assuring us that: `Heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes have taken the place of nineteenth-century diseases as the illnesses that curtail life prematurely, cause long-term incapacity, reduce quality of life, and on which we focus our healthcare resources.' These diseases `represent as big a threat to our ambitions for world-class services as a lack of investment in the National Health Service did 10 years ago', he says - a neat double-whammy of fearmongering and self-congratulation for his government's health spending.
So how bad is the `obesity problem', or `epidemic', as the government likes to call it? The new strategy document says it is on a par with that other planetary emergency that is pushing us towards oblivion: `[We] are facing a public health problem that the experts have told us is comparable with climate change in both its scale and its complexity.' Climate change is now the new model of how to build a social panic to justify government intervention, as we have noted previously on spiked (see The dangers of fried food and a fried planet, by Rob Lyons). With `global warming' implanted in the public consciousness as a product of man's greed and folly, a phenomenon that could end up killing off humanity, it has become a cheap, easy fallback phrase for our scaremongers-in-chief who want to issue dire warnings on everything from terrorism to bird flu to overeating.
In truth, however, there is no `obesity epidemic'. What really lies behind the government's obsession with our waistlines is not a burning necessity to slim down an apparently waddling nation, but rather a deeply unhealthy urge on the part of officialdom to monitor our lifestyles and attitudes.
Some critical experts question whether there is an `obesity problem' to be solved at all. Of course a small percentage of the population is very fat. These morbidly obese individuals do struggle with a range of health problems because of their weight. They need help - although many of the current solutions for morbid obesity, like surgery to reduce stomach size, seem to be as risky and severe as the problems they're designed to fix.
However, the vast majority of people, from `normal' weight through to the mildly obese, do not face any particular difficulty as a result of being overweight. In fact, the definitions of `overweight' and `obese', and the way the two terms are used interchangeably in popular discussion of the issue, blur the distinction between normal body shapes and the morbidly obese. In adults, these definitions are based on body mass index (BMI) (basically, a ratio of weight to height). A BMI of 25 or more is defined as `overweight', while a BMI of 30 is regarded as `obese'. But most of the population has a BMI greater than 25, so by definition, most of us are `ill'. As it happens, recent statistics from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggest there is little difference in mortality figures for those with a wide range of BMIs, including those who are at the lower end of the `obese' range (see Who's afraid of. being fat?, by Patrick Basham and John Luik).
For children, the situation is even more complicated because their bodies are going through rapid changes. As a result, adult definitions of obesity are generally regarded as unsuitable for children. In the new report, government ministers state `a third of children are either overweight or obese'. Apart from the familiar problem of blurring `overweight' and `obese' to produce a more startling number, it is worth noting that the figures used are based on an outdated definition. A different and more widely accepted definition of childhood obesity suggests fewer children are affected. (For further discussion of this area, see Fattened statistics by Peter Marsh.)
As the American academic Paul Campos neatly put it, maybe the best way to win the war on obesity is to stop fighting it; to stop waging war on actually quite normal people who enjoy eating nice, rich foods.
Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives argues that the problem of obesity is, at core, an imbalance of `energy in' (food consumption) with `energy out' (our metabolism plus our physical activity). We all have to take responsibility for our weight, the authors argue, but there are also `genetic, psychological, cultural and behavioural factors which. have an important role to play'. In other words, as well as having to tolerate the ongoing tsunami of advice and lectures from government advertising campaigns, media health experts and doctors about our personal behaviour, we should also expect to see big changes in our environment and culture in the name of tackling the illusory obesity epidemic.
The reorganisation of aspects of society around the war on obesity is already happening, and it is undermining parents and unnecessarily stressing out children. There have been changes to school meals that dictate much more rigidly what children eat during the day, and there are regular inspections of kids' lunchboxes to check that they aren't secretly consuming chocolate or fizzy drinks. Such measures not only deny children the sugary perks of childhood that the rest of us enjoyed; they also implicitly undermine parental authority. If a teacher or other school employee rifles through a child's lunchbox and sends a stern letter about the contents to mum or dad, what message does it send to the child? That your parents cannot be trusted; that the health-aware and caring authorities know better than your mother how you should be brought up.
The weighing and measuring of children's BMI has now been institutionalised in some schools. Children are given a letter for their parents, like a school report advising mum and dad on little John or Jane's `progress' in the subject of weight and healthiness. As Dr Michael Fitzpatrick has argued on spiked, these public weigh-ins, effectively designed to measure children's obedience to New Labour's new health regime as much as their weight, will cause distress to perfectly happy and healthy children who may simply be carrying a bit of puppy fat or childhood chubbiness: `The mass weigh-in will inevitably stigmatise overweight children and provoke widespread anxiety and distress among both children and parents.' (See Stop bullying fat kids, by Dr Michael Fitzpatrick.)
Meanwhile, the ban on junk food advertising during kids' TV programmes exposes the illiberal edge to the war on obesity. You may not care very much whether massive corporations like Coca-Cola can book a 30-second slot during Dora the Explorer, but we should be concerned when the authorities take it upon themselves to control the dissemination of images and information in the name of protecting us from our own worst instincts. It is censorship of the most patronising kind (see Advertising is a free speech issue, by Brendan O'Neill).
On top of these developments, Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives outlines some new and pointless proposals. The document suggests there should be a unified system of colour-coded food labelling to warn people of the fat, salt, sugar and calorific content. Cookery classes will be made compulsory for 11- to 14 year-olds, even though many schools simply don't have the facilities to host such classes. UK health secretary Alan Johnson, displaying the anti-obesity crusader's dictatorial instincts once more, says he wants to use planning legislation to prevent burger bars being built in the vicinity of schools. Yet according to the Local Government Association: `There is no evidence that where fast-food joints are located makes the slightest bit of difference to obesity.' (2)
From turning home economics into a pious lecture on good food/bad food, to marking every fatty or salty food product in supermarkets with a red warning label, to restricting the building of burger joints. it seems the government wants to win the war on obesity by making eating food - one of the everyday joys of our lives - into such a tedious and scary task that we all might just give it up.
The war on obesity is a joyless and fear-underpinned initiative. Its effects could well include making parents feel guilty and chubby children feel isolated (possibly even making them the victims of anti-fat bullies); and the war will likely turn the everyday pleasure of eating into a fraught task, while making society and TV ever-more tightly policed arenas. New Labour, a government without any wider vision of how to lead or change society, has become obsessed with micro-managing our lives. And its micromanagement is increasingly backed up by some fairly nasty measures. At the start of this month, Gordon Brown indicated that patients could be denied treatment if they didn't stop smoking, lose weight or exercise more, as part of a NHS `constitution' (3).
It is time there was a ceasefire in the war on obesity - and time that the government decommissioned and put beyond use its weapons of fearmongering and fatty-bashing.
Source
Lawyers lose for once: "Law firms that grew rich by exploiting sick miners are to be forced to repay tens of millions of pounds that they wrongly sliced from their clients' compensation. The multimillion-pound payback follows an investigation by The Times into a series of abuses linked to the Department of Trade and Industry's 7.5 billion pound coal health compensation scheme. An estimated 75,000 former pit workers are likely to receive payments under a nationwide scheme that has been agreed in principle by the Government. The cost to those solicitors who improperly deducted money from awards given to elderly and vulnerable clients may top 50 million. Claims were registered by more than 760,000 former miners with chronic lung disease or a crippling hand condition caused by their work underground. Solicitors handling each claim were paid a fixed fee by the Government, but many chose to make additional deductions from the compensation awarded to their clients. The money they sliced off was sometimes banked by the law firms themselves and in other cases was passed to miners' unions or claims handling companies."
Vicious mullah banned from Britain: "Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a controversial Muslim cleric who defends suicide attacks, has been refused a visa to enter to the UK after a campaign by David Cameron. The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said that it deplored the decision and accused the government of caving in to "unreasonable demands spearheaded by the Tory leader". Muhammad Abdul Bari, the secretary-general of the MCB, said that Dr al-Qaradawi enjoyed respect as a scholar throughout the Muslim world. "I am afraid this decision will send the wrong message to Muslims everywhere about the state of British society and culture," he said"
Saturday, February 09, 2008
BRITISH GOVERNMENT (formerly known as "world leaders" in climate change policy) REVIVES COAL INDUSTRY
Coal power generation is crucial for the growth of the British economy, Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks said on Wednesday. But he said the government could not yet release a specific policy document on coal-fired electricity. "We can't afford to forget coal which contributes about 35 percent of UK power and has an important part to play in UK power policy," Wicks said.
The fuel source is controversial because it produces more of the planet-warming gas carbon dioxide than any other power source. Protesters from environmental group Greenpeace interrupted Wicks as he addressed a coal conference at the Lord's cricket ground in London. "Coal power stations are out-of-date climate-wreckers," the group said in a statement.
FULL STORY here
Get lazy, age faster
This seems reasonable enough. We didn't evolve to sit in armchairs all day. But the stuff below is little more than speculation. There's still a lot we don't know about telomeres and their regeneration
People who are physically active in their spare time seem biologically younger than sedentary types, researchers report. Regular exercisers are already known to have lower rates of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure, obesity and osteoporosis, according to scientists. But beyond this, "inactivity. may influence the aging process itself," the researchers wrote, reporting their findings in the Jan. 28 issue of the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.
Lynn F. Cherkas of King's College London and colleagues studied 2,401 white twins who filled out questionnaires on physical activity, smoking habits and socioeconomic status, and provided blood samples for DNA tests.
The researchers measured the length of segments of chromosomes called telomeres. Their length, which decreases throughout a person's life, is seen by some biologists as a possible marker of biological age. [Hmmm... ]
People who were less physically active in their leisure time had shorter telomeres in their white blood cells than those who were more active, Cherkas and colleagues found. "The most active subjects had telomeres the same length as sedentary individuals up to 10 years younger, on average," they wrote. The relationship "remained significant after adjustment for body mass index, smoking, socioeconomic status and physical activity at work."
Sedentary lifestyles shorten telomeres probably through a process called oxidative stress, in which oxygen, although essential to life, causes chemical damage to cells, the researchers said. Exercise may also reduce psychological stress, they added, and this may affect aging.
"U.S. guidelines recommend that 30 minutes of moderateintensity physical activity at least five days a week can have significant health benefits," the authors wrote. "Our results underscore the vital importance of these guidelines. adults who partake in regular physical activity are biologically younger than sedentary individuals."
Source
British Airways blasts EU emissions plan
The European Union is aiming too high with proposals to make all airlines flying into and out of the bloc buy pollution permits and risks a backlash from other countries, the chief executive of British Airways said. Under plans being drawn up in Brussels to fight climate change, airlines using EU airports would be included in the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme from 2012, with a cap on their emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. Airlines would gradually have to buy emissions certificates at auction, starting with 20 per cent of permits in 2013 and rising to 100 per cent in 2020.
From three per cent of mankind's total contribution to global warming in 2005, aviation's emissions are set to rise by a factor of two to five by 2050, the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in a report last year. "What we're saying is by all means be ambitious but don't put the whole system at risk by trying to impose it on other nations at a completely different point in their whole thinking on climate change," BA Chief Executive Willie Walsh said. Walsh said emissions trading within the EU is the best way for the bloc's aviation industry to respond to climate change but extending it further risks undermining the scheme.
The United States and many other countries are deeply opposed to the plan by Brussels, arguing that the move would illegally extend EU jurisdiction outside European territory. "I think to go in and say here's the solution, we're applying it everywhere, you must do what we tell you... You're going to get a backlash," he told Reuters in an interview. "The warning signals are loud and clear."
European airlines could be at risk of retaliation in the form of restricted access to third countries or punitive taxes and non-European airlines might shun the region as a hub for long-haul flights, Walsh said. "We need to be careful that we don't encourage air transport to move away from Europe and move into other hub airports like the Middle East where Dubai is perfect example," he said.
The European Parliament and the council of member states approved a plan late last year for all airlines flying in and out of the EU to join the ETS early in the next decade. The plan has yet to be put to a second vote in the European Parliament, giving airlines such as British Airways a chance to lobby for changes to the final text. Walsh was in Brussels for a series of meeting with EU officials.
Source
Britain: Foreign doctors face competence inquiry
Britain's medical regulator has launched a major inquiry into the competence of foreign doctors after it emerged that they are now twice as likely to face disciplinary hearings as UK medical graduates. Figures seen by The Times also reveal that triple the number of doctors who trained abroad were struck off the UK medical register last year compared with 2005.
The findings, part of a report compiled by the General Medical Council, have prompted the profession's regulator to commission seven research projects, which will cover issues including the competence of foreign doctors and whether they are subject to institutional racism within the health service. More than 5,000 cases were dealt with by the GMC in 2006, 303 of which culminated in fitness-to-practise hearings and 54 doctors were struck off. Of these, nearly two thirds - 35 doctors - had trained outside the UK.
The range of offences included sexual misconduct, dishonesty and failing to provide an adequate level of care for patients. Among the cases in the past three months have been a Hungarian doctor struck off for dishonesty, a Nigerian for clinical incompetence and misdiagnosis and an American-trained doctor who had sexually harassed a nurse. One Spanish-trained psychiatrist was found to have abused his position over the use of prescription drugs.
Last month Gordon Brown pledged to tighten checks on medical staff who trained overseas after three NHS doctors were charged in connection with the attempted car bomb attacks on London and Glasgow.
But medical regulators suggest that patient safety may be compromised by current procedures, which require some doctors to produce no more than a degree certificate and a letter of reference before they can start work. The GMC said there was a growing number of complaints about GPs and hospital doctors, but a "disproportionate" number of overseas-trained doctors were appearing before its disciplinary panels. Strikingly, 30 per cent of complaints against foreign doctors came from other health professionals or the police, who were the source of less than 15 per cent of complaints against UK-trained doctors.
The GMC has commissioned researchers to look into the pattern, for which there is currently "no good explanation", it said. It added that doctors were only struck off when it would endanger patients and the wider public to do otherwise.
One of the projects coordinated by the Economic and Social Research Council is already under way, while six others are due to start in the next few months. They include proposals from academics at the London School of Economics and the universities of Newcastle and Leicester to investigate how doctors come to work in the UK and set out which of them might present a particular risk to patients.
Under current rules, doctors from Europe can register and treat patients in Britain but are not tested for clinical competence and do not have to prove they can speak English, unlike those from Australia or elsewhere who are naturally fluent. The GMC and other regulators fear that patient care may be at risk , and have called for a change in the law to test doctors from the EU.
This week The Times revealed that hundreds of junior doctors who took up posts this month have not been vetted by the Criminal Records Bureau. Hospital trust managers complained that they could not check the criminal records of some applicants because they received the names too late.
Of the 5,085 complaints lodged against doctors last year, a rate of almost 100 a week, nearly 40 per cent referred to overseas-trained doctors - roughly in proportion to their numbers in the NHS workforce. A far greater number of international medical graduates were referred to hearings compared with UK graduates (34 per cent as against 16 per cent last year).
Paul Philips, director of standards and fitness-to-practise at the GMC, said: "The number of fitness-to-prac-tise cases we deal with is going up year on year. Doctors with a primary medical qualification from overseas or within the EU are disproportionately represented, and more are being referred to us than we should be see without a good explanation." The British Medical Association said that the pattern might be accounted for by a culture of institutional racism within the NHS. A Department of Health spokesperson said all NHS doctors were subject to stringent pre-employment checks.
Source
Queer Jesus no good to Muslims either
We read:
I wonder when the Archbishop of Canterbury will be issuing HIS fatwa?
Muddled achbishop: "Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the world's Anglicans, said on Thursday the introduction in Britain of some aspects of sharia, Islamic law, was unavoidable. His unexpected comments were welcomed by some Muslim groups, but the government was quick to distance itself from them, saying it was out of the question that the principles of sharia could be used in British civil courts. Williams, speaking to the BBC, said other religions enjoyed tolerance of their laws in Britain and he called for a "constructive accommodation" with Muslim practice in areas such as marital disputes. Asked if the adoption of sharia was necessary for community cohesion, Williams said: "It seems unavoidable. Certain conditions of sharia are already recognised in our society and under our law, so it is not as if we are bringing in an alien and rival system." [Even if you are]
Coal power generation is crucial for the growth of the British economy, Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks said on Wednesday. But he said the government could not yet release a specific policy document on coal-fired electricity. "We can't afford to forget coal which contributes about 35 percent of UK power and has an important part to play in UK power policy," Wicks said.
The fuel source is controversial because it produces more of the planet-warming gas carbon dioxide than any other power source. Protesters from environmental group Greenpeace interrupted Wicks as he addressed a coal conference at the Lord's cricket ground in London. "Coal power stations are out-of-date climate-wreckers," the group said in a statement.
FULL STORY here
Get lazy, age faster
This seems reasonable enough. We didn't evolve to sit in armchairs all day. But the stuff below is little more than speculation. There's still a lot we don't know about telomeres and their regeneration
People who are physically active in their spare time seem biologically younger than sedentary types, researchers report. Regular exercisers are already known to have lower rates of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure, obesity and osteoporosis, according to scientists. But beyond this, "inactivity. may influence the aging process itself," the researchers wrote, reporting their findings in the Jan. 28 issue of the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.
Lynn F. Cherkas of King's College London and colleagues studied 2,401 white twins who filled out questionnaires on physical activity, smoking habits and socioeconomic status, and provided blood samples for DNA tests.
The researchers measured the length of segments of chromosomes called telomeres. Their length, which decreases throughout a person's life, is seen by some biologists as a possible marker of biological age. [Hmmm... ]
People who were less physically active in their leisure time had shorter telomeres in their white blood cells than those who were more active, Cherkas and colleagues found. "The most active subjects had telomeres the same length as sedentary individuals up to 10 years younger, on average," they wrote. The relationship "remained significant after adjustment for body mass index, smoking, socioeconomic status and physical activity at work."
Sedentary lifestyles shorten telomeres probably through a process called oxidative stress, in which oxygen, although essential to life, causes chemical damage to cells, the researchers said. Exercise may also reduce psychological stress, they added, and this may affect aging.
"U.S. guidelines recommend that 30 minutes of moderateintensity physical activity at least five days a week can have significant health benefits," the authors wrote. "Our results underscore the vital importance of these guidelines. adults who partake in regular physical activity are biologically younger than sedentary individuals."
Source
British Airways blasts EU emissions plan
The European Union is aiming too high with proposals to make all airlines flying into and out of the bloc buy pollution permits and risks a backlash from other countries, the chief executive of British Airways said. Under plans being drawn up in Brussels to fight climate change, airlines using EU airports would be included in the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme from 2012, with a cap on their emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. Airlines would gradually have to buy emissions certificates at auction, starting with 20 per cent of permits in 2013 and rising to 100 per cent in 2020.
From three per cent of mankind's total contribution to global warming in 2005, aviation's emissions are set to rise by a factor of two to five by 2050, the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in a report last year. "What we're saying is by all means be ambitious but don't put the whole system at risk by trying to impose it on other nations at a completely different point in their whole thinking on climate change," BA Chief Executive Willie Walsh said. Walsh said emissions trading within the EU is the best way for the bloc's aviation industry to respond to climate change but extending it further risks undermining the scheme.
The United States and many other countries are deeply opposed to the plan by Brussels, arguing that the move would illegally extend EU jurisdiction outside European territory. "I think to go in and say here's the solution, we're applying it everywhere, you must do what we tell you... You're going to get a backlash," he told Reuters in an interview. "The warning signals are loud and clear."
European airlines could be at risk of retaliation in the form of restricted access to third countries or punitive taxes and non-European airlines might shun the region as a hub for long-haul flights, Walsh said. "We need to be careful that we don't encourage air transport to move away from Europe and move into other hub airports like the Middle East where Dubai is perfect example," he said.
The European Parliament and the council of member states approved a plan late last year for all airlines flying in and out of the EU to join the ETS early in the next decade. The plan has yet to be put to a second vote in the European Parliament, giving airlines such as British Airways a chance to lobby for changes to the final text. Walsh was in Brussels for a series of meeting with EU officials.
Source
Britain: Foreign doctors face competence inquiry
Britain's medical regulator has launched a major inquiry into the competence of foreign doctors after it emerged that they are now twice as likely to face disciplinary hearings as UK medical graduates. Figures seen by The Times also reveal that triple the number of doctors who trained abroad were struck off the UK medical register last year compared with 2005.
The findings, part of a report compiled by the General Medical Council, have prompted the profession's regulator to commission seven research projects, which will cover issues including the competence of foreign doctors and whether they are subject to institutional racism within the health service. More than 5,000 cases were dealt with by the GMC in 2006, 303 of which culminated in fitness-to-practise hearings and 54 doctors were struck off. Of these, nearly two thirds - 35 doctors - had trained outside the UK.
The range of offences included sexual misconduct, dishonesty and failing to provide an adequate level of care for patients. Among the cases in the past three months have been a Hungarian doctor struck off for dishonesty, a Nigerian for clinical incompetence and misdiagnosis and an American-trained doctor who had sexually harassed a nurse. One Spanish-trained psychiatrist was found to have abused his position over the use of prescription drugs.
Last month Gordon Brown pledged to tighten checks on medical staff who trained overseas after three NHS doctors were charged in connection with the attempted car bomb attacks on London and Glasgow.
But medical regulators suggest that patient safety may be compromised by current procedures, which require some doctors to produce no more than a degree certificate and a letter of reference before they can start work. The GMC said there was a growing number of complaints about GPs and hospital doctors, but a "disproportionate" number of overseas-trained doctors were appearing before its disciplinary panels. Strikingly, 30 per cent of complaints against foreign doctors came from other health professionals or the police, who were the source of less than 15 per cent of complaints against UK-trained doctors.
The GMC has commissioned researchers to look into the pattern, for which there is currently "no good explanation", it said. It added that doctors were only struck off when it would endanger patients and the wider public to do otherwise.
One of the projects coordinated by the Economic and Social Research Council is already under way, while six others are due to start in the next few months. They include proposals from academics at the London School of Economics and the universities of Newcastle and Leicester to investigate how doctors come to work in the UK and set out which of them might present a particular risk to patients.
Under current rules, doctors from Europe can register and treat patients in Britain but are not tested for clinical competence and do not have to prove they can speak English, unlike those from Australia or elsewhere who are naturally fluent. The GMC and other regulators fear that patient care may be at risk , and have called for a change in the law to test doctors from the EU.
This week The Times revealed that hundreds of junior doctors who took up posts this month have not been vetted by the Criminal Records Bureau. Hospital trust managers complained that they could not check the criminal records of some applicants because they received the names too late.
Of the 5,085 complaints lodged against doctors last year, a rate of almost 100 a week, nearly 40 per cent referred to overseas-trained doctors - roughly in proportion to their numbers in the NHS workforce. A far greater number of international medical graduates were referred to hearings compared with UK graduates (34 per cent as against 16 per cent last year).
Paul Philips, director of standards and fitness-to-practise at the GMC, said: "The number of fitness-to-prac-tise cases we deal with is going up year on year. Doctors with a primary medical qualification from overseas or within the EU are disproportionately represented, and more are being referred to us than we should be see without a good explanation." The British Medical Association said that the pattern might be accounted for by a culture of institutional racism within the NHS. A Department of Health spokesperson said all NHS doctors were subject to stringent pre-employment checks.
Source
Queer Jesus no good to Muslims either
We read:
"An Islamic group based in the UK has issued a death fatwa against a playwright whose London stage production depicts Jesus Christ as a homosexual. Terrence McNally was sentenced to death by the Shari'ah Court of the UK as his play, Corpus Christi, opened in London on Thursday night.
The play depicts Jesus Christ and his followers as a group of homosexuals. He is seduced by Judas Iscariot, but is later crucified as "king of the queers". It caused an outcry among Christians when it was staged during the Edinburgh Fringe festival during the summer.
Muslims regard Jesus as a messenger of God, and revere his mother, the Virgin Mary. The play was declared blasphemous by the Al-Muhajiroun - The Defenders of The Messenger Jesus.
Source
I wonder when the Archbishop of Canterbury will be issuing HIS fatwa?
Muddled achbishop: "Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the world's Anglicans, said on Thursday the introduction in Britain of some aspects of sharia, Islamic law, was unavoidable. His unexpected comments were welcomed by some Muslim groups, but the government was quick to distance itself from them, saying it was out of the question that the principles of sharia could be used in British civil courts. Williams, speaking to the BBC, said other religions enjoyed tolerance of their laws in Britain and he called for a "constructive accommodation" with Muslim practice in areas such as marital disputes. Asked if the adoption of sharia was necessary for community cohesion, Williams said: "It seems unavoidable. Certain conditions of sharia are already recognised in our society and under our law, so it is not as if we are bringing in an alien and rival system." [Even if you are]
Friday, February 08, 2008
Britain is welcoming to minorities. They in turn should respect Britain's Christian culture
By Daniel Finkelstein
Tu B'shvat. Latkes. Kinloss. Simchat Torah. The four questions. Viennas. Halacha dictates that you should affix your mezuzah on the right side of the door in the upper third of the doorpost within approximately three inches of the opening. Chrain.
If you are not Jewish my list will have lost you by now. Other people's religions are mystifying. The son of God - who came up with that one? The Eucharist - what's that when it's at home? Fortunately you don't need to understand any of the words with which I started this column. (Although I recommend finding out about latkes. And Viennas. Oh, and chrain.) If you insist on learning - because you think it might come up in a quiz or something - then by all means go ahead. But not on my account. All I really need you to do is leave me alone to get on with it.
And I don't doubt that you will. That's what I love about Britain. Our country is a very tolerant, quiet, modest, hospitable sort of place. We try and leave others in peace and expect to be left in peace ourselves. When a mass murderer is discovered in our midst, the neighbours still murmur with approval: "He kept himself to himself." You know what else I love? That none of you will have questioned my right to use the word "our" about this country, even though I am the son of immigrants naturalised not long before I was born. Imprisoned by communists and Nazis, expelled from their homes, seeing their relatives die, forced to start again with nothing, my parents found peace and freedom in this country. Because of its traditions and its culture. Because there is something precious about this place.
Now I'll tell you what I'd like to do. I'd like you to look after it. I'd like you to stand up for the principles that make this country what it is, even when it's mildly awkward to do so. And an awkward case has just arisen, as it happens. So I can test your resolve. Over in East Oxford, the Central Mosque wants to issue a call to prayer by loudspeaker three times a day. As the mosque's spokeman, Sardar Rana, put it: "The call to prayer would be made in the central hall and then linked to three speakers in the minaret, which would point in different directions." He then added, without, I think, trying to be funny: "I don't think it would disturb anybody."
You can see why this is awkward, can't you? The first, and correct, instinct of the Englishman is to see if we can accommodate the request without any fuss. It is, however, hard to see how this is possible. With the best will in the world, the muezzin's electronically enhanced recitation is going to be an intrusion.
Yet I don't think it's enough to confine one's objection purely to the noise. Let me dispense with a couple of minor - but in my view incorrect - arguments about the call to prayer. There's nothing all that wrong with the words that would be recited. Apart from anything else it would be in Arabic. And yes, the muezzin will announce that God is great, but fortunately we are entitled in Britain to disagree. I don't accept either the idea that this call to prayer would create a Muslim ghetto. Nor would I fear such a thing. It is natural that Muslims want to live near each other anyway, just as Jews do. And that they will wish to live near the mosque.
These arguments are diversions from the important principle involved. And that concerns this country's status as a Christian country with an established Church. Perhaps you feel reluctant to use this argument - feeling it a departure from inclusiveness. Well, I don't think you should be reluctant in the slightest. Immigrants and their children in this country receive a fantastic deal. We are able to practise our religion in peace. We can openly enjoy our culture. Our colleagues tolerate our taking vacations on holy days and they even let their children be taught about some of our practices, which is most courteous, I must say.
In return I think it reasonable for us to show respect for the majority religion and for the established religious institutions. We could, after all, live somewhere else. We came here on purpose. And here we have a right to practise, but not to dominate the public space. We have the right to pray, but not to blare out our prayer across Cowley.
Let's say that the call to prayer, the sound of the muezzin from the minaret, is the most precious sound to you. You do not have to live in East Oxford. There are any number of mosques all over the world, loudspeakering away to their hearts' content. One of the reasons I support the existence of the state of Israel is that I feel there should be one place in the world where Jews can loudspeaker away. Although most of us Jews talk loud enough without a megaphone, so we can settle in Pinner.
Here, however, they have church bells. And the Queen is defender of the faith. Many members of the Church of England aren't very religious - my favourite Spitting Image joke involved a man knocking on a door and saying: "Jehovah's Witnesses here. Do you believe in God?" To which the man inside replied: "No, I'm C of E." But even among the less religious many marry in church and are buried in a churchyard. And religiosity isn't the only issue here. It's also culture. Why should the mild, gentle culture of the Anglicans not deserve the same preservation and respect as any other ancient culture? I regard the Jewish tradition as something I hold in trust for my children. What of the culture and sights and sounds of this country and its heritage?
I'm not calling for a retreat from the tolerance and mutual respect of this country. That's the last thing I want. I depend on it, don't I? It's just that I don't think tolerance and mutual respect come from nowhere. There's a reason why this country shows it, why we have fought for it, and died for it. I am just saying that if this country doesn't protect its own heritage and culture, how can I expect it to protect mine?
Source
Britain's charming Muslims again
Women face prison for ignoring a murder under their own roof
Two sisters wept and their mother screamed abuse when all three were found guilty yesterday of turning a blind eye to the horrific murder of a young woman in their house. Sabia Rani, 19, was systematically beaten and abused by her husband, Shazad Khan, over three months at the home that they shared in Leeds. When she died she had 15 broken ribs and bruising over 85 per cent of her body and, according to a pathologist, looked like the victim of a catastrophic road accident.
Khan was convicted of her murder a year ago. Yesterday his mother, Phullan Bibi, 52, his sisters, Nazia Naureen, 28, and Uzma Khan, 23, and Uzma's husband Majid Hussain, 28, were all found guilty of allowing the death of a vulnerable adult under the Domestic Violence Crime and Victims Act 2004. The judge told the family that they should be prepared for custodial sentences before they were bailed overnight to reappear before the court today.
As the jury delivered the verdicts all three women began wailing and shouting in the dock. The sisters hugged each other screaming "not guilty, not guilty" while their mother stood up and shouted abuse, slamming her hands down on the bench, before collapsing on the flooor.
Simon Myerson, QC, for the prosecution, had told the court that the young victim had been brought up in rural Pakistan. She married her cousin, Shazad Khan, in December 2002, but it was not until three years later that she came to England. She spoke no English when she arrived in Leeds as Khan's bride, five months before her death in May, 2006. She was kept a prisoner in a suburban semi-detached house in the Roundhay district of the city and was not allowed out unescorted. An ambulance crew found her collapsed on the bathroom floor of the house. Her bodily systems had simply given up, the prosecution said.
Mr Myerson said that each of the defendants must have known that she was in pain, and the cause of her suffering, but did nothing to stop it. Uzma Khan claimed in evidence at her brother's trial in January last year that the injuries were caused by evil spirits and black magic. Mr Myerson said: "It is not a question of faith. It is a question of evidence. No scientific report has ever stated that evil spirits could have beaten this woman to death. The evil spirit that beat Sabia Rani was Shazad Khan and Uzma knew that."
A spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Service said that the defendants were among the first people in the country to be convicted of allowing the death of a vulnerable adult. Malcolm Taylor, from the CPS, said: "Sabia Rani was the victim of horrific violence at the hands of her husband while her family chose to do nothing. "If families or other people with a duty to look after those who need protection deliberately choose not to do so, their neglect will not be ignored by the law enforcement agencies, and prosecution will follow."
Source
Loony British health and safety rules trip up pancake race
A Cathedral pancake race that is part of a 600-year-old tradition has been stopped because of health and safety rules. The bell at Ripon Cathedral, which has rung at 11am to mark Shrove Tuesday since the 15th century, has signalled the start of the city's pancake race for the past 11 years. However, the event, in which children, traders, soldiers and even clergy compete, has been abandoned because of the amount of work needed to carry out risk assessments.
The Dean of Ripon, the Very Rev Keith Jukes, who helps organise the races, said: "We have looked at this and there are a number of reasons why it won't take place and a big reason this year is, sadly, health and safety. "Any organisation that runs an event has to go through risk assessments. The insurance companies demand it and in the end you have to work out whether it's a risk you take. "There is also the issue of road closures, which can be an expensive business." Bernard Bateman, one of the organisers, said it was also becoming increasingly difficult to find volunteers willing to help as marshals.
In past years, the event, part of a long tradition of pancake races in Ripon, was likened to a village sports day, a last chance to have fun before the solemn season of Lent. The race has been growing in popularity and even involved members of 38 Regt Royal Engineers, based in Ripon, who cook pancakes from a field kitchen outside the west front of the cathedral.
Mr Bateman, a councillor, said: "The main problem is health and safety. There are so many things to put in place to make sure the event can get off the ground. "We had hoped to make the pancake race as much of a tradition as the pancake bell and it's a travesty that it has been killed off. "Everyone involved in the race is a volunteer and at the end of the day fewer and fewer people are volunteering these days, and it's because of the paperwork that started off as well-meaning but has now gone overboard. "It puts people off helping. It's just one thing after another."
Jean Smith, 61, a resident of Ripon, said: "It's totally daft. Why should paperwork get in the way of kids having fun? We seem to hear it all the time now but it's bureaucracy gone mad." Ripon Cathedral traditionally used the "pancake bell" to summon penitents to church to be "shriven" by making confessions before the start of Lent.
A survey has suggested that two thirds of people in the country no longer mark the Christian tradition of making pancakes. Many are even unaware of its place in the calendar. Shrove Tuesday, which falls 47 days before Easter Sunday, is today. Pancakes have featured in cookbooks since 1439. The custom of flipping or tossing them is believed to have started in the 17th century. They are made from rich ingredients that include eggs and milk, which were used up in households before the 40 days of Lent during which only plain food should be eaten.
Source
Non-EU doctors barred from UK posts
An overdue burst of intelligence. Bringing in poorly trained Indian doctors when British-trained doctors could not get jobs was crazy
New immigration rules will stop doctors from outside the EU applying for postgraduate training posts in the UK, it has been announced. The Home Office has laid out new regulations to prevent overseas doctors applying for foundation and speciality training posts. It follows criticisms that homegrown doctors are unable to find jobs once they graduate from UK medical schools.
The rules, which will first affect recruitment in 2009, would see a drop of between 3,000 and 5,000 overseas applications next year, official estimates suggest. The rules apply to doctors currently not resident in the UK - it will not affect doctors with medical jobs already here on the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme. The Government estimates that around 10,000 non-EU medical graduates are currently in the UK.
Figures suggest that up to 1,100 UK doctors could still miss out on a training post in 2009 and beyond owing to the number of overseas doctors. The Government said therefore it was launching a consultation on guidance which says doctors currently in the UK on HSMP can only get a job here if there is no UK or EU doctor suitable for the role.
The Court of Appeal ruled in November that such guidance was unlawful. The Government appealed against that decision and the case is due to be heard by the House of Lords, with a decision expected in May. Around 1,300 UK graduates missed out on a training post last year.
Source
British wind farms: Blowing money on a fantasy
My electricity company has just sent me a handwringing letter, explaining why, despite its best efforts to keep costs down, my bill is set to soar again this year. The reason - apart from the usual rapacious profits enjoyed by our power suppliers - is a hidden subsidy paid towards the development of wind farms. In the last financial year, electricity consumers were forced to pay a total of 600million pounds in subsidy to the owners of wind turbines. This figure is due to rise to 3billion a year by 2020 as vast areas of the most beautiful parts of the country will be pockmarked with 500fthigh windmills.
The sudden growth in this area of energy supply is because the green lobby has convinced many that this renewable power source is the answer to our looming energy crisis. But the truth is that not only do renewables provide a mere 1.3 per cent of the country's energy needs but also that this money is being wasted. The subsidy system works on the principle of encouraging the development of new wind farms by forcing traditional energy companies to pay producers of renewable energy. The firms then recoup the money by charging consumers higher bills.
After an initial surge in the number of new wind farms, few are currently being built. The most obvious sites, far from human habitation, have already been filled and energy firms are now facing delays in obtaining planning permission to build in more environmentally sensitive locations. As a result, the huge subsidy is concentrated in a small number of hands. There is a rising amount of money for renewable energy and if less is produced each turbine gets more of the pot. At current subsidy rates, anyone who constructs a wind farm, which is expected to last for a minimum of 20 years, will have paid off their investment in only five years. From then on, its profit all the way to the bank.
John Constable, director of policy at the Renewable Energy Foundation, says that the system "has encouraged underperforming onshore wind turbines in low wind areas. Though of little engineering value, such plants attract speculators because they require little capital investment". As a result, consumers will soon be paying billions in unnecessary subsidy to a bunch of sharp-suited businessmen who have spotted an opportunity for easy money.
But the wind farm disaster story does not, by any means, end here. Even in the unlikely event that ministers managed to get the subsidy system right, there would still remain fundamental problems with wind power. First, the fact that the turbines stand idle when the wind doesn't blow. This leaves gas or coal power stations to be switched on and off at a moment's notice to fill the gap - something that is very environmentally inefficient.
Second, even if you accept that it's worth desecrating some of the most beautiful parts of Britain in pursuit of a renewable energy policy, you then must transport the energy to a population centre. That means building an expensive infrastructure of new power lines.
The third problem is the potential threat wildlife (including rare birds colliding with the blades) and the damage to quality of life of those people who live near the wind farms. The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors estimates that the price of house located close to a new turbine falls by 20 per cent, if the owners are able to sell it at all.
Of course, none of this much matters while the turbines are out of sight, but that could be about to change. Although Britain currently has nearly 2,000 onshore turbines; ministers have signed up to European targets on renewables that will mean 7,000 more. The Government claims that most of these will be built offshore, but that's not true because the costs of building in deep water are still too high.
Finally, there is the revelation that wind farms stop the Ministry of Defence's radar working, so we can forget about early warning of an airborne attack.
Behind all this is one certainty: Britain is facing a looming energy crisis. Our ageing nuclear power plants, which currently provide 20 per cent of our energy, are nearing the end of their useful life. The Government, having dithered for years, wants to build new ones but says that, unlike renewables, there will be no subsidies or price guarantees for the nuclear industry. If they really mean this, then the energy companies won't build any reactors, because the commercial risks will be too great. That will mean Britain becomes even more dependent on gas power stations, at a time when our supplies of North Sea gas are running out.
We will have to import our supplies from unstable Middle Eastern nations, or from Russia, whose leaders have already shown they are happy to turn off the gas tap to make a political point. Britain could be held to energy ransom; even plunged into darkness.
Meanwhile we waste time fiddling with wind power. The solution in the medium term is a proper commitment to nuclear energy which, like wind power, doesn't generate greenhouse gases. Also, we should be funding for research into wave and tidal power - surely the long-term answer for an island nation like Britain. As for wind, ministers should cut off the funding tap, and use the money to help reduce our obscenely high electricity bills.
Source
New immigration points system begins in Britain
Details of Britain's new Australian-style points based immigration system (PBS) were announced today as the Government published the rules for highly skilled foreign workers applying to come to the UK. The regulations will start coming into force on 29 February when any highly skilled foreign nationals currently working in Britain who want to extend their stay will need to apply under the new system.
In April, the new system will begin to be rolled out overseas when anyone from India who wants to work in the UK as a highly skilled migrant will need to apply under PBS. By the summer the new highly skilled system will operate worldwide.
Speaking from Delhi during a visit to discuss how PBS will work with the Indian Government, Borders and Immigration Minister Liam Byrne said: "Our points system is starting on time and on plan. "I've no problem with taking the best systems in the world, like Australia's points system, and bringing them to the UK. "This is a key part of the huge shake-up to our border security this year." "We want India to come first because India is Britain's most important market for highly skilled migrants."
The Highly Skilled tier 1 will build upon the success of the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme by continuing to attract the most talented people with the skills the UK needs to remain a global leader in the fields of finance, business and technological innovation.
The announcement follows the completion in January of the Border and Immigration Agency's global rollout of fingerprinting for all visas three months early. Now every person in the world coming to the UK on a visa has their fingerprints taken and their details checked against watch-lists - if they're on the list for the wrong reason they can't come in and could be banned from applying to come again for up to 10 years.
Source
Stuff your face! Make a mint!
Britain: State-sponsored incentives, like paying obese people not to eat so much, will never work
Do you remember the sepia-tinted days when shopkeepers would give you 5p for the return of an empty fizzy-drink bottle? For me the memory of this early recycling venture excites a flush of shame. As children, our gang would pilfer the glass bottles from neighbours' porches and backyards and stuff our faces with sherbert on the profit. My more hard-faced schoolfriends went farther and would steal full bottles of Tizer from shop shelves, empty the contents down the grate, then return them to the same outlet, smiling innocently, to collect their wages of sin.
Fizzy-pop bottle crime was my instant thought when I read that the Government is considering giving fat people cash or vouchers to lose weight. What kind of crazed, inverted logic is this? Pay people to lose weight and you give them a motive to gain it in the first place. Don't be thin and a loser, folks. Eat all the pies and - wayhay! - it's payday. If history has taught us anything it is that where state-sponsored financial incentives are involved, human beings will find a way to double bluff the system.
We all heard the allegations during the foot-and-mouth epidemic that some farmers were deliberately infecting their livestock to claim the handsome compensation. Or the stories about people nicking M&S clothes just so they could return them sans receipt and take advantage of their generous refund policy. And the theory that some parents in this country push for their children to be prescribed Ritalin, the drug that combats attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, because they will then qualify for the 40 pounds or so a week "attendance allowance" that accompanies it.
Few anecdotes illustrate the point better than one submitted to the letters page of The Times this week about a town in Italy plagued by snakes where locals were paid each time they brought in a skin to the authorities. Guess what? It emerged that people were breeding snakes to trouser the money.
If the Government wants to give away cash, surely it should convey the right message and reward the already thin, the ones who don't eat buckets of KFC and who subscribe to gyms. Otherwise you may as well do something as daft as paying criminals to give up crime. Oh, hold on. Gordon Brown has considered that one before - a plan for troublemaking teenagers to be paid in vouchers, 20 pounds for every week in which they didn't make trouble.
It is fairly obvious that by introducing a system in which one can profit from obesity, one makes obesity a little more attractive. There are plenty of people in this country who fervently believe that disadvantaged teenage girls deliberately become pregnant so that they will land themselves a council flat.
What do the new obesity proposals do other than up those stakes? It's not just any kid you want, girls - it's a fat kid! Feed them Mars Bars and double your money.
Source
By Daniel Finkelstein
Tu B'shvat. Latkes. Kinloss. Simchat Torah. The four questions. Viennas. Halacha dictates that you should affix your mezuzah on the right side of the door in the upper third of the doorpost within approximately three inches of the opening. Chrain.
If you are not Jewish my list will have lost you by now. Other people's religions are mystifying. The son of God - who came up with that one? The Eucharist - what's that when it's at home? Fortunately you don't need to understand any of the words with which I started this column. (Although I recommend finding out about latkes. And Viennas. Oh, and chrain.) If you insist on learning - because you think it might come up in a quiz or something - then by all means go ahead. But not on my account. All I really need you to do is leave me alone to get on with it.
And I don't doubt that you will. That's what I love about Britain. Our country is a very tolerant, quiet, modest, hospitable sort of place. We try and leave others in peace and expect to be left in peace ourselves. When a mass murderer is discovered in our midst, the neighbours still murmur with approval: "He kept himself to himself." You know what else I love? That none of you will have questioned my right to use the word "our" about this country, even though I am the son of immigrants naturalised not long before I was born. Imprisoned by communists and Nazis, expelled from their homes, seeing their relatives die, forced to start again with nothing, my parents found peace and freedom in this country. Because of its traditions and its culture. Because there is something precious about this place.
Now I'll tell you what I'd like to do. I'd like you to look after it. I'd like you to stand up for the principles that make this country what it is, even when it's mildly awkward to do so. And an awkward case has just arisen, as it happens. So I can test your resolve. Over in East Oxford, the Central Mosque wants to issue a call to prayer by loudspeaker three times a day. As the mosque's spokeman, Sardar Rana, put it: "The call to prayer would be made in the central hall and then linked to three speakers in the minaret, which would point in different directions." He then added, without, I think, trying to be funny: "I don't think it would disturb anybody."
You can see why this is awkward, can't you? The first, and correct, instinct of the Englishman is to see if we can accommodate the request without any fuss. It is, however, hard to see how this is possible. With the best will in the world, the muezzin's electronically enhanced recitation is going to be an intrusion.
Yet I don't think it's enough to confine one's objection purely to the noise. Let me dispense with a couple of minor - but in my view incorrect - arguments about the call to prayer. There's nothing all that wrong with the words that would be recited. Apart from anything else it would be in Arabic. And yes, the muezzin will announce that God is great, but fortunately we are entitled in Britain to disagree. I don't accept either the idea that this call to prayer would create a Muslim ghetto. Nor would I fear such a thing. It is natural that Muslims want to live near each other anyway, just as Jews do. And that they will wish to live near the mosque.
These arguments are diversions from the important principle involved. And that concerns this country's status as a Christian country with an established Church. Perhaps you feel reluctant to use this argument - feeling it a departure from inclusiveness. Well, I don't think you should be reluctant in the slightest. Immigrants and their children in this country receive a fantastic deal. We are able to practise our religion in peace. We can openly enjoy our culture. Our colleagues tolerate our taking vacations on holy days and they even let their children be taught about some of our practices, which is most courteous, I must say.
In return I think it reasonable for us to show respect for the majority religion and for the established religious institutions. We could, after all, live somewhere else. We came here on purpose. And here we have a right to practise, but not to dominate the public space. We have the right to pray, but not to blare out our prayer across Cowley.
Let's say that the call to prayer, the sound of the muezzin from the minaret, is the most precious sound to you. You do not have to live in East Oxford. There are any number of mosques all over the world, loudspeakering away to their hearts' content. One of the reasons I support the existence of the state of Israel is that I feel there should be one place in the world where Jews can loudspeaker away. Although most of us Jews talk loud enough without a megaphone, so we can settle in Pinner.
Here, however, they have church bells. And the Queen is defender of the faith. Many members of the Church of England aren't very religious - my favourite Spitting Image joke involved a man knocking on a door and saying: "Jehovah's Witnesses here. Do you believe in God?" To which the man inside replied: "No, I'm C of E." But even among the less religious many marry in church and are buried in a churchyard. And religiosity isn't the only issue here. It's also culture. Why should the mild, gentle culture of the Anglicans not deserve the same preservation and respect as any other ancient culture? I regard the Jewish tradition as something I hold in trust for my children. What of the culture and sights and sounds of this country and its heritage?
I'm not calling for a retreat from the tolerance and mutual respect of this country. That's the last thing I want. I depend on it, don't I? It's just that I don't think tolerance and mutual respect come from nowhere. There's a reason why this country shows it, why we have fought for it, and died for it. I am just saying that if this country doesn't protect its own heritage and culture, how can I expect it to protect mine?
Source
Britain's charming Muslims again
Women face prison for ignoring a murder under their own roof
Two sisters wept and their mother screamed abuse when all three were found guilty yesterday of turning a blind eye to the horrific murder of a young woman in their house. Sabia Rani, 19, was systematically beaten and abused by her husband, Shazad Khan, over three months at the home that they shared in Leeds. When she died she had 15 broken ribs and bruising over 85 per cent of her body and, according to a pathologist, looked like the victim of a catastrophic road accident.
Khan was convicted of her murder a year ago. Yesterday his mother, Phullan Bibi, 52, his sisters, Nazia Naureen, 28, and Uzma Khan, 23, and Uzma's husband Majid Hussain, 28, were all found guilty of allowing the death of a vulnerable adult under the Domestic Violence Crime and Victims Act 2004. The judge told the family that they should be prepared for custodial sentences before they were bailed overnight to reappear before the court today.
As the jury delivered the verdicts all three women began wailing and shouting in the dock. The sisters hugged each other screaming "not guilty, not guilty" while their mother stood up and shouted abuse, slamming her hands down on the bench, before collapsing on the flooor.
Simon Myerson, QC, for the prosecution, had told the court that the young victim had been brought up in rural Pakistan. She married her cousin, Shazad Khan, in December 2002, but it was not until three years later that she came to England. She spoke no English when she arrived in Leeds as Khan's bride, five months before her death in May, 2006. She was kept a prisoner in a suburban semi-detached house in the Roundhay district of the city and was not allowed out unescorted. An ambulance crew found her collapsed on the bathroom floor of the house. Her bodily systems had simply given up, the prosecution said.
Mr Myerson said that each of the defendants must have known that she was in pain, and the cause of her suffering, but did nothing to stop it. Uzma Khan claimed in evidence at her brother's trial in January last year that the injuries were caused by evil spirits and black magic. Mr Myerson said: "It is not a question of faith. It is a question of evidence. No scientific report has ever stated that evil spirits could have beaten this woman to death. The evil spirit that beat Sabia Rani was Shazad Khan and Uzma knew that."
A spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Service said that the defendants were among the first people in the country to be convicted of allowing the death of a vulnerable adult. Malcolm Taylor, from the CPS, said: "Sabia Rani was the victim of horrific violence at the hands of her husband while her family chose to do nothing. "If families or other people with a duty to look after those who need protection deliberately choose not to do so, their neglect will not be ignored by the law enforcement agencies, and prosecution will follow."
Source
Loony British health and safety rules trip up pancake race
A Cathedral pancake race that is part of a 600-year-old tradition has been stopped because of health and safety rules. The bell at Ripon Cathedral, which has rung at 11am to mark Shrove Tuesday since the 15th century, has signalled the start of the city's pancake race for the past 11 years. However, the event, in which children, traders, soldiers and even clergy compete, has been abandoned because of the amount of work needed to carry out risk assessments.
The Dean of Ripon, the Very Rev Keith Jukes, who helps organise the races, said: "We have looked at this and there are a number of reasons why it won't take place and a big reason this year is, sadly, health and safety. "Any organisation that runs an event has to go through risk assessments. The insurance companies demand it and in the end you have to work out whether it's a risk you take. "There is also the issue of road closures, which can be an expensive business." Bernard Bateman, one of the organisers, said it was also becoming increasingly difficult to find volunteers willing to help as marshals.
In past years, the event, part of a long tradition of pancake races in Ripon, was likened to a village sports day, a last chance to have fun before the solemn season of Lent. The race has been growing in popularity and even involved members of 38 Regt Royal Engineers, based in Ripon, who cook pancakes from a field kitchen outside the west front of the cathedral.
Mr Bateman, a councillor, said: "The main problem is health and safety. There are so many things to put in place to make sure the event can get off the ground. "We had hoped to make the pancake race as much of a tradition as the pancake bell and it's a travesty that it has been killed off. "Everyone involved in the race is a volunteer and at the end of the day fewer and fewer people are volunteering these days, and it's because of the paperwork that started off as well-meaning but has now gone overboard. "It puts people off helping. It's just one thing after another."
Jean Smith, 61, a resident of Ripon, said: "It's totally daft. Why should paperwork get in the way of kids having fun? We seem to hear it all the time now but it's bureaucracy gone mad." Ripon Cathedral traditionally used the "pancake bell" to summon penitents to church to be "shriven" by making confessions before the start of Lent.
A survey has suggested that two thirds of people in the country no longer mark the Christian tradition of making pancakes. Many are even unaware of its place in the calendar. Shrove Tuesday, which falls 47 days before Easter Sunday, is today. Pancakes have featured in cookbooks since 1439. The custom of flipping or tossing them is believed to have started in the 17th century. They are made from rich ingredients that include eggs and milk, which were used up in households before the 40 days of Lent during which only plain food should be eaten.
Source
Non-EU doctors barred from UK posts
An overdue burst of intelligence. Bringing in poorly trained Indian doctors when British-trained doctors could not get jobs was crazy
New immigration rules will stop doctors from outside the EU applying for postgraduate training posts in the UK, it has been announced. The Home Office has laid out new regulations to prevent overseas doctors applying for foundation and speciality training posts. It follows criticisms that homegrown doctors are unable to find jobs once they graduate from UK medical schools.
The rules, which will first affect recruitment in 2009, would see a drop of between 3,000 and 5,000 overseas applications next year, official estimates suggest. The rules apply to doctors currently not resident in the UK - it will not affect doctors with medical jobs already here on the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme. The Government estimates that around 10,000 non-EU medical graduates are currently in the UK.
Figures suggest that up to 1,100 UK doctors could still miss out on a training post in 2009 and beyond owing to the number of overseas doctors. The Government said therefore it was launching a consultation on guidance which says doctors currently in the UK on HSMP can only get a job here if there is no UK or EU doctor suitable for the role.
The Court of Appeal ruled in November that such guidance was unlawful. The Government appealed against that decision and the case is due to be heard by the House of Lords, with a decision expected in May. Around 1,300 UK graduates missed out on a training post last year.
Source
British wind farms: Blowing money on a fantasy
My electricity company has just sent me a handwringing letter, explaining why, despite its best efforts to keep costs down, my bill is set to soar again this year. The reason - apart from the usual rapacious profits enjoyed by our power suppliers - is a hidden subsidy paid towards the development of wind farms. In the last financial year, electricity consumers were forced to pay a total of 600million pounds in subsidy to the owners of wind turbines. This figure is due to rise to 3billion a year by 2020 as vast areas of the most beautiful parts of the country will be pockmarked with 500fthigh windmills.
The sudden growth in this area of energy supply is because the green lobby has convinced many that this renewable power source is the answer to our looming energy crisis. But the truth is that not only do renewables provide a mere 1.3 per cent of the country's energy needs but also that this money is being wasted. The subsidy system works on the principle of encouraging the development of new wind farms by forcing traditional energy companies to pay producers of renewable energy. The firms then recoup the money by charging consumers higher bills.
After an initial surge in the number of new wind farms, few are currently being built. The most obvious sites, far from human habitation, have already been filled and energy firms are now facing delays in obtaining planning permission to build in more environmentally sensitive locations. As a result, the huge subsidy is concentrated in a small number of hands. There is a rising amount of money for renewable energy and if less is produced each turbine gets more of the pot. At current subsidy rates, anyone who constructs a wind farm, which is expected to last for a minimum of 20 years, will have paid off their investment in only five years. From then on, its profit all the way to the bank.
John Constable, director of policy at the Renewable Energy Foundation, says that the system "has encouraged underperforming onshore wind turbines in low wind areas. Though of little engineering value, such plants attract speculators because they require little capital investment". As a result, consumers will soon be paying billions in unnecessary subsidy to a bunch of sharp-suited businessmen who have spotted an opportunity for easy money.
But the wind farm disaster story does not, by any means, end here. Even in the unlikely event that ministers managed to get the subsidy system right, there would still remain fundamental problems with wind power. First, the fact that the turbines stand idle when the wind doesn't blow. This leaves gas or coal power stations to be switched on and off at a moment's notice to fill the gap - something that is very environmentally inefficient.
Second, even if you accept that it's worth desecrating some of the most beautiful parts of Britain in pursuit of a renewable energy policy, you then must transport the energy to a population centre. That means building an expensive infrastructure of new power lines.
The third problem is the potential threat wildlife (including rare birds colliding with the blades) and the damage to quality of life of those people who live near the wind farms. The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors estimates that the price of house located close to a new turbine falls by 20 per cent, if the owners are able to sell it at all.
Of course, none of this much matters while the turbines are out of sight, but that could be about to change. Although Britain currently has nearly 2,000 onshore turbines; ministers have signed up to European targets on renewables that will mean 7,000 more. The Government claims that most of these will be built offshore, but that's not true because the costs of building in deep water are still too high.
Finally, there is the revelation that wind farms stop the Ministry of Defence's radar working, so we can forget about early warning of an airborne attack.
Behind all this is one certainty: Britain is facing a looming energy crisis. Our ageing nuclear power plants, which currently provide 20 per cent of our energy, are nearing the end of their useful life. The Government, having dithered for years, wants to build new ones but says that, unlike renewables, there will be no subsidies or price guarantees for the nuclear industry. If they really mean this, then the energy companies won't build any reactors, because the commercial risks will be too great. That will mean Britain becomes even more dependent on gas power stations, at a time when our supplies of North Sea gas are running out.
We will have to import our supplies from unstable Middle Eastern nations, or from Russia, whose leaders have already shown they are happy to turn off the gas tap to make a political point. Britain could be held to energy ransom; even plunged into darkness.
Meanwhile we waste time fiddling with wind power. The solution in the medium term is a proper commitment to nuclear energy which, like wind power, doesn't generate greenhouse gases. Also, we should be funding for research into wave and tidal power - surely the long-term answer for an island nation like Britain. As for wind, ministers should cut off the funding tap, and use the money to help reduce our obscenely high electricity bills.
Source
New immigration points system begins in Britain
Details of Britain's new Australian-style points based immigration system (PBS) were announced today as the Government published the rules for highly skilled foreign workers applying to come to the UK. The regulations will start coming into force on 29 February when any highly skilled foreign nationals currently working in Britain who want to extend their stay will need to apply under the new system.
In April, the new system will begin to be rolled out overseas when anyone from India who wants to work in the UK as a highly skilled migrant will need to apply under PBS. By the summer the new highly skilled system will operate worldwide.
Speaking from Delhi during a visit to discuss how PBS will work with the Indian Government, Borders and Immigration Minister Liam Byrne said: "Our points system is starting on time and on plan. "I've no problem with taking the best systems in the world, like Australia's points system, and bringing them to the UK. "This is a key part of the huge shake-up to our border security this year." "We want India to come first because India is Britain's most important market for highly skilled migrants."
The Highly Skilled tier 1 will build upon the success of the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme by continuing to attract the most talented people with the skills the UK needs to remain a global leader in the fields of finance, business and technological innovation.
The announcement follows the completion in January of the Border and Immigration Agency's global rollout of fingerprinting for all visas three months early. Now every person in the world coming to the UK on a visa has their fingerprints taken and their details checked against watch-lists - if they're on the list for the wrong reason they can't come in and could be banned from applying to come again for up to 10 years.
Source
Stuff your face! Make a mint!
Britain: State-sponsored incentives, like paying obese people not to eat so much, will never work
Do you remember the sepia-tinted days when shopkeepers would give you 5p for the return of an empty fizzy-drink bottle? For me the memory of this early recycling venture excites a flush of shame. As children, our gang would pilfer the glass bottles from neighbours' porches and backyards and stuff our faces with sherbert on the profit. My more hard-faced schoolfriends went farther and would steal full bottles of Tizer from shop shelves, empty the contents down the grate, then return them to the same outlet, smiling innocently, to collect their wages of sin.
Fizzy-pop bottle crime was my instant thought when I read that the Government is considering giving fat people cash or vouchers to lose weight. What kind of crazed, inverted logic is this? Pay people to lose weight and you give them a motive to gain it in the first place. Don't be thin and a loser, folks. Eat all the pies and - wayhay! - it's payday. If history has taught us anything it is that where state-sponsored financial incentives are involved, human beings will find a way to double bluff the system.
We all heard the allegations during the foot-and-mouth epidemic that some farmers were deliberately infecting their livestock to claim the handsome compensation. Or the stories about people nicking M&S clothes just so they could return them sans receipt and take advantage of their generous refund policy. And the theory that some parents in this country push for their children to be prescribed Ritalin, the drug that combats attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, because they will then qualify for the 40 pounds or so a week "attendance allowance" that accompanies it.
Few anecdotes illustrate the point better than one submitted to the letters page of The Times this week about a town in Italy plagued by snakes where locals were paid each time they brought in a skin to the authorities. Guess what? It emerged that people were breeding snakes to trouser the money.
If the Government wants to give away cash, surely it should convey the right message and reward the already thin, the ones who don't eat buckets of KFC and who subscribe to gyms. Otherwise you may as well do something as daft as paying criminals to give up crime. Oh, hold on. Gordon Brown has considered that one before - a plan for troublemaking teenagers to be paid in vouchers, 20 pounds for every week in which they didn't make trouble.
It is fairly obvious that by introducing a system in which one can profit from obesity, one makes obesity a little more attractive. There are plenty of people in this country who fervently believe that disadvantaged teenage girls deliberately become pregnant so that they will land themselves a council flat.
What do the new obesity proposals do other than up those stakes? It's not just any kid you want, girls - it's a fat kid! Feed them Mars Bars and double your money.
Source
Thursday, February 07, 2008
'Lolita' bedroom set for girls withdrawn
I know that many conservative bloggers have expressed outrage over this but the libertarian response here is: "If you don't like it, don't buy it". The story is fictional but in it Lolita was an attractive and naturally feminine young girl. Lots of girls are. It was not her fault that some inadequate creep slavered over her.
British police lose SIX MILLION hours a year to red tape
The Blair legacy. As Lenin said: "Account must be taken of every single article, every pound of grain, because what socialism implies above all is keeping account of everything"
Up to six million police hours a year are being wasted on bureaucracy, says a damning review. Officers are "straitjacketed" by red tape and reduced to arresting the most minor of offenders to meet crime targets. The withering verdict is passed by Sir Ronnie Flanagan in his bombshell review of the state of the police service. His conclusions - due to be published tomorrow but leaked to the Daily Mail last night - are an indictment of Labour's record on policing and insistence on targets. Sir Ronnie claims that three to six million police hours a year - the equivalent of 3,000 frontline officers - are being squandered on bureaucracy.
Despite a string of promises and reforms since Labour's election in 1997, the former chief constable describes the police as so afraid of getting in trouble they are "risk averse" and reluctant to use their initiative. Sir Ronnie paints a picture of a police service drowning in form-filling - which takes a fifth of officer time - regulations and 'perverse' Government targets. He reveals one officer even charged someone who had built a snowman on a footpath with a public order offence because it helped meet goals imposed by Whitehall.
Sir Ronnie says: "The 21st century police service is in danger of becoming a slave to doctrine and straitjacketed by process." The "needless drain of unnecessary bureaucracy" and the emphasis on targets had led to "poor professional judgment" and the criminalising of people who had not committed any offence.
Other findings include the fact that - despite five years of Labour promising change on bureaucracy - up to 70 per cent of information is entered into police computers more than once. Forty one new pieces of doctrine have been introduced in the last two years alone. A staggering 500,000 hours of officer time are spent each year on internal audits.
Yet Sir Ronnie's recommendations stop well short of the Conservative blueprint unveiled over recent weeks and are likely to leave rankand-file officers dismayed. The review was supposed to set down a blueprint for the future of the police service. But the stop and search form - which takes 25 minutes to complete - will stay. Officers will simply be given hand-held computers to make it easier to input the details. The Tories would replace the form with a simple call to the station.
The proposals for replacing the stop form - which Mr Brown had indicated would be scrapped altogether - will also cause bemusement among police. Sir Ronnie said they should hand over a "business card" containing their details to anybody who they question about their movements - enabling them to later ring to complain. There is also no reference in the 106-page document to giving police more powers to stop a person if there is no suggestion of wrongdoing. Last week, Downing Street spin doctors were suggesting this would be the case.
Plans for a bonfire of red-tape by moving to a single set of forms across the country have also been shelved. Tory police spokesman David Ruffley said of the leak: "This review simply does not go far enough in cutting red tape and risk aversion in the police force. "It does not follow our pledge to abolish the 40 question stop and search form and allow officers to radio in the basic details of a search which will be digitally recorded. "After five Labour red tape reviews in ten years, this lags way behind already announced Conservative plans for tougher law and order."
Sir Ronnie wants targets which give police a "perverse incentive" to catch minor rather than serious criminals to be ditched. The rules, which rank solving a murder in the same way as fining a litter bug, have been blamed for police targeting normally law-abiding citizens. As well as the snowman case, Sir Ronnie highlighted a child prosecuted for chalking on pavements. Some of these offences should no longer be classed as "notifiable", he says, which means police will not be rewarded for solving them. He also warns the police must be less "risk averse", a process which would require the Government to accept mistakes will occasionally be made.
Source
British teachers ordered to 'police children's lunchboxes'
The intrusion of the British State into people's lives grows daily. They make Hitler and Mussolini look like amateurs in some respects
School lunchboxes could soon be monitored by dinner ladies to ensure children are eating healthy meals, ministers said. Under the Government's obesity strategy, all schools will be expected to design a "healthy lunchbox policy" on what makes a nutritional packed lunch over the next year. Some parents may even be asked to sign a form agreeing to ban unhealthy foods from their children's lunches.
If a packed lunch is deemed to contain too much fat and sugar, parents could be sent warning letters or their children's meals confiscated. Although the Government has already unveiled proposals to make canteen lunches much healthier, it is concerned many parents do not have clear advice about what should be included in a healthy packed lunch.
Health Secretary Alan Johnson and Schools Secretary Ed Balls praised a Hertfordshire school which has designed lunchbox menu ideas for parents. These include falafel and houmous pitta bread with a tomato and avocado salad, followed by fruit yoghurt. The Government has also called on heads to stop children from leaving schoolgrounds during lunchtimes.
But critics have attacked the plans, claiming it is a gimmick. Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat's health spokesman, said: "Childhood obesity begins in the home, so the proposed lunchbox police won't tackle the problem's root causes." Margaret Morrissey, of the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations, said: "Many parents will say these are our children and we know what we're doing. "We don't need politicians to tell us what to put in our lunchboxes."
Source
British villagers fight plans for huge 'eco towns'
Grand plans to build a host of eco-friendly, carbon neutral towns hit another snag yesterday as hundreds of locals turned out in Warwickshire to protest against a development in their area. Dozens of proposed sites have been put forward across the country for what the Government hopes will be a new generation of environmentally friendly developments, and ministers want building to start on 10 projects by 2020. But protesters nationwide say the schemes will put too much pressure on local services.
Yesterday it was the turn of 300 people living near a proposed development of former Ministry of Defence land at Long Marston, near Stratford, to air their grievance in a march. "It would be devastating for the villages of south Warwickshire. It would be putting a new town smack bang in the middle of nowhere where there's no infrastructure at all," said the group's spokesman, Myles Pollock, who lives in the nearby village of Clifford Chambers. "We all need houses. In this district we have already built the number of houses required by the Government by 2011. You can't say we are not against building houses. It's just a matter of where."
Developers want to construct 6,000 homes on the site, exploiting what officials describe as "the potential to create a complete new settlement to achieve zero carbon development and more sustainable living using the best new design and architecture". Villagers fear this will lead to congestion in the area and say tens of millions of pounds would be needed for new roads, schools and doctors' surgeries to make the scheme viable.
Izzi Seccombe, a Warwickshire county councillor, said: "Eco may be eco within its community, but they all have to travel outside, and there is a very large rural area they will have to travel through to get to any employment or major leisure centres or towns. This area is a thread of very many rural villages. We have a lot of cohesion within those communities. Planning 6,000-plus houses on a piece of paper does not build community cohesion in an instant like that."
This is the latest in a string of protests. Opposition has been voiced in places such as Grovewood in Derbyshire and Stoughton in Leicestershire.
The Government has set out a range of criteria for the towns, which will have up to 20,000 new homes. They should be carbon-neutral, using the latest environmental design and technology to create more sustainable homes. They should set a standard in at least one area of environment technology, and provide affordable housing within 30 to 50 per cent of the site. The new towns should have "a separate and distinct identity" but good links to surrounding towns and cities in terms of jobs, transport and services, as well as a range of facilities including a secondary school, shopping, offices and leisure centres.
Responding to Conservative criticism of the plans, Harriet Harman, Leader of the Commons, told MPs: "We believe that it is a priority that we have more affordable housing. There are too many people who can't afford to rent the housing they need, can't afford to buy the home they aspire too. We are going to back people's aspirations that they can have the housing they need, and it would be very disappointing if the official Opposition try and stand in the way of people's aspirations for decent housing."
John Deegan, from one of the developers involved in the Long Marston plans, said: "The proposal is for a completely new settlement involving 6,000 new houses, new secondary and primary schools, lots of new employment. There will also be investment of well over œ100m in infrastructure to support the town and to relieve Stratford."
Source
Immigrants 'should learn how to queue'
Newcomers to Britain should receive welcome packs containing advice such as not to spit in the street and how to queue [line up] in shops, a minister said. The packs would also urge them not to play music too loudly, not to touch people without permission and not to throw litter, said Communities Secretary Hazel Blears.
She said local councils should provide the information packs to help immigrants better integrate into British society. "It is only right that we expect migrants to play by our rules. In return we have a role in explaining just what those rules are," Ms Blears was quoted as saying by the BBC. "Information packs are a way of getting that info across - providing a rough guide to the country, the county and the city and helping to ensure that new arrivals avoid doing or saying things that might upset local settled communities or getting into trouble with the law."
Britain has long welcomed immigrants, whether from its former colonies in Asia and the West Indies, or more recently from the new European Union member countries of central Europe, notably Poland. But concern has grown in recent years about the integration of new arrivals and immigrant populations, with the spotlight in particular on Muslim communities amid concern over the growth of Islamist militancy.
The new information packs - which will be consulted upon before the final versions are produced - would include advice on basic values such as respect for the law.
Ms Blears acknowledged that teaching people to queue - often seen by foreigners as a quintessentially British activity - might not seem as important as, for example, as fighting crime involving minority communities. "There may be cases where it is legitimate and necessary to target resources at dealing with a specific issue like working with young men to tackle gun crime in the black community," she said. "But overall we need a rebalancing in how we focus resources with much greater importance placed on integrating different communities," the minister added.
Source
Poor NHS leadership and chasing targets `hampers patient care'
Patient care has suffered repeatedly because of poor management and bureaucracy in the NHS, according to a report by the healthcare watchdog. A lack of leadership, inadequate team-working and focusing too much on government targets emerged as common themes in the Healthcare Commission's review of its 13 major investigations between 2004 and 2007. It concluded that some boards were focused on mergers between organisations after a shake-up of NHS trusts, or on meeting targets at the expense of patient care.
At Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells Hospitals NHS Trust, appalling hygiene standards contributed to more than 90 deaths from the bug Clostridium difficile, and at Sutton and Merton Primary Care Trust serious neglect of people with learning disabilities was found. In areas such as mental health services, the number of managers and administrators has doubled since 2000, hindering patient care and wasting resources, said Sir David Goldberg, an emiritus professor of psychiatry.
Writing in the British Journal of Psychiatry, Sir David said that there were 6,275 managers and administrators in mental health services, and 99,052 other staff - a ratio of one manager/administrator for every 15 staff. "Something is seriously wrong. The Department of Health is constantly introducing new regulations that require a report." He said that medical staff spent a growing proportion of their time attending meetings with managers, clinical governance meetings and carrying out audit activities.
Gill Morgan, of the NHS Confederation, said: "Organisations must be given the real autonomy necessary to enable them to take ultimate responsibility, rather than . . . being dominated by central targets."
Source
Cheapskate Brits run out of machinesguns, ammo: "The Army has run out of machine guns. The crisis is unlikely to be solved before JUNE, a leaked report reveals. British troops “desperately” need 400 of the jumbo 0.5in calibre heavy machine guns – the weapon most acutely missed. The Army has also run out of the 7.62mm GPMG and Minimis. Supply has collapsed partly because of a dispute with the manufacturers, Manroy – which also provides weapons to Saudi Arabia. The leaked report – prepared for the Army’s command centre in Wilton, Wilts – reveals that generals have urged the Ministry of Defence “to prevent Manroy delivering Saudi weapons ahead of our requirement”. Generals asked the US to help but were snubbed by the Pentagon – who have dubbed British colleagues “The Borrowers”.
I know that many conservative bloggers have expressed outrage over this but the libertarian response here is: "If you don't like it, don't buy it". The story is fictional but in it Lolita was an attractive and naturally feminine young girl. Lots of girls are. It was not her fault that some inadequate creep slavered over her.
"A British retailer has withdrawn a bedroom set targeted at young girls that was branded under the name "Lolita" after a furious campaign by a mothers' group, The Times has reported.
Staff at the Woolworths retail group were unapparently unaware that the brand of the bed set was the same as the title of Vladimir Nabokov's famous novel, which told the story of a middle-aged man who became sexually obsessed with his 12-year-old stepdaughter.
"What seems to have happened is the staff who run the website had never heard of Lolita, and to be honest, no one else here had either", a Woolworths spokesman told The Times. "We had to look it up on Wikipedia. But we certainly know who she is now."
The bed set, which included a wooden bed with a pull-out desk and cupboard, was intended for girls aged six, and retailed for $877.
The campaign was sparked after a mother noticed the product on Woolworths's website and posted a message on the raisingkids.co.uk internet site that read: "Am I being particularly sensitive, or does anyone else out there think it's bad taste for Woolies to have a kiddy bed range named 'Lolita'?''
Source
British police lose SIX MILLION hours a year to red tape
The Blair legacy. As Lenin said: "Account must be taken of every single article, every pound of grain, because what socialism implies above all is keeping account of everything"
Up to six million police hours a year are being wasted on bureaucracy, says a damning review. Officers are "straitjacketed" by red tape and reduced to arresting the most minor of offenders to meet crime targets. The withering verdict is passed by Sir Ronnie Flanagan in his bombshell review of the state of the police service. His conclusions - due to be published tomorrow but leaked to the Daily Mail last night - are an indictment of Labour's record on policing and insistence on targets. Sir Ronnie claims that three to six million police hours a year - the equivalent of 3,000 frontline officers - are being squandered on bureaucracy.
Despite a string of promises and reforms since Labour's election in 1997, the former chief constable describes the police as so afraid of getting in trouble they are "risk averse" and reluctant to use their initiative. Sir Ronnie paints a picture of a police service drowning in form-filling - which takes a fifth of officer time - regulations and 'perverse' Government targets. He reveals one officer even charged someone who had built a snowman on a footpath with a public order offence because it helped meet goals imposed by Whitehall.
Sir Ronnie says: "The 21st century police service is in danger of becoming a slave to doctrine and straitjacketed by process." The "needless drain of unnecessary bureaucracy" and the emphasis on targets had led to "poor professional judgment" and the criminalising of people who had not committed any offence.
Other findings include the fact that - despite five years of Labour promising change on bureaucracy - up to 70 per cent of information is entered into police computers more than once. Forty one new pieces of doctrine have been introduced in the last two years alone. A staggering 500,000 hours of officer time are spent each year on internal audits.
Yet Sir Ronnie's recommendations stop well short of the Conservative blueprint unveiled over recent weeks and are likely to leave rankand-file officers dismayed. The review was supposed to set down a blueprint for the future of the police service. But the stop and search form - which takes 25 minutes to complete - will stay. Officers will simply be given hand-held computers to make it easier to input the details. The Tories would replace the form with a simple call to the station.
The proposals for replacing the stop form - which Mr Brown had indicated would be scrapped altogether - will also cause bemusement among police. Sir Ronnie said they should hand over a "business card" containing their details to anybody who they question about their movements - enabling them to later ring to complain. There is also no reference in the 106-page document to giving police more powers to stop a person if there is no suggestion of wrongdoing. Last week, Downing Street spin doctors were suggesting this would be the case.
Plans for a bonfire of red-tape by moving to a single set of forms across the country have also been shelved. Tory police spokesman David Ruffley said of the leak: "This review simply does not go far enough in cutting red tape and risk aversion in the police force. "It does not follow our pledge to abolish the 40 question stop and search form and allow officers to radio in the basic details of a search which will be digitally recorded. "After five Labour red tape reviews in ten years, this lags way behind already announced Conservative plans for tougher law and order."
Sir Ronnie wants targets which give police a "perverse incentive" to catch minor rather than serious criminals to be ditched. The rules, which rank solving a murder in the same way as fining a litter bug, have been blamed for police targeting normally law-abiding citizens. As well as the snowman case, Sir Ronnie highlighted a child prosecuted for chalking on pavements. Some of these offences should no longer be classed as "notifiable", he says, which means police will not be rewarded for solving them. He also warns the police must be less "risk averse", a process which would require the Government to accept mistakes will occasionally be made.
Source
British teachers ordered to 'police children's lunchboxes'
The intrusion of the British State into people's lives grows daily. They make Hitler and Mussolini look like amateurs in some respects
School lunchboxes could soon be monitored by dinner ladies to ensure children are eating healthy meals, ministers said. Under the Government's obesity strategy, all schools will be expected to design a "healthy lunchbox policy" on what makes a nutritional packed lunch over the next year. Some parents may even be asked to sign a form agreeing to ban unhealthy foods from their children's lunches.
If a packed lunch is deemed to contain too much fat and sugar, parents could be sent warning letters or their children's meals confiscated. Although the Government has already unveiled proposals to make canteen lunches much healthier, it is concerned many parents do not have clear advice about what should be included in a healthy packed lunch.
Health Secretary Alan Johnson and Schools Secretary Ed Balls praised a Hertfordshire school which has designed lunchbox menu ideas for parents. These include falafel and houmous pitta bread with a tomato and avocado salad, followed by fruit yoghurt. The Government has also called on heads to stop children from leaving schoolgrounds during lunchtimes.
But critics have attacked the plans, claiming it is a gimmick. Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat's health spokesman, said: "Childhood obesity begins in the home, so the proposed lunchbox police won't tackle the problem's root causes." Margaret Morrissey, of the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations, said: "Many parents will say these are our children and we know what we're doing. "We don't need politicians to tell us what to put in our lunchboxes."
Source
British villagers fight plans for huge 'eco towns'
Grand plans to build a host of eco-friendly, carbon neutral towns hit another snag yesterday as hundreds of locals turned out in Warwickshire to protest against a development in their area. Dozens of proposed sites have been put forward across the country for what the Government hopes will be a new generation of environmentally friendly developments, and ministers want building to start on 10 projects by 2020. But protesters nationwide say the schemes will put too much pressure on local services.
Yesterday it was the turn of 300 people living near a proposed development of former Ministry of Defence land at Long Marston, near Stratford, to air their grievance in a march. "It would be devastating for the villages of south Warwickshire. It would be putting a new town smack bang in the middle of nowhere where there's no infrastructure at all," said the group's spokesman, Myles Pollock, who lives in the nearby village of Clifford Chambers. "We all need houses. In this district we have already built the number of houses required by the Government by 2011. You can't say we are not against building houses. It's just a matter of where."
Developers want to construct 6,000 homes on the site, exploiting what officials describe as "the potential to create a complete new settlement to achieve zero carbon development and more sustainable living using the best new design and architecture". Villagers fear this will lead to congestion in the area and say tens of millions of pounds would be needed for new roads, schools and doctors' surgeries to make the scheme viable.
Izzi Seccombe, a Warwickshire county councillor, said: "Eco may be eco within its community, but they all have to travel outside, and there is a very large rural area they will have to travel through to get to any employment or major leisure centres or towns. This area is a thread of very many rural villages. We have a lot of cohesion within those communities. Planning 6,000-plus houses on a piece of paper does not build community cohesion in an instant like that."
This is the latest in a string of protests. Opposition has been voiced in places such as Grovewood in Derbyshire and Stoughton in Leicestershire.
The Government has set out a range of criteria for the towns, which will have up to 20,000 new homes. They should be carbon-neutral, using the latest environmental design and technology to create more sustainable homes. They should set a standard in at least one area of environment technology, and provide affordable housing within 30 to 50 per cent of the site. The new towns should have "a separate and distinct identity" but good links to surrounding towns and cities in terms of jobs, transport and services, as well as a range of facilities including a secondary school, shopping, offices and leisure centres.
Responding to Conservative criticism of the plans, Harriet Harman, Leader of the Commons, told MPs: "We believe that it is a priority that we have more affordable housing. There are too many people who can't afford to rent the housing they need, can't afford to buy the home they aspire too. We are going to back people's aspirations that they can have the housing they need, and it would be very disappointing if the official Opposition try and stand in the way of people's aspirations for decent housing."
John Deegan, from one of the developers involved in the Long Marston plans, said: "The proposal is for a completely new settlement involving 6,000 new houses, new secondary and primary schools, lots of new employment. There will also be investment of well over œ100m in infrastructure to support the town and to relieve Stratford."
Source
Immigrants 'should learn how to queue'
Newcomers to Britain should receive welcome packs containing advice such as not to spit in the street and how to queue [line up] in shops, a minister said. The packs would also urge them not to play music too loudly, not to touch people without permission and not to throw litter, said Communities Secretary Hazel Blears.
She said local councils should provide the information packs to help immigrants better integrate into British society. "It is only right that we expect migrants to play by our rules. In return we have a role in explaining just what those rules are," Ms Blears was quoted as saying by the BBC. "Information packs are a way of getting that info across - providing a rough guide to the country, the county and the city and helping to ensure that new arrivals avoid doing or saying things that might upset local settled communities or getting into trouble with the law."
Britain has long welcomed immigrants, whether from its former colonies in Asia and the West Indies, or more recently from the new European Union member countries of central Europe, notably Poland. But concern has grown in recent years about the integration of new arrivals and immigrant populations, with the spotlight in particular on Muslim communities amid concern over the growth of Islamist militancy.
The new information packs - which will be consulted upon before the final versions are produced - would include advice on basic values such as respect for the law.
Ms Blears acknowledged that teaching people to queue - often seen by foreigners as a quintessentially British activity - might not seem as important as, for example, as fighting crime involving minority communities. "There may be cases where it is legitimate and necessary to target resources at dealing with a specific issue like working with young men to tackle gun crime in the black community," she said. "But overall we need a rebalancing in how we focus resources with much greater importance placed on integrating different communities," the minister added.
Source
Poor NHS leadership and chasing targets `hampers patient care'
Patient care has suffered repeatedly because of poor management and bureaucracy in the NHS, according to a report by the healthcare watchdog. A lack of leadership, inadequate team-working and focusing too much on government targets emerged as common themes in the Healthcare Commission's review of its 13 major investigations between 2004 and 2007. It concluded that some boards were focused on mergers between organisations after a shake-up of NHS trusts, or on meeting targets at the expense of patient care.
At Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells Hospitals NHS Trust, appalling hygiene standards contributed to more than 90 deaths from the bug Clostridium difficile, and at Sutton and Merton Primary Care Trust serious neglect of people with learning disabilities was found. In areas such as mental health services, the number of managers and administrators has doubled since 2000, hindering patient care and wasting resources, said Sir David Goldberg, an emiritus professor of psychiatry.
Writing in the British Journal of Psychiatry, Sir David said that there were 6,275 managers and administrators in mental health services, and 99,052 other staff - a ratio of one manager/administrator for every 15 staff. "Something is seriously wrong. The Department of Health is constantly introducing new regulations that require a report." He said that medical staff spent a growing proportion of their time attending meetings with managers, clinical governance meetings and carrying out audit activities.
Gill Morgan, of the NHS Confederation, said: "Organisations must be given the real autonomy necessary to enable them to take ultimate responsibility, rather than . . . being dominated by central targets."
Source
Cheapskate Brits run out of machinesguns, ammo: "The Army has run out of machine guns. The crisis is unlikely to be solved before JUNE, a leaked report reveals. British troops “desperately” need 400 of the jumbo 0.5in calibre heavy machine guns – the weapon most acutely missed. The Army has also run out of the 7.62mm GPMG and Minimis. Supply has collapsed partly because of a dispute with the manufacturers, Manroy – which also provides weapons to Saudi Arabia. The leaked report – prepared for the Army’s command centre in Wilton, Wilts – reveals that generals have urged the Ministry of Defence “to prevent Manroy delivering Saudi weapons ahead of our requirement”. Generals asked the US to help but were snubbed by the Pentagon – who have dubbed British colleagues “The Borrowers”.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Social class bigotry in British education
Good state schools are being barred from choosing pupils from middle-class families by the government's education watchdog on admissions. The schools have been hit by a series of rulings which block them from doing anything that might be seen as giving preferential treatment to middle-class applicants. The policy is being forced through by the government in a drive to use admissions to tackle "segregation" in society. The judgements, which set a precedent extending throughout the state school system, include:
- Banning headteachers from asking parents why they want to come to the school, in case this puts non-English speakers at a disadvantage;
- Barring schools from asking for children's birth certificates in case this identifies the parents' jobs, which might give professional families a competitive edge;
- Forbidding a discussion with parents of the school's Ofsted inspection report as this might discriminate against parents who "do not understand bureaucracy";
- Stopping schools asking parents whether they support its ethos because this might be considered "patronising" to less well-educated or ethnic minority parents.
This weekend the moves were attacked as "social engineering" by opposition politicians who said they were likely to make parents feel guilty for taking a close interest in their children's education. "Schools should not be about social engineering, they should be about providing the best education," said Michael Gove, shadow schools secretary. "The determination of the government to micro-manage the admissions process reflects the fact that they don't have enough places in good schools. They are trying to find more and more interventionist ways of rationing access to good schools."
It follows a government-commissioned report last week which called for the greater use of lotteries to award places at popular schools to stop middle-class parents colonising catchment areas and monopolising entry.
The rulings have been issued by Philip Hunter, the chief schools adjudicator, who decides if councils and schools policies comply with the government's code on admissions. He said: "Parental choice in the market leads to segregation." [An explicit refusal to allow parental choice! What a Fascist!] He is acting in line with demands by Jim Knight, the schools minister, that a new law on admissions be firmly enforced to prevent "pushy" middle-class parents from dominating places at the best schools.
Hunter, who denies that he is pursuing a policy of social engineering, said that local authorities and schools were involved in delicate judgements. "At some stage when the market is travelling in that direction someone has to say that level of segregation is OK but that one is not. That is a very difficult decision to make," he said. "Local heads and admissions forums and local authorities have to make that decision. That is not easy. They have been asked to make it in the code, they have got to address it.
"Everyone has got to understand that it is a very difficult judgement. Even more difficult is if they decide it is an unacceptable level of segregation and they are going to do something about it. At that point you say to parents that their parental choice is being denied." Jim Knight, the schools minister, last month warned councils that they had to work harder to enforce the code which was passed into law last year. "No ifs or buts," he warned them. "There is absolutely no excuse not to comply with the law to stamp out unfair and covert admission practices," he said.
But Professor Alan Smithers of Buckingham university, special adviser to the Commons schools select committee, said the code was "untenable" as it tried to stamp out covert selection by intervening in "minor matters", but at the same time still allowed schools to retain catchment areas and faith-based allocation of places, both of which tend to favour middle-class families. "It just encourages game-playing ," said Smithers. "We are stuck with this fudge of a code and the result is these adjudicators dancing around on the head of a pin."
Source
Compulsory cookery: another half-baked idea
Teaching children how to cook should be about taste and pleasure - but the UK government is only interested in obesity, salt intake and telling us how to live
From September 2008, secondary schools with cooking facilities will have to teach practical cookery to every 11- to 14-year-old. The remaining 15 per cent of schools without such facilities will be expected to teach the compulsory classes by 2011. Ed Balls, secretary of state for children, schools and families, explained the rationale for compulsory cookery lessons: `Teaching kids to cook healthy meals is an important way schools can help produce healthy adults.' (1) Pupils will learn to cook a variety of dishes, including a `top eight' of healthy recipes, officials said. Cookery is undoubtedly a worthwhile activity that should be passed down to the next generation, so why do Balls' proposals sound more like a cause for indigestion than celebration?
John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, was right when he complained that, `just six months ago, ministers promised heads greater flexibility in the curriculum for 11- to 14-year-olds. Now they have fallen at the first fence, creating another entitlement and more compulsion for this age group.' (1) Indeed, when it comes to education, no other government has so over-egged their interference in the teaching profession, or turned up the heat so high on what schools should force-feed their pupils. So alongside `citizenship' classes, compulsory key skills, environmental `awareness' initiatives and proposals for `money management skills', educationalists now have to add salad making skills to their `must do' timetable. At this rate, will there be any academic nutrition left on the menu?
As it happens, cookery lessons can be an enriching feature of the school timetable. Where once, as a part of a gendered curriculum, `home economics' might have prepared girls for their domestic role, contemporary cookery lessons serve up rather more universal fare. Aside from the enjoyment of creating dishes from basic ingredients, school students learn, for instance, how to co-operate with others. And through food preparation they learn that life is about giving rather than childishly taking. Cookery lessons also provide a little space where secondary school students can develop social skills. It was always rather apt that in the teen-angst film Gregory's Girl, the romantic plotting and scheming took place in cookery lessons or during lab experiments. When it comes to serving up subtle lessons in independence and social maturity, cookery lessons can play host to all sorts of simmering relationships.
The same, however, cannot be said of Balls' soggy proposals. Only this government could take something so effortlessly enjoyable and beneficial to school students as cooking and bludgeon it to death with a rolling pin. There isn't an ounce of genuine enthusiasm, or even a gram of understanding, for the humanistic qualities involved in cookery. Instead the classes in coercive cookery are another sideshow from the irrational `war on obesity' and the banal sermons on health and healthy eating. No doubt Balls' ideal recipes will be a fixed menu of five fruit and veg a day, small portions and nothing resembling taste and enjoyment. Goodbye toad-in-the-hole and chocolate sponges, and anything that dares to contain salt or fat. Was cookery meant to be as appealing as guzzling cod liver oil?
Indeed, it is striking that the government is so obsessed with food yet shows no real appreciation for it. For Balls and Brown, food is only valued for its nutritional content rather than the sensual pleasure it gives us. Food should be judged on taste, not `health'. Officials' philistine attitude towards food reduces humans to little more than animals, biological entities in need of the right `fuel'.
However, there is more to Balls' coercive cookery lessons than a misguided reading of vegetarian recipes. As Dr Michael Fitzpatrick recently observed (see Healthy in mind, body.what about spirit?), healthy eating is now `the highest form of ethical virtue recognised in contemporary society'. In this sense, forcing school pupils to take lessons in healthy eating can be seen as part of an attempt to inculcate the new moral and behavioural codes yet further. Tackling the level of obesity amongst the young may be given as the ostensible justification but the policy impulse here is moral. The measures aim to socialise children into accepting that sanctions could arise against them if they don't follow the government's lifestyle diktat.
By making healthy cookery classes compulsory, the government is explicitly stating that for future generations, when it comes to deciding what to eat, personal choice will be a thing of the past. Already Ken Livingstone has suggested that mothers feeding their children burgers and chips through school railings should be arrested by the police. How long before food inspectors in supermarkets make sure we're following the right `healthy eating' plans?
In the past, subjects and aspects of schooling were made compulsory on the grounds that they allowed the next generation to make a worthwhile contribution to public life. Transforming a subject more associated with the home than the world of work or intellectual development into a compulsory subject simply institutionalises the colonisation of our private sphere by the government and state authorities. Far from cookery lessons enriching young people's experience of the education system, it's yet another recipe for social control and moral conformity. Surely it's time to put a lid on lifestyle diktat?
Source
Vaccine for C.diff?
A vaccine to help stamp out the deadly C diff superbug has been developed by British scientists and could be available within three years. The jab would save thousands of lives a year in the UK alone. It could be used both to treat severely-ill patients and mass-vaccinate pensioners, who are most at risk of the killer bacterium. Tests on more than 200 patients suggest that the jab is safe, causing few side-effects other than the occasional red arm or headache.
In one US trial, a course of injections rapidly cleared up infections which had lingered for up to two years. Larger-scale trials on hundreds of patients in British hospitals are being planned in conjunction with the Department of Health.
Scientists are warning that a new strain of Clostridium difficile has emerged which is resistant to antibiotics developed to treat it. But the vaccine, from the Cambridge biotech firm Acambis, could tackle all forms of the bug because it works in a different way. Like the tetanus jab, the vaccine centres around not the bug itself, but the poisons it produces. C diff creates toxins which irritate the lining of the bowel, causing diarrhoea and, in the worst cases, a potentially fatal infection of the abdomen. Treating the poisons with formaldehyde ensures they no longer harm the body. However, they are still recognised by the immune system, priming it to produce antibodies capable of attacking and destroying the bug.
Dr Michael Watson, of Acambis, said: "The toxins work together to blow up cells. "If you imagine them as a dangerous criminal, the formaldehyde essentially handcuffs it. "It still looks like a dangerous criminal but it can no longer use the knife or shoot the gun." C diff, which thrives in filthy conditions, infects more than 1,000 pensioners a week and contributes to almost 4,000 deaths a year. Although antibiotic treatment does have some success, many patients relapse, with successive bouts of diarrhoea making them weaker and weaker.
It is hoped that like the tetanus vaccine, a course of three or so injections will provide long-lasting protection which can be topped up every ten years or so with a booster shot. One of the trials showed the jab could be used to treat and clear up recurrent diarrhoea. The most severely ill of the patients studied, a 71-year-old woman, had been taking antibiotics almost continuously for nearly two years to try to combat more than ten bouts of diarrhoea. The other two patients - a man and a woman - had been battling the bug for up to nine months. Four shots of the vaccine over two months prevented the diarrhoea returning in all three cases.
In a strategy similar to flu vaccination, everyone over the age of 65 or so could be offered the chance to have the jab. Dr Watson said: "Clostridium difficile costs Europe o1billion a year in healthcare costs. You could view that as saved money or saved beds." Dr Marina Morgan, a consultant medical microbiologist at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital, said: "There is a desperate need for something to tackle this problem. It is a nightmare. "Norovirus (the winter vomiting bug) is dreadful but it is shortlived and people get better on their own. "C diff kills people and the more we have to fight C diff the better. This sounds amazing."
Professor Mark Enright, of Imperial College London, said the jab seemed promising, despite the small number of patients studied so far. "I don't really see a downside to it. Vaccination is much better than treatment - it is better not to get something than get it and try to kill it off later."
Clostridium difficile exists naturally in the stomach of many healthy adults, where it is kept under control by 'friendly' bacteria. The problems start if the balance of bacteria is disturbed, perhaps as a result of taking antibiotics for another infection. Once the "friendly" bacteria are killed off, the C diff can multiply and produce the harmful toxins. Spread, via hardy spores, is swift. But simple soap and water can keep hands from transmitting the bug while powerful disinfectants can be used to clean floors.
While it is unclear why pensioners are most a risk, they tend to be in hospital more often and for longer than younger people. In addition, immunity tends to decline with age. In 2005, the latest year for which figures are available, C diff was blamed for 2,247 deaths and implicated in another 1,560.
The large-scale testing needed to ensure the jab is both safe and effective means it is three to five years away from the market. Professor Mark Wilcox, a C diff expert from Leeds University, cautioned that the weakening of the immune system with age might mean that the vaccine works less well in the elderly. He added: "This will be an expensive vaccine to develop. "Having said that, the cost of C diff is considerable, so even if it does turn out to be a rather expensive vaccine, if it is efficacious it could be money well spent."
The latest mutation of C diff has been found to be resistant to the drug metronidazole. It means that only one medicine, vancomycin, is now left to treat the bug. Health experts have warned hospital bosses and staff to be extra vigilant for signs of the new strain and report any patients not responding to treatment.
Source
British hospital porter fired in crucifix row
A hospital porter has been sacked after a row over a crucifix being covered up in a prayer room. Joseph Protano, 54, was suspended four days after the incident last month at Royal Manchester Children's Hospital, Pendlebury. He has now been dismissed for gross misconduct, but intends to appeal.
Police quizzed him for four hours last month, on suspicion of religiously aggravated assault, but he was released without charge. He denies the allegations and must wait to see if police take any action.
The row centres on a prayer room available to staff and visitors of all faiths at the hospital, which contains a Virgin Mary statue and a crucifix. Mr Protano, a Roman Catholic who has worked two years at the hospital, entered the room when three Muslims were using it - two patients and a doctor.
An argument broke out after he asked them to remove a cloth covering the crucifix and statue and to turn a picture of the Virgin Mary face up. He said he was unable to comment on his sacking as the police probe and his plans to appeal were ongoing. But a friend said: "He was very shocked at the decision. "He thinks he has been treated terribly. "He loves his job and doesn't do it for the money - until recently, his employers were paying just 5.88 pounds an hour.
"They are saying he should not have gone into the prayer room and it is alleged he used racist language, which he totally refutes. "His pay has been stopped, even though he intends to appeal, and he has had to sign on for benefits."
The friend said Mr Protano went into the prayer room about six times a day to check the statue and crucifix were not left covered. He said as a Christian, he felt it could be upsetting for visiting parents to find them covered up. The case has angered many hospital staff, who think he has been treated unfairly. Police said a file had been passed to the Crown Prosecution Service to decide on any further action.
Source. As GOV comments:
"It seems that this miscreant, who was interrogated by the police for four hours on suspicion of the crime of "religiously aggravated assault" [I kid you not] had the audacity to request that the Christian icons in an interfaith chapel be uncovered while he prayed....
So that's where the time, money, and productivity of Britain's public servants go: harassing whomever the Muslims complain about. And the Manchester Children's Hospital? They're just trying to avoid a costly lawsuit.
Female Muslim medics 'disobey hygiene rules'
Muslim medical students are refusing to obey hygiene rules brought in to stop the spread of deadly superbugs, because they say it is against their religion. Women training in several hospitals in England have raised objections to removing their arm coverings in theatre and to rolling up their sleeves when washing their hands, because it is regarded as immodest in Islam
Universities and NHS trusts fear many more will refuse to co-operate with new Department of Health guidance, introduced this month, which stipulates that all doctors must be "bare below the elbow". The measure is deemed necessary to stop the spread of infections such as MRSA and Clostridium difficile, which have killed hundreds.
Minutes of a clinical academics' meeting at Liverpool University revealed that female Muslim students at Alder Hey children's hospital had objected to rolling up their sleeves to wear gowns. Similar concerns have been raised at Leicester University. Minutes from a medical school committee said that "a number of Muslim females had difficulty in complying with the procedures to roll up sleeves to the elbow for appropriate handwashing". Sheffield University also reported a case of a Muslim medic who refused to "scrub" as this left her forearms exposed. Documents from Birmingham University reveal that some students would prefer to quit the course rather than expose their arms, and warn that it could leave trusts open to legal action.
Hygiene experts said last night that no exceptions should be made on religious grounds. Dr Mark Enright, professor of microbiology at Imperial College London, said: "To wash your hands properly, and reduce the risks of MRSA and C.difficile, you have to be able to wash the whole area around the wrist. "I don't think it would be right to make an exemption for people on any grounds. The policy of bare below the elbows has to be applied universally."
Dr Charles Tannock, a Conservative MEP and former hospital consultant, said: "These students are being trained using taxpayers' money and they have a duty of care to their patients not to put their health at risk. "Perhaps these women should not be choosing medicine as a career if they feel unable to abide by the guidelines that everyone else has to follow."
But the Islamic Medical Association insisted that covering all the body in public, except the face and hands, was a basic tenet of Islam. "No practising Muslim woman - doctor, medical student, nurse or patient - should be forced to bare her arms below the elbow," it said. Dr Majid Katme, the association spokesman, said: "Exposed arms can pick up germs and there is a lot of evidence to suggest skin is safer to the patient if covered. One idea might be to produce long, sterile, disposable gloves which go up to the elbows."
Good state schools are being barred from choosing pupils from middle-class families by the government's education watchdog on admissions. The schools have been hit by a series of rulings which block them from doing anything that might be seen as giving preferential treatment to middle-class applicants. The policy is being forced through by the government in a drive to use admissions to tackle "segregation" in society. The judgements, which set a precedent extending throughout the state school system, include:
- Banning headteachers from asking parents why they want to come to the school, in case this puts non-English speakers at a disadvantage;
- Barring schools from asking for children's birth certificates in case this identifies the parents' jobs, which might give professional families a competitive edge;
- Forbidding a discussion with parents of the school's Ofsted inspection report as this might discriminate against parents who "do not understand bureaucracy";
- Stopping schools asking parents whether they support its ethos because this might be considered "patronising" to less well-educated or ethnic minority parents.
This weekend the moves were attacked as "social engineering" by opposition politicians who said they were likely to make parents feel guilty for taking a close interest in their children's education. "Schools should not be about social engineering, they should be about providing the best education," said Michael Gove, shadow schools secretary. "The determination of the government to micro-manage the admissions process reflects the fact that they don't have enough places in good schools. They are trying to find more and more interventionist ways of rationing access to good schools."
It follows a government-commissioned report last week which called for the greater use of lotteries to award places at popular schools to stop middle-class parents colonising catchment areas and monopolising entry.
The rulings have been issued by Philip Hunter, the chief schools adjudicator, who decides if councils and schools policies comply with the government's code on admissions. He said: "Parental choice in the market leads to segregation." [An explicit refusal to allow parental choice! What a Fascist!] He is acting in line with demands by Jim Knight, the schools minister, that a new law on admissions be firmly enforced to prevent "pushy" middle-class parents from dominating places at the best schools.
Hunter, who denies that he is pursuing a policy of social engineering, said that local authorities and schools were involved in delicate judgements. "At some stage when the market is travelling in that direction someone has to say that level of segregation is OK but that one is not. That is a very difficult decision to make," he said. "Local heads and admissions forums and local authorities have to make that decision. That is not easy. They have been asked to make it in the code, they have got to address it.
"Everyone has got to understand that it is a very difficult judgement. Even more difficult is if they decide it is an unacceptable level of segregation and they are going to do something about it. At that point you say to parents that their parental choice is being denied." Jim Knight, the schools minister, last month warned councils that they had to work harder to enforce the code which was passed into law last year. "No ifs or buts," he warned them. "There is absolutely no excuse not to comply with the law to stamp out unfair and covert admission practices," he said.
But Professor Alan Smithers of Buckingham university, special adviser to the Commons schools select committee, said the code was "untenable" as it tried to stamp out covert selection by intervening in "minor matters", but at the same time still allowed schools to retain catchment areas and faith-based allocation of places, both of which tend to favour middle-class families. "It just encourages game-playing ," said Smithers. "We are stuck with this fudge of a code and the result is these adjudicators dancing around on the head of a pin."
Source
Compulsory cookery: another half-baked idea
Teaching children how to cook should be about taste and pleasure - but the UK government is only interested in obesity, salt intake and telling us how to live
From September 2008, secondary schools with cooking facilities will have to teach practical cookery to every 11- to 14-year-old. The remaining 15 per cent of schools without such facilities will be expected to teach the compulsory classes by 2011. Ed Balls, secretary of state for children, schools and families, explained the rationale for compulsory cookery lessons: `Teaching kids to cook healthy meals is an important way schools can help produce healthy adults.' (1) Pupils will learn to cook a variety of dishes, including a `top eight' of healthy recipes, officials said. Cookery is undoubtedly a worthwhile activity that should be passed down to the next generation, so why do Balls' proposals sound more like a cause for indigestion than celebration?
John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, was right when he complained that, `just six months ago, ministers promised heads greater flexibility in the curriculum for 11- to 14-year-olds. Now they have fallen at the first fence, creating another entitlement and more compulsion for this age group.' (1) Indeed, when it comes to education, no other government has so over-egged their interference in the teaching profession, or turned up the heat so high on what schools should force-feed their pupils. So alongside `citizenship' classes, compulsory key skills, environmental `awareness' initiatives and proposals for `money management skills', educationalists now have to add salad making skills to their `must do' timetable. At this rate, will there be any academic nutrition left on the menu?
As it happens, cookery lessons can be an enriching feature of the school timetable. Where once, as a part of a gendered curriculum, `home economics' might have prepared girls for their domestic role, contemporary cookery lessons serve up rather more universal fare. Aside from the enjoyment of creating dishes from basic ingredients, school students learn, for instance, how to co-operate with others. And through food preparation they learn that life is about giving rather than childishly taking. Cookery lessons also provide a little space where secondary school students can develop social skills. It was always rather apt that in the teen-angst film Gregory's Girl, the romantic plotting and scheming took place in cookery lessons or during lab experiments. When it comes to serving up subtle lessons in independence and social maturity, cookery lessons can play host to all sorts of simmering relationships.
The same, however, cannot be said of Balls' soggy proposals. Only this government could take something so effortlessly enjoyable and beneficial to school students as cooking and bludgeon it to death with a rolling pin. There isn't an ounce of genuine enthusiasm, or even a gram of understanding, for the humanistic qualities involved in cookery. Instead the classes in coercive cookery are another sideshow from the irrational `war on obesity' and the banal sermons on health and healthy eating. No doubt Balls' ideal recipes will be a fixed menu of five fruit and veg a day, small portions and nothing resembling taste and enjoyment. Goodbye toad-in-the-hole and chocolate sponges, and anything that dares to contain salt or fat. Was cookery meant to be as appealing as guzzling cod liver oil?
Indeed, it is striking that the government is so obsessed with food yet shows no real appreciation for it. For Balls and Brown, food is only valued for its nutritional content rather than the sensual pleasure it gives us. Food should be judged on taste, not `health'. Officials' philistine attitude towards food reduces humans to little more than animals, biological entities in need of the right `fuel'.
However, there is more to Balls' coercive cookery lessons than a misguided reading of vegetarian recipes. As Dr Michael Fitzpatrick recently observed (see Healthy in mind, body.what about spirit?), healthy eating is now `the highest form of ethical virtue recognised in contemporary society'. In this sense, forcing school pupils to take lessons in healthy eating can be seen as part of an attempt to inculcate the new moral and behavioural codes yet further. Tackling the level of obesity amongst the young may be given as the ostensible justification but the policy impulse here is moral. The measures aim to socialise children into accepting that sanctions could arise against them if they don't follow the government's lifestyle diktat.
By making healthy cookery classes compulsory, the government is explicitly stating that for future generations, when it comes to deciding what to eat, personal choice will be a thing of the past. Already Ken Livingstone has suggested that mothers feeding their children burgers and chips through school railings should be arrested by the police. How long before food inspectors in supermarkets make sure we're following the right `healthy eating' plans?
In the past, subjects and aspects of schooling were made compulsory on the grounds that they allowed the next generation to make a worthwhile contribution to public life. Transforming a subject more associated with the home than the world of work or intellectual development into a compulsory subject simply institutionalises the colonisation of our private sphere by the government and state authorities. Far from cookery lessons enriching young people's experience of the education system, it's yet another recipe for social control and moral conformity. Surely it's time to put a lid on lifestyle diktat?
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Vaccine for C.diff?
A vaccine to help stamp out the deadly C diff superbug has been developed by British scientists and could be available within three years. The jab would save thousands of lives a year in the UK alone. It could be used both to treat severely-ill patients and mass-vaccinate pensioners, who are most at risk of the killer bacterium. Tests on more than 200 patients suggest that the jab is safe, causing few side-effects other than the occasional red arm or headache.
In one US trial, a course of injections rapidly cleared up infections which had lingered for up to two years. Larger-scale trials on hundreds of patients in British hospitals are being planned in conjunction with the Department of Health.
Scientists are warning that a new strain of Clostridium difficile has emerged which is resistant to antibiotics developed to treat it. But the vaccine, from the Cambridge biotech firm Acambis, could tackle all forms of the bug because it works in a different way. Like the tetanus jab, the vaccine centres around not the bug itself, but the poisons it produces. C diff creates toxins which irritate the lining of the bowel, causing diarrhoea and, in the worst cases, a potentially fatal infection of the abdomen. Treating the poisons with formaldehyde ensures they no longer harm the body. However, they are still recognised by the immune system, priming it to produce antibodies capable of attacking and destroying the bug.
Dr Michael Watson, of Acambis, said: "The toxins work together to blow up cells. "If you imagine them as a dangerous criminal, the formaldehyde essentially handcuffs it. "It still looks like a dangerous criminal but it can no longer use the knife or shoot the gun." C diff, which thrives in filthy conditions, infects more than 1,000 pensioners a week and contributes to almost 4,000 deaths a year. Although antibiotic treatment does have some success, many patients relapse, with successive bouts of diarrhoea making them weaker and weaker.
It is hoped that like the tetanus vaccine, a course of three or so injections will provide long-lasting protection which can be topped up every ten years or so with a booster shot. One of the trials showed the jab could be used to treat and clear up recurrent diarrhoea. The most severely ill of the patients studied, a 71-year-old woman, had been taking antibiotics almost continuously for nearly two years to try to combat more than ten bouts of diarrhoea. The other two patients - a man and a woman - had been battling the bug for up to nine months. Four shots of the vaccine over two months prevented the diarrhoea returning in all three cases.
In a strategy similar to flu vaccination, everyone over the age of 65 or so could be offered the chance to have the jab. Dr Watson said: "Clostridium difficile costs Europe o1billion a year in healthcare costs. You could view that as saved money or saved beds." Dr Marina Morgan, a consultant medical microbiologist at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital, said: "There is a desperate need for something to tackle this problem. It is a nightmare. "Norovirus (the winter vomiting bug) is dreadful but it is shortlived and people get better on their own. "C diff kills people and the more we have to fight C diff the better. This sounds amazing."
Professor Mark Enright, of Imperial College London, said the jab seemed promising, despite the small number of patients studied so far. "I don't really see a downside to it. Vaccination is much better than treatment - it is better not to get something than get it and try to kill it off later."
Clostridium difficile exists naturally in the stomach of many healthy adults, where it is kept under control by 'friendly' bacteria. The problems start if the balance of bacteria is disturbed, perhaps as a result of taking antibiotics for another infection. Once the "friendly" bacteria are killed off, the C diff can multiply and produce the harmful toxins. Spread, via hardy spores, is swift. But simple soap and water can keep hands from transmitting the bug while powerful disinfectants can be used to clean floors.
While it is unclear why pensioners are most a risk, they tend to be in hospital more often and for longer than younger people. In addition, immunity tends to decline with age. In 2005, the latest year for which figures are available, C diff was blamed for 2,247 deaths and implicated in another 1,560.
The large-scale testing needed to ensure the jab is both safe and effective means it is three to five years away from the market. Professor Mark Wilcox, a C diff expert from Leeds University, cautioned that the weakening of the immune system with age might mean that the vaccine works less well in the elderly. He added: "This will be an expensive vaccine to develop. "Having said that, the cost of C diff is considerable, so even if it does turn out to be a rather expensive vaccine, if it is efficacious it could be money well spent."
The latest mutation of C diff has been found to be resistant to the drug metronidazole. It means that only one medicine, vancomycin, is now left to treat the bug. Health experts have warned hospital bosses and staff to be extra vigilant for signs of the new strain and report any patients not responding to treatment.
Source
British hospital porter fired in crucifix row
A hospital porter has been sacked after a row over a crucifix being covered up in a prayer room. Joseph Protano, 54, was suspended four days after the incident last month at Royal Manchester Children's Hospital, Pendlebury. He has now been dismissed for gross misconduct, but intends to appeal.
Police quizzed him for four hours last month, on suspicion of religiously aggravated assault, but he was released without charge. He denies the allegations and must wait to see if police take any action.
The row centres on a prayer room available to staff and visitors of all faiths at the hospital, which contains a Virgin Mary statue and a crucifix. Mr Protano, a Roman Catholic who has worked two years at the hospital, entered the room when three Muslims were using it - two patients and a doctor.
An argument broke out after he asked them to remove a cloth covering the crucifix and statue and to turn a picture of the Virgin Mary face up. He said he was unable to comment on his sacking as the police probe and his plans to appeal were ongoing. But a friend said: "He was very shocked at the decision. "He thinks he has been treated terribly. "He loves his job and doesn't do it for the money - until recently, his employers were paying just 5.88 pounds an hour.
"They are saying he should not have gone into the prayer room and it is alleged he used racist language, which he totally refutes. "His pay has been stopped, even though he intends to appeal, and he has had to sign on for benefits."
The friend said Mr Protano went into the prayer room about six times a day to check the statue and crucifix were not left covered. He said as a Christian, he felt it could be upsetting for visiting parents to find them covered up. The case has angered many hospital staff, who think he has been treated unfairly. Police said a file had been passed to the Crown Prosecution Service to decide on any further action.
Source. As GOV comments:
"It seems that this miscreant, who was interrogated by the police for four hours on suspicion of the crime of "religiously aggravated assault" [I kid you not] had the audacity to request that the Christian icons in an interfaith chapel be uncovered while he prayed....
So that's where the time, money, and productivity of Britain's public servants go: harassing whomever the Muslims complain about. And the Manchester Children's Hospital? They're just trying to avoid a costly lawsuit.
Female Muslim medics 'disobey hygiene rules'
Muslim medical students are refusing to obey hygiene rules brought in to stop the spread of deadly superbugs, because they say it is against their religion. Women training in several hospitals in England have raised objections to removing their arm coverings in theatre and to rolling up their sleeves when washing their hands, because it is regarded as immodest in Islam
Universities and NHS trusts fear many more will refuse to co-operate with new Department of Health guidance, introduced this month, which stipulates that all doctors must be "bare below the elbow". The measure is deemed necessary to stop the spread of infections such as MRSA and Clostridium difficile, which have killed hundreds.
Minutes of a clinical academics' meeting at Liverpool University revealed that female Muslim students at Alder Hey children's hospital had objected to rolling up their sleeves to wear gowns. Similar concerns have been raised at Leicester University. Minutes from a medical school committee said that "a number of Muslim females had difficulty in complying with the procedures to roll up sleeves to the elbow for appropriate handwashing". Sheffield University also reported a case of a Muslim medic who refused to "scrub" as this left her forearms exposed. Documents from Birmingham University reveal that some students would prefer to quit the course rather than expose their arms, and warn that it could leave trusts open to legal action.
Hygiene experts said last night that no exceptions should be made on religious grounds. Dr Mark Enright, professor of microbiology at Imperial College London, said: "To wash your hands properly, and reduce the risks of MRSA and C.difficile, you have to be able to wash the whole area around the wrist. "I don't think it would be right to make an exemption for people on any grounds. The policy of bare below the elbows has to be applied universally."
Dr Charles Tannock, a Conservative MEP and former hospital consultant, said: "These students are being trained using taxpayers' money and they have a duty of care to their patients not to put their health at risk. "Perhaps these women should not be choosing medicine as a career if they feel unable to abide by the guidelines that everyone else has to follow."
But the Islamic Medical Association insisted that covering all the body in public, except the face and hands, was a basic tenet of Islam. "No practising Muslim woman - doctor, medical student, nurse or patient - should be forced to bare her arms below the elbow," it said. Dr Majid Katme, the association spokesman, said: "Exposed arms can pick up germs and there is a lot of evidence to suggest skin is safer to the patient if covered. One idea might be to produce long, sterile, disposable gloves which go up to the elbows."