Wednesday, January 31, 2007
GOING BLIND? WHO CARES? THE NHS DOESN'T!
This is the sort of thing the Democrats are wishing onto Americans -- people being sent blind by a system that refuses to treat them
A former MP who is going blind is set to sue the NHS after it refused to give her a new drug that could help save her sight, it emerged yesterday. Veteran left-winger Alice Mahon has lost most of the sight in one eye while waiting for treatment. The former Labour MP - and thorn in Tony Blair's side - is now preparing to go to the High Court to make the Health Service pay for a drug that can help her.
Miss Mahon, aged 69, was told by her consultant in November that she should get Lucentis - one of a new generation of drugs for wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The drug, which costs 12,000 pounds for a year's treatment, stabilises vision loss and may reverse the damage, but needs to be given quickly because the sight can rapidly deteriorate. But an urgent application for funding from Calderdale primary care trust (PCT) was rejected because the Government's 'rationing' body had not yet approved the drug for NHS use.
Although Mrs Mahon is wating for the outcome of an appeal, she lost much of the vision in her left eye in the nine weeks since the original application. She has now been forced to pay more than 5,000 pounds for private treatment to stop herself going blind. The former Halifax Labour MP is now taking legal action in a move that could help an estimated 18,000 Britons who go blind each year due to wet AMD, with some denied funding by cash-strapped PCTs.
Mrs Mahon said: "I have been an ardent supporter of the NHS all my life, and now feel totally let down. "The excuses that PCTs are giving for not funding treatment are scandalously lame. "Everyone has a right to free treatment on the NHS for a condition that results in blindness and devastates lives. "Supporting people who are blind or partially sighted, who may need home help and suffer injuries from falls, is far more expensive than the treatment. "The Chancellor must ensure the NHS budget is large enough to fund such a basic health care need. "I have written personally to Gordon Brown, and not as yet received a reply."
Mrs Mahon, who is being treated at Calderdale Royal Hospital and has a "dry" form of AMD in her right eye, was turned down for funding in December by the PCT's exceptional cases committee. However, a patient leaflet prepared by the PCT last autumn claimed those using the drug "were very likely to enjoy stable vision" and over one-third got a significant improvement.
A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed 30 per cent of patients receiving monthly injections of the drug into the affected eye had a "marked improvement" in vision. It prevented vision loss in nine out of 10 patients. The drug targets abnormal blood vessels that grow behind the eyeball - these vessels can leak and cause damage to parts of the eye responsible for central vision.
Lucentis was licensed earlier this month but, along with another wet AMD drug called Macugen, will not be considered for approval by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) until October. [Take your time boys! Nothing is ever urgent in a bureaucracy!] However, Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt has made clear to PCTs that they cannot withhold NHS funding simply on the grounds that NICE has not made a decision.
Mrs Mahon's solicitor, Yogi Amin, from Irwin Mitchell, wrote to her PCT in Calderdale and also Kirklees PCT, which share an exceptional cases committee, saying their refusal to fund the drug breaches her human rights. The letter says the PCTs have until today to overturn their decision or "we will proceed with an application for judicial review in the High Court". It says "Mrs Mahon has been forced to fund her urgent treatment privately, for which she has had to pay the amount of 5,325 pounds in order to avoid losing her eyesight while her application was and her appeal is being considered." Mrs Mahon will be joined by other MPS in Parliament today to speak out against the refusal to fund treatment for wet AMD patients.
The Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) has been campaigning to stop people going needlessly blind. It says PCTs can use their discretion when deciding whether to fund the drugs, yet some have imposed an outright ban while others wait until the patient has gone blind in one eye before treating the other. Steve Winyard, head of campaigns at the RNIB, said "Fifty people a day are being condemned to blindness because PCTs are refusing to fund a licensed treatment, even though it could save patients" sight. "The actions of these PCTs are simply unacceptable."
In the UK, 220,000 people with AMD registered blind or partially sighted. According to the RNIB, 57 per cent of all people newly-registered blind or partially sighted in the UK have AMD. A spokeswoman for Calderdale PCT said it did not comment on individual cases.
Source
Multiculturalism 'drives young Muslims to shun British values'
The doctrine of multi-culturalism has alienated an entire generation of young Muslims and made them increasingly radical, a report has found. In stark contrast with their parents, growing numbers sympathise with extreme teachings of Islam, with almost four in ten wanting to live under Sharia law in Britain. The study identifies significant support for wearing the veil in public, Islamic schools and even punishment by death for Muslims who convert to another religion. Most alarmingly, 13 per cent of young Muslims said they "admired" organisations such as Al Qaeda which are prepared to "fight the West".
The poll exposes a fracture between the attitudes of Muslims aged 16 to 24, most of whom were born in Britain, and those of their parents’ generation, who are more likely to have been immigrants. A report published alongside the poll, commissioned by the Right-wing think tank Policy Exchange and carried out by Populus, said the doctrine of multi-culturalism was at least partly responsible.
A series of Labour ministers have broken recently with the idea that different communities should not be forced to integrate but should be allowed to maintain their own culture and identities. Trevor Phillips, head of the Commission for Racial Equality, and Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, have also expressed serious doubts about multi-culturalism.
Academic Munira Mirza, lead author of the report, said: "The emergence of a strong Muslim identity in Britain is, in part, a result of multi-cultural policies implemented since the 1980s which have emphasised difference at the expense of shared national identity and divided people along ethnic, religious and cultural lines."
The poll of 1,000 Muslims, weighted to represent the population across the UK, found that a growing minority of youngsters felt they had less in common with non-Muslims than their parents did. While only 17 per cent of over-55s said they would prefer to live under Sharia law, that increased to 37 per cent of those aged 16 to 24. Sharia law, which is practised in large parts of the Middle East, specifies stonings and amputations as routine punishments for crimes. It also acts as a religious code for living, covering dietary laws and dress codes. Religious police are responsible for bringing suspects before special courts.
The poll found that just 19 per cent of Muslims over 55 would prefer to send their children to Islamic state schools. That increased to 37 per cent of those aged 16 to 24. If a Muslim converts to another religion, 36 per cent of 16-to-24-year-olds thought this should be punished by death, compared with 19 per cent of 55s and over. According to the poll, 74 per cent of those aged 16 to 24 prefer Muslim women to wear the veil, compared with only 28 per cent of over 55s.
The report by Miss Mirza, British-born daughter of Pakistani immigrants, concludes that some Muslim groups have exaggerated the problems of "Islamophobic" sentiment among non-Muslim Britons, which has fuelled a sense of victimhood. The vast majority of Muslims – 84 per cent – believed they had been treated fairly in British society. And just over a quarter – 28 per cent – believed that authorities in Britain had gone "over the top" in trying not to offend Muslims.
The Government has been accused of failing to tackle the so-called "preachers of hate". No one has convicted under legislation introduced to deal with such figures. One radical cleric, Abu Hamza, was allowed to encourage extremism for years before finally being prosecuted – but under separate laws and only under threat of him being extradited to the U.S.
Muslim Labour MP Shahid Malik said the poll findings were disturbing. "There are evil voices out there and this poll shows some of them are definitely having an impact. "People are still turning a blind eye and hoping it will all go away. It cannot and it will not of its own accord. "Of course the Government has a role, but with the Muslim community itself more has to be done to acknowledge that this challenge exists. "For years, I have argued that the British National Party is a white phenomenon which it is up to the white community to address. Well, extremism exists in the name of Islam and that’s something the Muslim community has to take leadership on. "It’s my view that the mainstream, umbrella Muslim organisations have not risen to the challenge and don’t accept the depth of the problem that’s facing them." Mr Malik said one legal change which could help address radicalisation was to make committees of faith leaders who run mosques legally responsible for inflammatory statements made on their premises.
Baroness Uddin, the only female Muslim peer, said the poll did not reflect her experiences of the views of most members of the community. But she said many young Muslims who had been born in the UK did have completely different attitudes to their parents and grandparents, who migrated into this country from overseas. "Whereas we said, 'This isn’t our home, we have to fit in, we have to contribute', young people do have a sense that this is now their home and they are prepared to say what they don’t like about it. "They have asserted their identity and gone deeper into their religion. It would have been unheard of for someone like me, as a 16-year-old, to have complained about England. "But now, when young people go through difficulties in terms of job opportunities and education, they do make their opinions known." Baroness Uddin said she agreed with the "majority view" that British foreign policy had also aggravated Muslim grievances.
The Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, Khalid Mahmood, said: "Our young people have been allowed to fall into the hands of fringe organisations who are getting at them at universities, schools, colleges and mosques. They are being manipulated. "It’s difficult for the Government to prescribe a way forward for the Muslim community. I don’t think it can do that. "It’s up to the mainstream, national Muslim organisations, who frankly have failed."
Source
BRITISH CONSERVATIVE LEADER FINALLY SPEAKS UP ABOUT MUSLIMS
Muslims seeking to live under Islamic law are as extreme as supporters of the British National Party, according to David Cameron. Making his first foray into the highly sensitive issue of Islam and multiculturalism, the Conservative leader said that Muslims who want Sharia, or Islamic religious law, are the “mirror image” of the neo-Nazi BNP, wanting to divide the country into “us” and “them”. He made the claim as an opinion poll from Policy Exchange, Mr Cameron’s favourite think-tank, suggested that 40 per cent of young Muslims want Sharia in Britain.
In a hard-hitting speech, Mr Cameron said that uncontrolled immigration and the failed “doctrine of multiculturalism” was threatening national unity. He claimed that the terrorist ideology of radical Islam was “one of the great threats of our age”, and said that public money spent translating documents should be spent instead on teaching people English.
The speech on Britishness, made from a church in Birmingham near the scene of recent race riots between blacks and Asians, was welcomed by Tory rightwingers who had complained that he had been too soft on the issue. However, Mr Cameron balanced his robust defence of British values by calling for greater support for Muslims — in particular women — to improve their opportunities in education and work. Today he will publish the party’s interim report on national security, which will propose measures to tackle Muslim alienation and underachievement. Most controversially it suggests that the Government should require immigrants to learn English before they are allowed to move to Britain.
In an uncompromising attack on Islamic radicals, Mr Cameron said: “Those who seek a Sharia state, or special treatment and a separate law for British Muslims are, in many ways, the mirror image of the BNP. They also want to divide people into ‘us’ and ‘them.’ And they seek out grievances to exploit.”
Sharia covers topics including marriage (allowing a man to have four wives, and stoning to death for adultery), criminal justice (hand amputation for theft) and religious affairs (death penalty for leaving Islam).
Inayat Banglawala, the spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, said that Muslims had an emotional attachment to Sharia, just as Christians did to the Ten Commandments, but said it was scaremongering to suggest that they wanted to introduce it. “The idea of 3 per cent of the population imposing Sharia on the rest is nonsense. It is unfair to compare a real threat [the BNP] with fringe [Islamic] groups that no one takes seriously,” he said.
Mr Cameron promised to tackle what he said were the five barriers to social cohesion in the UK: extremist ideology, multiculturalism, excessive immigration, poverty and poor education. He attacked multiculturalism, saying that although it sounded good, it “has come to mean an approach that focuses on what divides us rather than what brings us together”. He blamed multiculturalism for public housing being allocated along ethnic lines, for police allowing Muslim protesters publicly to incite violence, and for the growth in translation in public documents, which he said reduced the incentive to learn English. He said that uncontrolled immigration was also threatening national unity, declaring that “it puts pressure on housing, on public services, and helps to create division, fear and resentment — among British people from all ethnic backgrounds”.
The report published today, from the Conservative’s national security policy review group, says that Muslims in Britain are held back by their traditional views on marriage and women’s education.
Source
OBESITY WAR PUSHING PEOPLE INTO UNSAFE SURGERY
The number of people having liposuction treatments to remove fat has risen by 90 per cent in a year, prompting a warning from experts that it should not be seen as a solution for obesity. The operation, which involves vacuuming fat from areas such as the thighs and abdomen, was the third most popular cosmetic procedure last year, after breast enlargement and eyelid surgery.
But the surgery is not without risks. Last year Denise Hendry, the wife of the former Scotland football captain Colin Hendry, accepted more than 100,000 pounds in compensation after suffering complications during liposuction in 2002. She was in intensive care for nearly two months after sustaining nine punctures to her bowel and colon during a procedure. At one point her heart stopped for four minutes.
According to figures from the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, at least 4,000 of the 90,000 cosmetic surgery operations carried out last year were liposuction procedures, compared with 2,100 in 2005. Patients included men wanting to remove excess fat from their chests, often referred to as "man breasts". Side-effects can include permanent scarring and loose skin, but Adam Searle, a consultant plastic surgeon and the association's former president, said that the procedure was becoming more refined.
However, it should not be considered as an alternative to losing weight, he said. "There are lots of misconceptions. Every week someone comes into a clinic weighing 25 stone [159kg] and wanting liposuction. This technique is not appropriate for the obese. "It should be reserved for very specific areas of fat in an otherwise fit person. The ideal candidate would be a woman who says, `I go to the gym, I have lost weight but this area on the side of my thigh refuses to go'."
Members of the association carried out 28,921 plastic surgery procedures last year - up about one third on 2005. The association said that the number of other plastic surgery procedures - such as breast and nose surgery - had also risen.
The figures show that anti-ageing procedures were also popular, with facelifts up 44 per cent on 2005, eyelid surgery up 48 per cent, and brow lifts up 50 per cent. The vast majority of procedures - about 92 per cent - were carried out on women, 6,156 of whom had breast surgery. Nose surgery was most common in men, but they also had eyelid surgery, liposuction, altered their ears, and had face and neck lifts.
Louise Braham, the director of the Harley Medical Group, said that demand had increased in the past year. More professionals - including lawyers, teachers, estate agents and accountants - had opted for treatment, she said. She said that "growth hotspots" included the use of botox - the number of procedures had risen 89 per cent in the past six months - breast reductions, which rose 85 per cent in the same time, and nose surgery, which rose 25 per cent.
Source
British top-grade graduates who aren't worth hiring
Lots of Brits with university honours degrees now "don't know nuffink": Poor social skills, poor mathematics skills and poor ability to write correct English. The universites are now teaching less than High Schools once did. But I guess they know that they have to save the planet and love Muslims, blacks and homosexuals
Half the country's leading employers are unable to fill graduate vacancies because studentss lack basic work skills, a survey revealed. Bosses are forced to leave prized graduate jobs open every year even though universities are turning out soaring numbers of students. Employers blame their continued recruitment difficulties on the low calibre of graduates - even those armed with first and 2.1s in their degrees. Many have such poor communication skills that bosses are worried about allowing them to answer the phone, sit in meetings or give presentations. One graduate going for a job at an investment bank began his interview saying: "You alright mate?"
The survey of 211 leading employers, including Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, Government departments and GlaxoSmithKline, reveals that bosses are finding it increasingly tough to recruit capable candidates - despite repeated warnings to students to work on "soft skills" such as team-working and commercial savvy. Forty-three per cent of employers polled by the Association of Graduate Recruiters said they had unfilled graduate vacancies last year, against fewer than a third in 2005. And 55 per cent of bosses are anticipating facing recruitment shortfalls in 2007. Of these, 62 per cent are not expecting to receive sufficient applications from graduates with the necessary skills.
In its winter review, the AGR says employers feel there is an "inadequate supply of applicants of sufficient calibre". It adds: "They go on to explain that candidates are normally academically proficient but lacking in soft skills such as communication as well as verbal and numerical reasoning." One telecoms company reported: "We received more than sufficient applications but I think whilst the candidates have the academic ability they didn't have the communication and soft employability skills so weren't getting through the assessment centres. "We lost quite a few students through the psychometric testing stages because of a lack of numerical and verbal reasoning skills."
Among organisations failing to fill their graduate posts last year, the average number of vacancies was 12. However five per cent left more than 50 jobs unfilled. The shortfalls forced bosses to call in expensive contractors to get the work done, the survey found. Carl Gilleard, AGR chief executive, said: "Much more effort needs to be made in schools to get the message across that going to university and coming out with a 2.1, while an achievement, is not enough to land a graduate level job. "You have to develop your skills and experience, and learn to demonstrate you have got those skills and experience. "People who put in applications full of spelling mistakes on online application forms deserve what they get. "Over the last few years, employers have raised the stakes. Their requirements have grown because of the demands of their business "They are looking for people of a higher calibre and graduates have not really caught onto that."
He added: "There are also some serious issues around science and technology courses as there are not enough students taking them. "The engineering and construction sectors are really struggling despite having some great career opportunities." Despite the difficulties recruiting top graduates, employers will be offering lower-than-inflation rises in graduate salaries this year. Starting pay packets will average 23,431 pounds, a rise of just 2.1 per cent on 2006 - the smallest increase in six years. This may be down to a predicted surge in the overall number of job opportunities available this year. Employers polled will offer 15.1 per cent more graduate-level posts in 2007. Mr Gilleard said: "Once again, we are seeing an increase in the number of graduate level vacancies which is great news for anyone applying for a graduate job this year."
Source
Nutty Britain to discriminate against educated families?
University applicants will be asked to declare whether their parents have a degree. The Government wants the information for its campaign to attract more working-class students into higher education, but critics say that it could be used to discriminate against middle-class candidates and raises suspicion of social engineering. The new question, asking whether parents "have been through higher education", will appear on application forms from next year. The Universities and Colleges Admission Service (UCAS) will use it to build up a detailed picture of every applicant's background.
A spokesman for UCAS insisted that the information would not be used in the allocation of places, but would merely help universities to collect data on how successful they have been at broadening their intake. "It's just another attempt to establish the background of applicants for statistical purposes," he said. He added that applicants would not be forced to provide the information, but would merely be asked to tick a box, indicating "yes/no/don't know/decline to answer".
A compulsory question on the UCAS form already requires applicants under 21 to "give the occupation of your parent, step-parent or guardian who earns the most". Nick Gibb, a Tory education spokesman, described the new question as unwise. "At the very least it allows suspicions of social engineering to enter into the application process," he said.
Source
SIMILAR EDUCATION "REVOLUTIONS" IN BRITAIN AND AUSTRALIA
But Australia's Leftists don't seem to know what is going on around them
In the campaign for the 1997 general election in Britain the then Labour Opposition leader Tony Blair famously declared that his three highest priorities were "education, education, education". In 1999 he unveiled a 10-year reform agenda. Blair said that previous governments had neglected education, and promised to significantly increase funding as a percentage of gross domestic product. He said investment in education was essential to ensure the workforce was highly skilled to boost productivity gains and promised an "education revolution". Sound familiar?
Australia's Labor Opposition Leader, Kevin Rudd, has promised an "education revolution" underpinned by funding increases to raise expenditure as a percentage of GDP to boost productivity gains. Blair's so-called "Third Way" has become a template for democratic socialist parties around the world. Given Rudd has unashamedly lifted Blair's education terms and rhetoric, it is instructive to examine the Blair "education revolution" for the likely directions Rudd will take.
At the heart of the British reforms has been a much stronger focus on accountability and measurement of school performance. League tables which rank school performance were introduced in 1992, but Blair has expanded them and used school performance data to apply pressure and target funding. He said there would be "no hiding place for schools that were not striving to improve". The tables now include an "improvement index" to show which schools have shown steady improvement, or decline. More recently, Blair has added "value added" tables which show the average progress pupils make while at individual schools. This type of performance reporting has been introduced into Australian schools but has been fiercely opposed by education unions as well as state Labor governments.
School report cards are one of the most important performance indicators. In response to complaints from parents that they could not decipher the jargon on school report cards, it is now a condition of federal government funding that parents be provided with report cards in plain English and with children rated on a five-point scale. Unions have fought this at every turn.
One controversial aspect of Blair's reforms has been the involvement and funding support of the private sector in some government schools, contributing about a fifth of the capital cost and having a say in how a school is run, with limited influence over curriculum. Blair is reported to be considering plans to provide government schools with much greater autonomy through "radical reforms" that would give "more power to parents". This would involve giving school communities greater control over the hiring and firing of teachers and school principals and allow greater flexibility to innovate. It would mean parents being given a fuller picture of the individual progress of their children.
The Howard Government has consistently called for parents to be given more information about the performance of schools, teachers and students. The funding agreement also requires state governments to provide greater discretion at the school level to hire teachers, and requires a range of school performance data to be provided to parents.
With universities, the Blair Government introduced a scheme closely modelled on the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) introduced by the ALP. It has since introduced variable fees and received a report that recommended students pay about a quarter of the cost of their studies, the same average rate as for HECS. In recent times, the Blair Government has urged universities to reduce their reliance on public funding.
On January 7 Blair announced plans for tax relief for property owners if they donate their homes to their former universities, as part of efforts to create endowment funds for higher education. He also outlined plans for a scheme where cash donations to universities will be matched by government funds, to promote a culture of philanthropy. As the British Minister for Higher Education, Bill Rammell, said last year, "the UK Government is already a minority shareholder in universities" and "we should not worry if over time public funding continues to reduce as a proportion of the total funding the higher education sector is able to generate".
If Rudd is serious about a Blair-style education revolution, he will be disappointed to find that most of these reforms have been introduced by the Howard Government, and in some cases are further advanced than in Britain. These reforms have been resisted by state Labor governments and education unions. The key challenge for Rudd will be to deliver on the hype. No matter what form his education agenda takes, he will be confronted by staunch opposition from the all-powerful education unions and state Labor governments. Already the unions are threatening to withdraw election campaign funds from federal Labor. Rudd can steal the rhetorical clothing from Blair. He is yet to demonstrate he has the courage for the battle.
Source
This is the sort of thing the Democrats are wishing onto Americans -- people being sent blind by a system that refuses to treat them
A former MP who is going blind is set to sue the NHS after it refused to give her a new drug that could help save her sight, it emerged yesterday. Veteran left-winger Alice Mahon has lost most of the sight in one eye while waiting for treatment. The former Labour MP - and thorn in Tony Blair's side - is now preparing to go to the High Court to make the Health Service pay for a drug that can help her.
Miss Mahon, aged 69, was told by her consultant in November that she should get Lucentis - one of a new generation of drugs for wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The drug, which costs 12,000 pounds for a year's treatment, stabilises vision loss and may reverse the damage, but needs to be given quickly because the sight can rapidly deteriorate. But an urgent application for funding from Calderdale primary care trust (PCT) was rejected because the Government's 'rationing' body had not yet approved the drug for NHS use.
Although Mrs Mahon is wating for the outcome of an appeal, she lost much of the vision in her left eye in the nine weeks since the original application. She has now been forced to pay more than 5,000 pounds for private treatment to stop herself going blind. The former Halifax Labour MP is now taking legal action in a move that could help an estimated 18,000 Britons who go blind each year due to wet AMD, with some denied funding by cash-strapped PCTs.
Mrs Mahon said: "I have been an ardent supporter of the NHS all my life, and now feel totally let down. "The excuses that PCTs are giving for not funding treatment are scandalously lame. "Everyone has a right to free treatment on the NHS for a condition that results in blindness and devastates lives. "Supporting people who are blind or partially sighted, who may need home help and suffer injuries from falls, is far more expensive than the treatment. "The Chancellor must ensure the NHS budget is large enough to fund such a basic health care need. "I have written personally to Gordon Brown, and not as yet received a reply."
Mrs Mahon, who is being treated at Calderdale Royal Hospital and has a "dry" form of AMD in her right eye, was turned down for funding in December by the PCT's exceptional cases committee. However, a patient leaflet prepared by the PCT last autumn claimed those using the drug "were very likely to enjoy stable vision" and over one-third got a significant improvement.
A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed 30 per cent of patients receiving monthly injections of the drug into the affected eye had a "marked improvement" in vision. It prevented vision loss in nine out of 10 patients. The drug targets abnormal blood vessels that grow behind the eyeball - these vessels can leak and cause damage to parts of the eye responsible for central vision.
Lucentis was licensed earlier this month but, along with another wet AMD drug called Macugen, will not be considered for approval by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) until October. [Take your time boys! Nothing is ever urgent in a bureaucracy!] However, Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt has made clear to PCTs that they cannot withhold NHS funding simply on the grounds that NICE has not made a decision.
Mrs Mahon's solicitor, Yogi Amin, from Irwin Mitchell, wrote to her PCT in Calderdale and also Kirklees PCT, which share an exceptional cases committee, saying their refusal to fund the drug breaches her human rights. The letter says the PCTs have until today to overturn their decision or "we will proceed with an application for judicial review in the High Court". It says "Mrs Mahon has been forced to fund her urgent treatment privately, for which she has had to pay the amount of 5,325 pounds in order to avoid losing her eyesight while her application was and her appeal is being considered." Mrs Mahon will be joined by other MPS in Parliament today to speak out against the refusal to fund treatment for wet AMD patients.
The Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) has been campaigning to stop people going needlessly blind. It says PCTs can use their discretion when deciding whether to fund the drugs, yet some have imposed an outright ban while others wait until the patient has gone blind in one eye before treating the other. Steve Winyard, head of campaigns at the RNIB, said "Fifty people a day are being condemned to blindness because PCTs are refusing to fund a licensed treatment, even though it could save patients" sight. "The actions of these PCTs are simply unacceptable."
In the UK, 220,000 people with AMD registered blind or partially sighted. According to the RNIB, 57 per cent of all people newly-registered blind or partially sighted in the UK have AMD. A spokeswoman for Calderdale PCT said it did not comment on individual cases.
Source
Multiculturalism 'drives young Muslims to shun British values'
The doctrine of multi-culturalism has alienated an entire generation of young Muslims and made them increasingly radical, a report has found. In stark contrast with their parents, growing numbers sympathise with extreme teachings of Islam, with almost four in ten wanting to live under Sharia law in Britain. The study identifies significant support for wearing the veil in public, Islamic schools and even punishment by death for Muslims who convert to another religion. Most alarmingly, 13 per cent of young Muslims said they "admired" organisations such as Al Qaeda which are prepared to "fight the West".
The poll exposes a fracture between the attitudes of Muslims aged 16 to 24, most of whom were born in Britain, and those of their parents’ generation, who are more likely to have been immigrants. A report published alongside the poll, commissioned by the Right-wing think tank Policy Exchange and carried out by Populus, said the doctrine of multi-culturalism was at least partly responsible.
A series of Labour ministers have broken recently with the idea that different communities should not be forced to integrate but should be allowed to maintain their own culture and identities. Trevor Phillips, head of the Commission for Racial Equality, and Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, have also expressed serious doubts about multi-culturalism.
Academic Munira Mirza, lead author of the report, said: "The emergence of a strong Muslim identity in Britain is, in part, a result of multi-cultural policies implemented since the 1980s which have emphasised difference at the expense of shared national identity and divided people along ethnic, religious and cultural lines."
The poll of 1,000 Muslims, weighted to represent the population across the UK, found that a growing minority of youngsters felt they had less in common with non-Muslims than their parents did. While only 17 per cent of over-55s said they would prefer to live under Sharia law, that increased to 37 per cent of those aged 16 to 24. Sharia law, which is practised in large parts of the Middle East, specifies stonings and amputations as routine punishments for crimes. It also acts as a religious code for living, covering dietary laws and dress codes. Religious police are responsible for bringing suspects before special courts.
The poll found that just 19 per cent of Muslims over 55 would prefer to send their children to Islamic state schools. That increased to 37 per cent of those aged 16 to 24. If a Muslim converts to another religion, 36 per cent of 16-to-24-year-olds thought this should be punished by death, compared with 19 per cent of 55s and over. According to the poll, 74 per cent of those aged 16 to 24 prefer Muslim women to wear the veil, compared with only 28 per cent of over 55s.
The report by Miss Mirza, British-born daughter of Pakistani immigrants, concludes that some Muslim groups have exaggerated the problems of "Islamophobic" sentiment among non-Muslim Britons, which has fuelled a sense of victimhood. The vast majority of Muslims – 84 per cent – believed they had been treated fairly in British society. And just over a quarter – 28 per cent – believed that authorities in Britain had gone "over the top" in trying not to offend Muslims.
The Government has been accused of failing to tackle the so-called "preachers of hate". No one has convicted under legislation introduced to deal with such figures. One radical cleric, Abu Hamza, was allowed to encourage extremism for years before finally being prosecuted – but under separate laws and only under threat of him being extradited to the U.S.
Muslim Labour MP Shahid Malik said the poll findings were disturbing. "There are evil voices out there and this poll shows some of them are definitely having an impact. "People are still turning a blind eye and hoping it will all go away. It cannot and it will not of its own accord. "Of course the Government has a role, but with the Muslim community itself more has to be done to acknowledge that this challenge exists. "For years, I have argued that the British National Party is a white phenomenon which it is up to the white community to address. Well, extremism exists in the name of Islam and that’s something the Muslim community has to take leadership on. "It’s my view that the mainstream, umbrella Muslim organisations have not risen to the challenge and don’t accept the depth of the problem that’s facing them." Mr Malik said one legal change which could help address radicalisation was to make committees of faith leaders who run mosques legally responsible for inflammatory statements made on their premises.
Baroness Uddin, the only female Muslim peer, said the poll did not reflect her experiences of the views of most members of the community. But she said many young Muslims who had been born in the UK did have completely different attitudes to their parents and grandparents, who migrated into this country from overseas. "Whereas we said, 'This isn’t our home, we have to fit in, we have to contribute', young people do have a sense that this is now their home and they are prepared to say what they don’t like about it. "They have asserted their identity and gone deeper into their religion. It would have been unheard of for someone like me, as a 16-year-old, to have complained about England. "But now, when young people go through difficulties in terms of job opportunities and education, they do make their opinions known." Baroness Uddin said she agreed with the "majority view" that British foreign policy had also aggravated Muslim grievances.
The Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, Khalid Mahmood, said: "Our young people have been allowed to fall into the hands of fringe organisations who are getting at them at universities, schools, colleges and mosques. They are being manipulated. "It’s difficult for the Government to prescribe a way forward for the Muslim community. I don’t think it can do that. "It’s up to the mainstream, national Muslim organisations, who frankly have failed."
Source
BRITISH CONSERVATIVE LEADER FINALLY SPEAKS UP ABOUT MUSLIMS
Muslims seeking to live under Islamic law are as extreme as supporters of the British National Party, according to David Cameron. Making his first foray into the highly sensitive issue of Islam and multiculturalism, the Conservative leader said that Muslims who want Sharia, or Islamic religious law, are the “mirror image” of the neo-Nazi BNP, wanting to divide the country into “us” and “them”. He made the claim as an opinion poll from Policy Exchange, Mr Cameron’s favourite think-tank, suggested that 40 per cent of young Muslims want Sharia in Britain.
In a hard-hitting speech, Mr Cameron said that uncontrolled immigration and the failed “doctrine of multiculturalism” was threatening national unity. He claimed that the terrorist ideology of radical Islam was “one of the great threats of our age”, and said that public money spent translating documents should be spent instead on teaching people English.
The speech on Britishness, made from a church in Birmingham near the scene of recent race riots between blacks and Asians, was welcomed by Tory rightwingers who had complained that he had been too soft on the issue. However, Mr Cameron balanced his robust defence of British values by calling for greater support for Muslims — in particular women — to improve their opportunities in education and work. Today he will publish the party’s interim report on national security, which will propose measures to tackle Muslim alienation and underachievement. Most controversially it suggests that the Government should require immigrants to learn English before they are allowed to move to Britain.
In an uncompromising attack on Islamic radicals, Mr Cameron said: “Those who seek a Sharia state, or special treatment and a separate law for British Muslims are, in many ways, the mirror image of the BNP. They also want to divide people into ‘us’ and ‘them.’ And they seek out grievances to exploit.”
Sharia covers topics including marriage (allowing a man to have four wives, and stoning to death for adultery), criminal justice (hand amputation for theft) and religious affairs (death penalty for leaving Islam).
Inayat Banglawala, the spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, said that Muslims had an emotional attachment to Sharia, just as Christians did to the Ten Commandments, but said it was scaremongering to suggest that they wanted to introduce it. “The idea of 3 per cent of the population imposing Sharia on the rest is nonsense. It is unfair to compare a real threat [the BNP] with fringe [Islamic] groups that no one takes seriously,” he said.
Mr Cameron promised to tackle what he said were the five barriers to social cohesion in the UK: extremist ideology, multiculturalism, excessive immigration, poverty and poor education. He attacked multiculturalism, saying that although it sounded good, it “has come to mean an approach that focuses on what divides us rather than what brings us together”. He blamed multiculturalism for public housing being allocated along ethnic lines, for police allowing Muslim protesters publicly to incite violence, and for the growth in translation in public documents, which he said reduced the incentive to learn English. He said that uncontrolled immigration was also threatening national unity, declaring that “it puts pressure on housing, on public services, and helps to create division, fear and resentment — among British people from all ethnic backgrounds”.
The report published today, from the Conservative’s national security policy review group, says that Muslims in Britain are held back by their traditional views on marriage and women’s education.
Source
OBESITY WAR PUSHING PEOPLE INTO UNSAFE SURGERY
The number of people having liposuction treatments to remove fat has risen by 90 per cent in a year, prompting a warning from experts that it should not be seen as a solution for obesity. The operation, which involves vacuuming fat from areas such as the thighs and abdomen, was the third most popular cosmetic procedure last year, after breast enlargement and eyelid surgery.
But the surgery is not without risks. Last year Denise Hendry, the wife of the former Scotland football captain Colin Hendry, accepted more than 100,000 pounds in compensation after suffering complications during liposuction in 2002. She was in intensive care for nearly two months after sustaining nine punctures to her bowel and colon during a procedure. At one point her heart stopped for four minutes.
According to figures from the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, at least 4,000 of the 90,000 cosmetic surgery operations carried out last year were liposuction procedures, compared with 2,100 in 2005. Patients included men wanting to remove excess fat from their chests, often referred to as "man breasts". Side-effects can include permanent scarring and loose skin, but Adam Searle, a consultant plastic surgeon and the association's former president, said that the procedure was becoming more refined.
However, it should not be considered as an alternative to losing weight, he said. "There are lots of misconceptions. Every week someone comes into a clinic weighing 25 stone [159kg] and wanting liposuction. This technique is not appropriate for the obese. "It should be reserved for very specific areas of fat in an otherwise fit person. The ideal candidate would be a woman who says, `I go to the gym, I have lost weight but this area on the side of my thigh refuses to go'."
Members of the association carried out 28,921 plastic surgery procedures last year - up about one third on 2005. The association said that the number of other plastic surgery procedures - such as breast and nose surgery - had also risen.
The figures show that anti-ageing procedures were also popular, with facelifts up 44 per cent on 2005, eyelid surgery up 48 per cent, and brow lifts up 50 per cent. The vast majority of procedures - about 92 per cent - were carried out on women, 6,156 of whom had breast surgery. Nose surgery was most common in men, but they also had eyelid surgery, liposuction, altered their ears, and had face and neck lifts.
Louise Braham, the director of the Harley Medical Group, said that demand had increased in the past year. More professionals - including lawyers, teachers, estate agents and accountants - had opted for treatment, she said. She said that "growth hotspots" included the use of botox - the number of procedures had risen 89 per cent in the past six months - breast reductions, which rose 85 per cent in the same time, and nose surgery, which rose 25 per cent.
Source
British top-grade graduates who aren't worth hiring
Lots of Brits with university honours degrees now "don't know nuffink": Poor social skills, poor mathematics skills and poor ability to write correct English. The universites are now teaching less than High Schools once did. But I guess they know that they have to save the planet and love Muslims, blacks and homosexuals
Half the country's leading employers are unable to fill graduate vacancies because studentss lack basic work skills, a survey revealed. Bosses are forced to leave prized graduate jobs open every year even though universities are turning out soaring numbers of students. Employers blame their continued recruitment difficulties on the low calibre of graduates - even those armed with first and 2.1s in their degrees. Many have such poor communication skills that bosses are worried about allowing them to answer the phone, sit in meetings or give presentations. One graduate going for a job at an investment bank began his interview saying: "You alright mate?"
The survey of 211 leading employers, including Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, Government departments and GlaxoSmithKline, reveals that bosses are finding it increasingly tough to recruit capable candidates - despite repeated warnings to students to work on "soft skills" such as team-working and commercial savvy. Forty-three per cent of employers polled by the Association of Graduate Recruiters said they had unfilled graduate vacancies last year, against fewer than a third in 2005. And 55 per cent of bosses are anticipating facing recruitment shortfalls in 2007. Of these, 62 per cent are not expecting to receive sufficient applications from graduates with the necessary skills.
In its winter review, the AGR says employers feel there is an "inadequate supply of applicants of sufficient calibre". It adds: "They go on to explain that candidates are normally academically proficient but lacking in soft skills such as communication as well as verbal and numerical reasoning." One telecoms company reported: "We received more than sufficient applications but I think whilst the candidates have the academic ability they didn't have the communication and soft employability skills so weren't getting through the assessment centres. "We lost quite a few students through the psychometric testing stages because of a lack of numerical and verbal reasoning skills."
Among organisations failing to fill their graduate posts last year, the average number of vacancies was 12. However five per cent left more than 50 jobs unfilled. The shortfalls forced bosses to call in expensive contractors to get the work done, the survey found. Carl Gilleard, AGR chief executive, said: "Much more effort needs to be made in schools to get the message across that going to university and coming out with a 2.1, while an achievement, is not enough to land a graduate level job. "You have to develop your skills and experience, and learn to demonstrate you have got those skills and experience. "People who put in applications full of spelling mistakes on online application forms deserve what they get. "Over the last few years, employers have raised the stakes. Their requirements have grown because of the demands of their business "They are looking for people of a higher calibre and graduates have not really caught onto that."
He added: "There are also some serious issues around science and technology courses as there are not enough students taking them. "The engineering and construction sectors are really struggling despite having some great career opportunities." Despite the difficulties recruiting top graduates, employers will be offering lower-than-inflation rises in graduate salaries this year. Starting pay packets will average 23,431 pounds, a rise of just 2.1 per cent on 2006 - the smallest increase in six years. This may be down to a predicted surge in the overall number of job opportunities available this year. Employers polled will offer 15.1 per cent more graduate-level posts in 2007. Mr Gilleard said: "Once again, we are seeing an increase in the number of graduate level vacancies which is great news for anyone applying for a graduate job this year."
Source
Nutty Britain to discriminate against educated families?
University applicants will be asked to declare whether their parents have a degree. The Government wants the information for its campaign to attract more working-class students into higher education, but critics say that it could be used to discriminate against middle-class candidates and raises suspicion of social engineering. The new question, asking whether parents "have been through higher education", will appear on application forms from next year. The Universities and Colleges Admission Service (UCAS) will use it to build up a detailed picture of every applicant's background.
A spokesman for UCAS insisted that the information would not be used in the allocation of places, but would merely help universities to collect data on how successful they have been at broadening their intake. "It's just another attempt to establish the background of applicants for statistical purposes," he said. He added that applicants would not be forced to provide the information, but would merely be asked to tick a box, indicating "yes/no/don't know/decline to answer".
A compulsory question on the UCAS form already requires applicants under 21 to "give the occupation of your parent, step-parent or guardian who earns the most". Nick Gibb, a Tory education spokesman, described the new question as unwise. "At the very least it allows suspicions of social engineering to enter into the application process," he said.
Source
SIMILAR EDUCATION "REVOLUTIONS" IN BRITAIN AND AUSTRALIA
But Australia's Leftists don't seem to know what is going on around them
In the campaign for the 1997 general election in Britain the then Labour Opposition leader Tony Blair famously declared that his three highest priorities were "education, education, education". In 1999 he unveiled a 10-year reform agenda. Blair said that previous governments had neglected education, and promised to significantly increase funding as a percentage of gross domestic product. He said investment in education was essential to ensure the workforce was highly skilled to boost productivity gains and promised an "education revolution". Sound familiar?
Australia's Labor Opposition Leader, Kevin Rudd, has promised an "education revolution" underpinned by funding increases to raise expenditure as a percentage of GDP to boost productivity gains. Blair's so-called "Third Way" has become a template for democratic socialist parties around the world. Given Rudd has unashamedly lifted Blair's education terms and rhetoric, it is instructive to examine the Blair "education revolution" for the likely directions Rudd will take.
At the heart of the British reforms has been a much stronger focus on accountability and measurement of school performance. League tables which rank school performance were introduced in 1992, but Blair has expanded them and used school performance data to apply pressure and target funding. He said there would be "no hiding place for schools that were not striving to improve". The tables now include an "improvement index" to show which schools have shown steady improvement, or decline. More recently, Blair has added "value added" tables which show the average progress pupils make while at individual schools. This type of performance reporting has been introduced into Australian schools but has been fiercely opposed by education unions as well as state Labor governments.
School report cards are one of the most important performance indicators. In response to complaints from parents that they could not decipher the jargon on school report cards, it is now a condition of federal government funding that parents be provided with report cards in plain English and with children rated on a five-point scale. Unions have fought this at every turn.
One controversial aspect of Blair's reforms has been the involvement and funding support of the private sector in some government schools, contributing about a fifth of the capital cost and having a say in how a school is run, with limited influence over curriculum. Blair is reported to be considering plans to provide government schools with much greater autonomy through "radical reforms" that would give "more power to parents". This would involve giving school communities greater control over the hiring and firing of teachers and school principals and allow greater flexibility to innovate. It would mean parents being given a fuller picture of the individual progress of their children.
The Howard Government has consistently called for parents to be given more information about the performance of schools, teachers and students. The funding agreement also requires state governments to provide greater discretion at the school level to hire teachers, and requires a range of school performance data to be provided to parents.
With universities, the Blair Government introduced a scheme closely modelled on the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) introduced by the ALP. It has since introduced variable fees and received a report that recommended students pay about a quarter of the cost of their studies, the same average rate as for HECS. In recent times, the Blair Government has urged universities to reduce their reliance on public funding.
On January 7 Blair announced plans for tax relief for property owners if they donate their homes to their former universities, as part of efforts to create endowment funds for higher education. He also outlined plans for a scheme where cash donations to universities will be matched by government funds, to promote a culture of philanthropy. As the British Minister for Higher Education, Bill Rammell, said last year, "the UK Government is already a minority shareholder in universities" and "we should not worry if over time public funding continues to reduce as a proportion of the total funding the higher education sector is able to generate".
If Rudd is serious about a Blair-style education revolution, he will be disappointed to find that most of these reforms have been introduced by the Howard Government, and in some cases are further advanced than in Britain. These reforms have been resisted by state Labor governments and education unions. The key challenge for Rudd will be to deliver on the hype. No matter what form his education agenda takes, he will be confronted by staunch opposition from the all-powerful education unions and state Labor governments. Already the unions are threatening to withdraw election campaign funds from federal Labor. Rudd can steal the rhetorical clothing from Blair. He is yet to demonstrate he has the courage for the battle.
Source
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
White students 'do better' in British universities
Below is a brief summary from a Leftist newspaper of an official British government report that does not appear to be online. It is difficult to dissect the sort of "massaged" statistics one has to expect from official Britain but I expect that the following is going on:
1). Blacks do badly as usual because of their low average IQ.
2). Chinese do badly because of their poor English skills. Most Chinese probably are not born in Britain and mastering English is very difficult for Orientals -- as mastering oriental languages is for us. Most immigrant blacks, by contrast, would come from places where at least a form of English is spoken (e.g. Nigeria, The Caribbean).
3). The "whites" include Jews -- who usually perform very well indeed and who are disproportionately present in higher education.
4). The female advantage comes from the black component. Black females are normally much better motivated than black males and take full advantage of the official and unofficial favouritism that is given to blacks.
5). Amusing that South Asians (Indians etc.) are not mentioned. The obvious inference from the omission is that they did as well as whites overall. So skin colour or "xenophobia" was not a factor.
Black and Chinese students are less likely to get top university degrees than their white contemporaries, a government report has found. The study suggested that ethnic minority undergraduates faced "a considerable cost" as a result because students who get first-class degrees increasingly command higher salaries.
The Department for Education and Skills report also found that students living at home were more likely to get firsts, women performed better than men, and older students tended to get better degrees.
Analysing data for 65,000 students, the researchers predicted the odds of different ethnic groups getting first-class degrees, 2:1s, 2:2s or thirds. The gap was widest for black Caribbean, black African and Chinese students. The analysis took account of factors such as gender, prior academic performance, subject studied and deprivation levels.
"A number of studies have found that attaining a 'good' degree carries a premium in the labour market, and that this premium has been increasing over time, as the higher education system has expanded," the study said. "As a result, there is a considerable cost attached to this attainment gap identified in relation to minority ethnic students."
It cautioned that the findings did not "automatically" imply "ethnic bias". The Higher Education Minister Bill Rammell said the Government was committed to ensuring people of all backgrounds could thrive in higher education."
Source
BRITAIN: DANGEROUS MUSLIM MEDICAL ADVICE
A Muslim doctors' leader has provoked an outcry by urging British Muslims not to vaccinate their children against diseases such as measles, mumps and rubella because it is "un-Islamic". Dr Abdul Majid Katme, head of the Islamic Medical Association, is telling Muslims that almost all vaccines contain products derived from animal and human tissue, which make them "haram", or unlawful for Muslims to take. Islam permits only the consumption of halal products, where the animal has had its throat cut and bled to death while God's name is invoked. Islam also forbids the eating of any pig meat, which Katme says is another reason why vaccines should be avoided, as some contain or have been made using pork-based gelatine.
His warning has been criticised by the Department of Health and the British Medical Association, who said Katme risked increasing infections ranging from flu and measles to polio and diphtheria in Muslim communities.
Katme, a psychiatrist who has worked in the National Health Service for 15 years, wields influence as the head of one of only two national Islamic medical organisations as well as being a member of the Muslim Council of Britain. Moderate Muslims are concerned at the potential impact because other Islamic doctors will have to confirm vaccines are derived from animal and human products. There is already evidence of lower than average vaccination rates in Muslim areas, reducing the prospect of the "herd immunity" needed to curb infectious diseases such as measles, mumps and rubella.
Katme's appeal reflects a global movement by some hardline Islamic leaders who are telling followers torefuse vaccines from the West. In Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of India, Muslims have refused to be immunised against polio after being told that the vaccines contain products that the West has deliberately added to make the recipients infertile.
Katme said he was bringing the message to Britain after analysing the products used for the manufacture of the vaccines. He claimed that Muslims must allow their children to develop their own immune system naturally rather than rely on vaccines. He argued that leading "Islamically healthy lives" would be enough to ward off illnesses and diseases. "You see, God created us perfect and with a very strong defence system. If you breast-feed your child for two years - as the Koran says - and you eat Koranic food like olives and black seed, and you do ablution each time you pray, then you will have a strong defence system," he said. "Many vaccines, especially those given to children, are full of haram substances - human parts, gelatine from pork, alcohol, animal/monkey parts, all coming from the West who do not have knowledge of halal or haram. It is forbidden in Islam to have any of these haram substances in our bodies." Katme singled out vaccines such as MMR as ones to avoid, despite doctors saying that they are essential to keep a baby healthy. Others included those for diphtheria, tetanus, acellular pertussis and meningitis.
Dr Shuja Shafi, a spokesman for the health and medical committee of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: "In terms of ingredients in vaccines, there are so many things that are probably haram, but in the absence of an alternative we are allowed to take it for the sake of our health."
Source
Time to evict official anti-racism
The row over Britain's Celebrity Big Brother shows that hysterically witch-hunting 'racists' is a new British sport
Jade Goody may have been evicted from the Celebrity Big Brother house on Friday, yet the bizarre controversy surrounding her rows with Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty continues to rumble on and reverberate. And the acres of handwringing commentary in the tabloids and broadsheets suggest that Ms Goody is not the only one who is firing-off ill-judged opinions.
Trevor Phillips, head of the Commission for Racial Equality, waded in on Sunday with demands that Channel 4 be overseen by supernanny-in-waiting, Tessa Jowell. In his eyes the refusal of Channel 4 chairman Luke Johnson to describe the Goody/Shetty fallout as `racist' should be a sackable offence. Elsewhere, the granddaddy of race monitoring, London mayor Ken Livingstone, sought to slap Channel 4's wrists. And according to Guardian columnist Jackie Ashley, apparently the Big Brother freakshow is all New Labour's fault anyway - or at least Tony Blair's, whom she accuses of nurturing a public culture as cruel as any that existed under Thatcher.
It is a measure of the disrepair of political and public life that so many public figures, including Blair and the PM-in-waiting Gordon Brown, feel compelled to comment on Celebrity Big Brother. As Brendan O'Neill has pointed out, the speed with which commentators (over)reacted to Goody and her sidekicks' outbursts reveals their own blinkered prejudices about the white working class as a whole (1). Pundits have gleefully pounced on this incident as insurmountable `proof' that nasty racial prejudice is alive and kicking among the great unwashed.
In fact, the most striking thing about Celebrity Big Brother is that it simultaneously tells us very little about British society and an awful lot about brass-necked opinion makers. It is clear to anyone with eyes and ears that race no longer has the same corrosive impact it once had in British society. Indeed, many of my students who have Indian backgrounds say that Goody's clanking comments are hardly representative of their experience of living in Britain in the twenty-first century. They can shrug off the Goody v Shetty row precisely because race doesn't impinge on their lives. However, high-minded pundits cannot shrug off the idea that Big Brother exerts great `influence' on all the `couch potatoes' out there. Germaine Greer thinks the masses who watch the programme were probably cheering on Goody's taunts, seeing Shetty as just another `Paki bird'. Leaving aside the risible `monkey say/monkey do' implications here, it's worth questioning whether Big Brother is as popular or influential as pundits claim.
Prior to this year's race controversy, viewing figures were down to a paltry 1.4 million, before climbing to a still unremarkable four million. Even at the height of the non-celebrity Big Brother `mania' during the summer months, viewing figures hover around the seven million mark. If soap operas or flagship dramas like Prime Suspect pulled in those kind of viewing figures, they would be deemed as failures and possibly dropped. So why is Big Brother seen as `required viewing' for the mass of the population, when, in fact, relatively speaking not that many people watch it?
The truth is that Big Brother's core audience is teenage girls, students, and fashionistas/style journalists who can't let go of irony. It is this (largely) youthful audience that makes BB appealing to advertisers, as well as celebrity magazines and tabloids and broadsheets seeking a new generation of readers. For older generations of working people, Big Brother is largely irrelevant and a somewhat bizarre spectacle. Ironically enough, it is because Big Brother is a media rather than social phenomenon that all kinds of outlandish claims can be projected on to it. And in the Goody v Shetty debacle, reams of half-baked rubbish have been spouted about the `Vicky Pollards' who supposedly populate both the show and its audience.
The response to this year's Celebrity Big Brother shows how forceful official anti-racism has become as a conforming mechanism. Whether it is through televised autopsies or wankathons, Channel 4 has long courted rather prurient `controversy'. But engineering racial and cultural tensions has been a step `too far' for even staunch supporters of this increasingly idiotic channel. It seems Channel 4 can dabble with any taboo it likes, apart from the new orthodoxies surrounding race. There is a baying hysteria in contemporary `anti-racism'. As Goody herself said after the eviction: `I've never been so terrified in all my life.'
Far from striking a blow for racial equality and freedom, official and tyrannical anti-racism nurtures fresh divisions and fosters a culture of unfreedom. This was reflected by one anti-racist group's statement that `private utterances should be viewed in the same light as public ones' - that is, what people say behind closed doors, or presumably even think in their own minds, should be subject to rules and regulations in the same way that public speech too often is. The reaction to the Goody/Shetty farce has popularised such a dangerous and nonsensical idea, with its blurred distinction between a private argument between two people (filmed and aired, of course) and the wild claims made about what this reveals about our public culture.
The commentary on Goody/Shetty has become a vehicle for expressing a broader anti-human sentiment. If some pundits are sceptical that Goody is consciously `racist', nearly all agree that she is a `bully'. For Jackie Ashley, it is bullying rather than overt racism that is the single defining characteristic of contemporary British society. So much so that even `Jade-the-bully is then vigorously bullied and abused by the same newspapers that so recently found her funny' (2). In this light, Celebrity Big Brother is portrayed as a reflection on how rotten the (unregulated) human subject really is. Apparently if you put humans together the essential desire to dominate `the other' will always win through. And for many, racism naturally follows bullying as the primeval urge lurking within us all. Celebrity Big Brother popularises the idea that, in the words of actor/director Gary Oldman, `we all need therapy'.
For many pundits, the problem with Goody is that because of her `poor breeding', she is apparently more pathologically prone to hateful outbursts than others. Goody's blubbering, confessional interviews with both Davina McCall and the News of the World shows how quickly she has internalised the therapeutic mode.
The furore over Goody's crass behaviour towards Shetty has been a heaven-sent opportunity for half-witted commentators to obsess over an imaginary underclass. In truth, the tantrums inside the CBB house say nothing about what's happening in multi-racial Britain, though the furore reveals much about the nasty prejudices of certain commentators. If the Goody/Shetty incident reveals anything about the state of Britain, it is that official anti-racism has become an hysterical and authoritarian force. Far from fretting about Goody and Co's infantile behaviour, isn't it time we put that up for eviction instead?
Source
Child obesity
Is the next generation of Brits facing an epidemic of ill-health?
Panic: The UK House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts has published a new report lambasting the government for failing to tackle child obesity. The report notes that `obesity is a serious health condition', `a causal factor in a number of chronic diseases and conditions', and that `overall, it reduces life expectancy by an average of nine years'. According to the report, `there has been a steady rise in the number of children aged 2 to 10 who are obese - from 9.9 per cent in 1995 to 13.9 per cent in 2004.'
Don't panic: If the committee wishes to attack the government, and demand ever-greater intervention against parents, schools and companies, it had better get its facts straight. Obesity is not a serious health condition. It is a category of body morphology. The definition employed by the committee, the standard one in health circles, is that someone is `obese' if they have a body mass index (BMI) above 30; essentially, if the ratio of their weight to height is above a certain level. Aside from the fact that this ratio can just as easily describe excess muscle as excess fat, being fat does not necessarily imply ill-health. The majority of fat people are pretty healthy. In fact, it is those who, under today's abitrary categories, would be defined as `overweight' or moderately obese (with a BMI between 25 and 32) who seem to have the best life expectancy.
We do not know to what extent, if at all, obesity is a causal factor in chronic disease. We do know that obesity - particularly morbid obesity - is associated with increased risks of heart disease and type-2 diabetes, for example, but causation is a different matter. Given that fat people who are also fit seem to have very similar health profiles to thin but sedentary people, it may well be that lack of exercise not fatty tissue is the most important factor. In any event, untangling all the potential confounding factors makes the simple `obesity=disease/death' equation far too simplistic.
Specifically, the figure given for years of life lost is wrong. It appears to be repeating a statistic from a National Audit Office (NAO) report in 2001. However, what that report actually says is: `On average, each person whose death could be attributed to obesity lost nine years of life.' While this kind of attribution is fraught with problems, it is also very different from the statement in the latest report. The NAO report said six per cent of deaths were due to obesity - suggesting that most obese people die because of some other factor. Therefore, simple maths suggests the average number of years lost due to obesity is substantially lower than the nine years suggested by the new report.
As for child obesity, there is much dispute about what is an appropriate measure - BMI, for example, is even less relevant in children than in adults. But, according to the Health Survey for England in 2002: `About one in 20 boys (5.5 per cent) and about one in 15 girls (7.2 per cent) aged 2 to 15 were obese in 2002, according to the international classification.' While children have got a bit fatter in recent years, average weights for children have changed little.
We are facing an epidemic, it's true: an epidemic of regulation, intervention and fear-mongering. And it will all be based on reports like this one from the Committee of Public Accounts. While the motivations of these politicians may be sincere, their role in the obesity panic is likely only to make us more unhealthily obsessed with food and weight.
Source
A diet of misinformation
John Luik, co-author of Diet Nation, tells Rob Lyons that the obesity panic is being fattened by savvy interest groups and junk science
`More than any other government, the UK government has bought into it. The UK leads the world in bad obesity policy.' I'm sitting in the offices of the Advertising Association discussing the obesity panic with John Luik, co-author of Diet Nation: Exposing the Obesity Crusade. Luik is a genial American policy analyst who's gunning for the `relatively small group of people around the world who have decided, manufactured, this as a problem, and who have sold it to governments.'
`If we had gotten paid by the advertising industry to write this book - which we didn't - people would say, "You guys are on the take". But you can have people on the other side who get hundreds of thousands of pounds from those who have a deliberate interest in making people think they're fat, and no-one thinks that is a question of corruption.'
In Diet Nation, Luik and his co-authors, Patrick Basham and Gio Gori, show that the fear of expanding waistlines is nothing new. But they argue that the modern hysteria about getting fat has little to do with real dangers to our health, or that of our children; rather it has become the obsession of an unholy alliance of sophisticated lobby groups and junk science.
This is perfectly illustrated by a report published by the House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts this week, which leaps from making plainly untrue statements about the problem of obesity to berating the government for not doing enough to address it, by clamping down on the food industry, for example, or frightening parents and stigmatising children.
Fretting over our waistlines has a long history. There was already medical discussion about the problem of obesity in the late nineteenth century, but as a `product rather than a cause' of the prejudice against excess weight. Within a few years, this issue started impacting on popular culture. In 1907 a popular American play called Nobody Likes a Fat Man was staged, and in 1913 Edith Wharton described one of her characters fretting about being anything more than `perpendicular'. As the authors of Diet Nation note, in one respect `the century-long European and American preoccupation with thinness and the rejection of fat is very much a social construct in which obesity is increasingly associated with the morally unacceptable' (p33).
The first obesity crusade took off in the Fifties, and was particularly inspired by the work of Louis Dublin, a biologist working for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in the US. He was a man on a mission. He wrote hundreds of articles on the subject and produced just the kind of research that is the mainstay of obesity discussions today: he rather dubiously compared the weight of individuals (often self-reported) with mortality many years later. There were many obvious limitations, especially the fact that the subjects were self-selected (insurance buyers were not typical of the population then), and that their weight was not regularly measured over the period of study; in fact, it was often not measured independently at all. And yet, Dublin tried to persuade America using this shaky data that not only was being morbidly obese bad for your health, but even levels of weight 10 per cent above his `ideal' could shorten your life.
While much of the medical profession supported Dublin, others were puzzled to find his results difficult to replicate. Anyway, his worst fears were not realised, as Diet Nation notes: `As the 1960s and 70s came and went, Americans did not lose significant amounts of weight, though they dieted continuously. They enjoyed better health, while the prevalence of most major diseases declined and longevity increased.' (p42)
For Luik et al, while the modern obesity crusade - which began in earnest in the 1990s - still has a moralising tone to it, the message coming from the crusaders emphasises another message just as much: `obesity is no longer a moral failing of bad fat people, but a sickness, acquired in large measure from a "toxic food environment", that requires medical treatment' (p34). It is true that contemporary campaigners against obesity talk about `evil corporations' as much as they do feckless individuals. So, much of the debate increasingly focuses on processed food (like the infamous Turkey Twizzler), fast-food restaurants like McDonald's, agonised debates about labelling, and bans on adverts.
However, it would be wrong to understate the powerful moralistic streak in discussions of obesity and food. In the focus on junk-food restaurants, for example, there is often a barely concealed contempt for the largely working-class people who eat there, who are presumed to be lazy, unthinking and not sufficiently concerned with healthy cooking and physical exercise. They are seen as `junk' people. At a time when it is unfashionable to pass strictly moral judgements on people's lifestyles, the lower orders tend to be maligned through the coded issue of food and health.
The crusaders have maintained a clear and oft-repeated message, according to Luik and his co-authors: `Overweight/obesity equals death; weight loss is possible and necessary; the sources of the problem are to be found in corporate misbehaviour, not individual gluttony or sloth; and personal responsibility is insufficient, as significant governmental action is required.' (p43) While the authors concede that many campaigners may be sincere, `the existence of an obesity epidemic offers enormous commercial, financial and power-maximising opportunities for. the medical profession, academic researchers, the public health community, the government health bureaucracy, the pharmaceutical industry, the fitness industry and the weight-loss industry' (p44).
From this point of view, it's the persistence, brilliance and deviousness of the campaigners, backed by the attitude-distorting presence of very sizeable amounts of money and influence, that have driven the current panic. There is no doubt much truth in this. Often, it is the same relatively small band of experts who conduct research, get paid to be consultants for industry, sit on the boards of specialist journals, and are asked to give evidence to, or advise, governments on public health policy.
The mechanics of how power and influence are grabbed are intriguing, especially when the players involved occasionally make a hash of it. Consider the report of the House of Commons Health Committee published in May 2004, which focused on the effect of obesity on children. The report made a huge splash with the case of a three-year-old girl who had died `from heart failure where obesity was a contributory factor'. The doctor giving evidence on the case described children on her own ward as `choking on their own fat'. However, as spiked revealed at the time, this was not a case of parents negligently feeding a child to death; rather the little girl suffered from a rare genetic disorder (see Choking on the facts, by Brendan O'Neill).
Then there is the case of the US report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2004, which proclaimed that obesity was causing 400,000 deaths a year. This immediately sparked calls for massive government intervention. However, the authors of Diet Nation note how the report was prepared, not by the CDC's top experts on the subject, but by the CDC's director and other researchers attached to her office. After what appears to have been considerable internal criticism of the report, another group of CDC researchers reviewed it, and their review eventually found its way into the public domain under a Freedom of Information request. This second report suggested that a more accurate figure for excess obesity deaths was about 25,000 - 94 per cent lower than the original estimate. Strikingly, the original report was produced under pressure to `get the right result' because a range of groups had an interest in reaching the highest possible figure.
Such methods of securing influence may be increasingly common; yet there is something slightly unsatisfactory in using this as an explanation for the obesity panic. Are governments and the public simply being suckered? Or have there been social and political changes that have left individuals more open to being spooked about their health, and politicians more enthusiastic about interfering in areas of our lives that were previously off-limits? These questions aren't really answered in Diet Nation.
Too often the debate about obesity ends up in a mud-slinging contest over which side is the more corrupted. This provides little illumination into the facts of the matter, and it feeds the cynical outlook that suggests anyone's position can be evaluated by those who have paid to support it. On that basis, Luik and his co-authors could easily be pigeonholed as `free market libertarians' or something similar, as a means of dismissing them. But they clearly have a great deal more to say about obesity than the question of who-paid-who.
The chapter on the science of obesity will surprise many. Luik tells me about a presentation he gave recently at the offices of a major international bank in London. Having discovered that the audience's main concern was with the possibility of dying young from being overweight, he told them: `You'll probably find this astonishing but the people who are most long-lived in these studies are people who I would call "pleasantly plump" or overweight. In fact, even moderately obese live longer those who are the "norm".' The reaction he received shows how deeply imbued the panic has become: `People look at you like you're someone who has two heads.'
Yet Diet Nation claims that in the arbitrary weight categories set by the health authorities and their supporters today, those who are `overweight' - officially `ill', according to today's standards - live longer than those whose weight is apparently `ideal'. This would seem to highlight the ridiculous nature of the Body Mass Index and weight charts that are so popular now. Even those who are morbidly obese are likely to be able to reduce many of the risks associated with their weight by simply taking moderate exercise, even if they fail to lose any weight at all. And the usual prescription for losing weight - dieting - is, by any sensible medical standards, a failure. Weight loss is very difficult to sustain; around 96 per cent of dieters are at least as heavy as their starting weight five years later.
The myth of dieting is a subject that Luik and his colleagues are keen to return to in another book. Having looked at 28 separate papers on the long-term effects of dieting, Luik tells me that 24 show no benefit to losing weight. Even where a benefit is found, it's small. `Here's an example. One study concluded that if you were successful in losing 50 pounds and keeping it off for the rest of your life, you would have a longevity increase in the order of 11 hours.'
Another area where the science is pretty much the opposite of what we've been led to believe is the effect of advertising on children - a topical issue in the UK since Ofcom's recent decision to ban the advertising of `unhealthy' foods during children's TV programmes. Luik sums up the evidence pithily: `We're saying that kids that can operate computers from the time they're three, and have immense media literacy, are so unaware of advertising up to the age of 16 that they can be convinced to buy a packet of crisps by seeing an advertisement, or that a cartoon character is going to convince them to buy a breakfast cereal.' All of which explains why I'm meeting Luik at the offices of Advertising Association: he's just given a talk to the association about why they must tackle the dubious claims made about obesity and the draconian measures being proposed to deal with it.
This isn't just a concern for advertisers, though. The lessons of the campaign against tobacco illustrate that a tactical move to attack industry will sooner or later lead to further attacks on our individual freedoms. Having convinced the world that cigarettes were an evil brought down upon us from on high by Big Tobacco, smokers now find themselves banned in public places; some agencies now ban smokers from lighting up in their own homes if they are being visited by health or social workers; and doctors are increasingly feeling free to refuse treatment to those who won't give up. In turn, the obesity panic is already leading to parents being instructed about how they should feed their children, while hospitals are also turning away the obese.
For the moment, Big Food or the advertising industry might be the fall guys; but it's in all of our interests to oppose the stringent measures being implemented on the basis of this junk panic. Diet Nation has its flaws, but it is an important contribution to our understanding, cutting through the flabby debate that has taken place so far.
Source
NHS patients need to buy organs from Third World to survive
British doctors had written "Joseph" off, saying he was too old to be treated on the National Health Service. But, at 72, he flew to Asia for a double-lung transplant and now claims to be the oldest man in Britain to have survived the operation. Joseph - not his real name - is one of a growing number of Britons who, frustrated with NHS waiting lists, are venturing into the murky world of organ brokers offering kidneys and livers harvested from the poorest quarters of the world, sometimes illicitly. Buying an organ is illegal in Britain, but generally not in Asia.
A former factory worker, Joseph is far from wealthy. He owes his life to his two daughters who used their savings and sold a holiday home to pay the 220,000 pound bill. "Without their sacrifice I would probably have been dead by now," said Joseph. He remains unsure where his new lungs came from. The Singapore surgeons told him only that they had been donated by the family of a much younger man who died from an unspecified head trauma.
His daughters are delighted with his recovery. "You cannot guarantee the success of any major operation. But now he is out hiking," said the eldest last week. "Just looking at him, smiling, brings tears to my eyes."
The family acknowledges its debt to James Cohan, a self-styled "organ transplant co-ordinator" from California who spoke for the first time last week about his pioneering role in the booming organ trade. Cohan has been "matchmaking" dangerously ill Europeans and Americans with Asian and African hospitals for 20 years. He says that over the past decade British inquiries have grown from a trickle into a flood.
Cohan, a tall, slim 66-year-old who lives in the hills outside Los Angeles, works like a stock-market day trader - with a phone and internet connection in a bedroom. He says he has seldom left home since he was arrested in Italy in 1998 for allegedly dealing in stolen body parts from South Africa, charges that were later dismissed. He says he breaks no American laws and deals with 15 hospitals that he has verified are using only legally donated organs.
A cultural and legal mismatch between Asia and the West has led to the current "grey market" where criminal gangs thrive and the sick die on waiting lists, he claimed. "Nightmarish tales of children snatched from streets for their organs will carry on until supply and demand are balanced. Right now there are 300,000 people on waiting lists whose lives could be saved with a more open approach to donation," he said.
This week David Kilgour, a former Canadian MP, will publish a follow-up report to his 2006 investigation that forced China to admit its hospitals sold organs taken from executed prisoners. Kilgour is concerned that executions are timed to coincide with operations, and that surging demand may even influence sentencing.
In May, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, professor of medical anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, will publish The Ends of the Body, which will expose the horrors of the 300m-a-year trade. She will name Asian towns known as "kidney zones", where hundreds of locals bear a diagonal scar marking the removal of an organ for 300 pounds, and have suffered ill health ever since. "This is a cruel, unfair trade," she said. "Technology and greed have far outstripped any government's abilities to regulate it. It's out of control."
Doctors at the Aadil hospital in Lahore, Pakistan, which charges 7,500 for a kidney transplant and deals with up to 30 western organ brokers at a time, say they seek healthy organs from dozens of countries. "Our priority is health, not politics," said a spokesman last week. "We always abide by current laws."
However, surgeons have warned that the failure rate of overseas operations is high and have called for the trade to be banned. Professor Nadey Hakim, president of the International College of Surgeons, said that more than half such operations end up with a bad transplant or the patients die. "The donors get paid very little. The recipient who gets the organ is not treated well either and they get sent back in a very bad condition," he said. I am betting that patients get BETTER treatment in Singapore than they do in the filthy NHS. Han Chinese surgeons are often brilliant and Singapore is immaculate.
Source
Below is a brief summary from a Leftist newspaper of an official British government report that does not appear to be online. It is difficult to dissect the sort of "massaged" statistics one has to expect from official Britain but I expect that the following is going on:
1). Blacks do badly as usual because of their low average IQ.
2). Chinese do badly because of their poor English skills. Most Chinese probably are not born in Britain and mastering English is very difficult for Orientals -- as mastering oriental languages is for us. Most immigrant blacks, by contrast, would come from places where at least a form of English is spoken (e.g. Nigeria, The Caribbean).
3). The "whites" include Jews -- who usually perform very well indeed and who are disproportionately present in higher education.
4). The female advantage comes from the black component. Black females are normally much better motivated than black males and take full advantage of the official and unofficial favouritism that is given to blacks.
5). Amusing that South Asians (Indians etc.) are not mentioned. The obvious inference from the omission is that they did as well as whites overall. So skin colour or "xenophobia" was not a factor.
Black and Chinese students are less likely to get top university degrees than their white contemporaries, a government report has found. The study suggested that ethnic minority undergraduates faced "a considerable cost" as a result because students who get first-class degrees increasingly command higher salaries.
The Department for Education and Skills report also found that students living at home were more likely to get firsts, women performed better than men, and older students tended to get better degrees.
Analysing data for 65,000 students, the researchers predicted the odds of different ethnic groups getting first-class degrees, 2:1s, 2:2s or thirds. The gap was widest for black Caribbean, black African and Chinese students. The analysis took account of factors such as gender, prior academic performance, subject studied and deprivation levels.
"A number of studies have found that attaining a 'good' degree carries a premium in the labour market, and that this premium has been increasing over time, as the higher education system has expanded," the study said. "As a result, there is a considerable cost attached to this attainment gap identified in relation to minority ethnic students."
It cautioned that the findings did not "automatically" imply "ethnic bias". The Higher Education Minister Bill Rammell said the Government was committed to ensuring people of all backgrounds could thrive in higher education."
Source
BRITAIN: DANGEROUS MUSLIM MEDICAL ADVICE
A Muslim doctors' leader has provoked an outcry by urging British Muslims not to vaccinate their children against diseases such as measles, mumps and rubella because it is "un-Islamic". Dr Abdul Majid Katme, head of the Islamic Medical Association, is telling Muslims that almost all vaccines contain products derived from animal and human tissue, which make them "haram", or unlawful for Muslims to take. Islam permits only the consumption of halal products, where the animal has had its throat cut and bled to death while God's name is invoked. Islam also forbids the eating of any pig meat, which Katme says is another reason why vaccines should be avoided, as some contain or have been made using pork-based gelatine.
His warning has been criticised by the Department of Health and the British Medical Association, who said Katme risked increasing infections ranging from flu and measles to polio and diphtheria in Muslim communities.
Katme, a psychiatrist who has worked in the National Health Service for 15 years, wields influence as the head of one of only two national Islamic medical organisations as well as being a member of the Muslim Council of Britain. Moderate Muslims are concerned at the potential impact because other Islamic doctors will have to confirm vaccines are derived from animal and human products. There is already evidence of lower than average vaccination rates in Muslim areas, reducing the prospect of the "herd immunity" needed to curb infectious diseases such as measles, mumps and rubella.
Katme's appeal reflects a global movement by some hardline Islamic leaders who are telling followers torefuse vaccines from the West. In Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of India, Muslims have refused to be immunised against polio after being told that the vaccines contain products that the West has deliberately added to make the recipients infertile.
Katme said he was bringing the message to Britain after analysing the products used for the manufacture of the vaccines. He claimed that Muslims must allow their children to develop their own immune system naturally rather than rely on vaccines. He argued that leading "Islamically healthy lives" would be enough to ward off illnesses and diseases. "You see, God created us perfect and with a very strong defence system. If you breast-feed your child for two years - as the Koran says - and you eat Koranic food like olives and black seed, and you do ablution each time you pray, then you will have a strong defence system," he said. "Many vaccines, especially those given to children, are full of haram substances - human parts, gelatine from pork, alcohol, animal/monkey parts, all coming from the West who do not have knowledge of halal or haram. It is forbidden in Islam to have any of these haram substances in our bodies." Katme singled out vaccines such as MMR as ones to avoid, despite doctors saying that they are essential to keep a baby healthy. Others included those for diphtheria, tetanus, acellular pertussis and meningitis.
Dr Shuja Shafi, a spokesman for the health and medical committee of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: "In terms of ingredients in vaccines, there are so many things that are probably haram, but in the absence of an alternative we are allowed to take it for the sake of our health."
Source
Time to evict official anti-racism
The row over Britain's Celebrity Big Brother shows that hysterically witch-hunting 'racists' is a new British sport
Jade Goody may have been evicted from the Celebrity Big Brother house on Friday, yet the bizarre controversy surrounding her rows with Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty continues to rumble on and reverberate. And the acres of handwringing commentary in the tabloids and broadsheets suggest that Ms Goody is not the only one who is firing-off ill-judged opinions.
Trevor Phillips, head of the Commission for Racial Equality, waded in on Sunday with demands that Channel 4 be overseen by supernanny-in-waiting, Tessa Jowell. In his eyes the refusal of Channel 4 chairman Luke Johnson to describe the Goody/Shetty fallout as `racist' should be a sackable offence. Elsewhere, the granddaddy of race monitoring, London mayor Ken Livingstone, sought to slap Channel 4's wrists. And according to Guardian columnist Jackie Ashley, apparently the Big Brother freakshow is all New Labour's fault anyway - or at least Tony Blair's, whom she accuses of nurturing a public culture as cruel as any that existed under Thatcher.
It is a measure of the disrepair of political and public life that so many public figures, including Blair and the PM-in-waiting Gordon Brown, feel compelled to comment on Celebrity Big Brother. As Brendan O'Neill has pointed out, the speed with which commentators (over)reacted to Goody and her sidekicks' outbursts reveals their own blinkered prejudices about the white working class as a whole (1). Pundits have gleefully pounced on this incident as insurmountable `proof' that nasty racial prejudice is alive and kicking among the great unwashed.
In fact, the most striking thing about Celebrity Big Brother is that it simultaneously tells us very little about British society and an awful lot about brass-necked opinion makers. It is clear to anyone with eyes and ears that race no longer has the same corrosive impact it once had in British society. Indeed, many of my students who have Indian backgrounds say that Goody's clanking comments are hardly representative of their experience of living in Britain in the twenty-first century. They can shrug off the Goody v Shetty row precisely because race doesn't impinge on their lives. However, high-minded pundits cannot shrug off the idea that Big Brother exerts great `influence' on all the `couch potatoes' out there. Germaine Greer thinks the masses who watch the programme were probably cheering on Goody's taunts, seeing Shetty as just another `Paki bird'. Leaving aside the risible `monkey say/monkey do' implications here, it's worth questioning whether Big Brother is as popular or influential as pundits claim.
Prior to this year's race controversy, viewing figures were down to a paltry 1.4 million, before climbing to a still unremarkable four million. Even at the height of the non-celebrity Big Brother `mania' during the summer months, viewing figures hover around the seven million mark. If soap operas or flagship dramas like Prime Suspect pulled in those kind of viewing figures, they would be deemed as failures and possibly dropped. So why is Big Brother seen as `required viewing' for the mass of the population, when, in fact, relatively speaking not that many people watch it?
The truth is that Big Brother's core audience is teenage girls, students, and fashionistas/style journalists who can't let go of irony. It is this (largely) youthful audience that makes BB appealing to advertisers, as well as celebrity magazines and tabloids and broadsheets seeking a new generation of readers. For older generations of working people, Big Brother is largely irrelevant and a somewhat bizarre spectacle. Ironically enough, it is because Big Brother is a media rather than social phenomenon that all kinds of outlandish claims can be projected on to it. And in the Goody v Shetty debacle, reams of half-baked rubbish have been spouted about the `Vicky Pollards' who supposedly populate both the show and its audience.
The response to this year's Celebrity Big Brother shows how forceful official anti-racism has become as a conforming mechanism. Whether it is through televised autopsies or wankathons, Channel 4 has long courted rather prurient `controversy'. But engineering racial and cultural tensions has been a step `too far' for even staunch supporters of this increasingly idiotic channel. It seems Channel 4 can dabble with any taboo it likes, apart from the new orthodoxies surrounding race. There is a baying hysteria in contemporary `anti-racism'. As Goody herself said after the eviction: `I've never been so terrified in all my life.'
Far from striking a blow for racial equality and freedom, official and tyrannical anti-racism nurtures fresh divisions and fosters a culture of unfreedom. This was reflected by one anti-racist group's statement that `private utterances should be viewed in the same light as public ones' - that is, what people say behind closed doors, or presumably even think in their own minds, should be subject to rules and regulations in the same way that public speech too often is. The reaction to the Goody/Shetty farce has popularised such a dangerous and nonsensical idea, with its blurred distinction between a private argument between two people (filmed and aired, of course) and the wild claims made about what this reveals about our public culture.
The commentary on Goody/Shetty has become a vehicle for expressing a broader anti-human sentiment. If some pundits are sceptical that Goody is consciously `racist', nearly all agree that she is a `bully'. For Jackie Ashley, it is bullying rather than overt racism that is the single defining characteristic of contemporary British society. So much so that even `Jade-the-bully is then vigorously bullied and abused by the same newspapers that so recently found her funny' (2). In this light, Celebrity Big Brother is portrayed as a reflection on how rotten the (unregulated) human subject really is. Apparently if you put humans together the essential desire to dominate `the other' will always win through. And for many, racism naturally follows bullying as the primeval urge lurking within us all. Celebrity Big Brother popularises the idea that, in the words of actor/director Gary Oldman, `we all need therapy'.
For many pundits, the problem with Goody is that because of her `poor breeding', she is apparently more pathologically prone to hateful outbursts than others. Goody's blubbering, confessional interviews with both Davina McCall and the News of the World shows how quickly she has internalised the therapeutic mode.
The furore over Goody's crass behaviour towards Shetty has been a heaven-sent opportunity for half-witted commentators to obsess over an imaginary underclass. In truth, the tantrums inside the CBB house say nothing about what's happening in multi-racial Britain, though the furore reveals much about the nasty prejudices of certain commentators. If the Goody/Shetty incident reveals anything about the state of Britain, it is that official anti-racism has become an hysterical and authoritarian force. Far from fretting about Goody and Co's infantile behaviour, isn't it time we put that up for eviction instead?
Source
Child obesity
Is the next generation of Brits facing an epidemic of ill-health?
Panic: The UK House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts has published a new report lambasting the government for failing to tackle child obesity. The report notes that `obesity is a serious health condition', `a causal factor in a number of chronic diseases and conditions', and that `overall, it reduces life expectancy by an average of nine years'. According to the report, `there has been a steady rise in the number of children aged 2 to 10 who are obese - from 9.9 per cent in 1995 to 13.9 per cent in 2004.'
Don't panic: If the committee wishes to attack the government, and demand ever-greater intervention against parents, schools and companies, it had better get its facts straight. Obesity is not a serious health condition. It is a category of body morphology. The definition employed by the committee, the standard one in health circles, is that someone is `obese' if they have a body mass index (BMI) above 30; essentially, if the ratio of their weight to height is above a certain level. Aside from the fact that this ratio can just as easily describe excess muscle as excess fat, being fat does not necessarily imply ill-health. The majority of fat people are pretty healthy. In fact, it is those who, under today's abitrary categories, would be defined as `overweight' or moderately obese (with a BMI between 25 and 32) who seem to have the best life expectancy.
We do not know to what extent, if at all, obesity is a causal factor in chronic disease. We do know that obesity - particularly morbid obesity - is associated with increased risks of heart disease and type-2 diabetes, for example, but causation is a different matter. Given that fat people who are also fit seem to have very similar health profiles to thin but sedentary people, it may well be that lack of exercise not fatty tissue is the most important factor. In any event, untangling all the potential confounding factors makes the simple `obesity=disease/death' equation far too simplistic.
Specifically, the figure given for years of life lost is wrong. It appears to be repeating a statistic from a National Audit Office (NAO) report in 2001. However, what that report actually says is: `On average, each person whose death could be attributed to obesity lost nine years of life.' While this kind of attribution is fraught with problems, it is also very different from the statement in the latest report. The NAO report said six per cent of deaths were due to obesity - suggesting that most obese people die because of some other factor. Therefore, simple maths suggests the average number of years lost due to obesity is substantially lower than the nine years suggested by the new report.
As for child obesity, there is much dispute about what is an appropriate measure - BMI, for example, is even less relevant in children than in adults. But, according to the Health Survey for England in 2002: `About one in 20 boys (5.5 per cent) and about one in 15 girls (7.2 per cent) aged 2 to 15 were obese in 2002, according to the international classification.' While children have got a bit fatter in recent years, average weights for children have changed little.
We are facing an epidemic, it's true: an epidemic of regulation, intervention and fear-mongering. And it will all be based on reports like this one from the Committee of Public Accounts. While the motivations of these politicians may be sincere, their role in the obesity panic is likely only to make us more unhealthily obsessed with food and weight.
Source
A diet of misinformation
John Luik, co-author of Diet Nation, tells Rob Lyons that the obesity panic is being fattened by savvy interest groups and junk science
`More than any other government, the UK government has bought into it. The UK leads the world in bad obesity policy.' I'm sitting in the offices of the Advertising Association discussing the obesity panic with John Luik, co-author of Diet Nation: Exposing the Obesity Crusade. Luik is a genial American policy analyst who's gunning for the `relatively small group of people around the world who have decided, manufactured, this as a problem, and who have sold it to governments.'
`If we had gotten paid by the advertising industry to write this book - which we didn't - people would say, "You guys are on the take". But you can have people on the other side who get hundreds of thousands of pounds from those who have a deliberate interest in making people think they're fat, and no-one thinks that is a question of corruption.'
In Diet Nation, Luik and his co-authors, Patrick Basham and Gio Gori, show that the fear of expanding waistlines is nothing new. But they argue that the modern hysteria about getting fat has little to do with real dangers to our health, or that of our children; rather it has become the obsession of an unholy alliance of sophisticated lobby groups and junk science.
This is perfectly illustrated by a report published by the House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts this week, which leaps from making plainly untrue statements about the problem of obesity to berating the government for not doing enough to address it, by clamping down on the food industry, for example, or frightening parents and stigmatising children.
Fretting over our waistlines has a long history. There was already medical discussion about the problem of obesity in the late nineteenth century, but as a `product rather than a cause' of the prejudice against excess weight. Within a few years, this issue started impacting on popular culture. In 1907 a popular American play called Nobody Likes a Fat Man was staged, and in 1913 Edith Wharton described one of her characters fretting about being anything more than `perpendicular'. As the authors of Diet Nation note, in one respect `the century-long European and American preoccupation with thinness and the rejection of fat is very much a social construct in which obesity is increasingly associated with the morally unacceptable' (p33).
The first obesity crusade took off in the Fifties, and was particularly inspired by the work of Louis Dublin, a biologist working for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in the US. He was a man on a mission. He wrote hundreds of articles on the subject and produced just the kind of research that is the mainstay of obesity discussions today: he rather dubiously compared the weight of individuals (often self-reported) with mortality many years later. There were many obvious limitations, especially the fact that the subjects were self-selected (insurance buyers were not typical of the population then), and that their weight was not regularly measured over the period of study; in fact, it was often not measured independently at all. And yet, Dublin tried to persuade America using this shaky data that not only was being morbidly obese bad for your health, but even levels of weight 10 per cent above his `ideal' could shorten your life.
While much of the medical profession supported Dublin, others were puzzled to find his results difficult to replicate. Anyway, his worst fears were not realised, as Diet Nation notes: `As the 1960s and 70s came and went, Americans did not lose significant amounts of weight, though they dieted continuously. They enjoyed better health, while the prevalence of most major diseases declined and longevity increased.' (p42)
For Luik et al, while the modern obesity crusade - which began in earnest in the 1990s - still has a moralising tone to it, the message coming from the crusaders emphasises another message just as much: `obesity is no longer a moral failing of bad fat people, but a sickness, acquired in large measure from a "toxic food environment", that requires medical treatment' (p34). It is true that contemporary campaigners against obesity talk about `evil corporations' as much as they do feckless individuals. So, much of the debate increasingly focuses on processed food (like the infamous Turkey Twizzler), fast-food restaurants like McDonald's, agonised debates about labelling, and bans on adverts.
However, it would be wrong to understate the powerful moralistic streak in discussions of obesity and food. In the focus on junk-food restaurants, for example, there is often a barely concealed contempt for the largely working-class people who eat there, who are presumed to be lazy, unthinking and not sufficiently concerned with healthy cooking and physical exercise. They are seen as `junk' people. At a time when it is unfashionable to pass strictly moral judgements on people's lifestyles, the lower orders tend to be maligned through the coded issue of food and health.
The crusaders have maintained a clear and oft-repeated message, according to Luik and his co-authors: `Overweight/obesity equals death; weight loss is possible and necessary; the sources of the problem are to be found in corporate misbehaviour, not individual gluttony or sloth; and personal responsibility is insufficient, as significant governmental action is required.' (p43) While the authors concede that many campaigners may be sincere, `the existence of an obesity epidemic offers enormous commercial, financial and power-maximising opportunities for. the medical profession, academic researchers, the public health community, the government health bureaucracy, the pharmaceutical industry, the fitness industry and the weight-loss industry' (p44).
From this point of view, it's the persistence, brilliance and deviousness of the campaigners, backed by the attitude-distorting presence of very sizeable amounts of money and influence, that have driven the current panic. There is no doubt much truth in this. Often, it is the same relatively small band of experts who conduct research, get paid to be consultants for industry, sit on the boards of specialist journals, and are asked to give evidence to, or advise, governments on public health policy.
The mechanics of how power and influence are grabbed are intriguing, especially when the players involved occasionally make a hash of it. Consider the report of the House of Commons Health Committee published in May 2004, which focused on the effect of obesity on children. The report made a huge splash with the case of a three-year-old girl who had died `from heart failure where obesity was a contributory factor'. The doctor giving evidence on the case described children on her own ward as `choking on their own fat'. However, as spiked revealed at the time, this was not a case of parents negligently feeding a child to death; rather the little girl suffered from a rare genetic disorder (see Choking on the facts, by Brendan O'Neill).
Then there is the case of the US report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2004, which proclaimed that obesity was causing 400,000 deaths a year. This immediately sparked calls for massive government intervention. However, the authors of Diet Nation note how the report was prepared, not by the CDC's top experts on the subject, but by the CDC's director and other researchers attached to her office. After what appears to have been considerable internal criticism of the report, another group of CDC researchers reviewed it, and their review eventually found its way into the public domain under a Freedom of Information request. This second report suggested that a more accurate figure for excess obesity deaths was about 25,000 - 94 per cent lower than the original estimate. Strikingly, the original report was produced under pressure to `get the right result' because a range of groups had an interest in reaching the highest possible figure.
Such methods of securing influence may be increasingly common; yet there is something slightly unsatisfactory in using this as an explanation for the obesity panic. Are governments and the public simply being suckered? Or have there been social and political changes that have left individuals more open to being spooked about their health, and politicians more enthusiastic about interfering in areas of our lives that were previously off-limits? These questions aren't really answered in Diet Nation.
Too often the debate about obesity ends up in a mud-slinging contest over which side is the more corrupted. This provides little illumination into the facts of the matter, and it feeds the cynical outlook that suggests anyone's position can be evaluated by those who have paid to support it. On that basis, Luik and his co-authors could easily be pigeonholed as `free market libertarians' or something similar, as a means of dismissing them. But they clearly have a great deal more to say about obesity than the question of who-paid-who.
The chapter on the science of obesity will surprise many. Luik tells me about a presentation he gave recently at the offices of a major international bank in London. Having discovered that the audience's main concern was with the possibility of dying young from being overweight, he told them: `You'll probably find this astonishing but the people who are most long-lived in these studies are people who I would call "pleasantly plump" or overweight. In fact, even moderately obese live longer those who are the "norm".' The reaction he received shows how deeply imbued the panic has become: `People look at you like you're someone who has two heads.'
Yet Diet Nation claims that in the arbitrary weight categories set by the health authorities and their supporters today, those who are `overweight' - officially `ill', according to today's standards - live longer than those whose weight is apparently `ideal'. This would seem to highlight the ridiculous nature of the Body Mass Index and weight charts that are so popular now. Even those who are morbidly obese are likely to be able to reduce many of the risks associated with their weight by simply taking moderate exercise, even if they fail to lose any weight at all. And the usual prescription for losing weight - dieting - is, by any sensible medical standards, a failure. Weight loss is very difficult to sustain; around 96 per cent of dieters are at least as heavy as their starting weight five years later.
The myth of dieting is a subject that Luik and his colleagues are keen to return to in another book. Having looked at 28 separate papers on the long-term effects of dieting, Luik tells me that 24 show no benefit to losing weight. Even where a benefit is found, it's small. `Here's an example. One study concluded that if you were successful in losing 50 pounds and keeping it off for the rest of your life, you would have a longevity increase in the order of 11 hours.'
Another area where the science is pretty much the opposite of what we've been led to believe is the effect of advertising on children - a topical issue in the UK since Ofcom's recent decision to ban the advertising of `unhealthy' foods during children's TV programmes. Luik sums up the evidence pithily: `We're saying that kids that can operate computers from the time they're three, and have immense media literacy, are so unaware of advertising up to the age of 16 that they can be convinced to buy a packet of crisps by seeing an advertisement, or that a cartoon character is going to convince them to buy a breakfast cereal.' All of which explains why I'm meeting Luik at the offices of Advertising Association: he's just given a talk to the association about why they must tackle the dubious claims made about obesity and the draconian measures being proposed to deal with it.
This isn't just a concern for advertisers, though. The lessons of the campaign against tobacco illustrate that a tactical move to attack industry will sooner or later lead to further attacks on our individual freedoms. Having convinced the world that cigarettes were an evil brought down upon us from on high by Big Tobacco, smokers now find themselves banned in public places; some agencies now ban smokers from lighting up in their own homes if they are being visited by health or social workers; and doctors are increasingly feeling free to refuse treatment to those who won't give up. In turn, the obesity panic is already leading to parents being instructed about how they should feed their children, while hospitals are also turning away the obese.
For the moment, Big Food or the advertising industry might be the fall guys; but it's in all of our interests to oppose the stringent measures being implemented on the basis of this junk panic. Diet Nation has its flaws, but it is an important contribution to our understanding, cutting through the flabby debate that has taken place so far.
Source
NHS patients need to buy organs from Third World to survive
British doctors had written "Joseph" off, saying he was too old to be treated on the National Health Service. But, at 72, he flew to Asia for a double-lung transplant and now claims to be the oldest man in Britain to have survived the operation. Joseph - not his real name - is one of a growing number of Britons who, frustrated with NHS waiting lists, are venturing into the murky world of organ brokers offering kidneys and livers harvested from the poorest quarters of the world, sometimes illicitly. Buying an organ is illegal in Britain, but generally not in Asia.
A former factory worker, Joseph is far from wealthy. He owes his life to his two daughters who used their savings and sold a holiday home to pay the 220,000 pound bill. "Without their sacrifice I would probably have been dead by now," said Joseph. He remains unsure where his new lungs came from. The Singapore surgeons told him only that they had been donated by the family of a much younger man who died from an unspecified head trauma.
His daughters are delighted with his recovery. "You cannot guarantee the success of any major operation. But now he is out hiking," said the eldest last week. "Just looking at him, smiling, brings tears to my eyes."
The family acknowledges its debt to James Cohan, a self-styled "organ transplant co-ordinator" from California who spoke for the first time last week about his pioneering role in the booming organ trade. Cohan has been "matchmaking" dangerously ill Europeans and Americans with Asian and African hospitals for 20 years. He says that over the past decade British inquiries have grown from a trickle into a flood.
Cohan, a tall, slim 66-year-old who lives in the hills outside Los Angeles, works like a stock-market day trader - with a phone and internet connection in a bedroom. He says he has seldom left home since he was arrested in Italy in 1998 for allegedly dealing in stolen body parts from South Africa, charges that were later dismissed. He says he breaks no American laws and deals with 15 hospitals that he has verified are using only legally donated organs.
A cultural and legal mismatch between Asia and the West has led to the current "grey market" where criminal gangs thrive and the sick die on waiting lists, he claimed. "Nightmarish tales of children snatched from streets for their organs will carry on until supply and demand are balanced. Right now there are 300,000 people on waiting lists whose lives could be saved with a more open approach to donation," he said.
This week David Kilgour, a former Canadian MP, will publish a follow-up report to his 2006 investigation that forced China to admit its hospitals sold organs taken from executed prisoners. Kilgour is concerned that executions are timed to coincide with operations, and that surging demand may even influence sentencing.
In May, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, professor of medical anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, will publish The Ends of the Body, which will expose the horrors of the 300m-a-year trade. She will name Asian towns known as "kidney zones", where hundreds of locals bear a diagonal scar marking the removal of an organ for 300 pounds, and have suffered ill health ever since. "This is a cruel, unfair trade," she said. "Technology and greed have far outstripped any government's abilities to regulate it. It's out of control."
Doctors at the Aadil hospital in Lahore, Pakistan, which charges 7,500 for a kidney transplant and deals with up to 30 western organ brokers at a time, say they seek healthy organs from dozens of countries. "Our priority is health, not politics," said a spokesman last week. "We always abide by current laws."
However, surgeons have warned that the failure rate of overseas operations is high and have called for the trade to be banned. Professor Nadey Hakim, president of the International College of Surgeons, said that more than half such operations end up with a bad transplant or the patients die. "The donors get paid very little. The recipient who gets the organ is not treated well either and they get sent back in a very bad condition," he said. I am betting that patients get BETTER treatment in Singapore than they do in the filthy NHS. Han Chinese surgeons are often brilliant and Singapore is immaculate.
Source
Monday, January 29, 2007
British "social workers" put fat children on "abused" list
The Unhinged Kingdom devises a new madness
Social workers are placing obese children on the child protection register alongside victims thought to be at risk of sexual or physical abuse. In extreme cases children have been placed in foster care because their parents have contributed to the health problems of their offspring by failing to respond to medical advice. The intervention of social services in what was previously regarded as a private matter is likely to raise concerns about the emergence of the "fat police".
Some doctors even advocate taking legal action against parents for illtreating their children by feeding them so much that they develop health problems. Dr Russell Viner, a consultant paediatrician at Great Ormond Street and University College London hospitals, said: "In my practice, I can think of about 10 or 15 cases in which child protection action has been taken because of obesity. We now constantly get letters from social workers about child protection due to childhood obesity."
Viner points out that children are not placed on the child protection register simply for being obese but only if parents fail to act on advice and take steps to help their children lose weight. "Obesity in itself is not a child protection concern," he said. "When parents fail to act in their child's best interests with regard to their weight - for example, if they are enrolled on a behavioural treatment session and only get to two out of 10 sessions or if they miss medical appointments - then the obesity becomes a child protection concern."
Dr Alyson Hall, consultant child psychiatrist at the Emmanuel Miller Centre for Families and Children in east London, said that in some cases children were put into foster care to ensure their safety. "I have known instances where local authorities have had to consider placement outside the family. It has been voluntary so far, and has not gone to care proceedings, but that could happen," she said. "These are children suffering from sleep apnoea and serious health complications from diabetes. Initially, social workers try to help the parents but, in some cases, the parents are the problem."
Earlier this month two brothers were convicted of causing unnecessary suffering by letting their dog become obese. The labrador, Rusty, was 11 stone, more than double the weight he should have been, and could hardly stand. "We wonder whether the same charge should be applicable to the parents of dangerously obese children," said Dr Tom Solomon, a neurologist at Royal Liverpool University hospital. "I think it should be considered. It depends on the parents' attitude. If the parents say there is nothing they can do because their child only likes to eat chips and biscuits then perhaps it might be worth the state intervening. "The state intervenes with schooling. Parents who do not send their children to school are prosecuted eventually. To be badly educated is not dangerous but we are making our children diabetic, and even killing our children by our feeding habits."
Tam Fry, chairman of the Child Growth Foundation, a charity that fights childhood obesity, agreed. "It should be a punishable offence," he said. "Very obese children are taking up NHS resources that should be used for legitimate purposes. Parents have got to be held accountable for overfeeding their children or letting their children become fat without taking action."
Other health workers, however, argue that parents should not be punished because social circumstances sometimes prevent them from ensuring their children follow a healthy diet. Last week the government's strategy for tackling childhood obesity was criticised as "confused" and "dithering" by the Commons public accounts committee. MPs warned that ministers are set to miss their target to halt the rise in childhood obesity by 2010. The number of children aged under 11 who are obese leapt from 9.9% in 1995 to 13.4% in 2004
Source
British police refuse to chase 'helmetless' bike thieves
A mother has spoken of her fury after police refused to chase her sons' stolen motorbikes - because the thieves weren't wearing helmets. Pauline Nolan, of Droylsden, Greater Manchester, claims traffic officers told her they could not pursue the pair in case they fell off and sued the police force. She says her sons Bradley, 11, and Ashley, 18, are devastated. They usually spend every weekend travelling to motocross competitions up and down the country, but are now stuck at home.
Mrs Nolan, 44, was on her way home from work at 1.45pm when the thieves raced past her at 60mph on her son's bikes. "I recognised them immediately, but they were gone in a flash," she said. "I arrived home to find the garage door had been forced open. "They had drilled through the locks and cut the chains. They had even pushed our Corsa out of the way to steal Ashley's bike, which was purposefully blocked in.
"I can't believe they had the cheek to do it in broad daylight. I was minutes away from catching them red-handed. I called the police and someone arrived to take a statement." She says the police officer then told her that the bikes had been spotted in Beswick, Manchester. She said: "I thought 'we've got them', until he sheepishly added they couldn't give chase because they weren't wearing helmets. I was speechless. How pathetic is that? "I've never heard such a stupid law. It seems everything is weighed in favour of criminals nowadays."
Inspector Martin O'Connor, of the road policing unit, said: "In situations like this officers need to carefully consider the safety of all road users before deciding whether or not to begin a pursuit. "This means taking into consideration the time of day, weather, traffic conditions, the nature of the original offence and then make a risk assessment based on all these circumstances. "In this case a decision was made that it would not have been safe to pursue the bikes."
Mrs Nolan has put up a cash reward for the bikes' return - an orange and black KTM 250 and a black and green Kawasaki 65 with distinctive "Monster Energy" graphics. She said: "My kids live for motocross. We can't afford 7,000 pounds to replace them. The 11-year-old said he's going to sell his toys and his X-Box to save up for a new one. It's heartbreaking."
Source
University: Who needs it?
Britain: As more and more pupils go to university – and pay ever more for the privilege – many are questioning whether they are getting a fair return
When Anthony Kluk set off for Leeds University to read physics with two As and two Bs in his pocket he thought it was going to be the first day of the rest of his life: a bright new start in a brave new world. It didn’t quite work out like that. “Once I got to university I found myself repeating the material I had studied for the last two years. I was forced to spend hours in the laboratory doing what can only be described as watching paint dry. It was so tedious that going back to halls and doing homework was the last thing on my mind. “And since Leeds was filled with alcohol-fuelled distractions, as well as my complete lack of motivation, I started every day with a hangover. I decided to cut my losses and start my career.” One year into his course he dropped out. Two years on he is happily employed as a corporate banker.
Source
Immigration Benefit 'Equivalent to a Mars bar a Month': "New figures out today reveal that, on the Government's own figures, the benefit to each member of the native population of the UK from immigration is worth about 4p a week - or less than the equivalent of a small Mars bar a month. In an analysis of a series of reports on the economic impact of immigration on the UK think-tank Migrationwatch has found that overall the much vaunted contribution of immigrants to the economy is very slight indeed - a finding that coincides with the results of major studies around the world."
The Unhinged Kingdom devises a new madness
Social workers are placing obese children on the child protection register alongside victims thought to be at risk of sexual or physical abuse. In extreme cases children have been placed in foster care because their parents have contributed to the health problems of their offspring by failing to respond to medical advice. The intervention of social services in what was previously regarded as a private matter is likely to raise concerns about the emergence of the "fat police".
Some doctors even advocate taking legal action against parents for illtreating their children by feeding them so much that they develop health problems. Dr Russell Viner, a consultant paediatrician at Great Ormond Street and University College London hospitals, said: "In my practice, I can think of about 10 or 15 cases in which child protection action has been taken because of obesity. We now constantly get letters from social workers about child protection due to childhood obesity."
Viner points out that children are not placed on the child protection register simply for being obese but only if parents fail to act on advice and take steps to help their children lose weight. "Obesity in itself is not a child protection concern," he said. "When parents fail to act in their child's best interests with regard to their weight - for example, if they are enrolled on a behavioural treatment session and only get to two out of 10 sessions or if they miss medical appointments - then the obesity becomes a child protection concern."
Dr Alyson Hall, consultant child psychiatrist at the Emmanuel Miller Centre for Families and Children in east London, said that in some cases children were put into foster care to ensure their safety. "I have known instances where local authorities have had to consider placement outside the family. It has been voluntary so far, and has not gone to care proceedings, but that could happen," she said. "These are children suffering from sleep apnoea and serious health complications from diabetes. Initially, social workers try to help the parents but, in some cases, the parents are the problem."
Earlier this month two brothers were convicted of causing unnecessary suffering by letting their dog become obese. The labrador, Rusty, was 11 stone, more than double the weight he should have been, and could hardly stand. "We wonder whether the same charge should be applicable to the parents of dangerously obese children," said Dr Tom Solomon, a neurologist at Royal Liverpool University hospital. "I think it should be considered. It depends on the parents' attitude. If the parents say there is nothing they can do because their child only likes to eat chips and biscuits then perhaps it might be worth the state intervening. "The state intervenes with schooling. Parents who do not send their children to school are prosecuted eventually. To be badly educated is not dangerous but we are making our children diabetic, and even killing our children by our feeding habits."
Tam Fry, chairman of the Child Growth Foundation, a charity that fights childhood obesity, agreed. "It should be a punishable offence," he said. "Very obese children are taking up NHS resources that should be used for legitimate purposes. Parents have got to be held accountable for overfeeding their children or letting their children become fat without taking action."
Other health workers, however, argue that parents should not be punished because social circumstances sometimes prevent them from ensuring their children follow a healthy diet. Last week the government's strategy for tackling childhood obesity was criticised as "confused" and "dithering" by the Commons public accounts committee. MPs warned that ministers are set to miss their target to halt the rise in childhood obesity by 2010. The number of children aged under 11 who are obese leapt from 9.9% in 1995 to 13.4% in 2004
Source
British police refuse to chase 'helmetless' bike thieves
A mother has spoken of her fury after police refused to chase her sons' stolen motorbikes - because the thieves weren't wearing helmets. Pauline Nolan, of Droylsden, Greater Manchester, claims traffic officers told her they could not pursue the pair in case they fell off and sued the police force. She says her sons Bradley, 11, and Ashley, 18, are devastated. They usually spend every weekend travelling to motocross competitions up and down the country, but are now stuck at home.
Mrs Nolan, 44, was on her way home from work at 1.45pm when the thieves raced past her at 60mph on her son's bikes. "I recognised them immediately, but they were gone in a flash," she said. "I arrived home to find the garage door had been forced open. "They had drilled through the locks and cut the chains. They had even pushed our Corsa out of the way to steal Ashley's bike, which was purposefully blocked in.
"I can't believe they had the cheek to do it in broad daylight. I was minutes away from catching them red-handed. I called the police and someone arrived to take a statement." She says the police officer then told her that the bikes had been spotted in Beswick, Manchester. She said: "I thought 'we've got them', until he sheepishly added they couldn't give chase because they weren't wearing helmets. I was speechless. How pathetic is that? "I've never heard such a stupid law. It seems everything is weighed in favour of criminals nowadays."
Inspector Martin O'Connor, of the road policing unit, said: "In situations like this officers need to carefully consider the safety of all road users before deciding whether or not to begin a pursuit. "This means taking into consideration the time of day, weather, traffic conditions, the nature of the original offence and then make a risk assessment based on all these circumstances. "In this case a decision was made that it would not have been safe to pursue the bikes."
Mrs Nolan has put up a cash reward for the bikes' return - an orange and black KTM 250 and a black and green Kawasaki 65 with distinctive "Monster Energy" graphics. She said: "My kids live for motocross. We can't afford 7,000 pounds to replace them. The 11-year-old said he's going to sell his toys and his X-Box to save up for a new one. It's heartbreaking."
Source
University: Who needs it?
Britain: As more and more pupils go to university – and pay ever more for the privilege – many are questioning whether they are getting a fair return
When Anthony Kluk set off for Leeds University to read physics with two As and two Bs in his pocket he thought it was going to be the first day of the rest of his life: a bright new start in a brave new world. It didn’t quite work out like that. “Once I got to university I found myself repeating the material I had studied for the last two years. I was forced to spend hours in the laboratory doing what can only be described as watching paint dry. It was so tedious that going back to halls and doing homework was the last thing on my mind. “And since Leeds was filled with alcohol-fuelled distractions, as well as my complete lack of motivation, I started every day with a hangover. I decided to cut my losses and start my career.” One year into his course he dropped out. Two years on he is happily employed as a corporate banker.
Similar self-doubt has also crept into the cloistered quads of Oxbridge. By the end of her first year reading English Lucy Tobin found herself sitting on the manicured lawns of Lady Margaret Hall on the banks of the Cherwell and wondering why. A year earlier the main thing on her mind had been not Alfred Lord Tennyson but Tanya from Footballers’ Wives, as she did a gap year on a tabloid newspaper. “The allure of Oxford swung my decision towards academia, but there are still times when I’m sitting in a crowded lecture theatre and wonder if I did the right thing swapping a salary for Malory.”
None of this is what Tony Blair wants to hear with his vision of a country where half the population is university-educated. At first glance the need for a degree is a no-brainer. Professions allow entry only to graduates, and many companies insist on recruits with a degree — or even two. Yet employers also insist that a degree alone is not an accurate measure of employability; indeed 40% of them believe the qualification has become devalued. Some of the most important skills — numeracy, literacy and communication — are supposed to be instilled in school but are still lacking in many students emerging from university.
So does a degree really mean anything any more? At £3,000 a year in most cases is it worth the mock-vellum it is inscribed on? Increasingly students and their parents (who usually have to stump up for the fees) don’t think so.
THE number of students starting university in the current academic year fell by 3.6% from 2005, although because the figures were up on 2004 it is not yet clear if it represents the beginning of a downward trend. What is certain is that it reflects the leap in tuition fees from just over £1,000 a year to £3,000. And with the top universities now lobbying for fees to rise even higher, possibly doubling to £6,000, those who are taking up what was once seen as a prestigious privilege are beginning to see it as a risky business proposition.
Eytan Austin, 20, saw his experience in those terms before pulling out of what he calls a “poor quality” course at Thames Valley University. “I enrolled in events management, but I quickly realised I would be better off learning independently,” he said.
“There was a day and a half of lessons per week, but they were teaching us how to be employees when I want to be an entrepreneur. I’m sure it was helpful for some people; but for me the course fees were not worth it. Now I’m in the real world I’m learning from my mistakes rather than sitting through lectures. Since dropping out I’ve got no regrets at all. I’m just really happy with life.”
Drop-out rates, particularly among the “new universities”, mostly former polytechnics, are disturbingly high and rising. London South Bank and East London universities as well as Bolton University all have projected drop-out rates of more than 27%.
It is not just those who drop out who are challenging the value-added nature of a university education. Those who are eager to stick it through are wondering if they are getting their money’s worth.
When Bristol University cut teaching time in history for third-year undergraduates from six hours a week to two last year, it triggered protests from both the students and their parents. Etan Smallman, 20, a history student, reckoned he was being short-changed. “We expect better services for more money, not reduced ones,” he said.
One Bristol undergraduate told the university’s student newspaper: “I thought I was paying to be educated by leading academics, not for a library membership and a reading list.”
There is evidence now of a student revolt that has more in common with a consumer watchdog campaign than the campus politics of the 1960s. A maverick website called www.williseemytutor.com rates universities on student-to-tutor ratios and produces some damning comments. Several universities are rated by their own students as “rubbish” or “shocking”. The academic departments concerned are talking about legal action. But so are some students and parents. Jack Rabinowicz, an education lawyer whose daughter is a student at a northern university, complains that the number of seminars and tutorials seems to be decreasing drastically. Rabinowicz would like to see legally binding contracts spelling out what students are entitled to in return for their fees.
“Some students have one-sided contracts with the obligations on the student not to break university rules,” he said. “What is needed is a contract that the university has an obligation not to employ crap lecturers. I had a land law lecturer who was usually drunk. These people still exist.” Rabinowicz suggests that “mass actions for compensation — a hundred students getting together and claiming the return of £1,000 each — could be worthwhile”.
THE question is how much of this growing malaise is due to the government’s 50% target for pupils in higher education and how much is the result of a school system that does not teach students how to cope before they are herded into university.
“Now that kids are more force-fed at school and less educated to work independently, they need tutor-time,” said Alex Farquarson, who has one child studying in London and another at Sheffield. “I get cross when my daughter comes home and says she is sick of trying to work out what an essay question means while her tutor reads a book somewhere.”
Alison Wolf, professor of public sector management at King’s College London and a respected authority on tertiary education, agrees that universities are accepting people who haven’t been prepared well enough at school.
“There is an issue here about whether our system encourages universities to accept people on courses who can’t cope with them,” she said. “Universities are under tremendous pressure to fill places if they don’t want their business model to go down the plughole.”
She disagrees with the target of 50% of young people going to university and challenges the idea that it is necessitated by “the supposed skills needs of the workforce”.
“I think the market should find its own level,” she said. “Graduates are coming out and getting jobs that do not need graduate level skills. I am really opposed to the idea that the government should decide how many people should go to university.”
Wolf’s own son read classics at Oxford but is now “an extremely poor” self-employed musician. “If and when he gives up being a self-employed musician will he be better off with a degree? I don’t know.” The American sociologist Charles Murray argues that only people with an IQ of 115 or better, which he puts at 15% of the population, are equipped to do well at university. According to Murray a good university education should teach “advanced analytic skills and information at a level that exceeds the intellectual capacity of most people”. Struggling students, he suggests, are like someone “athletically unqualified” trying to cope with top-level sport.
Murray suggests the other problem is social pressure: middle class kids go to university because it is what their parents want rather than what society needs. “Finding a good lawyer or physician is easy. Finding a good carpenter, painter, electrician, plumber, glazier, mason — the list goes on and on — is difficult . . . ”This is a lesson that the influx of skilled eastern European craftsmen is rapidly teaching us in Britain. Yet the old class-driven attitudes prevail and can lead to traumatic mistakes.
Philip Kitcher liked his job as a senior nurse earning £28,000 a year, but he thought he might improve himself by training as a lawyer to become a nurse advocate. With no A-levels, he applied as a mature student to six universities.Three accepted him. He chose the University of Greenwich, which in 2001 offered him a place on its LLB course over the phone, saying his nursing qualification was the equivalent of two A-levels. A year later, he felt badly misled, having lost his place through an external exam.
“I am £15,000 in debt, have no job and have just failed my first year exams,” he said at the time. “My confidence has been knocked sideways. So has that of many of the people on the course. The university is being cagey about just how many failed the exams, because some people are now doing resits, but last year one-in-three first years [30%] didn't go on to the second year.
“Since I now know that at the end of the second and third years there are further failures, I feel angry. I was never told that there was such a low probability of actually getting the qualification I need. And I don't think any of the other students who failed were told either.
“If I had been told that the failure rate was so high and the chances of success so questionable I would have thought very hard before turning my life upside down. It is a big con. I feel that I have been duped. Every year Greenwich takes lots of [law] students who will fail. It takes their money and they run up huge debts.”
Kitcher said that some tutors were unacceptably rude. “When I asked how we did in our last piece of coursework, one tutor said, ‘You were all crap’. I said, ‘Could you be more specific?’ and the answer was, ‘No, wait for your marks’.” Since leaving Greenwich, he has gained a vocational degree in emergency nursing and is now back doing what he likes best. Greenwich said it was reviewing the curriculum and support offered to law students.
Readers of Tom Sharpe (sadly not yet on the compulsory list for undergraduates studying English) might hear echoes of “Wilt” syndrome, the brutal apathy acquired by his hapless polytechnic lecturer required to give poetry lessons to “plumbers II and gasfitters III”.
There is a growing dysfunction between the teachers and the taught that reflects flaws in the structure of the higher education system. A prime reason for reduced teaching time is the requirement, set by government, for universities to produce more research. This, rather than time spent on teaching, significantly determines a university’s state funding. When it comes to a university’s income from students, the prime requirement is quantity.
At the same time the conveyor belt is fed by the fact that a degree is increasingly a basic essential for young people looking for almost any sort of job. According to Bah-ram Bekhradnia, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, “there is not a career left you do not need a degree for. I don’t know about chiropody or massage but physiotherapy you need a degree for, likewise nursing”.
Paradoxically, it is these new degrees that have the most obvious value as proof of a skill. If a “degree” is another name for a vocational diploma, we don’t want to be messed around by unqualified physiotherapists or masseurs.
Do such skills have to be taught in a “university”, however? Traditionally they were learnt through apprenticeships and day-release courses at technical colleges. They still are in Germany, France and Switzerland, where the proportions of young people at university are between 30% and 40%, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
And then there are the unskilled degrees, which equip students for nothing in particular except passing the first barrier in getting some sort of job. As Murray puts it, a university degree today, particularly in the arts, is simply “a screening device for employers”. Without one, your application is simply binned.
The second screening device is quality. Since the rebranding of polytechnics in 1992, employers put stock not only on how good a degree is but on the subject and the university at which it was earned. Under those circumstances it might be reasonable to expect higher student satisfaction and better job prospects from the members of the Russell Group, the 20-strong self-appointed “premier league” of British universities. Yet they are keen to call themselves “research-in-tensive” — which, as the Bristol experience has shown, does not automatically result in the best teaching.
Many academics, perhaps particularly those at Oxford and Cambridge and other top-flight universities, regard general degree-level teaching even to bright undergraduates as “a bore”. Nurturing the young is far less important to their own careers than publications on South African tort law or Renaissance theatre techniques. This is a world in which John Reid’s epithet “not fit for purpose” comes to mind. WHAT about the value of a university education in assuring future personal prosperity? The government would like us to believe that a degree buys a higher salary. Yes, this is valid as a rule of thumb, but it depends on whose thumb. As Wolf points out, the degrees with a high return are the quantitative ones: “Maths, physics, chemistry, the hard sciences, law, medicine. They earn you money . . . An arts degree is not the thing to do if you want to make a fortune.”
According to the government’s 2003 white paper, The Future of Higher Education, a degree can bring an additional 50% to 64% in salary. Even today, however, 41% of members of the Institute of Directors do not have a university degree. Furthermore, the government’s determination to push more young people from disadvantaged backgrounds into the best universities does not always pay off. The Council for Industry and Higher Education has found that graduates from poorer backgrounds go on to earn less than graduates from professional families with identical qualifications — by as much as 16% in the case of Oxbridge graduates.
Increasingly, large numbers of graduates emerging even from the Russell Group universities are finding themselves just one of the crowd and are drifting before they sort out what they can do for a living.
Hannah Fletcher signed up for a degree in Chinese at Cambridge but dropped out because her course “bore little relevance to the real world”. Part of her disillusion set in with seeing the finals-year girl in the next room spend months dressed in grubby tracksuit pants eating pasta in her room, swotting away and winning a first — only to end up burnt out and taking a job as a cleaner while she waited for decent offers.
Fletcher has seen “one bright, articulate graduate after another wave their devalued degree in front of indifferent employers”. Of her contemporaries, “one friend is working in a cider factory. Another has gone to teach English in Japan on a second gap year, while a third, with nothing better to do, has gone to visit her”. The most steady job any of them has is as an NHS administrator, taken to pay off debts.
So was it all a waste of time, effort and money? Wolf thinks it is still rational to go to university as “having a degree still pushes you up the potential shortlist for jobs”. She added: “In a society where lots of people have got degrees it is likely to go on being rational.”
The tipping point will be when so many people are going to university that “just having a degree does not earn you very much. Then the question will be — is it worth it? Will I be just as likely to do well getting three years’ work experience?” THE old idea of university education was to broaden the mind and to build independence and character; but it was also absolutely and unashamedly elitist. Evelyn Waugh defined this dream in Brideshead Revisited: “The truth is that Oxford is simply a very beautiful city in which it is convenient to segregate a certain number of the young of the nation while they are growing up.”
Students continue to find university rewarding and fun, a place for social and sexual adventure. But the dream was over long before Waugh wrote it. The real truth was glimpsed decades ago in Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim and Malcolm Brad-bury’s The History Man, both the products of bitter experience.
Universities today are driven by government targets, employers’ requirements, high fees and financially pressed students looking for a return on investment.
The Blairite concept of educational democratisation has turned the ivory towers into degree factories, turning out a product that has lost its niche status in a flooded market. Ironic when a factory was what the gifted young once went to university to escape.
Source
Immigration Benefit 'Equivalent to a Mars bar a Month': "New figures out today reveal that, on the Government's own figures, the benefit to each member of the native population of the UK from immigration is worth about 4p a week - or less than the equivalent of a small Mars bar a month. In an analysis of a series of reports on the economic impact of immigration on the UK think-tank Migrationwatch has found that overall the much vaunted contribution of immigrants to the economy is very slight indeed - a finding that coincides with the results of major studies around the world."
Sunday, January 28, 2007
British Conservatives go nuts too
They have become the "me too" party
Food and drink manufacturers could be given strict quotas for producing fatty and sugary foods and alcohol under plans to tackle obesity and excessive drinking being considered by the Conservative Party. Under the plan drawn up by the Working Group on Responsible Business, set up by David Cameron last July, producers would be allocated production limits allowing them to produce a certain quantity of fatty food or alcoholic drink. Manufacturers wanting to produce more would have to buy credits from companies prepared to produce less. The regime would give a financial incentive for producers to make products containing less fat, sugar, salt and alcohol.
The consultative paper, aimed at making business more responsible, described obesity and excessive drinking as "social pollutants" that might be tackled in the same way that carbon emissions trading schemes reduced environmental damage. The proposal surprised food and drink makers, who said that the idea was not wanted and would not work.
In the foreword to the paper, Mr Cameron said that he wanted the Conservatives to reclaim responsible business from the Left. While paying tribute to the benefits of capitalism, he said: "I've never believed that we can leave everything to market forces. I'm not prepared to turn a blind eye if the system sometimes leaves casualties in its wake."
Emissions trading had been an invaluable tool in addressing environmental pollution, the paper said. "If . . . social and environmental pollution may be seen as in some ways analagous, might not a process of social emissions trading be a way of addressing some aspects of social pollution?" The amount of fat, sugar and salt in processed foods was easily quantifiable, which would make setting quotas straightforward, the report said. Similarly alcoholic consumption across the country was easily quantified, which would simplify setting quotas for companies. "In this case, companies who lowered the alcohol content of their products would have a significant incentive, as well as selling off alcohol quotas they did not need."
Manufacturers questioned whether the system could work in practice. It would have to be applied to imports to work, and could have the opposite of the desired effect by pushing up the prices of targeted products and so widening profit margins.
Graeme Leach, the policy director of the Institute of Directors said: "This sounds pretty radical. For this to get off the ground a lot of detailed work would have to be done and a very large number of problems would have to be overcome. I don't think it's going to happen."
The Food and Drink Federation was surprised, saying that it was already making progress in reducing fat, salt and sugar levels in processed foods. Spokeswoman Christine Welberry said: "No form of quota system would be wanted by the industry." She said that the FDF had asked to see Mr Cameron but had been rebuffed. "So far he's refused to meet us." The group has also proposed that responsible corporate behaviour be rewarded by lighter regulation. Companies could be awarded bronze, silver and gold standards, according to their behaviour.
Source
BRITISH TORIES CLUELESS ABOUT FIXING BRITISH HEALTH CARE
A young Indian MP told me a story about the Communist chief minister of the state of West Bengal, Jyoti Basu. Basu’s policies weren’t always popular, and there would often be large demonstrations and sit-down protests outside his office by the disaffected. Basu’s way of dealing with these outcries was to join them. He would slip unobtrusively into the crowd and eventually be found sitting among the protesters, holding a placard or chanting a slogan denouncing his own follies.
Source
EVEN THE BBC DISSES STERN
BBC comment below:
When the Stern Review into the Economics of Climate Change came out last year, it was showered with praise. UK Prime Minister Tony Blair called it, "the most important report on the future ever published by this government". But expert critics of the review now claim that it overestimates the risk of severe global warming, and underestimates the cost of acting to stop it.
The message from the report's chief author, the economist Sir Nicholas Stern, was simple: if we did nothing about climate change, it would cost us the equivalent of at least 5% of global GDP each year, now and forever. But if we acted today, we could prevent a catastrophe. This point was emphasised at the report's launch by Mr Blair who warned we would see the disastrous consequences of climate change - not in some science fiction future, but in our lifetimes.
These figures sounded scary and imminent. But if you read the report in detail, that is not what it actually says. The 5% damage to global GDP figure will not happen for well over one hundred years, according to Stern's predictions. And the review certainly does not forecast disastrous consequences in our lifetimes.
The report may have been loved by the politicians and headline writers but when climate scientists and environmental economists read the 670-page review, many said there were serious flaws. These critics are not climate change sceptics, but researchers with years of experience who believe that human-induced climate change is real and that we need to act now.
Richard Tol is a professor at both Hamburg and Carnegie Mellon Universities, and is one of the world's leading environmental economists. The Stern Review cites his work 63 times; but that does not mean he agrees with it. "If a student of mine were to hand in this report as a Masters thesis, perhaps if I were in a good mood I would give him a 'D' for diligence; but more likely I would give him an 'F' for fail. "There is a whole range of very basic economics mistakes that somebody who claims to be a Professor of Economics simply should not make," he told The Investigation on BBC Radio 4.
At the core of the Stern Review is an economic comparison between the damage caused by climate change with the costs of cutting our greenhouse gases. Professor Tol believes the figures for damage are exaggerated. "Stern consistently picks the most pessimistic for every choice that one can make. He overestimates through cherry-picking, he double counts particularly the risks and he underestimates what development and adaptation will do to impacts," he said.
Many economists are also sceptical about the figures Stern uses to estimate the costs of reducing are greenhouse gas emissions. The review suggests this will cost only 1% of GDP but according to Yale University Economist Robert Mendelsohn, this is far too optimistic and the figure could easily be much higher. "One of the depressing things about the greenhouse gas problem is that the cost of eliminating [it] is quite high. We will actually have to sacrifice a great deal to cut emissions dramatically," he said.
But it is not just economists who have found fault with the Stern Review; climate scientists have also been critical. Next week the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will release its fourth report. It is designed to be the authoritative statement on the state of global warming science. Anyone expecting to see the scary figures of the Stern report repeated is going to be disappointed. The predictions in the IPCC report will be significantly lower. For instance, the Stern review comes up with a figure for temperature increase by 2050 of 2-3 degrees, whereas the IPCC says this will probably not happen until the end of the century.
Professor Mike Hulme, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, believes that when the IPCC report comes out next week, there will be a big difference between the science it contains and the climate debate in the UK. "The IPCC is not going to talk about tipping points; it's not going to talk about 5m rises in sea level; it's not going to talk about the next ice age because the Gulf Stream collapses; and it's going to have none of the economics of the Stern Review," he said. "It's almost as if a credibility gap has emerged between what the British public thinks and what the international science community think."
When we put this comment to Sir Nicholas Stern, he replied: "The IPCC is a good process but it does depend on consensus and it means that they have to be quite cautious in what they say. "We were able to look to the evidence and use it in a very particular way, to look at the economics of risk." Sir Nicholas is aware of the increasing number of academic critiques of his review, but remains certain about his conclusions. "It is very important that the report is discussed; a number of people have raised interesting points and we will be discussing them all. "There are no certainties; but the broad conclusion that the costs of action are a good deal less than the damages they save, I think is pretty robust."
None of Stern's critics are advocating doing nothing about climate change. What they disagree about is how much it is worth sacrificing now to try to prevent a worst-case scenario in a hundred years' time.
BBC News, 25 January 2007. You can listen to the full BBC Investigation of the Stern Review here.
Britain: Libertarian traffic management coming?
Traffic lights, road signs and white lines would be removed from many high streets across the country under Conservative proposals to improve safety and reduce congestion by giving drivers and pedestrians equal status. Road humps, chicanes and other physical measures designed to reduce the speed of vehicles would be removed and the question of who had priority would be left open deliberately, making drivers more cautious.
The Conservatives are planning to publish a "green paper" on roads this year which will borrow heavily from so-called shared-space schemes in the Netherlands, where pedestrians, cyclists and cars are encouraged to mingle. Kerbs in several Dutch towns have been removed and the boundaries between the pavement and road blurred deliberately to prevent people from assuming they have right of way. Traffic lights have been uprooted and drivers must negotiate their way across junctions, forcing them to slow down and establish eye contact with pedestrians.
In the town of Drachten, the removal of traffic lights at one major junction has resulted in accidents falling from thirty-six in the four years before the scheme was introduced to two in the next two years. The average time for each vehicle to cross the junction fell from 50 seconds to 30 seconds, despite a rise in the volume of traffic.
Owen Paterson, the Shadow Transport Minister, visited Drachten and other Dutch towns. He told The Times: "There are some great ideas here which I would like to see in Britain. It's the opposite of the 1960s ethos of separating cars and pedestrians. By removing road signs and traffic lights and changing the appearance of the road, you avoid the impression that areas are designated just for cars. "The idea is to create space where there is mild anxiety among everyone so they all behave cautiously. No one thunders along at 30mph on a high street thinking that they have priority." Mr Paterson said that putting up more speed limit signs and painting more lines on the road had failed to make streets safer. "Instead of the State laying down the rules, we need to give responsibility back to road users. It's about creating an environment where it just doesn't feel right to drive faster than 20mph."
Some aspects of the shared space approach have already been adopted on London streets that have high numbers of pedestrians. At Seven Dials in Covent Garden, the road surface has been altered to give it the appearance of a pedestrian area and kerbs have been lowered to encourage people to wander across the street. In Kensington High Street, almost 600 metres of railings have been removed to allow pedestrians to cross where they want. The results have discredited the belief that railings prevent accidents: in the two years after they were removed, pedestrian casualties declined three times faster than the London average. Traffic engineers believe that drivers are now keeping a sharper eye out for pedestrians because they know that they may cross at any point.
The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea is planning to introduce shared space ideas to Sloane Square next year. The aim is to encourage pedestrians to make greater use of the square, which is currently marooned by busy roads. A similar scheme is being planned for Exhibition Road.The idea of removing traffic lights was supported in a report published last month by the Institute of Economic Affairs.
Martin Cassini, the report's author, said: "Removing lights removes barriers to traffic flow and improves behaviour. If you observe a junction where the lights are out of action, there is rarely congestion. People approach slowly, wave each other on and filter in turn. Lights and other controls hamper instead of harness human nature, causing untold delay and harm."
Source
That Pesky Woodpile Inhabitant Again
We read:
To the best of my recollection, the expression comes from an old story in which a black thief hid in a woodpile -- a story from those dim faroff days when you were allowed to criticize anyone you wanted to.
They have become the "me too" party
Food and drink manufacturers could be given strict quotas for producing fatty and sugary foods and alcohol under plans to tackle obesity and excessive drinking being considered by the Conservative Party. Under the plan drawn up by the Working Group on Responsible Business, set up by David Cameron last July, producers would be allocated production limits allowing them to produce a certain quantity of fatty food or alcoholic drink. Manufacturers wanting to produce more would have to buy credits from companies prepared to produce less. The regime would give a financial incentive for producers to make products containing less fat, sugar, salt and alcohol.
The consultative paper, aimed at making business more responsible, described obesity and excessive drinking as "social pollutants" that might be tackled in the same way that carbon emissions trading schemes reduced environmental damage. The proposal surprised food and drink makers, who said that the idea was not wanted and would not work.
In the foreword to the paper, Mr Cameron said that he wanted the Conservatives to reclaim responsible business from the Left. While paying tribute to the benefits of capitalism, he said: "I've never believed that we can leave everything to market forces. I'm not prepared to turn a blind eye if the system sometimes leaves casualties in its wake."
Emissions trading had been an invaluable tool in addressing environmental pollution, the paper said. "If . . . social and environmental pollution may be seen as in some ways analagous, might not a process of social emissions trading be a way of addressing some aspects of social pollution?" The amount of fat, sugar and salt in processed foods was easily quantifiable, which would make setting quotas straightforward, the report said. Similarly alcoholic consumption across the country was easily quantified, which would simplify setting quotas for companies. "In this case, companies who lowered the alcohol content of their products would have a significant incentive, as well as selling off alcohol quotas they did not need."
Manufacturers questioned whether the system could work in practice. It would have to be applied to imports to work, and could have the opposite of the desired effect by pushing up the prices of targeted products and so widening profit margins.
Graeme Leach, the policy director of the Institute of Directors said: "This sounds pretty radical. For this to get off the ground a lot of detailed work would have to be done and a very large number of problems would have to be overcome. I don't think it's going to happen."
The Food and Drink Federation was surprised, saying that it was already making progress in reducing fat, salt and sugar levels in processed foods. Spokeswoman Christine Welberry said: "No form of quota system would be wanted by the industry." She said that the FDF had asked to see Mr Cameron but had been rebuffed. "So far he's refused to meet us." The group has also proposed that responsible corporate behaviour be rewarded by lighter regulation. Companies could be awarded bronze, silver and gold standards, according to their behaviour.
Source
BRITISH TORIES CLUELESS ABOUT FIXING BRITISH HEALTH CARE
A young Indian MP told me a story about the Communist chief minister of the state of West Bengal, Jyoti Basu. Basu’s policies weren’t always popular, and there would often be large demonstrations and sit-down protests outside his office by the disaffected. Basu’s way of dealing with these outcries was to join them. He would slip unobtrusively into the crowd and eventually be found sitting among the protesters, holding a placard or chanting a slogan denouncing his own follies.
Perhaps Mr Basu’s disconcerting tactics have had a wider press than I realised, because in the past few weeks his approach seems to have caught on among British ministers. The Labour Party chair, Hazel Blears, has joined protests in her constituency aimed at saving the local maternity unit from merger. The Chief Whip, Jacqui Smith, has been trying to defend the status quo at the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch, and — perhaps most bizarrely — the junior health minister, Ivan Lewis, has been doing the same with regard to facilities at the Fairfield Hospital in Bury.
The national policy, of course, is to move some facilities to centres of excellence, which would provide a higher standard of medical care. Inevitably, because this involves shutting down smaller local units, the policy becomes the focus of local campaigning which — in Britain — is usually devoted to stopping something from happening, and exercises our native ingenuity at full stretch in discovering reasons as to why it shouldn’t.
Naysaying can sometimes be costly. A recent report from the Institute for Public Policy Research argued that successful resistance to the closure of some local A&E departments might well compromise patient care and lead to preventable deaths. “If heart attack victims are taken by ambulance past their local hospital to a specialist centre, they will be more likely to survive,” said the IPPR.
Which is why the Government, of which these three are members, supported the policy. Mr Lewis still does, but not in Bury. Ms Blears does, but not in Salford. Ms Smith does, but not in Redditch. Unsurprisingly the public has noticed that the policy seems to be right in general but wrong in all its specific applications. A BBC poll last weekend registered 72 per cent believing that it was hypocritical for ministers to campaign against the local consequences of their own national policies.
So we are at a strange moment in the recent history of the NHS, its strangeness emphasised because just when there ought to be a sharp political debate about its future, the Conservative Party has decided that it too will join the movement against change, and sit Basu-like on the steps.
By 2008 the Government will have raised the proportion of GDP spent on health in this country from 6.5 per cent to more than 9 per cent, and doubled expenditure in real terms. For that money it has managed a significant reduction in waiting times, an improvement in some key health indicators, a huge increase in numbers of NHS employees and a whacking great pay rise for doctors. Such a government funding bonanza couldn’t last, and the rate of growth will now slow substantially.
Last week we were told by Sir Michael Rawlins, head of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), that healthcare spending would have to rise above 9.3 per cent of GDP in the future to deal with medical inflation and the ageing population. “It is the elephant in the room, really,” he said. PricewaterhouseCoopers has estimated that there is a tax or an expenditure-cutting crunch coming some time soon if we are to keep up with the desire to maintain or improve health outcomes.
The obvious answer, to judge by yesterday’s news story, is for everyone to get a dog. The even more obvious answer is for everyone to eat properly and take exercise. So we won’t do that. Sections of the Labour Party, looking to its next leader, have begun agitating for a substantial rise in taxes, while simultaneously wanting an end to targets and a reduced reliance on involving the private sector in health. Which will leave us with the GPs’ contract story in spades, whereby we spend lots more money and don’t get much more work.
This should be the cue for the entrance, like a fragrant wind over a stagnant pool, of Mr David Cameron. Yesterday the Conservatives unveiled some of their new thinking on the radical policies needed to deal with the funding gap and get us all looking at health in a different way. Mr Cameron might well have noted that many of Labour’s early failures in health were as a consequence of suggesting, before 1997, that just by changing a policy (in Mr Blair’s case, the internal market), and spending a bit, lots of resource would be made available for patient care. Labour is still paying for that approach.
Mr Cameron must admire the early Blair because he seems hell-bent on repeating the error. First with his absurd Stop the NHS Cuts campaign, in which petitioners can “call on Gordon Brown to stop his mismanagement of the NHS”, and not — note — to provide any extra money, as if this absence of “mismanagement” will magically stop trusts running deficits. And, secondly, with the notion, promulgated yesterday, that all will be well if you just get rid of Labour’s “national top-down” waiting-list and other targets and replace them with Tory health outcome targets, to be called “objectives”, and somehow to be local and bottom-up. The difference is, of course, that everyone in the public sector knows that targets must be hit, while an objective is something you make progress towards. If you can. And if you can’t . . .
As to money: “Tony Blair’s great pledge,” said Mr Cameron, “was to raise health spending in Britain to the European average. Our aim is different — we won’t just concentrate on the money going in, but on what comes out as well.” So nothing about raising money from individuals by extending the scope of charging, which will shift some of the burden away from tax, and which is done in many European countries. Nothing about funding following the patient. Nothing at all, really.
Mr Cameron may well believe that his best chance of power comes from neutralising the fears of a Conservative government, only to be radical once in power. But history suggests that you can only do that if your radicalism goes with the grain of your assault on power. For their own long-term good, and ours, the Tories should be offering what Labour may be too conservative, too hidebound to suggest. They aren’t; and — for all the Basu-like nonsense from his leading colleagues — there still seems to be more chance of radical policies from Gordon Brown than from the Opposition.
Source
EVEN THE BBC DISSES STERN
BBC comment below:
When the Stern Review into the Economics of Climate Change came out last year, it was showered with praise. UK Prime Minister Tony Blair called it, "the most important report on the future ever published by this government". But expert critics of the review now claim that it overestimates the risk of severe global warming, and underestimates the cost of acting to stop it.
The message from the report's chief author, the economist Sir Nicholas Stern, was simple: if we did nothing about climate change, it would cost us the equivalent of at least 5% of global GDP each year, now and forever. But if we acted today, we could prevent a catastrophe. This point was emphasised at the report's launch by Mr Blair who warned we would see the disastrous consequences of climate change - not in some science fiction future, but in our lifetimes.
These figures sounded scary and imminent. But if you read the report in detail, that is not what it actually says. The 5% damage to global GDP figure will not happen for well over one hundred years, according to Stern's predictions. And the review certainly does not forecast disastrous consequences in our lifetimes.
The report may have been loved by the politicians and headline writers but when climate scientists and environmental economists read the 670-page review, many said there were serious flaws. These critics are not climate change sceptics, but researchers with years of experience who believe that human-induced climate change is real and that we need to act now.
Richard Tol is a professor at both Hamburg and Carnegie Mellon Universities, and is one of the world's leading environmental economists. The Stern Review cites his work 63 times; but that does not mean he agrees with it. "If a student of mine were to hand in this report as a Masters thesis, perhaps if I were in a good mood I would give him a 'D' for diligence; but more likely I would give him an 'F' for fail. "There is a whole range of very basic economics mistakes that somebody who claims to be a Professor of Economics simply should not make," he told The Investigation on BBC Radio 4.
At the core of the Stern Review is an economic comparison between the damage caused by climate change with the costs of cutting our greenhouse gases. Professor Tol believes the figures for damage are exaggerated. "Stern consistently picks the most pessimistic for every choice that one can make. He overestimates through cherry-picking, he double counts particularly the risks and he underestimates what development and adaptation will do to impacts," he said.
Many economists are also sceptical about the figures Stern uses to estimate the costs of reducing are greenhouse gas emissions. The review suggests this will cost only 1% of GDP but according to Yale University Economist Robert Mendelsohn, this is far too optimistic and the figure could easily be much higher. "One of the depressing things about the greenhouse gas problem is that the cost of eliminating [it] is quite high. We will actually have to sacrifice a great deal to cut emissions dramatically," he said.
But it is not just economists who have found fault with the Stern Review; climate scientists have also been critical. Next week the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will release its fourth report. It is designed to be the authoritative statement on the state of global warming science. Anyone expecting to see the scary figures of the Stern report repeated is going to be disappointed. The predictions in the IPCC report will be significantly lower. For instance, the Stern review comes up with a figure for temperature increase by 2050 of 2-3 degrees, whereas the IPCC says this will probably not happen until the end of the century.
Professor Mike Hulme, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, believes that when the IPCC report comes out next week, there will be a big difference between the science it contains and the climate debate in the UK. "The IPCC is not going to talk about tipping points; it's not going to talk about 5m rises in sea level; it's not going to talk about the next ice age because the Gulf Stream collapses; and it's going to have none of the economics of the Stern Review," he said. "It's almost as if a credibility gap has emerged between what the British public thinks and what the international science community think."
When we put this comment to Sir Nicholas Stern, he replied: "The IPCC is a good process but it does depend on consensus and it means that they have to be quite cautious in what they say. "We were able to look to the evidence and use it in a very particular way, to look at the economics of risk." Sir Nicholas is aware of the increasing number of academic critiques of his review, but remains certain about his conclusions. "It is very important that the report is discussed; a number of people have raised interesting points and we will be discussing them all. "There are no certainties; but the broad conclusion that the costs of action are a good deal less than the damages they save, I think is pretty robust."
None of Stern's critics are advocating doing nothing about climate change. What they disagree about is how much it is worth sacrificing now to try to prevent a worst-case scenario in a hundred years' time.
BBC News, 25 January 2007. You can listen to the full BBC Investigation of the Stern Review here.
Britain: Libertarian traffic management coming?
Traffic lights, road signs and white lines would be removed from many high streets across the country under Conservative proposals to improve safety and reduce congestion by giving drivers and pedestrians equal status. Road humps, chicanes and other physical measures designed to reduce the speed of vehicles would be removed and the question of who had priority would be left open deliberately, making drivers more cautious.
The Conservatives are planning to publish a "green paper" on roads this year which will borrow heavily from so-called shared-space schemes in the Netherlands, where pedestrians, cyclists and cars are encouraged to mingle. Kerbs in several Dutch towns have been removed and the boundaries between the pavement and road blurred deliberately to prevent people from assuming they have right of way. Traffic lights have been uprooted and drivers must negotiate their way across junctions, forcing them to slow down and establish eye contact with pedestrians.
In the town of Drachten, the removal of traffic lights at one major junction has resulted in accidents falling from thirty-six in the four years before the scheme was introduced to two in the next two years. The average time for each vehicle to cross the junction fell from 50 seconds to 30 seconds, despite a rise in the volume of traffic.
Owen Paterson, the Shadow Transport Minister, visited Drachten and other Dutch towns. He told The Times: "There are some great ideas here which I would like to see in Britain. It's the opposite of the 1960s ethos of separating cars and pedestrians. By removing road signs and traffic lights and changing the appearance of the road, you avoid the impression that areas are designated just for cars. "The idea is to create space where there is mild anxiety among everyone so they all behave cautiously. No one thunders along at 30mph on a high street thinking that they have priority." Mr Paterson said that putting up more speed limit signs and painting more lines on the road had failed to make streets safer. "Instead of the State laying down the rules, we need to give responsibility back to road users. It's about creating an environment where it just doesn't feel right to drive faster than 20mph."
Some aspects of the shared space approach have already been adopted on London streets that have high numbers of pedestrians. At Seven Dials in Covent Garden, the road surface has been altered to give it the appearance of a pedestrian area and kerbs have been lowered to encourage people to wander across the street. In Kensington High Street, almost 600 metres of railings have been removed to allow pedestrians to cross where they want. The results have discredited the belief that railings prevent accidents: in the two years after they were removed, pedestrian casualties declined three times faster than the London average. Traffic engineers believe that drivers are now keeping a sharper eye out for pedestrians because they know that they may cross at any point.
The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea is planning to introduce shared space ideas to Sloane Square next year. The aim is to encourage pedestrians to make greater use of the square, which is currently marooned by busy roads. A similar scheme is being planned for Exhibition Road.The idea of removing traffic lights was supported in a report published last month by the Institute of Economic Affairs.
Martin Cassini, the report's author, said: "Removing lights removes barriers to traffic flow and improves behaviour. If you observe a junction where the lights are out of action, there is rarely congestion. People approach slowly, wave each other on and filter in turn. Lights and other controls hamper instead of harness human nature, causing untold delay and harm."
Source
That Pesky Woodpile Inhabitant Again
We read:
"A chief executive at one of the UK's largest financial services companies has apologised for using the phrase "n*gger in the woodpile".
Trevor Matthews, head of Standard Life's life and pensions business, made the comment at a staff presentation at its Edinburgh headquarters on Monday.
Matthews has posted an apology on the company's internal website and said the comment was "a terrible mistake".
Source
To the best of my recollection, the expression comes from an old story in which a black thief hid in a woodpile -- a story from those dim faroff days when you were allowed to criticize anyone you wanted to.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Muslims defend Catholic stance in homosexal adoption row
THAT should trump everyone else
The Muslim Council of Britain has backed the leaders of the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches in the adoption row. The intervention adds to the pressure on the Government to create an exemption for religious adoption societies under the new Sexual Orientation Regulations. This week the Anglican Archbishops of Canterbury and York entered the debate with a strong statement of support for the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, who wrote to every member of the Cabinet warning that Catholic agencies could not accept a law that would force them to place children with gay couples.
Catholic leaders in Scotland have raised the stakes in the row by warning senior Cabinet ministers from Scotland that they will campaign against Labour candidates in the Scottish elections in May over the issue.
Source
The BBC's cultural Marxism will trigger an American-style backlash
Intolerant and consumed by political correctness, the corporation is waging an Orwellian campaign against British values
How often do you hear, on the Today programme or Newsnight, contemptuous references to the tabloid or popular press as if it was some disembodied monster rather than the very embodiment of the views of the great majority of the British people?
Fair enough. The tabloid press - and it's getting confusing here, because the Times and the Independent are, of course, tabloids now, and the Mail has more quality readers than most of the so-called quality papers put together - is big enough to look after itself. Except I don't think it is fair, because this ignores the ever-burgeoning influence of the most powerful media organisation in the world: the hugely subsidised BBC. And it's my contention that the BBC monolith is distorting Britain's media market, crushing journalistic pluralism and imposing a monoculture that is inimical to healthy democratic debate.
Now before the liberal commentators reach for their vitriol - and, my goodness, how they demonise anyone who disagrees with them - let me say that I would die in a ditch defending the BBC as a great civilising force. Indeed I for one would pay the licence fee just for Radio 4. But the corporation is simply too big. For instance, it employs more journalists and their support staff -3,500 - and spends more on them - œ500m - than do all the national daily newspapers put together.
Where there was once just a handful of channels, the BBC now has an awesome stranglehold on the airwaves, reaching into every home every hour of the day - adding ever more channels and even considering launching over 60 local TV news stations across the UK. No wonder Britain's hard-pressed provincial press complains it can't compete, our ailing commercial radio sector is furious that the market is rigged against it, our nascent internet firms rage that they're not competing on a level playing field, and ITN, aided and abetted by some pretty incompetent management, is reeling on the ropes.
But it's not the BBC's ubiquity, so much greater than Fleet Street's, that is worrying, but its power to impose - under the figleaf of impartiality - its own worldview. Forget the fact that the BBC has, until recently, been institutionally anti-Tory. The sorry fact is that there is not a single Labour scandal - Ecclestone, Mittal, Mandelson and the Hindujas, Cheriegate, Tessa Jowell, and Prescott and Anshutz - on which the BBC has shown the slightest journalistic alacrity.
No, what really disturbs me is that the BBC is, in every corpuscle of its corporate body, against the values of conservatism, with a small "c", which, I would argue, just happens to be the values held by millions of Britons. Thus it exercises a kind of "cultural Marxism" in which it tries to undermine that conservative society by turning all its values on their heads.
Of course, there is the odd dissenting voice, but by and large BBC journalism starts from the premise of leftwing ideology: it is hostile to conservatism and the traditional right, Britain's past and British values, America, Ulster unionism, Euroscepticism, capitalism and big business, the countryside, Christianity and family values. Conversely, it is sympathetic to Labour, European federalism, the state and state spending, mass immigration, minority rights, multiculturalism, alternative lifestyles, abortion, and progressiveness in the education and the justice systems.
Now you may sympathise with all or some of these views. I may even sympathise with some of them. But what on earth gives the BBC the right to assume they are the only values of any merit?
Over Europe, for instance, the BBC has always treated anyone who doesn't share its federalism - which just happens to be the great majority of the British population - as if they were demented xenophobes. In very telling words, the ex-cabinet secretary Lord Wilson blamed the BBC's "institutional mindset" over Europe on a "homogenous professional recruitment base" and "a dislike for conservative ideas".
Again, until recently, anyone who questioned, however gently, multiculturalism or mass immigration was treated like a piece of dirt - effectively enabling the BBC to all but close down debate on the biggest demographic change to this island in its history.
Above all, the BBC is statist. To its functionaries, insulated from the vulgar demands of the real world, there is no problem great or small - and this is one of the factors in Britain's soaring victim culture - that cannot be blamed on a lack of state spending, and any politician daring to argue that taxes should be cut is accused of "lurching to the right".
Thus BBC journalism is presented through a leftwing prism that affects everything - the choice of stories, the way they are angled, the choice of interviewees and, most pertinently, the way those interviewees are treated. The BBC's journalists, protected from real competition, believe that only their worldview constitutes moderate, sensible and decent opinion. Any dissenting views - particularly those held by popular papers - are therefore considered, by definition, to be extreme and morally beyond the pale.
But then, the BBC is consumed by the kind of political correctness that is actually patronisingly contemptuous of what it describes as ordinary people. Having started as an admirable philosophy of tolerance, that political correctness has become an intolerant creed, enabling a self-appointed elite to impose its minority values on the great majority. Anything popular is dismissed as being populist - which is sneering shorthand for being of the lowest possible taste.
The right to disagree was axiomatic to classical liberalism, but the BBC's political correctness is, in fact, an ideology of rigid self-righteousness in which those who do not conform are ignored, silenced, or vilified as sexist, racist, fascist or judgmental. Thus, with this assault on reason, are whole areas of legitimate debate - in education, health, race relations and law and order - shut down, and the corporation, which glories in being open-minded, has become a closed-thought system operating a kind of Orwellian Newspeak.
This is perverting political discourse and disenfranchising countless millions who don't subscribe to the BBC's worldview; one of the reasons, I would suggest, for the current apathy over politics.
How instructive to compare all this with what is happening in America. There, the liberal smugness of a terminally worthy, monopolistic press has, together with deregulation, triggered both the explosive growth of rightwing radio broadcasting that now dominates the airwaves and the extraordinary rise of Murdoch's rightwing Fox TV News service. Democracy needs a healthy tension between left and right, and nature abhors a vacuum. If the BBC continues skewing the political debate, there will be a backlash and I predict that what has happened in America will eventually take place in Britain.
Now, there's been much talk recently of the need for more civic journalism in Britain, the very thing the BBC prides itself on. But let's pose this question: what if a civic BBC finds itself dealing with an administration that does not behave in a civic way? An administration that manipulates news organisations and the news agenda, that packs ministry press offices with its supporters, that chooses good days to bury bad news, that favours news bodies that give it positive coverage and penalises those who don't, that fabricates health and education figures, and concocts dodgy dossiers - an administration that, in Campbell and Mandelson, thought nothing of engaging in systematic falsehood.
Is the BBC's civic journalism - too often credulously trusting, lacking scepticism, rarely proactive in the sense of breaking stories itself - up to dealing with a political class that too often set out to dissemble and to deceive? The bitter irony, of course, is that when, for once, the BBC was proactive in its journalism and did stand up to the Labour party by breaking a genuine story, the corporation and its craven governors all but imploded under pressure from a rabid Campbell.
And what is interesting is that this contrasted with the ruthless support for the Iraq war that Rupert Murdoch imposed on his papers and their equally ruthless suppression of any criticism of the invasion whether it involved the attorney general's malfeasance, virtually ignored in the Times, or Dr Kelly, all but hung drawn and quartered by the Sun.
Indeed, I would suggest that the intimacy and power-brokering between these two papers and No 10, and the question of whether Mr Blair would have got away with his falsehoods and misjudgments over Iraq - indeed, whether Britain would have gone to war at all - without the support of the Murdoch empire, is a brilliant doctoral thesis for some future media studies student.
Yes, the BBC is, in many ways, a wonderful organisation. But the fact remains that it depends for its licence fee on the British population as a whole, yet only reflects the views of a tiny metropolitan minority. If it continues with this abuse of trust, then the British people will withdraw their consent and the corporation will fall into discredit. And that would be a very great pity.
Source
Climate change and CO2
Post lifted from John Redwood's diary
For once when I asked the [British] government a written question I received an answer. I asked "How much carbon dioxide is put into the atmosphere each day ,and what proportion is from human sources"
The answer stated "The amount of carbon dioxide emitted from human sources is small in comparison to natural flows:at around 3% emitted from the land and oceans to the atmosphere". The Minister also told me "In 2004 the UK emitted approximately 1.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per day "(I think from human sources). This compares with the "25 billion tonnes emitted each year globally" from human sources and the total emissions of 800 billion tonnes from all sources.
It is just useful to understand the scope of the problem and the UK human component. According to the government the UK human component represents 2% of the world total human emissions, or 0.06% of total emissions.
So what should we conclude? Climate change theorists point out that the human element may be very small, but it is the one which is growing quickly, and at the margin will do the damage. People who follow the precautionary principle say this theory may well be right, so we had better act. Many other people say they believe the theory but do not act - like the Prime Minister who tells us this is a serious crisis, but he has no intention of cutting his air miles.
Common sense suggests that because the UK represents such a small part of the problem, we are going to depend on decisions in India, China and the USA to make a bigger impact on human emissions. Of course our government should seek to influence them, and stress the value of greater fuel efficiency and stricter controls on emissions. We should also continue to cut our own fuel use at home, at work and on the move. Technology can be our ally in this. Prudence nonetheless dictates that we should take action now to proect ourselves against the possible bad consequences of global warming.
There are two main bad consequences put forward for the UK. The first is a possible water shortage in the drier south and east of the country. The second is too much water in some rivers at flood time, and in the sea, leading to inundation.
Government should take action now to build stronger sea defences, especially close to the London conurbation where most people are at risk. This could be paid for by creating new land in the shallows of the Thames estuary, and selling this for development to finance the higher tidal surge barriers we will need.
The government and the water regulator should include a capacity target in the regulatory structure, to require the industry to put in more water capacity - whether by way of mending pipes more quickly or building extra reservoirs - to eliminate anyt possibility of water shortage. The Environment Agency should order works on our main rivers to guarantee better containment of flood water levels, or safe deposit of excess water on flood plain.
NHS cash crisis could cost diabetic children limbs
Thousands of diabetic children could risk losing limbs because the NHS cash crisis is hitting services, said a report out on Wednesday. Four out of five diabetic children have poor glucose control, putting them at risk of developing complications, it said. In the UK, there are 20,000 children under the age of 15 with type 1 diabetes, which means sufferers are dependant on insulin. Another 1,000 children have type 2, which is associated with obesity, but many more youngsters are undiagnosed.
The report, from the charity Diabetes UK, said there were poor services despite Government targets to provide good paediatric care. Comparing NHS performance between 2005 and 2006, it said services for children with diabetes had got worse in 75% of the areas studied in England. The cash crisis means Paediatric Diabetes Specialist Nurses (PDSNs) are overstretched, it said. According to the Royal College of Nursing, there should be no more than 70 children to each nurse but some NHS trusts have caseloads of up to 300 children, meaning PDSNs take on more. Almost every region in England has seen an increase in the number of children each PDSN manages, the reports said. Over a third (40%) of trusts have no protocols for transferring children into adult diabetic care while nearly a third of youngsters who want psychological support do not receive it, it added.
Douglas Smallwood, chief executive of Diabetes UK, said: 'No wonder 80% of children have poor blood glucose control. 'Most are struggling to even see a specialist nurse, so any additional support is out of the question. 'With the inevitable explosion of children with type 2 diabetes, with no additional resources, nurses will be faced with ever increasing caseloads. 'We can't afford to wait until our children start to lose their sight or need kidney dialysis before we make sure services improve. 'It is time resources are provided to supply the best possible specialised care and support for children with diabetes.'
A 'Diabetes InfoBank' is also being launched today, which will show progress in meeting Government targets. People will be able to access information on diabetic care in their area by going to www.diabetes.org.uk/infobank.
Source
British pupils to learn the best of British
The nation was plunged into an uncharacteristic celebration of Britishness yesterday as new lessons in British history and the national identity were introduced to schools and Labour politicians with an eye on promotion vied to demonstrate their patriotic credentials. It was all very un-British.
Amid growing concerns that young people lack a sense of belonging and are in need of social and educational glue in today’s multicultural, multiracial society, Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, announced that compulsory lessons in British history would be added to the citizenship curriculum under the heading Identity and Diversity: Living Together in the UK. The new lessons for pupils aged 11 to 16 will cover ethnicity, religion and race, and will explore Britain’s national identity through a study of immigration, the Commonwealth, the Empire and devolution, along with the extending of the popular vote and women’s rights.
Source
"Obesity" confusion in Britain
Plans to halt the rise in childhood obesity are confused, poorly co-ordinated and lack clarity and forcefulness, according to an influential Commons committee. In 2004 the Government set a target of 2010 to halt the year-on-year rise in obesity in children under 11, but there are still no ring-fenced funds nor any specific programme to bring this about, the Public Accounts Committee says in a scathing report.
Particular anger is directed at the Department of Health's plans to weigh and measure children in all primary schools but not tell parents the results. This policy provoked one of the briskest exchanges in a public hearing in the Commons as the committee chairman, Edward Leigh, accused three Whitehall permanent secretaries of "talking drivel".
Yesterday Mr Leigh said: "If a primary school finds that a child is overweight then the parents must be informed. To do otherwise would be to keep parents in the dark about health risks to their children. "A campaign aimed at parents, children and teachers is supposed to be launched this year, three years after the target was set. When it appears it must bring home all the risks of being obese and show that obese children can make small changes to their behaviour that help them lose weight."
Responsibility for the childhood obesity strategy is divided between three departments - Health, Education and Skills, and Culture, Media and Sport - and 26 bodies or groups of bodies, the report says. This leads to confusion over roles and responsibilities. Mr Leigh said that it was "tricky territory". That made it all the more urgent that the departments involved should work together to set a clear direction. "It is lamentable that long after the target was set there is still so much dithering and still so little co-ordination," he said.
Departments had been slow to react and efforts to work with the food industry to change the way that unhealthy products were marketed had failed, the committee said. It also called for the appointment of a high-profile figure to champion the battle against obesity. Parents were still not being engaged, and a public information campaign was finally being launched only this year. The report found that "the departments' strategy of working alongside the food industry to influence its approach to the marketing of foods and drinks that are high in fat, salt and sugar has not been successful in changing the way the majority of unhealthy foods are marketed".
Meanwhile, the Department of Health has no idea if the strategy is working because there was a delay of two years in getting data on childhood obesity from the Health Survey for England. The attempt to measure obesity in primary school children ended in failure when fewer than half turned up, although the committee does not report this. The results of the exercise were meaningless because the parents of fatter children opted them out, as they were allowed to do.
Caroline Flint, the Public Health Minister, claimed that a lot had been achieved since the evidence on which the report was based had been gathered. She said: "There are no easy answers or quick-fix solutions. Changing behaviour requires long-term action on a number of fronts and that is what we are putting in place. People's awareness of the importance of healthy eating and exercise had increased significantly, she said, and food labelling had become the norm. Ofcom had made recommendations about food advertising on television; there had been "a transformation in school food" and the target of 80 per cent of children doing at least two hours of school sport a week had been beaten, she said. But Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, said: "Conservatives share the committee's alarm at the dramatic increase in childhood obesity and the apparently uncoordinated way in which the Government is dealing with it."
Source
Reasonable decision ignites British hysteria: "A British judge freed a convicted "pedophile" today after citing a government warning about prison overcrowding, instantly igniting a law-and-order furore that could damage Prime Minister Tony Blair's government. Mr Blair's Home Secretary John Reid had already drawn fire from opposition Conservative critics and mass-circulation newspapers for writing to judges to warn of prison overcrowding and urge that prison places not be wasted on non-violent offenders. But a senior judge's decision to free a man who downloaded sexual images of children suddenly catapulted the story to the top of news reports, the latest in a series of scandals to hit the Home Office law-and-order ministry over the past year. The BBC reported from North Wales that Judge John Rogers cited Mr Reid's remarks while handing a suspended jail sentence to Derek Williams, 46, who downloaded child pornography... Britain is scrambling to find new places for prisoners after a sharp upsurge in the prison population, with the Government suggesting it could house offenders in disused military barracks, police jail cells and on ships.... On Tuesday, Mr Reid told a conference of regional newspaper journalists that courts should not be "squandering taxpayers' money to monitor non-dangerous and less serious offenders". "Prisons are an expensive resource that should be used to protect the public," he said, according to the BBC." [My paper on penological policy is here]
British public fear of violent crime fed by rise in robberies with guns: "Robberies at gunpoint increased by 10 per cent last year in England and Wales, according to Home Office figures published yesterday. The figures include armed robberies in the street, which rose by 9 per cent, and armed robberies in homes, which almost doubled. The figures, have been falling for the past four years and the sudden reversal will alarm the Home Office. The total number of robberies at gunpoint rose to 1,439 and the number of gun robberies at residential properties jumped by 46 per cent to 645, an increase of 204 and more than five times the level recorded when Labour came to power. Although firearms robberies at Post Offices, banks and building societies have fallen because of branch closures and tougher security measures at those that remain, the latest figures indicate that armed robbers are going for soft targets. Overall, gun crime fell last year and the number of killings dropped by 15 per cent if the victims of the July 7 bombings are taken out of the 746 total. But killings by strangers have almost doubled to 302 since Labour came to power.
THAT should trump everyone else
The Muslim Council of Britain has backed the leaders of the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches in the adoption row. The intervention adds to the pressure on the Government to create an exemption for religious adoption societies under the new Sexual Orientation Regulations. This week the Anglican Archbishops of Canterbury and York entered the debate with a strong statement of support for the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, who wrote to every member of the Cabinet warning that Catholic agencies could not accept a law that would force them to place children with gay couples.
Catholic leaders have given warning that the church’s seven adoption agencies, which placed 227 children last year, cannot breach Vatican guidelines against allowing gay couples to adopt, and would have no alternative but to close.
The Muslim Council said that it backed the churches’ “principled stand”. Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, the Secretary-General, said: “The right to practise one’s faith or the freedom to have no belief is a cornerstone of our society, as is the right of all to live free from unfair discrimination and harassment.
“Homosexuality is forbidden in Islam. The Sexual Orientation Regulations as we understand them do not promote homosexuality but would provide protection against discrimination and harassment on account of sexual orientation. “As Muslims, we are obliged to uphold the moral standards and codes of conduct dictated by our faith.”
He said that the refusal to permit an exemption was inconsistent with previous antidiscrimination legislation. He added that the regulations should “take full account of our multifaith, multicultural, multiethnic society and make accommodation to accord with differing beliefs and values”.
Archbishop Mario Conti, the vice-president of the Bishops’ Conference in Glasgow, wrote to Gordon Brown, the Chan-cellor, John Reid, the Home Secretary, Alistair Darling, the Trade Secretary, Douglas Alexander, the Transport and Scottish Secretary, and Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, and repeated his warning to the Prime Minister that disallowing Catholic agencies to discriminate will be a “betrayal”.
Source
The BBC's cultural Marxism will trigger an American-style backlash
Intolerant and consumed by political correctness, the corporation is waging an Orwellian campaign against British values
How often do you hear, on the Today programme or Newsnight, contemptuous references to the tabloid or popular press as if it was some disembodied monster rather than the very embodiment of the views of the great majority of the British people?
Fair enough. The tabloid press - and it's getting confusing here, because the Times and the Independent are, of course, tabloids now, and the Mail has more quality readers than most of the so-called quality papers put together - is big enough to look after itself. Except I don't think it is fair, because this ignores the ever-burgeoning influence of the most powerful media organisation in the world: the hugely subsidised BBC. And it's my contention that the BBC monolith is distorting Britain's media market, crushing journalistic pluralism and imposing a monoculture that is inimical to healthy democratic debate.
Now before the liberal commentators reach for their vitriol - and, my goodness, how they demonise anyone who disagrees with them - let me say that I would die in a ditch defending the BBC as a great civilising force. Indeed I for one would pay the licence fee just for Radio 4. But the corporation is simply too big. For instance, it employs more journalists and their support staff -3,500 - and spends more on them - œ500m - than do all the national daily newspapers put together.
Where there was once just a handful of channels, the BBC now has an awesome stranglehold on the airwaves, reaching into every home every hour of the day - adding ever more channels and even considering launching over 60 local TV news stations across the UK. No wonder Britain's hard-pressed provincial press complains it can't compete, our ailing commercial radio sector is furious that the market is rigged against it, our nascent internet firms rage that they're not competing on a level playing field, and ITN, aided and abetted by some pretty incompetent management, is reeling on the ropes.
But it's not the BBC's ubiquity, so much greater than Fleet Street's, that is worrying, but its power to impose - under the figleaf of impartiality - its own worldview. Forget the fact that the BBC has, until recently, been institutionally anti-Tory. The sorry fact is that there is not a single Labour scandal - Ecclestone, Mittal, Mandelson and the Hindujas, Cheriegate, Tessa Jowell, and Prescott and Anshutz - on which the BBC has shown the slightest journalistic alacrity.
No, what really disturbs me is that the BBC is, in every corpuscle of its corporate body, against the values of conservatism, with a small "c", which, I would argue, just happens to be the values held by millions of Britons. Thus it exercises a kind of "cultural Marxism" in which it tries to undermine that conservative society by turning all its values on their heads.
Of course, there is the odd dissenting voice, but by and large BBC journalism starts from the premise of leftwing ideology: it is hostile to conservatism and the traditional right, Britain's past and British values, America, Ulster unionism, Euroscepticism, capitalism and big business, the countryside, Christianity and family values. Conversely, it is sympathetic to Labour, European federalism, the state and state spending, mass immigration, minority rights, multiculturalism, alternative lifestyles, abortion, and progressiveness in the education and the justice systems.
Now you may sympathise with all or some of these views. I may even sympathise with some of them. But what on earth gives the BBC the right to assume they are the only values of any merit?
Over Europe, for instance, the BBC has always treated anyone who doesn't share its federalism - which just happens to be the great majority of the British population - as if they were demented xenophobes. In very telling words, the ex-cabinet secretary Lord Wilson blamed the BBC's "institutional mindset" over Europe on a "homogenous professional recruitment base" and "a dislike for conservative ideas".
Again, until recently, anyone who questioned, however gently, multiculturalism or mass immigration was treated like a piece of dirt - effectively enabling the BBC to all but close down debate on the biggest demographic change to this island in its history.
Above all, the BBC is statist. To its functionaries, insulated from the vulgar demands of the real world, there is no problem great or small - and this is one of the factors in Britain's soaring victim culture - that cannot be blamed on a lack of state spending, and any politician daring to argue that taxes should be cut is accused of "lurching to the right".
Thus BBC journalism is presented through a leftwing prism that affects everything - the choice of stories, the way they are angled, the choice of interviewees and, most pertinently, the way those interviewees are treated. The BBC's journalists, protected from real competition, believe that only their worldview constitutes moderate, sensible and decent opinion. Any dissenting views - particularly those held by popular papers - are therefore considered, by definition, to be extreme and morally beyond the pale.
But then, the BBC is consumed by the kind of political correctness that is actually patronisingly contemptuous of what it describes as ordinary people. Having started as an admirable philosophy of tolerance, that political correctness has become an intolerant creed, enabling a self-appointed elite to impose its minority values on the great majority. Anything popular is dismissed as being populist - which is sneering shorthand for being of the lowest possible taste.
The right to disagree was axiomatic to classical liberalism, but the BBC's political correctness is, in fact, an ideology of rigid self-righteousness in which those who do not conform are ignored, silenced, or vilified as sexist, racist, fascist or judgmental. Thus, with this assault on reason, are whole areas of legitimate debate - in education, health, race relations and law and order - shut down, and the corporation, which glories in being open-minded, has become a closed-thought system operating a kind of Orwellian Newspeak.
This is perverting political discourse and disenfranchising countless millions who don't subscribe to the BBC's worldview; one of the reasons, I would suggest, for the current apathy over politics.
How instructive to compare all this with what is happening in America. There, the liberal smugness of a terminally worthy, monopolistic press has, together with deregulation, triggered both the explosive growth of rightwing radio broadcasting that now dominates the airwaves and the extraordinary rise of Murdoch's rightwing Fox TV News service. Democracy needs a healthy tension between left and right, and nature abhors a vacuum. If the BBC continues skewing the political debate, there will be a backlash and I predict that what has happened in America will eventually take place in Britain.
Now, there's been much talk recently of the need for more civic journalism in Britain, the very thing the BBC prides itself on. But let's pose this question: what if a civic BBC finds itself dealing with an administration that does not behave in a civic way? An administration that manipulates news organisations and the news agenda, that packs ministry press offices with its supporters, that chooses good days to bury bad news, that favours news bodies that give it positive coverage and penalises those who don't, that fabricates health and education figures, and concocts dodgy dossiers - an administration that, in Campbell and Mandelson, thought nothing of engaging in systematic falsehood.
Is the BBC's civic journalism - too often credulously trusting, lacking scepticism, rarely proactive in the sense of breaking stories itself - up to dealing with a political class that too often set out to dissemble and to deceive? The bitter irony, of course, is that when, for once, the BBC was proactive in its journalism and did stand up to the Labour party by breaking a genuine story, the corporation and its craven governors all but imploded under pressure from a rabid Campbell.
And what is interesting is that this contrasted with the ruthless support for the Iraq war that Rupert Murdoch imposed on his papers and their equally ruthless suppression of any criticism of the invasion whether it involved the attorney general's malfeasance, virtually ignored in the Times, or Dr Kelly, all but hung drawn and quartered by the Sun.
Indeed, I would suggest that the intimacy and power-brokering between these two papers and No 10, and the question of whether Mr Blair would have got away with his falsehoods and misjudgments over Iraq - indeed, whether Britain would have gone to war at all - without the support of the Murdoch empire, is a brilliant doctoral thesis for some future media studies student.
Yes, the BBC is, in many ways, a wonderful organisation. But the fact remains that it depends for its licence fee on the British population as a whole, yet only reflects the views of a tiny metropolitan minority. If it continues with this abuse of trust, then the British people will withdraw their consent and the corporation will fall into discredit. And that would be a very great pity.
Source
Climate change and CO2
Post lifted from John Redwood's diary
For once when I asked the [British] government a written question I received an answer. I asked "How much carbon dioxide is put into the atmosphere each day ,and what proportion is from human sources"
The answer stated "The amount of carbon dioxide emitted from human sources is small in comparison to natural flows:at around 3% emitted from the land and oceans to the atmosphere". The Minister also told me "In 2004 the UK emitted approximately 1.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per day "(I think from human sources). This compares with the "25 billion tonnes emitted each year globally" from human sources and the total emissions of 800 billion tonnes from all sources.
It is just useful to understand the scope of the problem and the UK human component. According to the government the UK human component represents 2% of the world total human emissions, or 0.06% of total emissions.
So what should we conclude? Climate change theorists point out that the human element may be very small, but it is the one which is growing quickly, and at the margin will do the damage. People who follow the precautionary principle say this theory may well be right, so we had better act. Many other people say they believe the theory but do not act - like the Prime Minister who tells us this is a serious crisis, but he has no intention of cutting his air miles.
Common sense suggests that because the UK represents such a small part of the problem, we are going to depend on decisions in India, China and the USA to make a bigger impact on human emissions. Of course our government should seek to influence them, and stress the value of greater fuel efficiency and stricter controls on emissions. We should also continue to cut our own fuel use at home, at work and on the move. Technology can be our ally in this. Prudence nonetheless dictates that we should take action now to proect ourselves against the possible bad consequences of global warming.
There are two main bad consequences put forward for the UK. The first is a possible water shortage in the drier south and east of the country. The second is too much water in some rivers at flood time, and in the sea, leading to inundation.
Government should take action now to build stronger sea defences, especially close to the London conurbation where most people are at risk. This could be paid for by creating new land in the shallows of the Thames estuary, and selling this for development to finance the higher tidal surge barriers we will need.
The government and the water regulator should include a capacity target in the regulatory structure, to require the industry to put in more water capacity - whether by way of mending pipes more quickly or building extra reservoirs - to eliminate anyt possibility of water shortage. The Environment Agency should order works on our main rivers to guarantee better containment of flood water levels, or safe deposit of excess water on flood plain.
NHS cash crisis could cost diabetic children limbs
Thousands of diabetic children could risk losing limbs because the NHS cash crisis is hitting services, said a report out on Wednesday. Four out of five diabetic children have poor glucose control, putting them at risk of developing complications, it said. In the UK, there are 20,000 children under the age of 15 with type 1 diabetes, which means sufferers are dependant on insulin. Another 1,000 children have type 2, which is associated with obesity, but many more youngsters are undiagnosed.
The report, from the charity Diabetes UK, said there were poor services despite Government targets to provide good paediatric care. Comparing NHS performance between 2005 and 2006, it said services for children with diabetes had got worse in 75% of the areas studied in England. The cash crisis means Paediatric Diabetes Specialist Nurses (PDSNs) are overstretched, it said. According to the Royal College of Nursing, there should be no more than 70 children to each nurse but some NHS trusts have caseloads of up to 300 children, meaning PDSNs take on more. Almost every region in England has seen an increase in the number of children each PDSN manages, the reports said. Over a third (40%) of trusts have no protocols for transferring children into adult diabetic care while nearly a third of youngsters who want psychological support do not receive it, it added.
Douglas Smallwood, chief executive of Diabetes UK, said: 'No wonder 80% of children have poor blood glucose control. 'Most are struggling to even see a specialist nurse, so any additional support is out of the question. 'With the inevitable explosion of children with type 2 diabetes, with no additional resources, nurses will be faced with ever increasing caseloads. 'We can't afford to wait until our children start to lose their sight or need kidney dialysis before we make sure services improve. 'It is time resources are provided to supply the best possible specialised care and support for children with diabetes.'
A 'Diabetes InfoBank' is also being launched today, which will show progress in meeting Government targets. People will be able to access information on diabetic care in their area by going to www.diabetes.org.uk/infobank.
Source
British pupils to learn the best of British
The nation was plunged into an uncharacteristic celebration of Britishness yesterday as new lessons in British history and the national identity were introduced to schools and Labour politicians with an eye on promotion vied to demonstrate their patriotic credentials. It was all very un-British.
Amid growing concerns that young people lack a sense of belonging and are in need of social and educational glue in today’s multicultural, multiracial society, Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, announced that compulsory lessons in British history would be added to the citizenship curriculum under the heading Identity and Diversity: Living Together in the UK. The new lessons for pupils aged 11 to 16 will cover ethnicity, religion and race, and will explore Britain’s national identity through a study of immigration, the Commonwealth, the Empire and devolution, along with the extending of the popular vote and women’s rights.
Sir Keith Ajegbo, a Home Office adviser and author of the reforms, said that the new classes aimed to tackle feelings of marginalisation among young people from white and ethnic-minority backgrounds by encouraging them to discuss potentially sensitive issues in the “safe” environment of the classroom.
“It is the duty of all schools to address issues of ‘how we live together’ and ‘dealing with difference’, however difficult and controversial they may seem,” said Sir Keith, former headmaster of Deptford Green School, South London.
A “Who do we think we are?” week will encourage pupils to explore their differences and common values. Predominantly white schools will be encouraged to “twin” with schools that have a more diverse intake.
Sir Keith’s review amounts to a damning criticism of the way that citizenship has been taught in schools since its introduction in 2002 in response to a perceived lack of political and engagement among young people. Too much provision was patchy and too few schools had separate citizenship lessons, preferring to lump the subject in with personal social and health education. This, he said, was unacceptable, adding that more teacher training and specialised teaching material was needed to put things right.
Mr Johnson, a candidate for the Labour deputy leadership, agreed that pupils should be “taught explicitly about why British values of tolerance and respect prevail in society and how our national, regional, religious and ethnic identities have evolved over time”.His comments make him the latest in the line of Cabinet ministers to seize upon Gordon Brown’s theme of Britishness, after surveys suggesting that many people now struggle to identify typical British values. The idea is a key part of Mr Brown’s plan to succeed Tony Blair as Prime Minister.
At a separate event at the University of Oxford, Jack Straw, who is still considering whether to stand for the deputy leadership, called for a stronger “British story” to reflect the heroic nature of the country’s history and foster a greater sense of citizenship. Britain, he said, had much to learn from the way countries such as the US, Canada and Australia told their national story.
The British story would encapsulate the rights and responsibilities that went with the “non-negotiable bargain or contract” of being a British citizen. In a clear reference to religious fundamentalists, he said that it would challenge those with “a single, all-consuming identity” that was at odds with Britain’s democratic values.
“We have to be clearer about what it means to be British, what it means to be part of this British nation of nations and, crucially, to be resolute in making the point that what comes with that is a set of values. Yes, there is room for multiple and different identities, but those have to be accepted alongside an agreement that none of these identities can take precedence over the core democratic values of freedom, fairness, tolerance and plurality that define what it means to be British.”
The Conservatives welcomed the “grounding [of] citizenship on the teaching of British history”, but teaching unions gave warning that teachers could not be left to carry the burden of integration alone.
Source
"Obesity" confusion in Britain
Plans to halt the rise in childhood obesity are confused, poorly co-ordinated and lack clarity and forcefulness, according to an influential Commons committee. In 2004 the Government set a target of 2010 to halt the year-on-year rise in obesity in children under 11, but there are still no ring-fenced funds nor any specific programme to bring this about, the Public Accounts Committee says in a scathing report.
Particular anger is directed at the Department of Health's plans to weigh and measure children in all primary schools but not tell parents the results. This policy provoked one of the briskest exchanges in a public hearing in the Commons as the committee chairman, Edward Leigh, accused three Whitehall permanent secretaries of "talking drivel".
Yesterday Mr Leigh said: "If a primary school finds that a child is overweight then the parents must be informed. To do otherwise would be to keep parents in the dark about health risks to their children. "A campaign aimed at parents, children and teachers is supposed to be launched this year, three years after the target was set. When it appears it must bring home all the risks of being obese and show that obese children can make small changes to their behaviour that help them lose weight."
Responsibility for the childhood obesity strategy is divided between three departments - Health, Education and Skills, and Culture, Media and Sport - and 26 bodies or groups of bodies, the report says. This leads to confusion over roles and responsibilities. Mr Leigh said that it was "tricky territory". That made it all the more urgent that the departments involved should work together to set a clear direction. "It is lamentable that long after the target was set there is still so much dithering and still so little co-ordination," he said.
Departments had been slow to react and efforts to work with the food industry to change the way that unhealthy products were marketed had failed, the committee said. It also called for the appointment of a high-profile figure to champion the battle against obesity. Parents were still not being engaged, and a public information campaign was finally being launched only this year. The report found that "the departments' strategy of working alongside the food industry to influence its approach to the marketing of foods and drinks that are high in fat, salt and sugar has not been successful in changing the way the majority of unhealthy foods are marketed".
Meanwhile, the Department of Health has no idea if the strategy is working because there was a delay of two years in getting data on childhood obesity from the Health Survey for England. The attempt to measure obesity in primary school children ended in failure when fewer than half turned up, although the committee does not report this. The results of the exercise were meaningless because the parents of fatter children opted them out, as they were allowed to do.
Caroline Flint, the Public Health Minister, claimed that a lot had been achieved since the evidence on which the report was based had been gathered. She said: "There are no easy answers or quick-fix solutions. Changing behaviour requires long-term action on a number of fronts and that is what we are putting in place. People's awareness of the importance of healthy eating and exercise had increased significantly, she said, and food labelling had become the norm. Ofcom had made recommendations about food advertising on television; there had been "a transformation in school food" and the target of 80 per cent of children doing at least two hours of school sport a week had been beaten, she said. But Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, said: "Conservatives share the committee's alarm at the dramatic increase in childhood obesity and the apparently uncoordinated way in which the Government is dealing with it."
Source
Reasonable decision ignites British hysteria: "A British judge freed a convicted "pedophile" today after citing a government warning about prison overcrowding, instantly igniting a law-and-order furore that could damage Prime Minister Tony Blair's government. Mr Blair's Home Secretary John Reid had already drawn fire from opposition Conservative critics and mass-circulation newspapers for writing to judges to warn of prison overcrowding and urge that prison places not be wasted on non-violent offenders. But a senior judge's decision to free a man who downloaded sexual images of children suddenly catapulted the story to the top of news reports, the latest in a series of scandals to hit the Home Office law-and-order ministry over the past year. The BBC reported from North Wales that Judge John Rogers cited Mr Reid's remarks while handing a suspended jail sentence to Derek Williams, 46, who downloaded child pornography... Britain is scrambling to find new places for prisoners after a sharp upsurge in the prison population, with the Government suggesting it could house offenders in disused military barracks, police jail cells and on ships.... On Tuesday, Mr Reid told a conference of regional newspaper journalists that courts should not be "squandering taxpayers' money to monitor non-dangerous and less serious offenders". "Prisons are an expensive resource that should be used to protect the public," he said, according to the BBC." [My paper on penological policy is here]
British public fear of violent crime fed by rise in robberies with guns: "Robberies at gunpoint increased by 10 per cent last year in England and Wales, according to Home Office figures published yesterday. The figures include armed robberies in the street, which rose by 9 per cent, and armed robberies in homes, which almost doubled. The figures, have been falling for the past four years and the sudden reversal will alarm the Home Office. The total number of robberies at gunpoint rose to 1,439 and the number of gun robberies at residential properties jumped by 46 per cent to 645, an increase of 204 and more than five times the level recorded when Labour came to power. Although firearms robberies at Post Offices, banks and building societies have fallen because of branch closures and tougher security measures at those that remain, the latest figures indicate that armed robbers are going for soft targets. Overall, gun crime fell last year and the number of killings dropped by 15 per cent if the victims of the July 7 bombings are taken out of the 746 total. But killings by strangers have almost doubled to 302 since Labour came to power.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Chronic NHS delays turn fatal: Toddler with minor burns dies after a four-hour wait in hospital
And it sounds like the actual cause of death was one of the superbugs that are rife in dirty NHS hospitals
A father described yesterday how he watched helplessly as his 13-month-old son died after a four-hour hospital wait because doctors said that they were too busy to treat him. Zia Islam said that Ahil was taken to hospital after he suffered minor burns when a cup of tea fell on him at home.
Giving evidence at the child’s inquest, Mr Islam, a 37-year-old IT consultant from Watford, said that Ahil was transferred from a specialist burns unit to Watford General Hospital in October 2005 when his condition took a turn for the worse a few days after the mishap.
Source
HOMOSEXUAL ADOPTION UNDER PRESSURE IN BRITAIN
The Church of England put pressure on the Prime Minister last night over the gay adoptions row with a letter giving warning that "rights of conscience cannot be made subject to legislation". The Archbishops of Canterbury and York declared on the side of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster after Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor wrote to every member of the Cabinet stating that the Catholic Church could not accept a law forcing its adoption agencies to accept gay couples.
The intervention by Dr Rowan Williams and Dr John Sentamu in a letter seen by The Times places unprecedented pressure on Tony Blair. If he accedes to the demands, he will face accusations from the gay rights lobby and many within his own Government of being a "Vatican puppet". If he stands by the gay lobby, he risks alienating hundreds of thousands of Catholic Labour voters.
It is thought that Mr Blair, an Anglican whose wife is a Catholic and who has long been known to be sympathetic to the Church himself, favours a compromise. However, most other Cabinet ministers are taking a much harder line and believe that compromise is impossible. If the Church is allowed to opt out, they argue, it would undermine the fundemental position of law.
In their letter, Dr Williams and Dr Sentamu highlight the danger of the row escalating to the point where some might question the ability of people with a strong faith to be in government. They say: "It would be deeply regrettable if in seeking, quite properly, better to defend the rights of a particular group not to be discriminated against, a climate were to be created in which, for example, some feel free to argue that members of the Government are not fit to hold public office on the grounds of their faith affiliation."
They give warning that the argument over the Sexual Orientation Regulations has reached damaging proportions and that "much could be lost". They say: "Many in the voluntary sector are dedicated to public service because of the dictates of their conscience. In legislating to protect and promote the rights of particular groups the Government is faced with the delicate but important challenge of not thereby creating the conditions within which others feel their rights to have been ignored or sacrificed, or in which the dictates of personal conscience are put at risk. "The rights of conscience cannot be made subject to legislation, however well meaning." They draw a comparison with doctors working for the NHS, who are entitled to opt out of performing abortions if it goes against their conscience. They said: "It is vitally important that the interests of vulnerable children are not relegated to suit any political interest. And that conditions are not inadvertently created which make the claims of conscience an obstacle to, rather than the inspiration for, the invaluable public service rendered by parts of the voluntary sector."
Their letter came as Mr Blair signalled his support for Catholic adoption agencies to opt out of gay rights laws despite accusations of blackmail by bishops threatening their closure. Downing Street said Mr Blair had taken charge of the search for a compromise amid a stand-off between the Catholic Church and supporters of gay rights over a new law to curb discrimination. But supporters of the new regulations insisted there was no scope for a middle way without breaching the principles of equality law.
Source
Children used as experiment, says British magistrate
A magistrate who says that he was forced to resign because he did not feel able to place children in care with same-sex couples said yesterday that the children were being used as guinea-pigs in a social experiment. Andrew McClintock, 62, a member of the Christian People's Alliance council, has served as a magistrate in the family courts in Sheffield for 15 years, ruling on whether children in troubled families needed to be placed in care.
But he has argued that the new civil partnership law could mean him sanctioning the removal of a child from its natural family to be placed in the care of a gay couple. Mr McClintock, a father of four, resigned from his position because he said that this would contravene both his personal religious beliefs and his duty as a magistrate to put the child's welfare first.
He is taking action against the Department for Constitutional Affairs, which runs the country's magistrates' courts, under the Employment Equality Regulations 2003, arguing that he is being discriminated against on religious grounds. He wants reinstatement. Mr McClintock was supported by protesters handing out leaflets on the first of what is expected to be a three-day employment tribunal.
He told the tribunal in Sheffield that children assigned to same-sex couples risked being teased in the playground about having two daddies or mummies. He said: "It is incompatible with the welfare of the child, who is becoming a guinea-pig in a social science experiment." He is claiming that his dignity had been violated after being told that he must sit on such cases despite his conviction that children should be brought up by heterosexual couples. There were precedents for his position of conscience and he should be accommodated, he argued.
Source
Another failure of Britain's leftist government: "The police rounded on the Home Secretary yesterday, accusing him of letting down officers by failing to provide enough prison places for the criminals they are catching. Leaders of junior and middle-ranking officers in England and Wales expressed dismay that John Reid was appealing to courts to jail fewer people. They said that he and other Labour ministers had "let down" officers who worked hard to catch crooks. Chief constables privately backed the public criticism of the Government's failure to provide enough jail cells, which has resulted in severe overcrowding. The police criticism of Mr Reid and ministers is deeply embarrassing for the Government and its credentials on law and order. The attack on the Home Secretary came as the Prison Service was forced to start putting remand prisoners in cells in a wing at Norwich jail, parts of which has been condemmed as "unfit for human habitation". It also emerged that cells at the Old Bailey in Central London were on standby to receive prisoners as the jails ran out of cell spaces in London and the South East. Prison numbers rose again overnight, taking the total population yesterday to 80,070, including an estimated 400 in police cells around England and Wales. Eleven prisoners were forced to spend Tuesday night in cells at Inner London Crown Court."
Pathetic British authorities still cannot handle even light snow: "Each year it comes as inevitably as, well, winter, but yesterday the first snow of the year caught the transport system on the hop. Again. A tentative sprinkling was all it took to bring chaos as commuters suffered long waits on freezing platforms and tailbacks on the roads. One woman, 49, died when she stopped at Haresfield in Gloucestershire to help a 17-year-old driver after his car overturned on an icy road. Another vehicle then skidded into her. The M23 from Surry heading into London was closed for two hours after a coach collided with two cars. Hundreds of trains were delayed and dozens cancelled as the rail network was blighted by frozen points. Network Rail said that the disruption was mainly due to the failure of the heating systems that are supposed to prevent freezing. Points failure struck at some of the network's major hubs, including, in London, Clapham Junction, Waterloo and Wimbledon. Other trains were left stranded after ice on the tracks caused power surges".
And it sounds like the actual cause of death was one of the superbugs that are rife in dirty NHS hospitals
A father described yesterday how he watched helplessly as his 13-month-old son died after a four-hour hospital wait because doctors said that they were too busy to treat him. Zia Islam said that Ahil was taken to hospital after he suffered minor burns when a cup of tea fell on him at home.
Giving evidence at the child’s inquest, Mr Islam, a 37-year-old IT consultant from Watford, said that Ahil was transferred from a specialist burns unit to Watford General Hospital in October 2005 when his condition took a turn for the worse a few days after the mishap.
The boy and his mother arrived at 11am at the hospital’s Accident & Emergency department, where he later joined them. He said that despite the infant starting a fever, vomiting and suffering severe diarrhoea, they were kept waiting for four hours.
Mr Islam claimed that he and his wife, Nazmin, were treated as though there was “nothing wrong” with their son.
He said: “When I got to A&E, my wife and Ahil were in the waiting room. He was crying and I asked, ‘What are you both doing here... haven’t you been seen yet?’ I was getting very anxious.
“One doctor told me Ahil was seriously sick, another told me they were all busy. Before anyone could see him properly, he was suffering from extreme diarrhoea in the waiting room. Every time a doctor came past, he was getting progressively weaker.” The senior house officer examined Ahil nearly 90 minutes after his arrival. He thought he might have a chest infection and sent him for X-rays.
Mr Islam added: “As time progressed he was getting weaker, he was crying but he was beginning to lie still. At 2.15pm he went to the cubicle for a blood test. At around 3.45pm his breathing deteriorated, his eyes closed, and the doctors tried to resuscitate him.
“The only time there was a sense of urgency was when they tried to resuscitate him.When you are the parent of a very sick child, there is a limit to what you can do. You cannot offend someone or you will not get the best out of them.”
He said that he felt that he had not done everything possible. “I did not shout or make a scene — if I had we might not be sitting here today.” The hospital has admitted liability.
Dr Craig Platt, a paediatric pathologist at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital, said that the cause of death was “most likely” to have been from a blood infection known as Staphylococcus aureus septicaemia triggered by 3 per cent burns. The infection is found in nearly half of children and normally remains dormant. However, in Ahil it caused a condition similar to toxic shock syndrome.
Ahil was first taken to the Watford casualty unit after the accident at home on September 30. He was transferred to the burns unit at Mount Vernon Hospital, northwest London, and discharged after treatment. But over the next two days he developed a fever, vomiting and then severe diarrhoea. His condition worsened and his parents took him back to Mount Vernon where he was kept in overnight. The next morning doctors decided he needed emergency treatment and he was sent back to Watford.
Source
HOMOSEXUAL ADOPTION UNDER PRESSURE IN BRITAIN
The Church of England put pressure on the Prime Minister last night over the gay adoptions row with a letter giving warning that "rights of conscience cannot be made subject to legislation". The Archbishops of Canterbury and York declared on the side of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster after Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor wrote to every member of the Cabinet stating that the Catholic Church could not accept a law forcing its adoption agencies to accept gay couples.
The intervention by Dr Rowan Williams and Dr John Sentamu in a letter seen by The Times places unprecedented pressure on Tony Blair. If he accedes to the demands, he will face accusations from the gay rights lobby and many within his own Government of being a "Vatican puppet". If he stands by the gay lobby, he risks alienating hundreds of thousands of Catholic Labour voters.
It is thought that Mr Blair, an Anglican whose wife is a Catholic and who has long been known to be sympathetic to the Church himself, favours a compromise. However, most other Cabinet ministers are taking a much harder line and believe that compromise is impossible. If the Church is allowed to opt out, they argue, it would undermine the fundemental position of law.
In their letter, Dr Williams and Dr Sentamu highlight the danger of the row escalating to the point where some might question the ability of people with a strong faith to be in government. They say: "It would be deeply regrettable if in seeking, quite properly, better to defend the rights of a particular group not to be discriminated against, a climate were to be created in which, for example, some feel free to argue that members of the Government are not fit to hold public office on the grounds of their faith affiliation."
They give warning that the argument over the Sexual Orientation Regulations has reached damaging proportions and that "much could be lost". They say: "Many in the voluntary sector are dedicated to public service because of the dictates of their conscience. In legislating to protect and promote the rights of particular groups the Government is faced with the delicate but important challenge of not thereby creating the conditions within which others feel their rights to have been ignored or sacrificed, or in which the dictates of personal conscience are put at risk. "The rights of conscience cannot be made subject to legislation, however well meaning." They draw a comparison with doctors working for the NHS, who are entitled to opt out of performing abortions if it goes against their conscience. They said: "It is vitally important that the interests of vulnerable children are not relegated to suit any political interest. And that conditions are not inadvertently created which make the claims of conscience an obstacle to, rather than the inspiration for, the invaluable public service rendered by parts of the voluntary sector."
Their letter came as Mr Blair signalled his support for Catholic adoption agencies to opt out of gay rights laws despite accusations of blackmail by bishops threatening their closure. Downing Street said Mr Blair had taken charge of the search for a compromise amid a stand-off between the Catholic Church and supporters of gay rights over a new law to curb discrimination. But supporters of the new regulations insisted there was no scope for a middle way without breaching the principles of equality law.
Source
Children used as experiment, says British magistrate
A magistrate who says that he was forced to resign because he did not feel able to place children in care with same-sex couples said yesterday that the children were being used as guinea-pigs in a social experiment. Andrew McClintock, 62, a member of the Christian People's Alliance council, has served as a magistrate in the family courts in Sheffield for 15 years, ruling on whether children in troubled families needed to be placed in care.
But he has argued that the new civil partnership law could mean him sanctioning the removal of a child from its natural family to be placed in the care of a gay couple. Mr McClintock, a father of four, resigned from his position because he said that this would contravene both his personal religious beliefs and his duty as a magistrate to put the child's welfare first.
He is taking action against the Department for Constitutional Affairs, which runs the country's magistrates' courts, under the Employment Equality Regulations 2003, arguing that he is being discriminated against on religious grounds. He wants reinstatement. Mr McClintock was supported by protesters handing out leaflets on the first of what is expected to be a three-day employment tribunal.
He told the tribunal in Sheffield that children assigned to same-sex couples risked being teased in the playground about having two daddies or mummies. He said: "It is incompatible with the welfare of the child, who is becoming a guinea-pig in a social science experiment." He is claiming that his dignity had been violated after being told that he must sit on such cases despite his conviction that children should be brought up by heterosexual couples. There were precedents for his position of conscience and he should be accommodated, he argued.
Source
Another failure of Britain's leftist government: "The police rounded on the Home Secretary yesterday, accusing him of letting down officers by failing to provide enough prison places for the criminals they are catching. Leaders of junior and middle-ranking officers in England and Wales expressed dismay that John Reid was appealing to courts to jail fewer people. They said that he and other Labour ministers had "let down" officers who worked hard to catch crooks. Chief constables privately backed the public criticism of the Government's failure to provide enough jail cells, which has resulted in severe overcrowding. The police criticism of Mr Reid and ministers is deeply embarrassing for the Government and its credentials on law and order. The attack on the Home Secretary came as the Prison Service was forced to start putting remand prisoners in cells in a wing at Norwich jail, parts of which has been condemmed as "unfit for human habitation". It also emerged that cells at the Old Bailey in Central London were on standby to receive prisoners as the jails ran out of cell spaces in London and the South East. Prison numbers rose again overnight, taking the total population yesterday to 80,070, including an estimated 400 in police cells around England and Wales. Eleven prisoners were forced to spend Tuesday night in cells at Inner London Crown Court."
Pathetic British authorities still cannot handle even light snow: "Each year it comes as inevitably as, well, winter, but yesterday the first snow of the year caught the transport system on the hop. Again. A tentative sprinkling was all it took to bring chaos as commuters suffered long waits on freezing platforms and tailbacks on the roads. One woman, 49, died when she stopped at Haresfield in Gloucestershire to help a 17-year-old driver after his car overturned on an icy road. Another vehicle then skidded into her. The M23 from Surry heading into London was closed for two hours after a coach collided with two cars. Hundreds of trains were delayed and dozens cancelled as the rail network was blighted by frozen points. Network Rail said that the disruption was mainly due to the failure of the heating systems that are supposed to prevent freezing. Points failure struck at some of the network's major hubs, including, in London, Clapham Junction, Waterloo and Wimbledon. Other trains were left stranded after ice on the tracks caused power surges".
Thursday, January 25, 2007
British Catholics refuse to accept homosexual adoption law
The Roman Catholic Church squared up for a political battle with the Government yesterday as it warned the Cabinet that it could not accept a law forcing it to embrace adoption by gay couples. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster, took the unusual step of writing to every Cabinet member saying that he would have “serious difficulty” with such a move.
Source
How feminists tried to destroy the family
Erin Pizzey, founder of the battered wives' refuge, on how militant feminists - with the collusion of Labour's leading women - hijacked her cause and used it to try to demonise all men
During 1970, I was a young housewife with a husband, two children, two dogs and a cat. We lived in Hammersmith, West London, and I didn't see much of my husband because he worked for TV's Nationwide. I was lonely and isolated, and longed for something other than the usual cooking, cleaning and housework to enter my life.
By the early Seventies, a new movement for women - demanding equality and rights - began to make headlines in the daily newspapers. Among the jargon, I read the words "solidarity" and "support". I passionately believed that women would no longer find themselves isolated from each other, and in the future could unite to change our society for the better. Within a few days I had the address of a local group in Chiswick, and I was on my way to join the Women's Liberation Movement. I was asked to pay 3 pounds and ten shillings as a joining fee, told to call other women "sisters" and that our meetings were to be called "collectives".
My fascination with this new movement lasted only a few months. At the huge "collectives", I heard shrill women preaching hatred of the family. They said the family was not a safe place for women and children. I was horrified at their virulence and violent tendencies. I stood on the same platforms trying to reason with the leading lights of this new organisation. I ended up being thrown out by the movement. My crime was to warn some of the women working in the Women's Liberation Movement office off Shaftesbury Avenue that if it persisted in cooperating with a plan to bomb Biba, a fashionable clothes shop in Kensington, I would call the police. Biba was bombed because the women's movement thought it was a capitalist enterprise devoted to sexualising women's bodies.
I decided that I was wasting my time trying to influence what, to my mind, was a Marxist/ feminist movement touting for money from gullible women like myself. By that time, I'd met a small group of women in my area who agreed with me. We persuaded Hounslow council to give us a tiny house in Belmont Terrace in Chiswick. We had two rooms upstairs, two rooms downstairs, a kitchen and an outside lavatory. We installed a telephone and typewriter, and we were in business. Every day after dropping my children at school, I went to our little house, which we called the Women's Aid. Soon women from all over Chiswick were coming to ask for help. At last we had somewhere women could meet each other and bring their children. My long, lonely days were over.
But then something happened that made me understand that our role was going to be more than just a forum where women could exchange ideas. One day, a lady came in to see us. She took off her jersey, and we saw that she was bruised and swollen across her breasts and back. Her husband had taken a chair leg to her. She looked at me and said: "No one will help me." For a moment I was somersaulted back in time. I was six years old, standing in front of a teacher at school. My legs were striped and bleeding from a whipping I had received from an ironing cord. "My mother did this to me last night," I said. "No wonder," replied the teacher. "'You're a dreadful child." No one would help me then and nobody would ever imagine that my beautiful, rich mother - who was married to a diplomat - could be a violent abuser. Until that moment 35 years later, I had buried my past and assumed that because we had social workers, probation officers, doctors, hospitals and solicitors, victims of violence had enough help.
I quickly discovered, as battered women with their children poured into the house, that whatever was going on behind other people's front doors was seen as nobody else's business. If someone was beaten up on the street, it was a criminal offence; the same beating behind a closed door was called "a domestic"' and the police had no rights or power to interfere. The shocking fact for me was that there had been a deafening silence on the subject of domestic violence. All the social agencies knew about domestic violence, but nobody talked about it. I searched for literature to help me understand this epidemic, but there was nothing to read except a few articles on child abuse in medical journals.
So in 1974 I decided to write Scream Quietly Or The Neighbours Will Hear, the first book in the world on domestic violence. I revealed that women and children were being abused in their own homes and they couldn't escape because the law wouldn't protect them. If a husband claimed he would have his wife back, she couldn't claim any money from the Department of Health and Social Security, and social services could only offer to take the children into care.
Meanwhile, our little house was packed with women fleeing their violent partners - sometimes as many as 56 mothers and children in four rooms. All had terrible stories, but I recognised almost immediately that not all the women were innocent. Some were as violent as the men, and violent towards their children. The social workers involved with these women told me I was wasting my time because the women would only return to their partners. I was determined to try to break the chain of violence. But as the local newspaper picked up the story of our house, I grew worried about a very different threat.
I knew that the radical feminist movement was running out of national support because more sensible women had shunned their anti-male, anti-family agenda. Not only were they looking for a cause, they also wanted money. In 1974, the women living in my refuge organised a meeting in our local church hall to encourage other groups to open refuges across the country. We were astonished and frightened that many of the radical lesbian and feminist activists that I had seen in the collectives attended. They began to vote themselves into a national movement across the country. After a stormy argument, I left the hall with my abused mothers - and what I had most feared happened.
In a matter of months, the feminist movement hijacked the domestic violence movement, not just in Britain, but internationally. Our grant was given to them and they had a legitimate reason to hate and blame all men. They came out with sweeping statements which were as biased as they were ignorant. "All women are innocent victims of men's violence," they declared. They opened most of the refuges in the country and banned men from working in them or sitting on their governing committees. Women with alcohol or drug problems were refused admittance, as were boys over 12 years old. Refuges that let men work there were refused affiliation.
Our group in Chiswick worked with as many refuges as we could. Good, caring women still work in refuges across the country, but many women working in the feminist refuges, about 350, admit they are failing women who most need them.
With the first donation we received in 1972, we employed a male playgroup leader because we felt our children needed the experience of good, gentle men. We devised a treatment programme for women who recognised that they, too, were violent and dysfunctional. And we concentrated on children hurt by violence and sexual abuse. Yet the feminist refuges continued to create training programmes that described only male violence against women. Slowly, the police and other organisations were brainwashed into ignoring the research that was proving men could also be victims.
Despite attacks in the Press from feminist journalists and threatening anonymous telephone calls, I continued to argue that violence was a learned pattern of behaviour from early childhood. When, in the mid-Eighties, I published Prone To Violence, about my work with violence-prone women and their children, I was picketed by hundreds of women from feminist refuges, holding placards which read: "All men are bastards" and "All men are rapists". Because of violent threats, I had to have a police escort around the country.
It was bad enough that this relatively small group of women was influencing social workers and police. But I became aware of a far more insidious development in the form of public policy-making by powerful women, which was creating a poisonous attitude towards men. In 1990, Harriet Harman (who became a Cabinet minister), Anna Coote (who became an adviser to Labour's Minister for Women) and Patricia Hewitt (yes, she's in the Labour Cabinet, too!) expressed their beliefs in a social policy paper called The Family Way. It said: "It cannot be assumed that men are bound to be an asset to family life, or that the presence of fathers in families is necessarily a means to social harmony and cohesion." It was a staggering attack on men and their role in modern life.
Hewitt, in a book by Geoff Dench called Transforming Men published in 1995, said: "But if we want fathers to play a full role in their children's lives, then we need to bring men into the playgroups and nurseries and the schools. And here, of course, we hit the immediate difficulty of whether we can trust men with children." In 1998, however, the Home Office published a historic study which stipulated that men as well as women could be victims of domestic violence. With that report in my hand, I tried to reason with Joan Ruddock, who was then Minister for Women. The figures for battered men were "minuscule" she insisted and she continued to refer to men only as "perpetrators".
For nearly four decades, these pernicious attitudes towards family life, fathers and boys have permeated the thinking of our society to such an extent that male teachers and carers are now afraid to touch or cuddle children. Men can be accused of violence towards their partners and sexual abuse without evidence. Courts discriminate against fathers and refuse to allow them access to their children on the whims of vicious partners.
Of course, there are dangerous men who manipulate the court systems and social services to persecute their partners and children. But by blaming all men, we have diluted the focus on this minority of men and pushed aside the many men who would be willing to work with women towards solutions.
I believe that the feminist movement envisaged a new Utopia that depended upon destroying family life. In the new century, so their credo ran, the family unit will consist of only women and their children. Fathers are dispensable. And all that was yoked - unforgivably - to the debate about domestic violence. To my mind, it has never been a gender issue - those exposed to violence in early childhood often grow up to repeat what they have learned, regardless of whether they are girls or boys. I look back with sadness to my young self and my vision that there could be places where people - men, women and children who have suffered physical and sexual abuse - could find help, and if they were violent could be given a second chance to learn to live peacefully.
I believe that vision was hijacked by vengeful women who have ghetto-ised the refuge movement and used it to persecute men. Surely the time has come to challenge this evil ideology and insist that men take their rightful place in the refuge movement. We need an inclusive movement that offers support to everyone that needs it. As for me - I will always continue to work with anyone who needs my help or can help others - and yes, that includes men
Source
Official anti-white racism in British schools promoting resentment
White children living in mixed-race communities feel as marginalised and uncertain of their British identity as ethnic minorities, a controversial government report has found. A review of citizenship lessons in schools by Sir Keith Ajegbo, a Home Office adviser, concludes that white children are suffering “labelling and discrimination” that is severely compromising their idea of being British. His review will suggest that while most people assume issues about diversity or “cultural and community cohesion” centred on the black or Asian communities, just as much thought and resources need to be put into providing diversity education to white pupils.
White pupils in areas where the ethnic composition is mixed can often suffer labelling and discrimination, Sir Keith will say. “They can feel beleaguered and marginalised, finding their own identities under threat as much as minority ethnic children might not have theirs recognised. “It makes no sense in our report to focus on minority ethnic pupils without trying to address and understand the issues for white pupils. It is these white pupils whose attitudes are overwhelmingly important in creating community cohesion. Nor is there any advantage in creating confidence in minority ethnic pupils if it leaves white pupils feeling disenfranchised and resentful.”
The report will quote the example of one white pupil in her early teens who, after hearing in a lesson that other members of her class originally came from the Congo, Portugal, Trinidad and Poland, said that she “came from nowhere”. These issues were important in white schools as much as schools with a mixed race intake, the report will say. “Even though the white population who live in predominantly white areas might be removed from the immediate personal experience of ethnic diversity, it is still likely to be an issue for them because they encounter diversity through media representations.”
Sir Keith’s report is based on interviews with pupils, community organisations and faith groups across the country about what they thought of citizenship lessons. It was commissioned last year after the bombings of July 7, 2005, amid fears that extremism was rife in universities. It is expected to recommend that citizenship lessons focus on teaching what it means to be British, along with an understanding of values such as tolerance and justice.
Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, who will publish the Ajegbo review tomorrow, agrees that many white working-class children have negative perceptions of their British identity. He is likely to accept that more support is needed for predominantly white schools to support a wider understanding of diversity.
While the spectre of white marginalisation is regarded as an increasingly pressing issue, governments have been cautious of tackling it head-on for fear of being accused of racism. Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, said last night that he had long regarded this as a crucial issue. He highlighted a recent speech in which he gave warning that the “perception of inequality” existed among white as well as non-white populations. “Many of the white working class people who vote for the BNP sincerely believe that it is their colour that means that they are poor, or that their sons are failing at school, or that the council gives everything going to the Asians. “Not all of this is imagined. All the recent evidence shows that inequality based on race and faith is polarising our communities,” he said in the address last November.
Ian Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, welcomed Sir Keith’s findings, adding that it was about time the Government woke up to the issue. “For some white working-class boys, it appears to them that everybody else but them has somebody who worries about them. They feel they are at the bottom,” he said. “The issues that affect white working-class boys are the same as those that affect Afro-Caribbean boys.”
Source
The Roman Catholic Church squared up for a political battle with the Government yesterday as it warned the Cabinet that it could not accept a law forcing it to embrace adoption by gay couples. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster, took the unusual step of writing to every Cabinet member saying that he would have “serious difficulty” with such a move.
Catholic teaching about family life meant that its adoption agencies “would not be able to recruit and consider homosexual couples as potential adoptive parents”, he added. “We believe it would be unreasonable, unnecessary and unjust discrimination against Catholics for the Government to insist that, if they wish to continue to work with local authorities, Catholic adoption agencies must act against the teaching of the Church and their own consciences,” the Archbishop told them.
Such a strongly worded intervention by the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales will further stoke a row within the Government over new discrimination regulations. The Times has been told that Tony Blair sided with the Catholic Church and expressed fears that its adoption agencies would close unless he allowed an exemption when Angela Eagle, a Labour MP, tackled him over the issue at the parliamentary committee of Labour backbenchers last week.
The Sexual Orientation Regulations have aroused opposition among some evangelical Christian leaders because of fears that Christian hotel owners could be open to prosecution if they refused to let homosexual couples have a room.
But a spokesman said that the new regulations would not affect the existing policy of Anglican adoption charities, where couples and individuals are assessed according to their suitability and to the needs of the child.
In its response to the government consultation, the Church said that it was crucial to ensure that churches and other faith communities were able to manifest their convictions and doctrines without fear of prosecution. “That means that the regulations need to strike a careful balance, as in other anti-discrimination legislation, between potentially competing rights,” it added.
Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary, who is responsible for the regulations as the Minister for Equality Policy, is said by colleagues to have been ready to propose an exemption that would allow Catholic agencies to continue as they are.
But her stance has provoked a revolt by other ministers and Labour backbenchers, who say that an exemption would allow discrimination against homosexuals.
Chris Bryant, Labour MP for Rhondda, said: “I suspect the bishops are hopelessly out of step with ordinary Catholics on this. Surely all that counts is the best interests of the child.”
The row has echoes of the last big intervention into politics by the Roman Catholic Church, when it began a lobbying campaign that forced the Government to abandon plans last autumn to require new faith schools to accept a quarter of their admissions from children of other religions.
This time the church is threatening to close 12 Catholic adoption and fostering agencies unless they win an exemption.
Source
How feminists tried to destroy the family
Erin Pizzey, founder of the battered wives' refuge, on how militant feminists - with the collusion of Labour's leading women - hijacked her cause and used it to try to demonise all men
During 1970, I was a young housewife with a husband, two children, two dogs and a cat. We lived in Hammersmith, West London, and I didn't see much of my husband because he worked for TV's Nationwide. I was lonely and isolated, and longed for something other than the usual cooking, cleaning and housework to enter my life.
By the early Seventies, a new movement for women - demanding equality and rights - began to make headlines in the daily newspapers. Among the jargon, I read the words "solidarity" and "support". I passionately believed that women would no longer find themselves isolated from each other, and in the future could unite to change our society for the better. Within a few days I had the address of a local group in Chiswick, and I was on my way to join the Women's Liberation Movement. I was asked to pay 3 pounds and ten shillings as a joining fee, told to call other women "sisters" and that our meetings were to be called "collectives".
My fascination with this new movement lasted only a few months. At the huge "collectives", I heard shrill women preaching hatred of the family. They said the family was not a safe place for women and children. I was horrified at their virulence and violent tendencies. I stood on the same platforms trying to reason with the leading lights of this new organisation. I ended up being thrown out by the movement. My crime was to warn some of the women working in the Women's Liberation Movement office off Shaftesbury Avenue that if it persisted in cooperating with a plan to bomb Biba, a fashionable clothes shop in Kensington, I would call the police. Biba was bombed because the women's movement thought it was a capitalist enterprise devoted to sexualising women's bodies.
I decided that I was wasting my time trying to influence what, to my mind, was a Marxist/ feminist movement touting for money from gullible women like myself. By that time, I'd met a small group of women in my area who agreed with me. We persuaded Hounslow council to give us a tiny house in Belmont Terrace in Chiswick. We had two rooms upstairs, two rooms downstairs, a kitchen and an outside lavatory. We installed a telephone and typewriter, and we were in business. Every day after dropping my children at school, I went to our little house, which we called the Women's Aid. Soon women from all over Chiswick were coming to ask for help. At last we had somewhere women could meet each other and bring their children. My long, lonely days were over.
But then something happened that made me understand that our role was going to be more than just a forum where women could exchange ideas. One day, a lady came in to see us. She took off her jersey, and we saw that she was bruised and swollen across her breasts and back. Her husband had taken a chair leg to her. She looked at me and said: "No one will help me." For a moment I was somersaulted back in time. I was six years old, standing in front of a teacher at school. My legs were striped and bleeding from a whipping I had received from an ironing cord. "My mother did this to me last night," I said. "No wonder," replied the teacher. "'You're a dreadful child." No one would help me then and nobody would ever imagine that my beautiful, rich mother - who was married to a diplomat - could be a violent abuser. Until that moment 35 years later, I had buried my past and assumed that because we had social workers, probation officers, doctors, hospitals and solicitors, victims of violence had enough help.
I quickly discovered, as battered women with their children poured into the house, that whatever was going on behind other people's front doors was seen as nobody else's business. If someone was beaten up on the street, it was a criminal offence; the same beating behind a closed door was called "a domestic"' and the police had no rights or power to interfere. The shocking fact for me was that there had been a deafening silence on the subject of domestic violence. All the social agencies knew about domestic violence, but nobody talked about it. I searched for literature to help me understand this epidemic, but there was nothing to read except a few articles on child abuse in medical journals.
So in 1974 I decided to write Scream Quietly Or The Neighbours Will Hear, the first book in the world on domestic violence. I revealed that women and children were being abused in their own homes and they couldn't escape because the law wouldn't protect them. If a husband claimed he would have his wife back, she couldn't claim any money from the Department of Health and Social Security, and social services could only offer to take the children into care.
Meanwhile, our little house was packed with women fleeing their violent partners - sometimes as many as 56 mothers and children in four rooms. All had terrible stories, but I recognised almost immediately that not all the women were innocent. Some were as violent as the men, and violent towards their children. The social workers involved with these women told me I was wasting my time because the women would only return to their partners. I was determined to try to break the chain of violence. But as the local newspaper picked up the story of our house, I grew worried about a very different threat.
I knew that the radical feminist movement was running out of national support because more sensible women had shunned their anti-male, anti-family agenda. Not only were they looking for a cause, they also wanted money. In 1974, the women living in my refuge organised a meeting in our local church hall to encourage other groups to open refuges across the country. We were astonished and frightened that many of the radical lesbian and feminist activists that I had seen in the collectives attended. They began to vote themselves into a national movement across the country. After a stormy argument, I left the hall with my abused mothers - and what I had most feared happened.
In a matter of months, the feminist movement hijacked the domestic violence movement, not just in Britain, but internationally. Our grant was given to them and they had a legitimate reason to hate and blame all men. They came out with sweeping statements which were as biased as they were ignorant. "All women are innocent victims of men's violence," they declared. They opened most of the refuges in the country and banned men from working in them or sitting on their governing committees. Women with alcohol or drug problems were refused admittance, as were boys over 12 years old. Refuges that let men work there were refused affiliation.
Our group in Chiswick worked with as many refuges as we could. Good, caring women still work in refuges across the country, but many women working in the feminist refuges, about 350, admit they are failing women who most need them.
With the first donation we received in 1972, we employed a male playgroup leader because we felt our children needed the experience of good, gentle men. We devised a treatment programme for women who recognised that they, too, were violent and dysfunctional. And we concentrated on children hurt by violence and sexual abuse. Yet the feminist refuges continued to create training programmes that described only male violence against women. Slowly, the police and other organisations were brainwashed into ignoring the research that was proving men could also be victims.
Despite attacks in the Press from feminist journalists and threatening anonymous telephone calls, I continued to argue that violence was a learned pattern of behaviour from early childhood. When, in the mid-Eighties, I published Prone To Violence, about my work with violence-prone women and their children, I was picketed by hundreds of women from feminist refuges, holding placards which read: "All men are bastards" and "All men are rapists". Because of violent threats, I had to have a police escort around the country.
It was bad enough that this relatively small group of women was influencing social workers and police. But I became aware of a far more insidious development in the form of public policy-making by powerful women, which was creating a poisonous attitude towards men. In 1990, Harriet Harman (who became a Cabinet minister), Anna Coote (who became an adviser to Labour's Minister for Women) and Patricia Hewitt (yes, she's in the Labour Cabinet, too!) expressed their beliefs in a social policy paper called The Family Way. It said: "It cannot be assumed that men are bound to be an asset to family life, or that the presence of fathers in families is necessarily a means to social harmony and cohesion." It was a staggering attack on men and their role in modern life.
Hewitt, in a book by Geoff Dench called Transforming Men published in 1995, said: "But if we want fathers to play a full role in their children's lives, then we need to bring men into the playgroups and nurseries and the schools. And here, of course, we hit the immediate difficulty of whether we can trust men with children." In 1998, however, the Home Office published a historic study which stipulated that men as well as women could be victims of domestic violence. With that report in my hand, I tried to reason with Joan Ruddock, who was then Minister for Women. The figures for battered men were "minuscule" she insisted and she continued to refer to men only as "perpetrators".
For nearly four decades, these pernicious attitudes towards family life, fathers and boys have permeated the thinking of our society to such an extent that male teachers and carers are now afraid to touch or cuddle children. Men can be accused of violence towards their partners and sexual abuse without evidence. Courts discriminate against fathers and refuse to allow them access to their children on the whims of vicious partners.
Of course, there are dangerous men who manipulate the court systems and social services to persecute their partners and children. But by blaming all men, we have diluted the focus on this minority of men and pushed aside the many men who would be willing to work with women towards solutions.
I believe that the feminist movement envisaged a new Utopia that depended upon destroying family life. In the new century, so their credo ran, the family unit will consist of only women and their children. Fathers are dispensable. And all that was yoked - unforgivably - to the debate about domestic violence. To my mind, it has never been a gender issue - those exposed to violence in early childhood often grow up to repeat what they have learned, regardless of whether they are girls or boys. I look back with sadness to my young self and my vision that there could be places where people - men, women and children who have suffered physical and sexual abuse - could find help, and if they were violent could be given a second chance to learn to live peacefully.
I believe that vision was hijacked by vengeful women who have ghetto-ised the refuge movement and used it to persecute men. Surely the time has come to challenge this evil ideology and insist that men take their rightful place in the refuge movement. We need an inclusive movement that offers support to everyone that needs it. As for me - I will always continue to work with anyone who needs my help or can help others - and yes, that includes men
Source
Official anti-white racism in British schools promoting resentment
White children living in mixed-race communities feel as marginalised and uncertain of their British identity as ethnic minorities, a controversial government report has found. A review of citizenship lessons in schools by Sir Keith Ajegbo, a Home Office adviser, concludes that white children are suffering “labelling and discrimination” that is severely compromising their idea of being British. His review will suggest that while most people assume issues about diversity or “cultural and community cohesion” centred on the black or Asian communities, just as much thought and resources need to be put into providing diversity education to white pupils.
White pupils in areas where the ethnic composition is mixed can often suffer labelling and discrimination, Sir Keith will say. “They can feel beleaguered and marginalised, finding their own identities under threat as much as minority ethnic children might not have theirs recognised. “It makes no sense in our report to focus on minority ethnic pupils without trying to address and understand the issues for white pupils. It is these white pupils whose attitudes are overwhelmingly important in creating community cohesion. Nor is there any advantage in creating confidence in minority ethnic pupils if it leaves white pupils feeling disenfranchised and resentful.”
The report will quote the example of one white pupil in her early teens who, after hearing in a lesson that other members of her class originally came from the Congo, Portugal, Trinidad and Poland, said that she “came from nowhere”. These issues were important in white schools as much as schools with a mixed race intake, the report will say. “Even though the white population who live in predominantly white areas might be removed from the immediate personal experience of ethnic diversity, it is still likely to be an issue for them because they encounter diversity through media representations.”
Sir Keith’s report is based on interviews with pupils, community organisations and faith groups across the country about what they thought of citizenship lessons. It was commissioned last year after the bombings of July 7, 2005, amid fears that extremism was rife in universities. It is expected to recommend that citizenship lessons focus on teaching what it means to be British, along with an understanding of values such as tolerance and justice.
Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, who will publish the Ajegbo review tomorrow, agrees that many white working-class children have negative perceptions of their British identity. He is likely to accept that more support is needed for predominantly white schools to support a wider understanding of diversity.
While the spectre of white marginalisation is regarded as an increasingly pressing issue, governments have been cautious of tackling it head-on for fear of being accused of racism. Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, said last night that he had long regarded this as a crucial issue. He highlighted a recent speech in which he gave warning that the “perception of inequality” existed among white as well as non-white populations. “Many of the white working class people who vote for the BNP sincerely believe that it is their colour that means that they are poor, or that their sons are failing at school, or that the council gives everything going to the Asians. “Not all of this is imagined. All the recent evidence shows that inequality based on race and faith is polarising our communities,” he said in the address last November.
Ian Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, welcomed Sir Keith’s findings, adding that it was about time the Government woke up to the issue. “For some white working-class boys, it appears to them that everybody else but them has somebody who worries about them. They feel they are at the bottom,” he said. “The issues that affect white working-class boys are the same as those that affect Afro-Caribbean boys.”
Source
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
The British medical bureaucracy is great at hounding good doctors but bad doctors? Forget about it!
See yesterday's postings. And note that even the vastly harmful Roy Meadow got off scot free and that IVF pioneer Steptoe was very nearly stopped by the British medical authorities. A lesser man would have given up
Rogue doctors and thousands of other health professionals who have been struck off for misconduct in other European countries are able to work in Britain because there is no mechanism in place to warn employers. In a letter to The Times today, ten leading medical regulators have expressed grave concerns about the vetting procedures.
The number of professionals - including doctors, nurses, dentists and chiropractors - from the European Economic Area registering to work in Britain has doubled in three years. The regulators said that although most were of benefit to Britain, a small, poorly trained minority were exploiting the system and could put patients at risk. The letter's signatories, members of the Alliance of UK Health Regulators on Europe, cite several examples, including two nurses identified in the past year who had been banned from working in Ireland and a Dutch doctor who was allowed to work in this country despite being convicted of rape in his homeland.
The alliance says that there is no system in place to test fitness to practise or language skills or to flag up those found guilty of professional misconduct or criminal offences or otherwise considered to be a danger to patients. They add in their letter that due to loopholes in EU legislation an unknown number of incompetent or convicted medical professionals could be working in Britain.
A healthcare professional from another EU state needs evidence only of recognised medical training and a "certificate of good standing" to work in Britain. Different countries apply different standards, making assessments unreliable. The alliance is calling on the European Commission to impose a legal duty on all European medical regulators to share information about professionals who transgress national codes of conduct. "In 2005, over 7,000 practitioners from the European Economic Area (the 27 EU states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) came to Britain to register with our regulatory bodies and find work," their letter says. "While the UK undoubtedly benefits from this high level of mobility . . . there may be a minority who exploit free-movement rights and put patients at risk." It adds: "Regulators in Europe must be given the tools to enable them to facilitate this free movement while at the same time ensuring the safety of patients and the public."
Signatories to the letter, including the heads of the General Medical Council, the General Dental Council and the Nursing and Midwifery Council, call for sweeping reforms to facilitate proper checks on qualifications, experience and employment history. The letter is also endorsed by the General Optical, Osteopathic and Chiropractic councils, the Health Professions Council and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. The alliance is due to present its findings to the European Commission today.
At present, British medical regulators apply strict performance tests, measuring practical skills and proficiency in English among other things, to professionals from outside Europe who wish to work in Britain.
Source
"Minority" Protection Likely to Defeat EU Swastika ban
We read:
The Indian symbol is most usually the mirror image of the German one but they do use it both ways
My previous comment on the above matter was on 16th.
"Third World" a Racist Term?
From Britain:
I guess Third World and Western countries are really the same in all respects -- or if they are not the same we must not mention it. I was very supportive of Indian academics and their work during my research career but I did notice some characteristic differences -- some desirable, some not. But I guess I am not allowed to mentions instances of that.
Muslim dickless Tracy shuns handshake with British police chief
Scotland Yard is at the centre of a new dispute over religious customs clashing with professional duties after a Muslim woman police cadet refused to shake hands with Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner.
Source
See yesterday's postings. And note that even the vastly harmful Roy Meadow got off scot free and that IVF pioneer Steptoe was very nearly stopped by the British medical authorities. A lesser man would have given up
Rogue doctors and thousands of other health professionals who have been struck off for misconduct in other European countries are able to work in Britain because there is no mechanism in place to warn employers. In a letter to The Times today, ten leading medical regulators have expressed grave concerns about the vetting procedures.
The number of professionals - including doctors, nurses, dentists and chiropractors - from the European Economic Area registering to work in Britain has doubled in three years. The regulators said that although most were of benefit to Britain, a small, poorly trained minority were exploiting the system and could put patients at risk. The letter's signatories, members of the Alliance of UK Health Regulators on Europe, cite several examples, including two nurses identified in the past year who had been banned from working in Ireland and a Dutch doctor who was allowed to work in this country despite being convicted of rape in his homeland.
The alliance says that there is no system in place to test fitness to practise or language skills or to flag up those found guilty of professional misconduct or criminal offences or otherwise considered to be a danger to patients. They add in their letter that due to loopholes in EU legislation an unknown number of incompetent or convicted medical professionals could be working in Britain.
A healthcare professional from another EU state needs evidence only of recognised medical training and a "certificate of good standing" to work in Britain. Different countries apply different standards, making assessments unreliable. The alliance is calling on the European Commission to impose a legal duty on all European medical regulators to share information about professionals who transgress national codes of conduct. "In 2005, over 7,000 practitioners from the European Economic Area (the 27 EU states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) came to Britain to register with our regulatory bodies and find work," their letter says. "While the UK undoubtedly benefits from this high level of mobility . . . there may be a minority who exploit free-movement rights and put patients at risk." It adds: "Regulators in Europe must be given the tools to enable them to facilitate this free movement while at the same time ensuring the safety of patients and the public."
Signatories to the letter, including the heads of the General Medical Council, the General Dental Council and the Nursing and Midwifery Council, call for sweeping reforms to facilitate proper checks on qualifications, experience and employment history. The letter is also endorsed by the General Optical, Osteopathic and Chiropractic councils, the Health Professions Council and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. The alliance is due to present its findings to the European Commission today.
At present, British medical regulators apply strict performance tests, measuring practical skills and proficiency in English among other things, to professionals from outside Europe who wish to work in Britain.
Source
"Minority" Protection Likely to Defeat EU Swastika ban
We read:
"Hindus in Europe have joined forces against a German proposal to ban the display of the swastika across the European Union, a Hindu leader said. Ramesh Kallidai of the Hindu Forum of Britain said the swastika had been a symbol of peace for thousands of years before the Nazis adopted it. He said a ban on the symbol would discriminate against Hindus....
The group said banning the swastika was equivalent to banning the cross simply because the Ku Klux Klan had used burning crosses.
Source
The Indian symbol is most usually the mirror image of the German one but they do use it both ways
My previous comment on the above matter was on 16th.
"Third World" a Racist Term?
From Britain:
"Will Hutton, the author and left-leaning polemicist, is at the centre of a race row after describing a respected Asian professor of economics as a "Third World intellectual".
The head of the Work Foundation and former editor of The Observer made the comment about Lord Desai, the Labour peer, in an exchange of letters in Prospect magazine over the economic prospects of China....
Mr Hutton's comment has angered academics. Professor David Dabydeen, of Warwick University, said that it was racist. "Hutton has made a sad and dreadful attempt to ghettoise ideas that are different from his because they are voiced by a person of colour."
Source
I guess Third World and Western countries are really the same in all respects -- or if they are not the same we must not mention it. I was very supportive of Indian academics and their work during my research career but I did notice some characteristic differences -- some desirable, some not. But I guess I am not allowed to mentions instances of that.
Muslim dickless Tracy shuns handshake with British police chief
Scotland Yard is at the centre of a new dispute over religious customs clashing with professional duties after a Muslim woman police cadet refused to shake hands with Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner.
The incident happened at a recent graduation ceremony where Sir Ian was inspecting a passing-out parade of 200 new recruits.
The woman, who has not been named, told officers just before the ceremony began that her strict Muslim beliefs meant that she could not exchange the traditional congratulatory handshake with the commissioner.
She also refused to be photograped with Sir Ian, reportedly claiming that she did not want the image to be used for “propaganda purposes” as the Yard endeavours to recruit more female Muslim officers. Sir Ian was said to be incensed when told of the woman’s refusal.
Training officers told the commissioner that they had “reluctantly agreed” with her request as they did not want to cancel or disrupt the ceremony at the Yard’s sports and conference centre at Thames Ditton, Surrey, last month. The parade was attended by hundreds of family and friends of recruits who had completed their 18-week basic training. One senior police source said: “This had never happened before and there are serious issues at stake. There is an inquiry into the matter.”
The woman took part in the parade wearing a hijab, explaining that her faith dictates that she must not take shake hands with or kiss a man other than her father and close relative. She assured training staff that her religious code would not prevent her arresting a man.The woman is understood to have begun patrol duties in West London as part of her two-year probation period while superiors assess her suitability for the job.
A Scotland Yard spokesman said: “This request was only granted by members of training staff out of a desire to minimise any disruption to other’s enjoyment, and to ensure the smooth running of what is one of the most important events in an officer’s career. The commissioner did question the validity of this request, and the matter is being looked into.
“The officer maintains that she puts the requirements of being a police officer above her personal beliefs and only exercises the latter when she has choice to do so.”
The Yard has allowed women officers to wear an adaptation of the hijab as part of their uniform since 2001. Commanders have been trying to recruit more Muslims but there are still only 300 among the Met’s 35,000 officers. Fewer than 20 are women.
The Yard faced controversy last year when a Muslim officer was excused from guarding the Israeli Embassy at the height of the conflict in Lebanon. PC Alexander Omar Basha was moved to other duties after claiming that he was afraid his Lebanese relatives could be targeted if he were seen on TV.
Tahir Butt, spokesman for the Association of Muslim Police, supported the woman’s behaviour. “The actions demonstrate strength of character, challenge social norms and educate others as to the diverse practices of communities of London,” he said.
Sheikh Ibrahim Mogra, of the Muslim Council of Britain, said that the public should not be alarmed by the officer’s beliefs.
He said: “If she is called to a male victim who has been shot, the laws go out of the window. Muslim law will say, ‘Forget everything, save this life’.”
Source
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
A NASTY BRITISH HEALTH BUREAUCRACY
A mother treated at Mohamed Taranissi’s groundbreaking clinic in London defends him against the Panorama/HFEA witch-hunt. A big reminder of how dangerous it can be to leave anything to bureaucrats
I have Mohamed Taranissi’s groundbreaking IVF clinic to thank for my beautiful son. And many more parents have had children thanks to the insights and efforts of the ‘miracle makers’ at his London clinic. So why are the regulators of human fertilisation work in Britain, who claim to protect our interests, now witch-hunting Mr Taranissi?
His clinic, the Assisted Reproduction and Gynaecology Centre (ARGC), is the most successful in Britain. Yet on Monday it came under assault from both the media and the industry regulator, in what appears to be a collaborative effort to undermine the credibility and reputation of the clinic and its chief consultant, Taranissi. On the same day that the BBC TV aired a Panorama special investigative report on the clinic, in which undercover journalists posed as infertile women, the regulatory body, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), launched a police-assisted raid on both the ARGC and Taranissi’s other clinic, the Reproductive Genetics Institute (RGI).
The HFEA has denied that it worked in tandem with Panorama, instead claiming that the timing of the raid on the same day that the programme aired was purely coincidental. However, it certainly looks like a publicity stunt, and it’s not the kind of thing you would expect from what is supposed to be an impartial regulator with an ongoing inquiry into and legal dispute with a doctor. It raises questions not only about standards in public life but more pressingly: Why have they got it in for him?
Taranissi’s relationship with the HFEA has been a strained one. The fact that the ARGC has a fairly aggressive approach to the treatment of infertility means that as well as topping the HFEA’s own published league tables for IVF success rates for the past 11 years, the ARGC continually pushes against the current boundaries of ethical treatment. For instance, Taranissi pushed for the HFEA to allow preimplantation genetic diagnosis of embryos (PGD) in order that parents might produce a baby whose cord blood could possibly cure a sick older sibling. After there was widespread publicity and support for the successful treatment of British child Charlie Whitaker in this way, the HFEA finally dropped its official opposition to the use of PGD for such purposes.
It seems that Taranissi has been a bit of a thorn in the side of the HFEA, continually forcing it to rethink its extremely cautious approach to new treatments. For its part, the HFEA seeks to portray him as obstructionist, placing his clinic at the bottom of their table for compliance with industry standards – without, it seems, providing any breakdown of the way the results were compiled.
As well as getting up the noses of the regulator, Taranissi’s leadership and success in the field of infertility treatment has led to much resentment among his colleagues in the field. The fertility industry teems with doctors who sneer when his name is mentioned. This I know through personal experience; I went through a period of infertility and suffered recurrent miscarriages, and many of the fertility doctors I came into contact with had something negative to say about him. I was intrigued by the professional jealousy directed towards this extremely successful London consultant, often by doctors who usually told me there was nothing they could do for me and that I should adopt, try again, or just give up. Perversely, perhaps, it made me wonder what he had going for him and I sought a consultation at the ARGC to find out. This happily resulted in the birth of my son. After seeing, firsthand, the rivalries involved in the fertility profession, it did not surprise me in the least that Panorama could compile an impressive panel of experts to criticise Taranissi’s work.
Fertility treatment is an area of much uncertainty; it is fraught with ethical concerns. More research needs to be done, for sure, but advances will not be made if an over-cautious approach is taken. Attacks on those who are trying to push things forward because they irritate the regulator, or provoke jealousy among their colleagues, or are simply making a lot of money, will not help this state of affairs. In a climate in which there is a general fear and distrust of experimentation, we need people like Taranissi, people who are willing to challenge the status quo and experiment with new approaches. The ARGC was the first clinic to freeze and thaw human eggs, the first to perform PGD, and it is among the leaders in the field of reproductive immunology.
This latter area – immunological treatments – was of central concern to the BBC’s expert panel. While it is certainly a contested area of treatment, the Panorama programme did not mention that one of the experts it interviewed – Lesley Regan of St Mary’s miscarriage clinic – is herself overseeing a clinical trial into the effect of Natural Killer Cells on implantation. When I visited Regan’s clinic as a patient, I was told to await the outcome of this clinical research, which would have been published when I reached 40 years of age – that is, when my fertility would be seriously compromised by my age. I was glad to have the opportunity to try the treatment immediately at the ARGC.
As a former IVF patient and now a mum, I strongly object to the way that the Panorama programme portrayed patients as ‘vulnerable’ and ‘desperate’. I was actually rather well-informed; I was aware of the research and successful treatments conducted in the United States (where there is very little regulation of IVF clinics); and I was strong-willed enough not to take no for an answer. None of the women I know who has been through IVF at the ARGC was manipulated or exploited; they knew what they were going in for because Taranissi and his staff are very clear about the nature of the treatment and the risks and benefits involved.
Of course, IVF has no guarantees and it is a shame that it cannot be provided in a timely and cost-free manner on the National Health Service. But in the current situation, where 80 per cent of IVF treatments are private, many couples will lose money on the gamble that is fertility treatment. That is not any one individual’s fault, and, in fact, the high success rate of the ARGC means fewer couples are disappointed there than elsewhere. It is a shame that the BBC’s reporters did not see fit to interview some of Taranissi’s real patients rather than sending in journalists in an underhand subterfuge. I think they would have heard a very different story: one of a dedicated, hardworking and honest doctor, whose success comes largely from his close attention to detail and his amazing accessibility. As a patient of his, I was given his personal mobile phone number to call in case of any concerns or questions. I was also monitored daily, receiving phone calls to remind me of the dosage and timing of drug administration.
My son turned two in November. He is a constant reminder to me not only of luck and love, but of the miracle that is modern medicine.
Source
Behind the IVF ‘trial by television’
There is more to the HFEA regulators' pursuit of top infertility doctor Mohamed Taranissi than meets the viewer's eye.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) claims that its investigations into IVF clinician Mohamed Taranissi – which have been splashed across the headlines this week – are part of its important regulation of IVF treatment in Britain. It even led raids on Taranissi’s clinic on Monday, in tandem with a BBC Panorama documentary ‘exposing’ Taranissi. However, spiked has learned that there is more to this than meets the eye, and that the HFEA has been curiously heavy-handed in its dealings with Taranissi, and possibly unprofessional in its dealings with Panorama.
On Monday, the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme Panorama launched its new-look series with an attack on Taranissi. On the day the programme was broadcast, the HFEA went to court to obtain a warrant to gain entry to Taranissi’s two clinics, the London-based Assisted Reproduction and Gynaecology Centre (ARGC) and the Reproductive Genetics Institute (RGI). They demanded access and removed paper files and computers – and it all occurred in time for the incident to be reported as part of the Panorama broadcast and then later in TV news bulletins.
For all the headlines about ‘Police raids on “illegal” IVF doctor’, the HFEA-led raids (more accurately inspections) had nothing to do with any scandal uncovered by Panorama. Rather they related to an ongoing dispute between Taranissi and the regulator about the licensing of his clinics. The only link between Panorama and the HFEA’s inspections would appear to be the coincidence of timing. And some influential figures are raising grave concerns about this apparent coincidence. Dr Evan Harris MP, a member of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘It’s extremely unusual for an investigator, a regulator, to be seen to be cooperating with journalists in terms of releasing information about one of the people they are regulating, and also to be giving interviews to that programme which is clearly an investigative journalist programme.’
The HFEA says the raids were necessary because new information has come to light and whistleblowers have come forward, and because Taranissi and his lawyers have been difficult and obstructive in response to the HFEA’s requests for information. The HFEA tells me it is unable to provide further details on this new information, or on Taranissi’s ‘obstruction’, because there is an ‘ongoing regulatory process’.
Yet the question of why the HFEA suddenly decided to raid Taranissi’s offices, in time for a sensationalist TV documentary, is a pertinent one – because the HFEA and Taranissi had, until that moment, been in fairly civil and official discussions about the licensing of his clinics.
Only last Wednesday, 10 January, Taranissi and his lawyers visited the HFEA for a Licence Committee hearing. It was part of the ongoing discussion about the renewal of his licence for the RGI, and the HFEA’s threat at the end of 2006 to revoke his licence for the ARGC. According to Taranissi and his lawyer, they believed that at the meeting they supplied the HFEA with all the information it had requested, and met the conditions laid out by the HFEA to avoid the ARGC licence being revoked and to have the RGI licence reinstated.
At no point in the meeting did anyone indicate that there might be a problem with the information supplied, Taranissi’s lawyer tells me. Indeed, Taranissi later received a letter by fax thanking him for his attendance and for the work he put into his presentations. The letter said the HFEA needed more time to analyse the information provided by Taranissi, and said that if the Licence Committee was satisfied that all outstanding information had been submitted, and Taranissi had successfully completed a Person Responsible Entry Programme, the notice to revoke the licence for ARGC would be withdrawn immediately and his application for a renewal licence for the RGI clinic reconsidered. The letter suggested that the meeting be reconvened on 5 or 7 February.
Yet the next that Taranissi heard from the HFEA was when its head of inspection turned up on his London clinic’s doorstep, with police sergeants from Scotland Yard waving a warrant to search the premises and camera crews in tow. Why was a dramatic, TV-friendly raid necessary? The lead inspector says it was because Taranissi’s clinics had failed to provide all the information, despite repeated requests. Yet given that Taranissi was at the HFEA providing information just days earlier, and understood that he would be returning there in early February, surely it would have been more appropriate to have contacted him by letter or phone pointing out the deficiencies discovered subsequent to the letter faxed by the HFEA’s Licence Committee chair on Wednesday 10 January?
This is not the first time the HFEA has been prickly with Taranissi – it has previously treated him differently to other IVF doctors. Consider the dispute over the licensing of his RGI clinic in 2005/2006.
In 2005 there was a dispute over the renewal of his RGI licence, primarily because the clinic did not provide the requisite information to the HFEA in a timely fashion. In January 2006 the HFEA notified Taranissi that the RGI no longer had a licence and that he would have to operate under Special Directions to treat existing patients until matters were resolved. However, following further negotiations and discussions, Taranissi was offered a three-year licence for the RGI in June 2006. HFEA inspector Debra Bloor wrote to Taranissi on 19 June to outline the offer of a licence.
However, the offer contained a very specific condition – namely that no ‘three-embryo transfers’ could be carried out at the centre. Taranissi duly completed the form, ticking the box to say he accepted the licence and the conditions. He also added a handwritten one-sentence note at the bottom of the form, stating that he would like to make representations regarding the special condition on three-embryo transfers attached to the licence. Taranissi says he has done this kind of thing before, on other licence offers where there was a condition he wished to challenge, and it had never been a problem.
On this occasion, though, the HFEA decided that a licence could not be provided pending Taranissi’s representations about that one condition – that is, a licence would not be provided on the basis of his one-sentence written remark. The HFEA has decreed that three-embryo transfers are too risky; its Code of Practice stipulates that licensed centres must ensure that women under 40 receive no more than two eggs or embryos; but it does allow women over 40 to be given three eggs or embryos, but no more than three.
Taranissi says he is unaware of any other clinic being forbidden by the HFEA from carrying out any three-embryo transfers, as his RGI clinic was last year. And he thought it entirely reasonable to say that he wanted to make representations about this seemingly unfair measure. Taranissi also points out that the HFEA’s Code is not actually law, and he objects to interference in his clinical judgments made in consultation with his patients.
Because Taranissi has previously accepted licence offers while commenting on certain conditions, he assumed that the licence offered by the HFEA for RGI in June 2006 was in place, and he continued treating patients. When the HFEA found out, it wrote to Taranissi on 21 July saying a licence had not been granted to the RGI and that Special Directions would be put in place to allow the continued treatment only of patients whose treatment had begun before 24 July. A Licence Committee meeting on 27 July decided that the offer of a licence to RGI should now be withdrawn, due to a change in circumstances since the offer was made.
Things then spun further out of control. The HFEA continued to pursue Taranissi over his work at the RGI, and took the extraordinary step of effectively threatening to shut down both of his clinics.
On 25 September 2006, the HFEA’s director of regulation wrote to Taranissi asking for copies of all records of treatment carried out at the RGI since 21 July. The HFEA wanted the records by 4 October. When it didn’t receive them, the HFEA upped the stakes further – deciding that it could no longer be sure that Taranissi was a suitable person to be holding a licence to carry out fertility treatment. The HFEA wrote to him on 22 November 2006 informing him that the Licence Committee had decided to propose revoking his licence at his other, primary clinic, the AGRC. In layman’s terms, they were proposing to shut him down.
As Taranissi points out, none of this had anything to do with patient safety, and certainly the controversies seem bizarre when you consider that Taranissi is one of the most successful IVF doctors in Britain. Rather, the HFEA seems to have been chasing him, and proposing revoking his licence, over matters of paperwork. Here, the regulatory, bureaucratic impulse seems to take precedence over allowing Taranissi to continue successfully and safely treating many women. And the HFEA says it represents infertile women’s interests.
It was the HFEA’s proposal to revoke Taranissi’s licence for the ARGC as well as the RGI that led to the current clashes. A letter from the HFEA’s director of regulation, dated 24 November, listed for Taranissi all the information he had to submit if he wished to keep his licence. And Taranissi and his legal team believed they were providing precisely this information at the meeting with the HFEA on 10 January, a few days before the Panorama programme and the coinciding HFEA-led raids. Taranissi’s lawyer tells me that in that two-hour meeting, they painstakingly made sure that the information in two lever-arch files handed over to the HFEA contained, as far as they could tell, everything requested.
Yet days later, the police, the HFEA and camera crews came knocking.
There are other elements about the HFEA’s relationship to Panorama that Taranissi and his lawyers are unhappy about. Such as the fact that there was a camera crew there to greet them on the morning of the 10 January meeting at the HFEA; this footage was included in the programme and reported as Taranissi attending a disciplinary hearing. The HFEA’s solicitors had written to Taranissi’s solicitors the day before the meeting, to point out that there would be members of the press outside the HFEA’s offices on 10 January; but they claimed that it was in relation to an entirely separate issue and in no way related to their attendance at the HFEA.
Taranissi and his team are also upset that Panorama was provided with information that Taranissi had no means of commenting on. Following a Freedom of Information request, the Panorama team was given information about the ARGC clinic. It related to the HFEA’s Driving Improvements report published on 8 December 2006, in which the HFEA produced a graph ranking clinics according to their ‘compliance’ with HFEA Codes of Conduct and the HFE Act. The graph listed clinics anonymously, but Panorama managed to discover the score allocated to AGRC: it was minus 29, putting it close to the bottom. Taranissi was keen to know on what basis he scored minus 29, so that he could answer Panorama’s question about his clinic’s ranking; he suspected the compliance was measured by paperwork matters rather than success or safety rates. Between 20 December and being filmed by Panorama on Friday 12 January, he requested information about the graph five times, but it was not provided.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the HFEA has been pursuing Taranissi for many months, rattled by the fact that he is successful, experimental and not a big fan of the HFEA’s over-cautious rules and regulations.
What will be the end result of playing these disputes out in the media and presenting Taranissi as some kind of criminal whose clinics must be invaded by FBI-style raids? Patients and potential patients may have their confidence in Taranissi shaken. And if this is undeserved, as many of Tarassini’s former patients strongly argue, it could damage the all-important relationship of trust between doctor and patient during a procedure that is already as emotionally fraught as it is clinically complicated.
For the HFEA, however, which has been proactive in bringing this dispute to a head in a tawdry fashion, the consequences could be rather more grave. We await the new information that apparently necessitated the HFEA-led raids on Monday 15 January. But as things stand, this public regulatory body has shown both a defensive and an authoritarian streak, as it has ensured that its frustrations with one doctor get played out in the public gaze. How can the public have confidence in a body that behaves more like a bullying prefect in a playground than an impartial regulator of national healthcare?
What all this indicates, above all, is the need for a real public debate about fertility treatment, and the kind of regulation that we might want or need. Rather than the HFEA and Tarassini slogging out a dispute through their lawyers and now the media, we should take the opportunity to have a discussion about the broader issues involved in fertility treatment – and how it can continue to be improved and access to it can continue to be widened. Do we need public regulatory bodies empowered to make such decisions, or would we be better off scrapping the HFEA and developing something less bureaucratic instead?
Now, answering that question would make a good documentary.
Source
A BRITISH ELITIST VERSION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
A "right" to pretty dresses paid for by others?
Cherie Blair accused Britain's top civil servant of violating her human rights as he tried to rein in her fondness for freebies, it was claimed yesterday. She left the Cabinet Secretary `gobsmacked' by claiming she was entitled to cut-price designer clothes under the Human Rights Act. And she repeatedly argued with officials over claims that she tried to exploit her position to make money.
The allegations detail several clashes between Mrs Blair and Sir Richard Wilson and Sir Andrew Turnbull, who ran the Civil Service between 1998 and 2005. Sir Richard faced repeated demands for money to spend on the refurbishment of Downing Street from Mrs Blair during his tenure as Cabinet Secretary from 1998 to 2002. On one occasion she allegedly told guests being given a tour of No 10 by the now Lord Wilson: `Look at the state of the carpets he makes us live with!'
He reportedly told his guests later: `She's always trying it on. She needs to understand the public purse cannot be used for these things unless it is justified.' Her relations with Sir Richard's successor Sir Andrew, who retired as Cabinet Secretary in 2005, were soured by her fondness for discounts on clothes, some of which were negotiated by her former lifestyle guru Carole Caplin.
Among the clothes Mrs Blair is said to have acquired was a œ10,000 red and gold brocade dress by Lindka Cierach which she wore to an awards ceremony in October 2003 and again at a dinner in Nigeria the following month.
When Sir Andrew criticised her over the discounts, she reportedly told him he was infringing her rights `under Article 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights on an individual's right to do as they like with their own property'. A friend told The Mail on Sunday that Sir Andrew, now Lord Turnbull, had been `gobsmacked and outraged' by her response. A Downing Street spokesman said: `Most of this is simply untrue and the rest is widely exaggerated tittle-tattle.'
Source
GOVERNMENT BOARDING SCHOOLS IN BRITAIN
Parents working long hours are turning to state boarding schools to meet their education and childcare needs. Keen to take advantage of the wraparound teaching, pastoral and social provision provided by the boarding sector, but unable to afford the 20,000 pounds needed for leading independent schools, growing numbers of parents are now eyeing up the 34 boarding schools in the state sector. These charge about 7,000 a year because parents only pay for boarding, not tuition.
Demand for the 5,000 state boarding places in England has increased by 50 per cent in the past four years, according to the Boarding Schools' Association (BSA) with schools now three or four times oversubscribed. Demand for sixth-form places is particularly acute. Hilary Moriarty, national director of the BSA, has detected a sea change in attitudes towards boarding school, particularly for weekly boarding. "The notion of parents and children working hard all week and enjoying quality time together at weekends is quite seductive. This is particularly so when parents work late in the evening or commute big distances, while children reach an age when they have social and extra-curricular demands of their own in the evenings. "Parents are becoming acclimatised to the idea of sending a child to boarding school and less fearful of being branded a bad parent," she said.
The state boarding sector is undergoing a profound transformation, thanks largely to a 25 million expansion programme. Wymondham College in Norfolk has secured 9.8 million of funding for a building programme that includes 115 ensuite study bedrooms. A further 5 million has been allocated to Brymore School in Somerset to build a boarding house and refurbish an old one, Burford in Oxfordshire to increase its provision and to Lancaster Royal Grammar to replace existing provision. Old Swinford Hospital, in Worcestershire, has doubled its boarding places since 2000 to 44 for Year 7 pupils and a further 15 in Year 9.
Melvyn Roffe, the headmaster, said that state boarding was an old-fashioned solution to a modern problem. "For the amount of money parents would have to spend on childcare and running them around activities after school, it is extremely good value. "State boarding schools produce good results, which may have something to do with the lifestyle they offer. It helps children to develop their independence and parents regard it as preparation for university life," he said at the State Boarding Schools Association conference yesterday.
Norman Hoare, head of St George's, a mixed state boarding school in Hertfordshire, said that the 20 boarding places for Year 7 pupils were now four times oversubscribed. "Why should parents pay so much for boarding places in the independent sector, when they can get such good quality in the state sector?" he said.
The reversal in the fortunes in most state boarding schools follows moves to extend the school day by encouraging day schools to offer both breakfast and after school provision. It also coincides with plans to offer more state boarding places for children in care in new academies. One boarding academy, Kingshurst, is already under way in Solihull.
At Gratton Park, a state boarding school in Reigate, Surrey, Paul Spencer Ellis, the head, has developed a hybrid day-boarding system. "We offer 30 places in Year 7 for `day boarders'. They can attend school from 7.30am until their age group boarders go to bed and have all meals included in the fee, which is only 1,100 pounds per term. For September 2006 he had more than 100 applicants. "This shows how parents appreciate the longer day and the care of a boarding school," he said.
Source
Life’s too short to be ‘carbon neutral’
Measuring everything we do by how much carbon it produces is a contemporary form of penance in today's Britain.
Carbon calculators have become the moral barometers for our age. Plug in what you have done - run a car, heated the house, taken a flight - and the result will tell you the amount by which you need to atone. No Hail Marys are required, just a tenner for the plane, or twenty quid for running the car. Nonconformism is not an option. Tony Blair first refused to apologise for his long-haul flights, but he soon repented and offset the carbon from his family’s holidays.
As a measure of virtue, the pluses and minuses of the carbon calculator indicate a peculiar moral blindness. It apparently doesn’t matter what the flight was for: whether a drug trafficker or a conman travelling to do a deal, or a violinist flying to give a concert or a man to see his sick mother, each and every plane journey is judged in the same way. The worthiness or otherwise of people’s activities gets pushed into the background, and the focus shifts to the numbers of carbon dioxide molecules admitted into the atmosphere.
Nothing is beyond the purview of this method of appraisal. One company, Climate Care, suggests giving carbon offsets as a gift to loved ones. ‘The perfect gift for the person who has everything - offset some CO2 on their behalf. We will send you a certificate with a personalised message that you can send to your nearest and dearest.’
This includes weddings - presumably so that the couple don’t start out by living in sin. With an online payment, you can gift the newlyweds peace of mind by offsetting their nuptials, including the guests driving or flying to the church, then heating the reception hall and running the disco late into the night. At the other end of the life-cycle, you are advised instead to go for a woodland burial with biodegradable coffin instead of carbon-dioxide producing cremation.
Everything that emits carbon is something to apologise for. The human good that has been added to the world - from a new relationship, to a new land-speed record - is apparently of little account. We are cast not as people trying to do things, aiming towards goals and objectives, but as organisms producing a certain amount of global warming substance. As a motto for life, this is ‘first, do no harm to the atmosphere’.
‘Carbon neutral’ is the desired state of Nirvana, and many are starting to take on carbon neutrality as a kind of ethos. Today, Britain’s high street giant Marks and Spencer has announced a £200m, five-year plan to become carbon neutral; the G8 held a carbon neutral summit; bands produce carbon neutral albums; the City of Newcastle aims to be carbon neutral soon; and schools and colleges in both the UK and USA are working on offsetting their carbon. Tellingly, the New Oxford American Dictionary chose ‘carbon neutral’ as its word of the year in 2006, commenting ‘It’s more than a trend, it’s a movement.’
This way of looking at the world pollutes the social environ - the space in which we should be thinking about what we want to do and why, and judging the things we have done. The aim becomes not ‘I want to do something worthwhile’ but ‘I want to emit no noxious substances into the atmosphere’, which is a dull and flat way of viewing human existence.
We should chuck out the carbon calculators, and try to focus on more meaningful ways of judging our activities. Is a school a good school? Is Newcastle a vibrant and fun city to live in? Was a flight a good use of our time? Did a summit yield important agreements? The question of whether something is a ‘waste’ should hang on whether or not it yielded important results, rather than on some indifferent totalling of the amount of energy consumed.
If society requires solutions to a problem such as global warming these should be as large-scale and administrative as possible, dealing with methods of energy production, housing insulation, appliance and vehicle manufacture. These approaches are likely to be more effective than everybody giving a donation to Climate Care each time they sneeze. More importantly, it would leave us free to think of more interesting and meaningful ways of holding ourselves and others to account.
We’ll be carbon neutral when we’re dead, but till then we have places to go and people to meet.
Source
A mother treated at Mohamed Taranissi’s groundbreaking clinic in London defends him against the Panorama/HFEA witch-hunt. A big reminder of how dangerous it can be to leave anything to bureaucrats
I have Mohamed Taranissi’s groundbreaking IVF clinic to thank for my beautiful son. And many more parents have had children thanks to the insights and efforts of the ‘miracle makers’ at his London clinic. So why are the regulators of human fertilisation work in Britain, who claim to protect our interests, now witch-hunting Mr Taranissi?
His clinic, the Assisted Reproduction and Gynaecology Centre (ARGC), is the most successful in Britain. Yet on Monday it came under assault from both the media and the industry regulator, in what appears to be a collaborative effort to undermine the credibility and reputation of the clinic and its chief consultant, Taranissi. On the same day that the BBC TV aired a Panorama special investigative report on the clinic, in which undercover journalists posed as infertile women, the regulatory body, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), launched a police-assisted raid on both the ARGC and Taranissi’s other clinic, the Reproductive Genetics Institute (RGI).
The HFEA has denied that it worked in tandem with Panorama, instead claiming that the timing of the raid on the same day that the programme aired was purely coincidental. However, it certainly looks like a publicity stunt, and it’s not the kind of thing you would expect from what is supposed to be an impartial regulator with an ongoing inquiry into and legal dispute with a doctor. It raises questions not only about standards in public life but more pressingly: Why have they got it in for him?
Taranissi’s relationship with the HFEA has been a strained one. The fact that the ARGC has a fairly aggressive approach to the treatment of infertility means that as well as topping the HFEA’s own published league tables for IVF success rates for the past 11 years, the ARGC continually pushes against the current boundaries of ethical treatment. For instance, Taranissi pushed for the HFEA to allow preimplantation genetic diagnosis of embryos (PGD) in order that parents might produce a baby whose cord blood could possibly cure a sick older sibling. After there was widespread publicity and support for the successful treatment of British child Charlie Whitaker in this way, the HFEA finally dropped its official opposition to the use of PGD for such purposes.
It seems that Taranissi has been a bit of a thorn in the side of the HFEA, continually forcing it to rethink its extremely cautious approach to new treatments. For its part, the HFEA seeks to portray him as obstructionist, placing his clinic at the bottom of their table for compliance with industry standards – without, it seems, providing any breakdown of the way the results were compiled.
As well as getting up the noses of the regulator, Taranissi’s leadership and success in the field of infertility treatment has led to much resentment among his colleagues in the field. The fertility industry teems with doctors who sneer when his name is mentioned. This I know through personal experience; I went through a period of infertility and suffered recurrent miscarriages, and many of the fertility doctors I came into contact with had something negative to say about him. I was intrigued by the professional jealousy directed towards this extremely successful London consultant, often by doctors who usually told me there was nothing they could do for me and that I should adopt, try again, or just give up. Perversely, perhaps, it made me wonder what he had going for him and I sought a consultation at the ARGC to find out. This happily resulted in the birth of my son. After seeing, firsthand, the rivalries involved in the fertility profession, it did not surprise me in the least that Panorama could compile an impressive panel of experts to criticise Taranissi’s work.
Fertility treatment is an area of much uncertainty; it is fraught with ethical concerns. More research needs to be done, for sure, but advances will not be made if an over-cautious approach is taken. Attacks on those who are trying to push things forward because they irritate the regulator, or provoke jealousy among their colleagues, or are simply making a lot of money, will not help this state of affairs. In a climate in which there is a general fear and distrust of experimentation, we need people like Taranissi, people who are willing to challenge the status quo and experiment with new approaches. The ARGC was the first clinic to freeze and thaw human eggs, the first to perform PGD, and it is among the leaders in the field of reproductive immunology.
This latter area – immunological treatments – was of central concern to the BBC’s expert panel. While it is certainly a contested area of treatment, the Panorama programme did not mention that one of the experts it interviewed – Lesley Regan of St Mary’s miscarriage clinic – is herself overseeing a clinical trial into the effect of Natural Killer Cells on implantation. When I visited Regan’s clinic as a patient, I was told to await the outcome of this clinical research, which would have been published when I reached 40 years of age – that is, when my fertility would be seriously compromised by my age. I was glad to have the opportunity to try the treatment immediately at the ARGC.
As a former IVF patient and now a mum, I strongly object to the way that the Panorama programme portrayed patients as ‘vulnerable’ and ‘desperate’. I was actually rather well-informed; I was aware of the research and successful treatments conducted in the United States (where there is very little regulation of IVF clinics); and I was strong-willed enough not to take no for an answer. None of the women I know who has been through IVF at the ARGC was manipulated or exploited; they knew what they were going in for because Taranissi and his staff are very clear about the nature of the treatment and the risks and benefits involved.
Of course, IVF has no guarantees and it is a shame that it cannot be provided in a timely and cost-free manner on the National Health Service. But in the current situation, where 80 per cent of IVF treatments are private, many couples will lose money on the gamble that is fertility treatment. That is not any one individual’s fault, and, in fact, the high success rate of the ARGC means fewer couples are disappointed there than elsewhere. It is a shame that the BBC’s reporters did not see fit to interview some of Taranissi’s real patients rather than sending in journalists in an underhand subterfuge. I think they would have heard a very different story: one of a dedicated, hardworking and honest doctor, whose success comes largely from his close attention to detail and his amazing accessibility. As a patient of his, I was given his personal mobile phone number to call in case of any concerns or questions. I was also monitored daily, receiving phone calls to remind me of the dosage and timing of drug administration.
My son turned two in November. He is a constant reminder to me not only of luck and love, but of the miracle that is modern medicine.
Source
Behind the IVF ‘trial by television’
There is more to the HFEA regulators' pursuit of top infertility doctor Mohamed Taranissi than meets the viewer's eye.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) claims that its investigations into IVF clinician Mohamed Taranissi – which have been splashed across the headlines this week – are part of its important regulation of IVF treatment in Britain. It even led raids on Taranissi’s clinic on Monday, in tandem with a BBC Panorama documentary ‘exposing’ Taranissi. However, spiked has learned that there is more to this than meets the eye, and that the HFEA has been curiously heavy-handed in its dealings with Taranissi, and possibly unprofessional in its dealings with Panorama.
On Monday, the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme Panorama launched its new-look series with an attack on Taranissi. On the day the programme was broadcast, the HFEA went to court to obtain a warrant to gain entry to Taranissi’s two clinics, the London-based Assisted Reproduction and Gynaecology Centre (ARGC) and the Reproductive Genetics Institute (RGI). They demanded access and removed paper files and computers – and it all occurred in time for the incident to be reported as part of the Panorama broadcast and then later in TV news bulletins.
For all the headlines about ‘Police raids on “illegal” IVF doctor’, the HFEA-led raids (more accurately inspections) had nothing to do with any scandal uncovered by Panorama. Rather they related to an ongoing dispute between Taranissi and the regulator about the licensing of his clinics. The only link between Panorama and the HFEA’s inspections would appear to be the coincidence of timing. And some influential figures are raising grave concerns about this apparent coincidence. Dr Evan Harris MP, a member of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘It’s extremely unusual for an investigator, a regulator, to be seen to be cooperating with journalists in terms of releasing information about one of the people they are regulating, and also to be giving interviews to that programme which is clearly an investigative journalist programme.’
The HFEA says the raids were necessary because new information has come to light and whistleblowers have come forward, and because Taranissi and his lawyers have been difficult and obstructive in response to the HFEA’s requests for information. The HFEA tells me it is unable to provide further details on this new information, or on Taranissi’s ‘obstruction’, because there is an ‘ongoing regulatory process’.
Yet the question of why the HFEA suddenly decided to raid Taranissi’s offices, in time for a sensationalist TV documentary, is a pertinent one – because the HFEA and Taranissi had, until that moment, been in fairly civil and official discussions about the licensing of his clinics.
Only last Wednesday, 10 January, Taranissi and his lawyers visited the HFEA for a Licence Committee hearing. It was part of the ongoing discussion about the renewal of his licence for the RGI, and the HFEA’s threat at the end of 2006 to revoke his licence for the ARGC. According to Taranissi and his lawyer, they believed that at the meeting they supplied the HFEA with all the information it had requested, and met the conditions laid out by the HFEA to avoid the ARGC licence being revoked and to have the RGI licence reinstated.
At no point in the meeting did anyone indicate that there might be a problem with the information supplied, Taranissi’s lawyer tells me. Indeed, Taranissi later received a letter by fax thanking him for his attendance and for the work he put into his presentations. The letter said the HFEA needed more time to analyse the information provided by Taranissi, and said that if the Licence Committee was satisfied that all outstanding information had been submitted, and Taranissi had successfully completed a Person Responsible Entry Programme, the notice to revoke the licence for ARGC would be withdrawn immediately and his application for a renewal licence for the RGI clinic reconsidered. The letter suggested that the meeting be reconvened on 5 or 7 February.
Yet the next that Taranissi heard from the HFEA was when its head of inspection turned up on his London clinic’s doorstep, with police sergeants from Scotland Yard waving a warrant to search the premises and camera crews in tow. Why was a dramatic, TV-friendly raid necessary? The lead inspector says it was because Taranissi’s clinics had failed to provide all the information, despite repeated requests. Yet given that Taranissi was at the HFEA providing information just days earlier, and understood that he would be returning there in early February, surely it would have been more appropriate to have contacted him by letter or phone pointing out the deficiencies discovered subsequent to the letter faxed by the HFEA’s Licence Committee chair on Wednesday 10 January?
This is not the first time the HFEA has been prickly with Taranissi – it has previously treated him differently to other IVF doctors. Consider the dispute over the licensing of his RGI clinic in 2005/2006.
In 2005 there was a dispute over the renewal of his RGI licence, primarily because the clinic did not provide the requisite information to the HFEA in a timely fashion. In January 2006 the HFEA notified Taranissi that the RGI no longer had a licence and that he would have to operate under Special Directions to treat existing patients until matters were resolved. However, following further negotiations and discussions, Taranissi was offered a three-year licence for the RGI in June 2006. HFEA inspector Debra Bloor wrote to Taranissi on 19 June to outline the offer of a licence.
However, the offer contained a very specific condition – namely that no ‘three-embryo transfers’ could be carried out at the centre. Taranissi duly completed the form, ticking the box to say he accepted the licence and the conditions. He also added a handwritten one-sentence note at the bottom of the form, stating that he would like to make representations regarding the special condition on three-embryo transfers attached to the licence. Taranissi says he has done this kind of thing before, on other licence offers where there was a condition he wished to challenge, and it had never been a problem.
On this occasion, though, the HFEA decided that a licence could not be provided pending Taranissi’s representations about that one condition – that is, a licence would not be provided on the basis of his one-sentence written remark. The HFEA has decreed that three-embryo transfers are too risky; its Code of Practice stipulates that licensed centres must ensure that women under 40 receive no more than two eggs or embryos; but it does allow women over 40 to be given three eggs or embryos, but no more than three.
Taranissi says he is unaware of any other clinic being forbidden by the HFEA from carrying out any three-embryo transfers, as his RGI clinic was last year. And he thought it entirely reasonable to say that he wanted to make representations about this seemingly unfair measure. Taranissi also points out that the HFEA’s Code is not actually law, and he objects to interference in his clinical judgments made in consultation with his patients.
Because Taranissi has previously accepted licence offers while commenting on certain conditions, he assumed that the licence offered by the HFEA for RGI in June 2006 was in place, and he continued treating patients. When the HFEA found out, it wrote to Taranissi on 21 July saying a licence had not been granted to the RGI and that Special Directions would be put in place to allow the continued treatment only of patients whose treatment had begun before 24 July. A Licence Committee meeting on 27 July decided that the offer of a licence to RGI should now be withdrawn, due to a change in circumstances since the offer was made.
Things then spun further out of control. The HFEA continued to pursue Taranissi over his work at the RGI, and took the extraordinary step of effectively threatening to shut down both of his clinics.
On 25 September 2006, the HFEA’s director of regulation wrote to Taranissi asking for copies of all records of treatment carried out at the RGI since 21 July. The HFEA wanted the records by 4 October. When it didn’t receive them, the HFEA upped the stakes further – deciding that it could no longer be sure that Taranissi was a suitable person to be holding a licence to carry out fertility treatment. The HFEA wrote to him on 22 November 2006 informing him that the Licence Committee had decided to propose revoking his licence at his other, primary clinic, the AGRC. In layman’s terms, they were proposing to shut him down.
As Taranissi points out, none of this had anything to do with patient safety, and certainly the controversies seem bizarre when you consider that Taranissi is one of the most successful IVF doctors in Britain. Rather, the HFEA seems to have been chasing him, and proposing revoking his licence, over matters of paperwork. Here, the regulatory, bureaucratic impulse seems to take precedence over allowing Taranissi to continue successfully and safely treating many women. And the HFEA says it represents infertile women’s interests.
It was the HFEA’s proposal to revoke Taranissi’s licence for the ARGC as well as the RGI that led to the current clashes. A letter from the HFEA’s director of regulation, dated 24 November, listed for Taranissi all the information he had to submit if he wished to keep his licence. And Taranissi and his legal team believed they were providing precisely this information at the meeting with the HFEA on 10 January, a few days before the Panorama programme and the coinciding HFEA-led raids. Taranissi’s lawyer tells me that in that two-hour meeting, they painstakingly made sure that the information in two lever-arch files handed over to the HFEA contained, as far as they could tell, everything requested.
Yet days later, the police, the HFEA and camera crews came knocking.
There are other elements about the HFEA’s relationship to Panorama that Taranissi and his lawyers are unhappy about. Such as the fact that there was a camera crew there to greet them on the morning of the 10 January meeting at the HFEA; this footage was included in the programme and reported as Taranissi attending a disciplinary hearing. The HFEA’s solicitors had written to Taranissi’s solicitors the day before the meeting, to point out that there would be members of the press outside the HFEA’s offices on 10 January; but they claimed that it was in relation to an entirely separate issue and in no way related to their attendance at the HFEA.
Taranissi and his team are also upset that Panorama was provided with information that Taranissi had no means of commenting on. Following a Freedom of Information request, the Panorama team was given information about the ARGC clinic. It related to the HFEA’s Driving Improvements report published on 8 December 2006, in which the HFEA produced a graph ranking clinics according to their ‘compliance’ with HFEA Codes of Conduct and the HFE Act. The graph listed clinics anonymously, but Panorama managed to discover the score allocated to AGRC: it was minus 29, putting it close to the bottom. Taranissi was keen to know on what basis he scored minus 29, so that he could answer Panorama’s question about his clinic’s ranking; he suspected the compliance was measured by paperwork matters rather than success or safety rates. Between 20 December and being filmed by Panorama on Friday 12 January, he requested information about the graph five times, but it was not provided.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the HFEA has been pursuing Taranissi for many months, rattled by the fact that he is successful, experimental and not a big fan of the HFEA’s over-cautious rules and regulations.
What will be the end result of playing these disputes out in the media and presenting Taranissi as some kind of criminal whose clinics must be invaded by FBI-style raids? Patients and potential patients may have their confidence in Taranissi shaken. And if this is undeserved, as many of Tarassini’s former patients strongly argue, it could damage the all-important relationship of trust between doctor and patient during a procedure that is already as emotionally fraught as it is clinically complicated.
For the HFEA, however, which has been proactive in bringing this dispute to a head in a tawdry fashion, the consequences could be rather more grave. We await the new information that apparently necessitated the HFEA-led raids on Monday 15 January. But as things stand, this public regulatory body has shown both a defensive and an authoritarian streak, as it has ensured that its frustrations with one doctor get played out in the public gaze. How can the public have confidence in a body that behaves more like a bullying prefect in a playground than an impartial regulator of national healthcare?
What all this indicates, above all, is the need for a real public debate about fertility treatment, and the kind of regulation that we might want or need. Rather than the HFEA and Tarassini slogging out a dispute through their lawyers and now the media, we should take the opportunity to have a discussion about the broader issues involved in fertility treatment – and how it can continue to be improved and access to it can continue to be widened. Do we need public regulatory bodies empowered to make such decisions, or would we be better off scrapping the HFEA and developing something less bureaucratic instead?
Now, answering that question would make a good documentary.
Source
A BRITISH ELITIST VERSION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
A "right" to pretty dresses paid for by others?
Cherie Blair accused Britain's top civil servant of violating her human rights as he tried to rein in her fondness for freebies, it was claimed yesterday. She left the Cabinet Secretary `gobsmacked' by claiming she was entitled to cut-price designer clothes under the Human Rights Act. And she repeatedly argued with officials over claims that she tried to exploit her position to make money.
The allegations detail several clashes between Mrs Blair and Sir Richard Wilson and Sir Andrew Turnbull, who ran the Civil Service between 1998 and 2005. Sir Richard faced repeated demands for money to spend on the refurbishment of Downing Street from Mrs Blair during his tenure as Cabinet Secretary from 1998 to 2002. On one occasion she allegedly told guests being given a tour of No 10 by the now Lord Wilson: `Look at the state of the carpets he makes us live with!'
He reportedly told his guests later: `She's always trying it on. She needs to understand the public purse cannot be used for these things unless it is justified.' Her relations with Sir Richard's successor Sir Andrew, who retired as Cabinet Secretary in 2005, were soured by her fondness for discounts on clothes, some of which were negotiated by her former lifestyle guru Carole Caplin.
Among the clothes Mrs Blair is said to have acquired was a œ10,000 red and gold brocade dress by Lindka Cierach which she wore to an awards ceremony in October 2003 and again at a dinner in Nigeria the following month.
When Sir Andrew criticised her over the discounts, she reportedly told him he was infringing her rights `under Article 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights on an individual's right to do as they like with their own property'. A friend told The Mail on Sunday that Sir Andrew, now Lord Turnbull, had been `gobsmacked and outraged' by her response. A Downing Street spokesman said: `Most of this is simply untrue and the rest is widely exaggerated tittle-tattle.'
Source
GOVERNMENT BOARDING SCHOOLS IN BRITAIN
Parents working long hours are turning to state boarding schools to meet their education and childcare needs. Keen to take advantage of the wraparound teaching, pastoral and social provision provided by the boarding sector, but unable to afford the 20,000 pounds needed for leading independent schools, growing numbers of parents are now eyeing up the 34 boarding schools in the state sector. These charge about 7,000 a year because parents only pay for boarding, not tuition.
Demand for the 5,000 state boarding places in England has increased by 50 per cent in the past four years, according to the Boarding Schools' Association (BSA) with schools now three or four times oversubscribed. Demand for sixth-form places is particularly acute. Hilary Moriarty, national director of the BSA, has detected a sea change in attitudes towards boarding school, particularly for weekly boarding. "The notion of parents and children working hard all week and enjoying quality time together at weekends is quite seductive. This is particularly so when parents work late in the evening or commute big distances, while children reach an age when they have social and extra-curricular demands of their own in the evenings. "Parents are becoming acclimatised to the idea of sending a child to boarding school and less fearful of being branded a bad parent," she said.
The state boarding sector is undergoing a profound transformation, thanks largely to a 25 million expansion programme. Wymondham College in Norfolk has secured 9.8 million of funding for a building programme that includes 115 ensuite study bedrooms. A further 5 million has been allocated to Brymore School in Somerset to build a boarding house and refurbish an old one, Burford in Oxfordshire to increase its provision and to Lancaster Royal Grammar to replace existing provision. Old Swinford Hospital, in Worcestershire, has doubled its boarding places since 2000 to 44 for Year 7 pupils and a further 15 in Year 9.
Melvyn Roffe, the headmaster, said that state boarding was an old-fashioned solution to a modern problem. "For the amount of money parents would have to spend on childcare and running them around activities after school, it is extremely good value. "State boarding schools produce good results, which may have something to do with the lifestyle they offer. It helps children to develop their independence and parents regard it as preparation for university life," he said at the State Boarding Schools Association conference yesterday.
Norman Hoare, head of St George's, a mixed state boarding school in Hertfordshire, said that the 20 boarding places for Year 7 pupils were now four times oversubscribed. "Why should parents pay so much for boarding places in the independent sector, when they can get such good quality in the state sector?" he said.
The reversal in the fortunes in most state boarding schools follows moves to extend the school day by encouraging day schools to offer both breakfast and after school provision. It also coincides with plans to offer more state boarding places for children in care in new academies. One boarding academy, Kingshurst, is already under way in Solihull.
At Gratton Park, a state boarding school in Reigate, Surrey, Paul Spencer Ellis, the head, has developed a hybrid day-boarding system. "We offer 30 places in Year 7 for `day boarders'. They can attend school from 7.30am until their age group boarders go to bed and have all meals included in the fee, which is only 1,100 pounds per term. For September 2006 he had more than 100 applicants. "This shows how parents appreciate the longer day and the care of a boarding school," he said.
Source
Life’s too short to be ‘carbon neutral’
Measuring everything we do by how much carbon it produces is a contemporary form of penance in today's Britain.
Carbon calculators have become the moral barometers for our age. Plug in what you have done - run a car, heated the house, taken a flight - and the result will tell you the amount by which you need to atone. No Hail Marys are required, just a tenner for the plane, or twenty quid for running the car. Nonconformism is not an option. Tony Blair first refused to apologise for his long-haul flights, but he soon repented and offset the carbon from his family’s holidays.
As a measure of virtue, the pluses and minuses of the carbon calculator indicate a peculiar moral blindness. It apparently doesn’t matter what the flight was for: whether a drug trafficker or a conman travelling to do a deal, or a violinist flying to give a concert or a man to see his sick mother, each and every plane journey is judged in the same way. The worthiness or otherwise of people’s activities gets pushed into the background, and the focus shifts to the numbers of carbon dioxide molecules admitted into the atmosphere.
Nothing is beyond the purview of this method of appraisal. One company, Climate Care, suggests giving carbon offsets as a gift to loved ones. ‘The perfect gift for the person who has everything - offset some CO2 on their behalf. We will send you a certificate with a personalised message that you can send to your nearest and dearest.’
This includes weddings - presumably so that the couple don’t start out by living in sin. With an online payment, you can gift the newlyweds peace of mind by offsetting their nuptials, including the guests driving or flying to the church, then heating the reception hall and running the disco late into the night. At the other end of the life-cycle, you are advised instead to go for a woodland burial with biodegradable coffin instead of carbon-dioxide producing cremation.
Everything that emits carbon is something to apologise for. The human good that has been added to the world - from a new relationship, to a new land-speed record - is apparently of little account. We are cast not as people trying to do things, aiming towards goals and objectives, but as organisms producing a certain amount of global warming substance. As a motto for life, this is ‘first, do no harm to the atmosphere’.
‘Carbon neutral’ is the desired state of Nirvana, and many are starting to take on carbon neutrality as a kind of ethos. Today, Britain’s high street giant Marks and Spencer has announced a £200m, five-year plan to become carbon neutral; the G8 held a carbon neutral summit; bands produce carbon neutral albums; the City of Newcastle aims to be carbon neutral soon; and schools and colleges in both the UK and USA are working on offsetting their carbon. Tellingly, the New Oxford American Dictionary chose ‘carbon neutral’ as its word of the year in 2006, commenting ‘It’s more than a trend, it’s a movement.’
This way of looking at the world pollutes the social environ - the space in which we should be thinking about what we want to do and why, and judging the things we have done. The aim becomes not ‘I want to do something worthwhile’ but ‘I want to emit no noxious substances into the atmosphere’, which is a dull and flat way of viewing human existence.
We should chuck out the carbon calculators, and try to focus on more meaningful ways of judging our activities. Is a school a good school? Is Newcastle a vibrant and fun city to live in? Was a flight a good use of our time? Did a summit yield important agreements? The question of whether something is a ‘waste’ should hang on whether or not it yielded important results, rather than on some indifferent totalling of the amount of energy consumed.
If society requires solutions to a problem such as global warming these should be as large-scale and administrative as possible, dealing with methods of energy production, housing insulation, appliance and vehicle manufacture. These approaches are likely to be more effective than everybody giving a donation to Climate Care each time they sneeze. More importantly, it would leave us free to think of more interesting and meaningful ways of holding ourselves and others to account.
We’ll be carbon neutral when we’re dead, but till then we have places to go and people to meet.
Source
Monday, January 22, 2007
WE'RE HERE TO SAVE THE PLANET (IN OUR 4X4s, BENTLEYS AND PORSCHES)
GUESTS at a 300 pound-a-head climate change conference turned up in a stream of gasguzzling sports cars and 4x4s. Former US vice president Al Gore was the main speaker at yesterday's event in the Hilton Hotel in Glasgow. While the meeting was to address global warming, business leaders turned up in a range of flash motors including Bentleys, Jeeps and Porsches. One onlooker said: "This was for a conference on how to save the planet. It would appear the irony was lost on them." ......
More here
British referral management schemes damage patients' interests
Bureaucrats second-guessing a doctor's referrals and sending the patient somewhere else instead??
Referral management schemes pose a serious threat to patients' interests, argues Peter Lapsley, Chief Executive of the Skin Care Campaign, in this week's BMJ.
Referral management schemes are springing up across the NHS as a means of reducing primary care trusts' spending on secondary care services. The justification given for the introduction of the schemes is that they bring services "closer to home" - a mantra repeated often by the government at present. But trust managers admit privately that the true purpose of the schemes is to reduce costs in the face of the budget deficits so many of them are confronting, he says.
Typically, such schemes require that 80% of GPs' referral letters be reviewed in primary care and that 60% of cases should be retained within the trust. In many cases GPs are being offered financial incentives to participate in the schemes. Lapsley firmly believes that these schemes pose a serious threat to patients' interests. They introduce an extra step in the patient's journey, delaying the diagnosis and treatment of often complex and difficult diseases, he writes.
What is more alarming is that some primary care trusts now deliberately delay outpatient appointments, refusing to fund routine paper referrals seen within eight weeks of the date of the referral letter. In contrast, patients who can be booked into clinics directly through the Choose and Book electronic booking service can be seen within two to three weeks, no matter what their complaint. The schemes also remove any vestige of "patient choice," another government mantra, he adds.
In the case of dermatology, about 15% of GPs' consultations in Britain relate to skin disorders, yet the average undergraduate curriculum has only six days of dermatology, and only 20% of GP vocational training schemes include a dermatological component. Practice nurses receive no such training.
Referral management schemes therefore create a real risk that patients with skin diseases will be seen by clinicians who lack the necessary training and experience, greatly reducing the likelihood of prompt and accurate diagnosis, not least in respect of skin cancer, he argues.
The schemes are also insulting to GPs, second guessing their decisions. They undermine the viability of secondary care dermatology, and they remove any incentive for secondary care specialists to support or develop the role of the GP with a special interest in dermatology. The schemes may provide a short term solution to a short term financial problem. The risk, though, is that they will do lasting damage, he concludes.
Source
Chinese herbs offer hope to fight disease
The first large-scale screening of herbs commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine reveals they contain thousands of compounds with the potential to fight diseases from cancer to HIV-AIDS and conditions such as erectile dysfunction and high blood pressure. The compounds are promising "candidates" for new drugs, pharmaceutical chemist David Barlow and his colleagues at King's College London claimed.
Dr Barlow's group discovered 8264 chemical compounds in the 240 plants studied. And 62per cent of them contained at least one potential disease-fighting biochemical, with 53 per cent containing two or more. Some, such as maidenhair and skullcap, were packed with five or more active ingredients.
The team will report in an upcoming edition of the American Chemical Society's Journal of Chemical Information and Modelling that it found almost 2600 compounds that could be used to fight a host of ailments. Among them were pain, inflammation, dementia, obesity, Huntington's disease, blood clots, depression, eye disease and arthritis.
Chris Zaslawski, of the College of Traditional Medicine at the University of Technology, Sydney, said the research was an important first step towards novel pharmaceuticals based on natural products. "But that doesn't mean (the compounds) will work in humans," he said.
Source
Muslim store worker refuses smoker cigs
A SMOKER was refused cigarettes at a Cambridge store because the Muslim shop assistant said it was against her religion to sell tobacco.
A 31-year-old woman, who asked not to be identified, was shocked when she attempted to buy a pack of 20 cigarettes at the WH Smith store in Market Street and was turned down. She said: "I asked for a pack of 20 Lambert & Butler and the woman behind the desk asked me if they were cigarettes. "When I said they were she told me that it was against her religion to sell them - I couldn't believe my ears.
"I rang up the manager to complain and he said the shop assistant has to ask someone else to serve them for her if a customer wants tobacco. "If she had just said, I can't serve you, then that would have been fair enough, but the thing that really annoyed me was the way she gave me a lecture as well. "She started saying she doesn't agree with smoking, that it kills you - I was really gob-smacked."
When contacted by the News, the store's assistant manager, who refused to give her name, said: "It is true that Muslims can't sell cigarettes - I used to be Jehovah's Witness and I wouldn't on religious grounds either." She said the customer should have realised the shop assistant was a Muslim, and would not sell her tobacco, because she was "sitting there in her full robes".
Asked why the store had someone who would not sell tobacco working behind the till, she said: "It is against the law to discriminate against people on religious grounds".
However, a leading Muslim denied the claim it was against Islam to sell tobacco, and said he had Muslim friends who smoke. Asim Mumtaz, president of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association in Cambridge, said: "I don't think there is any basis for refusing to sell cigarettes. "Islam, like most religions, is against anything that injures health or the body, but there is no ban on cigarettes or on smoking. "The holy Koran is quite specific about intoxicants, alcohol and other drugs which cause a person to lose control are forbidden, but cigarettes are not forbidden so I am surprised by this."
Source. (H/T Iain Dale)
Tragedy of the truthful immigrant
Compare and contrast, as exam papers used to say, the cases of Mark Coleman and Roberto Malasi. Both are young men from Africa who wish to live permanently in this country, but there the similarity stops. Otherwise they are as different as one could possibly imagine. One young man is law-abiding, willing to work if allowed to do so and has never claimed benefits. The other has led the sort of hellish and destructive life in Britain that makes people fear not only for themselves but for wider society. He has robbed and shot one young woman to death and stabbed and killed another. Guess which man is to be deported immediately and which will be staying.
Each of their stories is bad enough in itself; in conjunction, as they were last week, they are scandalous. On Thursday it emerged that Coleman has been told by the Home Office that he must return immediately to his native Zimbabwe. His applications to extend his visa, and later for asylum, have failed and if he does not go at once his removal may be "enforced".
One could normally count on Home Office incompetence to spare him this fate, but Coleman's problem is that by abiding by the law and reporting to a police station every two weeks and generally making his whereabouts known to the authorities, he has made things easy for them. He has not disappeared into the undergrowth. As usual no virtuous deed goes unpunished. Obeying the rules has made him easy to find. Unless someone intervenes he will be sent back to the hellhole that is Zimbabwe, where he no longer has any work or any family; they have all fled the Mugabe terror.
What makes this case particularly absurd is that Coleman is British, by any standards except those of the Home Office regulations. Although he was born in independent Zimbabwe, his father was born there while it was still the British colony of Southern Rhodesia and his mother was born in India; his father's father was a British subject. His paternal great-grandfather was a British army surgeon, as was his maternal great-grandfather.
His mother's family has been English since 1160 and her father served in the British Army and worked as a prisoner of war on the notorious bridge over the River Kwai. It is hard to imagine anyone more British in spirit and in fact, yet, because of a technicality, Coleman cannot have a British passport, cannot stay here and will soon be shipped back. Not only does he have some historical claim on this country, he also has a compassionate claim; nobody can possibly imagine that a white man, whose family has fled, can live or work safely in Zimbabwe, in that nightmare of mayhem, anti-white racism and confiscation.
Rules are rules, admittedly, and hard cases make bad rules as well as bad law. But there is something sickening about the double standards with which this man is having the rules applied to him. We all know something of countless cases of immigrants and asylum seekers who flout the rules and break the law; they are literally countless, because the Home Office simply cannot count them. On Monday Sir David Normington, the senior civil servant at the Home Office, disclosed to MPs that one in five (30 out of 160) sets of figures covering crime, immigration and prisons is not, in a ghastly establishment euphemism, "up to scratch", which is to say not fit for purpose.
In this depressing context consider the case of Roberto Malasi, the robber and convicted murderer. He and his family came to Britain in 1995, seeking asylum from Angola, and in 1999 they were given indefinite leave to remain here. Now 18, when he was 16 he shot dead a woman holding a baby at a christening, while robbing the guests with his younger brother; he escaped, went on the run boasting about this killing and soon afterwards stabbed to death a girl he thought had "dissed" him.
Before these crimes he was in and out of care, got little or no education and lived what police call a chaotic life. He will be sentenced for the killings next month and faces a long time in prison. He does not, however, seem to face deportation, much to the resentment of his victims' families, also recent arrivals from Africa. His lawyers are likely to argue that Malasi would be subject to persecution as a notorious murderer if he were sent back to Angola. On past form they are quite likely to succeed where Coleman failed - even though it is his crime that would supposedly endanger Malasi.
When I called to check some facts, the Home Office would not comment on either case. I am not sure why - these cases are surely in the public interest - but we do know that the Home Office finds it difficult to keep "up to scratch" with checking things, which is why it has so little idea of how many illegal immigrants or returned criminals or escaped convicts are in our midst. However, it was happy to explain that people such as Malasi who have been granted indefinite leave to remain can have that leave revoked if the home secretary does not feel that their remaining is conducive to the public good. In so far as there can be any certainties in life, it seems certain to me that Malasi's presence here is not conducive to the public good.
Comparing and contrasting these two cases, and considering the home secretary's wide discretion in such matters, not to mention the Home Office's ability to "lose" people (which might be put diplomatically to good use in Coleman's case), it's clear that one man should be thrown out and one should be allowed to stay. And if, as I suspect, the wrong man gets thrown out, one will be able to conclude only that the Home Office is not merely incompetent, but also institutionally unjust.
There is a way out for Coleman: he could pretend to be gay and, as Zimbabwe is notorious for persecuting homosexuals, he would have an excellent case for asylum. I am sure he could find a gay friend to help him go through this charade. However, that would involve lying; a corrupt result of a degenerate system. It will be quite legal if Coleman goes and Malasi stays, but the comparison highlights the blindness and chaos of our immigration law and our immigration system and the muddled, guilt-ridden attitudes that underpin them
Source
DARE WE MENTION "MATERNAL INSTINCT"?
BABY dolls given to schoolgirls in a scheme to dissuade them from becoming teenage mothers have, in some cases, increased their desire to have children, according to a report in a leading medical journal. The "virtual infant simulators", which cost 1,000 pounds to run in the government funded programme, are dolls programmed to behave like real babies. They cry, need to be fed regularly and have their nappies changed. It had been hoped that the dolls' demands would persuade girls to postpone parenthood. Hundreds of the dolls have been purchased across Britain in an attempt to reduce record levels of teenage pregnancy, despite a lack of evidence that they make any difference.
Now an article in the Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care has warned that in some cases the dolls actually encourage girls to become pregnant. The attention that the girls receive from others while looking after the dolls makes motherhood seem appealing.
It was written by Nicole Chavaudra, the healthcare worker at Rotherham primary care trust responsible for delivering the teen pregnancy strategy, and says: "There is no evidence that using electronic simulator babies decreases under18 conceptions or changes sexual behaviour." She adds: "For many young people at particular risk of becoming teenage parents, the attention received while caring for the doll reinforces the desire for parenthood."
Chavaudra suggests that the dolls are not a good use of taxpayers' money. Each doll costs about 350 pounds, but the cost of bottles, nappies, baby carriers and clothing pushes up the price to about 1,000.
The dolls give a computer read-out on how well their "mothers" look after them and are available in variants born with foetal alcohol syndrome or addicted to drugs.
Chavaudra concludes that teenagers can be persuaded to delay having children through education programmes without the novelty of the dolls. She said: "The use of an expensive electronic simulator does not demonstrate the emotional elements associated with a human baby and pregnancy."
Chavaudra's concerns are backed up in a report by the government's teenage pregnancy unit. The study, "Baby Think it Over" Electric Simulators: Are they Effective?, concludes: "There is little research evidence to support their use as a tool to encourage contraceptive use or prevent teenage pregnancy."
The government spends 40 million pounds a year on its teenage pregnancy strategy, centrally coordinated by a specialist unit. Critics point out that since the unit was set up in 1999, the number of abortions and sexually transmitted diseases in the under18s has increased. Teenage pregnancies have fallen only modestly over the period, by 11%, and the government is set to miss its target of halving the teenage pregnancy rate by 2010.
Dr Trevor Stammers, lecturer in healthcare ethics at St Mary's University College, London, said: "Raising the school leaving age to 18 will do more to reduce teenage pregnancy rates than any initiative." Tim Loughton, the Tory shadow children's minister, added: "The government's attempts to throw a lot of money at high-profile gimmicks have clearly not worked."
Source
Why is it morally good to use government schools even when they're bad?
Comment from Britain by Peter Hitchens
Once again the Labour government are impaled on their own stupid education policy, and once again the Useless Tories are coming to their rescue. Poor old Ruth Kelly has quite rightly put her child first and ignored the silly 'principles' that, as a Labour Education Secretary, she supported and must still publicly support.
Quite rightly, the Tories have praised her for looking after her child. But they haven't made any hay out of the fact that this makes nonsense of Labour's mad comprehensive obsession. David Cameron has cleared Miss Kelly of hypocrisy. Can this be right? The point is that the hypocrisy lies not in sending her child to a private school, but in doing so while clinging to the wretched policies which prevent the state education system from being able to educate her child properly. But the Tories cannot say this because they, too, are now equally committed to non-selective, rigour-free state schools, from which the only escape is through wealth, influence, luck or power.
The Labour elite's vast, despicable hypocrisy about schooling is their weakest point, the place at which their dishonesty and selfishness is most perfectly exposed. Famously, Anthony Blair said in May 1997 "what I want for my own children I want for yours". But what he turned out to want was places at the London Oratory, a near-unique school which - as I pointed out at the time - was comprehensive in the same way that 10 Downing Street is an inner-city terraced house. It was also not available to most of the rest of us.
His was only one of several methods used by Labour politicians to pretend to support comprehensive education while avoiding it in person. Here are some other methods used by these people: Buy a house in the catchment area of a good school; get your child into a grammar school; hire private tutors while continuing to send your child to a state school you know isn't good enough.
Because Mrs Blair is a Roman Catholic, the Premier's children qualified for the Oratory, a very special and exceptional school. Mr Blair was able to avoid the bog-standard comprehensives of North London, where he then dwelt, without having to commit the terrible sin of paying fees, which in those days would have destroyed his political career.
Why exactly is this is a sin, except in that he preaches to others what he doesn't practise himself? Why should it be morally better to send your children to a bad expensive school, kept going by tax money however bad it is, than to a good expensive school, kept going by private fees? Is it a matter of privilege? Well, not exactly. The parent who pays fees does not stop paying taxes. He still funds the costly state schools, whether good or bad, that he doesn't use. And by paying fees, out of taxed income, he helps create the school place he does use, with money that he might just as easily have spent on wine, or air fares. He doesn't deprive anybody of anything. If all the private schools were shut down, their excellence would simply disappear. It wouldn't, by being mixed into the state comprehensive system, miraculously raise its general standards. Private schools are good because they are not comprehensives.
True, if he didn't have the money, he couldn't pay at all. And this is deeply unfair, but only for a reason I'll come to in a moment. But nobody (at least nobody outside the ranks of the Communist movement) claims that it's wrong on principle that some people can spend more money on cars, or holidays or clothes than anyone else, especially if they have earned their money. It certainly doesn't disqualify anyone from being a Labour politician to do such things. Quite a lot of Labour MPs and peers are comfortably off, and many Labour supporters are very rich indeed. Yet, if you happen to have the money to spare, it is far more laudable, surely, to spend money on schooling the next generation in knowledge, manners and culture, than on a couple of weeks on a beach or on a cupboard full of fashionable high-heeled shoes. Better still if some of your fees go (as they often do) on bursaries to provide private education for children whose parents cannot afford it.
By comparison, what's so good about a rich and influential person using his knowledge and skills to wangle a place in a school miles from his home, which might otherwise go to a bright child from a poor home? Surely, that's a real abuse of the privileges of the middle class, since we all know there is a strictly limited number of good state school places, and the poor have hardly any chance of going private.
That is why it is so unfair that only the well-off can pay fees. In the 1960s the mid-range private schools were dying, losing pupils to the grammar schools. Now, even a bad private school can look good in the league tables because far too few state schools are any good, and many of those that are good are harder to get into than the most exclusive club you care to name. It wasn't always like this. Just 40 years ago, in this country, there were thousands of high-quality schools which didn't charge fees. Most of them were Grammar Schools (in Scotland, Academies). There were also Direct Grant schools, private schools which took a large block of pupils from the local state primary system. The parents of the children involved didn't pay fees at all.
As a result, many children from less well-off homes got a first-rate education. Alan Bennett's an example. His father was a Co-op Butcher, but he got to Oxford, with no special measures to help him. Many, many Labour MPs benefited in the same way. In fact, in the mid-1960s the grammar schools were taking over Oxford and Cambridge, even though they weren't specially-equipped (as the good private schools were) to deal with the classical subjects needed in the entrance exams that Oxbridge then held.
Nobody is saying that the system of 40 years ago was perfect. The 11-plus exam was too arbitrary. Germany has a selective system without any such exam. There were too few grammar schools. Many more could have been built at a fraction of the cost of going comprehensive. There were too few grammar places for girls. More should have been created. The Secondary Moderns, to which 11-plus failures went, were often not as bad as is now claimed - and in many cases better than the comprehensives of today - but badly needed improving. There were supposed to be technical schools, but they often hadn't been built. They should have been. But whatever was wrong, it was absurd to destroy the one part of the system that actually worked, like amputating a healthy leg and leaving the diseased one in place.
If we could reverse this foolishness, then Ruth Kelly, and many, many more without her advantages and income, could be sure that their children would be properly educated without needing to pay 15,000 pounds a year for what ought not to be a privilege. But Miss Kelly, as Education Secretary and as a politician, has set her face against this fair remedy. She is quite entitled to do all in her power for her young. I praise her for it. But how can she then continue to support the system which has failed her own child, and the children of thousands of others?
Source
Special health care for Muslims? "Muslims should be provided with faith-based services - including male circumcision - on the NHS, says one healthcare expert. Professor Aziz Sheikh is also calling for women patients to see same-sex medics, better access to prayer facilities in hospitals and more information so Muslims can avoid alcohol and pig-derived drugs. Writing in the British Medical Journal, the University of Edinburgh professor also claims Muslims should be given health advice on attempting the Hajj pilgrimage-to Mecca which he insisted was a 'religious obligation and not a holiday'. The BMJ contrasts his opinions with those of Professor Aneez Esmail, of Manchester University, who says in another article that it would not be practical to meet everyone's demands for special services based on religious identity. He warned some faith groups might support practices which may be unacceptable to the majority - such as female circumcision and the refusal to accept blood transfusions."
GUESTS at a 300 pound-a-head climate change conference turned up in a stream of gasguzzling sports cars and 4x4s. Former US vice president Al Gore was the main speaker at yesterday's event in the Hilton Hotel in Glasgow. While the meeting was to address global warming, business leaders turned up in a range of flash motors including Bentleys, Jeeps and Porsches. One onlooker said: "This was for a conference on how to save the planet. It would appear the irony was lost on them." ......
More here
British referral management schemes damage patients' interests
Bureaucrats second-guessing a doctor's referrals and sending the patient somewhere else instead??
Referral management schemes pose a serious threat to patients' interests, argues Peter Lapsley, Chief Executive of the Skin Care Campaign, in this week's BMJ.
Referral management schemes are springing up across the NHS as a means of reducing primary care trusts' spending on secondary care services. The justification given for the introduction of the schemes is that they bring services "closer to home" - a mantra repeated often by the government at present. But trust managers admit privately that the true purpose of the schemes is to reduce costs in the face of the budget deficits so many of them are confronting, he says.
Typically, such schemes require that 80% of GPs' referral letters be reviewed in primary care and that 60% of cases should be retained within the trust. In many cases GPs are being offered financial incentives to participate in the schemes. Lapsley firmly believes that these schemes pose a serious threat to patients' interests. They introduce an extra step in the patient's journey, delaying the diagnosis and treatment of often complex and difficult diseases, he writes.
What is more alarming is that some primary care trusts now deliberately delay outpatient appointments, refusing to fund routine paper referrals seen within eight weeks of the date of the referral letter. In contrast, patients who can be booked into clinics directly through the Choose and Book electronic booking service can be seen within two to three weeks, no matter what their complaint. The schemes also remove any vestige of "patient choice," another government mantra, he adds.
In the case of dermatology, about 15% of GPs' consultations in Britain relate to skin disorders, yet the average undergraduate curriculum has only six days of dermatology, and only 20% of GP vocational training schemes include a dermatological component. Practice nurses receive no such training.
Referral management schemes therefore create a real risk that patients with skin diseases will be seen by clinicians who lack the necessary training and experience, greatly reducing the likelihood of prompt and accurate diagnosis, not least in respect of skin cancer, he argues.
The schemes are also insulting to GPs, second guessing their decisions. They undermine the viability of secondary care dermatology, and they remove any incentive for secondary care specialists to support or develop the role of the GP with a special interest in dermatology. The schemes may provide a short term solution to a short term financial problem. The risk, though, is that they will do lasting damage, he concludes.
Source
Chinese herbs offer hope to fight disease
The first large-scale screening of herbs commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine reveals they contain thousands of compounds with the potential to fight diseases from cancer to HIV-AIDS and conditions such as erectile dysfunction and high blood pressure. The compounds are promising "candidates" for new drugs, pharmaceutical chemist David Barlow and his colleagues at King's College London claimed.
Dr Barlow's group discovered 8264 chemical compounds in the 240 plants studied. And 62per cent of them contained at least one potential disease-fighting biochemical, with 53 per cent containing two or more. Some, such as maidenhair and skullcap, were packed with five or more active ingredients.
The team will report in an upcoming edition of the American Chemical Society's Journal of Chemical Information and Modelling that it found almost 2600 compounds that could be used to fight a host of ailments. Among them were pain, inflammation, dementia, obesity, Huntington's disease, blood clots, depression, eye disease and arthritis.
Chris Zaslawski, of the College of Traditional Medicine at the University of Technology, Sydney, said the research was an important first step towards novel pharmaceuticals based on natural products. "But that doesn't mean (the compounds) will work in humans," he said.
Source
Muslim store worker refuses smoker cigs
A SMOKER was refused cigarettes at a Cambridge store because the Muslim shop assistant said it was against her religion to sell tobacco.
A 31-year-old woman, who asked not to be identified, was shocked when she attempted to buy a pack of 20 cigarettes at the WH Smith store in Market Street and was turned down. She said: "I asked for a pack of 20 Lambert & Butler and the woman behind the desk asked me if they were cigarettes. "When I said they were she told me that it was against her religion to sell them - I couldn't believe my ears.
"I rang up the manager to complain and he said the shop assistant has to ask someone else to serve them for her if a customer wants tobacco. "If she had just said, I can't serve you, then that would have been fair enough, but the thing that really annoyed me was the way she gave me a lecture as well. "She started saying she doesn't agree with smoking, that it kills you - I was really gob-smacked."
When contacted by the News, the store's assistant manager, who refused to give her name, said: "It is true that Muslims can't sell cigarettes - I used to be Jehovah's Witness and I wouldn't on religious grounds either." She said the customer should have realised the shop assistant was a Muslim, and would not sell her tobacco, because she was "sitting there in her full robes".
Asked why the store had someone who would not sell tobacco working behind the till, she said: "It is against the law to discriminate against people on religious grounds".
However, a leading Muslim denied the claim it was against Islam to sell tobacco, and said he had Muslim friends who smoke. Asim Mumtaz, president of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association in Cambridge, said: "I don't think there is any basis for refusing to sell cigarettes. "Islam, like most religions, is against anything that injures health or the body, but there is no ban on cigarettes or on smoking. "The holy Koran is quite specific about intoxicants, alcohol and other drugs which cause a person to lose control are forbidden, but cigarettes are not forbidden so I am surprised by this."
Source. (H/T Iain Dale)
Tragedy of the truthful immigrant
Compare and contrast, as exam papers used to say, the cases of Mark Coleman and Roberto Malasi. Both are young men from Africa who wish to live permanently in this country, but there the similarity stops. Otherwise they are as different as one could possibly imagine. One young man is law-abiding, willing to work if allowed to do so and has never claimed benefits. The other has led the sort of hellish and destructive life in Britain that makes people fear not only for themselves but for wider society. He has robbed and shot one young woman to death and stabbed and killed another. Guess which man is to be deported immediately and which will be staying.
Each of their stories is bad enough in itself; in conjunction, as they were last week, they are scandalous. On Thursday it emerged that Coleman has been told by the Home Office that he must return immediately to his native Zimbabwe. His applications to extend his visa, and later for asylum, have failed and if he does not go at once his removal may be "enforced".
One could normally count on Home Office incompetence to spare him this fate, but Coleman's problem is that by abiding by the law and reporting to a police station every two weeks and generally making his whereabouts known to the authorities, he has made things easy for them. He has not disappeared into the undergrowth. As usual no virtuous deed goes unpunished. Obeying the rules has made him easy to find. Unless someone intervenes he will be sent back to the hellhole that is Zimbabwe, where he no longer has any work or any family; they have all fled the Mugabe terror.
What makes this case particularly absurd is that Coleman is British, by any standards except those of the Home Office regulations. Although he was born in independent Zimbabwe, his father was born there while it was still the British colony of Southern Rhodesia and his mother was born in India; his father's father was a British subject. His paternal great-grandfather was a British army surgeon, as was his maternal great-grandfather.
His mother's family has been English since 1160 and her father served in the British Army and worked as a prisoner of war on the notorious bridge over the River Kwai. It is hard to imagine anyone more British in spirit and in fact, yet, because of a technicality, Coleman cannot have a British passport, cannot stay here and will soon be shipped back. Not only does he have some historical claim on this country, he also has a compassionate claim; nobody can possibly imagine that a white man, whose family has fled, can live or work safely in Zimbabwe, in that nightmare of mayhem, anti-white racism and confiscation.
Rules are rules, admittedly, and hard cases make bad rules as well as bad law. But there is something sickening about the double standards with which this man is having the rules applied to him. We all know something of countless cases of immigrants and asylum seekers who flout the rules and break the law; they are literally countless, because the Home Office simply cannot count them. On Monday Sir David Normington, the senior civil servant at the Home Office, disclosed to MPs that one in five (30 out of 160) sets of figures covering crime, immigration and prisons is not, in a ghastly establishment euphemism, "up to scratch", which is to say not fit for purpose.
In this depressing context consider the case of Roberto Malasi, the robber and convicted murderer. He and his family came to Britain in 1995, seeking asylum from Angola, and in 1999 they were given indefinite leave to remain here. Now 18, when he was 16 he shot dead a woman holding a baby at a christening, while robbing the guests with his younger brother; he escaped, went on the run boasting about this killing and soon afterwards stabbed to death a girl he thought had "dissed" him.
Before these crimes he was in and out of care, got little or no education and lived what police call a chaotic life. He will be sentenced for the killings next month and faces a long time in prison. He does not, however, seem to face deportation, much to the resentment of his victims' families, also recent arrivals from Africa. His lawyers are likely to argue that Malasi would be subject to persecution as a notorious murderer if he were sent back to Angola. On past form they are quite likely to succeed where Coleman failed - even though it is his crime that would supposedly endanger Malasi.
When I called to check some facts, the Home Office would not comment on either case. I am not sure why - these cases are surely in the public interest - but we do know that the Home Office finds it difficult to keep "up to scratch" with checking things, which is why it has so little idea of how many illegal immigrants or returned criminals or escaped convicts are in our midst. However, it was happy to explain that people such as Malasi who have been granted indefinite leave to remain can have that leave revoked if the home secretary does not feel that their remaining is conducive to the public good. In so far as there can be any certainties in life, it seems certain to me that Malasi's presence here is not conducive to the public good.
Comparing and contrasting these two cases, and considering the home secretary's wide discretion in such matters, not to mention the Home Office's ability to "lose" people (which might be put diplomatically to good use in Coleman's case), it's clear that one man should be thrown out and one should be allowed to stay. And if, as I suspect, the wrong man gets thrown out, one will be able to conclude only that the Home Office is not merely incompetent, but also institutionally unjust.
There is a way out for Coleman: he could pretend to be gay and, as Zimbabwe is notorious for persecuting homosexuals, he would have an excellent case for asylum. I am sure he could find a gay friend to help him go through this charade. However, that would involve lying; a corrupt result of a degenerate system. It will be quite legal if Coleman goes and Malasi stays, but the comparison highlights the blindness and chaos of our immigration law and our immigration system and the muddled, guilt-ridden attitudes that underpin them
Source
DARE WE MENTION "MATERNAL INSTINCT"?
BABY dolls given to schoolgirls in a scheme to dissuade them from becoming teenage mothers have, in some cases, increased their desire to have children, according to a report in a leading medical journal. The "virtual infant simulators", which cost 1,000 pounds to run in the government funded programme, are dolls programmed to behave like real babies. They cry, need to be fed regularly and have their nappies changed. It had been hoped that the dolls' demands would persuade girls to postpone parenthood. Hundreds of the dolls have been purchased across Britain in an attempt to reduce record levels of teenage pregnancy, despite a lack of evidence that they make any difference.
Now an article in the Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care has warned that in some cases the dolls actually encourage girls to become pregnant. The attention that the girls receive from others while looking after the dolls makes motherhood seem appealing.
It was written by Nicole Chavaudra, the healthcare worker at Rotherham primary care trust responsible for delivering the teen pregnancy strategy, and says: "There is no evidence that using electronic simulator babies decreases under18 conceptions or changes sexual behaviour." She adds: "For many young people at particular risk of becoming teenage parents, the attention received while caring for the doll reinforces the desire for parenthood."
Chavaudra suggests that the dolls are not a good use of taxpayers' money. Each doll costs about 350 pounds, but the cost of bottles, nappies, baby carriers and clothing pushes up the price to about 1,000.
The dolls give a computer read-out on how well their "mothers" look after them and are available in variants born with foetal alcohol syndrome or addicted to drugs.
Chavaudra concludes that teenagers can be persuaded to delay having children through education programmes without the novelty of the dolls. She said: "The use of an expensive electronic simulator does not demonstrate the emotional elements associated with a human baby and pregnancy."
Chavaudra's concerns are backed up in a report by the government's teenage pregnancy unit. The study, "Baby Think it Over" Electric Simulators: Are they Effective?, concludes: "There is little research evidence to support their use as a tool to encourage contraceptive use or prevent teenage pregnancy."
The government spends 40 million pounds a year on its teenage pregnancy strategy, centrally coordinated by a specialist unit. Critics point out that since the unit was set up in 1999, the number of abortions and sexually transmitted diseases in the under18s has increased. Teenage pregnancies have fallen only modestly over the period, by 11%, and the government is set to miss its target of halving the teenage pregnancy rate by 2010.
Dr Trevor Stammers, lecturer in healthcare ethics at St Mary's University College, London, said: "Raising the school leaving age to 18 will do more to reduce teenage pregnancy rates than any initiative." Tim Loughton, the Tory shadow children's minister, added: "The government's attempts to throw a lot of money at high-profile gimmicks have clearly not worked."
Source
Why is it morally good to use government schools even when they're bad?
Comment from Britain by Peter Hitchens
Once again the Labour government are impaled on their own stupid education policy, and once again the Useless Tories are coming to their rescue. Poor old Ruth Kelly has quite rightly put her child first and ignored the silly 'principles' that, as a Labour Education Secretary, she supported and must still publicly support.
Quite rightly, the Tories have praised her for looking after her child. But they haven't made any hay out of the fact that this makes nonsense of Labour's mad comprehensive obsession. David Cameron has cleared Miss Kelly of hypocrisy. Can this be right? The point is that the hypocrisy lies not in sending her child to a private school, but in doing so while clinging to the wretched policies which prevent the state education system from being able to educate her child properly. But the Tories cannot say this because they, too, are now equally committed to non-selective, rigour-free state schools, from which the only escape is through wealth, influence, luck or power.
The Labour elite's vast, despicable hypocrisy about schooling is their weakest point, the place at which their dishonesty and selfishness is most perfectly exposed. Famously, Anthony Blair said in May 1997 "what I want for my own children I want for yours". But what he turned out to want was places at the London Oratory, a near-unique school which - as I pointed out at the time - was comprehensive in the same way that 10 Downing Street is an inner-city terraced house. It was also not available to most of the rest of us.
His was only one of several methods used by Labour politicians to pretend to support comprehensive education while avoiding it in person. Here are some other methods used by these people: Buy a house in the catchment area of a good school; get your child into a grammar school; hire private tutors while continuing to send your child to a state school you know isn't good enough.
Because Mrs Blair is a Roman Catholic, the Premier's children qualified for the Oratory, a very special and exceptional school. Mr Blair was able to avoid the bog-standard comprehensives of North London, where he then dwelt, without having to commit the terrible sin of paying fees, which in those days would have destroyed his political career.
Why exactly is this is a sin, except in that he preaches to others what he doesn't practise himself? Why should it be morally better to send your children to a bad expensive school, kept going by tax money however bad it is, than to a good expensive school, kept going by private fees? Is it a matter of privilege? Well, not exactly. The parent who pays fees does not stop paying taxes. He still funds the costly state schools, whether good or bad, that he doesn't use. And by paying fees, out of taxed income, he helps create the school place he does use, with money that he might just as easily have spent on wine, or air fares. He doesn't deprive anybody of anything. If all the private schools were shut down, their excellence would simply disappear. It wouldn't, by being mixed into the state comprehensive system, miraculously raise its general standards. Private schools are good because they are not comprehensives.
True, if he didn't have the money, he couldn't pay at all. And this is deeply unfair, but only for a reason I'll come to in a moment. But nobody (at least nobody outside the ranks of the Communist movement) claims that it's wrong on principle that some people can spend more money on cars, or holidays or clothes than anyone else, especially if they have earned their money. It certainly doesn't disqualify anyone from being a Labour politician to do such things. Quite a lot of Labour MPs and peers are comfortably off, and many Labour supporters are very rich indeed. Yet, if you happen to have the money to spare, it is far more laudable, surely, to spend money on schooling the next generation in knowledge, manners and culture, than on a couple of weeks on a beach or on a cupboard full of fashionable high-heeled shoes. Better still if some of your fees go (as they often do) on bursaries to provide private education for children whose parents cannot afford it.
By comparison, what's so good about a rich and influential person using his knowledge and skills to wangle a place in a school miles from his home, which might otherwise go to a bright child from a poor home? Surely, that's a real abuse of the privileges of the middle class, since we all know there is a strictly limited number of good state school places, and the poor have hardly any chance of going private.
That is why it is so unfair that only the well-off can pay fees. In the 1960s the mid-range private schools were dying, losing pupils to the grammar schools. Now, even a bad private school can look good in the league tables because far too few state schools are any good, and many of those that are good are harder to get into than the most exclusive club you care to name. It wasn't always like this. Just 40 years ago, in this country, there were thousands of high-quality schools which didn't charge fees. Most of them were Grammar Schools (in Scotland, Academies). There were also Direct Grant schools, private schools which took a large block of pupils from the local state primary system. The parents of the children involved didn't pay fees at all.
As a result, many children from less well-off homes got a first-rate education. Alan Bennett's an example. His father was a Co-op Butcher, but he got to Oxford, with no special measures to help him. Many, many Labour MPs benefited in the same way. In fact, in the mid-1960s the grammar schools were taking over Oxford and Cambridge, even though they weren't specially-equipped (as the good private schools were) to deal with the classical subjects needed in the entrance exams that Oxbridge then held.
Nobody is saying that the system of 40 years ago was perfect. The 11-plus exam was too arbitrary. Germany has a selective system without any such exam. There were too few grammar schools. Many more could have been built at a fraction of the cost of going comprehensive. There were too few grammar places for girls. More should have been created. The Secondary Moderns, to which 11-plus failures went, were often not as bad as is now claimed - and in many cases better than the comprehensives of today - but badly needed improving. There were supposed to be technical schools, but they often hadn't been built. They should have been. But whatever was wrong, it was absurd to destroy the one part of the system that actually worked, like amputating a healthy leg and leaving the diseased one in place.
If we could reverse this foolishness, then Ruth Kelly, and many, many more without her advantages and income, could be sure that their children would be properly educated without needing to pay 15,000 pounds a year for what ought not to be a privilege. But Miss Kelly, as Education Secretary and as a politician, has set her face against this fair remedy. She is quite entitled to do all in her power for her young. I praise her for it. But how can she then continue to support the system which has failed her own child, and the children of thousands of others?
Source
Special health care for Muslims? "Muslims should be provided with faith-based services - including male circumcision - on the NHS, says one healthcare expert. Professor Aziz Sheikh is also calling for women patients to see same-sex medics, better access to prayer facilities in hospitals and more information so Muslims can avoid alcohol and pig-derived drugs. Writing in the British Medical Journal, the University of Edinburgh professor also claims Muslims should be given health advice on attempting the Hajj pilgrimage-to Mecca which he insisted was a 'religious obligation and not a holiday'. The BMJ contrasts his opinions with those of Professor Aneez Esmail, of Manchester University, who says in another article that it would not be practical to meet everyone's demands for special services based on religious identity. He warned some faith groups might support practices which may be unacceptable to the majority - such as female circumcision and the refusal to accept blood transfusions."
Sunday, January 21, 2007
"Racist" British TV Update
Jade Goody -- pictured above in a pic from a website devoted to her -- was the main source of the racist remarks against Indian actress Shilpa Shetty noted previously by me on 19th. She has now been voted off the show by the audience. That seems appropriate justice to me.
The difference in style between the two women should be obvious and presumably explains a lot.
Anti-Christian Discrimination Dropped
We read:
The mealy-mouthed comments by BA on the matter are rather sickening.
THIS IS THE TREATMENT EVERYONE CAN EXPECT IF THE GREENIE DREAM OF FORCING EVERYONE ONTO PUBLIC TRANSPORT IS REALIZED
Britain shows the way
Rail commuters travelling at peak periods should expect to stand even if they have paid 5,000 pounds for an annual season ticket, according to the head of railways at the Department for Transport. Mike Mitchell was condemned by rail unions and passenger groups for saying that it was acceptable to stand for up to half an hour in peak periods. He said that it would be too expensive to provide seats for everyone and that commuters who did not want to stand should avoid the peak, which now extends from 6.30am to 10am on many lines. The Government predicts that passenger numbers will increase by 30 per cent over the next decade, but it has no plans to increase significantly the number of trains on busy lines.
Giving evidence on January 8 to the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, Dr Mitchell admitted that the railways were busier now than at any time since 1946, with more than 1.1 billion passengers carried last year. Dr Mitchell said: "If you are travelling a relatively short distance, I do not think that it is unacceptable to expect to stand in the peak." Asked by Richard Bacon, MP for Norfolk South, what he meant by a short distance, he said: "Perhaps half an hour."
Mr Bacon then asked: "Standing for half an hour is acceptable even though you are paying your local train operating company 5,000 a year?" Dr Mitchell replied: "It has to be said that there are alternatives . . . if one travels off-peak." He added: "The cost of providing sufficient capacity to enable everyone to get a seat would expand the railway budget way beyond anything we have here."
The DfT said that Dr Mitchell travelled to work either on foot or in standard class. Tom Harris, the Rail Minister, supported Dr Mitchell yesterday. He said: "It's not realistic that passengers get a seat for every journey." He said that trains might be lengthened "in the long term", but refused to give any date, and would not rule out further above-inflation fare increases.
Gerry Doherty, of the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association, said: "Dr Mitchell is arrogant and out of touch if he thinks it is acceptable for commuters not to get a seat when they are paying 5,000 a year to commute into London.
Source
IMMIGRANT INFLUX OVERCROWDING BRITISH SCHOOLS
Pressure from an influx of children from East European immigrants has forced a council to draw up plans to build four new primary schools. Bradford council in West Yorkshire, where nearly 5,000 workers arrived last year, is one of many local authorities experiencing a shortfall of places in inner-city areas. Yesterday education chiefs there said two of its existing primary schools would need to be expanded and four new ones built to cope with the increased demand for new places. Bradford has the second highest birth rate of any part of Britain outside London, and coming on top of that, immigration has left its school system struggling, it said.
A council report said the high number of births 'has caused a shortfall in places in some parts of the district when combined with large numbers of Eastern European workers who are also moving into the district, sometimes bringing their families with them'. It added that it had been 'impossible to predict the increase in numbers of newcomers' and finding places for them is 'becoming much more difficult'.
Bradford is just one of many local councils reporting that it is under strain as a result of record levels of immigration from Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe. One in five primary school children are now from an ethnic minority, and some councils have been faced with massive bills to fund extra support such as interpreters as they are legally obliged to admit children from European Union member states. At least 27,000 school-aged youngsters have arrived with their parents in the UK since ten countries - including Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic - joined the EU on May 1, 2004.
Elsewhere in the country, Wrexham in North Wales has reported that its schools are facing a similar pressure - around 50 Polish children started school there in September. Agnieszka Tenteroba, a Polish teacher working with the newcomers, said: 'First it was the husbands coming to work. People who want to stay then bring their families so we will have more and more Polish children in Wrexham.'
Meanwhile in Slough, Berkshire, the council has reported that an influx of an estimated 10,000 Poles has left it facing going 15 million pounds in the red, with nearly 900 school pupils from non English-speaking backgrounds. And in Peterborough, where there were just 22 children of economic migrants enrolled in secondary schools in January 2004, that has risen to more than 100 with one secondary school warning it was being 'overwhelmed'.
The Government does not collect figures for the number of children brought with them by immigrant workers, so officials in Bradford are having to base their estimates on the number of new National Insurance permits being issued - 4,650 last year.
The council's executive will now be asked to recommend research into how to expand school provision to cater for the increased number of children. Colin Gill, executive member for children's services, said: 'In those areas of the district where there are substantial changes in population size and distribution, we will need to make alterations to ensure that we provide the right number of primary school places in the right locations.'
Bradford's birth rate, according to the latest figures, is the fourth highest in Britain, after Birmingham and the London boroughs of Newham and Hackney, with much of the growth thought to be within the city's more established immigrant communities
Source
Jade Goody -- pictured above in a pic from a website devoted to her -- was the main source of the racist remarks against Indian actress Shilpa Shetty noted previously by me on 19th. She has now been voted off the show by the audience. That seems appropriate justice to me.
The difference in style between the two women should be obvious and presumably explains a lot.
Anti-Christian Discrimination Dropped
We read:
"British Airways is changing its uniform policy to allow all religious symbols, including crosses, to be worn openly.
BA announced a review last year after a row erupted when Heathrow check-in worker Nadia Eweida challenged a ban on her visibly wearing a cross necklace. The airline now says it will allow religious symbols such as lapel pins and "some flexibility for individuals to wear a symbol of faith on a chain".
BA had banned crosses on chains, but allowed hijabs and turbans to be worn.
Source
The mealy-mouthed comments by BA on the matter are rather sickening.
THIS IS THE TREATMENT EVERYONE CAN EXPECT IF THE GREENIE DREAM OF FORCING EVERYONE ONTO PUBLIC TRANSPORT IS REALIZED
Britain shows the way
Rail commuters travelling at peak periods should expect to stand even if they have paid 5,000 pounds for an annual season ticket, according to the head of railways at the Department for Transport. Mike Mitchell was condemned by rail unions and passenger groups for saying that it was acceptable to stand for up to half an hour in peak periods. He said that it would be too expensive to provide seats for everyone and that commuters who did not want to stand should avoid the peak, which now extends from 6.30am to 10am on many lines. The Government predicts that passenger numbers will increase by 30 per cent over the next decade, but it has no plans to increase significantly the number of trains on busy lines.
Giving evidence on January 8 to the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, Dr Mitchell admitted that the railways were busier now than at any time since 1946, with more than 1.1 billion passengers carried last year. Dr Mitchell said: "If you are travelling a relatively short distance, I do not think that it is unacceptable to expect to stand in the peak." Asked by Richard Bacon, MP for Norfolk South, what he meant by a short distance, he said: "Perhaps half an hour."
Mr Bacon then asked: "Standing for half an hour is acceptable even though you are paying your local train operating company 5,000 a year?" Dr Mitchell replied: "It has to be said that there are alternatives . . . if one travels off-peak." He added: "The cost of providing sufficient capacity to enable everyone to get a seat would expand the railway budget way beyond anything we have here."
The DfT said that Dr Mitchell travelled to work either on foot or in standard class. Tom Harris, the Rail Minister, supported Dr Mitchell yesterday. He said: "It's not realistic that passengers get a seat for every journey." He said that trains might be lengthened "in the long term", but refused to give any date, and would not rule out further above-inflation fare increases.
Gerry Doherty, of the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association, said: "Dr Mitchell is arrogant and out of touch if he thinks it is acceptable for commuters not to get a seat when they are paying 5,000 a year to commute into London.
Source
IMMIGRANT INFLUX OVERCROWDING BRITISH SCHOOLS
Pressure from an influx of children from East European immigrants has forced a council to draw up plans to build four new primary schools. Bradford council in West Yorkshire, where nearly 5,000 workers arrived last year, is one of many local authorities experiencing a shortfall of places in inner-city areas. Yesterday education chiefs there said two of its existing primary schools would need to be expanded and four new ones built to cope with the increased demand for new places. Bradford has the second highest birth rate of any part of Britain outside London, and coming on top of that, immigration has left its school system struggling, it said.
A council report said the high number of births 'has caused a shortfall in places in some parts of the district when combined with large numbers of Eastern European workers who are also moving into the district, sometimes bringing their families with them'. It added that it had been 'impossible to predict the increase in numbers of newcomers' and finding places for them is 'becoming much more difficult'.
Bradford is just one of many local councils reporting that it is under strain as a result of record levels of immigration from Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe. One in five primary school children are now from an ethnic minority, and some councils have been faced with massive bills to fund extra support such as interpreters as they are legally obliged to admit children from European Union member states. At least 27,000 school-aged youngsters have arrived with their parents in the UK since ten countries - including Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic - joined the EU on May 1, 2004.
Elsewhere in the country, Wrexham in North Wales has reported that its schools are facing a similar pressure - around 50 Polish children started school there in September. Agnieszka Tenteroba, a Polish teacher working with the newcomers, said: 'First it was the husbands coming to work. People who want to stay then bring their families so we will have more and more Polish children in Wrexham.'
Meanwhile in Slough, Berkshire, the council has reported that an influx of an estimated 10,000 Poles has left it facing going 15 million pounds in the red, with nearly 900 school pupils from non English-speaking backgrounds. And in Peterborough, where there were just 22 children of economic migrants enrolled in secondary schools in January 2004, that has risen to more than 100 with one secondary school warning it was being 'overwhelmed'.
The Government does not collect figures for the number of children brought with them by immigrant workers, so officials in Bradford are having to base their estimates on the number of new National Insurance permits being issued - 4,650 last year.
The council's executive will now be asked to recommend research into how to expand school provision to cater for the increased number of children. Colin Gill, executive member for children's services, said: 'In those areas of the district where there are substantial changes in population size and distribution, we will need to make alterations to ensure that we provide the right number of primary school places in the right locations.'
Bradford's birth rate, according to the latest figures, is the fourth highest in Britain, after Birmingham and the London boroughs of Newham and Hackney, with much of the growth thought to be within the city's more established immigrant communities
Source
Saturday, January 20, 2007
The latest British insanity
New safety rule for firefighters: stay off that ladder
Firefighters on Humberside have been told by their employers that it is dangerous for them to go up ladders. Given that going up ladders to rescue people from blazing buildings is what firefighters do for a living, the news has been greeted with more than a spark of incredulity by the individuals who man the fire service for Hull and its surrounding area.
But it is not sending up extending ladders on the back of fire engines to deal with towering infernos that is causing concern. It is climbing mere stepladders to install smoke alarms in people’s homes, a popular prevention measure offered free by the Humberside Fire and Rescue Service. The brigade is reviewing its stepladder policy after local officials of the Fire Brigades Union pointed out that a firefighter on a stepladder not much more than 6ft from the floor may be contravening the Health and Safety Executive Work at Height Regulations 2005. Fire officials are considering whether to insist that crews who install alarms should work on a platform rather a ladder. Glenn Ramsden, a spokesman, said: “The fire service, just like any other organisation, is not exempt from health and safety legislation.”
Sean Starbuck, regional chairman of the FBU, said: “The use of stepladders to fit smoke alarms contravenes working-at-height regulations, which were introduced by the Government. We have raised the issue and the Health and Safety Executive has agreed that a review is needed.”
One firefighter, who asked not to be named, said: “Is it me, or is this an example of health and safety gone mad?” Another said: “Where will this end? Will we still be able to carry a rescued person down a ladder, or enter a burning building, without the HSE on our back?” The HSE regulations, introduced two years ago, state that employers must select the most suitable equipment for working at height and ensure that protection measures are in place.
Humberside firefighters have installed about 15,000 smoke alarms in private homes over the past year and the brigade emphasised yesterday that its service would continue. No decision has been taken yet on the safest way for its staff to reach people’s ceilings.
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents says that about 40,000 people a year end up in hospital after ladder-related accidents. A spokeswoman added: “If used correctly, ladders are still a much safer way of working at height than standing on household items.” No figures are available for the number of firefighters who have been injured in falls from stepladders.
Source
The anti-MMR gravy train derailed
Revealed: How more than £15million of legal aid funding was spent by lawyers trying and failing to prove that the MMR vaccination causes autism.
Five years ago, supporters of Dr Andrew Wakefield’s claim of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism used to argue that ‘the evidence was stacking up’ in support of this theory. In fact, the only evidence that was stacking up was evidence against the link: more recently a series of robust epidemiological studies showing no reason to suspect that MMR caused autism has been supplemented by rigorous virological investigations failing to demonstrate any link (1, 2). Meanwhile, another stack of evidence has emerged, revealing how legal aid funding bankrolled the campaign against MMR.
Source
Britain to abolish head-teachers?
The days of the "hero head", who manages everything in a school from hiring staff to ordering books, could be numbered, according to a report which suggests that business leaders with no classroom experience could run schools. Leaders with a classroom background would still be required for teaching and learning, but there was no reason why they should not report to a principal or chief executive, responsible for overall strategy and non-academic operations.
The report, prepared for the Government by the consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers, follows fears of an impending shortage of head teachers and concerns that workloads, bureaucracy and over-regulation were deterring deputies from applying for headships. Although ministers deny there is a recruitment problem, they acknowledge that the job of leading a school is now so complicated that a new, "modern" approach is needed.One of the biggest barriers to reform identified by the report is the "hero head" perception, among teachers, parents and heads themselves, which presupposes that for big decisions, "only the head will do". Distributing leading responsibilities among a team was often more effective, it concluded.
The report recommends that schools consider new types of leadership: a federated model brings groups of schools under one "super-head"; a multi- agency model has schools run by a team that includes teachers and staff from other agencies, such as health and social care. Schools could also be clustered into groups, with heads rotated from school to school.
The structure of governing bodies should also be changed, the report says, suggesting the creation of "meta-governors" working across a number of schools in a locality. It also recommended greater flexibility in the rewards offered to heads. As well as increasing the pay differential between heads and other staff, it suggests allowing heads to take time off during term time.
Teaching unions were divided over the findings. John Dunford, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said he was not opposed to non-teachers being brought into certain school leadership roles: "The possibility should be opened up that the best of school leaders who are not qualified teachers - the bursars and business managers - should be able to come through to the top job, provided that the person in charge of teaching and learning is a qualified teacher."
But Steve Sinnott, the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: "The primary purpose of schools is to educate pupils, not to be commercial organisations. Head teachers have told the Government they do not believe that those without teaching experience can run our schools."
Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, said that the report's recommendations would be discussed with the teaching and support staff unions before any action was taken. The National College of School Leadership would be given 10 million pounds to support its strategy to help to identify future head teachers and cut the time that it takes to qualify, he said.
Source
Another boffin jumps off the warming ship
Add another world-renowned scientist to the list of man-made global warming skeptics. Nigel Weiss, professor emeritus at the University of Cambridge's department of applied mathematics and theoretical physics, and past president of the Royal Astronomical Society, is a sunspot guy. He argues that the world will be soon facing a cooling period.
In an interview with Lawrence Solomon of Canada's Energy Probe Research Foundation, a widely-respected Toronto-based environmental and consumer group, Weiss argues that while manmade greenhouse gases have some role, the scale of which is yet unknown, in global climate, the sun if far more important. "Variable behavior of the sun is an obvious explanation" of climate change, he said, adding that "there is increasing evidence that Earth's climate responds to changing patterns of solar magnetic activity."
The interview was published in the National Post, Canada's conservative-oriented national newspaper founded in 1998 by media mogul Conrad Black.
Weiss, 70, a native of South Africa, says sunspots are the markers of changes in solar activity. Typically, sunspots follow a cycle of about 11 years. But that hasn't been the case for the last 50 or so years, he notes. "If you look back into the sun's past," he says in the interview, "you find that we live in a period of abnormally high solar activity."
But these years of hyperactivity don't last, says Weiss. "Perhaps 50-100 years, then you get a crash. It's a boom-bust system, and I would expect a crash soon." According to Weiss, the sun's polar field is now at its weakest since the 1950s. When there is a crash every 200 years or so, sunspots vanish, solar activity declines, and the globe cools dramatically. These phenomena are known as "grand minima," and they have occurred with rough regularity over at least the past 10,000 years.
Notes Weiss, in the 17th century, sunspots almost completely vanished for around 70 years. That coincided with the Little Ice Age, when Viking colonies fled Iceland, Finland lost 50% of its population, and New Yorkers could walk on the ice from Manhattan to Staten Island.
By contrast, says Weiss, long periods of solar activity, such as we have experienced in the last 50 years, can produce dramatic warming. The example was the Medieval Warm Period, which drew the Vikings to Iceland and created a thriving wine industry in England - the source today of much dirty dancing among policymakers looking at the so-called `hockey-stick' climate record of Michael Mann et. al.
Source
New safety rule for firefighters: stay off that ladder
Firefighters on Humberside have been told by their employers that it is dangerous for them to go up ladders. Given that going up ladders to rescue people from blazing buildings is what firefighters do for a living, the news has been greeted with more than a spark of incredulity by the individuals who man the fire service for Hull and its surrounding area.
But it is not sending up extending ladders on the back of fire engines to deal with towering infernos that is causing concern. It is climbing mere stepladders to install smoke alarms in people’s homes, a popular prevention measure offered free by the Humberside Fire and Rescue Service. The brigade is reviewing its stepladder policy after local officials of the Fire Brigades Union pointed out that a firefighter on a stepladder not much more than 6ft from the floor may be contravening the Health and Safety Executive Work at Height Regulations 2005. Fire officials are considering whether to insist that crews who install alarms should work on a platform rather a ladder. Glenn Ramsden, a spokesman, said: “The fire service, just like any other organisation, is not exempt from health and safety legislation.”
Sean Starbuck, regional chairman of the FBU, said: “The use of stepladders to fit smoke alarms contravenes working-at-height regulations, which were introduced by the Government. We have raised the issue and the Health and Safety Executive has agreed that a review is needed.”
One firefighter, who asked not to be named, said: “Is it me, or is this an example of health and safety gone mad?” Another said: “Where will this end? Will we still be able to carry a rescued person down a ladder, or enter a burning building, without the HSE on our back?” The HSE regulations, introduced two years ago, state that employers must select the most suitable equipment for working at height and ensure that protection measures are in place.
Humberside firefighters have installed about 15,000 smoke alarms in private homes over the past year and the brigade emphasised yesterday that its service would continue. No decision has been taken yet on the safest way for its staff to reach people’s ceilings.
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents says that about 40,000 people a year end up in hospital after ladder-related accidents. A spokeswoman added: “If used correctly, ladders are still a much safer way of working at height than standing on household items.” No figures are available for the number of firefighters who have been injured in falls from stepladders.
Source
The anti-MMR gravy train derailed
Revealed: How more than £15million of legal aid funding was spent by lawyers trying and failing to prove that the MMR vaccination causes autism.
Five years ago, supporters of Dr Andrew Wakefield’s claim of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism used to argue that ‘the evidence was stacking up’ in support of this theory. In fact, the only evidence that was stacking up was evidence against the link: more recently a series of robust epidemiological studies showing no reason to suspect that MMR caused autism has been supplemented by rigorous virological investigations failing to demonstrate any link (1, 2). Meanwhile, another stack of evidence has emerged, revealing how legal aid funding bankrolled the campaign against MMR.
Two significant developments occurred over the Christmas period in the long-running MMR saga – both related to the activities of the investigative journalist Brian Deer. It was Deer who, in The Sunday Times in February 2004, first exposed Dr Wakefield’s failure to disclose the conflict of interest arising from legal aid funding for the study published in the Lancet in February 1998 that launched the MMR-autism scare. In a subsequent ‘Dispatches’ documentary broadcast by Channel 4 in November 2004, Deer raised further questions about Dr Wakefield’s funding and about the ethical conduct of his research (as well as revealing his association with quacks and charlatans in the USA).
On 22 December 2006, in response to a request initiated by Deer under the Freedom of Information Act, the Legal Services Commission revealed for the first time details of how more than £15million of legal aid funding was spent by lawyers attempting to make a case that MMR had caused autism in more than 1,000 children (3). This case collapsed in September 2003 when the LSC finally realised that there was no possibility of the case succeeding on the basis of the research commissioned by the lawyers and refused further funding. On 2 January this year, Dr Wakefield announced his withdrawal from the libel action he had launched against Deer and Channel 4 over the ‘Dispatches’ programme, agreeing to pay costs of £500,000 (borne by Dr Wakefield’s medical insurance firm) (4). Let’s look first at the libel debacle.
Dr Wakefield’s abandonment of his claim that Deer’s documentary had misrepresented him follows earlier setbacks in the progress of his libel action (5). In November 2005, Justice Eady refused an attempt by Dr Wakefield’s team to postpone the hearing of his libel claim until after his appearance before the General Medical Council, on associated disciplinary charges (for my view on Dr Wakefield’s appearance at the GMC see Stop witch-hunting Wakefield). The judge was highly critical of what he described as Dr Wakefield’s wish ‘to use the existence of libel proceedings for public relations purposes, and to deter other critics’ while trying to delay the case, thus denying Deer the opportunity to defend himself. Dr Wakefield had tried to take advantage of his ongoing libel claim to deter critical commentary on the case in the press, on the radio, even on the Department of Health’s website.
In November and December 2006, Justice Eady made further rulings allowing Deer’s application to see copies of key documents – including clinical records of children involved in the Lancet study and other documents that Dr Wakefield had been required to make available to the GMC investigation. The fact that Dr Wakefield’s withdrawal from the libel action followed so closely on Deer’s team gaining access to these documents suggests that they were supportive of Deer’s case.
One unfortunate aspect of the collapse of the libel action is that this information will remain secret – at least until Dr Wakefield’s appearance before the GMC (now scheduled for July). Nevertheless, Dr Wakefield’s libel volte face is a dramatic vindication of Deer and his carefully documented exposure of the anti-MMR campaign.
The LSC’s disclosures confirm that the major beneficiaries of the anti-MMR litigation (payments were made from 1992 up to 2004) were the lawyers. They received some two thirds of the £15million total (£8million to solicitors, £1.7million to barristers). The bulk of the revenues accruing to solicitors went to the Manchester-based firm Alexander Harris, where one partner, Richard Barr, played the leading role in coordinating the anti-MMR campaign from the outset. Barr also pursued the claims of alleged victims of the use of organophosphates in farming and of former soldiers with Gulf War syndrome (with equal lack of success). He has subsequently left Alexander Harris and has apparently abandoned the anti-MMR cause.
The LSC provides a detailed account of how a further £4.2million was claimed in ‘fees and expenses’ by more than 60 experts retained by the lawyers in the quest to justify their claim for damages against the vaccine manufacturers by proving a link between MMR and autism. The key payments – amounting to a total of nearly £1.7million - went to around a dozen prominent campaign supporters (6). In principle, expert witnesses are supposed to provide objective evidence to the courts. In practice, it is clear that, in the case of the anti-MMR litigation, legal aid funding went largely to those supportive of the anti-MMR campaign.
The notion that serious science could result from research sponsored by legal aid funding and administered by lawyers is nonsense. The team of experts assembled by Barr did not include a single recognised autism specialist, paediatrician, vaccine specialist, virologist or paediatric gastroenterologist who has a current public appointment or is currently in practice. (Indeed, many of the experts have long retired, though several have embarked on new careers as professional expert witnesses.) When the LSC finally called a halt to the litigation in September 2003, it belatedly acknowledged that ‘in retrospect, it was not effective or appropriate for the LSC to fund research’, conceding that ‘the courts are not the place to prove new medical truths’ (7).
To any observer not familiar with the world of law, what is striking is the sheer scale of the payments received by the witnesses in this case, which contrasts sharply with standard incomes in the medical and scientific world. To enable a rough comparison, in the UK in the 1990s, the basic income of a mid-career researcher at a university or medical school would have been around £50,000 to £60,000 a year; a clinical psychologist would earn perhaps £30,000 to £40,000. What emerges is a cultural gulf between the largely public sector worlds of medicine and science, on the one hand – with low incomes, austere working conditions, meetings in shabby hospital or university seminar rooms, with institutional tea and sandwiches – and, on the other hand, the glitzy world of the law, in which highly paid professionals meet in luxury hotels with lavish hospitality and everybody claims handsome expenses (and after some quibbling, the LSC pays up).
Dr Wakefield received a total of more than £400,000 for his contribution to the case (equivalent to several times his annual income in the 1990s). He claims that he charged at the rates recommended by the British Medical Association for such work (between £47 and £100 per hour) (8). If he worked full time at this rate, his receipts would cover between two and four years exclusively devoted to the case. (Indeed, he indicates that his final award from the LSC was £100,000 less than he claimed.) Yet he was employed by the Royal Free up to December 2001, when he was reported to have taken up a post at Dr Jeff Bradstreet’s treatment centre in Florida (he has since moved on to another private clinic in Texas). According to Dr Wakefield, he donated the income he received from the litigation to support the foundation of a research unit dedicated to bowel problems in autistic children, first (unsuccessfully) at the Royal Free and later in the USA. According to Deer, the accounts of these organisations reveal that he was a recipient of funds from them rather than a donor.
The biggest single earner from the litigation was Professor John O’Leary who set up the firm Unigenetics to process requests from parents to test bowel and other specimens for traces of measles virus that Dr Wakefield believed would confirm his MMR-autism hypothesis. Indeed, the publication in 2002 of two papers by O’Leary’s team purporting to demonstrate measles fragments in autistic children appeared to many parents – though not to sceptical experts – to provide powerful evidence for the Wakefield theory. Two recent papers have conclusively refuted O’Leary’s findings (1,2). The recognition by the LSC that it could not rely on the results from O’Leary’s laboratory was one of the key factors in its decision to abandon the litigation. These tests ultimately failed to confirm a link between MMR and autism in a single child and left more than a thousand families with dashed hopes. Professor O’Leary and his colleagues received more than £700,000. No further publications in this field have emerged from his department.
Though the detailed figures have not previously been available, it has long been known that Dr Wakefield and Professor O’Leary had derived a substantial income from the litigation. Perhaps the most valuable revelation in the LSC’s recent document concerns payments to a number of individuals who have provided Dr Wakefield with vital public backing at key moments in the unfolding controversies surrounding MMR over the past decade. Many of these Wakefield supporters had not declared that they were beneficiaries of the litigation, though this might be considered a significant factor.
Dr Kenneth Aitken (£230,000) was formerly a clinical psychologist at Edinburgh children’s hospital but now works in private practice. He is closely associated with the burgeoning world of autism quackery in Scotland (9). He supported the Wakefield position at one of the Medical Research Council investigations and at the Scottish Executive inquiry in 2001. Dr Carol Stott (£100,000) was engaged on postgraduate research in autism in Cambridge before her suspension for sending abusive emails to Brian Deer. She has collaborated with Dr Wakefield on a number of articles published in anti-vaccine journals and runs a pro-Wakefield website. She has recently been appointed ‘associate professor’ at Dr Wakefield’s new clinic in Texas.
Dr Peter Fletcher (£40,000) was head of the committee on safety of medicines in the 1970s and emerged from retirement to endorse Dr Wakefield’s critique of MMR safety in 2001. He is regularly quoted by anti-MMR journalists, but refuses to speak to anybody critical of the Wakefield campaign. Dr Peter Harvey (£10,000) was an adult neurologist at the Royal Free who examined the children in Dr Wakefield’s Lancet study. He subsequently took early retirement and now has a practice in Harley Street providing expert testimony in relation to litigation claims. He has provided occasional endorsement for Dr Wakefield’s claims in the press and on television.
Mr Paul Shattock (£8,000) is the parent of an autistic son and a retired lecturer in pharmacy who provides urine tests of no known scientific value purporting to provide a guide to dietary treatments for autism from his HQ in the University of Sunderland. He is a long-standing public promoter of the Wakefield campaign. Dr Richard Halvorsen is a private GP in central London who runs a business selling measles, mumps and rubella as separate vaccines to parents rendered fearful of the triple jab by the anti-MMR campaign (of which he is a vocal supporter). He received only £6,000 from the litigation. However, a clinic just north of London providing a similar service was at one time reported to have a turnover of £17,500 a week (though it is now defunct since its proprietor, Dr David Pugh, was imprisoned for fraud in 2005 and struck off the medical register last year).
What emerges from these documents is that there does not appear to be a single professional supporter of the Wakefield campaign who was not also a beneficiary of the anti-MMR litigation. If Dr Wakefield’s British supporters appear a rather undistinguished bunch, they are paragons of professional virtue and integrity by comparison with Dr Wakefield’s US backers, such as Drs Bradstreet (£22,000), Krigsman (£17,000) and Geier (£7,000) (10).
It is not surprising that Brian Deer has attracted hostility from Dr Wakefield and his supporters. It is sad that he has also been denounced by a few parent campaigners who continue to regard Dr Wakefield as a hero. In truth Deer has emerged as a forceful champion of families affected by autism by exposing the truth about a campaign that has caused enormous distress to parents of children with autism as well as provoking unwarranted anxieties about MMR. While leading autism specialists and organisations have been largely ineffectual and much of the media (from Private Eye to the Daily Mail, from the Telegraph to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme) has been duped by Wakefield at one time or another, Deer has provided an invaluable service by revealing how much cash and cynicism has surrounded the campaign against MMR.
Much relevant documentation can be found on Brian Deer’s website and further background on the anti-MMR litigation and the personalities involved is provided in my book, MMR and Autism: What Parents Need To Know, published by Routledge, 2004.
Source
Britain to abolish head-teachers?
The days of the "hero head", who manages everything in a school from hiring staff to ordering books, could be numbered, according to a report which suggests that business leaders with no classroom experience could run schools. Leaders with a classroom background would still be required for teaching and learning, but there was no reason why they should not report to a principal or chief executive, responsible for overall strategy and non-academic operations.
The report, prepared for the Government by the consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers, follows fears of an impending shortage of head teachers and concerns that workloads, bureaucracy and over-regulation were deterring deputies from applying for headships. Although ministers deny there is a recruitment problem, they acknowledge that the job of leading a school is now so complicated that a new, "modern" approach is needed.One of the biggest barriers to reform identified by the report is the "hero head" perception, among teachers, parents and heads themselves, which presupposes that for big decisions, "only the head will do". Distributing leading responsibilities among a team was often more effective, it concluded.
The report recommends that schools consider new types of leadership: a federated model brings groups of schools under one "super-head"; a multi- agency model has schools run by a team that includes teachers and staff from other agencies, such as health and social care. Schools could also be clustered into groups, with heads rotated from school to school.
The structure of governing bodies should also be changed, the report says, suggesting the creation of "meta-governors" working across a number of schools in a locality. It also recommended greater flexibility in the rewards offered to heads. As well as increasing the pay differential between heads and other staff, it suggests allowing heads to take time off during term time.
Teaching unions were divided over the findings. John Dunford, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said he was not opposed to non-teachers being brought into certain school leadership roles: "The possibility should be opened up that the best of school leaders who are not qualified teachers - the bursars and business managers - should be able to come through to the top job, provided that the person in charge of teaching and learning is a qualified teacher."
But Steve Sinnott, the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: "The primary purpose of schools is to educate pupils, not to be commercial organisations. Head teachers have told the Government they do not believe that those without teaching experience can run our schools."
Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, said that the report's recommendations would be discussed with the teaching and support staff unions before any action was taken. The National College of School Leadership would be given 10 million pounds to support its strategy to help to identify future head teachers and cut the time that it takes to qualify, he said.
Source
Another boffin jumps off the warming ship
Add another world-renowned scientist to the list of man-made global warming skeptics. Nigel Weiss, professor emeritus at the University of Cambridge's department of applied mathematics and theoretical physics, and past president of the Royal Astronomical Society, is a sunspot guy. He argues that the world will be soon facing a cooling period.
In an interview with Lawrence Solomon of Canada's Energy Probe Research Foundation, a widely-respected Toronto-based environmental and consumer group, Weiss argues that while manmade greenhouse gases have some role, the scale of which is yet unknown, in global climate, the sun if far more important. "Variable behavior of the sun is an obvious explanation" of climate change, he said, adding that "there is increasing evidence that Earth's climate responds to changing patterns of solar magnetic activity."
The interview was published in the National Post, Canada's conservative-oriented national newspaper founded in 1998 by media mogul Conrad Black.
Weiss, 70, a native of South Africa, says sunspots are the markers of changes in solar activity. Typically, sunspots follow a cycle of about 11 years. But that hasn't been the case for the last 50 or so years, he notes. "If you look back into the sun's past," he says in the interview, "you find that we live in a period of abnormally high solar activity."
But these years of hyperactivity don't last, says Weiss. "Perhaps 50-100 years, then you get a crash. It's a boom-bust system, and I would expect a crash soon." According to Weiss, the sun's polar field is now at its weakest since the 1950s. When there is a crash every 200 years or so, sunspots vanish, solar activity declines, and the globe cools dramatically. These phenomena are known as "grand minima," and they have occurred with rough regularity over at least the past 10,000 years.
Notes Weiss, in the 17th century, sunspots almost completely vanished for around 70 years. That coincided with the Little Ice Age, when Viking colonies fled Iceland, Finland lost 50% of its population, and New Yorkers could walk on the ice from Manhattan to Staten Island.
By contrast, says Weiss, long periods of solar activity, such as we have experienced in the last 50 years, can produce dramatic warming. The example was the Medieval Warm Period, which drew the Vikings to Iceland and created a thriving wine industry in England - the source today of much dirty dancing among policymakers looking at the so-called `hockey-stick' climate record of Michael Mann et. al.
Source
Friday, January 19, 2007
Can the "race card" be dealt when there is no mention of race?
It seems that it can in today's Britain. See here for details of a BIG controversy in Britain at the moment -- one that has even got the government of India involved.
There is an attractive Indian lady, Shilpa Shetty, taking part in a British TV "reality" show together with some pretty rough British whites. Some of the whites have treated the Indian lady contemptuously. That is of course deplorable but is it racism? Lots of people are saying it is even though no specifically racist words can be pointed to.
The fact that a fine and attractive lady might be treated equally badly by the rough types involved even if she had a white skin does not seem to be given much consideration at all. People find racism "under every bed", as it were, these days.
None of that is of course the fault of the fine Indian lady involved.
NHS CAN'T HANDLE EMERGENCIES
So they lie instead
Doctors are struggling to meet Government accident and emergency waiting time targets because the NHS cash crisis is resulting in a shortage of beds, doctors' leaders warned today. A survey for the British Medical Association (BMA) found that a shortage of hospital beds was delaying the admission of patients from A&E in England. A third of those questioned said that figures were manipulated in order to meet the access targets. A total of 503 members of staff at all grades working in emergency departments responded to the survey. The Government target is that 98 per cent of patients should wait no more than four hours from arrival at A&E to admission, transfer or discharge.
The survey questioned UK staff from the British Association for Emergency Medicine (BAEM), with 86 per cent of the responses received from those working in England. Eighty-seven per cent of doctors in England said that the lack of in-patient beds was the main reason for not meeting Government targets. Staff shortages and patients attending A&E with minor problems were also blamed. Two-thirds of those in England said that patients were moved to inappropriate areas or wards to help meet the target, while 58 per cent said patients were being discharged from A&E to inappropriate areas or wards before they had been properly assessed.
Just over half of those in England said that their department was meeting the A&E target. But 49 per cent said their department had received extra cash to help them meet the target, and 53 per cent said agency workers and staff on short-term contracts had been brought in to help. Almost all of those who replied to the survey in England said that their workload had increased in the past 12 months, with most blaming the transfer of out-of-hours care from GPs to primary care trusts.
Today's survey also revealed that departments are at risk of being downgraded or closed altogether.It found that 48 units in the UK (42 of them in England) were at risk of being downgraded and 23 in the UK (19 of them in England) were at risk of closure.
Don MacKechnie, chairman of the BMA's Emergency Medicine Committee, said: "Many hospitals have cut bed numbers as part of their financial recovery plans and attempts to balance their books. "This means that there are fewer available beds for patients coming through A&E who need to be transferred within four hours to a hospital ward from the emergency department to meet the Government's access target. "The report finds that doctors and other staff are working exceptionally hard and putting in extra hours to meet access targets. Working towards the four-hour target on A&E waiting times has been a fantastic achievement, it has proved good news for patients and the extremely long waits seen in the last decade are now very rare. "However, respondents tell us that despite this success, the level of performance in many departments is proving unsustainable and these departments are finding it difficult to cope on a daily basis."
Martin Shalley, president of the BAEM, said: "Attendances at urban A&E departments continue to rise and pressure on beds remains a significant factor for achieving the four-hour target. "It is vitally important to separate acute and elective facilities so that each can perform efficiently and improve the patient journey." Government figures show that 98.2 per cent of patients were seen and treated within four hours in 2005/06.
Source
The truth about organic food
It’s not healthier or Greener, and it's incapable of feeding the world. So why is it back in fashion?
It’s not like David Miliband to say something sensible. New Labour’s greener-than-thou environment secretary and warm favourite to be next leader-but-one is usually in the front rank of eco-worriers when discussing climate change or recycling, recently suggesting that people are right to fear global warming and that he was afraid, too. So imagine the annoyance of organic food supporters this week at Miliband’s comments about whether organic food is healthier: ‘It’s a lifestyle choice that people can make. There isn’t any conclusive evidence either way. It’s only four per cent of total farm produce, not 40 per cent and I don’t want to say that 96 per cent of our farm produce is inferior because it’s not organic.’ (1)
Source
Only drastic surgery can save Britain's schools
The university where I whiled away my misspent youth had a notoriously tough entrance procedure, full of trick questions to trip up the unwary and humiliate them into the bargain. Oddly, however, the exams you took at the end of your three years weren’t much harder. The reason is clear to me now. The lecturers were far too grand to do anything as dreary as teaching, and the students were far too busy getting drunk. So the authorities had to make sure that they let in only students who knew enough when they arrived to pass their finals three years later.
Source
Sick Britain's crazy police priorities
This is a country where even a rapist can get off with a police "caution"
A man who called a police surgeon a "f***ing Paki" was advised yesterday by a judge: "Next time call him a fat bastard and don't say anything about his colour." The judge gave the unusual advice after describing the decision by the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute the man for a racially aggravated offence as "a nonsense".
Matthew Stiddard had been taken into custody by police officers who mistook him for a suspect in another case. After two hours in a cell he demanded to see a doctor, complaining that his back hurt. But when Dr Imraan Jhetam arrived, Stiddart refused to be seen by him. Exeter Crown Court heard that Stiddart, 36, swore and told him: "I want an English doctor, not a f***ing Paki."
Stiddart had opted for the case to be heard at Crown court, where he admitted a charge of racially aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress. Judge Paul Darlow told the court that the case should never have been brought and suggested that Dr Jhetam should have let the insults "roll off his back".
The judge said: "I wonder what this is doing in the Crown Court. This was a single sentence to a man who should not have taken it so seriously. He is a man of some considerable standing in society and I cannot see that it caused him any distress or hurt.
"It should not have caused a problem in this case. "To charge it in the first place rather than, say, let it go by with a caution strikes me as rather odd. We let people hit each other and break into people's homes and they are not charged."
Ann Reddrop, for the prosecution, said: "When there is a burglary and it is in the public interest there will be a prosecution. This was a police surgeon and he is entitled to the same protection as anyone else."
Judge Darlow replied: "So next time call him a fat bastard and don't say anything about his colour. When we have an overstretched police force and an overstretched CPS one wonders why we are sitting here with long faces dealing with one sentence."
The judge said last night that his comments were "not intended to make light of racist remarks". He said: "Any reading of what was actually said in court would make it clear that the potential seriousness of what occurred was that a police surgeon was threatened with violence and non-racial abuse to the extent that he decided he needed to leave the cell to which he had been called. This amounted to an assault, but this was not the offence charged. "A gratuitous single piece of racist abuse was uttered as the surgeon left. This was the charge on which the full weight of the law had been brought to bear. My comments were not intended to make light of racist remarks.
Source
GREENIES DESPISE THE WORKERS
A comment on what seems a mainly British phenomenon -- Greenie attacks on air travel
Is your journey really necessary? Who would have thought that, in the absence of world war and in the midst of unprecedented prosperity, the state would be telling us not to travel? Just as ordinary working people have begun to enjoy freedoms that the well-off have known for generations - the experience of other cultures, other cuisines, other climates - they are threatened with having those liberating possibilities priced out of their reach.
Perhaps there is still a bit of the Marxist agitator in me: when I hear the better-off trying to deny the rest of us enlightenment and pleasure, I reach for my megaphone. For thousands of people whose parents would never have ventured beyond our shores, air travel has been a social revelation. The environment may or may not be at risk from the multitudes of ordinary people who can now afford to escape regularly from their parochial isolation and the narrow-minded ignorance that goes with it. But before we give the green lobby the unconditional benefit of the doubt, can we look at the balance sheet?
It is not just air travel for the poor that the green tax lobby is engineering: it is a restriction on any mobility. The only solution is not to go anywhere. Stay at home and save the planet. The logical conclusion is a retreat from all the things that make metropolitan existence worthwhile: all the social, professional and cultural interactions that free mobility makes possible - and which, since the Renaissance, have made great cities the centres of intellectual progress.
But even devising a way to make a living while never leaving your house will not absolve you of ecological guilt if you make free use of the technology that has transformed domestic life. The working classes, having only discovered in the last generation the comforts of tolerable housing and plentiful hot water, are now being told that these things must be rationed or prohibitively taxed. Never mind that the generous use of hot water and detergent, particularly when combined in a washing machine for the laundering of bed linen and clothing, has virtually eliminated the infestations of body lice, fleas (which once carried plague) and scabies mites that used to be a commonplace feature of poverty.
Or that the dishwasher - detested for its "wasteful" use of water and energy - which cleans crockery and utensils at temperatures high enough to destroy bacteria, has vastly improved hygiene. Or, for that matter, that the private car, the greens' public enemy No.1, has given ordinary families freedom and flexibility that would have been inconceivable in previous generations. If politicians are planning restrictions on these "polluting" aspects of private life, to be enforced by a price mechanism, they had better accept they will be reconstructing a class divide that will drastically affect the quality of life of those on the wrong side of it.
It is possible that the premises of the environmental campaigners are sound: that we are in mortal danger from global warming and that this is a result of human activity. Yet when I listen to the ecological warnings, I am reminded of an earlier doomsday scenario. In his Essay on the Principle of Population, published in 1798, Thomas Malthus demonstrated in what appeared to be indisputable mathematical terms that population growth would exceed the limits of food supply by the middle of the 19th century. While population increased exponentially, he argued, food production increased only arithmetically. Only plague, war or natural disaster would be capable of reducing the numbers of people sufficiently to avert mass starvation within roughly 50 years. This account of the world's inevitable fate (known as "Malthusian catastrophe") was as much part of received opinion among intellectuals and social theorists of the day as the environmental lobby's warnings are today. (Interestingly, Malthus recommended sexual abstinence for the lower classes to avoid doom.)
Malthus made some critical conceptual mistakes. First, his mathematical projections underestimated the complexity of human behaviour. Population did not go on increasing at the same rate: it responded to economic and social conditions. But, more important, he discounted the force of ingenuity in finding ways to increase food supply. The introduction of intensive farming methods and the invention of pesticides transformed what he had assumed would be the simple, fixed relationship between numbers of people and amount of resource. He had extrapolated from contemporary figures what seemed to be a sound prediction without allowing for the possibility that inventiveness and innovation might alter the picture in unimaginable ways.
Warnings of catastrophe come and go; whatever their validity, we cannot and should not ask people to go back to a more restricted and burdened way of life. The privations would not work because they are impracticable. To the extent that they were enforced, they would be unfair and socially divisive. If we really are facing an environmental crisis, then we are going to have to innovate and engineer our way out of it.
Source
UK 'green power' programs a fraud, says consumer group
Green power in Great Britain is largely a fraud, according to the United Kingdom's leading consumer group, the National Consumer Council, in a recent report, Reality or rhetoric? Green tariffs for domestic consumers."
Green tariffs, rates offered to consumer, at a premium, in order to deliver electricity produced by renewable resources, "don't live up to the environmental benefits claimed" in Britain, says the council's watchdog arm, energywatch. Among the key findings of the report: "Many green tariffs are not delivering the environmental benefits they claim. As a result, consumers may not be making the positive contribution they think they are."
The findings, said the report, "are worrying. There is a danger that consumers will be alienated from the behavior change agenda. This, in turn, could threaten the success of the government's sustainability strategy."
The issue is one that applies widely in the U.S. as well as in the U.K.: renewable energy mandates in place reduce the value of the green tariff, and have consumers paying twice for the same environmental benefit. The NCC report notes that the government is already requiring suppliers to generate 10% of their electricity from renewables by 2010 and 20% by 2020. This means, says the group, that every home in Great Britain is now paying œ7 ($13.75) annually for green energy in the normal electricity bill.
In a news release, the NCC adds, "Also the complex rules that encourage all energy suppliers to source renewably can mean the electricity's `greenness' is oversold. Even choosing a green tariff that offers to plant a tree would not contribute anywhere near enough to offset a household's carbon emissions." Consumers, said Lord Larry Whitty, the NCC chairman, "may think they are helping save the planet, but it's not clear that they are."The report notes that fewer than 200,000 homes (under 1%) of British homes purchase green power.
Source
No connection? "Unemployment [in Britain] has fallen to the lowest level since last spring but wage increases have remained muted, official figures showed today."
Britain resists EU attack on democracy: "Britain is aiming to scupper German plans to revive the European constitution in a direct assault on the main project of the EU presidency of Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor. Such a campaign, if successful, would free Tony Blair’s successor from his promise to hold a referendum on the document... The British Government is keen to avoid holding a referendum on the constitution, despite Mr Blair’s pledge three years ago to do so. Under the German timetable a referendum would coincide with the next general election and cause problems for Mr Blair’s successor. .. A senior British official told The Times that the Government will argue that the EU is working well within its existing treaties and does not need a constitution nor a fresh round of referendums... The British position is at loggerheads with Mrs Merkel’s dream of restoring the bulk of the rejected document, including sections that would create a European foreign minister and end the British veto in home affairs and justice policy."
It seems that it can in today's Britain. See here for details of a BIG controversy in Britain at the moment -- one that has even got the government of India involved.
There is an attractive Indian lady, Shilpa Shetty, taking part in a British TV "reality" show together with some pretty rough British whites. Some of the whites have treated the Indian lady contemptuously. That is of course deplorable but is it racism? Lots of people are saying it is even though no specifically racist words can be pointed to.
The fact that a fine and attractive lady might be treated equally badly by the rough types involved even if she had a white skin does not seem to be given much consideration at all. People find racism "under every bed", as it were, these days.
None of that is of course the fault of the fine Indian lady involved.
NHS CAN'T HANDLE EMERGENCIES
So they lie instead
Doctors are struggling to meet Government accident and emergency waiting time targets because the NHS cash crisis is resulting in a shortage of beds, doctors' leaders warned today. A survey for the British Medical Association (BMA) found that a shortage of hospital beds was delaying the admission of patients from A&E in England. A third of those questioned said that figures were manipulated in order to meet the access targets. A total of 503 members of staff at all grades working in emergency departments responded to the survey. The Government target is that 98 per cent of patients should wait no more than four hours from arrival at A&E to admission, transfer or discharge.
The survey questioned UK staff from the British Association for Emergency Medicine (BAEM), with 86 per cent of the responses received from those working in England. Eighty-seven per cent of doctors in England said that the lack of in-patient beds was the main reason for not meeting Government targets. Staff shortages and patients attending A&E with minor problems were also blamed. Two-thirds of those in England said that patients were moved to inappropriate areas or wards to help meet the target, while 58 per cent said patients were being discharged from A&E to inappropriate areas or wards before they had been properly assessed.
Just over half of those in England said that their department was meeting the A&E target. But 49 per cent said their department had received extra cash to help them meet the target, and 53 per cent said agency workers and staff on short-term contracts had been brought in to help. Almost all of those who replied to the survey in England said that their workload had increased in the past 12 months, with most blaming the transfer of out-of-hours care from GPs to primary care trusts.
Today's survey also revealed that departments are at risk of being downgraded or closed altogether.It found that 48 units in the UK (42 of them in England) were at risk of being downgraded and 23 in the UK (19 of them in England) were at risk of closure.
Don MacKechnie, chairman of the BMA's Emergency Medicine Committee, said: "Many hospitals have cut bed numbers as part of their financial recovery plans and attempts to balance their books. "This means that there are fewer available beds for patients coming through A&E who need to be transferred within four hours to a hospital ward from the emergency department to meet the Government's access target. "The report finds that doctors and other staff are working exceptionally hard and putting in extra hours to meet access targets. Working towards the four-hour target on A&E waiting times has been a fantastic achievement, it has proved good news for patients and the extremely long waits seen in the last decade are now very rare. "However, respondents tell us that despite this success, the level of performance in many departments is proving unsustainable and these departments are finding it difficult to cope on a daily basis."
Martin Shalley, president of the BAEM, said: "Attendances at urban A&E departments continue to rise and pressure on beds remains a significant factor for achieving the four-hour target. "It is vitally important to separate acute and elective facilities so that each can perform efficiently and improve the patient journey." Government figures show that 98.2 per cent of patients were seen and treated within four hours in 2005/06.
Source
The truth about organic food
It’s not healthier or Greener, and it's incapable of feeding the world. So why is it back in fashion?
It’s not like David Miliband to say something sensible. New Labour’s greener-than-thou environment secretary and warm favourite to be next leader-but-one is usually in the front rank of eco-worriers when discussing climate change or recycling, recently suggesting that people are right to fear global warming and that he was afraid, too. So imagine the annoyance of organic food supporters this week at Miliband’s comments about whether organic food is healthier: ‘It’s a lifestyle choice that people can make. There isn’t any conclusive evidence either way. It’s only four per cent of total farm produce, not 40 per cent and I don’t want to say that 96 per cent of our farm produce is inferior because it’s not organic.’ (1)
Cue outrage. ‘It is not just a lifestyle choice,’ insisted Soil Association spokesman Robin Maynard, ‘In terms of the environment, organic is better. Mr Miliband’s own government has recognised in the past that organic food can be better for that. In fact, organic farmers get an extra payment due to this. (2)’
Miliband’s remarks were surprising because the superiority of organic food has been taken for granted in recent years. It is assumed that organic food is more ‘natural’ and therefore by definition healthier and better for the environment – an assumption backed up by government subsidies for inefficient organic farmers. But is it true?
A new book just published in the US, The Truth About Organic Foods provides a thorough examination of the evidence. The author, Alex Avery, shares Miliband’s conclusion that organic food is no healthier than ‘conventional’ food produced by industrial methods – and also argues that the claim of organic food to be better for the environment is suspect. As Avery, a trained plant physiologist and biologist now working for the Hudson Institute told me, nobody has been putting the other side of the story on organic: ‘The “organic utopian” myth has become a serious roadblock to agricultural progress and I knew that some of the organic food industry’s main claims were simply smoke and mirrors and religious dogma.’
Healthy scepticism
Champions of organic food claim that pesticides and other chemicals used in conventional farming have the potential to cause ill-health, either through immediately poisoning us or through causing cancer in the long term. Take this statement from the Soil Association:
‘Chemicals designed to kill: Along with chemical weapons, chemicals used in farming are the only substances that are deliberately released into the environment designed to kill living things. They pose unique hazards to human health and the environment.’
Elsewhere on the Soil Association’s website we read:
‘Around 31,000 tonnes of chemicals are used in farming in the UK each year to kill weeds, insects and other pests that attack crops. There is surprisingly little control over how these chemicals are used in the non-organic sector and in what quantities or combinations. What we do know is that 150 of the available 350 pesticides commonly used have been identified as potentially [my emphasis] causing cancer and many of us would have been exposed to these pesticides before we were born. (4)’
However, most of our food does not contain residues of these chemicals. Of the minority of food products that still contain traces of pesticide, Avery provides some perspective: ‘[T]he pesticide residue data are a testament to our technical prowess in detecting incredibly tiny traces of specific chemicals in foods. Note that the synthetic pesticide residues… are consumed in microgram quantities, or one-millionth of a gram.’ Given that we tend to buy fruit and veg by the kilo, he notes: ‘Remember, this is equivalent to one penny in $10 million, or one inch in 16,000 miles!’
A host of different chemicals can cause cancer in rodents when researchers feed them to the animals in very large quantities. But the minute quantities involved in pesticide residues mean the same chemicals are harmless in food. There is no evidence of anybody ever dying or falling seriously ill from eating food carrying traces of man-made pesticides.
The over-reaction to the dangers from manmade pesticides is in sharp contrast to the complete ignorance shown towards naturally-occurring poisons. Everyday foods are full of natural pesticides. That’s hardly a surprise, since we tend to choose as crops things that seem resistant to pests and disease. The world-famous biochemist Bruce Ames makes the point clear elsewhere on spiked: ‘The natural chemicals that are known rodent carcinogens in a single cup of coffee are about equal in weight to a year’s worth of ingested synthetic pesticide residues that are rodent carcinogens.’ (5) He is not arguing that coffee is dangerous – far from it. Rather, he’s pointing out that the tiny risk from manmade chemicals is actually smaller than other small risks we accept as a normal part of life.
As it happens, as Avery points out, organic produce is not entirely free from chemicals – it is simply that a much narrower range of such chemicals is allowed for food to qualify as ‘organic’, and they tend to be used less frequently. Given that some of the things that pesticides are designed to eliminate – like poisonous fungal growths – are pretty dangerous, that is not necessarily beneficial in any event.
Another assertion often made about organic food is that it is more nutritious. It is not clear, in principle, why this might be. However, some studies suggest it might be the case. Avery looks at these studies in detail and finds many of them deeply flawed. The best review of the evidence, a paper by Woese et al in 1997, concludes that it is very difficult to conclude anything at all. ‘Conventional’ foods contain more pesticide residues and more nitrates – hardly surprising given their greater use in conventional agriculture. But overall, the authors note: ‘With regard to all other desirable nutritional values, it was either the case that no major differences were observed in physico-chemical analyses between the products from different production forms, or contradictory findings did not permit any clear statements. (6)’
In fact, not only do better quality studies in peer-reviewed journals show no consistent difference between the two types of food, Avery notes that even some organic advocates admit it. As William Lockeretz of Tufts University told an organic food conference in 1997: ‘I wish I could tell you that there is a clear, consistent nutritional difference between organic and conventional foods. Even better, I wish I could tell you that the difference is in favour of organic. Unfortunately, though, from my reading of the scientific literature, I do not believe such a claim can be responsibly made. (7)’
Even if there were nutritional differences between organic and conventional food, any benefit one way or the other is likely to be much smaller than variation based on the variety of a crop used, other growing conditions, freshness, cooking method - even which foods are consumed together.
Environmental concerns
The environmental case for organic mainly rests upon the pollution caused by producing agricultural chemicals and cleaning up after them. It is certainly true that producing fertilisers in particular uses energy and this inevitably means fossil fuels. But the production of chemicals is only one part of the energy used in putting food on our plates. As a recent article in the Economist notes, many of the assumptions made about what is the most ‘green’ way to supply food are simply wrong. It suggests that big supermarkets, with highly efficient logistics, are arguably ‘greener’ than trying to feed the nation through local farmers’ markets.
Citing research from the UK Department of Environment and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), the article says: ‘[A] shift towards a local food system, and away from a supermarket-based food system with its central distribution depots, lean supply chains and big, full trucks, might actually increase the number of food-vehicle miles being travelled locally, because things would move around in a larger number of smaller, less efficiently packed vehicles. (8)’
To maintain the same overall level of food production using organic methods today would require far more land to be used for farming. In developed countries such as the UK, where the efficiency of industrial farming methods has left many small farms redundant, there might be space to indulge a small land-hungry organic sector. But if we truly pursued the idea of an organic-only economy, the effect on land usage would be dramatic. At a time when environmentalists complain about how wildernesses are being cleared to produce food, the need to clear more land is organic farming’s dirty little secret.
The other alternative is to grow less food. There is no way, using organic methods, that the world’s current population could be sustained on the 37 per cent of land currently used in agriculture. The solution for some, it would appear, is not more food but fewer people. In the words of one organic farmer quoted by Avery, ‘I want to argue that production is not the problem. The problem is the imbalance of humans relative to the millions of other species with whom we co-evolved. (9)’
Don’t mess with nature
The precise arguments of the Soil Association and other organic food groups are actually neither here nor there because no-one is really holding them to account - hence the shocked reaction to Miliband’s statement. The underlying temper of our times is that anything processed or industrialised can be seen as adulterated and harmful, while anything that appears to be natural or close to nature can be regarded as pure and uncorrupted. The precise facts about residues, nutrition or environmental impact are rarely discussed.
The ‘don’t mess with nature’ approach is illustrated by the organic movement’s attitude to genetic modification. Rather than embracing GM as opening up the possibility of greater control over the properties of plants, it is rejected as dangerous interference in nature with all sorts of unknown potential problems. GM crops have the potential to allow greater productivity, reduced use of pesticides and increased nutrition. The organic movement prefers to smear GM crops as the work of malevolent agribusiness trying to create monopolies.
Even if it is found that a particular GM crop did not live up to expectations or caused unexpected problems, that would not be a cause to dismiss the whole technology out of hand. Any process involving experimentation and new techniques will have problems along the way. The most logical approach would be to learn from our mistakes in order to continue improvements. If the entire world was well-fed and food was as cheap as it could be, the discussion might be academic. But when a large proportion of the world’s population is still undernourished, society must constantly explore ways to grow more, better, food.
The roots of organic
The rise of organic food has little to do with a cold assessment of its merits. As Avery notes, the scientific arguments in favour of organic are feeble. Instead, the organic movement began largely as a rejection of industrial society and materialism - one that continues today. As an editorial in the Independent noted, criticising Miliband, ‘The organic movement is flourishing because it is in tune with the zeitgeist, which favours the small and the local and hankers for alternatives to industrial-scale farming and what is an over-cosy relationship between big producers and supermarkets.’ (10) It is this suspicion of modern production methods (despite all the benefits they have brought), mixed with overblown health fears and tied closely to environmentalism, that has allowed organic ideas to become popular.
While the organic movement is often thought of as beginning with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, the reaction to an agriculture based on man-made chemicals has existed almost as long as the fertilisers complained of. In his book The Origins of the Organic Movement Philip Conford makes the case for the 1920s, and 1926 in particular, as the moment the organic movement really began. During that year, the Chandos Group of predominantly Anglican thinkers first met in London in the wake of the failed General Strike. Conford argues that this group, who published the New English Weekly, were a driving force in popularising organic ideas, some 20 years before the formation of the Soil Association (11).
A number of other writers emerged in the 1920s promoting broadly similar ideas. Perhaps the most well-known, more for the schools he created than his ideas on agriculture, was Rudolf Steiner. His notion of ‘biodynamic’ farming sounds downright wacky today, and Avery takes great pleasure in quoting Steiner at length:
‘Have you ever thought why cows have horns, or why certain animals have antlers?… The cow has horns in order to send into itself the astral-ethereal formative powers, which, pressing inward, are meant to penetrate right into the digestive organism… Thus in the horn you have something well adapted by its inherent nature to ray back the living and astral properties into the inner life.’
So, horns and antlers are like nature’s satellite dish for cosmic forces. These forces are concentrated in the digestive system, according to Steiner, which explains the importance of manure: ‘What is farm-yard-manure?… [I]t has been inside the organism and has thus been permeated with an astral and ethereal content. In the dung, therefore, we have before us something ethereal and astral. For this reason it has a life-giving and also astralising influence upon the soil.’
If you want to improve the fertility of soil, therefore, you just need to get more ‘living forces’ into it by the simple method of filling a horn with manure and burying it in a field: ‘You see, by burying the horn with its filling of manure, we preserve in the horn the forces it was accustomed to exert within the cow itself… all the radiations that tend to etherealize and astralise are poured into the inner hollow of the horn.’
While Steiner was a first class space cadet, Avery notes that he has a surprising number of followers even today in the ‘biodynamic’ movement. After all, his ideas are hardly any more scientifically implausible than those of homeopathy where distilled water, somehow imprinted with the ‘memory’ of some active ingredient long since diluted out of it, can apparently cure all sorts of ailments.
However, while Steiner certainly had followers, his presentation was too esoteric for most. A more influential figure in the long term was Sir Albert Howard. He worked as an agricultural adviser in India in the 1920s but quickly concluded that he could learn more from the Indians than he could teach. He was impressed by the strapping good health of many of the tribes, particularly the Hunza, and concluded their rude fitness must be the product of their food and, by extension, their agriculture.
Central to the ideas that Howard was to promote in later years was the importance of compost. In fact, the Rule of Return – the idea that vital material from the soil must be returned through compost and manure – is a key idea of the organic movement. Howard advised and supervised the introduction of his Indore system of composting in many places both in the UK and America. His comments on the ruining of soil by modern methods could have been made by any modern environmentalist:
‘In allowing science to be used to wring the last ounce from the soil by new varieties of crops, cheaper and more stimulating manures, deeper and more thorough cultivating machines, hens which lay themselves to death, and cows which perish in an ocean of milk, something more than a want of judgment on the part of the organisation is involved. Agricultural research has been misused to make the farmer, not a better producer of food, but a more expert bandit… All goes well as long as the soil can be made to yield a crop. But soil fertility does not last forever; eventually the land is worn out; real farming dies.’
Howard’s predictions must have seemed prescient when American agriculture was doing its best to self-destruct during the years of the Dust Bowl, when a combination of inappropriate farming techniques, drought and depression created the conditions for strong winds to strip vast areas of topsoil. It is also the case that most farmers use manure and compost as means of improving soil quality. But Howard was ultimately wrong. Better understanding of the use of manmade fertilisers, selective breeding, and other techniques have greatly improved crop yields over the last few decades.
What is striking about the early organic pioneers is their rejection of modern society. In a world staggering out of one World War and towards another via economic and social turmoil, there were plenty of people who rejected capitalism. However, most in the organic movement rejected the communist and socialist alternatives, too, and recoiled from the class conflict embodied in the General Strike of 1926.
The social makeup of those prominent in the early organic movement suggests a group of people being squeezed out of modern society: disillusioned colonials from a declining and increasingly discredited empire, aristocrats seeking to preserve rural life as agricultural workers were replaced by machines, and churchmen trying to find a new setting for religious ideas.
Back to the future
So why are organic ideas that were based on disillusionment with modernity back in fashion today? Economically and politically, Western societies have stagnated over the last 30 years or so. The idea that tomorrow will look radically different from – and better than - today seems unrealistic to many. Both the traditional left and right are exhausted, their visions of the future bankrupt. Against this background those who hanker after an imaginary idyllic past, or are fearful of future change, can often exercise disproportionate influence over politics and culture. Alongside the aristocrats like Prince Charles we now have the disillusioned stockbrokers who give up the rat race to sell organic jam, the New Age religionists, and the middle-class hypochondriacs.
Books like Avery’s are important to underline the factual errors of those who campaign for organic food. However, the discussion of food also illustrates a broader need to remind ourselves just how much modern society has achieved in changing the lives of people for the better through the application of science, industry and reason. Perhaps then we will all be better able to see the ideas of the organic movement for the manure that they are.
Source
Only drastic surgery can save Britain's schools
The university where I whiled away my misspent youth had a notoriously tough entrance procedure, full of trick questions to trip up the unwary and humiliate them into the bargain. Oddly, however, the exams you took at the end of your three years weren’t much harder. The reason is clear to me now. The lecturers were far too grand to do anything as dreary as teaching, and the students were far too busy getting drunk. So the authorities had to make sure that they let in only students who knew enough when they arrived to pass their finals three years later.
I’m sure that this eccentric approach has been purged by now. But I was reminded of it last week when I read of the Government’s plan to raise the age at which children can leave full-time education from 16 to 18 — because I have a sneaking suspicion that many comprehensives are operating today rather like my old university operated 30 years ago. The brightest kids could easily sail through their GCSEs almost as soon as they come into the school at the age of 11 or 12. Instead, they spend five years getting more and more bored. But at the other end of the spectrum, at least 20 per cent of pupils couldn’t pass five GCSEs if they were kept in our current school system till they were 94. Or so the league tables suggest.
It’s against this lamentable background, and the monumental failure of the Government to tackle the problem of the failing 20 per cent, that this airy-fairy proposal to raise the school leaving age must be judged. Forget for a moment the billions of extra funding needed. What’s preposterous is the notion that a system incapable of teaching a huge number of children the basics of literacy, numeracy and decency after 12 years of full-time schooling should somehow magically be able to do so after 14 years.
The result of keeping disaffected kids in the system till they are 18 could be catastrophic. Perhaps you don’t recall the last time the school leaving age was raised — in 1972, when it went from 15 to 16. I have wry memories. A few months before going to university, I did work experience in a local school, and watched with incredulity as a bunch of stroppy 15-year-olds who had expected to escape the previous summer were forced to kick their heels for three more terms — and proceeded to run amok. The legacy of that misconceived move lingers still. Is there anyone, apart from dutiful Blairites, who believes that today’s 16-year-old school-leavers are better educated than the 15-year-old leavers of the 1960s?
There is a way to raise the leaving age without going through that pointless chaos again. But it would require a radical reshaping of the entire school system. Here, just for your amusement, is what I would do.
First I would extend primary-school education by two years (mirroring the prep schools in the private sector). That would allow these enlarged primary schools to beef up their arts, sports and music — because the best specialist teachers would be attracted by the chance to take older children to a higher level. It would give primary teachers six extra terms in which to drum the basics of reading and arithmetic into slower learners. And most crucially, it would allow the the decision about appropraite secondary education to be deferred until children were 12 or 13, when it is far easier to know whether a child is cut out to be “academic”.
Those that are academic would pass a wideranging test at 13 and get a “certificate of basic education” (let’s call it the CBE, just to be confusing) covering the minimum literacy and numeracy skills normally needed in life. They would then move to secondary schools that would prepare them for a much tougher and broader set of A-levels than we have at present.
Non-academics would take a different path. They would still work towards their CBEs, but also develop the vocational skills needed to go straight into work at 18. Indeed, they would spend much of each term on work placements: old-fashioned apprenticeships, except in contemporary industries such as IT, food technology and retailing as well as the old blue-collar trades.
“Aha!” I hear the Islington liberals cry. “You are simply reviving the old apartheid system with grammar schools and secondary moderns, albeit with a 13-plus exam instead of the old 11-plus.” Not so. The problem in the old days was the stigma of failure attached to non-grammar-school children. My system would invest the vocational educational route with as much dignity, pride and rigorous standards as the academic route. It is the only way forward if British craft and trade workers are to compete in an increasingly global market place. Ask yourself why London is heaving with foreign plumbers, welders, electricians and carpenters who do a far better job than their British counterparts.
And it’s also the only way forward if we want to stop our educational system from churning out thousands of unemployable teenagers each year. Grafting makeshift vocational courses on to the existing state educational structure is useless.
But such a big rethink calls for political courage. Forget it, then. What the Government has concocted is a headline-grabbing gimmick that applies sticking-plaster to a festering wound. How typical. Is there anyone, apart from Blairites, who believes that today’s 16-year-old school-leavers are better educated than the 15-year-old leavers of the 1960s?
Source
Sick Britain's crazy police priorities
This is a country where even a rapist can get off with a police "caution"
A man who called a police surgeon a "f***ing Paki" was advised yesterday by a judge: "Next time call him a fat bastard and don't say anything about his colour." The judge gave the unusual advice after describing the decision by the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute the man for a racially aggravated offence as "a nonsense".
Matthew Stiddard had been taken into custody by police officers who mistook him for a suspect in another case. After two hours in a cell he demanded to see a doctor, complaining that his back hurt. But when Dr Imraan Jhetam arrived, Stiddart refused to be seen by him. Exeter Crown Court heard that Stiddart, 36, swore and told him: "I want an English doctor, not a f***ing Paki."
Stiddart had opted for the case to be heard at Crown court, where he admitted a charge of racially aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress. Judge Paul Darlow told the court that the case should never have been brought and suggested that Dr Jhetam should have let the insults "roll off his back".
The judge said: "I wonder what this is doing in the Crown Court. This was a single sentence to a man who should not have taken it so seriously. He is a man of some considerable standing in society and I cannot see that it caused him any distress or hurt.
"It should not have caused a problem in this case. "To charge it in the first place rather than, say, let it go by with a caution strikes me as rather odd. We let people hit each other and break into people's homes and they are not charged."
Ann Reddrop, for the prosecution, said: "When there is a burglary and it is in the public interest there will be a prosecution. This was a police surgeon and he is entitled to the same protection as anyone else."
Judge Darlow replied: "So next time call him a fat bastard and don't say anything about his colour. When we have an overstretched police force and an overstretched CPS one wonders why we are sitting here with long faces dealing with one sentence."
The judge said last night that his comments were "not intended to make light of racist remarks". He said: "Any reading of what was actually said in court would make it clear that the potential seriousness of what occurred was that a police surgeon was threatened with violence and non-racial abuse to the extent that he decided he needed to leave the cell to which he had been called. This amounted to an assault, but this was not the offence charged. "A gratuitous single piece of racist abuse was uttered as the surgeon left. This was the charge on which the full weight of the law had been brought to bear. My comments were not intended to make light of racist remarks.
Source
GREENIES DESPISE THE WORKERS
A comment on what seems a mainly British phenomenon -- Greenie attacks on air travel
Is your journey really necessary? Who would have thought that, in the absence of world war and in the midst of unprecedented prosperity, the state would be telling us not to travel? Just as ordinary working people have begun to enjoy freedoms that the well-off have known for generations - the experience of other cultures, other cuisines, other climates - they are threatened with having those liberating possibilities priced out of their reach.
Perhaps there is still a bit of the Marxist agitator in me: when I hear the better-off trying to deny the rest of us enlightenment and pleasure, I reach for my megaphone. For thousands of people whose parents would never have ventured beyond our shores, air travel has been a social revelation. The environment may or may not be at risk from the multitudes of ordinary people who can now afford to escape regularly from their parochial isolation and the narrow-minded ignorance that goes with it. But before we give the green lobby the unconditional benefit of the doubt, can we look at the balance sheet?
It is not just air travel for the poor that the green tax lobby is engineering: it is a restriction on any mobility. The only solution is not to go anywhere. Stay at home and save the planet. The logical conclusion is a retreat from all the things that make metropolitan existence worthwhile: all the social, professional and cultural interactions that free mobility makes possible - and which, since the Renaissance, have made great cities the centres of intellectual progress.
But even devising a way to make a living while never leaving your house will not absolve you of ecological guilt if you make free use of the technology that has transformed domestic life. The working classes, having only discovered in the last generation the comforts of tolerable housing and plentiful hot water, are now being told that these things must be rationed or prohibitively taxed. Never mind that the generous use of hot water and detergent, particularly when combined in a washing machine for the laundering of bed linen and clothing, has virtually eliminated the infestations of body lice, fleas (which once carried plague) and scabies mites that used to be a commonplace feature of poverty.
Or that the dishwasher - detested for its "wasteful" use of water and energy - which cleans crockery and utensils at temperatures high enough to destroy bacteria, has vastly improved hygiene. Or, for that matter, that the private car, the greens' public enemy No.1, has given ordinary families freedom and flexibility that would have been inconceivable in previous generations. If politicians are planning restrictions on these "polluting" aspects of private life, to be enforced by a price mechanism, they had better accept they will be reconstructing a class divide that will drastically affect the quality of life of those on the wrong side of it.
It is possible that the premises of the environmental campaigners are sound: that we are in mortal danger from global warming and that this is a result of human activity. Yet when I listen to the ecological warnings, I am reminded of an earlier doomsday scenario. In his Essay on the Principle of Population, published in 1798, Thomas Malthus demonstrated in what appeared to be indisputable mathematical terms that population growth would exceed the limits of food supply by the middle of the 19th century. While population increased exponentially, he argued, food production increased only arithmetically. Only plague, war or natural disaster would be capable of reducing the numbers of people sufficiently to avert mass starvation within roughly 50 years. This account of the world's inevitable fate (known as "Malthusian catastrophe") was as much part of received opinion among intellectuals and social theorists of the day as the environmental lobby's warnings are today. (Interestingly, Malthus recommended sexual abstinence for the lower classes to avoid doom.)
Malthus made some critical conceptual mistakes. First, his mathematical projections underestimated the complexity of human behaviour. Population did not go on increasing at the same rate: it responded to economic and social conditions. But, more important, he discounted the force of ingenuity in finding ways to increase food supply. The introduction of intensive farming methods and the invention of pesticides transformed what he had assumed would be the simple, fixed relationship between numbers of people and amount of resource. He had extrapolated from contemporary figures what seemed to be a sound prediction without allowing for the possibility that inventiveness and innovation might alter the picture in unimaginable ways.
Warnings of catastrophe come and go; whatever their validity, we cannot and should not ask people to go back to a more restricted and burdened way of life. The privations would not work because they are impracticable. To the extent that they were enforced, they would be unfair and socially divisive. If we really are facing an environmental crisis, then we are going to have to innovate and engineer our way out of it.
Source
UK 'green power' programs a fraud, says consumer group
Green power in Great Britain is largely a fraud, according to the United Kingdom's leading consumer group, the National Consumer Council, in a recent report, Reality or rhetoric? Green tariffs for domestic consumers."
Green tariffs, rates offered to consumer, at a premium, in order to deliver electricity produced by renewable resources, "don't live up to the environmental benefits claimed" in Britain, says the council's watchdog arm, energywatch. Among the key findings of the report: "Many green tariffs are not delivering the environmental benefits they claim. As a result, consumers may not be making the positive contribution they think they are."
The findings, said the report, "are worrying. There is a danger that consumers will be alienated from the behavior change agenda. This, in turn, could threaten the success of the government's sustainability strategy."
The issue is one that applies widely in the U.S. as well as in the U.K.: renewable energy mandates in place reduce the value of the green tariff, and have consumers paying twice for the same environmental benefit. The NCC report notes that the government is already requiring suppliers to generate 10% of their electricity from renewables by 2010 and 20% by 2020. This means, says the group, that every home in Great Britain is now paying œ7 ($13.75) annually for green energy in the normal electricity bill.
In a news release, the NCC adds, "Also the complex rules that encourage all energy suppliers to source renewably can mean the electricity's `greenness' is oversold. Even choosing a green tariff that offers to plant a tree would not contribute anywhere near enough to offset a household's carbon emissions." Consumers, said Lord Larry Whitty, the NCC chairman, "may think they are helping save the planet, but it's not clear that they are."The report notes that fewer than 200,000 homes (under 1%) of British homes purchase green power.
Source
No connection? "Unemployment [in Britain] has fallen to the lowest level since last spring but wage increases have remained muted, official figures showed today."
Britain resists EU attack on democracy: "Britain is aiming to scupper German plans to revive the European constitution in a direct assault on the main project of the EU presidency of Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor. Such a campaign, if successful, would free Tony Blair’s successor from his promise to hold a referendum on the document... The British Government is keen to avoid holding a referendum on the constitution, despite Mr Blair’s pledge three years ago to do so. Under the German timetable a referendum would coincide with the next general election and cause problems for Mr Blair’s successor. .. A senior British official told The Times that the Government will argue that the EU is working well within its existing treaties and does not need a constitution nor a fresh round of referendums... The British position is at loggerheads with Mrs Merkel’s dream of restoring the bulk of the rejected document, including sections that would create a European foreign minister and end the British veto in home affairs and justice policy."
Thursday, January 18, 2007
LEFTIST HATRED OF A SUCCESSFUL PRIVATE ALTERNATIVE TO THE CRUMBLING NHS EMPIRE
The bureaucrats are trying to justify their existence -- and how better to show your wisdom than by persecuting success? In a non-envious world they would be bending over backwards to help this guy rather than trying to trip him up with paperwork.
Two IVF clinics run by Britain's most successful fertility doctor were raided yesterday by regulators and police following allegations that he treated patients without a valid licence. Inspection teams from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) were granted a warrant to search the two London clinics run by Mohammed Taranissi to determine whether he has committed a criminal offence.
Mr Taranissi, whose personal wealth is estimated at 38 million pounds, operates the Assisted Reproduction and Gynaecology Centre (ARGC) and the Reproductive Genetics Institute (RGI). The ARGC has long topped league tables for IVF success rates and has an active licence. The licence held by RGI has expired. If there is evidence that he treated patients illegally he could become the first doctor to be prosecuted. The teams are also investigating allegations about the types of therapy he recommends and the information given to patients.
Mr Taranissi vigorously denied any wrongdoing and said that he had co-operated fully with the inspections. He accused the HFEA of changing its procedures to refuse the RGI a licence. The only patients treated since its application for renewal was turned down were seen with the authority's knowledge and approval, he said.
Angela McNab, chief executive of the HFEA, said: "Since January 2006, the RGI has not had a licence. Providing treatment in a centre which does not have a licence is potentially a criminal act." The HFEA needed a warrant because the RGI's licence had run out and the regulator did not have an automatic right to inspect it. The RGI's licence expired in December 2005, but for the first six months of 2006 it operated under "special directions" from the HFEA.
In June, Mr Taranissi was offered a three-year licence, on condition that he transfer no more than two embryos to patients aged over 40. He accepted the offer, but indicated that he wished to make representations about the condition. The HFEA interpreted this as a refusal of the licence. The offer was then withdrawn.
Mr Taranissi said that he then stopped taking new patients at RGI and finished treating patients whose cycles had begun. This was done with the knowledge and approval of the HFEA, he said. He told The Times: "It is very odd the way they have portrayed the licence situation. All of a sudden, they said to me because you have made representations, you have effectively refused the licence. "There is no issue of patient safety here, it is about the interpretation of a signed paper. It is different from a backstreet clinic, where there is a very serious issue of patient safety."
The HFEA said that its action was taken independently of allegations made against Mr Taranissi by the BBC One Panorama programme last night. It claimed that a young undercover reporter had been offered IVF at the ARGC even though neither she nor her partner had a history of infertility. Mr Taranissi said that the BBC failed to report visits by three other reporters who were given appropriate advice, and that the 26-year-old reporter had been seen by a junior doctor no longer with the clinic. He said that her notes indicated that the doctor had discussed options including natural conception with the woman and that his comments had been taken out of context.
Source
More background:
The charity Infertility Network UK was due to spend yesterday compiling a report for the Department of Health into the inconsistent availability of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment on the NHS. Instead, it spent the day handling a torrent of calls from worried patients who had seen a BBC Panorama programme questioning the propriety of the man said to be the most successful IVF technician in Britain, the private practitioner Mohammed Taranissi.
Which is a shame, because the muddle of treatment on the NHS is a far greater scandal than the continued operation by Mr Taranissi of a private clinic whose licence was under review. And under review not because he had done anything wrong, but because the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), the regulatory body for IVF clinics, had suddenly reduced the number of embryos Mr Taranissi was allowed to transplant, and he had objected.
Women over 40 are allowed to have three embryos transplanted during IVF; the HFEA wanted Mr Taranissi to transfer no more than two. Because twins and triplets are far more likely to have health problems than lone babies, the HFEA wants to encourage people away from multiple embryo transfers. About one in four IVF pregnancies produces twins, more than ten times the rate for natural conceptions. Half are born prematurely, with low birth weight, and subsequently run a much higher risk of cerebral palsy (18 times as high in the case of triplets). Neonatal and first-year care for twins and triplets is expensive for the NHS.
There is a public policy issue worth debating here, but the HFEA has not had that debate publicly, and it isn't official policy yet, so what right it had abruptly to curtail Mr Taranissi's freedom to operate is unclear. Those who know a lot more about the sector than I do say that the HFEA is suspicious of Mr Taranissi's success rates and have long suspected him of fiddling his figures or some such. The surgeon's friends insist his success rate is due to his absolute dedication and in particular his willingness to implant embryos at precisely the correct moment, whether that be 3am or Christmas Day.
The other allegation against Mr Taranissi's clinic is that IVF was inappropriately offered to a 26-year-old who had tried for only a year to conceive. The clinic says the doctor's comments were taken out of context by the BBC, which has refused to show them unedited tapes. It cannot be pure coincidence that the HFEA raided Mr Taranissi's clinics on the day that Panorama was due to broadcast its allegations. The HFEA was pandering to the cameras; sick behaviour from an unelected regulatory authority that appears to be out of its depth.
I could argue at length about the costs of private IVF treatment, success rates (23.6 per cent for women of 35-37, just 10.6 per cent at 40-42), proper regulation and the social engineering it represents - babies on a plate for people wealthy enough to afford them - but that would be missing the point here. The real scandal is in NHS units up and down the country. Three years ago the Government said that all infertile couples where the woman is under 40 would be offered one cycle of IVF within a year, as a first step towards implementing official guidelines that stated that three cycles of treatment should be offered. Research by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), which drew up the guidelines, showed that the cost per live birth of IVF rises from o12,000 when the woman is 24 years old to 13,000 pounds if she is 35, just over 20,000 at 39 but 38,000 at 42. Hence the age 40 cut-off.
But, surprise surprise, what the Government promised hasn't happened. Local health managers have interpreted the guidelines in wildly different ways. A year ago a survey by NICE found that only 40 per cent of primary care trusts would confirm that they even offer IVF treatment. Those that do offer it have waits of up to five years and a bewildering array of conditions that the patient must meet.
Research carried out by Infertility Network UK two years ago, and now being updated by them for the Department of Health, found, for instance, that in Durham you must wait four or five years, have a body mass index not greater than 30 and have no surviving children in your current relationship, before you are allowed IVF treatment on the NHS. Thames Valley will not treat a woman unless she is 36 and has never paid for any IVF treatment privately. In Norwich you have to have a body mass index no more than 34, no children from a previous relationship and must be a couple who have lived in Norfolk for at least two years. In Southampton City there are no social eligibility criteria; in North Dorset you must have been in a stable relationship for at least three years. In Rowley Regis and Tipton there must be no children on the maternal side; in Mendip there must be no children living with the couple and "no access to children from previous relationship". And in Cherwell Vale the couple must be non-smokers.
There is an astonishing degree of social manipulation going on in a complicated postcode lottery five years after the Prime Minister promised couples could expect "the same level of high-quality services" for IVF wherever they lived. Some services are being cut: Luton has stopped funding new fertility treatment for now, and York is considering doing the same.
And then, of course, if you do get your treatment paid for, there are all the pitfalls of sloppy NHS service to negotiate: lost X-rays, long queues, rude receptionists, dismissive doctors. It must be particularly painful to be treated to the NHS's special brand of production-line treatment when you are in the sensitive process of trying to get your own little production line moving. So the popularity of Mr Taranissi's and all the other private IVF clinics is easily explained. But what a pity Panorama couldn't find the time to investigate that
Source
BBC ISRAEL-HATRED
One of the biggest stories in the Middle East is the civil disorder in Gaza. Last week on his website, the journalist Stephen Pollard reproduced an internal memo from the BBC's Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen, to his colleagues. It contained a passage in which Bowen explains "the way that Palestinian society, which used to draw strength from resistance to the occupation, is now fragmenting.
"The reason is the death of hope, caused by a cocktail of Israel's military activities, land expropriation and settlement building - and the financial sanctions imposed on the Hamas-led Government which are destroying Palestinian institutions that were anyway flawed and fragile."
Now this is certainly one explanation of the reason why members of Fatah and Hamas are killing each other. No one can object that this argument is put before the BBC's audience. But for the BBC's Middle East editor to believe that it constitutes the sole explanation and to offer it up alone to his colleagues? Now that's a different matter.
Here are a few alternatives to Bowen's offering. Some of us argue that instead of the tough Israeli security measures causing Hamas and Fatah militants to kill people and each other, the killing of people by Hamas and Fatah militants causes the tough security measures. Hamas in particular is a dangerous, intolerant, murderous organisation that threatens the lives of innocent people and needs to be resisted.
And what about this? Fatah and Hamas are engaged in a power struggle and an ideological dispute. Fatah claims that its rivals have been plotting to assassinate President Mahmoud Abbas because the President supports the so-called Prisoners' Document. This document proposes a unified resistance to Israel, but Hamas is suspicious of the terms of such unity and believes that its vague language could mean recognition of Israel.
Or this? In a superb column last week in the Financial Times, Christopher Caldwell pointed out that are there are 67 countries in the world where 15 to 29-year-olds make up more than 30 per cent of the population and 60 of them are undergoing some sort of civil war or mass killing. Gaza has just such a youth bulge. Perhaps the violence has no political cause; it is just, well, boys being boys.
I know, I know. You may regard these alternatives as absurd, even offensive. I don't, but that's not my point. If you want to report the Middle East in an unbiased fashion, then these arguments must be put before the BBC audience. And how can they be if the Middle East editor doesn't even acknowledge them?
More here
GREAT FOR THE BRITISH ELITE! EUROPE IS PRICING POOR BUGGERS OFF THE ROAD
The price of every new car sold in Britain could soar by more than 1,600 pounds under new laws to be proposed by the European commission to tackle climate change. Stavros Dimas, the European environment commissioner, yesterday announced plans for compulsory limits on carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles, blaming motor manufacturers for failing to comply with a voluntary pledge to improve fuel efficiency. "The technology is there to do this, but it has not been done as promised by the voluntary agreement. They [the manufacturers] know the situation better than anyone else because they gave an undertaking to bring down carbon dioxide," he said.
The plans, to be announced on January 24, will require car companies to produce vehicles that emit less than 120 grams of carbon dioxide a kilometre by 2012. The cap will apply as an average across a maker's range of vehicles - a manufacturer could still sell gas-guzzling 4x4s if it also produced smaller, cleaner vehicles.
Three-quarters of leading car brands are failing to reduce emissions at the rate set in the voluntary agreement. They are supposed to drop to 140 grams per kilometre by 2008. Carbon dioxide emissions from road transport have risen by 22% in Europe since 1990 and now make up more than 20% of total emissions. The current fleet emissions average is about 162 grams a kilometre.
The proposals, which will also float the idea of including car manufacturers in Europe's emissions trading scheme, will trigger a consultation, with formal legislation to follow later this year. Mr Dimas said he expected car companies to pass on the costs of the required improvements to consumers: "The technology to make them cleaner will make them more expensive." EC figures suggest the increased cost per car could be 577 euros, but a report by a team of Dutch transport consultants in October put it closer to 2,450 euros (624 pounds).
Nigel Wonnacott of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said: "We would be very concerned about measures that would impose additional costs on manufacturers. If it costs more to make the cars then that cost will be passed on." Attempts to build lower-emitting cars had been hampered by safety requirements adding additional weight, as well as a lack of government support for biofuels and cleaner technologies, he said, adding that the law could force some manufacturers to move production overseas.
An October report by the Brussels-based lobby group Transport and Environment said Japanese car makers have the worst record on fuel efficiency, with Nissan, Suzuki and Mazda in the bottom three of 20 brands. Fiat, Citroen and Renault are the only companies on course to meet the voluntary limits.
Source
NORFOLK POLICE LET OFF VANDALS BECAUSE THEY'RE FOREIGN
A local cop foolishly told the truth. He was later reprimanded for it
Two criminals caught on CCTV vandalising cars were not prosecuted because police said they were unemployed foreigners and to bring them to justice would cost too much. One victim received a letter from Norfolk police saying the pair would not be prosecuted because they were both foreign nationals with no jobs and no income and the case was `not in the public interest to pursue due to the expenses incurred in having a trial'. The disclosure was greeted as a further example of police forces' excessive pandering to criminals.
This weekend Derbyshire police were criticised for refusing to release pictures of two escaped murderers because to do so might have infringed their human rights. The latest case involved the vandalism of at least five cars in Norwich. Two men, aged 19 and 29, were arrested on suspicion of damaging cars but a Norfolk police spokeswoman said that after `careful consideration of all the evidence' it was decided to deal with the offenders by way of a police caution.
Barry Ferguson, 29, one of the victims of the vandals, who are in the country legally, said he was dismayed by the decision. `Even though these people were caught in the act they are getting away with wanton vandalism,' he said. `I can't believe the police have spent all this money on CCTV and then have not bothered to charge them. `There would be outrage if a British person got away with this but it is being justified in this instance because these people are foreign with no income. What is the point of having CCTV if these crimes are ignored?'
The police spokeswoman said: `Any decision is tested against the attorney-general's guidelines. It has absolutely nothing to do with their ethnicity or level of income. `This caution, whilst not a conviction, is added to their police record and can be cited in court should they reoffend. The victims, if they wish to do so, can pursue compensation through the civil courts.'
Norman Brennan, director of the Victims of Crime Trust, said: `It is only right and proper that anyone who carries out any type of crime should face the courts. Being jobless, foreign or anything else is no excuse for letting people off. `The long and the short of it is that we are making excuses for not dealing with those who commit crime.'
Source
MORE CLERICS PREACHING HOLY WAR IN UK MOSQUES
Britain's Channel Four is to air a documentary today that shows clerics at a number of leading British mosques exhorting followers to prepare for jihad, to hit girls for not wearing the hijab, and to follow Islamic law over UK law, The Observer reports.
The documentary, Undercover Mosques, Dispatches, contains video footage secretly filmed in British mosques over a period of 12 months. At the Sparkbrook mosque, run by the UK Islamic Mission (UKIM), an organisation that maintains 45 mosques in Britain, a preacher is captured on film praising the Taliban. In response to the news that a British Muslim solider was killed fighting the Taliban, the speaker declares: `The hero of Islam is the one who separated his head from his shoulders.' Another speaker says Muslims cannot accept the rule of non-Muslims. `You cannot accept the rule of the kaffir,' Dr Ijaz Mian tells a meeting held within the mosque. `We have to rule ourselves and we have to rule the others.'
When contacted by The Observer, UKIM said: `We are a nationwide organisation and hold different programmes in our mosques. We are very concerned about this. We have instructed all our branches not to allow any more speakers with radical or fundamentalist views.'
Elsewhere the documentary records the huge popularity of DVDs and Internet broadcasts produced by extremist preachers. At the Islamic bookstore at Regent's Park Mosque in central London, DVDs of a preacher called Sheikh Yasin are sold. In one DVD, Yasin accuses missionaries from the World Health Organisation and Christian groups of putting the AIDS virus in the medicine of African people.
Inside the Green Lane mosque in Birmingham, a preacher is recorded saying: `Allah has created the woman deficient.' A satellite broadcast from the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, beamed into the Green Lane mosque suggests that Muslim children should be hit if they don't pray: `When he is seven, tell him to go and pray, and start hitting them when they are 10.'
Another preacher is heard saying that if a girl `doesn't wear hijab, we hit her'. Another preacher says: `The time is fast approaching where the tables are going to turn and the Muslims are going to be in the position of being uppermost in strength and, when that happens, people won't get killed - unjustly.'
Source
CAPABLE BRITISH TEACHERS DESERTING A SINKING SHIP
The number of teachers taking early retirement in England has almost doubled in the past seven years, with the majority coming from state secondary schools, newly published figures show. The number retiring has shot up from 5,580 in 1998-99 to 10,270 last year. Early retirement rose in state secondaries by 93 per cent, compared with a rise of 52 per cent in primaries. Most complained of having to juggle poor classroom behaviour with endless new government initiatives.
The figures, which came from a parliamentary question posed by the Conservatives, emerged as Tony Blair and Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, doubled the number yesterday of aspiring "chief executive" heads and deputies to work in London's toughest inner-city secondaries.
After a year training 20 teachers under the American- inspired Future Leaders programme, the Government decided to expand the course, having received positive feedback from schools and staff. The expansion, announced by Mr Blair and Mr Johnson, is designed to recruit more candidates into the classroom from outside education. The aim of the scheme is to break the cycle of poverty and educational failure in inner-city areas.
With a quarter of all head teachers retiring in the next decade, John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, has applauded the move.
Source
The bureaucrats are trying to justify their existence -- and how better to show your wisdom than by persecuting success? In a non-envious world they would be bending over backwards to help this guy rather than trying to trip him up with paperwork.
Two IVF clinics run by Britain's most successful fertility doctor were raided yesterday by regulators and police following allegations that he treated patients without a valid licence. Inspection teams from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) were granted a warrant to search the two London clinics run by Mohammed Taranissi to determine whether he has committed a criminal offence.
Mr Taranissi, whose personal wealth is estimated at 38 million pounds, operates the Assisted Reproduction and Gynaecology Centre (ARGC) and the Reproductive Genetics Institute (RGI). The ARGC has long topped league tables for IVF success rates and has an active licence. The licence held by RGI has expired. If there is evidence that he treated patients illegally he could become the first doctor to be prosecuted. The teams are also investigating allegations about the types of therapy he recommends and the information given to patients.
Mr Taranissi vigorously denied any wrongdoing and said that he had co-operated fully with the inspections. He accused the HFEA of changing its procedures to refuse the RGI a licence. The only patients treated since its application for renewal was turned down were seen with the authority's knowledge and approval, he said.
Angela McNab, chief executive of the HFEA, said: "Since January 2006, the RGI has not had a licence. Providing treatment in a centre which does not have a licence is potentially a criminal act." The HFEA needed a warrant because the RGI's licence had run out and the regulator did not have an automatic right to inspect it. The RGI's licence expired in December 2005, but for the first six months of 2006 it operated under "special directions" from the HFEA.
In June, Mr Taranissi was offered a three-year licence, on condition that he transfer no more than two embryos to patients aged over 40. He accepted the offer, but indicated that he wished to make representations about the condition. The HFEA interpreted this as a refusal of the licence. The offer was then withdrawn.
Mr Taranissi said that he then stopped taking new patients at RGI and finished treating patients whose cycles had begun. This was done with the knowledge and approval of the HFEA, he said. He told The Times: "It is very odd the way they have portrayed the licence situation. All of a sudden, they said to me because you have made representations, you have effectively refused the licence. "There is no issue of patient safety here, it is about the interpretation of a signed paper. It is different from a backstreet clinic, where there is a very serious issue of patient safety."
The HFEA said that its action was taken independently of allegations made against Mr Taranissi by the BBC One Panorama programme last night. It claimed that a young undercover reporter had been offered IVF at the ARGC even though neither she nor her partner had a history of infertility. Mr Taranissi said that the BBC failed to report visits by three other reporters who were given appropriate advice, and that the 26-year-old reporter had been seen by a junior doctor no longer with the clinic. He said that her notes indicated that the doctor had discussed options including natural conception with the woman and that his comments had been taken out of context.
Source
More background:
The charity Infertility Network UK was due to spend yesterday compiling a report for the Department of Health into the inconsistent availability of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment on the NHS. Instead, it spent the day handling a torrent of calls from worried patients who had seen a BBC Panorama programme questioning the propriety of the man said to be the most successful IVF technician in Britain, the private practitioner Mohammed Taranissi.
Which is a shame, because the muddle of treatment on the NHS is a far greater scandal than the continued operation by Mr Taranissi of a private clinic whose licence was under review. And under review not because he had done anything wrong, but because the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), the regulatory body for IVF clinics, had suddenly reduced the number of embryos Mr Taranissi was allowed to transplant, and he had objected.
Women over 40 are allowed to have three embryos transplanted during IVF; the HFEA wanted Mr Taranissi to transfer no more than two. Because twins and triplets are far more likely to have health problems than lone babies, the HFEA wants to encourage people away from multiple embryo transfers. About one in four IVF pregnancies produces twins, more than ten times the rate for natural conceptions. Half are born prematurely, with low birth weight, and subsequently run a much higher risk of cerebral palsy (18 times as high in the case of triplets). Neonatal and first-year care for twins and triplets is expensive for the NHS.
There is a public policy issue worth debating here, but the HFEA has not had that debate publicly, and it isn't official policy yet, so what right it had abruptly to curtail Mr Taranissi's freedom to operate is unclear. Those who know a lot more about the sector than I do say that the HFEA is suspicious of Mr Taranissi's success rates and have long suspected him of fiddling his figures or some such. The surgeon's friends insist his success rate is due to his absolute dedication and in particular his willingness to implant embryos at precisely the correct moment, whether that be 3am or Christmas Day.
The other allegation against Mr Taranissi's clinic is that IVF was inappropriately offered to a 26-year-old who had tried for only a year to conceive. The clinic says the doctor's comments were taken out of context by the BBC, which has refused to show them unedited tapes. It cannot be pure coincidence that the HFEA raided Mr Taranissi's clinics on the day that Panorama was due to broadcast its allegations. The HFEA was pandering to the cameras; sick behaviour from an unelected regulatory authority that appears to be out of its depth.
I could argue at length about the costs of private IVF treatment, success rates (23.6 per cent for women of 35-37, just 10.6 per cent at 40-42), proper regulation and the social engineering it represents - babies on a plate for people wealthy enough to afford them - but that would be missing the point here. The real scandal is in NHS units up and down the country. Three years ago the Government said that all infertile couples where the woman is under 40 would be offered one cycle of IVF within a year, as a first step towards implementing official guidelines that stated that three cycles of treatment should be offered. Research by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), which drew up the guidelines, showed that the cost per live birth of IVF rises from o12,000 when the woman is 24 years old to 13,000 pounds if she is 35, just over 20,000 at 39 but 38,000 at 42. Hence the age 40 cut-off.
But, surprise surprise, what the Government promised hasn't happened. Local health managers have interpreted the guidelines in wildly different ways. A year ago a survey by NICE found that only 40 per cent of primary care trusts would confirm that they even offer IVF treatment. Those that do offer it have waits of up to five years and a bewildering array of conditions that the patient must meet.
Research carried out by Infertility Network UK two years ago, and now being updated by them for the Department of Health, found, for instance, that in Durham you must wait four or five years, have a body mass index not greater than 30 and have no surviving children in your current relationship, before you are allowed IVF treatment on the NHS. Thames Valley will not treat a woman unless she is 36 and has never paid for any IVF treatment privately. In Norwich you have to have a body mass index no more than 34, no children from a previous relationship and must be a couple who have lived in Norfolk for at least two years. In Southampton City there are no social eligibility criteria; in North Dorset you must have been in a stable relationship for at least three years. In Rowley Regis and Tipton there must be no children on the maternal side; in Mendip there must be no children living with the couple and "no access to children from previous relationship". And in Cherwell Vale the couple must be non-smokers.
There is an astonishing degree of social manipulation going on in a complicated postcode lottery five years after the Prime Minister promised couples could expect "the same level of high-quality services" for IVF wherever they lived. Some services are being cut: Luton has stopped funding new fertility treatment for now, and York is considering doing the same.
And then, of course, if you do get your treatment paid for, there are all the pitfalls of sloppy NHS service to negotiate: lost X-rays, long queues, rude receptionists, dismissive doctors. It must be particularly painful to be treated to the NHS's special brand of production-line treatment when you are in the sensitive process of trying to get your own little production line moving. So the popularity of Mr Taranissi's and all the other private IVF clinics is easily explained. But what a pity Panorama couldn't find the time to investigate that
Source
BBC ISRAEL-HATRED
One of the biggest stories in the Middle East is the civil disorder in Gaza. Last week on his website, the journalist Stephen Pollard reproduced an internal memo from the BBC's Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen, to his colleagues. It contained a passage in which Bowen explains "the way that Palestinian society, which used to draw strength from resistance to the occupation, is now fragmenting.
"The reason is the death of hope, caused by a cocktail of Israel's military activities, land expropriation and settlement building - and the financial sanctions imposed on the Hamas-led Government which are destroying Palestinian institutions that were anyway flawed and fragile."
Now this is certainly one explanation of the reason why members of Fatah and Hamas are killing each other. No one can object that this argument is put before the BBC's audience. But for the BBC's Middle East editor to believe that it constitutes the sole explanation and to offer it up alone to his colleagues? Now that's a different matter.
Here are a few alternatives to Bowen's offering. Some of us argue that instead of the tough Israeli security measures causing Hamas and Fatah militants to kill people and each other, the killing of people by Hamas and Fatah militants causes the tough security measures. Hamas in particular is a dangerous, intolerant, murderous organisation that threatens the lives of innocent people and needs to be resisted.
And what about this? Fatah and Hamas are engaged in a power struggle and an ideological dispute. Fatah claims that its rivals have been plotting to assassinate President Mahmoud Abbas because the President supports the so-called Prisoners' Document. This document proposes a unified resistance to Israel, but Hamas is suspicious of the terms of such unity and believes that its vague language could mean recognition of Israel.
Or this? In a superb column last week in the Financial Times, Christopher Caldwell pointed out that are there are 67 countries in the world where 15 to 29-year-olds make up more than 30 per cent of the population and 60 of them are undergoing some sort of civil war or mass killing. Gaza has just such a youth bulge. Perhaps the violence has no political cause; it is just, well, boys being boys.
I know, I know. You may regard these alternatives as absurd, even offensive. I don't, but that's not my point. If you want to report the Middle East in an unbiased fashion, then these arguments must be put before the BBC audience. And how can they be if the Middle East editor doesn't even acknowledge them?
More here
GREAT FOR THE BRITISH ELITE! EUROPE IS PRICING POOR BUGGERS OFF THE ROAD
The price of every new car sold in Britain could soar by more than 1,600 pounds under new laws to be proposed by the European commission to tackle climate change. Stavros Dimas, the European environment commissioner, yesterday announced plans for compulsory limits on carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles, blaming motor manufacturers for failing to comply with a voluntary pledge to improve fuel efficiency. "The technology is there to do this, but it has not been done as promised by the voluntary agreement. They [the manufacturers] know the situation better than anyone else because they gave an undertaking to bring down carbon dioxide," he said.
The plans, to be announced on January 24, will require car companies to produce vehicles that emit less than 120 grams of carbon dioxide a kilometre by 2012. The cap will apply as an average across a maker's range of vehicles - a manufacturer could still sell gas-guzzling 4x4s if it also produced smaller, cleaner vehicles.
Three-quarters of leading car brands are failing to reduce emissions at the rate set in the voluntary agreement. They are supposed to drop to 140 grams per kilometre by 2008. Carbon dioxide emissions from road transport have risen by 22% in Europe since 1990 and now make up more than 20% of total emissions. The current fleet emissions average is about 162 grams a kilometre.
The proposals, which will also float the idea of including car manufacturers in Europe's emissions trading scheme, will trigger a consultation, with formal legislation to follow later this year. Mr Dimas said he expected car companies to pass on the costs of the required improvements to consumers: "The technology to make them cleaner will make them more expensive." EC figures suggest the increased cost per car could be 577 euros, but a report by a team of Dutch transport consultants in October put it closer to 2,450 euros (624 pounds).
Nigel Wonnacott of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said: "We would be very concerned about measures that would impose additional costs on manufacturers. If it costs more to make the cars then that cost will be passed on." Attempts to build lower-emitting cars had been hampered by safety requirements adding additional weight, as well as a lack of government support for biofuels and cleaner technologies, he said, adding that the law could force some manufacturers to move production overseas.
An October report by the Brussels-based lobby group Transport and Environment said Japanese car makers have the worst record on fuel efficiency, with Nissan, Suzuki and Mazda in the bottom three of 20 brands. Fiat, Citroen and Renault are the only companies on course to meet the voluntary limits.
Source
NORFOLK POLICE LET OFF VANDALS BECAUSE THEY'RE FOREIGN
A local cop foolishly told the truth. He was later reprimanded for it
Two criminals caught on CCTV vandalising cars were not prosecuted because police said they were unemployed foreigners and to bring them to justice would cost too much. One victim received a letter from Norfolk police saying the pair would not be prosecuted because they were both foreign nationals with no jobs and no income and the case was `not in the public interest to pursue due to the expenses incurred in having a trial'. The disclosure was greeted as a further example of police forces' excessive pandering to criminals.
This weekend Derbyshire police were criticised for refusing to release pictures of two escaped murderers because to do so might have infringed their human rights. The latest case involved the vandalism of at least five cars in Norwich. Two men, aged 19 and 29, were arrested on suspicion of damaging cars but a Norfolk police spokeswoman said that after `careful consideration of all the evidence' it was decided to deal with the offenders by way of a police caution.
Barry Ferguson, 29, one of the victims of the vandals, who are in the country legally, said he was dismayed by the decision. `Even though these people were caught in the act they are getting away with wanton vandalism,' he said. `I can't believe the police have spent all this money on CCTV and then have not bothered to charge them. `There would be outrage if a British person got away with this but it is being justified in this instance because these people are foreign with no income. What is the point of having CCTV if these crimes are ignored?'
The police spokeswoman said: `Any decision is tested against the attorney-general's guidelines. It has absolutely nothing to do with their ethnicity or level of income. `This caution, whilst not a conviction, is added to their police record and can be cited in court should they reoffend. The victims, if they wish to do so, can pursue compensation through the civil courts.'
Norman Brennan, director of the Victims of Crime Trust, said: `It is only right and proper that anyone who carries out any type of crime should face the courts. Being jobless, foreign or anything else is no excuse for letting people off. `The long and the short of it is that we are making excuses for not dealing with those who commit crime.'
Source
MORE CLERICS PREACHING HOLY WAR IN UK MOSQUES
Britain's Channel Four is to air a documentary today that shows clerics at a number of leading British mosques exhorting followers to prepare for jihad, to hit girls for not wearing the hijab, and to follow Islamic law over UK law, The Observer reports.
The documentary, Undercover Mosques, Dispatches, contains video footage secretly filmed in British mosques over a period of 12 months. At the Sparkbrook mosque, run by the UK Islamic Mission (UKIM), an organisation that maintains 45 mosques in Britain, a preacher is captured on film praising the Taliban. In response to the news that a British Muslim solider was killed fighting the Taliban, the speaker declares: `The hero of Islam is the one who separated his head from his shoulders.' Another speaker says Muslims cannot accept the rule of non-Muslims. `You cannot accept the rule of the kaffir,' Dr Ijaz Mian tells a meeting held within the mosque. `We have to rule ourselves and we have to rule the others.'
When contacted by The Observer, UKIM said: `We are a nationwide organisation and hold different programmes in our mosques. We are very concerned about this. We have instructed all our branches not to allow any more speakers with radical or fundamentalist views.'
Elsewhere the documentary records the huge popularity of DVDs and Internet broadcasts produced by extremist preachers. At the Islamic bookstore at Regent's Park Mosque in central London, DVDs of a preacher called Sheikh Yasin are sold. In one DVD, Yasin accuses missionaries from the World Health Organisation and Christian groups of putting the AIDS virus in the medicine of African people.
Inside the Green Lane mosque in Birmingham, a preacher is recorded saying: `Allah has created the woman deficient.' A satellite broadcast from the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, beamed into the Green Lane mosque suggests that Muslim children should be hit if they don't pray: `When he is seven, tell him to go and pray, and start hitting them when they are 10.'
Another preacher is heard saying that if a girl `doesn't wear hijab, we hit her'. Another preacher says: `The time is fast approaching where the tables are going to turn and the Muslims are going to be in the position of being uppermost in strength and, when that happens, people won't get killed - unjustly.'
Source
CAPABLE BRITISH TEACHERS DESERTING A SINKING SHIP
The number of teachers taking early retirement in England has almost doubled in the past seven years, with the majority coming from state secondary schools, newly published figures show. The number retiring has shot up from 5,580 in 1998-99 to 10,270 last year. Early retirement rose in state secondaries by 93 per cent, compared with a rise of 52 per cent in primaries. Most complained of having to juggle poor classroom behaviour with endless new government initiatives.
The figures, which came from a parliamentary question posed by the Conservatives, emerged as Tony Blair and Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, doubled the number yesterday of aspiring "chief executive" heads and deputies to work in London's toughest inner-city secondaries.
After a year training 20 teachers under the American- inspired Future Leaders programme, the Government decided to expand the course, having received positive feedback from schools and staff. The expansion, announced by Mr Blair and Mr Johnson, is designed to recruit more candidates into the classroom from outside education. The aim of the scheme is to break the cycle of poverty and educational failure in inner-city areas.
With a quarter of all head teachers retiring in the next decade, John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, has applauded the move.
Source
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Now a cloak of invisibility falls on British school standards
By Chris Woodhead
When Labour won the 1997 election the prime minister, much to my amazement, decided both to keep me in the post of chief inspector of schools and to continue the rigorous approach to testing and school inspection the Conservatives had introduced in the late 1980s. That approach was beginning to deliver, and I was happy to stay. By autumn 2000 when I decided I could no longer continue in the post it had become clear that any commitment to rigour was fast declining.
Source
The chewing gum that may aid slimming
An appetite-suppressing injection or even chewing gum could one day be used to tackle Britain's obesity problem. Scientists have been given funding to develop a treatment to help clinically obese patients to "feel full" and to eat less. The injection would contain a naturally occurring hormone that curbs appetite and is often lacking in overweight people. Within a decade the injection could provide the first effective treatment for obesity, which contributes to about 1,300 deaths a week in Britain, the scientists say.
The research, announced today, is among the first projects to benefit from a 91 million pound scheme by the Wellcome Trust to fund new medicines. It promises to be safer and more effective than present treatments, which culminate in drastic "stomach- stapling" operations. The hormone, pancreatic polypeptide (PP), is normally released from the small intestine as food is consumed, signalling to the brain that the body has had enough. In preliminary trials, an intravenous infusion that boosted levels of the hormone led to a big reduction in appetite among healthy volunteers.
Thirty-five healthy volunteers who were given the PP treatment consumed fewer calories, with the effect lasting for about 24 hours. Steve Bloom, who led the research at Imperial College and Hammersmith Hospital, London, said: "Even a 1 per cent reduction in appetite could lead to significant weight loss over a year." Professor Bloom has received a grant of 2.3 million pounds to develop the drug as a longer-lasting weekly injection. Other ways to administer the hormone could include a pump or even chewing gum, he said.
Source
FREE SPEECH FOR THE ARTS!
Or where will it end?
An antifascist demonstration has been organised for today's performance of Giselle by English National Ballet principal Simone Clarke - her first since being "outed" as a member of the far-right British National Party. Members of the Unite Against Fascism Coalition will demonstrate at London's Covent Garden today in protest against the "BNP Ballerina's" presence in the show: Arts Council funded English National Ballet has refused to comment on Ms Clarke's political views, which emerged after a Guardian journalist revealed parts of the BNP's membership lists. Clarke claims to support a tough line on immigration and told a newspaper that she joined the party on the urging of her boyfriend, who is Cuban-Chinese.
EURSOC holds no brief for Ms Clarke or her party, though we believe it is her right to join whatever political group she likes. The BNP is certainly far right and racist, (though Ms Clarke may not be the latter if judged on her personal relationships).
But barracking a ballet performance because you disagree with the political views of one of the dancers? We are constantly informed that Israel's "occupation" of Palestinian territory is "racist" and "far right". Will people who claim to support Israel be next? Ulster Unionists, too, enjoy little support among left-leaning groups - will they too be targeted as undesirables, if Clarke is ejected from her position? What about supporters of the war in Iraq or conservative Americans in general?
In any case, where would the arts be without dotty political views? Prominent members of the Redgrave acting dynasty were known for their sympathy for communism; Nobel prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter has dedicated much of his recent career to a particularly infantile form of anti-American rhetoric. He was last spotted kissing the behind of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez - a man who shuts down media organisations which dare to disagree with him.
Film-maker Ken Loach gets UK lottery funding to make anti-British, pro-Irish republican movies. Poet Tom Paulin has called for some Israeli settlers to be shot - as far as we can tell, Simone Clarke has not advocated violence in pursuit of her views. Writer John Berger indulges an affection for masked "militants" in Latin America and called for an absurd and creepy "artists" boycott of Israel.
Surely the arts are about free expression, including the right to emit views that in any other public arena would have you certified. Clarke isn't even expressing her views on the stage - indeed, her affiliation was known to no-one until the Guardian's reporter found her name on the BNP's membership list
Source
MORE LESSONS FROM THE "BNP BALLERINA" AFFAIR
One of the strangest things about political activists is that they so rarely understand freedom, the very thing they think they are fighting for. Everyone in this country, even a sugar plum fairy, is entitled to freedom of thought and of speech under the law, but there are countless high-minded activists who do not think so. So it was that a group of Unite Against Fascism activists fetched up at the Coliseum in London on Friday afternoon to demonstrate against the fascist fairy, the “BNP ballerina” Simone Clarke.
She is an exceptional dancer who finds herself at the middle of an even more exceptional political drama. Having danced the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy in the Nutcracker over the Christmas season, she was soon afterwards exposed as a member of the British National party. On Friday she appeared on stage for the first time since the revelation of her political views in the role of Giselle, only to be booed and hissed by UAF agitators outside the theatre and even inside from the stalls.
“The principal ballerina is a BNP member,” they cried, before they were removed. “No fascism in the arts.” Clarke bravely danced on, however, like a real trouper, smiling throughout; I suppose ballerinas are used to smiling through pain. She was supported in her ordeal, whether she knew it or not, by a bizarre group of champions — 25 members of the BNP, including some of its top brass, and not perhaps your average balletomanes.
How I wish I had been there. All this might be serious in its way, but it is a delicious absurdity too. For one thing the English National Ballet has dancers from 19 countries, some of whom must presumably be immigrants, and possibly dark of skin; I would love to have seen the BNP neo-balletomanes’ faces as they watched these migrant swans leaping about in swathes of floating net and little wings, not to mention several men in pastel tights. How wonderful to think of the skinhead BNP top team supporting all this.
What the UAF activists are trying to achieve is to get Clarke sacked. The English National Ballet has resisted very properly; it has refused to comment on its principal dancer’s opinions, saying her views do not represent the ENB’s views, which in any case does not express any political view. The ENB is in a difficult position though, because it receives 6 million pounds of public money each year from the Arts Council, and this can and will be used by activists to put pressure on the company to distance itself from Clarke. Bectu, the broadcasting workers’ union, is making this demand and Lee Jasper, the race relations adviser to the mayor of London, joined this lamentable demonstration, saying: “The protests will continue . . . English National Ballet have got a real fight on their hands.”
This is a strange story in every way. Despite her fear of mass immigration, Clarke has an immigrant boyfriend of Chinese-Cuban descent, also a dancer; there is a hint of inconsistency here surely, and the BNP certainly finds it a touch embarrassing. And then the protesters in the street, who say that ethnic English people’s fear of immigration is nothing but irrational racism, rather undermined their own case by shouting “We are Muslim, black and Jew, there are many more of us than you” — by this threat confirming that a fear of mass immigration is not merely irrational racism. Brilliant.
All these big bold men lined up against a single rather underweight woman; it is not an edifying spectacle. If only they had the intellectual modesty that she has shown. Explaining to a newspaper that she’d been drawn to the BNP by watching the news and by their manifesto, she said: “I am not too proud to say that a lot of it went over my head, but some of the things they mentioned were things I think about all the time, mainly mass immigration, crime and increased taxes.” The world might be a better place if more people were not too proud to admit that things are complex and difficult to understand.
It is clearly too difficult for Friday’s activists to understand that free speech is indivisible. Perhaps they have forgotten the McCarthy era in America, when performing artists, particularly in Hollywood, were outed, sacked and ruined for their pro-communist views (real or alleged). That was entirely wrong, I hardly need say. But there are plenty of people, including me, who think that pro-Trotsky, pro-Stalin, pro-Mao communism, and all kinds of views expressed by people in the arts to this day, are hateful and despicable, and, I think, a great deal worse than the BNP.
That has never prompted real lovers of freedom to try to silence them; real lovers of freedom accept that to repress one hated view is as bad as repressing its opposite. It will only strengthen the hated view; by contrast the openness of freedom will weaken it, if it is wrong, as the heroic JS Mill so eloquently argued.
Besides, why should anyone take the political views of artists seriously? I know that everyone does these days, and pop stars such as Bono are called upon to pontificate on matters of global concern. But the fact that they are famous and talented does not mean that their views are worth paying attention to (rather as the BNP ballerina’s views are of no interest).
There is no law of nature according to which artists must of their nature be rational, sensible and well judging; rather the reverse tends to be true, because the arts have to do with risk, danger, experiment, originality and inconsistency. They are born out of anger, resentment, joy, contrariness and wildness, with the result that few artists have ever been balanced and well-informed political or moral philosophers.
In fact if artists were judged on their views, theatres and galleries and bookshops would be almost empty. If sensible people had tried to bring down artists of bad and daft political views we would have had no Vanessa Redgrave and no Harold Pinter. Should we ban Brecht from the stage because of his support for the odious East German regime? Come off it. People who loathe their views may love their talents. It is high time that liberals, luvvies and political activists started either to defend free speech, or stopped pretending to.
Source
A good comment from a reader of the above:
"I was in the audience for this performance and I didn't see any BNP 'skinheads' at all, if the BNP were there and I'm they were then they blended perfectly into a respectable audience. The only 'skinhead thugs' I saw were of the left-wing 'UAF' variety - so brave they arrived in a screaming mob to bully a tiny ballerina. Strange people for Tory David Cameron to ally himself with? Seems like the BNP are one of the most moderate groups around these days. Seems like the extremists are in power or even in opposition....."
By Chris Woodhead
When Labour won the 1997 election the prime minister, much to my amazement, decided both to keep me in the post of chief inspector of schools and to continue the rigorous approach to testing and school inspection the Conservatives had introduced in the late 1980s. That approach was beginning to deliver, and I was happy to stay. By autumn 2000 when I decided I could no longer continue in the post it had become clear that any commitment to rigour was fast declining.
Last week it disappeared completely. The secretary of state for education, Alan Johnson, announced that the government is set to abolish the national curriculum tests children currently take at 7, 11 and 14. Instead, they are to be assessed when they are “ready”, and, if the school does not like the result, then the child can be tested again until, presumably, the desired score is achieved.
This decision is the final nail in the coffin of school accountability. Nobody will know quite how the tests have been administered, and it will be impossible to compare one school to another. At secondary school level “personalised learning” will lead to students taking GCSE and A-level exams at different times. So here, too, comparisons become difficult.
Johnson, of course, pretends otherwise. League tables, he blusters, will still exist. Parents will still be in a position to make an informed choice about the school they wish their child to attend. It is nonsense, of course.
The truth is that ministers will no longer have to face the annual humiliation of admitting that they have failed once again to hit their self-imposed targets for improvements in literacy and numeracy. They will no longer have to try to persuade us, as Jim Knight did last week, that the appalling fact that only 45.3% of 16-year-olds achieve five good GCSE grades including English and maths is actually good news.
What a U-turn. At the beginning Labour made it clear that mastering the basics — being able to read, write and do sums — meant more than anything else. But last week’s revamped government league tables based on five good GCSEs tell a different story. It’s disgraceful that after 10 years fewer than half of 16-year-olds are reaching basic standards in English and maths.
At some schools the difference made by including English and maths in the GCSE tally is stark. At Madeley court comprehensive in Telford, for instance, just 16% of pupils got five good GCSEs including English and maths last year. Before the basic subjects were included in the scoring, the figure was 82% (boosted by entering pupils for a controversial GNVQ in information technology, which counts as a ridiculous four GCSEs).
Parents are expected to make sense of this kind of swing in fortune. They are meant to ponder new “value added” league tables which purport to register how successful schools are in teaching children from socially disadvantaged backgrounds or ethnic minority families. No grammar school appears in the top 100 schools in this league table, and schools which languished at the bottom of the conventional table now shoot miraculously to the top.
Confused? So am I, but don’t worry. We are meant to believe a new educational dawn is about to break. Free from the burden of external scrutiny our teachers will focus on the needs of each of the 30 children in their class. They will adapt the boring constraints of the national curriculum to the interests of each child. Learning is to be “personalised”. Creativity and innovation will flourish.
In some schools, perhaps; in most, I suspect not. The truth is that the government has given up. It has abandoned the reforms which, in time, would have improved education.
Schools, like children, need challenge. Transparency matters. How, after all, are problems in failing schools going to be solved if we do not know which schools are failing? Who really thinks that real teachers in real classrooms can or should respond to the individual needs of each of their pupils? The truth, of course, is that learning cannot be “personalised”. Learning French grammar is learning French grammar. Full stop. Good teachers will help individual pupils overcome their individual problems as they always have, but beyond this platitude the concept of “personalisation” has no meaning.
The rot began with David Blunkett, who, for all his tough public talk, was never comfortable with “naming and shaming” failing schools and who oversaw a review of the national curriculum that emphasised the teaching of “learning skills” over the mastery of factual knowledge.
In 2000 my successor as chief inspector, Mike Tomlinson, announced that in future inspection was to be “something we do with schools rather than to schools”. The school was to be a partner in its own inspection, but, Tomlinson added defensively, “the rigour and objectivity of inspection” will not be affected.
It has, of course. In 2005 a new system of inspection based on the school’s evaluation of its own performance was introduced. The period of time the inspectors spend in the school has been reduced to a day or two. Most teachers will not even see an inspector. So much for rigour and objectivity.
Source
The chewing gum that may aid slimming
An appetite-suppressing injection or even chewing gum could one day be used to tackle Britain's obesity problem. Scientists have been given funding to develop a treatment to help clinically obese patients to "feel full" and to eat less. The injection would contain a naturally occurring hormone that curbs appetite and is often lacking in overweight people. Within a decade the injection could provide the first effective treatment for obesity, which contributes to about 1,300 deaths a week in Britain, the scientists say.
The research, announced today, is among the first projects to benefit from a 91 million pound scheme by the Wellcome Trust to fund new medicines. It promises to be safer and more effective than present treatments, which culminate in drastic "stomach- stapling" operations. The hormone, pancreatic polypeptide (PP), is normally released from the small intestine as food is consumed, signalling to the brain that the body has had enough. In preliminary trials, an intravenous infusion that boosted levels of the hormone led to a big reduction in appetite among healthy volunteers.
Thirty-five healthy volunteers who were given the PP treatment consumed fewer calories, with the effect lasting for about 24 hours. Steve Bloom, who led the research at Imperial College and Hammersmith Hospital, London, said: "Even a 1 per cent reduction in appetite could lead to significant weight loss over a year." Professor Bloom has received a grant of 2.3 million pounds to develop the drug as a longer-lasting weekly injection. Other ways to administer the hormone could include a pump or even chewing gum, he said.
Source
FREE SPEECH FOR THE ARTS!
Or where will it end?
An antifascist demonstration has been organised for today's performance of Giselle by English National Ballet principal Simone Clarke - her first since being "outed" as a member of the far-right British National Party. Members of the Unite Against Fascism Coalition will demonstrate at London's Covent Garden today in protest against the "BNP Ballerina's" presence in the show: Arts Council funded English National Ballet has refused to comment on Ms Clarke's political views, which emerged after a Guardian journalist revealed parts of the BNP's membership lists. Clarke claims to support a tough line on immigration and told a newspaper that she joined the party on the urging of her boyfriend, who is Cuban-Chinese.
EURSOC holds no brief for Ms Clarke or her party, though we believe it is her right to join whatever political group she likes. The BNP is certainly far right and racist, (though Ms Clarke may not be the latter if judged on her personal relationships).
But barracking a ballet performance because you disagree with the political views of one of the dancers? We are constantly informed that Israel's "occupation" of Palestinian territory is "racist" and "far right". Will people who claim to support Israel be next? Ulster Unionists, too, enjoy little support among left-leaning groups - will they too be targeted as undesirables, if Clarke is ejected from her position? What about supporters of the war in Iraq or conservative Americans in general?
In any case, where would the arts be without dotty political views? Prominent members of the Redgrave acting dynasty were known for their sympathy for communism; Nobel prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter has dedicated much of his recent career to a particularly infantile form of anti-American rhetoric. He was last spotted kissing the behind of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez - a man who shuts down media organisations which dare to disagree with him.
Film-maker Ken Loach gets UK lottery funding to make anti-British, pro-Irish republican movies. Poet Tom Paulin has called for some Israeli settlers to be shot - as far as we can tell, Simone Clarke has not advocated violence in pursuit of her views. Writer John Berger indulges an affection for masked "militants" in Latin America and called for an absurd and creepy "artists" boycott of Israel.
Surely the arts are about free expression, including the right to emit views that in any other public arena would have you certified. Clarke isn't even expressing her views on the stage - indeed, her affiliation was known to no-one until the Guardian's reporter found her name on the BNP's membership list
Source
MORE LESSONS FROM THE "BNP BALLERINA" AFFAIR
One of the strangest things about political activists is that they so rarely understand freedom, the very thing they think they are fighting for. Everyone in this country, even a sugar plum fairy, is entitled to freedom of thought and of speech under the law, but there are countless high-minded activists who do not think so. So it was that a group of Unite Against Fascism activists fetched up at the Coliseum in London on Friday afternoon to demonstrate against the fascist fairy, the “BNP ballerina” Simone Clarke.
She is an exceptional dancer who finds herself at the middle of an even more exceptional political drama. Having danced the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy in the Nutcracker over the Christmas season, she was soon afterwards exposed as a member of the British National party. On Friday she appeared on stage for the first time since the revelation of her political views in the role of Giselle, only to be booed and hissed by UAF agitators outside the theatre and even inside from the stalls.
“The principal ballerina is a BNP member,” they cried, before they were removed. “No fascism in the arts.” Clarke bravely danced on, however, like a real trouper, smiling throughout; I suppose ballerinas are used to smiling through pain. She was supported in her ordeal, whether she knew it or not, by a bizarre group of champions — 25 members of the BNP, including some of its top brass, and not perhaps your average balletomanes.
How I wish I had been there. All this might be serious in its way, but it is a delicious absurdity too. For one thing the English National Ballet has dancers from 19 countries, some of whom must presumably be immigrants, and possibly dark of skin; I would love to have seen the BNP neo-balletomanes’ faces as they watched these migrant swans leaping about in swathes of floating net and little wings, not to mention several men in pastel tights. How wonderful to think of the skinhead BNP top team supporting all this.
What the UAF activists are trying to achieve is to get Clarke sacked. The English National Ballet has resisted very properly; it has refused to comment on its principal dancer’s opinions, saying her views do not represent the ENB’s views, which in any case does not express any political view. The ENB is in a difficult position though, because it receives 6 million pounds of public money each year from the Arts Council, and this can and will be used by activists to put pressure on the company to distance itself from Clarke. Bectu, the broadcasting workers’ union, is making this demand and Lee Jasper, the race relations adviser to the mayor of London, joined this lamentable demonstration, saying: “The protests will continue . . . English National Ballet have got a real fight on their hands.”
This is a strange story in every way. Despite her fear of mass immigration, Clarke has an immigrant boyfriend of Chinese-Cuban descent, also a dancer; there is a hint of inconsistency here surely, and the BNP certainly finds it a touch embarrassing. And then the protesters in the street, who say that ethnic English people’s fear of immigration is nothing but irrational racism, rather undermined their own case by shouting “We are Muslim, black and Jew, there are many more of us than you” — by this threat confirming that a fear of mass immigration is not merely irrational racism. Brilliant.
All these big bold men lined up against a single rather underweight woman; it is not an edifying spectacle. If only they had the intellectual modesty that she has shown. Explaining to a newspaper that she’d been drawn to the BNP by watching the news and by their manifesto, she said: “I am not too proud to say that a lot of it went over my head, but some of the things they mentioned were things I think about all the time, mainly mass immigration, crime and increased taxes.” The world might be a better place if more people were not too proud to admit that things are complex and difficult to understand.
It is clearly too difficult for Friday’s activists to understand that free speech is indivisible. Perhaps they have forgotten the McCarthy era in America, when performing artists, particularly in Hollywood, were outed, sacked and ruined for their pro-communist views (real or alleged). That was entirely wrong, I hardly need say. But there are plenty of people, including me, who think that pro-Trotsky, pro-Stalin, pro-Mao communism, and all kinds of views expressed by people in the arts to this day, are hateful and despicable, and, I think, a great deal worse than the BNP.
That has never prompted real lovers of freedom to try to silence them; real lovers of freedom accept that to repress one hated view is as bad as repressing its opposite. It will only strengthen the hated view; by contrast the openness of freedom will weaken it, if it is wrong, as the heroic JS Mill so eloquently argued.
Besides, why should anyone take the political views of artists seriously? I know that everyone does these days, and pop stars such as Bono are called upon to pontificate on matters of global concern. But the fact that they are famous and talented does not mean that their views are worth paying attention to (rather as the BNP ballerina’s views are of no interest).
There is no law of nature according to which artists must of their nature be rational, sensible and well judging; rather the reverse tends to be true, because the arts have to do with risk, danger, experiment, originality and inconsistency. They are born out of anger, resentment, joy, contrariness and wildness, with the result that few artists have ever been balanced and well-informed political or moral philosophers.
In fact if artists were judged on their views, theatres and galleries and bookshops would be almost empty. If sensible people had tried to bring down artists of bad and daft political views we would have had no Vanessa Redgrave and no Harold Pinter. Should we ban Brecht from the stage because of his support for the odious East German regime? Come off it. People who loathe their views may love their talents. It is high time that liberals, luvvies and political activists started either to defend free speech, or stopped pretending to.
Source
A good comment from a reader of the above:
"I was in the audience for this performance and I didn't see any BNP 'skinheads' at all, if the BNP were there and I'm they were then they blended perfectly into a respectable audience. The only 'skinhead thugs' I saw were of the left-wing 'UAF' variety - so brave they arrived in a screaming mob to bully a tiny ballerina. Strange people for Tory David Cameron to ally himself with? Seems like the BNP are one of the most moderate groups around these days. Seems like the extremists are in power or even in opposition....."
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
British girl banned from wearing cross at school
A total absurdity:
A SAFETY hazard??? Something that hundreds of millions of Catholics have been doing for centuries is suddenly discovered to be unsafe? These hypocrites will grab at any excuse to enforce their anti-Christian hatreds.
British Race watchdog forces ethnic prize to admit white writers
A literary prize for writers from ethnic minorities has been forced to include entrants of all colours after complaints that it discriminated against white writers. Arts Council England and Penguin UK had to rewrite the rules a year after introducing the Decibel Penguin Prize, a short-story competition for British writers of Asian, African or Caribbean origin.
The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) decided that the prize could breach Section 29 of the Race Relations Act. Had the rules not been changed, the watchdog could have begun legal proceedings against the organisers.
The Decibel Penguin Prize was set up to encourage diversity - even though Andrea Levy, who won the Whitbread with Small Island, and Zadie Smith, who shot to fame with her first novel, White Teeth, are among bestselling ethnic-minority writers who relied on talent rather than positive discrimination. Diran Adebayo, an acclaimed British writer of Nigerian parentage, argued recently that the quality of a book mattered more than whether its author happened to be black or Asian.
Julien Crighton, a businessman from Nottingham who lodged a complaint about the prize with the CRE, told The Times that it had seemed that Penguin "were being politically correct for the sake of being politically correct. Even though the intentions might be good, it doesn't accomplish anything - particularly with public money being involved. If my children grew up to be writers they wouldn't be part of it."
Arts Council England has now confirmed that skin colour will not be a factor in future. For the second year of the contest, the focus will be "personal stories of immigrants to the UK". That way, a spokesman said, "the spirit" of the original prize can be retained.
Although the CRE said that the case was closed, the Arts Council spokesman seemed less sure. Acknowledging its acceptance of the CRE's comments and that the rules had been changed, he said: "We understand that this is an area of the law which is open to interpretation and we are in ongoing discussions with the CRE." He added: "We did check the situation beforehand. We believed we were acting lawfully, but they got in touch with us."
In recent years the funding body has undertaken various initiatives intended to ensure that the arts reflect society's diversity. It sees the Decibel prize as part of that work. The ten winners' submissions appear in a Penguin anthology. Penguin and David Lammy, the Culture Minister and the prize's patron, who is black, declined to comment. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport said: "We fully support initiatives to stimulate as wide a range of creative work as possible, from as wide a community as possible."
Source
THE DECAY OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN LEFT-DOMINATED BRITAIN
By Theodore Dalrymple
The English used to pride themselves on their fairness: what wasn’t fair wasn’t cricket. Maybe other people didn’t take them at their own estimate, but it is now beyond dispute that substantial numbers of Britons are completely without any sense of fairness or justice. For them, the law is merely one of the instruments with which they wage the perpetual war of each against all. The police and the criminal justice system well know this aspect of modern English life and have even managed to turn it to their advantage.
For an example, look at a recent case in which I was due to give evidence as a doctor: Mr A assaulted Mr B, who hitherto was his best friend, or should I say mate. (I have seen many a nose broken by a best mate.) Both were, as usual, under the influence of alcohol and other mind, or at least behaviour -altering, substances. Mr B was bloodily injured and called the police.
Source
WORKING-CLASS PUPILS BENEFIT MOST FROM SELECTIVE EDUCATION
In the light of the considerations presented below, a cynic might suggest that the continuing hatred of (selective) grammar schools emanating from the British Left is NOT about equality: it's their hope of turning the mass population into dumb docile sheep who can be pushed around by Leftist politicians. Grammar schools are and always were the best avenue of upward mobility for the British working class. Note that the BNP -- Britain's most working-class and least elite party -- pledges to restore all those that have been closed, and open them in every community that wants them.
There are three problems with our schools. We are failing to give an excellent education to cleverer boys and girls. We are failing to give a sound basic education to less able pupils, especially in deprived areas. And we are failing to stimulate the social mobility that good education makes possible.
Your educational chances, and your life chances, depend too much on where you live. The Government's City Academy programme attempts to address the problem of the underprivileged areas. It is expensive and unproven. Sadly, money and buildings do not solve all educational problems. We can expect successes and failures. On the other two problems, the Government's silence is deafening. Yet in the 21st century, Britain cannot afford to educate its people less well than the best in other countries. It is a personal tragedy as well as a national loss when many of our best youngsters are not helped to fulfill their potential. We have to educate everyone well if we are to compete with the rest of the developed world and the emerging economies of the East.
We have some very good individual schools, including some good comprehensives, but the system as a whole simply does not achieve enough. International results put Britain so far down the league tables that it must be time to look at another way of doing things. Between 2000 and 2003, for instance, the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) [And PISA is very undemanding!] showed the UK slipping from fourth to 11th in science and from eighth to 18th in maths.
However, there was one dazzlingly good result: when Pisa divided state schools from the private sector in 31 developed countries, our independent schools came top of the 62 groups. So if Britain is running the best schools in the world, why are we not also running the best state schools?
I think, after 46 years in and around teaching, that I know the answer. An outworn ideology prevents the country from learning from the successful model in its midst. One of the most important lessons is that independent schools are schools of choice. They deal with reasonably willing pupils, with teachers who care about their subjects and their students, and with parents who are supportive. Independent schools are, in the real sense of the word, selective: the parents select the school and the school selects their sons and daughters.
Where selection remains in the state system - in those English counties which have fought to retain grammar schools, and particularly in Northern Ireland - we can see its value. Their results show that selection works better, not just for the very able, but for the student body as a whole. In Northern Ireland, 10 per cent more pupils achieve five A*-C grades at GCSE than in England, and 30 per cent of A-level papers get an A grade compared to 22 per cent in England. That makes the Government's recent legislation intended to abolish selection in Northern Ireland particularly regrettable.
But education is about much more than just exam results - and as well outperforming the rest of the UK in tests, Northern Ireland also provides the model for what a selective system can achieve for social mobility. There, 42 per cent of university entrants come from less privileged backgrounds, compared to only 28 per cent in England. The concentration of our remaining grammar schools in a small number of mostly higher-income areas means that many able children from poor families miss out on the opportunities selective education can provide.
Yet it is the poor who benefit most from access to grammar schools. Recent research from the University of Bristol compared the results of selective and non-selective LEAs. While the average level of attainment was not significantly higher, the minority of children from poor families who made it to grammar schools did 'exceptionally well', bumping up their average GCSE scores by seven or eight points - equivalent to converting their grades from Bs to As. This compared to a four-point uplift for grammar-school pupils as a whole.
There is a way of extending these opportunities to pupils from all backgrounds in every part of the United Kingdom. It is not a case of reverting to the 11-plus, nor of creating a few good schools for the academically able and forgetting about the rest. A pamphlet published this week by the Centre for Policy Studies (www.cps.org.uk), Three Cheers for Selection: How Grammar Schools Help the Poor, proposes a selective system which would free schools to choose their students; which would offer ladders of opportunity to clever boys and girls from deprived areas; and which would create a national network of specialist academic schools. This is the debate we should be having: not a debate about whether or not to select, but on how to do it.
Selection is unmentionable in political circles only because it is a synonym for the 11-plus [A scholastic aptitude test once universally taken at age 11 -- which tended to dictate the child's future educational chances]. I would not want to go back to that. We should be debating more flexible methods of how best to choose pupils for schools and when. Almost everyone - except the lunatic fringe that would like university places decided by lottery - accepts selection at 18. But since good students have fallen by the wayside by then, what about 16, or 14? Why is it all right to select pupils for 'Gifted and Talented' programmes at a much younger age (and even to offer vouchers to the top 10 per cent, as the schools minister Lord Adonis proposes), but not to select them for particular schools? Why can specialist schools select 10 per cent of their intake for being good at languages or general studies, but not because they may be clever?
New polling undertaken by ICM for the Centre for Policy Studies shows that the public is no longer in agreement with the politicians. Despite the years of public argument against selection, the majority favour it. The idea that more academic children maximise their potential through streaming, or by attending selective schools, is backed by 76 per cent of the public - and 73 per cent believe that this applies to less academic children, too. Even if the majority would still opt for a mixed-ability school for their own children, as many as 40 per cent would now choose a selective school if it was on offer. More than 50 per cent were in favour of schools being set free to choose their pupils by a mix of exams, interviews and head teachers' recommendations.
The 40-year experiment with comprehensive education has failed. It was meant to provide, in Harold Wilson's words, 'grammar schools for all', and to lead to increased social mobility. It has done neither. It has not raised standards - and, as the Sutton Trust has recently shown, we now have a less mobile society than in the 1950s and 1960s. In effect, selection by ability has been replaced by selection by neighbourhood. That is neither sensible, nor egalitarian. It is time to rid ourselves of an outworn dogma and explore practical ways of making our schools as good as we can make them.
Source
BRITAIN'S CRUMBLING CLASSROOMS
Huge tax increases have led to what? Stifling bureaucracy, mainly
Hundreds of thousands of pupils will be taught in dilapidated classrooms because the Government is abandoning its targets for a 45 billion pound schools rebuilding programme. The plans, heralded by Gordon Brown in successive budget speeches, have become mired in red tape, forcing the Government to admit that three years after promising to rebuild all 3,500 secondary schools before 2020 not a single project has been completed. It expects to open just 14 of the 100 new schools it had planned to by the end of this year, according to official Department for Education and Skills figures, The Times has learnt.
Pupils, parents and teachers who had been promised new facilities are having to continue using buildings that have been described as not fit for purpose, with a lack of modern facilities and many temporary structures. The programme, Building Schools for the Future, is in such chaos that construction firms have pulled out, the official in charge has been replaced and the accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers have been brought in to review the mess.
When it launched the programme in 2004, the Government promised to spend 3 billion a year rebuilding or refurbishing every secondary school in the country over the next 15 years, in what it said was the biggest schools investment programme in Britain ever. It said that the first 100 building contracts would be signed in 2006, and the first 100 new schools would open in 2007.
But according to the figures, obtained by the Conservatives, only five building contracts have been signed and the Government now expects to open only fourteen new schools by the end of this year. The first new-generation school is not scheduled to open until this summer, in Bristol. Next year 200 schools were planned to open, but just 56 are now expected to do so. The problems mean that the Government has been unable to spend much of the money set aside by the Treasury for building schools. This financial year it has failed to spend 700 million promised by Mr Brown, and the last financial year it failed to spend 166 million.
George Osborne, the shadow Chancellor, said: “These admissions are yet more evidence of Gordon Brown’s spin on education. In every Budget and pre-Budget statement he claims to be giving more money to education, but he is still not building the new schools he promised.”
The delays have caused anger and frustration among teachers and parents. Steve Sinnett, the general-secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said the mess was “absolutely unforgiveable” and that there was no doubt that it was affecting education. “We have a building stock that is not fit for purpose. Some schools are little better than slums,” he said. Malcolm Trobe, president of the Association of School and College leaders, said: “The youngsters, parents and the community have an expectation of a new school and it’s getting delayed and delayed.”
The Department for Education and Skills has brought in Tim Byles, a former chief executive of Norfolk County Council, to take control of Partnership for Schools, the agency in charge of the programme. Mr Byles is talking to ministers about abandoning the building targets and hopes to announce new ones later this year. He told The Times: “The early forecasts were too optimistic. We need to be realistic about the timings for this programme . . . and I believe that needs to be reset in the light of experience.” The delays were a result of insisting that schools were being properly built, he added. “Do you want to get this multigenerational investment right, or roll it out as quickly as possible? We took the decision to get it right.”
But schools and construction firms blame red tape, which has made the procurement process cumbersome and expensive. They also blame a lack of expertise among local authorities and school headteachers, who have no experience of overseeing such vast building projects. Mr Byles said he was confident that the programme could be brought back on track over the next 15 to 20 years. The Department for Education said in a statement: “Addressing decades of investment will not happen overnight. We were always clear that we would learn from the lessons and get this project right. “Every child being taught in world-class facilities in 50 years time will be grateful that we took the time to get this right.” [But why does it take so long to get it right?]
Source
A total absurdity:
"A British schoolgirl has been barred from wearing a crucifix necklace in class, the Daily Mail reported Saturday. Samantha Devine, a 13-year-old Roman Catholic, was told by teachers in Gillingham, south-east England, that it breached health and safety rules, the paper added.
Her family reportedly says it will fight the decision and has accused the school of discriminating against Christians because Sikh and Muslim pupils can wear religious symbols....
The girl has pledged to keep wearing the cross when school restarts next week after the Christmas holiday. "I am proud of my religion and it is my right to wear a cross around my neck. "I can't understand why the school thinks a tiny crucifix on a thin silver necklace is a health and safety hazard," she told the Mail.
Source
A SAFETY hazard??? Something that hundreds of millions of Catholics have been doing for centuries is suddenly discovered to be unsafe? These hypocrites will grab at any excuse to enforce their anti-Christian hatreds.
British Race watchdog forces ethnic prize to admit white writers
A literary prize for writers from ethnic minorities has been forced to include entrants of all colours after complaints that it discriminated against white writers. Arts Council England and Penguin UK had to rewrite the rules a year after introducing the Decibel Penguin Prize, a short-story competition for British writers of Asian, African or Caribbean origin.
The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) decided that the prize could breach Section 29 of the Race Relations Act. Had the rules not been changed, the watchdog could have begun legal proceedings against the organisers.
The Decibel Penguin Prize was set up to encourage diversity - even though Andrea Levy, who won the Whitbread with Small Island, and Zadie Smith, who shot to fame with her first novel, White Teeth, are among bestselling ethnic-minority writers who relied on talent rather than positive discrimination. Diran Adebayo, an acclaimed British writer of Nigerian parentage, argued recently that the quality of a book mattered more than whether its author happened to be black or Asian.
Julien Crighton, a businessman from Nottingham who lodged a complaint about the prize with the CRE, told The Times that it had seemed that Penguin "were being politically correct for the sake of being politically correct. Even though the intentions might be good, it doesn't accomplish anything - particularly with public money being involved. If my children grew up to be writers they wouldn't be part of it."
Arts Council England has now confirmed that skin colour will not be a factor in future. For the second year of the contest, the focus will be "personal stories of immigrants to the UK". That way, a spokesman said, "the spirit" of the original prize can be retained.
Although the CRE said that the case was closed, the Arts Council spokesman seemed less sure. Acknowledging its acceptance of the CRE's comments and that the rules had been changed, he said: "We understand that this is an area of the law which is open to interpretation and we are in ongoing discussions with the CRE." He added: "We did check the situation beforehand. We believed we were acting lawfully, but they got in touch with us."
In recent years the funding body has undertaken various initiatives intended to ensure that the arts reflect society's diversity. It sees the Decibel prize as part of that work. The ten winners' submissions appear in a Penguin anthology. Penguin and David Lammy, the Culture Minister and the prize's patron, who is black, declined to comment. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport said: "We fully support initiatives to stimulate as wide a range of creative work as possible, from as wide a community as possible."
Source
THE DECAY OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN LEFT-DOMINATED BRITAIN
By Theodore Dalrymple
The English used to pride themselves on their fairness: what wasn’t fair wasn’t cricket. Maybe other people didn’t take them at their own estimate, but it is now beyond dispute that substantial numbers of Britons are completely without any sense of fairness or justice. For them, the law is merely one of the instruments with which they wage the perpetual war of each against all. The police and the criminal justice system well know this aspect of modern English life and have even managed to turn it to their advantage.
For an example, look at a recent case in which I was due to give evidence as a doctor: Mr A assaulted Mr B, who hitherto was his best friend, or should I say mate. (I have seen many a nose broken by a best mate.) Both were, as usual, under the influence of alcohol and other mind, or at least behaviour -altering, substances. Mr B was bloodily injured and called the police.
By the time they arrived, Mr A had left the scene. The police took a statement from Mr B, and then, about a week later, arrested Mr A. Because of what is known in the trade as “previous”, or sometimes as “form”, the magistrates remanded Mr A into custody.
On the day of the trial Mr B did not turn up to give evidence — unlike me. There was a vague rumour that he wanted to withdraw his complaint. The trial was adjourned for two weeks, but on the second occasion Mr B still did not turn up — again unlike me and unlike a different legal team for both the prosecution and defence. The question arose whether he should be summonsed. In the meantime Mr A escaped from custody. A week later he was rearrested and tried for his escape.
Meanwhile, the original charges will not go ahead because Mr B has made it clear that he will not testify. Whether Mr A has successfully intimidated Mr B, or whether Mr B has thought better of it, and does not wish to be known on his housing estate as a grass, cannot be known.
The result of the expenditure of thousands, probably scores of thousands, on this case — readers might be relieved to know that very little of it ended up in my pocket — is as follows: if Mr A were guilty of the assault he would have got away with it, bar the slap on the wrist he received for escaping from custody; if he were innocent, he would have felt aggrieved at yet another injustice committed against him, which reinforced his casus belli against the whole of society.
Would Mr B be charged with wasting police time, I enquired naively? Oh no, I was told by lawyers on several sides of this case, we don’t do things like that. Anyway, what was I worrying about: as a barrister once said to console me when I complained of having waited three days in court without having given my evidence: “The meter’s still ticking.”
Cases such as the one I have outlined are very common. All my doctor and lawyer friends are familiar with them. Their prevalence is part of the dialectical relationship between the degeneration of the public service, which is now a vast trough from which a large class of educated people feed, and the appalling behaviour of the public that makes the expansion of the public service necessary, or at least justifies it, in the first place. As a 16th-century German bishop put it, “the poor are a gold mine”.
Lack of integrity and straightforwardness have a corrosive effect on the entire population. The police are now institutionally devious, if I may coin a phrase. A recent book by a PC Copperfield, called Wasting Police Time, tells us how the police improve their abominably low clear-up rates by various scams, for example charging both parties to a neighbourly scuffle with a crime, and getting both parties to make statements against the other on the promise that no charges will be brought.
Hey presto, two crimes have been solved for the price of one incident, to which almost certainly the police should not have been called in the first place. As to the burglary across the road, the householder will be lucky to receive any attention from the police other than a crime number.
Surely the imperative for high clear-up rates, and the tendency of a part of the population to use the police for purely temporary and personal ends, could be solved by increasing the number of prosecutions for wasting police time, at least until the habit of wasting police time itself became less widespread.
In the meantime, comrades (to quote the late Josef Stalin in another context), life is getting ever better, ever merrier: at least for the apparatchiks and nomenklatura of that vast organism that is spreading faster than killer bugs in the hospitals under its jurisdiction, the public administration of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Source
WORKING-CLASS PUPILS BENEFIT MOST FROM SELECTIVE EDUCATION
In the light of the considerations presented below, a cynic might suggest that the continuing hatred of (selective) grammar schools emanating from the British Left is NOT about equality: it's their hope of turning the mass population into dumb docile sheep who can be pushed around by Leftist politicians. Grammar schools are and always were the best avenue of upward mobility for the British working class. Note that the BNP -- Britain's most working-class and least elite party -- pledges to restore all those that have been closed, and open them in every community that wants them.
There are three problems with our schools. We are failing to give an excellent education to cleverer boys and girls. We are failing to give a sound basic education to less able pupils, especially in deprived areas. And we are failing to stimulate the social mobility that good education makes possible.
Your educational chances, and your life chances, depend too much on where you live. The Government's City Academy programme attempts to address the problem of the underprivileged areas. It is expensive and unproven. Sadly, money and buildings do not solve all educational problems. We can expect successes and failures. On the other two problems, the Government's silence is deafening. Yet in the 21st century, Britain cannot afford to educate its people less well than the best in other countries. It is a personal tragedy as well as a national loss when many of our best youngsters are not helped to fulfill their potential. We have to educate everyone well if we are to compete with the rest of the developed world and the emerging economies of the East.
We have some very good individual schools, including some good comprehensives, but the system as a whole simply does not achieve enough. International results put Britain so far down the league tables that it must be time to look at another way of doing things. Between 2000 and 2003, for instance, the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) [And PISA is very undemanding!] showed the UK slipping from fourth to 11th in science and from eighth to 18th in maths.
However, there was one dazzlingly good result: when Pisa divided state schools from the private sector in 31 developed countries, our independent schools came top of the 62 groups. So if Britain is running the best schools in the world, why are we not also running the best state schools?
I think, after 46 years in and around teaching, that I know the answer. An outworn ideology prevents the country from learning from the successful model in its midst. One of the most important lessons is that independent schools are schools of choice. They deal with reasonably willing pupils, with teachers who care about their subjects and their students, and with parents who are supportive. Independent schools are, in the real sense of the word, selective: the parents select the school and the school selects their sons and daughters.
Where selection remains in the state system - in those English counties which have fought to retain grammar schools, and particularly in Northern Ireland - we can see its value. Their results show that selection works better, not just for the very able, but for the student body as a whole. In Northern Ireland, 10 per cent more pupils achieve five A*-C grades at GCSE than in England, and 30 per cent of A-level papers get an A grade compared to 22 per cent in England. That makes the Government's recent legislation intended to abolish selection in Northern Ireland particularly regrettable.
But education is about much more than just exam results - and as well outperforming the rest of the UK in tests, Northern Ireland also provides the model for what a selective system can achieve for social mobility. There, 42 per cent of university entrants come from less privileged backgrounds, compared to only 28 per cent in England. The concentration of our remaining grammar schools in a small number of mostly higher-income areas means that many able children from poor families miss out on the opportunities selective education can provide.
Yet it is the poor who benefit most from access to grammar schools. Recent research from the University of Bristol compared the results of selective and non-selective LEAs. While the average level of attainment was not significantly higher, the minority of children from poor families who made it to grammar schools did 'exceptionally well', bumping up their average GCSE scores by seven or eight points - equivalent to converting their grades from Bs to As. This compared to a four-point uplift for grammar-school pupils as a whole.
There is a way of extending these opportunities to pupils from all backgrounds in every part of the United Kingdom. It is not a case of reverting to the 11-plus, nor of creating a few good schools for the academically able and forgetting about the rest. A pamphlet published this week by the Centre for Policy Studies (www.cps.org.uk), Three Cheers for Selection: How Grammar Schools Help the Poor, proposes a selective system which would free schools to choose their students; which would offer ladders of opportunity to clever boys and girls from deprived areas; and which would create a national network of specialist academic schools. This is the debate we should be having: not a debate about whether or not to select, but on how to do it.
Selection is unmentionable in political circles only because it is a synonym for the 11-plus [A scholastic aptitude test once universally taken at age 11 -- which tended to dictate the child's future educational chances]. I would not want to go back to that. We should be debating more flexible methods of how best to choose pupils for schools and when. Almost everyone - except the lunatic fringe that would like university places decided by lottery - accepts selection at 18. But since good students have fallen by the wayside by then, what about 16, or 14? Why is it all right to select pupils for 'Gifted and Talented' programmes at a much younger age (and even to offer vouchers to the top 10 per cent, as the schools minister Lord Adonis proposes), but not to select them for particular schools? Why can specialist schools select 10 per cent of their intake for being good at languages or general studies, but not because they may be clever?
New polling undertaken by ICM for the Centre for Policy Studies shows that the public is no longer in agreement with the politicians. Despite the years of public argument against selection, the majority favour it. The idea that more academic children maximise their potential through streaming, or by attending selective schools, is backed by 76 per cent of the public - and 73 per cent believe that this applies to less academic children, too. Even if the majority would still opt for a mixed-ability school for their own children, as many as 40 per cent would now choose a selective school if it was on offer. More than 50 per cent were in favour of schools being set free to choose their pupils by a mix of exams, interviews and head teachers' recommendations.
The 40-year experiment with comprehensive education has failed. It was meant to provide, in Harold Wilson's words, 'grammar schools for all', and to lead to increased social mobility. It has done neither. It has not raised standards - and, as the Sutton Trust has recently shown, we now have a less mobile society than in the 1950s and 1960s. In effect, selection by ability has been replaced by selection by neighbourhood. That is neither sensible, nor egalitarian. It is time to rid ourselves of an outworn dogma and explore practical ways of making our schools as good as we can make them.
Source
BRITAIN'S CRUMBLING CLASSROOMS
Huge tax increases have led to what? Stifling bureaucracy, mainly
Hundreds of thousands of pupils will be taught in dilapidated classrooms because the Government is abandoning its targets for a 45 billion pound schools rebuilding programme. The plans, heralded by Gordon Brown in successive budget speeches, have become mired in red tape, forcing the Government to admit that three years after promising to rebuild all 3,500 secondary schools before 2020 not a single project has been completed. It expects to open just 14 of the 100 new schools it had planned to by the end of this year, according to official Department for Education and Skills figures, The Times has learnt.
Pupils, parents and teachers who had been promised new facilities are having to continue using buildings that have been described as not fit for purpose, with a lack of modern facilities and many temporary structures. The programme, Building Schools for the Future, is in such chaos that construction firms have pulled out, the official in charge has been replaced and the accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers have been brought in to review the mess.
When it launched the programme in 2004, the Government promised to spend 3 billion a year rebuilding or refurbishing every secondary school in the country over the next 15 years, in what it said was the biggest schools investment programme in Britain ever. It said that the first 100 building contracts would be signed in 2006, and the first 100 new schools would open in 2007.
But according to the figures, obtained by the Conservatives, only five building contracts have been signed and the Government now expects to open only fourteen new schools by the end of this year. The first new-generation school is not scheduled to open until this summer, in Bristol. Next year 200 schools were planned to open, but just 56 are now expected to do so. The problems mean that the Government has been unable to spend much of the money set aside by the Treasury for building schools. This financial year it has failed to spend 700 million promised by Mr Brown, and the last financial year it failed to spend 166 million.
George Osborne, the shadow Chancellor, said: “These admissions are yet more evidence of Gordon Brown’s spin on education. In every Budget and pre-Budget statement he claims to be giving more money to education, but he is still not building the new schools he promised.”
The delays have caused anger and frustration among teachers and parents. Steve Sinnett, the general-secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said the mess was “absolutely unforgiveable” and that there was no doubt that it was affecting education. “We have a building stock that is not fit for purpose. Some schools are little better than slums,” he said. Malcolm Trobe, president of the Association of School and College leaders, said: “The youngsters, parents and the community have an expectation of a new school and it’s getting delayed and delayed.”
The Department for Education and Skills has brought in Tim Byles, a former chief executive of Norfolk County Council, to take control of Partnership for Schools, the agency in charge of the programme. Mr Byles is talking to ministers about abandoning the building targets and hopes to announce new ones later this year. He told The Times: “The early forecasts were too optimistic. We need to be realistic about the timings for this programme . . . and I believe that needs to be reset in the light of experience.” The delays were a result of insisting that schools were being properly built, he added. “Do you want to get this multigenerational investment right, or roll it out as quickly as possible? We took the decision to get it right.”
But schools and construction firms blame red tape, which has made the procurement process cumbersome and expensive. They also blame a lack of expertise among local authorities and school headteachers, who have no experience of overseeing such vast building projects. Mr Byles said he was confident that the programme could be brought back on track over the next 15 to 20 years. The Department for Education said in a statement: “Addressing decades of investment will not happen overnight. We were always clear that we would learn from the lessons and get this project right. “Every child being taught in world-class facilities in 50 years time will be grateful that we took the time to get this right.” [But why does it take so long to get it right?]
Source
Monday, January 15, 2007
EU BRAINWASHING IN BRITISH SCHOOLS
The EU has been accused of using underhand means in the classroom to try to 'brainwash' British children into becoming enthusiastic supporters of the European project. A new teaching pack on the EU has been introduced for use in Key Stage 3 and 4 'citizenship' classes that claims to offer a balanced view of the organisation and its role. The taxpayer-funded materials - available to schools in bulk and at no cost from the European Parliament's UK office - hail the effectiveness of EU legislation on everything from smoking and workers' rights to genetically modified organisms and food labelling.
But Eurosceptics were up in arms last night about elements of the lesson notes and pupil worksheets, which guide teachers and pupils in 'de-bunking' the views of a man who is critical of a lack of democracy in the EU. The UK Independence Party, which blew the whistle on the pack, also attacked the way the Eurosceptic character featured in the pupil worksheets - 'Portsmouth plumber Charlie Bolton' - is an ageing, white man who contrasts with other young, smiling, fresh-faced people. Below a chart showing how the various institutions of the EU, such as the European Parliament and European Commission, interact, Charlie Bolton says: 'Europe - it's just faceless bureaucrats - none of them elected. 'And they impose their laws on us from Brussels whenever they fancy. All that red tape to make our lives harder.'
It then guides pupils to reject the notion that the EU is anti-democratic by reminding them of the elected European Parliament. 'Do you agree with Charlie? What does the flow chart tell you about how laws are made?' it asks. The teacher is also instructed to show pupils how to counter his argument and to lead the pupils to conclude that he is wrong and that the EU is democratic. The lesson plan reads: 'Discuss Charlie Bolton's attitude to EU legislation. If Charlie knew that the Members of the European Parliament are elected and that the Council of Ministers represents our governments, do the students think that he would change his mind?'
Yorkshire's UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom hit out last night at the pack, branding it 'bias and propaganda, masquerading as neutral fact'. 'At a time when the Government has been downplaying Britain's history and political traditions in our schools, taxpayers are instead forced to pay for our children to learn EU systems,' he said. 'Given that up to 75 per cent of our laws are now made in Brussels, I suppose it does make some sense, but I am sure that most parents would want their children to learn our political systems and institutions rather those that are being imposed upon us. 'It is obvious that the EU has given up on persuading the grown ups, so now they have started on the children.'
Shipley's Tory MP Philip Davies, spokesman for the Better Off Out campaign, added: 'The EU gets more like the Soviet Union every day when it resorts to brainwashing children. 'All it does is confirm my worst fears. 'But it's not just Charlie Bolton who's sick of the EU - opinion polls show that more and more people are fed up with membership and now a majority of businesses are against it. 'It smacks of utter desperation on their part because they know they've been rumbled.'
The European Parliament insists that the pack is impartial and that it helps pupils make their own minds up about the EU. 'The resources have been designed to offer a balanced introduction to the European Union and the European Parliament, to encourage students to take part in discussion and to form their own view on the subjects covered in the resources,' say the officials responsible for the pack
Source
British Labour party minister axed 2,700 special needs places
RUTH KELLY, who was heavily criticised last week for educating her dyslexic son privately, presided over the closure of more state special school places annually than any other Labour education secretary since 1997, new figures show. In 2005, the only full year Kelly ran the education department, school closures led to the loss of more than 2,600 places for children with special needs. The closures continued in 2006, when Kelly was in charge until May.
Source
Future Prime Minister Gordon Brown can’t cure Britain's paralysed NHS, so he plans to privatise it
The former Granada boss Sir Gerry Robinson recently spent six months trying to reform Rotherham general hospital. The result was shown in three hours of fly-on-the-wall television on BBC2 last week. It was rightly put after the watershed: as politics it was certificate 18. At the end of each day Robinson could be seen slumped in the back of his car, his face buried in his hands. A tycoon sobbing in a limousine is the perfect icon of Labour’s health service.
Source
MORE SLAVERY NONSENSE
"Look how big-hearted I am" is the real message
The Archbishops of Canterbury and York are to lead thousands of "pilgrims" carrying a giant cross through London to repent for the Church of England's complicity in the slave trade. Moments of quiet reflection will punctuate the procession as African drummers beat a sombre lament. The march will culminate in a symbolic "release from the past", possibly in the form of a replica slave auction notice being torn up or shackles being removed from the cross. The "walk of witness" on March 24 coincides with the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade. It is the latest stage in the church's repentance since February last year, when the General Synod voted to apologise for its involvement in slavery.
Displays of remorse have been spearheaded by politicians. Just two months ago Tony Blair expressed his "deep sorrow" for Britain's role in the transatlantic slave trade, although he stopped short of a full apology. John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, is leading the national commemorations. Organisations including English Heritage and the National Trust have joined in, expressing regret that some of the properties they own were built with slave money.
According to draft plans, churches across Britain are being encouraged to bus up to 8,000 parishioners to London for the "act of public witness". Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, who grew up in Uganda and has described how his forebears were among those enslaved, hope the event will signal the "beginning of a healing process".
This weekend one of the march's organisers denied the church was indulging in "hand-wringing" and compared the slave trade to the Holocaust. "We are still living with the legacy of slavery," said Rose Hudson-Wilkin, chairwoman of the church's Committee for Minority Ethnic Anglican Concerns. "Black people are saying, `Hey, we had our own Holocaust, too. We had millions killed and we want this acknowledged'."
Critics, however, believe that laying all the blame for slavery on Europeans is misleading. Arabs traded slaves from a much earlier date, while African kings and merchants were responsible for capturing their kinsmen and selling them to traders in exchange for goods and firearms. ....
The climax of the service is likely to be the symbolic "release from the past", followed by a "song of freedom". Worshippers will be asked to sign a petition calling on the government to take action against modern-day slavery, such as sex trafficking from eastern Europe. Last year's synod was told how the church's missionary arm, the Society for the Propagation of the Faith in Foreign Parts, owned the Codrington plantation in Barbados where slaves had the word "society" branded on their chests.
Source
AS TORY PEERS DEFECT, DAVID CAMERON IS WORRIED THAT CLIMATE HYPE WON'T BUY HIM VOTES
British opposition leader David Cameron said on Wednesday he was trying to recapture the climate change issue from the "doom mongers" and said it was important to show people there were positive reasons for saving energy. Cameron has made the environment a priority since taking over the leadership of the Conservative Party in late 2005, helping the party build a lead over Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour Party in most opinion polls. Blair has said he will step down this year although the next general election is not due until 2009.
Cameron said he was not trying to scare people into voting by talking about the environmental challenges facing the world. "I've been trying to recapture the environment and climate change from the sort of doom mongers. I mean if this is all about doom and gloom and taxes, we're not going to persuade people to come with us," he said in an interview to be broadcast by Sky News on Wednesday. "If you switch to a hybrid car you can cut the cost of your transport. If you cycle to work every now and again you feel fit and healthy. There's a good positive reason for doing these things which is not just about money -- it's about your own well-being," he said. "If we can convince people of that, then I think we're half-way there," he added. The key was not to try to be a "hair shirt-wearing doomster", he said. "We've got to try and make the environment and climate change uplifting and fun and interesting ..."
On Tuesday, Blair drew fire from environmentalists for refusing to commit to giving up long-haul holiday flights in the interests of combating global warming. Blair, who has championed international action to counter climate change, said individuals could make a difference on global warming but what mattered was an international agreement. Blair's spokesman said later the prime minister asked earlier this week for all his personal travel to be "offset", which works by investing funds in energy efficiency or forestry projects to counter greenhouse gas emissions from travel.
As British political parties compete for environmental leadership, Cameron is having solar panels and a wind turbine installed at his London home. Some of his attempts to prove his environmental credentials have backfired, such as when it was revealed that his chauffeur drove behind with his briefcase and a change of clothes when he cycled to work. Cameron said "green" taxes should be mainly aimed at changing behaviour rather than at raising revenue. "I think the right thing to do is to see the share of taxes taken by green taxes go up and then at the same time, take taxes on other things down," he said.
Source
British Leftist Councils Misuse Indian Name
A group of Left-leaning British local authorities are using the name "Navajo" to glorify homosexuality -- which has greatly upset the REAL Navajo Indians in the US, who don't like anyone using their name -- and particularly for something contrary to Navajo law!
And the British group don't seem too apologetic about it. Considering the fuss the PC brigade in the US make about how the positive use of Indian tribal names in college sports teams *might* offend American Indians, this is priceless. I wonder who will be attending the diversity training this time?
It does show rather clearly that it is not the protection of minority feelings that motivates the Left. It is condemning the majority that they aim at -- in order to puff themselves up as wiser and better. There is no mainstream use of Indian names to condemn in Britain, so all that wonderful Leftist "sensitivity" vanishes.
The EU has been accused of using underhand means in the classroom to try to 'brainwash' British children into becoming enthusiastic supporters of the European project. A new teaching pack on the EU has been introduced for use in Key Stage 3 and 4 'citizenship' classes that claims to offer a balanced view of the organisation and its role. The taxpayer-funded materials - available to schools in bulk and at no cost from the European Parliament's UK office - hail the effectiveness of EU legislation on everything from smoking and workers' rights to genetically modified organisms and food labelling.
But Eurosceptics were up in arms last night about elements of the lesson notes and pupil worksheets, which guide teachers and pupils in 'de-bunking' the views of a man who is critical of a lack of democracy in the EU. The UK Independence Party, which blew the whistle on the pack, also attacked the way the Eurosceptic character featured in the pupil worksheets - 'Portsmouth plumber Charlie Bolton' - is an ageing, white man who contrasts with other young, smiling, fresh-faced people. Below a chart showing how the various institutions of the EU, such as the European Parliament and European Commission, interact, Charlie Bolton says: 'Europe - it's just faceless bureaucrats - none of them elected. 'And they impose their laws on us from Brussels whenever they fancy. All that red tape to make our lives harder.'
It then guides pupils to reject the notion that the EU is anti-democratic by reminding them of the elected European Parliament. 'Do you agree with Charlie? What does the flow chart tell you about how laws are made?' it asks. The teacher is also instructed to show pupils how to counter his argument and to lead the pupils to conclude that he is wrong and that the EU is democratic. The lesson plan reads: 'Discuss Charlie Bolton's attitude to EU legislation. If Charlie knew that the Members of the European Parliament are elected and that the Council of Ministers represents our governments, do the students think that he would change his mind?'
Yorkshire's UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom hit out last night at the pack, branding it 'bias and propaganda, masquerading as neutral fact'. 'At a time when the Government has been downplaying Britain's history and political traditions in our schools, taxpayers are instead forced to pay for our children to learn EU systems,' he said. 'Given that up to 75 per cent of our laws are now made in Brussels, I suppose it does make some sense, but I am sure that most parents would want their children to learn our political systems and institutions rather those that are being imposed upon us. 'It is obvious that the EU has given up on persuading the grown ups, so now they have started on the children.'
Shipley's Tory MP Philip Davies, spokesman for the Better Off Out campaign, added: 'The EU gets more like the Soviet Union every day when it resorts to brainwashing children. 'All it does is confirm my worst fears. 'But it's not just Charlie Bolton who's sick of the EU - opinion polls show that more and more people are fed up with membership and now a majority of businesses are against it. 'It smacks of utter desperation on their part because they know they've been rumbled.'
The European Parliament insists that the pack is impartial and that it helps pupils make their own minds up about the EU. 'The resources have been designed to offer a balanced introduction to the European Union and the European Parliament, to encourage students to take part in discussion and to form their own view on the subjects covered in the resources,' say the officials responsible for the pack
Source
British Labour party minister axed 2,700 special needs places
RUTH KELLY, who was heavily criticised last week for educating her dyslexic son privately, presided over the closure of more state special school places annually than any other Labour education secretary since 1997, new figures show. In 2005, the only full year Kelly ran the education department, school closures led to the loss of more than 2,600 places for children with special needs. The closures continued in 2006, when Kelly was in charge until May.
Her record has angered parents who cannot afford private education and rely on state schools where there is often inadequate expertise.
The figures add to the claims of hypocrisy faced by Kelly, now the communities secretary, when it emerged she was prepared to spend £15,000 a year on a place at a private school in Oxfordshire.
She defended the decision on the grounds that her local council, Tower Hamlets in east London, could not provide for her son’s “particular and substantial learning difficulties”. The nine-year-old is understood to have dyslexia and dyspraxia, which affects co-ordination.
David Willetts, the shadow education secretary, who asked the question that led to the figures emerging, said he backed a moratorium on closures. “Every week I get letters protesting at special schools being closed,” he said. “It is an incredibly sensitive subject.”
The figures obtained by Willetts show that 2,770 places in special schools were closed in 2005 and another 2,051 in 2006. Some of these have been replaced by small units attached to mainstream schools.
Local councils have been under pressure to close special schools in an inclusion drive by Labour to educate children in mainstream schools wherever possible.
However, in 2005, as the closure of special schools was gathering pace under Kelly, Baroness Warnock, whose 1978 report on special educational needs paved the way for the policy, admitted it was leaving “a disastrous legacy”.
Last year there was a slight policy shift when Lord Adonis, schools minister, said there would be a tightening of conditions that had to be met before special schools could be closed.
Jackie Gibbon from Hereford whose nine-year- old daughter is dyslexic and dyspraxic, said: “I’d love to be in Ruth Kelly’s position, but we can’t afford it.”
Source
Future Prime Minister Gordon Brown can’t cure Britain's paralysed NHS, so he plans to privatise it
The former Granada boss Sir Gerry Robinson recently spent six months trying to reform Rotherham general hospital. The result was shown in three hours of fly-on-the-wall television on BBC2 last week. It was rightly put after the watershed: as politics it was certificate 18. At the end of each day Robinson could be seen slumped in the back of his car, his face buried in his hands. A tycoon sobbing in a limousine is the perfect icon of Labour’s health service.
So die all who try to reform the National Health Service. They have been doing so since a despairing Margaret Thatcher appointed Roy Griffiths, boss of Sainsbury’s, to the task in 1983. The NHS is the North-West Frontier of the public sector. If the health union Tajiks don’t get you, the Pashtun consultants will. You can throw as many men into the Khyber Pass as you like but they never return.
The one laugh in the programme was Robinson’s conclusion that the NHS was “unmanaged”. Yet each frame was crammed with managers falling over each other, with clipboards, pagers, consultancy reports and meeting agendas. There were nursing managers, surgical managers, recovery managers, manager managers, chief executive managers. The one thing they did not do was manage but that, of course, was not their fault.
Through this jungle wandered a charismatic megaspecies, the consultants, whom everyone agreed were “unmanageable”. They were like the weather, an immutable constant. It did not matter what the NHS or its patients wanted, the consultants ruled, which enabled everyone else to be equally obtuse. They seemed to regard their first duty as to the heraldic privileges of their specialist tribe, be it paediatrician, anaesthetist or ophthalmologist.
We watched the consultants, often in league with “health and safety”, blocking rationalisation of a system that had some of them doing three operations a morning and some seven. They demanded their own anaesthetists, who in turn demanded their own schedules. Surgeons wandered in and out of their private practices as waiting lists stretched over the horizon. NHS productivity would not improve because the fruit machine never yielded oranges in a row. There was always a lemon in the way — unless you were lucky enough to have Robinson and a television camera to move it.
The message of Robinson’s inquiry was devastating and explains the ostensibly terminal chaos enveloping the NHS under Patricia Hewitt. The central arm of government, the Treasury, has clearly given up on NHS reform. No government, Labour or Tory, has the guts to break the consultants’ restrictive practices, the GPs’ “lifestyle” demands or the healthcare unions. The Treasury itself capitulated to the unions by rubber-stamping the ridiculously expensive 2004 NHS pay deal, depriving Britons for the first time of proper out-of-hours GP cover.
After a quarter century of seeing money piling up in the upper echelons of the NHS, and being wasted on management consultants and useless computers, the paymasters have had enough. While Thatcher hoped for reform by shoving the private sector into the NHS, Gordon Brown is shoving the NHS into the private sector. If Rotherham hospital can do only half a dozen cataracts a session when it has capacity for 20 or 30, why not give the job to a bunch of South Africans in a caravan in the car park? Outsource routine operations. Switch a few regional general hospitals to accident and acute care and let the public drive to find them. Hence the decision to subcontract 40% of NHS operations to something called a “partners’ network” (Blairism for the private sector). We can hear a muffled cheer rising over the Thatcher home in Chester Square.
Treasury loss of faith in the corporate NHS has all but collapsed public investment in the hospital service, switching some £12 billion of it to private finance. This will be astronomically expensive, consuming reserves that would previously have gone on healthcare. The new Woolwich hospital must find £100m a year from its revenue budget and the Royal London and Barts £120m to service private loans forced on them by the Treasury in the fond belief that private money is more “efficient”.
More alarming is that internal pricing and payment-per-treatment will leave these mastodons financially exposed through loss of business to the private sector. In an attempt to favour this sector, the Treasury and Hewitt are refusing to allow NHS hospitals to cut tariffs to compete. Small wonder James Johnson, the British Medical Association chairman, parodied Blair’s 1997 battle cry, “24 hours to save the NHS” by saying there was now “one year to save the NHS”.
Many hospital trusts are building up large deficits that they cannot possibly cover; 29 are contemplating some 60 “reconfigurations”, code for closures, at a time when Hewitt is also talking of somehow building 50 cottage hospitals. She must also now contend with 11 of her ministerial colleagues declared to be in open opposition. Meanwhile manpower planning is in disarray, with hiring cuts or freezes almost everywhere and a reported surplus of 3,200 expensively trained NHS consultants by 2010.
How this has been achieved despite five years of 7% annual real rises in health spending is no mystery. A lethal coalition of medical staff and private financiers is walking away with the money. Few demoralised managers will bother to imitate Robinson’s efforts at Rotherham when the lead from Whitehall is to capitulate. Since many trusts are supposedly free-standing — which means bankruptable — it is possible that swathes of the NHS will end the decade in the notional ownership of City banks. Yet even this, for Brown, is preferable to the existing NHS.
The Robinson programme showed what amounted to the collapse of the “public service ethos” in Britain. The government would ideally like to privatise not just the bulk of the NHS but the Post Office, the probation service, the jobcentre network and, it was reported last week, most care of the elderly.
It has clearly lost confidence in the capacity of public officials to administer services (as opposed to regulate and form policy in Whitehall). That this should be the work of a Labour government is ironic since the purpose is to circumvent those classic legacies of socialism: trade unions and the risk aversion of large organisations.
Nothing better illustrates this than the shambles at the Home Office where privatisation is of limited application. Its capacity to administer a service, be it immigration, drug treatment or prisons, has all but failed. Its boss, John Reid, has rewritten the rulebook of corporate accountability. He will take no collective responsibility for the actions of his forebears as home secretary, though he sat in the same cabinet as them. Nor will he take blame for any decision if he can prove he was “not told about it”. Bang goes the theory of corporate negligence.
The catalogue of Whitehall organisations no longer fit for purpose is lengthening by the week. It embraces the farm payments agency, the child support agency, the immigration service and the criminal assets recovery agency.
In the old days such fiascos would have led to parliamentary uproar and heads rolling. Nowadays they are part of the tragic Whitehall soap opera, cause for rejoicing only among civil servants leaving to join management consultancies and parastatals such as Capita and Serco.
It is hard to imagine what morale must be like among officials in the Home Office or health department. Perhaps the public service ethos is out of date, irretrievably polluted by trade unionism and bureaucratic protectionism. Perhaps it is true that only the hope of personal gain will induce Britons to help their fellow men and women.
Source
MORE SLAVERY NONSENSE
"Look how big-hearted I am" is the real message
The Archbishops of Canterbury and York are to lead thousands of "pilgrims" carrying a giant cross through London to repent for the Church of England's complicity in the slave trade. Moments of quiet reflection will punctuate the procession as African drummers beat a sombre lament. The march will culminate in a symbolic "release from the past", possibly in the form of a replica slave auction notice being torn up or shackles being removed from the cross. The "walk of witness" on March 24 coincides with the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade. It is the latest stage in the church's repentance since February last year, when the General Synod voted to apologise for its involvement in slavery.
Displays of remorse have been spearheaded by politicians. Just two months ago Tony Blair expressed his "deep sorrow" for Britain's role in the transatlantic slave trade, although he stopped short of a full apology. John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, is leading the national commemorations. Organisations including English Heritage and the National Trust have joined in, expressing regret that some of the properties they own were built with slave money.
According to draft plans, churches across Britain are being encouraged to bus up to 8,000 parishioners to London for the "act of public witness". Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, who grew up in Uganda and has described how his forebears were among those enslaved, hope the event will signal the "beginning of a healing process".
This weekend one of the march's organisers denied the church was indulging in "hand-wringing" and compared the slave trade to the Holocaust. "We are still living with the legacy of slavery," said Rose Hudson-Wilkin, chairwoman of the church's Committee for Minority Ethnic Anglican Concerns. "Black people are saying, `Hey, we had our own Holocaust, too. We had millions killed and we want this acknowledged'."
Critics, however, believe that laying all the blame for slavery on Europeans is misleading. Arabs traded slaves from a much earlier date, while African kings and merchants were responsible for capturing their kinsmen and selling them to traders in exchange for goods and firearms. ....
The climax of the service is likely to be the symbolic "release from the past", followed by a "song of freedom". Worshippers will be asked to sign a petition calling on the government to take action against modern-day slavery, such as sex trafficking from eastern Europe. Last year's synod was told how the church's missionary arm, the Society for the Propagation of the Faith in Foreign Parts, owned the Codrington plantation in Barbados where slaves had the word "society" branded on their chests.
Source
AS TORY PEERS DEFECT, DAVID CAMERON IS WORRIED THAT CLIMATE HYPE WON'T BUY HIM VOTES
British opposition leader David Cameron said on Wednesday he was trying to recapture the climate change issue from the "doom mongers" and said it was important to show people there were positive reasons for saving energy. Cameron has made the environment a priority since taking over the leadership of the Conservative Party in late 2005, helping the party build a lead over Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour Party in most opinion polls. Blair has said he will step down this year although the next general election is not due until 2009.
Cameron said he was not trying to scare people into voting by talking about the environmental challenges facing the world. "I've been trying to recapture the environment and climate change from the sort of doom mongers. I mean if this is all about doom and gloom and taxes, we're not going to persuade people to come with us," he said in an interview to be broadcast by Sky News on Wednesday. "If you switch to a hybrid car you can cut the cost of your transport. If you cycle to work every now and again you feel fit and healthy. There's a good positive reason for doing these things which is not just about money -- it's about your own well-being," he said. "If we can convince people of that, then I think we're half-way there," he added. The key was not to try to be a "hair shirt-wearing doomster", he said. "We've got to try and make the environment and climate change uplifting and fun and interesting ..."
On Tuesday, Blair drew fire from environmentalists for refusing to commit to giving up long-haul holiday flights in the interests of combating global warming. Blair, who has championed international action to counter climate change, said individuals could make a difference on global warming but what mattered was an international agreement. Blair's spokesman said later the prime minister asked earlier this week for all his personal travel to be "offset", which works by investing funds in energy efficiency or forestry projects to counter greenhouse gas emissions from travel.
As British political parties compete for environmental leadership, Cameron is having solar panels and a wind turbine installed at his London home. Some of his attempts to prove his environmental credentials have backfired, such as when it was revealed that his chauffeur drove behind with his briefcase and a change of clothes when he cycled to work. Cameron said "green" taxes should be mainly aimed at changing behaviour rather than at raising revenue. "I think the right thing to do is to see the share of taxes taken by green taxes go up and then at the same time, take taxes on other things down," he said.
Source
British Leftist Councils Misuse Indian Name
A group of Left-leaning British local authorities are using the name "Navajo" to glorify homosexuality -- which has greatly upset the REAL Navajo Indians in the US, who don't like anyone using their name -- and particularly for something contrary to Navajo law!
And the British group don't seem too apologetic about it. Considering the fuss the PC brigade in the US make about how the positive use of Indian tribal names in college sports teams *might* offend American Indians, this is priceless. I wonder who will be attending the diversity training this time?
It does show rather clearly that it is not the protection of minority feelings that motivates the Left. It is condemning the majority that they aim at -- in order to puff themselves up as wiser and better. There is no mainstream use of Indian names to condemn in Britain, so all that wonderful Leftist "sensitivity" vanishes.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Leftists still attacking private political beliefs in others
We read:
Leftists will use any excuse to get publicity for themselves.
THE LATEST QUOTA ABSURDITY
As anyone in urgent need of a plumber will testify, Polish immigration has some obvious benefits — a fact that hasn’t passed by the Police Service of Northern Ireland. The force formerly known as the Royal Ulster Constabulary has been inundated by applications from young Poles desperate to become officers. And the wave of hopeful candidates brings with it interesting implications for a service required to recruit half of its new officers from a reluctant Roman Catholic community.
Nearly 1,000 of the Province’s burgeoning Polish community have responded to a police recruitment drive — and they are nearly all Catholics. Poles accounted for 12 per cent of the 7,749 applicants, which could provide a lifeline for a force that has struggled to attract Catholic recruits.
The move, however, will not be popular in Poland. A report by the Polish police force that was leaked yesterday complained of a shortfall in Poland of up to 16,000 officers because of the vast numbers flocking to Britain and Ireland.
Under the policing reforms, the PSNI must recruit Catholics and non-Catholics equally, a restriction strongly disliked by Unionists because it leads to the rejection of able and willing Protestant candidates. But a combination of Republican intimidation and the lingering suspicion among Catholics that the PSNI remains a Protestant police force has ensured that its make-up is still disproportionately Protestant. Only 21 per cent of its officers are Catholic.
The PSNI advertised in Polish publications north and south of the border to encourage more of the estimated 30,000 Poles in Northern Ireland into their ranks. A further 150,000 live south of the border, where the Irish police are training Polish recruits. The charm offensive was not the PSNI’s first overture to the Poles. Late last year the PSNI announced that it was to host a police officer on secondment to improve relations with the Eastern European community, which has suffered a marked increase in hate attacks. A spokeswoman for the PSNI told The Times that Poles could count towards the quota of Catholics. She said: “When anybody applies for a post it is up to them to say what religion they are — Protestant, Catholic or other. If they put themselves down as Catholic they will fall within the 50-50 recruitment policy.” She said that the force was delighted with the response from the Polish community.
Critics are already citing the loophole as proof that 50-50 recruitment does not work. Ian Paisley Jr, son of the DUP leader and member of the Policing Board, said: “It highlights how ridiculous the whole policy is. You should not recruit on a religious basis.” He added that if Polish applicants refused to specify what religion they were they would be classified as “non-Catholics” and could deprive a Protestant recruit of a place.
Alex Atwood, the SDLP’s policing spokesman, admitted that it was not the perfect tool but said it was getting results. “There are always going to be hard cases that may or may not be deemed unfair, but 50-50 has worked very well to redress the balance.” With a salary of 22,000 pounds a recruit in the PSNI can expect to earn almost four times more than his counterpart in the Polish police.
Source
Special needs are universal now
My children are special to me, and they have needs (like they need to be told to get up for school). But I don’t think they have special needs. The way things are heading, that alone may yet make them part of a “special” minority. The Ruth Kelly ballyhoo [where a British government minister put her kid into a private school to help him with his dyslexia] highlighted one problem with special needs education: the policy of “inclusion” which means sticking children with serious difficulties in mainstream schools without specialist help, to the detriment of all. But an even bigger problem is the crazed expansion of the category “special needs”.
According to the Department for Education, almost 1.5 million children in England now have special educational needs — around 18 per cent of the total. Call me stupid, but how could that possibly be? It must reflect the fashion for medicalising childhood problems — see apparent epidemics of everything from autism to attention deficit disorder. It could also have something to do with special needs being a ticket for schools to obtain resources and parents to get their children school places.
Source
MORE ON THE REAL-WORLD DELIGHTS OF PUBLIC TRANSPORT
All Greenies should be made to commute on British trains before they condemn cars
Tony Ambrose finally lost patience with a rail company's excuses when he was forced to stand in a two-carriage train's only lavatory with two other people on the way to work. Mr Ambrose and other angry passengers have set up a protest group, More Trains Less Strain, and are planning a fares strike over the decision by First Great Western (FGW) to withdraw 20 carriages. The company, which has by far the worst punctuality record in the country, with more than a quarter of trains late, is saving 100,000 pounds per carriage in annual leasing and maintenance costs by sending them into so-called warm storage at Eastleigh in Hampshire.
It has cut trains in half, leaving dozens of stations in Somerset and Wiltshire with services made up of only one or two carriages even though people had been struggling to find seats on the old four-carriage services. FGW has also cancelled more than 700 services in the past four weeks, mainly because of a shortage of trains. Hundreds of passengers at Bath, Trowbridge, Keynsham, Bradford-upon-Avon and Salisbury are being left stranded on platforms, unable to squeeze on to trains that arrive already dangerously overcrowded. A fortnight ago a passenger fell into the gap between the train and platform at Bath Spa station as people surged towards the doors. Several other passengers have fainted on packed trains.
Train guards are frequently demanding that people get off and wait for the train behind, which turns out to be equally overcrowded. Commuters from Maidenhead, Twyford and other stations in the Thames Valley are also enduring severe overcrowding, with many having to abandon their journeys, because FGW has introduced a new timetable that favours more profitable long-distance trains. This week FGW tried to pacify passengers around Bristol by borrowing all the carriages from the St Ives and Looe branch lines in Cornwall. But this has created a separate outcry from Cornish passengers, who have had to travel on buses. The RMT union, which represents train and station staff, has complained that its members are being abused by frustrated passengers.
FGW is one of a growing number of rail companies struggling to reconcile sharp cuts in subsidy from the Government with a record growth in demand. More than 1.1 billion rail journeys were made in Britain last year, the highest number for 50 years. Last year FGW signed a new ten-year franchise deal under which it not only agreed to cease receiving a subsidy but committed itself to paying the Government a premium of 1.1 billion pounds.
More Trains Less Strain is holding a meeting on Tuesday in Bath at which it will announce a campaign of direct action, including a day when passengers will refuse to buy tickets or show passes. Mr Ambrose, a charity worker from Bath, said: "Why should people pay for such appalling treatment? The service has collapsed in recent weeks and it has become a lottery whether you will be able to get on a train. "Even First's staff are on our side - they can see the madness of storing trains in sidings when record numbers of people want to travel by rail." Caroline Copeland, a teacher from Oldfield Park near Bath, said that she had been late for a work three times in a week because the trains had been too crowded when they arrived. "Unless you are standing right beside the door when it stops, you have no chance of squeezing on."
Theresa May, the Shadow Leader of the House and MP for Maidenhead, called for FGW to be stripped of its franchise. "They are making a shambles of the service, with people abandoning trains and going by car and even talking of moving house to avoid the nightmare of rail travel," she said. "It is partly the Government's fault because it specified a reduced service to the bidders for the contract."
FGW said that the shortage of trains was being exacerbated by mechanical problems with the remaining fleet. A spokesman said that the company had agreed the reduction in carriages with the Department for Transport as part of its contract. The department denied that it was to blame and said that it had been up to FGW to decide how many carriages it needed.
Source
Is Britain run by a deaf man? "Tony Blair has pledged to investigate the care of discharged soldiers after being challenged by a veteran of the Iraq conflict. During a televised exchange last night the Prime Minister apologised to Justin Smith after hearing that he had been left homeless and paying for medical care after two tours in Iraq. Mr Smith was discharged from the Army after suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. In the discussion, broadcast from the Royal Marines Training Centre in Lympstone, Devon, he told Mr Blair: "I have lost my house, my security, my self-belief." He had struggled to find temporary accommodation in Cornwall to be with his wife and had had to pay for some of his medical treatment. Mr Blair initially said that he could not believe that this was typical. But when members of the Royal British Legion insisted that it was, he said he would investigate." [Blair must be the only one who did not know of this problem. "The Times" and other newspapers have been highlighting it for months, if not years]
We read:
"Around 50 protesters shouting the slogan "Ballet not bigotry!" staged a noisy protest overnight outside a London theatre where a ballerina and member of a far-right British political party was performing.....
Thirty police lined the street outside the theatre as ballet-goers arrived for the afternoon show. Most patrons expressed support for Clarke, calling the protest undemocratic. "They talk about their freedom, but what about ours?," said secretary June Mitchell, 58. "She shouldn't stand down because of her political beliefs."
Source
Leftists will use any excuse to get publicity for themselves.
THE LATEST QUOTA ABSURDITY
As anyone in urgent need of a plumber will testify, Polish immigration has some obvious benefits — a fact that hasn’t passed by the Police Service of Northern Ireland. The force formerly known as the Royal Ulster Constabulary has been inundated by applications from young Poles desperate to become officers. And the wave of hopeful candidates brings with it interesting implications for a service required to recruit half of its new officers from a reluctant Roman Catholic community.
Nearly 1,000 of the Province’s burgeoning Polish community have responded to a police recruitment drive — and they are nearly all Catholics. Poles accounted for 12 per cent of the 7,749 applicants, which could provide a lifeline for a force that has struggled to attract Catholic recruits.
The move, however, will not be popular in Poland. A report by the Polish police force that was leaked yesterday complained of a shortfall in Poland of up to 16,000 officers because of the vast numbers flocking to Britain and Ireland.
Under the policing reforms, the PSNI must recruit Catholics and non-Catholics equally, a restriction strongly disliked by Unionists because it leads to the rejection of able and willing Protestant candidates. But a combination of Republican intimidation and the lingering suspicion among Catholics that the PSNI remains a Protestant police force has ensured that its make-up is still disproportionately Protestant. Only 21 per cent of its officers are Catholic.
The PSNI advertised in Polish publications north and south of the border to encourage more of the estimated 30,000 Poles in Northern Ireland into their ranks. A further 150,000 live south of the border, where the Irish police are training Polish recruits. The charm offensive was not the PSNI’s first overture to the Poles. Late last year the PSNI announced that it was to host a police officer on secondment to improve relations with the Eastern European community, which has suffered a marked increase in hate attacks. A spokeswoman for the PSNI told The Times that Poles could count towards the quota of Catholics. She said: “When anybody applies for a post it is up to them to say what religion they are — Protestant, Catholic or other. If they put themselves down as Catholic they will fall within the 50-50 recruitment policy.” She said that the force was delighted with the response from the Polish community.
Critics are already citing the loophole as proof that 50-50 recruitment does not work. Ian Paisley Jr, son of the DUP leader and member of the Policing Board, said: “It highlights how ridiculous the whole policy is. You should not recruit on a religious basis.” He added that if Polish applicants refused to specify what religion they were they would be classified as “non-Catholics” and could deprive a Protestant recruit of a place.
Alex Atwood, the SDLP’s policing spokesman, admitted that it was not the perfect tool but said it was getting results. “There are always going to be hard cases that may or may not be deemed unfair, but 50-50 has worked very well to redress the balance.” With a salary of 22,000 pounds a recruit in the PSNI can expect to earn almost four times more than his counterpart in the Polish police.
Source
Special needs are universal now
My children are special to me, and they have needs (like they need to be told to get up for school). But I don’t think they have special needs. The way things are heading, that alone may yet make them part of a “special” minority. The Ruth Kelly ballyhoo [where a British government minister put her kid into a private school to help him with his dyslexia] highlighted one problem with special needs education: the policy of “inclusion” which means sticking children with serious difficulties in mainstream schools without specialist help, to the detriment of all. But an even bigger problem is the crazed expansion of the category “special needs”.
According to the Department for Education, almost 1.5 million children in England now have special educational needs — around 18 per cent of the total. Call me stupid, but how could that possibly be? It must reflect the fashion for medicalising childhood problems — see apparent epidemics of everything from autism to attention deficit disorder. It could also have something to do with special needs being a ticket for schools to obtain resources and parents to get their children school places.
And that’s not all. This week Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, announced plans for all schools to adopt “personalised learning and teaching”. Today’s official mantra is that every child is unique — that is, they all have special needs.
God knows the system is bad enough, but this could make it worse. Even if state schools had resources for one-to-one teaching, a personalised system means abandoning the democratic ideal of a universal education. Except in rare cases, most kids surely do best by interacting with others and learning through a teacher who is more than their mentor or mate — not sitting in a personal ghetto with only their personal computer from which to copy the answers.
Source
MORE ON THE REAL-WORLD DELIGHTS OF PUBLIC TRANSPORT
All Greenies should be made to commute on British trains before they condemn cars
Tony Ambrose finally lost patience with a rail company's excuses when he was forced to stand in a two-carriage train's only lavatory with two other people on the way to work. Mr Ambrose and other angry passengers have set up a protest group, More Trains Less Strain, and are planning a fares strike over the decision by First Great Western (FGW) to withdraw 20 carriages. The company, which has by far the worst punctuality record in the country, with more than a quarter of trains late, is saving 100,000 pounds per carriage in annual leasing and maintenance costs by sending them into so-called warm storage at Eastleigh in Hampshire.
It has cut trains in half, leaving dozens of stations in Somerset and Wiltshire with services made up of only one or two carriages even though people had been struggling to find seats on the old four-carriage services. FGW has also cancelled more than 700 services in the past four weeks, mainly because of a shortage of trains. Hundreds of passengers at Bath, Trowbridge, Keynsham, Bradford-upon-Avon and Salisbury are being left stranded on platforms, unable to squeeze on to trains that arrive already dangerously overcrowded. A fortnight ago a passenger fell into the gap between the train and platform at Bath Spa station as people surged towards the doors. Several other passengers have fainted on packed trains.
Train guards are frequently demanding that people get off and wait for the train behind, which turns out to be equally overcrowded. Commuters from Maidenhead, Twyford and other stations in the Thames Valley are also enduring severe overcrowding, with many having to abandon their journeys, because FGW has introduced a new timetable that favours more profitable long-distance trains. This week FGW tried to pacify passengers around Bristol by borrowing all the carriages from the St Ives and Looe branch lines in Cornwall. But this has created a separate outcry from Cornish passengers, who have had to travel on buses. The RMT union, which represents train and station staff, has complained that its members are being abused by frustrated passengers.
FGW is one of a growing number of rail companies struggling to reconcile sharp cuts in subsidy from the Government with a record growth in demand. More than 1.1 billion rail journeys were made in Britain last year, the highest number for 50 years. Last year FGW signed a new ten-year franchise deal under which it not only agreed to cease receiving a subsidy but committed itself to paying the Government a premium of 1.1 billion pounds.
More Trains Less Strain is holding a meeting on Tuesday in Bath at which it will announce a campaign of direct action, including a day when passengers will refuse to buy tickets or show passes. Mr Ambrose, a charity worker from Bath, said: "Why should people pay for such appalling treatment? The service has collapsed in recent weeks and it has become a lottery whether you will be able to get on a train. "Even First's staff are on our side - they can see the madness of storing trains in sidings when record numbers of people want to travel by rail." Caroline Copeland, a teacher from Oldfield Park near Bath, said that she had been late for a work three times in a week because the trains had been too crowded when they arrived. "Unless you are standing right beside the door when it stops, you have no chance of squeezing on."
Theresa May, the Shadow Leader of the House and MP for Maidenhead, called for FGW to be stripped of its franchise. "They are making a shambles of the service, with people abandoning trains and going by car and even talking of moving house to avoid the nightmare of rail travel," she said. "It is partly the Government's fault because it specified a reduced service to the bidders for the contract."
FGW said that the shortage of trains was being exacerbated by mechanical problems with the remaining fleet. A spokesman said that the company had agreed the reduction in carriages with the Department for Transport as part of its contract. The department denied that it was to blame and said that it had been up to FGW to decide how many carriages it needed.
Source
Is Britain run by a deaf man? "Tony Blair has pledged to investigate the care of discharged soldiers after being challenged by a veteran of the Iraq conflict. During a televised exchange last night the Prime Minister apologised to Justin Smith after hearing that he had been left homeless and paying for medical care after two tours in Iraq. Mr Smith was discharged from the Army after suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. In the discussion, broadcast from the Royal Marines Training Centre in Lympstone, Devon, he told Mr Blair: "I have lost my house, my security, my self-belief." He had struggled to find temporary accommodation in Cornwall to be with his wife and had had to pay for some of his medical treatment. Mr Blair initially said that he could not believe that this was typical. But when members of the Royal British Legion insisted that it was, he said he would investigate." [Blair must be the only one who did not know of this problem. "The Times" and other newspapers have been highlighting it for months, if not years]
Saturday, January 13, 2007
NHS CLUELESS ABOUT SUPERBUGS
And all this is after a huge increase in funding
The NHS will miss its target of halving superbug infections by 2008 and may never be able to control the problem effectively, the Government has admitted secretly. A leaked Department of Health memo has revealed that officials believe that government pledges to cut cases of MRSA substantially are not achievable, while the even more deadly Clostridium difficile is now "endemic throughout the health service".
More embarrassing still, much of the memo is devoted to "spinning" the failure to meet the targets so as to minimise its public impact. The memo was sent last October by Liz Woodeson, director of health protection at the Department of Health, to ministers. Politicians and health campaigners said that it deepened the sense that ministers and department officials were more interested in spin than substance.
The memo, leaked to Health Service Journal, states that the target to cut cases of the superbug methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) by 50 per cent by April 2008, set by the former health secretary John Reid in November 2004, is unlikely to be met. There were more than 7,000 cases of MRSA in patients' blood-streams recorded in 2004, since when the number has dropped only slightly. "Although the numbers are coming down, we are not on course to hit that target and there is some doubt about whether it is in fact achievable," the memo said. "The opinion of infection experts is that we will succeed in reducing MRSA bloodstream infections by a third rather than half - and that, even if we had a longer period of time, it may not be possible to get it down to half." The memo adds that C. diff is now endemic throughout the health service, and poses an even greater threat to patient health. It gives warning that it is harder to tackle than MRSA, and that some techniques used to cut MRSA, such as alcohol rubs, do not work for C. diff.
The leaked memo sets out six ways of handling the failure to meet the MRSA target, including driving at the target as it is and face the consequences (a policy favoured by Downing Street), extending the target or accepting that it is unworkable and dropping it completely. Another tactic suggested is to enlarge the target to include C. diff, or even all hospital-acquired infections without specifying which ones.
Ms Woodeson admits in the memo that the battle to combat MRSA "doesn't seem to be having much impact on C. difficile, which is a far bigger problem". The note quotes figures from 2004 showing that while MRSA caused 360 deaths, C. diff was responsible for an estimated 1,300.
A Department of Health spokesman said of the memo: "We deplore this leak. This paper confirms that from the Prime Minister and Health Secretary downwards, the Government is determined that the NHS should get on top of the problem of MRSA and other infections." He admitted that progress had been slower than anticipated and that faster progress is needed to meet the target. "We have always said the target is challenging; that is why we set it. We remain committed to this target."
The memo is the second damaging leak to the HSJ from the department in successive weeks, suggesting that there are disgruntled civil servants prepared to risk their jobs to reveal what is going on. Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, said: "The Government needs to get a grip. Gordon Brown's target culture has increased costs with little improvement in care."
[And now for examples of the famous British "fudge"]
Six ways to fudge a target
* Keep it as it is, and drive as hard as we can to meet it - the policy favoured by the No 10 Delivery Unit. But Liz Woodeson, director of health protection at the Department of Health, admits: "We will be criticised if we fail to meet the target"
* Drop the target altogether, but this would be hard to get past No 10, and handling would be "extremely tricky" given media interest. "Dropping the target would probably provoke more criticism than failing to meet it in 2008," she says
* Extend the target to 2009. That would give more time, but would be open to charges of fiddling, and it may still be missed "because a certain level of MRSA infection is unavoidable"
* Extend the target, adding something on C. diff. That would be welcomed by people and might make hospitals take C. diff seriously, "as we suspect some simply see it as unavoidable". But there are many other hospital-acquired infections. It would be absurd to set a target for each, she said
* Change the target to hospital-acquired infections generally. That could not be done as mandatory reporting covers only five infections and there are "dozens of others"
* Switch to locally set targets. That would have the advantage of including C. diff, but "would be presented by the media as a cop-out because we knew we weren't going to hit the national target"
Source
NHS: NON-PAYING HEALTH TOURISTS SQUEEZE OUT BRITS WHO HAVE PAID FOR THEIR CARE
Health tourists are receiving free National Health Service kidney treatment worth about œ30,000 a year, and potentially competing with British patients for scarce transplants, according to new data. The information, released under the Freedom of Information Act, shows that one hospital is spending up to a million pounds a year on dialysis for nearly 40 non-British residents; another has placed two asylum seekers on its waiting list for transplants and a third has recovered only 2% of its costs from overseas patients.
Doctors and patient groups say the NHS is struggling to provide kidney dialysis for British patients and is ill-equipped to cope with the extra demand. They warned of an acute moral dilemma as doctors balance their overriding responsibility to help those in greatest need with the fact that the patient may not be legally entitled to treatment.
There are fears some foreign patients, so-called "health tourists", may travel to Britain to take advantage of free NHS care. Dr Jonathan Kwan, head of renal services at Epsom and St Helier hospitals trust in Surrey, said: "Non-UK residents are putting pressure on the system, which is already under too much pressure." Kwan said British patients risked losing out to those from overseas who needed treatment more urgently. "Patients waiting for dialysis may be displaced by a clinically urgent case. Doctors try to prioritise the urgent cases irrespective of residency status."
There are a record 6,000 patients on the kidney transplant waiting list, with about 400 dying each year in Britain before an organ becomes available. Patient groups say some British sufferers are forced by a lack of dialysis machines to receive treatment at night. While most health tourists seek one-off operations, patients suffering from kidney failure require dialysis three times a week for life unless given a transplant.
According to the figures, Barts and The London NHS Trust, which covers two of the largest hospitals in the capital, is providing 37 non-UK residents and an extra 14 asylum seekers with dialysis. Two asylum seekers are on the kidney transplant waiting list at the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust in Reading.
Although trusts may try to invoice non-UK residents for treatment, they usually recover only a fraction of the cost. Asylum seekers are entitled to free treatment while their case is being considered. In the last financial year St George's hospital in south London spent about 100,000 on dialysis for overseas patients but has recovered only 2,100.
Timothy Statham, chief executive of The National Kidney Federation, said: "Capacity is at breaking point," he said. "We have very ill British patients needing to dialyse through the night because there is not sufficient capacity. Some patients may come from abroad because dialysis was not available in their country. We seem to be offering a world health service."
Source
BRITAIN: PATHETIC JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL RESULTS
Less than half of the students passed overall -- even including lots of "soft" subjects -- and BritGov says that's good! And the teachers want grading scrapped so nobody will know how badly the schools are doing. What a mess! Marvellous what years of Leftist educational practices will do. Note: Passing is no longer called passing. It is now called meeting a "gold standard". Beware the dreaded "tinplate standard", I guess. Amazing rubbish!
More than 300,000 secondary school pupils failed to reach the Government's target of five good GCSE passes in subjects including English and maths, league tables released yesterday show. In a quarter of England's 3,100 secondary schools, 70 per cent of pupils (105,000), failed to meet the gold standard of five A* to C grade passes in subjects including maths and English. Overall, 45 per cent of 15-year-olds achieved five A* to C grade passes at GCSEs including maths and English. When those two core subjects were not included, 58.5 per cent achieved five good GCSE passes.
The poverty of teenagers' literacy and numeracy skills was most acute in one in ten secondaries, where four fifths of pupils failed to meet the benchmark. It was also revealed that 26,000 pupils sat neither maths nor English GCSE last summer and less than half (49.8 per cent) took an examination in English, maths, science or a modern foreign language.
Nevertheless the Government insists that standards are rising and 375,000 more pupils have gained 5 GCSE passes in the past nine years. Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, said that he was determined to continue working to improve underperforming schools, but praised pupils for getting record numbers of five good GCSEs. "The results clearly show that our record investment continues to drive up standards faster than ever," he said.
However, many schools plummeted down the league tables after Ruth Kelly, when she was Education Secretary, insisted last year on the new target. In the past heads have admitted that they have encouraged children to take easier vocational exams in an effort to push their schools up the tables.
Tony Blair wants 400 schools to become academies [charters] by 2010. But yesterday's results showed that only a fifth of pupils in the 46 new schools gained 5 good GCSEs, including maths and English. Mr Knight defended the schools and said that huge parental demand for places was proof of their success. Of those pupils who achieved five good GCSEs, 88 per cent took academic subjects, while 9.7 per cent of them took vocational qualifications as part of their five passes. All students of English and maths passed GCSEs.
But David Willetts, the Shadow Education Secretary, said that pupils were being short-changed as less than half had attempted "rigorous core subjects". "We need to ensure that every pupil leaves school with a decent education in the basics - not just in maths and English, but in the sciences, history, and modern languages. "Instead pupils are being pushed into subjects which will meet targets without providing them with an education which will benefit them throughout life," he added.
Sarah Teather, the Liberal Democrat education spokeswoman, said that the new benchmark showed the "perverse incentives" created by the league tables and called for them to be scrapped. Steve Sinnott, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, echoed her call and said that children should not be written off for failing to gain a C grade. "They may have achieved wonders to get to a grade D," he added.
Last night independent schools reacted angrily to the exclusion of International GCSE (IGCSE) results, for academic subjects such as maths and physics, from the tables.
Source
BOTTLED WATER?
Panic: `Health warning over safety of bottled water', says the UK Independent, among others, following a report by the food and farming campaign Sustain. The report argues that consumers often buy bottled water because they believe it is healthier than tap water. However, the bottled variety can contain sodium, contaminants (like the benzene found in Perrier in 1989), and the heavy metal antimony. The report notes that the French Senate has recommended switching brands regularly to reduce the risk of harmful effects.
Don't panic: The real aim of the report seems to be to emphasise that bottled water is less environmentally efficient than tap water - so why create a health panic about the bottled stuff?
The authors make a perfectly reasonable defence of tap water. They rightly point out that there are no particular health benefits from bottled water, and nor do we need to drink `eight glasses per day' as is routinely cited. Tap water is now produced to very high standards - 99.96 per cent of UK mains supply now meets national standards. Tap water is generally purer and fresher than the bottled variety, and also much cheaper.
However, some of the other claims in the report are dubious. The risks of sodium in the diet are overhyped anyway, but there is at least 25 times more sodium in a single slice of bread than to be found in a regular 500ml bottle of water. To reach the recommended sodium intake for a day from water would require drinking about 200 such bottles.
As for the claim about antimony, the report cites research from Germany which actually states `all the water tested contained antimony below the guidelines recommended for drinking water'. In other words, as far as anyone can tell, it is safe. While dismissing health fears about tap water, the report prefers to stoke fears about bottled water using innuendo rather than evidence.
Bottled water is convenient and usually preferable to the saccharin-sweet fizzy drinks that are the only alternative when you need to quench your thirst while out and about - even if it is sometimes ridiculously expensive. Claiming that it is potentially bad for your health is cynical, however. If Sustain think the world would be a better place if we only drank tap water, or at least recycled the plastic mineral water bottles, then they should make the case without promoting a different set of anxieties instead.
Source
And all this is after a huge increase in funding
The NHS will miss its target of halving superbug infections by 2008 and may never be able to control the problem effectively, the Government has admitted secretly. A leaked Department of Health memo has revealed that officials believe that government pledges to cut cases of MRSA substantially are not achievable, while the even more deadly Clostridium difficile is now "endemic throughout the health service".
More embarrassing still, much of the memo is devoted to "spinning" the failure to meet the targets so as to minimise its public impact. The memo was sent last October by Liz Woodeson, director of health protection at the Department of Health, to ministers. Politicians and health campaigners said that it deepened the sense that ministers and department officials were more interested in spin than substance.
The memo, leaked to Health Service Journal, states that the target to cut cases of the superbug methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) by 50 per cent by April 2008, set by the former health secretary John Reid in November 2004, is unlikely to be met. There were more than 7,000 cases of MRSA in patients' blood-streams recorded in 2004, since when the number has dropped only slightly. "Although the numbers are coming down, we are not on course to hit that target and there is some doubt about whether it is in fact achievable," the memo said. "The opinion of infection experts is that we will succeed in reducing MRSA bloodstream infections by a third rather than half - and that, even if we had a longer period of time, it may not be possible to get it down to half." The memo adds that C. diff is now endemic throughout the health service, and poses an even greater threat to patient health. It gives warning that it is harder to tackle than MRSA, and that some techniques used to cut MRSA, such as alcohol rubs, do not work for C. diff.
The leaked memo sets out six ways of handling the failure to meet the MRSA target, including driving at the target as it is and face the consequences (a policy favoured by Downing Street), extending the target or accepting that it is unworkable and dropping it completely. Another tactic suggested is to enlarge the target to include C. diff, or even all hospital-acquired infections without specifying which ones.
Ms Woodeson admits in the memo that the battle to combat MRSA "doesn't seem to be having much impact on C. difficile, which is a far bigger problem". The note quotes figures from 2004 showing that while MRSA caused 360 deaths, C. diff was responsible for an estimated 1,300.
A Department of Health spokesman said of the memo: "We deplore this leak. This paper confirms that from the Prime Minister and Health Secretary downwards, the Government is determined that the NHS should get on top of the problem of MRSA and other infections." He admitted that progress had been slower than anticipated and that faster progress is needed to meet the target. "We have always said the target is challenging; that is why we set it. We remain committed to this target."
The memo is the second damaging leak to the HSJ from the department in successive weeks, suggesting that there are disgruntled civil servants prepared to risk their jobs to reveal what is going on. Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, said: "The Government needs to get a grip. Gordon Brown's target culture has increased costs with little improvement in care."
[And now for examples of the famous British "fudge"]
Six ways to fudge a target
* Keep it as it is, and drive as hard as we can to meet it - the policy favoured by the No 10 Delivery Unit. But Liz Woodeson, director of health protection at the Department of Health, admits: "We will be criticised if we fail to meet the target"
* Drop the target altogether, but this would be hard to get past No 10, and handling would be "extremely tricky" given media interest. "Dropping the target would probably provoke more criticism than failing to meet it in 2008," she says
* Extend the target to 2009. That would give more time, but would be open to charges of fiddling, and it may still be missed "because a certain level of MRSA infection is unavoidable"
* Extend the target, adding something on C. diff. That would be welcomed by people and might make hospitals take C. diff seriously, "as we suspect some simply see it as unavoidable". But there are many other hospital-acquired infections. It would be absurd to set a target for each, she said
* Change the target to hospital-acquired infections generally. That could not be done as mandatory reporting covers only five infections and there are "dozens of others"
* Switch to locally set targets. That would have the advantage of including C. diff, but "would be presented by the media as a cop-out because we knew we weren't going to hit the national target"
Source
NHS: NON-PAYING HEALTH TOURISTS SQUEEZE OUT BRITS WHO HAVE PAID FOR THEIR CARE
Health tourists are receiving free National Health Service kidney treatment worth about œ30,000 a year, and potentially competing with British patients for scarce transplants, according to new data. The information, released under the Freedom of Information Act, shows that one hospital is spending up to a million pounds a year on dialysis for nearly 40 non-British residents; another has placed two asylum seekers on its waiting list for transplants and a third has recovered only 2% of its costs from overseas patients.
Doctors and patient groups say the NHS is struggling to provide kidney dialysis for British patients and is ill-equipped to cope with the extra demand. They warned of an acute moral dilemma as doctors balance their overriding responsibility to help those in greatest need with the fact that the patient may not be legally entitled to treatment.
There are fears some foreign patients, so-called "health tourists", may travel to Britain to take advantage of free NHS care. Dr Jonathan Kwan, head of renal services at Epsom and St Helier hospitals trust in Surrey, said: "Non-UK residents are putting pressure on the system, which is already under too much pressure." Kwan said British patients risked losing out to those from overseas who needed treatment more urgently. "Patients waiting for dialysis may be displaced by a clinically urgent case. Doctors try to prioritise the urgent cases irrespective of residency status."
There are a record 6,000 patients on the kidney transplant waiting list, with about 400 dying each year in Britain before an organ becomes available. Patient groups say some British sufferers are forced by a lack of dialysis machines to receive treatment at night. While most health tourists seek one-off operations, patients suffering from kidney failure require dialysis three times a week for life unless given a transplant.
According to the figures, Barts and The London NHS Trust, which covers two of the largest hospitals in the capital, is providing 37 non-UK residents and an extra 14 asylum seekers with dialysis. Two asylum seekers are on the kidney transplant waiting list at the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust in Reading.
Although trusts may try to invoice non-UK residents for treatment, they usually recover only a fraction of the cost. Asylum seekers are entitled to free treatment while their case is being considered. In the last financial year St George's hospital in south London spent about 100,000 on dialysis for overseas patients but has recovered only 2,100.
Timothy Statham, chief executive of The National Kidney Federation, said: "Capacity is at breaking point," he said. "We have very ill British patients needing to dialyse through the night because there is not sufficient capacity. Some patients may come from abroad because dialysis was not available in their country. We seem to be offering a world health service."
Source
BRITAIN: PATHETIC JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL RESULTS
Less than half of the students passed overall -- even including lots of "soft" subjects -- and BritGov says that's good! And the teachers want grading scrapped so nobody will know how badly the schools are doing. What a mess! Marvellous what years of Leftist educational practices will do. Note: Passing is no longer called passing. It is now called meeting a "gold standard". Beware the dreaded "tinplate standard", I guess. Amazing rubbish!
More than 300,000 secondary school pupils failed to reach the Government's target of five good GCSE passes in subjects including English and maths, league tables released yesterday show. In a quarter of England's 3,100 secondary schools, 70 per cent of pupils (105,000), failed to meet the gold standard of five A* to C grade passes in subjects including maths and English. Overall, 45 per cent of 15-year-olds achieved five A* to C grade passes at GCSEs including maths and English. When those two core subjects were not included, 58.5 per cent achieved five good GCSE passes.
The poverty of teenagers' literacy and numeracy skills was most acute in one in ten secondaries, where four fifths of pupils failed to meet the benchmark. It was also revealed that 26,000 pupils sat neither maths nor English GCSE last summer and less than half (49.8 per cent) took an examination in English, maths, science or a modern foreign language.
Nevertheless the Government insists that standards are rising and 375,000 more pupils have gained 5 GCSE passes in the past nine years. Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, said that he was determined to continue working to improve underperforming schools, but praised pupils for getting record numbers of five good GCSEs. "The results clearly show that our record investment continues to drive up standards faster than ever," he said.
However, many schools plummeted down the league tables after Ruth Kelly, when she was Education Secretary, insisted last year on the new target. In the past heads have admitted that they have encouraged children to take easier vocational exams in an effort to push their schools up the tables.
Tony Blair wants 400 schools to become academies [charters] by 2010. But yesterday's results showed that only a fifth of pupils in the 46 new schools gained 5 good GCSEs, including maths and English. Mr Knight defended the schools and said that huge parental demand for places was proof of their success. Of those pupils who achieved five good GCSEs, 88 per cent took academic subjects, while 9.7 per cent of them took vocational qualifications as part of their five passes. All students of English and maths passed GCSEs.
But David Willetts, the Shadow Education Secretary, said that pupils were being short-changed as less than half had attempted "rigorous core subjects". "We need to ensure that every pupil leaves school with a decent education in the basics - not just in maths and English, but in the sciences, history, and modern languages. "Instead pupils are being pushed into subjects which will meet targets without providing them with an education which will benefit them throughout life," he added.
Sarah Teather, the Liberal Democrat education spokeswoman, said that the new benchmark showed the "perverse incentives" created by the league tables and called for them to be scrapped. Steve Sinnott, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, echoed her call and said that children should not be written off for failing to gain a C grade. "They may have achieved wonders to get to a grade D," he added.
Last night independent schools reacted angrily to the exclusion of International GCSE (IGCSE) results, for academic subjects such as maths and physics, from the tables.
Source
BOTTLED WATER?
Panic: `Health warning over safety of bottled water', says the UK Independent, among others, following a report by the food and farming campaign Sustain. The report argues that consumers often buy bottled water because they believe it is healthier than tap water. However, the bottled variety can contain sodium, contaminants (like the benzene found in Perrier in 1989), and the heavy metal antimony. The report notes that the French Senate has recommended switching brands regularly to reduce the risk of harmful effects.
Don't panic: The real aim of the report seems to be to emphasise that bottled water is less environmentally efficient than tap water - so why create a health panic about the bottled stuff?
The authors make a perfectly reasonable defence of tap water. They rightly point out that there are no particular health benefits from bottled water, and nor do we need to drink `eight glasses per day' as is routinely cited. Tap water is now produced to very high standards - 99.96 per cent of UK mains supply now meets national standards. Tap water is generally purer and fresher than the bottled variety, and also much cheaper.
However, some of the other claims in the report are dubious. The risks of sodium in the diet are overhyped anyway, but there is at least 25 times more sodium in a single slice of bread than to be found in a regular 500ml bottle of water. To reach the recommended sodium intake for a day from water would require drinking about 200 such bottles.
As for the claim about antimony, the report cites research from Germany which actually states `all the water tested contained antimony below the guidelines recommended for drinking water'. In other words, as far as anyone can tell, it is safe. While dismissing health fears about tap water, the report prefers to stoke fears about bottled water using innuendo rather than evidence.
Bottled water is convenient and usually preferable to the saccharin-sweet fizzy drinks that are the only alternative when you need to quench your thirst while out and about - even if it is sometimes ridiculously expensive. Claiming that it is potentially bad for your health is cynical, however. If Sustain think the world would be a better place if we only drank tap water, or at least recycled the plastic mineral water bottles, then they should make the case without promoting a different set of anxieties instead.
Source
Friday, January 12, 2007
Clerics urge Muslims to ignore British law
Post lifted from Jihad Watch
Tony Blair and other British authorities have endlessly dinned into our ears the proposition that the vast majority of British mosques were completely loyal to the British state. The evidence for this has always been sketchy, but the penalties high for questioning it: anyone who has done so has been ostracised by the mainstream as a "racist," a "bigot," an "Islamophobe." But here are some of Blair's chickens coming home to roost: one organization he has praised is caught out by the undercover reporters here. And this is from The Guardian, which doesn't hesitate to allow itself to be used as a platform by dupes, dhimmis and fellow travelers like Karen Armstrong and Brian Whitaker.
"Revealed: preachers' messages of hate: Muslim worshippers are being urged by radical clerics to ignore British law," by Jamie Doward in The Guardian, with thanks to all who sent this in:
Read it all.
Radical Islam and British Universities
Leading Muslim terrorists have been educated at Britain's universities
British Universities have long been centers of radicalism, usually of the brand of amateur socialism espoused by the Socialist Workers Party or its ugly sisters Militant and the Worker's Revolutionary Party. Pretending to understand Dialectical Marxism and Trotskyite "permanent revolution", the leftist radicals infested, and still infest, campuses across Britain.
Since the 1970s, these activists have promoted the myth of Palestinian perpetual martyrdom, and portrayed Israel as a bogeyman. During the 1980s, they supported the women who camped rough outside RAF Greenham Common, a US-linked air base in Bedfordshire, Britain. Though ignored by most students, activists promoted an agenda of anti-Americanism and anti-semitism that has infected at least two generations of post-graduates.
Ultimately they contributed to British media's fawning over the notion of Palestinian, and by extension all Muslims', victimhood. Now grown up, the former student union activists are the first to hurl the term "Islamophobe" at anyone who questions the spread of radical Islam. In such a climate, it has been easy for Islamic radicalism to flourish, and even to be welcomed on Britain's campuses.
On September 26, 2005, Britain's Social Affairs Unit published a report by Professor Anthony Glees and Chris Pope from Brunel University. This report, entitled "When Students Turn To Terror", listed 24 universities where radicalism flourished, including Birmingham, Brunel, Durham, Leeds, Leeds Metropolitan, Luton, Leicester, Manchester Metropolitan, Newcastle, Nottingham, Reading, Swansea, and Wolverhampton.
Coming out while Britain was still reeling from the horrors of 7/7, when 52 people died on London Transport, Professor Glees' report galvanized the UK media. Already mosques and radical preachers had been named as contributing factors to the bombings of July 7, 2005. Universities had thitherto been ignored. Yet Britain's campuses had long been the playgrounds of amateur radicals and Islamists.
Many leading Muslim terrorists have been educated at Britain's universities. Azahari bin Husin, the senior bomb-maker from Jemaah Islamiyah who masterminded the Bali bombings of October 12, 2002 (killing 202 people) and October 1, 2005 (killing 20), studied at Reading University in the 1990s. He gained a doctorate in engineering before going off to join Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
On February 26, 1993, Ramzi Yousef drove a truck carrying a 1,200 pound bomb laced with cyanide into the car park beneath the World Trade Center. The ensuing blast killed six and injured 1,000. Four years before he committed this atrocity, Yousef completed a degree in engineering at West Glamorgan Institute (now Swansea Institute of Higher Education). Dr Rihab Rashid Taha al-Azawi, Saddam Hussein's "Doctor Germ", responsible for his biological warfare programs, learned her trade in Britain. In 1984, she gained a PhD in plant toxins at the School of Biological Sciences at the University of East Anglia.
Individuals such as the above did not flaunt their Islamist credentials at college. Other individuals in British universities linked to terrorism have been allowed to lecture. One such person is 52-year old Bashir Musa Mohammed Nafi, who is alleged to be a founder of the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Like Sami al-Arian, who formerly lectured at the University of South Florida, Bashir Musa Mohammed Nafi was, as recently as 2003, an occasional lecturer at Birkbeck College at the University of London. Here, he taught Islamic studies. In the 1990s, Nafi collaborated with al-Arian in Florida. Accused by the US of being the UK leader of PIJ, Nafi has denied the claims.
In 2004, Professor Anthony Glees claimed that academics in Britain's universities were actively hampering attempts by security services to defend the nation against Islamist threats. He claimed that many academics were "hostile to the idea of intervention in international affairs and have, since 1980, harbored strong suspicions of American motives." In July 2004, the Times reported that two UK universities, the University of Wales and the University of Loughborough, had given official approval to two Islamic colleges which supported both the Taliban and terror-group Hamas. The rector of the Markfield Institute of Higher Education is a member of the extremist party in Pakistan, the Jamaat-e-Islami, who was said to have praised the Taliban. Markfield was supported by Loughborough University and has been praised by the pro-Islamic Prince Charles.
The European Institute of Human Sciences in Llanybydder, West Wales, was validated by the University of Wales. It teaches Arabic courses inspired by Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Times claimed.
During the 1990s, a new phenomenon emerged on campuses and colleges in Britain - that of open radicals who loudly proclaimed their contempt for Western values, and unequivocally pronouncing their jihadist intentions.
Bizarrely, as Melanie Phillips reported in her book "Londonistan", the department of MI5 which dealt with radical Islamism was closed in 1994, while they considered the issue of the IRA to be more important. With the cat put away, the rats come out to play, in full force. During this hiatus in surveillance, two groups came to the fore, both connected with the Syrian-born Islamist preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed.
Bakri had arrived in Britain in 1985 as an "asylum-seeker", after he was deported from Saudi Arabia for belonging to a group classed as too "extreme" even for the center of Wahhabism. This group was called "Al-Muhajiroun", or "the emigrants". Bakri, a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood had founded this group in Saudi Arabia in 1983 as a front for Hizb ut-Tahrir, the "revolutionary" Islamist group which is banned in most Middle Eastern countries.
When he arrived in Britain, Bakri founded the British branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir. In 1996, he also established Al-Muhajiroun in Britain. These two groups have the aim of establishing Britain as an Islamist state, and yearn for the restoration of the Caliphate, a system of Islamic central government. The last Caliphate, that of the Ottomans, was dissolved in 1924.
On Britain's campuses, the two groups established their influence during the latter half of the 1990s, particularly after MI5 stopped treating Islam seriously. Hizb ut-Tahrir members regularly threatened to kill Peter Tatchell, a homosexual rights campaigner, and Al-Muhajiroun openly pronounced their hatred of Jews. In the fall of 2000, they hung posters at university campuses which proclaimed: "The last hour will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims kill the Jews."
Threats and slogans aside, both groups had a more real danger inherent in their activities. The presence of Al-Muhajiroun on campuses in various universities led MI5 to set up a unit to monitor student Islamism at the dawn of the millennium. In early 2001, Russian authorities urged Britain to ban Al-Muhajiroun, as their intelligence showed that students from the London School of Economics had been recruited by the group to become terrorists in Chechnya.
In December 2000 Mohammed Bilal, a young British Muslim, who had been studying his "A-levels" at a sixth form college in Birmingham, went to India. Bilal had links to Al-Muhajiroun. He blew himself up in a stolen car. This suicide attack at an army barracks in Kashmir killed six soldiers and three civilians.
In October 2001, Al-Muhajiroun claimed that three British Muslims were killed by a US rocket attack in Kabul, Afghanistan. The group claimed that 1,000 British Muslims had gone to Afghanistan since 9/11.
In November 2001, Hassan Butt of Al-Muhajiroun announced that five British Muslims had died in Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan. Butt said: "They all died as martyrs fighting the so-called coalition against terrorism. They went out there to fight for the Taliban and were prepared to give their lives." On January 7, 2002, Butt told the BBC's Today program from his base in Lahore, Pakistan, that many of the British Muslims in Afghanistan would, upon their return, launch terror attacks which would "strike at the heart" of Britain. Butt boasted of personally recruiting 200 people to fight the coalition.
Bakri cannily denounced Butt's claims, saying that Al-Muhajiroun did not support military actions. He also said that Butt was no longer a member of the group and was no longer its spokesman. Bakri was lying. At a meeting in Sparkbrook in Birmingham, held less than a week after 9/11, Al Muhajiroun urged listeners to join the armed jihad against coalition troops. One speaker said that Muslims who supported the invasion of Afghanistan were to be urged not to do so. "But if they do not listen, they are Kufr (unbelievers) too and so it is our duty to fight and even kill them." Leaflets at the meetings proclaimed: "The final hour will not come until the Muslims conquer the White House." In Derby, Bakri used to regularly visit Al-Muhajiroun members, who had a strong following in the town. In 2000, he told a meeting there that Muslims must send armies "to fight the aggressors and occupiers and establish the Khilafah (Caliphate)." He issued a fatwa saying that "the Israeli cancer in Palestine must be uprooted."
While Al-Muhajiroun targeted students with an attempt to inspire them to jihad, the other group headed by Omar Bakri Mohammed was making inroads at universities and colleges throughout Britain. Hizb ut-Tahrir began to infiltrate student unions and Islamic societies, and its message was equally uncompromising. Hizb ut-Tahrir's approach was similarly supportive of violence, and used intimidation to achieve its ends. Its most notable influence was to force Muslim women students to wear the hijab or Muslim headscarf. This item had been only used by the older generation of Muslim women until the 1990s. Before the campaigns from Hizb ut-Tahrir, the item had hardly been seen on a campus.
During this decade, while the British government downplayed the seriousness of Islamic radicalism as part of a global movement towards dominance, the behavior of Hizb ut-Tahrir should have raised alarm bells. Britain's Channel 4 even made a documentary of Omar Bakri Mohammed, filmed over a year in and around his base in Tottenham, north London. Screened on April 8, 1997, this show, entitled "Tottenham Ayatollah" portrayed Bakri as a clownish buffoon. The documentary's approach was almost consciously misleading. In 1996, Bakri had tried to invite Osama bin Laden to Britain, to attend an "Islamic Revival Rally". Though the show supplied evidence of Bakri's preaching of hatred towards Jews, it was condemned by various Muslim groups. Makbool Javaid, chair of the Association of Muslim Lawyers, tried to prevent the broadcast going out.
There was nothing funny about Omar Bakri Mohammed. Before the documentary was shown, Bakri had addressed 200 students at the Newham College of Further Education, on Thursday, February 23, 1995. Bakri had a core group of supporters at this college in east London. The following day an African student, Ayotunde Obanubi, was stabbed in the arm at the college by a Hizb ut-Tahrir supporter. On Monday February 27, a group of several Hizb ut-Tahrir supporting students, led by Saeed Nur, again attacked Mr Obanubi. The Nigerian student was accused of "insulting Islam". The group was armed with hammers and knives. Struck on the head with a hammer and stabbed through the heart, Ayotunde Obanubi died on the steps of the college. Bakri's followers had claimed their first victim.
More here
EU FORCES BRITISH AMBULANCES TO WAIT FOR TEA
Ambulance crews in Brighouse could be forced to finish their tea breaks before turning out on an emergency call thanks to new EU rules. Staff working at ambulance stations in West Yorkshire are among those who will be affected by the changes which staff have described as 'madness'.
If paramedics receive a call to a road traffic accident or someone taken ill at their home the new rules mean they are officially supposed to complete their meal break before responding to the emergency call. Paramedics in other parts of the country where the new ruling has been adopted have warned lives will be lost.
In some parts of the country ambulance services have opted out of the European Working Time Directive that enforces breaks. If a major accident happened outside an ambulance station and staff were on the first part of their meal break it would technically mean they could not be asked to help.
Operations director for Yorkshire Ambulance Service, John Darley, said a letter was sent out to all front line staff at the beginning of December informing them of changes to rotas and meal breaks. 'These changes are aimed at unifying the staff in North, East, South and West Yorkshire who joined together on July 1, 2006 when Yorkshire Ambulance Service - YAS was formed. 'Only West and South Yorkshire staff will be affected by the rota or meal break changes - with a protected meal break being introduced for the first time in West Yorkshire. Staff in North and East Yorkshire will continue with their current rota and meal break arrangements,' he said.
But John Durkin, GMB branch secretary for YAS, said the aim of the ambulance service was to save lives and he felt professionalism would outweigh the new ruling. 'Brighouse is very fortunate to have professional staff whose main aim is to help people,' said Mr Durkin. He said the meal break issue was among other changes currently being discussed.
Just days before Christmas hundreds of ambulance workers were warned of possible redundancies in the Yorkshire area. Around 400 staff working for YAS were told of changes that were being made to ensure a more efficient service. But Mr Durkin said the changes would have a knock on effect on patient care. He criticised the service for its 'insensitive' handling of the situation which he said had been done without any consultation. 'The staff who are affected back up the front line workers. It will affect patient care,' he said
Source
CARRY ON FLYING, SAYS BLAIR - SCIENCE WILL SAVE THE PLANET
Tony Blair today wades into the growing controversy over how individuals can help to tackle global warming by declaring that he has no intention of abandoning long-haul holiday flights to reduce his carbon footprint. Days after his environment minister branded Ryanair the "irresponsible face of capitalism" for opposing an EU carbon emissions scheme, the prime minister says it is impractical to expect people to make personal sacrifices by taking holidays closer to home. "I personally think these things are a bit impractical actually to expect people to do that," Mr Blair says in an interview.
The prime minister, who recently had a family holiday in Miami, adds that it would be wrong to impose "unrealistic targets" on travellers. "You know, I'm still waiting for the first politician who's actually running for office who's going to come out and say it - and they're not," Mr Blair says. "It's like telling people you shouldn't drive anywhere."
His remarks contrast with the tone set by Ian Pearson, the environment minister, who last week used strong language to criticise Ryanair for opposing the European commission's plan to include all flights within Europe in the EU carbon trading scheme from 2011. Mr Blair's remarks are also at odds with the declaration last month by the Prince of Wales that he would cut back on domestic and international flights.
David Cameron, the Tory leader, believes he has stolen a march on the government by emphasising green issues and his own credentials - installing a wind turbine on his new house.
The prime minister says: "I think that what we need to do is to look at how you make air travel more energy efficient, how you develop the new fuels that will allow us to burn less energy and emit less. How - for example - in the new frames for the aircraft, they are far more energy efficient."
Downing Street was irritated last night that the interview, with Sky News, was quickly interpreted as a snub to attempts to reduce people's carbon footprints. "This is not about the prime minister's travel," a source said. The prime minister's spokesman said that Mr Blair offset all his official travel, though No 10 refused to say whether he did this on personal flights. He added: "All government activity will be carbon neutral by 2015 and the prime minister has taken the lead in this."
Mr Blair says in his interview that he is taking a difficult decision on whether to replace Britain's nuclear energy capacity. In his Labour conference speech last year the prime minister mocked Mr Cameron for adopting a "multiple choice" approach by saying he would only endorse nuclear power as a last resort.
Mr Blair's message in the interview is that everyone needs to work together, but imposing strict rules would only backfire. "Britain is 2% of the world's emissions. We shut down all of Britain's emissions tomorrow - the growth in China will make up the difference within two years. "So we've got to be realistic about how much obligation we've got to put on ourselves. The danger, for example, if you say to people 'Right, in Britain ... you're not going to have any more cheap air travel,' everybody else is going to be having it. So you've got to do this together in a way that doesn't end up actually putting people off the green agenda by saying you must not have a good time any more and can't consume. All the evidence is that if you use the science and technology constructively, your economy can grow, people can have a good time, but do so more responsibly."
Emily Armistead, of Greenpeace, said: "Tony Blair is crossing his fingers and hoping someone will invent aeroplanes that don't cause climate change. But that's like holding out for cigarettes that don't cause cancer. Hoping for the best isn't a policy, it's a delusion." Mike Childs, of Friends of the Earth, said: "It's disappointing that Tony Blair is refusing to set an example on tackling climate change, but it is even more disappointing that his government is failing to take decisive action to cut UK emissions."
Source
Moronic "Guardian" writer: "Talking of ignorance, where would we be without Guardian columnists? My old boss, Peter Shore, the late Labour Cabinet minister used to read the Daily Express every morning just to get angry. I prefer The Guardian. Yesterday Zoe Williams informed us that "there is no precedent for a country to be diamond [or petroleum] rich and not spend the rest of its history bogged down in civil and/or external war." I suppose that she has never heard of those two obscure countries, the US and the UK".
Wacky Britain: "`The government's latest wheeze is to raise the legal age for buying cigarettes from 16 to 18. So let me see if I have this straight. You will be able legally to have sex at 16 - or younger, according to senior policemen - but the law won't allow you a postcoital cigarette until two years later. Not even if you are married"
Chris Brand has just done a new lot of posts on his usual themes of race, IQ and political correctness -- with particular emphasis on the British scene.
Europe wants to tax Britons: "Brussels politicians have drawn up proposals to create a European income tax which would leave Britons shelling out 510 pounds a year to the superstate. The rumbling row over the size of Britain’s rebate from Europe resurfaced as an influential committee of MEPs received recommendations for sweeping reforms to the Union’s current funding system. The Committee On Budgets is facing calls to scale back the current system in favour of a form of direct taxation when Britain’s rebate is re-negotiated in 2008.
Post lifted from Jihad Watch
Tony Blair and other British authorities have endlessly dinned into our ears the proposition that the vast majority of British mosques were completely loyal to the British state. The evidence for this has always been sketchy, but the penalties high for questioning it: anyone who has done so has been ostracised by the mainstream as a "racist," a "bigot," an "Islamophobe." But here are some of Blair's chickens coming home to roost: one organization he has praised is caught out by the undercover reporters here. And this is from The Guardian, which doesn't hesitate to allow itself to be used as a platform by dupes, dhimmis and fellow travelers like Karen Armstrong and Brian Whitaker.
"Revealed: preachers' messages of hate: Muslim worshippers are being urged by radical clerics to ignore British law," by Jamie Doward in The Guardian, with thanks to all who sent this in:
An undercover investigation has revealed disturbing evidence of Islamic extremism at a number of Britain's leading mosques and Muslim institutions, including an organisation praised by the Prime Minister.
Secret video footage reveals Muslim preachers exhorting followers to prepare for jihad, to hit girls for not wearing the hijab, and to create a 'state within a state'. Many of the preachers are linked to the Wahhabi strain of Islam practised in Saudi Arabia, which funds a number of Britain's leading Islamic institutions.
A forthcoming Channel 4 Dispatches programme paints an alarming picture of how preachers in some of Britain's most moderate mosques are urging followers to reject British laws in favour of those of Islam. Leaders of the mosques have expressed concern at the preachers' activities, saying they were unaware such views were being disseminated.
At the Sparkbrook mosque, run by UK Islamic Mission (UKIM), an organisation that maintains 45 mosques in Britain and which Tony Blair has said 'is extremely valued by the government for its multi-faith and multicultural activities', a preacher is captured on film praising the Taliban. In response to the news that a British Muslim solider was killed fighting the Taliban, the speaker declares: 'The hero of Islam is the one who separated his head from his shoulders.'
Another speaker says Muslims cannot accept the rule of non-Muslims. 'You cannot accept the rule of the kaffir [non-Muslim],' a preacher, Dr Ijaz Mian, tells a meeting held within the mosque. 'We have to rule ourselves and we have to rule the others.'
Read it all.
Radical Islam and British Universities
Leading Muslim terrorists have been educated at Britain's universities
British Universities have long been centers of radicalism, usually of the brand of amateur socialism espoused by the Socialist Workers Party or its ugly sisters Militant and the Worker's Revolutionary Party. Pretending to understand Dialectical Marxism and Trotskyite "permanent revolution", the leftist radicals infested, and still infest, campuses across Britain.
Since the 1970s, these activists have promoted the myth of Palestinian perpetual martyrdom, and portrayed Israel as a bogeyman. During the 1980s, they supported the women who camped rough outside RAF Greenham Common, a US-linked air base in Bedfordshire, Britain. Though ignored by most students, activists promoted an agenda of anti-Americanism and anti-semitism that has infected at least two generations of post-graduates.
Ultimately they contributed to British media's fawning over the notion of Palestinian, and by extension all Muslims', victimhood. Now grown up, the former student union activists are the first to hurl the term "Islamophobe" at anyone who questions the spread of radical Islam. In such a climate, it has been easy for Islamic radicalism to flourish, and even to be welcomed on Britain's campuses.
On September 26, 2005, Britain's Social Affairs Unit published a report by Professor Anthony Glees and Chris Pope from Brunel University. This report, entitled "When Students Turn To Terror", listed 24 universities where radicalism flourished, including Birmingham, Brunel, Durham, Leeds, Leeds Metropolitan, Luton, Leicester, Manchester Metropolitan, Newcastle, Nottingham, Reading, Swansea, and Wolverhampton.
Coming out while Britain was still reeling from the horrors of 7/7, when 52 people died on London Transport, Professor Glees' report galvanized the UK media. Already mosques and radical preachers had been named as contributing factors to the bombings of July 7, 2005. Universities had thitherto been ignored. Yet Britain's campuses had long been the playgrounds of amateur radicals and Islamists.
Many leading Muslim terrorists have been educated at Britain's universities. Azahari bin Husin, the senior bomb-maker from Jemaah Islamiyah who masterminded the Bali bombings of October 12, 2002 (killing 202 people) and October 1, 2005 (killing 20), studied at Reading University in the 1990s. He gained a doctorate in engineering before going off to join Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
On February 26, 1993, Ramzi Yousef drove a truck carrying a 1,200 pound bomb laced with cyanide into the car park beneath the World Trade Center. The ensuing blast killed six and injured 1,000. Four years before he committed this atrocity, Yousef completed a degree in engineering at West Glamorgan Institute (now Swansea Institute of Higher Education). Dr Rihab Rashid Taha al-Azawi, Saddam Hussein's "Doctor Germ", responsible for his biological warfare programs, learned her trade in Britain. In 1984, she gained a PhD in plant toxins at the School of Biological Sciences at the University of East Anglia.
Individuals such as the above did not flaunt their Islamist credentials at college. Other individuals in British universities linked to terrorism have been allowed to lecture. One such person is 52-year old Bashir Musa Mohammed Nafi, who is alleged to be a founder of the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Like Sami al-Arian, who formerly lectured at the University of South Florida, Bashir Musa Mohammed Nafi was, as recently as 2003, an occasional lecturer at Birkbeck College at the University of London. Here, he taught Islamic studies. In the 1990s, Nafi collaborated with al-Arian in Florida. Accused by the US of being the UK leader of PIJ, Nafi has denied the claims.
In 2004, Professor Anthony Glees claimed that academics in Britain's universities were actively hampering attempts by security services to defend the nation against Islamist threats. He claimed that many academics were "hostile to the idea of intervention in international affairs and have, since 1980, harbored strong suspicions of American motives." In July 2004, the Times reported that two UK universities, the University of Wales and the University of Loughborough, had given official approval to two Islamic colleges which supported both the Taliban and terror-group Hamas. The rector of the Markfield Institute of Higher Education is a member of the extremist party in Pakistan, the Jamaat-e-Islami, who was said to have praised the Taliban. Markfield was supported by Loughborough University and has been praised by the pro-Islamic Prince Charles.
The European Institute of Human Sciences in Llanybydder, West Wales, was validated by the University of Wales. It teaches Arabic courses inspired by Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Times claimed.
During the 1990s, a new phenomenon emerged on campuses and colleges in Britain - that of open radicals who loudly proclaimed their contempt for Western values, and unequivocally pronouncing their jihadist intentions.
Bizarrely, as Melanie Phillips reported in her book "Londonistan", the department of MI5 which dealt with radical Islamism was closed in 1994, while they considered the issue of the IRA to be more important. With the cat put away, the rats come out to play, in full force. During this hiatus in surveillance, two groups came to the fore, both connected with the Syrian-born Islamist preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed.
Bakri had arrived in Britain in 1985 as an "asylum-seeker", after he was deported from Saudi Arabia for belonging to a group classed as too "extreme" even for the center of Wahhabism. This group was called "Al-Muhajiroun", or "the emigrants". Bakri, a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood had founded this group in Saudi Arabia in 1983 as a front for Hizb ut-Tahrir, the "revolutionary" Islamist group which is banned in most Middle Eastern countries.
When he arrived in Britain, Bakri founded the British branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir. In 1996, he also established Al-Muhajiroun in Britain. These two groups have the aim of establishing Britain as an Islamist state, and yearn for the restoration of the Caliphate, a system of Islamic central government. The last Caliphate, that of the Ottomans, was dissolved in 1924.
On Britain's campuses, the two groups established their influence during the latter half of the 1990s, particularly after MI5 stopped treating Islam seriously. Hizb ut-Tahrir members regularly threatened to kill Peter Tatchell, a homosexual rights campaigner, and Al-Muhajiroun openly pronounced their hatred of Jews. In the fall of 2000, they hung posters at university campuses which proclaimed: "The last hour will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims kill the Jews."
Threats and slogans aside, both groups had a more real danger inherent in their activities. The presence of Al-Muhajiroun on campuses in various universities led MI5 to set up a unit to monitor student Islamism at the dawn of the millennium. In early 2001, Russian authorities urged Britain to ban Al-Muhajiroun, as their intelligence showed that students from the London School of Economics had been recruited by the group to become terrorists in Chechnya.
In December 2000 Mohammed Bilal, a young British Muslim, who had been studying his "A-levels" at a sixth form college in Birmingham, went to India. Bilal had links to Al-Muhajiroun. He blew himself up in a stolen car. This suicide attack at an army barracks in Kashmir killed six soldiers and three civilians.
In October 2001, Al-Muhajiroun claimed that three British Muslims were killed by a US rocket attack in Kabul, Afghanistan. The group claimed that 1,000 British Muslims had gone to Afghanistan since 9/11.
In November 2001, Hassan Butt of Al-Muhajiroun announced that five British Muslims had died in Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan. Butt said: "They all died as martyrs fighting the so-called coalition against terrorism. They went out there to fight for the Taliban and were prepared to give their lives." On January 7, 2002, Butt told the BBC's Today program from his base in Lahore, Pakistan, that many of the British Muslims in Afghanistan would, upon their return, launch terror attacks which would "strike at the heart" of Britain. Butt boasted of personally recruiting 200 people to fight the coalition.
Bakri cannily denounced Butt's claims, saying that Al-Muhajiroun did not support military actions. He also said that Butt was no longer a member of the group and was no longer its spokesman. Bakri was lying. At a meeting in Sparkbrook in Birmingham, held less than a week after 9/11, Al Muhajiroun urged listeners to join the armed jihad against coalition troops. One speaker said that Muslims who supported the invasion of Afghanistan were to be urged not to do so. "But if they do not listen, they are Kufr (unbelievers) too and so it is our duty to fight and even kill them." Leaflets at the meetings proclaimed: "The final hour will not come until the Muslims conquer the White House." In Derby, Bakri used to regularly visit Al-Muhajiroun members, who had a strong following in the town. In 2000, he told a meeting there that Muslims must send armies "to fight the aggressors and occupiers and establish the Khilafah (Caliphate)." He issued a fatwa saying that "the Israeli cancer in Palestine must be uprooted."
While Al-Muhajiroun targeted students with an attempt to inspire them to jihad, the other group headed by Omar Bakri Mohammed was making inroads at universities and colleges throughout Britain. Hizb ut-Tahrir began to infiltrate student unions and Islamic societies, and its message was equally uncompromising. Hizb ut-Tahrir's approach was similarly supportive of violence, and used intimidation to achieve its ends. Its most notable influence was to force Muslim women students to wear the hijab or Muslim headscarf. This item had been only used by the older generation of Muslim women until the 1990s. Before the campaigns from Hizb ut-Tahrir, the item had hardly been seen on a campus.
During this decade, while the British government downplayed the seriousness of Islamic radicalism as part of a global movement towards dominance, the behavior of Hizb ut-Tahrir should have raised alarm bells. Britain's Channel 4 even made a documentary of Omar Bakri Mohammed, filmed over a year in and around his base in Tottenham, north London. Screened on April 8, 1997, this show, entitled "Tottenham Ayatollah" portrayed Bakri as a clownish buffoon. The documentary's approach was almost consciously misleading. In 1996, Bakri had tried to invite Osama bin Laden to Britain, to attend an "Islamic Revival Rally". Though the show supplied evidence of Bakri's preaching of hatred towards Jews, it was condemned by various Muslim groups. Makbool Javaid, chair of the Association of Muslim Lawyers, tried to prevent the broadcast going out.
There was nothing funny about Omar Bakri Mohammed. Before the documentary was shown, Bakri had addressed 200 students at the Newham College of Further Education, on Thursday, February 23, 1995. Bakri had a core group of supporters at this college in east London. The following day an African student, Ayotunde Obanubi, was stabbed in the arm at the college by a Hizb ut-Tahrir supporter. On Monday February 27, a group of several Hizb ut-Tahrir supporting students, led by Saeed Nur, again attacked Mr Obanubi. The Nigerian student was accused of "insulting Islam". The group was armed with hammers and knives. Struck on the head with a hammer and stabbed through the heart, Ayotunde Obanubi died on the steps of the college. Bakri's followers had claimed their first victim.
More here
EU FORCES BRITISH AMBULANCES TO WAIT FOR TEA
Ambulance crews in Brighouse could be forced to finish their tea breaks before turning out on an emergency call thanks to new EU rules. Staff working at ambulance stations in West Yorkshire are among those who will be affected by the changes which staff have described as 'madness'.
If paramedics receive a call to a road traffic accident or someone taken ill at their home the new rules mean they are officially supposed to complete their meal break before responding to the emergency call. Paramedics in other parts of the country where the new ruling has been adopted have warned lives will be lost.
In some parts of the country ambulance services have opted out of the European Working Time Directive that enforces breaks. If a major accident happened outside an ambulance station and staff were on the first part of their meal break it would technically mean they could not be asked to help.
Operations director for Yorkshire Ambulance Service, John Darley, said a letter was sent out to all front line staff at the beginning of December informing them of changes to rotas and meal breaks. 'These changes are aimed at unifying the staff in North, East, South and West Yorkshire who joined together on July 1, 2006 when Yorkshire Ambulance Service - YAS was formed. 'Only West and South Yorkshire staff will be affected by the rota or meal break changes - with a protected meal break being introduced for the first time in West Yorkshire. Staff in North and East Yorkshire will continue with their current rota and meal break arrangements,' he said.
But John Durkin, GMB branch secretary for YAS, said the aim of the ambulance service was to save lives and he felt professionalism would outweigh the new ruling. 'Brighouse is very fortunate to have professional staff whose main aim is to help people,' said Mr Durkin. He said the meal break issue was among other changes currently being discussed.
Just days before Christmas hundreds of ambulance workers were warned of possible redundancies in the Yorkshire area. Around 400 staff working for YAS were told of changes that were being made to ensure a more efficient service. But Mr Durkin said the changes would have a knock on effect on patient care. He criticised the service for its 'insensitive' handling of the situation which he said had been done without any consultation. 'The staff who are affected back up the front line workers. It will affect patient care,' he said
Source
CARRY ON FLYING, SAYS BLAIR - SCIENCE WILL SAVE THE PLANET
Tony Blair today wades into the growing controversy over how individuals can help to tackle global warming by declaring that he has no intention of abandoning long-haul holiday flights to reduce his carbon footprint. Days after his environment minister branded Ryanair the "irresponsible face of capitalism" for opposing an EU carbon emissions scheme, the prime minister says it is impractical to expect people to make personal sacrifices by taking holidays closer to home. "I personally think these things are a bit impractical actually to expect people to do that," Mr Blair says in an interview.
The prime minister, who recently had a family holiday in Miami, adds that it would be wrong to impose "unrealistic targets" on travellers. "You know, I'm still waiting for the first politician who's actually running for office who's going to come out and say it - and they're not," Mr Blair says. "It's like telling people you shouldn't drive anywhere."
His remarks contrast with the tone set by Ian Pearson, the environment minister, who last week used strong language to criticise Ryanair for opposing the European commission's plan to include all flights within Europe in the EU carbon trading scheme from 2011. Mr Blair's remarks are also at odds with the declaration last month by the Prince of Wales that he would cut back on domestic and international flights.
David Cameron, the Tory leader, believes he has stolen a march on the government by emphasising green issues and his own credentials - installing a wind turbine on his new house.
The prime minister says: "I think that what we need to do is to look at how you make air travel more energy efficient, how you develop the new fuels that will allow us to burn less energy and emit less. How - for example - in the new frames for the aircraft, they are far more energy efficient."
Downing Street was irritated last night that the interview, with Sky News, was quickly interpreted as a snub to attempts to reduce people's carbon footprints. "This is not about the prime minister's travel," a source said. The prime minister's spokesman said that Mr Blair offset all his official travel, though No 10 refused to say whether he did this on personal flights. He added: "All government activity will be carbon neutral by 2015 and the prime minister has taken the lead in this."
Mr Blair says in his interview that he is taking a difficult decision on whether to replace Britain's nuclear energy capacity. In his Labour conference speech last year the prime minister mocked Mr Cameron for adopting a "multiple choice" approach by saying he would only endorse nuclear power as a last resort.
Mr Blair's message in the interview is that everyone needs to work together, but imposing strict rules would only backfire. "Britain is 2% of the world's emissions. We shut down all of Britain's emissions tomorrow - the growth in China will make up the difference within two years. "So we've got to be realistic about how much obligation we've got to put on ourselves. The danger, for example, if you say to people 'Right, in Britain ... you're not going to have any more cheap air travel,' everybody else is going to be having it. So you've got to do this together in a way that doesn't end up actually putting people off the green agenda by saying you must not have a good time any more and can't consume. All the evidence is that if you use the science and technology constructively, your economy can grow, people can have a good time, but do so more responsibly."
Emily Armistead, of Greenpeace, said: "Tony Blair is crossing his fingers and hoping someone will invent aeroplanes that don't cause climate change. But that's like holding out for cigarettes that don't cause cancer. Hoping for the best isn't a policy, it's a delusion." Mike Childs, of Friends of the Earth, said: "It's disappointing that Tony Blair is refusing to set an example on tackling climate change, but it is even more disappointing that his government is failing to take decisive action to cut UK emissions."
Source
Moronic "Guardian" writer: "Talking of ignorance, where would we be without Guardian columnists? My old boss, Peter Shore, the late Labour Cabinet minister used to read the Daily Express every morning just to get angry. I prefer The Guardian. Yesterday Zoe Williams informed us that "there is no precedent for a country to be diamond [or petroleum] rich and not spend the rest of its history bogged down in civil and/or external war." I suppose that she has never heard of those two obscure countries, the US and the UK".
Wacky Britain: "`The government's latest wheeze is to raise the legal age for buying cigarettes from 16 to 18. So let me see if I have this straight. You will be able legally to have sex at 16 - or younger, according to senior policemen - but the law won't allow you a postcoital cigarette until two years later. Not even if you are married"
Chris Brand has just done a new lot of posts on his usual themes of race, IQ and political correctness -- with particular emphasis on the British scene.
Europe wants to tax Britons: "Brussels politicians have drawn up proposals to create a European income tax which would leave Britons shelling out 510 pounds a year to the superstate. The rumbling row over the size of Britain’s rebate from Europe resurfaced as an influential committee of MEPs received recommendations for sweeping reforms to the Union’s current funding system. The Committee On Budgets is facing calls to scale back the current system in favour of a form of direct taxation when Britain’s rebate is re-negotiated in 2008.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
BRITISH CHURCHES VERSUS HOMOSEXUALS
If they get Muslims to speak up too they could win this one.
Church groups are to challenge in court gay rights legislation that would make it illegal for hotels to turn away guests because of their sexuality. Christian organisations say that the regulations interfere with religious belief and are seeking a judicial review of the regulations in Northern Ireland, where they took effect this month, before similar moves planned for the rest of the United Kingdom.
An attempt to scrap the regulations in Northern Ireland failed in the Lords last night by 199 to 68, a majority of 131. Critics of the regulations say that they will force guest houses, schools, churches, nursing homes, printers, adoption agencies and even wedding photographers to compromise on moral objections to homosexuality or face being sued. But Stonewall, the gay rights group, accused religious groups of creating a false picture by citing examples that would not arise or could not lead to legal action.
The application for a judicial review is due to be heard in March at the High Court in Belfast. It has the potential to embarrass the Government, which is split over the introduction of legislation in England, Wales and Scotland.
Ruth Kelly, the Cabinet minister responsible for equality legislation, is an active Roman Catholic. She has infuriated colleagues by delaying the regulations, ostensibly because of the volume of responses to a consultation launched in March last year. She now has just three months to publish her department's formal response, release the regulations in draft form and secure the approval from the Commons and Lords in time for their planned introduction on April 6. The already tight timetable could be thrown into doubt if the court hearing in Belfast finds procedural flaws in the process followed in Northern Ireland and triggers similar legal moves to challenge Ms Kelly's regulations.
Among the most sensitive areas is accommodation, where operators of larger guest-houses, hotels or boarding houses could be sued for discrimination if they turn away a gay couple saying that their presence might offend other guests, or if they refuse them a room with a double bed.
The Northern Ireland regulations offer an exemption to people who take in lodgers in their own homes and to small guesthouses that double as the proprietor's home, but other forms of accommodation fall firmly within their scope. There have been a number of cases of discrimination against gay couples in tourist accommodation, boarding houses or hotels, usually in rural areas, according to Keith Etherington, a solicitor and member of the Gay and Lesbian Lawyers' Association. "This is where the law will bite: in the services industry, the small hotels where couples have turned up and the hotelier has not realised it was two men, or two women, and they have been turned away. If that continues, then the couple will now have a right of action against the hotel."
The regulations for Northern Ireland are particularly controversial as they introduce an additional concept of harassment caused by conduct that might create "an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment". Ministers have said that this addition is due to the special circumstances of Northern Ireland, where equality legislation has a different process due to the sectarian tensions in the Province, and they have pledged that the regulations for the rest of Britain will deal solely with discrimination and not harassment.
Ben Summerskill, the chief executive of Stonewall, said that most of the examples cited by critics were implausible or inaccurate. The regulations also had an exemption for doctrinal religious belief, he said. "It has been slightly frustrating as we have had over the past few weeks people getting exercised over things who almost appear not to have read these regulations," Mr Summerskill added. Other supporters of the laws, including the Trades Union Congress, urged ministers not to give ground.
Source
HOMOSEXUALS VERSUS FREEDOM OF RELIGION
An editorial from "The Times" below
When a Christian hotel owner refuses a bed to a gay couple on the basis that sodomy is a sin, it is difficult not to feel that prejudice is simply masquerading as conscience. For a commercial enterprise to put up a sign saying "no gays" should be as unthinkable as one saying "no blacks". That is an indication of just how far the majority view has shifted in the past 20 years.
The question is how quickly the law should move in formalising this change in our culture. The Government's sexual orientation regulations (Sors), the subject of heated debate in the Lords yesterday, are designed to outlaw discrimination against homosexuals and transsexuals - in Northern Ireland and eventually, it is assumed, throughout Britain. Rarely have Christian, Muslim and Jewish groups been so stridently united as they were yesterday, in arguing that the law has already gone far enough. They fear that further attempts to appease a gay minority will disciminate against religious ones.
It is still part of the faith of some Christians, Muslims and Jews that homosexuality is a sinful practice. It is natural that some followers will regard that belief as practical guidance for living. But in claiming that worshippers will be cast "back into slavery" by new gay rights, some black church leaders have gone too far. The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham has accused the Government of an "aggressive reshaping of our moral framework". But the desire to stamp out discrimination reflects a new moral framework that society has been fashioning gradually over decades.
Religious beliefs should be respected. But it does not follow that those who hold them should always be free to discriminate. Sacred texts cannot be rewritten, but they can be reinterpreted. Reformist leaders of all faiths are working hard to build a cultural tolerance inside their institutions that reflects that in the outside society.
The real danger is that excessive regulation, or vague wording, could make their task more difficult. It should be no more acceptable to refuse a product to a homosexual than it should be to mock people because of their religion. But the Sors apply widely, into education as well as goods, facilities and services. Education could prove particularly tricky. While the actual employment of teachers is subject to separate provisions, from which faith schools are exempt, questions will inevitably arise about the extent to which teaching itself might be termed discriminatory. Pupils must be informed of how different religions view homosexuality. But what about the teacher who believes that marriage is good, abortion and homosexuality bad? Will it be lawful to express that personal view?
Another question is whether the regulations could spell the end of state funding for charitable organisations. Lord Mackay of Clashfern believes that an adoption agency could refuse services to same-sex couples under these regulations, but could not receive public money. This potential dilemma deserves more thought from politicians who have encouraged faith groups to provide more charity.
The law has played a vital role in securing equal rights for homosexuals, and indeed in helping to change perceptions dramatically. The Government deserves much credit for this. But these new regulations are too vague. The question now is how best to encourage those few who still practise discrimination to love their neighbours, of whatever orientation.
Source
Attack on Political Freedom in England
To the British Left, having views critical of immigration means that you must be hounded out of your job:
The BNP Ballerina
A cautious comment below from the Daily Mail
Giselle is perhaps the most romantic of the classical ballets and always among the most popular. It is a tale shot through with passion and fear as the heroine, a naive peasant girl, is first seduced and then betrayed by a fairytale prince. So when gifted lead dancer Simone Clarke takes the title role in the English National Ballet production at the London Coliseum next week, all eyes will naturally be on her. But she will not be under the spotlight for her bewitching elegance and poise alone. No, the audience have a startling extra reason to focus their attention on Simone - because just days ago she was named as the BNP Ballerina.
The dancer's membership of the British National Party was exposed by a Guardian reporter who had gone undercover to join this unpleasant organisation and it came as a nasty surprise all round. The BNP is certainly repellent, with its knee-jerk hatred of foreigners and history of organised thuggery, and there is something in the juxtaposition of dance pumps and bovver boots that many will find impossible to comprehend, particularly in the liberal world of the arts. But Simone's explanation for why she decided to join the party last year - given here for the first time - cannot be simply brushed aside as a foolish error, let alone ignored.
The reason is summed up in one word: Immigration. It has, she told the undercover journalist who exposed her, "really got out of hand' - and today she maintains the BNP" are the only ones to take a stand' on the issue that she believes troubles the majority of voters, even though such views have led to her being branded a racist and a fascist. "Using the word immigration is now a greater crime than cold-blooded murder," she claims.
But her story has wider implications. When one of the country's principal ballerinas, a 36-year-old woman who spent much of her recent working life as the Sugar Plum Fairy, decides to join the British neo-fascists, there is an argument that something has gone badly wrong with democratic British politics. On the eve of two more accessions to the EU - Romania and Bulgaria - she serves as an alarming, if graceful, reminder of the danger the far Right now poses in a country increasingly disillusioned with the political centre ground.
Naturally, the disclosure has been hugely controversial but Simone has, since the news broke, refused to make any public comment on her views, retreating instead to the West London home she shares with her partner and co-dancer Yat-Sen Chang - who, extraordinarily, is a Cuban immigrant whose father is Chinese. But in her only interview about her political beliefs, she refuses to back down or apologise for her views, despite the torrent of criticism they have attracted. Simone insists there is no contradiction in her choice of a foreign partner or in her decision to work with one of the most ethnically diverse ballet troupes in the world. And she says that, for her, the issue is disarmingly simple: mainstream politicians are failing to tackle the issues that worry people most, while the BNP is promising firm action.
By her account at least, she was by no means brainwashed - in fact it was her foreign-born partner who spurred her to sign up. "I joined about 18 months ago," she says. "Yat and I were watching the television. As usual I was moaning about something that I had seen on the news and he just said, "Well, stop moaning and do something about it." "I didn't really know anything about the BNP but they had come up in conversation a few times because they had just won some local council seats. "We went on to the computer and we looked them up and I read their manifesto. I'm not too proud to say that a lot of it went over my head but some of the things they mentioned were the things I think about all the time, mainly mass immigration, crime and increased taxes. Those three issues were enough to make me join so I paid my 25 pounds there and then. "I think the BNP are honest. They're not trying to dress up what they want, which is change on these issues."
Simone is certainly honest. More to the point, she is increasingly typical of the albeit tiny band of seemingly respectable, middle-class voters that the reshaped, carefully 'branded' BNP is anxious to woo. The tatooed skinheads who once dominated the party are nowhere to be seen, in public at least. Instead it is led by a savvy Cambridge graduate in a suit. That leader, Nick Griffin, advocates the repatriation of Muslims, denies the Holocaust and believes that black footballers who represent the national team cannot be classed as English.
Yet crime and immigration are real and understandable fears, and they provide a fertile recruiting ground for the BNP that extends well beyond the traditional ranks of the deprived and disaffected. By focusing, instead, on the politics of Middle England, Griffin has managed to win 55 council seats in England. According to a recent ICM poll the BNP could attract seven per cent of the UK's total vote in a General Election. The veneer of respectability might be paper-thin but it is enough to attract people like Simone.
She was born in Leeds, where her father Alfred was a maths teacher and her mother Janet a secretary. The family grew up in a small semi-detached house on the outskirts of the city, where Simone attended the local Catholic school before moving, at the age of ten, to the Royal Ballet School. She won one of just 23 places at its academy, White Lodge in Richmond, West London, from a total of 4,500 entrants. With her coal-black eyes and raven hair, Simone is a world away from the BNP supporter of old with his shaven head and tattooed knuckles. She is proud of her Yorkshire roots and visits Leeds often to see her four-year-old daughter, Olivia, who lives there with her grandparents while Simone and Yat are away on tour.
Leeds is a traditional recruiting ground for the BNP, yet Simone's views were formed from her years in London. Her father has never been a BNP supporter yet he, too, has now become so disillusioned with the alternatives that he is considering joining the party as well. Simone, who is bright if politically naive, does not view the BNP as a racist organisation, even though it would seem directly opposed to her relationship with Yat - who, as a foreigner, is even banned from joining. In fact, she does not see her views as extreme in any way, arguing that she is no more than a normal person with normal views and a limited appetite for political argument.
"I'd never been a member of any party before, although I'd voted Conservative a couple of times,' she explains. "I'm not a particularly political person but I read the manifesto and I took it on face value. Sometimes it feels as though the BNP are the only ones willing to take a stand. "I have been labelled a racist and a fascist because I have a view on immigration - and I mean mass immigration - but isn't that something that a lot of people worry about? "As with all parties, you can't agree on all things. You have to take the good bits and ignore the bad bits and that goes for any party. When I think about it I wonder, "Well, who's going to look after people like me?" People who work hard, who like to celebrate Christmas; people who are law-abiding citizens who pay their taxes - more and more of them - but feel that no one is speaking for them."
She gets little encouragement from the news. Although Labour claims that asylum applications have been cut by 68 per cent since 2002, figures from the Migration Watch lobby group suggest that in total, immigrants are arriving in Britain at the rate of one a minute. No one pretends that immigration is in any way under control. And, despite Britain's jails being full to bursting, the same is true of crime, which blights the lives of rich and poor alike.
So perhaps it is no wonder that, despite the get-tough rhetoric of both Labour and the Conservative Opposition, even the most impeccably respectable are starting to think about alternatives, even if only a tiny minority choose the BNP. "I consider myself normal," says Simone with just a hint of a Yorkshire accent. "I just got sick of seeing what goes on in the world, of how much unfairness there is in the system. "I suppose I first started becoming aware about ten years ago. I remember seeing a story about someone who had been driving a car illegally. I don't know where he was from but he had no licence and he ran over and killed a little girl. He was fined 65 pounds. If I don't pay my TV licence I can get fined 1,000 pounds, yet he can take a girl's life and get fined 65. "I don't know why it's OK to be shot for your mobile phone and the thief be given a few months in prison but I'm not allowed to say, 'I don't agree with that'."
Simone met Yat seven years ago when she left the Royal Ballet to join the rival English National Ballet. If the contradictions in the relationship seem obvious to most, to her they are invisible. "We are a happy family. I think it's really silly when people make a big thing about me being with Yat as well as being a member of the BNP,' she says, arguing that she has no problem with foreigners who come here and work hard - such as her colleagues in the ENB, where only one other principal dancer is British. "It's not about removing foreigners. It's about border controls. Because of terrorism we do have to know who's coming and going. For the people with jobs it is possible to do that. We know where they are because they pay their taxes and are fully paid-up members of society. "The other problem I have is that Britain isn't really very big. And it's an island. I really cannot see the logic of allowing so many people in."
But for all her defiance, she remains a reluctant mouthpiece. "My life has changed,' she admits. "Everything will be different now. I will be known as the BNP Ballerina. I think that will stick with me for life. I'd rather it wasn't like that but I don't regret anything. I will stay a member. "I am angry because I don't think it should be public knowledge who someone votes for. People are easily offended by political views, whatever the persuasion, and for that reason I think it should stay private. "As far as I'm concerned my conscience is clear. As for the journalist who spent months snooping around, he'd find more dirt under his fingernails than he'd ever find on me. "I've never been clearer in my head that I'm moving in the right direction and at the right time. I've had nearly 300 emails supporting me from all over the UK and from as far away as Australia, America and New Zealand. Out of those just three were horrible, calling me racist."
She also says she has had little reaction from her ballet colleagues. "In the end nobody really said anything at work,' she says. "I think it's because there are a lot of foreign dancers who have probably never even heard of the BNP." But if Simone is angry to be dragged on to this sort of public stage, and if the main political parties are alarmed at the growing reach of the far Right, the reaction to the exposure in the Welshpool headquarters of the BNP is likely to be rather different. Here, quiet satisfaction is more probable - quiet, because that is how the 'troops' have been instructed to behave in Nick Griffin's alarmingly disciplined march on Middle Britain.
The BNP must be delighted to see its manifesto of hatred endorsed by the sort of upright individual who would once have turned away on principle, especially when the individual in question is young, female and on pointe. So when the curtain comes down at the Coliseum next week and the departing members of the audience hurry out into the cold night air, they should perhaps remember this: that if the marvellous Giselle they applauded to the roof is in any way typical of the thousands in the auditorium, and that if the fear of crime and immigration continues to follow its predicted course, it will be a rather bright 2007 for Nick Griffin and his cohorts.
LEFTIST HATRED OF MERIT AND ABILITY AT WORK IN BRITAIN
A lottery is OK to select pupils but evidence of ability is not
Schools will be able to allocate places by “lottery” to ensure fairness between all applicants and to stop middle-class families from dominating the best secondaries, under a new admissions code for England. The mandatory code, which will come into force in September 2008, is being introduced to tackle “back-door selection”, where schools cream off the best students and pick pupils by social background. Many of the best state schools have become largely the preserve of families who can afford to buy homes nearby or expensive uniforms or who can show their commitment to the school through generous donations.
Labour MPs demanded that the code be toughened during the revolt against Tony Blair’s school reforms last year. Alan Johnson, the Education and Skills Secretary, said that the code would create a system where all children, regardless of their background, had a fair opportunity of gaining a place at the school they want to attend. “[It] puts mandatory measures in place to ensure that this is the case at all schools, including the few schools that persist in using unfair or unnecessarily complex arrangements that can disadvantage some families and reduce the life chances of thousands of children,” he said.
Lottery systems, which are already common in countries such as the United States, could be used to counter the house price effect by giving children from all backgrounds a chance to enter a draw for places. “Random allocation of school places can be good practice, particularly for urban areas and secondary schools,” the code states. “It may be used as the sole means of allocating places or alongside other oversubscription criteria. Random allocation can widen access to schools for those unable to afford to buy houses near to favoured schools and create greater social equity.”
However, it adds that the practice might not be suitable for rural areas, where schools draw children from a wider geographical area and where children who did not win a place through the lottery draw might otherwise have to travel a considerable distance to an alternative school. A spokesman for the Department for Education said that lottery systems were most likely to be used to allocate places left over after the use of other admissions criteria, such as distance or membership of a faith group. They could be open to challenge by local parents who lost out for not benefiting the local area, he added.
The code will also ban covert forms of selection such as requirements for expensive school uniforms, sportswear or costly trips, unless arrangements are put in place to ensure that parents on low incomes can afford them. It will also ban admission interviews. Comprehensive schools will still be allowed to operate sibling policies, which allow children automatically to follow older brothers and sisters into the school.
However, in the case of the 39 partially selective state schools, which select more than 10 per cent of pupils, the schools must ensure that their admission arrangements do not exclude families living nearer the school. Sarah Teather, the Liberal Democrat education spokeswoman, said: “This new tighter code is welcome, but it will only make a difference if it is rigorously enforced. Heads and governors must realise that they will not get away with ignoring or flouting the new rules.”
Source
Bungling British spooks: "The Director-General of Britain's security service MI5 told senior MPs there was no imminent terrorist threat to London or the rest of the country less than 24 hours before the July 7, 2005, suicide bombings in London, in which 56 people were killed. Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller gave the assurance at a private meeting of Labour whips at the House of Commons on the morning of July 6. Last month Dame Eliza announced she was to retire in April. That announcement came weeks before details are expected to be made public of an MI5 operation in which two of the July 7 bombers were kept under surveillance but not arrested."
If they get Muslims to speak up too they could win this one.
Church groups are to challenge in court gay rights legislation that would make it illegal for hotels to turn away guests because of their sexuality. Christian organisations say that the regulations interfere with religious belief and are seeking a judicial review of the regulations in Northern Ireland, where they took effect this month, before similar moves planned for the rest of the United Kingdom.
An attempt to scrap the regulations in Northern Ireland failed in the Lords last night by 199 to 68, a majority of 131. Critics of the regulations say that they will force guest houses, schools, churches, nursing homes, printers, adoption agencies and even wedding photographers to compromise on moral objections to homosexuality or face being sued. But Stonewall, the gay rights group, accused religious groups of creating a false picture by citing examples that would not arise or could not lead to legal action.
The application for a judicial review is due to be heard in March at the High Court in Belfast. It has the potential to embarrass the Government, which is split over the introduction of legislation in England, Wales and Scotland.
Ruth Kelly, the Cabinet minister responsible for equality legislation, is an active Roman Catholic. She has infuriated colleagues by delaying the regulations, ostensibly because of the volume of responses to a consultation launched in March last year. She now has just three months to publish her department's formal response, release the regulations in draft form and secure the approval from the Commons and Lords in time for their planned introduction on April 6. The already tight timetable could be thrown into doubt if the court hearing in Belfast finds procedural flaws in the process followed in Northern Ireland and triggers similar legal moves to challenge Ms Kelly's regulations.
Among the most sensitive areas is accommodation, where operators of larger guest-houses, hotels or boarding houses could be sued for discrimination if they turn away a gay couple saying that their presence might offend other guests, or if they refuse them a room with a double bed.
The Northern Ireland regulations offer an exemption to people who take in lodgers in their own homes and to small guesthouses that double as the proprietor's home, but other forms of accommodation fall firmly within their scope. There have been a number of cases of discrimination against gay couples in tourist accommodation, boarding houses or hotels, usually in rural areas, according to Keith Etherington, a solicitor and member of the Gay and Lesbian Lawyers' Association. "This is where the law will bite: in the services industry, the small hotels where couples have turned up and the hotelier has not realised it was two men, or two women, and they have been turned away. If that continues, then the couple will now have a right of action against the hotel."
The regulations for Northern Ireland are particularly controversial as they introduce an additional concept of harassment caused by conduct that might create "an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment". Ministers have said that this addition is due to the special circumstances of Northern Ireland, where equality legislation has a different process due to the sectarian tensions in the Province, and they have pledged that the regulations for the rest of Britain will deal solely with discrimination and not harassment.
Ben Summerskill, the chief executive of Stonewall, said that most of the examples cited by critics were implausible or inaccurate. The regulations also had an exemption for doctrinal religious belief, he said. "It has been slightly frustrating as we have had over the past few weeks people getting exercised over things who almost appear not to have read these regulations," Mr Summerskill added. Other supporters of the laws, including the Trades Union Congress, urged ministers not to give ground.
Source
HOMOSEXUALS VERSUS FREEDOM OF RELIGION
An editorial from "The Times" below
When a Christian hotel owner refuses a bed to a gay couple on the basis that sodomy is a sin, it is difficult not to feel that prejudice is simply masquerading as conscience. For a commercial enterprise to put up a sign saying "no gays" should be as unthinkable as one saying "no blacks". That is an indication of just how far the majority view has shifted in the past 20 years.
The question is how quickly the law should move in formalising this change in our culture. The Government's sexual orientation regulations (Sors), the subject of heated debate in the Lords yesterday, are designed to outlaw discrimination against homosexuals and transsexuals - in Northern Ireland and eventually, it is assumed, throughout Britain. Rarely have Christian, Muslim and Jewish groups been so stridently united as they were yesterday, in arguing that the law has already gone far enough. They fear that further attempts to appease a gay minority will disciminate against religious ones.
It is still part of the faith of some Christians, Muslims and Jews that homosexuality is a sinful practice. It is natural that some followers will regard that belief as practical guidance for living. But in claiming that worshippers will be cast "back into slavery" by new gay rights, some black church leaders have gone too far. The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham has accused the Government of an "aggressive reshaping of our moral framework". But the desire to stamp out discrimination reflects a new moral framework that society has been fashioning gradually over decades.
Religious beliefs should be respected. But it does not follow that those who hold them should always be free to discriminate. Sacred texts cannot be rewritten, but they can be reinterpreted. Reformist leaders of all faiths are working hard to build a cultural tolerance inside their institutions that reflects that in the outside society.
The real danger is that excessive regulation, or vague wording, could make their task more difficult. It should be no more acceptable to refuse a product to a homosexual than it should be to mock people because of their religion. But the Sors apply widely, into education as well as goods, facilities and services. Education could prove particularly tricky. While the actual employment of teachers is subject to separate provisions, from which faith schools are exempt, questions will inevitably arise about the extent to which teaching itself might be termed discriminatory. Pupils must be informed of how different religions view homosexuality. But what about the teacher who believes that marriage is good, abortion and homosexuality bad? Will it be lawful to express that personal view?
Another question is whether the regulations could spell the end of state funding for charitable organisations. Lord Mackay of Clashfern believes that an adoption agency could refuse services to same-sex couples under these regulations, but could not receive public money. This potential dilemma deserves more thought from politicians who have encouraged faith groups to provide more charity.
The law has played a vital role in securing equal rights for homosexuals, and indeed in helping to change perceptions dramatically. The Government deserves much credit for this. But these new regulations are too vague. The question now is how best to encourage those few who still practise discrimination to love their neighbours, of whatever orientation.
Source
Attack on Political Freedom in England
To the British Left, having views critical of immigration means that you must be hounded out of your job:
"Anti-racism campaigners are to protest at the English National Ballet after a dancer admitted being a member of the British National Party. Principal dancer Simone Clarke was revealed to be a member of the party by the Guardian newspaper last month. She has since defended her beliefs, and says the BNP is "the only party to take a stand" on issues like immigration.
Campaign group Unite Against Fascism (UAF) is calling for the 36-year-old ballerina to be sacked. It is planning to protest outside a performance of Giselle, in which Clarke takes the lead role, at the London Coliseum later this week...
The BNP currently holds more than 50 council seats in the UK. On its website, it portrays itself as the only party "prepared to defend our traditional principles against the politically correct agenda" of Tony Blair and David Cameron.
Source
The BNP Ballerina
A cautious comment below from the Daily Mail
Giselle is perhaps the most romantic of the classical ballets and always among the most popular. It is a tale shot through with passion and fear as the heroine, a naive peasant girl, is first seduced and then betrayed by a fairytale prince. So when gifted lead dancer Simone Clarke takes the title role in the English National Ballet production at the London Coliseum next week, all eyes will naturally be on her. But she will not be under the spotlight for her bewitching elegance and poise alone. No, the audience have a startling extra reason to focus their attention on Simone - because just days ago she was named as the BNP Ballerina.
The dancer's membership of the British National Party was exposed by a Guardian reporter who had gone undercover to join this unpleasant organisation and it came as a nasty surprise all round. The BNP is certainly repellent, with its knee-jerk hatred of foreigners and history of organised thuggery, and there is something in the juxtaposition of dance pumps and bovver boots that many will find impossible to comprehend, particularly in the liberal world of the arts. But Simone's explanation for why she decided to join the party last year - given here for the first time - cannot be simply brushed aside as a foolish error, let alone ignored.
The reason is summed up in one word: Immigration. It has, she told the undercover journalist who exposed her, "really got out of hand' - and today she maintains the BNP" are the only ones to take a stand' on the issue that she believes troubles the majority of voters, even though such views have led to her being branded a racist and a fascist. "Using the word immigration is now a greater crime than cold-blooded murder," she claims.
But her story has wider implications. When one of the country's principal ballerinas, a 36-year-old woman who spent much of her recent working life as the Sugar Plum Fairy, decides to join the British neo-fascists, there is an argument that something has gone badly wrong with democratic British politics. On the eve of two more accessions to the EU - Romania and Bulgaria - she serves as an alarming, if graceful, reminder of the danger the far Right now poses in a country increasingly disillusioned with the political centre ground.
Naturally, the disclosure has been hugely controversial but Simone has, since the news broke, refused to make any public comment on her views, retreating instead to the West London home she shares with her partner and co-dancer Yat-Sen Chang - who, extraordinarily, is a Cuban immigrant whose father is Chinese. But in her only interview about her political beliefs, she refuses to back down or apologise for her views, despite the torrent of criticism they have attracted. Simone insists there is no contradiction in her choice of a foreign partner or in her decision to work with one of the most ethnically diverse ballet troupes in the world. And she says that, for her, the issue is disarmingly simple: mainstream politicians are failing to tackle the issues that worry people most, while the BNP is promising firm action.
By her account at least, she was by no means brainwashed - in fact it was her foreign-born partner who spurred her to sign up. "I joined about 18 months ago," she says. "Yat and I were watching the television. As usual I was moaning about something that I had seen on the news and he just said, "Well, stop moaning and do something about it." "I didn't really know anything about the BNP but they had come up in conversation a few times because they had just won some local council seats. "We went on to the computer and we looked them up and I read their manifesto. I'm not too proud to say that a lot of it went over my head but some of the things they mentioned were the things I think about all the time, mainly mass immigration, crime and increased taxes. Those three issues were enough to make me join so I paid my 25 pounds there and then. "I think the BNP are honest. They're not trying to dress up what they want, which is change on these issues."
Simone is certainly honest. More to the point, she is increasingly typical of the albeit tiny band of seemingly respectable, middle-class voters that the reshaped, carefully 'branded' BNP is anxious to woo. The tatooed skinheads who once dominated the party are nowhere to be seen, in public at least. Instead it is led by a savvy Cambridge graduate in a suit. That leader, Nick Griffin, advocates the repatriation of Muslims, denies the Holocaust and believes that black footballers who represent the national team cannot be classed as English.
Yet crime and immigration are real and understandable fears, and they provide a fertile recruiting ground for the BNP that extends well beyond the traditional ranks of the deprived and disaffected. By focusing, instead, on the politics of Middle England, Griffin has managed to win 55 council seats in England. According to a recent ICM poll the BNP could attract seven per cent of the UK's total vote in a General Election. The veneer of respectability might be paper-thin but it is enough to attract people like Simone.
She was born in Leeds, where her father Alfred was a maths teacher and her mother Janet a secretary. The family grew up in a small semi-detached house on the outskirts of the city, where Simone attended the local Catholic school before moving, at the age of ten, to the Royal Ballet School. She won one of just 23 places at its academy, White Lodge in Richmond, West London, from a total of 4,500 entrants. With her coal-black eyes and raven hair, Simone is a world away from the BNP supporter of old with his shaven head and tattooed knuckles. She is proud of her Yorkshire roots and visits Leeds often to see her four-year-old daughter, Olivia, who lives there with her grandparents while Simone and Yat are away on tour.
Leeds is a traditional recruiting ground for the BNP, yet Simone's views were formed from her years in London. Her father has never been a BNP supporter yet he, too, has now become so disillusioned with the alternatives that he is considering joining the party as well. Simone, who is bright if politically naive, does not view the BNP as a racist organisation, even though it would seem directly opposed to her relationship with Yat - who, as a foreigner, is even banned from joining. In fact, she does not see her views as extreme in any way, arguing that she is no more than a normal person with normal views and a limited appetite for political argument.
"I'd never been a member of any party before, although I'd voted Conservative a couple of times,' she explains. "I'm not a particularly political person but I read the manifesto and I took it on face value. Sometimes it feels as though the BNP are the only ones willing to take a stand. "I have been labelled a racist and a fascist because I have a view on immigration - and I mean mass immigration - but isn't that something that a lot of people worry about? "As with all parties, you can't agree on all things. You have to take the good bits and ignore the bad bits and that goes for any party. When I think about it I wonder, "Well, who's going to look after people like me?" People who work hard, who like to celebrate Christmas; people who are law-abiding citizens who pay their taxes - more and more of them - but feel that no one is speaking for them."
She gets little encouragement from the news. Although Labour claims that asylum applications have been cut by 68 per cent since 2002, figures from the Migration Watch lobby group suggest that in total, immigrants are arriving in Britain at the rate of one a minute. No one pretends that immigration is in any way under control. And, despite Britain's jails being full to bursting, the same is true of crime, which blights the lives of rich and poor alike.
So perhaps it is no wonder that, despite the get-tough rhetoric of both Labour and the Conservative Opposition, even the most impeccably respectable are starting to think about alternatives, even if only a tiny minority choose the BNP. "I consider myself normal," says Simone with just a hint of a Yorkshire accent. "I just got sick of seeing what goes on in the world, of how much unfairness there is in the system. "I suppose I first started becoming aware about ten years ago. I remember seeing a story about someone who had been driving a car illegally. I don't know where he was from but he had no licence and he ran over and killed a little girl. He was fined 65 pounds. If I don't pay my TV licence I can get fined 1,000 pounds, yet he can take a girl's life and get fined 65. "I don't know why it's OK to be shot for your mobile phone and the thief be given a few months in prison but I'm not allowed to say, 'I don't agree with that'."
Simone met Yat seven years ago when she left the Royal Ballet to join the rival English National Ballet. If the contradictions in the relationship seem obvious to most, to her they are invisible. "We are a happy family. I think it's really silly when people make a big thing about me being with Yat as well as being a member of the BNP,' she says, arguing that she has no problem with foreigners who come here and work hard - such as her colleagues in the ENB, where only one other principal dancer is British. "It's not about removing foreigners. It's about border controls. Because of terrorism we do have to know who's coming and going. For the people with jobs it is possible to do that. We know where they are because they pay their taxes and are fully paid-up members of society. "The other problem I have is that Britain isn't really very big. And it's an island. I really cannot see the logic of allowing so many people in."
But for all her defiance, she remains a reluctant mouthpiece. "My life has changed,' she admits. "Everything will be different now. I will be known as the BNP Ballerina. I think that will stick with me for life. I'd rather it wasn't like that but I don't regret anything. I will stay a member. "I am angry because I don't think it should be public knowledge who someone votes for. People are easily offended by political views, whatever the persuasion, and for that reason I think it should stay private. "As far as I'm concerned my conscience is clear. As for the journalist who spent months snooping around, he'd find more dirt under his fingernails than he'd ever find on me. "I've never been clearer in my head that I'm moving in the right direction and at the right time. I've had nearly 300 emails supporting me from all over the UK and from as far away as Australia, America and New Zealand. Out of those just three were horrible, calling me racist."
She also says she has had little reaction from her ballet colleagues. "In the end nobody really said anything at work,' she says. "I think it's because there are a lot of foreign dancers who have probably never even heard of the BNP." But if Simone is angry to be dragged on to this sort of public stage, and if the main political parties are alarmed at the growing reach of the far Right, the reaction to the exposure in the Welshpool headquarters of the BNP is likely to be rather different. Here, quiet satisfaction is more probable - quiet, because that is how the 'troops' have been instructed to behave in Nick Griffin's alarmingly disciplined march on Middle Britain.
The BNP must be delighted to see its manifesto of hatred endorsed by the sort of upright individual who would once have turned away on principle, especially when the individual in question is young, female and on pointe. So when the curtain comes down at the Coliseum next week and the departing members of the audience hurry out into the cold night air, they should perhaps remember this: that if the marvellous Giselle they applauded to the roof is in any way typical of the thousands in the auditorium, and that if the fear of crime and immigration continues to follow its predicted course, it will be a rather bright 2007 for Nick Griffin and his cohorts.
LEFTIST HATRED OF MERIT AND ABILITY AT WORK IN BRITAIN
A lottery is OK to select pupils but evidence of ability is not
Schools will be able to allocate places by “lottery” to ensure fairness between all applicants and to stop middle-class families from dominating the best secondaries, under a new admissions code for England. The mandatory code, which will come into force in September 2008, is being introduced to tackle “back-door selection”, where schools cream off the best students and pick pupils by social background. Many of the best state schools have become largely the preserve of families who can afford to buy homes nearby or expensive uniforms or who can show their commitment to the school through generous donations.
Labour MPs demanded that the code be toughened during the revolt against Tony Blair’s school reforms last year. Alan Johnson, the Education and Skills Secretary, said that the code would create a system where all children, regardless of their background, had a fair opportunity of gaining a place at the school they want to attend. “[It] puts mandatory measures in place to ensure that this is the case at all schools, including the few schools that persist in using unfair or unnecessarily complex arrangements that can disadvantage some families and reduce the life chances of thousands of children,” he said.
Lottery systems, which are already common in countries such as the United States, could be used to counter the house price effect by giving children from all backgrounds a chance to enter a draw for places. “Random allocation of school places can be good practice, particularly for urban areas and secondary schools,” the code states. “It may be used as the sole means of allocating places or alongside other oversubscription criteria. Random allocation can widen access to schools for those unable to afford to buy houses near to favoured schools and create greater social equity.”
However, it adds that the practice might not be suitable for rural areas, where schools draw children from a wider geographical area and where children who did not win a place through the lottery draw might otherwise have to travel a considerable distance to an alternative school. A spokesman for the Department for Education said that lottery systems were most likely to be used to allocate places left over after the use of other admissions criteria, such as distance or membership of a faith group. They could be open to challenge by local parents who lost out for not benefiting the local area, he added.
The code will also ban covert forms of selection such as requirements for expensive school uniforms, sportswear or costly trips, unless arrangements are put in place to ensure that parents on low incomes can afford them. It will also ban admission interviews. Comprehensive schools will still be allowed to operate sibling policies, which allow children automatically to follow older brothers and sisters into the school.
However, in the case of the 39 partially selective state schools, which select more than 10 per cent of pupils, the schools must ensure that their admission arrangements do not exclude families living nearer the school. Sarah Teather, the Liberal Democrat education spokeswoman, said: “This new tighter code is welcome, but it will only make a difference if it is rigorously enforced. Heads and governors must realise that they will not get away with ignoring or flouting the new rules.”
Source
Bungling British spooks: "The Director-General of Britain's security service MI5 told senior MPs there was no imminent terrorist threat to London or the rest of the country less than 24 hours before the July 7, 2005, suicide bombings in London, in which 56 people were killed. Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller gave the assurance at a private meeting of Labour whips at the House of Commons on the morning of July 6. Last month Dame Eliza announced she was to retire in April. That announcement came weeks before details are expected to be made public of an MI5 operation in which two of the July 7 bombers were kept under surveillance but not arrested."
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
THE REALITY OF BRITISH PUBLIC TRANSPORT
A warning to all about the Greenie enthusiasm for buses and trains. Even semi-privatization has not helped
I always swore not to write one of these grumpy holiday-return pieces. I am aware that plenty of my fellow citizens don't even get a week's respite from slum-Britannia, and to them I apologise. But this sense of reduced citizenship is not confined to travellers, so maybe it is worth recording what the sharpened senses perceive.
The most striking thing, obviously, is public transport. Under a Government that repeatedly nags us to get out of our cars, and that has failed to reverse its predecessor's disastrous privatisation, too much train travel is physically and psychologically nasty. Mainline fares have just risen by between 4.3 per cent and 7 per cent. Last year's rises were between 3.7 and 8.8 per cent. In return we get squalor (often) and insult (occasionally). After being wafted serenely 500 miles across Europe on fast, clean trains with smiling staff, our party crossed to Liverpool Street on a busy Saturday to find only one train an hour on the main line towards Ipswich and Norwich. Inconsiderately "scheduled" engineering works meant that at Colchester it was replaced by a bus.
The train, slow and grubby and without a ticket inspector to keep order, was packed with snoring lads belching and resting their feet on seats, their beer-cans rolling and leaking across the floor while quieter travellers resignedly tried to keep their children's feet out of the mess, or sat on their baggage by the door. At Colchester there were buses, but only one with a luggage hold; we did all right but my brother's family were ordered to put their heavy bags in one bus, then unload them all again because there were no seats, then switch to an ancient double-decker where cases were piled in the aisle, blocking any escape route. Which was a shame, since the vehicle then began leaking exhaust fumes into its lower deck as it bucketed down the A12, causing passengers to cough and gasp and one, recovering from a chest infection, to feel seriously ill. Through the fumes of carbon monoxide loomed a large sign announcing a fine of 1,000 pounds for smoking.
This tone of reprimand mingled with disregard, all too familiar to anyone who deals with British institutions, was continued when they stumbled out and reported the safety problems to the "duty supervisor". She snapped that it was nothing to do with her because the buses were subcontracted. The idea that her company had charged a full railway-comfort fare and provided a journey on a poisonous cramped bus seemed not to occur to her. Minutes later, coughing and struggling to load their car on an empty forecourt, they were accosted by the same official and vengefully told to move on.
Well, sometimes things go better. But that combination of official self-righteousness with contempt for the client-citizen is too familiar. Think of local authority decisions to collect the filthiest garbage only once a fortnight even in high summer, and soon charge by weight. Think what happens when you try to reduce that weight by telling the Royal Mail not to deliver sackfuls of unaddressed circulars: you get a threatening message telling you that if you opt out of double-glazing flyers you will miss "leaflets from Central and Local Government and other public bodies" because they refuse to separate these. So you won't know when your dustbin or surgery day changes.
And it'll be your fault. Everything is always your fault, in Britain. Never mind that your water company paid its directors huge bonuses rather than fix its pipes: the shortage is your fault for having baths. The theory behind Thatcherite privatisations was, I vaguely remember, that we would get better service if we were customers not sharers; in some cases it worked (it took the old GPO weeks to install a phone, and BT speeded things up). But in many cases - railways, airports, car parks, water, power, PFIs that overspend and put our children in hock for decades, NHS and Whitehall consultancies - the arrogance of state monopoly simply blends with the greediness of commerce to produce a hideous all-British hybrid in which the key principle is worship of its own systems and contempt for the public. John Major dimly saw this when he set up citizen's charters and cones hotlines; but the momentum was already too great.
Source
BRITISH FARMERS NEXT IN FIRING LINE: COW-FART RESTRICTIONS COMING
The government's desire to extend the polluter pays principle to every sector of the economy took a bizarre new twist yesterday as UK farmers were urged to stop their flatulent livestock releasing methane into the atmosphere.
Speaking at the Oxford Farming Conference, environment secretary David Miliband warned that agriculture contributes seven percent of the UK's greenhouse gas emissions and a third of its methane - one of the most damaging climate change gases. As a result, he said, the polluter pays principle would soon be applied to farming in the way it is already being introduced to other industries. "That means greenhouse gases generated in producing food or in food miles carrying a price need to be recognised in the same way as greenhouse gases generated in other industries," he explained.
And in a veiled warning that legislation was on the agenda he confirmed the government "will look closely at how incentives within the food, energy and land markets can reflect environmental impact more closely".
While it is unlikely that this will result in a "fart-tax" with civil servants chasing cows round with breathalyzer style methane measurers, Miliband did argue that farmers should act to reduce methane emissions by feeding cattle different food, breeding them to live longer, altering the handling of manure and getting farms to generate "biogas" or "biofertiliser" from animal waste.
Extending the polluter pays principle to farming would likely lead to higher food prices, but Miliband insisted that climate change could provide an opportunity for farmers, as it has done in other sectors.
FULL STORY here
All the young prudes
Sanctimonious, censorious, snobbish and anti-progress: why has radical youth protest gone off the rails? A comment from Britain
There was a time when youth (or "yoof", in patronising Janet Street-Porter speak) were considered the most free-thinking and radical section of society. With their penchant for kicking against the pricks - their parents, the authorities, and other assorted guardians of received wisdom and outdated morality - young activists developed a reputation for being mad, bad and at least a little bit dangerous. Not any more. Today's "radical" youth protesters are deeply conservative and censorious, wishing to hold society back, shut down debate and keep the uppity oiks in their place. In 2007, beware these young authoritarians, who make even our miserabilist leaders look positively progressive by comparison.
It is reported that the Evangelical Christian Union at Exeter University is taking legal action after being suspended from the student guild and banned from using student facilities. Why was it outlawed? Because the guild decided in its infinite wisdom that the Christian Union was intolerant (of gay people, for example) and thus cannot be tolerated - deeply ironic, I know. It's yet another student-led attack on freedom of speech, assembly and belief, which are becoming all too frequent on petty censorious campuses across the UK - which these days seem more influenced by Mary Whitehouse and her blue-rinsed followers than Che Guevara or any of the other beret-wearing icons of old.
Sanctimonious intolerance of "offensive" viewpoints is rampant among British student officials. Student unions frequently respond to controversy and offensiveness by reaching for the blue felt tip pen. In recent years the Sussex University students' union banned the Daily Mail for being "bigoted" (again with the irony), leading one Sussex student to complain that the union was "treating us like babies and it's offensive". The union at Sheffield University famously, or infamously, banned the playing of Eminem records at student dos because the rapper's use of words such as "fags" breaks the union's anti-homophobia policies. At the School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas) in London, the union has banned Israeli embassy representatives from speaking because part of its union policy states that Zionism is racism, and racists should "not be given a platform". University is where boys become men and girls become women, free to think and act for themselves; yet unions insist on mollycoddling them like big overgrown babies in order to protect them from anything deemed remotely offensive.
Far from being a site of free thinking and free exchange of ideas, the university campus has become a laboratory for new forms of censorship and conformism. Indeed, student censoriousness sometimes leaks out into society at large. The government's religious hatred legislation - a serious and flagrant attack on the hard-won democratic right of our secular society to criticise and ridicule superstitious nonsense - can be seen as the logical consequence of a decade or more of student experimentation with censorship of words or images that cause "cultural offence" to certain groups. There's a similar trend in America, where free speech activist Wendy Kaminer has written of "the distressing number of young authoritarians" on US campuses. "Self-righteous intolerance of dissent remains distressingly common among supposedly progressive students on liberal campuses," says Kaminer, and the same is true here.
Outside of these clampdown-campuses, "young radicals" front campaigns that are more concerned with turning back the clock than pushing society forward and realising humanity's potential. One of today's most celebrated youthful campaign groups is Plane Stupid (you said it) which campaigns to "ground the plane". It wants big fat taxes to make flying more expensive; that is, less affordable for the mass of the population who only waste their time going on garish and drunken holidays to Spain and eastern Europe anyway. The erstwhile leader of Plane Stupid, Joss Garman, a 21-year-old student at censorious SOAS, says: "Our ability to live on the earth is at stake, and for what? So people can have a stag do in Prague."
Oh, that's right, global warming is being single-handedly caused by people like my brother, who recently spent three days and nights living it up on cheap beer (via a cheap flight) on a stag night in Prague. Never mind the fact that a recent study by The Economist found that aviation's contribution "to total man-made emissions worldwide is around 3%"; and that even in the world of transportation flying isn't the biggest carbon polluter (in America, for example, all forms of transportation contribute 27.4% of emissions; flying on its own causes 3.2% of emissions). No, these brave radical protesters would far rather target those cheap people who take cheap flights to cheap destinations that satisfy their cheap desires, rather than grapple with real questions about how we can satisfy people's needs and desires while also making the world a pleasant place to live in.
Flying is one of the most miraculous inventions of the past hundred years: it has broadened humanity's horizons and allowed us to explore the world and meet and get to know all sorts of peoples and cultures. Today's youth protesters want to put a stop to all that, and they even throw some anti-masses snobbery into the political pot for good measure. Nice.
Other youthful protesters demonise and protest against mass electricity production, another marvel of the modern age that has helped to make life more comfortable and enjoyable for vast swathes of humanity. Last year's demos against the Drax coal-fired power station in North Yorkshire were led by what one contributor to my website spiked labelled "radicals for austerity": people who want to switch off the lights and go back to simpler times (a political demand that is "simple" in both senses of the word).
Some radical youngsters throw their weight into protesting for animal rights and against vivisection, which is one of the most anti-humanist streaks in contemporary politics. Their radical animalism elevates the interests of monkeys over men, and depicts humans - especially of the science-studying variety - as wicked and evil. Animal rights activism sums up everything that is wrong with radical protest today, where youthful activists actively campaign against humans and human interests rather than in defence of progress and equality for people everywhere.
Of course, it isn't entirely the yoofs' fault: they have grown up in a society that seems increasingly illiberal and pessimistic, and perhaps unsurprisingly that is reflected in their (anti) political campaigning. And I remain optimistic about the new generation: hundreds of young people protested in Oxford to defend the building of an animal experimentation lab, and lots of ordinary students continue to react against patronising student union bans.
Tens of thousands of young people continue to explore the world (even if it is just Prague) in the face of ridicule from their better-off counterparts from leafier suburbs. In 2007, we should support such youthful expressions of ambition, experimentation and open-mindedness. Today, young people who want to kick against the pricks would do well to start by challenging the student censors and "plain stupid" anti-progressives who are all around them.
Source
British government minister who sent child to private school 'has let down Labour Party'
(It offends against their "all kids are equal" kneejerk)
A Cabinet minister is facing pressure to justify the decision to place a child in a private boarding school for pupils with special needs after rejecting state provision as inadequate. The decision was attacked by several Labour MPs as wrong. One left-wing MP called it a betrayal of the party’s principles.
The Mail on Sunday reported that the minister withdrew the child from a state school, choosing instead a preparatory school for children with learning difficulties which has annual fees of £15,000, saying that local state provision was inappropriate. The newspaper withheld the minister’s name on the ground that this would identify the child, but said that he or she had been “closely involved with Tony Blair’s education policy”.
A warning to all about the Greenie enthusiasm for buses and trains. Even semi-privatization has not helped
I always swore not to write one of these grumpy holiday-return pieces. I am aware that plenty of my fellow citizens don't even get a week's respite from slum-Britannia, and to them I apologise. But this sense of reduced citizenship is not confined to travellers, so maybe it is worth recording what the sharpened senses perceive.
The most striking thing, obviously, is public transport. Under a Government that repeatedly nags us to get out of our cars, and that has failed to reverse its predecessor's disastrous privatisation, too much train travel is physically and psychologically nasty. Mainline fares have just risen by between 4.3 per cent and 7 per cent. Last year's rises were between 3.7 and 8.8 per cent. In return we get squalor (often) and insult (occasionally). After being wafted serenely 500 miles across Europe on fast, clean trains with smiling staff, our party crossed to Liverpool Street on a busy Saturday to find only one train an hour on the main line towards Ipswich and Norwich. Inconsiderately "scheduled" engineering works meant that at Colchester it was replaced by a bus.
The train, slow and grubby and without a ticket inspector to keep order, was packed with snoring lads belching and resting their feet on seats, their beer-cans rolling and leaking across the floor while quieter travellers resignedly tried to keep their children's feet out of the mess, or sat on their baggage by the door. At Colchester there were buses, but only one with a luggage hold; we did all right but my brother's family were ordered to put their heavy bags in one bus, then unload them all again because there were no seats, then switch to an ancient double-decker where cases were piled in the aisle, blocking any escape route. Which was a shame, since the vehicle then began leaking exhaust fumes into its lower deck as it bucketed down the A12, causing passengers to cough and gasp and one, recovering from a chest infection, to feel seriously ill. Through the fumes of carbon monoxide loomed a large sign announcing a fine of 1,000 pounds for smoking.
This tone of reprimand mingled with disregard, all too familiar to anyone who deals with British institutions, was continued when they stumbled out and reported the safety problems to the "duty supervisor". She snapped that it was nothing to do with her because the buses were subcontracted. The idea that her company had charged a full railway-comfort fare and provided a journey on a poisonous cramped bus seemed not to occur to her. Minutes later, coughing and struggling to load their car on an empty forecourt, they were accosted by the same official and vengefully told to move on.
Well, sometimes things go better. But that combination of official self-righteousness with contempt for the client-citizen is too familiar. Think of local authority decisions to collect the filthiest garbage only once a fortnight even in high summer, and soon charge by weight. Think what happens when you try to reduce that weight by telling the Royal Mail not to deliver sackfuls of unaddressed circulars: you get a threatening message telling you that if you opt out of double-glazing flyers you will miss "leaflets from Central and Local Government and other public bodies" because they refuse to separate these. So you won't know when your dustbin or surgery day changes.
And it'll be your fault. Everything is always your fault, in Britain. Never mind that your water company paid its directors huge bonuses rather than fix its pipes: the shortage is your fault for having baths. The theory behind Thatcherite privatisations was, I vaguely remember, that we would get better service if we were customers not sharers; in some cases it worked (it took the old GPO weeks to install a phone, and BT speeded things up). But in many cases - railways, airports, car parks, water, power, PFIs that overspend and put our children in hock for decades, NHS and Whitehall consultancies - the arrogance of state monopoly simply blends with the greediness of commerce to produce a hideous all-British hybrid in which the key principle is worship of its own systems and contempt for the public. John Major dimly saw this when he set up citizen's charters and cones hotlines; but the momentum was already too great.
Source
BRITISH FARMERS NEXT IN FIRING LINE: COW-FART RESTRICTIONS COMING
The government's desire to extend the polluter pays principle to every sector of the economy took a bizarre new twist yesterday as UK farmers were urged to stop their flatulent livestock releasing methane into the atmosphere.
Speaking at the Oxford Farming Conference, environment secretary David Miliband warned that agriculture contributes seven percent of the UK's greenhouse gas emissions and a third of its methane - one of the most damaging climate change gases. As a result, he said, the polluter pays principle would soon be applied to farming in the way it is already being introduced to other industries. "That means greenhouse gases generated in producing food or in food miles carrying a price need to be recognised in the same way as greenhouse gases generated in other industries," he explained.
And in a veiled warning that legislation was on the agenda he confirmed the government "will look closely at how incentives within the food, energy and land markets can reflect environmental impact more closely".
While it is unlikely that this will result in a "fart-tax" with civil servants chasing cows round with breathalyzer style methane measurers, Miliband did argue that farmers should act to reduce methane emissions by feeding cattle different food, breeding them to live longer, altering the handling of manure and getting farms to generate "biogas" or "biofertiliser" from animal waste.
Extending the polluter pays principle to farming would likely lead to higher food prices, but Miliband insisted that climate change could provide an opportunity for farmers, as it has done in other sectors.
FULL STORY here
All the young prudes
Sanctimonious, censorious, snobbish and anti-progress: why has radical youth protest gone off the rails? A comment from Britain
There was a time when youth (or "yoof", in patronising Janet Street-Porter speak) were considered the most free-thinking and radical section of society. With their penchant for kicking against the pricks - their parents, the authorities, and other assorted guardians of received wisdom and outdated morality - young activists developed a reputation for being mad, bad and at least a little bit dangerous. Not any more. Today's "radical" youth protesters are deeply conservative and censorious, wishing to hold society back, shut down debate and keep the uppity oiks in their place. In 2007, beware these young authoritarians, who make even our miserabilist leaders look positively progressive by comparison.
It is reported that the Evangelical Christian Union at Exeter University is taking legal action after being suspended from the student guild and banned from using student facilities. Why was it outlawed? Because the guild decided in its infinite wisdom that the Christian Union was intolerant (of gay people, for example) and thus cannot be tolerated - deeply ironic, I know. It's yet another student-led attack on freedom of speech, assembly and belief, which are becoming all too frequent on petty censorious campuses across the UK - which these days seem more influenced by Mary Whitehouse and her blue-rinsed followers than Che Guevara or any of the other beret-wearing icons of old.
Sanctimonious intolerance of "offensive" viewpoints is rampant among British student officials. Student unions frequently respond to controversy and offensiveness by reaching for the blue felt tip pen. In recent years the Sussex University students' union banned the Daily Mail for being "bigoted" (again with the irony), leading one Sussex student to complain that the union was "treating us like babies and it's offensive". The union at Sheffield University famously, or infamously, banned the playing of Eminem records at student dos because the rapper's use of words such as "fags" breaks the union's anti-homophobia policies. At the School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas) in London, the union has banned Israeli embassy representatives from speaking because part of its union policy states that Zionism is racism, and racists should "not be given a platform". University is where boys become men and girls become women, free to think and act for themselves; yet unions insist on mollycoddling them like big overgrown babies in order to protect them from anything deemed remotely offensive.
Far from being a site of free thinking and free exchange of ideas, the university campus has become a laboratory for new forms of censorship and conformism. Indeed, student censoriousness sometimes leaks out into society at large. The government's religious hatred legislation - a serious and flagrant attack on the hard-won democratic right of our secular society to criticise and ridicule superstitious nonsense - can be seen as the logical consequence of a decade or more of student experimentation with censorship of words or images that cause "cultural offence" to certain groups. There's a similar trend in America, where free speech activist Wendy Kaminer has written of "the distressing number of young authoritarians" on US campuses. "Self-righteous intolerance of dissent remains distressingly common among supposedly progressive students on liberal campuses," says Kaminer, and the same is true here.
Outside of these clampdown-campuses, "young radicals" front campaigns that are more concerned with turning back the clock than pushing society forward and realising humanity's potential. One of today's most celebrated youthful campaign groups is Plane Stupid (you said it) which campaigns to "ground the plane". It wants big fat taxes to make flying more expensive; that is, less affordable for the mass of the population who only waste their time going on garish and drunken holidays to Spain and eastern Europe anyway. The erstwhile leader of Plane Stupid, Joss Garman, a 21-year-old student at censorious SOAS, says: "Our ability to live on the earth is at stake, and for what? So people can have a stag do in Prague."
Oh, that's right, global warming is being single-handedly caused by people like my brother, who recently spent three days and nights living it up on cheap beer (via a cheap flight) on a stag night in Prague. Never mind the fact that a recent study by The Economist found that aviation's contribution "to total man-made emissions worldwide is around 3%"; and that even in the world of transportation flying isn't the biggest carbon polluter (in America, for example, all forms of transportation contribute 27.4% of emissions; flying on its own causes 3.2% of emissions). No, these brave radical protesters would far rather target those cheap people who take cheap flights to cheap destinations that satisfy their cheap desires, rather than grapple with real questions about how we can satisfy people's needs and desires while also making the world a pleasant place to live in.
Flying is one of the most miraculous inventions of the past hundred years: it has broadened humanity's horizons and allowed us to explore the world and meet and get to know all sorts of peoples and cultures. Today's youth protesters want to put a stop to all that, and they even throw some anti-masses snobbery into the political pot for good measure. Nice.
Other youthful protesters demonise and protest against mass electricity production, another marvel of the modern age that has helped to make life more comfortable and enjoyable for vast swathes of humanity. Last year's demos against the Drax coal-fired power station in North Yorkshire were led by what one contributor to my website spiked labelled "radicals for austerity": people who want to switch off the lights and go back to simpler times (a political demand that is "simple" in both senses of the word).
Some radical youngsters throw their weight into protesting for animal rights and against vivisection, which is one of the most anti-humanist streaks in contemporary politics. Their radical animalism elevates the interests of monkeys over men, and depicts humans - especially of the science-studying variety - as wicked and evil. Animal rights activism sums up everything that is wrong with radical protest today, where youthful activists actively campaign against humans and human interests rather than in defence of progress and equality for people everywhere.
Of course, it isn't entirely the yoofs' fault: they have grown up in a society that seems increasingly illiberal and pessimistic, and perhaps unsurprisingly that is reflected in their (anti) political campaigning. And I remain optimistic about the new generation: hundreds of young people protested in Oxford to defend the building of an animal experimentation lab, and lots of ordinary students continue to react against patronising student union bans.
Tens of thousands of young people continue to explore the world (even if it is just Prague) in the face of ridicule from their better-off counterparts from leafier suburbs. In 2007, we should support such youthful expressions of ambition, experimentation and open-mindedness. Today, young people who want to kick against the pricks would do well to start by challenging the student censors and "plain stupid" anti-progressives who are all around them.
Source
British government minister who sent child to private school 'has let down Labour Party'
(It offends against their "all kids are equal" kneejerk)
A Cabinet minister is facing pressure to justify the decision to place a child in a private boarding school for pupils with special needs after rejecting state provision as inadequate. The decision was attacked by several Labour MPs as wrong. One left-wing MP called it a betrayal of the party’s principles.
The Mail on Sunday reported that the minister withdrew the child from a state school, choosing instead a preparatory school for children with learning difficulties which has annual fees of £15,000, saying that local state provision was inappropriate. The newspaper withheld the minister’s name on the ground that this would identify the child, but said that he or she had been “closely involved with Tony Blair’s education policy”.
Ian Gibson, the Labour MP for Norwich North, said: “I am fascinated to know who it is because there have been examples of this in the past and it has caused anger among Labour backbenchers. “I think it’s wrong. You should set an example as a minister and support your local school. It is a slap in the face for the teachers and the pupils in the school that the child has been taken out of.”
His words were echoed by Ann Cryer, the MP for Keighley, who said: “MPs should try to get state provision for their children because that is what we believe in.” Lynne Jones, the MP for Birmingham Selly Oak, said: “I think it goes against the principles of the Labour Party. It makes me wonder about the sort of people who achieve high office who are in New Labour.” Margaret Hodge, a Trade and Industry minister, said that politicians’ children should be kept out of the spotlight, but admitted: “Given our commitment to state education, it is an issue of public interest.”
Neither the child’s former school nor the new one was identified. Nor was the local authority named, but more details emerged when The Sunday Times reported that the minister had spent time “working in the education team” in the Government and gave details of the child’s condition.
The school in question, where pupils board weekly or termly, is in a country house in the Home Counties. It has 60 pupils aged 7 to 13 and offers extensive grounds, a heated swimming pool, tennis courts, golf and horse-riding. Its main purpose is to help children with the child’s condition to pass exams for top public schools. Its pupils have gone on to Winchester, Harrow, Rugby and Gordonstoun in recent years.
One of the minister’s officials refused to comment when approached by The T