Eye on Britain

We must kick our methadone habit

Drug addicts often do not really need the heroin substitute that they are prescribed

By Theodore Dalrymple

It is unusual for politicians to face up to the obvious, but the Scottish Executive seems for once to have done so: it has recognised what has long stared it in the face, namely that dishing out methadone to drug addicts is not the answer to their problems or to the problems that they cause society. A different approach is needed.

Perhaps in 100 years historians will wonder why so many of the governing elite, from senior doctors to Cabinet ministers, persisted for so long in the belief that doling out methadone was the answer. The explanation, I think, will be that they wilfully misunderstood the nature of the problem.

Many years ago I used to dole out methadone like the best (or the worst) of them. This was before I thought at all deeply about the question of drug addiction and accepted uncritically all that I had been taught about it by doctors senior to me. I began to change my opinion when I worked in prison where it was the clinical policy to give addicts methadone. I noticed that, far from creating an atmosphere of contentment and satisfaction, it created one of perpetual tension and irritation. Shortly after having been prescribed a dose, the prisoner would return and say, in an intimidating fashion: "It's not holding me, doc, it's just not holding me," and sometimes announce that, unless he was prescribed more, he would end up attacking other prisoners, and then it would be the doctor's fault.

In Scotland the great majority of addicts prescribed methadone by their doctors never stop taking it, and most of them take other drugs as well. A particularly dangerous combination of drugs is methadone and benzodiazepines (drugs such as Valium), and yet drug clinics and other doctors persist in prescribing this often fatal combination - largely, I suspect, because they are too frightened of their patients to refuse them anything.

The number of people admitted to hospital having taken a dangerous overdose of methadone (556 in 2006-07) is greater, proportionately, than the number of people admitted to hospital having taken a dangerous overdose of heroin (1,530 cases). In Dublin recently, more people have died of methadone poisoning than of heroin overdose. The supposed cure causes as many problems as the supposed disease. If addicts prescribed methadone are given the opportunity to divert it on to the black market, they will: which suggests that they do not really need it in the first place.

In France, addicts are often prescribed a different drug, buprenorphine, which soon became the street drug of preference in Finland, to which it was illegally re-exported by the addicts. More recently, a huge epidemic of buprenorphine addiction has occurred in Georgia (the ex-Soviet republic), numbering scores of thousands of addicts, who take buprenorphine diverted from France. If the addicts really needed the drugs, they would take them rather than divert them on to a black market.

In the prison in which I used to work, a buprenorphine tablet that had been prescribed for an addict to alleviate the symptoms of withdrawal from heroin on arrival in the prison, and which an addict had put in his mouth and spat out for sale to another prisoner, was known as a "furry" because of its rough surface. Again, this suggests that addicts did not really need what they were prescribed, and that the whole basis of prescription was flawed.

The fundamental error that the Scottish Executive has now admitted is in having regarded addiction to heroin as a technical medical problem, to be solved by technical medical means. But that old approach amounts to a surrender to blackmail: give me what I want or I will continue to behave badly and to hold you responsible for the ill-effects of my own behaviour.

Suppose we gave money to burglars to induce them to stop burgling. No doubt most of them would stop for a length of time depending upon how much we gave them. But this does not mean that money is the treatment of the dreadful disease of burglary, or because we prevented certain individuals from continuing to burgle it means that we had reduced the disease of burglary in society as a whole. Rather, we would have encouraged its spread.

This is precisely the logic that has been applied to drug addiction. Just how precisely is evident from the Government's recent declared policy that clinics should now give drug addicts money or other rewards for not taking drugs (as least as proved by drug-free urine samples, something experienced drug addicts have long learnt to provide). This is the first time in the history of medicine, so far as I know, that bribery has been considered a medical treatment.

Contrary to what everyone supposes, withdrawal from heroin is not a serious medical condition - unlike, say, withdrawal from alcohol when it results in delirium tremens (the DTs). The suffering is grossly exaggerated and, in so far as it is genuine, is largely produced by anticipatory anxiety that is itself the consequence of years of mythologising the fearsomeness of withdrawal.

Addiction to heroin is a medical problem only to a minor extent, which is why predominantly medical means will never solve the problem. Most of Britain's 300,000 addicts are drawn from broken families, have a poor education, are without much hope for (or for that matter fear of) the future and have no cultural life, intellectual interests or religious belief. Delusory euphoria - the paradise at three pence a bottle that De Quincey described in his Confessions of an English Opium Eater - is the best that they think that they can hope for in life. This is not a medical problem. Where addiction is concerned, it is time to throw physic to the dogs.

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Boozy Britain

What we surely need to address is why vast swathes of young people - and their parents and grandparents, too, I expect - find being so intoxicated that you can't stand up the very acme of fun. We've all done it: I had my stomach pumped once when I was a student (I know - classy), but most of us aren't madly keen to keep on doing it.

I fully understand the joys of the three-hour lunch: I love sitting in the sunshine with a chilled bottle of white wine; I have no reformed drinker-style notions about the evils of booze. Drinking until you're giggly and feel like singing is very nice. Drinking until the room starts spinning and you want to throw up isn't. What I can't get my head around is why such vast numbers of people believe it is and that it is what you must do to have a laugh.

I was walking back from St Leonards in East Sussex to Hastings a few months ago, at about three in the morning, after a party. We detoured via a chip shop near the sea front because we were starving.

Here is what we saw at the chip shop: 1) a young man, who had been glassed in the face, trying to buy a kebab; 2) two extremely drunk young men standing outside (near some sick) trying to start a fight with, as far as I could tell, any random person; 3) two girls aged about 15, completely inappropriately dressed (because, sorry, and do exercise your female rights to cram your pallid flesh into whatever porno costume you like, but if you're going to stagger about pissed at three in the morning, take a coat and wear it) clutching each other and barely able to stand up; and 4) another young girl, outside the chip shop this time, being felt up by some bloke as she was vomiting.

The thing is, having been at a party until 3am, my companions and I were also drunk. But, Jesus, not that drunk. Why would you do that to yourself? In what way is it fun to be glassed, semi-raped or puke down your dress? Does anyone seriously wake up in the morning and think: "Top night"? Statistics tell us they must, in vast and increasing numbers.

I happened to be in Hastings, but I expect a version of the hideous scenario above plays itself out everywhere. I know young people in the countryside are so bored there's nothing for it but to drink, have sex (but apparently not understand how contraception works. Why not? - it's not exactly challenging) and take drugs, and I suspect that the more remote the community, the more intense the boredom and the more extreme the partaking: there is actually something intensely provincial about drinking to excess.

It has nevertheless become shorthand for being "one of us", recognisably a member of the great tribe of pissheads, up for a laugh. The liberal elite, in their usual moronic, tragically out of touch way, thought that endlessly printing photographs of David Cameron and Boris Johnson at Oxford in full Bullingdon rig and banging on about toffs would freak out voters and send them scurrying gratefully into the arms of the Socialist Workers party. As we know from the past few weeks - this one included - it didn't quite work that way. Well, d'oh. Okay, so they're wearing funny clothes - but they're also doing what the nation likes doing best: getting bladdered. The whole raison d'etre of clubs such as the Bullingdon is drinking to the point of oblivion. It is also the whole raison d'etre of vast swathes of the country.

It has become as outre in some circles to use the word "underclass" as it would be to call homosexuals "arse bandits" or black people "nig-nogs". We keep telling ourselves that the lovely, admirable, hard-working, morally upright (there was a time when it was the nation's conscience as well as its backbone) working class still exists and a few horrid bad apples are spoiling the barrel. This is simply not true. The old working class exists, but it is on its last legs, and the underclass that has replaced it is on the rise - angry, desperate, broke and broken, culturally and morally barren, passing on their poor, empty lives to their children and grandchildren. No wonder they drink to oblivion - wouldn't you?

The fact of the matter is that the binge-drinking problem is largely an underclass problem. Teen pregnancies are largely an underclass problem. Teenage crime is largely an underclass problem. Child neglect - we live in a country where a little girl allegedly starved to death in her own home last week - is largely an underclass problem. Our collective problems are largely underclass problems.

Could somebody not just come out and say it, before another generation floats away to its doom on a sea of alcopops? The underclass was made, not born. Nobody asks to live in poverty, with no hope, no ambitions, no possibility of betterment, and the belief that the most fun you can have is to drink yourself into early cirrhosis. I know they're hard to love, but really - do we owe these people no responsibility whatsoever? Don't cut the price of their dreadful gut-rot: help them.

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Environmentalism is a fading fashion in Britain

As long-predicted on GWP, the environment - more correctly, perhaps, environmentalism - is on the way out. The signs of organic decay are everywhere, even in bien pensant newspapers like The Observer. And the reaction to a decade of being lectured to about `global warming', `organic' food, set-aside, and pretty birdies can be surprisingly angry, as I recently witnessed at an agricultural conference where the speaker from the RSPB was attacked with quite extraordinary venom.

Today, the papers are full of it, from Guardianista, Catherine Bennett, twittering in The Observer [`Green politics, like all fashions, has proved sadly transient', The Observer, May 25] to libertarian, James Delingpole, blasting off in The Sunday Telegraph [`Credit crunch means organic food is toast', The Sunday Telegraph, May 25].

Ms Bennett is scathing about her liberal readers and their Anya Hindmarch `I'm Not a Plastic Bag' fashionet(h)ics: "The credit crunch is already known to have had an impact on bag fever. And one which is likely to be exaggerated when the bag in question is, like the INAPB, so plainly last year's model ... But Anya prices might also have suffered from widespread consumer disillusion. Some ethical shoppers are minded, apparently, to return bags which have conspicuously failed, even after a whole year of regular use, to save the world."

Mr. Delingpole is even more trenchant about "the organic craze": "In times of rising food prices (partly the result of eco-fanatics obsessing about organic and biofuels, and rejecting genuinely productive technologies like GM) and falling incomes, the last thing a hard-pressed family wants to spend money on is the warm glow of ecological righteousness. All it wants is a full stomach, and the more cheaply-filled that stomach the happier it will be. Organic will be off the menu for some time to come."

And then there is Senior Royal Disapproval (poor Old Charlie), "Sir!": "The first blow was struck this month by the Duke of Edinburgh who - with a fearless disregard for his elder son's Christmas card list - said in an interview: `It is not an absolute certainty that [organic farming] is as useful as it sounds.'"

Ms Bennett further reminds us that our politicians are likewise rowing back from the green algae: "So Brown won't make himself more unpopular by reducing airline emissions or introducing personal carbon allowances. Neither he nor Cameron nor Clegg will ... unite behind an effective carbon policy which, appearing identically in every manifesto like the nasty nougat in every box of chocolates, may put the interests of future generations before contemporary self-pity. And when Cameron, versatile friend of both glacier and motorist, finally prevails, his strategy for `green growth' has as much chance of holding back the rising seas as did the Anya Hindmarch bag."

Brava! "Versatile friend of both glacier and motorist" - wonderful stuff on `Our Dave', Catherine. Meanwhile, the reasons for this change in fashion are superbly encapsulated in another piece today by the ever-excellent Nick Cohen [`People loathe Labour's elitists, not toffs', The Observer, May 25]: "Labour would do better to realise that millions of working- and middle-class people who can't see the subtle social differences between Ed Balls's private school and George Osborne's are lying awake and wondering if the ground is shifting from under them. They are sweating about debt, unemployment, repossession, pensions and inflation. Old Etonians are the least of their problems."

As are `organic' elitism, `global warming' hot air, and the pretty birdies. They are all going to be set-aside, not just the bags

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Mr Brown

In the latest policy screw-up, Labour back-benchers are screaming about a planned 200 pound ($396) tax increase on any high-carbon-emitting vehicle registered in the past seven years. Even green-minded politicians realize that punishing citizens for their past purchases won't shrink Britain's carbon footprint today.

Lawmakers are also panning a prospective 2-pence-per-liter hike in the fuel tax just weeks after the Brown government had to abandon separate plans to effectively raise the lowest income-tax rate to 20% from 10%. The latter move, which would have raised taxes on millions of workers at the bottom of the pay scale, figured heavily in Labour's disastrous results in the May 1 local elections and last Thursday's loss of an ultrasafe parliamentary seat in a by-election.

Mr. Brown doesn't only soak the poor. There's also been tremendous blowback from the œ30,000-a-year levy he and Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling want to slap on wealthy foreigners who live and work in Britain but claim residency - and keep most of their taxable assets - elsewhere. The government finally agreed to modify this new tax on "nondomiciled" residents. But it remains to be seen whether the tax drives away some of the very workers who have helped London become a financial powerhouse.

Some of Mr. Brown's policy problems are older than his premiership. Take the collapse of mortgage lender Northern Rock last autumn, a situation that the government promptly and repeatedly botched. It quickly became apparent that part of the blame lay in Mr. Brown's decision years earlier, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, to divide banking supervision among three different departments. This unwieldy "tripartite" arrangement made it more difficult for regulators to spot banks in danger before it was too late and to respond to a snowballing crisis.

Mr. Brown's once-solid reputation as an able steward of the economy is fading. As in the U.S., British homeowners worry that their country's housing bubble will burst; consumers are struggling with soaring grocery and gasoline bills. One wonders whether Britain was simply riding the wave of world-wide growth in the past decade of Labour rule - and if it might have done even better had the Chancellor not increased public spending from 37% of GDP in 1999-2000 to more than 41% in each of the last four budgets.

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BNP seeks to make a martyr of activist killed by rich Muslim

The British National Party sought yesterday to present the killing of one of its activists by a Muslim elder as an act of white martyrdom. On the steps of Stafford Crown Court, Michael Coleman, a BNP councillor and organiser of the party's Stoke-on-Trent branch, said: "We advise anybody who gets angry: get involved with the BNP." He was speaking at the end of the trial into the killing of Keith Brown, 52, a former boxer and friend of the BNP leader Nick Griffin, who collapsed and died after being knifed in the back by his next-door neighbour Habib Khan. Mr Griffin attended his funeral.

Khan, 50, was unanimously cleared of murder but convicted of manslaughter after a jury heard that he had endured racism, threats and violence from Mr Brown and his son, Ashley Barker, also a BNP activist. Khan was also convicted of wounding Mr Barker, 20. His son, Azir Habib Saddique, 24, was cleared of the same charge. Khan's sentencing was adjourned.

Simon Darby, Stoke BNP's deputy leader, has been blogging daily from the courtroom. The funeral is posted on YouTube. A DVD will be distributed, playing on voters' worries about violent attacks blamed on Asian men. Other BNP units are being urged to adopt the strategy of highlighting local Muslim-on-white attacks.

The potency of the far Right claiming its first martyr dawned last year as six BNP councillors shouldered their fallen comrade's coffin. To some white supremacist websites, Mr Brown is being built up as the Horst Wessel of the Potteries, a British equivalent of the Nazi songwriter shot dead by a Berlin communist in 1930. An online book of Condolence hails Mr Brown as "the first nationalist victim of Islamic jihad against Great Britain".

Behind the rhetoric lies a tale of two middle-aged, Middle England fathers whose rivalry descended into loathing. Khan dreamt of knocking down two semis and creating a single grand villa next to a pair of ageing end-terrace houses where Mr Brown, his girlfriend and their seven children lived in the Normacot district.

Mr Brown tried everything to stop the building work but Khan erected a miniature palace with carved stone pillars and huge decorative amphorae in the garden. Like most neighbourhood feuds, it boiled down to a row over boundaries. Mr Brown accused Khan of putting a fence on his land and said that the conservatory blocked his light. Mr Brown was a dangerous man with convictions for what Judge Simon Tonking called "extreme violence" in his twenties. In 2000 he was convicted for punching a man in the face.

Mr Brown turned to the local authority for assistance and was introduced to Steve Batkin, then the sole BNP member of Stoke council. Mr Batkin lodged a complaint that the Khans were behaving aggressively. The councillor took the police a DVD showing an Asian man apparently kicking out at Mr Brown from the Khans' side of the boundary. The Staffordshire force allegedly declined to view the disc. The Independent Police Complaints Authority is investigating a BNP complaint that the police failed to protect Mr Brown, and a mirror-image complaint from the Khans.

The BNP recruited Mr Brown. "We started talking about politics," said Mr Coleman. "We found he agreed with what we were saying. We have many angry young men in our ranks. Our aim is: don't put it on the streets, put your anger into politics." Although Mr Brown declined to join, he helped with campaigns. "He was an excellent activist," Mr Coleman said.

Stoke-on-Trent BNP's first campaign about an alleged Asian-on-white attack came after the death of a barman who collapsed eight days after being allegedly beaten and hit on the head with a wheelbrace by a group of men in 1998. Last summer the BNP leafleted about another Asian attack that left a white victim hospitalised. "We went from abstract politics - the European Union, the threat of floods of immigrants coming - to a grass-roots campaign," Mr Coleman said.

At this month's Stoke elections, the BNP received nearly 8,000 votes, exceeded only by Labour with 11,000. The far-right party won an extra three seats to reach a total of nine. Normacot is torn by racial tensions. Khan was a stalwart of his local mosque where, after the 9/11 attacks, a pig's head was dumped as an insult to Muslims arriving for prayers. The mosque treasurer Mohammed Hanif smiled sadly when asked about race relations. Some of his worshippers, he said, endured living beside whites who "didn't like it at all that they had coloured Asian neighbours".

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Fears of `the Islamic problem' brought success at polls

The British National Party, the far-right, white-only movement founded in 1982 from the ruins of the National Front, now claims about 100 councillors, mainly in communities with large Muslim populations. The principal strategy of Nick Griffin, its Cambridge-educated leader, has been to escape the jackbooted, knuckle-dragging image of street-fighting neo-Nazis and to become a popular anti-immigration party. The East End of London has become a stronghold, with the BNP installed as the official opposition on Barking & Dagenham council under the leadership of the artist Richard Barnbrook. Mr Barnbrook made a breakthrough by winning the BNP's first seat in the London Assembly.

The party's electoral success came after it began concentrating its attacks on Muslims. Since 9/11 and the Asian riots in the North of England in 2001 it has gained representation on local authorities from Burnley, Kirklees and Rotherham in the North to Stoke-on-Trent, Sandwell and Nuneaton in the Midlands and Epping in Essex. The first sign of the success of Mr Griffin's strategy came when he stood as a candidate at Oldham West in the 2001 general election and came a close third with 16 per cent of the vote. By the European elections of 2004, he was focusing on what he described as the problem of attacks by Muslims.

After a BBC documentary recorded him calling Islam a "wicked and vicious faith", he was charged with stirring up racial hated. At the end of two trials, he was cleared and depicted himself as a champion of free speech. He has a previous conviction from 1998 for incitement to racial hatred. Recent BNP literature has expressed some sympathies with blacks and Hindus, portraying them as fellow victims of Muslims.

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Another British absurdity: Illegal immigration 'fleet' has only one van

Government claims that illegal immigrants would be rounded up in a fleet of vans have been dismissed as "spin" after it emerged that just one "mobile detention unit" is currently in operation.

In January, Liam Byrne, the Immigration Minister, announced the radical measure to fight mass illegal immigration, claiming that a "fleet" of mobile detection vans would detain illegal immigrants on the spot when attempts to smuggle them into the country were foiled. The suspects would then be transported to detention centres.

However, six months on, Damian Green, the shadow immigration minister, has learned that just one unit is currently in operation, in Poole in Dorset. Mr Green said: "Yet again, the Government is caught out talking tough but acting weak. Ministers wanted us to believe that a fleet of these vehicles would make a real difference to the fight against illegal immigration. "Now we know there is only one, based in an area which is not the busiest point of entry. "After 11 years of this Government, they have still failed to get to grips with border protection.''

Mobile detection units were promoted by ministers as a way to avoid a repeat of a number of embarrassing incidents in which illegal immigrants were apprehended but, instead of being detained, released to make their own way to detention centres - often failing to arrive.

Ministers suggested that after a trial at ports on the "south coast", units would be rolled out across the country, beginning with Northamptonshire. In March, Mr Byrne said that the enforcement budget for detaining bogus arrivals would be doubled, repeating the promise to send out a "fleet" of mobile detention vans.

But in response to a request last week as to how many units were now in operation, Mr Byrne replied in a written parliamentary answer: "UK Borders Agency recently piloted the use of a short-term holding facility at small south coast sea ports, primarily Poole. During this period, the merit of using this type of facility for both pre-planned operations and to apprehend illegal immigrants was considered. "A version of this vehicle, informed by the earlier pilot but with a different specification, is currently being developed to meet the needs of our enforcement teams." Mr Byrne added that the new vehicle would be in operation in Northamptonshire by this autumn.

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NHS hospitals lose 32,000 beds in a decade

More than 30,000 hospital beds have been lost since Labour came to power, with record cuts in NHS wards last year

The cutbacks mean increasing numbers of hospitals are going on "black alert" - which involves closing their doors to new patients because they are full. Patients' groups described the loss of the beds, at a time when overcrowded wards have seen soaring rates of killer infections, as "a national scandal". The reduction contradicts a pledge from Tony Blair at the turn of the century that there would be 7,000 more NHS beds by 2010. New figures, seen by The Telegraph, show that the number of health service beds fell more than 8,000 last year, as the NHS began a reorganisation process which will mean the closure of dozens of hospitals.

More than 40 per cent of maternity units turned away women in labour last year because they had no room. Meanwhile, ambulances have been forced to queue outside overstretched hospitals, treating patients in car parks just yards from accident and emergency departments. The new statistics, revealed in response to a parliamentary question by Ed Vaizey, the Conservative MP, show that almost 32,000 NHS hospital beds went between 1997, when Labour took office, and 2007.

More than 8,400 beds were cut in the year ending March 2007, the largest fall in 14 years. One in six beds has been closed over the decade. There are now 167,019 beds in NHS wards, compared with 198,848 in 1997. The figures emerged as health authorities are drawing up plans which will see the likely closure of dozens of district general hospitals. The East of England health authority has admitted that two accident and emergency departments and a maternity unit could close.

Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, said the Government's financial mismanagement had forced hospitals to make cuts which could risk lives. "These bed cuts were financially driven: the sharp rise in the numbers closed happened at a time when the health service was under desperate pressure to clear a massive deficit."

Katherine Murphy, from the Patients' Association, said: "This is a national scandal. More than 30,000 beds have been lost at a time when demand is increasing."

In the same decade that the beds were cut, death rates from the infections MRSA and Clostridium difficile rose five-fold. Investigations into the biggest C. diff outbreak in Britain, which killed 90 patients at hospitals run by Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells trust in 2005 and 2006, found that overcrowding amid pressure to meet hospital waiting targets was a factor behind the infection's spread.

More than 2,000 maternity beds have been lost since 1997. Research by the Conservatives found that last year, 42 per cent of maternity units had refused to accept women in labour on at least one occasion. Sue MacDonald, from the Royal College of Midwives, said: "We feel the cuts have gone too far." Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, met officials recently after pressures on his local hospital, the Norfolk and Norwich, forced it to declare an emergency "black alert," closing to new admissions, with 10 ambulances "stacked" outside, treating patients.

The Department of Health said bed numbers had fallen because hospitals were more efficient, with patients staying for shorter periods, while services were treating more people with chronic conditions in their own homes.

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Muslim leader accuses British police of being 'over cautious' in stopping Asian gangs pimping white girls

A Muslim leader has accused the police of failing to tackle Asian gangs suspected of prostituting young white girls. Officers are accused of being "over cautious" when investigating Muslim criminals because they fear being branded racist. Last night Mohammed Shafiq, director of the Ramadhan Foundation, said the police were differentiating between criminals on the basis of race. He claimed, driven by fear of race riots in places like Blackburn and Oldham, officers were "overtly sensitive" and not clamping down on the sordid practice.

His controversial comments in this week's Panorama reignite a massively controversial issue which exploded over a Channel 4 documentary in 2004. That programme which claimed Asian men in Bradford were grooming under age white girls for prostitution was pulled from C4's schedules. This was because police claimed at the time that it could provoke racial violence during the local election campaign. Now the BBC is to risk the wrath of police officials and campaigners by airing a programme which will look at the same issue.

Speaking as part of the Panorama investigation, which airs tomorrow (Thursday), Shafiq said: "I think the police are overcautious on dealing with this issue openly because they fear being branded racist and I think that is wrong." "These are criminals they should be treated as criminals. They are not Asian criminals, they are not Muslim criminals, they are not white criminals. They are criminals and they should be treated as criminals." He said that some of the criminals were Asian gangs looking to supplement their income, after the cost of drugs has fallen over the last few years.

Shafiq said "I am the only Muslim leader in the UK that speaks up against this sort of thing and I do it because these teenage girls are somebody's sisters and they are somebody's daughters. I have got two daughters and I wouldn't want that to happen to my daughters. "If there is a drug dealer grooming a white teenager into prostitution then I don't want the police service or local authority not to be open about it."

Philip Davies, MP for Shipley, also raised concerns about the issue yesterday. He said: "Everybody is affected by political correctness. The reason why it is so important is because things like this. "Young girls are having their lives threatened and ruined because people pussyfoot around and they are too scared to do anything in case they make a mistake and are accused of racism. "That's why we have to tackle the culture of political correctness everybody is affected by and I think the police are probably more affected and hamstrung by it than most organisations."

His comments come as Professor David Barrett of University of Bedfordshire also raised deep concerns about the issue in the BBC1 programme. He claimed evidence suggested that those operating the practice were "absolutely" likely to get away with it.

The programme will controversially reveal the ethnic pattern of the crime which is largely Asian in northern England, Afro-Caribbean in the West Midlands and elsewhere white, Turkish and Kurdish.

The Government, reacting to concerns, has revealed it will introduce new crime-fighting targets aimed at specifically combating the little-publicised problem. But there are concerns that the practice, mostly operated by drug dealing gangs, has been of little priority to the various authorities. Figures suggest there are in the region of 5,000 British children being used as prostitutes.

On the programme Vernon Coaker under secretary of state with responsibility for policing reveals the new measures will be come into force next month. The government also plans to introduce a new warning video for use in schools over the issue. But despite funding a Home Office study almost ten years ago which revealed how the problem can be tackled, the police has a low prosecution rate. Coaker told Panorama that using powers under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 there have been just 44 convictions for grooming and pimping young children. Police attempts are said to be frustrated by a code of silence.

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BRITISH LABOUR'S GREEN MISCALCULATION

The centre-left's influence is falling as it abandons progressive optimism for environmental zealousness

A series of disastrous election defeats have plunged Britain's Labour government into disarray. As Prime Minister Gordon Brown fights for survival, a political drama with momentous consequences is unfolding before our eyes. One of the last centre-left governments in Europe looks set to fall.

Many analysts of Labour's disintegration attribute the collapse of support to the current economic downturn, a perfect storm of global credit crunch combined with falling house and rising oil prices. In reality, the defeats Labour has suffered in recent elections mirror the deepening crisis now affecting almost every social democratic party in Europe. New Labour's pledge to evade the burden of high taxation has been broken.

In recent years, almost all of Europe's social democratic parties have lost in national elections. The collapse of support for Gordon Brown and his policies reveals a general decline of Europe's social democracy as a whole.

There are many good reasons for the deterioration of the centre-left's political influence and power. But perhaps one of the most crucial is the abandonment of their traditional core value of progressive optimism. After all, the left used to derive large amounts of its popular appeal from a firm belief in social and technological advancement, a political philosophy of societal optimism and hope. During the last couple of decades, however, it has eagerly adopted a green ideology that has replaced its confidence in future progress with the ever more intimidating prediction of climate catastrophe and environmental disaster, culminating in calls for economic sacrifices and collective belt-tightening.

In short, Britain's Labour Party has discarded its "progressive" principles for environmental fear-mongering and salvationist rhetoric in the expectation that voters would accept that only government control, central planning and higher taxes could prevent global disaster.

At the core of Labour's environmental philosophy and polity-making stands the notion that people in Britain and other industrialized countries consume too much energy derived from the burning of fossil fuels. For many years, Labour has chanted the green mantra that in order to prevent disastrous climate change caused by excessive energy consumption, Britons must make personal sacrifices in their lifestyle and behaviour. No other government in the world has employed the spectre of climate catastrophe as forcefully as Britain; no other administration has saddled taxpayers with a heavier burden of green taxation.

Eighteen months ago, Labour's David Miliband proposed the introduction of carbon "credit cards" that would be issued as part of a nationwide carbon rationing scheme. He suggested the allocation of an annual allowance for basic needs such as travel, energy or food. Two days after Labour's disastrous defeat in the local elections, the whole scheme was hastily abandoned.

Motorists in the UK are paying the highest fuel taxes in Europe, an average of almost œ900 annually. In the name of climate change mitigation, the government has progressively increased fuel, road and car taxes. It has burdened companies with a so-called Climate Change Levy and introduced an emissions trading scheme - costly policies that have had damaging effects on British competitiveness, energy prices and living standards. As a direct result, a record number of people, particularly Britain's poorest, oldest and most vulnerable, are increasingly falling on hard times. As many as five million households, more than 20% of the UK's population, are today living in "fuel poverty."

It is estimated that the economic burden of green taxes in Britain accounts for more than œ20-billion annually. British companies have lost one million manufacturing jobs since the levy was introduced in 2001. And a recent government report has warned that any attempt to meet Britain's renewable energy targets would cost taxpayers some œ75-billion, a price tag that would mean extra costs of more than œ3,000 for every family in the UK.

Fundamental to the multi-billion government subsidies for solar and wind energy companies is a direct transfer of wealth and money from the poor to the well-off. By subsidizing green companies and their uncompetitive products, ordinary taxpayers are forced to foot the bill for green gadgets that have little if any effect on the climate but are making green businessmen richer at the expense of ordinary families.

Labour's foolhardy policies are shaped by the conviction that, in the words of Miliband, tackling climate change is "the mass mobilizing movement of our age." The principles of fairness and equality used to stand at the heart of centre-left governments. Protecting the interests of poor and disadvantaged members of society was essential to the popular appeal of left and labour parties. Those parties have substituted these ideals with an environmental program in which saving the planet for the generations of the future has taken priority over the principle of liberating the underprivileged and disadvantaged from poverty and restitution today.

In effect, the Labour Party is gradually pricing the working and lower-middle classes out of their comfort zone. With these core voters counting the rising cost of green taxes, tariffs and restrictions, the Labour Party's chances of re-election are dwindling.

Labour's fundamental miscalculation has been to bank on the strength of the environmental movement and climate change anxiety in an attempt to "modernize" its agenda. Labour's climate policy, however, is now backfiring, turning into one of its biggest political liabilities. A recent survey suggests that more than 70% of British voters are no longer willing to pay higher taxes to fund climate change initiatives. In fact, two-thirds of those surveyed believe that the green agenda has been exploited in order to increase taxes.

Britain's Labour government may believe that its climate policies are saving the planet. But in the process they are destroying the foundations of the party.

Source





WHAT NEXT? LITTLE (GREEN) HITLERS?

Comment from Mick Hume in Britain

Get out your gas masks and tin hats. We are under attack from a noxious army of doom-troopers demanding that we treat climate change as a rerun of the Second World War. In the latest move to militarise everyday life, the Environmental Audit Committee of MPs has seriously proposed energy rationing, aka "personal carbon credits".

What next? Little (green) Hitlers patrolling the streets yelling "Put that high-energy light out!"? Or a campaign to bring back rickets? Everybody from the Prince of Wales to liberal newspapers and former Labour ministers now compares climate change to the war. Baroness Young of Old Scone, head of the Environment Agency, says this is "World War Three". If it's not breaking the Official Secrets Act, could somebody explain what on earth they are on about? The notion of a "war on carbon" makes even less sense than the glorious "wars" on terror/drugs/crime/whatever.

No, these evocations of the past appear political rather than practical. The aim is to create an ersatz Blitz Spirit that could bring people together behind a phoney war on global warming. Governments desperate for a unifying cause are naturally sympathetic. But they are also aware that hard-up Brits who see few bombs falling are unlikely to be too keen on making wartime sacrifices. Thus new Labour, which previously admitted it might "need to go back to rationing", has retreated from the carbon credits proposal, fearful of further voter desertions.

What solution do the doom-troopers propose to the problem of public resistance? Let's suspend democracy, like we did in the good old days! While one leading liberal writer insists that all the main parties must include identical austerity measures in their manifestos (not much change there then), another feminist veteran, Rosie Boycott, demands that they dump party politics altogether and form a national coalition based on Churchill's wartime Government. Altogether now: "We will fight them in the recycling bins..."

The most depressing thing for me is that the Left is leading this retreat into wartime bunkers with relish, claiming that sharing out the misery is "progressive". Whatever happened to raising people's living standards and tackling serious social problems by moving forwards rather than back? That's why it was called "progress". And if you do want a lesson from history, note that the US economy met the challenge of the Second World War by doubling its output.

When the misery of rationing finally ended in 1954, people held ceremonies to celebrate and the power minister publicly burnt a big replica ration book. No doubt today he would be dragged over the coals for the war crime of carbon emission.

Source






Feather-brained climate reporting in the Financial Times

An email below from Chris Horner [CHorner@cei.org], who has just caught up with a choice piece of Greenie nonsense. I commented on the nonsense concerned myself on 16th.

Imagine my surprise to read Fiona Harvey's absurd -- even for this context -- reportage of a NASA study that she purports found an association between human activity and observed climate change (ok, "proved", for all intents and purposes). Fiona is a lovely lady and I am sorry to have to say this, but this is an utterly incredible example of how little beat-journalists care for and/or grap the relevant substance, or simply how deep in the tank they are for the agenda.

She writes, "Scientists have been able to say with virtual certainty for the first time that the climate change observed over the past four decades is man made and not the result of natural phenomena....[raising] the likelihood of 'unnatural' causes of global warming to near certainty.'" Oh, dear.

In truth the study "found" no such thing, but instead assumed that observed changes were largely man-made; it then identified changes which it found "consistent with warming" - which, again, they assumed for these purposes...and certainly didn't *find*...was man-made - and said they're quite confident then that man caused the climate change-induced changes. This was facially apparent: "Given the conclusions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-twentieth century is very likely to be due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations, and furthermore that it is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent except Antarctica, we conclude that anthropogenic climate change is having a significant impact on physical and biological systems globally and in some continents."

Further, in the words of a scientist-colleague, "It's a meta analysis and is purely associational. There is no data on causality of the temperature variation whatever. The bottom line is that causality of temperature increases is never put at issue. They assume all temperature variation is due exclusively to greenhouse gases. They don't factor in ENSO or PDO, much less variations in solar radiation."





A Confusion of Tongues

By Theodore Dalrymple

Acting recently as an expert witness in a murder trial, I became aware of a small legal problem caused by the increasingly multicultural nature of our society. According to English law, a man is guilty of murder if he kills someone with the intention either to kill or to injure seriously. But he is guilty of the lesser crime of manslaughter if he has been sufficiently provoked or if his state of mind at the time was abnormal enough to reduce his responsibility. The legal test here is a comparison with the supposedly ordinary man--the man on the Clapham omnibus, as the legal cliche has it. Would that ordinary person feel provoked under similar circumstances? Was the accused's state of mind at the time of the killing very different from that of an average man?

But who is that ordinary man nowadays, now that he might come from any of a hundred countries? The accused in this instance was a foreign-born Sikh who had married, and killed, a native-born woman of the same minority. The defense argued--unsuccessfully--that an ordinary man of the defendant's traditional culture would have found the wife's repeated infidelity particularly wounding and would therefore have acted in the same way.

For now, the courts have rejected this line of argument: though, by coincidence, the case took place the same week that the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, suggested that adopting part of Islamic sharia as the law of the land "seemed unavoidable" and that people in a multicultural society like Britain should be able to choose the legal jurisdiction under which they lived. In contradistinction to such views, it was encouraging to see in the jury a man from a different minority group, one traditionally hostile to that of the accused. The right to challenge jurors without giving a reason, which in the past would have removed this man, has been curtailed in recent years because of a juror shortage. This is just as well, since the right undermines the jury system's whole justification: that ordinary men, of whatever background, can suspend their prejudices and judge their peers by the evidence alone.

Problems with interpreting the law are not the only, or even the most important, ones that arise in an ever more diverse society. A feeling of unease is widespread, even among the longer-resident immigrants themselves, that Britain has lost its distinctive character: or rather, that the loss of a distinctive character is now its most distinctive character. The country that those immigrants came to, or thought they were coming to, no longer exists. It has changed beyond all recognition--far beyond and more radically than the inevitable change that has accompanied human existence since the dawn of civilization. A sense of continuity has been lost, disconcerting in a country with an unwritten constitution founded upon continuity.

London is now the most ethnically diverse city in the world--more so, according to United Nations reports, even than New York. And this is not just a matter of a sprinkling of a few people of every race and nation, or of the fructifying cultural effect of foreigners (a culture closed to outsiders is dead, though perhaps that is not the only way for a culture to die). Walk down certain streets in London and one encounters a Babel of languages. If a blind person had only the speech of passersby to help him get his bearings, he would be lost; though perhaps the very lack of a predominant language might give him a clue. (This promiscuity is not to say that monocultural ghettos of foreigners do not also exist in today's Britain.)

A third of London's residents were born outside Britain, a higher percentage of newcomers than in any other city in the world except Miami, and the percentage continues to rise. Likewise, migration figures for the country as a whole--emigration and immigration--suggest that its population is undergoing swift replacement. Many of the newcomers are from Pakistan, India, and Africa; others are from Eastern Europe and China. If present trends continue, experts predict, in 20 years' time, between a quarter and a third of the British population will have been born outside it, and at least a fifth of the native population will have emigrated. Britain has always had immigrants--from the French Huguenots after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes to Germans fleeing Prussian repression, from Jews escaping czarist oppression to Italian prisoners of war who stayed on after World War II--and absorbed them. But never so many, or so quickly.

To the anxiety about these unprecedented demographic changes--a substantial majority of the public, when asked, says that it wants a dramatic reduction in immigration--one can add a reticence in openly expressing it. Inducing this hesitancy are intellectuals of the self-hating variety, who welcome the destruction of the national identity and who argue--in part, correctly--that every person's identity is multiple; that identity can and ought to change over time; and that too strong an emphasis on national identity has in the past led to barbarism. By reiteration, they have insinuated a sense of guilt into everyone's mind, so that even to doubt the wisdom or viability of a society consisting of myriad ethnic and religious groups with no mutual sympathy (and often with mutual antagonisms) is to suspect oneself of sliding toward extreme nationalism or fascism; so that even to doubt the wisdom or viability of a society in which everyone feels himself part of an oppressed minority puts one in the same category as Jean-Marie Le Pen, or worse. This anxiety inhibits discussion of the cultural question. In view of Europe's twentieth century, the inhibition is understandable. One consequence, however, is that little attempt has been made to question what attachment Britain's immigrants have to the traditions and institutions of their new home.

Apart from any such reticence that intellectuals have managed to inculcate in me, I admit to an ambivalence about the unprecedented diversity of British society. True, one feels a certain exhilaration seeing people of so many different origins going about their business in apparent peace. You find Indian shops specializing in Polish provisions. Young women in Somali costume speak English with broad regional accents. Popular music of many regions of the world--all of it much less horrible than its British or American equivalent--emerges from shops selling exotic produce. The peaceful mixture is a reassurance that our society is indeed open, flexible, and tolerant. And whatever other effects that the influx of people from every corner of the world may have had, it has dramatically improved the quality of food available in Britain.

Further, much in my family history weighs against any too-sweeping denunciation of immigration. I am the child and grandchild of refugees who met with precisely the same kind of anti-immigration arguments current today, and it would be unseemly for me now to deny others the immense advantages that I have enjoyed. In any case, it is clearly possible and even common for immigrants and their descendants to become deeply attached to the culture and institutions of the country that has preserved them from a terrible fate.

When I survey my own social circle, moreover, I discover an astonishing variety of origins (though doubtless Americans would not find it surprising). Recently, my wife and I received an invitation to a lunch party. I have already mentioned my own provenance. My wife's paternal grandparents were Greeks from Smyrna, fortunate to have found refuge in France when the entire Greek population of the city was either killed or had to leave because of the war between Greece and Turkey in 1920. Our host was a Sikh doctor who had been on duty in a Delhi hospital when Indira Gandhi's body was brought in after her Sikh bodyguard assassinated her; the doctor had to flee for his life from a Sikh-killing mob. His wife was a Greek Cypriot who as a child had fled the Turkish invasion of the island, during which her parents lost everything before coming to England. Thus all of us, either directly or through close relatives, knew the horrors to which too exclusive a national or religious identity might lead. And none of us had any doubts about the evils of dehumanizing those who do not share one's national, cultural, or religious identity.

But we did not conclude that it was best, then, to have no national, religious, or cultural identity at all. The institutions that allow one to live in peace, freedom, and security require loyalty (not necessarily of a blind variety); and loyalty in turn requires a sense of identification. In a world in which sovereignty must exist, some kind of identification with that sovereignty is also necessary: too rigid a national identity has its dangers, but so does too loose a one. The first results in aggression toward and denigration of others; the second in society's disintegration from within, which can then provoke authoritarian attempts at repair.

Love of country has never implied for me an unawareness of its shortcomings or a hatred of other nations. I have lived happily abroad much of my life and have seen virtues in every country in which I have lived, some absent from my own. I feel vastly more at ease with cultivated foreigners than with many of the natives of the land of my birth. Those foreigners usually have a much better appreciation of all that is best in British culture than many natives now have. If you want to hear beautiful spoken English these days, seek out educated Indians or Africans.

But nor can one deny, if one is honest (and this is true of every Western European country), that many in the unprecedented influx of immigrants, often poorly educated, have little interest in, or appreciation of, the society to which they have come. Many are not learning to speak English, or speak it poorly, and forced marriages and other practices foreign to British law and custom remain common among them. A government report several years ago found that Britain's whites and ethnic minorities led radically separate lives, with no sense of shared nationality. And as is now well-known, a disturbing number of British Muslims have proved susceptible to the ideology of Islamism. A recent survey found that 40 percent of British Muslims under 24 wanted to live under sharia; 36 percent supported the death penalty for apostasy. Significantly, the figures for older Muslims were considerably lower. Another poll found that a fifth of all British Muslims had sympathy with the "feelings and motives" of the London suicide bombers. Only a third of British Muslims, a Guardian survey found, want more integration into British culture.

The doctrine of multiculturalism arose, at least in Holland, as a response to the immigration influx, believed initially to be temporary. The original purpose of multiculturalism was to preserve the culture of European "guest workers" so that when they returned home, having completed their labor contracts, they would not feel dislocated by their time away. The doctrine became a shibboleth of the Left, a useful tool of cultural dismantlement, only after family reunion in the name of humanitarianism became normal policy during the 1960s and the guest workers transformed into permanent residents.

Living in two countries, France and Britain, I have found it instructive to compare how each has gone about welcoming (if that is the word I seek) these immigrants. Each has gotten one thing right and one thing wrong: but the French situation, for all the urban violence that broke out in 2005 among the Muslim "youth," is easier, at least in theory, to put right.

France has the easier task, perhaps, because it is an ideological, or at least a philosophical, state, while Britain is an organic one. The French state, unlike the ancient country it rules, is a new, reborn state. It has a foundation myth, that of the French Revolution, which ushered in the age of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. It doesn't matter whether France has ever achieved any of those desiderata in practice (what political ideal ever has been achieved, at least unequivocally?), or that the storming of the Bastille was in reality more sordid than glorious. The terms "republican equality" and "republican elitism" (the second, the achievement of status by means of effort and talent, an outgrowth of the first) do in fact mean something, and they exert a magnetic pull on almost every mind with which they come into contact. And the exaltation of this myth, which supposed that Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity were every man's birthright andthat France was a beacon shining the light of reason to the whole world, has meant that (in theory) everyone who makes France his home becomes a Frenchman tout court--not an Armenian Frenchman or a Malian one, but just a Frenchman.

This myth has actually guided French cultural policy. That France, as a result of the Revolution, has for a long time been a secular state de jure, rather than merely de facto, as is Britain (where religious tolerance is an outgrowth of custom, not law), enabled it to abolish headscarves in the public schools without incurring the odium of anti-Muslim bigotry. The ban simply accorded with the state's secular founding philosophy. Multiculturalism, that is, is not compatible with the founding Enlightenment mythology of France; assimilation, not integration, is the goal. Everyone learns the same history in France; and nos ancetres les gaulois comes to express not a biological but a cultural truth--and an easy-to-understand one, at that.

Britain's situation is very different. It is not an ideological state; it has no foundation myths that are easy to identify with. The Battle of Hastings was too long ago and psychologically distant to have any resonance now; the Glorious Revolution of 1688 was too muted an affair, frankly not bloody or heroic enough. As for the English Civil War, its moral meaning is too equivocal: as W. C. Sellars and R. J. Yeatman put it in 1066 and All That, the Roundheads were Right but Repulsive, while the Cavaliers were Wrong but Wromantic.

The French state started with a philosophical big bang; the British state evolved. The French state prescribed; the British state did not forbid. The traditions of the British state, therefore, were much more favorable to multiculturalism, having always allowed people to form associations for their own freely chosen purposes. This lack of central direction served society well while differences among groups were relatively minor and while numbers of immigrants were small; but once there were so many different groups with nothing in common, each with numbers enough to form a ghetto--and worse still, some of them actively hostile to the overarching order of British society--then the laissez-faire approach was bound to run into difficulty. It is hard to oppose an ideology with a tradition.

Even absent multicultural doctrinalism, it would not have been easy to explain the advantages and philosophical underpinnings of the Burkean, nonideological state to peasants newly arrived from, say, the Pakistani Punjab and Bangladesh. The advantages and underpinnings are like the rules of cricket: one can with application and dedication learn them, but it is far easier to assume them as part of your mental and cultural heritage, to be born into them. What could you give the immigrants to read that would explain the British political tradition to them? Reflections on the Revolution in France, perhaps, or Michael Oakeshott's Rationalism in Politics? Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity is a slogan, and much easier to teach and to learn.

Making matters worse, in Britain, multiculturalism became a career opportunity and a source of political patronage. So-called experts on cultural sensitivity and equal opportunity--generally people whose ambitions far exceeded their talent, except for bureaucratic intrigue--built little empires, whose continued existence depended on the permanence of racial and other divisions in society. The hospital where I once worked recently sent a questionnaire to its staff, asking them to supply the personnel department with details of their race (17 categories), their sexual orientation (6 categories), their marital status (6 categories), and their religion (7 categories), so that discrimination against any of the 4,284 possible resultant categories might be eliminated. Clearly, there is no end to the work of the bureaucrats of equal opportunity.

It is perhaps not so surprising, then, that French Muslim immigrants are better integrated culturally than British ones. Pew Center research shows that six times as many Muslims in France as in Britain consider their national identity more important than their religious one: 42 percent versus 7 percent. (This difference may not result solely from cultural policy, since Muslims from North Africa, from which most French Muslim immigrants arrive, are much likelier in the first place to believe that Islam is compatible with Western citizenship.) Muslims in France also are much less distinguishable from the rest of the population by their mode of dress than is the case with their counterparts in Britain. In the Muslim areas in France, you may notice something different about the people, but you do not think, as increasingly you do in Britain, that the population of the North-West Frontier has moved en masse to the inner cities or suburbs. And this greater cultural assimilation is true notwithstanding the fact that Muslim areas in France, unlike those in Britain, are as physically separate from many of the towns and cities as the black townships were from the white cities of South Africa.

There is another major difference between the Muslim areas of France and Britain, however: this time, to Britain's advantage. The relative ease of starting a business in Britain by comparison with heavily regulated France means that small businesses dominate Britain's Muslim neighborhoods, whereas there are none in the banlieues of France--unless you count open drug dealing as a business. (This is one of the reasons why London is now the seventh-largest French-speaking city in the world: many ambitious young French people, Muslims included, move there to found businesses.) And since many of the businesses in the Muslim areas in Britain are restaurants favored by non-Muslim customers, the isolation of Muslims from the general population is not as great as in France.

However, increased contact between people does not necessarily result in increased sympathy among them. A large proportion of the indigenous Muslim terrorists caught in Britain are children of prosperous small businessmen, who have been to university and whose individual prospects for the future were good, if they had chosen to follow a normal career path. Cultural dislocation, the readiness to hand of an ideology of hatred that seems to answer their personal need for a fixed identity and an end to cultural confusion, and a disposable income--these, not poverty, account for their terrorism.

In France, the children of Muslim immigrants may not be as alienated from mainstream culture as are those in Britain; but the inflexibility of the French labor market results in a long-term unemployment that embitters them. In Britain, by contrast, relative economic success has not led to cultural integration: so you have riots in France and terrorism in Britain.

The solution (for which it may now be too late, despite post-London-bombing genuflections on the part of then-prime minister Tony Blair and then-chancellor of the exchequer Gordon Brown in the direction of the very national values they had done so much previously to undermine) would be a combination of French cultural robustness with British economic flexibility: something like the American ideal of the melting pot, in fact, which relied (and, to some degree, relies still) on a clear idea of what it means to be an American, combined with economic openness. The British notion that economic opportunity without a shared culture will result in a flourishing society is whistling in the wind; while the French idea that it is enough to teach Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity while obstructing the possibility of real economic advancement is asking for trouble.

Aware of the polls on immigration, Brown's Labour government has just taken some hesitant but sensible steps, putting aspiring British citizens on "probation" to show that they can speak English, pay taxes, and avoid jail before granting them citizenship. Britain and France, though, have never been very good at learning from each other: the Channel might as well be an ocean.

Source





Hundreds of British prison inmates set for release

For once I agree with the British government. If you are going to have long sentences for violent offenders and sex offenders, you have to have reduced sentences for other offenders. Jails are not made of elastic

The Government has drawn up plans to release hundreds of criminals from jail early, it was revealed. About 550 non-violent and non-sexual offenders will be automatically freed halfway through their sentences, instead of having to wait until the two-thirds point. Jails in England and Wales have been instructed to let out eligible offenders from June 9, and warned by Prison Service HQ that failing to do so would amount to "unlawful detention". The releases will take place over the next 14 months.

Prisons Handbook editor Mark Leech said the move undermined judges who sentenced the offenders believing that automatic release would take place two-thirds of the way through a jail term.

The measures were first discussed in last year's report on the prison system by Government trouble-shooter Lord Carter of Coles, and contained in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act, passed by Parliament earlier this month. But the full impact of the steps has only just come to light. Justice Secretary Jack Straw's plan is expected to free urgently-required space in overcrowded jails, as inmate numbers reach a record 83,000 in England and Wales.

The early release plan equalises the arrangements for offenders sentenced under the 1991 Criminal Justice Act with those punished under Labour's 2003 Criminal Justice Act, which came into force in April 2005. A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said: "To allow the Parole Board to focus resources on violent and sexual offenders, we are implementing the Carter review recommendation on June 9 which will align the release arrangements for certain prisoners. "This provision, which passed into law through the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 without opposition, will mean this group of prisoners convicted under the 1991 Act serving a sentence of four years or more but less than life will be released at the halfway point of their sentence."

Source




London schools must be Greener, says British regulator

Schools are failing to teach children to be green and are treating environmental awareness as a peripheral issue, Ofsted has found. Inspectors said that the majority of schools they visited did not pay enough attention to sustainable development. "Ethical purchasing was usually confined to buying Fairtrade products for the staff room," its report on schools and sustainability said. The report praised schools for their imaginative projects and excellent teaching on sustainability, but it said that work tended to be uncoordinated. Primary schools were better than secondary schools at putting children's passion for being environmentally friendly to good use.

Christine Blower, from the National Union of Teachers, said: "Far too few schools are teaching about the biggest issue facing the planet. Schools are over-burdened with a range of excessive and unreasonable external demands. This makes it harder to focus on teaching climate change and sustainability."

Ofsted recommended that the Government should give higher priority to sustainability in schools, support this through funding, and ensure that the curriculum reflected the importance of the subject. The Government wants all schools to become sustainable by 2020, as part of its ambitious 45billion pound Building Schools for the Future programme, which will rebuild or refurbish all schools in the country. Schools are responsible for 2 per cent of all carbon emissions in this country - and almost 15 per cent of those produced by thepublic sector in Britain.

The Government has admitted that it would be too expensive to make schools "zero carbon", in response to a committee of MPswhoasked for details about the environmental targets that BSF schools would reach.

Source







Iranian mines used in attacks on Brits in Afghanistan: "The underside of armoured vehicles deployed in Helmand has proven to be highly susceptible to mines buried by the Taleban, and the Ministry of Defence is preparing to add extra armour to key vehicles. The relatively new Viking armoured troop-carrying vehicle - which was built for the Royal Marines for use in Norway but is now being used across desert routes in northern Helmand - has proven to be vulnerable to the mines, which are suspected of being supplied from Iran. Five Vikings have been destroyed by mines."


Greenie Britain runs out of power: "Hundreds of thousands of people were hit by electricity blackouts yesterday when seven power stations shut down. The unscheduled stoppages were regarded as an unprecedented sign of the fragility of Britain's power infrastructure. Operations were cancelled, people were stuck in lifts, traffic lights failed and fire engines were sent out on false alarms. Householders were unable to use any appliances or make phonecalls as the blackouts hit areas including Cleveland, Cheshire, Lincolnshire and London. It was unclear last night why the power stations had failed. As the cuts escalated, the National Grid was forced to issue the most serious possible warning - "demand control imminent" - and urged suppliers to provide lower-voltage electricity to meet demand. Energy suppliers affected by the shutdown, including British Energy and EON, said that they could not reveal the reasons for the cuts"

It's only "racist" if whites attack blacks

The other way around and the media is as silent as the grave about the races involved. The killing of a white British actor by stabbing has got a lot of attention in the British media in the last few days. The description of the murderer by the BBC is typical: "Unemployed Karl Bishop is accused of killing the teenager and with wounding five other people. Mr Bishop, of Carlton Road, Sidcup, will appear in Bexleyheath Magistrates Court on Tuesday". Below is the ONE report (and I have looked at many) which mentioned the race of "Mr Bishop" from the beginning. It is from the "Sun", which never seems to care much about political correctness. A day later, however, The Times also mentioned the forbidden word, "black", possibly because the BNP has been publicizing it:

A teenage Harry Potter film actor was murdered over a dispute involving an alleged mobile phone theft, according to a friend of the victim. Rob Knox, 18, died in a street attack around 1am on Saturday outside the Metro Bar in Station Road, Sidcup, Kent. Four other men were also injured. One was stabbed in the head.

A youth, who asked not to be named, said: "I was in the pub with Rob so I know exactly what happened. I was a friend of Rob and his brother Jamie. I wasn't drinking with them but I see them and I chatted to them during the night before the stabbing. "One of Rob's mates had his mobile phone stolen last week and he accused a black bloke in the bar of taking it. "There was a bit of trouble at the time but nothing serious. Then last night, earlier in the evening, this black bloke was in the bar again and Rob's mate went up to him "The black bloke went off and said he would be back. We knew there was possibly going to be some aggro but we never expected anything like that.

"It was around midnight when this car pulled up outside and I saw two black blokes get out and come into the bar. One of them was shouting something at Jamie and then he threw a chair at him. "The next thing it all went mad and there were several blokes fighting. I stayed inside the bar so I didn't really see what happened outside but I heard that one of the black blokes had two knives on him and he was stabbing anyone who went near him. "It seems crazy that a young bloke has lost his life over a mobile phone. Rob was a decent lad. I'm absolutely gutted that he has died."

More here





The insane priorities of socialist Britain

The first anger is for Khyra Ishaq, a small child apparently starved to death in a land of plenty, under the supposed care of a mother and stepfather. How far the social services are at fault is under investigation; but save a burst of fury too for Khyra's father, Ishaq Abu Zaire (known as Delroy Frances before his conversion). While blithely admitting he hadn't seen his children for a year he now blusters: "The authorities never lifted a finger... there are going to be consequences and repercussions I can assure you."

Look, Mr Abu Zaire, what part of the word "father" do you, a "religious" man, not grasp? In begetting children, you accept responsibility. Even if the mother shuts you out and you move away, you have a duty to check on them more than once a year. If you can't be bothered, then don't procreate. Public services are a safety net, not a spare parent.

Turning to the social services, though, one chilling observation was made by Eileen Munro, a child protection expert from the LSE. She said that serious neglect is common, but that social workers operating in poor areas simply miss the signs. "They get used to seeing low-level parenting. That then starts to look average. They fail to appreciate how much harm it is doing."

That, rather than more florid accusations, offers the most damning line yet about the state of social work, its understaffed overstretch, its chronic miscommunication. The weary resignation she describes is aggravated further by politically correct worries that make field workers nervous of seeming "racist". Who can forget the evidence in the Victoria Climbi‚ inquiry that officials put the child's visible terror and quietness down to "a culture of strict discipline in African families"?

Of course families bear prime responsibility, of course social work can't prevent every tragedy - but there are issues to be faced. One would think that governments would focus on them with relentless energy, driven by shame that a rich society should have welfare workers so used to seeing suffering children that they stop noticing that the parents are addicts, fanatics, mentally impaired or simply incompetent. And yes, there is poverty in Britain, but don't insult the merely poor: they aren't all neglectful. Many do heroically well.

Government seems not to feel this anger. Where little children are concerned, ministers - and here comes the satirical backcloth - are far keener on micromanaging those who are already perfectly OK. They like to impose their will on soft, law-abiding families rather than intractable and uncivilised ones. Take the current furore over the Early Years Foundation Stage, or EYFS, a national curriculum of 500 developmental milestones to be met by children under 5: 69 skills must be ticked off, box by box, by their carers. EYFS will be compulsory from this autumn - even for private nurseries, even for childminders (who are quitting, in droves, for fear of it).

The independent sector has now kicked up a fuss, not before time. The detail of EYFS "aspirations" is unnerving: take its IT targets, recently underlined by the Open Eye campaign and condemned in an authoritative paper by the psychologist Aric Sigman. Before 36 months a child must "use control technology of toys" and "talk about ICT apparatus", and before hitting five years old must use a mouse and keyboard, click on icons, "complete a simple program on a computer" and use "programmable toys" to support learning.

Why? Dr Sigman cites compelling research from Harvard on the risks of early overexposure to screens: serious educational, neurological and social problems have been identified, including a lack of ability to connect with people, and problems with short attention span. "The Government appears," says the campaign, "to have leapt on to an increasingly discredited IT bandwagon that is not only embarrassingly out of date but could well be harming a generation. Schooling is not compulsory until over 5, yet the Government is forcing nurseries and care-givers to follow its line on learning and development." Open Eye simply asks ministers to make the "goals" optional, and leave parents and carers some freedom of judgment.

But the irony here - whoops, red mist of rage returns - is that while we are a society that still has pockets of appalling parenting and children who die by gradual visible neglect, the kindly and reasonable majority of families are subject to endless authoritarian fiddling. While one child lies in filth and fear, taken out of school for ten weeks without a single visit from state authority, that same state authority beavers away to force every childminder to have "a range of programmable toys" and write down whether or not a three-year-old can work a keyboard and mouse.

On past form, it will be easier to avoid inspection if you leave your child bruised and starving on a heap of rags and don't answer the door, than it will be to avoid Ofsted if you are a childminder failing to make notes on the 69 early learning goals. Possibly because you were all too busy having fun in the sandpit.

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English Motorist told English flag was racist



We read:

"A teenage motorist was told to remove an England flag from his car by a police officer because it could be offensive to immigrants. Ben Smith, 18, was driving back home to Ingram Road in Melksham on Thursday evening after filling up with petrol, when the officer stopped him on a routine patrol.

He checked the tax disc and tyres on his Vauxhall Corsa but when he noticed the flag of St George on the parcel shelf he told Mr Smith to take it down. Mr Smith, who works for G Plan Upholsterers on Hampton Park West, said: "He saw the flag and said it was racist towards immigrants and if I refused to take it down I would get a œ30 fine. "I laughed because I thought he was joking, but then I realised he was serious so I had to take it down straight away. I thought it was silly - it's my country and I want to show my support for my country."

PC Dave Cooper, of Chippenham Road Policing Unit, said he had never come across an officer asking someone to remove an England flag from their car because it could be racist. He added: "It all depends on the context of a stop. If they are going past a lot of Polish people, for instance, and abusing them, then we possibly would ask them to take the flag down."

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NHS ordered to end care bias against men

The equality watchdog has ordered the National Health Service (NHS) to take urgent action to end anti-male discrimination in healthcare. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), headed by Trevor Phillips, has written to strategic health authorities warning them to ensure that doctors and hospitals in their areas give equal priority to men and women. The commission has legal powers to issue compliance orders to NHS trusts that persistently fail to provide equal care for men.

While the commission does not cite specific examples of discrimination, it details evidence of poorer male health. Other groups have pointed to male-unfriendly surgery opening hours. Men are twice as likely as women to die from the 10 most common cancers that affect both sexes and, typically, develop heart disease 10 years earlier than women. Men under the age of 45 visit their GP only half as often as women and are less likely to have dental check-ups.

On average, men die five years younger than women and 16% of men die while still of working age compared with 6% of women. Men are also three times more likely to commit suicide than women.

A new law, the gender equality duty, which came into force in April 2007, obliges all public services to ensure they care for both sexes equally. In March, Phil McCarvill, head of public service duties at the EHRC, sent warning letters to strategic health authorities, the bodies which manage local NHS trusts. cCarvill said: "We are writing to you specifically regarding the gender equality duty in response to particular concerns raised with us by the Men's Health Forum and the action we want you to take in response to this. We will view the failure to take any action as a result of this letter as a breach of your legal responsibilities in this area."

Research carried out by the forum found that men were unhappy with the service provided by their local GP surgeries. The forum points out that since men are twice as likely as women to work full-time and three times as likely to work overtime, it is more difficult for them to see doctors during conventional opening hours.

Other experts have pointed to the fact that, while there is a national screening programme for breast cancer, there is no equivalent yet for men for prostate cancer, although it claims a similar number of lives. Women are also screened for cervical cancer.

Peter Baker, chief executive of the Men's Health Forum, said: "The GP model doesn't work particularly well for men, particularly young men aged between 16 and 45 who GPs tend not to see unless there is something very seriously wrong with them. There is discrimination because these services are being underused by the group with the greatest need." The forum also suggests trusts offer health checks in venues frequented by men, such as work-places or sports clubs.

The Commons health select committee inquiry into health inequality will next month hear evidence that men are being discriminated against in the NHS.

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Crazy NHS financial management

They have denied services to so many people that they now have a huge surplus

Hospitals and NHS managers were pressured into spending hundreds of millions of pounds before the start of the financial year to "hide" a 1 billion pound surplus. Opposition parties have accused the Government of encouraging NHS financial mismanagement after it emerged that some trusts had been ordering millions of pounds of equipment "as long as they could be invoiced before the end of March" - the end of the financial year.

Primary care trusts also advanced up to 400 million for future services to foundation trusts, which, as free-standing businesses, can keep the money. Some local councils have also been paid in advance for services. The NHS had forecast a surplus of 1.8 billion in March, but managers now suggest that the true figure was closer to 3 billion, with up to 1 billion being "hidden" by preordering. Some chief executives have been told that their bonuses could be jeopardised if they exceeded their "control totals" target, so have been using various accounting methods to reduce it.

Two years ago the NHS returned a deficit of 547 million, which was turned into a 515 million surplus in 2006-07. The steps taken to turn the service round have proved to be so effective that the surplus has risen to unprecedented levels in 2007-08. However, such a large surplus presents its own problems as patient representatives have criticised NHS managers for underspending while patients were still being denied vital treatments. Unions have also used the surpluses to argue for better pay for NHS workers, claiming that they have been generated by greater efficiency from staff.

Doris-Ann Williams, director-general of the British In Vitro Diagnostics Association, whose members supply equipment to the NHS, told the Financial Times that members had received "a flurry of unexpected cash orders for capital equipment purchases as long as they could be invoiced before the end of March".

The Department of Health has said that all the surpluses would remain within the NHS. This has been possible since 1999, when Gordon Brown, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, relaxed the rules on carrying forward surpluses from one year to the next. But last year the Treasury quietly clawed back unspent money from the Department of Health and there are fears that it may do so again if the surplus significantly exceeds its 1.8 billion target.

Stephen O'Brien, the Conservative Shadow Health Minister, said: "Labour's financial incompetence under Gordon Brown is making it boom or bust in the NHS - and this uncertainty does nothing to help patients and the hard working medical staff. If money allocated to the NHS is not going on patients then it should not be hoarded."

Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said: "We do have a crazy situation of substantial surpluses in many acute trusts. "One of the casualties is mental health services, which benefit from neither targets nor the PreBudget Report and have to negotiate block contracts with primary care trusts. They have suffered as acute trusts cash in. This creates a distortion in priorities."

A spokesman for the Department of Health said: "Thanks to the efforts of NHS staff over the past year and half we are now in a strong and sustainable financial position, but also - importantly - we remain on course to deliver against our key pledges. The NHS and its staff have managed to achieve all of this at the same time as cutting waiting lists to their lowest ever. "NHS organisations are bound by strict accounting practices and are subject to a full audit at the end of each financial year."

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Amusing that the British government is being blamed for something it didn't do (increased fuel prices) rather than things it did do (increased electricity costs, for instance)

Anger over Gordon Brown's failure to deal with rising fuel prices will boil over tomorrow in the first major new protest against sky-high petrol and diesel costs. Hundreds of truckers will descend on the capital for a mass rally to draw attention to a crisis that is hurting millions of motorists. With fuel prices going up every day, protesters will demand the Prime Minister cuts duty after having raked in millions in additional tax.

In scenes reminiscent of the 2000 fuel protests, demonstrators will gather at Marble Arch before a delegation marches on Downing Street to demand talks with Mr Brown. They hope to exploit his vulnerability in the wake of Labour's meltdown in the local elections and last week's humiliating by-election defeat in Crewe.

Motorists are already facing record fuel prices after crude oil last week hit 135 US dollars a barrel - its highest ever level. The pressure on motorists is underlined by a study showing that the cost of fuel for a typical bank holiday weekend away has soared by up to 74 per cent in just five years.

More here

British schools in revolt over under-5s curriculum

A powerful coalition of England’s leading independent schools is demanding that the Government scale back its new national curriculum for the under-fives, claiming that it violates parents’ human rights by denying them the freedom to choose how they educate their children.

The Independent Schools Council (ISC), which represents 1,280 fee-paying schools educating more than 500,000 children, has written a blistering letter to Beverley Hughes, the Children’s Minister, complaining that the new curriculum will mean that the education of under-fives is subject to greater government interference than that of any other age group.

A leaked copy of the letter, seen by The Times, says that the curriculum, known as the Early Years Foundation Stage framework, will compromise its member schools’ independence. “This clumsy intrusion into the early years’ curriculum of independent schools is both unjustified and unnecessary. More importantly, this interference conflicts with the rights of parents to privacy in their home life, which includes the freedom to choose how they educate their children and to educate them free from the control of the state,” the letter states.

The letter, copied to the Schools Secretary, Ed Balls, also complains that the framework is likely to hold back children’s progress and to lower standards. George Marsh, who is headmaster of Dulwich College Preparatory School in South London and chairman of the Independent Association of Prep Schools, said he was concerned that the framework might eventually herald greater interference in the curriculum for older children.

The framework becomes law in the autumn and will affect all 25,000 nurseries and childcare settings in England, whether they are run by the state, charities or private companies. It sets out up to 500 developmental milestones between birth and primary school and requires under-fives to be assessed on 69 writing, problem solving and numeracy skills. The framework has come under heavy fire from a number of leading child development experts and academics, including members of the Government’s own early education advisory group.

Some argue that it relies too heavily on formal learning at the expense of free play, while others fear that its formal literacy targets will instill a sense of failure in teachers and children because they are beyond the reach of most under-fives. There are also fears that the legislation, which requires nursery staff to make constant written observations on children to note their progress, will interfere with teachers’ ability to interact with children.

Ms Hughes has so far resisted any attempts to water down the new curriculum, arguing that standards have to be set high to ensure that children from deprived backgrounds are given the same opportunities for learning in the crucial early years as middle-class children. She said that the 69 early learning goals were aspirations, and not targets.

The entrance of the ISC into the debate will raise the stakes considerably, not least because the independent schools have chosen parents’ human rights, not just child well-being, as their main point of attack. Unlike the national curriculum for schools, which does not apply to independent schools, the framework will apply to all pre-school settings.

The letter, signed by Chris Parry, the ISC’s chief executive, outlines a number of other objections to the framework, which will apply to 946 of its member schools, which cater for children up to five years old. It complains that an anomaly in the legislation will leave independent schools with stricter staffing controls than the state sector, requiring private schools to hire three or four adults for each reception class of 30, compared with one in the state sector. Mr Parry says: “It seems ridiculous that [the framework] should dictate rules relating to staffing in the independent sector and this prescription smacks of an ideological approach.”

The ISC also complains that the requirements for teachers to produce written observations on each child will result in teachers “acting as time and motion experts hovering around children with clipboards, Post-it notes and cameras to collect ‘evidence’ ”. This will not raise standards, but will “simply distract teachers from their teaching responsibilities”.

Mr Parry says that there was inadequate consultation with ISC members over the new law, adding that the regulatory impact assessment which followed the so-called consultation was “materially misleading”. ISC schools, the letter adds, have been given contradictory advice from local authorities as to how the framework should be implemented. Some have not been able to get any advice at all. It says that, given this lack of consultation, there should be a 12-month transition period for the implementation of the framework.

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families, said that individual parents would have the option of applying for an exemption for their child for some or all of the learning and development requirements of the framework. He added that the framework was flexible enough to support a wide range of approaches to education.

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Cancer victim told to pay for his own drugs by NHS

Government health insurance can be very hard to claim on

A cancer patient who was sent home to die by hospital doctors but then discovered a cocktail of drugs that stabilised his illness has now been told that the NHS will not pay for his medicine. Jack Hose, 71, a retired engineer, was receiving a chemotherapy drug called irinotecan on the NHS, but it was failing to halt his bowel cancer. NHS doctors told Hose, from Bournemouth, that they could do no more for him and that he should go home and make the most of the rest of his life while taking painkillers.

Hose was not prepared to die and sought a second opinion from a private doctor who recommended trying another drug, called cetuximab, in combination with irinotecan. The mix of drugs appears to have stabilised Hose’s cancer. However, cetuximab is not funded by the NHS.

The Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which is treating Hose, has told him that, if he takes the drug, he will need to pay for all his care, including the cost of the medicine he initially received on the NHS. Hose is the latest victim of the government’s policy of denying NHS treatment to patients who pay for an additional private drug. Alan Johnson, the health secretary, says such an arrangement, known as “co-payments”, would lead to a two-tiered NHS.

“It seems outrageous that, having paid National Insurance contributions for 50 years, they are now asking me to pay for my care,” said Hose.

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A suggestion for fighting knife crime

Why doesn't Britain stop the kid-glove approach and start enforcing the existing laws?

The murder on Saturday of 18-year-old Robert Knox has prompted, as have the other 27 teenage murders so far this year, a flood of suggestions as to how we can deal with the epidemic of knife crime that seems to have infected our streets. From analysis of the role of parents to depictions of the gang culture and turf wars that blight so many areas, most have added something useful to our understanding.

So it might seem that another comment is hardly needed. Yet for all the analysis that has been offered and the policy ideas that have been suggested, one basic point seems to have been forgotten. We have yet to try properly using the laws already on the statute book, let alone start properly punishing those found in possession of knives.

Over the past decade, the number of convictions for carrying a knife has risen from 3,360 in 1997 to 6,314 in 2006. Of those convicted in 1997, 482 were teenagers, rising in 2006 to 1,256. That near trebling in the number of teenagers convicted is bad enough. Worse, however, are surveys showing that about one in five teenagers say that they carry a knife with them.

Given the rapid development of a teenage culture in which carrying a knife is seen as normal, not to say essential for self-defence, it is understandable that there have been calls to toughen the relevant laws. The current maximum sentence for knife carrying is two years, or four years if the knife is carried to school.

But since we do not enforce the existing laws properly, it is fatuous to suggest that tougher maximum penalties would serve any useful purpose. They would be ignored just like the existing maximum penalties.

In 2006, only nine of the 6,314 people convicted of carrying a knife were handed down a maximum sentence. Most were given a caution. And I would bet a small fortune on not one of those nine criminals - 0.14 per cent of those convicted - actually being made to serve the full sentence they were given.

Despite the penalties available, the authorities treat this potentially deadly crime as an infringement of the law akin to pilfering an apple from a grocer. This has to change. The courts must use the punishments available to them. Children need to understand that, if caught, their childhood will effectively be over and they will suffer severe punishment.

That also means that the police must be given full powers to stop and search children. But instead, not only do the courts and CPS treat children found with knives with kid gloves, dangerous idiots such as Sir Al Aynsley-Green, to whom we pay œ130,000 a year for his wisdom as the Children's Commissioner for England, warn that allowing police the power to search children might antagonise them. That just about sums up how the whole edifice works: God forbid that a potential murderer is upset by having his coat examined.

Source

NHS hospital kills the elderly

When Edna Purnell was referred for “gentle rehabilitation” at a local healthcare unit after a hip replacement operation, her family thought she would be given exercises to get her back on her feet and sent home after a fortnight. Instead she was put to bed in a darkened room and put on a regime of morphine within a day of her arrival. Less than a month later she was dead.

This weekend the full story has emerged of Purnell’s death and her family’s subsequent campaign, which led to a series of investigations of the deaths of 92 elderly people at Gosport War Memorial hospital in Hampshire between 1996 and 2000. An inquest into 10 of the deaths was ordered earlier this month by Jack Straw, the justice secretary, as revealed by The Sunday Times last week.

The families allege that their relatives’ deaths were hastened by a regime of heavy morphine use and little or no food, drink or exercise. The inquest will be heard this autumn and is expected to raise serious questions about treatment of the elderly in Britain’s hospitals and care homes and the value attached to their lives.

Purnell, a twice-married extravert, had enjoyed an expatriate lifestyle across the world from Cuba to Hong Kong. She became frail only as she entered her nineties and moved into an old people’s home, where she had a fall in the late autumn of 1998. Despite her age she was considered fit enough for hip replacement surgery at the Haslar hospital, Portsmouth, and within three days of the operation she was out of bed and moving around.

Mike Wilson, Purnell’s 71-year-old son, says that she was well on the mend before she was moved to Gosport. Hospital records show she had not required even the mildest of painkillers in the five days preceding her transfer. “She was a fighter; she was out of bed, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and moving around with a [walking] frame after the operation,” he said. “Two days after she got [to Gosport] she was like a zombie, in a completely trance-like state.”

Wilson said nurses told him the elderly could deteriorate quickly when moved but he became convinced that it was the sedation, not her underlying condition, that was the problem. “When I complained about the morphine, they said it was to help her sleep at night, but in fact they were giving it to her all day long as well,” he said. “She became extremely dehydrated.” By the hospital’s own admission Purnell was given little or nothing to drink.

Despite her son’s complaints, not only high doses of morphine were administered to Purnell, but also mida-zolam, a sedative three to four times more powerful. It is meant to be used only under close supervision because of its dangerous nature and the extreme variability of individual responses to it. As he became more concerned, Wilson began a diary chronicling his mother’s treatment. The diary and notes he has obtained from the hospital include a threat to have him arrested for trying to feed his mother. “If he tries to do this again the police should be called and he should be arrested on the technicality of assaulting his mother,” the notes read.

Purnell died in December 1998, three weeks after her transfer to Gosport. “It is my belief that, intentionally or otherwise, she was being deprived of the basics to sustain life,” Wilson said.

After his mother’s death Wilson delivered leaflets to local surgeries and health centres asking for other families with similar experiences to come forward. Complaints flooded in with stories of recovering patients referred for rehabilitation but given large doses of painkillers. Most relatives had been urged to go home or even to go on holiday in the final days of their loved ones’ lives. A series of police and other investigations petered out, although some experts continued to believe there were reasons for suspicion at Gosport.

Richard Baker, professor of clinical governance at Leicester University, studied the deaths six years ago. Baker, whose statistical analysis of mortality among patients of Harold Shipman helped to convict the Manchester GP of mass murder, believes there is a need for further investigation. “I hope this [investigation] does eventually get somewhere,” he said last week.

A spokesman for Hampshire primary care trust, which runs the hospital, declined to comment on specific cases but said: “Since a 2002 investigation and the introduction of new clinical procedures, the level of clinical incidents has been entirely normal for a hospital of this size.”

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Britain's phony war on terror

The British are too concerned with multiculturalism and political correctness to combat the threat of Islamism effectively. Comment below by historian Michael Burleigh

After spending time recently with senior Pentagon officials and other Americans involved in counter-terror-ism, I was struck by the global scope of their concerns. Above all I was reminded how different their attitudes are from those of their British counterparts, still obsessed with "community cohesion" and the "radicalisation" of young Muslims.

In Britain the views of the non-Muslim majority are largely ignored - or lead to them being branded as potential "Islamophobes". In the United States the unthinkable and unsayable are debated openly.

Last month, for example, the Senate committee on homeland security heard evidence about the likely effects of a terrorist nuclear attack on Washington. It started with a chilling scenario: a 10-kiloton bomb in a truck beside the White House. First, the committee was told, it would kill about 100,000 people and erase a two-mile radius of mainly federal buildings. Most of the casualties would be burn victims, the majority of them African Americans who worked for the government.

About 95% of them would die in agony, because capacity to treat such cases is limited to about 1,500. Since the winds blow west to east, the ensuing radioactive plume would drift towards the poor black neighbourhoods of the capital's southeast, where there is only one hospital. Joe Lieberman, chairman of the committee, concluded: "Now is the time to ask the tough questions and then to get answers as best we can." I can't help wondering what preparations for such a nightmare scenario are being made here in Britain. Does anyone know if our parliamentarians are asking similar questions?

As the main target of jihadist violence, the United States has a sober estimation of the threat we face and a polyvalent strategy for dealing with it. In Britain use of the phrase the "war on terror" has been proscribed by the Brown government; local representatives of the global jihadist insurgency process through British courts in startling numbers. A recent Europol report showed that in 2007 the British arrested 203 terrorist suspects, against 201 for the rest of Europe.

By contrast, the United States is fighting a global war - against an Al-Qaeda-inspired nebula of extremists - with arms and ideas and a vast array of analytic intelligence. In essence, America wants to destroy Al-Qaeda as a brand. One strategy is to highlight the moral squalor of those who denounce the West, which means exposing the criminal underpinnings of jihadism - including reliance on conflict diamonds, counterfeiting, drug trafficking, fraud and robbery. Yet the British government has done almost nothing to undermine the noble self-image of the jihadists in the eyes of those who are drawn to Osama Bin Laden.

Elsewhere in the world jihadists are going through "deprogramming" courses in which they are given authoritative instruction in a religion most of them know only as a handful of banal slogans. The combination of aid from the West and rehabilitation schemes explains why southeast Asian jihadism is now in disarray.

The use of military force, aggressive counter-terrorism measures and diligent police work is also indispensable to defeating the insurgency; after three years of horrendous death tolls in Iraq, the United States has at last succeeded in turning the "Sunni Awakening" movement against the foreign Al-Qaeda-inspired jihadists, many from Libya or Saudi Arabia. It turns out that local people had balked at such Islamist customs as breaking the fingers of smokers and shooting anyone selling alcohol. The Sunni counter-insurgents may not relish US occupation, but they like the jihadist reign of terror even less.

No European country faces the global challenges confronting the United States, but because of its success in integrating Arab immigrants, America largely faces an external threat. Europeans face one hatching among second or third-generation north Africans, Bangladeshis or Pakistanis, not to speak of indigenous converts.

Europe can be weak in combating terrorism at a political level, largely because of the effects of officially decreed multiculturalism and a failure to do much about the impact of population movements on the host culture and economy. Not surprisingly, the failure of European governments to get a grip on what are still relatively small Muslim minorities provokes exasperation in America.

Many of the 1.6m Muslims living in Britain, for example, still do not seem fully to appreciate the outrage that a finger-jabbing minority causes at home and abroad with each escalating demand for Islamist enclaves. Like a perennial student, new Labour favours debate and dialogue. But in dealing with the Muslim Council of Britain, the government has unwittingly accepted as "community" interlocutors men who have blamed Islamist terrorism primarily on British foreign policy, while failing to condemn suicide bombing outside the UK.

Hardly anything is being done to stem the flow of Wahhabist money and its intolerant ideology not only into mosques but also to university "Islamic studies" programmes. Others are also complicit in this process. Did banks think about the cultural implications of sharia-compliant finance, noticeably absent in Egypt? This was allowed by Gordon Brown without triggering the public outrage that attended the Archbishop of Canterbury's sly unclarities about sharia.

The police seem to be turning a blind eye to "honour crimes" and to the informal resort to sharia, even when this involves manifestly criminal offences. They have preferred to turn on the makers of a Channel 4 documentary about homegrown extremists, accusing the producers of distorting the views of Muslim clerics, rather than to investigate the extremists themselves - leading Channel 4 to sue the police for libel and win.

A robust response to the jihadist threat is also stymied by ideologue lawyers who have made a decent living out of defending terrorists and by judges who, with honourable exceptions, seem to have greater allegiance to abstract notions of human rights than to our primary right of not being blown to pieces.

Attempts to free Abu Qatada, the alleged Al-Qaeda spiritual leader in Europe, amounted to a national disgrace. Lawyers claimed that if he were deported to Jordan, he might be tortured (despite agreements to the contrary). They also claimed the Jordanians might produce witnesses who had themselves been tortured.

Judges have recently undermined the government's attempts to interdict terrorist financing - even in the case of a dangerous Al-Qaeda operative known for legal reasons as "G". And it was judges who subverted the regime of control orders that was introduced at their own behest after they had released detainees from long-term custody in Belmarsh. Even the Royal Navy is reluctant to detain Somali pirates on the grounds that their "human rights" might be infringed in Saudi Arabia, Somalia or Yemen.

The government's recent attempts to sponsor British citizenship and values to counteract the multiculturalism propagated by a previous wave of state patronage seem tired and unconvincing. There is little sense in asking Muslims to "become us" when that evidently implies to them a culture of considerable coarseness: binge drinking, crime, drugs and chronic family breakdown. Why shouldn't they insulate themselves within the various ghettos that Britain has complacently allowed to form?

One has yet to hear a British politician of any stripe talk about what changes he wishes to see in the Muslim world - for example, in Saudi Arabia, to which we sell arms in return for passively accepting their citizens' funding of subversive religious activities in Britain.

By contrast, Nicolas Sarkozy's plan to give north Africa (and Israel) EU associate status suggests that he has expanded his horizons since 9/11. Meanwhile, anything that serves to strengthen liberal Muslim voices in Indonesia or Turkey is worth encouraging. It may be that the dictators - the Assads, Bouteflikas, Mubaraks, Gadaffis and others - will cling to power longer than optimists imagine. But if they don't, how will the West help those moderates - judges, lawyers, journalists, liberals and socialists - who find themselves in temporary oppositional coalitions with fundamentalists? How do we ensure such a coalition does not go the way of the one that toppled the Shah of Iran, after which Khomeinites imprisoned or murdered their secular allies?

The one British politician who grasps the need to be as frank as our American cousins about the threat from terrorists who are actively plotting indiscriminate slaughter is not the prime minister, who appears to be locked into the globalising vapidities that thrill Davos seminars, but David Cameron. The leader of the opposition understands the existential threat from jihadism and has comprehensive ideas about how to combat it that will link foreign, defence and security policies. He is fully conscious of the need to balance ancient liberties with the right to stay alive.

Like the United States, Britain needs a dedicated border police and defences against terrorism that begin when someone buys an air ticket. It needs to dismantle the bureaucratic residue of state multiculturalism, and the deportation of foreign agitators is essential. Any appeal they may mount should take place after they have been deported. As for human rights lawyers - they can pay for their own.

A more imaginative approach to the Muslim world should go hand-in-hand with a clearer statement of what the domestic majority is not prepared to tolerate. That is the difference between a properly thought-out strategy and the government's clueless alternation between appeasement and knee-jerk authoritarianism.

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GLOBAL WARMING FORGOTTEN: CRISIS-HIT BRITISH PM TOLD TO SCRAP CAR TAX RISES

Gordon Brown is being urged by ministers to scrap rises in car taxes and petrol duty as he struggles to regain popularity after a humiliating by-election defeat. The Prime Minister faces the gravest crisis of his career after seeing the safe Labour seat of Crewe lost to a resurgent Tory party. Yesterday a backbencher said openly that it was time Mr Brown stood down.

Cabinet colleagues are privately urging him to tackle the issue of motoring costs as a way of helping households struggling with rising fuel, energy and food bills. The new car taxes have proved so unpopular that one Labour MP described them as "a poll tax on wheels". [After a tax that led to the downfall of Margaret Thatcher]

Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, is facing more calls to cancel the 2p increase in petrol duty this autumn following a month of record prices at the pump and a recent surge in the price of oil. The Treasury is understood to be considering an about-turn on the plans, which would see hundreds of pounds added to the tax bills of millions of drivers.

On Thursday Mr Brown saw a 7,000 Labour majority in Crewe and Nantwich turned into a majority of just under 8,000 for the Conservatives. David Cameron claimed it was a "remarkable victory" and said the campaign marked the "end of New Labour". If the by-election swing was repeated in the next general election, nine Cabinet ministers including Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, and Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, would lose their seats.

Labour ministers yesterday blamed traditional "mid-term blues" when people are feeling the pinch. But Mr Brown's colleagues are urging him to show that he understands the pain people are feeling by addressing problems that will be caused when the rises take effect. One former minister said: "They should be discussing this in the Treasury. ''It is a grievance that can be addressed and it would do Gordon some good."

A junior minister added: "Every MP is getting it in the neck about the cost of driving and it isn't going to be enough to keep talking about world oil prices. We should be thinking about what we can do to help. "It's going to cost money but we found money for 10p tax so if we have to borrow a bit more for this, so be it." The Labour MP Derek Wyatt, who is defending a majority of only 79 in his Kent seat, called for immediate cuts in fuel duty.

In his first comments since the loss of Crewe in such humiliating fashion, Mr Brown yesterday appeared to indicate that he was prepared to look at helping motorists. He said: "People want us to address what are very real challenges, challenges of rising petrol prices when people go to the petrol station, challenges at the supermarket when people see rising food prices, gas and electricity bills that have gone up as a result of oil prices going up.

"We will address these problems and the message that I think is absolutely clear and unequivocal is that the direction of the Government is to address all these major concerns that people have, and the task that I have is to steer the British economy through these difficult times." Treasury sources said no decisions will be taken on any measures before the Pre-Budget Report in the autumn.

The Daily Telegraph has launched a campaign to get a Fair Deal for Motorists after Budget measures announced in March included a "showroom tax" of up to 950 pounds [$1900] a year for cars emitting high levels of carbon dioxide. It will be introduced in 2010 in the run up to a possible general election. Under other changes motorists will see their road taxes increase. Cars will be divided into 13 groups depending on their CO2 emissions. The move will hit dozens of popular family cars, including models such as the Renault Espace, Vauxhall Zafira and Ford Galaxy, which will see their road tax rise from 210 this year to between 430 and 455 by 2010.

One Labour MP, who is a parliamentary aide to a senior Cabinet minister, said: "There is a real fear among backbenchers that these taxes could be the last straw with petrol already soaring in cost. One MP said to me it will be our very own poll tax but on wheels." After Labour MPs forced through a major policy reversal on the abolition of the 10 pence tax rate, with a 2.7 billion change in income tax allowances, they feel emboldened to press for more concessions. One former minister said: "Middle England is in serious revolt. We have to prove we are listening by announcing now we will shelve the next increase in petrol duty.''

Yesterday Mr Brown's leadership was openly questioned by Labour MPs. Some in the party believe he has just two months to save his premiership. Graham Stringer, the Labour MP for Manchester Blackley, said: "The real debate that goes on within the Labour Party among MPs and party members is 'Is it more damaging for the party to change leader, or to hope that things will get better in the next two years?'

"If the party is to renew itself and get its policies in line with what the people we represent want, then it is the responsibility of senior members of the Cabinet to say we're going in the wrong direction, it's impossible to change the situation that we are in at the moment and to say to Gordon that they intend to stand for election. Without that, we are heading for electoral disaster."

In a day of recriminations, Labour's Compass group disowned the party's by-election literature which accused Edward Timpson, the winning candidate, of opposing ID cards for migrants - ignoring the fact he opposed them for everyone. George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, said: "There is a new nasty party in British politics today."

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Authoritarian Science In London

Tomorrow, May 24, the G-8 environment ministers will be in Japan to commence their annual meeting. Back in London, though, the world's oldest science academy, the Royal Society of London, recently has become a vocal advocate of climate alarmism. RS fellows have included Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin.

But, under the previous leadership of Lord Robert May, the Society seems to have taken a wrong turn. They even tried to enlist other science academies into joining them in an alarmist manifesto. However, the U.S. National Academy, though sharing some of these views, decided not to sign up, and the Russian Academy of Sciences has taken an opposing position.

In June 2007, the Royal Society published a pamphlet, titled "Climate Change Controversies: a simple guide," designed to undermine the scientific case of climate skeptics. They presented what they called "misleading arguments" on global warming and then tried to shoot them down.

In countering the RS pamphlet, I have prepared a response that is being published tomorrow by the London-based Centre for Policy Studies under the title "Not so simple? A scientific response to the Royal Society's paper."

Throughout, the Royal Society has relied heavily on the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which used to be regarded as a reliable source of scientific information. The RS thus adopts the IPCC claim that current warming is almost certainly anthropogenic (human-caused) but presents no independent evidence to support such a claim.

In its pamphlet, the Royal Society purports to speak on behalf of a consensus of scientists. But no such consensus exists. Direct polling of climate scientists has shown that about 30% are "skeptical" of anthropogenic global warming. More than 31,000 American scientists recently signed the Oregon Petition, which expresses doubt about the major conclusions of the IPCC, and opposes the drastic mitigation demands of the Kyoto Protocol and the proposed "cap-and-trade" legislation of the U.S. Congress.

My response to the RS is based on the work of some two dozen independent climate scientists from 16 nations who contributed to the report of the Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change, or NIPCC, titled "Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate." NIPCC corrects many of the errors and misstatements made in the IPCC report, discusses evidence ignored by the IPCC, and cites evidence available since May 2006, the cut-off date for the latest IPCC Report of May 2007.

The science-based arguments for a more rational approach to global warming and climate change can be summarized as follows:

* The Earth's climate always has changed, with cycles of both warming and cooling, long before humans were a factor. The cycle lengths range from decades, to the 1,500-year cycle discovered in Greenland ice cores, to the 17 ice ages that dominated the past 2 million years.

* The NIPCC report presents solid evidence that any man-made global warming to date has been insignificant in comparison with these natural climate cycles. By contrast, the IPCC has no real evidence to support their claim of anthropogenic global warming.

* While recent man-made increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide may, in principle, make some contribution to temperature rise, the linkages assumed in order to predict significant future global warming are not proven.

* Contrary to the computer simulations of climate models, temperatures have not risen over the last decade - despite a continuing rise in CO2 levels.

* Other factors, such as variable solar activity, solar wind, and cosmic rays, all seem to have a more significant impact on the earth's climate.

* Panicky reactions to exaggerated scenarios of global warming are bound to be costly and do great damage to world economic development.

* Adaptation, not mitigation, is a more appropriate response to climate change - particularly for poorer countries.

Fear of global warming is distorting energy policy. Urgent action is needed to secure future energy supplies: the closure of existing coal-powered stations and old nuclear stations over the next 10 to 20 years risks causing a serious energy shortage until new nuclear power can be brought on stream. Yet resistance by anti-fossil fuel protesters already is retarding the development of much needed conventional generating capacity.

The choices that are being made now about the use of resources and the costs imposed on global development will have a huge impact on both current and future prosperity. It is imperative, for the sake of rational policy development worldwide, that the debate on the true nature of global warming and its causes move from being a matter of assertion and exaggerated scaremongering to a more reasoned debate based on the scientific facts.

It is a pity that the Royal Society, rather than facilitate debate, has tried to misrepresent the honest views of those who are skeptical of what has become climate change orthodoxy.

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British universities skew admissions towards poor pupils

This may not be as bad as some forms of affirmative action. Students who come from "sink" schools but who have yet scored well enough to hope for university entrance probably do have greater talent than similarly-scoring students from a better background

Britain's leading universities have overhauled their admissions procedures in an attempt to socially engineer their intake by favouring students with lower exam grades if they come from poor families. Admissions staff have been instructed to give extra points to candidates whose parents did not go to university and to favour talented applicants if they attended poorly performing comprehensives. The policies show attempts at positive discrimination in favour of those from deprived backgrounds as universities try to curb the domination of higher education by the best-performing state and independent schools.

The institutions that have drawn up the most systematic policies to favour pupils from poor families include Edinburgh and St Andrews. Cambridge and some departments at Bristol also use statistical models to favour pupils from less successful schools, while Liverpool and Manchester have signalled they will move in that direction. Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act show that numerous universities try to give various advantages to candidates from poor families.

The policies are a reaction to government pressure to change the social profile of higher education. John Denham, the universities secretary, has accused leading institutions of “social bias” against the poor, leading to a “huge waste” of talent. The institutions all deny social engineering. They insist their systems are designed to uncover candidates with the greatest academic potential regardless of social background. Critics, however, warn that universities cannot hope to cancel out the failings of secondary schools.

“It’s a minefield,” said Alison Wolf, professor of public sector management at King’s College London. “Of course there should be a mechanism for spotting those who can really make it and of course one should take into account where they went to school, but you cannot sort out a deep-seated social problem by giving kids extra points because of the schools they went to.”

At Edinburgh, ranked 14th in The Sunday Times University Guide, tutors use a complex points system to aid candidates from poorer backgrounds. All applicants for the most popular courses are given a score based on their GCSE grades and predicted A-levels, or their Scottish equivalents. Any candidate considered disadvantaged is awarded extra points – someone who would be the first in their family to attend university, for example, gets two. There is also a sliding scale of points to compensate those who attended poorly performing schools (up to six points) and another to help those from comprehensives in the surrounding area (up to two points).

The university advises staff that a total of eight points – in addition to the basic entry requirement of three Bs at A-level – should be enough to secure an offer. It means candidates from the most deprived backgrounds can win a place there with three Bs while most others would need at least two As and a B. “We are trying to look at students who don’t have advantages and to reflect their achievements in context,” said Elizabeth Lister, Edinburgh’s director of admissions. “If we operated a system simply of academic grades, [some] students would be extremely advantaged because they have such support and the quality of teaching and educational environment. So would that be fair?”

Cambridge operates a more limited points system, helping applicants whose schools come low down GCSE league tables. Geoff Parks, Cambridge’s admissions director, said: “Nobody gets in or out because of GCSEs; it is simply an attempt to capture what I would say is the unarguable fact that your performance at GCSE is influenced by the quality of the school you attend.”

Some departments at Bristol, including the law school, also use a points system. Oxford has a less formalised approach. It asks on application forms about the performance of a candidate’s school but has advised staff it should be used to “gain a general understanding” of the pupil.

St Andrews, which was attended by Prince William, marks application forms with code letters indicating whether the candidate is entitled to help under a series of “access” schemes. Its admissions handbook advises staff that “any requirements may be waived . . . to promote wider access”.

Other universities have a less sweeping approach. “It is never going to be an exact science but we do want to change our social profile so we are more representative of society,” said Steve Smith, vice-chancellor of Exeter University, where 27.5% of students come from the private sector, compared with more than 32% five years ago. “We may soften our offers, perhaps from AAA to AAB . . . for someone who comes from a school that performs badly.”

Several universities, including Birmingham and Manchester, do not automatically give extra points to pupils from poor backgrounds but run rigorous courses to find the most able. Kimberley Anderson, 19, a comprehensive pupil from Sutton Coldfield, benefited from the A2B scheme at Birmingham, in which pupils are put through a series of essays and assessments. Only if they do well are they given a head start in admissions. “A few did go to university from my school but not many. I was worried that you needed very high grades to get in,” Anderson said. “The programme lowers the grades you need and that’s why I chose Birmingham.”

Claims of university discrimination against middle-class candidates under government pressure erupted in 2003 when independent schools discouraged pupils from applying to some courses at Bristol and elsewhere, alleging unfair policies. Few of the new systems discriminate explicitly against independent schools, but that may change. Documents from Liverpool University state: “Students from independent schools appear to do less well than those from state schools and colleges, all other things being equal.” The university is now considering how data on the type of school attended by a candidate should affect their application.

David Willetts, the shadow universities secretary, warned there was a “real danger of rough justice” if institutions adopted blanket policies to compensate applicants from poorer backgrounds. “This results from universities having to pick up the consequences of very limited educational opportunities in too many parts of our country,” he said.

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Muslim gangs taking over UK prison: "Prison officers at one of Britain's maximum security jails are losing control to Muslim gangs, according to a confidential report obtained by The Observer. An internal review of Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire warns that staff believe a 'serious incident is imminent' as several wings become dominated by Muslim prisoners. The report, written by the Prison Service's Directorate of High Security, says there is an 'ongoing theme of fear and instability' among staff at Whitemoor, where just under a third of the 500 prisoners are Muslim. It claims: 'There was much talk around the establishment "

BRITISH PM CAN TRY TO BLAME THIS CRISIS ON OPEC, BUT THE REAL FAULT LIES WITH HIS OWN TAX POLICY

The British Government has two policies on oil prices. The first is that the price we pay for oil is too high, and must be brought down. The second is that the price we pay for oil is too low, and must be increased. The second policy rests its case on the Stern Review's assertion that the price consumers are charged for fossil fuels is "the biggest market failure in history" - because it doesn't take account of the "climate costs" they allegedly impose on future generations.

Gordon Brown gave the now-celebrated economist Nicholas Stern a personal standing ovation when he delivered his report on the economics of climate change; the fuel price escalator - abandoned at the time of the road hauliers' protests and blockades in 2000 - is set to resume. Even without that, taxes on petrol and diesel are dramatically higher in the UK than in any other European country - we lead the world in fuel duties. So you might think that Gordon Brown would be delighted that crude oil prices have soared recently - isn't the market doing what Lord Stern of Brentford and the Government ordered as environmentally essential: to make us use less of the stuff? Apparently not.

This week the Prime Minister told the Google Zeitgeist conference: "It is, as people recognise, a scandal that 40 per cent of the [world's] oil is controlled by Opec, that their decisions can restrict the supply of oil to the rest of the world, and that a time when oil is desperately needed, and supply needs to expand, that Opec can withhold supply from the market."

This is not the first time that Mr Brown has attacked Opec in such terms. He did so - not coincidentally - when there was a sharp upward turn in petrol prices in 2005: it was the then Chancellor Brown who told the Confederation of British Industry that it was all Opec's fault for not producing more oil.

This produced a withering retort from the then Opec president, Sheikh Ahmad Fahd al-Sabah. He pointed out that the British Exchequer was taxing fuel at a rate of 75 per cent and asked who would buy the extra millions of barrels a day of oil that Mr Brown was calling for: "If he would like to have it I would be happy to sell it to him."

What Sheikh Ahmad observed then remains true today. There is not a shortage of crude oil - inventories are at normal levels, worldwide. Have you seen any queues at petrol stations? Do you know of any? Are there any queues at gas filling stations in the United States? Nope.

Far from operating as a restrictive cartel - whatever their aspirations - 12 of the 13 members of Opec are pumping out oil at maximum capacity. Saudi Arabia alone has the flexibility to produce more than their current output, but they are already producing well in excess of their official Opec quota.

Last week, in response to a personal plea from President George Bush, the Saudis agreed to increase their output by a further 300,000 barrels of oil a day. The announcement had no effect in halting the upward rush of the market price.

That is because most of the recent surge has been driven by oil "futures": the financial houses which dominate this market are convinced that oil production in the years ahead will not be able to meet demand - and so they believe that they will be able to sell "future" barrels of oil for more than they are now paying for them.

At the moment, however, there is enough oil in the market to meet immediate demand - and the Saudis argue that if there is a supply crunch coming in the years ahead, isn't that when they should be producing more, rather than now?

To the extent that there are already bottlenecks in the system, this is principally due to shortfalls in refining capacity. You can't put crude oil into a motor car - at least not if you want it to move. Yet for other environmental reasons - called "not in my back yard" - over the past 30 years there have been no new refineries built in the US or Europe. Is that another "scandal" that can be blamed on Opec?

On the same day that Mr Brown fulminated against Opec, the US House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation enabling the Justice Department to sue Opec members under anti-trust laws for "limiting oil supplies". President Bush has said that he will veto any such bill. He probably remembers how in 1986 his father - then the Vice-President - pleaded with the Saudis to cut back their production when the oil price had collapsed below $10 a barrel. They did so - thus saving the oil-producing states of Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma from economic meltdown.

This underlined the paradox at the heart of the West's attitude to Opec: it is rightly suspicious of the operations of a cartel, but at the same time wants the price stability that Opec itself claims as its principal objective.

In this context, the dispute between Gordon Brown and Opec is not about production at all: it is a squabble over who collects the rent. The Prime Minister wants the British consumer to pay a very high price for petrol and diesel, but for the British Government (as tax-collector and distributor of benefits) to be the principal beneficiary rather than the countries which actually produce the black stuff.

This racket worked well when crude oil prices were at historically low levels. It enabled Chancellor Brown - even with the fuel price revolt in 2000 - to siphon off vast revenues in indirect taxes without facing insuperable public dissatisfaction.

The other truth which Gordon Brown evades is that Britain is also a significant oil producer: the soaring price of crude is producing a windfall from taxes on companies operating in the North Sea. If current prices hold, they will generate extra above-Budget Petroleum Revenue taxes this year sufficient on their own to fund the 2.7bn pound cost of the desperate Crewe by-election hand-out announced last week by Chancellor Darling.

Although this is not the purpose of Gordon Brown's oil taxation policies, if he does want to help to destroy Opec, he is going about it the right way. The more expensive it becomes to buy gasoline, the more people will find ways of not using so much of it. Much of the current hysteria seems based on the idea that demand for oil can not be reduced. Of course it can, and will: last year the supposedly incorrigible US reduced its oil consumption by 5 per cent.

It could just be that the speculators who have driven up the price of crude oil futures to such a giddy height might discover that they have dramatically misread the market: if the sub-prime crisis has taught us anything, it should be that a speculative bubble has the capacity to burst -indeed, that is what bubbles do.

Meanwhile, however much the Prime Minister is worried about the public's rage at high fuel prices, he really shouldn't try to persuade us that it's entirely the fault of grasping Arabs.

The level of fuel duty and VAT is clearly stated on every gas station forecourt in the land - and we all know who is responsible for that.

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Two million Britons emigrate in 10 years

Two million British citizens have left the UK in a decade, the greatest exodus from this country in almost a century, new figures will show. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) will release figures showing that more than 200,000 Britons emigrated during 2006. That will take the total number who left the country between 1997 and 2006 to 1.97 million. Another 1.58 million foreign nationals resident in Britain left during the same period. However, 3.9 million foreigners arrived over the decade, including more than 500,000 in 2006.

The body will publish the raft of immigration figures on Tuesday, as MPs prepare to dismiss the national statisticians' data as "not fit for purpose" and demand an overhaul of the way population movements are measured. On Thursday, the Treasury sub-committee of the House of Commons will conclude that the lack of reliable and up-to-date figures for immigrant populations is hampering Government policy both nationally and locally.

ONS figures only go back to 1991, but some historians say the departure of two million Britons in a decade is almost unparalleled in the country's history. According to figures compiled by Jay Winter, of Yale University, the last comparable exodus came between 1911 and 1914, when 2.4 million people left Britain. The other significant spike in emigration came in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when thousands of Britons left to start new lives in Australia, Canada and the United States.

The Institute for Public Policy Research, a think-tank, has estimated that there are more than 5.5 million British citizens living abroad. Jill Rutter, a senior migration researcher at the IPPR, said the recent exodus marked "probably the greatest period of emigration we've ever seen". She said: "A lot of this is people retiring abroad, which is a relatively new phenomenon and is only possible because we are all better off . "There is also a much more internationalised labour market and workforce - it is now quite commonplace for people to go abroad to work for a year or more." Immigrants who come to this country, gain citizenship and then leave also add to the total of British emigrants.

Opposition parties say that some emigrants have been driven out of Britain by its high levels of crime and taxation. "This explosion in emigration is inevitably a reflection of the state of the country under a Labour government," said David Davis, the shadow home secretary.

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Disruptive pupils to be privatized

Private companies are to be given the go-ahead to take over the running of specialist units for teaching the country's most disruptive state school pupils. Ministers are considering allowing them to profit from the provision under a shake-up of the way specialist pupil referral units are run, outlined in a White Paper yesterday. The move is expected to pave the way for firms such as Group 4 Securicor and Serco, which are already highly involved in the public sector, to take over units. A spokesman for Group 4 Securicor said the firm would study the proposals and "assess whether there are opportunities to provide additional public services".

The proposal to allow the involvement of commercial companies alarmed Britain's biggest teachers' union, the National Union of Teachers, which said it was "a deeply worrying rubicon" for the Schools Secretary, Ed Balls, to cross. In the past, firms running local authority services have been allowed to make profits, but not mainstream schools.

Christine Blower, the acting general secretary of the NUT, said it would lead to companies "making economies in provision for the most vulnerable people". She added: "The last thing pupil referral units need is to be outsourced to private companies. Such a move would only increase their sense of isolation from other local authority provision."

The White Paper published research that showed that 99 per cent of pupils taught in the units failed to reach the Government's benchmark of five top-grade GCSE passes. Nearly nine out of 10 of the 135,000 children taught in the units every year also fail to obtain five GCSE passes at any grade.

Under the proposals, ministers plan to invite competition for running pupil referral units, nicknamed "sin bins". They are anxious to encourage private companies and voluntary groups or charities - such as the Prince's Trust and Barnardo's to run the units. Independent schools with a record of offering boarding places for deprived children in danger of being taken into care - such as Rugby - would also be invited to apply as would sponsors of the Government's flagship academies.

Sir Alan Steer, the headteacher appointed by the Government to head an inquiry into school discipline, warned that the pupil referral units had become "the forgotten service". "Vulnerable children can be placed with others who are displaying serious criminal tendencies," he said in a letter to Mr Balls. Mr Balls said he wanted the units to offer more places to pupils at risk of expulsion - rather than those already excluded from school. "We can then help them to access the right support before the behaviour spirals out of control and reaches the point of exclusion," he said.

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NHS Hospitals still not getting clean bill of health from patients

Patients experience wide variations in cleanliness and "striking" differences in some areas of patient care while in hospital, a national survey by the country's health watchdog shows. The Healthcare Commission found that patients treated in NHS hospitals are generally satisfied with their care, and a growing proportion rate it as excellent. But there are increasing concerns about cleanliness, and fewer patients than in previous surveys believed that doctors and nurses always washed their hands between patients.

The biggest variations came in how long patients were kept waiting for admission to hospital, their experience of mixed-sex wards, the quality of food and the help they were given in eating it. The survey, which has been carried out annually since 2002, questioned 75,000 adult patients at 165 trusts. In general, the results show that patient satisfaction is inching up.

Those rating their overall care as "excellent", for example, went up from 41 per cent in 2006 to 42 per cent in 2007. In 2002, the first year of the survey, it was 38 per cent. The Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic and District Hospital NHS Trust in Shropshire ranked top last year with 77 per cent reporting excellent care, and Ealing Hospital NHS Trust in London bottom, with 24 per cent.

Patients also reported slight improvements in how long they waited in accident and emergency before being admitted to a ward. In 2007 73 per cent said that they waited up to four hours, compared with 72 per cent in 2006 and 67 per cent in 2002. The number of patients reporting that their hospital was "very clean" fell from 56 per cent in 2002 to 53 per cent in 2006, and the same figure in 2007. Among the best performing trusts, around 80 per cent said their room or ward was "very clean". But fewer than half of patients reported that lavatories and bathrooms were very clean. In the best trusts this figure was as high as 81 per cent but in the worst was as low as 22 per cent.

The survey found that 68 per cent of patients said that, as far as they knew, doctors "always" washed their hands between patients, down 1 per cent on last year. At the worst-performing trust, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells, only 45 per cent said yes. At the best, Queen Victoria Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in East Grinstead, 88 per cent said yes.

About a quarter of people reported being in a mixed-sex ward when first admitted to hospital, and a fifth when they moved wards, both figures showing slight improvements compared with last year. More than a fifth of patients (22 per cent) complained that nurses "often or sometimes" talked over their heads as if they weren'tthere, and that a similar proportion of doctors did the same.

Food was rated as good or very good by 55 per cent of respondents, up 1 per cent since 2006. In the highest-scoring trust for food, Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic and District Hospital, 62 per cent of patients rated it "very good" while in the worst, Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust, only 8 per cent said it was very good.

Ann Keen, the Health Minister, said: "This survey gives a real insight into what patients think about their care, with many reporting high levels of trust in NHS staff, high standards of care and high rates of cleanliness during their stay in hospital. "But we are not complacent. We will continue to listen to patients and work on those areas where improvements need to continue."

Anna Walker, chief executive of the Healthcare Commission, said: "This survey gives the most comprehensive picture available of how patients feel about NHS hospitals. And, importantly, it allows comparisons between trusts across the country. "Overall, it's encouraging that a steadily increasing percentage of patients say care is `excellent'. But the survey also shows that in some hospitals the NHS is struggling to deliver on some of the basics of hospital care. There are striking variations in performance in key areas such as providing single-sex accommodation and giving people help when they need it. Those performing poorly must learn from those who perform well. "It's crucial that trusts take this information on board. The patient voice must be heard loudly on the boards of trusts across the country."

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The frustrations of life in overcrowded and over-governed socialist Britain

Stuck in a jam as I was approaching a roundabout, I gazed idly out of the window. A car beeped behind. In my daze I'd not noticed that the line of traffic had advanced. I caught up with the queue and as I reached the junction the beeper pulled level, his face gargoyled with rage. "You stupid c***!" he screamed in my face. As he careered off, adrenaline kicked in. For a second I considered pursuit, barging his Audi estate into the kerbside, leaping out Grand Theft Auto-style and then I'd . . . what? Kill him with a single deft blow? Rub him out with my Walther PPK? Instead I continued on a mission to the charity shop with my bin-bags of old tat.

But the incident left me oddly shaken. His obscene fury was so disproportionate to my offence. I hadn't rashly pulled out, frightened or endangered him. I had merely delayed his progress by nanoseconds. Not even that, since I was still locked in a queue.

Sometimes London life seems built upon a thin and fragile crust through which a bubbling magma of anger could, at any moment, blow. Which is what happened in a baker's shop a few miles from here last week when Jimmy Mizen, out buying sausage rolls with his brother, refused a challenge to a fight and instead had his throat cut with a shard of glass. And then in McDonald's on Oxford Street on Monday when a row over a thrown drink ended with a man bleeding to death on the pavement, a knife in his heart.

When yet another young man dies, I scan the reports for words that will afford me some solace: gang slaying, feud, grudge, crack house, sink estate, 2am, drug-related, excessive alcohol . . . These words make me feel a little safer. They largely have nothing to do with my life. I can, I tell myself, protect my sons from these words. But when Jimmy's mother, Margaret Mizen, said "it was anger that killed my son", I know I am powerless. Because anger is unconfined: it lurks in the middle of the day, in public places; it erupts between total strangers. Anger turns a random encounter into deadly violence.

"There is too much anger in the world," said Mrs Mizen. There is certainly too much in London. A friend, trying to cross a road, was hit on the shoulder by the wing mirror of a passing van: it deliberately swerved to wallop her. A guy at my gym says that out cycling he slapped the face of a delivery driver who'd honked at him. Aghast, I say he could have been stabbed, but he just makes a defiant, macho bring-it-on gesture, then admits he sped off when the driver began reaching inside his glove compartment.

A study by the Mental Health Foundation found that a quarter of us worry about how angry we feel. And yet just what are we angry about, with lives of unprecedented safety, surplus and comfort? I have always marvelled at the grumpiness of guests in luxury resorts: after a short time being waited upon in paradise, having flunkies pick up damp towels, one's mood can be ruined by a deckchair being positioned at the wrong angle to the sun, a drink's insufficient chill. Similiarly with our basic needs more than satisfied and our homes piled with consumer goodies, like brattish heiresses we rail against the slightest irritation.

I spend a ludicrous amount of my life angry about nothing much. Usually casual public thoughtlessness: mothers blocking small shops with their humungous o500 prams, nurses addressing dignified elderly ladies by their first names or, in my eco-wrath, anyone buying cases of bottled still water. Or brand new arbitrary regulations imposed seemingly to irritate and confound: such as Tesco's policy of banning parents buying booze if accompanied by children.

Why do these things rile me? Because the world seems beyond control, the old certainties gone. Or am I just getting old? The anger management industry would, of course, have it that we are in need of their expensive ministrations. But are we really more angry or do we just express it more?

To lose one's temper is no longer to be diminished or shamed; it is a sign of emotional health rather than a dearth of reason. All anger is righteous now. It is conflated with drive, passion, energy, a means to affect progress. Gordon Ramsay - whose confected ire is almost unwatchable - every week says goodbye to his F-Word celebrity guest with the catchphrase "Now f*** off out of my kitchen!" and we're supposed to be endeared by his rough-diamond charm.

Anger becomes such a reflexive response that you do not realise how much it has penetrated your soul until you travel. Even New York seems less brimming with outrage, a collision in a crowd more likely to spark a "pardon me" than a glower. Visiting Australia, I heard a news item in which an educational survey had found modern Oz children the most illiterate and stupid ever. In Britain such a report would have provoked weeks of self-flagellating fury: Australia shrugged and headed for the beach.

Last summer in Slovenia, Europe's most easy-going state, I was walking with my son past a line of cars when one started to reverse right at us. My London self banged hard on the back of the vehicle and made a furious hand gesture. The passengers in the car slowly turned, their eyes wide, their mouths agape at the crazy lady. "Mum," said my son. "That was way too angry."

Yes, I was London angry: the sense that everyone is out to shaft you, nip into your parking place, rip you off, frustrate your efforts to get home, grind you into the tarmac. Anger is the sound of entitlement, the urge to have your existence acknowledged. And for the young and poor and reckless, anger voices their lack of power, control, self-esteem. And, since it will swiftly meet the anger of others, it must be armed with fists and knives, guns and hard dogs.

Anger is a buzz, an addiction. Clearly we were designed for more than our modern functions. We are healthier, stronger, better fed and educated than any humans yet born. And yet we are the most underchallenged. Here we are, creatures capable of building cathedrals, surviving trench warfare or traversing oceans, wandering dead-eyed around B&Q. "People need to find peace, not anger," said Mrs Mizen.

But alas "going off on one"- about Iraq, Cherie Blair, the tall, sweet boy in the bakery or the dozy woman driver in front - is the only time some people feel briefly and iridescently alive.

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Muslim English teacher admits to plot to blow up mall : "A Muslim English teacher yesterday today pleaded guilty to threatening to blow up the giant Bluewater shopping centre. Saeed Ghafoor said he was going to bomb Europe's largest shopping complex using three limousines with gas canister explosives. But when questioned further, the former English teacher said Bluewater was in Exeter, the Old Bailey heard. When told it was near the Dartford tunnel in Kent, Ghafoor said he had not 'finalised' his plans, the Old Bailey was told. Ghafoor, 33, of Southampton, pleaded guilty to threatening to cause criminal damage".

The efficient British bureaucracy again: "The shoddy state of Crown Prosecution Service case files is highlighted in a report today. Most files are incomplete or have missing data, such as whether a defendant is on bail. Inspectors found that in more than one third, or 36 per cent, of magistrates' and Crown Court cases, a defendant's bail status was not recorded. In some cases, the omission led to cases having to be adjourned."

Class and politics in Britain

Comment on the Crewe & Nantwich by-election:

Labour has sent up a couple of young men dressed as toffs to follow the Conservative candidate around. It has not boosted its opinion rating either. And now it seems as if one of these men went to an expensive public school himself (not the same posh school as Ed Balls, a different posh school). You have to hand it to Gordon Brown's crack team. I didn't think it was possible, but they've done it. To this the toffs stunt, personally approved by Gordon Brown, adds another dimension - it is an abandonment of one of the party's most attractive features.

I know where Labour got the idea that campaigning against David Cameron's class might work. It came from a group of pundits I call the ChipOx Club. These are journalists who went to Oxford from middle-class homes. On their way back from the library to their college rooms in Michaelmas term, carrying a cup of cocoa and determined to finish their essay on the Battle of Naseby, they had champagne spilt on them by the drunk younger son of an earl who was fleeing a shaving foam fight. They have hated toffs ever since. And they are convinced that everyone else shares their dislike.

As a Jewish suburbanite and the son of immigrants, I have always found such class prejudice baffling. But as a political analyst I have this further observation - if you are going to campaign in Crewe on class, the toffs are the wrong class to campaign against.

Since the days of the industrial revolution there has always been something of an alliance between the working class and the aristocracy, united against the common enemy - the mill owners. When the fighting broke out in the streets of Leeds over the amelioration of factory conditions, radicals and workers' leaders such as Richard Oastler saw themselves as allies of Tories such as the Earl of Shaftesbury.

To be portrayed as a top-hatted toff actually represents an improvement in the Tory image. Being seen as pinstripe-suited bosses, estate agents and spivs was far more devastating. Consider the brilliant salvo fired at the US presidential candidate and businessman Mitt Romney by his opponent Mike Huckabee: "People would rather elect a president who reminds them of the guy they work with, not that guy who laid them off." This is the sort of sentiment that has the ability to damage the Tories. Toffs are benign and reassuring by comparison.

If Labour is baffled by its failure to make class work against Mr Cameron, I think this is part of the reason. His class background is actually helping him to change the way people see his party in a positive way.

There is, however, another reason that it isn't working. Voters do not use Labour's campaign to help them to understand the Tory party. They understand that one party isn't likely to give them an honest picture of the other. They use Labour's campaign to help them to understand the Labour Party. And what the Crewe campaign is doing is signalling that Tony Blair's Labour Party is dead and another, much less attractive, organisation has replaced it.

In 1976 Labour ran a party political broadcast attacking the "honourable Algernon" who was born "with a silver spoon in his mouth". Even at the time, more than 30 years ago, this was regarded as disreputable. Jim Callaghan, then party leader, disowned it. But some in the party hierarchy regarded the broadcast as a masterstroke. Mr Blair built his career on an understanding that these people were wrong.

Class warfare, even if waged against someone else's class, is spectacularly unattractive. It makes Labour seem aggressive, prejudiced, an exclusive sect more interested in your background than your ideas. Mr Blair wanted his party to be a big tent, welcoming everyone. This idea, this powerful political idea, which brought the Tory party to the edge of extinction, which brought landslide Labour majorities, is now over. And with it Labour's political hegemony.

New Labour is dead. Gordon Brown has killed it. And at the funeral, the undertakers will be wearing the top hats from the Crewe & Nantwich by-election campaign.

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Number of new British citizens under Labour Party rule hits 1.2m mark

A record number of foreigners became British citizens last year, bringing the total since Labour came to power to almost 1.2 million, according to figures published yesterday. Three quarters of those getting a British passport came from Asia and Africa with the main nationalities being Indian, Philippine, Afghan, South African and Pakistani. The figure is 7 per cent up on the previous year and was the highest number ever granted in any year.

A series of reports released in Whitehall showed that 164,635 foreigners became British citizens last year, which followed a slump in numbers in 2006. The increase in the number of immigrants obtaining citizenship comes despite a drive by the Government to make it more difficult for people to become British. In 2005 a Britishness test was introduced that makes foreigners take a multiple-choice test before being granted citizenship.

The Home Office said that reasons for the increase in 2007 were not clear but suggested that speedier decision making had reduced the backlog of applicants. More than 2,300 applicants were refused a passport because they had insufficient knowledge of English or failed the test on life in Britain.

Damien Green, the Tory immigration spokesman, said: "These figures are extraordinary. Given the Government's proven record at granting passports to people like Muktar Ibrahim Said - ringleader of the July 21 plot - the public will be alarmed that passports are being handed out at such a rate. Given the Government's ineptitude, how can they guarantee they are being granted to suitable people? This shows why it is essential our border controls are tightened."

Nationalities with the largest number of citizens were Indian with 14,490, Philippine 10,840, South African 8,150, Afghan 10,555 and Pakistani 8,140.

While record numbers of people took citizenship, separate figures showed that the number of people who left the country in 2006 hit a record of 400,000. More than half were British citizens, of whom almost one third went to live in Australia and New Zealand, a quarter to Spain or France and about one in twelve to the US.

An estimated 591,000 people came to Britain, resulting in net immigration in 2006 running at 191,000. Net immigration of New Commonwealth citizens was 115,000 and was the highest of all foreign citizenship groups coming to the country. Citizens from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka made up 80 per cent of net migrants. By comparison net immigration from the Old Commonwealth - Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa - fell to 20,000 and from other countries dropped to 81,000.

London was the most common destination for immigrants with almost 30 per cent saying that the capital was where they intended to stay. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) admitted: "However, immigration has become increasingly dispersed across the UK compared with previous years."

Two other sets of figures produced by the ONS highlighted the changes caused by the scale of immigration since Labour came to power. Figures for people coming to the country for less than a year have been dramatically revised upwards by 23 per cent for 2003-04 and by 22 per cent in 2004-05. An estimated 1.1 million short-term migrants came to Britain in 2004 and 1.2 million in 2005. This means that estimated immigration including both short and long-term migration was almost 1.5 million in 2004 and 1,750,00 in 2005.

The ONS also produced figures showing that 12.5 per cent of total employment is made up of non-British-born workers. The figures showed that in the first three months of 1997 the workforce comprised 24.3 million UK-born people and 1.9 million non-UK-born compared with the same period this year of 25.8 million and 3.7 million respectively.

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Britain: Fewer failed asylum-seekers sent home

Asylum applications rose in the first three months of the year and the number of failed applicants removed from the country fell, government figures published yesterday show. Britain received the largest number of asylum applications in Europe during the same period. Applications increased by 16 per cent to 6,595 in the first quarter of the year, compared with 5,680 in the same period last year. The number of failed applicants removed from the country fell by 13 per cent. The number of applications in the whole of 2007-08 was higher than for the previous year and the number of removals was lower.

The figures are a blow to the Government and indicate that the drive to remove foreign prisoners who have served their sentence has been at the expense of removing failed asylum applicants. Liam Byrne, the Immigration Minister, said that an overhaul of border security was producing results with "asylum applications falling again". He was referring to a 1 per cent fall in the first quarter of this year compared with the final quarter of last year. When compared with the same quarter of last year, there is a 16 per cent rise.

Damian Green, the Tory immigration spokesman, said: "This undermines the Government's pledge to remove more failed asylum-seekers than arrive, let alone to make inroads into the massive backlog." A separate set of figures showed that the number of migrants from eight Eastern European states was slowing down.

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British teenager faces prosecution for calling Scientology 'cult'

We read:

"A teenager is facing prosecution for using the word "cult" to describe the Church of Scientology. The unnamed 15-year-old was served the summons by City of London police when he took part in a peaceful demonstration opposite the London headquarters of the controversial religion. Officers confiscated a placard with the word "cult" on it from the youth, who is under 18, and a case file has been sent to the Crown Prosecution Service.

The decision to issue the summons has angered human rights activists and support groups for the victims of cults. The incident happened during a protest against the Church of Scientology on May 10. Demonstrators from the anti-Scientology group, Anonymous, who were outside the church's œ23m headquarters near St Paul's cathedral, were banned by police from describing Scientology as a cult by police because it was "abusive and insulting".

Writing on an anti-Scientology website, the teenager facing court said: "I brought a sign to the May 10th protest that said: 'Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult.' "'Within five minutes of arriving I was told by a member of the police that I was not allowed to use that word, and that the final decision would be made by the inspector." A policewoman later read him section five of the Public Order Act and "strongly advised" him to remove the sign. The section prohibits signs which have representations or words which are threatening, abusive or insulting.

The teenager refused to back down, quoting a 1984 high court ruling from Mr Justice Latey, in which he described the Church of Scientology as a "cult" which was "corrupt, sinister and dangerous". After the exchange, a policewoman handed him a court summons and removed his sign....

Liberty director, Shami Chakrabarti, said: "This barmy prosecution makes a mockery of Britain's free speech traditions. "After criminalising the use of the word 'cult', perhaps the next step is to ban the words 'war' and 'tax' from peaceful demonstrations?"

Ian Haworth, from the Cult Information Centre which provides advice for victims of cults and their families, said: "This is an extraordinary situation. If it wasn't so serious it would be farcical. The police's job is to protect and serve. Who is being served and who is being protected in this situation? I find it very worrying.

The City of London police came under fire two years ago when it emerged that more than 20 officers, ranging from constable to chief superintendent, had accepted gifts worth thousands of pounds from the Church of Scientology. The City of London Chief Superintendent, Kevin Hurley, praised Scientology for "raising the spiritual wealth of society" during the opening of its headquarters in 2006.

Source

British student union rejects academic's IQ claims

The response from the Left has been a little more muted this time. No attempt to dispute the facts -- which have been well publicised at least since the work of Jensen in 1969, not to mention the big monograph by Herrnstein & Murray

Elite universities are failing to recruit working-class students because IQ is, on average, determined by social class, according to an academic. Bruce Charlton, a reader in evolutionary psychiatry at Newcastle University, claims that the greater proportion of students from higher social classes at highly selective universities is not a sign of admissions prejudice but rather the result of simple meritocracy.

Student union leaders responded angrily to his claim, which was also dismissed by a minister. Charlton's paper, reported today in Times Higher Education, says: "The UK government has spent a great deal of time and effort in asserting that universities, especially Oxford and Cambridge, are unfairly excluding people from low social-class backgrounds and privileging those from higher social classes. "Evidence to support the allegation of systematic unfairness has never been presented. Nevertheless, the accusation has been used to fuel a populist 'class war' agenda. Yet in all this debate a simple and vital fact has been missed: higher social classes have a significantly higher average IQ than lower social classes."

He argues: "The highly unequal class distributions seen in elite universities compared with the general population are unlikely to be due to prejudice or corruption in the admissions process. On the contrary, the observed pattern is a natural outcome of meritocracy. Indeed, anything other than very unequal outcomes would need to be a consequence of non-merit-based selection methods."

The National Union of Students described the paper as "wrong-headed, irresponsible and insulting". Gemma Tumelty, NUS president, said: "Of course, social inequality shapes people's lives long before they leave school, but the higher education sector cannot be absolved of its responsibility to ensure that students from all social backgrounds are given the opportunity to fulfil their potential ... many talented individuals from poor backgrounds are currently not given the same opportunities as those from more privileged backgrounds. This problem will not be addressed as long as academics such as Bruce Charlton are content to accept the status quo and do nothing to challenge the inherent class bias in education."

Sally Hunt, of the University and College Union for acedemic staff, said: "It should come as little surprise that people who enjoy a more privileged upbringing have a better start in life. However, research has shown that students from state schools outperform their independent contemporaries when they reach university." Bill Rammell, the higher education minister, told the Times Higher Education that Charlton's arguments had a definite tone of "people should know their place".

Source. Another comment here






Belmont Club has a look at the unending revisionist argument that WWII was a mistake and that the USA and the UK should have stayed out of it. The argument is now a very old one and one that I have been involved with for many years but I think in the end that Churchill was right. I am quite firm that the USA and the UK should have stayed out of WWI, though. That was the big mistake that gave us both Stalin and Hitler. Neither the UK nor the USA had any quarrel with the Kaiser's Germany. It was all done to rescue the ungrateful French!


The new Tory mayor of London is a Latinist! How marvellous!: "The best question time in town yesterday was not at the House of Commons but at City Hall. There, the most powerful Tory in the land, Boris Johnson, was facing his first grilling or, as he put it to London Assembly members: "I now submit to your catechism." Catechism? This caused a few titters, not least as most of us thought it was something to do with religion. But now, driven to the dictionary, I find a second meaning: "Rigorous and persistent questioning." Hmmm... And now for the Latin bit. Boris was being hammered by some Labour members about not following the correct process for appointments to his financial audit board. "Non tali auxilio nec defensoribus!" cried Mr Mayor (an incomplete quote from the Aeneid, which means something like, as Hecuba would confirm, "this is ridiculous".) "Speak English!" the member shouted back. Mr Mayor didn't like that. After all, no one ever said that to Virgil."


Disgraceful British police action reversed: "A former jihadist recruiter who now seeks to deradicalise young Muslims was released without charge yesterday after being held for 12 days under the Terrorism Act. Hassan Butt, 28, who has been offered Home Office funding to support his work, was arrested by officers from Greater Manchester Police (GMP) on May 9 as he prepared to board a flight to Pakistan. His release came as lawyers for the police appeared at the High Court to defend an attempt to force journalists to hand over materials relating to Mr Butt." [See previous post of 20th]

Official admission: Big failures in British schools

Progress in raising school standards has "stalled", amid fears that the attainment gap between rich and poor shows no signs of closing, the Chief Inspector of Schools suggested yesterday. Christine Gilbert, the head of Ofsted, said it was unacceptable that 20 per cent of pupils still failed to master basic English and maths when they left primary school, while 10 per cent of 16 to 18-year-olds who dropped out of education were not in work.

The link between these two groups of underperformers was very strong and was showing no sign of weakening, she said. "We are not seeing enough movement there. The gap between the `haves' and the `have-nots' is not reducing quickly enough," Ms Gilbert said. "We think standards have stalled and we think we need to accelerate improvement, and we are looking at ways of doing that."

Ms Gilbert's comments appear to contradict claims by ministers of "unprecedented improvements" and a continual and "unarguable evidence of rising achievement" in school standards.

They come after research from the Conservatives suggesting that the school system is dividing children along social and economic lines. Fewer than a third of children in the most deprived 10 per cent of households in England gain at least five GCSEs, including English and maths, at grades A* to C. In those areas that make up the richest 10 per cent, more than half do.

Ms Gilbert, outlining radical reforms to England's school inspections, said that they would be more tailored to the performance of individual schools, with greater focus on underperforming schools. Rather than study overall or average school performance, inspectors would focus more on the progress made by different groups of children, including the weakest and the most vulnerable as well as the brightest.

Under the reforms, failing schools will be monitored two or three times a year. Schools judged as "satisfactory" will be inspected every three years, unless they are struggling to improve, in which case they will receive inspections every 12 to 18 months. The best schools will be subjected to a "light touch" inspection every six years, with a short monitoring "health check" after three years.

Ms Gilbert said that GCSEs and national curriculum tests results may play a greater part in inspectors' judgments in future. Inspectors will also take more account of the views of parents in deciding when a school needs to be inspected, through conducting regular surveys. Pupils will also be surveyed regularly. In addition to being asked how happy, healthy and safe they feel, they may be asked how bored they are at school, Ms Gilbert said. A consultation on how Ofsted will fulfil a new government requirement to measure child wellbeing will begin over the summer.

Ms Gilbert said that the inspectorate would trial "lightning" inspections, in which teachers would receive no warning before a visit, so that Ofsted could "see the school as it really is". Schools currently receive two days' warning of an Ofsted inspection. Inspectors are likely to spend more time observing lessons, but no inspection will last longer than two days.

Teachers criticised the proposals, which are open to consultation until August 11. Christine Blower, acting general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said that the "punitive" inspection system would lead staff to resign. "I can see no virtue in nonotice inspections. Schools will feel that an inspection visit is the equivalent of Russian roulette, and inspectors could visit when half the school is on a school trip," she said.

Nansi Ellis, of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, questioned the idea of enabling parents to trigger an inspection. "We would like parents to take any concerns about a school to the school itself in the first instance, with the confidence the school will sort out any problems," she said.

Source






Marriage registrar 'faced dismissal for obeying Christian doctrine on homosexual unions'

(She is black so that may well protect her. Blackness is second only to homosexuality in the modern British hierarchy of privilege)



A civil registrar who refuses to officiate at partnerships between same-sex couples, claiming that it is "sinful" and against her religion, has brought a legal case that could have implications for ceremonies conducted throughout the country. Lillian Ladele, 47, a Christian, said yesterday that "as a matter of religious conscience" she could not perform civil partnerships for gay couples. She has accused Islington council, in North London, of religious discrimination and victimisation because it asked her to perform the ceremonies as part of her 31,000 pounds-a-year job.

Employment lawyers said that the case, which has angered gay rights groups, could affect councils throughout the country. It is expected to lead to a landmark ruling over whether employees can be required to act against their consciences. More than 18,000 same-sex ceremonies are performed each year under the Civil Partnership Act, which came into force in December 2005.

Clare Murray, of the employment specialists CM Murray LLP, told The Times that Ms Ladele's case could affect the way that councils throughout Britain organise their civil ceremonies. "They are all governed by the same legislation," she said. Even if Islington did lose, other councils might be able to argue that they were justified in requiring registrars to officiate for same-sex couples.

Ms Ladele said that Islington council was forcing her to choose between her beliefs and keeping her job by requiring her to undertake civil partnership duties. Giving evidence yesterday, she told the employment tribunal in Central London: "I hold the orthodox Christian view that marriage is the union of one man and one woman for life to the exclusion of all others and that this is the God-ordained place for sexual relations. It creates a problem for any Christian if they are expected to do or condone something that they see as sinful. I feel unable to facilitate directly the formation of a union that I sincerely believe is contrary to God's law." More than 600 gay couples have had civil partnership ceremonies in Islington, making it Britain's third-most popular borough for the service.

Ms Ladele, who has worked for the council for 16 years, alleged that she was accused of being homophobic by gay colleagues at Islington town hall and was shunned by staff after refusing to carry out civil partnerships. She claimed that she was "ridiculed" by her boss, the superintendent registrar Helen Mendez-Childs, when she raised her concerns about the new ceremonies in August 2004. Ms Ladele said that her superior had told her that her stance was akin to a registrar refusing to marry a black person. For 15 months she swapped with colleagues to avoid the ceremonies. Formal complaints were made about her in 2006. Ms Ladele, who said that she was surprised that colleagues were offended, said that the council gave her an ultimatum to carry out the ceremonies or face being dismissed for gross misconduct.

She said that, to "punish" her for a principled stance, she was denied the chance to preside over lucrative weddings staged at special premises. "There was no respect whatsoever for my religious beliefs," she said. In 2006, Ms Ladele and another female registrar, who shared similar beliefs, were formally accused by two colleagues of "discriminating against the homosexual community". An internal disciplinary investigation as to whether she was guilty of misconduct began in May 2007. Ms Ladele said that staff started to act in a "different, hostile way towards me". "I continued to be civil towards everyone. People would just blank me. It hurt so badly," she said. She claimed that before the furore she had been conducting about fifty marriages a year but was then allocated as few eight per year. Britain's 1,700 registrars were effectively freelance and could opt out of ceremonies until last December, when they were brought under the control of town halls.

Ben Summerskill, of the gay rights group Stonewall, said that public servants were paid to "uphold the law of the land" and could not discriminate. "Doubtless there were those 40 years ago who claimed a moral objection to mixed marriages between those of different ethnic origin," he said. Mike Judge, a spokesman for the Christian Institute, said that the matter was "an important case for religious liberty". He said: "Other occupations allow conscientious objections. No homosexual couple is being denied their right to marriage, because other registrars are performing them."

Islington council denies religious discrimination or victimisation, and claims that Ms Ladele's stance breaches both its dignity-for-all policy and its code of conduct for employees.

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Fathers no longer important in socialist Britain: "Fathers were last night effectively declared an irrelevance in modern Britain. The requirement for fertility doctors to consider a child's need for a male role model before giving women IVF treatment was scrapped by MPs. In a free vote, they swept away the rule despite impassioned pleas that the Government plan would "drive another nail into the coffin of the traditional family". Labour rebels said it would send entirely the wrong signal to society as Britain faces a crisis in responsible parenting. The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, had warned it would remove the father from the heart of the family. He accused the Government of putting the interests of "consumers" who want to become parents before the welfare of children. But in the Commons, ministers won support for the legislation. Voting was 292 to 217, a majority of 75. In a second vote, a Tory attempt to underline the need for a father or "male role model" was rejected by 290 votes to 222, a majority of 68."

BRITISH CLIMATE POLICY: RETROGRESSIVE, RETROSPECTIVE, AND WRONG

If Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister, was thought to stand for anything, it was for the poor and for the disadvantaged. If the Labour Party has a core value, it is surely support for low-income, working families. No longer, it would seem. In trying to pass itself off as a middle class 'Green' party for the public school Guardianistas, Labour is making blunder after blunder, errors of political judgment that could well cost it dear, and with likely immediate effect in this up-coming Thursday's Crewe and Nantwich by-election [see: 'Tories target "extraordinary" win', BBC Online Politics News, May 18; 'Crewe within Tories' grasp - poll', BBC Online Politics News, May 11].

The latest misjudgement is deeply concerning. In attempting to appear 'Green', Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, and Mr. Brown are having to defend the indefensible, a retrogressive, retrospective tax change which will especially hit poorer members of society and less well-off families, with no environmental benefits. In his March Budget, Darling blithely announced an increase in Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) on higher emission vehicles. Unfortunately, this is effectively back-dated to vehicles registered since 2001, which means that many second-hand, older vehicles, including such popular family cars as the Renault Megane and the Ford Focus, will be caught up in the increase.

"Deeply Regressive"

Governments should always strive hard to avoid introducing such retrospective legislation, especially where tax is concerned, because it will often have unexpected, and uncosted, implications for ordinary folk. In this case, the result is disastrous. The second-hand cars which have been corralled retrospectively into the higher bands are precisely those bought by poorer families, who cannot afford new vehicles. Even the Conservatives understand this crucial point, with Justine Greening, their young Shadow Environment Minister, reported as admitting: "This measure is deeply regressive, and it will most acutely affect low-income families."

It is quite extraordinary that Labour did not think this through, especially at a time of negative equity in housing, vanishing mortgages, a difficult banking environment, higher food, fuel, energy, and petrol costs. Moreover, the effect will be to punish further the weakest in society, those already at tight margins [just like Labour's '10p' tax debacle], while, would you believe it, diminishing their ability to save to buy newer and thus cleaner cars - utter political madness. Inevitably, there are rumblings of a revolt among Labour backbenchers, with 20 MPs already having signed an early-day motion in the House of Commons for this tax change to be withdrawn immediately.

But the real judgment is likely to come from the people - from the voters - affected by the change, from those who are always hit hardest at the margins. If on Thursday Labour does lose dramatically the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, then Mr. Brown would be wise to remember, and very quickly, that the middle-class 'Green' trumpery of the wealthier readers of The Guardian will melt little ice in a cooling economy [see: 'That Sinking Feeling', May 15].

Labour needs to return to some solid core values, and to stop trying to play the trendy 'Green' Notting Hill game. Nothing it plans will have any effect on climate change, but it could well help to put the party out of office for a very long time.

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The socialists have criminalized ordinary Britons

Post below recycled from Prof. Brignell. See the original for links

The UK Labour Party is reeling under the four hundred blows inflicted by the local elections. They cannot understand why they are so unpopular. The Englishman has saved us the trouble of finding the links to stories in just one edition of the Telegraph. In each case petty officials, members of Gordon’s army of wage parasites who are dragging down the economy, have burdened ordinary citizens, guilty of no more than inadvertence, with a criminal record. As we remarked about a similar bunch of cases last month, all this has to be taken in the context of an increasingly violent and out-of-control society. Like the smoking ban it is the irrelevance that is so striking.

A number of regular correspondents have taken note of the appointment of “Our Boris” as Mayor of London. While it is no doubt a relief to be rid of Red Ken, it seems a waste of talent to put such a man in such a job. Nevertheless, since he has made his priority the elimination of the casual acceptance of the petty crime that fosters the more serious manifestations, the overall outcome might be beneficial.

In our village there is now a section of yellow line on the main road. It seems to have no purpose other than to provide a form of taxation income for the district council thirty miles away, but it has other effects. Against their will, locals are forced to go to out of town supermarkets that have free parking. The shops are gradually disappearing (the hardware shop went last month) and the bank has just gone part time. Businesses that were sources of employment are also vanishing, yet there is a stealth development plan to double the amount of housing, but not of facilities. Almost anyone you speak to has experienced some form of extortion or coercion by officialdom, but try to get a policeman in the event of a genuine crime.

We find ourselves obliged to live under a system of surveillance more rigorous than at any time or place since the fall of the Stasi, with more CCTV cameras per head of the population than anywhere else in the world. The local elections are largely an irrelevance, as elected representatives have little say (or even knowledge) of what is going on. EU officials talk to Whitehall officials who talk to local officials.

Meanwhile, more and more inoffensive citizens find themselves listed as registered criminals, while the real criminals go about their nefarious business with comparative impunity. It is no joke finding yourself with a criminal record, as the headmaster who forgot to renew his fishing licence discovered. A feature of recent ubiquitous advertising has been the “we know where you live” threats about the BBC tax. The authorities boast of a database with 28 million addresses. Your bending author was once wont resolutely to defend the licence fee, but no more. In the old days it gave relatively cheap access to eminently trustworthy news, quality drama uninterrupted by advertisements, first class comedy and much edifying content.

Now it is a continuum of banal prole circuses (unrelieved even by the occasional football match) punctuated by bouts of lefty-greeny propaganda posing as news, i.e. it is the central pillar of the new establishment. It is naked extortion, like Mafia insurance, pay up or you’re on the list – we know where you live. They cannot even bully with subtlety, but in an authoritarian society why bother? Three billion pounds of income per annum, greater than the GDP of, say, Nicaragua, yet they claim they cannot manage. Why? Officials! Like its host country, of which it is a microcosm, the BBC is sinking under the weight of overweening administration.

If the wealth creating part of any enterprise shrinks continuously, while the wealth dissipating part grows relentlessly, there can be only one eventual outcome. It is not, as the ghastly cliché says, rocket science. Meanwhile, the powers that be withdraw into a fantasy world of imagined crimes attracting draconian fines to fund their excesses, while the rank undergrowth of society flourishes. The habitually law abiding portion of the population finds itself increasingly criminalised, while the habitual criminals go about their business untrammelled.

Prince Charles: Eighteen months to stop climate change disaster

What a dummy! The guy lacks even basic caution. He will be a laughing stock in 18 months time. Canny doomsters don't put an exact date on anything -- not unless it is way in the future

In one of his most out-spoken interventions in the climate change debate, he said a 15 billion pound annual programme was required to halt deforestation or the world would have to live with the dire consequences. "We will end up seeing more drought and starvation on a grand scale. Weather patterns will become even more terrifying and there will be less and less rainfall," he said. "We are asking for something pretty dreadful unless we really understand the issues now and [the] urgency of them." The Prince said the rainforests, which provide the "air conditioning system for the entire planet", releasing water vapour and absorbing carbon, were being lost to poor farmers desperate to make a living.

He said that every year, 20 million hectares of forest - equivalent to the area of England, Wales and Scotland - were destroyed and called for a "gigantic partnership" of governments, businesses and consumers to slow it down. "What we have got to do is try to ensure that these forests are more valuable alive than dead. At the moment, there is more value in them being dead," he said.

He estimated that the cost would be about 15 billion a year but said that this should be viewed as an insurance policy for the whole world. "That is roughly just under one per cent of all the insurance premiums paid in the world in any one year. It is an insurance premium to ensure the world has some rainfall and reasonable weather patterns. It is a good deal."

Last month, the Prince had a meeting at St James's Palace with four state governors from Brazil to discuss the best way to allocate the money. One option would be for an organisation such as the World Bank to administer the fund. The Prince made clear yesterday that if nothing was done there was a "severe danger of losing a major part of the battle against climate change".

In an interview on Radio 4's Today programme, the Prince disclosed that he had raised his concerns with the White House, Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, and President Sarkozy, of France. He said he had pressed Barclays, Shell, Goldman Sachs and McDonald's to join his campaign. But he also said consumers had to play their part by choosing products that were environmentally sustainable and called for improvements in labelling.

He denied, however, that he was interfering in the political process. "All I am ever trying to do is to provide an enabling facility," he said. He conceded that at times he had been forced to keep his counsel when he would have liked to have spoken out. "You learn as you go along. I am going to be 60 this year. I would be a blinding idiot if I had not learnt a bit by now."

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England feels pinch as Poles depart

Renata Drag sells champagne at 20 pounds ($42) a glass in an upmarket cafe in London's ritzy Kensington but she has something in common with hundreds of thousands of other Poles working in building sites, farms and hotels across Britain. She is going home.

Just four years after Britain was caught by surprise by a massive influx of workers from Poland and elsewhere in eastern Europe, the mostly young immigrants are turning around in large numbers and leaving Britain. Tabloid newspaper headlines that once agonised about the flood of immigrants from the newly expanded European Union taking British jobs are now warning darkly that there will be nobody left to pick fruit, clear tables and build stadiums for the 2012 London Olympics.

"I really like London and I have improved my English working here but things are getting a lot better back in Poland now," said 24-year-old Drag, who plans to go home to Cracow and look for work in international tourism. "Wages are really going up in Poland and the pound is getting weaker so it is harder to save good money in London. "Lots of my friends have left and now they are getting good jobs at home because they have learned good English and got good experience here."

The Institute for Public Policy Research in the UK estimates that about a million workers from Poland and the seven other eastern and central European countries that joined the EU in 2004 shifted to Britain, the only large EU economy that kept its labour market open to the new entrants. That shift has been one of the world's largest and smoothest migrations of workers across any border [Which of course has NOTHING to do with the fact that they are Northern Europeans of Christian background -- like the native British themselves], and has been described by historians as the largest influx into Britain in 300 years. But now, according to the IPPR, about half those workers have gone home, with many more planning to follow soon.

Danny Sriskandarajah, one of the report's authors, says this massive wave of migration has been unique in British history because most of the arrivals in previous influxes stayed permanently. At this stage, Britain's experience with what are dubbed "the Polish plumbers", suggests the EU's flexible labour market has actually worked the way it is intended, providing extra labour when the British economy was booming, allowing more growth while keeping down inflation and interest rates. Now that Britain's economy is slowing, there are suddenly fewer workers looking for jobs.

Poland has benefited because many of its ambitious workers were able to find good jobs during a time of high unemployment at home and are now returning with the money and experience to start their own businesses or take on more highly paid jobs while stimulating economic demand. Poland's unemployment has halved since it joined the EU in 2004. Wages in some of its industries are up by 25 per cent this year, and the zloty has soared against the pound. In 2004, each pound saved by a Polish worker would buy 7.5 Polish zloty; today it buys only 4.5 zloty. Given the higher living costs in London, rising wages at home and the tug of family ties, there are weaker incentives to stay.

The arrival of the eastern workers in the UK strained government services in many regions but soon prompted visible changes in many aspects of British life. Supermarkets stocked hundreds of lines of Polish food and beers, street signs in some cities were duplicated in Polish, Catholic churches saw fuller pews and nightclubs introduced special Polish pop music nights. Local councils and even political parties translated their hand-outs into Polish, and dozens of medium-sized newspapers began printing regular Polish-language editions.

Even The Sun, which revels in British nationalism, is considering printing special 48-page Polish language editions during the Euro 2008 football tournament. With England failing to qualify, retailers and publicans hope to cash in on Polish fans by advertising Polish beers and snacks.

Wojciech Pisarski, a spokesman at the Polish embassy in London, told The Weekend Australian that his Government "is doing everything it can to encourage workers to come home because we need them now in Poland." "We are running a publicity campaign to convince them that they can use the expertise they have gained here to set up businesses or get good jobs back home," Mr Pisarski said. The Polish Government had offered cheap loans to returning workers hoping to set up new businesses, and a tax amnesty on remissions of cash so workers could shift their money home without worrying about being double-taxed on foreign earnings, he said.

"Gdansk council has also introduced its own incentives to get people to shift home. It is quite important because, just like London is getting ready for the Olympics, we are hosting the 2012 Euro (football championship) and a lot of work has to be done. "We need to build stadiums, hotels and infrastructure and we need to bring home people with the skills to do that," Mr Pisarski said. "At one point we had about 1000 Polish people a day coming to Britain but that has levelled off and now it seems to be flowing the other way."

Miles Quest, a spokesman for the British Hospitality Association, said hotels and other catering businesses would suffer if east Europeans kept returning home: "Around 80 per cent of workers in hospitality in London are from overseas and ... the eastern Europeans have been extremely valuable." The departure of Poles means many British employers are turning to Bulgarians and Romanians, who tend to have worse language and technical skills but are cheaper workers.

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The British spooks sure know how to screen their spies: "A bizarre sex scandal involving a top motor sports official and the prostitute wife of a British spy has raised urgent questions about the screening procedures employed by the MI5 security service. The Sunday Times and Sunday Telegraph reported that an MI5 officer had been forced to resign after it emerged that his wife was one of five prostitutes who took part in an orgy with Max Mosley, president of Formula One's governing body, the FIA. A security source did not dispute the reports but said any suggestion the orgy had been an MI5 'sting' operation to entrap Mosley was "nonsense". The affair raises many questions, not least how MI5 could have failed to know that the wife of one of its operatives was working as a prostitute. Staff are subjected before joining the agency to what its website calls "the most comprehensive form of security vetting in the UK", aimed at establishing their reliability and suitability. The screening continues after a person has joined the service, and there is a responsibility on staff to inform MI5 of changes in their personal circumstances." [Even Kim Philby could probably get a job there these days]


Blame it all on fatties: "Obese people are contributing to the world food crisis and climate change, experts say. The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine calculated the obese consume 18% more calories than average. They are also responsible for using more fuel, which has an environmental impact and drives up food prices as transport and agriculture both use oil. The result is that the poor struggle to afford food and greenhouse gas emissions rise, the Lancet reported."

Socialist haters at work in Britain

The National Health Service has refused to pay for an operation to prevent a pensioner’s agonising migraines because the woman paid privately for earlier treatment. Maureen Alden, 74, from Bristol, spent her life savings on a £13,000 operation two years ago to implant wires into her brain which prevent migraines by stimulating the nerves. The operation was successful and cut her attacks by 80%. The battery which powers the medical device is about to run out, however, and the retired typist cannot obtain funding for a replacement.

Alden’s case will reignite the debate over the ban on NHS patients supplementing their care by paying for treatments that are not funded by the health service. Breast cancer sufferers have been told they will be denied NHS treatment if they pay privately for “top-up” drugs. Patients are taking legal action to fight the ban.

Alden is backed by her GP, Dr Sarah Vaughan, who said: “This seems appalling to me. Funding decisions should be made on medical grounds such as how badly the patient needs the treatment, not whether they have previously paid privately.”

Alden had the device, an occipital nerve stimulator, implanted in March 2006. The battery is expected to run out in the next six months. A permanent battery has since been developed, so if the NHS pays 8,500 pounds for a replacement then Alden should not require any further treatment.

Vaughan warns that if Alden is denied the treatment the NHS will end up spending as much on expensive medication. South Gloucestershire Primary Care Trust said: “If someone elects to privately fund a treatment that is not funded by the PCT and no exceptional grounds have been agreed in advance, the individual will remain responsible for funding any ongoing costs.”

A British Medical Association (BMA) spokeswoman said: "Ethically the BMA does not believe that if someone has treatment privately they should be prevented from accessing any NHS care related to this initial procedure."

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A lesson for Britain's obesity hysterics

New evidence from America suggests that intervening in schools and forcing kids to eat, think and learn healthily does not make them slimmer

One of the conceits of anti-obesity campaigners is that they `know' how to prevent children from becoming fat. But if the results of a much-awaited study on one of the central pillars of fighting childhood obesity - school interventions for healthy eating - are anything to go by, then such school-based programmes are expensive failures.

In its new obesity strategy, the UK government has placed considerable emphasis on school-based interventions which are designed to reduce childhood obesity through including lessons about healthy eating, serving only `healthy food', involving parents, and using social marketing strategies designed to apply social pressure to `encourage' children to eat healthily. All of these, according to both the prime minister Gordon Brown and the health minister Alan Johnson, represent the best in evidence-backed approaches to reducing childhood obesity.

Unfortunately, this appears not to be the case. The journal Pediatrics has recently published the results of the Student Nutrition Policy Initiative (1), a US programme which includes almost all of the government's initiatives for tackling obesity - and the results demonstrate that the government's plans to prevent obesity in Britain's children are almost certain to fail.

In the School Nutrition Policy Initiative, which was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Centers for Disease Control, 10 inner-city Philadelphia schools were targeted. Over 1,300 students were divided into intervention and control schools. In the intervention schools, staff were instructed in healthy eating and physical activity and how to integrate these themes into their teaching. Students were provided with 50 hours of healthy eating instruction each year. Children, for instance, were taught writing through essay assignments on nutrition. Every food sold or served in the schools had to meet strict healthy eating standards and all vending machines were taken out of the schools. Perhaps most controversially, children who failed to eat properly were denied rewards such as sitting by friends or extra recess.

And what were the results of such massive obesity-prevention efforts? From the spin in the press, one would think that the children in the schools with all of the focus on healthy food, along with the stigma of being overweight, ended up weighing less. After all, this was about reducing and preventing overweight and obesity. For example, the website Science Daily reported the study as showing that `school-based intervention, which reduced the incidence of overweight by 50 per cent, offers a potential means of preventing childhood weight gain and obesity on a large scale' (2).

But this puts a rather one-sided spin on the results. According to the study, the percentage of obese children in the intervention schools actually increased by 1.25 per cent compared with an increase of 1.37 per cent in the schools which didn't get all the obesity-prevention measures. In other words, there was no statistically significant difference between the schools. As the researchers themselves admitted: `After two years, there were no differences between intervention and control schools in the prevalence of obesity.' Even more shocking, they reported that `the intervention had no effect at the upper end of the BMI distribution. on the incidence, prevalence, or remission of obesity'.

And what about all that attention to healthy eating? After all, the point was that kids would not only have less chance of getting fat, but that they would eat better, too. In the intervention schools, at the end of the two-year programme, the number of children who were eating `healthily', that is, eating the required amounts of vegetables and fruits, declined. These kids were eating fewer servings of fruits and vegetables than the kids who had no nutritional instruction and who attended school where `unhealthy' foods were served.

So, whether success was measured by changes in body mass index, eating patterns, or the numbers of kids who were overweight or obese, this massive social-engineering project that is supposed to serve as a model for Britain was a failure.

The anti-obesity activists and the government have continually said that the so-called obesity epidemic is all about children. And they have had confidently told us that they knew best how to deal with overweight and obese children. But the evidence - as opposed to the faith - suggests otherwise. It suggests that when it comes to food, obesity and children, the food nannies and the government really know next to nothing about what works.

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Assessing British children can only improve their education

The whingeing [whining] about tests for 11-year-olds last week was predictable and depressing. To sum up what Chris Woodhead says below: The "experts" are offering little more than feelgood crap

Last week MPs on the education select committee jumped on what might well now be an unstoppable bandwagon and demanded an urgent rethink of the national curriculum tests in primary schools. Terrified by the prospect of a poor league table position, too many schools were, its members argued, force-feeding their pupils. Joy, spontaneity and creativity have been driven from the classroom. Something must be done, and now.

The fact that the problem might lie not with the tests, but with teachers who cannot accept the principle of accountability does not seem to have occurred to the committee. Neither did its members explain how problems in failing schools can be solved if we do not know which schools are failing.

At the moment, children are assessed by teachers in English and maths at seven and sit more formal tests in English, maths and science at 11. Two periods of testing in four years of primary education. What’s wrong, moreover, with some preparation for tests if the tests assess worthwhile skill and knowledge?

I have to confess to a dreadful sense of deja vu. Sixteen years ago the then Tory education secretary, Ken Clarke, horrified by the sloppiness he found in many of the primary schools he visited, asked Robin Alexander and Jim Rose to research what became known as the Three Wise Men report. I was the third wise man, parachuted in later to represent the interests of the fledgling national curriculum.

Now Professor Alexander is heading up a review of primary education, funded by a charitable foundation, and Sir Jim Rose has been asked by ministers, eager not to be upstaged, to mount his own investigation – though testing has been excluded from the terms of his report.

In retrospect, the Three Wise Men report was one of my more amusing professional experiences. At the time it was a nightmare. Jim Rose is a nice man, but he is not the Clint Eastwood of primary education. Consensus makes his day. I found that Robin Alexander bridled at any challenge to his opinions. He elevated preciousness into an art form. Working with him was marginally less stressful than being married to Heather Mills.

It was touch and go, but in the end we did it, and Robin even turned up for the press conference. The importance of subject knowledge; the need for teachers to teach the whole class and to stop trying to engage individual pupils; the vital role of assessment: the report emphasised commonsense educational truths that had been drowned by a tsunami of child-centred 1960s twaddle.

For all his prickliness, I never knew what Robin Alexander really thought. Now I think I do. Interim reports from his review show that he may well be part of the malaise Ken Clarke tried to cure. Reading a recent lecture he gave, I found just one reference to “teaching”, and that very much in passing. Instead he waxed lyrical about how children are “natural and active learners”; how learning takes place everywhere; how children learn from each other and not just adults; and how “we need to engage with and listen to children, and not just talk at them”.

There is a truth, of course, in each of these platitudes. What worries me is the sub text, which actually is not that sub. Throughout the lecture he cites evidence that his inquiry has uncovered – of “the loss of childhood”, of the “overcrowded” primary curriculum, of our “high stakes national testing regime” and of “teachers’ anxieties about league tables, inspection and the somewhat punitive character of school accountability”. Professor Alexander may, of course, choose to reject this evidence but the burden of much that has been said thus far suggests this is unlikely.

My prediction would be that this primary review will reject most, if not all, of the educational reforms that have taken place since 1990. I can understand why teachers who never accepted these reforms might applaud. But why are so many politicians and parents buying into a proposition that would kill off any hope that state education might improve?

Isn’t it obvious? The better a teacher teaches, the more a child will learn. The key to higher standards is better teaching. By which I mean: teachers who have real knowledge of and passion for the subjects they teach, the highest possible expectations of each and every child, and, obviously, the classroom teaching skills needed to keep order and inspire and enthuse their pupils. We do not need research and reviews into the nature of primary education. We need a remorseless determination to implement these commonsense truths.

Plus, of course, a system of national testing. Robin Alexander appears to be siding with those in the world of education who hate the fact that the tests shine the bright light of accountability into the murky corners of failing and complacent schools. Thus far the government is defending the tests. For once ministers are doing the right thing.

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British grandmother overjoyed by go-ahead to sue over hospital superbug MRSA

A great-grandmother was "overjoyed" after being given the go-ahead to bring a test case against the National Health Service for allegedly infecting her with the MRSA superbug. Elizabeth Miller, 71, contracted MRSA while recovering from a heart operation at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary in 2001. Her legal team argues that a failure to implement the hospital's hand hygiene policy led to her infection.

Although patients have sued hospitals for failing to treat the superbug, no cases have been brought against the health service for giving it to patients. If successful, Mrs Miller's case could lead to scores of others.

Speaking after the Court of Session in Edinburgh ruled that a full hearing into the claim should be held, Mrs Miller said: "I really am overjoyed that we have won the first battle and I just feel it has taken a long, long time. The main thing is that the hospitals get cleaned up. It has ruined my life. I spend most of my life sitting in a chair, and depression is one of the worst things it has done. I just feel my life will never be the same again. But if the case can prevent it happening to someone else, that will be a bonus."

Mrs Miller, from Kilsyth, near Glasgow, is seeking damages of 30,000 pounds from NHS Greater Glasgow. She says that she can no longer play with her great-grandchildren because she is too unwell. Her legal team claims that she contracted the bug because of a series of errors that led to staff failing to wash their hands properly. The problems were understood to include faulty taps and sinks and a lack of soap and paper towels. According to court papers lodged on her behalf: "If the hospital's hand hygiene policy had been implemented, enforced and adhered to, Mrs Miller would not have become infected with MRSA."

Lawyers for the NHS board called for the legal action to be dismissed. They claim that the infection was identified and treated as early as possible and that a nasal swab taken from Mrs Miller did not rule out the possibility that she had MRSA before being admitted.

However, in a written ruling yesterday, Judge Lady Clark said that the case should proceed to a full hearing. She said that there were still some factual matters to be determined. A date has not been fixed yet for the full hearing.

Mrs Miller's solicitor, Cameron Fyfe, said that he had 160 other clients who intended to pursue similar claims if the case was successful. In some cases patients had died or lost limbs, and those claims could run into six figures, he suggested. Mr Fyfe added: "This is a big step forward. If at this final hearing we can prove that the hospital was to blame, Elizabeth will be compensated and it will open the door to hundreds of claims."

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Seasonal food only? Sod off, Gordon

Toilet-mouthed British celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has suggested we should only eat food `in season'. That would mean letting Nature tell us what to do

`Chefs should be fined if they haven't got ingredients in season on their menu. I don't want to see asparagus in the middle of December, I don't want to see strawberries from Kenya in the middle of March.' Gordon Ramsay, the world's sweariest chef, believes we should be eating local, seasonal food. What the f*ck?

`I want to see it homegrown. There should be stringent laws, fines and licensing laws to make sure produce is only used in season. If we get this legislation pushed through parliament then the more unique this country will become', added Ramsay, suggesting that we should be concerned with creating a distinctive national food culture and cutting down on food miles (1).

There have been plenty of people lining up to point out the hypocrisy of Ramsay's position. Food critic Jay Rayner, writing in the Observer, was reduced to nausea: `His declaration. that chefs who use ingredients that are neither local nor seasonal ought to be fined did make the bile rise. This is a man who operates a restaurant in Dubai, for God's sake, where absolutely nothing is local or seasonal. Everything arrives there from somewhere else, according to whatever season happens to be in progress in whichever hemisphere happens to be the most convenient at the time.' (2)

Even in his London restaurants, there are plenty of ingredients on Ramsay's menus that are far from seasonal and local. TV chef Anthony Worrall Thompson told the Telegraph: `I trawled through his menus from Claridges and Maze and there were at least 15 items that would have warranted a fine.' (3)

Strangely, while there were plenty of people willing to point out Ramsay's hypocrisy or question the practicality of criminalising the importation of food when the UK cannot grow enough food to meet its needs, most commentators seemed to think Ramsay had a point. His co-presenter on Channel 4's The F-Word, and fellow member of the rent-a-gob union, Janet Street-Porter, was quick to defend Ramsay from his critics: `He has a point, only slightly undermined by his driving a gas-guzzling vehicle and spending most of his time jetting around the globe to oversee his rapidly expanding restaurant empire. Eating out should mean we have a chance to enjoy great food created with local produce, rather than fish, meat and exotic veg flown in from the other side of the planet.' (4)

The fact that such an approach to `strawberries from Kenya' might have a negative impact on producers in the developing world has been widely ignored. It took Duncan Green from the charity Oxfam - an organisation with a dubious attachment to `sustainable development' - to point this out: `I'm sure the million farmers in East Africa who rely on exporting their goods to scrape a living would see Gordon Ramsay's assertions as a recipe for disaster.' (5)

This latest furore is typical of the confused discussion of food today. This was made clear to me recently during a debate I took part in at London's Real Food Festival. Ecologist publisher and Conservative Party environment adviser, Zac Goldsmith, told the gathered audience that local food was crucial - perhaps even more important for green foodies than organic food. But when a member of the audience who lived in inner-city London asked the panel how she could eat `local' food, Goldsmith was a bit stuck. It depends, said the billionaire's son, offering that `local' might mean the Caribbean if you were talking about bananas. So, `local' means anywhere within 4,500 miles?

In truth, the Real Food Festival illustrated the importance of going beyond local food for the sake of the kind of small, quirky producers so beloved of foodies and greens. While pottering around the stalls before the debate, I tried three-year-matured parmesan cheese from Italy, fruit-flavoured wine from Scotland and ready-made stews and soups from Yorkshire. One Shropshire pig farmer - sick of selling to the supermarkets for little or no profit - was selling direct to customers in London, roughly 200 miles away. Good for him - but it's hardly local, is it?

As for seasonal food, why shouldn't we aim to have all foods available to us all-year-round? In this respect, we should follow what Ramsay practises, not what we preaches. Why should we only be able to enjoy strawberries in the summer and autumn, or asparagus during the narrow northern season? Ramsay does have one slight point: sometimes this out-of-season produce isn't quite as tasty as the domestic, in-season equivalent. But that is a minor point. Far better to make these things available and allow us to choose than bow down before Mother Nature and put up with what she deigns to give us.

If eating such food has negative consequences for the planet - and it is far from clear that it does - then surely the right approach is to figure out how to get the benefits of a global food market without the negative side effects. But this problem-solving approach doesn't fit into the moralising and often authoritarian approach to consumption so typical today, exemplified by Ramsay's demand to criminalise chefs.

Even worse was Ramsay's less-reported comment about TV food goddess Delia Smith's new book, How to Cheat at Cooking. Smith has endeavoured to get as much of the benefit of made-from-scratch cooking while finding ways to cut a few corners. Trying to find a halfway house between the slog of `proper' cooking and the takeaway should have received the approval of Ramsay, who has campaigned in the past to get people cooking more. No chance. `I would expect students struggling on 15 pounds a week to survive eating from a can but the nation's favourite, all-time icon reducing us down to using frozen, canned food - it's an insult', he said (6). As I can testify from personal experience, Smith's new recipes are, by and large, excellent. Of course, Ramsay isn't going to use tinned meat in his cooking (though it is surprising how many top restaurants buy their chips from McCain's). But to seek to impose his snobbery on the rest of us really is an insult.

In the past, Ramsay was the TV chef who stood for excellence and took little interest in politically-correct concerns about food miles and sustainability. But in recent times, perhaps because he's been spending too much time in the company of campaigning cooks like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver, he's started to come out with just the same junk ideas that they promote. As the vulgar-tongued Ramsay might put it, this more-ethical-than-thou approach to food is just f*cking sh*t.

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UK: Call for sell-off of Royal Mail: "The postal regulator has called for Royal Mail to be partly privatised to safeguard the quality of the UK's mail delivery service. Postcomm warned that Royal Mail's financial difficulties would worsen unless bold action was taken. Nigel Stapleton, Postcomm's chairman, told the BBC that without private sector involvement, Royal Mail may require a government subsidy." [Privatizing the post-office! An excellent idea!]


Oil in England's green and pleasant land? "More than 200 communities in the English countryside may be sitting on billions of pounds of undiscovered oil, according to prospectors. Scores of greenfield sites across southern and eastern England are being mapped for viability as world oil prices soar. The Government has received 60 applications from 54 companies to explore 182 plots, but is keeping the details confidential because they are commercially sensitive. Villages, hamlets or new estates will learn about a prospector's interest only if permission is sought to drill or extract oil. The Times has learnt that rural locations from the South Downs to the Lincolnshire Wolds have been designated potential oilfields. There is a 70-mile stretch of small oil deposits in limestone and sandstone from Poole in Dorset, through Hampshire to West Sussex, and pockets in Surrey, the East Midlands and South Wales".

POOR BRITANNIA: GREEN FOLLIES COMING HOME TO ROOST

Vast expenditures on Green fantasies that achieve nothing (such as huge expenditure on windmills with negligible output) plus extensive Greenie restrictions on activities that ARE productive (such as use of GM crops) have their inevitable outcome

The British economy faces the real risk of falling into recession, the Governor of the Bank of England has admitted. Mervyn King warned families to brace themselves for a further "squeeze" on household finances as rising energy bills and food prices continue to rise. Mr King said that inflation was set to increase sharply to about 3.7 per cent - almost double the official target. As a result most British people will feel poorer this year as pay rises fail to keep pace with rising costs.

The Governor - who said that "the nice decade is behind us" - also warned homeowners that property prices would fall further and that it was impossible to predict the scale of the decline.

He became the first senior public figure to openly discuss the possibility that the British economy may now be heading for recession. The economy was "travelling along a bumpy road" and that a sharp downturn could not be ruled out, he said. The comments are some of the most stark issued by the Bank and indicate growing concern within Government over the economic prospects for the country. The prospects for the British economy have worsened since the Bank's last inflation report in February.

Mr King made his comments as official figures revealed unemployment rose last month and Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, conceded that British families needed help to deal with rising fuel, food and energy costs. Mr King said: "There is going to be a sharp slowing in growth. It is quite possible that at some point we may get an odd quarter or two of negative growth, but recession is not the central projection...But clearly further shocks could push us in that direction." The technical definition of recession is two or more consecutive quarters of negative growth, a situation last seen in 1991.

The Governor added: "As price increases feed through to household bills, they will lead to a squeeze on real take-home pay, which will slow consumer spending and output growth, perhaps sharply." Mr King's mention of "the nice decade" is a reference to the acronym "non-inflationary consistent expansion" used by economists to describe the sort of growth since Labour came to power.

His intervention followed the disclosure that housing minister Caroline Flint backed independent forecasts suggesting prices will fall by between five and ten per cent this year. On Tuesday it was disclosed that inflation had seen its biggest increase in six years to three per cent. The average family was calculated to be 600 pounds worse off compared to a year ago as a result.

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Customer service in Britain: It's non-existent

I am putting this up because the reports below mirror my own experience of Britain. I think they are even worse than the Indian bureaucracy -- and that's private British firms as well as government that I am talking about. Maybe Zimbabwe is worse

Go abroad. That is the only sensible conclusion to draw from the huge online reaction to Weekend's article last month on customer service in Britain. Singapore does it better, so does Japan, so does Canada. Even the French, once fabled for their rudeness, get your approval. "In France, medical staff take pride in patient care," reported Geoff Miller. "In Britain, they are obtuse, bureaucratic, unhelpful."

India also gets the thumbs-up. "A good shopkeeper looks after his customer whether the customer buys anything or not," wrote Sridhar Rao, contrasting the care and attention shown by Indian shopkeepers selling saris with the "abominable" service at PC World.

Not that emigrating did the trick for Graham, a retired Barclays employee. To continue paying his pension, his erstwhile employer requires him to supply evidence every six months that he is still alive - an exercise that has involved him in an interminable round of ignored emails and emails that took three weeks to get a response. "Revolution!" mused Graham at his hideaway in the sun. "Now there's a thought..." Thank you for taking the trouble to name and shame the worst offenders. All the usual suspects were there, with BT and British Airways leading the field.

It was hard to know whether to feel more sorry for Dave Coomber, being shunted from one operator to another as BT tried to work out if he had a "fault" or a "technical problem" - he thought they were synonymous, poor sap - or for Nikki Brown, gearing herself up to tackle the BA customer service department about some missing luggage. When she was told that customer service would not be accepting any calls for the next four weeks because it was still clearing a backlog of complaints arising from a spell of bad weather nine months previously, her patience snapped. It would have taken "the resilience and determination of an Antarctic explorer" to beat the system.

Other organisations to incur your wrath were WH Smith in Cheshire ("the cashiers seemed to feel that acknowledging the customers except to take payment was forbidden"); Boots online, whose asinine emails reduced Sylvia Chapman to a screaming banshee; the Abbey bank ("worst ever customer service"); and a London branch of HSBC, where Emily Fleming suffered a double whammy of "rock music blaring from wall speakers" and "tellers who resembled a pair of zombies".

HSBC clearly needs to raise its game. Fred Wall, visiting his local branch, was spared the loud music, but was snookered by a super-polite branch manager who told him to "take a wee seat" while he sorted out his problem. Fred took his wee seat, while the manager, as far as he could see, did nothing.

It was the sense of "being given the runaround" - passed from unhelpful official A to unhelpful official B - that really irked Telegraph readers. Brian Simpson contacted Sterling Airlines to try to trace an item that his wife had lost on a flight from Gatwick to Stockholm. He ended up being referred to the Copenhagen police department. You have to laugh.

All Mark Roberts wanted from the Department for Work and Pensions was a simple calculation of an overpayment to his late father. That was the start of a surreal 10-month round of phone calls shuttling his inquiries from Salford to Gloucester to Dearne Valley to Stornoway to Corby and back to Stornoway.

You all had your bugbears, from automated answering systems to teenage cashiers chatting to their friends on mobile phones. For Andrew Parsons, the worst of the lot were medical receptionists - "trained by ex-KGB interrogators of General rank to look at you like you are in the gutter whilst trying to extract the information".

In fairness, even though most readers seemed to share my despair at the standard of customer service in Britain, a significant minority took the opposite view. Organisations that received bouquets for their service included Virgin Atlantic, school examination boards, the Arcade Bookshop in Chandler's Ford, Hampshire, and the staff at Sudbury Hill station.

Several of you argued that customers had to treat staff with respect, not just demand service as of feudal right. "Try working on the other side of the counter," advised Edward Westcott, "and see the snobbery, arrogance and downright rudeness that some customers display to shop workers. Think about when you are at the till on your mobile or talking to your companions behind you while you fling your credit card at the assistant. Civility works both ways." Touche. Norman, another shop worker, made a similar point. "I could write a book on the amount of abuse I have received over the years." His biggest gripe was the increasing tendency of customers to complain loud and long in the hope of getting compensation. One customer claimed that he missed his holiday flight because he had been sold a pint of milk that went off, then demanded hundreds of pounds' compensation.

One of the underlying themes of your emails, with their Kafkaesque tales of ordinary citizens entangled in red tape and bureaucracy, is the debilitating pace of modern life: too many people in too much of a hurry to find the time to smile.

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Incompetent British medical care kills young mother

Woman dies because nobody gave a stuff

A young mother who developed complications during a home birth died after a midwife lacked the confidence to inject her with fluids, an inquest was told. There was also a delay in giving Joanne Whale treatment that could have saved her life in hospital after another midwife failed to pass on information to the doctors there.

Dr Peter Dean, the Greater Suffolk Coroner, said that lessons must be learnt from her death and that women should be made more aware of the dangers of home births. He also demanded better communication between midwives and doctors.

Miss Whale, 23, gave birth to a healthy boy at home in Ipswich last September. But she died hours later after a severe haemorrhage. When Ms Whale began to lose blood she needed an injection of fluids. Julie Bates, a midwife, said that she had been trained in the process but had never had to use it. "I've got the theoretical knowledge but not the practical knowledge," she said. "I felt uncomfortable having to do that in this situation." She added: "Knowing the ambulance was only a few minutes away I thought it was better to leave it for the proper paramedics."

The inquest was also told that Miss Whale's arrival at hospital had been delayed because the paramedics had found it difficult to remove her from an upstairs bedroom. Martin Hambling, who was in the first of two ambulances to arrive after a 999 call, said: "Extraction was extremely difficult because of the layout of the house. We had to negotiate several sharp turns."

Miss Whale was taken to Ipswich Hospital but doctors were not told the exact nature of her condition, which led to a delay in getting her to the operating theatre. Sarah Hall, another midwife, admitted that she did not pass on information that Miss Whale had suffered an inverted uterus during labour. Marlar Raja, a specialist registrar in gynaecology at the hospital, said that the patient would have been taken straight to the theatre if she had been made aware.

Balroop Johal, a consultant gynaecologist, said: "The staff were expecting a retained placenta. If they had been told that it was a complete inversion of the uterus she would almost certainly have gone straight to theatre and I would have been ready for her."

Dr John Chapman, who carried out the postmortem examination, said that Miss Whale died as a result of the inverted uterus causing a uterine haemorrhage. Her body was in so much shock that her blood failed to clot, adding to extensive bleeding.

Dr Dean recorded a narrative verdict of death from complications after an obstetric home delivery. He said he was surprised that midwives would not be confident in injecting life-saving fluids. "It does worry me a lot that mothers are giving birth in the community and the first line of call is the midwife, who might not be able to get fluid into her in those crucial early moments. That needs to be addressed. "We can't be certain that, had these things been done, she would have survived. All we can say is the chances of survival would have been greater."

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NHS kills another young woman

No mention of clotting factors being used

A woman bled to death after her second child was born in hospital, an inquest was told yesterday. Samima Yasmin, 26, had placenta previa - which can lead to complications during birth such as haemorrhaging - diagnosed during the 24th week of her pregnancy. At 35 weeks Mrs Yasmin, from South Shields, Tyne and Wear, had an emergency Caesarean section at South Tyneside District Hospital after suffering complications, including excessive bleeding.

Severe bleeding continued after the delivery of her son, Muzzamil Ali, in 2005, the South Tyneside coroner was told before recording a narrative verdict on Mrs Yasmin, who also had an 18-month-old son.

Hami Fawzi, a consultant at the hospital, said: "The patient was losing a lot of blood and we were trying to pump as much blood and fluids back in as we could. We felt we were on top of replacing what needed to be replaced, but it is difficult to tell how much exactly was lost. In hindsight, there was an underestimation . . . We decided to let her pass peacefully." [Big of him! Sounds unethical] Doctors described it as one of the worst cases of uncontrollable blood loss they had ever seen.

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Politicized British police apologise (and pay up) for calling mosque documentary "fake"

The Crown Prosecution Service and West Midlands Police will apologise in the High Court today for wrongly accusing a Channel 4 film of faking an expose of Islamic extremism. The producers of Undercover Mosque, a Dispatches investigation that showed preachers predicting jihad and calling for the murder of non-believers, have also accepted a six-figure libel settlement.

The programme, screened last January, showed footage gathered at a number of mosques in the West Midlands using hidden cameras. It included one preacher who praised the Taleban for killing British soldiers. Another, Abu Usamah, a preacher at the Green Lane mosque in Birmingham, was filmed saying: “If I were to call homosexuals perverted, dirty, filthy dogs who should be murdered, that is my freedom of speech isn't it?”

However, instead of pursuing a prosecution of the preachers, police and the CPS began an investigation into the producers, accusing them of selective editing and distortion. The film-makers were accused of undermining community relations. The police took the highly unusual step of referring Dispatches to Ofcom, the media watchdog.

Ofcom threw out the complaint. It found that the programme had “accurately represented the material it had gathered and dealt with the subject matter responsibly and in context”. It was a “legitimate investigation, uncovering matters of important public interest”. Each quote was “justified by the narrative of the programme and put fully in context”.

Hardcash Productions, which made the film, joined Channel 4 in a libel complaint against the police and CPS over the “distortion” claim. West Midlands Police and CPS will apologise unreservedly for comments that they accept were incorrect and unjustified. They said that there was “no evidence that the broadcaster or programme-makers had misled the audience or that the programme was likely to encourage or incite criminal activity”.

MPs criticised the police and the CPS, which dropped any prosecution of Channel 4 because of “insufficient evidence”, for trying to censor television producers. David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, said: “Police scrutiny of editorial decisions of a television producer is not only an inappropriate law enforcement function, it also risks deterring legitimate investigative journalism.” Don Foster, the Liberal Democrats' media spokesman, said: “What the police thought they were doing in the first place is beyond me.”

David Henshaw, the managing director of Hardcash Productions, said: “This was a detailed one-hour documentary, made over nine months and at personal risk to the undercover reporter. The abhorrent and extreme comments made by fundamentalist preachers in the film speak for themselves.” He added: “They [the preachers] later claimed they had been taken out of context — but no one has explained the correct context for arguing that women are 'born deficient', that homosexuals should be thrown off mountains, and that ten-year-old girls should be hit if they refuse to wear the hijab.”

Kevin Sutcliffe, deputy head of current affairs at Channel 4, said: “This is a total vindication of the programme team.” A spokesman for West Midlands Police said: “We have paid a sum agreed with the programme-makers into a charity of their choice.” The substantial damages will be donated to the Rory Peck Trust, which supports the families of journalists killed in the line of work. The CPS declined to comment.

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British police try to shoot the messenger

As you can see above, the politicized British police have just been forced to eat crow.

Some British documentary makers went around British mosques undercover and filmed various Mullahs inciting violence against unbelievers. The resulting film was shown on British TV.

So what did the police do? What the Mullahs said was clearly in breach of British law against preaching violence so the police went and rounded up all the Mullahs concerned -- right? In your dreams! The cops prosecuted the film-makers instead! They said the film stirred up hatred. It was a truly Orwellian inversion of what actually happened -- that it was the Mullahs who were stirring up hatred.

Anyway the wheels of justice eventually ground down the nonsense and the police were rightly sued over their perverse actions. They have now paid a big sum in compensation and apologized for their actions.

But, amid all the furore, the Muslim hate-speech has remained protected. It appears that none of the Muslim hate-speakers recorded in the film have been prosecuted or will be prosecuted. The main aim of the police exercise -- protecting Muslims from the standards that others have to obey -- has been achieved.






A convenient silence in Britain

Prof. Brignell writes:

Two years ago Number Watch drew attention to the phenomenon of Greenflation and its inevitable consequences. It is a remarkable tribute to the power of political and journalistic blinkering that the Governor of the Bank of England can now make a speech about the present, very real and very serious, problem of inflation, and the BBC can report it, without a single reference to the fact that this time it is the result of deliberate policy.

It is not, of course, these days a unique occurrence that the establishment media politely sweep under the carpet anything that is an inconvenient truth (to coin a phrase): you only have to look at the coverage of the destruction of British postal services or the garbage collection farce, without any mention of authorship by the EU, for glaring examples among the many.

Since that first mention of Greenflation there has been added a third string to the bow of the activists. Not only have they fostered draconian rises in taxation and systematically blocked the development of abundant energy resources, but they have now promoted an equally disastrous international programme of biofuels, heavily subsidised (of course) by taxpayers.

High food and fuel prices are now officially described as "external factors", when they are in fact foreseeable and unavoidable outcomes of policies embraced by governments themselves. Fuel, in particular, affects the price of everything.

Clearly, as with the DDT ban, it matters little that millions of people in the poorer parts of the world will suffer deprivation and death, but now ordinary people in the developed world are feeling the pain. The new factor is that they no longer have the power to vote out those responsible. Europeans are governed by an unelected and unsackable bureaucracy in

Brussels, while Americans are offered a choice between three green presidential candidates. That is the consequence of the rise of a new complacent political class, divorced from the laws of physics and economics.

There are times in human history when the only way is down. This is one of them. Up to now the human spirit has risen from the ashes, eventually and triumphantly to overcome such disasters, but it has never before had to face a universal political machine of such single-minded potency.

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Lazy NHS doctor nearly kills little girl

No diagnostic tests for peasants! Just take an aspirin. She's half blind now but the doctor will suffer no consequences. And what nobody is mentioning is WHY TB has resurfaced in Britain: "Refugees" from Africa bring it with them. Being kind to such refugees has sent a little British girl half blind

For three days, Katie Roberts lay unresponsive on a paediatric ward. The two-year-old's eyes were shut, her face sallow, and the drips taped to her arms only accentuated her wasted limbs. Katie had been ill for nearly a month with a high temperature, sickness and weight loss which her GP had repeatedly blamed on a virus. "It all started when Katie developed a slight temperature and came out in a rash,' says her mother Sarah, 27, from Grantham, Lincs. "The GP diagnosed mild chickenpox. But a week later, Katie had a high temperature and was vomiting. The weight fell off her. "The doctor's answer was always the same - it was a virus. I remember sitting in my car after yet another appointment, in floods of tears and so frustrated," recalls the auxiliary nurse. "My child was dying and no one cared. No one took her temperature, let alone did blood tests."

After three weeks, in desperation, Sarah and her husband Martin, 27, took Katie to A&E at Grantham Hospital. Katie was immediately transferred to a specialist paediatric ward in Lincoln where she had a brain scan, a lumbar puncture to check for meningitis and dozens of blood tests. "Doctors suggested she had everything from chickenpox to cancer, but all tests came back negative," says Sarah. Despite being on large doses of antibiotics, Katie was showing no signs of recovery.

Three days later, a doctor asked if she'dcome into contact with anyone who had TB. That question probably saved her life. She had indeed been exposed - through her aunt's boyfriend, James. He had been diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis, TB of the lungs, 18 months earlier - although he never found out how he had contracted it. Before the era of antibiotics and vaccinations, tuberculosis was responsible for thousands of deaths in the UK every year. But while many think the disease had been eradicated, around 8,000 cases of TB are still reported in the UK every year, mostly in major cities (just last month, 30 pupils at a secondary school in Birmingham were diagnosed with TB). Not all tuberculosis is infectious, but pulmonary TB is.

Two weeks after James started his antibiotic treatment, he was no longer infectious. But it had taken four months to diagnose him, meaning he'd had the potential to infect others during that time. Katie was moved into isolation.

Doctors explained she could have TB meningitis, a complication caused when the bacteria - mycobacterium tuberculosis - migrates to the lining of the brain and forms When these abscesses burst, they create inflammation which puts pressure on the brain. Without antibiotics to combat the bacteria, and steroids to reduce the swelling - the consequences would be catastrophic. There was a serious risk of brain damage, sight or hearing loss and septicaemia, leading to loss of limbs - and if the infection got out of control, organ failure and death.

Although doctors weren't certain, no time could be wasted. Katie was started on four antibiotics specifically for the disease via a gastric tube. She was also given steroids to reduce the inflammation in her brain and blood was sent off for analysis. It was then a waiting game. Gradually, after a few days, her fevers lessened and she stayed awake for longer - the results of the tests confirmed she did have the disease.

As their daughter recovered, Sarah and Martin foundthemselves increasingly angry about the needlessness of their ordeal - and how the doctors' lack of awareness could have killed Katie. Since James's diagnosis of TB 18 months earlier, Sarah had been anxious that Katie could catch the disease. But her GP had insisted there was no risk, because James saw Katie only once a week, for a few hours.

According to the UK charity TB Alert, the doctor's reaction was typical, demonstrating the general lack of awareness among healthcare professionals. "Because tuberculosis has been dealt with so effectively in the past 50 years, many GPs, particularly those away from the high-risk areas such as London, will never have seen the disease," says Melanie Matthews, of TB Alert. "But it's on the increase, and as people travel can spread to socalled unaffected areas. There is also a complacency that it can be easily treated with antibiotics and is no longer dangerous. "In fact, for those who have weak immune systems, such as infants or elderly people, left untreated it can be fatal."

Another problem is that Government guidelines for screening those in contact with a sufferer are open to interpretation. The Department of Health makes it clear that the decision is down to individual clinics, while The National Institute for Clinical Excellence guidelines state that people who are in close contact with the TB sufferer should be tested and given precautionary antibiotics. Screening can be in the form of a blood test, a skin test or a chest X-ray. Katie had been exposed to active tuberculosis and was showing classic symptoms. Yet no one put the clues together until it was almost too late.

After three weeks, she was discharged from hospital, but was so weak she needed physiotherapy to build up her muscles. Fighting the disease is a long journey - Katie will take antibiotics for a year, until at least November this year. The family initially thought Katie might have got away unscathed, but this wasn't the case. Two weeks later, Katie was bumping into things or reaching out for a toy and missing it.

"The consultant ophthalmologist agreed Katie's sight was deteriorating, but felt it might be a repairable side-effect from one of the antibiotics," remembers Sarah. "We stopped giving her the drug but her sight kept deteriorating and a few days later she couldn't even see her hands. A scan confirmed the worst. "A few TB abscesses had swollen up again and were pushing onto the optic nerve - she was virtually blind. She was given 30mg of steroids a day to reduce the swelling." For two weeks, the family watched desperately for any sign of improvement, but her eyesight didn't improve. They were then warned their daughter's sight was unlikely to recover. "We were basically told to start organising our home around the needs of a blind child," says Sarah. "It all seemed so unfair. The one person I didn't blame was James. He'd done nothing wrong except become ill."

Unbeknown to the family, the consultant tracked down a doctor in Newcastle who'd had some success with a similar case by giving the child a huge short-term dose of steroids. "She called and said she wanted to double the dose from 30mgs to 60mgs a day," says Sarah. "We knew there might be side-effects such as liver damage and growth retardation, but if it saved her sight it would be worth it." And after three days, Katie's sight began to return. "To our relief, by the end of the two weeks it was back to 50 per cent of normal," recalls Sarah. Despite this, no one knows if Katie will have any long-term neurological damage. She has also gained weight from the high doses of steroids.

But having regained 50 per cent of her sight, Katie - who is now three-and-a-half - will be able to attend mainstream school and live a relatively normal life. "I hope that everyone who reads this realises the danger of underestimating TB," says Sarah. "It's on the increase and is not just confined to the inner cities or high-risk groups. And, as this story shows, it can still wreck lives."

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BIOFOOLS: GREEN CRAZE HITS BRITISH FAMILIES TOO

Millions of families are having to spend almost 1,000 pounds a year extra on food after more punishing price rises. The annual increase in the price of a basket of essentials surged to 19.1 per cent in May, according to the Daily Mail Cost of Living Index. The rate has jumped alarmingly from 15.5 per cent in April - a 3.6 per cent rise - and there is no sign of the pressure easing. There is now a worldwide crisis over supplies of key crops such as corn, wheat and rice. It has triggered food riots in some countries. And in the UK it has brought the biggest rises in bills in a generation.

A family which spent 100 pounds a week on food last year now has to find another 19.10 for the same products, equivalent to 993 a year. Once "must-pay" bills for petrol, mortgages, power and council tax are added, the extra cost is more like 2,200 pounds. Yet the official inflation rate is just 2.6per cent.

Experts say a worldwide drive to produce biofuels - made from corn, wheat and soya as an alternative to oil - is a major factor. Farmers have switched from food production to biofuel crops. Last month, the EU agreed the biofuel content of all petrol and diesel should be 2.5 per cent. This is set to rise to 10 per cent by 2020.

But the Government's two most senior scientists, Professor John Beddington and Professor Robert Watson, have called for a rethink on the rush to biofuels. Professor Beddington said: "It's very hard to imagine the world growing enough crops to produce renewable energy and at the same time meet the enormous demand for food." Gordon Brown is understood to be preparing to call on the EU to scrap the plan.

More here





Socialists decide not to destroy Britain's finance industry after all: "The Treasury has succumbed to sustained pressure from big business and agreed to water down controversial proposals to change the UK corporate tax regime. Several big multinational British companies had said that they were prepared to move their headquarters from the UK amid concerns that the Treasury was preparing to tax the profits they derived overseas. A Treasury spokesman confirmed yesterday that the department had drawn up a new set of tax plans after extensive consulation with UK companies. The move will be seen as another embarrassing government climbdown. The spokesman said that new proposals would be put out to consultation in mid-June, with a view to introducing legislative changes next year. Sir Martin Sorrell, the chief executive of WPP, threatened to move the advertising giant offshore, following a lead set by Shire, the pharmaceuticals business, and United Business Media, the publishing group. Other companies looking at moving their headquarters outside the UK for tax reasons include Aberdeen Asset Management, the fund manager, and Brit Insurance and Chaucer, the Lloyd's of London insurers. Smith & Nephew, the medical equipment firm, and Old Mutual, the insurance and fund management group, have both refused to rule out a departure.... Treasury sources said that the Government would move ahead with legislation only if it had secured the broad agreement of business and would not rule out abandoning the proposals."

Filipino whose wife died after blunder by British hospital to be deported

Governments justify their asylum policies for refugees on the grounds of compassion but there seems to be no compassion here

A man whose wife died as a result of an NHS blunder has lost his right to remain in Britain, in what a coroner described yesterday as an "extraordinary" decision.

Arnel Cabrera, 39, came to Britain from the Philippines in 2003 to join his wife, Mayra, a theatre nurse, who worked at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon. But a year later, Mrs Cabrera died at the same hospital after she was given an epidural during the birth of the couple's child which was mistakenly injected into her arm. The baby survived. An inquest returned a verdict of unlawful killing and found the NHS trust had been guilty of gross negligence. Now the Home Office has told Mr Cabrera he has failed in his bid to remain in the UK.

David Masters, the Wiltshire coroner who presided over the inquest, said yesterday: "This is extraordinary. In view of the verdict reached at the inquest I find it difficult to appreciate how the Home Office has reached this decision." In its letter of refusal, the Home Office said Mr Cabrera had "not established a family life with his son in the United Kingdom". It added: "As his son remains in the Philippines there are no insurmountable obstacles to his family life being continued overseas."

Alex Rook, the solicitor who handled Mr Cabrera's immigration case, said: "This is an absolutely dreadful decision. If Arnel's wife had not been killed, the family would be living happily here. I will be writing to the relevant Home Office ministers asking them to reconsider their decision." He added: "His wife is killed by one part of the Government [the NHS], then Arnel is told by another part of the Government that he has to leave." Mr Rook said Mr Cabrera had taken his son, Zac, to the Philippines to be looked after by family until the inquest and related legal proceedings had concluded in the UK, but it was always his intention to build a future in Britain.

Mr Cabrera's personal injury lawyer, Seamus Edney, also reacted with disgust. "I am staggered by this decision and embarrassed on behalf of our government," he said. "Arnel was permitted to reside in Britain on the basis that his wife was working - but when she is unlawfully killed by gross negligence by the NHS, he is told he is no longer welcome." In a statement issued before Mr Cabrera lost his right to remain in the UK, he said he hoped the Government would show him "compassion". He added: "I have been unable to return to the Philippines during this difficult period and I desperately miss my young son, Zachary." A spokesman for the Home Office said: "All applications for leave to enter or remain in the UK are carefully considered on their individual merits."

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Up to 5,000 beds facing axe in NHS cancer shake-up

The government plans to close up to 5,000 beds on cancer wards in a reorganisation of the way patients are treated, according to a report by experts in the disease. Government figures show the National Health Service aims to save up to 500m pounds a year from an “inpatient management programme” that it describes as preventing unnecessary hospital admissions and reducing the length of time patients spend in hospital. Cancer doctors and health economists say the changes could make better use of money for cancer treatment but accuse the government of hiding the extent of the bed closures from the public.

The report by Nick Bosanquet, professor of health policy at Imperial College School of Medicine, London, and Professor Karol Sikora, medical director of CancerPartnersUK, a private cancer treatment company, comes as a shake-up of NHS hospitals, led by Lord Darzi, the health minister, is expected to include widespread closures of maternity hospitals and accident and emergency units.

Bosanquet and Sikora have analysed figures published by the government as part of its Cancer Reform Strategy in December. They reveal the efficiency savings the NHS will need to make in order to pay for better radiotherapy and screening programmes. “My worry,” said Sikora, “is that the only way the Cancer Reform Strategy adds up financially is by massive bed closures to produce the funding for the huge deficits in both radiotherapy and cancer drugs. “Up to 5,000 beds will need to disappear in England to make the spreadsheet balance. How else will the money be saved? Interestingly, the financials are not in the strategy document but hidden in an obscure corner of the Department of Health website.”

The government said cancer services must change so that patients can receive chemotherapy and radiotherapy during day trips to local clinics without going to hospital. It is also centralising specialist cancer care in larger hospitals where there is the expertise to get the best results. The government has been forced to review NHS cancer treatment after studies showed that, despite spending comparable amounts on the disease as other European countries, Britain still has some of the worst survival rates.

Bosanquet, who was chairman of the Cancer Reform Strategy value for money group, said cutting beds could make better use of NHS funds but added the government should be more open about its plans. “The Department of Health has put forward aspirations that must inevitably be to lower bed use in cancer services by around 5,000,” he said. “To save 500m, which is urgently needed to build up these community centres, they will need to reduce bed use in cancer services and the best estimate is that it would be by about 5,000 beds. I would urge the Department of Health to be a lot more open about it.”

Sikora maintained that while cancer patients can receive chemotherapy and radiotherapy during daytime visits to local cancer clinics some patients will be so sick they will need to stay in hospital. He said these patients did not need high-tech beds in large hospitals, which cost about 400 pounds a day, but could be cared for by nurses in cottage hospitals.

The Department of Health denied beds on cancer wards will be closed. A spokeswoman said: “We are not planning to close beds, rather we are identifying efficiency gains by using new models of care and streamlining existing inpatient care.”

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Foreign criminals work at British airports unchecked

Thousands of foreigners are being allowed to work in high security parts of Britain's airports without passing proper criminal record checks. There is no bungledom like British bungledom. If there have been no Islamic attacks on aircraft operating out of Britain, it is not because of British airport security. It seems that even Osama bin Laden would get a pass to work at a British airport

Despite warnings that terrorists would try to recruit people working "airside" in terminals - with direct access to aircraft and baggage - no attempt has been made to check whether foreign workers have committed any offences abroad. The vetting process checks only for crimes committed in Britain. Foreign workers - arriving from inside or outside the European Union - are not checked in their country of origin. This means that someone with a conviction for firearms or explosives offences committed abroad could, for example, take a job loading bags on to aircraft at Heathrow, Gatwick or any other airport, provided they had committed no crimes here.

The security lapse was called "absolutely astonishing" by David Davis, the shadow home secretary, who demanded "full and immediate checks". Ministers ordered a review of airport security after Samina Malik - the "lyrical terrorist" - was found to have been working in the airside branch of WH Smith at Heathrow. And eight British Muslims are on trial for allegedly plotting to blow up transatlantic airliners using bombs disguised as soft drinks.

The Department for Transport's head of aviation security said last year that the next terrorist attack "would have the components available airside with the help of people who work there". There are an estimated 200,000 staff in the "airside" parts of airports employed in shops, cafes or as cleaners in the departure lounge. Others may be employed as baggage handlers, security guards or driving buses between aircraft and the terminal.

The Government brought in emergency rules in 2003 to improve airport security after September 11. Staff working airside were to be vetted to ensure they had no criminal record and had a checkable employment history for the previous five years. However, last night's BBC2 Newsnight disclosed that officials checked only British criminal records - and that no attempt had been made to find out about any crimes in their home countries. Experts said that meant thousands of foreign workers were not vetted properly. The Government said that it did not want to carry out foreign criminal record checks because it would take too long and involve complicated comparisons between legal systems in different countries.

Mr Davis called for immediate foreign security checks on all people working airside regardless of cost. "This is astonishing given airside at an airport is one of the most vulnerable and critical security points," he said. "It is doubly astonishing the Government have let it continue to exist." Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: "It's crazy to have an elaborate system of checks for British employees but completely ignore potential problems from somebody from another country."

Asked on Newsnight whether convicted EU terrorists could be working at Heathrow, Jim Fitzpatrick, the transport minister, said: "What we're absolutely confident of is that any individual who is working at our airports would have to go through the same screening process as anybody who wants to travel or anybody else who is working at our airports to make sure they are safe when they are working in that restricted zone area." Pilots called for anyone suspected of having a criminal past to be banned from working airside.

The loophole is the latest in the controversy over foreign nationals. In April 2006, Charles Clarke resigned as home secretary after it emerged that 1,013 foreign prisoners, including sex offenders and murderers, were not deported on release from prison. Last year the Home Office admitted 11,000 illegal immigrants were working in the security industry. That came months after it emerged that 27,529 records of British nationals convicted of crimes abroad had been left in box files at the Home Office when they should have been entered on a police database. This year the Crown Prosecution Service admitted losing 4,000 DNA profiles for more than a year. When the checks finally started in February 2008 since when 15 matches were found. Of these people, 11 are known to have committed offences - some serious - in the UK.

Jim McAuslan, the general secretary of the pilots' union Balpa, said: "If it's good enough for pilots it should be good enough for anyone else that's working airside and these checks need to be carried out on everyone."

A spokesman for the Department for Transport said all airside workers were required to go through the same checks that passengers have to pass through. He said: "Enforcing a check on overseas records would require the co-operation of a large number of foreign countries involving delays and complex comparisons of international legal systems. "It would also have a major impact on an international airport's day-to-day operations, including preventing many foreign aircrews from landing in the UK. "However, this practical difficulty should not prevent us from requiring checks of UK records. Neither is such a check required by International Aviation Security bodies."

A spokesman for the airports operator BAA said: "We work very closely with the Department for Transport and ultimately with the Government to take a view on what security measures are appropriate." A spokesman for the industry body, The International Air Transport Association, added that conditions were laid down by national governments. He said that airlines applied whatever checks were required to by their own authorities, but said security was a national responsibility.

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BLACK DAYS FOR BRITISH GREENS: NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE ANYMORE

An amusing cry of woe from an ecofascist below. The Fascists versus the people and the people look like having the last say

Gordon Brown, Ken Livingstone and 300 Labour councillors were not the only casualties of the local and London elections. No one seems to have noticed, but the other big losers were those people who care about the environment. We might just look back on May Day 2008 as the moment when the power of green politics peaked and went into reverse. I hope I'm wrong, but I doubt it. The reaction of the two main parties to the elections was instructive. Desperate to prop up his own position after Labour's rout, Mr Brown needed to toss a few bones to the voters and jittery Labour backbenchers. So it suddenly emerged that he was about to dump the so-called "bin tax" - allowing councils to charge householders who do not recycle their rubbish. Downing Street didn't confirm it, and five token pilot schemes will go ahead, but it's clear the bin tax has been binned.

Brown allies also floated the idea that the 2p rise in fuel duty might be shelved again. No doubt this was an attempt to placate motorists. As well as being anti-green, it was a surprise, since the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, will need all the revenue he can get when he delivers his pre-Budget report in the autumn - not least to compensate the losers from the abolition of the 10p tax rate.

Mr Brown was not alone in relegating the environment to the back burner. David Cameron, the wind in his sails after the elections, held a prime ministerial press conference in which he set out his priorities for government. Significantly, the words "environment" and "climate change" did not appear in his 1,200-word statement.

Was this the same man who fought the local elections on the campaign slogan "vote blue, go green"? And was the leader who hugged huskies to convince us his party had changed addressing new issues and no longer preaching to the Tory converted? Green issues have gone out of fashion for Mr Cameron; they have served their purpose.

Naturally, the Tory leader denied it. "We have made quite good progress," he insisted. "I'm not saying the job is done. There is still a huge amount that we want to see changed." But whatever happened to the impressive tome of green policies produced last year by the Tory policy review headed by John Gummer and Zac Goldsmith, who seems to have disappeared off the planet he was trying to save? When asked, Mr Cameron banged on about the fuel price pressures facing motorists and hauliers. Officially, the Tories remain committed to raising green taxes in order to cut taxes for families. But they don't talk about it much. After a brief detour, they seem to have arrived at the same point as Mr Brown: that the public needs "carrots" as well as "sticks" to go green; that they suspect green taxes are stealth taxes.

Another reason why the elections have set back the environmental cause is the election of Boris Johnson as Mayor of London. He will dump Mr Livingstone's plan to charge drivers of gas-guzzlers 25 pounds to enter the capital's congestion charge zone, and review its recent expansion into west London. In Manchester, the councillor behind plans for a 5 pound congestion charge lost his seat to a community party which opposed it.

Labour and the Tories will doubtless argue that the Manchester experience shows they are right to be cautious on green issues. Similarly, Labour MPs say the bin tax was an issue on the doorsteps in the local elections. As The Independent reported eight days ago, a new opinion poll found that more than seven out of 10 people are not prepared to pay higher taxes to fund projects to tackle climate change.

It's hardly surprising that people downgrade soft issues such as the environment when economic times are hard. Yet politicians surely have a duty to lead rather than follow public opinion. Despite that, the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs quietly shelved plans to bring in annual personal carbon allowances this week, saying the idea was "ahead of its time".

The two main parties will continue to pay lip service to green issues in the run-up to the general election. But something has changed in the past week. Both parties will put saving seats before saving the planet.

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BRITAIN SHELVES PERSONAL CARBON TRADING PLAN

They know they will be out of government soon if they do not

The British government has shelved plans to get people to reduce their carbon footprint by allowing them to trade personal emissions permits because it would be too expensive and ambitious. After studying ways of encouraging individuals to cut their CO2 emissions so they could sell their excess permits to those who exceed their carbon quota, the environment ministry has concluded it is not yet practical. "Personal carbon trading has potential to engage individuals in taking action to combat climate change, but is essentially ahead of its time and expected costs for implementation are high," the ministry said Thursday.

The idea for personal CO2 trading is taken from the European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which forces big industrial emitters of the gas that causes global warming to clean up their act or buy permits from companies that have. The ETS makes being green profitable and polluting more costly for business but does nothing to encourage more than 60 million people living in Britain to do anything about it, despite being responsible for a large chunk of Britain's total emissions.

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WHY ON EARTH DO WE PUT UP WITH THIS GREEN EXTORTION?

The author below, Bernard Ingham is a journalist best known as Margaret Thatcher's press secretary

My text this week is taken from Corinthians I: "Behold, I shew you a mystery." In the election for London's Mayor, the Greens got just over three per cent of the vote. Leaving aside such misguided places as Norwich, where the Green Party gained three seats, they struggled elsewhere to poll anywhere near that. In my native Calderdale, with its strong "Green" lobby, they managed only just over one per cent - less than the BNP, English Democrats and Independents, the other small groups that fought the election there.

Yet Labour, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Nationalists dance slavishly to the Green tune. To hear him talk, the dear, departed Ken Livingstone was as Green as grass. Gordon Brown would carpet Britain, onshore and offshore, with wind "farms". David Cameron sails under the "Vote Blue, Go Green" banner. The Liberal Democrats are mostly eco-nuts. And the European Union goes berserk at the very mention of carbon dioxide.

Which brings me to the mystery. What ails them? Have they lost their powers of reason? I ask because their pre-occupation with combating something that may or may not exist - that is, man-made global warming - is responsible for part of the growing burden of costs with which every household is now saddled. How much this energy/environmental burden contributed to Gordon Brown's Merrie May Day - otherwise known as Black Thursday - is far from clear, partly because consumers are unaware of what they are paying.

If they knew, all our politicians would belatedly bring some cost/benefit analysis to their environmentalism. It has been distressingly absent so far. Would the Prime Minister have had solar panels and Cameron a wind turbine installed on their houses had they known they would never get their money back on the "investment"? There are good and bad "buys", but they don't come much worse than waiting for decades, even half a century, for any return on your capital. It doesn't say much for their business acumen.

Belatedly, Labour MPs are pressing Gordon Brown to ditch some of his so-called green taxes since their environmentalism is only as strong as the economy or their political skins. So, how much is the Government forcing us to shell out to try to make them appear greenly virtuous? There's the rub. Governments are not in the habit of dishing out research grants to academics to show how stupidly they use our money, so all I can offer you are pointers.

Let's forget the so-called climate change levy (CCL), which has as marginal an effect on domestic consumers' bills as it does on CO2 reduction. Instead, the real damage is done by Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs) designed to encourage the development of wind, wave, tidal, solar and other "renewable" forms of electricity. These are as idiotically conceived as the CCL, since nuclear and large-scale hydro-electricity, which emit next to no greenhouse gases, are excluded from both.

ROCs latterly have provided a 100 per cent subsidy substantially to wind power - so far the only major renewable source of electricity - and earlier this year, the Business Department forecast they would cost 23bn pounds by 2020, or, nearly 1,000 pounds per household. And for that we would optimistically get only 14 per cent of our electricity - and then only when the wind was blowing.

Unfortunately, that figure was out of date when it was calculated because Tony Blair had signed up to a battily impractical EU requirement to produce 20 per cent of our energy - and not just electricity - by 2020 from renewables. If we are to offset the massive use of oil and gas for transport and domestic heating with renewables, we shall, as things stand, have to generate up to 45 per cent of our power with wind. So that will treble the eventual cost to 3,000 per household - without providing a reliable power supply.

Ofgem, the energy regulator, says that eight per cent - or 80 pounds - of the current average current gas and electricity bill can be attributed to environmental charges and this is only going to rise with the billions required to link remote and largely useless wind farms to the grid.

This is not to mention more generally the costs of the carbon trading and offsetting rackets, the Treasury's punitive tax revenue from petrol and diesel, Gordon Brown's new "green levy" doubling car tax revenue to 4bn while, on the Treasury's own admission, reducing carbon emissions by less than one per cent, and taxes on rubbish. Why do we put up with this "green" extortion to so little purpose? That's the real mystery.

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British region sees longest cold spell since 1892

WEATHER experts say this April has been the wettest in Coventry and Warwickshire since 2004. Staff at Bablake Weather station in Coventry reported the city had nearly 70mm of rain in April, the third month out of four this year with above-average rainfall. They also recorded three days with sleet or snowfall last month in Coventry, which is the highest incidence of April snowfall since 1998.

There was nearly 100 hours less sunshine than during April last year and with an average monthly temperature of 8.2C, this has been the coldest April in the city since 2001. And, according to the station, the region as a whole has been cooler over the past year. A spokesperson from Bablake Weather station said: "It looks like global warming has plateaued out in our region over the past 12 months. "Every month since May 2007 has been cooler than its counterpart 12 months previously in Coventry, and April 2008 has now continued that trend for a twelfth consecutive month."

He added: "Looking at the records, this is the longest such spell locally since our records began in 1892 - the previous record stood at eight months in both 1897 and 1934." The warmest April recorded by the station was in 2007, with temperatures averaging 11.7C, and the coldest in 1917 and 1922 at 5.8C.

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Nutty British immigration tribunal frees terror supporter

A firebrand preacher once described as Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe is due to be freed within days after being granted bail by an immigration tribunal. Abu Qatada, who came to Britain in 1993 and last month defeated the British Government's efforts to deport him to Jordan on terror charges, will be subject to a 22-hour curfew when he is released from Long Lartin high-security prison.

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, said she was extremely disappointed at the decision and promised all steps necessary to protect the public. Some of the bail money is thought to have been put up by Norman Kember, the Christian peace worker who was held hostage in Baghdad for four months from November 2005 by a group of insurgents. Abu Qatada had made a video appeal for his release.

The bail decision by the Special Immigration Advisory Tribunal is a fresh blow to the British Government's anti-terror policies. Last month, the Home Office was forced to abandon plans to deport 12 Libyans, leaving a memorandum of understanding with Libya, signed in October 2005, effectively in tatters.

Abu Qatada, 45, has been convicted in his absence in Jordan of involvement with terror attacks in 1998 and of plotting to plant bombs. The radical cleric once called on British Muslims to martyr themselves, and tapes of his sermons were found in a flat in Germany used by some of the September 11 hijackers.

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The great organic myths: Why organic foods are an indulgence the world can't afford

They're not healthier or better for the environment - and they're packed with pesticides. In an age of climate change and shortages, these foods are an indugence the world can't afford, argues environmental expert Rob Johnston

Myth one: Organic farming is good for the environment

The study of Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) for the UK, sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, should concern anyone who buys organic. It shows that milk and dairy production is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). A litre of organic milk requires 80 per cent more land than conventional milk to produce, has 20 per cent greater global warming potential, releases 60 per cent more nutrients to water sources, and contributes 70 per cent more to acid rain.

Also, organically reared cows burp twice as much methane as conventionally reared cattle - and methane is 20 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2. Meat and poultry are the largest agricultural contributors to GHG emissions. LCA assessment counts the energy used to manufacture pesticide for growing cattle feed, but still shows that a kilo of organic beef releases 12 per cent more GHGs, causes twice as much nutrient pollution and more acid rain.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) relates food production to: energy required to manufacture artificial fertilisers and pesticides; fossil fuel burnt by farm equipment; nutrient pollution caused by nitrate and phosphate run-off into water courses; release of gases that cause acid rain; and the area of land farmed. A similar review by the University of Hohenheim, Germany, in 2000 reached the same conclusions (Hohenheim is a proponent of organic farming and quoted by the Soil Association).

Myth two: Organic farming is more sustainable

Organic potatoes use less energy in terms of fertiliser production, but need more fossil fuel for ploughing. A hectare of conventionally farmed land produces 2.5 times more potatoes than an organic one. Heated greenhouse tomatoes in Britain use up to 100 times more energy than those grown in fields in Africa. Organic yield is 75 per cent of conventional tomato crops but takes twice the energy - so the climate consequences of home-grown organic tomatoes exceed those of Kenyan imports.

Defra estimates organic tomato production in the UK releases almost three times the nutrient pollution and uses 25 per cent more water per kg of fruit than normal production. However, a kilogram of wheat takes 1,700 joules (J) of energy to produce, against 2,500J for the same amount of conventional wheat, although nutrient pollution is three times higher for organic.

Myth three: Organic farming doesn't use pesticides

Food scares are always good news for the organic food industry. The Soil Association and other organic farming trade groups say conventional food must be unhealthy because farmers use pesticides. Actually, organic farmers also use pesticides. The difference is that "organic" pesticides are so dangerous that they have been "grandfathered" with current regulations and do not have to pass stringent modern safety tests.

For example, organic farmers can treat fungal diseases with copper solutions. Unlike modern, biodegradable, pesticides copper stays toxic in the soil for ever. The organic insecticide rotenone (in derris) is highly neurotoxic to humans - exposure can cause Parkinson's disease. But none of these "natural" chemicals is a reason not to buy organic food; nor are the man-made chemicals used in conventional farming.

Myth four: Pesticide levels in conventional food are dangerous

The proponents of organic food - particularly celebrities, such as Gwyneth Paltrow, who have jumped on the organic bandwagon - say there is a "cocktail effect" of pesticides. Some point to an "epidemic of cancer". In fact, there is no epidemic of cancer. When age-standardised, cancer rates are falling dramatically and have been doing so for 50 years.

If there is a "cocktail effect" it would first show up in farmers, but they have among the lowest cancer rates of any group. Carcinogenic effects of pesticides could show up as stomach cancer, but stomach cancer rates have fallen faster than any other. Sixty years ago, all Britain's food was organic; we lived only until our early sixties, malnutrition and food poisoning were rife. Now, modern agriculture (including the careful use of well-tested chemicals) makes food cheap and safe and we live into our eighties.

Myth five: Organic food is healthier

To quote Hohenheim University: "No clear conclusions about the quality of organic food can be reached using the results of present literature and research results." What research there is does not support the claims made for organic food. Large studies in Holland, Denmark and Austria found the food-poisoning bacterium Campylobacter in 100 per cent of organic chicken flocks but only a third of conventional flocks; equal rates of contamination with Salmonella (despite many organic flocks being vaccinated against it); and 72 per cent of organic chickens infected with parasites.

This high level of infection among organic chickens could cross-contaminate non-organic chickens processed on the same production lines. Organic farmers boast that their animals are not routinely treated with antibiotics or (for example) worming medicines. But, as a result, organic animals suffer more diseases. In 2006 an Austrian and Dutch study found that a quarter of organic pigs had pneumonia against 4 per cent of conventionally raised pigs; their piglets died twice as often. Disease is the major reason why organic animals are only half the weight of conventionally reared animals - so organic farming is not necessarily a boon to animal welfare.

Myth six: Organic food contains more nutrients

The Soil Association points to a few small studies that demonstrate slightly higher concentrations of some nutrients in organic produce - flavonoids in organic tomatoes and omega-3 fatty acids in organic milk, for example. The easiest way to increase the concentration of nutrients in food is to leave it in an airing cupboard for a few days. Dehydrated foods contain much higher concentrations of carbohydrates and nutrients than whole foods. But, just as in humans, dehydration is often a sign of disease.

The study that found higher flavonoid levels in organic tomatoes revealed them to be the result of stress from lack of nitrogen - the plants stopped making flesh and made defensive chemicals (such as flavonoids) instead.

Myth seven: The demand for organic food is booming

Less than 1 per cent of the food sold in Britain is organic, but you would never guess it from the media. The Soil Association positions itself as a charity that promotes good farming practices. Modestly, on its website, it claims: "... in many ways the Soil Association can claim to be the first organisation to promote and practice sustainable development." But the Soil Association is also, in effect, a trade group - and very successful lobbying organisation.

Every year, news outlets report the Soil Association's annual claim of a big increase in the size of the organic market. For 2006 (the latest available figures) it boasted sales of 1.937bn pounds. Mintel (a retail consultantcy hired by the Soil Association) estimated only 1.5bn pounds in organic food sales for 2006. The more reliable TNS Worldpanel, (tracking actual purchases) found just o1bn of organics sold - from a total food sector of o104bn. Sixty years ago all our food was organic so demand has actually gone down by 99 per cent. Despite the "boom" in organics, the amount of land being farmed organically has been decreasing since its height in 2003. Although the area of land being converted to organic usage is scheduled to rise, more farmers are going back to conventional farming.

The Soil Association invariably claims that anyone who questions the value of organic farming works for chemical manufacturers and agribusiness or is in league with some shady right-wing US free-market lobby group. Which is ironic, considering that a number of British fascists were involved in the founding of the Soil Association and its journal was edited by one of Oswald Mosley's blackshirts until the late 1960s.

All Britain's food is safer than ever before, In a serious age, we should talk about the future seriously and not use food scares and misinformation as a tactic to increase sales.

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Tax revolt in Britain: "Gordon Brown must stop his crippling tax rises or face an election hammering, Cabinet ministers have warned him. They told the beleaguered Prime Minister that millions of decent, hard-working families have been stretched to breaking point by Labour's punishing policies. Warning that the country will revolt against any further drain on dwindling family finances, they used an extraordinary Cabinet meeting to tell the Prime Minister that voters have "reached the limit" of their endurance for his relentless hikes in income tax, fuel duty and council tax. Even Chancellor Alistair Darling is understood to be counselling that Middle Britain cannot take any more financial punishment. And in the first signs of a Cabinet revolt, ministers demanded a halt to any new taxes."

Useless British police again

A police force says it can't break up illegal all-night raves - because it's too dark. Chief Inspector Gill Ellis, of Kent Police, said that it was not safe to disperse revellers in remote locations when it was dark, reports the Daily Telegraph. She blamed the lack of action on 'health and safety' regulations when tackled by locals who are fed-up with raves in a wooded area near Sevenoaks.

Chief Supt Ellis insisted that safety regulations meant officers had to wait until sunrise to break up the bashes. She said it could also be dangerous to disperse ravers because they may get into their cars to drive home while still high on drink and drugs. Chief Supt Ellis told the meeting: "We will wait until daylight hours for reasons of health and safety before making interventions."

But councillors pointed out a bash in March, which took place at Longspring Woods near the village of Shoreham, had been allowed to go on until 1pm the following afternoon. Cllr Phil Hobson, an IT consultant in his early 50s, said: "It's ridiculous that a rave would be allowed to go on all night and into the afternoon. "What the police told us is if a rave is happening and they don't know about it significantly in advance they can't get the man power there to stop it. "I think it is disgusting. The police are there to catch criminals and stop illegal activity."

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British judge has obviously never heard of the age of responsibility: "A paedophile who molested an 11-year-old girl escaped jail yesterday when a judge ruled the victim had "welcomed" his advances. Judge Robert Atherton triggered outrage when he told Manchester Crown Court the child had invited Jon Dixon's attack as she had a "sexual awareness" that would make someone twice her age blush. The judge rejected an assessment by the probation service that Dixon, 20, posed a "high risk of serious harm to children".



Scots want to ban airguns: "A summit meeting to discuss Scotland's gun laws has ended with calls for Westminster to take action to deal with the problem of air weapons in Scotland. Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said he would be writing to the home secretary pressing for a tightening of the law. Members of the the police, gun control lobby and sport-shooting groups attended the Edinburgh meeting. Mr MacAskill described the current law as "inadequate". Speaking after the summit, which he described as "constructive", Mr MacAskill said he would be seeking to put Scotland forward for pilot schemes with a view to getting tighter controls on air weapons across the whole of the UK. He added: "What is quite clear is that the current legislation we have is inadequate and inappropriate for the 21st Century."

Global Warming and Cooling - The Reality

Stephen Wilde has been a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society since 1968. The first two articles from Mr Wilde were received with a great deal of interest throughout the CO2 Sceptic community. In Stephen Wilde's third and exclusive article below, he explores the mechanics and mechanisms involved in the Earth's warming and cooling. Needless to say, CO2 variations are unimportant

It's all very well doing what alarmists do which is to say that CO2 is rising and temperatures are rising so in the absence of any other known cause it must be man made CO2 that is warming the planet. That approach ignores both the differing scale of the possible influencing factors and the clear historical relationship between cooler climates and periods of a less active sun. The presence of the sun must be a much bigger influence on global temperatures than the greenhouse characteristics of CO2 on it's own.

At most the greenhouse effect can only be marginal though some have tried to talk it up by asserting that the planet would be very much colder without a greenhouse effect, which is correct, but avoids the issue of the rather small proportion of the overall greenhouse effect provided by CO2 and the even smaller proportion provided by man. It also begs the question as to whether the oceans are slowly releasing CO2 as a result of natural warming. If the oceans warm for any reason they will release CO2 into the atmosphere because water holds less CO2 at higher temperatures.

The greenhouse effect, as a whole, may smooth out rises and falls in temperature from other causes but is not itself the determining factor for global temperature. If the heat from the sun declines the global temperature will fall with or without any greenhouse effect and if the heat from the sun increases the global temperature will, of course, rise. The greenhouse effect does not create new heat. All it does is increase the residence time of heat in the atmosphere.

In the ice core record, CO2 increase has always lagged behind temperature rises and the lag involved is estimated to be 400 to 800 years. There has never been a period when a CO2 rise has preceded global warming. I have seen it argued that the past 30 years has been so exceptional that it MUST, for the first time in the history of the globe, be CO2 driving the warming trend. That is an assertion of such low probability that it should require very powerful evidence to support it. I have seen no such evidence. Indeed, on a cursory inspection the slow but steady increase in atmospheric CO2 is clearly not coming through in a slow but steady rise in global temperatures. Instead we see rises and falls in global temperatures that bear no obvious relationship to the steady rise in CO2 unless one puts the cart before the horse and announces that there is no other possible reason and the trend period adopted is carefully chosen to suit the proposition.

All it needs to cast doubt on the CO2 theory is an alternative possibility to explain a rising global temperature trend over the past 500 years and there is one. Everyone will have heard of the Little Ice Age and the global temperature would appear to have been recovering from it ever since. On a balance of probability is that not the more likely explanation of an overall warming trend ever since? Why introduce manmade CO2 at all except for politically motivated reasons? By all means exclude a recovery from the Little Ice Age as the reason if one can but the burden of proof is heavy and probably impossible to discharge with current knowledge. There was also a Mediaeval Warm Period (MWP) that preceded it. It has been asserted by some that the MWP was not as warm as the planet is now but there is evidence to the contrary such as Viking settlements in Greenland at the time. It has also been asserted that the MWP was not worldwide but some recent indications have been found in South America that it was warm there at about the same time. In any event it is unlikely that such a warm period affecting Greenland and Western Europe would not be worldwide. The heavy burden of proof is on those who would seek to deny it.

Be that as it may, there is a probability rather than a possibility that the warming trend since the lowest point of the Little Ice Age is continuing to this day and is the real cause of recent observed warming with only a minimal contribution, if any, from man made CO2 emissions.

Then there is the matter of scale. The greenhouse effect is mainly a phenomenon of the land surface and the atmosphere because more of the incoming heat is absorbed by water as compared to land and a lower proportion is reflected to participate in the greenhouse effect. However the surface of Earth is 70 % water. Water has a hugely greater heat carrying capacity than the land or the atmosphere above it. Land loses most of the heat it receives during the day via overnight radiation and the atmosphere loses heat rapidly via convection, rainfall and radiation to space despite the greenhouse effect. The true heat store that we need to consider, dwarfing by far any atmospheric greenhouse effect is all that water. I describe the implications of that below.

It seems so complex but the global heat balance only comes down to three parameters that swamp all others.

Heat from the sun.

The fact that 70% of the planet is water covered.

Heat, radiating out to a very cold Space.

Extra heat is constantly being generated within the Earth by convection and movement caused by external gravitational forces from the sun and other planets but that only seems to disrupt the basic scenario intermittently.

The heat from the sun varies over a number of interlinked and overlapping cycles but the main one is the cycle of 11 years or so. That solar cycle can last from about 9.5 years to about 13.6 years and appears to be linked to the gravitational effects of the planets of the solar system combining to affect the sun's magnetic field which seems then to influence the amount of heat generated and incidentally affects the number of sunspots. For present purposes I will concentrate on the past 1000 years during which the 11year cycle has been the main factor linked to observed temperature changes. For pre thermometer numbers we have to rely on less reliable indicators of past temperature.

It is clear that temperatures have varied so much over the past 1000 years that there have been substantial effects on human societies so disruption caused by weather and climate is by no means unusual. Many civilisations have fallen as a result of entirely natural changes in climate. Interestingly, they often blamed themselves for offending the Gods, nature or the planet (that sounds familiar!).

It is necessary to note that those disruptive changes have occurred quite quickly. A decade or two is quite enough to see changes that result in considerable hardship.

Because 70% of the planet is covered by water most heat from the sun is accepted by water. The seas take a long time to warm up or cool in comparison to land. Heat reaching the land by day is soon radiated back out to Space at night. Water has a much greater lag both in warming and cooling which also means that as a store of total heat the oceans are hugely effective. The strongest sunlight reaching the Earth is around the Equator that is primarily oceanic. The equatorial sun puts heat into the system year in year out whereas loss of heat is primarily via the poles with each alternating as the main heat loser depending on time of year.

The Earth therefore accumulates or loses heat to and from, primarily, the oceans. The land and the atmosphere are largely an irrelevance. That heat then has to find it's way out into Space over time. Before it can be radiated out into Space heat has to pass through the atmosphere.

The planet cannot maintain and does not maintain a constant temperature. It is not even possible to identify a specific current temperature for the whole planet and for present purposes there is no need to do so.

All I need to assert at this point is that whatever the Earth's temperature is at any given moment it will always be in the process of warming or cooling and, of course, the rate of that warming or cooling is highly variable.

Because the Earth is always either warming or cooling the point of balance could well be very fine so to attribute `blame' to any particular factor we have to ascertain the scale and degree of sensitivity of each factor we wish to consider.

The point I need to make here is that on the basis of historical evidence from weather and solar cycle records the largest single factor influencing global temperature, whatever it might be at any time, is variations in the input of heat from the sun.

It is clear from the historical record that warmer weather accompanies short solar cycles and cooler weather accompanies longer solar cycles. Although I refer to weather the fact is that weather over time constitutes climate so for present purposes they are the same. During the recent warming the cycle lengths were less than 10 years so that meant we were getting more heat from the sun whatever the alarmists say about Total Solar Irradiance (a flawed and incomplete concept).

So far, the current solar cycle (number 23) is into the 12th year in length and may go to the full 13.6 years for known astronomical reasons. The very fact that it is longer than the previous two cycles suggests we are getting less solar energy already and, surprise, surprise, it is now being accepted by alarmists that warming has stalled and the planet may be cooling for the next 10 years at least. All they can do now is bleat that the underlying man made warming signal is still there but they cannot prove that to be the case nor can they demonstrate the scale of it in relation to natural causes.

As far as I can see nobody seems to be able to say why the observed changes in weather that accompany changes in solar activity actually happen. They seem to be disproportionate to the changes in heat coming from the sun. This is where I feel the need to make a suggestion.

The ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) Cycle has been heavily investigated for many years but seems to be looked at as a freestanding phenomenon that just redistributes heat around the globe, sometimes warming and sometimes cooling.

I think that is wrong. I believe that ENSO switches from warming to cooling mode depending on whether the sun is having a net warming or net cooling effect on the Earth. Thus the sun directly drives the ENSO cycle and the ENSO cycle directly drives global temperature changes. Indeed, the effect appears to be much more rapid than anyone has previously believed with a measurable response occurring within a few years of a change in solar energy input. Indeed I see some evidence for the proposition that for various reasons cooling occurs faster than warming but I will save that for another time.

It was no coincidence that during the years from 1975 to 2000 we had a strong emphasis on El Nino with warming-also known as a period of positive Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), and now, with an emphasis on La Nina we have cooling or at least a stall in the warming (a period of negative PDO).

As regards the Pacific Decadal Oscillation that is simply a periodical change in the predominance either of El Nino (positive mode) or of La Nina (negative mode). El Nino events can occur in a positive PDO mode and vice versa.

I believe that both ENSO and PDO are manifestations of the same process and are directly driven by shifts in the balance of heat output from the sun as it switches to or from net warming and to or from net cooling effects on the Earth.

It was no coincidence that the change from one ENSO mode to the other was approximately contemporaneous with the extension of solar cycle 23 to a period longer than the preceding two solar cycles and at about the same time the PDO switched from positive to negative.

Although there are similar periodic oscillations in other oceans such as the Atlantic and the Arctic I believe that they follow the lead of ENSO and PDO. In effect they simply continue the distribution of the initial warming or cooling state around the globe and of course there are varying degrees of lag so that from time to time the other lesser oceanic oscillations can operate contrary to the primary Pacific oscillations until the lag is worked through.

I believe that this is a clear and simple theory of solar driven global climate change which should now be tested empirically.

Just looking at the activity levels of the past few solar cycles and the temperature and ENSO changes that occurred at about the same time would have revealed the truth if those who should have known better were not trying to implicate man generally and western nations in particular. Refer to my two earlier articles for fuller detail.

The fact is that the Earth could well be a highly sensitive water based thermometer as far as solar input is concerned. The balance between overall warming and overall cooling is probably finely linked to the energy received or not received from the sun over decadal time periods or possibly even less.

Advances have been made in predicting the likely activity levels of the sun so it should be possible to make general predictions as regards the onset of warming or cooling trends on Earth from solar observations and astronomical measurements of planetary influences on solar cycles.

Finally, one should consider whether other warming or cooling influences might have any significance to humanity and the environment.

The fact is that the solar effect is huge and overwhelming. Other influences can only ever delay or bring forward what would have happened anyway because of the time scales involved with solar changes that tend to develop and intensify over centuries. One must also remember that, the warmer the Earth gets, the faster the radiation of heat to Space because of an enhanced temperature differential so it would be false to propose an ever increasing positive differential as a result of adding any warming effect of man made CO2 to the effect of solar changes.

The length and intensity of a solar cool down would strip out the human portion of any extra CO2 quite ruthlessly because the cooler temperatures would increase the amount of CO2 absorbed by the oceans and oceanic life would flourish to lock it away in the carbon cycle again in the form of organic calcium carbonate from a multitude of tiny sea creatures (which generally prefer cooler waters) falling to the sea bed.

In effect, all life on Earth has the benefit of an oceanic and atmospheric air conditioning system that clears out excess CO2 as well as well as dust, other particulates and noxious substances created by either the planet itself or the life forms on it from time to time.

Of course a single organism can upset the balance of it's own environment for a time but the planet always renews itself and repopulates with new life forms if necessary. The solution is always a new balance between numbers and lifestyle for any particular organism and that includes us.

That is why, despite hugely different environmental conditions in the past, including far higher CO2 levels, there has never been a `tipping' point that changed the pattern of glaciations and interglacials that have occurred with clockwork precision based on astronomical movements throughout the historical record.

Nor need we fear any man made addition to solar warming because the proportion of the warming which we would be responsible for would be insignificant against the scale of the solar induced portion. In any event, since cooling is worse than warming for humanity and most life on the planet, our production of CO2, however large in our puny terms, would be wholly beneficial for life on Earth. CO2 is the least of our problems so our attention and resources should be better directed to a more general concept of sustainability

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The alleged polypill miracle

There is absolutely no evidence for the longevity claims below and there have been some scathing criticisms of the leap of faith embodied in the claims. It is all a statistical extrapolation from dubious data. All the ingredients have negative as well as positive effects and the bottom line could be a SHORTENED lifespan. The "polymeal" proposal is based on similar logic and yet we know from longevity studies that diet and lifestyle changes have negligible effects on lifespan. Remember that hard-won bit of wisdom: "The miracle cure of today is often the iatrogenic disaster of the future"

A five-in-one polypill developed by British doctors could prevent 100,000 premature deaths from heart conditions every year. The inventors of the pill - which could be taken daily by everyone over 55 at a cost of about 7 pounds a week - claim it could prevent 80 per cent of heart attacks and strokes among those who use it.

The drug, which combines five individual treatments, has received the backing of Prof Roger Boyle, the Government's national director for heart disease and stroke, who has called for it to be prescribed on the NHS. Prof Nicholas Wald, the director of the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, said: "I am delighted we have reached this milestone. Now we want to get it out there so people can use it. "Our mission is to make this available to everyone over 55 at an affordable price. ''The founders of our group would like this pill to be available to everyone for about 1 pound a day."

The polypill has been in development for several years. Research published by Prof Wald in 2003 concluded: "The polypill strategy could largely prevent heart attacks and stroke if taken by everyone aged 55 and older and everyone with existing cardiovascular disease. ''It would be acceptably safe and, with widespread use, would have a greater impact on the prevention of disease in the western world than any other single intervention." The paper added that a third of people taking the drug would benefit, gaining an extra 11 years of life on average.

More than 130,000 people suffer a stroke in Britain every year, half of whom die. Heart attacks affect up to 230,000 people each year, claiming the lives of 30 per cent of them. Prof Boyle said the polypill ''would certainly have a big impact''. He added: ''We need to remember that one third of deaths are due to cardiovascular disease, despite substantial reductions over the past few years."

The polypill comprises a cholesterol-reducing statin, three types of medicine to lower blood pressure and a folic acid that reduces levels of an amino acid implicated in heart attacks and strokes. Clinical trials have established that the individual ingredients prevent heart attacks and strokes, so the combined pill would only require small-scale trials to ensure it behaves in the same way. The inventors can then apply for a licence in Britain, leading to the pill becoming available within two years. It will be made by Cipla, one of India's largest pharmaceutical companies.

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The NHS is trying to extinguish an alternative to its own appalling childbirth service

Independent but highly qualified and very experienced midwives face extinction over the issue of professional indemnity insurance. If no help is offered by the NHS to contract in self-employed midwives under the clinical negligence scheme, they will be forced to stop practising by 2009

I am a mother of three who managed, after a protracted fight with the NHS, to have a wonderful, inspiring, uplifting birth with a private independent midwife at home. I am not a nutter. I made more than 100 phone calls in the two weeks between hospital appointments to find someone who would listen to my reluctance to go under the NHS knife, to find someone who would take me on to birth my twins normally. I knew that I could do it, but I didn't really want to fork out £2,000 for the privilege. My mother had birthed my twin brother and me normally, so why couldn't I be encouraged to do the same? After all the puffing and panting, I discovered a secret that too few mothers are let in on: birth can be great. Not an ordeal to be got through, but a powerful beginning to motherhood, a set-up for all the snot, sweat and tears to follow. Every woman in this country deserves what I had. Our mothers had it, so why shouldn't we?

Choice: that awful overused government word. The only phrase I hate more in matters of state is “informed choice”. It doesn't mean a thing. Pregnant women don't have any choice. That baby is going to come out one way or another whether they like it or not. Childbirth is a bloody, messy, unpredictable, painful experience that transforms women from selfish girls-about-town into all-important mother figures. Go ask any therapist. So why, in this modern age of feisty female CEOs, are women being dazzled by the flashing lights and deafened by the beeping monitors into believing that they have “choices” when they waddle in the hospital labour ward (if it is actually open for business)?

And why are so many of the good, experienced midwives who understand that women need kindness and encouragement above all in labour getting the hell out of hospitals? And why are these last guardians of normal birth, self-employed independent midwives, being hounded by the NHS in medieval witch hunts to put them out of business?

Has the maternity profession missed something here? Are they really so busy arguing over money, power and control that they fail to notice the labouring woman in the corner, not waving but drowning in her birth pool?

OK, let's put the weapons down for a moment. No woman is going to be challenged here for wanting to wail at the moon on her birth ball, electing for the clinical certainty of a Caesarean or wanting more drugs than Amy Winehouse on the night before a prison visit. Let's accept that all women are different and like to do things their own way, and wouldn't choose the same pair of shoes on the high street or Babygro at Mothercare. Let's focus instead on how all women are the same, have the same creature needs at this worry-filled time, and how those needs are not being met.

First, the Government is saying all the right things. Since 1993 and the first well-worded document Changing Childbirth, successive governments have made confident noises to reassure women that they are going to be looked after properly. The latest 2005 White Paper says even more of the right things, namely that all women will be looked after by “a midwife they know before and after the birth”. Ann Keen, a Department of Health Minister, says: “This will be in place by 2009.” So much for the theory.

Now for the brutal, bloody truth. This one-to-one care is to be achieved by 2009, says the Department of Health, by recruiting 1,000 midwives. But that's not enough, say the Royal Colleges of Midwives and Obstetricians in their report, Safer Childbirth. We need a further 5,000 midwives just to offer one-to-one care in established labour - that's just the pushing stage, let alone the pregnancy and post-birth period. So while the numbers don't add up, paying for these midwives is even more disastrous. According to Louise Silverton from the Royal College of Midwives, the extra 330 million pounds funding announced with a fanfare in January has not been ringfenced, so as the money has started to trickle through last month, reports are already coming back that it's being spent on other wards by the local hospitals.

And how did we get to this stage where dangerously few midwives are looking after far too many women, as many as five in labour at the same time? Christine Beasley, the Chief Nursing Officer, puts the shortage down to the rising birth rate: “The Office of National Statistics suggested that this was a blip at first, but it is now clear that the rising birth rate is an established trend,” she explains. “And the midwifery workforce is ageing. It was part of the baby-boomer population - and many midwives are now approaching retirement. We are recruiting younger people in a more competitive world.”

And at this moment of crisis, when the burnt-out hospital midwives are routinely handling around 170 births each a year in a revolving door of hospital anonymity, the Government chooses to turn on the very last resort left to women such as myself - the independent midwife. These midwives have often been driven out of the NHS because they can no longer practise what they see as safe, women-focused care in the context of a hospital. Many of them are among the most skilful practioners of normal birth in this country - my midwife, Mary Cronk, had assisted at hundreds of successful normal twin births over her 50-odd years on call and tours the country lecturing on normal breech birth. Their possible extinction over an insurance issue that could so easily be solved by contracting them into the NHS as they are in New Zealand, or by just dropping it as a mandatory practice, is a frightening possibility. If the issue is not solved by 2009, all that they symbolise as the “gold standard” of care in this country will be gone with them. As Louise Silverton says: “The NHS should be able to offer this to independent midwives. It shouldn't be a gold standard. It should be every woman's right.”

Make no mistake, this is not just a middle-class fuss. In speaking to dozens of women who have suffered in silence over their recent treatment in hospital, we are all in the same dirty boat. One 19-year-old mother was taken on free of charge by Virginia Howes, an independent midwife in Canterbury, when it became clear that she had been told nothing at all about pregnancy or birth. The girl saw the difference between her own quick labour in a pool at home (“I felt safe and looked after”) and her sister's birth in hospital five months later (“It felt manic and busy all the time, she didn't cope well with it”). While the 19-year-old went on to breast-feed her baby for six weeks, her sister was ejected the next day, with a bottle given for the baby. She never breast-fed and suffered depression.

Post-natal depression, sometimes triggered by a bad birth experience, is rife. Ruth Weston, 39, who lives on a council estate in Bradford, West Yorkshire, forked out 15 per cent of her annual income for an independent midwife for her fifth child, after the trauma of her fourth. “With my first child I got a lot of care on the NHS, and, ten years on, I'm paying for it, and that's wrong. My five births can chart the deterioration of the service.”

As a student of liberation theology, she believes that the only way forward is for midwives and mothers to join forces, and she lobbies her MP and sends postcards to the local hospital to make her feelings known. “Abortion was legalised over a health issue. This is not a moral issue - a small number of women will go ahead and have their babies their way if independent midwives are lost. It's not acceptable, and it's not fair.” And that small number of women is already increasing as they opt out of the NHS altogether in favour of “freebirthing”. Veronica Robinson, editor of The Mother magazine, who lives in Cumbria, is writing a book on the subject, partly in answer to the number of inquiries that she fields from readers. “These women have educated themselves and are not irresponsible as people suggest,” says Veronica. “I think a lot more women will turn to unassisted birth.” Many of these radical freebirthers are often midwives themselves, she says.

However we fight the good fight, we must not sleepwalk into the nightmare of birth in America. In a country where one in three births is Caesarean and only 8 per cent of women are able to use midwives, 18-year-old girls are said to describe birth as like “having more plastic surgery”. Through the film The Business of Being Born, made with chat-show host Ricki Lake, however, that culture is now changing. The US campaign - The Big Push For Midwives - is being used for the Save the Independent Midwife Campaign here in the UK and the movie is being screened all around the country. “On the internet they have already said, ‘Ricki Lake gives birth naked... Ew, I want to vomit',” said Ricki Lake at the premiere. Popcorn, anyone?

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The lost baggage airline is also now the no beef airline: "British Airways has ditched beef for economy class passengers this summer in an attempt to appeal to a more international passenger base. The familiar cabin crew inquiry of "chicken or beef?" will not be heard in economy after the airline ditched the national dish in favour of what it calls a lighter, healthier option. Critics will suspect that the relentless pressure to cut costs that all airlines are facing is behind the move, although BA said cost was not a factor. A spokesman for the airline told The Times: "We were looking for something with broad appeal. Research trends have shown us that fish pie is very popular in supermarkets so we decided to go with that and chicken and tarragon for the summer. "We can only serve two options and beef and pork obviously have religious restrictions," the spokesman added. BA's second-biggest long-haul market, after transatlantic routes, is to India".

New British immigration rules sound designed to keep out smart Indians

This is just political posturing. It is not skilled legal immigrants that are the problem but rather illegals and parasitical "refugees"

Britain tightened the rules to regulate entry of skilled non-European workers in the second phase of the biggest overhaul of immigration policy for a generation. The strict new criteria announced on Tuesday require British employers to prove they cannot fill skilled posts with resident or European workers. Non-European skilled workers will need to have a firm job offer in hand even before they apply for visas. Skilled non-Europeans would also need to speak fluent English and earn the equivalent of 24,000 pounds in their home country in order to have any chance of entering Britain legally to work. The new rules were announced by Immigration Minister Liam Byrne as a "system (that) means British jobseekers get the first crack of the whip and that only the skilled migrants we actually need will be able to come".

Tuesday's announcement comes barely eight weeks after Britain formally inaugurated an Australian-style points-based system in the hope it would have "one of the toughest borders in the world" by year-end. On February 29, rules governing the controversial, existing highly-skilled migrants programme were overhauled and a new licensing system put in place for employers wanting to recruit from overseas locations outside Europe.

The February changes dealt with Tier 1 of the immigrant worker category. Tier 2 is the second of five tiers due to be rolled out over the next 12 months. It will be introduced along with Tier 5, for temporary workers such as musicians, actors and sportsmen. Tier 4, which covers students, will follow at the beginning of 2009.

The government has already said that had the new rules been in force, 12 per cent fewer skilled non-European migrants would have entered the UK last year. The Home Office said that in the 12 months to September, 65,000 skilled workers from outside the EEA - the European Union plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein - entered the UK. The new criteria, it said, would have trimmed that figure by 8,000. The government's analysis also showed that its tighter rules could have shaved off skilled and temporary non-European migrants by roughly 20,000 people last year.

On Tuesday, it was also confirmed that low-skilled non-Europeans, officially categorized as Tier 3, would no longer be allowed to enter Britain to work. The UK said it would only ever allow entry to this tier of non-European worker if specific shortages are identified that cannot be filled from the domestic or European labour force.

The crackdown on immigration policy and implementation also includes some of the toughest penalties in the world for employers who break the rules and illegally hire non-Europeans. The government said that in the first 80 days of the new immigration regime, 137 British companies were issued with Notices of Potential Liability worth almost half a million pounds for illegally employing non-Europeans. This is more than ten times as much as the entire number of prosecutions last year for the same offence.

The minister said, in what is increasingly seen as a root-and-branch reform of Britain's so-called open-door immigration policy: "Illegal jobs are the root cause of illegal immigration... fines make up just one part of the biggest shake-up of the immigration system for a generation. With the introduction of compulsory identity cards for foreign nationals later in the year, there can be no excuse for not checking the identity of those applying for jobs."

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UK: Little old lady deemed a violent patient

The usual mindless British bureaucracy.

A retired schoolteacher who was found by social services to be a "medium to high risk" of causing violence has forced a council to review its assessments of the elderly. Ada Tremlett, 81, who is barely 5ft tall, needs two walking sticks to get around and was recovering from a broken wrist when she was deemed "potentially dangerous" by social services staff.

The warning was disclosed when the grandmother, whose late husband was a policeman, opened a file left for carers sent to her home. She complained and has forced a review of the way old people are assessed and also the re-training of social service staff.

"I was horrified," said the mother-of-two. "I am an 81-year-old woman with no history of violence, who has never been in trouble or anything. "I cannot believe that the council is putting my future care at risk." Mrs Tremlett, of Tiverton, Devon, complained to Devon county council and has won a complete apology.

The pensioner was referred to social services by her local hospital after she fell and broke her wrist. As part of the assessment, the health visitor filled out a two-minute, risk assessment form. The answers are given on a scale of one to 10. The score is then added up to determine if the patient is a low or high risk of violence.

Mrs Tremlett said: "I remember the questions were slightly odd. I thought it was a joke. You just have to look at me to see I am not a risk to anyone."

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Bratton for Britain: "The man who cleaned up the streets of New York is to help mastermind Boris Johnson's crime crackdown in London. U.S. police chief Bill Bratton will advise the new Tory mayor on how 'zero tolerance' of graffiti, fare-dodging and other minor crimes can prevent more serious offending. The move underlines Mr Johnson's determination to wage war on youth violence and anti-social behaviour. It chimes with David Cameron's promise to fight back against social breakdown and is further evidence that the capital will be a test-bed for a future Tory government. Yesterday Mr Johnson proposed the creation of up to 100 weekend clubs, involving 'competition, discipline and punishment', to help troubled teenagers. The 'respect schools' will offer youngsters activities such as football and boxing alongside academic subjects to help them perform the 'handbrake turn' needed to put them on the path to educational achievement. Mr Johnson will today flesh out his manifesto pledge to tackle crime on public transport, with patrols on buses and Tubes and a ban on drinking alcohol on the Underground."


Good ol' gun-free Britain again: "A gunman involved in a dramatic shotgun siege in one of London's most exclusive suburbs is dead after exchanging shots with police. British police say the gunman died after trading fire with officers while holed up in a house in a wealthy west London neighbourhood. Police marksmen laid siege to the house in Markham Square in the affluent area of Chelsea for four hours today after reports of a man firing shots in a house there shortly before 5pm (0200 AEST). Armed police exchanged gunfire several times with the man who later died, a police spokesman said on condition of anonymity in line with force policy. The spokesman said he could not say whether the man was shot dead by officers because an investigation was being opened by Britain's police watchdog, the Independent Police Complaints Commission."

Pollution leads to baldness - research

Wotta lotta crap! Men living in polluted areas are probably different in many ways. Poorer, for a start. How do we know whether or not any of the other differences are to blame for the baldness? Perhaps being bald reduces your chances, makes you poorer and sends you to live in more polluted areas. It's all mere epidemiological speculation again

TO the follicly-challenged who've tried gels, drugs and even a transplant with little joy, the research will come as a breath of fresh air. A study suggests that men living in polluted areas are more likely to go bald than those who enjoy living in a cleaner atmosphere. The discovery raises the prospect that yet more treatments for the often confidence-sapping condition could be developed.

Academics at the University of London linked the onset of male-pattern baldness to environmental factors, such as air pollution and smoking. They believe toxins and carcinogens found in polluted air can stop hair growing by blocking mechanisms that produce the protein from which hair is made. Baldness is known to be hereditary, but research suggests environmental factors could exacerbate hair loss.

Male-pattern baldness, which affects two-thirds of men, usually develops gradually, typically starting with the appearance of a bald spot in the crown and thinning of the temples.

Mike Philpott, of the school of medicine at Queen Mary, University of London, said: "We think any pollutant that can get into the bloodstream or into the skin and into the hair follicle could cause some stress to it and impair the ability of the hair to make a fibre. There are a whole host of carcinogens and toxins that could trigger this." The study was published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology.

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More British "safety" paranoia



For thousands of years people have used bridges made from split tree trunks to cross the small streams and rivers that cross Dartmoor. Now the last surviving "clam bridge" is to be closed to walkers because of 21st-century compensation culture, although there is no record of serious injury to anyone using it. The 20ft-long oak timbers of the bridge in the village of Lustleigh in Devon straddle the River Bovey at a point that has probably been used as a crossing since the Bronze Age more than 2,500 years ago.

The bridge will be sealed off this week despite protests by villagers who say that it is part of Dartmoor's heritage. It is being closed because no one will accept ownership for fear of being sued if anyone falls off. The bridge would have been demolished but for a campaign by residents of Lustleigh and nearby Manaton. More than 470 people signed a petition to save it.

Engineers from Devon County Council condemned the bridge because its simple design and single handrail did not conform to modern British Standards. Last year they installed a steel bridge, which cost œ35,000 and had to be lowered into place by helicopter. The county council then said that it would no longer accept responsibility for repairs to the old bridge, whose timbers need to be replaced every 20 years or so.

Dartmoor National Park Authority agreed to help the two local parish councils to pay for repairs but only if the bridge was closed. It also refused to accept any liability for its use.

Nick Hewison, a member of Lustleigh Parish Council who has campaigned to save the bridge, said: "We have achieved our first objective by preventing the clam bridge being demolished. The National Park are now offering to help to repair it but the issue is what happens afterwards. It's the last bridge of its kind on the moor and it is likely that something very similar has crossed the river for hundreds of years, maybe thousands.

"We didn't think there was a need for the new bridge but the county council say they have to comply with safety standards. They have changed fundamentally an idyllic corner of Dartmoor. Dartmoor National Park has a duty to preserve the beauty, culture and heritage of the moor but they have been more concerned with risk and that threatened to override their responsibilities. "This is a footbridge in a remote part of Dartmoor only accessed by a very rocky path which is probably more risky than crossing the bridge. The subtlety of its history seemed to escape the officials, who felt that since it was replaced every 20 years it could not be all that old. That is like saying a thatched house is only as old as when its roof was last replaced. "The bridge is mentioned in the oldest guides to Dartmoor and within 500 yards of it on either side are Bronze Age stone circles."

A report to the national park authority said that there had been cases of people and dogs falling off the old bridge, which became submerged and impassable at high water levels. It added: "The new bridge provides a safe, accessible route across the river which is appropriate to modern needs."

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There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc.

Illegals leaving Britain because the NHS is so bad

Looks like the NHS is good for something after all!

ILLEGAL immigrants are sneaking OUT of Britain because they are sick of our weather and hospitals. Border officials yesterday revealed they are collaring a rising tide of failed asylum seekers who flee because life here is not cushy enough. Most escapees caught in the last few weeks are from hellholes like Iraq and Afghanistan – where temperatures rarely drop below 35°C. Many planned to head to balmy Italy after rumours of an amnesty for illegal immigrants. But they changed their minds when right-wing PM Silvio Berlusconi was re-elected and launched a clampdown.

Chief immigration officer Les Williams said: “We have recently noticed people trying to leave the country. Some said they wanted to go to a warmer country as they are fed up with the English weather and their treatment on the NHS.”

A colleague told how he caught four Iraqis trying to sneak through Dover’s port. He said: “They were sick of the rain and cold and wanted to go somewhere with a bit more sun. They also complained they could not get appointments to see a doctor or a dentist. It’s all a bit rich really.”

Three Afghans were arrested just weeks ago when they were injured trying to sneak out on a Polish timber lorry. The trio were formally deported. The Sun revealed in December how pregnant Polish immigrants were heading home to give birth because prenatal care was better in Poland.

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BRITISH PM TO SCRAP GREEN TAXES IN BID TO CALM VOTER FURY

Gordon Brown is poised to scrap a series of unpopular tax rises as part of sweeping changes to stave off a dangerous revolt over the rising cost of living which last week dealt Labour its worst electoral hammering in 40 years. Today the Prime Minister will respond to a growing suburban uprising by signalling moves to help motorists and other consumers. His intervention comes amid a fresh assault over the 10p tax rate change, which backbenchers warn could destroy his premiership.

Frank Field, the renegade ex-minister who forced Brown into offering compensation for the abolition of the 10p rate, said dismal local election results had shown poor families did not trust the Prime Minister to deliver on what Field described as an 'Alice in Wonderland' scheme to give them their money back.

The question of the Prime Minister's leadership was also raised openly for the first time since the vote; Labour backbencher Graham Stringer said ministers were privately discussing whether there should be a challenge to Brown. The Manchester Blackley MP told Sky News: 'I think Gordon is going to be the leader of the Labour party. There is no real tradition of regicide. But it would not be true to say that these conversations aren't going on between ministers and Labour backbenchers about whether there should be a challenge. There is a public display of loyalty and there is private despair.'

Last night Downing Street sources hinted the 2 per cent rise in fuel duty due in the autumn may not go ahead, in a concession to tight household budgets. Asked if it would be scrapped, a senior source said: 'We could do that, although it would not have any effect until October. We will reserve judgement until later this year.'

Brown is also expected today to highlight the role of the Competition Commission investigation into supermarkets in protecting families from high prices, promising that ministers will ensure stores do not keep prices artificially high. Ministers also want Brown to rethink green taxes - including motoring charges and proposed 'pay as you throw' schemes for household rubbish - and to sideline his passion for Africa and the climate to focus on domestic worries.

Internal polling in London found Ken Livingstone's green policies, such as new charges for gas-guzzling cars, alienated older voters, while the environment was at best a low priority for others, suggesting that, as families' budgets shrink, so does their willingness to pay to save the planet. 'My colleagues will say Labour has got to be brave on green issues, but the public are really feeling the pinch,' said one senior minister. Downing Street sources hinted last night that trials of household-rubbish taxes may never be widespread, adding that Brown was 'fairly sceptical' about the idea.

More here






A comment on Britain's new Conservative hero

By veteran British conservative columnist, William Rees-Mogg

I followed the local elections in London and in Somerset. If one had to choose a mayor of London from the characters in Shakespeare's plays, there is no doubt one would have to choose Falstaff. He combines a big personality, a shrewd intelligence, a certain reputation where women are concerned, an eye for the main chance and an enduring warmth. So far, London voters have consistently voted for the candidate who most resembled Falstaff in character; Boris Johnson is now closer than Ken Livingstone, who has never been sure whether he was playing Falstaff or Jack Cade.

The most successful mayors of New York, such as the great wartime mayor, Fiorello LaGuardia, have come out of the same mould. They have given personality to a great city. I doubt if Boris will ever be called "the little flower", but he will personify London. He will also add to the innocent amusement of the nation.

I expect him to be a good mayor; he is highly intelligent, basically good-natured and a surprisingly skilful politician. David Cameron will find him a nuisance from time to time, but he will be amply rewarded in additional votes. Boris Johnson may make it fashionable to vote for the Conservatives; he makes Toryism fun.

I'm certain he will not change. He was a contemporary of members of my family when he was at Oxford; I have heard him being discussed for the past 20 years. In that time he has not changed, and I cannot see why he would change now. One can safely disregard the stark warnings of those who have never liked him. He poses no threat except to political rivals and to attractive young women of nubile age.

Boris Johnson has done something very important. He has won London for the Conservatives against the most skilful London politician since Herbert Morrison, who led Labour in London to the great 1945 victory. London is the leading city of the nation and by far the wealthiest. It is always a strong influence on British politics. London usually leans to the left, as most big cities do. Only an exceptional Conservative politician can take the lead in London and deliver the big city for his party. Boris's London victory makes an overall Conservative victory at the next election far more likely. I do not expect the Conservatives to throw that away.

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If you want to be green - kill a cow

Some wisdom from the new Mayor of London below



Stop, stop. I can feel the guilt building up already. I can feel the self-loathing welling in my skull, the horror at my appallingly affluent consumerist lifestyle. In just a few short months, I will be taking the whole family off on holiday again, and once again our plane will contribute to the cat's cradle of CO2 that is swaddling the globe. Out of the nozzles of the Rolls-Royce turbo jets the lethal vapours will spew into the defenceless stratosphere, and, far beneath us, a startled look will pass over the features of another poor polar bear as he plops through the deliquescing floes.

I must atone! I must make a sacrifice! I must offset my emissions and appease the great irascible Sun-god as he prepares to griddle us all. I had heard somewhere that you could be "carbon-neutral" by planting trees before you fly. That's right. Shove in a few poplars, I was told, and bingo, you can feel all good about your skiing holiday or your winter break in Tunisia.

So I dialled up the eco-websites and - what's this? It turns out they have got it all wrong! Guilt-stricken Western holidaymakers and others have so far paid œ300 million to have trees planted in their name by carbon offset companies, and the whole thing turns out to be a complete nonsense. It now appears the scientists think the trees just make things worse. Far from soaking up your share of CO2, most trees in non-tropical areas are thought to trap heat and thereby increase global warming.

Aaaargh! Bad trees! Killer trees! But what can I do to exculpate my sin? Here I am, a caring, modern, green politician, proposing some time before the end of this year to take about six people in a plane for no better purpose than simple recreation. Like Tony Blair, I must deal with the hate and rage of the new green puritans; and also, it goes without saying, I genuinely want to make amends for any damage I am doing.

So I have done my homework, and I have come up with a far more effective solution. As ever, I have consulted the ancient texts, and have been reminded that the Greeks and Romans were also convinced of the importance of making a sacrifice before any tricky voyage. You will recall that the Greek task force for Troy actually killed Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon, in the hope of guaranteeing good sailing weather - with bad consequences for Agamemnon's conjugal relations.

Now we are only taking a family holiday, and I don't think Zeus or Jupiter would desire anything so extreme. A single cow would be about right. If I were an ancient Roman setting out on a family holiday, I would get some old milker and do her up as if for a party. She'd have her hair washed and combed and cut, and there would be ribbons and purple woollen fillets about her horns.

Then my chums and I would decently cover our heads and we'd drone loads of stuff in Latin and chuck some sacred meal about the place; and then one of us would hold a handful of food under the poor old girl's nose, and as she bent her head to snuffle it up we would take this - praise be! - as a sign that she had assented to her death, and at that auspicious moment she would be whopped hard on the side of the head and her throat would be cut; and then Jupiter would nod, and Olympus would tremble, and the whole family would be able to go off on holidays with a clear conscience.

And the funny thing is that, if we wanted to pay our debt to the great green earth-goddess Gaia, and neutralise the ill-effects of going up in a plane, then, as far as I can see, killing a cow is still exactly the right thing to do, two thousand years later. I mean it. There are 1.3 billion cows on this planet, and every year each cow produces about 90kg of methane, and as greenhouse gases go, methane is about 24 times worse than CO2 in sealing the heat in the air. According to a recent report by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, agriculture produces 18 per cent of the world's greenhouse gases, as measured in CO2 equivalent - and that, my friends, is more than is produced by the entire human transport industry. Think of it: for every cow you killed, you would be ridding the world of 90kg of methane a year - easily enough, surely, to justify an Easyjet flight.

Now it may be that you are repelled by the idea of killing a cow, and you may think that the poor farmers will only be driven to breed a new one to replace it. But there are still plenty of other things you could do that would make more sense than planting trees with these carbon offset companies. You could make sure that your house was properly insulated. You could turn down the central heating and wear more sweaters; and if you really wanted to tackle global CO2 emissions, you would campaign for nuclear energy, since power production is responsible for 24 per cent of global emissions. Or better still you could help do something to stop Third World countries from burning the forests, which produces 18 per cent of CO2.

But, of course, people aren't interested in these kinds of facts. They want the religion. They want the sweet moralistic feeling of telling someone to stop doing something. They want to be able to rage about Chelsea Tractors and Tony Blair's flights, and they want to give vent to their feelings of disgust at the whole triumph of Western consumerist capitalism; and what worries me is that, in the end, the moralising mumbo-jumbo becomes more important than the scientific reality.

We face huge decisions, such as whether or not to allow scientists to use human genetic material in animal cells; and I want those decisions taken on the basis of whether or not the advance can help cure disease, not on the basis of "Frankenbunny" headlines.

We should cease our pagan yammering for sacrifice, and look at what the science really demands. It is a sign of our terrifying ignorance that so many would still prefer to plant a heat-producing tree than see the wisdom of the ancients, and kill a flatulent cow.

Source






Watch the web for climate change truths

Writing in the Daily Telegraph (reproduced below), Christopher Booker gives a lucid summary of recent pesky findings

A notable story of recent months should have been the evidence pouring in from all sides to cast doubts on the idea that the world is inexorably heating up. The proponents of man-made global warming have become so rattled by how the forecasts of their computer models are being contradicted by the data that some are rushing to modify the thesis

So a German study, published by Nature last week, claimed that, while the world is definitely warming, it may cool down until 2015 "while natural variations in climate cancel out the increases caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions".

A little vignette of the media's one-sided view was given by recent events on Snowdon, the highest mountain in southern Britain. Each year between 2003 and 2007, the retreat of its winter snow cover inspired reports citing this as evidence of global warming. In 2004 scientists from the University of Bangor made headlines with the prediction that Snowdon might lose its snowcap altogether by 2020. In 2007 a Welsh MP, Lembit Opik, was saying "it is shocking to think that in just 14 years snow on this mountain could be nothing but a distant memory". Last November, viewing photographs of a snowless Snowdon at an exhibition in Cardiff, the Welsh environment minister, Jane Davidson, said "we must act now to reduce the greenhouse gases that cause climate change"

Yet virtually no coverage has been given to the abnormally deep spring snow which prevented the completion of a new building on Snowdon's summit for more than a month, and nearly made it miss the deadline for œ4.2 million of EU funding. (Brussels eventually extended the deadline to next autumn.)

Two weeks ago, as North America emerged from its coldest and snowiest winter for decades, the US National Climate Data Center, run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued a statement that snow cover in January on the Eurasian land mass had been the most extensive ever recorded, and that in the US March had been only the 63rd warmest since records began in 1895.

While global warming enthusiasts might take cheer from the NOAA's claim that "average global land temperature" in March was "the warmest on record", this was in striking contrast to a graph published last week on the Climate Audit website by Steve McIntyre. Tracking satellite data for the tropical troposphere, it showed March temperatures plunging to one of their lowest points in 30 years.

Mr McIntyre is the computer expert who exposed the infamous "hockey stick" graph - that icon of warmist orthodoxy which showed global temperatures soaring recently to their highest level for 1,000 years. He showed that the computer model that produced this graph had been so designed that it would have conjured even random numbers from a telephone directory into the shape of a hockey stick).

On April 24 the World Wildife Fund (WWF), another body keen to keep the warmist flag flying, published a study warning that Arctic sea ice was melting so fast that it may soon reach a "tipping point" where "irreversible change" takes place. This was based on last September's data, showing ice cover having shrunk over six months from 13 million square kilometres to just 3 million. What the WWF omitted to mention was that by March the ice had recovered to 14 million sq km (see the website Cryosphere Today), and that ice-cover around the Bering Strait and Alaska that month was at its highest level ever recorded. (At the same time Antarctic sea ice-cover was also at its highest-ever level, 30 per cent above normal).

The most dramatic evidence, however, emerged last week with an announcement by Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory that an immense slow-cycling movement of water in the Pacific, known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), had unexpectedly shifted into its cool phase, something which only happens every 30 years or so, ultimately affecting climate all over the globe. Discussion of this on the invaluable Watts Up With That website, run by the US meteorologist Anthony Watts, shows how the alternations of the PDO between warm and cool coincided with each of the major temperature shifts of the 20th century - warming after 1905, cooling after 1946, warming again after 1977 - and how the new shift to a cool phase could have repercussions for decades to come.

It is notable that the German computer predictions published last week by Nature forecast a decade of cooling due to deep-ocean movements in the Atlantic, without taking account of how this may now be reinforced by a similar, even greater movement in the Pacific.

Mr Watts points out that the West coast of the USA might already be experiencing these effects in the recent freezing temperatures that have devastated orchards and vineyards in California, prompting an appeal for disaster relief for growers who fear they may have lost this year's crops. Mr Watts's readers are amused by the explanation from one warmist apologist that "these natural climate phenomena can sometimes hide global warming caused by human activities - or they can have the opposite effect of accentuating it".

It is striking, in view of the colossal implications of the current response to "the greatest challenge confronting mankind" - as our politicians love to call it - how this hugely important debate is almost entirely overlooked by the media, and is instead conducted largely on the internet, through expert websites such as those run by Mr McIntyre and Mr Watts.

On one hand our politicians are committing us to spending unimaginable sums on wind farms, emissions trading schemes, absurdly ambitious biofuel targets, and every kind of tax and regulation designed to reduce our "carbon footprint" - all based on blindly accepting the predictions of computer models that the planet is overheating due to our output of greenhouse gases. On the other hand, a growing number of scientists are producing ever more evidence to show how those computer models are based on wholly inadequate data and assumptions - as is being confirmed by the behaviour of nature itself (not least the continuing non-arrival of sunspot cycle 24).

The fact is that what has been happening to the world's climate in recent years, since global temperatures ceased to rise after 1998, was not predicted by any of those officially-sponsored models. The discrepancy between their predictions and observable data becomes more glaring with every month that passes.

It won't do for believers in warmist orthodoxy to claim that, although temperatures may be falling, this is only because they are "masking an underlying warming trend that is still continuing" - nor to fob us off with assurances that the "German model shows that higher temperatures than 1998, the warmest year on record, are likely to return after 2015".

In view of what is now at stake, such quasi-religious incantations masquerading as science are something we can no longer afford. We should get back to proper science before it is too late.

Source






Can schools teach kids to think?

The introduction of `thinking skills' in British schools treats educational thought as a learned behaviour. But children are not dogs to be trained.

From September 2008, pupils starting secondary school in England are going to be taught to think. This begs the question, what have schools been doing up until now? Nevertheless, from now on young people are to be explicitly taught thinking skills. It is tempting to believe that this will result in the opening up of a new world of intellectual possibilities for young minds. but paradoxically, it is more likely to convince teachers and pupils alike that thinking is a conditioned reflex that just needs to be trained.

The promotion of the teaching of thinking skills is not new to education. The UK government has been encouraging the uptake of these ideas in secondary schools, as part of its attempt to drive up standards, for the past five years (1). But now the skills-based approach to learning has taken centre stage with the launch of the new national curriculum for 11- to 14-year-olds. The UK Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) published a `framework of personal, learning and thinking skills'. As the QCA says, this will give young people the skills `to enter work and adult life as confident and capable individuals'. According to the framework, pupils are to be encouraged to become `reflective learners', `creative thinkers', `team workers', `self-managers', `independent enquirers' and `effective participators'. This is the language of management training, not education. Deriving from the government's obsession with making education relevant to the perceived needs of business and society, the introduction of the explicit teaching of `thinking skills' is a political project.

The new national curriculum presents school education as a series of outcomes (2). Each outcome is explicitly a vision of the type of young people the QCA thinks society needs and wants. The actual subject matter of education only comes as an afterthought, hidden as a set of abbreviations in a minor strap line under `statutory expectations'. Clearly, according to the QCA, education is not about the transmission of knowledge. In fact, knowledge either gets in the way of learning transferable skills, or subjects are included only because they allow skills to be developed.

But surely introducing the teaching of thinking skills in the curriculum will improve pupils' chances of a good education? I beg to differ - for two reasons. First, the attempt to train pupils to think is based on a cognitive model of the human being as a biological machine. The attempt to teach thinking skills implies that thought is a learned behaviour, like a dog learning a trick. Once the trick is learned, apparently it happens automatically and, by definition, needs no further thought. The promotion of thinking skills is an attack on intellectual life, on thought itself.

Secondly, the promise of thinking skills is a hollow one. Even in its own terms, the development of thinking skills is about conditioning individual behaviour. It reduces the scope for creativity, the very thing it aspires to promote. We can't conjure up good ideas just by sitting down for half an hour and thinking about creating new ideas. The best that the thinking-skills approach has to offer is the illusion that good ideas are already there, just waiting for us to find them. This traps thought in our own heads. Creativity, like thought, is the result of an active engagement with society and with ideas themselves, not the action of a single mind trained inside a classroom environment.

During a recent training day for schoolteachers, I was asked to take part in an exercise based on (3) the approach to problem-solving developed in the book Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono, a well-known British physician, author, inventor and consultant. For this exercise we were given a problem and a card with one of the six hats explained on it. Each hat involves taking a different perspective (not necessarily your own) when discussing the problem at hand. The perspectives ranged from emotional, critical, objective, positive, creative to organisational. By discussing a problem from all these different perspectives, we are meant to arrive at `the answer', if it exists, in a faster, more systematic fashion.

The exercise was trivial, but what struck me was the introduction of de Bono into the classroom. Again, this is explicitly the language of management training rather than education. From this management perspective, knowledge is not considered to be very important. After all, business and management decisions are not made in the pursuit of knowledge - rather they are made in order to develop a position that can be defended and acted on. In the business world, once a decision is taken it must be transparent and accountable. Above all, decisions must be taken positively and leave no room for criticism. That is fine for management circles - but it is the very antithesis of the intellectual pursuit of knowledge, which must be more open-ended, more falsifiable, more open to continuing debate and development. De Bono made his name in the field of management consultancy - and what does that have to do with education?

De Bono himself is explicit about his suspicion of intellectualism. He says: `A true intellectual has as deep a fear of simplicity as a farmer has of droughts.' (4) His approach is the solution of problems in simple terms in the here and now. His approach is completely divorced from the intellectual tradition of human thought. In fact, argument and criticism - the tools of philosophers and thinkers in any serious field of knowledge - are to be dispensed with in the de Bono outlook, since they apparently lead to a `dangerous arrogance'. Instead, de Bono wants us to focus on positive, creative thinking and, as he calls it, `operacy'. By `operacy', he means `the skills of doing'. He warns us: `On a personal level, youngsters who do not acquire the skills of operacy will need to remain in an academic setting.'

It is no surprise, then, that de Bono is a fervent critic of school-based education. His books on education stress that his methods and not formal academic education are the real key to success. As he says in Teach Your Child How To Think, `Do not wait for school to do it. Where is "thinking" in the curriculum?' (5) He will be pleased to see that thinking is now included in the new national curriculum, and it's the kind of thinking he will approve of - a pared-down, simplistic view of thinking as a means to solving problems and `being creative'. In other words: anti-intellectual thinking.

Why are explicitly anti-intellectual thinkers like de Bono being included in school-training exercises and the development of the new curriculum? Why is thinking being taught as a skill separate and distinct from the pursuit of knowledge and education more broadly? These are worrying developments indeed, which are likely further to corrode excellence and ambition in British schools, and churn out children who are `skilled' but not very thoughtful or truly reflective. The paradox is that now, when we have all become obsessed with education, formal education is being torn down brick by brick. Learning about the intellectual tradition from which this society emerged is the best way to give young people a sense of where and who they are. This in turn will give them the basis upon which to struggle for a better society. No amount of empty-headed `brainstorming' sessions is going to bring about those kinds of ideas.

Source

A SKEPTICAL MAYOR OF LONDON

In the light of the inimitable Boris Johnson's just confirmed ascension to mayoral office in London, the following quotes may be of interest. Just for fun, however, I might firstly note here that, although Boris will now become Mayor of London, he will NOT be the The Lord Mayor of the City of London -- who is at present David Lewis. You don't have to be British to follow that but it helps. The "City" is only a small part of the London conurbation

Boris Johnson claimed a remarkable victory in the London mayoral contest on Friday night to cap a disastrous series of results for Gordon Brown in his first electoral test as Prime Minister. Mr Johnson's landmark victory, a result that would have been almost unthinkable six months ago, was the most symbolic blow to Mr Brown's authority on a day that left the Prime Minister facing the gravest crisis of his leadership.
--Andrew Porter and Robert Winnett, The Daily Telegraph, 3 May 2008

Mr Livingstone made clear he views 1 May as a referendum on his policies to tackle climate change and protect the health of Londoners. Aides claimed it would be the first election in British history to be decided largely on environmental issues.
--The London Evening Standard, 25 March 2008

Londoners now face a stark choice. Boris Johnson is an environmental vandal, whose main contribution to environmental policy was as a cheerleader for George W Bush's disastrous decision to oppose the Kyoto climate treaty. The election is neck and neck and everyone who cares about the environment needs to vote with the first and second preferences for myself and Sian Berry if we are to stop Boris Johnson wrecking London's environment.'
--Ken Livingstone, 25 April 2008

There are a hundred reasons why Boris Johnson should not be Mayor of London. But his dinosaur views on the environment alone are enough to show what a disaster he would be for our city. The man who backed Bush against the Kyoto treaty and who doesn't believe there's a risk from passive smoking cannot be trusted with our future - or even, really, with his own. He's a 19th century man in a 21st century city
--Sian Berry, Green Party, 25 April 2008

Under a climate change denier like Boris Johnson, we would have to fear for our futures, and for the jobs of all the hundreds who work for us. We would also have to fear for the physical security of the city itself, under the assault of unmitigated global warming, were others to follow Johnson's 'lead' on climate change.
--Jeremy Leggett, SolarCentury, 25 April 2008

The prospect of Boris as Mayor of London is just so scary. The prospect of Boris taking over London's Climate Change Action Plan is even scarier. He may have learnt not to reveal his full contrarian bigotry on climate change, but he really doesn't get it, and would rapidly scale back or completely get rid off the ambitious targets in the Action Plan. And that would be a massive set back. I just hope all the environmental NGOs can rally the troops in London in a pro-Ken campaign, even if they can't come out and explicitly endorse him.
--Jonathon Porritt, Sustainable Development Commission, March 2008

The hypocrisy of the Europeans over Kyoto is staggering. They attack America in hysterical terms, and yet the 15 EU countries have never come close to meeting their own eight per cent target for cuts in carbon dioxide emissions. They have not even agreed which countries should cut the most. If America were to meet its Kyoto targets now, it would require a cut of 30 per cent in emissions, and how, exactly, is that supposed to work in the current economic downturn? It would exacerbate the recession, and when Bush says no, he is doing what is right not just for America but for the world
--Boris Johnson, The Daily Telegraph, April 2001






Tony Blair: "You didn't realize how much you needed me"?



Rightward movement in both London and Rome: "In less than a week the major political parties of the Right in Britain and Italy scored unprecedented electoral victories by winning mayoral races in Rome and then in London. Since the end of the Second World War, the Right had never controlled those two offices. To grasp what this means, consider that "Londonistan" is the title of an excellent book by Melanie Phillips which warns of the descent of that great city into a radical Moslem polity. The citizens of Londonistan have chosen an iconoclastic Conservative Party leader, Boris Johnson, who has campaigned on the need to reduce crime in London and who has condemned the academic boycott of Israel by British universities as "disgusting and one sided." Although Johnson is more an offbeat moderate than a strong conservative, in Londonistan the change is dramatic and sweeping compared to what it had been before. His defeated opponent, "Red Ken" Livingston, was a blatant fan of every Marxist thug and radical Moslem in the world."

[There is a good humorous piece by Boris Johnson here]








Modern Britain: No Laughing Matter

Earlier generations of Britons believed that certain things simply could not happen in Britain. Even in the country's darkest moments of war or depression, this conviction differentiated the then proud nation from the U.S.S.R., third world countries, and unstable regimes that might fall to dictatorship any moment. News blackouts, and the banning of a book or film of course occurred here or there, but these never seemed very serious events.

When the Thatcher government banned the sale of the novel, Spycatcher, in Britain, it was smuggled into the country from abroad, and reported in the press despite legal challenges. Humor was the public's usual way of dealing with such things, and the banning of a book that most people could get ahold of, turned politics into a laughing stock. And not for the first or last time either. Before the outbreak of the Second World War, when Oswald Moseley's "black shirt" fascists were parading through London, Lady Astor commented that if they should ever gain power the British people would die laughing. How prophetic this was. A few years later Charlie Chaplin denounced and mocked the Nazis in his film, The Great Dictator, even as prime minister Neville Chamberlain sought to win "peace for our time" by appeasing Hitler.

In the 1980s and early 1990s the satirical puppet show, Spitting Image, which mocked the politicians of the time, became a staple of television viewing, even for those who generally did not like television that much. The puppets were grotesque, but politics at that time - and before that time - was raw, unscripted. Thatcher, like other leaders, spoke from the gut as well as the brain, and the picture was not always pretty, but it was human, and it represented the British people. In an excellent op-ed piece for The Daily Mail recently, Lord Tebbit - Thatcher's once right-hand man - spoke of his love for his puppet-portrayal as a "leather-clad bovver boy," his dismay at the banal, politically correct, mainstream parties who seem indistinguishable from one another, and constant political failings that are, "so ridiculous that it is beyond satire."

Political correctness has cowed society and politics, and trodden down common sense and humor. Unlike the defiant, bawdy Brit of the past, today he thinks before he speaks, running through the list of forbidden words, and making sure not to let one slip. And so much now is taboo. The English Democrats Party is under investigation for racism, for using the term, "tartan tax," a student was arrested for calling a police horse "gay," and, if you need to see the proof of such extreme "politically correct" intolerance, a Youtube video showing a young man being arrested for singing, "I'd rather wear a turban" (deemed racist by the arresting officer), can be seen here.

A common language is one of the traditional, defining marks of a nation, and the criminalization of words will have a very profound consequence for the British. Though rarely acknowledged as such, humor is another defining mark, and one that makes use of the nation's language in particular ways that relies on the audience having a good general knowledge of culture, history, and politics. Notably, Voltaire once commented that tragedies could be translated from one tongue to another, but that comedies could not. Anyone wishing to grasp the English comedy would need to, "spend three years in London, to make yourself master of the English tongue, and to frequent the playhouse every night," he suggested.

Political correctness has changed British politics and society, the latter of which has been famed for its ability to laugh at itself - an ability that has certainly helped to keep it free and democratic. Extremists - whether of the fascist, politically correct, or Islamic type - are united in their suspicion - even rejection - of humor. Humor shows them for what they really are. When the "Mohammed cartoons" provoked riots and death threats by Islamic radicals, Jack Straw could only remark,

I said at the time that the cartoons were reprinted in Europe - though not here in the United Kingdom - that doing so was needlessly insensitive and disrespectful. The right to freedom of expression is a broad one and something which this country has long held dear. [.] But the existence of such a right does not mean that it is right - morally right, politically right, socially right - to exercise that freedom without regard to the feelings of others.

With those words Straw beheads the figure of humor before our eyes, in order to appease those who might be offended. Not every Muslim is humorless, of course, and in the U.S., for example, there is a comedy show called "Allah made me funny," with Muslim comedians who are able to poke fun at themselves. The show was the initiative of Preacher Moss, who wanted to bridge the gap between Muslims and non-Muslims after 9/11. Yet in Britain we see that appeasement has become de facto policy of the "liberal" media, with various controversial words or subjects banned. Ben Elton - a comedian and author once noted for his staunchly Left-wing politics - recently accused the B.B.C. of being too "scared" to poke fun at radical Islam, noting that he was even told not to use the entirely innocuous phrase, "Mohammed came to the mountain" apparently for fear of the consequences.

A few days ago, it emerged that the B.B.C. and rival television broadcaster I.T.V. insisted that the Christian Choice political party make changes to the language of its electoral broadcast concerning their opposition to the building of Europe's largest mosque in London. The party had described Tablighi Jamaat, the group behind its planning, as "separatist," and noted that some "moderate Muslims" were against the mega-mosque. But the B.B.C. was worried, and insisted the group be described as "controversial" instead. And, it disallowed the term "moderate Muslims" as it implied that Tablighi Jamaat was not moderate. I.T.V. would not even allow the group to be described as "controversial," although this would certainly appear to be an appropriate - if mild - term. Tablighi Jamaat is opposed to Muslims mixing with non-Muslims, and wants to separate their flock from Jews and Christians by - according to one of their advocates in Britain - creating, "such hatred for their ways as human beings have for urine and excreta."

Ten years ago, we would have laughed at a comedy sketch in which people were banned from describing hate mongers as "controversial." We would have laughed at a sketch of a student being arrested for calling a horse "gay." The lunacy of it all seems so Monty Python or Spitting Image, yet this is the reality of modern Britain.

But I wonder if bawdy, rowdy humor is not now being confined to the past, and along with it an entire way of thinking, and an effective weapon that has proved the best defense of common sense and ordinary people. Gone, it seems, is the type of politician that was feisty and unapologetic in the pursuit of liberty. Contrast Churchill - drinker, cigar smoker, and a man with a quick wit and sharp tongue - with those who embody modern politics - Gordon Brown, Jack Straw, Ken Livingstone, Tony Blair, or David Cameron - and one cannot help but feel that the future of Britain may be no laughing matter.

Source






GREEN TAX REVOLT: BRITONS 'WILL NOT FOOT BILL TO SAVE PLANET'

More than seven in 10 voters insist that they would not be willing to pay higher taxes in order to fund projects to combat climate change, according to a new poll.

The survey also reveals that most Britons believe "green" taxes on 4x4s, plastic bags and other consumer goods have been imposed to raise cash rather than change our behaviour, while two-thirds of Britons think the entire green agenda has been hijacked as a ploy to increase taxes.

The findings make depressing reading for green campaigners, who have spent recent months urging the Government to take far more radical action to reduce Britain's carbon footprint. The UK is committed to reducing carbon emissions by 60 per cent by 2050, a target that most experts believe will be difficult to reach. The results of the poll by Opinium, a leading research company, indicate that maintaining popular support for green policies may be a difficult act to pull off, and attempts in the future to curb car use and publicly fund investment in renewable resources will prove deeply unpopular.

The implications of the poll could also blow a hole in the calculations of the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, who was forced to delay a scheduled 2p-a-litre rise in fuel duty until the autumn in his spring Budget, while his plans to impose a showroom tax and higher vehicle excise duty on gas-guzzling cars will not take effect for a year. He is now under pressure to shelve the increase in fuel duty because of the steep rise in the price of oil.

The public's climate-change scepticism extends to the recent floods which inundated much of the West Country, and reported signs of changes in the cycle of the seasons. Just over a third of respondents (34 per cent) believe that extreme weather is becoming more common but has nothing to do with global warming. One in 10 said that they believed that climate change is totally natural.

The over-55s are most cynical about the effects of global warming with 43 per cent believing that extreme weather and global warming are unconnected.

Three in 10 (29 per cent) of all respondents would oppose any more legislation in support of green policies, while close to a third of citizens (31 per cent) believe that green taxes will have no discernible effect on the environment since people will still take long-haul flights regularly and drive carbon-heavy vehicles.

Mike Childs, the head of campaigns for Friends of the Earth, blamed the Government for generating a cynical response to "green taxes". "People do get cynical unless they see benefits," he said. "The Government is playing a dangerous game. They are using climate change to identify potential new taxes and revenues but the public aren't seeing anything in return. The public aren't being helped to go green. The Government could put a windfall tax on the big oil companies and use that money to insulate homes or introduce a feed-in tariff to pay people to produce renewable energy."

Mark Hodson, of Opinium Research, said: "Britain appears to be feeling increasingly negative about being more carbon neutral. We are questioning the truth behind being greener and many feel that Government is creating a green fear for monetary gain."

The findings were released as the Prince of Wales yesterday called on Britain's business leaders to take "essential action" to make their firms more sustainable. Speaking in central London to some of the country's leading chief executives, Prince Charles said: "What more can I do but urge you, this country's business leaders, to take the essential action now to make your businesses more sustainable. I'm exhausted with repeating that there really is no time to lose."

Also attending the May Day Business Summit, the Prime Minister promised the Government will set out a "credible" long-term policy framework to help industry develop innovative low-carbon, resource-efficient products and services. He outlined the recommendations of a report, Building a Low Carbon Economy, for creating a "green" economy, including "seeking to encourage changes in consumer behaviour".

Gordon Brown said: "We know that we will only succeed if individuals and communities, as well as Government and business, are part of the solution."

Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, said: "The Government is committed to building a low-carbon economy, here and around the world. That means a complete change in the way we live and an economic transformation that will put Britain at the forefront of a technological revolution in the way we use and source our energy."

The research was conducted online amongst 2,002 adults by Opinium Research LLP between 11 and 14 April

Source

British private school demand is highest for five years despite big fee rises

Brits desperate to get their kids out of dangerous, anarchic and incompetent government schools

Independent schools have had the biggest increase in pupil numbers in five years as parents dig deep to avoid the state system. Although successive above-inflation fee increases have driven the average cost of private education to more than o11,000 a year, the number of children enrolled in schools belonging to the Independent Schools Council (ISC) has risen to a record 511,677. This is despite a fall in the number of English children of school age and in the number of overseas pupils, and fears that the credit crunch could lead to recession.

The increase has been driven by a big expansion of provision in the nursery sector, as growing numbers of preparatory schools have decided to accept three-year-olds. Longer working hours, commuting and the rising costs of formal childcare have persuaded more parents to turn to independent schools for a preschool education.

Deborah Odysseas-Bailey, chairwoman of the Independent Schools Association and headmistress of Babbington House school in Kent, which has a nursery, said parents were now putting children's names down for school at birth, if not before. "Parents are buying into independent education at a much earlier age. Once they are in, they wish to remain," she said.

Figures also show a strong rise in the number of sixth formers in the independent sector. Barnard Trafford, chairman of the HMC group of elite independent schools and headmaster of Wolverhampton Grammar, said this was because such schools offered a broader education and wider range of subjects, including modern languages, classics and the sciences at A level.

The increase in demand for a private education comes against a 6.2 per cent increase in school fees, according to the ISC annual census. At the top end of the scale, there are now 14 boarding schools and one day school charging more than o27,000 a year.

Vicky Tuck, president of the Girls' Schools Association and principal of the Cheltenham Ladies' College, attributed the rise in part to the spread of new technology. "Parents are quite worried about the isolated lifestyles teenagers can grow into, stuck in their bedrooms with all their gadgets. What they love about boarding is the strength of the community. At the same time, the new technology that pupils do have in boarding school makes it easier to keep in touch."

Head teachers said that parents were willing to make huge financial sacrifices. Several, however, expressed concerns that the economic slowdown might start to affect enrolments from next year. Mrs Tuck said that Cheltenham Ladies' College had deliberately kept its fee increase to 4 per cent this year, in anticipation of harder times. At the City of London School for Boys, the headmaster, David Levin, said: "We needed to start making things easier for parents so we kept our fee increase down to 2 per cent."

Nick Dorey, chairman-elect of the Society of Headmasters and Headmis-tresses of Independent Schools and head of Bethany School in Kent, said that parents were getting help from grandparents or by remortgaging. "That can't go on for ever. If the market falls, that will affect the amount of equity in people's houses that they can convert into school fees," he said. The ISC census is based on returns from 1,271 schools that belong to the council, representing 80 per cent of privately educated pupils.

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Boris! "Britain's Labour Party has suffered its worst local election defeat on record and lost control of London, forcing Prime Minister Gordon Brown to rethink his strategy to avoid losing the next national election. Conservative Boris Johnson, a journalist-turned-politician prone to gaffes, wrested the prized post of London mayor from Labour's maverick Ken Livingstone, who has run the capital since 2000. After an often bad-tempered campaign, Mr Johnson paid tribute to Mr Livingstone as a "distinguished leader" of the city, singling out his efforts after the Tube and bus bombings in 2005. He promised to those who did not vote for him to "work flat out from now on to earn your trust and to dispel some of the myths that have been created about me". To those who did vote for him, he said: "I will work flat out to repay and to justify your confidence." ... Mr Johnson will be in charge of an $23.31 billion budget covering public transport, police and fire services in a city of some 7.5 million people. He will oversee preparations for the 2012 Olympic Games and be responsible for promoting policies on housing, the environment and the economy in Europe's biggest financial centre."

THE OLYMPIC GOLD MEDAL FOR FURIOUS BACKPEDALLING HAS ALREADY BEEN WON

An email from John A [johna.sci@googlemail.com] of Climate Audit referring to the BBC report by Richard Black

The BBC report features some startling reversals such as The Earth's temperature may stay roughly the same for a decade, as natural climate cycles enter a cooling phase, scientists have predicted. A new computer model developed by German researchers, reported in the journal Nature, suggests the cooling will counter greenhouse warming.

Oh my gosh! Just imagine that! Could the IPCC be completely wrong? "One message from our study is that in the short term, you can see changes in the global mean temperature that you might not expect given the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)," said Noel Keenlyside from the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University" and in a tyre-squealing manoevre that would do Lewis Hamilton proud: "The projection does not come as a surprise to climate scientists, though it may to a public that has perhaps become used to the idea that the rapid temperature rises seen through the 1990s are a permanent phenomenon."

Now where do you think the public might have got that impression from? The BBC? The IPCC? Nature? I don't think that most climate modellers or BBC journalists can even blush anymore.





Drug companies win appeal against arrogant and secretive British drug regulator

NICE did not want to reveal details of the "model" it uses. Not surprising given the erratic results obtainable from such models

Tens of thousands of Alzheimer’s sufferers and their families had their hopes raised yesterday as two drug companies won a landmark victory in the Court of Appeal. The court ruled that the powerful body that controls the prescription of new drugs must give up its most precious secrets — how it measures the benefits that novel treatments bring.

The ruling is the first case that NICE, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, has lost in court. It means that in future it will have to be completely transparent in the way it reaches its decisions, revealing the inner workings of the computer models it uses to measure value for money.

Drugs are approved if they cost the NHS less than about 30,000 pounds per quality-adjusted life year. That means for every 30,000 spent prescribing them, the benefit enjoyed by patients must add up to the equivalent of a single patient living an extra year of good-quality life.

NICE was adjudged to have acted unfairly in making an appraisal of the Alzheimer drug Aricept, which works by increasing levels of a brain chemical linked to memory and decision making. NICE had ruled that Aricept should not be prescribed on the NHS to patients with mild Alzheimer’s disease because the model failed to show that it provided good value. But it refused to allow Eisai and Pfizer, who market the drug, full access to the model. The Court of Appeal yesterday ruled that refusal unlawful. The judgment said that the two companies were disadvantaged in appealing against the guidance by NICE’s refusal to let them have a “fully executable” version of the economic model.

Had the companies had the full version, they could have tested it using a variety of assumptions and been in a better position to challenge the guidance. NICE must now make such a version available. Lord Justice Richards, giving the ruling of the appeal judges, said NICE had supplied a spreadsheet of the economic model and had refused a request from Eisai for full details. He allowed the appeal by Eisai/Pfizer, which will receive the full details and make new representations to NICE, which will then make a fresh appraisal of the drugs.

The ruling could influence many other appraisals made by NICE. For example, last year it issued guidance over drugs for osteoporosis that similarly relied on an economic model. When the National Osteoporosis Society appealed against the guidance, it complained that it had never had access to the economic model, despite several requests. “It always seemed to us that this public policy should have been subject to proper scrutiny,” said Nick Rijke, of the NOS. “It is a pity it took a court case to establish that.”

Economic models of this sort can be very sensitive to the precise details that are entered into them. The drug companies will want change the starting points and the assumptions built into the models to see if that produces a different answer. Potentially, it opens up a large and controversial area of public policy to greater scrutiny. NICE has been criticised widely for its propensity to reject new drugs. Companies disappointed by its rulings will in future be able to judge whether, for example, treating different groups of patients with a particular medicine might result in it being found more cost-effective, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry said yesterday. “This judgment provides further momentum behind the drive to make NICE processes more transparent,” said Richard Barker, director-general of the association.

NICE could appeal to the House of Lords and seek a reversal of the ruling. Andrew Dillon, its chief executive, said: “We will be considering very carefully the findings and the implications for the time it takes us to provide advice to patients and the NHS on the use of new treatments. The ruling will increase the complexity of our drug appraisals in some cases and they may take longer as a result.” The ruling will not make Aricept available to new patients. It will simply enable Eisai and Pfizer to search for any flaws in NICE’s reasoning.

The drug acts against a key process of the disease. In Alzheimer’s, the damage is caused by the loss of brain cells that produce a transmitter, acetylcholine, that carries signals from cell to cell. When it has finished transmitting its messages, it is broken up by an enzyme, acetylcholinesterase. Aricept inhibits the action of this enzyme, thereby slowing progression of the disease.

Nick Burgin, managing director of Eisai, said: “We believe that this decision represents a victory for common sense. As soon as we have reviewed their cost-effectiveness calculations we will submit any new findings to NICE. We hope that this action will ultimately restore access to anti-dementia medicines for those patients at the mild stages of Alzheimer’s disease.”

John Young, managing director of Pfizer, said: “Contrary to NICE’s position that they follow a fully fair and transparent process, the Court of Appeal found that this is not the case.”

Neil Hunt, chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Society, said: “Today’s decision is a damming indictment of the fundamentally flawed process used by NICE to deny people with Alzheimer’s disease access to drug treatments.”

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Vengeful mothers leave good fathers powerless to see child, says judge

A senior judge spoke out against child access law yesterday, saying that the courts were powerless to help decent fathers to see their children if vengeful mothers stood in the way. Lord Justice Ward made his comments after telling a father that there was nothing he could do to help him to reestablish contact with his teenage daughter who had been turned against him by her "vicious" mother.

The "drip, drip, drip of venom" poured into the daughter's ears by the mother included accusations of sexual abuse against the innocent father after the couple divorced, the judge said. The former wife's tactics were so successful that the daughter wrote to her father when she was 9 saying that she wished he was dead. The daughter is now 14. The identity of the family must be kept secret to protect her privacy.

Lord Justice Ward told the father that the case was bordering on scandalous but the court was compelled to act solely in the best interests of the child. The girl would be too distressed if she was forced to spend time with her father after her mother's "corrupting" campaign, he said. "The father complains bitterly, passionately and with every justification that the law is sterile, impotent and utterly useless - we have to acknowledge there is a degree of force in what he says," the judge told the Court of Appeal Civil Division. "But the question is what can this court do? The answer is nothing. This is a truly distressing case. It may not be untypical of many, but in some ways it borders on the scandalous. It certainly is tragic."

Between 15,000 and 20,000 couples go to court to resolve child access disputes each year. Campaigners say that the courts too often side with the mother, are too ready to believe what she says and rarely take action if contact orders are flouted. They want courts to start from a legal presumption of shared parenting between mothers and fathers. Yesterday's case involved parents who were briefly married in the 1990s but parted while their daughter was a baby. Contact between father and daughter was maintained at first but gradually disintegrated, according to the judge.

During rows over access, the mother, who lives near Lincoln, accused him of sexually abusing their child. But in 1997 a judge ruled that her allegations were wholly unfounded. However, Lord Justice Ward told the court yesterday that the mother had convinced the child that her father was guilty. "The seeds of poison had been sown and from it has grown a wall of dislike, bordering on hatred, for the father," he said. He described the letter written by the girl as "the most ghastly, horrible, letter for a nine-year-old girl to write to her father". It read: "This is what I really think about you. I hate you and you frighten me. You made my life miserable and stressful. I wish you would die. Leave me alone."

Despite this, the father went to Lincoln County Court in 2004 in an attempt to reestablish contact. A judge ruled that he should be allowed to see her under the supervision of a priest. That turned out to be distressing for the girl and the arrangement broke down. The girl insisted that she had been sexually abused. Lord Justice Ward refused the father permission to appeal against his decision, but told the court that the mother was to blame and a copy of his judgment would be given to her and her daughter to read. "The mother is, in my view, the source of this state of affairs by corrupting this girl so viciously and turning her against her father. That is the most I can do for you, with a heavy heart. It is a public scandal that these things go wrong."

After the hearing the father said: "This situation exemplifies what is wrong with the family justice system." He said he would consider taking his case to the European Court of Human Rights.

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Row over British plans to recycle 24,000 failing teachers

Up to 24,000 incompetent teachers should be removed from their classrooms and put to work in neighbouring schools, according to the body responsible for upholding teaching standards. Keith Bartley, the chief executive of the General Teaching Council for England, said that urgent action was needed to retrain teachers who had “more bad days than good”. He said that it was unacceptable that only 46 teachers, from a workforce of half a million, had been judged incompetent since 2001.

In an interview with The Times, Mr Bartley said that he had drawn up draft proposals to tackle the problem in response to a call by Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, in his ten-year Children’s Plan, for the GTCE to root out teachers whose “competence falls to unacceptably low levels”. Mr Bartley’s comments provoked immediate criticism from teachers’ leaders and parents, who said that it was unfair to expect pupils and schools to take on teachers judged to have failed elsewhere.

At present one of the best-kept secrets of the teaching profession is that head teachers routinely encourage sub-standard teachers to resign, allowing them to transfer, often with a passable job reference, to another school. This is easier than embarking on lengthy and stressful incompetence procedures, but it shifts the problem elsewhere.

Mr Bartley said that it was impossible to say for sure how many incompetent teachers there were, although some estimates put the number as high as 24,000 — roughly one per school. Mr Bartley said that on his visits to schools he often came across teachers who felt “oppressed” by continually changing educational policy and everyday tasks, having lost the bigger vision of what teaching was about. “We know we have the best-qualified teachers we have ever had,” he said. “We are not talking about a system in crisis. But there’s a band of teachers who have more bad days than good. The issue is how do we energise people in the profession so that they don’t drop into the routine.”

Under draft proposals drawn up by Mr Bartley, head teachers would be able to refer incompetent teachers to an independent agency that would in turn place the teacher in a nearby school. There, the teacher would be given intensive retraining and support and the chance to prove themselves. He said that evidence from cases heard by the GTCE suggested that incompetence was often a matter of context. “A teacher may be incompetent in one area, but not in all areas.” He added that it should be a given that all competent teachers sought constantly to improve and developtheir and practice. It was part of a wider move to improve the overall standards of teaching and went hand in hand with plans to encourage all teachers to study for masters degrees.

John Dunford, of the Association of School and College Leaders, said that heads would want to help teachers to find a school that suited them. “But they can’t just go from school to school, because heads would be reluctant to take the risk that a teacher found incompetent in one setting might be less competent in another.”

Margaret Morrissey, of the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations, said: “If these teachers are incompetent, parents will immediately say: what effect has this had on my child’s education?”

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said that it was keen to ensure that such teachers were helped to improve as quickly as possible. “We are clear that simply moving poor-quality teachers around is unacceptable and those who do not quickly improve will be helped to leave the profession.”

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Black British soldier sues over 'humiliating' nickname

We read:

"British soldier Kerry Hylton is suing the army because of the embarrassing nickname given to him by fellow troops. Hylton claims he has been "demeaned'' by the nickname "Paris'', after the notorious blonde American socialite and Hilton hotel empire heiress. He is suing for race discrimination, alleging that his fellow soldiers ignored orders to stop calling him Paris.

The Daily Express newspaper reported that Hylton, a chef with the Welsh Guards, finds the nickname offensive because he considers Paris Hilton "a white woman with a low reputation''. The Jamaica-born 33-year-old also alleged he was called several racist names at his barracks in London. An employment tribunal in London is expected to hear his case next month."

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So it is racist to give a black the name of someone white? A bit of a stretch. But in batty Britain it might fly, I guess.

Anyway, nicknames are common in the army. They come with the job. My army nickname was "Whanger" but I had better not explain that.






Eating 5 tomatoes a day 'offers sun protection'

The sample size was too small to enable generalizations

Eating five tomatoes a day could help protect against sunburn and premature ageing, research suggests. Experts at Manchester and Newcastle universities found that the fruit improved the skin's ability to protect itself against ultraviolet light. The researchers calculated that the protection offered was comparable to applying factor 1.3 sunscreen. Now they hope further research will establish whether eating tomatoes protects against more severe forms of sun damage, such as skin cancer.

"You don't have to eat an excessive amount of tomatoes to experience the effect if you are already eating a tomato-based diet with plenty of things like spaghetti and pizza toppings," said Prof Mark Birch-Machin, a dermatology scientist at Newcastle University. "Eating tomatoes is going to have this benefit in the sun, but it is still important to use conventional methods of protecting yourself against the sun such as sunscreens, shade and clothing."

Researchers studied the skin of 20 people, half of whom were given five tablespoons (55g) of standard tomato paste, the equivalent of five or six cooked tomatoes, with 10g of olive oil. The other half received just olive oil. The experiment was carried out over 12 weeks and the group was exposed to ultraviolet light at the beginning and the end of the trial. The results, presented to the British Society for Investigative Dermatology in Oxford, found that those who had eaten the paste had 33 per cent more protection against sunburn.

Ultraviolet light leads to excess production of harmful molecules called "reactive oxygen species", which can damage skin structures and eventually cause wrinkles and skin cancer. Tomatoes contain an antioxidant called lycopene, which can neutralise these molecules. This red pigment is found in a number of fruit and vegetables, but is at its most concentrated in tomatoes. The tomatoes were cooked and made into a paste because the heating process frees up lycopene.

Analysis of skin samples from both groups also showed that the tomatoes had boosted the skin's procollagen levels, a molecule which gives skin its structure. Losing procollagen leads to the skin ageing and losing its elasticity. It was also found that the increased levels of lycopene reduced damage to mitochondrial DNA in the skin, which is also linked to ageing skin.

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Leftists lose big in Britain: "Gordon Brown is facing pressure from Labour MPs for a change in direction after a nightmare at the polls which saw the party slump to its worst results for four decades. With results still coming in from England and Wales overnight, Labour’s projected national vote share has been put at just 24 per cent, trailing 20 points behind David Cameron’s Conservatives on 44 per cent and beaten into third place by the Liberal Democrats on 25 per cent. The margin was similar to the drubbing received by John Major in council elections in 1995, two years before he was ejected from Downing Street by Tony Blair. Latest analysis suggests that the Tories would enjoy a landslide Commons majority of between 138 and 164 seats if the results were repeated in a general election."

English not first language for 800,000 schoolchildren in Britain



More than 800,000 schoolchildren do not speak English as their first language, official figures have disclosed. Almost 500,000 children in primary schools have English as a second language – an estimated one in seven – with a further 350,000 pupils in secondary schools.

It follows a significant rise in the number of school pupils from immigrant families. Their numbers have almost doubled in a decade to reach record levels in England's schools. In some areas, children without English as their first language account for more than half of all pupils.

Teachers warned yesterday that large concentrations of foreign pupils with a poor grasp of English were placing an increasing burden on their capacity to provide all children with a decent standard of education. They say more money is needed to cater for the dozens of languages spoken in some classrooms, amid fears that overall standards could suffer if they are forced to concentrate on the few struggling with their language.

Many Roman Catholic schools are now printing admissions forms in Polish and hiring foreign teaching assistants to cope with increasing demand for places from eastern European families.

According to figures published by the Department for Children, Schools and Families yesterday, 14.4 per cent of children aged five to 11 speak languages other than English in the home – compared with 13.5 per cent 12 months ago – making a total of 470,080 pupils. In secondary schools, there are 354,300 pupils with English as a second language. That proportion increased from 10.6 to 10.8 per cent. The figures disclosed that in 14 local authorities – almost one in 10 – English-speaking primary school pupils are in the minority.

In the London borough of Tower Hamlets, only 23 per cent of pupils speak English as their first language. In inner London primary schools, children with English as their first language are in the minority. One primary school – Newbury Park in east London – teaches children who speak more than 40 languages, including Tamil, Swahili, Bengali, Cantonese, Spanish, Japanese and Russian.

Jim Knight, the schools minister, admitted that "undoubtedly there can be problems" for schools with a high concentration of pupils speaking other languages as their mother tongue. Damian Green, the shadow immigration minister, said: "This has happened because the Government failed to follow our policy of taking into account the impact of immigration."

The National Association of Head Teachers warned in November that the situation was "out of control" and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers called last month for extra funds to "meet the extra educational demands on schools brought about by the recent influx of children of refugee and EU migrant families".

According to official figures, the number of pupils speaking other languages has increased by a third since the main expansion of the European Union in 2004, from 10.5 per cent to 14.4 per cent this year. Last year, official figures disclosed that since Labour came to power in 1997, nearly four million foreign nationals have come to Britain and 1.6 million have left. It was also disclosed that increasing numbers of pupils were from ethnic minority backgrounds.

The proportion of primary pupils described as non-white British rose from 21.9 to 23.3 per cent. In secondary schools, the proportion increased from 18 to 19.5 per cent in 12 months.

Mr Knight said: "The gap in achievement between migrant children and English-speaking pupils has narrowed significantly in recent years."

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This is how bad some British schools are

A father threw himself under a train because he wrongly thought that he had failed to enrol his daughter into her chosen secondary school, an inquest was told yesterday. Steve Don, 43, believed that he was an "unfit parent" because he had been unsuccessful in getting his 11-year-old daughter into a secondary school near their Brighton home.

The surveyor, who had no history of depression, had complained to his family that repeated attempts to contact the local education authority had been met with silence. He handed his daughter over to social services hours before jumping into the path of a train at a level crossing in East Sussex.

On the day of his suicide Mr Don told his wife: "They would not listen to me alive, perhaps they will if I was dead." But it emerged that Brighton & Hove City Council had backed down and awarded his daughter, Bethany, a place at a school a few minutes' walk from her home only hours before Mr Don died. His wife, Lorraine Wilson, 44, told him the news over the telephone but he refused to believe it. Two hours later he was dead.

In a statement read to the court, Mrs Wilson, an office manager, said: "He did take his life and this was due to the local education authority not agreeing to meet him." The family had wanted their daughter to go to the Dorothy Stringer School but in 2005 she was placed at Falmer School, five miles away. The couple appealed but this was rejected by an independent panel. They applied again for Varndean School, which is within walking distance of their ground-floor flat. Hours before Mr Don killed himself in September 2005, the council called his wife to say that it had found their daughter a place at the Varndean School.

Concluding that Mr Don committed suicide, Alan Craze, the East Sussex Coroner, said "I have made a decision not to hold an inquiry into matters relating to the decision as to which secondary school this particular child should go to." A council spokesman said: "The reason Mr Don's original preferences were turned down was because he'd sent his form in after our published deadline. Our rules clearly say we have to consider all applications that come in by deadline before late ones."

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Law lords rule NHS policy on overseas doctors is unlawful

Thousands of doctors trained outside Europe yesterday won a House of Lords ruling that the Government could not block them from applying for training posts in Britain. By a four to one majority, the law lords ruled that guidance originally issued by Patricia Hewitt when she was Health Secretary, aimed at limiting the employment rights of overseas doctors, was illegal. She had issued instructions saying that doctors from outside Europe should be appointed to training posts only if there were no suitable candidates from Britain or the EU to fill them. By "dashing the legitimate expectations" of doctors who had been encouraged to come to Britain, the law lords said, Ms Hewitt had acted unfairly.

The ruling ends a long legal battle. Her guidance was challenged by the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (Bapio), which lost in the lower court but won on appeal. The department brought a further appeal to the Lords, which it has now lost, bringing final victory to Bapio. The ruling will mean 4,000 to 5,000 overseas-trained doctors already in Britain are guaranteed equal chances of winning training posts.

A Department of Health spokesper-son said: "We are disappointed that the Lords have ruled that our guidance as it stood was unlawful. However, this is a complex judgment which needs careful consideration. "We are coming to the end of a consultation on this difficult issue. That consultation is due to end on May 6. We need to study the House of Lords findings carefully, alongside the responses to the consultation, to see what the best course of action will be."

Although the department lost, the ruling does not mean an ever-open door. The Home Office has changed the rules for immigration to prevent people coming to Britain under the Highly Skilled Migrants Programme (HSMP) from applying for medical training posts. Bapio's victory does mean that applications for training posts in the next few years will remain tight, with roughly 700 to 1,000 British-trained doctors likely to be unable to get a training post in 2009, 2010 and beyond.

For this year, the ruling would have had no effect even if the department had won. Competition for training posts in 2008 is likely to be even tougher than in 2007, with about three applicants for every place. In 2007 more than 1,300 applicants from British medical schools failed to get posts. This year the department estimates that between 1,000 and 1,500 will be disappointed. They will still be able to get jobs in the NHS, but training posts are much more desirable because they lead eventually to qualification for consultant posts.

The issue now is what the department will do to solve the problem. Medical school places have been steadily increasing, leaving the prospect of many expensively trained British graduates being denied the opportunities they hoped for. One alternative is to increase the number of training places, but that would be pointless if there were not a corresponding increase in consultant jobs. It would be moving the point of unemployment to later in a doctor's career. Another alternative would be to cut the number of medical school places, reversing the policy of self-sufficiency embraced by the Government. But this would take up to ten years, represent a volte-face and would return Britain to its traditional position of dependence on foreign doctors.

In the Lords ruling, Lord Rodger of Earlsferry said that it must have been clear to the Government that, due to a change which it had itself initiated soon after taking office, from about 2005 there would be an increased supply of home-grown medical graduates. To try to put it right, Ms Hewitt "dashed the legitimate expectations which it had fostered and on which the foreign doctors had acted. The advice was accordingly unlawful. "Obviously, the Government could have achieved its objective if it had amended the immigration rules. For various reasons, it chose not to do so. "But, if it had chosen to try to amend the rules, it would have been required to pay the political price of subjecting the proposed change, and its highly damaging effects on the international medical graduates with HSMP status in this country, to the scrutiny of Parliament."

Lord Bingham of Cornhill said that to speak of the guidance being "issued" was to "suggest a degree of official formality which was notably lacking". It was published on the NHS employers' website, but no official record had been produced during the legal proceedings. Instead, the Lords had been referred to a Home Office e-mail. "It is for others to judge whether this is a satisfactory way of publishing important governmental decisions with a direct effect on people's lives," Lord Bingham said. Lords Carswell and Mance also dismissed the Government's appeal.

In a dissenting judgment, Lord Scott of Foscote said that the Health Secretary was entitled to adjust the policy on employment of junior doctors in postgraduate training positions to give priority to British or EU nationals. Terry John, chairman of the BMA's International Committee, said: "It's right that we have a debate about the numbers of doctors coming to the UK in future, but it's wrong to scapegoat those already here."

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Inmate boasts of 'luxury' life in British prison

A man jailed for repeatedly stabbing his wife has said he is enjoying a luxury life in prison and boasted that he was "better off inside". Donal Kelleher, 37, an inmate at HMP Cardiff, said that his en suite accommodation was "outstanding" and disclosed that he was paid œ10 a week - to study for a maths GCSE - which he spends on cigarettes, chocolate and "other luxury goods".

A prison officer who has worked at Cardiff for 15 years said last week that inmates were simply sitting in their cells watching snooker on television or playing computer games. He added that a new health care centre put local hospitals "to shame" and made it easier to see a dentist than on the "outside". The extraordinary claims were made after The Daily Telegraph disclosed last week that a prison officers' leader said jails had become so comfortable that some inmates were ignoring chances to escape. Glyn Travis, the assistant general secretary of the Prison Officers Association, said the latest disclosure confirmed his fears and that "we need to address the root of what prisons are all about".

Kelleher, a former Welsh Guard, stabbed his wife Leanne seven times in the chest and back after she told him she was leaving him. He was jailed in 2005. But writing to a local newspaper from prison, he said: "I am better off in here. I could only imagine how cold it was this winter living on the streets." Kelleher added: "May I just say that the food and accomadation (sic) is of outstanding quality here. We have coulour (sic) TVs, on sweet (sic) facilities, everything is provided for us eg toiletries, laundry."

He stated that the education department at Cardiff was of a "very high standard". He said: "I'm currently doing a GCSE grade in maths which I am paid ten pound a week to achieve which I can spend on tobbacco (sic), chocolate and other luxury goods." The inmate signed the letter "Donal Kelleher, Prisoner No. GE7247, HMP Cardiff".

David Davies, the Conservative MP for Monmouth, visited the prison last year. He said: "I saw prisoners sitting in their cells watching television and playing computer games. "It seems to be an unwritten rule if they are left alone to do whatever they want they won't cause any trouble." "They have a right to be treated humanely but we have to remember they are in prison to be punished."

Sian West, the governor of Cardiff prison said last night: "It's ludicrous to say that prison is cushy." She added: "We endeavour to challenge all prisoners to use their time in Cardiff constructively. "Television sets purchased for in-cell prisoner use are paid for by the weekly rental fee of one pound paid by prisoners. "TVs can and will be removed from prisoners whose behaviour is deemed unacceptable."

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Global warming may 'stop', scientists predict

Global warming will stop until at least 2015 because of natural variations in the climate, scientists have said. Researchers studying long-term changes in sea temperatures said they now expect a "lull" for up to a decade while natural variations in climate cancel out the increases caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions. The average temperature of the sea around Europe and North America is expected to cool slightly over the decade while the tropical Pacific remains unchanged. This would mean that the 0.3øC global average temperature rise which has been predicted for the next decade by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may not happen, according to the paper published in the scientific journal Nature.

However, the effect of rising fossil fuel emissions will mean that warming will accelerate again after 2015 when natural trends in the oceans veer back towards warming, according to the computer model. Noel Keenlyside of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences, Kiel, Germany, said: "The IPCC would predict a 0.3øC warming over the next decade. Our prediction is that there will be no warming until 2015 but it will pick up after that." He stressed that the results were just the initial findings from a new computer model of how the oceans behave over decades and it would be wholly misleading to infer that global warming, in the sense of the enhanced greenhouse effect from increased carbon emissions, had gone away.

The IPCC currently does not include in its models actual records of such events as the strength of the Gulf Stream and the El Nino cyclical warming event in the Pacific, which are known to have been behind the warmest year ever recorded in 1998. Today's paper in Nature tries to simulate the variability of these events and longer cycles, such as the giant ocean "conveyor belt" known as the meridional overturning circulation (MOC), which brings warm water north into the North East Atlantic.

This has a 70 to 80-year cycle and when the circulation is strong, it creates warmer temperatures in Europe. When it is weak, as it will be over the next decade, temperatures fall. Scientists think that variations of this kind could partly explain the cooling of global average temperatures between the 1940s and 1970s after which temperatures rose again.

Writing in Nature, the scientists said: "Our results suggest that global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade, as natural climate variations in the North Atlantic and tropical Pacific temporarily offset the projected anthropogenic [manmade] warming." The study shows a more pronounced weakening effect than the Met Office's Hadley Centre, which last year predicted that global warming would slow until 2009 and pick up after that, with half the years after 2009 being warmer than the warmest year on record, 1998.

Commenting on the new study, Richard Wood of the Hadley Centre said the model suggested the weakening of the MOC would have a cooling effect around the North Atlantic. "Such a cooling could temporarily offset the longer-term warming trend from increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. "That emphasises once again the need to consider climate variability and climate change together when making predictions over timescales of decades."

But he said the use of just sea surface temperatures might not accurately reflect the state of the MOC, which was several miles deep and dependent on factors besides temperatures, such as salt content, which were included in the Met Office Hadley Centre model. If the model could accurately forecast other variables besides temperature, such as rainfall, it would be increasingly useful, but climate predictions for a decade ahead would always be to some extent uncertain, he added.

Source. The article in "Nature" appears to be this one.

SHOCK, HORROR: UK TABLOIDS MORE BALANCED ON CLIMATE CHANGE

The Green/Left elite finally notice the workers

Coverage about global warming in UK tabloid newspapers has been significantly divergent from the scientific consensus that humans contribute to climate change. That's according to Max Boykoff and Maria Mansfield of the University of Oxford, UK, who studied papers from 2000 to 2006. "This was surprising, because in other research on the UK broadsheet newspapers I've found that this coverage has been quite accurate," Boykoff told environmentalresearchweb. "We hope that this work will encourage tabloid newspapers to reflect further on the accuracy of their reporting on human contributions to climate change, particularly given their high readership in the UK publics. Contrarian comments in a column by Michael Hanlon in the Daily Mail or Jeremy Clarkson in The Sun may be off-the-cuff or playful at times, but they have a tremendous influence on how readership may understand climate change science and policy."

The team found that the Daily Mail was more divergent from the scientific consensus than other tabloid newspapers. There were generally two main influences behind the tabloids' divergence. "First was reliance on the journalistic norm of balance, where roughly equal attention was placed the view that humans contribute to climate change, and that our contribution is negligible," said Boykoff. "I had found this journalistic norm as influential in other earlier work on US newspaper and television coverage of anthropogenic climate change."

And secondly, almost a third of the divergent coverage was attributed to 'contrarian' views that make claims that humans' role in climate change is negligible. Tabloids have an important influence on public opinion in the UK as they have average daily circulations as much as ten times higher than many broadsheet newspapers. "Assessments of UK media influence on science-policy interactions have tended to focus on the broadsheet or 'quality' press sources - the Guardian, Independent, Daily Telegraph, Financial Times and Times of London," said Boykoff. "However, we argue that these analyses have suffered from a blind spot in considerations, by overlooking what are called the 'tabloid press' - The Sun (and News of the World), Daily Mail (and Mail on Sunday), the Daily Express (and Sunday Express), and the Mirror (and Sunday Mirror)."

And readers of tabloids tend to come from different socio-economic backgrounds to broadsheet consumers, typically being more working class. "While these segments of the population have been of secondary importance in previous science-policy and science-media-policy analyses, such examinations need to take on a more central role, as these citizens make up critical components of potential social movements and public pressure for improved climate policy action," said Boykoff.

Many media workers interviewed for the study highlighted the political and economic constraints they face in reporting climate change. "For example, with little specialist science training it was challenging to cover the intricacies of climate change while they were also covering a broad range of other news 'beats'," said Boykoff. "There remain few science and environment correspondents in the UK tabloid newspapers, and this has been a challenge for accurate climate change reporting."

Boykoff and Mansfield have also been studying how various climate change issues are framed in the UK tabloid press, and the tone of the coverage. "From this, I am examining how these factors influence considerations of market-based and regulatory interventions to grapple with ongoing environmental challenges," said Boykoff. The researchers reported their work in the open-access journal Environmental Research Letters.

Source

NOTE from Benny Peiser, mentioning his skeptical CCNet newsletter: "Max Boykoff seems to blame a lack of scientific understanding among tabloid journalists for their more critical and less compliant climate change reporting. I rather doubt that lack of understanding is the underlying reason why some of these journalists, from time to time, provide more balanced and less one-sided views on climate change issues. After all, there are more than 30 journalists from the four UK tabloids mentioned (Daily Mail, the Daily Express, the Mirror and The Sun) who receive CCNet on a daily basis. I would suggest that many of these journalists are very well informed about the scientific, economic and political controversies that are inherent in the climate debates. It would appear that the main difference between broadsheets and tabloids is that the latter choose to report, from time to time, about conflicting views and research - while the former, most of the time, tend to ignore or stifle them."






It's official: it is now a crime in Britain to be arrogant

The imprisonment of Abu Izzadeen for the `criminal offence' of Talking Bollocks In A Mosque represents a grave assault on free speech

Like me, you probably don't care very much about what happens to Abu Izzadeen, the Radical Cleric Formerly Known as Trevor. He's the ranting mullah best known for heckling former home secretary John Reid in 2006, who was born plain old Trevor Brooks in Hackney, London, and who worked as a BT technician until he decided to convert to Islam and spend his adult life making finger-wagging speeches about evil Jews, British kaffirs, and how `magnificent' 9/11 was. For all I care, Trev can go to hell. In fact, maybe he should make real his promise to become a suicide bomber and `be blown into pieces, with my hands in one place and my feet in another' (1). That sounds like a fitting end for this fancy-dress `terrorist'. just so long as he does it far, far away from other human beings.

However, you should care - a lot - about the implications of the arrest, trial and imprisonment of Izzadeen on charges of `inciting terrorism' and `fundraising for terrorists'. On Friday, Izzadeen was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison at Kingston-upon-Thames Crown Court, after being found guilty of these terrorist offences; five of his cronies received sentences of between two and four years. Reading the coverage of Izzadeen's trial over the weekend, you could be forgiven for thinking that he had literally shaken a tin to collect cash for terrorist groups, and then posted the contents to training camps in Afghanistan or Iraq. In fact, his only `crimes' were crimes of thought and speech - he has been jailed for what he said, and even for how he said it, rather than for anything that he did. His imprisonment represents a new low blow to freedom of speech in Britain.

There was a time when `inciting terrorism' would have meant convincing and cajoling an individual or a group of individuals to commit a terrorist atrocity. And there was a time when `fundraising for terrorists' would have meant, well, raising funds for terrorists: that is, collecting money and handing it over to a terrorist group for the purposes of buying weaponry, semtex, flying lessons or some other item or thing likely to be useful in the commission or execution of an act of terrorism. Not any more. In the trial of Izzadeen and his accomplices, there was not a jot of evidence that anyone had been incited to terrorism by their words, or indeed that their words had been intended as a direct form of incitement, or that Izzadeen, his mates or anyone else who listened to their cranky sermons had sent money to terrorist training camps in Iraq. No, Izzadeen was found guilty and sentenced to four years' imprisonment on the basis of a rambling, incoherent 11-hour `protest sermon' he gave at Regents Park Mosque in November 2004. During the sermon, Izzadeen, who was surrounded by a tiny group of like-minded losers, slated the actions of the American and British armies in Iraq and praised 9/11.

At one point, he also said the following: `Fight the [enemy] with your wealth. Jihad with money, jihad with money. The jihad is to give money for weapons, for tanks, for RPGs, for M16s.' (2) Nasty words, no doubt. But no evidence was presented at Izzadeen's trial to show that those three sentences, delivered during an 11-hour dirge, were part of a broader fundraising campaign, or that anyone sent money to Iraqi insurgents upon hearing Izzadeen's comments. And yet Izzadeen and others were found guilty of `fundraising for terrorists' as surely as if they had been caught red-handed with dollars destined for the coffers of al-Qaeda. Likewise, no evidence was presented to show that Izzadeen's words incited anyone to go to Iraq and blow up some Brits or Yanks; instead it has been argued that his comments `contributed to an atmosphere' in which some Muslims consider killing to be a religious duty (3). Contributed to an atmosphere? When it comes to `indirect incitement', that is about as indirect as it gets.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Izzadeen's real offence was to Talk Bollocks In A Mosque - and whatever you might think of his vile ideas and gruff manner, Talking Bollocks In A Mosque should not be a crime, certainly not one punishable by four years' imprisonment. Izzadeen has effectively been found guilty, not of being a terrorist, but of being a fantasist - of dressing up and adopting the demeanour of a bin Laden-style motormouth mullah who thinks it is big and clever to sing the praises of violent jihad. There's no denying that Izzadeen had a point when he said during his trial that he and his accomplices had used `no other weapon than our tongue' - and so long as you are using your tongue to speak, rather than, say, to poke someone's eye out, then its use should never be a crime (4).

Does the sending down of Izzadeen show that the authorities are using the trials of ugly, unpopular, unctuous Muslim clerics - with whom nobody could possibly sympathise - to experiment with new restrictions on free speech? Certainly, there are good reasons why all of us should be deeply concerned about the precedents set by the imprisonment of this jester-jihadist.

First, the case shows how flabby the category of incitement has become today. Traditionally, in the eyes of the law, incitement involved a close relationship between two parties, where one encouraged, implored or cajoled the other into doing something criminal. Now it seems we can be incited by overhearing the words of a preacher in a mosque, or by watching a DVD of one of his sermons (5). This further erodes the distinction between thought and action, giving rise to the dangerous idea that speech itself is a potentially lethal act, which can easily and unwittingly provoke violence, or the funding of violence, or `create an atmosphere' in which killing becomes more common. Indeed, in Izzadeen's trial, speech and terrorism were treated as one and the same: his words were described as `terrorist fundraising' and as `incitement to terrorism'. In short, words themselves are a form of terror.

The promiscuous redefinition of incitement is bad news for all of us. If the words spoken in a mosque, on a street corner or at a public rally are redefined as violent things in themselves, then that opens up thought and speech to the closer scrutiny and policing of the authorities. Moreover, the new view of incitement calls into question the existence of free will itself. Where the old legal definition of incitement viewed individuals as rational and reasonable, and in need of intense coaxing before they could be said to have been incited, in the current definition of incitement individuals are seen as vulnerable, unthinking automatons who can be provoked into violence upon overhearing a few sentences spoken by a robe-wearing loudmouth. In imprisoning Izzadeen, the authorities are sending a loud and clear message, not only to radical clerics, but to the rest of us too: `We're putting him away to protect your naive, reactive minds from his poisonous terror-words.'

Second, Izzadeen's trial shows how a nervous British elite is using new anti-terror legislation to shield itself from what it sees as political attack and criticism. Bethan David, the Crown Prosecution Service's counterterrorism lawyer, insisted that Izzadeen's imprisonment was not about making it an `an offence to have negative views about Britain and its values and culture'; rather it simply showed that it is an offence to `encourage acts of violence' (6). The lawyer doth protest too much. In making it a crime to `glorify terrorism', and in defining certain words and expressions as terrorist acts, the British authorities' new anti-terror legislation is deeply and politically censorious. When the Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer was asked in 2005 to define what kind of speech would be outlawed by new anti-terror laws, he said that people `attacking the values of the West' could be imprisoned for `long periods' of time (7). It seems contemporary British society is so fragile that it is scared of words; it is so uncertain about what its own core `values and culture' are that it desperately erects a forcefield of censorship around them in the hope that no one will knock them down.

Third, Izzadeen's trial shows how keen the authorities are to police our emotions as well as what we say and what we do. In his summing up, the judge attacked Izzadeen for being `arrogant [and] contemptuous'. To one of the other defendants, the judge said: `You are someone with extremist and dangerous views. Not only the words themselves, but the tone in which they were issued, showed the depth of your fanatical zeal.' So is it now a crime to be arrogant? Is it an offence not only to say certain words but also to say them in a particular tone? Perhaps all of us should watch what we say and how we say it, lest our tone upset one of the law lords. Izzadeen and his cronies were not only found guilty of speech crimes and Thoughtcrimes - they were also sent down for Tonecrimes, for putting the wrong kind of emotion into the words that they dared to speak in public.

The irony of all this is that if anyone provided the odious Izzadeen with a public platform it was Britain's own political and media elite. This buffoon with a miniscule number of followers was invited on to BBC Radio 4's Today programme and BBC TV's Newsnight to comment on 7/7, the war in Iraq and the outlook of British Muslims. Following his heckling of John Reid in an east London mosque in 2006, he was transformed into a media and political bogeyman. His `threat' was discussed at high-level government and police meetings. The DVDs showing him `inciting terrorism' in Regents Park Mosque in November 2004 were discovered during a police raid in 2006 and then made public, later becoming the basis for the trial. Prior to that, Izzadeen would have been lucky if three men and a goat had watched his recorded rantings; it was the police's actions that brought the rants to wider public attention. Given that every report still refers to Izzadeen as `the cleric who heckled John Reid', perhaps his true crime was to Embarrass New Labour In The Media.

Izzadeen's trial was a showtrial; worse than that, it was a showtrial of a straw man. The authorities turned him into a panto villain in recent years, and then made a spectacle of throwing him off the stage while sections of the media whooped and cheered them on. And in the process, free speech, the distinction between thought and action, and free will itself have been further dragged through the dirt. The showtrial of Izzadeen has been more harmful to British democracy and freedom than the idiot Izzadeen could ever have hoped to be.

Source





Greenies goof again

The worldwide effort by supermarkets and industry to replace conventional oil-based plastic with eco-friendly "bioplastics" made from plants is causing environmental problems and consumer confusion, according to a Guardian study. The substitutes can increase emissions of greenhouse gases on landfill sites, some need high temperatures to decompose and others cannot be recycled in Britain. Many of the bioplastics are also contributing to the global food crisis by taking over large areas of land previously used to grow crops for human consumption.

The market for bioplastics, which are made from maize, sugarcane, wheat and other crops, is growing by 20-30% a year. The industry, which uses words such as "sustainable", "biodegradeable", "compostable" and "recyclable" to describe its products, says bioplastics make carbon savings of 30-80% compared with conventional oil-based plastics and can extend the shelf-life of food.

Concern centres on corn-based packaging made with polylactic acid (Pla). Made from GM crops, it looks identical to conventional polyethylene terephthalate (Pet) plastic and is produced by US company NatureWorks. The company is jointly owned by Cargill, the world's second largest biofuel producer, and Teijin, one of the world's largest plastic manufacturers. Pla is used by some of the biggest supermarkets and food companies, including Wal-Mart, McDonald's and Del Monte. It is used by Marks & Spencer to package organic foods, salads, snacks, desserts, and fruit and vegetables. It is also used to bottle Belu mineral water, which is endorsed by environmentalists because the brand's owners invest all profits in water projects in poor countries. Wal-Mart has said it plans to use 114m Pla containers over the course of a year.

While Pla is said to offer more disposal options, the Guardian has found that it will barely break down on landfill sites, and can only be composted in the handful of anaerobic digesters which exist in Britain, but which do not take any packaging. In addition, if Pla is sent to UK recycling works in large quantities, it can contaminate the waste stream, reportedly making other recycled plastics unsaleable.

Last year Innocent drinks stopped using Pla because commercial composting was "not yet a mainstream option" in the UK. Anson, one of Britain's largest suppliers of plastic food packaging, switched back to conventional plastic after testing Pla in sandwich packs. Sainsbury's has decided not to use it, saying Pla is made with GM corn. "No local authority is collecting compostable packaging at the moment. Composters do not want it," a spokesman said.

Britain's supermarkets compete to claim the greatest commitment to the environment with plant-based products. The bioplastics industry expects rising oil prices to help it compete with conventional plastics, with Europe using about 50,000 tonnes of bioplastics a year. Concern is mounting because the new generation of biodegradable plastics ends up on landfill sites, where they degrade without oxygen, releasing methane, a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. This week the US national oceanic and atmospheric administration reported a sharp increase in global methane emissions last year.

"It is just not possible to capture all the methane from landfill sites," said Michael Warhurt, resources campaigner at Friends of the Earth. "A significant percentage leaks to the atmosphere." "Just because it's biodegradable does not mean it's good. If it goes to landfill it breaks down to methane. Only a percentage is captured," said Peter Skelton of Wrap, the UK government-funded Waste and Resources Action Programme. "In theory bioplastics are good. But in practice there are lots of barriers."

Recycling companies said they would have to invest in expensive new equipment to extract bioplastic from waste for recycling. "If we could identify them the only option would be to landfill them," said one recycler who asked to remain anonymous. "They are not wanted by UK recycling companies or local authorities who refuse to handle them. Councils are saying they do not want plastics near food collection. If these biodegradable [products] get into the recycling stream they contaminate it. "It will get worse because the government is encouraging more recycling. There will be much more bioplastic around."

Problems arise because some bioplastics are "home" compostable and recyclable. "It's so confusing that a Pla bottle looks exactly the same as a standard Pet bottle," Skelton said. "The consumer is not a polymer expert. Not nearly enough consideration has gone into what they are meant to do with them. Everything is just put in the recycling bin."

Yesterday NatureWorks accepted that its products would not fully break down on landfill sites. "The recycling industry in the UK has not caught up with other countries" said Snehal Desai, chief marketing officer for NatureWorks. "We need alternatives to oil. UK industry should not resist change. We should be designing for the future and not the past. In central Europe, Taiwan and elsewhere, NatureWorks polymer is widely accepted as a compostable material."

Other users said it was too soon to judge the new technology. "It's very early days," said Reed Paget, managing director of Belu. "The UK packaging industry does not want competition. It's shortsighted and is blocking eco-innovation." Belu collects its bottles and now sends them to mainland Europe. "People think that biodegradable is good and non-biodegradable is bad. That's all they see," said Chris Goodall, environmental analyst and author of How to Live a Low-carbon Lifestyle. "I have been trying to compost bags that are billed as 'biodegradable' and 'home compostable' but I have completely failed. They rely on the compost heap really heating up but we still find the residues."

Bioplastics compete for land with biofuels and food crops. About 200,000 tonnes of bioplastics were produced last year, requiring 250,000-350,000 tonnes of crops. The industry is forecast to need several million acres of farmland within four years.

There is also concern over the growing use by supermarkets of "oxy-degradable" plastic bags, billed as sustainable. They are made of conventional oil-based plastic, with an additive that enables the plastic to break down. The companies promoting it claim it reduces litter and causes no methane or harmful residues. They are used by Wal-Mart, Pizza Hut and KFC in the US, and Tesco and the Co-op in the UK for "degradable" plastic carrier bags. Some environmentalists say the terminology confuses the public. "The consumer is baffled," a Wrap briefing paper said. "It considers these products degradable but ... they will not degrade effectively in [the closed environment of] a landfill site." A spokesman for Symphony Plastics disputed that. "Oxy-bioplastic can be re-used and recycled, but will degrade and disappear in a short timescale", he said.

Source






Sun lamps help unborn babies beat osteoporosis?

This is epidemiology again but it has a reasonable basis in theory. What else characterizes women who give birth at the most favourable time should be investigated, however

Women due to give birth in winter should use a sun lamp during the final three months of pregnancy to protect their child from osteoporosis in later life, doctors have suggested. They made their recommendation as research found that children born to mothers whose final three months of pregnancy included a summer month were 40% less likely to suffer the bone-wasting condition in adult-hood. A mother's exposure to sunlight in that final period ensures the developing baby receives enough vitamin D to form strong bones.

Doctors suggest that women whose last trimester of pregnancy does not fall between May and September should consider taking a holiday in the Mediterranean. As flying is not advised in the late stages of pregnancy, however, they suggest that women may need to settle for a sun lamp or vitamin D supplements.

Dr Marwan Bukhari, a consultant rheumatologist at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary and author of the study presented to the British Society for Rheumatology, said: "You only get good sunlight [when you make vitamin D] between May and September in this country. Pregnant women should have vitamin D supplements or should have lots of good sunshine in somewhere like north Africa or the southern Mediterranean [in winter]." Bukhari added: "Sun lamps are an option. It needs to be the right kind of sun lamp to convert fat under the skin to vitamin D." The doctors are not recommending sunbeds, which give a far higher dose of ultraviolet light than lamps.

Bukhari and colleagues studied 17,000 patients, mostly women and 95% of whom were white. They had all had scans carried out at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary between 1992 and 2004. They found that patients under 50 were 40% less likely to have developed osteoporosis if their mother's last trimester of pregnancy included a summer month. Older patients were 20%-40% less likely to have osteoporosis if their mothers' late stages of pregnancy were in the summer.

The study will revive the debate over whether excessive caution about exposure to sunshine is creating other health problems. Michael Holick, professor of medicine at Boston University in America, said a lack of vitamin D, caused by overzealous avoidance of the sun, was leading to thousands of unnecessary cancer deaths each year and increasing vulnerability to rickets. Bukhari said: "You could get skin cancer from a sun lamp but not if you use a judicious amount. An hour a month will not give you skin cancer."

Source






NHS medical procedures halted by unfit equipment

The NHS is too negligent to supervise the supply of surgical instruments. When the cat's away the mice will play and there is basically NO cat in the NHS. They are all too busy with cups of tea

Operations are being cancelled because of dirty or broken instruments sent back by private companies employed to clean them, the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) said yesterday. Hospitals used to sterilise their operating instruments on site but are being encouraged by the Department of Health to put the job out to private companies. A survey of surgeons found that equipment was often unfit for use, damaged, or late - meaning that operations were cancelled at the last minute, often when patients were already anaesthetised.

Two thirds of surgeons questioned by the RCS were unhappy with the availability and condition of instruments sent away for sterilisation. The survey showed that 70 per cent of paediatric surgeons using outside firms were unhappy about it. The same was true for 82 per cent of neurosurgeons, 79 per cent of ear, nose and throat surgeons and 60 per cent of plastic and reconstructive surgeons. Decontamination of instruments is essential to prevent the spread of infection.

Thirty-two per cent of plastic surgeons were not happy with the level of sterility, as were 30 per cent of ear, nose and throat surgeons, 28 per cent of neurosurgeons and 28 per cent of paediatric surgeons. When it came to equipment being maintained in good condition, 70 per cent of paediatric surgeons were not happy with the service along with 85 per cent of neurosurgeons and 84 per cent of plastic surgeons. Surgeons using in-house decontamination services were not satisfied with some aspects of this equipment care.

The RCS said that although private firms largely succeeded in sterilising kit, too much came back late or went missing. Sensitive, expensive tools were being broken, a statement said. "Without the equipment to do the job, surgeons are forced to cancel or abandon operations - sometimes when patients are anaesthetised and prepared."

Prof Richard Ramsden, who collected the evidence, said: "Operations are delayed because vital tools are not available. Surgeons working with on-site instrument cleaning facilities are getting a better service, enough to warrant an urgent reassessment of what's best for the NHS." Bernard Ribeiro, the RCS president, said: "This is yet another example where something that looks good on paper in Whitehall gets rolled out without adequate professional consultation and piloting." A Department of Health spokesman said that more than £200 million had been invested in improving decontamination services since 2001.

Source






"Immigrant" is racist

From Britain:

"Manchester United's submission to the Football Association is expected to include the claim that Patrice Evra was allegedly called "an immigrant" during the melee with Chelsea groundstaff at Stamford Bridge, The Times understands.

Chelsea and their employees have strenuously denied that any such remark was made and Evra sought at the weekend to distance himself from suggestions that he was racially abused.

Source

I wonder what the "Immigrant" race looks like? Slanty eyes and green skin, maybe?