Thursday, January 31, 2008
THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT EMBRACE OF McDONALDS
Below are two responses to a story I covered yesterday
Realistic education priorities
The online forums were afire. "Thought this was an early April Fool... McEducation... lowering standards... glad I have left the UK... how on earth can a qualification in basic shift management at mcdonalds which will involve taking payment, flipping burgers and making children obese be equilavent [sic] to an a level?"
It doesn't take much to rile the education harrumphers, but their barks are directed up the wrong tree this time. They'd do better to join the outcry against the sneaky plan to close village schools. For, of all the educational faffs and fiddles we have suffered, the latest is the most sensible. This is the decision to let companies - starting with Flybe, Network Rail and McDonald's - award nationally accepted qualifications, of GCSE and A-level standard, to those they train.
The harrumphers should calm down. This is about teaching employees: nobody is suggesting that schools will promptly offer their best and brightest a chance to do A2 burger-flipping instead of Further Maths. Given that you can already get national vocational qualifications from a holiday pottery course or a scuba-diving week, it is not so big a jump.
Note also that the body that is ceding this tiny bit of power is the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), which some may mischievously argue does not boast an immaculate track record itself. It is responsible for accrediting exams and regulating awarding bodies, and quite apart from the dog's breakfast of AS/A2 levels and the scandals of doctored A-level results, we have had plenty of concerns about its fiefdom. There have been questions about coursework marking, leaked papers, howlers embedded in questions and unqualified teachers working as markers. It is perfectly well known in the education world that large numbers of GCSE and even A-level papers are marked at high speed by people who are not specialists in the subject, and that when schools appeal against grades, one in four GCSEs and one in ten A levels prove to have been wrongly assessed. Some of the multiple-choice questions have also been dumber and more agenda-laden than would be tolerated by anyone struggling for profits in a real marketplace.
I would rather my offspring could name safe cooking temperatures for burgers or maintenance intervals for rails than merely decode questions like this one from a GCSE physics paper. A newspaper cutting is shown saying: "A recent report said that children under the age of 9 should not use mobile phones except in emergencies"; and the question is: "Below which age is it recommended that children use a mobile phone in emergencies only?" Doh!
I am not out to rubbish the QCA and exam boards. Plenty of good work is done and properly marked. I am just pointing out that hard-headed training executives with beady-eyed shareholders may prove more focused than some exam boards. If a failure in your pupils' procedures and understanding causes rails to break or customers to keel over with E.coli, expensive trouble ensues. Whereas if an Eng Lit exam goes dumb and trendy or a history paper is marked by someone who only knows the set answers, it doesn't create real-life chaos. Or not right away.
In other words, a McQualification, Rail-Level or FlybeCertificate might be more respected than some of the subjects and examiners that already have the blessing of the QCA. This might not be exactly the message that Gordon Brown wants us to take from the initiative, but it might cheer up the doubters.
Academically capable children will (if properly guided by their schools, which is another story) always go for more universal and theoretical academic subjects. Meanwhile, the crying need of drifting youth is to learn things that they can associate with real pay, responsibility and results. There have always been young people who longed to get out of the schoolroom's vapouring cloud of formulae and theories and lists. Some became apprentices, some took menial jobs and after looking around with sharp ambitious eyes simply worked their way up. Others hated their first jobs, yet learnt routine and thoroughness from them and carried them into a better field. I was probably classifiable as academic, but when I started my first dream job as a BBC studio manager, I mainly used the skills I had acquired as a barmaid. Not those that got me D in Latin.
The fact is, some thrive better in work than school. We all know children who groaned through A levels - or dropped out - only to find new vigour in a job. I can think of one right now who, to his parents' consternation, abandoned the sixth form after a period of feeling constantly ill and tired, took a counter job in a bank and is now being rigorously trained, forming high ambitions, and feeling physically well.
But workplace training - with allied certificates and grades - does matter. It removes the dead-end quality from a job, proves that the employer believes in you and, incidentally, reduces the likelihood that supervisors' strictures will be wetly interpreted as "bullying" or victimisation. Equally, in an uncertain economic world it matters that workplace qualifications should be portable.
Professor Alan Smithers of Buckingham University (itself, ironically, a private company that gives highly valued degrees) has cast doubt on the idea that the new qualifications will be valid outside the company that gives them. He fears that employees might get "locked in" to McFlybeRail. I doubt it. Business people may not be saintly educationists, but they are practical. They'll soon get to know which of their rivals' certificated staff are worth poaching.
Source
Flipping burgers taught me more than A levels
Anyone who believes that a McDonald's A level is an easy option should come to the Friar Street branch on the third day of the Reading Festival. I worked there for two summers during my sixth form. It was dirty and tiring, at times humiliating, but it taught me more about how to work and how to deal with people than all my A levels combined.
On festival days the first order of battle was to secure the toilets. Two employees were posted at each door where, mustering all the authority of their checked shirt and golden arches hat, they collected receipts before letting people use the lavatory. A third employee policed the cubicles themselves: no alcohol, no sex and no drugs. By evening the latter would be relaxed to just Class A substances. Meanwhile the kitchen was frying a burger a second, struggling to cope with the demands of the nation's rockers. Under those conditions if you slacked off, or decided that a task was beneath you, you were out of a job.
McDonald's should not just be allowed to give out A levels, they should become a full degree-accrediting body. It is not that I do not value my A levels. Intellectually, they were thrilling. It is just that, in contrast to my Saturday job in McDonald's, it would be difficult to argue that they were useful. At sixth form I studied maths, maths and extra maths, with a little bit of English for balance. Such a rigorous grounding in the foundations of calculus prepared me for my degree, an advanced grounding in the foundations of calculus, and then perhaps for a master's. But I didn't do a master's. The ability to shovel s***, whether literally (the day the plumbing broke, my worst McDonald's shift) or metaphorically, is, however, a skill that stays with me to this day.
Source
Don't treat the old and unhealthy, say NHS doctors
You've paid for your health insurance all your life only to be told you can't collect on it when you need it? That's a risk you take with socialism. And it's already happening to some extent in Britain
Doctors are calling for NHS treatment to be withheld from patients who are too old or who lead unhealthy lives. Smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations, according to doctors, with most saying the health service cannot afford to provide free care to everyone. Fertility treatment and "social" abortions are also on the list of procedures that many doctors say should not be funded by the state.
The findings of a survey conducted by Doctor magazine sparked a fierce row last night, with the British Medical Association and campaign groups describing the recommendations from family and hospital doctors as "out-rageous" and "disgraceful". About one in 10 hospitals already deny some surgery to obese patients and smokers, with restrictions most common in hospitals battling debt. Managers defend the policies because of the higher risk of complications on the operating table for unfit patients. But critics believe that patients are being denied care simply to save money.
The Government announced plans last week to offer fat people cash incentives to diet and exercise as part of a desperate strategy to steer Britain off a course that will otherwise see half the population dangerously overweight by 2050. Obesity costs the British taxpayer 7 billion a year. Overweight people are more likely to contract diabetes, cancer and heart disease, and to require replacement joints or stomach-stapling operations.
Meanwhile, 1.7 billion is spent treating diseases caused by smoking, such as lung cancer, bronchitis and emphysema, with a similar sum spent by the NHS on alcohol problems. Cases of cirrhosis have tripled over the past decade.
Among the survey of 870 family and hospital doctors, almost 60 per cent said the NHS could not provide full healthcare to everyone and that some individuals should pay for services. One in three said that elderly patients should not be given free treatment if it were unlikely to do them good for long. Half thought that smokers should be denied a heart bypass, while a quarter believed that the obese should be denied hip replacements. Tony Calland, chairman of the BMA's ethics committee, said it would be "outrageous" to limit care on age grounds. Age Concern called the doctors' views "disgraceful".
Gordon Brown promised this month that a new NHS constitution would set out people's "responsibilities" as well as their rights, a move interpreted as meaning restrictions on patients who bring health problems on themselves. The only sanction threatened so far, however, is to send patients to the bottom of the waiting list if they miss appointments.
The survey found that medical professionals wanted to go much further in denying care to patients who do not look after their bodies. Ninety-four per cent said that an alcoholic who refused to stop drinking should not be allowed a liver transplant, while one in five said taxpayers should not pay for "social abortions" and fertility treatment.
Paul Mason, a GP in Portland, Dorset, said there were good clinical reasons for denying surgery to some patients. "The issue is: how much responsibility do people take for their health?" he said. "If an alcoholic is going to drink themselves to death then that is really sad, but if he gets the liver transplant that is denied to someone else who could have got the chance of life then that is a tragedy." He said the case of George Best, who drank himself to death in 2005, three years after a liver transplant, had damaged the argument that drinkers deserved a second chance.
However, Roger Williams, who carried out the 2002 transplant on the former footballer, said doctors could never be sure if an alcoholic would return to drinking, although most would expect a detailed psychological assessment of patients, who would be required to abstain for six months before surgery. Prof Williams said: "Less than five per cent of alcoholics who have a transplant return to serious drinking. George was one of them. It is actually a pretty successful rate. I think the judgment these doctors are making is nothing to do with the clinical reasons for limiting such operations and purely a moral decision."
Katherine Murphy, from the Patients' Association, said it would be wrong to deny treatment because of a "lifestyle" factor. "The decision taken by the doctor has to be the best clinical one, and it has to be taken individually. It is morally wrong to deny care on any other grounds," she said.
Responding to the survey's findings on the treatment of the elderly, Dr Calland, of the BMA, said: "If a patient of 90 needs a hip operation they should get one. Yes, they might peg out any time, but it's not our job to play God."
Source
Laugh at lard butts - but just remember Fatty Fritz lives longer
Some British satire with a serious point at the end
The government is considering a scheme to pay hideously obese people to lose weight, offering them "vouchers and rewards" for shedding enough pounds to enable them to see their own genitals for the first time in 30 years. This is part of a programme which will cost the rest of us, those of us who are merely "chubby" or "fat", some œ327m. If you take the health advice at face value, almost the entire nation is overweight, encased in blubber, our poor arteries clogged like the straws of a McDonald's vanilla milk shake when you get to the bottom of the carton. We are all afflicted and all to blame, etc.
For years we have been cautioned against stigmatising people for a whole array of unfortunate situations - teenage single mothers, divorcees, fat people. But, of course, stigma is the means by which society expresses its disapproval of people who choose lifestyles which, one way or another, cost the rest of society money. Remove the stigma and people think such behaviour is perfectly fine. As a result we have become a nation of obese, sexually incontinent lunatics.
Perhaps instead of offering fat people money, which they will only spend on pies, we should once again stigmatise them. School children could be encouraged to pelt fat classmates with cakes, exclude them from playground activities and subject them to cruel jibes. And pinch them on their horrible fleshy arms during assembly (if schools still have assemblies). Fat adults could be forced to pay for two seats on public transport, could be given the worst seats in restaurants and scolded over their choice of dessert. "Have the fruit salad, you fat pig," and so on. Most obesity is, after all, a consequence of stupidity and indolence and not of some genetic affliction. It is a lifestyle choice which people would be less inclined to adopt if they knew we all hated them for it.
There is another, better approach, of course, which is to leave people alone to live the lives they wish to lead. I was in Austria recently where everybody is truly, grotesquely fat. All of them are huge, flatulent, pasty-skinned spheres of compacted frankfurter sausage, fried potato, sour cream and stale beer, rolling around their pretty mountains belching and singing in a tuneless, guttural manner.
The average life expectancy in Austria is 79.21 years - one of the highest in the world and a good five or six months longer than we can expect to live - and increasing rapidly. In fact, much though the quacks and government ministers might hector us, there is very little correlation between obesity and early death, according to recent studies. So you might conclude that this is a sort of fashionable meddling for the sake of it by a government which is never happier than when telling us how to conduct our lives.
Source
Can you beat this for media deception? The "Briton" was a Pakistani fanatic! "Briton admits plot to behead Muslim soldier. A man has pleaded guilty to a plot to kidnap and kill a Muslim soldier in the British army by cutting off his head "like a pig", a court was told on Tuesday. Parviz Khan, 37, pleaded guilty this month to a series of charges including the beheading plot, which was foiled by police and the MI5 security service a year ago. A British and Pakistani passport holder, Khan was "a man who has the most violent and extreme Islamist views" and who wanted to get physically involved in acts of terrorism, prosecutor Nigel Rumfitt said. He said Khan was "enraged" by the fact there were Muslims in the British army, which Islamist militants portray as fighting Islam in Afghanistan and Iraq, and formed a plan to kidnap a Muslim soldier in the central city of Birmingham."
Below are two responses to a story I covered yesterday
Realistic education priorities
The online forums were afire. "Thought this was an early April Fool... McEducation... lowering standards... glad I have left the UK... how on earth can a qualification in basic shift management at mcdonalds which will involve taking payment, flipping burgers and making children obese be equilavent [sic] to an a level?"
It doesn't take much to rile the education harrumphers, but their barks are directed up the wrong tree this time. They'd do better to join the outcry against the sneaky plan to close village schools. For, of all the educational faffs and fiddles we have suffered, the latest is the most sensible. This is the decision to let companies - starting with Flybe, Network Rail and McDonald's - award nationally accepted qualifications, of GCSE and A-level standard, to those they train.
The harrumphers should calm down. This is about teaching employees: nobody is suggesting that schools will promptly offer their best and brightest a chance to do A2 burger-flipping instead of Further Maths. Given that you can already get national vocational qualifications from a holiday pottery course or a scuba-diving week, it is not so big a jump.
Note also that the body that is ceding this tiny bit of power is the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), which some may mischievously argue does not boast an immaculate track record itself. It is responsible for accrediting exams and regulating awarding bodies, and quite apart from the dog's breakfast of AS/A2 levels and the scandals of doctored A-level results, we have had plenty of concerns about its fiefdom. There have been questions about coursework marking, leaked papers, howlers embedded in questions and unqualified teachers working as markers. It is perfectly well known in the education world that large numbers of GCSE and even A-level papers are marked at high speed by people who are not specialists in the subject, and that when schools appeal against grades, one in four GCSEs and one in ten A levels prove to have been wrongly assessed. Some of the multiple-choice questions have also been dumber and more agenda-laden than would be tolerated by anyone struggling for profits in a real marketplace.
I would rather my offspring could name safe cooking temperatures for burgers or maintenance intervals for rails than merely decode questions like this one from a GCSE physics paper. A newspaper cutting is shown saying: "A recent report said that children under the age of 9 should not use mobile phones except in emergencies"; and the question is: "Below which age is it recommended that children use a mobile phone in emergencies only?" Doh!
I am not out to rubbish the QCA and exam boards. Plenty of good work is done and properly marked. I am just pointing out that hard-headed training executives with beady-eyed shareholders may prove more focused than some exam boards. If a failure in your pupils' procedures and understanding causes rails to break or customers to keel over with E.coli, expensive trouble ensues. Whereas if an Eng Lit exam goes dumb and trendy or a history paper is marked by someone who only knows the set answers, it doesn't create real-life chaos. Or not right away.
In other words, a McQualification, Rail-Level or FlybeCertificate might be more respected than some of the subjects and examiners that already have the blessing of the QCA. This might not be exactly the message that Gordon Brown wants us to take from the initiative, but it might cheer up the doubters.
Academically capable children will (if properly guided by their schools, which is another story) always go for more universal and theoretical academic subjects. Meanwhile, the crying need of drifting youth is to learn things that they can associate with real pay, responsibility and results. There have always been young people who longed to get out of the schoolroom's vapouring cloud of formulae and theories and lists. Some became apprentices, some took menial jobs and after looking around with sharp ambitious eyes simply worked their way up. Others hated their first jobs, yet learnt routine and thoroughness from them and carried them into a better field. I was probably classifiable as academic, but when I started my first dream job as a BBC studio manager, I mainly used the skills I had acquired as a barmaid. Not those that got me D in Latin.
The fact is, some thrive better in work than school. We all know children who groaned through A levels - or dropped out - only to find new vigour in a job. I can think of one right now who, to his parents' consternation, abandoned the sixth form after a period of feeling constantly ill and tired, took a counter job in a bank and is now being rigorously trained, forming high ambitions, and feeling physically well.
But workplace training - with allied certificates and grades - does matter. It removes the dead-end quality from a job, proves that the employer believes in you and, incidentally, reduces the likelihood that supervisors' strictures will be wetly interpreted as "bullying" or victimisation. Equally, in an uncertain economic world it matters that workplace qualifications should be portable.
Professor Alan Smithers of Buckingham University (itself, ironically, a private company that gives highly valued degrees) has cast doubt on the idea that the new qualifications will be valid outside the company that gives them. He fears that employees might get "locked in" to McFlybeRail. I doubt it. Business people may not be saintly educationists, but they are practical. They'll soon get to know which of their rivals' certificated staff are worth poaching.
Source
Flipping burgers taught me more than A levels
Anyone who believes that a McDonald's A level is an easy option should come to the Friar Street branch on the third day of the Reading Festival. I worked there for two summers during my sixth form. It was dirty and tiring, at times humiliating, but it taught me more about how to work and how to deal with people than all my A levels combined.
On festival days the first order of battle was to secure the toilets. Two employees were posted at each door where, mustering all the authority of their checked shirt and golden arches hat, they collected receipts before letting people use the lavatory. A third employee policed the cubicles themselves: no alcohol, no sex and no drugs. By evening the latter would be relaxed to just Class A substances. Meanwhile the kitchen was frying a burger a second, struggling to cope with the demands of the nation's rockers. Under those conditions if you slacked off, or decided that a task was beneath you, you were out of a job.
McDonald's should not just be allowed to give out A levels, they should become a full degree-accrediting body. It is not that I do not value my A levels. Intellectually, they were thrilling. It is just that, in contrast to my Saturday job in McDonald's, it would be difficult to argue that they were useful. At sixth form I studied maths, maths and extra maths, with a little bit of English for balance. Such a rigorous grounding in the foundations of calculus prepared me for my degree, an advanced grounding in the foundations of calculus, and then perhaps for a master's. But I didn't do a master's. The ability to shovel s***, whether literally (the day the plumbing broke, my worst McDonald's shift) or metaphorically, is, however, a skill that stays with me to this day.
Source
Don't treat the old and unhealthy, say NHS doctors
You've paid for your health insurance all your life only to be told you can't collect on it when you need it? That's a risk you take with socialism. And it's already happening to some extent in Britain
Doctors are calling for NHS treatment to be withheld from patients who are too old or who lead unhealthy lives. Smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations, according to doctors, with most saying the health service cannot afford to provide free care to everyone. Fertility treatment and "social" abortions are also on the list of procedures that many doctors say should not be funded by the state.
The findings of a survey conducted by Doctor magazine sparked a fierce row last night, with the British Medical Association and campaign groups describing the recommendations from family and hospital doctors as "out-rageous" and "disgraceful". About one in 10 hospitals already deny some surgery to obese patients and smokers, with restrictions most common in hospitals battling debt. Managers defend the policies because of the higher risk of complications on the operating table for unfit patients. But critics believe that patients are being denied care simply to save money.
The Government announced plans last week to offer fat people cash incentives to diet and exercise as part of a desperate strategy to steer Britain off a course that will otherwise see half the population dangerously overweight by 2050. Obesity costs the British taxpayer 7 billion a year. Overweight people are more likely to contract diabetes, cancer and heart disease, and to require replacement joints or stomach-stapling operations.
Meanwhile, 1.7 billion is spent treating diseases caused by smoking, such as lung cancer, bronchitis and emphysema, with a similar sum spent by the NHS on alcohol problems. Cases of cirrhosis have tripled over the past decade.
Among the survey of 870 family and hospital doctors, almost 60 per cent said the NHS could not provide full healthcare to everyone and that some individuals should pay for services. One in three said that elderly patients should not be given free treatment if it were unlikely to do them good for long. Half thought that smokers should be denied a heart bypass, while a quarter believed that the obese should be denied hip replacements. Tony Calland, chairman of the BMA's ethics committee, said it would be "outrageous" to limit care on age grounds. Age Concern called the doctors' views "disgraceful".
Gordon Brown promised this month that a new NHS constitution would set out people's "responsibilities" as well as their rights, a move interpreted as meaning restrictions on patients who bring health problems on themselves. The only sanction threatened so far, however, is to send patients to the bottom of the waiting list if they miss appointments.
The survey found that medical professionals wanted to go much further in denying care to patients who do not look after their bodies. Ninety-four per cent said that an alcoholic who refused to stop drinking should not be allowed a liver transplant, while one in five said taxpayers should not pay for "social abortions" and fertility treatment.
Paul Mason, a GP in Portland, Dorset, said there were good clinical reasons for denying surgery to some patients. "The issue is: how much responsibility do people take for their health?" he said. "If an alcoholic is going to drink themselves to death then that is really sad, but if he gets the liver transplant that is denied to someone else who could have got the chance of life then that is a tragedy." He said the case of George Best, who drank himself to death in 2005, three years after a liver transplant, had damaged the argument that drinkers deserved a second chance.
However, Roger Williams, who carried out the 2002 transplant on the former footballer, said doctors could never be sure if an alcoholic would return to drinking, although most would expect a detailed psychological assessment of patients, who would be required to abstain for six months before surgery. Prof Williams said: "Less than five per cent of alcoholics who have a transplant return to serious drinking. George was one of them. It is actually a pretty successful rate. I think the judgment these doctors are making is nothing to do with the clinical reasons for limiting such operations and purely a moral decision."
Katherine Murphy, from the Patients' Association, said it would be wrong to deny treatment because of a "lifestyle" factor. "The decision taken by the doctor has to be the best clinical one, and it has to be taken individually. It is morally wrong to deny care on any other grounds," she said.
Responding to the survey's findings on the treatment of the elderly, Dr Calland, of the BMA, said: "If a patient of 90 needs a hip operation they should get one. Yes, they might peg out any time, but it's not our job to play God."
Source
Laugh at lard butts - but just remember Fatty Fritz lives longer
Some British satire with a serious point at the end
The government is considering a scheme to pay hideously obese people to lose weight, offering them "vouchers and rewards" for shedding enough pounds to enable them to see their own genitals for the first time in 30 years. This is part of a programme which will cost the rest of us, those of us who are merely "chubby" or "fat", some œ327m. If you take the health advice at face value, almost the entire nation is overweight, encased in blubber, our poor arteries clogged like the straws of a McDonald's vanilla milk shake when you get to the bottom of the carton. We are all afflicted and all to blame, etc.
For years we have been cautioned against stigmatising people for a whole array of unfortunate situations - teenage single mothers, divorcees, fat people. But, of course, stigma is the means by which society expresses its disapproval of people who choose lifestyles which, one way or another, cost the rest of society money. Remove the stigma and people think such behaviour is perfectly fine. As a result we have become a nation of obese, sexually incontinent lunatics.
Perhaps instead of offering fat people money, which they will only spend on pies, we should once again stigmatise them. School children could be encouraged to pelt fat classmates with cakes, exclude them from playground activities and subject them to cruel jibes. And pinch them on their horrible fleshy arms during assembly (if schools still have assemblies). Fat adults could be forced to pay for two seats on public transport, could be given the worst seats in restaurants and scolded over their choice of dessert. "Have the fruit salad, you fat pig," and so on. Most obesity is, after all, a consequence of stupidity and indolence and not of some genetic affliction. It is a lifestyle choice which people would be less inclined to adopt if they knew we all hated them for it.
There is another, better approach, of course, which is to leave people alone to live the lives they wish to lead. I was in Austria recently where everybody is truly, grotesquely fat. All of them are huge, flatulent, pasty-skinned spheres of compacted frankfurter sausage, fried potato, sour cream and stale beer, rolling around their pretty mountains belching and singing in a tuneless, guttural manner.
The average life expectancy in Austria is 79.21 years - one of the highest in the world and a good five or six months longer than we can expect to live - and increasing rapidly. In fact, much though the quacks and government ministers might hector us, there is very little correlation between obesity and early death, according to recent studies. So you might conclude that this is a sort of fashionable meddling for the sake of it by a government which is never happier than when telling us how to conduct our lives.
Source
Can you beat this for media deception? The "Briton" was a Pakistani fanatic! "Briton admits plot to behead Muslim soldier. A man has pleaded guilty to a plot to kidnap and kill a Muslim soldier in the British army by cutting off his head "like a pig", a court was told on Tuesday. Parviz Khan, 37, pleaded guilty this month to a series of charges including the beheading plot, which was foiled by police and the MI5 security service a year ago. A British and Pakistani passport holder, Khan was "a man who has the most violent and extreme Islamist views" and who wanted to get physically involved in acts of terrorism, prosecutor Nigel Rumfitt said. He said Khan was "enraged" by the fact there were Muslims in the British army, which Islamist militants portray as fighting Islam in Afghanistan and Iraq, and formed a plan to kidnap a Muslim soldier in the central city of Birmingham."
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Incredible British medical negligence again
You are just one of a herd of cattle to NHS doctors
A BOY who spent most of his life being deaf in one ear has been cured after he discovered the wayward tip of a cotton bud. After being deaf in his right ear for nine years, 11-year-old Jerome Bartens identified the cause of his ailment while playing with friends at a church hall in Haverfordwest, in Wales. The Daily Mail said Jerome heard a popping sound in his ear and, after using his finger to investigate the cause of the noise, discovered the tip of a cotton bud.
His father told the newspaper he was shocked that doctors did not discover the object after years of examinations. “It was just incredible – his hearing returned to normal in an instant,” Carsten Bartens told the newspaper. “He was cured as suddenly as he became deaf… I had always suspected Jerome had stuck something in his ear when he was little and that was causing the problem. “But the doctors and hearing specialists said it was wax and he would probably grow out of it.”
Jerome said it was strange to have his full hearing back again. “I can hear much better now and I think I’ll be happier at school now my ear does not ache all the time,” Jerome said. “It’s great that people don’t have to shout to me and that I don’t have to turn my head all the time.”
Source
British nurses leaving in droves
Thousands of nurses are leaving the NHS in search of better pay and working conditions abroad. More than 10,000 nurses and midwives left to work abroad in 2006-07, leaving the NHS just a few years from a staffing crisis, the country’s top nurse said. Nearly 35,000 nurses - enough to staff the entire health service in Wales – have emigrated in the past four years. During the past three years there has been a 75 per cent rise in the number of nurses leaving for Australia alone, data from the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) suggests.
Despite an anticipated shortfall of 14,000 nurses by 2010, Clare Chapman, the Department of Health’s director-general of workforce, has said that the NHS no longer needs to increase overall numbers of nurses and doctors.
Peter Carter, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), told The Times that the Government was guilty of a “yo-yo approach” to workforce planning, exacerbating low morale. “We are just a few short years away from a crisis,” he added. “There is every sign that being short-staffed on overstretched wards puts patients at risk, yet an estimated 20,000 nursing posts have been cut in hospitals and surgeries across the country. “At the same time as they are offered a miserly pay deal, they are being bombarded with advertising for a better life abroad. When you are offered comparable salaries and a higher quality of life in Australia, the Cayman Islands or South Africa, is it any wonder that some might choose to kickstart their careers abroad?”
The average salary for an NHS nurse was 24,000 pounds, Dr Carter said, about 10,000 less than the average police officer or teacher, while a below-inflation pay rise of 0.6 per cent in real terms last year had been an insult.
In total, 33,513 nurses left the UK and registered to work abroad between 2003-04 and 2006-07, but this was likely to be a conservative estimate, Dr Carter said. Meanwhile, 6,144 nurses from abroad were registered to work in the UK last year, 4,624 of them from outside the EU.
Source
EUROPEANS THINK ISLAM IS DANGEROUS
An "overwhelming majority" of Europeans believe immigration from Islamic countries is a threat to their traditional way of life, a survey revealed last night. The poll, carried out across 21 countries, found "widespread anti-immigration sentiment", but warned Europe's Muslim population will treble in the next 17 years. It reported "a severe deficit of trust is found between the Western and Muslim communities", with most people wanting less interaction with the Muslim world.
Last night an MP warned it showed that political leaders in Britain who preach the benefits of unlimited immigration were dangerously out of touch with the public.
The study, whose authors include the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey, was commissioned for leaders at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland. It reports "a growing fear among Europeans of a perceived Islamic threat to their cultural identities, driven in part by immigration from predominantly Muslim nations". And it concludes: "An overwhelming majority of the surveyed populations in Europe believe greater interaction between Islam and the West is a threat."
Backbench Tory MP David Davies told the Sunday Express: "I am not surprised by these findings. People are fed up with multiculturalism and being told they have to give up their way of life. "Most people in Britain expect anyone who comes here to be willing to learn our language and fit in with us." Mr Davies, who serves on the Commons Home Affairs Committee, added: "People do get annoyed when they see millions spent on translating documents and legal aid being given to people fighting for the right to wear a head-to-toe covering at school. "A lot of people are very uncomfortable with the changes being caused by immigration and politicians have been too slow to wake up to that."
The report says people have little enthusiasm for greater understanding with Islam and attempts to improve relations have been "disappointing". And with the EU Muslim population expected to reach 15 per cent by 2025 it predicts: "Any deterioration on the international front will be felt most severely in Europe."
But leading Muslim academic Haleh Afshar, of York University, blamed media "hysteria" for the findings. She said: "There is an absence of trust towards Muslims, but to my mind that is very much driven by an uninformed media. "To blame immigration is much harder because the current influx of immigrants from eastern Europe are by-and-large not Muslim. The danger is that when people are fearful of people born and bred in this country it is likely that discrimination may follow."
Source
Another Greenie censorship attempt -- from Britain's red heart
A senior mayoral adviser ordered the authors of a report on road safety to rewrite it so it was politically acceptable, it was claimed today. His alleged intervention came after a three-year study by Transport for London into whether motorcyclists should be allowed to use bus lanes. A trial had found that accidents on two routes where motorbikes were allowed into bus lanes were nearly halved. But aide Kevin Austin allegedly ordered the rewrite to avoid the loss of the "green vote", because cycle groups opposed sharing bus lanes with motorcyclists.
Now the authors fear the new version will be a whitewash and conceal the road safety benefits shown by the trial, which took place in Brixton Road and Finchley Road. It found the bus lanes were much safer for pedestrians, cyclists, car drivers and motorcyclists when motorcycles were allowed access, with a 42 per cent fall in the rate of collisions. The report, presented to the Mayor in September, stated this, but officials claim they have been told to "bury" the findings and rewrite key sections to show the trial produced no safety gains.
City Hall insiders allege the order came amid fears that opening up bus lanes would alienate thousands of cyclists opposed to the move. A source told the Standard: "We have been told to cook the books and expect the new report to be a whitewash. The original report showed that the trial sites were far safer than on other 'control' roads, including for cyclists. "It meant the Mayor would have to open up bus lanes across London, followed by other regions closely watching the experiment. Now it has to be rewritten to appear the trial sites are no safer, so the Mayor can announce he will not proceed."
The study of the trial routes found accidents directly involving motorcycles fell by 45 per cent, compared with 19 per cent increase on a nearby 'control' route. Pedestrian casualties fell by 39 per cent against a three per cent rise on control routes. Collisions between cyclists and motorcyclists fell by 44 per cent. The draft report said: "These figures demonstrate that crashes involving powered two-wheelers and other vulnerable road-users become more infrequent even when considering the increased concentration of riders."
Cycling campaign group CTC said "noisy" motorcycles travelling at higher speeds would intimidate cyclists, threatening the increase in commuters turning to bicycles. But the draft report said: "The measure has no tangible adverse consequences to cyclists. In contrast to the level of concern... the number of casualties from collisions between cyclists and powered two-wheelers users is remarkably small."
A spokesman for the Mayor said: "There are serious issues of safety and efficiency involved in this issue so it required proper consideration based upon the collection and analysis of the relevant evidence. "Transport for London had concerns about the validity of some of the early results of the study. These concerns were shared by GLA officials. TfL therefore undertook further work. "All the results will be included in a final report, which will be submitted to TfL senior management and the Mayor. A decision will be made on the basis of full consideration of all of the evidence and this will be made public."
Source
A rather stunning move from the British Left
Anything to minimize academic knowlewdge and critical thinking, I guess
McDonald’s and other big businesses will award their own qualifications equal to GCSEs, A levels and degrees, in subjects such as fast-food restaurant management, the Government will announce today. Network Rail, Flybe and McDonald’s will become the first companies to be given such powers by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA). Gordon Brown will announce the move today as he seeks to regain the initiative over the issue of the unskilled unemployed from the Conservatives. “The biggest barrier to full employment now is not the shortage of jobs, but the shortage of skills among the unemployed and inactive,” he will say.
The QCA announcement gives the three companies official “awarding body” status, allowing them to confer nationally accredited certificates. The qualifications will not be finalised or fully endorsed until the autumn, but some trials are beginning this month. McDonald’s will train employees for a certificate in basic shift management, recognised by the QCA as equal to an A level. Trainees will learn about the day-to-day running of a restaurant, including finance, hygiene and human resources.
The budget airline Flybe will be able to award certificates up to the equivalent of degree level. Its airline trainer programme will confer qualifications from level 2 (GCSE at A*-C) to level 4 (degree) on its cabin and engineering staff.
Network Rail will introduce track engineering qualifications as high as PhD (level 8), covering technical issues and health and safety. It said its entire 33,000-strong workforce would take the course eventually, as well as contractors. Most trainees would receive certificates at level 2 and level 3. The company was criticised for its standards of track maintenance in a report into the Cumbrian train crash last February in which an elderly passenger was killed. It described the failures of Network Rail’s maintenance operation, with some track inspectors having lapsed accreditation, meaning that they were not certified to carry out such work.
Critics question the worth of “McGCSEs”, claiming that they could devalue academic qualifications and casting doubt on whether they would be recognised outside the companies concerned. Educational experts said that it would become increasingly common for private institutions to award qualifications, rather than it being the preserve of publicly funded colleges and universities. In September a private outfit, BPP College, became the first allowed to award law and business degrees. John Denham, the Universities Secretary, wants to introduce the scheme in companies in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. He said: “This is an important step towards ending the old divisions between company training schemes and national qualifications, something that will benefit employees, employers and the country as a whole.”
The move was welcomed by business leaders. John Cridland, the CBI’s deputy director-general, said: “Today marks a significant milestone on the road to reforming qualifications so that they better reflect the skills employers and employees need.”
But Professor Alan Smithers, the director of the centre for education and employment research at the University of Buckingham, cast doubts on the validity of such qualifications outside the companies in question. He said: “Employees may find they are locked into that business because these awards don't have credibility outside the company, like GCSEs, A levels or NVQs do. The qualifications would be more valuable to holders if they were awarded by an independent body.”
Source
EU PLANS TO SEE BRITISH ECONOMY BLOWN AWAY
It was appropriate that, just as our MPs were voting last week to hand over yet more of the power to run this country in the EU treaty, the EU itself should be unveiling easily the most ambitious example yet of how it uses the powers we have already given away. The proposals for "fighting climate change" announced on Wednesday by an array of EU commissioners make Stalin's Five-Year Plans look like a model of practical politics.
Few might guess, from the two-dimensional reporting of these plans in the media, just what a gamble with Europe's future we are undertaking - spending trillions of pounds for a highly dubious return, at a devastating cost to all our economies. The targets Britain will be legally committed to reach within 12 years fall under three main headings. Firstly, that 15 per cent of our energy should come from renewable sources such as wind (currently 1 per cent). Secondly, that 10 per cent of our transport fuel should be biofuels. Thirdly, that we accept a more draconian version of the "emissions trading scheme" that is already adding up to 12 per cent to our electricity bills.
The most prominent proposal is that which will require Britain to build up to 20,000 more wind turbines, including the 7,000 offshore giants announced by the Government before Christmas. To build two turbines a day, nearly as high as the Eiffel Tower, is inconceivable. What is also never explained is their astronomic cost. At 2 million pounds per megawatt of "capacity" (according to the Carbon Trust), the bill for the Government's 33 gigawatts (Gw) would be 66 billion (and even that, as was admitted in a recent parliamentary answer, doesn't include an extra 10 billion needed to connect the turbines to the grid). But the actual output of these turbines, because of the wind's unreliability, would be barely a third of their capacity. The resulting 11Gw could be produced by just seven new "carbon-free" nuclear power stations, at a quarter of the cost.
The EU's plans for "renewables" do not include nuclear energy. Worse, they take no account of the back-up needed for when the wind is not blowing - which would require Britain to have 33Gw of capacity constantly available from conventional power stations.
The same drawbacks apply to the huge increase in onshore turbines, covering thousands of square miles of countryside. They are only made viable by the vast hidden subsidies that wind energy receives, through our electricity bills. These make power from turbines (including the cost of back-up) between two and three times more expensive than that from conventional sources.
This is crazy enough, but the EU's policy on biofuels is even more so. The costs - up to 50 billion by 2020 - would, as the EU's own scientific experts have just advised, "outweigh the benefits". To grow the crops needed to meet the target would require all the farmland the EU currently uses to grow food, at a time when world food prices are soaring. Even Friends of the Earth have called on the EU to abandon its obsession with biofuels. Yet the Commission presses on regardless.
As for the "emissions trading scheme" (a system originating with the Kyoto Protocol, whereby businesses can buy or sell "carbon credits", supposedly to allow market forces to ensure that targets are met), the Commission last week predicted that by 2020 this could be raising 38 billion a year from electricity users. Of this, 6.5 billion a year would be paid by the UK, equating to 260 pounds for every household in the country.
The Commission itself predicts, in recently leaked documents, that this will have major consequences for the EU's economy, and that heavy industries, such as steel, aluminium, chemicals and cement, will have to raise their prices substantially, some by as much as 48 per cent. Yet when it was pointed out that this will put EU industries at a competitive disadvantage, the Commission's only response was to suggest tariffs on imports from countries such as China or America that are not signed up to Kyoto.
It looks like the most expensive economic suicide note in history. But just as alarming is how little this madness has been exposed to informed analysis. It seems, finally, that the price we pay for membership of the EU and the price of our obsession with global warming are about to become very painfully synonymous. And no one seems to have noticed.
Source
New AIDS drug
A new class of drug for people with HIV is being introduced in Britain today, having been described by researchers as a huge step forward in treating the deadly infection. Raltegravir, available as tablets to be taken twice a day, is approved for use with other antiretroviral drugs to treat HIV in about one in ten patients whose therapy has stopped working. Because of their potential to prolong life by decades, HIV drugs are considered cost-effective and raltegravir is likely to be available on the NHS for all infected patients.
Doctors believe that the drug could become standard treatment, potentially preventing HIV progressing into full-blown Aids. Three quarters of trial patients showed a significant reduction in viral load - the prevalance of the virus in their bloodstream - compared with 40 per cent taking current medication alone. Some patients had a marked improvement to the point where levels of the virus were "undetectable", doctors said.
An estimated 73,000 people in Britain are infected with HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus, which culminates in Aids (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). Although HIV infection is still considered serious, early diagnosis and appropriate treatment can allow for a relatively normal lifespan.
HIV continually changes and can become resistant to treatment, leading to a continuing search for new drugs. Raltegravir is the first in a new class of HIV treatments called integrase inhibitors, which it is hoped will avoid the risks of heart attack and cancer associated with existing medication. It works by blocking integrase, an enzyme that HIV relies on to replicate itself. It affects the ability of the virus to infect other cells, thus reducing the blood's viral load.
During the trials, patients were given raltegravir or the dummy drug plus optimised background therapy (OBT), a regime of antiretroviral drugs tailored to individual patients.
One study published in The Lancet in April last year was based on 178 patients with advanced HIV. They had been taking regular antiretroviral drugs for about ten years but were not responding to them. Patients taking raltegravir had an average of a 98 per cent drop in their HIV ribonucleic acid (RNA) count, compared with 45 per cent in the dummy group. The number of CD4 cells, an indicator of the immune system's ability to fight disease, was also boosted.
Made by the US-based company Merck, the drug is also known by the brand name Isentress. Mark Nelson, director of HIV services at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London, said that it had already provided a life-line to 30 of his patients. "While this is not a `cure' for HIV it does mean we can suppress the virus to where it is virtually undetectable."
Dr Nelson added that the drug's long-term safety record would be very important, given that more adverse effects from existing treatments were emerging after many years of therapy.
"Raltegravir is going to be popular because it's very effective and it seems to have a good safety profile," he said. "Previous drugs have done a terrific job keeping people alive. But now we have to start thinking about safety."
Eight years and four different drug cocktails after Philippe B, 41, learnt that he had HIV, he almost gave up.
"Ten years ago nobody told you anything about the drugs or how to take them, so I stopped for a few months. I became resistant and had to change my combination. Every new combination meant new side effects - nausea, diarrhoea. Sometimes the fatigue was so bad, I couldn't get out of bed."
Philippe, who works for the Terence Higgins Trust, had a viral load of 500,000 (more than 100,000 is considered high) and was in hospital with toxoplasmosis, ulcers and paralysis. After three months, he started a new regime that was the first to work - his viral load is below 50.
Philippe says that he is lucky because he has yet to run out of drug options. "It's very important that there are new drugs. HIV is not a death sentence any more but there's still no cure. After you become resistant, you start running out of options."
Source
Learn more skills or face losing benefit, British jobless will be told: "There should be no "free-riding" on the welfare state, the new Work and Pensions Secretary said yesterday as the Government outlined a "carrot and stick" approach to reform. James Purnell, the most Blairite minister in the Cabinet, set out, with Gordon Brown, proposals to require people to obtain the skills they need or face sanctions. Every unemployed person would have a "skills check" to help Britain to raise its skills game to world class, Mr Brown said. One in five under-21s would be steered towards an apprenticeship, and private and voluntary sectors would be used to create the training posts. People refusing to take the chances given to them would lose benefit, first for two weeks, then for four weeks, and then for up to 26 weeks."
You are just one of a herd of cattle to NHS doctors
A BOY who spent most of his life being deaf in one ear has been cured after he discovered the wayward tip of a cotton bud. After being deaf in his right ear for nine years, 11-year-old Jerome Bartens identified the cause of his ailment while playing with friends at a church hall in Haverfordwest, in Wales. The Daily Mail said Jerome heard a popping sound in his ear and, after using his finger to investigate the cause of the noise, discovered the tip of a cotton bud.
His father told the newspaper he was shocked that doctors did not discover the object after years of examinations. “It was just incredible – his hearing returned to normal in an instant,” Carsten Bartens told the newspaper. “He was cured as suddenly as he became deaf… I had always suspected Jerome had stuck something in his ear when he was little and that was causing the problem. “But the doctors and hearing specialists said it was wax and he would probably grow out of it.”
Jerome said it was strange to have his full hearing back again. “I can hear much better now and I think I’ll be happier at school now my ear does not ache all the time,” Jerome said. “It’s great that people don’t have to shout to me and that I don’t have to turn my head all the time.”
Source
British nurses leaving in droves
Thousands of nurses are leaving the NHS in search of better pay and working conditions abroad. More than 10,000 nurses and midwives left to work abroad in 2006-07, leaving the NHS just a few years from a staffing crisis, the country’s top nurse said. Nearly 35,000 nurses - enough to staff the entire health service in Wales – have emigrated in the past four years. During the past three years there has been a 75 per cent rise in the number of nurses leaving for Australia alone, data from the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) suggests.
Despite an anticipated shortfall of 14,000 nurses by 2010, Clare Chapman, the Department of Health’s director-general of workforce, has said that the NHS no longer needs to increase overall numbers of nurses and doctors.
Peter Carter, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), told The Times that the Government was guilty of a “yo-yo approach” to workforce planning, exacerbating low morale. “We are just a few short years away from a crisis,” he added. “There is every sign that being short-staffed on overstretched wards puts patients at risk, yet an estimated 20,000 nursing posts have been cut in hospitals and surgeries across the country. “At the same time as they are offered a miserly pay deal, they are being bombarded with advertising for a better life abroad. When you are offered comparable salaries and a higher quality of life in Australia, the Cayman Islands or South Africa, is it any wonder that some might choose to kickstart their careers abroad?”
The average salary for an NHS nurse was 24,000 pounds, Dr Carter said, about 10,000 less than the average police officer or teacher, while a below-inflation pay rise of 0.6 per cent in real terms last year had been an insult.
In total, 33,513 nurses left the UK and registered to work abroad between 2003-04 and 2006-07, but this was likely to be a conservative estimate, Dr Carter said. Meanwhile, 6,144 nurses from abroad were registered to work in the UK last year, 4,624 of them from outside the EU.
Source
EUROPEANS THINK ISLAM IS DANGEROUS
An "overwhelming majority" of Europeans believe immigration from Islamic countries is a threat to their traditional way of life, a survey revealed last night. The poll, carried out across 21 countries, found "widespread anti-immigration sentiment", but warned Europe's Muslim population will treble in the next 17 years. It reported "a severe deficit of trust is found between the Western and Muslim communities", with most people wanting less interaction with the Muslim world.
Last night an MP warned it showed that political leaders in Britain who preach the benefits of unlimited immigration were dangerously out of touch with the public.
The study, whose authors include the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey, was commissioned for leaders at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland. It reports "a growing fear among Europeans of a perceived Islamic threat to their cultural identities, driven in part by immigration from predominantly Muslim nations". And it concludes: "An overwhelming majority of the surveyed populations in Europe believe greater interaction between Islam and the West is a threat."
Backbench Tory MP David Davies told the Sunday Express: "I am not surprised by these findings. People are fed up with multiculturalism and being told they have to give up their way of life. "Most people in Britain expect anyone who comes here to be willing to learn our language and fit in with us." Mr Davies, who serves on the Commons Home Affairs Committee, added: "People do get annoyed when they see millions spent on translating documents and legal aid being given to people fighting for the right to wear a head-to-toe covering at school. "A lot of people are very uncomfortable with the changes being caused by immigration and politicians have been too slow to wake up to that."
The report says people have little enthusiasm for greater understanding with Islam and attempts to improve relations have been "disappointing". And with the EU Muslim population expected to reach 15 per cent by 2025 it predicts: "Any deterioration on the international front will be felt most severely in Europe."
But leading Muslim academic Haleh Afshar, of York University, blamed media "hysteria" for the findings. She said: "There is an absence of trust towards Muslims, but to my mind that is very much driven by an uninformed media. "To blame immigration is much harder because the current influx of immigrants from eastern Europe are by-and-large not Muslim. The danger is that when people are fearful of people born and bred in this country it is likely that discrimination may follow."
Source
Another Greenie censorship attempt -- from Britain's red heart
A senior mayoral adviser ordered the authors of a report on road safety to rewrite it so it was politically acceptable, it was claimed today. His alleged intervention came after a three-year study by Transport for London into whether motorcyclists should be allowed to use bus lanes. A trial had found that accidents on two routes where motorbikes were allowed into bus lanes were nearly halved. But aide Kevin Austin allegedly ordered the rewrite to avoid the loss of the "green vote", because cycle groups opposed sharing bus lanes with motorcyclists.
Now the authors fear the new version will be a whitewash and conceal the road safety benefits shown by the trial, which took place in Brixton Road and Finchley Road. It found the bus lanes were much safer for pedestrians, cyclists, car drivers and motorcyclists when motorcycles were allowed access, with a 42 per cent fall in the rate of collisions. The report, presented to the Mayor in September, stated this, but officials claim they have been told to "bury" the findings and rewrite key sections to show the trial produced no safety gains.
City Hall insiders allege the order came amid fears that opening up bus lanes would alienate thousands of cyclists opposed to the move. A source told the Standard: "We have been told to cook the books and expect the new report to be a whitewash. The original report showed that the trial sites were far safer than on other 'control' roads, including for cyclists. "It meant the Mayor would have to open up bus lanes across London, followed by other regions closely watching the experiment. Now it has to be rewritten to appear the trial sites are no safer, so the Mayor can announce he will not proceed."
The study of the trial routes found accidents directly involving motorcycles fell by 45 per cent, compared with 19 per cent increase on a nearby 'control' route. Pedestrian casualties fell by 39 per cent against a three per cent rise on control routes. Collisions between cyclists and motorcyclists fell by 44 per cent. The draft report said: "These figures demonstrate that crashes involving powered two-wheelers and other vulnerable road-users become more infrequent even when considering the increased concentration of riders."
Cycling campaign group CTC said "noisy" motorcycles travelling at higher speeds would intimidate cyclists, threatening the increase in commuters turning to bicycles. But the draft report said: "The measure has no tangible adverse consequences to cyclists. In contrast to the level of concern... the number of casualties from collisions between cyclists and powered two-wheelers users is remarkably small."
A spokesman for the Mayor said: "There are serious issues of safety and efficiency involved in this issue so it required proper consideration based upon the collection and analysis of the relevant evidence. "Transport for London had concerns about the validity of some of the early results of the study. These concerns were shared by GLA officials. TfL therefore undertook further work. "All the results will be included in a final report, which will be submitted to TfL senior management and the Mayor. A decision will be made on the basis of full consideration of all of the evidence and this will be made public."
Source
A rather stunning move from the British Left
Anything to minimize academic knowlewdge and critical thinking, I guess
McDonald’s and other big businesses will award their own qualifications equal to GCSEs, A levels and degrees, in subjects such as fast-food restaurant management, the Government will announce today. Network Rail, Flybe and McDonald’s will become the first companies to be given such powers by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA). Gordon Brown will announce the move today as he seeks to regain the initiative over the issue of the unskilled unemployed from the Conservatives. “The biggest barrier to full employment now is not the shortage of jobs, but the shortage of skills among the unemployed and inactive,” he will say.
The QCA announcement gives the three companies official “awarding body” status, allowing them to confer nationally accredited certificates. The qualifications will not be finalised or fully endorsed until the autumn, but some trials are beginning this month. McDonald’s will train employees for a certificate in basic shift management, recognised by the QCA as equal to an A level. Trainees will learn about the day-to-day running of a restaurant, including finance, hygiene and human resources.
The budget airline Flybe will be able to award certificates up to the equivalent of degree level. Its airline trainer programme will confer qualifications from level 2 (GCSE at A*-C) to level 4 (degree) on its cabin and engineering staff.
Network Rail will introduce track engineering qualifications as high as PhD (level 8), covering technical issues and health and safety. It said its entire 33,000-strong workforce would take the course eventually, as well as contractors. Most trainees would receive certificates at level 2 and level 3. The company was criticised for its standards of track maintenance in a report into the Cumbrian train crash last February in which an elderly passenger was killed. It described the failures of Network Rail’s maintenance operation, with some track inspectors having lapsed accreditation, meaning that they were not certified to carry out such work.
Critics question the worth of “McGCSEs”, claiming that they could devalue academic qualifications and casting doubt on whether they would be recognised outside the companies concerned. Educational experts said that it would become increasingly common for private institutions to award qualifications, rather than it being the preserve of publicly funded colleges and universities. In September a private outfit, BPP College, became the first allowed to award law and business degrees. John Denham, the Universities Secretary, wants to introduce the scheme in companies in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. He said: “This is an important step towards ending the old divisions between company training schemes and national qualifications, something that will benefit employees, employers and the country as a whole.”
The move was welcomed by business leaders. John Cridland, the CBI’s deputy director-general, said: “Today marks a significant milestone on the road to reforming qualifications so that they better reflect the skills employers and employees need.”
But Professor Alan Smithers, the director of the centre for education and employment research at the University of Buckingham, cast doubts on the validity of such qualifications outside the companies in question. He said: “Employees may find they are locked into that business because these awards don't have credibility outside the company, like GCSEs, A levels or NVQs do. The qualifications would be more valuable to holders if they were awarded by an independent body.”
Source
EU PLANS TO SEE BRITISH ECONOMY BLOWN AWAY
It was appropriate that, just as our MPs were voting last week to hand over yet more of the power to run this country in the EU treaty, the EU itself should be unveiling easily the most ambitious example yet of how it uses the powers we have already given away. The proposals for "fighting climate change" announced on Wednesday by an array of EU commissioners make Stalin's Five-Year Plans look like a model of practical politics.
Few might guess, from the two-dimensional reporting of these plans in the media, just what a gamble with Europe's future we are undertaking - spending trillions of pounds for a highly dubious return, at a devastating cost to all our economies. The targets Britain will be legally committed to reach within 12 years fall under three main headings. Firstly, that 15 per cent of our energy should come from renewable sources such as wind (currently 1 per cent). Secondly, that 10 per cent of our transport fuel should be biofuels. Thirdly, that we accept a more draconian version of the "emissions trading scheme" that is already adding up to 12 per cent to our electricity bills.
The most prominent proposal is that which will require Britain to build up to 20,000 more wind turbines, including the 7,000 offshore giants announced by the Government before Christmas. To build two turbines a day, nearly as high as the Eiffel Tower, is inconceivable. What is also never explained is their astronomic cost. At 2 million pounds per megawatt of "capacity" (according to the Carbon Trust), the bill for the Government's 33 gigawatts (Gw) would be 66 billion (and even that, as was admitted in a recent parliamentary answer, doesn't include an extra 10 billion needed to connect the turbines to the grid). But the actual output of these turbines, because of the wind's unreliability, would be barely a third of their capacity. The resulting 11Gw could be produced by just seven new "carbon-free" nuclear power stations, at a quarter of the cost.
The EU's plans for "renewables" do not include nuclear energy. Worse, they take no account of the back-up needed for when the wind is not blowing - which would require Britain to have 33Gw of capacity constantly available from conventional power stations.
The same drawbacks apply to the huge increase in onshore turbines, covering thousands of square miles of countryside. They are only made viable by the vast hidden subsidies that wind energy receives, through our electricity bills. These make power from turbines (including the cost of back-up) between two and three times more expensive than that from conventional sources.
This is crazy enough, but the EU's policy on biofuels is even more so. The costs - up to 50 billion by 2020 - would, as the EU's own scientific experts have just advised, "outweigh the benefits". To grow the crops needed to meet the target would require all the farmland the EU currently uses to grow food, at a time when world food prices are soaring. Even Friends of the Earth have called on the EU to abandon its obsession with biofuels. Yet the Commission presses on regardless.
As for the "emissions trading scheme" (a system originating with the Kyoto Protocol, whereby businesses can buy or sell "carbon credits", supposedly to allow market forces to ensure that targets are met), the Commission last week predicted that by 2020 this could be raising 38 billion a year from electricity users. Of this, 6.5 billion a year would be paid by the UK, equating to 260 pounds for every household in the country.
The Commission itself predicts, in recently leaked documents, that this will have major consequences for the EU's economy, and that heavy industries, such as steel, aluminium, chemicals and cement, will have to raise their prices substantially, some by as much as 48 per cent. Yet when it was pointed out that this will put EU industries at a competitive disadvantage, the Commission's only response was to suggest tariffs on imports from countries such as China or America that are not signed up to Kyoto.
It looks like the most expensive economic suicide note in history. But just as alarming is how little this madness has been exposed to informed analysis. It seems, finally, that the price we pay for membership of the EU and the price of our obsession with global warming are about to become very painfully synonymous. And no one seems to have noticed.
Source
New AIDS drug
A new class of drug for people with HIV is being introduced in Britain today, having been described by researchers as a huge step forward in treating the deadly infection. Raltegravir, available as tablets to be taken twice a day, is approved for use with other antiretroviral drugs to treat HIV in about one in ten patients whose therapy has stopped working. Because of their potential to prolong life by decades, HIV drugs are considered cost-effective and raltegravir is likely to be available on the NHS for all infected patients.
Doctors believe that the drug could become standard treatment, potentially preventing HIV progressing into full-blown Aids. Three quarters of trial patients showed a significant reduction in viral load - the prevalance of the virus in their bloodstream - compared with 40 per cent taking current medication alone. Some patients had a marked improvement to the point where levels of the virus were "undetectable", doctors said.
An estimated 73,000 people in Britain are infected with HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus, which culminates in Aids (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). Although HIV infection is still considered serious, early diagnosis and appropriate treatment can allow for a relatively normal lifespan.
HIV continually changes and can become resistant to treatment, leading to a continuing search for new drugs. Raltegravir is the first in a new class of HIV treatments called integrase inhibitors, which it is hoped will avoid the risks of heart attack and cancer associated with existing medication. It works by blocking integrase, an enzyme that HIV relies on to replicate itself. It affects the ability of the virus to infect other cells, thus reducing the blood's viral load.
During the trials, patients were given raltegravir or the dummy drug plus optimised background therapy (OBT), a regime of antiretroviral drugs tailored to individual patients.
One study published in The Lancet in April last year was based on 178 patients with advanced HIV. They had been taking regular antiretroviral drugs for about ten years but were not responding to them. Patients taking raltegravir had an average of a 98 per cent drop in their HIV ribonucleic acid (RNA) count, compared with 45 per cent in the dummy group. The number of CD4 cells, an indicator of the immune system's ability to fight disease, was also boosted.
Made by the US-based company Merck, the drug is also known by the brand name Isentress. Mark Nelson, director of HIV services at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London, said that it had already provided a life-line to 30 of his patients. "While this is not a `cure' for HIV it does mean we can suppress the virus to where it is virtually undetectable."
Dr Nelson added that the drug's long-term safety record would be very important, given that more adverse effects from existing treatments were emerging after many years of therapy.
"Raltegravir is going to be popular because it's very effective and it seems to have a good safety profile," he said. "Previous drugs have done a terrific job keeping people alive. But now we have to start thinking about safety."
Eight years and four different drug cocktails after Philippe B, 41, learnt that he had HIV, he almost gave up.
"Ten years ago nobody told you anything about the drugs or how to take them, so I stopped for a few months. I became resistant and had to change my combination. Every new combination meant new side effects - nausea, diarrhoea. Sometimes the fatigue was so bad, I couldn't get out of bed."
Philippe, who works for the Terence Higgins Trust, had a viral load of 500,000 (more than 100,000 is considered high) and was in hospital with toxoplasmosis, ulcers and paralysis. After three months, he started a new regime that was the first to work - his viral load is below 50.
Philippe says that he is lucky because he has yet to run out of drug options. "It's very important that there are new drugs. HIV is not a death sentence any more but there's still no cure. After you become resistant, you start running out of options."
Source
Learn more skills or face losing benefit, British jobless will be told: "There should be no "free-riding" on the welfare state, the new Work and Pensions Secretary said yesterday as the Government outlined a "carrot and stick" approach to reform. James Purnell, the most Blairite minister in the Cabinet, set out, with Gordon Brown, proposals to require people to obtain the skills they need or face sanctions. Every unemployed person would have a "skills check" to help Britain to raise its skills game to world class, Mr Brown said. One in five under-21s would be steered towards an apprenticeship, and private and voluntary sectors would be used to create the training posts. People refusing to take the chances given to them would lose benefit, first for two weeks, then for four weeks, and then for up to 26 weeks."
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
British police chief: `migrant tide adds to crime'
One of Britain's leading police chiefs has warned Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, that his force is struggling to cope with "migration surges" that are leading to increased crime. In a leaked private letter, Mike Fuller, the chief constable of Kent, tells Smith the government's failure to provide extra funds to match the influx of immigrants will have a "negative impact on performance".
Fuller, Britain's most senior black police officer, also warns the soaring cost of translation services is placing a strain on resources. He says he will need more than 500 extra constables if the population increase caused by immigration continues.
The warning will embarrass the government. Last night the Labour-dominated home affairs committee promised to investigate Fuller's complaints that government funding has failed to take into account "surges" in arrivals from overseas. In his letter to Smith dated October 22 last year, the police chief states: "I feel it is essential that I set out the impact that population growth is having in Kent and the pressure it is placing on finite resources."
Fuller estimates 78% of the population growth is accounted for by migration. This has contributed to a rise of more than a third in violent crimes over five years to about 7,800 incidents last year. He estimates the total additional cost to the force to be 34 million pounds over the past three years, but claims increases in funding from the Home Office have failed to keep pace.
Fuller, Britain's first black chief constable, is regarded as a high-flyer. He recently qualified as a barrister, training in his spare time, and has been tipped as a future Metropolitan police commissioner. In his letter he warns that government predictions about immigration and population growth have proved unreliable. He concludes: "There is a danger that if the future funding regime fails to respond to dynamic changes in migration the extra demand this generates will impact negatively on performance."
Fuller says translation services account for an increasing proportion of his budget, with costs having risen by a third over the past three years. According to Fuller, the total population of Kent is forecast to rise from 1.6m now to 1.9m in 2029. Most of this increase will be a result of immigration. He says that if these predictions are correct, he will need an extra 561 constables.
He also warns that Kent suffers special problems policing the ferry ports and Channel tunnel. "As the gateway to Europe, Kent has unique geographical status which places additional strain on limited resources." Fuller is not the first police chief to complain that government funding is failing to take account of rising immigration. Julie Spence, of Cambridgeshire police, warned last year that new arrivals, often from eastern Europe, had left her force struggling to deal with certain offences including knife crime and drink driving. She said immigrant communities had "different standards" from the UK.
When asked last month about Kent, ministers claimed no assessment had been made of the impact of immigration on costs. In a parliamentary answer, Tony NcNulty, the police minister, said: "Kent police do not separately identify costs incurred as a result of immigration."
Damian Green, Conservative immigration spokesman, said ministers had misled the public: "This is clear evidence that all over the country public services have found it impossible to cope with the unplanned and rapid rise in population over the past few years. "This is another largely rural police force which is having to spend money on translation services and cope with extra pressures caused by fast rates of immigration. Without properly controlled immigration this problem will only get worse."
Keith Vaz, Labour chairman of the home affairs committee, said: "Mike Fuller raises very important issues concerned with the changing needs of local areas as a result of migration. It is important that in looking at funding formulas the government understands that there are pressures that need to be addressed. We will be looking at this issues when we launch our forthcoming inquiry into policing." A Home Office spokesman said: "We will consider any evidence provided by the police."
Source
GREEN ENERGY POLICY IS DRIVING MORE AND MORE BRITONS INTO FUEL POVERTY
One in six British households is living in fuel poverty, the highest for almost a decade, according to new figures that threaten the government's target to eradicate the problem in England by the end of the decade.
Fuel poverty is defined as when a household spends more than a tenth of its income on utility bills. The consumer group Energywatch said yesterday there are now about 4.4 million of these in the UK, with just over 3 million in England alone.
Charities and other groups, led by the Association for the Conservation of Energy, are preparing a legal challenge in the next few weeks to force the government to meet the 2010 target, to which it is committed by law.
The figures came at the end of a week in which the UK's largest energy supplier, British Gas, said it was increasing bills by 15 per cent. This month EDF Energy and Npower raised prices by up to 27 per cent, and two-thirds of British households will have to pay higher tariffs. Other suppliers are likely to follow suit soon.
FULL STORY here
SEVEN new British data blunders: "The Department of Health (DoH) has written to senior NHS managers to remind them to handle data safely, it said today, as it was reported there have been seven new breaches of security involving patient details. Today's edition of The Sun said that in one incident the confidential records of more than 1.7 million patients were lost, while in another a medic Googled a doctor's name and was linked to patients' details. In the first incident, records of patients from the North East Essex region were on a tape that was mislaid by a courier firm, while the second took place in the North West Strategic Health Authority, the newspaper said." [No wonder a national ID card has been put on hold!]
One of Britain's leading police chiefs has warned Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, that his force is struggling to cope with "migration surges" that are leading to increased crime. In a leaked private letter, Mike Fuller, the chief constable of Kent, tells Smith the government's failure to provide extra funds to match the influx of immigrants will have a "negative impact on performance".
Fuller, Britain's most senior black police officer, also warns the soaring cost of translation services is placing a strain on resources. He says he will need more than 500 extra constables if the population increase caused by immigration continues.
The warning will embarrass the government. Last night the Labour-dominated home affairs committee promised to investigate Fuller's complaints that government funding has failed to take into account "surges" in arrivals from overseas. In his letter to Smith dated October 22 last year, the police chief states: "I feel it is essential that I set out the impact that population growth is having in Kent and the pressure it is placing on finite resources."
Fuller estimates 78% of the population growth is accounted for by migration. This has contributed to a rise of more than a third in violent crimes over five years to about 7,800 incidents last year. He estimates the total additional cost to the force to be 34 million pounds over the past three years, but claims increases in funding from the Home Office have failed to keep pace.
Fuller, Britain's first black chief constable, is regarded as a high-flyer. He recently qualified as a barrister, training in his spare time, and has been tipped as a future Metropolitan police commissioner. In his letter he warns that government predictions about immigration and population growth have proved unreliable. He concludes: "There is a danger that if the future funding regime fails to respond to dynamic changes in migration the extra demand this generates will impact negatively on performance."
Fuller says translation services account for an increasing proportion of his budget, with costs having risen by a third over the past three years. According to Fuller, the total population of Kent is forecast to rise from 1.6m now to 1.9m in 2029. Most of this increase will be a result of immigration. He says that if these predictions are correct, he will need an extra 561 constables.
He also warns that Kent suffers special problems policing the ferry ports and Channel tunnel. "As the gateway to Europe, Kent has unique geographical status which places additional strain on limited resources." Fuller is not the first police chief to complain that government funding is failing to take account of rising immigration. Julie Spence, of Cambridgeshire police, warned last year that new arrivals, often from eastern Europe, had left her force struggling to deal with certain offences including knife crime and drink driving. She said immigrant communities had "different standards" from the UK.
When asked last month about Kent, ministers claimed no assessment had been made of the impact of immigration on costs. In a parliamentary answer, Tony NcNulty, the police minister, said: "Kent police do not separately identify costs incurred as a result of immigration."
Damian Green, Conservative immigration spokesman, said ministers had misled the public: "This is clear evidence that all over the country public services have found it impossible to cope with the unplanned and rapid rise in population over the past few years. "This is another largely rural police force which is having to spend money on translation services and cope with extra pressures caused by fast rates of immigration. Without properly controlled immigration this problem will only get worse."
Keith Vaz, Labour chairman of the home affairs committee, said: "Mike Fuller raises very important issues concerned with the changing needs of local areas as a result of migration. It is important that in looking at funding formulas the government understands that there are pressures that need to be addressed. We will be looking at this issues when we launch our forthcoming inquiry into policing." A Home Office spokesman said: "We will consider any evidence provided by the police."
Source
GREEN ENERGY POLICY IS DRIVING MORE AND MORE BRITONS INTO FUEL POVERTY
One in six British households is living in fuel poverty, the highest for almost a decade, according to new figures that threaten the government's target to eradicate the problem in England by the end of the decade.
Fuel poverty is defined as when a household spends more than a tenth of its income on utility bills. The consumer group Energywatch said yesterday there are now about 4.4 million of these in the UK, with just over 3 million in England alone.
Charities and other groups, led by the Association for the Conservation of Energy, are preparing a legal challenge in the next few weeks to force the government to meet the 2010 target, to which it is committed by law.
The figures came at the end of a week in which the UK's largest energy supplier, British Gas, said it was increasing bills by 15 per cent. This month EDF Energy and Npower raised prices by up to 27 per cent, and two-thirds of British households will have to pay higher tariffs. Other suppliers are likely to follow suit soon.
FULL STORY here
SEVEN new British data blunders: "The Department of Health (DoH) has written to senior NHS managers to remind them to handle data safely, it said today, as it was reported there have been seven new breaches of security involving patient details. Today's edition of The Sun said that in one incident the confidential records of more than 1.7 million patients were lost, while in another a medic Googled a doctor's name and was linked to patients' details. In the first incident, records of patients from the North East Essex region were on a tape that was mislaid by a courier firm, while the second took place in the North West Strategic Health Authority, the newspaper said." [No wonder a national ID card has been put on hold!]
Monday, January 28, 2008
Cancer woman runs out of time in NHS battle
Yet another death from socialism -- and as deliberate and as heartless as anything Stalin did
A WOMAN suffering from breast cancer has run out of time to benefit from a potentially life-extending drug which the National Health Service (NHS) denied her, even though she was prepared to pay for it. Colette Mills has been told by doctors that in the four months since she asked for the drug the disease has taken such a hold in her body that the cancer will no longer respond to the treatment. She is the victim of a ruling which states that any patient who wants to pay for additional drugs not prescribed by the NHS should lose their entitlement to their basic NHS cancer care and pay for all their treatment. She was prepared to pay for the drug but not her whole treatment.
Mills, a 58-year-old former nurse, said: “I am just absolutely gutted. I just cannot believe people make these decisions about other people’s lives. “It wasn’t going to cost them. I was going to pay for it. How can they say this policy is far more important than somebody’s life? “The NHS has taken this opportunity away from me and, if they are doing it to me, they are doing it to a lot of other women as well.”
The government claims that to allow some patients to pay for additional drugs on top of their NHS treatment creates a two-tier system between those who can and cannot afford them.
Asked about her future prospects, Mills said: “They are not hopeful of halting it. They will give you no promises. I didn’t ask and he [the doctor] didn’t say. It is not something I want to know just yet.” Mills, a mother of two, launched a legal action to try to force the NHS to allow her to pay for the drug Avastin which she wanted to take alongside another medicine, Taxol, which is prescribed by the health service. But during her four-month battle with the NHS, the breast cancer has spread to other parts of her body and doctors have told Mills it is too late for her to benefit from the combination of Avastin and Taxol.
An American trial has shown that taking the drugs in combination doubles the chance of preventing the disease from spreading compared to taking Taxol on its own. Taking Avastin in addition to Taxol is also likely to keep the disease under control for almost twice as long. Leading oncologists say Avastin offers a small but significant advantage in treating breast cancer. Mills will now be prescribed an alternative medicine but does not know how successful this will be in stopping the cancer.
Several other cancer patients are also taking legal action to win the right to pay for medicines that are not available on the NHS. The patients’ lawyer, Melissa Worth, of the law firm Halliwells, said: “Colette has been told by her medical team that she may have missed her chance. If she had been given the opportunity to take the Avastin when she first contacted her medical team about it, then she would have had three months’ treatment by now. Months down the line, the policy will need to change but for those patients currently fighting their NHS trusts, it might be too late.”
Becoming an entirely private patient would have cost Mills, from near Stokesley, North Yorkshire, about 10,000 pounds a month instead of about 4,000 solely to pay for the Avastin and its administration. Although she could have tried to raise the funds such as finding a loan, she believes it is a fundamental principle that the NHS should continue to fund her basic care for which she has paid through her taxes.
The Department of Health, however, said top-up payments would “undermine” the “fundamental principle of the NHS, now supported by all the main political parties, that treatment should be free at the point of need”. Mills’s case has provoked a national debate about whether NHS patients should be allowed to pay for top-up treatments. NHS chief executives, the Patients Association, Doctors for Reform and Saga, the organisation for the over-fifties, have all backed Mills and other patients in her situation since The Sunday Times highlighted their plight last year. A group of Conservative MPs, including former shadow health minister John Baron, are campaigning for co-payments to be allowed.
Source
Britain's voluntary apartheid
The Daily Telegraph recently published an article indicating Islamic extremists have created "no go" areas across Great Britain where it is too dangerous for non-Muslims to enter. The Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali, bishop of Rochester and the Church of England"s only Asian bishop, said people of a different race or faith face physical attack if they live or work in communities dominated by a strict Muslim ideology.
Clearly at stake is the very future of Christianity as the nation"s public religion. With multiculturalism gaining ground as a philosophical position, Islam rides on its coattails. Since all faiths are to be treated equally according to this multicultural faith, it isn't possible to challenge publicly the call to prayer or the reliance on Shariah to adjudicate legal claims.
Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Equalities and Human Rights, who has said England is "sleepwalking into segregation," has been criticized for what some consider incendiary language. However, multiculturalism clearly has led to deep and irrepressible social divisions, what one politician called "voluntary apartheid."
It would appear the divisions can be attributed to the government's failure to integrate immigrants into the larger community. But it is also related to a diminished belief in the Church of England and Christianity in general. Most in Britain believe the church will be disestablished within a generation, severing a bond between church and state that dates to the Reformation.
Of course, there are those who contend the critique of multiculturalism is little more than a manifestation of intolerance. Yet it is the intolerance in the Muslim communities that produced this blow-back.
The Rev. Nicholas Reade, bishop of Blackburn, which has a large Muslim community, maintains it is increasingly difficult for Christians to observe their faith in communities where they are a minority. He too believes the government will be pressured into disestablishing the Church of England.
There is little doubt that Britain is undergoing dramatic change. In a mere few decades this nation with an acknowledged Christian foundation is now routinely described as a multifaith society. Clearly the large number of immigrants entering the British Isles account in large part for the shift in attitude. Yet that isn't the whole story.
The loss of confidence in the Christian vision, which underlies most of the achievements and principles of the culture, may account for a reluctance to defend the nation's heritage.
If minorities are permitted to live in their own insulated communities, communicating in their own languages and having minimal need to build relationships with the majority, the nation will sink into balkanization. Moreover, this separation feeds and endorses Islamic extremism by alienating youngsters from the nation and creating the impression ideological devotion is a mark of acceptability.
Some Muslims and Christians, of course, recognize the problem and are eager to do something about it. But can Shariah relate to British civil law? Can Shariah-compliant banking be accommodated in a free-market system? Can Christianity be maintained as the nation's public faith? Can universities transmit a sense of Britannia when multiculturalism is in the ascendancy?
These are merely several of the host of questions and issues that must be addressed by government and religious leaders. Unfortunately, there are many more questions than answers and much more confusion on the part of the British public than clarity about the road ahead.
Source
Britain urged to love a man in uniform again
THE government is to sweep away curbs on servicemen and women wearing uniforms off duty in public as part of a drive to boost popular support for the armed services. A report commissioned by Gordon Brown to honour those serving in Afghanistan and Iraq will say all service personnel should be encouraged to wear their uniforms on leave. The curbs were introduced almost 30 years ago during the IRA's bombing campaign on mainland Britain when military personnel were warned not to wear uniforms off duty.
Defence chiefs believe the advantages gained from wearing uniforms and encouraging the public to fall back in love with the armed forces will outweigh any danger from home-grown terrorists. Brown's review will also call for more parades for soldiers returning from the front line and more open days at airfields and naval and army bases. It is seeking to emulate America with cheap flights for troops and free or discounted admission to theme parks and sports grounds such as Wembley, Twickenham and Lord's.
Brown ordered the study after concern that servicemen and women returning from war zones were being ignored or even insulted by some members of the public. According to Downing Street, he wants to "encourage greater understanding and appreciation of the armed services by the British public". It has been headed by Quentin Davies, the former Tory MP who defected to Labour. Last week he toured Canada and the United States to see how well regarded servicemen and women are there in comparison to Britain. "There have been some ghastly incidents, including the insulting of British soldiers in Birmingham, and a woman who insulted crippled soldiers in a swimming baths," said Davies. "People have said they do not get the welcome of their American allies when they go home."
Davies, whose father served in the RAF in the second world war, added: "There should be more exposure to the military. We are not going to recommend people are ordered to wear uniforms on leave. It is a question of encouragement by example." The review also wants Whitehall staff to wear uniforms on days other than Remembrance Sunday, as well as more school visits and involvement from the military. Of 6,400 secondary schools in the UK, fewer than 300 have combined cadet forces.
The review team has already written to British Airways and Virgin Atlantic asking for special deals for service personnel. BA said it had no plans to do so, while Virgin said it already ran a discount scheme for the military. In America Anheuser-Busch, the brewing firm, has given more than 4m free passes to theme parks such as Sea World and Busch Gardens to members of the coalition forces since 2005. British service personnel on visits to the US have benefited from discounts in hotels and restaurants by showing their military ID cards.
Source
British road hump panic!
In the end, NOTHING suits the Greenies
They damage cars and give drivers a nasty jolt, but now speed bumps have been found guilty of an even worse crime - they are helping to destroy the planet. The traffic-calming measures double the carbon dioxide emissions and fuel consumption by forcing drivers to brake and accelerate repeatedly, according to a study commissioned by the AA. A car that achieves 58.15 miles per gallon travelling at a steady 30mph will deliver only 30.85mpg when going over humps.
The AA employed an independent engineer who used a fuel flow meter to test the consumption of a small and a medium-sized car at Millbrook Proving Ground in Bedfordshire. The results, calculated by averaging the performances of the two cars, also showed that reducing the speed limit from 30mph to 20mph resulted in 10 per cent higher emissions. This is because car engines are designed to be most efficient at speeds above 30mph. A motorist who observed the speed limit on one mile of 20mph road during a daily journey would produce an extra tonne of CO2 in a year compared with driving at 30mph on the same stretch.
In an unusual move for a motoring organisation, the AA called for the introduction of cameras that detect average speeds to replace humps. Edmund King, the AA's president, said: "Humps are a crude, uncomfortable and noisy way of slowing people down and this research has shown they are also environmentally damaging. We accept that traffic speed needs to be controlled in residential areas where there is a problem with accidents and children are playing. We think motorists are more likely to accept average speed cameras than humps."
But he added that drivers would not support a proposal in London by the Mayor, Ken Livingstone, to make 20mph the default speed limit on all residential roads. "The AA accepts that targeted 20mph speed limits in residential areas are popular and improve safety. However, a 30mph limit on local distributor roads may be more environmentally friendly."
Previous research by the Transport Research Laboratory found that air pollution rose significantly on roads with humps. Carbon monoxide emissions increased by 82 per cent and nitrogen oxide by 37 per cent. The London Ambulance Service has claimed that the 30,000 humps on the capital's roads cause up to 500 deaths a year because its crews suffer delays in reaching victims of cardiac arrest.
Mr King said: "Humps tend to breed more humps. If one street has humps installed, the adjacent street calls for humps and eventually you find no clear roads for movement of emergency service vehicles."
Transport for London has been helping to test average-speed cameras on residential roads in Camden, North London. No tickets are being issued yet, but the mere presence of the cameras has resulted in the proportion of drivers complying with the limit increasing by a third. The new cameras are not linked but have synchronised clocks and each separately transmits information to a processing centre. This allows several cameras to work together without the need to dig up the road between them to lay cables. In urban areas this can halve the cost of installing the system. Putting in 50 standard humps on three or four connecting residential streets costs about 150,000 pounds. A set of eight average-speed cameras covering the same area would cost 250,000.
The Home Office has been monitoring trials of average-speed cameras for almost three years but has yet to approve them. The camera suppliers believe that the delay is due to a lack of staff to complete the approval process. Rob Gifford, director of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, said: "If we remove road humps, the clear alternative method for enforcing lower speeds is through average speed cameras. These will smooth out traffic flow and be fairer to car drivers." Mr Gifford said that research had shown that 10 per cent of pedestrians would die when hit by a car at 20mph compared with 50 per cent at 30mph.
Source
There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race and IQ. Some readers have reported that the site doesn't download unless one clicks STOP.
Yet another death from socialism -- and as deliberate and as heartless as anything Stalin did
A WOMAN suffering from breast cancer has run out of time to benefit from a potentially life-extending drug which the National Health Service (NHS) denied her, even though she was prepared to pay for it. Colette Mills has been told by doctors that in the four months since she asked for the drug the disease has taken such a hold in her body that the cancer will no longer respond to the treatment. She is the victim of a ruling which states that any patient who wants to pay for additional drugs not prescribed by the NHS should lose their entitlement to their basic NHS cancer care and pay for all their treatment. She was prepared to pay for the drug but not her whole treatment.
Mills, a 58-year-old former nurse, said: “I am just absolutely gutted. I just cannot believe people make these decisions about other people’s lives. “It wasn’t going to cost them. I was going to pay for it. How can they say this policy is far more important than somebody’s life? “The NHS has taken this opportunity away from me and, if they are doing it to me, they are doing it to a lot of other women as well.”
The government claims that to allow some patients to pay for additional drugs on top of their NHS treatment creates a two-tier system between those who can and cannot afford them.
Asked about her future prospects, Mills said: “They are not hopeful of halting it. They will give you no promises. I didn’t ask and he [the doctor] didn’t say. It is not something I want to know just yet.” Mills, a mother of two, launched a legal action to try to force the NHS to allow her to pay for the drug Avastin which she wanted to take alongside another medicine, Taxol, which is prescribed by the health service. But during her four-month battle with the NHS, the breast cancer has spread to other parts of her body and doctors have told Mills it is too late for her to benefit from the combination of Avastin and Taxol.
An American trial has shown that taking the drugs in combination doubles the chance of preventing the disease from spreading compared to taking Taxol on its own. Taking Avastin in addition to Taxol is also likely to keep the disease under control for almost twice as long. Leading oncologists say Avastin offers a small but significant advantage in treating breast cancer. Mills will now be prescribed an alternative medicine but does not know how successful this will be in stopping the cancer.
Several other cancer patients are also taking legal action to win the right to pay for medicines that are not available on the NHS. The patients’ lawyer, Melissa Worth, of the law firm Halliwells, said: “Colette has been told by her medical team that she may have missed her chance. If she had been given the opportunity to take the Avastin when she first contacted her medical team about it, then she would have had three months’ treatment by now. Months down the line, the policy will need to change but for those patients currently fighting their NHS trusts, it might be too late.”
Becoming an entirely private patient would have cost Mills, from near Stokesley, North Yorkshire, about 10,000 pounds a month instead of about 4,000 solely to pay for the Avastin and its administration. Although she could have tried to raise the funds such as finding a loan, she believes it is a fundamental principle that the NHS should continue to fund her basic care for which she has paid through her taxes.
The Department of Health, however, said top-up payments would “undermine” the “fundamental principle of the NHS, now supported by all the main political parties, that treatment should be free at the point of need”. Mills’s case has provoked a national debate about whether NHS patients should be allowed to pay for top-up treatments. NHS chief executives, the Patients Association, Doctors for Reform and Saga, the organisation for the over-fifties, have all backed Mills and other patients in her situation since The Sunday Times highlighted their plight last year. A group of Conservative MPs, including former shadow health minister John Baron, are campaigning for co-payments to be allowed.
Source
Britain's voluntary apartheid
The Daily Telegraph recently published an article indicating Islamic extremists have created "no go" areas across Great Britain where it is too dangerous for non-Muslims to enter. The Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali, bishop of Rochester and the Church of England"s only Asian bishop, said people of a different race or faith face physical attack if they live or work in communities dominated by a strict Muslim ideology.
Clearly at stake is the very future of Christianity as the nation"s public religion. With multiculturalism gaining ground as a philosophical position, Islam rides on its coattails. Since all faiths are to be treated equally according to this multicultural faith, it isn't possible to challenge publicly the call to prayer or the reliance on Shariah to adjudicate legal claims.
Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Equalities and Human Rights, who has said England is "sleepwalking into segregation," has been criticized for what some consider incendiary language. However, multiculturalism clearly has led to deep and irrepressible social divisions, what one politician called "voluntary apartheid."
It would appear the divisions can be attributed to the government's failure to integrate immigrants into the larger community. But it is also related to a diminished belief in the Church of England and Christianity in general. Most in Britain believe the church will be disestablished within a generation, severing a bond between church and state that dates to the Reformation.
Of course, there are those who contend the critique of multiculturalism is little more than a manifestation of intolerance. Yet it is the intolerance in the Muslim communities that produced this blow-back.
The Rev. Nicholas Reade, bishop of Blackburn, which has a large Muslim community, maintains it is increasingly difficult for Christians to observe their faith in communities where they are a minority. He too believes the government will be pressured into disestablishing the Church of England.
There is little doubt that Britain is undergoing dramatic change. In a mere few decades this nation with an acknowledged Christian foundation is now routinely described as a multifaith society. Clearly the large number of immigrants entering the British Isles account in large part for the shift in attitude. Yet that isn't the whole story.
The loss of confidence in the Christian vision, which underlies most of the achievements and principles of the culture, may account for a reluctance to defend the nation's heritage.
If minorities are permitted to live in their own insulated communities, communicating in their own languages and having minimal need to build relationships with the majority, the nation will sink into balkanization. Moreover, this separation feeds and endorses Islamic extremism by alienating youngsters from the nation and creating the impression ideological devotion is a mark of acceptability.
Some Muslims and Christians, of course, recognize the problem and are eager to do something about it. But can Shariah relate to British civil law? Can Shariah-compliant banking be accommodated in a free-market system? Can Christianity be maintained as the nation's public faith? Can universities transmit a sense of Britannia when multiculturalism is in the ascendancy?
These are merely several of the host of questions and issues that must be addressed by government and religious leaders. Unfortunately, there are many more questions than answers and much more confusion on the part of the British public than clarity about the road ahead.
Source
Britain urged to love a man in uniform again
THE government is to sweep away curbs on servicemen and women wearing uniforms off duty in public as part of a drive to boost popular support for the armed services. A report commissioned by Gordon Brown to honour those serving in Afghanistan and Iraq will say all service personnel should be encouraged to wear their uniforms on leave. The curbs were introduced almost 30 years ago during the IRA's bombing campaign on mainland Britain when military personnel were warned not to wear uniforms off duty.
Defence chiefs believe the advantages gained from wearing uniforms and encouraging the public to fall back in love with the armed forces will outweigh any danger from home-grown terrorists. Brown's review will also call for more parades for soldiers returning from the front line and more open days at airfields and naval and army bases. It is seeking to emulate America with cheap flights for troops and free or discounted admission to theme parks and sports grounds such as Wembley, Twickenham and Lord's.
Brown ordered the study after concern that servicemen and women returning from war zones were being ignored or even insulted by some members of the public. According to Downing Street, he wants to "encourage greater understanding and appreciation of the armed services by the British public". It has been headed by Quentin Davies, the former Tory MP who defected to Labour. Last week he toured Canada and the United States to see how well regarded servicemen and women are there in comparison to Britain. "There have been some ghastly incidents, including the insulting of British soldiers in Birmingham, and a woman who insulted crippled soldiers in a swimming baths," said Davies. "People have said they do not get the welcome of their American allies when they go home."
Davies, whose father served in the RAF in the second world war, added: "There should be more exposure to the military. We are not going to recommend people are ordered to wear uniforms on leave. It is a question of encouragement by example." The review also wants Whitehall staff to wear uniforms on days other than Remembrance Sunday, as well as more school visits and involvement from the military. Of 6,400 secondary schools in the UK, fewer than 300 have combined cadet forces.
The review team has already written to British Airways and Virgin Atlantic asking for special deals for service personnel. BA said it had no plans to do so, while Virgin said it already ran a discount scheme for the military. In America Anheuser-Busch, the brewing firm, has given more than 4m free passes to theme parks such as Sea World and Busch Gardens to members of the coalition forces since 2005. British service personnel on visits to the US have benefited from discounts in hotels and restaurants by showing their military ID cards.
Source
British road hump panic!
In the end, NOTHING suits the Greenies
They damage cars and give drivers a nasty jolt, but now speed bumps have been found guilty of an even worse crime - they are helping to destroy the planet. The traffic-calming measures double the carbon dioxide emissions and fuel consumption by forcing drivers to brake and accelerate repeatedly, according to a study commissioned by the AA. A car that achieves 58.15 miles per gallon travelling at a steady 30mph will deliver only 30.85mpg when going over humps.
The AA employed an independent engineer who used a fuel flow meter to test the consumption of a small and a medium-sized car at Millbrook Proving Ground in Bedfordshire. The results, calculated by averaging the performances of the two cars, also showed that reducing the speed limit from 30mph to 20mph resulted in 10 per cent higher emissions. This is because car engines are designed to be most efficient at speeds above 30mph. A motorist who observed the speed limit on one mile of 20mph road during a daily journey would produce an extra tonne of CO2 in a year compared with driving at 30mph on the same stretch.
In an unusual move for a motoring organisation, the AA called for the introduction of cameras that detect average speeds to replace humps. Edmund King, the AA's president, said: "Humps are a crude, uncomfortable and noisy way of slowing people down and this research has shown they are also environmentally damaging. We accept that traffic speed needs to be controlled in residential areas where there is a problem with accidents and children are playing. We think motorists are more likely to accept average speed cameras than humps."
But he added that drivers would not support a proposal in London by the Mayor, Ken Livingstone, to make 20mph the default speed limit on all residential roads. "The AA accepts that targeted 20mph speed limits in residential areas are popular and improve safety. However, a 30mph limit on local distributor roads may be more environmentally friendly."
Previous research by the Transport Research Laboratory found that air pollution rose significantly on roads with humps. Carbon monoxide emissions increased by 82 per cent and nitrogen oxide by 37 per cent. The London Ambulance Service has claimed that the 30,000 humps on the capital's roads cause up to 500 deaths a year because its crews suffer delays in reaching victims of cardiac arrest.
Mr King said: "Humps tend to breed more humps. If one street has humps installed, the adjacent street calls for humps and eventually you find no clear roads for movement of emergency service vehicles."
Transport for London has been helping to test average-speed cameras on residential roads in Camden, North London. No tickets are being issued yet, but the mere presence of the cameras has resulted in the proportion of drivers complying with the limit increasing by a third. The new cameras are not linked but have synchronised clocks and each separately transmits information to a processing centre. This allows several cameras to work together without the need to dig up the road between them to lay cables. In urban areas this can halve the cost of installing the system. Putting in 50 standard humps on three or four connecting residential streets costs about 150,000 pounds. A set of eight average-speed cameras covering the same area would cost 250,000.
The Home Office has been monitoring trials of average-speed cameras for almost three years but has yet to approve them. The camera suppliers believe that the delay is due to a lack of staff to complete the approval process. Rob Gifford, director of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, said: "If we remove road humps, the clear alternative method for enforcing lower speeds is through average speed cameras. These will smooth out traffic flow and be fairer to car drivers." Mr Gifford said that research had shown that 10 per cent of pedestrians would die when hit by a car at 20mph compared with 50 per cent at 30mph.
Source
There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race and IQ. Some readers have reported that the site doesn't download unless one clicks STOP.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
British parents using desperate measures to get kids into a good school
Parents who pretend that they have Christian beliefs in order to win places in church schools are doing the best for their children, David Cameron believes. The Tory leader refuses to criticise the "middle-class parents with sharp elbows". Asked for his views on the families accused of playing the system, he says: "I think it's good for parents who want the best for their kids. I don't blame anyone who tries to get their children into a good school. Most people are doing so because it has an ethos and culture. I believe in active citizens." Mr Cameron will learn this year whether his own daughter has won a place at a state-funded Church of England school in Kensington, West London.
This month The Times reported a surge in late baptisms into the Catholic Church, further evidence that some parents may be finding religion at a convenient moment in their children's education. Fears that middle-class parents are adopting religion to get their children into popular schools have led some Labour MPs to call for an end to the expansion of faith schools.
Source
The pill is good for you/bad for you, good for you/bad for you, good for you/bad for you...
There is such a regular oscillation in the findings about the effects of taking oral female hormones that I think it is clear that we are looking at a random walk here: There is no systematic effect -- just random fluctuations due to factors other than sample size
Women taking the contraceptive pill are protected against ovarian cancer for decades after they stop using the medication, a British study has found. Oxford University scientists found evidence that women taking the pill for 15 years halved their chances of developing the disease in a study published in The Lancet medical journal. They believe the pill has prevented some 200,000 cases of ovarian cancer and 100,000 deaths from this disease since its introduction nearly half a century ago.
Lead author Professor Valerie Beral, an Australian who is director of the Cancer Research UK Epidemiology Unit at Oxford University, and her colleagues found the risk remained low more than 30 years later, although the benefits diminished over time. "It's been known for over 20 years that the pill protects against ovarian cancer but most of the effects of the pill are short - only really just while women are taking the pill," Professor Beral said. "But for cancer of the ovary that gets much more common in older women, the really important question was, how long does protection last. "What we've shown here is that it lasts for over 30 years. It's really very long-term protection."
The research reviewed data from 45 studies covering more than 100,000 women. The scientists gathered data from 23,257 women who had developed ovarian cancer and 87,303 who had not. Of the first group, 31 per cent had used the pill, while 37 per cent of the second group had taken the medication. Ovarian cancer can be particularly aggressive and the symptoms are such that it is often detected at an advanced stage. "Worldwide, the pill has already prevented 200,000 women from developing cancer of the ovary and has prevented 100,000 deaths from the disease," Professor Beral said. "More than 100 million women are now taking the pill, so the number of ovarian cancers prevented will rise over the next few decades to about 30,000 per year."
Other research has found a statistically significant increased risk of cancer of the breast, cervix or central nervous system among users of the pill. But, in an editorial, The Lancet called for the pill to be made available over the counter rather than restricted by a doctor's prescription, given that, in its view, the benefits for cancer prevention and reproductive health outweighed the risks. "We believe the case is now convincing," the British journal said.
Source
UK: ID cards "in intensive care": "The identity card scheme was said to be in 'intensive care' as leaked Whitehall documents showed it faced a new delay of two years. The cards were set to be issued to Britons from 2010, when they apply to renew their passports, but private Home Office documents show the introduction is set to be put off until 2012. The likely postponement follows a series of fiascos over the security of personal data held by the Government. Gordon Brown is also widely believed not to share the enthusiasm of his predecessor for the scheme."
Red Ken's distaste for democracy has sent him beyond the pale: "Had I not known that it was Cuddly Ken on the radio yesterday, I would have thought I was listening to the dictator of a small Third World country. The Mayor of London brushed aside every charge against him, on the ground that he had been put in power to do as he liked. Had he used public money to campaign against his old enemy, Trevor Phillips, and stop him becoming head of the new Equality and Human Rights Commission? "Not against Trevor, but what he was saying against multiculturalism... which was very damaging." Had Ken Livingstone's officials campaigned for him at the last election while being paid by the taxpayer? "It would be 1984 if they couldn't have any political activity." Is this a personal fiefdom? "That's what Tony Blair...set out to create." This interview exploded the myth that Mr Livingstone is the people's rebel, the honest outsider. He is the consummate insider, and disarmingly frank about it."
Another "success" for British gun control: "Crime recorded by police in England and Wales is falling at an accelerating rate, according to official figures published yesterday. The continuing drop in recorded crime was marred by a 4 per cent increase in gun crime, although the number of deaths from such offences has fallen. The total has risen because of offences where no one was injured or where the firearm was used to threaten the victim. The latest crime figures will be a relief to Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, after the controversy caused by her remarks that official advice to people would be that they should not walk through any unfamiliar place after midnight. Ms Smith added on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "That's a sensible answer isn't it?" Recorded crime fell to 1.24 million offences between July and September last year compared with the same period the previous year. There were sharp drops in criminal damage, offences against vehicles, robbery and offences against the person where no injury was caused."
Parents who pretend that they have Christian beliefs in order to win places in church schools are doing the best for their children, David Cameron believes. The Tory leader refuses to criticise the "middle-class parents with sharp elbows". Asked for his views on the families accused of playing the system, he says: "I think it's good for parents who want the best for their kids. I don't blame anyone who tries to get their children into a good school. Most people are doing so because it has an ethos and culture. I believe in active citizens." Mr Cameron will learn this year whether his own daughter has won a place at a state-funded Church of England school in Kensington, West London.
This month The Times reported a surge in late baptisms into the Catholic Church, further evidence that some parents may be finding religion at a convenient moment in their children's education. Fears that middle-class parents are adopting religion to get their children into popular schools have led some Labour MPs to call for an end to the expansion of faith schools.
Source
The pill is good for you/bad for you, good for you/bad for you, good for you/bad for you...
There is such a regular oscillation in the findings about the effects of taking oral female hormones that I think it is clear that we are looking at a random walk here: There is no systematic effect -- just random fluctuations due to factors other than sample size
Women taking the contraceptive pill are protected against ovarian cancer for decades after they stop using the medication, a British study has found. Oxford University scientists found evidence that women taking the pill for 15 years halved their chances of developing the disease in a study published in The Lancet medical journal. They believe the pill has prevented some 200,000 cases of ovarian cancer and 100,000 deaths from this disease since its introduction nearly half a century ago.
Lead author Professor Valerie Beral, an Australian who is director of the Cancer Research UK Epidemiology Unit at Oxford University, and her colleagues found the risk remained low more than 30 years later, although the benefits diminished over time. "It's been known for over 20 years that the pill protects against ovarian cancer but most of the effects of the pill are short - only really just while women are taking the pill," Professor Beral said. "But for cancer of the ovary that gets much more common in older women, the really important question was, how long does protection last. "What we've shown here is that it lasts for over 30 years. It's really very long-term protection."
The research reviewed data from 45 studies covering more than 100,000 women. The scientists gathered data from 23,257 women who had developed ovarian cancer and 87,303 who had not. Of the first group, 31 per cent had used the pill, while 37 per cent of the second group had taken the medication. Ovarian cancer can be particularly aggressive and the symptoms are such that it is often detected at an advanced stage. "Worldwide, the pill has already prevented 200,000 women from developing cancer of the ovary and has prevented 100,000 deaths from the disease," Professor Beral said. "More than 100 million women are now taking the pill, so the number of ovarian cancers prevented will rise over the next few decades to about 30,000 per year."
Other research has found a statistically significant increased risk of cancer of the breast, cervix or central nervous system among users of the pill. But, in an editorial, The Lancet called for the pill to be made available over the counter rather than restricted by a doctor's prescription, given that, in its view, the benefits for cancer prevention and reproductive health outweighed the risks. "We believe the case is now convincing," the British journal said.
Source
UK: ID cards "in intensive care": "The identity card scheme was said to be in 'intensive care' as leaked Whitehall documents showed it faced a new delay of two years. The cards were set to be issued to Britons from 2010, when they apply to renew their passports, but private Home Office documents show the introduction is set to be put off until 2012. The likely postponement follows a series of fiascos over the security of personal data held by the Government. Gordon Brown is also widely believed not to share the enthusiasm of his predecessor for the scheme."
Red Ken's distaste for democracy has sent him beyond the pale: "Had I not known that it was Cuddly Ken on the radio yesterday, I would have thought I was listening to the dictator of a small Third World country. The Mayor of London brushed aside every charge against him, on the ground that he had been put in power to do as he liked. Had he used public money to campaign against his old enemy, Trevor Phillips, and stop him becoming head of the new Equality and Human Rights Commission? "Not against Trevor, but what he was saying against multiculturalism... which was very damaging." Had Ken Livingstone's officials campaigned for him at the last election while being paid by the taxpayer? "It would be 1984 if they couldn't have any political activity." Is this a personal fiefdom? "That's what Tony Blair...set out to create." This interview exploded the myth that Mr Livingstone is the people's rebel, the honest outsider. He is the consummate insider, and disarmingly frank about it."
Another "success" for British gun control: "Crime recorded by police in England and Wales is falling at an accelerating rate, according to official figures published yesterday. The continuing drop in recorded crime was marred by a 4 per cent increase in gun crime, although the number of deaths from such offences has fallen. The total has risen because of offences where no one was injured or where the firearm was used to threaten the victim. The latest crime figures will be a relief to Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, after the controversy caused by her remarks that official advice to people would be that they should not walk through any unfamiliar place after midnight. Ms Smith added on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "That's a sensible answer isn't it?" Recorded crime fell to 1.24 million offences between July and September last year compared with the same period the previous year. There were sharp drops in criminal damage, offences against vehicles, robbery and offences against the person where no injury was caused."
Saturday, January 26, 2008
UK POLICE WANT TO FIND CAMPUS EXTREMISTS
British police have offered to train university staff to spot extremists operating on campus despite complaints from Muslim students that they could be unfairly targeted, a government document said Tuesday. Lecturers have been urged to scrutinize both students and invited speakers for signs they could be involved in radicalizing young people, according to new government guidelines.
Bill Rammell, the higher education minister, published advice to universities Tuesday on tackling extremism, requesting institutions share information on suspected radical speakers. "There is a real and serious threat, and we must all take responsibility for protecting ourselves," Rammell said. Al-Qaida influenced terrorism was the government's primary concern, he said, warning schools of the threat posed by far-right groups, animal-rights activists, anti-Semitic or anti-Islamic speakers.
Rammell said he believed some controversial speakers should be allowed to appear at universities, to allow moderate academics to debunk their claims through debate. "We prize academic freedom and freedom of speech as ends in themselves and as the most effective way of challenging the views which we may find abhorrent but that remain within the law," he said. But staff should compile details of speakers they fear may be exhorting students to violence - even in meetings held off campus - and share their concerns with counterparts, Rammell recommended.
British government security officials said Tuesday that radicalization is now much less likely to take place in mosques or formal settings, but instead in homes, gyms or at meetings on the fringes of campus. Jonathan Evans, head of the domestic spy agency MI5, warned in November that there is evidence extremists are grooming children and teenagers for attacks against Britain.
But some students and staff argue that Rammell's guidelines could lead to the victimization of Muslim students. "There is no evidence to suggest that Muslim students at university are particularly vulnerable to radicalization," said Faisal Hanjra of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies in the United Kingdom and Ireland. "Nor is there any evidence to suggest that university campuses are hotbeds of extremist activity." Sally Hunt, general secretary of academic labor organization University and College Union, said university staff should not be expected to police their students. "No student should ever think they are being spied on and no staff member should ever be pressurized into treating any group of students differently from another," she said.
Source
Guardians who need a good smack
Comment from Britain: The NSPCC is parodying itself by setting up a panel to looking into TV parenting shows
How could anybody criticise the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children? Well, they could point out that the NSPCC's media campaigns spread a poisonous message of mistrust by implying that all of our children are at risk from adults, most often those closest to them. I once suggested the charity be renamed the National Society for the Persecution of Child Carers, or the Promulgation of Calumnies about Childhood.
Now, however, the NSPCC appears to be parodying itself by setting up a new body of experts to protect children from abuse on television parenting shows. Not content with saving kids in the real world, they want to rescue those on reality TV. And having bullied and guilt-tripped parents to toe the line, they want to do the same to TV's own parenting experts.
The NSPCC took exception to two "irresponsible" programmes. Bringing up Baby on Channel 4, where mentors taught different systems of childcare, sparked allegations of abuse when one expert suggested that parents leave babies to cry. The Baby Borrowers, the BBC's "unique social experiment", has attracted opprobrium by leaving babies in the care of those whom the NSPCC calls "inexperienced teenagers".
Child protection crusaders have long expanded the definition of child abuse to include anything from smacking a child to shouting at it. Now it appears that even leaving a baby crying in a cot is to be redefined as child cruelty, especially on TV, as is leaving babies with non-related teens - or as we used to call them, baby-sitters. Somehow, generations of us survived such horrific experiences, even without an army of TV producers watching over us.
Of course, those reality shows and their multiple experts are also symptoms of our society's harmful obsession with parenting and child protection. They only add to the inflated debate about the "right" way to raise children, and risk leaving parents with a growing sense of confusion and insecurity. Time to grow up. There is no right way to bring up baby. And whatever hotch-potch method you use will have no long-term effect on your child. As one wise man said, if you can avoid locking them in a wardrobe or beating them over the head with a frying pan, they should be fine.
Old cynics like me might think the NSPCC's new focus rather appropriate, since the charity is something of a reality TV show itself. A huge slice of its 150 million pounds income goes on PR and self-publicity, to raise the cash to put out more propaganda so that it can raise more money to put out more propaganda. Perhaps its new body of experts could start by looking into exploitative broadcasts where child actors pretend to be victims of abuse to guilt-trip innocent people into giving money. Now that's what I call irresponsible TV.
Source
Britain unveils sweeping new terrorism law proposals: "The British government has unveiled sweeping plans to toughen terrorism laws, including a proposal to hold suspects for up to 42 days without charge. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's plan would increase the limit for detaining suspects without charge from 28 days to 42 days, allow police to take DNA samples from terrorism suspects and urge judges to impose stiffer sentences on criminals whose offences are linked to terrorism. Proposals to increase the maximum time terrorism suspects can be held by police are opposed by human rights groups as well MPs within Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labour party, guaranteeing a vicious fight in Parliament. Smith said in an interview on BBC radio that the detention period has to be extended because the severity of the terrorist threat has often forced police to act before they had all the evidence needed for a conviction. "It's growing in scale. It's becoming more complicated in nature," she said. "People need to intervene earlier because of the way in which it aims to cause mass casualties with no warning."
British police have offered to train university staff to spot extremists operating on campus despite complaints from Muslim students that they could be unfairly targeted, a government document said Tuesday. Lecturers have been urged to scrutinize both students and invited speakers for signs they could be involved in radicalizing young people, according to new government guidelines.
Bill Rammell, the higher education minister, published advice to universities Tuesday on tackling extremism, requesting institutions share information on suspected radical speakers. "There is a real and serious threat, and we must all take responsibility for protecting ourselves," Rammell said. Al-Qaida influenced terrorism was the government's primary concern, he said, warning schools of the threat posed by far-right groups, animal-rights activists, anti-Semitic or anti-Islamic speakers.
Rammell said he believed some controversial speakers should be allowed to appear at universities, to allow moderate academics to debunk their claims through debate. "We prize academic freedom and freedom of speech as ends in themselves and as the most effective way of challenging the views which we may find abhorrent but that remain within the law," he said. But staff should compile details of speakers they fear may be exhorting students to violence - even in meetings held off campus - and share their concerns with counterparts, Rammell recommended.
British government security officials said Tuesday that radicalization is now much less likely to take place in mosques or formal settings, but instead in homes, gyms or at meetings on the fringes of campus. Jonathan Evans, head of the domestic spy agency MI5, warned in November that there is evidence extremists are grooming children and teenagers for attacks against Britain.
But some students and staff argue that Rammell's guidelines could lead to the victimization of Muslim students. "There is no evidence to suggest that Muslim students at university are particularly vulnerable to radicalization," said Faisal Hanjra of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies in the United Kingdom and Ireland. "Nor is there any evidence to suggest that university campuses are hotbeds of extremist activity." Sally Hunt, general secretary of academic labor organization University and College Union, said university staff should not be expected to police their students. "No student should ever think they are being spied on and no staff member should ever be pressurized into treating any group of students differently from another," she said.
Source
Guardians who need a good smack
Comment from Britain: The NSPCC is parodying itself by setting up a panel to looking into TV parenting shows
How could anybody criticise the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children? Well, they could point out that the NSPCC's media campaigns spread a poisonous message of mistrust by implying that all of our children are at risk from adults, most often those closest to them. I once suggested the charity be renamed the National Society for the Persecution of Child Carers, or the Promulgation of Calumnies about Childhood.
Now, however, the NSPCC appears to be parodying itself by setting up a new body of experts to protect children from abuse on television parenting shows. Not content with saving kids in the real world, they want to rescue those on reality TV. And having bullied and guilt-tripped parents to toe the line, they want to do the same to TV's own parenting experts.
The NSPCC took exception to two "irresponsible" programmes. Bringing up Baby on Channel 4, where mentors taught different systems of childcare, sparked allegations of abuse when one expert suggested that parents leave babies to cry. The Baby Borrowers, the BBC's "unique social experiment", has attracted opprobrium by leaving babies in the care of those whom the NSPCC calls "inexperienced teenagers".
Child protection crusaders have long expanded the definition of child abuse to include anything from smacking a child to shouting at it. Now it appears that even leaving a baby crying in a cot is to be redefined as child cruelty, especially on TV, as is leaving babies with non-related teens - or as we used to call them, baby-sitters. Somehow, generations of us survived such horrific experiences, even without an army of TV producers watching over us.
Of course, those reality shows and their multiple experts are also symptoms of our society's harmful obsession with parenting and child protection. They only add to the inflated debate about the "right" way to raise children, and risk leaving parents with a growing sense of confusion and insecurity. Time to grow up. There is no right way to bring up baby. And whatever hotch-potch method you use will have no long-term effect on your child. As one wise man said, if you can avoid locking them in a wardrobe or beating them over the head with a frying pan, they should be fine.
Old cynics like me might think the NSPCC's new focus rather appropriate, since the charity is something of a reality TV show itself. A huge slice of its 150 million pounds income goes on PR and self-publicity, to raise the cash to put out more propaganda so that it can raise more money to put out more propaganda. Perhaps its new body of experts could start by looking into exploitative broadcasts where child actors pretend to be victims of abuse to guilt-trip innocent people into giving money. Now that's what I call irresponsible TV.
Source
Britain unveils sweeping new terrorism law proposals: "The British government has unveiled sweeping plans to toughen terrorism laws, including a proposal to hold suspects for up to 42 days without charge. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's plan would increase the limit for detaining suspects without charge from 28 days to 42 days, allow police to take DNA samples from terrorism suspects and urge judges to impose stiffer sentences on criminals whose offences are linked to terrorism. Proposals to increase the maximum time terrorism suspects can be held by police are opposed by human rights groups as well MPs within Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labour party, guaranteeing a vicious fight in Parliament. Smith said in an interview on BBC radio that the detention period has to be extended because the severity of the terrorist threat has often forced police to act before they had all the evidence needed for a conviction. "It's growing in scale. It's becoming more complicated in nature," she said. "People need to intervene earlier because of the way in which it aims to cause mass casualties with no warning."
Friday, January 25, 2008
Britain: Three Little Pigs 'too offensive'
A story based on the Three Little Pigs has been turned down from a government agency's annual awards because the subject matter could offend Muslims. The digital book, re-telling the classic fairy tale, was rejected by judges who warned that "the use of pigs raises cultural issues". Becta, the government's educational technology agency, is a leading partner in the annual schools award. The judges also attacked Three Little Cowboy Builders for offending builders.
The book's creative director, Anne Curtis, said that the idea that including pigs in a story could be interpreted as racism was "like a slap in the face". The CD-Rom digital version of the traditional story of the three little pigs, called Three Little Cowboy Builders, is aimed at primary school children. But judges at this year's Bett Award said that they had "concerns about the Asian community and the use of pigs raises cultural issues". The Three Little Cowboy Builders has already been a prize winner at the recent Education Resource Award - but its Newcastle-based publishers, Shoo-fly were turned down by the Bett Award panel.
The feedback from the judges explaining why they had rejected the CD-Rom highlighted that they "could not recommend this product to the Muslim community". They also warned that the story might "alienate parts of the workforce (building trade)". The judges criticised the stereotyping in the story of the unfortunate pigs: "Is it true that all builders are cowboys, builders get their work blown down, and builders are like pigs?"
Ms Curtis said that rather than preventing the spread of racism, such an attitude was likely to inflame ill-feeling. As another example, she says would that mean that secondary schools could not teach Animal Farm because it features pigs? Her company is committed to an ethical approach to business and its products promote a message of mutual respect, she says - and banning such traditional stories will "close minds rather than open them".
Becta, the government funded agency responsible for technology in schools and colleges, says that it is standing by the judges' verdict. "Becta with its partners is responsible for the judging criteria against which the 70 independent judges, mostly practising teachers, comment. All the partners stick by the judging criteria," said a Becta spokesman. The reason that this product was not shortlisted was because "it failed to reach the required standard across a number of criteria", said the spokesman. Becta runs the awards with the Besa trade association and show organisers, Emap Education.
Merlin John, author of an educational technology website which highlighted the story, warns that such rulings can undermine the credibility of the awards. "When benchmarks are undermined by pedestrian and pedantic tick lists, and by inflexible, unhelpful processes, it can tarnish the achievements of even the most worthy winners. "It's time for a rethink, and for Becta to listen to the criticisms that have been ignored for a number of years," said Mr John.
Source
Women's libbers for law'n'order
Why are once radical feminists joining the chorus of disapproval about young women in mini-skirts going out, getting hammered and having sex?
`Horrifying!' roared the UK Daily Mail after an 18-year-old woman, Cheryl Tunney, admitted on the BBC3 programme Sex. with Mum and Dad that her `hobby' is having sex with men she meets on the internet (1). As a result, Cheryl apparently has 50 notches on her bedpost.
Despair and handwringing over what young women get up to was all over the place at the start of the New Year, too. Some British broadsheet newspapers printed a rogues' gallery of skimpily dressed young women out on the lash and the pull. Such is the steady glug, glug of anti-drink whingeing these days that even the age-old ritual of `seeing in the New Year' (preferably through beer goggles) is now taken as proof that the masses are festering in a sea of their own vomit. Clearly these complaining writers have been living in convents all their lives; haven't we always drunk to excess on New Year's Eve?
The big difference between the boozing of yesterday and today is that more young women go out socialising these days. It is called equality, grandad, and it seems many a newspaper columnist finds the notion of women `behaving badly' to be dangerously intoxicating stuff. Nevertheless, it's not just the colonel-minded blimps and cranks on the Daily Mail and Daily Express who don't like to see women drunk; a surprising number of `modern women' and ex-feminists are complaining about young women's `loose morals', too.
In a recent article, spiked contributor Emily Hill asked `whatever happened to solidarity?', and noted that some American feminists, such as Carol Liebau and Ariel Levy, now argue that women are in the grip of a `raunch culture' more obsessed with being sexy than clever and thus leading to a female generation that `compete to look like slags and sluts'. In Britain, the reaction is wearily similar. As Hill noted, `pioneering feminists like Rosie Boycott and Fay Weldon are pouncing on Liebau's book to trash the current generation as irresponsible slags and binge drinkers, only interested in a "grope" and "vomit"' (2).
Indeed, nothing seems to symbolise all that's wrong with Western societies these days more than what young women are supposedly getting up to. And when commentators who once championed women's equality are at the forefront of such shrill disapproval, there's clearly more going on here than an outburst of traditional misogyny.
Any salacious and prurient tittle-tattle on `binge-drinking Britain' will always be accompanied by pictures of young women in a state of disrepair. Photos of Amy Winehouse with her tats out, cigs in hand and seriously half-cut in Camden have become the signifier for a female generation gone to seed (3). The unsubtle implication is that it's one thing to expect rowdy lads to get hammered and lairy on a weekend; it's another thing entirely when young women do the same. Indeed, young women's `loose' behaviour is increasingly used as an example of how morally malign and tawdry Britain has become. Sunday Times columnist India Knight recently bemoaned the young women who went to Manchester United's Christmas party in the hope of pulling a footballer or five. `What is wrong with these women?', she wailed (4).
For all the advancements that women have made in society, it's surprising that a `drown-the-witch' mentality still exists regarding women's sexual behaviour. A few years back, Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon chose to express his sneering disapproval of reality TV show I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, on which he was a contestant, by venting his rage against the presence of `slapper' glamour model Jordan. Elsewhere, the website Chavscum is more likely to lay into `sluttish' young women than `thuggish' young men from council estates. The imagined sexual behaviour of working-class women seems to outrage the website's contributors more than, say, the supposed criminality of tattooed blokes in tracksuits.
So, it's perhaps not a great surprise that, in 2005, wannabe jihadists believed female revellers would be publicly acceptable murder targets because `nobody would believe these slags are innocent' (5); and last year, there was an alleged attempt to blow up a popular London nightclub on ladies' night. Rather alarmingly, Channel 4 appears to be in nodding agreement with such stupid and Jurassic ideas. Last month, the deeply risible show Make Me a Muslim drafted in a stern imam to try to mend the deviant and debauched ways of the secular volunteers. Top of the list was a homosexual man and, of course, a `sluttish' glamour model. Haven't these women got any - yawn - shame?
The idea that British women only act like Jodie Marsh in a pole-dancing club is barely a fiftieth of the real story. If girls are outstripping anything, it's the academic achievement of boys at schools and colleges. More women are in work with better-paid career prospects than ever before. As a consequence, they have far more choices over how they live, who they marry, if they want a divorce and, yes, how many men they have sex with. Women's equality has become so pervasive that it's barely even worth commenting on - except when clod-hopping old feminists believe that alcopop swiggin', boob-tubed young women have `gone too far'. It begs the question, though, how come women's equality is now a cause for concern rather than a cause for celebration?
Leaving aside residual misogynistic sentiments, it's clear that drunken women out on the pull have become oddly `symbolic' of moral decline. Such reactions are rooted in the fear and loathing that Western societies now have towards personal freedom in general. Until recently, women's primary role as domestic skivvies meant they were less free than men. Given Western society's uneasiness with individual freedom, women's greater freedom is seen as problematic, too - even by avowed feminists. Hence, this freedom has been reduced in the eyes of many commentators to the drunken antics of a pop star or the desire to shag a footballer.
In this context, sneering at fun-seeking women has become code for saying that society is out-of-control and the instillation of order and constraint is required forthwith. In The Fear of Freedom, social psychologist Erick Fromm argued that when modern societies go through periods of social insecurity, `a fear of freedom' accelerates amongst individuals, leading to a `fleeing from freedom' and a quest to find `security in an all-powerful leader' (clearly he wasn't thinking of Gordon Brown) (6). Demands for order and security, and the eagerness of governments and state authorities to provide these things, have certainly shaped political life in Britain for over a decade.
Recently, though, such security-seeking yearnings have gone a bit further. Sections of the liberal media even fantasise how an Islamic state might provide that `security in submission' that Fromm identified (appropriate as the literal translation of Islam is `submission'). When a demand to control personal behaviour becomes the defining cultural script, it's no surprise that women's greater individual freedom is denounced rather than celebrated. The fact that many feminists have been at the forefront of such moralising should be no surprise, either. After all, back in the early Eighties, it was feminists who first put the politics of individual behaviour on the political map. Prioritising the issues of domestic violence, rape and sexual harassment, as well as demands for `sexist' language to be curbed, feminists promoted the idea that individual men's behaviour was problematic and thus needed to be corrected by the state - an invitation that both Conservative and New Labour governments accepted.
Now, many of the radical feminists from the Eighties have simply reacted to changes in British society in exactly the same way as other members of the middle classes. By the early Nineties, the collapse of the postwar consensus, and the consequent weakening of the legitimacy of Britain's central institutions, contributed to a climate of uncertainty and insecurity in society. As social democratic welfarism appeared ineffectual in tackling social problems and disorder, the professional middle classes - including many feminists - felt particularly vulnerable because their professions seemed devalued. This sense of impotence, combined with a clear lack of consensus in society, led many middle-class radicals to become the most vociferous advocates of establishing order and stability.
The feminist Beatrix Campbell, for instance, argued in her 1993 book Goliath that the nuclear family - long identified by feminists as a bulwark of patriarchal oppression - should be promoted in order to restrain the atavistic behaviour of working-class men on council estates. More recently, the UK communities secretary Hazel Blears has looked to Muslim women and their `unique moral authority at the heart of the family' to turn Muslim men away from Islamic extremism (7). Once the quest for security became the defining motif of the middle classes, previous progressive touchstones such as equality, freedom and liberty were quickly jettisoned. Whereas apologists for capitalism once looked to working-class women in the family to lead men away from trade union action, now former radicals and Blairites look to women to make men `behave' more responsibly.
This is why the idea of young women getting drunk and getting laid has become so troubling for political commentators. First, such debauchery confirms their worst prejudices, namely that `too much freedom' leads inexorably to public order problems. Second, if the traditional pacifiers of `brute' men are also throwing up in city centres and f*cking for England, what hope do we have for regaining order and control throughout society?
When women's independence and greater equality is disgracefully condemned or becomes code for moral decline, it reveals, not how awful young women are becoming, but just how deeply entrenched the `fear of freedom' and `the flight from freedom' has become. Now that's what I call `horrifying'.
Source
A story based on the Three Little Pigs has been turned down from a government agency's annual awards because the subject matter could offend Muslims. The digital book, re-telling the classic fairy tale, was rejected by judges who warned that "the use of pigs raises cultural issues". Becta, the government's educational technology agency, is a leading partner in the annual schools award. The judges also attacked Three Little Cowboy Builders for offending builders.
The book's creative director, Anne Curtis, said that the idea that including pigs in a story could be interpreted as racism was "like a slap in the face". The CD-Rom digital version of the traditional story of the three little pigs, called Three Little Cowboy Builders, is aimed at primary school children. But judges at this year's Bett Award said that they had "concerns about the Asian community and the use of pigs raises cultural issues". The Three Little Cowboy Builders has already been a prize winner at the recent Education Resource Award - but its Newcastle-based publishers, Shoo-fly were turned down by the Bett Award panel.
The feedback from the judges explaining why they had rejected the CD-Rom highlighted that they "could not recommend this product to the Muslim community". They also warned that the story might "alienate parts of the workforce (building trade)". The judges criticised the stereotyping in the story of the unfortunate pigs: "Is it true that all builders are cowboys, builders get their work blown down, and builders are like pigs?"
Ms Curtis said that rather than preventing the spread of racism, such an attitude was likely to inflame ill-feeling. As another example, she says would that mean that secondary schools could not teach Animal Farm because it features pigs? Her company is committed to an ethical approach to business and its products promote a message of mutual respect, she says - and banning such traditional stories will "close minds rather than open them".
Becta, the government funded agency responsible for technology in schools and colleges, says that it is standing by the judges' verdict. "Becta with its partners is responsible for the judging criteria against which the 70 independent judges, mostly practising teachers, comment. All the partners stick by the judging criteria," said a Becta spokesman. The reason that this product was not shortlisted was because "it failed to reach the required standard across a number of criteria", said the spokesman. Becta runs the awards with the Besa trade association and show organisers, Emap Education.
Merlin John, author of an educational technology website which highlighted the story, warns that such rulings can undermine the credibility of the awards. "When benchmarks are undermined by pedestrian and pedantic tick lists, and by inflexible, unhelpful processes, it can tarnish the achievements of even the most worthy winners. "It's time for a rethink, and for Becta to listen to the criticisms that have been ignored for a number of years," said Mr John.
Source
Women's libbers for law'n'order
Why are once radical feminists joining the chorus of disapproval about young women in mini-skirts going out, getting hammered and having sex?
`Horrifying!' roared the UK Daily Mail after an 18-year-old woman, Cheryl Tunney, admitted on the BBC3 programme Sex. with Mum and Dad that her `hobby' is having sex with men she meets on the internet (1). As a result, Cheryl apparently has 50 notches on her bedpost.
Despair and handwringing over what young women get up to was all over the place at the start of the New Year, too. Some British broadsheet newspapers printed a rogues' gallery of skimpily dressed young women out on the lash and the pull. Such is the steady glug, glug of anti-drink whingeing these days that even the age-old ritual of `seeing in the New Year' (preferably through beer goggles) is now taken as proof that the masses are festering in a sea of their own vomit. Clearly these complaining writers have been living in convents all their lives; haven't we always drunk to excess on New Year's Eve?
The big difference between the boozing of yesterday and today is that more young women go out socialising these days. It is called equality, grandad, and it seems many a newspaper columnist finds the notion of women `behaving badly' to be dangerously intoxicating stuff. Nevertheless, it's not just the colonel-minded blimps and cranks on the Daily Mail and Daily Express who don't like to see women drunk; a surprising number of `modern women' and ex-feminists are complaining about young women's `loose morals', too.
In a recent article, spiked contributor Emily Hill asked `whatever happened to solidarity?', and noted that some American feminists, such as Carol Liebau and Ariel Levy, now argue that women are in the grip of a `raunch culture' more obsessed with being sexy than clever and thus leading to a female generation that `compete to look like slags and sluts'. In Britain, the reaction is wearily similar. As Hill noted, `pioneering feminists like Rosie Boycott and Fay Weldon are pouncing on Liebau's book to trash the current generation as irresponsible slags and binge drinkers, only interested in a "grope" and "vomit"' (2).
Indeed, nothing seems to symbolise all that's wrong with Western societies these days more than what young women are supposedly getting up to. And when commentators who once championed women's equality are at the forefront of such shrill disapproval, there's clearly more going on here than an outburst of traditional misogyny.
Any salacious and prurient tittle-tattle on `binge-drinking Britain' will always be accompanied by pictures of young women in a state of disrepair. Photos of Amy Winehouse with her tats out, cigs in hand and seriously half-cut in Camden have become the signifier for a female generation gone to seed (3). The unsubtle implication is that it's one thing to expect rowdy lads to get hammered and lairy on a weekend; it's another thing entirely when young women do the same. Indeed, young women's `loose' behaviour is increasingly used as an example of how morally malign and tawdry Britain has become. Sunday Times columnist India Knight recently bemoaned the young women who went to Manchester United's Christmas party in the hope of pulling a footballer or five. `What is wrong with these women?', she wailed (4).
For all the advancements that women have made in society, it's surprising that a `drown-the-witch' mentality still exists regarding women's sexual behaviour. A few years back, Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon chose to express his sneering disapproval of reality TV show I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, on which he was a contestant, by venting his rage against the presence of `slapper' glamour model Jordan. Elsewhere, the website Chavscum is more likely to lay into `sluttish' young women than `thuggish' young men from council estates. The imagined sexual behaviour of working-class women seems to outrage the website's contributors more than, say, the supposed criminality of tattooed blokes in tracksuits.
So, it's perhaps not a great surprise that, in 2005, wannabe jihadists believed female revellers would be publicly acceptable murder targets because `nobody would believe these slags are innocent' (5); and last year, there was an alleged attempt to blow up a popular London nightclub on ladies' night. Rather alarmingly, Channel 4 appears to be in nodding agreement with such stupid and Jurassic ideas. Last month, the deeply risible show Make Me a Muslim drafted in a stern imam to try to mend the deviant and debauched ways of the secular volunteers. Top of the list was a homosexual man and, of course, a `sluttish' glamour model. Haven't these women got any - yawn - shame?
The idea that British women only act like Jodie Marsh in a pole-dancing club is barely a fiftieth of the real story. If girls are outstripping anything, it's the academic achievement of boys at schools and colleges. More women are in work with better-paid career prospects than ever before. As a consequence, they have far more choices over how they live, who they marry, if they want a divorce and, yes, how many men they have sex with. Women's equality has become so pervasive that it's barely even worth commenting on - except when clod-hopping old feminists believe that alcopop swiggin', boob-tubed young women have `gone too far'. It begs the question, though, how come women's equality is now a cause for concern rather than a cause for celebration?
Leaving aside residual misogynistic sentiments, it's clear that drunken women out on the pull have become oddly `symbolic' of moral decline. Such reactions are rooted in the fear and loathing that Western societies now have towards personal freedom in general. Until recently, women's primary role as domestic skivvies meant they were less free than men. Given Western society's uneasiness with individual freedom, women's greater freedom is seen as problematic, too - even by avowed feminists. Hence, this freedom has been reduced in the eyes of many commentators to the drunken antics of a pop star or the desire to shag a footballer.
In this context, sneering at fun-seeking women has become code for saying that society is out-of-control and the instillation of order and constraint is required forthwith. In The Fear of Freedom, social psychologist Erick Fromm argued that when modern societies go through periods of social insecurity, `a fear of freedom' accelerates amongst individuals, leading to a `fleeing from freedom' and a quest to find `security in an all-powerful leader' (clearly he wasn't thinking of Gordon Brown) (6). Demands for order and security, and the eagerness of governments and state authorities to provide these things, have certainly shaped political life in Britain for over a decade.
Recently, though, such security-seeking yearnings have gone a bit further. Sections of the liberal media even fantasise how an Islamic state might provide that `security in submission' that Fromm identified (appropriate as the literal translation of Islam is `submission'). When a demand to control personal behaviour becomes the defining cultural script, it's no surprise that women's greater individual freedom is denounced rather than celebrated. The fact that many feminists have been at the forefront of such moralising should be no surprise, either. After all, back in the early Eighties, it was feminists who first put the politics of individual behaviour on the political map. Prioritising the issues of domestic violence, rape and sexual harassment, as well as demands for `sexist' language to be curbed, feminists promoted the idea that individual men's behaviour was problematic and thus needed to be corrected by the state - an invitation that both Conservative and New Labour governments accepted.
Now, many of the radical feminists from the Eighties have simply reacted to changes in British society in exactly the same way as other members of the middle classes. By the early Nineties, the collapse of the postwar consensus, and the consequent weakening of the legitimacy of Britain's central institutions, contributed to a climate of uncertainty and insecurity in society. As social democratic welfarism appeared ineffectual in tackling social problems and disorder, the professional middle classes - including many feminists - felt particularly vulnerable because their professions seemed devalued. This sense of impotence, combined with a clear lack of consensus in society, led many middle-class radicals to become the most vociferous advocates of establishing order and stability.
The feminist Beatrix Campbell, for instance, argued in her 1993 book Goliath that the nuclear family - long identified by feminists as a bulwark of patriarchal oppression - should be promoted in order to restrain the atavistic behaviour of working-class men on council estates. More recently, the UK communities secretary Hazel Blears has looked to Muslim women and their `unique moral authority at the heart of the family' to turn Muslim men away from Islamic extremism (7). Once the quest for security became the defining motif of the middle classes, previous progressive touchstones such as equality, freedom and liberty were quickly jettisoned. Whereas apologists for capitalism once looked to working-class women in the family to lead men away from trade union action, now former radicals and Blairites look to women to make men `behave' more responsibly.
This is why the idea of young women getting drunk and getting laid has become so troubling for political commentators. First, such debauchery confirms their worst prejudices, namely that `too much freedom' leads inexorably to public order problems. Second, if the traditional pacifiers of `brute' men are also throwing up in city centres and f*cking for England, what hope do we have for regaining order and control throughout society?
When women's independence and greater equality is disgracefully condemned or becomes code for moral decline, it reveals, not how awful young women are becoming, but just how deeply entrenched the `fear of freedom' and `the flight from freedom' has become. Now that's what I call `horrifying'.
Source
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Turning teachers into spies and snitches
UK schools minister Jim Knight wants teachers to monitor their pupils' every antic and the behaviour of their parents. We should give his proposals a big red cross.
By 2010, all secondary schools in England will enable parents to obtain daily class reports on their child's every move at school. Each pupil's attendance, behaviour and academic performance will be put online by 2012, allowing parents to check their progress daily. Apparently, the idea could end parents' evenings, with teachers instead providing daily updates on `real-time' reporting systems. The schools minister, Jim Knight, insists that the daily reports `should not add to staff workloads' (1). One thing is for sure - pupils, teachers and especially parents are all set to lose out by such creeping surveillance.
Although a necessary and useful feature of the school diary, annual school reports on all the pupils you teach are inevitably time-consuming. So how daily school reports on a child's `achievement, progress, attendance, behaviour and special needs' would not add to a teacher's workload is never properly explained. More worryingly, daily reports could also be used as a further disciplinary threat against teachers in the same way that a failure to keep existing school records already is. The existence of such a scheme will also contribute to classroom disruption, as pupils will be more preoccupied by the content of a daily report than the content of a textbook.
A daily report will also erode further any space that a pupil needs away from the prying eyes of mum and dad. It is only in exceptional circumstances that parents need to be informed by the school about poor behaviour or lack-of-progress issues. A recording of every slightly cheeky comment, minor disruption or wind-up with other pupils will be counterproductive because it will inevitably undermine the development of a good working relationship with teachers. It will also undermine a teacher's authority even further in the classroom, as they will be perceived as babysitters merely keeping an eye on kids for their parents, rather than getting on with the job of teaching knowledge and understanding. And far from creating a climate that develops mature behaviour in children, it is likely to have the opposite effect.
It is a fact of life that adolescents can be obnoxious and mean to teachers and each other. Teenagers only grow out of playground spite when they begin to have an awareness of how their actions impinge on others. That awareness can only develop via the push-and-pull of the classroom and the schoolyard. It cannot be magically switched on via a stern email home. Indeed, school pupils develop a `conscience' when they're aware they have transgressed the `acceptable' boundaries that have developed between teachers and among their peers. If every minor action automatically results in a parental ticking off, pupils will never develop the skill to judge how they behave in situations outside the home. The result is to infantalise teenagers even further and, even more alarmingly, the measures will put parents on almost the same level, too.
Tucked away in the blather about `improving parents' access to detailed information about their children', Jim Knight let slip that `schools could also monitor how often parents checked their child's progress'. The idea of schools monitoring parents monitoring teachers' reports monitoring their children's behaviour seems like something dreamt up by the Stasi in Stalinist East Germany. The obvious and creepily threatening implication here is that parents must be snooped on by schools in order to check that they're acting as `responsible' parents. As it happens, the vast majority of parents have an in-built radar regarding whether their children are progressing well or not at school and care deeply about their welfare. When they are concerned, they will simply phone up or visit the school to enquire accordingly. How dare the government imply otherwise and that it is somehow up to local education authorities to coerce parents into showing `concern' about their child's education?
Already a number of measures are in place that reveal deep contempt for parents. Increasingly, parents have to sign homework sheets to show that they've checked their children's work. And in September 2007, Ed Balls gave headteachers the power to obtain parenting orders forcing them to keep their expelled children indoors and off the streets. A failure to do so could lead to prosecution, a œ1,000 fine and a criminal record (2). Although the online reports are only in their initial stages, it is inevitable that they will come equipped with some draconian log-in code in the future. Is it too fanciful to suggest that a child could be suspended or expelled if parents `fail' to check out the daily `progress' reports? Or that fixed penalty notices could be served up by local judges if parents don't comply with the measures?
As an indicator of where the wind is blowing on social control, it was very significant this week that while the police's pay rise was shunned, secondary school teachers received theirs - with a bit more than expected on top. Clearly, if teachers are expected to be both social workers to children and state snoopers on parents, the government has to make sure it's in their best interests to do so.
Leaving aside the huge waste of teachers' time and efforts involved in this ridiculous and pernicious measure, it will also socialise future generations to see routine surveillance as normal, while tightly binding parents to the state in ways that might prove impossible to log-off from.
Source
Bias against whites in British arts funding
By Jeremy Clarkson
Here in Chipping Norton, there is a picture-perfect little theatre. It's exactly the same as a London theatre, with a balcony and a bar, only it's much, much smaller. You really do feel, as you perch on your primary-school chair, gazing on the Punch and Judy stage, that you are locked in a Cotswold-stone dolls' house. It's an enchanting place and everyone round these parts is very proud of it. So consequently everyone is very cross that the Arts Council recently announced it would no longer be supplying 40,000 pounds a year to help fund it.
And Chipping Norton is not alone. Even though the Arts Council has just received a 50m income boost from the government, it has sent letters to 194 mostly provincial playhouses, galleries and so on, saying they no longer fit with its "agenda". "Hmmm," I wondered, "and what might this agenda be?" So I checked, and it seems that to get funding these days what you've got to be is black or mad or preferably both.
For instance, the Arts Council has recognised that there are very few people from ethnic minorities in senior positions in the arts, but instead of thinking: "Aha. This shows that very few black or Asian people are interested, so let's concentrate on the white middle classes", it has now become involved with several schemes to get inner-city kids out of their big training shoes and into an Othello suit.
There's more. The Arts Council has never offered to translate my books into Urdu. Or Jilly Cooper's. But it "remains committed" to spending a fortune supporting ethnic-minority writers. Indeed, it claims to have six priorities in place at the moment. And of course "celebrating diversity" is one of them. Not at all surprisingly, "celebrating Mrs Thatcher" isn't one of the others.
The council spends nearly half a billion pounds a year and, so far as I can tell, in 2007 most of that was given to Benjamin Zephaniah and others in exchange for some ditties about how awful the slave trade was and how everyone in Britain ought to commit suicide.
But wait. What's this? It seems there was some money left over to send a bunch of kids from Calderdale to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, which is a field full of what look like big bronze sheep droppings. It's not my cup of tea but no matter - the droppings were sculpted by Henry Moore, so that sounds fine. Sadly no. Because afterwards the kids were taught about rap music and how to graffiti a wall. That has absolutely nothing to do with the arts at all. It'd be like teaching kung fu at a flower-arranging class.
Here on the Chipping Norton arts scene things are rather different. Plans for 2008 include a play about space travel, devised by Niki McCretton, who I'm afraid is white. Then there's a tribute to Abba, who were a very popular Swedish pop group featuring no disabled Bangladeshis, and a talk by Arabella Weir, who is the daughter of a notable diplomat.
There are films too. But none, so far as I can see, is Brick Lane or that tosh from Al Gore. And then of course there's the Christmas pantomime. Much loved by Douglas Hurd, who never misses it, and 7,000 children, all called Henry and Araminta, it's a professional show featuring traditional storylines at this Christian time of year. You can see immediately why none of this fits in with the Arts Council's "agenda". And I'm afraid the concert planned for next Saturday doesn't work either. Yes, the pianist, Helene Tysman, is foreign, which is good, but I'm afraid she's only French. And that's hopeless because they had an empire too, the bastards.
What the management should be doing to maintain its grip on the Arts Council's funding is hosting a celebration of haiku poetry, in silence, by the Al Gore polar-bear workers' collective. Of course nobody would come, but hey - serving the needs of the area? Since when did that ever matter?
It does, and that's why I'd like to conclude with some words of encouragement for the management of Chipping Norton theatre and the other organisations around the country that don't fit in with the Arts Council's taste. It is extremely likely that you will be better off without the council's 40 grand a year. Because tied up in this rather small chalice is a ton of poisonous red tape demarcating what you can do, what you can say and how many ramps have to be fitted at each urinal. You can wave goodbye to all that BBC-regional-news-tick-the-ethnic-boxes nonsense when you replace the lunatics at the Arts Council with a set of different benefactors.
I know this because just last week I spent some time with some chap from a notable charity. Each year, it needs 4million pounds to stay afloat, and none comes from the government. "Trust me," he said. "We don't want even 4p of their money. It's always more trouble than it's worth."
Or you can look at the Millennium Dome. When it was run by the government the dome was full of faith zones and Cherie Blair, celebrating diversity. And it was a disaster. Now it's in private hands it's full of Led Zeppelin and recently became recognised as the most popular concert venue in the world.
Source
UK schools minister Jim Knight wants teachers to monitor their pupils' every antic and the behaviour of their parents. We should give his proposals a big red cross.
By 2010, all secondary schools in England will enable parents to obtain daily class reports on their child's every move at school. Each pupil's attendance, behaviour and academic performance will be put online by 2012, allowing parents to check their progress daily. Apparently, the idea could end parents' evenings, with teachers instead providing daily updates on `real-time' reporting systems. The schools minister, Jim Knight, insists that the daily reports `should not add to staff workloads' (1). One thing is for sure - pupils, teachers and especially parents are all set to lose out by such creeping surveillance.
Although a necessary and useful feature of the school diary, annual school reports on all the pupils you teach are inevitably time-consuming. So how daily school reports on a child's `achievement, progress, attendance, behaviour and special needs' would not add to a teacher's workload is never properly explained. More worryingly, daily reports could also be used as a further disciplinary threat against teachers in the same way that a failure to keep existing school records already is. The existence of such a scheme will also contribute to classroom disruption, as pupils will be more preoccupied by the content of a daily report than the content of a textbook.
A daily report will also erode further any space that a pupil needs away from the prying eyes of mum and dad. It is only in exceptional circumstances that parents need to be informed by the school about poor behaviour or lack-of-progress issues. A recording of every slightly cheeky comment, minor disruption or wind-up with other pupils will be counterproductive because it will inevitably undermine the development of a good working relationship with teachers. It will also undermine a teacher's authority even further in the classroom, as they will be perceived as babysitters merely keeping an eye on kids for their parents, rather than getting on with the job of teaching knowledge and understanding. And far from creating a climate that develops mature behaviour in children, it is likely to have the opposite effect.
It is a fact of life that adolescents can be obnoxious and mean to teachers and each other. Teenagers only grow out of playground spite when they begin to have an awareness of how their actions impinge on others. That awareness can only develop via the push-and-pull of the classroom and the schoolyard. It cannot be magically switched on via a stern email home. Indeed, school pupils develop a `conscience' when they're aware they have transgressed the `acceptable' boundaries that have developed between teachers and among their peers. If every minor action automatically results in a parental ticking off, pupils will never develop the skill to judge how they behave in situations outside the home. The result is to infantalise teenagers even further and, even more alarmingly, the measures will put parents on almost the same level, too.
Tucked away in the blather about `improving parents' access to detailed information about their children', Jim Knight let slip that `schools could also monitor how often parents checked their child's progress'. The idea of schools monitoring parents monitoring teachers' reports monitoring their children's behaviour seems like something dreamt up by the Stasi in Stalinist East Germany. The obvious and creepily threatening implication here is that parents must be snooped on by schools in order to check that they're acting as `responsible' parents. As it happens, the vast majority of parents have an in-built radar regarding whether their children are progressing well or not at school and care deeply about their welfare. When they are concerned, they will simply phone up or visit the school to enquire accordingly. How dare the government imply otherwise and that it is somehow up to local education authorities to coerce parents into showing `concern' about their child's education?
Already a number of measures are in place that reveal deep contempt for parents. Increasingly, parents have to sign homework sheets to show that they've checked their children's work. And in September 2007, Ed Balls gave headteachers the power to obtain parenting orders forcing them to keep their expelled children indoors and off the streets. A failure to do so could lead to prosecution, a œ1,000 fine and a criminal record (2). Although the online reports are only in their initial stages, it is inevitable that they will come equipped with some draconian log-in code in the future. Is it too fanciful to suggest that a child could be suspended or expelled if parents `fail' to check out the daily `progress' reports? Or that fixed penalty notices could be served up by local judges if parents don't comply with the measures?
As an indicator of where the wind is blowing on social control, it was very significant this week that while the police's pay rise was shunned, secondary school teachers received theirs - with a bit more than expected on top. Clearly, if teachers are expected to be both social workers to children and state snoopers on parents, the government has to make sure it's in their best interests to do so.
Leaving aside the huge waste of teachers' time and efforts involved in this ridiculous and pernicious measure, it will also socialise future generations to see routine surveillance as normal, while tightly binding parents to the state in ways that might prove impossible to log-off from.
Source
Bias against whites in British arts funding
By Jeremy Clarkson
Here in Chipping Norton, there is a picture-perfect little theatre. It's exactly the same as a London theatre, with a balcony and a bar, only it's much, much smaller. You really do feel, as you perch on your primary-school chair, gazing on the Punch and Judy stage, that you are locked in a Cotswold-stone dolls' house. It's an enchanting place and everyone round these parts is very proud of it. So consequently everyone is very cross that the Arts Council recently announced it would no longer be supplying 40,000 pounds a year to help fund it.
And Chipping Norton is not alone. Even though the Arts Council has just received a 50m income boost from the government, it has sent letters to 194 mostly provincial playhouses, galleries and so on, saying they no longer fit with its "agenda". "Hmmm," I wondered, "and what might this agenda be?" So I checked, and it seems that to get funding these days what you've got to be is black or mad or preferably both.
For instance, the Arts Council has recognised that there are very few people from ethnic minorities in senior positions in the arts, but instead of thinking: "Aha. This shows that very few black or Asian people are interested, so let's concentrate on the white middle classes", it has now become involved with several schemes to get inner-city kids out of their big training shoes and into an Othello suit.
There's more. The Arts Council has never offered to translate my books into Urdu. Or Jilly Cooper's. But it "remains committed" to spending a fortune supporting ethnic-minority writers. Indeed, it claims to have six priorities in place at the moment. And of course "celebrating diversity" is one of them. Not at all surprisingly, "celebrating Mrs Thatcher" isn't one of the others.
The council spends nearly half a billion pounds a year and, so far as I can tell, in 2007 most of that was given to Benjamin Zephaniah and others in exchange for some ditties about how awful the slave trade was and how everyone in Britain ought to commit suicide.
But wait. What's this? It seems there was some money left over to send a bunch of kids from Calderdale to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, which is a field full of what look like big bronze sheep droppings. It's not my cup of tea but no matter - the droppings were sculpted by Henry Moore, so that sounds fine. Sadly no. Because afterwards the kids were taught about rap music and how to graffiti a wall. That has absolutely nothing to do with the arts at all. It'd be like teaching kung fu at a flower-arranging class.
Here on the Chipping Norton arts scene things are rather different. Plans for 2008 include a play about space travel, devised by Niki McCretton, who I'm afraid is white. Then there's a tribute to Abba, who were a very popular Swedish pop group featuring no disabled Bangladeshis, and a talk by Arabella Weir, who is the daughter of a notable diplomat.
There are films too. But none, so far as I can see, is Brick Lane or that tosh from Al Gore. And then of course there's the Christmas pantomime. Much loved by Douglas Hurd, who never misses it, and 7,000 children, all called Henry and Araminta, it's a professional show featuring traditional storylines at this Christian time of year. You can see immediately why none of this fits in with the Arts Council's "agenda". And I'm afraid the concert planned for next Saturday doesn't work either. Yes, the pianist, Helene Tysman, is foreign, which is good, but I'm afraid she's only French. And that's hopeless because they had an empire too, the bastards.
What the management should be doing to maintain its grip on the Arts Council's funding is hosting a celebration of haiku poetry, in silence, by the Al Gore polar-bear workers' collective. Of course nobody would come, but hey - serving the needs of the area? Since when did that ever matter?
It does, and that's why I'd like to conclude with some words of encouragement for the management of Chipping Norton theatre and the other organisations around the country that don't fit in with the Arts Council's taste. It is extremely likely that you will be better off without the council's 40 grand a year. Because tied up in this rather small chalice is a ton of poisonous red tape demarcating what you can do, what you can say and how many ramps have to be fitted at each urinal. You can wave goodbye to all that BBC-regional-news-tick-the-ethnic-boxes nonsense when you replace the lunatics at the Arts Council with a set of different benefactors.
I know this because just last week I spent some time with some chap from a notable charity. Each year, it needs 4million pounds to stay afloat, and none comes from the government. "Trust me," he said. "We don't want even 4p of their money. It's always more trouble than it's worth."
Or you can look at the Millennium Dome. When it was run by the government the dome was full of faith zones and Cherie Blair, celebrating diversity. And it was a disaster. Now it's in private hands it's full of Led Zeppelin and recently became recognised as the most popular concert venue in the world.
Source
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Black breast cancer is different
Leftists have a religious belief that all races are the same except for hair, lips and skin. Why there are no differences other than the visible ones is never explained. And they only admit the visible differences because they cannot be denied. We repeatedly find that the truth is very different, however -- including a quite stark difference noted below:
Black British women in Hackney, East London, are diagnosed with breast cancer 21 years younger than white British women, according to a Cancer Research UK study published online in the British Journal of Cancer. In the first UK study to look at the patterns of breast cancer in black British women, the researchers studied 102 black women and 191 white women diagnosed with breast cancer at Homerton University Hospital in Hackney, East London, between 1994 and 2005. They found the black patients were diagnosed with breast cancer at an average age of 46 while the white patients were diagnosed at an average age of 67.
Researchers based at the Institute of Cancer and Cancer Research UK clinical centre at Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry also found that survival was poorer among black women with smaller tumours. In addition, their initial findings suggest that tumours in the younger black patients were more likely to be aggressive, and a higher proportion of tumours were basal-like - meaning they were less likely to respond to newer types of targeted breast cancer treatments like Herceptin. If these results are confirmed in larger studies, the findings could have implications for diagnosis, screening and treatment of black British breast cancer patients in the future.
Study author Dr Rebecca Bowen, said: "Twenty five per cent of all breast cancer cases diagnosed in London during the period studied were in women aged 45 or younger - but this figure rose to 45 per cent among the black population in Hackney. We think the differences in the way tumours of black and white women behave can be put down to the biological differences between the two ethnic groups. We're now trying to find out why the tumours are so different so that we can develop new treatments to target the aggressive forms of breast cancer seen in young black women."
Until recently, UK cancer registries have not collected ethnicity data routinely, but incidence of breast cancer among black British women is thought to be lower than the white population. American research has suggested that African-American women get breast cancer at a younger age and at a more advanced stage - but this is the first UK study to draw these conclusions.
Dr Bowen added: "We've just received funding for the next stage of our research which will allow us to determine the type of cancers these women are getting at this young age. It's important that we use the information learnt from this study to raise awareness of breast cancer risk factors and the importance of early detection among the black population."
Dr Lesley Walker, Cancer Research UK's director of cancer information, said: "This is very interesting research. The fact that black women are being diagnosed with breast cancer at a much younger age than white women is clearly worrying. If these results are confirmed in follow-up studies, it might be appropriate to alter screening services offered to black women to better reflect the age at which they are diagnosed with breast cancer - but at the moment it's too early to suggest any changes to the screening programme because the study was so small. "These findings highlight the need for all women to be breast aware, report any changes to the doctor promptly and attend screening appointments when invited, as early detection is important for successful treatment."
Source
Abstract:
Early onset of breast cancer in a group of British black women
By RL Bowen et al.
Since there are no published data on breast cancer in British black women, we sought to determine whether, like African-American women, they present at a younger age with biologically distinct disease patterns. The method involved a retrospective review of breast cancer to compare age distributions and clinicopathological features between black women and white women in the UK, while controlling for socioeconomic status. All women presented with invasive breast cancer, between 1994 and 2005, to a single East London hospital.
Black patients presented significantly younger (median age of 46 years), than white patients (median age of 67 years (P=0.001)). No significant differences between black and white population structures were identified. Black women had a higher frequency of grade 3 tumours, lymph node-positive disease, negative oestrogen receptor and progesterone receptor status and basal-like (triple negative status) tumours. There were no differences in stage at presentation; however, for tumours of ~2 cm, black patients had poorer survival than white patients (HR=2.90, 95% CI 0.98-8.60, P=0.05).
Black women presented, on average, 21 years younger than white women. Tumours in younger women were considerably more aggressive in the black population, more likely to be basal-like, and among women with smaller tumours, black women were more than twice as likely to die of their disease. There were no disparities in socioeconomic status or treatment received. Our findings could have major implications for the biology of breast cancer and the detection and treatment of the disease in black women.
British Journal of Cancer 8 January 2008
Britain: Nurses' low pay 'fatal in rich areas'
Lives are being lost because of the central negotiation of pay rates for nurses, a study has found. Hospitals in prosperous areas such as London and the South East find it harder to recruit and retain nurses than those in areas where local wage rates are lower. This is because regional differences in nurses' pay are not as big as regional differences in the wider labour market. As a result, hospitals in prosperous areas treat fewer patients and have worse results than those in poorer areas, says a team from Bristol and London in a report for the Centre for Economic Performance and the Centre for Market and Public Organisation.
A gap of 10 per cent between nurses' pay and that of women working locally in the private sector was said to raise the death rate among people admitted to hospital after a heart attack by 5 per cent. The NHS and the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) are wedded to the idea that nurses everywhere in the UK should be paid the same. There are some regional variations, say Professor John Van Reenan, of the London School of Economics, and colleagues, but they do not fully reflect differentials in the labour market. In inner London, for example, white-collar wages for women are 60 per cent greater than those of women in the North East. Allowances are paid to nurses who work in inner London, but they amount to only about 11 per cent more than the wages of their colleagues in the North East.
The new research by Emma Hall, Carol Propper and John Van Reenen tracked changes in wage rates and changes in performance in more than 100 English hospital trusts between 1995 and 2002. Hospitals in areas where the outside labour market is strong treat fewer patients per staff member. They have higher death rates among patients who are admitted after heart attacks.None of these effects is found in private sector nursing homes. Nor do they seem to arise from financial problems faced by hospitals in high-cost areas.
There is a 15 per cent increase in death rates between hospitals where outside wage rates are in the top 10 per cent and those in the bottom 10 per cent. Productivity varies by 18 per cent between the top 10 per cent and the bottom 10 per cent. The results have important implications for regulated labour markets, and the NHS, the report concludes. "Rather than focusing on across-the-board increases in national pay, which we found not to be cost effective, relaxing the regulatory system to allow local wages to reflect local market realities would improve productivity and save lives," it says.
Peter Carter, the general secretary of the RCN, said: "In the RCN's experience, poor hospital performance tends to be related to an absence of clinical leadership, inadequate resources and staffing levels or ineffective financial management. "The modelling in this study can lead to simplistic conclusions on very complex issues."
Source
Britain too now has ghetto schools
Airport-style metal detectors could soon be fitted in hundreds of secondary schools in an effort to deter pupils from carrying knives. Details of the initiative emerged as Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, admitted she would feel unsafe walking alone in London at night. Police are investigating a series of stabbings this month and Gordon Brown has expressed his alarm about "out of control" gangs of teenagers on the streets. More than three-quarters of knife crime is committed by 12- to 20-year-olds. The metal detector plan will be a key element in a new government action plan on violent crime next month.
Although the initiative carries disturbing echoes of some US cities, where high-school pupils are routinely scanned for weapons, head teachers said it could help to tackle violence in high-crime areas.
Ms Smith said schools could "build on" schemes by the British Transport Police to install metal detectors in busy railway stations. "I think it is a good idea if we look at the ways in which, in some schools, it might be appropriate to use search arches," she told BBC1's The Andrew Marr Show. "I want young people to know it doesn't make them safer to carry a knife - it actually makes them more likely to be a victim." It is understood the use of metal detectors will be encouraged in schools in cities worst affected by knife crime, such as London, Birmingham and Liverpool.
John Dunford, general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, said: "There are schools serving areas where knife crime is high in the community and it is right these schools take measures to protect pupils." Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrats' home affairs spokesman, said: "It is sad school scanners are necessary to stop a small minority of young people from carrying knives. But the number of high-profile stabbings at or outside schools in hot-spot areas for gangs means this is a sensible precaution."
Ms Smith also confirmed the Government was looking at whether alcohol was being sold too cheaply by supermarkets following the murder of Gary Newlove, the Warrington man killed by a group of drunken teenagers. "I think we need to look at whether or not both pricing and promotion is having an impact," she said.
Asked if she would feel safe walking in a deprived area such as Hackney at midnight, Ms Smith said: "Well, no, but I don't think I'd ever have done. You know, I would never have done that at any point of my life." She was also asked whether she would feel at risk in a more affluent district such as Chelsea. She replied: "Well, I wouldn't walk around at midnight and I'm fortunate that I don't have to do that."
David Davis, the shadow Home Secretary, said: "This is an astonishing admission. It is shameful you can walk the streets of New York, Tokyo, Paris and Berlin safely at night, but not the streets of London."
Next month's violent crime action plan is expected to set out moves to increase the numbers of searches by police of suspected troublemakers and make more use of CCTV to catch them on tape.
Metal detectors are still relatively rare and hugely controversial in US schools, but they have been used, particularly in rougher inner-city neighbourhoods, for at least 20 years with some success. Reliable statistics are hard to gather, but studies down the years suggest that about 10 per cent of US schools use metal detectors - either the door-frame style commonly found in courts and other sensitive public buildings, or hand-held ones that school officials are able to use at their own discretion. The proportion is much higher in urban areas - particularly Chicago, which installed detectors in every middle and high school a few years ago.
Some detectors were installed in response to the 1999 Columbine High School shootings and other widely publicised killings. But for the most part schools decide the issue on their own criteria. A 1992 study in Oklahoma suggested metal detectors had helped cut the number of weapons being brought into schools by more than half, and helped cut violent crimes by about 35 per cent.
Source
A British Warmist who sees the problems:
Although he abuses George Bush, he too is advocating technological fixes -- such as more use of nukes. He even wants more GM crops!
If there was ever an example of humankind being unable to bear too much reality, it is the current debate on climate change. No reasonable person any longer doubts that the world is heating up or that this change has been triggered by human activity. Aside from a dwindling band that rejects the clear findings of science, everyone accepts that we face an unprecedented challenge. At the same time, there is a pervasive belief that this is a crisis that can be solved by feelgood gestures such as eating organic foods and refusing to fly or installing a wind turbine on the roof
When it comes to deciding what should be done, most people, including the majority of environmentalists, shrink from the discomfort that goes with realistic thinking. George W Bush seems to have been persuaded that climate science is not a left-wing conspiracy to destroy the American economy. Along with the rest of our political leaders, however, he continues to insist there are no limits to growth. As long as we adopt new technologies that are supposedly environment-friendly, such as biofuels, economic expansion can go on as before.
At the other end of the spectrum, greens put their faith in sustainable growth and renewable energy. The root of the environmental crisis, they say - and here they agree with Bush - is our addiction to fossil fuels. If only we switch to wind, wave and solar power, all will be well.
In political terms, Bush and the greens could not be further apart, but they are as one in resisting the most fundamental fact about the environmental crisis, which is that it cannot be resolved without a major reduction in our impact on the Earth. This means curbing the production of greenhouse gases, but here fashionable policies can be self-defeating. The shift to biofuels, led by Bush but which is also underway in other parts of the world involves further destruction of rainforest, a key natural regulator of the climate. Reducing emissions while destroying the planet's natural mechanisms for soaking them up is not a solution. It is a recipe for disaster.
Yet standard green prescriptions are not much better. Many renewables are not as efficient or as eco-friendly as they are made out to be. Unsightly and inefficient wind farms will not enable us to give up fossil fuels, while large-scale hydroelectric power has major environmental costs. Moving over to organic methods of food production can have significant benefits in terms of animal welfare and reducing fuel costs, but it does nothing to stop the devastation of wilderness that goes with expanding farming to feed a swelling human population.
So conventional green nostrums are not all that different from Bush's business-as-usual policies. In each case, the end-result can only be a planet gutted of biodiversity, with humanity exposed to an increasingly hostile environment. To some extent, technology may be able to replace the biosphere that has been destroyed, but, like an obese patient hooked up to an artificial life-support system, we will be living on borrowed time. One day, the machine will stop.
The uncomfortable fact, which is ignored or denied by both ends of the environmental debate, is that an energy-intensive lifestyle of the kind enjoyed in the rich parts of the world cannot be extended to a human population of nine or 10 billion, the level forecast in UN studies for the middle of this century. In terms of resources, human numbers are already unsustainable. Global warming is the flipside of worldwide industrialisation, a side-effect of the dash for growth, and the reserves of oil and natural gas on which industry depends are peaking at just the point when demand for them is rising fast.
Contrary to the greens, there is not the remotest prospect that the world will renounce the use of fossil fuels. Ask any competent energy economist and you will discover that no expansion of renewables can satisfy the demand for energy that is being generated in China and India. Anyway, does anyone really expect the countries getting rich from hydrocarbons - Russia, Iran, Venezuela and the Gulf States - to give them up? As long as there is enough demand, these countries will continue extracting fossil fuels.
The only way forward is to curb the need for fossil fuels, while at the same time, since there is no way of giving them up altogether, making them cleaner. This means making full use of technologies many environmentalists view with superstitious horror. Nuclear energy has well-known problems of security and waste disposal and it is nothing like a universal panacea. Even so, demonising it is conventional green thinking at its delusional worst. Though solar power has potential, no type of renewable energy can replace the dirty fuels of the industrial past.
If we reject the nuclear option, we will inevitably end up going back to coal. There are emerging technologies that can make coal cleaner. That is no reason for turning our back on nuclear, which is already virtually emission-free. A similar reasoning applies to GM crops. Genetic engineering involves a type of human intervention in natural processes whose risks are not yet fully known. But the practical alternative is to carry on with industrial-style agriculture, whose destructive impact is all too clear.
Any feasible remedy for the environmental crisis involves high-tech solutions. The aim should not be to master nature or turn it into a mere resource for humans to exploit, as Bush and the greens, in their different ways, end up doing. Given the legitimate aspirations of people in developing countries, only a high-tech strategy has any chance of reducing the human footprint. But it will also be necessary to breach what has become the ultimate taboo and face up to the reality of population pressure.
Green activists, free-market economists and religious fundamentalists may not seem to have much in common, but they are all agreed there can be no such thing as overpopulation, or at any rate, nothing that can't be solved by better distribution, faster growth or a change in human values.
Actually, the perennially unpopular Rev Thomas Malthus was closer to the truth when, at the end of the 18th century, he argued that population growth would finally overtake food production. Industrial farming was supposed to make famine impossible. But it turns out to have been heavily dependent on cheap oil, and with farmland being lost as a result of the switch to biofuels, limits on food production are re-emerging. Far more than fantastical schemes for renewable energy, we need to ensure that contraception and abortion are freely available everywhere. A world of fewer people would be far better placed to deal with climate change than the heavily overpopulated one we are heading for now.
Despite unstoppable global warming, a humanly liveable world is still worth striving for. But it requires a sustained capacity for realistic thinking, which is not the strong point of the environmental movement. Along with the political classes, greens are in denial. While there is no technical fix for the human condition, intelligent use of technology is indispensable in coping with environmental disruption that is now unavoidable. It would be ironic if, because of their irrational hostility to high-tech solutions, the greens were to end up as much a threat to the environment as George W Bush.
Source
A Catholic cardinal who hates devout Catholics
A British cardinal, of course
It has been a busy Advent and Christmas season for the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. He has, in a space of a few months, outraged, shocked and disgusted a surprisingly broad cross section of his flock. Polish immigrants, noted for the vibrancy of their Catholic faith; Catholic pro-lifers who have held the line for decades in the fight with little help from the hierarchy; and Catholic traditionalists who have spent decades living in near-exile from their own Church, have felt the back of Cormac Cardinal Murphy O'Connor's hand recently.
He started the season early with his official rejection in November of Pope Benedict's document removing the power of bishops to block the celebration of the pre-Vatican II rite of the Mass, an issue that has broad connections to acceptance of Catholic doctrine in a variety of areas, including moral issues.
Traditionalist Catholics are almost universally pro-life and pro-family, whereas many of those who have actively fought against the re-instatement of the ancient liturgical practices have also consistently championed a "progressive" Catholicism that rejects the moral law, particularly in sexual morality.
By the end of December, a week after his Christmas homily in which he urged Britons to be more accepting of immigrants, Murphy O'Connor had blasted Polish immigrants who are pouring into Britain in search of work.
In a homily, the Cardinal who heads the Catholic Church of England and Wales, urged the Polish community to learn English and integrate into local parishes. He claimed the Catholic Church in the UK was in danger of dividing along ethnic lines. The comments shocked both the Polish Catholic community and Catholic observers who have seen the influx of devout Poles as a desperately needed boost to sagging attendance and the increasingly grim outlook for the future of the Catholic Church in this country.
With photos appearing in the Telegraph of Poles kneeling devoutly on the sidewalk to hear Mass broadcast outside an overcrowded church, it is perhaps unsurprising that Polish leaders responded to the Cardinal's comments saying they felt "violated" and "spiritually raped". The comments made many Catholic commentators wonder aloud just what kind of Catholic immigrant the Cardinal would prefer.
But Britain learned just before Christmas what kind of Catholic their Cardinal does think is suitable. His real coup de grace, and perhaps his largest insult to the most faithful Catholics in the country, came at his unconditional reception into the Church of the man SPUC head John Smeaton identified as the major "architect of the Culture of Death" in this country: Tony Blair.
Cardinal O'Connor received Blair in a "private" ceremony in the Cardinal's own residential chapel. Neither the Cardinal's office, nor Blair's offered any explanation or retraction of the former Prime Minister's long record of anti-Catholic and anti-life policies.
To add insult to injury, an unnamed "Church source" presumed to be close to the Cardinal's office, had even chastised critics in the Daily Mail for daring to question the Cardinal's Christmas-week generosity. The Mail's source said, "Whatever he previously believed or did is a matter for individual conscience."
But the pro-life community, particularly its Catholic contingent, are so wearied by the decades of flaccidity, compromising and temporising and outright irreligion of its religious leadership, it hardly bothered to give a collective sigh of disgust. Among the pro-life Catholics of my acquaintance, the response was largely a quick shake of the head and a sickened laugh. In Britain's Catholic Church this latest outrage from its leadership was nothing more than business as usual.
At the same time, the odd news that Catholic attendance at weekly church services had, for the first time since the Reformation, outstripped that of Anglicans brought forward headlines like "Britain has become a 'Catholic country'" from the Telegraph. But the notion brought only sour and grim amusement to many British Catholic bloggers who have faithfully chronicled the growth of secularist anti-Christian hostility in British society, heavily abetted by the BBC's virtual monopoly on broadcast media. Despite the wild suppositions in the mainstream media, those who have been keeping track know that the news reflected only the continuing general collapse of British religious adherence.
The truth is simply that the native British have abandoned Christianity. It is easy to see what has alarmed Cardinal Cormac. The Poles are, quite simply, making him, and the Church he leads, look bad.
The robust, generous and stalwart faith of these people, tested through generations of brutal Communist suppression, has given them an ability to see through the fog of nonsense that has emanated out of British chanceries since the 1960's. And the Cardinal knows it. It is clear that the divide between the faith of the Poles and the dreary, watery, and half-hearted British Catholicism, content to allow the last dregs of its faith and devotion slowly to evaporate, is greater than one of language.
It is evident that whatever the Catholic leadership of this country has been doing for the last four decades, it has not been a boon to British Catholic faith or practice. If Cormac Murphy O'Connor is aware of the condition of his Church, he has chosen an odd way of expressing his concern by chastising the new Polish faithful for their very faithfulness.
Maybe the Cardinal should try a different tack, and take his own advice and accept the contribution of these people.
Source
Leftists have a religious belief that all races are the same except for hair, lips and skin. Why there are no differences other than the visible ones is never explained. And they only admit the visible differences because they cannot be denied. We repeatedly find that the truth is very different, however -- including a quite stark difference noted below:
Black British women in Hackney, East London, are diagnosed with breast cancer 21 years younger than white British women, according to a Cancer Research UK study published online in the British Journal of Cancer. In the first UK study to look at the patterns of breast cancer in black British women, the researchers studied 102 black women and 191 white women diagnosed with breast cancer at Homerton University Hospital in Hackney, East London, between 1994 and 2005. They found the black patients were diagnosed with breast cancer at an average age of 46 while the white patients were diagnosed at an average age of 67.
Researchers based at the Institute of Cancer and Cancer Research UK clinical centre at Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry also found that survival was poorer among black women with smaller tumours. In addition, their initial findings suggest that tumours in the younger black patients were more likely to be aggressive, and a higher proportion of tumours were basal-like - meaning they were less likely to respond to newer types of targeted breast cancer treatments like Herceptin. If these results are confirmed in larger studies, the findings could have implications for diagnosis, screening and treatment of black British breast cancer patients in the future.
Study author Dr Rebecca Bowen, said: "Twenty five per cent of all breast cancer cases diagnosed in London during the period studied were in women aged 45 or younger - but this figure rose to 45 per cent among the black population in Hackney. We think the differences in the way tumours of black and white women behave can be put down to the biological differences between the two ethnic groups. We're now trying to find out why the tumours are so different so that we can develop new treatments to target the aggressive forms of breast cancer seen in young black women."
Until recently, UK cancer registries have not collected ethnicity data routinely, but incidence of breast cancer among black British women is thought to be lower than the white population. American research has suggested that African-American women get breast cancer at a younger age and at a more advanced stage - but this is the first UK study to draw these conclusions.
Dr Bowen added: "We've just received funding for the next stage of our research which will allow us to determine the type of cancers these women are getting at this young age. It's important that we use the information learnt from this study to raise awareness of breast cancer risk factors and the importance of early detection among the black population."
Dr Lesley Walker, Cancer Research UK's director of cancer information, said: "This is very interesting research. The fact that black women are being diagnosed with breast cancer at a much younger age than white women is clearly worrying. If these results are confirmed in follow-up studies, it might be appropriate to alter screening services offered to black women to better reflect the age at which they are diagnosed with breast cancer - but at the moment it's too early to suggest any changes to the screening programme because the study was so small. "These findings highlight the need for all women to be breast aware, report any changes to the doctor promptly and attend screening appointments when invited, as early detection is important for successful treatment."
Source
Abstract:
Early onset of breast cancer in a group of British black women
By RL Bowen et al.
Since there are no published data on breast cancer in British black women, we sought to determine whether, like African-American women, they present at a younger age with biologically distinct disease patterns. The method involved a retrospective review of breast cancer to compare age distributions and clinicopathological features between black women and white women in the UK, while controlling for socioeconomic status. All women presented with invasive breast cancer, between 1994 and 2005, to a single East London hospital.
Black patients presented significantly younger (median age of 46 years), than white patients (median age of 67 years (P=0.001)). No significant differences between black and white population structures were identified. Black women had a higher frequency of grade 3 tumours, lymph node-positive disease, negative oestrogen receptor and progesterone receptor status and basal-like (triple negative status) tumours. There were no differences in stage at presentation; however, for tumours of ~2 cm, black patients had poorer survival than white patients (HR=2.90, 95% CI 0.98-8.60, P=0.05).
Black women presented, on average, 21 years younger than white women. Tumours in younger women were considerably more aggressive in the black population, more likely to be basal-like, and among women with smaller tumours, black women were more than twice as likely to die of their disease. There were no disparities in socioeconomic status or treatment received. Our findings could have major implications for the biology of breast cancer and the detection and treatment of the disease in black women.
British Journal of Cancer 8 January 2008
Britain: Nurses' low pay 'fatal in rich areas'
Lives are being lost because of the central negotiation of pay rates for nurses, a study has found. Hospitals in prosperous areas such as London and the South East find it harder to recruit and retain nurses than those in areas where local wage rates are lower. This is because regional differences in nurses' pay are not as big as regional differences in the wider labour market. As a result, hospitals in prosperous areas treat fewer patients and have worse results than those in poorer areas, says a team from Bristol and London in a report for the Centre for Economic Performance and the Centre for Market and Public Organisation.
A gap of 10 per cent between nurses' pay and that of women working locally in the private sector was said to raise the death rate among people admitted to hospital after a heart attack by 5 per cent. The NHS and the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) are wedded to the idea that nurses everywhere in the UK should be paid the same. There are some regional variations, say Professor John Van Reenan, of the London School of Economics, and colleagues, but they do not fully reflect differentials in the labour market. In inner London, for example, white-collar wages for women are 60 per cent greater than those of women in the North East. Allowances are paid to nurses who work in inner London, but they amount to only about 11 per cent more than the wages of their colleagues in the North East.
The new research by Emma Hall, Carol Propper and John Van Reenen tracked changes in wage rates and changes in performance in more than 100 English hospital trusts between 1995 and 2002. Hospitals in areas where the outside labour market is strong treat fewer patients per staff member. They have higher death rates among patients who are admitted after heart attacks.None of these effects is found in private sector nursing homes. Nor do they seem to arise from financial problems faced by hospitals in high-cost areas.
There is a 15 per cent increase in death rates between hospitals where outside wage rates are in the top 10 per cent and those in the bottom 10 per cent. Productivity varies by 18 per cent between the top 10 per cent and the bottom 10 per cent. The results have important implications for regulated labour markets, and the NHS, the report concludes. "Rather than focusing on across-the-board increases in national pay, which we found not to be cost effective, relaxing the regulatory system to allow local wages to reflect local market realities would improve productivity and save lives," it says.
Peter Carter, the general secretary of the RCN, said: "In the RCN's experience, poor hospital performance tends to be related to an absence of clinical leadership, inadequate resources and staffing levels or ineffective financial management. "The modelling in this study can lead to simplistic conclusions on very complex issues."
Source
Britain too now has ghetto schools
Airport-style metal detectors could soon be fitted in hundreds of secondary schools in an effort to deter pupils from carrying knives. Details of the initiative emerged as Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, admitted she would feel unsafe walking alone in London at night. Police are investigating a series of stabbings this month and Gordon Brown has expressed his alarm about "out of control" gangs of teenagers on the streets. More than three-quarters of knife crime is committed by 12- to 20-year-olds. The metal detector plan will be a key element in a new government action plan on violent crime next month.
Although the initiative carries disturbing echoes of some US cities, where high-school pupils are routinely scanned for weapons, head teachers said it could help to tackle violence in high-crime areas.
Ms Smith said schools could "build on" schemes by the British Transport Police to install metal detectors in busy railway stations. "I think it is a good idea if we look at the ways in which, in some schools, it might be appropriate to use search arches," she told BBC1's The Andrew Marr Show. "I want young people to know it doesn't make them safer to carry a knife - it actually makes them more likely to be a victim." It is understood the use of metal detectors will be encouraged in schools in cities worst affected by knife crime, such as London, Birmingham and Liverpool.
John Dunford, general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, said: "There are schools serving areas where knife crime is high in the community and it is right these schools take measures to protect pupils." Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrats' home affairs spokesman, said: "It is sad school scanners are necessary to stop a small minority of young people from carrying knives. But the number of high-profile stabbings at or outside schools in hot-spot areas for gangs means this is a sensible precaution."
Ms Smith also confirmed the Government was looking at whether alcohol was being sold too cheaply by supermarkets following the murder of Gary Newlove, the Warrington man killed by a group of drunken teenagers. "I think we need to look at whether or not both pricing and promotion is having an impact," she said.
Asked if she would feel safe walking in a deprived area such as Hackney at midnight, Ms Smith said: "Well, no, but I don't think I'd ever have done. You know, I would never have done that at any point of my life." She was also asked whether she would feel at risk in a more affluent district such as Chelsea. She replied: "Well, I wouldn't walk around at midnight and I'm fortunate that I don't have to do that."
David Davis, the shadow Home Secretary, said: "This is an astonishing admission. It is shameful you can walk the streets of New York, Tokyo, Paris and Berlin safely at night, but not the streets of London."
Next month's violent crime action plan is expected to set out moves to increase the numbers of searches by police of suspected troublemakers and make more use of CCTV to catch them on tape.
Metal detectors are still relatively rare and hugely controversial in US schools, but they have been used, particularly in rougher inner-city neighbourhoods, for at least 20 years with some success. Reliable statistics are hard to gather, but studies down the years suggest that about 10 per cent of US schools use metal detectors - either the door-frame style commonly found in courts and other sensitive public buildings, or hand-held ones that school officials are able to use at their own discretion. The proportion is much higher in urban areas - particularly Chicago, which installed detectors in every middle and high school a few years ago.
Some detectors were installed in response to the 1999 Columbine High School shootings and other widely publicised killings. But for the most part schools decide the issue on their own criteria. A 1992 study in Oklahoma suggested metal detectors had helped cut the number of weapons being brought into schools by more than half, and helped cut violent crimes by about 35 per cent.
Source
A British Warmist who sees the problems:
Although he abuses George Bush, he too is advocating technological fixes -- such as more use of nukes. He even wants more GM crops!
If there was ever an example of humankind being unable to bear too much reality, it is the current debate on climate change. No reasonable person any longer doubts that the world is heating up or that this change has been triggered by human activity. Aside from a dwindling band that rejects the clear findings of science, everyone accepts that we face an unprecedented challenge. At the same time, there is a pervasive belief that this is a crisis that can be solved by feelgood gestures such as eating organic foods and refusing to fly or installing a wind turbine on the roof
When it comes to deciding what should be done, most people, including the majority of environmentalists, shrink from the discomfort that goes with realistic thinking. George W Bush seems to have been persuaded that climate science is not a left-wing conspiracy to destroy the American economy. Along with the rest of our political leaders, however, he continues to insist there are no limits to growth. As long as we adopt new technologies that are supposedly environment-friendly, such as biofuels, economic expansion can go on as before.
At the other end of the spectrum, greens put their faith in sustainable growth and renewable energy. The root of the environmental crisis, they say - and here they agree with Bush - is our addiction to fossil fuels. If only we switch to wind, wave and solar power, all will be well.
In political terms, Bush and the greens could not be further apart, but they are as one in resisting the most fundamental fact about the environmental crisis, which is that it cannot be resolved without a major reduction in our impact on the Earth. This means curbing the production of greenhouse gases, but here fashionable policies can be self-defeating. The shift to biofuels, led by Bush but which is also underway in other parts of the world involves further destruction of rainforest, a key natural regulator of the climate. Reducing emissions while destroying the planet's natural mechanisms for soaking them up is not a solution. It is a recipe for disaster.
Yet standard green prescriptions are not much better. Many renewables are not as efficient or as eco-friendly as they are made out to be. Unsightly and inefficient wind farms will not enable us to give up fossil fuels, while large-scale hydroelectric power has major environmental costs. Moving over to organic methods of food production can have significant benefits in terms of animal welfare and reducing fuel costs, but it does nothing to stop the devastation of wilderness that goes with expanding farming to feed a swelling human population.
So conventional green nostrums are not all that different from Bush's business-as-usual policies. In each case, the end-result can only be a planet gutted of biodiversity, with humanity exposed to an increasingly hostile environment. To some extent, technology may be able to replace the biosphere that has been destroyed, but, like an obese patient hooked up to an artificial life-support system, we will be living on borrowed time. One day, the machine will stop.
The uncomfortable fact, which is ignored or denied by both ends of the environmental debate, is that an energy-intensive lifestyle of the kind enjoyed in the rich parts of the world cannot be extended to a human population of nine or 10 billion, the level forecast in UN studies for the middle of this century. In terms of resources, human numbers are already unsustainable. Global warming is the flipside of worldwide industrialisation, a side-effect of the dash for growth, and the reserves of oil and natural gas on which industry depends are peaking at just the point when demand for them is rising fast.
Contrary to the greens, there is not the remotest prospect that the world will renounce the use of fossil fuels. Ask any competent energy economist and you will discover that no expansion of renewables can satisfy the demand for energy that is being generated in China and India. Anyway, does anyone really expect the countries getting rich from hydrocarbons - Russia, Iran, Venezuela and the Gulf States - to give them up? As long as there is enough demand, these countries will continue extracting fossil fuels.
The only way forward is to curb the need for fossil fuels, while at the same time, since there is no way of giving them up altogether, making them cleaner. This means making full use of technologies many environmentalists view with superstitious horror. Nuclear energy has well-known problems of security and waste disposal and it is nothing like a universal panacea. Even so, demonising it is conventional green thinking at its delusional worst. Though solar power has potential, no type of renewable energy can replace the dirty fuels of the industrial past.
If we reject the nuclear option, we will inevitably end up going back to coal. There are emerging technologies that can make coal cleaner. That is no reason for turning our back on nuclear, which is already virtually emission-free. A similar reasoning applies to GM crops. Genetic engineering involves a type of human intervention in natural processes whose risks are not yet fully known. But the practical alternative is to carry on with industrial-style agriculture, whose destructive impact is all too clear.
Any feasible remedy for the environmental crisis involves high-tech solutions. The aim should not be to master nature or turn it into a mere resource for humans to exploit, as Bush and the greens, in their different ways, end up doing. Given the legitimate aspirations of people in developing countries, only a high-tech strategy has any chance of reducing the human footprint. But it will also be necessary to breach what has become the ultimate taboo and face up to the reality of population pressure.
Green activists, free-market economists and religious fundamentalists may not seem to have much in common, but they are all agreed there can be no such thing as overpopulation, or at any rate, nothing that can't be solved by better distribution, faster growth or a change in human values.
Actually, the perennially unpopular Rev Thomas Malthus was closer to the truth when, at the end of the 18th century, he argued that population growth would finally overtake food production. Industrial farming was supposed to make famine impossible. But it turns out to have been heavily dependent on cheap oil, and with farmland being lost as a result of the switch to biofuels, limits on food production are re-emerging. Far more than fantastical schemes for renewable energy, we need to ensure that contraception and abortion are freely available everywhere. A world of fewer people would be far better placed to deal with climate change than the heavily overpopulated one we are heading for now.
Despite unstoppable global warming, a humanly liveable world is still worth striving for. But it requires a sustained capacity for realistic thinking, which is not the strong point of the environmental movement. Along with the political classes, greens are in denial. While there is no technical fix for the human condition, intelligent use of technology is indispensable in coping with environmental disruption that is now unavoidable. It would be ironic if, because of their irrational hostility to high-tech solutions, the greens were to end up as much a threat to the environment as George W Bush.
Source
A Catholic cardinal who hates devout Catholics
A British cardinal, of course
It has been a busy Advent and Christmas season for the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. He has, in a space of a few months, outraged, shocked and disgusted a surprisingly broad cross section of his flock. Polish immigrants, noted for the vibrancy of their Catholic faith; Catholic pro-lifers who have held the line for decades in the fight with little help from the hierarchy; and Catholic traditionalists who have spent decades living in near-exile from their own Church, have felt the back of Cormac Cardinal Murphy O'Connor's hand recently.
He started the season early with his official rejection in November of Pope Benedict's document removing the power of bishops to block the celebration of the pre-Vatican II rite of the Mass, an issue that has broad connections to acceptance of Catholic doctrine in a variety of areas, including moral issues.
Traditionalist Catholics are almost universally pro-life and pro-family, whereas many of those who have actively fought against the re-instatement of the ancient liturgical practices have also consistently championed a "progressive" Catholicism that rejects the moral law, particularly in sexual morality.
By the end of December, a week after his Christmas homily in which he urged Britons to be more accepting of immigrants, Murphy O'Connor had blasted Polish immigrants who are pouring into Britain in search of work.
In a homily, the Cardinal who heads the Catholic Church of England and Wales, urged the Polish community to learn English and integrate into local parishes. He claimed the Catholic Church in the UK was in danger of dividing along ethnic lines. The comments shocked both the Polish Catholic community and Catholic observers who have seen the influx of devout Poles as a desperately needed boost to sagging attendance and the increasingly grim outlook for the future of the Catholic Church in this country.
With photos appearing in the Telegraph of Poles kneeling devoutly on the sidewalk to hear Mass broadcast outside an overcrowded church, it is perhaps unsurprising that Polish leaders responded to the Cardinal's comments saying they felt "violated" and "spiritually raped". The comments made many Catholic commentators wonder aloud just what kind of Catholic immigrant the Cardinal would prefer.
But Britain learned just before Christmas what kind of Catholic their Cardinal does think is suitable. His real coup de grace, and perhaps his largest insult to the most faithful Catholics in the country, came at his unconditional reception into the Church of the man SPUC head John Smeaton identified as the major "architect of the Culture of Death" in this country: Tony Blair.
Cardinal O'Connor received Blair in a "private" ceremony in the Cardinal's own residential chapel. Neither the Cardinal's office, nor Blair's offered any explanation or retraction of the former Prime Minister's long record of anti-Catholic and anti-life policies.
To add insult to injury, an unnamed "Church source" presumed to be close to the Cardinal's office, had even chastised critics in the Daily Mail for daring to question the Cardinal's Christmas-week generosity. The Mail's source said, "Whatever he previously believed or did is a matter for individual conscience."
But the pro-life community, particularly its Catholic contingent, are so wearied by the decades of flaccidity, compromising and temporising and outright irreligion of its religious leadership, it hardly bothered to give a collective sigh of disgust. Among the pro-life Catholics of my acquaintance, the response was largely a quick shake of the head and a sickened laugh. In Britain's Catholic Church this latest outrage from its leadership was nothing more than business as usual.
At the same time, the odd news that Catholic attendance at weekly church services had, for the first time since the Reformation, outstripped that of Anglicans brought forward headlines like "Britain has become a 'Catholic country'" from the Telegraph. But the notion brought only sour and grim amusement to many British Catholic bloggers who have faithfully chronicled the growth of secularist anti-Christian hostility in British society, heavily abetted by the BBC's virtual monopoly on broadcast media. Despite the wild suppositions in the mainstream media, those who have been keeping track know that the news reflected only the continuing general collapse of British religious adherence.
The truth is simply that the native British have abandoned Christianity. It is easy to see what has alarmed Cardinal Cormac. The Poles are, quite simply, making him, and the Church he leads, look bad.
The robust, generous and stalwart faith of these people, tested through generations of brutal Communist suppression, has given them an ability to see through the fog of nonsense that has emanated out of British chanceries since the 1960's. And the Cardinal knows it. It is clear that the divide between the faith of the Poles and the dreary, watery, and half-hearted British Catholicism, content to allow the last dregs of its faith and devotion slowly to evaporate, is greater than one of language.
It is evident that whatever the Catholic leadership of this country has been doing for the last four decades, it has not been a boon to British Catholic faith or practice. If Cormac Murphy O'Connor is aware of the condition of his Church, he has chosen an odd way of expressing his concern by chastising the new Polish faithful for their very faithfulness.
Maybe the Cardinal should try a different tack, and take his own advice and accept the contribution of these people.
Source
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Message from Viscount Monckton [monckton@mail.com]
Coraggio! My team are quietly working on the very large errors of exaggeration in the IPCC's calculations of climate sensitivity. Even if we can't get our paper published, if our conclusions are objectively true the climate will continue to fail to warm as fast as Hansen (1988) or IPCC (1990) had predicted.
Some excellent recent work by the indefatigable Roger Pielke Jr. has established that the IPCC has had to revise its predictions very sharply downward since 1990. It will have to continue to do so. The world will warm, but very gently, and the additional warmth will be largely beneficial.
Indeed, the only truly alarming prediction of the alarmists - that Greenland and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will imminently melt, causing sea level to rise by 20ft - is no longer predicted by the IPCC, which has revised downward its high-end forecast of sea-level rise, from 3ft to less than 2ft, with a best estimate of little more than 1ft, over the whole of the coming century: and, contrary to the daily feeble-minded headlines, the contribution of the two great ice-sheets to that rise will be of the order of two and a half inches over 100 years.
Otherwise, climate will continue to be variable, and every extreme-weather event will be blamed on "global warming", until the cost to taxpayers of the mitigative measures proposed so enthusiastically but so pointlessly by the tax-gobbling and rent-seeking classes so visibly outweighs any conceivable climatic benefit that the voters will no longer tolerate the nonsense.
It will rapidly become evident that, notwithstanding the measures proposed or even adopted in mitigation of "global warming", carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere will continue to rise relentlessly, and harmlessly.
Of course, the West will suffer strategic economic damage until the day when the truth dawns on the majority, and much of the climate hysteria is being driven by forces that have long been inimical to the freedom and democracy and sheer bustling success of the West: but, a la larga, as they say in the casino counting-rooms of Puerto Rico, it will all sort itself out.
Coraggio! My team are quietly working on the very large errors of exaggeration in the IPCC's calculations of climate sensitivity. Even if we can't get our paper published, if our conclusions are objectively true the climate will continue to fail to warm as fast as Hansen (1988) or IPCC (1990) had predicted.
Some excellent recent work by the indefatigable Roger Pielke Jr. has established that the IPCC has had to revise its predictions very sharply downward since 1990. It will have to continue to do so. The world will warm, but very gently, and the additional warmth will be largely beneficial.
Indeed, the only truly alarming prediction of the alarmists - that Greenland and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will imminently melt, causing sea level to rise by 20ft - is no longer predicted by the IPCC, which has revised downward its high-end forecast of sea-level rise, from 3ft to less than 2ft, with a best estimate of little more than 1ft, over the whole of the coming century: and, contrary to the daily feeble-minded headlines, the contribution of the two great ice-sheets to that rise will be of the order of two and a half inches over 100 years.
Otherwise, climate will continue to be variable, and every extreme-weather event will be blamed on "global warming", until the cost to taxpayers of the mitigative measures proposed so enthusiastically but so pointlessly by the tax-gobbling and rent-seeking classes so visibly outweighs any conceivable climatic benefit that the voters will no longer tolerate the nonsense.
It will rapidly become evident that, notwithstanding the measures proposed or even adopted in mitigation of "global warming", carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere will continue to rise relentlessly, and harmlessly.
Of course, the West will suffer strategic economic damage until the day when the truth dawns on the majority, and much of the climate hysteria is being driven by forces that have long been inimical to the freedom and democracy and sheer bustling success of the West: but, a la larga, as they say in the casino counting-rooms of Puerto Rico, it will all sort itself out.
Monday, January 21, 2008
NHS kills thousands -- increased funding no help
Over 17,000 deaths a year could be saved if NHS performance improved, a new study claims today. The Taxpayers' Alliance claims the 34 billion pounds of extra spending on the NHS by Labour has made no difference to mortality rates. Its claims are based on an analysis of World Health Organisation data, comparing NHS performance to its European counterparts since 1981. This took into account how many deaths could plausibly have been averted by the NHS - a measure known as mortality amenable to healthcare. The calculations compare the UK performance to that of Germany, France, the Netherlands and Spain.
The Taxpayers' Alliance says if the UK were to achieve the same level of mortality amenable to healthcare as the average of the other European countries studied, there would have been 17,157 fewer deaths in 2004. This is over five times the total number of deaths in road accidents.
The campaigning group argues its findings show the government's extra NHS spending has failed to deliver results. Report author Matthew Sinclair said: "Thousands are dying every year thanks to Britain's health service not delivering the standards people expect and receive in other European countries. "Billions of pounds have been thrown at the NHS but the additional spending has made no discernable difference to the long-term pattern of falling mortality. This is a colossal waste of lives and money. "We need to learn lessons from European countries with healthcare systems that don't suffer from political management, monopolistic provision and centralisation."
Source
How a superbug cost the NHS 5 million pounds
There is talk of a ski chalet in Verbier and they are drawing up plans to build a holiday home in Ibiza. A plot of land on the Mediterranean island has, it emerges, already been chosen. Leslie Ash and her husband Lee Chapman are certainly in a position to afford such luxuries now - even if they might not have been before.
Ever since the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital accepted liability - back in 2006 - for "shortcomings" in care that left Miss Ash, 47, battling a near-fatal superbug, the only question remaining was just how many "noughts" would be printed on her compensation cheque. The answer was finally made public on Wednesday: 5million. That's six "noughts", incidentally - and equal to the total of every payout made to every MRSA victim in Britain since 2002.
The award would pay for 250 specialist intensive care unit nurses for a year, or 70 consultants; or, indeed, any number of second homes in Switzerland or Spain, where the couple are thought to be about to buy land for their proposed new property. "We can then combine the peace and quiet over there, with the hustle and bustle of London," Miss Ash is quoted as saying.
Now, no one can begrudge former patients like Miss Ash, a mother of two teenage boys, and still best known for her role as Deborah in the 1990s sitcom Men Behaving Badly, some form of compensation, or her luxurious place in the sun. For a time she was left almost completely paralysed from the waist down. Offers of work dried up. Today, she cannot walk without a stick and is in considerable pain ("I'll always be in pain . . . my painkillers only take 50 per cent of it away," she has said.) ....
The deal signed by her lawyers is ten times the 500,000 pounds she was initially reported to have been awarded as a victim of a hospital superbug. Her injuries meant it was "unlikely she would ever be able to return to an active role as an actress", the writ stated. "The size of the payout is large because it takes into account her loss of earnings and future loss of earnings." Miss Ash has said holding the Health Service accountable - rather than making money - was the motivation behind her compensation claim. But we have learned that more than one offer to settle was made during the legal negotiations, including a substantial one in late November last year. Miss Ash insists she was at the "height of my career" when she became ill - hence the record damages. Even her most ardent fans might dispute this....
Source
Bungling BritGov again: "A laptop containing the details of 600,000 people has been stolen, Britain's Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced today, in another staggering loss of personal data in the UK. The MoD said the laptop, containing the details of potential recruits, was stolen from a Royal Navy officer in Birmingham, Britain's second city, on the night of January 9. The bank details of 3500 people were on the laptop's database. The MoD said nothing until now for fear of hampering an investigation were the theft to become public knowledge. It comes less than two months after the personal details of 25 million people, approaching half the British population, got lost in the post in a spectacular blunder by a junior official. "The stolen laptop contained personal information relating to some 600,000 people who have either expressed an interest in, or have joined, the Royal Navy, Royal Marines and the Royal Air Force," the MoD said in a statement. In some cases of casual enquiries, just the name was on record. However, for those who submitted applications to join the military, "extensive personal data" could be held. Such details could include passport and National Insurance numbers, driving licence details, family details, doctors' addresses and National Health Service numbers."
Over 17,000 deaths a year could be saved if NHS performance improved, a new study claims today. The Taxpayers' Alliance claims the 34 billion pounds of extra spending on the NHS by Labour has made no difference to mortality rates. Its claims are based on an analysis of World Health Organisation data, comparing NHS performance to its European counterparts since 1981. This took into account how many deaths could plausibly have been averted by the NHS - a measure known as mortality amenable to healthcare. The calculations compare the UK performance to that of Germany, France, the Netherlands and Spain.
The Taxpayers' Alliance says if the UK were to achieve the same level of mortality amenable to healthcare as the average of the other European countries studied, there would have been 17,157 fewer deaths in 2004. This is over five times the total number of deaths in road accidents.
The campaigning group argues its findings show the government's extra NHS spending has failed to deliver results. Report author Matthew Sinclair said: "Thousands are dying every year thanks to Britain's health service not delivering the standards people expect and receive in other European countries. "Billions of pounds have been thrown at the NHS but the additional spending has made no discernable difference to the long-term pattern of falling mortality. This is a colossal waste of lives and money. "We need to learn lessons from European countries with healthcare systems that don't suffer from political management, monopolistic provision and centralisation."
Source
How a superbug cost the NHS 5 million pounds
There is talk of a ski chalet in Verbier and they are drawing up plans to build a holiday home in Ibiza. A plot of land on the Mediterranean island has, it emerges, already been chosen. Leslie Ash and her husband Lee Chapman are certainly in a position to afford such luxuries now - even if they might not have been before.
Ever since the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital accepted liability - back in 2006 - for "shortcomings" in care that left Miss Ash, 47, battling a near-fatal superbug, the only question remaining was just how many "noughts" would be printed on her compensation cheque. The answer was finally made public on Wednesday: 5million. That's six "noughts", incidentally - and equal to the total of every payout made to every MRSA victim in Britain since 2002.
The award would pay for 250 specialist intensive care unit nurses for a year, or 70 consultants; or, indeed, any number of second homes in Switzerland or Spain, where the couple are thought to be about to buy land for their proposed new property. "We can then combine the peace and quiet over there, with the hustle and bustle of London," Miss Ash is quoted as saying.
Now, no one can begrudge former patients like Miss Ash, a mother of two teenage boys, and still best known for her role as Deborah in the 1990s sitcom Men Behaving Badly, some form of compensation, or her luxurious place in the sun. For a time she was left almost completely paralysed from the waist down. Offers of work dried up. Today, she cannot walk without a stick and is in considerable pain ("I'll always be in pain . . . my painkillers only take 50 per cent of it away," she has said.) ....
The deal signed by her lawyers is ten times the 500,000 pounds she was initially reported to have been awarded as a victim of a hospital superbug. Her injuries meant it was "unlikely she would ever be able to return to an active role as an actress", the writ stated. "The size of the payout is large because it takes into account her loss of earnings and future loss of earnings." Miss Ash has said holding the Health Service accountable - rather than making money - was the motivation behind her compensation claim. But we have learned that more than one offer to settle was made during the legal negotiations, including a substantial one in late November last year. Miss Ash insists she was at the "height of my career" when she became ill - hence the record damages. Even her most ardent fans might dispute this....
Source
Bungling BritGov again: "A laptop containing the details of 600,000 people has been stolen, Britain's Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced today, in another staggering loss of personal data in the UK. The MoD said the laptop, containing the details of potential recruits, was stolen from a Royal Navy officer in Birmingham, Britain's second city, on the night of January 9. The bank details of 3500 people were on the laptop's database. The MoD said nothing until now for fear of hampering an investigation were the theft to become public knowledge. It comes less than two months after the personal details of 25 million people, approaching half the British population, got lost in the post in a spectacular blunder by a junior official. "The stolen laptop contained personal information relating to some 600,000 people who have either expressed an interest in, or have joined, the Royal Navy, Royal Marines and the Royal Air Force," the MoD said in a statement. In some cases of casual enquiries, just the name was on record. However, for those who submitted applications to join the military, "extensive personal data" could be held. Such details could include passport and National Insurance numbers, driving licence details, family details, doctors' addresses and National Health Service numbers."
Sunday, January 20, 2008
British government renames Islamic terrorism as 'anti-Islamic activity'
Yes. You read that right:
She should read the Koran. Take the comment in Sura 4:89 about Non-Muslims:
"They long that ye should disbelieve even as they disbelieve, that ye may be upon a level (with them). So choose not friends from them till they forsake their homes in the way of Allah; if they turn back (to enmity) then take them and kill them wherever ye find them, and choose no friend nor helper from among them"
Even Hitler was not that blunt -- though he was just as genocidal in practice, of course.
The above passage is in my copy of the Koran and my copy was printed in India under the auspices of the Nizam of Hyderabad so I am pretty sure I have not been misled by a neocon plot.
Foolish academic elitism
There is more than an echo of that arch patrician, Lady Ludlow, in the scathing criticism being directed against the internet and its unlimited diet of free information. She it was, in the BBC's delectable serialisation of Mrs Gaskell's Cranford, who dismissed the notion that the lower classes should be given access to education. Teaching them to read, she said, would simply distract them from saying their prayers and serving the landed gentry.
Today it is the University of Google that stands accused of purveying the new socialism by offering equality of information to everyone. Modern students, say the critics, are being handed unlimited supplies of dubious facts from online sources such as Wikipedia, without the means of distinguishing between the good and the bad. Because they no longer have to sift through books and carry out their own research, the students' sense of curiosity has been blunted. The internet provides "white bread for the mind" and it is breeding a generation of dullards.
Let them read books, commands the impressively named Professor Tara Brabazon, of the University of Brighton where she is Professor of Media Studies. She says that she has banned her own students from using Wikipedia or Google as research sources, and insists they read printed texts only. In a lecture, she argues that only thus will we produce the critical thinkers that the nation needs.
I fear the professor is blaming the messenger rather than the message. It is not the uneven quality of facts found on the internet that is to blame for uninquiring minds, it is the way they have been taught to think - and the way their written work is marked.
I doubt if there is any difference between the undergraduates of my generation, who crammed for exams by creaming off selected quotes from recommended texts and then learning them by rote, and those of today who download convenient passages from Wikipedia. The difference lies in the use they make of the material. If they are encouraged to believe that predigested information is an end in itself, and if they are then given high marks for the result, they will simply conclude that that is the outcome that society requires of them.
If, on the other hand, they learn that they have a gateway to knowledge unprecedented in the history of man, and that this opens up access to sources of information that they might never have glimpsed as they struggled with poorly equipped libraries unhelpful staff and unimaginative lecturers, then they will realise that, far from blunting curiosity, it sharpens it.
Academics like Professor Brabazon reveal a Ludlow-like snobbery towards Wikipedia that is becoming ever harder to justify as the site itself improves. A year ago, the Encyclopaedia Britannica was outraged when the magazine Nature carried out a comparison between it and Wikipedia, and concluded that the service offered by the two were more or less on a par (Britannica had 2.9 minor errors per article, Wikipedia had 3.9).
The difference today is likely to be even less, because Wikipedia can correct itself so swiftly. That it is open to outside contributors of uncertain quality is part of its nature. But precisely because of this, there are thousands of eagle eyes ready to pounce on errors of fact or interpretation. Vandal editing - the deliberate distortion of facts by people known in the trade as "sockpuppets" - is now routinely detected, and particularly vulnerable pages are protected from interference.
Of course, there is always the risk of inaccurate information. But is any dictionary, encyclopaedia or historical work immune from it? Should I trust Macaulay's error-littered, Whig-biased History of England simply because it is bound in leather and will take a trip to the library to find? Is the New Oxford Dictionary of National Biography to be relied on because it has 60 volumes and a worldwide reputation, or should I listen to the detractors who have found errors in its entries for Jane Austen, Florence Nightingale and George V? And is the Britannica quite as magisterial as its title suggests?
I did a quick test on my own, looking up Nancy Mitford (I'm a fan) and judging the results on time and accuracy. Wikipedia gave me four pages of almost 100 per cent accurate information (I rang her niece, Emma Tennant, who spotted one small error), together with 33 links to related characters and a 16-line bibliography suggesting further reading. I got the whole lot in ten seconds.
The Britannica required a 20-minute trip to my nearest library. It gave me 350 words and a bibliography with one entry (Harold Acton's memoir). The online version offered the chance of signing up to a 30-day free trial, but still required my credit card details, replete with reassurances about taking my privacy "very seriously" - always a worrying sign. The DNB provided by far the best and fullest entry (but so it should). However, a month's subscription costs 29.35 pounds, and a year will set you back 195 pounds plus VAT. [sales tax]
What Professor Brabazon and cohorts of internet critics appear to be advocating is that those who require reliable information - the academic term is "peer-reviewed" - should be made either to work for it, or to pay for it. Curiosity, it seems, can only be stimulated by trawling library shelves or by shelling out substantial amounts of money.
The rest of us must fall back on the poor man's legacy, the internet, where we will encounter trivia, inaccuracy and lazy opinions lazily received. It's a useful caricature, of course, for those whose business it is to maintain a two-tiered society. But it suggests that not much has changed since the Church railed against men like Wycliffe and Tyndale who had the temerity to translate the Bible from Latin into English and thus allow it to be read by the great unwashed.
Source
British mathematics education dumbed down
An advanced form of the maths A-level should be introduced to attract the prodigies who are not stretched by the current qualifications, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority said yesterday. Some 60% of teachers they questioned for their latest report on A-level maths said the qualifications had got easier since reforms in 2004. Teachers said pupils were increasingly re-taking units to improve their marks and that there was a wide perception that some options were easier than others. The report says: "Most teachers also felt that the two optional units do not provide sufficient 'stretch' for the most able students."
It concludes that the options for the QCA were to accept that only a small clever core of students should do maths, or that the A-level should be separated from the further maths A-level which should stretch the most able. A spokesman said they would be investigating how to improve the further A-level. The current A-level was introduced in 2004 in response to a crisis in recruitment after earlier reforms in 2000 prompted a decline. Since 2004 the number of candidates has increased by around 14%.
Ken Boston, chief executive of the QCA, said that maths A-level was among the most challenging to design because of the range of ability among pupils. "There is a far greater range of achievement in mathematics (and the related discipline of physics) among young people than any in other subject in the curriculum, except perhaps music. While there are some 14 year olds still struggling with basic arithmetic, there are some young people who are pushing at the frontiers of advanced mathematics, and destined for brilliant careers. And in the broad span between the two, there is an extraordinary range of differentiated performance. Mathematics is a nationally important priority."
The schools minister Jim Knight said the new A-levels being piloted would better reflect academic excellent through the new A* grade. "Let's be clear. A-level maths is not easy. It is a rigorous and challenging qualification. "Changes made to the curriculum in 2004 made it more accessible - for example by allowing combinations such as statistics and mechanics, while retaining core mathematical content and protecting intellectual rigour. "These changes also overcame problems with the transition from GCSE without reducing the level of difficulty, and were made after extensive consultation with the mathematics community.
"Right now, plans are in place to stretch the brightest candidates even further. The new A-level, which is being piloted, will stretch the most able candidates with more open ended, less structured questions and the A* grade will ensure that exceptional attainment is recognised and students are better prepared than ever before to study maths at university."
Source
British Left attacking the role of fathers
Doesn't a child need a father? Since in vitro fertilisation was first regulated in 1990 doctors have been required to consider the welfare of the baby, including "the need of that child for a father". This is one of the few ethical principles in IVF law and has served as a reminder that the welfare of the child is more important than the wishes of the would-be parents.
But no longer, it seems. The Government is seeking, in a new Bill in the House of Lords, to delete that obligation. Instead, IVF providers will have to consider "the need for supportive parenting", a change that is both unacceptable and inappropriate. The phrase "supportive parenting" will mean little to the public. Because it is speculative it will be difficult for practitioners to interpret, and it adds nothing of substance to the existing requirement to have regard to the welfare of the child. There is no reason to change the current approach, which works well.
A substantial amount of research has demonstrated that fathers make a distinctive contribution to child rearing, without which children are generally the poorer. If we believe that the welfare of children is important, it would be irresponsible to allow the law to move backwards and lose explicit reference to fathers.
The need to have regard to the role of fathers is not discriminatory. It has not and does not prevent same-sex couples from receiving IVF - the numbers of lesbian couples having such treatment is increasing. It simply asks those assessing IVF patients to consider the need of a child for a father, an eminently sensible provision that sends out a vital signal about the centrality of fathers.
This is an important principle of non-discrimination. It upholds equality of parenting and equal respect for both sexes in their roles. We all want to see women fulfilling their wish to become mothers, but one cannot overlook the contribution made by half the human race to the upbringing of the next generation.
At a time when many argue that Britain is suffering from a crisis of fatherlessness, this proposed change conflicts with the efforts being made to remedy the situation. The Government is encouraging paternity leave, compels fathers to pay maintenance, has ended the anonymity of sperm donors and wants them to register their names on birth certificates.
Britain has been successful in the field of advanced reproductive technology because the regulations governing it have kept the confidence of the public. That confidence will be jeopardised if this principle, which the great majority regard as important, is abandoned.
Source
WHEN THE DATA ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH
A published email to Benny Peiser from David Whitehouse [david@davidwhitehouse.com]:
My scientific training taught me to elevate data above all else. Whatever you might want the universe to do or to fit in with a cherished theory it is the data that tells you what the universe actually does. Huxley said, tongue in cheek, that it was the great tragedy of science that a beautiful hypothesis can be slain by an ugly fact. Data trumps everything...or does it?
Recently, I wrote an article pointing out that the global average temperature for the past 7 years was statistically flat - that is no analysis of that data could say anything about it other than it was a flat line. I didn't think it was particularly controversial as I was merely stating what the data produced by the US National Climatic Data Center and the UK's Met Office was saying. I wondered why the CO2 levels have gone up and the temperature had not. I discounted aerosols reflecting sunlight as there has been no big volcanic eruptions in over a decade and the IPCC says that the atmosphere's aerosol load has declined, and doubted that decadal oceanic variations could do the trick either. You can read the article here.
The article received a record 700 comments, mostly supportive. Several interesting points emerged (aside from the obvious fact that many who comment on such articles haven't actually read them) that might be of interest to readers. There are those who say the data does not exist and that I am lying! More puzzling are those who say that the data shows nothing of interest and that it is statistically irrelevant.
Underneath this assertion is something very interesting. There is a vociferous body of opinion that says the data does not show the world hasn't warmed and that in reality the upward temperature gradient of the years 1980 -1998 is still being maintained -- it's just that the data does not show it! Some go on to say that in a 27 year temperature time series one would expect 7 flat years given the signal to noise ratio of the data.
To my mind this is seeing what you want to see and the maxim should be that the data shows what the data shows - if it shows the last 7 years is flat then that's what mother nature says and no amount of arguing or statistical analysis is going to say it isn't so. It seems to me these people deny the data to suit their own perspective.
However, could we expect a 7 year standstill just by sampling errors alone even though the rising trend is still upward? It's possible though highly unlikely, it is surely far more likely that the flat data represents flat data! Surely the important question here is: what would the data look like if the temperature has stopped rising? The answer is, of course, it would look exactly like what it does now. We should let Occam decide which explanation to choose.
Then there is the argument that 7 years is too short a timescale to prove anything. In a sense they are right, we do not know if the 7 flat years will continue or if the temperature will start to rise or fall afterwards. But many twist that question and use it to dismiss the 7 years of measured flat data as meaningless. This is not valid. The 7 years remains what it is - 7 years of measured flat data and it is not an insignificant fraction of the 18 years of warming we saw between 1980 - 1998. What's more, the data set is not yet complete. It seems to me that many are judging those 7 flat years by different standards from that which they judge the 1980-1998 warming period and that is obviously unjustified.
The response to my article is here. It commits many of the sins I mention and more -- and even says my article will go down as the most controversial ever in that I claim that global warming has 'stopped.' It even denies that the period 2001-2007 has been measured as statistically flat and claims I made the elementary error of confusing long term average with year on year variability (seems that 18 years is a long term climatic effect but ten years is a year on year variability!)
It says that although CO2 levels are rising year on year no one claimed that the temperature would do otherwise! Average things out and the trend is hotter. (no one denies that this decade is hotter than previous ones so that is no response to my points). It cites as conclusive evidence a graph posted on the RealClimate website that uses trend lines covering the recent post 1980 spell to prove that no recent standstill exists. The News Statesman response then makes some dodgy comments about the way science progresses.
The RealClimate graph is designed to prove what it wants to prove in that the statistical analysis chosen dilutes a 7 year flat spell at the end of a data series. It also includes no error bars on the annual temperature measurements and if it did the graph would tell a very different story and the trend lines would have a much greater degree of variation.
The New Statesman reply says that similar 7 year standstills have occurred in the past so the current one is nothing special but it fails to add that those periods were statistically far more variable than the current 7 year standstill and that they were blips in an upward trend caused by El Chichon and Mt Pinatubo. There has been no similar event for the recent 7 years! All things considered the New Statesman reply to my article fails to make any counter case when you look at the facts in detail and not in a shallow way with the eye of faith.
Finally, there is another aspect to the debate that worried me far more than an environmental 'activist' getting the science wrong. It is one of double standards and it has become rather predictable. Provide any criticism, even mild or supportive, or even suggest that we might be wrong and that we don't know everything and one's integrity is attacked. I am accused of intentionally or otherwise of misleading the public and you will note the association made in the New Statesman reply between myself and those who posted comments who might have been paid to take a contrary position.
This idea that big energy companies are fuelling all so-called dissent has become a cliche, and is often used reprehensibly by those who cannot respond scientifically to argument. One recent book about the catastrophe that is global warming even had a lengthy section about the tobacco industry denying lung cancer so as to set a parallel with the 'climate change deniers' camp.
On a recent TV debate that Benny Peiser and I took part in a representative from a well know environmental pressure group, who was obviously stressed and irritated by our comments, demanded that the question master make us swear we weren't being funded by the oil lobby. Benny and I said we weren't but thinking about it I should have demanded an apology for that slur before I decided whether to answer or not.
We have reached a sad stage when such things happen. We should ensure that such debates are even handed and that both sides of any argument declare their vested interests, if any. Surely these big, campaigning groups have a stronger vested interest in global warming than most?
Finally this, another well known saying: "Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing."
Source
Kids hate clowns, research shows
BAD news for Coco and Blinko – British children don't like clowns and even older kids are scared of them. The news that will no doubt have clowns shedding tears was revealed in a poll of youngsters by researchers from the University of Sheffield who examined how to improve the decor of children's wards in hospitals.
The study, reported in the Nursing Standard magazine, found all of the 250 patients aged between four and 16 they quizzed disliked the use of clowns, with even the older ones finding them scary. "As adults we make assumptions about what works for children," said Penny Curtis, a senior lecturer in research at the university. "We found that clowns are universally disliked by children. Some found them quite frightening and unknowable."
Source
UK government toughening up? "Gordon Brown has brushed aside a chorus of protest to press ahead with plans to allow terror suspects to be locked up without charge for up to 42 days, leaked documents obtained by The Independent show. The Prime Minister's refusal to compromise leaves the Home Secretary facing a desperate struggle to avert Mr Brown's first Commons defeat. Up to 40 Labour MPs have vowed to oppose any extension of the current 28-day limit, already the longest in the Western world."
Yes. You read that right:
"Ministers have adopted a new language for declarations on Islamic terrorism. In future, fanatics will be referred to as pursuing "anti-Islamic activity". Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said that extremists were behaving contrary to their faith, rather than acting in the name of Islam.
Security officials believe that directly linking terrorism to Islam is inflammatory, and risks alienating mainstream Muslim opinion. In her first major speech on radicalisation, Miss Smith repeatedly used the phrase "anti-Islamic".
Source
She should read the Koran. Take the comment in Sura 4:89 about Non-Muslims:
"They long that ye should disbelieve even as they disbelieve, that ye may be upon a level (with them). So choose not friends from them till they forsake their homes in the way of Allah; if they turn back (to enmity) then take them and kill them wherever ye find them, and choose no friend nor helper from among them"
Even Hitler was not that blunt -- though he was just as genocidal in practice, of course.
The above passage is in my copy of the Koran and my copy was printed in India under the auspices of the Nizam of Hyderabad so I am pretty sure I have not been misled by a neocon plot.
Foolish academic elitism
There is more than an echo of that arch patrician, Lady Ludlow, in the scathing criticism being directed against the internet and its unlimited diet of free information. She it was, in the BBC's delectable serialisation of Mrs Gaskell's Cranford, who dismissed the notion that the lower classes should be given access to education. Teaching them to read, she said, would simply distract them from saying their prayers and serving the landed gentry.
Today it is the University of Google that stands accused of purveying the new socialism by offering equality of information to everyone. Modern students, say the critics, are being handed unlimited supplies of dubious facts from online sources such as Wikipedia, without the means of distinguishing between the good and the bad. Because they no longer have to sift through books and carry out their own research, the students' sense of curiosity has been blunted. The internet provides "white bread for the mind" and it is breeding a generation of dullards.
Let them read books, commands the impressively named Professor Tara Brabazon, of the University of Brighton where she is Professor of Media Studies. She says that she has banned her own students from using Wikipedia or Google as research sources, and insists they read printed texts only. In a lecture, she argues that only thus will we produce the critical thinkers that the nation needs.
I fear the professor is blaming the messenger rather than the message. It is not the uneven quality of facts found on the internet that is to blame for uninquiring minds, it is the way they have been taught to think - and the way their written work is marked.
I doubt if there is any difference between the undergraduates of my generation, who crammed for exams by creaming off selected quotes from recommended texts and then learning them by rote, and those of today who download convenient passages from Wikipedia. The difference lies in the use they make of the material. If they are encouraged to believe that predigested information is an end in itself, and if they are then given high marks for the result, they will simply conclude that that is the outcome that society requires of them.
If, on the other hand, they learn that they have a gateway to knowledge unprecedented in the history of man, and that this opens up access to sources of information that they might never have glimpsed as they struggled with poorly equipped libraries unhelpful staff and unimaginative lecturers, then they will realise that, far from blunting curiosity, it sharpens it.
Academics like Professor Brabazon reveal a Ludlow-like snobbery towards Wikipedia that is becoming ever harder to justify as the site itself improves. A year ago, the Encyclopaedia Britannica was outraged when the magazine Nature carried out a comparison between it and Wikipedia, and concluded that the service offered by the two were more or less on a par (Britannica had 2.9 minor errors per article, Wikipedia had 3.9).
The difference today is likely to be even less, because Wikipedia can correct itself so swiftly. That it is open to outside contributors of uncertain quality is part of its nature. But precisely because of this, there are thousands of eagle eyes ready to pounce on errors of fact or interpretation. Vandal editing - the deliberate distortion of facts by people known in the trade as "sockpuppets" - is now routinely detected, and particularly vulnerable pages are protected from interference.
Of course, there is always the risk of inaccurate information. But is any dictionary, encyclopaedia or historical work immune from it? Should I trust Macaulay's error-littered, Whig-biased History of England simply because it is bound in leather and will take a trip to the library to find? Is the New Oxford Dictionary of National Biography to be relied on because it has 60 volumes and a worldwide reputation, or should I listen to the detractors who have found errors in its entries for Jane Austen, Florence Nightingale and George V? And is the Britannica quite as magisterial as its title suggests?
I did a quick test on my own, looking up Nancy Mitford (I'm a fan) and judging the results on time and accuracy. Wikipedia gave me four pages of almost 100 per cent accurate information (I rang her niece, Emma Tennant, who spotted one small error), together with 33 links to related characters and a 16-line bibliography suggesting further reading. I got the whole lot in ten seconds.
The Britannica required a 20-minute trip to my nearest library. It gave me 350 words and a bibliography with one entry (Harold Acton's memoir). The online version offered the chance of signing up to a 30-day free trial, but still required my credit card details, replete with reassurances about taking my privacy "very seriously" - always a worrying sign. The DNB provided by far the best and fullest entry (but so it should). However, a month's subscription costs 29.35 pounds, and a year will set you back 195 pounds plus VAT. [sales tax]
What Professor Brabazon and cohorts of internet critics appear to be advocating is that those who require reliable information - the academic term is "peer-reviewed" - should be made either to work for it, or to pay for it. Curiosity, it seems, can only be stimulated by trawling library shelves or by shelling out substantial amounts of money.
The rest of us must fall back on the poor man's legacy, the internet, where we will encounter trivia, inaccuracy and lazy opinions lazily received. It's a useful caricature, of course, for those whose business it is to maintain a two-tiered society. But it suggests that not much has changed since the Church railed against men like Wycliffe and Tyndale who had the temerity to translate the Bible from Latin into English and thus allow it to be read by the great unwashed.
Source
British mathematics education dumbed down
An advanced form of the maths A-level should be introduced to attract the prodigies who are not stretched by the current qualifications, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority said yesterday. Some 60% of teachers they questioned for their latest report on A-level maths said the qualifications had got easier since reforms in 2004. Teachers said pupils were increasingly re-taking units to improve their marks and that there was a wide perception that some options were easier than others. The report says: "Most teachers also felt that the two optional units do not provide sufficient 'stretch' for the most able students."
It concludes that the options for the QCA were to accept that only a small clever core of students should do maths, or that the A-level should be separated from the further maths A-level which should stretch the most able. A spokesman said they would be investigating how to improve the further A-level. The current A-level was introduced in 2004 in response to a crisis in recruitment after earlier reforms in 2000 prompted a decline. Since 2004 the number of candidates has increased by around 14%.
Ken Boston, chief executive of the QCA, said that maths A-level was among the most challenging to design because of the range of ability among pupils. "There is a far greater range of achievement in mathematics (and the related discipline of physics) among young people than any in other subject in the curriculum, except perhaps music. While there are some 14 year olds still struggling with basic arithmetic, there are some young people who are pushing at the frontiers of advanced mathematics, and destined for brilliant careers. And in the broad span between the two, there is an extraordinary range of differentiated performance. Mathematics is a nationally important priority."
The schools minister Jim Knight said the new A-levels being piloted would better reflect academic excellent through the new A* grade. "Let's be clear. A-level maths is not easy. It is a rigorous and challenging qualification. "Changes made to the curriculum in 2004 made it more accessible - for example by allowing combinations such as statistics and mechanics, while retaining core mathematical content and protecting intellectual rigour. "These changes also overcame problems with the transition from GCSE without reducing the level of difficulty, and were made after extensive consultation with the mathematics community.
"Right now, plans are in place to stretch the brightest candidates even further. The new A-level, which is being piloted, will stretch the most able candidates with more open ended, less structured questions and the A* grade will ensure that exceptional attainment is recognised and students are better prepared than ever before to study maths at university."
Source
British Left attacking the role of fathers
Doesn't a child need a father? Since in vitro fertilisation was first regulated in 1990 doctors have been required to consider the welfare of the baby, including "the need of that child for a father". This is one of the few ethical principles in IVF law and has served as a reminder that the welfare of the child is more important than the wishes of the would-be parents.
But no longer, it seems. The Government is seeking, in a new Bill in the House of Lords, to delete that obligation. Instead, IVF providers will have to consider "the need for supportive parenting", a change that is both unacceptable and inappropriate. The phrase "supportive parenting" will mean little to the public. Because it is speculative it will be difficult for practitioners to interpret, and it adds nothing of substance to the existing requirement to have regard to the welfare of the child. There is no reason to change the current approach, which works well.
A substantial amount of research has demonstrated that fathers make a distinctive contribution to child rearing, without which children are generally the poorer. If we believe that the welfare of children is important, it would be irresponsible to allow the law to move backwards and lose explicit reference to fathers.
The need to have regard to the role of fathers is not discriminatory. It has not and does not prevent same-sex couples from receiving IVF - the numbers of lesbian couples having such treatment is increasing. It simply asks those assessing IVF patients to consider the need of a child for a father, an eminently sensible provision that sends out a vital signal about the centrality of fathers.
This is an important principle of non-discrimination. It upholds equality of parenting and equal respect for both sexes in their roles. We all want to see women fulfilling their wish to become mothers, but one cannot overlook the contribution made by half the human race to the upbringing of the next generation.
At a time when many argue that Britain is suffering from a crisis of fatherlessness, this proposed change conflicts with the efforts being made to remedy the situation. The Government is encouraging paternity leave, compels fathers to pay maintenance, has ended the anonymity of sperm donors and wants them to register their names on birth certificates.
Britain has been successful in the field of advanced reproductive technology because the regulations governing it have kept the confidence of the public. That confidence will be jeopardised if this principle, which the great majority regard as important, is abandoned.
Source
WHEN THE DATA ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH
A published email to Benny Peiser from David Whitehouse [david@davidwhitehouse.com]:
My scientific training taught me to elevate data above all else. Whatever you might want the universe to do or to fit in with a cherished theory it is the data that tells you what the universe actually does. Huxley said, tongue in cheek, that it was the great tragedy of science that a beautiful hypothesis can be slain by an ugly fact. Data trumps everything...or does it?
Recently, I wrote an article pointing out that the global average temperature for the past 7 years was statistically flat - that is no analysis of that data could say anything about it other than it was a flat line. I didn't think it was particularly controversial as I was merely stating what the data produced by the US National Climatic Data Center and the UK's Met Office was saying. I wondered why the CO2 levels have gone up and the temperature had not. I discounted aerosols reflecting sunlight as there has been no big volcanic eruptions in over a decade and the IPCC says that the atmosphere's aerosol load has declined, and doubted that decadal oceanic variations could do the trick either. You can read the article here.
The article received a record 700 comments, mostly supportive. Several interesting points emerged (aside from the obvious fact that many who comment on such articles haven't actually read them) that might be of interest to readers. There are those who say the data does not exist and that I am lying! More puzzling are those who say that the data shows nothing of interest and that it is statistically irrelevant.
Underneath this assertion is something very interesting. There is a vociferous body of opinion that says the data does not show the world hasn't warmed and that in reality the upward temperature gradient of the years 1980 -1998 is still being maintained -- it's just that the data does not show it! Some go on to say that in a 27 year temperature time series one would expect 7 flat years given the signal to noise ratio of the data.
To my mind this is seeing what you want to see and the maxim should be that the data shows what the data shows - if it shows the last 7 years is flat then that's what mother nature says and no amount of arguing or statistical analysis is going to say it isn't so. It seems to me these people deny the data to suit their own perspective.
However, could we expect a 7 year standstill just by sampling errors alone even though the rising trend is still upward? It's possible though highly unlikely, it is surely far more likely that the flat data represents flat data! Surely the important question here is: what would the data look like if the temperature has stopped rising? The answer is, of course, it would look exactly like what it does now. We should let Occam decide which explanation to choose.
Then there is the argument that 7 years is too short a timescale to prove anything. In a sense they are right, we do not know if the 7 flat years will continue or if the temperature will start to rise or fall afterwards. But many twist that question and use it to dismiss the 7 years of measured flat data as meaningless. This is not valid. The 7 years remains what it is - 7 years of measured flat data and it is not an insignificant fraction of the 18 years of warming we saw between 1980 - 1998. What's more, the data set is not yet complete. It seems to me that many are judging those 7 flat years by different standards from that which they judge the 1980-1998 warming period and that is obviously unjustified.
The response to my article is here. It commits many of the sins I mention and more -- and even says my article will go down as the most controversial ever in that I claim that global warming has 'stopped.' It even denies that the period 2001-2007 has been measured as statistically flat and claims I made the elementary error of confusing long term average with year on year variability (seems that 18 years is a long term climatic effect but ten years is a year on year variability!)
It says that although CO2 levels are rising year on year no one claimed that the temperature would do otherwise! Average things out and the trend is hotter. (no one denies that this decade is hotter than previous ones so that is no response to my points). It cites as conclusive evidence a graph posted on the RealClimate website that uses trend lines covering the recent post 1980 spell to prove that no recent standstill exists. The News Statesman response then makes some dodgy comments about the way science progresses.
The RealClimate graph is designed to prove what it wants to prove in that the statistical analysis chosen dilutes a 7 year flat spell at the end of a data series. It also includes no error bars on the annual temperature measurements and if it did the graph would tell a very different story and the trend lines would have a much greater degree of variation.
The New Statesman reply says that similar 7 year standstills have occurred in the past so the current one is nothing special but it fails to add that those periods were statistically far more variable than the current 7 year standstill and that they were blips in an upward trend caused by El Chichon and Mt Pinatubo. There has been no similar event for the recent 7 years! All things considered the New Statesman reply to my article fails to make any counter case when you look at the facts in detail and not in a shallow way with the eye of faith.
Finally, there is another aspect to the debate that worried me far more than an environmental 'activist' getting the science wrong. It is one of double standards and it has become rather predictable. Provide any criticism, even mild or supportive, or even suggest that we might be wrong and that we don't know everything and one's integrity is attacked. I am accused of intentionally or otherwise of misleading the public and you will note the association made in the New Statesman reply between myself and those who posted comments who might have been paid to take a contrary position.
This idea that big energy companies are fuelling all so-called dissent has become a cliche, and is often used reprehensibly by those who cannot respond scientifically to argument. One recent book about the catastrophe that is global warming even had a lengthy section about the tobacco industry denying lung cancer so as to set a parallel with the 'climate change deniers' camp.
On a recent TV debate that Benny Peiser and I took part in a representative from a well know environmental pressure group, who was obviously stressed and irritated by our comments, demanded that the question master make us swear we weren't being funded by the oil lobby. Benny and I said we weren't but thinking about it I should have demanded an apology for that slur before I decided whether to answer or not.
We have reached a sad stage when such things happen. We should ensure that such debates are even handed and that both sides of any argument declare their vested interests, if any. Surely these big, campaigning groups have a stronger vested interest in global warming than most?
Finally this, another well known saying: "Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing."
Source
Kids hate clowns, research shows
BAD news for Coco and Blinko – British children don't like clowns and even older kids are scared of them. The news that will no doubt have clowns shedding tears was revealed in a poll of youngsters by researchers from the University of Sheffield who examined how to improve the decor of children's wards in hospitals.
The study, reported in the Nursing Standard magazine, found all of the 250 patients aged between four and 16 they quizzed disliked the use of clowns, with even the older ones finding them scary. "As adults we make assumptions about what works for children," said Penny Curtis, a senior lecturer in research at the university. "We found that clowns are universally disliked by children. Some found them quite frightening and unknowable."
Source
UK government toughening up? "Gordon Brown has brushed aside a chorus of protest to press ahead with plans to allow terror suspects to be locked up without charge for up to 42 days, leaked documents obtained by The Independent show. The Prime Minister's refusal to compromise leaves the Home Secretary facing a desperate struggle to avert Mr Brown's first Commons defeat. Up to 40 Labour MPs have vowed to oppose any extension of the current 28-day limit, already the longest in the Western world."
Saturday, January 19, 2008
The brutality of "Multicultural" Britain again
In a north London suburb last week, a schoolgirl was beaten, gang-raped and then had drain-cleaning fluid poured on her body apparently to destroy DNA evidence. In the eternal cesspit of senseless urban crime, I feel that a dreadful nadir of sorts has been reached, a benchmark of slaked lust and casual, sadistic cruelty. Police sources say the 16-year-old will never fully recover from the injuries caused by the caustic soda and, at the time of writing, she remains under heavy sedation in a burns unit, fighting for her life.
One could weep an ocean for this young woman, her life ruined by these savages, who hunted in a pack like animals and dragged her to an empty house, caring nothing for her wellbeing or future. Drain cleaner? The callous premeditation is shocking, and underlines the fact that some of the rootless delinquents who roam the London streets are now scraping the bottom of the barrel of humanity. I'm almost embarrassed to say that the attackers have been described as "five black youths", in case you think I'm being racist in highlighting this crime.
Yes, these are the peculiar times we live in, particularly in a week when Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has pointed out that "white flight is accelerating" as Britain becomes increasingly polarised along ethnic lines.
Following the controversy started by the Bishop of Rochester, who said that some Muslim enclaves were "no-go areas" for Christians, it all seems to suggest a country that is becoming increasingly fragmented; a patchwork of rigidly delineated little pockets of race and religion, knots of unyielding humanity who just can't rub along with each other.
This is not a Britain many of us would care to recognise, or even want to live in, although it is true that certain sectors of the middle class are fleeing from inner London like pashmina-wrapped lemmings, desperate to escape the creeping spread of urban decay. Last year, nearly a quarter of a million decent, law-abiding citizens packed their bags and left the capital for good, seeking what they hope will be a better life elsewhere. They moved to outer boroughs, other city suburbs, rural areas, abroad, the back end of beyond, anywhere but here.
While their fairytale, roses-around-the-door belief in the safety of the countryside and the romantic ideal of a thatched cottage for two is touching, it does point to an underlying urban unease. I would rather take my chances in the city than the country, but one can hardly blame them for wanting to move.
Elsewhere in London this week, a medical student was stabbed to death in a row over an orange in a Brixton fruit shop. A pupil who was expelled for allegedly having a knife took his school to the High Court. And about the time most of us were sitting down to dinner, watching The Bill on television or putting the children to bed, a teenage girl underwent an unimaginable ordeal in an ordinary suburban street.
What is going to happen to those of us left to live here if youths across the city continue to feel quite comfortable and confident in running amok? That's before you even factor in the older, more professional criminal gangs from more than 25 countries, who operate prosperous drug trafficking, people smuggling, prostitution, money laundering and fraud rackets on the capital's streets.
London is a welcoming city, where home-grown and particularly international criminal networks are flourishing nicely. Somewhere in the city, a great termite nest of law-breaking and corruption grows by the day, nourished by immigrants, some of them illegal, from Algeria, Nigeria, Jamaica and Pakistan, among others.
Is it racist to point that out, too? I don't know any more. All I know is that London has room to absorb them all, particularly as so many of its citizens have recently left in a hurry. And while cosy family evenings by the fire remain one of the few benefits of a wet British winter, how alarming that fewer and fewer people feel safe doing this inside their own homes.
Source
Leftists trying to destroy Britain's remaining good schools
They have given up on improving bad schools because they know from experience that it cannot be done. So they want to destroy the good schools by busing in the problem children that any sane parent would want to avoid. Fortunately, the government is not so far going along with that -- as it realizes how unpopular that would be
Middle-class parents obsessed with Ofsted reports and league tables are colonising the best primary schools, forcing poorer children into failing schools and ruining their chances in life, researchers claim. The Cambridge Primary Review – the biggest study of primary schools for decades – recommends that catchment areas should be scrapped because only wealthy parents can afford to buy houses next to the best primaries. Instead, oversubscribed schools would use a lottery system.
The research, by Stephen Machin and Sandra McNally, from the University of London, found that admissions procedures exacerbated inequalities. Their report said: “Some aspects of primary education are geared in favour of helping higher income groups. Current admissions policies favour parents who not only know how to use published information about school standards such as Ofsted inspections and performance tables but can also afford to choose exactly where to live. “Prohibiting schools from discriminating on the basis of residence would do much to level the playing field in terms of educational opportunities. It would reduce the large inequalities that appear later in terms of wages and intergenerational mobility.”
The report said that a person’s success in the labour market was influenced by his or her primary education. It said: “Differences in educational progress start very early, widen as children age and lead to substantial differences in later attainment levels.” Dr McNally told The Times that schools should be banned from choosing pupils according to where they live. “They could still give preferential treatment to siblings of pupils already at the school, but then there should be a lottery system,” she said. “That was adopted in the whole of Brighton & Hove as a fairer system. Quite how far children could be bussed to other schools would need to be worked out, but the local authority could organise some help with that. It’s a really vital area and an obvious way of making things fairer.” She admitted that scrapping catchment areas would upset a lot of people, “particularly those who had bought houses near schools”.
The report also criticised the market-based approach to education, backed by successive governments, which encourages competition between schools. “Choice and competition may exacerbate educational inequalities,” it said. “The inability to exercise choice can lead to educational segregation, with children from disadvantaged families having to make do with the schools that more advantaged parents do not want to send their children to. “Schools are not like businesses: they do not close down when they no longer make a profit.”
John Dunford, of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “There’s strong evidence that collaboration between schools raises standards, whereas excessive competition and market-based policies create polarisation, which makes the task of some schools particularly difficult.”
Another report for the review studied the history of primary education. It found that 100 years ago schools “played down intellectual aims and put more stress on practical activities, particularly those required by an industrious and unselfish workforce”.
Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, said: “Of course, all children should attend a good school and have the opportunity to secure the best jobs in later life, regardless of their background. That is precisely why we have introduced the new statutory School Admissions Code. Catchment areas must reflect the broader local community and must not exclude particular areas to penalise low income families. A ban would undermine the right of schools and councils to decide their own admissions policies – and there is no way parents will support this.”
Source
British cancer patients let down on fertility
Cancer patients are being denied access to NHS fertility treatment, leading specialists say today. In spite of a recommendation in 2004 that patients facing chemotherapy should be given universal access to sperm, egg and embryo storage, there is no consistency and no national policy on funding such techniques. Patients who are treated for cancer can become infertile, so storing sperm, eggs or embryos can be their only hope of becoming parents later.
A new report by experts from the Royal Colleges of Physicians, Radiologists, and Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, recommends that the NHS funds these services, including setting up research-based centres for egg and ovarian tissue storage. About 11,000 patients aged between 15 and 40 are diagnosed with cancer each year in the UK - 4 per cent of the total. A separate survey for the charity Cancerbackup highlighted the "postcode lottery" in accessing procedures.
In 2004 the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) said that cancer patients should be given universal access to sperm, egg and embryo storage. The Royal Colleges' working party found this was not happening. "There is currently no national policy for funding any of the techniques which aim to preserve fertility or treat the effects of gonadal damage, demand for which will always be very limited. "The working party strongly recommends that an agreed national policy and funded nationwide equity of access to resources be available."
The report says that sperm banking should be widely available and noted the success of embryo storage. The study also called for patients to be fully informed of the risks of treatment at the time of diagnosis.
Dr Michael Williams, Vice-President of the Royal College of Radiologists, said: "It is shocking that arguments over funding still limit patients' access to fertility-preserving treatments. Sperm freezing is well established, simple and effective."
The Cancerbackup survey of 84 out of 152 primary care trusts (PCTs) revealed that access to fertility services is patchy across England. The East of England was found to have the best provision, while PCTs in the South West failed to implement many of the Nice recommendations. About a third of men questioned by Cancerbackup said they had never been offered sperm storage. The survey also revealed that only half of the PCTs funded embryo storage.
Joanne Rule, the chief executive of Cancerbackup, said: "It is unacceptable that access to fertility services for cancer patients is dependent on where you live. Some PCTs are denying patients the option to preserve their fertility. All cancer patients should be informed of the potential impact of cancer treatment on their fertility before treatment starts."
A spokesman for the Department of Health said: "There are Nice guidance documents which recommend that cancer patients should have access to appropriate trained personnel at the time of diagnosis to discuss fertility issues. Implementation of Nice guidance is a standard which the NHS is expected to achieve over time."
Source
Scotland: Great-grandmother sues over MRSA
A great-grandmother who contracted the MRSA superbug in hospital is suing NHS Greater Glasgow for 30,000 pounds, in a move that could pave the way for hundreds of other sufferers to claim millions of pounds in damages. Legal arguments began yesterday at the Court of Session in Edinburgh, where a judge is to decide whether the case brought by Elizabeth Miller, 71, should proceed to a full hearing.
Mrs Miller, who was not in court, told The Times last night that her life had been devastated by weakness and breathlessness since she acquired the infection after a heart operation in the Royal Infirmary, Glasgow, in 2001. The case is believed to be the first of its kind in Britain. Mrs Miller, from Kilsyth, near Glasgow, had MRSA diagnosed nine days after an operation to replace her aortic valve. Her legal team blames the infection on staff not washing their hands, a lack of soap and paper towels and faulty sinks and taps at the hospital. They say that a nasal swab taken from their client proves that she did not have MRSA before her operation.
Source
Leukaemia hopes
Identical twin sisters have led British scientists to a breakthrough in leukaemia research that promises more effective therapies with fewer harmful side-effects. By comparing Olivia Murphy, 4, who is in remission from acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, and her healthy sister, Isabella, researchers have traced the tumour stem cells that drive the most common form of childhood cancer. The discovery will enable doctors to screen young leukaemia patients to establish the severity of their illness and spare some the harrowing side effects of aggressive chemotherapy.
Olivia, from Bromley, southeast London, is a prime example of how hazardous this can be: although her treatment has been successful, it left her unable to fight off a chicken pox infection that blinded her in one eye. Chemotherapy has such harsh effects on children with leukaemia that between 1 and 2 per cent die because of the drug regime, according to Philip Ancliff, the consultant who treated Olivia at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.
The stem-cell advance, from a team led by Tariq Enver, of the University of Oxford, and Mel Greaves, of the Institute of Cancer Research in London, will also open new approaches to treating the disease more effectively. It should allow the scientists to develop ways of targeting the stem cells that drive the blood cancer and cause relapses, so that patients can be cured. This form of the disease accounts for about 85 per cent of the 450 childhood leukaemias diagnosed in Britain each year.
The study, published in Science, could have further implications for the cancers that cause lung and colon tumours, as these are also thought to be propagated by rogue stem cells. Another application could be preventive treatment for children like Isabella who are known to be at high risk of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, whose “pre-leukaemic” cells could be killed before they cause any damage.
Professor Enver said: “This research means that we can now test whether the treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in children can be correlated with either the disappearance or persistence of the leukaemia stem cell. Our next goal is to target both the pre-leukaemic stem cell and the cancer stem cell itself with new or existing drugs to cure leukaemia while avoiding the debilitating and often harmful side effects of current treatments.”
Professor Greaves said: “This study of a twin pair discordant for leukaemia has identified the critical stem cells that initiate the disease and maintain it in a covert state for several years. We suspect that these cells can escape conventional chemotherapy and cause relapse during or after treatment. These are the cells that dictate disease course and provide the bullseye to target with new therapies.”
The twins have been crucial to the new research, as they are genetically identical but one has developed cancer whereas the other has not. The scientists found that the girls’ blood contains genetically abnormal cells known as pre-leukaemic cells. These were formed by a mutation known as translocation, in which two genes fuse to create an abnormal new one. This random event happened in a single cell in one of the twins — it is impossible to tell which one — while they were still in the womb. As the twins shared a placenta, the original mutant’s daughter cells populated the blood of both sisters.
Analysis of Isabella’s blood suggests that about one in 1,000 of her lymphocyte blood cells is preleukaemic. About 1 per cent of these pre-leukaemic cells are also stem cells that can start and sustain the cancer. As Isabella is still healthy, it is clear that the translocation cannot trigger leukaemia by itself. About one in 100 children has the translocation, but only one in 100 develops cancer. “The crucial question is in which cells does this start,” Professor Enver said. “What is the critical hit? Isabella gave us an opportunity almost to look back in time, to see which cells the cancer begins in.”
They did this by comparing the twins’ blood. In Olivia, but not in Isabella, some pre-leukaemic stem cells had acquired a second genetic mutation that turned them cancerous. This could have begun in a single cell, possibly because of an infection.
The discovery will help doctors to monitor Isabella, and children like her, so that further genetic damage in her pre-leukaemic stem cells is caught early. Her risk of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia is estimated at one in ten, compared with one in 10,000 among children with no family history. It will fall with every year that she remains healthy. By the time she is 14, her pre-leukaemic stem cells should have died naturally. “Pre-leukaemic cells are still evident, so the sword of Damocles is still hanging there,” Dr Ancliff said. “Hopefully, we will see them disappear.”
The study also identifies precisely the cancerous stem cells that propagate the cancer. This should enable doctors to adjust the strength of chemotherapy to match a child’s condition. As cancer stem cells can survive conventional chemotherapy, the research could also help scientists to design drugs that kill cancers.
Source
In a north London suburb last week, a schoolgirl was beaten, gang-raped and then had drain-cleaning fluid poured on her body apparently to destroy DNA evidence. In the eternal cesspit of senseless urban crime, I feel that a dreadful nadir of sorts has been reached, a benchmark of slaked lust and casual, sadistic cruelty. Police sources say the 16-year-old will never fully recover from the injuries caused by the caustic soda and, at the time of writing, she remains under heavy sedation in a burns unit, fighting for her life.
One could weep an ocean for this young woman, her life ruined by these savages, who hunted in a pack like animals and dragged her to an empty house, caring nothing for her wellbeing or future. Drain cleaner? The callous premeditation is shocking, and underlines the fact that some of the rootless delinquents who roam the London streets are now scraping the bottom of the barrel of humanity. I'm almost embarrassed to say that the attackers have been described as "five black youths", in case you think I'm being racist in highlighting this crime.
Yes, these are the peculiar times we live in, particularly in a week when Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has pointed out that "white flight is accelerating" as Britain becomes increasingly polarised along ethnic lines.
Following the controversy started by the Bishop of Rochester, who said that some Muslim enclaves were "no-go areas" for Christians, it all seems to suggest a country that is becoming increasingly fragmented; a patchwork of rigidly delineated little pockets of race and religion, knots of unyielding humanity who just can't rub along with each other.
This is not a Britain many of us would care to recognise, or even want to live in, although it is true that certain sectors of the middle class are fleeing from inner London like pashmina-wrapped lemmings, desperate to escape the creeping spread of urban decay. Last year, nearly a quarter of a million decent, law-abiding citizens packed their bags and left the capital for good, seeking what they hope will be a better life elsewhere. They moved to outer boroughs, other city suburbs, rural areas, abroad, the back end of beyond, anywhere but here.
While their fairytale, roses-around-the-door belief in the safety of the countryside and the romantic ideal of a thatched cottage for two is touching, it does point to an underlying urban unease. I would rather take my chances in the city than the country, but one can hardly blame them for wanting to move.
Elsewhere in London this week, a medical student was stabbed to death in a row over an orange in a Brixton fruit shop. A pupil who was expelled for allegedly having a knife took his school to the High Court. And about the time most of us were sitting down to dinner, watching The Bill on television or putting the children to bed, a teenage girl underwent an unimaginable ordeal in an ordinary suburban street.
What is going to happen to those of us left to live here if youths across the city continue to feel quite comfortable and confident in running amok? That's before you even factor in the older, more professional criminal gangs from more than 25 countries, who operate prosperous drug trafficking, people smuggling, prostitution, money laundering and fraud rackets on the capital's streets.
London is a welcoming city, where home-grown and particularly international criminal networks are flourishing nicely. Somewhere in the city, a great termite nest of law-breaking and corruption grows by the day, nourished by immigrants, some of them illegal, from Algeria, Nigeria, Jamaica and Pakistan, among others.
Is it racist to point that out, too? I don't know any more. All I know is that London has room to absorb them all, particularly as so many of its citizens have recently left in a hurry. And while cosy family evenings by the fire remain one of the few benefits of a wet British winter, how alarming that fewer and fewer people feel safe doing this inside their own homes.
Source
Leftists trying to destroy Britain's remaining good schools
They have given up on improving bad schools because they know from experience that it cannot be done. So they want to destroy the good schools by busing in the problem children that any sane parent would want to avoid. Fortunately, the government is not so far going along with that -- as it realizes how unpopular that would be
Middle-class parents obsessed with Ofsted reports and league tables are colonising the best primary schools, forcing poorer children into failing schools and ruining their chances in life, researchers claim. The Cambridge Primary Review – the biggest study of primary schools for decades – recommends that catchment areas should be scrapped because only wealthy parents can afford to buy houses next to the best primaries. Instead, oversubscribed schools would use a lottery system.
The research, by Stephen Machin and Sandra McNally, from the University of London, found that admissions procedures exacerbated inequalities. Their report said: “Some aspects of primary education are geared in favour of helping higher income groups. Current admissions policies favour parents who not only know how to use published information about school standards such as Ofsted inspections and performance tables but can also afford to choose exactly where to live. “Prohibiting schools from discriminating on the basis of residence would do much to level the playing field in terms of educational opportunities. It would reduce the large inequalities that appear later in terms of wages and intergenerational mobility.”
The report said that a person’s success in the labour market was influenced by his or her primary education. It said: “Differences in educational progress start very early, widen as children age and lead to substantial differences in later attainment levels.” Dr McNally told The Times that schools should be banned from choosing pupils according to where they live. “They could still give preferential treatment to siblings of pupils already at the school, but then there should be a lottery system,” she said. “That was adopted in the whole of Brighton & Hove as a fairer system. Quite how far children could be bussed to other schools would need to be worked out, but the local authority could organise some help with that. It’s a really vital area and an obvious way of making things fairer.” She admitted that scrapping catchment areas would upset a lot of people, “particularly those who had bought houses near schools”.
The report also criticised the market-based approach to education, backed by successive governments, which encourages competition between schools. “Choice and competition may exacerbate educational inequalities,” it said. “The inability to exercise choice can lead to educational segregation, with children from disadvantaged families having to make do with the schools that more advantaged parents do not want to send their children to. “Schools are not like businesses: they do not close down when they no longer make a profit.”
John Dunford, of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “There’s strong evidence that collaboration between schools raises standards, whereas excessive competition and market-based policies create polarisation, which makes the task of some schools particularly difficult.”
Another report for the review studied the history of primary education. It found that 100 years ago schools “played down intellectual aims and put more stress on practical activities, particularly those required by an industrious and unselfish workforce”.
Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, said: “Of course, all children should attend a good school and have the opportunity to secure the best jobs in later life, regardless of their background. That is precisely why we have introduced the new statutory School Admissions Code. Catchment areas must reflect the broader local community and must not exclude particular areas to penalise low income families. A ban would undermine the right of schools and councils to decide their own admissions policies – and there is no way parents will support this.”
Source
British cancer patients let down on fertility
Cancer patients are being denied access to NHS fertility treatment, leading specialists say today. In spite of a recommendation in 2004 that patients facing chemotherapy should be given universal access to sperm, egg and embryo storage, there is no consistency and no national policy on funding such techniques. Patients who are treated for cancer can become infertile, so storing sperm, eggs or embryos can be their only hope of becoming parents later.
A new report by experts from the Royal Colleges of Physicians, Radiologists, and Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, recommends that the NHS funds these services, including setting up research-based centres for egg and ovarian tissue storage. About 11,000 patients aged between 15 and 40 are diagnosed with cancer each year in the UK - 4 per cent of the total. A separate survey for the charity Cancerbackup highlighted the "postcode lottery" in accessing procedures.
In 2004 the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) said that cancer patients should be given universal access to sperm, egg and embryo storage. The Royal Colleges' working party found this was not happening. "There is currently no national policy for funding any of the techniques which aim to preserve fertility or treat the effects of gonadal damage, demand for which will always be very limited. "The working party strongly recommends that an agreed national policy and funded nationwide equity of access to resources be available."
The report says that sperm banking should be widely available and noted the success of embryo storage. The study also called for patients to be fully informed of the risks of treatment at the time of diagnosis.
Dr Michael Williams, Vice-President of the Royal College of Radiologists, said: "It is shocking that arguments over funding still limit patients' access to fertility-preserving treatments. Sperm freezing is well established, simple and effective."
The Cancerbackup survey of 84 out of 152 primary care trusts (PCTs) revealed that access to fertility services is patchy across England. The East of England was found to have the best provision, while PCTs in the South West failed to implement many of the Nice recommendations. About a third of men questioned by Cancerbackup said they had never been offered sperm storage. The survey also revealed that only half of the PCTs funded embryo storage.
Joanne Rule, the chief executive of Cancerbackup, said: "It is unacceptable that access to fertility services for cancer patients is dependent on where you live. Some PCTs are denying patients the option to preserve their fertility. All cancer patients should be informed of the potential impact of cancer treatment on their fertility before treatment starts."
A spokesman for the Department of Health said: "There are Nice guidance documents which recommend that cancer patients should have access to appropriate trained personnel at the time of diagnosis to discuss fertility issues. Implementation of Nice guidance is a standard which the NHS is expected to achieve over time."
Source
Scotland: Great-grandmother sues over MRSA
A great-grandmother who contracted the MRSA superbug in hospital is suing NHS Greater Glasgow for 30,000 pounds, in a move that could pave the way for hundreds of other sufferers to claim millions of pounds in damages. Legal arguments began yesterday at the Court of Session in Edinburgh, where a judge is to decide whether the case brought by Elizabeth Miller, 71, should proceed to a full hearing.
Mrs Miller, who was not in court, told The Times last night that her life had been devastated by weakness and breathlessness since she acquired the infection after a heart operation in the Royal Infirmary, Glasgow, in 2001. The case is believed to be the first of its kind in Britain. Mrs Miller, from Kilsyth, near Glasgow, had MRSA diagnosed nine days after an operation to replace her aortic valve. Her legal team blames the infection on staff not washing their hands, a lack of soap and paper towels and faulty sinks and taps at the hospital. They say that a nasal swab taken from their client proves that she did not have MRSA before her operation.
Source
Leukaemia hopes
Identical twin sisters have led British scientists to a breakthrough in leukaemia research that promises more effective therapies with fewer harmful side-effects. By comparing Olivia Murphy, 4, who is in remission from acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, and her healthy sister, Isabella, researchers have traced the tumour stem cells that drive the most common form of childhood cancer. The discovery will enable doctors to screen young leukaemia patients to establish the severity of their illness and spare some the harrowing side effects of aggressive chemotherapy.
Olivia, from Bromley, southeast London, is a prime example of how hazardous this can be: although her treatment has been successful, it left her unable to fight off a chicken pox infection that blinded her in one eye. Chemotherapy has such harsh effects on children with leukaemia that between 1 and 2 per cent die because of the drug regime, according to Philip Ancliff, the consultant who treated Olivia at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.
The stem-cell advance, from a team led by Tariq Enver, of the University of Oxford, and Mel Greaves, of the Institute of Cancer Research in London, will also open new approaches to treating the disease more effectively. It should allow the scientists to develop ways of targeting the stem cells that drive the blood cancer and cause relapses, so that patients can be cured. This form of the disease accounts for about 85 per cent of the 450 childhood leukaemias diagnosed in Britain each year.
The study, published in Science, could have further implications for the cancers that cause lung and colon tumours, as these are also thought to be propagated by rogue stem cells. Another application could be preventive treatment for children like Isabella who are known to be at high risk of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, whose “pre-leukaemic” cells could be killed before they cause any damage.
Professor Enver said: “This research means that we can now test whether the treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in children can be correlated with either the disappearance or persistence of the leukaemia stem cell. Our next goal is to target both the pre-leukaemic stem cell and the cancer stem cell itself with new or existing drugs to cure leukaemia while avoiding the debilitating and often harmful side effects of current treatments.”
Professor Greaves said: “This study of a twin pair discordant for leukaemia has identified the critical stem cells that initiate the disease and maintain it in a covert state for several years. We suspect that these cells can escape conventional chemotherapy and cause relapse during or after treatment. These are the cells that dictate disease course and provide the bullseye to target with new therapies.”
The twins have been crucial to the new research, as they are genetically identical but one has developed cancer whereas the other has not. The scientists found that the girls’ blood contains genetically abnormal cells known as pre-leukaemic cells. These were formed by a mutation known as translocation, in which two genes fuse to create an abnormal new one. This random event happened in a single cell in one of the twins — it is impossible to tell which one — while they were still in the womb. As the twins shared a placenta, the original mutant’s daughter cells populated the blood of both sisters.
Analysis of Isabella’s blood suggests that about one in 1,000 of her lymphocyte blood cells is preleukaemic. About 1 per cent of these pre-leukaemic cells are also stem cells that can start and sustain the cancer. As Isabella is still healthy, it is clear that the translocation cannot trigger leukaemia by itself. About one in 100 children has the translocation, but only one in 100 develops cancer. “The crucial question is in which cells does this start,” Professor Enver said. “What is the critical hit? Isabella gave us an opportunity almost to look back in time, to see which cells the cancer begins in.”
They did this by comparing the twins’ blood. In Olivia, but not in Isabella, some pre-leukaemic stem cells had acquired a second genetic mutation that turned them cancerous. This could have begun in a single cell, possibly because of an infection.
The discovery will help doctors to monitor Isabella, and children like her, so that further genetic damage in her pre-leukaemic stem cells is caught early. Her risk of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia is estimated at one in ten, compared with one in 10,000 among children with no family history. It will fall with every year that she remains healthy. By the time she is 14, her pre-leukaemic stem cells should have died naturally. “Pre-leukaemic cells are still evident, so the sword of Damocles is still hanging there,” Dr Ancliff said. “Hopefully, we will see them disappear.”
The study also identifies precisely the cancerous stem cells that propagate the cancer. This should enable doctors to adjust the strength of chemotherapy to match a child’s condition. As cancer stem cells can survive conventional chemotherapy, the research could also help scientists to design drugs that kill cancers.
Source
Friday, January 18, 2008
Green toffs vs the `shopping herd'
The panic about greedy mobs invading Oxford Street during the New Year sales is driven by elite disdain for consumerism and economic growth. Comment from Britain
Did we buy too much at Christmas, or not enough? Are the January sales a sign of economic health, or decadence? Proof that Britain is booming, or something that we will pay heavily for later?
Breast-beating over the sales has become an annual event. In 2006, anxiety focused on the `world's biggest ship', the Emma Maersk III, which was carrying 11,000 containers full of toys half way around the world from China - a sure sign of the victory of pester power over common sense. In 2005, newspapers worried over the `the lowest Christmas sales for 20 years' (1). In 2003, Sainsbury's did badly, but Next prospered, while thinking people worried, as usual, about Christmas excess.
This year, the expected collapse in Christmas sales failed to materialise. The credit crunch was expected to make shoppers too scared to commit to big purchases. The online gaming system, Wii, and The Simpsons Movie DVD boosted Amazon's sales, while Oxford Street, rather quiet on Christmas Eve, saw its Boxing Day footfall (yes, people really do count this) rise by 7.8 per cent on 2006. Some of the buoyancy was managed by retailers' furious discounting - around 80 per cent of goods were reduced in price, apparently.
You might think that retailers were to be congratulated on beating the winter gloom. But the editorials in the highbrow papers only saw problems ahead. Had the shoppers failed to understand that capitalist prosperity is all built on sand, they worried? Don't those greedy plebs understand that they will all be in Queer Street soon?
The mid-winter Saturnalia shows us the deep muddle at the heart of modern capitalism. On the one hand, there is the existential fear that pulsates in every barrow boy: that tomorrow the shoppers might just stay at home. It is written into the free market system that you can never know what will happen tomorrow, whether that stock on the shelves is gold or rubbish.
Since the 1990s the retail sector has been the healthiest part of British business - not a great sign of the importance of innovation in industry. That was how the Christmas sales turned into such a high-wire act for UK plc. Instead of watching the results at the end of the financial year, economic commentators were reduced to watching the winter solstice for signs of the coming spring, like some Druid shaman.
But just as some retailers were nervously hoping that the shoppers would empty their purses, an altogether different noise was coming from another corner of the British establishment. The green loathing of greedy consumerism that used to be the preserve of a handful of middle-class cranks has spread throughout much of the British ruling class.
Toffs whose fathers were hard-nosed capitalists have turned into eco-warriors these days. Leading green Lord Peter Melchett's fortune was made by his father, Alfred Mond, at Imperial Chemicals Industries; ecologist Tory Zac Goldsmith inherited his 300 million pounds from dad James Goldsmith's Bovril sales. To the sons and daughters of the capitalist elite, nothing is more distasteful than the mass market that made them wealthy.
Instead of celebrating the trickle down of consumer goods, the elite are repulsed by it. They cannot bear to see hoi polloi driving cars like them, or shopping in their shops. They erect elaborate consumer rituals to mark themselves apart from the herd - but to their dismay, the herd keeps cracking the code. In days gone past, the sheer awkward coldness of an art gallery or music recital would have been enough to keep it exclusive, but no longer. Even their costly organic food has been sucked up by Tesco and Morrisons.
The green sentiment favours an economic policy of restraint - and it is in danger of succeeding in choking what growth the British economy has experienced. When ordinary households took advantage of wider credit availability to buy homes and cars in the 1990s, the green reaction was intensely hostile - and governments listened, cutting road-building programmes, choking off house-building with green belt planning controls, hiking fuel duties. And when those regulatory constraints on the expansion of big-ticket consumer goods pushed up prices, the caution merchants demanded limits on higher interest rates.
Of course it is a real problem that Britain's retail boom was premised on a trillion pounds of consumer credit, increasingly paying for goods from abroad. But the inroad made by East Asian manufacturers into Britain's domestic markets is itself a consequence of a business climate that is, in the words of the UK Department of Trade and Industry, `risk averse'. Despite all the talk about a New Economy, the growth in employment has all been in relatively low-productivity service sector jobs, so much so that average productivity actually fell in the UK (2).
Disdaining product innovation in manufacturing as a `race to the bottom', Britain's entrepreneurs are increasingly preoccupied with `rent-seeking' behaviour - spying out opportunities to use their cash to lay claim to someone else's hard industry. British law firms are the ones suing Third World nations over debt bought up cheaply, and they are the ones pursuing Chinese manufacturers claiming `intellectual property rights' over handbags and children's toys. At the climate talks in Bali at the end of last year, it was British negotiators who imagined a world where restraints on industry would be rewarded, just as it is British financiers who are already making money trading in carbon futures, and British boffins who are wasting their time making carbon-inefficient windmills.
If, as seems more than likely, the economy does slow down as predicted this spring, why should we be surprised? The environmentally minded intelligentsia has been deeply hostile to economic growth. Worse still, their voices have shaped economic policy, demanding restraint in road-building, house-building, consumer-spending and the spread of technology. The gloom-mongers' despair over Christmas spending is turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Source
Fruitless attempts to create equality in a complex world can have disastrous consequences
The instant I heard how the NHS was treating Colette Mills and Debbie Hirst, the image came to me. Here we go again, I thought.... They both have cancer. They wish to benefit from a relatively new drug called Avastin, but the drug has not been approved for use by the NHS. It does do some good, but it is not regarded as cost-effective. So the two women decided that they would buy the drug themselves. Fair enough? Apparently not. The two women have been told that if they pay for the drugs, NHS treatment will be denied to them. They have to pay for all their care privately, an impossibly large sum, or receive it all through the NHS. Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, was firm on the subject. They cannot, he argued, "be treated on the NHS and then allowed, as part of the same episode and the same treatment, to pay money for more drugs".
But the reason he gave was not a medical one - that drugs needed to be administered together by the same doctor on NHS time. Or a practical one - that it would be a bureaucratic nighmare to have some drugs for sale and some not. It wasn't a legal one either: it isn't at all clear that the law prevents this mixture of the NHS and private treatment Instead he said this of the request by these gravely ill women: "That way lies the end of the founding principles of the NHS."
Now Mr Johnson is a compassionate man and an intelligent one, too. He's not, in my experience, generally dogmatic. So what on earth possesses him to deny cancer treatment to these terribly sick patients? Where could such an idea come from? Sootynomics.
Last year was the 50th anniversary of Tony Crosland's book, The Future of Socialism. While re-reading what was, when it was published, one of the most important books of social democratic thinking, I was struck by how dated it had become. Crosland spent half the book in earnest dispute with people advancing ideas that are, to the modern eye, completely ridiculous. He patiently explains, for instance, over an entire chapter, why guild socialism - a barely comprehensible scheme in which trade groups control industry - wouldn't be a bright idea.
What has changed over the past 50 years is this: we now appreciate, or at least have some inkling, how big and how complicated the world is. When there are staff employed in the occupational therapy unit of the IT centre of the people who make the dye that colours sliced bread packaging, how exactly does guild socialism work? The idea of a fully planned economy, painstakingly criticised by Crosland, now needs little effort to refute. It has simply fallen away.
Yet there remains an extraordinary amount of public policy confidently advanced without any idea of the massive contrast between the size and complexity of the world and the puny measure being proposed, without any understanding that the world rages on like the sea - unstoppable, uncontrollable. The absurd idea, for instance, that you can tackle obesity by banning food advertisements on children's television (an apt example of Sootynomics, come to think of it) or stop climate change by using fewer carrier bags at the supermarket. I remember one of my colleagues calling for a boycott of Tesco because it was killing the high street. The last time I looked, Tesco was still trading.
Alan Johnson's NHS ruling is a perfect example of the same syndrome. What is the fundamental principle whose end he fears? Not that care should be free at the point of use, since he already believes that to use Avastin, you must pay for it. No, the principle to which he clings is that all patients should receive the same care. There should be equality. Do you see what I mean when I say it would be comic if it wasn't a tragedy? Mr Johnson looks at the world with its vast disparities in wealth, with its teeming masses and its warzones and its starving slums and its clipped suburbs and thinks he can make the world more equal by preventing a couple of women buying Avastin.
Actually, never mind the starving slums and the warzones, there isn't even equality inside the NHS. There are cancer drugs you can have prescribed in Scotland that you can't have prescribed in England. You can pay for some dental services while receiving others on the NHS. You can receive two different but related treatments and pay for one of them as long as you don't have the treatments together in one place as one episode.
Alan Johnson is trying to hold a line that cannot be held. As more expensive drugs become available and are deemed "not cost-effective" the Mills and Hirsts will multiply. The offence against their rights will be seen increasingly as unacceptable and the pursuit of an elusive equality ever more obviously futile. You may as well stop planing down the tree now, Mr Johnson.
Source
A good comment on the above from a "Times" reader:
This long-standing NHS policy is symbolic of the vicious logic of Britain's socialism. It is the politics of Iago: "If Cassio remain/ He hath a daily beauty in his life/ Which makes me ugly." Like the nasty kid in the playground, we will attack anyone who is better than us.
It is also tribal. The NHS treatment is "us". You are either with us, or outcast. It reminds me of the provincial museum official who denied entry to a public school group. "They're not us. They can't use our facilities." Thankfully that nasty piece of tribal nonsense was over-ruled by Tony Blair. In this more tragic case and many like it, the vicious 'if I can't have it, neither can you' policy of tribal doctrinaire socialist equality will continue.
British medical education bungle good for Australia
A BLUNDER in a jobs recruitment program in the UK will result in relief 19,000km away with hundreds of doctors set to migrate to Australia to help fill staff shortages in our ailing public hospitals system. More than 5000 British medics have found themselves unemployed after failing to get a training post at hospitals in the UK. Two years ago, with critical shortfalls in the number of doctors, the British government lifted the number of places available at training schools and centralised the recruitment system. But it failed to take into account how many places there were available in hospitals to provide internships or hands-on training for the medicos to complete their training.
The British Medical Association said yesterday the only winner would be Australia, with hundreds of young doctors applying to complete their training and fill critical staff shortages. Most of the doctors have applied to work in NSW and Queensland hospitals but a BMA spokesman said hospitals across all states could expect British applicants in the next few months when the true number of training posts available became clear. "It's just a ridiculous situation," a spokesman said. "They increased the medical school places but gave us a situation now where there are only between 8000 and 9000 places (in the UK) but about three times as many applicants. "Not being able to complete their training means they have to put their careers on hold, take a non-training job or practice abroad. The loss to the UK is a gain for countries like Australia and we know a number who are planning to head there."
Dr Robert Thomas spent a year at a NSW Central Coast hospital but was one of the few to find a place in the UK to complete his training. "I was lucky but a lot of my friends are still planning to travel to Australia to work in hospital accident and emergency wards," he said. "I think you will find most will go there for training but will stay there for good. The life is so much better."
An official inquiry into how thousands of doctors missed out on UK places last week concluded the government and Department of Health should be stripped of responsibility for the recruitment system.
Source
Four healthy habits to give 14 more years?
This is probably just a class effect -- particularly as it based on self-reports. Middle class people are healthier and use more "virtuous" self-descriptions. There also seems to be a foolish assumption that the various "effects" are cumulative rather than correlated
People who adopt four healthy habits seem to live on average 14 years longer than those who adopt none of them, a new study indicates. The habits are not smoking, exercising, drinking alcohol in moderation and eating five servings of fruit and vegetables daily.
KayTee Khaw and colleagues from the University of Cambridge and the Medical Research Council in the U.K. studied records of 20,000 older British adults who had filled out health questionnaires between 1993 and 1997.
After factoring in age, the researchers found that over an average of 11 years, people who undertook none of the four health habits were four times more likely to have died than those who adopted all four. People in this less healthy group had on average the same risk of dying as people 14 years older in the second group, the researchers said.
The participants were aged 45 to 79 when they filled out the questionnaires. Deaths among the participants were recorded until 2006. Moderate drinking was defined as between one-half and seven pints of beer, or glasses of wine, weekly.
The study formed part of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition, conducted across ten European countries, billed as the largest study of diet and health ever undertaken.
The findings need to be confirmed in other populations, but the results "strongly suggest that these four achievable lifestyle changes could have a marked improvement on the health of middle-aged and older people," the researchers said in an announcement of the findings. The research appeared online Jan. 8 in the research journal PLoS Biology.
Source
British educationist criticizes Google
Perish the thought that people might get information from popular rather than "authorized" sources!
Google is "white bread for the mind", and the internet is producing a generation of students who survive on a diet of unreliable information, a professor of media studies will claim this week. In her inaugural lecture at the University of Brighton, Tara Brabazon will urge teachers at all levels of the education system to equip students with the skills they need to interpret and sift through information gleaned from the internet. She believes that easy access to information has dulled students' sense of curiosity and is stifling debate. She claims that many undergraduates arrive at university unable to discriminate between anecdotal and unsubstantiated material posted on the internet.
"I call this type of education `the University of Google'. "Google offers easy answers to difficult questions. But students do not know how to tell if they come from serious, refereed work or are merely composed of shallow ideas, superficial surfing and fleeting commitments. "Google is filling, but it does not necessarily offer nutritional content," she said.
Professor Brabazon, who has been teaching in universities for 18 years, said that the heavy reliance on the internet in universities had the effect of "flattening expertise" because every piece of information was given the same credibility by users. Professor Brabazon's concerns echo the author Andrew Keen's criticisms of online amateurism. In his book The Cult of the Amateur, Keen says: "To-day's media is shattering the world into a billion personalised truths, each seemingly equally valid and worthwhile."
Professor Brabazon said: "I've taught all through the digitisation of education. It's fascinating to see how students have changed. We can no longer assume that students arrive at university, knowing what to read and knowing what standards are required of the material that they do read." "Students live in an age of information, but what they lack is correct information. They turn to Wikipedia unquestioningly for information. Why wouldn't they - it's there," she said.
Professor Brabazon does not blame schools for students' cut-and-paste attitude to study. Nor is she critical of students individually. With libraries in decline, diminishing stocks of books and fewer librarians, media platforms such as Google made perfect sense. The trick was to learn how to use them properly. "We need to teach our students the interpretative skills first before we teach them the technological skills. Students must be trained to be dynamic and critical thinkers rather than drifting to the first site returned through Google," she said.
Her own students are banned from using Wikipedia or Google as research tools in their first year of study, but instead are provided with 200 extracts from peer-reviewed printed texts at the beginning of the year, supplemented by printed extracts from eight to nine texts for individual pieces of work. "I want students to experience the pages and the print as much as the digitisation and the pixels - both are fine but I want students to have both - not one or the other, not a cheap solution," she said.
There have been concerns about students plagiarising from the internet and the growth of a new online "coursework industry", in which web-sites produce tailor-made essays, some selling for up to 1,000 pounds each.
Wikipedia, containing millions of articles contributed by users was founded in 2001. It has been criticised for being riddled with inaccuracies and nonsense. Even one of its own founders, Larry Sanger, described it as "broken beyond repair" before leaving the site last year. Google is the dominant search engine on the internet. It uses a formula designed to place the most relevant content at the top of its listings. But a multimillion-pound industry has grown up around manipulating Google rankings through a process called "search engine optimisation".
Source
The panic about greedy mobs invading Oxford Street during the New Year sales is driven by elite disdain for consumerism and economic growth. Comment from Britain
Did we buy too much at Christmas, or not enough? Are the January sales a sign of economic health, or decadence? Proof that Britain is booming, or something that we will pay heavily for later?
Breast-beating over the sales has become an annual event. In 2006, anxiety focused on the `world's biggest ship', the Emma Maersk III, which was carrying 11,000 containers full of toys half way around the world from China - a sure sign of the victory of pester power over common sense. In 2005, newspapers worried over the `the lowest Christmas sales for 20 years' (1). In 2003, Sainsbury's did badly, but Next prospered, while thinking people worried, as usual, about Christmas excess.
This year, the expected collapse in Christmas sales failed to materialise. The credit crunch was expected to make shoppers too scared to commit to big purchases. The online gaming system, Wii, and The Simpsons Movie DVD boosted Amazon's sales, while Oxford Street, rather quiet on Christmas Eve, saw its Boxing Day footfall (yes, people really do count this) rise by 7.8 per cent on 2006. Some of the buoyancy was managed by retailers' furious discounting - around 80 per cent of goods were reduced in price, apparently.
You might think that retailers were to be congratulated on beating the winter gloom. But the editorials in the highbrow papers only saw problems ahead. Had the shoppers failed to understand that capitalist prosperity is all built on sand, they worried? Don't those greedy plebs understand that they will all be in Queer Street soon?
The mid-winter Saturnalia shows us the deep muddle at the heart of modern capitalism. On the one hand, there is the existential fear that pulsates in every barrow boy: that tomorrow the shoppers might just stay at home. It is written into the free market system that you can never know what will happen tomorrow, whether that stock on the shelves is gold or rubbish.
Since the 1990s the retail sector has been the healthiest part of British business - not a great sign of the importance of innovation in industry. That was how the Christmas sales turned into such a high-wire act for UK plc. Instead of watching the results at the end of the financial year, economic commentators were reduced to watching the winter solstice for signs of the coming spring, like some Druid shaman.
But just as some retailers were nervously hoping that the shoppers would empty their purses, an altogether different noise was coming from another corner of the British establishment. The green loathing of greedy consumerism that used to be the preserve of a handful of middle-class cranks has spread throughout much of the British ruling class.
Toffs whose fathers were hard-nosed capitalists have turned into eco-warriors these days. Leading green Lord Peter Melchett's fortune was made by his father, Alfred Mond, at Imperial Chemicals Industries; ecologist Tory Zac Goldsmith inherited his 300 million pounds from dad James Goldsmith's Bovril sales. To the sons and daughters of the capitalist elite, nothing is more distasteful than the mass market that made them wealthy.
Instead of celebrating the trickle down of consumer goods, the elite are repulsed by it. They cannot bear to see hoi polloi driving cars like them, or shopping in their shops. They erect elaborate consumer rituals to mark themselves apart from the herd - but to their dismay, the herd keeps cracking the code. In days gone past, the sheer awkward coldness of an art gallery or music recital would have been enough to keep it exclusive, but no longer. Even their costly organic food has been sucked up by Tesco and Morrisons.
The green sentiment favours an economic policy of restraint - and it is in danger of succeeding in choking what growth the British economy has experienced. When ordinary households took advantage of wider credit availability to buy homes and cars in the 1990s, the green reaction was intensely hostile - and governments listened, cutting road-building programmes, choking off house-building with green belt planning controls, hiking fuel duties. And when those regulatory constraints on the expansion of big-ticket consumer goods pushed up prices, the caution merchants demanded limits on higher interest rates.
Of course it is a real problem that Britain's retail boom was premised on a trillion pounds of consumer credit, increasingly paying for goods from abroad. But the inroad made by East Asian manufacturers into Britain's domestic markets is itself a consequence of a business climate that is, in the words of the UK Department of Trade and Industry, `risk averse'. Despite all the talk about a New Economy, the growth in employment has all been in relatively low-productivity service sector jobs, so much so that average productivity actually fell in the UK (2).
Disdaining product innovation in manufacturing as a `race to the bottom', Britain's entrepreneurs are increasingly preoccupied with `rent-seeking' behaviour - spying out opportunities to use their cash to lay claim to someone else's hard industry. British law firms are the ones suing Third World nations over debt bought up cheaply, and they are the ones pursuing Chinese manufacturers claiming `intellectual property rights' over handbags and children's toys. At the climate talks in Bali at the end of last year, it was British negotiators who imagined a world where restraints on industry would be rewarded, just as it is British financiers who are already making money trading in carbon futures, and British boffins who are wasting their time making carbon-inefficient windmills.
If, as seems more than likely, the economy does slow down as predicted this spring, why should we be surprised? The environmentally minded intelligentsia has been deeply hostile to economic growth. Worse still, their voices have shaped economic policy, demanding restraint in road-building, house-building, consumer-spending and the spread of technology. The gloom-mongers' despair over Christmas spending is turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Source
Fruitless attempts to create equality in a complex world can have disastrous consequences
The instant I heard how the NHS was treating Colette Mills and Debbie Hirst, the image came to me. Here we go again, I thought.... They both have cancer. They wish to benefit from a relatively new drug called Avastin, but the drug has not been approved for use by the NHS. It does do some good, but it is not regarded as cost-effective. So the two women decided that they would buy the drug themselves. Fair enough? Apparently not. The two women have been told that if they pay for the drugs, NHS treatment will be denied to them. They have to pay for all their care privately, an impossibly large sum, or receive it all through the NHS. Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, was firm on the subject. They cannot, he argued, "be treated on the NHS and then allowed, as part of the same episode and the same treatment, to pay money for more drugs".
But the reason he gave was not a medical one - that drugs needed to be administered together by the same doctor on NHS time. Or a practical one - that it would be a bureaucratic nighmare to have some drugs for sale and some not. It wasn't a legal one either: it isn't at all clear that the law prevents this mixture of the NHS and private treatment Instead he said this of the request by these gravely ill women: "That way lies the end of the founding principles of the NHS."
Now Mr Johnson is a compassionate man and an intelligent one, too. He's not, in my experience, generally dogmatic. So what on earth possesses him to deny cancer treatment to these terribly sick patients? Where could such an idea come from? Sootynomics.
Last year was the 50th anniversary of Tony Crosland's book, The Future of Socialism. While re-reading what was, when it was published, one of the most important books of social democratic thinking, I was struck by how dated it had become. Crosland spent half the book in earnest dispute with people advancing ideas that are, to the modern eye, completely ridiculous. He patiently explains, for instance, over an entire chapter, why guild socialism - a barely comprehensible scheme in which trade groups control industry - wouldn't be a bright idea.
What has changed over the past 50 years is this: we now appreciate, or at least have some inkling, how big and how complicated the world is. When there are staff employed in the occupational therapy unit of the IT centre of the people who make the dye that colours sliced bread packaging, how exactly does guild socialism work? The idea of a fully planned economy, painstakingly criticised by Crosland, now needs little effort to refute. It has simply fallen away.
Yet there remains an extraordinary amount of public policy confidently advanced without any idea of the massive contrast between the size and complexity of the world and the puny measure being proposed, without any understanding that the world rages on like the sea - unstoppable, uncontrollable. The absurd idea, for instance, that you can tackle obesity by banning food advertisements on children's television (an apt example of Sootynomics, come to think of it) or stop climate change by using fewer carrier bags at the supermarket. I remember one of my colleagues calling for a boycott of Tesco because it was killing the high street. The last time I looked, Tesco was still trading.
Alan Johnson's NHS ruling is a perfect example of the same syndrome. What is the fundamental principle whose end he fears? Not that care should be free at the point of use, since he already believes that to use Avastin, you must pay for it. No, the principle to which he clings is that all patients should receive the same care. There should be equality. Do you see what I mean when I say it would be comic if it wasn't a tragedy? Mr Johnson looks at the world with its vast disparities in wealth, with its teeming masses and its warzones and its starving slums and its clipped suburbs and thinks he can make the world more equal by preventing a couple of women buying Avastin.
Actually, never mind the starving slums and the warzones, there isn't even equality inside the NHS. There are cancer drugs you can have prescribed in Scotland that you can't have prescribed in England. You can pay for some dental services while receiving others on the NHS. You can receive two different but related treatments and pay for one of them as long as you don't have the treatments together in one place as one episode.
Alan Johnson is trying to hold a line that cannot be held. As more expensive drugs become available and are deemed "not cost-effective" the Mills and Hirsts will multiply. The offence against their rights will be seen increasingly as unacceptable and the pursuit of an elusive equality ever more obviously futile. You may as well stop planing down the tree now, Mr Johnson.
Source
A good comment on the above from a "Times" reader:
This long-standing NHS policy is symbolic of the vicious logic of Britain's socialism. It is the politics of Iago: "If Cassio remain/ He hath a daily beauty in his life/ Which makes me ugly." Like the nasty kid in the playground, we will attack anyone who is better than us.
It is also tribal. The NHS treatment is "us". You are either with us, or outcast. It reminds me of the provincial museum official who denied entry to a public school group. "They're not us. They can't use our facilities." Thankfully that nasty piece of tribal nonsense was over-ruled by Tony Blair. In this more tragic case and many like it, the vicious 'if I can't have it, neither can you' policy of tribal doctrinaire socialist equality will continue.
British medical education bungle good for Australia
A BLUNDER in a jobs recruitment program in the UK will result in relief 19,000km away with hundreds of doctors set to migrate to Australia to help fill staff shortages in our ailing public hospitals system. More than 5000 British medics have found themselves unemployed after failing to get a training post at hospitals in the UK. Two years ago, with critical shortfalls in the number of doctors, the British government lifted the number of places available at training schools and centralised the recruitment system. But it failed to take into account how many places there were available in hospitals to provide internships or hands-on training for the medicos to complete their training.
The British Medical Association said yesterday the only winner would be Australia, with hundreds of young doctors applying to complete their training and fill critical staff shortages. Most of the doctors have applied to work in NSW and Queensland hospitals but a BMA spokesman said hospitals across all states could expect British applicants in the next few months when the true number of training posts available became clear. "It's just a ridiculous situation," a spokesman said. "They increased the medical school places but gave us a situation now where there are only between 8000 and 9000 places (in the UK) but about three times as many applicants. "Not being able to complete their training means they have to put their careers on hold, take a non-training job or practice abroad. The loss to the UK is a gain for countries like Australia and we know a number who are planning to head there."
Dr Robert Thomas spent a year at a NSW Central Coast hospital but was one of the few to find a place in the UK to complete his training. "I was lucky but a lot of my friends are still planning to travel to Australia to work in hospital accident and emergency wards," he said. "I think you will find most will go there for training but will stay there for good. The life is so much better."
An official inquiry into how thousands of doctors missed out on UK places last week concluded the government and Department of Health should be stripped of responsibility for the recruitment system.
Source
Four healthy habits to give 14 more years?
This is probably just a class effect -- particularly as it based on self-reports. Middle class people are healthier and use more "virtuous" self-descriptions. There also seems to be a foolish assumption that the various "effects" are cumulative rather than correlated
People who adopt four healthy habits seem to live on average 14 years longer than those who adopt none of them, a new study indicates. The habits are not smoking, exercising, drinking alcohol in moderation and eating five servings of fruit and vegetables daily.
KayTee Khaw and colleagues from the University of Cambridge and the Medical Research Council in the U.K. studied records of 20,000 older British adults who had filled out health questionnaires between 1993 and 1997.
After factoring in age, the researchers found that over an average of 11 years, people who undertook none of the four health habits were four times more likely to have died than those who adopted all four. People in this less healthy group had on average the same risk of dying as people 14 years older in the second group, the researchers said.
The participants were aged 45 to 79 when they filled out the questionnaires. Deaths among the participants were recorded until 2006. Moderate drinking was defined as between one-half and seven pints of beer, or glasses of wine, weekly.
The study formed part of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition, conducted across ten European countries, billed as the largest study of diet and health ever undertaken.
The findings need to be confirmed in other populations, but the results "strongly suggest that these four achievable lifestyle changes could have a marked improvement on the health of middle-aged and older people," the researchers said in an announcement of the findings. The research appeared online Jan. 8 in the research journal PLoS Biology.
Source
British educationist criticizes Google
Perish the thought that people might get information from popular rather than "authorized" sources!
Google is "white bread for the mind", and the internet is producing a generation of students who survive on a diet of unreliable information, a professor of media studies will claim this week. In her inaugural lecture at the University of Brighton, Tara Brabazon will urge teachers at all levels of the education system to equip students with the skills they need to interpret and sift through information gleaned from the internet. She believes that easy access to information has dulled students' sense of curiosity and is stifling debate. She claims that many undergraduates arrive at university unable to discriminate between anecdotal and unsubstantiated material posted on the internet.
"I call this type of education `the University of Google'. "Google offers easy answers to difficult questions. But students do not know how to tell if they come from serious, refereed work or are merely composed of shallow ideas, superficial surfing and fleeting commitments. "Google is filling, but it does not necessarily offer nutritional content," she said.
Professor Brabazon, who has been teaching in universities for 18 years, said that the heavy reliance on the internet in universities had the effect of "flattening expertise" because every piece of information was given the same credibility by users. Professor Brabazon's concerns echo the author Andrew Keen's criticisms of online amateurism. In his book The Cult of the Amateur, Keen says: "To-day's media is shattering the world into a billion personalised truths, each seemingly equally valid and worthwhile."
Professor Brabazon said: "I've taught all through the digitisation of education. It's fascinating to see how students have changed. We can no longer assume that students arrive at university, knowing what to read and knowing what standards are required of the material that they do read." "Students live in an age of information, but what they lack is correct information. They turn to Wikipedia unquestioningly for information. Why wouldn't they - it's there," she said.
Professor Brabazon does not blame schools for students' cut-and-paste attitude to study. Nor is she critical of students individually. With libraries in decline, diminishing stocks of books and fewer librarians, media platforms such as Google made perfect sense. The trick was to learn how to use them properly. "We need to teach our students the interpretative skills first before we teach them the technological skills. Students must be trained to be dynamic and critical thinkers rather than drifting to the first site returned through Google," she said.
Her own students are banned from using Wikipedia or Google as research tools in their first year of study, but instead are provided with 200 extracts from peer-reviewed printed texts at the beginning of the year, supplemented by printed extracts from eight to nine texts for individual pieces of work. "I want students to experience the pages and the print as much as the digitisation and the pixels - both are fine but I want students to have both - not one or the other, not a cheap solution," she said.
There have been concerns about students plagiarising from the internet and the growth of a new online "coursework industry", in which web-sites produce tailor-made essays, some selling for up to 1,000 pounds each.
Wikipedia, containing millions of articles contributed by users was founded in 2001. It has been criticised for being riddled with inaccuracies and nonsense. Even one of its own founders, Larry Sanger, described it as "broken beyond repair" before leaving the site last year. Google is the dominant search engine on the internet. It uses a formula designed to place the most relevant content at the top of its listings. But a multimillion-pound industry has grown up around manipulating Google rankings through a process called "search engine optimisation".
Source
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Britain trying to discourage academic education
Probably a good thing on the whole. A British academic education these days is mostly Leftist indoctrination
Teachers are to be banned from encouraging their pupils to study A levels rather than the Government's controversial new vocational diploma qualifications under legislation that is going through Parliament. A clause in the Education and Skills Bill, to be debated in Parliament today, says that schools will be forbidden from "unduly promoting any particular options" to teenagers seeking advice on courses.
The move has been criticised by academics, who say that the Government is desperate for the diplomas to succeed at all costs. Others fear that the new and "impartial" mortgage-style advice will not be in the best interests of pupils as teachers unconvinced of the worth of the diplomas will be unable to pass on their concerns to either them or their parents.
The qualifications are designed to end the divide between vocational and academic learning and will be offered at some schools from September and across England and Wales by 2013. Ministers are promoting diplomas as the "jewel in the crown" of the education system. Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, recently said that they would become the "qualification of choice" and refused to confirm that A levels would survive beyond a review in 2013.
However, the diplomas programme has been met with concern and caution by many employers and universities, with some yet to declare that they will accept them. Teachers are equally uncertain how they will work in practice. Academics, union leaders and educational experts said last night that the clause in the Bill puts schools and teachers in an impossible position.
Alan Smithers, Professor of Education at the University of Buckingham, said that it undermined teachers, who were in the best position to give advice to pupils. He said: "It seems this is inhibiting teachers in their professional practice, [and it] could be connected with a drive to push diplomas at all costs. They will be valuable ladders from school to work - but not an attractive option for all pupils."
Steve Sinnott, the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: "If there is a major educational reform, then the professional judgment of teachers has to be trusted. You can't put a set of restrictions in there about their judgment."
The first 14 diplomas covered subjects such as hair and beauty, travel and tourism. But the latest wave, announced in October, includes languages, humanities and science - apparently to appeal to middle-class parents and traditional universities. Some subjects, such as engineering, appear destined to succeed, with at least seven universities saying that they will accept it as an entry qualification for relevant degree courses.
Diplomas will come in three levels. The Government has said that top marks in the advanced diploma will be worth more than three A levels. However, a survey suggested that fewer than four in ten university admissions officers saw them as a "good alternative" to A levels. In November, the Nuffield review said the introduction of diplomas had been rushed and that middle-class families would continue to favour traditional courses. A report published yesterday by the Policy Exchange think-tank said they were being launched with an ambitious, complex and expensive design, and an uncertain future.
Julia Neal, the president of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: "What we don't know is exactly how universities are going to approach diplomas. Technically, they will have the same currency as A levels, but only time will tell." Ann Hodgson, of the University of London Institute of Education, served on the Tomlinson committee, whose report led to the latest reform. "I think teachers will be put in a difficult position," she said. "It's very important that they give full information about the diplomas, and what they are likely to lead to."
A spokeswoman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said the Government wanted pupils to have advice on the range of available options: "It is not about promoting one option over another, since it is up to individual pupils to decide the best route for themselves, in discussion with their parents and teachers."
Source
More Muslim arrogance in Britain
A Muslim store worker refused to serve a customer buying a children's book on Christianity because she said it was "unclean". Shopper Sally Friday felt publicly humiliated at a branch of Marks & Spencer when she tried to pay for First Bible Stories as a gift for her young grandson. When she put the book on the check-out counter, the young assistant refused to touch it, declared it was unclean and summoned another member of staff to serve instead.
Mrs Friday said she was so upset that she has now complained to the store's management. Last night politicians and religious leaders supported her in condemning the high street giant and reigniting the debate over religious beliefs in the workplace. Conservative MP Philip Davies said the refusal to serve Mrs Friday, 69, was "unacceptable" and "damaging" to community relations.
Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, described the assistant's comments as "offensive" and called for Marks & Spencer to carry out a thorough investigation.
Mrs Friday said her trip to the sales in Reading, Berks, with her daughter had been ruined. "I went to the till and heard the girl say it was unclean and then she got someone else to serve me," said Mrs Friday. "At first I wasn't sure what was going on and then I realised she was wearing a headdress and I clicked that the title of the book had Bible in it. I felt very humiliated and immediately left the store."
Source
Risk assessment watchdog set up to halt march of the nanny state
A new bureaucracy to curb other bureaucracies? Spare us! Like Tony Blair, Brown seems to have a reasonable grasp of the problems but he errs in trying to solve them by bureaucratic means rather than by getting the bureaucracies out of the way and letting the market work its magic
Unnecessary warnings that bags of peanuts "may contain nuts" and overly protective rules banning conker fights in schools will be targeted by a new watchdog intended to restore Britain's spirit of adventure. Gordon Brown is so concerned that the cotton-wool culture is denying people the freedom to enjoy themselves that he has asked the watchdog to report to him personally.
The move comes after a festive season in which actors in pantomimes were banned from throwing sweets to children in case someone got hit on the head and Christmas lights were banned in towns and villages for fear that they might pull down lampposts. A Rotary club in the Midlands was even made to put its Father Christmas in a body harness in case he fell off his sleigh.
Last summer hanging baskets were banned in Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk in case they fell on the head of a passer-by, and home-made cakes were banned from a fete for fear that they might cause food poisoning.
There will be disappointment that Mr Brown's response to such killjoy acts is not to halve the number of health and safety officials or revise the hundreds of regulations introduced under this Labour Government. The Risk and Regulation Advisory Council has been set up in response to recommendations from the Better Regulation Commission that it has replaced.
The body for common sense will be set up alongside a national campaign to emphasise the importance of self- reliance and a sense of adventure. It is intended to engage the public, and remind them that the Government is not responsible for every accident or piece of bad fortune that befalls its citizens. The team of seven will tackle policy areas where there are fears that the Government is in danger of overkill.
Defensive labelling - of which the nut allergy warning on bags of peanuts is an example - is in its sights. Somewhat unnecessarily, the council says that such warnings are "laughable" and breed resentment. Also in line for scrutiny is whether the Government's response to obesity is in proportion to the problem.
The first project to be taken on by the council will look at the frenzy of government initiatives to tackle the MRSA superbug, to see if they are doing any good. Healthcare experts cast doubt this week on whether the most recent plan - a deep-clean of all hospitals announced by Mr Brown last autumn - would do any good.
Rick Haythornthwaite, who heads the council, has made his name and fortune out of the risk involved in investing in private equity. He told The Times that the combination of "well-intentioned people" and a policymaking process that "collapses in the face of a confrontational parliamentary system, the media and short-term career pressures" was responsible for the present culture of risk aversion. "If you ask someone, `Do you want the world to be a safer place?', of course they will say yes. But there is always a trade-off. Self-reliance and a spirit of adventure are important national characteristics that could be lost. I want the public to understand that in the trade-off, some important things can be lost." The key to challenging the killjoys was listen to the general public, he said.
Source
Survey shows eco-warriors are worst polluters
A survey of travel habits has revealed that the most environmentally conscious people are also the biggest polluters. "Green" consumers have some of the biggest carbon footprints because they are still hooked on flying abroad or driving their cars while their adherence to the green cause is mostly limited to small gestures.
Identified as "eco-adopters", they are most likely to be members of an environmental organisation, buy green products such as detergents, recycle and have a keen interest in green issues
But the survey of 25,000 people, by the market research company Target Group Index, found that eco-adopters are seven per cent more likely than the general population to take flights, and four per cent more likely to own a car. The survey found similar trends in France and the United States.
Geoff Wicken, the author of the report, pointed to David Cameron, the Conservative leader, as a classic eco-adopter because despite styling himself as a green warrior he also takes flights in private helicopters and planes.
Source
'I feel like an alien in my home town'
Do 'no-go' zones for non-Muslims exist in Britain, as the Bishop of Rochester claims? Olga Craig reports from some of Yorkshire's Asian-dominated areas
It has been more than 40 years since Tim Carbin walked the length of Oak Lane, the Bradford backstreet of his boyhood. Then, when he lived with his grandmother Florence Pawson, a matriarch within the community, his task after school was to run errands. Down to Foster's, the baker's, for a loaf of bread and a pound of bacon from Donald Gilbank the butcher. "And mind it isn't too fatty," Florence would tell him. Mr Carbin, then 13, knew all the local storekeepers by name, just as he knew the families in the surrounding terraces.
Yesterday, outside number 95A, his grandmother's former home, Mr Carbin gazed in bewilderment as he scanned his old haunt. Not surprisingly, the stores of his youth had gone: such has been the change in our shopping habits over the decades that they have given way to supermarkets and fast-food outlets. But that was not all that had changed irrevocably in Oak Lane. Among the new stores, the clothes shops sell Muslim dress, the butcher stocks halal meat and even the local takeaway advertises halal pizza. "I feel like an alien, like I'm on a street in Karachi," Mr Carbin says, awkwardly. "I don't feel I have anything in common with this area. It's like I've never been here before. I knew it would be different but I knew, too, that I would feel uncomfortably like I don't belong."
He now lives just 10 miles away, in the north of Bradford. He hasn't returned because Oak Lane, like so many similar areas of so many northern cities, is now an almost exclusive Asian Muslim community.
Mr Carbin is far from a racist, however. Well educated and widely travelled in Muslim countries, he has the utmost respect for the Islamic religion. What is worrying him is that Britain's increasing espousal of multiculturalism has led not to an integrated society but, instead, to ghettoisation, with white-only and Asian-only communities existing cheek by jowl but with little or no common ground. And that, he believes, could have an ominous outcome. He is, clearly, one of those about whom Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester (Britain's only Asian-born bishop), wrote in The Sunday Telegraph last week: the increasing number of native white Britons who believe many of their streets have now become "no-go" areas.
The Bishop believes that one of the results of the resurgence of Islamic extremism has been to alienate young Muslims from this country and to view adherence to this ideology as a mark of acceptance. This, he says, means many Christians and those of other faiths find it difficult to live or work here because they feel there is hostility towards them. Britain's "novel philosophy" of multiculturalism, he believes, has caused Muslims to lead separate lives, in separate areas, speaking their native languages. His views have angered many in Muslim communities but, equally, they have struck a chord with many like Mr Carbin. "This isn't, as the Government would like us to believe, a multicultural society," he says. "This is pure racial segregation. And it's like this because the Muslim community simply refuses to integrate. So people like me feel like outcasts in our own country." As Mr Carbin trudges farther along Oak Lane, he passes the tumble-down Anglican church where many of his former neighbours worshipped. Amid the mound of bricks, Sunday school hymn books are strewn.
Across town, in another Asian enclave, one local shopkeeper is preparing to sell up after 30 years running a family firm. "I am retiring," he says. "But yes, it's true, a lot of people feel uncomfortable in Muslim areas. It's fine for me, I've stayed and I know everyone, but many are fearful of venturing into the area. "It's not so much fear of violence, rather that they feel a sense of not being welcome, of having nothing in common with the community here, and a feeling that no one would appreciate the interest should they show it. "I wish the Muslim community had integrated more, but they didn't. I haven't even been able to get them to join Neighbourhood Watch."
In the surrounding streets, the few white residents willing to talk speak of isolation rather than intimidation. One said he had had several members of the Asian community knocking on his door, asking if he wanted to sell his home. "At face value, that seems innocuous," he says. "But others believe it was a message saying I should get out." Another tells of how his father, an electrician, parked his van in the area only to have it rocked and thumped by a group of Asian youths telling him: "This is our area now. You are not welcome here."
More here
Probably a good thing on the whole. A British academic education these days is mostly Leftist indoctrination
Teachers are to be banned from encouraging their pupils to study A levels rather than the Government's controversial new vocational diploma qualifications under legislation that is going through Parliament. A clause in the Education and Skills Bill, to be debated in Parliament today, says that schools will be forbidden from "unduly promoting any particular options" to teenagers seeking advice on courses.
The move has been criticised by academics, who say that the Government is desperate for the diplomas to succeed at all costs. Others fear that the new and "impartial" mortgage-style advice will not be in the best interests of pupils as teachers unconvinced of the worth of the diplomas will be unable to pass on their concerns to either them or their parents.
The qualifications are designed to end the divide between vocational and academic learning and will be offered at some schools from September and across England and Wales by 2013. Ministers are promoting diplomas as the "jewel in the crown" of the education system. Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, recently said that they would become the "qualification of choice" and refused to confirm that A levels would survive beyond a review in 2013.
However, the diplomas programme has been met with concern and caution by many employers and universities, with some yet to declare that they will accept them. Teachers are equally uncertain how they will work in practice. Academics, union leaders and educational experts said last night that the clause in the Bill puts schools and teachers in an impossible position.
Alan Smithers, Professor of Education at the University of Buckingham, said that it undermined teachers, who were in the best position to give advice to pupils. He said: "It seems this is inhibiting teachers in their professional practice, [and it] could be connected with a drive to push diplomas at all costs. They will be valuable ladders from school to work - but not an attractive option for all pupils."
Steve Sinnott, the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: "If there is a major educational reform, then the professional judgment of teachers has to be trusted. You can't put a set of restrictions in there about their judgment."
The first 14 diplomas covered subjects such as hair and beauty, travel and tourism. But the latest wave, announced in October, includes languages, humanities and science - apparently to appeal to middle-class parents and traditional universities. Some subjects, such as engineering, appear destined to succeed, with at least seven universities saying that they will accept it as an entry qualification for relevant degree courses.
Diplomas will come in three levels. The Government has said that top marks in the advanced diploma will be worth more than three A levels. However, a survey suggested that fewer than four in ten university admissions officers saw them as a "good alternative" to A levels. In November, the Nuffield review said the introduction of diplomas had been rushed and that middle-class families would continue to favour traditional courses. A report published yesterday by the Policy Exchange think-tank said they were being launched with an ambitious, complex and expensive design, and an uncertain future.
Julia Neal, the president of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: "What we don't know is exactly how universities are going to approach diplomas. Technically, they will have the same currency as A levels, but only time will tell." Ann Hodgson, of the University of London Institute of Education, served on the Tomlinson committee, whose report led to the latest reform. "I think teachers will be put in a difficult position," she said. "It's very important that they give full information about the diplomas, and what they are likely to lead to."
A spokeswoman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said the Government wanted pupils to have advice on the range of available options: "It is not about promoting one option over another, since it is up to individual pupils to decide the best route for themselves, in discussion with their parents and teachers."
Source
More Muslim arrogance in Britain
A Muslim store worker refused to serve a customer buying a children's book on Christianity because she said it was "unclean". Shopper Sally Friday felt publicly humiliated at a branch of Marks & Spencer when she tried to pay for First Bible Stories as a gift for her young grandson. When she put the book on the check-out counter, the young assistant refused to touch it, declared it was unclean and summoned another member of staff to serve instead.
Mrs Friday said she was so upset that she has now complained to the store's management. Last night politicians and religious leaders supported her in condemning the high street giant and reigniting the debate over religious beliefs in the workplace. Conservative MP Philip Davies said the refusal to serve Mrs Friday, 69, was "unacceptable" and "damaging" to community relations.
Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, described the assistant's comments as "offensive" and called for Marks & Spencer to carry out a thorough investigation.
Mrs Friday said her trip to the sales in Reading, Berks, with her daughter had been ruined. "I went to the till and heard the girl say it was unclean and then she got someone else to serve me," said Mrs Friday. "At first I wasn't sure what was going on and then I realised she was wearing a headdress and I clicked that the title of the book had Bible in it. I felt very humiliated and immediately left the store."
Source
Risk assessment watchdog set up to halt march of the nanny state
A new bureaucracy to curb other bureaucracies? Spare us! Like Tony Blair, Brown seems to have a reasonable grasp of the problems but he errs in trying to solve them by bureaucratic means rather than by getting the bureaucracies out of the way and letting the market work its magic
Unnecessary warnings that bags of peanuts "may contain nuts" and overly protective rules banning conker fights in schools will be targeted by a new watchdog intended to restore Britain's spirit of adventure. Gordon Brown is so concerned that the cotton-wool culture is denying people the freedom to enjoy themselves that he has asked the watchdog to report to him personally.
The move comes after a festive season in which actors in pantomimes were banned from throwing sweets to children in case someone got hit on the head and Christmas lights were banned in towns and villages for fear that they might pull down lampposts. A Rotary club in the Midlands was even made to put its Father Christmas in a body harness in case he fell off his sleigh.
Last summer hanging baskets were banned in Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk in case they fell on the head of a passer-by, and home-made cakes were banned from a fete for fear that they might cause food poisoning.
There will be disappointment that Mr Brown's response to such killjoy acts is not to halve the number of health and safety officials or revise the hundreds of regulations introduced under this Labour Government. The Risk and Regulation Advisory Council has been set up in response to recommendations from the Better Regulation Commission that it has replaced.
The body for common sense will be set up alongside a national campaign to emphasise the importance of self- reliance and a sense of adventure. It is intended to engage the public, and remind them that the Government is not responsible for every accident or piece of bad fortune that befalls its citizens. The team of seven will tackle policy areas where there are fears that the Government is in danger of overkill.
Defensive labelling - of which the nut allergy warning on bags of peanuts is an example - is in its sights. Somewhat unnecessarily, the council says that such warnings are "laughable" and breed resentment. Also in line for scrutiny is whether the Government's response to obesity is in proportion to the problem.
The first project to be taken on by the council will look at the frenzy of government initiatives to tackle the MRSA superbug, to see if they are doing any good. Healthcare experts cast doubt this week on whether the most recent plan - a deep-clean of all hospitals announced by Mr Brown last autumn - would do any good.
Rick Haythornthwaite, who heads the council, has made his name and fortune out of the risk involved in investing in private equity. He told The Times that the combination of "well-intentioned people" and a policymaking process that "collapses in the face of a confrontational parliamentary system, the media and short-term career pressures" was responsible for the present culture of risk aversion. "If you ask someone, `Do you want the world to be a safer place?', of course they will say yes. But there is always a trade-off. Self-reliance and a spirit of adventure are important national characteristics that could be lost. I want the public to understand that in the trade-off, some important things can be lost." The key to challenging the killjoys was listen to the general public, he said.
Source
Survey shows eco-warriors are worst polluters
A survey of travel habits has revealed that the most environmentally conscious people are also the biggest polluters. "Green" consumers have some of the biggest carbon footprints because they are still hooked on flying abroad or driving their cars while their adherence to the green cause is mostly limited to small gestures.
Identified as "eco-adopters", they are most likely to be members of an environmental organisation, buy green products such as detergents, recycle and have a keen interest in green issues
But the survey of 25,000 people, by the market research company Target Group Index, found that eco-adopters are seven per cent more likely than the general population to take flights, and four per cent more likely to own a car. The survey found similar trends in France and the United States.
Geoff Wicken, the author of the report, pointed to David Cameron, the Conservative leader, as a classic eco-adopter because despite styling himself as a green warrior he also takes flights in private helicopters and planes.
Source
'I feel like an alien in my home town'
Do 'no-go' zones for non-Muslims exist in Britain, as the Bishop of Rochester claims? Olga Craig reports from some of Yorkshire's Asian-dominated areas
It has been more than 40 years since Tim Carbin walked the length of Oak Lane, the Bradford backstreet of his boyhood. Then, when he lived with his grandmother Florence Pawson, a matriarch within the community, his task after school was to run errands. Down to Foster's, the baker's, for a loaf of bread and a pound of bacon from Donald Gilbank the butcher. "And mind it isn't too fatty," Florence would tell him. Mr Carbin, then 13, knew all the local storekeepers by name, just as he knew the families in the surrounding terraces.
Yesterday, outside number 95A, his grandmother's former home, Mr Carbin gazed in bewilderment as he scanned his old haunt. Not surprisingly, the stores of his youth had gone: such has been the change in our shopping habits over the decades that they have given way to supermarkets and fast-food outlets. But that was not all that had changed irrevocably in Oak Lane. Among the new stores, the clothes shops sell Muslim dress, the butcher stocks halal meat and even the local takeaway advertises halal pizza. "I feel like an alien, like I'm on a street in Karachi," Mr Carbin says, awkwardly. "I don't feel I have anything in common with this area. It's like I've never been here before. I knew it would be different but I knew, too, that I would feel uncomfortably like I don't belong."
He now lives just 10 miles away, in the north of Bradford. He hasn't returned because Oak Lane, like so many similar areas of so many northern cities, is now an almost exclusive Asian Muslim community.
Mr Carbin is far from a racist, however. Well educated and widely travelled in Muslim countries, he has the utmost respect for the Islamic religion. What is worrying him is that Britain's increasing espousal of multiculturalism has led not to an integrated society but, instead, to ghettoisation, with white-only and Asian-only communities existing cheek by jowl but with little or no common ground. And that, he believes, could have an ominous outcome. He is, clearly, one of those about whom Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester (Britain's only Asian-born bishop), wrote in The Sunday Telegraph last week: the increasing number of native white Britons who believe many of their streets have now become "no-go" areas.
The Bishop believes that one of the results of the resurgence of Islamic extremism has been to alienate young Muslims from this country and to view adherence to this ideology as a mark of acceptance. This, he says, means many Christians and those of other faiths find it difficult to live or work here because they feel there is hostility towards them. Britain's "novel philosophy" of multiculturalism, he believes, has caused Muslims to lead separate lives, in separate areas, speaking their native languages. His views have angered many in Muslim communities but, equally, they have struck a chord with many like Mr Carbin. "This isn't, as the Government would like us to believe, a multicultural society," he says. "This is pure racial segregation. And it's like this because the Muslim community simply refuses to integrate. So people like me feel like outcasts in our own country." As Mr Carbin trudges farther along Oak Lane, he passes the tumble-down Anglican church where many of his former neighbours worshipped. Amid the mound of bricks, Sunday school hymn books are strewn.
Across town, in another Asian enclave, one local shopkeeper is preparing to sell up after 30 years running a family firm. "I am retiring," he says. "But yes, it's true, a lot of people feel uncomfortable in Muslim areas. It's fine for me, I've stayed and I know everyone, but many are fearful of venturing into the area. "It's not so much fear of violence, rather that they feel a sense of not being welcome, of having nothing in common with the community here, and a feeling that no one would appreciate the interest should they show it. "I wish the Muslim community had integrated more, but they didn't. I haven't even been able to get them to join Neighbourhood Watch."
In the surrounding streets, the few white residents willing to talk speak of isolation rather than intimidation. One said he had had several members of the Asian community knocking on his door, asking if he wanted to sell his home. "At face value, that seems innocuous," he says. "But others believe it was a message saying I should get out." Another tells of how his father, an electrician, parked his van in the area only to have it rocked and thumped by a group of Asian youths telling him: "This is our area now. You are not welcome here."
More here
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
All visa applicants to Britain now being fingerprinted
Wow! Britain catches up with 19th century technology! It's only as good as the fingerprint database and how many "refugees" are in that? And it won't keep out illegals. Nor will it send home the many criminal illegals that Britain already permits to reside there. Still, it's better than nothing, I guess
All visitors to Britain requiring visas will have to be fingerprinted from today. The immigration minister, Liam Byrne, said a programme for installing biometric visa controls has been completed three months ahead of schedule. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "It is done. It is done three months early, and it is done several million pounds under budget. "We now check everybody's fingerprint wherever they apply for a visa around the world."
Byrne said the new system - the first of 10 key changes to the UK's border controls to be implemented during this year - is already having an effect. "We have already found about 500 cases of people who have chosen not to give us their identity correctly, and we have checked them against databases that we hold in the UK and found out that they have been lying to us," he said. "Obviously, that has allowed us to stop them coming anywhere near Britain." [In your dreams!]
Another of the 10 key "milestones" in the reform of the immigration system will be the introduction of heavy on-the-spot fines for employers who hire illegal workers. If found to be negligent, businesses could be fined up to 10,000 pounds for each illegal immigrant they hire, and bosses could face up to two years in prison. A new radio and newspaper advertising campaign began today to raise awareness of the new employment rules, which will come into force before the end of next month. "The message is clear for employers: we will not tolerate illegal working," Byrne said. "This highly visible marketing campaign will ensure employers have no excuse for breaking the rules."
The shadow home secretary, David Davis, said: "After 10 years of Labour, we welcome the introduction of biometric visas. But our borders will remain seriously vulnerable without a dedicated UK border police. "The government, however, is not telling the truth when it claims [the Conservatives] are against biometric visas. We have always made clear that we support biometric visas, and at the time of the party conference [we] produced a document giving full costings to show how we would save money from scrapping ID cards without scrapping biometric visas."
Commenting on the proposals for large fines and prison sentences for businesses who employ illegal workers, Davis added: "It is a bit rich for the government to criticise businesses when the Home Office itself enjoys crown immunity from prosecution in this area, and has on several occasions been caught employing illegal immigrants - including a security officer tasked with guarding the prime minister's car, and another manning the Home Office front desk."
The UK Independence party leader, Nigel Farage, said: "In general, the government are getting tougher on immigration, and not before time. But they are, naturally, ignoring the massive EU dimension in all of this - which is that, despite all these controls, 450 million people still have the right to come to Britain to live and work; to claim benefits; [to] send their children to our schools; and [to] use our health service."
Source
Muslims must do more to integrate, says British poll
A majority of Britons believe that Muslims need to do more to integrate into society and want tighter restrictions on immigration, an opinion poll commissioned by The Sunday Telegraph shows. However, the population is divided about whether the breakdown between communities has reached such a level that there are "no-go areas" for non-Muslims.
The poll comes at the end of a week in which Muslim integration has been pushed to the top of the political agenda following an article in The Sunday Telegraph by the Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, who claimed that Islamic extremism in Britain had created no-go areas. His comments have been backed by church leaders in majority Muslim areas who have disclosed that their congregations have been targeted by militant Islamists in a campaign of intimidation which has seen churches vandalised and converts to Christianity attacked. They say that extremists are determined to make non-Muslim residents feel unwelcome, with the ultimate aim of driving them out.
Today's ICM poll shows that Britons are divided on the issue, with 35 per cent agreeing with the bishop, 38 per cent disagreeing, and the rest unsure. More than half - 56 per cent - were critical of the failure of Islamic communities to integrate into society. Only one in four felt that they had been successful.
Bishop Nazir-Ali expressed concern that attempts had been made in some areas to impose an Islamic character, for example by amplifying the call to prayer from mosques. One in three of those questioned in the poll said that they would be unhappy to have a mosque built in their neighbourhood compared with a quarter who would support such a move. Although 51 per cent agreed that the Muslim community enriched Britain and was not a threat, 37 per cent disagreed.
David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said that the poll results showed a widespread feeling that the Government had failed. "This demonstrates that the Government's actions, both to control immigration and to advance integration, are believed to have failed by the vast majority of the population," he said.
Church leaders in communities with large concentrations of Muslims said that Christians were being targeted. An east London vicar who had delivered Christmas leaflets in his parish said he was told to stay away from "Muslim areas". He said: "Despite this being a mixed area, where Muslims make up only about 15 per cent of the population, I was told that the leaflets were offensive and could make people angry." Another churchman said his path had been blocked by Muslim youths as he drove through a district of Oldham, Lancashire, last year. "They wanted to know why I was coming into 'their' area," he said. A priest ministering in the Manchester district of Rusholme said he knew of "dozens of cases" in which Muslim converts to Christianity had been attacked. Another church leader said that Asian Christians in Leicester feared being identified when leaving churches. "They are scared of being stopped and beaten up if they are found carrying Bibles," he said.
None of the church leaders we spoke to wished to be identified for fear of retaliation, but Don Horrocks, of the Evangelical Alliance, said: "It's increasingly difficult for non-Muslims to live in areas of high Muslim density, especially if they are practising Christians."
Some commentators fear that the aim of Islamist groups such as Tablighi Jamaat, Hizb-ut-Tahir and the Deobandi sect is to drive non-Muslims out of areas such as Dewsbury, in West Yorkshire, and Oldham along with neighbourhoods in Luton, Leicester, Birmingham and Leyton, in east London. The ultra-conservative Deobandi movement, which produced the Taliban in Afghanistan and some of whose British followers preach hatred of Christians, Hindus and Jews, is thought to be in control of almost half of Britain's 1,350 mosques, reports claim.
Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, the director of the Barnabas Trust, which helps persecuted Christians, said: "Muslims are being told not to integrate into British society, but to set up separate enclaves where they can operate according to sharia law." He said the process of "cleansing" Muslim-majority areas of non-Muslims had already begun, with white residents urged to leave and churches threatened.
However, a spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government said that research showed that 81 per cent of people say that they feel that people from different backgrounds get on well together in their local areas. "People of all faiths make a huge contribution to British life. Community cohesion is key to maintaining harmonious communities. That is why our strategy puts an emphasis on promoting integration and shared British values."
Most Britons believe that asylum seekers and immigrants are taking advantage of human rights laws, a survey shows. The poll, carried out for the Ministry of Justice, found that 57 per cent agreed that foreigners and asylum seekers are exploiting the Human Rights Act for their own purposes. Another 40 per cent thought the Act had caused more problems than it had solved.
Source
The dark age of low-energy bulbs
Mick Hume comments from Britain below -- saying that dullard politicians are telling us how to run our homes - in semi-darkness
Late in the pantomime season Ken Livingstone, the Miserabilist of London, is staging a new version of Aladdin. At B&Q stores this weekend Londoners can get "new bulbs for old" by swapping incandescent lightbulbs for free low-energy ones (only two each, the genie of the lightbulb being less slightly generous than the one in the lamp).
So far, so what. But what turned me off was the mayor calling this eco-stunt a "lightbulb amnesty". An amnesty is "a period during which offenders are exempt from punishment", as when police turn a blind eye to those handing in illegal weapons. A lightbulb amnesty implies that the merciful authorities will let us carbon offenders dump our tungsten timebombs and avoid the electric chair.
The economic and energy arguments about different bulbs are as dull and cold as the light thrown out by the current low-energy efforts. (Perhaps those greens who claim these are bright and warm just eat more carrots than me.) But call it a lightbulb amnesty and you can reduce the issue to a simple moral message about the power of evil.
It seems that the use of energy and production of carbon has become the standard by which all human activity is judged. Low is seen as good, higher bad, regardless of how it might illuminate our existence. What next? An auto amnesty to exchange the car for a family rickshaw? Or an infant amnesty where we can swap our carbon-guzzling kids for free-range chicks?
When an alternative scare story about mercury in low-energy bulbs arose (visions of the health and safety police swooping to change broken ones), Livingstone responded: "We shouldn't be too alarmist." How true. Of course, it is not at all alarmist for the mayor to tell us we must switch to bulbs that save a halfpenny an hour in order to "avoid catastrophic climate change".
So the genius of Thomas Edison is reinvented as a crime against the climate, while dullard politicians assume the power to tell us how to run our own homes. The lights are dimming, if not yet going off, over Europe. Welcome to the new dark age.
Source
Rise in school leaving age to 18 'ill-conceived'
PLANS by the government to force young people to stay in education or training until they are 18 have been attacked by one of the country's leading educationists as "ill-conceived" and likely to have an "overwhelmingly negative effect". According to a pamphlet by Alison Wolf, professor of public sector management at King's College London, the policy promoted by Ed Balls, the children's secretary, will infringe civil liberties and wreck the market for youth employment while providing qualifications that have "little or no market value".
"It is one of the most ill-thought-out pieces of education legislation I have ever seen," said Wolf. "I find it very hard to find any redeeming features." Her pamphlet, published today by the Policy Exchange think tank, comes as the government prepares for a second reading in the Commons tomorrow of the bill to introduce the new "participation age".
It has also emerged that a report commissioned by the government and released without publicity has found little evidence from overseas that forcing people to stay in school or training until 18 has any benefit. "Unfortunately, it was not possible to find any direct evidence of the impact of introducing a system of compulsory education or training to the age of 18," says the review, commissioned by the Department for Children, Schools and Families. From 2015 all teenagers will have to stay at school or in training until they are 18. Those in jobs will have to take time off to train.
Other criticism has been raised because the bill does not exempt pregnant or disabled teenagers, those in the armed forces or those training to become professional athletes. "Gap" years taken by many youngsters could also be severely hit.
Balls said yesterday: "This is about extending opportunity to all young people and making sure we can succeed in the global economy." It is understood the Tories, who had previously called the policy a "gimmick", plan to abstain in the Commons. They hope to introduce amendments to remove provisions such as taking teenagers through the courts if they fail to attend training. Michael Gove, the shadow children's secretary, said: "The government's own report has outlined a series of problems with keeping children in education against their will . . . We will work with the government to improve this legislation."
But Balls said: "If the Tories sit on their hands and abstain, they will prove the Conservative party still believes in educational opportunity only for some and not for all."
Source
British independent schools reject charity rules
Britain's leading public schools have rejected as unworkable regulations that would force them to open their doors to pupils from poor families. The Charity Commission will publish guidance this week on what the nation's 2,500 private schools must do to satisfy new laws requiring that they prove their "public benefit" in order to retain their charitable status, worth 100 million pounds in tax breaks each year. In submissions to the commission, seen by The Times, some of Britain's best-known independent schools said that draft proposals issued last year insisting that poor students "must be able to benefit" from private schools would place an unfair burden on fee-paying parents and could threaten the existence of many schools.
Jonathan Shephard, the chief executive of the Independent Schools Council, saidit had managed to force "substantial changes" in the guidance. Eton College accused the commission of employing "flawed reasoning" in arguing that the relief on public funds that independent schools provide by educating children for whom the State would otherwise have to pay provided proportionately less benefit to poor families, who pay less tax. Andrew Wynn, the bursar of Eton, wrote: "We would not seek to argue that relief of public funds is enough on its own, but we would argue that such relief is a significant matter - many of our parents are very conscious of paying twice - and is not something that should become underrated on the basis of flawed reasoning."
Rugby School, whose annual fees for boarders are 24,915 pounds, accused the commission of deliberately creating difficulties for independent schools. Gary Lydiatt, its bursar, wrote: "As drafted, the guidance suggests that without addressing the provision of services to individuals on low incomes, the public benefit test would not be met. While this is not an issue for Rugby, it could cause significant problems for other schools. "It is essential to accept that most independent schools have to charge for the services that they provide. Unless independent schools are able to do this, it is inevitable that many will close and the benefits that they provide will be lost."
Harrow School accused the commission of misinterpreting charity law. Nick Shryane, its bursar, wrote: "The phrase `must be able to benefit' should be replaced with `must not be excluded from benefiting'. "Those schools which are able to do so will be able to give direct access through bursaries to the children of families who cannot afford fees. But not all schools are well funded or able to offer bursaries."
Dame Suzi Leather, the commission's chairwoman, said in August that she would be prepared to take legal action against schools that refused to widen access. "It's going to be a difficult and contested territory," she said.
Source
Brit Muslim leader speaks out against "honor" killings: "One of Britain's leading Muslims has called on his community to rise up against a culture of fear and help stamp out forced marriages and honour killings after the third high-profile court case in Britain in the past year. Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, head of the Muslim Parliament in Britain, spoke out after a coroner ruled on Friday that 17-year-old Shafilea Ahmed was "unlawfully killed" and that "the concept of an arranged marriage was central to the circumstances of her death". Mr Siddiqui said he was certain the schoolgirl, who wanted to go to university and become a lawyer, was the victim of an honour killing. No charges have yet been bought by police"
Wow! Britain catches up with 19th century technology! It's only as good as the fingerprint database and how many "refugees" are in that? And it won't keep out illegals. Nor will it send home the many criminal illegals that Britain already permits to reside there. Still, it's better than nothing, I guess
All visitors to Britain requiring visas will have to be fingerprinted from today. The immigration minister, Liam Byrne, said a programme for installing biometric visa controls has been completed three months ahead of schedule. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "It is done. It is done three months early, and it is done several million pounds under budget. "We now check everybody's fingerprint wherever they apply for a visa around the world."
Byrne said the new system - the first of 10 key changes to the UK's border controls to be implemented during this year - is already having an effect. "We have already found about 500 cases of people who have chosen not to give us their identity correctly, and we have checked them against databases that we hold in the UK and found out that they have been lying to us," he said. "Obviously, that has allowed us to stop them coming anywhere near Britain." [In your dreams!]
Another of the 10 key "milestones" in the reform of the immigration system will be the introduction of heavy on-the-spot fines for employers who hire illegal workers. If found to be negligent, businesses could be fined up to 10,000 pounds for each illegal immigrant they hire, and bosses could face up to two years in prison. A new radio and newspaper advertising campaign began today to raise awareness of the new employment rules, which will come into force before the end of next month. "The message is clear for employers: we will not tolerate illegal working," Byrne said. "This highly visible marketing campaign will ensure employers have no excuse for breaking the rules."
The shadow home secretary, David Davis, said: "After 10 years of Labour, we welcome the introduction of biometric visas. But our borders will remain seriously vulnerable without a dedicated UK border police. "The government, however, is not telling the truth when it claims [the Conservatives] are against biometric visas. We have always made clear that we support biometric visas, and at the time of the party conference [we] produced a document giving full costings to show how we would save money from scrapping ID cards without scrapping biometric visas."
Commenting on the proposals for large fines and prison sentences for businesses who employ illegal workers, Davis added: "It is a bit rich for the government to criticise businesses when the Home Office itself enjoys crown immunity from prosecution in this area, and has on several occasions been caught employing illegal immigrants - including a security officer tasked with guarding the prime minister's car, and another manning the Home Office front desk."
The UK Independence party leader, Nigel Farage, said: "In general, the government are getting tougher on immigration, and not before time. But they are, naturally, ignoring the massive EU dimension in all of this - which is that, despite all these controls, 450 million people still have the right to come to Britain to live and work; to claim benefits; [to] send their children to our schools; and [to] use our health service."
Source
Muslims must do more to integrate, says British poll
A majority of Britons believe that Muslims need to do more to integrate into society and want tighter restrictions on immigration, an opinion poll commissioned by The Sunday Telegraph shows. However, the population is divided about whether the breakdown between communities has reached such a level that there are "no-go areas" for non-Muslims.
The poll comes at the end of a week in which Muslim integration has been pushed to the top of the political agenda following an article in The Sunday Telegraph by the Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, who claimed that Islamic extremism in Britain had created no-go areas. His comments have been backed by church leaders in majority Muslim areas who have disclosed that their congregations have been targeted by militant Islamists in a campaign of intimidation which has seen churches vandalised and converts to Christianity attacked. They say that extremists are determined to make non-Muslim residents feel unwelcome, with the ultimate aim of driving them out.
Today's ICM poll shows that Britons are divided on the issue, with 35 per cent agreeing with the bishop, 38 per cent disagreeing, and the rest unsure. More than half - 56 per cent - were critical of the failure of Islamic communities to integrate into society. Only one in four felt that they had been successful.
Bishop Nazir-Ali expressed concern that attempts had been made in some areas to impose an Islamic character, for example by amplifying the call to prayer from mosques. One in three of those questioned in the poll said that they would be unhappy to have a mosque built in their neighbourhood compared with a quarter who would support such a move. Although 51 per cent agreed that the Muslim community enriched Britain and was not a threat, 37 per cent disagreed.
David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said that the poll results showed a widespread feeling that the Government had failed. "This demonstrates that the Government's actions, both to control immigration and to advance integration, are believed to have failed by the vast majority of the population," he said.
Church leaders in communities with large concentrations of Muslims said that Christians were being targeted. An east London vicar who had delivered Christmas leaflets in his parish said he was told to stay away from "Muslim areas". He said: "Despite this being a mixed area, where Muslims make up only about 15 per cent of the population, I was told that the leaflets were offensive and could make people angry." Another churchman said his path had been blocked by Muslim youths as he drove through a district of Oldham, Lancashire, last year. "They wanted to know why I was coming into 'their' area," he said. A priest ministering in the Manchester district of Rusholme said he knew of "dozens of cases" in which Muslim converts to Christianity had been attacked. Another church leader said that Asian Christians in Leicester feared being identified when leaving churches. "They are scared of being stopped and beaten up if they are found carrying Bibles," he said.
None of the church leaders we spoke to wished to be identified for fear of retaliation, but Don Horrocks, of the Evangelical Alliance, said: "It's increasingly difficult for non-Muslims to live in areas of high Muslim density, especially if they are practising Christians."
Some commentators fear that the aim of Islamist groups such as Tablighi Jamaat, Hizb-ut-Tahir and the Deobandi sect is to drive non-Muslims out of areas such as Dewsbury, in West Yorkshire, and Oldham along with neighbourhoods in Luton, Leicester, Birmingham and Leyton, in east London. The ultra-conservative Deobandi movement, which produced the Taliban in Afghanistan and some of whose British followers preach hatred of Christians, Hindus and Jews, is thought to be in control of almost half of Britain's 1,350 mosques, reports claim.
Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, the director of the Barnabas Trust, which helps persecuted Christians, said: "Muslims are being told not to integrate into British society, but to set up separate enclaves where they can operate according to sharia law." He said the process of "cleansing" Muslim-majority areas of non-Muslims had already begun, with white residents urged to leave and churches threatened.
However, a spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government said that research showed that 81 per cent of people say that they feel that people from different backgrounds get on well together in their local areas. "People of all faiths make a huge contribution to British life. Community cohesion is key to maintaining harmonious communities. That is why our strategy puts an emphasis on promoting integration and shared British values."
Most Britons believe that asylum seekers and immigrants are taking advantage of human rights laws, a survey shows. The poll, carried out for the Ministry of Justice, found that 57 per cent agreed that foreigners and asylum seekers are exploiting the Human Rights Act for their own purposes. Another 40 per cent thought the Act had caused more problems than it had solved.
Source
The dark age of low-energy bulbs
Mick Hume comments from Britain below -- saying that dullard politicians are telling us how to run our homes - in semi-darkness
Late in the pantomime season Ken Livingstone, the Miserabilist of London, is staging a new version of Aladdin. At B&Q stores this weekend Londoners can get "new bulbs for old" by swapping incandescent lightbulbs for free low-energy ones (only two each, the genie of the lightbulb being less slightly generous than the one in the lamp).
So far, so what. But what turned me off was the mayor calling this eco-stunt a "lightbulb amnesty". An amnesty is "a period during which offenders are exempt from punishment", as when police turn a blind eye to those handing in illegal weapons. A lightbulb amnesty implies that the merciful authorities will let us carbon offenders dump our tungsten timebombs and avoid the electric chair.
The economic and energy arguments about different bulbs are as dull and cold as the light thrown out by the current low-energy efforts. (Perhaps those greens who claim these are bright and warm just eat more carrots than me.) But call it a lightbulb amnesty and you can reduce the issue to a simple moral message about the power of evil.
It seems that the use of energy and production of carbon has become the standard by which all human activity is judged. Low is seen as good, higher bad, regardless of how it might illuminate our existence. What next? An auto amnesty to exchange the car for a family rickshaw? Or an infant amnesty where we can swap our carbon-guzzling kids for free-range chicks?
When an alternative scare story about mercury in low-energy bulbs arose (visions of the health and safety police swooping to change broken ones), Livingstone responded: "We shouldn't be too alarmist." How true. Of course, it is not at all alarmist for the mayor to tell us we must switch to bulbs that save a halfpenny an hour in order to "avoid catastrophic climate change".
So the genius of Thomas Edison is reinvented as a crime against the climate, while dullard politicians assume the power to tell us how to run our own homes. The lights are dimming, if not yet going off, over Europe. Welcome to the new dark age.
Source
Rise in school leaving age to 18 'ill-conceived'
PLANS by the government to force young people to stay in education or training until they are 18 have been attacked by one of the country's leading educationists as "ill-conceived" and likely to have an "overwhelmingly negative effect". According to a pamphlet by Alison Wolf, professor of public sector management at King's College London, the policy promoted by Ed Balls, the children's secretary, will infringe civil liberties and wreck the market for youth employment while providing qualifications that have "little or no market value".
"It is one of the most ill-thought-out pieces of education legislation I have ever seen," said Wolf. "I find it very hard to find any redeeming features." Her pamphlet, published today by the Policy Exchange think tank, comes as the government prepares for a second reading in the Commons tomorrow of the bill to introduce the new "participation age".
It has also emerged that a report commissioned by the government and released without publicity has found little evidence from overseas that forcing people to stay in school or training until 18 has any benefit. "Unfortunately, it was not possible to find any direct evidence of the impact of introducing a system of compulsory education or training to the age of 18," says the review, commissioned by the Department for Children, Schools and Families. From 2015 all teenagers will have to stay at school or in training until they are 18. Those in jobs will have to take time off to train.
Other criticism has been raised because the bill does not exempt pregnant or disabled teenagers, those in the armed forces or those training to become professional athletes. "Gap" years taken by many youngsters could also be severely hit.
Balls said yesterday: "This is about extending opportunity to all young people and making sure we can succeed in the global economy." It is understood the Tories, who had previously called the policy a "gimmick", plan to abstain in the Commons. They hope to introduce amendments to remove provisions such as taking teenagers through the courts if they fail to attend training. Michael Gove, the shadow children's secretary, said: "The government's own report has outlined a series of problems with keeping children in education against their will . . . We will work with the government to improve this legislation."
But Balls said: "If the Tories sit on their hands and abstain, they will prove the Conservative party still believes in educational opportunity only for some and not for all."
Source
British independent schools reject charity rules
Britain's leading public schools have rejected as unworkable regulations that would force them to open their doors to pupils from poor families. The Charity Commission will publish guidance this week on what the nation's 2,500 private schools must do to satisfy new laws requiring that they prove their "public benefit" in order to retain their charitable status, worth 100 million pounds in tax breaks each year. In submissions to the commission, seen by The Times, some of Britain's best-known independent schools said that draft proposals issued last year insisting that poor students "must be able to benefit" from private schools would place an unfair burden on fee-paying parents and could threaten the existence of many schools.
Jonathan Shephard, the chief executive of the Independent Schools Council, saidit had managed to force "substantial changes" in the guidance. Eton College accused the commission of employing "flawed reasoning" in arguing that the relief on public funds that independent schools provide by educating children for whom the State would otherwise have to pay provided proportionately less benefit to poor families, who pay less tax. Andrew Wynn, the bursar of Eton, wrote: "We would not seek to argue that relief of public funds is enough on its own, but we would argue that such relief is a significant matter - many of our parents are very conscious of paying twice - and is not something that should become underrated on the basis of flawed reasoning."
Rugby School, whose annual fees for boarders are 24,915 pounds, accused the commission of deliberately creating difficulties for independent schools. Gary Lydiatt, its bursar, wrote: "As drafted, the guidance suggests that without addressing the provision of services to individuals on low incomes, the public benefit test would not be met. While this is not an issue for Rugby, it could cause significant problems for other schools. "It is essential to accept that most independent schools have to charge for the services that they provide. Unless independent schools are able to do this, it is inevitable that many will close and the benefits that they provide will be lost."
Harrow School accused the commission of misinterpreting charity law. Nick Shryane, its bursar, wrote: "The phrase `must be able to benefit' should be replaced with `must not be excluded from benefiting'. "Those schools which are able to do so will be able to give direct access through bursaries to the children of families who cannot afford fees. But not all schools are well funded or able to offer bursaries."
Dame Suzi Leather, the commission's chairwoman, said in August that she would be prepared to take legal action against schools that refused to widen access. "It's going to be a difficult and contested territory," she said.
Source
Brit Muslim leader speaks out against "honor" killings: "One of Britain's leading Muslims has called on his community to rise up against a culture of fear and help stamp out forced marriages and honour killings after the third high-profile court case in Britain in the past year. Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, head of the Muslim Parliament in Britain, spoke out after a coroner ruled on Friday that 17-year-old Shafilea Ahmed was "unlawfully killed" and that "the concept of an arranged marriage was central to the circumstances of her death". Mr Siddiqui said he was certain the schoolgirl, who wanted to go to university and become a lawyer, was the victim of an honour killing. No charges have yet been bought by police"
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
400,000 people 'still waiting more than a year for NHS treatment'
Almost 400,000 patients are still waiting more than a year for NHS treatment, a think tank claimed today. Government figures showed a rise in the number of patients being admitted for treatment within the 18-week target from referral. The latest figures, for October 2007, showed 60 per cent were treated in that timeframe, up from 57 per cent the previous month.
But right-wing think-tank Civitas warned the figures were concealing a high number forced to wait far longer. It said 713,513 (or 18 per cent) of patients needing elective treatment were waiting longer than 36 weeks, with 387,152 (10 per cent) of those having waited over a year. Despite improvements, current rates are not enough to ensure the Government hits its target for all patients to be treated within 18 weeks by the end of the year.
Civitas also warned of a postcode lottery, with 33 per cent of patients at Hastings and Rother Primary Care Trust (PCT) treated within 18 weeks, compared with 82% in Blackpool PCT and Telford and Wrekin PCT. James Gubb, director of the health unit at Civitas, said: "Instead of political targets, performance should be driven by choice and competition - a self-sustaining and much more positive mechanism for change. "If this means more patients choosing to have their treatment in the independent sector or the better NHS hospitals, then these should be allowed to expand in response. "As is the case elsewhere, it is the ability of patients to compliment, complain and ultimately take their business elsewhere that will drive providers in the NHS to improve. "GPs must be in the driving seat, offering patients real choice and ensuring this mechanism is available."
Source
Britain: Illegal immigrants freed to reoffend
Record numbers of illegal immigrants convicted of the most serious crimes were deported from the UK last year but many arrested for minor offences are released to offend again.
Wang is in his thirties and lives in London but he shouldn't be. His application for asylum was refused when he came to the UK six years ago from the Fujian Province in China. Now that he has paid off his debt to the man who smuggled him here, any money he makes from selling counterfeit DVDs gets sent home to China. "At the very beginning I could make 1,500 to 2,000 pounds a week. Now it's getting worse. I could only get around 1,000 a week."
He might still be young but Wang is already thinking about retiring on the profits of his illegal trading. "My family used the money to build a good house. I just want to make as much as possible, then I don't have to do anything when I go back to China."
The Home Office says there are no official estimates for the number of Chinese people like Wang, who are living in the UK illegally. But Sha, who also sells counterfeit DVDs, says there are many like her. "There are many people selling DVDs and most of them have experience of being arrested. It's very rare to hear of anybody who hasn't been arrested yet."
Sha paid around œ20,000 to be smuggled into the UK from China. She has been here illegally for three years because her application for asylum was refused. But she has not been deported and she says that is a familiar story amongst her friends, who are also breaking the law to earn money. "Of the ones who were deported, there are a few dozen. But I know hundreds, maybe a few thousand are selling DVDs."
When the police arrest someone like Sha, who they suspect is in the UK illegally, they have to contact the Border and Immigration Agency for advice about what to do. Jan Berry, the chairman of the Police Federation - which represents serving officers - says this often means they are set free. "What I'm told happens more often than not is that they are told to release them from custody and to advise them to go to Croydon or one of the immigration centres in order that they be dealt with there." "Rarely if ever do the Border and Immigration Agency now go to police stations to pick people up."
Jan Berry says it is frustrating for officers who are told to ask suspected illegal immigrants to make their own way to immigration centres because they know they will not go there. "Not only don't you expect them to go into the system, you're also re-injecting them back into society where they can carry on committing crime."
Tony Smith, regional director for the Border and Immigration Agency says they are committed to the removal of foreign national criminals and last year they removed more than ever before. "We have to prioritise those removals that are the most harmful and so where people are committing serious crimes then they're the ones who'll be deported first." "But that doesn't mean to say that others will be slipping through the net."
But the 5 Live Report hasn't just heard about counterfeit DVD selling. We have spoken to illegal immigrants getting involved in organised crime because of the light touch they have experienced when they have been caught for lesser offences.
Ming, also from China, has been in the UK illegally for three years and he used to make money from DVD selling before he was introduced to other ways of making money. "Normally the people from Vietnam, their business is growing drugs. They told me growing drugs could make a lot of money." "I used to fake credit cards.We hired people who took the fake cards to casinos and shopping centres, things like that. In casinos, fake credit cards work really well." Ming told our researcher he was also involved in bank fraud but he's only been able to branch out in this way because he's been let off before. "When I was selling DVDs, I was caught by the police a few times, but not now."
Source
Britain: Crazy immigration enforcement idea
This is a total laugh -- good for PR purposes only.
Prison vans are to cruise the streets of Britain searching for illegal - immigrants. The "mobile detention centres" will aim to catch recently arrived foreigners as they emerge from people-smuggling lorries. Immigration officers will hold the suspects inside the vans until background checks are performed. If they are found to be here illegally, they will be taken by police to a major detention centre in Oakington, Cambridgeshire, before being repatriated.
The sheer number of bogus arrivals has meant police have been too busy to do the job. The first vans are due to be launched in Northamptonshire following a successful try-out in ports along the South Coast. The vehicles were ordered by Immigration Minister Liam Byrne after the Government was embarrassed by two incidents last September. Police caught 16 illegal Iraqi immigrants leaving a lorry in Flore, Northamptonshire, but, instead of alerting the authorities, told them to travel almost 100 miles to a detention centre in Croydon and sign on as asylum-seekers.
The previous week, five African men had been found in a lorry in Long Buckby, Northamptonshire. On that occasion, the police actually gave them a lift to a railway station before asking them to catch a train to Croydon. Northampton North MP Sally Keeble, who had raised the incidents with Mr Byrne, said: "They were stupid situations - no one would expect desperate people to travel halfway across the country to hand themselves in. "These vans are a good idea and will help to take the pressure off local police and services."
New Government figures reveal that the number of illegal stowaways has more than doubled in just three years. In 2003, the number of people found entering the country clandestinely was 3,127. By 2006, it was 7,552.
Shadow Immigration Minister Damian Green said: "We will need to see whether this measure changes much in practice or whether it is another gimmick." But last night, questions were being asked as to how staff at the Border & Immigration Agency would find the time to roam the streets in prison vans. A leaked secret Government memo last week revealed that immigration officers had been ordered to stop deporting foreign students who overstay their visas, suggesting that they were too busy to do so.
And last month, a leaked document from the Prison Service revealed that immigration bosses had "no interest" in deporting foreign prisoners who had served less than a year behind bars.
Source
Some mockery of Green power from Britain's Jeremy Clarkson
A couple of weeks ago, plans for a wonderful new coal-fired power station in Kent were given the green light and I was very pleased. This will reduce our dependency on Vladimir's gas and Osama's oil and, as a bonus, new technology being developed to burn the coal more efficiently will be exported to China and exchanged for plastic novelty items to make our lives a little brighter.
It's all just too excellent for words, but of course galloping into the limelight came a small army of communists and hippies who were waving their arms around and saying that coal was the fuel of Satan and that when the new power station opened, small people like Richard Hammond would immediately be drowned by a rampaging tidal swell. They argued with much gusto that if Britain was to stand any chance of meeting Mr Prescott's Kyoto climate change targets then we must build power stations that produced no carbon emissions at all.
You'd imagine then that last week, when Gordon Brown announced plans for a herd of new nuclear power stations, they'd have been delighted. Quiet power made by witchcraft, and no emissions at all. It's enough, you might imagine, to make Jonathon Porritt priapic with pleasure. But no. It turns out the eco-mentalists don't like nuclear power either for lots of reasons, all of them stupid. They worry about what would happen if a reactor blew up. Which is a bit like worrying about living in a house in case a giant meteorite lands on it. They claim that people who go within five miles of a reactor die of leukaemia instantly. (They don't.) They wonder where the plants will be built. (Wales?) And they ask what we will do with the waste. Simple. Put it in the Rainbow Warrior.
The fact of the matter is this. The decision to go nuclear has exposed the whole environmental cause for what it is: not a well intentioned drive for clean power but a spiteful, mean-spirited drive for less power. Because less power hits richer countries and richer people the hardest. I've argued time and again that the old trade unionists and CND lesbians didn't go away. They just morphed into environmentalists. The red's become green but the goals remain the same. And there's no better way of achieving those goals than turning the lights out and therefore winding the clock back to the Stone Age. Only when we're all eating leaves under a hammer and sickle will they be happy.
I'm serious. All the harebrained schemes for renewable energy are popular among Britain's beardies only because they don't work. I heard one of them on the radio last week explaining that if he were allowed to build 58,000 islands in the Caribbean he could use steam coming off the sea to make enough power for everyone. Yeah, right. And then you have their constant claims that the tide can be used to make electricity. Really? If that's so, why am I not writing this on a computer powered by the Severn Bore?
Sure, this summer work will begin on a tidal plant off the coast of Wales. Eight turbines, each 78ft long and 50ft tall, will harness the moon's gravitational pull, and if all goes well it won't even provide enough electricity to run Chipping Norton. You'd be better off burning tenners. [Ten pound notes].
So what about wind turbines? Nope. They don't work either. Quite apart from their unmatched ability to mince baby ospreys and keep everyone within 15 miles awake with their mournful humming, they don't provide enough juice to power a Rampant Rabbit. Denmark has built 6,000 wind turbines and it's said that together they can produce enough electricity to meet 19% of the country's (frankly minuscule) needs. But since they came on line not a single one of Denmark's normal power stations has been decommissioned. They are all running at full capacity because, while the wind turbines are theoretically capable of meeting nearly a fifth of the country's demands, they produce nothing at all when the wind drops. And since nobody can predict when that might be, the normal power stations have to be kept on line all the time. It's been a disaster, which brings us back to nuclear power: the only solution if you want to maintain our standard of living and cut carbon emissions.
Not only is the energy clean but there are other advantages too. The new power plants will be privately run, which means you can buy shares in them and you won't lose a penny. Because when things are going well you'll get a dividend, and when they're not going well you won't care because you'll be covered in sulphurous sores and blood will be spurting from where your eyes used to be. Better still, to make sure things don't go badly a vast army of health and safety officers will be employed to ensure the concrete is thick enough and visiting schoolchildren are not allowed to press any of the buttons. This means the high-vis Nazis will have no time left to stop policemen climbing ladders.
What's more, because so many countries are going nuclear, Iran for instance, there is bound to be a global shortage of sufficiently well qualified atomic engineers. This means wages will rise, and that will cause schoolchildren to stop aiming for stardom in Heat magazine or a 2:1 in media studies and start concentrating a bit more in physics and maths.
Best of all, though, when all of our power is being generated by neutrons quietly crashing into one another, Greenpeace will have to leave us alone and go back to unpicking dolphins from Chinamen's fishing nets.
Source
British Greenie opposes Green town
Another example of Greenies not liking actual applications of their theories
For a man once jailed for obscenity while at the centre of Sixties counterculture, Felix Dennis is an unlikely Nimby campaigner. But, infuriated by plans to build an "eco-town" near his palatial home, the once quintessential rebel against the Establishment is leading the local battle against Gordon Brown's grand environmental vision.
Mr Dennis, 61, is best known as the notorious publishing magnate who stood accused of corrupting the nation's children in the Oz obscenity trials in the 1970s. Today, he seems keener to maintain the status quo and hopes to scupper plans for the development in the picturesque South War-wickshire countryside where he lives. A hero to the 1970s youth movement, Mr Dennis's opening salvo in his fight against the eco-town was to write a letter of protest to Hazel Blears, the Communities and Local Government Secretary.
The multimillionaire, whose publishing empire now includes the magazines Maxim, Viz and The Week, wants to stop the town being built near historic Dorsington Manor, his luxurious home. The eco-town, known as Middle Quinton, on the site of the old Long Marston army camp four miles south of Stratford-upon-Avon, would provide 6,000 homes. It is one of the ten - each containing up to 20,000 homes - proposed by Gordon Brown last year. The pledge was seen as an effort to wrestle control of the environmental agenda from David Cameron while also building three million new homes by 2020.
The proposed settlements would be built to zero-rated carbon standards yet remain "family-friendly". As well as containing state-of-the-art recycling and water conservation schemes, they would have gardens, green spaces and good-quality houses, rather than apartments. Within the settlements, shops, primary and secondary schools would all be in walking distance to try to cut carbon emisssions.
Mr Dennis, a well-known environmentalist and tree-planter in the area, rejects all charges of Nimbyism. He claims that the proposed development would threaten a beautiful country area, bring thousands more cars on to narrow rural lanes, cause light pollution and disrupt major footpaths including the Heart of England Way. He also says that the plans have no support from the local authority or other local stakeholders.
Mr Dennis started his publishing career at Oz, the Sixties counterculture magazine that was prosecuted for obscenity in 1971. Though all three Oz editors were found guilty, Mr Dennis was given a lesser sentence because the judge considered him "very much less intelligent" and therefore less responsible - than his co-accused. The remark allegedly drove Mr Dennis to create his business empire, now thought to be worth 720 million pounds, to prove the judge wrong.
The proposed site, currently used for Sunday markets, is owned by the Midlands property group St Modwen, while the Stratford-based developer the Bird Group owns 120 adjoining acres that would rocket in value if the eco-town were to receive planning permission. The group's managing director, Tony Bird, said: "I'm extremely excited by it. I love Stratford - I dread to think what will happen if we don't do this at Long Marston. Stratford will become a housing estate and it's congested enough already."
Source
Britain. The cancer of bureaucracy again: "A quango distributing lottery money has been accused by the Conservatives of wasting millions of pounds on salaries and administration while cutting donations. Costs at the Big Lottery Fund, which is responsible for handing out half the money for good causes raised by the Lotto, have risen from 73 million in 2006 to 77 million pounds last year. The amount distributed has dropped from 696 million to 469 million because the Government has diverted funds to the 2012 Olympics. The fund's administration costs amounted to 12.8 per cent of its income. In comparison the charities Scope and Children in Need spent 2 per cent and 4.4 per cent respectively. The research showed that the fund, where five of the twelve board members are Labour members, has 1,103 employees compared with 1,170 at the Treasury, but while the fund distributes 630 million annually, the Treasury distributes 500 times that amount."
Almost 400,000 patients are still waiting more than a year for NHS treatment, a think tank claimed today. Government figures showed a rise in the number of patients being admitted for treatment within the 18-week target from referral. The latest figures, for October 2007, showed 60 per cent were treated in that timeframe, up from 57 per cent the previous month.
But right-wing think-tank Civitas warned the figures were concealing a high number forced to wait far longer. It said 713,513 (or 18 per cent) of patients needing elective treatment were waiting longer than 36 weeks, with 387,152 (10 per cent) of those having waited over a year. Despite improvements, current rates are not enough to ensure the Government hits its target for all patients to be treated within 18 weeks by the end of the year.
Civitas also warned of a postcode lottery, with 33 per cent of patients at Hastings and Rother Primary Care Trust (PCT) treated within 18 weeks, compared with 82% in Blackpool PCT and Telford and Wrekin PCT. James Gubb, director of the health unit at Civitas, said: "Instead of political targets, performance should be driven by choice and competition - a self-sustaining and much more positive mechanism for change. "If this means more patients choosing to have their treatment in the independent sector or the better NHS hospitals, then these should be allowed to expand in response. "As is the case elsewhere, it is the ability of patients to compliment, complain and ultimately take their business elsewhere that will drive providers in the NHS to improve. "GPs must be in the driving seat, offering patients real choice and ensuring this mechanism is available."
Source
Britain: Illegal immigrants freed to reoffend
Record numbers of illegal immigrants convicted of the most serious crimes were deported from the UK last year but many arrested for minor offences are released to offend again.
Wang is in his thirties and lives in London but he shouldn't be. His application for asylum was refused when he came to the UK six years ago from the Fujian Province in China. Now that he has paid off his debt to the man who smuggled him here, any money he makes from selling counterfeit DVDs gets sent home to China. "At the very beginning I could make 1,500 to 2,000 pounds a week. Now it's getting worse. I could only get around 1,000 a week."
He might still be young but Wang is already thinking about retiring on the profits of his illegal trading. "My family used the money to build a good house. I just want to make as much as possible, then I don't have to do anything when I go back to China."
The Home Office says there are no official estimates for the number of Chinese people like Wang, who are living in the UK illegally. But Sha, who also sells counterfeit DVDs, says there are many like her. "There are many people selling DVDs and most of them have experience of being arrested. It's very rare to hear of anybody who hasn't been arrested yet."
Sha paid around œ20,000 to be smuggled into the UK from China. She has been here illegally for three years because her application for asylum was refused. But she has not been deported and she says that is a familiar story amongst her friends, who are also breaking the law to earn money. "Of the ones who were deported, there are a few dozen. But I know hundreds, maybe a few thousand are selling DVDs."
When the police arrest someone like Sha, who they suspect is in the UK illegally, they have to contact the Border and Immigration Agency for advice about what to do. Jan Berry, the chairman of the Police Federation - which represents serving officers - says this often means they are set free. "What I'm told happens more often than not is that they are told to release them from custody and to advise them to go to Croydon or one of the immigration centres in order that they be dealt with there." "Rarely if ever do the Border and Immigration Agency now go to police stations to pick people up."
Jan Berry says it is frustrating for officers who are told to ask suspected illegal immigrants to make their own way to immigration centres because they know they will not go there. "Not only don't you expect them to go into the system, you're also re-injecting them back into society where they can carry on committing crime."
Tony Smith, regional director for the Border and Immigration Agency says they are committed to the removal of foreign national criminals and last year they removed more than ever before. "We have to prioritise those removals that are the most harmful and so where people are committing serious crimes then they're the ones who'll be deported first." "But that doesn't mean to say that others will be slipping through the net."
But the 5 Live Report hasn't just heard about counterfeit DVD selling. We have spoken to illegal immigrants getting involved in organised crime because of the light touch they have experienced when they have been caught for lesser offences.
Ming, also from China, has been in the UK illegally for three years and he used to make money from DVD selling before he was introduced to other ways of making money. "Normally the people from Vietnam, their business is growing drugs. They told me growing drugs could make a lot of money." "I used to fake credit cards.We hired people who took the fake cards to casinos and shopping centres, things like that. In casinos, fake credit cards work really well." Ming told our researcher he was also involved in bank fraud but he's only been able to branch out in this way because he's been let off before. "When I was selling DVDs, I was caught by the police a few times, but not now."
Source
Britain: Crazy immigration enforcement idea
This is a total laugh -- good for PR purposes only.
Prison vans are to cruise the streets of Britain searching for illegal - immigrants. The "mobile detention centres" will aim to catch recently arrived foreigners as they emerge from people-smuggling lorries. Immigration officers will hold the suspects inside the vans until background checks are performed. If they are found to be here illegally, they will be taken by police to a major detention centre in Oakington, Cambridgeshire, before being repatriated.
The sheer number of bogus arrivals has meant police have been too busy to do the job. The first vans are due to be launched in Northamptonshire following a successful try-out in ports along the South Coast. The vehicles were ordered by Immigration Minister Liam Byrne after the Government was embarrassed by two incidents last September. Police caught 16 illegal Iraqi immigrants leaving a lorry in Flore, Northamptonshire, but, instead of alerting the authorities, told them to travel almost 100 miles to a detention centre in Croydon and sign on as asylum-seekers.
The previous week, five African men had been found in a lorry in Long Buckby, Northamptonshire. On that occasion, the police actually gave them a lift to a railway station before asking them to catch a train to Croydon. Northampton North MP Sally Keeble, who had raised the incidents with Mr Byrne, said: "They were stupid situations - no one would expect desperate people to travel halfway across the country to hand themselves in. "These vans are a good idea and will help to take the pressure off local police and services."
New Government figures reveal that the number of illegal stowaways has more than doubled in just three years. In 2003, the number of people found entering the country clandestinely was 3,127. By 2006, it was 7,552.
Shadow Immigration Minister Damian Green said: "We will need to see whether this measure changes much in practice or whether it is another gimmick." But last night, questions were being asked as to how staff at the Border & Immigration Agency would find the time to roam the streets in prison vans. A leaked secret Government memo last week revealed that immigration officers had been ordered to stop deporting foreign students who overstay their visas, suggesting that they were too busy to do so.
And last month, a leaked document from the Prison Service revealed that immigration bosses had "no interest" in deporting foreign prisoners who had served less than a year behind bars.
Source
Some mockery of Green power from Britain's Jeremy Clarkson
A couple of weeks ago, plans for a wonderful new coal-fired power station in Kent were given the green light and I was very pleased. This will reduce our dependency on Vladimir's gas and Osama's oil and, as a bonus, new technology being developed to burn the coal more efficiently will be exported to China and exchanged for plastic novelty items to make our lives a little brighter.
It's all just too excellent for words, but of course galloping into the limelight came a small army of communists and hippies who were waving their arms around and saying that coal was the fuel of Satan and that when the new power station opened, small people like Richard Hammond would immediately be drowned by a rampaging tidal swell. They argued with much gusto that if Britain was to stand any chance of meeting Mr Prescott's Kyoto climate change targets then we must build power stations that produced no carbon emissions at all.
You'd imagine then that last week, when Gordon Brown announced plans for a herd of new nuclear power stations, they'd have been delighted. Quiet power made by witchcraft, and no emissions at all. It's enough, you might imagine, to make Jonathon Porritt priapic with pleasure. But no. It turns out the eco-mentalists don't like nuclear power either for lots of reasons, all of them stupid. They worry about what would happen if a reactor blew up. Which is a bit like worrying about living in a house in case a giant meteorite lands on it. They claim that people who go within five miles of a reactor die of leukaemia instantly. (They don't.) They wonder where the plants will be built. (Wales?) And they ask what we will do with the waste. Simple. Put it in the Rainbow Warrior.
The fact of the matter is this. The decision to go nuclear has exposed the whole environmental cause for what it is: not a well intentioned drive for clean power but a spiteful, mean-spirited drive for less power. Because less power hits richer countries and richer people the hardest. I've argued time and again that the old trade unionists and CND lesbians didn't go away. They just morphed into environmentalists. The red's become green but the goals remain the same. And there's no better way of achieving those goals than turning the lights out and therefore winding the clock back to the Stone Age. Only when we're all eating leaves under a hammer and sickle will they be happy.
I'm serious. All the harebrained schemes for renewable energy are popular among Britain's beardies only because they don't work. I heard one of them on the radio last week explaining that if he were allowed to build 58,000 islands in the Caribbean he could use steam coming off the sea to make enough power for everyone. Yeah, right. And then you have their constant claims that the tide can be used to make electricity. Really? If that's so, why am I not writing this on a computer powered by the Severn Bore?
Sure, this summer work will begin on a tidal plant off the coast of Wales. Eight turbines, each 78ft long and 50ft tall, will harness the moon's gravitational pull, and if all goes well it won't even provide enough electricity to run Chipping Norton. You'd be better off burning tenners. [Ten pound notes].
So what about wind turbines? Nope. They don't work either. Quite apart from their unmatched ability to mince baby ospreys and keep everyone within 15 miles awake with their mournful humming, they don't provide enough juice to power a Rampant Rabbit. Denmark has built 6,000 wind turbines and it's said that together they can produce enough electricity to meet 19% of the country's (frankly minuscule) needs. But since they came on line not a single one of Denmark's normal power stations has been decommissioned. They are all running at full capacity because, while the wind turbines are theoretically capable of meeting nearly a fifth of the country's demands, they produce nothing at all when the wind drops. And since nobody can predict when that might be, the normal power stations have to be kept on line all the time. It's been a disaster, which brings us back to nuclear power: the only solution if you want to maintain our standard of living and cut carbon emissions.
Not only is the energy clean but there are other advantages too. The new power plants will be privately run, which means you can buy shares in them and you won't lose a penny. Because when things are going well you'll get a dividend, and when they're not going well you won't care because you'll be covered in sulphurous sores and blood will be spurting from where your eyes used to be. Better still, to make sure things don't go badly a vast army of health and safety officers will be employed to ensure the concrete is thick enough and visiting schoolchildren are not allowed to press any of the buttons. This means the high-vis Nazis will have no time left to stop policemen climbing ladders.
What's more, because so many countries are going nuclear, Iran for instance, there is bound to be a global shortage of sufficiently well qualified atomic engineers. This means wages will rise, and that will cause schoolchildren to stop aiming for stardom in Heat magazine or a 2:1 in media studies and start concentrating a bit more in physics and maths.
Best of all, though, when all of our power is being generated by neutrons quietly crashing into one another, Greenpeace will have to leave us alone and go back to unpicking dolphins from Chinamen's fishing nets.
Source
British Greenie opposes Green town
Another example of Greenies not liking actual applications of their theories
For a man once jailed for obscenity while at the centre of Sixties counterculture, Felix Dennis is an unlikely Nimby campaigner. But, infuriated by plans to build an "eco-town" near his palatial home, the once quintessential rebel against the Establishment is leading the local battle against Gordon Brown's grand environmental vision.
Mr Dennis, 61, is best known as the notorious publishing magnate who stood accused of corrupting the nation's children in the Oz obscenity trials in the 1970s. Today, he seems keener to maintain the status quo and hopes to scupper plans for the development in the picturesque South War-wickshire countryside where he lives. A hero to the 1970s youth movement, Mr Dennis's opening salvo in his fight against the eco-town was to write a letter of protest to Hazel Blears, the Communities and Local Government Secretary.
The multimillionaire, whose publishing empire now includes the magazines Maxim, Viz and The Week, wants to stop the town being built near historic Dorsington Manor, his luxurious home. The eco-town, known as Middle Quinton, on the site of the old Long Marston army camp four miles south of Stratford-upon-Avon, would provide 6,000 homes. It is one of the ten - each containing up to 20,000 homes - proposed by Gordon Brown last year. The pledge was seen as an effort to wrestle control of the environmental agenda from David Cameron while also building three million new homes by 2020.
The proposed settlements would be built to zero-rated carbon standards yet remain "family-friendly". As well as containing state-of-the-art recycling and water conservation schemes, they would have gardens, green spaces and good-quality houses, rather than apartments. Within the settlements, shops, primary and secondary schools would all be in walking distance to try to cut carbon emisssions.
Mr Dennis, a well-known environmentalist and tree-planter in the area, rejects all charges of Nimbyism. He claims that the proposed development would threaten a beautiful country area, bring thousands more cars on to narrow rural lanes, cause light pollution and disrupt major footpaths including the Heart of England Way. He also says that the plans have no support from the local authority or other local stakeholders.
Mr Dennis started his publishing career at Oz, the Sixties counterculture magazine that was prosecuted for obscenity in 1971. Though all three Oz editors were found guilty, Mr Dennis was given a lesser sentence because the judge considered him "very much less intelligent" and therefore less responsible - than his co-accused. The remark allegedly drove Mr Dennis to create his business empire, now thought to be worth 720 million pounds, to prove the judge wrong.
The proposed site, currently used for Sunday markets, is owned by the Midlands property group St Modwen, while the Stratford-based developer the Bird Group owns 120 adjoining acres that would rocket in value if the eco-town were to receive planning permission. The group's managing director, Tony Bird, said: "I'm extremely excited by it. I love Stratford - I dread to think what will happen if we don't do this at Long Marston. Stratford will become a housing estate and it's congested enough already."
Source
Britain. The cancer of bureaucracy again: "A quango distributing lottery money has been accused by the Conservatives of wasting millions of pounds on salaries and administration while cutting donations. Costs at the Big Lottery Fund, which is responsible for handing out half the money for good causes raised by the Lotto, have risen from 73 million in 2006 to 77 million pounds last year. The amount distributed has dropped from 696 million to 469 million because the Government has diverted funds to the 2012 Olympics. The fund's administration costs amounted to 12.8 per cent of its income. In comparison the charities Scope and Children in Need spent 2 per cent and 4.4 per cent respectively. The research showed that the fund, where five of the twelve board members are Labour members, has 1,103 employees compared with 1,170 at the Treasury, but while the fund distributes 630 million annually, the Treasury distributes 500 times that amount."
Monday, January 14, 2008
British dentistry meltdown
The crisis in NHS dentistry is rapidly worsening because dentists are switching thousands of patients to private treatment, figures show. NHS treatment is in free fall with a 16 per cent collapse in the proportion of dentist's earnings made from the NHS from the years 1999-2000 to 2005-06. The figures, published by the NHS Information Centre, highlight the challenge facing the NHS after a survey, disclosed in The Independent yesterday, revealed that dentistry in England was the most expensive in Europe. The fall in NHS earnings has accelerated in the past two years and is most pronounced among young dentists who are the future of the profession.
NHS incomes fell by over 20 per cent in a single year from 2004-05 to 2005-06, as a proportion of total earnings, among dentists aged under 35. Young dentists now earn on average only just over a third of their income (36 per cent) from the NHS.
Patients' organisations said the decline in NHS dentistry was alarming and could lead to the eventual collapse of the NHS dental service. Surveys show patients are having increasing difficulty in finding an NHS dentist and the Government admitted last year that two million patients who wanted access to an NHS dentist had failed to get it. Anthony Halperin, chairman of the Patients Association and a practising dentist in London, said: "There is no question that dentists are switching patients to private treatment where they can because they feel it is the long-term future for them. They don't want to do run of the mill work, they want to do quality work and that is very difficult under the NHS."
The NHS Information Centre's report into dentists' pay showed that dentists in multi-partner practices who own their surgeries earned 114,000 pounds on average in 2005-6 from NHS and private work. Single-handed practitioners with their own practices earned 94,000. Dentists earned 58.2 per cent of their income from the NHS in 1999-2000 but that fell to 41.9 per cent in 2005-06. Among those under 35, the proportion of earnings from the NHS fell from 63.8 per cent to 36 per cent in the same period, a decline of more than a quarter in six years.
Dr Halperin said the new dental contract introduced in April 2006 had made matters worse. The contract replaced the fee-for-item payment system with three payment bands to encourage a preventive approach. "Dentists are really unhappy about the new contract. They are worried they are going to be asked to do more work for less money. If the contract turns out to be uneconomic, they will switch more patients to private work because it is a safer option and if that happens it will lead to the collapse of NHS dentistry."
The British Dental Association said the decline in NHS incomes reflected a wider malaise in the profession. Peter Ward, chief executive, said: "The dental workforce as a whole is looking to a future in which they feel less and less able to rely on the NHS and are adjusting the balance of their work accordingly." Implementation of the new contract had resulted in up to 1,000 dentists leaving the NHS and 266,000 fewer patients accessing NHS dentistry, the association said. Mr Ward said: "These statistics offer further evidence that the Government's reforms to NHS dentistry aren't achieving their stated aims. This contract has failed to improve access for patients and failed to allow dentists to deliver the kind of modern, preventive care they believe their patients deserve."
The Department of Health rejected suggestions that NHS dentistry was in decline. A spokesman said: "It would be wrong to take this shift in the share of income as evidence that dentists are turning their backs on the NHS. It simply reflects the ever-increasing demand for purely cosmetic dental work which, quite rightly, is not provided on the NHS." He added: "Access to dentistry has remained broadly stable in the past two years and we are doing all we can to make further improvements."
Source
Britain has changed but its values must endure
Britain is now a pluralist society: it is a country of people who have come from many different traditions and backgrounds, and who espouse different religious beliefs or none at all. But Britain still remains a liberal democracy governed by a single set of laws - laws whose roots lie in the Christian tradition that helped to form our moral values and culture.
There is much to celebrate in the diversity of the people who make up today's Britain, and in the dynamism and richness that diversity has brought to this country. But does it also pose a threat to the primacy of the Christian tradition, and even to a single, unified set of laws based on a liberal, tolerant political outlook? Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, believes that it may have precisely that consequence, and he expresses his forthright views in The Sunday Telegraph today.
Bishop Nazir-Ali's concern that the rapidity and scale of immigration, together with the policy of multiculturalism, threaten Britain's Christian heritage are echoed by the Church of England General Synod, a majority of which worries that large-scale immigration is "diluting the Christian nature of Britain".
It is not necessary to endorse all of Bishop Nazir-Ali's analysis to recognise that the scale and speed of immigration into Britain in recent years has indeed caused some serious social problems. Although those problems have long been at the top of voters' concerns, it has, until recently, been almost impossible to raise, let alone discuss, them in public: to do so risked being labelled "racist", a charge that has worked very effectively to shut down any further debate.
We believe that the root of the problems that have been caused, or at least exacerbated, by rapid mass immigration - including stresses and strains on the availability of publicly-funded goods, such as education, health and council housing - is less the scale and speed of immigration itself than the way Governments of all stripes have dealt with it. The policy of multiculturalism, which for decades has been the officially-sanctioned policy for immigrants, has actively worked against integrating new arrivals into British culture, traditions and values.
The model has not been the melting pot but the mosaic: instead of co-opting newcomers into the values of toleration, secular democracy and respect for the law as made by Parliament and interpreted by the judiciary, multiculturalism has encouraged immigrants to form their monocultural islands of belief and tradition, in which they reproduce their own values, regardless of whether they are inimical to the British way of doing things.
In 2008, it is not necessary to be Christian to enjoy the full liberties of the British subject (and it has not been for at least 150 years). Although it may be the result of a Christian heritage, the British way of doing things today has little to do with commitment to a specific religion: those of different faiths, whether Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or whatever, are of course full members of any British society that is worth having and preserving. What is required, however, is commitment to the democratic procedures by which law is made in Britain, and to the laws those procedures produce.
That is not a commitment that excludes much - but it does exclude the idea that all "man-made", as opposed to "God-made", law is illegitimate. So it excludes, for example, the narrow theocratic extremism of the Islamist sects that insist that only laws which derive from the Koran or Islamic tradition should be obeyed or enforced, and that they must be allowed to rule their own communities by Koranic law.
Multiculturalism allowed narrow theocratic extremism of that kind to flourish in Britain. The Government has finally realised that this was a mistake, and has promised new policies based around inculcating "British values". That is a huge improvement on multi-culturalism, which did not even insist that immigrants learn English. But it has yet to dismantle the enormous bureaucracy dedicated to promoting multiculturalism, or the jobs of the thousands of officials that depend on it.
Until it does so, separateness will continue to flourish - as will its potentially calamitous consequences for the integration of immigrants into Britain.
Source
Pupils to get lessons in good manners in one prestigious British school
The article below is from the Daily Telegraph so they retain the old British usage of calling private schools public schools! "Independent" school is the preferred modern British usage but readers of the "Tele" understand
A leading public school has launched a campaign to revive etiquette and manners by training its pupils in the art of polite dining and helping the elderly. Brighton College will educate all its new starters over the year with lessons in a variety of practical skills
As well as learning how to iron a shirt, sew on a button, boil an egg and write formal letters, 140 pupils aged 13 and 14 will be taught how to waltz at weddings, use cutlery and glasses and tie a bow tie. The year-long compulsory course, which consists of one 45-minute class each week, also covers erecting a tent, monitoring heart rates, making a pizza, using a cash machine and taking digital photographs. Pupils will learn to help the elderly and the etiquette of giving up seats on buses and trains. The headmaster, Richard Cairns, said the skills would make them more attractive to potential employers.
Last month, a survey by the Institute of Directors found that a quarter of company directors think graduates display "impoliteness and poor table manners". Mr Cairns said that after seeing the survey, the teachers made a list of 30 useful skills. He said the course was not a crusade to stamp out bad manners among the young. "Young people these days are polite," he said. "What has happened is that some haven't been told about what other people expect of them."
Source
British science chief criticizes Greens
The scientist credited as being the first to convince Tony Blair of the urgency of the climate crisis has accused green activists of being Luddites who risk setting back the fight against global warming. In an interview with the Guardian today Sir David King, who stepped down last month after seven years as the government's chief scientific adviser, says any approach that does not focus on technological solutions to climate change - including nuclear power - is one of "utter hopelessness".
He says: "There is a suspicion, and I have that suspicion myself, that a large number of people who label themselves 'green' are actually keen to take us back to the 18th or even the 17th century." He characterises their argument as "let's get away from all the technological gizmos and developments of the 20th century".
"People say 'well, we'll just use less energy.' Come on," he says. "And then there's the real world, where everyone is aspiring to the sort of standard of living that we have, which is based on a large energy consumption."
King calls global warming the biggest challenge our civilisation has ever faced, and famously, in a 2004 article in the journal Science, berated the US for its inaction, describing climate change as "more serious even than the threat of terrorism". But his vocal support for nuclear power and genetically modified foods has led to tensions with environmental campaigners.
In a new book, The Hot Topic, he invites further hostility, arguing that aviation has been unfairly scapegoated, and that a localist approach to grocery shopping, aimed at reducing food miles, may sometimes result in bigger carbon dioxide emissions than purchasing food transported from overseas.
Making people feel guilty about their energy use, the book argues, "makes them less likely to act, not more". "What I'm looking for are technological solutions to a technologically driven problem, so the last thing we must do is eschew technology as we move forward," says King, 68.
His book prescribes a barrage of technological measures based on nuclear energy, wind power, cutting emissions from cars and buildings, increasing the global area of solar panels by a factor of 700, and capturing and storing emissions from fossil fuel power generation. Only with a nuclear component, he argues, might Britain "just about manage" to reach its commitment to reduce CO2 emissions by 60% on 1990 levels by 2050.
He recalls how he sparked fury at a meeting of Blair's ministers when he refused to agree to stay silent in public about his pro-nuclear views, even though the cabinet had, at the time, opted not to press ahead with plans for new power stations. "Let me say that John Prescott's reaction was almost violent," he says.
John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace, said it was King, not green activists, who was living in the past. "We need science to get us out of the climate change hole we're in - that's why Greenpeace wants to see research funding piled into the cutting-edge low-carbon technologies that can deliver deep emissions cuts in a very short timeframe," he said."We're talking about technical solutions that can also be safely spread to every country in the world, no matter how unstable. Nuclear power isn't that technology, but Sir David wants to take us back to the 1950s, the last time we were told it would solve all our problems."
Source
The crisis in NHS dentistry is rapidly worsening because dentists are switching thousands of patients to private treatment, figures show. NHS treatment is in free fall with a 16 per cent collapse in the proportion of dentist's earnings made from the NHS from the years 1999-2000 to 2005-06. The figures, published by the NHS Information Centre, highlight the challenge facing the NHS after a survey, disclosed in The Independent yesterday, revealed that dentistry in England was the most expensive in Europe. The fall in NHS earnings has accelerated in the past two years and is most pronounced among young dentists who are the future of the profession.
NHS incomes fell by over 20 per cent in a single year from 2004-05 to 2005-06, as a proportion of total earnings, among dentists aged under 35. Young dentists now earn on average only just over a third of their income (36 per cent) from the NHS.
Patients' organisations said the decline in NHS dentistry was alarming and could lead to the eventual collapse of the NHS dental service. Surveys show patients are having increasing difficulty in finding an NHS dentist and the Government admitted last year that two million patients who wanted access to an NHS dentist had failed to get it. Anthony Halperin, chairman of the Patients Association and a practising dentist in London, said: "There is no question that dentists are switching patients to private treatment where they can because they feel it is the long-term future for them. They don't want to do run of the mill work, they want to do quality work and that is very difficult under the NHS."
The NHS Information Centre's report into dentists' pay showed that dentists in multi-partner practices who own their surgeries earned 114,000 pounds on average in 2005-6 from NHS and private work. Single-handed practitioners with their own practices earned 94,000. Dentists earned 58.2 per cent of their income from the NHS in 1999-2000 but that fell to 41.9 per cent in 2005-06. Among those under 35, the proportion of earnings from the NHS fell from 63.8 per cent to 36 per cent in the same period, a decline of more than a quarter in six years.
Dr Halperin said the new dental contract introduced in April 2006 had made matters worse. The contract replaced the fee-for-item payment system with three payment bands to encourage a preventive approach. "Dentists are really unhappy about the new contract. They are worried they are going to be asked to do more work for less money. If the contract turns out to be uneconomic, they will switch more patients to private work because it is a safer option and if that happens it will lead to the collapse of NHS dentistry."
The British Dental Association said the decline in NHS incomes reflected a wider malaise in the profession. Peter Ward, chief executive, said: "The dental workforce as a whole is looking to a future in which they feel less and less able to rely on the NHS and are adjusting the balance of their work accordingly." Implementation of the new contract had resulted in up to 1,000 dentists leaving the NHS and 266,000 fewer patients accessing NHS dentistry, the association said. Mr Ward said: "These statistics offer further evidence that the Government's reforms to NHS dentistry aren't achieving their stated aims. This contract has failed to improve access for patients and failed to allow dentists to deliver the kind of modern, preventive care they believe their patients deserve."
The Department of Health rejected suggestions that NHS dentistry was in decline. A spokesman said: "It would be wrong to take this shift in the share of income as evidence that dentists are turning their backs on the NHS. It simply reflects the ever-increasing demand for purely cosmetic dental work which, quite rightly, is not provided on the NHS." He added: "Access to dentistry has remained broadly stable in the past two years and we are doing all we can to make further improvements."
Source
Britain has changed but its values must endure
Britain is now a pluralist society: it is a country of people who have come from many different traditions and backgrounds, and who espouse different religious beliefs or none at all. But Britain still remains a liberal democracy governed by a single set of laws - laws whose roots lie in the Christian tradition that helped to form our moral values and culture.
There is much to celebrate in the diversity of the people who make up today's Britain, and in the dynamism and richness that diversity has brought to this country. But does it also pose a threat to the primacy of the Christian tradition, and even to a single, unified set of laws based on a liberal, tolerant political outlook? Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, believes that it may have precisely that consequence, and he expresses his forthright views in The Sunday Telegraph today.
Bishop Nazir-Ali's concern that the rapidity and scale of immigration, together with the policy of multiculturalism, threaten Britain's Christian heritage are echoed by the Church of England General Synod, a majority of which worries that large-scale immigration is "diluting the Christian nature of Britain".
It is not necessary to endorse all of Bishop Nazir-Ali's analysis to recognise that the scale and speed of immigration into Britain in recent years has indeed caused some serious social problems. Although those problems have long been at the top of voters' concerns, it has, until recently, been almost impossible to raise, let alone discuss, them in public: to do so risked being labelled "racist", a charge that has worked very effectively to shut down any further debate.
We believe that the root of the problems that have been caused, or at least exacerbated, by rapid mass immigration - including stresses and strains on the availability of publicly-funded goods, such as education, health and council housing - is less the scale and speed of immigration itself than the way Governments of all stripes have dealt with it. The policy of multiculturalism, which for decades has been the officially-sanctioned policy for immigrants, has actively worked against integrating new arrivals into British culture, traditions and values.
The model has not been the melting pot but the mosaic: instead of co-opting newcomers into the values of toleration, secular democracy and respect for the law as made by Parliament and interpreted by the judiciary, multiculturalism has encouraged immigrants to form their monocultural islands of belief and tradition, in which they reproduce their own values, regardless of whether they are inimical to the British way of doing things.
In 2008, it is not necessary to be Christian to enjoy the full liberties of the British subject (and it has not been for at least 150 years). Although it may be the result of a Christian heritage, the British way of doing things today has little to do with commitment to a specific religion: those of different faiths, whether Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or whatever, are of course full members of any British society that is worth having and preserving. What is required, however, is commitment to the democratic procedures by which law is made in Britain, and to the laws those procedures produce.
That is not a commitment that excludes much - but it does exclude the idea that all "man-made", as opposed to "God-made", law is illegitimate. So it excludes, for example, the narrow theocratic extremism of the Islamist sects that insist that only laws which derive from the Koran or Islamic tradition should be obeyed or enforced, and that they must be allowed to rule their own communities by Koranic law.
Multiculturalism allowed narrow theocratic extremism of that kind to flourish in Britain. The Government has finally realised that this was a mistake, and has promised new policies based around inculcating "British values". That is a huge improvement on multi-culturalism, which did not even insist that immigrants learn English. But it has yet to dismantle the enormous bureaucracy dedicated to promoting multiculturalism, or the jobs of the thousands of officials that depend on it.
Until it does so, separateness will continue to flourish - as will its potentially calamitous consequences for the integration of immigrants into Britain.
Source
Pupils to get lessons in good manners in one prestigious British school
The article below is from the Daily Telegraph so they retain the old British usage of calling private schools public schools! "Independent" school is the preferred modern British usage but readers of the "Tele" understand
A leading public school has launched a campaign to revive etiquette and manners by training its pupils in the art of polite dining and helping the elderly. Brighton College will educate all its new starters over the year with lessons in a variety of practical skills
As well as learning how to iron a shirt, sew on a button, boil an egg and write formal letters, 140 pupils aged 13 and 14 will be taught how to waltz at weddings, use cutlery and glasses and tie a bow tie. The year-long compulsory course, which consists of one 45-minute class each week, also covers erecting a tent, monitoring heart rates, making a pizza, using a cash machine and taking digital photographs. Pupils will learn to help the elderly and the etiquette of giving up seats on buses and trains. The headmaster, Richard Cairns, said the skills would make them more attractive to potential employers.
Last month, a survey by the Institute of Directors found that a quarter of company directors think graduates display "impoliteness and poor table manners". Mr Cairns said that after seeing the survey, the teachers made a list of 30 useful skills. He said the course was not a crusade to stamp out bad manners among the young. "Young people these days are polite," he said. "What has happened is that some haven't been told about what other people expect of them."
Source
British science chief criticizes Greens
The scientist credited as being the first to convince Tony Blair of the urgency of the climate crisis has accused green activists of being Luddites who risk setting back the fight against global warming. In an interview with the Guardian today Sir David King, who stepped down last month after seven years as the government's chief scientific adviser, says any approach that does not focus on technological solutions to climate change - including nuclear power - is one of "utter hopelessness".
He says: "There is a suspicion, and I have that suspicion myself, that a large number of people who label themselves 'green' are actually keen to take us back to the 18th or even the 17th century." He characterises their argument as "let's get away from all the technological gizmos and developments of the 20th century".
"People say 'well, we'll just use less energy.' Come on," he says. "And then there's the real world, where everyone is aspiring to the sort of standard of living that we have, which is based on a large energy consumption."
King calls global warming the biggest challenge our civilisation has ever faced, and famously, in a 2004 article in the journal Science, berated the US for its inaction, describing climate change as "more serious even than the threat of terrorism". But his vocal support for nuclear power and genetically modified foods has led to tensions with environmental campaigners.
In a new book, The Hot Topic, he invites further hostility, arguing that aviation has been unfairly scapegoated, and that a localist approach to grocery shopping, aimed at reducing food miles, may sometimes result in bigger carbon dioxide emissions than purchasing food transported from overseas.
Making people feel guilty about their energy use, the book argues, "makes them less likely to act, not more". "What I'm looking for are technological solutions to a technologically driven problem, so the last thing we must do is eschew technology as we move forward," says King, 68.
His book prescribes a barrage of technological measures based on nuclear energy, wind power, cutting emissions from cars and buildings, increasing the global area of solar panels by a factor of 700, and capturing and storing emissions from fossil fuel power generation. Only with a nuclear component, he argues, might Britain "just about manage" to reach its commitment to reduce CO2 emissions by 60% on 1990 levels by 2050.
He recalls how he sparked fury at a meeting of Blair's ministers when he refused to agree to stay silent in public about his pro-nuclear views, even though the cabinet had, at the time, opted not to press ahead with plans for new power stations. "Let me say that John Prescott's reaction was almost violent," he says.
John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace, said it was King, not green activists, who was living in the past. "We need science to get us out of the climate change hole we're in - that's why Greenpeace wants to see research funding piled into the cutting-edge low-carbon technologies that can deliver deep emissions cuts in a very short timeframe," he said."We're talking about technical solutions that can also be safely spread to every country in the world, no matter how unstable. Nuclear power isn't that technology, but Sir David wants to take us back to the 1950s, the last time we were told it would solve all our problems."
Source
Sunday, January 13, 2008
British government-school teachers keep pupils in the dark about Oxbridge
Although he is a high achiever, nobody had suggested Oxford to my son for his postgraduate work until I brought it up. He will now apply
Half of state school teachers would never or only rarely encourage their brightest pupils to apply to Oxbridge, according to research published today. It uncovered widespread ignorance among teachers about Oxford and Cambridge, indicating that the brightest pupils could miss the opportunity to apply to leading universities.
The MORI survey of 500 teachers was commissioned by the Sutton Trust, an educational charity committed to increasing university intake from deprived backgrounds. It found that nine in ten teachers underestimated the number of Oxbridge students from state schools. Sixty per cent thought that fewer than 30 per cent of Oxford and Cambridge students were from state schools. The correct figure is 54 per cent.
More than half thought that it was more expensive to study at Oxbridge, although both charge the same tuition fees as most other English universities, and offer generous bursaries. And while 54 per cent said that they always or usually encouraged gifted children to apply to Cambridge or Oxford, 25 per cent said that they would rarely do so, and 20 per cent would never suggest this to pupils.
Sir Peter Lampl, chairman of the Sutton Trust, said: "The misconceptions among secondary school teachers about Oxbridge are alarming and clearly have an impact on the number of bright state school students applying to these two great universities, despite the considerable efforts that both are making to reach out to them. "It is clear that much more needs to be done to dispel the myths about Oxbridge, and other leading universities, and to ensure that young people's higher education decisions are based on fact, not fiction."
He said that teachers' perceptions were inaccurate but unsurprising, adding: "These misconceptions are as strong as ever. We have teachers thinking that pupils from below-average backgrounds won't get in to Oxbridge, and if they do they won't fit in. Unfortunately, there is a fair amount of truth to that, with the social mix largely from the upper incomes. We're trying to tackle that and so are Oxbridge."
Research published by the Sutton Trust three months ago found that pupils from 3 per cent of schools were taking a third of places at Oxford and Cambridge. Six per cent - or 200 schools - accounted for half of admissions; the trust is encouraging them to work with neighbouring state schools to help aspiring Oxbridge applicants.
A spokesman for University of Cambridge said: "The findings accord with our own anecdotal experiences about schools' misconceptions regarding admissions, and the university recognises that more needs to be done to dispel them." Geoff Parks, the director of admissions, said: "Teachers are key influencers and advisers of young people and it is vital that the advice they give is based on up-to-date and accurate information." The university is also increasing its provision of bursaries to counter the myth that it is more expensive to go to Cambridge.
Yesterday government figures showed that tuition fees of 3,000 pounds per year deterred students from applying to university when they were first introduced.In England and Northern Ireland, where the higher fees were introduced in 2006, enrolments to full-time undergraduate courses fell, the Higher Education Statistics Agency said. In Scotland and Wales, where no top-up fees were charged, the number of students continued to increase.
Source
Cancer breakthrough may stop spreading through the body
Cancer could be stopped from spreading throughout the body following breakthroughs from researchers in the US and Britain. Scientists from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre in New York have discovered that a handful of tiny scraps of genetic material, known as ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules, may control whether or not breast cancer travels to the lung and bone. When "microRNAs" are missing, cancer can spread freely, the scientists found. When they are restored, however, the cancer cells lose some of their ability to metastasise, putting the brakes on the proliferation of cancer.
The findings, which appear in the journal Nature, could help with the diagnosis and prognosis of cancer patients, according to Walter and Eliza Hall Institute Associate Prof Jane Visvader. "If we can understand how these microRNAs work, in the long term we can design therapeutic mimics," she said.
In Britain, by studying the growth of human embryonic stem cells, Dr Chris Ward and his team of scientists at the University of Manchester have discovered a key process in the spread of cancer. The study, published in the journal Cancer Research, used the stem cells to investigate how some tumours are able to migrate to other parts of the body, making cancer treatment much harder. The research, funded by the Association for International Cancer Research, found the protein E-cadherin stopped cells from migrating during normal growth. As well as helping cells stick together, researchers found that E-cadherin blocked the action of another protein known to increase the mobility of cells, opening up the potential for new targets to prevent tumour cells from spreading.
Australian Stem Cell Centre CEO, Prof Stephen Livesey, said the breakthrough could help pave the way for new drugs. "An understanding of this mechanism will allow researchers to develop and target more effective treatments to prevent the cancer spreading to other tissues," Prof Livesey said.
Dr Ward said the finding could be applied to 90 per cent of all cancers. "Finding out more about the mechanism that controls the spread of cancer cells will help us find new treatments that can prevent tumours spreading and make them essentially harmless," he said.
However Prof Livesey cautioned the cancer treatment was still far off. "While each new breakthrough such as this one from the University of Manchester is a step closer to more effective cancer treatments, it is also practical to remember that the development of new drugs is a complex process that can take many years," Prof Livesey said.
Source
NHS 'now four different systems'
There are now four different NHS systems operating in the UK since devolution, according to health chiefs. As the NHS enters its 60th year, NHS Confederation boss Gill Morgan has told the BBC the health service is now in a unique position in its history. Ms Morgan said while the underlying principles of free health care still stand, patients in the UK's four nations are getting different services. Patient groups said the situation was breeding envy.
Ms Morgan, whose organisation represents NHS trusts and health boards, said there was no longer a universal system across the UK, as there had been when it was set up by the Atlee government in the summer of 1948.
England - NHS market created whereby hospitals and community services have to compete with the private sector for patients, resulting in big falls in waiting times
Scotland - Doctors have much more of a say in services, with limited involvement from the private sector. Meanwhile, patients enjoy free personal care, unlike the means-tested systems elsewhere
Wales - Close working relationship between the NHS and local government, which has meant more innovation on public health, but less emphasis on waiting times
Northern Ireland - Somewhat hamstrung by political situation, but re-organisation of trusts pushed through and good integration between social care and NHS
She told the BBC News website: "We basically have four different systems albeit with the same set of values. "This period [since devolution] has been unique in the history of the NHS as it was essentially the same across the UK before devolution. "We have had a complete split in philosophy. "The model in England is about contestability and choice driving service improvements. Outside organisations have been brought in and patients can shop around. "That model has been rejected by the other three."
In Scotland, where people have been given free personal care - unlike the means-tested systems elsewhere - Ms Morgan said there has been much more consensus. She described the approach as the "collectivist model". "They have very little contestability. "They have been slower to improve waiting than England, but much less tension between doctors and managers. "In Northern Ireland there has been very big structural change and more integration between health and social care." And in Wales, which has received praise in England for introducing free prescriptions, she said the close working relationship between local government and the NHS had had an impact on public health.
She said it was too early to say which was more successful and in the coming years the differences would become even "greater". "All we can say is that patients are experiencing different systems, each one has its advantages and we will have to wait to see what happens."
But Joyce Robins of Patient Concern said the differences were "breeding envy". "Patients are increasingly looking across national borders and wondering why they are not getting the care others are getting. "I am not sure that is good for the NHS."
Michael Summers, vice chair of the Patients Association, said England was lagging behind the rest of the UK. "England - for some reason - seems to have been the poor relation." And Professor Chris Ham, a former government adviser and Birmingham University heath expert, said the NHS had proved an important battleground since devolution. "Health is the most important service devolved governments have power over."
Source
Guantanamo detainees 'have no right to sue Pentagon': "A US appeals court ruled that four former Guantanamo prisoners, all British citizens, had no right to sue top Pentagon officials for torture and violations of their religious rights. The decision by a three-judge panel to dismiss the lawsuit was issued on the sixth anniversary of the arrival of the first detainees at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba."
Although he is a high achiever, nobody had suggested Oxford to my son for his postgraduate work until I brought it up. He will now apply
Half of state school teachers would never or only rarely encourage their brightest pupils to apply to Oxbridge, according to research published today. It uncovered widespread ignorance among teachers about Oxford and Cambridge, indicating that the brightest pupils could miss the opportunity to apply to leading universities.
The MORI survey of 500 teachers was commissioned by the Sutton Trust, an educational charity committed to increasing university intake from deprived backgrounds. It found that nine in ten teachers underestimated the number of Oxbridge students from state schools. Sixty per cent thought that fewer than 30 per cent of Oxford and Cambridge students were from state schools. The correct figure is 54 per cent.
More than half thought that it was more expensive to study at Oxbridge, although both charge the same tuition fees as most other English universities, and offer generous bursaries. And while 54 per cent said that they always or usually encouraged gifted children to apply to Cambridge or Oxford, 25 per cent said that they would rarely do so, and 20 per cent would never suggest this to pupils.
Sir Peter Lampl, chairman of the Sutton Trust, said: "The misconceptions among secondary school teachers about Oxbridge are alarming and clearly have an impact on the number of bright state school students applying to these two great universities, despite the considerable efforts that both are making to reach out to them. "It is clear that much more needs to be done to dispel the myths about Oxbridge, and other leading universities, and to ensure that young people's higher education decisions are based on fact, not fiction."
He said that teachers' perceptions were inaccurate but unsurprising, adding: "These misconceptions are as strong as ever. We have teachers thinking that pupils from below-average backgrounds won't get in to Oxbridge, and if they do they won't fit in. Unfortunately, there is a fair amount of truth to that, with the social mix largely from the upper incomes. We're trying to tackle that and so are Oxbridge."
Research published by the Sutton Trust three months ago found that pupils from 3 per cent of schools were taking a third of places at Oxford and Cambridge. Six per cent - or 200 schools - accounted for half of admissions; the trust is encouraging them to work with neighbouring state schools to help aspiring Oxbridge applicants.
A spokesman for University of Cambridge said: "The findings accord with our own anecdotal experiences about schools' misconceptions regarding admissions, and the university recognises that more needs to be done to dispel them." Geoff Parks, the director of admissions, said: "Teachers are key influencers and advisers of young people and it is vital that the advice they give is based on up-to-date and accurate information." The university is also increasing its provision of bursaries to counter the myth that it is more expensive to go to Cambridge.
Yesterday government figures showed that tuition fees of 3,000 pounds per year deterred students from applying to university when they were first introduced.In England and Northern Ireland, where the higher fees were introduced in 2006, enrolments to full-time undergraduate courses fell, the Higher Education Statistics Agency said. In Scotland and Wales, where no top-up fees were charged, the number of students continued to increase.
Source
Cancer breakthrough may stop spreading through the body
Cancer could be stopped from spreading throughout the body following breakthroughs from researchers in the US and Britain. Scientists from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre in New York have discovered that a handful of tiny scraps of genetic material, known as ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules, may control whether or not breast cancer travels to the lung and bone. When "microRNAs" are missing, cancer can spread freely, the scientists found. When they are restored, however, the cancer cells lose some of their ability to metastasise, putting the brakes on the proliferation of cancer.
The findings, which appear in the journal Nature, could help with the diagnosis and prognosis of cancer patients, according to Walter and Eliza Hall Institute Associate Prof Jane Visvader. "If we can understand how these microRNAs work, in the long term we can design therapeutic mimics," she said.
In Britain, by studying the growth of human embryonic stem cells, Dr Chris Ward and his team of scientists at the University of Manchester have discovered a key process in the spread of cancer. The study, published in the journal Cancer Research, used the stem cells to investigate how some tumours are able to migrate to other parts of the body, making cancer treatment much harder. The research, funded by the Association for International Cancer Research, found the protein E-cadherin stopped cells from migrating during normal growth. As well as helping cells stick together, researchers found that E-cadherin blocked the action of another protein known to increase the mobility of cells, opening up the potential for new targets to prevent tumour cells from spreading.
Australian Stem Cell Centre CEO, Prof Stephen Livesey, said the breakthrough could help pave the way for new drugs. "An understanding of this mechanism will allow researchers to develop and target more effective treatments to prevent the cancer spreading to other tissues," Prof Livesey said.
Dr Ward said the finding could be applied to 90 per cent of all cancers. "Finding out more about the mechanism that controls the spread of cancer cells will help us find new treatments that can prevent tumours spreading and make them essentially harmless," he said.
However Prof Livesey cautioned the cancer treatment was still far off. "While each new breakthrough such as this one from the University of Manchester is a step closer to more effective cancer treatments, it is also practical to remember that the development of new drugs is a complex process that can take many years," Prof Livesey said.
Source
NHS 'now four different systems'
There are now four different NHS systems operating in the UK since devolution, according to health chiefs. As the NHS enters its 60th year, NHS Confederation boss Gill Morgan has told the BBC the health service is now in a unique position in its history. Ms Morgan said while the underlying principles of free health care still stand, patients in the UK's four nations are getting different services. Patient groups said the situation was breeding envy.
Ms Morgan, whose organisation represents NHS trusts and health boards, said there was no longer a universal system across the UK, as there had been when it was set up by the Atlee government in the summer of 1948.
England - NHS market created whereby hospitals and community services have to compete with the private sector for patients, resulting in big falls in waiting times
Scotland - Doctors have much more of a say in services, with limited involvement from the private sector. Meanwhile, patients enjoy free personal care, unlike the means-tested systems elsewhere
Wales - Close working relationship between the NHS and local government, which has meant more innovation on public health, but less emphasis on waiting times
Northern Ireland - Somewhat hamstrung by political situation, but re-organisation of trusts pushed through and good integration between social care and NHS
She told the BBC News website: "We basically have four different systems albeit with the same set of values. "This period [since devolution] has been unique in the history of the NHS as it was essentially the same across the UK before devolution. "We have had a complete split in philosophy. "The model in England is about contestability and choice driving service improvements. Outside organisations have been brought in and patients can shop around. "That model has been rejected by the other three."
In Scotland, where people have been given free personal care - unlike the means-tested systems elsewhere - Ms Morgan said there has been much more consensus. She described the approach as the "collectivist model". "They have very little contestability. "They have been slower to improve waiting than England, but much less tension between doctors and managers. "In Northern Ireland there has been very big structural change and more integration between health and social care." And in Wales, which has received praise in England for introducing free prescriptions, she said the close working relationship between local government and the NHS had had an impact on public health.
She said it was too early to say which was more successful and in the coming years the differences would become even "greater". "All we can say is that patients are experiencing different systems, each one has its advantages and we will have to wait to see what happens."
But Joyce Robins of Patient Concern said the differences were "breeding envy". "Patients are increasingly looking across national borders and wondering why they are not getting the care others are getting. "I am not sure that is good for the NHS."
Michael Summers, vice chair of the Patients Association, said England was lagging behind the rest of the UK. "England - for some reason - seems to have been the poor relation." And Professor Chris Ham, a former government adviser and Birmingham University heath expert, said the NHS had proved an important battleground since devolution. "Health is the most important service devolved governments have power over."
Source
Guantanamo detainees 'have no right to sue Pentagon': "A US appeals court ruled that four former Guantanamo prisoners, all British citizens, had no right to sue top Pentagon officials for torture and violations of their religious rights. The decision by a three-judge panel to dismiss the lawsuit was issued on the sixth anniversary of the arrival of the first detainees at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba."
Saturday, January 12, 2008
British nukes under way
It takes one Greenie mania (Warmism) to cancel out another (nuclear-phobia). Lots of Greenie priorities are in conflict with one another -- such as fluorescent light globes versus mercury phobia -- such as those evil plastic bags versus cutting down trees for paper bags.
The race to a nuclear future began last night, as operators promised the first new power stations within a decade, and French and British companies vied for the contracts. Ministers ended years of uncertainty by declaring that nuclear power was “clean, secure and affordable”, but they declined to put a limit on the number of new stations nor the amount of electricity they could supply, prompting companies to set the battle lines for their share of the 36 billion pounds construction programme.
Boosted by government promises to help fast-track a fresh breed of reactors, Areva, the French energy company, rushed in with a bid to build six plants, with the first operational by the end of 2017. Four would be in partnership with another French company, EDF, and the other two with different partners. British Energy, the UK’s main generator, said it would announce one or two proposals in March. Centrica, the owner of British Gas, voiced an interest in a new plant and the German companies E.On and RWE, which own Powergen and nPower in Britain, are also likely to want to take part.
John Hutton, the Business Secretary, who outlined the plans, said last night that all electricity generated in Britain should be produced without emitting any carbon by the middle of the century. The problems posed by climate change were so grave that the nation needed to eradicate all carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation, he said.
The stations will almost certainly be built on or close to existing nuclear sites, where they have been accepted by local communities. With demand for power high in the South East and around London four sites - Sizewell, Bradwell, Hinkley and Dungeness – have already been identified as prime places for the new stations, with Wylfa in Anglesey, Hartlepool and Heysham next in line. The two Scottish sites at Hunterston and Torness would be obvious candidates but the ruling Scottish National Party in Scotland has threatened to block their development.
All the stations will be built by the private sector but the Government has promised to streamline planning procedures to prevent protesters from delaying them unreasonably, and there will be a standard approved design so that individual local debates can be cut in time. The companies will be expected to pay decommissioning costs and their full share of the costs of managing waste.
Mr Hutton insisted that there would be no subsidies, although he accepted that public funds would have to come forward in “very unlikely circumstances of an emergency at a nuclear plant”. He said: “If there is a catastrophic event then I think that it is right that the Government steps in.” That statement is viewed as a crucial guarantee for investors to ensure that developers will be able to obtain insurance for the industry in future. The Government rejected the argument that a permanent solution to the disposal of nuclear waste should be found before plants were approved.
Existing “interim” storage facilities were adequate until a permanent underground site for the disposal of waste could be identified, Mr Hutton said. That is likely to be under the sea off Cumbria, or in an underground bunker.
The Government did hint at the possibility of tax breaks to allay the huge costs of decommissioning. Yesterday’s White Paper said that the Treasury “was exploring action to ensure a level fiscal playing field between nuclear power and other forms of electricity generation”.
Luc Oursel, the chief executive of Areva, said that his company was already in talks with 11 European utilities, including Centrica and British Energy, about building the new plants that would generate 15 per cent of Britain’s electrical capacity. “Our ambition is to build at least four, probably six, in the UK - the first by 2017 – and to provide these utilities with all the services and fuel necessary for their operations,” Mr Oursel said.
The Royal Society called the announcement “an ambitious package, which should provide the means of meeting our energy needs, but much remains to be done to meet our greenhouse gas emission objectives. The Government has given a strong signal on key elements of the required energy mix such as nuclear power and the development of existing and new renewables.”
Tony Juniper, director of Friends of the Earth, said: “New reactors are not the answer to UK energy problems and will do little to tackle climate change. We could meet our energy requirements by investing in cleaner, safer solutions such as renewables, combined heat and power, energy efficiency and the more efficient use of fossil fuels.”
Source
Just to show you we can do it
Habitual criminal deported to the Philippines
A young man has been deported to the Philippines, a country he left as a four-year-old, for breaching an antisocial behaviour order. John Garcia, 20, is faced with building a new life in a country where he has no close relatives and does not speak a word of the language. He is thought to be the first person to have been removed from Britain for failing to abide by the terms of his Asbo.
Mr Garcia came to Anglesey as a boy to join his Filipino mother, went to school on the island and only speaks English and some Welsh. But he never applied for UK citizenship and because of that omission has been sent back to his birthplace after drifting into a life of petty crime. Refugee groups accused the Home Office of taking extreme action against Mr Garcia, who is threatening to bring a case against the Government under human rights legislation.
His mother, Rosanna Glover, was not married to his American father. She married a Briton and moved to Beaumaris, Anglesey, where her husband was a publican.
Friends said Mr Garcia - known to them as JR - had been known to the police for some years, but went badly off the rails two years ago when his stepfather died. He has convictions for burglary, theft and possession of drugs. After completing a sentence in a young offenders' institution for breaching an Asbo, he was picked up and sent to an immigration detention centre.
Proceedings to remove him were launched by the Border and Immigration Agency and, after two unsuccessful appeals, he finally lost his battle against deportation. He is understood to have been judged to present a medium risk to the public and a high risk of reoffending. He was flown out of the country at the weekend after bidding an emotional farewell to his mother. Before leaving, he told a Welsh newspaper his treatment was "cruel and inhumane". He said: "I know no one [in the Philippines], have no money or job and nowhere to stay. It's wrong and unjust but no one will help me."
His treatment has divided opinion in Anglesey. Hefin Thomas, a local councillor, said. "For whatever reason, he's just kept on offending and a lot of people will say it is about time something was done."
The Home Office refused to comment on the deportation. But a spokesman said: "Foreign nationals are expected to obey the laws of this country in the same way as everybody else. If they do not, they can expect to face prosecution and removal from Britain."
Source
British Blogger Pursued by Police for Criticizing Muslim Drug Pushers
We read:
More commentary here (Site a bit slow to load)
Britain's failing government schools
More than half a million children are being taught in failing secondary schools that risk closure by the Government. New GCSE league tables published today indicate that 639 of Britain's 3,000 state secondaries have failed to meet the Government's minimum target for 30 per cent of pupils achieving five GCSEs at grades A* to C, including English and maths. Last year, the Prime Minister vowed to shut down or take over schools that did not reach that level within five years.
Overall, the tables show that the rate of progress in improving GCSE results has almost ground to a halt. Fewer than half of pupils (just 46 per cent) last year achieved five GCSEs at grades A* to C, up just 0.7 percentage points on the previous year. Selective grammar schools continued to dominate the league tables, with the state Colchester Royal Grammar School in Essex, at the top.
Yesterday Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, said that there would be no let-up in the pressure on low-performing schools, adding that 170 of the 639 were just a few percentage points from meeting the target. "We owe it to parents to make sure low-performing schools turn around quickly. I share parents' impatience for improvement not just in low-achieving schools, but in all schools," he said. He added that the Government would investigate whether to close the worst-performing schools or to "federate" them with neighbouring higher performing schools. Alternatively it could turn them into academies [charter schools] that are independently sponsored and run. But, while results for academies [charter schools] are generally improving, today's results show that 17 of the 40 academies reporting GCSE results were found in the league table of the worst 200 state schools in England.
Michael Gove, the Shadow Children's Secretary, said that the number of pupils at the bottom end of Britain's long tail of underachievement was growing. The number of children not even passing five GCSEs with grade G, including English and maths, is now at 90,000, up 5,000 on last year. Almost 130,000 children are not getting even a single grade C at GCSE. "Until we slash pointless bureaucracy, give teachers real powers to enforce discipline, and focus on the basics, we will fail another generation of our most disadvantaged children," Mr Gove said. [He's got that right! But don't wait for it to happen]
The tables also indicate that the number of immigrant children in GCSE classes who were unable to speak English has risen by 50 per cent over two years to 2,000. While this is a small proportion of the 600,000 or so pupils eligible for GCSE examination in England, teachers' leaders gave warning that the influx was creating "huge turbulence" and disrupting classes. This would suggest a total of 20,000 non-English-speakers if extrapolated to the whole school system.
In science, the league tables show that only half of teenagers in England are reaching the required standard. A new measure, showing the percentage of pupils achieving at least two passes in science at GCSE, was introduced for the first time this year. The results reveal that, nationally, only half of students (50.3 per cent) achieved two grade passes (A* to C) in science. These findings underscore concerns raised recently by employers and universities about the long-term fall-off in numbers studying science at A level and then undergraduate level. Hilary Leevers, assistant director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering, described the results as disappointing, but said that the new measure would help to track progress.
However, independent schools have fiercely criticised it, because it effectively places subjects such as physics, biology and chemistry on a par with options described by some as "pub subjects", such as environmental and land-based science.
Source
Homosexual men are as bad at navigating as women
This rather tends to support the theory that homosexuality is caused by a hormonal disturbance in utero -- with homosexuals being exposed to excess female hormones, with an effect on brain development
Gay men are as bad as women at navigating, research has shown. Both share the same poor sense of direction and rely on local landmarks to get around, a study suggests. They are also slower to take in spatial information than heterosexual men. How this relates to parking a car - a task women famously struggle with, according to the stereotype - is open to question. But researchers say it is likely to make driving in a strange environment more challenging for gay men and women than for straight male motorists.
Psychologists at Queen Mary, University of London, conducted computer-based tests of spatial learning and memory on 140 volunteers recruited through advertisements in newspapers and magazines. They showed that gay men, straight women and lesbians navigated in much the same way and shared the same weaknesses. But there were also differences between gay and heterosexual men and straight and lesbian women.
Previous research had already shown that the male myth of women being poor navigators has some bearing on reality. Men consistently outperform women on tasks requiring navigation and discovering hidden objects. Women, on the other hand, are more successful in tests requiring them to remember where objects lie.
The Queen Mary team, led by Dr Qazi Rahman, used virtual reality simulations of two common tests of spatial learning and memory developed at Yale University. In one, the Morris Water Maze (MWM) test, volunteers were placed in a "virtual pool" and had to "swim" through a maze to find a hidden submerged platform. Cues in the form of pictures, doorways, a lamp, a bookcase and other landmarks were sited in different places. The other task, the Radial Arm Maze test (RAM), involved finding "rewards" - musical tones - by exploring eight "arms" radiating out from a circular central junction. Four arms contained a reward and four did not, and participants had to avoid traversing an arm more than once.
During the MWM test, gay men and straight women took significantly longer to find the hidden platform than straight men and lesbians. But the performance of gay and straight men did not differ in the RAM test. They also behaved the same way in the water maze test once the rough location of the platform had been established. Gay and straight men both spent more time in the area searching for the platform than straight women and lesbians. "Not only did straight men get started on the MWM test more quickly than gay men and the two female groups, they also maintained that advantage throughout the test," said Dr Rahman. "This might mean that sexual orientation affects the speed at which you acquire spatial information, but not necessarily your eventual memory for that spatial information."
The findings were published today in the journal Hippocampus. Dr Rahman was not convinced they related to car parking or map reading, but expected them to have a major bearing on navigational ability. "Perhaps if women are slower at parking it might be relevant, but parking is not an exacting spatial task," he said. "Driving in a novel environment which is poor in cues is where these differences are likely to show up most. Women are going to take a lot longer to reach their destination, making more errors, taking wrong turns etc. They need more rich local landmarks. "Men are good at using distal, or geometrical cues, to decide if they're going north or south, for instance. They have a better basic sense of direction, but they can use local land marks as well."
The similar way gay and straight men performed in the RAM test showed that sexual variation in spatial ability was not straightforward, said Dr Rahman. "Gay people appear to show a 'mosaic' of performance, parts of which are male-like and other parts of which are female-like," he added.
Source
NHS patients told to treat themselves
Millions of people with arthritis, asthma and even heart failure will be urged to treat themselves as part of a Government plan to save billions of pounds from the NHS budget. Instead of going to hospital or consulting a doctor, patients will be encouraged to carry out "self care" as the Department of Health (DoH) tries to meet Treasury targets to curb spending. The guidelines could mean people with chronic conditions:
* Monitoring their own heart activity, blood pressure and lung capacity using equipment installed in the home
* Reporting medical information to doctors remotely by telephone or computer
* Administering their own drugs and other treatment to "manage pain" and assessing the significance of changes in their condition
* Using relaxation techniques to relieve stress and avoid "panic" visits to emergency wards.
Gordon Brown hinted at the new policy in a message to NHS staff yesterday, promising a service that "gives all of those with long-term or chronic conditions the choice of greater support, information and advice, allowing them to play a far more active role in managing their own condition". The Prime Minister claimed the self-care agenda was about increasing patient choice and "personalised" services. But an internal Government document seen by The Daily Telegraph makes clear that the policy is a money-saving measure, a key plank of DoH plans to cut costs.
Critics claimed the plan would provide doctors with an excuse for ignoring the elderly or those with debilitating, but not life-threatening long-term conditions, and would not work without significant investment in community health services. The Arthritis Research Campaign said it risked providing health managers with "an excuse for neglecting elderly patients". Jane Tadman, a spokesman for the charity, said: "Arthritis is already too low down the priority list and the fact that this is being mooted as a money-saving measure is very worrying. "Some GPs don't take arthritis seriously enough, and the result of this could be to give them another excuse to tell arthritis patients just to go away and take their tablets."
The Patients' Association welcomed more moves to empower patients, but warned against using self-care systems to save money. "We are all for better-informed patients," said Katherine Murphy, a spokesman. "But it is a concern that financial pressures will take precedence over clinical needs."
Peter Weissberg, the medical director of the British Heart Foundation, said: "People affected by heart disease need specialist care. Whilst we support changes that empower people to look after their own health, we would be very concerned if they led to any reduction in the availability or quality of expert care for those who need it."
After years of record spending, the health service is facing a sharp slow-down as Mr Brown tries to curb soaring government borrowing. In the Comprehensive Spending Review last year, it was announced that the health budget will grow by four per cent a year over the next three years, down from the seven per cent annual growth rate between 2002 and 2007.
The Treasury also demanded that the DoH achieves three per cent "efficiency savings" over the next three years, equivalent to o8.2 billion. The department's "Value for Money Delivery Agreement" - an internal document drawn up with the Treasury and circulated to NHS trusts over the Christmas holiday - sets out how the NHS will meet the savings target. In a section on chronic conditions, it says the key to greater efficiency in the management of patients with long-term illnesses is a reduction in the need for "expensive" interventions by the NHS. "Reductions in the use of NHS (GP consultations, outpatient appointments, inpatient admissions, length of stay, emergency care and prescribing) can be achieved through increased support for self care (for example through education and skills training, information prescriptions, or self care devices)," it says.
The DoH has told the Treasury that NHS officials are drawing up "good practice guidance on care planning including support for self care". The advice is expected to be published next month. The emphasis on self care was inspired by the success of the Expert Patients Programme, an NHS pilot scheme that offers a six-week training course for people with chronic or long-term conditions. About 30,000 people have completed the course and reduced their hospital attendances by up to 16 per cent, a result NHS managers hope to repeat across the service.
Health budgets face pressure from the cost of caring for people with chronic conditions, including 8.5 million with arthritis, 3.4 million with asthma, 1.5 million diabetics and 500,000 with heart failure. Opposition politicians questioned whether the Government could save money without reducing services. But an Asthma UK spokesman said: "Our focus is on the clinical benefits of self-management. "If the Government implements procedures to ensure more self management and save money, we would support that."
Source
It takes one Greenie mania (Warmism) to cancel out another (nuclear-phobia). Lots of Greenie priorities are in conflict with one another -- such as fluorescent light globes versus mercury phobia -- such as those evil plastic bags versus cutting down trees for paper bags.
The race to a nuclear future began last night, as operators promised the first new power stations within a decade, and French and British companies vied for the contracts. Ministers ended years of uncertainty by declaring that nuclear power was “clean, secure and affordable”, but they declined to put a limit on the number of new stations nor the amount of electricity they could supply, prompting companies to set the battle lines for their share of the 36 billion pounds construction programme.
Boosted by government promises to help fast-track a fresh breed of reactors, Areva, the French energy company, rushed in with a bid to build six plants, with the first operational by the end of 2017. Four would be in partnership with another French company, EDF, and the other two with different partners. British Energy, the UK’s main generator, said it would announce one or two proposals in March. Centrica, the owner of British Gas, voiced an interest in a new plant and the German companies E.On and RWE, which own Powergen and nPower in Britain, are also likely to want to take part.
John Hutton, the Business Secretary, who outlined the plans, said last night that all electricity generated in Britain should be produced without emitting any carbon by the middle of the century. The problems posed by climate change were so grave that the nation needed to eradicate all carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation, he said.
The stations will almost certainly be built on or close to existing nuclear sites, where they have been accepted by local communities. With demand for power high in the South East and around London four sites - Sizewell, Bradwell, Hinkley and Dungeness – have already been identified as prime places for the new stations, with Wylfa in Anglesey, Hartlepool and Heysham next in line. The two Scottish sites at Hunterston and Torness would be obvious candidates but the ruling Scottish National Party in Scotland has threatened to block their development.
All the stations will be built by the private sector but the Government has promised to streamline planning procedures to prevent protesters from delaying them unreasonably, and there will be a standard approved design so that individual local debates can be cut in time. The companies will be expected to pay decommissioning costs and their full share of the costs of managing waste.
Mr Hutton insisted that there would be no subsidies, although he accepted that public funds would have to come forward in “very unlikely circumstances of an emergency at a nuclear plant”. He said: “If there is a catastrophic event then I think that it is right that the Government steps in.” That statement is viewed as a crucial guarantee for investors to ensure that developers will be able to obtain insurance for the industry in future. The Government rejected the argument that a permanent solution to the disposal of nuclear waste should be found before plants were approved.
Existing “interim” storage facilities were adequate until a permanent underground site for the disposal of waste could be identified, Mr Hutton said. That is likely to be under the sea off Cumbria, or in an underground bunker.
The Government did hint at the possibility of tax breaks to allay the huge costs of decommissioning. Yesterday’s White Paper said that the Treasury “was exploring action to ensure a level fiscal playing field between nuclear power and other forms of electricity generation”.
Luc Oursel, the chief executive of Areva, said that his company was already in talks with 11 European utilities, including Centrica and British Energy, about building the new plants that would generate 15 per cent of Britain’s electrical capacity. “Our ambition is to build at least four, probably six, in the UK - the first by 2017 – and to provide these utilities with all the services and fuel necessary for their operations,” Mr Oursel said.
The Royal Society called the announcement “an ambitious package, which should provide the means of meeting our energy needs, but much remains to be done to meet our greenhouse gas emission objectives. The Government has given a strong signal on key elements of the required energy mix such as nuclear power and the development of existing and new renewables.”
Tony Juniper, director of Friends of the Earth, said: “New reactors are not the answer to UK energy problems and will do little to tackle climate change. We could meet our energy requirements by investing in cleaner, safer solutions such as renewables, combined heat and power, energy efficiency and the more efficient use of fossil fuels.”
Source
Just to show you we can do it
Habitual criminal deported to the Philippines
A young man has been deported to the Philippines, a country he left as a four-year-old, for breaching an antisocial behaviour order. John Garcia, 20, is faced with building a new life in a country where he has no close relatives and does not speak a word of the language. He is thought to be the first person to have been removed from Britain for failing to abide by the terms of his Asbo.
Mr Garcia came to Anglesey as a boy to join his Filipino mother, went to school on the island and only speaks English and some Welsh. But he never applied for UK citizenship and because of that omission has been sent back to his birthplace after drifting into a life of petty crime. Refugee groups accused the Home Office of taking extreme action against Mr Garcia, who is threatening to bring a case against the Government under human rights legislation.
His mother, Rosanna Glover, was not married to his American father. She married a Briton and moved to Beaumaris, Anglesey, where her husband was a publican.
Friends said Mr Garcia - known to them as JR - had been known to the police for some years, but went badly off the rails two years ago when his stepfather died. He has convictions for burglary, theft and possession of drugs. After completing a sentence in a young offenders' institution for breaching an Asbo, he was picked up and sent to an immigration detention centre.
Proceedings to remove him were launched by the Border and Immigration Agency and, after two unsuccessful appeals, he finally lost his battle against deportation. He is understood to have been judged to present a medium risk to the public and a high risk of reoffending. He was flown out of the country at the weekend after bidding an emotional farewell to his mother. Before leaving, he told a Welsh newspaper his treatment was "cruel and inhumane". He said: "I know no one [in the Philippines], have no money or job and nowhere to stay. It's wrong and unjust but no one will help me."
His treatment has divided opinion in Anglesey. Hefin Thomas, a local councillor, said. "For whatever reason, he's just kept on offending and a lot of people will say it is about time something was done."
The Home Office refused to comment on the deportation. But a spokesman said: "Foreign nationals are expected to obey the laws of this country in the same way as everybody else. If they do not, they can expect to face prosecution and removal from Britain."
Source
British Blogger Pursued by Police for Criticizing Muslim Drug Pushers
We read:
"Islamist rule over the UK may, alarmingly, be on its way. Today, the British police want to question and/or arrest the British blogger known as Lionheart. His crime? Turning his life around as a young school dropout and petty drug dealer and emerging as a believing Christian who opposes the drug plague in his hometown of Luton and who views the Pakistani Islamist and al-Qaeda control of the drug trade in Luton as both criminally and politically dangerous. For this, Lionheart has been charged with “stirring up racial hatred”—which is a crime in the UK.
He writes about the massive number of Pakistani Muslim drug dealers in his hometown of Luton who addict British youth and whose profits fuel expensive lifestyles, paramilitary organizations, suicide terrorism, and religious hate speech against Jews, Christians, and the West. Ironically, what is said in mosques and madrassas and on protest marches all over the UK is never considered to constitute a “racially” motivated hate crime. As George Orwell understood, not all pigs are equal.
Paul-the-Lionhearted began a blog. He described what had happened to him and what he saw happening on the streets of his hometown. Someone unknown decided that Paul’s denunciation of Al-Qaeda and terrorism constituted “hate speech.” Perhaps Paul’s Christianity offended both Muslims and the politically correct oligarchy that rules the media, the universities, and perhaps the House of Lords in Britain.
Source
More commentary here (Site a bit slow to load)
Britain's failing government schools
More than half a million children are being taught in failing secondary schools that risk closure by the Government. New GCSE league tables published today indicate that 639 of Britain's 3,000 state secondaries have failed to meet the Government's minimum target for 30 per cent of pupils achieving five GCSEs at grades A* to C, including English and maths. Last year, the Prime Minister vowed to shut down or take over schools that did not reach that level within five years.
Overall, the tables show that the rate of progress in improving GCSE results has almost ground to a halt. Fewer than half of pupils (just 46 per cent) last year achieved five GCSEs at grades A* to C, up just 0.7 percentage points on the previous year. Selective grammar schools continued to dominate the league tables, with the state Colchester Royal Grammar School in Essex, at the top.
Yesterday Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, said that there would be no let-up in the pressure on low-performing schools, adding that 170 of the 639 were just a few percentage points from meeting the target. "We owe it to parents to make sure low-performing schools turn around quickly. I share parents' impatience for improvement not just in low-achieving schools, but in all schools," he said. He added that the Government would investigate whether to close the worst-performing schools or to "federate" them with neighbouring higher performing schools. Alternatively it could turn them into academies [charter schools] that are independently sponsored and run. But, while results for academies [charter schools] are generally improving, today's results show that 17 of the 40 academies reporting GCSE results were found in the league table of the worst 200 state schools in England.
Michael Gove, the Shadow Children's Secretary, said that the number of pupils at the bottom end of Britain's long tail of underachievement was growing. The number of children not even passing five GCSEs with grade G, including English and maths, is now at 90,000, up 5,000 on last year. Almost 130,000 children are not getting even a single grade C at GCSE. "Until we slash pointless bureaucracy, give teachers real powers to enforce discipline, and focus on the basics, we will fail another generation of our most disadvantaged children," Mr Gove said. [He's got that right! But don't wait for it to happen]
The tables also indicate that the number of immigrant children in GCSE classes who were unable to speak English has risen by 50 per cent over two years to 2,000. While this is a small proportion of the 600,000 or so pupils eligible for GCSE examination in England, teachers' leaders gave warning that the influx was creating "huge turbulence" and disrupting classes. This would suggest a total of 20,000 non-English-speakers if extrapolated to the whole school system.
In science, the league tables show that only half of teenagers in England are reaching the required standard. A new measure, showing the percentage of pupils achieving at least two passes in science at GCSE, was introduced for the first time this year. The results reveal that, nationally, only half of students (50.3 per cent) achieved two grade passes (A* to C) in science. These findings underscore concerns raised recently by employers and universities about the long-term fall-off in numbers studying science at A level and then undergraduate level. Hilary Leevers, assistant director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering, described the results as disappointing, but said that the new measure would help to track progress.
However, independent schools have fiercely criticised it, because it effectively places subjects such as physics, biology and chemistry on a par with options described by some as "pub subjects", such as environmental and land-based science.
Source
Homosexual men are as bad at navigating as women
This rather tends to support the theory that homosexuality is caused by a hormonal disturbance in utero -- with homosexuals being exposed to excess female hormones, with an effect on brain development
Gay men are as bad as women at navigating, research has shown. Both share the same poor sense of direction and rely on local landmarks to get around, a study suggests. They are also slower to take in spatial information than heterosexual men. How this relates to parking a car - a task women famously struggle with, according to the stereotype - is open to question. But researchers say it is likely to make driving in a strange environment more challenging for gay men and women than for straight male motorists.
Psychologists at Queen Mary, University of London, conducted computer-based tests of spatial learning and memory on 140 volunteers recruited through advertisements in newspapers and magazines. They showed that gay men, straight women and lesbians navigated in much the same way and shared the same weaknesses. But there were also differences between gay and heterosexual men and straight and lesbian women.
Previous research had already shown that the male myth of women being poor navigators has some bearing on reality. Men consistently outperform women on tasks requiring navigation and discovering hidden objects. Women, on the other hand, are more successful in tests requiring them to remember where objects lie.
The Queen Mary team, led by Dr Qazi Rahman, used virtual reality simulations of two common tests of spatial learning and memory developed at Yale University. In one, the Morris Water Maze (MWM) test, volunteers were placed in a "virtual pool" and had to "swim" through a maze to find a hidden submerged platform. Cues in the form of pictures, doorways, a lamp, a bookcase and other landmarks were sited in different places. The other task, the Radial Arm Maze test (RAM), involved finding "rewards" - musical tones - by exploring eight "arms" radiating out from a circular central junction. Four arms contained a reward and four did not, and participants had to avoid traversing an arm more than once.
During the MWM test, gay men and straight women took significantly longer to find the hidden platform than straight men and lesbians. But the performance of gay and straight men did not differ in the RAM test. They also behaved the same way in the water maze test once the rough location of the platform had been established. Gay and straight men both spent more time in the area searching for the platform than straight women and lesbians. "Not only did straight men get started on the MWM test more quickly than gay men and the two female groups, they also maintained that advantage throughout the test," said Dr Rahman. "This might mean that sexual orientation affects the speed at which you acquire spatial information, but not necessarily your eventual memory for that spatial information."
The findings were published today in the journal Hippocampus. Dr Rahman was not convinced they related to car parking or map reading, but expected them to have a major bearing on navigational ability. "Perhaps if women are slower at parking it might be relevant, but parking is not an exacting spatial task," he said. "Driving in a novel environment which is poor in cues is where these differences are likely to show up most. Women are going to take a lot longer to reach their destination, making more errors, taking wrong turns etc. They need more rich local landmarks. "Men are good at using distal, or geometrical cues, to decide if they're going north or south, for instance. They have a better basic sense of direction, but they can use local land marks as well."
The similar way gay and straight men performed in the RAM test showed that sexual variation in spatial ability was not straightforward, said Dr Rahman. "Gay people appear to show a 'mosaic' of performance, parts of which are male-like and other parts of which are female-like," he added.
Source
NHS patients told to treat themselves
Millions of people with arthritis, asthma and even heart failure will be urged to treat themselves as part of a Government plan to save billions of pounds from the NHS budget. Instead of going to hospital or consulting a doctor, patients will be encouraged to carry out "self care" as the Department of Health (DoH) tries to meet Treasury targets to curb spending. The guidelines could mean people with chronic conditions:
* Monitoring their own heart activity, blood pressure and lung capacity using equipment installed in the home
* Reporting medical information to doctors remotely by telephone or computer
* Administering their own drugs and other treatment to "manage pain" and assessing the significance of changes in their condition
* Using relaxation techniques to relieve stress and avoid "panic" visits to emergency wards.
Gordon Brown hinted at the new policy in a message to NHS staff yesterday, promising a service that "gives all of those with long-term or chronic conditions the choice of greater support, information and advice, allowing them to play a far more active role in managing their own condition". The Prime Minister claimed the self-care agenda was about increasing patient choice and "personalised" services. But an internal Government document seen by The Daily Telegraph makes clear that the policy is a money-saving measure, a key plank of DoH plans to cut costs.
Critics claimed the plan would provide doctors with an excuse for ignoring the elderly or those with debilitating, but not life-threatening long-term conditions, and would not work without significant investment in community health services. The Arthritis Research Campaign said it risked providing health managers with "an excuse for neglecting elderly patients". Jane Tadman, a spokesman for the charity, said: "Arthritis is already too low down the priority list and the fact that this is being mooted as a money-saving measure is very worrying. "Some GPs don't take arthritis seriously enough, and the result of this could be to give them another excuse to tell arthritis patients just to go away and take their tablets."
The Patients' Association welcomed more moves to empower patients, but warned against using self-care systems to save money. "We are all for better-informed patients," said Katherine Murphy, a spokesman. "But it is a concern that financial pressures will take precedence over clinical needs."
Peter Weissberg, the medical director of the British Heart Foundation, said: "People affected by heart disease need specialist care. Whilst we support changes that empower people to look after their own health, we would be very concerned if they led to any reduction in the availability or quality of expert care for those who need it."
After years of record spending, the health service is facing a sharp slow-down as Mr Brown tries to curb soaring government borrowing. In the Comprehensive Spending Review last year, it was announced that the health budget will grow by four per cent a year over the next three years, down from the seven per cent annual growth rate between 2002 and 2007.
The Treasury also demanded that the DoH achieves three per cent "efficiency savings" over the next three years, equivalent to o8.2 billion. The department's "Value for Money Delivery Agreement" - an internal document drawn up with the Treasury and circulated to NHS trusts over the Christmas holiday - sets out how the NHS will meet the savings target. In a section on chronic conditions, it says the key to greater efficiency in the management of patients with long-term illnesses is a reduction in the need for "expensive" interventions by the NHS. "Reductions in the use of NHS (GP consultations, outpatient appointments, inpatient admissions, length of stay, emergency care and prescribing) can be achieved through increased support for self care (for example through education and skills training, information prescriptions, or self care devices)," it says.
The DoH has told the Treasury that NHS officials are drawing up "good practice guidance on care planning including support for self care". The advice is expected to be published next month. The emphasis on self care was inspired by the success of the Expert Patients Programme, an NHS pilot scheme that offers a six-week training course for people with chronic or long-term conditions. About 30,000 people have completed the course and reduced their hospital attendances by up to 16 per cent, a result NHS managers hope to repeat across the service.
Health budgets face pressure from the cost of caring for people with chronic conditions, including 8.5 million with arthritis, 3.4 million with asthma, 1.5 million diabetics and 500,000 with heart failure. Opposition politicians questioned whether the Government could save money without reducing services. But an Asthma UK spokesman said: "Our focus is on the clinical benefits of self-management. "If the Government implements procedures to ensure more self management and save money, we would support that."
Source
Friday, January 11, 2008
Shocking NHS figures show mothers and babies are at risk due to chronic shortage of midwives
Mothers and babies are being put at risk in NHS hospitals because midwives are so overstretched, shocking new figures show. Midwives are being forced to oversee more births than they were six years ago, meaning they can not give women the support they need to ensure they stay safe.
In some parts of the country midwives are in charge of 25 per cent more births as they were in 2001, according to the official figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats. The average midwife is now overseeing 33 births a year - well in excess of the guidelines which state they should deal with no more than 28 births. The desperate shortage means thousands of women are giving birth terrified and alone in NHS maternity units, while many are being forced to have children in filthy wards.
Over Christmas two women died at the same hospital from the same infection - raising fresh concerns about hygiene standards in the NHS. The Royal College of Midwives said last night that the figures proved that NHS maternity services were "crumbling", with many units are under threat.
Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb said: "These figures show that our maternity services are under huge strain around the country. "There simply aren't enough midwives to deliver on the Government's promises of one-to-one maternity care. "With the birth rate rising and many midwives set to retire over the next decade, the situation is set to get worse. "A chronic shortage of midwives could also force the closure of small childbirth centres across the country. "The Government needs to stop burying its head in the sand and launch a national review of capacity in maternity services."
Official guidelines, published in 2006 by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, say that midwives should oversee no more than 28 births a year. The figures, revealed following a parliamentary question, show that across England in 2001, the average midwife oversaw 31 births. By 2006 that had risen to 33 - a rise of seven per cent. ....
Experts say fewer midwives per birth leads to increasing risks for mothers and babies. Belinda Phipps of the National Childbirth Trust said: "As the number of birth per midwives rise, the risk of a woman being in labour without a midwife by her side rises. "This is not just a 'nice to have' but is clinically important and makes a difference to a woman's labour and birth. "You would not expect to go into hospital for an operation and have the hospital tell you your anaesthetist will be running between three patients in different operating theatres. "It is not acceptable for women in labour to be expected to have their midwife running between several women also in labour.
"At the moment the only way you can be sure to have a midwife with you throughout your labour is to have your baby at home. "Women who choose to give birth in hospital also need to be assured they will have a midwife with them throughout their labour. "Using a hospital's emergency facilities to rescue women who have not had the full attention of a midwife is not acceptable practice."
Louise Silverton, deputy general secretary of the Royal College of Midwives, said: "While we support the Government's plans for maternity services, we have real concerns about their ability to deliver because there are simply not enough midwives. We need 5,000 more full-time midwives by 2009. "The birth rate is rising, midwife numbers are dropping, but the maternity services budget is falling and the maternity service is crumbling. "Ultimately it will be women and their babies who suffer a poor maternity service, and midwives will be left underresourced and overstretched. "Women report to us that because the midwives are so busy, they do not ask questions for extra support. "Women are being short changed by the shortage of midwives."
The increasing ratios have occurred because the Government has not employed increasing numbers of staff to keep pace with rising birth rates. Since 2001 the birthrate has shot up by 12.5 per cent, from 564,871 babies born to 635,679 in 2006 - a bigger rise than Government actuaries had expected. Midwife numbers have increased by just 5 per cent since Labour came to power in 1997, from 18,053 to 18,862 in 2006 - with 2006 seeing a drop in numbers on the previous year.
Fewer new midwives are being trained every year - down 16 per cent in the last two years; and newly-qualified midwives are struggling to find jobs because many trusts still have financial problems. And the RCM warns the problem could get worse, with half of midwives planning to retire within the next decade.
The amount being spent on maternity services has fallen from 1.7 billion in 2005/06 to 1.6 billion pounds last year. The shortage of midwives will make it all the more difficult for the Government to meet its pledge that by the end of 2009, all women will be supported by one named midwife throughout her pregnancy and afterwards. The Conservatives claim that more than 30 maternity units across the country are under threat of closure.
A spokesman for the Department of Health said: "England remains one of the safest places to have a baby either in hospital or at home. "The number of midwives is increasing. Between 1997 and 2006, the (headcount) number of midwives employed in the NHS has increased by 2,084 (9 per cent), which represents a whole time equivalent (WTE) increase of 809 (5 per cent). "There has also been a 20 per cent increase in the number of students entering training to become a midwife. "Through increased investment in training staff and finding ways for midwives to come back to work in the NHS, we expect to see further increases in the midwifery workforce. But we are not stopping there. "In some parts of the country, we must and will do more, like developing more training places, bringing in flexible working and finding innovative ways to fill hard to fill vacancies."
Source
NHS negligence kills young mother
A woman died while giving birth after a clerical error left her without specialist medical care, despite both her mother and her aunt having been killed by the same rare condition at exactly the same age, an inquest was told yesterday.
Kelly Hutchings, 22, of Fareham, Hampshire, suffered a brain haemorrhage during the birth of her daughter, Nikita, on November 16, 2005. When Ms Hutchings became pregnant for the first time that spring, no appointment was made for her to see a consultant obstetrician despite her family's "significant medical history" and referrals by her doctor and a midwife. Her need for specialist care was then overlooked by midwives and doctors on up to six further occasions, the inquest in Southampton was told.
Keith Wiseman, the coroner, said that it was "incredible" that a case like hers had slipped through the net, describing it as "like going through six or seven red lights and not realising".
The inquest was told that Ms Hutchings's mother, Shirley, had died at the age of 22 while giving birth to Kelly's brother, Mark, who is now 20. Her aunt, Sue Hickmott, had died in 1982, at the same age and from the same condition, known as deep cerebral venous thrombosis, which causes brain haemorrhage during childbirth.
However, an administrative error by Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust meant that an appointment for Ms Hutchings to see Marwan Salloum, a consultant obstetrician, never happened. She was seen finally by a specialist was when she fell seriously ill towards the end of her pregnancy. She was admitted to Southampton General Hospital complaining of dizziness and headaches, but her condition deteriorated and, just over 30 weeks into her pregnancy, she went into labour.
Ms Hutchings, who also suffered from cerebral palsy, was kept alive on a life-support machine while Nikita was delivered by Caesarean section. Her daughter, who has severe disabilities including blindness, cerebral palsy and brain damage, is being raised by her partner, Lee Blyth.
Donna Ockenden, head midwife for Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust, explained that Dr Peter Smith, Ms Hutchings's GP, had first made a referral for an appointment with a consultant. But this was "overridden" and downgraded to a midwife appointment because he had not provided any reason for the request.
A request with details of the family history, was made by June Brown, Ms Hutchings's midwife. It was approved by Mr Salloum, but Mrs Ockenden said that a "clerical error" meant the appointment was not made because the interview with the midwife was already in place. She added: "Although the history was clearly visible on the front of Kelly's notes, it was not picked up that it was a high-risk issue." Mrs Ockenden said that procedures at the trust had since been changed.
Mr Salloum told the inquest that he considered Ms Hutchings a high-risk case. "The referral that came to my attention had a box that said Kelly was anxious that her mother and her aunt both died in childbirth from a brain haemorrhage. I would like to at least discuss that with the patient."
Dr Smith said that Ms Hutchings had made no reference to her family history when she came to see him. Her stepmother, Merissa Hutchings, 41, said that she was not a "forceful girl" who would have raised concerns on her own behalf.
Source
Britain: Drug dealer refuses to leave his 'comfy' cell
A judge has condemned the "barking mad" human rights rules that allowed a drug dealer to stay in his prison cell rather than appear in court. Amir Ali, who was jailed for almost four years last September, refused to leave the "comfortable" cell because he was afraid of losing it to another inmate
Judge Richard Hayward said: "I didn't know that prisoners could choose whether or not to come to court. I just assumed they would be scooped up by a burly prison warden and dumped in the back of a van. Now I hear this prisoner is refusing to leave his cell, and no one's doing anything about it. Once again, it's down to barking mad human rights rules."
Ali was due to appear at Lewes Crown Court, East Sussex, for a confiscation hearing yesterday to be stripped of the tens of thousands of pounds he earned from dealing in class A drugs.
However, he refused to leave HMP Camp Hill, a category C training prison on the Isle of Wight. Julian Woodbridge, defending Ali, said: "Mr Ali refused to leave his cell this morning because he is comfortable there and doesn't want to lose it. "There is a shortage of comfortable prison cells in this country, so he was obviously keen to hold on to his." Judge Hayward, who adjourned the hearing, said: "If he doesn't turn up then, we will simply go on without him."
Police caught Ali and 14 co-conspirators in Crawley, East Sussex, during a sting operation in March 2007. He was convicted of conspiring to supply cocaine, two counts of supplying the same drug and a further two charges of supplying heroin. After the operation, Det Insp Nick May said: "Compared with the same period last year, burglary, robbery and vehicle crime have all dropped in Crawley, and this is a tribute to the fantastic support we receive from communities, and the efforts we put into tackling drug dealing, as shown by this series of arrests."
A court source said: "Judge Hayward is known for his no-nonsense approach to criminals and he is sick and tired of coming up against barriers which slow down the legal process. It's incredible that this drug dealer finds his cell so comfortable he doesn't want to leave it. If they make prison that easy then it is no surprise the jails are full up." The source added: "To claim your human rights are being infringed by being brought to court from your prison cell is really the final straw."
Source
Mothers and babies are being put at risk in NHS hospitals because midwives are so overstretched, shocking new figures show. Midwives are being forced to oversee more births than they were six years ago, meaning they can not give women the support they need to ensure they stay safe.
In some parts of the country midwives are in charge of 25 per cent more births as they were in 2001, according to the official figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats. The average midwife is now overseeing 33 births a year - well in excess of the guidelines which state they should deal with no more than 28 births. The desperate shortage means thousands of women are giving birth terrified and alone in NHS maternity units, while many are being forced to have children in filthy wards.
Over Christmas two women died at the same hospital from the same infection - raising fresh concerns about hygiene standards in the NHS. The Royal College of Midwives said last night that the figures proved that NHS maternity services were "crumbling", with many units are under threat.
Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb said: "These figures show that our maternity services are under huge strain around the country. "There simply aren't enough midwives to deliver on the Government's promises of one-to-one maternity care. "With the birth rate rising and many midwives set to retire over the next decade, the situation is set to get worse. "A chronic shortage of midwives could also force the closure of small childbirth centres across the country. "The Government needs to stop burying its head in the sand and launch a national review of capacity in maternity services."
Official guidelines, published in 2006 by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, say that midwives should oversee no more than 28 births a year. The figures, revealed following a parliamentary question, show that across England in 2001, the average midwife oversaw 31 births. By 2006 that had risen to 33 - a rise of seven per cent. ....
Experts say fewer midwives per birth leads to increasing risks for mothers and babies. Belinda Phipps of the National Childbirth Trust said: "As the number of birth per midwives rise, the risk of a woman being in labour without a midwife by her side rises. "This is not just a 'nice to have' but is clinically important and makes a difference to a woman's labour and birth. "You would not expect to go into hospital for an operation and have the hospital tell you your anaesthetist will be running between three patients in different operating theatres. "It is not acceptable for women in labour to be expected to have their midwife running between several women also in labour.
"At the moment the only way you can be sure to have a midwife with you throughout your labour is to have your baby at home. "Women who choose to give birth in hospital also need to be assured they will have a midwife with them throughout their labour. "Using a hospital's emergency facilities to rescue women who have not had the full attention of a midwife is not acceptable practice."
Louise Silverton, deputy general secretary of the Royal College of Midwives, said: "While we support the Government's plans for maternity services, we have real concerns about their ability to deliver because there are simply not enough midwives. We need 5,000 more full-time midwives by 2009. "The birth rate is rising, midwife numbers are dropping, but the maternity services budget is falling and the maternity service is crumbling. "Ultimately it will be women and their babies who suffer a poor maternity service, and midwives will be left underresourced and overstretched. "Women report to us that because the midwives are so busy, they do not ask questions for extra support. "Women are being short changed by the shortage of midwives."
The increasing ratios have occurred because the Government has not employed increasing numbers of staff to keep pace with rising birth rates. Since 2001 the birthrate has shot up by 12.5 per cent, from 564,871 babies born to 635,679 in 2006 - a bigger rise than Government actuaries had expected. Midwife numbers have increased by just 5 per cent since Labour came to power in 1997, from 18,053 to 18,862 in 2006 - with 2006 seeing a drop in numbers on the previous year.
Fewer new midwives are being trained every year - down 16 per cent in the last two years; and newly-qualified midwives are struggling to find jobs because many trusts still have financial problems. And the RCM warns the problem could get worse, with half of midwives planning to retire within the next decade.
The amount being spent on maternity services has fallen from 1.7 billion in 2005/06 to 1.6 billion pounds last year. The shortage of midwives will make it all the more difficult for the Government to meet its pledge that by the end of 2009, all women will be supported by one named midwife throughout her pregnancy and afterwards. The Conservatives claim that more than 30 maternity units across the country are under threat of closure.
A spokesman for the Department of Health said: "England remains one of the safest places to have a baby either in hospital or at home. "The number of midwives is increasing. Between 1997 and 2006, the (headcount) number of midwives employed in the NHS has increased by 2,084 (9 per cent), which represents a whole time equivalent (WTE) increase of 809 (5 per cent). "There has also been a 20 per cent increase in the number of students entering training to become a midwife. "Through increased investment in training staff and finding ways for midwives to come back to work in the NHS, we expect to see further increases in the midwifery workforce. But we are not stopping there. "In some parts of the country, we must and will do more, like developing more training places, bringing in flexible working and finding innovative ways to fill hard to fill vacancies."
Source
NHS negligence kills young mother
A woman died while giving birth after a clerical error left her without specialist medical care, despite both her mother and her aunt having been killed by the same rare condition at exactly the same age, an inquest was told yesterday.
Kelly Hutchings, 22, of Fareham, Hampshire, suffered a brain haemorrhage during the birth of her daughter, Nikita, on November 16, 2005. When Ms Hutchings became pregnant for the first time that spring, no appointment was made for her to see a consultant obstetrician despite her family's "significant medical history" and referrals by her doctor and a midwife. Her need for specialist care was then overlooked by midwives and doctors on up to six further occasions, the inquest in Southampton was told.
Keith Wiseman, the coroner, said that it was "incredible" that a case like hers had slipped through the net, describing it as "like going through six or seven red lights and not realising".
The inquest was told that Ms Hutchings's mother, Shirley, had died at the age of 22 while giving birth to Kelly's brother, Mark, who is now 20. Her aunt, Sue Hickmott, had died in 1982, at the same age and from the same condition, known as deep cerebral venous thrombosis, which causes brain haemorrhage during childbirth.
However, an administrative error by Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust meant that an appointment for Ms Hutchings to see Marwan Salloum, a consultant obstetrician, never happened. She was seen finally by a specialist was when she fell seriously ill towards the end of her pregnancy. She was admitted to Southampton General Hospital complaining of dizziness and headaches, but her condition deteriorated and, just over 30 weeks into her pregnancy, she went into labour.
Ms Hutchings, who also suffered from cerebral palsy, was kept alive on a life-support machine while Nikita was delivered by Caesarean section. Her daughter, who has severe disabilities including blindness, cerebral palsy and brain damage, is being raised by her partner, Lee Blyth.
Donna Ockenden, head midwife for Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust, explained that Dr Peter Smith, Ms Hutchings's GP, had first made a referral for an appointment with a consultant. But this was "overridden" and downgraded to a midwife appointment because he had not provided any reason for the request.
A request with details of the family history, was made by June Brown, Ms Hutchings's midwife. It was approved by Mr Salloum, but Mrs Ockenden said that a "clerical error" meant the appointment was not made because the interview with the midwife was already in place. She added: "Although the history was clearly visible on the front of Kelly's notes, it was not picked up that it was a high-risk issue." Mrs Ockenden said that procedures at the trust had since been changed.
Mr Salloum told the inquest that he considered Ms Hutchings a high-risk case. "The referral that came to my attention had a box that said Kelly was anxious that her mother and her aunt both died in childbirth from a brain haemorrhage. I would like to at least discuss that with the patient."
Dr Smith said that Ms Hutchings had made no reference to her family history when she came to see him. Her stepmother, Merissa Hutchings, 41, said that she was not a "forceful girl" who would have raised concerns on her own behalf.
Source
Britain: Drug dealer refuses to leave his 'comfy' cell
A judge has condemned the "barking mad" human rights rules that allowed a drug dealer to stay in his prison cell rather than appear in court. Amir Ali, who was jailed for almost four years last September, refused to leave the "comfortable" cell because he was afraid of losing it to another inmate
Judge Richard Hayward said: "I didn't know that prisoners could choose whether or not to come to court. I just assumed they would be scooped up by a burly prison warden and dumped in the back of a van. Now I hear this prisoner is refusing to leave his cell, and no one's doing anything about it. Once again, it's down to barking mad human rights rules."
Ali was due to appear at Lewes Crown Court, East Sussex, for a confiscation hearing yesterday to be stripped of the tens of thousands of pounds he earned from dealing in class A drugs.
However, he refused to leave HMP Camp Hill, a category C training prison on the Isle of Wight. Julian Woodbridge, defending Ali, said: "Mr Ali refused to leave his cell this morning because he is comfortable there and doesn't want to lose it. "There is a shortage of comfortable prison cells in this country, so he was obviously keen to hold on to his." Judge Hayward, who adjourned the hearing, said: "If he doesn't turn up then, we will simply go on without him."
Police caught Ali and 14 co-conspirators in Crawley, East Sussex, during a sting operation in March 2007. He was convicted of conspiring to supply cocaine, two counts of supplying the same drug and a further two charges of supplying heroin. After the operation, Det Insp Nick May said: "Compared with the same period last year, burglary, robbery and vehicle crime have all dropped in Crawley, and this is a tribute to the fantastic support we receive from communities, and the efforts we put into tackling drug dealing, as shown by this series of arrests."
A court source said: "Judge Hayward is known for his no-nonsense approach to criminals and he is sick and tired of coming up against barriers which slow down the legal process. It's incredible that this drug dealer finds his cell so comfortable he doesn't want to leave it. If they make prison that easy then it is no surprise the jails are full up." The source added: "To claim your human rights are being infringed by being brought to court from your prison cell is really the final straw."
Source
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Bigoted British court
A British Airways worker has lost her case for religious discrimination over wearing a cross to work, she said Tuesday. Nadia Eweida, 56, took BA to an employment tribunal claiming it effectively discriminated against Christians because they were not allowed to wear religious jewellery while Muslims were allowed to wear hijabs and Sikhs bangles.
The airline, which changed its policy to allow crosses on chains over work clothes last year amid controversy over the case, said its clothing policy did not discriminate against Christians.
The row erupted in 2006 when Eweida claimed she was asked to remove or hide her cross. "I'm very disappointed," she said. "The judge has given way for BA to have a victory on imposing their will on all their staff."
A BA spokesman said: "We are pleased that the tribunal's decision supports our position. "Our current policy allows symbols of faith to be worn openly and has been developed with multi-faith groups and our staff."
Eweida, who still works for the airline, pledged to return to work Thursday wearing the cross.
Source
Britannia waives the rules (again)
'Don't deport students who overstay visas'
The Government official in charge of the immigration system admitted telling her officers not to enforce new rules for deporting students who stay in Britain after their visas expire. Lin Homer, the head of the Borders and Immigration Agency, said finding and removing thousands of people who overstay their visas was not high priority for her staff. Instead, she insisted immigration officers are "focused on those people that are causing harm".
The change in immigration practice came to light after Ms Homer intervened to prevent officers deporting a Chinese student whose visa had expired. She said the student concerned had overstayed her visa because of an "administrative error". Ms Homer told BBC Radio 4's Today programme immigration officers have been instructed not to spend time enforcing new rules on visas introduced in September.
Source
Cancer patients fight to stop NHS withholding care
CANCER patients have launched a legal action to prevent the NHS from withdrawing care if they seek to improve their chances of recovery by paying privately for an additional drug. The patients say the NHS will be breaching their human rights if it withdraws the treatment they are receiving. Two of the patients, Colette Mills, 58, a former nurse from near Stokesley, North Yorkshire, and Debbie Hirst, 56, from St Ives, Cornwall, who both have breast cancer, have been told they will be made to foot the entire 10,000 pound monthly bill for their care if they attempt to pay privately for an additional drug, Avastin.
Ministers claim that to allow patients to pay for top-up drugs would be unfair to those who cannot afford them and lead to a two-tier NHS. The health department has issued guidance to NHS trusts warning that such co-payments are not allowed. However, the patients' solicitor, Melissa Worth of the Manchester law firm Halliwells, said NHS trusts would be breaching several articles of the 1998 Human Rights Act if they withdrew chemotherapy treatment. Worth also argued that in withdrawing treatment NHS trusts would undermine the National Health Service Act of 1977. She said: "In light of the indisputable obligations of the trusts to provide life-sustaining treatment when there is a known, real and immediate risk to life, there is no legal justification for the trust threatening to withdraw all free treatment should our clients wish to maximise their chances of survival by complementing the treatment they are receiving by receiving Avastin."
NHS chief executives, the Patients Association, Doctors for Reform and Saga, the organisation for the overfifties, have all backed Mills and Hirst since The Sunday Times highlighted their plight last month. This weekend they were joined by one of Britain's leading breast cancer consultants. Professor Ian Smith, head of the breast cancer unit at the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, said: "I am very sympathetic to the case of these patients. We are looking after patients with life-threatening diseases and it is difficult enough telling them they cannot get the drug on the NHS without needing to then say: `Even if you are prepared to pay for it, you still cannot have it.' This creates a very emotionally fraught situation and seems very harsh."
Politicians have also pledged to campaign for a change in policy. John Baron, a Conservative MP and former shadow health minister, said: "It is absolutely wrong for the NHS not to allow tax-paying patients to top up their treatment if they so wish. Why shouldn't patients make that extra payment for a drug that could be life-saving? This is unfair and the government should be ashamed."
The health department said: "It is a fundamental principle of the NHS, supported by all the main political parties, that treatment should be free at the point of need. Co-payments would undermine this."
Source
Segregation: Muslim style
Where there are large concentrations of Muslims in England, "no-go" zones are being established and, according to the Right Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali, the Church of England's Bishop of Rochester, non-Muslims who "trespass" in such neighborhoods risk attack. Nazir-Ali, a native of Pakistan and convert to Christianity, writes in The Sunday Telegraph that a spiritual vacuum in Britain, along with its indifference to the rise of Islamic extremism and a growing "multifaith" society, is robbing the nation of its Christian identity and putting its future in jeopardy. He is not alone. A poll of the General Synod - the church's parliament - shows that its senior leaders also believe that Britain is being damaged by uncontrolled immigration....
Anyone who has studied Islamic societies (as Nazir-Ali has, having been part of one) knows segregation and subjugation of non-Muslims is the norm, not the behavior of an "extremist fringe." Former Muslims and others have issued dire warnings about the intentions of these immigrant invaders and their objectives to subordinate Western countries to their view of God's will. Segregation and intolerance are the first fruits of what they intend to impose on everyone. Political leadership in Britain and increasingly in the United States turns a blind eye to such things because they are prospecting for votes, including from those who would end democracy.
No wonder Britons are growing increasingly uneasy, even despondent, about life in their country. A poll conducted by the respected YouGov organization and published in the Dec. 30 London Times found that more than half of all men and four in 10 women said they would rather live abroad if given the choice. The main reasons are antisocial behavior among a growing underclass and immigration. The "state of the nation" poll of more than 1,500 people found that concerns about immigration topped the list of issues of six out of 10 of those questioned. Among self-identified conservative voters, three-quarters consider immigration among their top concerns.
Three British cities already have high Muslim populations, thanks to immigration, high birth rates and conversions (but don't try converting any of them to another faith, which is one reason they are creating "no-go" zones). Seventeen percent of London's population is Muslim (1.3 million out of 7.5 million). In Luton, it's 14.6 percent. Birmingham has 14.3 percent. Other European cities have a higher percentage of Muslims.
Multiculturalism, globalism and an emphasis on "interfaith" are contributing to the decline of the West just as paganism, hedonism and greed undermined past empires. Rather than learn from their mistakes, the West thinks it can engage in such practices without consequence.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has expressed concern about the loss of "Britishness," but unless he does something to slow, even reverse, Muslim immigration, the Britain we've known will be lost and radical Islam will remake it in its own image. As Bishop Nazir-Ali writes, "But none of this will be of any avail if Britain does not recover that vision of its destiny which made it great. That has to do with the Bible's teaching that we have equal dignity and freedom because we are all made in God's image." The segregationists didn't believe that at one time in America and the Muslim segregationists in Britain don't believe it now.
Source
A British Airways worker has lost her case for religious discrimination over wearing a cross to work, she said Tuesday. Nadia Eweida, 56, took BA to an employment tribunal claiming it effectively discriminated against Christians because they were not allowed to wear religious jewellery while Muslims were allowed to wear hijabs and Sikhs bangles.
The airline, which changed its policy to allow crosses on chains over work clothes last year amid controversy over the case, said its clothing policy did not discriminate against Christians.
The row erupted in 2006 when Eweida claimed she was asked to remove or hide her cross. "I'm very disappointed," she said. "The judge has given way for BA to have a victory on imposing their will on all their staff."
A BA spokesman said: "We are pleased that the tribunal's decision supports our position. "Our current policy allows symbols of faith to be worn openly and has been developed with multi-faith groups and our staff."
Eweida, who still works for the airline, pledged to return to work Thursday wearing the cross.
Source
Britannia waives the rules (again)
'Don't deport students who overstay visas'
The Government official in charge of the immigration system admitted telling her officers not to enforce new rules for deporting students who stay in Britain after their visas expire. Lin Homer, the head of the Borders and Immigration Agency, said finding and removing thousands of people who overstay their visas was not high priority for her staff. Instead, she insisted immigration officers are "focused on those people that are causing harm".
The change in immigration practice came to light after Ms Homer intervened to prevent officers deporting a Chinese student whose visa had expired. She said the student concerned had overstayed her visa because of an "administrative error". Ms Homer told BBC Radio 4's Today programme immigration officers have been instructed not to spend time enforcing new rules on visas introduced in September.
Source
Cancer patients fight to stop NHS withholding care
CANCER patients have launched a legal action to prevent the NHS from withdrawing care if they seek to improve their chances of recovery by paying privately for an additional drug. The patients say the NHS will be breaching their human rights if it withdraws the treatment they are receiving. Two of the patients, Colette Mills, 58, a former nurse from near Stokesley, North Yorkshire, and Debbie Hirst, 56, from St Ives, Cornwall, who both have breast cancer, have been told they will be made to foot the entire 10,000 pound monthly bill for their care if they attempt to pay privately for an additional drug, Avastin.
Ministers claim that to allow patients to pay for top-up drugs would be unfair to those who cannot afford them and lead to a two-tier NHS. The health department has issued guidance to NHS trusts warning that such co-payments are not allowed. However, the patients' solicitor, Melissa Worth of the Manchester law firm Halliwells, said NHS trusts would be breaching several articles of the 1998 Human Rights Act if they withdrew chemotherapy treatment. Worth also argued that in withdrawing treatment NHS trusts would undermine the National Health Service Act of 1977. She said: "In light of the indisputable obligations of the trusts to provide life-sustaining treatment when there is a known, real and immediate risk to life, there is no legal justification for the trust threatening to withdraw all free treatment should our clients wish to maximise their chances of survival by complementing the treatment they are receiving by receiving Avastin."
NHS chief executives, the Patients Association, Doctors for Reform and Saga, the organisation for the overfifties, have all backed Mills and Hirst since The Sunday Times highlighted their plight last month. This weekend they were joined by one of Britain's leading breast cancer consultants. Professor Ian Smith, head of the breast cancer unit at the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, said: "I am very sympathetic to the case of these patients. We are looking after patients with life-threatening diseases and it is difficult enough telling them they cannot get the drug on the NHS without needing to then say: `Even if you are prepared to pay for it, you still cannot have it.' This creates a very emotionally fraught situation and seems very harsh."
Politicians have also pledged to campaign for a change in policy. John Baron, a Conservative MP and former shadow health minister, said: "It is absolutely wrong for the NHS not to allow tax-paying patients to top up their treatment if they so wish. Why shouldn't patients make that extra payment for a drug that could be life-saving? This is unfair and the government should be ashamed."
The health department said: "It is a fundamental principle of the NHS, supported by all the main political parties, that treatment should be free at the point of need. Co-payments would undermine this."
Source
Segregation: Muslim style
Where there are large concentrations of Muslims in England, "no-go" zones are being established and, according to the Right Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali, the Church of England's Bishop of Rochester, non-Muslims who "trespass" in such neighborhoods risk attack. Nazir-Ali, a native of Pakistan and convert to Christianity, writes in The Sunday Telegraph that a spiritual vacuum in Britain, along with its indifference to the rise of Islamic extremism and a growing "multifaith" society, is robbing the nation of its Christian identity and putting its future in jeopardy. He is not alone. A poll of the General Synod - the church's parliament - shows that its senior leaders also believe that Britain is being damaged by uncontrolled immigration....
Anyone who has studied Islamic societies (as Nazir-Ali has, having been part of one) knows segregation and subjugation of non-Muslims is the norm, not the behavior of an "extremist fringe." Former Muslims and others have issued dire warnings about the intentions of these immigrant invaders and their objectives to subordinate Western countries to their view of God's will. Segregation and intolerance are the first fruits of what they intend to impose on everyone. Political leadership in Britain and increasingly in the United States turns a blind eye to such things because they are prospecting for votes, including from those who would end democracy.
No wonder Britons are growing increasingly uneasy, even despondent, about life in their country. A poll conducted by the respected YouGov organization and published in the Dec. 30 London Times found that more than half of all men and four in 10 women said they would rather live abroad if given the choice. The main reasons are antisocial behavior among a growing underclass and immigration. The "state of the nation" poll of more than 1,500 people found that concerns about immigration topped the list of issues of six out of 10 of those questioned. Among self-identified conservative voters, three-quarters consider immigration among their top concerns.
Three British cities already have high Muslim populations, thanks to immigration, high birth rates and conversions (but don't try converting any of them to another faith, which is one reason they are creating "no-go" zones). Seventeen percent of London's population is Muslim (1.3 million out of 7.5 million). In Luton, it's 14.6 percent. Birmingham has 14.3 percent. Other European cities have a higher percentage of Muslims.
Multiculturalism, globalism and an emphasis on "interfaith" are contributing to the decline of the West just as paganism, hedonism and greed undermined past empires. Rather than learn from their mistakes, the West thinks it can engage in such practices without consequence.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has expressed concern about the loss of "Britishness," but unless he does something to slow, even reverse, Muslim immigration, the Britain we've known will be lost and radical Islam will remake it in its own image. As Bishop Nazir-Ali writes, "But none of this will be of any avail if Britain does not recover that vision of its destiny which made it great. That has to do with the Bible's teaching that we have equal dignity and freedom because we are all made in God's image." The segregationists didn't believe that at one time in America and the Muslim segregationists in Britain don't believe it now.
Source
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
SCIENCE SPIN
An email from David Whitehouse [david@davidwhitehouse.com]:
Here is a good example of how to 'interpret' scientific data. I can't help thinking that the public has been fed the most outrageous spin - not by politicians but by scientists who should know better, but hey, this is global warming and the UK's Met Office is seeing what it wants to see.
It's just released the 2007 global temperature figures and its forecast for 2008. 2007 it says was a top ten year but it's what it doesn't say in the main part of the press release (usually the only part that is read by journalists) that is alarming. Look further down the press release and you will see, tucked away in a list of notes to editors the admission that 2007 was, temperature wise, the same as 2006 and every year since 2001 - it admits there has been no global warming for 7 years!
But how does that square with the comment by Prof Phil Jones, Director of the Climatic Research Institute of the University of East Anglia, who produced the figures, "The fact that 2008 is forecast to be cooler than any of the last 7 years (and that 2007 did not break the record that was set in 1998) doesn't mean that global warming has gone away. What matters is the underlying rate of warming."
That is misleading. The data obviously suggests that for the past 7 years at least global warming has gone away. Of course the past decade has been warmer than pervious decades but the recent decade's underlying rate of warming, the parameter by which Prof Jones sets so much store, is ZERO. No global warming. Anyone can see that if they look at the figures.
The press release put out by the Met Office, and swallowed by many media outlets, including the BBC, misrepresents the data of global warming. The public are not being given the whole truth.
England will soon be Europe's most densely populated nation
The crowds are packing the pavements around Oxford Circus Tube station. On the roads, cars and buses are jammed in a giant gridlock. This is central London - but it's not the pre-Christmas rush or the height of the sales. It's just the start of another working day. Similar problems afflict many city centres: Birmingham's New Street, Glasgow's Sauchiehall Street and Edinburgh's Princes Street see similar daily throngs. It is something that city dwellers have become accustomed to, but living in British cities used to be a very different experience.
Watching the Christmas reruns of classic London-based films such as The Ipcress File (1965), one is struck not just by the naive plots and the mildness of the violence but also by the emptiness of the city streets, the absence of pedestrians, cars and the way that the characters can park with ease almost anywhere they like. What has happened since those days? New figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) tell us at least some of the answer. In the 40 years since Michael Caine acted out his classic role, the population of Britain has risen from about 52m to 60m. That increase is not just continuing to rise, it is accelerating - with the ONS predicting that it will reach 65m by 2016 and 85m by 2081.
"There are three main factors at work. People are living longer, fertility is rising and immigration has increased. The past three years have seen net migration at record levels," says Chris Shaw, the ONS statistician in charge of population projections, adding that his figures are based on assumptions about all three factors that have previously proved too conservative. The ONS has produced further forecasts based on slightly increased figures. Under this scenario Britain could have 108m people by 2081.
It is England that is bearing the brunt of this huge increase and much of the rise is being felt in the southeast. Some visitors to the capital complained of feeling "suffocated" by the crowds over Christmas, but it is all about to get much worse: London's current population of about 7.4m will, for example, reach 8.1m by 2016.
England is already one of the most crowded nations in Europe with 390 people per square kilometre, soon to overtake Holland - currently the most crowded - which has 393. By 2031, according to ONS predictions, we will have 464 people per square kilometre.
What does this surging population mean for people? Put simply it means less space - as land gets more costly, homes will keep rising in value. That means they will get smaller. On the roads and railways the same applies. The roads will get more congested and rush-hour train journeys will offer standing room only to more of us. Some rail companies are already discussing removing seats altogether to fit more people in.
"The government is spending lots of money on housing and on subsidising key workers, which solves the problem temporarily, but in the long term it just draws more people in and makes crowded regions even worse," says John Stillwell, professor of migration and regional development at Leeds University. "The cost of living space is rising and the roads are simply going to get more congested. There is less space for everyone."
Sir Crispin Tickell, a patron of the Optimum Population Trust and president of the South East Climate Change Partnership, believes such rapid growth is pushing England, especially London, towards disaster. "We are already short of water, land and other resources," he says, "It is completely shortsighted to promote policies that boost its population. It will change all the things that make life worth living." He would like to see policies to encourage people to settle in other parts of Britain.
That, however, is unlikely to happen. When Labour came to power in 1997 it was determined to reverse the north-south divide under which northern areas of Britain were being left behind by the booming southeast. John Prescott was tasked with ending the spiral of subsidies - ranging from money for railways to a London pay weighting for key workers such as teachers - that was feeding the overdevelopment of the southeast. Labour quickly realised, however, that such a plan was fraught with political hazards. When it finally came out, Prescott's Communities Plan delighted developers by paving the way for up to 2m new homes in the southeast - plus a range of transport and other projects.
A senior official explained that the southeast had become a "hot spot" for growth and that the government had decided that its job was "to meet that demand and not to contain it". Since then the south has simply surged ahead. The ONS's last regional population predictions from 2004, now known to be an underestimate, forecast that the combined population of London and the southeast would rise from 15m in 2004 to 18m by 2029.
Others, however, are voting with their feet. Last week Eric King-Turner, aged 102, a second world war veteran, and his 87-year-old wife Doris announced that they were emigrating to New Zealand because England is "too crowded".
Increasingly, some people are deciding that the only responsible approach is to limit how many children they have. Among them is Glenn Sayers, a cartographer from East Finchley, north London. Sayers, a supporter of the Optimum Population Trust, said: "My partner and I may have children but no more than two. There are simply too many people and the best thing we can do for the planet is not to reproduce."
Source
Colossal British stupidity: 3 times more doctors educated than Britain can employ
JUNIOR doctors will face even tougher competition for jobs this year with close to three applications expected for each position, National Health Service managers have warned. NHS Employers, the agency responsible for staffing the health service, has warned that a Court of Appeal ruling means doctors trained in Britain will need to compete for posts to train as consultants alongside doctors from around the world who want to practise in the UK. If the juniors do not obtain a training post, they will not be able to become hospital consultants or GPs.
Sian Thomas of NHS Employers said: "There are about 9,000 posts for around 23,000 estimated applicants - that's what the Department of Health has told us. "One could argue that the more competition you have, the better quality you will get. It is a good thing for patients that there is competition for jobs - it should mean they get the best doctors wherever they live." She admitted, however, that taxpayers' money would be wasted if junior doctors trained in Britain decide to take consultant posts overseas.
The British Medical Association blames the health department for continuing to recruit medics from overseas at the same time as increasing the number of medical graduates from British universities.
Meanwhile, patients are suffering from a postcode lottery of drug prescription eight years after the government set up a body to get rid of the problem, a report by a parliamentary committee will say this week. The health select committee is expected to say that the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) has failed to ensure that medicines available in one area are not denied in neighbouring districts.
An inquiry by the committee of MPs is also expected to say that the NHS, which spends about o90 billion a year, should not need to withhold life-saving medicines. It is likely to say that restrictions on drugs to treat cancer or Alzheimer's could be avoided. The MPs are expected to recommend that Nice gets greater powers to force NHS trusts to make drugs it has approved available to all patients
Source
Follow-up: ANOTHER bureaucracy!
The running of doctors' training must be taken out of the hands of the Department of Health after its chaotic mismanagement of funding and job applications, an influential report will say today. The report by Sir John Tooke, ordered last year after thousands of highly qualified junior doctors were left without training posts, recommends that the Government be stripped of control of postgraduate medical training. Instead, it recommends that the cash needed to train the next generation of specialists should be ring-fenced to prevent the NHS from spending it on something else, and managed by a new body, to be called NHS Medical Education England.
The recommendations, seen by The Times, are expected to be made today by the inquiry, which was set up by the department last year after a series of failures. Incidents included thousands more doctors applying for posts than were available, and problems with a computer system designed to shortlist applicants, which resulted in severely underqualified doctors turning up for job interviews.
Sir John Tooke, Dean of the Peninsula School of Medicine in Plymouth, was asked to chair an inquiry into what to do next. His interim report was published in October, and has been overwhelmingly backed by doctors. His final report, out today, is a stunning vote of no confidence in the department. Last year's crisis "could and should" have been predicted, he told The Times yesterday. The appointments system that failed was "rushed and poorly planned".
There are two important changes to the interim report's recommendations. One is the formation of NHS Medical Education England, which Sir John and his colleagues say will be able to articulate the principles of postgraduate training and implement it successfully - something that the department "is in no way capable of doing", he said. The report also gives warning that training could suffer when the European Working Time Directive comes fully into force next year.
The limit on doctors' working hours will mean that there is not enough time to train them to the skill levels needed, he cautioned. A way needs to be found in which doctors can continue to work legally more than 48 hours a week - perhaps by separating work on the wards from training time. But the most urgent problem is one that Sir John cannot solve - making sure that last year's debacle over training appointments, when 30,000 junior doctors applied for 20,000 posts, is not repeated. The evidence is that the pressure on places will be more intense this year, with about three applicants for every training place, and 20 to 1 in the more popular specialties.
Sir John said that the Government had failed to reconcile two of its policies: expanding medical school places in Britain and the "open door" policy towards graduates from overseas. Unless further training places were made available this year, he said, British graduates would be disadvantaged compared with those of earlier years. There will be a bulge in applications for higher training, caused by a growing number of British graduates, applications from those who won only a one-year post last year, and the uncontrolled number of applicants from abroad.
Last week, the British Medical Association gave warning that the process could go as badly as it did last year. Applications opened on Saturday for training posts in England that start in August this year. Ram Moorthy, chairman of the BMA junior doctors committee, said: "Our concern is that without adequate planning, the levels of competition could result in a lottery."
Sir John said that unless changes were made to protect the rights of British-trained doctors to at least one year of postgraduate training, a situation could arise in which students graduate from medical school but could not practise as doctors because they had not completed their year in hospital.
Source
Despite all this stuff about well clinics, there's no evidence that government campaigns alter behaviour
By Mick Hume
Say what you like about the nanny state, but I do think it's a bit much when the Prime Minister takes it upon himself to make our new year's resolutions for us. In his message to mark the 60th year of the NHS, Gordon Brown resolves that we will all live healthier lives ? stop smoking, drink less, exercise more. As a reward, the health service will still treat us should our personal regime inexplicably fail and we fall sick. This generous offer is to be made in a patient's contract spelling out "the rights and responsibilities associated with entitlement to NHS care".
Some protest that this could mean smokers or the obese being denied healthcare. But such "ethical rationing" is already happening. Mr Brown's plans for a more "personal and preventative service" involve a bigger risk to us all. They mark the next step in an unhealthy trend, begun under Margaret Thatcher and accelerated under Tony Blair, to make it a role of the NHS to send people to the Naughty Habits Step.
Where the "old-fashioned" health service merely treated the sick, today's NHS seeks to beat well people into shape as clean-living citizens through advice and guidance. As Michael Fitzpatrick, an East London GP, observed when such contracts were first proposed, they involve "a major shift of general practice away from the treatment of patients who are ill towards the regulation of the lifestyles of the population".
Despite this being the age of "evidence-based" medicine, nobody can provide proof that such government drives to alter behaviour improve public health. Yet the authorities press on regardless, seeking a magical cure for an ailing political class that hopes to reconnect with people around "ishoos" of personal health. Politicians who have no clue how to change society for the better are reduced to cajoling us to sort ourselves out.
These unwieldy plans can only further undermine the efficiency of the health system, the role of doctors as clinical professionals ? and most importantly, the autonomy of individuals. They turn the purpose of healthcare on its head. As Ren‚ Dubos wrote in 1960, "it is part of the doctor's function to make it possible for his patients to go on doing the pleasant things that are bad for them ? smoking too much, eating and drinking too much ? without killing themselves any sooner than is necessary". There must be more to life than healthy living. Amid the talk of rights and responsibilities, one that gets ignored is the individual's right to make the "wrong" choices.
The other fact often missed out is that we already live longer, healthier lives than ever before. So why not leave us alone to enjoy it? Modern clinical care is capable of wonders, and the health service should stick to that. How about an alternative, informal contract for the 60th anniversary of the NHS: we promise to come to you when we are sick, if you will pledge only to try to cure what ails us
Source
J Edgar Hoover Was Half Right
Comment by a British policeman
I had the misfortune to attend one of our less academic local schools a week or so back. I won't bore you with the details, save to say that, while it wasn't the crime of the century, it had left a young girl quite distressed; on balance, I suppose, it was worth attending, though in my day it would have resulted in six of the best from the headmaster and no 'outside agency' would have been required. (My day is only 20 years ago, but it increasingly seems to have been in another era altogether, and possibly in another country).
Teachers (honest ones), parents (intelligent ones) and police officers now know that a significant minority of the schools in our cities offer almost nothing in the way of education. In the worst 10 per cent, it's far more serious than a simple lack of schooling: drugs are openly sold and consumed, pupils are often drunk and/or pregnant, hardcore pornography is widely available and eagerly swapped, casual sexual assaults and threats of serious violence are commonplace and there is very little, if anything, that the teaching staff can do about any of it. It's heartbreaking, actually.
I looked around. All I could see were lost souls destined for the scrapheap. At 13 years of age, they had literally no hope of ever achieving anything in their lives, without the intervention of a lottery win or some other piece of outstanding good fortune. I thought about my own grandfather. He was one of seven, and grew up in a slum dwelling with an outside standpipe for water. In his 90s now, he still reads avidly, lobs bits and pieces of Shakespeare about and can talk you through you Partition, the Beatles and the Falklands with equal clarity.
I saw a young lad I vaguely knew. His hair had been shaved at the back into an approximation of the letters 'MUFC' and he had a gold stud in one ear. 'What's happening in Afghanistan at the mo, mate?' I said, conversationally. 'You what?' he said. 'Afwhat?'
I happen to know that this lad's father is doing time for murder, and that his mother is an alcoholic and occasional prostitute. I hate to sound like a bleeding heart, but is it his fault he doesn't know what's happening around him? Is it the teachers' faults they can't educate him? What is going on in this country?
J Edgar Hoover was half right when he said, 'The cure for crime is not the electric chair, but the high chair.' To my mind, we need a bit of both.
Source
Couple banned for life from shopping centre and branded 'terrorists' - for taking photos of their grandchildren
A couple were banned for life from a shopping centre - because they were taking photos of their beloved grandchildren. Kim and Trevor Sparshott were ordered to stop taking photos because they were causing a security threat. They were thrown out of the centre after they took out a camera to snap the look on the youngsters' faces when they turned up unexpectedly.
The couple were on a four-day break from their home in Spain and wanted to surprise their family by arriving at the centre, in Fareham, Hants, while they were shopping. But when they went to take a photo, a security guard pounced and ordered them out. The guard then insisted that cameras were banned because of the risk of a terrorist attack - and barred the bemused couple for life.
Speaking from her home in Malaga, Spain, Mrs Sparshott, 51, said: "I couldn't believe it. I was so shocked. "He said we had committed an act of terrorism. "At first I wanted the ground to swallow me up whole because it was so embarassing - but then I got really angry." Mr Sparshott, 52, added: "Instead of being a nice surprise for our family it turned into a nightmare. I was furious. "In these worrying times we understand the need for caution, but surely a quiet word when he first saw us would have stopped all this unpleasantness."
The couple, who had been visiting their daughter, who lives in Gosport, Hants, with her husband and children, returned to Spain in shock. They wrote a letter of complaint to the centre, and received a reply from manager Pam Gillard who said taking photos was a security risk. In the reply to the Sparshotts, Ms Gillard said: "By the sounds of it my officers/duty manager didn't explain the position very clearly and for that I apologise." Speaking after the incident, she added: "Fareham Shopping Centre is private property and has a policy to support the security of the shops, where the taking of photographs needs prior permission. "The Sparshotts are welcome back to the centre." Ms Gillard refused to comment further on the centre's security policies, but added that the camera ban was not because of a terrorist threat.
The situation has amazed civil rights campaigners, who say the centre's reaction was 'completely over the top'. Roger Smith, director of civil liberties group Justice, said: "The key is proportionality - it is quite reasonable to have restrictions on what people can do, but this is just daft. "It seems completely over the top."
Source
Brits go nuke: "A new generation of nuclear power stations will be encouraged to supply unlimited amounts of electricity to the national grid, The Times has learnt. The Cabinet will give the go-ahead for the new building programme today and John Hutton, the Business Secretary, will announce the decision on Thursday. He will pave the way for the nuclear industry to play a much bigger part in meeting Britain's energy needs by making plain that there will be no limit on the amount of electricity it can supply to the grid. At present nuclear power accounts for 20 per cent of energy supplies."
An email from David Whitehouse [david@davidwhitehouse.com]:
Here is a good example of how to 'interpret' scientific data. I can't help thinking that the public has been fed the most outrageous spin - not by politicians but by scientists who should know better, but hey, this is global warming and the UK's Met Office is seeing what it wants to see.
It's just released the 2007 global temperature figures and its forecast for 2008. 2007 it says was a top ten year but it's what it doesn't say in the main part of the press release (usually the only part that is read by journalists) that is alarming. Look further down the press release and you will see, tucked away in a list of notes to editors the admission that 2007 was, temperature wise, the same as 2006 and every year since 2001 - it admits there has been no global warming for 7 years!
But how does that square with the comment by Prof Phil Jones, Director of the Climatic Research Institute of the University of East Anglia, who produced the figures, "The fact that 2008 is forecast to be cooler than any of the last 7 years (and that 2007 did not break the record that was set in 1998) doesn't mean that global warming has gone away. What matters is the underlying rate of warming."
That is misleading. The data obviously suggests that for the past 7 years at least global warming has gone away. Of course the past decade has been warmer than pervious decades but the recent decade's underlying rate of warming, the parameter by which Prof Jones sets so much store, is ZERO. No global warming. Anyone can see that if they look at the figures.
The press release put out by the Met Office, and swallowed by many media outlets, including the BBC, misrepresents the data of global warming. The public are not being given the whole truth.
England will soon be Europe's most densely populated nation
The crowds are packing the pavements around Oxford Circus Tube station. On the roads, cars and buses are jammed in a giant gridlock. This is central London - but it's not the pre-Christmas rush or the height of the sales. It's just the start of another working day. Similar problems afflict many city centres: Birmingham's New Street, Glasgow's Sauchiehall Street and Edinburgh's Princes Street see similar daily throngs. It is something that city dwellers have become accustomed to, but living in British cities used to be a very different experience.
Watching the Christmas reruns of classic London-based films such as The Ipcress File (1965), one is struck not just by the naive plots and the mildness of the violence but also by the emptiness of the city streets, the absence of pedestrians, cars and the way that the characters can park with ease almost anywhere they like. What has happened since those days? New figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) tell us at least some of the answer. In the 40 years since Michael Caine acted out his classic role, the population of Britain has risen from about 52m to 60m. That increase is not just continuing to rise, it is accelerating - with the ONS predicting that it will reach 65m by 2016 and 85m by 2081.
"There are three main factors at work. People are living longer, fertility is rising and immigration has increased. The past three years have seen net migration at record levels," says Chris Shaw, the ONS statistician in charge of population projections, adding that his figures are based on assumptions about all three factors that have previously proved too conservative. The ONS has produced further forecasts based on slightly increased figures. Under this scenario Britain could have 108m people by 2081.
It is England that is bearing the brunt of this huge increase and much of the rise is being felt in the southeast. Some visitors to the capital complained of feeling "suffocated" by the crowds over Christmas, but it is all about to get much worse: London's current population of about 7.4m will, for example, reach 8.1m by 2016.
England is already one of the most crowded nations in Europe with 390 people per square kilometre, soon to overtake Holland - currently the most crowded - which has 393. By 2031, according to ONS predictions, we will have 464 people per square kilometre.
What does this surging population mean for people? Put simply it means less space - as land gets more costly, homes will keep rising in value. That means they will get smaller. On the roads and railways the same applies. The roads will get more congested and rush-hour train journeys will offer standing room only to more of us. Some rail companies are already discussing removing seats altogether to fit more people in.
"The government is spending lots of money on housing and on subsidising key workers, which solves the problem temporarily, but in the long term it just draws more people in and makes crowded regions even worse," says John Stillwell, professor of migration and regional development at Leeds University. "The cost of living space is rising and the roads are simply going to get more congested. There is less space for everyone."
Sir Crispin Tickell, a patron of the Optimum Population Trust and president of the South East Climate Change Partnership, believes such rapid growth is pushing England, especially London, towards disaster. "We are already short of water, land and other resources," he says, "It is completely shortsighted to promote policies that boost its population. It will change all the things that make life worth living." He would like to see policies to encourage people to settle in other parts of Britain.
That, however, is unlikely to happen. When Labour came to power in 1997 it was determined to reverse the north-south divide under which northern areas of Britain were being left behind by the booming southeast. John Prescott was tasked with ending the spiral of subsidies - ranging from money for railways to a London pay weighting for key workers such as teachers - that was feeding the overdevelopment of the southeast. Labour quickly realised, however, that such a plan was fraught with political hazards. When it finally came out, Prescott's Communities Plan delighted developers by paving the way for up to 2m new homes in the southeast - plus a range of transport and other projects.
A senior official explained that the southeast had become a "hot spot" for growth and that the government had decided that its job was "to meet that demand and not to contain it". Since then the south has simply surged ahead. The ONS's last regional population predictions from 2004, now known to be an underestimate, forecast that the combined population of London and the southeast would rise from 15m in 2004 to 18m by 2029.
Others, however, are voting with their feet. Last week Eric King-Turner, aged 102, a second world war veteran, and his 87-year-old wife Doris announced that they were emigrating to New Zealand because England is "too crowded".
Increasingly, some people are deciding that the only responsible approach is to limit how many children they have. Among them is Glenn Sayers, a cartographer from East Finchley, north London. Sayers, a supporter of the Optimum Population Trust, said: "My partner and I may have children but no more than two. There are simply too many people and the best thing we can do for the planet is not to reproduce."
Source
Colossal British stupidity: 3 times more doctors educated than Britain can employ
JUNIOR doctors will face even tougher competition for jobs this year with close to three applications expected for each position, National Health Service managers have warned. NHS Employers, the agency responsible for staffing the health service, has warned that a Court of Appeal ruling means doctors trained in Britain will need to compete for posts to train as consultants alongside doctors from around the world who want to practise in the UK. If the juniors do not obtain a training post, they will not be able to become hospital consultants or GPs.
Sian Thomas of NHS Employers said: "There are about 9,000 posts for around 23,000 estimated applicants - that's what the Department of Health has told us. "One could argue that the more competition you have, the better quality you will get. It is a good thing for patients that there is competition for jobs - it should mean they get the best doctors wherever they live." She admitted, however, that taxpayers' money would be wasted if junior doctors trained in Britain decide to take consultant posts overseas.
The British Medical Association blames the health department for continuing to recruit medics from overseas at the same time as increasing the number of medical graduates from British universities.
Meanwhile, patients are suffering from a postcode lottery of drug prescription eight years after the government set up a body to get rid of the problem, a report by a parliamentary committee will say this week. The health select committee is expected to say that the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) has failed to ensure that medicines available in one area are not denied in neighbouring districts.
An inquiry by the committee of MPs is also expected to say that the NHS, which spends about o90 billion a year, should not need to withhold life-saving medicines. It is likely to say that restrictions on drugs to treat cancer or Alzheimer's could be avoided. The MPs are expected to recommend that Nice gets greater powers to force NHS trusts to make drugs it has approved available to all patients
Source
Follow-up: ANOTHER bureaucracy!
The running of doctors' training must be taken out of the hands of the Department of Health after its chaotic mismanagement of funding and job applications, an influential report will say today. The report by Sir John Tooke, ordered last year after thousands of highly qualified junior doctors were left without training posts, recommends that the Government be stripped of control of postgraduate medical training. Instead, it recommends that the cash needed to train the next generation of specialists should be ring-fenced to prevent the NHS from spending it on something else, and managed by a new body, to be called NHS Medical Education England.
The recommendations, seen by The Times, are expected to be made today by the inquiry, which was set up by the department last year after a series of failures. Incidents included thousands more doctors applying for posts than were available, and problems with a computer system designed to shortlist applicants, which resulted in severely underqualified doctors turning up for job interviews.
Sir John Tooke, Dean of the Peninsula School of Medicine in Plymouth, was asked to chair an inquiry into what to do next. His interim report was published in October, and has been overwhelmingly backed by doctors. His final report, out today, is a stunning vote of no confidence in the department. Last year's crisis "could and should" have been predicted, he told The Times yesterday. The appointments system that failed was "rushed and poorly planned".
There are two important changes to the interim report's recommendations. One is the formation of NHS Medical Education England, which Sir John and his colleagues say will be able to articulate the principles of postgraduate training and implement it successfully - something that the department "is in no way capable of doing", he said. The report also gives warning that training could suffer when the European Working Time Directive comes fully into force next year.
The limit on doctors' working hours will mean that there is not enough time to train them to the skill levels needed, he cautioned. A way needs to be found in which doctors can continue to work legally more than 48 hours a week - perhaps by separating work on the wards from training time. But the most urgent problem is one that Sir John cannot solve - making sure that last year's debacle over training appointments, when 30,000 junior doctors applied for 20,000 posts, is not repeated. The evidence is that the pressure on places will be more intense this year, with about three applicants for every training place, and 20 to 1 in the more popular specialties.
Sir John said that the Government had failed to reconcile two of its policies: expanding medical school places in Britain and the "open door" policy towards graduates from overseas. Unless further training places were made available this year, he said, British graduates would be disadvantaged compared with those of earlier years. There will be a bulge in applications for higher training, caused by a growing number of British graduates, applications from those who won only a one-year post last year, and the uncontrolled number of applicants from abroad.
Last week, the British Medical Association gave warning that the process could go as badly as it did last year. Applications opened on Saturday for training posts in England that start in August this year. Ram Moorthy, chairman of the BMA junior doctors committee, said: "Our concern is that without adequate planning, the levels of competition could result in a lottery."
Sir John said that unless changes were made to protect the rights of British-trained doctors to at least one year of postgraduate training, a situation could arise in which students graduate from medical school but could not practise as doctors because they had not completed their year in hospital.
Source
Despite all this stuff about well clinics, there's no evidence that government campaigns alter behaviour
By Mick Hume
Say what you like about the nanny state, but I do think it's a bit much when the Prime Minister takes it upon himself to make our new year's resolutions for us. In his message to mark the 60th year of the NHS, Gordon Brown resolves that we will all live healthier lives ? stop smoking, drink less, exercise more. As a reward, the health service will still treat us should our personal regime inexplicably fail and we fall sick. This generous offer is to be made in a patient's contract spelling out "the rights and responsibilities associated with entitlement to NHS care".
Some protest that this could mean smokers or the obese being denied healthcare. But such "ethical rationing" is already happening. Mr Brown's plans for a more "personal and preventative service" involve a bigger risk to us all. They mark the next step in an unhealthy trend, begun under Margaret Thatcher and accelerated under Tony Blair, to make it a role of the NHS to send people to the Naughty Habits Step.
Where the "old-fashioned" health service merely treated the sick, today's NHS seeks to beat well people into shape as clean-living citizens through advice and guidance. As Michael Fitzpatrick, an East London GP, observed when such contracts were first proposed, they involve "a major shift of general practice away from the treatment of patients who are ill towards the regulation of the lifestyles of the population".
Despite this being the age of "evidence-based" medicine, nobody can provide proof that such government drives to alter behaviour improve public health. Yet the authorities press on regardless, seeking a magical cure for an ailing political class that hopes to reconnect with people around "ishoos" of personal health. Politicians who have no clue how to change society for the better are reduced to cajoling us to sort ourselves out.
These unwieldy plans can only further undermine the efficiency of the health system, the role of doctors as clinical professionals ? and most importantly, the autonomy of individuals. They turn the purpose of healthcare on its head. As Ren‚ Dubos wrote in 1960, "it is part of the doctor's function to make it possible for his patients to go on doing the pleasant things that are bad for them ? smoking too much, eating and drinking too much ? without killing themselves any sooner than is necessary". There must be more to life than healthy living. Amid the talk of rights and responsibilities, one that gets ignored is the individual's right to make the "wrong" choices.
The other fact often missed out is that we already live longer, healthier lives than ever before. So why not leave us alone to enjoy it? Modern clinical care is capable of wonders, and the health service should stick to that. How about an alternative, informal contract for the 60th anniversary of the NHS: we promise to come to you when we are sick, if you will pledge only to try to cure what ails us
Source
J Edgar Hoover Was Half Right
Comment by a British policeman
I had the misfortune to attend one of our less academic local schools a week or so back. I won't bore you with the details, save to say that, while it wasn't the crime of the century, it had left a young girl quite distressed; on balance, I suppose, it was worth attending, though in my day it would have resulted in six of the best from the headmaster and no 'outside agency' would have been required. (My day is only 20 years ago, but it increasingly seems to have been in another era altogether, and possibly in another country).
Teachers (honest ones), parents (intelligent ones) and police officers now know that a significant minority of the schools in our cities offer almost nothing in the way of education. In the worst 10 per cent, it's far more serious than a simple lack of schooling: drugs are openly sold and consumed, pupils are often drunk and/or pregnant, hardcore pornography is widely available and eagerly swapped, casual sexual assaults and threats of serious violence are commonplace and there is very little, if anything, that the teaching staff can do about any of it. It's heartbreaking, actually.
I looked around. All I could see were lost souls destined for the scrapheap. At 13 years of age, they had literally no hope of ever achieving anything in their lives, without the intervention of a lottery win or some other piece of outstanding good fortune. I thought about my own grandfather. He was one of seven, and grew up in a slum dwelling with an outside standpipe for water. In his 90s now, he still reads avidly, lobs bits and pieces of Shakespeare about and can talk you through you Partition, the Beatles and the Falklands with equal clarity.
I saw a young lad I vaguely knew. His hair had been shaved at the back into an approximation of the letters 'MUFC' and he had a gold stud in one ear. 'What's happening in Afghanistan at the mo, mate?' I said, conversationally. 'You what?' he said. 'Afwhat?'
I happen to know that this lad's father is doing time for murder, and that his mother is an alcoholic and occasional prostitute. I hate to sound like a bleeding heart, but is it his fault he doesn't know what's happening around him? Is it the teachers' faults they can't educate him? What is going on in this country?
J Edgar Hoover was half right when he said, 'The cure for crime is not the electric chair, but the high chair.' To my mind, we need a bit of both.
Source
Couple banned for life from shopping centre and branded 'terrorists' - for taking photos of their grandchildren
A couple were banned for life from a shopping centre - because they were taking photos of their beloved grandchildren. Kim and Trevor Sparshott were ordered to stop taking photos because they were causing a security threat. They were thrown out of the centre after they took out a camera to snap the look on the youngsters' faces when they turned up unexpectedly.
The couple were on a four-day break from their home in Spain and wanted to surprise their family by arriving at the centre, in Fareham, Hants, while they were shopping. But when they went to take a photo, a security guard pounced and ordered them out. The guard then insisted that cameras were banned because of the risk of a terrorist attack - and barred the bemused couple for life.
Speaking from her home in Malaga, Spain, Mrs Sparshott, 51, said: "I couldn't believe it. I was so shocked. "He said we had committed an act of terrorism. "At first I wanted the ground to swallow me up whole because it was so embarassing - but then I got really angry." Mr Sparshott, 52, added: "Instead of being a nice surprise for our family it turned into a nightmare. I was furious. "In these worrying times we understand the need for caution, but surely a quiet word when he first saw us would have stopped all this unpleasantness."
The couple, who had been visiting their daughter, who lives in Gosport, Hants, with her husband and children, returned to Spain in shock. They wrote a letter of complaint to the centre, and received a reply from manager Pam Gillard who said taking photos was a security risk. In the reply to the Sparshotts, Ms Gillard said: "By the sounds of it my officers/duty manager didn't explain the position very clearly and for that I apologise." Speaking after the incident, she added: "Fareham Shopping Centre is private property and has a policy to support the security of the shops, where the taking of photographs needs prior permission. "The Sparshotts are welcome back to the centre." Ms Gillard refused to comment further on the centre's security policies, but added that the camera ban was not because of a terrorist threat.
The situation has amazed civil rights campaigners, who say the centre's reaction was 'completely over the top'. Roger Smith, director of civil liberties group Justice, said: "The key is proportionality - it is quite reasonable to have restrictions on what people can do, but this is just daft. "It seems completely over the top."
Source
Brits go nuke: "A new generation of nuclear power stations will be encouraged to supply unlimited amounts of electricity to the national grid, The Times has learnt. The Cabinet will give the go-ahead for the new building programme today and John Hutton, the Business Secretary, will announce the decision on Thursday. He will pave the way for the nuclear industry to play a much bigger part in meeting Britain's energy needs by making plain that there will be no limit on the amount of electricity it can supply to the grid. At present nuclear power accounts for 20 per cent of energy supplies."
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Britain: Go to jail for criticizing Islamic fundamentalism
British blogger Lionheart has been accused of inciting racial hatred. Do you believe in free speech? If you do, you should be angry.... He writes on his blog:
Is it right that people should be arrested for writing things and thinking things that the powers that be do not approve of? Is the UK now like Saudi Arabia?
Update:
Tony Bennett Says: I have been asked to represent Paul ('Lionheart'). For the public record, here is a full copy of the e-mail sent by Ian Holden of Bedfordshire Police to `Lionheart' yesterday, Thursday 3 January 2008:
There are already a number of aspects about this case involving not only `Lionheart' but concerning other friends of his which are almost certain to result in a complaint being made to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
After my success in getting the I.P.C.C. to agree to a top-level, `managed', investigation into *38* separate complaints about Essex Police's woeful first investigation in 2001/2 into the death violent death of Stuart Lubbock (which is ongoing), and my success this week in getting the I.P.C.C. to enquire into another disastrous set of Essex Police investigations, this time into their three so-called `investigations' into the death of Lee Balkwell in controversial circumstances in the early hours of 18 July 2002*, my mentioning the I.P.C.C. is no idle threat. Bedfordshire Police had better be very careful....
One of the issues here, which Bedfordshire Police may well have to account for in due course, is the way they have approached this investigation. I will not say more otherwise I would be breaching a confidence. The way Bedfordshire Police seem to have put it, it is words on a website that they say amount to `LionHeart' breaching the `incitement to racial' hatred provisions of the Public Order Act 1986.
It seems that his main campaign is against Islamist (note I do not say Islamic) terrorism based in and around Luton. Let us bring to mind Bedfordshire Police's abject failure to deal with the Islamist murderers who killed 52 people and maimed scores more in their 7/7 bombings. The Muslim murderers met and planned their attacks in Luton. And set off from Luton railways station on their murderous mission. There are, in Luton, Islamists involved in planning terrorist offences, involved in drug dealing to which Bedfordshire Police turn a blind eye, and involved in other criminal activity. LionHeart speaks out against all this - and Bedfordshire Police decide to go after - who? ....
Let those, like Lionheart, who have the courage to speak out against Islamist militancy and terrorism, be handed medals and bravery awards, not interviews under caution by the politically correct and ineffective Bedfordshire Police.
More background:
Lionheart has never called for violence, and also he's not talking out of his ass either - he's basically just reporting whats happening in his town. He only got into this because he was an anti-drug educator who was researching the drugs trade in Luton and discovered that the drug dealers were largely Muslim and justifying their business as jihad since drug taking harms kaffirs, and he figured out the money was going towards organizations that support jihad. Sounds pretty reasonable to me that he is concerned.
And how on earth can anyone call him violent or paranoid? He's proved that his arrest threat is very, terrifyingly real, and meanwhile he's totally non-violent - the man is a devoted Christian for God's sake!
This is terrible. The people on here who are dismissing this guy are not being realistic. He is not a racist, he is not full of hate - only justified fear - and he is not inciting racist anything - he's talking about followers of a religion, not an ethnic group!!!
More here. See also here
Bishop says Muslim extremism creates UK "no-go areas"
Making Muslims furious over his comments -- of course
Muslim groups reacted with fury after a senior Church of England bishop accused Islamic extremists of creating "no-go areas" for non-Muslims in Britain. The Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, said communities dominated by radical Islam give a hostile reception to Christians and those from other faiths.
In the Sunday Telegraph, he condemned the use of loudspeakers to spread the call to prayer and compared intimidation by radical Muslims to far-right extremism. He writes: "...there has been a worldwide resurgence of the ideology of Islamic extremism. One of the results of this has been to further alienate the young from the nation in which they were growing up and also to turn already separate communities into 'no-go' areas where adherence to this ideology has become a mark of acceptability.
"Those of a different faith or race may find it difficult to live or work there because of hostility to them. In many ways, this is but the other side of the coin to far-right intimidation. Attempts have been made to impose an 'Islamic' character on certain areas, for example, by insisting on artificial amplification for the Adhan, the call to prayer."
Mohammed Shafiq, a spokesman for the Ramadhan Foundation, a Muslim youth group, caalled on the bishop to resign. "His article is once again an attempt to whip up hatred against Muslims and cause division," he said.
Ajmal Masroor, spokesman for the Islamic Society of Great Britain, said: "It's nonsense. It's a distortion of reality. I believe our communities are far more integrated than they were 10 years ago. If the Church of England had an iota of fairness in their minds they would definitely take serious action."
Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, accused the bishop of scaremongering. "Bishop Nazir-Ali appears to be exercised by what he perceives as the decline in the influence of Christianity upon this country, but trying to frantically scaremonger about Islam and Muslims seems to us to be a rather unethical way of trying to reverse this," he said.
A spokesman for the department of Communities and Local Government said most Muslims found the views of extremists "completely abhorrent". He said: "The overwhelming majority of Muslims are peaceful, make a huge contribution to British life and find the views of a small minority of violent extremists completely abhorrent. Britain also has a proud tradition of different communities living together side by side. But we are not complacent - the Government has completely re-balanced its community cohesion strategy putting far greater emphasis on promoting integration and shared British values (as the Bishop acknowledges in his article)."
Source
Comment from a British reader:
According to Tory and liberal spokespersons, Bishop Nazir Ali supposedly was being divisive and factually incorrect. In reality he was telling the truth that ought to have been told decades ago - that significant areas of the uk have become controlled by Islam such that non-muslims cannot live there. One such area is Alum Rock in Birmingham. I saw for myself that a nominally Christian school in Alum Rock Rd had 100.00 percent of the children muslim-parented (or thus-dressed).
I myself have encountered the harassment that drives others out of "muslim" areas. All this is entirely in line with the rest of the reality of the "religion of peace" which in reality is the personality cult of terrorist Mohammed (e.g. see opening of sura 59 of his Quran, justifying his eco-terrorism against peaceful civilians who failed to show him sufficient reverence).
Likewise, note the extensive rioting and deaths following Bhutto's assassination. Was there anything similar after the Pope's attempted assassination (by a Muslim), or of JFK's assassination, or the assassination of theo van Gogh (again by a Muslim)? The difference is that Islam = terrorist cult. Genuine Islam that is, (though all who label themselves as Muslims join in with giving reverence to the terrorist book and its terrorist author).
If holocaust denial is a crime, how much greater a crime is the Jihad Denial that pretends away the greatest evil in history, responsible for far more millions of deaths over the centuries.... AND continues ongoing right now.
Another comment here
Just don't throw sticks and stones
There's a lot of difference between hitting someone and shouting at them. I defend my right to abuse footballers -- says Mick Hume
For the first time in 2008, I fear I must disagree with "all right-thinking people" ? by defending the liberty of football fans to shout abuse at opponents, their own players, referees, or even Sir Alex Ferguson. Today I am off to Old Trafford, and if Manchester United play as badly as on Saturday it will not be best wishes for the new year that 75,000 of us give out to the team.
Will we still be free to do so next year? A crusade against crowd abuse has taken off since Sol Campbell, the Portsmouth defender, rang the Today programme to demand that the FA and the Government protect him from rude words. Campbell said "light banter" was acceptable (so Stephen Fry should be OK) but not personal abuse: "If this happened in the street you'd be arrested. This is a human rights situation." His indignant pose has been backed by football figures from Fergie and ArsSne Wenger downwards, and by esteemed sports writers who say that verbal abuse is "violent". No, it isn't, a distinction made clear in the old playground saw about sticks and stones. Mixing up words and deeds is dangerous.
And so is mixing up football and real life. What goes on at a football ground is rightly not governed by the same rules as events "in the street". As one of the game's thinkers, Campbell might consider Freud's thoughts on different parts of the human psyche. Football is the home ground of the id, the more emotional, irrational side of the brain. That is why people talk and behave there as they would not elsewhere. Sport can take us out of ourselves for worse as well as for better. But if you want to make it conform to the etiquette of everyday life, you might as well ban football altogether.
As it happens, there is already less abuse in the sanitised all-seater stadiums of today. Standards of terrace wit have certainly declined, but at its best that was less gentle banter than savage wordplay. What has risen is the sensitivity of players. Partly this reflects their celebrity status. Mostly it is a by-product of the epidemic of thin-skin syndrome sweeping society, so that causing offence can be deemed the worst offence.
Fans are not immune either ? Arsenal supporters are even suing their own club over offensive language from other Arsenal fans. Not content with insisting that players act like Mary Poppins, some now demand that the crowd behave as a mass role model too.
The funny thing is that Campbell's crusaders seem to have suffered the same loss of perspective as the more hysterically abusive fans. They all attribute far too much importance to what happens in the game of football. As more sensible voices have observed, there are worse things in life than being shouted at. Ask those laying scarves in mourning outside Motherwell's stadium
Source
Patients left to starve on NHS wards
The number of NHS patients suffering from malnourishment as they leave hospital has nearly doubled, new figures show. Around 140,000 patients were discharged after being inadequately fed on NHS wards last year, statistics obtained by the Conservatives reveal. The number released from hospital suffering from malnutrition, nutritional anaemia, or other nutritional deficiencies has risen by 84 per cent in the decade since Labour came to power, from 74,431 in 1997 to 139,127.
The vast majority arrived in hospital suffering from these conditions. But the Department of Health figures also show the nutritional condition of at least 8,500 patients actually worsened while they were in hospital in the last year. National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guidelines say all patients should be screened for signs of malnutrition on admission to hospital and treated accordingly. Campaigners complain that elderly people in particular are not given enough help to eat in hospital.
There has also been a rise in the number of patients being admitted to hospital suffering from malnutrition to 130,594, up from 70,658 a decade ago. The figure rose by 12 per cent in the last year alone. The shadow health minister Stephen O'Brien, who obtained the statistics, described them as a "scandal". He said: "Malnourished patients are more prone to infections, have more complications after surgery, and have higher mortality rates - yet the Government allows more than 130,000 patients to enter hospital in the state. "If patients are at risk of malnutrition, then they should be offered extra support before going into hospital, and they should be cared for better whilst they are in hospital. Nurses need to be given the time and equipment to get on with the job of caring for our most vulnerable patients. "It is a scandal that in 21st-century Britain, we allow vulnerable patients to be let out of hospital in a malnourished state, and it is even worse that we allow thousands of patients to get more poorly while they are in hospital."
The worst area in the country for malnutrition was the Pennine Acute Hospitals Trust in Greater Manchester, where 4,947 patients were discharged suffering malnourishment, followed by the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, with 2,771, and the Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. They were among nearly 50 hospital trusts around the country that discharged more than 1,000 malnourished patients last year.
Meanwhile, it is estimated that the poor quality of hospital food is putting patients off to the extent that 13 million meals are thrown away each year, at an average cost of 2.65 pounds each.
Last year, the health minister Ivan Lewis admitted patients were being starved on wards, with some elderly people given little more than a scoop of mashed potato for lunch. Others were "tortured" by having meal trays placed out of reach, which they were too weak to pull towards them. Age Concern has protested that elderly people are often given non-pureed food, which they cannot chew or swallow. Michael Summers of the Patients' Association said: "Families tell us that when visiting elderly relatives in hospital in particular they noticed how malnourished they are. "Nurses are so rushed off their feet that it is no surprise that patients end up malnourished. "We have heard stories of elderly people who haven't had a meal all day because they have just been overlooked. The food is just taken away when the patient hasn't been able to eat any of it. "It is a scandal in the 21st century - it ought never to happen."
Source
Deaths of two new mothers at same hospital WERE probably linked, says expert
Two mothers have died from an identical infection after giving birth at the same hospital on the same day. An expert said it was "extremely unlikely" that their deaths were not linked. Amy Kimmance, 39, and Jasmine Pickett, 29, had their babies at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester on December 21. Within 72 hours they had both died from complications linked to streptococcus A infection - known as Strep A - which normally causes sore throats.
Winchester and Eastleigh Healthcare NHS Trust insisted investigations so far showed their deaths were coincidental. A spokeswoman said Mrs Kimmance developed fatal toxic shock syndrome as a result of a group A streptococcal infection while Mrs Pickett died from a sudden onset of severe pneumonia, likely to have been caused by a group A streptococcal infection.
However, Mark Enright, professor of molecular epidemiology at Imperial College, London, said: "It's extremely unlikely in my view that they are not linked." Professor Enright said he believed a member of staff had been carrying the infection in their throat, got it on to their hands and passed it on. He said he would be interested to see the results of laboratory tests on the women to see if the identity of the bacteria was the same.
The deaths raised fresh concern over hygiene and infection control practices in Health Service hospitals. Earlier this week David Cameron said hospitals would face hefty fines for each patient who catches a superbug if the Conservatives win power, saying infection levels of MRSA and C.diff, which cause several thousand deaths a year, were "unacceptable".
Mrs Kimmance, a teacher at St Swithun's independent school for girls in Winchester, went home with her new daughter Tess to husband David and their two other children on the day she gave birth. Her condition suddenly deteriorated and she was readmitted to hospital on December 23 where she died of fatal toxic shock syndrome triggered by Strep A infection.
A day later, on Christmas Eve, Mrs Pickett died after suddenly developing severe pneumonia, almost certainly caused by the same infection. She had given birth to her first child, a boy named Christopher. Both babies survived....
Streptococcus A is not a superbug, which means if an individual has a sore throat it can be eradicated with antibiotics. But it can cause aggressive infections if it gets into the bloodstream. There are about 1,200 bloodstream infections linked to Strep A reported to the Health Protection Agency each year, some of which lead to death. The trust spokesman said that the maternity unit had remained open as there had been no results directly linking it or the staff with the cause of the fatalities.
But she added that extensive swabbing of staff and the unit had been carried out as a precaution. She refused to confirm whether antibiotics had been given to staff and the families of the dead women, which would eradicate the infection. She added that a full investigation was taking place. The Royal Hampshire County Hospital missed its target for reducing MRSA last year and had 191 cases of the potentially deadly stomach bug C.diff between April 2006 and March. Its kitchens were severely criticised last year and as a result it now has to submit to six-monthly inspections.
Around 100 mothers die in the UK each year giving birth or shortly afterwards, about two a week.
Source
British universities refuse credit for soft High School subjects
About time
TOP universities are drawing up blacklists of "soft" A-level subjects that will bar applicants from winning places on their degree courses. They are warning that candidates who take more than one of the subjects such as accountancy, leisure studies and dance are unlikely to gain admission. They say they lack the academic rigour to prepare students for courses and are alarmed at the way increasing numbers of state schools are using them to boost pupils' top grades.
Disclosure of the lists will anger the parents of many pupils whose schools have failed to warn them that the A-level subjects are effectively worthless for entry to the best universities. Ministers will also be concerned that they will undermine attempts to increase the number of state pupils at leading universities, traditionally dominated by independent schools.
Some universities such as the London School of Economics (LSE) and Cambridge University have already published lists of up to 25 subjects on their web-sites. Others are less overt but still operate lists. Wendy Piatt, director-general of the Russell Group of 20 leading universities, said most top institutions would follow suit in "providing a steer on preferred combinations of A-levels".
She warned that a new analysis carried out by the group showed that a gulf was emerging between state and private schools, as comprehensives opted for "soft" A-levels and independents and grammars tightened their grip on traditional academic subjects. "Clearly if pupils from state schools are increasingly taking a combination of subjects which put them at a disadvantage in competing for a course at a Russell Group university, the task of widening participation in our universities becomes even more difficult," said Piatt, a former deputy director of Tony Blair's Downing Street strategy unit.
The list run by Cambridge advises potential applicants against taking more than one from a list of 25 subjects ranging from business studies to dance and tourism. It warns that such a combination "would not normally be considered acceptable". "Doing these A-levels individually is not a problem, it is doing too many of them," said Geoff Parks, director of admissions at Cambridge University. "We know there are bright students on track to get As but in subject combinations that essentially rule them out."
The LSE has named 10 subjects that it deems questionable. They include many of those named by Cambridge, but also others such as law. A spokes-woman for Oxford said that it did not operate a list but that candidates who opted for "meatier" A-levels were likely to gain some advantage.
The Russell Group findings are unlikely to please ministers, who have accused universities of failing to do enough to attract working-class students. In September, John Denham, the universities secretary, called the current system a "huge waste of talent", adding that there was a "social bias" across higher education institutions, "including some of the most sought-after".
The Russell Group research shows the widening divergence between subjects being studied at different schools. In media studies, for example, 93% of pupils were from nonselective state schools, far above the sector's 74% share of all A-levels. The situation is reversed in science, languages and maths. In the state sector, fewer than one in 10 A-level pupils in nonselective schools takes sciences, compared with one third at grammar and independent schools. In further maths, 35% of exams are taken at private schools, far above the sector's 15% share of all A-levels. Meanwhile, the number of independent school candidates taking languages has remained steady, while those in the state sector have plummeted.
"It is overwhelmingly the state school students dropping sciences and languages," says the research. "This is making it increasingly difficult for the Russell Group to recruit large numbers of state school pupils into these difficult subjects." The choice of subjects is increasing the dominance of independent and grammar school students already shown by their higher grades - the two groups together accounted for 52.3% of those gaining three As in 2006, although they made up only 21% of candidates.
Competition is becoming increasingly tough at the top universities, with 94% of the students who entered Cambridge last year securing more than three A grades at A-level. At Bristol, for example, there are 10 candidates for every place. The Department for Children, Schools and Families said: "More young people are staying on at school taking A-levels and achieving - surely that's something we should welcome."
Source
More medical ideology bites the dust
Drugs that are commonly used to treat aggressive or violent outbursts in intellectually disabled people are less effective than a placebo and should not be used as a standard form of treatment, research shows. The finding, by Australian and British experts, strongly challenges routine medical practice throughout the world of using antipsychotic drugs to treat aggression in intellectually disabled patients. Up to 45 per cent of people with an intellectual disability in hospital and about 20 per cent of those in the community are prescribed antipsychotic drugs, although there is no clear connection between aggressive behaviour and psychotic illness.
The study, published in The Lancet, examined 86 adults with a mild intellectual disability in group housing in England, Wales and Australia over more than a month of treatment. It found a 79 per cent reduction in aggressive behaviour among patients taking placebo pills, compared with a reduction of 65 per cent or less in those taking antipsychotic drugs. Researchers compared the placebo with two antipsychotic drugs - haloperidol and risperidone - although the findings would almost certainly apply to all similar medications, they said.
The lead author, Peter Tyrer, a professor of psychiatry at Imperial College London, said that although all treatments led to a reduction in aggression after four weeks, the greatest decrease was by those taking the placebo. "Our trial has shown that aggressive challenging behaviour in people with intellectual disability decreases whether or not active medication is given," he said. There had been no differences between drugs and dummy pills when measuring aggressive behaviour, quality of life, effect on carers and adverse drug effects, Professor Tyrer said.
The study's authors, including researchers from the University of Queensland, said the results "should not be interpreted as an indication that antipsychotic drugs have no place in some aspects of behaviour disturbance". Dr David Harley, who worked on the study while at the Queensland Centre for Intellectual and Developmental Disability, said he was not surprised that the drugs had little more effect than the placebo, given they had not been used for the purpose in which they were created. "They are being used to treat [aggression] which is not a recognised medical diagnosis," he said. "We might expect drugs like this to work if the aggression was caused by schizophrenia or psychotic illness." Dr Harley said when intellectually disabled people became aggressive, doctors were left to feel "like the only avenue they have is to prescribe". He has been advocating against the use of medication in this group for years and preferred to treat most patients with behavioural therapy.
Philip Mitchell, head of the school of psychiatry at the University of NSW, said the study was a "wake-up call" to psychiatrists that the drugs were "of limited benefit" for patients with intellectual disability. "It should hopefully make clinicians and doctors more circumspect about their prescribing practices," he said.
Source
British blogger Lionheart has been accused of inciting racial hatred. Do you believe in free speech? If you do, you should be angry.... He writes on his blog:
"I am currently out of the Country and on my return home to England I am going to be arrested by British detectives on suspicion of Stirring up Racial Hatred by displaying written material" contrary to sections 18(1) and 27(3) of the Public Order Act 1986. This charge if found guilty carries a lengthy prison sentence, more than what most paedophiles and rapists receive, and all for writing words of truth about the barbarity that is living in the midst of our children, which threatens the very future of our Country.
The cultural weapon in the hands of the modern Jihad within Great Britain, silencing the opposition using our own laws against us - The Dumb Filthy Kaffir's as the Moslem would say to his children behind closed doors.
What has become of my homeland, the land my forefathers fought and died for on the battlefields of the world when one of their children is forced into the position of facing years in prison for standing up for what is right and just within British society. At least my words of truth have obviously now reached people's eyes and ears, with the powers that be now intent on silencing me - Third World Tyranny in a supposed 21st Century democracy!
Is it right that people should be arrested for writing things and thinking things that the powers that be do not approve of? Is the UK now like Saudi Arabia?
Update:
Tony Bennett Says: I have been asked to represent Paul ('Lionheart'). For the public record, here is a full copy of the e-mail sent by Ian Holden of Bedfordshire Police to `Lionheart' yesterday, Thursday 3 January 2008:
"The offence that I need to arrest you for is "Stir up Racial Hatred by displaying written material" contrary to sections 18(1) and 27(3) of the Public Order Act 1986. You will be arrested on SUSPICION of the offence. You would only be charged following a full investigation based on all the relevant facts and CPS consent. Paul I will see you on the 19/02/08 when I will tell you everything that you need to know. Due to being out of the office for six weeks I will not have access to my email as of tomorrow 04/01/08.
There are already a number of aspects about this case involving not only `Lionheart' but concerning other friends of his which are almost certain to result in a complaint being made to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
After my success in getting the I.P.C.C. to agree to a top-level, `managed', investigation into *38* separate complaints about Essex Police's woeful first investigation in 2001/2 into the death violent death of Stuart Lubbock (which is ongoing), and my success this week in getting the I.P.C.C. to enquire into another disastrous set of Essex Police investigations, this time into their three so-called `investigations' into the death of Lee Balkwell in controversial circumstances in the early hours of 18 July 2002*, my mentioning the I.P.C.C. is no idle threat. Bedfordshire Police had better be very careful....
One of the issues here, which Bedfordshire Police may well have to account for in due course, is the way they have approached this investigation. I will not say more otherwise I would be breaching a confidence. The way Bedfordshire Police seem to have put it, it is words on a website that they say amount to `LionHeart' breaching the `incitement to racial' hatred provisions of the Public Order Act 1986.
It seems that his main campaign is against Islamist (note I do not say Islamic) terrorism based in and around Luton. Let us bring to mind Bedfordshire Police's abject failure to deal with the Islamist murderers who killed 52 people and maimed scores more in their 7/7 bombings. The Muslim murderers met and planned their attacks in Luton. And set off from Luton railways station on their murderous mission. There are, in Luton, Islamists involved in planning terrorist offences, involved in drug dealing to which Bedfordshire Police turn a blind eye, and involved in other criminal activity. LionHeart speaks out against all this - and Bedfordshire Police decide to go after - who? ....
Let those, like Lionheart, who have the courage to speak out against Islamist militancy and terrorism, be handed medals and bravery awards, not interviews under caution by the politically correct and ineffective Bedfordshire Police.
More background:
Lionheart has never called for violence, and also he's not talking out of his ass either - he's basically just reporting whats happening in his town. He only got into this because he was an anti-drug educator who was researching the drugs trade in Luton and discovered that the drug dealers were largely Muslim and justifying their business as jihad since drug taking harms kaffirs, and he figured out the money was going towards organizations that support jihad. Sounds pretty reasonable to me that he is concerned.
And how on earth can anyone call him violent or paranoid? He's proved that his arrest threat is very, terrifyingly real, and meanwhile he's totally non-violent - the man is a devoted Christian for God's sake!
This is terrible. The people on here who are dismissing this guy are not being realistic. He is not a racist, he is not full of hate - only justified fear - and he is not inciting racist anything - he's talking about followers of a religion, not an ethnic group!!!
More here. See also here
Bishop says Muslim extremism creates UK "no-go areas"
Making Muslims furious over his comments -- of course
Muslim groups reacted with fury after a senior Church of England bishop accused Islamic extremists of creating "no-go areas" for non-Muslims in Britain. The Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, said communities dominated by radical Islam give a hostile reception to Christians and those from other faiths.
In the Sunday Telegraph, he condemned the use of loudspeakers to spread the call to prayer and compared intimidation by radical Muslims to far-right extremism. He writes: "...there has been a worldwide resurgence of the ideology of Islamic extremism. One of the results of this has been to further alienate the young from the nation in which they were growing up and also to turn already separate communities into 'no-go' areas where adherence to this ideology has become a mark of acceptability.
"Those of a different faith or race may find it difficult to live or work there because of hostility to them. In many ways, this is but the other side of the coin to far-right intimidation. Attempts have been made to impose an 'Islamic' character on certain areas, for example, by insisting on artificial amplification for the Adhan, the call to prayer."
Mohammed Shafiq, a spokesman for the Ramadhan Foundation, a Muslim youth group, caalled on the bishop to resign. "His article is once again an attempt to whip up hatred against Muslims and cause division," he said.
Ajmal Masroor, spokesman for the Islamic Society of Great Britain, said: "It's nonsense. It's a distortion of reality. I believe our communities are far more integrated than they were 10 years ago. If the Church of England had an iota of fairness in their minds they would definitely take serious action."
Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, accused the bishop of scaremongering. "Bishop Nazir-Ali appears to be exercised by what he perceives as the decline in the influence of Christianity upon this country, but trying to frantically scaremonger about Islam and Muslims seems to us to be a rather unethical way of trying to reverse this," he said.
A spokesman for the department of Communities and Local Government said most Muslims found the views of extremists "completely abhorrent". He said: "The overwhelming majority of Muslims are peaceful, make a huge contribution to British life and find the views of a small minority of violent extremists completely abhorrent. Britain also has a proud tradition of different communities living together side by side. But we are not complacent - the Government has completely re-balanced its community cohesion strategy putting far greater emphasis on promoting integration and shared British values (as the Bishop acknowledges in his article)."
Source
Comment from a British reader:
According to Tory and liberal spokespersons, Bishop Nazir Ali supposedly was being divisive and factually incorrect. In reality he was telling the truth that ought to have been told decades ago - that significant areas of the uk have become controlled by Islam such that non-muslims cannot live there. One such area is Alum Rock in Birmingham. I saw for myself that a nominally Christian school in Alum Rock Rd had 100.00 percent of the children muslim-parented (or thus-dressed).
I myself have encountered the harassment that drives others out of "muslim" areas. All this is entirely in line with the rest of the reality of the "religion of peace" which in reality is the personality cult of terrorist Mohammed (e.g. see opening of sura 59 of his Quran, justifying his eco-terrorism against peaceful civilians who failed to show him sufficient reverence).
Likewise, note the extensive rioting and deaths following Bhutto's assassination. Was there anything similar after the Pope's attempted assassination (by a Muslim), or of JFK's assassination, or the assassination of theo van Gogh (again by a Muslim)? The difference is that Islam = terrorist cult. Genuine Islam that is, (though all who label themselves as Muslims join in with giving reverence to the terrorist book and its terrorist author).
If holocaust denial is a crime, how much greater a crime is the Jihad Denial that pretends away the greatest evil in history, responsible for far more millions of deaths over the centuries.... AND continues ongoing right now.
Another comment here
Just don't throw sticks and stones
There's a lot of difference between hitting someone and shouting at them. I defend my right to abuse footballers -- says Mick Hume
For the first time in 2008, I fear I must disagree with "all right-thinking people" ? by defending the liberty of football fans to shout abuse at opponents, their own players, referees, or even Sir Alex Ferguson. Today I am off to Old Trafford, and if Manchester United play as badly as on Saturday it will not be best wishes for the new year that 75,000 of us give out to the team.
Will we still be free to do so next year? A crusade against crowd abuse has taken off since Sol Campbell, the Portsmouth defender, rang the Today programme to demand that the FA and the Government protect him from rude words. Campbell said "light banter" was acceptable (so Stephen Fry should be OK) but not personal abuse: "If this happened in the street you'd be arrested. This is a human rights situation." His indignant pose has been backed by football figures from Fergie and ArsSne Wenger downwards, and by esteemed sports writers who say that verbal abuse is "violent". No, it isn't, a distinction made clear in the old playground saw about sticks and stones. Mixing up words and deeds is dangerous.
And so is mixing up football and real life. What goes on at a football ground is rightly not governed by the same rules as events "in the street". As one of the game's thinkers, Campbell might consider Freud's thoughts on different parts of the human psyche. Football is the home ground of the id, the more emotional, irrational side of the brain. That is why people talk and behave there as they would not elsewhere. Sport can take us out of ourselves for worse as well as for better. But if you want to make it conform to the etiquette of everyday life, you might as well ban football altogether.
As it happens, there is already less abuse in the sanitised all-seater stadiums of today. Standards of terrace wit have certainly declined, but at its best that was less gentle banter than savage wordplay. What has risen is the sensitivity of players. Partly this reflects their celebrity status. Mostly it is a by-product of the epidemic of thin-skin syndrome sweeping society, so that causing offence can be deemed the worst offence.
Fans are not immune either ? Arsenal supporters are even suing their own club over offensive language from other Arsenal fans. Not content with insisting that players act like Mary Poppins, some now demand that the crowd behave as a mass role model too.
The funny thing is that Campbell's crusaders seem to have suffered the same loss of perspective as the more hysterically abusive fans. They all attribute far too much importance to what happens in the game of football. As more sensible voices have observed, there are worse things in life than being shouted at. Ask those laying scarves in mourning outside Motherwell's stadium
Source
Patients left to starve on NHS wards
The number of NHS patients suffering from malnourishment as they leave hospital has nearly doubled, new figures show. Around 140,000 patients were discharged after being inadequately fed on NHS wards last year, statistics obtained by the Conservatives reveal. The number released from hospital suffering from malnutrition, nutritional anaemia, or other nutritional deficiencies has risen by 84 per cent in the decade since Labour came to power, from 74,431 in 1997 to 139,127.
The vast majority arrived in hospital suffering from these conditions. But the Department of Health figures also show the nutritional condition of at least 8,500 patients actually worsened while they were in hospital in the last year. National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guidelines say all patients should be screened for signs of malnutrition on admission to hospital and treated accordingly. Campaigners complain that elderly people in particular are not given enough help to eat in hospital.
There has also been a rise in the number of patients being admitted to hospital suffering from malnutrition to 130,594, up from 70,658 a decade ago. The figure rose by 12 per cent in the last year alone. The shadow health minister Stephen O'Brien, who obtained the statistics, described them as a "scandal". He said: "Malnourished patients are more prone to infections, have more complications after surgery, and have higher mortality rates - yet the Government allows more than 130,000 patients to enter hospital in the state. "If patients are at risk of malnutrition, then they should be offered extra support before going into hospital, and they should be cared for better whilst they are in hospital. Nurses need to be given the time and equipment to get on with the job of caring for our most vulnerable patients. "It is a scandal that in 21st-century Britain, we allow vulnerable patients to be let out of hospital in a malnourished state, and it is even worse that we allow thousands of patients to get more poorly while they are in hospital."
The worst area in the country for malnutrition was the Pennine Acute Hospitals Trust in Greater Manchester, where 4,947 patients were discharged suffering malnourishment, followed by the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, with 2,771, and the Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. They were among nearly 50 hospital trusts around the country that discharged more than 1,000 malnourished patients last year.
Meanwhile, it is estimated that the poor quality of hospital food is putting patients off to the extent that 13 million meals are thrown away each year, at an average cost of 2.65 pounds each.
Last year, the health minister Ivan Lewis admitted patients were being starved on wards, with some elderly people given little more than a scoop of mashed potato for lunch. Others were "tortured" by having meal trays placed out of reach, which they were too weak to pull towards them. Age Concern has protested that elderly people are often given non-pureed food, which they cannot chew or swallow. Michael Summers of the Patients' Association said: "Families tell us that when visiting elderly relatives in hospital in particular they noticed how malnourished they are. "Nurses are so rushed off their feet that it is no surprise that patients end up malnourished. "We have heard stories of elderly people who haven't had a meal all day because they have just been overlooked. The food is just taken away when the patient hasn't been able to eat any of it. "It is a scandal in the 21st century - it ought never to happen."
Source
Deaths of two new mothers at same hospital WERE probably linked, says expert
Two mothers have died from an identical infection after giving birth at the same hospital on the same day. An expert said it was "extremely unlikely" that their deaths were not linked. Amy Kimmance, 39, and Jasmine Pickett, 29, had their babies at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester on December 21. Within 72 hours they had both died from complications linked to streptococcus A infection - known as Strep A - which normally causes sore throats.
Winchester and Eastleigh Healthcare NHS Trust insisted investigations so far showed their deaths were coincidental. A spokeswoman said Mrs Kimmance developed fatal toxic shock syndrome as a result of a group A streptococcal infection while Mrs Pickett died from a sudden onset of severe pneumonia, likely to have been caused by a group A streptococcal infection.
However, Mark Enright, professor of molecular epidemiology at Imperial College, London, said: "It's extremely unlikely in my view that they are not linked." Professor Enright said he believed a member of staff had been carrying the infection in their throat, got it on to their hands and passed it on. He said he would be interested to see the results of laboratory tests on the women to see if the identity of the bacteria was the same.
The deaths raised fresh concern over hygiene and infection control practices in Health Service hospitals. Earlier this week David Cameron said hospitals would face hefty fines for each patient who catches a superbug if the Conservatives win power, saying infection levels of MRSA and C.diff, which cause several thousand deaths a year, were "unacceptable".
Mrs Kimmance, a teacher at St Swithun's independent school for girls in Winchester, went home with her new daughter Tess to husband David and their two other children on the day she gave birth. Her condition suddenly deteriorated and she was readmitted to hospital on December 23 where she died of fatal toxic shock syndrome triggered by Strep A infection.
A day later, on Christmas Eve, Mrs Pickett died after suddenly developing severe pneumonia, almost certainly caused by the same infection. She had given birth to her first child, a boy named Christopher. Both babies survived....
Streptococcus A is not a superbug, which means if an individual has a sore throat it can be eradicated with antibiotics. But it can cause aggressive infections if it gets into the bloodstream. There are about 1,200 bloodstream infections linked to Strep A reported to the Health Protection Agency each year, some of which lead to death. The trust spokesman said that the maternity unit had remained open as there had been no results directly linking it or the staff with the cause of the fatalities.
But she added that extensive swabbing of staff and the unit had been carried out as a precaution. She refused to confirm whether antibiotics had been given to staff and the families of the dead women, which would eradicate the infection. She added that a full investigation was taking place. The Royal Hampshire County Hospital missed its target for reducing MRSA last year and had 191 cases of the potentially deadly stomach bug C.diff between April 2006 and March. Its kitchens were severely criticised last year and as a result it now has to submit to six-monthly inspections.
Around 100 mothers die in the UK each year giving birth or shortly afterwards, about two a week.
Source
British universities refuse credit for soft High School subjects
About time
TOP universities are drawing up blacklists of "soft" A-level subjects that will bar applicants from winning places on their degree courses. They are warning that candidates who take more than one of the subjects such as accountancy, leisure studies and dance are unlikely to gain admission. They say they lack the academic rigour to prepare students for courses and are alarmed at the way increasing numbers of state schools are using them to boost pupils' top grades.
Disclosure of the lists will anger the parents of many pupils whose schools have failed to warn them that the A-level subjects are effectively worthless for entry to the best universities. Ministers will also be concerned that they will undermine attempts to increase the number of state pupils at leading universities, traditionally dominated by independent schools.
Some universities such as the London School of Economics (LSE) and Cambridge University have already published lists of up to 25 subjects on their web-sites. Others are less overt but still operate lists. Wendy Piatt, director-general of the Russell Group of 20 leading universities, said most top institutions would follow suit in "providing a steer on preferred combinations of A-levels".
She warned that a new analysis carried out by the group showed that a gulf was emerging between state and private schools, as comprehensives opted for "soft" A-levels and independents and grammars tightened their grip on traditional academic subjects. "Clearly if pupils from state schools are increasingly taking a combination of subjects which put them at a disadvantage in competing for a course at a Russell Group university, the task of widening participation in our universities becomes even more difficult," said Piatt, a former deputy director of Tony Blair's Downing Street strategy unit.
The list run by Cambridge advises potential applicants against taking more than one from a list of 25 subjects ranging from business studies to dance and tourism. It warns that such a combination "would not normally be considered acceptable". "Doing these A-levels individually is not a problem, it is doing too many of them," said Geoff Parks, director of admissions at Cambridge University. "We know there are bright students on track to get As but in subject combinations that essentially rule them out."
The LSE has named 10 subjects that it deems questionable. They include many of those named by Cambridge, but also others such as law. A spokes-woman for Oxford said that it did not operate a list but that candidates who opted for "meatier" A-levels were likely to gain some advantage.
The Russell Group findings are unlikely to please ministers, who have accused universities of failing to do enough to attract working-class students. In September, John Denham, the universities secretary, called the current system a "huge waste of talent", adding that there was a "social bias" across higher education institutions, "including some of the most sought-after".
The Russell Group research shows the widening divergence between subjects being studied at different schools. In media studies, for example, 93% of pupils were from nonselective state schools, far above the sector's 74% share of all A-levels. The situation is reversed in science, languages and maths. In the state sector, fewer than one in 10 A-level pupils in nonselective schools takes sciences, compared with one third at grammar and independent schools. In further maths, 35% of exams are taken at private schools, far above the sector's 15% share of all A-levels. Meanwhile, the number of independent school candidates taking languages has remained steady, while those in the state sector have plummeted.
"It is overwhelmingly the state school students dropping sciences and languages," says the research. "This is making it increasingly difficult for the Russell Group to recruit large numbers of state school pupils into these difficult subjects." The choice of subjects is increasing the dominance of independent and grammar school students already shown by their higher grades - the two groups together accounted for 52.3% of those gaining three As in 2006, although they made up only 21% of candidates.
Competition is becoming increasingly tough at the top universities, with 94% of the students who entered Cambridge last year securing more than three A grades at A-level. At Bristol, for example, there are 10 candidates for every place. The Department for Children, Schools and Families said: "More young people are staying on at school taking A-levels and achieving - surely that's something we should welcome."
Source
More medical ideology bites the dust
Drugs that are commonly used to treat aggressive or violent outbursts in intellectually disabled people are less effective than a placebo and should not be used as a standard form of treatment, research shows. The finding, by Australian and British experts, strongly challenges routine medical practice throughout the world of using antipsychotic drugs to treat aggression in intellectually disabled patients. Up to 45 per cent of people with an intellectual disability in hospital and about 20 per cent of those in the community are prescribed antipsychotic drugs, although there is no clear connection between aggressive behaviour and psychotic illness.
The study, published in The Lancet, examined 86 adults with a mild intellectual disability in group housing in England, Wales and Australia over more than a month of treatment. It found a 79 per cent reduction in aggressive behaviour among patients taking placebo pills, compared with a reduction of 65 per cent or less in those taking antipsychotic drugs. Researchers compared the placebo with two antipsychotic drugs - haloperidol and risperidone - although the findings would almost certainly apply to all similar medications, they said.
The lead author, Peter Tyrer, a professor of psychiatry at Imperial College London, said that although all treatments led to a reduction in aggression after four weeks, the greatest decrease was by those taking the placebo. "Our trial has shown that aggressive challenging behaviour in people with intellectual disability decreases whether or not active medication is given," he said. There had been no differences between drugs and dummy pills when measuring aggressive behaviour, quality of life, effect on carers and adverse drug effects, Professor Tyrer said.
The study's authors, including researchers from the University of Queensland, said the results "should not be interpreted as an indication that antipsychotic drugs have no place in some aspects of behaviour disturbance". Dr David Harley, who worked on the study while at the Queensland Centre for Intellectual and Developmental Disability, said he was not surprised that the drugs had little more effect than the placebo, given they had not been used for the purpose in which they were created. "They are being used to treat [aggression] which is not a recognised medical diagnosis," he said. "We might expect drugs like this to work if the aggression was caused by schizophrenia or psychotic illness." Dr Harley said when intellectually disabled people became aggressive, doctors were left to feel "like the only avenue they have is to prescribe". He has been advocating against the use of medication in this group for years and preferred to treat most patients with behavioural therapy.
Philip Mitchell, head of the school of psychiatry at the University of NSW, said the study was a "wake-up call" to psychiatrists that the drugs were "of limited benefit" for patients with intellectual disability. "It should hopefully make clinicians and doctors more circumspect about their prescribing practices," he said.
Source
Monday, January 07, 2008
British soldiers returning for Christmas forced to change out of uniforms on freezing runway before using airport terminal
Scores of soldiers flying home from Afghanistan on Christmas leave were ordered to change out of their uniforms on a freezing runway before being allowed into a civilian airport terminal. Troops were told not to be seen in public in their uniforms - which they had worn with pride while risking their lives during months of intense fighting against the Taliban.
Last night the Ministry of Defence and bosses at Birmingham International Airport blamed each other for the indignity suffered by the soldiers - which comes amid mounting anger over the treatment of British troops returning from war. One soldier, who was ordered to undress for "security reasons", said: "It is an insult to the entire Army to force guys who've been fighting in Afghanistan to obey some jobsworth rule when all they want to do is get home to their families. "So much for a nation proud of its servicemen. The temperature was Baltic on the runway but most of just wanted to get home so we cracked on."
The December 23 flight, carrying 200 personnel, had been diverted from RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire to Birmingham because of bad weather. The troops were told they could either wait for coaches to take them back to Brize Norton or else travel home via public transport - in which case they must change into civilian clothes before entering the terminal. Around 50 chose the latter option and, because there was no room in the cabin, most changed outside.
Last night the airport authorities denied responsibility, saying: "We support our Armed Forces and whatever form of dress they choose to wear at our airport." The MoD eventually confirmed it has a ban on troops wearing uniform in civilian airports, claiming it was because a small number of airlines ban all uniforms on flights for security reasons. A spokesman said: "In this case, it appears it was applied a little too rigidly." The policy will now be reviewed.
The incident brought criticism in unofficial military chatrooms. One soldier wrote on the Army Rumour Service forum: "This shows an utter lack of leadership. Who allowed this to happen? Who failed to stand up for his/her men?" MPs and former military commanders urged defence chiefs to ease restrictions on wearing uniform in public to reflect public support for the military. Conservative MP Patrick Mercer, a former infantry commander, said: "This is just the sort of thing that gets seriously up the noses of fighting troops."
Colonel Jorge Mendonca, who was decorated in Iraq but quit the Army after being charged - and cleared - over mistreatment of detainees, said: "How would it feel to be on an operational tour and then to come home and be told to take off their uniform before being seen in public? "It's a typical policy order from some desk-bound staff officer."
Source
The last testament of Flashman's creator: How Britain has destroyed itself
by GEORGE MACDONALD FRASER
When 30 years ago I resurrected Flashman, the bully in Thomas Hughes's Victorian novel Tom Brown's Schooldays, political correctness hadn't been heard of, and no exception was taken to my adopted hero's character, behaviour, attitude to women and subject races (indeed, any races, including his own) and general awfulness. On the contrary, it soon became evident that these were his main attractions. He was politically incorrect with a vengeance. Through the Seventies and Eighties I led him on his disgraceful way, toadying, lying, cheating, running away, treating women as chattels, abusing inferiors of all colours, with only one redeeming virtue - the unsparing honesty with which he admitted to his faults, and even gloried in them. And no one minded, or if they did, they didn't tell me. In all the many thousands of readers' letters I received, not one objected.
In the Nineties, a change began to take place. Reviewers and interviewers started describing Flashman (and me) as politically incorrect, which we are, though by no means in the same way. This is fine by me. Flashman is my bread and butter, and if he wasn't an elitist, racist, sexist swine, I'd be selling bootlaces at street corners instead of being a successful popular writer.
But what I notice with amusement is that many commentators now draw attention to Flashy's (and my) political incorrectness in order to make a point of distancing themselves from it. It's not that they dislike the books. But where once the non-PC thing could pass unremarked, they now feel they must warn readers that some may find Flashman offensive, and that his views are certainly not those of the interviewer or reviewer, God forbid.
I find the disclaimers alarming. They are almost a knee-jerk reaction and often rather a nervous one, as if the writer were saying: "Look, I'm not a racist or sexist. I hold the right views and I'm in line with modern enlightened thought, honestly." They won't risk saying anything to which the PC lobby could take exception. And it is this that alarms me - the fear evident in so many sincere and honest folk of being thought out of step.
I first came across this in the United States, where the cancer has gone much deeper. As a screenwriter [at which Fraser was almost as successful as he was with the 12 Flashman novels; his best-known work was scripting the Three Musketeers films] I once put forward a script for a film called The Lone Ranger, in which I used a piece of Western history which had never been shown on screen and was as spectacular as it was shocking - and true.
The whisky traders of the American plains used to build little stockades, from which they passed out their ghastly rot-gut liquor through a small hatch to the Indians, who paid by shoving furs back though the hatch. The result was that frenzied, drunken Indians who had run out of furs were besieging the stockade, while the traders sat snug inside and did not emerge until the Indians had either gone away or passed out.
Political correctness stormed onto the scene, red in tooth and claw. The word came down from on high that the scene would offend "Native Americans". Their ancestors may have got pie-eyed on moonshine but they didn't want to know it, and it must not be shown on screen. Damn history. Let's pretend it didn't happen because we don't like the look of it.
I think little of people who will deny their history because it doesn't present the picture they would like. My forebears from the Highlands of Scotland were a fairly primitive, treacherous, blood-thirsty bunch and, as Robert Louis Stevenson once wrote, would have been none the worse for washing. Fine, let them be so depicted, if any film maker feels like it; better that than insulting, inaccurate drivel like Braveheart.
The philosophy of political correctness is now firmly entrenched over here, too, and at its core is a refusal to look the truth squarely in the face, unpalatable as it may be. Political correctness is about denial, usually in the weasel circumlocutory jargon which distorts and evades and seldom stands up to honest analysis.
It comes in many guises, some of them so effective that the PC can be difficult to detect. The silly euphemisms, apparently harmless, but forever dripping to wear away common sense - the naivete of the phrase "a caring force for the future" on Remembrance poppy trays, which suggests that the army is some kind of peace corps, when in fact its true function is killing.
The continual attempt to soften and sanitise the harsh realities of life in the name of liberalism, in an effort to suppress truths unwelcome to the PC mind; the social engineering which plays down Christianity, demanding equal status for alien religions.
The selective distortions of history, so beloved by New Labour, denigrating Britain's past with such propaganda as hopelessly unbalanced accounts of the slave trade, laying all the blame on the white races, but carefully censoring the truth that not a slave could have come out of Africa without the active assistance of black slavers, and that the trade was only finally suppressed by the Royal Navy virtually single-handed.
In schools, the waging of war against examinations as "elitist" exercises which will undermine the confidence of those who fail - what an intelligent way to prepare children for real life in which competition and failure are inevitable, since both are what life, if not liberal lunacy, is about.
PC also demands that "stress", which used to be coped with by less sensitive generations, should now be compensated by huge cash payments lavished on griping incompetents who can't do their jobs, and on policemen and firemen "traumatised" by the normal hazards of work which their predecessors took for granted.
Furthermore, it makes grieving part of the national culture, as it was on such a nauseating scale when large areas were carpeted in rotting vegetation in "mourning" for the Princess of Wales; and it insists that anyone suffering ordinary hardship should be regarded as a "victim" - and, of course, be paid for it.
That PC should have become acceptable in Britain is a glaring symptom of the country's decline. No generation has seen their country so altered, so turned upside down, as children like me born in the 20 years between the two world wars. In our adult lives Britain's entire national spirit, its philosophy, values and standards, have changed beyond belief. Probably no country on earth has experienced such a revolution in thought and outlook and behaviour in so short a space.
Other lands have known what seem to be greater upheavals, the result of wars and revolutions, but these do not compare with the experience of a country which passed in less than a lifetime from being the mightiest empire in history, governing a quarter of mankind, to being a feeble little offshore island whose so-called leaders have lost the will and the courage, indeed the ability, to govern at all.
This is not a lament for past imperial glory, though I regret its inevitable passing, nor is it the raging of a die-hard Conservative. I loathe all political parties, which I regard as inventions of the devil. My favourite prime minister was Sir Alec Douglas-Home, not because he was on the Right, but because he spent a year in office without, on his own admission, doing a damned thing. This would not commend him to New Labour, who count all time lost when they're not wrecking the country.
I am deeply concerned for the United Kingdom and its future. I look at the old country as it was in my youth and as it is today and, to use a fine Scots word, I am scunnered. I know that some things are wonderfully better than they used to be: the new miracles of surgery, public attitudes to the disabled, the health and well-being of children, intelligent concern for the environment, the massive strides in science and technology. Yes, there are material blessings and benefits innumerable which were unknown in our youth.
But much has deteriorated. The United Kingdom has begun to look more like a Third World country, shabby, littered, ugly, run down, without purpose or direction, misruled by a typical Third World government, corrupt, incompetent and undemocratic.
My generation has seen the decay of ordinary morality, standards of decency, sportsmanship, politeness, respect for the law, family values, politics and education and religion, the very character of the British.
Oh how Blimpish this must sound to modern ears, how out of date, how blind to "the need for change and the novelty of a new age". But don't worry about me. It's the present generation with their permissive society, their anything-goes philosophy, and their generally laid-back, inyerface attitude I feel sorry for. They regard themselves as a completely liberated society when in fact they are less free than any generation since the Middle Ages. Indeed, there may never have been such an enslaved generation, in thrall to hang-ups, taboos, restrictions and oppressions unknown to their ancestors (to say nothing of being neck-deep in debt, thanks to a moneylender's economy).
We were freer by far 50 years ago - yes, even with conscription, censorship, direction of labour, rationing, and shortages of everything that nowadays is regarded as essential to enjoyment. We still had liberty beyond modern understanding because we had other freedoms, the really important ones, that are denied to the youth of today. We could say what we liked; they can't. We were not subject to the aggressive pressure of special-interest minority groups; they are. We had no worries about race or sexual orientation; they have. We could, and did, differ from fashionable opinion with impunity, and would have laughed PC to scorn, had our society been weak and stupid enough to let it exist.
We had available to us an education system, public and private, that was the envy of the world. We had little reason to fear being mugged or raped (killed in war, maybe, but that was an acceptable hazard). Our children could play in street and country in safety. We had few problems with bullies because society knew how to deal with bullying and was not afraid to punish it in ways that would send today's progressives into hysterics. We did not know the stifling tyranny of a liberal establishment, determined to impose its views, and beginning to resemble George Orwell's Ministry of Truth.
Above all, we knew who we were and we lived in the knowledge that certain values and standards held true, and that our country, with all its faults and need for reforms, was sound at heart. Not any more. I find it difficult to identify a time when the country was as badly governed as it has been in the past 50 years. We have had the two worst Prime Ministers in our history - Edward Heath (who dragooned us into the Common Market) and Tony Blair. The harm these two have done to Britain is incalculable and almost certainly irreparable.
Whether the public can be blamed for letting them pursue their ruinous policies is debatable. Short of assassination there is little people can do when their political masters have forgotten the true meaning of the democracy of which they are forever prating, are determined to have their own way at all costs and hold public opinion in contempt. I feel I speak not just for myself but for the huge majority of my generation who think as I do but whose voices are so often lost in the clamour.
We are yesterday's people, the over-the-hill gang. (Yes, the old people - not the senior citizens or the time-challenged, but the old people.) Those of ultra-liberal views may take consolation from this - that my kind won't be around much longer, and then they can get on with wrecking civilisation in peace. But they should beware. There may well be more who think like me than the liberal Left establishment likes to think. When my views were first published in book form in 2002, I was not surprised that almost all the reviewers were unfavourable. I had expected that my old-fashioned views would get a fairly hostile reception, but the bitterness did astonish me.
I had not realised how offensive the plain truth can be to the politically correct, how enraged they can be by its mere expression, and how deeply they detest the values and standards respected 50 years ago and which dinosaurs like me still believe in, God help us.
But the readers' reactions to the book were the exact opposite of critical opinion. I have never received such wholehearted and generous support. For the first time in 30 years as a professional writer I had to fall back on a printed card thanking readers for writing, apologising because I could not reply personally to them all. Most of the letters came from the older generation, but by no means all. I was made aware that among the middle-aged and people in their 20s and 30s there is a groundswell of anger and frustration at the damage done to Britain by so-called reformers and dishonest politicians who hardly bother to conceal their contempt for the public's wishes. Plainly many thought they were alone in some reactionary minority. They had been led to think that they were voices muttering to themselves in the wilderness. Well, you are not. There are more of you out there than you realise - very many more, perhaps even a majority.
Source
That marvellous government "planning" shows its worth
Nil worth. Closing hospitals just when lots of people are getting ill is something only a government plan could lead to
A fifth of the country's hospitals have wards that have been shut as the winter vomiting virus strikes staff and patients. Cases of the virulent nororvirus bug are expected to peak at about 200,000 a week over the next month. The disease, which causes two or three days of violent vomiting and diarrhoea, is at its highest level for five years. Doctors have warned patients to stay at home to avoid spreading the bug. Hospitals are especially vulnerable and anyone who has been ill with the bug recently is asked not to visit relatives for fear of taking the highly contagious infection on to wards.
A survey by The Daily Telegraph found that 30 hospital trusts in England had closed wards to new patients as staff struggled to contain the bug and many other hospitals had recently suffered outbreaks. The reporting system is voluntary so the number of closures could be higher.
NHS Direct reported yesterday that 1.2 million people asked its staff for advice over the extended Christmas period. Vomiting was the second most common complaint after dental pain. Norovirus is the most common cause of infectious stomach upset and although extremely unpleasant it is not normally dangerous, although it can lead to complications in vulnerable, elderly or very young patients. Hospitals in the North West and South West have been hit hard in this winter's norovirus season.
One of the hospitals worst affected is the Royal Oldham Hospital in Greater Manchester, where 66 cases were reported. Fin McNicol, the hospital's spokesman, said that strict infection control measures and a ban on all but essential family visits had brought infection numbers down to 40 and bed closures down from 40 to 26 yesterday. "Everyone knows someone that's poorly just now," he said. "In terms of the virus's effects on the hospital, it does appear to be more than normal but we have tried and tested prevention measures in place."
The Royal United Hospital in Bath has seven wards closed. Francesca Thompson, director of nursing at the hospital, said: "We do have a significant number of wards closed and are taking the situation very seriously. "We want to keep these wards closed for the time it takes to get rid of the infection and we will only reopen when it is safe to do so." She added: "We want to encourage anyone with symptoms of vomiting and diarrhoea to seek advice from their GP first. "People are still turning up at the hospital which could cause serious capacity issues. "We need sufficient beds to cope with serious cases and would like to ask the public to offer us their continued support."
Some regions appear to have avoided ward closures including the East Midlands, London and the North East. A spokesman for the Health Protection Agency said: "It is not unusual to see outbreaks occurring in hospitals, as the virus quickly spreads in confined environments. "Taking action early in an outbreak by closing a ward to new admissions can help control outbreaks."
Source
Scores of soldiers flying home from Afghanistan on Christmas leave were ordered to change out of their uniforms on a freezing runway before being allowed into a civilian airport terminal. Troops were told not to be seen in public in their uniforms - which they had worn with pride while risking their lives during months of intense fighting against the Taliban.
Last night the Ministry of Defence and bosses at Birmingham International Airport blamed each other for the indignity suffered by the soldiers - which comes amid mounting anger over the treatment of British troops returning from war. One soldier, who was ordered to undress for "security reasons", said: "It is an insult to the entire Army to force guys who've been fighting in Afghanistan to obey some jobsworth rule when all they want to do is get home to their families. "So much for a nation proud of its servicemen. The temperature was Baltic on the runway but most of just wanted to get home so we cracked on."
The December 23 flight, carrying 200 personnel, had been diverted from RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire to Birmingham because of bad weather. The troops were told they could either wait for coaches to take them back to Brize Norton or else travel home via public transport - in which case they must change into civilian clothes before entering the terminal. Around 50 chose the latter option and, because there was no room in the cabin, most changed outside.
Last night the airport authorities denied responsibility, saying: "We support our Armed Forces and whatever form of dress they choose to wear at our airport." The MoD eventually confirmed it has a ban on troops wearing uniform in civilian airports, claiming it was because a small number of airlines ban all uniforms on flights for security reasons. A spokesman said: "In this case, it appears it was applied a little too rigidly." The policy will now be reviewed.
The incident brought criticism in unofficial military chatrooms. One soldier wrote on the Army Rumour Service forum: "This shows an utter lack of leadership. Who allowed this to happen? Who failed to stand up for his/her men?" MPs and former military commanders urged defence chiefs to ease restrictions on wearing uniform in public to reflect public support for the military. Conservative MP Patrick Mercer, a former infantry commander, said: "This is just the sort of thing that gets seriously up the noses of fighting troops."
Colonel Jorge Mendonca, who was decorated in Iraq but quit the Army after being charged - and cleared - over mistreatment of detainees, said: "How would it feel to be on an operational tour and then to come home and be told to take off their uniform before being seen in public? "It's a typical policy order from some desk-bound staff officer."
Source
The last testament of Flashman's creator: How Britain has destroyed itself
by GEORGE MACDONALD FRASER
When 30 years ago I resurrected Flashman, the bully in Thomas Hughes's Victorian novel Tom Brown's Schooldays, political correctness hadn't been heard of, and no exception was taken to my adopted hero's character, behaviour, attitude to women and subject races (indeed, any races, including his own) and general awfulness. On the contrary, it soon became evident that these were his main attractions. He was politically incorrect with a vengeance. Through the Seventies and Eighties I led him on his disgraceful way, toadying, lying, cheating, running away, treating women as chattels, abusing inferiors of all colours, with only one redeeming virtue - the unsparing honesty with which he admitted to his faults, and even gloried in them. And no one minded, or if they did, they didn't tell me. In all the many thousands of readers' letters I received, not one objected.
In the Nineties, a change began to take place. Reviewers and interviewers started describing Flashman (and me) as politically incorrect, which we are, though by no means in the same way. This is fine by me. Flashman is my bread and butter, and if he wasn't an elitist, racist, sexist swine, I'd be selling bootlaces at street corners instead of being a successful popular writer.
But what I notice with amusement is that many commentators now draw attention to Flashy's (and my) political incorrectness in order to make a point of distancing themselves from it. It's not that they dislike the books. But where once the non-PC thing could pass unremarked, they now feel they must warn readers that some may find Flashman offensive, and that his views are certainly not those of the interviewer or reviewer, God forbid.
I find the disclaimers alarming. They are almost a knee-jerk reaction and often rather a nervous one, as if the writer were saying: "Look, I'm not a racist or sexist. I hold the right views and I'm in line with modern enlightened thought, honestly." They won't risk saying anything to which the PC lobby could take exception. And it is this that alarms me - the fear evident in so many sincere and honest folk of being thought out of step.
I first came across this in the United States, where the cancer has gone much deeper. As a screenwriter [at which Fraser was almost as successful as he was with the 12 Flashman novels; his best-known work was scripting the Three Musketeers films] I once put forward a script for a film called The Lone Ranger, in which I used a piece of Western history which had never been shown on screen and was as spectacular as it was shocking - and true.
The whisky traders of the American plains used to build little stockades, from which they passed out their ghastly rot-gut liquor through a small hatch to the Indians, who paid by shoving furs back though the hatch. The result was that frenzied, drunken Indians who had run out of furs were besieging the stockade, while the traders sat snug inside and did not emerge until the Indians had either gone away or passed out.
Political correctness stormed onto the scene, red in tooth and claw. The word came down from on high that the scene would offend "Native Americans". Their ancestors may have got pie-eyed on moonshine but they didn't want to know it, and it must not be shown on screen. Damn history. Let's pretend it didn't happen because we don't like the look of it.
I think little of people who will deny their history because it doesn't present the picture they would like. My forebears from the Highlands of Scotland were a fairly primitive, treacherous, blood-thirsty bunch and, as Robert Louis Stevenson once wrote, would have been none the worse for washing. Fine, let them be so depicted, if any film maker feels like it; better that than insulting, inaccurate drivel like Braveheart.
The philosophy of political correctness is now firmly entrenched over here, too, and at its core is a refusal to look the truth squarely in the face, unpalatable as it may be. Political correctness is about denial, usually in the weasel circumlocutory jargon which distorts and evades and seldom stands up to honest analysis.
It comes in many guises, some of them so effective that the PC can be difficult to detect. The silly euphemisms, apparently harmless, but forever dripping to wear away common sense - the naivete of the phrase "a caring force for the future" on Remembrance poppy trays, which suggests that the army is some kind of peace corps, when in fact its true function is killing.
The continual attempt to soften and sanitise the harsh realities of life in the name of liberalism, in an effort to suppress truths unwelcome to the PC mind; the social engineering which plays down Christianity, demanding equal status for alien religions.
The selective distortions of history, so beloved by New Labour, denigrating Britain's past with such propaganda as hopelessly unbalanced accounts of the slave trade, laying all the blame on the white races, but carefully censoring the truth that not a slave could have come out of Africa without the active assistance of black slavers, and that the trade was only finally suppressed by the Royal Navy virtually single-handed.
In schools, the waging of war against examinations as "elitist" exercises which will undermine the confidence of those who fail - what an intelligent way to prepare children for real life in which competition and failure are inevitable, since both are what life, if not liberal lunacy, is about.
PC also demands that "stress", which used to be coped with by less sensitive generations, should now be compensated by huge cash payments lavished on griping incompetents who can't do their jobs, and on policemen and firemen "traumatised" by the normal hazards of work which their predecessors took for granted.
Furthermore, it makes grieving part of the national culture, as it was on such a nauseating scale when large areas were carpeted in rotting vegetation in "mourning" for the Princess of Wales; and it insists that anyone suffering ordinary hardship should be regarded as a "victim" - and, of course, be paid for it.
That PC should have become acceptable in Britain is a glaring symptom of the country's decline. No generation has seen their country so altered, so turned upside down, as children like me born in the 20 years between the two world wars. In our adult lives Britain's entire national spirit, its philosophy, values and standards, have changed beyond belief. Probably no country on earth has experienced such a revolution in thought and outlook and behaviour in so short a space.
Other lands have known what seem to be greater upheavals, the result of wars and revolutions, but these do not compare with the experience of a country which passed in less than a lifetime from being the mightiest empire in history, governing a quarter of mankind, to being a feeble little offshore island whose so-called leaders have lost the will and the courage, indeed the ability, to govern at all.
This is not a lament for past imperial glory, though I regret its inevitable passing, nor is it the raging of a die-hard Conservative. I loathe all political parties, which I regard as inventions of the devil. My favourite prime minister was Sir Alec Douglas-Home, not because he was on the Right, but because he spent a year in office without, on his own admission, doing a damned thing. This would not commend him to New Labour, who count all time lost when they're not wrecking the country.
I am deeply concerned for the United Kingdom and its future. I look at the old country as it was in my youth and as it is today and, to use a fine Scots word, I am scunnered. I know that some things are wonderfully better than they used to be: the new miracles of surgery, public attitudes to the disabled, the health and well-being of children, intelligent concern for the environment, the massive strides in science and technology. Yes, there are material blessings and benefits innumerable which were unknown in our youth.
But much has deteriorated. The United Kingdom has begun to look more like a Third World country, shabby, littered, ugly, run down, without purpose or direction, misruled by a typical Third World government, corrupt, incompetent and undemocratic.
My generation has seen the decay of ordinary morality, standards of decency, sportsmanship, politeness, respect for the law, family values, politics and education and religion, the very character of the British.
Oh how Blimpish this must sound to modern ears, how out of date, how blind to "the need for change and the novelty of a new age". But don't worry about me. It's the present generation with their permissive society, their anything-goes philosophy, and their generally laid-back, inyerface attitude I feel sorry for. They regard themselves as a completely liberated society when in fact they are less free than any generation since the Middle Ages. Indeed, there may never have been such an enslaved generation, in thrall to hang-ups, taboos, restrictions and oppressions unknown to their ancestors (to say nothing of being neck-deep in debt, thanks to a moneylender's economy).
We were freer by far 50 years ago - yes, even with conscription, censorship, direction of labour, rationing, and shortages of everything that nowadays is regarded as essential to enjoyment. We still had liberty beyond modern understanding because we had other freedoms, the really important ones, that are denied to the youth of today. We could say what we liked; they can't. We were not subject to the aggressive pressure of special-interest minority groups; they are. We had no worries about race or sexual orientation; they have. We could, and did, differ from fashionable opinion with impunity, and would have laughed PC to scorn, had our society been weak and stupid enough to let it exist.
We had available to us an education system, public and private, that was the envy of the world. We had little reason to fear being mugged or raped (killed in war, maybe, but that was an acceptable hazard). Our children could play in street and country in safety. We had few problems with bullies because society knew how to deal with bullying and was not afraid to punish it in ways that would send today's progressives into hysterics. We did not know the stifling tyranny of a liberal establishment, determined to impose its views, and beginning to resemble George Orwell's Ministry of Truth.
Above all, we knew who we were and we lived in the knowledge that certain values and standards held true, and that our country, with all its faults and need for reforms, was sound at heart. Not any more. I find it difficult to identify a time when the country was as badly governed as it has been in the past 50 years. We have had the two worst Prime Ministers in our history - Edward Heath (who dragooned us into the Common Market) and Tony Blair. The harm these two have done to Britain is incalculable and almost certainly irreparable.
Whether the public can be blamed for letting them pursue their ruinous policies is debatable. Short of assassination there is little people can do when their political masters have forgotten the true meaning of the democracy of which they are forever prating, are determined to have their own way at all costs and hold public opinion in contempt. I feel I speak not just for myself but for the huge majority of my generation who think as I do but whose voices are so often lost in the clamour.
We are yesterday's people, the over-the-hill gang. (Yes, the old people - not the senior citizens or the time-challenged, but the old people.) Those of ultra-liberal views may take consolation from this - that my kind won't be around much longer, and then they can get on with wrecking civilisation in peace. But they should beware. There may well be more who think like me than the liberal Left establishment likes to think. When my views were first published in book form in 2002, I was not surprised that almost all the reviewers were unfavourable. I had expected that my old-fashioned views would get a fairly hostile reception, but the bitterness did astonish me.
I had not realised how offensive the plain truth can be to the politically correct, how enraged they can be by its mere expression, and how deeply they detest the values and standards respected 50 years ago and which dinosaurs like me still believe in, God help us.
But the readers' reactions to the book were the exact opposite of critical opinion. I have never received such wholehearted and generous support. For the first time in 30 years as a professional writer I had to fall back on a printed card thanking readers for writing, apologising because I could not reply personally to them all. Most of the letters came from the older generation, but by no means all. I was made aware that among the middle-aged and people in their 20s and 30s there is a groundswell of anger and frustration at the damage done to Britain by so-called reformers and dishonest politicians who hardly bother to conceal their contempt for the public's wishes. Plainly many thought they were alone in some reactionary minority. They had been led to think that they were voices muttering to themselves in the wilderness. Well, you are not. There are more of you out there than you realise - very many more, perhaps even a majority.
Source
That marvellous government "planning" shows its worth
Nil worth. Closing hospitals just when lots of people are getting ill is something only a government plan could lead to
A fifth of the country's hospitals have wards that have been shut as the winter vomiting virus strikes staff and patients. Cases of the virulent nororvirus bug are expected to peak at about 200,000 a week over the next month. The disease, which causes two or three days of violent vomiting and diarrhoea, is at its highest level for five years. Doctors have warned patients to stay at home to avoid spreading the bug. Hospitals are especially vulnerable and anyone who has been ill with the bug recently is asked not to visit relatives for fear of taking the highly contagious infection on to wards.
A survey by The Daily Telegraph found that 30 hospital trusts in England had closed wards to new patients as staff struggled to contain the bug and many other hospitals had recently suffered outbreaks. The reporting system is voluntary so the number of closures could be higher.
NHS Direct reported yesterday that 1.2 million people asked its staff for advice over the extended Christmas period. Vomiting was the second most common complaint after dental pain. Norovirus is the most common cause of infectious stomach upset and although extremely unpleasant it is not normally dangerous, although it can lead to complications in vulnerable, elderly or very young patients. Hospitals in the North West and South West have been hit hard in this winter's norovirus season.
One of the hospitals worst affected is the Royal Oldham Hospital in Greater Manchester, where 66 cases were reported. Fin McNicol, the hospital's spokesman, said that strict infection control measures and a ban on all but essential family visits had brought infection numbers down to 40 and bed closures down from 40 to 26 yesterday. "Everyone knows someone that's poorly just now," he said. "In terms of the virus's effects on the hospital, it does appear to be more than normal but we have tried and tested prevention measures in place."
The Royal United Hospital in Bath has seven wards closed. Francesca Thompson, director of nursing at the hospital, said: "We do have a significant number of wards closed and are taking the situation very seriously. "We want to keep these wards closed for the time it takes to get rid of the infection and we will only reopen when it is safe to do so." She added: "We want to encourage anyone with symptoms of vomiting and diarrhoea to seek advice from their GP first. "People are still turning up at the hospital which could cause serious capacity issues. "We need sufficient beds to cope with serious cases and would like to ask the public to offer us their continued support."
Some regions appear to have avoided ward closures including the East Midlands, London and the North East. A spokesman for the Health Protection Agency said: "It is not unusual to see outbreaks occurring in hospitals, as the virus quickly spreads in confined environments. "Taking action early in an outbreak by closing a ward to new admissions can help control outbreaks."
Source
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Is "Donkey" the New N-word? ("n*gger")
It sounds like it is in this report from Britain:
"Donkey" just means "stupid" or "stubborn", as far as I know.
Human rights vanish in NHS
IF you need evidence that the NHS has badly lost its way, look no further than the treatment meted out to 58-year-old Colette Mills. The former nurse, from Stokesley, in North Yorkshire, has been diagnosed with breast cancer that has spread to the rest of her body. Her best chance of survival is to take the new "wonder drug", Avastin. But, because of waste and bureaucratic incompetence, the South Tees Hospitals NHS Trust says it can't afford to give her the life-saving drug. That fact alone helps explain why UK cancer survival rates lag so far behind our European neighbours - despite record amounts of taxpayers' cash being poured into the health service.
But it gets worse. Mrs Mills offered to pay the o4,000-a-month cost of Avastin out of her own savings. Fine, said the NHS, but if you do, you will be treated as a private patient and will be charged the full cost of all your treatment - about o15,000 a month, which Mrs Mills cannot afford.
So, Mrs Mills is trapped in a Kafkaesque nightmare - the NHS won't give her the drug for free, but it won't let her pay for it either. That's what you get when you allow a centralised, Soviet-style bureaucracy to run healthcare - an inflexible, lumpen, one-size-fits-all, style of treatment, not driven by patient need or any notion of fairness, but motivated by the sort of rigid, outdated ideology that should have been buried under the rubble of the Berlin Wall.
Patient choice, anyone? It is not as though allowing Mrs Mills to pay for the drugs would disadvantage anybody else. And the argument put forward by the Department of Health, that allowing patients to combine NHS care with private "top-ups" would create a "two-tier health service", is nonsense on stilts. There always has been a two-tier health service. I can't help thinking that a government minister's spouse would get Avastin in the blink of an eye if they were unlucky enough to be diagnosed with cancer.
And isn't it decidedly odd that when a normal taxpayer is discriminated against and bullied in this manner, there's not a peep from the usually vociferous human rights lobby. Don't ordinary people have human rights, too?
Source
Ban that became a boon for fox hunting
THE law of unintended consequences is the curse of well-meaning lawmakers around the globe. You set out with high ideals of achieving some lofty goal - and end up doing precisely the opposite. So it is with the banning of hunting with dogs. Almost three years after the ban was imposed in 2005, the sport of fox hunting has never been healthier. This Boxing Day more than 250,000 hunt supporters gathered at over 300 meets around the UK - the numbers apparently swollen by people who previously had no interest in hunting, but who now turn out in protest at what they see as an illiberal and nanny-statist law.
So those people who set out to destroy fox hunting have succeeded only in reinvigorating it. Those who wanted to save foxes from the hounds have engineered a situation where more of them are killed than ever before. You'd need a heart of stone not to laugh.
Before the tree huggers start accusing me of being a bloodthirsty animal killer, I should declare a lack of interest. The only thing I was hunting on Boxing Day was the television remote control that was lost down the back of the sofa.
The only time I attended a meet was as a reporter to cover a noisy protest by hunt saboteurs a few years ago. The passions - and occasional violence - aroused on both sides frankly baffled me. But as a general principle I reckon the state has absolutely no business banning an activity that many people enjoy and which causes no harm to anybody else.
What I do resent is the 700 hours of parliamentary time that was devoted to the hunting ban - more than was spent discussing the Iraq war. I've never seen MPs so animated since the last time someone suggested cutting their expenses. Can anyone honestly argue that at a time when our health and education systems are in a meltdown, Britain is threatened by jihadist lunatics and people's pensions have gone down the tubes, this was the best use of valuable parliamentary time?
The result is a law that is such a mess that it is widely ignored - and the police believe is virtually impossible to enforce. Meanwhile, the net impact on animal welfare of the hunting ban is precisely zero. Farmers still need to control the fox population and more are being killed than before the ban was imposed.
But, of course, the hunting ban was nothing to do with animal welfare - it was all about politics. How else could you explain why other "cruel" pastimes, such as fishing, horse racing or factory farming, have been left well alone? Labour's old Left had swallowed the dumping of Clause 4 and Tony Blair's aping of the Conservatives in order to woo Middle England. As a reward they were tossed a bit of red meat in the shape of the hunting ban so they could imagine themselves sticking it to the toffs.
How pathetic. The hunting ban is as nasty a piece of naked class warfare that has ever disgraced the statute books. Let that be a lesson to other busybodies who want the state to ban everything they disagree with. I for one am glad it has backfired so spectacularly. Tally Ho!
Source
Energy-saving light bulbs blamed for migraines
The energy-saving light bulbs that will be made compulsory in homes in a few years can trigger migraines, campaigners have claimed. The Migraine Action Association (MAA) said some of its members alleged the fluorescent bulbs had led to attacks of the powerful headaches.
By 2011, Britain will be the first European country to phase out traditional bulbs as part of a strategy to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The MAA is calling on the Government to avoid a complete ban on old-style bulbs, by providing an opt-out for people with health problems.
Last year it was claimed that the "green" bulbs can cause people with epilepsy to experience symptoms similar to the early stages of a fit. There have also been complaints from people with lupus, a chronic immune disease that causes pain and extreme tiredness.
Low energy light bulbs use only a quarter of the energy consumed by traditional versions and are estimated to save 2,000 times their weight in greenhouse gases. They are often five times more expensive but the greater efficiency means they can pay for themselves within months. Several versions use a technology similar to fluorescent strip lights and some migraine sufferers say they produce a flickering effect that triggers their condition.
Karen Manning, from the MAA, said: "When the Government announced that traditional light bulbs would be phased out, we were inundated with over 200 calls and emails from members who said the flickering had caused migraines. "This is a debilitating condition which can often leave people bed-ridden for days. "The bulbs do not necessarily affect every sufferer, but we are talking about up to six million people in the UK who suffer migraines - so this is a serious concern. "We would ask the Government to avoid banning them completely and leave some opportunity for conventional bulbs to be purchased."
The Lighting Association, which represents manufacturers, denied that modern designs produced a flicker. A spokesman said: "A small number of cases have been reported by people who suffer from reactions to certain types of linear fluorescent lamps. These were almost certainly triggered by old technology."
Source
It sounds like it is in this report from Britain:
"An officer at Lindholme immigration removal centre near Doncaster has been sacked over allegations of racism.
He regularly referred to North African detainees as "donkeys" and made animal sounds, a report by the Home Office's Border & Immigration Agency says.
Source
"Donkey" just means "stupid" or "stubborn", as far as I know.
Human rights vanish in NHS
IF you need evidence that the NHS has badly lost its way, look no further than the treatment meted out to 58-year-old Colette Mills. The former nurse, from Stokesley, in North Yorkshire, has been diagnosed with breast cancer that has spread to the rest of her body. Her best chance of survival is to take the new "wonder drug", Avastin. But, because of waste and bureaucratic incompetence, the South Tees Hospitals NHS Trust says it can't afford to give her the life-saving drug. That fact alone helps explain why UK cancer survival rates lag so far behind our European neighbours - despite record amounts of taxpayers' cash being poured into the health service.
But it gets worse. Mrs Mills offered to pay the o4,000-a-month cost of Avastin out of her own savings. Fine, said the NHS, but if you do, you will be treated as a private patient and will be charged the full cost of all your treatment - about o15,000 a month, which Mrs Mills cannot afford.
So, Mrs Mills is trapped in a Kafkaesque nightmare - the NHS won't give her the drug for free, but it won't let her pay for it either. That's what you get when you allow a centralised, Soviet-style bureaucracy to run healthcare - an inflexible, lumpen, one-size-fits-all, style of treatment, not driven by patient need or any notion of fairness, but motivated by the sort of rigid, outdated ideology that should have been buried under the rubble of the Berlin Wall.
Patient choice, anyone? It is not as though allowing Mrs Mills to pay for the drugs would disadvantage anybody else. And the argument put forward by the Department of Health, that allowing patients to combine NHS care with private "top-ups" would create a "two-tier health service", is nonsense on stilts. There always has been a two-tier health service. I can't help thinking that a government minister's spouse would get Avastin in the blink of an eye if they were unlucky enough to be diagnosed with cancer.
And isn't it decidedly odd that when a normal taxpayer is discriminated against and bullied in this manner, there's not a peep from the usually vociferous human rights lobby. Don't ordinary people have human rights, too?
Source
Ban that became a boon for fox hunting
THE law of unintended consequences is the curse of well-meaning lawmakers around the globe. You set out with high ideals of achieving some lofty goal - and end up doing precisely the opposite. So it is with the banning of hunting with dogs. Almost three years after the ban was imposed in 2005, the sport of fox hunting has never been healthier. This Boxing Day more than 250,000 hunt supporters gathered at over 300 meets around the UK - the numbers apparently swollen by people who previously had no interest in hunting, but who now turn out in protest at what they see as an illiberal and nanny-statist law.
So those people who set out to destroy fox hunting have succeeded only in reinvigorating it. Those who wanted to save foxes from the hounds have engineered a situation where more of them are killed than ever before. You'd need a heart of stone not to laugh.
Before the tree huggers start accusing me of being a bloodthirsty animal killer, I should declare a lack of interest. The only thing I was hunting on Boxing Day was the television remote control that was lost down the back of the sofa.
The only time I attended a meet was as a reporter to cover a noisy protest by hunt saboteurs a few years ago. The passions - and occasional violence - aroused on both sides frankly baffled me. But as a general principle I reckon the state has absolutely no business banning an activity that many people enjoy and which causes no harm to anybody else.
What I do resent is the 700 hours of parliamentary time that was devoted to the hunting ban - more than was spent discussing the Iraq war. I've never seen MPs so animated since the last time someone suggested cutting their expenses. Can anyone honestly argue that at a time when our health and education systems are in a meltdown, Britain is threatened by jihadist lunatics and people's pensions have gone down the tubes, this was the best use of valuable parliamentary time?
The result is a law that is such a mess that it is widely ignored - and the police believe is virtually impossible to enforce. Meanwhile, the net impact on animal welfare of the hunting ban is precisely zero. Farmers still need to control the fox population and more are being killed than before the ban was imposed.
But, of course, the hunting ban was nothing to do with animal welfare - it was all about politics. How else could you explain why other "cruel" pastimes, such as fishing, horse racing or factory farming, have been left well alone? Labour's old Left had swallowed the dumping of Clause 4 and Tony Blair's aping of the Conservatives in order to woo Middle England. As a reward they were tossed a bit of red meat in the shape of the hunting ban so they could imagine themselves sticking it to the toffs.
How pathetic. The hunting ban is as nasty a piece of naked class warfare that has ever disgraced the statute books. Let that be a lesson to other busybodies who want the state to ban everything they disagree with. I for one am glad it has backfired so spectacularly. Tally Ho!
Source
Energy-saving light bulbs blamed for migraines
The energy-saving light bulbs that will be made compulsory in homes in a few years can trigger migraines, campaigners have claimed. The Migraine Action Association (MAA) said some of its members alleged the fluorescent bulbs had led to attacks of the powerful headaches.
By 2011, Britain will be the first European country to phase out traditional bulbs as part of a strategy to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The MAA is calling on the Government to avoid a complete ban on old-style bulbs, by providing an opt-out for people with health problems.
Last year it was claimed that the "green" bulbs can cause people with epilepsy to experience symptoms similar to the early stages of a fit. There have also been complaints from people with lupus, a chronic immune disease that causes pain and extreme tiredness.
Low energy light bulbs use only a quarter of the energy consumed by traditional versions and are estimated to save 2,000 times their weight in greenhouse gases. They are often five times more expensive but the greater efficiency means they can pay for themselves within months. Several versions use a technology similar to fluorescent strip lights and some migraine sufferers say they produce a flickering effect that triggers their condition.
Karen Manning, from the MAA, said: "When the Government announced that traditional light bulbs would be phased out, we were inundated with over 200 calls and emails from members who said the flickering had caused migraines. "This is a debilitating condition which can often leave people bed-ridden for days. "The bulbs do not necessarily affect every sufferer, but we are talking about up to six million people in the UK who suffer migraines - so this is a serious concern. "We would ask the Government to avoid banning them completely and leave some opportunity for conventional bulbs to be purchased."
The Lighting Association, which represents manufacturers, denied that modern designs produced a flicker. A spokesman said: "A small number of cases have been reported by people who suffer from reactions to certain types of linear fluorescent lamps. These were almost certainly triggered by old technology."
Source
Saturday, January 05, 2008
One in the eye for the diet knowalls:
A healthy 15-year-old girl described below who only eats chips (fries) and drinks milk -- and has done so since babyhood. Whither the "balanced diet"? No fruit & veg.?
Go here to see a picture of the perfectly healthy-looking teenager concerned
While most of us were eating our Christmas dinners last week, 15-year-old Faye Campbell was missing out. She has never tasted turkey, gravy or Christmas pudding. Nor has she ever eaten satsumas or mince pies. Instead, for most of her life, Faye has eaten nothing except chips - one bowl a day, with lots of milk to drink.
Over the years, her parents, Carolyn, 37, and Mark, 39, have endured despair and fear due to their daughter's peculiar diet. They have ignored the many doctors who, dismissing Carolyn's concerns, said that Faye was simply fussy and should be made to eat. At one point, a paediatrician warned that unless Faye, then six, was force fed, the development of her brain and body would be affected because of her poor nutrition. "I left the paediatrician's surgery crying," says Carolyn. "But I knew there had to be something physically wrong with Faye. I went straight to my GP, who prescribed iron tablets for Faye to prevent a deficiency. But I knew I could never force food down Faye's throat."
It wasn't until Faye was 12 years old that the Campbells, who live in Stowmarket, Suffolk, learned that Faye had a physical condition which made her feel so ill every time she ate anything other than chips that she learned not to take the risk.
More here
Racist to Describe Official Racism
Britain has a lot of jails specifically for illegals who have been ordered out of the country -- waiting while their deportation can be arranged. Many of the illegals are black and there have of course been allegations that the jailers are "racist".
An official inquiry into the racism has just made its report and there do seem to have been some instances of incorrect language. Calling inmates "animals" is clearly naughty, for instance. Though it would be OK to call difficult white criminals that, of course. But several instances of plain realism are also racist, apparently. Such as:
That political correctness causes the authorities to have lower standards for blacks ("the soft bigotry of low expectations") is common throughout the world today but you are not supposed to mention it, apparently.
Australia still a magnet for British migrants
'Wanted Down Under' programme returns to British TV -- putting migration to Australia in the spotlight. As Britain fills up with blacks and Muslims, Australia fills up with Brits. I think it is clear which country has the better of the bargain
As the second series of 'Wanted Down Under' returns to the BBC, a new wave of families are shown sampling life in Australia with an eye to emigrating permanently. With the series documenting life on the Australian immigration fast track, the Australian Visa Bureau looks at the lessons other British migration hopefuls can take from the programme.
The immensely popular 'Wanted Down Under' sees presenter Nadia Sawalha joining a number British families as they're given a look at life in Australia ahead of possible migration. The series takes a realistic look at the reason why emigration has become such a popular option in recent years, as well as the very real demands that come with forging a new life in Australia.
Tom W. Blackett, Official Spokesperson of the Australian Visa Bureau comments: "Seeing 'Wanted Down Under' return to TV screens should be welcomed as essential viewing for any family considering permanent migration to Australia. The idea of moving Down Under to start anew is one that more and more people are considering, and it's important that we see getting an Australian visa as the very concrete reality it is, rather than an unattainable ambition."
"However, 'Wanted Down Under' doesn't shy away from showing the potential difficulties involved in pursuing Australian emigration. While you'll almost certainly be eligible for permanent residence if your job is listed on the Migration Occupations in Demand List (MODL), there are a number of unexpected pitfalls involved when navigating the legislative requirements alone. It can be a time-consuming process that we'd recommend assigning to a trained migration consultant, which can be done by completing an Australian visa application.
"However, the message the programme presents is still a valid one; if the job that you do is on the MODL list of those in short supply in Australia, you are under 45 and you are thinking of emigrating, then the Australian government will help to fast track you through the immigration procedure"
Australia needs skilled immigrants: Anyone applying for an Australian visa should begin by completing the Australian Visa Bureau's online Australian visa application to see if they meet the Australian visa requirements.
Source
Village school provides a lesson for the government
A SPEAKER at a recent Yorkshire Post Literary Luncheon prompted warm applause when he said politicians should get off teachers' backs and let them get on with their jobs. He was Gervaise Phinn, now a well-known writer. He was formerly a teacher in South Yorkshire and then a schools inspector in North Yorkshire for many years.
I thought of his words last week when I visited a village school in North Yorkshire. As soon as you stepped inside, you could taste excellence. The headteacher glowed with pride as she showed the work done by the youngsters. A study of the village in Victorian times was a masterpiece of endeavour.
With fewer than 60 children, this was a model of what education should mean. I don't know where it stood in any league table, and I don't care. You don't need a computer to assess excellence, Gervaise will know exactly what I mean.
Then you read about the grandiose 10-year Children's Plan announced by the Education Secretary, Ed Balls, who is rapidly turning into the Dr Strangelove of the Brown Government. He has produced 170 pages of "initiatives" which effectively take the job of parenting out of parents hands, so as to make Britain "the best place in the world to grow up".
Every international measure show Britain failing in maths, science and literacy. Yet Balls tells us that standards are improving all the time. I only hope he is being cynical because it raises doubts about his sanity.
As comprehensive teachers say, pupils can pass through 11 years of schooling, even pass exams, without an understanding of basic subjects. They are spoon-fed information, assisted with their coursework, and led by the hand to meet targets and boost state figures. Now Balls plans to turn everything upside down yet again.
Meanwhile, let's give thanks for that little Dales village school and others like it - and the dedicated teachers who continue to deliver excellence despite all the burdens politicians place upon them.
Source
A healthy 15-year-old girl described below who only eats chips (fries) and drinks milk -- and has done so since babyhood. Whither the "balanced diet"? No fruit & veg.?
Go here to see a picture of the perfectly healthy-looking teenager concerned
While most of us were eating our Christmas dinners last week, 15-year-old Faye Campbell was missing out. She has never tasted turkey, gravy or Christmas pudding. Nor has she ever eaten satsumas or mince pies. Instead, for most of her life, Faye has eaten nothing except chips - one bowl a day, with lots of milk to drink.
Over the years, her parents, Carolyn, 37, and Mark, 39, have endured despair and fear due to their daughter's peculiar diet. They have ignored the many doctors who, dismissing Carolyn's concerns, said that Faye was simply fussy and should be made to eat. At one point, a paediatrician warned that unless Faye, then six, was force fed, the development of her brain and body would be affected because of her poor nutrition. "I left the paediatrician's surgery crying," says Carolyn. "But I knew there had to be something physically wrong with Faye. I went straight to my GP, who prescribed iron tablets for Faye to prevent a deficiency. But I knew I could never force food down Faye's throat."
It wasn't until Faye was 12 years old that the Campbells, who live in Stowmarket, Suffolk, learned that Faye had a physical condition which made her feel so ill every time she ate anything other than chips that she learned not to take the risk.
More here
Racist to Describe Official Racism
Britain has a lot of jails specifically for illegals who have been ordered out of the country -- waiting while their deportation can be arranged. Many of the illegals are black and there have of course been allegations that the jailers are "racist".
An official inquiry into the racism has just made its report and there do seem to have been some instances of incorrect language. Calling inmates "animals" is clearly naughty, for instance. Though it would be OK to call difficult white criminals that, of course. But several instances of plain realism are also racist, apparently. Such as:
"A member of staff at Yarl's Wood told auditors that white detainees were treated with more discipline, but the presence of black people caused "paralysis and a softer approach".
Source
That political correctness causes the authorities to have lower standards for blacks ("the soft bigotry of low expectations") is common throughout the world today but you are not supposed to mention it, apparently.
Australia still a magnet for British migrants
'Wanted Down Under' programme returns to British TV -- putting migration to Australia in the spotlight. As Britain fills up with blacks and Muslims, Australia fills up with Brits. I think it is clear which country has the better of the bargain
As the second series of 'Wanted Down Under' returns to the BBC, a new wave of families are shown sampling life in Australia with an eye to emigrating permanently. With the series documenting life on the Australian immigration fast track, the Australian Visa Bureau looks at the lessons other British migration hopefuls can take from the programme.
The immensely popular 'Wanted Down Under' sees presenter Nadia Sawalha joining a number British families as they're given a look at life in Australia ahead of possible migration. The series takes a realistic look at the reason why emigration has become such a popular option in recent years, as well as the very real demands that come with forging a new life in Australia.
Tom W. Blackett, Official Spokesperson of the Australian Visa Bureau comments: "Seeing 'Wanted Down Under' return to TV screens should be welcomed as essential viewing for any family considering permanent migration to Australia. The idea of moving Down Under to start anew is one that more and more people are considering, and it's important that we see getting an Australian visa as the very concrete reality it is, rather than an unattainable ambition."
"However, 'Wanted Down Under' doesn't shy away from showing the potential difficulties involved in pursuing Australian emigration. While you'll almost certainly be eligible for permanent residence if your job is listed on the Migration Occupations in Demand List (MODL), there are a number of unexpected pitfalls involved when navigating the legislative requirements alone. It can be a time-consuming process that we'd recommend assigning to a trained migration consultant, which can be done by completing an Australian visa application.
"However, the message the programme presents is still a valid one; if the job that you do is on the MODL list of those in short supply in Australia, you are under 45 and you are thinking of emigrating, then the Australian government will help to fast track you through the immigration procedure"
Australia needs skilled immigrants: Anyone applying for an Australian visa should begin by completing the Australian Visa Bureau's online Australian visa application to see if they meet the Australian visa requirements.
Source
Village school provides a lesson for the government
A SPEAKER at a recent Yorkshire Post Literary Luncheon prompted warm applause when he said politicians should get off teachers' backs and let them get on with their jobs. He was Gervaise Phinn, now a well-known writer. He was formerly a teacher in South Yorkshire and then a schools inspector in North Yorkshire for many years.
I thought of his words last week when I visited a village school in North Yorkshire. As soon as you stepped inside, you could taste excellence. The headteacher glowed with pride as she showed the work done by the youngsters. A study of the village in Victorian times was a masterpiece of endeavour.
With fewer than 60 children, this was a model of what education should mean. I don't know where it stood in any league table, and I don't care. You don't need a computer to assess excellence, Gervaise will know exactly what I mean.
Then you read about the grandiose 10-year Children's Plan announced by the Education Secretary, Ed Balls, who is rapidly turning into the Dr Strangelove of the Brown Government. He has produced 170 pages of "initiatives" which effectively take the job of parenting out of parents hands, so as to make Britain "the best place in the world to grow up".
Every international measure show Britain failing in maths, science and literacy. Yet Balls tells us that standards are improving all the time. I only hope he is being cynical because it raises doubts about his sanity.
As comprehensive teachers say, pupils can pass through 11 years of schooling, even pass exams, without an understanding of basic subjects. They are spoon-fed information, assisted with their coursework, and led by the hand to meet targets and boost state figures. Now Balls plans to turn everything upside down yet again.
Meanwhile, let's give thanks for that little Dales village school and others like it - and the dedicated teachers who continue to deliver excellence despite all the burdens politicians place upon them.
Source
Friday, January 04, 2008
A review from Yorkshire of the past year in Britain
By Bernard Ingham -- presumably Sir Bernard Ingham, a journalist best known as Margaret Thatcher's press secretary
In the good old days, when we celebrated Christmas without thinking we might offend anybody, we had reached Boxing Day feeling that all was right with the world. Most of it was coloured pink in our atlases and we knew it was a privilege to be British. We were the best, even if we couldn't afford a turkey and, as ever, Halifax Town could not be relied upon to keep us cheerful beyond 4.45pm. Pride, they say, goeth before a fall. So 50 years on, let us take stock of our reduced condition over the remains of the turkey, assuming you could get one because of pestilence.
I shall try to be positive. We are possibly the least corrupt society in the world, if you ignore the link between the funding of our political parties and peerages and cronyism and our guilt by association with the European Union, which has now gone 13 years without its auditors being able to approve its accounts.
We are dab hands at spending the oodles of money we earn or can borrow. Statistically, we are up to our ears in debt and don't seem to worry unduly, which amounts to a revolution in attitudes. Retail therapy is practised widely with apparently beneficial psychological results. Materially, we want for nothing, but keep our manufacturing-lite economy going by buying.
We are immensely mobile, especially at Christmas. Some 27m are said to be on the move this year, fog, clogged roads, airport security, strikes and railway companies permitting, since the last allow "essential engineering works" to get in the way of uniting families.
No-one can surpass our political correctness. It passeth all understanding how easily Christmas is banned, watered down and generally considered shameful by the multiculturists and how the "health and safety Taliban" discover the possibility of death and mutilation even in changing a Parliamentary light bulb.
We are amazingly tolerant of spinmeisters who promise the earth and deliver nothing; cheats, conmen and rip-off merchants who infest the land; "celebrities" - an infinitely elastic term - who are anything but role models; footballers who are paid a king's ransom for their vulgar Viking tendencies off the field and their mediocrity on it; and climate changers with an urge to make us all feel guilty. This is not to mention 4,000 suspected terrorists running around loose in the name of Islam.
Indeed, we have become so passive that conspiracy theorists might conclude that somebody is putting something in our water or, more likely, alcohol. We can hardly summon up a squeak when the Football Association appoints an Italian, who cannot speak English, to manage our national soccer team, who admittedly are similarly afflicted, y' know...
In short, we are wonderfully self-satisfied. Students of empires would identify this as the penultimate stage in the inevitable process of decline into oblivion. Let us test this theory by considering what we are bad at.
Well, we are not very good at getting married. Most children are now born out of wedlock, thereby pretty well ensuring intensified social problems in the future with indisciplined youth. To cap that, we cannot as a state educate our young people. We are in free-fall in the international league tables of achievement. This does not augur well for the future.
Nor does our inability to control our borders. We haven't a clue how many immigrants are in our midst, legally or otherwise. You can take that as read when the Home Office admits 11,000 illegal immigrants are working as security guards, one of them on its HQ reception desk. We are reduced to bribing illegal immigrants to go home with money to start ostrich farms.
We are certainly being out-bred by immigrants called Mohammed. How long before we have a country to call our own? Come to think of it, that was an academic question long before Gordon Brown churlishly brought himself to sign the new superstate-building EU treaty.
Nor can we police our towns and cities. Only one offender is jailed for every 100 crimes committed. Things are so bad that our priests daren't celebrate midnight mass for fear drunks will wreck it.
Amid all this impending doom, we have a Prime Minister who is forever "doing all in his power" to improve matters, having done all in his power for 10 years to make them worse, and a generation of politicians whose greatest ability is to depress us. The message is clear. Britain's only relevant New Year resolution is: "We must do better. And no backsliding".
Source
Revolt as 200,000 people demand to opt out of new NHS database scheme
Intimate details of the first 100,000 patients have been uploaded to the controversial new NHS database despite a mounting revolt by doctors and campaign groups. Around 20 GP surgeries have added 110,000 individual records to the scheme, which will contain details on patients' medical history, current medication and allergies. But the Daily Mail has learned more than 200,000 people have requested documents that allow them to demand their personal medical records are excluded from the system, which will "go live" in January.
There is growing concern about the security of the o12bn IT programme - the biggest civilian computer project in the world - which will ultimately contain the details of 50 million people. A poll showed that more than three-quarters of doctors are either "not confident" that data will be safe or "very worried" that it will leak once the system is up and running. Some senior medics are now encouraging a campaign of disobedience against the database by supporting a campaign to urge patients to opt out.
Activists in the British Medical Association (BMA) have produced a letter that people can send to their GP to stop their records going onto the database. The letter can be downloaded from the website of the Big Opt Out campaign, nhsconfidentiality.org. Critics fear patient records could be misused if they can be accessed by NHS staff across the country.
Campaigners also highlighted the Government's "appalling" record on data security, which saw the personal and banking details of 25 million child benefit claimants lost last year. Nine NHS trusts were forced to admit losing hundreds of thousands of health records.
So far, more than 550,000 patients in Bolton, Bury, Dorset, south Birmingham and Bradford and Airedale have been asked to register with the new NHS IT scheme. It will be rolled out across the country later this year, once the pilot sites have been evaluated. Patients were initially told they would have no choice over whether their information would be included on the database. But ministers were forced to offer concessions because of concerns over privacy and security.
Patients can now choose to opt out altogether - though they are warned this could compromise their NHS care. Alternatively, patients can choose only to allow access to NHS staff who have their explicit consent.
But NHS manager Helen Wilkinson, who is masterminding the opt out campaign, said patients were not being told of their rights. She launched her campaign in 2006 after discovering that she had been wrongly labelled an alcoholic after seeing a consultant about routine surgery. She has now forced the Health Department to wipe all of her records from NHS files. "My concern is that patients' records are being uploaded without their consent," she said. "The Government says every patient should be getting a leaflet setting out their options. But the reality we are finding is that many are not. "Even when they do, we are not satisfied that the literature is clear about the risks associated with this database. "The Government has demonstrated only too clearly that it cannot be trusted with this sort of personal information. "Its record on keeping data secure is frankly appalling."
Joyce Robins, of the campaign group Patient Concern, said: "Our main problem is that they are doing it on an opt-out basis - we think they should ask for consent before records go up." Dr Paul Cundy, chairman of the BMA's general practitioners IT committee, who helped compose the protest letter, said: "Some doctors are actively encouraging their patients to rebel. "This letter is an easy way for patients to express the rights that the BMA feels they ought to have by default."
Ministers insist that the current NHS records system, which relies predominantly on paper files, can lead to unnecessary delays and risks. Marlene Winfield, head of public engagement for the NHS IT programme, said: "Patients are always surprised that their records aren't already available in other parts of the NHS - they say we thought the NHS has been doing this for years. "Patients have to go through a security process before they can set up the record. "The NHS has always had a confidentiality culture as patient information is regarded by everyone as sensitive - it's in everyone's training and contracts." But a poll carried out by the Doctors.net.uk website showed that only a fifth of doctors believe the system will be secure.
Source
By Bernard Ingham -- presumably Sir Bernard Ingham, a journalist best known as Margaret Thatcher's press secretary
In the good old days, when we celebrated Christmas without thinking we might offend anybody, we had reached Boxing Day feeling that all was right with the world. Most of it was coloured pink in our atlases and we knew it was a privilege to be British. We were the best, even if we couldn't afford a turkey and, as ever, Halifax Town could not be relied upon to keep us cheerful beyond 4.45pm. Pride, they say, goeth before a fall. So 50 years on, let us take stock of our reduced condition over the remains of the turkey, assuming you could get one because of pestilence.
I shall try to be positive. We are possibly the least corrupt society in the world, if you ignore the link between the funding of our political parties and peerages and cronyism and our guilt by association with the European Union, which has now gone 13 years without its auditors being able to approve its accounts.
We are dab hands at spending the oodles of money we earn or can borrow. Statistically, we are up to our ears in debt and don't seem to worry unduly, which amounts to a revolution in attitudes. Retail therapy is practised widely with apparently beneficial psychological results. Materially, we want for nothing, but keep our manufacturing-lite economy going by buying.
We are immensely mobile, especially at Christmas. Some 27m are said to be on the move this year, fog, clogged roads, airport security, strikes and railway companies permitting, since the last allow "essential engineering works" to get in the way of uniting families.
No-one can surpass our political correctness. It passeth all understanding how easily Christmas is banned, watered down and generally considered shameful by the multiculturists and how the "health and safety Taliban" discover the possibility of death and mutilation even in changing a Parliamentary light bulb.
We are amazingly tolerant of spinmeisters who promise the earth and deliver nothing; cheats, conmen and rip-off merchants who infest the land; "celebrities" - an infinitely elastic term - who are anything but role models; footballers who are paid a king's ransom for their vulgar Viking tendencies off the field and their mediocrity on it; and climate changers with an urge to make us all feel guilty. This is not to mention 4,000 suspected terrorists running around loose in the name of Islam.
Indeed, we have become so passive that conspiracy theorists might conclude that somebody is putting something in our water or, more likely, alcohol. We can hardly summon up a squeak when the Football Association appoints an Italian, who cannot speak English, to manage our national soccer team, who admittedly are similarly afflicted, y' know...
In short, we are wonderfully self-satisfied. Students of empires would identify this as the penultimate stage in the inevitable process of decline into oblivion. Let us test this theory by considering what we are bad at.
Well, we are not very good at getting married. Most children are now born out of wedlock, thereby pretty well ensuring intensified social problems in the future with indisciplined youth. To cap that, we cannot as a state educate our young people. We are in free-fall in the international league tables of achievement. This does not augur well for the future.
Nor does our inability to control our borders. We haven't a clue how many immigrants are in our midst, legally or otherwise. You can take that as read when the Home Office admits 11,000 illegal immigrants are working as security guards, one of them on its HQ reception desk. We are reduced to bribing illegal immigrants to go home with money to start ostrich farms.
We are certainly being out-bred by immigrants called Mohammed. How long before we have a country to call our own? Come to think of it, that was an academic question long before Gordon Brown churlishly brought himself to sign the new superstate-building EU treaty.
Nor can we police our towns and cities. Only one offender is jailed for every 100 crimes committed. Things are so bad that our priests daren't celebrate midnight mass for fear drunks will wreck it.
Amid all this impending doom, we have a Prime Minister who is forever "doing all in his power" to improve matters, having done all in his power for 10 years to make them worse, and a generation of politicians whose greatest ability is to depress us. The message is clear. Britain's only relevant New Year resolution is: "We must do better. And no backsliding".
Source
Revolt as 200,000 people demand to opt out of new NHS database scheme
Intimate details of the first 100,000 patients have been uploaded to the controversial new NHS database despite a mounting revolt by doctors and campaign groups. Around 20 GP surgeries have added 110,000 individual records to the scheme, which will contain details on patients' medical history, current medication and allergies. But the Daily Mail has learned more than 200,000 people have requested documents that allow them to demand their personal medical records are excluded from the system, which will "go live" in January.
There is growing concern about the security of the o12bn IT programme - the biggest civilian computer project in the world - which will ultimately contain the details of 50 million people. A poll showed that more than three-quarters of doctors are either "not confident" that data will be safe or "very worried" that it will leak once the system is up and running. Some senior medics are now encouraging a campaign of disobedience against the database by supporting a campaign to urge patients to opt out.
Activists in the British Medical Association (BMA) have produced a letter that people can send to their GP to stop their records going onto the database. The letter can be downloaded from the website of the Big Opt Out campaign, nhsconfidentiality.org. Critics fear patient records could be misused if they can be accessed by NHS staff across the country.
Campaigners also highlighted the Government's "appalling" record on data security, which saw the personal and banking details of 25 million child benefit claimants lost last year. Nine NHS trusts were forced to admit losing hundreds of thousands of health records.
So far, more than 550,000 patients in Bolton, Bury, Dorset, south Birmingham and Bradford and Airedale have been asked to register with the new NHS IT scheme. It will be rolled out across the country later this year, once the pilot sites have been evaluated. Patients were initially told they would have no choice over whether their information would be included on the database. But ministers were forced to offer concessions because of concerns over privacy and security.
Patients can now choose to opt out altogether - though they are warned this could compromise their NHS care. Alternatively, patients can choose only to allow access to NHS staff who have their explicit consent.
But NHS manager Helen Wilkinson, who is masterminding the opt out campaign, said patients were not being told of their rights. She launched her campaign in 2006 after discovering that she had been wrongly labelled an alcoholic after seeing a consultant about routine surgery. She has now forced the Health Department to wipe all of her records from NHS files. "My concern is that patients' records are being uploaded without their consent," she said. "The Government says every patient should be getting a leaflet setting out their options. But the reality we are finding is that many are not. "Even when they do, we are not satisfied that the literature is clear about the risks associated with this database. "The Government has demonstrated only too clearly that it cannot be trusted with this sort of personal information. "Its record on keeping data secure is frankly appalling."
Joyce Robins, of the campaign group Patient Concern, said: "Our main problem is that they are doing it on an opt-out basis - we think they should ask for consent before records go up." Dr Paul Cundy, chairman of the BMA's general practitioners IT committee, who helped compose the protest letter, said: "Some doctors are actively encouraging their patients to rebel. "This letter is an easy way for patients to express the rights that the BMA feels they ought to have by default."
Ministers insist that the current NHS records system, which relies predominantly on paper files, can lead to unnecessary delays and risks. Marlene Winfield, head of public engagement for the NHS IT programme, said: "Patients are always surprised that their records aren't already available in other parts of the NHS - they say we thought the NHS has been doing this for years. "Patients have to go through a security process before they can set up the record. "The NHS has always had a confidentiality culture as patient information is regarded by everyone as sensitive - it's in everyone's training and contracts." But a poll carried out by the Doctors.net.uk website showed that only a fifth of doctors believe the system will be secure.
Source
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Shock! British Catholic bishops believe in teaching Catholicism!
Roman Catholic bishops are to appear in front of a powerful committee of MPs amid fears that they are pushing a fundamentalist brand of their religion in schools. Bishops have called on parents, teachers and priests to strengthen the role of religion in education. In one case the Bishop of Lancaster, Patrick O'Donoghue, instructed Catholic schools across much of north-west England to stop 'safe-sex' education and place crucifixes in all classrooms.
He also wrote: 'Schools and colleges must not support charities or groups that promote or fund anti-life policies, such as Red Nose Day and Amnesty International, which now advocates abortion.' In a 66-page document, O'Donoghue called on teachers to use science to teach about the 'truths of the faith', only mention sex within the 'sacrament of marriage', insist that contraception was wrong and emphasise natural family planning.
The Bishop of Leeds, Arthur Roche, sent a letter to parishes warning them that Catholic education was under threat following attempts by the local council to set up an inter-faith academy.
Barry Sheerman, chairman of the parliamentary cross-party committee on children, schools and families, said he had heard of other cases and felt that behind the scenes there was 'intense turmoil' about the future of Catholic education. 'A group of bishops appear to be taking a much firmer line and I think it would be useful to call representatives of the Catholic church in front of the committee to find out what is going on,' he said. 'It seems to me that faith education works all right as long as people are not that serious about their faith. But as soon as there is a more doctrinaire attitude questions have to be asked. It does become worrying when you get a new push from more fundamentalist bishops. This is taxpayers' money after all.'
Sheerman, MP for Huddersfield, asked to meet Roche about the possibility of setting up an inter-faith school in the area. 'The bishop took a long time to agree to meet and eventually we set a date in May,' said Sheerman. 'But just before we were due to meet - during the May elections - he had a letter read out in every parish church in Kirklees and Calderdale, a really big area, accusing politicians of trying to dilute Catholic education. He said Roman Catholic education was under threat.'
In Fit for Mission, the document written for schools in the Lancaster diocese, O'Donoghue wrote: 'The secular view on sex outside of marriage, artificial contraception, sexually transmitted disease, including HIV and Aids, and abortion, may not be presented as neutral information ... parents, schools and colleges must also reject the promotion of so-called "safe sex" or "safer sex", a dangerous and immoral policy based on the deluded theory that the condom can provide adequate protection against Aids.'
The bishop also called for any books containing polemics against the Catholic faith to be removed from school libraries. 'Under no circumstances should any outside authority or agency that is not fully qualified to speak on behalf of the Catholic church ever be allowed to speak to pupils or individuals on sexual or any other matter involving faith and morals,' he said.
The report has outraged non-religious groups, who accused the bishop of trying to 'indoctrinate' pupils. In a letter to Secretary of State Ed Balls, the National Secular Society wrote: 'What happened to a well-rounded education - which is what British state schools are supposed to provide?' Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the society, said: 'I do not think the state should be funding Catholic indoctrination.' He highlighted a poll released by the US group Catholics for a Free Choice showing that most Catholics across the world believed using condoms was pro-life because it prevented the spread of HIV and Aids.
Teachers expressed concern that the bishop's instructions could damage the health of teenagers who chose to become sexually active despite the church's teaching. 'Irrespective of the strongly held views of those in the Catholic faith, it is absolutely vital for the future of children's wellbeing, health and safety that they receive proper sex education,' said Steve Sinnott, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers. O'Donoghue said it was 'absolute rubbish' that what he was advocating was indoctrination.
Source
Cardinal criticises UK homosexual laws
The senior Roman Catholic leader used his New Year message to praise marriage and deliver an implicit attack on the Government's gay equality laws. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the head of the Church in England and Wales, said most parents did not want their children to be taught that marriage was just "one lifestyle choice among many".
The cardinal said the traditional family remained central to the well-being of society but was being dangerously eroded. While society was slowly waking up to the dangers of climate change and pollution for the planet, it was still destroying the family, he said. "It has taken us a long time to realise that if we cut down trees, use cars with highly leaded fuels and build factories with toxic emissions, we were gradually destroying the ecosystem within which we live and breathe.
"Perhaps, however, it has been harder for us to admit those elements in our relationships or in our society which have contributed to the fragmentation of the family. "Yet it is equally true that we are rapidly moving the very structures on which society is built and on which humanity depends; we are gradually destroying the 'ecosystem' that supports the family."
The cardinal said he was aware that many people had suffered broken marriages or were "courageous" single parents and he understood their sorrow and hurt. However, he emphasised the Catholic Church's commitment to the home as the focus of family life and the centrality of Christian marriage. "Most parents do not want their children to be taught that marriage is no more than one lifestyle choice among many," he said. "They do not want to expose their children to the risk of becoming promiscuous or indulging in drug and alcohol abuse. "Many, many young people, when expressing their dreams and hopes, express the desire to one day be happily married and to have a family."
The cardinal's comments follow a series of clashes between the Catholic Church and the Government over the introduction of gay equality legislation and civil partnerships. Some Catholics have even questioned the Cardinal's role in the recent conversion of Tony Blair, the former prime minister, who was instrumental in pushing through many of the reforms.
In his message, the cardinal urged parents to bring God into their homes so that their children would carry Christian values into the next generation. "Our children are the messages we send to tomorrow," he said. "We can forget easily what is said in church, or even in school, but we don't forget what happens in the home. "Somehow, if we take God's Word into our daily life and try to live it, then we are scattering the seed ourselves for the younger generation and generations to come."
Source
British credit-card chief forced to quit after making Shi'ite joke
We read:
Must not upset those delicate little Muslims. But Irish jokes still seem to be OK. I wonder why? The Irish have been known to blow people up too. Could it be that they are white and Christian?
Socialized medicine leads to dictatorship over your personal life
The endpoint of all socialism -- as Hegel gleefully foresaw
Patients could be required to stop smoking, take exercise or lose weight before they can be treated on the National Health Service, Gordon Brown has suggested. In a New Year message to NHS staff, the Prime Minister indicates people may have to fulfil new "responsibilities" in order to establish their entitlement to care. The new conditions could be set out in a formal NHS "constitution", Mr Brown says.
In his open letter to doctors, nurses and other health workers, the Prime Minister promises to press on with Tony Blair's reforms of the NHS, pledging more personalised care for all patients. He adds: "We will also examine how all these changes can be enshrined in a new constitution of the NHS, setting out for the first time the rights and responsibilities associated with an entitlement to NHS care."
Creating formal conditions for treatment would build on recent controversial developments in health policy. Despite the NHS commitment to provide free universal care, it is already common for doctors to set conditions on patients seeking treatment. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence already considers so-called self-induced illnesses in setting the criteria that determine which patients should qualify for new or expensive health treatments. And this year Leicester City Primary Care Trust was given Government approval to ask smokers to quit before they are given places on waiting lists for operations such as hip replacements and heart surgery.
Obese people also face more conditions from doctors who say being very overweight unnecessarily complicates many procedures. For example, fertility doctors have argued that very obese women should be denied access to IVF treatment.
Mr Brown has promised more "personalised" services from the NHS. He makes clear that his reforms will rest on people being more accountable for their own health, too. "We will describe how we will achieve our shared ambition of an NHS which is more personal and responsive to individual needs," the Prime Minister writes. "Personalised not just because patients can get the treatment that they need when and where they want, but because from an early stage we are all given the information and advice to take greater responsibility for our own health."
Katherine Murphy, a spokesman for the Patients Association, raised fears about the spread of conditions in the NHS. She said: "We would have concerns about this. Patients do have a right to access to care and we would be very concerned if people were to be denied access to care. "Is this being done for the patient, or is it just another way of saving money?"
Since becoming Prime Minister, critics say Mr Brown has sent mixed messages about his plans for NHS reform. But Mr Brown makes clear the NHS must change to respond more quickly and directly to the wishes and needs of its patients, just as businesses respond to their customers. "I believe these are steps vital to securing the health of the NHS for the next 60 years," Mr Brown says. "They will require a broadening and a deepening of reform to ensure that the NHS as a whole attaches the same priority to a personal and -preventative service as many of you already reflect in your own day-to-day decisions."
Source
Unhand my patio heater, archbishop
British skeptic Jeremy Clarkson takes on the Church of the Environment in his usual mocking style. I have added as picture of His Grace below so that all readers will understand Clarkson's satirical allusions to beards and eyebrows
The Archbishop of Canterbury told the faithful on Christmas Day that unless human beings abandon our greed, we will be responsible for the death of the planet. Hmm. I'm not sure that I can take a lecture on greed from a man who heads one of the western world's richest institutions. As we huddle under a patio heater to stay warm while having a cigarette in the rain, his bishops are living in palatial splendour with banqueting halls, wondering where to invest the next billion.
And are the churches open at night as shelter for the homeless and the weak? No, they are locked lest someone should decide to redress the inequalities of western society by half-inching a candelabra and fencing it to buy Christmas presents for his kiddies.
Then we must ask how much old Rowan really understands about the implications and causes of global warming. He thinks that taking a holiday in Florida and driving a Range Rover caused the flooding in Tewkesbury this summer. But then he also believes it's possible for a man to walk on water and feed a crowd of 5,000 with nothing more than a couple of sardines.
Hmm. Well here are some facts that Rowan might like to chew on over his fair-trade breakfast cereal. The Alps are enjoying good snowfalls this year, in much the same way that the Alps in New South Wales enjoyed healthy snowfalls last summer. The hurricane season finished a couple of weeks ago and, contrary to all the scaremongering from Al Gore's mates, the number of severe storms, for the second year in a row, was slightly below average.
Closer to home, Britain did not, as was predicted by the BBC's hysterical internet news site, bake this summer under record-breaking temperatures. It was wet and soggy, much like in all the summers of my youth. And the only reason Tewkesbury flooded is because we've all paved our drives and built houses on the flood plains so the rainwater had nowhere else to go apart from Mrs Miggins's front room.
In the light of all this, I would like Rowan Williams to come out from behind his eyebrows and tell us how many people have been killed by greed-induced global warming. Because even the most swivel-eyed lunatic would be hard pressed to claim it's more than a few dozen.
Meanwhile, I reckon the number of people killed over the years by religious wars is around 809m. I tell you this, beardie. Many, many more people have died in the name of God than were killed in the name of Hitler.
Between 1096 and 1270, the Crusades killed about 1.5m. Way more than have been killed by patio heaters and Range Rovers combined. Then there was the 30 years' war, which reduced Europe's population by about 7.5m. And the slaughter is still going on today in Iraq and Afghanistan and Palestine and Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto was killed by a religious nut, not a homeless polar bear.
We have been told by those of a communist disposition that if we return to a life of sackcloth and potato soup (bishops excepted) and if we meet all the targets laid down by the great scientist John Prescott at Kyoto, then Britain will be a shining beacon to the world. Others will see what we have done and immediately lay down their 4x4s.
Rubbish. America and China and India will ignore our lunacy and our economic suicide and continue to embody the human spirit for self-improvement (or greed, as Rowan calls it).
No matter. Old Rowan will doubtless applaud the move. This is a man who was arrested in the antinuclear protests of the 1980s. Who refused to call the 9/11 terrorists evil and said they had serious moral goals. Who thinks that every single thing bought and sold is "an act of aggression" on the developing world. Who campaigns for gay rights but wouldn't actually appoint a homosexual as a bishop. And who recently said in an interview that America was the bad guy and that Muslims in Britain were like the good Samaritans. In other words, he's a full-on, five-star, paid-up member of the loony left, so anything that prevents the middle classes from having a Range Rover and a patio heater is bound to get his vote.
If, however, he really wants to bring peace and stability to the world, if he really believes Britain can be a force for good and a shining beacon in troubled times, then I urge him to close the Church of England. If we can demonstrate that we can survive without a church - and when you note 750,000 more people went online shopping on Christmas Day than went to church, you could argue we already do - then, who knows, maybe the mullahs and the left-footers will follow suit.
Daft? Not as daft as expecting the government in Beijing to renounce electricity because everyone in Britain has swapped their Range Rover for a mangle.
But better? Well yes. I genuinely believe we are born with a moral compass and we don't need it reset every Sunday morning by some weird-beard communist in a dress. I am, as you may have gathered, completely unreligious, but it doesn't stop me trying to be kind to others, and I'm never completely overwhelmed with a need to murder madmen in pulpits. Slightly overwhelmed sometimes, but never completely.
Source
Brits trounce Taliban: "British commandos launched a devastating blitz on the Taliban - as the evil terrorists held a party to celebrate Benazir Bhutto's murder. The dawn raid was staged after messages were intercepted about the sick knees-up in Afghanistan's Helmand province. Royal Marines crept into position as the fanatics partied the night away just hours after Ms Bhutto was killed in Pakistan. The terrorists were pounded with mortars, rockets and heavy machine guns. Two bloodthirsty revellers trying to creep towards Our Boys in a trench were spotted by thermal-imaging equipment - and targeted with a Javelin heat-seeking missile. The 65,000 pounds sterling rocket - designed to stop Soviet tanks - locked on to their body heat and tore more than a kilometer across the desert in seconds. Troop Sergeant Dominic Conway, 32 - who directed mortar rounds - grinned: "It must have had quite a detrimental effect on their morale." Sgt Conway, from Whitley Bay, Tyneside, said of the Taliban lair: "It used to be their backyard and now we've made it ours."
Roman Catholic bishops are to appear in front of a powerful committee of MPs amid fears that they are pushing a fundamentalist brand of their religion in schools. Bishops have called on parents, teachers and priests to strengthen the role of religion in education. In one case the Bishop of Lancaster, Patrick O'Donoghue, instructed Catholic schools across much of north-west England to stop 'safe-sex' education and place crucifixes in all classrooms.
He also wrote: 'Schools and colleges must not support charities or groups that promote or fund anti-life policies, such as Red Nose Day and Amnesty International, which now advocates abortion.' In a 66-page document, O'Donoghue called on teachers to use science to teach about the 'truths of the faith', only mention sex within the 'sacrament of marriage', insist that contraception was wrong and emphasise natural family planning.
The Bishop of Leeds, Arthur Roche, sent a letter to parishes warning them that Catholic education was under threat following attempts by the local council to set up an inter-faith academy.
Barry Sheerman, chairman of the parliamentary cross-party committee on children, schools and families, said he had heard of other cases and felt that behind the scenes there was 'intense turmoil' about the future of Catholic education. 'A group of bishops appear to be taking a much firmer line and I think it would be useful to call representatives of the Catholic church in front of the committee to find out what is going on,' he said. 'It seems to me that faith education works all right as long as people are not that serious about their faith. But as soon as there is a more doctrinaire attitude questions have to be asked. It does become worrying when you get a new push from more fundamentalist bishops. This is taxpayers' money after all.'
Sheerman, MP for Huddersfield, asked to meet Roche about the possibility of setting up an inter-faith school in the area. 'The bishop took a long time to agree to meet and eventually we set a date in May,' said Sheerman. 'But just before we were due to meet - during the May elections - he had a letter read out in every parish church in Kirklees and Calderdale, a really big area, accusing politicians of trying to dilute Catholic education. He said Roman Catholic education was under threat.'
In Fit for Mission, the document written for schools in the Lancaster diocese, O'Donoghue wrote: 'The secular view on sex outside of marriage, artificial contraception, sexually transmitted disease, including HIV and Aids, and abortion, may not be presented as neutral information ... parents, schools and colleges must also reject the promotion of so-called "safe sex" or "safer sex", a dangerous and immoral policy based on the deluded theory that the condom can provide adequate protection against Aids.'
The bishop also called for any books containing polemics against the Catholic faith to be removed from school libraries. 'Under no circumstances should any outside authority or agency that is not fully qualified to speak on behalf of the Catholic church ever be allowed to speak to pupils or individuals on sexual or any other matter involving faith and morals,' he said.
The report has outraged non-religious groups, who accused the bishop of trying to 'indoctrinate' pupils. In a letter to Secretary of State Ed Balls, the National Secular Society wrote: 'What happened to a well-rounded education - which is what British state schools are supposed to provide?' Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the society, said: 'I do not think the state should be funding Catholic indoctrination.' He highlighted a poll released by the US group Catholics for a Free Choice showing that most Catholics across the world believed using condoms was pro-life because it prevented the spread of HIV and Aids.
Teachers expressed concern that the bishop's instructions could damage the health of teenagers who chose to become sexually active despite the church's teaching. 'Irrespective of the strongly held views of those in the Catholic faith, it is absolutely vital for the future of children's wellbeing, health and safety that they receive proper sex education,' said Steve Sinnott, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers. O'Donoghue said it was 'absolute rubbish' that what he was advocating was indoctrination.
Source
Cardinal criticises UK homosexual laws
The senior Roman Catholic leader used his New Year message to praise marriage and deliver an implicit attack on the Government's gay equality laws. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the head of the Church in England and Wales, said most parents did not want their children to be taught that marriage was just "one lifestyle choice among many".
The cardinal said the traditional family remained central to the well-being of society but was being dangerously eroded. While society was slowly waking up to the dangers of climate change and pollution for the planet, it was still destroying the family, he said. "It has taken us a long time to realise that if we cut down trees, use cars with highly leaded fuels and build factories with toxic emissions, we were gradually destroying the ecosystem within which we live and breathe.
"Perhaps, however, it has been harder for us to admit those elements in our relationships or in our society which have contributed to the fragmentation of the family. "Yet it is equally true that we are rapidly moving the very structures on which society is built and on which humanity depends; we are gradually destroying the 'ecosystem' that supports the family."
The cardinal said he was aware that many people had suffered broken marriages or were "courageous" single parents and he understood their sorrow and hurt. However, he emphasised the Catholic Church's commitment to the home as the focus of family life and the centrality of Christian marriage. "Most parents do not want their children to be taught that marriage is no more than one lifestyle choice among many," he said. "They do not want to expose their children to the risk of becoming promiscuous or indulging in drug and alcohol abuse. "Many, many young people, when expressing their dreams and hopes, express the desire to one day be happily married and to have a family."
The cardinal's comments follow a series of clashes between the Catholic Church and the Government over the introduction of gay equality legislation and civil partnerships. Some Catholics have even questioned the Cardinal's role in the recent conversion of Tony Blair, the former prime minister, who was instrumental in pushing through many of the reforms.
In his message, the cardinal urged parents to bring God into their homes so that their children would carry Christian values into the next generation. "Our children are the messages we send to tomorrow," he said. "We can forget easily what is said in church, or even in school, but we don't forget what happens in the home. "Somehow, if we take God's Word into our daily life and try to live it, then we are scattering the seed ourselves for the younger generation and generations to come."
Source
British credit-card chief forced to quit after making Shi'ite joke
We read:
"A director of Barclaycard has left the company in disgrace after making a joke deemed offensive to Muslims. Marc Howells, 42, who earned 200,000 pounds a year, was addressing senior executives about the credit card company's quarterly figures when he tried to make them laugh with the quip. Mr Howells said: "The results were like Muslims - some were good, some were Shi'ite."
Some outraged colleagues forced embarrassed laughs while others were stunned into silence, but Mr Howells seemed unaware of causing any offence. His pun was later reported to senior management, however, and after some discussion he left the company last month before any disciplinary process could begin.
Source
Must not upset those delicate little Muslims. But Irish jokes still seem to be OK. I wonder why? The Irish have been known to blow people up too. Could it be that they are white and Christian?
Socialized medicine leads to dictatorship over your personal life
The endpoint of all socialism -- as Hegel gleefully foresaw
Patients could be required to stop smoking, take exercise or lose weight before they can be treated on the National Health Service, Gordon Brown has suggested. In a New Year message to NHS staff, the Prime Minister indicates people may have to fulfil new "responsibilities" in order to establish their entitlement to care. The new conditions could be set out in a formal NHS "constitution", Mr Brown says.
In his open letter to doctors, nurses and other health workers, the Prime Minister promises to press on with Tony Blair's reforms of the NHS, pledging more personalised care for all patients. He adds: "We will also examine how all these changes can be enshrined in a new constitution of the NHS, setting out for the first time the rights and responsibilities associated with an entitlement to NHS care."
Creating formal conditions for treatment would build on recent controversial developments in health policy. Despite the NHS commitment to provide free universal care, it is already common for doctors to set conditions on patients seeking treatment. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence already considers so-called self-induced illnesses in setting the criteria that determine which patients should qualify for new or expensive health treatments. And this year Leicester City Primary Care Trust was given Government approval to ask smokers to quit before they are given places on waiting lists for operations such as hip replacements and heart surgery.
Obese people also face more conditions from doctors who say being very overweight unnecessarily complicates many procedures. For example, fertility doctors have argued that very obese women should be denied access to IVF treatment.
Mr Brown has promised more "personalised" services from the NHS. He makes clear that his reforms will rest on people being more accountable for their own health, too. "We will describe how we will achieve our shared ambition of an NHS which is more personal and responsive to individual needs," the Prime Minister writes. "Personalised not just because patients can get the treatment that they need when and where they want, but because from an early stage we are all given the information and advice to take greater responsibility for our own health."
Katherine Murphy, a spokesman for the Patients Association, raised fears about the spread of conditions in the NHS. She said: "We would have concerns about this. Patients do have a right to access to care and we would be very concerned if people were to be denied access to care. "Is this being done for the patient, or is it just another way of saving money?"
Since becoming Prime Minister, critics say Mr Brown has sent mixed messages about his plans for NHS reform. But Mr Brown makes clear the NHS must change to respond more quickly and directly to the wishes and needs of its patients, just as businesses respond to their customers. "I believe these are steps vital to securing the health of the NHS for the next 60 years," Mr Brown says. "They will require a broadening and a deepening of reform to ensure that the NHS as a whole attaches the same priority to a personal and -preventative service as many of you already reflect in your own day-to-day decisions."
Source
Unhand my patio heater, archbishop
British skeptic Jeremy Clarkson takes on the Church of the Environment in his usual mocking style. I have added as picture of His Grace below so that all readers will understand Clarkson's satirical allusions to beards and eyebrows
The Archbishop of Canterbury told the faithful on Christmas Day that unless human beings abandon our greed, we will be responsible for the death of the planet. Hmm. I'm not sure that I can take a lecture on greed from a man who heads one of the western world's richest institutions. As we huddle under a patio heater to stay warm while having a cigarette in the rain, his bishops are living in palatial splendour with banqueting halls, wondering where to invest the next billion.
And are the churches open at night as shelter for the homeless and the weak? No, they are locked lest someone should decide to redress the inequalities of western society by half-inching a candelabra and fencing it to buy Christmas presents for his kiddies.
Then we must ask how much old Rowan really understands about the implications and causes of global warming. He thinks that taking a holiday in Florida and driving a Range Rover caused the flooding in Tewkesbury this summer. But then he also believes it's possible for a man to walk on water and feed a crowd of 5,000 with nothing more than a couple of sardines.
Hmm. Well here are some facts that Rowan might like to chew on over his fair-trade breakfast cereal. The Alps are enjoying good snowfalls this year, in much the same way that the Alps in New South Wales enjoyed healthy snowfalls last summer. The hurricane season finished a couple of weeks ago and, contrary to all the scaremongering from Al Gore's mates, the number of severe storms, for the second year in a row, was slightly below average.
Closer to home, Britain did not, as was predicted by the BBC's hysterical internet news site, bake this summer under record-breaking temperatures. It was wet and soggy, much like in all the summers of my youth. And the only reason Tewkesbury flooded is because we've all paved our drives and built houses on the flood plains so the rainwater had nowhere else to go apart from Mrs Miggins's front room.
In the light of all this, I would like Rowan Williams to come out from behind his eyebrows and tell us how many people have been killed by greed-induced global warming. Because even the most swivel-eyed lunatic would be hard pressed to claim it's more than a few dozen.
Meanwhile, I reckon the number of people killed over the years by religious wars is around 809m. I tell you this, beardie. Many, many more people have died in the name of God than were killed in the name of Hitler.
Between 1096 and 1270, the Crusades killed about 1.5m. Way more than have been killed by patio heaters and Range Rovers combined. Then there was the 30 years' war, which reduced Europe's population by about 7.5m. And the slaughter is still going on today in Iraq and Afghanistan and Palestine and Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto was killed by a religious nut, not a homeless polar bear.
We have been told by those of a communist disposition that if we return to a life of sackcloth and potato soup (bishops excepted) and if we meet all the targets laid down by the great scientist John Prescott at Kyoto, then Britain will be a shining beacon to the world. Others will see what we have done and immediately lay down their 4x4s.
Rubbish. America and China and India will ignore our lunacy and our economic suicide and continue to embody the human spirit for self-improvement (or greed, as Rowan calls it).
No matter. Old Rowan will doubtless applaud the move. This is a man who was arrested in the antinuclear protests of the 1980s. Who refused to call the 9/11 terrorists evil and said they had serious moral goals. Who thinks that every single thing bought and sold is "an act of aggression" on the developing world. Who campaigns for gay rights but wouldn't actually appoint a homosexual as a bishop. And who recently said in an interview that America was the bad guy and that Muslims in Britain were like the good Samaritans. In other words, he's a full-on, five-star, paid-up member of the loony left, so anything that prevents the middle classes from having a Range Rover and a patio heater is bound to get his vote.
If, however, he really wants to bring peace and stability to the world, if he really believes Britain can be a force for good and a shining beacon in troubled times, then I urge him to close the Church of England. If we can demonstrate that we can survive without a church - and when you note 750,000 more people went online shopping on Christmas Day than went to church, you could argue we already do - then, who knows, maybe the mullahs and the left-footers will follow suit.
Daft? Not as daft as expecting the government in Beijing to renounce electricity because everyone in Britain has swapped their Range Rover for a mangle.
But better? Well yes. I genuinely believe we are born with a moral compass and we don't need it reset every Sunday morning by some weird-beard communist in a dress. I am, as you may have gathered, completely unreligious, but it doesn't stop me trying to be kind to others, and I'm never completely overwhelmed with a need to murder madmen in pulpits. Slightly overwhelmed sometimes, but never completely.
Source
Brits trounce Taliban: "British commandos launched a devastating blitz on the Taliban - as the evil terrorists held a party to celebrate Benazir Bhutto's murder. The dawn raid was staged after messages were intercepted about the sick knees-up in Afghanistan's Helmand province. Royal Marines crept into position as the fanatics partied the night away just hours after Ms Bhutto was killed in Pakistan. The terrorists were pounded with mortars, rockets and heavy machine guns. Two bloodthirsty revellers trying to creep towards Our Boys in a trench were spotted by thermal-imaging equipment - and targeted with a Javelin heat-seeking missile. The 65,000 pounds sterling rocket - designed to stop Soviet tanks - locked on to their body heat and tore more than a kilometer across the desert in seconds. Troop Sergeant Dominic Conway, 32 - who directed mortar rounds - grinned: "It must have had quite a detrimental effect on their morale." Sgt Conway, from Whitley Bay, Tyneside, said of the Taliban lair: "It used to be their backyard and now we've made it ours."
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Rich pull away from poor in the classroom
In characteristic form, the Labour Party has achieved the opposite of what it claimed to aim at
The colonisation by the middle classes of the best state schools has led to a dramatic widening of the gap in educational performance between rich and poor children in the past year, new figures indicate. An analysis of government data by the Conservative Party shows that the achievement divide between pupils in the 10 per cent richest and poorest areas of England has grown by more than ten percentage points, compared with fractional increases of less than one percentage point in previous years.
The figures also show that the attainment gap between rich and poor continues to widen as pupils progress through school. At age 7, the performance gap between pupils in the 10 per cent richest and poorest areas was 20 percentage points in 2007. At age 16, however, the gap had more than doubled to 43.1 per cent, suggesting that far from being a leveller, school was increasing the disparity.
The figures underscore the massive influence of parental background on school success. More than 65 per cent of children in the wealthiest group achieved at least five good GCSEs, including English and maths, this summer but the figure for children from the poorest backgrounds was less than 26 per cent.
Michael Gove, the Shadow Education Secretary, said that the system favoured those who were fortunate enough, or rich enough, to live in areas with good schools. "If you have nominal parental choice over school admissions, but an undersupply of good schools, you will find that the sharp-elbowed middle-class parents get access to excellent schools, but those trapped in deprived areas do not," he said.
Mr Gove said that the dramatic widening of the gap this year, after much smaller incremental increases in previous years, was the result of the cumulative effect of this phenomenon. He noted that pupil performance in the richest areas had improved at twice the rate that it had deteriorated in poor areas. An additional explanation of the sudden widening of the gap this year may be the influx of immigrants who do not have English as a first language, he suggested.
Conservative plans to allow good new schools to open in deprived areas, with extra cash for children from more deprived homes, would reverse a growing social class gap, he said.
Alan Smithers, Professor of Education at the University of Buckingham, said: "Even where you have good schools in poor areas, like some of the academies, they are progressively taken over by ambitious parents."
The figures come after recent concern by Christine Gilbert, the Chief Inspector of Schools, that the school system was dividing children along social and economic lines. They show that in 2005 28.2 per cent of pupils in the 10 per cent most deprived areas gained at least five GCSEs, including English and maths, at grades A* to C. In the richest 10 per cent of areas, 56.2 per cent of pupils reached this level, giving an attainment gap of 28 percentage points. In 2006 the figures were 29.2 and 57.6 per cent respectively, with a performance gap of 28.4 percentage points. In 2007 the figures were 25.3 and 68.4 per cent respectively, with a performance gap of 43.1 percentage points.
A spokeswoman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said that closing the attainment gap was a priority for the Government. The Government had invested more than 21 billion pounds in childcare and the early years since 1997, so that poor children could get better chances in early life, she said. It was now providing one-to-one tuition and personalised support to help every child to achieve at school, regardless of social background. She added: "We can only tackle deprivation and poverty by changing the aspirations of young people, their parents and the education system."
Source
Schools and class hatred in Britain
Let's make a 2008 resolution, politicians and polemicists together. Let us renounce certain chippy clich‚s when talking about schools and social mobility. Let it become a mockable offence to refer - as Michael Gove MP did yesterday - to "the sharp-elbowed middle classes" who "colonise" the best schools. Let professors of education like Alan Smithers feel a stab of shame when they take an easy pop at academies getting "taken over by ambitious parents". Let columnists beware of jeering at the "stupid spawn of the rich".
Fun though it may be, it is all a wicked distraction from the main task: the improvement of all British schools - yes, all - and an absolute intolerance of the shoddy, the dull, the undisciplined and the woolly. The new figures hauled out by the Conservatives only reinforce a swath of others, which make it clear that, after ten years of Labour government, the gap between rich and poor children's attainment is actually widening.
But jeering at "sharp-elbowed middle classes" is a pure distraction technique, blurring the inconvenient truth that many of our schools are (if not actually chaos) intellectually unambitious and overburdened with irrelevant duties. It leads to such class-war fatalism as the ridiculous theory that places should be allocated by lottery: which implies accepting that some schools will always be rubbish, so let's spread the misery around by ballot.
No: it won't do. How dare a professor of education sneer at "ambitious" parents? Would he prefer it if they didn't give a damn? How dare a Conservative MP criticise conscientious middle-income parents as "colonists", and suggest that their "sharp elbows" deliberately disable the poor?
Is it wicked for parents to want their children taught well in calm surroundings? Is it wrong to do your best? Most families are beset by worries about mortgages and redundancy and recession; they are not making war on the disadvantaged, but just doing what they can. They may kick off if rowdy children cause distraction and intimidation or sell drugs in the playground, but that is not class war. Any private school head will tell you that disruption and drug dealing occur in every echelon of society, and that parents protest just as fiercely when the Hon Freddie gives their child grief as when Charlie Chav does.
There are many roots of our school problem, and middle-class elbows are the least significant. One - fading now, thank God - is the legacy of the early comprehensive movement, which reacted against the cruel 11-plus by denigrating cleverness, precocity and academic passion in favour of mixed ability and rigid age groups. Then there has been a 25-year mania of central governments to interfere with every detail of the curriculum and keep moving the goalposts, thus de-professionalising and demoralising teachers.
Meanwhile a well-intentioned new sense of children's rights has led, through timidity and confusion, to an absurd erosion of teachers' authority - so now we need actual parliamentary edicts to enable staff to confiscate mobile phones in class. At the same time the mishandling of numerous cases of false sexual accusation, with adults guilty until proven innocent, scared many men out of the profession, creating a feminised, boy-hostile atmosphere. And now we have evidence that unpredicted, unmonitored and unresourced immigration leaves some schools unable even to teach the newcomers English.
On top of all that, there is a terrible fashion for loading on to schools the responsibility for inculcating things that are not facts or skills at all, but social desiderata - citizenship, sex education, diversity. This is largely a waste of time: note that while sex education has "improved", teenage motherhood and abortion have climbed. It is now causing another ruction because of the equally loopy obsession with faith schools. Barry Sheerman, chairman of the Education Select Committee, is at odds with the Bishop of Lancaster who has (surprise, surprise) decreed that Catholic schools must not teach "safe sex" and contraception in a morally neutral manner, nor support Red Nose Day.
Mr Sheerman and assorted secularists are up in arms, asking why the state should fund "indoctrination" (do they think Muslim schools teach free love, then?). But they miss the main point, which is that this is froth. A State that really cared about the core of education, and its ability to raise and inspire poor children, would not faff about making schools teach citizenship and condom technque. If sex education is so important, force every 12-year-old to do a holiday course run by nurses. If citizenship is important, then support local youth groups instead of closing them down because their kitchen isn't up to scratch or they can't afford enough slow-motion criminal records checks. Let schools just teach - properly, to an exam standard that cannot be fiddled, and with a focus on real subjects, whether that means astrophysics or practical woodwork.
I do not have the answer to every educational problem. Nobody does. I just know that one place where the answer certainly does not lie is in sniping at imaginary "middle-class" elbows. Stop doing it. Leave the poor sods alone. If all the schools were good, they'd soon stop manoeuvring, with a sigh of relief. Worried parental behaviour - if indeed there is anything wrong about it - is due to the deficit in the school system. It's a symptom, not a cause.
Source
British prison bosses ban sexist jokes in jail
Regulation frenzy over milk
The way that milk companies are allowed to market their products is changing today as health chiefs attempt to get people to reduce their intake of fat. Until now, European Commission regulations meant that milk could be marketed only within tightly defined ranges as whole or full-fat, semi-skimmed or skimmed. Strict rules governed the fat content of each.
From today, after lobbying by Britain, dairy products containing 1 per cent fat - above the level of skimmed milk, but below semi-skimmed - can also be marketed as milk. So can products with 2 per cent fat, above semi-skimmed but well below full fat. Health chiefs are convinced that this extra choice will encourage consumers to switch to products that have lower fat than their usual intake.
Currently, semi-skimmed milk - which contains 1.5 to 1.8 per cent fat - accounts for 63.9 per cent of the market. Whole, or full-fat milk, important for children's development, accounts for 24.7 per cent of all milk sales. It contains 3.5 per cent fat. Skimmed milk, which contains less than 0.5 per cent fat, accounts for 11.3 per cent of sales. Dairy industry experts believe that the change could boost milk consumption. Between 1995 and 2005 average consumption per adult fell from four pints per week to three.
In the US "1 per cent milk" is a popular concept. Wiseman's Dairy in Glasgow introduced "The One" three years ago, a product containing 1 per cent fat which until now could not be labelled milk. Sales have increased by 38 per cent in a year. Experts also believe that consumers can easily adapt to the taste if fat content is adjusted only mildly. Many people may switch from semi-skimmed to 1 per cent milk because there is only a little difference in taste. Similarly, adults who prefer full-fat milk could switch to a 2 per cent product. Food manufacturers are also expected to use low-fat milks and cheeses in sauces, ready meals and dairy-based puddings.
A recent scientific report for ministers by the Foresight Programme suggested that without urgent action to tackle diet, almost half of adults and a quarter of all children will be dangerously overweight by 2050. The cost to the country was estimated at 45 billion a year; of this, 6.5 billion would be needed to pay for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, strokes, high blood pressure, cancer and heart disease and the rest of the cost would be in absenteeism and benefits.
Judith Bryans, of the Dairy Council, said that introducing 1 per cent and 2 per cent milk would help to open up the market and result in products to suit modern tastes. "Some people like semi-skimmed but won't touch skimmed, but they might like something in between," she said. Rosemary Hignett, director of nutrition at the Food Standards Agency, said: "Using 1 per cent milk could help to reduce saturated fat levels in some foods and would be a positive move for the consumer."
A spokeswoman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: "This provides an opportunity for the dairy sector to satisfy demand for innovative, transparently labelled, lower-fat products, adding further value to the dairy supply chain and helping the consumer to make informed decisions." Reducing the fat content does not lower milk's nutritional value in any way, said Susan Jebb, a nutrition scientist at the Medical Research Council.
Source
Oldsters now kindly permitted to have a drink or three
These clots seem to think that oldsters will be listening to them
The over-65s should not be bullied into abstaining from alcohol by the belief that drink is more harmful to older people than it is to the young or middle-aged. Regular, moderate drinking poses no additional risks to the over-65s and can even bring health benefits, according to two studies from the Peninsula Medical School in the South West of England. For men and women, better brain functioning, a better sense of wellbeing and fewer depressive symptoms are linked to moderate drinking when compared with abstinence.
Researchers led by Iain Lang assessed the drinking levels of more than 13,000 people in England and the US who were aged 65 and over, and looked at the effects on physical disability, mortality, cognitive function, depression and wellbeing. They concluded that moderate drinking is fine for the over-65s - and, in some cases, it is better than not drinking at all.
"We are not advocating that elderly people should go out and get ridiculously drunk," Dr Lang said. "What we are saying is that current guidelines on drinking for the elderly are too conservative. A couple of drinks a day will do no harm and will have a more beneficial affect on cognitive and general health than abstinence. In the UK, the guidelines on alcohol consumption in older people are vague," he said. "Alcohol Concern recommends that older people `cut down' their alcohol consumption and that moderate consumption `might be too much for some older people'.
"In Australia and New Zealand, older people are advised to `consider drinking less'. In the US, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism sets limits for the over-65s of one drink a day, which is half of what they recommend for younger men. "These recommendations are based on assumptions about what happens to the body as it ages, and that it becomes less tolerant of alcohol. Our findings show that this isn't supported. There is no evidence to suggest drinking at moderate levels is harmful to older people. It can provide health benefits."
The research showed that 10.8 per cent of the US men, 28.6 per cent of the British men, 2.9 per cent of the US women and 10.3 per cent of the British women drank more than one drink a day. But the research also showed that those drinking on average more than one to two drinks a day achieved similar health results as those drinking up to one drink a day. "The worst results were from those who did not drink at all and from those who were heavy drinkers. The studies also found lower levels of risk of death or disability among English drinkers than Americans, although the authors did not understand why this should be.
Men and women who drank moderately enjoyed better brain functioning, a better sense of wellbeing and fewer depressive symptoms than those who abstained. The shape of the relationship between alcohol consumption and the risk of disability were similar in men and women.
The results were published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society and Age and Ageing. The research by the team concluded that overrestrictive limits could do harm because people ignore them or because effort is wasted trying to persuade them to give up alcohol when it is doing them no harm. "Because overrestrictive limits risk encouraging nihilistic responses or fruitless clinical effort, a review is needed of the evidence base for the lower hazardous drinking definitions for older adults," they concluded in their report in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
Dr Lang said: "There is no reason why older people should not enjoy a tipple, as long as they are sensible about it. "Previous research has shown that middle-aged people can benefit from moderate drinking. These findings show the same applies to the over-65s."
Source
In characteristic form, the Labour Party has achieved the opposite of what it claimed to aim at
The colonisation by the middle classes of the best state schools has led to a dramatic widening of the gap in educational performance between rich and poor children in the past year, new figures indicate. An analysis of government data by the Conservative Party shows that the achievement divide between pupils in the 10 per cent richest and poorest areas of England has grown by more than ten percentage points, compared with fractional increases of less than one percentage point in previous years.
The figures also show that the attainment gap between rich and poor continues to widen as pupils progress through school. At age 7, the performance gap between pupils in the 10 per cent richest and poorest areas was 20 percentage points in 2007. At age 16, however, the gap had more than doubled to 43.1 per cent, suggesting that far from being a leveller, school was increasing the disparity.
The figures underscore the massive influence of parental background on school success. More than 65 per cent of children in the wealthiest group achieved at least five good GCSEs, including English and maths, this summer but the figure for children from the poorest backgrounds was less than 26 per cent.
Michael Gove, the Shadow Education Secretary, said that the system favoured those who were fortunate enough, or rich enough, to live in areas with good schools. "If you have nominal parental choice over school admissions, but an undersupply of good schools, you will find that the sharp-elbowed middle-class parents get access to excellent schools, but those trapped in deprived areas do not," he said.
Mr Gove said that the dramatic widening of the gap this year, after much smaller incremental increases in previous years, was the result of the cumulative effect of this phenomenon. He noted that pupil performance in the richest areas had improved at twice the rate that it had deteriorated in poor areas. An additional explanation of the sudden widening of the gap this year may be the influx of immigrants who do not have English as a first language, he suggested.
Conservative plans to allow good new schools to open in deprived areas, with extra cash for children from more deprived homes, would reverse a growing social class gap, he said.
Alan Smithers, Professor of Education at the University of Buckingham, said: "Even where you have good schools in poor areas, like some of the academies, they are progressively taken over by ambitious parents."
The figures come after recent concern by Christine Gilbert, the Chief Inspector of Schools, that the school system was dividing children along social and economic lines. They show that in 2005 28.2 per cent of pupils in the 10 per cent most deprived areas gained at least five GCSEs, including English and maths, at grades A* to C. In the richest 10 per cent of areas, 56.2 per cent of pupils reached this level, giving an attainment gap of 28 percentage points. In 2006 the figures were 29.2 and 57.6 per cent respectively, with a performance gap of 28.4 percentage points. In 2007 the figures were 25.3 and 68.4 per cent respectively, with a performance gap of 43.1 percentage points.
A spokeswoman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said that closing the attainment gap was a priority for the Government. The Government had invested more than 21 billion pounds in childcare and the early years since 1997, so that poor children could get better chances in early life, she said. It was now providing one-to-one tuition and personalised support to help every child to achieve at school, regardless of social background. She added: "We can only tackle deprivation and poverty by changing the aspirations of young people, their parents and the education system."
Source
Schools and class hatred in Britain
Let's make a 2008 resolution, politicians and polemicists together. Let us renounce certain chippy clich‚s when talking about schools and social mobility. Let it become a mockable offence to refer - as Michael Gove MP did yesterday - to "the sharp-elbowed middle classes" who "colonise" the best schools. Let professors of education like Alan Smithers feel a stab of shame when they take an easy pop at academies getting "taken over by ambitious parents". Let columnists beware of jeering at the "stupid spawn of the rich".
Fun though it may be, it is all a wicked distraction from the main task: the improvement of all British schools - yes, all - and an absolute intolerance of the shoddy, the dull, the undisciplined and the woolly. The new figures hauled out by the Conservatives only reinforce a swath of others, which make it clear that, after ten years of Labour government, the gap between rich and poor children's attainment is actually widening.
But jeering at "sharp-elbowed middle classes" is a pure distraction technique, blurring the inconvenient truth that many of our schools are (if not actually chaos) intellectually unambitious and overburdened with irrelevant duties. It leads to such class-war fatalism as the ridiculous theory that places should be allocated by lottery: which implies accepting that some schools will always be rubbish, so let's spread the misery around by ballot.
No: it won't do. How dare a professor of education sneer at "ambitious" parents? Would he prefer it if they didn't give a damn? How dare a Conservative MP criticise conscientious middle-income parents as "colonists", and suggest that their "sharp elbows" deliberately disable the poor?
Is it wicked for parents to want their children taught well in calm surroundings? Is it wrong to do your best? Most families are beset by worries about mortgages and redundancy and recession; they are not making war on the disadvantaged, but just doing what they can. They may kick off if rowdy children cause distraction and intimidation or sell drugs in the playground, but that is not class war. Any private school head will tell you that disruption and drug dealing occur in every echelon of society, and that parents protest just as fiercely when the Hon Freddie gives their child grief as when Charlie Chav does.
There are many roots of our school problem, and middle-class elbows are the least significant. One - fading now, thank God - is the legacy of the early comprehensive movement, which reacted against the cruel 11-plus by denigrating cleverness, precocity and academic passion in favour of mixed ability and rigid age groups. Then there has been a 25-year mania of central governments to interfere with every detail of the curriculum and keep moving the goalposts, thus de-professionalising and demoralising teachers.
Meanwhile a well-intentioned new sense of children's rights has led, through timidity and confusion, to an absurd erosion of teachers' authority - so now we need actual parliamentary edicts to enable staff to confiscate mobile phones in class. At the same time the mishandling of numerous cases of false sexual accusation, with adults guilty until proven innocent, scared many men out of the profession, creating a feminised, boy-hostile atmosphere. And now we have evidence that unpredicted, unmonitored and unresourced immigration leaves some schools unable even to teach the newcomers English.
On top of all that, there is a terrible fashion for loading on to schools the responsibility for inculcating things that are not facts or skills at all, but social desiderata - citizenship, sex education, diversity. This is largely a waste of time: note that while sex education has "improved", teenage motherhood and abortion have climbed. It is now causing another ruction because of the equally loopy obsession with faith schools. Barry Sheerman, chairman of the Education Select Committee, is at odds with the Bishop of Lancaster who has (surprise, surprise) decreed that Catholic schools must not teach "safe sex" and contraception in a morally neutral manner, nor support Red Nose Day.
Mr Sheerman and assorted secularists are up in arms, asking why the state should fund "indoctrination" (do they think Muslim schools teach free love, then?). But they miss the main point, which is that this is froth. A State that really cared about the core of education, and its ability to raise and inspire poor children, would not faff about making schools teach citizenship and condom technque. If sex education is so important, force every 12-year-old to do a holiday course run by nurses. If citizenship is important, then support local youth groups instead of closing them down because their kitchen isn't up to scratch or they can't afford enough slow-motion criminal records checks. Let schools just teach - properly, to an exam standard that cannot be fiddled, and with a focus on real subjects, whether that means astrophysics or practical woodwork.
I do not have the answer to every educational problem. Nobody does. I just know that one place where the answer certainly does not lie is in sniping at imaginary "middle-class" elbows. Stop doing it. Leave the poor sods alone. If all the schools were good, they'd soon stop manoeuvring, with a sigh of relief. Worried parental behaviour - if indeed there is anything wrong about it - is due to the deficit in the school system. It's a symptom, not a cause.
Source
British prison bosses ban sexist jokes in jail
"It's enough to make that old lag Norman Stanley Fletcher choke on his porridge ... prisoners have been banned from sharing "sexist" jokes.
Jail bosses say such quips could give the impression that women are "overly talkative" and "nagging." There is even a danger it could turn convicts to a life of crime, they say - since some lawbreaking stems from men having a "negative" view of the opposite sex.
The reaction of the country's 81,000 prison inmates remains to be seen as they digest a list of jokes which are now officially off-limits. It means that Fletch, played by Ronnie Barker in the classic television comedy Porridge, would certainly have been in trouble.
Source
Regulation frenzy over milk
The way that milk companies are allowed to market their products is changing today as health chiefs attempt to get people to reduce their intake of fat. Until now, European Commission regulations meant that milk could be marketed only within tightly defined ranges as whole or full-fat, semi-skimmed or skimmed. Strict rules governed the fat content of each.
From today, after lobbying by Britain, dairy products containing 1 per cent fat - above the level of skimmed milk, but below semi-skimmed - can also be marketed as milk. So can products with 2 per cent fat, above semi-skimmed but well below full fat. Health chiefs are convinced that this extra choice will encourage consumers to switch to products that have lower fat than their usual intake.
Currently, semi-skimmed milk - which contains 1.5 to 1.8 per cent fat - accounts for 63.9 per cent of the market. Whole, or full-fat milk, important for children's development, accounts for 24.7 per cent of all milk sales. It contains 3.5 per cent fat. Skimmed milk, which contains less than 0.5 per cent fat, accounts for 11.3 per cent of sales. Dairy industry experts believe that the change could boost milk consumption. Between 1995 and 2005 average consumption per adult fell from four pints per week to three.
In the US "1 per cent milk" is a popular concept. Wiseman's Dairy in Glasgow introduced "The One" three years ago, a product containing 1 per cent fat which until now could not be labelled milk. Sales have increased by 38 per cent in a year. Experts also believe that consumers can easily adapt to the taste if fat content is adjusted only mildly. Many people may switch from semi-skimmed to 1 per cent milk because there is only a little difference in taste. Similarly, adults who prefer full-fat milk could switch to a 2 per cent product. Food manufacturers are also expected to use low-fat milks and cheeses in sauces, ready meals and dairy-based puddings.
A recent scientific report for ministers by the Foresight Programme suggested that without urgent action to tackle diet, almost half of adults and a quarter of all children will be dangerously overweight by 2050. The cost to the country was estimated at 45 billion a year; of this, 6.5 billion would be needed to pay for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, strokes, high blood pressure, cancer and heart disease and the rest of the cost would be in absenteeism and benefits.
Judith Bryans, of the Dairy Council, said that introducing 1 per cent and 2 per cent milk would help to open up the market and result in products to suit modern tastes. "Some people like semi-skimmed but won't touch skimmed, but they might like something in between," she said. Rosemary Hignett, director of nutrition at the Food Standards Agency, said: "Using 1 per cent milk could help to reduce saturated fat levels in some foods and would be a positive move for the consumer."
A spokeswoman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: "This provides an opportunity for the dairy sector to satisfy demand for innovative, transparently labelled, lower-fat products, adding further value to the dairy supply chain and helping the consumer to make informed decisions." Reducing the fat content does not lower milk's nutritional value in any way, said Susan Jebb, a nutrition scientist at the Medical Research Council.
Source
Oldsters now kindly permitted to have a drink or three
These clots seem to think that oldsters will be listening to them
The over-65s should not be bullied into abstaining from alcohol by the belief that drink is more harmful to older people than it is to the young or middle-aged. Regular, moderate drinking poses no additional risks to the over-65s and can even bring health benefits, according to two studies from the Peninsula Medical School in the South West of England. For men and women, better brain functioning, a better sense of wellbeing and fewer depressive symptoms are linked to moderate drinking when compared with abstinence.
Researchers led by Iain Lang assessed the drinking levels of more than 13,000 people in England and the US who were aged 65 and over, and looked at the effects on physical disability, mortality, cognitive function, depression and wellbeing. They concluded that moderate drinking is fine for the over-65s - and, in some cases, it is better than not drinking at all.
"We are not advocating that elderly people should go out and get ridiculously drunk," Dr Lang said. "What we are saying is that current guidelines on drinking for the elderly are too conservative. A couple of drinks a day will do no harm and will have a more beneficial affect on cognitive and general health than abstinence. In the UK, the guidelines on alcohol consumption in older people are vague," he said. "Alcohol Concern recommends that older people `cut down' their alcohol consumption and that moderate consumption `might be too much for some older people'.
"In Australia and New Zealand, older people are advised to `consider drinking less'. In the US, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism sets limits for the over-65s of one drink a day, which is half of what they recommend for younger men. "These recommendations are based on assumptions about what happens to the body as it ages, and that it becomes less tolerant of alcohol. Our findings show that this isn't supported. There is no evidence to suggest drinking at moderate levels is harmful to older people. It can provide health benefits."
The research showed that 10.8 per cent of the US men, 28.6 per cent of the British men, 2.9 per cent of the US women and 10.3 per cent of the British women drank more than one drink a day. But the research also showed that those drinking on average more than one to two drinks a day achieved similar health results as those drinking up to one drink a day. "The worst results were from those who did not drink at all and from those who were heavy drinkers. The studies also found lower levels of risk of death or disability among English drinkers than Americans, although the authors did not understand why this should be.
Men and women who drank moderately enjoyed better brain functioning, a better sense of wellbeing and fewer depressive symptoms than those who abstained. The shape of the relationship between alcohol consumption and the risk of disability were similar in men and women.
The results were published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society and Age and Ageing. The research by the team concluded that overrestrictive limits could do harm because people ignore them or because effort is wasted trying to persuade them to give up alcohol when it is doing them no harm. "Because overrestrictive limits risk encouraging nihilistic responses or fruitless clinical effort, a review is needed of the evidence base for the lower hazardous drinking definitions for older adults," they concluded in their report in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
Dr Lang said: "There is no reason why older people should not enjoy a tipple, as long as they are sensible about it. "Previous research has shown that middle-aged people can benefit from moderate drinking. These findings show the same applies to the over-65s."
Source
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Wait for a hearing aid can be more than two years in Britain
Some hard-of-hearing patients in England are having to wait more than two years for an NHS hearing aid. The Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID) used the Freedom of Information Act to discover just how long the waits were. It found that ten trusts were not treating patients within a year, in spite of the Government’s target being 18 weeks. The worst offender was Kingston upon Thames, southwest London, where patients had to wait 125 weeks for an aid after first seeing their GP.
The average wait was 22 weeks in the 99 primary care trusts (PCTs) across the country that responded to the request. Another 53 failed to reply. The shortest wait was four weeks; 66 of the 99 trusts provided treatment within 18 weeks. The longest waits - all more than a year – were in Suffolk (78 weeks), Gloucestershire (72), Tyne and Wear: Washington Health Centre (68), Ealing (67), Havering (64), Tyne & Wear: Sunderland Royal Hospital (62), Shepway (58), Mid Essex (56) and South Tees (54).
The RNID said that 39 per cent of new patients in England wait for more than a year to get their hearing aids. Brian Lamb, for the institure, said: “If you struggle to pick up every word, hearing aids are a lifeline to work, friends and family. “Despite government assurances, an 18-week target is a distant dream for thousands of people waiting over a year for their first hearing aid, who are battling isolation and depression because of their hearing loss.
A Department of Health spokes-woman said: “We acknowledge that audiology waiting times in parts of the country are too high, and that is why we recently published a national framework which sets out the tools the local NHS needs to transform this service.”
Source
British teachers quitting
Teachers are leaving the profession in increasing numbers, with a quarter of a million no longer working in schools, according to figures published by the Conservatives yesterday. More than twice as many teachers aged under 60 quit their jobs between 2000 and 2005 than in the previous five years. The Conservatives blamed excessive red tape in schools, poor discipline amongst pupils and "micromanagement" by the Government for forcing teachers to change careers. The figures show that 95,500 teachers left the profession between 2000 and 2005. In the previous five years, from 1995 to 1999, only 40,600 teachers left.
Michael Gove, the Shadow Children's Secretary, said: "[Teaching] talent is going to waste. Not only are our children not achieving as they should, talented teachers are not where they should be - in the classroom, opening young minds to new horizons. "With more than a quarter of a million gifted professionals no longer in teaching we have to ask why they've given up on education under Labour. "I fear that a combination of classroom bureaucracy, government micro-management and poor discipline in too many schools has encouraged a drift away from teaching. "We need to free teachers to inspire [pupils] and give them the tools to enforce discipline so that schools have access to the widest range of talent."
However Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, said that Labour had done more to support teachers than any previous government. He said: "Recruitment into the profession has never been more buoyant, and teaching is now the career of choice for many highly qualified and talented individuals. Indeed, Ofsted has said this is the best generation of teachers ever. "Early retirement and turnover in teaching is in fact good compared with equivalent professions." Mr Knight said a recent survey of 22,500 British workers found that teaching at schools, colleges and universities had climbed from being the 54th happiest occupation in 1999 to the 11th happiest in 2007.
A spokesman for the Training and Development Agency for Schools said: "Many qualified teachers decide to take a break from the profession for a number of reasons. "The figures released do not take account of the fact that up to 30,000 teachers return to teaching at a later date, with added industry experience and a new enthusiasm for teaching and learning. Many also choose to remain within the education sector in an administration capacity."
Teachers' unions said the figures were accurate but disputed the reasons given by the Conservatives for teachers leaving the profession. Chris Keates, the general secretary of the NASUWT, said: "The number of inactive teachers is probably correct. The reasons given by Michael Gove for their inactivity are, however, overly simplistic and fly in the face of the evidence. "Qualified teachers are in the `pool of inactive teachers' for a variety of reasons, mostly because of career changes or career breaks. Their motivation for a change in direction has varied over the years. For the majority of those who leave now, evidence shows it is a positive choice.
"Seeking to manipulate statistics in a way which implicitly criticises and denigrates schools just to score political points is grossly unfair to hard-working teachers and pupils." Ms Keates added that the number of teachers who dropped out after three to five years had "fallen significantly" and studies of levels of job satisfaction were "increasingly positive".
Source
Comment below from a "Times" reader on the above -- a comment that cuts through the official flim-flam:
I used to be a teacher and so did my wife. Most of the teachers who started with me have left teaching. I lasted seven years before the stress got to me, parents expect too much but won't give us the support and schools expect all children to succeed but won't remove the really bad ones who ruin the other children's education. In my time as a teacher I had a pupil who we were told was to be murdered (he was in a gang and was murdered when he was twenty - the suspected murderer is also another pupil whom I taught). I taught children whose parents dealt drugs, and large amounts, and were raided by the police. I taught one child whose own cousin was a police officer and had told his mother that he was a police target for rioting at night, his responce was to brag about it in school and assault his mother when she tried to stop his rioting. What hope did we have? These children deserved an education but so did all the others in their classes for most of the day, whose educationw as ruined.
Anorexia inherited through sex hormones in womb?
The stuff about estrogen below is all speculation. The results could be equally well-explained by genetics
Sex hormones in the womb could be a cause of the eating disorder anorexia, a study has found. The suspicion is that oestrogen may be overproduced by some mothers, affecting the baby’s brain and making it susceptible to the eating disorder. Psychiatrists investigating the cause of the illness did so by studying records of thousands of Swedish twins, held in a database. They found, not unexpectedly, that the risk of developing anorexia was higher in girl twins than in boy twins. Anorexia is far commoner in girls than in boys.
But an exception to the pattern arose in the case of twins of different sexes. Boys who shared the womb with girl twins were found to be ten times more likely to develop the disorder in later life. Many claims have been made that girls who become anorexic have been influenced by images of stick-thin models. The findings do not disprove this, but suggest that biology as well as culture plays an important part.
Marco Procopio, a psychiatrist from the University of Sussex and one of the authors of the study in Archives of General Psychiatry, said: “We know that women are ten times more likely to develop anorexia than men and this study goes a long way to explaining why. We know that oestrogen and other hormones can have a powerful effect on the body and it would seem that there is an ‘overexpression’ of oestrogen by the mother and the girl twin in some pregnancies. “Oestrogen would be present in the amniotic fluid that bathes babies in the womb and would be swallowed by both the male and female twin. Oestrogen is needed in development of females but it is possible that too much affects the structure of the brain.”
The new study supports research from the United States that found that the brains of anorexics behaved in a different way to non-anorexics. Dr Procopio said: “Research into twins is a way to examine the factors involved, as the single most important period for brain development is during the months of pregnancy. “The one thing we are certain of is that there is a genetic disposition to anorexia. Some scientists have suggested that upbringing may be a factor in the gender difference in rates of occurrence of the disorder, but studies haven’t borne this out.”
Dr Procopio does not believe that thin models account for the condition. “If that were the case, we would have many more anorexics,” he said. “There might be an effect on some girls but I doubt if these are truly anorexic but more likely a passing phase.” He believes it may be possible one day to monitor pregnant women for higher than normal oestrogen levels.
Dee Dawson, who runs the pioneering North London Rhodes Farm clinic for teenage anorexics said: “It’s an interesting study and there may well be some truth in the findings. “I think that there is a genetic predisposition and the problem may well be to do with the formation of the brain in pregnancy. “But often the triggers are problems at home so if you are susceptible in your brain make-up it could be triggered off by events in a teenager’s life.”
Source
Mankind is more than the janitor of planet Earth
I am avowedly atheist. But listening to the bishops' drab, eco-pious Christmas sermons, I couldn't help thinking: `Bring back God!'
He might be the Archbishop of Canterbury, and thus guardian of the Anglican faith. But every time I see Dr Rowan Williams' smug face or hear his social-worker voice, I feel like breaking at least one of the Ten Commandments (I'll leave it to readers' febrile imaginations to guess which one).
They say we get the leaders we deserve. We also get the bishops we deserve. And in an age of petty piety, where relativistic non-judgementalism coexists with new codes of personal morality, giving rise to a Mary Poppins State more than a Nanny State, it's fitting that the Archbishop of Canterbury is a trendy schoolteacher type who dispenses hectoring ethical advice with a smarmy grin rather than with fire-and-brimstone relish.
In his Christmas sermon, delivered at Canterbury Cathedral, Dr Williams finally completed his journey from old-world Christianity to trendy New Ageism. His sermon was indistinguishable from those delivered (not just at Christmas but for life) by the heads of Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth. Williams did not speak about Christian morality; in fact, he didn't utter the m-word at all. He said little about men's responsibility to love one another and God, the two Commandments Jesus Christ said we should live by. Instead he talked about our role as janitors on planet Earth, who must stop plundering the `warehouse of natural resources' and ensure that we clean up after ourselves.
Williams has clearly been reading the Good Books - not the Bible, but those Carbon Calculator tomes that are clogging up bookshop shelves around the country, and which instruct people on how to live so meekly that they leave no imprint whatsoever on the planet or human history. He said that Earth does not exist only for `humanity's sake'; it also exists `in its own independence and beauty. not as a warehouse of resources to serve humanity's selfishness'.
Williams warned that our greed - presumably our insatiable lust for warm homes, cars, cookers and other outrageous luxuries - is killing the planet. He welcomed the fact that mankind is `growing in awareness of how fragile [the planet] is, how fragile is the balance of species and environments in the world and how easily our greed distorts it'. In 2008, we must take more seriously our `guardianship' of the Earth, he declared (1).
Williams isn't the only leading Christian who has sold his soul to Gaia and traded in Christian morality for the pieties of environmentalism. The Reverend John Owen, leader of the Presbyterian Church of Wales, said in his Christmas sermon that everyone should remember his or her `duty to the planet'. He urged people to recycle leftover food, and `redouble [your] efforts to take action and campaign against climate change' in the coming year (2). Meanwhile, the Vatican is taking steps to become the world's first carbon-neutral sovereign state by planting trees in a Hungarian national park to offset the CO2 emissions of the Holy See. Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, says that in 2008 there should be the `dawn of a new culture, of new attitudes and a new mode of living that makes man aware of his place as caretaker of the earth' (3).
The reduction of man to an eco-janitor, a being who creates waste and thus must clear it up, is more than a cynical attempt by isolated Christian leaders to connect with the public. Yes, Williams, Owen, the Holy See and Co. no doubt hope and believe (mistakenly, I'm sure) that adopting trendy Greenspeak will entice people to return to the church. But the move from focusing on love for God and one's neighbour to focusing on `respect for the planet' represents more than a rebranding exercise: it signals a complete abandonment by the Christian churches of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. And in this sense, it is not only God that is being downgraded by the new nature-worshipping priests; so is humanity itself. And that's enough to make even a committed atheist like me worry about the current direction of the Christian churches.
Christian teaching was once concerned with man, meaning and morality, with questions of free will, inner life and human destiny. As it happens, atheists, at least progressive ones, were concerned with exactly the same things. The chasm-sized difference between atheists and Christians occurred over the question of whether the moral meaning of man came from within or without; whether, as some atheists believed, the purpose of humanity was to be found within humanity itself; or, as Christians believed, humanity achieved meaning only through an external deity, God.
Where Christian morality granted man a diluted form of free will - underpinned by the idea that, yes, we make free choices, but God is the ultimate arbiter of our destiny - progressive atheists emphasised complete free will, arguing that only through full freedom of thought and a human-centred morality could humans remake the world in their own image and according to their own needs and desires.
Christians and atheists may have spent much of the past 200 years at each other's throats, but they inhabited the same moral plane. Theirs was literally a struggle for the soul of humanity. Today, by contrast, Christian leaders have abandoned questions of morality and free will. They now view people as little more than waste managers, `caretakers', eco-binmen, whose job is to sweep up after themselves and keep the planet in good nick. Instead of remaking the world in anybody's image - whether it be God's, man's, Buddha's or L Ron Hubbard's - man must simply adapt to his surroundings like an amoeba; indeed, he must minimise as much as possible his impact on the planet. Old Christians taught us that `the Kingdom of God is within you' (4), which was their flawed way of saying that man is a sovereign being, free and morally responsible. Today Christians say: `You are merely guests in the Warehouse of Resources. So be quiet, don't get any ideas above your station, and please shut the door when you leave.'
The cult of environmentalism embraced by the Christian churches does away with morality altogether. Some sceptics claim that environmentalism is a new form of moralistic hectoring; it is better to see it as amoralistic hectoring. In judging everything by how much CO2 or pollution it creates, environmentalism dispenses with questions of moral worth and judgement. So a flight to visit a newborn nephew in Australia (5.61 tonnes of CO2) is as wicked as taking a flight to Barbados to lounge in the sun; and the transportation of delicious food from Africa to Britain is as unforgivable as the transportation of weapons and drugs from Latin America to Los Angeles: after all, both involve exploiting the `warehouse of resources' and upsetting the `fragile balance of species and environments', as Williams put it (5). When human actions are judged by their levels of pollution alone, the issue of meaning - of why we do things, who we do them for, and how we might do them better - is implicitly downgraded.
This is why in his Christmas sermon, the Archbishop of Canterbury quoted extensively, not from the Bible, but from Richard Dawkins, who is considered by many to be the Rottweiler of the New Atheism. What today's eco-Christians and New Atheists share in common is a view of man as animalistic and degraded, as a `mammal' (as Christopher Hitchens describes us in his book God is Not Great) which ought to take its place alongside other mammals on this mortal coil. On the way in which religion distorts people's minds, Hitchens writes: `What else was to be expected of something that was produced by the close cousins of chimpanzees?' (6) Where Williams and other eco-Christians see mankind as merely a cog in the planetary wheel, Hitchens and other New Atheists see mankind as only the sum of his genes, still, in essence, a monkey.
If yesterday's Christians and atheists inhabited the same moral plane, fighting tooth and nail over the purpose of mankind, today's eco-Christians and New Atheists inhabit the same amoral plane, bickering with each other but also frequently agreeing that man is a bit of a shit.
`Religion is only the illusory sun which revolves round man as long as he does not revolve around himself', said Marx (7). Many of the great atheists of old were concerned with making man the centre of his moral universe; with freeing him up to become the `superhuman' that he aspired to be, but which he could only glimpse in an illusory God (8). Today, by contrast, both eco-Christians and New Atheists want to bring man and God crashing back down to Earth. so that we can set about cleaning it up like the good little earthly janitors we are. At a time of such low horizons, is it any wonder that some people still do cling on to God, and seek transcendence from mundane everyday life through a belief in divinity? There is more humanity in their `superhuman' delusions than there is in the monkeyman realism of eco-Christians and New Atheists.
Source
British Left to go nuclear: "Gordon Brown is ready to give the go-ahead for a new generation of nuclear power stations. The decision will trigger a major battle with Left-wing Labour MPs and environmental campaigners. Ministers could announce the new atomic age as early as next week, when MPs return to the Commons after their Christmas break. The Prime Minister indicated in his New Year message to the country that the Government was prepared to take the "difficult decision" of upgrading nuclear power plants. He believes nuclear power is an effective way of helping Britain meet its energy needs
British Conservatives discover some spine: "David Cameron has given his clearest commitment yet to tearing up the revised EU Constitution if he wins power, even if it has been signed. The Conservative leader told the Daily Mail he will "not let matters rest" if Gordon Brown succeeds in forcing the controversial treaty through Parliament and into law. His intervention ratchets up the pressure on Mr Brown over the document which is likely to dominate debate at Westminster in the New Year. Ministers are hoping to bore voters into submission by allowing weeks of lengthy discussion on the treaty."
Some hard-of-hearing patients in England are having to wait more than two years for an NHS hearing aid. The Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID) used the Freedom of Information Act to discover just how long the waits were. It found that ten trusts were not treating patients within a year, in spite of the Government’s target being 18 weeks. The worst offender was Kingston upon Thames, southwest London, where patients had to wait 125 weeks for an aid after first seeing their GP.
The average wait was 22 weeks in the 99 primary care trusts (PCTs) across the country that responded to the request. Another 53 failed to reply. The shortest wait was four weeks; 66 of the 99 trusts provided treatment within 18 weeks. The longest waits - all more than a year – were in Suffolk (78 weeks), Gloucestershire (72), Tyne and Wear: Washington Health Centre (68), Ealing (67), Havering (64), Tyne & Wear: Sunderland Royal Hospital (62), Shepway (58), Mid Essex (56) and South Tees (54).
The RNID said that 39 per cent of new patients in England wait for more than a year to get their hearing aids. Brian Lamb, for the institure, said: “If you struggle to pick up every word, hearing aids are a lifeline to work, friends and family. “Despite government assurances, an 18-week target is a distant dream for thousands of people waiting over a year for their first hearing aid, who are battling isolation and depression because of their hearing loss.
A Department of Health spokes-woman said: “We acknowledge that audiology waiting times in parts of the country are too high, and that is why we recently published a national framework which sets out the tools the local NHS needs to transform this service.”
Source
British teachers quitting
Teachers are leaving the profession in increasing numbers, with a quarter of a million no longer working in schools, according to figures published by the Conservatives yesterday. More than twice as many teachers aged under 60 quit their jobs between 2000 and 2005 than in the previous five years. The Conservatives blamed excessive red tape in schools, poor discipline amongst pupils and "micromanagement" by the Government for forcing teachers to change careers. The figures show that 95,500 teachers left the profession between 2000 and 2005. In the previous five years, from 1995 to 1999, only 40,600 teachers left.
Michael Gove, the Shadow Children's Secretary, said: "[Teaching] talent is going to waste. Not only are our children not achieving as they should, talented teachers are not where they should be - in the classroom, opening young minds to new horizons. "With more than a quarter of a million gifted professionals no longer in teaching we have to ask why they've given up on education under Labour. "I fear that a combination of classroom bureaucracy, government micro-management and poor discipline in too many schools has encouraged a drift away from teaching. "We need to free teachers to inspire [pupils] and give them the tools to enforce discipline so that schools have access to the widest range of talent."
However Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, said that Labour had done more to support teachers than any previous government. He said: "Recruitment into the profession has never been more buoyant, and teaching is now the career of choice for many highly qualified and talented individuals. Indeed, Ofsted has said this is the best generation of teachers ever. "Early retirement and turnover in teaching is in fact good compared with equivalent professions." Mr Knight said a recent survey of 22,500 British workers found that teaching at schools, colleges and universities had climbed from being the 54th happiest occupation in 1999 to the 11th happiest in 2007.
A spokesman for the Training and Development Agency for Schools said: "Many qualified teachers decide to take a break from the profession for a number of reasons. "The figures released do not take account of the fact that up to 30,000 teachers return to teaching at a later date, with added industry experience and a new enthusiasm for teaching and learning. Many also choose to remain within the education sector in an administration capacity."
Teachers' unions said the figures were accurate but disputed the reasons given by the Conservatives for teachers leaving the profession. Chris Keates, the general secretary of the NASUWT, said: "The number of inactive teachers is probably correct. The reasons given by Michael Gove for their inactivity are, however, overly simplistic and fly in the face of the evidence. "Qualified teachers are in the `pool of inactive teachers' for a variety of reasons, mostly because of career changes or career breaks. Their motivation for a change in direction has varied over the years. For the majority of those who leave now, evidence shows it is a positive choice.
"Seeking to manipulate statistics in a way which implicitly criticises and denigrates schools just to score political points is grossly unfair to hard-working teachers and pupils." Ms Keates added that the number of teachers who dropped out after three to five years had "fallen significantly" and studies of levels of job satisfaction were "increasingly positive".
Source
Comment below from a "Times" reader on the above -- a comment that cuts through the official flim-flam:
I used to be a teacher and so did my wife. Most of the teachers who started with me have left teaching. I lasted seven years before the stress got to me, parents expect too much but won't give us the support and schools expect all children to succeed but won't remove the really bad ones who ruin the other children's education. In my time as a teacher I had a pupil who we were told was to be murdered (he was in a gang and was murdered when he was twenty - the suspected murderer is also another pupil whom I taught). I taught children whose parents dealt drugs, and large amounts, and were raided by the police. I taught one child whose own cousin was a police officer and had told his mother that he was a police target for rioting at night, his responce was to brag about it in school and assault his mother when she tried to stop his rioting. What hope did we have? These children deserved an education but so did all the others in their classes for most of the day, whose educationw as ruined.
Anorexia inherited through sex hormones in womb?
The stuff about estrogen below is all speculation. The results could be equally well-explained by genetics
Sex hormones in the womb could be a cause of the eating disorder anorexia, a study has found. The suspicion is that oestrogen may be overproduced by some mothers, affecting the baby’s brain and making it susceptible to the eating disorder. Psychiatrists investigating the cause of the illness did so by studying records of thousands of Swedish twins, held in a database. They found, not unexpectedly, that the risk of developing anorexia was higher in girl twins than in boy twins. Anorexia is far commoner in girls than in boys.
But an exception to the pattern arose in the case of twins of different sexes. Boys who shared the womb with girl twins were found to be ten times more likely to develop the disorder in later life. Many claims have been made that girls who become anorexic have been influenced by images of stick-thin models. The findings do not disprove this, but suggest that biology as well as culture plays an important part.
Marco Procopio, a psychiatrist from the University of Sussex and one of the authors of the study in Archives of General Psychiatry, said: “We know that women are ten times more likely to develop anorexia than men and this study goes a long way to explaining why. We know that oestrogen and other hormones can have a powerful effect on the body and it would seem that there is an ‘overexpression’ of oestrogen by the mother and the girl twin in some pregnancies. “Oestrogen would be present in the amniotic fluid that bathes babies in the womb and would be swallowed by both the male and female twin. Oestrogen is needed in development of females but it is possible that too much affects the structure of the brain.”
The new study supports research from the United States that found that the brains of anorexics behaved in a different way to non-anorexics. Dr Procopio said: “Research into twins is a way to examine the factors involved, as the single most important period for brain development is during the months of pregnancy. “The one thing we are certain of is that there is a genetic disposition to anorexia. Some scientists have suggested that upbringing may be a factor in the gender difference in rates of occurrence of the disorder, but studies haven’t borne this out.”
Dr Procopio does not believe that thin models account for the condition. “If that were the case, we would have many more anorexics,” he said. “There might be an effect on some girls but I doubt if these are truly anorexic but more likely a passing phase.” He believes it may be possible one day to monitor pregnant women for higher than normal oestrogen levels.
Dee Dawson, who runs the pioneering North London Rhodes Farm clinic for teenage anorexics said: “It’s an interesting study and there may well be some truth in the findings. “I think that there is a genetic predisposition and the problem may well be to do with the formation of the brain in pregnancy. “But often the triggers are problems at home so if you are susceptible in your brain make-up it could be triggered off by events in a teenager’s life.”
Source
Mankind is more than the janitor of planet Earth
I am avowedly atheist. But listening to the bishops' drab, eco-pious Christmas sermons, I couldn't help thinking: `Bring back God!'
He might be the Archbishop of Canterbury, and thus guardian of the Anglican faith. But every time I see Dr Rowan Williams' smug face or hear his social-worker voice, I feel like breaking at least one of the Ten Commandments (I'll leave it to readers' febrile imaginations to guess which one).
They say we get the leaders we deserve. We also get the bishops we deserve. And in an age of petty piety, where relativistic non-judgementalism coexists with new codes of personal morality, giving rise to a Mary Poppins State more than a Nanny State, it's fitting that the Archbishop of Canterbury is a trendy schoolteacher type who dispenses hectoring ethical advice with a smarmy grin rather than with fire-and-brimstone relish.
In his Christmas sermon, delivered at Canterbury Cathedral, Dr Williams finally completed his journey from old-world Christianity to trendy New Ageism. His sermon was indistinguishable from those delivered (not just at Christmas but for life) by the heads of Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth. Williams did not speak about Christian morality; in fact, he didn't utter the m-word at all. He said little about men's responsibility to love one another and God, the two Commandments Jesus Christ said we should live by. Instead he talked about our role as janitors on planet Earth, who must stop plundering the `warehouse of natural resources' and ensure that we clean up after ourselves.
Williams has clearly been reading the Good Books - not the Bible, but those Carbon Calculator tomes that are clogging up bookshop shelves around the country, and which instruct people on how to live so meekly that they leave no imprint whatsoever on the planet or human history. He said that Earth does not exist only for `humanity's sake'; it also exists `in its own independence and beauty. not as a warehouse of resources to serve humanity's selfishness'.
Williams warned that our greed - presumably our insatiable lust for warm homes, cars, cookers and other outrageous luxuries - is killing the planet. He welcomed the fact that mankind is `growing in awareness of how fragile [the planet] is, how fragile is the balance of species and environments in the world and how easily our greed distorts it'. In 2008, we must take more seriously our `guardianship' of the Earth, he declared (1).
Williams isn't the only leading Christian who has sold his soul to Gaia and traded in Christian morality for the pieties of environmentalism. The Reverend John Owen, leader of the Presbyterian Church of Wales, said in his Christmas sermon that everyone should remember his or her `duty to the planet'. He urged people to recycle leftover food, and `redouble [your] efforts to take action and campaign against climate change' in the coming year (2). Meanwhile, the Vatican is taking steps to become the world's first carbon-neutral sovereign state by planting trees in a Hungarian national park to offset the CO2 emissions of the Holy See. Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, says that in 2008 there should be the `dawn of a new culture, of new attitudes and a new mode of living that makes man aware of his place as caretaker of the earth' (3).
The reduction of man to an eco-janitor, a being who creates waste and thus must clear it up, is more than a cynical attempt by isolated Christian leaders to connect with the public. Yes, Williams, Owen, the Holy See and Co. no doubt hope and believe (mistakenly, I'm sure) that adopting trendy Greenspeak will entice people to return to the church. But the move from focusing on love for God and one's neighbour to focusing on `respect for the planet' represents more than a rebranding exercise: it signals a complete abandonment by the Christian churches of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. And in this sense, it is not only God that is being downgraded by the new nature-worshipping priests; so is humanity itself. And that's enough to make even a committed atheist like me worry about the current direction of the Christian churches.
Christian teaching was once concerned with man, meaning and morality, with questions of free will, inner life and human destiny. As it happens, atheists, at least progressive ones, were concerned with exactly the same things. The chasm-sized difference between atheists and Christians occurred over the question of whether the moral meaning of man came from within or without; whether, as some atheists believed, the purpose of humanity was to be found within humanity itself; or, as Christians believed, humanity achieved meaning only through an external deity, God.
Where Christian morality granted man a diluted form of free will - underpinned by the idea that, yes, we make free choices, but God is the ultimate arbiter of our destiny - progressive atheists emphasised complete free will, arguing that only through full freedom of thought and a human-centred morality could humans remake the world in their own image and according to their own needs and desires.
Christians and atheists may have spent much of the past 200 years at each other's throats, but they inhabited the same moral plane. Theirs was literally a struggle for the soul of humanity. Today, by contrast, Christian leaders have abandoned questions of morality and free will. They now view people as little more than waste managers, `caretakers', eco-binmen, whose job is to sweep up after themselves and keep the planet in good nick. Instead of remaking the world in anybody's image - whether it be God's, man's, Buddha's or L Ron Hubbard's - man must simply adapt to his surroundings like an amoeba; indeed, he must minimise as much as possible his impact on the planet. Old Christians taught us that `the Kingdom of God is within you' (4), which was their flawed way of saying that man is a sovereign being, free and morally responsible. Today Christians say: `You are merely guests in the Warehouse of Resources. So be quiet, don't get any ideas above your station, and please shut the door when you leave.'
The cult of environmentalism embraced by the Christian churches does away with morality altogether. Some sceptics claim that environmentalism is a new form of moralistic hectoring; it is better to see it as amoralistic hectoring. In judging everything by how much CO2 or pollution it creates, environmentalism dispenses with questions of moral worth and judgement. So a flight to visit a newborn nephew in Australia (5.61 tonnes of CO2) is as wicked as taking a flight to Barbados to lounge in the sun; and the transportation of delicious food from Africa to Britain is as unforgivable as the transportation of weapons and drugs from Latin America to Los Angeles: after all, both involve exploiting the `warehouse of resources' and upsetting the `fragile balance of species and environments', as Williams put it (5). When human actions are judged by their levels of pollution alone, the issue of meaning - of why we do things, who we do them for, and how we might do them better - is implicitly downgraded.
This is why in his Christmas sermon, the Archbishop of Canterbury quoted extensively, not from the Bible, but from Richard Dawkins, who is considered by many to be the Rottweiler of the New Atheism. What today's eco-Christians and New Atheists share in common is a view of man as animalistic and degraded, as a `mammal' (as Christopher Hitchens describes us in his book God is Not Great) which ought to take its place alongside other mammals on this mortal coil. On the way in which religion distorts people's minds, Hitchens writes: `What else was to be expected of something that was produced by the close cousins of chimpanzees?' (6) Where Williams and other eco-Christians see mankind as merely a cog in the planetary wheel, Hitchens and other New Atheists see mankind as only the sum of his genes, still, in essence, a monkey.
If yesterday's Christians and atheists inhabited the same moral plane, fighting tooth and nail over the purpose of mankind, today's eco-Christians and New Atheists inhabit the same amoral plane, bickering with each other but also frequently agreeing that man is a bit of a shit.
`Religion is only the illusory sun which revolves round man as long as he does not revolve around himself', said Marx (7). Many of the great atheists of old were concerned with making man the centre of his moral universe; with freeing him up to become the `superhuman' that he aspired to be, but which he could only glimpse in an illusory God (8). Today, by contrast, both eco-Christians and New Atheists want to bring man and God crashing back down to Earth. so that we can set about cleaning it up like the good little earthly janitors we are. At a time of such low horizons, is it any wonder that some people still do cling on to God, and seek transcendence from mundane everyday life through a belief in divinity? There is more humanity in their `superhuman' delusions than there is in the monkeyman realism of eco-Christians and New Atheists.
Source
British Left to go nuclear: "Gordon Brown is ready to give the go-ahead for a new generation of nuclear power stations. The decision will trigger a major battle with Left-wing Labour MPs and environmental campaigners. Ministers could announce the new atomic age as early as next week, when MPs return to the Commons after their Christmas break. The Prime Minister indicated in his New Year message to the country that the Government was prepared to take the "difficult decision" of upgrading nuclear power plants. He believes nuclear power is an effective way of helping Britain meet its energy needs
British Conservatives discover some spine: "David Cameron has given his clearest commitment yet to tearing up the revised EU Constitution if he wins power, even if it has been signed. The Conservative leader told the Daily Mail he will "not let matters rest" if Gordon Brown succeeds in forcing the controversial treaty through Parliament and into law. His intervention ratchets up the pressure on Mr Brown over the document which is likely to dominate debate at Westminster in the New Year. Ministers are hoping to bore voters into submission by allowing weeks of lengthy discussion on the treaty."