Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Why Brits still emigrate to Australia
Australian financial journalist Noel Whittaker says salaries may be much higher in the UK but the cost of living is way above that in Australia. Although it is wildly at variance with the exchange rate, his suggestion that purchasing power parity is reached by equating one Australian dollar to one British pound is in line with what I have observed too
I have just returned from a fact-finding trip to Britain. Let me assure you, from a financial point of view at least, that this is the lucky country. Now I know that Aussies look longingly at the salaries paid in Britain and imagine themselves living handsomely on 50,000 pounds a year, which is equivalent to $116,000 here, but you have to understand that prices there have the same nominal value as in Australia. A main course in a restaurant may be 30 pounds in Britain and $30 in Australia, so the cost of living is more than double ours. Believe me, it's a shock to the system to put 40 litres of petrol in your rental car and discover that the cost is 40 quid or $A88.
But that's not the end of it. There is a VAT (value added tax) of 17.5 per cent on most things you buy, and many restaurants add a 15 per cent compulsory service charge as well. It makes our GST of 10 per cent look cheap.
I discussed wealth-creation strategies with a director of a British firm that specialises in financial planning for high-net-worth people. He was green with envy at our superannuation system, and told me that most of his work revolved around estate planning because Britain had high death duties [Australia has none]. This is a rapidly growing market because property prices have been rising dramatically and more and more families are facing death duties as the family home is not exempt.
We discussed borrowing for investment, which is one of the best strategies to create wealth in Australia because the interest is tax deductible, and income from both property and shares carries great tax concessions. I was amazed to discover that investment borrowing is rarely used in Britain because there are no concessions whatsoever. If you borrow to invest, you pay tax at your top marginal rate on the income from that investment, yet you get no deduction for the interest. Therefore, you may be losing up to 40 per cent of the income in tax while being forced to pay the interest from after-tax dollars.
Housing affordability is a hot topic in Britain, just like in Australia, and some building societies have even gone to the extent of lending far more man the value of the house. One newspaper gave the example of a couple with no deposit who were buying their first home for 152.000 pounds, the average home price. and who were able to qualify for a loan of 190,000 pounds to enable them to consolidate their other debts and get a foothold in the housing market. This means that they will have a negative equity in their home for many years and will be reliant on capital gain to get back to square one. This is a high-risk situation and, to make matters worse, the Bank of England lifted interest rates to 5.75 per cent earlier this month, putting further pressure on home-owners' budgets and increasing the prospect of a fall in home prices.
We had a break in Spain on the way home and the conditions are no different there. In Spain, VAT is 16 per cent and our tour guide in Valencia was bemoaning the fact that home prices had risen so much that she had been forced to take out a 40-year mortgage just to buy a unit [condo].
The above article appeared in the Brisbane "Sunday Mail" on July 29, 2007
A sane moonbat?
A good email from a British reader:
I thought you'd like to take a look at these two articles. The first, by George "moonbat" Monbiot in The Guardian acknowledges that the recent floods in England cannot be attributed to global warming.
The second in The Daily Telegraph by Charles Clover asserts that the floods are evidence of global warming.
To be honest, I can't be bothered to read them in full. It does make me wonder though, that if the science is settled and climate catastrophe is almost upon us, why aren't the warm-mongers singing from the same hymn sheet?
There's something else that puzzles me. If, when it's hot it's global warming (the heatwave in France a few summers ago) and when it's cold it's global warming (Peru this year) and to prevent global warming we've to cut CO2 emissions, how will anyone know that the measures taken have had the desired effect?
Philosopher Keith Burgess Jackson makes a similar point to the above
Weatherman John Kettley isn't surprised by the current British floods
This year's apparently extraordinary weather is no more sinister than a typical British summer of old and a reminder of why Mediterranean holidays first became so attractive to us more than 40 years ago. Because, while we are being drenched, a heatwave has brought temperatures of 40C (104F) or more across other parts of Europe. To many people the disparity may seem to indicate some seismic and sinister shift in our climate.
In fact, temperatures are exceptional only in eastern Europe, where a band of air has been moving westwards from Asia Minor. Central Europe is experiencing temperatures of 30-35C (85-95F) - just what you'd expect for this time of year, along with the blue skies and light winds.
The weather patterns across Europe are all linked in such a way that the whole of Europe and the Mediterranean never enjoy, or suffer, the same weather at the same time. And now we are feeling the full force of two extreme fronts from the West and East that are usually modified by a third from the South.
While central Europe feels the heat from the East, we have always been influenced by weather systems generated over the Atlantic, picking up energy from this huge pool of water.
We also feel the power of the strong ribbon of winds known as the Gulf Stream - a highly energetic jet, fluctuating several miles above our heads and hugely important in determining our weather. As the summer evolves, the jetstream and rainbands above us are normally gradually pushed to the north-west of Scotland by a third weather system, a milder pocket of high pressure blowing up from the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores. Ultimately, this more friendly system plants itself across the rest of the country.
But this year that modifying weather pattern has yet to arrive. So the cold of the West has collided with the intense heat of the East. The result is flash floods and torrential downpours.
There is no particular reason for the sluggish movement of the Azores front. It's just one of those things. But a similar situation worked in reverse in 1976 when we enjoyed a fantastic hot summer and it was cool and wet in central Europe - such are the mechanisms of our complex weather machine....
In my view, none of the severe weather we have experienced is proof of 'climate change.' It is just a poor summer - nothing more, nothing less - something that was the norm throughout most of the Sixties and has been repeated on several occasions more recently. Going further back, history also shows that 1912 was an atrocious summer. It was so bad, in fact, that we are still some way short of the torrential downpours that happened that year. It seemed particularly bad at the time because 1911 had been such an exceptionally good summer.
So, taking a long view, there is a pattern of warming and cooling. The Edwardians were experiencing a period of significant warming (much like now) following a cold Victorian spell. There was a period of warming from the Twenties through to the end of the Fifties and, after a cooler period, there has been a further significant warming over the past 20 years.
In the final analysis, this summer may be just such a 'blip' in the charts. But we still have plenty of summer to go and it takes only one slight shift in the jetstream to change rain into sun and bring a late renaissance for holidaymakers here in Britain.
More here
Surgeon breaks cover over NHS beds crisis
Specialist wards full to breaking point. Patients with serious injuries denied care. A health service paralysed by arguments about funding. Martin Bircher, one of Britain's most senior consultants, speaks out:
One of Britain's leading trauma surgeons has broken cover to expose the scandal of a national shortage of emergency trauma beds which is leading to thousands of serious injury victims suffering in agony. In an unprecedented intervention by a senior practitioner in the NHS, Martin Bircher, a consultant at St George's hospital in London, one of Europe's leading centres in the treatment of major accident victims, has revealed a system paralysed by red tape and disputes over funding, which is putting thousands of patients waiting for treatment in specialist wards at risk. His revelations have prompted calls for a review of funding for A&E services and a shake-up in the management of Britain's leading trauma centres.
Mr Bircher says the problem is worsened by the bureaucracy of the internal market. He has become so frustrated that he has broken free of NHS strictures against speaking to the press and agreed to talk to The Independent on Sunday about the suffering patients are put through.
Every one of Britain's specialist trauma beds is full, which means some patients can wait up to three weeks after their accident before badly broken bones can be repaired. The delay, says Mr Bircher, can jeopardise recovery. With nothing but praise for frontline staff, he says patients who have been critically injured in road or other accidents have to wait an average of 12 days - often in agonising pain - before they can receive the vital specialist treatment. This is because only a limited number of hospitals have the expertise to repair smashed bones, and those hospitals have a shortage of intensive care beds. With the average cost of keeping a trauma patient at around 500 pounds a day and up to 2,000 a day in intensive care, this is also a false economy.
Reacting to the revelations Andrew Lansley, the shadow Health Secretary, said: "It is vital that clinicians are able to prioritise patients according to clinical criteria. It's only if we dispense with central targets and the bureaucratic burdens of the Department of Health that we can give GPs and local hospitals the opportunity to make services more efficient." John Pugh, the Lib Dem health spokesman, added: "This shows how counterproductive the target culture is. Patients are being shunted in and out of A&E to satisfy the expectations of Whitehall. Medical staff should feel free to act in the best interests of patients."
Squabbles over funding
Mr Bircher, who risks censure from the NHS for speaking out, said primary care trust and bed managers are involved in making the final decision as to whether a patient can be moved. If they have to move them there is often a conflict or reluctance because the new area does not want an extra cost. So after initial admission to a general hospital's emergency wards, where lives are saved, patients can find themselves waiting up to three weeks before their real recovery process can begin.
Mr Bircher, 52, cited one patient who had a motorcycle accident earlier this month and was referred to him to decide if she needed surgery to repair her badly broken pelvis. However, he did not receive the request for a week because an initial referral to another hospital was "intercepted by the primary care trust" and rerouted to a hospital that did not have a surgeon with the expertise to make the decision.
He called for emergency medicine to be funded centrally. "These are basic core services that have to be provided," he said. "We shouldn't be sending each other little bills. Trauma and other emergency services like cardiac and stroke services should be top sliced. The money should come from central government funds." Mr Bircher added that doctors and nurses on the frontline in hospitals should not be criticised. He said they do their best but are hampered by layers of managers whose major concern is the budget rather than patient care.
Delays in treatment
He said: "The delays are caused at various levels. If doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, the treating teams, were left to communicate between themselves without bureaucracy, things would happen much more quickly. In the good old days somebody would ring me up about a patient, I'd say send them across, make one call to sister on the ward and it would happen. "Now I'm loath to accept a patient unless I'm sure their injury requires surgery. If I'm unsure I ask them to send X-rays. Even in this technological age this can take two or three days. It's not unusual for them to be delayed or get lost.
"It may be decided that the patient needs an operation and we decide to bring them in. There can still be a delay because bed managers are reluctant to accept a patient for three or four days before the operation is due because of the extra costs. So the patients often come in just hours before the operation. It is not unusual for a patient to arrive in the early hours of the morning, a very short time before their surgery.
"You suddenly find the patient may develop a problem and you can't operate. So you've accepted a patient for a slot and then you can't operate. A much better system would be to have a free flow of patients to the trauma centre where we can get to know them preoperatively. But because trusts all have separate budgets, though we're all playing for the same team, there seems to be a reluctance to accept patients at an appropriate time before the operation. "You can argue whether a patient needs a hip replacement at hospital x or y," he added. "As long as it's done in a reasonable time by a good team it doesn't matter. You can't have these petty squabbles. There just isn't time with trauma."
Patients in pain
His argument is illustrated by Lucy Lynn-Evans, a 21-year-old student from London who was severely injured in a road accident last month. She was riding her scooter to Brighton when she was run over by a 10-tonne lorry which came to rest on her hip. She is alive only because a laptop in her backpack took the full force when the lorry ran over her spine. Her life was saved a second time by the staff at Redhill hospital, where she was initially taken with a smashed pelvis, smashed knee and leg broken in two places. They gave her a blood transfusion - she had lost five pints - and wrapped her hip, described by doctors as a "bag of crisps", in a sheet which was then pulled tight to keep the fragmented bones together.
This is the correct procedure. But Redhill hospital did not have the expertise to repair Ms Lynn-Evans's bones. That would require specialist surgeons and equipment that can be found only in certain hospitals around the country. All they could do in Redhill was put her on morphine and wait for a bed - which at one point she was told could take up to three weeks.
Her pain was so intense, however, that the morphine "only took the edge off it". "I was in a lot of pain, especially when they log-rolled me to change the sheet," Ms Lynn-Evans said from her hospital bed at St George's on Thursday. "It took four people to turn me. The nights were horrible. The mornings were really painful. The three weeks of waiting is an extra three weeks of pain. You just feel like you're going mad. You feel black and despairing. You want with all your heart for someone to make it better. I asked Dad to leave me outside the hospital because then it would be more likely I'd get a bed, rather than waiting by the phone. I felt despair, lying there feeling empty and feeling that I had to tackle this day by day for weeks."
Lack of beds
Ms Lynn-Evans's problem was that she was stable and not going to die; when a bed became available it would go to another more pressing case. At one point a bed became available at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford, but before she could be moved John Radcliffe's fund manager had to agree. The fund manager did not arrive at work until 9.30am. By the time Ms Lynn-Evans's case came to the top of the administrator's pile and permission was granted, the bed had gone. Fortunately for Ms Lynn-Evans her mother, Julie, is a psychotherapist who works in child mental health. She is also a broadcaster with a string of top NHS officials in her contacts book. She was able to make a fuss where it counts, and her daughter was moved to St George's hospital in London after only five days.
"Because of the problems with the beds I didn't know where to go to after the accident," Julie Lynn-Evans said. "Lucy was taken to Redhill on the Friday and they saved her life. I cannot thank the doctors enough. But they knew they didn't have the expertise to fix her so I was told not to go to Redhill because they were going to move her. Then at 4am I was told to go to Redhill after all. I'd spent the whole time living through a mother's worst nightmare and yet unable to go to my child. The same night as Lucy, a woman came in from a car crash. She was 63 and had a clot in her lung. Lucy was considered stable, so the woman got her bed. All the time Lucy's having no treatment. As a mother you'd do anything to help your child when you see them in so much pain. But I know that in securing a bed for Lucy, someone else had to wait longer."
Fortunately Lucy is going to make a full recovery, which she and her family put down to the excellent care they have received from surgeons, nurses and doctors at both St George's and Redhill hospitals. The delays, however, caused by bureaucracy and a shortage of beds, could have led to a very different outcome. "The delays not only cause distress to families and patient, but other serious medical issues - thrombosis, bed sores, chest infections and urine and wound infections," said Mr Bircher. "The longer the bone fragments are left displaced, the more the clot begins to form new bone, thus the harder it is to replace the fragment to the correct position.
Patients suffer
"The first step to dealing with the problem is an acceptance and realisation that the system isn't working with trauma and other emergency services in medicine. Sending each other forms and bills is not a good way of doing it. I'm acutely aware that resources are an issue. But basic emergency services should be of the highest quality. If we consider ourselves a leading nation we should have a first-class emergency healthcare system. We do not, and the situation is worsening. "It's pot luck where you go. There's not a defined system. We have to fight every day to get patients in. We have to break through the bureaucracy and develop a new system. There is a lack of intensive care beds in London and around the country which further magnifies the problem.
"Direct funding from the centre, perhaps cutting out the trusts, is perhaps a good idea. One must involve clinicians at the sharp end in the decision-making. Like the Bank of England the politicians should let it go. Doctors, honestly, know best."
Dermot O'Riordan, a member of the council of the Royal College of Surgeons, agreed that a number of services - not just trauma - needed commissioning at a higher level and in some cases co-ordinating nationally, although not necessarily centrally funding. Mr O'Riordan, the RCS council member responsible for the Delivery of Surgical Services Committee, said: "Commissioning of very specialist services, whether elective or emergency, needs to be done at a higher level than a primary care trust. Some need to be co-ordinated by the strategic health authority and some even at national level."
A spokesman for the Department of Health said: "We recognise that a very small number of patients may wait to receive appropriate care. This is because they need very specialised treatment, and critically ill patients waiting for treatment is the exception rather than the rule. "Capacity in intensive care units has improved dramatically in recent years. We now have almost 1,000 more ICU beds than in 2000 and we are looking at ways to increase capacity further."
Source
WE are to blame for China's pollution
The article below embodies the hatred of modern Western society that largely underpins the Greenie movement. Note the superior look on the face of John Vidal, the author of the article, below. We are so lucky to have such an all-seeing headmaster to impart wisdom to us
We've just had the first really big look at the environmental catastrophe now unfolding in China. Courtesy of the OECD, the club of 30 rich nations which was called in by the Beijing government to assess the environmental situation, a monster 260-page report has just been published, which draws together the work of China's leading scientists, the World Bank, and central and local government.
What we are witnessing is the mass poisoning of a people and the ecological devastation of a nation. If this were a war by one people against another, we would call on the UN to step in. But it's a war against nature so we turn away.
Yet it raises ugly questions for us, too. How much of this pollution and the destruction of nature is actually being done in our name? The rich west has moved its manufacturing base to China and all those smoking factories and bright green rivers reflect not just China's dash for development, but the face of western consumerism. Can we really blame the Chinese for all the pollutants being emitted to keep us in cheap goods? Should we step in immediately with better technology?
On the other hand, this is a tacit arrangement. This is not the 18th century European industrial revolution when the technology to limit pollution was undeveloped. The Chinese authorities may have great environmental laws, they have the world's largest current account of credit, they have access to the best pollution abatement equipment in the world, yet they have totally failed to protect their people from harm. We must assume the authorities know what is going on and do nothing because they are powerless.
There are truly brave people at every level of government desperately trying to clean up China, and there are enormous schemes to improve the environment. But the sheer speed and momentum of the dash for growth means no city or administration can keep up with the urbanisation and industrial developments taking place.
The official line is that the pollution will be tackled when enough wealth has been created. Funny that. Isn't that exactly what rightwing American thinktanks and western politicians say when asked why they do not try to protect people? But it just doesn't wash anymore. Let's hear it straight. The Chinese catastrophe is quite simply the product of greed. Ours and theirs.
Source
"Ideal" weight for mothers promoted
Damned if you do and damned if you don't
Mothers who gain or lose a great deal of weight between pregnancies could be putting themselves and their babies at risk, experts have said. Even quite small changes in body mass index (BMI), of one or two units, between pregnancies are enough to have effects, say Jennifer Walsh and Deirdre Murphy, two obstetricians from Dublin. An increase of this size has been linked with a doubling of the risks of high blood pressure, preeclampsia, and having a large baby. Greater increases in weight between pregnancies add to the risk of stillbirth and other complications, they say in an editorial in the British Medical Journal.
On the other hand, they add, women losing a lot of weight run a greater risk of having premature babies, or babies of low birth-weight. The message is that women should try to maintain a healthy weight before, during and after pregnancy ? and to be the same weight at any subsequent pregnancies.
Dr Walsh, a specialist registrar in obstetrics and gynaecology at Coombe Women's Hospital in Dublin, and Professor Murphy, Professor of Obstetrics at Trinity College Dublin, say: "Women of reproductive age are bombarded with messages about diet, weight and body image. "There is growing concern on the one hand about an epidemic of obesity, and on the other about a culture that promotes `size zero' as desirable, irrespective of a woman's natural build. "Pregnancy is one of the most nutritionally demanding periods of a woman's life, with an adequate supply of nutrients essential to support foetal wellbeing and growth. "With at least half of all pregnancies unplanned, women need to be aware of the implications of their weight for pregnancy, birth and the health of their babies. "We should ensure that women of low body mass index attain a healthy weight before conception to reduce the risk of preterm birth and low infant birth-weight. "We should also counsel women with a history of previous preterm birth to maintain a healthy weight to prevent recurrence."
The authors cited studies on the effects of weight gain and weight loss. The first, a Swedish study, followed 207,534 women from 1992 to 2001 to examine the link between changes in body mass index and the impact on a baby and mother's health. The second, which was published last year in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, found that women whose BMI fell by five or more units between pregnancies had a higher risk of premature birth than women whose weight remained stable or increased. The effect was heightened among women who had already experienced one premature birth.
Tam Fry, board member of the National Obesity Forum, said: "I think these doctors are absolutely right. "It's fundamental that we teach girls at school not only to lose weight for their own health but also because of the risks to their child of entering motherhood being overweight." Being overweight was associated with polycystic ovary syndrome, which could result in difficulty conceiving, he said. "There is a known association between overweight and obese parents and the likelihood of a child being overweight themselves. "Women should be aiming for a normal weight before they have their second child. "Women also go the other way and starve themselves to plummet to a goal weight. They try to get down to a certain weight, and that is also wrong."
Source
Britain's Orwellian vision of government housing
Allocated a silver-level needs certificate, Linda is unlikely to get into the most popular development.but after a year's acceptable behaviour she will be given a secure tenancy certificate. This, however, is a floating security given the owners will be able to insist she moves into one of their smaller premises if her needs change. Next door to Linda is one of six extra care homes.they include video monitoring and biosensors to allow 24-hour video supervision from the district health centre.'
Speaking is Jon Rouse, outgoing head of the UK Housing Corporation, which controls all social housing in the UK (1). The slide that accompanied Rouse's recent speech represented the family of four - Linda, Tom, Dick and Harry - as little lego people. Rouse was not warning us of an Orwellian dystopia; this is actually his ideal of what should happen with social housing in the UK.
In Rouse's social-democratic hell, people will not talk about `social housing' - they will talk about `different degrees of ownership'. Even new tenants will be `gifted' two per cent equity - except that this equity is conditional upon good behaviour, and will be recovered in toto if tenants fall into more than eight weeks' arrears. Furthermore equity in the leasehold is conditional, since the Housing Corporation would have the (until now unheard of) right of first buyback, and there is absolutely no right of succession (meaning you cannot bequest the home to your children). In other words, this `equity' is not ownership at all - except that it does come with responsibilities for the repair and upkeep of your home.
Prime minister Gordon Brown has announced that three million homes will be built and that the state will take up the slack left by the private sector's failure to build enough houses to match demand (2). For many, this is a sign that Old Labour is back. Council housing in particular is something of a nostalgia-trip for born-again Labourites like Jon Cruddas, commentator Lynsey Hanley and London mayor Ken Livingstone.
This nostalgia for council housing is hard to take. There is no principle that says that houses built and managed by the state are any worse than those in the private sector. But in practise, social housing has precious little to do with meeting people's needs, and everything to do with state control over supposedly anti-social elements. The Housing Corporation's thinking about dividing people into Gold, Silver and Bronze levels - imposing tenancy agreements, issuing secure (but floating) tenancy certificates, partial equity, video- and bio-monitoring, 24-hour surveillance, retaining the right of first buy-back - are all drawn from the real way that social housing tenants are intrusively regulated by the authorities.
Throughout its history, social housing has always been intimately related to the perceived problem of social order. In Nathaniel Rothschild's `Four Per Cent Dwellings', which opened in 1887, each landing had its own warden, usually an ex-NCO from the army who would enforce curfews and respectable behaviour. When philanthropists decanted tenants into the subscription-funded Somers Town estate in the 1930s, their bedding was burnt and furniture put into a mobile fumigation wagon.as part of a public ceremony overseen by local dignitaries, complete with the burning of papier mach‚ effigies of rats, fleas and other pests.
Similar things took place outside of Britain. In `Red' Vienna's much-trumpeted inter-war municipal houses, Social Democrat councillors enforced a `social contract' with tenants, which committed them to responsible parenting. Where this was lacking, social workers were on hand to remove children to the municipal Child Observation Centres (3).
In the postwar expansion of social housing in Britain, the charity-laden character of such housing was moderated: tenants were more like citizens and less like supplicants. Therefore, other ways of relating to the estate-dwellers had to be found. Labour's Peter Shore (1924-2001) oversaw the racial segregation of Tower Hamlets' Council Stock in the 1970s, as the London borough used divide-and-rule tactics to win the support of white residents with marginally better estates. Then, 20 years later, in the early and mid-1990s, the council turned around and started threatening white residents, who had believed the promise of preferential treatment, with being evicted for racism (4).
Between 1979 and 1997, the Conservative government stopped new council houses being built in Britain, sold off some homes and transferred others to Housing Associations. The declining stock of council homes shifted the social mix, as the more affluent workers moved out of local authority management. This was when people started calling Council Housing `social housing', meaning that it was primarily for housing people who were a social problem.
In the Nineties, local authorities pioneered the systems of social control that would later be generalised under Labour's Crime and Disorder Bill in the form of the ASBO: that is, the Anti-Social Behaviour Order. Before there were ASBOs there were tenancy agreements. On 24 May 1995, 2,500 council tenants in Cross Farm Road, Birmingham, were warned that they would have to put their children under an 8pm curfew. They were told that not annoying or harassing their neighbours - or allowing their children to do so - was a condition of their council tenancies. Breaches were to be heard by a subcommittee of councillors (5). Councils had expanded the terms of their tenancy agreements to include clauses governing social behaviour on top of keeping up rent payments and looking after the fabric of the home.
In June 1995, the Labour Party, then still in opposition, published a housing consultation paper titled A Quiet Life. It was influenced heavily by the thinking of the (mostly Labour) councillors who had enhanced their powers of social regulation through the issue of housing. A Quiet Life proposed special Community Safety Orders, which could be imposed to regulate behaviour, on the same model as the expanded tenancy agreements. These were later renamed Anti-Social Behaviour Orders. Just as the councils had done when enforcing their tenancy agreements, so Labour proposed dealing with `problem tenants' through the use of professional witnesses (that is, housing officers) and by the lower standard of proof that is normally used in civil proceedings.
Recently the courts struck down an ASBO that was issued in Manchester on evidence supplied by the council, when it came to light that the reports they had solicited against the unfortunate accused were entirely made up. Manchester City Council had told the courts that they had independent corroboration, which was not true - but it was in keeping with the local authority's contempt for the rights of their tenants.
Brown is right that we need more homes. The market is so restrained by bureaucratic controls that it cannot meet the real demand that exists. It does not matter who builds or manages the homes, private sector or government. But council housing was never just about providing homes; it was always about regulating social behaviour. Those who long for a return to council housing are either ignorant of what a trap it was, or more likely, they look forward to the day when they can tie up more of the people they imagine to be `problem families' in bureaucratic regulations.
Source
US/UK relationship continues: "The British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, would not unveil plans for an early withdrawal of British troops from Iraq in talks with the US President, George Bush, Mr Brown's spokesman said yesterday. The two leaders were scheduled to meet yesterday for the first time since Mr Brown succeeded Tony Blair last month. Speculation has been rife in British media that Mr Brown might distance himself from Mr Blair's Iraq policy.... The White House and Downing Street are stressing that little has been disturbed in the "special relationship" between Britain and the US since the elevation of Mr Brown. Although friction may lie ahead on issues such as Iran's nuclear program, US officials appear confident there will be no sudden departures from Mr Brown on the key issues - especially on keeping Britain's 5500 troops in Iraq. Officials in both governments said this week's summit would focus on building a rapport between the leaders, aided by the bucolic setting of Camp David, the mountain retreat where Mr Bush entertains his closest foreign allies. "This will mainly be a reassurance thing," said the British author and political analyst Peter Riddell. "They want to knock down any suggestion that there is distance between them. Yes, they are different people, but they are fundamentally on the same wavelength."
Australian financial journalist Noel Whittaker says salaries may be much higher in the UK but the cost of living is way above that in Australia. Although it is wildly at variance with the exchange rate, his suggestion that purchasing power parity is reached by equating one Australian dollar to one British pound is in line with what I have observed too
I have just returned from a fact-finding trip to Britain. Let me assure you, from a financial point of view at least, that this is the lucky country. Now I know that Aussies look longingly at the salaries paid in Britain and imagine themselves living handsomely on 50,000 pounds a year, which is equivalent to $116,000 here, but you have to understand that prices there have the same nominal value as in Australia. A main course in a restaurant may be 30 pounds in Britain and $30 in Australia, so the cost of living is more than double ours. Believe me, it's a shock to the system to put 40 litres of petrol in your rental car and discover that the cost is 40 quid or $A88.
But that's not the end of it. There is a VAT (value added tax) of 17.5 per cent on most things you buy, and many restaurants add a 15 per cent compulsory service charge as well. It makes our GST of 10 per cent look cheap.
I discussed wealth-creation strategies with a director of a British firm that specialises in financial planning for high-net-worth people. He was green with envy at our superannuation system, and told me that most of his work revolved around estate planning because Britain had high death duties [Australia has none]. This is a rapidly growing market because property prices have been rising dramatically and more and more families are facing death duties as the family home is not exempt.
We discussed borrowing for investment, which is one of the best strategies to create wealth in Australia because the interest is tax deductible, and income from both property and shares carries great tax concessions. I was amazed to discover that investment borrowing is rarely used in Britain because there are no concessions whatsoever. If you borrow to invest, you pay tax at your top marginal rate on the income from that investment, yet you get no deduction for the interest. Therefore, you may be losing up to 40 per cent of the income in tax while being forced to pay the interest from after-tax dollars.
Housing affordability is a hot topic in Britain, just like in Australia, and some building societies have even gone to the extent of lending far more man the value of the house. One newspaper gave the example of a couple with no deposit who were buying their first home for 152.000 pounds, the average home price. and who were able to qualify for a loan of 190,000 pounds to enable them to consolidate their other debts and get a foothold in the housing market. This means that they will have a negative equity in their home for many years and will be reliant on capital gain to get back to square one. This is a high-risk situation and, to make matters worse, the Bank of England lifted interest rates to 5.75 per cent earlier this month, putting further pressure on home-owners' budgets and increasing the prospect of a fall in home prices.
We had a break in Spain on the way home and the conditions are no different there. In Spain, VAT is 16 per cent and our tour guide in Valencia was bemoaning the fact that home prices had risen so much that she had been forced to take out a 40-year mortgage just to buy a unit [condo].
The above article appeared in the Brisbane "Sunday Mail" on July 29, 2007
A sane moonbat?
A good email from a British reader:
I thought you'd like to take a look at these two articles. The first, by George "moonbat" Monbiot in The Guardian acknowledges that the recent floods in England cannot be attributed to global warming.
The second in The Daily Telegraph by Charles Clover asserts that the floods are evidence of global warming.
To be honest, I can't be bothered to read them in full. It does make me wonder though, that if the science is settled and climate catastrophe is almost upon us, why aren't the warm-mongers singing from the same hymn sheet?
There's something else that puzzles me. If, when it's hot it's global warming (the heatwave in France a few summers ago) and when it's cold it's global warming (Peru this year) and to prevent global warming we've to cut CO2 emissions, how will anyone know that the measures taken have had the desired effect?
Philosopher Keith Burgess Jackson makes a similar point to the above
Weatherman John Kettley isn't surprised by the current British floods
This year's apparently extraordinary weather is no more sinister than a typical British summer of old and a reminder of why Mediterranean holidays first became so attractive to us more than 40 years ago. Because, while we are being drenched, a heatwave has brought temperatures of 40C (104F) or more across other parts of Europe. To many people the disparity may seem to indicate some seismic and sinister shift in our climate.
In fact, temperatures are exceptional only in eastern Europe, where a band of air has been moving westwards from Asia Minor. Central Europe is experiencing temperatures of 30-35C (85-95F) - just what you'd expect for this time of year, along with the blue skies and light winds.
The weather patterns across Europe are all linked in such a way that the whole of Europe and the Mediterranean never enjoy, or suffer, the same weather at the same time. And now we are feeling the full force of two extreme fronts from the West and East that are usually modified by a third from the South.
While central Europe feels the heat from the East, we have always been influenced by weather systems generated over the Atlantic, picking up energy from this huge pool of water.
We also feel the power of the strong ribbon of winds known as the Gulf Stream - a highly energetic jet, fluctuating several miles above our heads and hugely important in determining our weather. As the summer evolves, the jetstream and rainbands above us are normally gradually pushed to the north-west of Scotland by a third weather system, a milder pocket of high pressure blowing up from the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores. Ultimately, this more friendly system plants itself across the rest of the country.
But this year that modifying weather pattern has yet to arrive. So the cold of the West has collided with the intense heat of the East. The result is flash floods and torrential downpours.
There is no particular reason for the sluggish movement of the Azores front. It's just one of those things. But a similar situation worked in reverse in 1976 when we enjoyed a fantastic hot summer and it was cool and wet in central Europe - such are the mechanisms of our complex weather machine....
In my view, none of the severe weather we have experienced is proof of 'climate change.' It is just a poor summer - nothing more, nothing less - something that was the norm throughout most of the Sixties and has been repeated on several occasions more recently. Going further back, history also shows that 1912 was an atrocious summer. It was so bad, in fact, that we are still some way short of the torrential downpours that happened that year. It seemed particularly bad at the time because 1911 had been such an exceptionally good summer.
So, taking a long view, there is a pattern of warming and cooling. The Edwardians were experiencing a period of significant warming (much like now) following a cold Victorian spell. There was a period of warming from the Twenties through to the end of the Fifties and, after a cooler period, there has been a further significant warming over the past 20 years.
In the final analysis, this summer may be just such a 'blip' in the charts. But we still have plenty of summer to go and it takes only one slight shift in the jetstream to change rain into sun and bring a late renaissance for holidaymakers here in Britain.
More here
Surgeon breaks cover over NHS beds crisis
Specialist wards full to breaking point. Patients with serious injuries denied care. A health service paralysed by arguments about funding. Martin Bircher, one of Britain's most senior consultants, speaks out:
One of Britain's leading trauma surgeons has broken cover to expose the scandal of a national shortage of emergency trauma beds which is leading to thousands of serious injury victims suffering in agony. In an unprecedented intervention by a senior practitioner in the NHS, Martin Bircher, a consultant at St George's hospital in London, one of Europe's leading centres in the treatment of major accident victims, has revealed a system paralysed by red tape and disputes over funding, which is putting thousands of patients waiting for treatment in specialist wards at risk. His revelations have prompted calls for a review of funding for A&E services and a shake-up in the management of Britain's leading trauma centres.
Mr Bircher says the problem is worsened by the bureaucracy of the internal market. He has become so frustrated that he has broken free of NHS strictures against speaking to the press and agreed to talk to The Independent on Sunday about the suffering patients are put through.
Every one of Britain's specialist trauma beds is full, which means some patients can wait up to three weeks after their accident before badly broken bones can be repaired. The delay, says Mr Bircher, can jeopardise recovery. With nothing but praise for frontline staff, he says patients who have been critically injured in road or other accidents have to wait an average of 12 days - often in agonising pain - before they can receive the vital specialist treatment. This is because only a limited number of hospitals have the expertise to repair smashed bones, and those hospitals have a shortage of intensive care beds. With the average cost of keeping a trauma patient at around 500 pounds a day and up to 2,000 a day in intensive care, this is also a false economy.
Reacting to the revelations Andrew Lansley, the shadow Health Secretary, said: "It is vital that clinicians are able to prioritise patients according to clinical criteria. It's only if we dispense with central targets and the bureaucratic burdens of the Department of Health that we can give GPs and local hospitals the opportunity to make services more efficient." John Pugh, the Lib Dem health spokesman, added: "This shows how counterproductive the target culture is. Patients are being shunted in and out of A&E to satisfy the expectations of Whitehall. Medical staff should feel free to act in the best interests of patients."
Squabbles over funding
Mr Bircher, who risks censure from the NHS for speaking out, said primary care trust and bed managers are involved in making the final decision as to whether a patient can be moved. If they have to move them there is often a conflict or reluctance because the new area does not want an extra cost. So after initial admission to a general hospital's emergency wards, where lives are saved, patients can find themselves waiting up to three weeks before their real recovery process can begin.
Mr Bircher, 52, cited one patient who had a motorcycle accident earlier this month and was referred to him to decide if she needed surgery to repair her badly broken pelvis. However, he did not receive the request for a week because an initial referral to another hospital was "intercepted by the primary care trust" and rerouted to a hospital that did not have a surgeon with the expertise to make the decision.
He called for emergency medicine to be funded centrally. "These are basic core services that have to be provided," he said. "We shouldn't be sending each other little bills. Trauma and other emergency services like cardiac and stroke services should be top sliced. The money should come from central government funds." Mr Bircher added that doctors and nurses on the frontline in hospitals should not be criticised. He said they do their best but are hampered by layers of managers whose major concern is the budget rather than patient care.
Delays in treatment
He said: "The delays are caused at various levels. If doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, the treating teams, were left to communicate between themselves without bureaucracy, things would happen much more quickly. In the good old days somebody would ring me up about a patient, I'd say send them across, make one call to sister on the ward and it would happen. "Now I'm loath to accept a patient unless I'm sure their injury requires surgery. If I'm unsure I ask them to send X-rays. Even in this technological age this can take two or three days. It's not unusual for them to be delayed or get lost.
"It may be decided that the patient needs an operation and we decide to bring them in. There can still be a delay because bed managers are reluctant to accept a patient for three or four days before the operation is due because of the extra costs. So the patients often come in just hours before the operation. It is not unusual for a patient to arrive in the early hours of the morning, a very short time before their surgery.
"You suddenly find the patient may develop a problem and you can't operate. So you've accepted a patient for a slot and then you can't operate. A much better system would be to have a free flow of patients to the trauma centre where we can get to know them preoperatively. But because trusts all have separate budgets, though we're all playing for the same team, there seems to be a reluctance to accept patients at an appropriate time before the operation. "You can argue whether a patient needs a hip replacement at hospital x or y," he added. "As long as it's done in a reasonable time by a good team it doesn't matter. You can't have these petty squabbles. There just isn't time with trauma."
Patients in pain
His argument is illustrated by Lucy Lynn-Evans, a 21-year-old student from London who was severely injured in a road accident last month. She was riding her scooter to Brighton when she was run over by a 10-tonne lorry which came to rest on her hip. She is alive only because a laptop in her backpack took the full force when the lorry ran over her spine. Her life was saved a second time by the staff at Redhill hospital, where she was initially taken with a smashed pelvis, smashed knee and leg broken in two places. They gave her a blood transfusion - she had lost five pints - and wrapped her hip, described by doctors as a "bag of crisps", in a sheet which was then pulled tight to keep the fragmented bones together.
This is the correct procedure. But Redhill hospital did not have the expertise to repair Ms Lynn-Evans's bones. That would require specialist surgeons and equipment that can be found only in certain hospitals around the country. All they could do in Redhill was put her on morphine and wait for a bed - which at one point she was told could take up to three weeks.
Her pain was so intense, however, that the morphine "only took the edge off it". "I was in a lot of pain, especially when they log-rolled me to change the sheet," Ms Lynn-Evans said from her hospital bed at St George's on Thursday. "It took four people to turn me. The nights were horrible. The mornings were really painful. The three weeks of waiting is an extra three weeks of pain. You just feel like you're going mad. You feel black and despairing. You want with all your heart for someone to make it better. I asked Dad to leave me outside the hospital because then it would be more likely I'd get a bed, rather than waiting by the phone. I felt despair, lying there feeling empty and feeling that I had to tackle this day by day for weeks."
Lack of beds
Ms Lynn-Evans's problem was that she was stable and not going to die; when a bed became available it would go to another more pressing case. At one point a bed became available at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford, but before she could be moved John Radcliffe's fund manager had to agree. The fund manager did not arrive at work until 9.30am. By the time Ms Lynn-Evans's case came to the top of the administrator's pile and permission was granted, the bed had gone. Fortunately for Ms Lynn-Evans her mother, Julie, is a psychotherapist who works in child mental health. She is also a broadcaster with a string of top NHS officials in her contacts book. She was able to make a fuss where it counts, and her daughter was moved to St George's hospital in London after only five days.
"Because of the problems with the beds I didn't know where to go to after the accident," Julie Lynn-Evans said. "Lucy was taken to Redhill on the Friday and they saved her life. I cannot thank the doctors enough. But they knew they didn't have the expertise to fix her so I was told not to go to Redhill because they were going to move her. Then at 4am I was told to go to Redhill after all. I'd spent the whole time living through a mother's worst nightmare and yet unable to go to my child. The same night as Lucy, a woman came in from a car crash. She was 63 and had a clot in her lung. Lucy was considered stable, so the woman got her bed. All the time Lucy's having no treatment. As a mother you'd do anything to help your child when you see them in so much pain. But I know that in securing a bed for Lucy, someone else had to wait longer."
Fortunately Lucy is going to make a full recovery, which she and her family put down to the excellent care they have received from surgeons, nurses and doctors at both St George's and Redhill hospitals. The delays, however, caused by bureaucracy and a shortage of beds, could have led to a very different outcome. "The delays not only cause distress to families and patient, but other serious medical issues - thrombosis, bed sores, chest infections and urine and wound infections," said Mr Bircher. "The longer the bone fragments are left displaced, the more the clot begins to form new bone, thus the harder it is to replace the fragment to the correct position.
Patients suffer
"The first step to dealing with the problem is an acceptance and realisation that the system isn't working with trauma and other emergency services in medicine. Sending each other forms and bills is not a good way of doing it. I'm acutely aware that resources are an issue. But basic emergency services should be of the highest quality. If we consider ourselves a leading nation we should have a first-class emergency healthcare system. We do not, and the situation is worsening. "It's pot luck where you go. There's not a defined system. We have to fight every day to get patients in. We have to break through the bureaucracy and develop a new system. There is a lack of intensive care beds in London and around the country which further magnifies the problem.
"Direct funding from the centre, perhaps cutting out the trusts, is perhaps a good idea. One must involve clinicians at the sharp end in the decision-making. Like the Bank of England the politicians should let it go. Doctors, honestly, know best."
Dermot O'Riordan, a member of the council of the Royal College of Surgeons, agreed that a number of services - not just trauma - needed commissioning at a higher level and in some cases co-ordinating nationally, although not necessarily centrally funding. Mr O'Riordan, the RCS council member responsible for the Delivery of Surgical Services Committee, said: "Commissioning of very specialist services, whether elective or emergency, needs to be done at a higher level than a primary care trust. Some need to be co-ordinated by the strategic health authority and some even at national level."
A spokesman for the Department of Health said: "We recognise that a very small number of patients may wait to receive appropriate care. This is because they need very specialised treatment, and critically ill patients waiting for treatment is the exception rather than the rule. "Capacity in intensive care units has improved dramatically in recent years. We now have almost 1,000 more ICU beds than in 2000 and we are looking at ways to increase capacity further."
Source
WE are to blame for China's pollution
The article below embodies the hatred of modern Western society that largely underpins the Greenie movement. Note the superior look on the face of John Vidal, the author of the article, below. We are so lucky to have such an all-seeing headmaster to impart wisdom to us
We've just had the first really big look at the environmental catastrophe now unfolding in China. Courtesy of the OECD, the club of 30 rich nations which was called in by the Beijing government to assess the environmental situation, a monster 260-page report has just been published, which draws together the work of China's leading scientists, the World Bank, and central and local government.
What we are witnessing is the mass poisoning of a people and the ecological devastation of a nation. If this were a war by one people against another, we would call on the UN to step in. But it's a war against nature so we turn away.
Yet it raises ugly questions for us, too. How much of this pollution and the destruction of nature is actually being done in our name? The rich west has moved its manufacturing base to China and all those smoking factories and bright green rivers reflect not just China's dash for development, but the face of western consumerism. Can we really blame the Chinese for all the pollutants being emitted to keep us in cheap goods? Should we step in immediately with better technology?
On the other hand, this is a tacit arrangement. This is not the 18th century European industrial revolution when the technology to limit pollution was undeveloped. The Chinese authorities may have great environmental laws, they have the world's largest current account of credit, they have access to the best pollution abatement equipment in the world, yet they have totally failed to protect their people from harm. We must assume the authorities know what is going on and do nothing because they are powerless.
There are truly brave people at every level of government desperately trying to clean up China, and there are enormous schemes to improve the environment. But the sheer speed and momentum of the dash for growth means no city or administration can keep up with the urbanisation and industrial developments taking place.
The official line is that the pollution will be tackled when enough wealth has been created. Funny that. Isn't that exactly what rightwing American thinktanks and western politicians say when asked why they do not try to protect people? But it just doesn't wash anymore. Let's hear it straight. The Chinese catastrophe is quite simply the product of greed. Ours and theirs.
Source
"Ideal" weight for mothers promoted
Damned if you do and damned if you don't
Mothers who gain or lose a great deal of weight between pregnancies could be putting themselves and their babies at risk, experts have said. Even quite small changes in body mass index (BMI), of one or two units, between pregnancies are enough to have effects, say Jennifer Walsh and Deirdre Murphy, two obstetricians from Dublin. An increase of this size has been linked with a doubling of the risks of high blood pressure, preeclampsia, and having a large baby. Greater increases in weight between pregnancies add to the risk of stillbirth and other complications, they say in an editorial in the British Medical Journal.
On the other hand, they add, women losing a lot of weight run a greater risk of having premature babies, or babies of low birth-weight. The message is that women should try to maintain a healthy weight before, during and after pregnancy ? and to be the same weight at any subsequent pregnancies.
Dr Walsh, a specialist registrar in obstetrics and gynaecology at Coombe Women's Hospital in Dublin, and Professor Murphy, Professor of Obstetrics at Trinity College Dublin, say: "Women of reproductive age are bombarded with messages about diet, weight and body image. "There is growing concern on the one hand about an epidemic of obesity, and on the other about a culture that promotes `size zero' as desirable, irrespective of a woman's natural build. "Pregnancy is one of the most nutritionally demanding periods of a woman's life, with an adequate supply of nutrients essential to support foetal wellbeing and growth. "With at least half of all pregnancies unplanned, women need to be aware of the implications of their weight for pregnancy, birth and the health of their babies. "We should ensure that women of low body mass index attain a healthy weight before conception to reduce the risk of preterm birth and low infant birth-weight. "We should also counsel women with a history of previous preterm birth to maintain a healthy weight to prevent recurrence."
The authors cited studies on the effects of weight gain and weight loss. The first, a Swedish study, followed 207,534 women from 1992 to 2001 to examine the link between changes in body mass index and the impact on a baby and mother's health. The second, which was published last year in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, found that women whose BMI fell by five or more units between pregnancies had a higher risk of premature birth than women whose weight remained stable or increased. The effect was heightened among women who had already experienced one premature birth.
Tam Fry, board member of the National Obesity Forum, said: "I think these doctors are absolutely right. "It's fundamental that we teach girls at school not only to lose weight for their own health but also because of the risks to their child of entering motherhood being overweight." Being overweight was associated with polycystic ovary syndrome, which could result in difficulty conceiving, he said. "There is a known association between overweight and obese parents and the likelihood of a child being overweight themselves. "Women should be aiming for a normal weight before they have their second child. "Women also go the other way and starve themselves to plummet to a goal weight. They try to get down to a certain weight, and that is also wrong."
Source
Britain's Orwellian vision of government housing
Allocated a silver-level needs certificate, Linda is unlikely to get into the most popular development.but after a year's acceptable behaviour she will be given a secure tenancy certificate. This, however, is a floating security given the owners will be able to insist she moves into one of their smaller premises if her needs change. Next door to Linda is one of six extra care homes.they include video monitoring and biosensors to allow 24-hour video supervision from the district health centre.'
Speaking is Jon Rouse, outgoing head of the UK Housing Corporation, which controls all social housing in the UK (1). The slide that accompanied Rouse's recent speech represented the family of four - Linda, Tom, Dick and Harry - as little lego people. Rouse was not warning us of an Orwellian dystopia; this is actually his ideal of what should happen with social housing in the UK.
In Rouse's social-democratic hell, people will not talk about `social housing' - they will talk about `different degrees of ownership'. Even new tenants will be `gifted' two per cent equity - except that this equity is conditional upon good behaviour, and will be recovered in toto if tenants fall into more than eight weeks' arrears. Furthermore equity in the leasehold is conditional, since the Housing Corporation would have the (until now unheard of) right of first buyback, and there is absolutely no right of succession (meaning you cannot bequest the home to your children). In other words, this `equity' is not ownership at all - except that it does come with responsibilities for the repair and upkeep of your home.
Prime minister Gordon Brown has announced that three million homes will be built and that the state will take up the slack left by the private sector's failure to build enough houses to match demand (2). For many, this is a sign that Old Labour is back. Council housing in particular is something of a nostalgia-trip for born-again Labourites like Jon Cruddas, commentator Lynsey Hanley and London mayor Ken Livingstone.
This nostalgia for council housing is hard to take. There is no principle that says that houses built and managed by the state are any worse than those in the private sector. But in practise, social housing has precious little to do with meeting people's needs, and everything to do with state control over supposedly anti-social elements. The Housing Corporation's thinking about dividing people into Gold, Silver and Bronze levels - imposing tenancy agreements, issuing secure (but floating) tenancy certificates, partial equity, video- and bio-monitoring, 24-hour surveillance, retaining the right of first buy-back - are all drawn from the real way that social housing tenants are intrusively regulated by the authorities.
Throughout its history, social housing has always been intimately related to the perceived problem of social order. In Nathaniel Rothschild's `Four Per Cent Dwellings', which opened in 1887, each landing had its own warden, usually an ex-NCO from the army who would enforce curfews and respectable behaviour. When philanthropists decanted tenants into the subscription-funded Somers Town estate in the 1930s, their bedding was burnt and furniture put into a mobile fumigation wagon.as part of a public ceremony overseen by local dignitaries, complete with the burning of papier mach‚ effigies of rats, fleas and other pests.
Similar things took place outside of Britain. In `Red' Vienna's much-trumpeted inter-war municipal houses, Social Democrat councillors enforced a `social contract' with tenants, which committed them to responsible parenting. Where this was lacking, social workers were on hand to remove children to the municipal Child Observation Centres (3).
In the postwar expansion of social housing in Britain, the charity-laden character of such housing was moderated: tenants were more like citizens and less like supplicants. Therefore, other ways of relating to the estate-dwellers had to be found. Labour's Peter Shore (1924-2001) oversaw the racial segregation of Tower Hamlets' Council Stock in the 1970s, as the London borough used divide-and-rule tactics to win the support of white residents with marginally better estates. Then, 20 years later, in the early and mid-1990s, the council turned around and started threatening white residents, who had believed the promise of preferential treatment, with being evicted for racism (4).
Between 1979 and 1997, the Conservative government stopped new council houses being built in Britain, sold off some homes and transferred others to Housing Associations. The declining stock of council homes shifted the social mix, as the more affluent workers moved out of local authority management. This was when people started calling Council Housing `social housing', meaning that it was primarily for housing people who were a social problem.
In the Nineties, local authorities pioneered the systems of social control that would later be generalised under Labour's Crime and Disorder Bill in the form of the ASBO: that is, the Anti-Social Behaviour Order. Before there were ASBOs there were tenancy agreements. On 24 May 1995, 2,500 council tenants in Cross Farm Road, Birmingham, were warned that they would have to put their children under an 8pm curfew. They were told that not annoying or harassing their neighbours - or allowing their children to do so - was a condition of their council tenancies. Breaches were to be heard by a subcommittee of councillors (5). Councils had expanded the terms of their tenancy agreements to include clauses governing social behaviour on top of keeping up rent payments and looking after the fabric of the home.
In June 1995, the Labour Party, then still in opposition, published a housing consultation paper titled A Quiet Life. It was influenced heavily by the thinking of the (mostly Labour) councillors who had enhanced their powers of social regulation through the issue of housing. A Quiet Life proposed special Community Safety Orders, which could be imposed to regulate behaviour, on the same model as the expanded tenancy agreements. These were later renamed Anti-Social Behaviour Orders. Just as the councils had done when enforcing their tenancy agreements, so Labour proposed dealing with `problem tenants' through the use of professional witnesses (that is, housing officers) and by the lower standard of proof that is normally used in civil proceedings.
Recently the courts struck down an ASBO that was issued in Manchester on evidence supplied by the council, when it came to light that the reports they had solicited against the unfortunate accused were entirely made up. Manchester City Council had told the courts that they had independent corroboration, which was not true - but it was in keeping with the local authority's contempt for the rights of their tenants.
Brown is right that we need more homes. The market is so restrained by bureaucratic controls that it cannot meet the real demand that exists. It does not matter who builds or manages the homes, private sector or government. But council housing was never just about providing homes; it was always about regulating social behaviour. Those who long for a return to council housing are either ignorant of what a trap it was, or more likely, they look forward to the day when they can tie up more of the people they imagine to be `problem families' in bureaucratic regulations.
Source
US/UK relationship continues: "The British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, would not unveil plans for an early withdrawal of British troops from Iraq in talks with the US President, George Bush, Mr Brown's spokesman said yesterday. The two leaders were scheduled to meet yesterday for the first time since Mr Brown succeeded Tony Blair last month. Speculation has been rife in British media that Mr Brown might distance himself from Mr Blair's Iraq policy.... The White House and Downing Street are stressing that little has been disturbed in the "special relationship" between Britain and the US since the elevation of Mr Brown. Although friction may lie ahead on issues such as Iran's nuclear program, US officials appear confident there will be no sudden departures from Mr Brown on the key issues - especially on keeping Britain's 5500 troops in Iraq. Officials in both governments said this week's summit would focus on building a rapport between the leaders, aided by the bucolic setting of Camp David, the mountain retreat where Mr Bush entertains his closest foreign allies. "This will mainly be a reassurance thing," said the British author and political analyst Peter Riddell. "They want to knock down any suggestion that there is distance between them. Yes, they are different people, but they are fundamentally on the same wavelength."
Monday, July 30, 2007
The war on obesity is a war on the poor
`It's the poor wot gets the blame.' That was a popular refrain during the First World War, but it could just as easily be a rousing chorus from the trenches of the War on Obesity. Today there is an assumption that behind every flabby child waddling down the road there are parents who are as thick as mince, with barely enough money to send their overweight offspring to the chip shop for their dinner on the way back from fetching mum and dad's fags. However, two recent pieces of research give the lie to this sketch, suggesting that the middle classes are just as prone to eating crap food and having fat children as the poor.
Just over a week ago, the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) published research which showed that the poor, far from having a nutrition-lite diet of fat and sugar, actually ate much the same kinds of foods as everyone else (1). In a detailed survey of the eating habits of 3,278 people from households in the most materially deprived sections of the population, the FSA found that the most significant differences in eating habits were related to age, not social class. Younger people, regardless of social class, tended to consume more low-fibre, high-fat, high-sugar and processed foods than older generations. Poor people were no more likely to be overweight or obese than the better-off.
Then, last Sunday, the UK Independent on Sunday declared that `the nation's higher-paid working mothers bear much of the responsibility for the country's ticking obesity time bomb, and not the poorer working-class families who are usually blamed.' (2) Another study, carried out by University College London and Great Ormond Street Hospital, found that children growing up in households with incomes greater than œ33,000 per year were more likely to be obese than those in homes with the lowest incomes. Apparently, middle-class households where the mother works are particularly affected: `Long hours of maternal employment, rather than lack of money, may impede young children's access to healthy foods and physical activity.'
The news that middle-class kids get fat too shouldn't be a shock to anyone. It became frontpage news over the past week only because the problem of obesity has, until now, been readily blamed on the ignorance and moral failings of the working classes; that these `middle classes get fat!' findings have been treated as stunning is testament to the extent to which obesity has been associated with moral turpitude amongst the lower classes. And yet, at the same time as these latest studies seem to have exhonerated the poor, they have also found a new enemy in the War on Obesity: working mothers.
Women who hold down a job, run a home and raise children have got enough on their plates already. Now, apparently, they have to bear responsibility for their children's ill-health, too. As Dr Colin Waine, chairman of the National Obesity Forum, told the Independent on Sunday: `I do not wish to condemn these women but I do think the priority has to be the health of the child and its continued health into adulthood. We are in danger of raising a generation of young people with a much shorter life expectancy than previous generations.' (3) Unfortunately, Dr Waine sounds a bit like those people who say `I'm not a racist, but.' No doubt he will assure us that some of his best friends are working mothers.
Whether being a working mother really is going to make your children fat or not (and we shouldn't leap to conclusions on the basis on one study), the question really should be: does it matter? The fact is, the relationship between ill-health and obesity is a complicated one. It certainly appears to be the case that the very overweight have a lower life expectancy than those who are lighter. But whether this is strictly to do with how much fat they have round their waists is another matter. It is not only the amount of body fat they have that makes the very overweight different to slimmer individuals. For example, obese people tend to take less exercise and there's good evidence that exercise (which in this case means walking regularly rather than running marathons) can offset most of the risks of heart disease, type-II diabetes and so on that are associated with being fat. Moreover, somebody who is capable of being really fat (most people wouldn't get really fat even if they stuffed their faces) may have other physiological problems that increase their propensity for chronic diseases. But for the rest of us - from those of `ideal' weight to the mildly obese - the risk of an early death is pretty much the same across the board.
Nor can we predict an individual's adult health from his or her size as a child. As a thought-provoking new paper by the Australian academic Michael Gard bluntly notes, `no study in the history of medical science has ever established a causal link between childhood fatness and adult ill-health or premature death' (4). So, why all the attention given to obesity in general, and childhood obesity in particular? It's not as if obsessing about our weight has made us any happier (or thinner). For Gard, obesity has become a morality play for those who would like to intervene in our lives: `Unfortunately, many commentators talk about the war on obesity as a war between good and evil; good food versus bad food, wholesome physical activity versus evil technology; and responsible versus irresponsible parenting. If we then factor in the inconvenient fact that obesity research has not produced a "smoking gun" which implicates anyone in particular, the stage is set perfectly for protracted and unhelpful arguments about what research does or does not say about the causes of obesity.' (5)
As the American commentator Paul Campos has noted, the best way to win the War on Obesity is to stop fighting it. But the War on the Poor will carry on regardless of the results of studies into eating habits - after all, it's a war that's been raging for well over a century and serves to confirm the innate superiority of those with a bob or two in their pockets. This extract from a popular English Victorian magazine could have been the product of many a modern-day hack: `The Bethnal Green poor. are a caste apart, a race of whom we know nothing, whose lives are of quite different complexion from ours, persons with whom we have no point of contact.' (6)
Such an explicit statement of the idea that some people are simply of better `stock' than others would be unacceptable today. Nonetheless, the same idea is implicit in the logic of modern thinking on poverty and obesity. Wealthy people who cook decent meals with fresh ingredients are seen as being morally superior - they care about their health and their children's health, and they care for the planet, too. Poorer people, who apparently only eat microwaveable meals or pizzas biked to their homes during an episode of EastEnders, are looked upon as sinful and slothful - they are, in Jamie Oliver's immortal words, `white trash' and `tossers' who allegedly care little for their own wellbeing or that of their families. Today, the sense of a divide between rich and poor is articulated most frequently through issues of health and diet.
The search for some form of moral superiority, rather than a real concern with health, is the driving force behind the authorities' War on Obesity. That is why a campaign ostensibly against fatness can easily shift its attention from feckless `chavs' to working mothers: because it is underpinned by moralistic judgements about our lifestyle choices rather than hard scientific facts about our eating habits. First `white trash' families and now mums who dare to work - the War on Obesity is a war against those who make the `wrong' choices, who refuse to play by the rules laid down by the new elite, and who instead do things their own way. In this sense, the demand that we `eat healthily' and have the correct body shape (whatever that might be) is at root a demand that we conform.
Source
UK Catholic Church Agency to Cease Adoption Work As Government Forces Homosexual Adoption
Catholic Care, a leading British Catholic adoption agency announced this week that it will cease operations in light of the recently imposed requirement that they must allow children to be adopted by homosexual partners. Catholic Care is the first of the religious social agencies to announce that it can no longer operate under the Sexual Orientation Regulations (SOR's) that proponents claimed would put an end to "discrimination" in the UK.
According to the Daily Mail, the agency, in operation for a century, announced that a vote of its trustees decided to end its services that had placed about 20 children a year into new families. The decision from Catholic Care came a week after the Catholic bishop of Lancaster, Patrick O'Donoghue wrote a letter to Catholic Caring Services, an adoption charity in his diocese, saying that the needs of the child must come before the desire for parenthood. The Daily Mail quotes him saying, "I favour rejection, thus withdrawal from adoption and fostering from December 2008 if all else fails." "We know that what is best for children is to live with married couples. Dilution of that harms children. Children who stay with married parents do by far the best, whilst those with same-sex couples often fare badly, and certainly never as well as a child with a married couple."
In April, when the Labour government passed the SOR's, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims and other religious and ethics groups were united in condemning the move, calling it a means of imposing state-sanctioned secularist doctrine on religious groups orchestrated by the gay lobby. In the weeks leading up to the passage of the secondary legislation, the media was in an uproar over the possibility that adoption agencies run by the Catholic Church might or might not be granted an exception to the law on religious conscience grounds.
Cormac Cardinal Murphy O'Connor, the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales warned that the Church would be forced to end its involvement in adopting children rather than comply with what he saw as a law that suppressed religious freedom. A similar decision was taken earlier by Boston Catholic Charities that ended its adoption services in March 2006 when the state of Massachusetts tried to force them to adopt children to homosexual partners.
In the end, Tony Blair, who was said to have been waffling on the issue, decreed that the Church, or any other group, would not be granted any exemptions but that an "adjustment period" would be granted for such bodies to come to terms with the new order.
Homosexual partners have been eligible to adopt children in Britain since 2002 and most non-religious agencies allow it. But the SOR's took the issue to the next phase in forcing religious agencies to allow it against their stated religious principles. Catholic Care served both Catholic and non-Catholic couples.
In comments to the BBC in the spring, Murphy O'Connor said the SOR's were part of a movement to force Christians out of public life in Britain. "Here the Catholic Church and its adoption services are wishing to act according to its principles and conscience and the government is saying: 'No, we won't allow you to ... you have no space, you have no place in the public life of this country.'"
Source
`It's the poor wot gets the blame.' That was a popular refrain during the First World War, but it could just as easily be a rousing chorus from the trenches of the War on Obesity. Today there is an assumption that behind every flabby child waddling down the road there are parents who are as thick as mince, with barely enough money to send their overweight offspring to the chip shop for their dinner on the way back from fetching mum and dad's fags. However, two recent pieces of research give the lie to this sketch, suggesting that the middle classes are just as prone to eating crap food and having fat children as the poor.
Just over a week ago, the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) published research which showed that the poor, far from having a nutrition-lite diet of fat and sugar, actually ate much the same kinds of foods as everyone else (1). In a detailed survey of the eating habits of 3,278 people from households in the most materially deprived sections of the population, the FSA found that the most significant differences in eating habits were related to age, not social class. Younger people, regardless of social class, tended to consume more low-fibre, high-fat, high-sugar and processed foods than older generations. Poor people were no more likely to be overweight or obese than the better-off.
Then, last Sunday, the UK Independent on Sunday declared that `the nation's higher-paid working mothers bear much of the responsibility for the country's ticking obesity time bomb, and not the poorer working-class families who are usually blamed.' (2) Another study, carried out by University College London and Great Ormond Street Hospital, found that children growing up in households with incomes greater than œ33,000 per year were more likely to be obese than those in homes with the lowest incomes. Apparently, middle-class households where the mother works are particularly affected: `Long hours of maternal employment, rather than lack of money, may impede young children's access to healthy foods and physical activity.'
The news that middle-class kids get fat too shouldn't be a shock to anyone. It became frontpage news over the past week only because the problem of obesity has, until now, been readily blamed on the ignorance and moral failings of the working classes; that these `middle classes get fat!' findings have been treated as stunning is testament to the extent to which obesity has been associated with moral turpitude amongst the lower classes. And yet, at the same time as these latest studies seem to have exhonerated the poor, they have also found a new enemy in the War on Obesity: working mothers.
Women who hold down a job, run a home and raise children have got enough on their plates already. Now, apparently, they have to bear responsibility for their children's ill-health, too. As Dr Colin Waine, chairman of the National Obesity Forum, told the Independent on Sunday: `I do not wish to condemn these women but I do think the priority has to be the health of the child and its continued health into adulthood. We are in danger of raising a generation of young people with a much shorter life expectancy than previous generations.' (3) Unfortunately, Dr Waine sounds a bit like those people who say `I'm not a racist, but.' No doubt he will assure us that some of his best friends are working mothers.
Whether being a working mother really is going to make your children fat or not (and we shouldn't leap to conclusions on the basis on one study), the question really should be: does it matter? The fact is, the relationship between ill-health and obesity is a complicated one. It certainly appears to be the case that the very overweight have a lower life expectancy than those who are lighter. But whether this is strictly to do with how much fat they have round their waists is another matter. It is not only the amount of body fat they have that makes the very overweight different to slimmer individuals. For example, obese people tend to take less exercise and there's good evidence that exercise (which in this case means walking regularly rather than running marathons) can offset most of the risks of heart disease, type-II diabetes and so on that are associated with being fat. Moreover, somebody who is capable of being really fat (most people wouldn't get really fat even if they stuffed their faces) may have other physiological problems that increase their propensity for chronic diseases. But for the rest of us - from those of `ideal' weight to the mildly obese - the risk of an early death is pretty much the same across the board.
Nor can we predict an individual's adult health from his or her size as a child. As a thought-provoking new paper by the Australian academic Michael Gard bluntly notes, `no study in the history of medical science has ever established a causal link between childhood fatness and adult ill-health or premature death' (4). So, why all the attention given to obesity in general, and childhood obesity in particular? It's not as if obsessing about our weight has made us any happier (or thinner). For Gard, obesity has become a morality play for those who would like to intervene in our lives: `Unfortunately, many commentators talk about the war on obesity as a war between good and evil; good food versus bad food, wholesome physical activity versus evil technology; and responsible versus irresponsible parenting. If we then factor in the inconvenient fact that obesity research has not produced a "smoking gun" which implicates anyone in particular, the stage is set perfectly for protracted and unhelpful arguments about what research does or does not say about the causes of obesity.' (5)
As the American commentator Paul Campos has noted, the best way to win the War on Obesity is to stop fighting it. But the War on the Poor will carry on regardless of the results of studies into eating habits - after all, it's a war that's been raging for well over a century and serves to confirm the innate superiority of those with a bob or two in their pockets. This extract from a popular English Victorian magazine could have been the product of many a modern-day hack: `The Bethnal Green poor. are a caste apart, a race of whom we know nothing, whose lives are of quite different complexion from ours, persons with whom we have no point of contact.' (6)
Such an explicit statement of the idea that some people are simply of better `stock' than others would be unacceptable today. Nonetheless, the same idea is implicit in the logic of modern thinking on poverty and obesity. Wealthy people who cook decent meals with fresh ingredients are seen as being morally superior - they care about their health and their children's health, and they care for the planet, too. Poorer people, who apparently only eat microwaveable meals or pizzas biked to their homes during an episode of EastEnders, are looked upon as sinful and slothful - they are, in Jamie Oliver's immortal words, `white trash' and `tossers' who allegedly care little for their own wellbeing or that of their families. Today, the sense of a divide between rich and poor is articulated most frequently through issues of health and diet.
The search for some form of moral superiority, rather than a real concern with health, is the driving force behind the authorities' War on Obesity. That is why a campaign ostensibly against fatness can easily shift its attention from feckless `chavs' to working mothers: because it is underpinned by moralistic judgements about our lifestyle choices rather than hard scientific facts about our eating habits. First `white trash' families and now mums who dare to work - the War on Obesity is a war against those who make the `wrong' choices, who refuse to play by the rules laid down by the new elite, and who instead do things their own way. In this sense, the demand that we `eat healthily' and have the correct body shape (whatever that might be) is at root a demand that we conform.
Source
UK Catholic Church Agency to Cease Adoption Work As Government Forces Homosexual Adoption
Catholic Care, a leading British Catholic adoption agency announced this week that it will cease operations in light of the recently imposed requirement that they must allow children to be adopted by homosexual partners. Catholic Care is the first of the religious social agencies to announce that it can no longer operate under the Sexual Orientation Regulations (SOR's) that proponents claimed would put an end to "discrimination" in the UK.
According to the Daily Mail, the agency, in operation for a century, announced that a vote of its trustees decided to end its services that had placed about 20 children a year into new families. The decision from Catholic Care came a week after the Catholic bishop of Lancaster, Patrick O'Donoghue wrote a letter to Catholic Caring Services, an adoption charity in his diocese, saying that the needs of the child must come before the desire for parenthood. The Daily Mail quotes him saying, "I favour rejection, thus withdrawal from adoption and fostering from December 2008 if all else fails." "We know that what is best for children is to live with married couples. Dilution of that harms children. Children who stay with married parents do by far the best, whilst those with same-sex couples often fare badly, and certainly never as well as a child with a married couple."
In April, when the Labour government passed the SOR's, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims and other religious and ethics groups were united in condemning the move, calling it a means of imposing state-sanctioned secularist doctrine on religious groups orchestrated by the gay lobby. In the weeks leading up to the passage of the secondary legislation, the media was in an uproar over the possibility that adoption agencies run by the Catholic Church might or might not be granted an exception to the law on religious conscience grounds.
Cormac Cardinal Murphy O'Connor, the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales warned that the Church would be forced to end its involvement in adopting children rather than comply with what he saw as a law that suppressed religious freedom. A similar decision was taken earlier by Boston Catholic Charities that ended its adoption services in March 2006 when the state of Massachusetts tried to force them to adopt children to homosexual partners.
In the end, Tony Blair, who was said to have been waffling on the issue, decreed that the Church, or any other group, would not be granted any exemptions but that an "adjustment period" would be granted for such bodies to come to terms with the new order.
Homosexual partners have been eligible to adopt children in Britain since 2002 and most non-religious agencies allow it. But the SOR's took the issue to the next phase in forcing religious agencies to allow it against their stated religious principles. Catholic Care served both Catholic and non-Catholic couples.
In comments to the BBC in the spring, Murphy O'Connor said the SOR's were part of a movement to force Christians out of public life in Britain. "Here the Catholic Church and its adoption services are wishing to act according to its principles and conscience and the government is saying: 'No, we won't allow you to ... you have no space, you have no place in the public life of this country.'"
Source
Sunday, July 29, 2007
POT ROTS YOUR BRAIN
Reading the report below in conjunction with various previous reports (e.g. here and here) does lead to the view that cannabis can do serious harm. That is no reason for banning it, though. Alcohol and motorcars do serious harm too. It is more an argument for legalizing it so that any problems can be better dealt with
Cannabis users are 40 per cent more likely to develop a psychotic illness than non-users, a study has found. Heavy users are more than twice as likely to suffer mental illness, according to a group of British academics, who calculate that about one in seven cases of conditions such as schizophrenia is caused by cannabis.
The warnings come as the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary signalled that the "softly softly" era for cannabis may be coming to an end. Gordon Brown said last week that the Home Office would be consulting on whether it had been right to downgrade cannabis from a Class B to a Class C drug in 2004. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, is to ask the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to review the evidence.
The paper, published in The Lancet, is written by a group of seven psychiatrists and psychologists from Bristol, Cardiff, London and Cambridge. They have pooled the findings from 35 studies in a number of countries, including the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Britain, and concluded that there is "a consistent association between cannabis use and psychotic symptoms, including disabling psychotic disorders".
They admit that they cannot be certain that the association means that there is a simple cause and effect, but say that policymakers "need to provide the public with advice about this widely used drug". They go on: "We believe there is now enough evidence to inform people that using cannabis could increase their risk of developing a psychotic illness later in life."
As well as looking at psychotic illness, they looked for evidence that cannabis could cause affective disorders such as depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts. Almost all the studies point towards an increased incidence of such disorders. The evidence is less strong, the writers say, but is still of concern.
The study was welcomed by many experts, but others counselled caution. Leslie Iverson, of the University of Oxford, a member of the advisory council, said: "Despite a thorough review the authors admit that there is no conclusive evidence that cannabis use causes psychotic illness. Their prediction that 14 per cent of psychotic outcomes in young adults in the UK may be due to cannabis use is not supported by the fact that the incidence of schizophrenia has not shown any significant change in the past 30 years."
But Robin Murray, of the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, called it "a very competent and conservative assessment of what research studies tell us about the relationship between cannabis and psychiatric disorders". He said that the risk could be even higher then the authors had estimated, because the cannabis available today was stronger than in the past. "This report cannot tell us whether the risk is higher with the use of the skunk-like preparations which are now widely available, and which contain a higher percentage of tetrahydrocannabinol," he said. "My own experience suggests to me that the risk with skunk is higher. Therefore, their estimate that 14 per cent of cases of schizophrenia in the UK are due to cannabis is now probably an understatement."
Martin Barnes, chief executive of Drugscope and also a member of the council, said: "Cannabis is not harmless, and although it has been known for some time that the drug can worsen existing mental health problems, it may also trigger the onset of problems in some people." "The challenge is to ensure that information on cannabis use and the associated risks is understood by teachers and health professionals working with young people and conveyed in ways that young people will listen to. Since reclassification, cannabis use has continued to fall. We need to make sure this trend continues."
Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of the mental health charity SANE, said: "The Lancet report justifies SANE's campaign that downgrading a substance with such known dangers masked the mounting evidence of direct links between the use of cannabis and later psychotic illness. The debate about classification should not founder on statistics but take into account the potential damage to hundreds of people who without cannabis would not develop mental illness. "While the majority can take the drug with no mind-altering effects, it is estimated that 10 per cent are at risk. You only need to see one person whose mind has been altered and life irreparably damaged, or talk to their family, to realise that the headlines are not scaremongering but reflect a daily, and preventable, tragedy."
Martin Blakeborough, director of the Kaleidescope Project and a member of the council, said that it would be a waste of public money for the same panel, with the same evidence, to review the issue again. "There is significant danger in reviewing cannabis again, as it takes experts' minds off more important issues. Classification itself, although important, is not as urgent as the increasing epidemic of hepatitis B and C among drug users and the wider community, or the increase of stimulant drugs in our community."
Source
British police tell mother: Don't scold daughter 'because of Maddy'
A mother who scolded her tantrum-throwing daughter in a shop was outraged to be visited at home by police who told her it was inappropriate to reprimand the girl in the light of Madeleine McCann's disappearance. Ruth Ball was at home when police officers knocked at her door and and ticked her off about the way she had chastised four-year-old Leigha. The 24-year-old was told that the method she had used to reprimand Leigha was "inappropriate" in the light of Madeleine's disappearance from her family's holiday apartment in Portugal.
Ms Ball was at a newsagent in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, when Leigha started screaming after being refused sweets. She swept her daughter out of the shop and put her in the car to calm down, standing a couple of feet away with her three-year-old son Jack. A few minutes later she got into the car and drove the family home, thinking no more of it.
The following day a policeman visited her at her home in Luton to tell her off. The officer said it was inadvisable to shout at her daughter and shut her in the car after what happened to missing Madeleine. Ms Ball, who works as a care assistant, said: "I'm deeply sorry for what has happened to Madeleine, but why should I let my daughter get away with things because she was abducted? "I am trying to raise two decent human beings, even though I have been advised by the police to let them run riot, turn into thugs and help keep the prison population going when they're older. "Kids learn young. If they learn now that kicking, hitting and screaming gets what they want, what are they going to do when they're adults?"
Ms Ball added that she was shocked that somebody had taken down her numberplate and called police - but even more shocked that officers had visited her at home. Ms Ball said: "Even the police officer said he didn't see the point in him being here. He had to come and show his face and tell me not to tell her off."
The force has been involved in various scandals and gaffes, including three in the space of a fortnight in May last year. First, an elderly farmer was seized by armed police and thrown in a cell after - quite legally - firing a warning shot at a dog that was threatening his lambs. Then it emerged four police officers had resigned after giving remand prisoners special favours - including sexual liaisons with girlfriends - in exchange for false confessions. Days later, the force was criticised when a private school headmaster was found dead shortly after officers sent letters to parents asking if they had any 'concerns' about him. No arrest had been made at the time. In 2004, a dangerous driving case collapsed at crown court because the arresting officer was teaching golf in Spain on a five-year career break.
A spokesman for Bedfordshire Police said: "We received a call from a member of the public concerned for the safety of a young girl she had seen being put into a car. "We attended the address of the owner and it transpired that the child, who was happy with no injuries, had been put in the car after having a tantrum. "If Ms Ball is concerned with what happened or what was said, she is very welcome to contact us."
Source
Pathological denial in Britain
Some in Britain have come up with an ingenuous way of countering the threat of jihad: They pretend it does not exist
One would think this would be rather difficult in the wake of the recent terrorist attempts in London and Glasgow, but the jihad-deniers use these very incidents to make their case. The failure of the bombs to go off, they argue, is proof that the would-be terrorists were an assortment of bungling fools. What's more, they extend this characterization to all those who swear by the cause. On this view, the whole concept of jihad is merely a silly concoction of some misguided dolts.
An article titled Evil plotters? More like sad and crackpot which ran recently in the UK Times offers a startling example of this line of thinking. This is what its author, the well-known British commentator Matthew Parris, writes:
Something is changing in the public mood, and I think it's this: terrorism is beginning to look a bit stupid. Those pictures of that idiotic and slightly overweight fellow with his clothes burnt off looked pathetic, undignified. It has occurred to even the meanest of intellects that concrete doesn't burn. And it isn't just the technical competence of alleged British terrorists that people are beginning to doubt: it's the whole jihadist idea. What world are they aiming for? Most British Muslims, just like most British everyone-else, think it's all pie in the sky: all rather silly. Yes, silly. Not "evil" as the red tops would have it. [...] We're not talking anything as clever as Evil here: we're talking Weird, we're talking Crackpot, we're talking Sad. The idea of using a Jeep to make a terminal explode was, in the latest lingo, a bit gay.
The trivialization and lightheartedness are hardly appropriate, especially since it was only due to sheer luck that the attacks did not translate into mass carnage. Explosives experts have repeatedly confirmed that had the London's terror plot gone as planned hundreds would have been engulfed by the blast and the accompanying fireball.
Neither are all would-be terrorists mere inept bunglers. Does Mr. Paris need to be reminded of that fatal morning of July 7, 2005? Does he recall the carnage that was unleashed then? Does he remember the destroyed double-decker and the twisted underground carriages splattered with blood? Did that look like the work of some blathering `crackpots' or like a horrific terrorist attack?
It is only a matter of good fortune that Britain has not been hit with more strikes like this. Last year Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, then the head of Britain's counterintelligence service MI5, revealed that her agency was monitoring at least 30 high-priority plots. At one point they were tracking more than 200 hundred cells with over 1500 aspiring jihadists among them.
Such is their determination that London Police Commission Sir Ian Blair warned that it was all but inevitable that some would succeed. How irresponsible, then, for editorial writers to trivialize the danger when those most familiar with its extent are almost certain that Britain will be hit again. Worse still, there is a very real possibility that the next strike will make July 7 look like a minor incident.
Various investigations and sting operations in the last couple of years have uncovered a number of plots of breath-taking audacity. A Muslim convert by the name of Dhiren Barot was, among other things, laying plans to detonate a dirty bomb and flood the London underground by breaching the river Thames. An Islamist cell was scheming to bring down a British Airways airliner with bare hands. The idea was to purchase thirty tickets on a British Airways flight and then batter their way into the cockpit. There were also plots to poison London's water supplies and to attack a shopping center with a giant fertilizer bomb.
But this is only the tip of the iceberg. There are many more plots in the works some of which are no doubt even more destructive and which may well come to our attention only after they have exacted their terrible toll.
Although we cannot predict when and how they will strike next, what we do know is that many of those who plan these atrocities are intelligent and well-educated individuals, not at all drifting dimwits as some would have us believe. We would do well to remember that the ringleader of London's 2005 terror strike - Mohammad Sidique Khan - was a respected teacher. Those responsible for the most recent attempts in London and Glasgow are all highly educated professionals. One of them, Dr. Mohammed Asha, is a neurologist who earned his appointment at a prestigious university hospital on the strength of his distinguished academic record. Another, Kafeel Ahmed, who apparently drove the explosives-laden jeep into the Glasgow airport terminal, is an engineer who was working toward a PhD in computational fluid dynamics. His passenger, Dr. Bilal Abdullah, is a diabetes specialist. Sabeel Ahmed, another man held in connection with this attack, is also a doctor.
The combination of smarts and advanced education is, in fact, a trademark of international jihad. Mohammed Atta held a couple of degrees from universities in Cairo and Hamburg. Several among his band of hijackers also had at least some college education. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda's second in command, is a cerebral surgeon. Bin Laden is a civil engineer himself. Sheik Khalid Sheik Mohamed holds a degree in mechanical engineering degree from an American university. Ramzi Yousef, one of the planners of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, excelled in math and science and holds an engineering degree from West Glamorgan Institute in Wales. In addition to his technical prowess, he is also fluent in English, Baluchi, Urdu and Arabic. We could go on and on. If truth be told, few other criminal enterprises can boast so many clever and university educated conspirators.
To make light of the threat posed by these determined fanatics - as some in Britain are now trying to do - is self-delusional at best and suicidal at worst. The mortal danger we face at their hands will not go away if we pretend it does not exist. It is like sticking one's head in the sand hoping that the jackal will not eat you. This, however, is a fatally misguided hope, since this enemy is too determined, too driven and too smart to let such an opportunity pass by.
Source
Hundreds of NHS hospital fatalities 'avoidable'
One third of deaths in hospital investigated by a patient safety watchdog could have been avoided, claims a report released today. The National Patient Safety Agency looked into 1,804 fatal hospital incidents reported to it in 2005. It found that 576 were "potentially avoidable" if there had been better communication between staff, faster recognition of the patient's deteriorating state, improved training and more accurate interpretation of test results.
Some 425 of the deaths investigated by the NPSA in 2005 were in acute or general hospitals. Of these, 71 were reported to be related to diagnostic errors, in 64 cases the patient's deteriorating condition was not recognised or not acted upon, and 43 involved a problem with resuscitation after cardiac arrest. The remainder were connected to medication errors, suicide or still-birth.
In 14 of the patients who deteriorated, no checks had been made on them for a prolonged time and changes in their vital signs such as blood pressure, heart rate or temperature were not detected. In a further 30 cases, the checks had been made but staff either did not recognise the patient's worsening condition or they did not act. In 17 other cases help was sought but there was a delay.
Professor Richard Thomson, the NPSA's director of epidemiology and research, said: "These are not new concerns but more effort is needed to recognise and act upon them. "This work helps us to further raise the profile of these issues and support a programme of activities involving a range of national organisations and individual experts. Every preventable death is a tragedy, not only for the family but for the staff involved."
The report says all staff should be trained in dealing with cardiac arrest. Among the 43 deaths involving resuscitation, the study found that many of the incidents suggested that "medical and nursing staff did not have the depth of knowledge and skills required".
It said: "In most cases the delay in starting the resuscitation was reported to be because staff did not recognise the acute situation, failed to call the resuscitation team or did not make an attempt themselves to resuscitate the patient."
Fourteen reported incidents related to the use of equipment. One such report said: "During a cardiac arrest, defibrillator found not to have the correct leads and paddle to fit the defibrillator. This caused a delay of approx five minutes during the arrest."
During 2006, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) received 141 reports of adverse incidents involving defibrillators. Many were related to problems with electrodes or batteries. In the first six months of 2007, the MHRA received 86 reports and receives an average of 14 incident reports a month on these devices, some of which are duplicate reports from manufacturers. The NPSA report said: "Several of these incidents occurred in resuscitation situations, when user error may have contributed to the incident, for example, incorrect connection of suctioning tubes."
The report stresses that there may be many similar cases which have not been reported to the NPSA. Researchers said that about 13 million people are admitted to hospitals in England and Wales each year.
The findings come as the National Institute for health and Clinical Excellence releases guidance to clinicians on how to manage patients in hospital who deteriorate rapidly. It emphasises making a complete medical assessment of the patient, regular monitoring and improving communication between staff.
Source
Reading the report below in conjunction with various previous reports (e.g. here and here) does lead to the view that cannabis can do serious harm. That is no reason for banning it, though. Alcohol and motorcars do serious harm too. It is more an argument for legalizing it so that any problems can be better dealt with
Cannabis users are 40 per cent more likely to develop a psychotic illness than non-users, a study has found. Heavy users are more than twice as likely to suffer mental illness, according to a group of British academics, who calculate that about one in seven cases of conditions such as schizophrenia is caused by cannabis.
The warnings come as the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary signalled that the "softly softly" era for cannabis may be coming to an end. Gordon Brown said last week that the Home Office would be consulting on whether it had been right to downgrade cannabis from a Class B to a Class C drug in 2004. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, is to ask the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to review the evidence.
The paper, published in The Lancet, is written by a group of seven psychiatrists and psychologists from Bristol, Cardiff, London and Cambridge. They have pooled the findings from 35 studies in a number of countries, including the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Britain, and concluded that there is "a consistent association between cannabis use and psychotic symptoms, including disabling psychotic disorders".
They admit that they cannot be certain that the association means that there is a simple cause and effect, but say that policymakers "need to provide the public with advice about this widely used drug". They go on: "We believe there is now enough evidence to inform people that using cannabis could increase their risk of developing a psychotic illness later in life."
As well as looking at psychotic illness, they looked for evidence that cannabis could cause affective disorders such as depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts. Almost all the studies point towards an increased incidence of such disorders. The evidence is less strong, the writers say, but is still of concern.
The study was welcomed by many experts, but others counselled caution. Leslie Iverson, of the University of Oxford, a member of the advisory council, said: "Despite a thorough review the authors admit that there is no conclusive evidence that cannabis use causes psychotic illness. Their prediction that 14 per cent of psychotic outcomes in young adults in the UK may be due to cannabis use is not supported by the fact that the incidence of schizophrenia has not shown any significant change in the past 30 years."
But Robin Murray, of the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, called it "a very competent and conservative assessment of what research studies tell us about the relationship between cannabis and psychiatric disorders". He said that the risk could be even higher then the authors had estimated, because the cannabis available today was stronger than in the past. "This report cannot tell us whether the risk is higher with the use of the skunk-like preparations which are now widely available, and which contain a higher percentage of tetrahydrocannabinol," he said. "My own experience suggests to me that the risk with skunk is higher. Therefore, their estimate that 14 per cent of cases of schizophrenia in the UK are due to cannabis is now probably an understatement."
Martin Barnes, chief executive of Drugscope and also a member of the council, said: "Cannabis is not harmless, and although it has been known for some time that the drug can worsen existing mental health problems, it may also trigger the onset of problems in some people." "The challenge is to ensure that information on cannabis use and the associated risks is understood by teachers and health professionals working with young people and conveyed in ways that young people will listen to. Since reclassification, cannabis use has continued to fall. We need to make sure this trend continues."
Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of the mental health charity SANE, said: "The Lancet report justifies SANE's campaign that downgrading a substance with such known dangers masked the mounting evidence of direct links between the use of cannabis and later psychotic illness. The debate about classification should not founder on statistics but take into account the potential damage to hundreds of people who without cannabis would not develop mental illness. "While the majority can take the drug with no mind-altering effects, it is estimated that 10 per cent are at risk. You only need to see one person whose mind has been altered and life irreparably damaged, or talk to their family, to realise that the headlines are not scaremongering but reflect a daily, and preventable, tragedy."
Martin Blakeborough, director of the Kaleidescope Project and a member of the council, said that it would be a waste of public money for the same panel, with the same evidence, to review the issue again. "There is significant danger in reviewing cannabis again, as it takes experts' minds off more important issues. Classification itself, although important, is not as urgent as the increasing epidemic of hepatitis B and C among drug users and the wider community, or the increase of stimulant drugs in our community."
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British police tell mother: Don't scold daughter 'because of Maddy'
A mother who scolded her tantrum-throwing daughter in a shop was outraged to be visited at home by police who told her it was inappropriate to reprimand the girl in the light of Madeleine McCann's disappearance. Ruth Ball was at home when police officers knocked at her door and and ticked her off about the way she had chastised four-year-old Leigha. The 24-year-old was told that the method she had used to reprimand Leigha was "inappropriate" in the light of Madeleine's disappearance from her family's holiday apartment in Portugal.
Ms Ball was at a newsagent in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, when Leigha started screaming after being refused sweets. She swept her daughter out of the shop and put her in the car to calm down, standing a couple of feet away with her three-year-old son Jack. A few minutes later she got into the car and drove the family home, thinking no more of it.
The following day a policeman visited her at her home in Luton to tell her off. The officer said it was inadvisable to shout at her daughter and shut her in the car after what happened to missing Madeleine. Ms Ball, who works as a care assistant, said: "I'm deeply sorry for what has happened to Madeleine, but why should I let my daughter get away with things because she was abducted? "I am trying to raise two decent human beings, even though I have been advised by the police to let them run riot, turn into thugs and help keep the prison population going when they're older. "Kids learn young. If they learn now that kicking, hitting and screaming gets what they want, what are they going to do when they're adults?"
Ms Ball added that she was shocked that somebody had taken down her numberplate and called police - but even more shocked that officers had visited her at home. Ms Ball said: "Even the police officer said he didn't see the point in him being here. He had to come and show his face and tell me not to tell her off."
The force has been involved in various scandals and gaffes, including three in the space of a fortnight in May last year. First, an elderly farmer was seized by armed police and thrown in a cell after - quite legally - firing a warning shot at a dog that was threatening his lambs. Then it emerged four police officers had resigned after giving remand prisoners special favours - including sexual liaisons with girlfriends - in exchange for false confessions. Days later, the force was criticised when a private school headmaster was found dead shortly after officers sent letters to parents asking if they had any 'concerns' about him. No arrest had been made at the time. In 2004, a dangerous driving case collapsed at crown court because the arresting officer was teaching golf in Spain on a five-year career break.
A spokesman for Bedfordshire Police said: "We received a call from a member of the public concerned for the safety of a young girl she had seen being put into a car. "We attended the address of the owner and it transpired that the child, who was happy with no injuries, had been put in the car after having a tantrum. "If Ms Ball is concerned with what happened or what was said, she is very welcome to contact us."
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Pathological denial in Britain
Some in Britain have come up with an ingenuous way of countering the threat of jihad: They pretend it does not exist
One would think this would be rather difficult in the wake of the recent terrorist attempts in London and Glasgow, but the jihad-deniers use these very incidents to make their case. The failure of the bombs to go off, they argue, is proof that the would-be terrorists were an assortment of bungling fools. What's more, they extend this characterization to all those who swear by the cause. On this view, the whole concept of jihad is merely a silly concoction of some misguided dolts.
An article titled Evil plotters? More like sad and crackpot which ran recently in the UK Times offers a startling example of this line of thinking. This is what its author, the well-known British commentator Matthew Parris, writes:
Something is changing in the public mood, and I think it's this: terrorism is beginning to look a bit stupid. Those pictures of that idiotic and slightly overweight fellow with his clothes burnt off looked pathetic, undignified. It has occurred to even the meanest of intellects that concrete doesn't burn. And it isn't just the technical competence of alleged British terrorists that people are beginning to doubt: it's the whole jihadist idea. What world are they aiming for? Most British Muslims, just like most British everyone-else, think it's all pie in the sky: all rather silly. Yes, silly. Not "evil" as the red tops would have it. [...] We're not talking anything as clever as Evil here: we're talking Weird, we're talking Crackpot, we're talking Sad. The idea of using a Jeep to make a terminal explode was, in the latest lingo, a bit gay.
The trivialization and lightheartedness are hardly appropriate, especially since it was only due to sheer luck that the attacks did not translate into mass carnage. Explosives experts have repeatedly confirmed that had the London's terror plot gone as planned hundreds would have been engulfed by the blast and the accompanying fireball.
Neither are all would-be terrorists mere inept bunglers. Does Mr. Paris need to be reminded of that fatal morning of July 7, 2005? Does he recall the carnage that was unleashed then? Does he remember the destroyed double-decker and the twisted underground carriages splattered with blood? Did that look like the work of some blathering `crackpots' or like a horrific terrorist attack?
It is only a matter of good fortune that Britain has not been hit with more strikes like this. Last year Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, then the head of Britain's counterintelligence service MI5, revealed that her agency was monitoring at least 30 high-priority plots. At one point they were tracking more than 200 hundred cells with over 1500 aspiring jihadists among them.
Such is their determination that London Police Commission Sir Ian Blair warned that it was all but inevitable that some would succeed. How irresponsible, then, for editorial writers to trivialize the danger when those most familiar with its extent are almost certain that Britain will be hit again. Worse still, there is a very real possibility that the next strike will make July 7 look like a minor incident.
Various investigations and sting operations in the last couple of years have uncovered a number of plots of breath-taking audacity. A Muslim convert by the name of Dhiren Barot was, among other things, laying plans to detonate a dirty bomb and flood the London underground by breaching the river Thames. An Islamist cell was scheming to bring down a British Airways airliner with bare hands. The idea was to purchase thirty tickets on a British Airways flight and then batter their way into the cockpit. There were also plots to poison London's water supplies and to attack a shopping center with a giant fertilizer bomb.
But this is only the tip of the iceberg. There are many more plots in the works some of which are no doubt even more destructive and which may well come to our attention only after they have exacted their terrible toll.
Although we cannot predict when and how they will strike next, what we do know is that many of those who plan these atrocities are intelligent and well-educated individuals, not at all drifting dimwits as some would have us believe. We would do well to remember that the ringleader of London's 2005 terror strike - Mohammad Sidique Khan - was a respected teacher. Those responsible for the most recent attempts in London and Glasgow are all highly educated professionals. One of them, Dr. Mohammed Asha, is a neurologist who earned his appointment at a prestigious university hospital on the strength of his distinguished academic record. Another, Kafeel Ahmed, who apparently drove the explosives-laden jeep into the Glasgow airport terminal, is an engineer who was working toward a PhD in computational fluid dynamics. His passenger, Dr. Bilal Abdullah, is a diabetes specialist. Sabeel Ahmed, another man held in connection with this attack, is also a doctor.
The combination of smarts and advanced education is, in fact, a trademark of international jihad. Mohammed Atta held a couple of degrees from universities in Cairo and Hamburg. Several among his band of hijackers also had at least some college education. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda's second in command, is a cerebral surgeon. Bin Laden is a civil engineer himself. Sheik Khalid Sheik Mohamed holds a degree in mechanical engineering degree from an American university. Ramzi Yousef, one of the planners of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, excelled in math and science and holds an engineering degree from West Glamorgan Institute in Wales. In addition to his technical prowess, he is also fluent in English, Baluchi, Urdu and Arabic. We could go on and on. If truth be told, few other criminal enterprises can boast so many clever and university educated conspirators.
To make light of the threat posed by these determined fanatics - as some in Britain are now trying to do - is self-delusional at best and suicidal at worst. The mortal danger we face at their hands will not go away if we pretend it does not exist. It is like sticking one's head in the sand hoping that the jackal will not eat you. This, however, is a fatally misguided hope, since this enemy is too determined, too driven and too smart to let such an opportunity pass by.
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Hundreds of NHS hospital fatalities 'avoidable'
One third of deaths in hospital investigated by a patient safety watchdog could have been avoided, claims a report released today. The National Patient Safety Agency looked into 1,804 fatal hospital incidents reported to it in 2005. It found that 576 were "potentially avoidable" if there had been better communication between staff, faster recognition of the patient's deteriorating state, improved training and more accurate interpretation of test results.
Some 425 of the deaths investigated by the NPSA in 2005 were in acute or general hospitals. Of these, 71 were reported to be related to diagnostic errors, in 64 cases the patient's deteriorating condition was not recognised or not acted upon, and 43 involved a problem with resuscitation after cardiac arrest. The remainder were connected to medication errors, suicide or still-birth.
In 14 of the patients who deteriorated, no checks had been made on them for a prolonged time and changes in their vital signs such as blood pressure, heart rate or temperature were not detected. In a further 30 cases, the checks had been made but staff either did not recognise the patient's worsening condition or they did not act. In 17 other cases help was sought but there was a delay.
Professor Richard Thomson, the NPSA's director of epidemiology and research, said: "These are not new concerns but more effort is needed to recognise and act upon them. "This work helps us to further raise the profile of these issues and support a programme of activities involving a range of national organisations and individual experts. Every preventable death is a tragedy, not only for the family but for the staff involved."
The report says all staff should be trained in dealing with cardiac arrest. Among the 43 deaths involving resuscitation, the study found that many of the incidents suggested that "medical and nursing staff did not have the depth of knowledge and skills required".
It said: "In most cases the delay in starting the resuscitation was reported to be because staff did not recognise the acute situation, failed to call the resuscitation team or did not make an attempt themselves to resuscitate the patient."
Fourteen reported incidents related to the use of equipment. One such report said: "During a cardiac arrest, defibrillator found not to have the correct leads and paddle to fit the defibrillator. This caused a delay of approx five minutes during the arrest."
During 2006, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) received 141 reports of adverse incidents involving defibrillators. Many were related to problems with electrodes or batteries. In the first six months of 2007, the MHRA received 86 reports and receives an average of 14 incident reports a month on these devices, some of which are duplicate reports from manufacturers. The NPSA report said: "Several of these incidents occurred in resuscitation situations, when user error may have contributed to the incident, for example, incorrect connection of suctioning tubes."
The report stresses that there may be many similar cases which have not been reported to the NPSA. Researchers said that about 13 million people are admitted to hospitals in England and Wales each year.
The findings come as the National Institute for health and Clinical Excellence releases guidance to clinicians on how to manage patients in hospital who deteriorate rapidly. It emphasises making a complete medical assessment of the patient, regular monitoring and improving communication between staff.
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Saturday, July 28, 2007
BRITS PUT THE WRONG GUY ON TRIAL
They should be prosecuting the filthy hospital that gave the kid MRSA. It was the MRSA that turned a minor problem into a major one
A headmaster accused of breaching safety standards after the death of a three-year-old boy who fell from a flight of steps while pretending to be Batman insisted yesterday that the child had been told the area was out of bounds.
James Porter, 66, was giving evidence before a jury at Mold Crown Court. He is accused of breaking health and safety laws by allowing infants unsupervised access to the steps in a remote part of the playground. Kian Williams, a pupil at the private Hillgrove School, in Bangor, is said to have been playing as Batman when he leapt from the fourth step and fell headlong. The child did not need treatment for a break in the skin or a fracture but later suffered secondary swelling of the brain and died from pneumonia brought on by a MRSA-type infection, on August 11, 2004. Mr Porter denies charges that he took inadequate measures to protect young pupils from the 13 steps leading from one playground to another. He faces an unlimited fine if found guilty. The trial continues.
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British socialists have betrayed the working class kids they purport to help
They hate and have managed to close down as "elitist" most of the schools that were once the highroad to a top education for poor kids -- the Grammar (selective) schools. But talented poor kids are still there
Fifteen pairs of eyes fix on the patient's shrivelled white limb. The toes are black. "It's gangrene," says the surgeon cheerily to his summer school students. The patient says his leg hurts more when he is lying down. "That's probably because less blood can circulate when it's on the level," says a mullet-haired youth with a Rotherham accent. An Asian girl suggests comparing blood pressure in the arm and leg to diagnose arterial disease. Long ringlets from Somerset agrees.
Over 90 minutes they forensically diagnose the patient. No one giggles, or chats, or doodles on their notes. I did science A-levels and I can't follow it all. These 17-year-olds, all from comprehensives and families where no one has been to university, are super-bright. They are the doctors and surgeons of the future, whose knowledge will save us when we are sick.
There has been much national soul-searching of late over Britain's alarmingly bad - and deteriorating - social mobility. Last week, to add to the gloom, our leading universities revealed they are taking fewer students from poorer areas and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation announced that the gap between rich and poor is the largest for 40 years.
Education is the missing link; if poor bright kids don't make it to the best universities to become the surgeons, businessmen and other professionals of the future, the engine of social mobility runs out of petrol. Oxford is the most glaring example with only 53.7% of its students coming from state schools (less than 20% from standard comprehensives). This matters because 90% of our kids go to them and, as I had rammed home to me during my day at the Oxford summer school, intelligence has nothing to do with class, income or accent.
The miracle, as I discovered as I heard more about the lives of the summer school kids, is that these teenagers have made it this far. "I kept quiet about coming here," one lad from Lancashire told me. "Me mates would think I was daft going to school in the holidays." The others laughed and agreed, and one added: "At school you wouldn't let on that you are clever. The others look down on you. You have to hide it." The best thing about summer school is finding that "there are people like you who are on your intellectual wavelength".
They all say they thought they would be the most stupid person on the week-long course. One girl told me she nearly got off the train because she was so sure she couldn't cut it. To them Oxford is not just another world, it's a different planet. Many had unemployed parents, nearly all were on EMA (education maintenance allowance) which is paid to over-16s who are still studying and whose family income is less than 31,000 pounds a year, and nearly all did jobs - waitressing, supermarket checkouts, bar work - as well as their studies.
They all said how proud their parents were that they'd come to Oxford to be students for a week. I had expected their schools to be proud, too - that their teachers would have picked them out, encouraged them to attend (it is hard to get on the summer school, 1,500 apply for 250 places). Not a bit of it. "My school didn't tell me about it," chorus a few voices. They'd found out from the local paper, posters in college, from the internet. Mostly off their own bats. Had their teachers encouraged them to apply? A few obviously had, but the majority implied that the teachers felt that Oxford was "divisive" and "elitist" - not for kids like them. With attitudes like this it's no surprise that we are not getting bright, poor kids into our elite universities. Harvard and the other US Ivy League institutions have teams of scouts truffle-hunting poor kids from bad schools with high SAT results.
A friend told me how he sat in on an admissions board at Harvard where they discussed a bright young black single mother from the ganglands of Los Angeles with SATs at the lowest end of their range but who they believed had the potential to be the mayor of a city, who with their help could be a catalyst for change. They wanted to create social capital. Despite the risks and the other higher qualified candidates, she was in.
At Oxford, by contrast, until 10 years ago the university ran no outreach programmes to get bright kids from unlikely schools and backgrounds into its colleges. Peter Lampl, an Oxford alumnus and himself a poor grammar school boy, was appalled to discover after spending 20 years in America that things here had gone backwards educationally. "I realised," he said, "that a kid like me had little to no chance of making it to Oxbridge or another Russell Group university. Something had to be done." He started funding the Oxford Summer Schools, which have proved so successful that they now run in 10 other top universities and the government is involved in rolling the programme out further.
At the dinner on the last night of the course the sense of thrill, of widening horizons, was palpable. "I thought everyone else would be an egghead, but they're not, they're just like me," said a hipster from Wales. "Oxford just seemed completely out of reach before I came here," said another, "but now I'm going to apply." A week of living in college, going to seminars and hanging out with students who are already there has shown them that this could be their world, too. Half of the kids who come on the summer school apply to Oxford and about 40% of those get in. Of the rest, almost all will get a place at a top university. As one Asian boy from Birmingham put it: "I always thought I'd go to the local college with my friends. Now I'm going to apply to Oxford, Bristol and Edinburgh."
It felt a privilege just to watch the bright young faces, chatting confidently, feeling on the cusp of great things, realising they've got what it takes. During the speeches when Lampl told them that they all had a great future, a black girl on the next table shouted "Yeah!" Lampl told them to work hard for their A-levels, that the next year would have more influence on the rest of their lives than any other. That anything was possible for them. I left feeling humbled. I had expected to go to Oxford since as a child my parents (who met there) had walked me round the quads. At St Paul's school and Westminster I was coached to get in. My time there was fantastic but not productive. I feel ashamed of my immense privilege and how arrogantly I wore it. We need to get our brightest kids, wherever they are from, into our best universities. If we don't, we all suffer.
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"Londonistan" shows how sick Britain is
A review by Hal G.P. Colebatch of "Londonistan" By Melanie Phillips
Has this book been reviewed before? If so, in light of the recent terror-bombings in Britain, another review may be called for. British Journalist and George Orwell Prize-winner Melanie Philips has written a chilling book, setting out how confused thinking, left-liberalism and obeisance to political correctness have led to Islamicist terrorism and extremism striking deep roots in Britain.
A major villain, she argues, is Blair -- not former Prime Minister Tony in this case, but Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair, who emerges as a man driven by fear of seeming politically incorrect. An employment tribunal found that he had racially discriminated against three officers at a training school who had been disciplined for, in one case referring to Muslim headwear as "tea-cosies," and in another case for having, perhaps in honest mistake, pronounced "Shi'ites" as "shitties" and having said he felt sorry for Muslims who fasted during Ramadan. Sir Ian responded to this finding by declaring that he was "unrepentant," repeating that the remarks were "Islamophobic" and declaring that the police must "embrace diversity." When questioned about the murder of Dutch film-maker Theo van Gogh for questioning Islamic attitudes to women, Sir Ian responded: "There were lots of fundamentalist Muslims who didn't shoot him," revealing a certain logical gap.
Phillips might have mentioned how, in words reminiscent of the confessions of Darkness at Noon or 1984 or China's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, John Grieve, assistant deputy commissioner in the Metropolitan Police Service, and head of its Racial task force, groveled that "I am a racist. I know because Sir William Macpherson said that I am; the Home Secretary said that I am; countless members of the public inquiry said that I am ....The Metropolitan Police Service is an institutionally racist organisation. It must be because Sir William Macpherson said that it is; the Home Secretary said that it is ..."
This was not sarcasm but was intended literally and at its face value. Ray Honeyford commented in the Salisbury Review:
It clearly conveys the impression of a man experiencing inner torment, after having been reduced to the level of a small child by a chastising and tyrannical father. It is not only the words themselves that are disturb, even though they are indeed chilling, coming as they do from the mouth of a mature adult. It is the identity of the person who uttered them that causes the greatest feeling of alarm in the reader.
Melanie Phillips has something shocking on almost every page:
At various conferences to discuss the terrorist threat, senior police officers declared their respect for the Muslim Brotherhood and its mouthpiece in Britain, the Muslim Association of Britain, despite its extremist views and support for terrorism in Iraq and Israel. This enraged secular Muslims who were present, who protested that by cosying up to such extremists the police were betraying the Muslim community.
A particular favorite of the police contact unit appeared to be a Sheik who had called for suicide bombings in Israel and Iraq as a religious duty, and claimed: "We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America!" She documents the reaction of Muslim bodies in Britain to the London terrorist bombing, denial that they were anything to do with Muslims and threat of more to come often being combined in the same sentence.
Former Home Secretary Charles Clarke said that "there can be no negotiations about the reimposition of Shariah law, there can be no negotiation about the suppression of equality between the sexes, there can be no negotiation about the ending of free speech. These values are fundamental to our civilization and are simply not up for negotiation." This was attacked as an assault on Islam. All this is combined with a resurgence of Jew-hatred such as we might have thought perished in the West about 1945.
Melanie Phillips quotes a 2004 Home Office survey which found 26% of Brtitish Muslims felt no loyalty to Britain, 13% defended terrorism, and about 16,000 were prepared to engage in or actively support terrorism. A third believed Western society was decadent and immoral and that Muslims should seek to bring it to an end. The former Metropolitan Police commissioner, Lord Stevens, revealed that up to 3,000 British-born or British-based people had passed through Osama bin Laden's terrorist training camps. Other surveys gave at least equally alarming results: a BBC poll found 15% of British Muslims supported the 9/11 attacks. Even though these numbers were minorities, with a total Muslim population of 1,600,000, growing rapidly every week, they added up to very substantial numbers in absolute terms.
Four out of 10 British Muslims want Sharia law (which includes punitive stoning and amputation) introduced into parts of the country, and a fifth have sympathy with the "feelings and motives" of the suicide bombers who killed 52 people in the London terrorist bus and tube attacks.
Melanie Phillips claims: "British Muslims are overwhelmingly horrified and disgusted by the louche and dissolute behaviour of a Britain that has torn up notions of respectability. They observe the alcoholism, drug abuse and pornography, the breakdown of family life and the encouragement of promiscuity, and find themselves in opposition to their host society's guiding values."
That, perhaps, is where the other Blair, Tony Blair, comes in. Whether on not things will change under Gordon Brown is hard to say, but it is impossible to deny that the Blair government, for all Blair's military support of the U.S. alliance and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has presided over an ethos, first known as Cool Britannia, which could command little respect or loyalty from anyone. What does one make of a society where trading inspectors prosecute the vendors of pornographic videos on the grounds that their content is less pornographic than advertised, and where the Queen is made to confer a knighthood on a notorious icon of the drug culture? That is another aspect of Londonistan and, along with other elements, goes to make a very disturbing whole. Meanwhile, the director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity said in 2006: "The more fundamentalist clerics think it is only a matter of time before they will persuade the government to concede on the issue of Sharia law. Given the Government's record of capitulating, you can see why they believe that."
I am not always in agreement with Christopher Hitchens, but a comment from him is apt here:
I find myself haunted by a challenge that was offered on the BBC by a Muslim activist named Anjem Choudary: a man who has praised the 9/11 murders as "magnificent" and proclaimed that "Britain belongs to Allah." When asked if he might prefer to move to a country which practices Sharia, he replied: "Who says you own Britain anyway?" A question that will have to be answered one way or another.
The implications of the book are compelling, though to borrow a certain title and call them an inconvenient truth would be an understatement: Britain is going to have to bite on some very tough political bullets if it is going to survive as anything like the nation it has been.
Source
A satirical reply to feminist values
By Britain's irreverent Jeremy Clarkson
We know from Big Brother that today's young ladies have replaced their appealing thongs with pants the size of spinnakers, and now comes news that the sales of stockings are in free fall. Down from 10m sales in 2002 to 5m in 2006. According to The Sun's woman editor - as opposed to the real editor, who's a woman - this is because girls have better things to do these days than get dressed up like a Parisian hooker every time they go to the shops. I absolutely understand that. Getting dressed in the morning is something that should never take more than 20 seconds and putting on a pair of stockings and suspenders can take anything up to three hours.
Actually this is only a guess, based on how long it takes me to undo a suspender belt. Even when I'm armed with a head torch and a pair of scissors. Anyway, I fully appreciate that in a postMrs Robinson world, where women work and raise children, stockings are to the wardrobe what the quill is to online banking. But here's the thing, girls. Tell us that you won't wear stockings because they are impractical and you may well find that we'll give up as well. At the moment we tend not to pick our noses when in your company because it is a bit slovenly. But if you're going to slob around in a pair of footless tights and a sack, then you won't mind if we bury an index finger in each of our nostrils and dig away.
I was at London's City airport this morning surrounded by a group of middle-aged chaps who, I presume, were going to Scotland to watch some golfists. At home, each of these men would, I'm sure, eat all their yoghurt and pretend to be interested in Victoria Beckham's opinion on interior design. But at the airport, with no wives and girlfriends to keep them in check, they quickly reverted to type. By 7.45am they were on their third pint and as I boarded my plane, I believe they were beginning a farting competition.
This is not a criticism. I recently spent a couple of weeks camping in Africa with 20 or so other men and you wouldn't believe how neanderthal we became. Or how quickly. Every morning would begin with a conversation about who'd been for their number twos, what the number twos had looked like, what they'd smelt of, how much more there was to come, and whether any records for sheer tonnage had been set. Then we'd move on to who'd crept into whose tent the night before, what it had felt like, and how long, if we were the last 20 people on earth, it might take for one us to sleep with James May.
You might argue that your husband is not like this, but I assure you that beneath the veneer you see at home, he is. He may do the washing up and take the children to the park, but when you're not around, he's like the light in a fridge. He's a completely different animal, obsessed with bottoms, buggery and belching. So, girls, do you want that sort of thing at home? Really? No? Well get down to the petrol station then and buy some bloody stockings.
You may say that tights are practical and warm but have you seen what they do to a bank robber's face? And hold-ups won't do either. Thanks to all that elasticated rubber, they ruin the shape of your thighs and, in all probability, cut off the blood supply to your feet, causing gangrene. And no man fancies a girl, no matter how sparkling her eyes and wit might be, if she is gangrenous. Pop socks, meanwhile, would be completely banned if I were in power. And anyone found wearing them would be made to parade in nothing else through their local town, and then shot.
It must be stockings, with a suspender belt, because what this combination does is mask everything that doesn't matter and lay bare everything that does. A picture is nice, but before you hang it on the wall it needs a frame. And apart from anything else, if you flash your stocking tops at a man you can, and I mean this literally, get him to do anything you want. Unless you have the figure of a bison obviously, in which case he won't do anything at all. Because he will be too busy being sick. Assuming, however, you have legs which clearly belong on a human, you only need let a man know you're wearing stockings and you will be empowered to a point you may have thought impossible.
I honestly believe that if David Milibandilegs really wanted to solve this Russian crisis, he could simply ask Rene Russo to reenact that scene from the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair and Putin would have the Litvinenko murder suspect on the next flight to London. And please, let's not have any of this "ooh, stockings make us sex objects" nonsense because that simply isn't true. We all saw Sharon Stone cross her legs in Basic Instinct and we all tittered in a schoolboy way. But when Rene popped a stockinged leg from that split skirt, I damn nearly fainted with admiration at the size of her brain.
Plainly she'd worked out that what she really needed to gain control over the entire New York police department was not a degree from Harvard. But a pair of 4.99 stockings from Pretty Polly. That makes her smart. As well.
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Food faddists damage kids' TV
Children are losing high-quality television programmes that reflect their lives because of underfunding and the pursuit of ratings, campaigners say. Floella Benjamin, the former Play School presenter who led the campaign to create a children’s minister, said it was shameful that so little home-grown television was now made as channels increasingly relied on cheap imports. She told the Social Market Foundation in London that more government funding and legislation was urgently needed. Incentives were vital to help not-for-profit organisations to produce high-quality public service shows for children. Doing so, she said, would prove that the Government was serious about its policy of every “child matters”.
The ban on advertising food high in fat, sugar and salt has cut the advertising income generated from children’s programmes by £30 million, a third of the total. ITV responded by scrapping new commissions and long-running hits, including My Parents Are Aliens, pictured right. Drama repeats have replaced children’s programmes on ITV1 at teatime as the channel competes for ratings with Channel 4.
Laurence Bowen, producer of My Life as a Popat, pictured left, the award-winning ITV children’s comedy about an larger-than-life Indian family living in West London, said that the popular series ended because of budget considerations.“Without a broadcasting Bill that can give Ofcom the teeth to really insist that ITV does children’s programmes, and without any other government legislation to follow that, it’s dead.”
Professor Jackie Marsh, of Sheffield University, said her research suggested that television played an important role in a child’s cognitive, linguistic, emotional and social development. The Government needed to encourage broadcasters to make programmes that reflected the daily lives, cultures and concerns of young people. “Not to do so would deny children their rights to a rich and varied diet of cultural activities.”
Source
There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual themes.
They should be prosecuting the filthy hospital that gave the kid MRSA. It was the MRSA that turned a minor problem into a major one
A headmaster accused of breaching safety standards after the death of a three-year-old boy who fell from a flight of steps while pretending to be Batman insisted yesterday that the child had been told the area was out of bounds.
James Porter, 66, was giving evidence before a jury at Mold Crown Court. He is accused of breaking health and safety laws by allowing infants unsupervised access to the steps in a remote part of the playground. Kian Williams, a pupil at the private Hillgrove School, in Bangor, is said to have been playing as Batman when he leapt from the fourth step and fell headlong. The child did not need treatment for a break in the skin or a fracture but later suffered secondary swelling of the brain and died from pneumonia brought on by a MRSA-type infection, on August 11, 2004. Mr Porter denies charges that he took inadequate measures to protect young pupils from the 13 steps leading from one playground to another. He faces an unlimited fine if found guilty. The trial continues.
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British socialists have betrayed the working class kids they purport to help
They hate and have managed to close down as "elitist" most of the schools that were once the highroad to a top education for poor kids -- the Grammar (selective) schools. But talented poor kids are still there
Fifteen pairs of eyes fix on the patient's shrivelled white limb. The toes are black. "It's gangrene," says the surgeon cheerily to his summer school students. The patient says his leg hurts more when he is lying down. "That's probably because less blood can circulate when it's on the level," says a mullet-haired youth with a Rotherham accent. An Asian girl suggests comparing blood pressure in the arm and leg to diagnose arterial disease. Long ringlets from Somerset agrees.
Over 90 minutes they forensically diagnose the patient. No one giggles, or chats, or doodles on their notes. I did science A-levels and I can't follow it all. These 17-year-olds, all from comprehensives and families where no one has been to university, are super-bright. They are the doctors and surgeons of the future, whose knowledge will save us when we are sick.
There has been much national soul-searching of late over Britain's alarmingly bad - and deteriorating - social mobility. Last week, to add to the gloom, our leading universities revealed they are taking fewer students from poorer areas and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation announced that the gap between rich and poor is the largest for 40 years.
Education is the missing link; if poor bright kids don't make it to the best universities to become the surgeons, businessmen and other professionals of the future, the engine of social mobility runs out of petrol. Oxford is the most glaring example with only 53.7% of its students coming from state schools (less than 20% from standard comprehensives). This matters because 90% of our kids go to them and, as I had rammed home to me during my day at the Oxford summer school, intelligence has nothing to do with class, income or accent.
The miracle, as I discovered as I heard more about the lives of the summer school kids, is that these teenagers have made it this far. "I kept quiet about coming here," one lad from Lancashire told me. "Me mates would think I was daft going to school in the holidays." The others laughed and agreed, and one added: "At school you wouldn't let on that you are clever. The others look down on you. You have to hide it." The best thing about summer school is finding that "there are people like you who are on your intellectual wavelength".
They all say they thought they would be the most stupid person on the week-long course. One girl told me she nearly got off the train because she was so sure she couldn't cut it. To them Oxford is not just another world, it's a different planet. Many had unemployed parents, nearly all were on EMA (education maintenance allowance) which is paid to over-16s who are still studying and whose family income is less than 31,000 pounds a year, and nearly all did jobs - waitressing, supermarket checkouts, bar work - as well as their studies.
They all said how proud their parents were that they'd come to Oxford to be students for a week. I had expected their schools to be proud, too - that their teachers would have picked them out, encouraged them to attend (it is hard to get on the summer school, 1,500 apply for 250 places). Not a bit of it. "My school didn't tell me about it," chorus a few voices. They'd found out from the local paper, posters in college, from the internet. Mostly off their own bats. Had their teachers encouraged them to apply? A few obviously had, but the majority implied that the teachers felt that Oxford was "divisive" and "elitist" - not for kids like them. With attitudes like this it's no surprise that we are not getting bright, poor kids into our elite universities. Harvard and the other US Ivy League institutions have teams of scouts truffle-hunting poor kids from bad schools with high SAT results.
A friend told me how he sat in on an admissions board at Harvard where they discussed a bright young black single mother from the ganglands of Los Angeles with SATs at the lowest end of their range but who they believed had the potential to be the mayor of a city, who with their help could be a catalyst for change. They wanted to create social capital. Despite the risks and the other higher qualified candidates, she was in.
At Oxford, by contrast, until 10 years ago the university ran no outreach programmes to get bright kids from unlikely schools and backgrounds into its colleges. Peter Lampl, an Oxford alumnus and himself a poor grammar school boy, was appalled to discover after spending 20 years in America that things here had gone backwards educationally. "I realised," he said, "that a kid like me had little to no chance of making it to Oxbridge or another Russell Group university. Something had to be done." He started funding the Oxford Summer Schools, which have proved so successful that they now run in 10 other top universities and the government is involved in rolling the programme out further.
At the dinner on the last night of the course the sense of thrill, of widening horizons, was palpable. "I thought everyone else would be an egghead, but they're not, they're just like me," said a hipster from Wales. "Oxford just seemed completely out of reach before I came here," said another, "but now I'm going to apply." A week of living in college, going to seminars and hanging out with students who are already there has shown them that this could be their world, too. Half of the kids who come on the summer school apply to Oxford and about 40% of those get in. Of the rest, almost all will get a place at a top university. As one Asian boy from Birmingham put it: "I always thought I'd go to the local college with my friends. Now I'm going to apply to Oxford, Bristol and Edinburgh."
It felt a privilege just to watch the bright young faces, chatting confidently, feeling on the cusp of great things, realising they've got what it takes. During the speeches when Lampl told them that they all had a great future, a black girl on the next table shouted "Yeah!" Lampl told them to work hard for their A-levels, that the next year would have more influence on the rest of their lives than any other. That anything was possible for them. I left feeling humbled. I had expected to go to Oxford since as a child my parents (who met there) had walked me round the quads. At St Paul's school and Westminster I was coached to get in. My time there was fantastic but not productive. I feel ashamed of my immense privilege and how arrogantly I wore it. We need to get our brightest kids, wherever they are from, into our best universities. If we don't, we all suffer.
Source
"Londonistan" shows how sick Britain is
A review by Hal G.P. Colebatch of "Londonistan" By Melanie Phillips
Has this book been reviewed before? If so, in light of the recent terror-bombings in Britain, another review may be called for. British Journalist and George Orwell Prize-winner Melanie Philips has written a chilling book, setting out how confused thinking, left-liberalism and obeisance to political correctness have led to Islamicist terrorism and extremism striking deep roots in Britain.
A major villain, she argues, is Blair -- not former Prime Minister Tony in this case, but Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair, who emerges as a man driven by fear of seeming politically incorrect. An employment tribunal found that he had racially discriminated against three officers at a training school who had been disciplined for, in one case referring to Muslim headwear as "tea-cosies," and in another case for having, perhaps in honest mistake, pronounced "Shi'ites" as "shitties" and having said he felt sorry for Muslims who fasted during Ramadan. Sir Ian responded to this finding by declaring that he was "unrepentant," repeating that the remarks were "Islamophobic" and declaring that the police must "embrace diversity." When questioned about the murder of Dutch film-maker Theo van Gogh for questioning Islamic attitudes to women, Sir Ian responded: "There were lots of fundamentalist Muslims who didn't shoot him," revealing a certain logical gap.
Phillips might have mentioned how, in words reminiscent of the confessions of Darkness at Noon or 1984 or China's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, John Grieve, assistant deputy commissioner in the Metropolitan Police Service, and head of its Racial task force, groveled that "I am a racist. I know because Sir William Macpherson said that I am; the Home Secretary said that I am; countless members of the public inquiry said that I am ....The Metropolitan Police Service is an institutionally racist organisation. It must be because Sir William Macpherson said that it is; the Home Secretary said that it is ..."
This was not sarcasm but was intended literally and at its face value. Ray Honeyford commented in the Salisbury Review:
It clearly conveys the impression of a man experiencing inner torment, after having been reduced to the level of a small child by a chastising and tyrannical father. It is not only the words themselves that are disturb, even though they are indeed chilling, coming as they do from the mouth of a mature adult. It is the identity of the person who uttered them that causes the greatest feeling of alarm in the reader.
Melanie Phillips has something shocking on almost every page:
At various conferences to discuss the terrorist threat, senior police officers declared their respect for the Muslim Brotherhood and its mouthpiece in Britain, the Muslim Association of Britain, despite its extremist views and support for terrorism in Iraq and Israel. This enraged secular Muslims who were present, who protested that by cosying up to such extremists the police were betraying the Muslim community.
A particular favorite of the police contact unit appeared to be a Sheik who had called for suicide bombings in Israel and Iraq as a religious duty, and claimed: "We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America!" She documents the reaction of Muslim bodies in Britain to the London terrorist bombing, denial that they were anything to do with Muslims and threat of more to come often being combined in the same sentence.
Former Home Secretary Charles Clarke said that "there can be no negotiations about the reimposition of Shariah law, there can be no negotiation about the suppression of equality between the sexes, there can be no negotiation about the ending of free speech. These values are fundamental to our civilization and are simply not up for negotiation." This was attacked as an assault on Islam. All this is combined with a resurgence of Jew-hatred such as we might have thought perished in the West about 1945.
Melanie Phillips quotes a 2004 Home Office survey which found 26% of Brtitish Muslims felt no loyalty to Britain, 13% defended terrorism, and about 16,000 were prepared to engage in or actively support terrorism. A third believed Western society was decadent and immoral and that Muslims should seek to bring it to an end. The former Metropolitan Police commissioner, Lord Stevens, revealed that up to 3,000 British-born or British-based people had passed through Osama bin Laden's terrorist training camps. Other surveys gave at least equally alarming results: a BBC poll found 15% of British Muslims supported the 9/11 attacks. Even though these numbers were minorities, with a total Muslim population of 1,600,000, growing rapidly every week, they added up to very substantial numbers in absolute terms.
Four out of 10 British Muslims want Sharia law (which includes punitive stoning and amputation) introduced into parts of the country, and a fifth have sympathy with the "feelings and motives" of the suicide bombers who killed 52 people in the London terrorist bus and tube attacks.
Melanie Phillips claims: "British Muslims are overwhelmingly horrified and disgusted by the louche and dissolute behaviour of a Britain that has torn up notions of respectability. They observe the alcoholism, drug abuse and pornography, the breakdown of family life and the encouragement of promiscuity, and find themselves in opposition to their host society's guiding values."
That, perhaps, is where the other Blair, Tony Blair, comes in. Whether on not things will change under Gordon Brown is hard to say, but it is impossible to deny that the Blair government, for all Blair's military support of the U.S. alliance and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has presided over an ethos, first known as Cool Britannia, which could command little respect or loyalty from anyone. What does one make of a society where trading inspectors prosecute the vendors of pornographic videos on the grounds that their content is less pornographic than advertised, and where the Queen is made to confer a knighthood on a notorious icon of the drug culture? That is another aspect of Londonistan and, along with other elements, goes to make a very disturbing whole. Meanwhile, the director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity said in 2006: "The more fundamentalist clerics think it is only a matter of time before they will persuade the government to concede on the issue of Sharia law. Given the Government's record of capitulating, you can see why they believe that."
I am not always in agreement with Christopher Hitchens, but a comment from him is apt here:
I find myself haunted by a challenge that was offered on the BBC by a Muslim activist named Anjem Choudary: a man who has praised the 9/11 murders as "magnificent" and proclaimed that "Britain belongs to Allah." When asked if he might prefer to move to a country which practices Sharia, he replied: "Who says you own Britain anyway?" A question that will have to be answered one way or another.
The implications of the book are compelling, though to borrow a certain title and call them an inconvenient truth would be an understatement: Britain is going to have to bite on some very tough political bullets if it is going to survive as anything like the nation it has been.
Source
A satirical reply to feminist values
By Britain's irreverent Jeremy Clarkson
We know from Big Brother that today's young ladies have replaced their appealing thongs with pants the size of spinnakers, and now comes news that the sales of stockings are in free fall. Down from 10m sales in 2002 to 5m in 2006. According to The Sun's woman editor - as opposed to the real editor, who's a woman - this is because girls have better things to do these days than get dressed up like a Parisian hooker every time they go to the shops. I absolutely understand that. Getting dressed in the morning is something that should never take more than 20 seconds and putting on a pair of stockings and suspenders can take anything up to three hours.
Actually this is only a guess, based on how long it takes me to undo a suspender belt. Even when I'm armed with a head torch and a pair of scissors. Anyway, I fully appreciate that in a postMrs Robinson world, where women work and raise children, stockings are to the wardrobe what the quill is to online banking. But here's the thing, girls. Tell us that you won't wear stockings because they are impractical and you may well find that we'll give up as well. At the moment we tend not to pick our noses when in your company because it is a bit slovenly. But if you're going to slob around in a pair of footless tights and a sack, then you won't mind if we bury an index finger in each of our nostrils and dig away.
I was at London's City airport this morning surrounded by a group of middle-aged chaps who, I presume, were going to Scotland to watch some golfists. At home, each of these men would, I'm sure, eat all their yoghurt and pretend to be interested in Victoria Beckham's opinion on interior design. But at the airport, with no wives and girlfriends to keep them in check, they quickly reverted to type. By 7.45am they were on their third pint and as I boarded my plane, I believe they were beginning a farting competition.
This is not a criticism. I recently spent a couple of weeks camping in Africa with 20 or so other men and you wouldn't believe how neanderthal we became. Or how quickly. Every morning would begin with a conversation about who'd been for their number twos, what the number twos had looked like, what they'd smelt of, how much more there was to come, and whether any records for sheer tonnage had been set. Then we'd move on to who'd crept into whose tent the night before, what it had felt like, and how long, if we were the last 20 people on earth, it might take for one us to sleep with James May.
You might argue that your husband is not like this, but I assure you that beneath the veneer you see at home, he is. He may do the washing up and take the children to the park, but when you're not around, he's like the light in a fridge. He's a completely different animal, obsessed with bottoms, buggery and belching. So, girls, do you want that sort of thing at home? Really? No? Well get down to the petrol station then and buy some bloody stockings.
You may say that tights are practical and warm but have you seen what they do to a bank robber's face? And hold-ups won't do either. Thanks to all that elasticated rubber, they ruin the shape of your thighs and, in all probability, cut off the blood supply to your feet, causing gangrene. And no man fancies a girl, no matter how sparkling her eyes and wit might be, if she is gangrenous. Pop socks, meanwhile, would be completely banned if I were in power. And anyone found wearing them would be made to parade in nothing else through their local town, and then shot.
It must be stockings, with a suspender belt, because what this combination does is mask everything that doesn't matter and lay bare everything that does. A picture is nice, but before you hang it on the wall it needs a frame. And apart from anything else, if you flash your stocking tops at a man you can, and I mean this literally, get him to do anything you want. Unless you have the figure of a bison obviously, in which case he won't do anything at all. Because he will be too busy being sick. Assuming, however, you have legs which clearly belong on a human, you only need let a man know you're wearing stockings and you will be empowered to a point you may have thought impossible.
I honestly believe that if David Milibandilegs really wanted to solve this Russian crisis, he could simply ask Rene Russo to reenact that scene from the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair and Putin would have the Litvinenko murder suspect on the next flight to London. And please, let's not have any of this "ooh, stockings make us sex objects" nonsense because that simply isn't true. We all saw Sharon Stone cross her legs in Basic Instinct and we all tittered in a schoolboy way. But when Rene popped a stockinged leg from that split skirt, I damn nearly fainted with admiration at the size of her brain.
Plainly she'd worked out that what she really needed to gain control over the entire New York police department was not a degree from Harvard. But a pair of 4.99 stockings from Pretty Polly. That makes her smart. As well.
Source
Food faddists damage kids' TV
Children are losing high-quality television programmes that reflect their lives because of underfunding and the pursuit of ratings, campaigners say. Floella Benjamin, the former Play School presenter who led the campaign to create a children’s minister, said it was shameful that so little home-grown television was now made as channels increasingly relied on cheap imports. She told the Social Market Foundation in London that more government funding and legislation was urgently needed. Incentives were vital to help not-for-profit organisations to produce high-quality public service shows for children. Doing so, she said, would prove that the Government was serious about its policy of every “child matters”.
The ban on advertising food high in fat, sugar and salt has cut the advertising income generated from children’s programmes by £30 million, a third of the total. ITV responded by scrapping new commissions and long-running hits, including My Parents Are Aliens, pictured right. Drama repeats have replaced children’s programmes on ITV1 at teatime as the channel competes for ratings with Channel 4.
Laurence Bowen, producer of My Life as a Popat, pictured left, the award-winning ITV children’s comedy about an larger-than-life Indian family living in West London, said that the popular series ended because of budget considerations.“Without a broadcasting Bill that can give Ofcom the teeth to really insist that ITV does children’s programmes, and without any other government legislation to follow that, it’s dead.”
Professor Jackie Marsh, of Sheffield University, said her research suggested that television played an important role in a child’s cognitive, linguistic, emotional and social development. The Government needed to encourage broadcasters to make programmes that reflected the daily lives, cultures and concerns of young people. “Not to do so would deny children their rights to a rich and varied diet of cultural activities.”
Source
There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual themes.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Britain: Remembrance Day parade scrapped for first time in 60 years over 'health and safety' fears
Every year since 1945, the town of Horwich has held a parade to remember its war dead. But thanks to health and safety rules, there won't be one this year. And there are fears that Remembrance Day marches nationwide may be threatened by similar safety demands, which put severe pressure on budgets. Organisers in the Lancashire town have previously relied on brief and small-scale road closures put in place for free by the police, to clear the way for the event.
But this year, senior police officers said although they will still make no charge, a team of marshals must be employed to man the route at a cost of about 50 pounds a day. In addition, organisers will have to pay for each road they want closed. To make matters worse, Bolton Council has increased permanent road closure prices from 300 to 800 pounds this year. These costs could bring the final bill to 18,000 - making the November 11 parade too expensive to hold. Usually it would cost only a couple of thousand pounds.
Greater Manchester Police said the extra security is necessary because another force in the West Midlands was successfully sued when Brownies participating in a parade were injured by a car which drove into them while they were marching.
But Bernard McCartin, of the Royal British Legion's Horwich branch, warned that the cost of imposing further safety measures could affect parades across the country. Mr McCartin, 65, who served with the Royal Observer Corps in Lincolnshire, added: 'This is very disappointing, but there is not a lot we can do. "It is a mark of disrespect to every person who gave their lives for this town."
The former mayor of Horwich, a parade leader, added: "Several hundred people watch this event every year with all sorts of organisations from cub scouts to veterans taking part. "It is a further erosion of what we hold dear in the country." A spokesman for the Royal British Legion said it would be looking into the matter. "The issue of proposed local council and police charging to ensure the safety of Remembrance Day parades is of great concern. It is clear that a change of policy has taken place at local level."
Tory defence spokesman Dr Liam Fox said: 'This is a scandal. To hear that people cannot remember those who gave their lives for this country due to overzealous bureaucrats is crazy. "I'd hope the authorities will be reconsidering their application of the rules to ensure that the parade can go ahead."
However, Steve Rock, of Horwich Town Council, said it did not have the money to help to meet the bill. He said: "People will be upset, but the only way to fund it would be to raise council tax next year." The Horwich parade has been held since 1945. It passes through the town and ends at the war memorial. A Greater Manchester Police spokesman said the force did not charge for policing parades but warned that the local authority does charge for road closures. "To address this, the force has suggested a shorter route that would not involve closing roads and, therefore, not cost the organisers anything."
PC Phil Waring, events planner for Bolton, explained why the safety rules had been imposed. "There was an incident in the West Midlands where the police were successfully sued and, as a result, we have to follow new guidelines and make it safer for people."
Earlier this year, health and safety rules ended an annual duck race in Upper Dam, Lymm, Cheshire, which raised money for charity. The event was so popular that council officials insisted that organisers close a nearby road to meet health and safety requirements. But Warrington Borough Council refused to pay for the closure - and the Round Table, which organised the event, said it could not afford the 3,000 pound bill.
Source
Official British vendetta against too-successful IVF doctor continues
They hate private medicine so attacking a high flyer -- even on legal technicalities -- turns them on
Britain's most successful IVF doctor was banned from running his own clinic yesterday after he was found guilty of treating patients without the correct licence. Mohammed Taranissi was stripped of the right to be the "person responsible" for his Assisted Reproduction and Gynaecology Centre by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA). The decision means that Mr Taranissi, whose clinic boasts Britain's best IVF success rates, will be allowed to continue treating patients only if he appoints another doctor or manager to take legal responsibility for his clinic. If he fails to do so, the clinic will have to close after its temporary licence expires on August 9.
Mr Taranissi, who rejects the charges, said last night that he would appeal. If he does, the HFEA is likely to issue special directions allowing him to complete the treatment of existing patients while the appeal is heard.
The sanction is one of the most serious imposed by the authority's licence committee, and has been imposed only once before. Every clinic is required by law to name an appro-priately trained person as the holder of its licence. The person is required to take legal responsibility for the clinic's work and must be HFEA approved. The ruling follows an inquiry into claims that Mr Taranissi treated patients at an unlicensed clinic in 2006. The clinic, the Reproductive Genetics Institute, was Mr Taranassi's second in London. The allegations formed part of a BBC Panorama programme, over which the doctor has started libel proceedings. It is a criminal offence to perform IVF and some other fertility procedures without a licence from the HFEA, and the matter is also the subject of investigations by the police and the General Medical Council.
In January the HFEA obtained warrants to search both clinics, saying that the doctor had failed to provide it with information needed to investigate the allegations. The raids were ruled illegal by the High Court this month, and the authority agreed to pay most of Mr Taranissi's costs. That judicial review did not consider the substance of the charges against Mr Taranissi, and had no bearing on the HFEA's regulatory action. The authority's licence committee met on July 13, and announced yesterday that it was satisfied that Mr Taranissi had committed a "serious breach" of the law by treating patients at an unlicensed clinic. "The committee considered that the clinic [the Assisted Reproduction and Gynaecology Centre] is a successful one, much appreciated by patients, and Mr Taranissi is a dedicated physician," it said. "However, the committee did not think he had taken sufficient cognisance of the legal requirements of a person responsible to continue to act in that capacity."
The authority has offered the centre a six-month licence, provided that a new person responsible is found. Mr Taranissi was not seeking a new licence for the Reproductive Genetics Institute. Members of the HFEA's executive had argued that the licence should not be renewed at all. Mr Taranissi questioned whether three weeks was sufficient time to appoint a new person responsible, but said that he welcomed the decision to offer a licence. "We are pleased to have been told that we can continue to work, and my priority now is my patients," he said. "The last few months have been extremely distressing for all our patients and staff. The new licence is not for as long a period as we had hoped for, but we are confident that this will be extended and that we can put the unpleasant past behind us and concentrate on doing what we do best.
"The current situation follows the events in January of this year when the chief executive of the HFEA gave what was later described by a High Court judge as `seriously defective' and `highly misleading' evidence to a magistrate in order to obtain warrants to raid our clinic. The High Court subsequently found that these warrants had been unlawfully obtained and we are similarly confident that the grounds for this latest decision will be shown to be wrong.
"HFEA regulation imposes a huge bureaucratic burden on those licensed by them. The HFEA have asked that we appoint a new person responsible to work with me as medical director of the centre. We have made a number of new appointments in the last two months to assist with this regulatory burden and the other requirements of new European legislation."
Source
Britain: Radiation phobics exposed as nutters
People who believe that mobile telephone masts are causing them to feel unwell are deluding themselves, according to a study at Essex University. The three-year study, one of the largest of its kind, found that such people do experience symptoms when they know that they are exposed to radio waves, but they cannot detect when the waves are turned on and off, disproving their belief that they are “radiosensitive”. In double-blind trials -- in which neither participants nor experimenters knew whether the signals were on or off -- no health effects were detected. The finding adds to earlier research suggesting that radiosensitivity is an illusion.
Professor Elaine Fox said that radiosensitivity complainants had genuine symptoms, but phone masts were not the cause. In the past, she said, similar symptoms were reported in relation to TV sets and microwave ovens. It appears that about 4 per cent of the population claim to experience symptoms and tend to project them on to new technologies. The project was designed to investigate whether the effect was caused by phone masts.
Volunteers who claimed to be radiosensitive were matched against those who did not. Both groups were told when the signals were being switched on and off. The radiosensitive group reported headaches and malaise, but the team concluded that the symptoms were triggered by the knowledge of exposure. The researchers then conducted the double-blind trials. If radiosensitivity were a real phenomenon, alleged sufferers should have been able to detect changes and report symptoms. They did not.
Two of the 44 sensitive individuals, and 5 of the 114 controls, judged correctly when the mast was on or off in all six 50-minute tests -- exactly the proportion expected by chance. Professor Fox said: “Belief is very powerful. There are real, clinical effects.” David Coggon, of the University of Southampton, said: “This is consistent with earlier research in suggesting that symptoms of electrosensitivity are psychological in origin.” The study was funded by the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research programme, with half of the money provided by Government and half by the mobile phone industry.
Source
Britain: History education too haphazard
Children must be taught landmark dates in chronological order from primary school, to give them a common sense of British history and identity, Ofsted tells the Government today. Far from knowing the order of key events, such as the Battle of Hastings or the signing of Magna Carta, pupils have no overview of history and cannot answer the “big questions” it poses, the schools’ inspectorate has found. Not only are key events in British and world history overlooked, but without a sense of the order in which they occurred, students cannot make any connections with the periods that they have studied.
The damning assessment of pupils’ understanding and the way history is taught in England’s schools, particularly primaries, comes after academics and historians have called repeatedly for a review of the way the subject is taught up to the age of 14. “History is taught in all primary schools, but we are recommending that the syllabus is looked at to promote a coherence in what’s being taught – a core, with some local discretion,” said Miriam Rosen, Ofsted’s director of education.
Dr Rosen acknowledged that history had been squeezed in some primaries, because of their need to raise standards in the three Rs. “We quite understand why schools have focused on literacy and numeracy, but we think they are beginning to see they can link history teaching to make sure it’s not lost and that there’s still a focus on the core subjects,” she added. Her comments appear to be at odds with the latest proposals by the Government to allow schools to teach themes such as creativity and cultural understanding, rather than individual academic subjects, such as history and science, at secondary level.
In History in the Balance: History in English Schools 2003-7, the inspectors targeted their criticism mainly at the education of 7 to 11-year-olds, “which continues to disappoint”. While the teachers themselves often had not studied the subject beyond 14, they were also poorly trained in history and tended to jump from one topic to the next, the inspectors found. They cited one primary, where eight-year-olds studied the Romans one term, learnt how children coped in the Second World War the next and finished with Ancient Egypt.
Although the National Curriculum calls for pupils to develop a “chronological framework” and to make “connections between events and changes in the different periods”, the inspectors said this rarely happened in practice. “Consequently they often have little sense of chronology and the possibility of establishing an overarching story and addressing broader themes and issues is limited,” they wrote.
The inspectors praised history teaching post14, but noted that only 32 per cent of pupils study it at GCSE level and even fewer post16. Although 66 per cent achieve A grades at GCSE, a third of A* grades are from independently educated pupils.
The report echoed concerns aired by academics and historians, including Kate Pretty, principal of Homerton College and Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, who said that Britain was losing a sense of shared identity, because children were not being taught basic general knowledge in primary school. “It’s not secondary school that instills the deficit, but primaries. It’s the primary view of the great stories in the past, like Alfred burning the cakes, Magna Carta, Columbus sailing the ocean blue – all that sort of stuff,” she said. “The little tiny stories that make up the common thread which you can pull on, we’re expecting students to somehow implicitly know. It’s not about A-level knowledge of a particular subject, but a general web of understanding that binds us to a past. That seems to me is being lost somewhere in all of this.”
The report comes as the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority proposes allowing schools from next year to teach themes such as creativity and cultural understanding rather than individual academic subjects from the ages of 11 to 14. The curriculum watchdog is already piloting a new GCSE syllabus in 70 schools where periods of history are replaced by themes including “conflict and its lasting impact” and “people’s diverse ideas”. Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, said he agreed with many of the points raised by Ofsted, which had been addressed in the revised secondary curriculum introduced last week. “The new curriculum has strengthened the requirement that all pupils need to have a good chronological understanding of history. This is compulsory at primary Key Stages too,” he said, adding that they would improve the training of primary teachers.
However, Michael Gove, the Shadow Children’s Secretary, said the report underlined the dangers of the new curriculum. “The changes Ed Balls [the Education Secretary] announced last week would mean more of the flabby, woolly, ‘theme-based’ teaching this report warns us about,” he said. “Ofsted underlines the importance of rigour and giving pupils a proper connected sense of what went on in the past. Ed Balls’s plans for five-minute lessons and writing Churchill out of the past are the complete opposite of that, and won’t give the next generation the understanding it deserves of our national story.”
Source
Big Macs ferried in after rioting inmates run amok in British immigration detention centre
Rioting foreign criminals and failed asylum seekers were fed McDonald's takeaway meals by prison staff during a 60million pound orgy of destruction which wrecked an immigration detention centre. Fearful that the human rights of inmates would be breached, staff ferried sackfuls of Big Mac meals with fries and soft drinks from a nearby branch of the fast-food chain. The revelation came in a damning official report into the riot at Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre near Heathrow Airport last November. More than 500 inmates awaiting deportation wrecked and burned down much of the site, and it took riot squads almost two days to regain control. The report also reveals:
* Walls and doors in the centre were so flimsy that inmates kicked them down with ease, especially after they were soaked by the sprinkler system;
* The fire brigade got lost because there were no signposts to the centre;
* CCTV cameras were easy for rioters to destroy - meaning control room staff had no idea what was going on;
* Increasingly desperate calls to the Prison Service headquarters begging for help were ignored for an hour.
The official Home Office investigation blames the riot partly on the huge pressure on the centre after last summer's foreign prisoners scandal. Hundreds of foreign national criminals were rounded up after being released from Britain's jails without being considered for deportation. Of the 501 men in the detention centre at the time 177 were foreign prisoners awaiting deportation - a volatile group who had 'nothing to lose'. The riot was triggered by inmates watching a TV news bulletin reporting criticisms of Harmondsworth from prison watchdogs. Fires were started and inmates began smashing CCTV cameras and attacking staff, who were unable to contain the violence.
As control room managers lost their grip, staff were ordered to retreat and seal the gates, as police arrived to guard the perimeter. Thirteen riot squads entered the centre next morning but took more than 24 hours to regain control.
During the day a row broke out between senior officials over whether to send food in for rioters. Those who favoured starving inmates into submission were overruled, as managers ordered that 'minimum needs of food and drink' must be supplied. "In the early stages food came from McDonald's," according to the report by senior civil servant Robert Whalley. Yesterday the Daily Mail tracked down a worker at the West Drayton branch of McDonald's who recalled Harmondsworth staff placing a huge order for 3.59 burger meals. He said: "I remember prison officers turning up and ordering around 100 Big Mac meals with fries and fizzy drinks. For a couple of hours they kept turning up with big bags, filling them up with meals and then ferrying them off in Securicor vans and then they'd return for more."
The Home Office was last night unable to provide details of the cost of the emergency supplies. The cost of dealing with the riot and rebuilding large parts of Harmondsworth is expected to top 65million pounds.
Tory immigration spokesman Damian Green said: "This situation required a fast response, and all they got was fast food. "We now know that this dangerous incident happened because the Government was forced to mix foreign prisoners with failed asylum seekers. Because of prison overcrowding, this is still going on."
Lin Homer, chief executive of the Border and Immigration Agency, said work was under way to 'expand and strengthen' removal centres. The Home Office said that five detainees had been charged and remanded in custody in connection with the riot.
Source
Latest on the Lancet agitprop about Iraqi deaths
What fun! Courtesy of Michelle Malkin, there is a scholarly paper here by a statistical mathematician which finds that the "600,000 Iraqi deaths" paper published in 2004 in Lancet is internally inconsistent. Using the paper's own figures, the statistician shows that the authors cannot conclude anything from their "research".
The original paper was so out of line with normal survey methodology that those of us who are experienced in survey research pointed that out long ago but it is interesting to see the same point absolutely demonstrated. It is another example of Lancet prostituting their medical reputation to make political points. They obviously did not do a proper peer review on the paper before they accepted it and that may well be because they were so out of their field that they did not know how to do a proper review of a survey research paper. They should stick to medicine.
It may be noted that the authors of the paper refuse to release their raw data -- a most unusual thing for scientists to do. It suggests that the "research" was a fraud from beginning to end -- rather like the Mann "hockeystick" finding in climate science -- a finding that the IPCC no longer mentions!
Something Michelle seems to have overlooked, however, is that there seems to have been an attempt by Lancet to redact what they originally published. The paper Michelle cites is a version that says only 100,000 Iraqis died. Whereas the original paper said that 654,965 Iraqis died. Is this an admission? Does even Lancet now concede that they goofed? The plot thickens!
British navy not to be scrapped after all: "The go-ahead was given yesterday for the construction of two 65,000-tonne aircraft carriers as big as the QE2, but the Royal Navy will have to wait until 2014 for the first one - two years behind previous projections. Under government planning announced nearly ten years ago, the two new large aircraft carriers for the Navy were supposed to come into service in 2012 and 2015. The ageing and smaller carriers they are replacing, HMS Invincible, HMS Ark Royal, and HMS Illustrious, were to be taken out of service by 2013. However, senior defence officials said the new in-service date for the first of the large carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth, was now expected to be 2014, and the second ship, HMS Prince of Wales,in 2016. In the past the Government insisted that the 2012 date for the first carrier was "nonnegotiable". The delay means that the current carriers will stay in service for longer to prevent a huge gap in the Armed Forces' expeditionary capability."
Every year since 1945, the town of Horwich has held a parade to remember its war dead. But thanks to health and safety rules, there won't be one this year. And there are fears that Remembrance Day marches nationwide may be threatened by similar safety demands, which put severe pressure on budgets. Organisers in the Lancashire town have previously relied on brief and small-scale road closures put in place for free by the police, to clear the way for the event.
But this year, senior police officers said although they will still make no charge, a team of marshals must be employed to man the route at a cost of about 50 pounds a day. In addition, organisers will have to pay for each road they want closed. To make matters worse, Bolton Council has increased permanent road closure prices from 300 to 800 pounds this year. These costs could bring the final bill to 18,000 - making the November 11 parade too expensive to hold. Usually it would cost only a couple of thousand pounds.
Greater Manchester Police said the extra security is necessary because another force in the West Midlands was successfully sued when Brownies participating in a parade were injured by a car which drove into them while they were marching.
But Bernard McCartin, of the Royal British Legion's Horwich branch, warned that the cost of imposing further safety measures could affect parades across the country. Mr McCartin, 65, who served with the Royal Observer Corps in Lincolnshire, added: 'This is very disappointing, but there is not a lot we can do. "It is a mark of disrespect to every person who gave their lives for this town."
The former mayor of Horwich, a parade leader, added: "Several hundred people watch this event every year with all sorts of organisations from cub scouts to veterans taking part. "It is a further erosion of what we hold dear in the country." A spokesman for the Royal British Legion said it would be looking into the matter. "The issue of proposed local council and police charging to ensure the safety of Remembrance Day parades is of great concern. It is clear that a change of policy has taken place at local level."
Tory defence spokesman Dr Liam Fox said: 'This is a scandal. To hear that people cannot remember those who gave their lives for this country due to overzealous bureaucrats is crazy. "I'd hope the authorities will be reconsidering their application of the rules to ensure that the parade can go ahead."
However, Steve Rock, of Horwich Town Council, said it did not have the money to help to meet the bill. He said: "People will be upset, but the only way to fund it would be to raise council tax next year." The Horwich parade has been held since 1945. It passes through the town and ends at the war memorial. A Greater Manchester Police spokesman said the force did not charge for policing parades but warned that the local authority does charge for road closures. "To address this, the force has suggested a shorter route that would not involve closing roads and, therefore, not cost the organisers anything."
PC Phil Waring, events planner for Bolton, explained why the safety rules had been imposed. "There was an incident in the West Midlands where the police were successfully sued and, as a result, we have to follow new guidelines and make it safer for people."
Earlier this year, health and safety rules ended an annual duck race in Upper Dam, Lymm, Cheshire, which raised money for charity. The event was so popular that council officials insisted that organisers close a nearby road to meet health and safety requirements. But Warrington Borough Council refused to pay for the closure - and the Round Table, which organised the event, said it could not afford the 3,000 pound bill.
Source
Official British vendetta against too-successful IVF doctor continues
They hate private medicine so attacking a high flyer -- even on legal technicalities -- turns them on
Britain's most successful IVF doctor was banned from running his own clinic yesterday after he was found guilty of treating patients without the correct licence. Mohammed Taranissi was stripped of the right to be the "person responsible" for his Assisted Reproduction and Gynaecology Centre by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA). The decision means that Mr Taranissi, whose clinic boasts Britain's best IVF success rates, will be allowed to continue treating patients only if he appoints another doctor or manager to take legal responsibility for his clinic. If he fails to do so, the clinic will have to close after its temporary licence expires on August 9.
Mr Taranissi, who rejects the charges, said last night that he would appeal. If he does, the HFEA is likely to issue special directions allowing him to complete the treatment of existing patients while the appeal is heard.
The sanction is one of the most serious imposed by the authority's licence committee, and has been imposed only once before. Every clinic is required by law to name an appro-priately trained person as the holder of its licence. The person is required to take legal responsibility for the clinic's work and must be HFEA approved. The ruling follows an inquiry into claims that Mr Taranissi treated patients at an unlicensed clinic in 2006. The clinic, the Reproductive Genetics Institute, was Mr Taranassi's second in London. The allegations formed part of a BBC Panorama programme, over which the doctor has started libel proceedings. It is a criminal offence to perform IVF and some other fertility procedures without a licence from the HFEA, and the matter is also the subject of investigations by the police and the General Medical Council.
In January the HFEA obtained warrants to search both clinics, saying that the doctor had failed to provide it with information needed to investigate the allegations. The raids were ruled illegal by the High Court this month, and the authority agreed to pay most of Mr Taranissi's costs. That judicial review did not consider the substance of the charges against Mr Taranissi, and had no bearing on the HFEA's regulatory action. The authority's licence committee met on July 13, and announced yesterday that it was satisfied that Mr Taranissi had committed a "serious breach" of the law by treating patients at an unlicensed clinic. "The committee considered that the clinic [the Assisted Reproduction and Gynaecology Centre] is a successful one, much appreciated by patients, and Mr Taranissi is a dedicated physician," it said. "However, the committee did not think he had taken sufficient cognisance of the legal requirements of a person responsible to continue to act in that capacity."
The authority has offered the centre a six-month licence, provided that a new person responsible is found. Mr Taranissi was not seeking a new licence for the Reproductive Genetics Institute. Members of the HFEA's executive had argued that the licence should not be renewed at all. Mr Taranissi questioned whether three weeks was sufficient time to appoint a new person responsible, but said that he welcomed the decision to offer a licence. "We are pleased to have been told that we can continue to work, and my priority now is my patients," he said. "The last few months have been extremely distressing for all our patients and staff. The new licence is not for as long a period as we had hoped for, but we are confident that this will be extended and that we can put the unpleasant past behind us and concentrate on doing what we do best.
"The current situation follows the events in January of this year when the chief executive of the HFEA gave what was later described by a High Court judge as `seriously defective' and `highly misleading' evidence to a magistrate in order to obtain warrants to raid our clinic. The High Court subsequently found that these warrants had been unlawfully obtained and we are similarly confident that the grounds for this latest decision will be shown to be wrong.
"HFEA regulation imposes a huge bureaucratic burden on those licensed by them. The HFEA have asked that we appoint a new person responsible to work with me as medical director of the centre. We have made a number of new appointments in the last two months to assist with this regulatory burden and the other requirements of new European legislation."
Source
Britain: Radiation phobics exposed as nutters
People who believe that mobile telephone masts are causing them to feel unwell are deluding themselves, according to a study at Essex University. The three-year study, one of the largest of its kind, found that such people do experience symptoms when they know that they are exposed to radio waves, but they cannot detect when the waves are turned on and off, disproving their belief that they are “radiosensitive”. In double-blind trials -- in which neither participants nor experimenters knew whether the signals were on or off -- no health effects were detected. The finding adds to earlier research suggesting that radiosensitivity is an illusion.
Professor Elaine Fox said that radiosensitivity complainants had genuine symptoms, but phone masts were not the cause. In the past, she said, similar symptoms were reported in relation to TV sets and microwave ovens. It appears that about 4 per cent of the population claim to experience symptoms and tend to project them on to new technologies. The project was designed to investigate whether the effect was caused by phone masts.
Volunteers who claimed to be radiosensitive were matched against those who did not. Both groups were told when the signals were being switched on and off. The radiosensitive group reported headaches and malaise, but the team concluded that the symptoms were triggered by the knowledge of exposure. The researchers then conducted the double-blind trials. If radiosensitivity were a real phenomenon, alleged sufferers should have been able to detect changes and report symptoms. They did not.
Two of the 44 sensitive individuals, and 5 of the 114 controls, judged correctly when the mast was on or off in all six 50-minute tests -- exactly the proportion expected by chance. Professor Fox said: “Belief is very powerful. There are real, clinical effects.” David Coggon, of the University of Southampton, said: “This is consistent with earlier research in suggesting that symptoms of electrosensitivity are psychological in origin.” The study was funded by the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research programme, with half of the money provided by Government and half by the mobile phone industry.
Source
Britain: History education too haphazard
Children must be taught landmark dates in chronological order from primary school, to give them a common sense of British history and identity, Ofsted tells the Government today. Far from knowing the order of key events, such as the Battle of Hastings or the signing of Magna Carta, pupils have no overview of history and cannot answer the “big questions” it poses, the schools’ inspectorate has found. Not only are key events in British and world history overlooked, but without a sense of the order in which they occurred, students cannot make any connections with the periods that they have studied.
The damning assessment of pupils’ understanding and the way history is taught in England’s schools, particularly primaries, comes after academics and historians have called repeatedly for a review of the way the subject is taught up to the age of 14. “History is taught in all primary schools, but we are recommending that the syllabus is looked at to promote a coherence in what’s being taught – a core, with some local discretion,” said Miriam Rosen, Ofsted’s director of education.
Dr Rosen acknowledged that history had been squeezed in some primaries, because of their need to raise standards in the three Rs. “We quite understand why schools have focused on literacy and numeracy, but we think they are beginning to see they can link history teaching to make sure it’s not lost and that there’s still a focus on the core subjects,” she added. Her comments appear to be at odds with the latest proposals by the Government to allow schools to teach themes such as creativity and cultural understanding, rather than individual academic subjects, such as history and science, at secondary level.
In History in the Balance: History in English Schools 2003-7, the inspectors targeted their criticism mainly at the education of 7 to 11-year-olds, “which continues to disappoint”. While the teachers themselves often had not studied the subject beyond 14, they were also poorly trained in history and tended to jump from one topic to the next, the inspectors found. They cited one primary, where eight-year-olds studied the Romans one term, learnt how children coped in the Second World War the next and finished with Ancient Egypt.
Although the National Curriculum calls for pupils to develop a “chronological framework” and to make “connections between events and changes in the different periods”, the inspectors said this rarely happened in practice. “Consequently they often have little sense of chronology and the possibility of establishing an overarching story and addressing broader themes and issues is limited,” they wrote.
The inspectors praised history teaching post14, but noted that only 32 per cent of pupils study it at GCSE level and even fewer post16. Although 66 per cent achieve A grades at GCSE, a third of A* grades are from independently educated pupils.
The report echoed concerns aired by academics and historians, including Kate Pretty, principal of Homerton College and Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, who said that Britain was losing a sense of shared identity, because children were not being taught basic general knowledge in primary school. “It’s not secondary school that instills the deficit, but primaries. It’s the primary view of the great stories in the past, like Alfred burning the cakes, Magna Carta, Columbus sailing the ocean blue – all that sort of stuff,” she said. “The little tiny stories that make up the common thread which you can pull on, we’re expecting students to somehow implicitly know. It’s not about A-level knowledge of a particular subject, but a general web of understanding that binds us to a past. That seems to me is being lost somewhere in all of this.”
The report comes as the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority proposes allowing schools from next year to teach themes such as creativity and cultural understanding rather than individual academic subjects from the ages of 11 to 14. The curriculum watchdog is already piloting a new GCSE syllabus in 70 schools where periods of history are replaced by themes including “conflict and its lasting impact” and “people’s diverse ideas”. Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, said he agreed with many of the points raised by Ofsted, which had been addressed in the revised secondary curriculum introduced last week. “The new curriculum has strengthened the requirement that all pupils need to have a good chronological understanding of history. This is compulsory at primary Key Stages too,” he said, adding that they would improve the training of primary teachers.
However, Michael Gove, the Shadow Children’s Secretary, said the report underlined the dangers of the new curriculum. “The changes Ed Balls [the Education Secretary] announced last week would mean more of the flabby, woolly, ‘theme-based’ teaching this report warns us about,” he said. “Ofsted underlines the importance of rigour and giving pupils a proper connected sense of what went on in the past. Ed Balls’s plans for five-minute lessons and writing Churchill out of the past are the complete opposite of that, and won’t give the next generation the understanding it deserves of our national story.”
Source
Big Macs ferried in after rioting inmates run amok in British immigration detention centre
Rioting foreign criminals and failed asylum seekers were fed McDonald's takeaway meals by prison staff during a 60million pound orgy of destruction which wrecked an immigration detention centre. Fearful that the human rights of inmates would be breached, staff ferried sackfuls of Big Mac meals with fries and soft drinks from a nearby branch of the fast-food chain. The revelation came in a damning official report into the riot at Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre near Heathrow Airport last November. More than 500 inmates awaiting deportation wrecked and burned down much of the site, and it took riot squads almost two days to regain control. The report also reveals:
* Walls and doors in the centre were so flimsy that inmates kicked them down with ease, especially after they were soaked by the sprinkler system;
* The fire brigade got lost because there were no signposts to the centre;
* CCTV cameras were easy for rioters to destroy - meaning control room staff had no idea what was going on;
* Increasingly desperate calls to the Prison Service headquarters begging for help were ignored for an hour.
The official Home Office investigation blames the riot partly on the huge pressure on the centre after last summer's foreign prisoners scandal. Hundreds of foreign national criminals were rounded up after being released from Britain's jails without being considered for deportation. Of the 501 men in the detention centre at the time 177 were foreign prisoners awaiting deportation - a volatile group who had 'nothing to lose'. The riot was triggered by inmates watching a TV news bulletin reporting criticisms of Harmondsworth from prison watchdogs. Fires were started and inmates began smashing CCTV cameras and attacking staff, who were unable to contain the violence.
As control room managers lost their grip, staff were ordered to retreat and seal the gates, as police arrived to guard the perimeter. Thirteen riot squads entered the centre next morning but took more than 24 hours to regain control.
During the day a row broke out between senior officials over whether to send food in for rioters. Those who favoured starving inmates into submission were overruled, as managers ordered that 'minimum needs of food and drink' must be supplied. "In the early stages food came from McDonald's," according to the report by senior civil servant Robert Whalley. Yesterday the Daily Mail tracked down a worker at the West Drayton branch of McDonald's who recalled Harmondsworth staff placing a huge order for 3.59 burger meals. He said: "I remember prison officers turning up and ordering around 100 Big Mac meals with fries and fizzy drinks. For a couple of hours they kept turning up with big bags, filling them up with meals and then ferrying them off in Securicor vans and then they'd return for more."
The Home Office was last night unable to provide details of the cost of the emergency supplies. The cost of dealing with the riot and rebuilding large parts of Harmondsworth is expected to top 65million pounds.
Tory immigration spokesman Damian Green said: "This situation required a fast response, and all they got was fast food. "We now know that this dangerous incident happened because the Government was forced to mix foreign prisoners with failed asylum seekers. Because of prison overcrowding, this is still going on."
Lin Homer, chief executive of the Border and Immigration Agency, said work was under way to 'expand and strengthen' removal centres. The Home Office said that five detainees had been charged and remanded in custody in connection with the riot.
Source
Latest on the Lancet agitprop about Iraqi deaths
What fun! Courtesy of Michelle Malkin, there is a scholarly paper here by a statistical mathematician which finds that the "600,000 Iraqi deaths" paper published in 2004 in Lancet is internally inconsistent. Using the paper's own figures, the statistician shows that the authors cannot conclude anything from their "research".
The original paper was so out of line with normal survey methodology that those of us who are experienced in survey research pointed that out long ago but it is interesting to see the same point absolutely demonstrated. It is another example of Lancet prostituting their medical reputation to make political points. They obviously did not do a proper peer review on the paper before they accepted it and that may well be because they were so out of their field that they did not know how to do a proper review of a survey research paper. They should stick to medicine.
It may be noted that the authors of the paper refuse to release their raw data -- a most unusual thing for scientists to do. It suggests that the "research" was a fraud from beginning to end -- rather like the Mann "hockeystick" finding in climate science -- a finding that the IPCC no longer mentions!
Something Michelle seems to have overlooked, however, is that there seems to have been an attempt by Lancet to redact what they originally published. The paper Michelle cites is a version that says only 100,000 Iraqis died. Whereas the original paper said that 654,965 Iraqis died. Is this an admission? Does even Lancet now concede that they goofed? The plot thickens!
British navy not to be scrapped after all: "The go-ahead was given yesterday for the construction of two 65,000-tonne aircraft carriers as big as the QE2, but the Royal Navy will have to wait until 2014 for the first one - two years behind previous projections. Under government planning announced nearly ten years ago, the two new large aircraft carriers for the Navy were supposed to come into service in 2012 and 2015. The ageing and smaller carriers they are replacing, HMS Invincible, HMS Ark Royal, and HMS Illustrious, were to be taken out of service by 2013. However, senior defence officials said the new in-service date for the first of the large carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth, was now expected to be 2014, and the second ship, HMS Prince of Wales,in 2016. In the past the Government insisted that the 2012 date for the first carrier was "nonnegotiable". The delay means that the current carriers will stay in service for longer to prevent a huge gap in the Armed Forces' expeditionary capability."
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Muslim rapists must get special protection from capture
A police force withdrew plans for a televised appeal to help catch an Afghan suspected of sexually assaulting women after a race watchdog warned that it might spark a violent backlash.
The decision to cancel the appeal was criticised by victim support organisations. Yvonne Traynor, of the Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Centre, said the case set a dangerous precedent. "I think that everybody is so afraid of being labelled a racist that no one's taking into consideration the crimes that have allegedly been committed here," she said. "The fact that this man was originally from Afghanistan is beside the point. The police obviously need to be sensitive to issues of race, but they also need to be able to get on with their jobs."
Sonia Francis-Mills, the director of the Devon Racial Equality Council, said police officers had been angered when she asked them to withdraw from Manhunt, which profiled 10 of the country's most wanted criminals. "I don't think they were happy," she said. "In the end it had to go to the Chief Constable to make the decision. I think the police often just want to feel collars. "If they had contacted us earlier we may have been able to help track him down through people within the community." She said previous public appeals for information on the case had led to ethnic minority taxi drivers in Exeter, where Seddiqi was suspected of committing the crimes, being subjected to verbal and physical abuse.
Mr Otter, a former chief superintendent in the Metropolitan Police, is known to be sensitive to issues of race since the publication of a book, Not One of Us, documented his falling out with the Iranian officer Ali Dizaei.
A CRE spokesman said it was not policy to stop the police from televising appeals for information and the racial equality council had acted independently. "If it is relevant to the investigation, we don't have a problem with the police describing people's skin colour and or ethnicity," she said.
Seddiqi went on the run in January. His alleged victims got into taxis in Exeter between October 2005 and October 2006. Formerly a resident of Wonford, Exeter, he was arrested on Nov 12 last year over the alleged offences. The four alleged victims were all in their 20s and 30s. They had been drinking when they got lifts in a taxi. Devon and Cornwall police confirmed that they were still searching for Seddiqi but declined to comment further. Police say that Seddiqi may go by other names. He is 5ft 10in tall and slim
Source
Cancer risk: Will the statin fad now come to an end?
The British government recently decided that statins should be given even to healthy people if their serum cholesterol is high. Will they now back down? One hopes that they will. Amusing that the report below says that the cancer risk is low so don't worry. Similar risks elsewhere -- e.g. with HRT -- have led to loud cries for the medication concerned to be withdrawn from use. So we have another example of a "scientific" recommendation that is agenda-driven rather than fact driven. As it happens, the recommendation attached to this research is right. It is just a pity that similar recommendations are not routinely offered for low probability risks. They often are not. Note however that there are substantial other reasons not to take statins: Muscle-wasting anybody?
Lowering cholesterol with statins may slightly increase the risk of cancer, a study suggests. It is not clear whether the cancer cases are caused by the drugs, or are a consequence of the low levels of "bad" LDL cholesterol produced by taking them. The result, which amounts to one extra case of cancer for every 1,000 patients treated, surprised the researchers who discovered it. They were looking for new evidence on the known side-effects of statins on the liver and muscle wasting.
"This analysis doesn't implicate the statin in increasing the risk of cancer," said the study leader, Professor Richard Karas, of Tufts University School of Medicine, in Boston. "The demonstrated benefits of statins in lowering the risk of heart disease remain clear. However, certain aspects of lowering LDL with statins remain controversial and merit further research." The team reviewed the results of 13 previous trials, involving more than 41,000 patients and all published before November 2005. They detected higher rates of cancer among the patients whose use of statins achieved the lowest levels of LDL cholesterol.
This may be important because recent statin trials have shown that a more aggressive lowering of LDL produces greater benefits to the heart. There are moves to lower the cholesterol targets aimed at by GPs, on the assumption that doing so will do no harm. But there have been suggestions that there may be a greater risk of side-effects if a more aggressive statin treatment is used.
The researchers, who published their findings in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, found that the degree of damage to the liver increased with greater statin doses, but that there was no such effect in muscle wastage. They said the best strategy may be to combine statins at moderate doses with other drugs.
As for cancer, conclusions are difficult to draw. No single form of cancer predominated, so if there is a side-effect of having a very low level of LDL, it would have to apply to all types of cancer. And previous statin trials have not shown any direct effect on cancer risk. But those trials did not compare cancer risk with the degree of lowering of LDL cholesterol.
John LaRosa, of the State University of New York, cast doubt on the findings. If they were caused by a lowering of cholesterol, the effect must have been very rapid, as the trials lasted five years or less. Other explanations, he said, were chance, or simply that people who would otherwise have died of heart disease were living longer, and dying of cancer.
June Davison, cardiac nurse for the British Heart Foundation, said: "We have known about the association between low cholesterol levels and cancer for some time now. While this [research] highlights an association between low levels of LDL and cancer, this is not the same as saying that low LDL or statin use increases the risk of cancer. There is overwhelming evidence that lowering LDL cholesterol through statins saves lives by preventing heart attacks and strokes. These findings do not change the message that the benefits of taking statins greatly outweigh any potential risks. People should not stop taking statin treatment on the basis of this research."
Source
Another wonderful triumph for goodwill -- but no thanks to NHS bungling: "A couple were advised to abort their unborn child amid fears he would be severely disabled - but he was born healthy. Heather O'Connor, 19, and Jamie Bramley, 24, from Stockport, were told by St Mary's Hospital, Manchester, that scans indicated part of baby Jake's brain could be missing. But after seeking a second opinion the couple continued with the pregnancy. The Central Manchester and Manchester Children's University Hospitals NHS Trust said it would "not actively recommend or dissuade" patients from choosing a termination."
A police force withdrew plans for a televised appeal to help catch an Afghan suspected of sexually assaulting women after a race watchdog warned that it might spark a violent backlash.
The decision to cancel the appeal was criticised by victim support organisations. Yvonne Traynor, of the Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Centre, said the case set a dangerous precedent. "I think that everybody is so afraid of being labelled a racist that no one's taking into consideration the crimes that have allegedly been committed here," she said. "The fact that this man was originally from Afghanistan is beside the point. The police obviously need to be sensitive to issues of race, but they also need to be able to get on with their jobs."
Sonia Francis-Mills, the director of the Devon Racial Equality Council, said police officers had been angered when she asked them to withdraw from Manhunt, which profiled 10 of the country's most wanted criminals. "I don't think they were happy," she said. "In the end it had to go to the Chief Constable to make the decision. I think the police often just want to feel collars. "If they had contacted us earlier we may have been able to help track him down through people within the community." She said previous public appeals for information on the case had led to ethnic minority taxi drivers in Exeter, where Seddiqi was suspected of committing the crimes, being subjected to verbal and physical abuse.
Mr Otter, a former chief superintendent in the Metropolitan Police, is known to be sensitive to issues of race since the publication of a book, Not One of Us, documented his falling out with the Iranian officer Ali Dizaei.
A CRE spokesman said it was not policy to stop the police from televising appeals for information and the racial equality council had acted independently. "If it is relevant to the investigation, we don't have a problem with the police describing people's skin colour and or ethnicity," she said.
Seddiqi went on the run in January. His alleged victims got into taxis in Exeter between October 2005 and October 2006. Formerly a resident of Wonford, Exeter, he was arrested on Nov 12 last year over the alleged offences. The four alleged victims were all in their 20s and 30s. They had been drinking when they got lifts in a taxi. Devon and Cornwall police confirmed that they were still searching for Seddiqi but declined to comment further. Police say that Seddiqi may go by other names. He is 5ft 10in tall and slim
Source
Cancer risk: Will the statin fad now come to an end?
The British government recently decided that statins should be given even to healthy people if their serum cholesterol is high. Will they now back down? One hopes that they will. Amusing that the report below says that the cancer risk is low so don't worry. Similar risks elsewhere -- e.g. with HRT -- have led to loud cries for the medication concerned to be withdrawn from use. So we have another example of a "scientific" recommendation that is agenda-driven rather than fact driven. As it happens, the recommendation attached to this research is right. It is just a pity that similar recommendations are not routinely offered for low probability risks. They often are not. Note however that there are substantial other reasons not to take statins: Muscle-wasting anybody?
Lowering cholesterol with statins may slightly increase the risk of cancer, a study suggests. It is not clear whether the cancer cases are caused by the drugs, or are a consequence of the low levels of "bad" LDL cholesterol produced by taking them. The result, which amounts to one extra case of cancer for every 1,000 patients treated, surprised the researchers who discovered it. They were looking for new evidence on the known side-effects of statins on the liver and muscle wasting.
"This analysis doesn't implicate the statin in increasing the risk of cancer," said the study leader, Professor Richard Karas, of Tufts University School of Medicine, in Boston. "The demonstrated benefits of statins in lowering the risk of heart disease remain clear. However, certain aspects of lowering LDL with statins remain controversial and merit further research." The team reviewed the results of 13 previous trials, involving more than 41,000 patients and all published before November 2005. They detected higher rates of cancer among the patients whose use of statins achieved the lowest levels of LDL cholesterol.
This may be important because recent statin trials have shown that a more aggressive lowering of LDL produces greater benefits to the heart. There are moves to lower the cholesterol targets aimed at by GPs, on the assumption that doing so will do no harm. But there have been suggestions that there may be a greater risk of side-effects if a more aggressive statin treatment is used.
The researchers, who published their findings in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, found that the degree of damage to the liver increased with greater statin doses, but that there was no such effect in muscle wastage. They said the best strategy may be to combine statins at moderate doses with other drugs.
As for cancer, conclusions are difficult to draw. No single form of cancer predominated, so if there is a side-effect of having a very low level of LDL, it would have to apply to all types of cancer. And previous statin trials have not shown any direct effect on cancer risk. But those trials did not compare cancer risk with the degree of lowering of LDL cholesterol.
John LaRosa, of the State University of New York, cast doubt on the findings. If they were caused by a lowering of cholesterol, the effect must have been very rapid, as the trials lasted five years or less. Other explanations, he said, were chance, or simply that people who would otherwise have died of heart disease were living longer, and dying of cancer.
June Davison, cardiac nurse for the British Heart Foundation, said: "We have known about the association between low cholesterol levels and cancer for some time now. While this [research] highlights an association between low levels of LDL and cancer, this is not the same as saying that low LDL or statin use increases the risk of cancer. There is overwhelming evidence that lowering LDL cholesterol through statins saves lives by preventing heart attacks and strokes. These findings do not change the message that the benefits of taking statins greatly outweigh any potential risks. People should not stop taking statin treatment on the basis of this research."
Source
Another wonderful triumph for goodwill -- but no thanks to NHS bungling: "A couple were advised to abort their unborn child amid fears he would be severely disabled - but he was born healthy. Heather O'Connor, 19, and Jamie Bramley, 24, from Stockport, were told by St Mary's Hospital, Manchester, that scans indicated part of baby Jake's brain could be missing. But after seeking a second opinion the couple continued with the pregnancy. The Central Manchester and Manchester Children's University Hospitals NHS Trust said it would "not actively recommend or dissuade" patients from choosing a termination."
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
The British floods
The wise heads were adamant that the recent British "drought" was caused by global warming. So the huge floods now happening must be caused by global cooling according to their logic! But it is of course hatred of their fellow citizens rather than logic which lies behind their views. The article below puts British weather into a factual perspective -- showing that it has always had ups and downs
What on earth is going on with our weather? Three months' worth of rain fell in a few places last week, Britain is drowning under floods of biblical proportions and nothing like it has been seen since Noah got his sea legs. In a wave of hysteria, the cry goes out for millions of sandbags, better drains and more flood defences. And fingers of blame are pointing at global warming.
But a simple fact has been overlooked: Britain is a wet country. Yes, it comes as a shock. Over the past few years we've become so used to years of scorching, Mediterranean-like summers, when hosepipe bans were the norm, vines were bursting with vintage grapes and water diviners were doing big business. But the truth is that our summers are supposed to be wet: it's our climate.
The accoutrements of the British summer holiday were thick pullovers and waterproofs. You expected to shiver on wet promenades, "Rain stopped play" was the national mantra and sunblock cream was something for film stars and models. That is why the August Bank Holiday was shunted to the end of the month, because the beginning of August was so awful.
Of course, British summers weren't always as wet as this year's, but some were certainly worse. 1912 was the wettest and dullest summer on record, far ahead of this summer's downpours. It pretty much rained all summer, reaching a peak in late August, when a seven-inch downpour in one day in Norfolk left Norwich completely marooned in a sea of mud and devastation. Even that deluge is overshadowed by the 11 inches of rain that fell in less than a day on Dorset in July 1955 - about half of London's yearly average rainfall. The longest nonstop rainfall record in the UK was more than 58 hours in London during June 1903, in a summer when there was an epidemic of lung disease in farmworkers caused by mouldy hay and grain.
Farther back still were the sodden summers of 1845 to 1850, when jungle-like humidity and relentless rains triggered the potato blight outbreak that led to the great Irish potato famine, in which a million people died and another million emigrated from Ireland.
Rain is only the half of it. The abysmal summer of 1956 was an assault course of monsoonal rains, big floods, giant hail, houses set ablaze by lightning, howling gales and miserable cold. Just to rub it in, August was one of the coldest and wettest on record across Britain.
It is a very human tendency to blame someone for the vagaries of the weather. A run of bad summers in the 1950s was blamed on nuclear bomb tests, the rains during the First World War were blamed on artillery going off on the Western Front and two centuries ago it was the battles of the Napoleonic Wars that were blamed for upsetting nature. And now it's global warming.
But climate change was supposed to be making our summers drier, not wetter. Leaving that aside, even if we accept that the recent downpours are a sign of global warming, then a single wet summer hardly adds up to any particular trend. No, it's far more plausible to explain this latest wet spell as a natural blip in the climate.
If so, then which politician or minister is going to have the courage to propose spending billions of pounds on building new river walls, embankments, ditches and other flood defences? How will we feel about spending large sums of money on such big projects when next year may bring another drought - and the inevitable demands for more reservoirs, leak-proof pipes and desalination plants?
And let's not forget that an even greater threat comes from the sea. A recent study reveals that London and the Thames Estuary is subsiding faster than anyone had estimated; and with sea levels rising relentlessly, the Thames Barrier is looking increasingly vulnerable. We need to fix that problem before London disappears under a storm surge like New Orleans.
The hysteria over this summer reveals more about our education. The daily forecasts and news reports are all facts and no explanation about why the weather is behaving the way it is. The explanation for the past few days of drama is that Britain lies in a part of the world that is finely balanced between wet and dry, warm and cold weather. The dividing line is the jet stream, a river of wind rushing overhead a few miles high. This summer the jet stream has been very sluggish and buckled into big loops, leaving Britain drenched on the wet side of one of those loops. However, on the other side of the jet stream large parts of Europe are roasting in a ferocious heatwave that has killed dozens of people and brought wildfires blazing across Greece.
This European split has happened before. In the summer of 2002, a large swath of Central Europe was battered by rains that set off huge floods along the Elbe and Danube, drowning more than 100 people.
But there is another story about this summer that has gone virtually unnoticed. Despite all the gloom and doom, temperatures are fairly normal for the time of year. In days gone by, a wet summer would invariably be cold, even with snow in July and frost in August.
The prize for the most diabolical summer of rain and cold should be awarded to that of 1816. Not for nothing was it called "the year without summer" - this time of great storms, massive rains and appalling cold led to the crops rotting, the price of bread soaring and food riots breaking out. Some 200,000 people died of famine across Europe, which was then followed by a typhus epidemic. So, let's look on the bright side. At least we haven't got any hosepipe bans - and the reservoirs are full.
Source
The warmists have hides like rhinoceroses
Here it is: The expected claim that the floods in Britain are a result of global warming -- quite unembarrassed by their previous claims that global warming caused the "drought" that affected Britain up until recently
Global warming is generating heavier rainfall over Britain of the sort that has triggered this week’s floods, scientists have confirmed for the first time. While it has long been suspected that climate change is contributing to increased precipitation over midlatitude countries such as Britain, research has now conclusively linked greenhouse gases to heavier downpours.
The findings, from an international team including several British scientists, do not prove that this week’s flooding is the direct result of global warming: it is linked to weather patterns that have been known before. It is consistent, however, with a much broader trend towards more rainfall, on which researchers have now found an unambiguously human fingerprint. “The paper is saying there is a significant human influence on global rainfall patterns and this includes an increase of precipitation north of 50 degrees northern latitude, an area that includes the UK,” said Peter Stott, a climate scientist at the University of Reading who took part in the study.
In the study, which is to be published in the journal Nature, the scientists compared recorded changes in rain and snowfall over land with changes that are predicted by climate models that account for global warming caused by greenhouse gases. The actual pattern of changes, with increased precipitation in latitudes north of 50 degrees, corresponds remarkably closely with the patterns that emerged from 14 different models. This suggests strongly that human-induced climate change has been responsible.
For the European region that includes Britain, the research team estimates that human activity has accounted for about two thirds of the observed trend. Other natural factors, such as volcanic activity, have also had an influence, but this is much smaller than that from people. Dr Stott said that the study did not examine seasonal trends, but that other predictions suggest Britain will in general suffer wetter winters and drier summers, rather than multiple repeats of this year’s summer downpours, though significant uncertainties remain.
It is currently impossible to say whether the current bad weather is a result of global warming, and more research is needed into the origins of such extreme events. “We looked at annual rainfall trends rather than any particular season,” Dr Stott said. “In the UK wetter winters are expected which will lead to more extreme rainfall, whereas summers are expected to get drier. However, it is possible under climate change that there could be an increase of extreme rainfall even under general drying.”
Source
Dubious logic behind the proposed British "Fat tax"
Britain is in the midst of an epidemic of chronic ill-health and obesity. Something Must Be Done. Already, the school canteen has been the battleground for Jamie’s jihad on junk. Everything on the supermarket shelf must be labelled for calories, fat, salt and sugar so we can make ‘informed choices’. (And heaven help us if we make the wrong choices, because the National Health Service won’t.) And now the idea of making the ‘wrong’ foods more expensive - the so-called ‘fat tax’ - has been revived as a way of saving us from ourselves.
And yet, critics of the fat tax have generally failed to make the most important point about this latest wheeze: regardless of whether a ‘fat tax’ would have the desired effect of making some people eat healthier, we simply should not allow the government to micro-manage our lives in this way. We should tell the food- and fat-obsessed authorities to get stuffed.
Researchers from Oxford and Nottingham, writing in the latest issue of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, looked into the possible effect of applying value added tax (VAT) to some items of food that are currently not subject to this tax (1). Using an economic model (actually an Excel spreadsheet), the researchers tested the effect of adding VAT to the main sources of saturated fat in our diets, like whole milk, butter, cakes and pastries, and cheese. They then went further and applied a scale of how ‘unhealthy’ a range of foods were, experimenting with their data to find out what would be the best way of applying the tax to decrease cholesterol levels and lower salt and sugar intake amongst the population. Based on various studies into cardiovascular disease in the past, they have concluded that an optimum application of VAT on fatty foodstuffs could avert ‘up to 3,200 cardiovascular deaths’ per year.
Their idea may have provided some food for thought - or fodder for phone-in shows at least - but the results of the report were not nearly as impressive as the news stories suggested. The researchers estimated that the total reduction in deaths from cardiovascular disease would be 1.7 per cent. Or, as the researchers themselves put it in their conclusions: ‘The potential changes in nutrition that would result from an extension of VAT to further categories of food would be modest.’
So modest, in fact, that the only sensible conclusion is not to bother with such a tax at all. The only reason that the researchers’ work generated such dramatic headline figures is that a large number of people die from cardiovascular disease in the UK. If you multiply this death toll by the tiny percentage the researchers found, you get quite an impressively high number of lives allegedly ‘saved’ by the tax. The problem is that in terms of any individual‘s risk from disease or ill-health, a ‘fat tax’ will make as much difference as urinating in the ocean.
Actually, it’s worse than that. The researchers treat the results of epidemiological studies as if they produced accurate measurements of the effect of a risk factor. However, correlation does not equal causation. There are so many confounding factors and built-in inaccuracies in such studies that to treat the figures produced as anything more than very rough estimates is totally inappropriate. Even a broad conclusion that X causes Y should only be drawn if the correlation is strong, consistent and biologically plausible (see An epidemic of epidemiology, by Rob Lyons).
The trouble is that when there have been big studies on the effect of changing diets, the results have been extremely disappointing. To give a recent example: in February 2006, a massive American study found that those put on a low-fat diet had the same death rates as those who ate what they pleased. As the lead researcher, Barbara V Howard, told the New York Times: ‘We are not going to reverse any of the chronic diseases in this country by changing the composition of the diet.’
The authors of the ‘fat tax’ report also make assumptions about how people might react to such a tax. They don’t believe that everyone will start eating salad and oily fish every day just because their usual fare is slightly more expensive. But they do believe that some people will change their behaviour a bit, enough to have an effect on disease rates. But what if they overestimate people’s sensitivity to such things? Perhaps people will react in unexpected ways: there’s evidence that many people react to such taxes by cutting down on ‘healthy’ food rather than junk, in order to balance their budgets. The results of a simple model of economic behaviour and the behaviour of people in the real world are two very different things.
So, it is far from clear that a ‘fat tax’ would work at all (3). But is it even legitimate to try to tinker with our food choices in this way? Many people point to the apparently similar case of applying swingeing taxes to cigarettes and alcohol. Yet, ‘health’ is often the spurious justification for taxes which are really more about balancing government budgets than improving the nation’s health. And if such taxes really did work, surely we would all be non-smoking teetotallers by now?
Efficacy aside, should we really allow the government to determine, through fiscal nudges and prods, how we choose to conduct our private lives? Who are they to tell us whether we should eat broccoli or burgers, chickpeas or cheddar cheese? It’s one thing for your parents to nag you as a child to eat your greens; it’s quite another for the health authorities to nag us when we’ve reached adulthood, and in the process to infantilise us all. Maybe campaigners for liberty should recognise that defending freedom in the twenty-first century will involve standing up for the freedom to choose what passes our lips as well as traditional issues like free speech.
A more active defence of our personal autonomy is a pre-requisite for maintaining a healthy body politic. Instead of a fat tax, the best thing would be to give the meddling health fanatics a big fat finger.
Source
Immigration into Britain so high that BritGov has lost count
The clues are there if you know where to find them. Walk around Slough's estates and look in the back gardens. There are buildings here you are unlikely to see anywhere else in the country. These are Slough's 'sheds with beds'. In some areas, row upon row of them. Lines of small houses tucked away behind the main homes. And inside them are the people who are transforming this place. A new workforce. So many that these illegally rented out sheds and garages are needed to house them all. They have been swept here by border changes across Europe and are now testing how we deal with mass immigration.
Slough is a success story. A manufacturing town with a booming economy. Positioned just outside London and down the M4 from Heathrow. It's factories and production plants have always attracted a large number of immigrant workers. "I came here in 1948. I wanted to work in Britain, and I got a job in the brickworks," said Fred Szymaczack, a Pole who says things were very different when he came to Slough. "When I arrived it was much stricter. The government knew how many people were coming to work here. Now, there's too many. The town can't cope."
The expansion of the European Union in 2004 has had an enormous effect here as it has across Britain. Local Polish community leaders say as many as 10,000 Poles have arrived in Slough in three years. Walk down the High Street and you can literally hear the languages and accents that are changing the make up of this town.
The problem is there is no accurate way of recording that change. When it comes to migrants arriving in our towns, it seems we've lost the ability to count. The government's estimates show Slough's population is decreasing, while the council in Slough reckons it is growing so fast that about one in ten people here are simply missing from the books, not accounted for. And that has a direct consequence for everyone living here. That is because the government uses the population figure to decide how much money it gives the local council every year. That money funds three quarters of the services provided by the council. If the population estimate is not accurate, then neither is the pay-out.
Andrew Blake-Herbert, director of finance for Slough council said: "Over the last three years, we've already lost 5 million pounds worth of funding and if the inaccurate population statistics aren't corrected before the next census, we stand to lose up to 15 million worth of funding" Of course, most of the migrants are working and paying tax but all that money goes to the exchequer, it does not come to Slough. All that does comes here is an increased pressure on services. So, that means the Council Tax in the town is as high as it can be. Cuts are on the cards and people are not happy.
But there is a bigger danger. This is a town that has known decades of tolerance. New communities have always been accepted but now some of the older migrants are saying things have to change. I went for a walk through Chalvey, an area of Slough that has become home to hundreds of new arrivals. One resident, Mohammed Choudary Sr told me if more money does not come from the government, the council has to get tough. "Chuck them out. It's simple. Just don't let them come in. Don't give them housing. Tell them to go to other places".
The stakes are high and the government accepts there is a problem. The Immigration Minister, Liam Byrne issued this statement to Panorama.
"We think it's utterly important that the wider - often social impacts - are taken into account before decisions are made. Next year we're introducing an Australian style points system which has worked well there. Before we decide how many points would-be immigrants need to come to Britain, we'll be looking at independent evidence from the Migration Impacts Forum on these wider impacts. Migration is important to the British business community, but businesses shouldn't be the only voice in the debates. Communities count too."
Of course, any points based system would not apply to migrants from Europe, like Slough's Poles. The current flawed system means people living here, hear the government say the town's population is falling while all around - from housing and packed schools, through to increased refuse collection and rising crime rates - the signs are it is on the up. And what is happening in Slough is being repeated across the country. In towns and cities across the land we simply do not know how many migrants are arriving. For more and more communities the numbers no longer add up.
Source
British journalists back down over Israel: "The National Union of Journalists will take "no further action" on implementing the controversial resolution by its members to boycott Israeli goods and services. The NUJ's national executive council (NEC) took the decision and called for members to unite instead behind the union's "key workplace priorities". It unanimously backed a motion that recognised the NUJ would take no further action on the call for an Israeli boycott because the Trades Union Congress has rejected it. The motion was tabled by the NUJ general secretary, Jeremy Dear, and seconded by the union president, Michelle Stanistreet, at a NEC meeting on Friday. It recognised the concerns expressed by some members, chapels and branches about the proposed boycott and said that it had met the terms of the original delegate vote in favour of the boycott at its annual meeting earlier this year by informing the TUC of the conference vote."
The wise heads were adamant that the recent British "drought" was caused by global warming. So the huge floods now happening must be caused by global cooling according to their logic! But it is of course hatred of their fellow citizens rather than logic which lies behind their views. The article below puts British weather into a factual perspective -- showing that it has always had ups and downs
What on earth is going on with our weather? Three months' worth of rain fell in a few places last week, Britain is drowning under floods of biblical proportions and nothing like it has been seen since Noah got his sea legs. In a wave of hysteria, the cry goes out for millions of sandbags, better drains and more flood defences. And fingers of blame are pointing at global warming.
But a simple fact has been overlooked: Britain is a wet country. Yes, it comes as a shock. Over the past few years we've become so used to years of scorching, Mediterranean-like summers, when hosepipe bans were the norm, vines were bursting with vintage grapes and water diviners were doing big business. But the truth is that our summers are supposed to be wet: it's our climate.
The accoutrements of the British summer holiday were thick pullovers and waterproofs. You expected to shiver on wet promenades, "Rain stopped play" was the national mantra and sunblock cream was something for film stars and models. That is why the August Bank Holiday was shunted to the end of the month, because the beginning of August was so awful.
Of course, British summers weren't always as wet as this year's, but some were certainly worse. 1912 was the wettest and dullest summer on record, far ahead of this summer's downpours. It pretty much rained all summer, reaching a peak in late August, when a seven-inch downpour in one day in Norfolk left Norwich completely marooned in a sea of mud and devastation. Even that deluge is overshadowed by the 11 inches of rain that fell in less than a day on Dorset in July 1955 - about half of London's yearly average rainfall. The longest nonstop rainfall record in the UK was more than 58 hours in London during June 1903, in a summer when there was an epidemic of lung disease in farmworkers caused by mouldy hay and grain.
Farther back still were the sodden summers of 1845 to 1850, when jungle-like humidity and relentless rains triggered the potato blight outbreak that led to the great Irish potato famine, in which a million people died and another million emigrated from Ireland.
Rain is only the half of it. The abysmal summer of 1956 was an assault course of monsoonal rains, big floods, giant hail, houses set ablaze by lightning, howling gales and miserable cold. Just to rub it in, August was one of the coldest and wettest on record across Britain.
It is a very human tendency to blame someone for the vagaries of the weather. A run of bad summers in the 1950s was blamed on nuclear bomb tests, the rains during the First World War were blamed on artillery going off on the Western Front and two centuries ago it was the battles of the Napoleonic Wars that were blamed for upsetting nature. And now it's global warming.
But climate change was supposed to be making our summers drier, not wetter. Leaving that aside, even if we accept that the recent downpours are a sign of global warming, then a single wet summer hardly adds up to any particular trend. No, it's far more plausible to explain this latest wet spell as a natural blip in the climate.
If so, then which politician or minister is going to have the courage to propose spending billions of pounds on building new river walls, embankments, ditches and other flood defences? How will we feel about spending large sums of money on such big projects when next year may bring another drought - and the inevitable demands for more reservoirs, leak-proof pipes and desalination plants?
And let's not forget that an even greater threat comes from the sea. A recent study reveals that London and the Thames Estuary is subsiding faster than anyone had estimated; and with sea levels rising relentlessly, the Thames Barrier is looking increasingly vulnerable. We need to fix that problem before London disappears under a storm surge like New Orleans.
The hysteria over this summer reveals more about our education. The daily forecasts and news reports are all facts and no explanation about why the weather is behaving the way it is. The explanation for the past few days of drama is that Britain lies in a part of the world that is finely balanced between wet and dry, warm and cold weather. The dividing line is the jet stream, a river of wind rushing overhead a few miles high. This summer the jet stream has been very sluggish and buckled into big loops, leaving Britain drenched on the wet side of one of those loops. However, on the other side of the jet stream large parts of Europe are roasting in a ferocious heatwave that has killed dozens of people and brought wildfires blazing across Greece.
This European split has happened before. In the summer of 2002, a large swath of Central Europe was battered by rains that set off huge floods along the Elbe and Danube, drowning more than 100 people.
But there is another story about this summer that has gone virtually unnoticed. Despite all the gloom and doom, temperatures are fairly normal for the time of year. In days gone by, a wet summer would invariably be cold, even with snow in July and frost in August.
The prize for the most diabolical summer of rain and cold should be awarded to that of 1816. Not for nothing was it called "the year without summer" - this time of great storms, massive rains and appalling cold led to the crops rotting, the price of bread soaring and food riots breaking out. Some 200,000 people died of famine across Europe, which was then followed by a typhus epidemic. So, let's look on the bright side. At least we haven't got any hosepipe bans - and the reservoirs are full.
Source
The warmists have hides like rhinoceroses
Here it is: The expected claim that the floods in Britain are a result of global warming -- quite unembarrassed by their previous claims that global warming caused the "drought" that affected Britain up until recently
Global warming is generating heavier rainfall over Britain of the sort that has triggered this week’s floods, scientists have confirmed for the first time. While it has long been suspected that climate change is contributing to increased precipitation over midlatitude countries such as Britain, research has now conclusively linked greenhouse gases to heavier downpours.
The findings, from an international team including several British scientists, do not prove that this week’s flooding is the direct result of global warming: it is linked to weather patterns that have been known before. It is consistent, however, with a much broader trend towards more rainfall, on which researchers have now found an unambiguously human fingerprint. “The paper is saying there is a significant human influence on global rainfall patterns and this includes an increase of precipitation north of 50 degrees northern latitude, an area that includes the UK,” said Peter Stott, a climate scientist at the University of Reading who took part in the study.
In the study, which is to be published in the journal Nature, the scientists compared recorded changes in rain and snowfall over land with changes that are predicted by climate models that account for global warming caused by greenhouse gases. The actual pattern of changes, with increased precipitation in latitudes north of 50 degrees, corresponds remarkably closely with the patterns that emerged from 14 different models. This suggests strongly that human-induced climate change has been responsible.
For the European region that includes Britain, the research team estimates that human activity has accounted for about two thirds of the observed trend. Other natural factors, such as volcanic activity, have also had an influence, but this is much smaller than that from people. Dr Stott said that the study did not examine seasonal trends, but that other predictions suggest Britain will in general suffer wetter winters and drier summers, rather than multiple repeats of this year’s summer downpours, though significant uncertainties remain.
It is currently impossible to say whether the current bad weather is a result of global warming, and more research is needed into the origins of such extreme events. “We looked at annual rainfall trends rather than any particular season,” Dr Stott said. “In the UK wetter winters are expected which will lead to more extreme rainfall, whereas summers are expected to get drier. However, it is possible under climate change that there could be an increase of extreme rainfall even under general drying.”
Source
Dubious logic behind the proposed British "Fat tax"
Britain is in the midst of an epidemic of chronic ill-health and obesity. Something Must Be Done. Already, the school canteen has been the battleground for Jamie’s jihad on junk. Everything on the supermarket shelf must be labelled for calories, fat, salt and sugar so we can make ‘informed choices’. (And heaven help us if we make the wrong choices, because the National Health Service won’t.) And now the idea of making the ‘wrong’ foods more expensive - the so-called ‘fat tax’ - has been revived as a way of saving us from ourselves.
And yet, critics of the fat tax have generally failed to make the most important point about this latest wheeze: regardless of whether a ‘fat tax’ would have the desired effect of making some people eat healthier, we simply should not allow the government to micro-manage our lives in this way. We should tell the food- and fat-obsessed authorities to get stuffed.
Researchers from Oxford and Nottingham, writing in the latest issue of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, looked into the possible effect of applying value added tax (VAT) to some items of food that are currently not subject to this tax (1). Using an economic model (actually an Excel spreadsheet), the researchers tested the effect of adding VAT to the main sources of saturated fat in our diets, like whole milk, butter, cakes and pastries, and cheese. They then went further and applied a scale of how ‘unhealthy’ a range of foods were, experimenting with their data to find out what would be the best way of applying the tax to decrease cholesterol levels and lower salt and sugar intake amongst the population. Based on various studies into cardiovascular disease in the past, they have concluded that an optimum application of VAT on fatty foodstuffs could avert ‘up to 3,200 cardiovascular deaths’ per year.
Their idea may have provided some food for thought - or fodder for phone-in shows at least - but the results of the report were not nearly as impressive as the news stories suggested. The researchers estimated that the total reduction in deaths from cardiovascular disease would be 1.7 per cent. Or, as the researchers themselves put it in their conclusions: ‘The potential changes in nutrition that would result from an extension of VAT to further categories of food would be modest.’
So modest, in fact, that the only sensible conclusion is not to bother with such a tax at all. The only reason that the researchers’ work generated such dramatic headline figures is that a large number of people die from cardiovascular disease in the UK. If you multiply this death toll by the tiny percentage the researchers found, you get quite an impressively high number of lives allegedly ‘saved’ by the tax. The problem is that in terms of any individual‘s risk from disease or ill-health, a ‘fat tax’ will make as much difference as urinating in the ocean.
Actually, it’s worse than that. The researchers treat the results of epidemiological studies as if they produced accurate measurements of the effect of a risk factor. However, correlation does not equal causation. There are so many confounding factors and built-in inaccuracies in such studies that to treat the figures produced as anything more than very rough estimates is totally inappropriate. Even a broad conclusion that X causes Y should only be drawn if the correlation is strong, consistent and biologically plausible (see An epidemic of epidemiology, by Rob Lyons).
The trouble is that when there have been big studies on the effect of changing diets, the results have been extremely disappointing. To give a recent example: in February 2006, a massive American study found that those put on a low-fat diet had the same death rates as those who ate what they pleased. As the lead researcher, Barbara V Howard, told the New York Times: ‘We are not going to reverse any of the chronic diseases in this country by changing the composition of the diet.’
The authors of the ‘fat tax’ report also make assumptions about how people might react to such a tax. They don’t believe that everyone will start eating salad and oily fish every day just because their usual fare is slightly more expensive. But they do believe that some people will change their behaviour a bit, enough to have an effect on disease rates. But what if they overestimate people’s sensitivity to such things? Perhaps people will react in unexpected ways: there’s evidence that many people react to such taxes by cutting down on ‘healthy’ food rather than junk, in order to balance their budgets. The results of a simple model of economic behaviour and the behaviour of people in the real world are two very different things.
So, it is far from clear that a ‘fat tax’ would work at all (3). But is it even legitimate to try to tinker with our food choices in this way? Many people point to the apparently similar case of applying swingeing taxes to cigarettes and alcohol. Yet, ‘health’ is often the spurious justification for taxes which are really more about balancing government budgets than improving the nation’s health. And if such taxes really did work, surely we would all be non-smoking teetotallers by now?
Efficacy aside, should we really allow the government to determine, through fiscal nudges and prods, how we choose to conduct our private lives? Who are they to tell us whether we should eat broccoli or burgers, chickpeas or cheddar cheese? It’s one thing for your parents to nag you as a child to eat your greens; it’s quite another for the health authorities to nag us when we’ve reached adulthood, and in the process to infantilise us all. Maybe campaigners for liberty should recognise that defending freedom in the twenty-first century will involve standing up for the freedom to choose what passes our lips as well as traditional issues like free speech.
A more active defence of our personal autonomy is a pre-requisite for maintaining a healthy body politic. Instead of a fat tax, the best thing would be to give the meddling health fanatics a big fat finger.
Source
Immigration into Britain so high that BritGov has lost count
The clues are there if you know where to find them. Walk around Slough's estates and look in the back gardens. There are buildings here you are unlikely to see anywhere else in the country. These are Slough's 'sheds with beds'. In some areas, row upon row of them. Lines of small houses tucked away behind the main homes. And inside them are the people who are transforming this place. A new workforce. So many that these illegally rented out sheds and garages are needed to house them all. They have been swept here by border changes across Europe and are now testing how we deal with mass immigration.
Slough is a success story. A manufacturing town with a booming economy. Positioned just outside London and down the M4 from Heathrow. It's factories and production plants have always attracted a large number of immigrant workers. "I came here in 1948. I wanted to work in Britain, and I got a job in the brickworks," said Fred Szymaczack, a Pole who says things were very different when he came to Slough. "When I arrived it was much stricter. The government knew how many people were coming to work here. Now, there's too many. The town can't cope."
The expansion of the European Union in 2004 has had an enormous effect here as it has across Britain. Local Polish community leaders say as many as 10,000 Poles have arrived in Slough in three years. Walk down the High Street and you can literally hear the languages and accents that are changing the make up of this town.
The problem is there is no accurate way of recording that change. When it comes to migrants arriving in our towns, it seems we've lost the ability to count. The government's estimates show Slough's population is decreasing, while the council in Slough reckons it is growing so fast that about one in ten people here are simply missing from the books, not accounted for. And that has a direct consequence for everyone living here. That is because the government uses the population figure to decide how much money it gives the local council every year. That money funds three quarters of the services provided by the council. If the population estimate is not accurate, then neither is the pay-out.
Andrew Blake-Herbert, director of finance for Slough council said: "Over the last three years, we've already lost 5 million pounds worth of funding and if the inaccurate population statistics aren't corrected before the next census, we stand to lose up to 15 million worth of funding" Of course, most of the migrants are working and paying tax but all that money goes to the exchequer, it does not come to Slough. All that does comes here is an increased pressure on services. So, that means the Council Tax in the town is as high as it can be. Cuts are on the cards and people are not happy.
But there is a bigger danger. This is a town that has known decades of tolerance. New communities have always been accepted but now some of the older migrants are saying things have to change. I went for a walk through Chalvey, an area of Slough that has become home to hundreds of new arrivals. One resident, Mohammed Choudary Sr told me if more money does not come from the government, the council has to get tough. "Chuck them out. It's simple. Just don't let them come in. Don't give them housing. Tell them to go to other places".
The stakes are high and the government accepts there is a problem. The Immigration Minister, Liam Byrne issued this statement to Panorama.
"We think it's utterly important that the wider - often social impacts - are taken into account before decisions are made. Next year we're introducing an Australian style points system which has worked well there. Before we decide how many points would-be immigrants need to come to Britain, we'll be looking at independent evidence from the Migration Impacts Forum on these wider impacts. Migration is important to the British business community, but businesses shouldn't be the only voice in the debates. Communities count too."
Of course, any points based system would not apply to migrants from Europe, like Slough's Poles. The current flawed system means people living here, hear the government say the town's population is falling while all around - from housing and packed schools, through to increased refuse collection and rising crime rates - the signs are it is on the up. And what is happening in Slough is being repeated across the country. In towns and cities across the land we simply do not know how many migrants are arriving. For more and more communities the numbers no longer add up.
Source
British journalists back down over Israel: "The National Union of Journalists will take "no further action" on implementing the controversial resolution by its members to boycott Israeli goods and services. The NUJ's national executive council (NEC) took the decision and called for members to unite instead behind the union's "key workplace priorities". It unanimously backed a motion that recognised the NUJ would take no further action on the call for an Israeli boycott because the Trades Union Congress has rejected it. The motion was tabled by the NUJ general secretary, Jeremy Dear, and seconded by the union president, Michelle Stanistreet, at a NEC meeting on Friday. It recognised the concerns expressed by some members, chapels and branches about the proposed boycott and said that it had met the terms of the original delegate vote in favour of the boycott at its annual meeting earlier this year by informing the TUC of the conference vote."
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
NHS negligence kills little boy
A hospital has apologised to the parents of a baby who died when doctors failed to spot a serious heart condition after mixing up his X-rays. Staff at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro thought that one-year-old Jack Garland was teething and sent him home with painkillers. After a second X-ray two weeks later, they realised that he had mitochondrial respiratory complex, a rare genetic complaint. He was taken immediately to Great Ormond Street Hospital, but died 16 days later of heart failure and a brain haemorrhage.
Jack’s father, Ben Garland, 31, from Truro, said: “Those two weeks when he was first sent home were crucial. The hospital’s mistake cost my son his fighting chance. To hold him while they turned the machines off is something I will never forget. All we want is someone to be honest and say they will take responsibility.”
John Watkins, chief executive of the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust, said in a letter to Jack’s parents that a senior doctor had reviewed the first X-ray and could “clearly” see that the child had an enlarged heart. Mr Watkins wrote: “The doctor is at a loss to explain how this happened and can only deduce that the person who reported Jack’s X-ray reported on the wrong film. The conclusion is that it was a failure of the system that caused Jack’s X-ray to be overlooked and not attributable to one individual.” The trust said that a thorough review was under way. The hospital had a 31million pound deficit at the time and had cut 300 staff, although the trust said that no jobs had been cut that would have compromised clinical care.
Source
THE BBC IS JUST ONE FACE OF THE LOCKSTEP LEFTIST MEDIA
The mass media age may have increased our freedom of speech but our mass-mediated perception of reality has arguably stifled our freedom of thought. In times past people may have known only what was going on in their own neck of the woods but at least they knew it intimately, which perhaps provided some reality check. Also one community was relatively free from the influence of another. Not anymore. Now, thanks to the likes of the BBC you know so much more - and have an opinion on so much more.
Now you know that some brutal murders merit grief on a national scale whilst others deserve barely a passing mention. You know that jumping up and down at rock concerts will help to save the world from poverty. You know that man made global warming is threatening to destroy the planet and it's all the fault of capitalism. Just like you know that capitalism was virtually brought down on the stroke of midnight in 2000 by something called the Millenium Bug. Older people know that the world was very nearly overwhelmed in the 1970's by The Next Ice Age. You know that if you have ever stood next to someone smoking a cigarette it might one day kill you. Best of all you know what the most important thing going on in the world at any one time is because it is the thing that headlines the news. Thus has the mass media deluged people's consciousness with trashy certainties at huge cost to their freedom of spirit. Killing off The Age of Reason and replacing it with the Age of Feeling.
It is not even that the BBC and its like are deliberately trying to present a distorted perspective on current affairs or anything else. It is worse than that; the distortion is so embedded in media culture that it collectively fails to comprehend that there are other perspectives. The BBC and its hinterland of favoured contributors teems with champagne lefties, celebrity poseurs and assorted other have-your-cake-and-eat-it fellow travellers of the liberal establishment elite.
And it is a veritable honey pot for the not so big wide world of the arts and academia. The joke is that they all think of themselves as radicals and guardians of freedom. Funny business radicalism; the word suggests boldness, independent mindedness, freethinking. The reality is the opposite. It is a me- too mentality of fitting in with the prevailing ethos, often first absorbed during student days. I remember when I was at university in the 1970's, one or two lonely guys in tweeds and sports jackets flitting furtively across the psychedelic bead strewn quadrangle clutching their briefcases. I remember thinking those guys are the real radicals here. The thoroughly predictable `radical' offerings from the BBC in-crowd are invariably dripping with media establishment mythology and the depressing fact that the BBC is often hailed as a great bastion of intellectual independence merely demonstrates the overwhelming brainwashing power that the little box in the corner now has on our intellectual horizons.
The last half-century was so dominated by the spectre of the totalitarian state that no one foresaw what was really coming down the line. George Orwell partly saw the future that we now inhabit - but with one crucial difference. In his nightmare 1984, a political elite controlled the television in the corner of the room and used it to brainwash the citizenry. Whereas in the real post 1984 nightmare, a pervasive mass media - a cancerous organism out of the control of anyone, even its own media elite - brainwashes everyone, politicians included. It is not that anyone is actively trying to brainwash you; it is more that a powerful tendency to group-think is the very nature of mass broadcasting.
But the most insidious brainwashing happens at a more subtle level than this. The most insidious brainwashing lies in the power of storytelling. It is at this subliminal level that the great soft-left crusades - moral relativism and the cult of victimhood have been won. More than anywhere it is in radio and television film, drama and soap opera.
Try these tests next time you are watching your favourite BBC drama or Hollywood movie: If the characters happen to include - say - a white middle class guy and a non-white working class guy, who is going to turn out to have surprising hidden qualities and who is going to turn out to have a surprising hidden dark side? Or compare the proportion homosexual characters on your tv screen with that in your own real life. Try and find the drama where the `right wing' character turns out to be full of compassion and the `left wing' character full of bile or where the successful business executive turns out to be rather a nice chap. This sort of myth making has underpinned so much of Western story telling for at least fifty years now and has been more corrosive of freedom than any political regime.
More here
A REAL climate denier
Post lifted from Prof. Brignell. See the original for links
Over a quarter of a century ago, your bending author was immensely proud to be offered a chair at the University of Southampton. Like much else in modern Britain, the honour now seems somewhat tarnished. Here is an apologia for that paper as a Letter in the Sunday Telegraph, which tells you more about the state of peer review than it does about anything else, and has a second paragraph that is a collectors' item:
I think I now get where the Lockwood paper fits in to our understanding of climate and there is no doubt that it is an absolute gift to climate atheists. What it said was of course all well-known already but the concession from a Greenie source that fluctuations in the output of the sun have driven climate change for all but the last 20 years really is invaluable. And the one fact that the paper documents so well -- that solar output is on the downturn -- is also hilarious, given its source. Surely even a crazed Greenie mind must see that reduced solar output will soon start COOLING the earth! This month's unprecedented cold weather throughout the Southern hemisphere might even be the first sign that the cooling is happening. And the fact that warming plateaued in 1998 is also a good sign that we are moving into a cooling phase. As is so often the case, the Greenies have got the danger exactly backwards -- JR
Another crooked British "public service" broadcaster
TO LIVE up to his public image of a rugged, ex-SAS adventurer, it must have seemed essential for Bear Grylls to appear at ease sleeping rough and catching his own food in his television survival series. But it has emerged that Grylls, 33, was enjoying a far more conventional form of comfort, retreating some nights from filming in mountains and on desert islands to nearby lodges and hotels. Now Channel 4 has launched an investigation into whether Grylls, who has conquered Everest and the Arctic, deceived the public in his series Born Survivor.
The series, screened in March and April and watched by 1.4m viewers, built up Grylls's credentials as a tough outdoorsman. In a question and answer session on Channel 4's website, he recalls how station bosses pitched the venture to him stating: "We just drop you into a lot of different hellholes equipped with nothing, and you do what you have to do to survive."
But an adviser to Born Survivor has disclosed that at one location where the adventurer claimed to be a "real life Robin-son Crusoe" trapped on "a desert island", he was actually on an outlying part of the Hawaiian archipelago and spent nights at a motel. On another occasion in California's Sierra Nevada mountains where he was filmed biting off the head of a snake for breakfast and struggling for survival "with just a water bottle, a cup and a flint for making fire", he actually slept some nights with the crew in a lodge fitted with television and internet access. The Pines Resort at Bass Lake is advertised as "a cosy getaway for families" with blueberry pancakes for breakfast.
In one episode Grylls, son of the late Tory MP Sir Michael Grylls, was shown apparently building a Polynesian-style raft using only materials around him, including bamboo, hibiscus twine and palm leaves for a sail. But according to Mark Weinert, an Oregon-based survival consultant brought in for the job, it was he who led the team that built the raft. It was then dismantled so that Grylls could be shown building it on camera.
In another episode viewers watched as Grylls tried to coax an apparently wild mustang into a lasso in the Sierra Nevada. "I'm in luck," he told viewers, apparently coming across four wild horses grazing in a meadow. "A chance to use an old native American mode of transport comes my way. This is one of the few places in the whole of the US where horses still roam wild." In fact, Weinert said, the horses were not wild but were brought in by trailer from a nearby trekking station for the "choreographed" feature. "If you really believe everything happens the way it is shown on TV, you are being a little bit naive," he said.
Channel 4 confirmed that Grylls had used hotels during expeditions and has now asked Diverse, the Bristol-based production company that made the programme, to look into the other claims. "We take any allegations of misleading our audiences seriously," said a spokeswoman for the channel.
The latest suggestion that Channel 4 may have breached viewer trust comes as the broad-caster's supervisory board prepares to issue new editorial guidelines to suppliers in order to stamp out alleged sharp practices that mislead viewers. "Born Survivor is not an observational documentary series but a `how to' guide to basic survival techniques in extreme environments," the spokeswoman said. "The programme explicitly does not claim that presenter Bear Grylls's experience is one of unaided solo survival."
Nevertheless, the disclosure is likely to disappoint fans of the Eton-educated adventurer, who at the age of 23 became the youngest Briton to scale Everest. Just two years before that he had broken his back in three places after his parachute ripped during a military exercise. On screen he has emerged as a natural performer, with stunts such as squeezing water from animal dung and sucking the fluid from fish eyeballs. Grylls could not be contacted for comment this weekend as he was trekking in the Brecon Beacons with his four-year-old son.
Source
Michael Winner salutes a brilliant, politically incorrect, British comedian
Bernard Manning died recently. Michael Winner is an English film director and producer
To say I was fan of Bernard Manning is a gross understatement. If a stand-up comedian could be a genius, then Manning was a genius. He may have offended people, but since when has that been a crime? Comics have caused offence since the dawn of time. And not only did he offend with brilliant gags, he did it to anyone. No one was safe from his jokes - they always cut close to the bone and that is why the audiences loved him.
In my opinion, he died twice. Not just this week, but also on that day many years ago when those crackpot, sourfaced, people known as The Politically-Correct Brigade forced him off television because they considered his jokes to be racist. He wasn't racist. If Bernard wanted to make fun of any race, he did so without discrimination. And why shouldn't he? His job was to make us laugh, and that he did brilliantly.
I met Bernard a few years ago, when, with a friend, I paid for him to come from his beloved Manchester and do a cabaret in a private banqueting room for Marco Pierre White's 40th birthday. He sat like an out-of-breath walrus - even then his skin colour was a shade of grey, indicating severe heart problems. But when he took the microphone, everything changed. He was alert, sharp, his delivery and nuances were impeccable, his timing perfection. I introduced him to the distinguished dinner crowd, which included Madonna, with the usual words - "Ladies and gentlemen ... Bernard Manning".
Bernard took the microphone, his pause was perfect, then in that marvellous, gravelly voice he said: "Michael Winner, the most hated Jew in Europe." That was funny. That, as the old saying goes "brought the house down". None of us considered that racist. Least of all me, the one who should have been most insulted.
Some years ago, I remember one of those undercover TV programmes secretly filmed a private dinner. Manning was speaking. He came out with another of his great jokes: "I lost a relation in Auschwitz. Fell off the guard tower." There was indignant uproar from the chattering classes. The politically correct brigade said it was just disgraceful. I remember thinking: "What are they going on about? That was funny. It made me laugh." And I actually lost relatives in Auschwitz.
Why shouldn't we poke fun at Jews, Muslims, the Irish, Scotsmen, the French, the Italians, Catholics, Seventh Day Adventists, Mormons, blacks, Chinese... I could go on. Another saying, one of my favourites, goes: "If you can't take a joke you shouldn't have joined."
I remember once attending a TV special, An Evening With Jackie Mason - the Jewish American comedian. The jokes he told were hysterical. Many of them deriding Jews in a dry, very funny, observational way. At the end of the evening, Pamela Stephenson came over to me, white with rage. "No wonder the Jews hate him," she said of Mason. "He's so anti-Semitic." Nonsense. Jackie was, and still is, extremely funny. And believe me, when Jews are talking among themselves, it's not at all uncommon for them to refer to "Yid" and "Yidden". Try that in a joke today and you wouldn't just be off television, you'd be banned from the planet!
When Lenny Henry, one of our wonderful black comics, started out, he had a terrific line in his act. He'd say: "If you don't laugh, I'll come and live next door to you." Funny, funny, funny. Later, I seem to remember Lenny apologising for that. Silly, silly, silly.
Where do these politically correct people live? Do they have their own special world. Do they not realise that in the real world people speak a different language to theirs? I was for many years on the Council of the Directors Guild Of Great Britain. Suddenly I saw on their notepaper the word "Chair" and then the name. "I never voted for James Cellan-Jones to be a chair," I protested. "I voted for him as our Chairman." "Can't use 'Chairman' any more," I was told. "It's not politically correct because it discriminates against women."
As far as I'm concerned, our world today is being controlled by this tiny group of out-of-touch loonies who'd prefer to see The Merchant Of Venice's finest lines disappear because a wonderfully written and beautifully spoken Jewish character is shown to be a greedy villain. And what about Othello, which might suggest that black soldiers are capable of strangling their wives in a fit of unfounded jealousy? Or Hamlet, which could offend Danes by suggesting that one of their countrymen could poison his brother in order to gain a throne?
These are the people who forced Benny Hill off TV and want topless girl pictures banned from newspapers. Don't they go to art galleries, these blinkered buffoons? There, they'd see picture after picture of topless (and some times bottomless) nymphs and ladies, many of them painted for their patrons' titillation - from Lucas Cranach in the 16th century, through Rubens and Goya, to Lucian Freud today.
Then Bernard Manning comes along, speaking the language of the British people, brilliantly phrased, exquisitely delivered, wittily composed, and above all unbelievably funny - and he's suddenly too rough for TV! Who do these idiots think watches TV? Bernard Manning spoke as his audience spoke. Except that he honed and perfected his jokes until they were gems. His humour came from the spirit of England. Brave, tolerant, welcoming to all races - a land that is rightly proud of Shakespeare, even though some of his writing is of such vulgarity that Bernard Manning is a churchwarden by comparison. Do these tight-bottomed idiots not realise laughter is a release? The day we cannot laugh at ourselves, and other people, without fear of censure is a sad day indeed.
Tragically, that day has come and it may get worse. I'm glad I'm old enough to have visited the music halls, still thriving in the Fifties and Sixties, and saw our great comics perform their art. And, yes, they made wonderfully ribald jokes about sex and gender and race and religion - all subjects that are taboo today. Now, the music halls are shopping malls and comedy has been replaced by smart, utterly unfunny political parody performed by nonentities who think the F-word is funny, while the old-timers who could stand up and enthral an audience for two hours single-handed are buried in English soil.
In a few days, Bernard Manning will join them. Make no mistake, he was a great and noble Englishman with a glorious sense of humour. I could, and should, have enjoyed him on TV for the last many years. But those arrogant enough to think they know better than everyone else decided he was not fit for mass consumption. This is not only a crazy world. It is a politically correct, tyrannical world where we let an intolerant minority tell us what to think. Goodbye Bernard. I salute you and I thank you. At least you'll be laughing at our lunatic world from on high.
Source
A hospital has apologised to the parents of a baby who died when doctors failed to spot a serious heart condition after mixing up his X-rays. Staff at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro thought that one-year-old Jack Garland was teething and sent him home with painkillers. After a second X-ray two weeks later, they realised that he had mitochondrial respiratory complex, a rare genetic complaint. He was taken immediately to Great Ormond Street Hospital, but died 16 days later of heart failure and a brain haemorrhage.
Jack’s father, Ben Garland, 31, from Truro, said: “Those two weeks when he was first sent home were crucial. The hospital’s mistake cost my son his fighting chance. To hold him while they turned the machines off is something I will never forget. All we want is someone to be honest and say they will take responsibility.”
John Watkins, chief executive of the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust, said in a letter to Jack’s parents that a senior doctor had reviewed the first X-ray and could “clearly” see that the child had an enlarged heart. Mr Watkins wrote: “The doctor is at a loss to explain how this happened and can only deduce that the person who reported Jack’s X-ray reported on the wrong film. The conclusion is that it was a failure of the system that caused Jack’s X-ray to be overlooked and not attributable to one individual.” The trust said that a thorough review was under way. The hospital had a 31million pound deficit at the time and had cut 300 staff, although the trust said that no jobs had been cut that would have compromised clinical care.
Source
THE BBC IS JUST ONE FACE OF THE LOCKSTEP LEFTIST MEDIA
The mass media age may have increased our freedom of speech but our mass-mediated perception of reality has arguably stifled our freedom of thought. In times past people may have known only what was going on in their own neck of the woods but at least they knew it intimately, which perhaps provided some reality check. Also one community was relatively free from the influence of another. Not anymore. Now, thanks to the likes of the BBC you know so much more - and have an opinion on so much more.
Now you know that some brutal murders merit grief on a national scale whilst others deserve barely a passing mention. You know that jumping up and down at rock concerts will help to save the world from poverty. You know that man made global warming is threatening to destroy the planet and it's all the fault of capitalism. Just like you know that capitalism was virtually brought down on the stroke of midnight in 2000 by something called the Millenium Bug. Older people know that the world was very nearly overwhelmed in the 1970's by The Next Ice Age. You know that if you have ever stood next to someone smoking a cigarette it might one day kill you. Best of all you know what the most important thing going on in the world at any one time is because it is the thing that headlines the news. Thus has the mass media deluged people's consciousness with trashy certainties at huge cost to their freedom of spirit. Killing off The Age of Reason and replacing it with the Age of Feeling.
It is not even that the BBC and its like are deliberately trying to present a distorted perspective on current affairs or anything else. It is worse than that; the distortion is so embedded in media culture that it collectively fails to comprehend that there are other perspectives. The BBC and its hinterland of favoured contributors teems with champagne lefties, celebrity poseurs and assorted other have-your-cake-and-eat-it fellow travellers of the liberal establishment elite.
And it is a veritable honey pot for the not so big wide world of the arts and academia. The joke is that they all think of themselves as radicals and guardians of freedom. Funny business radicalism; the word suggests boldness, independent mindedness, freethinking. The reality is the opposite. It is a me- too mentality of fitting in with the prevailing ethos, often first absorbed during student days. I remember when I was at university in the 1970's, one or two lonely guys in tweeds and sports jackets flitting furtively across the psychedelic bead strewn quadrangle clutching their briefcases. I remember thinking those guys are the real radicals here. The thoroughly predictable `radical' offerings from the BBC in-crowd are invariably dripping with media establishment mythology and the depressing fact that the BBC is often hailed as a great bastion of intellectual independence merely demonstrates the overwhelming brainwashing power that the little box in the corner now has on our intellectual horizons.
The last half-century was so dominated by the spectre of the totalitarian state that no one foresaw what was really coming down the line. George Orwell partly saw the future that we now inhabit - but with one crucial difference. In his nightmare 1984, a political elite controlled the television in the corner of the room and used it to brainwash the citizenry. Whereas in the real post 1984 nightmare, a pervasive mass media - a cancerous organism out of the control of anyone, even its own media elite - brainwashes everyone, politicians included. It is not that anyone is actively trying to brainwash you; it is more that a powerful tendency to group-think is the very nature of mass broadcasting.
But the most insidious brainwashing happens at a more subtle level than this. The most insidious brainwashing lies in the power of storytelling. It is at this subliminal level that the great soft-left crusades - moral relativism and the cult of victimhood have been won. More than anywhere it is in radio and television film, drama and soap opera.
Try these tests next time you are watching your favourite BBC drama or Hollywood movie: If the characters happen to include - say - a white middle class guy and a non-white working class guy, who is going to turn out to have surprising hidden qualities and who is going to turn out to have a surprising hidden dark side? Or compare the proportion homosexual characters on your tv screen with that in your own real life. Try and find the drama where the `right wing' character turns out to be full of compassion and the `left wing' character full of bile or where the successful business executive turns out to be rather a nice chap. This sort of myth making has underpinned so much of Western story telling for at least fifty years now and has been more corrosive of freedom than any political regime.
More here
A REAL climate denier
Post lifted from Prof. Brignell. See the original for links
Over a quarter of a century ago, your bending author was immensely proud to be offered a chair at the University of Southampton. Like much else in modern Britain, the honour now seems somewhat tarnished. Here is an apologia for that paper as a Letter in the Sunday Telegraph, which tells you more about the state of peer review than it does about anything else, and has a second paragraph that is a collectors' item:
No spinning here
I am one of the authors of the Royal Society global warming paper that you say is simple and fundamentally flawed (Comment, July 15). Simple? The idea was to present a straightforward demonstration, without recourse to complex climate models. Flawed? None of the three academic referees the paper was subjected to found any flaws.
Climate change is by far the greatest threat to everyone's standard of living. Unlike political parties, companies, media stars, works of art, consumer products and even social trends and national economies, a scientific reality is immune to spin.
(Prof) Mike Lockwood, Southampton University
I think I now get where the Lockwood paper fits in to our understanding of climate and there is no doubt that it is an absolute gift to climate atheists. What it said was of course all well-known already but the concession from a Greenie source that fluctuations in the output of the sun have driven climate change for all but the last 20 years really is invaluable. And the one fact that the paper documents so well -- that solar output is on the downturn -- is also hilarious, given its source. Surely even a crazed Greenie mind must see that reduced solar output will soon start COOLING the earth! This month's unprecedented cold weather throughout the Southern hemisphere might even be the first sign that the cooling is happening. And the fact that warming plateaued in 1998 is also a good sign that we are moving into a cooling phase. As is so often the case, the Greenies have got the danger exactly backwards -- JR
Another crooked British "public service" broadcaster
TO LIVE up to his public image of a rugged, ex-SAS adventurer, it must have seemed essential for Bear Grylls to appear at ease sleeping rough and catching his own food in his television survival series. But it has emerged that Grylls, 33, was enjoying a far more conventional form of comfort, retreating some nights from filming in mountains and on desert islands to nearby lodges and hotels. Now Channel 4 has launched an investigation into whether Grylls, who has conquered Everest and the Arctic, deceived the public in his series Born Survivor.
The series, screened in March and April and watched by 1.4m viewers, built up Grylls's credentials as a tough outdoorsman. In a question and answer session on Channel 4's website, he recalls how station bosses pitched the venture to him stating: "We just drop you into a lot of different hellholes equipped with nothing, and you do what you have to do to survive."
But an adviser to Born Survivor has disclosed that at one location where the adventurer claimed to be a "real life Robin-son Crusoe" trapped on "a desert island", he was actually on an outlying part of the Hawaiian archipelago and spent nights at a motel. On another occasion in California's Sierra Nevada mountains where he was filmed biting off the head of a snake for breakfast and struggling for survival "with just a water bottle, a cup and a flint for making fire", he actually slept some nights with the crew in a lodge fitted with television and internet access. The Pines Resort at Bass Lake is advertised as "a cosy getaway for families" with blueberry pancakes for breakfast.
In one episode Grylls, son of the late Tory MP Sir Michael Grylls, was shown apparently building a Polynesian-style raft using only materials around him, including bamboo, hibiscus twine and palm leaves for a sail. But according to Mark Weinert, an Oregon-based survival consultant brought in for the job, it was he who led the team that built the raft. It was then dismantled so that Grylls could be shown building it on camera.
In another episode viewers watched as Grylls tried to coax an apparently wild mustang into a lasso in the Sierra Nevada. "I'm in luck," he told viewers, apparently coming across four wild horses grazing in a meadow. "A chance to use an old native American mode of transport comes my way. This is one of the few places in the whole of the US where horses still roam wild." In fact, Weinert said, the horses were not wild but were brought in by trailer from a nearby trekking station for the "choreographed" feature. "If you really believe everything happens the way it is shown on TV, you are being a little bit naive," he said.
Channel 4 confirmed that Grylls had used hotels during expeditions and has now asked Diverse, the Bristol-based production company that made the programme, to look into the other claims. "We take any allegations of misleading our audiences seriously," said a spokeswoman for the channel.
The latest suggestion that Channel 4 may have breached viewer trust comes as the broad-caster's supervisory board prepares to issue new editorial guidelines to suppliers in order to stamp out alleged sharp practices that mislead viewers. "Born Survivor is not an observational documentary series but a `how to' guide to basic survival techniques in extreme environments," the spokeswoman said. "The programme explicitly does not claim that presenter Bear Grylls's experience is one of unaided solo survival."
Nevertheless, the disclosure is likely to disappoint fans of the Eton-educated adventurer, who at the age of 23 became the youngest Briton to scale Everest. Just two years before that he had broken his back in three places after his parachute ripped during a military exercise. On screen he has emerged as a natural performer, with stunts such as squeezing water from animal dung and sucking the fluid from fish eyeballs. Grylls could not be contacted for comment this weekend as he was trekking in the Brecon Beacons with his four-year-old son.
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Michael Winner salutes a brilliant, politically incorrect, British comedian
Bernard Manning died recently. Michael Winner is an English film director and producer
To say I was fan of Bernard Manning is a gross understatement. If a stand-up comedian could be a genius, then Manning was a genius. He may have offended people, but since when has that been a crime? Comics have caused offence since the dawn of time. And not only did he offend with brilliant gags, he did it to anyone. No one was safe from his jokes - they always cut close to the bone and that is why the audiences loved him.
In my opinion, he died twice. Not just this week, but also on that day many years ago when those crackpot, sourfaced, people known as The Politically-Correct Brigade forced him off television because they considered his jokes to be racist. He wasn't racist. If Bernard wanted to make fun of any race, he did so without discrimination. And why shouldn't he? His job was to make us laugh, and that he did brilliantly.
I met Bernard a few years ago, when, with a friend, I paid for him to come from his beloved Manchester and do a cabaret in a private banqueting room for Marco Pierre White's 40th birthday. He sat like an out-of-breath walrus - even then his skin colour was a shade of grey, indicating severe heart problems. But when he took the microphone, everything changed. He was alert, sharp, his delivery and nuances were impeccable, his timing perfection. I introduced him to the distinguished dinner crowd, which included Madonna, with the usual words - "Ladies and gentlemen ... Bernard Manning".
Bernard took the microphone, his pause was perfect, then in that marvellous, gravelly voice he said: "Michael Winner, the most hated Jew in Europe." That was funny. That, as the old saying goes "brought the house down". None of us considered that racist. Least of all me, the one who should have been most insulted.
Some years ago, I remember one of those undercover TV programmes secretly filmed a private dinner. Manning was speaking. He came out with another of his great jokes: "I lost a relation in Auschwitz. Fell off the guard tower." There was indignant uproar from the chattering classes. The politically correct brigade said it was just disgraceful. I remember thinking: "What are they going on about? That was funny. It made me laugh." And I actually lost relatives in Auschwitz.
Why shouldn't we poke fun at Jews, Muslims, the Irish, Scotsmen, the French, the Italians, Catholics, Seventh Day Adventists, Mormons, blacks, Chinese... I could go on. Another saying, one of my favourites, goes: "If you can't take a joke you shouldn't have joined."
I remember once attending a TV special, An Evening With Jackie Mason - the Jewish American comedian. The jokes he told were hysterical. Many of them deriding Jews in a dry, very funny, observational way. At the end of the evening, Pamela Stephenson came over to me, white with rage. "No wonder the Jews hate him," she said of Mason. "He's so anti-Semitic." Nonsense. Jackie was, and still is, extremely funny. And believe me, when Jews are talking among themselves, it's not at all uncommon for them to refer to "Yid" and "Yidden". Try that in a joke today and you wouldn't just be off television, you'd be banned from the planet!
When Lenny Henry, one of our wonderful black comics, started out, he had a terrific line in his act. He'd say: "If you don't laugh, I'll come and live next door to you." Funny, funny, funny. Later, I seem to remember Lenny apologising for that. Silly, silly, silly.
Where do these politically correct people live? Do they have their own special world. Do they not realise that in the real world people speak a different language to theirs? I was for many years on the Council of the Directors Guild Of Great Britain. Suddenly I saw on their notepaper the word "Chair" and then the name. "I never voted for James Cellan-Jones to be a chair," I protested. "I voted for him as our Chairman." "Can't use 'Chairman' any more," I was told. "It's not politically correct because it discriminates against women."
As far as I'm concerned, our world today is being controlled by this tiny group of out-of-touch loonies who'd prefer to see The Merchant Of Venice's finest lines disappear because a wonderfully written and beautifully spoken Jewish character is shown to be a greedy villain. And what about Othello, which might suggest that black soldiers are capable of strangling their wives in a fit of unfounded jealousy? Or Hamlet, which could offend Danes by suggesting that one of their countrymen could poison his brother in order to gain a throne?
These are the people who forced Benny Hill off TV and want topless girl pictures banned from newspapers. Don't they go to art galleries, these blinkered buffoons? There, they'd see picture after picture of topless (and some times bottomless) nymphs and ladies, many of them painted for their patrons' titillation - from Lucas Cranach in the 16th century, through Rubens and Goya, to Lucian Freud today.
Then Bernard Manning comes along, speaking the language of the British people, brilliantly phrased, exquisitely delivered, wittily composed, and above all unbelievably funny - and he's suddenly too rough for TV! Who do these idiots think watches TV? Bernard Manning spoke as his audience spoke. Except that he honed and perfected his jokes until they were gems. His humour came from the spirit of England. Brave, tolerant, welcoming to all races - a land that is rightly proud of Shakespeare, even though some of his writing is of such vulgarity that Bernard Manning is a churchwarden by comparison. Do these tight-bottomed idiots not realise laughter is a release? The day we cannot laugh at ourselves, and other people, without fear of censure is a sad day indeed.
Tragically, that day has come and it may get worse. I'm glad I'm old enough to have visited the music halls, still thriving in the Fifties and Sixties, and saw our great comics perform their art. And, yes, they made wonderfully ribald jokes about sex and gender and race and religion - all subjects that are taboo today. Now, the music halls are shopping malls and comedy has been replaced by smart, utterly unfunny political parody performed by nonentities who think the F-word is funny, while the old-timers who could stand up and enthral an audience for two hours single-handed are buried in English soil.
In a few days, Bernard Manning will join them. Make no mistake, he was a great and noble Englishman with a glorious sense of humour. I could, and should, have enjoyed him on TV for the last many years. But those arrogant enough to think they know better than everyone else decided he was not fit for mass consumption. This is not only a crazy world. It is a politically correct, tyrannical world where we let an intolerant minority tell us what to think. Goodbye Bernard. I salute you and I thank you. At least you'll be laughing at our lunatic world from on high.
Source
Monday, July 23, 2007
Pervasive dishonesty at the Leftist BBC
The BBC executive board gathered for its regular meeting last Tuesday morning for coffee, biscuits and meltdown. The previous evening, at 5pm, the deadline had passed for producers to come forward confessing, in a spirit of openness and honesty, to programmes they had made that had misled the public in some way. The invitation for them so to do had been extended by both Jana Bennett, the BBC's director of vision and an executive board member, and Jenny Abramsky, the BBC's director of audio and music. They, and other BBC chiefs, were giving staff a chance to come clean after revelations that a trailer for a programme about the Queen had been less than truthful with viewers, and that the corporation had also been fined 50,000 pounds for faking a Blue Peter competition.
Much to the apparent surprise of Bennett and Abramsky, two experienced and highly respected corporation bureaucrats, a procession of contrite and nervous producers came forward to 'fess up. The public, it seemed, had been deceived with unnerving consistency, particularly over programmes with phone-in polls and competitions. And on the corporation's most noble flagship enterprises, too. Comic Relief and Children in Need, for example. "We just sat there absolutely stunned," one executive board member told me, "shocked beyond belief. Nobody had any idea that this was going on on such a scale."
Not even Bennett and Abramsky, when they asked for producers to come forward? "Nobody. Nobody at all. And we had the very powerful sense that there was a lot more to come. And we thought this time no excuses, something really has to be done."
In the short term this might mean the ceremonial defenestration, for the benefit of a baying Fleet Street and an angry public, of some high-ranking executive. Bennett perhaps, even though she is one of the corporation's most talented and savvy apparatchiks? "But if Jana, why not Mark [Thompson, the director-general]? He is about as remote in the hierarchy from what went on as she is."
The feeling within the upper echelons of the BBC is that the sacrifice of a senior figure would be a capitulation too far to critics, although how far that view is shared lower down is a moot point. There is a certain glee and schaden-freude in some parts of the corporation, long dismayed at the grubby and antiReithian business of chasing the ratings with lowest common denominator broadcasting. Either way, all those I spoke to believe the BBC needs a change of culture, that it needs to decide what it is there for and why we should continue to pay for its existence, compulsorily and on pain of imprisonment if we don't fork out.
"Why are we doing these phone-in polls?" said the executive board member. "In what possible sense are they public service broadcasting? "The programme makers tell you that it's an invaluable way of reaching the difficult-to-get C2D audience. But we need to reach them in different, cleverer ways. "The BBC has always been very good at reaching middle-class, Old Etonian audiences; in fact it has whole channels just for them. But it doesn't know how to attract the white working class, because nobody from the white working class works for it. Phone-in polls are an easy and unacceptable answer. They've been suspended now; there's absolutely no reason why they should ever start again."
According to Roger Graef, a leading independent producer, the scams and manipulations have been threatening to erupt for some time. "It was lurking under the surface," he says, "but there were more and more people coming to my company literally bursting into tears and saying, `I don't want to do this to people any more'. But they wouldn't go public because they were worried they'd never get another job."
A senior BBC journalist put it even more bluntly. "The BBC has to stop trying to get in the f****** gutter with all the other tawdry channels. When you start chasing ratings and using the foul marketing language of City spivs, it's inevitable what will happen." AH, but the trouble is, if the BBC doesn't get into the gutter it may lose its raison d'etre anyway. For the past 60 years or so the BBC has managed to straddle two poles - universality and public service - and thus justify the licence fee. But it is finding it increasingly difficult to do so.
Never mind all this stuff about a new, imported culture whereby production teams subsist under intense pressure on short-term contracts and are not imbued with the BBC ethos, such as it is. That may be in the mix somewhere, but it is not the crucial point. It is about why the BBC exists at all and where it locates itself in the future. And each way the corporation turns it finds a howl of complaint. When it attempts to achieve universality by diversifying in order to serve a specialist audience and dreams up such channels as BBC4 (audience share: 0.4%) and BBC3 (audience share: 1.3%) it is accused of spreading itself far too thinly and as a result splurging huge amounts of licence-payers' money on a vanishingly small audience. Indeed, you might wonder why there is a need for both BBC2 and BBC4 to exist as separate entities when their remits are more or less identical.
Those who accuse the BBC of doing too much, and sacrificing quality as a consequence, were given plenty of ammunition by the current fiasco: at least one of the programmes that rigged its phone-in competition did so because nobody from the audience phoned in. They were broadcasting to an audience of close to zero.
On the other hand, when the BBC attempts to fulfil its charter by providing top-quality mainstream entertainment for a mass audience, the critics attack it for trying to compete with the commercial sector in chasing ratings and paying too much money for household names. Take the Jonathan Ross contract as an example. "The BBC was burbling with happiness because it had got Jonathan Ross for `only' 18m pounds when he had asked for 24m," the senior BBC journalist remarked with some derision. "He draws only about 3m viewers every week - for which he is paid almost eight times the entire yearly budget for a programme like The World Tonight. How can that possibly be justified?"
Privately quite a few BBC executives admit that the Ross contract was a misjudgment, politically, morally and practically. One told me it had cost the BBC "a couple of hundred million quid" when it came to charter renewal because the politicians were ill-disposed towards an organisation that could be so cavalier with licence-payers' money. Others argue that the BBC should not compete with commercial organisations because the BBC is simply inept at doing so, and they use the Ross contract as a case in point. For the executive board member it's a more straightforward calculation. "If there's a commercial organisation that wants to pay Jonathan Ross 18m and thinks it can draw an audience that justifies the salary, then let them do it. It's not for the BBC. Exactly the same applies to phone-in polls."
WHAT should be done? The BBC provided an easy sacrificial victim by "suspending" all commissions from RDF, the independent production company which supplied the original shots of Her Majesty. But the firm says that they e-mailed the BBC three times asking to see its edit before transmission. Someone in the BBC jumped to the conclusion that their trail showed the Queen storming out. At no time did they ask RDF whether this actually happened.
The Beeb's director-general has also ordered that all 15,000 staffers and a good few thousand independent producers must be inculcated in the ethos of the corporation through new training schemes. You might argue that it would be prudent for the BBC to decide exactly what its ethos is before embarking on such a laudable process. At the moment it is not remotely clear. It is vague about the extent to which it should be competing with the commercial channels, and even more vague about the notion of what constitutes its "core broadcasting".
"You know, whenever I ask them about some new programme or channel they're planning," the executive board member told me, laughing, "they always tell me that it is core broadcasting. And I say to them, `Right, okay, well give me an example of something the BBC does which is peripheral broadcasting'. They can't come up with an answer." It is this lack of focus that the BBC management needs to address - as well as the simple fact of not misleading viewers. At present the BBC's default position is that everything it does is always for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds. But if the BBC is still to be with us in 10 years, with a statutory licence fee, it needs not only the trust of its captive audience but a far clearer idea of what it stands for.
Source
More BBC fraud
A SENIOR executive at Panorama is to be questioned by police over allegations that the BBC's flagship current affairs programme broke the law by using forged documents to target one of Britain's richest doctors. Detectives are expected to interview Frank Simmonds, the programme's deputy editor, under caution, following claims that Panorama used fake referral letters from GPs to send undercover reporters into clinics run by Mohamed Taranissi, a leading IVF expert. Officers from Scotland Yard want to question Simmonds in relation to the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act, according to an informed source. Using a "false instrument" under the Act carries a maximum jail sentence of 10 years.
The BBC is already facing a crisis of trust after it admitted deceiving viewers by faking the results of phone-in competitions in shows such as Comic Relief and Children in Need. The broadcaster has also been forced to apologise to the Queen after wrongly claiming that she stormed out of a royal photoshoot. The police inquiry into Panorama, however, raises fresh questions about the BBC's core journalism, and comes as Mark Byford, the deputy director-general, faces a grilling by MPs on Tuesday.
Taranissi, 52, whose wealth is estimated at 38m pounds, is suing Panorama for libel, claiming the programme made defamatory allegations about his techniques and has caused lasting damage to his professional reputation. The BBC could face a bill for more than 1m pounds in compensation and legal costs if it loses the case.
The Panorama investigation into Taranissi, broadcast in January, claimed that one of his central London clinics, the Assisted Reproduction and Gynaecology Centre (ARGC), offered "unnecessary and unproven" treatment to an undercover reporter posing as a patient. The show alleged that a 26-year-old journalist was offered IVF treatment costing thousands of pounds despite neither her nor her partner, having any history of fertility problems. It also claimed that Taranissi was running a second clinic without a licence and was sending his older and harder-to-treat patients there to maintain a high success rate at the ARGC.
Taranissi, an Egyptian who has helped mothers give birth to 2,300 babies in seven years, denies any wrongdoing. His lawyers claim that Panorama researchers forged at least four referral letters from nonexistent GPs to gain access to his clinics. Police took a statement from Taranissi earlier this year and now want to question Simmonds, who oversaw the IVF sting, about the letters. The BBC claims they were "justified" in the context of the undercover probe.
A BBC spokesman said: "We are more than happy to cooperate with the police. They indicated at the outset that they would want to speak to Mr Simmonds." A spokesman for the Yard said: " Inquiries are still ongoing."
Source
Greenies sow food confusion
A Brit tries to take it all seriously
There's this organic carrot, and it's doing my head in. It's a nice carrot, as carrots go: fat, orange, with feathery green tufts on top. It has lived a blameless life in a field of joy, innocent of pesticides and artificial fertilisers. And now, here it is in the supermarket, rooting me on to take it home. Only, here's the thing: the carrot is from Israel. That's nearly 2,500 miles away. If I buy it, I will take on its carbon footprint, garnishing every mouthful with the greenhouse gas that it has splurged into the atmosphere to be here today. Can I live with that? Does the carrot's organic worthiness trump the fact that it is has amassed more air miles than an MP on an international fact-finding mission? Or should I let it rot for thoughtlessly contributing to the destruction of the planet?
You see my problem. I'm food confused. And not just about vegetables. Fruit, meat, dairy - these days, everything is fraught with ethical complications. If I tried to follow all of them, I'd end up an oxygenarian - one of those people who eat nothing but air. The "good" food choices have proliferated like salmonella in an Edwina Currie egg - organic, Fairtrade, locally grown, free range, boutique, the Leaf mark, Red Tractor, Freedom Food, farm assured - some important, others just marketing spin. How am I meant to know what comes first in the pecking order?
Some choices are straightforward. Processed food clearly puts you on the fast track to hell. As for animal welfare, I won't eat anything that hasn't had weekly spa treatments. But organic? I used to think it was a no-brainer: good for the planet (no energy wasted on fertilisers and pesticides); good for the soil (it works with nature, rather than against it); good for the creatures that inhabit furrow and field (livestock, wildlife, farmers). It is also, arguably, good for us.
But when food miles enter the equation, organic quickly loses its halo. Getting an organic New Zealand apple from the tree to your lunchbox releases 235 times as much carbon as it saves. How depressing is that? And that's before you even think about seasonality. We shouldn't be eating apples in June, but we have turned luxuries into necessities, demanding strawberries in midwinter and nectarines in spring.
Of course, there are some things (citrus fruit, pineapples, bananas) that don't grow in Britain, and I would be the last to suggest we could do without them. I'm also not sure I could survive without spices, olives, tea and coffee. But there have to be limits, such as not flying blueberries from Chile in December. And where do food miles and seasonality leave fair trade? Supporting Ethiopian coffee growers is one thing, but should we really be importing pears from South Africa, however benevolent our intentions?
Home-grown is no less problem-filled: your Isle of Wight tomatoes were probably grown in a greenhouse that burns more energy than a Chinese power station, and that supermarket potato has been taken by lorry to the other end of the country to be washed and packed. Sometimes it seems as if supermarkets set traps for unwary ecoshoppers. You know those fruit and veg packets with a picture of a happy supplier on the front - farmer Ted from Hampshire with his organic fruit? Turns out they aren't always from his farm at all. Sometimes they aren't even from his country.
Still, at least you know where you are with meat and dairy. Stick to organic and free range, and you can't go wrong. Except that farm animals happen to be huge contributors to global warming. A field of farting cows produces enough centrally heated methane to drown out the sound of the icecaps crumbling. Then there's all the packaging, the energy-hungry refrigeration, the distance between farm, slaughterhouse and supermarket depot.
A brilliant book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, by the American journalist Michael Pollan, poses this dilemma: "When you can eat everything, what do you choose to eat?" Pollan works his way along the different food chains in the States, from the longest (which stretches from the cornfields of the Midwest through intensive cattle farming and processing plants to the fast-food outlets that blight every town and city in the country) to the shortest - a modern hunter-gathering mission in northern California, on which he shoots his own wild boar, harvests morels in the hills, picks cherries from the streets of San Francisco and makes bread with wild yeast captured from the air. In between, there is "big" organic - operations such as the American organic supermarket Whole Foods Market - and small-scale organic, local growers supplying local people and local businesses. The hunter-gathering wins hands down, although Pollan admits it's not that practical on a daily basis. Local organic comes a close second.
Pollan has thought about what he eats; he has looked at the contradictions and worked out what matters. It's probably pretty similar to what most of us want - food that tastes good and makes us happy, without troubling either our conscience or our health. The difference is that he has done something about it. We can blame the supermarkets and producers, but ultimately the responsibility for what we eat lies with us. The choices are confusing, and there is no perfect solution. But the worst thing we can do is do nothing.
There is a movement in America called the Locavores - people who eat, wherever possible, a diet harvested within a 100-mile radius (in cities, we're talking farmers' markets, allotments, small shops that prioritise local producers). Locavores have a mantra: "If not locally produced, then organic. If not organic, then family farm. If not family farm, then local business. If not local business, then fair trade." I would add a line at the beginning: "If not local organic, then locally produced." But I've decided the Locavore code of priorities is going to be my way through the food confusion. That Israeli carrot will just have to go home with someone else.
Source
Greenie misanthropy on display again
Hatred of people is a major driving force among Greenies -- which is why they have been trying to stop people having babies from long before the global warming scare popped up. See e.g. here
The new head of the Science Museum has an uncompromising view about how global warming should be dealt with: get rid of a few billion people. Chris Rapley, who takes up his post on September 1, is not afraid of offending. 'I am not advocating genocide,' said Rapley. 'What I am saying is that if we invest in ways to reduce the birthrate - by improving contraception, education and healthcare - we will stop the world's population reaching its current estimated limit of between eight and 10 billion.
'That in turn will mean less carbon dioxide is being pumped into the atmosphere because there will be fewer people to drive cars and use electricity. The crucial point is that to achieve this goal you would only have to spend a fraction of the money that will be needed to bring about technological fixes, new nuclear power plants or renewable energy plants. However, everyone has decided, quietly, to ignore the issue.'
Such arguments give an indication of the priorities of the new Science Museum chief, an office that has been vacant since 2005 when Lindsay Sharp abruptly left the 150,000 pound post following rows about financial waste, cronyism and the 'Disneyfication' of exhibitions. Now Rapley, currently head of the British Antarctic Survey and a passionate believer [not a real scientist, in other words] in man's influence on climate, is set to take charge of the museum, one of Britain's most challenging institutions, where strict academic requirements must be met while competing with Legoland and Disneyland to attract visitors. Only by tackling the issues of the day can he succeed, Rapley said.
Hence his urging that we deal with overpopulation, a call of wide public interest and one that reflects the contents of the recent report by the Optimum Population Trust, which called for each couple in Britain to be limited to having two children each. 'A voluntary stop-at-two guideline should be adopted for couples in the UK who want to adopt greener lifestyles,' it stated.
The interest of Rapley, 60, in this subject stems directly from his climatic concerns. He sits near the extreme end of scientific views about global warming. He fears our planet faces a very hot and uncomfortable future. This belief puts him opposite climate-change deniers, about whom Rapley is generally vitriolic. He described the recent Channel 4 programme The Great Global Warming Swindle as 'a tissue of lies' while individual deniers, like Dominic Lawson, are dismissed in unexpectedly terse, Anglo-Saxon terms.
'As to my job at the Science Museum, my remit is very simple,' Rapley said. 'It is to make it the most advanced museum in the world. I will only be able to do that by addressing the key issues in science today and the most important of these is climate change and energy policy. However, there are topics like stem cell science and genomics that are set to have enormous impact and which will have to be tackled in detail.'
Rapley is passionate about making displays and instruments far more accessible. 'If you look at the Science Museum's great engine hall, there are wonderful machines on display but the accompanying explanations are quite often above most people's heads. Most children today probably don't realise these machines run on heat and water, but that is never mentioned. We need different explanations for different levels of understanding: the six-year-old, the 60-year-old, the PhD student. At the same time, there is no point having a few touch-screens about the place. People can only use them one at a time. One idea would be to send free texts to visitors' mobile phones, according to their needs, as they stand in front of displays. Just about everyone has a mobile phone, after all.'
The Oxford-educated physicist earned his spurs as a scientist who built instruments for space probes, such as X-ray detectors for the international Solar Maximum Mission launched in 1980. He went on to work at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory using satellite radar scanners to study the Earth and in particular Antarctica. 'All sorts of environmental issues lead to the Antarctic: sea-level rise, ozone depletion, atmospheric warming,' added Rapley, who is married with two daughters. In 1997, he was appointed head of the British Antarctic Survey and has worked there ever since.
As to key influences, Rapley points to an English teacher at his old school, King Edward's School, Bath, who introduced him to the works of Conan Doyle. 'I learned the joys of deduction from Sherlock Holmes and they stood me in good stead for the rest of my life. They got me to the Science Museum, in effect.'
Source
More straight talk from Bolton
When John Bolton left the United Nations, some of the fun went out of the multi-storey talking shop. No longer was the walrus-moustached rightwinger there to cast barbs at the silver-tongued bureaucrats who took pride in peddling compromises, turned a blind eye to corrupt practices and humoured dictators - the very essence of diplomacy, some might say.
Happily, Gordon Brown's elevation of Mark Malloch Brown to be his minister for Africa, Asia and the UN, a lofty perch from which the newly minted peer will attend cabinet meetings and play the "wise eminence" to young David Miliband at the Foreign Office, has revived one of the most entertaining transatlantic grudge matches of recent years. If the hawkish former US ambassador to the UN is from Mars, the flexible former UN deputy secretary-general is from Venus....
Malloch Brown, Bolton points out, was "simply saying the sort of thing he used to say lurking behind closed doors in the United Nations", where diplomats have perfected the art of "speaking with four or five faces". It is important, he suggests, for the United States to "know exactly where the Brown government is going instead of skulking around the hallways".
"If the Brown government wants to be more European than Atlanticist, let's hear it. If they would rather not have a special relationship, let's hear it." And then comes the zinger: "If they want to be a part of Europe in the same way as Belgium and Luxembourg, let's hear it." Bolton believes Britain must face the question: "Do you want to be an independent country or a county in a big Europe?" The way he tells it is guaranteed to offend our national pride, but you can't say he hasn't warned us. "If Britain wants to be subsumed into the European soup, the United States will have to react accordingly - and we will, make no mistake." ....
Officials on both sides of the Atlantic believe that Iran presents the greatest threat of disagreement between Brown's Britain and America - not Iraq, where plans for a drawdown of British troops were agreed long ago with Tony Blair. Although the balance of power between Dick Cheney, the bellicose vice-president, and the dovish Pentagon and State Department is more volatile than it used to be, some senior officials are convinced that Bush is determined to strike Iran's nuclear facilities before he leaves office. "I hope so," says Bolton, unabashed. "I don't regard the use of military force as attractive, but if the choice is a nuclear-armed Iran, there is no question that you have to come down on the side of force."
Bolton believes the "blind persistence" of diplomacy through the EU3 nations of Britain, France and Germany has merely strengthened Iran's hand. "What will it take to convince Europe the policy has failed? If we wait till they get a bomb, it will be too late."
More here
Testing defended in Britain
The new Children, Schools and Families Secretary set himself on a collision course with the teaching establishment yesterday by pledging that national testing and school league tables were here to stay. Despite growing pressure from the Government's own examinations regulator and the majority of the teaching profession about overtesting in schools, Ed Balls said that "testing and the publication of results" were the only way to ensure accountability. "It enables us to be able to see as policymakers what is working, who is not performing well and, in the extremes, being able to tackle poor performance," he told The Times. It was necessary also, he said, to help parents to judge the performance of their child's school.
Mr Balls's comments will disappoint the main teaching unions, as well as the professional body, the General Teaching Council. All complain that, far from raising standards, overtesting encourages a narrow curriculum, alienating students from learning and increasing their anxiety.
Children in England typically sit 70 tests and exams in their school careers and are the most tested in the world. Despite this, Britain is near the bottom of international league tables for the number of students leaving school with valuable qualifications.
Critics of testing include Ken Boston, head of the examinations regulator, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, who has argued that national tests for children aged 7, 11 and 14 should be replaced by the random testing of a sample of pupils and teacher assessments.
Mr Balls's opposition to this approach will also distance the Government from the Conservative Party, which has promised "fewer but tougher" tests and the dropping of Key Stage 3 tests at 14. In his first newspaper interview since he was appointed three weeks ago, Mr Balls also attacked Tory support for more streaming and the promise made by the Conservative leader, David Cameron, for a "grammar stream" in every comprehensive.
Mr Balls stopped short of banning streaming, which involves separating children into groups according to overall ability and teaching them in the same class for all subjects, arguing that individual head teachers know what works best in their own schools. But he emphasised that it was "backward-looking and divisive", imposing an arbitrary judgment on children's intelligence and ignoring individual talents. He said that he would rather see a greater use of setting, where children are separated into ability groups for individual subjects. "I do not find anybody sensible advocating streaming in schools. As somebody who went through streaming myself through secondary school I saw how deeply socially divisive it was," he said.
Mr Balls said that he would be making a series of impromptu visits to schools to spend time with teachers and pupils, who would not be informed who he was. He made his first such visit on Monday, when he spent the day at Banbury School in Oxfordshire, having informed only the head, the deputy and two senior staff members of his intention to visit. He arrived on foot, having asked his driver to drop him some distance from the school and was introduced to teachers and pupils as "a visitor".
He said that there was an old-fashioned view that you either focused on the welfare of the child or drove up standards in the classroom. His visit to Banbury had shown him that this was a false choice. "You can only drive up standards if you are actually focusing on the whole child, tracking their learning on an individual basis, but also knowing that if they aren't ready to learn because they are not sleeping or have difficulties at home, it's not possible for them to do well," he said.
He was determined to tackle the "achievement gap" in society, emphasising the importance of closer cooperation between education, health and social care services for children. "There are children in the same borough, on the same streets sometimes, and even going to the same schools, who have radically different experiences, shaped by family income and family environment, by poor health. The scandal is not England v Sweden, but Blackbird Leys v Headington. It's Harehills v Roundhay. It is North Kensington v South Kensington," he said.
Mr Balls said that more than 400 city academies could be set up, but insisted that they should become part of the "mainstream" and work more closely with nearby schools. The man who has spent most of his political life advising or working for Gordon Brown admitted that he felt "a bit liberated" at being outside the Treasury at last and declared himself ready to argue hard with his former colleagues for cash. Acknowledging that plans for a more flexible national curriculum would place a heavy burden on teachers and head teachers, he said that he would welcome the appointment of head teachers from outside the teaching profession.
Source
The BBC executive board gathered for its regular meeting last Tuesday morning for coffee, biscuits and meltdown. The previous evening, at 5pm, the deadline had passed for producers to come forward confessing, in a spirit of openness and honesty, to programmes they had made that had misled the public in some way. The invitation for them so to do had been extended by both Jana Bennett, the BBC's director of vision and an executive board member, and Jenny Abramsky, the BBC's director of audio and music. They, and other BBC chiefs, were giving staff a chance to come clean after revelations that a trailer for a programme about the Queen had been less than truthful with viewers, and that the corporation had also been fined 50,000 pounds for faking a Blue Peter competition.
Much to the apparent surprise of Bennett and Abramsky, two experienced and highly respected corporation bureaucrats, a procession of contrite and nervous producers came forward to 'fess up. The public, it seemed, had been deceived with unnerving consistency, particularly over programmes with phone-in polls and competitions. And on the corporation's most noble flagship enterprises, too. Comic Relief and Children in Need, for example. "We just sat there absolutely stunned," one executive board member told me, "shocked beyond belief. Nobody had any idea that this was going on on such a scale."
Not even Bennett and Abramsky, when they asked for producers to come forward? "Nobody. Nobody at all. And we had the very powerful sense that there was a lot more to come. And we thought this time no excuses, something really has to be done."
In the short term this might mean the ceremonial defenestration, for the benefit of a baying Fleet Street and an angry public, of some high-ranking executive. Bennett perhaps, even though she is one of the corporation's most talented and savvy apparatchiks? "But if Jana, why not Mark [Thompson, the director-general]? He is about as remote in the hierarchy from what went on as she is."
The feeling within the upper echelons of the BBC is that the sacrifice of a senior figure would be a capitulation too far to critics, although how far that view is shared lower down is a moot point. There is a certain glee and schaden-freude in some parts of the corporation, long dismayed at the grubby and antiReithian business of chasing the ratings with lowest common denominator broadcasting. Either way, all those I spoke to believe the BBC needs a change of culture, that it needs to decide what it is there for and why we should continue to pay for its existence, compulsorily and on pain of imprisonment if we don't fork out.
"Why are we doing these phone-in polls?" said the executive board member. "In what possible sense are they public service broadcasting? "The programme makers tell you that it's an invaluable way of reaching the difficult-to-get C2D audience. But we need to reach them in different, cleverer ways. "The BBC has always been very good at reaching middle-class, Old Etonian audiences; in fact it has whole channels just for them. But it doesn't know how to attract the white working class, because nobody from the white working class works for it. Phone-in polls are an easy and unacceptable answer. They've been suspended now; there's absolutely no reason why they should ever start again."
According to Roger Graef, a leading independent producer, the scams and manipulations have been threatening to erupt for some time. "It was lurking under the surface," he says, "but there were more and more people coming to my company literally bursting into tears and saying, `I don't want to do this to people any more'. But they wouldn't go public because they were worried they'd never get another job."
A senior BBC journalist put it even more bluntly. "The BBC has to stop trying to get in the f****** gutter with all the other tawdry channels. When you start chasing ratings and using the foul marketing language of City spivs, it's inevitable what will happen." AH, but the trouble is, if the BBC doesn't get into the gutter it may lose its raison d'etre anyway. For the past 60 years or so the BBC has managed to straddle two poles - universality and public service - and thus justify the licence fee. But it is finding it increasingly difficult to do so.
Never mind all this stuff about a new, imported culture whereby production teams subsist under intense pressure on short-term contracts and are not imbued with the BBC ethos, such as it is. That may be in the mix somewhere, but it is not the crucial point. It is about why the BBC exists at all and where it locates itself in the future. And each way the corporation turns it finds a howl of complaint. When it attempts to achieve universality by diversifying in order to serve a specialist audience and dreams up such channels as BBC4 (audience share: 0.4%) and BBC3 (audience share: 1.3%) it is accused of spreading itself far too thinly and as a result splurging huge amounts of licence-payers' money on a vanishingly small audience. Indeed, you might wonder why there is a need for both BBC2 and BBC4 to exist as separate entities when their remits are more or less identical.
Those who accuse the BBC of doing too much, and sacrificing quality as a consequence, were given plenty of ammunition by the current fiasco: at least one of the programmes that rigged its phone-in competition did so because nobody from the audience phoned in. They were broadcasting to an audience of close to zero.
On the other hand, when the BBC attempts to fulfil its charter by providing top-quality mainstream entertainment for a mass audience, the critics attack it for trying to compete with the commercial sector in chasing ratings and paying too much money for household names. Take the Jonathan Ross contract as an example. "The BBC was burbling with happiness because it had got Jonathan Ross for `only' 18m pounds when he had asked for 24m," the senior BBC journalist remarked with some derision. "He draws only about 3m viewers every week - for which he is paid almost eight times the entire yearly budget for a programme like The World Tonight. How can that possibly be justified?"
Privately quite a few BBC executives admit that the Ross contract was a misjudgment, politically, morally and practically. One told me it had cost the BBC "a couple of hundred million quid" when it came to charter renewal because the politicians were ill-disposed towards an organisation that could be so cavalier with licence-payers' money. Others argue that the BBC should not compete with commercial organisations because the BBC is simply inept at doing so, and they use the Ross contract as a case in point. For the executive board member it's a more straightforward calculation. "If there's a commercial organisation that wants to pay Jonathan Ross 18m and thinks it can draw an audience that justifies the salary, then let them do it. It's not for the BBC. Exactly the same applies to phone-in polls."
WHAT should be done? The BBC provided an easy sacrificial victim by "suspending" all commissions from RDF, the independent production company which supplied the original shots of Her Majesty. But the firm says that they e-mailed the BBC three times asking to see its edit before transmission. Someone in the BBC jumped to the conclusion that their trail showed the Queen storming out. At no time did they ask RDF whether this actually happened.
The Beeb's director-general has also ordered that all 15,000 staffers and a good few thousand independent producers must be inculcated in the ethos of the corporation through new training schemes. You might argue that it would be prudent for the BBC to decide exactly what its ethos is before embarking on such a laudable process. At the moment it is not remotely clear. It is vague about the extent to which it should be competing with the commercial channels, and even more vague about the notion of what constitutes its "core broadcasting".
"You know, whenever I ask them about some new programme or channel they're planning," the executive board member told me, laughing, "they always tell me that it is core broadcasting. And I say to them, `Right, okay, well give me an example of something the BBC does which is peripheral broadcasting'. They can't come up with an answer." It is this lack of focus that the BBC management needs to address - as well as the simple fact of not misleading viewers. At present the BBC's default position is that everything it does is always for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds. But if the BBC is still to be with us in 10 years, with a statutory licence fee, it needs not only the trust of its captive audience but a far clearer idea of what it stands for.
Source
More BBC fraud
A SENIOR executive at Panorama is to be questioned by police over allegations that the BBC's flagship current affairs programme broke the law by using forged documents to target one of Britain's richest doctors. Detectives are expected to interview Frank Simmonds, the programme's deputy editor, under caution, following claims that Panorama used fake referral letters from GPs to send undercover reporters into clinics run by Mohamed Taranissi, a leading IVF expert. Officers from Scotland Yard want to question Simmonds in relation to the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act, according to an informed source. Using a "false instrument" under the Act carries a maximum jail sentence of 10 years.
The BBC is already facing a crisis of trust after it admitted deceiving viewers by faking the results of phone-in competitions in shows such as Comic Relief and Children in Need. The broadcaster has also been forced to apologise to the Queen after wrongly claiming that she stormed out of a royal photoshoot. The police inquiry into Panorama, however, raises fresh questions about the BBC's core journalism, and comes as Mark Byford, the deputy director-general, faces a grilling by MPs on Tuesday.
Taranissi, 52, whose wealth is estimated at 38m pounds, is suing Panorama for libel, claiming the programme made defamatory allegations about his techniques and has caused lasting damage to his professional reputation. The BBC could face a bill for more than 1m pounds in compensation and legal costs if it loses the case.
The Panorama investigation into Taranissi, broadcast in January, claimed that one of his central London clinics, the Assisted Reproduction and Gynaecology Centre (ARGC), offered "unnecessary and unproven" treatment to an undercover reporter posing as a patient. The show alleged that a 26-year-old journalist was offered IVF treatment costing thousands of pounds despite neither her nor her partner, having any history of fertility problems. It also claimed that Taranissi was running a second clinic without a licence and was sending his older and harder-to-treat patients there to maintain a high success rate at the ARGC.
Taranissi, an Egyptian who has helped mothers give birth to 2,300 babies in seven years, denies any wrongdoing. His lawyers claim that Panorama researchers forged at least four referral letters from nonexistent GPs to gain access to his clinics. Police took a statement from Taranissi earlier this year and now want to question Simmonds, who oversaw the IVF sting, about the letters. The BBC claims they were "justified" in the context of the undercover probe.
A BBC spokesman said: "We are more than happy to cooperate with the police. They indicated at the outset that they would want to speak to Mr Simmonds." A spokesman for the Yard said: " Inquiries are still ongoing."
Source
Greenies sow food confusion
A Brit tries to take it all seriously
There's this organic carrot, and it's doing my head in. It's a nice carrot, as carrots go: fat, orange, with feathery green tufts on top. It has lived a blameless life in a field of joy, innocent of pesticides and artificial fertilisers. And now, here it is in the supermarket, rooting me on to take it home. Only, here's the thing: the carrot is from Israel. That's nearly 2,500 miles away. If I buy it, I will take on its carbon footprint, garnishing every mouthful with the greenhouse gas that it has splurged into the atmosphere to be here today. Can I live with that? Does the carrot's organic worthiness trump the fact that it is has amassed more air miles than an MP on an international fact-finding mission? Or should I let it rot for thoughtlessly contributing to the destruction of the planet?
You see my problem. I'm food confused. And not just about vegetables. Fruit, meat, dairy - these days, everything is fraught with ethical complications. If I tried to follow all of them, I'd end up an oxygenarian - one of those people who eat nothing but air. The "good" food choices have proliferated like salmonella in an Edwina Currie egg - organic, Fairtrade, locally grown, free range, boutique, the Leaf mark, Red Tractor, Freedom Food, farm assured - some important, others just marketing spin. How am I meant to know what comes first in the pecking order?
Some choices are straightforward. Processed food clearly puts you on the fast track to hell. As for animal welfare, I won't eat anything that hasn't had weekly spa treatments. But organic? I used to think it was a no-brainer: good for the planet (no energy wasted on fertilisers and pesticides); good for the soil (it works with nature, rather than against it); good for the creatures that inhabit furrow and field (livestock, wildlife, farmers). It is also, arguably, good for us.
But when food miles enter the equation, organic quickly loses its halo. Getting an organic New Zealand apple from the tree to your lunchbox releases 235 times as much carbon as it saves. How depressing is that? And that's before you even think about seasonality. We shouldn't be eating apples in June, but we have turned luxuries into necessities, demanding strawberries in midwinter and nectarines in spring.
Of course, there are some things (citrus fruit, pineapples, bananas) that don't grow in Britain, and I would be the last to suggest we could do without them. I'm also not sure I could survive without spices, olives, tea and coffee. But there have to be limits, such as not flying blueberries from Chile in December. And where do food miles and seasonality leave fair trade? Supporting Ethiopian coffee growers is one thing, but should we really be importing pears from South Africa, however benevolent our intentions?
Home-grown is no less problem-filled: your Isle of Wight tomatoes were probably grown in a greenhouse that burns more energy than a Chinese power station, and that supermarket potato has been taken by lorry to the other end of the country to be washed and packed. Sometimes it seems as if supermarkets set traps for unwary ecoshoppers. You know those fruit and veg packets with a picture of a happy supplier on the front - farmer Ted from Hampshire with his organic fruit? Turns out they aren't always from his farm at all. Sometimes they aren't even from his country.
Still, at least you know where you are with meat and dairy. Stick to organic and free range, and you can't go wrong. Except that farm animals happen to be huge contributors to global warming. A field of farting cows produces enough centrally heated methane to drown out the sound of the icecaps crumbling. Then there's all the packaging, the energy-hungry refrigeration, the distance between farm, slaughterhouse and supermarket depot.
A brilliant book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, by the American journalist Michael Pollan, poses this dilemma: "When you can eat everything, what do you choose to eat?" Pollan works his way along the different food chains in the States, from the longest (which stretches from the cornfields of the Midwest through intensive cattle farming and processing plants to the fast-food outlets that blight every town and city in the country) to the shortest - a modern hunter-gathering mission in northern California, on which he shoots his own wild boar, harvests morels in the hills, picks cherries from the streets of San Francisco and makes bread with wild yeast captured from the air. In between, there is "big" organic - operations such as the American organic supermarket Whole Foods Market - and small-scale organic, local growers supplying local people and local businesses. The hunter-gathering wins hands down, although Pollan admits it's not that practical on a daily basis. Local organic comes a close second.
Pollan has thought about what he eats; he has looked at the contradictions and worked out what matters. It's probably pretty similar to what most of us want - food that tastes good and makes us happy, without troubling either our conscience or our health. The difference is that he has done something about it. We can blame the supermarkets and producers, but ultimately the responsibility for what we eat lies with us. The choices are confusing, and there is no perfect solution. But the worst thing we can do is do nothing.
There is a movement in America called the Locavores - people who eat, wherever possible, a diet harvested within a 100-mile radius (in cities, we're talking farmers' markets, allotments, small shops that prioritise local producers). Locavores have a mantra: "If not locally produced, then organic. If not organic, then family farm. If not family farm, then local business. If not local business, then fair trade." I would add a line at the beginning: "If not local organic, then locally produced." But I've decided the Locavore code of priorities is going to be my way through the food confusion. That Israeli carrot will just have to go home with someone else.
Source
Greenie misanthropy on display again
Hatred of people is a major driving force among Greenies -- which is why they have been trying to stop people having babies from long before the global warming scare popped up. See e.g. here
The new head of the Science Museum has an uncompromising view about how global warming should be dealt with: get rid of a few billion people. Chris Rapley, who takes up his post on September 1, is not afraid of offending. 'I am not advocating genocide,' said Rapley. 'What I am saying is that if we invest in ways to reduce the birthrate - by improving contraception, education and healthcare - we will stop the world's population reaching its current estimated limit of between eight and 10 billion.
'That in turn will mean less carbon dioxide is being pumped into the atmosphere because there will be fewer people to drive cars and use electricity. The crucial point is that to achieve this goal you would only have to spend a fraction of the money that will be needed to bring about technological fixes, new nuclear power plants or renewable energy plants. However, everyone has decided, quietly, to ignore the issue.'
Such arguments give an indication of the priorities of the new Science Museum chief, an office that has been vacant since 2005 when Lindsay Sharp abruptly left the 150,000 pound post following rows about financial waste, cronyism and the 'Disneyfication' of exhibitions. Now Rapley, currently head of the British Antarctic Survey and a passionate believer [not a real scientist, in other words] in man's influence on climate, is set to take charge of the museum, one of Britain's most challenging institutions, where strict academic requirements must be met while competing with Legoland and Disneyland to attract visitors. Only by tackling the issues of the day can he succeed, Rapley said.
Hence his urging that we deal with overpopulation, a call of wide public interest and one that reflects the contents of the recent report by the Optimum Population Trust, which called for each couple in Britain to be limited to having two children each. 'A voluntary stop-at-two guideline should be adopted for couples in the UK who want to adopt greener lifestyles,' it stated.
The interest of Rapley, 60, in this subject stems directly from his climatic concerns. He sits near the extreme end of scientific views about global warming. He fears our planet faces a very hot and uncomfortable future. This belief puts him opposite climate-change deniers, about whom Rapley is generally vitriolic. He described the recent Channel 4 programme The Great Global Warming Swindle as 'a tissue of lies' while individual deniers, like Dominic Lawson, are dismissed in unexpectedly terse, Anglo-Saxon terms.
'As to my job at the Science Museum, my remit is very simple,' Rapley said. 'It is to make it the most advanced museum in the world. I will only be able to do that by addressing the key issues in science today and the most important of these is climate change and energy policy. However, there are topics like stem cell science and genomics that are set to have enormous impact and which will have to be tackled in detail.'
Rapley is passionate about making displays and instruments far more accessible. 'If you look at the Science Museum's great engine hall, there are wonderful machines on display but the accompanying explanations are quite often above most people's heads. Most children today probably don't realise these machines run on heat and water, but that is never mentioned. We need different explanations for different levels of understanding: the six-year-old, the 60-year-old, the PhD student. At the same time, there is no point having a few touch-screens about the place. People can only use them one at a time. One idea would be to send free texts to visitors' mobile phones, according to their needs, as they stand in front of displays. Just about everyone has a mobile phone, after all.'
The Oxford-educated physicist earned his spurs as a scientist who built instruments for space probes, such as X-ray detectors for the international Solar Maximum Mission launched in 1980. He went on to work at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory using satellite radar scanners to study the Earth and in particular Antarctica. 'All sorts of environmental issues lead to the Antarctic: sea-level rise, ozone depletion, atmospheric warming,' added Rapley, who is married with two daughters. In 1997, he was appointed head of the British Antarctic Survey and has worked there ever since.
As to key influences, Rapley points to an English teacher at his old school, King Edward's School, Bath, who introduced him to the works of Conan Doyle. 'I learned the joys of deduction from Sherlock Holmes and they stood me in good stead for the rest of my life. They got me to the Science Museum, in effect.'
Source
More straight talk from Bolton
When John Bolton left the United Nations, some of the fun went out of the multi-storey talking shop. No longer was the walrus-moustached rightwinger there to cast barbs at the silver-tongued bureaucrats who took pride in peddling compromises, turned a blind eye to corrupt practices and humoured dictators - the very essence of diplomacy, some might say.
Happily, Gordon Brown's elevation of Mark Malloch Brown to be his minister for Africa, Asia and the UN, a lofty perch from which the newly minted peer will attend cabinet meetings and play the "wise eminence" to young David Miliband at the Foreign Office, has revived one of the most entertaining transatlantic grudge matches of recent years. If the hawkish former US ambassador to the UN is from Mars, the flexible former UN deputy secretary-general is from Venus....
Malloch Brown, Bolton points out, was "simply saying the sort of thing he used to say lurking behind closed doors in the United Nations", where diplomats have perfected the art of "speaking with four or five faces". It is important, he suggests, for the United States to "know exactly where the Brown government is going instead of skulking around the hallways".
"If the Brown government wants to be more European than Atlanticist, let's hear it. If they would rather not have a special relationship, let's hear it." And then comes the zinger: "If they want to be a part of Europe in the same way as Belgium and Luxembourg, let's hear it." Bolton believes Britain must face the question: "Do you want to be an independent country or a county in a big Europe?" The way he tells it is guaranteed to offend our national pride, but you can't say he hasn't warned us. "If Britain wants to be subsumed into the European soup, the United States will have to react accordingly - and we will, make no mistake." ....
Officials on both sides of the Atlantic believe that Iran presents the greatest threat of disagreement between Brown's Britain and America - not Iraq, where plans for a drawdown of British troops were agreed long ago with Tony Blair. Although the balance of power between Dick Cheney, the bellicose vice-president, and the dovish Pentagon and State Department is more volatile than it used to be, some senior officials are convinced that Bush is determined to strike Iran's nuclear facilities before he leaves office. "I hope so," says Bolton, unabashed. "I don't regard the use of military force as attractive, but if the choice is a nuclear-armed Iran, there is no question that you have to come down on the side of force."
Bolton believes the "blind persistence" of diplomacy through the EU3 nations of Britain, France and Germany has merely strengthened Iran's hand. "What will it take to convince Europe the policy has failed? If we wait till they get a bomb, it will be too late."
More here
Testing defended in Britain
The new Children, Schools and Families Secretary set himself on a collision course with the teaching establishment yesterday by pledging that national testing and school league tables were here to stay. Despite growing pressure from the Government's own examinations regulator and the majority of the teaching profession about overtesting in schools, Ed Balls said that "testing and the publication of results" were the only way to ensure accountability. "It enables us to be able to see as policymakers what is working, who is not performing well and, in the extremes, being able to tackle poor performance," he told The Times. It was necessary also, he said, to help parents to judge the performance of their child's school.
Mr Balls's comments will disappoint the main teaching unions, as well as the professional body, the General Teaching Council. All complain that, far from raising standards, overtesting encourages a narrow curriculum, alienating students from learning and increasing their anxiety.
Children in England typically sit 70 tests and exams in their school careers and are the most tested in the world. Despite this, Britain is near the bottom of international league tables for the number of students leaving school with valuable qualifications.
Critics of testing include Ken Boston, head of the examinations regulator, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, who has argued that national tests for children aged 7, 11 and 14 should be replaced by the random testing of a sample of pupils and teacher assessments.
Mr Balls's opposition to this approach will also distance the Government from the Conservative Party, which has promised "fewer but tougher" tests and the dropping of Key Stage 3 tests at 14. In his first newspaper interview since he was appointed three weeks ago, Mr Balls also attacked Tory support for more streaming and the promise made by the Conservative leader, David Cameron, for a "grammar stream" in every comprehensive.
Mr Balls stopped short of banning streaming, which involves separating children into groups according to overall ability and teaching them in the same class for all subjects, arguing that individual head teachers know what works best in their own schools. But he emphasised that it was "backward-looking and divisive", imposing an arbitrary judgment on children's intelligence and ignoring individual talents. He said that he would rather see a greater use of setting, where children are separated into ability groups for individual subjects. "I do not find anybody sensible advocating streaming in schools. As somebody who went through streaming myself through secondary school I saw how deeply socially divisive it was," he said.
Mr Balls said that he would be making a series of impromptu visits to schools to spend time with teachers and pupils, who would not be informed who he was. He made his first such visit on Monday, when he spent the day at Banbury School in Oxfordshire, having informed only the head, the deputy and two senior staff members of his intention to visit. He arrived on foot, having asked his driver to drop him some distance from the school and was introduced to teachers and pupils as "a visitor".
He said that there was an old-fashioned view that you either focused on the welfare of the child or drove up standards in the classroom. His visit to Banbury had shown him that this was a false choice. "You can only drive up standards if you are actually focusing on the whole child, tracking their learning on an individual basis, but also knowing that if they aren't ready to learn because they are not sleeping or have difficulties at home, it's not possible for them to do well," he said.
He was determined to tackle the "achievement gap" in society, emphasising the importance of closer cooperation between education, health and social care services for children. "There are children in the same borough, on the same streets sometimes, and even going to the same schools, who have radically different experiences, shaped by family income and family environment, by poor health. The scandal is not England v Sweden, but Blackbird Leys v Headington. It's Harehills v Roundhay. It is North Kensington v South Kensington," he said.
Mr Balls said that more than 400 city academies could be set up, but insisted that they should become part of the "mainstream" and work more closely with nearby schools. The man who has spent most of his political life advising or working for Gordon Brown admitted that he felt "a bit liberated" at being outside the Treasury at last and declared himself ready to argue hard with his former colleagues for cash. Acknowledging that plans for a more flexible national curriculum would place a heavy burden on teachers and head teachers, he said that he would welcome the appointment of head teachers from outside the teaching profession.
Source
Sunday, July 22, 2007
British woman dies waiting for brain scans
A high-flying television producer died from a suspected epileptic fit while waiting for vital brain scans on the NHS. Laura Price, 30, who worked on shows such as Big Brother and Strictly Come Dancing, was found dead in her home just hours after she had been discharged from casualty.
The evening before she died, Miss Price, from Notting Hill, west London, had begged a junior A&E doctor for anti-seizure drugs but had been told they could only be prescribed by a neurologist.
Two days earlier she had visited a specialist at Charing Cross hospital and was told she would have to wait six weeks for a brain scan. She had felt "concerned and afraid" at having to wait that length of time for a test before being treated for a recurrence of childhood epilepsy, Westminster coroner's court heard.
She had not had a seizure for more than 10 years, but after a series of "strange episodes", including a numb face and flashing lights in her vision, she had visited her GP and was referred to the specialist.
On the night before she died Miss Price entered her flatmate Sarah Jackson's room in a confused state. Miss Jackson told the court: "I was very concerned and called an ambulance." Once at Charing Cross hospital Miss Price begged a doctor for drugs. Dr Christina Coppel, who treated her, told the inquest it would have been against hospital guidelines to prescribe them without a neurologist.
At lunchtime the next day Miss Price was found lying on the floor and an ambulance pronounced her dead at the scene. A post mortem examination concluded it was a sudden unexpected death in epilepsy. Dr Paul Knapman, the coroner, returned a verdict of natural causes. Yesterday, her parents said they were considering legal action against Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust.
Source
Up against the warming zealots
Martin Durkin says his British documentary rejecting the idea of human-caused global warming has survived last week's roasting by Australia's public broadcaster
WHEN I agreed to make The Great Global Warming Swindle, I was warned a middle-class fatwa would be placed on my head. So I wasn't shocked that the film was attacked on the same night it was broadcast on ABC television last week, although I was impressed at the vehemence of the attack. I was more surprised, and delighted, by the response of the Australian public.
The ABC studio assault, led by Tony Jones, was so vitriolic it appears to have backfired. We have been inundated with messages of support, and the ABC, I am told, has been flooded with complaints. I have been trying to understand why.
First, the ferocity of the attack, I think, revealed the intolerance and defensiveness of the global warming camp. Why were Jones and co expending such energy and resources attacking one documentary? We are told the global warming theory is robust. They say you'd have to be off your chump to disagree. We have been assured for years, in countless news broadcasts and column inches, that it's definitely true. So why bother to stamp so aggressively on the one foolish documentary-maker - who clearly must be as mad as a snake - who steps out of line? I think viewers may also have wondered (reasonably) why the theory of global warming has not been subjected to this barrage of critical scrutiny by the media. After all, it's the theory of global warming, not my foolish little film, that is turning public and corporate policy on its head.
The apparent unwillingness of Jones and others at the ABC to give airtime to a counterargument, the tactics used to minimise the ostensible damage done by the film, the evident animosity towards those who questioned global warming: all of this served to give viewers a glimpse of what it was like for scientists who dared to disagree with the hallowed doctrine.
Why are the global warmers so zealous? After a year of arguing with people about this, I am convinced that it's because global warming is first and foremost a political theory. It is an expression of a whole middle-class political world view. This view is summed up in the oft-repeated phrase "we consume too much". I have also come to the conclusion that this is code for "they consume too much". People who believe it tend also to think that exotic foreign places are being ruined because vulgar oiks can afford to go there in significant numbers, they hate plastic toys from factories and prefer wooden ones from craftsmen, and so on.
All this backward-looking bigotry has found perfect expression in the idea of man-made climate disaster. It has cohered a bunch of disparate reactionary prejudices (anti-car, anti-supermarkets, anti-globalisation) into a single unquestionable truth and cause. So when you have a dig at global warming, you commit a grievous breach of social etiquette. Among the chattering classes you're a leper.
But why are the supporters of global warming so defensive? After all, the middle classes are usually confident, bordering on smug. As I found when I examined the basic data, they have plenty to be defensive about. Billions of dollars of public money have been thrown at global warming, yet the hypothesis is crumbling around their ears.
To the utter dismay of the global warming lobby, the world does not appear to be getting warmer. According to their own figures (from the UN-linked Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), the temperature has been static or slightly declining since 1998. The satellite data confirms this. This is clearly awkward. The least one should expect of global warming is that the Earth should be getting warmer.
Then there's the ice-core data, the jewel in the crown of global warming theory. It shows there's a connection between carbon dioxide and temperature: see Al Gore's movie. But what Gore forgets to mention is that the connection is the wrong way around; temperature leads, CO2 follows.
Then there's the precious "hockey stick". This was the famous graph that purported to show global temperature flat-lining for 1000 years, then rising during the 19th and 20th centuries. It magicked away the Medieval warm period and made the recent warming look alarming, instead of just part of the general toing and froing of the Earth's climate. But then researchers took the computer program that produced the hockey stick graph and fed it random data. Bingo, out popped hockey stick shapes every time. (See the report by Edward Wegman of George Mason University in Virginia and others.) In a humiliating climb down, the IPCC has had to drop the hockey stick from its reports, though it can still be seen in Gore's movie.
And finally, there are those pesky satellites. If greenhouse gases were the cause of warming, then the rate of warming should have been greater, higher up in the Earth's atmosphere (the bit known as the troposphere). But all the satellite and balloon data says the exact opposite. In other words, the best observational data we have flatly contradicts the whole bally idea of man-made climate change.
They concede that CO2 cannot have caused the warming at the beginning of the 20th century, which was greater and steeper than the recent warming. They can't explain the cooling from 1940 to the mid-'70s. What are they left with? Some mild warming in the '80s and '90s that does not appear to have been caused by greenhouse gases. The whole damned theory is in tatters. No wonder they're defensive.
The man-made global warming parade, on one level, has been a phenomenal success. There isn't a political party or important public body or large corporation that doesn't feel compelled to pay lip service. There are scientists and journalists (a surprising number) who have built careers championing the cause. There's more money going into global warming research than there is chasing a cure for cancer. Many important people and institutions have staked their reputations on it. There's a lot riding on this theory. And it has bugger-all to do with sea levels. That is why the warmers greeted my film with red glowing eyes.
Last week on the ABC they closed ranks. They were not interested in a genuine debate. They wanted to shut it down. And thousands of wonderful, sane, bolshie Australian viewers saw right through it. God bless Australia. The DVD will be out soon.
Source
A high-flying television producer died from a suspected epileptic fit while waiting for vital brain scans on the NHS. Laura Price, 30, who worked on shows such as Big Brother and Strictly Come Dancing, was found dead in her home just hours after she had been discharged from casualty.
The evening before she died, Miss Price, from Notting Hill, west London, had begged a junior A&E doctor for anti-seizure drugs but had been told they could only be prescribed by a neurologist.
Two days earlier she had visited a specialist at Charing Cross hospital and was told she would have to wait six weeks for a brain scan. She had felt "concerned and afraid" at having to wait that length of time for a test before being treated for a recurrence of childhood epilepsy, Westminster coroner's court heard.
She had not had a seizure for more than 10 years, but after a series of "strange episodes", including a numb face and flashing lights in her vision, she had visited her GP and was referred to the specialist.
On the night before she died Miss Price entered her flatmate Sarah Jackson's room in a confused state. Miss Jackson told the court: "I was very concerned and called an ambulance." Once at Charing Cross hospital Miss Price begged a doctor for drugs. Dr Christina Coppel, who treated her, told the inquest it would have been against hospital guidelines to prescribe them without a neurologist.
At lunchtime the next day Miss Price was found lying on the floor and an ambulance pronounced her dead at the scene. A post mortem examination concluded it was a sudden unexpected death in epilepsy. Dr Paul Knapman, the coroner, returned a verdict of natural causes. Yesterday, her parents said they were considering legal action against Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust.
Source
Up against the warming zealots
Martin Durkin says his British documentary rejecting the idea of human-caused global warming has survived last week's roasting by Australia's public broadcaster
WHEN I agreed to make The Great Global Warming Swindle, I was warned a middle-class fatwa would be placed on my head. So I wasn't shocked that the film was attacked on the same night it was broadcast on ABC television last week, although I was impressed at the vehemence of the attack. I was more surprised, and delighted, by the response of the Australian public.
The ABC studio assault, led by Tony Jones, was so vitriolic it appears to have backfired. We have been inundated with messages of support, and the ABC, I am told, has been flooded with complaints. I have been trying to understand why.
First, the ferocity of the attack, I think, revealed the intolerance and defensiveness of the global warming camp. Why were Jones and co expending such energy and resources attacking one documentary? We are told the global warming theory is robust. They say you'd have to be off your chump to disagree. We have been assured for years, in countless news broadcasts and column inches, that it's definitely true. So why bother to stamp so aggressively on the one foolish documentary-maker - who clearly must be as mad as a snake - who steps out of line? I think viewers may also have wondered (reasonably) why the theory of global warming has not been subjected to this barrage of critical scrutiny by the media. After all, it's the theory of global warming, not my foolish little film, that is turning public and corporate policy on its head.
The apparent unwillingness of Jones and others at the ABC to give airtime to a counterargument, the tactics used to minimise the ostensible damage done by the film, the evident animosity towards those who questioned global warming: all of this served to give viewers a glimpse of what it was like for scientists who dared to disagree with the hallowed doctrine.
Why are the global warmers so zealous? After a year of arguing with people about this, I am convinced that it's because global warming is first and foremost a political theory. It is an expression of a whole middle-class political world view. This view is summed up in the oft-repeated phrase "we consume too much". I have also come to the conclusion that this is code for "they consume too much". People who believe it tend also to think that exotic foreign places are being ruined because vulgar oiks can afford to go there in significant numbers, they hate plastic toys from factories and prefer wooden ones from craftsmen, and so on.
All this backward-looking bigotry has found perfect expression in the idea of man-made climate disaster. It has cohered a bunch of disparate reactionary prejudices (anti-car, anti-supermarkets, anti-globalisation) into a single unquestionable truth and cause. So when you have a dig at global warming, you commit a grievous breach of social etiquette. Among the chattering classes you're a leper.
But why are the supporters of global warming so defensive? After all, the middle classes are usually confident, bordering on smug. As I found when I examined the basic data, they have plenty to be defensive about. Billions of dollars of public money have been thrown at global warming, yet the hypothesis is crumbling around their ears.
To the utter dismay of the global warming lobby, the world does not appear to be getting warmer. According to their own figures (from the UN-linked Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), the temperature has been static or slightly declining since 1998. The satellite data confirms this. This is clearly awkward. The least one should expect of global warming is that the Earth should be getting warmer.
Then there's the ice-core data, the jewel in the crown of global warming theory. It shows there's a connection between carbon dioxide and temperature: see Al Gore's movie. But what Gore forgets to mention is that the connection is the wrong way around; temperature leads, CO2 follows.
Then there's the precious "hockey stick". This was the famous graph that purported to show global temperature flat-lining for 1000 years, then rising during the 19th and 20th centuries. It magicked away the Medieval warm period and made the recent warming look alarming, instead of just part of the general toing and froing of the Earth's climate. But then researchers took the computer program that produced the hockey stick graph and fed it random data. Bingo, out popped hockey stick shapes every time. (See the report by Edward Wegman of George Mason University in Virginia and others.) In a humiliating climb down, the IPCC has had to drop the hockey stick from its reports, though it can still be seen in Gore's movie.
And finally, there are those pesky satellites. If greenhouse gases were the cause of warming, then the rate of warming should have been greater, higher up in the Earth's atmosphere (the bit known as the troposphere). But all the satellite and balloon data says the exact opposite. In other words, the best observational data we have flatly contradicts the whole bally idea of man-made climate change.
They concede that CO2 cannot have caused the warming at the beginning of the 20th century, which was greater and steeper than the recent warming. They can't explain the cooling from 1940 to the mid-'70s. What are they left with? Some mild warming in the '80s and '90s that does not appear to have been caused by greenhouse gases. The whole damned theory is in tatters. No wonder they're defensive.
The man-made global warming parade, on one level, has been a phenomenal success. There isn't a political party or important public body or large corporation that doesn't feel compelled to pay lip service. There are scientists and journalists (a surprising number) who have built careers championing the cause. There's more money going into global warming research than there is chasing a cure for cancer. Many important people and institutions have staked their reputations on it. There's a lot riding on this theory. And it has bugger-all to do with sea levels. That is why the warmers greeted my film with red glowing eyes.
Last week on the ABC they closed ranks. They were not interested in a genuine debate. They wanted to shut it down. And thousands of wonderful, sane, bolshie Australian viewers saw right through it. God bless Australia. The DVD will be out soon.
Source
Saturday, July 21, 2007
A profound loss of culture in modern Britain
If even literary people don't recognize some of Britain's greatest literary work, what hope is there for the mass of the people even to know what they are missing? Education once transmitted a people's inherited culture. The only thing it transmits well now is Leftist propaganda
A frustrated author has confirmed what other unpublished writers have long suspected: even Jane Austen would have difficulty finding a book deal in the 21st Century. But what really astonished David Lassman was that only one of 18 publishers and literary agents recognised her work when it was submitted to them under a false name. Mr Lassman, 43, had spent months trying without success to find a publisher for his own novel Freedom's Temple. Out of frustration - and to test whether today's publishers could spot great literature - he retyped the opening chapters of three Austen classics: Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion.
He changed only the titles, the names of the characters and his own name - calling himself Alison Laydee, after Austen's early pseudonym "A Lady" - then waited for the offers to roll in. Instead he received yet another sheaf of rejection letters, including one from Penguin, which republished Pride and Prejudice last year, describing his plagarised chapters as "a really original and interesting read" but not right for Penguin. That was one of the gentler rejections. But Mr Lassman said: "Penguin neither requested to see the rest of the novel nor did they recognise a work they already publish.
"I wasn't surprised that the publishing process rejects people out of hand, but I was staggered that no one recognised the work. Here is one of the greatest writers that has lived, yet only one recipient recognised them as Austen's work. "At best their letters were mildly apologetic about declining the material and at worst completely indifferent to what they had in their possession. If major publishers can't recognise great literature, who knows what might be slipping through the net."
Mr Lassman concocted his plan after returning from the Greek island where he had been writing his own novel and found himself facing a brick wall. "I was having a hard time getting it published and I was chatting to friends about it, saying I wondered how Jane would have fared today. "Getting a novel accepted is very difficult unless you have an agent first, but I had no idea at the scale of rejection poor old Jane suffered."
The literary agency Christopher Little, which represents J.K. Rowling, regretted that it was "not confident of placing this material with a publisher". Jennifer Vale of Bloomsbury publishers turned down Northanger Abbey, renamed Susan, saying "I didn't feel the book was suited to our list."
The one publisher to recognise the deception was Alex Bowler, assistant editor at Jonathan Cape. His reply read: "Thank you for sending us the first two chapters of First Impressions; my first impression on reading these were ones of disbelief and mild annoyance, along with a moment's laughter. "I suggest you reach for your copy of Pride and Prejudice, which I'd guess lives in close proximity to your typewriter and make sure that your opening pages don't too closely mimic the book's opening. After all, there is such a thing as plagiarism and I'd hate for you to get in any kind of trouble with Jane Austen's estate."
Last night a spokeswoman for Penguin admitted that Mr Lassman's submission may not actually have been read. She said: "We don't take anything that is not agency-led, so I doubt the person would even have read it. I can't comment on this individual case but I don't think we have done anything bad." Neil Blair at Christopher Little said Mr Lassman had received a standard response. He said: "As you can imagine we get hundreds of submission each week - some from genuine writers or would-be writers, but also some from cranks. Our letter was a polite note declining representation and provided a standard response. "However, our internal notes did recognise similarities with existing published works and indeed there were even discussions about possible plagiarism. We chose an approach was designed to end the chain of communication with this person and not start a whole new one. Sadly, we have had experience of where accusations of plagiarism can lead to." Bloomsbury declined to comment.
Source
British Labor Party politician speaks for his voters
And gets condemned for it
A MERSEYSIDE Labour MP has broken ranks by becoming the first in the country to blame the failed bomb attacks in London and Glasgow on rising immigration into Britain. Outspoken Birkenhead member Frank Field said his constituents were angry when the Government told them to be "vigilant" following last month's aborted terror scares. He said the reality was that ministers had failed to be vigilant by letting in so many immigrants, some of whom had turned to terrorism,
The manager of Liverpool's Asylum Link charity last night branded Mr Field's comments as irresponsible and potentially dangerous, as did Adam Kelwick, a Muslim-based chaplain in Wavertree. And the head of Merseyside police's community relations team said multi-ethnic and faith groups across the region had been overwhelmingly receptive to pleas for vigilance.
Superintendent Rowland Moore described any comments which undermined public reassurance in the wake of the failed London and Glasgow attacks as "not helpful". During a Commons debate, Mr Field said: "In the statements of relief that the last bombing episode had not wrought the evil on innocent people that had been intended, Cabinet ministers told us to be vigilant. "The report back from my constituents in Birkenhead market was: `What a damned cheek that they should lecture us on vigilance!' "If the political class had been a little more vigilant in the past, and responded to their regular doubts and worries about the level of immigration, we might not, they said, be listening to such statements."
Some of the suspects arrested after bombs failed to go off in London city centre and at Glasgow Airport grew up in Iraq, Jordan, India and elsewhere. During the debate on immigration, Mr Field went on to say that the Home Secretary's failure to track people leaving Britain to go to terror camps abroad would "haunt her as time goes on". And he attacked the decision to grant free movement to workers from the poorer countries of Eastern Europe, when their living standards were so much lower. He warned: "The future of the European Union is an unsure one if we continue blindly to turn our eyes away from what is now a mass movement of people within Europe."
In response, immigration minister Liam Byrne accepted there was a "social impact" as well as an economic one and pointed to the new points-based work permit system that was being brought in. He also highlighted new government systems that he said would track the majority of migrants by 2009.
Last night, Adam Kelwick, a Muslim chaplain based in Wavertree, said: "To use this kind of language is irresponsible. "He's obviously got an agenda to push, targeting asylum-seekers and immigrants who themselves are extremely vulnerable. "They would far rather live in their own countries, if there was no interference with their daily lives.
Superintendent Rowland Moore, who heads Merseyside police's community relations team, said in response to Mr Field's recounting of his constituents' views: "That may be what he's being told, but that is certainly not what we have been hearing on the ground. "The community has been very receptive to the message of vigilance - and that includes the white population of the city." Ewan Roberts, centre manager of Liverpool's Asylum Link charity, said: "I'd criticise anyone who uses emotive language and makes sweeping statements like this. "It is irresponsible and it could be dangerous."
Source
If even literary people don't recognize some of Britain's greatest literary work, what hope is there for the mass of the people even to know what they are missing? Education once transmitted a people's inherited culture. The only thing it transmits well now is Leftist propaganda
A frustrated author has confirmed what other unpublished writers have long suspected: even Jane Austen would have difficulty finding a book deal in the 21st Century. But what really astonished David Lassman was that only one of 18 publishers and literary agents recognised her work when it was submitted to them under a false name. Mr Lassman, 43, had spent months trying without success to find a publisher for his own novel Freedom's Temple. Out of frustration - and to test whether today's publishers could spot great literature - he retyped the opening chapters of three Austen classics: Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion.
He changed only the titles, the names of the characters and his own name - calling himself Alison Laydee, after Austen's early pseudonym "A Lady" - then waited for the offers to roll in. Instead he received yet another sheaf of rejection letters, including one from Penguin, which republished Pride and Prejudice last year, describing his plagarised chapters as "a really original and interesting read" but not right for Penguin. That was one of the gentler rejections. But Mr Lassman said: "Penguin neither requested to see the rest of the novel nor did they recognise a work they already publish.
"I wasn't surprised that the publishing process rejects people out of hand, but I was staggered that no one recognised the work. Here is one of the greatest writers that has lived, yet only one recipient recognised them as Austen's work. "At best their letters were mildly apologetic about declining the material and at worst completely indifferent to what they had in their possession. If major publishers can't recognise great literature, who knows what might be slipping through the net."
Mr Lassman concocted his plan after returning from the Greek island where he had been writing his own novel and found himself facing a brick wall. "I was having a hard time getting it published and I was chatting to friends about it, saying I wondered how Jane would have fared today. "Getting a novel accepted is very difficult unless you have an agent first, but I had no idea at the scale of rejection poor old Jane suffered."
The literary agency Christopher Little, which represents J.K. Rowling, regretted that it was "not confident of placing this material with a publisher". Jennifer Vale of Bloomsbury publishers turned down Northanger Abbey, renamed Susan, saying "I didn't feel the book was suited to our list."
The one publisher to recognise the deception was Alex Bowler, assistant editor at Jonathan Cape. His reply read: "Thank you for sending us the first two chapters of First Impressions; my first impression on reading these were ones of disbelief and mild annoyance, along with a moment's laughter. "I suggest you reach for your copy of Pride and Prejudice, which I'd guess lives in close proximity to your typewriter and make sure that your opening pages don't too closely mimic the book's opening. After all, there is such a thing as plagiarism and I'd hate for you to get in any kind of trouble with Jane Austen's estate."
Last night a spokeswoman for Penguin admitted that Mr Lassman's submission may not actually have been read. She said: "We don't take anything that is not agency-led, so I doubt the person would even have read it. I can't comment on this individual case but I don't think we have done anything bad." Neil Blair at Christopher Little said Mr Lassman had received a standard response. He said: "As you can imagine we get hundreds of submission each week - some from genuine writers or would-be writers, but also some from cranks. Our letter was a polite note declining representation and provided a standard response. "However, our internal notes did recognise similarities with existing published works and indeed there were even discussions about possible plagiarism. We chose an approach was designed to end the chain of communication with this person and not start a whole new one. Sadly, we have had experience of where accusations of plagiarism can lead to." Bloomsbury declined to comment.
Source
British Labor Party politician speaks for his voters
And gets condemned for it
A MERSEYSIDE Labour MP has broken ranks by becoming the first in the country to blame the failed bomb attacks in London and Glasgow on rising immigration into Britain. Outspoken Birkenhead member Frank Field said his constituents were angry when the Government told them to be "vigilant" following last month's aborted terror scares. He said the reality was that ministers had failed to be vigilant by letting in so many immigrants, some of whom had turned to terrorism,
The manager of Liverpool's Asylum Link charity last night branded Mr Field's comments as irresponsible and potentially dangerous, as did Adam Kelwick, a Muslim-based chaplain in Wavertree. And the head of Merseyside police's community relations team said multi-ethnic and faith groups across the region had been overwhelmingly receptive to pleas for vigilance.
Superintendent Rowland Moore described any comments which undermined public reassurance in the wake of the failed London and Glasgow attacks as "not helpful". During a Commons debate, Mr Field said: "In the statements of relief that the last bombing episode had not wrought the evil on innocent people that had been intended, Cabinet ministers told us to be vigilant. "The report back from my constituents in Birkenhead market was: `What a damned cheek that they should lecture us on vigilance!' "If the political class had been a little more vigilant in the past, and responded to their regular doubts and worries about the level of immigration, we might not, they said, be listening to such statements."
Some of the suspects arrested after bombs failed to go off in London city centre and at Glasgow Airport grew up in Iraq, Jordan, India and elsewhere. During the debate on immigration, Mr Field went on to say that the Home Secretary's failure to track people leaving Britain to go to terror camps abroad would "haunt her as time goes on". And he attacked the decision to grant free movement to workers from the poorer countries of Eastern Europe, when their living standards were so much lower. He warned: "The future of the European Union is an unsure one if we continue blindly to turn our eyes away from what is now a mass movement of people within Europe."
In response, immigration minister Liam Byrne accepted there was a "social impact" as well as an economic one and pointed to the new points-based work permit system that was being brought in. He also highlighted new government systems that he said would track the majority of migrants by 2009.
Last night, Adam Kelwick, a Muslim chaplain based in Wavertree, said: "To use this kind of language is irresponsible. "He's obviously got an agenda to push, targeting asylum-seekers and immigrants who themselves are extremely vulnerable. "They would far rather live in their own countries, if there was no interference with their daily lives.
Superintendent Rowland Moore, who heads Merseyside police's community relations team, said in response to Mr Field's recounting of his constituents' views: "That may be what he's being told, but that is certainly not what we have been hearing on the ground. "The community has been very receptive to the message of vigilance - and that includes the white population of the city." Ewan Roberts, centre manager of Liverpool's Asylum Link charity, said: "I'd criticise anyone who uses emotive language and makes sweeping statements like this. "It is irresponsible and it could be dangerous."
Source
Friday, July 20, 2007
Children denied the joys of competition
On Saturday, the river Thames at Henley was a picture of grey. Contented, fulfilled, cheery, but undeniably grey. And occasionally bald. It was the Henley Veterans' Regatta, a rowing competition held the week after the grand Royal occasion, after the corporate hospitality marquees had gone, the picnic tables been folded away and the jazz bands packed up their instruments. Here rowers in their forties, fifties, sixties and in several cases seventies wheezed and sweated their way down the very same course the elite athletes had so recently taken, persuading themselves for a moment that they were still contenders
Everywhere you looked, the joys of competition were in evidence. It wasn't the winning - though for a few that provided a singular pleasure - but the fact they could still take part that was the point. The clutch of nerves gripping the stomach at the start line, the adrenaline rush of the first few strokes, the long haul up the most picturesque sporting track in the world: it made them feel more alive. For these people, sporting competition had been a vital part of their being for as long as they can remember.
I couldn't help comparing the energy, the vibrancy, the camaraderie with another event I attended: a non-competitive team morning at a primary school. Emphatically this was not a sports day: sport, for the head teacher, needed to be eradicated in all its forms, as pernicious an evil as sexism and racism. Sport represented competition at its most corrupting: trying to beat someone else at games was, to this head, morally indefensible. And so the children were obliged to stand in line, hanging around waiting to do things like tip water into a bucket or sort plastic bricks into colour-coded lines. Running was banned (someone might hurt himself) and winning didn't happen.
As the head passed between the rows of children congratulating herself that she had discovered the root of youthful nirvana, every child she passed wanted to know one thing: who was winning. "Nobody wins here," she'd trill, apparently oblivious to the groans her every remark solicited. I have never seen such a listless, bored bunch of children. Those veterans at Henley may have been 10 times older, but they had 10 times the spark of these seven-year-olds. What these children wanted was competition.
They didn't know about all those long-term, beneficial side-effects the old rowers had enjoyed, they just wanted to pitch themselves against their peers. Yet they were being denied the one thing they craved by an educational philosophy that made no sense.
The image that haunted me was of an 11-year-old girl, who looked like Denise Lewis must have done at that age, all balance, grace and legs like a gazelle, being scolded by the head teacher for running, beautifully and at sprint speed, during one of the challenges. "We don't do that sort of thing here," she was told, as if what she were doing were a social embarrassment, like picking her nose in public.
Far from offering encouragement to help nurture her natural ability, here was the girl's educational mentor telling her that her skill was worthless. All this happened not in the grounds of some expensive boarding school established by utopian loons for the offspring of the Bohemian, but at a bog-standard, mainstream north London primary school.
My memories were stirred this week when Gordon Brown announced his wholehearted support for competitive sport in schools. Of all the things the new man has said that we can cheer (the end of the super-casino among them), this is the most important.
Yet the gap between prime ministerial proposal and reality can be as wide as the space between that head teacher's ears. The non-competitive team challenge I witnessed took place at the tail end of John Major's watch, when the PM was waxing on about warm beer on the boundary, even as great swathes of his education system were treating all sports as if they were a dangerous perversion.
Brown needs to ensure competition is given room on the curriculum, that those many great teachers who appreciate its value are supported, that the facilities are developed in which it can be practised. Proposals, initiatives, study documents are not enough. We have allowed almost a whole generation to be schooled without sport, marooning them on the sofa, sagged down by their ever-expanding waistbands. The next generation must rediscover the spirit of their grandparents competing at Henley; and that requires actions, not words.
Source
Corrupt "backroom deal" in British health system
The Department of Health did “a backroom deal” with a private company that broke Treasury guidance, could not demonstrate value for money and lacked clear benefits, the Public Accounts Committee has concluded. The deal, to create a joint venture between the health information company Dr Foster and the department’s information centre, resulted in a loss of 2.8 million pounds in its first year instead of the small profit predicted.
Last week the director of the information centre, Professor Denise Lievesley, who was responsible for signing off on the deal, resigned after only two years in the job. She claimed that it was the right time for her to pursue other activities, including her forthcoming presidency of the International Statistical Institute. No connection to the imminent PAC report was acknowledged.
The PAC is not critical of Dr Foster, which was set up to make better use of data produced by the NHS. But it does question whether the agreement was good value for taxpayers’ money. Edward Leigh, MP, the chairman of the committee, said: “By pursuing its backroom deal with Dr Foster LLP, the Department of Health failed in its duty to be open to Parliament and the taxpayer. “There was no fair and competitive tendering competition, as laid down in public sector procurement guidelines. And Treasury guidance on joint ventures between public and private sectors was ignored. Instead, the deal was handed to Dr Foster on a plate. “Without the competitive pressure inherent in a tender process, the Department’s Information Centre simply cannot demonstrate that it paid the best price for its 50 per cent share of the joint venture. Certainly, the 12 million that it paid, 7.6 million of which went straight into the pockets of Dr Foster’s shareholders, was between a half and a third higher than its financial advisers’ evaluation.”
The permanent secretary of the department, Hugh Taylor, told the committee that while there were other companies working in health informatics, Dr Foster stood out “in terms of its national profile and the range of its products”. But the committee did not consider this an adequate excuse for ignoring due process and paying over the odds.
Source
More BBC crookedness: "The British Broadcasting Corporation suspended all phone-in and interactive contests on Wednesday after an investigation exposed several incidents in which competition winners were faked. The BBC, which has been battered by revelations about rigged contests and doctored footage, said an internal inquiry had found that "a small number of production staff ... have passed themselves off as viewers and listeners" on radio and TV shows. BBC Director-General Mark Thompson said six new cases had been uncovered in addition to a previously known incident involving the children's TV show "Blue Peter". "We must now swiftly put our house in order," he said. Thompson said phone-in contests on radio and TV would cease from midnight and internet competitions would be taken down as soon as possible. [Leftists destroy anything they touch. Destruction is the real aim behind their "compassionate" facade. They have certainly destroyed the respect in which the BBC was once held]
On Saturday, the river Thames at Henley was a picture of grey. Contented, fulfilled, cheery, but undeniably grey. And occasionally bald. It was the Henley Veterans' Regatta, a rowing competition held the week after the grand Royal occasion, after the corporate hospitality marquees had gone, the picnic tables been folded away and the jazz bands packed up their instruments. Here rowers in their forties, fifties, sixties and in several cases seventies wheezed and sweated their way down the very same course the elite athletes had so recently taken, persuading themselves for a moment that they were still contenders
Everywhere you looked, the joys of competition were in evidence. It wasn't the winning - though for a few that provided a singular pleasure - but the fact they could still take part that was the point. The clutch of nerves gripping the stomach at the start line, the adrenaline rush of the first few strokes, the long haul up the most picturesque sporting track in the world: it made them feel more alive. For these people, sporting competition had been a vital part of their being for as long as they can remember.
I couldn't help comparing the energy, the vibrancy, the camaraderie with another event I attended: a non-competitive team morning at a primary school. Emphatically this was not a sports day: sport, for the head teacher, needed to be eradicated in all its forms, as pernicious an evil as sexism and racism. Sport represented competition at its most corrupting: trying to beat someone else at games was, to this head, morally indefensible. And so the children were obliged to stand in line, hanging around waiting to do things like tip water into a bucket or sort plastic bricks into colour-coded lines. Running was banned (someone might hurt himself) and winning didn't happen.
As the head passed between the rows of children congratulating herself that she had discovered the root of youthful nirvana, every child she passed wanted to know one thing: who was winning. "Nobody wins here," she'd trill, apparently oblivious to the groans her every remark solicited. I have never seen such a listless, bored bunch of children. Those veterans at Henley may have been 10 times older, but they had 10 times the spark of these seven-year-olds. What these children wanted was competition.
They didn't know about all those long-term, beneficial side-effects the old rowers had enjoyed, they just wanted to pitch themselves against their peers. Yet they were being denied the one thing they craved by an educational philosophy that made no sense.
The image that haunted me was of an 11-year-old girl, who looked like Denise Lewis must have done at that age, all balance, grace and legs like a gazelle, being scolded by the head teacher for running, beautifully and at sprint speed, during one of the challenges. "We don't do that sort of thing here," she was told, as if what she were doing were a social embarrassment, like picking her nose in public.
Far from offering encouragement to help nurture her natural ability, here was the girl's educational mentor telling her that her skill was worthless. All this happened not in the grounds of some expensive boarding school established by utopian loons for the offspring of the Bohemian, but at a bog-standard, mainstream north London primary school.
My memories were stirred this week when Gordon Brown announced his wholehearted support for competitive sport in schools. Of all the things the new man has said that we can cheer (the end of the super-casino among them), this is the most important.
Yet the gap between prime ministerial proposal and reality can be as wide as the space between that head teacher's ears. The non-competitive team challenge I witnessed took place at the tail end of John Major's watch, when the PM was waxing on about warm beer on the boundary, even as great swathes of his education system were treating all sports as if they were a dangerous perversion.
Brown needs to ensure competition is given room on the curriculum, that those many great teachers who appreciate its value are supported, that the facilities are developed in which it can be practised. Proposals, initiatives, study documents are not enough. We have allowed almost a whole generation to be schooled without sport, marooning them on the sofa, sagged down by their ever-expanding waistbands. The next generation must rediscover the spirit of their grandparents competing at Henley; and that requires actions, not words.
Source
Corrupt "backroom deal" in British health system
The Department of Health did “a backroom deal” with a private company that broke Treasury guidance, could not demonstrate value for money and lacked clear benefits, the Public Accounts Committee has concluded. The deal, to create a joint venture between the health information company Dr Foster and the department’s information centre, resulted in a loss of 2.8 million pounds in its first year instead of the small profit predicted.
Last week the director of the information centre, Professor Denise Lievesley, who was responsible for signing off on the deal, resigned after only two years in the job. She claimed that it was the right time for her to pursue other activities, including her forthcoming presidency of the International Statistical Institute. No connection to the imminent PAC report was acknowledged.
The PAC is not critical of Dr Foster, which was set up to make better use of data produced by the NHS. But it does question whether the agreement was good value for taxpayers’ money. Edward Leigh, MP, the chairman of the committee, said: “By pursuing its backroom deal with Dr Foster LLP, the Department of Health failed in its duty to be open to Parliament and the taxpayer. “There was no fair and competitive tendering competition, as laid down in public sector procurement guidelines. And Treasury guidance on joint ventures between public and private sectors was ignored. Instead, the deal was handed to Dr Foster on a plate. “Without the competitive pressure inherent in a tender process, the Department’s Information Centre simply cannot demonstrate that it paid the best price for its 50 per cent share of the joint venture. Certainly, the 12 million that it paid, 7.6 million of which went straight into the pockets of Dr Foster’s shareholders, was between a half and a third higher than its financial advisers’ evaluation.”
The permanent secretary of the department, Hugh Taylor, told the committee that while there were other companies working in health informatics, Dr Foster stood out “in terms of its national profile and the range of its products”. But the committee did not consider this an adequate excuse for ignoring due process and paying over the odds.
Source
More BBC crookedness: "The British Broadcasting Corporation suspended all phone-in and interactive contests on Wednesday after an investigation exposed several incidents in which competition winners were faked. The BBC, which has been battered by revelations about rigged contests and doctored footage, said an internal inquiry had found that "a small number of production staff ... have passed themselves off as viewers and listeners" on radio and TV shows. BBC Director-General Mark Thompson said six new cases had been uncovered in addition to a previously known incident involving the children's TV show "Blue Peter". "We must now swiftly put our house in order," he said. Thompson said phone-in contests on radio and TV would cease from midnight and internet competitions would be taken down as soon as possible. [Leftists destroy anything they touch. Destruction is the real aim behind their "compassionate" facade. They have certainly destroyed the respect in which the BBC was once held]
Thursday, July 19, 2007
NHS fails diabetics
The majority of NHS trusts are not giving people with diabetes enough help in managing the condition at home, a watchdog has warned. The Healthcare Commission said most primary care trusts were offering basic diabetes care such as yearly check-ups. But it warned that almost 130 out of more than 150 failed on home support.
Offering services to help patients manage their weight or plan an exercise regime are seen as crucial in reducing complications like heart problems. As such, they could also save the NHS millions of pounds each year. In 2002, about œ1.3bn - or 5% of NHS expenditure - was used to care for people with diabetes. Estimates from 2006 suggest this could even have crept up to 10% of total spending, the commission said.
Managing diabetes at home by controlling weight, or giving up smoking, have been touted as a key means of tackling complications of the condition. As well as heart problems, these include blindness, kidney failure and limb amputation.
Beefing up community services and the potential for self-management of long-term conditions such as diabetes is also one of the key planks of government policy. Diabetes is seen as a growing problem in the UK. According to the watchdog, the number of diagnosed and undiagnosed cases is likely to have risen by 15% between 2001 and 2010. Some 9% of this was due to increasing numbers of obese people, and a further 6% was the result of an ageing population, it suggested.
The Healthcare Commission said PCTs had to do better in supporting people to manage their condition.
Source
Ethically-challenged NHS doctor
A doctor accused of wrongly causing a health scare over the MMR vaccine paid children 5 pounds each to give blood samples at his son's birthday party, a disciplinary hearing has been told. Andrew Wakefield abused his position as a doctor and showed "a callous disregard" for the distress and pain that the children - thought to be as young as 4 - might suffer, the General Medical Council was told.
The allegations emerged yesterday along with charges connected to research by Dr Wakefield and his former colleagues, John Walker-Smith and Simon Murch, that claimed the combined vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella carried serious health risks. The doctors appeared before the GMC's fitness-to-practise panel charged with serious professional misconduct, which they deny. All three are accused of performing procedures, such as colonoscopies, barium meals and lumbar punctures, on children that were "contrary" to the children's clinical interests and conducted without the proper ethical approval and consent forms.
The GMC accused Dr Wakefield of bringing the profession into disrepute by taking blood from children at his son's party at some point before March 20, 1999, when he joked about the incident while giving a presentation at the Mind Institute, California. Footage was shown on ITN last night of the episode. Dr Wakefield is seen on video saying: "And you line them up - with informed parental consent, of course. They all get paid 5 pounds , which doesn't translate into many dollars I'm afraid. But . . . and . . . they put their arms out and they have the blood taken. All entirely voluntary." [Laughter] He says that two of the children fainted, while one was sick over his mother, which drew laughter from the audience.
Dr Wakefield is then heard joking: "People said to me, `Andrew, look, you know, you can't do this, people, children won't come back to you. [Laughter] I said, `You're wrong'. I said, `Listen, we live in a market economy. Next year they'll want 10 pounds'"
The MMR controversy began after the doctors published their research in The Lancet in 1998, claiming that the jab overloaded the immune system, causing bowel problems and also autism and other illnesses. Further research has quashed these conclusions. At the time, all three doctors were employed at the Royal Free Hospital's medical school in Hampstead, North London. They conducted the study on 11 British children without approval from the hospital's ethics committee, the GMC was told.
The list of allegations against Dr Wakefield took more than an hour to read out. One of the key accusations is that he failed to declare that he was being paid for advising solicitors on legal action by parents who believed their children had been harmed by MMR. Another charge is that he ordered subsequent studies "without the requisite paediatric qualifications". He is also alleged to have allowed one child - Child 10 - to be given an experimental cocktail of drugs, known as "transfer factor", with the view to it being developed into a new measles vaccine. Dr Wakefield admitted being involved in proposals to set up a company to manufacture the drug. The father of Child 10 was to be the company's managing director.
It was alleged that he did not reveal that he had accepted 50,000 pounds from the Legal Aid Board for research to support legal action by parents who believed their children were harmed by MMR. He was also accused of being "dishonest" and "irresponsible" when submitting his views about MMR for publication.
Source
"Spastic" a Very Bad Word
We read:
But you can call Christians "Taliban" and George Bush "Hitler" and that is just free speech, of course.
"Spastic" seems to be more decried in Britain than in the USA but even Tiger Woods got into strife a while back for using the word "Spaz". It seems that Americans are less aware that the term originates from an old term for cerebral palsy.
I must say that when I went to school many years ago, "spastic" was a common term of abuse. I was myself called that (and worse) often enough but it was like water off a duck's back to me, of course.
British recycling blues
The Government's strategy for reducing waste in landfill sites has been called "half-hearted and likely to fail" by a committee of MPs. Fortnightly rubbish collections are unsuitable for many areas and there is no proof they increase recycling, a report by the all-party communities and local government select committee claims. Its report says plans to charge householders who fail to recycle 30 pounds a year are too timid and too complicated and a reward of up to 30 pounds for "good" households is too low to encourage mass recycling
The committee, chaired by the Labour MP Dr Phyllis Starkey, says: "It is hard to see why any council will want to set up a complicated charging scheme that earns it no money and risks public disapproval." The report criticises some local authorities for "blundering" into fortnightly collections without proper consideration or consultation. Alternate weekly collections of food waste are "not appropriate" in many areas, particularly in highly populated areas with limited storage room for bins, the report says. Although recycling has increased in areas with fortnightly collections, MPs say that no direct link between the two has been proven.
Given the strength of public concern and anecdotal evidence about flies and other vermin, the report has called for more research into the health implications of fortnightly collections. The committee wants the Government to encourage councils to collect food waste separately once a week. The committee also points out that domestic refuse amounts to only nine per cent of national waste and that "far more can ultimately be achieved by recycling and reusing commercial, industrial and construction waste".
A spokesman from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: "We are disappointed that on financial incentives the committee has not recognised the need to try out innovative ways of encouraging sustainable waste behaviour. "We are consulting on our financial incentives proposal and will not finalise our policy until this is completed."
Source
Narrow-minded pundit thinks Europe is the world
Excerpt from Magnus Linklater
You might imagine, therefore, that the Swiss, for whom the mountains are the very soul of the country, would be impassioned in their defence of the environment. That combination of stern efficiency and national diligence which ensures that their trains run silently and on time, their streets are swept clean and even their mountain paths are carefully mowed, must surely place Switzerland in the forefront of the campaign to cut carbon emissions.
You would be wrong. High on the slopes above Zermatt, we came upon evidence that, even here, the defence of a profitable tourist industry takes precedence over the need to protect the natural environment. In the midst of a complex network of brilliantly engineered hydroelectric systems, designed to keep the towns and villages of the southern Alps supplied with power, stood row upon row of brand new snowmaking machines, ready for the next skiing season. Sometime in late autumn they will be transported to the fashionable ski resorts of Verbier, Zermatt and the rest, where early snow is desperately short, and used to manufacture a few more hectares of the white stuff so that this year’s tourists can be gulled for one more year at least into imagining that global warming is just an illusion and that the slopes will forever remain glistening and pure.
As an example of chronic and pig-headed frivolity, the snow machine has a lot to answer for. It is wasteful, energy-inefficient and environmentally indefensible. A single ski resort needs as much electricity as a small village just to keep its snowmaking systems going... It would be hard to conjure up a more potent symbol of environmental perversity than the use of carbon-spewing fossil fuels to help to dispose of millions of gallons of carefully extracted water in order that a few thousand tourists can slide down a slope for an extra week....
Yet if we take the warnings about climate change with any degree of seriousness, we have to change our terms of reference. Instead of hailing the inventiveness of the ski resort that makes its own snow, we should accept the harsh reality that nature has terminally curtailed the skiing season [In Europe maybe but quite the opposite in Australia. Our thicko pundit cannot distinguish local phenomena from global phenomena. No wonder he is so credulous. And the arrogance of thinking that what he sees on one trip to Switzerland is "terminal" is truly breathtaking. He is obviously quite unaware that Alpine glaciers undergo cycles of advance and retreat but he still thinks he knows it all. How wonderful to be a famous British pundit! He is the sort Australians would call a blowhard]
Much as we cherish our birds of prey, we should remember that their prospects of survival are threatened not so much by a freak collision as by the three-degree rise in global temperatures that will occur in the next 50 years if we do not manage to wean ourselves off a reliance on oil and gas. Stuff the skiers, sink the canoeists, gag the bird-lovers; this is a battle for survival, not an exercise in self-indulgence.
More here
Here is the news (as we want to report it)
By Antony Jay, brilliant co-writer of "Yes Minister" and former BBC denizen
This week the BBC was forced to apologise to the Queen for falsely claiming that she stormed out of a photo shoot. We shouldn't be surprised, says former producer Antony Jay. In this exclusive extract from a brilliant new CPS pamphlet, he argues that the anti-establishment views at the heart of the corporation have always dictated its mind set
I think I am beginning to see the answer to a question that has puzzled me for the past 40 years. The question is simple - much simpler than the answer: what is behind the opinions and attitudes of what are called the chattering classes? They are that minority characterised (or caricatured) by sandals and macrobiotic diets, but in a less extreme form found in the Guardian, Channel 4, the Church of England, academia, showbusiness and BBC News and Current Affairs, who constitute our metropolitan liberal media consensus - though the word "liberal" would have Adam Smith rotating at maximum velocity in his grave. Let's call it "media liberalism".
It is of particular interest to me because for nine years (1955-1964) I was part of this media liberal consensus. For six of those nine years I was working on Tonight, a nightly BBC current affairs television programme. My stint coincided almost exactly with Macmillan's premiership, and I do not think my ex-colleagues would quibble if I said we were not exactly diehard supporters. But we were not just anti-Macmillan; we were anti-industry, anti-capitalism, anti-advertising, anti-selling, anti-profit, anti-patriotism, anti-monarchy, anti-Empire, anti-police, anti-armed forces, anti-bomb, anti-authority. Almost anything that made the world a freer, safer and more prosperous place, you name it, we were anti it.
It was (and is) essentially, though not exclusively, a graduate phenomenon. From time to time it finds an issue that strikes a chord with the broad mass of the nation, but in most respects it is wildly unrepresentative of national opinion. When the Queen Mother died the media liberal press dismissed it as an event of no particular importance, and were mortified to see the vast crowds lining the route for her funeral, and the great flood of national emotion that it released.
Although I was a card-carrying media liberal for the best part of nine years, there was nothing in my past to predispose me towards membership. I spent my early years in a country where every citizen had to carry identification papers. All the newspapers were censored, as were all letters abroad; general elections had been abolished - it was a one-party state. Citizens were not allowed to go overseas without travel passes (which were rarely issued). People were imprisoned without trial, and the government could tell you what job to do and jail you if you didn't do it. Some of my contemporaries were forced to work in the mines.
Yes, that was Britain. Britain from 1939 to 1945. I was nine when the war started, and 15 when it ended, and accepted these restrictions unquestioningly. I was astounded when identity cards were abolished. And the social system was at least as authoritarian as the political system. It was shocking for an unmarried couple to sleep together and a disgrace to have a baby out of wedlock. A homosexual act incurred a jail sentence. Divorc‚es would not be considered for the honours list or the Royal Enclosure at Ascot. Procuring an abortion was a criminal offence. Violent young criminals were birched, older ones were flogged, and murderers were hanged. Two years' National Service was compulsory for 18-year-olds. Small children sat in rows in the classroom and were caned if they misbehaved. Drugs were confined to the surgery (and the aristocracy). The bobby on the beat made sure the streets were safe at night. And for an England cricket captain to miss a Test Match by flying home to be present at the birth of his child would have ruled him out of serious consideration not just as a cricketer but as a man.
So what happened? How did we get from there to here? Unless we understand that, we shall never get inside the media liberal mind. And the starting point is the realisation that there have always been two principal ways of misunderstanding a society: by looking down on it from above, and by looking up at it from below. In other words, by identifying with institutions or by identifying with individuals.
To look down on society from above, from the point of view of the ruling groups, the institutions, is to see the dangers of the organism splitting apart, the individual components shooting off in different directions, until everything dissolves into anarchy. Those who see society in this way are preoccupied with the need for order, discipline, control, authority and organisation.
To look up at society from below, from the point of view of the lowest group, the governed, is to see the dangers of the organism growing ever more rigid and oppressive until it fossilises into a monolithic tyranny. Those who see society in this way are preoccupied with the need for liberty, equality, self-expression, representation, freedom of speech and action and worship, and the rights of the individual. The reason for the popularity of these misunderstandings is that both views are correct, as far as they go, and both sets of dangers are real but there is no "right" point of view. The most you can ever say is that sometimes society is in danger from too much authority and uniformity and sometimes from too much freedom and variety.
In retrospect it seems pretty clear that the 1940s and 1950s were years of excessive authority and uniformity. It was certainly clear to me and my media liberal colleagues in the BBC. It was not that we openly and publicly criticised the government on air; the BBC's commitment to impartiality was more strictly enforced in those days. But the topics we chose and the questions we asked were slanted against institutions and towards oppressed individuals, just as we achieved political balance by pitting the most plausible critics of government against its most bigoted supporters. And when in 1963 John Profumo was revealed as having slept with a call girl and lied to Parliament about it, the emotion that gripped us all was sheer uncontrollable glee. It was a wonderful vindication of all we believed. It proved the essential rottenness of the institution.
Ever since 1963, the institutions have been the villains of the media liberals. The police, the armed services, the courts, political parties, multinational corporations - when things go wrong, they are the usual suspects. In my media liberal days our attitude to institutions varied from suspicion to hostility. From our point of view, the view from below, they were all potential threats to human freedom. Even though I worked in a great institution, I did not identify with it. To describe a colleague as anti-BBC was a term of praise.
Obviously all institutions have to be watched pretty closely. Although their justification lies in the service they provide, their fundamental objective has always been self-preservation. Without their critics, 10-year-old children would still be going up chimneys, women would not be able to vote, and sheep-stealers would still be being hanged. Nevertheless they are all that stands between the civilised world and the chaos of anarchy or the violence of tyranny.
It would have been more than reasonable for us to have opposed specific abuses by institutions; homosexual acts were decriminalised during my BBC years, which we all applauded. But the focus of our hostility was the institutions themselves. It was not - and is not - shared by the majority of our fellow citizens: most of our opinions were at odds with the majority of the audience and the electorate.
Indeed, the BBC's own 2007 report on impartiality found that 57 per cent of poll respondents said that "Broadcasters often fail to reflect the views of people like me". It often surprised me how regularly the retired brigadier from Bournemouth and the taxi driver from Ilford were united against our media liberal consensus. Those same media liberals who today demonise Margaret Thatcher simply cannot understand why she won big majorities in three successive general elections and is judged by historians around the world as having been Britain's most successful peacetime prime minister of the 20th century.
So how did it happen that this minority media liberal subculture managed to install itself as the principal interpreter of Britain's institutions to the British public? And even more interestingly, where do its opinions and attitudes come from?
Some of the ingredients have a proud and ancient lineage: resistance to oppressive political and social authority, championship of the poor, the Factory Acts and the abolition of the slave trade, are golden threads that run though the fabric of British history. But there are four new factors which in my lifetime have brought about the changes which have shaped media liberalism, encouraged its spread, and significantly increased its influence and importance.
The first of these is detribalisation. That our species has evolved a genetic predisposition to form tribal groups is generally accepted as an evolutionary fact. This grouping - of not more than about five or six hundred - supplies us with our identity, status system, territorial instinct, behavioural discipline and moral code. It survived the transition from hunting to agriculture: the hunting tribe became the farming village. It even survived the early days of the industrial revolution, in pit and mill villages: the back-to-back city slums were the tribal encampments of industrial Britain.
But the evolution of cities, of commuter and dormitory suburbs, has deprived millions of people of tribal living. There is a saying that it takes a village to raise a child, but fewer and fewer of us are now brought up in villages, even urban villages. The enormous popularity of television soap operas is because they provide detribalised viewers with vicarious membership of a fictional, surrogate tribe. Many people find strong substitute tribes at their places of work - they are not the birth-to-death, 24 hours a day tribes we evolved from, but they provide many of the same social needs.
But we in the BBC were acutely detribalised; we were in a tribal institution, but we were not of it. Nor did we have any geographical tribe; we lived in commuter suburbs, we knew very few of our neighbours, and took not the slightest interest in local government. In fact we looked down on it. Councillors were self-important nobodies and mayors were a pompous joke.
We belonged instead to a dispersed ''metropolitan-media-arts-graduate'' tribe. We met over coffee, lunch, drinks and dinner to reinforce our views on the evils of apartheid, nuclear deterrence, capital punishment, the British Empire, big business, advertising, public relations, the Royal Family, the defence budget. it's a wonder we ever got home. We so rarely encountered any coherent opposing arguments that we took our group-think as the views of all right-thinking people.
The second factor which shaped our media liberal attitudes was a sense of exclusion. We saw ourselves as part of the intellectual ‚lite, full of ideas about how the country should be run, and yet with no involvement in the process or power to do anything about it. Being na‹ve in the way institutions actually work, yet having good arts degrees from reputable universities, we were convinced that Britain's problems were the result of the stupidity of the people in charge. We ignored the tedious practicalities of getting institutions to adopt and implement ideas.
This ignorance of the realities of government and management enabled us to occupy the moral high ground. We saw ourselves as clever people in a stupid world, upright people in a corrupt world, compassionate people in a brutal world, libertarian people in an authoritarian world. We were not Marxists but accepted a lot of Marxist social analysis. Some people called us arrogant; looking back, I am afraid I cannot dispute the epithet.
We also had an almost complete ignorance of market economics. That ignorance is still there. Say ''Tesco'' to a media liberal and the patellar reflex says, "Exploiting African farmers and driving out small shopkeepers". The achievement of providing the range of goods, the competitive prices, the food quality, the speed of service and the ease of parking that attract millions of shoppers every day does not show up on the media liberal radar.
The third factor arises from the nature of mass media. The Tonight programme had a nightly audience of about eight million. It was much easier to keep their attention by telling them they were being deceived or exploited by big institutions than by saying what a good job the government and the banks and the oil companies were doing.
The fourth factor is what has been called ''isolation technology''. Fifty years ago, people did things together much more. The older politicians we interviewed in the early Tonight days were happier (and much more effective) in public meetings than in television studios. In those days people went to evening meetings. They formed collective opinions. In many places party allegiance was collective and hereditary rather than a matter of individual choice based on a logical comparison of policies.
It is astonishing how many of the technological inventions of the past century have had the effect of separating us off from the group. The car takes us out of public transport, central heating lets each member of a family do their own thing in their own room, watching their own television, listening to their own music, surfing the net on their own PC or talking to a friend on their own mobile. The fridge, the microwave and the takeaway mean that everyone can have their own meal in their own time. Our knowledge of public events and political arguments come direct from the media rather than from a face-to-face group. We still have some local, territorial group memberships, but their importance is now much diminished and their influence weakened.
These four factors have significantly accelerated, and indeed intensified, the spread of media liberalism since I ceased to be a BBC employee 40 years ago. It still champions the individual against the institution. The BBC's 2007 impartiality report reflects widespread support for the idea that there is "some sort of BBC liberal consensus". Its commissioning editor for documentaries, Richard Klein, has said: "By and large, people who work in the BBC think the same, and it's not the way the audience thinks." The former BBC political editor Andrew Marr says: "There is an innate liberal bias within the BBC".
For a time it puzzled me that after 50 years of tumultuous change the media liberal attitudes could remain almost identical to those I shared in the 1950s. Then it gradually dawned on me: my BBC media liberalism was not a political philosophy, even less a political programme. It was an ideology based not on observation and deduction but on faith and doctrine. We were rather weak on facts and figures, on causes and consequences, and shied away from arguments about practicalities. If defeated on one point we just retreated to another; we did not change our beliefs. We were, of course, believers in democracy. The trouble was that our understanding of it was structurally simplistic and politically na‹ve. It did not go much further than one-adult-one-vote.
We ignored the whole truth, namely that modern Western civilisation stands on four pillars, and elected governments is only one of them. Equally important is the rule of law. The other two are economic: the right to own private property and the right to buy and sell your property, goods, services and labour. (Freedom of speech, worship, and association derive from them; with an elected government and the rule of law a nation can choose how much it wants of each). We never got this far with our analysis. The two economic freedoms led straight to the heresy of free enterprise capitalism - and yet without them any meaningful freedom is impossible.
But analysis was irrelevant to us. Ultimately, it was not a question of whether a policy worked but whether it was right or wrong when judged by our media liberal moral standards. There was no argument about whether, say, capital punishment worked. If retentionists came up with statistics showing that abolition increased the number of murders we simply rejected them.
The same moral imperatives determined our attitude to the dissolution of the British Empire. It was right, so there was no further argument. We would not even discuss whether the prosperity and happiness of the Ugandans or the Rhodesians or the Nigerians would be better served by a partial or more gradual transfer of power; it had to be total and it had to be immediate. We were horrified by the arrogant way our grandparents' generation had used their political and economic power to impose Christianity on religiously backward peoples. Were we, as missionaries for democracy, not guilty of imposing media liberal democracy in exactly the same way?
If I had to mount a defence of our media liberalism, I would say that in the first place the BBC was still in the shadow of John Reith. Political impartiality was much more strictly enforced than today. In the second place we had seen all too clearly the dangers of oppressive and unchallenged authority in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. In the third place, there were areas of British life - the legal status of women, homosexuality, divorce, penal policy - in which most people agreed that liberal reform was necessary. In the fourth place, large areas of British life - the law, industry, banking, the Civil Service, the Armed Forces, the Cabinet - were dominated by an upper class ‚lite who were holding the country back. For all these reasons I would defend, not our ideas and attitudes, but at least their consequences. I believe - well, at least hope - that we did not do too much damage.
I do not think the same is true today. The four mitigating factors above have faded into insignificance, but the media liberal ideology is stronger than ever. Today, we see our old heresy becoming the new orthodoxy: media liberalism has now been adopted by the leaders of all three political parties, by the police, the courts and the Churches. It is enshrined in law - in the human rights act, in much health and safety legislation, in equal opportunities, in employment protections, in race relations and in a whole stream of edicts from Brussels.
It is not so much that their ideas and arguments are harebrained and impracticable: some of their causes are in fact admirable. The trouble - you might even say the tragedy - is that their implementation by governments eager for media approval has progressively damaged our institutions. Media liberal pressure has prompted a stream of laws, regulations and directives to champion the criminal against the police, the child against the school, the patient against the hospital, the employee against the company, the soldier against the army, the borrower against the bank, the convict against the prison - there is a new case in the papers almost every day, and each victory is a small erosion of the efficiency and effectiveness of the institution.
I can now see that my old BBC media liberalism was not a basis for government. It was an ideology of opposition, valuable for restraining the excesses of institutions and campaigning against the abuses of authority but it was not a way of actually running anything. It serves a vital function when government is dictatorial and oppressive, but when government is ineffective and over-permissive it is hopelessly inappropriate.
I can't deny that my perceptions have come through the experience of leaving the BBC. Suppose I had stayed. Would I have remained a devotee of the metropolitan media liberal ideology that I once absorbed so readily? I have an awful fear that the answer is yes.
Source
The majority of NHS trusts are not giving people with diabetes enough help in managing the condition at home, a watchdog has warned. The Healthcare Commission said most primary care trusts were offering basic diabetes care such as yearly check-ups. But it warned that almost 130 out of more than 150 failed on home support.
Offering services to help patients manage their weight or plan an exercise regime are seen as crucial in reducing complications like heart problems. As such, they could also save the NHS millions of pounds each year. In 2002, about œ1.3bn - or 5% of NHS expenditure - was used to care for people with diabetes. Estimates from 2006 suggest this could even have crept up to 10% of total spending, the commission said.
Managing diabetes at home by controlling weight, or giving up smoking, have been touted as a key means of tackling complications of the condition. As well as heart problems, these include blindness, kidney failure and limb amputation.
Beefing up community services and the potential for self-management of long-term conditions such as diabetes is also one of the key planks of government policy. Diabetes is seen as a growing problem in the UK. According to the watchdog, the number of diagnosed and undiagnosed cases is likely to have risen by 15% between 2001 and 2010. Some 9% of this was due to increasing numbers of obese people, and a further 6% was the result of an ageing population, it suggested.
The Healthcare Commission said PCTs had to do better in supporting people to manage their condition.
Source
Ethically-challenged NHS doctor
A doctor accused of wrongly causing a health scare over the MMR vaccine paid children 5 pounds each to give blood samples at his son's birthday party, a disciplinary hearing has been told. Andrew Wakefield abused his position as a doctor and showed "a callous disregard" for the distress and pain that the children - thought to be as young as 4 - might suffer, the General Medical Council was told.
The allegations emerged yesterday along with charges connected to research by Dr Wakefield and his former colleagues, John Walker-Smith and Simon Murch, that claimed the combined vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella carried serious health risks. The doctors appeared before the GMC's fitness-to-practise panel charged with serious professional misconduct, which they deny. All three are accused of performing procedures, such as colonoscopies, barium meals and lumbar punctures, on children that were "contrary" to the children's clinical interests and conducted without the proper ethical approval and consent forms.
The GMC accused Dr Wakefield of bringing the profession into disrepute by taking blood from children at his son's party at some point before March 20, 1999, when he joked about the incident while giving a presentation at the Mind Institute, California. Footage was shown on ITN last night of the episode. Dr Wakefield is seen on video saying: "And you line them up - with informed parental consent, of course. They all get paid 5 pounds , which doesn't translate into many dollars I'm afraid. But . . . and . . . they put their arms out and they have the blood taken. All entirely voluntary." [Laughter] He says that two of the children fainted, while one was sick over his mother, which drew laughter from the audience.
Dr Wakefield is then heard joking: "People said to me, `Andrew, look, you know, you can't do this, people, children won't come back to you. [Laughter] I said, `You're wrong'. I said, `Listen, we live in a market economy. Next year they'll want 10 pounds'"
The MMR controversy began after the doctors published their research in The Lancet in 1998, claiming that the jab overloaded the immune system, causing bowel problems and also autism and other illnesses. Further research has quashed these conclusions. At the time, all three doctors were employed at the Royal Free Hospital's medical school in Hampstead, North London. They conducted the study on 11 British children without approval from the hospital's ethics committee, the GMC was told.
The list of allegations against Dr Wakefield took more than an hour to read out. One of the key accusations is that he failed to declare that he was being paid for advising solicitors on legal action by parents who believed their children had been harmed by MMR. Another charge is that he ordered subsequent studies "without the requisite paediatric qualifications". He is also alleged to have allowed one child - Child 10 - to be given an experimental cocktail of drugs, known as "transfer factor", with the view to it being developed into a new measles vaccine. Dr Wakefield admitted being involved in proposals to set up a company to manufacture the drug. The father of Child 10 was to be the company's managing director.
It was alleged that he did not reveal that he had accepted 50,000 pounds from the Legal Aid Board for research to support legal action by parents who believed their children were harmed by MMR. He was also accused of being "dishonest" and "irresponsible" when submitting his views about MMR for publication.
Source
"Spastic" a Very Bad Word
We read:
"Nintendo has been forced to withdraw a computer game from sale in the UK because it contains the word 'spastic' in its script. Mario Party 8, a multi-player game for the Wii console, went on sale in the UK on Friday but was taken off the shelves after the mistake was discovered.
In the game, designed to be played by groups at parties, a blue wizard called Kamek appears on screen and intones: "Magikoopa Magic! Turn the train, spastic! Make this ticket tragic!"
It is the second time in as many weeks that a Nintendo game has been withdrawn for including the word 'spastic'. Earlier this month, MindQuiz, a 'brain-training' game made for the Nintendo DS by the French company Ubisoft, was pulled because it branded players who achieved low scores 'spastics' and 'super-spastics'.
Source
But you can call Christians "Taliban" and George Bush "Hitler" and that is just free speech, of course.
"Spastic" seems to be more decried in Britain than in the USA but even Tiger Woods got into strife a while back for using the word "Spaz". It seems that Americans are less aware that the term originates from an old term for cerebral palsy.
I must say that when I went to school many years ago, "spastic" was a common term of abuse. I was myself called that (and worse) often enough but it was like water off a duck's back to me, of course.
British recycling blues
The Government's strategy for reducing waste in landfill sites has been called "half-hearted and likely to fail" by a committee of MPs. Fortnightly rubbish collections are unsuitable for many areas and there is no proof they increase recycling, a report by the all-party communities and local government select committee claims. Its report says plans to charge householders who fail to recycle 30 pounds a year are too timid and too complicated and a reward of up to 30 pounds for "good" households is too low to encourage mass recycling
The committee, chaired by the Labour MP Dr Phyllis Starkey, says: "It is hard to see why any council will want to set up a complicated charging scheme that earns it no money and risks public disapproval." The report criticises some local authorities for "blundering" into fortnightly collections without proper consideration or consultation. Alternate weekly collections of food waste are "not appropriate" in many areas, particularly in highly populated areas with limited storage room for bins, the report says. Although recycling has increased in areas with fortnightly collections, MPs say that no direct link between the two has been proven.
Given the strength of public concern and anecdotal evidence about flies and other vermin, the report has called for more research into the health implications of fortnightly collections. The committee wants the Government to encourage councils to collect food waste separately once a week. The committee also points out that domestic refuse amounts to only nine per cent of national waste and that "far more can ultimately be achieved by recycling and reusing commercial, industrial and construction waste".
A spokesman from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: "We are disappointed that on financial incentives the committee has not recognised the need to try out innovative ways of encouraging sustainable waste behaviour. "We are consulting on our financial incentives proposal and will not finalise our policy until this is completed."
Source
Narrow-minded pundit thinks Europe is the world
Excerpt from Magnus Linklater
You might imagine, therefore, that the Swiss, for whom the mountains are the very soul of the country, would be impassioned in their defence of the environment. That combination of stern efficiency and national diligence which ensures that their trains run silently and on time, their streets are swept clean and even their mountain paths are carefully mowed, must surely place Switzerland in the forefront of the campaign to cut carbon emissions.
You would be wrong. High on the slopes above Zermatt, we came upon evidence that, even here, the defence of a profitable tourist industry takes precedence over the need to protect the natural environment. In the midst of a complex network of brilliantly engineered hydroelectric systems, designed to keep the towns and villages of the southern Alps supplied with power, stood row upon row of brand new snowmaking machines, ready for the next skiing season. Sometime in late autumn they will be transported to the fashionable ski resorts of Verbier, Zermatt and the rest, where early snow is desperately short, and used to manufacture a few more hectares of the white stuff so that this year’s tourists can be gulled for one more year at least into imagining that global warming is just an illusion and that the slopes will forever remain glistening and pure.
As an example of chronic and pig-headed frivolity, the snow machine has a lot to answer for. It is wasteful, energy-inefficient and environmentally indefensible. A single ski resort needs as much electricity as a small village just to keep its snowmaking systems going... It would be hard to conjure up a more potent symbol of environmental perversity than the use of carbon-spewing fossil fuels to help to dispose of millions of gallons of carefully extracted water in order that a few thousand tourists can slide down a slope for an extra week....
Yet if we take the warnings about climate change with any degree of seriousness, we have to change our terms of reference. Instead of hailing the inventiveness of the ski resort that makes its own snow, we should accept the harsh reality that nature has terminally curtailed the skiing season [In Europe maybe but quite the opposite in Australia. Our thicko pundit cannot distinguish local phenomena from global phenomena. No wonder he is so credulous. And the arrogance of thinking that what he sees on one trip to Switzerland is "terminal" is truly breathtaking. He is obviously quite unaware that Alpine glaciers undergo cycles of advance and retreat but he still thinks he knows it all. How wonderful to be a famous British pundit! He is the sort Australians would call a blowhard]
Much as we cherish our birds of prey, we should remember that their prospects of survival are threatened not so much by a freak collision as by the three-degree rise in global temperatures that will occur in the next 50 years if we do not manage to wean ourselves off a reliance on oil and gas. Stuff the skiers, sink the canoeists, gag the bird-lovers; this is a battle for survival, not an exercise in self-indulgence.
More here
Here is the news (as we want to report it)
By Antony Jay, brilliant co-writer of "Yes Minister" and former BBC denizen
This week the BBC was forced to apologise to the Queen for falsely claiming that she stormed out of a photo shoot. We shouldn't be surprised, says former producer Antony Jay. In this exclusive extract from a brilliant new CPS pamphlet, he argues that the anti-establishment views at the heart of the corporation have always dictated its mind set
I think I am beginning to see the answer to a question that has puzzled me for the past 40 years. The question is simple - much simpler than the answer: what is behind the opinions and attitudes of what are called the chattering classes? They are that minority characterised (or caricatured) by sandals and macrobiotic diets, but in a less extreme form found in the Guardian, Channel 4, the Church of England, academia, showbusiness and BBC News and Current Affairs, who constitute our metropolitan liberal media consensus - though the word "liberal" would have Adam Smith rotating at maximum velocity in his grave. Let's call it "media liberalism".
It is of particular interest to me because for nine years (1955-1964) I was part of this media liberal consensus. For six of those nine years I was working on Tonight, a nightly BBC current affairs television programme. My stint coincided almost exactly with Macmillan's premiership, and I do not think my ex-colleagues would quibble if I said we were not exactly diehard supporters. But we were not just anti-Macmillan; we were anti-industry, anti-capitalism, anti-advertising, anti-selling, anti-profit, anti-patriotism, anti-monarchy, anti-Empire, anti-police, anti-armed forces, anti-bomb, anti-authority. Almost anything that made the world a freer, safer and more prosperous place, you name it, we were anti it.
It was (and is) essentially, though not exclusively, a graduate phenomenon. From time to time it finds an issue that strikes a chord with the broad mass of the nation, but in most respects it is wildly unrepresentative of national opinion. When the Queen Mother died the media liberal press dismissed it as an event of no particular importance, and were mortified to see the vast crowds lining the route for her funeral, and the great flood of national emotion that it released.
Although I was a card-carrying media liberal for the best part of nine years, there was nothing in my past to predispose me towards membership. I spent my early years in a country where every citizen had to carry identification papers. All the newspapers were censored, as were all letters abroad; general elections had been abolished - it was a one-party state. Citizens were not allowed to go overseas without travel passes (which were rarely issued). People were imprisoned without trial, and the government could tell you what job to do and jail you if you didn't do it. Some of my contemporaries were forced to work in the mines.
Yes, that was Britain. Britain from 1939 to 1945. I was nine when the war started, and 15 when it ended, and accepted these restrictions unquestioningly. I was astounded when identity cards were abolished. And the social system was at least as authoritarian as the political system. It was shocking for an unmarried couple to sleep together and a disgrace to have a baby out of wedlock. A homosexual act incurred a jail sentence. Divorc‚es would not be considered for the honours list or the Royal Enclosure at Ascot. Procuring an abortion was a criminal offence. Violent young criminals were birched, older ones were flogged, and murderers were hanged. Two years' National Service was compulsory for 18-year-olds. Small children sat in rows in the classroom and were caned if they misbehaved. Drugs were confined to the surgery (and the aristocracy). The bobby on the beat made sure the streets were safe at night. And for an England cricket captain to miss a Test Match by flying home to be present at the birth of his child would have ruled him out of serious consideration not just as a cricketer but as a man.
So what happened? How did we get from there to here? Unless we understand that, we shall never get inside the media liberal mind. And the starting point is the realisation that there have always been two principal ways of misunderstanding a society: by looking down on it from above, and by looking up at it from below. In other words, by identifying with institutions or by identifying with individuals.
To look down on society from above, from the point of view of the ruling groups, the institutions, is to see the dangers of the organism splitting apart, the individual components shooting off in different directions, until everything dissolves into anarchy. Those who see society in this way are preoccupied with the need for order, discipline, control, authority and organisation.
To look up at society from below, from the point of view of the lowest group, the governed, is to see the dangers of the organism growing ever more rigid and oppressive until it fossilises into a monolithic tyranny. Those who see society in this way are preoccupied with the need for liberty, equality, self-expression, representation, freedom of speech and action and worship, and the rights of the individual. The reason for the popularity of these misunderstandings is that both views are correct, as far as they go, and both sets of dangers are real but there is no "right" point of view. The most you can ever say is that sometimes society is in danger from too much authority and uniformity and sometimes from too much freedom and variety.
In retrospect it seems pretty clear that the 1940s and 1950s were years of excessive authority and uniformity. It was certainly clear to me and my media liberal colleagues in the BBC. It was not that we openly and publicly criticised the government on air; the BBC's commitment to impartiality was more strictly enforced in those days. But the topics we chose and the questions we asked were slanted against institutions and towards oppressed individuals, just as we achieved political balance by pitting the most plausible critics of government against its most bigoted supporters. And when in 1963 John Profumo was revealed as having slept with a call girl and lied to Parliament about it, the emotion that gripped us all was sheer uncontrollable glee. It was a wonderful vindication of all we believed. It proved the essential rottenness of the institution.
Ever since 1963, the institutions have been the villains of the media liberals. The police, the armed services, the courts, political parties, multinational corporations - when things go wrong, they are the usual suspects. In my media liberal days our attitude to institutions varied from suspicion to hostility. From our point of view, the view from below, they were all potential threats to human freedom. Even though I worked in a great institution, I did not identify with it. To describe a colleague as anti-BBC was a term of praise.
Obviously all institutions have to be watched pretty closely. Although their justification lies in the service they provide, their fundamental objective has always been self-preservation. Without their critics, 10-year-old children would still be going up chimneys, women would not be able to vote, and sheep-stealers would still be being hanged. Nevertheless they are all that stands between the civilised world and the chaos of anarchy or the violence of tyranny.
It would have been more than reasonable for us to have opposed specific abuses by institutions; homosexual acts were decriminalised during my BBC years, which we all applauded. But the focus of our hostility was the institutions themselves. It was not - and is not - shared by the majority of our fellow citizens: most of our opinions were at odds with the majority of the audience and the electorate.
Indeed, the BBC's own 2007 report on impartiality found that 57 per cent of poll respondents said that "Broadcasters often fail to reflect the views of people like me". It often surprised me how regularly the retired brigadier from Bournemouth and the taxi driver from Ilford were united against our media liberal consensus. Those same media liberals who today demonise Margaret Thatcher simply cannot understand why she won big majorities in three successive general elections and is judged by historians around the world as having been Britain's most successful peacetime prime minister of the 20th century.
So how did it happen that this minority media liberal subculture managed to install itself as the principal interpreter of Britain's institutions to the British public? And even more interestingly, where do its opinions and attitudes come from?
Some of the ingredients have a proud and ancient lineage: resistance to oppressive political and social authority, championship of the poor, the Factory Acts and the abolition of the slave trade, are golden threads that run though the fabric of British history. But there are four new factors which in my lifetime have brought about the changes which have shaped media liberalism, encouraged its spread, and significantly increased its influence and importance.
The first of these is detribalisation. That our species has evolved a genetic predisposition to form tribal groups is generally accepted as an evolutionary fact. This grouping - of not more than about five or six hundred - supplies us with our identity, status system, territorial instinct, behavioural discipline and moral code. It survived the transition from hunting to agriculture: the hunting tribe became the farming village. It even survived the early days of the industrial revolution, in pit and mill villages: the back-to-back city slums were the tribal encampments of industrial Britain.
But the evolution of cities, of commuter and dormitory suburbs, has deprived millions of people of tribal living. There is a saying that it takes a village to raise a child, but fewer and fewer of us are now brought up in villages, even urban villages. The enormous popularity of television soap operas is because they provide detribalised viewers with vicarious membership of a fictional, surrogate tribe. Many people find strong substitute tribes at their places of work - they are not the birth-to-death, 24 hours a day tribes we evolved from, but they provide many of the same social needs.
But we in the BBC were acutely detribalised; we were in a tribal institution, but we were not of it. Nor did we have any geographical tribe; we lived in commuter suburbs, we knew very few of our neighbours, and took not the slightest interest in local government. In fact we looked down on it. Councillors were self-important nobodies and mayors were a pompous joke.
We belonged instead to a dispersed ''metropolitan-media-arts-graduate'' tribe. We met over coffee, lunch, drinks and dinner to reinforce our views on the evils of apartheid, nuclear deterrence, capital punishment, the British Empire, big business, advertising, public relations, the Royal Family, the defence budget. it's a wonder we ever got home. We so rarely encountered any coherent opposing arguments that we took our group-think as the views of all right-thinking people.
The second factor which shaped our media liberal attitudes was a sense of exclusion. We saw ourselves as part of the intellectual ‚lite, full of ideas about how the country should be run, and yet with no involvement in the process or power to do anything about it. Being na‹ve in the way institutions actually work, yet having good arts degrees from reputable universities, we were convinced that Britain's problems were the result of the stupidity of the people in charge. We ignored the tedious practicalities of getting institutions to adopt and implement ideas.
This ignorance of the realities of government and management enabled us to occupy the moral high ground. We saw ourselves as clever people in a stupid world, upright people in a corrupt world, compassionate people in a brutal world, libertarian people in an authoritarian world. We were not Marxists but accepted a lot of Marxist social analysis. Some people called us arrogant; looking back, I am afraid I cannot dispute the epithet.
We also had an almost complete ignorance of market economics. That ignorance is still there. Say ''Tesco'' to a media liberal and the patellar reflex says, "Exploiting African farmers and driving out small shopkeepers". The achievement of providing the range of goods, the competitive prices, the food quality, the speed of service and the ease of parking that attract millions of shoppers every day does not show up on the media liberal radar.
The third factor arises from the nature of mass media. The Tonight programme had a nightly audience of about eight million. It was much easier to keep their attention by telling them they were being deceived or exploited by big institutions than by saying what a good job the government and the banks and the oil companies were doing.
The fourth factor is what has been called ''isolation technology''. Fifty years ago, people did things together much more. The older politicians we interviewed in the early Tonight days were happier (and much more effective) in public meetings than in television studios. In those days people went to evening meetings. They formed collective opinions. In many places party allegiance was collective and hereditary rather than a matter of individual choice based on a logical comparison of policies.
It is astonishing how many of the technological inventions of the past century have had the effect of separating us off from the group. The car takes us out of public transport, central heating lets each member of a family do their own thing in their own room, watching their own television, listening to their own music, surfing the net on their own PC or talking to a friend on their own mobile. The fridge, the microwave and the takeaway mean that everyone can have their own meal in their own time. Our knowledge of public events and political arguments come direct from the media rather than from a face-to-face group. We still have some local, territorial group memberships, but their importance is now much diminished and their influence weakened.
These four factors have significantly accelerated, and indeed intensified, the spread of media liberalism since I ceased to be a BBC employee 40 years ago. It still champions the individual against the institution. The BBC's 2007 impartiality report reflects widespread support for the idea that there is "some sort of BBC liberal consensus". Its commissioning editor for documentaries, Richard Klein, has said: "By and large, people who work in the BBC think the same, and it's not the way the audience thinks." The former BBC political editor Andrew Marr says: "There is an innate liberal bias within the BBC".
For a time it puzzled me that after 50 years of tumultuous change the media liberal attitudes could remain almost identical to those I shared in the 1950s. Then it gradually dawned on me: my BBC media liberalism was not a political philosophy, even less a political programme. It was an ideology based not on observation and deduction but on faith and doctrine. We were rather weak on facts and figures, on causes and consequences, and shied away from arguments about practicalities. If defeated on one point we just retreated to another; we did not change our beliefs. We were, of course, believers in democracy. The trouble was that our understanding of it was structurally simplistic and politically na‹ve. It did not go much further than one-adult-one-vote.
We ignored the whole truth, namely that modern Western civilisation stands on four pillars, and elected governments is only one of them. Equally important is the rule of law. The other two are economic: the right to own private property and the right to buy and sell your property, goods, services and labour. (Freedom of speech, worship, and association derive from them; with an elected government and the rule of law a nation can choose how much it wants of each). We never got this far with our analysis. The two economic freedoms led straight to the heresy of free enterprise capitalism - and yet without them any meaningful freedom is impossible.
But analysis was irrelevant to us. Ultimately, it was not a question of whether a policy worked but whether it was right or wrong when judged by our media liberal moral standards. There was no argument about whether, say, capital punishment worked. If retentionists came up with statistics showing that abolition increased the number of murders we simply rejected them.
The same moral imperatives determined our attitude to the dissolution of the British Empire. It was right, so there was no further argument. We would not even discuss whether the prosperity and happiness of the Ugandans or the Rhodesians or the Nigerians would be better served by a partial or more gradual transfer of power; it had to be total and it had to be immediate. We were horrified by the arrogant way our grandparents' generation had used their political and economic power to impose Christianity on religiously backward peoples. Were we, as missionaries for democracy, not guilty of imposing media liberal democracy in exactly the same way?
If I had to mount a defence of our media liberalism, I would say that in the first place the BBC was still in the shadow of John Reith. Political impartiality was much more strictly enforced than today. In the second place we had seen all too clearly the dangers of oppressive and unchallenged authority in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. In the third place, there were areas of British life - the legal status of women, homosexuality, divorce, penal policy - in which most people agreed that liberal reform was necessary. In the fourth place, large areas of British life - the law, industry, banking, the Civil Service, the Armed Forces, the Cabinet - were dominated by an upper class ‚lite who were holding the country back. For all these reasons I would defend, not our ideas and attitudes, but at least their consequences. I believe - well, at least hope - that we did not do too much damage.
I do not think the same is true today. The four mitigating factors above have faded into insignificance, but the media liberal ideology is stronger than ever. Today, we see our old heresy becoming the new orthodoxy: media liberalism has now been adopted by the leaders of all three political parties, by the police, the courts and the Churches. It is enshrined in law - in the human rights act, in much health and safety legislation, in equal opportunities, in employment protections, in race relations and in a whole stream of edicts from Brussels.
It is not so much that their ideas and arguments are harebrained and impracticable: some of their causes are in fact admirable. The trouble - you might even say the tragedy - is that their implementation by governments eager for media approval has progressively damaged our institutions. Media liberal pressure has prompted a stream of laws, regulations and directives to champion the criminal against the police, the child against the school, the patient against the hospital, the employee against the company, the soldier against the army, the borrower against the bank, the convict against the prison - there is a new case in the papers almost every day, and each victory is a small erosion of the efficiency and effectiveness of the institution.
I can now see that my old BBC media liberalism was not a basis for government. It was an ideology of opposition, valuable for restraining the excesses of institutions and campaigning against the abuses of authority but it was not a way of actually running anything. It serves a vital function when government is dictatorial and oppressive, but when government is ineffective and over-permissive it is hopelessly inappropriate.
I can't deny that my perceptions have come through the experience of leaving the BBC. Suppose I had stayed. Would I have remained a devotee of the metropolitan media liberal ideology that I once absorbed so readily? I have an awful fear that the answer is yes.
Source
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Some religions are more equal than others
A BRITISH teenager whose teachers had stopped her wearing a "purity ring" at school to symbolise her commitment to virginity lost a High Court fight against the ban today. Lydia Playfoot, 16, says her silver ring is an expression of her faith and had argued in court that it should be exempt from school regulations banning the wearing of jewellery. "I am very disappointed by the decision this morning by the High Court not to allow me to wear my purity ring to school as an expression of my Christian faith not to have sex outside marriage," Miss Playfoot said. "I believe that the judge's decision will mean that slowly, over time, people such as school governors, employers, political organisations and others will be allowed to stop Christians from publicly expressing and practising their faith."
Miss Playfoot's legal challenge was the latest in a series of disputes in British schools in recent years over the right of pupils to wear religious symbols or clothing, such as crucifixes and veils. Last year, the Law Lords rejected Shabina Begum's appeal for permission to wear, against her Luton school's uniform policy, a Muslim gown. That case echoed a debate in France over the banning of Muslim headscarves in state schools.
Miss Playfoot's parents are key members of the British arm of the American chastity campaign group the Silver Ring Thing, a religious group which urges abstinence among young people. Those who sign up wear a ring on the third finger of the left hand. It is inscribed with "Thess. 4:3-4", a reference to a Biblical passage from Thessalonians which reads: "God wants you to be holy, so you should keep clear of all sexual sin."
During the case, Miss Playfoot's lawyers argued that the ban by her school in Horsham, West Sussex, breached her human rights to "freedom of thought, conscience and religion" which are protected by the European Convention on Human Rights. Lawyers for the school denied discrimination and said the purity ring breached its rules on wearing jewellery.
They said allowances were made for Muslim and Sikh pupils only for items integral to their religious beliefs and that, for the same reason, crucifixes were also allowed. But it argued that the purity ring was not an integral part of the Christian faith. [There is only ONE version of Christianity????]
Source
Galloway suspended
Post lifted from Don Surber. See the original for links
The British Parliament will suspend George Galloway, The Times of London reported. Galloway finally pays for the kickbacks he received under Saddam Hussein's Oil-for-Food scam, in which Iraq bought off the UN (Kofi Annan's son was among the many frontmen).
Said the Times:
In 1998 Galloway founded the Mariam Appeal, which campaigned for the lifting of sanctions on Iraq. The appeal, which paid Galloway's wife and funded international travel for the MP, received almost œ450,000 from Fawaz Zureikat, a Jordanian businessman who was also a trustee of the appeal. It subsequently emerged that more than half of this money came from the proceeds of Iraqi oil sales. An investigation by the American Senate alleged that the Mariam Appeal was used by the Iraqi regime to finance Galloway.
American liberals have praised this crook repeatedly, especially after a lie-spewed spiel he gave in 2005. Daily Kos said at the time: "George Galloway is a member of Parliament for Bethnal Green and Bow and stands (falsely) accused by conservative US senators of taking bribes from Iraq in an oil-for-food scandal. His statement before the US Senate is a truly righteous, withering, and devastating critique of the US position in Iraq"
Well, we can take that "(falsely)" out, can't we? The Kos reaction to the crooked, bribe-taking, lying, sniveling, self-important Galloway getting suspended for a month from Parliament? cricket chirp
The irony is the left praised this thief who raked in a small fortune by fronting for a brutal regime through an oil scam. Yet teh left cries "Haliburton! Haliburton! Haliburton!" at Dick Cheney, even though the vice president severed ties with Haliburton long ago. Indeed, the profits the Cheneys made from their Haliburton stock goes to charity. Since taking office, Cheney and his wife have given $7.8 million to charity.
The much-praised lefty Galloway? He took bribes from a fund meant to buy food for Iraqi children. There's your hero, lefties.
How lax can the Brits get? "An al-Qaeda fanatic jailed for inciting murder online was caught making a website urging terror attacks - from his cell in Britain's most secure prison. Tariq Al-Daour, 21, used a smuggled mobile phone and modem lead to access the internet on a laptop issued by the Prison Service to help him prepare his court case. The laptop was seized after a violent struggle when prison officers suspected he was misusing it and the hate-filled website called Global Jihad was found. The Home Office has launched an urgent inquiry to discover how the mobile was smuggled into Belmarsh's High Security Unit, which holds the country's most dangerous inmates. They fear Al-Daour may have used it to contact other al-Qaeda terrorists and are scrutinising calls he made. A senior prison source said yesterday: "It is frightening that an al-Qaeda prisoner was able to build an extremist website within Britain's supposedly most secure jail."
A BRITISH teenager whose teachers had stopped her wearing a "purity ring" at school to symbolise her commitment to virginity lost a High Court fight against the ban today. Lydia Playfoot, 16, says her silver ring is an expression of her faith and had argued in court that it should be exempt from school regulations banning the wearing of jewellery. "I am very disappointed by the decision this morning by the High Court not to allow me to wear my purity ring to school as an expression of my Christian faith not to have sex outside marriage," Miss Playfoot said. "I believe that the judge's decision will mean that slowly, over time, people such as school governors, employers, political organisations and others will be allowed to stop Christians from publicly expressing and practising their faith."
Miss Playfoot's legal challenge was the latest in a series of disputes in British schools in recent years over the right of pupils to wear religious symbols or clothing, such as crucifixes and veils. Last year, the Law Lords rejected Shabina Begum's appeal for permission to wear, against her Luton school's uniform policy, a Muslim gown. That case echoed a debate in France over the banning of Muslim headscarves in state schools.
Miss Playfoot's parents are key members of the British arm of the American chastity campaign group the Silver Ring Thing, a religious group which urges abstinence among young people. Those who sign up wear a ring on the third finger of the left hand. It is inscribed with "Thess. 4:3-4", a reference to a Biblical passage from Thessalonians which reads: "God wants you to be holy, so you should keep clear of all sexual sin."
During the case, Miss Playfoot's lawyers argued that the ban by her school in Horsham, West Sussex, breached her human rights to "freedom of thought, conscience and religion" which are protected by the European Convention on Human Rights. Lawyers for the school denied discrimination and said the purity ring breached its rules on wearing jewellery.
They said allowances were made for Muslim and Sikh pupils only for items integral to their religious beliefs and that, for the same reason, crucifixes were also allowed. But it argued that the purity ring was not an integral part of the Christian faith. [There is only ONE version of Christianity????]
Source
Galloway suspended
Post lifted from Don Surber. See the original for links
The British Parliament will suspend George Galloway, The Times of London reported. Galloway finally pays for the kickbacks he received under Saddam Hussein's Oil-for-Food scam, in which Iraq bought off the UN (Kofi Annan's son was among the many frontmen).
Said the Times:
In 1998 Galloway founded the Mariam Appeal, which campaigned for the lifting of sanctions on Iraq. The appeal, which paid Galloway's wife and funded international travel for the MP, received almost œ450,000 from Fawaz Zureikat, a Jordanian businessman who was also a trustee of the appeal. It subsequently emerged that more than half of this money came from the proceeds of Iraqi oil sales. An investigation by the American Senate alleged that the Mariam Appeal was used by the Iraqi regime to finance Galloway.
American liberals have praised this crook repeatedly, especially after a lie-spewed spiel he gave in 2005. Daily Kos said at the time: "George Galloway is a member of Parliament for Bethnal Green and Bow and stands (falsely) accused by conservative US senators of taking bribes from Iraq in an oil-for-food scandal. His statement before the US Senate is a truly righteous, withering, and devastating critique of the US position in Iraq"
Well, we can take that "(falsely)" out, can't we? The Kos reaction to the crooked, bribe-taking, lying, sniveling, self-important Galloway getting suspended for a month from Parliament? cricket chirp
The irony is the left praised this thief who raked in a small fortune by fronting for a brutal regime through an oil scam. Yet teh left cries "Haliburton! Haliburton! Haliburton!" at Dick Cheney, even though the vice president severed ties with Haliburton long ago. Indeed, the profits the Cheneys made from their Haliburton stock goes to charity. Since taking office, Cheney and his wife have given $7.8 million to charity.
The much-praised lefty Galloway? He took bribes from a fund meant to buy food for Iraqi children. There's your hero, lefties.
How lax can the Brits get? "An al-Qaeda fanatic jailed for inciting murder online was caught making a website urging terror attacks - from his cell in Britain's most secure prison. Tariq Al-Daour, 21, used a smuggled mobile phone and modem lead to access the internet on a laptop issued by the Prison Service to help him prepare his court case. The laptop was seized after a violent struggle when prison officers suspected he was misusing it and the hate-filled website called Global Jihad was found. The Home Office has launched an urgent inquiry to discover how the mobile was smuggled into Belmarsh's High Security Unit, which holds the country's most dangerous inmates. They fear Al-Daour may have used it to contact other al-Qaeda terrorists and are scrutinising calls he made. A senior prison source said yesterday: "It is frightening that an al-Qaeda prisoner was able to build an extremist website within Britain's supposedly most secure jail."
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Britain's terrorist immigrants
The government faces new embarrassment over Britain’s porous borders with the revelation that one in four terrorist suspects arrested in Britain is an asylum seeker. Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, there have been more than 1,100 arrests under antiterrorism legislation. While some of the most serious threats come from Al-Qaeda supporters born in the UK, there is new evidence of many suspects exploiting loopholes in the country’s immigration laws. It was confirmed last week that Muktar Said Ibrahim, one of the bombers involved in the failed suicide attacks of July 21, 2005, was given a passport even though he had convictions for indecent assault and robbery. Gordon Brown has said an applicant in similar circumstances would not now be granted citizenship.
A Home Office analysis of those arrested under antiterrorism laws from 2001 to 2005 found that almost a quarter – 24%, or 232 out of 963 – had previously applied for asylum. This figure includes failed asylum seekers who should have been removed from the country.
Omar Altimimi, 37, who was jailed for nine years this month at Manchester Crown Court for hoarding computer files on jihadi terrors, illustrates the ease with which Al-Qaeda supporters have been able to remain in the country and fund their activities using Britain’s often chaotic asylum system. Altimimi, a father of three who settled in Bolton, Greater Manchester, used the name Abou Hawas when he first arrived in the country, claiming he was an Iraqi fleeing persecution. In reality, he had come from the Netherlands where he had shared a flat with other extremists. When Altimimi’s asylum application was rejected, he should have been removed from the country. Instead he simply adopted another name. Over a six-year period he was given pay-outs from the National Asylum Support Service and other agencies of more than 100,000 pounds. This income helped support him as he spent hours at his computer, collating material on bomb making and identifying possible targets.
Susan Williams, the leader of Trafford council in Manchester and prospective Conservative candidate for Bolton West, said: “How many more terror sleepers are the British taxpayer funding? It is time we had a full, independent investigation into this appalling situation.”
The estimated backlog of 400,000 failed asylum seekers who have not been removed from the country is said by opposition MPs to be one in a series of systemic failings that undermine the security of Britain’s borders. They complain that while Tony Blair and now Gordon Brown have pledged tough action, not enough has been done. There is still no comprehensive system for checking the identities of people leaving the country. The lax regime was highlighted when Hussain Osman, one of the July 21 bombers, left the country undetected after the failed attacks.
The government has trumpeted the forthcoming introduction of a new electronic system– e-borders – to log all entries and exits. But the programme has been hampered by technical difficulties and it is unlikely to be fully running until 2014.
David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said that while he would welcome any “calm and effective” measures to improve border controls, the government should have acted more quickly to monitor and check people entering and leaving the country. “Our porous borders have got worse under this government,” he said. “It is a straightforward matter for people with criminal or terrorist intent to cross our borders in both directions with almost no control on them.”
Source
Do immigration amnesties work?
A reasonably informative comment from the BBC
A think-tank is calling for an amnesty on illegal immigrants in the UK - with claims that it would bring in 1bn pounds in tax revenue. But what's the record of places where an amnesty has been attempted?
Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal and Holland are among the European countries that have had amnesties in recent years - but the experiences of 20 such "regularisation" exercises have raised as many questions as they have answered. In Spain, there have been five separate amnesties since 1991 - in successive attempts to tax and control the large numbers of illegal workers that have entered the country from North Africa and South America. The initial ruling gave the right to stay to 135,000 illegal residents - but since then a further 1.2m people have been allowed to stay in subsequent amnesties. To be given a legal right to remain, these illegal immigrants had to show that they had lived in the country for more than six months, could support themselves in work and had no criminal records.
Italy has allowed more than 1.5m illegal workers to stay since the 1980s. In its most recent amnesty, in 2006, it gave permits to a further 180,000 people - but the number of applicants was more than 500,000, with no sign that the illegal economy was coming under control. In the United States, longstanding plans to grant legal status to illegal workers have been derailed - leaving 12m people in the shadows. In Malaysia, there was a recent amnesty of sorts, allowing illegal workers to leave the country without punishment - after which anyone remaining could face imprisonment.
From the European experience, the figures suggest that granting an amnesty - or not granting an amnesty - seem to make little difference to the pattern of migrants seeking work, legal or otherwise. What it does reveal is how difficult it is for a modern, globalised economy to put a fence around itself - when there is a highly-mobile workforce and demand for cheap labour.
There might be political pressure for clampdowns on illegal immigration, but putting it into practice is less than straightforward. The IPPR think-tank, which has suggested a amnesty, says it would take three decades to process the deportation of the UK's estimated 500,000 illegal workers - at a cost of 11,000 pounds per person. Such a huge operation - removing almost one in a hundred of the population - is not feasible, says the think-tank. Instead these workers should be taxed - and in return receive the right to remain and the protection of safer working conditions.
But opponents, such as campaign group Migrationwatch, argue that amnesties provide an incentive for further illegal immigration. "It is wrong in principle to reward illegal behaviour," says Migrationwatch. It also argues that "the problems surrounding social housing would be massively exacerbated if the government were to give an amnesty to illegal immigrants".
Both the Labour government and Conservative opposition are unsympathetic to amnesties - arguing they could provide an incentive for further waves of migrants. But there are MPs in both parties that have pushed for a legal status for such "irregular migrants". Labour deputy leadership contender Jon Cruddas and Conservative MP John Bercow both signed a recent early day motion in the House of Commons calling for a two-year work permit for people who had already been working in the UK for four years or more.
The Strangers into Citizens campaign, supported by trade unions and churches, wants to create a "pathway" for illegal immigrants to gain citizenship - giving workers a more dignified and secure future. Trade union leader Jack Dromey argued in a recent speech that there was growing support for a more pragmatic approach to resolving the large numbers of well-established workers who remained illegal. "The people of middle England will listen to new thinking on migration, they do understand that the current approach is failing and that the human costs are horrendous. They understand that the economic and moral case for an 'earned amnesty' for migrants is overwhelming," said Mr Dromey.
But there are deep political tensions over any attempt to resolve the situation of immigrants working illegally - with pressures over public services, housing and the possibility of attracting further illegal migrants.
Source
One in ten Scottish hospital patients 'suffering infection'
ALMOST one in ten patients in Scottish hospitals is suffering from an infection such as MRSA, a survey suggested yesterday. The new study - thought to be the most comprehensive ever carried out in Europe - found 9.5 per cent of people in acute hospitals had a healthcare associated infection (HAI). And the cost of such infections to the NHS is thought to be at least 183 million pounds a year.
Experts and campaigners last night said that HAIs continued to be a problem because of poor hygiene in hospitals and a lack of isolation facilities. Professor Hugh Pennington, Scotland's leading microbiologist, said more attention was also needed to ensure that only patients who needed antibiotics were receiving them to help tackle drug resistance.
Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish health secretary, yesterday pledged to step up efforts to combat HAIs in light of the latest figures, which give the most accurate picture yet of the issue. This includes the possibility of introducing an MRSA screening programme for those going into hospital.
The new report, by Health Protection Scotland, suggested the rate of HAIs is higher in Scotland than the rest of the UK. A study by the Hospital Infection Society from February to May 2006 found that 8.2 per cent of patients in England had an HAI, 6.3 per cent in Wales and 5.4 per cent in Northern Ireland. Over the same three-month period, the rate in Scotland was 9 per cent. But experts said the differences in rates were most likely due to the more comprehensive nature of the Scottish survey, which covered every acute hospital and a sample of community hospitals.
The HPS report involved teams going into every acute hospital - 45 in total - and a sample of 22 community hospitals between October 2005 and October 2006. There they counted the number of inpatients over the age of 16 with an HAI who were in hospital on the day of the visit. In total, they found 1,103 patients in acute hospitals had an HAI - amounting to 9.5 per cent of all these patients. Of these, 126 had more than one infection. In the sample of non-acute hospitals, they found 157 patients with an HAI, of which seven had more than one. Taken across the country as a whole, this could mean more than 1,800 patients in hospital have an infection at one time.
The report found that Clostridium difficile was the most common bug among infections where researchers had identified the organism, accounting for 17.6 per cent of cases. This was followed by MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) at 17.2 per cent and MSSA (methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus) at 8.9 per cent.
The hospital with the highest HAI rate in Scotland was Stobhill Hospital in Glasgow at 18.3 per cent, followed by Falkirk Royal Infirmary at 17.2 per cent. But the reason for the higher rates may be that these hospitals were surveyed during winter, when infections are more common. Older hospitals have sometimes been blamed for rising rates of infection. But yesterday's figures showed that this was not necessarily the case. The flagship Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, which opened in 2003, had an HAI rate of 11.6 per cent, compared with 6.8 per cent at the much older Southern General Hospital in Glasgow.
Rates also depend on the type of patients treated, with older people more vulnerable. And hospitals also have to deal with patients and their visitors bringing infections in.
Dr Jacqui Reilly, from HPS, said HAIs clearly had an impact on costs to the NHS, adding: "Patients with an HAI stay in hospital 70 per cent longer than those without an HAI." And she said if infections were cut by 30 per cent, the NHS could save 55 million pounds a year. Ms Sturgeon said this money could pay for an extra 8,000 patients to be treated. She added: "It is not good enough that 9.5 per cent of patients in Scottish acute hospitals have some form of HAI. The 183 million cost to the NHS, together with the human cost of HAI is also unacceptable."
Prof Pennington said the key to tackling HAIs was to continue with measures already in place, but to do them better. He added: "At the moment we are just about holding our own, but cases of MRSA are not going down and C difficile is going up. We need to continue to implement policies to control antibiotic prescribing, which contributes to resistance. "The cleaning and hand hygiene must also be a key focus. I am also in favour of screening, but it would need to consider what we do with patients who are carrying the bugs." Prof Pennington said Scotland and the UK in general did not have enough isolation facilities to care for patients with an infection, and added that there was evidence of more virulent strains of infections spreading.
Moya Stevenson, of campaign group MRSA Action UK, said it wanted to see screening for MRSA in hospitals. She added: "Bed occupancy rates have to be reduced within our hospitals and this will reduce quite significantly those rates of infections." Willie Duffy, from health union Unison, said that the quality of cleaning in hospitals had declined since the introduction of competitive tendering of hospital cleaning in the 1980s and the continuing outsourcing of cleaning at PFI hospitals. He added: "It is no coincidence the lowest levels of HAI in the UK are found where there are the lowest levels of contracting out - in Wales."
Source
Let's fight back against the new Model Army
Like voodoo forecasts, computer models of climate change are being used to stifle political discussion and resign man to his Fate. Given the sad state of history education these days, I guess I should note that the original New Model Army was mostly comprised of Christian fundamentalists, was in part led by Oliver Cromwell and ultimately brought about the beheading of Charles I. So the heading above is basically a pun
Everybody models nowadays. Nothing gives a new forecast, policy or strategy more weight than knowing that it is, in some way, the product of a computer model. The world's top capitalists use models to perform `what if?' exercises on crises and disasters, and to simulate future business growth. Governments bow down to models on all sorts of issues: right now, Britain's chief scientist is modeling the future of UK obesity. Yet computer models are not all they're cracked up to be. They remain based on a host of untested assumptions; worse, they tend to reduce human beings simply to the role of passive victims - helpless spectators in front of unfolding Great Events.
In no other arena has modeling gained so much kudos as in climate change. Back in 2005, spiked forecast that forecasting itself was due for a boom, because of the growing sense of uncertainty suffered by government and business (see All eyes on the future, by James Woudhuysen). This prediction has proved right, but the trend has been reinforced by the way in which models of climate change have become the gold standard upon which all decision-making must be based.
The rise of models has coincided with the evaporation of the concept of human agency, of human beings consciously gaining and applying new insights through struggle. While we're supposed to realise that climate change demands the most profound spiritual and lifestyle revolution for each and every person on the planet, in computer models of the future we are consigned to a fate that is pretty much pre-ordained. Such a view demeans the capabilities of people, distorts policy, and is also simply unrealistic. In the real world, human beings do not wait for things just to happen to them; we react, adapt and innovate around problems as they arise.
Just a third of a century ago, when politics actually meant something, highly regarded analysts derided vapid computerisations of the future. When the Club of Rome published its epoch-making bestseller The Limits to Growth in 1972, reaction was sharp. Christopher Freeman, then director of the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex and doyen of the world's technology policy gurus, satirised the Club's approach as `Malthus with a computer'. The Fall of Man into a world of depleted resources, it was felt, could not be verified by the movement of electrons and punched cards around an IBM mainframe (1).
Things have changed. In October 2006, when Sir Nicholas Stern published his 700-page UK Treasury report on the economics of climate change, he referred more than 500 times to models of climate change and its monetary cost; models of hydrology, crop growth, risk and uncertainty; and models of innovation, technology and energy. Yet rapture, not criticism, was the main reaction to his argument (2).
Why have models taken on such importance in policymaking today? Whatever happened to the healthy scepticism that accompanied the portentous conclusions of models in the past?
During the 1950s and 1960s, the Pentagon notoriously corralled emerging, mathematics-based disciplines - cybernetics, game theory - into the cause of the Cold War. Particularly after the development of the integrated circuit in 1957, computers were also used, in practice and in propaganda, to lend a veneer of respectability to the campaign. Since those years, the prestige of IT has grown. Today's Unbearable Rightness of Foreseeing, then, is the product of both climate catastrophism, and revived chutzpah on the part of those promoting IT.
Even before the dot.com boom of the late 1990s, Shoshana Zuboff's seminal In the Age of the Smart Machine claimed that IT didn't just automate industrial processes, but gave rise to new insights `into functional relationships, states, conditions, trends, likely developments and underlying causes' (3). Today, with the rise of the supposedly all-conquering technologies of Web 2.0 and their dramatic use in Barack Obama's campaign for the Democratic Party nomination, only a few detractors are on hand to sniff about IT's deficiencies.
As solutions to the problem of seeing into the future and providing a vision for it, IT-based methods have gained in credibility. At the same time, the past 20 years have also seen the decline of politics as a vehicle for change. In place of the clashing ideas of left and right have come neutralising, anaesthetic diagnoses and cures. We had think tanks and audits in the 1980s, going on to balanced scorecards and Key Performance Indicators in the 1990s. Until the demise of his government-by-sofa, former UK prime minister Tony Blair had Lord Birt, ex-boss of the BBC and all-round management Dalek, to perform `blue skies' thinking for him on everything from transport to the prison system.
Alongside this managerial approach to every political issue, a New Scientism has sprung up in relation to global warming, converting questions of economic and technological development into matters of physics or climatology - perfect for number-crunching modelers. The main thing about this approach is that it looks hip, modern, cool and unanswerable. But if more people now turn to expose the emperor's new clothes, the profound fatalism that informs the modeler's prognoses about the future will finally come out.
For proof, let's look at the two most recent summaries for policymakers produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In a previous article, we took up the ideas in the summary produced by IPCC Working Group I, Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis (see A man-made morality tale, by James Woudhuysen and Joe Kaplinsky). Now whatever its faults, this summary at least confined itself to the physical science of climate change. But the IPCC's subsequently published Working Group II summary, on the impacts of climate change, adapting to it, and mankind's vulnerability to it, is a very odd document. So is the Working Group III summary on how to mitigate climate change. Each of these summaries is, in fact, an eclectic mish-mash of monolithic computer simulations. Each uses computer models to predict social phenomena - developments quite different from those covered by climatology. (4)
The Working Group II summary runs to 22 pages. Interestingly enough, however, it only deals with how human beings might respond to the impact of climate change on page 17. Most of the summary is devoted to repeating the forecasts of climate science. We learn that sea defences might be a good idea; but then again `altered food and recreational choices', `altered farm practices' and more regulation are also part of the IPCC's oh-so-scientific approach.
The bad news, according to Working Group II, is that climate change itself can slow progress toward sustainable development. We learn, too, that there are `formidable environmental, economic, informational, social, attitudinal and behavioural barriers to implementation of adaptation'; indeed for developing countries, a principal barrier blocking adaptation to climate change is - wait for it! - the fact that they have yet to build the capacity to adjust to climate change. How brilliant is that?
The Working Group II report puts forward six different Emission Scenarios, describing six different possible worlds of the future. The `A2 storyline and scenario family', for example, projects rapid population growth resulting in problems of food supply, coastal flooding and water scarcity for particularly large numbers of people. Here, more population means that the effects of global warming will hit more people. These kinds of banalities have nothing to do with climate science. They are waves of the arm about the economics, psychology and fertility of the future. Broadly, the suggestion is that there is little that the world can do to adapt to climate change.
A similar insouciance marks the Working Group III summary on mitigation, which runs to 35 pages. Economic and political assumptions are there, yet precisely what these are is never made clear, even in the fuller versions of the reports available to date. For example, we are reassured to learn that, by 2030, average CO2 emissions in the Third World are projected to remain substantially lower (2.8-5.1 tonnes of CO2 per head) than those in First World regions (9.6-15.1 tonnes). But where is the natural science in that `projection'?
Working Group III is adamant that changing its projections of population, or using market exchange rates rather than purchasing power parities to compare the GDPs of different countries, are adjustments that conveniently make no difference to the level of greenhouse gas emissions it projects for 2030. On the other hand, we are made to understand that most models of mitigation assume `universal emissions trading. transparent markets, no transaction costs, and thus perfect implementation of mitigation measures throughout the twenty-first century'. These are quite extraordinary assumptions to make.
To conclude, about the only time the IPCC's Working Group III admits the case for human agency is when, on page 16, it acknowledges that the macroeconomic costs of mitigation might be lower if the human species were to engage in technological change. But it is quick to admonish: `However, this may require higher upfront investment in order to achieve costs reductions (sic) thereafter.'
Instead of raising technology to a higher level, the IPCC seems to prefer that motorists adopt what it calls an `efficient driving style'. So while technologies to save the planet are held to be a bit expensive, we're told that changes in lifestyle and behaviour, by contrast, can mitigate climate change `across all sectors'.
Such a view fits in nicely with the low horizons of modern politics. With the IPCC, the modern computer modeler's work is complete. The conclusions are already there in the premises; but the presentation as the product of cold, logical number-crunching ensures that this work will brook no counter-argument.
But there is a counter-argument. We can uphold humanity's talent for taking the future into its own hands. And we can mount our own, humanistic critique of voodoo forecasts. Computer models of the future are both products and producers of political muddle. It's time they were held up to the light, then given the searing interrogation they deserve.
Source
British police want to get tougher: "British police chiefs are demanding the power to lock up terrorism suspects indefinitely. Reopening the debate over detention without trial, the Association of Chief Police Officers called for some suspects to be held for "as long as it takes". The call for longer detention periods came as two suspects in last month's failed bomb attacks in London and Glasgow were released without charge, British police said overnight. The suspects, both thought to be trainee doctors aged 24 and 27, were arrested on July 2. Police have also charged a third person over the bombings. Sabeel Ahmed, of Liverpool, was charged on Saturday with withholding information that could prevent an act of terrorism. The former prime minister Tony Blair was defeated in Parliament two years ago when he tried to introduce a 90-day detention period. Instead, MPs backed an increase to just 28 days. But the association's president, Ken Jones, said police were struggling to operate within the 28-day limit, stressing the global scale of terrorism investigations and the need to arrest suspects early. "We are now arguing for judicially supervised detention for as long as it takes," he told The Observer. "We are up against the buffers on the 28-day limit."
The government faces new embarrassment over Britain’s porous borders with the revelation that one in four terrorist suspects arrested in Britain is an asylum seeker. Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, there have been more than 1,100 arrests under antiterrorism legislation. While some of the most serious threats come from Al-Qaeda supporters born in the UK, there is new evidence of many suspects exploiting loopholes in the country’s immigration laws. It was confirmed last week that Muktar Said Ibrahim, one of the bombers involved in the failed suicide attacks of July 21, 2005, was given a passport even though he had convictions for indecent assault and robbery. Gordon Brown has said an applicant in similar circumstances would not now be granted citizenship.
A Home Office analysis of those arrested under antiterrorism laws from 2001 to 2005 found that almost a quarter – 24%, or 232 out of 963 – had previously applied for asylum. This figure includes failed asylum seekers who should have been removed from the country.
Omar Altimimi, 37, who was jailed for nine years this month at Manchester Crown Court for hoarding computer files on jihadi terrors, illustrates the ease with which Al-Qaeda supporters have been able to remain in the country and fund their activities using Britain’s often chaotic asylum system. Altimimi, a father of three who settled in Bolton, Greater Manchester, used the name Abou Hawas when he first arrived in the country, claiming he was an Iraqi fleeing persecution. In reality, he had come from the Netherlands where he had shared a flat with other extremists. When Altimimi’s asylum application was rejected, he should have been removed from the country. Instead he simply adopted another name. Over a six-year period he was given pay-outs from the National Asylum Support Service and other agencies of more than 100,000 pounds. This income helped support him as he spent hours at his computer, collating material on bomb making and identifying possible targets.
Susan Williams, the leader of Trafford council in Manchester and prospective Conservative candidate for Bolton West, said: “How many more terror sleepers are the British taxpayer funding? It is time we had a full, independent investigation into this appalling situation.”
The estimated backlog of 400,000 failed asylum seekers who have not been removed from the country is said by opposition MPs to be one in a series of systemic failings that undermine the security of Britain’s borders. They complain that while Tony Blair and now Gordon Brown have pledged tough action, not enough has been done. There is still no comprehensive system for checking the identities of people leaving the country. The lax regime was highlighted when Hussain Osman, one of the July 21 bombers, left the country undetected after the failed attacks.
The government has trumpeted the forthcoming introduction of a new electronic system– e-borders – to log all entries and exits. But the programme has been hampered by technical difficulties and it is unlikely to be fully running until 2014.
David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said that while he would welcome any “calm and effective” measures to improve border controls, the government should have acted more quickly to monitor and check people entering and leaving the country. “Our porous borders have got worse under this government,” he said. “It is a straightforward matter for people with criminal or terrorist intent to cross our borders in both directions with almost no control on them.”
Source
Do immigration amnesties work?
A reasonably informative comment from the BBC
A think-tank is calling for an amnesty on illegal immigrants in the UK - with claims that it would bring in 1bn pounds in tax revenue. But what's the record of places where an amnesty has been attempted?
Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal and Holland are among the European countries that have had amnesties in recent years - but the experiences of 20 such "regularisation" exercises have raised as many questions as they have answered. In Spain, there have been five separate amnesties since 1991 - in successive attempts to tax and control the large numbers of illegal workers that have entered the country from North Africa and South America. The initial ruling gave the right to stay to 135,000 illegal residents - but since then a further 1.2m people have been allowed to stay in subsequent amnesties. To be given a legal right to remain, these illegal immigrants had to show that they had lived in the country for more than six months, could support themselves in work and had no criminal records.
Italy has allowed more than 1.5m illegal workers to stay since the 1980s. In its most recent amnesty, in 2006, it gave permits to a further 180,000 people - but the number of applicants was more than 500,000, with no sign that the illegal economy was coming under control. In the United States, longstanding plans to grant legal status to illegal workers have been derailed - leaving 12m people in the shadows. In Malaysia, there was a recent amnesty of sorts, allowing illegal workers to leave the country without punishment - after which anyone remaining could face imprisonment.
From the European experience, the figures suggest that granting an amnesty - or not granting an amnesty - seem to make little difference to the pattern of migrants seeking work, legal or otherwise. What it does reveal is how difficult it is for a modern, globalised economy to put a fence around itself - when there is a highly-mobile workforce and demand for cheap labour.
There might be political pressure for clampdowns on illegal immigration, but putting it into practice is less than straightforward. The IPPR think-tank, which has suggested a amnesty, says it would take three decades to process the deportation of the UK's estimated 500,000 illegal workers - at a cost of 11,000 pounds per person. Such a huge operation - removing almost one in a hundred of the population - is not feasible, says the think-tank. Instead these workers should be taxed - and in return receive the right to remain and the protection of safer working conditions.
But opponents, such as campaign group Migrationwatch, argue that amnesties provide an incentive for further illegal immigration. "It is wrong in principle to reward illegal behaviour," says Migrationwatch. It also argues that "the problems surrounding social housing would be massively exacerbated if the government were to give an amnesty to illegal immigrants".
Both the Labour government and Conservative opposition are unsympathetic to amnesties - arguing they could provide an incentive for further waves of migrants. But there are MPs in both parties that have pushed for a legal status for such "irregular migrants". Labour deputy leadership contender Jon Cruddas and Conservative MP John Bercow both signed a recent early day motion in the House of Commons calling for a two-year work permit for people who had already been working in the UK for four years or more.
The Strangers into Citizens campaign, supported by trade unions and churches, wants to create a "pathway" for illegal immigrants to gain citizenship - giving workers a more dignified and secure future. Trade union leader Jack Dromey argued in a recent speech that there was growing support for a more pragmatic approach to resolving the large numbers of well-established workers who remained illegal. "The people of middle England will listen to new thinking on migration, they do understand that the current approach is failing and that the human costs are horrendous. They understand that the economic and moral case for an 'earned amnesty' for migrants is overwhelming," said Mr Dromey.
But there are deep political tensions over any attempt to resolve the situation of immigrants working illegally - with pressures over public services, housing and the possibility of attracting further illegal migrants.
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One in ten Scottish hospital patients 'suffering infection'
ALMOST one in ten patients in Scottish hospitals is suffering from an infection such as MRSA, a survey suggested yesterday. The new study - thought to be the most comprehensive ever carried out in Europe - found 9.5 per cent of people in acute hospitals had a healthcare associated infection (HAI). And the cost of such infections to the NHS is thought to be at least 183 million pounds a year.
Experts and campaigners last night said that HAIs continued to be a problem because of poor hygiene in hospitals and a lack of isolation facilities. Professor Hugh Pennington, Scotland's leading microbiologist, said more attention was also needed to ensure that only patients who needed antibiotics were receiving them to help tackle drug resistance.
Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish health secretary, yesterday pledged to step up efforts to combat HAIs in light of the latest figures, which give the most accurate picture yet of the issue. This includes the possibility of introducing an MRSA screening programme for those going into hospital.
The new report, by Health Protection Scotland, suggested the rate of HAIs is higher in Scotland than the rest of the UK. A study by the Hospital Infection Society from February to May 2006 found that 8.2 per cent of patients in England had an HAI, 6.3 per cent in Wales and 5.4 per cent in Northern Ireland. Over the same three-month period, the rate in Scotland was 9 per cent. But experts said the differences in rates were most likely due to the more comprehensive nature of the Scottish survey, which covered every acute hospital and a sample of community hospitals.
The HPS report involved teams going into every acute hospital - 45 in total - and a sample of 22 community hospitals between October 2005 and October 2006. There they counted the number of inpatients over the age of 16 with an HAI who were in hospital on the day of the visit. In total, they found 1,103 patients in acute hospitals had an HAI - amounting to 9.5 per cent of all these patients. Of these, 126 had more than one infection. In the sample of non-acute hospitals, they found 157 patients with an HAI, of which seven had more than one. Taken across the country as a whole, this could mean more than 1,800 patients in hospital have an infection at one time.
The report found that Clostridium difficile was the most common bug among infections where researchers had identified the organism, accounting for 17.6 per cent of cases. This was followed by MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) at 17.2 per cent and MSSA (methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus) at 8.9 per cent.
The hospital with the highest HAI rate in Scotland was Stobhill Hospital in Glasgow at 18.3 per cent, followed by Falkirk Royal Infirmary at 17.2 per cent. But the reason for the higher rates may be that these hospitals were surveyed during winter, when infections are more common. Older hospitals have sometimes been blamed for rising rates of infection. But yesterday's figures showed that this was not necessarily the case. The flagship Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, which opened in 2003, had an HAI rate of 11.6 per cent, compared with 6.8 per cent at the much older Southern General Hospital in Glasgow.
Rates also depend on the type of patients treated, with older people more vulnerable. And hospitals also have to deal with patients and their visitors bringing infections in.
Dr Jacqui Reilly, from HPS, said HAIs clearly had an impact on costs to the NHS, adding: "Patients with an HAI stay in hospital 70 per cent longer than those without an HAI." And she said if infections were cut by 30 per cent, the NHS could save 55 million pounds a year. Ms Sturgeon said this money could pay for an extra 8,000 patients to be treated. She added: "It is not good enough that 9.5 per cent of patients in Scottish acute hospitals have some form of HAI. The 183 million cost to the NHS, together with the human cost of HAI is also unacceptable."
Prof Pennington said the key to tackling HAIs was to continue with measures already in place, but to do them better. He added: "At the moment we are just about holding our own, but cases of MRSA are not going down and C difficile is going up. We need to continue to implement policies to control antibiotic prescribing, which contributes to resistance. "The cleaning and hand hygiene must also be a key focus. I am also in favour of screening, but it would need to consider what we do with patients who are carrying the bugs." Prof Pennington said Scotland and the UK in general did not have enough isolation facilities to care for patients with an infection, and added that there was evidence of more virulent strains of infections spreading.
Moya Stevenson, of campaign group MRSA Action UK, said it wanted to see screening for MRSA in hospitals. She added: "Bed occupancy rates have to be reduced within our hospitals and this will reduce quite significantly those rates of infections." Willie Duffy, from health union Unison, said that the quality of cleaning in hospitals had declined since the introduction of competitive tendering of hospital cleaning in the 1980s and the continuing outsourcing of cleaning at PFI hospitals. He added: "It is no coincidence the lowest levels of HAI in the UK are found where there are the lowest levels of contracting out - in Wales."
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Let's fight back against the new Model Army
Like voodoo forecasts, computer models of climate change are being used to stifle political discussion and resign man to his Fate. Given the sad state of history education these days, I guess I should note that the original New Model Army was mostly comprised of Christian fundamentalists, was in part led by Oliver Cromwell and ultimately brought about the beheading of Charles I. So the heading above is basically a pun
Everybody models nowadays. Nothing gives a new forecast, policy or strategy more weight than knowing that it is, in some way, the product of a computer model. The world's top capitalists use models to perform `what if?' exercises on crises and disasters, and to simulate future business growth. Governments bow down to models on all sorts of issues: right now, Britain's chief scientist is modeling the future of UK obesity. Yet computer models are not all they're cracked up to be. They remain based on a host of untested assumptions; worse, they tend to reduce human beings simply to the role of passive victims - helpless spectators in front of unfolding Great Events.
In no other arena has modeling gained so much kudos as in climate change. Back in 2005, spiked forecast that forecasting itself was due for a boom, because of the growing sense of uncertainty suffered by government and business (see All eyes on the future, by James Woudhuysen). This prediction has proved right, but the trend has been reinforced by the way in which models of climate change have become the gold standard upon which all decision-making must be based.
The rise of models has coincided with the evaporation of the concept of human agency, of human beings consciously gaining and applying new insights through struggle. While we're supposed to realise that climate change demands the most profound spiritual and lifestyle revolution for each and every person on the planet, in computer models of the future we are consigned to a fate that is pretty much pre-ordained. Such a view demeans the capabilities of people, distorts policy, and is also simply unrealistic. In the real world, human beings do not wait for things just to happen to them; we react, adapt and innovate around problems as they arise.
Just a third of a century ago, when politics actually meant something, highly regarded analysts derided vapid computerisations of the future. When the Club of Rome published its epoch-making bestseller The Limits to Growth in 1972, reaction was sharp. Christopher Freeman, then director of the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex and doyen of the world's technology policy gurus, satirised the Club's approach as `Malthus with a computer'. The Fall of Man into a world of depleted resources, it was felt, could not be verified by the movement of electrons and punched cards around an IBM mainframe (1).
Things have changed. In October 2006, when Sir Nicholas Stern published his 700-page UK Treasury report on the economics of climate change, he referred more than 500 times to models of climate change and its monetary cost; models of hydrology, crop growth, risk and uncertainty; and models of innovation, technology and energy. Yet rapture, not criticism, was the main reaction to his argument (2).
Why have models taken on such importance in policymaking today? Whatever happened to the healthy scepticism that accompanied the portentous conclusions of models in the past?
During the 1950s and 1960s, the Pentagon notoriously corralled emerging, mathematics-based disciplines - cybernetics, game theory - into the cause of the Cold War. Particularly after the development of the integrated circuit in 1957, computers were also used, in practice and in propaganda, to lend a veneer of respectability to the campaign. Since those years, the prestige of IT has grown. Today's Unbearable Rightness of Foreseeing, then, is the product of both climate catastrophism, and revived chutzpah on the part of those promoting IT.
Even before the dot.com boom of the late 1990s, Shoshana Zuboff's seminal In the Age of the Smart Machine claimed that IT didn't just automate industrial processes, but gave rise to new insights `into functional relationships, states, conditions, trends, likely developments and underlying causes' (3). Today, with the rise of the supposedly all-conquering technologies of Web 2.0 and their dramatic use in Barack Obama's campaign for the Democratic Party nomination, only a few detractors are on hand to sniff about IT's deficiencies.
As solutions to the problem of seeing into the future and providing a vision for it, IT-based methods have gained in credibility. At the same time, the past 20 years have also seen the decline of politics as a vehicle for change. In place of the clashing ideas of left and right have come neutralising, anaesthetic diagnoses and cures. We had think tanks and audits in the 1980s, going on to balanced scorecards and Key Performance Indicators in the 1990s. Until the demise of his government-by-sofa, former UK prime minister Tony Blair had Lord Birt, ex-boss of the BBC and all-round management Dalek, to perform `blue skies' thinking for him on everything from transport to the prison system.
Alongside this managerial approach to every political issue, a New Scientism has sprung up in relation to global warming, converting questions of economic and technological development into matters of physics or climatology - perfect for number-crunching modelers. The main thing about this approach is that it looks hip, modern, cool and unanswerable. But if more people now turn to expose the emperor's new clothes, the profound fatalism that informs the modeler's prognoses about the future will finally come out.
For proof, let's look at the two most recent summaries for policymakers produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In a previous article, we took up the ideas in the summary produced by IPCC Working Group I, Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis (see A man-made morality tale, by James Woudhuysen and Joe Kaplinsky). Now whatever its faults, this summary at least confined itself to the physical science of climate change. But the IPCC's subsequently published Working Group II summary, on the impacts of climate change, adapting to it, and mankind's vulnerability to it, is a very odd document. So is the Working Group III summary on how to mitigate climate change. Each of these summaries is, in fact, an eclectic mish-mash of monolithic computer simulations. Each uses computer models to predict social phenomena - developments quite different from those covered by climatology. (4)
The Working Group II summary runs to 22 pages. Interestingly enough, however, it only deals with how human beings might respond to the impact of climate change on page 17. Most of the summary is devoted to repeating the forecasts of climate science. We learn that sea defences might be a good idea; but then again `altered food and recreational choices', `altered farm practices' and more regulation are also part of the IPCC's oh-so-scientific approach.
The bad news, according to Working Group II, is that climate change itself can slow progress toward sustainable development. We learn, too, that there are `formidable environmental, economic, informational, social, attitudinal and behavioural barriers to implementation of adaptation'; indeed for developing countries, a principal barrier blocking adaptation to climate change is - wait for it! - the fact that they have yet to build the capacity to adjust to climate change. How brilliant is that?
The Working Group II report puts forward six different Emission Scenarios, describing six different possible worlds of the future. The `A2 storyline and scenario family', for example, projects rapid population growth resulting in problems of food supply, coastal flooding and water scarcity for particularly large numbers of people. Here, more population means that the effects of global warming will hit more people. These kinds of banalities have nothing to do with climate science. They are waves of the arm about the economics, psychology and fertility of the future. Broadly, the suggestion is that there is little that the world can do to adapt to climate change.
A similar insouciance marks the Working Group III summary on mitigation, which runs to 35 pages. Economic and political assumptions are there, yet precisely what these are is never made clear, even in the fuller versions of the reports available to date. For example, we are reassured to learn that, by 2030, average CO2 emissions in the Third World are projected to remain substantially lower (2.8-5.1 tonnes of CO2 per head) than those in First World regions (9.6-15.1 tonnes). But where is the natural science in that `projection'?
Working Group III is adamant that changing its projections of population, or using market exchange rates rather than purchasing power parities to compare the GDPs of different countries, are adjustments that conveniently make no difference to the level of greenhouse gas emissions it projects for 2030. On the other hand, we are made to understand that most models of mitigation assume `universal emissions trading. transparent markets, no transaction costs, and thus perfect implementation of mitigation measures throughout the twenty-first century'. These are quite extraordinary assumptions to make.
To conclude, about the only time the IPCC's Working Group III admits the case for human agency is when, on page 16, it acknowledges that the macroeconomic costs of mitigation might be lower if the human species were to engage in technological change. But it is quick to admonish: `However, this may require higher upfront investment in order to achieve costs reductions (sic) thereafter.'
Instead of raising technology to a higher level, the IPCC seems to prefer that motorists adopt what it calls an `efficient driving style'. So while technologies to save the planet are held to be a bit expensive, we're told that changes in lifestyle and behaviour, by contrast, can mitigate climate change `across all sectors'.
Such a view fits in nicely with the low horizons of modern politics. With the IPCC, the modern computer modeler's work is complete. The conclusions are already there in the premises; but the presentation as the product of cold, logical number-crunching ensures that this work will brook no counter-argument.
But there is a counter-argument. We can uphold humanity's talent for taking the future into its own hands. And we can mount our own, humanistic critique of voodoo forecasts. Computer models of the future are both products and producers of political muddle. It's time they were held up to the light, then given the searing interrogation they deserve.
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British police want to get tougher: "British police chiefs are demanding the power to lock up terrorism suspects indefinitely. Reopening the debate over detention without trial, the Association of Chief Police Officers called for some suspects to be held for "as long as it takes". The call for longer detention periods came as two suspects in last month's failed bomb attacks in London and Glasgow were released without charge, British police said overnight. The suspects, both thought to be trainee doctors aged 24 and 27, were arrested on July 2. Police have also charged a third person over the bombings. Sabeel Ahmed, of Liverpool, was charged on Saturday with withholding information that could prevent an act of terrorism. The former prime minister Tony Blair was defeated in Parliament two years ago when he tried to introduce a 90-day detention period. Instead, MPs backed an increase to just 28 days. But the association's president, Ken Jones, said police were struggling to operate within the 28-day limit, stressing the global scale of terrorism investigations and the need to arrest suspects early. "We are now arguing for judicially supervised detention for as long as it takes," he told The Observer. "We are up against the buffers on the 28-day limit."
Monday, July 16, 2007
Is Scotland now run by racists?
In the recent elections for the Scottish parliament, the Scottish National Party (SNP) emerged as Scotland's governing party. As I pointed out recently here however, "nationalism" is usually a snarl word these days. The National Socialist German Worker's Party (Hitler's party) is probably responsible for that. And SNP supporters do call themselves nationalists on occasions.
So is Scotland now run by Nazis? A prominent Scottish public servant seems to think so. We read:
Basically, she is just another abusive Leftist nutcase. Anybody who can confuse the sentimental bourgeoisie who support the SNP with the vicious terror bombers of the Real IRA in Ireland (Omagh) has simply lost touch with reality.
I have myself done survey research into Scottish nationalism and believe that I may have had more academic journal articles published on the subject than almost anyone else. There is a list of them here. So I do know something about that whereof I speak. And the SNP are about as dangerous as a cup of tea. Their only major achievement would seem to be that the kilt is now widely worn on social occasions in Scotland.
Churchill dropped from England's history syllabus
Britain's World War II prime minister Winston Churchill has been cut from a list of key historical figures recommended for teaching in English secondary schools, a government agency says. The radical overhaul of the school curriculum for 11- to 14-year-olds is designed to bring secondary education up to date and allow teachers more flexibility in the subjects they teach, the Government said.
But although Adolf Hitler, Mahatma Gandhi, Joseph Stalin and Martin Luther King have also been dropped from the detailed guidance accompanying the curriculum, Sir Winston's exclusion is likely to leave traditionalists aghast.
A spokesman for the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority said the new curriculum, to be taught from September 2008, does not prescribe to teachers what they must include. But he added: "Teachers know that they need to mention these pivotal figures. They don't need to be instructed by law to mention them in every history class. "Of course, good teachers will be teaching the history of Churchill as part of the history of Britain. The two are indivisible."
Sir Winston's grandson Nicholas Soames, also a Conservative Member of Parliament, described the move as "madness." "It is absurd. I expect he wasn't New Labour enough for them ... this is a Government that is very careless of British history and always has been. "The teaching of history is incredibly important," he added. "If you're surprised that people do not seem to care that much about the country in which they live, the reason is that they don't know much about it."
The History Curriculum Association said it was "appalled" by the move, saying the new curriculum would "promote ignorance" and was pandering to a politically-correct agenda. The Conservatives' schools spokesman Michael Gove added: "Winston Churchill is the towering figure of 20th century British history. "His fight against fascism was Britain's finest hour. Our national story can't be told without Churchill at the centre."
Schools Secretary Ed Balls defended the move, saying a slimmed-down curriculum was overdue and traditional elements in all subjects had been protected. Among the few named figures that stay in the new history curriculum are William Wilberforce, the British law maker who was instrumental in efforts to abolish the slave trade.
Sir Winston, who was British prime minister from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955, was famous for his defiance to the Nazis, stirring oratory and trademark cigar and "V for victory" sign. In 2002, a BBC poll with more than one million votes saw him voted the Greatest Briton of all time.
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Making a Balls-up of British education
As schools minister Ed Balls calls for lessons in emotional and economic wellbeing, it's clear the Brown government is as philistine as the Blairites
Over the past 10 years, New Labour's ministers for education and schools have been remarkably consistent. That is, they have consistently screwed up the school curriculum.
Those who thought that Estelle Morris (UK secretary of state for education and skills from 2001 to 2002) was as bad as it gets must now realise that dumbing down education is part of the job description for school ministers under New Labour. And it looks like Ed Balls, who has been appointed secretary of state for children, schools and families by new PM Gordon Brown, possesses a formidable skill for generating dumb ideas.
Balls' first major initiative, announced last week, was to introduce the teaching of social and emotional skills to schoolchildren. Schools in England will get œ13.7million in government funds to teach pupils manners, respect and good behaviour. So at a time when many children can barely spell `respect', Balls reveals that lessons in emotional intelligence will be the driver of his education revolution.
Last week it was respect - this week it's money-management. Balls has announced that, as part of an overhaul of the Key Stage 3 curriculum for older pupils, 11- to 16-year-olds will be introduced to a new subject: `economic wellbeing and financial capability'. Apparently Balls wants children to learn how to manage their money, since `money plays a crucial part in all our lives'; the aim is to `help youngsters to prepare for financial pressures after leaving school' (1).
Tomorrow, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority will unveil these reforms to the curriculum in full, as more and more worthy issues are recycled as academic subjects. For example, it is likely that there will be further tampering with the geography curriculum, to give it an even `greener interpretation' and an `additional focus on climate change and recycling' (2).
New Labour's pick'n'mix approach to the curriculum is underpinned by a belief that education is far too important to be left to educators, their pupils and families. The government seems to believe that if only schools would teach children enough about sex education, emotional intelligence and respect, then problems like teenage pregnancy, crime and community corrosion might disappear. They simply don't understand that the best way to turn children into inspired and socially responsible citizens is to challenge them through real academic subjects.
You don't need a degree from Harvard to know that a pupil who has grasped basic maths is likely to be better at handling money than a kid who got an A in `economic wellbeing and financial capability'. Decades of experience also show that citizenship classes do not produce brilliant citizens, that sex education does not reduce teenage sexual activity, and that emotional education has not given rise to a cohort of self-aware and confident young people. All that has happened as education has been instrumentalised by New Labour is that teachers and children have been distracted from engaging with the academic subjects that could take their classrooms forward and really prepare children for the future.
New Labour's philistinism towards education can seem contradictory. Both the Blairites and now the Brownites have appeared to have `too little' and `too much' interest in education. They are not very interested in the content of basic subjects like maths, English and science - but they are excessively interested in constantly changing the curriculum to make it reflect the government's policy agenda.
If I were a betting man, I would put my money on there being a further erosion of the important dividing line between education and the promotion of political values.
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The new anti-Semitism in Britain: How the Left reversed history to bring Judaism under attack
On the side of St George's Town Hall in the East End of London, there's a mural commemorating the Battle of Cable Street in 1936, when tens of thousands of Jews and local trades unionists fought side by side to halt a march by Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists. They poured out of the docks, factories and sweat shops to repel the Blackshirts, who were being given an official police escort. Their banners read: They Shall Not Pass.
By the end of the day, the police were forced to withdraw and Mosley's thugs had been routed. It was a crushing defeat, from which the Far Right never really recovered and was pivotal in preventing the cancer of Fascism and anti-Semitism then sweeping Continental Europe from establishing a meaningful foothold in this country.
In my previous incarnation as a young labour and industrial correspondent, I used to drink in the Britannia pub, in Cable Street, with an old friend, Brian Nicholson, former chairman of the transport workers' union, who lived a couple of doors down. From the public bar, a few yards across the square from the old Town Hall, I watched with fascination as the mural was being painted. It took 17 years from conception to completion in 1993 and more than once suffered the indignity of being vandalised by moronic Mosley manques in the National Front and the BNP.
A couple of years ago when the BBC approached me to make what they called an 'authored documentary' on any subject about which I felt passionate, I proposed an investigation into modern anti-Semitism to coincide with the 70th anniversary of Cable Street last October. My thesis was that while the Far Right hasn't gone away, the motive force behind the recent increase in anti-Jewish activity comes from the Fascist Left and the Islamonazis. It was an idea which vanished into the bowels of the commissioning process, never to return. Eventually the Beeb told me that they weren't making any more 'authored documentaries'. I couldn't help wondering what might have happened if I'd put forward a programme on 'Islamophobia'. It would probably have become a six-part, primetime series and I'd have been up for a BAFTA by now.
But I persevered and Channel 4 picked up the project. You can see the results on Monday night. When some people heard I was making the programme, their first reaction was: 'I didn't know you were Jewish.' I'm not, but what's that got to do with the price of gefilte fish? They simply couldn't comprehend why a non-Jew would be in the slightest bit interested in investigating anti-Semitism. If I had been making a film about Islamophobia, no one would have asked me if I was Muslim.
The Labour MP John Mann told me that he experienced exactly the same reaction when he instigated a parliamentary inquiry into anti-Semitism. 'As soon as I set it up, the first MP who commented to me said: "Oh, I didn't know you were Jewish, John."' He isn't, either. But the implication was plainly that the very idea of anti-Semitism is the invention of some vast Jewish conspiracy.
Mann's inquiry reported: 'It is clear that violence, desecration and intimidation directed towards Jews is on the rise. Jews have become more anxious and more vulnerable to attack than at any time for a generation or longer.' That certainly bears out my own findings. After three months filming across Britain, I reached the conclusion: It's open season on the Jews. Ever since 9/11 I've detected an increase in anxiety among Jewish friends and neighbours in my part of North London. As I've always argued: just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they're not out to get you. When I went to address a ladies' charity lunch at a synagogue in Finchley, I was astonished at the level of security. You don't expect to see bouncers in black bomber jackets on the door at a place of worship.
I soon discovered this wasn't unusual. Nor is it confined to London. The Chief Constable of Greater Manchester, Mike Todd, took me out on patrol with his officers and members of the Community Security Trust, which provides protection for the Jewish community. These patrols are mounted every Friday night following a series of unprovoked attacks on Jews on their way to synagogue. We passed a care home surrounded by barbed wire. At the King David School, there are high fences, floodlights, CCTV cameras and fulltime guards. It was the kind of security you associate with a prison. They're even installing bombproof windows in many prominent Jewish institutions and running evacuation drills.
This sounded to me like Cold War panic. Surely it's all a bit over the top? Far from it, said Todd. 'We know that people carry out hostile reconnaissance. You do know that there will be attacks potentially and so what we're trying to do is make it a hostile environment to those people who want to engage in anti-Semitic attacks.'
In the past two years, Manchester police reported a 20 per cent rise in anti-Semitic incidents. I visited a Jewish cemetery in the north of the city which has been repeatedly desecrated - headstones and graves smashed, swastikas daubed on memorials. It was heartbreaking. That type of cowardly vandalism is almost certainly the handiwork of Far Right skinheads. But the more serious threat comes from Islamist extremists. Police and the security services say they have uncovered a series of plots by groups linked to Al Qaeda to attack Jewish targets in Britain.
As Channel 4's own Undercover Mosque documentary exposed earlier this year, anti-Jewish sermons are routinely preached in Britain. Anti-Semitic hatred is beamed in on satellite TV channels and over the internet. On London's Edgware Road, just around the corner from the Blairs' new Connaught Square retirement home, I was able to buy a copy of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, translated into Arabic. It was on open sale alongside the evening paper and the Kit-Kats.
You don't even have to be Jewish to find yourself on the end of anti-Semitic hatred. I met a Jack the Ripper tour guide in East London who was beaten up by a group of Muslim youths, who took one look at his period costume - long black coat and black hat - and assumed he was an Orthodox Jew and therefore deserving of a kicking. They didn't want 'dirty Jews' in 'their' neighbourhood.
During the 2005 General Election, anti-war activists targeted Labour MPs who supported the invasion of Iraq. Fair enough, that's a legitimate enough ambition in a democracy. But in the case of Lorna Fitzsimons, the member for Rochdale, the campaign to unseat her took a sinister turn. An outfit calling itself The Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC) - basically two brothers above a kebab shop - published leaflets 'accusing' her of being Jewish, even though she's not. 'They said I was part of the world neo-Con Zionist conspiracy. I think it's deeply insidious and worrying that they felt there was so much anti-Semitism in the local community that it would galvanise the vote.' In the event, she lost her seat by a few hundred votes and is certain the MPAC smear campaign swung it.
Opposition to the war and loathing of Israel has led the selfstyled 'anti-racist' Left to make common cause with Islamonazis. And 'anti-Zionism' soon tips over into straight- forward anti-Semitism. When The Observer columnist Nick Cohen - who has always considered himself of the Left and, despite the surname, isn't Jewish either - wrote a piece defending the toppling of Saddam he was deluged with hate mail. 'It was amazing anti-Semitism, you know - you're only saying this because you're a Jew.' Cohen has also noticed the casual anti-Jewish sentiment around Left-wing dinner tables and in the salons of Islington. He is appalled by the way in which his old comrades-in-arms have embraced terrorist groups like Hezbollah, one of the most anti-Semitic organisations on Earth.
Check out the way the National Union of Journalists singles out Israel for boycott, even though it has the only free press in the Middle East. Or the academic boycott of Israel by the university lecturers, which as the lawyer Anthony Julius and the law professor Alan Dershowitz argue, goes way beyond legitimate protest. The sheer ferocity and violence of the arguments is nothing more than naked anti-Semitism.
Under the guise of 'anti-Zionism', anti- Semitism is rife on British university campuses. But still the Government refuses to ban groups such as Hizb ut-Tahir, motto: 'Jews will be killed wherever they can be found.' Then there is self-proclaimed 'anti-racist' Ken Livingstone, who said to a Jewish reporter, Oliver Finegold, who approached him outside County Hall: 'What did you do before? Were you a German war criminal?' When Finegold explained that he was Jewish and was deeply offended by the remark, Livingstone compared him to a 'concentration camp guard'. Attempting to justify himself, Livingstone put on his best Kenneth Williams 'Stop Messing About' voice and protested that he wasn't being anti-Jewish since he was rude about everyone. That was his Get Out Of Jail Free gambit. Funny how that excuse didn't work for Bernard Manning [A recently deceased British comedian who used "ethnic" humour].
But under the Macpherson code to which Livingstone subscribes, a racist incident is one which anyone perceives as racist - intended victim or onlooker. It's curious how in multi-cultural, diverse, inclusive, anti-racist Britain, the rules don't seem to extend to the Jews. Livingstone would never have dreamed of being that offensive to a Muslim, or Jamaican, journalist. Any Tory who made similar remarks would have been hounded from office - and Livingstone would have been leading the lynch mob.
Blaming Israel is the last refuge of the anti-Semite. Livingstone insists he's not anti-Jewish, he just opposes the policies of the Israeli government. So perhaps he can explain what the hell the conflict in the Middle East has to do with calling a Jewish reporter a German war criminal and a concentration camp guard? Where exactly does the Palestinian cause fit into that equation?
'If you have people like the Mayor of London crossing the line, then making a half-apology, and stumbling through that, then it gives a message out to the rest of the community. That is why anti-Semitism is on the rise again - because it's become acceptable,' says John Mann, whose parliamentary inquiry team was shocked at the scale and nature of what it unearthed. 'Every single member of our committee was stunned at some of the things they found out. It wasn't a Britain that they recognised. It's almost as if it's a throwback. We thought these were things we'd seen in the past, and we hoped had gone.'
As A Labour MP he's appalled at the way many on the Left have become almost casually and routinely anti-Semitic. 'We wouldn't have seen this ten or 15 years ago. This idea that in some way there's a conspiracy of Jews running the world goes back to the Elders of the Protocols of Zion (a long since discredited book, though still popular in the Muslim world) in the last century. We've seen this before, and now it's resurgent.'
Seventy years after Cable Street, we've gone full circle. The Left who once stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the Jews against the Blackshirts are now in the vanguard of the new anti-Semitism. The Britannia has long since closed and the Jewish community has moved on, but the mural remains. The synagogues have been replaced by mosques. Where the East End was once a hotbed of Far Right extremism, these days it's the stomping ground of George Galloway's Respect Party, a grubby alliance of Islamic extremists and the old Socialist Workers Party - at the heart of the new 'We Are All Hezbollah Now' activism.
While we were shooting the final sequence of next Monday's film in front of the mural, a scruffy-looking bloke wandered out of what used to be the Britannia and now seems to have been turned into some kind of glorified squat. He recognised me, identified himself as a member of Respect, objected to what I was saying to camera and tried to disrupt us. Outnumbered, he shuffled away again, shouting. He did not pass. The Second Battle of Cable Street, it wasn't.
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Don't get breast cancer in Britain
An "alarming" number of patients with suspected breast cancer are waiting too long for a diagnosis, doctors warn. Government targets dictate all suspected breast cancers should be seen by a specialist within two weeks. But a team at Bristol's Frenchay Hospital discovered an increase in the number of positive diagnoses among women deemed to be non-urgent cases. Doctors said the target was failing, but the government said it was looking to improve the situation.
The study published in the British Medical Journal reported that the two-week wait target - from GP referral to consultant appointment - was introduced in 1999 because of long waiting lists for diagnosis and treatment. Doctors at the Breast Care Centre at Frenchay Hospital compared nearly 25,000 urgent and non-urgent referrals - where breast cancer is not suspected but a consultant's opinion is still needed - between 2000 and 2005.
They discovered that the number of women referred urgently by their GP had increased, as expected. But the proportion of cancers detected in those seen within two weeks went down from 12.8% to 7.7%. Meanwhile, the numbers seen as non-urgent cases fell, but the proportion diagnosed with cancer rose from 2.5% to 5.3%.
Lead researcher Simon Cawthorn said the target had been very effective in getting many women seen quickly but that most of the time it was impossible to tell whether a breast lump was cancer or not. "The message is that we need to see everyone within two weeks. "Even though it's only a small number in the routine group, it's a significant number." He added that because the two-week wait rule had improved diagnostic services, GPs were now referring women they would have previously asked to come back to see them in a month or two. "They are having to decide whether it's urgent or not and the thing is you just can't tell."
The team have now invested in two specialist breast nurses and see all patients within two weeks. A Department of Health spokesperson said ministers were looking to improve the situation. "We accept that there will always be some patients who do not come through the two-week wait route, because they do not have obvious symptoms, are detected through screening, or through investigation for other conditions. "In 2005, the government made a manifesto commitment to go further on cancer waits and we are considering proposals to do this as part of the Cancer Reform Strategy due to be published at the end of this year."
Maggie Alexander, director of policy and campaigns at Breakthrough Breast Cancer said all patients should be seen within two weeks. "We have known for some time that many women eventually diagnosed with breast cancer are given a routine referral by their GP, and as a result may endure anxious, long waits to find out if they have breast cancer." Hisham Hamed, Cancer Research UK breast surgeon, said the aim was for all patients to be seen in the shortest possible time and the majority referred did not have breast cancer. "It is important to say that research shows an extra week or two will not compromise the patient's outcome."
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The IVF `miracle maker' is vindicated; Nasty British bureaucrats defeated
Three cheers for the High Court's ruling that the HFEA, Britain's fertility regulator, acted unlawfully in its witch-hunt against Dr Taranissi
Last week, the High Court in London ruled that warrants obtained by the UK Human Fertility and Embryology Authority (HFEA) in January to support raids of the London clinics of top IVF doctor Mohamed Taranissi were unlawful, and therefore invalid. The HFEA is ordered to pay legal costs in the case, which are estimated to be in excess of 1million pounds. As a former patient of Mr Taranissi's - whose groundbreaking IVF treatments helped me, and many other women, to become pregnant and give birth to healthy, beautiful children - I am relieved and happy that my doctor has been vindicated. But I remain appalled that the HFEA pursued such an outrageous, sensationalist and expensive campaign against him in the first place.
The timing of the police-accompanied raids of the ARGC and RGI - Mr Taranissi's clinics - appear to have been the result of a cynical move by the HFEA to hit the headlines at the same time that a BBC Panorama `expos,' of Mr Taranissi's fertility methods and practice was due to be aired. The chief executive of the HFEA, Angela McNab, now accepts that the evidence she provided to the courts in order to obtain the warrant was inadequate and incomplete. The judge who granted permission for the review of the warrants said the HFEA's applications were `unfair and highly misleading'. It seems the HFEA acted quickly so that the raids could be included in the Panorama programme broadcast on the same day, 15 January 2007. After last week's judgment, Evan Harris MP, a member of the Science and Technology Select Committee, expressed concern that `the HFEA allowed a media timetable and presentational issues to conquer better judgement and due process'.
The recent legal debacle is just the latest in a series of heavy-handed, misguided or just plain incompetent actions by the HFEA. The fertility regulatory authority was established in 1991 following the passage of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act of 1990. Its remit is to licence and regulate IVF and other fertility treatments and to oversee research in the field. Since its inception, it has used its powers to interfere in and obstruct the clinical practice and research agendas of doctors, scientists and other specialists.
From `saviour siblings' to animal hybrids, from sex selection to limiting the number of embryo transfers, the HFEA has either erected ethical or bureaucratic obstructions to IVF breakthroughs, or at best encouraged researchers and doctors to proceed with extreme caution. It has continually dragged its feet and prevented progress in the field. It is little wonder, then, that it has consistently clashed with the most cutting-edge and progressive of reproductive clinicians, Mr Taranissi, who has by far the best IVF success rates in Britain. Some refer to him as the IVF `miracle maker'.
There have been numerous calls - from the press and from fertility specialists - for the resignation of Angela McNab for her part in this shambolic affair, not least because of the massive costs involved. There is also some insinuation that she is pursuing a grudge in her vendetta against Mr Taranissi. No doubt there is now very good reason for Ms McNab to consider her position. Yet a change of personnel, even at the very top, will not alter the character of the unelected and seemingly unaccountable HFEA. What is required is a radical overhaul of the way that fertility treatment and research is regulated.
Although there is strong support in the fertility sector for some level of independent regulation, there is also much discontent about the manner in which the HFEA has conducted itself. The British Fertility Society has called for a full investigation by the Department of Health into the HFEA's recent actions, as it is clear that the authority has lost the trust and confidence of the fertility sector. Regulatory reform is certainly in the pipeline: there are plans to merge the HFEA with the Human Tissue Authority in 2008. It remains to be seen whether this will lead to a more liberal system with a greater degree of accountability.
Clearly, the current state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue. That an appointed quango can dupe a judge to allow it to ride roughshod over the rights of a doctor by strong-arming its way into his clinics, terrifying his patients and absconding with his records and computer files in order to stage a dramatic scene for a TV show is - I hope - not the way we ought to conduct government in this country. The HFEA did not even have the decency to apologise to Mr Taranissi for its unlawful actions against him. Instead, its post-trial statements put as positive a `spin' on its actions as it possibly could, and the HFEA proceeded to remind Mr Taranissi and the rest of us that his clinics are still under investigation for breaches of licensing regulations.
The regulation of the fertility sector should not be the authoritarian Big Brother it is in danger of becoming under the auspices of the HFEA. Important policy decisions affecting the sector should properly be made by our elected and accountable representatives in parliament, while the clinical decisions relating to patient treatment should be made between doctors and patients. It is entirely legitimate to call for Ms McNab to resign - but it might be wise to call for the HFEA to be abolished at the same time.
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New IVF wisdom: Autoimmune syndrome can cause infertility
After three failed attempts at IVF, Julia Kantecki began to lose hope that she and her husband Robert would ever conceive a child. "My baby dream was slipping away. I was 40 and fearful of shrivelling into menopause and a childless future," says Julia, 45, a former marketing director. Robert, 56, had had a vasectomy 20 years earlier and IVF was the couple's only chance of having a child together.
Since her mother had had five children without a problem, Julia, who lived in Doncaster at the time, assumed everything would go smoothly. So it came as an enormous disappointment when she failed to become pregnant. The worst part was that the IVF doctors couldn't offer any definitive explanation for the failure. But her experience is far from unusual - although many women assume that the wonders of modern medicine mean they will conceive easily with IVF, in fact the success rate is around 20 per cent. Julia's doctors simply suggested she might get lucky if she kept trying. She did keep trying, twice over - but without any luck.
Conventional medicine holds that IVF failure and miscarriage are the result of hormonal problems, abnormalities of the uterus, genetically defective embryos or ageing eggs. But doctors from the Alan E Beer Center for Reproductive Immunology, in San Francisco, believe they may be caused by a woman's immune system going into overdrive and wrongly attacking her embryos as if they were foreign bodies. The Beer Center, which has treated more than 7,000 couples for fertility-related immune problems, claims a pregnancy success rate of 85 per cent within three natural cycles or IVF attempts.
While on holiday with her mother, Julia visited a clinic run by Dr Beer. She was told that three IVF failures indicated possible immune problems. Blood test results showed that Julia had abnormally high levels of natural "killer" (NK) cells - thought to help keep the body from developing cancer - and harmful antibodies that doctors at the clinic said were attacking her embryos. "They told me that my body was treating pregnancy as if it was dealing with a cancer and killing my babies before they'd had time to implant in my uterus properly," says Julia. An added complication was an inherited clotting disorder making her susceptible to developing blood clots in the placenta, which could also endanger her embryos.
The good news, one of the nurses told her, was that they knew exactly how to treat these conditions. With the right medications, she stood an 80 per cent chance of having a baby.
It was in the Eighties that Alan Beer, an academic who had trained in immunology and obstetrics, began to suspect that NK cells produced by an over-active immune system could damage embryos and cause implantation failure. He tested women who were miscarrying and suffering IVF failure and found that they had abnormally high levels of NK cells. These, he believed, could attack both the developing embryo and hormones essential to maintain pregnancy. "When women tell me they're always healthy and never get infections, alarm bells start ringing since it suggests their immune systems are working overtime," says Dr Raphael Stricker, who took over as medical director of the Beer Center after the death of Dr Beer last year.
The theory is that this can be redressed artificially, with drugs. "Immune therapy for reproductive failure is a temporary measure. "It's designed to replicate the natural suppression of the immune system at the very beginning of a normal pregnancy," explains Dr Stricker. "The drugs involved are taken for the least amount of time and prescribed at the lowest doses possible."
For Julia, the Beer Center's theories were a revelation. "I was shocked that my body might be such a non-baby friendly environment," she says. "Symptoms like the mild arthritis I had in my fingers, which is also apparently an immune problem, now made sense. "It all sounded too good to be true - but it was worth a try."
She returned home with her first prescription for the drugs, but her GP dismissed the treatment as "unorthodox". Among the UK medical establishment, such methods are regarded as at best unproven and at worst akin to "snake oil". The concern is that vulnerable women undergoing such unproven treatments risk being financially exploited and exposed to potentially dangerous drugs. However, the consultant she saw at Doncaster Royal Infirmary was, says Julia, more "open-minded" and agreed to prescribe the drugs privately.
A few weeks before undergoing her next IVF cycle, she was given a course of prednisolone - a corticosteroid that would suppress her immune system and stop it attacking the embryo - and heparin injections to thin her blood, which would prevent blood clots from blocking the placenta. Three embryos were transferred and two weeks later, she got the result she had waited so long to hear. "To my absolute, total disbelief and delight, the test was positive," she recalls. "At first I was a bit stunned. Robert and I both cried later when the news sank in that I was really pregnant." To their amazement, successive scans revealed a good-sized baby with a strong, regular heart beat.
Even after the pregnancy was achieved it was vital she continued to take the drugs to prevent her NK cells from increasing and killing her growing baby. Julia's consultant assured her that the dose was very low and would have no effect on her baby. Towards the end of the pregnancy her intake of prednisone was gradually reduced and, a few weeks before the anticipated delivery date, she stopped taking the bloodthinning anticoagulant, in case doctors needed to perform an emergency Caesarean. In August 2003, Julia gave birth to her son Thomas.
Her experiences inspired her to help other women find out more about reproductive immunology and she approached Dr Beer with the idea of writing a book - they called it Is Your Body Baby Friendly? Dr Beer died in May 2006, just after its completion. "Without Dr Beer's determination to identify the immune reactions that cause reproductive failure and his pioneering use of immunotherapy, our son would not be here," says Julia. "The debt we owe him is immeasurable."
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In the recent elections for the Scottish parliament, the Scottish National Party (SNP) emerged as Scotland's governing party. As I pointed out recently here however, "nationalism" is usually a snarl word these days. The National Socialist German Worker's Party (Hitler's party) is probably responsible for that. And SNP supporters do call themselves nationalists on occasions.
So is Scotland now run by Nazis? A prominent Scottish public servant seems to think so. We read:
"A top civil servant who once compared the SNP to the Omagh bombers has quit weeks after the Nationalists' win in the Holyrood election. Susan Dalgety, one of the key officials in charge of the Scottish Executive's Malawi initiative, has walked away after Labour's defeat last month. She has refused to comment on whether her departure is linked to her describing the SNP as being full of "oddballs" and "out-and-out racists".
However, she was said to be "gutted" after the SNP won last month's Holyrood election and was unsure whether she had a future under the Nationalist administration.
Her Labour loyalties and queasy attitude towards the SNP are said to have informed her decision to quit last week. The Sunday Herald understands her resignation was made around the same time her new bosses were reminded about a column she wrote before joining the Executive. Written in 1998, when she was a Labour councillor, Dalgety stated: "I detest the Scottish National Party and everything it stands for."
She continued: "Scratch below the almost acceptable surface of Smarmy Alex Salmond and his small band of MPs and his barmy army is exposed as an assortment of oddballs, extremists and out-and-out racists."
Dalgety then compared the SNP to the IRA: "We need to look no further than the butchery of Omagh to see for ourselves what happens when nationalism gets out of control. Innocent children die."
She concluded: "Readers might find my gut reaction to the SNP overdramatic, but I love Scotland too much to stand by and watch it succumb to the intolerant, adolescent demands of bigots."
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Basically, she is just another abusive Leftist nutcase. Anybody who can confuse the sentimental bourgeoisie who support the SNP with the vicious terror bombers of the Real IRA in Ireland (Omagh) has simply lost touch with reality.
I have myself done survey research into Scottish nationalism and believe that I may have had more academic journal articles published on the subject than almost anyone else. There is a list of them here. So I do know something about that whereof I speak. And the SNP are about as dangerous as a cup of tea. Their only major achievement would seem to be that the kilt is now widely worn on social occasions in Scotland.
Churchill dropped from England's history syllabus
Britain's World War II prime minister Winston Churchill has been cut from a list of key historical figures recommended for teaching in English secondary schools, a government agency says. The radical overhaul of the school curriculum for 11- to 14-year-olds is designed to bring secondary education up to date and allow teachers more flexibility in the subjects they teach, the Government said.
But although Adolf Hitler, Mahatma Gandhi, Joseph Stalin and Martin Luther King have also been dropped from the detailed guidance accompanying the curriculum, Sir Winston's exclusion is likely to leave traditionalists aghast.
A spokesman for the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority said the new curriculum, to be taught from September 2008, does not prescribe to teachers what they must include. But he added: "Teachers know that they need to mention these pivotal figures. They don't need to be instructed by law to mention them in every history class. "Of course, good teachers will be teaching the history of Churchill as part of the history of Britain. The two are indivisible."
Sir Winston's grandson Nicholas Soames, also a Conservative Member of Parliament, described the move as "madness." "It is absurd. I expect he wasn't New Labour enough for them ... this is a Government that is very careless of British history and always has been. "The teaching of history is incredibly important," he added. "If you're surprised that people do not seem to care that much about the country in which they live, the reason is that they don't know much about it."
The History Curriculum Association said it was "appalled" by the move, saying the new curriculum would "promote ignorance" and was pandering to a politically-correct agenda. The Conservatives' schools spokesman Michael Gove added: "Winston Churchill is the towering figure of 20th century British history. "His fight against fascism was Britain's finest hour. Our national story can't be told without Churchill at the centre."
Schools Secretary Ed Balls defended the move, saying a slimmed-down curriculum was overdue and traditional elements in all subjects had been protected. Among the few named figures that stay in the new history curriculum are William Wilberforce, the British law maker who was instrumental in efforts to abolish the slave trade.
Sir Winston, who was British prime minister from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955, was famous for his defiance to the Nazis, stirring oratory and trademark cigar and "V for victory" sign. In 2002, a BBC poll with more than one million votes saw him voted the Greatest Briton of all time.
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Making a Balls-up of British education
As schools minister Ed Balls calls for lessons in emotional and economic wellbeing, it's clear the Brown government is as philistine as the Blairites
Over the past 10 years, New Labour's ministers for education and schools have been remarkably consistent. That is, they have consistently screwed up the school curriculum.
Those who thought that Estelle Morris (UK secretary of state for education and skills from 2001 to 2002) was as bad as it gets must now realise that dumbing down education is part of the job description for school ministers under New Labour. And it looks like Ed Balls, who has been appointed secretary of state for children, schools and families by new PM Gordon Brown, possesses a formidable skill for generating dumb ideas.
Balls' first major initiative, announced last week, was to introduce the teaching of social and emotional skills to schoolchildren. Schools in England will get œ13.7million in government funds to teach pupils manners, respect and good behaviour. So at a time when many children can barely spell `respect', Balls reveals that lessons in emotional intelligence will be the driver of his education revolution.
Last week it was respect - this week it's money-management. Balls has announced that, as part of an overhaul of the Key Stage 3 curriculum for older pupils, 11- to 16-year-olds will be introduced to a new subject: `economic wellbeing and financial capability'. Apparently Balls wants children to learn how to manage their money, since `money plays a crucial part in all our lives'; the aim is to `help youngsters to prepare for financial pressures after leaving school' (1).
Tomorrow, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority will unveil these reforms to the curriculum in full, as more and more worthy issues are recycled as academic subjects. For example, it is likely that there will be further tampering with the geography curriculum, to give it an even `greener interpretation' and an `additional focus on climate change and recycling' (2).
New Labour's pick'n'mix approach to the curriculum is underpinned by a belief that education is far too important to be left to educators, their pupils and families. The government seems to believe that if only schools would teach children enough about sex education, emotional intelligence and respect, then problems like teenage pregnancy, crime and community corrosion might disappear. They simply don't understand that the best way to turn children into inspired and socially responsible citizens is to challenge them through real academic subjects.
You don't need a degree from Harvard to know that a pupil who has grasped basic maths is likely to be better at handling money than a kid who got an A in `economic wellbeing and financial capability'. Decades of experience also show that citizenship classes do not produce brilliant citizens, that sex education does not reduce teenage sexual activity, and that emotional education has not given rise to a cohort of self-aware and confident young people. All that has happened as education has been instrumentalised by New Labour is that teachers and children have been distracted from engaging with the academic subjects that could take their classrooms forward and really prepare children for the future.
New Labour's philistinism towards education can seem contradictory. Both the Blairites and now the Brownites have appeared to have `too little' and `too much' interest in education. They are not very interested in the content of basic subjects like maths, English and science - but they are excessively interested in constantly changing the curriculum to make it reflect the government's policy agenda.
If I were a betting man, I would put my money on there being a further erosion of the important dividing line between education and the promotion of political values.
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The new anti-Semitism in Britain: How the Left reversed history to bring Judaism under attack
On the side of St George's Town Hall in the East End of London, there's a mural commemorating the Battle of Cable Street in 1936, when tens of thousands of Jews and local trades unionists fought side by side to halt a march by Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists. They poured out of the docks, factories and sweat shops to repel the Blackshirts, who were being given an official police escort. Their banners read: They Shall Not Pass.
By the end of the day, the police were forced to withdraw and Mosley's thugs had been routed. It was a crushing defeat, from which the Far Right never really recovered and was pivotal in preventing the cancer of Fascism and anti-Semitism then sweeping Continental Europe from establishing a meaningful foothold in this country.
In my previous incarnation as a young labour and industrial correspondent, I used to drink in the Britannia pub, in Cable Street, with an old friend, Brian Nicholson, former chairman of the transport workers' union, who lived a couple of doors down. From the public bar, a few yards across the square from the old Town Hall, I watched with fascination as the mural was being painted. It took 17 years from conception to completion in 1993 and more than once suffered the indignity of being vandalised by moronic Mosley manques in the National Front and the BNP.
A couple of years ago when the BBC approached me to make what they called an 'authored documentary' on any subject about which I felt passionate, I proposed an investigation into modern anti-Semitism to coincide with the 70th anniversary of Cable Street last October. My thesis was that while the Far Right hasn't gone away, the motive force behind the recent increase in anti-Jewish activity comes from the Fascist Left and the Islamonazis. It was an idea which vanished into the bowels of the commissioning process, never to return. Eventually the Beeb told me that they weren't making any more 'authored documentaries'. I couldn't help wondering what might have happened if I'd put forward a programme on 'Islamophobia'. It would probably have become a six-part, primetime series and I'd have been up for a BAFTA by now.
But I persevered and Channel 4 picked up the project. You can see the results on Monday night. When some people heard I was making the programme, their first reaction was: 'I didn't know you were Jewish.' I'm not, but what's that got to do with the price of gefilte fish? They simply couldn't comprehend why a non-Jew would be in the slightest bit interested in investigating anti-Semitism. If I had been making a film about Islamophobia, no one would have asked me if I was Muslim.
The Labour MP John Mann told me that he experienced exactly the same reaction when he instigated a parliamentary inquiry into anti-Semitism. 'As soon as I set it up, the first MP who commented to me said: "Oh, I didn't know you were Jewish, John."' He isn't, either. But the implication was plainly that the very idea of anti-Semitism is the invention of some vast Jewish conspiracy.
Mann's inquiry reported: 'It is clear that violence, desecration and intimidation directed towards Jews is on the rise. Jews have become more anxious and more vulnerable to attack than at any time for a generation or longer.' That certainly bears out my own findings. After three months filming across Britain, I reached the conclusion: It's open season on the Jews. Ever since 9/11 I've detected an increase in anxiety among Jewish friends and neighbours in my part of North London. As I've always argued: just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they're not out to get you. When I went to address a ladies' charity lunch at a synagogue in Finchley, I was astonished at the level of security. You don't expect to see bouncers in black bomber jackets on the door at a place of worship.
I soon discovered this wasn't unusual. Nor is it confined to London. The Chief Constable of Greater Manchester, Mike Todd, took me out on patrol with his officers and members of the Community Security Trust, which provides protection for the Jewish community. These patrols are mounted every Friday night following a series of unprovoked attacks on Jews on their way to synagogue. We passed a care home surrounded by barbed wire. At the King David School, there are high fences, floodlights, CCTV cameras and fulltime guards. It was the kind of security you associate with a prison. They're even installing bombproof windows in many prominent Jewish institutions and running evacuation drills.
This sounded to me like Cold War panic. Surely it's all a bit over the top? Far from it, said Todd. 'We know that people carry out hostile reconnaissance. You do know that there will be attacks potentially and so what we're trying to do is make it a hostile environment to those people who want to engage in anti-Semitic attacks.'
In the past two years, Manchester police reported a 20 per cent rise in anti-Semitic incidents. I visited a Jewish cemetery in the north of the city which has been repeatedly desecrated - headstones and graves smashed, swastikas daubed on memorials. It was heartbreaking. That type of cowardly vandalism is almost certainly the handiwork of Far Right skinheads. But the more serious threat comes from Islamist extremists. Police and the security services say they have uncovered a series of plots by groups linked to Al Qaeda to attack Jewish targets in Britain.
As Channel 4's own Undercover Mosque documentary exposed earlier this year, anti-Jewish sermons are routinely preached in Britain. Anti-Semitic hatred is beamed in on satellite TV channels and over the internet. On London's Edgware Road, just around the corner from the Blairs' new Connaught Square retirement home, I was able to buy a copy of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, translated into Arabic. It was on open sale alongside the evening paper and the Kit-Kats.
You don't even have to be Jewish to find yourself on the end of anti-Semitic hatred. I met a Jack the Ripper tour guide in East London who was beaten up by a group of Muslim youths, who took one look at his period costume - long black coat and black hat - and assumed he was an Orthodox Jew and therefore deserving of a kicking. They didn't want 'dirty Jews' in 'their' neighbourhood.
During the 2005 General Election, anti-war activists targeted Labour MPs who supported the invasion of Iraq. Fair enough, that's a legitimate enough ambition in a democracy. But in the case of Lorna Fitzsimons, the member for Rochdale, the campaign to unseat her took a sinister turn. An outfit calling itself The Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC) - basically two brothers above a kebab shop - published leaflets 'accusing' her of being Jewish, even though she's not. 'They said I was part of the world neo-Con Zionist conspiracy. I think it's deeply insidious and worrying that they felt there was so much anti-Semitism in the local community that it would galvanise the vote.' In the event, she lost her seat by a few hundred votes and is certain the MPAC smear campaign swung it.
Opposition to the war and loathing of Israel has led the selfstyled 'anti-racist' Left to make common cause with Islamonazis. And 'anti-Zionism' soon tips over into straight- forward anti-Semitism. When The Observer columnist Nick Cohen - who has always considered himself of the Left and, despite the surname, isn't Jewish either - wrote a piece defending the toppling of Saddam he was deluged with hate mail. 'It was amazing anti-Semitism, you know - you're only saying this because you're a Jew.' Cohen has also noticed the casual anti-Jewish sentiment around Left-wing dinner tables and in the salons of Islington. He is appalled by the way in which his old comrades-in-arms have embraced terrorist groups like Hezbollah, one of the most anti-Semitic organisations on Earth.
Check out the way the National Union of Journalists singles out Israel for boycott, even though it has the only free press in the Middle East. Or the academic boycott of Israel by the university lecturers, which as the lawyer Anthony Julius and the law professor Alan Dershowitz argue, goes way beyond legitimate protest. The sheer ferocity and violence of the arguments is nothing more than naked anti-Semitism.
Under the guise of 'anti-Zionism', anti- Semitism is rife on British university campuses. But still the Government refuses to ban groups such as Hizb ut-Tahir, motto: 'Jews will be killed wherever they can be found.' Then there is self-proclaimed 'anti-racist' Ken Livingstone, who said to a Jewish reporter, Oliver Finegold, who approached him outside County Hall: 'What did you do before? Were you a German war criminal?' When Finegold explained that he was Jewish and was deeply offended by the remark, Livingstone compared him to a 'concentration camp guard'. Attempting to justify himself, Livingstone put on his best Kenneth Williams 'Stop Messing About' voice and protested that he wasn't being anti-Jewish since he was rude about everyone. That was his Get Out Of Jail Free gambit. Funny how that excuse didn't work for Bernard Manning [A recently deceased British comedian who used "ethnic" humour].
But under the Macpherson code to which Livingstone subscribes, a racist incident is one which anyone perceives as racist - intended victim or onlooker. It's curious how in multi-cultural, diverse, inclusive, anti-racist Britain, the rules don't seem to extend to the Jews. Livingstone would never have dreamed of being that offensive to a Muslim, or Jamaican, journalist. Any Tory who made similar remarks would have been hounded from office - and Livingstone would have been leading the lynch mob.
Blaming Israel is the last refuge of the anti-Semite. Livingstone insists he's not anti-Jewish, he just opposes the policies of the Israeli government. So perhaps he can explain what the hell the conflict in the Middle East has to do with calling a Jewish reporter a German war criminal and a concentration camp guard? Where exactly does the Palestinian cause fit into that equation?
'If you have people like the Mayor of London crossing the line, then making a half-apology, and stumbling through that, then it gives a message out to the rest of the community. That is why anti-Semitism is on the rise again - because it's become acceptable,' says John Mann, whose parliamentary inquiry team was shocked at the scale and nature of what it unearthed. 'Every single member of our committee was stunned at some of the things they found out. It wasn't a Britain that they recognised. It's almost as if it's a throwback. We thought these were things we'd seen in the past, and we hoped had gone.'
As A Labour MP he's appalled at the way many on the Left have become almost casually and routinely anti-Semitic. 'We wouldn't have seen this ten or 15 years ago. This idea that in some way there's a conspiracy of Jews running the world goes back to the Elders of the Protocols of Zion (a long since discredited book, though still popular in the Muslim world) in the last century. We've seen this before, and now it's resurgent.'
Seventy years after Cable Street, we've gone full circle. The Left who once stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the Jews against the Blackshirts are now in the vanguard of the new anti-Semitism. The Britannia has long since closed and the Jewish community has moved on, but the mural remains. The synagogues have been replaced by mosques. Where the East End was once a hotbed of Far Right extremism, these days it's the stomping ground of George Galloway's Respect Party, a grubby alliance of Islamic extremists and the old Socialist Workers Party - at the heart of the new 'We Are All Hezbollah Now' activism.
While we were shooting the final sequence of next Monday's film in front of the mural, a scruffy-looking bloke wandered out of what used to be the Britannia and now seems to have been turned into some kind of glorified squat. He recognised me, identified himself as a member of Respect, objected to what I was saying to camera and tried to disrupt us. Outnumbered, he shuffled away again, shouting. He did not pass. The Second Battle of Cable Street, it wasn't.
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Don't get breast cancer in Britain
An "alarming" number of patients with suspected breast cancer are waiting too long for a diagnosis, doctors warn. Government targets dictate all suspected breast cancers should be seen by a specialist within two weeks. But a team at Bristol's Frenchay Hospital discovered an increase in the number of positive diagnoses among women deemed to be non-urgent cases. Doctors said the target was failing, but the government said it was looking to improve the situation.
The study published in the British Medical Journal reported that the two-week wait target - from GP referral to consultant appointment - was introduced in 1999 because of long waiting lists for diagnosis and treatment. Doctors at the Breast Care Centre at Frenchay Hospital compared nearly 25,000 urgent and non-urgent referrals - where breast cancer is not suspected but a consultant's opinion is still needed - between 2000 and 2005.
They discovered that the number of women referred urgently by their GP had increased, as expected. But the proportion of cancers detected in those seen within two weeks went down from 12.8% to 7.7%. Meanwhile, the numbers seen as non-urgent cases fell, but the proportion diagnosed with cancer rose from 2.5% to 5.3%.
Lead researcher Simon Cawthorn said the target had been very effective in getting many women seen quickly but that most of the time it was impossible to tell whether a breast lump was cancer or not. "The message is that we need to see everyone within two weeks. "Even though it's only a small number in the routine group, it's a significant number." He added that because the two-week wait rule had improved diagnostic services, GPs were now referring women they would have previously asked to come back to see them in a month or two. "They are having to decide whether it's urgent or not and the thing is you just can't tell."
The team have now invested in two specialist breast nurses and see all patients within two weeks. A Department of Health spokesperson said ministers were looking to improve the situation. "We accept that there will always be some patients who do not come through the two-week wait route, because they do not have obvious symptoms, are detected through screening, or through investigation for other conditions. "In 2005, the government made a manifesto commitment to go further on cancer waits and we are considering proposals to do this as part of the Cancer Reform Strategy due to be published at the end of this year."
Maggie Alexander, director of policy and campaigns at Breakthrough Breast Cancer said all patients should be seen within two weeks. "We have known for some time that many women eventually diagnosed with breast cancer are given a routine referral by their GP, and as a result may endure anxious, long waits to find out if they have breast cancer." Hisham Hamed, Cancer Research UK breast surgeon, said the aim was for all patients to be seen in the shortest possible time and the majority referred did not have breast cancer. "It is important to say that research shows an extra week or two will not compromise the patient's outcome."
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The IVF `miracle maker' is vindicated; Nasty British bureaucrats defeated
Three cheers for the High Court's ruling that the HFEA, Britain's fertility regulator, acted unlawfully in its witch-hunt against Dr Taranissi
Last week, the High Court in London ruled that warrants obtained by the UK Human Fertility and Embryology Authority (HFEA) in January to support raids of the London clinics of top IVF doctor Mohamed Taranissi were unlawful, and therefore invalid. The HFEA is ordered to pay legal costs in the case, which are estimated to be in excess of 1million pounds. As a former patient of Mr Taranissi's - whose groundbreaking IVF treatments helped me, and many other women, to become pregnant and give birth to healthy, beautiful children - I am relieved and happy that my doctor has been vindicated. But I remain appalled that the HFEA pursued such an outrageous, sensationalist and expensive campaign against him in the first place.
The timing of the police-accompanied raids of the ARGC and RGI - Mr Taranissi's clinics - appear to have been the result of a cynical move by the HFEA to hit the headlines at the same time that a BBC Panorama `expos,' of Mr Taranissi's fertility methods and practice was due to be aired. The chief executive of the HFEA, Angela McNab, now accepts that the evidence she provided to the courts in order to obtain the warrant was inadequate and incomplete. The judge who granted permission for the review of the warrants said the HFEA's applications were `unfair and highly misleading'. It seems the HFEA acted quickly so that the raids could be included in the Panorama programme broadcast on the same day, 15 January 2007. After last week's judgment, Evan Harris MP, a member of the Science and Technology Select Committee, expressed concern that `the HFEA allowed a media timetable and presentational issues to conquer better judgement and due process'.
The recent legal debacle is just the latest in a series of heavy-handed, misguided or just plain incompetent actions by the HFEA. The fertility regulatory authority was established in 1991 following the passage of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act of 1990. Its remit is to licence and regulate IVF and other fertility treatments and to oversee research in the field. Since its inception, it has used its powers to interfere in and obstruct the clinical practice and research agendas of doctors, scientists and other specialists.
From `saviour siblings' to animal hybrids, from sex selection to limiting the number of embryo transfers, the HFEA has either erected ethical or bureaucratic obstructions to IVF breakthroughs, or at best encouraged researchers and doctors to proceed with extreme caution. It has continually dragged its feet and prevented progress in the field. It is little wonder, then, that it has consistently clashed with the most cutting-edge and progressive of reproductive clinicians, Mr Taranissi, who has by far the best IVF success rates in Britain. Some refer to him as the IVF `miracle maker'.
There have been numerous calls - from the press and from fertility specialists - for the resignation of Angela McNab for her part in this shambolic affair, not least because of the massive costs involved. There is also some insinuation that she is pursuing a grudge in her vendetta against Mr Taranissi. No doubt there is now very good reason for Ms McNab to consider her position. Yet a change of personnel, even at the very top, will not alter the character of the unelected and seemingly unaccountable HFEA. What is required is a radical overhaul of the way that fertility treatment and research is regulated.
Although there is strong support in the fertility sector for some level of independent regulation, there is also much discontent about the manner in which the HFEA has conducted itself. The British Fertility Society has called for a full investigation by the Department of Health into the HFEA's recent actions, as it is clear that the authority has lost the trust and confidence of the fertility sector. Regulatory reform is certainly in the pipeline: there are plans to merge the HFEA with the Human Tissue Authority in 2008. It remains to be seen whether this will lead to a more liberal system with a greater degree of accountability.
Clearly, the current state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue. That an appointed quango can dupe a judge to allow it to ride roughshod over the rights of a doctor by strong-arming its way into his clinics, terrifying his patients and absconding with his records and computer files in order to stage a dramatic scene for a TV show is - I hope - not the way we ought to conduct government in this country. The HFEA did not even have the decency to apologise to Mr Taranissi for its unlawful actions against him. Instead, its post-trial statements put as positive a `spin' on its actions as it possibly could, and the HFEA proceeded to remind Mr Taranissi and the rest of us that his clinics are still under investigation for breaches of licensing regulations.
The regulation of the fertility sector should not be the authoritarian Big Brother it is in danger of becoming under the auspices of the HFEA. Important policy decisions affecting the sector should properly be made by our elected and accountable representatives in parliament, while the clinical decisions relating to patient treatment should be made between doctors and patients. It is entirely legitimate to call for Ms McNab to resign - but it might be wise to call for the HFEA to be abolished at the same time.
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New IVF wisdom: Autoimmune syndrome can cause infertility
After three failed attempts at IVF, Julia Kantecki began to lose hope that she and her husband Robert would ever conceive a child. "My baby dream was slipping away. I was 40 and fearful of shrivelling into menopause and a childless future," says Julia, 45, a former marketing director. Robert, 56, had had a vasectomy 20 years earlier and IVF was the couple's only chance of having a child together.
Since her mother had had five children without a problem, Julia, who lived in Doncaster at the time, assumed everything would go smoothly. So it came as an enormous disappointment when she failed to become pregnant. The worst part was that the IVF doctors couldn't offer any definitive explanation for the failure. But her experience is far from unusual - although many women assume that the wonders of modern medicine mean they will conceive easily with IVF, in fact the success rate is around 20 per cent. Julia's doctors simply suggested she might get lucky if she kept trying. She did keep trying, twice over - but without any luck.
Conventional medicine holds that IVF failure and miscarriage are the result of hormonal problems, abnormalities of the uterus, genetically defective embryos or ageing eggs. But doctors from the Alan E Beer Center for Reproductive Immunology, in San Francisco, believe they may be caused by a woman's immune system going into overdrive and wrongly attacking her embryos as if they were foreign bodies. The Beer Center, which has treated more than 7,000 couples for fertility-related immune problems, claims a pregnancy success rate of 85 per cent within three natural cycles or IVF attempts.
While on holiday with her mother, Julia visited a clinic run by Dr Beer. She was told that three IVF failures indicated possible immune problems. Blood test results showed that Julia had abnormally high levels of natural "killer" (NK) cells - thought to help keep the body from developing cancer - and harmful antibodies that doctors at the clinic said were attacking her embryos. "They told me that my body was treating pregnancy as if it was dealing with a cancer and killing my babies before they'd had time to implant in my uterus properly," says Julia. An added complication was an inherited clotting disorder making her susceptible to developing blood clots in the placenta, which could also endanger her embryos.
The good news, one of the nurses told her, was that they knew exactly how to treat these conditions. With the right medications, she stood an 80 per cent chance of having a baby.
It was in the Eighties that Alan Beer, an academic who had trained in immunology and obstetrics, began to suspect that NK cells produced by an over-active immune system could damage embryos and cause implantation failure. He tested women who were miscarrying and suffering IVF failure and found that they had abnormally high levels of NK cells. These, he believed, could attack both the developing embryo and hormones essential to maintain pregnancy. "When women tell me they're always healthy and never get infections, alarm bells start ringing since it suggests their immune systems are working overtime," says Dr Raphael Stricker, who took over as medical director of the Beer Center after the death of Dr Beer last year.
The theory is that this can be redressed artificially, with drugs. "Immune therapy for reproductive failure is a temporary measure. "It's designed to replicate the natural suppression of the immune system at the very beginning of a normal pregnancy," explains Dr Stricker. "The drugs involved are taken for the least amount of time and prescribed at the lowest doses possible."
For Julia, the Beer Center's theories were a revelation. "I was shocked that my body might be such a non-baby friendly environment," she says. "Symptoms like the mild arthritis I had in my fingers, which is also apparently an immune problem, now made sense. "It all sounded too good to be true - but it was worth a try."
She returned home with her first prescription for the drugs, but her GP dismissed the treatment as "unorthodox". Among the UK medical establishment, such methods are regarded as at best unproven and at worst akin to "snake oil". The concern is that vulnerable women undergoing such unproven treatments risk being financially exploited and exposed to potentially dangerous drugs. However, the consultant she saw at Doncaster Royal Infirmary was, says Julia, more "open-minded" and agreed to prescribe the drugs privately.
A few weeks before undergoing her next IVF cycle, she was given a course of prednisolone - a corticosteroid that would suppress her immune system and stop it attacking the embryo - and heparin injections to thin her blood, which would prevent blood clots from blocking the placenta. Three embryos were transferred and two weeks later, she got the result she had waited so long to hear. "To my absolute, total disbelief and delight, the test was positive," she recalls. "At first I was a bit stunned. Robert and I both cried later when the news sank in that I was really pregnant." To their amazement, successive scans revealed a good-sized baby with a strong, regular heart beat.
Even after the pregnancy was achieved it was vital she continued to take the drugs to prevent her NK cells from increasing and killing her growing baby. Julia's consultant assured her that the dose was very low and would have no effect on her baby. Towards the end of the pregnancy her intake of prednisone was gradually reduced and, a few weeks before the anticipated delivery date, she stopped taking the bloodthinning anticoagulant, in case doctors needed to perform an emergency Caesarean. In August 2003, Julia gave birth to her son Thomas.
Her experiences inspired her to help other women find out more about reproductive immunology and she approached Dr Beer with the idea of writing a book - they called it Is Your Body Baby Friendly? Dr Beer died in May 2006, just after its completion. "Without Dr Beer's determination to identify the immune reactions that cause reproductive failure and his pioneering use of immunotherapy, our son would not be here," says Julia. "The debt we owe him is immeasurable."
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Sunday, July 15, 2007
Shock! Cars are "greener" than trains
Amusing that British trains weigh twice as much as Japanese trains! What a lot of oiks the Brits have become under the influence of socialism and its related pathologies!
It can be greener to drive than catch the train, according to a rail industry study which reveals that trains are losing their environmental advantage. Modern diesel-powered trains are so polluting that a family of three or more would be responsible for at least double the carbon dioxide emissions on many routes when travelling by rail compared with driving in a typical medium-sized car. The study concludes that the Virgin Voyager, the most advanced diesel train on the network, has the highest emissions of any British train and that its performance compared with cars is steadily worsening as motor manufacturers improve efficiency.
The study, commissioned by the Rail Safety and Standards Board, urges the Government to electrify key sections of the rail network to allow greener electric trains to replace diesel ones. On several long-distance routes, such as London to Hull, diesel trains run long distances under electric wires because short stretches of track have not been electrified.
Only 40 per of Britain's rail network is electrified, the lowest proportion of any large European country. The best-performing electric trains are operated by GNER between London and Edinburgh and emit only 40g of CO2 per passenger-kilometre (g/pkm) compared with 112g/pkm for Voyagers. By 2022, more efficient power generation will have reduced the emissions of the GNER trains to 28g/pkm. But the emissions of the Voyagers, which are only five years old and are due to remain in service until after 2030, will be unchanged. On present trends, emissions from the average car will have been reduced from 131g/pkm to 98g/pkm by 2022. The numbers are based on the existing average passenger loads on cars and trains. Cars carry an average of 1.6 people and, across the whole day, a third of train seats are occupied.
The study says: "As the efficiency of cars progressively increases, the difference in emissions between cars and high-performance trains will narrow and it will be increasingly difficult to make an environmental case for transferring people on to diesel-powered railways." Its author, Roger Kemp, Professor of Engineering at Lancaster University, said that the Government should focus on attracting business travellers, rather than families, to rail. "It's not politically correct to say so, but the Government is better off encouraging families into low-emission cars and getting business people, who tend to travel alone in large cars, to catch the train."
Professor Kemp said that he was sceptical about the experimental running of trains on biodiesel, made from plants. "I'm very doubtful of the claims made for biofuels because the overall CO2 can be even greater once you take into account what is emitted in production." He said that modern trains tended to be less efficient than older ones because they were much heavier. Safety regulations have added to the weight by requiring more robust bodies and crumple zones. New trains also carry more equipment, such as air-conditioning and motors for sliding doors, and have space-consuming lavatories for disabled passengers. Britain's long-distance trains typically weigh more than a tonne per seat. By contrast, Japan's bullet trains weigh only 500kg per seat as they are made using lighter, more advanced materials.
The Government is expected to address the environmental challenge facing the railways in a 30-year strategy being published this month. Ministers have already admitted that some trains on rural lines, such as the diesel Sprinter, are less efficient than 4x4s because they are often almost empty. Douglas Alexander, when he was Transport Secretary, said last year: "If ten or fewer people travel in a Sprinter, it would be less environmentally damaging to give them each a Land Rover Freelander and tell them to drive." An official at the Department for Transport said that the strategy would not set specific targets on electrifying more of the network because of uncertainty over how much electricity would be generated in future from low-emission sources. Some companies which operate electric trains, such as Virgin West Coast and C2C, carry systems that allow them to capture and reuse the energy usually lost during braking.
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Dumb gets yet dumber in Britain
Britain's Leftist government will not be happy until British education is totally destroyed -- in aid of making everyone "equal" of course
Pupils taking GCSE [Middle school] exams will be asked multiple choice questions for the first time and be allowed to take unlimited resits. It has also emerged that, under a planned overhaul of the system, up to half of GCSE English marks would be awarded for basic skills such as punctuation. The planned reform of the exam system has fuelled accusations that testing standards are being lowered. Bethan Marshall, a senior lecturer in English education at King's College London, told the Times Educational Supplement: "If you make 50 per cent of the GCSE about doing the basics, you are dumbing down. "The subject is about so much more than being able to communicate accurately. And if you're still doing basic skills at GCSE level, Heaven help you. It's pretty boring."
Ministers said last night that the overhaul was an attempt to ensure all school-leavers gain basic numeracy and literacy skills. Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, denied reducing GCSE English to "primary school level" and insisted that the changes would ensure that pupils who passed were ready for the workplace. He added that students would still be required to have "deep and broad subject knowledge".
Under the revamped exam system, maths and information and communication technology students would potentially be awarded up to 50 per cent of the total marks for under standing the basics, known as "functional skills". One suggested question for an English test reportedly asks pupils which word is spelt incorrectly in the sentence: "Be careful, the kettel is hot."
Michael Gove, the Shadow Children's Minister, said: "The idea that 16-year-olds should be tested on how to spell "kettle" and the principle that this exam should be based on tick-box multiple choice tests undermine any claim to higher standards. "Ministers need to get a grip if these exams are to be genuinely testing." The Department for Children, Schools and Families said that no decision had been made on the 50 per cent figure, and emphasised that the reforms were subject to pilot tests.
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"Honor killings" in Britain no longer to be played down because of political correctness
A RACIAL equality group has branded as 'obvious' calls to by-pass political correctness in investigating so-called 'honour killings'. The comments come in response to those made by MP for Bromley and Chislehurst Bob Neill last Wednesday.
So-called honour killings are when a member of a racial group kills a family member to preserve their 'honour' if they fall in love with someone from a different racial group. Mr Neill quizzed the outgoing Attorney General Lord Goldsmith over whether he thought that honour killings should be a top priority for police. The senior lawyer said that he was concerned that police were not "robust" enough in tackling the crime.
It is believed that police are re-examining around 2,000 deaths and murders between 1996 and 2006 on the basis that they may have been honour killings. Speaking afterwards Mr Neill said: "All homicide, whatever the motive, should have the same priority. The very idea that there is anything honourable about these crimes is based on a flawed ideology that has no place in our society."
Director of Bromley's Racial Equality Council, Ali Jafarey, said: "That's obvious. It's just common sense. Who would agree with such behaviour? The Tories are becoming a bit obsessed with political correctness."
Borough Commander of Bromley police, Charles Griggs, said: "The tragic killing of Banaz Mahmod has demonstrated the need for a robust approach in the way we investigate violence within the home. However, murder is murder wherever it occurs and I can promise you that our approach, whilst respecting people's beliefs and cultures, will be firm, thorough and fair."
Mr Neill added: "Lives may have been lost as a result of political correctness and I really hope that the police take a lead from Lord Goldsmith and that the new national strategy begins to redress the current problems. "I also welcome Lord Goldsmith's admission that such "honour killings" are particularly bad as young women must be able to rely on family support. That is a fundamental belief in any just society."
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Laser improves corneal transplants
Patients who need sight-saving eye surgery could get their vision back more quickly and avoid infection with a revolutionary laser-surgery technique, surgeons say. Corneal graft surgery, one of the earliest forms of transplant operation, has been performed for more than 100 years without any fundamental changes to the methods used. But although the operation itself is fairly straightforward, recovery often takes a long time.
By using the latest technology designed for laser eye surgery, surgeons can now achieve a better fit for grafts, putting the pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle and helping to accelerate the healing process. Patients can recover perfect vision with or without their spectacles or contact lenses after about six months, roughly halving the recovery time.
The surgery involves the removal of the central part of the cornea, the clear front window of the eye, and its replacement with a corneal graft - about only 0.5mm thick - from a donor. Traditionally surgeons have done this under the microscope using a "cookie-cutter" knife, with the circular graft being secured to the eye with tiny stitches. But the latest femtosecond lasers can cut the cornea into a precise tongue-and-groove pattern to achieve a better fit with the graft, meaning that surgeons need to use fewer sutures and can remove them more quickly after the operation.
Each pulse of light from the lasers is extremely short, lasting only 50 to 1,000 femtoseconds (or quadrillionths of a second). These ultra-short pulses are too brief to transfer heat or shock to the material being cut, which means that extremely fine cuts can be made with no damage to surrounding tissue.
Previously, patients have had to attend regular check-ups for at least a year to ensure that the stitches did not slip out of place and allow bacteria to infect the eye. Sheraz Daya, an eye surgeon who has pioneered the use of the technique in Britain at the Centre for Sight clinic in East Grinstead, West Sussex, said that patients also recovered their sight more quickly than usual after the operation. Of six NHS and private patients whom Mr Daya has operated on using the technique, most recovered perfect vision after six months, he said, including two who now no longer need to wear spectacles.
He suggests that the lasers could be used in about half of the 2,500 corneal transplant operations carried out in Britain each year. "Rather than trying to attach the flat surface of the eye to a flat surface, with the femtosecond laser we can precisely cut the graft to fit on the eye, forming a stronger bond," Mr Daya told The Times. "This means fewer stitches are required, and they can be taken out after just a few months. Patients can cut down on the time off work and also recover their vision quicker, as it is usually fuzzy or misty in the affected eye until the cornea settles down. Most get an acceptable degree of vision back within three months, which becomes perfect by about six months." Dr Daya added that the new technique also reduced the chances of fragile cornea grafts being torn during the cutting process.
Larry Benjamin, honorary secretary of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists and an eye surgeon at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, in Buckinghamshire, said that the new technique could also avoid astigmatism, where the transplanted cornea becomes misshapen, producing blurred images, and may require further surgery.
Source
"Fat tax" proposal shows a severe case of imaginitis
Once you make unproven assuptions, all sorts of crazy conclusions are possible. More crazy epidemiology
A "fat tax" on salty, sugary and fatty foods could save thousands of lives each year, according to a study published on Thursday. Researchers at Oxford University say that charging Value Added Tax (VAT) at 17.5 percent on foods deemed to be unhealthy would cut consumer demand and reduce the number of heart attacks and strokes. The purchase tax is already levied on a small number of products such as potato crisps, ice cream, confectionery and chocolate biscuits, but most food is exempt.
The move could save an estimated 3,200 lives in Britain each year, according to the study in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. "A well-designed and carefully-targeted fat tax could be a useful tool for reducing the burden of food-related disease," the study concluded. The team from Oxford's Department of Public Health said higher taxes have already been imposed on cigarettes and alcohol to encourage healthy living. They used a mathematical formula to estimate the effect of higher prices on the demand for foods such as pastries, cakes, cheese and butter.
However, they said their research only gave a rough guide to the number of lives that could be saved and said more work was needed to get an exact picture of how taxes could improve public health. Any "fat tax" might be seen as an attack on personal freedom and would weigh more heavily on poorer families, the study warned. A food tax would raise average weekly household bills by 4.6 percent or 67 pence per person.
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has previously rejected the idea as an example of the "nanny state" that might push people away from healthy food.
The Food and Drink Federation has called the proposed tax patronizing and says it would hit low-income families hardest. It suggests that people eat a balanced diet. The British Heart Foundation said it does not support the tax. "We believe the government should focus on ensuring healthy foods are financially and geographically accessible to everyone," it said.
Source
NHS aged-care "lottery"
An "unjustifiable postcode lottery" means that some elderly people are 160 times more likely than others to get long-term care paid for by their local authority, according to a report.
Age Concern found that Derby City Primary Care Trust paid for seven people to be looked after last year, or 0.26 people per 10,000, while Harrow PCT funded the care for 826 people, or 41.75 people per 10,000. Age Concern said that this was despite Harrow having a younger population. "Individuals face a postcode lottery in getting NHS continuing care. There can be no justification for such huge variations," Gordon Lishman, director general of the charity, said.
From October 1, a national framework will exist for PCT staff to determine who receives continuing care, in which the NHS fully funds care outside hospital. The new criteria should increase the numbers of people receiving continuing care by about 7,000, at a cost of œ220 million.
Source
Controversial BBC chief knew that footage of Her Majesty was misleading: "Peter Fincham, the controller of BBC One, was facing a battle to save his job yesterday after the corporation's Director-General described the edited footage of the Queen shown to the media as "incorrect and misleading". Mark Thompson said that he planned to introduce a series of measures to tighten standards after the error, which Mr Fincham was forced to admit having known about on Wednesday evening, although he did not apologise until Thursday. Mr Fincham's fate will most likely be decided by a meeting on Wednesday of the corporation's regulator, the BBC Trust, for which Mr Thompson has been asked to provide a full report as to how pictures of the Queen walking into a photo shoot came to be presented as footage of her storming out."
Amusing that British trains weigh twice as much as Japanese trains! What a lot of oiks the Brits have become under the influence of socialism and its related pathologies!
It can be greener to drive than catch the train, according to a rail industry study which reveals that trains are losing their environmental advantage. Modern diesel-powered trains are so polluting that a family of three or more would be responsible for at least double the carbon dioxide emissions on many routes when travelling by rail compared with driving in a typical medium-sized car. The study concludes that the Virgin Voyager, the most advanced diesel train on the network, has the highest emissions of any British train and that its performance compared with cars is steadily worsening as motor manufacturers improve efficiency.
The study, commissioned by the Rail Safety and Standards Board, urges the Government to electrify key sections of the rail network to allow greener electric trains to replace diesel ones. On several long-distance routes, such as London to Hull, diesel trains run long distances under electric wires because short stretches of track have not been electrified.
Only 40 per of Britain's rail network is electrified, the lowest proportion of any large European country. The best-performing electric trains are operated by GNER between London and Edinburgh and emit only 40g of CO2 per passenger-kilometre (g/pkm) compared with 112g/pkm for Voyagers. By 2022, more efficient power generation will have reduced the emissions of the GNER trains to 28g/pkm. But the emissions of the Voyagers, which are only five years old and are due to remain in service until after 2030, will be unchanged. On present trends, emissions from the average car will have been reduced from 131g/pkm to 98g/pkm by 2022. The numbers are based on the existing average passenger loads on cars and trains. Cars carry an average of 1.6 people and, across the whole day, a third of train seats are occupied.
The study says: "As the efficiency of cars progressively increases, the difference in emissions between cars and high-performance trains will narrow and it will be increasingly difficult to make an environmental case for transferring people on to diesel-powered railways." Its author, Roger Kemp, Professor of Engineering at Lancaster University, said that the Government should focus on attracting business travellers, rather than families, to rail. "It's not politically correct to say so, but the Government is better off encouraging families into low-emission cars and getting business people, who tend to travel alone in large cars, to catch the train."
Professor Kemp said that he was sceptical about the experimental running of trains on biodiesel, made from plants. "I'm very doubtful of the claims made for biofuels because the overall CO2 can be even greater once you take into account what is emitted in production." He said that modern trains tended to be less efficient than older ones because they were much heavier. Safety regulations have added to the weight by requiring more robust bodies and crumple zones. New trains also carry more equipment, such as air-conditioning and motors for sliding doors, and have space-consuming lavatories for disabled passengers. Britain's long-distance trains typically weigh more than a tonne per seat. By contrast, Japan's bullet trains weigh only 500kg per seat as they are made using lighter, more advanced materials.
The Government is expected to address the environmental challenge facing the railways in a 30-year strategy being published this month. Ministers have already admitted that some trains on rural lines, such as the diesel Sprinter, are less efficient than 4x4s because they are often almost empty. Douglas Alexander, when he was Transport Secretary, said last year: "If ten or fewer people travel in a Sprinter, it would be less environmentally damaging to give them each a Land Rover Freelander and tell them to drive." An official at the Department for Transport said that the strategy would not set specific targets on electrifying more of the network because of uncertainty over how much electricity would be generated in future from low-emission sources. Some companies which operate electric trains, such as Virgin West Coast and C2C, carry systems that allow them to capture and reuse the energy usually lost during braking.
Source
Dumb gets yet dumber in Britain
Britain's Leftist government will not be happy until British education is totally destroyed -- in aid of making everyone "equal" of course
Pupils taking GCSE [Middle school] exams will be asked multiple choice questions for the first time and be allowed to take unlimited resits. It has also emerged that, under a planned overhaul of the system, up to half of GCSE English marks would be awarded for basic skills such as punctuation. The planned reform of the exam system has fuelled accusations that testing standards are being lowered. Bethan Marshall, a senior lecturer in English education at King's College London, told the Times Educational Supplement: "If you make 50 per cent of the GCSE about doing the basics, you are dumbing down. "The subject is about so much more than being able to communicate accurately. And if you're still doing basic skills at GCSE level, Heaven help you. It's pretty boring."
Ministers said last night that the overhaul was an attempt to ensure all school-leavers gain basic numeracy and literacy skills. Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, denied reducing GCSE English to "primary school level" and insisted that the changes would ensure that pupils who passed were ready for the workplace. He added that students would still be required to have "deep and broad subject knowledge".
Under the revamped exam system, maths and information and communication technology students would potentially be awarded up to 50 per cent of the total marks for under standing the basics, known as "functional skills". One suggested question for an English test reportedly asks pupils which word is spelt incorrectly in the sentence: "Be careful, the kettel is hot."
Michael Gove, the Shadow Children's Minister, said: "The idea that 16-year-olds should be tested on how to spell "kettle" and the principle that this exam should be based on tick-box multiple choice tests undermine any claim to higher standards. "Ministers need to get a grip if these exams are to be genuinely testing." The Department for Children, Schools and Families said that no decision had been made on the 50 per cent figure, and emphasised that the reforms were subject to pilot tests.
Source
"Honor killings" in Britain no longer to be played down because of political correctness
A RACIAL equality group has branded as 'obvious' calls to by-pass political correctness in investigating so-called 'honour killings'. The comments come in response to those made by MP for Bromley and Chislehurst Bob Neill last Wednesday.
So-called honour killings are when a member of a racial group kills a family member to preserve their 'honour' if they fall in love with someone from a different racial group. Mr Neill quizzed the outgoing Attorney General Lord Goldsmith over whether he thought that honour killings should be a top priority for police. The senior lawyer said that he was concerned that police were not "robust" enough in tackling the crime.
It is believed that police are re-examining around 2,000 deaths and murders between 1996 and 2006 on the basis that they may have been honour killings. Speaking afterwards Mr Neill said: "All homicide, whatever the motive, should have the same priority. The very idea that there is anything honourable about these crimes is based on a flawed ideology that has no place in our society."
Director of Bromley's Racial Equality Council, Ali Jafarey, said: "That's obvious. It's just common sense. Who would agree with such behaviour? The Tories are becoming a bit obsessed with political correctness."
Borough Commander of Bromley police, Charles Griggs, said: "The tragic killing of Banaz Mahmod has demonstrated the need for a robust approach in the way we investigate violence within the home. However, murder is murder wherever it occurs and I can promise you that our approach, whilst respecting people's beliefs and cultures, will be firm, thorough and fair."
Mr Neill added: "Lives may have been lost as a result of political correctness and I really hope that the police take a lead from Lord Goldsmith and that the new national strategy begins to redress the current problems. "I also welcome Lord Goldsmith's admission that such "honour killings" are particularly bad as young women must be able to rely on family support. That is a fundamental belief in any just society."
Source
Laser improves corneal transplants
Patients who need sight-saving eye surgery could get their vision back more quickly and avoid infection with a revolutionary laser-surgery technique, surgeons say. Corneal graft surgery, one of the earliest forms of transplant operation, has been performed for more than 100 years without any fundamental changes to the methods used. But although the operation itself is fairly straightforward, recovery often takes a long time.
By using the latest technology designed for laser eye surgery, surgeons can now achieve a better fit for grafts, putting the pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle and helping to accelerate the healing process. Patients can recover perfect vision with or without their spectacles or contact lenses after about six months, roughly halving the recovery time.
The surgery involves the removal of the central part of the cornea, the clear front window of the eye, and its replacement with a corneal graft - about only 0.5mm thick - from a donor. Traditionally surgeons have done this under the microscope using a "cookie-cutter" knife, with the circular graft being secured to the eye with tiny stitches. But the latest femtosecond lasers can cut the cornea into a precise tongue-and-groove pattern to achieve a better fit with the graft, meaning that surgeons need to use fewer sutures and can remove them more quickly after the operation.
Each pulse of light from the lasers is extremely short, lasting only 50 to 1,000 femtoseconds (or quadrillionths of a second). These ultra-short pulses are too brief to transfer heat or shock to the material being cut, which means that extremely fine cuts can be made with no damage to surrounding tissue.
Previously, patients have had to attend regular check-ups for at least a year to ensure that the stitches did not slip out of place and allow bacteria to infect the eye. Sheraz Daya, an eye surgeon who has pioneered the use of the technique in Britain at the Centre for Sight clinic in East Grinstead, West Sussex, said that patients also recovered their sight more quickly than usual after the operation. Of six NHS and private patients whom Mr Daya has operated on using the technique, most recovered perfect vision after six months, he said, including two who now no longer need to wear spectacles.
He suggests that the lasers could be used in about half of the 2,500 corneal transplant operations carried out in Britain each year. "Rather than trying to attach the flat surface of the eye to a flat surface, with the femtosecond laser we can precisely cut the graft to fit on the eye, forming a stronger bond," Mr Daya told The Times. "This means fewer stitches are required, and they can be taken out after just a few months. Patients can cut down on the time off work and also recover their vision quicker, as it is usually fuzzy or misty in the affected eye until the cornea settles down. Most get an acceptable degree of vision back within three months, which becomes perfect by about six months." Dr Daya added that the new technique also reduced the chances of fragile cornea grafts being torn during the cutting process.
Larry Benjamin, honorary secretary of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists and an eye surgeon at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, in Buckinghamshire, said that the new technique could also avoid astigmatism, where the transplanted cornea becomes misshapen, producing blurred images, and may require further surgery.
Source
"Fat tax" proposal shows a severe case of imaginitis
Once you make unproven assuptions, all sorts of crazy conclusions are possible. More crazy epidemiology
A "fat tax" on salty, sugary and fatty foods could save thousands of lives each year, according to a study published on Thursday. Researchers at Oxford University say that charging Value Added Tax (VAT) at 17.5 percent on foods deemed to be unhealthy would cut consumer demand and reduce the number of heart attacks and strokes. The purchase tax is already levied on a small number of products such as potato crisps, ice cream, confectionery and chocolate biscuits, but most food is exempt.
The move could save an estimated 3,200 lives in Britain each year, according to the study in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. "A well-designed and carefully-targeted fat tax could be a useful tool for reducing the burden of food-related disease," the study concluded. The team from Oxford's Department of Public Health said higher taxes have already been imposed on cigarettes and alcohol to encourage healthy living. They used a mathematical formula to estimate the effect of higher prices on the demand for foods such as pastries, cakes, cheese and butter.
However, they said their research only gave a rough guide to the number of lives that could be saved and said more work was needed to get an exact picture of how taxes could improve public health. Any "fat tax" might be seen as an attack on personal freedom and would weigh more heavily on poorer families, the study warned. A food tax would raise average weekly household bills by 4.6 percent or 67 pence per person.
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has previously rejected the idea as an example of the "nanny state" that might push people away from healthy food.
The Food and Drink Federation has called the proposed tax patronizing and says it would hit low-income families hardest. It suggests that people eat a balanced diet. The British Heart Foundation said it does not support the tax. "We believe the government should focus on ensuring healthy foods are financially and geographically accessible to everyone," it said.
Source
NHS aged-care "lottery"
An "unjustifiable postcode lottery" means that some elderly people are 160 times more likely than others to get long-term care paid for by their local authority, according to a report.
Age Concern found that Derby City Primary Care Trust paid for seven people to be looked after last year, or 0.26 people per 10,000, while Harrow PCT funded the care for 826 people, or 41.75 people per 10,000. Age Concern said that this was despite Harrow having a younger population. "Individuals face a postcode lottery in getting NHS continuing care. There can be no justification for such huge variations," Gordon Lishman, director general of the charity, said.
From October 1, a national framework will exist for PCT staff to determine who receives continuing care, in which the NHS fully funds care outside hospital. The new criteria should increase the numbers of people receiving continuing care by about 7,000, at a cost of œ220 million.
Source
Controversial BBC chief knew that footage of Her Majesty was misleading: "Peter Fincham, the controller of BBC One, was facing a battle to save his job yesterday after the corporation's Director-General described the edited footage of the Queen shown to the media as "incorrect and misleading". Mark Thompson said that he planned to introduce a series of measures to tighten standards after the error, which Mr Fincham was forced to admit having known about on Wednesday evening, although he did not apologise until Thursday. Mr Fincham's fate will most likely be decided by a meeting on Wednesday of the corporation's regulator, the BBC Trust, for which Mr Thompson has been asked to provide a full report as to how pictures of the Queen walking into a photo shoot came to be presented as footage of her storming out."
Saturday, July 14, 2007
BBC CAUGHT OUT AGAIN
It is to be expected that the far-Leftists at the BBC would be hostile to the monarchy. It is a tribute to the Queen that she has given them no real ammunition
THE BBC has apologised to Queen Elizabeth for wrongly implying that she had stormed out of a photo shoot with American celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz. The British broadcaster backtracked on its implication that the monarch had lost her temper when asked to remove her crown.
The story became headline news around the world after a promotional trailer for a BBC documentary A Year with the Queen, due to be shown later this year, was shown to journalists. "In this trailer there is a sequence that implies that the Queen left a sitting prematurely," it said. "This was not the case and the actual sequence of events was misrepresented. "The BBC would like to apologise to both the Queen and Annie Leibowitz for any upset this may have caused."
Source
Huge error rate in NHS hospitals
Almost 25,000 hospital patients were the victims of reported medical errors last year, leading to death and serious injury in some cases. The National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA), which revealed the figures, has issued new guidelines on patient wristbands after more than 2,900 errors were attributed to cases of mistaken identity. Hospitals in England and Wales currently use a variety of bands, with colours or codes meaning different things. Some hospitals even use handwritten tags. But the NPSA said these bands must now be standardised across the country in order to cut down on errors, which are thought to be widely under-reported in the NHS.
It has received reports of patients being placed in the wrong wards and given the wrong medication and blood. Some of these mistakes could have been lethal, the watchdog admitted. Up to 30,000 patients are estimated to die every year due to avoidable medical errors. But the true scale of the problem is largely unknown due to a reluctance by NHS staff to report mistakes and near-misses.
A statement on the NPSA website said yesterday: "Between February 2006 and January 2007, the NPSA received 24,382 reports of patients being mismatched with their care. "It is estimated that more than 2,900 of these related to wristbands and their use." The errors referred to by the Agency could include patients being given the wrong surgery, medication, or tests with potentially life-threatening consequences.
The NPSA said that no further breakdown of the figures for last year was available. The agency, designed to collect data on patient safety, was denounced last year as "dysfunctional" by the Public Accounts Committee, because it had no idea how many patients died each year as a result of medical errors. It subsequently reported that 41,000 medication errors had been recorded between July 2005 to July 2006, which caused 36 deaths. A further 2,000 patients suffered "moderate or severe harm."
In 2005, the National Audit Office reported that nearly one million errors or safety lapses had occurred in the previous year, causing 2,000 deaths. Half of the incidents could have been avoided if staff had learnt from past mistakes, the auditor said.
More here
NHS GIVES SUBSTANDARD ATTENTION TO HEART PROBLEMS
The way in which people with heart failure are treated on the NHS has been criticised by an independent inspector. A report from the Healthcare Commission says it is concerned about the extent of access patients have to the appropriate tests, drugs and specialist care.
Heart failure, which costs the NHS 625 million pounds per year, affects 900,000 people in the UK, with the "extremely debilitating" condition killing 40 per cent of sufferers within the first year of diagnosis. It most commonly arises following heart attacks or high blood pressure and reduces the amount of blood the heart is able to pump around the body.
The Healthcare Commission claims that the condition's symptoms of tiredness, shortness of breath and swollen ankles and feet are hindering treatment by being confused with less-serious health problems. In the report, the watchdog's chief executive Anna Walker noted the "very positive" progress made since it conducted its last heart failure report in 2003/04. But she goes on to say that "not all those that need treatment are getting it". "Primary care trusts and GPs need to monitor the number of patients they deal with in comparison to national statistics. Symptoms and treatments need to be recorded and followed up by GPs. "The care provided also needs to be audited so lessons can be learnt and improvements made."
Of the 303 primary care trusts evaluated in today's report, just 16 were rated 'excellent' in terms of treatment, with one in seven given a rating of 'weak'. Commenting on the report, the British Heart Foundation's (BHF) Jackie Lodge said the way in which heart failure is treated on the NHS "cannot continue" and called for more specialist nurses to be employed on the health service. "This cannot continue," she claimed. "The BHF believes every heart-failure patient has a right to be given high-quality care so they can manage their condition and symptoms and maximise their quality of life."
Source
There is no "need" for immigrants
Theodore Dalrymple, who has lived among Muslims - in Afghanistan and Africa, I mean, not just in France and England - and who said after 9/11 something to the effect that he'd personally rather be in a souk in Tangiers than a strip mall in Jersey, has a very shrewd piece in The Los Angeles Times. I was struck especially by this bit:
The plain fact of the matter is that British society could get by perfectly well without the contribution even of moderate Muslims. The only thing we really want from Muslims is their oil money for bank deposits, to prop up London property prices and to sustain the luxury market; their cheap labor that we imported in the 1960s in a vain effort to bolster the dying textile industry, which could not find local labor, is now redundant.
In other words, the economic rationale for mass immigration turned out to be bogus: Muslims came in huge numbers to do "the jobs Britons won't do" and be textile workers in northern English towns. Thirty years later, there are no textile mills, but those northern English towns are Muslim.
The economic argument for mass immigration is always reductionist, simply because people do not think of themselves as solely (or even principally) economic entities. The government may see immigrants as textile workers or bus drivers or even neurosurgeons, but what matters is how those individuals see themselves - and as Europe has discovered a significant segment of that population has embraced a core identity unrelated to textile mills, NHS hospitals or any other economic enterprise.
Source
It is to be expected that the far-Leftists at the BBC would be hostile to the monarchy. It is a tribute to the Queen that she has given them no real ammunition
THE BBC has apologised to Queen Elizabeth for wrongly implying that she had stormed out of a photo shoot with American celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz. The British broadcaster backtracked on its implication that the monarch had lost her temper when asked to remove her crown.
The story became headline news around the world after a promotional trailer for a BBC documentary A Year with the Queen, due to be shown later this year, was shown to journalists. "In this trailer there is a sequence that implies that the Queen left a sitting prematurely," it said. "This was not the case and the actual sequence of events was misrepresented. "The BBC would like to apologise to both the Queen and Annie Leibowitz for any upset this may have caused."
Source
Huge error rate in NHS hospitals
Almost 25,000 hospital patients were the victims of reported medical errors last year, leading to death and serious injury in some cases. The National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA), which revealed the figures, has issued new guidelines on patient wristbands after more than 2,900 errors were attributed to cases of mistaken identity. Hospitals in England and Wales currently use a variety of bands, with colours or codes meaning different things. Some hospitals even use handwritten tags. But the NPSA said these bands must now be standardised across the country in order to cut down on errors, which are thought to be widely under-reported in the NHS.
It has received reports of patients being placed in the wrong wards and given the wrong medication and blood. Some of these mistakes could have been lethal, the watchdog admitted. Up to 30,000 patients are estimated to die every year due to avoidable medical errors. But the true scale of the problem is largely unknown due to a reluctance by NHS staff to report mistakes and near-misses.
A statement on the NPSA website said yesterday: "Between February 2006 and January 2007, the NPSA received 24,382 reports of patients being mismatched with their care. "It is estimated that more than 2,900 of these related to wristbands and their use." The errors referred to by the Agency could include patients being given the wrong surgery, medication, or tests with potentially life-threatening consequences.
The NPSA said that no further breakdown of the figures for last year was available. The agency, designed to collect data on patient safety, was denounced last year as "dysfunctional" by the Public Accounts Committee, because it had no idea how many patients died each year as a result of medical errors. It subsequently reported that 41,000 medication errors had been recorded between July 2005 to July 2006, which caused 36 deaths. A further 2,000 patients suffered "moderate or severe harm."
In 2005, the National Audit Office reported that nearly one million errors or safety lapses had occurred in the previous year, causing 2,000 deaths. Half of the incidents could have been avoided if staff had learnt from past mistakes, the auditor said.
More here
NHS GIVES SUBSTANDARD ATTENTION TO HEART PROBLEMS
The way in which people with heart failure are treated on the NHS has been criticised by an independent inspector. A report from the Healthcare Commission says it is concerned about the extent of access patients have to the appropriate tests, drugs and specialist care.
Heart failure, which costs the NHS 625 million pounds per year, affects 900,000 people in the UK, with the "extremely debilitating" condition killing 40 per cent of sufferers within the first year of diagnosis. It most commonly arises following heart attacks or high blood pressure and reduces the amount of blood the heart is able to pump around the body.
The Healthcare Commission claims that the condition's symptoms of tiredness, shortness of breath and swollen ankles and feet are hindering treatment by being confused with less-serious health problems. In the report, the watchdog's chief executive Anna Walker noted the "very positive" progress made since it conducted its last heart failure report in 2003/04. But she goes on to say that "not all those that need treatment are getting it". "Primary care trusts and GPs need to monitor the number of patients they deal with in comparison to national statistics. Symptoms and treatments need to be recorded and followed up by GPs. "The care provided also needs to be audited so lessons can be learnt and improvements made."
Of the 303 primary care trusts evaluated in today's report, just 16 were rated 'excellent' in terms of treatment, with one in seven given a rating of 'weak'. Commenting on the report, the British Heart Foundation's (BHF) Jackie Lodge said the way in which heart failure is treated on the NHS "cannot continue" and called for more specialist nurses to be employed on the health service. "This cannot continue," she claimed. "The BHF believes every heart-failure patient has a right to be given high-quality care so they can manage their condition and symptoms and maximise their quality of life."
Source
There is no "need" for immigrants
Theodore Dalrymple, who has lived among Muslims - in Afghanistan and Africa, I mean, not just in France and England - and who said after 9/11 something to the effect that he'd personally rather be in a souk in Tangiers than a strip mall in Jersey, has a very shrewd piece in The Los Angeles Times. I was struck especially by this bit:
The plain fact of the matter is that British society could get by perfectly well without the contribution even of moderate Muslims. The only thing we really want from Muslims is their oil money for bank deposits, to prop up London property prices and to sustain the luxury market; their cheap labor that we imported in the 1960s in a vain effort to bolster the dying textile industry, which could not find local labor, is now redundant.
In other words, the economic rationale for mass immigration turned out to be bogus: Muslims came in huge numbers to do "the jobs Britons won't do" and be textile workers in northern English towns. Thirty years later, there are no textile mills, but those northern English towns are Muslim.
The economic argument for mass immigration is always reductionist, simply because people do not think of themselves as solely (or even principally) economic entities. The government may see immigrants as textile workers or bus drivers or even neurosurgeons, but what matters is how those individuals see themselves - and as Europe has discovered a significant segment of that population has embraced a core identity unrelated to textile mills, NHS hospitals or any other economic enterprise.
Source
Friday, July 13, 2007
Tin Tin gets up the Nose of Official Britain
We read:
Autism: the truth
As the leaked and incomplete results of a study on autism again raise fears among parents, the scientist leading the research tells our correspondent that the new reports are alarmist and wrong
If you want to stoke parental anxiety, there are few better ways than announcing a dramatic rise in the incidence of autism. That is exactly what happened at the weekend with a story that the incidence of autism was far higher than previously thought - as many as one in 58 children - with the MMR vaccine back in the dock as a possible culprit.
The story was the result of the leak of an unpublished report put together by a team of British scientists including Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, head of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University and one of the most authoritative figures in the field.
One of the two team members reported as resurrecting the discredited theory that MMR causes autism is Dr Carol Stott, a developmental psychologist who once worked at ARC. Baron-Cohen says she left ARC some time ago. She is now listed as a member of staff at Thoughtful House, a research centre in developmental disorders in Texas. Thoughtful House is run by Dr Andrew Wakefield, the gastroenterologist who first raised the possibility of a MMR-autism link in 1998. The other figure named as having revived the MMR-autism link was Dr Fiona Scott, who still works at ARC as an honorary research associate and runs training courses on how to diagnose autism. Scott has issued a statement denying that she privately believes in any link between MMR and autism.
Baron-Cohen says the news story is alarmist and wrong. He does not believe that MMR has anything to do with autism. "We are gobsmacked, really, at how this draft report has got out," Baron-Cohen says. "It was only in the hands of the authors - about half a dozen people. There are three professors listed, including me, and none of us was contacted. It was also seen by two PhD students for whom I have the utmost respect because they are very careful scientists. "I don't believe that the MMR vaccine causes autism and I don't believe that there are hidden environmental reasons for any rise in cases. For the moment, we should assume [any rise] is more to do with diagnostic practice." Baron-Cohen says that health services are more geared towards early diagnosis, and there has been a broadening of the autism spectrum. Children that would have been thought eccentric or withdrawn a decade ago are now being given diagnoses such as Asperger's syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism in which intellect is unimpaired but social interaction is compromised.
It transpires that Wakefield is up before the General Medical Council's Fitness to Practise panel next week, on charges of serious professional misconduct. Two other doctors - Professor John Walker-Smith and Professor Simon Murch - who co-authored the original controversial 1998 Lancet paper with Wakefield, face similar charges, all relating to that single, disputed paper, which was later retracted. If found guilty, all face being struck off.
The draft report was leaked a week ahead of their GMC appearance. Baron-Cohen puts it like this: "We think it [the report] has been used. They've picked out the one figure that looks most alarmist." Cambridge University is now trying to hunt down the source of the leak.
So, what are the facts on autism? Does the one-in-58 figure hold up? Baron-Cohen says their study of Cambridgeshire children, which has been running for five years, comes out with a range of figures from one in 58, to one in 200, depending on various factors. The draft report, he says, "is as accurate as jottings in a notebook". He adds that the data is with public health officials, who are crunching the numbers.
A definitive number from the study, the professor hopes, will be published this year. It is possible that the one-in-58 figure comes from ARC's use of the Childhood Asperger's Syndrome Test (CAST), a questionnaire that parents can use to assess whether their child may have autism. The ARC team has used it on Cambridgeshire children in mainstream schools. However, it does not provide a diagnosis and is known to result in a high number of false positives. Around half the children flagged up by CAST as possibly having autism turn out not to.
In the meantime, he says that the best, most carefully conducted studies all show around 1 per cent of children lie on the autism spectrum and there is no reason to suspect that this has suddenly changed. There has been a gradual rise over decades, he says, but this reflects the fact that children are more routinely assessed, greater public awareness, and a wider diagnostic net. The National Autistic Society also quotes a figure of 1 per cent for the incidence of autistic spectrum disorders. Benet Middleton, the NAS's director of communications, says that, having spoken to Baron-Cohen, the charity had no plans to revise its figures. Middleton says: "This is an unpublished study that has not been peer-reviewed, and there are lots of reasons why studies don't get published. The research that's been published and peer-reviewed suggests a rate of 1 per cent. "The news story made a connection between two unrelated issues [the incidence of autism and the MMR vaccine]. I don't think that was a valid connection." Middleton adds that the charity does not advise parents whether or not to have the MMR jab, but instead directs them to their GP.
Baron-Cohen says that the results will be published eventually: "We've been sitting on this data since 2005 because we wanted to get the best advice. There's a number of different estimates for this population [the Cambridgeshire schoolchildren] depending on how you count. We need to work out which figures are the most reliable. "Research is sometimes slow but it is better to go slowly and get it right. Now things have been taken out of our hands and it's very dismaying."
Source
THE DEADLY MMR HOAX
`If the MMR vaccine was not the cause of my son's autism, then why has he got traces of measles virus in his bowels?' This was the question put to me five years ago by one of the parents involved in the litigation against the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR), who was a passionate supporter of the campaign led by the former Royal Free Hospital researcher Andrew Wakefield who first claimed a link between MMR and autism. The claim, made in 2002 by a team led by Dublin pathologist John O'Leary, that the measles virus RNA had been detected in gut biopsies of children with autism and gastro-intestinal disturbances, appeared to provide powerful vindication for Wakefield's hypothesis that a distinctive inflammatory bowel condition - dubbed `autistic enterocolitis' - was the mediating link between MMR and autism.
Testimony in a US court last week by London-based molecular biologist Stephen Bustin comprehensively exposed the unreliability of O'Leary's findings, based on an investigation of his laboratory carried out in early 2004. `It has been incredibly frustrating', Professor Bustin told me on his return from the USA. `For three years we have been unable [for legal reasons] to reveal our findings. Now, based on the publicly available information, I want to get the message out about the O'Leary/Wakefield research: there's nothing in it.'
Bustin's revelations follow a series of studies, using the most rigorous analysis techniques, which have failed to replicate O'Leary's results, while other researchers have disputed the existence of `autistic enterocolitis' as a distinctive disease entity (see footnotes 1-3). All these results are reassuring to parents of autistic children, whose anxieties have been needlessly provoked by the Wakefield campaign. Parents facing decisions about immunisation can also be reassured that the MMR-autism scare has been shown to have no basis in science.
Though it is good news for parents, the testimony of Bustin and other expert witnesses was yet another blow for the anti-vaccine campaigners as Andrew Wakefield returns to London next week from his new base in a private clinic in Texas to face charges of professional misconduct at the General Medical Council.
The hearings in the USA mark the culmination of two parallel anti-vaccine campaigns. In the UK, following Wakefield's now notorious 1998 paper in the Lancet, which first advanced the MMR-autism thesis, parents of more than 1,400 children were drawn into litigation against vaccine manufacturers. This collapsed in 2004 when the Legal Services Commission realised that, in the absence of scientific evidence for the thesis, the claim had no chance of succeeding. Meanwhile in the USA, campaigners blame the mercury-based preservative thimerosal in some vaccines for the apparent increase in the prevalence of autism. The facts that the prevalence of autism has continued to rise after the removal of thimerosal from vaccines and that MMR has never contained thimerosal have not deterred campaigners from trying to link mercury and MMR in the causation of autism, through a series of speculative and improbable pathways.
In the `omnibus autism proceedings' in the US Court of Federal Claims in Washington DC, the families of more than 4, 800 children are claiming damages from the $2.5billion government fund set aside to compensate people harmed by vaccination. Over 12 days last month the court heard the first test case put forward by the petitioners - that of 12-year-old Michelle Cedillo, whose parents believe that the combination of early childhood immunisations containing thimerosal with MMR at 16 months resulted in the development of autism, inflammatory bowel disease and a range of additional disabilities.
Unfortunately for the petitioners, and to the embarrassment of some of their supporters, there was no real contest - in terms of personal expertise or scientific substance - between the expert witnesses put forward in support of the vaccine-autism theory and those challenging this hypothesis. For example, Marcel Kinsbourne, a long-retired paediatric neurologist who admitted that he had not treated children for 17 years and who has become a professional expert witness, appearing in hundreds of vaccine litigation cases, appeared on questioning to lack any relevant specialist knowledge. Vera Byers, an immunologist, also long-retired, claimed a series of qualifications and academic attachments - including one to Nottingham University - that turned out to be bogus. On questioning, her faculty status at the University of California at San Francisco boiled down to attending courses, using the library, and, bizarrely, `going to their parties'.
Another elderly witness, environmental toxicologist Vasken Aposhian from Tucson, Arizona, caused bemusement by apparently denying the significance of dose levels of mercury and conflating in vitro, laboratory studies, with in vivo studies in animals and humans. By contrast, the experts testifying against the vaccine-autism theories included a range of doctors and scientists actively engaged in relevant clinical activity and research, such as the autism specialist Eric Fombonne, now in Montreal, but well-known in the UK for his many years at the Maudsley in London, Cleveland paediatric neurologist Max Wiznitzer, and Baltimore virologist Diane Griffen.
Whereas the petitioners' experts were unable to produce convincing evidence that mercury and MMR had combined to make Michelle autistic, the respondents' experts produced powerful evidence against this thesis.
* Michelle's developmental record, including videos at 9, 12 and 15 months - before her MMR - revealed early abnormalities of social interaction, motor delays and other features consistent with a diagnosis of autism;
* Blood tests and other investigations revealed no evidence of `immune suppression' or of an abnormal reaction to MMR;
* Biopsy specimens taken at endoscopy did not show changes consistent with inflammatory bowel disease.
The respondents' expert witnesses all expressed their sympathy for Michelle and their respect for her parents; they were equally unanimous in dismissing the notion that any vaccine was the cause of her condition.
Then, in more than 100 pages of testimony, Stephen Bustin, introduced as the author of the `bible of PCR' (`polymerase chain reaction' - the basic investigative technique of molecular biology), produced what he describes as `just a summary' of his investigation of the O'Leary lab. One of the first things that he thought `peculiar' when he arrived was that the door of the adjoining lab was labelled `Plasmid Room'. As he explained to the court, plasmids are used to replicate DNA molecules in bacteria for experimental purposes; Bustin said he was alarmed because contamination is the bane of PCR studies. `You never want to have any plasmid DNA anywhere near your lab when doing PCR', he says. And yet, he said in the Washington court, there was plasmid DNA, in thousands of millions of copies, just next door to O'Leary's lab.
Parents who received the results of their children's biopsy specimens from the O'Leary lab tended to think of the tests in terms of familiar bench tests: you stick litmus paper in acid and it turns red, in alkali and it turns blue. Straightforward, black and white (at least red and blue) easily done, easily confirmed. Nothing could be further from the reality of PCR testing, as Bustin's exhaustive explanation of the complexities of this technology to the Washington court confirms. His investigation revealed problems in O'Leary's lab at every step of the process, from the quality of the preparations used to the conduct of the testing, the use of controls, the analysis and interpretation of data. His conclusions were categorical: `The assay used was not specific for measles and it was not properly carried out.' The positive results were positive for DNA - confirming contamination, because `if it's DNA it can't be measles' (measles is an RNA virus).
For Bustin it was `a scientific certainty' that the O'Leary lab had failed reliably to identify measles virus RNA in Michelle or any other child (and this includes claims, reported in other studies, that the O'Leary lab had identified measles RNA in blood and cerebrospinal fluid). Bustin's devastating testimony effectively destroyed the only piece of positive evidence that has been produced in support of the MMR-autism thesis since it was launched nearly a decade ago. It raises further questions for Professor O'Leary, for the lawyers who led the UK litigation, and for Dr Wakefield.
In May Professor O'Leary delivered his inaugural lecture (on the unrelated subject of cancer genetics) as head of the department of pathology at Trinity College Dublin (4). It seems that his status in Ireland has been unaffected by the damaging disclosures in Washington, which have received little publicity on this side of the Atlantic. Though it is not clear how O'Leary, a pathologist rather than a virologist, became involved in his collaboration with Wakefield, it is known that he set up a commercial company - Unigenetics - which received around 800,000 pounds in legal aid funding from the UK litigation. Though he supervised the lab, it has emerged that much of the work was carried out by graduate - or even undergraduate - students. Though O'Leary has disassociated himself from Wakefield's campaign against MMR, he has never admitted that the notion - firmly believed by many parents - that his lab had at least confirmed the presence of measles virus in their guts, was entirely false.
Bustin's report on the O'Leary lab was key to the collapse of the anti-MMR litigation in the UK. When the lawyers at the Legal Services Commission discovered this authoritative investigation concluding that O'Leary's findings were unreliable they realised that, putting this together with the wider evidence against the MMR-autism thesis, the litigation had no chance of succeeding. Yet the lawyers leading the campaign refused to acknowledge openly that the scientific case against the MMR-autism link was overwhelming and advise their clients to conclude the action. Instead, they continued to pursue the case, allowing it to drag on for a small number of families, acting without legal aid funding, for a further three years.
This not only prolonged the ordeal for these families, it prevented the Bustin study from being made public. Indeed, lawyers for the UK families continued to resist the disclosure of this important investigation until the bitter end - until the eve of the US hearings when the High Court ruled in favour of allowing this testimony, prepared for the UK litigation, to be heard in Washington. (Of the 15million in legal aid funding spent on the MMR litigation, around 8million went to the solicitors, 1.7million to barristers, 4.3million was shared among expert witnesses; the children, of course, were left with nothing.)
When Andrew Wakefield made a rare public appearance in the UK at a (largely sympathetic) conference of parents of autistic children in Bournemouth in February, I asked him why it was that, after 10 years of promoting his MMR-autism theory, he had failed to win the support of a single autism specialist, paediatrician or paediatric gastroenterologist in the UK (who is not exclusively in private practice or a beneficiary of the litigation)? He refused to answer. The Washington hearings have raised further questions. Nicholas Chadwick, now a biochemist in Manchester, told the court how he, as a postgraduate student in Wakefield's team at the Royal Free, conducted PCR studies for measles virus on biopsy specimens of the 12 children included in the Lancet study. His studies showed that all specimens were negative (and that earlier results had shown `false positives' resulting from contamination). Wakefield suppressed these results and Chadwick insisted on his name being removed from the published paper, which declared that `virological studies were underway' to investigate what Chadwick had already investigated and found negative results. This information, first disclosed in Brian Deer's 2004 television documentary, has now been presented in a court of law and still demands a full explanation (5).
As Wakefield staggers towards his date with the GMC, his supporters claim that he has been the victim of a conspiracy by the medical establishment and big pharma. The revelations in Washington seem to suggest that something approximating to the opposite is true: Wakefield appears to have been the beneficiary of a conspiracy of silence that has prevented the truth about his research from being revealed. As a junior member of the Royal Free team, Chadwick was apparently deterred from blowing the whistle by familiar concerns about his own position. Others in a position to reveal the falsity of his claims - and those emerging from the O'Leary lab - were deterred from doing so for a range of motives, from personal and professional loyalty to the inclination to give a colleague the benefit of the doubt. Still others were restricted by considerations of confidentiality and legality.
What now for Stephen Bustin? He says that, after three years of enforced silence on this subject, he is keen to get wider publicity for the message that science shows no link between MMR and autism. He has written to the Lancet summarising his findings. After years of anxiety and confusion, parents of children with autism will welcome the triumph of quality science over junk science even if we have had to wait a long time for it.
Source
We read:
"A cartoon adventure featuring Tintin, the heroic Belgian journalist, should not be sold in Britain, the Commission for Racial Equality said yesterday.
The racism watchdog said that it was unacceptable for any shop to sell or display Tintin in the Congo, a comic book written in 1930 that features crude racial stereotypes.
A spokeswoman said that the book, which includes a scene featuring Tintin being made chief of an African village because he is a "good white man", was highly offensive. "This book contains imagery and words of hideous racial prejudice, where the `savage natives' look like monkeys and talk like imbeciles," she said....
Egmont, which publishes the book, said that every edition delivered to shops had a band of paper around the outside making clear the content is offensive. A warning notes that it features "bourgeois, paternalistic stereotypes of the period - an interpretation some readers may find offensive".
The current edition, the first in colour to be published in Britain, was released in 2005. It has been published in black and white in Britain for more than ten years. The commission was alerted to the book by David Enright, a solicitor who found it in the children's section of Borders. "I was aghast to see page after page of representations of black African people as baboons or monkeys, bowing before a white teenager and speaking like retarded children," he wrote.
Source
Autism: the truth
As the leaked and incomplete results of a study on autism again raise fears among parents, the scientist leading the research tells our correspondent that the new reports are alarmist and wrong
If you want to stoke parental anxiety, there are few better ways than announcing a dramatic rise in the incidence of autism. That is exactly what happened at the weekend with a story that the incidence of autism was far higher than previously thought - as many as one in 58 children - with the MMR vaccine back in the dock as a possible culprit.
The story was the result of the leak of an unpublished report put together by a team of British scientists including Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, head of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University and one of the most authoritative figures in the field.
One of the two team members reported as resurrecting the discredited theory that MMR causes autism is Dr Carol Stott, a developmental psychologist who once worked at ARC. Baron-Cohen says she left ARC some time ago. She is now listed as a member of staff at Thoughtful House, a research centre in developmental disorders in Texas. Thoughtful House is run by Dr Andrew Wakefield, the gastroenterologist who first raised the possibility of a MMR-autism link in 1998. The other figure named as having revived the MMR-autism link was Dr Fiona Scott, who still works at ARC as an honorary research associate and runs training courses on how to diagnose autism. Scott has issued a statement denying that she privately believes in any link between MMR and autism.
Baron-Cohen says the news story is alarmist and wrong. He does not believe that MMR has anything to do with autism. "We are gobsmacked, really, at how this draft report has got out," Baron-Cohen says. "It was only in the hands of the authors - about half a dozen people. There are three professors listed, including me, and none of us was contacted. It was also seen by two PhD students for whom I have the utmost respect because they are very careful scientists. "I don't believe that the MMR vaccine causes autism and I don't believe that there are hidden environmental reasons for any rise in cases. For the moment, we should assume [any rise] is more to do with diagnostic practice." Baron-Cohen says that health services are more geared towards early diagnosis, and there has been a broadening of the autism spectrum. Children that would have been thought eccentric or withdrawn a decade ago are now being given diagnoses such as Asperger's syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism in which intellect is unimpaired but social interaction is compromised.
It transpires that Wakefield is up before the General Medical Council's Fitness to Practise panel next week, on charges of serious professional misconduct. Two other doctors - Professor John Walker-Smith and Professor Simon Murch - who co-authored the original controversial 1998 Lancet paper with Wakefield, face similar charges, all relating to that single, disputed paper, which was later retracted. If found guilty, all face being struck off.
The draft report was leaked a week ahead of their GMC appearance. Baron-Cohen puts it like this: "We think it [the report] has been used. They've picked out the one figure that looks most alarmist." Cambridge University is now trying to hunt down the source of the leak.
So, what are the facts on autism? Does the one-in-58 figure hold up? Baron-Cohen says their study of Cambridgeshire children, which has been running for five years, comes out with a range of figures from one in 58, to one in 200, depending on various factors. The draft report, he says, "is as accurate as jottings in a notebook". He adds that the data is with public health officials, who are crunching the numbers.
A definitive number from the study, the professor hopes, will be published this year. It is possible that the one-in-58 figure comes from ARC's use of the Childhood Asperger's Syndrome Test (CAST), a questionnaire that parents can use to assess whether their child may have autism. The ARC team has used it on Cambridgeshire children in mainstream schools. However, it does not provide a diagnosis and is known to result in a high number of false positives. Around half the children flagged up by CAST as possibly having autism turn out not to.
In the meantime, he says that the best, most carefully conducted studies all show around 1 per cent of children lie on the autism spectrum and there is no reason to suspect that this has suddenly changed. There has been a gradual rise over decades, he says, but this reflects the fact that children are more routinely assessed, greater public awareness, and a wider diagnostic net. The National Autistic Society also quotes a figure of 1 per cent for the incidence of autistic spectrum disorders. Benet Middleton, the NAS's director of communications, says that, having spoken to Baron-Cohen, the charity had no plans to revise its figures. Middleton says: "This is an unpublished study that has not been peer-reviewed, and there are lots of reasons why studies don't get published. The research that's been published and peer-reviewed suggests a rate of 1 per cent. "The news story made a connection between two unrelated issues [the incidence of autism and the MMR vaccine]. I don't think that was a valid connection." Middleton adds that the charity does not advise parents whether or not to have the MMR jab, but instead directs them to their GP.
Baron-Cohen says that the results will be published eventually: "We've been sitting on this data since 2005 because we wanted to get the best advice. There's a number of different estimates for this population [the Cambridgeshire schoolchildren] depending on how you count. We need to work out which figures are the most reliable. "Research is sometimes slow but it is better to go slowly and get it right. Now things have been taken out of our hands and it's very dismaying."
Source
THE DEADLY MMR HOAX
`If the MMR vaccine was not the cause of my son's autism, then why has he got traces of measles virus in his bowels?' This was the question put to me five years ago by one of the parents involved in the litigation against the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR), who was a passionate supporter of the campaign led by the former Royal Free Hospital researcher Andrew Wakefield who first claimed a link between MMR and autism. The claim, made in 2002 by a team led by Dublin pathologist John O'Leary, that the measles virus RNA had been detected in gut biopsies of children with autism and gastro-intestinal disturbances, appeared to provide powerful vindication for Wakefield's hypothesis that a distinctive inflammatory bowel condition - dubbed `autistic enterocolitis' - was the mediating link between MMR and autism.
Testimony in a US court last week by London-based molecular biologist Stephen Bustin comprehensively exposed the unreliability of O'Leary's findings, based on an investigation of his laboratory carried out in early 2004. `It has been incredibly frustrating', Professor Bustin told me on his return from the USA. `For three years we have been unable [for legal reasons] to reveal our findings. Now, based on the publicly available information, I want to get the message out about the O'Leary/Wakefield research: there's nothing in it.'
Bustin's revelations follow a series of studies, using the most rigorous analysis techniques, which have failed to replicate O'Leary's results, while other researchers have disputed the existence of `autistic enterocolitis' as a distinctive disease entity (see footnotes 1-3). All these results are reassuring to parents of autistic children, whose anxieties have been needlessly provoked by the Wakefield campaign. Parents facing decisions about immunisation can also be reassured that the MMR-autism scare has been shown to have no basis in science.
Though it is good news for parents, the testimony of Bustin and other expert witnesses was yet another blow for the anti-vaccine campaigners as Andrew Wakefield returns to London next week from his new base in a private clinic in Texas to face charges of professional misconduct at the General Medical Council.
The hearings in the USA mark the culmination of two parallel anti-vaccine campaigns. In the UK, following Wakefield's now notorious 1998 paper in the Lancet, which first advanced the MMR-autism thesis, parents of more than 1,400 children were drawn into litigation against vaccine manufacturers. This collapsed in 2004 when the Legal Services Commission realised that, in the absence of scientific evidence for the thesis, the claim had no chance of succeeding. Meanwhile in the USA, campaigners blame the mercury-based preservative thimerosal in some vaccines for the apparent increase in the prevalence of autism. The facts that the prevalence of autism has continued to rise after the removal of thimerosal from vaccines and that MMR has never contained thimerosal have not deterred campaigners from trying to link mercury and MMR in the causation of autism, through a series of speculative and improbable pathways.
In the `omnibus autism proceedings' in the US Court of Federal Claims in Washington DC, the families of more than 4, 800 children are claiming damages from the $2.5billion government fund set aside to compensate people harmed by vaccination. Over 12 days last month the court heard the first test case put forward by the petitioners - that of 12-year-old Michelle Cedillo, whose parents believe that the combination of early childhood immunisations containing thimerosal with MMR at 16 months resulted in the development of autism, inflammatory bowel disease and a range of additional disabilities.
Unfortunately for the petitioners, and to the embarrassment of some of their supporters, there was no real contest - in terms of personal expertise or scientific substance - between the expert witnesses put forward in support of the vaccine-autism theory and those challenging this hypothesis. For example, Marcel Kinsbourne, a long-retired paediatric neurologist who admitted that he had not treated children for 17 years and who has become a professional expert witness, appearing in hundreds of vaccine litigation cases, appeared on questioning to lack any relevant specialist knowledge. Vera Byers, an immunologist, also long-retired, claimed a series of qualifications and academic attachments - including one to Nottingham University - that turned out to be bogus. On questioning, her faculty status at the University of California at San Francisco boiled down to attending courses, using the library, and, bizarrely, `going to their parties'.
Another elderly witness, environmental toxicologist Vasken Aposhian from Tucson, Arizona, caused bemusement by apparently denying the significance of dose levels of mercury and conflating in vitro, laboratory studies, with in vivo studies in animals and humans. By contrast, the experts testifying against the vaccine-autism theories included a range of doctors and scientists actively engaged in relevant clinical activity and research, such as the autism specialist Eric Fombonne, now in Montreal, but well-known in the UK for his many years at the Maudsley in London, Cleveland paediatric neurologist Max Wiznitzer, and Baltimore virologist Diane Griffen.
Whereas the petitioners' experts were unable to produce convincing evidence that mercury and MMR had combined to make Michelle autistic, the respondents' experts produced powerful evidence against this thesis.
* Michelle's developmental record, including videos at 9, 12 and 15 months - before her MMR - revealed early abnormalities of social interaction, motor delays and other features consistent with a diagnosis of autism;
* Blood tests and other investigations revealed no evidence of `immune suppression' or of an abnormal reaction to MMR;
* Biopsy specimens taken at endoscopy did not show changes consistent with inflammatory bowel disease.
The respondents' expert witnesses all expressed their sympathy for Michelle and their respect for her parents; they were equally unanimous in dismissing the notion that any vaccine was the cause of her condition.
Then, in more than 100 pages of testimony, Stephen Bustin, introduced as the author of the `bible of PCR' (`polymerase chain reaction' - the basic investigative technique of molecular biology), produced what he describes as `just a summary' of his investigation of the O'Leary lab. One of the first things that he thought `peculiar' when he arrived was that the door of the adjoining lab was labelled `Plasmid Room'. As he explained to the court, plasmids are used to replicate DNA molecules in bacteria for experimental purposes; Bustin said he was alarmed because contamination is the bane of PCR studies. `You never want to have any plasmid DNA anywhere near your lab when doing PCR', he says. And yet, he said in the Washington court, there was plasmid DNA, in thousands of millions of copies, just next door to O'Leary's lab.
Parents who received the results of their children's biopsy specimens from the O'Leary lab tended to think of the tests in terms of familiar bench tests: you stick litmus paper in acid and it turns red, in alkali and it turns blue. Straightforward, black and white (at least red and blue) easily done, easily confirmed. Nothing could be further from the reality of PCR testing, as Bustin's exhaustive explanation of the complexities of this technology to the Washington court confirms. His investigation revealed problems in O'Leary's lab at every step of the process, from the quality of the preparations used to the conduct of the testing, the use of controls, the analysis and interpretation of data. His conclusions were categorical: `The assay used was not specific for measles and it was not properly carried out.' The positive results were positive for DNA - confirming contamination, because `if it's DNA it can't be measles' (measles is an RNA virus).
For Bustin it was `a scientific certainty' that the O'Leary lab had failed reliably to identify measles virus RNA in Michelle or any other child (and this includes claims, reported in other studies, that the O'Leary lab had identified measles RNA in blood and cerebrospinal fluid). Bustin's devastating testimony effectively destroyed the only piece of positive evidence that has been produced in support of the MMR-autism thesis since it was launched nearly a decade ago. It raises further questions for Professor O'Leary, for the lawyers who led the UK litigation, and for Dr Wakefield.
In May Professor O'Leary delivered his inaugural lecture (on the unrelated subject of cancer genetics) as head of the department of pathology at Trinity College Dublin (4). It seems that his status in Ireland has been unaffected by the damaging disclosures in Washington, which have received little publicity on this side of the Atlantic. Though it is not clear how O'Leary, a pathologist rather than a virologist, became involved in his collaboration with Wakefield, it is known that he set up a commercial company - Unigenetics - which received around 800,000 pounds in legal aid funding from the UK litigation. Though he supervised the lab, it has emerged that much of the work was carried out by graduate - or even undergraduate - students. Though O'Leary has disassociated himself from Wakefield's campaign against MMR, he has never admitted that the notion - firmly believed by many parents - that his lab had at least confirmed the presence of measles virus in their guts, was entirely false.
Bustin's report on the O'Leary lab was key to the collapse of the anti-MMR litigation in the UK. When the lawyers at the Legal Services Commission discovered this authoritative investigation concluding that O'Leary's findings were unreliable they realised that, putting this together with the wider evidence against the MMR-autism thesis, the litigation had no chance of succeeding. Yet the lawyers leading the campaign refused to acknowledge openly that the scientific case against the MMR-autism link was overwhelming and advise their clients to conclude the action. Instead, they continued to pursue the case, allowing it to drag on for a small number of families, acting without legal aid funding, for a further three years.
This not only prolonged the ordeal for these families, it prevented the Bustin study from being made public. Indeed, lawyers for the UK families continued to resist the disclosure of this important investigation until the bitter end - until the eve of the US hearings when the High Court ruled in favour of allowing this testimony, prepared for the UK litigation, to be heard in Washington. (Of the 15million in legal aid funding spent on the MMR litigation, around 8million went to the solicitors, 1.7million to barristers, 4.3million was shared among expert witnesses; the children, of course, were left with nothing.)
When Andrew Wakefield made a rare public appearance in the UK at a (largely sympathetic) conference of parents of autistic children in Bournemouth in February, I asked him why it was that, after 10 years of promoting his MMR-autism theory, he had failed to win the support of a single autism specialist, paediatrician or paediatric gastroenterologist in the UK (who is not exclusively in private practice or a beneficiary of the litigation)? He refused to answer. The Washington hearings have raised further questions. Nicholas Chadwick, now a biochemist in Manchester, told the court how he, as a postgraduate student in Wakefield's team at the Royal Free, conducted PCR studies for measles virus on biopsy specimens of the 12 children included in the Lancet study. His studies showed that all specimens were negative (and that earlier results had shown `false positives' resulting from contamination). Wakefield suppressed these results and Chadwick insisted on his name being removed from the published paper, which declared that `virological studies were underway' to investigate what Chadwick had already investigated and found negative results. This information, first disclosed in Brian Deer's 2004 television documentary, has now been presented in a court of law and still demands a full explanation (5).
As Wakefield staggers towards his date with the GMC, his supporters claim that he has been the victim of a conspiracy by the medical establishment and big pharma. The revelations in Washington seem to suggest that something approximating to the opposite is true: Wakefield appears to have been the beneficiary of a conspiracy of silence that has prevented the truth about his research from being revealed. As a junior member of the Royal Free team, Chadwick was apparently deterred from blowing the whistle by familiar concerns about his own position. Others in a position to reveal the falsity of his claims - and those emerging from the O'Leary lab - were deterred from doing so for a range of motives, from personal and professional loyalty to the inclination to give a colleague the benefit of the doubt. Still others were restricted by considerations of confidentiality and legality.
What now for Stephen Bustin? He says that, after three years of enforced silence on this subject, he is keen to get wider publicity for the message that science shows no link between MMR and autism. He has written to the Lancet summarising his findings. After years of anxiety and confusion, parents of children with autism will welcome the triumph of quality science over junk science even if we have had to wait a long time for it.
Source
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Phonics wiped out illiteracy where it was tried in Scotland
But with plenty of window-dressing to prevent critics from saying it was phonics only
It is mid-morning at St Mary's primary school in Alexandria, a bleak, post-industrial town north-west of Glasgow that often features on Scotland's list of areas of multiple deprivation. In Margaret Mooney's primary 1 class, 20 five-year-olds have gathered on the floor at the teacher's feet, pretending to be trains. "Ch, ch, ch, ch, ch," they intone, small arms circling wildly like the wheels of a locomotive. Mooney turns the page of a giant, colourful book. "This is the one where you are allowed to be cheeky to the teacher," she says, pointing to the letters "th". "What sound do they make?" The children stick out their tongues and blow through their teeth, before dissolving into giggles. "Cheeky, cheeky children," says Mooney. "Let me see how cheeky you can be."
They are too young to know it, but the children in Mooney's class are part of a remarkable experiment, one that has proved so successful that it is being held up as a model for education authorities across the world and has caught the eye of Britain's new prime minister. Gordon Brown has been taking a keen interest in events in West Dunbartonshire, and has held talks with Dr Tommy MacKay, the educational psychologist who pioneered the scheme.
Back in 1997, MacKay persuaded West Dunbartonshire council to commit itself to eradicating pupil illiteracy in its schools within a decade. This year, it is on track to reach its target, becoming what is thought to be the first local authority in the world to do so. When the project was launched, West Dunbartonshire had one of the poorest literacy rates in the UK, with 28% of children leaving primary school at 12 functionally illiterate - that is, with a reading age of less than nine years and six months. Last year, that figure had dropped to 6% and, by the end of this year, it is expected to be 0%. In all, 60,000 children have been assessed, and evaluations show that children now entering primary 3 have an average reading age almost six months higher than previous groups. In 1997, 5% of primary school children had "very high" scores on word reading; today the figure is 45%.
Across the UK, it is estimated that 100,000 pupils a year leave school functionally illiterate. Synthetic phonics, where children learn to sound out the single and combined sounds of letters, has been at the core of the scheme but it has not been the only factor. A 10-strand intervention was set up, featuring a team of specially trained teachers, focused assessment, extra time for reading in the curriculum, home support for parents and carers, and the fostering of a "literacy environment" in the community. "The results we have now are phenomenal," says MacKay.
When he approached the council with his proposal, he was not sure what response he would get. "I sent a letter to the director of education. It was one of these things you expect to find they are interested in, but will put in the bin. What I was saying was: why not try doing something that has not been done anywhere before in the world? You could eradicate illiteracy."
His letter coincided with a decision by the Scottish executive to offer funding packages for early intervention in literacy and numeracy. What made West Dunbartonshire different from other authorities launching literacy projects at the time was that it wanted a cradle-to-grave system that involved the entire community. "What we were looking at doing had never been done in the world before, bringing about inter-generational change in a whole population," says MacKay. "We deliberately built in things other people weren't doing: vision, profile, commitment, ownership and dedication."
The approach was two-pronged. First, a robust early intervention programme from nursery onwards reduced the number of children experiencing reading failure. Then, those who did fall through the net were caught in the later years of primary school and given the intensive, one-on-one Toe by Toe programme. "You pick up every one of them, and you blooter them with individual help," says MacKay.
Lynn Townsend, head of service for education at West Dunbartonshire council, says the project would not have succeeded if they had not focused on the few falling through the cracks. "If we were to achieve our goals, we really needed to be doing something with them," she says. "There used to be a sense that if kids had not got reading by secondary, there was no point in teaching them. That is no longer appropriate. Nobody gets left behind. "We have seen dramatic results. Kids in primary 7 who could not read at all now can, and it opens the world to them. It means secondary school is going to be meaningful. It really does change lives."
As new research has been done, new strands have been incorporated. "We started very much with the emphasis on synthetic phonics. That's one strand now. We have a West Dunbartonshire approach now," says Townsend.
Headteacher Charles Kennedy noticed the difference the scheme was making when he took up his post at St Mary's school after working in another area. "I was struck by the level the children were at, the pace and the impact," he says. "And also the way they were enjoying it. It's vibrant and it's alive."
A key component has been parental involvement. "Research shows that middle-class kids have had thousands of hours of reading practice before they get to school," says Townsend. "A lot of our homes just can't or don't do that." A home support system was set up and regular parents' evenings held to introduce them to phonics. Nursery children are given a startpack with reading materials to practise at home.
Officials say that often during the parents' meetings, one or two will approach staff and admit that they can't read. They are advised about where they can find help and support. MacKay hopes the project's success will have far-reaching implications for West Dunbartonshire as a community. "We believe that, ultimately, we are looking at a stronger economy, lower crime rates and a lower prison population."
Townsend believes the scheme has worked because there was a collective determination to see it through. "We stuck to our principles. When the funding was reduced and stopped by the executive, we maintained it," she says. [Stopping funding for a successful project? Sounds right -- or predictable anyway. It's failure that bureaucracies throw money at]
Interest has been immense. MacKay has spoken about the project in countries as far away as South Africa, and a delegation from Dublin was in West Dunbartonshire at Easter. The Centre for Public Policy Research held it up as a model for other education authorities last year. The new prime minister has been aware of it for some time.
A spokeswoman for Brown confirmed that he had met MacKay and was "very interested" in the project. It is understood that they had several discussions while Brown was chancellor and that he was keen to know how the scheme might be rolled out across the UK. "Many of our primary schools are in some of the most deprived areas of Scotland, yet they perform above the national average," Townsend points out. "That is staggering. If you say from the outset, we are going to eradicate illiteracy in 10 years, which politician does not want to be part of that soundbite?"
Source
Deliberate BBC deception: Taranto has the story. An attempt to portray Muslims in a good light by concealing half the facts. Perhaps the Beeb should be renamed "The Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation".
But with plenty of window-dressing to prevent critics from saying it was phonics only
It is mid-morning at St Mary's primary school in Alexandria, a bleak, post-industrial town north-west of Glasgow that often features on Scotland's list of areas of multiple deprivation. In Margaret Mooney's primary 1 class, 20 five-year-olds have gathered on the floor at the teacher's feet, pretending to be trains. "Ch, ch, ch, ch, ch," they intone, small arms circling wildly like the wheels of a locomotive. Mooney turns the page of a giant, colourful book. "This is the one where you are allowed to be cheeky to the teacher," she says, pointing to the letters "th". "What sound do they make?" The children stick out their tongues and blow through their teeth, before dissolving into giggles. "Cheeky, cheeky children," says Mooney. "Let me see how cheeky you can be."
They are too young to know it, but the children in Mooney's class are part of a remarkable experiment, one that has proved so successful that it is being held up as a model for education authorities across the world and has caught the eye of Britain's new prime minister. Gordon Brown has been taking a keen interest in events in West Dunbartonshire, and has held talks with Dr Tommy MacKay, the educational psychologist who pioneered the scheme.
Back in 1997, MacKay persuaded West Dunbartonshire council to commit itself to eradicating pupil illiteracy in its schools within a decade. This year, it is on track to reach its target, becoming what is thought to be the first local authority in the world to do so. When the project was launched, West Dunbartonshire had one of the poorest literacy rates in the UK, with 28% of children leaving primary school at 12 functionally illiterate - that is, with a reading age of less than nine years and six months. Last year, that figure had dropped to 6% and, by the end of this year, it is expected to be 0%. In all, 60,000 children have been assessed, and evaluations show that children now entering primary 3 have an average reading age almost six months higher than previous groups. In 1997, 5% of primary school children had "very high" scores on word reading; today the figure is 45%.
Across the UK, it is estimated that 100,000 pupils a year leave school functionally illiterate. Synthetic phonics, where children learn to sound out the single and combined sounds of letters, has been at the core of the scheme but it has not been the only factor. A 10-strand intervention was set up, featuring a team of specially trained teachers, focused assessment, extra time for reading in the curriculum, home support for parents and carers, and the fostering of a "literacy environment" in the community. "The results we have now are phenomenal," says MacKay.
When he approached the council with his proposal, he was not sure what response he would get. "I sent a letter to the director of education. It was one of these things you expect to find they are interested in, but will put in the bin. What I was saying was: why not try doing something that has not been done anywhere before in the world? You could eradicate illiteracy."
His letter coincided with a decision by the Scottish executive to offer funding packages for early intervention in literacy and numeracy. What made West Dunbartonshire different from other authorities launching literacy projects at the time was that it wanted a cradle-to-grave system that involved the entire community. "What we were looking at doing had never been done in the world before, bringing about inter-generational change in a whole population," says MacKay. "We deliberately built in things other people weren't doing: vision, profile, commitment, ownership and dedication."
The approach was two-pronged. First, a robust early intervention programme from nursery onwards reduced the number of children experiencing reading failure. Then, those who did fall through the net were caught in the later years of primary school and given the intensive, one-on-one Toe by Toe programme. "You pick up every one of them, and you blooter them with individual help," says MacKay.
Lynn Townsend, head of service for education at West Dunbartonshire council, says the project would not have succeeded if they had not focused on the few falling through the cracks. "If we were to achieve our goals, we really needed to be doing something with them," she says. "There used to be a sense that if kids had not got reading by secondary, there was no point in teaching them. That is no longer appropriate. Nobody gets left behind. "We have seen dramatic results. Kids in primary 7 who could not read at all now can, and it opens the world to them. It means secondary school is going to be meaningful. It really does change lives."
As new research has been done, new strands have been incorporated. "We started very much with the emphasis on synthetic phonics. That's one strand now. We have a West Dunbartonshire approach now," says Townsend.
Headteacher Charles Kennedy noticed the difference the scheme was making when he took up his post at St Mary's school after working in another area. "I was struck by the level the children were at, the pace and the impact," he says. "And also the way they were enjoying it. It's vibrant and it's alive."
A key component has been parental involvement. "Research shows that middle-class kids have had thousands of hours of reading practice before they get to school," says Townsend. "A lot of our homes just can't or don't do that." A home support system was set up and regular parents' evenings held to introduce them to phonics. Nursery children are given a startpack with reading materials to practise at home.
Officials say that often during the parents' meetings, one or two will approach staff and admit that they can't read. They are advised about where they can find help and support. MacKay hopes the project's success will have far-reaching implications for West Dunbartonshire as a community. "We believe that, ultimately, we are looking at a stronger economy, lower crime rates and a lower prison population."
Townsend believes the scheme has worked because there was a collective determination to see it through. "We stuck to our principles. When the funding was reduced and stopped by the executive, we maintained it," she says. [Stopping funding for a successful project? Sounds right -- or predictable anyway. It's failure that bureaucracies throw money at]
Interest has been immense. MacKay has spoken about the project in countries as far away as South Africa, and a delegation from Dublin was in West Dunbartonshire at Easter. The Centre for Public Policy Research held it up as a model for other education authorities last year. The new prime minister has been aware of it for some time.
A spokeswoman for Brown confirmed that he had met MacKay and was "very interested" in the project. It is understood that they had several discussions while Brown was chancellor and that he was keen to know how the scheme might be rolled out across the UK. "Many of our primary schools are in some of the most deprived areas of Scotland, yet they perform above the national average," Townsend points out. "That is staggering. If you say from the outset, we are going to eradicate illiteracy in 10 years, which politician does not want to be part of that soundbite?"
Source
Deliberate BBC deception: Taranto has the story. An attempt to portray Muslims in a good light by concealing half the facts. Perhaps the Beeb should be renamed "The Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation".
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
British bomb plot and Michael Moore-style health care
The legacy of Britain's socialized medical system is a growing reliance on foreign doctors, like seven of the eight suspects arrested in the failed London car bombing and Glasgow airport attack
There are many things wrong with U.S. health care, as there inevitably are with any health care system. The question is whether America wants to go down the British-Canadian-Cuban route, to name three government medical systems that Michael Moore admires in his new film "Sicko." Cuba, of course, is a totalitarian state, and even Hollywood celebrities, though they like to visit, wouldn't want to live there. (Incidentally, the best health treatment available on Cuba is at Gitmo.) The United Kingdom, by contrast, is a free society, but last week's incendiary Jeep Cherokee at Glasgow Airport has shone a rare light on the curious character of its government health system.
Of the eight persons arrested as of Friday in the terrorist plot, seven are doctors with the National Health Service (the eighth is the wife of one, and a lab technician at the same hospital). The bombs failed to go off because a medical syringe malfunctioned. I don't mean it malfunctioned as a syringe (even in the crumbling NHS, the syringes usually work) but as a triggering mechanism, to which it had been adapted, though evidently not too efficiently.
Does government health care inevitably lead to homicidal doctors who can't wait to leap into a flaming SUV and drive it through the check-in counter? No. But government health care does lead to a dependence on medical staff imported from other countries.
Some 40 percent of Britain's practicing doctors were trained overseas - and that percentage will increase, as older native doctors retire, and younger immigrant doctors take their place. According to the BBC, "Over two-thirds of doctors registering to practice in the UK in 2003 were from overseas - the vast majority from non-European countries." Five of the eight arrested are Arab Muslims, the other three Indian Muslims. Bilal Abdulla, the Wahhabi driver of the incendiary Jeep and a doctor at the Royal Alexandra Hospital near Glasgow, is one of over 2,000 Iraqi doctors working in Britain.
Many of these imported medical staff have never practiced in their own countries. As soon as they complete their training, they move to a Western world hungry for doctors to prop up their understaffed health systems: Dr. Abdulla got his medical qualification in Baghdad in 2004 and was practicing in Britain by 2006. His co-plotter, Mohammed Asha, a neurosurgeon, graduated in Jordan in 2004 and came to England the same year.
When the president talks about needing immigrants to do "the jobs Americans won't do," most of us assume he means seasonal fruit pickers and the maid who turns down your hotel bed and leaves the little chocolate on it. But in the United Kingdom the jobs Britons won't do has somehow come to encompass the medical profession.
Aneurin Bevan, the socialist who created the National Health Service after World War II, was once asked to explain how he'd talked the country's doctors into agreeing to become state employees: "I stuffed their mouths with gold," he crowed. Sixty years later, no amount of gold can persuade Britons to spend their working lives in the country's dirty, decrepit hospitals (they spend enough of their nonworking lives there, waiting to be seen, waiting for beds, waiting for operations). According to a report in the British Medical Journal, white males comprise 43.5 percent of the population but now account for less than a quarter of students at UK medical schools. In other words, being a doctor is no longer an attractive middle-class career proposition. That's quite a monument to six decades of Michael Moore-style socialist health care.
So today the NHS is hungry for medical personnel from almost anywhere on the planet, so hungry that the government set up special fast-track immigration programs: Mohammed Asha, Mohammed Haneef and their comrades didn't even require a work permit to come and practice as doctors in state hospitals. You don't have to be the smartest jihadist in the cave to see that as an opportunity, any more than it required no great expertise for the 9/11 killers to figure that the quickest place to get the picture IDs with which they boarded the planes was through Virginia's "undocumented worker" network. Everyone else from the Venezuelan peasantry to the Russia mafia knows the vulnerabilities of Western immigration systems, so why not the jihadists?
Maybe their mistake was trying to blow up the airport instead of wreaking subtler havoc on the infidels. Did you see this week's scare-of-the-week from the Chinese health system? "About 420 bottles of fake blood protein, albumin, were found at hospitals in Hubei province but none had been used to treat patients, said Liu Jinai, an official with the inspection division of the provincial food and drug administration."
Well, this being China, where public lies about public health are routine, we just have to take Liu Jinai's word that "none had been used to treat patients." But imagine what Doctor Jihad could get up to if he stopped trying to use the syringe as a detonator and just resumed using it as a syringe?
But beyond that the Glasgow Jeep story symbolizes a more basic reality. The NHS is the biggest employer in Europe, and it's utterly dependent on imported staff such as Dr. Asha and Dr. Abdulla. In the West, we look on mass immigration as a testament to our generosity, to our multicultural bona fides. But it's not: A dependence on mass immigration is always a structural weakness and should be understood as such. In the socialized health systems of the Continent, aging, shrinking populations of native Europeans will spend their final years being cared for by young Muslim doctors and nurses. Indeed, in the NHS, geriatric medicine is a field overwhelmingly dependent on immigrant staff.
And what of the other end of the medical business? Take Japan, a country with the same collapsed birth rates as Europe but with virtually no immigration. In my book, I note an interesting trend in Japanese health care: The shortage of newborn children has led to a shortage of obstetricians. For in a country with deathbed demographics, why would any talented ambitious med-school student want to go into a field in such precipitous decline? In Japan, birthing is a dying business.
Back at the Royal Alexandra Hospital, three doctors were under arrest, and the bomb squad performed a controlled explosion on a vehicle in the parking lot. Pulled from the flaming Cherokee, Dr. Kafeel Ahmed is now being treated for 90 percent burns in his own hospital by the very colleagues he sought to kill. But at one level he and Dr. Asha and Dr. Abdulla don't need to blow up anything at all. The fact that the National Health Service - the "envy of the world" in every British politician's absurdly parochial cliche - has to hire Wahhabist doctors with no background checks tells you everything about where the country's heading.
Source
British kids refuse to oblige the food Fascists
When Jamie Oliver revolutionised school meals he was lauded by teachers, health-conscious parents and politicians keen for some reflected glory. His campaign has, however, proved less popular with the children. There has been a 20 per cent fall in the uptake of secondary school meals since Jamie's School Dinners was screened two years ago, according to official figures. Numbers have reportedly fallen to about four in ten pupils - thought to be the lowest level since provision became mandatory in 1944. Older pupils in particular are rejecting the organic and healthy meals in favour of packed lunches or takeaways.
The latest figures are from a survey by the Local Authorities Catering Association. The full results will be presented at a conference on Friday. A spokeswoman for LACA said: "There's definitely a drop in secondary school meal numbers. It's not because of Jamie Oliver but because of changes in Government regulations on school foods since 2006. There has been a withdrawal and banning of some foods, such as fizzy drinks.
"From September, all school food will be affected by new regulations. Homemade biscuits and cakes will no longer be available as snacks, instead there will be bread-based products. At the moment it's early days and children are reacting. We've got to have a realistic approach to this. I think the numbers will rise in the long term."
Source
Britain: Do primary schools let boys down?
By the age of seven more than a quarter of boys need special help with their education, the latest figures show. Is there something inherently wrong with a large chunk of one of the sexes - or are primary schools simply letting boys down?
It has long been known [to everyone except the feminists -- who are influential in education] that male and female brains are different - that they mature at different rates and develop in different ways. You only need to look at the way very young boys and girls play to see that often they like different things and approach things in different ways. Experts say girls' brains are more wired up for communicating and reading emotions, while boys like moving, doing and solving practical problems.
Principal of the School of Emotional Literacy Dr Elizabeth Morris says: "Boys like doing things for a purpose and having things that are concrete and relevant to deal with. "Girls will be happier with discussion, relationship building, team activities and reading." She adds: "The teaching profession in primaries is dominated by women who, with the best will in the world, will tend to deliver a larger proportion of the curriculum in teaching styles that make most sense to them - and therefore favour the girls."
Girls tend to be auditory and visual learners whereas boys are more kinaesthetic learners. This means that while girls like to listen and watch, boys like to learn by doing and taking part in discussions in small groups. So teachers need to be aware of the ways in which their pupils find it most natural to learn, says head teacher at the Churchill School in Folkestone, Jennie Carter. "If someone's picking at the carpet when the TV's on - they are not likely to be a visual learner."
To ensure that all pupils are being given an equal chance to learn, teachers at the school ask pupils to rate how clearly they understand what has just been taught to them. If the pupils who say they have not quite grasped things are the ones she knows to be visual learners - then she might show them a picture to help them grasp what's being taught, for example. As a result of this and other measures, of the 43% of children who get extra help at the school, 93% reach the required level in national tests.
Good school behaviour in the early years is often about sitting still, not fidgeting and waiting your turn to answer the teacher's question. "Given that boys in particular need to rough and tumble play as part of their development - and that this is happening less with parents now because they are not around so much - we may be seeing boys trying unconsciously to do what is right for their bodies by being physical," says Dr Morris. "But they have it misunderstood and classified as an emotional behaviour disorder because it doesn't conform to school needs."
Some experts suggest that teachers are deliberately getting pupils labelled as having special needs with reading, for example, because it is an easy way of getting a difficult child out of the classroom for a while. Mrs Carter says if there is a lack of support for members of staff this misuse of SEN labels is likely to happen. She recalls one bright pupil with Asperger's syndrome (ASD). "Some days he would not want to be with people so we would let him lie on the floor under the white board and let him get on with his work. "He did really well and got into a grammar school but they couldn't cope when he got there." Thankfully, the grammar school sent a teacher back to the primary school to draw up a provision map to deal with the different situations he was likely to encounter....
Maybe schools' obsession with conformity is the root of the problem - perhaps our teachers are unconsciously trying to make boys behave more like girls? Dr Morris: "Boys are great - they are full of fun and life. I hate how we take that energy and try to contain it rather than finding channels and opportunities to work with them in ways that fit for them." She says that boys often end up being stereotyped which just creates a self-fulfilling cycle, but she adds that once those working with children are able to see what is going on developmentally or neurologically they see the children quite differently.
Source
Britain: Cosseting bad for kids
Middle-class parents are raising a generation of 'spoilt brats' who are so cosseted that they struggle to cope in the workplace, psychologists have warned. A new breed of 'princesses' and 'little kings' cannot hold down jobs because they are so used to leaving household chores to their parents and throwing tantrums to get their own way. Experts believe a rise in child-centred parenting is to blame. Mothers and fathers are said to be lavishing expensive clothes and gadgets on their children both to keep up with the Joneses and ease their guilt at working long hours. But too much pampering is making many children bossy, demanding and nasty to classmates, experts warn.
The children's charity Kidscape yesterday lamented the rise of the 'brat bully' - a new breed of classroom monster who uses mobile phones and e-mail to subtly victimise other children.
Meanwhile, Professor Cary Cooper, head of psychology and health at Lancaster University, warned that cosseted home lives can leave children ill-equipped for life in the adult world. "Some young people have been so pampered they can't stick at a job when things get tough," he said. "They have no experience of knuckling down to household chores and pulling their weight, because their parents did everything for them." He added: "Working couples have very little disposable time for each other, or their children, so when the kids are younger they outsource them to nannies or childminders, and when they're older, they feel guilty and buy them off by indulging them and never asking anything in return. "By the time they're teenagers, kids see their peer group as their new family and have little loyalty to their parents."
According to the Association of Graduate Recruiters, employers find that many school-leavers are unwilling to perform menial tasks which they consider beneath them. Some also have little idea how to answer phones politely or treat colleagues with respect.
Michele Elliott, director of Kidscape, highlighted the emergence of middle-class 'brat bullies'. "Before, you could say bullies often came from dysfunctional families, were miserable themselves-and were acting out their anger on the people around them," she said. "But some of them now come from what you might call 'good homes' - they are well cared for and their parents love them. "The problem is these children increasingly think they have an entitlement to everything, and are almost like royalty - 'move out of the way, here comes the princess'. Boys as well can be 'little kings'."
Such children often victimise others through Internet chatrooms and text messages, said Mrs Elliott. "Their parents are often unaware of how their child is acting towards others," she added. "Or if they do, they may not care, taking the attitude 'she will get ahead in life because she's assertive'."
The warning came as ministers urged parents to do more to help their children with schoolwork. Research published yesterday by the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust concluded that parents can significantly improve grades and behaviour by 'supporting learning in the home'.
Source
The legacy of Britain's socialized medical system is a growing reliance on foreign doctors, like seven of the eight suspects arrested in the failed London car bombing and Glasgow airport attack
There are many things wrong with U.S. health care, as there inevitably are with any health care system. The question is whether America wants to go down the British-Canadian-Cuban route, to name three government medical systems that Michael Moore admires in his new film "Sicko." Cuba, of course, is a totalitarian state, and even Hollywood celebrities, though they like to visit, wouldn't want to live there. (Incidentally, the best health treatment available on Cuba is at Gitmo.) The United Kingdom, by contrast, is a free society, but last week's incendiary Jeep Cherokee at Glasgow Airport has shone a rare light on the curious character of its government health system.
Of the eight persons arrested as of Friday in the terrorist plot, seven are doctors with the National Health Service (the eighth is the wife of one, and a lab technician at the same hospital). The bombs failed to go off because a medical syringe malfunctioned. I don't mean it malfunctioned as a syringe (even in the crumbling NHS, the syringes usually work) but as a triggering mechanism, to which it had been adapted, though evidently not too efficiently.
Does government health care inevitably lead to homicidal doctors who can't wait to leap into a flaming SUV and drive it through the check-in counter? No. But government health care does lead to a dependence on medical staff imported from other countries.
Some 40 percent of Britain's practicing doctors were trained overseas - and that percentage will increase, as older native doctors retire, and younger immigrant doctors take their place. According to the BBC, "Over two-thirds of doctors registering to practice in the UK in 2003 were from overseas - the vast majority from non-European countries." Five of the eight arrested are Arab Muslims, the other three Indian Muslims. Bilal Abdulla, the Wahhabi driver of the incendiary Jeep and a doctor at the Royal Alexandra Hospital near Glasgow, is one of over 2,000 Iraqi doctors working in Britain.
Many of these imported medical staff have never practiced in their own countries. As soon as they complete their training, they move to a Western world hungry for doctors to prop up their understaffed health systems: Dr. Abdulla got his medical qualification in Baghdad in 2004 and was practicing in Britain by 2006. His co-plotter, Mohammed Asha, a neurosurgeon, graduated in Jordan in 2004 and came to England the same year.
When the president talks about needing immigrants to do "the jobs Americans won't do," most of us assume he means seasonal fruit pickers and the maid who turns down your hotel bed and leaves the little chocolate on it. But in the United Kingdom the jobs Britons won't do has somehow come to encompass the medical profession.
Aneurin Bevan, the socialist who created the National Health Service after World War II, was once asked to explain how he'd talked the country's doctors into agreeing to become state employees: "I stuffed their mouths with gold," he crowed. Sixty years later, no amount of gold can persuade Britons to spend their working lives in the country's dirty, decrepit hospitals (they spend enough of their nonworking lives there, waiting to be seen, waiting for beds, waiting for operations). According to a report in the British Medical Journal, white males comprise 43.5 percent of the population but now account for less than a quarter of students at UK medical schools. In other words, being a doctor is no longer an attractive middle-class career proposition. That's quite a monument to six decades of Michael Moore-style socialist health care.
So today the NHS is hungry for medical personnel from almost anywhere on the planet, so hungry that the government set up special fast-track immigration programs: Mohammed Asha, Mohammed Haneef and their comrades didn't even require a work permit to come and practice as doctors in state hospitals. You don't have to be the smartest jihadist in the cave to see that as an opportunity, any more than it required no great expertise for the 9/11 killers to figure that the quickest place to get the picture IDs with which they boarded the planes was through Virginia's "undocumented worker" network. Everyone else from the Venezuelan peasantry to the Russia mafia knows the vulnerabilities of Western immigration systems, so why not the jihadists?
Maybe their mistake was trying to blow up the airport instead of wreaking subtler havoc on the infidels. Did you see this week's scare-of-the-week from the Chinese health system? "About 420 bottles of fake blood protein, albumin, were found at hospitals in Hubei province but none had been used to treat patients, said Liu Jinai, an official with the inspection division of the provincial food and drug administration."
Well, this being China, where public lies about public health are routine, we just have to take Liu Jinai's word that "none had been used to treat patients." But imagine what Doctor Jihad could get up to if he stopped trying to use the syringe as a detonator and just resumed using it as a syringe?
But beyond that the Glasgow Jeep story symbolizes a more basic reality. The NHS is the biggest employer in Europe, and it's utterly dependent on imported staff such as Dr. Asha and Dr. Abdulla. In the West, we look on mass immigration as a testament to our generosity, to our multicultural bona fides. But it's not: A dependence on mass immigration is always a structural weakness and should be understood as such. In the socialized health systems of the Continent, aging, shrinking populations of native Europeans will spend their final years being cared for by young Muslim doctors and nurses. Indeed, in the NHS, geriatric medicine is a field overwhelmingly dependent on immigrant staff.
And what of the other end of the medical business? Take Japan, a country with the same collapsed birth rates as Europe but with virtually no immigration. In my book, I note an interesting trend in Japanese health care: The shortage of newborn children has led to a shortage of obstetricians. For in a country with deathbed demographics, why would any talented ambitious med-school student want to go into a field in such precipitous decline? In Japan, birthing is a dying business.
Back at the Royal Alexandra Hospital, three doctors were under arrest, and the bomb squad performed a controlled explosion on a vehicle in the parking lot. Pulled from the flaming Cherokee, Dr. Kafeel Ahmed is now being treated for 90 percent burns in his own hospital by the very colleagues he sought to kill. But at one level he and Dr. Asha and Dr. Abdulla don't need to blow up anything at all. The fact that the National Health Service - the "envy of the world" in every British politician's absurdly parochial cliche - has to hire Wahhabist doctors with no background checks tells you everything about where the country's heading.
Source
British kids refuse to oblige the food Fascists
When Jamie Oliver revolutionised school meals he was lauded by teachers, health-conscious parents and politicians keen for some reflected glory. His campaign has, however, proved less popular with the children. There has been a 20 per cent fall in the uptake of secondary school meals since Jamie's School Dinners was screened two years ago, according to official figures. Numbers have reportedly fallen to about four in ten pupils - thought to be the lowest level since provision became mandatory in 1944. Older pupils in particular are rejecting the organic and healthy meals in favour of packed lunches or takeaways.
The latest figures are from a survey by the Local Authorities Catering Association. The full results will be presented at a conference on Friday. A spokeswoman for LACA said: "There's definitely a drop in secondary school meal numbers. It's not because of Jamie Oliver but because of changes in Government regulations on school foods since 2006. There has been a withdrawal and banning of some foods, such as fizzy drinks.
"From September, all school food will be affected by new regulations. Homemade biscuits and cakes will no longer be available as snacks, instead there will be bread-based products. At the moment it's early days and children are reacting. We've got to have a realistic approach to this. I think the numbers will rise in the long term."
Source
Britain: Do primary schools let boys down?
By the age of seven more than a quarter of boys need special help with their education, the latest figures show. Is there something inherently wrong with a large chunk of one of the sexes - or are primary schools simply letting boys down?
It has long been known [to everyone except the feminists -- who are influential in education] that male and female brains are different - that they mature at different rates and develop in different ways. You only need to look at the way very young boys and girls play to see that often they like different things and approach things in different ways. Experts say girls' brains are more wired up for communicating and reading emotions, while boys like moving, doing and solving practical problems.
Principal of the School of Emotional Literacy Dr Elizabeth Morris says: "Boys like doing things for a purpose and having things that are concrete and relevant to deal with. "Girls will be happier with discussion, relationship building, team activities and reading." She adds: "The teaching profession in primaries is dominated by women who, with the best will in the world, will tend to deliver a larger proportion of the curriculum in teaching styles that make most sense to them - and therefore favour the girls."
Girls tend to be auditory and visual learners whereas boys are more kinaesthetic learners. This means that while girls like to listen and watch, boys like to learn by doing and taking part in discussions in small groups. So teachers need to be aware of the ways in which their pupils find it most natural to learn, says head teacher at the Churchill School in Folkestone, Jennie Carter. "If someone's picking at the carpet when the TV's on - they are not likely to be a visual learner."
To ensure that all pupils are being given an equal chance to learn, teachers at the school ask pupils to rate how clearly they understand what has just been taught to them. If the pupils who say they have not quite grasped things are the ones she knows to be visual learners - then she might show them a picture to help them grasp what's being taught, for example. As a result of this and other measures, of the 43% of children who get extra help at the school, 93% reach the required level in national tests.
Good school behaviour in the early years is often about sitting still, not fidgeting and waiting your turn to answer the teacher's question. "Given that boys in particular need to rough and tumble play as part of their development - and that this is happening less with parents now because they are not around so much - we may be seeing boys trying unconsciously to do what is right for their bodies by being physical," says Dr Morris. "But they have it misunderstood and classified as an emotional behaviour disorder because it doesn't conform to school needs."
Some experts suggest that teachers are deliberately getting pupils labelled as having special needs with reading, for example, because it is an easy way of getting a difficult child out of the classroom for a while. Mrs Carter says if there is a lack of support for members of staff this misuse of SEN labels is likely to happen. She recalls one bright pupil with Asperger's syndrome (ASD). "Some days he would not want to be with people so we would let him lie on the floor under the white board and let him get on with his work. "He did really well and got into a grammar school but they couldn't cope when he got there." Thankfully, the grammar school sent a teacher back to the primary school to draw up a provision map to deal with the different situations he was likely to encounter....
Maybe schools' obsession with conformity is the root of the problem - perhaps our teachers are unconsciously trying to make boys behave more like girls? Dr Morris: "Boys are great - they are full of fun and life. I hate how we take that energy and try to contain it rather than finding channels and opportunities to work with them in ways that fit for them." She says that boys often end up being stereotyped which just creates a self-fulfilling cycle, but she adds that once those working with children are able to see what is going on developmentally or neurologically they see the children quite differently.
Source
Britain: Cosseting bad for kids
Middle-class parents are raising a generation of 'spoilt brats' who are so cosseted that they struggle to cope in the workplace, psychologists have warned. A new breed of 'princesses' and 'little kings' cannot hold down jobs because they are so used to leaving household chores to their parents and throwing tantrums to get their own way. Experts believe a rise in child-centred parenting is to blame. Mothers and fathers are said to be lavishing expensive clothes and gadgets on their children both to keep up with the Joneses and ease their guilt at working long hours. But too much pampering is making many children bossy, demanding and nasty to classmates, experts warn.
The children's charity Kidscape yesterday lamented the rise of the 'brat bully' - a new breed of classroom monster who uses mobile phones and e-mail to subtly victimise other children.
Meanwhile, Professor Cary Cooper, head of psychology and health at Lancaster University, warned that cosseted home lives can leave children ill-equipped for life in the adult world. "Some young people have been so pampered they can't stick at a job when things get tough," he said. "They have no experience of knuckling down to household chores and pulling their weight, because their parents did everything for them." He added: "Working couples have very little disposable time for each other, or their children, so when the kids are younger they outsource them to nannies or childminders, and when they're older, they feel guilty and buy them off by indulging them and never asking anything in return. "By the time they're teenagers, kids see their peer group as their new family and have little loyalty to their parents."
According to the Association of Graduate Recruiters, employers find that many school-leavers are unwilling to perform menial tasks which they consider beneath them. Some also have little idea how to answer phones politely or treat colleagues with respect.
Michele Elliott, director of Kidscape, highlighted the emergence of middle-class 'brat bullies'. "Before, you could say bullies often came from dysfunctional families, were miserable themselves-and were acting out their anger on the people around them," she said. "But some of them now come from what you might call 'good homes' - they are well cared for and their parents love them. "The problem is these children increasingly think they have an entitlement to everything, and are almost like royalty - 'move out of the way, here comes the princess'. Boys as well can be 'little kings'."
Such children often victimise others through Internet chatrooms and text messages, said Mrs Elliott. "Their parents are often unaware of how their child is acting towards others," she added. "Or if they do, they may not care, taking the attitude 'she will get ahead in life because she's assertive'."
The warning came as ministers urged parents to do more to help their children with schoolwork. Research published yesterday by the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust concluded that parents can significantly improve grades and behaviour by 'supporting learning in the home'.
Source
Monday, July 09, 2007
British Islam: We are up against 20 years of preparation
In July 1989 I had an experience that scared and alienated me, but also made me realise who I was and, more importantly, who I was not - and would never be. I was 18 and in my first year at Brighton University, where I was studying for a BA in Humanities. I was meeting new people - people of different religions, cultures, ages, sexual orientation, experiences and interests. I was growing up, realising for the first time that there was a world other than the one my parents talked about constantly - the world of Long Eaton (where I lived) and Pakistan. I was discovering that I had a lot more in common with British non-Muslims than I had hitherto realised.
That summer two relatives of my mum's - girls of my own age - came to stay with us, as they had done often in the past. Like me, they were in their first year at university, but they had changed completely. To my horror, the girls I'd known so well - who were fun, happy, easy-going - arrived at our house wearing hijabs. I'd never seen them dressed like that before, and it was totally alien to me - and to my family and to mainstream Pakistani culture. The two girls I'd know for years, who used to talk about boys, clothes, fashion, music and films, were now wearing Middle Eastern outfits and claiming that this was their new religious identity and it was the true way to dress for any woman claiming to be Muslim.
They told me that they had joined an Islamic group at their university and that there would be daily lectures about Islam. They said that most of these lecturers were from the Middle East. Their key message was that they had to create an Islamic State, which meant that Muslims from all over the world had to unite. These people believed - and believe - that there is no Islamic state and therefore one must be created where all Muslims can live according to the true laws of Islam.
One of girls told me that the ways her parents had brought her up as a Muslim was not the true way and that her parents were misguided and she was trying to educate them through what she had learnt from her Islamic group at university. `People like you, Saira, are not Muslims because you are confused with religion and culture,' she said. `There is no culture, there is only religion, and until you accept that you cannot call yourself a Muslim.' She went on to state, `We are not British, we are Muslim.'
My two former companions were extremely well-rehearsed in presenting their arguments. To support a certain line of debate they would recite chapter and verse from the Koran. It's impossible to argue with someone whose get-out clause is always, `It is written in the Koran. We can't argue with God's Word.' The sad thing was that these girls had worked so hard to get to university to study medicine and enable themselves to get a great job. Their mother was just as shocked as I was at their transformation, and at the way they spoke and despised Britain so much. As she put it, `I sent them to university to study and become doctors and they've come back telling me that I'm not a proper Muslim and that I need to wear a hijab.' Back then, however, nobody really seemed to take much notice of this very obvious transformation and change in attitude in these two young women.
My point here is not to say that women who wear the hijab are extremists - far less that they will at some stage be involved in some terrorist activity - but to suggest that this is how, in many cases, extremism starts.
It dawned on me after the 7/7 bombings that the seeds of extremism were sown all over Great Britain well before 1989 and that indeed it had been allowed to flourish undeterred in this country for more than 20 years. We in Britain are not fighting a new phenomenon that raised it ugly head in 2005; we are fighting more than 20 years of planning and preparation by those who want Britain to be an Islamic state.
Of course, most British Muslims won't become violent extremists, but most will endanger society - albeit unwittingly - by supporting and condoning the actions of extremists. Very few will admit this in public, but many will say behind closed doors that they are sympathetic to the bombers' cause and that they can understand why they are doing it. These things are said in front of young children and justified by various conspiracy theories which nearly always involve Jews, America and the CIA.
But it is not all doom and gloom. In last weekend's Observer Hassan Butt, once a member of the radical group Al-Muhajiroun, wrote a very open and honest account of his experience. He said: `I believe that the issue of terrorism can be easily demystified if Muslims and non-Muslims start openly to discuss the ideas that fuel terrorism. (The Muslim community in Britain must slap itself awake from this state of denial and realise that there is no shame in admitting the extremism within our families, communities and worldwide co-religionists.)'
It is people like Hassan Butt that the government must engage with and give priority to, because they can make a difference; it is they who should be heard over the Muslim Council of Britain and many of the Muslim MPs who think they know the community and who in my opinion are too scared to tell the whole truth in case they lose Muslim votes.
There are too few moderate voices among the Muslim community. As a result, the extremists have their say, and are not opposed. This gives the non-Muslim population the impression that all Muslims are either extremists or agree with radical Islamic principles.
The war against terror cannot be won without moderate Muslims coming out and standing up for British values - the values of integration and living peacefully in a secular society. We should not be scared to shout this out, loud and proud: we should not be intimidated by a few hotheads into thinking we are any less Muslim if we say we are British and don't want to go around blowing up innocent people in the name of Allah. British Muslims have to realise that there is no `but' after a sentence like, `I wholeheartedly disagree with the terrorist actions and the killings of innocent civilians.'
Source
Flagging Britain
Post lifted from Prof. Brignell. See the original for links. Prof. Brignell is referring to the fact that new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has ordered that the Union Jack will fly above his official residence: No. 10 Downing St. in London
Britain's new Prime Minister is wrapping himself in a piece of coloured cloth in order to cover up a couple of rather ugly embarrassments. The cloth in question is the union flag, which was once pronounced anathema in the heady early days of the New Labour project. As in almost everything else New Labour purported to stand for, the movement has completed an about turn.
Embarrassment number one is the festering sore in the flank of the union arising from the insouciant Mr Blair's quick fix in creating the Scottish Parliament, completely ignoring the infamous West Lothian Question that had so exercised finer minds. Now that we have a Scottish Prime Minister, absurdities pile upon absurdities. The PM's own constituents (in common with those of another party leader in the adjoining Fife constituency) have privileges that are forbidden to the English, such as free drugs for cancer and dementia, free university education and guaranteed small school class sizes. Furthermore, these privileges are funded out of a massive subsidy to Scots, paid out of English taxes according to the historical Barnett Formula (which, incidentally is now repudiated by its eponymous author). Even worse, Scottish MPs, like the PM, are entitled to vote on matters that only affect the English, such as those proscriptions, whereas the reciprocal relationship does not apply.
Embarrassment number two is that the Prime Minister has declared his intention of reneging on the manifesto promise for a referendum on the question of a new European Constitution. Blair, as his final act of treachery, signed up to a new drastic transfer of powers. All over Europe it is acknowledged that the new treaty is the old constitution in almost all except name. Only in Britain is the fiction maintained that it is not a constitution. That bit of coloured cloth, which is now to fly above all official buildings, is about to become virtually meaningless. In reality it should be replaced by the flag of the other union, and perhaps soon will be. Comparisons with that other great democratic union in North America are spurious. The EU is an undemocratic oligarchy, corrupt and riddled with fraud. Would you invest in a business that has never had its accounts passed by its auditors? If only Britain had an opposition!
London hospital does not give a damn about infection control
Back to the 18th century
A hospital that is failing to tackle superbug infections has been served with an official warning in the first case of its kind, the health watchdog will announce today. Inspectors from the Healthcare Commission have found Chase Farm Hospital in Enfield, North London, to be in "serious breach" of the Hygiene Code, the latest government rules to manage healthcare-associated infections such as MRSA and C. difficile. Even basic requirements, such as providing hand-washing gels at a patient's bedside, were not in place, the watchdog said.
Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals NHS Trust, which manages the hospital, has now been served with an improvement notice, ordering immediate changes to infection control practices. Despite reporting more than 600 superbug infections in a six-month period last year, there was "no evidence" that the trust learnt from its mistakes, the commission said. Among "fundamental problems" highlighted during a spot-check were failures to keep wards clean, to properly assess the risks of superbug infection and to isolate infected patients so that they could not spread illness.
The commission was given powers to issue improvement notices last year. This is its first. The Barnet and Chase Farm Trust, which had told the commission that it was meeting the three core standards relating to the Hygiene Code, was found during an unannounced visit on June 7 to be in breach of several key duties set out in the code. The trust was rated as "weak" in quality of services and use of resources in the 2005-06 annual health check by the Healthcare Commission. Its provision of potentially misleading information to the commission could affect its rating in this year's assessments of NHS Trusts.
According to latest figures from the Health Protection Agency, there were 584 cases of C. difficile in patients aged over 65 at the trust from January to September last year. From April to September 2006 there were 29 reported cases of MRSA. Updated figures are expected to be published by the end of the month. The problems, described as "wide--ranging and serious", included:
- A failure to provide and maintain a clean and appropriate environment for healthcare.
- A failure to provide adequate isolation facilities for patients already suffering from infections.
- A lack of appropriate management systems for infection prevention and control.
- A failure to assess risks of acquiring healthcare-associated infection and to take action to reduce or control them.
In addition, only one microbiologist, working four hours a week, was employed to monitor infections at the trust, which serves a catchment of 500,000 people. There was also no identified budget for training of staff in infection-control and attendance at such training was not monitored. Clinical staff were found to be "confused" about isolation policies, "indicating that they are not always adhered to".
The commission said in a statement: "Because the trust does not conduct analysis to determine the cause of infection on all patients confirmed to have MRSA, it is difficult for the trust to monitor and learn from outbreaks and incidents." It has now been given deadlines to address issues raised by the commission, with the local strategic health authority overseeing the work. Anna Walker, chief executive of the Healthcare Commission, said: "I hope this sends out a strong message to all trusts that we will not hesitate to use our powers when it comes to enforcing the Hygiene Code."
Richard Harrison, medical director at Barnet and Chase Farm Trust, said: "Our issues around infection control follow the national picture, but with an extra 500,000 pounds investment in cleaning the wards, screening patients before admission and our prudent antibiotic policy, the trust is winning the battle against hospital-acquired infections. The trust reported 74 new case of C. difficile in April and only 16 cases in June."
Source
British pupils to be taught about the Olympic games - instead of geography
The dumbing down never stops. Propaganda is more and more being substituted for knowledge. Knowledge might enable kids to think for themselves -- and the Left can't afford that! Kids must be TOLD what to think
Traditional geography teaching is to be sidelined in favour of studying global warming, Third-World trade and the 2012 Olympics. A major shake-up of the secondary school curriculum aims to make subjects "more relevant" by introducing "modern day issues". Lessons in capital cities, rivers and continental drift will make way for "themed" teaching on issues such as the causes of climate change, the impact of buying clothes on poorer nations and the effects of the South-East Asian tsunami.
Other key subjects such as history and science will also be affected by the changes, which mark the biggest upheaval in secondary education since the national curriculum was introduced in 1988. The measures, which come into force in September next year, will be unveiled by Schools Secretary Ed Balls next week. Ministers hope they will encourage more pupils to stay on at school after the age of 16. But many teachers remain unconvinced.
A convention of history, English and science teachers on Thursday issued a plea for traditional subject disciplines to be protected. The new curriculum will be followed by 11 to 14-year-olds. Other new subjects include "emerging" languages such as Mandarin ["Emerging"? It's thousands of years old!] and Urdu, as well as personal finance and practical cookery. In cookery, pupils will be taught how to analyse a diet to ensure balance and variety, how to keep food safe at home and prepare contemporary healthy recipes.
The previous Education Secretary Alan Johnson insisted certain "untouchables" would remain in the curriculum, including the two World Wars. But swathes of other material will be relegated to optional status. Mr Balls will announce that "sustainable development" [Greenie propaganda] will become a compulsory part of the geography curriculum. Pupils will learn to understand relationships between people and the environment by studying the impact of the tsunami.
They will also conduct fieldwork projects such as "the regeneration of East London as part of the 2012 Olympics". And they will explore globalisation by looking at the impact of their choices as consumers, including buying clothes and trainers. Schools minister Lord Adonis said: "We want geography to excite pupils so that they continue studying the subject when they leave school."
Source
Nursery rhymes no longer taught in many British families
There was a time when every child could tell you who cut off the tails of three blind mice, why a sneeze might signify death from the plague and which sadistic child pushed the poor pussycat down a well. But now the traditional nursery rhyme, in all its gruesome, bloody detail, is in danger of dropping out of modern culture. A survey suggests that 40 per cent of parents with young children cannot recite a single popular rhyme all the way through.
It is not that parents have stopped singing to their children entirely. Three quarters of parents surveyed agreed that singing to young children was a good way to help them to learn to read. But rather than sing nursery rhymes whose origins and meanings are lost to them, 44 per cent of parents said that they were singing pop songs and television theme tunes instead. These, they said, had much more relevance in their daily lives.
Ian Davidson, of the pollster MyVoice, which questioned 1,200 parents for the survey, said that the nursery rhyme was falling victim to market forces. "It all seems to be to do with choice and relevance. Twenty years ago there were 100 different breakfast cereals to choose from, now there are 300. The old brands such as Kellogg's Cornflakes remain, but there will also be many other options. "It's the same with nursery rhymes. They will never die out among a core of people, but they are facing more competition in popular culture and they no longer have a clear field any more," he added.
But Janine Spencer, a developmental psychologist at Brunel University, lamented the decline of the nursery rhyme, which she said was of enormous educational value. "Not only are nursery rhymes an important historical part of our culture, but by singing them to young children you can help speed up the development of their communication, memory, language and reading skills. "Singing nursery rhymes is also an entertaining and fun way to interact with your baby or toddler, and is crucial for recognising and learning phonic sounds," Dr Spencer said.
The survey, commissioned by the children's television channel Car-toonito, found the knowledge of nursery rhymes increased with age. Survey participants were given the first line of 15 common nursery rhymes and asked to complete it. Four out of ten (40 per cent) younger parents (aged 30 years and under) could not recall a single nursery rhyme in full, whereas only 27 per cent of those aged between 55 and 64 and 13 per cent of those aged 65 or more are unable to recall one in full. Overall, 27 per cent of adults were unable to complete a single rhyme. Of the rhymes people did know, the most popular were Jack and Jill (19 per cent), Humpty Dumpty (17 per cent) and Ring a Ring o'Roses (12 per cent). But 71 per cent of parents had no clear idea of their origins or possible historical meaning.
The survey follows the introduction by the Government of a new phonics teaching programme in English primary schools called Letters and Sounds, which emphasises the importance of preparing preschool children for phonics through songs and nursery rhymes.
Notes:
Jack and Jill has several possible origins. It may mark King Charles l's unsuccessful attempts to reform the taxes on liquid measures, Jack being half a pint and Jill being a quarter of a pint, or gill. Although the King's measures were blocked, he subsequently ordered the volume standard measures to be reduced, while the tax remained the same
Humpty Dumpty was originally posed as a riddle, as "humpty dumpty" was 18th-century slang for a short, clumsy person, who might well be the kind to fall off a wall Similar riddles have been recorded in other languages, such as Boule Boule in French, or Lille Trille in Swedish
Ring a Ring o'Roses was usually accompanied by a playground skipping game that ended with children falling down and is said have originated with the Great Plague in 1665. Some experts dispute this, pointing out that European and 19th-century versions suggest that this "fall" was not a literal falling down, but a curtsy
Source
Britain: Those who can't, teach
Less than half of primary school teachers have two good A levels [High school qualification], while only 41 per cent of secondary teachers have a degree in the subject they teach, according to a report claiming that the profession is in crisis.
There has been a big increase in teacher numbers in recent years, after a shortage in the mid1990s. But the report from the think-tank Politeia says government policies focus too much on increasing numbers with too little regard for quality. It notes there there are two nonteaching members of staff for every three teachers. There are now 150,000 teaching assistants, while the number of unqualified teachers working in schools has increased significantly in the past decade.
Bob Moon, Professor of Education at the Open University and co-author of the report, said: "The assessment system allows even the weakest candidates through". The Training and Development Agency for Schools, the Government's teacher training agency, rejected many of the findings, insisting that standards had never been higher. [That doesn't say much]
Source
BICYCLES ONLY FOR THE PEASANTS
One of Britain's biggest engineering companies has banned staff from travelling on bicycles or motorbikes after declaring them too dangerous. Jacobs Babtie advises local authorities on sustainable transport projects - including how to get more people to switch from four wheels to two. It has told staff at its 36 offices across Britain that they must drive or use public transport. They can use bicycles only if they are working away from roads, such as on canal towpaths.
In an e-mail to all employees, a copy of which has been obtained by The Times, the company's health and safety manager says: "It's patently obvious that if you are struck by a wayward vehicle when you are on a bicycle or motorbike you are going to be more severely affected than if you were in a car. The reason for this policy is to protect our employees from other vehicles on the road.
There will be a few limited exceptions when employees will be permitted to travel by bicycle, but that would be when that mode of transport is required to undertake the job, for example, carrying out surveys along river banks and tow paths."
The ban on cycling on company business has infuriated several staff, who have been cycling without any serious safety incidents for years. They believe the ban is partly the result of conditions in the company's insurance policy. The e-mail acknowledges that staff are unhappy about the ban and admits it "could be construed as being at odds with our environmental policy and the requirement to be environmentally responsible".
It also acknowledges the concerns among employees that the company will lose important contracts because the ban "will not please our environmentally friendly clients".
One of Jacobs' biggest customers is Transport for London, which has a target of achieving a fivefold increase in the level of cycling by 2025, and this weekend will host the opening races in the Tour de France. TfL paid Jacobs o6 million last year for various projects, including monitoring the impact of the congestion charge and measuring how many people have switched from driving to walking or cycling. On its website, Jacobs states: "In the area of cycling, we can offer expert resources at every stage from cycle policy and promotion through to the detailed design and implementation of cycle schemes."
Jenny Jones, the green transport adviser to Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, said TfL should consider cancelling its contracts with Jacobs. She said: "It is hypocritical to offer advice on promoting cycling but at the same time ban your staff from using bikes. If Jacobs does not understand how important cycling is to TfL, we need to ask whether they are the right sort of company to work with."
A TfL spokesman said: "We find the attitude of Jacobs bizarre and we will be urging them to rethink this decision. TfL is committed to encouraging Londoners to get on their bikes whenever and wherever possible. Our serious investment in growing cycling has seen journeys by bike on soar by 83 per cent since 2000. The number of number of cyclists killed or seriously injured has fallen by 28 per cent since the mid to late 1990s." In Britain, 146 cyclists were killed last year compared with 203 in 1996.
Kevin Mayne, the director of the Cyclists Touring Club, said: "Banning cycling on health and safety grounds is ironic; forcing people off their bikes and into cars just reduces their fitness and increases the danger they pose to other road users. Jacobs' policy shows a complete lack of understanding of transport risk assessment. For TfL and local authorities to pay a company which bans cycling for advice on sustainable transport is like asking the lunatics to help run the asylum."
A US medical study found that people who cycled regularly beyond their mid30s lived on average two years longer. The British Medical Association has said that the health benefits of cycling far outweigh risks.
The Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety said that Jacobs should give its employees training in how to be safer cyclists rather than banning them from cycling.
Source
56 PER CENT OF YOU ARE STUPID (OR IS IT JUST IPSOS MORI?)
Ipsos Mori [British opinion pollsters] are about to publish some research they've done, "Tipping Point Or Turning Point? Social Marketing & Climate Change" Phil Downing, head of environmental research at the company, and one of the report's authors appeared on yesterday's Today program on BBC Radio 4 to discuss the findings:
"I think there are two key headlines that we've found. The first is that concern about climate change on the whole is rising. And we find that very few people, only a very small minority, actually reject out of hand the idea that it is actually changing the climate, that humans have at least some part to play in that."
So what's the problem?
"The more disturbing trend is there's still undecided or a large proportion who are ambivalent about the issue. And we see this filtering through to the number who say that they're not convinced that scientists can successfully model the climate. More frighteningly still that they believe the scientific debate is still raging, err, and the jury is still out."
But you don't need to be a global warming denialist, or even a sceptic to be part of the 56% of us who are unconvinced of science's current ability to successfully model the climate. Take for example, Kevin E. Trenberth's recent article on Nature's Climate Feedback blog:
"There is no estimate, even probabilistically, as to the likelihood of any emissions scenario and no best guess. ... Even if there were, the projections are based on model results that provide differences of the future climate relative to that today. None of the models used by IPCC are initialized to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate. In particular, the state of the oceans, sea ice, and soil moisture has no relationship to the observed state at any recent time in any of theIPCC models."
And Trenberth is no 'sceptic'. He maintains that global warming is happening, and humans are causing it. He concludes:
"... the science is not done because we do not have reliable or regional predictions of climate. But we need them. Indeed it is an imperative! So the science is just beginning. Beginning, that is, to face up to the challenge of building a climate information system that tracks the current climate and the agents of change, that initializes models and makes predictions, and that provides useful climate information on many time scales regionally and tailored to many sectoral needs."
Downing's research apparently fails to accommodate the complex and nuanced debate that evidently does exist. Furthermore, it seems that the public are far more sophisticated than he gives them credit for. Worse still, however, it is his own ignorance of the science, the debate, and his underestimation of the public that causes him to be 'disturbed' and 'frightened'. He then needs to invent reasons as to why the public don't see things the way he wants them to.
Source
In July 1989 I had an experience that scared and alienated me, but also made me realise who I was and, more importantly, who I was not - and would never be. I was 18 and in my first year at Brighton University, where I was studying for a BA in Humanities. I was meeting new people - people of different religions, cultures, ages, sexual orientation, experiences and interests. I was growing up, realising for the first time that there was a world other than the one my parents talked about constantly - the world of Long Eaton (where I lived) and Pakistan. I was discovering that I had a lot more in common with British non-Muslims than I had hitherto realised.
That summer two relatives of my mum's - girls of my own age - came to stay with us, as they had done often in the past. Like me, they were in their first year at university, but they had changed completely. To my horror, the girls I'd known so well - who were fun, happy, easy-going - arrived at our house wearing hijabs. I'd never seen them dressed like that before, and it was totally alien to me - and to my family and to mainstream Pakistani culture. The two girls I'd know for years, who used to talk about boys, clothes, fashion, music and films, were now wearing Middle Eastern outfits and claiming that this was their new religious identity and it was the true way to dress for any woman claiming to be Muslim.
They told me that they had joined an Islamic group at their university and that there would be daily lectures about Islam. They said that most of these lecturers were from the Middle East. Their key message was that they had to create an Islamic State, which meant that Muslims from all over the world had to unite. These people believed - and believe - that there is no Islamic state and therefore one must be created where all Muslims can live according to the true laws of Islam.
One of girls told me that the ways her parents had brought her up as a Muslim was not the true way and that her parents were misguided and she was trying to educate them through what she had learnt from her Islamic group at university. `People like you, Saira, are not Muslims because you are confused with religion and culture,' she said. `There is no culture, there is only religion, and until you accept that you cannot call yourself a Muslim.' She went on to state, `We are not British, we are Muslim.'
My two former companions were extremely well-rehearsed in presenting their arguments. To support a certain line of debate they would recite chapter and verse from the Koran. It's impossible to argue with someone whose get-out clause is always, `It is written in the Koran. We can't argue with God's Word.' The sad thing was that these girls had worked so hard to get to university to study medicine and enable themselves to get a great job. Their mother was just as shocked as I was at their transformation, and at the way they spoke and despised Britain so much. As she put it, `I sent them to university to study and become doctors and they've come back telling me that I'm not a proper Muslim and that I need to wear a hijab.' Back then, however, nobody really seemed to take much notice of this very obvious transformation and change in attitude in these two young women.
My point here is not to say that women who wear the hijab are extremists - far less that they will at some stage be involved in some terrorist activity - but to suggest that this is how, in many cases, extremism starts.
It dawned on me after the 7/7 bombings that the seeds of extremism were sown all over Great Britain well before 1989 and that indeed it had been allowed to flourish undeterred in this country for more than 20 years. We in Britain are not fighting a new phenomenon that raised it ugly head in 2005; we are fighting more than 20 years of planning and preparation by those who want Britain to be an Islamic state.
Of course, most British Muslims won't become violent extremists, but most will endanger society - albeit unwittingly - by supporting and condoning the actions of extremists. Very few will admit this in public, but many will say behind closed doors that they are sympathetic to the bombers' cause and that they can understand why they are doing it. These things are said in front of young children and justified by various conspiracy theories which nearly always involve Jews, America and the CIA.
But it is not all doom and gloom. In last weekend's Observer Hassan Butt, once a member of the radical group Al-Muhajiroun, wrote a very open and honest account of his experience. He said: `I believe that the issue of terrorism can be easily demystified if Muslims and non-Muslims start openly to discuss the ideas that fuel terrorism. (The Muslim community in Britain must slap itself awake from this state of denial and realise that there is no shame in admitting the extremism within our families, communities and worldwide co-religionists.)'
It is people like Hassan Butt that the government must engage with and give priority to, because they can make a difference; it is they who should be heard over the Muslim Council of Britain and many of the Muslim MPs who think they know the community and who in my opinion are too scared to tell the whole truth in case they lose Muslim votes.
There are too few moderate voices among the Muslim community. As a result, the extremists have their say, and are not opposed. This gives the non-Muslim population the impression that all Muslims are either extremists or agree with radical Islamic principles.
The war against terror cannot be won without moderate Muslims coming out and standing up for British values - the values of integration and living peacefully in a secular society. We should not be scared to shout this out, loud and proud: we should not be intimidated by a few hotheads into thinking we are any less Muslim if we say we are British and don't want to go around blowing up innocent people in the name of Allah. British Muslims have to realise that there is no `but' after a sentence like, `I wholeheartedly disagree with the terrorist actions and the killings of innocent civilians.'
Source
Flagging Britain
Post lifted from Prof. Brignell. See the original for links. Prof. Brignell is referring to the fact that new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has ordered that the Union Jack will fly above his official residence: No. 10 Downing St. in London
Britain's new Prime Minister is wrapping himself in a piece of coloured cloth in order to cover up a couple of rather ugly embarrassments. The cloth in question is the union flag, which was once pronounced anathema in the heady early days of the New Labour project. As in almost everything else New Labour purported to stand for, the movement has completed an about turn.
Embarrassment number one is the festering sore in the flank of the union arising from the insouciant Mr Blair's quick fix in creating the Scottish Parliament, completely ignoring the infamous West Lothian Question that had so exercised finer minds. Now that we have a Scottish Prime Minister, absurdities pile upon absurdities. The PM's own constituents (in common with those of another party leader in the adjoining Fife constituency) have privileges that are forbidden to the English, such as free drugs for cancer and dementia, free university education and guaranteed small school class sizes. Furthermore, these privileges are funded out of a massive subsidy to Scots, paid out of English taxes according to the historical Barnett Formula (which, incidentally is now repudiated by its eponymous author). Even worse, Scottish MPs, like the PM, are entitled to vote on matters that only affect the English, such as those proscriptions, whereas the reciprocal relationship does not apply.
Embarrassment number two is that the Prime Minister has declared his intention of reneging on the manifesto promise for a referendum on the question of a new European Constitution. Blair, as his final act of treachery, signed up to a new drastic transfer of powers. All over Europe it is acknowledged that the new treaty is the old constitution in almost all except name. Only in Britain is the fiction maintained that it is not a constitution. That bit of coloured cloth, which is now to fly above all official buildings, is about to become virtually meaningless. In reality it should be replaced by the flag of the other union, and perhaps soon will be. Comparisons with that other great democratic union in North America are spurious. The EU is an undemocratic oligarchy, corrupt and riddled with fraud. Would you invest in a business that has never had its accounts passed by its auditors? If only Britain had an opposition!
London hospital does not give a damn about infection control
Back to the 18th century
A hospital that is failing to tackle superbug infections has been served with an official warning in the first case of its kind, the health watchdog will announce today. Inspectors from the Healthcare Commission have found Chase Farm Hospital in Enfield, North London, to be in "serious breach" of the Hygiene Code, the latest government rules to manage healthcare-associated infections such as MRSA and C. difficile. Even basic requirements, such as providing hand-washing gels at a patient's bedside, were not in place, the watchdog said.
Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals NHS Trust, which manages the hospital, has now been served with an improvement notice, ordering immediate changes to infection control practices. Despite reporting more than 600 superbug infections in a six-month period last year, there was "no evidence" that the trust learnt from its mistakes, the commission said. Among "fundamental problems" highlighted during a spot-check were failures to keep wards clean, to properly assess the risks of superbug infection and to isolate infected patients so that they could not spread illness.
The commission was given powers to issue improvement notices last year. This is its first. The Barnet and Chase Farm Trust, which had told the commission that it was meeting the three core standards relating to the Hygiene Code, was found during an unannounced visit on June 7 to be in breach of several key duties set out in the code. The trust was rated as "weak" in quality of services and use of resources in the 2005-06 annual health check by the Healthcare Commission. Its provision of potentially misleading information to the commission could affect its rating in this year's assessments of NHS Trusts.
According to latest figures from the Health Protection Agency, there were 584 cases of C. difficile in patients aged over 65 at the trust from January to September last year. From April to September 2006 there were 29 reported cases of MRSA. Updated figures are expected to be published by the end of the month. The problems, described as "wide--ranging and serious", included:
- A failure to provide and maintain a clean and appropriate environment for healthcare.
- A failure to provide adequate isolation facilities for patients already suffering from infections.
- A lack of appropriate management systems for infection prevention and control.
- A failure to assess risks of acquiring healthcare-associated infection and to take action to reduce or control them.
In addition, only one microbiologist, working four hours a week, was employed to monitor infections at the trust, which serves a catchment of 500,000 people. There was also no identified budget for training of staff in infection-control and attendance at such training was not monitored. Clinical staff were found to be "confused" about isolation policies, "indicating that they are not always adhered to".
The commission said in a statement: "Because the trust does not conduct analysis to determine the cause of infection on all patients confirmed to have MRSA, it is difficult for the trust to monitor and learn from outbreaks and incidents." It has now been given deadlines to address issues raised by the commission, with the local strategic health authority overseeing the work. Anna Walker, chief executive of the Healthcare Commission, said: "I hope this sends out a strong message to all trusts that we will not hesitate to use our powers when it comes to enforcing the Hygiene Code."
Richard Harrison, medical director at Barnet and Chase Farm Trust, said: "Our issues around infection control follow the national picture, but with an extra 500,000 pounds investment in cleaning the wards, screening patients before admission and our prudent antibiotic policy, the trust is winning the battle against hospital-acquired infections. The trust reported 74 new case of C. difficile in April and only 16 cases in June."
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British pupils to be taught about the Olympic games - instead of geography
The dumbing down never stops. Propaganda is more and more being substituted for knowledge. Knowledge might enable kids to think for themselves -- and the Left can't afford that! Kids must be TOLD what to think
Traditional geography teaching is to be sidelined in favour of studying global warming, Third-World trade and the 2012 Olympics. A major shake-up of the secondary school curriculum aims to make subjects "more relevant" by introducing "modern day issues". Lessons in capital cities, rivers and continental drift will make way for "themed" teaching on issues such as the causes of climate change, the impact of buying clothes on poorer nations and the effects of the South-East Asian tsunami.
Other key subjects such as history and science will also be affected by the changes, which mark the biggest upheaval in secondary education since the national curriculum was introduced in 1988. The measures, which come into force in September next year, will be unveiled by Schools Secretary Ed Balls next week. Ministers hope they will encourage more pupils to stay on at school after the age of 16. But many teachers remain unconvinced.
A convention of history, English and science teachers on Thursday issued a plea for traditional subject disciplines to be protected. The new curriculum will be followed by 11 to 14-year-olds. Other new subjects include "emerging" languages such as Mandarin ["Emerging"? It's thousands of years old!] and Urdu, as well as personal finance and practical cookery. In cookery, pupils will be taught how to analyse a diet to ensure balance and variety, how to keep food safe at home and prepare contemporary healthy recipes.
The previous Education Secretary Alan Johnson insisted certain "untouchables" would remain in the curriculum, including the two World Wars. But swathes of other material will be relegated to optional status. Mr Balls will announce that "sustainable development" [Greenie propaganda] will become a compulsory part of the geography curriculum. Pupils will learn to understand relationships between people and the environment by studying the impact of the tsunami.
They will also conduct fieldwork projects such as "the regeneration of East London as part of the 2012 Olympics". And they will explore globalisation by looking at the impact of their choices as consumers, including buying clothes and trainers. Schools minister Lord Adonis said: "We want geography to excite pupils so that they continue studying the subject when they leave school."
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Nursery rhymes no longer taught in many British families
There was a time when every child could tell you who cut off the tails of three blind mice, why a sneeze might signify death from the plague and which sadistic child pushed the poor pussycat down a well. But now the traditional nursery rhyme, in all its gruesome, bloody detail, is in danger of dropping out of modern culture. A survey suggests that 40 per cent of parents with young children cannot recite a single popular rhyme all the way through.
It is not that parents have stopped singing to their children entirely. Three quarters of parents surveyed agreed that singing to young children was a good way to help them to learn to read. But rather than sing nursery rhymes whose origins and meanings are lost to them, 44 per cent of parents said that they were singing pop songs and television theme tunes instead. These, they said, had much more relevance in their daily lives.
Ian Davidson, of the pollster MyVoice, which questioned 1,200 parents for the survey, said that the nursery rhyme was falling victim to market forces. "It all seems to be to do with choice and relevance. Twenty years ago there were 100 different breakfast cereals to choose from, now there are 300. The old brands such as Kellogg's Cornflakes remain, but there will also be many other options. "It's the same with nursery rhymes. They will never die out among a core of people, but they are facing more competition in popular culture and they no longer have a clear field any more," he added.
But Janine Spencer, a developmental psychologist at Brunel University, lamented the decline of the nursery rhyme, which she said was of enormous educational value. "Not only are nursery rhymes an important historical part of our culture, but by singing them to young children you can help speed up the development of their communication, memory, language and reading skills. "Singing nursery rhymes is also an entertaining and fun way to interact with your baby or toddler, and is crucial for recognising and learning phonic sounds," Dr Spencer said.
The survey, commissioned by the children's television channel Car-toonito, found the knowledge of nursery rhymes increased with age. Survey participants were given the first line of 15 common nursery rhymes and asked to complete it. Four out of ten (40 per cent) younger parents (aged 30 years and under) could not recall a single nursery rhyme in full, whereas only 27 per cent of those aged between 55 and 64 and 13 per cent of those aged 65 or more are unable to recall one in full. Overall, 27 per cent of adults were unable to complete a single rhyme. Of the rhymes people did know, the most popular were Jack and Jill (19 per cent), Humpty Dumpty (17 per cent) and Ring a Ring o'Roses (12 per cent). But 71 per cent of parents had no clear idea of their origins or possible historical meaning.
The survey follows the introduction by the Government of a new phonics teaching programme in English primary schools called Letters and Sounds, which emphasises the importance of preparing preschool children for phonics through songs and nursery rhymes.
Notes:
Jack and Jill has several possible origins. It may mark King Charles l's unsuccessful attempts to reform the taxes on liquid measures, Jack being half a pint and Jill being a quarter of a pint, or gill. Although the King's measures were blocked, he subsequently ordered the volume standard measures to be reduced, while the tax remained the same
Humpty Dumpty was originally posed as a riddle, as "humpty dumpty" was 18th-century slang for a short, clumsy person, who might well be the kind to fall off a wall Similar riddles have been recorded in other languages, such as Boule Boule in French, or Lille Trille in Swedish
Ring a Ring o'Roses was usually accompanied by a playground skipping game that ended with children falling down and is said have originated with the Great Plague in 1665. Some experts dispute this, pointing out that European and 19th-century versions suggest that this "fall" was not a literal falling down, but a curtsy
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Britain: Those who can't, teach
Less than half of primary school teachers have two good A levels [High school qualification], while only 41 per cent of secondary teachers have a degree in the subject they teach, according to a report claiming that the profession is in crisis.
There has been a big increase in teacher numbers in recent years, after a shortage in the mid1990s. But the report from the think-tank Politeia says government policies focus too much on increasing numbers with too little regard for quality. It notes there there are two nonteaching members of staff for every three teachers. There are now 150,000 teaching assistants, while the number of unqualified teachers working in schools has increased significantly in the past decade.
Bob Moon, Professor of Education at the Open University and co-author of the report, said: "The assessment system allows even the weakest candidates through". The Training and Development Agency for Schools, the Government's teacher training agency, rejected many of the findings, insisting that standards had never been higher. [That doesn't say much]
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BICYCLES ONLY FOR THE PEASANTS
One of Britain's biggest engineering companies has banned staff from travelling on bicycles or motorbikes after declaring them too dangerous. Jacobs Babtie advises local authorities on sustainable transport projects - including how to get more people to switch from four wheels to two. It has told staff at its 36 offices across Britain that they must drive or use public transport. They can use bicycles only if they are working away from roads, such as on canal towpaths.
In an e-mail to all employees, a copy of which has been obtained by The Times, the company's health and safety manager says: "It's patently obvious that if you are struck by a wayward vehicle when you are on a bicycle or motorbike you are going to be more severely affected than if you were in a car. The reason for this policy is to protect our employees from other vehicles on the road.
There will be a few limited exceptions when employees will be permitted to travel by bicycle, but that would be when that mode of transport is required to undertake the job, for example, carrying out surveys along river banks and tow paths."
The ban on cycling on company business has infuriated several staff, who have been cycling without any serious safety incidents for years. They believe the ban is partly the result of conditions in the company's insurance policy. The e-mail acknowledges that staff are unhappy about the ban and admits it "could be construed as being at odds with our environmental policy and the requirement to be environmentally responsible".
It also acknowledges the concerns among employees that the company will lose important contracts because the ban "will not please our environmentally friendly clients".
One of Jacobs' biggest customers is Transport for London, which has a target of achieving a fivefold increase in the level of cycling by 2025, and this weekend will host the opening races in the Tour de France. TfL paid Jacobs o6 million last year for various projects, including monitoring the impact of the congestion charge and measuring how many people have switched from driving to walking or cycling. On its website, Jacobs states: "In the area of cycling, we can offer expert resources at every stage from cycle policy and promotion through to the detailed design and implementation of cycle schemes."
Jenny Jones, the green transport adviser to Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, said TfL should consider cancelling its contracts with Jacobs. She said: "It is hypocritical to offer advice on promoting cycling but at the same time ban your staff from using bikes. If Jacobs does not understand how important cycling is to TfL, we need to ask whether they are the right sort of company to work with."
A TfL spokesman said: "We find the attitude of Jacobs bizarre and we will be urging them to rethink this decision. TfL is committed to encouraging Londoners to get on their bikes whenever and wherever possible. Our serious investment in growing cycling has seen journeys by bike on soar by 83 per cent since 2000. The number of number of cyclists killed or seriously injured has fallen by 28 per cent since the mid to late 1990s." In Britain, 146 cyclists were killed last year compared with 203 in 1996.
Kevin Mayne, the director of the Cyclists Touring Club, said: "Banning cycling on health and safety grounds is ironic; forcing people off their bikes and into cars just reduces their fitness and increases the danger they pose to other road users. Jacobs' policy shows a complete lack of understanding of transport risk assessment. For TfL and local authorities to pay a company which bans cycling for advice on sustainable transport is like asking the lunatics to help run the asylum."
A US medical study found that people who cycled regularly beyond their mid30s lived on average two years longer. The British Medical Association has said that the health benefits of cycling far outweigh risks.
The Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety said that Jacobs should give its employees training in how to be safer cyclists rather than banning them from cycling.
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56 PER CENT OF YOU ARE STUPID (OR IS IT JUST IPSOS MORI?)
Ipsos Mori [British opinion pollsters] are about to publish some research they've done, "Tipping Point Or Turning Point? Social Marketing & Climate Change" Phil Downing, head of environmental research at the company, and one of the report's authors appeared on yesterday's Today program on BBC Radio 4 to discuss the findings:
"I think there are two key headlines that we've found. The first is that concern about climate change on the whole is rising. And we find that very few people, only a very small minority, actually reject out of hand the idea that it is actually changing the climate, that humans have at least some part to play in that."
So what's the problem?
"The more disturbing trend is there's still undecided or a large proportion who are ambivalent about the issue. And we see this filtering through to the number who say that they're not convinced that scientists can successfully model the climate. More frighteningly still that they believe the scientific debate is still raging, err, and the jury is still out."
But you don't need to be a global warming denialist, or even a sceptic to be part of the 56% of us who are unconvinced of science's current ability to successfully model the climate. Take for example, Kevin E. Trenberth's recent article on Nature's Climate Feedback blog:
"There is no estimate, even probabilistically, as to the likelihood of any emissions scenario and no best guess. ... Even if there were, the projections are based on model results that provide differences of the future climate relative to that today. None of the models used by IPCC are initialized to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate. In particular, the state of the oceans, sea ice, and soil moisture has no relationship to the observed state at any recent time in any of theIPCC models."
And Trenberth is no 'sceptic'. He maintains that global warming is happening, and humans are causing it. He concludes:
"... the science is not done because we do not have reliable or regional predictions of climate. But we need them. Indeed it is an imperative! So the science is just beginning. Beginning, that is, to face up to the challenge of building a climate information system that tracks the current climate and the agents of change, that initializes models and makes predictions, and that provides useful climate information on many time scales regionally and tailored to many sectoral needs."
Downing's research apparently fails to accommodate the complex and nuanced debate that evidently does exist. Furthermore, it seems that the public are far more sophisticated than he gives them credit for. Worse still, however, it is his own ignorance of the science, the debate, and his underestimation of the public that causes him to be 'disturbed' and 'frightened'. He then needs to invent reasons as to why the public don't see things the way he wants them to.
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The bizarre British government response to Muslim attacks
We began with the usual and - this time - quite surreal assurances from politicians, Muslim leaders and, in particular the BBC, that the latest attacks were `nothing to do with Islam'. This is what we always hear when a bomb has gone off, or failed to go off - and it is always a silly statement, based upon nothing more real than wishful thinking and a quick, thoughtless, unnecessary genuflection towards crowd control. On this occasion, though, it was subtly undermined by one of the perpetrators, doused in flames outside Glasgow airport, screaming `Allah! Allah! Allah! Allah!' before being peremptorily battered by a passer-by. Also, they parked their car at a mosque - and yet, according to every bigwig, policeman and community leader interviewed, this was a mere case of coincidence - NCP being full at the time, presumably.
Then, as always happens, we had the next stage of wishful thinking. Led by the BBC's bizarrely pro-Islamist Frank Gardner, we were assured by assorted correspondents and politicians that Britain's Muslim community were, in their entirety, appalled and outraged by the attacks. Well, maybe they were - but how do you know? Did you ask 'em, Frank? Don't forget that more than half of our Muslims feel sympathy for suicide bombers in Israel and a fairly hefty minority (one in eight, at the last count) for similar action against the cockroach imperialist infidel scum (i.e. you and me) over here. Not to mention almost half of Britain's Muslims who want Sharia law in this country and do not remotely, therefore, share our norms and values.
We are told these sorts of things in order to stop us coming to unpalatable conclusions, because the government still clings, ever more precariously, to the vestigial tail of that discredited ideology, multiculturalism. Take, for example, the issue of immigration. The aspirant, useless bombers who missed their targets at Glasgow and London came here from Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan. A recent Mori opinion poll commissioned by the government's Commission on Integration and Cohesion showed that almost 70 per cent of British people thought that we had let far too many immigrants into the country. This figure, incidentally, included almost half of all black and Asian British citizens polled. It was a remarkable poll not so much for its statistics, however, as for the strange response to those statistics. The establishment - the government, the BBC, the race charities and so on - professed themselves very worried and wondered what on earth should be done. A task force charged with dampening down trouble in the immigration hotspots, maybe? A few more lessons in English for the incomers and maybe fewer translators? But at no point did any of the powers that be suggest the one thing which an overwhelming majority of those polled wished for: an end to immigration. A moratorium. Or, at the least, an influx which was vastly reduced and better regulated. This suggestion, implicitly supported by almost 70 per cent of those questioned and opposed by only ten per cent, was not even considered; it simply didn't figure on the radar.....
But then, even if we had been told that the 12 or so aspirant bombers were members of al-Qa'eda and about to launch an attack against British citizens, it is unlikely we could have done very much about it, even if we had their home addresses and mobile phone numbers. Every month or so we read that the immigration appeals court has allowed some murderous lunatic from the Maghreb or beyond to stay in the country, despite his clearly stated homicidal impulses, because it would be an infringement of his human rights were he to be returned to the Islamic hellhole from which he arrived....
The public is perpetually outraged by such clear absurdities and, on this occasion at least, the government seemed a little vexed too. But there was no resolve to enact legislation (or repeal existing legislation) to prevent such outrages occurring again. Faced with the law - and in particular, international treaties to which we gladly affixed our names in simpler times - the government feels and perhaps is impotent. It is surely only a matter of time before someone who comes before the immigration appeals court is allowed to stay and later blows himself up in a public place. Perhaps it has happened already.....
The odd thing is that on all of these issues - immigration, human rights legislation, the notion that British Muslims do not share very many of our liberal values, the war against Iraq - the public seems to get it and our political leaders simply do not. There will be many more attempts at carnage on our streets before they do get it, I suspect. In the meantime, I suppose we'll just have to put our faith in al-Qa'eda's continuing incompetence.
More here
British pupils pass key English test with 30pc mark
A mark of 30 per cent was enough for 14-year-olds to pass national tests in English A mark of 30 per cent was enough for 14-year-olds to pass national tests in English this year, it has been revealed. In maths, they could achieve the required level with a score of only 39 per cent. The news prompted claims that pupils are being let down by an education system which allows them to be seen as successful despite poor performance in exams.
The pass marks in this year's tests were revealed by the National Assessment Agency. Eleven-year-olds needed 43 per cent to pass English by gaining the expected level four, 46 per cent for maths, and 51 per cent for science. These pass marks are either the same or slightly higher than last year's, suggesting the papers were judged to be marginally simpler. National curriculum levels run from one to seven in English and science and one to eight in maths. The Government expects 11-year-olds to reach level four. At 14 - Key Stage 3 - pupils are expected to reach level five at least, which this year required a minimum 30 per cent mark in English.
Parents' leaders voiced concern over the low level of the pass marks. Margaret Morrissey of the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations said: "We are not doing children any favours with these low pass marks. It may look good for schools to have many pupils clearing these hurdles, and maybe it makes parents feel happy for their children. "But when they go out to work, it is going to be picked up by employers. In anyone's book, if you have got 30 per cent of something, you have not succeeded."
A spokesman for the National Assessment Agency defended the marks, saying it used "a range of evidence in order to maintain standards".
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Shaky British universities
A swath of universities were in financial crisis even after the introduction of tuition fees, according to a secret government list made public last night. More than 40 institutions feature on the list, which classifies them as at risk of financial failure after 1998, when means-tested tuition fees were introduced. Those on the list include South Bank University in London, Liverpool John Moores University and Queen Mary, University of London.
Another three institutions were deemed to be so at risk that their names were kept off the list, which was revealed after a Freedom of Information request by The Guardian newspaper. The Higher Education Funding Council for England published the list only after pressure from the Information Commissioner, who ruled that students applying to certain institutions had a right to know their financial buoyancy.
The disclosures highlight the problems institutions face, despite the introduction of fees, after decades of under-investment and the explosion in undergraduate numbers. In the academic year 1998-99 students started paying up to 1,025 pounds a year each to attend university, putting an end to free higher education. The move started generating thousands of pounds of extra income. But many of the universities and colleges named have been struggling to recruit sufficient numbers of students and keep their spending under control. Many have been forced to combine their strengths through mergers with other universities
A spokesman for the funding council said: "We work with these institutions to ensure that they develop a robust recovery plan, and this normally results in their restoration to financial health. "The information is historical in the sense that it refers to situations in existence more than three years ago. Much has changed since then." The Guardian, however, named one of the three endangered universities whose identity was not disclosed as Thames Valley University.
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CATS ARE BAD FOR YOU
Keeping a cat can irritate the lungs and exacerbate the symptoms of asthma, even in people who have no specific allergy to the animals, researchers say. Up to 15 per cent of people are allergic to them, with their sensitivity attributed to a reaction against at least one particular protein that is secreted from the cat's skin.
A Europe-wide study by a team from Imperial College, London, took samples from the mattresses of 1,884 people with certain common allergies. They found that increased exposure to cat allergen was associated with greater sensitivity of the respiratory system in the volunteers, and encouraged symptoms of wheezing or breathlessness in those who were not known to be allergic to cats.
The increased symptoms, known as greater bronchial responsiveness (BR), suggested that reduced exposure to cats may be beneficial for allergic individuals, regardless of their specific allergies, the researchers said. "This was an unexpected finding," Susan Chinn, lead author of the study, said. "We presupposed that we would find increased responsiveness only in those individuals . . . whose blood tests showed that they were allergic to cats. But our study suggests that all allergic individuals have signs of asthmatic responses if exposed to cat allergen, even if blood tests show that they are not allergic to cats." Dr Chinn and her team report their findings in this month's issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, published by the American Thoracic Society.
The study included measurements of house dust mite and cat allergen in mattress dust samples, and data on sensitisation to four main allergens - cat, house dust mite, Cladosporidium (a common mold) and timothy grass. Participants were given a methacholine challenge test, a medical procedure used to diagnose asthma, and the results were compared with the allergens found in the mattress samples.
This study lends weight to previous research that found asthma to be strongly related to indoor allergens. However, that all patients exposed to cats showed greater responsiveness was unexpected. "Our primary results showed no correlation between levels of house dust mite and BR among individuals with sensitisation to any of the four tested allergens," said Dr Chinn. "But even moderate exposure to cat allergen resulted in significantly greater responsiveness."
The researchers said that they could not rule out the possibility that cat allergen exposure could be a proxy for exposure to endotoxins, which are found in bacteria that is thought to encourage asthmatic symptoms. Such compounds are found in higher concentrations in the homes of cat owners. "Based on the current research, it appears that many individuals could benefit from reduced cat ownership and exposure," Dr Chinn said. "However, because the findings were unexpected, it is important that results are replicated in other studies before firm recommendations are made.
Muriel Simmons, the chief executive of the charity Allergy UK, said yesterday that the link between cat allergy and asthma was well established. "We know that cat allergens are among the most sticky and resilient particles, and the most common source of allergies after the house dust mite. Even if you move into a house where cats have previously lived, allergens can maintain even after thorough cleaning."
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BBC PROPAGANDA NOT WORKING WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE
Dog poo matters more than climate change!
The public believes the effects of global warming on the climate are not as bad as politicians and scientists claim, a poll has suggested. The Ipsos Mori poll of 2,032 adults - interviewed between 14 and 20 June - found 56% believed scientists were still questioning climate change. There was a feeling the problem was exaggerated to make money, it found.
The Royal Society said most climate scientists believed humans were having an "unprecedented" effect on climate. The survey suggested that terrorism, graffiti, crime and dog mess were all of more concern than climate change. Ipsos Mori's head of environmental research, Phil Downing, said the research showed there was "still a lot to do" in encouraging "low-carbon lifestyles". "We are alive to climate change and very few people actually reject out of hand the idea the climate is changing or that humans have had at least some part to play in this," he added. "However, a significant number have many doubts about exactly how serious it really is and believe it has been over-hyped." People had been influenced by counter-arguments, he said.
Royal Society vice-president Sir David Read said: "People should not be misled by those that exploit the complexity of the issue, seeking to distort the science and deny the seriousness of the potential consequences of climate change. "The science very clearly points towards the need for us all - nations, businesses and individuals - to do as much as possible, as soon as possible, to avoid the worst consequences of a changing climate."
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A comment on the above sent to the BBC by John A [climateaudit@gmail.com] of Climate Audit:
Your latest piece of alarmist propaganda will be added to the dossier that I will be sending to the BBC Trust, detailing the ways in which the BBC still seeks to distort climate science, demonize scientists who question the Greenhouse dogma, suppresses evidence showing that the effect of carbon dioxide rise is very small, deletes comments that the BBC doesn't like to admit exist, and repeatedly seek to propgandize in favour of a thoroughly Marxist solution of higher taxes, massive State intervention of the commanding heights of the economy and most of all, the continued promotion of scientific frauds like the Mann Hockey Stick principally through suppression of news stories which show it in its proper (bad) light.
It is to the credit of the British people that despite salting nearly every weather related story with references to "climate change" and "global warming", people are more worried by dog mess than the environmental obsessions of a small cadre of environmental propagandists working at the BBC. Your journalism is a disgrace and I am determined to make sure that everyone knows how you distort your reporting in such a gratuitously partisan way.
NHS only for the peasants: Doctors won't go there for their own treatments
MORE than half of the country’s hospital consultants have turned to private medical treatment instead of using the National Health Service. A survey commissioned by Bupa, the health insurer, found that 55% of senior doctors pay medical insurance, despite the reduction in waiting times for operations on the NHS. [No mention of the endemic superbug problem?]
The Patients Association, a pressure group, criticised specialists for spurning the NHS when most patients cannot afford private care. Katherine Murphy, communications director, said: “Those who work in the NHS at the highest level should have enough confidence in the system to use it themselves.” Consultants earn, on average, 110,000 pounds from their NHS work.
Dr Jacky Davis, a consultant radiologist in London and a founding member of the campaign group Keep Our NHS Public, believes doctors are deserting the NHS because they are no longer guaranteed special treatment. “Until recently, doctors could go to any of their colleagues for treatment for themselves or their family and that was accepted as one of the perks of working in the NHS. Now there is less leeway for doctors to treat each other,” said Davis.
Bupa surveyed 500 consultants, more than 90% of whom work in the NHS. All the consultants questioned carry out some private practice. Dr Natalie-Jane Macdonald, medical director of Bupa, said there was a gulf in the differing expectations of private medicine and the NHS. “The NHS target of having to wait no longer than 18 weeks by December 2008 is ambitious but our members would still see that as a very long time to wait,” she said. As well as having shorter waiting times, private hospitals advertise their lower rates of MRSA – the so-called superbug.
About 6m adults and children in Britain, one-tenth of the population, are covered by private medical insurance. Jonathan Fielden, chairman of the British Medical Association consultants committee, defended doctors’ preference for private treatment. “What consultants do with their own healthcare is very much a personal matter,” said Fielden. “Consultants will try to minimise the time they are away from work in order to maximise their ability to care for patients.” He also maintains that consultants might switch from the NHS to avoid being treated by colleagues or recognised by their own patients. He claimed that if the NHS could guarantee privacy by offering more single rooms, doctors would feel less need to go private. “This certainly isn’t a reflection of the consultants’ faith in the NHS,” he added.
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Discrimination against the English
A comment from Prof. Brignell on what the British government does to keep the Scots happy (i.e. give them more money):
Two elderly neighbours live either side of the English/Scottish border. The one to the north is entitled to free drugs to combat cancer, dementia or blindness due to macular degeneration. The one to the south is denied all of these. The body that is responsible for this denial not only has an Orwellian name, but also an Orwellian acronym. It is NICE, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence.
How the BBC inspires Muslim terrorism: "How could Muslim doctors want to bomb innocent young party goers in their own country? Because for decades the BBC has been telling them how evil Britain and the West really are, every single day, without ever being questioned. Even without imported Pakistani imams to brainwash gullible young men into bloody jihad, sixty million people in Britain receive daily wall-to-wall indoctrination from the Left. Forget those two million Pakistani Muslims in London; the tax-funded BBC has become the single most suicidal force in Britain.... This is the mindset ...that believes the West is the perpetrator of just about every ill that has ever befallen the world - from colonialism to global warming... today's young Muslims are more radical than their parents. What do you expect, when they keep getting the same hate-Britain message every single day from the tenured radicals at the tax-supported BBC?"
We began with the usual and - this time - quite surreal assurances from politicians, Muslim leaders and, in particular the BBC, that the latest attacks were `nothing to do with Islam'. This is what we always hear when a bomb has gone off, or failed to go off - and it is always a silly statement, based upon nothing more real than wishful thinking and a quick, thoughtless, unnecessary genuflection towards crowd control. On this occasion, though, it was subtly undermined by one of the perpetrators, doused in flames outside Glasgow airport, screaming `Allah! Allah! Allah! Allah!' before being peremptorily battered by a passer-by. Also, they parked their car at a mosque - and yet, according to every bigwig, policeman and community leader interviewed, this was a mere case of coincidence - NCP being full at the time, presumably.
Then, as always happens, we had the next stage of wishful thinking. Led by the BBC's bizarrely pro-Islamist Frank Gardner, we were assured by assorted correspondents and politicians that Britain's Muslim community were, in their entirety, appalled and outraged by the attacks. Well, maybe they were - but how do you know? Did you ask 'em, Frank? Don't forget that more than half of our Muslims feel sympathy for suicide bombers in Israel and a fairly hefty minority (one in eight, at the last count) for similar action against the cockroach imperialist infidel scum (i.e. you and me) over here. Not to mention almost half of Britain's Muslims who want Sharia law in this country and do not remotely, therefore, share our norms and values.
We are told these sorts of things in order to stop us coming to unpalatable conclusions, because the government still clings, ever more precariously, to the vestigial tail of that discredited ideology, multiculturalism. Take, for example, the issue of immigration. The aspirant, useless bombers who missed their targets at Glasgow and London came here from Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan. A recent Mori opinion poll commissioned by the government's Commission on Integration and Cohesion showed that almost 70 per cent of British people thought that we had let far too many immigrants into the country. This figure, incidentally, included almost half of all black and Asian British citizens polled. It was a remarkable poll not so much for its statistics, however, as for the strange response to those statistics. The establishment - the government, the BBC, the race charities and so on - professed themselves very worried and wondered what on earth should be done. A task force charged with dampening down trouble in the immigration hotspots, maybe? A few more lessons in English for the incomers and maybe fewer translators? But at no point did any of the powers that be suggest the one thing which an overwhelming majority of those polled wished for: an end to immigration. A moratorium. Or, at the least, an influx which was vastly reduced and better regulated. This suggestion, implicitly supported by almost 70 per cent of those questioned and opposed by only ten per cent, was not even considered; it simply didn't figure on the radar.....
But then, even if we had been told that the 12 or so aspirant bombers were members of al-Qa'eda and about to launch an attack against British citizens, it is unlikely we could have done very much about it, even if we had their home addresses and mobile phone numbers. Every month or so we read that the immigration appeals court has allowed some murderous lunatic from the Maghreb or beyond to stay in the country, despite his clearly stated homicidal impulses, because it would be an infringement of his human rights were he to be returned to the Islamic hellhole from which he arrived....
The public is perpetually outraged by such clear absurdities and, on this occasion at least, the government seemed a little vexed too. But there was no resolve to enact legislation (or repeal existing legislation) to prevent such outrages occurring again. Faced with the law - and in particular, international treaties to which we gladly affixed our names in simpler times - the government feels and perhaps is impotent. It is surely only a matter of time before someone who comes before the immigration appeals court is allowed to stay and later blows himself up in a public place. Perhaps it has happened already.....
The odd thing is that on all of these issues - immigration, human rights legislation, the notion that British Muslims do not share very many of our liberal values, the war against Iraq - the public seems to get it and our political leaders simply do not. There will be many more attempts at carnage on our streets before they do get it, I suspect. In the meantime, I suppose we'll just have to put our faith in al-Qa'eda's continuing incompetence.
More here
British pupils pass key English test with 30pc mark
A mark of 30 per cent was enough for 14-year-olds to pass national tests in English A mark of 30 per cent was enough for 14-year-olds to pass national tests in English this year, it has been revealed. In maths, they could achieve the required level with a score of only 39 per cent. The news prompted claims that pupils are being let down by an education system which allows them to be seen as successful despite poor performance in exams.
The pass marks in this year's tests were revealed by the National Assessment Agency. Eleven-year-olds needed 43 per cent to pass English by gaining the expected level four, 46 per cent for maths, and 51 per cent for science. These pass marks are either the same or slightly higher than last year's, suggesting the papers were judged to be marginally simpler. National curriculum levels run from one to seven in English and science and one to eight in maths. The Government expects 11-year-olds to reach level four. At 14 - Key Stage 3 - pupils are expected to reach level five at least, which this year required a minimum 30 per cent mark in English.
Parents' leaders voiced concern over the low level of the pass marks. Margaret Morrissey of the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations said: "We are not doing children any favours with these low pass marks. It may look good for schools to have many pupils clearing these hurdles, and maybe it makes parents feel happy for their children. "But when they go out to work, it is going to be picked up by employers. In anyone's book, if you have got 30 per cent of something, you have not succeeded."
A spokesman for the National Assessment Agency defended the marks, saying it used "a range of evidence in order to maintain standards".
Source
Shaky British universities
A swath of universities were in financial crisis even after the introduction of tuition fees, according to a secret government list made public last night. More than 40 institutions feature on the list, which classifies them as at risk of financial failure after 1998, when means-tested tuition fees were introduced. Those on the list include South Bank University in London, Liverpool John Moores University and Queen Mary, University of London.
Another three institutions were deemed to be so at risk that their names were kept off the list, which was revealed after a Freedom of Information request by The Guardian newspaper. The Higher Education Funding Council for England published the list only after pressure from the Information Commissioner, who ruled that students applying to certain institutions had a right to know their financial buoyancy.
The disclosures highlight the problems institutions face, despite the introduction of fees, after decades of under-investment and the explosion in undergraduate numbers. In the academic year 1998-99 students started paying up to 1,025 pounds a year each to attend university, putting an end to free higher education. The move started generating thousands of pounds of extra income. But many of the universities and colleges named have been struggling to recruit sufficient numbers of students and keep their spending under control. Many have been forced to combine their strengths through mergers with other universities
A spokesman for the funding council said: "We work with these institutions to ensure that they develop a robust recovery plan, and this normally results in their restoration to financial health. "The information is historical in the sense that it refers to situations in existence more than three years ago. Much has changed since then." The Guardian, however, named one of the three endangered universities whose identity was not disclosed as Thames Valley University.
Source
CATS ARE BAD FOR YOU
Keeping a cat can irritate the lungs and exacerbate the symptoms of asthma, even in people who have no specific allergy to the animals, researchers say. Up to 15 per cent of people are allergic to them, with their sensitivity attributed to a reaction against at least one particular protein that is secreted from the cat's skin.
A Europe-wide study by a team from Imperial College, London, took samples from the mattresses of 1,884 people with certain common allergies. They found that increased exposure to cat allergen was associated with greater sensitivity of the respiratory system in the volunteers, and encouraged symptoms of wheezing or breathlessness in those who were not known to be allergic to cats.
The increased symptoms, known as greater bronchial responsiveness (BR), suggested that reduced exposure to cats may be beneficial for allergic individuals, regardless of their specific allergies, the researchers said. "This was an unexpected finding," Susan Chinn, lead author of the study, said. "We presupposed that we would find increased responsiveness only in those individuals . . . whose blood tests showed that they were allergic to cats. But our study suggests that all allergic individuals have signs of asthmatic responses if exposed to cat allergen, even if blood tests show that they are not allergic to cats." Dr Chinn and her team report their findings in this month's issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, published by the American Thoracic Society.
The study included measurements of house dust mite and cat allergen in mattress dust samples, and data on sensitisation to four main allergens - cat, house dust mite, Cladosporidium (a common mold) and timothy grass. Participants were given a methacholine challenge test, a medical procedure used to diagnose asthma, and the results were compared with the allergens found in the mattress samples.
This study lends weight to previous research that found asthma to be strongly related to indoor allergens. However, that all patients exposed to cats showed greater responsiveness was unexpected. "Our primary results showed no correlation between levels of house dust mite and BR among individuals with sensitisation to any of the four tested allergens," said Dr Chinn. "But even moderate exposure to cat allergen resulted in significantly greater responsiveness."
The researchers said that they could not rule out the possibility that cat allergen exposure could be a proxy for exposure to endotoxins, which are found in bacteria that is thought to encourage asthmatic symptoms. Such compounds are found in higher concentrations in the homes of cat owners. "Based on the current research, it appears that many individuals could benefit from reduced cat ownership and exposure," Dr Chinn said. "However, because the findings were unexpected, it is important that results are replicated in other studies before firm recommendations are made.
Muriel Simmons, the chief executive of the charity Allergy UK, said yesterday that the link between cat allergy and asthma was well established. "We know that cat allergens are among the most sticky and resilient particles, and the most common source of allergies after the house dust mite. Even if you move into a house where cats have previously lived, allergens can maintain even after thorough cleaning."
Source
BBC PROPAGANDA NOT WORKING WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE
Dog poo matters more than climate change!
The public believes the effects of global warming on the climate are not as bad as politicians and scientists claim, a poll has suggested. The Ipsos Mori poll of 2,032 adults - interviewed between 14 and 20 June - found 56% believed scientists were still questioning climate change. There was a feeling the problem was exaggerated to make money, it found.
The Royal Society said most climate scientists believed humans were having an "unprecedented" effect on climate. The survey suggested that terrorism, graffiti, crime and dog mess were all of more concern than climate change. Ipsos Mori's head of environmental research, Phil Downing, said the research showed there was "still a lot to do" in encouraging "low-carbon lifestyles". "We are alive to climate change and very few people actually reject out of hand the idea the climate is changing or that humans have had at least some part to play in this," he added. "However, a significant number have many doubts about exactly how serious it really is and believe it has been over-hyped." People had been influenced by counter-arguments, he said.
Royal Society vice-president Sir David Read said: "People should not be misled by those that exploit the complexity of the issue, seeking to distort the science and deny the seriousness of the potential consequences of climate change. "The science very clearly points towards the need for us all - nations, businesses and individuals - to do as much as possible, as soon as possible, to avoid the worst consequences of a changing climate."
Source
A comment on the above sent to the BBC by John A [climateaudit@gmail.com] of Climate Audit:
Your latest piece of alarmist propaganda will be added to the dossier that I will be sending to the BBC Trust, detailing the ways in which the BBC still seeks to distort climate science, demonize scientists who question the Greenhouse dogma, suppresses evidence showing that the effect of carbon dioxide rise is very small, deletes comments that the BBC doesn't like to admit exist, and repeatedly seek to propgandize in favour of a thoroughly Marxist solution of higher taxes, massive State intervention of the commanding heights of the economy and most of all, the continued promotion of scientific frauds like the Mann Hockey Stick principally through suppression of news stories which show it in its proper (bad) light.
It is to the credit of the British people that despite salting nearly every weather related story with references to "climate change" and "global warming", people are more worried by dog mess than the environmental obsessions of a small cadre of environmental propagandists working at the BBC. Your journalism is a disgrace and I am determined to make sure that everyone knows how you distort your reporting in such a gratuitously partisan way.
NHS only for the peasants: Doctors won't go there for their own treatments
MORE than half of the country’s hospital consultants have turned to private medical treatment instead of using the National Health Service. A survey commissioned by Bupa, the health insurer, found that 55% of senior doctors pay medical insurance, despite the reduction in waiting times for operations on the NHS. [No mention of the endemic superbug problem?]
The Patients Association, a pressure group, criticised specialists for spurning the NHS when most patients cannot afford private care. Katherine Murphy, communications director, said: “Those who work in the NHS at the highest level should have enough confidence in the system to use it themselves.” Consultants earn, on average, 110,000 pounds from their NHS work.
Dr Jacky Davis, a consultant radiologist in London and a founding member of the campaign group Keep Our NHS Public, believes doctors are deserting the NHS because they are no longer guaranteed special treatment. “Until recently, doctors could go to any of their colleagues for treatment for themselves or their family and that was accepted as one of the perks of working in the NHS. Now there is less leeway for doctors to treat each other,” said Davis.
Bupa surveyed 500 consultants, more than 90% of whom work in the NHS. All the consultants questioned carry out some private practice. Dr Natalie-Jane Macdonald, medical director of Bupa, said there was a gulf in the differing expectations of private medicine and the NHS. “The NHS target of having to wait no longer than 18 weeks by December 2008 is ambitious but our members would still see that as a very long time to wait,” she said. As well as having shorter waiting times, private hospitals advertise their lower rates of MRSA – the so-called superbug.
About 6m adults and children in Britain, one-tenth of the population, are covered by private medical insurance. Jonathan Fielden, chairman of the British Medical Association consultants committee, defended doctors’ preference for private treatment. “What consultants do with their own healthcare is very much a personal matter,” said Fielden. “Consultants will try to minimise the time they are away from work in order to maximise their ability to care for patients.” He also maintains that consultants might switch from the NHS to avoid being treated by colleagues or recognised by their own patients. He claimed that if the NHS could guarantee privacy by offering more single rooms, doctors would feel less need to go private. “This certainly isn’t a reflection of the consultants’ faith in the NHS,” he added.
Source
Discrimination against the English
A comment from Prof. Brignell on what the British government does to keep the Scots happy (i.e. give them more money):
Two elderly neighbours live either side of the English/Scottish border. The one to the north is entitled to free drugs to combat cancer, dementia or blindness due to macular degeneration. The one to the south is denied all of these. The body that is responsible for this denial not only has an Orwellian name, but also an Orwellian acronym. It is NICE, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence.
How the BBC inspires Muslim terrorism: "How could Muslim doctors want to bomb innocent young party goers in their own country? Because for decades the BBC has been telling them how evil Britain and the West really are, every single day, without ever being questioned. Even without imported Pakistani imams to brainwash gullible young men into bloody jihad, sixty million people in Britain receive daily wall-to-wall indoctrination from the Left. Forget those two million Pakistani Muslims in London; the tax-funded BBC has become the single most suicidal force in Britain.... This is the mindset ...that believes the West is the perpetrator of just about every ill that has ever befallen the world - from colonialism to global warming... today's young Muslims are more radical than their parents. What do you expect, when they keep getting the same hate-Britain message every single day from the tenured radicals at the tax-supported BBC?"
Sunday, July 08, 2007
SICKO misrepresents the NHS
Comment from Britain
The film is Sicko, a two-hour take-down of the mighty US healthcare industry directed by and starring the potato-faced Michael Moore (he of Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 911 and subject of too many right-wing diatribes to count). In it, Rick is an uninsured sadster who loses two fingers to a chainsaw and has to talk hard cash with an accountant before his general anaesthetic. It'll be $12,000 to reattach the easy finger, he is told; $60,000 for the pair. Rick goes for the budget option.
Fully half of Sicko is devoted to envious glimpses of better-run, more equitable and more compassionate healthcare systems in other countries, such as Canada (where another power-saw victim gets all five digits reattached for nothing) and Britain, where Moore would clearly choose to live if he didn't have such an avid following and such comprehensive health insurance at home. "Keep your British health system," he told one of our reviewers after a screening on Skid Row in LA. "Never get rid of it. It's a wonderful thing." He has also made the mistake of calling British healthcare "free".
Let us be clear: Michael Moore is amiable, fearless and funny, especially when provoked. He is also a brilliant film-maker who has transformed his genre in the US, where documentaries now pack out cinemas from coast to coast. You can take this as official. I have met him and liked him and am entirely trustworthy. The same cannot be said of Moore, of course. He is routinely denounced as a misleading, self-serving propagandist by critics who fail entirely to grasp that these are his great strengths.
When Moore barged his way into General Motors headquarters, and American culture, while making Roger & Me in 1988, it was about time. Here at last was a booming, populist, shamelessly blinkered voice from the American Left to answer those that had boomed unanswered from the Right throughout the Reagan years. Small wonder that he found a far-from-fringe constituency and became embarrassingly rich.
Moore's European critics, in particular, continue to misunderstand his challenge and his audience. They delight in exposing his crafty way with "facts", as if the corporate interests he attacks weren't just as crafty. They worry that the millions of Americans who pay to see his output might actually believe everything he says, as if, being Americans, they lack the power of critical thinking. And they forget that many of those millions of Americans do in fact, quite reasonably, share Moore's view that GM ignored its social responsibilities when Japanese competition hit home; that Kmart never had any business selling lethal handgun ammo to kids; and that when Charlton Heston raised a rifle in defiance a few days after the Columbine high-school massacre, he was a berk.
Moore, by contrast, was the man-grizzly who stood up to the idiot president of the NRA and lived to tell the tale. He was my hero. But now he has started spouting nonsense about the NHS, and he should know it's nonsense, and know that we know. It goes without saying that healthcare on the NHS isn't free. But just how unfree it is gets too little attention. We pay for it through our noses, every month.
Next year's NHS budget will be about 104 billion. That's roughly 1,733 pounds per man, woman and child. Multiplied by four for a typical two-child family, then divided by 12, that equates to median monthly family healthcare expenditure of 577, or $1,155 in American money. I can buy some very respectable US health insurance for $1,155 a month. In fact, on a quick and painless stroll through the website for Kaiser Permanente, a leading nonprofit US healthcare provider, entering my basic family details and the Beverly Hills zipcode, the most expensive family policy I can find that does not depend on contributions from the state or an employer costs $400 less than the sum Gordon Brown currently chooses to spend from my taxes, each month, on the NHS.
Being honest, I must add a few hundred to my US bill to cover "deductibles" and the portion of my US taxes going to federal schemes like Medicare and Medicaid. But I must also cop to earning more than the UK average, which means I pay more than average for my NHS care; through the nose, as I say.
American roadworks tend to be adorned with signs announcing, "Your Tax Dollars at Work". There should be signs saying "Your Tax Pounds at Work" at the entrance to every NHS hospital and surgery, and whenever "at work" fails to describe what goes on inside them, taxpayer-patients should whinge like hell. They may not like it. They may not think it British, but nothing else is working and in the meantime they are being royally ripped off.
Really? But aren't waiting lists down, as Mr Blair used to tell us every Wednesday? I would refer the Right Honourable gentleman to a recent ruling by the Canadian Supreme Court in favour of a man who sued to be allowed to buy insurance to speed up an operation. "Access to a waiting list," the court found, "is not access to healthcare."
Forty-seven million Americans are uninsured. This is a problem. Several million more are inadequately insured. Another problem. But that leaves more than 200 million fully insured Americans who've never heard of waiting lists. I envy them.
Source
NHS shuffles the deckchairs again
The Government sought to regain the initiative over the NHS yesterday by announcing another review. It was heralded by Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, as "unprecedented", and will be conducted by Sir Ara Darzi, a distinguished surgeon who has been drafted into the Department of Health as a junior minister. The main aim of the review seems to be to win over NHS staff to the reform agenda, but critics are interpreting it as a sign of weakness.
Mr Johnson promised that the review would be different from the one two years ago that led to the White Paper Our Health, Our Care. He acknowledged that staff morale was low and affecting the public's perception of the NHS. "We've put a lot of money in, but that hasn't led to a lot of happy bunnies," he said. "If there's a problem with morale, it's our responsibility, and it's our responsibility to put it right. The bit that has gone wrong is taking the public with us." Sir Ara, who will travel round the country gathering information, has been given four tasks:
* Putting clinical decisions at the centre of NHS care;
* Improving patient care, particularly for those with long-term and life-threatening conditions;
* Making care more accessible and convenient;
* Establishing a vision for the next decade based "less on central direction and more on patient control".
His problem will be that the reforms of Tony Blair were not intended to make staff happy, but to change the NHS culture, inctroducing market forces and the private sector. Persuading staff that further reforms are in their interests may be difficult. In a statement to the House of Commons, Mr Johnson said that Sir Ara's review represented a "once-in-a-generation opportunity to ensure that a properly resourced NHS is clinically led, patient-centred and locally accountable". But the announcement provoked a sceptical reaction.
The British Medical Asociation and the Unison union welcomed the review. The pressure group Keep Our NHS Public said that it did not go far enough. Nick Bosanquet, Professor of Health Policy at Imperial College, London, and consultant director of the Reform think-tank, said: "It is not clear why another review is needed to go over these general issues again which have been well covered in two reviews in the last five years. A year-long review risks damaging delay when practical solutions are needed now. "Urgent problems include the redefinition of [the Private Finance Initiative] to a more local programme, the need to empower local staff to get value for money and the [removal of] barriers to the involvement of independent sector companies. All these issues need clear action and a way forward in weeks rather than years."
Andrew Haldenby, director of Reform, said: "This is exactly the wrong moment to kick health policy into the long grass. The evidence is mounting that the Department of Health's reform drive has lost momentum just as the service's big funding increases come to an end. "The focus of government should now be on delivering reform rather than reopening a debate on the direction of policy that was actually resolved years ago."
Niall Dickson, chief executive of the King's Fund think-tank, said that the proposed review must be not be a signal to reverse important reforms to the service and that the terms of engagement must be clear. "It is important that the Government does not raise expectations among staff or the public that cannot be met," he said.
Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, told the Commons: "The only thing the Secretary of State seems to have understood is that morale in the NHS is at rock bottom. Where is the autonomy and accountability that the NHS is so calling out for? Where is the leadership and direction that the NHS so badly needs?"
* Mr Johnson also announced another 50 million pounds to help to tackle infections such as MRSA and Clostridium difficile. This will be used to double the size of the department's infection improvement team [More bureaucracy is going to solve anything?], groups of experts who advise NHS trusts on developing plans to cut infections.
Source
False heart disease diagnoses?
Are people really diagnosed just by statistics in Britain? Surely, it should be an investigation (with scans etc.) that is decisive! Amazing!
Heart disease medication is being massively over-prescribed with thousands of people being wrongly told that they are in danger of developing cardiovascular problems, according to a study. A new and sophisticated approach to calculating risk has shed radical new light on the issue. A British Medical Journal study says that there are flaws in the traditional method and suggests that current estimates of the number of people in danger of the disease are 1.5 million too high. Using the new test, the BMJ estimated that the number of people at risk had been overpredicted by 35 per cent.Consequently, many patients have likely been prescribed unnecessarily anti-cholesterol drug statins, inflating the annual 2 billion bill to the NHS.
The study prompted fears that the wrong type of people were being targeted for treatment with its discovery that white middle-aged men had a lower risk than previously thought and women from poorer backgrounds had a significantly higher risk. It also found that one in three women in their 60s are at risk of heart disease. That figure was previously thought to be one in four.
Julia Hippisley-Cox, lead author of the study, told The Guardian: "We are potentially missing the right people for treatment. "If we use this new score it would increase treatment to deprived areas and especially to women. They are being under-treated across the board."
The researchers tracked 1.28 million healthy men and women aged between 35 and 74 over 12 years to April this year and used GP records from 318 general practices. The overblown estimates of heart disease were derived from the traditional way of calculating risk, which involves a score based on smoking, blood pressure and "good" and "bad" cholesterol, along with age and sex. The BMJ study used a new measure which also takes social deprivation [Steady on there! We are not loking at social class at long last are we?] , genetic factors and weight into account, reducing estimates.
As a result, it has concluded that 3.2 million adults under the age of 75 are at risk of developing cardiovascular illnesses compared with the 4.7 million previously estimated. A separate study by the Healthcare Commission says the number of people reported as having heart failure issues was 140,000 fewer than expected.
Source
Raise British educational standards through increase in grammar schools, thinktank urges
More grammar schools [i.e. academically-oriented schools that select on the basis of scholastic ability] and low-cost private schools are needed to raise the "dire" standards of the education system, a report by one of the most respected economic think-tanks says today. Millions of people cannot read, write or count and millions more can barely do so because of the "socialist" state-directed system and comprehensive education, the Economic Research Council says.
Better off parents have escaped the worst aspects of comprehensive education by paying private fees, buying tuition or moving home to be close to the best schools, says the report. It is families on the lowest incomes that have suffered from the progressive theories and dumbing down of standards.
The Economic Research Council, Britain's oldest economic think-tank, says it is "rotten schooling" and not grammar schools that has harmed social mobility. Prof Dennis O'Keeffe, the report's author, says leading Tories who claim grammar schools no longer offer a ladder of opportunity for poor, bright children fail to understand the importance of selection. "Unlike David Cameron's parents who sent him to Eton, certain members of the modern Conservative Party appear not to understand the dramatically effective way competitive education encourages, identifies and rewards talent and consequently increases social mobility," he says.
"Comprehensive schools with soft and easy access for all have not served the community well. They have served only to eradicate upward mobility, and done so, perversely, in the name of eradicating privilege," adds Prof O'Keeffe, the professor of social science at Buckingham University.
Mr Cameron has pledged to preserve the existing 164 grammars but backed David Willetts, the shadow education secretary, when he blamed the schools for entrenching social advantage. In a speech last month that led to a rebellion in the Tory ranks, Mr Willetts said that changes in society since the 1950s meant that the middle classes now monopolised grammar school places.
Prof O'Keeffe wants the law to be changed so that education authorities can choose to re-introduce the 11-plus or provide more academically selective schools. "Today's comprehensive schools claim to eradicate privilege, but in reality they have only eradicated upward mobility," he says. An education elite in the Civil Service, universities and teacher training colleges had pushed ideas of "children thinking for themselves and owning the curriculum" as part of "socialist control" of the state system.
To help break down the monopoly system, there should be more cheap, private schools and tax relief on the fees.
Mr Willetts said last night: "One of the reasons for shockingly low social mobility is that it is very hard for someone from a modest background to get into our academically most successful schools. That is why we are proposing real reforms so that there are more good schools with more streaming and setting and tough discipline."
Source
DON'T MENTION THE WAR
The NHS is the nearest thing to a religion that the British now have. For half a century the British have convinced themselves that the NHS is the envy of the world. It is - for the third world. And it is the third world's doctors and nurses who keep alive this socialist cult of security from cradle to grave.
No politician dares to reform the NHS, which is still run by its white-coated medical priesthood. Even Margaret Thatcher, who was fearless with terrorists, quailed before the doctors and nurses. "The NHS is safe in our hands," she said. But the question has long been: are we safe in the NHS's hands?
Aneurin Bevan, the man who created this monster, explained how he had persuaded the senior doctors to submit to the state: "I stuffed their mouths with gold." But training our own doctors is expensive. Today, the agencies that supply the NHS with doctors recruit their staff throughout Africa and Asia. Many are Muslims and, inevitably, some of them are Islamists.
The origins of the eight suspects arrested so far are diverse - Iraq, Jordan, India, Saudi Arabia - but all spent time at NHS hospitals or medical schools. One of them, who drove a blazing Jeep into an airport terminal and set fire to himself, is now being treated for burns that cover 90% of his body in the same hospital that unsuspectingly employed him. If he survives, he will owe his life to his intended victims.
Anybody with medical qualifications has been able to enter Britain with few questions asked. Of the 277,000 doctors in the NHS, some 128,000 - that is nearly four out of 10 - were trained abroad. It was a loophole that should have been obvious, given Al Qaeda's declared strategy of recruiting highly educated professionals. The cell that launched last week's attacks is probably not the only one.
After a slow start, the security operation has moved quickly, using information gained from the cell phones that failed to detonate. The net was cast widely enough to catch one suspect in Australia just as he was about to fly to Pakistan. The only Anglican clergyman in Baghdad, Canon White, was apparently warned by an Al Qaeda operative: "He said the people who cure you would kill you."
What, though, has been the political response to this potentially devastating conspiracy - one of dozens that are believed to be active in Britain alone at any one time? Gordon Brown's new government has been eager to contrast itself with Tony Blair. To this end, it has excised three terms from the official vocabulary: "Muslim," "Islam," and "the war on terror." There is to be no mention of the wider context in which Al Qaeda and other Islamist terrorists operate. The new home secretary, Jacqui Smith, laid down the new doctrine: "Terrorists are criminals who come from all religious backgrounds." I am sure one or two are Quakers.
Compared to Mr. Blair, Mr. Brown looks like a man in manic denial. But his conservative opponent, David Cameron, is determined to out-deny him. First, he insisted that the word "Islamist" should be censored from political discourse. Then, after two Muslims were made junior ministers last week, Mr. Cameron promoted Sayeeda Warsi to be a member of his shadow cabinet, with the title of "community cohesion secretary." Having failed to be elected, she is to be ennobled and will sit in the House of Lords. Ms. Warsi is thus the most senior Muslim in British politics.
Yet Ms. Warsi turns out to hold views that are not only at odds with her party's, but also with any "community cohesion" except the Islamist kind. She not only opposed the Iraq war, but also welcomed the election of Hamas. She opposes anti-terror laws and rejects the idea that extremism is a problem for British Muslims: "When you say this is something that the Muslim community needs to weed out, or deal with, that is a very dangerous step to take." Mr. Cameron has taken a dangerous step by handing over his policy on Islam to a person who appears to be part of the problem.
"Don't mention the war" was the catchphrase of the manic hotelier, Basil Fawlty, played by Monty Python actor, John Cleese, in the BBC comedy series "Fawlty Towers." While serving his German guests, he goose-stepped around the room. Now that the war in question is a holy war unleashed against Western civilization, the joke is on us. Jihad may be preached from British pulpits, but the word has gone out from Downing Street: "Whatever else you do, don't mention the war on terror."
Source
Richard Littlejohn on the new British Prime Mionister: "As I said a couple of days before Gordon got the job, this column doesn't do honeymoon periods. But, wary of getting submerged in the glow of post-coital adulation, I thought I'd give it a week before putting the boot in. The usual bunch of crawlers are doing their best to flatter him, but the simple fact of the matter is that when it comes to being Prime Minister, Gordon just doesn't cut the Colman's. He's certainly not what Napoleon would have called a lucky general. Since he took over last Wednesday, he's had dead soldiers in Iraq, Muslim maniacs on the rampage in London and Glasgow and a rise in interest rates, as a basis for negotiation. So why on earth has the elevation of Gordon Brown been hailed as if it were the second coming of JFK? Quentin Letts has already remarked on the BBC constantly referring to the 'new government'. This isn't a 'new' government - it's a collection of has-beens, placemen and people who weren't good enough to be in the last Cabinet. You'd be hard-pushed to find such a weird array of incompetents, dullards and social inadequates this side of the flight deck of the Starship Enterprise. The Miliband brothers even look like Vulcans. Hilariously, we're asked to believe that Gordon has assembled a government of 'all the talents'. If this is as good as it gets, God help us."
Comment from Britain
The film is Sicko, a two-hour take-down of the mighty US healthcare industry directed by and starring the potato-faced Michael Moore (he of Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 911 and subject of too many right-wing diatribes to count). In it, Rick is an uninsured sadster who loses two fingers to a chainsaw and has to talk hard cash with an accountant before his general anaesthetic. It'll be $12,000 to reattach the easy finger, he is told; $60,000 for the pair. Rick goes for the budget option.
Fully half of Sicko is devoted to envious glimpses of better-run, more equitable and more compassionate healthcare systems in other countries, such as Canada (where another power-saw victim gets all five digits reattached for nothing) and Britain, where Moore would clearly choose to live if he didn't have such an avid following and such comprehensive health insurance at home. "Keep your British health system," he told one of our reviewers after a screening on Skid Row in LA. "Never get rid of it. It's a wonderful thing." He has also made the mistake of calling British healthcare "free".
Let us be clear: Michael Moore is amiable, fearless and funny, especially when provoked. He is also a brilliant film-maker who has transformed his genre in the US, where documentaries now pack out cinemas from coast to coast. You can take this as official. I have met him and liked him and am entirely trustworthy. The same cannot be said of Moore, of course. He is routinely denounced as a misleading, self-serving propagandist by critics who fail entirely to grasp that these are his great strengths.
When Moore barged his way into General Motors headquarters, and American culture, while making Roger & Me in 1988, it was about time. Here at last was a booming, populist, shamelessly blinkered voice from the American Left to answer those that had boomed unanswered from the Right throughout the Reagan years. Small wonder that he found a far-from-fringe constituency and became embarrassingly rich.
Moore's European critics, in particular, continue to misunderstand his challenge and his audience. They delight in exposing his crafty way with "facts", as if the corporate interests he attacks weren't just as crafty. They worry that the millions of Americans who pay to see his output might actually believe everything he says, as if, being Americans, they lack the power of critical thinking. And they forget that many of those millions of Americans do in fact, quite reasonably, share Moore's view that GM ignored its social responsibilities when Japanese competition hit home; that Kmart never had any business selling lethal handgun ammo to kids; and that when Charlton Heston raised a rifle in defiance a few days after the Columbine high-school massacre, he was a berk.
Moore, by contrast, was the man-grizzly who stood up to the idiot president of the NRA and lived to tell the tale. He was my hero. But now he has started spouting nonsense about the NHS, and he should know it's nonsense, and know that we know. It goes without saying that healthcare on the NHS isn't free. But just how unfree it is gets too little attention. We pay for it through our noses, every month.
Next year's NHS budget will be about 104 billion. That's roughly 1,733 pounds per man, woman and child. Multiplied by four for a typical two-child family, then divided by 12, that equates to median monthly family healthcare expenditure of 577, or $1,155 in American money. I can buy some very respectable US health insurance for $1,155 a month. In fact, on a quick and painless stroll through the website for Kaiser Permanente, a leading nonprofit US healthcare provider, entering my basic family details and the Beverly Hills zipcode, the most expensive family policy I can find that does not depend on contributions from the state or an employer costs $400 less than the sum Gordon Brown currently chooses to spend from my taxes, each month, on the NHS.
Being honest, I must add a few hundred to my US bill to cover "deductibles" and the portion of my US taxes going to federal schemes like Medicare and Medicaid. But I must also cop to earning more than the UK average, which means I pay more than average for my NHS care; through the nose, as I say.
American roadworks tend to be adorned with signs announcing, "Your Tax Dollars at Work". There should be signs saying "Your Tax Pounds at Work" at the entrance to every NHS hospital and surgery, and whenever "at work" fails to describe what goes on inside them, taxpayer-patients should whinge like hell. They may not like it. They may not think it British, but nothing else is working and in the meantime they are being royally ripped off.
Really? But aren't waiting lists down, as Mr Blair used to tell us every Wednesday? I would refer the Right Honourable gentleman to a recent ruling by the Canadian Supreme Court in favour of a man who sued to be allowed to buy insurance to speed up an operation. "Access to a waiting list," the court found, "is not access to healthcare."
Forty-seven million Americans are uninsured. This is a problem. Several million more are inadequately insured. Another problem. But that leaves more than 200 million fully insured Americans who've never heard of waiting lists. I envy them.
Source
NHS shuffles the deckchairs again
The Government sought to regain the initiative over the NHS yesterday by announcing another review. It was heralded by Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, as "unprecedented", and will be conducted by Sir Ara Darzi, a distinguished surgeon who has been drafted into the Department of Health as a junior minister. The main aim of the review seems to be to win over NHS staff to the reform agenda, but critics are interpreting it as a sign of weakness.
Mr Johnson promised that the review would be different from the one two years ago that led to the White Paper Our Health, Our Care. He acknowledged that staff morale was low and affecting the public's perception of the NHS. "We've put a lot of money in, but that hasn't led to a lot of happy bunnies," he said. "If there's a problem with morale, it's our responsibility, and it's our responsibility to put it right. The bit that has gone wrong is taking the public with us." Sir Ara, who will travel round the country gathering information, has been given four tasks:
* Putting clinical decisions at the centre of NHS care;
* Improving patient care, particularly for those with long-term and life-threatening conditions;
* Making care more accessible and convenient;
* Establishing a vision for the next decade based "less on central direction and more on patient control".
His problem will be that the reforms of Tony Blair were not intended to make staff happy, but to change the NHS culture, inctroducing market forces and the private sector. Persuading staff that further reforms are in their interests may be difficult. In a statement to the House of Commons, Mr Johnson said that Sir Ara's review represented a "once-in-a-generation opportunity to ensure that a properly resourced NHS is clinically led, patient-centred and locally accountable". But the announcement provoked a sceptical reaction.
The British Medical Asociation and the Unison union welcomed the review. The pressure group Keep Our NHS Public said that it did not go far enough. Nick Bosanquet, Professor of Health Policy at Imperial College, London, and consultant director of the Reform think-tank, said: "It is not clear why another review is needed to go over these general issues again which have been well covered in two reviews in the last five years. A year-long review risks damaging delay when practical solutions are needed now. "Urgent problems include the redefinition of [the Private Finance Initiative] to a more local programme, the need to empower local staff to get value for money and the [removal of] barriers to the involvement of independent sector companies. All these issues need clear action and a way forward in weeks rather than years."
Andrew Haldenby, director of Reform, said: "This is exactly the wrong moment to kick health policy into the long grass. The evidence is mounting that the Department of Health's reform drive has lost momentum just as the service's big funding increases come to an end. "The focus of government should now be on delivering reform rather than reopening a debate on the direction of policy that was actually resolved years ago."
Niall Dickson, chief executive of the King's Fund think-tank, said that the proposed review must be not be a signal to reverse important reforms to the service and that the terms of engagement must be clear. "It is important that the Government does not raise expectations among staff or the public that cannot be met," he said.
Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, told the Commons: "The only thing the Secretary of State seems to have understood is that morale in the NHS is at rock bottom. Where is the autonomy and accountability that the NHS is so calling out for? Where is the leadership and direction that the NHS so badly needs?"
* Mr Johnson also announced another 50 million pounds to help to tackle infections such as MRSA and Clostridium difficile. This will be used to double the size of the department's infection improvement team [More bureaucracy is going to solve anything?], groups of experts who advise NHS trusts on developing plans to cut infections.
Source
False heart disease diagnoses?
Are people really diagnosed just by statistics in Britain? Surely, it should be an investigation (with scans etc.) that is decisive! Amazing!
Heart disease medication is being massively over-prescribed with thousands of people being wrongly told that they are in danger of developing cardiovascular problems, according to a study. A new and sophisticated approach to calculating risk has shed radical new light on the issue. A British Medical Journal study says that there are flaws in the traditional method and suggests that current estimates of the number of people in danger of the disease are 1.5 million too high. Using the new test, the BMJ estimated that the number of people at risk had been overpredicted by 35 per cent.Consequently, many patients have likely been prescribed unnecessarily anti-cholesterol drug statins, inflating the annual 2 billion bill to the NHS.
The study prompted fears that the wrong type of people were being targeted for treatment with its discovery that white middle-aged men had a lower risk than previously thought and women from poorer backgrounds had a significantly higher risk. It also found that one in three women in their 60s are at risk of heart disease. That figure was previously thought to be one in four.
Julia Hippisley-Cox, lead author of the study, told The Guardian: "We are potentially missing the right people for treatment. "If we use this new score it would increase treatment to deprived areas and especially to women. They are being under-treated across the board."
The researchers tracked 1.28 million healthy men and women aged between 35 and 74 over 12 years to April this year and used GP records from 318 general practices. The overblown estimates of heart disease were derived from the traditional way of calculating risk, which involves a score based on smoking, blood pressure and "good" and "bad" cholesterol, along with age and sex. The BMJ study used a new measure which also takes social deprivation [Steady on there! We are not loking at social class at long last are we?] , genetic factors and weight into account, reducing estimates.
As a result, it has concluded that 3.2 million adults under the age of 75 are at risk of developing cardiovascular illnesses compared with the 4.7 million previously estimated. A separate study by the Healthcare Commission says the number of people reported as having heart failure issues was 140,000 fewer than expected.
Source
Raise British educational standards through increase in grammar schools, thinktank urges
More grammar schools [i.e. academically-oriented schools that select on the basis of scholastic ability] and low-cost private schools are needed to raise the "dire" standards of the education system, a report by one of the most respected economic think-tanks says today. Millions of people cannot read, write or count and millions more can barely do so because of the "socialist" state-directed system and comprehensive education, the Economic Research Council says.
Better off parents have escaped the worst aspects of comprehensive education by paying private fees, buying tuition or moving home to be close to the best schools, says the report. It is families on the lowest incomes that have suffered from the progressive theories and dumbing down of standards.
The Economic Research Council, Britain's oldest economic think-tank, says it is "rotten schooling" and not grammar schools that has harmed social mobility. Prof Dennis O'Keeffe, the report's author, says leading Tories who claim grammar schools no longer offer a ladder of opportunity for poor, bright children fail to understand the importance of selection. "Unlike David Cameron's parents who sent him to Eton, certain members of the modern Conservative Party appear not to understand the dramatically effective way competitive education encourages, identifies and rewards talent and consequently increases social mobility," he says.
"Comprehensive schools with soft and easy access for all have not served the community well. They have served only to eradicate upward mobility, and done so, perversely, in the name of eradicating privilege," adds Prof O'Keeffe, the professor of social science at Buckingham University.
Mr Cameron has pledged to preserve the existing 164 grammars but backed David Willetts, the shadow education secretary, when he blamed the schools for entrenching social advantage. In a speech last month that led to a rebellion in the Tory ranks, Mr Willetts said that changes in society since the 1950s meant that the middle classes now monopolised grammar school places.
Prof O'Keeffe wants the law to be changed so that education authorities can choose to re-introduce the 11-plus or provide more academically selective schools. "Today's comprehensive schools claim to eradicate privilege, but in reality they have only eradicated upward mobility," he says. An education elite in the Civil Service, universities and teacher training colleges had pushed ideas of "children thinking for themselves and owning the curriculum" as part of "socialist control" of the state system.
To help break down the monopoly system, there should be more cheap, private schools and tax relief on the fees.
Mr Willetts said last night: "One of the reasons for shockingly low social mobility is that it is very hard for someone from a modest background to get into our academically most successful schools. That is why we are proposing real reforms so that there are more good schools with more streaming and setting and tough discipline."
Source
DON'T MENTION THE WAR
The NHS is the nearest thing to a religion that the British now have. For half a century the British have convinced themselves that the NHS is the envy of the world. It is - for the third world. And it is the third world's doctors and nurses who keep alive this socialist cult of security from cradle to grave.
No politician dares to reform the NHS, which is still run by its white-coated medical priesthood. Even Margaret Thatcher, who was fearless with terrorists, quailed before the doctors and nurses. "The NHS is safe in our hands," she said. But the question has long been: are we safe in the NHS's hands?
Aneurin Bevan, the man who created this monster, explained how he had persuaded the senior doctors to submit to the state: "I stuffed their mouths with gold." But training our own doctors is expensive. Today, the agencies that supply the NHS with doctors recruit their staff throughout Africa and Asia. Many are Muslims and, inevitably, some of them are Islamists.
The origins of the eight suspects arrested so far are diverse - Iraq, Jordan, India, Saudi Arabia - but all spent time at NHS hospitals or medical schools. One of them, who drove a blazing Jeep into an airport terminal and set fire to himself, is now being treated for burns that cover 90% of his body in the same hospital that unsuspectingly employed him. If he survives, he will owe his life to his intended victims.
Anybody with medical qualifications has been able to enter Britain with few questions asked. Of the 277,000 doctors in the NHS, some 128,000 - that is nearly four out of 10 - were trained abroad. It was a loophole that should have been obvious, given Al Qaeda's declared strategy of recruiting highly educated professionals. The cell that launched last week's attacks is probably not the only one.
After a slow start, the security operation has moved quickly, using information gained from the cell phones that failed to detonate. The net was cast widely enough to catch one suspect in Australia just as he was about to fly to Pakistan. The only Anglican clergyman in Baghdad, Canon White, was apparently warned by an Al Qaeda operative: "He said the people who cure you would kill you."
What, though, has been the political response to this potentially devastating conspiracy - one of dozens that are believed to be active in Britain alone at any one time? Gordon Brown's new government has been eager to contrast itself with Tony Blair. To this end, it has excised three terms from the official vocabulary: "Muslim," "Islam," and "the war on terror." There is to be no mention of the wider context in which Al Qaeda and other Islamist terrorists operate. The new home secretary, Jacqui Smith, laid down the new doctrine: "Terrorists are criminals who come from all religious backgrounds." I am sure one or two are Quakers.
Compared to Mr. Blair, Mr. Brown looks like a man in manic denial. But his conservative opponent, David Cameron, is determined to out-deny him. First, he insisted that the word "Islamist" should be censored from political discourse. Then, after two Muslims were made junior ministers last week, Mr. Cameron promoted Sayeeda Warsi to be a member of his shadow cabinet, with the title of "community cohesion secretary." Having failed to be elected, she is to be ennobled and will sit in the House of Lords. Ms. Warsi is thus the most senior Muslim in British politics.
Yet Ms. Warsi turns out to hold views that are not only at odds with her party's, but also with any "community cohesion" except the Islamist kind. She not only opposed the Iraq war, but also welcomed the election of Hamas. She opposes anti-terror laws and rejects the idea that extremism is a problem for British Muslims: "When you say this is something that the Muslim community needs to weed out, or deal with, that is a very dangerous step to take." Mr. Cameron has taken a dangerous step by handing over his policy on Islam to a person who appears to be part of the problem.
"Don't mention the war" was the catchphrase of the manic hotelier, Basil Fawlty, played by Monty Python actor, John Cleese, in the BBC comedy series "Fawlty Towers." While serving his German guests, he goose-stepped around the room. Now that the war in question is a holy war unleashed against Western civilization, the joke is on us. Jihad may be preached from British pulpits, but the word has gone out from Downing Street: "Whatever else you do, don't mention the war on terror."
Source
Richard Littlejohn on the new British Prime Mionister: "As I said a couple of days before Gordon got the job, this column doesn't do honeymoon periods. But, wary of getting submerged in the glow of post-coital adulation, I thought I'd give it a week before putting the boot in. The usual bunch of crawlers are doing their best to flatter him, but the simple fact of the matter is that when it comes to being Prime Minister, Gordon just doesn't cut the Colman's. He's certainly not what Napoleon would have called a lucky general. Since he took over last Wednesday, he's had dead soldiers in Iraq, Muslim maniacs on the rampage in London and Glasgow and a rise in interest rates, as a basis for negotiation. So why on earth has the elevation of Gordon Brown been hailed as if it were the second coming of JFK? Quentin Letts has already remarked on the BBC constantly referring to the 'new government'. This isn't a 'new' government - it's a collection of has-beens, placemen and people who weren't good enough to be in the last Cabinet. You'd be hard-pushed to find such a weird array of incompetents, dullards and social inadequates this side of the flight deck of the Starship Enterprise. The Miliband brothers even look like Vulcans. Hilariously, we're asked to believe that Gordon has assembled a government of 'all the talents'. If this is as good as it gets, God help us."
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Two Muslim bombers were rejected for hospital jobs in Australia -- but fine for Britain's good old NHS!
Two of the men arrested over the weekend terror attacks in Britain applied to work as doctors in Western Australian but were rejected - and at least one is related to the young Gold Coast doctor set to spend a week in secure custody.
As new links emerged in the car bomb investigation last night, a Brisbane magistrate gave police approval to detain Mohamed Haneef - arrested at Brisbane airport on Monday night on suspicion of being connected to a terrorist group - for another four days. Dr Haneef is the cousin of Sabeel Ahmed, 26, one of seven suspects detained in Britain, and may have been related to another suspect arrested when a Jeep Cherokee exploded at Glasgow airport.
The West Australian branch of the Australian Medical Association, which runs a recruitment agency in the state, last night revealed that Dr Ahmed and his brother Kafeel had applied for work but had been rejected. Dr Haneef and Sabeel Ahmed worked together in Britain. According to reports, Kafeel is also known as Khalid Ahmed, who suffered life-threatening burns when he drove the Jeep packed with petrol and gas canisters into the Glasgow terminal building.
London's The Daily Telegraph said Dr Haneef and the two Ahmed brothers were born and raised in Bangalore, India, and graduated with medical degrees from the Rajiv Gandhi University.
AMA state president Geoff Dobbs said the association had also rejected an application from Gold Coast doctor Mohammed Asif Ali, who worked with Dr Haneef and drove him to the airport before the suspect's laptop was found in his car. "We believed their qualifications and references did not meet the standards required in Western Australia," Professor Dobbs said, adding that one of the three had made repeated applications for work. The Medical Board of Western Australia last night refused to comment on the case, while its Queensland equivalent offered no fresh information.
Before leaving Britain last year, Dr Haneef left his mobile phone SIM card with Sabeel Ahmed. Reports suggest the prime suspect in the bombings, Jordanian-trained doctor Mohammed Asha, contacted Dr Haneef via email and text messages. Dr Haneef's family insist he is innocent.
The eight detained suspects are doctors or have medical links, and a British cleric claims to have been warned by an al-Qa'ida figure in Iraq in April that "those who cure you will kill you". Police found suicide notes left by the occupants of the Jeep, which allegedly indicated they intended to detonate the vehicle while still inside. Allegations emerged that Bilal Abdulla, a suspected passenger in the Jeep, was associated with a hardline Muslim group in 2004.
Police have been interviewing Dr Haneef's colleagues, some of whom trained in India and worked in Britain, amid fears of a "sleeper cell" in Australia. The case has renewed debate over overseas-trained doctors and prompted Queensland Senate candidate and One Nation founder Pauline Hanson to call for free medical degrees for Australians to bolster the system.
Source
IN BRITAIN, SCIENCE AND FOLKLORE UNITE IN PREDICTING RAIN
Brits have miserable weather so it is obviously a relief to have global warming to blame it on. And the recent floods fall into that category, of course. Not so fast, says the article below. Such fluctuations were known and explained (in various ways) long ago
June's rains did not break the monthly rainfall record for England and Wales, despite what many newspapers claimed. But, according to folklore, last Sunday's wet weather carried a dire warning: "If the first of July be rainy weather/ It will rain more or less for four weeks together." Many similar traditions, such as St Swithin's Day on July 15, reveal that people have long recognised how summer weather can settle into long-running patterns.
There is science to this too. Much of our rains are driven over the Atlantic by the jet stream, a river of wind a few miles up in the atmosphere. In the summer, the jet stream often migrates north, taking bad weather away from the UK. But this summer, high pressure to the north has blocked off that route and the jet stream has dug in over Britain. Its sluggish movement has reduced depressions and their weather fronts to a crawl, giving plenty of time for rain to fall.
This is not climate change, though. Will Hand, a forecast researcher at the Met Office, has studied previous extreme rains in Britain. "The depressions that gave such heavy frontal rain recently were typical of 20th-century rainfall extremes," he explained. He cites the Great Borders Flood of August 1948 as an example, when a slow depression flooded the River Tweed, sweeping away 40 bridges and disrupting mainline rail services for two months.
Source
London court jails 'cyber-jihadis' for incitement to violence
I am inclined towards the moderate libertarian view that incitement to violence is reasonably denied free speech protection so see the verdict as justifiable:
British Jewry in crisis
The call for a boycott against Israeli academicians by the British University and College Union (UCU) reflects the depths to which vicious hostility against Israel has become ingrained in British society. It is an abomination for "educators," purporting to be liberal or progressive, to sanction a dastardly resolution boycotting academics from the only democratic state in the Middle East. It is especially bizarre because Israeli universities are pluralistic with no limitations on the enrolment of Israeli Arab students. In stark contrast, many Palestinian Arab "universities" promote a cult of death, suicide bombers and the destruction of the Jewish state.
It may be politically incorrect to describe such boycotts as anti-Semitic rather than anti-Israel. But the time has now surely come to call a spade a spade. To demonize Israel while ignoring the brutal denial of human rights in Islamic states - with 400,000 murdered in Darfur alone - does not merely reflect distorted double standards. Notwithstanding the high proportion of turncoat Jews among boycott proponents (and even ex-Israelis), by any benchmark this must be deemed an anti-Semitic act.
The noxious atmosphere radiating venom against Israel is now so intense that it is reminiscent of what European Jews must have endured in the 1930s when they were transformed into pariahs. Whereas the early Nazi anti-Jewish boycott initiatives were against Jewish enterprises, today these activities are directed against the surrogate of the Jewish people, the Jewish state. Of course Jews in England are not about to be herded into concentration camps. But there are undoubtedly other ominous similarities.
It is noteworthy that in the 1930s, liberals and the Left defended Jews against the Nazis. Yet today they are leading the pack against Israel and align themselves with the darkest forces of fundamentalist Islam who proudly proclaim their intent to fulfill the Nazi objective of annihilating Jews and their institutions.
THE NIGHTMARE is heightened when even many of those who recognize the potency of the Islamic threat to Britain's open society blame these Islamic excesses on Israel. In their distorted world view, had Israel not been created, Muslims would not have been humiliated and the rage against the West would not have eventuated. The extent of the grotesque distortion of reality is reflected in opinion polls which demonstrate that the average Briton has been brainwashed into believing that Israel represents the greatest threat to world peace, even exceeding Iran.
Of course, much responsibility for this negative climate rests with successive Israeli governments which failed to grapple with the war of ideas or provide guidance to Diaspora Jewish communities. The cynical outbursts of failed politicians like Avrum Burg who demonize their own country and the utilization of Israeli universities as launching pads for anti-Israeli activity by extremist post- Zionist academics also contributed toward the delegitimization of the Jewish state. However, all this does not invalidate the obligation of Anglo Jewry to defend itself.
ON PREVIOUS occasions I expressed concern about the passivity of those Anglo-Jewish leaders who, as an act of faith, rely unduly on silent diplomacy and maintain a low profile out of a concern not to rock the boat. The impotence of their proclaimed policy of "whispering" rather than "shouting" in response to anti-Semitic acts and delegitimization of Israel is exemplified by the recent painful debates over whether to hold public activities on the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War lest it provoke the enemy, and Jewish inclinations to hold protest meetings in closed areas.
Such attitudes have resulted in Anglo-Jewish leaders frequently being depicted as "trembling Israelites." Their behavior contrasts starkly with the French Jewish leaders who displayed courage and determination in the face of anti-Semitism. The core of the problem is that many British Jewish leaders remain in denial and either downplay or refuse to face the reality of the waves of anti-Semitism - disguised as anti- Zionism - which are engulfing them. This was reflected at the annual president's banquet of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. At a time of profound crisis in Israel, with anti-Semitism at an all time high in England, I was reliably informed that the address by board president Henry Grunwald centered on the obligation of Anglo-Jewry to protest against the infringement of human rights in Darfur. Of course what is happening at Darfur is an outrage to humanity to which Jews must be especially sensitive. But for a Jewish leader to refer at such an occasion almost exclusively to Darfur, virtually ignoring the fires that are burning in the Jewish world and the existential threats facing Israel, says it all.
IN THE wake of the reprehensible boycott resolution, the Board of Deputies stands exposed in all its nakedness. There is of course no guarantee that tougher counter action would necessarily have prevented the passage of the resolution. But we will never know, because Anglo-Jewish leaders relied principally on back channels to combat the resolution and were shocked when it was carried. Now they have launched a campaign to reverse the decision.
After the passage of such an abominable resolution, one would surely have expected every Jewish leader, every rabbi, and every activist, to stand up and express anger and disgust against such a moral outrage. Instead we heard expressions of regret, and reasoned academic responses. What were lacking were outpourings of moral indignation that such a biased and evil resolution could have been incubated by educators in the birthplace of democracy.
Of course there are voices of protest. Melanie Phillips the courageous journalist and author of the acclaimed Londonistan is having a major impact. Ronnie Fraser has been conducting a tough uphill campaign on behalf of Academic Friends of Israel. Andrew Balcombe, the chairman of the British Zionist Federation, in an interview with the BBC accused the UK of being the most anti-Semitic country in Europe. Many rank and file British Jews are willing to confront the anti-Semites but are being deterred by "leaders" who insist that strident protest activities are counterproductive.Perhaps the time has come for British Jews to bypass their timid representatives and initiate action independently.
THE GREATEST negative fallout from the passivity of Anglo Jews is not that anti-Semitism will grow - which it undoubtedly will. It is the impact that such cowardly behavior will have on future generations of British Jews. What can one expect in the years to come from today's youngsters who see their parents and leaders fail to confront those who demonize Israel and the Jewish people? If the official leadership of Anglo-Jewry does not change its attitude, the current malaise may only represent the tip of the iceberg.
Source
CLIMATE MYTHOLOGY: THE GULF STREAM, EUROPEAN CLIMATE AND ABRUPT CHANGE
A few times a year the British media of all stripes goes into a tizzy of panic when one climate scientist or another states that there is a possibility that the North Atlantic ocean circulation, of which the Gulf Stream is a major part, will slow down in coming years or even stop. Whether the scientists statements are measured or inflammatory the media invariably warns that this will plunge Britain and Europe into a new ice age, pictures of the icy shores of Labrador are shown, created film of English Channel ferries making their way through sea ice are broadcast...
The panic is based on a long held belief of the British, other Europeans, Americans and, indeed, much of the world's population that the northward heat transport by the Gulf Stream is the reason why western Europe enjoys a mild climate, much milder than, say, that of eastern North America. This idea was actually originated by an American military man, Matthew Fontaine Maury, in the mid nineteenth century and has stuck since despite the absence of proof. We now know this is a myth, the climatological equivalent of an urban legend.
FULL STORY here
Asthma in the genes too
A PREVIOUSLY unknown gene may be the solution to the puzzle of childhood asthma. The link between the gene and the disorder is so strong that scientists may have a complete understanding of what causes asthma within three years, predicts the team leader, British respiratory physician William Cookson. "I'm upbeat that we're going to do it," said Dr Cookson, with the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London.
Along with European and US colleagues, Dr Cookson reported overnight in the journal Nature that mutations in the novel gene ORMDL3 had a strong association with childhood asthma. "It's a potential target for therapy," Dr Cookson said. "But we're not completely sure what this gene does." His team found the mutations and the gene by comparing DNA from thousands of people with and without childhood asthma.
Molecular biologist Carolyn Williams, head of the genetics unit at the Lung Institute of Western Australia, said the result was extraordinary. "In all the years we've been looking. we've never found such a strong line between a genetic mutation and asthma," she said. Although numerous genes have shown small effects on susceptibility to childhood asthma, Dr Cookson said none had proved as closely tied as ORMDL3.
New data analysed by epidemiologist Guy Marks of Sydney's Woolcock Institute of Medical Research showed roughly 11 per cent of Australian children had asthma. "This is an important study in adding to knowledge of genetic risk factors of asthma," said Associate Professor Marks, who also heads the Australian Centre for Asthma Monitoring. Associate Professor Marks said childhood asthma was caused by a combination of poorly understood genetic and environmental factors.
Peter Le Souef, a respiratory physician at the University of Western Australia in Perth, praised Dr Cookson's team's gene-scanning prowess. "They're the best in the world at it," he said. But Professor Le Souef said Dr Cookson's three-year timeline was overly optimistic. "We need to see how the finding replicates in further populations of children, as well as knowing its function," he said. To that end, Dr Cookson's group hopes to nail down ORMDL3's role in the body, asthmatic and otherwise.
Source
Organic produce has more flavonoids: So what?
The flavonoid faith rolls on
Organic fruit and vegetables may be better for the heart and general health than eating conventionally grown crops, new research has found. A ten-year study comparing organic tomatoes with standard produce found that they had almost double the quantity of antioxidants called flavonoids which help to prevent high blood pressure and thus reduce the likelihood of heart disease and strokes. Alyson Mitchell, a food chemist, who led the research at the University of California, believes
Two of the men arrested over the weekend terror attacks in Britain applied to work as doctors in Western Australian but were rejected - and at least one is related to the young Gold Coast doctor set to spend a week in secure custody.
As new links emerged in the car bomb investigation last night, a Brisbane magistrate gave police approval to detain Mohamed Haneef - arrested at Brisbane airport on Monday night on suspicion of being connected to a terrorist group - for another four days. Dr Haneef is the cousin of Sabeel Ahmed, 26, one of seven suspects detained in Britain, and may have been related to another suspect arrested when a Jeep Cherokee exploded at Glasgow airport.
The West Australian branch of the Australian Medical Association, which runs a recruitment agency in the state, last night revealed that Dr Ahmed and his brother Kafeel had applied for work but had been rejected. Dr Haneef and Sabeel Ahmed worked together in Britain. According to reports, Kafeel is also known as Khalid Ahmed, who suffered life-threatening burns when he drove the Jeep packed with petrol and gas canisters into the Glasgow terminal building.
London's The Daily Telegraph said Dr Haneef and the two Ahmed brothers were born and raised in Bangalore, India, and graduated with medical degrees from the Rajiv Gandhi University.
AMA state president Geoff Dobbs said the association had also rejected an application from Gold Coast doctor Mohammed Asif Ali, who worked with Dr Haneef and drove him to the airport before the suspect's laptop was found in his car. "We believed their qualifications and references did not meet the standards required in Western Australia," Professor Dobbs said, adding that one of the three had made repeated applications for work. The Medical Board of Western Australia last night refused to comment on the case, while its Queensland equivalent offered no fresh information.
Before leaving Britain last year, Dr Haneef left his mobile phone SIM card with Sabeel Ahmed. Reports suggest the prime suspect in the bombings, Jordanian-trained doctor Mohammed Asha, contacted Dr Haneef via email and text messages. Dr Haneef's family insist he is innocent.
The eight detained suspects are doctors or have medical links, and a British cleric claims to have been warned by an al-Qa'ida figure in Iraq in April that "those who cure you will kill you". Police found suicide notes left by the occupants of the Jeep, which allegedly indicated they intended to detonate the vehicle while still inside. Allegations emerged that Bilal Abdulla, a suspected passenger in the Jeep, was associated with a hardline Muslim group in 2004.
Police have been interviewing Dr Haneef's colleagues, some of whom trained in India and worked in Britain, amid fears of a "sleeper cell" in Australia. The case has renewed debate over overseas-trained doctors and prompted Queensland Senate candidate and One Nation founder Pauline Hanson to call for free medical degrees for Australians to bolster the system.
Source
IN BRITAIN, SCIENCE AND FOLKLORE UNITE IN PREDICTING RAIN
Brits have miserable weather so it is obviously a relief to have global warming to blame it on. And the recent floods fall into that category, of course. Not so fast, says the article below. Such fluctuations were known and explained (in various ways) long ago
June's rains did not break the monthly rainfall record for England and Wales, despite what many newspapers claimed. But, according to folklore, last Sunday's wet weather carried a dire warning: "If the first of July be rainy weather/ It will rain more or less for four weeks together." Many similar traditions, such as St Swithin's Day on July 15, reveal that people have long recognised how summer weather can settle into long-running patterns.
There is science to this too. Much of our rains are driven over the Atlantic by the jet stream, a river of wind a few miles up in the atmosphere. In the summer, the jet stream often migrates north, taking bad weather away from the UK. But this summer, high pressure to the north has blocked off that route and the jet stream has dug in over Britain. Its sluggish movement has reduced depressions and their weather fronts to a crawl, giving plenty of time for rain to fall.
This is not climate change, though. Will Hand, a forecast researcher at the Met Office, has studied previous extreme rains in Britain. "The depressions that gave such heavy frontal rain recently were typical of 20th-century rainfall extremes," he explained. He cites the Great Borders Flood of August 1948 as an example, when a slow depression flooded the River Tweed, sweeping away 40 bridges and disrupting mainline rail services for two months.
Source
London court jails 'cyber-jihadis' for incitement to violence
I am inclined towards the moderate libertarian view that incitement to violence is reasonably denied free speech protection so see the verdict as justifiable:
"Three "cyber-jihadis" who used the internet to urge Muslims to wage holy war on non-believers were jailed for between six-and-a-half and 10 years today in the first case of its kind in Britain. Tariq Al-Daour, Younes Tsouli and Waseem Mughal had close links with al-Qaeda in Iraq and thought there was a "global conspiracy" to wipe out Islam, the Woolwich Crown Court in south-east London was told.
Moroccan-born Tsouli, 23, was jailed for 10 years; UAE-born Al-Daour, 21, received a six-and-a-half year sentence; and 24-year-old Mughal, who was born in Britain, was given seven-and-a-half years.
Sentencing them, Judge Charles Openshaw said the men had engaged in "cyber jihad", encouraging others to kill "kuffars" or non-believers. "It would seem that internet websites have become an effective means of communicating such ideas," he said, although he added that none of the men had come close to carrying out acts of violence themselves. Referring to Tsouli, whom he recommended for deportation to Morocco after serving his sentence, he said: "He came no closer to a bomb or a firearm than a computer keyboard."
Al-Daour, from west London, yesterday admitted "inciting another person to commit an act of terrorism wholly or partly outside the United Kingdom which would, if committed in England and Wales, constitute murder." Tsouli, also from west London, and Mughal, from Kent, southeast England, admitted the same charge on Monday. The guilty pleas came part way through a trial which had run for two months.
Source
British Jewry in crisis
The call for a boycott against Israeli academicians by the British University and College Union (UCU) reflects the depths to which vicious hostility against Israel has become ingrained in British society. It is an abomination for "educators," purporting to be liberal or progressive, to sanction a dastardly resolution boycotting academics from the only democratic state in the Middle East. It is especially bizarre because Israeli universities are pluralistic with no limitations on the enrolment of Israeli Arab students. In stark contrast, many Palestinian Arab "universities" promote a cult of death, suicide bombers and the destruction of the Jewish state.
It may be politically incorrect to describe such boycotts as anti-Semitic rather than anti-Israel. But the time has now surely come to call a spade a spade. To demonize Israel while ignoring the brutal denial of human rights in Islamic states - with 400,000 murdered in Darfur alone - does not merely reflect distorted double standards. Notwithstanding the high proportion of turncoat Jews among boycott proponents (and even ex-Israelis), by any benchmark this must be deemed an anti-Semitic act.
The noxious atmosphere radiating venom against Israel is now so intense that it is reminiscent of what European Jews must have endured in the 1930s when they were transformed into pariahs. Whereas the early Nazi anti-Jewish boycott initiatives were against Jewish enterprises, today these activities are directed against the surrogate of the Jewish people, the Jewish state. Of course Jews in England are not about to be herded into concentration camps. But there are undoubtedly other ominous similarities.
It is noteworthy that in the 1930s, liberals and the Left defended Jews against the Nazis. Yet today they are leading the pack against Israel and align themselves with the darkest forces of fundamentalist Islam who proudly proclaim their intent to fulfill the Nazi objective of annihilating Jews and their institutions.
THE NIGHTMARE is heightened when even many of those who recognize the potency of the Islamic threat to Britain's open society blame these Islamic excesses on Israel. In their distorted world view, had Israel not been created, Muslims would not have been humiliated and the rage against the West would not have eventuated. The extent of the grotesque distortion of reality is reflected in opinion polls which demonstrate that the average Briton has been brainwashed into believing that Israel represents the greatest threat to world peace, even exceeding Iran.
Of course, much responsibility for this negative climate rests with successive Israeli governments which failed to grapple with the war of ideas or provide guidance to Diaspora Jewish communities. The cynical outbursts of failed politicians like Avrum Burg who demonize their own country and the utilization of Israeli universities as launching pads for anti-Israeli activity by extremist post- Zionist academics also contributed toward the delegitimization of the Jewish state. However, all this does not invalidate the obligation of Anglo Jewry to defend itself.
ON PREVIOUS occasions I expressed concern about the passivity of those Anglo-Jewish leaders who, as an act of faith, rely unduly on silent diplomacy and maintain a low profile out of a concern not to rock the boat. The impotence of their proclaimed policy of "whispering" rather than "shouting" in response to anti-Semitic acts and delegitimization of Israel is exemplified by the recent painful debates over whether to hold public activities on the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War lest it provoke the enemy, and Jewish inclinations to hold protest meetings in closed areas.
Such attitudes have resulted in Anglo-Jewish leaders frequently being depicted as "trembling Israelites." Their behavior contrasts starkly with the French Jewish leaders who displayed courage and determination in the face of anti-Semitism. The core of the problem is that many British Jewish leaders remain in denial and either downplay or refuse to face the reality of the waves of anti-Semitism - disguised as anti- Zionism - which are engulfing them. This was reflected at the annual president's banquet of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. At a time of profound crisis in Israel, with anti-Semitism at an all time high in England, I was reliably informed that the address by board president Henry Grunwald centered on the obligation of Anglo-Jewry to protest against the infringement of human rights in Darfur. Of course what is happening at Darfur is an outrage to humanity to which Jews must be especially sensitive. But for a Jewish leader to refer at such an occasion almost exclusively to Darfur, virtually ignoring the fires that are burning in the Jewish world and the existential threats facing Israel, says it all.
IN THE wake of the reprehensible boycott resolution, the Board of Deputies stands exposed in all its nakedness. There is of course no guarantee that tougher counter action would necessarily have prevented the passage of the resolution. But we will never know, because Anglo-Jewish leaders relied principally on back channels to combat the resolution and were shocked when it was carried. Now they have launched a campaign to reverse the decision.
After the passage of such an abominable resolution, one would surely have expected every Jewish leader, every rabbi, and every activist, to stand up and express anger and disgust against such a moral outrage. Instead we heard expressions of regret, and reasoned academic responses. What were lacking were outpourings of moral indignation that such a biased and evil resolution could have been incubated by educators in the birthplace of democracy.
Of course there are voices of protest. Melanie Phillips the courageous journalist and author of the acclaimed Londonistan is having a major impact. Ronnie Fraser has been conducting a tough uphill campaign on behalf of Academic Friends of Israel. Andrew Balcombe, the chairman of the British Zionist Federation, in an interview with the BBC accused the UK of being the most anti-Semitic country in Europe. Many rank and file British Jews are willing to confront the anti-Semites but are being deterred by "leaders" who insist that strident protest activities are counterproductive.Perhaps the time has come for British Jews to bypass their timid representatives and initiate action independently.
THE GREATEST negative fallout from the passivity of Anglo Jews is not that anti-Semitism will grow - which it undoubtedly will. It is the impact that such cowardly behavior will have on future generations of British Jews. What can one expect in the years to come from today's youngsters who see their parents and leaders fail to confront those who demonize Israel and the Jewish people? If the official leadership of Anglo-Jewry does not change its attitude, the current malaise may only represent the tip of the iceberg.
Source
CLIMATE MYTHOLOGY: THE GULF STREAM, EUROPEAN CLIMATE AND ABRUPT CHANGE
A few times a year the British media of all stripes goes into a tizzy of panic when one climate scientist or another states that there is a possibility that the North Atlantic ocean circulation, of which the Gulf Stream is a major part, will slow down in coming years or even stop. Whether the scientists statements are measured or inflammatory the media invariably warns that this will plunge Britain and Europe into a new ice age, pictures of the icy shores of Labrador are shown, created film of English Channel ferries making their way through sea ice are broadcast...
The panic is based on a long held belief of the British, other Europeans, Americans and, indeed, much of the world's population that the northward heat transport by the Gulf Stream is the reason why western Europe enjoys a mild climate, much milder than, say, that of eastern North America. This idea was actually originated by an American military man, Matthew Fontaine Maury, in the mid nineteenth century and has stuck since despite the absence of proof. We now know this is a myth, the climatological equivalent of an urban legend.
FULL STORY here
Asthma in the genes too
A PREVIOUSLY unknown gene may be the solution to the puzzle of childhood asthma. The link between the gene and the disorder is so strong that scientists may have a complete understanding of what causes asthma within three years, predicts the team leader, British respiratory physician William Cookson. "I'm upbeat that we're going to do it," said Dr Cookson, with the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London.
Along with European and US colleagues, Dr Cookson reported overnight in the journal Nature that mutations in the novel gene ORMDL3 had a strong association with childhood asthma. "It's a potential target for therapy," Dr Cookson said. "But we're not completely sure what this gene does." His team found the mutations and the gene by comparing DNA from thousands of people with and without childhood asthma.
Molecular biologist Carolyn Williams, head of the genetics unit at the Lung Institute of Western Australia, said the result was extraordinary. "In all the years we've been looking. we've never found such a strong line between a genetic mutation and asthma," she said. Although numerous genes have shown small effects on susceptibility to childhood asthma, Dr Cookson said none had proved as closely tied as ORMDL3.
New data analysed by epidemiologist Guy Marks of Sydney's Woolcock Institute of Medical Research showed roughly 11 per cent of Australian children had asthma. "This is an important study in adding to knowledge of genetic risk factors of asthma," said Associate Professor Marks, who also heads the Australian Centre for Asthma Monitoring. Associate Professor Marks said childhood asthma was caused by a combination of poorly understood genetic and environmental factors.
Peter Le Souef, a respiratory physician at the University of Western Australia in Perth, praised Dr Cookson's team's gene-scanning prowess. "They're the best in the world at it," he said. But Professor Le Souef said Dr Cookson's three-year timeline was overly optimistic. "We need to see how the finding replicates in further populations of children, as well as knowing its function," he said. To that end, Dr Cookson's group hopes to nail down ORMDL3's role in the body, asthmatic and otherwise.
Source
Organic produce has more flavonoids: So what?
The flavonoid faith rolls on
Organic fruit and vegetables may be better for the heart and general health than eating conventionally grown crops, new research has found. A ten-year study comparing organic tomatoes with standard produce found that they had almost double the quantity of antioxidants called flavonoids which help to prevent high blood pressure and thus reduce the likelihood of heart disease and strokes. Alyson Mitchell, a food chemist, who led the research at the University of California, believes